A new helper comes to live with us.

Leaving my current job for my new job meant an end to free printing.  For years I've forwarded documents to myself and printed them at school. I barely made it two months before I broke down and bought us this printer.  This is a black and white wireless laser printer which I'm quite excited about mostly because it's not an inkjet printer.  I loathe inkjet printers, both professionally (I used to have to order all the replacement ink at school) and personally.  Hopefully this laser printer will serve us well.

I printed a note for Matt using the new printer. It encouraged him to set up his computers to print to this printer also.  Because printing wirelessly is almost as cool as Channing Tatum.

Z to A games: King of Tokyo, Guillotine, Flux

Another date night where we opted to stay in.  We only only have one game that begins with "k" it seems: King of Tokyo which is a dice rolling game (with a little bit of card enhancing).  I handily defeated Matt with this pumpkin guy.

We have no games that begin with "h", "i",  [actually we have iKnow, which isn't a 2 player game] or "j" so our next game was Guillotine, which is one of my favorites.  It's a card game where you attempt to execute the most nobles by collecting their cards.  It's pretty fast to learn and has a lot of variation due to strategy, though it's also possible to enjoy ambling through the game.  (You aren't going to win if you amble, though.) This game was recommended to me by Dan, who was in my teaching cohort in graduate school.  We used to have two copies, from before we moved in together when we each had our own.

 Sadly, Matt handily defeated me.

Guillotine is our only "g" game and so that brought us to Flux.  We're getting close to the end of our game tour, though I think we need to loop back around and catch the games that have been acquired since we began our quest.

Flux is a card game where the rules and the goals are constantly changing.  I really enjoy the fast-paced nature of Flux and how variable it is.  Matt beat me, though.

Date at the Portland Community College Sylvania Campus Theater.

Matt picked out a surprise date for us, a theatrical production based on Stan Sakai's samurai comic.  He was very excited about the surprise.

Our tickets.  The ticket machine wasn't quite working.  We were at the 7pm show on 11/13.

There were refreshments for sale including these cookies.  Many people asked about the price and the person selling kept repeating the same thing over and over again.  "The Usagi Yojimbo cookies are three dollars, or we have the yin-yang for $2.00."   

I had some popcorn.  Matt went for one of the yin-yang.  It was two dollars, in case you didn't know.

I enjoyed the play.  I find masks off-putting in theater, and so there was that.  The masks were nicely constructed though.  I appreciated their craftsmanship.

Z to A games: Letters from Whitechapel

We've made it to the letter "L" in our quest to play all of our games.  In this game, one person is Jack the Ripper, who attempts to travel from a murder back to his base before the detectives discover him.  The other person plays the detectives searching for him.  Ideally you play this with six people total so five people can be a detective, but it's just us, so Matt played all five detectives.

I'm happy to report I WON this game.  And very handily too.  It did get a bit dodgy there in a few places, but I succeeded in my tasks.  I guess I make a great Victorian-era serial killer.

Cat update.

Sentinel was in the way as I stripped the sheets for washing, so I constructed a tent for him.  He enjoyed it.

Antares says hello too.  He's taking a break from his heated pad, which is where he spends all his time.

Pizza making week 2

Skills have improved.  No holes, though the one on the front left did get a bit "french browned". *  I hope to make pizza making a regular occurrence.

*That's my dad's polite term for "a bit burnt".

First round of pizza making.

There was a recipe published in the paper, so I gave it a whirl. I had the pizza stone already. The recipe makes four supposedly 12-14 inch pizza, but mine top out at 10 or so inches.  I've got skills to develop.  Including stretching the dough so holes don't form.

This pizza had a minor leak.  The other three turned out okay.