I'm not a bum. I'm a jerk.

Q and I played three different games last night. She won them all. Grr!

( Games we played: BuyWord, Lost Cities, Elk Fest )

So in the end of the game of winning games, Susan beat me 3-0.

Pants and Grumbly came over last night and we played games. Actually, we mostly planned the playing of a future game, which is a Dungeons and Dragons module with Paul as the GM and the rest of us as participants. Nancy has two characters (a rogue and a cleric), I have two (a half-orc barbarian named Groo and a human sorcerer named Steve) and Q is playing a dwarf monk named Francis. Q has never played and I haven't played for 15 years, but we're both looking forward to geekin' it up old skool.

One of the things to look forward to when we play games is that we always eat well. We started with a baked goat cheese and salsa appetizer (substituting smoked almonds for the pine nuts) and then had a nice pot roast with turnips, rutabaga, and a couple of potatoes. Nancy made a kick-ass gravy to go with it. She's got gravy-fu, a skill that I am slowly acquiring myself. Gravy-fu should TOTALLY be a D&D skill.

The two board/card games we played were:

Shogun: A brand new game that is a re-theming (with a couple rules changes) of the highly rated Wallenstein. It's a really fun game, the best part being the cube tower. Your forces and your opponents forces are little wooden cubes, and when you battle you just pick 'em up, drop 'em into the tower (which captures and holds some cubes back), and whoever has more cubes at the bottom wins. Then the little cubes that you lost in the tower stay there for a future battle. It's really neat and I had a lot of fun with the game. I think we all liked it, with Paul liking it a little less than the rest of us.

We played a couple rules wrong. We forgot about peasant revolts altogether for the first half of the year, and played them wrong the second half (You only have to do a revolt battle if there is already one or more revolt tokens in the province). We also apparently missed the rule regarding the farmer cubes that come out of the tower during the battle: If the defending province has no revolt markers, then the farmer cubes count as defenders. If the defending province DOES have a revolt marker, then the farmers count as nothing (but stay in the tray). There are some other things we may have missed, too, so I'm going to re-read the rules and make mental notes.

Nancy won the game with Paul on her tail (heh) and Q and I way back. Overall, however, I liked the game very much and have rated it an 8, though that could go all the way up to 11 when i play it a bit more. Okay, it can only go up to 10.

Weinhändler: This is an interesting little auction game with some different mechanisms. You're a wine collector to have the best wine collection. You get more points based on sets of the same wines. What's really interesting is that you use the same wine bottles that are in your collection to bid on other lots. The highest bidder takes the "common" lot, then the second place bidder takes the first place bidder's "bid", and so on. By the time we played this, Susan had already handled a lot of wine, so she was slow to pick up the game and consulted the rules frequently, not seeming to fully grasp them. I, being completely sober, grasped them easily. So, of course, she kicked my ASS, coming in second because she played good and got some good cards at the end. Paul won with 42 to Susan's 40 and Nancy's 38. I was way behind.

So, like all game nights we had, it was a lot of fun. Yay fun! Then Q and I had a lot of adult time before drifting off into a blissful sleep. And now she's napping and I'm about to join her.

After a week of travel, I needed a nice weekend. And I got it. I made beginets (poorly) and last night made some tasty Greek meatballs as an excuse to make cucumber-yogurt sauce with our home-grown cucumbers. We got a LOT of cucumbers this year, and it doesn't look like the vine is done yet!

I saw The Ghettobillies for the first time in about a year on Saturday. They just don't play Chicago much anymore. They're always in Michigan. They played a good (if short) set and had a decent crowd (thoroughly rocked). Susan liked them well enough. She liked them more than she thought she would, at least. Hiding Out and Dirty Hippies were her favorite songs.

We played a game called Pecking Order that was a lot of fun, though I crushed Susan pretty badly. I think she'll play again. She certainly doesn't hate it as much as Deflexion. I also decided this morning that I want Hive and have had to stop myself from just ordering it several times. Don't think that I won't have it eventually, though. Wish lists are a wonderful thing.

I have a jonsing to play some multi-player games (Grumbly? Pants? I'm looking at you.). I hope that Susan lets me host a game night in the next few months to have some of y'all over to play games with us.

I am moving at the end of next month. I'm moving in with Susan. It'll rock. My landlord wants to start showing my apartment, so I supposed I should do the dishes and make the bed and hide the porn and all that. I just might do that this afternoon for an hour or two. It was a nice little apartment, but Q's house is going to rule. The only reasons to go back to my apartment are to get the mail and watch DVR'd stuff. Moo moved in with Q a couple months ago and is slowly adjusting. She and Q's cats still hiss and fight, but it's getting better. Moo-Cow follows me around the house and watches me shower. It's cute. She also climbs in the drop ceiling in the basement and breaks the tiles, which is decidedly less cute.

So far, it looks like this will be a quiet week for travel. I have a brief overnight gig in Rochester NY on Tuesday/Wednesday, but it'll be easy. Expense reports, like always, are way behind.

So, a couple more hours here, then home to watch Deadwood on the DVR and clean, then to Q's for dinner, games, and smooching (not necessarily in that order).

El Famous Burrito nachoes for dinner. Is it "Nachoes" or "Nachos"? I vote for -es because it looks wrong and that's the American Way.

This is a long update for me.

Edited to add Scrabble Sentence Cube Game!

GAMING SESSION REPORT
29 JUL 06
w/ Pants, Grumbly, and The Q at Maison des Grumbly-Pantalons.

( Pirate's Cove, Eurorails, and Coloretto )

So tomorrow, Q and I are driving down to Columbus. If anyone wants to have dinner with us, we should be there in plenty of time to meet y'all some place. (laserkitty and/or thinksnow, maybe you want to even get together for a game or two?)

On Saturday, we're going to the Origins Game Convention. We're both very excited. Q's excited because she likes games and wants to see and try all the new games, but there's a good chance that she's going to get overwhelmed by all of the stuff. Luckily, she can come and go as she pleases, so if she gets overwhelmed (or bored, which may be even more likely), she can go find a coffee shop or go back to the hotel and take a break.

As for me, I want to get there at 7am so I can register before the show opens at 8am, and then I plan on cruising the show until the hall closes at 6pm. I hope to see lots of gaming pseudo-celebrities (Reiner Knizia is supposed to be there!) I'm sure there will be a nice long lunch break in there, too. And after the show closes, I go home, right? NOT A CHANCE. That's when the open gaming starts! I could be there until midnight, easily.

Then on Sunday, we hit a few places in the area (there's a bookstore Susan wants to hit) and head home. The best part? After a three-day convention, I still have two days left as a weekend! :)

(Q, we have to take the crokinole board with us. We should find a better way to store it. Sew me up a bag for it tonight! (j/k!))

The collected games of Pants, Grumbly, and Myself. Generally the left three piles are mine and the right two piles are Paul and Nancy's, but there is some intermingling of games (and a few (well, four that I can think of) that we both own). The beautiful rising sun in the background is my lovely Crokinole board.

Also, this isn't ALL of our games. I have a lot of games that live at my house (30 or so, at least) and a few that live at Susan's (maybe 10), and Paul and Nancy didn't include their less "geeky" games like Trivial Pursuits and such.

GAMING SESSION REPORT
14 APR 06 w/ The Girl
( Lost Cities )

15 APR 06 w/ Pants, Grumbly, and The Girl
( Wings of War, Empire Builder, Ticket to Ride: Märklin, High Society )

17 APR 06 w/ The Girl
( Lost Cities again )

Tom Delay quit. That's nice.

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I slept in today. That was nice.

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Last night I saw a guy in a bar pass out, fall off his stool, and crack his face open on the back of Susan's chair. That wasn't so nice.

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After Drunky Von PassOut cracked himself open, we went to Myopic and got a buttload of used books. Awesome. Has anyone ever figured out why bookstores make some people have to poop? It does me. The books were nice, the need to poop was less so.

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On Friday, The Q and I played a couple of matches of Crokinole. I won the first match. In the second, she had the most amazing shot: I had three disks in the 15 circle, which had me well on my way to winning the round. Her shot knocked all three of my discs into the ditch AND pocketed her piece into the 20-hole, for a 65 point swing. She won that round and won the match. She credits the shot with the incredible mojo of MamaCat, who was sitting on her lap when she made the shot.

On Sunday, The Q and I played games with Grumbly and Pants. This, of course, means that it's time for...

GAMING SESSION REPORT
02 APR 06 w/Pants, Grumbly, and The Girl

( Collosal Arena, Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper, Tigris and Euphrates, La Strada )

Games are ALWAYS nice, even when we're mean.

Gamin Session Report
16 FEB 06 w/ The Girl

( PÜNCT )
If you like two-player abstract strategy games (Chess or Go for instance), I highly recommend you check out this series of games. The couple that I've played are easy-to-learn and elegant, but fairly deep strategically, and the component pieces are just excellent. The six games in the series (in order of their ranking on boardgamegeek.com) are:

YINSH: 7.89 (BGG rank: 18)
DVONN: 7.64 (BGG rank: 51)
ZERTZ: 7.59 (BGG rank: 59)
GIPF: 7.36 (BGG rank: 127)
PÜNCT: 7.35 (BGG rank: 132)
TAMSK: 6.99 (BGG rank: 297)

Ms. Katrina sent me an e-mail a couple of days ago pointing out that it's been a while since I've posted an entry to this fine blog of mine, so here is an entry:

A YEAR OF GAMES:
Long-time readers of my journal will remember the pride with which I showed off JoeyHemlock's Amazing Compact Game Kit in December of last year. Well, as you know, that kicked off something of an obsession. It's an obsession even more powerful then the fountain pen obsession of '04. For Christmas last year, my sister got me several Hasbro games in wood-box editions, and shortly thereafter, in fact a year ago yesterday, I started venturing into other boardgames that wouldn't exactly fit in the kit. It started with Zombies, which is 'eh' at best. Then in April I bought Bootleggers and Ticket to Ride, and shortly thereafter I went NUCKING FUTS! I'd guess that in 10 months since those first "real"purchases (Zombies, as it turns out, isn't the best of games), I've bought seventy-four games and expansions. Figuring $20 each (a conservative estimate), that's... a lot. Still, though, I'm not really put off by this because the games, if kept properly, will last forever (and that's a mighty-long time). My wish-list is getting smaller, in general, though I covet a few that Nancy and Paul have and I have a new-found love for two-player games, what with the girlfriend who likes to play games and such.

GAME REPORT, Short Version:
A couple Sundays ago, we played games. Susan had other obligations early in the session, so we started with a new game, Attika, which gave us good German lessons. Paul won the game. Then we played some cribbage, where Nancy and Paul fought it out for first while I fought to cross the skunk line. Nancy eked out a win, helped by the fact that she got to peg first. The Susan came and we played one of my favorite games, San Marco. Nancy won this one, followed closely by Susan, and with Paul and I far in the back. Then we tried a new game that I picked up called Reef Encounter. After reading the rules, we had no clue what we were supposed to do or what the rules were. But we played anyway, and we picked it up pretty quickly, I think. Paul won.

A BREAK FOR HOCKEY:
The Red Wings have been playing pretty well lately, though they still worry me some. I look forward to the Olympic break and the good Olympics. I like Canada, Czech Republic, and Sweden to medal. Also, I bought Blackhawks tickets for Susan and I for early March. it'll be fun. And since it's against the Dallas Stars, GO HAWKS!

ANOTHER GAME REPORT:
I bought a two-player game called Carcassonne: The Castle (by Reiner Knizia) because Susan is sooooo cute when she squeals "MEEEEEPLES!". Meeples, for those two of you who are still reading and don't know, means for "miniature people" and are the little wood bits that represent people in a game, specifically in the Carcassonne family of games. Aaaaaaanyway, we played C:tC last night and had a fun time doing it. She played well and scored some big towers and a huge house that scored her the keep bonus as well. In the end, though, I eked out a victory, 113 to 106, mostly thanks to the many markets on one of my courts. We'll play again soon, I'm sure. Also, get your own meeple-related products at .MeeplePeople.com.

DATE NIGHT:
Susan and I are going out on a date tonight, which will be good. It's a traditional dinner-and-a-movie thing, with dinner at La Creperie and a movie (Mrs. Henderson Presents) across the street at Century Center. Then we're going back to her place to kiss.

[Poll #670665]

[Poll #670666]