I haven’t been to Tim’s in a while and since his copy of Indonesia came in, I decided to bring it to him. I play with Tim’s new X-Box 360 for a little bit until Mary comes in. He was bringing some games that I really wanted to play (Ark and Jenseits von Theben). But he also had recently bought a new Prius. So I asked to see it. And on the way back in, I noticed that I had a flat on my truck! Fortunately, John was nice enough to stay outside and help me put on the spare (and figure out how to drop the spare from under the truck bed). When we went back in, I found out that Marty hosed us by starting a game of Ark which I really wanted to play. But there was some good luck to go with that bad luck. I was able to find out early and fix my tire before going downtown at dusk to photograph the UT tower.

Category 5

John suggested we play this English version of 6 Nimmt as a filler until more people came in to play. There were only three people playing which made it seem easier for some reason. Not much hosage went on. I was able to escape with one point while John took a lot of them.

Caylus

A couple of people came in so John suggested Caylus and I accepted. Unfortunately, this was a learning game for two of the people. So this game took a long time to complete. And, as well, they were pretty slow players who liked to discuss likely outcomes of possible moves. I tend to not like people who take a long time and agonize over their moves.

Rook

We started out the night with a game that John brought called Rook. He described it as a trick taking game, so we decided to play it. I later learned that he didn’t use the correct rules. However, the rules he explained were more interesting. On your turn, if you cannot follow the suit that was led, you must trump if possible. You also must over-trump if possible. Which would be a bad thing if your partner is currently taking the trick. This makes the bidding phase more interesting.

You bid the number of point that you think that your team will win. Whoever wins the bid gets five extra cards that they may swap out with into their hand (from 0 – 5 of them). Then the five cards (new or not) are left aside and whoever gets the last trick will also get these cards (which may have points in them).

Don Pepe

We decided to play this light and quite mean spirited filler game. And it has been a while since we played it which is a shame. Its not that bad of a game as long as everyone is in the mood for singing “It’s your birthday!”.

Caylus

Another playing of Caylus for me and it still hasn’t lost its appeal for me. The only mistake that I made was in the second to the last round of the game. I had built 3 of a possible 4 castles for the majority. And I decided to keep the last one unbuilt in order to try and get the majority again (which is normally a good thing). However, Doug was able to build enough castles first to stop anyone else from building. In the end, we both tied for the win! Now that I think about it, if I would have built one more castle, I would have gotten two more victory points. Sigh.

Geschenkt x 2

I happen to like this light push your luck (or avoidance) game. The only dillema is what cards are missing from the deck and how many rounds can you keep other people chipping to avoid a card that you want.

Tichu

Jon really wanted to play Tichu since he did not play during lunch this week. So his penality was to play with John. On the first hand, Jon wished for an ace that I didn’t have but John did (hehehe).

I was really surprised last night to find this on my door step. It is my order of 3 copies of Indonesia from Splotter! The last time that I heard from an employee at Splotter on December 12th was that they were going to ship it out that week but hadn’t received my fax yet. I, of course, resent the fax and responded to the email asking for them to please notify me that they shipped it. Of course, I heard nothing from them. And over time I emailed them asking what was going on. With no response. Sigh.

Well, at least they seem to hose everyone equally. They still haven’t billed my credit card yet.