Kathryn A. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kerravonsen) wrote2018-12-26 10:21 pm
kerravonsen) wrote2018-12-26 10:21 pm
Entry tags:
Christmas Shenanigans
So.
Today was Boxing Day. This year my family had decided to spread the Christmas celebration over two days, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Christmas Day was purely for food and talk. Boxing Day was for presents and games. And quite a few of the presents turned out to be games. Ah, my family. My eldest brother is so enamoured of Terraforming Mars that he keeps on buying me extensions for it.
And my slightly-improved-recipe Christmas Pudding Ice Cream (must update the recipe on the website) was a hit, yay.
So the new game I played was Azul, which was rather different from any other game I'd played. In a way, it's like a puzzle game where you try to maximize your points, but you're also playing with other people, and that can affect what resources you can use, because someone else may have picked them up first. So I played two games of that, then I went out to the veranda/deck (this was my eldest brother's place, they usually host family gatherings) to see what the other groups of people were doing. There were four groups of games going at once, two inside, and two outside on the veranda (it's a big deck kind of veranda, with room for a barbeque and a couple of tables... and a hammock). One group were playing Munchkin, and the other were playing Terraforming Mars. I sat down looking at the Terraforming Mars folks for a bit, but then I noticed the hammock and thought it would be nice to relax in.
Bad move. Very very very bad move. I was used to the kind of hammock which had stiff rods at the ends which spread out the hammock so that it was easier to get into. This was the other sort. So when I attempted to sit in it, I went flying backwards into the balustrade!
Sprawled down, ow ow ow, hand to the back of my head, hand comes away covered with blood. Gee, it actually is true that head wounds bleed profusely. Almost instantly, about half a dozen people fussing over me. Sitting up gingerly. Paper towel at the back of my head, someone else sponging the blood off my hands, the almost-paramedic looking into my eyes for concussion (and then admitting that he's a bit tipsy and can't really tell). Someone offering to call an ambulance. Other people saying no, one isn't needed, but she probably needs stitches. Discussion about what to do for me, local clinic or should we try Knox or Box Hill? Asking me if I feel dizzy. Four people helping me to my feet. Keeping pressure on the wadded up paper towel at the back of my head. Brother-in-law driving me and sister-in-law down to local clinic after someone had rung up to check if they were open and could they see me. Getting my details and then taking me to the nurse straight away. All the usual questions (dizzy? nauseated? headache? allergies?). First examination, maybe it could be glued and not need stitches. Then moved to different room with brighter light, more cleaning of wound, no definitely will need stitches. Doctor is called, and sister-and-law and I wait. Then doctor comes in and asks all the questions all over again. Plus whether I am on medications, so I listed those. Turned out the blood pressure medication was relevant, because it means that Neurofen/Iboprufin is contra-indicated as a pain killer, as it can raise blood pressure. Good to know. Local anaesthetic. Wait for it to take effect, then wait a little longer as the doctor had to tend to another emergency. Then back, testing "Does this hurt? Does that?" and there was an OW in the midst of that, so another shot of local anaesthetic and another wait.
Then the stitches. Five, apparently. I don't know, I can't see the back of my head. She was kind and did not shave my hair off. But that means that a bandage won't stick to it, though I could have gotten one of those bandages they wrap around your whole head. Or I could put a towel on my pillow. I shall try the towel. Of course I shall be sleeping on my side, but I doubt I will stay on my side when I actually fall asleep. And I will need pain-killers tomorrow.
So then we went briefly back to brother's house to pick people up, then drove me back home, where Youngest Niece had already been dropped, then second brother and other sister-in-law dropped in to see how I was and to fuss over me, and then they went back to report to my father (they were staying with him) and youngest niece was really really helpful in getting some of the blood out of my hair (it wouldn't have mattered to me, except that my hair was sticking together and I couldn't brush it, which I needed to do in order to put it in plaits before bed).
While the whole accident was my own silly fault, I feel that God's providence was at work. I could have done this silly thing on some other occasion when I was visiting my eldest brother, and there might have been nobody out on the veranda to see me fall, there might have been only a few people around, and instead there were lots of people who could figure things out and take care of me while I was in shock. Not only that, but my youngest niece is staying with me, so she will be able to check up on me (in case I do develop symptoms of concussion). Not only that, but when the doctor said I could have the stitches out in 8-10 days, that I could come back there or have my regular doctor do it, I checked my calendar and guess when my next appointment with my regular doctor is? In exactly nine days time. Wow.
Today was Boxing Day. This year my family had decided to spread the Christmas celebration over two days, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Christmas Day was purely for food and talk. Boxing Day was for presents and games. And quite a few of the presents turned out to be games. Ah, my family. My eldest brother is so enamoured of Terraforming Mars that he keeps on buying me extensions for it.
And my slightly-improved-recipe Christmas Pudding Ice Cream (must update the recipe on the website) was a hit, yay.
So the new game I played was Azul, which was rather different from any other game I'd played. In a way, it's like a puzzle game where you try to maximize your points, but you're also playing with other people, and that can affect what resources you can use, because someone else may have picked them up first. So I played two games of that, then I went out to the veranda/deck (this was my eldest brother's place, they usually host family gatherings) to see what the other groups of people were doing. There were four groups of games going at once, two inside, and two outside on the veranda (it's a big deck kind of veranda, with room for a barbeque and a couple of tables... and a hammock). One group were playing Munchkin, and the other were playing Terraforming Mars. I sat down looking at the Terraforming Mars folks for a bit, but then I noticed the hammock and thought it would be nice to relax in.
Bad move. Very very very bad move. I was used to the kind of hammock which had stiff rods at the ends which spread out the hammock so that it was easier to get into. This was the other sort. So when I attempted to sit in it, I went flying backwards into the balustrade!
Sprawled down, ow ow ow, hand to the back of my head, hand comes away covered with blood. Gee, it actually is true that head wounds bleed profusely. Almost instantly, about half a dozen people fussing over me. Sitting up gingerly. Paper towel at the back of my head, someone else sponging the blood off my hands, the almost-paramedic looking into my eyes for concussion (and then admitting that he's a bit tipsy and can't really tell). Someone offering to call an ambulance. Other people saying no, one isn't needed, but she probably needs stitches. Discussion about what to do for me, local clinic or should we try Knox or Box Hill? Asking me if I feel dizzy. Four people helping me to my feet. Keeping pressure on the wadded up paper towel at the back of my head. Brother-in-law driving me and sister-in-law down to local clinic after someone had rung up to check if they were open and could they see me. Getting my details and then taking me to the nurse straight away. All the usual questions (dizzy? nauseated? headache? allergies?). First examination, maybe it could be glued and not need stitches. Then moved to different room with brighter light, more cleaning of wound, no definitely will need stitches. Doctor is called, and sister-and-law and I wait. Then doctor comes in and asks all the questions all over again. Plus whether I am on medications, so I listed those. Turned out the blood pressure medication was relevant, because it means that Neurofen/Iboprufin is contra-indicated as a pain killer, as it can raise blood pressure. Good to know. Local anaesthetic. Wait for it to take effect, then wait a little longer as the doctor had to tend to another emergency. Then back, testing "Does this hurt? Does that?" and there was an OW in the midst of that, so another shot of local anaesthetic and another wait.
Then the stitches. Five, apparently. I don't know, I can't see the back of my head. She was kind and did not shave my hair off. But that means that a bandage won't stick to it, though I could have gotten one of those bandages they wrap around your whole head. Or I could put a towel on my pillow. I shall try the towel. Of course I shall be sleeping on my side, but I doubt I will stay on my side when I actually fall asleep. And I will need pain-killers tomorrow.
So then we went briefly back to brother's house to pick people up, then drove me back home, where Youngest Niece had already been dropped, then second brother and other sister-in-law dropped in to see how I was and to fuss over me, and then they went back to report to my father (they were staying with him) and youngest niece was really really helpful in getting some of the blood out of my hair (it wouldn't have mattered to me, except that my hair was sticking together and I couldn't brush it, which I needed to do in order to put it in plaits before bed).
While the whole accident was my own silly fault, I feel that God's providence was at work. I could have done this silly thing on some other occasion when I was visiting my eldest brother, and there might have been nobody out on the veranda to see me fall, there might have been only a few people around, and instead there were lots of people who could figure things out and take care of me while I was in shock. Not only that, but my youngest niece is staying with me, so she will be able to check up on me (in case I do develop symptoms of concussion). Not only that, but when the doctor said I could have the stitches out in 8-10 days, that I could come back there or have my regular doctor do it, I checked my calendar and guess when my next appointment with my regular doctor is? In exactly nine days time. Wow.
no subject
no subject
no subject
On an unrelated note, how is Azul? I saw it earlier in the year and thought it looked like an interesting game.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I highly recommend Flash Point: Fire Rescue, coop for up to six players. It's quite a game and has some tough maps.
Picked up an interesting Polish two-player game in October called InBetween. It's sort of like the TV show Stranger Things, in a way - 'Dark Powers' are trying to take over Pleasentville. One player is the dark forces, the other is Pleasentville. Ten cards representing people in Pleasentville in a circle, five flipped to the dark side being nominally tainted, five on the good side being nominally good. Each player has their own deck of cards and take turns trying to make people irredeemably good or bad. Once a person has reached a certain level of dark or light, they cannot be turned back to the other side, and once so many people have been flipped to the dark or light, the game is won by that side. It has some very clever mechanics and since it has a lot more people than ten, you'll have a different mix every time you play. We quite liked it and look forward to playing it again, and it doesn't take a huge amount of space to play. It was also nicely priced at about $25US and in a small box.
I need to get some more work done on my new game design: it's proceeding nicely, but there's one major piece of the game that I've done zero work on I need to figure out how to represent in my database design. My perpetual problem is too many designs in progress, no playtesters to thrash them and see what works.
no subject
It certainly is a biggie, but epic games can be great fun when one has enough time to play them. It's one of those games where there are multiple winning strategies, and that a game can be really close. I also like that it isn't based on attacking the other players; yes, there are moves that you make that can mess with people, but you don't have to do that all the time.
I got my copy of Good Dog, Bad Zombie in a week or so before Christmas, it's a coop about dogs trying to save humans during the zombie apocalypse. Lots of fun.
Oh that does sound like fun!
I highly recommend Flash Point: Fire Rescue, coop for up to six players. It's quite a game and has some tough maps.
I think you have mentioned it before, and I keep on forgetting to look for it. It certainly sounds like a game I would enjoy.
Picked up an interesting Polish two-player game in October called InBetween.
That does sound like it would be a very replayable game.
I need to get some more work done on my new game design... My perpetual problem is too many designs in progress, no playtesters to thrash them and see what works.
Oh yeah. Playtesting is essential, since players are (a) going to bring up things you hadn't thought of and (b) show whether the game is well-balanced.
no subject
It gets played roughly every other day, but Richard also plays a lot of solo games. If I'm out for the evening, then he'll fit in several solo games while I'm gone.
We liked the extra map expansions, but Venus was a total loser and we only included it once or twice. Just got Prelude, only played once so far. I think that's going to be a so-so one. The extra corporations are interesting, but because we know the game so well it doesn't take that long to play, so an expansion to speed it up may actually be a minus.
no subject
no subject
My blog and the tags for FP are at: https://highaltitudegamedesign.wordpress.com/tag/flash-point/. I'm going to be reviewing Good Dog Bad Zombie and InBetween on it soon, probably next week.
Sorry about your head wound, I hope you're doing better! I brained myself on my storage pod the day we drove 500 miles to Phoenix before flying to Denver/Frankfurt/Berlin for our river cruise three years ago. Fortunately I didn't bleed, just massively stunned myself, and my wife was well-rested and able to do pretty much the entire drive solo while I slept. I came across a photo that we had a skycap take at the airport of my parents, wife and I, and the mark where I nailed myself is quite prominent!
I accidentally cut my thumb last December requiring two stitches, but because of nerve damage, anesthetic didn't work. So that was fun. I have a pretty high pain tolerance - good thing, too. Wore an aluminum splint when driving and sleeping and some activities that might result in thumb whapping, otherwise wore (effectively) a thumb condom for food prep or washing or anything involving possibly getting the cut wet. Sheer stupidity and ignoring basic knife safety.
So now we know to beware of hammocks and knife idiocy. :-)
no subject
Poor you, I hope you will heal fast. Get well soon - and may all the accidents stay in the old year and not follow you in the new one!
no subject
no subject
(As a sidenote, I didn’t realise you lived so close to me! Knox is my local hospital.)
no subject
no subject
But ouch! I doubt you have concussion when you're writing so well, but take it easy! I hope you get more family and game time in over the holidays.
no subject
Oh yeah, definitely!
I hope you get more family and game time in over the holidays.
That is certainly in the plans.
no subject
no subject
It is now just annoying. Particularly with trying to get to sleep without jostling the back of my head...
no subject
I hope you are better soon and it doesn't hurt too bad once the local wears off.
no subject
For "headdesk" read "headveranda"
Re: For "headdesk" read "headveranda"
Indeed, it could have been much worse, I could have been concussed.
Christmas story? Hmmmm. Like the one about my father cracking a tooth on Christmas Day and having to deal with a young inexperienced dentist at the dental hospital...
Re: For "headdesk" read "headveranda"
Re: For "headdesk" read "headveranda"