Hannukah

Owing to my my wife being in England and my children being at their other houses, I found myself all alone, tonight.

I wandered the slick streets of Jerusalem, head bowed against the pouring rain, shivering in the cold. My feet skidded on the wet rainy surface and I fell upon the hard pavement, exhausted, my body strewn across a puddle. There I was. Lying in the dirty water, alone. Unloved. How long could I go on like this? *sniff* *HONK*

Actually, I called my brother David and went to deliver the Menorah game to them, and they invited me for dinner. Au 'natureaument, I played some games.

They had bought Travel Blokus, which is the two player version of regular Blokus. The board size was 14x14, which I seem to recall suggesting as a good way of converting the regular board to play as a two player game some time ago on BGG ... hmmm ... well what do you know, here it is. I'm such a genius.

Another game they bought was a version of Blink/Speed by Foxmind games. I can't remember what it was called; something short that starts with an "S", but not Speed. And it doesn't seem to be listed as a Foxmind game on BGG. Strange.

However, what we ended up playing was a game of Tigris and Euphrates. I played with Pini (17 year old) and Ariel (11? yo) (gosh, I don't know the ages of my nephews; I'm a bad uncle. In any case, they were old enough that I wasn't afraid of beating them). They had only played a few times. I thought I would make mincemeat out of them, but they both happily collected points for some turns while I spent the time trying to establish position.

I then had some phenomenally bad luck conflicts (you know, the ones where your opponent HAS the four tiles that they need ... several times). I still managed to establish the kingdom later on, and then won, owing to them a) not using their disaster tiles early enough, and b) not ending the game when I had clear control of both monuments on the board. Turns out, with regards to this last one, that they were both shy in a color and didn't think that they would be able to win if the game ended too soon. True, but when I control the monuments, there is no way you are going to catch up unless you kick me out of them.

After that we played two games of the Menorah game. Another one of their friends had joined us by then, and Pini had swapped out for one of his other brothers, so we were four. I won both of these games, too, but they were certainly not easy. Damn fun game, if I say so myself.

I finally got home to light my own candles and make some more food for the rest of the week.

Yehuda