My partner once told me this joke: What’s the difference between a fairy tale and a war story? A fairy tale begins with “Once upon a time” and a war story begins with “No sh*t. There I was.”

She and I are gamers. I’ve mentioned that before haven’t I? If I haven’t, then there it is. We’re gamers. “Date night” is us going home, cooking pizza, and then heading out to our Friendly Local Game Store and playing a game. Right now, we are on a Memoir ‘44 jag. We sit down and lock wits over the fields of battle.

She’s been kicking my ass.

Sometimes its luck. Between the dice and the cards, I can’t catch a break. Sometimes it’s superior tactics. From time to time, she’ll pull a maneuver that I didn’t see. Really, I think that she’s cursed me in this game. In no other game, can she continually give me such a drubbing. That’s not true. She turns me into a thick paste in Trivial Pursuit. She is a walking encyclopedia of trivia, so I don’t feel bad about losing.

As far as Memoir ‘44 goes, I’m a veteran of a thousand war games. I was playing Panzer Blitz in in my pre-teen years. I had a small collection of SPI and Avalon Hill classics. I was a war gamer before she even started playing D&D. I held my own in tournaments with people more than twice my age. I can’t win. Just can’t.

We took a break and played Monsterpocalypse–beat her. Went back to Memoir ‘44–lost.

We know the rules. We can crank out a game in an hour. In some ways, the best part of gaming out of the house is that we get to sell the game. People see us and ask questions. For what ever reason, seeing two women playing a wargame is interesting to other people. We also take time to explain that this game is historically based.

I know my history. YET I STILL LOSE.

Not that I’m bitter.

It’s time to switch up my tactics. Maybe I need to spike her pizza before we play.

We’ve been on a game buying moratorium since November. We set up a strict rule against buying new games–both video and tabletop–until March. In the rule there was a specific exception for specific titles (Fables II, Left 4 Dead). The rule also has a neat loophole in that we can buy a supplement or expansion or booster for a game we already own. This rule has slowed the amount of money we spend on games.

We should set up a more robust version of the rule. Something along the lines of “can only spend X dollars on games a month.” That should slow us down even more.

No, actually it wouldn’t. We are weak people when it comes to games. We would break the spending limit rule just like we broke the “no new games rule.”

Yes. We broke it this last weekend. We purchased War of the Ring by Fantasy Flight. This is the most complicated game I’ve purchased in a long time. It has the ability to simulate a bunch of things out of the books and then not follow the books.

She played as the Free Peoples on Friday night. It wasn’t a full game, as we had to set up, read the rules, and Ernie’s closes at 11 PM. In those few turns, the war was not going well for the Free Peoples. Rohan had been completely rolled up, and the Ring Bearer couldn’t step foot out of Rivendel. I tried to smooth her ruffled feathers with some soothing words about getting lucky rolls.

I played the Free People on Saturday. We didn’t complete that game either. I lost Gondor on turn five or six. Although I did get the ring bearer a bit further. I started doing the math, and it would have been nearly impossible for me to win the game. She would have had to both roll badly and draw low value chits. I got testy. I hate unbalanced games. Her response was, “See! I told you it’s broken.”

We were beginning to regret the purchase. It seemed as though the Free Peoples could not win. A public argument was a-brewin’. As I sometimes do in those situations, I headed for the bathroom.

While I was “away”, a kibitzer kindly pointed out that we were missing something. The Free Peoples don’t have to spend points to move to war. They will go to war simply by getting attacked.

Great. Wonderful. We invested hours into a game we didn’t understand. Having said all that, go buy it. It’s a Lord of the Rings nerd’s dream come true in a war game. Especially if you draw the Ent’s event card. Squeeee!

I’m on “vacation” this week. That means, I’m not going to my day job, but rather working around the house and working on the comic. Let’s call this a “working vacation” then.

Of course that means I spent the entire day out of the house today (zoo, Ernies, dinner out), and I’m planning on going to the Japanese gardens in Portland (three hour drive one way) tomorrow.

So. Working. Real hard.

Woodland Park Zoo is always nice. It was even nicer as there were so few people. We got a really good look at mama gorilla and her babe. We also watched a tiger stalk a sea gull. That was amusing. Although it was eerily similar to watching our cat stalk a string that is dragged along the floor.

When we made it out to Ernies, we had known that it was Warhammer 40K night, but we did not know how packed the place would be. He was kind and cleared off one of his product display tables (World of Warcraft minis I think) and we played our usual round of Memoir 44. Since dinner was acquired at a restaurant, I didn’t have the opportunity to spike the red sauce, so I lost (7 to 3–I was shut out in the first half).

We then purchased a new game–Agricola by Z-Man Games. It is a resource management game. You have land and you have to divide that land between fields, pastures and your house. And you can make babies.

Making babies is a little tricky. You have to have enough food for them at the end of the year, and you have to have room for them in your house. Oddly, it only takes one person to make a baby. Further, it only takes one turn to make the baby, and then the baby can plow a field by itself the very next turn. Since there are only 14 turns in the game, and only 6 or 7 harvest seasons, that’s a pretty impressive feat.

In the end, she had a five room stone house, and I only had a 3 room clay house. However, I won because I had cattle and vegetables and she did not. Her sheep collection was impressive though.

As a side note, you can breed animals in the game to get more animals. It takes two though. I can only assume that the game represents some odd future society that has reverted to an agricultural base, but has retained the ability to clone.

Good Lord. I am such a dork to have even thought of that.

The side effect of going to Ikea is that the table in the studio is now relatively clear. Clear enough that we can game at home. Not that I don’t like going to Ernies, but I wasn’t feeling that well. You see, I’d been forced to attend the annual all company meeting, and further forced to listen to our executive committee talk about the dire state of the economy and it’s impact on the business. The meeting was long and boring. Long boring meetings make me crabby. I wouldn’t say I’m unique. I’m just sayin’.

Last year was the company’s most profitable year. Ever. Oddly, the last major down-turn in the company was during the tech boom of the 90s. If the company that I work for cycles opposite of the general economy, then I’m good for years. If that’s the case, then the company deals in inferior goods In the economic sense of the term–the defect rate of our product is the lowest in the industry.

When I walked through the door, I immediately had two girls whining at me demanding food. She must not have been in a good mood either as she began to demand cookie dough as soon as we walked in the door. The one without thumbs wanted something really, really stinky.

Lately, we’ve been keeping a stock of homemade cookie dough on hand. We altered the recipe to eliminate the eggs and baking powder since we knew that we’d never bake the dough. I made pizza–date night you know–but forgot to drug her.

She beat me at Memoir ‘44. I must have forgot to drug her pizza. It was OK though. We were hopped up on cookie dough. Maybe it was the sugar rush, but somehow we’d entered a magical land of children’s breakfast cereal. We were no longer playing a historically based boardgame. No. We were enjoying an bowl of Allied O’s. Each bowl was a blow against the dreaded Axis. Ever spoonful was filled with an explosive combination of sweetened oat ohs and meritorious marshmallow in four brave colors–silver stars, purple hearts, green berets*, and Big Red Ones**.

At some point, we crashed from our sugar high, but I think it was some point after making the free world safe for surprises in children’s breakfasts. I’m just hoping the surprise wasn’t a desperate call for fire support or landmines.

*Yes. I know. The Green Berets weren’t formed until 1952, but we were a little out of our heads.

**The unit symbol for the US Army’s First Infantry Division.

There is no comic today (5/13/09). You can see that. Work (which is usually awesome), has leaving me wiped out. We are suffering from “product launch” and there are simply too many things to do. I’ve come home and not had the energy to work on comics. My creative juices have been depleted. Thusly, my buffer has been depleted. However, I hope that I can scrape together enough entertainment to post. I am a monkey who is hauled out to dance for you.

I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense for either of us. I make a funny strip. If I didn’t want to entertain you, I really shouldn’t have put this website up. Really.

For your part, if you aren’t entertained (in some fashion), why are you coming to the site? This a mutual experience. If watching this monkey dance, I am happy to dance for you. Which is why I’m a little sad that I don’t have a comic today.

However the project that has soaked up so much of my energy has ended (mostly). I am starting to recharge my batteries.

On Monday, I saw a film that is a reboot of a television franchise that was created in the 1960s. If you need any more clues about the film, I will say that the characters are “culturally iconic”, and that the film caused me to pee my pants with its awesomeness.

On Tuesday, we had our traditional date night. That is to say, we hauled out a boardgame and had at each other. As is typical with date night, we played Memoir ‘44. As mentioned in previous posts, She often does better than I do. We’re playing a “Grand Campaign” (a series of linked scenarios where the outcome of one game has an impact on the set-up of the next).

After a series of defeats, I lead my Canadian troops into the town of Falaise and an overall win of the Grand Campaign.

OK. Not a big win. In fact, the Grand Campaign was decided by the tie-breaker (33 to 30).

I’m going to spend one more night playing hookey from comics to go our monthly classic book group. Tonight we explore Ringworld. I was going to try and construct a literally/literaturely pun, but the art of words isn’t coming to me today.