weekend

millions in my hand

And all because of an evening spent playing Jason's DotCom version of Monopoly.

In the end, Carl trounced us all completely, with his acquisition of EBay triggering outrageous payments, but it was fun playing competitively with friends. I worked out an early alliance with Carl and Andrew (Kalbo.com even though I sport a full head of hair these days), creating a corporation with the trifecta of Games.com, Eonline and another property I fail to remember. It was great having Charles with us, a rare occurence, especially in such spiffy togs.

Too bad we didn't get to play Die Seidler von Catan because the resto we were at had to close. Instead, we ate (again!) at Whistle Stop and talked of business and other matters that occupied our minds.

reads

To my dismay, there were several trade paperbacks clamoring for my attention at Comicquest. And now, they grace the overburdened bookshelf extension:

Salmon Doubts by Adam Sacks was a wonderful find. A series of vignettes about relationships and of finding one's own path told through the life cycle of salmon.

Arrowsmith by Busiek and Pacheco is a finely presented story set during World War I in a magic-rich world. Beautiful art here.

Bone: The Crown of Thorns by Jeff Smith is the 9th and final volume of the Bone storyline. This was tepid and quite disappointing. I feel that Smith lost his way after the first few volumes and got caught up in the complexities of his imagination. Too many stories to tell, resulting in a convoluted mess that does not satisfy (and believe me, I'm a great supporter of non-closure).

Ultimate Spider-Man: Hollywood by Brian Bendis delivers on entertainment and characterization, thanks to the author's knack for dialogue. Good enough reason to pick it up.

The latest Flash collection by geoff Johns was uneven but still had its moments.

On the prose front, I'm dividing my time between the Mammoth Book of New Horror, Year's Best Fantasy 3, Gathering the Bones, and The Green Man. - all of them anthologies. So, yes, I'm very much into short fiction these days.

Except for George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice cycle that I'm happily rereading (though I dislike almost all the characters). Finished Game of Thrones and am suffering through the first portions of Clash of Kings. But I do like the books because of the story and the author's capable writing.

And for some reason, I've hankering to reread one of my fave non-fiction books, Nathaniel's Nutmeg.