Time Breaker

When I found out that I was going to have a free (non-traveling) Saturday, I texted one of my buddies to see if he and his wife were doing anything. They were free, and when we were figuring out what we were going to do, I mentioned I had a new game. All of a sudden we had a plan.

We were going to try out Time Breaker from Looney Labs . It's no secret that Looney Labs is my favorite game publisher. Fluxx was my first foray into modern gaming, Zendo is one of the best games I've played in the last few years, and you can’t beat the vast array of games you can play using Looney Pyramids.

So Time Breaker which will be released at the end of February is both simple and extremely complicated all at the same time. Which is kind of the Looney Way? In the game, you need to capture a criminal and bring it back to the Time Repair Agency. Easy enough right? No. In addition to the other players also trying the capture the criminal, there is also the time traveling element.

Did I not mention the time traveling. Yeah, there is time traveling. There are no straight lines back to the TRA. You and your captive need to jump from the past (age of dinosaurs) to the recent past (moon landing) to the distant future (World Peace) and beyond and before.

It's the kind of game where you look at your cards and you see your path to victory. Only to watch one of your “Friends” do something to mess up your best laid out plans. The game is for 2-5 players, 8 and up, and can take ten minutes or a lot longer depending on how quickly the players catch on and the level of strategizing they are capable of.

The game is really easy to learn, there is virtually no set up, has high replay value and it is compact enough that you can carry it around in a backpack so a game can break out where ever ... or more accurately whenever.

NOTE: While I did receive a copy of Time Breaker to facilitate this review, there was no further compensation and all the thoughts and opinions are my own.

Fortnite

Last year my son really wanted an Xbox One, he wanted to play Minecraft and Rocket League (which we had played at a Gamestop one day). So being the first Christmas after the separation, I got him one. And it was great, yes we needed to return it to Gamestop because it wasn't working, but eventually, he had a working Xbox.  I eventually got one myself for when he visited, and for me to play as well.

That scout looking guy in the middle is the only extra skin I have bought for myself

Like all things with little kids, they wanted more. And what he wanted was to play Fortnite. Because all his friends from school were playing it. I subscribed to Xbox Live and we use a family set up to give him access to play, without access to buy anything. Which for the uninitiated, there is plenty of stuff to buy. And not even stuff that helps you in the game. Might as well purchase a digital toilet and flush your dollars down it. But I digress.

He was playing and enjoying it. Eventually, I started playing with him. And it has become our thing. Part of our daily chats usually involves "shooting at some guys". If you haven't played, or don't live with an 8-18 year-old, Fortnite is basically two games, a single player sort of first-person shooter where you try to save the world. It's not very realistic looking and there is a building component, which I'm not a fan of personally. And the second game is what everyone is obsessed with. Its called Battle Royale. 100 players parachute onto this island and search for weapons, gather materials, avoid a poisonous storm and then try to be the last one standing. We usually play duos mode, where the two of us take on 98 others with the hope of getting a "Victory Royale". I initially liked it because it was way more cartoony than other shooters, Call of Duty is very realistic (and I'm pretty awesome at that game).

Which has not happened for us yet. He claims it is because I don't practice enough. Sorry I have a job and need sleep. Trust me if I had neither, I could become awesome at this game.  Also being old doesn't help my reflexes against a bunch of Monster Energy drink fueled kids screaming into their headsets. 

I like it, I have spent more money than I'm proud to admit on vbucks (the currency of the game) to buy new skins, harvesting tools, gliders, and dances. Oh yeah, there are dances. We were at Great Wolf Lodge this past summer for his birthday and there were gangs of boys (and a few girls) standing under where the giant bucket was about to dump hundreds of gallons of water down onto the floor and anyone standing on that floor doing various dances from Fortnite, most notably flossing. 

As he has gotten more and more into it, he gets so mad when he loses. He throws his controller (hey those $60 controllers don't grow on trees). Slams his fists on his light up keyboard, which he uses because all the pro players use keyboard and mouse. He gets visibly upset, we are usually Facetiming. And telling him it's just a game doesn't help. I was lucky that I was never really obsessed with any one thing that it became all-encompassing. But I saw my brother become so obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons that he lost a full ride scholarship to one of NYC's best high schools. He ended up in another high school that my mom had to pay for (no Niel couldn't have used a car, but I digress). Apparently, this is very common. 

So my relationship with the game is very love/hate, It's nice to play a video game with him and share some time together. He takes the lead, he creates our battle plan, and the other day when I killed two guys in one round he was super impressed. I don't like that he doesn't want to do anything else. The other day, he was homesick and spent the entire day "convalescing" in his pajamas in front of his XBox. I know it has been cold but still. I guess once it is warmer he can ride his bike or take a swim. But for the time being, we are stuck with this game. 

For context now he sometimes wants me to just watch him play. As I have been writing this I'm watching a live stream of him playing on Mixer.

Pawz And Cupcake

Last night I arrived home after the long drive from North Carolina and for the first time in as long as I can remember there was no one else there.

When we separated almost 18 months ago, my ex and the kids headed down south and I was left with the two cats, Pawz and Cupcake. I was not thrilled about it. I didn't want these cats in the first place. Now I was stuck with them. They couldn't move down until my ex got a bigger place.
As the months went on. I got used to them. Did I get used to them walking on me when I was sleeping? No. But I got used to them. Then I starting thinking about Tony Soprano’s ducks. Or were they geese.

I’ll call them ducks. There were these ducks living in the Soprano’s pool. And Tony who despite being a sociopath, loves animals. Think back to what he really got mad about during Christopher’s intervention. But I digress. Tony had told Dr. Melfi about the birds, and she surmised that they were stand ins for his family and he was so sad when they flew away from him.

While I don't think the cats were stand ins for my family I certainly see similarities in the personalities of the cats and my kids. Pawz, the younger male cat is a little reckless, willing to try new things, insistent and despite himself super sweet and loving. And Cupcake, the older female cat is more reserved, loves lounging around once she is comfortable, but will slide into the background until she is ready to not be in the background. They're both high maintenance, but Cupcake pretends shes not.

And if you really know my kids, you would think I was describing them. I hadn't really thought about it until I drove them (the cats) down to their new home on that frigid Monday morning. As expected when I arrived with two cat boxes to the house, my son was super excited that he was finally reunited with his beloved cats, my daughter was a little more reserved and wanted to see how this was going to play out.

I texted my ex and said that I kind of missed the cats. She wasn’t surprised and suggested getting dog. I don’t think I’m going to miss them that much.

Sweep

Guess what, for me 2018 was a better year than 2017 which is a good thing. 2018 wasn’t perfect by any stretch but it was going in the right direction. There were really high highs and terribly low lows, but all in the right direction. I said my slogan for the year was "reclaim the throne" and I’m still working on that, I was hoping this years motto would be something on the theme "wear the crown" or something like that, but I’m not there yet. 

For 2019 my motto will be Sweep. No explanations, just sweep.

What I’m listening to

I take a monthly 500 mike road trip to see the kids. To pass the time I listen to music, audiobooks and podcasts. So I am always looking for new things to listen to. 

This past trip I subscribed to a bunch of new podcasts along with my normal podcasts. One of my favorites was a seven episode radio play called Sandra. 

Sandra, a dark comedy in the vein of Black Mirror,  stars Kristen Wiig. It’s very different than anything you have ever seen or heard her in. The basic story revolves around a fictionalIzed version or Siri, Alexa or Cortana, and some of the lives that get affected by that comforting voice coming out of that box in your living room or your phone. 

So if you have a few hours, Sandra is a great and interesting way to pass the time. 

The proper way to act around a drunk college girl

I’m really trying not to be political here ... but you l know who doesn’t get accused of harassing or assaulting women? People who respect women. I’m just saying. 

It was a warm November evening in Florida, 20ish years ago. And I was lightly stumbling along the streets of Downtown Disney with my then new girlfriend (who would go on to be my wife, then it gets complicated). We were in town for a college journalism convention, that night we gone on our first date it was to Pleasure Island (Disney’s adult area). I think we had Jell-O shots or some frozen boozy cocktails, or both. 

That part of the property just smells like fresh cut grass, unlike other parts that smell like fruit loops. Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes was playing over the well hidden speakers. Ani was stumbling a little more than me because she couldn’t hold her liquor then. She’s better now. 

We were in a fun place, away from home, and there were tons of quiet nooks that could have been perfect for some "after hours fun". But we crossed the boulevard and went back into the hotel we were all staying. I brought her to her room, said goodnight and then headed back to mine. I replayed the events of the evening. I didn’t mention it to any of my roommates because we were keeping it quiet. 

The next day one of her roommates mentioned to me that she was mad at me. Apparently she thought I was rejecting her since I didn’t make a move. We spoke about it and I said I wanted to "make a move" but since she was drunk I didn’t want do anything that she didn’t give consent to. All was good. 

I respected her enough as a human being that I didn’t want to take advantage of her. When I could have. No one had to tell me that you don’t do things to drink people because they can’t agree to it. Because it was common sense. I wouldn’t want someone to do something to me when I was not in a state of consent, so why would I do it to someone else. 

It's terrible that people need to be told that forcing themselves on someone else is wrong. I’m I saying I was raised better than the President, a Supreme Court nominee, a formerly beloved comedian, a swimmer, or countless Hollywood executives, not necessarily. But I have the decency to know when making an advance is appropriate. 

I hate that this is something that we have to reinforce to our sons and other boys and young men we influence, since they are inundated with images on TV and online saying that behavior is ok and the "boys will be boys". I also hate that we have to teach our daughters to be on the look out for this kind of behavior and try to reassure them that those same images they see are not normal and shouldn’t be tolerated. 

Call of Duty -Black Ops 4 BETA

Thanks to a fellow dad, I got a code for the Private Beta of the new Call of Duty game. I’ve really enjoyed play other CoD games so I was excited. 

In this edition of the game, they are moving away from the single player story mode and more into massive player vs player action. The beta which doesn’t have all the whistles and bells that the full game will have seems to be to be a Call of Duty themed Fortnite. 

You parachute out of a helicopter onto a giant land mass. You need to find weapons, and ammo but everything looks like Call of Duty. The storm is there too, but they don’t call it a storm. But it’s a storm. 

I had a lot of fun playing it, wish the playing area was smaller and they got rid of the storm. I liked not shooting at dancing pandas. And they didn’t incorporate the building portion (which I still don’t understand). Here is a pro tip- if you can find an ATV get on it, way faster and more satisfying than a golf cart. 

The game comes out in October, it will get a lot of praise from people who dig Fortnite and probably not so much from die hard Call of Duty fans.