Thoughts of a Flying Sheep

This weekend, the Jedi Princess and I are travelling to CT to attend the
15th EllisCon. We've never been to one before, but we're hoping it will be fun.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 8:42 AM 0 comments

Wired News: Memories in the Corner of My Eye

As a person with a horrible memory, I would love to have one of these things. Of course, there's all sorts of horrible things that could be done with such a device, if you were sufficiently creative and evil. But anything that would help my memory would be great, as far as I am concerned.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 9:58 AM 0 comments

I saw a call-in poll on Fox News this morning. The question was basically, "Is Jessica Lynch a hero, a victim, or both?"

My first reaction was "How should I know?" I don't know anything about her - in fact, most people don't know anything about her, except for what we see on the news. What right do we have to pass judgement on someone we don't even know?

Then it struck me that this poll was being administered by a news station - the source of all of our information about her. This isn't really a poll, then, as much as it is a quiz. Apparently, Fox News wants to make sure you're paying attention in class.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 8:51 AM 0 comments

Well, it's not quite a wet-blog yet, but I am trying to maintain a list of various ideas that strike me during the day, so that I can blog about them afterwards.

My inspiration this morning was provided by the Boston Herald. I didn't see the picture on the front page, but I did see the words "Pure Evil", and I presume that it's about the sniper trials. It struck me as odd that this newspaper, who is probably legally constrained to call the defendants the "alleged" snipers, are able to speak about their moral state so easily. I mean, shouldn't they be called "allegedly pure evil"?

Update: Not about the sniper trials, but rather a local trial. The trial is over, so I imagine there's no need to use the word "alleged".

posted by FlyingSheep @ 9:56 AM 0 comments

Session Report: November 8, 2003
Games Played: Dvonn, Entdecker, Beasti Boys, Switch, Carcassonne (Hunters Gatherers, Timeline, Clans, Who stole Ed's Pants, Attack of the Killer Bunnies, Powerplay, Coleretto, Magic
Gamers: Andrew, Vitas, Matt, Chip

Thanks to Andrew, Vitas, and Matt for attending this gaming marathon! We started around noon and finished the last game at 1:30 AM.

DVONN (0:23)
Chip: 17
Andrew: 15

(0:20)
Andrew: 27
Chip: 12

Andrew was the first to arrive, so I taught him Dvonn and we played two matches. The first was the closest match I've ever played, both in terms of final score as well as the final 10 moves or so. Andrew caught on very quickly and made some moves that surprised me. In the second match, as you can see, he beat me handily.
Dvonn's one of my favorite strategy games. I've got to look into getting more games from the GIPF series.

ENTDECKER (1:25 + 0:12 rules and setup)
Matt: 80
Chip: 59
Andrew: 57
Vitas: 53

We started a three-player game of Entdecker, but started over when Matt arrived.
I tried my "all settlers" strategy, and only broke from it once - I placed a fort to take an island that I had just completed. I think this strategy, overall, is sound, but I probably misplayed the villages. I also think that 2 is the ideal number of unknown tiles to purchase, even though I almost always only play one. I think the extra coin in insurance is worthwhile.
Entdecker's a good game, although I've played it a lot recently.

BEASTI BOYS (0:05)
SWITCH (0:05)
We played these two card-flipping games. Andrew won both. They were rather silly.

CARCASONNE: HUNTERS AND GATHERERS (0:30)
Matt: 130
Vitas: 86
Chip: 83
Andrew: 73

We played a quick game of Carcassonne which Matt ran away with. I can't remember any particular details.

TIMELINE (0:55 + 0:18)
Andrew: 27
Vitas: 19
Matt: 15
Chip: 0

For some reason, we decided to play this Cheapass game that no one had played before. We probably spent about half of the time trying to figue out the rules and/or discussing how broken the rules were (:
Andrew figured out a good strategy (wait by the start side and then rush over to the market during his turn) while Matt diligently prevented the player after him (me) from winning. It did seem that you couldn't win unless the person before you allowed you to win. It may be possible that you could set the board up so that you could win regardless of what the previous player did, but I think that would be a mind-bending task.
This game might be good with 2, and, less likely, 3. With 4 or more players, however, the board changes too dramatically between turns to do any planning. Best to sort of strike out at random, and hope you opponent leaves you a good opportunity.
I will actively avoid playing this in the future.

CLANS (0:17 + 0:07 setup)
Vitas: 39
Matt: 31
N/A: 31
Chip: 29
Andrew: 25

I requested Clans, as I'm trying to decide if it will go on my Christmas list. The N/A in the scoring above is the non-player color (Red, I think it was).
I was able to determine which colors most of the other players were, but I'm not sure how that helped me. I figured out Andrew's color first and he became a bit of a target for me. That was probably a mistake. Through no fault of my own, blue was ahead early in the game which, in turn, made me a bit of a target. I should have concentrated on creating villages more - I missed an early opportunity as it would have given away the fact that I was blue.
Next time I play, I'll spend more energy trying to convert villages than keeping my identity secret.

WHO STOLE ED'S PANTS (0:48)
Matt + Vitas: 10
Chip + Andrew: 14

We brought out my copy of Ed's Pants (which I got at the last Unity Games), read through the rules, and started the game. Andrew and I were one team, and Matt and Vitas were the other team.
I had fun with this game, although there was a lot to keep track of. We rarely changed the rankings of the groups of people. I'd like to try this game again without partners to see if it's better that way.

KILLER BUNNIES AND THE QUEST FOR THE MAGIC CARROT (1:00 + 0:10 rules)
Matt: won
Vitas: 2nd
Andrew: 3rd
Chip: 4th

At Matt's request, we played Killer Bunnies again (second time for me, third time for Matt, first time for everyone else).
The artwork and game text is cute, but a few of cards were ambigiously (or confusingly) written). There is a lot of randomness in the game - if you draw money, you keep drawing until you draw something else. Being bunny-less for any extended period of time is akin to being eliminated from the game for a while. Finally, you can have 19 of the 20 carrots and still lose - although that didn't happen in this game.
I wouldn't go out of my way to play this again, but I know that Sara likes it, so I will probably play it at least once more.

POWERPLAY (0:30 + 0:10)
Andrew: 6
Matt: 4
Chip: 3
Vitas: 2

This is a pretty simple hockey-themed game. Each player has 6 cards of varying strength, some with special abilities. Each turn, you either draw a replacement from the deck, trade a card with another player, or challenge a player a match. Matches are resolved like war.
I enjoyed the tactical challenges and bluffing opportunities of the matches. Unfortunately, remembering the cards that other players have is a very important aspect of this game. With my poor memory, I prefer games that don't have that attribute. Otherwise, it's a very good game.

COLORETTO (0:20)
Chip: 46
Matt: 32
Andrew: 28
Vitas: 26

(0:15)
Andrew: 38
Matt: 34
Vitas: 33
Chip: 26

By this point, Andrew wanted to play something short, so we brought out Coloretto. We played with the rule that players must declare the color of the multi-colored cards as they pick them up.
I ran away with the first round, taking only one or two cards each round. I ended up with 4 of the +2 cards, all three of the multi-colored cards, and only one or two negative points. Matt took a lot of cards of all seven colors, but managed to secure second place.
In the next round I tried to take lots of lots of cards in hopes that the positives would outweigh the negative cards. This strategy was noticably less effective! I like this game and will play it again.

MAGIC (0:15) 8 turns
Chip: 21
Vitas: 0

(0:23)
Chip: 6
Vitas: 0

After Andrew and Matt left, Vitas and I decided to play some Magic. In the first round, he played with my R/B Goblin Discard deck, and I played with my Armadillo Cloak deck. Vitas played with Shaun's red deck during the second match, and I played with a R/U Dark Wall + Unsummon deck. At one point, I played an Ancient Hydra (5/1 with 5 fading counters that can be removed to deal direct damage). I attacked for 5, used the remaining 4 counters, and then Unsummoned it back to my hand.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 1:39 PM 0 comments

This was a good weekend. I spent about 13 hours playing games on Saturday. I'll have a full session report up later today.

I also read two Terry Pratchett books: The Last Hero and The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, both very good.

The Last Hero is a continuation of the Rincewind/Cohen story, from Interesting Times. The Silver Horde have set off to visit the home of the gods, and someone must stop them. It has a lot of illustrations (by Paul Kidby), which tell half the story. It's a great book that will make a good Christmas present for a Terry Pratchett fan.


The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is a regular Discworld novel (as opposed to an illustrated book). It is supposed to be a "young adult" book, but I'm not sure why. I consider the Harry Potter books to be "young adult" books, and they aren't subtle or witty or satirical like this book. On the other hand, Maurice and his Rodents raises some disturbing questions that some young adults might not understand or fully appreciate. It's quite possible that Pratchett has a higher estimation of teenagers than I do.


The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

(I can't believe that it's only 7 bucks!)

posted by FlyingSheep @ 10:23 AM 0 comments