Jute waxing

Braved the cold last night for a trip to Columbia (the university, not the South American nation, though the latter probably has a more pleasant climate right now) for Games Club. Got hassles from the security guard because the current club president hadn’t registered an official event; that’s been straightened out for future weeks. Had to call Josh and have him send someone down; pay phones cost fifty fucking cents now.

I played Quiddler, which I’d never played before despite it’s being pretty popular at GC. It‘s sort of a cross between Scrabble and Gin Rummy. It was fun, especially given a group like ours with large vocabularies. ladymondegreen made JUTE WAXER at one point. I found myself mostly trying for the Most Words bonus, and got it two or three times. I came in second by six points, agonizing since a stupid mistake I made early in the game, and spotted immediately after having made it, cost me seven.

I also played a couple of games of Agora, a Cheapass Hip Pocket game I picked up at Arisia last week. I’d previously played other Hip Pocket games — Nexus, which I liked quite a lot (it’s like Carcassonne pared way down to the essentials), and Cube Farm (which was kinda dull). Agora might be my favorite. The tile placement is way cool, creating a bunch of small sub-grids at arbitrary angles to each other instead of one big grid like most tile-laying games. Warning: Special events do not come up often, so the Expand Your Opponent’s Shops To Make Him A Fire/Flood Risk strategy doesn’t work. I know, because they tried it on me, and it won me the game. What does work is being willing to lay cards down at odd angles to block doors, and being willing to expand your shops even if it makes you a fire/flood risk.