December 19 2001 RussCon Report
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19 of us played 15 games. (Sauron also played...) JP is back from NYC.
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News
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Tim was a good boy this year since after sitting on Santa's lap last week, Santa arranged a good present for him: Congratulations to Tim and Sarah who got married, then came over to RussCon for the greatest of all possible honeymoons! That was cool! Best wishes to Tim and Sarah. I would have gotten a picture of the happy newlyweds but my camera flaked out on me, darn it.
  Jeffles wore the Santa suit previous RussCon because he was in training for last weekend's Santarchy festivities. There was apparently quite a diversity of crazed Santas and comely Santa lasses. Austin pictures here and here. Looks like a fun time was had by all.
It was reported that Ken & James were the final contenders in WBC PBEM For The People:
FOR THE PEOPLE CHAMP: Congratulations to James Pei of Austin, TX for
besting Ken Burd - the last of 24 contenders - in a hard-fought final to
win the the first BPA For The People PBeM championship. The win was his
third in the game as he has claimed both WBC titles held thus far also.
The game details are at the ACTS journal as "There can only be one" and
the write ups by Ken can be found at the consimworld FTP forum. James won
by doubling the Union SW in turn 8, as Lee stormed DC despite a heavy
blockade and the beginnings of the anaconda squeeze...
And Marty was nominated for Sportsmanship award for Age of Renaissance.
There will be RussCon As Usual December 26.
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Game Results
| Carcassonne | 4 | Brad 3 Clayton 1 Steve -1 Matt -3 |
| Vampire | 4 | Brad 3 Clayton 1 Steve -1 Matt -3 |
| DurchDieWueste | 3 | MarkY 1 JonathanC 1 RussD -2 |
| Tichu | 2 | ( Clay Ben ) 1 ( William Whendy ) -1 |
| Tichu | 2 | ( William Clay ) 1 ( Ben Whendy ) -1 |
| Can'tStop | 4 | Ben 3 William -1 Steve -1 Clayton -1 |
| Volldampf | 6 | Sarah 5 Marty 3 Tim 0 RussW 0 JP -3 Robby -5 |
| Tichu | 2 | ( Ben Jeffles ) 1 ( Steve William ) -1 |
| Cloud9 | 5 | Matt 4 JP 2 Marty 0 MarkY -2 Whindy -4 |
| LordOfTheRings | 2 | Sauron 1 ( Matt MarkY JonathanC Brad RussD ) -1 |
| Bluff | 5 | William 4 Steve 2 Jeffles 0 Ben -2 MarkY -4 |
| AdvancedForward | 4 | MarkY 3 Ben 1 Jeffles -1 Steve -3 |
| Tichu | 2 | ( Matt MarkY ) 1 ( Whindy JP ) -1 |
| StephensonsRocket | 3 | RussW 2 RussD 0 JonathanC -2 |
| Halunken&Spelunken | 3 | MarkY 2 JP 0 Jeffles -2 |
Volldampf is a new German game using a similar system to Lancashire Railways. It went a bit slow with 6 players (the max) but it seems cool. Newlyweds Tim and Sarah both did well, with Sarah finishing first handily!
It was only appropriate that Lord of the Rings got played this evening.
I must brag about my glorious victory in Stephensons Rocket, scoring 150 to RussD's 79 and Sea Biscuit's 78. They deemed it a moral victory for them that I did not exceed their combined scores...
Meta Party Game
Brad was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he emailed out:
Lord of the Rings
This week's metagame with be in honor of the Lord of the Rings,
which opens a few hour earlier. Bilbo will be given the ring starting
around 7:30 tomorrow (Wednesday). Will Sauron or Mount Doom get the Ring?
This was a rather enigmatic teaser. So Brad brought lots of secret slips of papers, each with a LOTR character, which were randomly assigned to people. There were clues to the location of Mount Doom (which was said to be in some game box), as well as other special information for certain characters. There was also a nifty gold ring with Middle Earth script engraved on it.
I believe the chain of events was that Bilbo (Clayton) passed the ring to Frodo (me) who passed it to Gandalf (JP) who passed it to Legolas (Clay), who cleverly deduced that the clue
_ L _ _ K _ _ _ T _ N E _
stood for BLACK GO STONES and successfully placed the ring into my bowl of black go stones in the living room! (Good thing for Middle Earth that I hadn't done a lot of housecleaning and reorganizing!) It seemed pleasingly appropriate that Clay, a Scrabble maven, figured out the word clue! So Clay is next week's Meta Devil!
It was later learned that Sarah was Sauron, in a freak phonetic coincidence.
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Evening's Soundtrack
Classical Traditions for The Season
Bob Rivers & Twisted Radio, I Am Santa Claus
Rent, Original Broadway Cast Recording
Veggie Tales, A Very Veggie Christmas
101X-Mas
Ho ho ho!
Ratings
Rank ratings:
1.0000 Clay (2 games played)
1.0000 Sarah (1)
1.0000 Sauron (1)
0.7143 Brad (3)
0.3333 Marty (2)
0.2857 RussW (2)
0.2308 Ben (6)
0.2000 William (5)
0.1111 Clayton (3)
0.0000 MarkY (7)
0.0000 Tim (1)
-0.1667 Matt (5)
-0.1667 JP (4)
-0.2000 Jeffles (4)
-0.2941 Steve (6)
-0.4000 JonathanC (3)
-0.6000 RussD (3)
-1.0000 Robby (1)
-1.0000 Whindy (2)
-1.0000 Whendy (2)
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New Win ratings:
1.0000 Clay (2)
1.0000 Sarah (1)
1.0000 Sauron (1)
0.7143 Brad (3)
0.2353 MarkY (7)
0.2000 William (5)
0.1667 Matt (5)
0.1538 Ben (6)
0.1429 RussW (2)
-0.2000 Tim (1)
-0.2000 Jeffles (4)
-0.2000 JonathanC (3)
-0.2000 Robby (1)
-0.2222 Marty (2)
-0.3333 Clayton (3)
-0.3333 JP (4)
-0.3529 Steve (6)
-0.4000 Whindy (2)
-0.8000 RussD (3)
-1.0000 Whendy (2)
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Clay is the Devil (as well as the Meta Devil)! Sarah & Sauron both pulled a Brady Maneuver (hmm, maybe they really are the same person...) so Brad is Vice-Devil. Then MarkY, then Ben, then William. Whendy is the Generous Angel (and also wins the Tichu love/hate relationship award).
Links
Coincidence Design claims to arrange "coincidental" romantic first meetings, for a hefty fee. Either a clever satire or a very creepy site.
Take this quiz to see if you can distinguish creepy quotes of McCarthy and Ashcroft.
Build your own Pink Hello Kitty Laptop!
Interesting Economist article about the English language's rise & predominance.
I have often wished that...certain Men might be set apart, as Superintendents of our Language, to hinder any Words of Foreign Coin from passing among us; and in particular to prohibit any French Phrases from becoming current in this Kingdom, when those of our own stamp are altogether as valuable.
happy holidays
Russ
