HoodedHawk

Entertainment


 

Actors playing as real live rock band before the play.

 
Saturday night – Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. Wonderful production of Titus Andronicus in the new indoor venue for Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore.  They had a live rock band play before the show and during intermission, as well as doing the music during the play.  The were great!  

This was my first time seeing Titus Andronicus, and they did a wonderful job.  I took my teenage son- ‘yeah, Dad, it didn’t suck’.  High praise!  

I saw Much Ado About Nothing here with my younger son last month, and we already have tickets to Macbeth in the spring.  

rollforthegalaxy


I have never played Race for the Galaxy (the game upon which this one is based), but the new Roll For The Galaxy game was intriguing on it’s own because: I like dice, world building, worker placement and only minor attacking/screwage. I just finished a play with my 16-year old. Easy game to learn, and I enjoyed it (my teen hates all non-video games so his opinion is moot).

I didn’t think it was too random as you can mitigate your dice rolls via a “reassign” option as well as by making sure you have a lot of dice to play with. When you explore, you have the option of abandoning world/development tiles you no longer want to build so you can pull X+1 tiles to explore (X = number you abandon). Thus you can change your strategy on the fly if your dice rolls just ain’t working.

I like that you secretly roll and assign (and reassign) your dice. You never know what phases will be available this turn (depends on what each person selects), but you *can* ensure at least one phase (explore/build/produce/ship) of your choice will happen.

Box says 45 min, and that is about right after 1st (learning ) game. We finished in a little over an hour. Plus, the back of the player screens is a summary of all the rules, so…

Now, my son beat me handily by sitting on a world and simply using all his dice to produce one round and ship them all the next. I was not paying attention to this as I didn’t have any worlds to produce (he started with one (dealt randomly). This net him anywhere from 2-4 VP per shipment (i.e. every other round). In a 2-player game, it ends when 24 VP markers are used up. He was at 13 (to my 5) when I noticed!

BUT I reread the rules after the game, and we played WRONG: you can only produce ONE good per world, not X! So no way he would have racked up so many VP to end the game and win, at max 1VP per round (if good dice). 1VP every 2 rounds with bad dice. There are worlds/dice combos that let you earn up to 3 VP per shipment, but…Lesson learned.

All actions are taken simultaneously by all players, so it should be about the same amount of time 3-5 players. The only area for analysis paralysis would be dice allocation (and maybe choosing a tile if you pulled more than one or two).

I will definitely be playing again. You deal each player a starting tile and a homeworld at random (from one of 9 of each, so like 81 possible starting combos). Then there are over 50 double-sided tiles (development on one side, world on the other) you can Explore. Lots of variability/replay.

Xia:  Legends of a Drift System

We got a three-person play of Xia: Legends of a Drift System in last weekend at Andy’s. Steve and I are willing to give it another go; this was a short “learning” game to only 5 VP (about an hour or so). Next play we will give it the full treatment, at least 15-20 VP and use the non-player controlled “dummy” factions.

Preston and I went to see “As You Like It” by the Shakespeare Theater Company in D.C. on Saturday. This was my first time at this venue, the Lansburgh Theatre. Great theater; small and intimate (I think it only holds 500?). Ok, 500 may not be intimate, but it is small by some standards. The Shakespeare Company makes a few free tickets available for some (all?) of the shows on a first-come basis. I got lucky and snagged some – when we arrived and got the tickets at will call they were great: ~5th row, center!

Preston had a perfect view. The only issue I had was parking – this is in downtown DC after all. But we managed to find a parking garage a couple of blocks away, and made it to our seats just as the curtain rose! Perfect timing.

After the play we went next door to Jaleo for dinner.

This was Preston’s first exposure to Spanish tapas, and he was a trooper and tried a bunch of different tapas. He liked the presentation of the Croquetas de Pollo (traditional chicken fritters), but was not a fan of the taste. They surprised me too, as the interior (while tasty) had the consistency of thick clam chowder. Why are they served in a sneaker?

He loved the Gambas al ajillo (shrimp sauteed with garlic), though he did comment that they were a bit spicy. He chowed down on the bread they came with.

He tried the Chorizo casero con pure de patatas al aceite de oliva (house made traditional chorizo with olive oil mashed potatoes and cider sauce), but really liked the mashed potatoes (we ordered more on the side).

Finally, he tried the Pollo al ajillo con salsa verde (grilled marinated chicken with parsley puree and garlic sauce). This was a nice grilled chicken; I really liked the salsa verde (almost like a parsley pesto).

I liked them all, my favorite being either the chorizo/mashed or the shrimp (great spicy sauce). I probably won’t get Croquetas de Pollo again, though. :)

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