I’m an amateur astronomer, photographer, web writer, semi-retired journalist, and a big science fiction and fantasy fan living in Metro Vancouver, Canada. This website reflect my interest in astronomy and space exploration, as well as board gaming which have all been a big part of my life.
I’ve been gaming since I was a kid and own about 160 board games. I was six-years-old when I played my first game — Monopoly. It was exciting. It was eye-opening. I got to live out this real-estate fantasy spending big bucks to buy houses and hotels. It blew me away and opened up a whole new world. My family couldn’t afford a copy so I made one — all the cards, all the money, the board — everything.
I still do that from time to time. I’ve just rebuilt my 1979 edition of Magic Realm using illustrator Karim Chakroun’s awesome graphics uploaded to the community at BoardGameGeek.com. It took me months to do it, but it was worth it.
I played a lot of games in the 70s and 80s — Cosmic Encounter, Magic Realm, Wizards’s Quest, Diplomacy, Tactics II, Quirks etc., but got busy with life and quit buying new games sometime in the 1990s. Magic the Gathering probably did me in. I’m pretty sure I burned out on it.
Fast forward to 2006 when I discovered BoardGameGeek and picked up my board gaming habit like I’d never left it.
My grown kids are gamers too, but my most loyal gaming partner is my wife. She has played every game in my collection— even the war games.
I was a Dungeons and Dragons DM when I was younger and my children learned roleplay at an early age. Both kids are older now, but our game nights are still legendary!
I created this site Dec 10, 2014 to as a resource for my hobby, to put up some of my old reviews and create space for some new ones. We’ll see where it goes.
Feel free to look around, leave some feedback. I’m toying with the idea of creating a discussion forum, but I’m still new to the web-building thing so we’ll see.
Hi, Mike! I got your name from a fellow I met at a regular get together of retired and active tv news people held at the Brentwood mall once a month. When I told him I was a real big fan of board gaming he immediately gave me your name and told me about your BG interests. So, I thought I’d get in touch after I checked out your website.
I’ve just retired after working for more than 33 years for CTV National News, 25 of them right here in Vancouver (ENG cameraman, video editor, sound man, etc.).
I got into boardgames, mainly war games, when I first discovered them while window shopping on Bloor Street in Toronto back in the summer of ’69. My first purchase was Gettysburg by Avalon Hill. This led to more and more games through the seventies and eighties. I was mainly a wargamer and fantasy gamer until I moved to Vancouver in 1989. Then in the nineties I discovered other types of boardgames (Euros and Ameritrash, etc.) and branched out so that my collection is now closer to a 50/50 mix.
BGG came along in the early 2000s and although I’m more of a consumer than a contributor I love the site. I spend a lot of time on it. I’ve put a listing of my game collection on the site and it comes to well more than 800 games. I have so many games I’ve had to put a substantial number in storage. By the way, that list is only a partial list. It doesn’t contain many of my older wargames.
All of this is by way of an introduction. I like your site and will be checking it out regularly. I’m already envious you have Xia, as I’ve been waiting for the local stores to get it in, with no luck yet. Starlit says they have it but has no copies in stock.
Happy gaming to you!
Hey Stephen: Thanks for the kind words. I’m afraid I let the site lapse this year as I undertook new duties at work and simply had no time. Hopefully now that things have settled down I can be a little more active here again. I hear you on the games front. My collection, at 160 games, is nowhere near yours I’ve built shelves for all of them but they’re nearly full!
Always happen to hear from a fellow newsie and board gamer to boot!