Last Week

I missed posting last week. I'm not sure if you noticed - I sure did.

My update schedule going to be a bit spotty this summer.

I'm embroiled in a couple of major projects that are taking far more time than I want to give to them. But it's time that takes me away from writing and photography. And gaming.

I had to look at my priorities and figure out what was important - it's not the first time I've done this, and it won't be the last.

But this blog - much as I love writing it - is lower than some of the things that I need to get done. Especially as many of these things are temporary.

I'm going to try to build up a backlog of posts in my spare time, but I can't promise a post every week this summer.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that the FLGS to which I give most of my gaming dollar may be closing. I don't know if I was clear enough that it may not be closing, too. There is a possible buyer in the picture, and I think he'd do a good job of it. But it'd still be a change.

I have a lot of thoughts about the FLGS and its role in the gaming community. Too many to throw down in a short post, and when I do get them down and organized, it's likely to ramble quite a bit off-topic and then back on as I tend to do.

Either way, my lovely and talented wife saw how hard I was taking even the potential loss of my local store, and took steps to help.

Last weekend, we went to Fantasium's Beer & Board Games. To check it out.

Fantasium is the closest game store to us geographically. We currently drive for about an hour to get to Phoenix (and it's well worth the drive and we won't be stopping as long as there is a Phoenix to support, thankyouverymuch). Fantasium is about ten minutes from the house. If that.

Fantasium, BTW, is where we get our graphic novel fix. They get that chunk of our comic book dollar not eaten by Comixology (and, if there were a way to give them a share of our Comixology dollar, we'd love to do that, too - shelf space is tight and gets a bit tighter with every book we buy).

Fantasium has open board gaming most of the afternoon on Saturdays, but at 7pm, they close down briefly and start charging a $5 cover. And it's 21+. That $5 cover gets you one serving of alcoholic beverage (they have a selection of ciders and hard root beers, not just beer). They have popcorn available for a small charge, too.

I'm a sucker for freshly-popped popcorn.

There were about a dozen folks there, and I watched people move from one table to another and introduce themselves between games. That's a good sign. I heard people at other tables teaching the rest of their table how to play some of the games, too.  That's another good sign.

They run until midnight - we left well before that point, but we had a good time (aided in no small part by the presence of friends who we brought with us).  The store has a small library of available games (including some good ones like Deus and Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt Skullzfyre), and some folks brought in their own games that they were hoping to play.

Even if Phoenix stays open, I plan to attend Fantasium's gathering as often as possible. Because more community interaction is not a bad thing. More engagement with my people (gamers) is not a bad thing.

And, if the worst happens and Phoenix closes, it's nice to have another quality option available.

Next time, I'm going to talk about a couple of games that have hit the table lately. Or just one of them. I'm not sure, yet. I guess we'll find out together.