Review: LunchBlox

3 Stars

I've been playing around with a medly of these containers for packing bentos for about two weeks now. Their general concept is a very good one – plastic boxes of various sizes that snap together and into coordinating Blue Ice cold packs – and the execution is only prevented from attaining excellence by a couple of peculiarities.

But first the good!

The boxes come in a variety of good sizes, from the 0.5 cup snack containers (118mL) to the 4.1 cup (970mL) entree container that comes with interior dividing boxes. There are also a variety of kits, which come with various assortments of boxes and include the specially shaped cold pack. Of special note is the salad kit, which has one large box (1230mL) that holds greens, an interior tray to keep toppings separate, and a dressing cup – this is only sold as a kit. Everything else is sold as seperate components.

The result of so many different containers means it can be configured to fit almost any need. Need to bring a breakfast one day? Snap on another box and you're set. Portion control? They're available in any conceivable portion, large or small. Don't like your food touching? Use as many separate containers as you want. As a system, it's extremely flexible.

Everything snaps together very intuitively, and a set of boxes can accomadate as many Blue Ices as you care to add – which will be handy as it starts warming up here in Texas. Once the cold pack has thawed, the boxes don't snap in it very well, but this is just an unfortunate side effect of physics.

They're durable – microwave, dishwashwer, and freezer safe. They hand wash reasonably well, and mine have not retained odors as long as I allow them to air dry overnight.

And everything is relatively inexpensive, even the custom Blue Ice blocks purchased through Rubbermaid's website aren't expensive (although I haven't investigated shipping costs).

The more I use these to pack lunches, and especially as I move away from the staticness of the sandwich kit's 4 box paradigm, the more I like them. They're very versatile.

But they aren't perfect. They're very, very close, but still miss the mark. I would give them five stars, except for two major flaws.

The first is that the snack containers just don't snap into anything else properly, not even each other. This is a common complaint, but Rubbermaid's stock response is “If you think you received a bad set and it's shortly after your purchase…” blah blah blah. But when my snack containers didn't snap into anything properly, I fiddled with the open stock of snack containers at the store… and none of them snap together properly. The salad dressing container, which shares the same footprint and lid has the same issue. I think this is a general manufacturing problem, not an instance of people getting bad containers. Because lunch boxes as LEGOS is the entire gimmick, failure to deliver costs Rubbermaid a star.

This problem doesn't impact me much – I don't find the smallest containers very useful – but it's still a huge flaw.

The second flaw concerns the salad kit. The salad kit is nice enough, but it's best feature is the cunning little dressing container. The dressing container has the same footprint as the snack container, and looks to be about half the height. It's an astonishingly useful little thing, easy to pickaback on to a well packed box without taking up precious interior space. I have one, from my salad kit, and wish I had more! They are a truly perfect sauce container and I would buy them by the pack… if Rubbermaid sold them separately. Which they don't. I find that both inexplicable and irrational. And for this sort of mental inflexibility, they get docked another star. (I'll give it back if they start selling them separate from the salad kits.)

Review: Innovation

I promised a review of Innovation, and here it is. And only a week or so after I promised it! Woohoo!

Innovation is, essentially, the entire Civilization computer game, distilled down to the tech tree (the best part of Civilization IMO) and a large deck of cards.

If that description doesn't make you drool… well you're a very different person from me and mine. That's okay, though.

The game, developed by Carl Chudyk and published by Asmadi Games, is designed for 2-4 players in which you develop a civilization via technology from the stone age to the modern era. For ages twelve and up, it is a complicated, chaotic game that takes a certain amount of playing before it clicks in your mind. But once it clicks, it is insanely addicting.

Every turn you have two actions to spend on one of four possible things to do. You may draw a card, you may play a card onto your board, you may execute the effects of a technology (called in the game dogma), or you may achieve. You may do any action twice (including executing the same dogma twice) but you only have two actions.

The goal of the game is to achieve. Achievements are acquired when you meet their requirements (usually a certain amount of score) and have reached the appropriate level of technology on your board.

To obtain score (needed for most achievements), you execute the dogma of the different technologies in play on your board, or participate in the dogma of another player when you are more advanced than he is. Not all cards allow you to score. Sometimes even when you are eligible to score, you still cannot score because you lack cards to score. Cards may be removed from your board or your hand to your score, and vice versa, depending on the dogma effect.

There are five different technology families, differentiated by color, and you may only have one of each in play at a time. But each technology card also contains a variety of symbols around the edges, and your technology stacks may be splayed out in various directions to display the symbols from previous technologies.

When someone else executes a dogma effect, there is a symbol associated with that dogma, and the quantity of this symbol on your board determines whether you participate in the technology's effect (or, in the case of an attack, are immune or susceptible to it).

If all of this sounds complicated, there is no way around it. It is complicated. And things change fast. It's almost impossible to plan your turn in advance, because so much can change during the other player's turns. Every action you take (except achieving) is really a gamble of varying degree.

There is a large component of luck in Innovation, as there is in all card games, but also room for strategy. A player familiar with the game has a distinct advantage over the novice, because knowing what dogma effects do and which technologies are compatible allows the experienced player to make better strategic gambles. But the high level of chaos means it's not a great game to play with those who suffer from analysis paralysis.

It is outstanding as a two player game. Himself and I played two rounds tonight after dinner and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It has the best replay value of any two person game I've ever played.

All things considered the game is very well balanced, an impressive feat for a complicated system. There is the possibility of a run away win in the very beginning… but this generally spurs the players on to a rematch, so this may be a feature, not a bug.

It's a fascinating game. If you like Civilization, or you like games with elements of both strategy and chaos, I highly recommend you give Innovation a try. But be prepared to buy it as soon as you're done. It's that addicting.

This review is entirely spontaneous, and based solely on the hours and hours I've spent playing the game. I received no compensation for this review. Those are Amazon Affiliate links though.

 

Review: Mad Scientist University

Last night we had guests for dinner and board games. We played one really awful game of Cities and Knights, a game that seemed as if it would never end, but before that we played a new game that our guests brought: Mad Scientist University.

The game is essentially theatre improv warmups wrapped up in a card mechanic similar to that of Apples to Apples. One person is the judge, and draws the prompt. The other players are the students, and each draw one card depicting an item that they must use to complete the assigned prompt. The judge picks the best (usually the funniest) response.

For example: ‘Reanimate the dead’ using [rubber bands/socks/business cards]. Or ‘Throw the perfect party’ using [flamingos/traffic cones/cheese]. I threw the perfect party by mechanically animating flamingos and using them to press gang unsuspecting passersby into my perfect party. The wilder and more convoluted the answers, the better, as long as they actually complete the prompt. In another round, my item was a bass, but the prompt was to obtain a snack. Instead of just eating the bass as a snack, I used the bass to obtain a series of increasingly ludicrous bait in order to catch a kraken and obtain a lifetime’s supply of calamari. You get as long as the judge decides to give you to think up a story, and the judge can end your turn before you’re finished if it’s too boring!

The endpoint of the game can be set to whatever number of prompts won (we played to five) and after the game is over, there’s even more fun in assembling the prompts you won into a coherent story. (I went to the moon to find snacks to throw the perfect party.)

I’ve played a similar game before, Aye, Dark Overlord, but I think Mad Scientist University, with it’s lack of direct competition between players, provides a better play experience. It has potential as great creativity and imagination exercise for older kids.

It also has potential great ‘fill in the gaps’ sort of game. Our annual gaming weekend in College Station is coming up, and there’s always a need for more open ended games to fill in the gaps of time between your table finishing a game and another table finishing a different game, so that the groups can be shuffled and everyone gets to socialize.

Oh, and the best maniacal laugh starts. You literally start the game laughing, and if you stop laughing before it’s over, you aren’t doing it right.

Review: CTS Sunday Missal

Every US Catholic book publisher should look at this missal, and then hang their heads in shame.

The Catholic Truth Society Sunday Missal cost me less to have it shipped from England than it would to buy an American one, either online or in a brick and mortar store. And it’s much, much nicer than anything I’ve seen in the bookstores. It arrived on Good Friday, just in time for the Easter Vigil.

Things I like:

1. Save the readings, the missal provides everything in Latin alongside the new English translation. I’m not a big demander of Latin, but I do think it’s eminently appropriate that the Latin be provided next to its English translation. Also, it might come in handy some day.

2. This missal has real sacred art. There is, admittedly, not a large quantity, only five plates. But they are full color, gorgeous reproductions from the Ingeborg Psalter. I will happily accept quality over quantity.

3. Most Sundays and feasts begin with a short introduction by either Pope Benedict XVI or Pope John Paul II.

4. It’s sturdily and attractively bound for such an inexpensive volume. It lays open very nicely, although it is a little stiff in the front and back at first. The pages aren’t gilded, so the red stripe that marks the Ordinary shows up clearly, making it very easy to find.

5. Before and after the Ordinary are brief sections on Preparation for Mass and Thanksgiving after Mass. My last missal had these sections so buried I didn’t even know they were there till I checked just now.

6. Reading this missal is extremely easy on the eyes. This seems to be a combination of a variety of variables, such as the font, the page layout, the color of paper and print. My poor eyes are extremely grateful.

Things I don’t like:

1. That’s it’s not approved for use here in the US. It wouldn’t be fair to hold that against it, though. All it seems to be missing are the US patronal feasts, and since that’s only Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12th, a small insert in the back will fix it.

2. The other impediment to using this missal in the US is that the lectionary readings are from the Jerusalem Bible, which isn’t approved for liturgical use here. This isn’t a huge issue for me, as I prefer to read either ahead of time or afterwards and listen to the readings and Gospel as they are proclaimed in Mass. I have found no other differences between the CTS Sunday Missal and the texts in the US missal.

3. Would it have killed them to add just one more ribbon? (Yellow, to balance the red and blue, please.) While we’re on the subject of ribbons, the ribbons are my only qualm about the missal’s quality. They look like they will fall out, and sooner rather than later. I guess when they do, I can add my yellow ribbon.

Verdict: 5 stars if you don’t care about the lectionary accuracy. 4 stars if you do.

CTS has a similar Daily Missal as well, but that missal would be missing a substantially greater amount of material, and so I probably won’t splurge on it. I do wish someone could publish something this nice for the US though.

 

Review: Daytime Prayer

Daytime Prayer contains the complete hours of Terce, Sext, and None in a slim volume suitable for tucking into a purse or briefcase. it makes an excellent companion volume for devotees of the Divine Office who use either the four volume set of the Liturgy of the Hours or the single volume Christian Prayer. However, this book also has a significant flaw. It does not impede the book’s use by one who is accustomed to praying the daytime hours, but they present a significant source of confusion for the novice.

The book is roughly the same length and width as Christian Prayer, but only half an inch thick. It is bound in the same red imitation leather, with red edged pages and a single ribbon. It could really use a second ribbon, but I suspect the book’s slimness made this impossible. The pages of the psalter are bordered with a red stripe, but as all of the pages are red edged, this does not actually assist in opening the book straight to the psalter. The artwork is in the typical ugly Catholic Book Publishing Company style, unfortunate but expected.

Internally, the book is organized in a similar fashion to Christian Prayer: Proper of Seasons, Solemnities of the Lord in Ordinary Time, four week Psalter, Proper of Saints. There are two appendices, the complementary psalter and a selection of hymns. The book does not contain the newly translated collects. I doubt we will see updated collects until there is a revised translation of the breviary itself. There is no seperate Ordinary, the opening and closing of these hous is merely included in each day of the psalter. The Proper of Seasons is differently organized, but easy enough to understand. The introduction provides excellent instructions on how to pray the daytime hours. Everything is easy to use and understand, except the complimentary psalmody.

There are almost no instructions given on how to correctly use the complementary psalmody. The complementary psalmody contains three sets of three psalms to be said at the two daytime hours that the current psalmody is not said. The complemenary psalmody is also used at every hour on Solemnities. However these psalms also appear elsewhere in the Liturgy of the Hours, and if more than one daytime hour is prayed; there are special instructions on the use of the complementary psalmody at these times to prevent duplicating psalms in the course of the day. These instructions are completely absent from this book, and it caused me no end of confusion when psalms started repeating themselves. I eventually had to make notes in my four week psalter on which daytime hour should get the current psalmody and which sets of the complementary psalter to use for the other two hours.

Apart from this frustrating omission, Daytime Prayer is a fine book, simple to use and easily carried to make the daytime hours accessible even on a busy workday.

I wrote this review of Daytime Prayer for the free Catholic Book review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods, your source for Baptism Gifts and Oplatki Christmas Wafers.

Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.

I receive free product samples as compensation for writing reviews for Tiber River. (This particular book was bought on my own dime.)

My opinions, glowing or scathing, are always my own. I am incapable of changing them to make anyone happy, not even myself.