Daniel J Isom

The year is over and this is a snap shot of the busiest month of the year across the board. Blah Blog Log December was a very busy gaming month and the posts reflected that. Here's what you may have missed. November 2023 Wrap-Up  - The second wrap-up post of the series. Top 10 New to Me Games of 2023  - These were my favorite new to me games in 2023. Deep Dive December 2023: Scythe - A summary of a solo board game challenge Bored  Board Games Despite only having three in person meetups, I did more gaming in December than any other month thanks to  Board Game Arena . These are a couple of games I'd like to highlight: Sea Salt & Paper  - I played this after writing my  Top 10 New to Me Games of 2023  post and this would have slotted in close to the top 5 had I played it before. I've played about a dozen games on BGA of this really smart hand management and set collection game. The hook of the game is how the scoring happens and how players can deci...

March was certainly a chaotic month for us. Christine and the kids were home for the whole month because the schools closed and then moved to distance learning. Working for the Division of Public Health, I've been rather busy dealing with COVID-19 related matters on top of my normal work. Due to the madness, it was a really great month for one of these, okay for one, and a disaster for another. 1)  Write at least 2 blog posts each month My picture of the loaves of Banana Bread that I made blew up on Twitter. Twenty One Pilots released an anthem for our quarantine. 2)  Complete the 10 x 2 Board Game Challenge I was kind of hoping that April was going to bring some extra game playing, but it was difficult with everyone home all of the time. For the second month out of the first four, we didn't play any of our challenge games. The only gaming I did was with the kids. They've really gotten into War and Go Fish lately. I was also able to play a few games of, Drop It,...

Photo: Lindsay Fishman This is going to be a shorter post, but I wanted to share a new song from one of my favorite bands, Twenty One Pilots. I've covered them on the blog before. About a week ago they released the song "Level of Concern" and it went right to the top of the Billboard Top 100. It dethroned, Panic! at the Disco, who has reigned for 76 straight weeks with two different songs. A song that ended that dominant streak deserves some love and attention. It's different from their other stuff, but so are many of their songs from album to album. "Level of Concern" was written during this crazy time, where our whole country and most of the world is under some sort of quarantine order. It's got an upbeat tempo and is incredibly catchy. I listened to it a dozen times in a row after hearing it for the first time. Give it a listen, I doubt you'll be disappointed: It's one of those things that I really needed as we grind through thi...

After a rough morning, that was only pacified by having a slice of Dutch apple pie for breakfast, I logged onto Twitter to see Weezer was trending. Overnight they dropped a 10 song album of covers, headlined by their amazing cover of "Africa" by Toto. Some of the other songs include "No Scrubs", "Take On Me", "Billie Jean", and "Stand By Me". At the time of this writing, I've already listened through the entire thing 3 times (including additional listens of my favorites). It's really that good in my opinion. If you're a Weezer fan or just love covers of old songs, check out the album for free on a variety of platforms:  Click here to listen! Weezer is one of those bands that I can start listening to only to quickly fall down a rabbit hole as I go through all of their work (and there's a lot!). They've produced a lot of memorable songs that remind me of different moments in my life. I forget just how much I lov...

When I'm at work, I tend to listen to music or podcasts. As I mentioned, I've been listening to a lot of Twenty One Pilots as of late. Sometimes I let YouTube just play the videos as they come up so occasionally a cover of their music gets mixed in. That's how I found GnuS Cello's channel . GnuS Cello is run by Stefano Cabrera , a musician who mostly plays the cello, ukele, and seagull merlin guitar. It was his instrumental of "Ride" by Twenty One Pilots that came up and I fell in love with it immediatly. I had forgotten how much I loved listening to the cello. My brother used to play when he was school and is/was incredibly talented. I hope he decides to pick it up again. Above is that cover I spoke about. Please give it a listen because Stefano is incredible. He also does covers of many other artists including: Linkin Park, Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, Sia, and a many others. I don't watch the videos every time, opting to just listen, but I do reall...

Twenty One Pilots' official band logo I stumbled across the band Twenty One Pilots a few months ago during one of our many afternoons of watching music videos on YouTube, one of Grace's favorite things to do. It was their hit song "Stressed Out" and I was immediately hooked. The video is fun but the music is smart and right up my alley. After watching the video a few times over a few weeks as it got requested by one of us, I decided to see what other videos they had put out. Next up was "Heathens" from the Suicide Squad movie soundtrack. As much as I liked "Stressed Out", I loved "Heathens" even more. This led me down a rabbit hole to watch every video and find every song they've put out. The band has been around since 2009 but in 2011, two of the three members left the band and drummer  Josh Dun  joined  Tyler Joseph  to become a duo. I'm not plugged into music as much as I was years ago in my teenage and early 20s year...