Escape to New York!

No prison can hold me! I'm gonna blow this popsicle-stand of a country! This is more like it! Bring me your tired, your poor and your huddled masses - so I can rule over them! Hoorah for unfettered capitalism! I'm a bit late off the blocks but I've arrived in NYC. Now, where is that miscreant? Soon all this will be mine! Is he over here? Then I'll conquer this too! It feels like he could be close by, but no sign of him. He could be anywhere! He's not in Grand Central Station. I had a tip that he was in the library but no-show there either. This bookstore is great - now, this gives me ideas! Maybe he just decided to go for a nice walk... They'll soon all bow before my mighty army of bearbots! It's no good - I have no idea where he is! No - the bearbot army isn't enough. I need more! Mwuhahhahha! Just shave off a bit of this... Into the cloning labs... Instead of Minime they'll cower before Maxime! Mwuahhahhahhhhahhahha! I AM SO EVIL! To be continued...

Switzerland: Part the Fourth - The Swiss Museum of Games

While all the craziness is going on in New York, I will return this channel to its regular programming of mind-broadening travel and cultural reports. My primary human's favourite part of the holiday was our visit to the Swiss Museum of Games in Vevey. It was small, but very well laid out, with interesting exhibits and a room full of games where you could pause and play. Now, my human isn't all that keen on chess as a game, but she does love chess sets, and there were plenty here to admire. Llamas! Woolly mammoths! Scary clowns! Giraffes and zebras! There were also lots of other awesome things to see, like this medi-eval book of games: My human was less impressed by this 18th century quote from the Academic of Games: One of the other games that had lots of sets in the exhibition was Mancala. This example is quite simple and rustic, but they had many more ornate sets on display, most carved to look like reptiles: I have no idea what game this is, but it looks quite interesting: We had fun with this one, which seemed to be an ancient version of air hockey: Upstairs, there was a whole exhibit case dedicated to the phenomenon of Catan! And they also had the biggest jigsaw in the world on display - over 32,000 pieces! It was beautiful: We stopped off in the games room for a quick game of Splendor on our way round, but managed to escape the gift shop without making any purchases. And excellent museum, and a great last day to our holiday.