It originated in Tibet. Then made its way onto a yacht. Then took over Canada. How the classic board game of Yahtzee came to be.

A stars-bound journey away from the drudgery of everyday ordinariness.

With the holiday season fast approaching, retail payroll teams around the world are bracing for the strain of seasonal hiring.

“It’s about creating music as equals,” said David Cretney, of Autism Spectrum Australia — the organisation behind supported music studio program, ‘Club Weld and the Riff Society’.

It's more than fair to criticize the Rockies about how they have spent their money.

Playing video games has long been a challenge for many people with disabilities, since the traditional controllers for the PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo can be difficult or even impossible to maneuver when a person has limited mobility. Losing the ability to play doesn’t just mean the loss of a favorite pastime — it can also exacerbate social isolation for a community that already experiences it at far higher rates than the general population. Sony’s new Access Controller, developed with input from accessibility consultants, aims to change that.

Denver Public Schools has recommended closing 10 schools in response to declining enrollment.

If approved by the school board in two weeks, the closures and restructuring will affect 1,844 students and 267 employees.

Getting stalked? Your relationship is poppin’.

The legendary Diahann Carroll introduces Phylicia Rashad.

Kroll announced that Dylan Edward Marshall has joined their Bermuda office as a Director in the restructuring practice, bringing twelve years of experience in restructuring and insolvency work. A spokesperson said, “Kroll, the leading independent provider of global risk and financial advisory solutions, announced that Dylan Edward Marshall, CPA, CA has joined the Bermuda office […]

Clarien Bank Limited announced that, pending regulatory approvals, Cornerstone Financial Holdings Ltd or its nominee, will acquire a controlling interest in Clarien Group Limited [CGL]. A spokesperson said, “Clarien Bank Limited [the Bank /Clarien], a leading financial institution on the Island, is pleased to announce that, pending regulatory approvals, Cornerstone Financial Holdings Ltd [Cornerstone] or […]

A 6K Family Fun Walk, Run, and Roll event will be held on Saturday, September 28, starting at 8.30am from Bailey’s Bay Cricket Club to St. George’s Cricket Club to support Zhamir Denbrook-Pitt’s medical expenses. The event sign up page said, “Spinal cord injuries [SCI] can have life-altering impacts, affecting mobility, independence, and overall quality […]

Somehow Buffalo Wings became the staple meal for the Big Game. And while lobster seems like an expensive, once in a while special treat, the price has come down lately so the price per serving of this recipe is quite reasonable. This is a simple and yummy meal that’s ready in minutes. These are best …

What is "Payroll Report Status"?

We have inspected this email and learned that its purpose is to extract personal information from recipients. Emails of this type are classified as phishing emails. This particular email is disguised as a letter regarding a change in the payroll report status to appear legitimate and lure recipients into opening a deceptive website.

I really love the card game Lost Cities, designed by Reiner Knizia. When my husband Christopher and I were first getting to know each other, we used to meet up at Starbucks sometimes and play games. Lost Cities was one of our frequent picks. It’s a head to head, two player game in which both players are trying to outscore each other by laying down ascending runs of card suits on a small board between the two of them. There’s a theme laid over the mechanism (completing expeditions in the lost world) but it’s basically pasted on and so that is the last we will speak of it. So there we were, newly in love, eyeing each other across the table, smiling and flirting, and doing our best to beat one another at Lost Cities. It was awesome. And now, with the roll & write genre having made an impressive rebound a few years ago (let’s not forget the mechanism has actually been around since the 50s with Yatzee), Knizia has ported his award winning game Lost Cities  into this format, releasing Lost Cities Roll & Write  in 2021. 

You can play the new Lost Cities  with up to 5 players, but in an ode to our romantic beginnings, Christopher and I played it exclusively with one another in successive matches.  The components are compact, lacking the pretty illustrations of the original game, and few in number – the rule book, a scorepad, three pentagonal trapezohedron dice (that’s 10 sided dice for the uninitiated), and three 6 sided custom dice with color suit symbols. Oh, and some pencils. That’s it. We could have played on an even smaller Starbucks table if we had this back in our dating days.

The cards from the original game (wager cards and numbered cards 2 to 10, in five different suits) have been translated into dice roll results. On each turn, one player rolls all the dice and chooses one of the six sided dice to represent the suit and one of the ten sided dice to represent the number. A zero on the number die can represent either zero (mimicking the wager card from the original game which serves as a multiplier for the total score in the selected suit) or ten (mimicking the highest card in each suit).

In place of the tableau built up on a central board, each player tracks the progress of wager and number cards they’ve collected for each suit in color coded columns on their individual score sheet. Wager cards have been transformed into little circular boxes to be marked off from a suit column when rolled, while the numbered cards from the original game have expanded to include the number 1 and are recorded as numbers written manually in the square boxes running up each column. Whereas in the original game, only cards higher than the last card played in a suit were permitted to be played on subsequent turns by the same player, in Lost Cities Roll & Write, numbers that are higher than or equal to the last number recorded for a suit may be written into the column after future dice rolls. Expanding beyond the concepts from the original game, Knizia has included artifact icons on select spaces in each column and when those spaces are filled by a player, they may fill in one of the jars in the artifact column. Likewise, he’s included arrow icons on select spaces and when those spaces are filled by a player, they may fill in the next box in one of their suit columns with the number from the previous box in the column – note that it does not have to be the same column in which the arrow was filled.  There’s also a column for filling in dice shapes to represent rolls where a player could not or did not want to use any of the dice results. The latter column is particularly tricky to manage effectively, as it provides a similar point progression as the rest of the columns (negative scores for the first 3 boxes filled and then positive score for the rest) up until the last box in the column. If you color in that box, your score for the dice shapes column drops from 70 to 0. The bonus points awarded in the original game (20 points for laying down at least 8 cards in a suit) have been implemented in Lost Cities Roll & Write  for each column (including the artifact and dice shape columns) as a 20 point bonus to the player who is the first to fill in 7 boxes in the column on the scorepad. The roll & write game ends when either both players have filled in the dice shapes column completely or all eight columns have passed the bonus point marker. In our experience, the completed dice shapes column is a much more common trigger.

I’ve played a ton of roll & write games over the past few years. Some are instant objects of adoration, while others are infuriating piles of poo (I’m looking at you Imperial Settlers R&W). Lost Cities Roll & Write is fantastic; a great addition to the genre. Knizia did an excellent job of translating the feel of the original game into the new mechanism. The iconography is clean and easy to read and the game can be taught and played in less than a half hour. And of course, it takes up very little table real estate, making it perfect for travel or tight spaces (when traveling as a passenger, simply roll the dice into the box cover). If you twisted my arm and forced me to choose between Lost Cities or Lost Cities Roll & Write, I’d be forced to pick the original, but only because of the lovely artwork on the cards and the sentimental value I have attached to the game after my love and I played it in our early days. But who would go around doing such arm twisting? Nobody. Therefore, with a retail price point under $15 for each of these, unless you’re down to your last $15, I recommend you pick up both. Play the card game with someone you love when you have a little more table space. Play the roll & write anywhere, with up to four additional friends. 

-------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Kosmos
Players: 2-5 (We played with 2)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): about 20 minutes per game
Game type: roll & write, dice rolling

Rating:

Rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

At every company, there’s some guy trying desperately to figure out a way to harness a current wave of consumer demand and somehow direct it right onto the doorstep of the company. “Even better…”, that guy explains to rest of management, “If we can deliver something on *that* demand that our customers will gobble up and that will drive their demand up for our *other* established products, we’ve gone above and beyond! A cross-promotional windfall!”  Well, it looks like someone at Stonemaier put that guy in charge of roll and write game development and Rolling Realms was the result. It’s meta game of sorts that mostly serves as an advertisement for the rest of the Stonemaier product line, as each card in this roll and write game is named after a different Stonemaier game title. 

 

On the plus side, Rolling Realms is a pandemic friendly, easy to learn, and quick to play roll and write that plays as easily over zoom with 20 people as it plays in person with a few people around a table. Every card presents a different way to earn victory points as it’s filled in, and in a standard game, 9 cards from the supply of 11 varieties are chosen and used (3 cards per round x 3 rounds).

Environment sparing bonus: the cards are all laminated and dry erase markers are provided, so you can play unlimited games without killing endless trees. The Tapestry card gives me a headache with its Tetris like spatial relations exercise, but otherwise I enjoyed all the cards and their creative use of point collection.

   Despite its positives, Rolling Realms does not make the cut for my recommendations list. I played many, many games of Rolling Realms to give it a fair shake, and here’s the thing – it’s a perfectly adequate roll and write game. But in this modern era of board gaming, there are a ton of roll and write games on the market or in development and adequate just doesn’t cut it. Add on the creepiness factor of the cross-promotional marketing gimmick (BTW, can anyone tell me why the card for Red Rising is named “The Society” instead of RR?) and yeah…just no. Keep the game if someone gives it to you I suppose (I’m probably keeping mine), but don’t go out and spend your own money on Rolling Realms when there are so many other better roll and write games out there you could buy instead. I’m talking Cartographers. I’m talking Hex Roller. I’m talking Qwixx and Quinto. I’m talking Railroad Ink. I’m talking Noch Mal. And for the ultimate challenge, I’m talking Fleet or Hadrian’s Wall.    

As a final note, I want to let you know that I’m very sad I finally met a Stonemaier game that didn’t bring me joy. I mean, it was inevitable that it would happen someday, but it’s still sad. I've been reviewing games from Stonemaier for a few years now. I got drawn in by Scythe initially (amazing area control game) and then, with each new game the company released, I crossed my fingers and hoped that it would be awesome. I really respect Jamey Stegmaier as a designer and a business owner and I'm rooting for his continued success. And so far, it's all worked out, because I've fallen in love with each Stonemaier game that's come my way, outside of Rolling Realms. For example, Tapestry and Between Two Castles are amazing, as are their expansions, and I urge you to give them a try. Also, I hope Jamey doesn’t listen to any more bad ideas originating from the guy with the marketing gimmick idea that was behind Rolling Realms, whether he was one of the voices in Jamey’s creative imagination or an actual employee at the company.  

-------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Players: 1 - many
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): about 20 minutes per game
Game type: roll & write, dice rolling

Rating:

Rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

 The Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, on a tour of the United States, passed through Utah, and decided to drop in on Brigham Young. It did not go well. From Trollope's autobiography:

"I did not achieve great intimacy with the great polygamist of Salt Lake City. [...] He received me in his doorway, not asking me to enter, and inquired whether I was not a miner. When I told him that I was not a miner, he asked me whether I earned my bread. I told him I did. "I guess you're a miner," said he. I again assured him I was not. "Then how do you earn your bread?" I told him I did so by writing books. "I'm sure you're a miner," said he. Then he turned upon his heel, went back into the house, and closed the door."

Alt text: Anthony Trollope. Looking, as usual, exactly like a miner.

You do realize you have a perfectly functional (?) helmet sitting right in front of you. Right?

Just when we thought we'd never get anything better than Donald Trump grasping that orb, we get this dark-humored, delightfully awkward pic that just oozes cringe. Naturally, people were ready to flood Twitter with some entertaining captions. 

Poor ol' Joe Biden has been the subject of many memes in this election cycle. Whether you love him or hate him, you have to admit that they've been pretty amusing. This particular meme mocks a campaign avatar where one can insert their image next to text that says "I'm on team Joe!" It's moderately cringey to say the least, but cringey makes for the best meme material.

As wildfires continue to ravage the West Coast, President Trump has been quick to dismiss climate change as one of the root causes, stating that countries in Europe like Austria don't suffer from wildfires because Europeans live in "forest cities" that are "managed better" yet are "more explosive" than the trees in California.

We're not entirely sure what any of that means, and apparently neither do memers, so please enjoy the following memes about "forest cities" in Austria.

The roll, pitch and yaw of an object relative to another is complex to compute. We use 3D complex number to compute them which makes the computation easier and more intuitive. Roll, pitch and yaw are angles of orientation of an object in space and the conversion of these angles among different reference frames is...

What even is this planet that we live on anymore though?

Chelsea’s 2023-2024 season under the new management of Mauricio Pochettino has been marked by highs and lows, showcasing both promise..

The post Chelsea 2023/24 Season Review: A Rollercoaster Ride appeared first on Chelsea FC Blog.

The Coast Guard Exchange has the Spider-Man DualSense controller for $49.99. Also the Spiderman Ps5 bundle is $479. No sales tax. Only available for those active duty, retirees, veterans, and their dependents. 

 

https://shopcgx.com/electronics-en-2/featured-brands-en/sony/ps5-dualsense-wireless-controller-spiderman2-lmtd-ed-new-age-8-1-23.html

 

 

https://shopcgx.com/electronics-en-2/featured-brands-en/sony/ps5-disk-spiderman-2-slim-bundle-d-and-h-10-13-23.html

By Sara Truuvert

Sweaty palms, shaking limbs, and the distinct possibility of puking. Am I describing riding a rollercoaster or having a crush in middle school? These two thrill rides collide in Jake Maia Arlow's MG debut Almost Flying.

The novel follows thirteen-year-old Dalia, who has planned the perfect summer: finally ride a rollercoaster and make a new best friend. But when Dalia's dad announces he is engaged and expects Dalia to bond with her soon-to-be stepsister, Alexa, Dalia thinks her summer plans are shot. Luckily, Alexa agrees to take Dalia and Rani, a new girl from Dalia's swim team, on an amusement park road trip. What should be a smooth week takes a turn when Dalia realizes she might have more-than-friend feelings for Rani. Almost Flying launched on June 8th, 2021 with Dial Books and is widely available to order.

Jake Maia Arlow is a writer, podcast producer (listen to her work on shows like NPR's Invisibilia), bagel connoisseur, and co-writer of a musical about a gay demon competing in a reality TV show. You can find out more about Jake on her website, Twitter, and YouTube channel. Watch for her YA debut, How To Excavate A Heart launching from HarperTeen in 2022.

Q. A huge congratulations on your MG debut! Your protagonist Dalia is thirteen, which is such a weird, wild, sometimes(?) wonderful age. Did that time in your own life influence this story?

A. Thank you so much! That time in my own life absolutely influenced this story—mostly in that I was a complete weirdo in middle school. And while I wasn’t brave enough or self-aware enough to understand my own early queer feelings, I was so deeply idiosyncratic that I could write 1,000 middle grade novels and never touch on all of my bizarre behavior. For example: I wore mismatched toe socks to school every. Single. Day. 

Q. I love how unique Dalia is—for starters, she absolutely loves watching rollercoaster POVs (but would rather keep this hobby to herself!). Would you speak a bit about developing Dalia’s character?

A. Developing her character was one of the most exciting parts of the writing process, because it involved watching a ton of rollercoaster POV videos! Part of my process included taking notes on different POV videos in Dalia’s voice—some of those early free-writes even made it into the novel in various forms. It’s hard for me to start writing before I know a character’s voice, but Dalia’s came very naturally to me. She’s an anxious queer Jew from Long Island … just like me haha!

Q. Dalia has to navigate some complicated feelings she develops for her friend Rani. Did you map out the trajectory of their relationship before you began writing? Or was it more a matter of seeing where your writing took you?

A. I knew that Dalia had a crush on Rani from the very beginning, but it took me a few rounds of edits to realize that Rani also had a crush on Dalia from the start. Dalia overthinks everything, and even though Rani gives her some pretty clear signals, she doesn’t pick up on them. It was really more of a discovery writing process than I thought it would be!

Q. Do you have any writing routines or rituals that help you get into a good workflow?

A. Oooh, I love this question! I always have rain sounds playing in the background, regardless of whether or not it’s actually raining outside. Other than that, I do the pomodoro method (25 minutes of writing with a five minute break) and I try to have a friend around so I can bounce ideas off of them! 

Q. You have a helpful (and funny) post on your website about the process of getting your agent, which, understandably, involved a fair amount of nerves and panic. What would you say to an author who feels daunted by the idea of starting this process?

A. I’m thrilled that someone has read that! My advice is always to be over prepared. I am almost chronically over prepared because of my anxiety, but in this case it served me well. Listen to podcasts, read sample query letters, read the acknowledgements of your favorite books. There are so many incredible resources that you never have to go through this alone. 

Q. Do you have any advice for young writers?

A. YES! So many people like to say “read,” which is awesome advice, and you should absolutely do that, but my other piece of advice is to WRITE! Write in a journal, write your earth-shattering novel idea on a Google Doc and share it with friends, write recipes, write spells. Write anything and everything. At the very least, you’ll have something to look back on. 

Q. Finally, I understand that both you and Dalia are bagel connoisseurs. I must know, what separates a great bagel from a good bagel?

A. This is the greatest question I’ve ever been asked. First of all, if a bagel isn’t boiled, it’s not a real bagel— it’s just a piece of bread with a hole in the center. But other than that, a great bagel is freshly made, a little warm on the inside; it’s chewy on the outside and soft on the inside. And, most importantly, a great bagel is one that you eat with friends and family. 

------------------------------------------------------------------

Sara Truuvert completed her MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews. She also holds a Certificate in Creative Writing from the Humber School for Writers and a BA in English, Drama, and the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Toronto. Her work has appeared in the Literary Review of Canada among other publications.

For more interviews, see the Inkygirl Interview Archive. Also see Advice For Young Writers and Illustrators, a compilation of tips generously offered by children's book creators Inkygirl.com has interviewed over the years.

George Takei really sucks—and he's proud of it!

The Star Trek legend and Internet darling had the prefect response this week for a Facebook troll trying to bring him down.

He shared a screenshot of the exchange with the caption: "Sorry, couldn't help myself.‪ #‎Trollololollol‬"

BOOM!

Takei is known for his epic Internet takedowns, so mark this one down as another win for Sulu.

Wintery spring rolls were the perfect lunch on a recent flight. Self-contained and slathered with a bold ginger-onion paste, filled with brown sugar tofu, mushrooms, lettuce, and herbs. The best kind of BYO plane food.

Continue reading Wintery Spring Rolls on 101 Cookbooks

The absolute number of Black men enrolled at Historically Black Colleges and Universities is the lowest it's been since 1976.

The number of Black men enrolled at Historically Black Colleges and Universities is the lowest it’s been since 1976.

The seed for the current project was sown last year when a similarly-themed exposition was given pride of place at the Bundestag, the German parliament building in Berlin.

(Official editorial of the Washington Examiner Oct. 30. NOTE: Hours after this editorial was published, the Supreme Court did exactly as the editorial board suggested.)  The Supreme Court should decide […]

The post Supreme Court should let Virginia manage its voter rolls appeared first on Quin Hillyer.

Meta Platforms is rolling out enhanced privacy and parental controls for Instagram accounts of users under 18 in a significant overhaul aimed at addressing growing concerns around the negative effects of social media.

She likes Kamala's polices enough to put a lawn sign up on her property, but when one toll with a postcard personalizes those policies... she loses it.

The post Harris Supporter Outraged By Postcard Trolling… Did They Go Too Far? appeared first on Clash Daily.

Who says neuroscience can’t be fun? The toy giant Mattel makes Mindflex, a toy that lets players control a ping pong ball with their brain waves. I wrote about the toy way back in 2009, and was surprised to find it was still selling. It seemed like a gimmick when introduced, and I didn’t expect […]

The post Mattel Mindflex Game: Brain-controlled Neuro-Toy appeared first on Neuromarketing.

A group of Vermont high school students backed by a powerful conservative Christian legal organization is accusing the state of religious discrimination.