President's Race

I do not like McCain.

I do not like Romney.

According to the presidental candidate selector at selectsmart.com however, my results are shown below. Obviously I need to do more research on McCain to see if I can get over his angry-little-man personality and support him since apparently I do, in theory, agree with most of his positions.

My big issues are foreign policy [do not give up on Iraq; support free trade], immigration [increase legal immigration;offer a guest worker program and amnesty, build a fence for security going forward], lower taxes, absolute opposition to universal health care, support of 2nd amendment gun rights, and in general a president who will discourage congress from getting involved in domestic issues they have no constitutional jurisdiction over [like marriage, divorce, funding for the arts, etc, etc].

1.
Theoretical Ideal Candidate (100%)

2.
Alan Keyes (78%) Information link

3.
Chuck Hagel (not running) (76%) Information link

4.
Sam Brownback (withdrawn, endorsed McCain) (72%) Information link

5.
John McCain (71%) Information link

6.
Stephen Colbert (gag; campaign halted) (71%) Information link

7.
Newt Gingrich (says he will not run) (71%) Information link

8.
Tom Tancredo (withdrawn, endorsed Romney) (68%) Information link

9.
Duncan Hunter (withdrawn) (68%) Information link

10.
Mitt Romney (67%) Information link

11.
Kent McManigal (campaign suspended) (66%) Information link

12.
Fred Thompson (withdrawn) (66%) Information link

13.
Wayne Allyn Root (63%) Information link

14.
Ron Paul (62%) Information link

15.
Jim Gilmore (withdrawn) (58%) Information link

16.
Rudolph Giuliani (withdrawn, endorsed McCain) (56%) Information link

17.
Mike Huckabee (49%) Information link

18.
Tommy Thompson (withdrawn, endorsed Giuliani) (45%) Information link

19.
Bill Richardson (withdrawn) (37%) Information link

20.
Christopher Dodd (withdrawn) (36%) Information link

21.
Michael Bloomberg (says he will not run) (36%) Information link

22.
Hillary Clinton (33%) Information link

23.
Joseph Biden (withdrawn) (33%) Information link

24.
Al Gore (not announced) (31%) Information link

25.
Barack Obama (31%) Information link

26.
John Edwards (31%) Information link

27.
Wesley Clark (not running, endorsed Clinton) (27%) Information link

28.
Mike Gravel (26%) Information link

29.
Dennis Kucinich (withdrawn) (23%) Information link

30.
Alan Augustson (campaign suspended) (17%) Information link

31.
Elaine Brown (7%) Information link

Board Game Review: Lost Cities Roll & Write (A Comparison to the Original Lost Cities)

I really love the card game Lost Cities , designed by Reiner Knizia. When my husband Christopher and I were first getting to know each other, we used to meet up at Starbucks sometimes and play games. Lost Cities was one of our frequent picks. It’s a head to head, two player game in which both players are trying to outscore each other by laying down ascending runs of card suits on a small board between the two of them. There’s a theme laid over the mechanism (completing expeditions in the lost world) but it’s basically pasted on and so that is the last we will speak of it. So there we were, newly in love, eyeing each other across the table, smiling and flirting, and doing our best to beat one another at Lost Cities . It was awesome. And now, with the roll & write genre having made an impressive rebound a few years ago (let’s not forget the mechanism has actually been around since the 50s with Yatzee ), Knizia has ported his award winning game Lost Cities into this format, releasi

Board Game Review: Hues and Cues

Last week we received Hues and Cues from The Op Games. We recently finished playing through Scooby-Doo Escape from the Haunted Mansion (a fantastic game in The Op Games catalogue designed by Jay Cormier, Sen-Foong Lim, and Kami Mandell that you should absolutely pick up to play with your family) and wanted to give another game from the same publisher a go. I picked Hues and Cues because I’ve been pleasantly surprised by other “test whether our minds think the same way” games such as The Mind and Wavelength. In Hues and Cues , players gather around a large central board comprised of 480 graduating colors of the rainbow surrounded by an x-y axis and scoring table. White and black (which are technically not colors) are conspicuously absent as are shades (mixtures of color + black; e.g., grey) and tints (mixtures of color + white; e.g., cream). On each player’s turn, they draw a card with four colors and the x-y axis codes of those colors depicted and they select one. They are in the

Board Game Review: Brass Birmingham

Here’s a story of a lovely lady (spoiler: it’s me) and her pride and how it has led to the discovery of the single greatest board game I have ever played. It’s probably also a good primer for other reviewers on increasing your reach. At GenCon this year, I was perusing the wares of the various booths and my eyes caught a glimpse of two beautiful game boxes. Each had crisp metallic lettering with an old world feel and artwork that radiated European class. I made my way to the booth and waited patiently to speak to to the team manning it as there were many buyers lined up to purchase the games. I didn’t know anything about the games (Brass Birmingham and Brass Lancashire), or the publisher – Roxley Game Laboratory – but I knew I wanted to review one or both of the games. Almost every board game love story I star in in can be summed up this way: I am seduced by the artwork or theme and then I stay for the right mechanics. When the lead rep spoke with me, he gently rejected my request. He