Email Quotes

Below you will find a list of quotes that have come across my Outlook over the past 4 years. Some are funny, some are serious, all are the ever important email quotes. My comments are in italicized font, as you can tell, because you are reading this and I keep saying I.

Safety isn't expensive; It's priceless.

So is Mastercard.

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.

I’m not sure about this one. I’d go ahead and say though that I think this quote should be referring to joy rather than happiness.

"My life is my message."  Gandhi

This is a good quote and one that is completely true. How we live our lives is what we are telling the people around us.

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”  Harry S. Truman

I think President Truman had to be talking about working in a group. Because I’ve found, if individuals know they will get the credit they work harder.

Patriotism is not a short outburst of emotion, but is the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.   Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

The only thing I know about Stevenson is that he has a card named after him in one of my top 25 games 1960 Making of the President. I should learn more about him.

~The future doesn't exist yet; The past is gone. Right now is the only moment we have to live our lives.~

Sounds like a rock ballad lyric. Not catching me.

"Be sure the Truth is Spoken so that the Chains are Broken."

I’m imagining a preacher saying this to a huge crowd of people in a street with statues.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

I like this one. I don’t know who Edmund Burke is, so I’ll do some research on him. I’ve always said, it doesn’t take two to start a war.

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."   Maya Angelou

I disagree. I remember all these things. I also like to include smell in there. So don’t be smelly around me or I’ll remember.

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” –Voltaire

Too bad you didn’t ask a question here Voltaire. What up?

"No trees were killed in the sending of this message.  However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced"

I’m an electron hugger. Not a tree hugger. So this saddens me. (I’m joking here folks, I’m joking.)

"Unsafe acts will keep you in stitches."

I see what they did here.

"A Spill, a slip, a hospital trip"

I don’t get it.

"At the end of the day, the goals are simple: safety and security."

I would add: supper.

"To return good for good is human, to return good for evil is divine."

I’d say no to the first part and yes to the second. Good for good isn’t even the human nature. That’s too good for our nature. Just my quick thoughts.

…It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow...

It’s impossible to understand this quote. There, I said what is impossible.

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

-- Maya Angelou

This reminds me of the story about the lion that asks the hippo to swim him across the river. The lion promises not to eat the hippo at the other side, but when they get there. He attacks the hippo. The hippo is surprised and asks “Why would you attack me?!” The lion simply says, “because I’m a lion and that is what I do.”

"My Heroes Have Always Been Soldiers."

Soldiers are amazing people. Even though I’d like to think I’m willing to die for my God or my country I haven’t ever been put in that situation. They do it every day.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

So what about when they take loans they know they’ll never have to pay?

"Shohna ba Shohna"  (Dari)

"Ooga-pa-Ooga"  (Pashtu)

"Shoulder to Shoulder"

I think I’m going to walk around saying, “Ooga-pa-Ooga”.

"The  hardest lesson you'll ever learn, is what bridge to cross and what bridge to burn"

 I think this is very interesting. I take it as a strategic career idea. Like what bridge should I cross and what bridge should I burn in order to move through my career. Interesting.

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower~

I’d like to know what context this was said in. I’m thinking it makes sense to me.

"Open your eyes and the whole world is full of God."

This, in a blog that includes theology, seems appropriate. I would call this Natural Revelation – in Romans Paul mentions that nobody is without excuse. God reveals himself to all. That doesn’t mean that God is in all things, like perhaps a Hindu might say, but it does mean He reveals himself to us throughout the world around us.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”  ~Theodore Roosevelt

I completely agree with this one. Way to go, Teddy! This sorta reminds me of a saying I enjoy: Suck it up, buttercup. You got dealt a specific hand, use it to your best ability. Don’t say if I had this or that I could do this or that.

Watch your thoughts, they become words.

Watch your words, they become actions.

Watch your actions, they become habits.

Watch your habits, they become character.

Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

A progressive warning about what you think will become what you do and eventually who you are. I agree with this as well. Just because you have a thought, doesn’t mean it turns into your character, but at the same time leave them unguarded and before you know it you aren’t who you were before having those thoughts.

The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there. -James Buchanan

This is my quote that I sometimes use, if I'm not using a Louis L'Amour quote. I mean, he was a President and I was born on his birthday.

Candy Land: The Game of Candy and Torture

It's been quite awhile since I've wrote anything that I put any effort into. So this week will have two blogs. This one about Candy Land and the next one about the long awaited and highly anticipated Email Quotes!

My 2,800^th game played since I began logging games back in March 2006 was Candyland. This is only the 2^nd time I’ve played it in that span, but I’m sure it won’t be the last, though I personally wouldn’t mind if it was. So here is what I think about it.

Components

First off, the components in Candyland aren’t that great. The board is just fine, with lots of bright colors, crazy looking characters, and a really curvy road. I found though that my 2.5 year old, had some difficulty knowing which way the road was going, because of its curviness. The player’s pieces are big plastic gingerbread men, which I think serve their purpose very well. The cards are basically business cards, with colored squares. Nothing on the back of them, no art, nothing. But for $5.88 I’m not complaining.

Game Play (aka the Torture)

The game play for Candyland is about as boring as it gets. You flip a card, go to that next colored square or the special icon on a pink square. That is it. So for a gamer like myself, who likes meaningful decisions, this game is torture. However, there is a reason I bought it and there is a place in the life of daddy gamers for Candy Land.

What It Does Do

Candyland does a couple things very well, which will help your young kids grow into the gamers you hope them to be. First, it teaches them turns in a formatted way, unlike playing with toys, where each kids “turn” is undefined. This is going to be important later on in games, as most games do have individual player turns. Second, it teaches them how to win and to lose. Eventually, we all pray and implore, Candyland will end and there will be a winner. Teaching them to win and lose graciously will go a long way in future gaming. Of course, Candyland can teach other non-gaming related things about life like colors, being nice in general, and that the goal in life is to get into a big candy castle.

My Final Thoughts

So if I’m rating Candyland, it’ll likely be a 1 or 2 out of 10, that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful for what it is. A stepping stone for my daughter to play bigger and better games later on and also a good tool for me to spend time with her.

Guild of Thieves Update #3

Well, the first thing you'll notice is the name has changed for the game I'm designing. Den of Thieves is already taken and though I don't think I'd have any court order after me if I used it, I want my game to be unique and so I held a contest on boardgamegeek.com for people to name the game. After all the entries I chose Guild of Thieves, as it fits the theme, is similar to Den of Thieves, and I like it!

Here is where we're at on the game. In addition to the dozens of play tests that I've done myself and participated in, I've had 3 different groups of people "blind" play test it. Which means I've given them the prototype, the rules, and let them read them and play without me there. The first group played the game basically right, the second group didn't play it quite the way it should be, and the third group (with the help of the edits from the first two groups) played correctly. I really appreciate these people for playing the game! It has helped tremendously with clarifying the rules and learning what they like and don't like.

As for the rules, I'm still on the edge of whether I'll include the Jewels in the base game or not. I've also been tempted to mess around with a card called Mirror and another one called Sceptor, but I think I could do that endlessly, so I'm going to stick with what I have. I have decided that I'll sell two versions of the game. The regular game, with simple pawns and no box art for somewhere between $12-15 (at least that is the goal right now). Then there will be a deluxe addition, which will have box art, wooden meeples, and maybe a bonus card. I'm guessing it'll be around $20.

I'll leave you with a couple sketches from the artist Jeremy Montz. The first one is potentially part of the box art and the second one is for the Camel card (I know, I'm being obvious, but sometimes Camels sneak in all places). Finally, my BIL (that's Brother In Law for those not in the speak) texted me this picture as "the Guild Master". I thought it was hilarious, so I'm sharing it too.