We have no stalgia today.

For the past week, I’ve been reading a book published in 1966, in which the author reflects on the halcyon days of his childhood and laments how things used to be better than they are today. (Today, please keep in mind, refers to 1966.) And while I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, the one piece of nostalgia I find myself really connecting with comes not from the book itself, but the random piece of paper I’ve been using as a bookmark, which it turns out is a decade-old menu from the local Chinese place, advertising an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet for under $5. Now those were the good old days.

Speaking of nostalgia, today marks the final week of existence for the North Adams Transcript, and consequently my final column after 10 years of award-winning* weekly humor columns. I spent the column reminiscing over columns past, because that’s what one does at the End of an Era. As I’m not someone given to excessive drinking**, today is a day for excessive online gaming.

*Thanks, New England Press Association!

**Although I am given to excessive eating. But who wouldn’t be, if you grew up in a time of all you can eat lunch buffets for under $5?

Admittedly, the year did not start out particularly great for me. Part of this is because I’ve been sick, courtesy of some New Years Eve Party Favors. And part of this is because the North Adams Transcript, the newspaper in which my award-winning weekly humor column has run for the past 10 years, is ceasing production to be absorbed into the Berkshire Eagle. And part of this is because although I cannot officially disclose anything, if I were in a beta for a game that rhymed with Shmelder Shmolls Shmonline, I would have been downloading many gigs of patches and updates over the past three days and still be far from a full progress bar actually letting me play the damned beta.

So those are some things.

But it’s not all bad news. In the past two weeks my partner has cooked for me delicious dishes from around the globe, ranging from African fish stew, to Carnitas, to an actual Haggis.* And towards the end of last month I put up a review of Caverna: The Cave Farmers, which is easily one of the best new games I played in 2013. (It would be tough for me to choose between that or Terra Mystica as absolute best, but I think they’d be the top two.) And while I don’t make New Years Resolutions per se, even before Jan. 1 I had already resolved that by the end of this year, I will finish a draft of my next book, which will be about games. Here I am making a public statement about it, so you can all hold me to account: By the end of this year, I’ll have a draft of my new book about boardgaming.

Now I just have to get some more gaming in, for inspiration.

* “It wasn’t totally offal,” she said. “I love ewe,” I replied.

I don’t mean like angry with a side of meatballs. I just mean that as a humor writer, sometimes my reactions to things end up being odd. The latest example is a Christmas tree lighting in my town, which was scheduled for the day before Thanksgiving. Those who know me know I don’t like Christmas decorations to begin with, but I find them absolutely unconscionable before Thanksgiving. It’s part of The War On Thanksgiving*, which I wrote about this week.

However, if you read that column, you’ll notice that there’s no mention of the tree lighting. I had what I considered a good argument that the mayor is part of the War on Thanksgiving, and we should be lighting a 30-foot turkey instead. But at the last minute, the tree-lighting was postponed for a week due to inclement weather. My reaction should be a positive one, because something I was mildly annoyed about has been fixed, and the tree lighting now won’t be until after Thanksgiving.

But it meant the editor had to cut the final section of my column at the last minute, and I didn’t have time to write a new ending. So here I am, being irritated that the thing I complain about is being fixed.

*Technically, the column’s title is “The War on Thanksgiving returkies”. Because I wrote a similar column last year, so it would be redux, but I replaced the ducks** with turkies.

**I’ll send you a bill for this explanation.

Sorry, I meant my boardgame reviews on BGG, which are conveniently gathered on one page for you to peruse. (My older reviews for About.com are, alas, not so conveniently organized.) As expected, finally got a review up for Asgard’s Chosen, as well as two others. Maybe next year I’ll get around to reviewing Twilight Struggle*. And speaking of awesome board games my partner really dislikes, I read that 1960:TMotP** is now out of print, so maybe someone wants to buy my copy. My shelves are still filled with wonderful games that are never going to get played here, and my wallet is empty. Heck, I don’t even have business cards in there. I really need to fix that; I am not good at the networking thing.

Which is probably why social networking is hard for me, but at least last weekend I was social. Some of my dear college friends were in town for Homecoming, so even if they’ve all had children in the past few years and refused to use my ultimate baby-naming algorithm, I was still very happy to get to see them and hang out briefly. Coambulation*** is a wonderful thing.

Coagulation is a wonderful thing too. My visiting college friends joined me for dinner at two of my favorite local restaurants: Sushi House and Espana. There’s nothing that cheers me like the combination of good food and good friends. And tasty desserts; as the A-Team’s Hannibal often said, “I love it when a flan comes together.”

Thanksgivukah is only a few weeks away. And if (you/your friends) were doing any holiday shopping for people of the Judeo-Christian persuasion, I’d certes be thankful if you decided you wanted to (gift a copy of/share the link for) God To Verse.

*Or maybe nyet.

**The Mellower of twilight Permutations*

***meaning “to walk together”, a favored word and pasttime of mine.

Well, I feel okay now. I didn’t for a while; I spent a week being sick, which I wrote about in the style of Ogden Nash. I really like Ogden Nash; I have a 6-volume hardcover set on a shelf in my office, and various of his other books scattered around. He was one of the poets I grew up on, along with Frank Jacobs*, which probably explains a lot about my poetic sensibilities. It was only later that I got into hip-hop. I’ll be performing somewhat less doggerel-esque poetry this Saturday at Greenfield’s WordFest.

To continue briefly from last entry, one reason so many reviews are positive is that in order to properly review a game, you have to play it a few times. So far this month, I’ve played three new-to-me games, but only once each. One I loved (Terra Mystica), but don’t know when I’ll get a chance to play it again. One I liked (Asgard’s Chosen), but need to try it with more players before writing up a fair review. And the one I didn’t like (Chicago Express) was not a review copy, nor is it a new game, so my motivation to play it a second time is minimal.

I think about food a lot. Not just because my column this week was about the Wrath of Grapes, but I am just someone who really enjoys good food. My latest kick is inspired by Larb**, but as I’m too lazy to grind rice or chicken, I’m using crushed peanuts and shredded chicken, which over rice and lettuce, with a chili lime fish sauce, is pretty danged tasty. I guess you could say I’m a Larb guy.***

*The Maven of Mad Magazine, who wrote many brilliant parodies of which the one that most sticks in my mind is “Quoth the Reagan”.

**What is Larb? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more. Larb is a dish that originated in Laos. I’ve got nothing but Larb for you, baby. If you want to know more, hey, you’re on the Internet. Larb conquers all.

***And I wish you would say it out loud, because Larb Gai is chicken larb, but that joke doesn’t work well written.

This largely describes how I try to be, as a reviewer. I really like reviewing things, because I feel like I do a good job of objectively laying out pros and cons. My favorite evidence to support this opinion is the fact that numerous times, after writing a boardgame review on BGG, I’ve had people respond to the same review with opposite reads. Someone saying “I agree with all your points, this game was missing the wow factor,” and someone else saying, “I agree with all your points, I love this game.” Or another review where someone replied that the review convinced them to buy the game, and someone else replied that the review convinced them not to buy the game. While I’ve enjoyed reviewing books and restaurants as well, I feel like I especially excel at analyzing games and picking out what people will enjoy or not, and so I really like reviewing them.*

If any of you know much about the review world, or the game world, then you know that there’s a lot of cases where reviewers are pressured to give strong reviews to weak products. This is most obvious in the video game world, where there are stories of all sorts, including a reviewer being fired for being one of the only ones to give a bad review to a game that most players agreed was bad. If it often seems like a reviewer is positive about everything, it may be because there’s the very rational fear that if one gives negative reviews, the review copies will stop coming.

I’m certainly not saying that’s the reason why most companies have stopped sending me review copies of board games — I’m pretty sure my removal** from About.com’s game subsite is the main reason for that –but just to note that many reviewers feel like they have to give only positive reviews. I pride myself on giving fair reviews, which means some of them are glowing, some of them are eviscerating, and most fall somewhere between the two. And I’ll admit, the first time I posted to BoardGameGeek a really scathing review of a boardgame I’d been sent a review copy of, I wondered if I’d stop receiving review copies from that company. So far, that hasn’t happened, even after a few more negative reviews. It’s not that I like being negative about games. It’s that I have to.

That way when I say good things about them, you know you can believe me.

*The games, not the people. I could probably offer objective reviews of people as well, but that seems somehow distasteful.

**A while back, About.com decided to lay off all 72 of their subsite associate editors, so while I don’t take the removal personally, it still was an annoying loss of platform. Sort of like that Super Mario level with the donut blocks that drop.

To be fair, given that the only readily-accessible* option is usually death, it’s always a great time to be alive. But I have to say, I really enjoy living in the era of the free and open Internet. Obviously, previous generations didn’t have Internet at all, and between Verizon and SOPA and various other things threatening Net Neutrality and free access for all, it’s unclear whether the next few generations will share what we have now.

But just a minute ago I was thinking, the old green-eyed monster has reared its ugly head, and I wonder what would best fight it, and after discarding the Yankees**, I settled on a yellow power ring, and a quick search for “yellow power ring green lantern” brought me to the Wikipedia page for Sinestro, and then I link-hopped for a while until I reflected that it’s a glorious time to be alive.

Granted, I also enjoy the Internet because it lets me tell you that my comedy show on Friday went well, and point you to my latest boardgame review (Downfall of Pompeii), and my latest column which is about bus-riding veterans, and hey we’re approaching the holidays so it’s never too early to buy gift copies of From God To Verse.

But basically, I enjoy having the Internet, and so I think it’s a great time*** to be alive.

*Dude, Where’s My DeLorean?

**Who fight the Green Monster.

***2:04am

Well, September is game month for me. In addition to once again completing the 26-game gauntlet that is my annual Alphabetic Boardgaming Challenge, this weekend I am off to the Boston Festival of Indie Games (free admission!) to showcase my hip-hop card game Legend of the Cipher. I will admit, while I’m in the tabletop area, I’m also hoping to meet Carl Chudyk (designer of some of my favorite card games, Innovation and Glory to Rome) who will be there showcasing his new game Impulse.

WordXWord was totally awesome, and I am really glad to have gotten to be a part of it. That’s two intensifying adjectives in a single sentence, so you know I’m serious.* Did some poetry at The Mount for their WordFest the other week, and at the end of the month I’ll be doing a stand-up comedy show again for the first time in many moons.**

Speaking of comedians, my humor column this week is about the misattribution of Internet forwards to famous comedians. So if you’ve recently seen a John Cleese terror alert or a George Carlin homily, take a look. And if you haven’t, just stop this crazy weather, because 63 degrees to 90 degrees to torrential rainstorms is too much for me to handle in the span of two days.

*As in, containing veracity. Not containing gravitas, obviously. I don’t really do a lot of gravitas. I think that’s why I like root beer floats.

**It’s lunacy.

I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because my life already has enough mistakes.

Most recent mistake entertaining enough to blog?* Probably the other weekend where I was invited to a party where I was supposed to perform. We drove out to the correct town where we found that the GPS had no reception. We knew the name of our target street, and spent an hour driving in circles trying every road and even asking a few people for directions, all to no avail. We eventually left the town just to get GPS reception, then looked for the road, but when we returned to the road it was a dirt path so steep the car couldn’t get up it. So it was that we returned home defeated, and I emailed the hosts an apology, but got no reply… hopefully they don’t hate me for failing to show up.**

Anyway, while technically local little WordXWord events have been happening every Tuesday night for a while now, next week is the annual WordXWord Festival where talented poets and spoken word artists from around the country are brought in to perform, and the whole thing is free! If you are within striking distance of the Berkshires, this is a festival not to be missed. I am honored that this year not only will I be participating in the poetry and story slams, but have been asked to be part of the Encyclopedia Show, for which I have prepared a brand new piece about which I am pretty excited.

I am also excited about my hip underground rap song Moral Turpitude, to which you could listen. I entered a limerick contest based in Limerick Ireland, and became a finalist but was told to progress further I’d have to attend the contest in person. Still, huzzah for limericks in Limerick.*** My latest column is about the CBS/Time Warner dispute. And my rapping deckbuilding card game Legend of the Cipher continues to receive rave reviews. Perhaps you should give it a play.

*Keep in mind that’s a low bar. I have also blogged about my toenails. Well, if I hadn’t before, let’s make that retroactively true. It sure is annoying when you clip them over a trash can and then they fly all over the room only to be stepped on later and cut your feet. Okay, I’m done blogging about toenails now.

**After all, there are so many better reasons to hate me.

***I hope that lime rickeys are served,
As a drink that is clearly deserved.
As the anapest verse
May go from bad to worse,
But at least it will be well-preserved.

So, I finally started playing Skyrim, and it is as awesome as everyone said it was. The spells are beautiful to watch, so I naturally chose to play a mage. Upon entering the first town, I saw a chicken running down the street and decided to flame-broil it. This apparently angered the surrounding townsfolk, who immediately set upon me with swords and axes, and killed me dead.*

Speaking of angry townsfolk, a lot of political things have been happening in the past few weeks. My only comment upon these at the moment is to suggest you read my latest column about nuanced political argument.

Finally, I was recently interviewed by famed poet Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, so if you would like to hear me read her an original poem, followed by a revelation, embarrassment, and stand-up comedy, all in the span of 10 minutes, you should listen to this episode of the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Podcast.

*Friend-suggested reasons for this reaction:
a) Medieval townsfolk live in exceedingly flammable dwellings, and naturally fear fire.
b) That chicken was the mayor, and the townsfolk don’t take kindly to people that try to cook Mayor McCluck.