April 7 1999 RussCon Report

16 people played 14 games. It felt like a lighter turnout.

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Game Results:

HoneyBears 4 Jeffles 3 Marty 1 Jay -1 JP -3
RoboRally 8 Tim 7 JP 5 Harry 3 Clayton 1 RussW -2 WendyWhe -2 Jeffles -5 Jay -7
AirBaron 5 KevinH 4 Doug 2 Alfred 0 James -2 Steve -4
Kahuna 2 JP 1 Tim -1
Rainbows 4 RussW 3 Marty 1 Jay -1 Jeffles -3
Settlers 4 Jeffles 3 Alfred 1 RussW -1 Jay -3
Palmyra 3 JP 2 Tim 0 JonathanB -2
MasterLabyrinth 3 RussW 2 Brady 0 Jeffles -2
AirBaron 6 Steve 5 Doug 3 Harry 1 KevinH -1 James -3 Marty -5
Bluff 4 KevinH 3 Jeffles 1 RussW -1 JP -3
Bluff 5 Jeffles 4 Steve 2 RussW -1 KevinH -1 JP -4
Bluff 5 Steve 4 RussW 2 KevinH 0 Jeffles -2 JP -4
Bluff 5 RussW 4 KevinH 2 JP 0 Steve -2 Jeffles -4
Bluff 4 KevinH 3 Steve 1 JP -2 RussW -2

It was fun to play a big 8-player game of RoboRally again. This race was sudden death, with no extra lives, and that proved to change the flavor! You must be much more careful of your health.

Bluff continues to be popular. It's a great little game for winding down an evening, with a good blend of luck, tactics, and psychology.

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Evening's Soundtrack:

The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles, white album
The Beatles, Abbey Road

Many believed the common theme to merely be the Beatles, but the correct answer is far more specific.

These are the 4 albums which (during a 1969 rumor hysteria) contained hundreds of clues that Paul McCartney was dead from a car accident a couple years earlier. The 3 surviving Beatles had replaced him with a look-alike. I was fortunate to attend a wonderful talk by Brian Moriarty on this subject with JeffW and Ronbo at Game Developers Conference.

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Rank ratings:
 0.6000 Tim (3 games played)
 0.5556 Doug (2)
 0.3704 KevinH (7)
 0.3333 Harry (2)
 0.2500 Steve (6)
 0.1429 Clayton (1)
 0.1429 Alfred (2)
 0.1212 RussW (9)
 0.0000 Brady (1)
-0.1515 Jeffles (9)
-0.2581 JP (9)
-0.2727 Marty (3)
-0.2857 WendyWhe (1)
-0.5556 James (2)
-0.7500 Jay (4)
-1.0000 JonathanB (1)

New Win ratings:
 0.5000 Tim (3)
 0.2222 KevinH (7)
 0.2083 Steve (6)
 0.1212 Jeffles (9)
 0.0909 RussW (9)
-0.1290 JP (9)
-0.1429 Clayton (1)
-0.1429 WendyWhe (1)
-0.1667 Harry (2)
-0.2222 Doug (2)
-0.2222 James (2)
-0.2500 Jay (4)
-0.2727 Marty (3)
-0.2857 Alfred (2)
-0.5000 Brady (1)
-0.5000 JonathanB (1)

Tim is the Devil! Doug and Kevin are Co-Vice-Devils. Squeaky pulled off the rare and dangerous Reverse Brady Maneuver. Jeffles, JP, and I share the Dedicated Award.

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Commedia dell'Arte:

Saturday a cultural foray was made by several of us to see Son of Arlecchino, which proved to be good bawdy fun. (The Chronicle's Robert Faires observed that the climactic scene "is arguably the most elaborate setup in the history of theatre for a fart joke".) Those seeking further knowledge of this stylized Italian comedic tradition might check out http://www.ozi.com/commedia.

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Air Conditioning Alert:

As the weather warms up, it becomes obvious that the AC needs to be replaced. (Some of you may recall it died last fall, and repair was postponed until the weather grew warm again -- that time is nigh.) Rest assured that RussCon Management has top men on the situation, but no guarantee can be made that the AC will be replaced before this week's RussCon. If Wednesday turns out to be hot, be forewarned we may be playing with open windows and ceiling fans in lieu of AC. This of course will not deter the True Gamers among us, but some lesser cowards may be frightened off by this heated situation.

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Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dogs eye.

Russ