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Anniversaries
It occurred to me just now that the Scientist and I have known each other for over a quarter of a century. When we met, I wasn’t even that old and wouldn’t have fathomed knowing anyone for that long. Wow!
So it shouldn’t really come as such a surprise that we’ve been married (as of Sunday) eighteen years. I remember it was a gorgeous, sunny day with deep blue sky. And I remember passing by Saturday grocery shoppers as we arrived at the “church”, which was temporarily located in the shopping center while a building was being constructed. The ceremony itself is a bit of a blur in my memory, although remnants of a talk about the Velveteen Rabbit stick in my mind a bit. There was a reception at a small country club (ironically, the temporary home of another church our family attended before it was built). I remember a Glenn Miller song or two playing and my a speech that which sounded a bit alien from rather quiet father. Then we were at my parents’ house, being waved off by family and friends as we left for a honeymoon in my car, which was covered with writing in chalk (I think) which left its slight mark long after the message was gone. After driving three hours, we arrived at our bed and breakfast in Asheville and were rather impressed by the grandeur of our accommodation for the next couple of nights. Just the two of us for the next couple of days relaxing and enjoying each others’ company. And before we knew it, our brief honeymoon was over and we were headed back. All the excitement was over in a relative flash.
We celebrated this year by another Fremantle visit with lunch at the Mexican Kitchen. We’d never been there before although it has been calling out for us as many years as I can remember. Lunch was delicious, with the food being pretty close to what I associate with Mexican food back home. I had a  Mexi-plate with a taco, enchilada and flauta while the Scientist enjoyed a burrito. Dessert was pretty underwhelming, with a flan listed on the menu that didn’t seem to exist and a “Mexican mud cake” that was just a chocolate cake with some nice vanilla ice cream. We followed with a visit to the chocolateria where I think I reached my chocolate limit. No disappointment in my churros or the Scientist’s black forest trifle. All yummy! A long walk back to the car helped work off a tiny fraction of the calories and we were on our way home again. It’s very nice that the boys have reached an age where we can leave them home and go out alone. A freedom that I know I never appreciated until it was gone for several years and then regained.
Anyway, I am quite thankful for all the memories the Scientist and I have had together, in the eighteen years and for the many years before. Happy Anniversary to my dear Scientist!
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Another year
Note: I started this five or six weeks ago.
Last week I completed my forty-sixth year. It seems such a big number when written out. To me, it’s just another step along the road to my half-century. There are still four more years until I get to ponder how I feel about being fifty. As it is, my forties seem to be flying past.
Last year, I spent much of my birthday doing as I do every day. So this year I wanted to mix it up a bit. The Scientist took the day off from work and we all went down to Fremantle for lunch and a walk around the city. It was looking a bit iffy as to whether Game Fanatic would be up to the rigours of a day in the city but he decided he would join us, which made me very happy.
We arrived in Freo around noon and parked in our usual location near the Fremantle Arts Centre, which left a bit of a hike to our destination. The Scientist did offer to park closer and avoid tired feet but I was happy to walk. And so we did. In fact, I made the journey even longer than it had to be by choosing a path that took us down near the quay to take the footpath towards Fishing Boat Harbour, where we were eating lunch at Kailis Brothers Fish Market and Cafe. I had eaten breakfast already but I think this was going to be the first meal of the day for all of the guys. The walk from the car had us all worked up to a great appetite.
When we arrived, we were all ravenously hungry and I was feeling a bit dizzy and unsteady as we stopped inside at a table. It was quite a warm day and it was a bit on the sticky side inside so I chose to move our seating place to a location under a ceiling fan, which was far more comfortable, temperature-wise. We normally order all our food from the cafe end of the establishment, mainly because we never quite noticed that we could order meals at the fish market end. It’s a bit of a strange set up that isn’t very well suited to families. Fortunately, it wasn’t that crowded so was not the hassle it might be on a busier day. The Scientist and I got barramundi and chips with salad, Then he ordered food for the kids at the cafe end. The food was quite good, and the barramundi was a nice treat for a special day. I think we were all quite satisfied with our meals but the best was yet to come,
We all walked on to San Churros Chocolateria for a bit of a chocolate feast for dessert. Churros are the featured treat but all matter of chocolate delights are available. I had a chocolate milkshake with dark chocolate and it was quite scrumptious. The Scientist and Lego Lover had sundaes and Game Fanatic had bits and pieces off a tapas tray we had ordered to share. In hindsight, I think less would have been better because having so many different types of chocolate was a bit overkill. But it was all quite delicious.
The last time I was in Fremantle, I noticed the Roundhouse for the first time and had wanted to see it more closely in the future. So we spent most of the remaining time there. The Roundhouse was the first permanent building in Western Australia and was built as a gaol.
This is the view we had walking up to the Roundhouse from Fremantle city.
We walked through the tunnel at the bottom to the beach at the other side and it was wonderfully cool inside due to a strong breeze passing through.
Looking back into the tunnel from the ocean side.
The Scientist and I went up into the upper part of the Roundhouse structure while the boys chose to wait outside. Entrance was by gold coin donation and volunteers act as guides to the building. An enthusiastic elderly gentleman happily shared all he knew about the Roundhouse.Most of the view from within the Roundhouse was of the courtyard between the cells.
There is also a stockade on the opposite side that wasn’t used as a stockade. Apparently it was only used for whippings, to keep the prisoner from moving around. The Scientist tried it out and found it quite unnerving for the very short time he was there.
I wasn’t able to get any decent photos of the cells, but they were quite small cubicles with barely enough room to lie down and sleep. Also, there are no windows in the cells. The ones visible are for the quarters of the family of the jailer, who lived in the Roundhouse.
Outside this area is watch tower sort of place with a cannon that faces out to the ocean.
After looking at the view, we left the Roundhouse and started walking back to the car. It was nearly mid-afternoon and was quite warm, so our progress was slow. The footpath that goes alongside the Roundhouse also borders some railway tracks for freight train lines going out of Fremantle.
In the background, to the right, is either an apartment or unit (condo) complex that was built in a renovated old building. The units on upper levels probably have some nice views of the harbour and/or ocean.
As we took the more direct route back to the car, we passed by the old Wool Store building, which is looking particularly decrepit these days. Many of the surrounding old buildings have been renovated but this is just an eyesore. It is located just across from the passenger terminal for cruise ships docking in Fremantle and it’s not’s a nice view.
We saw some very tall gum trees with smooth, white bark as we nearly reached our destination. I believe this is just outside the Fremantle Art Centre.
We were all ready to drop by the time we reached the car. But there was little relief for the Scientist, who had the hour of driving in peak hour traffic ahead of him.
We got home in the late afternoon and my mother-in-law dropped by a little later to see me. Even though we’d had plenty of chocolate already, the Scientist went out and bought small mud cake for a bit more celebration. My big gift this year was a Kinect for the Xbox 360 (which technically belongs to Game Fanatic). We moved the sofa out of the way so we would have space to try that out and it was a lot of fun. It was obvious from the start that even the Kinect Adventures program that goes with the device can provide some good exercise. The Kinect gift actually set in motion a new tv purchase and a major overhaul of the games room where my computer table is situated. If I remember I will post a bit more about that later. The boys gave me a double dvd set of Arj Barker, an American comedian who is quite popular here in Australia. I was also given money and a photo frame from other family members. And just last week, I received a pillowcase that my mom made out of the fabric she used on a robe for me earlier as a belated gift.
All in all, it was a really nice birthday and I really loved having the Scientist and the boys share it with me.
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Red letter day
Yesterday was a family version of what some might call a red letter day. The excitement has been building for months, heightening in the past few weeks. March 10th was the date of release for not one, but two very important games. That was specifically the case for Game Fanatic, who was enthusiastic for both. Both he and Lego Lover have been awaiting the release of Pokémon Black and White for nearly a year. Game Fanatic also had a copy of Dragon Age 2 on pre-order at EB Games and had definite ideas of how the day would go once he got his copy.
The pre-order turned out to be a major mistake because the retailer kept changing the price so that the final price to pay was quite a bit higher than the advertised price. It now occurs to me that had the price been paid in full when the product was reserved, he would have got the lower price. Lesson learned. The shop was supposed to contact us to advise the product was in, but this didn’t happen at all. I finally telephoned at noon to be told it was in and that I should have been notified.
The boys got ready and we went off to the shopping center to make purchases. There was a bit of a crowd in EB Games when we arrived and we had to wait for about ten or fifteen minutes to be served. Once the product was in hand, the sales dude tried to sell several other products, none of them related to the game being purchased. Â Payment was made and we moved on to see about the Pokemon games.
We got to the store that had advertised the best price on Pokémon yesterday, only to find no copies on the shelf. In fact, there were none in stock. There was something about floods preventing the train, which held the precious cargo, from crossing from the east into our isolated capital. There was something of a sense of déja vu about it since this is a similar story to what we’ve heard for other highly anticipated video games in the past. (It  hasn’t always been a flood, but is often a train derailment that is to blame.) We moved on to the store with the next best price to hear the same story. It was also revealed that the other major discount retailer was in the same situation, along with JB HiFi, one of the major resellers of video games locally.
I don’t know why, but EB Games always has games in stock on the day, no matter whether there has been a train delay due to derailment/floods/some other crisis or not. I don’t know how they manage this when so many other stores fail to get theirs. Maybe all the stores get their shipments from the same cargo load.
I already knew the games were in stock at EB Games since several people had picked up copies that had been pre-ordered. They were charging $21 more than the lowest price though. We were in a stuck situation because Lego Lover just had to have his game on the day and he was willing to pay the extra since that’s what he had originally set aside from his budget anyway. Game Fanatic tried very hard to persuade him to wait but he would not be swayed. I wasn’t happy about it but was not stopping him spending extra if that’s really what he wanted. We had an appointment not too far in the future so we got the game at a higher price. Game Fanatic was quite distressed by this chain of events and was far more upset than anyone else, even though he had not been directly affected.
We came home and Lego Lover immediately started playing his new game. The night before, he’d stayed up late working on school work so that he’d be free to play all day yesterday. He happily played for many hours with the occasional break. Game Fanatic had a doctor appointment to attend so delayed setting his game up due to lack of time. When we returned, he got properly started and played for many hours into the evening.
Because this was such a special day, Game Fanatic asked to have his favorite meal, a rice pilaf sort of dish (with chickpeas, mushrooms, potato and Spanish chorizo sausage), to celebrate and I obliged him. Fortunately, I can now make the dish fairly easily with our pressure cooker and it doesn’t heat up the kitchen these days. The Scientist and I even got a bottle of fancy sparkling apple juice to aid in the celebration since Game Fanatic likes it so much. I will point out that Lego Lover isn’t much concerned about special foods for this sort of occasion and he doesn’t like any of the foods prepared so had an alternative. And we forgot about the apple drink last night so didn’t have that until today.
I know for a fact that Lego Lover had a great day. And I think Game Fanatic had an overall good day even though he gets a bit caught up in the negative details at times.
Since Game Fanatic was keen to get his own copy of Pokémon, I did some calling around this morning to work out if any other shops had copies now available. This included one phone call where I spent ages on hold while waiting to be transferred, only to have phone disconnect when the call finally got through. Eventually I worked out that Dick Smith Electronics did have copies available, and at just a couple dollars higher than the cheapest price. This absolutely sickened me because they had a store in the same shopping center and quite possibly did have them in stock when we were there. Just meters from the EB Games store, in fact. I never considered them because I thought I’d seen them advertise a much higher price. And I didn’t think of them at all when we ran into supply issues elsewhere. Today, that store didn’t have any stock available but another one nearby did. The Scientist phoned them and reserved a copy. Game Fanatic and I left soon afterwards and were there in less than twenty minutes. So today, Game Fanatic has been switching back and forth from one game to another and seems reasonably content.
Since it was my stupid lack of thought that cost Lego Lover the extra money, I gave him back $20 of the extra he had paid. He shrugged his shoulders and stashed it with his other money in an old Bionicle box. He is still quite happy with his new game.
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Australia Day
We don’t tend to do anything big  (aside from the occasional picnic at the beach) for Australia Day in our family and this year was not much different than previous ones. I went out in the morning to take G, a family friend, to his aqua aerobics class. Normally we go in the evening but the pool closed early for the holiday and that class was cancelled. The Scientist had a cricket match to entertain him much of the day although it doesn’t seem to have been as entertaining as he’d like since Australia played so poorly. For the kids, it wasn’t particularly different than most summer days…just hanging around and doing usual things.
When I returned home I put potatoes on to boil for the potato salad requested by Game Fanatic. Once those had cooked, I left them to cool and went  to bed to read and/or nap. I’ve had a habit of waking up a bit too early lately and never quite get enough sleep. Maybe my body is making up for all the sleep I had post-surgery? Anyway, the nap never happened but I did finish a big book that had been demanding my attention. I then set about preparing most of the rest of the food. The kids had requested peri-peri chicken since we’d had that last week and both boys had enjoyed it. Even Lego Lover liked it despite it being really hot. Game Fanatic seems to have a standing request of cornbread, whether it’s Independence Day, Thanksgiving or Australia Day.
When I went to get started, I found that our refrigerator was a bit too full of foodstuffs that shouldn’t be there. There was no space to put the potato salad to cool or anything else, for that matter. I spent an hour or so clearing out things and emptying jars and filling a couple garbage bags. There comes a point where you don’t even know you have certain foods because you can’t get to them and that’s where we were. There is still a shelf with sauces, pastes, etc. that needs to be sorted out but most of the rest looks pretty decent now. Once that was cleared, preparing the rest was a lot more straightforward. Eating time ended up pushed back to 6:30 because the food only got finished around 6pm and we had stopped to watch a favorite program at 6pm. So we had our picnic in the backyard and it was quite pleasant, especially as the temperature was unusually cool for this time of year. We finished off with store bought lamingtons which only just filled the requirements as they were bite-sized and not terribly fresh, but were not bad either. Next year we will plan a bit better and either buy from the bakery ahead of time, or make our own.
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A couple years ago or so, my uncle had a stroke which caused significant damage. He spent some time in the hospital and then was sent home to be cared for by his wife. He was not a very good patient and didn’t really do what he needed in order to improve life. His condition deteriorated and he was moved into a nursing home about a year ago. His quality of life has been quite poor over the last several months while his health continued to fail. I heard that my dad was looking to buy a suit a few weeks ago because he thought he might need it soon. I got the news that my uncle died yesterday in the nursing home. Dad never did find a suit so he will just make due with what he has. He’s flying off to Pennsylvania in a few hours and the funeral is on Friday.
My dad was the youngest of three children in his family. His mother died when he was a teenager. His father died about 30 years ago. His sister died a few years ago and now his brother is gone. While he has been expecting this for some time, I can imagine the reality is still quite hard, especially since he is now the last of his immediate family. Fortunately, this means the end of two years of a poor quality of life for my uncle and a chance for his wife, my aunt, to move on with her life.
RIP, Uncle J.
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Wish lists and Forbidden Island
It has been customary in the last several years for Game Fanatic to make wish lists for both his birthday and Christmas that include photos, prices and retailer options to aid us in buying gifts that won’t disappoint and won’t take him too much by surprise. He’s not very big on surprises. Anyway, he made a list for his birthday in September but it was considerably shorter than in past years. There was a game he wanted that wasn’t due to be released until the week following his birthday so he planned to put aside birthday money towards that purchase. Unfortunately the game date was pushed back and was only released early last month. He finally got his very much desired game. After that game, he didn’t think there was much that interested him so he decided to let go of the “list’ and allow us to choose things for him. He did eventually point out some things that interested him in the video/music/game shop near us but no list was made. And by the time he finally made known what interested him, the Scientist and I had already made a few purchases.
One of the gifts we chose was the game Forbidden Island that we found in one of the game shops we visited while Christmas shopping. I remember seeing this on Board Game Geek at some point before it was released and it sounded like it might be a good game for us to eventually try. And since it sported a Mensa Select sticker, we thought it might be a good game for Game Fanatic, who is quite good at some of the thinking games. So Christmas Day came and it became apparent early on that being taken by surprise was not a good idea and Game Fanatic was kind of disappointed with his gifts. We did half expect this and offered to return gifts for refunds so he could choose what he wanted. Forbidden Island was one that looked as thought it was going back at this point. Surprisingly, Game Fanatic decided a while later that he would give the game a chance after all. I think the problem was that it took him by surprise.
The nice thing about Forbidden Island is that it doesn’t require a long playing time like so many of the other games we own. So this was the reason we gave this one a try last night when it was already getting kind of late. After the exhausting hours spent on Agricola the night before, this was an absolute delight. Set up is quite easy and it took only a few minutes to work out the game play. Game Fanatic took to this one from the start and it really suits his thinking style, so much that he was working out strategy throughout the game. This is one of only a few cooperative games we own so it was a nice change to be playing together. We ended up with an unlucky draw of the cards at the start that made it pretty difficult to win but we gave it a good shot anyway. While we didn’t win,  we all had fun the whole way through and weren’t utterly exhausted at the end like the night before. I’m sure we’ll be giving this game a lot of use in the future since it’s a simple and quick game that is a lot of fun to play.
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Agricola
When I was in the US back in June, I went on a bit of a buying frenzy for board games. Here in Australia, most are significantly more expensive and infrequently go on sale. I was particularly interested in getting Agricola because it’s one of the higher-priced board games being sold right now. I ended up doing a lot of running around to get this, reserving a copy at a Dallas games shop when it wasn’t in stock . It was quite annoying to later discover that Barnes and Noble had plenty of copies in stock all along. I didn’t find my way to B&N until the latter part of my visit and it never occurred to me they would be carrying board games even though I had been to Border’s which did carry some titles.
When I returned home, I was literally sick and tired for several weeks and we only ended up learning to play a couple of the games during that time. Further down the track, we did make some attempts at learning some of the others but the learning part would take so long we’d abandon play before we properly got into them. I spent a lot of time reading the manual for Agricola during this time but we never had the time to learn to play. Last night, I suggested we finally give it a shot and that’s when the fun started.
Although I had read the rules a number of times, it’s often quite difficult to work out the play until you actually do it. We started to set it up and realised our coffee table simply wasn’t big enough to accomodate all the boards and pieces, so moved to the kitchen table. Set up was more difficult than we expected due to some pieces not quite matching the illustrations/instructions. Game play was also quite difficult to work out. It is recommended that newcomers play the family version to start, moving on to the full game once basic game play is understood. Unfortunately, the instructions are mostly geared to the full game, with only a few notes posted on the family version of the games. After much frustration, I looked online and discovered a video explanation lasting a half-hour. The Scientist and I watched while the boys disappeared for a while. Afterwards, the Scientist had a good idea of what we needed to do and I was halfway there. So we finally started and muddled through the various rounds of the game. Game Fanatic was thoroughly overwhelmed and pretty much just went through the motions for the latter part of the game. By that point, he had managed to acrue enough negative points to leave him well out of any chance of winning so he had just given up. Lego Lover enjoyed playing even though he also ended with negative points due to difficulties in managing the multiple facets of the game. I just managed to keep to positive points and the Scientist did somewhat better than me.  It was quite late by the time we finished and we were pretty exhausted after having our mental faculties so heavily taxed.  I think we will enjoy this a lot more the next time we play.
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A dozen
Twelve years ago I went into labor during the day but carried on with most of my usual activities. It was about 11pm when We went off to the hospital with our little Game Fanatic in tow. Within half an hour of arrival, the Scientist’s mum arrived to whisk him away so he would have to hear his mum howling any longer…I wasn’t nearly so vocal the first time around. I then spent several hours battling a doctor keen on breaking my waters to move things along…except I kept having contractions and didn’t want them broken before the right time. Eventually nature took its course in that area but that little guy was definitely not moving out of his comfortable accomodation. It was several hours later a consultant came along and took charge and the Scientist was able to watch our Lego Lover as he entered the world and joined our family. Happy birthday to my beautiful Lego Lover!
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Has it been that long?
I didn’t realise it had been over a month since my last post….sigh…We are still here and life does carry on, of course.
Last week our Game Fanatic reached his sixteenth birthday. It’s kind of weird to think about how close he is to adulthood. By the reckoning of one government department here called Centrelink, he actually is an adult, and is able to claim certain payments himself. It seems very strange when he isn’t able to vote or drink until he is eighteen. For his birthday, I baked him a lemon madeira cake because he has recently taken a liking to lemony things. Game Fanatic doesn’t care much for cake but he likes this one enough that he asked me yesterday if I could make another one. I also baked a Jamie Oliver Bloomin’ brownie recipe that was somewhat less successful. It was fine for a serious lover of dark chocolate. But it was kind of chocolate overkill for us and was only helped by adding some vanilla ice cream. He asked for my rice pilaf with Spanish chorizo, chickpeas, mushrooms and potato as it’s a favorite dish I cook. The rice often is not cooked properly  no matter which method I use but this time I did it in the pressure cooker and timed it so that it came out beautifully. He was quite happy with his gifts but they were on his list so there shouldn’t have been any problem there.  We gave him a console game that he wanted along with a dvd set of an anime series he liked watching a few years ago. All his other presents were money that he is still working out how to spend.
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Games revisited
One of the priorities on our holiday was to stock up on board games because they are so very expensive here. I ended up doing quite a bit of running around to find many of them and later found some at local stores (to where I was staying). Â Below is a list of games that filled our luggage on the homeward journey.
- Agricola-This was my top priority because it’s so expensive. I kind of wished I had ordered it by mail order because it was fairly expensive to buy in store. Also I had to make two trips to Dallas for this one because it wasn’t in stock the first time…and I later found it locally. Even though we’ve been home two and a half months, we still haven’t played this one. I’m sure it will be fine once we get going but because it’s supposed to be long and the instructions are rather complicated, we have put it off so far.
- San Juan- this is the card game version of Puerto Rico. It was fine but we didn’t like it nearly as well as Puerto Rico so have only played it once so far.
- Ticket to Ride Europe- This was another priority game and I found this the first time I ventured off to the board game shop in Dallas. So far we really like this one and have played at least four times. The really nice part of this game is that Lego Lover is able to play somewhat competitively and really enjoys it.
- Apples to Apples- I found this game just about everywhere I went and got it very cheaply in some place like Target. This is a very popular game for the family and it doesn’t take very long to play. This is one that is more likely to be chosen when it’s late and we don’t want to start a long game. Lego Lover may not have the knowledge of some of the pop cultural references but he’s been able to win this one at least once.
- Travel Blokus-I found this at Target and got it because it was ideal for our plane travel. We only played it once in-flight but it worked really well.
- Spongebob Monopoly-This was a had-to-have for Lego Lover, who also loves Spongebob. I played this with him while we were there and the family played again this weekend and it was a fun variation on the Monopoly game.
- Thurns and Taxis- I didn’t know much about this game but found it by chance in a hobby shop that also sold board games. I found the shop thanks to a coupon (20% off) and an article in a local advertising catalogue. We tried to play this once but it became obvious early on that it was another complicated and long game.
- Killer Bunnies Remix- I found this heavily reduced at Barnes and Noble just before we came home and debated about getting it. It’s a sampler of various versions of the game designed to be an introduction. The name sounds a bit violent but I’d heard this was a very funny card game. I bought it and we have kind of played it once and didn’t quite get the right idea about it. I’m sure it will be better with further study of the instructions but we haven’t revisited it yet.
- Eco Fluxx-I think we mostly just have the regular version of this available here but I found there were at least three or four variations in Texas. Lego Lover and I played a few times while travelling and enjoyed this but we haven’t tried it out as a family yet.
I’m not too worried that we haven’t played all these games yet. It’s a bit of a stretch to think we could learn them all and be playing competently when there are so many of them.
Another reason that I bought so many games overseas was the lack of access to them in local shops. We’d been purchasing games by mail order from the east coast because it was cheaper and included free shipping when we spent enough money. So lo and behold, we discovered a new shop called Mighty Dice getting ready to open in a brand new shopping center near us. It’s not that there aren’t games shops around. There is one independent store in Perth that is okay but they were unreliable the one time I tried to order something that was out of stock. Also, it’s a hassle going into the city just to visit one shop. There used to be quite a few stores from two different chains that sold games but they have been gradually disappearing over the past few years and one just closed in one of the local malls. That one was more expensive than anyone else so we never bought anything there so it wasn’t really a big loss.
Mighty Dice opened early in August and we’ve dropped in quite regularly as it’s where we now do most of our food and grocery shopping. The shop sells Warhammer, board and card games and some trading card games. We’ve already got started playing Magic the Gathering, thanks to an interest by Game Fanatic. I only just tried playing this past week and have a slight grasp of what I’m doing. We’ve also bought a couple more games -Alhambra, which we haven’t played yet and Munchkin, a card game which we have played and liked. The shop includes tables so that people can compete in Warhammer and other games while in store. I’ve noticed groups playing Magic the Gathering about half the times we visit, usually in late afternoon. It would seem a nice little community of game players is forming just down the road from us.
And as if these games were not enough, Pokemon the trading card game has been one more addition to the family games library. Lego Lover wasn’t interested in Magic TG and is still a bit young for it. Pokemon has become the alternative and plays similarly to Magic (but is easier).
I guess it would seem we are rather overwhelmed with the task of learning new games and I don’t think we’ll be adding anything new to our library of games for quite a while.
