2004-05-19 RussCon Report

News

13 of us played 11 games.

MarkY got a new stand mixer (as the cool cooks call them) and brought some tasty homemade fudge and scones! Woot! Also Marty brought some addictive smoked almonds. And we had some high-class wine in a box, leftover from Whendy's recent party... (also some leftover beans but no one wanted any... I don't want 'em since they have meat, oh well...)

I want to quote a listing from the current austin chronicle since not only is the Celtic Ceilidh a cool event, but they mention one of my favorite movies:

CELTIC CEILIDH is hosted by Silver Thistle Pipes & Drums, Austin's only Grade III competitive bagpipe band. Visions of the Acetones serenading Peter Riegart in Local Hero dance in our heads, but you won't have to travel to the outskirts of Scotland for this celebration of cultural events, including highland dancing, piping and drumming from both Silver Thistle and students from the AYPD program. Food, drinks, and Scottish merchandise are for sale. Sat., May 22, 6:30-9pm. Scholz Garten, 1607 San Jacinto. $5. www.silverthistle.com

I randomly came upon this event last year after an anti-war protest with Gaul and was delighted to hear the sound of bagpipes as I wandered downtown; it was a good way to end the day. Sadly I will have to miss this one since I'm going to my brother's wedding this weekend. Pesky weddings!

our taxes at work Someone emailed to ask me about this silhouette image: did I make and could they use it for a t-shirt. Yes, I made it (originally for the stencil as seen in KoFC, and then I made the livejournal icon out of it), and yes, feel free to use it for a t-shirt or whatever; I'd be happy for that meme to spread since I feel strongly about the bad stuff being done in our name. If anyone wants a larger version of the silhouette, let me know. (And speaking of the Iraqi prisoner meme, see this picture which I didn't make but wish I had.)

Meanwhile, my stencil obsession continues; besides the recent usage in KoFC and Comicollage, I've set up an account as artulo at Stencil Revolution in case anyone is curious to see stuff that I don't put in webcomics. I'm having a blast with stencil art and recommend it as good fun.

And if anyone has an old manual typewriter they don't want (or are willing to loan for an indefinite period), let me know, thanks!

Game Results

Vino $	5	JP 4 Fina 2 Clayton 0 RussW -2 Daniel -4
Tichu	2	( Ben MarkY ) 1 ( Whendy MarkH ) -1
Crokinole	2	( Ben MarkY ) 1 ( Jeffles Whendy ) -1
RicochetRobot	4	JP 2 RussW 2 MarkY -1 Ben -3
Crokinole	2	( William Whendy ) 1 ( Brady Clayton ) -1
BleedingSherwood $	4	MarkY 3 RussW 1 Ben -2 JP -2
EinfachGenial	4	Marty 3 Fina 1 Daniel -1 Jeffles -3
FilthyRich $	3	Jeffles 2 Fina -1 Daniel -1
Acquire $	4	JP 3 Whendy 1 RussW -1 Clayton -3
DollarPoker $	2	Jeffles 1 RussW -1
DollarPoker $	4	RussW 3 Jeffles -1 JP -1 Whendy -1

It had been a long time since Vino was played, so none of us clearly remembered the rules or strategy. It's got some funky interesting little tactics that arise. Meta Devil Daniel brought his to play since you have money and the winner is the one with the most vineyard holdings.

I shouldn't drink wine before Ricochet Robot; I barely pulled off a tie with JP!

Bleeding Sherwood was also played for meta reasons. I knew it sucks but it's short and mildly vaguely amusing. I did warn the newbies that it's easy to run out of goodes and you should probably only bid on marks who have goodes, but did they listen? No... Eventually I let MarkY have the win so I could have a certain 2nd place, and end the suffering of broke JP and Ben (who now call the game Bleeding Suck Ass). One curious point: we all agreed that the special cards seem too powerful, yet only JP and Ben actually had and used special cards; MarkY and I came in first and second without any special cards.

Hmm, Daniel got 3rd place again in EinfachGenial... perhaps his first perfect victory was only beginner's luck! Bwahaha!

Filthy Rich is another godawful money game which I only played once years ago and did not want to play again, even for meta points.

Acquire on the other hand is a true classic. Even if JP totally ran away with this game after American (with 5 hotels) was taken over and he got all the money since no one else owned a share and he owned just 1 share! Madness. Why did I buy those Festivals instead?

Dollar Poker was played. This of course is a rather short game, in which you compare the serial numbers of bills randomly taken from your wallet and whoever has the best poker hand wins the money. Daniel later ruled that it was sufficiently meta.

Ratings

Rank Ratings:      
 2.7081 JP
 2.3671 MarkY
 1.3863 Marty
 0.6931 William
 0.6931 RussW
 0.6931 Fina
-0.5754 Jeffles
-0.5754 Whendy
-0.6931 Ben
-0.6931 Brady
-0.6931 MarkH
-2.0794 Clayton
-2.4204 Daniel

Win Ratings:
 3.1135 JP won 3 of 5
 2.0794 MarkY won 3 of 4
 1.3863 Marty won 1 of 1
 0.6931 William won 1 of 1
 0.5878 RussW won 2 of 6
 0.5232 Jeffles won 2 of 5
 0.4055 Ben won 2 of 4
-0.6931 Brady won 0 of 1
-0.6931 MarkH won 0 of 1
-0.9163 Fina won 0 of 3
-0.9163 Daniel won 0 of 3
-1.2040 Clayton won 0 of 3
-1.2685 Whendy won 1 of 5

JP is the Devil! MarkY is Vice-Devil! Marty is Vice-Vice-Devil. Then William, then me.

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

I used GraphViz to generate the graph image.

Meta Game

Daniel was the Meta Devil and emailed out the following Meta Game:

Capitalism

Earn 1 Metapoint for playing a game where the winner is determined by most money or most net worth.

Earn your rank points in metapoints for each game where the winner is determined by most money or most net worth. Example first place in a 3 [ed. note: should actually be 4] player game is +3 metapoints, 3rd would be -1.

Lose 3 metapoints for each distraction (each game where the winner isn't determined by most money or most net worth.)

Lose 1 metapoint for each question you have to ask to understand the above rules :P. (just kidding)

By my reckoning, JP won this handily with 5 meta points, and thus JP is the Meta Devil and will design next week's Meta Game!

2004-05-19 RussCon Report

News

Game Results

Ratings

Meta Game

Evening's Soundtrack

Links