Bunker Project Log

Well, I finally got my ten… plus two extras. My first two worked fine. Then my CC was refused by Steam. I eventually got smart and set up a new Steam account, but used PayPal as my payment method. This allowed me to get five more before Steam wised up and killed that.

So, I started getting antsy, and emailed friends at work. Being that it was Sunday, I didn’t get a response. Then, I got really desperate, and asked DangerKitty to help out. He hasn’t PC gamed in years, and doesn’t have a Steam account, so chances were slim.

Steam is running a great special on Prey right now, at $4.95 a pop. This is perfect for me, as I can get a groovy game on the entire LAN for just shy of $50.

So, I bought the first one to try out the multiplayer and it worked lickity split. I had the dedicated server set up in about three minutes, which is a record for me. I was sure that the gravity and Portal effects would be perfect for a drunken Bunker Party LAN game.

I had?almost completely given up this game of Colosseum after a hideous second round, which had netted me only 14 points. I?passed a whole turn without a cent to my name, there was no way I could win.

When suddenly, I?managed to buy “Mare Spielbergum”, and everything came together. I had stars, I had a huge colosseum, I had season tickets!

I rode high for turns III and IV. I was doing the impossible, I was winning! In turn V, the end, I made my final production with 71 points.

One word:

infuriating.

Oh crap…?

?I love Tanga. They have a great business model, cool content, and they are run by this guy?(how cool is that?). I have bought a godzillion things there.

And that’s the problem.

For an obsessive compulsive collector hobbyist weirdo like me, with a previously disposable income…?but now a father of two whose expenses are catching up with him, this is very bad.

So, when Ticket to Ride Marklin Edition (the “Real Gamer’s version”)?showed up at the appointed time of Tanga (1opm EST for the uninitiated) I did my usual bolt downstairs, halfway through a 5-player game?of Fluxx no less.

OMG. There’s this game called Zombies!… and the box has, like, 5 million little zombie guys in it, and… like… the game is named ZOMBIES! But, we were like, at this party, where we played it, and there were like…?NO ZOMBIES! We played the whole friggin game, and there were like, 3 zombies all the way through it. WTH???

Before and After

?

So, the entire IT department is Wooting Off, and this rrreallllly ugly mouse comes up for 5 Bucks American… and I’m wondering, do I buy it? And all the douchebags are bitching about it not being a Bag of Crap instead of telling me whether it is worth it or not… And I’m still wondering, do I buy it? Because, a Tangathon is going on at the same time and the wife is going to rip me to shreds if she finds out that I’d bought another version of Carcassonne… and… two different versions of Settlers of Catan… and should I buy the damn mice? It’s running out… they’re running out of stock… and I’ve got 7 machines on The Lan that could really use a groovy gaming mouse with variable DPI and all that jazz.

Mrs. G’s entire family, and their family’s families are here from across the pond. This is a lot of people. A lot of… ahem… older people.

So… of course I wanted to have a Bunker Party for them. I really want to test out the Wii on a group of unsuspecting Sexa and Septuagenarians.

Things were going pretty well. Everything was clean, powered up and ready to go. Then the second the first group arrived, the sky broke open. We?were in the middle of some sort of freak, instantaneous, in-land hurricane thingy. The house shook, the roof plinked and popped with the sound of hail, and to my horror, the lights browned for a minute, and finally went out entirely.

It’s early Summer, and I’m just chillin’ with Mrs. G, and she says “isn’t it weird that we’ll be married seven years tomorrow?”

And, because I’m a total blockhead, I say “our anniversary isn’t until Saturday!”

Remember that thing about a land war in Asia? That is like arguing with your wife about when your anniversary is, when her birthday is, where your first date was, when your kids were born, when your kids were conceived, where your kids were conceived, etc. Don’t do it.

Dateline: Game Developers Conference, March 9, 2005 – Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA. I’m sitting in the Grand Ballroom, waiting for the Microsoft keynote, titled “The HD Era”. J. Allard looked tragically hip, with his suited hoodie and preaching the MS game gospel. I, being a corporate droid, fell hook line and sinker for the endless possibilities of micro-payments and downloadable content and the this and the that and the other.

Then, J shows us Forza Motorsport. For the unwashed, this was the moment when Microsoft gave away 1000 HD TVs to anyone wearing the badge colored the same as the winning car. I had blue, Mrs. G had yellow. Or was it the other way around?