Rick Perry Out

The GOP field narrows. Rick Perry dropped out of the race today. Not only that, but he endorsed Newt Gingrich. This primary season is turning out to be quite interesting. No one seems to know what's going on or what's going to happen! Who will win the South Carolina primary on Saturday is anybody's guess.

What I Learned: Rick Perry is out of the race.

Rush n' Crush

Blake came over this morning to play games. After I annihilated Jared and Blake in a rousing game of Agricola (50 to 23 t0 12), it was decided that we should learn one of our new games. Jared really wanted to learn Rush n' Crush, so we went with that. It is a racing game that involves getting your car/driver around the racetrack before everyone else. There are obstacles that you have to "drive" around and you can inflict damage upon other cars by ramming them, etc. It' a pretty cool game but would be better with more than three people. Blake got ahead of us after the second turn and was so far ahead that we couldn't catch up to him and there were no collisions of any kind. It seems there is a lot more to the game when you add in the collisions so if there aren't any, then that aspect of the game is lost. With more players, there would be a lot more opportunity to crash into other cars and walls, etc. Overall it was a fun game and we liked how varied it can be (in length and in difficulty) based on how you decide to lay the track. I hope to play it with more people soon.

What I learned: How to play Rush n' Crush.

Colbert for President!

I think I mentioned in a previous post how Stephen Colbert is going to try to run for President in South Carolina. Well today he announced that he couldn't get on the ballot because the deadline for filing was 2.5 months ago. Also in South Carolina, the ballots are closed meaning that a)once you are on the ballot, you can't get off of it and b)they do not allow write-ins. It looked like Stephen Colbert was in a pickle!

Enter in Herman Cain. Cain filed to be on the South Carolina ballot months ago but has now dropped out of the race. This means that he is still listed on the ballot. So Stephen Colbert has declared that a vote for Herman Cain is a vote for Colbert and this is how he will gauge interest in his running for President. I hope that Herman Cain gets a huge percentage of votes in South Carolina now :)

What I learned: While Colbert can't officially be on the ballot in South Carolina, he is more or less using Herman Cain to get voters to vote for him anyway. I wonder how many people will vote for Herman Cain, thinking they are actually voting for Herman Cain. Teehee.

Tolls and Mr. Jack Pocket

Today, Blake, Ken, Gary, Jared and I drove down to Board Game Barrister at Gurnee Mills for their awesome game sale (see post from the 12th). Upon arrival we soon realized that they really didn't have that much left in stock that we had heard of or that were on our lists. We looked up a lot of games online to see ratings, etc and finally decided on five new games (buy two, get three free!). Here are the games we purchased:

-Mr Jack Pocket
-Martian Fluxx
-Rush n' Crush
-In the Name of the Rose
-Megacorps

Ken and Blake got one game each while Gary got three. All in all, it was worth the trip. However, we found out on the ride down (too late of course) that apparently as of January 1st, the tolls in Chicago on 94 went up. The first toll, which I believe used to be $1.50, is now $2.80! I hate taking 41 but man, it looks like I'll have to do that from now on. Either that or buy an I-Pass.

After Avery went to bed today, mom agreed to learn Mr. Jack Pocket with me. This is a 2 player game based off of the board game Mr. Jack which is about Sherlock Holmes trying to catch Jack the Ripper. This pocket version of the game only takes 15 minutes and is really easy to learn but requires a lot of logic, so we both really liked it. Only four more games to learn!

What I learned: The tolls in Chicago almost doubled; how to play Mr. Jack Pocket.

Taxes

Jared and I filed our federal taxes today! This year has been the simplest year to file since we've been married (which I know isn't saying much since we've only filed taxes three times, but still). We only had one W-2 to enter! The few other forms we needed (like student loan interest 1098s) were already online so we downloaded those and were able to complete our taxes very quickly. However, we thought we would have our refund by the end of the week, but apparently the IRS doesn't accept e-filed returns until the 17th, which means it is waiting in IRS la-la-land until Tuesday when it will then be processed; we should get our refund by early next week. It feels great to have it done. Now we just have to file our state taxes which should take all of 30 minutes. Awesome.

What I learned: The IRS doesn't accept tax returns until January 17th.

Sushi, Rum, Pirates and Robots

The Sonnenbergs came over today to play games and I learned three new ones: Wasabi, Rum & Pirates, and Robo Rally. I really liked all three but think that I liked Wasabi the best (the game involves making sushi recipes; it also made me really hungry for sushi). Rum & Pirates had the coolest theme of the three while Robo Rally proved to be the most challenging, mostly due to the fact that I kept miscalculating where my robot would end up between moves which ran me off the board three times! Overall, it was a great game day.

What I learned: I learned how to play three new games.

Bagels

Jared decided he wanted to make bagels in our bread machine today. I guess I had seen the recipe before in the booklet that came with the bread machine but never once thought to make them. Seeing as we eat a lot of bagels, it seemed like a good idea. If we can make bagels at home, that could save us some money. So Jared put in all the ingredients for the dough and when it was finished, he formed the dough into bagel shaped portions. Since he had to leave for work, it was my job to complete the bagels.

After letting the bagels rise for 45 minutes, I had to boil them in water, three at a time, for 3-4 minutes on each side. Then I placed them on a greased pan and put cinnamon and sugar and half of them (yum) and cheese on one more of them. Since I didn't know if that's how you actually make bagels with cheese, etc on them, I figured I would try it. Then four of the bagels were left plain. I baked them for 20 minutes and they were ready!

Looks like the cheese kinda burned to the pan and the sugar kinda caramelized a bit but they tasted delicious. Looks like there will be a lot more bagel making in the future.

What I learned: How to make homemade bagels.