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Day 148: Google I/O 2015

Google Photos

Google Photos

The big news from today’s Google I/O was the Google Photos launch. In short, the Photos part of Google+ is now a separate entity called Google Photos. I played with it earlier today and it’s terrific. The best part? The free unlimited storage for your photos and videos. Yes, Google one-upped Flickr, right when I was thinking about taking advantage of Flickr’s free 1TB of storage.

One thing that flew under the radar, though, was news about Google+.  Google’s Vice President of Streams, Photos, and Sharing Bradley Horowitz talks about Photos and Plus here. In short, Google+ isn’t going anywhere, much to the chagrin of those who call it a ghost town or worse; reading between the lines, it seems like Plus will be streamlined and re-focused on what it does best, which is connecting people of common interests. I don’t think it’ll ever take over Facebook’s place as the default social media network, but of course I said the same thing about Myspace years ago.

Day 77: Wordless Wednesday

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I like the hashtag #WordlessWednesday on Google+. There are a lot of great photographers that share their pictures, which are always beautiful and inspiring.

For my #WordlessWednesday contribution tonight, I’m going with my mango empanadas. It’s the second time I’ve made them in a week, thanks again to Marvin Gapultos‘ wonderful The Adobo Road Cookbook. The photo might not be as beautiful or inspiring as others on Google+, but I’m sure it tastes better than the others.

Day 75: International Tabletop Day

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This year’s International Tabletop Day is Saturday, April 11. It’s a day for celebrating tabletop gaming. Woo hoo!

After years of all-things-poker as my default game night, I picked up a few of the more popular games and started gaming with my wife. We both enjoyed Ticket to Ride, while I loved Pandemic enough to play solo games on a near-nightly basis. I’m excited to play Ticket to Ride with my nephew and nieces; I think they’re old enough to get into the game now.

It’s been great rediscovering my love of board games. Almost two years ago I stopped by Game Haus Cafe for the first time and was blown away. I knew that there were a lot of great games out there, but seeing hundreds and hundreds of them on the shelves really opened my eyes to the scene.

I started reading posts on boardgamegeek.com, watching episodes of Tabletop on Geek & Sundry, and posting a few screen shots of my gaming on the Google+ Board Games community. It’s been a lot of fun and I can’t wait to celebrate tabletop gaming with the rest of the world on April 11. I have an idea of where I want to host an event and I’ve got my fingers crossed that I can pull it off. If not, there’s always the comfort of my living room.