Playing Cards and Dice Tower

I tell people not to bother with gifts for my for my birthday, but I usually get a good gift from Meran. This year was no different, with an added surprise.

First up, Meran's awesome card decks she found; a bunch of really cool deck themes, with some really good art in them, too.

First up, the Pirate deck! Yarr! Really neat and clever deck. All the Jacks, Queens and Kings are famous pirates, and have an antique feel and look to them.

The rest of the decks are from Bicycle and are all from their 'custom decks' line. Or magic decks. If I were into card tricks, these would be great to play around with and learn. They are also usable for regular cards. Cribbage or Poker, anyone?

• Black Ghost
• Ghost
• Black Tiger
• Shadow Masters

And some I can't find reference to anymore:

• Black Spider
• Purple
• Guardians
• Black Scorpion
• Black Light Glow in the Dark

If you want a unique deck of cards, check out Bicycle's arcane line.

I hosted a Titan game in my new game room, there will be a post for that soon, too (The game room, not Titan). Probably after Thanksgiving. One of my friends gave me some passes to get into the Portland Chinese Gardens. We've been to the Japanese Gardens (mostly for the Bonsai showings) but not the Chinese Gardens - we are looking forward to going.

I got a package from UPS today. It was from my brother-in-law, Dennis. I had an inkling this was coming, but I wasn't going to expect it, but enjoy it if / when it showed up. It was a dice tower. I love dice games, rolling dice, and dice towers. I've never really gotten around to making or even buying a dice tower, or a rolling surface. Best I ever did was to line my dice box with a soft, rubbery surface that Meran got for me at a hobby shop. It's a great surface - I may line this dice tower with it, but the cork Dennis used is probably sufficient. Anyway, the dice tower collapses for better / easier transport. Many of my friends' nice wooden dice towers are all-in-ones that are bulky to carry. Other friends have collapsible dice towers made from cardboard or even PVC pipe. Enough squall, on to the pictures:

Pretty cool, huh?

Here it is collapsed, ready for transport!

Close up of the dragon graphic.

That's my gift synopsis. If you don't know how old I am, I won't divulge that intel in this post. You'll just have to figure it out on your own. Here's to another year on the planet.