John Mayer – Battle Studies
We’ll get the obvious out of the way. Yes, I am a huge John Mayer fan, so yes, I really like this album. Mikey declared quite early (like a few days after it came out) that it’s the best John Mayer album to date. It’s excellent.

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Quite possibly the album of the year. While you can listen to the tracks standalone, the album is best when listened to from beginning to end (in my opinion). Hat tip: Eli.

Mayer Hawthorne – A Strange Arrangement
A throwback album that’s soulful, for real. I don’t usually listen to this kind of music, but after hearing one track, I was curious. The album did not disappoint. Hat tip: Doaner.

Discovery – LP
A fun electronica/pop album.

Owl City – Ocean Eyes
Another fun electronica/pop album, but a little heavier on the pop side. Fav tracks: Hello Seattle, The Saltwater Room, Fireflies. Hat tip: David.

Mr. Hudson – Straight No Chaser
Was really excited for this album when I heard the first few tracks online. Unfortunately, those first few tracks are probably the best on the album. Fav tracks: Supernova, There Will Be Tears, Everything is Broken.

Taylor Swift – Fearless (Platinum Edition)
Yup, even the bonus tracks are good.

Colbie Caillat – Breakthrough
Although I prefer her first album, this sophomore effort still has some good tracks.

Norah Jones – The Fall
A change in direction in her music nets some good results.

Some solid singles:

Matt Nathanson – Come On Get Higher
Mat Kearney – All I Have
Gary Go – Just Dance
Passion Pit – Little Secrets
Passion Pit – Moth’s Wings
The Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition

Thurn and Taxis revolves around the premise of building a postal system that connects the cities on the board together. You are rewarded with points for how “well connected” you are. Being a Rio Grande game, it has a similar “end game” situation as Puerto Rico and Stone Age, in that, you’re not trying to be the first player to reach X amount of points. You’re just trying to be the player with the most points whenever scenario X happens to end the game.

Overall, our search for a game comparable to Settlers left us wanting. Perhaps our focus is all wrong. Maybe we should simply find a game that’s a “good enough” alternative to Settlers, for those nights when we’re all “settled out”, because maybe we’ll never find a game as good as Settlers. Then again, Board Game Geek has Settlers ranked only 41st overall, with both Puerto Rico and Stone Age ranked above it. Meh.

Lola is owned by the same guy who owns Serious Pie, that yuppie pizza joint we didn’t want to go to. But we wanted breakfast, Lola received good reviews on Yelp, and it was closeby, so we went for it.

As expected, Lola was a little pricey, but when we got our food, all was forgiven.