I Turned Antique Coins Pink!!!

I feel so foolish!!!

So, I've been getting into board games. And one of the fun things to do with board games is bling them up. Metal coins. Wooden meeple upgrades. Stickers. 3D printed assets or figures. Etc. Etc. Etc. So many possibilities.

Many months ago, as in before the end of last year... :\ ... I got Obsession. A game about Victorian romance. I haven't learned how to play it, but so many people online rave how fun it is. On Board Game Geek the game has an 8.3 rating. That's REALLY high

 

So, before even learning how to play with it I thought it would be nice to upgrade to metal coins. Well, no gaming coins fit, and the set many people buy for this game was sold out. If gaming coins can't be found, why not use authentic British coins instead? Onto Ebay I went, and found pences and shillings. Why not?

The problem with old coins is that they're dirty and smell. Why not clean them?!! (Which all coin collectors shudder at, because that diminishes their value). I found a vinegar and salt technique. The instructions said not to use a glass bowl, as plastic is better. What did I do? Use a glass bowl. And then left the coins in the solution for nearly an hour!!!

They turned pink!!!!!  The sides pressed against the glass were the most pink!!!! I ruined antique coins. Some of theses coins lived through WWII. They survived a World War, amongst other things, and in 2022 I turned them pink! How pathetic is that??!! 

That just made me really depressed, for months, until I watched a Chateau Dairies episode on YT where a jar of three pence coins were found, which are the coins I turned pink.  So I went to Ebay and bought another set.

And I vow never to clean these. Let them be.

Though check out how clean and shiny this 1944 coin is! So pretty.

Oh the stories these coins can tell.

Sarah :0)

(I really need to learn how to play that game... :\ )

(Heh, I honestly have a lot of games I need to learn how to play... ehhhh..... but my shelf of shame is really pretty. Though the games I have sat down to learn have been fun.)

Iron Chef, LEGO's, and Games

I finally downloaded Pluto TV.  Late to the party!!  Known about it for awhile, but I didn't know it was free.  The service works like you're watching live TV, with commercials, and there's some stuff on demand.  And oh my goodness, I'm having so much fun with the streams!  There's so much.

One of the channels is nothing but classic Iron Chef, which brings back so many memories.  Another channel is nothing but Stargate, which is such a great show with interesting spinoffs. There's a history channel that actually shows history shows and not reality stuff.  Music video channels.  A bunch of Spanish stuff.  A nature scenes channel that's so relaxing.  Watched a little Love Boat.  And my favorites are BBC Home and BBC Food.

So the kiddos have been spending a lot of time over here due to home renovations and cleaning up black mold (sadly proving to be a huge problem), so we've been having a lot of fun.  I introduced them to Iron Chef... which didn't go as plan!  Oh, they watched one episode because they knew it was important to me.  On another day I asked my oldest niece if she wanted to see Iron Chef again, and she said it was kinda weird. :\ So we watched Escape to the Country instead.  Heh, *sigh*.

But one of the reasons they didn't want to watch more Iron Chef is because they wanted to watch more LEGO Masters, or whatever the show is called, over on Hulu.  Actually, that show is pretty fun.  Highly recommend.  We finally finished the first season, and the winning build was so epic.  We all wanted that one to win and cheered.  There's a new show called Domino Masters, which is fun as well, but the kids don't like watching the first half, so we fast forward to the topples.  The best part.

So, yeah, if you haven't checked out Pluto TV I highly recommend it.  You don't have to sign up or anything.  I showed it to Robbie the other night, and he was excited that there was a Yu-Gi-Oh Spanish channel.  

The kids know there's a second season of LEGO Masters, but we're taking a break to play games.  Played Dice Forge and taught Yukon Airways.  I was worried about the Yukon game, because it's a little complicated, but they liked it.  Though, apart of it is because we played with my Dad, and he kept making jokes, so they giggled a lot.  Honestly, that's what board gaming is all about.  Had some good conversations with two of my nieces while we played the first game.  Got to hear all about their crushes, which was amusing.  One niece launched into the probability by percentage of her chance of marrying one crush verses another.  That was precious.

Board gaming is such a fun hobby.

Sarah

 

The Game My Family Probably Won't Learn How To Play...

So there's a game that my family probably won't ever learn how to play.  I'm saying "probably" because ya never know, but as it stands no one wants to give it a go.  Why?  Because it's Tesla vs. Edison... and no one wants to play Edison.

Like, literally no one.

We're a pro Nikola Tesla family.

Edison is full of cringe.

In other news I did get to try out two new games on Memorial Day: MegaCity Oceania and Wingspan.  Really cool very different games.  MegaCity is a city building game plus puzzle solving while trying to move the structures without any of them falling.  Wingspan is just a super chill bird game where you collect birds and eggs.  Enjoyed both of them.

I've started collecting board games that have a single player variant.  There's so many now, and some of them have really good reviews, so I'm excited to try them out.  It would be fun to review them and let you know what they are, playing at least five times to get a sense of repeatability and overall enjoyment.  It'll take a little time to work through them, but it will be a fun project.

Hope you're having a great week!

Sarah

In the Name of Black Friday Madness!!! . . .

I fell asleep super early tonight thanks to everything that has happened these last couple days . . . and then awoke at 1 a.m. this fine morning, deciding that this would be as perfect a time as any to pen (aka write on my cell phone) a blog post.

Now it's 1:15 in the morning as I sit here, a lively Boccherini classical Quintet playing in the background, as I calmly question my sanity, droopy eyes aside.

This is a bad idea.

If driving tired is equivalent to driving drunk, is this equivalent to drunk blogging?

Yup.

(Backing up a little.)

I hate the idea behind Black Thursday, because it's no longer enough to wait till Friday.  We must now encroach upon Thursday, turning a relatively quiet day of cooking and family drama into a madhouse dash between one good deal after another.  And all those poor workers who were dragged away from their families to work 8+ hour shifts through the midnight hour.

Last year I boycotted Black Thursday.

This year I participated.

Curiosity overcame any sound judgment . . . and I'm $90 poorer as a result.

My Mom wanted to check out the Mall and the adjacent Target store.

We explored the Mall a little, most stores were closed at 6:30 p.m. (Some stores opened at 8, others 10, all stores had to be open by midnight).  The girl working at the Games and Calendars store worked a 13 hour shift, from six that night to seven the next morning.

Most of my shopping was done at Target.  No big screen for me, though the multiple rows of TV boxes towards the front of the store was quite impressive.

I headed upstairs where I scored three Nintendo 3DS games at $15 each: Mario Kart 7, the new Donkey Kong 3D game, and Super Mario 3D World.  Each game is normally $40.  I also found the board game "Pandemic" for $31.  (I've known about this game for years, hearing how much fun it is, but ever since the Ebola outbreak I've thought about this game and how much I want to play it.  Blame my sick twisted humor). And I got the Nashville season 2 part 2 Target exclusive CD with 21 tracks for $7.  Love the music on the show, so that was a huge win, especially since the album normally retails for $16.99.

With tax it all came out to $90.28, when the normal pre-tax price would have been $176.99.  So that's pretty good.

(It's almost 2 am and I need to finish this up so I can catch some more z's.  I'm feeling my mind drift)

My Mom and I finished shopping right before midnight, which was when Bath and Body Works opened.  (It was apparently a madhouse, so I'm glad I didn't stick around to experience that insanity).  We got home around midnight, and then got caught up watching a Christmas movie on the Hallmark channel, so 2 a.m. was about the time I fell asleep last night, which already feels like ages ago.

Though, while still at the mall and right after a frozen yogurt break, my Mom commented that Black Thursday must be nice for those without families, because it gives them a chance to be around people, when they would have otherwise been lonely.  I can see that.  The mall was lively and festive, even with the late hour.

Personally I still feel Black Thursday is wrong.  Thanksgiving is a day for friends and family, and not a day to take other people away from their friends and family, but despite this I still had a good time.

It was fun.

And after I awoke yesterday morning I found out my Mom went back to the mall at 4 a.m.!!!  Totally getting no sleep at all.  Crazy!

And now I must get back to bed.

Good morning and good night.

(2:34 a.m.)

(With the way I wrote this blog you can tell I'm in that weird "is this morning or night" "today or yesterday"? stage.  There's a strange blur between days this early in the morning).

-_-;; zzzzz

Monopoly's New Cat: I Blame All Those Cat Memes

(Copyright Hasbro)

This past week Hasbro made a huge announcement!  A new cat token will be replacing the iron.  There were two worldwide competition: One, to save a token piece, Second, to add a new token piece.  The Scottish Dog won the popular vote, while the iron lucked out.  I guess we're to assume Monopoly players are huge animal lovers.

(Copyright Hasbro)

The cat was against four other possible tokens.  Personally, I wish the robot won.  It has a cool vintage sci-fi vibe.  I must admit, I'm a cat person, and the cat really is cute.  (Darn, all those cat memes my brother Steven obsesses over are getting to me) Though I hope the dog token is bigger then the cat, because if the cat is bigger, that will look weird.

I've already collected a few versions of the game, and in so doing I have quite a few tokens.  What's sad is I don't have an iron . . . I may have to pick another game up just to get the vintage pieces for nostalgia's sake.  The new game piece will become available at the end of Summer when Monopoly is re-released, sans iron.

I have to throw this out there.  I don't know how many people have played the new, credit card version of the game.  At first I thought it was a travesty.  You can't play Monopoly without paper money!!!  But it's honestly really fun, and speeds up game play quite a bit.  And the money values are the same as the monopoly's "Here & Now" version.  So if I want to play the credit card version with paper money, I just barrow it from the Here & Now version, and I can play the Here & Now version with credit-cards. 

And there's a card game that's actually quite fun with even quicker game play.  How many more versions of this game am I going to buy? -_-;;