PixlBit

So I’ve been checked out for about a week but I had a good reason: my baby brother got married! The last week has been a little hectic with all the running around, collecting my thoughts for the Best Man speech, and the traveling. Since I am in sunny Southern California, I took a trip up to the Bay Area for the festivities and well I had some things planned. I bought Jade Empire for the iPad because I was going to play this game non-stop in the airport, on the plane, and anytime I had a free moment, I brought my everyday laptop over my travel laptop because I wanted to play music and sneak in a little gaming during down moments in the hotel room. Things didn’t go exactly as planned but I still had a ton of fun.

 

That’s me!

I got a bit paranoid when my mom said that I should carry-on my suit just in case my luggage went missing, so I bought a carry-on roller. It’s small but I folded my suit up in thirds, while in a garment bag, and it fit! In fact I had enough room for the suit, the shoes I thought I was supposed to bring (apparently my brother told me months ago he bought shoes for everyone), my camera bag, some loose cables, and there was enough space for the everyday laptop, which means I didn’t have to bring the travel laptop. My iPad was ready with some games, Season 1 of The Wire, and right after I took this picture I downloaded that day’s issue of the Washington Post. My flight was damn near empty and the good people of Southwest told everyone to spread out (we were later told to get out after we landed. Oh Southwest…) I had enough things to do on the very short flight and after a couple of rounds of Age Of Solitaire, I was out and woke up minutes before we made our approach to land.

 

I can’t remember if I talked about Age of Solitaire but if I haven’t here’s a quick rundown: AoS is a Solitaire game where each time you play a game of solitaire you earn coins to help build the town on the screen. Winning the game gives you more coins, and going on a winning streak unlocks multipliers. Since this is a freemium game there are ads, but I spent the $2.00 to remove the ad because I thought the game was worth paying for. If you want to earn additional coins you can watch 30 second clips but I skip all of that. Anyways there are nine parts to each village and the village represents an era of history like Stone Age, Medieval Age, etc. There are I believe around 9 different eras and currently I just started the Industrial Age. This is the game I played maybe 70% of the time while on my trip. It’s fun, and its something I can play in short bursts, and I have it on my phone as well.

 

 

I played a little bit of Jade Empire on the iPad and well so far the controls on the screen are not that bad. Of course I barely finished the tutorial before I jumped back into Age of Solitaire but what I have seen is a solid port. I will probably play more of this game this weekend so I can give you good people a better mini review.

 

Anyways for the rehearsal dinner my brother and new sis picked a really cool venue down the street from the wedding venue and my brother told me to jump on the court/field/playing surface to get people to play. The game is Bocce. Since we all had no idea how to play there was a quick rundown of the game and then we had use of two courts for a couple of hours. While everyone was eating we had a couple of teams going where we tried to figure out how to play the dang sport. It’s like a curling, and then my pops threw in his pool expertise and played a smart game. I however did not, there was a lot of trash talking, and I said this game needs to end in a brawl.

 

This is a scene from one of the games when my team was kicking ass.

 

 

I did that. #Skills

After we decided to play for money my cousin’s team started to play and it turns out my cousin plays this every week. The bamboozling was real. There was no game ending brawl, but at times my pops wanted to play but didn’t want to say it so I would hand him a ball while I went to eat some tasty Italian food. Oh how do you know nerdy folks were playing? We kept referring to the little silver ball as the seeker from the Harry Potter movies. Another thing that was hilarious was that it was like a middle school dance where the bridesmaids had their own game on the other court, while the groomsmen were playing on my court.  

 

The wedding was awesome, and everyone had a good time. I have to share this because one of the dessert bars was where they would flambe donuts and then top them with vanilla ice cream. Guess who was first in line? This guy #Skills

 

This is a shot as they were setting up. Oh man it was good.

 

That was my week. I enjoyed the trip, got to see family, friends, met new friends, trashed talked over rolling balls, and purchased overpriced breakfast from the hotel’s “bistro”/mini Starbucks, as well as tiny ice cream cups. Oh one more thing I thought I would share now instead of Quick Hits: I bought these cards from the 99 Cent Store

 

 

I have no idea how to play these card games but for a couple of bucks why not give it a try or at least have some cards. I will probably get some card holders later on today from either Toys R Us or put in an order on Amazon.

 

Alright Pixlpeeps I am off! Have a good week!

 

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris