I've decided to try Blogger and possibly permantly migrate my blog to matthew.gray.org. But, in the interim, for all those people who want to not risk missing a word of my online sharing, check out my list of other blogs (and bloggish things).

I bought and absolutely love my Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M. It is a high-speed compact full-duplex full-color sheet-feed scanner. I put a document in the sheet feeder, press a button on the scanner and a few seconds later there is a PDF in a pre-configured folder with the contents of the document. It's an amazing product. Read any number of other rave reviews of it.

In the roughly three months I've had it, I've scanned over 1200 documents, comprising over 5000 pages. I use "Yep!" for managing all of these and all of my other pre-existing and downloaded PDFs. In total, I have over 3000 PDFs. Yep handles this fine. Overall, I like "Yep!" very much, though it has one or two bugs that irritate me, but it's well worth the price.

The software that comes with the ScanSnap includes both the scanning software itself and FineReader, the OCR software. Both work well, but the user interface to both is lacking. But, fortunately, it's possible to completely disable the user interface of each so I never see it. The functionality of both pieces of software is good. Unfortunately, the integration with the OCR has a moderate flaw, but there's an easy way around it. Specifically, OCR takes far longer than scanning, but it doesn't queue up OCR jobs. This means you can't scan a second document until the first is done OCRing if you have automatic OCR enabled.

So, here's my workflow/setup: I have the ScanSnap Manager set up to scan to PDF with no OCR to a directory called "New Scans/Fresh" without prompting. I have two other directories under "New Scans": "Being OCRd" and "OCRd". I often glance through "Fresh" in Yep to see if the scanner misrotated a page or something (in general it is very very good). Occasionally, often only once a week or so, before going to bed, I drag all the files in "Fresh" into "Being OCRd", and then drag all of those onto FineReader. I have FineReader configured to OCR the files in place, and depending how many documents I have scanned since the last OCR batch, it can take several hours. I go to sleep. Later, I drag the completed OCRd PDFs to the "OCRd" directory.

Gradually, documents pile up in "OCRd", and periodically, I go through in Yep and clean up. But, it's worth noting that having them unfiled in a big pile in "OCRd" is still quite useful. With Yep I can search through those and find things quickly even if I haven't done proper "filing". But, whenever I want to do some filing, I use Yep's "Browse by search folder" mode, which shows me a list of directories that contain PDFs. I don't use the tagging as the primary organization scheme, but do use it and will describe it later. First I select the "OCRd" directory and it shows me all the PDFs that are pending. Usually I'll spot something obvious like a mortgage bill and I'll type "mortgage" in the search box, and the view will be narrowed to just things mentioning "mortgage". Often this will include some things other than mortgage statements, but often it will nicely narrow it to a homogeneous set. I select all of them and drag them into one of my two "filing cabinets" and the appropriate sub-folder, all within Yep.

I use two folders as filing cabinets. One is just a standard folder under Documents which contains stuff like correspondence, recipes and local restaurant menus. The other is an encrypted sparse image for things like bills and account statements. Some of the hierarchy is obvious "Bills/Discover" or whatever, but mostly I don't worry too much about it because I know search works well enough. As I mentioned above, I don't use tags as the primary organization scheme, but do use them for task oriented groupings. For example, I used a tag for "2007 taxes" since that included statements from a number of accounts. Similarly, when we bought a new house, I had a "mortgage application" tag.

The system works great, and I'm not a big "organization guy". It's allowed me to shred and recycle paperwork with abandon because if I have something and I think I might want it, I scan it, and get rid of the clutter. The resulting scans are small in size, coming in on average under 100k per page. I love the ability to quickly and easily find any bill, document or other paperwork and my wife loves it as well.

Overall, I wholeheartedly recommend the ScanSnap and "Yep!".

A couple of years ago I posted a list of "much better" products. The idea was to point out (technology) products that are much better than the alternatives. There's a handful of new one's I've discovered that I thought I'd share. A couple of them already get a lot of popular press/praise, but I thought I'd add my voice to the chorus. The first one, while almost universally praised, is less widely known.

Fujitsu ScanScan s510m is much better than any other document scanning solution I've seen. I got one of these in January and it is amazing. You insert a piece of paper, and a moment later a double sided PDF is in a directory of my choice. It's wicked fast. Scanning a few sheets of paper takes a few seconds. Oh, and it comes with FineReader, which is good OCR software. So far, I've scanned around 1000 documents numbering 4000+ pages. Having quick full text (though not quite perfect) access to bills, account statements, and other paperwork is revolutionary. I came into this device with high expectations and it has exceeded them.

Wii is much better than other video game systems, for me. For most of these "much better" claims the "for me" part is implicit, but at some level, I am making the assertion that these things are "objectively" better. The Wii is great, but I can see it's not for everyone. I've had it for a little more than a year now, and it's about as good as a game system could be for me. I don't play it a ton, but I play it some and it's a fun diversion for a few hours a week.

iPhone is much better than most cell phones. I didn't say it's way better than a Blackberry, which I used to have, but it mostly is. As of now, the Blackberry was still a better email device. The iPhone is an ok email device and a really good device in almost every other way. Google Maps plus a really good browser is a potent combination. Naturally the SDK announcement makes things even more interesting.

A couple more interesting and obscure hobbies: Parkour and Speed Stacking. You can see a great deal of each on YouTube: Parkour videos and speed stacking videos.

(Read my posts from a few years ago for some context)

(I've discussed this twice before) There's a number of games that are good enough to get pulled out every year. For recent releases, this isn't saying much, so let's look at those that have been played in at least 7 out of the past 11 years.

10 out of 11

• RoboRally. This has been played every year, except I missed in 2004. This is the game that really got me into board gaming.
• Call my Bluff. This still gets played every year, going on 10 years since I discovered it.

9 out of 9

• Basari. This was a wedding present and while it doesn't get a ton of play (only 13 plays) it gets pulled out consistently, year after year.
• Ra. One of my all time favorites, and I expect it to stay on the 100% list for a while.
• Apples to Apples. A party game that is successful with all but the most curmudgeonly.

8 out of 8

• Medici. One of the greatest "pure" auction games ever.
• Can't Stop. It's quick and approachable and likely to stay on the list for a long time.
• Speed. At 60ish seconds per game, I make sure to play this on New Years' Eve if I haven't already that year.
• 6 nimmt!. Another regular winner, in no small part due to its effective accomodation of 6 players.
• Igel Argern. Fast fun filler.
• Battle Line. One of my favorite 2-player games of all time.

8 out of 9 or more

Ricochet Robot and Samurai both somehow missed 2006, but have been played the other 8 of the last 9 years.

En Garde missed 2006 and 2004, but I've been playing it since 1998, so it makes the 8+ list.

Euphrat & Tigris has been missing the past couple of years and it will hopefully hit the table again in 2008, but for whatever reason I have not had the same yen for it I have in the past and while it had a good 8 year streak, it looks like 2006's omission wasn't just a fluke.

7+ out of the past 11

The 100% club for the past 7 years is: Knockabout, For Sale, Zirkus Flohcati, Crokinole, Princes of Florence, Electronic Catchphrase.

7 out of the past 8: Carcassonne, Cartagena, Flinke Pinke and missed this year for the first time: Vinci, Traumfabrik, Lord of the Rings.

Take It Easy had a 7 year streak from 1999-2005 and hasn't come back since, but it's likely to be back in 2008.

Set has been intermittent, missing 1999, 2001, 2004, and 2005, but being one of the "old" games, it's gotten to 7.

Overall, I continue to like the "year metric" and the "MonthMetric" as measures of gaming quality and longevity.

Last year, I did my personal "game of the year" for several categories, and I'll do it again:

Light Game/Filler

Factory Fun
This may be skirting the line of what constitutes light/filler. If you think it's over the line, the award should instead go to Felix: Cat in the Sack, and the honorable mention to Toppo.

2-player game

Race for the Galaxy
Race is sufficiently exceptional it does deserve the two awards it gets here. No other 2-player stood out this year, but classic favorites Blue Moon and Knockabout deserve honorable mentions.

Kids/Family

Go Away Monster!

Of the 27 games I played with my 3-year-old, 11 of them were this game, making it a clear winner. Her and my other favorites in this are include Monza and Who Lives Where?. Zof im Huhnerhof also gets an honorable mention for being really neat.

Eurogame

Race for the Galaxy
Unambiguous and amazing. This game is likely to rapidly ascend to top-10 of all-time status. Honorable mention: Notre Dame

Amerigame

Descent
Still amazing.

Overall Summary

• 256 games played
  • 25% bi-weekly group
  • 21% Gathering
  • 13% Home
  • 8% Work
  • 8% UG semi-annuals
  • 25% Other
• 153 titles played
• 73 new-to-me titles played
• 78 sessions
  • 38% Home
  • 20% Bi-weekly group
  • 12% Work
  • 9% Gathering
  • 3% UG semi-annuals
  • 18% Other
• ~93 hours
• 170 opponents

Groups Breakdown

Bi-weekly gaming group
	25% of games played
	34% of titles played*
	20% of sessions
	17% of opponents
Gathering
	21% of games played
	25% of titles played*
	 9% of sessions played (each day counted separately)
	38% of opponents*
Gaming at work
	8% of games played
	11% of games played*
	12% of sessions
	18% of opponents*
Gaming at home
	13% of games played
	10% of titles played*
	38% of sessions
	 5% of opponents*
UG Semi-annual Events
	 8% of games played
	12% of titles played*
	 3% of sessions
	12% of opponents

* Percentages could add up to more than 100, since the same title/opponents can occur in different groups

Top Games

Top 10 games (by my own "hot games" metric) for 2007
10) Loopin' Louie
 9) Antike
 8) Ra
 7) Princes of Florence
 6) Felix: Cat in the Hat
 5) Um Krone und Kragen
 4) Factory Fun
 3) Descent
 2) Notre Dame
 1) Race for the Galaxy

Fives and Dimes

10+

Race for the Galaxy (18 plays)
Go Away Monster! (11 plays)

5+

Factory Fun (7 plays)
Notre Dame (5 plays)
Toppo (5 plays)
Felix: Cat in the Sack (5 plays)
Speed (5 plays)

Top games by sessions are exactly the same, in the same order.

Top games by time spent playing are: Descent, RftG, Notre Dame, Factory Fun, Princes of Florence and Ra

MonthMetric

1) Go Away Monster (6 months in 2007, 7 ever)
2) Factory Fun (4 months in 2007, 5 ever)
3) Notre Dame (4 months in 2007, 4 ever)
4) Monza (4 months in 2007, 4 ever)
... new inductees to the MM>=10 list ...
5) Blue Moon (2 months in 2007, 11 ever)
6) Light Speed (2 months in 2007, 10 ever)
7) Flinke Pinke (1 month in 2007, 10 ever)
8) Samurai (1 month in 2007, 10 ever)

Top Opponents

Of the top 25 opponents (by number of games)
	10 are regular attendees of the bi-weekly group
	4 live in California
	3 are other local gamers (not attendees of the bi-weekly group)
	2 are family members
	2 are co-workers
	1 each from NY, WA, PA and TX

Year over Year

Year    Games   New     Diff    Ses     Ppl
1997     ~30
1998    ~100
1999    ~150     63
2000     301    112     141     126     129
2001     712    172     266     175     165
2002     650    161     279     163     241
2003     552    128     272     129     180
2004     470     80     212     112     216
2005	 429     92     208     124     236
2006	 365     84     205      83     216
2007	 256     73	153	 78	170

First Derivative (year over year differential)
Years		Games		New	Diff	Ses	Ppl
2000-2001	+136%		+54%	+89%	+39%	+28%
2001-2002	-  9%		- 6%	+ 5%	- 7%	+46%
2002-2003	- 15%		-20%	- 3%	-21%	-25%
2003-2004	- 15%		-48%	-22%	-13%	+20%
2004-2005	-  9%		+15%	- 2%	+11%	+ 9%
2005-2006	- 15%		- 9%    - 1%    -33%    - 9%
2006-2007	- 30%		-13%	-25%	- 6%	-22%

Having children seriously reduces the amount of gaming one gets to do. They're really worth it, but it's a big impact. That's all well and good to say, but let's see some numbers.

First of all, to correct for annual events and the like, I looked at a sliding window of 365 days. Prior to having kids, it was somewhat variable, but going into 2004 it was pretty steady at around 550 games every 365 days. Then, the drop. In the first year of my daughter's life, I fell below 400 games/year and it gradually climbed back up to about 450 when my son came along. Let me tell you, the second is a bigger impact than the first, and the numbers bear me out, both as a percentage and as an absolute value. In the first year of my son's life, the rate fell to 266/year and hasn't recovered much since. So:

• First child: 30% drop (then up 10% after 2 years) (-150 games/year)
• Second child: 40% drop (-175 games/year)

On the flip side, my daughter is ranked 4th among people I play the most games with for the year so far (in the top 75 overall), after three game night regulars. And that's only games played according to the essentially correct rules, and to completion. With her, currently age 3, the big hits are Go Away Monster!, Monza, Who Lives Where? and any "daddy game" she can get her hands on. Plus, she's become a very good rules explainer. The other day she taught me the full rules to Karambolage, exactly correctly and very clearly. Hopefully, as she gets older the interest will remain.

In past years, I've posted about what the "hot games" (even if my opinion didn't line up) were at the Gathering. Here's my list of what I perceived as having a lot of people talking about it and playing it.

Notre Dame. Almost universally, when I asked people "What have you played and loved?", this was the first response. There were several copies at the event which meant it was easy to get a chance to play, and there were often multiple copies in play. That said, there were people who weren't totally impressed, and the buzz around this one wasn't of the magnitude of Power Grid a few years ago, and certainly not of Puerto Rico, back in 2002.

Descent. This was a bit of a surprise, since it's so different from most of the other games played at the Gathering. But, this got played a great deal, often with 2 or 3 games going simultaneously. I heard some went as long as 8 (!) hours. I played twice, neither over 3 hours, and both were a lot of fun.

Race for the Galaxy. This didn't get as much play, because there were only two prototypes, but most who played it liked it a lot, and everyone I spoke to thought the art was stunning.

Wikinger. This got a lot of play, with reasonably positive reactions. I heard from several people that the advanced version is better, which I did not try.

Caylus Magna Carta. There was only one copy (maybe 2?), but it was almost universally positively received with most of the comments similar to mine.

Pillars of the Earth. This got a lot of play and was generally quite well received, but it was almost never at the very top of people's lists of top games they played.

Through the Ages. I didn't get to play this, but it saw a fair amount of play, and the reactions from those who did seemed to be extremely positive in general. At least a couple people declared it their favorite game ever.

Zooloretto. This got a lot of play at the beginning, and some continued play later, and was well liked, but not by everyone.

Thurn und Taxis Expansion. This also got a lot of play throughout the week and was often on people's "top lists".

Colosseum. There was one copy of this and it got played a lot, and was well liked in general, but it also seemed to rairely make it near the top of people's lists. A lot of the comments around this seemed to express roughly, "it deserves a few more tries before I have a final opinion".

Arkadia. This didn't get played much at all until late in the Gathering, when both the copies there were often continuously in play. Most people liked it and several said it was among the best.

Objet Trouves. Another "showed up late" hit, this party game got a lot of play in the last few days and was mostly well liked by those who played.

A few other games that had reasonably positive buzz, but of lower overall magnitude: Huang Di, Phonecia, Quirkle, Animalia. I'm sure there were others that I didn't play that got some positive buzz, but I don't recall them now.

Of the new-to-me (and mostly new-since-Essen) games I've played, I broke them down into three categories: Buy, Maybe and No. Within maybe there's some more likely than others. Several of the "No" games are quite good, just not for me.

Buy:

• Race for the Galaxy: I can hardly wait
• Caylus Magna Carta: For me, standard Caylus will be completely obsolete
• Notre Dame: Good to see Alea "back on track"
• Friedemann's auction prototype: Can't say more
• Baumeister von Arkadia: A surprise hit

Maybe:

• Capes & Cowls: Fun, I love the theme, almost certainly will get it
• Volle Wolle: Yet another entertaining Zoch dice game. Probably worth it.
• Colloseum: Probably. But not definitely.
• Thurn & Taxis For Power & Glory: Probably, but I'm not sure I play enough T&T to make this worthwhile.
• Pillars of the Earth: 3 or 4 years ago, this would have been a definite yes, probably a buy still
• Tumblin Dice: probably too large/expensive, but fun
• Huang Di: probably not a buy for me, but it's interesting and fun
• Truffel Schnuffel: Cute kids game from Haba, but if I bought everything with that description, I'd be overrun
• Sakkara: Interesting, but broken without a rules fix, could be quite good with a fix
• Zooloretto: Fun, but maybe not enough to justify the shelf space

No

• Wikinger: For me, it didn't hang together well enough
• Guatemala Cafe: Left me cold
• Portobello Market: Short, not interesting enough.
• Sudoku Challenge: Some game there, but not enough
• Dragon Parade: Cute, but nothing striking.
• Jetzt schlagt's 13: Mundane.
• Stonehenge: I'd like to play the other three games, but the two I tried weren't "enough".
• Nomads of Arabia: I didn't feel like there were enough choices