Wow -- it's been a rather long time since I wrote in the old blog, eh? Let's see what's happening with me...

1. I have gone two weeks without buying any action figures! My last such purchases were on January 1, and since then I've actually returned two figures and sold one, so I actually have fewer toys than I had before and have spent negative money on them. This will not last, since I intend to spend $7.05 on Hasbro products by the end of the month in order to qualify for another free item (through January 31, Hasbro is offering select free items for purchases of $20), but still. Two weeks without buying any toys! Considering that I averaged nearly a toy a day from mid-November through December, that is pretty impressive.

Note that my purchase of the Doctor Who Christmas Adventure Set last week does not count, since that was reserved back in December and I had already set aside the necessary funds for it. Also, as it is a reserve item and won't ship until I've accrued $60 worth of merchandise, there's no telling when I'll actually see it. 🙂

2. I went to the dentist last week for the first time since September 2009 -- which is less impressive than my previous three-year gap between checkups (and significantly less impressive than the length of time since my last medical checkup; who knows when I last had one of those?), but still. No cavities, and my recent bouts of bleeding tongue apparently stem from my brushing it too hard rather than oral cancer. So yay, I guess!

3. And since I haven't posted since November of last year, this bears mentioning: for the first time in ages, I did not ring in the new year absent human company (I specify "human" company since the lovable Bacardi was often present). Rather, this year I was invited to a party and sleepover of sorts, so I attended. But I mention this not as if it means I'm becoming less socially isolated or finally know some people locally who don't think I'm going to disembowel them at the first opportunity -- to those points, I say, "Eh, we'll see..." -- but because at this gathering we played The Game of Life! And I found it very fun indeed.

See, when I was a kid, we had The Game of Life -- but we almost never played it. That was largely because video games pretty much ousted board games in terms of indoor playtime activities, but also because the only times we broke it out were when my sister and I were the only ones around. And that game kinda sucks with two players. Though exceptionally good or bad luck could alter the outcome, it's almost a given that the player with the higher salary will win. As such, unless we played with modified rules -- sometimes we just defaulted ourselves to the doctor's salary -- one of us would invariably quit after the occupations were established. In effect, the game would last for all of two spins.

So even though I retained relatively positive view of the game (probably owing to the fun commercial, though I can't find that one on YouTube 🙁 ), I didn't regard it as being particularly fun... nor did I expect to have any semblance of a chance when I ended up with a $6,000 salary -- the lowest salary for the college route (apparently they had the 1960s version), which everyone took -- when most of the other players earned more. And yet I ended up the second-richest player at the end despite being childless (and thus not benefiting from any of the payoffs for having kids).

Now, the game is almost entirely luck -- the only real choices in the game come down to deciding which risks to take, and even then the outcome is decided by a spin of the wheel -- so it's not as if my showing was a result of shrewd playing on my part. But the difference between having few players and many players (we probably had eight or so people in the game) is that, with more people, it's more likely that someone will land on revenge spaces. I don't even remember them from our childhood games, but they're a pretty important part of the game given their equalizing potential. When a player lands on a revenge space, he/she can send another player back ten spaces... or take $100,000 from any other player, provided that the player has the money. As such, if you have a high-paying occupation, you become a target. Players landed on revenge spaces at least five times during the game (I landed on one at least twice myself). And if not for the fact that everyone who hit a revenge space went for her, our resident doctor probably would have finished with at least 50% more money than the next highest amount -- possibly even twice as much. So while playing the game with pleasant company would have been entertaining regardless of how well or poorly I did, my luck (I paid attention to other people's finances in the game, but I was much more knowledgeable about my own) enabled me to gain a better appreciation for The Game of Life overall.

We also played Tsuro -- a game with which I was unfamiliar, but which I found simple and quite enjoyable (even with two players, this would be great fun). And UNO, which needs no further comment. 🙂

Sooo yeah, that'll do it for this entry. Until next time, then!