Toronto - Beirut - Paris Journal. Day 0 - If I'm Dyin', I'm Flyin'

My dad, brother, and I decided to fly out on Friday the 13th to a politically unstable country (and my homeland from my dad's side), then to Paris during the G20 summit (which will surely involve rioting of some kind). This journal covers my daily experiences hoping to cheat certain misfortune.


7 hour flight to Paris.

First time using Air France. Seats were REALLY uncomfortable – very narrow and I have a hard time imagining anyone but skinny people having enough ass room. Entertainment selection was very limited. Watched No Strings Attached – good twist on the typical romantic comedy…Portman’s character was a heartbreaking bitch. But goddamn I’ve been starting to really notice her hotness lately. A bit of turbulence, but I’m used to that. Tried to sleep, but just ended up laying in my seat for 2 hours with my eyes closed.
Enjoyed the view of the countryside as we flew into Charles-De-Gaulle airport. Green fields, tiny hamlets and villages, little clumps of forestry… it looked like the early stages of a game of Civilization were unfolding beneath me. Nobody clapped when we landed! As a child, every summer my brother and I flew between the UAE and Ukraine or Hungary, and right as we hit the ground and the plane completed its descent the entire plane-ful of people would burst into applause. Maybe that’s a third world thing? Or a 90s thing?

3 hour layover in Paris.

Only 15 minutes of free Wi-Fi?! I manage to send a quick FB message and tweet my disappointment, and have not had internet access until the posting of this journal entry. Bumming around the duty free…damn there are some expensive liquors here, 6000 Euros! We stop by a coffee shop…chocolate croissant is fine (was hoping for superlative since this IS Paris, but then again it’s also just the airport…guess I’ll hope for better next weekend when I actually visit the city), “American Coffee” is half a small cupful…shoulda ordered an Espresso. There are free PS3 kiosks in the waiting areas, which is kind of neat until you find out all they have is a crappy street soccer game.

4 hour flight to Beirut.

This time we’re flying Middle East Airlines, Lebanon’s official airline even though it’s only a small part of the Middle East. Apparently its owes its name to a first mover advantage when it came to middle eastern airlines. (I really should edit that last series of sentences). Horrible logo colour scheme and branding IMO. The most offensive part of my trip by far was the half hour of advertising that was force-fed to my eyes and ears right after the safety instructions. Basically, my screen couldn’t be turned off and the sound was blasted over the PA system. If this is the future of travel (advertising revenue to offset cheaper plane tickets, as alluded to by my marketing prof last year), then I’d like a warning when signing up, and significantly cheaper plane tickets. Hell, I’ll even fill out surveys and perform research studies if it means my flight’s cheaper. Just let me know beforehand, because this coming out of left field totally turned me off. But at least my ass fit in the seats, unlike with Air France.

This time there was clapping when we landed! I guess it is a third world thing :/. Maybe we’ve learned to better appreciate and get excited for when we don’t die.

Detailed insightful well-written article on interesting topic

Just kidding, I don't post anything of that sort. April Fool's!

It's a card game! It's a board game! It's...Dominion!

This was originally a forum post I made on Nintendorks, which I've tried to flesh out and turn into a full article/review type thingy. While I've abandoned my initial "Everyday Better Guy" project a long time ago (though not in spirit, really), going forward I'll be updating this blog more frequently. Expect musings about gaming, improv, and anything else that comes to mind that I end up wanting to write passionately about.

Dominion, created by Donald X. Vaccarino and published by Rio Grande Games, is a medieval-themed board game released in 2008 and ranked as overall #8 on BoardGameGeek.com. While I've enjoyed playing with friends in the past, I recently got hooked on playing online opponents at http://dominion.isotropic.org. This website houses an unofficial version of the game played by over 3000 registered users. The built-in leaderboard tells me I've played at least 250 registered games (and who knows how many unregistered ones) since starting two months ago - a remarkable and saddening feat considering I'm 'slaving away' on my MBA studies at the moment.

Not many card games become as popular or successful as Dominion, especially without some kind of special hook. No zombies, intergalactic bounty hunters, or monsters lure players into giving this game a chance. It's the gameplay that shines, and has players spreading word of mouth about its greatness.

One of the special things about Dominion's gameplay is that it's a card game about building a deck of cards - so meta! Each player starts off with the same 10 basic cards in their deck, and the winner is the person who builds the best deck by the end. The road to victory requires that players amass the largest kingdom by buying the most Victory cards. However, Victory cards are useless in the deck aside from at the end of the game (when points are totaled), so players must build an efficient deck that also incorporates the right balance of Action and Treasure Cards (which in turn, are useful during the game but not counted towards points at the end). The game pulls off a generic medieval theme in an oddly elegant way, cards being named after elements of medieval europe, such as Villages, Militia, and Chapels.

In trying to outline why the gameplay is so good, I decided on four elements of game design that I think Dominion pulls off exceptionally well:

• SIMPLICITY: The basic mechanics are deceptively simple and fast-paced. Only three main types of cards (Actions, Treasures, and Victory Points) and three simple phases during your turn (Action, Buy, Clean-Up). This leads to a (usually) very fast-paced game: online games are usually done within 15 minutes, in-person games rarely take more than 45.
• VARIETY: Each game can be different, as the available-to-buy Action cards are (often randomly) picked from a pool of 25 or so different ones (and many more become available with the expansions). As a result, card interactions and combos vary every game. 
• STRATEGY: Many decision are dependent on opponents' actions and often require some foresight, for good players at least. There can be a lot of interaction, and cards that seem useless in one game can be the key to victory in other card sets, so one must always consider the mechanics of the game to find new combos. There are multiple paths to victory: you can play offensively, defensively, try to rush for a quick win, or just mind your own business.
• FAIRNESS: This game has just the right balance of luck vs. skill. Since there is no rolling of dice, one has a great deal of control over their destiny. And even though one can fall at the mercy of the 'luck of the draw', each turn brings about a completely new hand of 5 cards, so only the unluckiest of players (or worst deckbuilders) can get stuck in a rut of terrible draws.

This wouldn't be a proper review without some criticism, but I'm hard-pressed to find any serious flaws with the game. If I were to nitpick, it would be that random setups of the Action cards can sometimes result in boring matchups with no significant card interactions. However, these instances are exceptions rather than the rule, and players can always choose to customize their card sets to eliminate the chance of a boring setup.

In conclusion, Dominion is an excellent game with fantastic mechanics and a generic, but well-executed theme which doesn't at all detract from the gameplay. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a deep strategic game that is easy to learn but can take time to master.

And lastly, I'd like to recommend the Dominion Strategy Blog, which contains a plethora of interesting and educational articles on advanced strategies for the game.

August in review

I'm back! August was a month consisting of three major events.

Montreal
We road-tripped it up to French-Canadia to perform in 4 improv shows at the Otakuthon convention. @lartist of popular webcomics Looking for Group and Least I Could Do joined us on stage for a game and that was a pretty cool moment. Also I played in my first game of 'Mousetrap'. It's the improv game where you do a scene blindfolded and on a stage littered with armed mousetraps. And then, when your 'friends' aren't satisfied with the amount of pain you're being put through, they start throwing more mousetraps at you. Oh yeah, and you're trying to act out an improv scene.

Actually, at the risk of breaking the illusion, Mousetrap wasn't so bad. The pain subsided mere days hours after the show.

Also I saw some buskers on the streets of Old Montreal, and had crepes at Cafe Crepe, which by the way were totally underwhelming after Mainak claimed they were "better than sex". I've had better crepes, I guess that's because my mom makes them. Ah, crepes.

Break-up
I broke up with a girl after 3 months. She just wasn't the right person for me, and I've decided 3 months is a good amount of time to know for sure if someone isn't right for you. I've probably said too much. Alejandro said that the bad things that came my way after were all bad karma: my desktop's video card and power supply needed to be replaced and cost me about $200. Then last week I lost my glasses. But I think I did the right thing regardless. Plus I don't believe in karma. Goddamn stupid break-ups.

Goodbye Knives.

Scott Pilgrim
Speaking of Knives, holy shit Scott Pilgrim was awesome. I had gone into the movie not having read the books, and while the first 20 minutes or so I was all "What the...." at the abrupt cuts and seemingly incomplete scenes, once I got used to that it was just pure pleasure for all my sensibilities. And all my senses too, I suppose.

I just finished reading the books today and I'm not sure I get what happens at the end with Gideon. The movie ending was way less weird (which says a LOT about the weirdness of the book ending).

Okay so Scott Pilgrim shouldn't count as one of my 3 'major events'. Well actually it should but it doesn't as I hadn't thought of it until halfway through writing. Clearly this is an improvised post. Onto event number three.

Fan Expo AKA Settlers of Catan tourney that had other things going on at it that I didn't care about nearly as much.
I placed 3rd in the Catan North American Championship qualifier. If my snipers* get their jobs done on the two people who finished ahead of me, I will be going to Gencon in August 2011 to fight 31 other qualifier winners to become North American Champion. Then that person would get to go to Germany in 2012 for the Catan World Cup, or something like that. I was pretty excited about it. Unfortunately, after some very intense preliminary games, a win in the semi-final, I finished 3rd in the final game with 8 points. Actually we were tied for 2nd but the other guy had a better record than me during the prelims so officially he was 2nd place instead of me.

I also had time to stop by Felicia Day's booth and get her autograph on my Dr. Horrible DVD. Neat.

*just kidding, I can't afford snipers

Other things of note:

- Done my summer internship! Happy in some ways, sad in others. I will miss most of the people there. Hopefully I can find ways to make money during the year because I need it.
- My brother's been in Italy all month. Kinda weird not celebrating his birthday this year (it's on the 17th).
- Also done my improv class. I really wish I could afford/fit it in my schedule to keep taking them. Maybe once I get a job again. Gotta focus on finishing my MBA and getting hired at an awesome company that wants someone awesome like me. I do feel like I've improved though.
- Improv host at Bad Dog for That Friday Show was super-cute and I totally want to make googly-eyes with her. I have no way of finding out more about her without feeling like a stalker. Guess I'll be going to the Bad Dog more often on Fridays.

It's my birthday!

...and I'm here to talk about it.

Well, actually, no.

I haven't updated since end of May. I always intended to, but two things:

- Something really really shitty happened, and I wasn't in the mood to do anything for about two straight weeks...including work. I thought I might get fired. Glad I was able to accomplish a bare minimum that is keeping me employed for the summer, and I'm now trying to work hard to make up for the shitty two weeks.
- After that, I grabbed a hold of myself, and shook myself really hard (not literally) and re-evaluated my state of being (woah, deep). While I think this blog was on the right track, I don't necessarily need to do something every week. I thought about the things that have really been making me happy recently, and decided to focus on those.

So, I've enrolled in a weekly improv class (we meet on Thursdays) and though I've only gone to two classes so far, they have been great and I feel like I've already learnt something from them. I'm also running a weekly Supernatural role-playing game for my brother and a bunch of friends, and it's been fun cooking up the story. I started dating someone, so far it's been great. I also hosted my first ever karaoke night at PK Creek, and had many surprise friend appearances, it was great :). Glad I could help Rooven by taking over one night. Also last week, I hung out with 2 Nintendorks and their SOs, one of whom lives in Toronto, the other was visiting from Boston. We went to Korean BBQ and then to Second City and both of those things were fantastic.

I'll try to update this blog about once a week with a bunch of stuff I find interesting, but I won't hesitate to post stuff even if I missed out on previous weeks. Reports of Anime North and the karaoke fundraiser and other things that happened over the last two months may never make it on here, but that's okay.

I have two reports in my backlog now and a third one coming up, I'm just finding it very hard to get to writing them. Rest assured I will have them completed this week. I promise!

Week 11 was my semi-striptease at Anime North (there will be a video)
Week 12 was my MC-ing a karaoke fundraiser
Week 13 was last week, and I made a Chuck costume for a costume party.
Week 14 is this week, and I'll be running in the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

So stay posted, these updates will be coming up, I swear!

The 404s Improv RPG Episode 3 is up

Well, WAS up a long time ago, I just forgot to post it here. I think it gets really good starting this episode, but I'll let you all be the judge of that. We're now posting the videos to the official 404s Youtube channel instead of my own.  OK, without further ado, here it is!






Tomorrow, I will be posting my Anime North report (for week 11), and for this week I will discuss my experience emcee-ing our Karaoke Fundraiser event that we held on Wednesday June 2nd.

Will I ever write that Super Mario Galaxy 2 review? I've been so busy I'm only 10 stars in. So far, it's been magical...oh and so fantastical...

Also, I've been keeping up with my pushups/situps, though I decided to repeat pushups week 2 because I'm not building my strength as fast as I'd like. It's cool though, and I am enjoying my morning exercises.