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There is a cool exhibit of 5"x7" art downtown in a gallery whose name eludes me now, at the northwest corner of 7th and Congress. Hundreds of works, in a wide variety of media and subject and style, and interestingly the artists are not listed. The more familiar you are with Texas artists, the more you might recognize! JP & JimC & I saw Attack of the Clones thanks to my employer; it's not a great film, but it's certainly better than Phantom Menace and I think we all enjoyed it. I'll say no more lest I spoil it. JP & I then went to Great Hall for Friday night gaming, where we played Mexica, an interesting enjoyable game that's sort of branded with Tikal and Java, but Mexica has no chance and no hidden information. Interestingly, I didn't become conscious of that till after we finished playing. |
| Drakon | 6 | MarkH 5 William 2 RussW 2 BradS -2 DaveB -2 Clayton -5 |
| Exxtra | 4 | MarkH 3 MarkY 1 DaveB -1 William -3 |
| StarWarsEpicDuels | 2 | ( Marty Dan JP ) 1 ( Matt Daniel BobR ) -1 |
| Carcassonne | 3 | RussW 2 BradS 0 Clayton -2 |
| Can'tStop | 5 | Zack 4 Ben 2 JP 0 Fred -3 Steve -3 |
| Cartagena | 2 | RussW 1 Steve -1 |
| Cathedral | 2 | RussW 1 Steve -1 |
| Cosmic | 6 | TimG 5 Allen -1 Deborah -1 Dudley -1 Sarah -1 Tim -1 |
| StarWarsEpicDuels | 2 | ( Matt Daniel William ) 1 ( Dan MarkY MarkH ) -1 |
| Settlers | 3 | JP 2 BradS 0 Fred -2 |
| BigCity | 3 | BobR 2 Daniel 0 MarkY -2 |
| Tichu | 2 | ( Daniel JP ) 1 ( William Matt ) -1 |
| Drakon | 6 | Steve 5 Dudley 2 TimG 2 MarkY -2 RussW -2 Allen -5 |
2 more games of Drakon. Somebody in the last game coined the clever word "kingbreaking" by analogy to kingmaking. Drakon is very much a kingbreaking game, often followed by a final kingmaking decision by someone. The last game of it was the first I'd played in which someone got truly stuck -- two people in fact -- stuck in a room with no tiles to exit onto, and no tiles left to play. Woohoo! The game really does unfold differently each time.
Meanwhile Star Wars Epic Duels continue to be the popular guilty pleasure with much quoting of the movies and good fun.
Cartagena works nicely as a 2-player contest, Steve & I learned.
There is a new Carcassonne expansion pack which adds a couple new terrain features (cathedral and inn on the lake). A cathedral in a city means that if it completes, it pays triple instead of double points, but if it fails to complete, it is zero points at the end of the game. An inn on the lake does an analogous thing for roads: double points on completion, but zero points if incomplete at end of game. Also there are pieces for a 6th player, and everyone gets a megameeple, i.e. a larger dude who is placed like any other dude, but counts as 2 dudes. And several new tiles have variations on existing tiles, e.g. a cloister with 2 roads. The cathedral seems a little too much of a "screw someone's city" tile, but in any case, the expansion is reasonable and clearly documented, unlike the silly river tiles thing.
Meta Party GameI was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Party Game I mailed out:Geomorphea Well, I played 4 geomorphic games, more than anyone else, so again I am the Meta Devil and will design next week's game. BradS played 3 games, so I might do something along the lines of an idea he had... Kudos to Dan for detecting the soundtrack theme. |
The Jesus & Mary Chain, Stoned & Dethroned
The Langley Schools Music Project, Innocence & Despair
Genesis, Wind & Wuthering
Skunk Anansie, Paranoid & Sunburnt
Tromeo & Juliet
"&"
Rank ratings: 1.0000 Marty (1 game played) 1.0000 Zack (1) 0.7778 MarkH (3) 0.7000 TimG (2) 0.5000 JP (4) 0.5000 Ben (1) 0.3333 BobR (2) 0.2857 RussW (5) 0.2000 Daniel (4) 0.1000 Dudley (2) 0.0000 Steve (4) 0.0000 Dan (2) -0.1000 William (4) -0.2000 Deborah (1) -0.2000 Sarah (1) -0.2000 Tim (1) -0.2222 BradS (3) -0.3333 Matt (3) -0.3636 MarkY (4) -0.3750 DaveB (2) -0.6000 Allen (2) -0.8333 Fred (2) -1.0000 Clayton (2) |
New Win ratings: 1.0000 Marty (1) 1.0000 Zack (1) 0.7778 MarkH (3) 0.4000 TimG (2) 0.3750 JP (4) 0.3333 BobR (2) 0.1818 Steve (4) 0.1429 RussW (5) 0.0000 Daniel (4) 0.0000 Dan (2) -0.2000 Dudley (2) -0.2000 William (4) -0.2000 Deborah (1) -0.2000 Sarah (1) -0.2000 Tim (1) -0.2000 Allen (2) -0.2500 Ben (1) -0.2500 DaveB (2) -0.2857 Clayton (2) -0.3333 BradS (3) -0.3333 Fred (2) -0.3333 Matt (3) -0.3636 MarkY (4) |
Marty unexpected left after pulling a Brady Maneuver, as did Zack, so MarkH is the Devil. TimG is Vice-Devil. JP is Vice-Vice-Devil. BobR is Vice-Vice-Vice-Devil. Dan wins the Extra Average Award.
JP plays crazy go in Denver. So does KevinT. Our Most Assiduous Reader might spot me among the photos at this website.
Erstwhile RussCon attendee TomK's description of running a marathon.
The Rise of "Worse is Better" (software engineering paper). I love this sentence:
The MIT guy then muttered that sometimes it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken, but the New Jersey guy didn't understand (I'm not sure I do either).
send in the clones
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