Dolphin Tale

Sawyer is a boy without direction. Summer is an injured dolphin washed ashore. Both lives will change forever when they meet each other on that beach. After Sawyer alerts animal rescue, he takes an active part in Summer's care. When her tail needs to be amputated, he enlists a local VA doctor to see if he can develop a prosthetic. It's never been done before . . . could it possibly work?

My son is reading the book upon which the movie was based, so we watched the film. It was heartwarming- formulaic, but a moving story nonetheless. At least part of it is factual. And the theme is good, summarized by a quote therein:

Just because you're hurt doesn't mean you're broken.

Rating: A-

A Very German Christmas (Various)

A Very German Christmas is a collection of Christmas-related poems, short stories, and excerpts from famous German authors. Here you'll find tales from the Brothers Grimm, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and more.

This collection was okay. The included excerpts bothered me because they weren't complete stories- just chapters from famous works (like Buddenbrooks) related to the holiday. The other selections varied in theme and quality- some were morose or bizarre (not unusual in German literature, as I found when working through a German Reading List). But some were decent, and I found a new author I really enjoyed- Heinrich Böll, whose story had some wonderfully funny phrases. Overall, it's okay.

Rating: B-

Bristol 1350

Today's review is of the 2021 release, Bristol 1350. For 1-9 players, it takes 20-40 minutes.

Overview

The plague has struck; everyone, flee for your lives! Well, take a cart out of town for your lives. In Bristol, There are three carts racing to be the first out of town. Each cart holds up to three people. Be in the first cart to leave, and you all win- IF everyone on board is healthy. But if one has the plague (which means your two secret symptom cards add up to 6 or greater, at any point in the game), instead everyone in that cart loses and the game continues. 

game in progress; image from here

The game is played in rounds. Someone rolls six dice and a round begins, going in order from the first person in the leading cart to the last person in the trailing cart. The die have one rat and one apple of each cart's color. On your turn, you take one of three actions:

• re-roll two dice
• draw a remedy card, which has special abilities that help you exchange symptom cards, lock in die results, or prevent pushing (see next action)
• move your pawn through (pushing your way to the front of your cart), (if you're in the front of your cart, exchanging places with the last person in the cart ahead of you), (if you're in the front of your cart, pushing someone behind you off your cart, to the cart behind or off the cart entirely)

After you take your action, you can also play one or more remedy cards (even if your action was drawing that cart this turn). Once everyone has had their turn, the round ends. At the end of the round, each cart will progress along the track according to the total number of their colors present on the dice. But beware! Rats help your cart progress, but if your cart has two or more rats, you must 'mingle' at the end of the round with others in your cart. Mingling is drawing an additional symptom card to mix in (likely a high number), shuffling this and all of the respective players' symptom cards together, and re-distributing two cards to each, discarding the extra. If the cards you receive equal or exceed six, you have the plague. Once you have the plague, your win condition becomes not allowing anyone to leave the town healthy, so your goal is to spread the disease.

Review

This is a tidy little game- I liked it. The components are small but of good quality; the game is simple and fun. It accommodates up to nine people and doesn't take forever to play. There's some light strategy and luck. It does rely on player honesty (if their cards exceed six at one point but then later abilities drop that number, they still have the plague), and it's hard to think about who might have the plague, but it's good overall.

Rating: A-

Knife of Dreams (Robert Jordan)

The Wheel of Time saga continues! Shortly after Crossroads of Twilight . . .

Perrin continues looking for his wife (and finds her, finally). Mat is still fleeing Ebou Dar with Tuon (and marries her). Egwene has been captured and is held in Tar Valon, debating her next steps. Elayne captures the throne of Andor after a long struggle. Rand is debating his next move. And those in league with the Dark One plot their evil schemes . . .

Okay, stuff happens here. That's an improvement over the prior offering. Still has the uneven pacing that's plagued the last [x] books. This is the last one Jordan wrote on his own before his death; the final three are co-written by him and Brandon Sanderson. Looking forward to seeing what that will bring.

Rating: B-

The Adventures of Captain Underpants (Dav Pilkey)

George and Harold are best friends. And the school's pranksters. When they're not infuriating the cruel principal Mr. Krupp, they're writing stories and drawing cartoons about their personal creation: Captain Underpants. But one day, they get caught red-handed setting pranks and are blackmailed by Krupp. In response, they order a hypno-ring, put him under their spell, and make him think that he is Captain Underpants. Hilarity ensues until Dr. Diaper appears, intent on ending the world. Can the boys- and Captain Underpants- prevail? Also, will they figure out how to turn the principal back into his usual mean self?

This one wasn't on my reading list, but my son is infatuated with this series- as are many worldwide. The good captain has featured in twelve books, two movies, and a TV series. Know what your kids are into . . . so I gave this a gander. And was pleasantly surprised.

Of course this is silly, but it's amusing even to adults, and accurately captures the imagination and fears of children. The zany, tongue-in-cheek humor reminds me of the Muppets, in a way. The only thing that bothered me was the misspelled words on pages showing the comics the boys had written. I get that kids misspell words, but seeing it in print, without correction, can confuse young readers. And, you may have to remind your kids that pranking people isn't nice. Those aside, it's a fun time.

Rating: A-

Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot (Margot Theis Raven)

Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot is the true story of the Candy Bomber (Gail Halvorsen), as told through the eyes of seven-year-old Mercedes, a girl who grew up in West Berlin during the Berlin Airlift. The story starts with historical background on the airlift and related statistics (some incredible numbers) before covering Mercedes and her experiences there in 1948. She longed for the candy that Halvorsen dropped from the sky, but never got any. So she wrote to the pilot, and received a heartwarming response- and the candy she desired.

This is a great book. The illustrations are wonderful and the story uplifting. What I enjoyed most, though, was the nature of Gail's service. He saw the kids in need and wanted to do something small to give their lives more joy. He was already serving them through his work, making three runs per day to Berlin from Wiesbaden's airfield to drop much-needed supplies like flour. But he went even further, making candy 'bombs' by attaching little parachutes to chocolate bars and dropping them over crowds of children. When the public found out, they chipped in with supplies and assistance, enabling him to drop tons and tons of candy over the seven months he was there. His example is one we should all follow- make 'little' acts of service for others part of our daily routines. He made a difference in thousands of lives in so doing. A little chocolate goes a long way.

My family got to meet Gail Halvorsen in 2019, when he visited Wiesbaden at age 99 (he's still alive as of this writing, aged 101). 

Rating: A

Netflix by Bots

Bot movies. I freely admit this is a weird way to start December and Advent, but friends recently introduced me to Mr. Puzzles Wants You to be Less Alive, a 5-minute horror story written by a bot after it watched 400,000 hours of horror movies. Check that out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZzbxNoMjGM

Similarly, A Love Tale of Taylors was written by a bot after watching 'every' romcom ever made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p6wQnWUJJA

And there's a holiday flick, Carol's Christmas Carols for Carol, A Woman Named Carol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVB25kDMN_Y

And a stoner movie: Cheese & Chonk Smoke a City Safe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Dy0wJxFjE

And a comedy special:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH_bEtbfB9U

I find these hilarious; the humor is offbeat/zany (right up my alley), but I'm also intrigued by the themes the bot picks up on in each genre. (Assuming these really are bot creations and the whole thing isn't just faked.) We truly do tell the same stories over and over.