Christmas Gift Guide 2014: Fandom

Happy New Comic Book Day! Part Three of my gift guide series continues with today’s post on all the geeky gifts your nerdy heart would want:

1. No matter what fandom you’re a part of, there is definitely a Funko Pop! figure for you. I like to get mine from Paradise Comics.

2. I would be a terrible girlfriend if I didn’t recommend the 4th volume of Kill Shakespeare collecting “The Mask of Night” run, with the back-up story written by the boyfriend. You can get your copy starting Wednesday next week from Paradise as well. End of shameless plug.

3. My love of baking and Star Wars come together for the perfect gift.

4. This game is perfect for the board game lover in your circle, beginner or veteran. Very simple concept with gorgeous art, board and pieces. In my opinion, better than the original.

5. Who wouldn’t want ice shaped like Daleks and TARDISes?

6. I wish I had gotten the box set rather than getting them individually, but now I can give them to a friend.

Happy Hump Day everyone.

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday everyone! I think this Friday is a happier one than usual given the three-day weekend coming up. It’s also Valentine’s Day today aka Season 2 premiere of House of Cards. If you’ve read my post on Tuesday, then you’ll know exactly what my plans are for today and a good chunk of this weekend. But I also want to share a few of my favorite things from this past week.

We had a great start to the week on Monday by going on a double date at a board game bar. Although we thought the drinks and food were average and overpriced, we did discover a super fun game called Tsuro of the Seas.

Speaking of dates, here are my date night essentials:

On Tuesday, the boyfriend and I celebrated our 4-year anniversary. It was such a perfect day, from sleeping in to having an amazing Winterlicious lunch at Bannock…

to a casual but mind-blowingly mouthwatering dinner at The Stockyards.

Despite the cold, we also went to a lot of our favorite places in the city before going back home to watch my favorite, Pride & Prejudice. As if the day wasn’t awesome enough as it is, I also received a pretty wonderful gift, the complete series of Friends on Blu-Ray.

All in all, I’m very grateful to have shared an amazing four years with my best friend and look forward to our future. Hope everyone has a safe and great long weekend.
P.S. This week, the blog also reached 3000 views, another thing I’m thankful for!

Tabletop Thursday: Double Date Night “Tsuro of the Seas” Review

I always enjoy discovering new games so I was super excited to go on a double date with one of our couple friends on Monday to check out Snakes & Lagers, a board game bar in Toronto. Prior to coming I had already reviewed their library online and had one specific game in mind that I wanted to try. I had already played Tsuro at a friend’s birthday party and really liked it but found that it could use a little more excitement. So when I saw this on Tabletop, I knew it was what I was looking for:

It’s a super simple concept that is so easy to explain to novice and expert tabletop gamers alike. You take control of your own ship and lay tiles with different paths on them that your ship must follow. The objective is to be the last ship standing by trying to avoid a) colliding with other ships, b) laying a tile that will lead you off-board or c) being eaten by a daikaiju or sea monster (which we just called dragons for obvious reasons, GAME OF THRONES). We all got into it pretty quickly and there were lots of exciting moments during the game. At one point, our friend Meagan had to stare right into the face of a daikaiju and had to roll a four to activate that particular dragon, which she did to cheers, and roll a 5 to get it to back off, which she did much to the amazement of the entire table. I got to make a dragon eat another one, which wasn’t as epic but still pretty cool.

The art is just gorgeous and for some reason, we stayed alive longer. And even when someone is eliminated, which in our case was me, they can still participate by taking control of the dragons and rolling the dice as well as moving them. I really loved playing Tsuro of the Seas and can’t wait to add it to our growing collection.

As always, happy gaming!