Oh yeah, I have a blog!

This past weekend was BGG Con. 4 days of nothing but board games and board gamers! This year was my second year to attend, and again, I had a lot of fun! This year, I decided to take a more relaxed approach to the con. My 'to play' list really only consisted of one game... Space Alert! Space Alert was created by the same guy who created my favorite game, Galaxy Trucker. Fortunately for me, the people who were running the con learned from past experiences of people checking out the new hot games and keeping them away from anyone else that wanted to play and created a 'new hot games' room where everyone would have a fair chance at playing. I got to play Space Alert...several times! The verdict? Well, while it was a lot of fun during the game, I think that the end game was kinda unsatisfying. If we saved the ship, it was like 'Um...cool...we survived'. If we died, it wasn't nearly as entertaining as Galaxy Trucker.

Having played Space Alert early, I was free to just play games at a leisurely rate and hang out with friends. I did manage to meet a few as well (In fact, one claimed to have read this blog and I realized that I hadn't updated it in quite some time). Other games I played were:

Dominion - not bad...Ill call it Magic Lite
Tribune - Good, but do we really need another worker placement game?
Loopin Louie - I had the most fun playing this kids game! I jumped at every opportunity to play this. I even was able to secure a copy at the flea market.
Race for the Galaxy - This was fun, but there are some people out there that take this game too seriously. I'm starting to think that this game takes itself too seriously with all the expansions coming out.
Le Havre - Worker placement game by the same guy that made Agricola...another worker placement game. Less complicated than Agricola (this is a good thing).
Ticket to Ride: Dice Tourney - Ticket to Ride with dice! Eh, I could live without adding more randomness to a random game, although rolling dice was less stressful than waiting for the right color to come up.
Rattlesnake - How do people get away with making games like this? Magnets? Really?
Say Anything - From the same guys that made Wits and Wagers. They are at it again, making party games about opinions about peoples opinions.
Stone Age - A worker placement game about building a caveman economy. I'm having problems distinguishing from all of these new rash of worker placement games.
It's Alive! - Um...an auction game about building your own frankenstein monster...but not nearly as interesting.
Bottle Imp - Interesting trick taking game.
Pandemic - Co-operative game about saving the world from disease. Probably the most tolerable of the co-op games (before Space Alert) I have played. Unfortunately, this game breaks down to a few people telling everyone else what to do the entire game.

I'm sure that there were other games I played, but I'm a little wiped out right now. There was one game I do remember that was kinda neat. It had to do with making circus animals align themselves in different positions by giving them remedial commands. The animals only knew few commands and the goal was to yell out the right command to get the animals to get into the right position...the first one to do so, scores points. For some reason, it kinda reminded me of my programming days.

Also, during the con, there was an event called "Game Show". Basically, its a bunch of teams all competing against each other in the mode of the old game shows. This one was called "Hot Streak". The point was to figure out puzzles by looking at sort of random images and forming the answers. Last year, our team, "Shining Wits" (a spoonerism...so I'm told), rocked everyone and captured first place. This year, we finished a disappointing third. I had told someone at the con that we had won last year and they told me that we were going down!!! ...we beat that team. :p

What else?

Lisa and I got down our Christmas decorations from the attic and put up lights on the house. Its starting to feel like Christmas again (good and bad). I guess I need to start thinking about what to buy people this year. I'm hoping that bad economy = good bargains. Which reminds me, I need to come up with my Black Friday attack plan.

I think Aly is sick. She has been sleeping since 2pm and I think she may sleep the whole night. It is nice and quiet around here, but I haven't seen much of her or Lisa the past couple of days and I crave some time with my girls.

Anyway, I'm going to try to keep up with this blog. I am realizing that I may have more people visiting this blog than I thought... I have to keep the fans happy!