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It was a little over a year ago that I saw Settlers of Catan for the first time. Brian had been telling me about it (and a bunch of other card/tile-based games) for a while, but when a bunch of us Internetians met last year, he brought Settlers with him.

I didn't play, but I observed some play, and it confused and frightened me. "No, thanks!" I said.

Settlers of Catan was introduced in 1995 by a German games company, and it won "Game of the Year" that year in the German market. From there it's gone on to sell over 11 million copies worldwide and gain several expansion packs. (source) In a nutshell, the game is about getting resources and using those resources to build roads, settlements, and cities in an effort to earn Victory Points. The first person to get ten Victory Points wins the game. It's about strategy and trading, but it's more about sitting around a table talking to friends.

About two months ago, Settlers came to Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft's "download games to your console's hard drive" system (which, as a side note, is completely awesome). It was a departure from their usual offerings, like Pac-Man, Gyruss, Castlevania, and Street Fighter II, along with several made-for-XBLA games. I decided to download the demo and give it a try - partly because Brian was hassling me to do so, but partly because I was interested, despite my claims otherwise. I'd been hearing about the game from other people here and there as well, and a demo I could play against the computer seemed a good way to get my feet wet.

The demo had a Tutorial that led me through the whole process of the game, step by step. About two seconds after I played the tutorial, I bought the full game. Shortly thereafter, I played an online game with Brian and a friend of his. I was hooked.

A few weeks ago, we took a trip down to Louisville, Kentucky, to see Josh and Gretchen. Before we hit the road, I stopped at our local game shop and picked up an actual copy of the game to take with us. If I'm remembering correctly, two games were played that weekend. Since then, a week hasn't gone by that a game hasn't been played. I introduced it to some people in the Career Class, and we've since learned there were already some fans in the class. Most Career Class gatherings now tend to have a Catan outbreak. A few weeks ago, a fellow classmember bought the 5-6 Player expansion pack (thanks, Jeremiah!) and gave it to me, so now even more people can play at the same time. There was one gathering over at Lee's house that saw two games going on at once, with a total of ten people playing.

While the game is fun, for me the better part is playing with friends and talking. Sure, there are bouts of bitterness here and there ("Why won't you trade with me?" "You're 8 points ahead of me!") and the occasional... let's say "non-standard, non-legal" moves made (read: "cheating," whether intentional or not!), but it's good to sit down with friends and play a game and talk, whether it's around a table or on Xboxes in different parts of the country.

Two other effects the game has had:

1. Brian gets to say "I told you so!" to me (And he does. Often.)
2. Now I'm considering buying a copy of Carcassonne.

Labels: career class, gaming, new things

8 comments

There's really no way to explain this to those unfamiliar with the "Manly Awards," so I'll just let the picture speak for itself.

Labels: career class

7 comments

Welcome to a new feature on MadMup.com. I've lived longer than most of my readers have, so maybe there's a thing or two I can warn you about. And, as I've heard it said, "If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning."

• a small Blizzard from Dairy Queen is every bit as good and filling as a medium, with slightly less "bad stuff" in it
• it's worth it to take a long trip to see friends you don't get to see often
• your outlook on life really does make a difference on how life affects you
• you should re-try things you know you don't like every so often, just to see if your tastes have changed
• if your closest friends and most trusted advisors are telling you there's something you need to change in your life, it's possible they have your best interests at heart and you should listen to what they're telling you

Watch for future episodes of "Things I've Learned," where we'll talk about things like how there's a Seinfeld episode for just about any topic and why cats are a perfect example of selfishness.

Labels: Seinfeld, things I've learned

5 comments

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to why, but sometimes I make up songs.

Actually, there is no specific convergence of heavenly bodies or wind conditions or food ingestion that brings this about - it's just something I do. Whether it's singing to the cats about why I haven't fed them yet (usually it has something to do with "I don't want to go downstairs yet") or proclaiming the wonders of a particular food ("Donuts! I love donuts!"), I just find myself singing impromptu songs sometimes.

Here's an example of one that sprang to mind a long time ago. Dave and I were driving to school one morning when we saw a sticker on the vehicle in front of us that looked like a former President:

Hey, Woodrow Wilson
On the back of the truck
That's on the front of our car
That's on the ro-o-oad.

Certainly not Shakespeare by any stretch, but there's something about on-the-spot words and on-the-spot tunes that I really like. That one there, for instance, has been rattling around in my head now for over 13 years. Seriously. And it just makes sense, you know? Our car was on the road, the truck was in front of us, and the sticker that looked like Woodrow Wilson was on it. Perfectly logical. Should there have been more? Perhaps. We might have explored what it was we wanted to say to Woodrow Wilson. The quattrain in this form should simply be considered a greeting, I feel, one that is very specific as to location.

I know I'm not the only one that does this. You other guilty ones know who you are (Dave, for instance). I worry, though, that it's some sort of condition that will only get worse with time, but I don't worry too much about it, since it's something I enjoy.

I wonder if it's tied with my other musical tic. Sometimes when someone says a sentence, the meter of the sentence immediately fits the meter of a song I'm familiar with. "Those are some big guns that they're shooting in Iraq" immediately goes to the tune of the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black," for instance. That one is helped more by "Iraq" rhyming with "black," but it isn't always that way.

And, of course, pretty much everybody does the "that reminds me of a song" thing. Should someone happen to encourage all partygoers to "have fun tonight," 93% of the attenders will immediately think (and sometimes sing outloud) "Everybody Wang Chung tonight!" traveling to Kokomo, Indiana for some reason? There's a Beach Boys song for that. It can be surprising some of the random lyrics and tunes that pop into a person's head triggered by the smallest thing.

None of this is necessarily a terrible thing... unless it happens 458 times in the span of an evening. Even then it's not necessarily a terrible thing... unless you happen to be in the company of others.

It is to those others that I apologize now. I'd like to say "it won't happen again," but I know it will.

Feel free to sing along.

Labels: music, quirks

1 comments

You can't unscramble an egg.

-Bev Moore

If you get fried eggs of a certain sort (like, over-easy, say), you can kind of scramble them on your plate. But if you get scrambled eggs, that's pretty much what you're getting.

We can't undo things that we've done, we can only go on from where we are.

I'm sure others have said this line before Bev did, but she's the one I've heard it from most frequently most recently.

Labels: it's been said

4 comments

I bring nothing new to the "what I hate about going to the doctor" discussion. People have had the same gripes about doctors for longer than I've been alive. Those of you familiar with me will have already figured out that this won't stop me talking about my recent visit to the doctor.

It had been a while since I'd gotten a physical, and what with me getting older and all, it seemed like maybe it would be a good idea. After all, if you've got some sort of disease where your thumbs are going to fall off, it's probably best to find out about that early on in the process so you can adjust to what life might be like without thumbs: using your nose to hit the spacebar, buying thumbless mittens, retiring from the thumb wrestling circuit, that kind of thing.

I went to the doctor after work on Friday and wasn't even in the waiting room long enough to get my forms filled out. (This, sadly, prevents me from complaining about the age of the magazines in the waiting room, but gets me right to the complaining about the actual checkup.) The secret to not waiting, I think, is to have the last appointment on a Friday afternoon. Members of the medical profession like their weekends as much as anyone else does, so you're on the fast track.

First comes the weighing ("Miss, my shoes weigh 34 pounds. Really. There's no way I way that much.") and the height measuring. If you've shrunk since your last visit, they know something's up.

Then it's off to the little room. I've still got my unfinished forms with me, but I can't do anything with them because the nurse has to take my pulse and blood pressure. Getting my blood pressure taken is my least favorite thing at the doctor's office. That pressurized armband causes a weird kind of pain and I'm always afraid that my stressing about it is going to give them a false reading which is going to make them need to do it several more times. Sure, there's plenty to not like, but that one is the thing I dread the most.

When she was done with her tests, she told me to prepare for the doctor to be by in a few minutes. I do not want to get indelicate here, so I'll just say that it's a little surreal to fill out the rest of your forms while in the state you are normally in while awaiting the doctor. It's also cold.

There was a sign in the room that said my cell phone needed to be off, but I needed to get some phone numbers off it while filling out the forms. This caused my first words to the doctor I'd never seen before to be, "I'm sorry I had my cell phone on." Not "Nice to meet you" or "Hello," but "I'm sorry I had my cell phone on." I'm worried about failing authority figures, you see. I assume that he's going to punish me in some way if I don't 'fess up, and I'll end up with typhoid or something. Now is not a good time for me to have typhoid.

The rest of the checkup went fine - my blood pressure was good, my heart sounded okay, my abdomen was able to withstand poking and prodding, my knees reacted properly to the little hammer, and my doctor only swore once. I don't know why it's weird to hear a doctor swear when I've heard so many other different career representatives swear, but it just is.

So I'm thinking "That wasn't so bad" when he hands me a piece of paper and says, "We'll need you to come back so we can draw some blood and run some tests." Come back?!? Man, I was hoping it'd be a one-stop shop and I could get all this done in a day! Nope, I gotta not eat for 12 hours before they draw blood, they say. I'm assuming this is because they want you to be as weak as possible when they take your blood because they have some sort of office pool going on how many people they can make faint in a week.

I'm thankful for doctors because we need them and I could never be one. I wouldn't want to be around sick people all day and I have zero interest in seeing anyone's insides. I can't even watch medical-based TV dramas without getting squeamish. I appreciate people who can do what they do.

Now if only I could find some lighter shoes...

Labels: life

8 comments