I wore a green tie on Friday, but didn't have to because I'm Irish where it counts, on the inside.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

This weekend saw my NCAA bracket fall to pieces (for starters: Half of my third-round teams were knocked out in the first round, and Duke is the only team I have left in their region).

I’ve also made a big dent in the latest George R. R. Martin book, A Feast For Crows. It is pacing is deliberately slower than the previous three books in the series (Storm of Swords, Clash of Kings, and Game of Thrones) and I expect it to pick up dramatically as I near the last page, thus catapulting the story into full gear for the last installment A Dance with Dragons (to be published sometime late this year).

Fireball Island is just as much fun as I remember, and the rules are much more ambiguous. After a fistfight (or three) nearly broke out after our first run-through we had to establish some pretty stringent house rules to keep the peace. Now we only see about one potential fight per round. As the only authentic pieces I have are the game board itself and the two bridges I continue my search on ebay and game sites to find the missing pieces (top on the list are Vul-kar, the stone idol that spits fireballs, and a complete deck of game cards, and the forbidden jewel piece; further down are the red marble “fireballs” for which we’re using ordinary cat’s eye marbles, and the for game markers). We’re also missing the four adventurer figures from the original game (in red, orange, blue, and purple) but the archers and orks we’re using from the Lord of the Rings Risk game work perfectly (gold, green, black, and red).

Finally, this weekend we stained all but the last of the woodwork in the new addition, leaving only the hallway, my room, and Timmy’s room left to be painted. Then we can start moving the rest of the furniture.

Stay classy,
-t

recommended download: Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying, Belle & Sebastian

ps, you guys remember the Bell & Sebastian cartoon the band is named after, right? The Little French boy and his one giant dog and one tiny dog?

And while we’re on the subject, you guys remember The Mysterious Cities of Gold too, right? With Esteban, the Child of the Sun, the South American orphan raised in Spain by the Church after he was brought back by the conquistadors who was taken back to the Americas to help them find the mysterious cities of gold? I was a huge fan of that show.