Woke up creaking like the tin man, and my eye was aggravated by some sort of dust particle… between the swollen eye and bent over stance, I should’ve been ringing bells and screaming for sanctuary all morning.

Yesterday’s smoothies were so terrible that we went to the grocer, got some yogurt and fruit, and BHK made some jim-dandy, extra tasty smoothies for our breakfast supplemented by hard-boiled eggs and biscuits today.

Today we went to a place that held a lot of fond memories for me as a young gamer-geek. The Compleat Strategist… There was one in Hollywood, Florida way back in the 80s… a source of many fond memories. It was a sad day about 18 years ago when it burned down… even when some supposedly smoke-damaged merchandise appeared at the new Dragon’s Lair a few months later. I sometimes wonder if the “Dragon” reference was an inside joke about the fire. Rumors abounded at the time, though I don’t know of any actual validity to the same.

We landed at the Strategist in Falls Church, Virginia… and… well, I’ve been spoiled by Aardvark, I think. I was fairly underwhelmed, even though they have a huge amount of stock… probably four or five times that of Little Aardvark’s.

Nice thing about the Virginia place was that it was mostly clean – no dust on any of the good in the front, and the books were well-organized by game and title. If I’d been there looking for RPG stuff or Wargaming stuff, I’d have been set.

Unfortunately, I was looking for parlor games. The little corner in the back reminded me of the “pervy” section of old video stores. The light bulb overhead was dim, the packages heavily manhandled with cellophane and cardboard torn. The games were in semi-alpha order…. but not quite. Some stuff was on pegs, some on shelves, some boxes lay half open. I might’ve wept openly for the poor pente tube in the corner without a visible lid or board inside.

I can’t find a thing that I want. BHK spots Treehouse and Ice Towers on the wall… I get excited, and ask about some other games, almost sure that he’ll know something about one or more of these… almost all are major award winners, and have a pretty large following.

Do you have

• Classic Illuminati? Nuh, don’t think so.
• Brawl any two decks? What’s that?
• Cosmic Encounter?
• Playing with Pyramids?
• any Cheapass Games ?

Nope, nope and nope. We had money for a game or three more burning a hole in our pocket, and finally asked…

“OK, then… based on what we mentioned… what do you recommend? We like fun, fast-paced games with a mix of strategy and random chance. What do you have that’s cute with a deck of cards and a die in it?”

The proprietor was too busy playing mechwarrior with another regular at the store to give us any more answer than “if it’s not on the shelf, we don’t have it…”

Not a very talkative fellow, unless he was reciting how many bonuses he had to hit the other toy robot on the board. So much for me pumping him for info regarding the old florida store or reminiscing… I suspect that the Florida CS burned down when he was maybe three years old.

That sort of disappointed us… BHK asked him about a high school clique game, and he said he’d never played it, but a guy friend did, and didn’t much like it. That was the most extensive review we got from him… heck, those were the most words spoken to us at one time.

Still no other advice, so we browsed for about a half hour or so, found a few games, and noted to purchase them elsewhere. Chez Goth, Treehouse with Martian Coasters, Puerto Rico. That’s like $100 or so worth of games, I’d guess. He lost the only sale it looked like he might make that day.

The best aspect of going was that we got some freebie Star Wars constructable ship-combat game as throwaway swag. We got a spare for Amy, too, for when she comes up to visit next week.

{edit – We got a response to this entry from the manager of the store, shortly after it was published. See it here}

On our way to another game store in the Virginia area, Alan rang us up, and we all went out the the Lebanese butcher for some tasty falafel, hummus with pine nutes, and baba ghanoush.

Instead of dorking around, we trundled over to his place in the city… *very* nice. Alan has a real flair for design, and his home is like a showcase… TM, BHK, and I gabbed with him for a bit about Pollack’s strengths and weaknesses, including the Guggenheim dirt, and he played piano for us for a bit. He’s a very talented guy, and a kind host… I’m glad to have him as part of the family.

See video of him playing here

We returned home, tired but feeling good about the day – it ended a lot better than it had begun.

1 year ago – furniture, kevin smith & superman, pocket windows (note- add to new flash drive), coral square mall pictures, fin fang foom, algorithm march w/ninjas, girls on walls

2 years ago – broward and fed autostitch, visited kev, walkabout pictures with rastas and shirtless, tell-tale heart in street signs, overheard

3 years ago – spidey, weather, let them sing it for you, freddy vs gb

4 years ago – remembering the keys, overtime psa, comic books, workman’s comp, prostate cancer

5 years ago – newt in sink, bro gets viper fins sponsor, pesky security, badly drawn images on a bumpy road, punquin finds my 125 item list

6 years ago – Evil News, bad joke, crux, random journals, nice thing poll, designer’s lament, laptop space bar weird, hatt-baby, email plain text

7 years ago – Enjoyed the X-men movie, 1974 memory visiting Florida, reprint of Scooby & the occult, insomnia