August 2026 Wrap-Up

 

The final month of summer included one final vacation, a work trip, and our youngest's birthday. James turned nine during the second weekend of the month and his chosen birthday experience was to go to Coastal Wilds in Frankford, Delaware to see the animals and do the capybara (his favorite animal) experience. It's a small zoo that's home to over 35 species of animals including otters, two-toed sloths, red kangaroos and more. Then I had my annual work trip to Rockville, MD to learn and collaborate with Primary Care Office workers from other states. It was only two (long) days this year so I didn't get to do much in Rockville other than the conference unfortunately. Following that work trip, I took a week off and we spent four days in Ocean City, MD. The kids had never been and Christine and I hadn't since our honeymoon. We stayed ocean front at The Commander Hotel & Suites and spent each day swimming, relaxing on the beach, and walking the boardwalk. Before checking in on the first day, we did a boat ride to Assateague Island to see the horses, and the ride include an ice cream flight while we took in the views. 

Blah Blog Log

Just the one post in August, but I have a few ideas that I might actually write one of these days.

• July 2026 Wrap-Up - Two vacations, two movies, two disc golf courses, and a good amount of gaming.

Bored Board Games

I stepped back a bit from playing games online and ended the month with the third lowest total number of plays. However, I did get a good amount of games in, including a night with the kids and two in person meetups. There ended up being 83 plays across 30 games, with 6 of them being new to me. 

• The 100 Games 100 Plays List gained one new member with Lucky Numbers making it to the 100 plays mark. That brings me up to 34 with one in the 90s that will make it before the end of the year.
• I didn't make it up to Days of Knights to get store credit by the end of the month, so my goal for this month is to get that done.
• Only one new game, Forage, was added to the collection. I got to play it at the most recent meetup and it's really good. Looking forward to more in person plays and trying the solo mode.

This month I'm featuring a party racing game I played at our most recent meetup that I thought was hilarious and a ton of fun. The pictures featured is from @neverboredboardgames on BGG. I usually just post the game covers in these features but the visuals of the board and pieces is much better than what's available.

Hot Streak is the goofiest party game I've ever played. But despite that, it just got the 2026 Spiel des Jahres Recommended award. It's a "game for hard luck gamblers who love to bet on and scream at the racers, who in this case happen to be mascots who may (or may not) keep running in the right direction."

Players start by reviewing a unique starting deck that affects the racers in different ways and then bet on which racer(s) they think will do well and/or take the side bets that are different each race. Once bets are made, each player gets to add a single card that affects the racers to the starting deck, which will almost certainly throw a wrench in the other players' plans. After three races, the player with the most money wins.

The games plays 2-8 and we had 7 players playing which probably made it even more chaotic and added to the tension. With each drawn card there were outbursts and groans as a new racer took the lead, another racer started going the wrong way, or a race people bet on got eliminated. In a very busy store that was hosting a Magic: The Gathering release, we had multiple eruptions at our tables near the doors. I keep coming back to the word goofy, but this is the best party game I have ever played and will be getting a copy at some point.

Enjoyable Eats

During our trip to Ocean City, we ate at a lot of take out places, mostly out of necessity because of what the kids wanted to eat. There are no shortage of food options on the boardwalk but my favorite place by far was Brass Balls Saloon. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner in with indoor and outdoor seating. We obviously opted for some shaded outdoor seating so we could enjoy the ocean and beautiful weather. The have a bar and a decent sized gift shop full of somewhat crass branded gear from the parent company's various restaurants with other cheeky names.

The kids meals come in a small sand bucket that comes with a shovel which I thought was a cute touch. I opted for the coconut shrimp with Thai chili dipping sauce and sweet cornbread with jalapeno butter and street corn with goat cheese crumbles as my sides. Everything was really good but the cornbread with jalapeno butter was the star of the show. The street corn had some real kick to it and the coconut shrimp were tender despite the larger than usual size that I've had at other restaurants.

I'm Watching 👀

Early in the month, we went to the Smyrna Opera House to see Grace's best friend perform as Pugsley Addams in The Addams Family - School Edition. I love seeing live theatre just as much as I like going to the movies, but being able to support a friend of the family makes it extra special. I was really blown away by some of the actors, especially the one who played Gomez. Having a local playhouse (it's only a 7 minute drive from our house) in a smallish town is really nice and it's great that they put on so many children's theatre shows.

We also squeezed in another movie this past weekend and this one brought me back to my childhood. I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons, which always included Looney Tunes. My favorite was Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner where, for those of you who don't know, a relentless coyote uses absurd contraptions (from ACME Corp.) to try and catch a fast-moving bird and always *spoilers* fails . Coyote vs. ACME tells the story of Wile E. Coyote enlisting a billboard attorney to sue the Acme Corporation for repeatedly selling him faulty products. All the major, and some lesser known, characters make an appearance. It's funny, full of nostalgia, and becomes rather sweet at the end. One of my favorite movies growing up was Who Framed Roger Rabbit, so this live-action animated comedy that includes real people and then the animated cartoon characters was right up my alley.

Reading Ramble

I'm still reading Pillar to the Sky and am thoroughly enjoying the story, even if space-based themes aren't really that interesting to me. I got through a decent amount of it while sitting on the beach in Ocean City, but haven't picked it up since we got home. I plan to finish it this month because I have some other stories I want to get to before the year ends. Part of the reason I haven't completed it is because I'm also reading through a series of Choose Your Own Adventure game books that were loaned to me from someone in my board game group.

I finished the first two installments of the Lone Wolf series, Flight From The Dark and Fire on the Water. Lone Wolf is a series currently consisting of 32 gamebooks that focuses on the fictional world of Magnamund, where the forces of good and evil are fighting for control. The main protagonist is Lone Wolf, last of his caste of warrior monks known as Kai Lords. You get to build your character through dice rolling like one would in a standard role-playing game or through a random number page in the back of each book. I actually bought a set that included multiple colors of polyhedral dice just so I could get a single D10. It was less than $10 for 7 sets and I figured maybe I'll need the other colors and dice types in the future. I'm having a lot of fun reading (and dying) through the books so you'll likely see mentions of others as I read them all, since my friend has almost all of the new editions that have been released.

Sweet Chain Music

I didn't make it to any disc golf courses in August, which was very disappointing. I played three during my work trip last year but the schedule of this year's conference and the weather shut that down. I know I'll get to play Killens Pond State Park later this month during the annual employee appreciation picnic. I'd also like to get the kids out again as the weather starts to get a little bit cooler. I think I'm all set on discs and other supplies, I just need to find time to play which should be easier now that the school year is about to start. There's always time to practice with our basket in the backyard, so we'll do that too.

TikTok Time

This segment is making an appearance for the first time since the January 2025 Wrap-Up post. Recently I've stumbled on a few accounts that I make sure to check every day, just in case TikTok happens to not push them into my For You page. Today I'm sharing an account that has had my crying laughing to the point where I'm struggling to breathe on multiple occasions. That account is MulletReview and no it's not a review account for the bold hairstyle choice, but the guy running the account is definitely sporting one.

He started a series that is 82 videos long, at the time of this writing, of eating at every Chinese buffet he can find until he gets food poisoning. The format of each video is pretty consistent and is being recorded by his fiancée, who he brings to restaurants she wants to go to in order to make up for dragging her on this journey. His reactions to some of the food options at these buffets, complaining when there isn't pizza, and playing the game "is this cheese or mayo" has delighted me more than any account that I can think of.  I've shared a YouTube video of one of my favorites since TikTok doesn't embed videos as nicely on Blogger.

Whatcha Snackin?

Jell-O made it into our house recently, which is a rarity, so it's not often that I get to eat it. I grew up eating Jell-O in its many forms and flavors. The best way to enjoy it other than straight out of the fridge is to make Poke Cake, a baked sheet cake with holes poked into the top that are filled with a liquid flavoring like Jell-O (or pudding) to add extra moisture and taste. You then slather it with Cool Whip and keep it cold in the fridge. It's a wonderful summer dessert that anyone can make and it always comes out great. 

This zero sugar lemon lime flavor it pretty good, but does have that diet soda after taste because of the artificial sweeteners. After finishing what we had, I bought a 12 pack of strawberry and berry blue. The strawberry isn't great (I think it takes like liquid cough medicine) but hopefully the blue will be decent. Thankfully I also bought more of the lemon lime.

Wrap It Up

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