July 23 2003 RussCon Report
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16 of us played 15 games. It was a smaller crowd than normal; indeed for much of the evening there were only 2 games in progress. I wonder if it is because people were scared off by bagpipes & didgeridoos! Also note that one of the players was the infamous Black Baron from Montgolfiere.
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News
There will be RussCon As Usual next Wednesday (July 30)... but be aware that the following Wednesday (August 6) falls during The Best Week Of The Year when I will be out of town on what one might call a vacation, so there will be NO RUSSCON AUGUST 6!
In case you missed that, there will be NO RUSSCON AUGUST 6!
Traditionally there has been a SansRussCon during The Best Week Of The Year; as always I leave that for you to sort out among yourselves!
Game Results
Montgolfiere | 5 | JP 4 RussW 2 Fred -1 BradS -1 Clayton -4 |
Cloud9 | 4 | Fred 3 RussW 1 BradS -1 JP -3 |
Cloud9 | 4 | MarkG 3 RussD 1 Ben -1 Crash -3 |
Carcassonne | 5 | RussW 4 BradS 2 Fred 0 JP -2 Clayton -4 |
Rumis | 3 | JP 2 RussW 0 Clayton -2 |
Tichu | 2 | ( MarkG Ben ) 1 ( MarkH JimG ) -1 |
TooManyCooks | 5 | MarkG 4 MarkH 2 Crash -1 JimG -1 Ben -4 |
Exxtra | 5 | Clayton 4 Matt 2 JP 0 Binkley -2 RussW -4 |
Settlers | 3 | BradS 2 Fred 0 Marty -2 |
Cathedral | 2 | RussW 1 Crash -1 |
ZirkusFlohcati | 5 | JP 4 RussW 2 Matt 0 Clayton -2 Binkley -4 |
Vampire | 4 | Clayton 3 BradS 1 Binkley -1 Fina -3 |
Twixt | 2 | RussW 1 Crash -1 |
Survive | 4 | JP 3 MarkG 1 RussD -1 Matt -3 |
Montgolfiere | 5 | JP 4 Binkley 2 Matt 0 MarkG -2 Baron -4 |
JP pulled ahead early in Montgolfiere and stayed ahead. In Cloud 9, however, Fred was far behind most of the game, then managed to score vast tracts of points in a dramatic reversal of fortune and pull ahead in the end, pipping me by 1 point for the win! Ballooning games were popular this evening for some reason.
The 3-dimensional block placement game Rumis continues to confound and intrigue me.
Ratings
Rank Ratings:
5.2338 JP
3.4012 MarkG
3.1781 RussW
1.5041 BradS
1.0986 Fred
0.0000 RussD
0.0000 MarkH
-0.6931 Matt
-0.9808 JimG
-1.0986 Marty
-1.3218 Ben
-1.3863 Fina
-1.6094 Baron
-2.0149 Clayton
-2.0149 Binkley
-3.0603 Crash
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Win Ratings:
6.5793 JP won 5 of 8
3.1781 MarkG won 3 of 5
1.9208 Clayton won 2 of 6
1.6332 RussW won 3 of 8
0.5345 Fred won 1 of 4
0.1823 Ben won 1 of 3
0.0770 BradS won 1 of 5
-0.2231 Baron won 0 of 1
-0.2877 Fina won 0 of 1
-0.4055 Marty won 0 of 1
-0.5754 RussD won 0 of 2
-0.9163 MarkH won 0 of 2
-0.9163 JimG won 0 of 2
-0.9571 Matt won 0 of 4
-0.9571 Binkley won 0 of 4
-1.8971 Crash won 0 of 4
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JP is the Devil! MarkG is the Vice-Devil. Clayton and I are Co-Vice-Vice-Devils. Crash is the Generous Angel. Binkley and Crash share the dubious honor of having been bested in the ratings by the infamous Black Baron. JP and I share the Dedicated Award.
If you are confused how the ratings work, you could peruse the FAQ.
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Meta Game
MarkG was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he mailed out:
(In the June 11 report I mentioned that Mark plays bagpipes and it would be fun to hear them at RussCon; and I've also mentioned to Brad that didgeridoos would be fun. So we got two great instruments that sound great together! A few years ago I was fortunate enough to hear a fun concert at Cactus Cafe that included bagpipes and didgeridoo as well as violin. But I digress.)
Mark indeed brought a set of bagpipes. We were treated to a short performance which was good fun (and Crash filmed a nice 30 second video of it, which perhaps will end up available here for your viewing pleasure eventually), and then Brad and I each tried them out, which was probably much less fun for the listeners! I have no clue how to finger it or make melodies! Definitely harder than it looks! Also the drone seemed to have a mind of its own and flopped around all over my shoulder and fell down to the side a lot. And the Balkan pipes smell like a stinky wet goat to me. But it was fun!
Brad brought 2 different didgeridoos, and he has the knack for playing it enjoyably well too! Apparently he was able to play it right off the bat, unlike his SO Martha who normally is the musically talented one of the couple. JP, Fred, and I tried playing, but we didn't grok how to make the basic buzzing/droning/trumpeting sound. Fred almost got it going. I totally sucked and was reduced to making submarine aa-OOOO-gaa "dive, captain, dive" noises.
Montgolfiere (the game where we're racing in hot air balloons to reach the moon) has wind and was played twice. Cloud 9 was played under the mistaken belief that it had wind, but it doesn't. Similarly, Survive was claimed to have wind but it turned out not to as the players eventually learned. Heh!
Meanwhile it turns out that BradS misread what the second occurence "item" meant in "Any item of clothing worn
depicting active wind or a wind instrument earns 1 point per item" ... it refers to "item of clothing", but he thought it meant each picture of an instrument, so he had a t-shirt with pictures of several instruments on the front, and sewn/pinned to the back of his shirt was a square of cloth with about 15 or 20 more instruments printed on it. So he thought he was earning 20-gazillion points, but really only got 2 points for the shirt; sorry Brad! MarkG reckoned that BradS ended up with 7 points and MarkG ended up with 8, so MarkG is the Meta Devil again (I avert my eyes from the conflict of interest!) and will design next week's Meta Game!
Evening's Soundtrack
Global Bagpipes (Latvia Tunisia Scotland Malta Estonia Spain Italy Greece Sweden Azerbaijan...)
A Celebration of Pipes in Europe (Asturias Austria Belgium Brittany Bulgaria Estonia France Galicia Greece Ireland Italy Northumberland Scotland Yugoslavia)
The Ace & Deuce of Pipering 1906-1947
5 CDs of bagpipe music supplied by MarkG!
ne estas russkon je la sesa de aĆgusto
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