Mark Hamzy's weblog about boardgaming, discgolf, and pictures

Rachel joined us for bridge tonight and was my partner. She did pretty well considering that she was new to bridge (or, at least, her handicap was higher than we started with).

The date is 09/02/2008

The players are:

Shadow Hunters

We started the game day off with a filler game. Which was so-so. We probably should have waited for some more information on who is your enemy and who are your allies before attacking. But as we gathered information, we just started wailing on each other. Which is a good thing as it sped the game up.

Stone Age

Next up was a game that I wanted to play. It had dice in it and sounded interesting. You collect resources to trade in for victory points. There are some factors which mitigate dice rolls. First, you can gather tools which will bump up bad dice rolls. Next, the only critical dice roll is where you gather food and you start out with enough to last you for two turns.

I liked this game and would buy it.

Neuland

We played this classic game. But the new version. Which I hate compared to the old. The graphics are worse. The changes to the rules are horrible. Ugh. Give me the old version anytime. Fortunately, we used the old rule set with the new board (we did have to use a special counter to show where your turn ended ten spaces away from your current start position).

In this game, two things were painful for me. Both the mines and the coal mills were far away from my starting position. So I ended up being very inefficient. I also took a huge risk and left my food generation spot unguarded. I did this for two turns. But I was rewarded for this. I was able to get ahead of the pack and acquire the resources to build the final victory spot.

Can't Stop

There was some serious Grimming going on in this game. So we started up a game of Can't Stop at the table. That game is easy to pick up and leave. You do not need to remember any strategic information while you are away.

Ricochet Robots

Marty wanted to play this classic Russcon game. I was a little worried though. We had two new gamers at the table and I didn't think they were up to the spacial challenges that this game requires. But, towards the end, they started to get the hang of the game and even scored a victory point. Without Jeffles or MarkY at the table, this game is much easier to win.

Gipsy King

We ended out the night with this abstract game. I like it and should add it to my shopping list.

Before we headed up for Ed's game day, we played at the Rivery. Man, its been a while since I have played here.

On the course, Jon spotted a snake. He hates snakes, apparently. After I took this picture and left, I looked back to watch Jon attack the poor snake with a branch...

That was also at the hole where I made a birdie.

It has been a while since I've been down to Pease Park. And, with Marty potentially showing up, we decided to play there today. Through a fluke, we took 35 to 290 which turns into 2222 as it heads West. And, along the way, Jon noticed Kick Butt Coffee. Since it was advertised in the Chronicle, he decided to patronize it.

There is new construction going on at the park. Hole 6 was taken out for the time being.

Luckily, the disc golfers have done something about it. They split up hole 7 into two holes.

You throw first at the old hole 7. And then you tee off here. Which is up the side a little ways.

We stopped off for lunch at Wahoo's and had some fish tacos.

Here I am in the middle of making some Hatch chile sauce. These chiles have been fire roasted by the grocery store. The skin has been blackened into a state resembling activated charcoal. And nothing has been done to these chiles before roasting, so I have to remove the stem, seeds, and blackened skin. I add some onion, chicken stock, and vegetable stock.

Now I consider a thickening agent. And I am in the mood for a roux. I put two tablespoons of butter and flour in a small non-stick pan and stir vigorously over a medium heat. The mixture turns from white, to yellow, to light brown, to coffee milk color, to peanut butter color. I remove the pan from the stove and continue to stir madly. There is a lot of residual heat left. Even when I dump the mixture into the sauce, the super heated oil flash boils the sauce. Which is when the smell overwhelms me. And I bath in a primal memory of coffee...

With the Labor Day weekend coming up, we got a half day at work. So I convinced Jon to play disc golf at Wilco. Of course, I told him that it wasn't going to rain when I was on the phone. But, when we were out there, I was proved wrong. You could see rain off in the distance and the temperature was dropping as well.

Age of Steam Expansion - Texas, Oklahoma & New Mexico

Winsome's 2008 Essen pack was shipped early to me. In it was an Age of Steam expansion about Texas and cattle. We tried it out. Of course we got a couple of the rules wrong. But that did not make this game broken. In fact, it made it harder. Which, in my opinion is a good thing. This expansion is designed to make it easier for beginners. There is the normal goods on the board. And there also is a bunch of cattle which can be transported as goods. This is way too many goods for a group of seasoned players. So the mistake of not filling up the new goods section turned this game into a more normal version. With an interesting cattle twist.

Suicide Tichu

We finished up with an abbreviated game of Suicide Tichu. This was Marty's first time and he liked it.

You certainly cannot miss this vehicle. The paint scheme is rather intense. I bet that the yellow is the reflective type as well. And that is ignoring all of the lights all over the vehicle. I wonder if you could paint your car this scheme without getting in trouble...

I haven't even heard of Fayette County before this. Only to find out as I write this that it is located 60 miles away. I wonder what they were doing in downtown Austin.

Marty suggested a Brazilian restaurant named Sampaio's. He had really liked the coffee crusted pork tenderloin. I couldn't make the dinner that he was setting up. So I went there for lunch. Unfortunately, they had a different menu for lunch.

I did have the special which was Garlic shrimp served in a spicy coconut sauce. It was served on rice cakes with collard greens. It was pretty good. I think that this was the first time that I have eaten collard greens raw. Their strong taste balanced out the dish and was mellowed out by the sauce. The only negative thing was that the shrimp were not that garlicly at all.

The one odd thing that I noticed was that the chef loves collard greens. Many menu items contain them.

Jon played a solo game of Agricola and told me what cards he drew and what score he got (20 points). This made me want to see how I would do at it. I received 45 points. Which is below the minimum required for the first round (50 points). This got me thinking how I could improve my play. So I set out to see if I could better my score. This time, I scored 52 points. Can someone else do better?

Incredibly detailed minutia follows...