&games

I came from a pinochle family. Still, I can relate.


The "first word is double" person is replaced by the "bidder goes out" person. The "I am so screwed person" is replaced with the "Four god-damned nines" person.

Just talked to someone in Healy, Alaska. The temperature is above 0 F. right now in Healy. Looks like some tropical weather is coming our way.

The temperature has not risen above -20 F. at Coldfoot Manor for almost four weeks and has been -40 on several days. Probably hasn't been above -10 in Fairbanks in the same time period.

I was excited. Had to share.

I hope you and yours had a happy Thanksgiving.

I got lucky and played games on both Friday and Saturday on this Thanksgiving weekend. Come to think of it I even played a couple party games on Thursday. Played Wits and Wagers and Blurt after Thanksgiving dinner at a non-gamer friend's house. Played Fury of Dracula a couple times, Taj Mahal a couple times (I bumped my rating up to a 10 on BGG), Merchants of Amsterdam (which is an underlooked Knizia design IMO). Also played Hive a few times, Mission Red Planet, Hey! That's My Fish, Cluzzle, Thurn and Taxis, and a couple others.

Oh. Did I mention that I stormed out of a game of Inkognito? Taught Inkognito to my wife and two others this weekend. After making a few mistakes on the first game we called it and started a second game after everyone was clear on the rules.

About 3/4 of the way through the game I stormed off and refused to play any more. Possibly never again.

It started with my wife. She showed me the same set of 3 cards. It was only the second time I was able to interrogate her and she showed me the same three cards that she showed me the first time. That is against the rules, and was made clear during the first game. She refused to either correct her mistake or, as the rules state: remove one of the 3 cards and show me only 2.

OK. Forget it. I'm pretty sure I know her identity, anyway.

Later another player handed me a set of cards that could not possibly be true, based upon previous interrogations of that player. That player had been making, admitting to, and correcting mistakes the whole game, but when I called her/him on it he/she refused to admit that a mistake had been made.

That was it for me. It was completely pointless to continue. I felt as though I was banging my head against a wall for nothing. The game could have only ended by accident if people weren't paying attention.

Before the next game of Inkognito I am going to take a marking pen and write; tall, short, fat and thin on all the appropriate cards. Short and fat are easily confused if you are unobservant, as are tall and thin. Funny enough the mistake in question (the one that caused me to storm off) was over identities, not body types.

http://joshualowry.vox.com/library/audio/6a00c225203796f21900c2252ab8c18e1d.html

I have been asked how to download the audio review of Wits and Wagers to an MP3 player. I know very little about MP3 players. Can someone point us in the right direction, please?

Gabcast! Boardgames #2



Audio Blogger ceased to accept new content on Nov. 1. This is the new service.

On day one of BGG.CON I was kicking myself for not bringing a notebook and pen to note all the games I had played, and all the people I met. About midway through the second day I got my hands on of a pen and paper and started recording that information. That lasted for about one hour. I was just having too much fun to take notes, or perhaps it would be more correct to say I was having too much fun to remember to take notes.

Soooooo, that means some of the people in these pictures shall have to remain nameless, and possibly misidentified (although I don't think so).


Simon Hunt teaching Rick Thornquist and Kim Beattie (Kimbo) (unpictured) Arabica at the BBQ joint.



Scott Nicholson from Boardgames With Scott



Okiedokie and his posse (Dwayne Hendrickson, rear right)


Sandy Stumpf (Sandysidamo) and Jason Henke (jhenke) I played a number of games with these two. This was Silk Road.




Ave Caesar with (from left): myself, Duffy (Carter? aka: munin?), Sterling Babcock, and Rodney Loyd (Hotrodqt)



Darrell (Get-That-Camera-Away-From-Me-Before-I-Backhand-You) Hanning. I have always enjoyed reading his game commentary over the years.




Dr. Glaze from behind, Simon Hunt, Kuhrusty (Rusty Ballinger) seen here planning his winning move while Simon was distracted, and someone who I should remember but don't. Sorry.




From the left: Rodney, me, Pedro from Brazil, I forget his name but he was a good Taj Mahal teacher, Jason



Didn't get any names, but for posterity I snapped a picture of the one guy at the con who had never played Puerto Rico. The fellow facing the camera was teaching the game.



Ava Jarvis (BilboAtBagEnd), Daniel Karp (Dakarp), and Anye Sellers (DietEvil) square off with me for a game of Desert Bazaar.



Matthew Monin (Octavian) in a pose he calls "Blue Steel" (or was it "Magnum"?)



Rodney's son Hank (QTBigBankHank), myself, and Rodney.

Blogger is not allowing me to post photos at the moment. Check back for BGG.CON pictures soon.

Well, it's over and if you were unable to attend you are probably tired of reading about it. I shared a cab to the con with Jonathon Franklin (Grandslam) and he joked that BGG.CON would be the most covered event in Dallas since the Kennedy assassination. Even so BGG.CON was as much fun as you have been lead to believe. I went with high hopes, and those hopes were exceeded. I did not meet a single hygienically challenged individual, I did not meet a single rude person, I did not meet a single person who was there to win at any cost, nor anyone who was out to prove that he was the most knowledgeable gamer in the room.

There were basically two main types of gamers present. Those who were there to play as many new games as possible, and those who were there to play with as many people as possible. Both groups put having fun above winning.

There were a few glitches that annoyed the organizers much more than it did any of the attendees. There were a few hints dropped that the Westin was not cooperating with food and beverage availability, and even hindered the organizers attempts to keep the attendees hydrated and fed. I had the opportunity to talk with different staff at different times and they were all feeling quite frustrated with the Westin.

Although I am sure that the Westin hosts numerous conferences in the course of a year, I doubt they have hosted anything like BGG.CON. I would guess that most conference attendees are attending on their company's dime and the conference is either a chance for the participants to take a mini, Dallas vacation or the conference is an extension of their job. BGG.CON was going strong for 22 hours each day. Few BGGers were interested in the Dallas night life. There were no organized lunch breaks for participants to hit the food court in the lower level of the hotel, and the food court closed fairly early. There was a small store near the food court that sold single bottles of soda, but the store was far enough out of the way that it was a hassle to get sodas very often.

It is my understanding that the Westin wouldn't even let the organizers bring soda to the event, sell it, and split the proceeds with the Westin.

With another successful event under their belt Derk, Aldie and Co. have proven that the first BGG.CON was not a flash in the pan and that the event has the potential to be a success in years to come. It seems as though the event will not be held at the Westin next year if they still refuse to cooperate.

It is my opinion that the event is destined to soon outgrow the Westin regardless of any problems that may have arisen. Just as Boardgamegeek.com started as a minor game website for a fairly close-knit group of boardgamers and quickly grew into the boardgame site that every other boardgame site references, BGG.CON will become the premier boardgame event in the Western Hemisphere. People who only attend one or two game conventions in a year will slowly start going to Dallas just to see what all the fuss is about. Once they do it will be over, BGG.CON will become the convention, or one of two conventions that they choose to attend.

Having said that BGG.CON is not for everyone. If you are an aggressive gamer, a smelly gamer, or perhaps no one likes you, then you will probably not enjoy BGG.CON. If you fit one of those broad categories you may have a hard time finding gamers to play with you in Dallas.

Here's a news flash for stinky/aggressive gamers: most people don't want to play with you. You will still need to go to the usual conventions and sign up for organized tournaments. People in tournaments are forced to play with you, people in open gaming choose not to play with you.

Sooooooo, first of all I was wondering why the Junior Senator from Massachusetts apologized for his comments concerning servicemen, after all he has a 30 year history of making disparaging comments about the military. Seems odd that he should suddenly start apologizing.

Furthermore, I was curious why the media is only reporting that John Kerry has apologized to service members and their family members instead of simply reading his apology. That seemed odd to me so I went and found the apology:

I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.

"Misinterpreted to wrongly imply"?

Shouldn't it be, "interpreted to wrongly imply", or "misinterpreted to imply"?

What's with the double negative?

Is it possible that the man who is smarter than riff-raff like you made another Freudian slip?