Happy Boxing Day 2024!

And Happy New Year's in advance, friends!

I hope everyone is having a brilliant holiday season! It has definitely been a fun and delicious celebration for me and my family, marked by a surprising amount of productivity in every area except reading (for a change, lol.)

I got a delightful amount of game playing done, starting with the Backstreet Boys x The Escape Game monthly mystery for December. The Christmas-themed virtual escape room was super cute! You have until the New Year to try it out and earn fun prizes, some of which are even BSB-themed.

I also got to play the Pokemon Trading Card Game for the first time in years! My eldest gladdened my heart this December when he said he was finally ready to play the TCG instead of just collecting the cards to admire and, sigh, price. Toward the end of actually learning to play, we ordered the Scarlet & Violet Build & Battle Stadium. Hilariously, we wound up relying on a playmat from an older set of Sun & Moon I’d bought when he first expressed interest in the cards to actually figure out the rules. I’m not sure I love the 40-card Build & Battle format, but it definitely helped us learn how to play.

Christmas game of Pokemon! Did I let him win? Do you even know me?!

I let Jms pick out which deck he wanted to start with and which he wanted me to play. He kept the Pawmot deck for himself, and handed me the Quaquavel. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I actually enjoyed using abilities to cycle through this deck (I tend to hate draw decks in Magic The Gathering,) and how my MVP turned out to be the free evolving Scatterbug → Spewpa → Vivillon, which wrecked his annoying endless Tatsugiri strategy. Jms’ task now is to build competitive 60-card decks for us to try out against each other, tho I think it’s going to take him a while longer to get into that aspect of the game.

I also did a watercolor exercise when I found myself with a little free time on Christmas. I decided to do both sides of the exercise at the same time, with slightly different artistic choices:

There are definitely bits of each I appreciate more but mostly I’m pleased at how much I’m learning and, dare I say it, improving.

I’m genuinely surprised that I’ve only finished reading three books this past week, but I’ve read way too much this year anyway, so it’s probably for the best that I’m ramping down. I really enjoyed reading but perhaps more importantly cooking from Thibaud Villanova & Stephanie Simbo’s Gastronogeek: The Book Of Potions. The Pennyworth’s Vichyssoise from it was so good, I made a second batch immediately after the first! Recipe and photos at the link above.

I also enjoyed the game-centric fiction that was Marisha Pessl’s Darkly, about a teenager trying to uncover the mystery behind an eccentric board game maker’s final creation. I’ve adored Ms Pessl since her brilliant debut novel Special Topics In Calamity Physics, and wish that a company like Darkly Games actually existed (and was capable of raking in a bajillion dollars!) Which, ofc, reminds me that I need to get cracking on the many puzzle/mystery/escape games piled up around the house. I’m not allowed to buy more till I finish some of these, after all!

Gosh, I can barely believe it’s Thursday, and the last Thursday of the year, no less! Happy New Year in advance, and see you in seven, friends!

Currently Playing (Music): Mozart’s Prague Symphony; my Declan Rice and RHJ playlists; Young Miko’s att.; Kendrick Lamar’s GNX; Chappell Roan’s Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess; Nelly Furtado’s Loose.

Currently Playing (Games): The Light In The Mist puzzletale, The Wild Beyond The Witchlight, Metazooa by Trainwreck Labs, Learned League trivia, NYT Connections, Pokemon TCG.

Currently Reading/Writing (Games): Ghosts Of Saltmarsh.

Currently Reading or Just Read (Books): The Estate by Sarah Jost; Gastronogeek: The Book Of Potions by Thibaud Villanova & Stephanie Simbo; Darkly by Marisha Pessl.