November 14 2001 RussCon Report

18 of us played 17 games. We had 2 visiting dignitaries: long-time pal Jay is in town for his annual ArmadilloCon visit, and Jeffles's brother Eric visited also.

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Comicollage: daily ongoing comic jam with 7 artists and no planning ahead! There's a russ strip every Tuesday.

News

This weekend November 16-18 has an unfortunate scheduling dilemma: ArmadilloCon and MillenniumCon! Both are worthy events, so I recommend attending at least one... ArmadilloCon is the long-running annual Austin sf con -- in addition to various sf guests, there will be an art show, saturday night dance, etc. MillenniumCon is a miniatures and boardgame con, which will include Richard "Battle Cry" Borg as a guest.

After long hard soul searching in my fortress of solitude, I've decided to hit ArmadilloCon on Saturday and then leave Sunday up in the air for now. I enjoy the live music and dance Saturday night at ArmadilloCon, and I want to check out the art show. Even then I'll be missing a lot of the day due to printmaking class, darn it.

There will be RussCon As Usual next Wednesday, i.e. the day before Thanksgiving.

Remember to watch for the Leonid Meteors late Saturday night and early Sunday morning!

Please try to be a bit tidier: rinse cans and bottles and toss into recycling bin; put trash in trash can; clean up spilled food bits. Thanks! Special thanks to Marty for being indignant on my behalf and cleaning up debris. :)

Game Results

ZirkusFlohcati	3	Ben 2 William 0 BobK -2
Guillotine	5	BobR 4 RussW 2 Fred 0 Matt -2 RussD -4
Carcassonne	5	RussW 4 Jay 2 JP 0 Whindy -2 Clayton -4
Can'tStop	4	Jay 3 JP 1 Whindy -2 Clayton -2
6Nimmt	5	Matt 4 Fred 2 JimG 0 RussD -2 BobR -4
Bluff	6	Brady 5 BobR 3 Jay 1 RussW -1 RussD -3 Clayton -5
Tichu	2	( William BobK ) 1 ( Ben JimG ) -1
Tichu	2	( JP Matt ) 1 ( Whindy Fred ) -1
Tichu	2	( Jeffles Dan ) 1 ( EricS Marty ) -1
Can'tStop	4	Marty 3 Dan -1 EricS -1 Jeffles -1
Tichu	2	( Ben JimG ) 1 ( William BobK ) -1
Tichu	2	( Ben JimG ) 1 ( William BobK ) -1
Acquire	5	RussW 4 Jay 2 RussD 0 BobR -2 Clayton -4
Settlers	4	Jeffles 3 Dan 0 EricS 0 Marty -3
Zero	4	Fred 3 Matt 1 JP -1 Whindy -3
Frank'sZoo	6	Matt 5 BobR 3 JP 1 Whindy -1 Dan -3 RussW -5
Hornochsen	3	EricS 2 Marty 0 Jeffles -2

O joy, to win Carcassonne again! This was Jay's first time to play Carcassonne.

5 Tichu sessions in one evening! The insanely popular Tichu has reached the #13 spot on most-played games at RussCon.

A reminder: please write and spell clearly when recording game results, make the scores and ranks clear, and remember last initials for people with common names, thanks! Please be clear about Jonathans, Wendys, Bobs, and Tims. This week there was an ambiguous Bob, a Jeff that was Jeffles, and a Clay that was Clayton (I think!)

Meta Party Game

I was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game I emailed out:

Shameless Comic Brainstorming
This week's Meta Game is inspired by Scott McCloud's Morning Improv comics (http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi.html). Participants will write one or more ideas for an experimental comic idea. Later in the evening (when the stars are right), we will have an Australian election to determine the most promising title, and later I will make a comic inspired by it. Anyone else who also wants to make comics from the titles is heartily encouraged to do so.

There were 15 entries [some were unsigned]:

William offers strange "cute" Japanese candies to some goth kids at a bar & must use his amazing kung-fu w/a can of Boss to escape. [RussD]
Lesbian Vampire Lawyers of the Stratosphere [Clayton]
Where the Potatoes Are [BobR]
Squirtybutt [Jay]
The Reluctant Monkey of Change [Jay]
Geeky guys play board games weekly at a wacky guy's house [BobK]
The comic artist has turbo-diarrhea
The comic artist has explosive-diarrhea
The comic artist has effluent diarrhea
An illustrated carbon LCI of a lonely grain of corn in the desolate fields of Nebraska
Power Rangers destroy strange but cute candy
Thin Vermeer of Insecurity [Jay]
Pirates of the Holy See [Jay]
Fate's L'il Red Trombone [Jay]
Last Call for Comic Titles [Jeffles]

The initial votes came out: 1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 10, 14, 14. After several runoffs (including an error no one noticed at the time), the winner was RussD's contestant #1. So RussD is the Meta Devil and will email out next week's Meta Party Game!

Evening's Soundtrack

Icehouse, Man of Colours
Jane Jensen, Comic Book Whore
Deja Phooey: K-NACK Homegroan Volume 2
P
Jill Sobule, Happy Town
comics
Another meta theme...

Ratings

Rank ratings:
 1.0000 Brady (1)
 0.6000 Ben (4)
 0.5294 Matt (5)
 0.5000 Jay (4)
 0.3333 Fred (4)
 0.1818 RussW (5)
 0.1818 BobR (5)
 0.1429 JimG (4)
 0.1250 JP (5)
 0.1111 Jeffles (4)
 0.0000 EricS (4)
-0.1111 Marty (4)
-0.2000 William (4)
-0.2500 Dan (4)
-0.5294 RussD (4)
-0.5625 Whindy (5)
-0.6000 BobK (4)
-0.9375 Clayton (4)

New Win ratings:
 1.0000 Brady (1)
 0.6000 Ben (4)
 0.4706 Matt (5)
 0.2273 RussW (5)
 0.2222 Jeffles (4)
 0.0000 Jay (4)
 0.0000 Fred (4)
 0.0000 BobR (5)
 0.0000 JimG (4)
 0.0000 Marty (4)
-0.1111 EricS (4)
-0.1667 Dan (4)
-0.1875 JP (5)
-0.2353 RussD (4)
-0.2500 Clayton (4)
-0.3125 Whindy (5)
-0.4000 William (4)
-0.4000 BobK (4)

Brady has pulled an eponymous Brady Maneuver. You must play more than one game to be eligible as Devil, so Ben is the Devil! Matt is Vice-Devil. I am Vice-Vice-Devil.

Links

Mag's Home Page has various odd bits, including a collection of trivia about the number 37, and the home page to the card game Set which was recently played at RussCon.

The Langley Schools Music Project is strangely surreal recording of school kids 20 years ago singing various songs, including a version of "Space Oddity" about which David Bowie said "The backing arrangement is astounding. Coupled with the earnest if lugubrious vocal performance you have a piece of art that I couldn't have conceived of, even with half of Colombia's finest export products in me."

The Museum of E-Failure is an attempt to actively preserve the home pages of sites that will probably disappear in the next few months.

i guess i am a comic book whore

Russ