Olympic Mistborn Animals Avenge Homer Simpson

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first Sanderson novel that I have picked up. I decided to check it out from the library after hearing multiple people say how they enjoyed them. I have to say that I am very impressed, and you can count on me reading Sanderson's other books - with the rest of the Mistborn series on the top of my list. Sanderson does everything well with this book. He creates such an amazingly descriptive world and has some great character development. Some moments were predictable, but not necessarily in a bad way. The story is fantastic and the intriguing abilities of the Mistborn and other Allomancers are very cool. The book is pretty violent (just a heads up) with many brutal killings, but the book is clean of bad language and sexual descriptions. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to read a good fantasy novel. Fantastic. (View all my 'goodreads' reviews)

The Avengers

I saw The Avengers this last weekend (with about a half million others probably) and I really enjoyed it (surprise surprise from the man who still goes and buys a comic book every once and a while). With the success of comic book hero movies over the past decade, Marvel used the oldest trick in the book to make this movie the huge success it is - combine many great things into one great thing. Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, and throw in Hawkeye and Black Widow and you have an amazing line up of comic book heroes (The Avengers) and some great actors (and actresses - including Cobie Smulders who plays some prominent agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.).

The Avengers is a non-stop action type flick with some witty one-liners, in other words, a comic book brought to life on the big screen. The story line could be simplified to the following: the world is in danger from an evil villain and these super heroes have to band together to save the world. You don't really need to see the other movies before seeing this film, but I would highly recommend doing so (not just because they are great movies, but it will help you get some of the jokes throughout this film). For story line purposes, the movie Thor would be the most important in understanding the movie a bit more because the evil villain in this film is Loki (Thor's brother). If you were not a fan of Thor, I don't think you will enjoy this movie either (maybe you will a bit more than Thor, but since the story line is heavily based off of Thor...). The fact is, I love comic books and I love the movies that Marvel has done. This is definitely a winner in my book, and I'm not surprised that Disney confirmed The Avengers 2 is already in the works. There is also Iron Man 3 to look forward to next year and other sequels coming out like Thor 2 and Captain America 2. Stay 'till the credits are done to get a couple more quick clips. It looks like Thanos will be the next villain The Avengers will have to face (or he may end up in some of the other sequel movies before then). Thumbs up for The Avengers.

Lou Compared to Homer Simpson

I was recently compared to Homer Simpson and I was very flattered (Mmmmm....Fat). Other than the fact that we have a similar work environment, I'm overweight, and I'm on my way to baldness... Homer was once a food critic who gave reviews like me. Let me explain. Homer Simpson loves food, but not only that...he loves everything he eats. I guess you could say we are similar in this regard as well. Not only do I love food, but I love board games. Now, contrary to popular belief I bet there are some board games out there that I may not like so much - I just haven't played them yet. I own games that I really enjoy, and hence the good reviews (and if we learned anything from that Simpson's episode, bad reviews can bring some unwanted attention). I may start including more reviews from The Wife along with mine to give readers a different perspective now and again.

Day 13 - Animal Olympics
Designed by Heinz Meister
Illustrated by Uwe Schildmeier


With the London Summer Olympic Games starting July 27th, tonight The Wife and I played Animal Olympics. 2-4 players, ages 7 and up, and taking 5-10 minutes to play, this is a great little game for teaching children to think critically and about ordering with numbers. Each player is dealt eight cards, face down in front of them in a line. The goal of the game is to get the cards in order from the lowest on the left to the highest on the right. This is accomplished by drawing a card either from the discard pile or the draw pile and replacing one of the face down cards in front of you. The first player to successfully have 8 cards face up in the proper order wins the whole enchilada. The Wife and I played best of three. I won the gold medal. The game is a little too simple for my liking but is a great teaching tool for youngsters. I thoroughly enjoy the illustrations. The hippo in 31st place is my favorite and that is How Lou Sees It.

THE AVENGERS VANS GEARS SANG SAVE GRANS GRAVE

The Avengers movie hauls in more than 200 million dollars in one weekend! Take that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2! I can't wait to see this movie. That is some serious money people. It makes me wonder how the final Batman movie will fair this year (I think it will be right up there with The Avengers for opening weekend, but I'm not sure if it can catch 200 million...we will see.) Impressive. I hope to see The Avengers myself this next weekend.

Day 4 - Bananagrams
Designed by Rena and Abe Nathanson


THE AVENGERS VANS GEARS SANG SAVE GRANS GRAVE!

Bananagrams sells itself by the clever packaging, but really it is playing Scrabble without the board, playing a crossword puzzle without clues, playing Words with Friends in person, and a game to stretch your mind and vocabulary. The game suggests playing options for 1-8 players and the time of the game can be pretty short depending on the abilities and number of players. Each player starts with a set number of tiles, and when they are flipped over it is a race to see who can use up all of their letters first. When one person has used all of their current tiles, he yells "Peel" and everyone gets another tile from the middle. A player may "Dump" one tile into the middle by drawing three to replace it. When all of the tiles from the middle are gone, the first done yells "Bananas!" Quick and portable word game which is fun for all ages. Me and The Wife played tonight and The Wife came out victorious (as always during this game). It was pretty close near the end, although she was the one calling out "Peel" every 3 seconds. I thought I was catching up when I drew an "x" with only 3 tiles in the middle. I took a risk and "Dumped" the "x" into the middle taking up the last three tiles. Unfortunately, The Wife had an "a" available for "ax" and left me with two letters remaining when she yelled out the delicious yellow fruit's name. Everyone have a great day and try and come up with as many words as possible that you can create from "THE AVENGERS." Post either the list of words and/or the number of words to see who can come up with the most! See you tomorrow everyone - sometimes life is a peach, sometimes it's a banana and that is How Lou Sees It.

Free Comic Book Day 2012 and Day 2 of AGAD

Free Comic Book Day is tomorrow everyone! Don't forget to check out your local participating stores to get your free comic books. The Avengers came out to celebrate today.

Day 2 - The Rivals for Catan
A game designed by Klaus Teuber


The Rivals for Catan is a fun 2 player card game version of Settlers of Catan. The card game uses the same general idea as the original Settlers game where you expand by building roads, settlements, and cities to be the first to obtain a set amount of victory points. The game uses square shaped cards for just about everything with 2 dice and 2 wooden marker tokens. It uses a pretty Ingenious system for keeping track of your resources (turning your region/resource cards 90 degrees to either gain or spend them) making good use of the cards. The game also has good flexibility and a great replay value with the addition of three different "expansions" or eras that can be played with. For a shorter game, you can play with just the basic deck cards, and for something new you can add in one of the different "era" decks adding a nice variety. You can also play with all of the era card decks for a longer experience. The game takes the general theme and idea of Settlers of Catan the board game and makes for a great 2 player version that adds variety and a bit of different strategy to the mix. It takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour to play and the length can vary with how many victory points you are playing to according to the different cards used. The game tonight was a good one and there always seemed to be a lack of sheep on both ends during the game. My wife had the Strength Advantage and I had the Trade Advantage. The game was very close at the end, but my wife pulled it off a turn before I could. That makes us both 1-1 as I continue on my A Game A Day (AGAD) quest. Fans of Settlers and newcomers a like will enjoy this fun card game and that is How Lou Sees It.

Movies 2012

Movies of 2012
Its that time again, the time to look forward to all of the movies coming out this year. I'll start by listing all of the movies that I'm most looking forward to seeing in order of the scheduled release date and then I will list some runner ups:

March 2

Dr. Seuss - Awesome. Despicable Me - Awesome. Looking forward to this one.

March 23

The world will be watching, and the movie makers will be making the big bucks on this one. I would say that this is the most highly anticipated movie of the year.

March 30

Could be interesting. The Snow White movies come in full force this year. Which will be the big success? Which will stay forever in a coma.

May 4

The Avengers assemble...can't wait. DC should be working on a Justice League movie. As far as I'm concerned, Marvel needs to learn a thing or two from DC in the comic book world, and DC needs to learn a thing or two from Marvel in the film world.

June 1

I think this one will be the Snow White money maker of the two. Its got the big names and action on its side.


June 22
Disney Pixar. Crazy cool hair. Should be an enjoyable one. Pixar is amazing.

July 20

The poster says it all. The conclusion to the greatest comic book movie trilogy ever comes to theaters end of July. Christopher Nolan has his work cut out for him with this movie. Lot's of high expectations after the success of The Dark Knight (not to mention Inception). These movies continue to amaze with great actors, lets see if Anne Hathaway really has what it takes to be a good Catwoman. Bane will be a great villain, but it will be hard to compete with Heath Ledger as Joker. 

Les Miserables

December 7

Big names. Big musical. I think this will be a much better success than The Phantom of the Opera movie. Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and Anne Hathaway star in one of my favorite musicals ever.

December 14

Before The Lord of the Rings, there was The Hobbit.

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Runner ups worth a mention. I will probably want to see these movies, but I'm not on the edge of my seat waiting for them to come out:

March 9

I really have no clue what this movie is all about. It sounds crazy.

May 25

Loved MIB when it came out way back when. The movies are entertaining, what else can I say other than "I make this look good."

June 8

Funny movies. Love the penguins. I like to move it move it.

June 29

Eh. Mindless action film.

July 3

Big names, but a remake so soon? Kind of crazy. Didn't like the teaser trailer, but let's be honest...I'm going to see it anyway.

July 13

Great movies. I'm sure Scrat won't disappoint.

August 3

Another Bourne movie, sure I'll probably see it. I need to read the books.

The Great Gatsby

December 25

Read the book in high school; it was interesting. Now all the other high school students will have yet another movie to choose from to watch instead of reading the book (the 1974 version or the 2012 version). I'm sure it will be somewhat like the book (probably different enough that you will still need to bite the bullet and read the book...it really is pretty good).

Looks like a pretty decent year all around folks. My top three being The Hunger Games, The Avengers, and The Dark Knight Rises (that's why their movie posters are bigger :). I look forward to another year full of great entertainment. I'll be sure to let you know what I think, and that is How Lou Sees It!