It was a nice vacation. There was a baby, who is very cute and likes stealing glasses and saying “babababaabbbbaabababa”. There was air conditioning, so we did not die when it was 42C outside. There was the traditional Chinese food and grilled stuff and splashing in the pool. There was conversation. (Our hosts recently went to Japan and returned with tales.) There was a long stretch of sitting in cars, with a brief interruption to sit on folding chairs and watch fireworks at close range. (Nonny had a comment for each one, because he hasn’t seen a lot of fireworks.) There were board games. There were so many snacks. Eventually we got our act together and returned to San Jose.

Played: Everdell. We played this twice, so I have enough data to conclude that I am terrible at this game. I’d say the dual use of cards as discardable currency pushes it into Race for the Galaxy territory, but I’m sure that’s quite right. Mostly I’m just dumb. I’m sorry, cute forest creatures!

Played: Roll for the Galaxy. I came in second, which was also last.

Played: Pandemic. We also had the On The Brink expansion, but the extra roles didn’t save us. I came in last, along with all of humanity.

Played: Sagrada. I managed to get my tableau complete, but failed on all the victory conditions, so I came in last.

Watched: I totally thought I was going to do something useful when I got home, but instead I got chicken with too many bones and watched the start of a ridiculous anime called Estab Life. It’s the cyberpunk fantasy future, everybody has to live in their cultural burbclave, cute girl shadowrunners help them defect in pursuit of their unapproved dreams.

Written: FAIL. I had my laptop, and my current draft is in Dropbox, so I could have written, yet I did not. Pretty sure I can still make my overall goal, although this may not be my strongest week.