Author: wonderfulexchange

This morning I tripped over a brown wrapped package in the porch, saw the return address, considered the size of the box, and knew immediately what it was: Carcassonne (with a happy note on the box: ‘includes free river expansion’.)

Carcassone comes with good memories. The friends who sent me the present  first introduced me to the game soon after I moved to Dunoon. It provided many hours of laughter and entertainment. Of course it helped that I accidentally won the first time I played. Without trying to understand the scoring, I set out to make things pretty — and found the most wonderful arch bridge that jumped over the river and connected my (well populated) town to the cathedral city next door. My friends hadn’t been married long at that point — else he might have known that I assume any city with a decent river and cathedral will eventually be mine to wander in.

So, I have a box of distraction sitting on the floor and no one to play with. With snow forecast too…

Carcassonne anyone?

(oh help. When I went to get the link for the game, I realized that there is an expansion set called ‘inns and cathedrals’. Well of course I need that. And I wonder which extension set that lovely bridge came from…)

Colour, it seems. On the new New Year’s Eve Ball in Times Square.

This is the hundredth anniversary of the ball of light that is dropped at midnight in Times Square in New York. Although nothing in all the world could induce me to stand in Times Square amidst all those people, as a New Englander, this is still my iconic image of New Year.

In my mind’s eye, that ball is always white. It is simple. It is the same year after year after wonderful year. It is the ball I first saw, when I was 4 and my parents went out and I was allowed to stay up with grandma till the ball dropped. It is the ball that accompanied the excitement of Welch’s sparkling grape juice — guaranteed to ruin every party dress, carpet and bit of furniture it comes in contact with — placed trustingly in little hands in front of the television. It is as it should be.

So I had mixed feelings when I heard the news of this new ball, made of elaborate Waterford crystal and thousands of LED lights. It seems all wrong for the visual field of New Year to be filled with endlessly changing coloured triangles instead of stubbornly light-bulb shaped bits of white light. (And let us forget completely the mid-80s horror of the ‘I Love New York’ apple.)

But on the other hand, what could be more wonderful than a crystalline geometric shape that pulses with light, and runs through every imaginable combination of colour and pattern?

It’s a hard call. I wonder if I will get up at 5 am to see for myself. In the mean time, you can see the promotional video for the new ball here.