Shoes and wargamers and other perils of shopping

[hildy89]

My parents came back from a three day stay in Annapolis where they were in town at the same time as a major boat show. Everyone thought they were there for that event.

While my father stayed in my apartment watching football and eating sushi, we did one of the local indoor malls to do some shopping. Less said about the actual shopping the better. How is it that I always find something I *like* that goes out of style? How do I always find the shoe that fits perfectly only to have them change it just a little? (With me, that's a big deal. I have very narrow feet and suddenly a shoe that fit before may not anymore. Nordstroms was a having "hard to fit" sale for sizes 4 and sizes 9 plus. Length isn't the problem -- width is the problem! Find me shoes that aren't gunboats or don't cost a fortune! I could find shoes but they'd be expensive Italian numbers and usually highly impractical for being on my feet.)

Downstairs in the ground floor, a large display was set up of gaming venues. (My mother looked at the greenery and asked where do you set up the trains. They looked like something you'd wind up train tracks around.) At first I thought the local game store was having a tournament until I saw a "Lord of the Rings" banner. Games Workshop puts together a tabletop wargaming based on the LOTR universe, a game for each book/movie. They had set up the main battle sequence from the prologue of the "Fellowship of the Ring", showing Sauron's forces against the elves and humans. Other smaller battles were set up as well, including previews of the Two Towers game. The guy I talked to was quite nice and knowledgable and didn't seem at all fazed by a woman asking about the games. He continually tried to make the comparison with chess, but I saw it as a more freeform version of say the old Stratego game, except there weren't any squares. Apparently each little figure had different skill levels, so a Elven archer could shoot a certain range and a soldier move a certain distance. I thought the whole game looked quite well done. Although as I pointed out, you could wind up rewriting the book if you weren't a good enough gamer... or a skilled general could switch the outcome. Looks fun as hell, but not a lot of fun alone.

Comments

[hildy.livejournal.com]

I've done in-person roleplaying gaming, but not the tabletop wargaming stuff. None of my gaming groups were really into that, so I never really learned. The other thing the Gaming Workshops was determined to convince me of was the difference between roleplaying games versus the wargaming. The dice was the only common piece between them. I guess they thought people would get wrapped up in the idea of playing Sauron or Gandalf or Aragorn...

The boot issue is frustrating too. I usually wear these nice (and slightly expensive) Santana boots. They lace up in the front, almost like figure skates and come in nice basic black. They run narrow and only a slight heel. I looked at them today and they've added a zipper down one side. If it laces up the front, *why* does it need a zipper? Of course these *everything* is high heeled and pointy toed. Can we say asking for a visit to the podiatrist?

Skates/shoes

[jordannamorgan]

*chuckle* Come to think of it, my skates might make for pretty nice shoes, minus the blades. They're a really nice and well-fitting black pair that I found for, I think, $5 at the local thrift store. Alas, I've only gotten to try them once--and since I can't (yet?) stand up on the ice anyway, I couldn't really tell the practical quality.