A serious escalation

And sometimes, a photo is worth more than a thousand words.

Our remaining cat, Sam, is over 20 years old. Eartha passed a couple of years ago at around 13 years of age, and Friend went to kitty heaven last year at age 18. So we're down to Sam.

I fear for Sam's longevity. The one year old Baby of Mass Destruction has pestered ol' Sam plenty since his arrival, although the cat has seemed to tolerate things with good humor enough. But now things are escalating.

A couple of days ago, after spending months crawling around the house at extremely high speed, the BMD just stood up and started walking around. It wasn't a big surprise because he'd been 'cruising' with a lot of coordination for several months and had also been standing with a lot of stability for nearly the same amount of time. But since he was such an outstanding crawler, I suppose he just never felt the need to go it on two feet.

Until now. Now he's the Walkling Around Baby of Mass Destruction. And, as you can see in the photo below, he already has a primary target in mnd for his walking attentions.

Poor Sammy.

I, Slacker

Holy crap. I looked back at yesterday’s post and just realized I hadn’t written squat during the entire month of March. What a slacker.

Time flies when you’ve got a Baby of Mass Destruction in the middle of everything. March was First Birthday time for the BMD. Preparations absorbed a lot of time. Recovery from the whole thing absorbed a lot more. By the time he’s seven or eight, I’m seriously hoping that I’ll be able to sleep past 7 a.m. on weekends again. I miss my sleep-in mornings.

Oh yes. The obligatory baby’s first birthday photo:



After I finish the family income tax ordeal, I should have some time to get caught up on the gaming front. Last month’s small amount of gaming time was devoted to a couple of Avalanche Press games: Red Vengeance and Defiant Russia. I spent some time converting both of them to Cyberboard gameboxes (for personal use only…) and then played both of them several times.

Of the two, I found Red Vengeance to be more enjoyable. Defiant Russia struck me as more a ‘historically based’ game because there’s really very little about it that’s going to simulate the historical flow of events. No Germans are getting to Minsk by the end of June. A bad turn of luck in the early game can also pretty much short-circuit even the best German plans. Absent really wild swings of luck, I think the game is moderately competitve (with a slight balance tilt toward the Soviets) – it just doesn’t do much in the way of educating you about the actual campaign.

Red Vengeance does a better job all-around, I think. There’s more open maneuver, more opportunities for both sides to do things. Game balance hinges in areas away from the main ‘front’ on the road to Berlin, but I think that just makes the players’ decision-making more interesting. It’s still not entirely instructional as a simulation, but it is more reflective of history than DR. I think it’s quite a little gem of a game and a real ‘player.’

Who says we don't teach math?

Wowser, what a bunch of fun! Just finished up the process of getting a Social Security Number for the Baby of Mass Destruction.

For those of you who haven’t yet tried it, I highly recommend you take two or three hours out of your otherwise boring work day and sit around in the lobby/waiting room of your local Social Security Administration office. It’s completely free of charge, and twice as entertaining as most of the movies currently in release.

At our local branch of the long arm of the Gumment, you do the ‘take a number’ routine when you enter and sit around until your number is called. Today’s favorite event transpired when they called ‘29’ (I had ‘51’) and some old codger started for the windows. A very, very large lady lurched dangerously to her feet and shouted at the top of her lungs: “What the f*ck happened to Number Thirty? What the F*CK happened to THIRTY??”