July Wrap-Up

July didn't feel as busy as June, but it still flew by as most summer months tend to do. We started the month with a trip back to NY for the 4th of July and had a nice time visiting family and friends. In between that trip and my yearly work trip to Rockville, MD for the Annual PCO Conference, I invested in some disc golf gear including discs, a bag, and a basket for putting practice at home. I played for the first time during my guys weekend to the Castle House in Pennsylvania and decided it's something I'd like to start doing more often. I've since played 4 courses between Delaware and Maryland and look forward to playing more in the future.

Blah Blog Log

I almost wrote a post about disc golf and how much I've been enjoying it, but I never got around to it so it was just the one post for July.

• June 2024 Wrap-Up - A kid-free weekend in Lancaster, a family trip to the beach, and a lot of good food was had throughout the month.
  

Bored Board Games

In July, I played 22 games a total of 161 times which brought my total plays to 1157 for the year. If I keep up this pace, it's possible to reach 2000 plays. I don't plan on trying to get there but who know what the rest of the year will bring. Super Mega Lucky Box, L.L.A.M.A., and Azul became the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd games to be added to the 100 Games 100 Plays List. Now there are a couple of games in the low 80s, but after that the next closest sits at 70 plays, with a few more in the 60s. Unless I focus on playing specific games many times so they make the list, I don't think there will be that many additions to the list for a while. I've started evaluating my collection to see what games I want to play more both in person and online. This month's highlighted game is a reimplemented version of one of my favorite games, Survive: Escape from Atlantis!

Survive The Island - From the same designer as the original comes a reworked version through a new publisher. From BGG: "Survive The Island is a cutthroat game in which players seek to evacuate their adventurers — especially those of a high value — from a sinking island to maximize their score. An island made up of forty hex-tiles is slowly sinking into the ocean as tiles are removed from the board. Each player controls ten people (valued 1-5) that they try to move towards the safety of the surrounding islands before the main island's volcanoes finally erupt. Players can either swim or use rafts to travel, but must avoid sea serpents, kaiju, and sharks on their way to safety."

The way each player's turn is played remains the same: use 3 movement actions, optionally use tile actions, choose a tile from the island to remove, and then roll the creature die and move the creature rolled. It's a simple game with a lot of interesting decisions and strategies. I've played the original a bunch of times in person and typically get teamed up on because I like to cause as much trouble as possible for the other players. You can choose to be helpful and nice to other players, but it's every player for themselves in my eyes so why would I want to do that? 

I discovered this version when it got added to BGA and I now have over 60 plays of it over the last 5 months. I like some of the updates like adding the Kaiju while removing Whales. Also, some of the tiles actions have changes, mostly for the better. I don't think I need to own both versions of the game because while they are both very enjoyable, they're still essentially the same game. However, I might consider replacing the original Survive for this version in the future.

Enjoyable Eats

I didn't take any pictures of the food that I ate in Rockville, like I did last year, but I want to highlight the ramen restaurant my brother and I had dinner at while I was there. In the plaza directly in front of my hotel is a string of Asian restaurants and stores, including a revolving sushi restaurant, all you can eat buffet, and Kajiken, a small ramen restaurant.

Since it was so hot out while I was in Rockville, I opted for Teriyaki Tori instead of ramen. It's a noodle dish topped with teriyaki chicken, nori, corn, scallion, and sesame seed. We also shared a plate of gyoza, pan-fried pork dumplings that were topped with scallion. We don't have many places close to home like this, so it was a great opportunity to have food that I like without having to drive north to have it. It's very likely that I return for one of my meals when I return for next year's conference.

I'm Watching 👀

There wasn't a whole lot of new TV watching in July, which is normal since summer time doesn't often bring new shows. We're hate watching the newest season of MasterChef because I don't like the dynamic duos theme of the season, but I still like watching food programming with Gordon Ramsey. We did however see the entertaining new installment of the Jurassic Park series while we were in NY.

I haven't seen any of the newer Jurassic World movies, until seeing this one but it was an interesting story that takes place 3 years after the last movie. From Wikipedia: In Jurassic World Rebirth, the world's dinosaurs live around the equator, which provides the last viable climate for them to survive. A team travels to a former island research facility where the three largest prehistoric animals reside, with the goal of extracting samples that are vital for a heart disease treatment. As I said, it was entertaining, but didn't capture the magic that the original brought to the cinema. It has it's moments but some ridiculous events that lead to a major disaster early on in the movie. You won't be disappointed if you like the series, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it otherwise.

 Resolutions Update

I decided on a single resolution for this year: Read all 35 issues of Simplify Magazine. Which means I'll need to read 3 issues each month. Each issue is about 75 - 100 pages long and is comprised of short essays on whatever that issue's topic is. 

• Goal Progress - 15 out of 35

This resolution is starting to slip as another month went by where I didn't stick to the schedule. It'll be easy enough to get caught up, I just need to find the time. Between board gaming and my new disc golf interest, this just hasn't been a high priority for me. Hopefully I'll have a better update next month.

Whatcha Snackin?

While in Rockville for the Annual PCO Conference, I was able to grab dinner with my brother at a ramen joint near the hotel. In that same plaza was TESO Life, a Japanese fashion casual life product department store that has grocery, toys, and all sorts of other household items. While we were there I grabbed a few different snacks that I've been enjoying but had before included an Asian Cracker Snack Mix, Almond Crush Pocky, and Wasabi Peas. But one the item I had never had before and was enjoyed by both Christine and I were these chocolate filled pretzels. I've had other Hello Panda snacks, but the sweet and salty combo has made these my favorite so far.

Wrap It Up

Please comment below with any thoughts or comments on anything I've covered. Thanks for reading!