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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2011.12.29
Posted in Board Games, Family, Friends at 9:12 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I’ve been doing some gaming over the past few weeks. It’s been a mix of old and new.
Flash Point: Fire Rescure is the “new hotness” as Jason puts it (pun intended), and he got me a copy for my birthday. To date, I think this one is only available to people who backed it on Kickstarter, which is a shame because it’s a fantastic cooperative game. The mechanics fit the theme really well, and the game moves along with relatively little downtime. The difficulty is adjustable but so far it feels about right at the regular difficulty level. You’re not going to win every game (it’s been close every game so far, either winning or losing), but it doesn’t grind you into the dust like Ghost Stories always seems to. I’ve only tried the two maps that come with the base game, and haven’t yet attempted the expansion maps which appear more difficult.
As for older games, I played all three of the following with various members of my family over the break:
- 6 Nimmt (Category 5 in English)
- Carcassonne: The City
- The Settlers of Catan
I have played all of them before, but I was the only one at the table who had played them. 6 Nimmt went over predictably well, and we got pretty goofy by the end of the game (a couple of glasses of red wine may have contributed). Everyone had fun, and we all agreed the light tactics were just the right level for what we wanted that evening.
Mom and I played a couple of games of Carcassonne, and though it took her a little bit to see the strategies, she enjoyed playing the game and came pretty close to beating me both games. This is still my favorite incarnation of Carcassonne to play, and the chance to play it with mom reminded me of why.
Finally, Settlers of Catan hit the table. My sister wound up winning quite handily, and although it’s still far from my favorite game, I enjoyed this play of it more than previous plays. The dice still hated me as they always do, but I started to at least get a bit of momentum in the mid-game. It proved to be too little, too late as mom was challenging me for the longest army while my sister had somehow managed to get 4 of the VP cards in the development card deck. I ended up in second place, but there was a lot of back and forth to get there (I was in last for the majority of the game). I’d be willing to give this one another try, although I will stick to my vow to never play it with the 5/6 player expansion ever again.
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2011.08.16
Posted in Friends, Music, Travel at 4:25 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
After a mostly uneventful flight to Chicago on Saturday, I’ve been fairly busy sightseeing and catching up with friends.
Saturday was mostly just spent getting settled and getting my bearings. I had a good seared tuna sandwich for supper in Andersonville before heading down to Lakeview. I decided to skip Market Days and do a bit of wandering down Clark and Broadway instead.
Sunday morning I met a friend at the Metra station downtown and we ended up having lunch at a pub whose name I can’t recall. I do remember the veal was really tasty and that I tried a local craft beer of some sort that was also tasty. From there we headed to Lakeview to take in Market Days. My general impression was that it was a larger and somewhat more fun version of the Lilac Festival in Calgary. Lots of people but because the street is reasonably broad, it never felt crowded the way Calgary street festivals always seem to.
It was fun, but only for so long, and afterwards we did a bit of shopping on Broadway and Clark streets. Specifically, I wanted to hit a couple of record stores. I managed to pick up the following:
- Brian Eno / David Byrne: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (original 1981 release)
- LCD Soundsystem: This is Happening
- And a couple of misc 7″ singles.
We also went out for supper at a Persian restaurant that was every bit as good as Atlas in Calgary, although no saffron ice cream for dessert.
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2011.06.21
Posted in Food, Friends at 8:58 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
On Sunday, my friend Arman and I went to check out a new pub that opened on 10th Avenue called the Craft Beer Market.
They opened in the space that used to be Mother Tucker’s which is quite large and in an excellent location. They also managed to open a few weeks before Stampede, and I have no doubt that was the plan.
What makes this place different from many others in town is its focus on (and selection of) craft beers. With 104 different varieties on tap, they’re making a serious move into a market that is (in my opinion) very neglected in Calgary. It’s not a brewpub; all of the beer comes from other breweries, but it’s still a great addition to the Calgary scene.
The makeover from Mother Tucker’s is pretty astonishing – the main room is up a short flight of stairs from the entrance, and has huge windows and high ceilings. The lines from the kegs (located in a huge refridgerator in the back) to the bars run through large steel tubing mounted to the ceiling and give an interesting look to the space. There are also several and several other rooms are off to the East and West, up a few more stairs; The East room can be closed off for private parties. Overall, the feel is very open and spacious, not crowded like so many other pubs in Calgary are.
For my first trip, I drank several German beers that I last enjoyed 10 years ago when I was in Germany for a summer, and then had strawberry fruli for dessert, after enjoying a very tasty inferno burger and yam fries. Arman opted for the impossibly large 20-napkin burger (totalling 20oz of meat) which he was unsurprisingly unable to finish. I’m pretty sure a family of 4 could have split it and not been left hungry.
Another highlight of the visit was meeting the owner and being able to talk about the place with him and also gaining access to the generally employee-only beer fridge to get a closer look at the setup in there. Very impressive and something that is long overdue in Calgary. I suspect this place will do very well.
And will I go back? You bet your dunkelwiezen.
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2010.04.11
Posted in Board Games, Friends at 11:16 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Last Monday, Union Pacific made it to the table again (at my suggestion). And once again, I came in second. And once again, the reason I lost is that I was tied for first on the Union Pacific shares instead of having a clear majority. And yes, once again, it was Jason B. who snapped up that crucial share and caused the tie. I lost by such a small amount that this would have made the difference.
I think I played well, but I should have been paying more attention to the UP shares than I was. Maybe my fate is to always come in second in this game. I still really enjoy the game, and it’s a shame it’s out of print.
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2010.03.11
Posted in Board Games, Friends at 10:47 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I’ve played a large number of new (to me) board games over the past six months, both with my regular group and otherwise. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed all of the games, but a few games stand out as ones where I’m not so sure. To be perfectly fair, I’ve only played each of these three games once to date.
First up: the Farmers of the Moor expansion to Agricola. I like Agricola by itself, but I’m not sure about the expansion. The biggest issue I have is that it extends the game time by too much for too little gain. It also adds complexity and hence makes the analysis paralysis problems in Agricola even worse. Maybe the problem was that we played it with five players. I’d be willing to try it again, although only with three or four players next time. I don’t think I’ll buy it though. I can’t see playing it very often with my regular group.
Next up is Dungeon Lords. I did enjoy the theme of the game, but it seemed like things progressed too slowly and there weren’t enough interesting choices to make. I don’t know that I really want to even try it again. I think I’d rather give Galaxy Trucker a go as an alternative.
The most recently played game I’m unsure of is Primordial Soup. I finished in the middle of the pack, but the last place player finished way behind. It seemed like the game balance was tilted towards needing to stay in a somewhat tight pack to make it interesting. There was a mild “punish the leader” mechanic in the game, but it was such as small disadvantage that I’m not sure it was enough. This one I definitely want to try again now that I’ve played once, and I suspect I’ll like it better. I also wonder whether it would be better with only four players (we had five).
Aside from these three, I’ve enjoyed all of the other games I’ve tried over the past six months or so. Hopefully the trend continues through the rest of 2010.
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2009.10.01
Posted in Friends, Parties at 8:10 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I admit to enjoying Halloween. It gets my creative juices flowing when I start thinking about putting together an interesting costume, and even though getting together a good costume can be a lot of work, I always enjoy it.
I had ambitious plans this Halloween. It turns out that as I originally envisioned my costume, blowing my budget was unavoidable. Like most creative processes, though, the additional constraint forced me to get even more creative and explore other possibilities.
My new concept is in the same vein as my original idea, but is both more fun (in my mind) and I found a way to cut the cost down to something more acceptable. As a bonus, I also gain more confidence that the costume will work for more than a single use this Halloween season (so far: 3 planned uses).
I don’t really want to spill the beans, but this will be a lot of fun as a costume and I’ve never seen anything quite like it in the past.
I really hope that shipment from Toronto gets here soon so I can finish building the costume. It shipped a week ago so will hopefully be here tomorrow.
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2009.09.04
Posted in Board Games, Friends, Parties, Writing at 8:38 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
As most of you probably know, I have had a very busy summer. Lots of traveling, lots of time with friends and outdoors, and working 2 jobs has kept me off the blogosphere for the most part. Now things are settling down and I’m embarking on some autumn projects, new and old. I’m also trying out some new things and challenging myself.
First up is my Halloween costume. I have some lofty ideas and I’m not sure how (or if) it will all turn out. I may have to revise my budget somewhat. Without being too specific, it involves my largest Photoshop document ever (36″ by 80″ when printed) which is a challenge in and of itself. Once that’s done and printed, I have to build and buy the remainder of the costume. This will involve at least one trip to Home Depot, one to Cat’s Eye, and quite possibly some time with the sewing machine. So far it’s a fun project. I’m really excited to see how it comes together.
Next up are some writing projects. I posted a short story last month in the form of a letter, and I’ll probably get around to recording the audio version of it later this fall. I haven’t done much with my audio gear in a while, and I’m getting excitied to do more work now that I can do it on the laptop as well as my main computer. Recording will be easier since I can be more portable.
The other writing project I have on the go is an RPG scenario for Call of Cthulhu. I have a lot of notes already written, and I’m going to give some new writing software a try. The software is called Scrivener, and so far I like it. It works well with my existing writing workflow in MindManager and I like the ability to work with my research materials alongside my own text within the same application. I think I’m going to wind up purchasing it – the RPG scenario is a test to see how it goes. The free trial is very generous (30 days of actual use, not consecutive days) so I’ll be able to know for sure that i like the software before I buy it. Very unusual, and very cool.
Beyond these projects, who knows. I’ve got lots of ideas.
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2009.05.10
Posted in Board Games, Friends at 10:31 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Last night, Jason and I finally got around to trying one of the league scenarios that Fantasy Flight produced for Arkham Horror. We’ re only now starting on the first set of scenarios, so we’re a little behind.
We played “A Tide of Serpents” and won without things getting too out of control. Part of it was luck, but I felt that we played well overall and managed our resources carefully as a team. What I found most interesting was actually the game setup. In keeping with the way the scenarios are intended to be played, we only used the base game, and removed all of the components from the expansions. I had forgotten just how much stuff the expansions added to the game – in many cases, the investigator card decks were less than half of their full blown size. I suspect this also reduced the randomness factor quite a bit, and made the game easier than playing with the expansions included.
In any case, I’m looking forward to the next scenario.
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2009.05.09
Posted in Board Games, Friends at 1:50 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
As part of my board game hobby I enjoy playing a variety of cooperative games, and roughly speaking, they fall into three categories:
- Pure cooperative games, where all the players are on the same team
Examples: Lord of the Rings, Arkham Horror
- Known-adversary cooperative games, where one player is “the bad guy” and the other players are cooperating against him
Examples: Scotland Yard, Fury of Dracula, Descent, Lord of the Rings w/ Sauron expansion
- Cooperative games where all of the players appear to be on the same side, but one or more may secretly be working against the team as traitors
Examples: Werewolf, Shadows over Camelot, Battlestar Galactica
I find all three enjoyable, but I find the games that involve a traitor to be the most difficult for me to play. I recently purchased Battlestar Galactica, and both times I’ve played it, I’ve been the traitor. Depending on the group, the game can become intensely political, and while it’s not a friendship-ruiner like Diplomacy, it’s still tough to sit around the table with your friends, look them in the eye, and lie to them. It’s also difficult to walk the fine line of appearing to be helpful generally while trying to sabotage things where possible. Particular to Battlestar Galactica, there’s an additional agonizing decision of whether to reveal yourself as a traitor or try and hide the entire game. The “big reveal” can be devastating if timed correctly, and there’s always the temptation to do so before you’re caught.
Many years ago my favorite tactic in Risk was best described as “Let’s you and him fight” and it earned me the nickname of Bismarck. Maybe with practice I’ll regain those metagaming skills, although hopefully without pissing off all of my friends in the process.
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