On Order

Don't you love it when you discover an interesting site, and there's heaps of content to catch up on? Yeah, me too. This is not one of those sites... yet. OK, so I've been planning since late last year to do a big order from one of the U.S. on-line stores, for games that I can't get in Australia or cost outrageous amounts if you can. I've also been thinking about that Settlers of Catan 3D Anniversary edition, which looks *absolutely beautiful*. I mentioned it to my wife, and she said "you should get it if you want it". Well yeah, I want lots of things. Of course, asking if we could afford it got me nowhere, as her answer always seems to be based on whether we will starve tonight if we buy it, whereas I always like to think a couple of weeks ahead, to be on the safe side.

Anyway, then my poor old Grandma died last year. She was 83 and it was winter, and the oil column heater was jutting out too far and she stacked the walker when she got the wheel stuck on the heater. She crawled over to the phone and rang her neighbour and he took her to hospital. I went and saw her a few days later and she looked fine to me, and asked me to ring a friend of hers and could recite the phone number off the top of her head. She had some broken ribs and bruising, but she seemed destined to get better. Then the hospital started taking care of her.

It seems she had internal bleeding, and had to have a transfusion, but it was all downhill from there. She was anaemic and became very vague and tired all the time. But for some reason, the hospital moved her into a section for people who were almost well enough to go home. That was where she died. All of my experiences with hospitals suggest that you're much more likely to get well being ANYWHERE else. In case you're interested in this part of the story, one of the last things she said that made much sense was "I'm not scared you know, not one little bit." So that was good to know. If there is an after-life of any sort, I'm sure she's arguing with Grandpa in it, and all the other dead people are well and truly sick of them.

How is this relevant? Grandma left some money, of which Dad got a share, and he passed some onto us. Not much in the grand scheme of things, but enough to buy a PS2 for the kid for Christmas (and hasn't THAT interfered with my gaming!) and enough so that I really could afford the nice Catan if I wanted. So I did some research, and on Thursday I ordered it from Boulder Games.

The order stresses me a little. Because the Catan weighs so much, if I add more games to the order I soon reach some internal weight limit, maybe related to the USPS web site, and it tells me I'm not allowed to ship the order. So I have placed two orders, with the intention that I pay the postage for one. They say I'll get refunded any postage I paid too much, which is an encouraging thought, but the fact remains that they have too much of my money and I am at their mercy with regards to getting it back.

In addition to the Catan 3D, I also got ALL the Runebound expansions (B&B only had 3 in stock); Polarity, because it so damn cool and my kid won't be able to resist at least one game; Dogville = A Dog's Life, because the kid and the nephew and the niece will like it (they love my dog); and The Adventures of Harley, because that's my kids' name. The Harley game is for little kids, but we do get a lot of little kids through here, and maybe Harley can teach them how to play. Whatever happens, it's a pretty cheap game.

Still waiting to hear that my Boulder order has shipped (they made a mistake, and Dogville is out of stock), but when I get it we'll have a game of Settlers in honour of Grandma.