Random Thoughts of No Interest

I finally got my Ted Alspach map set I ordered months ago. As with all my other AoS maps, I'm interested to try them out, but it'll probably take another year to get through the maps I have not yet played. Of the most interest here is the Secret Blueprints where each player gets their own map. Its supposed to be a lot faster and I want to see how it works out.
I made an interesting trade the other day. This guy (who happened to be in the Phoenix area) offered a number of games for trade, but asked for surprise games in return (with a couple small restrictions). I was able to get the Apples to Apples party pack and the Party Pack Exp #1 (so essentially, the whole set of Apples to Apples through the 4 basic expansions). I also got Honor of the Samurai. This is a card game I had minor interest in, and it now sits in display with my other "oriental" games. In exchange, I traded my extra copy of Sunken City and I bought a copy of the Omega Virus at a thrift store for $10 to give him as well. He seemed quite pleased at the Omega Virus and neither of us had to ship anything - which was nice considering the size and weight of our trade.
I started painting some of my Heroquest stuff in preparations of playing it with my son next summer. I told him I'd teach it to him when he graduated from Kindergarten. No, I haven't finished my Descent figures. I've decided to come back to them when its more likely to be played a lot more.
Speaking of playing games, we still play Blink and Micro Mutants - those seem to be the ones asked for the most. I've been keeping my eyes out for Connect Four at a thrift shop, but no luck yet. My wife has been busy at work a lot lately, so we haven't had much of a chance to play games fully as a family (its hard anyhow, since my 3-year old daughter wants to play, but really can't yet. I did get her one little game for Christmas already - a Dora pack of dominoes and cards (crazy-8s and Go Fish! or something). My son is going to be getting Sorry Sliders!. This game has gotten nothing but good word of mouth. Mike Gingold said its a really good family game (his girls are about the same age as mine) and I'm happy to try out this little dexterity game. I'm pretty sure this will be a hit with the kids and my wife (and me). Plus, Toys-R-Us is selling it at 25% through Christmas (so for roughly $15). Though I doubt this will become scarce, I'll be buying it soon I think.
Have you seen the new expansion for Pitchcar? I love Pitchcar (though I don't pull it out often - maybe I should teach Ashton this one next :) ). I have all the current expansions and I'll get this one too as soon as the domestic retailers carry it. Hmmmmmmmm levels. Pitchcar was one of the games that was a hit with my sister and parents which is a ringing endorsement for this game. If this game has any downside, its that you need a huge flat area to play it on. I also personally like it better with lots of people trying to knock each other off the track. Justin Easley pointed out to me that if you are going to play with "poison" that if you are a lap back and knock someone off, they should lose a lap! That sounded nasty and I think I agree. Now I just need to figure out how to make the loop...
My sister and mother will be visiting in November. Whenever I see my sister, we tend to play a lot of Blokus. In fact she is the reason for my bazillion two-player plays of the game. We'll probably play a number of head to head games, as well as some Trigon. I'd like to teach her Samurai and YINSH (and I'm sure she'll learn Micro Mutants and Blink). These two games because we can then play them online...
There is another math trade going on. While I found more things to trade, there just isn't a ton of real interesting things in this trade, so we'll see what happens. I've listed loads of the gift certs, but not tons else for most of the stuff. I listed a lot of things for All Wound Up, which sounded good, looks cute, but sucks as a game. I'd pretty much be happy with any game that costs whatever it'll cost me to ship AWU.