This is where I am today.

You can find the Games Magazine 100 list, along with the awards for 2005, over at Funagain.

Thankfully, Ole has returned to the blog posting world.  Welcome back, and stay for a while!

I've got a bit of gaming to write up.  If BGG is back online by the time I finish this, you'll find links to the games.  If not, well, I guess you'll know why there aren't any links.

On Friday I was able to participate in some lunchtime gaming at work.  This was the first Friday I'd been in the office for three weeks and it was nice to take a break during what was otherwise a very busy week.  Jason, Paul, and I got in two games: La Strada and Metro.

La Strada is a great game to play over lunch - short duration, easy to teach, and the decisions are never too difficult (hence little downtime).  This game was tight - Paul looked like he was in the lead, but on my last turn I took a gamble and connected to one of Jason's markets.  This turned out to be the right move, as he and I ended up tied for the lead with me winning by a tiebreaker (5 resources vs. 4).  Don't know the exact final scores as we didn't count markets where all three of us reached.

Next I taught Metro (though Jason recalled that he had played once before). Another enjoyable, light game with short playtime but enough depth to be interesting.  I believe Paul was the victor in this game.

Friday night the boys and I were home alone, so we took a look at the game closet and decided to pick out an unplayed game - Cosmic Encounter.

Matthew, Jacob, and I playing Cosmic Encounter.  Note the authentic Australian Football jerseys.

Now most of you reading this have probably played Cosmic before - it has been around for a long time.  We weren't disappointed, though we did spend most of the game wading through the rules.  I suspect this game will play much differently with adults, especialy when it comes to negotiating outcomes.  Both Jacob and Matthew are eager to play again, which is a good sign.  They even asked if it was possible to play with more than 4 players.

On Saturday afternoon we drove out to Salishan to do some work on the house and take delivery of some furniture.  The weather wasn't very pleasant so on Sunday we got in a decent amount of gaming.  Matthew and I played Battle Line a few times; this was a recent acquisition from Boards and Bits.  I'm glad this was reprinted, because it appears to be a winner.

Matthew facing off in Battle Line.

Battle Line has similarities to a number of games I've played recently, including Lost Cities and KC's Havoc prototype.  Lots of tension - do I play this card and start a battle?  Will I draw the third card I need to complete this wedge?  The tactics cards add an additional (but enjoyable) complexity, though in the first game we played we didn't realize you couldn't play another tactics card if you've already played more than your opponent.  Matthew enjoyed our plays, though the strategy is a bit much for him (I won both games easily).

Finally, on Sunday morning all four us decided to give Betrayal at House on the Hill.  I agree with Chris Farrell's confusion about the name of this game, but I (mostly) disagree with his assessment of the quality of the game.  We had a blast! I think our family is definitely in the target market for this game - it is heavy on theme, light on strategy, and there are plenty of opportunities for role playing and general silliness.

Cool minis in this game.  This is near the end of the game - our haunt was #1 - The Mummy.  Julie's character and the mummy are chasing Matthew's character, who is escorting the girl.  Unfortunately, the good guys weren't able to save the girl-bride from the mummy.

Players choose, or randomly draw, a character play.  The game happens in two phases: pre-haunt and post-haunt.  Pre-haunt, everyone is hanging out, exploring the house, gathering items, and waiting for really bad stuff to start happening.  As more omens are uncovered (cards drawn at particular rooms discovered randomly), the odds of the haunt starting increase.

When the haunt starts, the triggering player consults a table to determine which haunt scenario will play out (keyed off of the room and omen).  I like this mechanic in that it ties the theme of the haunt into something that happened in the game.  Eventually we'll run out of these (or hit a duplicate), but it should have good replayability for a while.  Post-haunt, one player is the traitor and all of the others are trying to stop the traitor from achieving her (secret) objective.  This is also when the monsters get unleashed, which are under the control of the traitor.  The heroes also have a secret objective, and team together to defeat the traitor.

I found there to be a decent amount of strategy and tactics - I certainly didn't feel like the game was playing itself, or that I wasn't able to control any of the outcome.  It was disappointing to lose the game to Julie because of a dice roll (I rolled a 5 instead the required 6 to banish the mummy), but we all came away excited to play another one.

I've never really been a fan of popular country music.  I don't take it seriously, consider it worse than top 40 pop, and have spent most of my life befuddled by the attraction of country to so many Americans.

Briefly at Washington University, then again in 1992, I discovered a band called Uncle Tupelo. This was an odd experience for me.  Is this country or rock?  Or something else?  Little did I know, they were ushering in what many consider an entirely new genre called Alternative Country (or alt country or americana music).  Since then I've learned to enjoy listening to bands like Wilco and Sun Volt (both offshoots of Tupelo, but very different bands today), Whiskeytown and Ryan Adams, the Bottlerockets, Lyle Lovett, and The Jayhawks.  I even like much of the works of the Dixie Chicks, as they are not afraid to break away from the mainstream of popular country music.  They even wrote a song at least partially about their frustrations with this mainstream.  And of course there's the unclassifiable Beck who put out one of my favorite alt country albums last year.

Seeing my taste in music evolve over the past 10 years has given me cause to trace back to some original sources.  My guide on this tour has been a book I picked up at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, South by Southwest: A Roadmap to Alternative Country, by Brian Hinton.  He makes some odd linkages and stretches relationships a bit (I'm not sure what Tom Waits is really doing in this book), but it was extremely revealing to me to see how much of an intersection the bands I like today have with the bands I like from the 60s and 70s.  In hindsight I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was revealing nonetheless.  Key influencers include Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Carl Perkins, and Gram Parsons.  Reading this reminded me to pick up the Byrds album Sweetheart of the Rodeo, their sometimes tongue-in-cheek homage to roots country music and gospel.  Fantastic stuff.

So, now you know a bit more about my musical tastes.

I spent last weekend in Nashville at my good friend Russ Waitman's wedding.  Russ and I were roommates in college, sharing an engineering suite our sophomore year and an apartment offsite our junior year.  After college, we both ended up serving our active duty officer assignments in the US Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH.  Russ entered the medical service working in hospital administration while I helped develop software for cockpit simulations at Wright Laboratory.

Russ and I hadn't seen each other since I left the Air Force in 1996.  Russ went on to Vanderbilt to get his MS and PhD in Biomedical engineering, an amazing accomplishment.  We've stayed in touch over the phone and through email over the years, and I was thrilled to learn earlier this year that he was getting married.  I was also honored to stand with him as a groomsman.  On Saturday evening, Russ married Jessica Preston, a lovely, beautiful, and clearly intelligent woman that he met at school.  They are away on honeymoon right now in the Pacific northwest enjoying their first week of married life.

I took a few photos during my stay there, so here goes.

Hatch Show Print is a still in operation letterpress print famous for their posters promoting country music concerts in Nashville.

On Friday evening I ventured downtown to some of the country bars to hear some live music.  Highlight of the evening was the rockabilly band Twistin Tarantulas.

On Saturday morning before the wedding, I spent some time at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.  Highly recommended - more on that later.

Russ and I just before the wedding.

The beautiful bridal party.

Russ and the other groomsman.  We're all engineers; funny that.  At the reception we preceded our toast with a telling of the top 10 reasons to marry an engineer.

You can beta-test Ticket to Ride online over at Days of Wonder.  I played a 2-player game with Eric H tonight - well done implementation.

Thanks to Scott, I just discovered Google SMS.  I'm sitting here in Nashville right now and need to find a bookstore.  I send this SMS to GOOGL (46645):

37203 borders

and get this response:

(1of2)Google Local:
Borders Books Music & Cafe 
2525 West End Ave 
Nashville TN (615) 327-9656

Tonight I had the fortune of spending a few hours gaming with the Billabong Boardgamers of the greater Melbourne (Australia) area. Alan Stewart was kind enough to extend an invitation to me, and with the Amaroo Neighbourhood Centre only a short train ride away I couldn't resist.

As usual, after meeting several of the members face-to-face, I was reminded of how small the board gaming world is.  One of the regulars, Craig Macbride, has gamed with Tom Powers and the other Microsofties (Tom runs Boards & Bits and I've gamed with them a few times) while visiting Seattle. Julian Clarke, owner of Unhalfbricking Games, is acquainted with owners of several American publishers that I know (Jeremy Young of Uberplay and Eric Hautemont of Days of Wonder).

There were 10 of us in total at the centre, so we initially divided into three groups 3/3/4.  I opted to play St. Petersburg with Duncan and Julian.  Duncan was clearly an experienced player, having read quite a bit of the commentary on BGG and knowing key strategies.  I've been playing the fine PC version quite a bit while traveling so I think I've got a pretty good grasp as well.  So Duncan and I quickly taught Julian the rules and helped him along with strategy as we played.  Not that he needed much help - he quickly grasped the rules and was leaping to good strategy early on.

Duncan and Julian about half way through our game of St. Petersburg.

Julian maintained the VP lead most of the game, with me close behind.  Duncan trailed most of the game by 20-30 VPs, but I kept a close eye on his accumulation of aristrocrats.  Fortunately (for me) in the final round I was able to grab the only aristocrat upgrade, giving me 7 distinct aristocrats and enough the squeeze out a narrow victory over Duncan, who finished with 10.  Julian managed to get 5 (I think), finishing about 10 points behind me.  I still enjoy this game quite a bit, though as some have complained there seems to be somewhat narrow paths to victory.

While I was playing St. Petersburg, another group played Attika.

It was a tough choice opting out of Goa and playing St. Pete.  I've played this only once but can't wait to try it again.  Apparently this was a close game, coming down to a tiebreaker at 41 points.

While waiting for the other games to wrap up, Duncan, Julian, and I played a hand of Coloretto.  This is a fun little card game that I haven't played in a while; not sure why because it really is a lot of fun.

Duncan showing off his rainbow spectrum of cards in Coloretto.  He still managed to win.

I thought I was doing OK, but Duncan managed to win the hand despite a rather diverse collection of colors.

This game is called Extinction.  Doesn't get very good ratings on BGG.

Next up for me was Einfach Genial with Craig and Brian.  This game just didn't appeal to me based on what I'd read, but I was anxious to try it anyway.  I know Dave has had some nice things to say about the game (he is a huge Knizia fan, after all).  This is an abstract game of hex-tile laying (the pieces are actually two hex tiles) where points are scored based on the number of other connecting hexes of the same color as the piece you played.  Players score across 6 different colors, with the winner being the player with highest low score (just like the scoring in Tigris and Euphrates).

Craig and Brian setting up Einfach Genial.

I found the game to be engaging, quick, and very fun.  Our game was tight and could have gone to anyone.  Craig made a good blocking double-move at the end that took away any possibility for me scoring in my weak color at the end.  This ended the game with a tie at 10 for Craig and Brian, Brian winning the tiebreaker.  I finished at 9.

The other crowd plays Auf Heller und Pfennig.

Alan (left) and two others play Flaschenteufel.

While waiting for some other games to wrap up, I was able to teach and play a couple of hands of Tres Amigos, one of KC's card game prototypes.  We played with the three-player rules and opinions were fairly neutral.  It is likely the rules I was playing with were a bit out of date, as there were too many cards in the undrawn stack (under the face-up trump card) adding quite a bit of chaos into the system.  I need to check with KC on this.

Finally, Duncan and I taught Craig and Brian the fine Uberplay game Saga.  This is a light card game that I first played at GenCon with Jacob this year.  It has some subtleties to it that I don't quite have handle on yet, though in this case I must have been doing something right as I won 56 / 36 / 30 / 5.  I can't figure out if this game is too chaotic / luck driven, or if it really is possible to control the pace and end of game.

Thanks again to the Billabong Boardgamers for hosting me.  Let me know if you ever make it out to the Portland area!