15 of us.

Thanks to Jeff for the watermelon, which was popular and good... but man there was sticky juice and pulp and seeds all over the place later! If anyone brings watermelon again I think it must be cut and eaten outside. This was worse than the mayonnaise ball fight of '98.

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Game Results:

BigCity 5 Dan 4 BobR 2 Bob 0 Clayton -2 Jerrie -4
Manhattan 4 Jerrie 3 Bob 1 Clayton -1 BobR -3
StarVenture 4 JonathanC 3 RussW 1 Marty -1 JeffF -3
SchottenTotten 2 JP 1 Jeffles -1
BuriedTreasure 3 Bob 2 William 0 BobR -2
TrainsportAustria 5 JeffF 4 JonathanC 2 Jeffles 0 Allen -2 RussW -4
Zero 3 Bob 2 William 0 BobR -2
HatTrick 5 JeffF 3 JonathanC 3 RussW -1 Jeffles -1 Allen -4
Tycoon 4 JP 3 Marty 1 Dan -1 Steve -3
SaveDrLucky 4 Allen 3 RussW -1 Jeffles -1 JeffF -1
Bluff 3 Jeffles 2 JeffF 0 RussW -2
BigCity 5 William 4 Dan 2 Steve 0 Matt -2 JP -4
SchottenTotten 2 RussW 1 Allen -1
SchottenTotten 2 RussW 1 Allen -1
SchottenTotten 2 Allen 1 RussW -1
Frank'sZoo 4 JP 3 William 1 Dan -1 Matt -3

Trainsport Austria was most ignominious for me; I ended up way in last place with $39, which is $1 less than what I started the game with.

Hat Trick was another wacky weird "trick taking" card game which people seemed to either like fine or really hate. I thought it was interesting and worth playing again. Like Mit List und Tucke, this one really messes with the traditions of trick taking. In Hat Trick, each trick is split in 2 piles (segregated by suit); only 2 suits can be played in a trick. The high card of each color gets the pile of that color. Analogous to Mit List und Tucke, you want to concentrate in one suit (of the 3 suits) because the other 2 suits are subtracted from your score. It also leads to some amusing surprises as people play a card in the color they don't want, expecting a later person who's collecting that color to top it, but the later person instead dumps a high card of the color they don't want. Much taunting ensues.

Save Dr. Lucky is the cool new Cheapass game that's a prequel to Kill Dr. Lucky. The mechanics are identical, except you want to save him, not kill him. We're all on the sinking Titanic, and to save him you want to be in line of sight of other players (so you get the glory), unlike Kill Dr. Lucky where you want not to be in line of sight (so you don't get caught). The cards have very high humor and strangeness value. Also it should play faster since the ship is sinking, so the board gets smaller and smaller as each quarter of the card deck is used up. If the last board section sinks before someone saves Dr. Lucky, then the game is over! Also, it has a logic puzzle with clues on 10 of the cards! I have a writeup about solving this in the RussCon section at my web site (hey, I wanted to try something with html tables).

Schotten Totten is proving to be quite a popular 2 player card game. It leads to many agonizing decisions, vaguely analogous to Lost Cities. Great filler if 2 people are waiting for the multiplayer games to finish, or just play it because it's good and short!

Having Jeffles back makes me think about color blindness and graphic design. Neither Hat Trick nor Schotten Totten has graphics designed with color blindness in mind. Hat Trick could have used different hat shapes for each suit, but instead they used the same hat shape distinguished only by color. Schotten Totten has distinguishably different people, but they are grouped by the card numbers, not the card colors! Helpful for people who can't tell a "4" from a "5", I guess, but less useful for people who can't tell red from green.

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Evening's Soundtrack:

Epicure, Eat
Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy
Ministry, Dark Side of the Spoon
Nudeswirl, Nudeswirl
Pansy Division, Undressed

I think everyone who looked couldn't help but notice all these CDs have naked people on their covers.

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Rank ratings:
 0.7273 JonathanC (3 games played)
 0.4545 Bob (4)
 0.4545 William (4)
 0.2857 Dan (4)
 0.2727 JP (4)
 0.1875 JeffF (5)
 0.0000 Marty (2)
-0.0714 Jeffles (5)
-0.1429 Jerrie (2)
-0.2857 Allen (6)
-0.3158 RussW (8)
-0.4286 Clayton (2)
-0.4286 Steve (2)
-0.4545 BobR (4)
-0.7143 Matt (2)

New Win ratings:
 0.5455 JP (4)
 0.4545 JonathanC (3)
 0.2857 Jerrie (2)
 0.2500 JeffF (5)
 0.1818 Bob (4)
 0.0909 William (4)
 0.0714 Dan (4)
-0.0714 Allen (6)
-0.2143 Jeffles (5)
-0.2632 RussW (8)
-0.2857 Clayton (2)
-0.2857 Steve (2)
-0.2857 Matt (2)
-0.3333 Marty (2)
-0.3636 BobR (4)

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Links:

Serious fans of ancient Rome will want to check out De Imperatoribus Romanis: An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors:
http://www.salve.edu/~romanemp/startup.htm

Silly fans of WWII will want to check out these spoof vintage posters:
http://web.orst.edu/~mortenja/ww2/ww.html

Tom Winkler used to be a Simpsons animator; now he does a small animated poop cartoon every day:
http://doodie.com/

These beer-loving boffins set up a potato-powered webserver, overclocked a computer in their freezer, have a long-running inexplicable comic strip, silly surreal games, and much more nonsense.
Temple ov thee Lemur:
http://totl.net/

The Ethics of Free Software:
Bertrand Meyer challenges some open-source assumptions:
http://www.sdmagazine.com/features/2000/03/f4.shtml

My (recently moved) site has the Save Dr. Lucky logic puzzle and my latest Bench strips including Watchmen IV.
http://russw.freeservers.com

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We're the buttfuckers of rock & roll!

Russ