September 3 2003 RussCon Report

News

I'm going to Kalifornio in the morning, so I'm quickly getting this RussCon Report out before leaving! Whendy & I will be visiting Sea Biscuit in San-Francisko. I'm also looking forward to checking out the monthly saturday meeting of the San-Franciska Esperanta Regiona Organizo! And fear not, for we return Tuesday, so RussCon will continue as usual next Wednesday September 10.

A reminder that this coming Sunday September 7 is the first Sunday of the month and therefore it's the beginner's meeting at Esperanto club (at 3pm); I'm not sure if it's at Texspresso or Flightpath, check the eoklubo retpoŝtlisto to be sure. Sadly I won't be there of course since I'll be in San-Francisko. I keep having trips keep me from these English-speaking monthly beginner meetings (the first sunday of August I was at the gokongreso...)

And in the spirit of MarkH's Meta Game, I'll give a mystery prize to the first person to correctly email me the name of the boardgame from which I scanned images of Kalifornio and San-Francisko for this RussCon Report, without referring to game libraries, the web, or other research... (No, the prize will not be the boardgame itself. Or maybe it will. It's a mystery!)

The Willow Band (the new project of Clandestine bagpiper EJ) was good fun, though there were only a couple dozen folks in the audience. As EJ said, "You're discovering us!". Also, Whendy & I enjoyed Guy Maddin's Dracula; if you like ballet, silent films, or weird funny strange odd films, you should definitely check it out at the Dobie (Thursday may be its last day!) Our Most Assiduous Reader may recall that I enjoy silent films, so I really like seeing this seemingly insane Canadian director's modern films done in the silent film tradition.

Game Results

BalloonCup	2	William 1 Marty -1
BalloonCup	2	William 1 JimG -1
Tichu	2	( MarkG MarkH ) 1 ( Ben Whendy ) -1
Exxtra	3	MarkG 2 Ben 0 MarkH -2
Carcassonne	5	RussW 4 Clayton 2 Fina 0 Paula -2 JP -4
Tightrope	4	Pauline 3 William 1 MarkY -1 RussD -3
HedgehogsInAHurry	3	RussD 2 Pauline 0 William -2
Wizard	4	JimG 3 MarkG 1 Ben -1 MarkH -3
Acquire	5	RussW 4 Clayton 2 JP 0 Paula -2 Fina -4
LostCities	2	MarkG 1 MarkY -1

Ratings

Rank Ratings:     
 3.2189 RussW
 2.8904 MarkG
 1.3863 Pauline
 1.3863 Clayton
 0.6931 JimG
 0.6931 William
-0.2877 RussD
-0.6931 Marty
-0.6931 Whendy
-1.0986 MarkY
-1.0986 Ben
-1.3863 Paula
-1.6094 Fina
-1.6094 JP
-1.7918 MarkH

Win Ratings:
 3.2189 RussW won 2 of 2
 2.1972 MarkG won 3 of 4
 0.9808 Pauline won 1 of 2
 0.8109 RussD won 1 of 2
 0.6931 JimG won 1 of 2
 0.6931 William won 2 of 4
 0.0000 MarkH won 1 of 3
-0.4463 Clayton won 0 of 2
-0.4463 Paula won 0 of 2
-0.4463 Fina won 0 of 2
-0.4463 JP won 0 of 2
-0.6931 Marty won 0 of 1
-0.6931 Whendy won 0 of 1
-0.9808 MarkY won 0 of 2
-1.3863 Ben won 0 of 3

I am the Devil! MarkG is the Vice-Devil. Pauline is the Vice-Vice-Devil.

If you are confused how the ratings work, you could peruse the FAQ.

Meta Game

MarkH was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he mailed out:

Let's include our fellow Russconers that are laboring elsewhere.

Here is next week's meta game:
http://russcon.org/RussCon/2003/0903/

While I am explaining the rules, I know that there is a set of people out there that love to interrupt and ask "but what about ties?" Well, let me beat you to the punch line. If possible (if Dan/Russ has some programmatic method to determine this), ties will be broken by the person who has played the most of these games in the Russcon database. That is, for each game in the list, if played, then increment tie score by one. If still tied, then total number of plays for each game in the list. If the previous method proves too difficult then the standard Russ tie breaking method will be employed (I think it is: "Which leaf a Llama will eat next? Place bets now!").

Also, if possible, I will print out a copy of the pages and some forms to fill out. But don't rely on it...

Thanks MarkH for the time and effort for making this cool quiz! You can view answers here. The scores were as follows:

99 EdRozmiarek
78 Marty
57 RussW
48 Clayton
47 JP (pipped by Clayton!)
29 Clay
20 Whendy
9 Dudley

Ed is one of MarkH's friends who's never actually come to RussCon. Supposedly he really did identify all those boards by the power of his overloaded boardgaming neurons and didn't go looking at games or researching on the web. I'm impressed! So we have the amusing and meta situation for the first time where the Meta Devil has never even attended RussCon! Ed will design next week's Meta Game.

Links

talion.com article about e-voting risks, just one of many articles one can find about this important topic these days.

Veggie Avenger has envirolinks and info, including running your car on vegetable oil

Computer Virus Making To Be Prosecuted As Hate Crime For Targeting Stupid People

Bush Lays Off Congress; will Outsource Lawmaking to India

Kibo's photos are obsessed with orange cones and other things.