Maebius Musings

My 5yr old son has been really enjoying “game night” on some evenings, and yet our collection is limited to CandyLand, Chutes&Ladders and such for kid-games, or RISK/Monopoly/Chess for more adult games (beyond the ubiquitous Video Games),…. and I’m looking for something a bit more middle-ground.

Kid-friendly but not as easy/boring as Candyland.

He kinda likes UNO, but card games are tougher since he can’t hold the cards properly.  Things like Poker/solitaire/Snap/ don’t quite hold his interest as much mainly due to the whole “hold all your cards” thing.   From what I recall, even the cheap-ass cad games are different enough from “card games” with 4 suits, etc,  that they might be a nice change of pace.   He’s even gotten the concepts of playing FLUXX, which is sometimes too hard, and sometimes too easy, depending on the rules we use.  Still, it’s just cards, which has limited appeal after a while.

Thus,  I’m just looking around mainly for rules-sets online to create our own cheap version of some games.  I had thought something Catan-lite or Carcassonne might be interesting enough for him, or a simplified tabletop RPG/Warhammer type thing might be interesting… but unsure.

Since some of my readers probably have played more of those types of games than I have lately, would you suggest any particular style/name of a game for a very intelligent and awesome 5 year old?

Just thinking out loud, no pressure to provide rule-lists or such. I am mostly looking for inspiration and perhaps a game-name to look up or some-such.  :)
Any thoughts?

One game I created on my own last autumn, which we loved to death for a while, I called “Early bird catches the worm”.

Basically, the game board was a simple “move X# spaces” based on a die roll.  The “start” was up in a tree, and the “finish” was a hole in the ground, with the path of spaces winding through the branches, across the clouds, and down to the ground… all drawn in pen/highlighter on the back of those big desk-size calendar sheets from corporate workplaces.

All players were birds, and the unique catch was having separate game-piece (hunk of play-dough) which started 8-10 spaces away from the finish line and represented the worm. (where the tree-trunk intersected the ground).  Each round, players would roll the die, and move the appropriate number of spaces.  After each player went once, the worm would move one space ahead.

If the ‘worm’ reached the finish before any of the player/birds, no one wins.  Otherwise, first bird to catch the worm won.

This was simple, fun, and the additional non-player worm make an interesting addition to the usual “first one to end wins” and caused great fun and giggles when the birds won and ate the worm.   Of course, over the course of playing this, we added a few house rules like one space that gave you a twig which could be dropped on the worm to make it lose a turn, a feather that let you swoop ahead three spaces, birdseed on hte ground that made you lose a turn, and all manner of “extra complications”.

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I admit, I still have a few TV shows that I enjoy watching.   This time of year, it is “So You Think you Can Dance“, on FOX.

Very much related to the apparently more popular “American Idol”, this show starts with tryouts from around the country, with people dancing a short routine of their choice on stage.   The best ones get sent to Las Vegas for the “finals”.

Then, starting with the top 20, each person is coupled randomly with another, is given a semi-random style of dance, and works with a correographer to learn the routine in time for next week’s show.   I am in total awe of the contestants each year.  Singing never held my attention, but even the “worst of the best” dancers are amazing to watch.  My body can only dream of their talents.

So, during this time of the year, my ONLY television viewing is consumed by Reality TV.   I admit it.  

Still, when the opening week showcasing the top 20 has two people with diverse backgrounds who get paired up for “Bollywood” and dance an amazing performance of Jai Ho.  I’m in awe.

Jai Ho

They learned this in 4 days?!    wow.

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Inspiration From my Hops Bine about Life
Written over the weekend, while working night-shift at work, and conceptually inspired during the Full “Strawberry” Moon while I sat outside staring at the sky.

The spring warmth and fires of inspiration call to your mind, stirring you to action, towards results, towards your Goal.  Softly, yet with the speed of new-found excitement, you spread the first green leaves of purpose out, collecting the sun, gathering energy for the final project, and setting the groundwork for the work to come.

Your roots, anchor in the the landscape of your life, drawing in the richness that surrounds you.  Harnessing the bounty of Gaia.  The minerals, the organic life that has gone before you, fueling your fire, holding you as you reach out towards Creation.

And reach out you do.  Tendrils of greenery, seeking purchase on the supports placed around your life.  Climbing, ever upwards towards your results, and enveloping the potential with ever-growing leaves.

Summer stretches onward, and your goal is in sight.  The efforts of the climb are not in vain, and have graced you with vibrant energy, from the sun, from the earth, from the winds, from the rain even.  Brief storms have only thickened the vines you cling with, and the hot dry days only illuminate your leaves further.

Days, weeks, months even may pass, but time passes and you persevere.

The first buds sprout out, in joyous celebration.  The energy you harnessed is confirmed to form. Your goal, whatever it may have been in this analogy of life, is finally at hand.

Creation happens.

You flower.

…

The wind turns cooler, and rains frequent the ground you grow upon.    You reap the harvest of your actions.

Snows may come, blanketing the core of you.  Seeming to bring death to those vines which prospered so recently and bore fruits and flowers.   But death to those simple vines merely paves the way.   Winter is a mere sleep, a regathering of light, and a watering of the earth you lie upon.  Your roots remain strong and vibrant.

While the harvest you created is lost to Time’s relentless arrow, it lives on in memory and muse.

One day, soon, spring will dawn again.

A new project inspires you.

You flower again.

..and again.

Timeless.

this is magic.

-Maebius   @2009

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Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit down and idle when it comes to World of Warcraft, until about a week or so ago.  That changed.  Warning to those reading still, this is kinda a gloating “I ROCK” post full of links to gear and in-game stuff for World of Warcraft.

Before I posted the prior entry about idling my healer, I had gotten an invite to help heal a 25-man NAXX raid.  For those not knowing the game, this is kinda a Big Deal.  Naxxramas is one of the end-game dungeons and requires 10 people to run normally.  The Heroic version requires 25 people, and a certain level of gear and skill to succeed.  That, plus taking hours and hours, and is usually broken down into a few nights at a time, since you are saved to it for a week and can re-enter to attempt more bosses a few days after you first enter it.

The folks who whispered me needed an off-healer, and were folks I had run with what felt like YEARS ago.  They used Ventrillo (a voice chat program) to coordinate things.  We went in, explained the fights to a few folks who also were new to the place, and proceeded to die a few times, but otherwise killed some bosses (earning achievement: Momma said Knock you out).  Kanandi also is now wearing some new gloves a new ring, and new bracers too. (I did feel bad grabbing three awesome upgrades in one night, but everyone else was already geared up, or the wrong class).

They asked me back a few nights later, and offered to have me join their guild.   I explained that Kanandi only gets online once or twice a week lately, and I’m poor in-game thus can not get all the best enchants and gems.  You know, all the stuff that being a Real Raider(tm) requires?

They scoffed jokingly and said essentially: “Too bad, you are invited anyway.  We’ll gear you up and it will give those lazy enchanters an excuse to go farm up their own materials to make your gear sparkle.  That, plus it’s apparent you have at least a bit of skill, which is nice, and are friendly, which is even better.  Don’t worry about it!”

Thus, this weekend and last night, I got my noobish butt dragged through a few end-game instances, including Obsidian Sanctum (10-man place one step up from Naxx!).  There, with me being tank healer and one other tree-druid on the raid, I was literally quaking in my boots hoping I could keep folks alive.   The fight in OS  is one that requires strategy.   On the way to the boss, there are small dragons that spawns portals periodically which you must jump inside (thus out of phase with reality, and the other enemies).  during hte boss fight there are fire elementals that appear from time to time and start smacking around random people until they get rounded up, and there are flame walls that sweep across the field and must be avoided.

I am happy to report that I was feeling the Flow those two evenings. (Less is More!)  I moved out of the fire, I moved out of the pancakes, and avoided flaming elementals, while still spamming my awesome PewPew lazor heals on folks who needed them.  It felt Awesome!   This was also noticed by the others, who I could almsot picture looking smug as they stood alive after the fights:  “See, you rock, thanks for joining us!”.

However, the title of this post is two-fold…

Not only did I switch guilds, the original guildleader of my new guild left just a few days after I joined.    I don’t know the whole story, and don’t need to, but I was there in Vent when he discussed the transfer and I must say it was kinda neat to hear.    Apparently, there was some issues in real-life, where the Guildmaster and one of the officers worked together.  This strained things somehow, and since the officer had many many friends in the guild, it was decided that the Leader would pass the torch.  The founder/Leader was giving up what he had created over a year ago, and had groomed to the well-oiled machine I was seeing, and passing it on so that the other group of loyal folks would not fragment.

It was somber and heart-felt, with much respectful questioning or discussion.  I could tell it was a thought-out decision for the best of the whole, when it was equally obvious the leader himself was losing something dear to his heart.

It’s just a game, some may say, but I disagree, and have before.

We all invest time and energy to the characters we created, and the draw of why I enter is much more for the people within the world, than the pixels themselves.   As a glorified chat-room, as some describe it, it still has value.

For some, it becomes a job.  For some it’s just a way to pass time.
But for others, like this new guild, it is quite apparent that it is Family.

“Aka’Magosh!“, to the former leader of  “Hand of Doom“.  May the Earthmother protect you always…

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*UPDATE* it seems the new blog feed worked!  approx 15 minutes after publishing the post here, my RSS reader lit up with “new bost on Maebius Musing”.   w00t!

As the first actual post to be entered in the new WordPress site, I figured I would keep it simple. That, plus it’s been a while since I updated here, due to technical difficulties, life-events, and other such things.

On the World of Warcraft game, my priestess healer has been at max-level for quite a while, and is all-but retired lately, other than to craft new bags for any alts, or sometimes join a few instance dungeons whne I’m feeling like being online for more than an hour or so.   Otherwise, my troll hunter Nookni just turned lvl 79 and is slowly working his way up to lvl 80.    Besides Nookni, still working slooooowly on Pohatu the druid, hoping to get him to lvl 40 by the end of June.  I’m only logging in about an hour or two, a few times a week, but not nearly as much time as usual, or necessary to actually concentrate on levelling up and such.  I’ve semi-lost interest in the meta-game itself, and just enjoy logging in to unwind before bed, alone, just me and my pixels, solo in an MMO.

The garden is doing good so far, with everything planted, and the only thing left is to allow the passage of time.  Very few weeds so far this year, and what did start to pop up got nipped in the sproutling stage so far.  My son’s been helping with that chore too, since he learned about gardens in schoool and now understands hte interest in making sure the plants grow so we get food later in the autumn.    Unfortunately, all the squash/zucchini plants wilted overnight on Monday for some unknown reason, since all the other plants were fine.

Once the full moon rolls around, I plan on re-starting my outdoor MoonMuse experiment, and document such thoughts every single day.  Wish me luck.

Spiritually, I’ve been in a bit of a funk myself.  Blogs have been quiet, which seems to indicate either the feeling is shared among those I read, or life got exciting for everyone too.  Either way, it’s interesting pattern, though potentially unrelated, since it is also exam time for school-age folks, and vacation season for us family-types.

Nothing great to report lately.  However nothing overtly bad either, outside of a few ‘cryptic’ events to some good friends that we are still sending energy too until the situation resolves or re-balances out.

For now, for me,  it’s good enough to be just good enough.

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UPDATE: Site has now been completely migrated to the new location. I lost a few of the most recent entries here (Day 9, Day10, and Day11) but they were short unimportant posts in the large scale. I’ll be re-doing my month-long outdoor zen experiment next moon-cycle. I’m still spending time outside now, but not blogging about it on a daily basis due to the issues here recently.

After a few days of research by my web-host, we discovered the database for the blog was slightly corrupt, which is what was causing the RSS feed errors.

I tried to re-create the entire blog from an old backup, wiping it and re-uploading the entries, but the RSS still is borked. This means a post, or blog entry, or comment somewhere in the past has some sort of weirdness going on with it, which essentially broke the feed from that point forward.

In order to figure out where, I am in the process of making a second blog database, and copying over each post one at a time, to see where it stops working. We think it was a spam comment or an accidental mis-type in a user comment, since first glance at the entry database itself looks clean.

Thus, at worst case, I will have to wipe the comments from the older blog entries, and manually re-enter a few of the better and important-to-the-discussion ones myself. If this fixes things, I will direct this blog to the other database, and copy over the theme and other style sheet files so it looks the same as this version.

Keep your fingers crossed. I hope to have RSS functionality again in the next few days Currently working again, YAY!.

PS: send my friend Nettle any extra warm fuzzies and strength if you have some extra fuzz. She’s being a mighty battle-druid in a stressful life-situation I am not at liberty to expand upon. Suffice it to say, I’m sending her as many good vibes as I can this week.

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