The Fat Chef is Singing

It is New Year.

Time to throw out the old and herald in the new.

 

In parts of Southern India it is the tradition to pull out all the old furniture and build a pyre with mattresses and tyres. Not very environmentally friendly, I grant you, but a symbol of change. They also tend to crowd the beaches, of an evening, like a pack of lemmings and more than a few unfortunates end up dying in the surf. Sad but true (if the Chennai Times is anything to go by).

 

It does have a certain Reggie Perrin quality about it all and kind of fits the mood that I have been in, of late.

I have decided that it is time to close the doors of the kitchen and to concentrate my energies elsewhere.

 

I feel like I have said pretty much all I have to say (in this incarnation, at least). Blogs tend to follow the same format as a Sitcom. The first couple of series are often the best, but the least well attended, and then as things go mainstream the show starts to lose its edge; the freshness that first brought it to a wider audience.

Granted the castle kitchen has not, necessarily, become more popular but I am running out of new ideas, different ways to say the same things, and I can't help feeling like the best is behind me now.

 

Many (Keith) moons ago I remarked on blogging being the new rock 'n roll. I don't want to be like the Rolling Stones - churning out the same dross, year on year, and getting progressively older and more embarrassing.

 

The kitchen has taken a lot of commitment and I am finding, increasingly, that I do not have the time nor the energy.

 

Worse, like some kind of drug addict, I am finding that it is eating into my work and family life. Sometimes I lay awake, at night, thinking about my next post. I find myself playing games and, rather than enjoying the moment, I am turning over in my head how I am going to report the event.

Like a photographer who spends all his time on holiday taking pictures and never stepping away from the lense, to just take in the full beauty of the scene, or the dad videoing at a school nativity who forgets to actually watch the play, I am finding that I am not appreciating the real world.

 

As they have done, to so many before, the weighty stones of Gormenghast are slowly crushing me.

 

At the very least I need to take some time off; to read the backlog of books on my Kindle, to watch the multitude of DVDs on my shelf (Firefly, Game of Thrones, and a few stops in between), to play more games with an open heart and to, occasionally, sit and watch junk TV with my wife.

I can still post my unfocused thoughts on Google+ where there is a thriving game community, interact with many of you on Twitter to discuss whether The Hobbit is longer and more rambling than an Elven song, and I may even start posting a few more reviews on BGG.

All of these things have taken a backseat to my obsession with cooking something up, in the great kitchen, and I feel it is time for some 'intellectual crop rotation' and to seek pastures new.

 

Think Titus Alone rather than Titus Groan.

 

I may, in due course, come back to the kitchen although, right now, I doubt it; it's been a fun conceit but I do feel it has run its course.

In the meantime, may I thank my sadly small, but loyal, following. I suspect most of us will continue to meet in cyberspace. For many of you I'm guessing it will be a relief to not have me talking at you.

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

 

*in a confusion of genres Steerpike slips on the ring and disappears*

 

*lights dim and soundtrack plays 'Out of the Blue' by Dave Gilmour*

 

*credits roll*

Year End Ennui

Ah, the end of the year, the traditional time to review achievements past and present.

At the beginning of 2012 I set myself the goal of reducing my game collection from 164 to below 150 - I scored bonus VPs for this resolution as my count dropped to 131.
I feel good about this one.

My other two resolutions have been generally hit but, as they like to say in the Corporate work place, they were not exactly SMART goals (that is to say they were not particularly measurable although I am comfortable that I did them).

In terms of games played in 2012, by far away the 'most times to the table' accolade goes to 7 Wonders.
A distant second place went to A Few Acres of Snow with seven physical plays and about eight online cage matches.
War of the Ring only managed a disappointing four visits to the kitchen table.
Must try harder.

A staggering 44 games were played only a single time in the year. The curse of the Sommelier.

In other news, my pageview count reached 50,000 which sounds a lot until you consider that the blog is in its sixth year. Like a High Street shop it is suffering from the down turn in the economy and all the other boarded up blogs on the estate. With the advent of Google+, and so many other social media outlets, I am starting to question the position of the kitchen in the current market place.

I wonder as to the continued viability of the castle. Visitor numbers are low and the staff are getting restless.

The Final Pieces

I can't seem to sleep.
I don't know if it is all the loose ends, left by the Advent Calendar, or the growing ennui gnawing at my soul.
Let's go for the former - it's less heavy and more easily remedied.

So, let's put all the puzzle pieces together and close out the calendar:

#1.2.1.1 was, of course, Archaeology the Card Game
#2(d) Ubongo, Das Duell
#3.14 ASL SK1 (and I was looking for military and decimal precision on that one)
#4(ii) Euphrates and Tigris: Conquest of Kings (nobody got the full title of this classic)
#5.0 Innovation
#6.6.6 Summoner Wars, on the iPad
#007 Lord of the Rings: The Duel
#thenumberbetween7and9 was Wyatt Earp and the band, which nobody got, was REM
#9[undneunzig] Die Siedler Von Catan: Das Wurfenspiel (Settlers Dice Game)
#10.x San Juan
#11 Lords of Vegas
#12.(21) Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation (original version)
#13.o Tigris and Euphrates
#14(xxx) Kingmaker
XV Acquire
#16(i) Formula 1 (a game from the good old days, long before Formula De)
#17.1.8.0.3 Napoleon's Triumph
#18 Netrunner - the original CCG not the recent reprint in a huge box with a large price tag
#19.a.p.r Di Renjie
#20(b) Babylon 5 CCG
#21.1.2 Sushizock in Gockelwock
#22 (subsection b) the real time card game Brawl
#23 was the only one that nobody got and yet it was probably the easiest to guess - simply, Asterix and Obelix. A wonderful little two player push your luck game which, as far as I know, never got beyond the borders of Germany.
#24.1.2 closed the proceedings with the Polish rules page for Dixit Jinx.

Six snowmen were used in the making of this production and no animals were hurt.
The cubes came from 1960: The Making of the President

which leaves the final scores as:
Count Zero 8
Jimmy Mac 8
Mikko 5
Friendless 4
CTD 3
Giles 1
Eric 1
GP 1

Thanks everyone for playing - you can all have a virtual pat on the back and attend your New Years Eve parties with geek pride. (I'll be taking London Pride but that's another story)

Ratty: Fall 1908

Best Christmas present this year?
Apart from the Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock T-Shirt, I think it has to be Turkey forgetting to order his units before sitting down for Hogswatch dinner.

As a result the French armies will be celebrating the New Year in Budapest and Trieste.

Scissors cuts Cable beats Spock

"And in those days Caesar Augustud decreed that all must return to the town of their birth, that they might sort out their parents' computers"

The price of using the Groan computer, over the yuletide period, turned out to be unlimited Held Desk support for the technically inept Out-Laws. The last few days have been spent setting up iTunes for them, linking up an external drive and diagnosing why their main computer wouldn't boot.
I may as well have stayed at work.

Back in the Castle now and, after a couple of hours head scratching, I have managed to fix the router. Turns out that Steeprike Junior was in a rage, on Christmas Eve, when I disconnected him from the XBox. He had assumed I'd unplugged cables so set about plugging in every loose end he could find (in reality I had just turned the box off).

So, the upshot was that he had formed a closed circuit with a cable coming out of the router and then going back in it again in a different port. I am more annoyed with his lack of technical savvy than his stupidity.

I'm also pretty peeved that I did not spot it before but I had just completed a huge Christmas breakfast with the ghost of poodle.

Anyway Gormenghast is once more connected to the outside world and I can reclaim my geek badge.

Olly

Internet connection continues to be an issue in the castle.

So I am now, belatedly, wishing all kitchen boys, cooks and suppliers, a very Merry Christmas (what's left of it). I am down at House Groan, pimping their wifi. How the mighty have fallen.
The pikelets feel like they have been catapulted back into the 1950s.

Answers to the Advent Calendar should be forthcoming, before Year End, but no guarantees as it depends how quickly the Post Office can get a router to me or the digital charity of my friends and neighbours.
Until then, thanks for joining in with my whim, enjoy your curried Turkey and, hey, it's Christmas, go play some games with the family.

(oh, yes, six snowmen but no one has yet identified the cubes correctly)

Advent #24.1.2

Birth and death - the cycle of life. My router has crashed and I am scrabbling around in search of connectivity. Still the demise of my internet makes way for new life. The Saviour, or the Verruca Gnome, or the deity of your choice.

None of this has anything to do with today's game rules which are written in a mystery Eastern European language. Can you name the game, name the dialect or help me fix my router ?

I may be some time... so Happy Christmas to all in the kitchen