Raccoons on the Railroads

I was positively giddy when I discovered the Kickstarter campaign for the board game Raccoon Tycoon.  I mean, of course, the name implies all kinds of adorable wheeling and dealing, but the art is absolutely delightful and, even better, the rundown of the game play isn’t particularly complex. A lot of these board games just seem so difficult to understand to anyone who isn’t well versed in the standards of “Eurogames.” Of course I’ve already backed this one; at the very least I’ll have some high-quality card art to admire. But who knows, I may even be able to pull together a small group on occasion to give the game a whirl.

But I will insist on playing as the raccoon!

For a run down on the game, see the below video.

Source: Kickstarter Tabletop Alert – Raccoon Tycoon

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Raccoons Reaching New Heights

The wold was enraptured by the exploits of a particularly brave little procyon lotor this week.  What came to be known as the #mprraccoon, because she was climbing the UBS Plaza in downtown St. Paul (actually because Minneapolis Public Radio was the first to give the story major coverage), was a saga that unfolded from Monday through Wednesday this week.  The raccoon in question jumped from a two-story building to the UBS Plaza and, afraid to go down, proceeded to climb up twenty stories to the roof over the course of a day.  It looks like it made the move to the tower because it got scared away by some maintenance workers at the smaller building. The whole time, she received coverage, was trending on social media, and had a crowd of people on the street below cheering her on. Once she arrived at the roof, she was captured by waiting animal control officers who released her into the wild. This harrowing tale caught the attention of the whole country, as it received coverage on national news networks and even some cheeky references in international coverage.

Even Hollywood celebrities felt the need to comment on the situation (as they are wont to do) with James Gunn, director of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, offering $1,000 to the charity of choice for whoever rescued the animal. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson also got in on the fun, posting a raccoon-enhanced version of the poster for his upcoming movie, Skyscraper (see the header image) on his Instagram account.

Source: MPR News

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