2012.05.19
Posted in Board Games at 5:02 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Recently I had a chance to try out The Manhattan Project for the first time. In this game, you are competing against other players to build nuclear bombs the fastest. It’s a worker-placement game with some interesting mechanics and player interaction possibilities. I enjoyed the game a lot, and it seems like the strategy runs a bit deeper than is first apparent. It’s possible to “block” the spaces on the board for numerous turns, which means players without the appropriate buildings on their personal boards won’t be able to take certain actions unless they use the espionage options.
Its also possible to attack the other players directly, and destroy / disable some of their production capacity, although we were playing a 3-player game which provided a large deterrent to attacking: the third player (not involved in the initial conflict) would be free to bomb the heck out of either of the two players who were fighting before they could recover. The game includes rules about making binding pacts that are meant to alleviate this, but as I felt I had a bit of a lead, it was never in my interest to make such a deal. My opponents were too timid to gang up on me and bomb me back to the pre-nuclear age (which they probably should have).
As a result of that peculiarity, I’m not sure I’d play the game the same way next time. As it was, it felt like there was a huge opening and mid-game phase where you had to build up a huge amount of machinery, then a rather predictable end game where it was just a race to produce the bombs themselves. If we had attacked each other I feel like the game would have been more interesting and enjoyable, but without conflict it felt a little flat to me.
Overall, I’m still undecided. I want to try it again (and next time with more conflict). If you like worker placement games,The Manhattan Project is worth a look in my opinion, although I don’t know if it will displace Caylus or Dominant Species on my list.
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2012.05.14
Posted in Friends, Music, Travel at 8:36 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
A few weeks ago, I attended the rather controversial Elements 2012 music festival. The media hyped it up as a “rave” and the city of Edmonton and the venue (owned by Northlands Entertainment) did their best to shut it down before it even happened. In my mind the issue was totally overblown. The event went off with almost no issues whatsoever. Northlands also saw fit to automatically add me to their e-mail list automatically. I’ve already let them know how I feel about both of these issues, and unsubscribed from the mailing list. My intent here isn’t to rant about it, although I was rather incensed.
This was an all-electronic festival, and given the lineup and the venue I had high hopes. I wasn’t disappointed. There were 3 stages, broken down roughly along genre lines.
- The Fire stage was mostly dubstep and drum and bass acts
- The Water stage was mostly trance acts
- The Earth stage (also the main stage) was mostly house acts
The highlights for the weekend were, in order:
- Pendulum, who brought fantastic energy to the fire stage without devolving into a continuous beatdown like Boregore did.
- ATB, who I had never seen live before. He exceeded all expectations and was the best trance act I saw all weekend. I danced the hardest at his set, even harder than the dubstep sets.
- A-Trak, who displayed the most technical prowess as a DJ that I have witnessed in a long time. He actually scratched live during his set, which I didn’t see anyone else do.
There were definitely other honourable mentions, including:
- Calvin Harris
- Sebastian Ingrosso
- Wolfgang Gartner
They all benefitted from the awesome setup on the Earth stage.
I have to say the crowd was also really great. I always had room to dance, and never had an issue getting as close to the front as I wanted. No issues all weekend. Very different from what I’m used to at electronic music shows in Calgary for sure.
I really hope Boodang manages to do this show again next year, but if not, I’m really glad I attended the 2012 incarnation.
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2012.04.22
Posted in Coachella 2012, Music, Travel at 10:58 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
On Sunday, I had a “must-see” act early in the day (12:00pm) so I bit the bullet and headed in early, and arrived about 15 minutes before the gates opened at 11:00am. I took the opportunity to wander through part of the campground in the daylight, and I was impressed by how organized everything was in car camping – I would definitely consider it for next year, as the drive back and forth every day was a little annoying.
After getting into the grounds, I made an early stop at Zia Records, to pick up a Miike Snow album and an M83 album, having been impressed with their performances on The previous days. I filled my water bottle early (learning from the mistakes of Saturday) and headed over to the Sahara to get ready for the 12:00pm set I wanted to see.
The opener, Jimbo Jenkins, was just hitting the stage and so I danced to his set with about 20 other people at first. The crowd grew as his set came to a close, and everyone else was there to see the same act I was: Morgan Page.
Morgan Page, despite a brief technical issue, was the best DJ set I saw all weekend. Granted I’m a big fan and I knew every one of the songs he played, but he was into it and so was the crowd. The Sahara was 3/4 full for a 12:00pm slot which I thought was pretty impressive. I danced harder than I had all weekend, and the crowd gave me the space I needed. The flow was awesome, and so were the visuals.
After his set ended, I made the long walk to the outdoor theatre to see the last 2/3 of Lissie. She sang her heart out and it was nice to just relax in the sunshine on the grass for a bit.
Over on the main stage, Band of Skulls played a solid set although it wasn’t particularly memorable for me. I caught about 1/2 of it, before heading to the locker and the lost and found booth.
I had somehow lost my point and shoot camera on Saturday (hence why I have not posted any pictures), and was hopeful someone had turned it in. No such luck.
Back to the main stage for Santigold who totally rocked it. The crowd was huge, and it was a great set. I wish I had been closer up than I was.
I decided to ditch on Fitz and the Tantrums to see Beats Antique who I had heard good things about. I was not disappointed. They were better than I could have hoped live. I definitely have to track down an album or two of their funky acoustic interpretations of electronic music.
While waiting to meet up with my friends, I overhead the first couple of songs of araabMUZIK which weren’t to my liking at all. I then headed into the Sahara to catch the last 3/4 of Dada Life. This was fist-pumping-house-music-madness at its finest. Quite a few people in the crowd had props of various sorts which added to the fun factor. Overall this was better than I expected given that I don’t always like their recorded performances.
I wanted to get in a good position for The Weeknd, so I went directly to the outdoor theatre after Dada Life and cooled my heels for a bit, as best I could. He started out a little weak in my opinion, but finished really strong. The crowd kept coming and going, as there were a lot of conflicts at that point in the schedule. I stayed for the whole set. I had planned on staying a bit later, but my body gave up at this point so I walked back to the car.
On the walk back, I could hear Nero quite clearly (from about 1km away, I could make out the bassline enough to tell you which songs they were playing). I sort of wish I had gone, but I was so tired and footsore I doubt I would have been able to enjoy it. Plus, I’m sure the Sahara was a gong show at that point, filled with dubstep bros. I caught some footage afterwards online, and while it looked like a good set I’m not sure I actually missed anything critical.
Sets seen (not counting “drive-by” viewings): 8.
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2012.04.22
Posted in Coachella 2012, Music, Travel at 10:27 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
After the long day Friday, the four of us discussed how early we wanted to arrive on Saturday. There was one act I would have enjoyed seeing earlier in the afternoon (at 1:20), but overall I wasn’t in any rush. The rest of the group all agreed and instead we decided to show up at about 3:30 and make for a shorter day.
3:30 was still earlier than pretty much anything I wanted to see, so I picked a set at random which turned out to be Jacques Lu Cont in the Sahara. His visuals were boring and his set lacked flow – he kept interrupting the flow and doing stupid things like mixing in a mash-up of the imperial march from Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back. There wasn’t anything else I really wanted to do, so I took it easy and stayed for most of his set.
Next up in the Mojave was The Head and the Heart, who I had seen live previously. They were good but a bit too mellow for my mood, so I went back to the Sahara aftter about 1/2 of their set to get my dubstep on for the first time of the weekend at Zed’s Dead. They were predicable but enjoyable. And it was early enough that the Sahara crowd didn’t annoy me much.
I took a supper break, and in addition to a somewhat uninspired but decent noodle bowl, I had a date shake which turned out to be decent but a bit rich.
Then it was back to the Mojave for Squeeze and to re-unite with the rest of my crew. Squeeze was a lot of fun, and the crowd was predictably older than the Coachella average given that their music is more 80s than anything. They mostly played their hits, but it made for a good festival set.
Afterwards, I caught the first 1/2 of The Shins from the beer garden, and while it was OK, it wasn’t really my thing. I really wanted to see Feist, so went over to the outdoor theatre and got a spot near the back of the crowd which was quite sizeable. Feist totally blew me away. It was such a good set. I’m probably going to catch them again at Sled Island here in Calgary in a couple of months.
When the crowd started to thin after the set finished, we moved up closer and got a good spot just in front of the sound booth for Miike Snow. This was the highlight of the whole weekend for me. I was completely blown away and lost myself in the music. The set was good, and I wasn’t all that familiar with the music but it’s right up my alley.
Following this it was back to the main stage and a failed attempt to reunite the whole group at Radiohead. Despite the fact that I was wearing one of my el-wire hats, the other half of the group couldn’t find us. We discovered later we were about 25 feet from each other.
Radiohead was underwhelming for me. The visuals were impressive and technically they were spot on, but I just couldn’t get interested in the music. I’ve never been a Radiohead fan, and this experience cemented that opinion of their music. We managed to link up with the rest of the group by text message about 40 minutes into the set, and my part of the group left at that point to avoid traffic.
Acts seen: 8.
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2012.04.22
Posted in Coachella 2012, Music, Travel at 9:52 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Now that I’m back home and somewhat caught up with the rest of my life, it’s time to reflect on my experience at Coachella this year.
This was my first year attending, and I attended weekend 1. I had decided not to camp, but instead rented a house along with a group of friends. We had 2 cars which gave us some flexibility, but for the first day, the 4 of us all went in a single vehicle. I generally tend to do my own thing at festivals, so we mapped out a rough gameplan for the day and agreed on times / places to meet. This system worked well on Friday.
Upon arriving at the grounds, the first challenge was the long walk to the gates from the parking lot. I’d guess it took a good 20 minutes or so. The pedicabs were tempting, but not as tempting as they would be after a full day of festival on the walk back.
Once inside, and having got my locker key and taken about 15 minutes to get our bearings, we headed over the beer gardens and it was there that I got my first impression of the Sahara tent where most of the DJ acts were performing. Even in the daylight, the setup was pretty impressive – the entire back wall was video screens, 4 long screens ran the whole length of the tent from front to back, and there was the usual assortment of lights. LA Riots was playing; I saw about the last half of the act, which was so-so.
Next up was Wolf Gang in the Gobi tent. This was a pretty relaxing way to ease into the festival. Halfway through the set, we wandered over to honeyhoney. I wasn’t really into it, and didn’t want to listen to folk/country at that point, so after a couple of songs, I decided to wander around solo and get a better sense of the festival grounds layout and also check out the record store.
At Zia Records, I picked up a 12″ single from the Chemical Brothers, as well as an older Amon Tobin album that I wasn’t able to track down in Calgary. I was pretty impressed with their selection of vinyl and CDs.
At this point, I went back to the Sahara tent, and rejoined my group in the beer gardens. Next up for me was Breakbot, which was in some ways the real start of Coachella for me. His music is really funky, and the crowd was into it just as much as I was so I had a great time. It was a great dance party to warm up for the weekend.
After Breakbot, we all headed over to to the main stage to see James. It started to spit a bit, so my friends retreated to cover. I stuck it out right in front the stage, and was treated to a really tight set. The weather kept the crowd unfortunately thin, but that gave me more room to dance and enjoy the show.
After James, it was time to grab some grub. I was expecting the usual festival fare, and while a lot of it fit that category, it was far better than I had expected. I settled on mahi tacos which were really tasty and light, and also hit the spot.
The outdoor theatre was our next stop for Madness, who played a really incredible set. The crowd was into it, and the set took me back in time a bit. I’m glad I had a chance to see them perform live. At this point, the sun was setting so I also spent some time looking around at the palm trees that were all lit up, and also seeing the other art at the festival transformed by lighting. It made for a pretty magical atmosphere.
I caught part of Pulp from the beer gardens. It was definitely not something I enjoyed. Still, it was better than Mazzy Star who was next up on the outdoor theatre stage. I thought Mazzy Star was awful, although I will admit I have never been a fan. After 2 songs I left and made the long trek back to the Sahara for Afrojack.
The area around the Sahara was getting pretty nutty by this point, and so I stood just at the back of the tent – it was already packed, long before Afrojack came on. The set was good but I wasn’t in the right mood for dance music at that point in the evening, and the crowd was starting to irritate me. I saw about 1/2 of his set before heading next door to the Mojave to see M83.
We got up good and close and I really enjoyed their set. I knew about them but hadn’t really listened to a lot of their music before. I wasn’t completely blown away, but it was hard to not get caught up in the music for their set.
After M83 I took a bit of a break, then headed back to the Mojave for part of Amon Tobin. The stage setup was every bit as incredible as I expected, and I’ve always enjoyed his music, although it’s not terribly dance-able. The crowd seemed a little confused, I’m guessing a lot of people didn’t know what to expect. I stayed for about 1/2 of his set, and the whole group of us decided to leave a bit early to beat traffic. I could see lots of lights over at the main stage where the Swedish House Mafia were performing, but we went straight back to the car and home.
My feet were quite sore, and I was never so glad to see a hot tub in my life as I was at the moment we got back to the house.
Acts seen (not counting ones where I only stayed for a couple of songs or it was a “drive by”): 8.
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2012.03.18
Posted in Coachella 2012, Music at 12:15 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
In less than a month, I’ll be at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. I bought my ticket back during the pre-sale in 2011, and started making travel arrangements well before the lineup announcement in January. I’ve never been to Coachella before, so I’m getting quite excited about the trip, and am continuing to explore the acts on the lineup to get a better sense of who I want to see (and who I want to skip).
A brief list of who I’m looking forward to seeing at this point (in no particular order):
- Radiohead
- Bon Iver
- Morgan Page
- Lissie
- The Weeknd
- Amon Tobin
- M83
- Explosions in the Sky
- Feed Me
- James
- Modeselektor
- DJ Shadow
- Beats Antique
- The Head and the Heart
- Pulp
- Feist
- We Were Promised Jetpacks
Of course, I probably won’t see all of these, and I’ll almost certainly see a bunch of sets I didn’t plan to see at the outset. Southern California, here i come!
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2012.03.18
Posted in Board Games at 11:57 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
A couple of weekends ago, I managed to play the Avalon Hill classic Dune for the first time. We played two games over the course of an afternoon, which isn’t nearly enough to give a detailed review, but it’s enough for some first impressions.
The Dune theme really comes through in the game, and the mechanics make a lot of sense when viewed through the lens of the theme. The rules aren’t terribly complex either, but the political and strategic dimensions to the game add their own complexities which i found quite enjoyable.
The actual gameplay, though, fell a little flat for me. Maybe it’s because the group was willing to wage expensive wars over every single spice blow, but playing the game first as the Fremen and second as the Harkonnen, in neither case did I ever really have any capital to use for anything useful. I know the Bene Gesserit players also had the same problem in both games. As a result of the intensity of the early battles, the games both ended on or before turn 5, which meant that I didn’t get an epic sense of the game like I do from games like Twilight Imperium.
Upon reflection, it’s not that Dune is a bad game (far from it), but it’s just not a game I’m going to want to play all that often. In terms of political games, I’d much rather play something like Battlestar Galactica. And although Fantasy Flight has re-themed and tweaked Dune as a new game (Rex), I don’t have any desire at all to pick up a copy. I don’t think feel like the mechanics of Dune translate well to the new theme, and as a whole I just can’t see playing the game very often. Given the thematic richness of Dune, I’d rather play that than Rex.
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2012.02.21
Posted in Board Games at 8:53 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
This past weekend I played both Liberté and Power Grid: The First Sparks for the first time.
Liberté
Liberté is an election / area control game themed during the French Revolution. The players are supporting three factions (the revolutionaries, the moderates, and the royalists) in the French elections. Some provinces are higher stakes than others, and these tend to get quite interesting as the players try to advance their factions. One of the interesting twists is that you’re free to back different factions in different provinces, and in fact, there are many good reasons you might want to do this. The game can end in 3 possible ways, which I also found interesting, because the three possible end conditions are scored differently. If you invest a lot of energy in gaining victory points, it’s definitely in your interest to prevent the royalist counter-revolution from happening (in which case your victory points don’t count for anything). Likewise, if you’re behind in victory points, one of the other game-ending conditions may still be a viable path to victory.
A few criticisms: First, the theme is somewhat evident throughout the game, but there are definitely parts where it feels a little thinly-pasted-on. I don’t mind this since I play plenty of eurogames and abstract strategy games, but some people might not like this aspect of the game. When you compare to an election-style game like Twilight Struggle, the theme definitely doesn’t seem as rich. Second, and more importantly, the rules are difficult to read and understand. Some parts of the rules would have benefitted greatly from the inclusion of an example or two, but sadly, there weren’t any. We stumbled through the first game, not 100% positive we played the rules properly, although I think we did pretty well.
All that aside, I did enjoy the game and I do want to try it again now that I see how the rules are set up. I’m also very curious to see how interesting it gets with 5 or 6 players, where I think it will really shine, assuming the rules are easier to teach to someone else than they are to learn from reading the rule book…
Power Grid: The First Sparks
If you’ve played the original Power Grid, The First Sparks will feel very familliar, all the way from start to finish. Each player controls a prehistoric tribe of humans, and your goal is to gain tools and knowledge, which allow you to hunt and gather food more effectively, which allow you to spread your tribe across the board. In each turn, there’s an auction for technology (tools and knowledge), followed by hunting / gathering / feeding your tribe, following by spreading out your tribe.
Unlike Power Grid, food is a resource that you spend like money for all things, including the auctions. Another big difference is that the “income” phase in The First Sparks happens in the middle of the turn, rather than immediately before the auction phase, so some different strategies are needed.
In many ways, The First Sparks feels like a better spiritual successor to Power Grid than Power Grid: Factory Manager was. It’s a more direct implementation of the original mechanics, and retains the same feel as the original, although many things are simplified and streamlined. This isn’t to say the game is a gateway game. It’s definitely more accessible than Power Grid, but still not nearly as easy to get into as a game like Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne. It sits somewhere in the middle, and I could see it being a good game to get players into before exposing them to a heavy euro like Power Grid, Caylus, or Puerto Rico. I give it a big thumbs up, and would like to see how it scales to more players.
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2012.02.14
Posted in Music, Music Spotlight at 11:03 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I had heard bits and pieces of Gabriel & Dresden’s work over the years, mostly in the form of remixes, and generally enjoyed their stuff. When they released Gabriel & Dresden in 2006, I picked up a copy pretty quickly, hoping to see the depth they had to offer.
The album has its moments, but lacks the quintessential San Francisco sound (the electronic music version, not the rock version from the 60s and 70s) I was hoping for despite the fact that that’s where they hail from. But my biggest complaint of the album is that it lacks structure, which is unfortunately common for electronic music albums. If you’re willing to take it as a collection of singles, though, there are a few enjoyable tracks, such as:
- Dust in the Wind
- Mass Repeat
- Tracking Treasure Down
Aside from these, most of the album could be skipped and your time / money better spent on their remixes (like their excellent remix of Way Out West’s Mindcircus).
I really wanted to like this album, and it has stood up OK over the years, but I can’t really recommend it unless you’re a true fan.
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2012.02.05
Posted in Music at 9:10 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
This past week, I did something I have never done before. I saw a concert movie, at a movie theatre.
I’ve been a fan of the Chemical Brothers for a very long time, and when I heard they were producing a concert movie that was going to be screened in 500 or so theatres around the world, I put it on my to-do list. A very few theatres held premiere screenings on January 26, and other theatres were doing screenings Feb 1, 2, and 3. It was promoted as a “one night only” showing, similar to how theatres do screenings of opera performances and events like UFC fights.
In January, I checked cineplex.com and noticed that Don’t Think was listed. I started looking for show times, but while it appeared that Toronto was the site of one of the premiere screenings, no other theatres showed up no matter how I searched. I was disappointed, but hope was not lost.
A week or so later, I learned that it was being shown at Chinook on Feb 1 at 7:00pm. This single screening was to be my only chance at seeing the film in a theatre.
I’m very glad I went.
It isn’t like any other concert movie I’ve seen before, and I’m not sure my description will come close to doing it justice. The show blends concert footage with other imagery in a very immersive fashion. The audio is well done, but given the style of music it seemed unusual to me that the bass wasn’t cranked up to 11 and I didn’t need earplugs to enjoy the show. As a bit of a bonus, some of the crowd reaction shots are highly amusing.
I completely lost myself in the show, and it was very hard to sit still. There are a few sections I found very strange, though. They put you in one of the concert-goer’s shoes while said concert-goer was apparently high on drugs. The mood in these sequences changed dramatically from the rest of the show, and the flow in and out was a little jarring. I really wasn’t sure what I was watching at times, and was always felt somewhat relieved when the concert portions of the show resumed.
Overall, the music and visuals are better than I expected they could be, and I was grinning almost the entire time I was watching it. The film does an incredible job of capturing the live Chemical Brothers experience, and if any fans out there missed seeing it at the theatre, be sure to track it down when it’s released on disc.
Everyone I went with agreed it was the best $13 we had spent recently.
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