November 6, 2010: A Great Time In Boston!

I've spent this week in the Boston area meeting with our primary factory rep -- Grand Prix International. We discussed upcoming projects, planned our big 2011 reprint schedule (it's vital that we keep the Munchkin line available at all times), and generally just said hi. When you do as much business with anyone as we do with GPI, it's important to stay in touch, and nothing beats the occasional face-to-face meeting. Plus, visiting GPI means that I get to steal time to enjoy the area and do some other things.

What sort of things? Well, I spent Tuesday night in Cambridge, MA playing games and meeting fans at Pandemonium Books. We played an insane amount of Cthulhu Dice -- some with a dozen players (see our Twitter feed for photos from that night) -- and I answered several questions about Munchkin, our upcoming releases, and how I broke into the game business. Randy told me this was a fun store (he visited during one of his road trips). He was right. I also grabbed myself a new art book; I'm a sucker for art books.

Wednesday night, I visited Medieval Starship in Pembroke, MA. The first request was to play Frag, so we dove into that and I almost trashed the competition and took home the victory. What stopped me? An excellent combination on Special cards took the win right from my hands; as always, Frag is about timing and moving fast and I was just a tad too slow this time. After that we played Cthulhu Dice and Zombie Dice, and then I answered more questions (everyone wants to know about the upcoming Munchkinomicon). One request was for a brief summary of my normal day. My days are anything but normal.

Thursday was my day off, so I rushed out to spend it with my friends at Onell Design, where I played with toys (and took pics for my battlegrip.com website) and had way too much fun. Matt and Marcus of Onell helped us upgrade our online Frag game last year, and visiting their HQ is always exciting. If you're at all into toys I suggest checking out their line of action figures.

And now it's time to go home. I'm tired after a week in Boston, but the people are so friendly and the country so pretty that I always have a blast whenever I find a good reason to get out here. Next time I've got to bring Steve with me; I think he would love visiting the GPI office, and I know he would enjoy the historical sites around Boston.

-- Phil Reed