Beer and Boardgames

Something I've recently gotten into as a hobby is designer board games.  Things have come a long way since the era of games like Monopoly, Sorry!, and Life.  One thing that hasn't changed is taking a game and pasting a theme over it (I'm looking at you Cthulhu Monopoly).  Because, Capitalism.

Here are some games that feature beer either in the game's theme or as a game mechanic.

Beer: Do's and Don'ts for Hosting a Beer Tasting

A very impressive Collection of Sierra Nevada Beers.
Wait, we're drinking all of those tonight?

A fun thing for beer lovers to do, besides drinking beer, is to drink beer with friends.  One way to do this is to host a beer tasting.  These events can be set up in a myriad of ways so, to be helpful, here's some do's and don'ts for setting up a beer tasting event.

Do: Host a beer tasting event.  Everyone loves beer and would love to go to a fun event at your abode.

Don't: Invite every living soul you know.  Events like this tend to work better when between a gathering and a shindig, as opposed to full Hootenany (As described by Seth Green's character Oz in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Dead Man's Party): "Well, a gathering is brie, mellow song stylings; shindig, dip, less mellow song stylings, perhaps a large amount of malt beverage; and hootenanny, well it's chock full of hoot, [with] just a little bit of nanny."

Imagining NHL Players at Disneyland

So this happened.
Photo taken from DisZine

Living in Orange County, California, its hard to ignore Disneyland.  Especially at night with fireworks going off nightly at 9:25 pm during the summer, or so I hear.  From my house.  Every.  Single.  Night.

The other week Yahoo Puck Daddy's own West Coaster Jen Neale mentioned on twitter how she likes looking for hockey references while at Disneyland.  Here's how I imagine NHL players at Disneyland and what they'd be doing while there.

Setup:  At the conclusion of the NHL season, all the players head over to Disneyland for a private post season party.  Everyone shuffles into the park after a small issue with checking everyone's identification which is quickly resolved after Coach Joel Quenneville tells the staff something to effect of I've got your identification right here.

2014-15 NHL Predictions

Well, the 2014-2015 season is underway as I type this, so that means I'm probably the 25,002,019th person to throw predictions out there.  I've traditionally avoided doing season and post-season predictions because you might as well just pick teams out of a hat and pencil Stamkos and Crosby in for at least half of the awards.

Biggest Regular Season Drop-off: Anaheim - Here's a team that rode above average goaltending (9), below average shooting percentage (30), and an awful power play (22) to a Number One berth in the ultra competitive western Conference and then benched their starter in the playoffs.  With Hiller now in Calgary, I don't see Andersen and Gibson being ready to shoulder the load of an 82 game season.

Features I'd like to see in Future NHL Games

The release of NHL 15 is just around the corner, which means I should've written this about a year ago, just in case someone at EA reads this blog and was thinking about what new features one fan wants.

No matter what a developer does, there's always a desire for more (to go along with endless gripes).  Video game developers might even have a worse job than sports referees. At least the vitriol they experience is keyboard-based nerd rage as opposed to 15,000 plus hockey fans screaming "Ref you suck!" at every penalty called.  But overall, the overworked and underpaid developers rarely get the kudos they deserve.

So thank you for all that you do so I may live vicariously through pixelated avatars.

What are some features that I'd like to see added to a future version of the NHL games?

Types of Drivers as Hockey Players

This is actually a movie, not a picture (Photo by LA Times)

I live in Southern California, a place where you describe how far something is in time it takes to get there, not in actual distance.  In that way, I sort of get Han Solo's unit gaff when he described doing the "Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs."  (Though if you read this, it makes more sense, but kind of ruins my point, so don't click on the link).

As I drive, I often attribute personalities to cars near by.  Most of the time it's like a Fish Called Wanda, but not always.  And since I like hockey, I thought I'd compare the stereo-typical hockey players, by roles, to those of the people on the freeways.

Beer Intangibles

Tonight is the first night of the NHL entry draft where besides statistics players are often rated by various intangibles.  Intangibles, by nature, are intangible and therefore hard to quantify. Things like "desire", "clutch", "winner" are terms that are tossed around, as if the kid further down the bench loves losing and hates being on the ice, since that takes, like, effort.

In the world of craft beer people are always talking about IBUs, specific gravity, nose, color, taste, alcohol content, and other descriptors.

Does beer have intangibles?  I'm glad you asked; of course it does.  Here's some intangibles of beer being discussed as if it was a potential draft pick by a scouting staff and a general manager.