Gotcha?

I feel like someone should be calling gotcha on DW's latest article. C'mon guys: It's the king of ranters ranting about people who rant. Get it?

I received an email today from a Helena Kling of The Educational Centre for Games in Israel (or possibly The Heritage Centre for Games and Toys in Israel). They are based in Tel Aviv. It is some organization that has been promoting games and toys in Israel for 25 years. Strange that I haven't heard of it.

One of the reasons must be that the focus has been on "games and toys" and the implicit understanding of the foundation that assumes interest only from children and grandparents. The only games they know appear to be typical games from Kodkod (the only large Israeli games producer, makers of Rummikub) and classic pre-1970 games. Also, Helena only speaks English, which must be a problem. I speak Hebrew poorly and it is a barrier for me in reaching out to Hebrew speakers.

They appear to be underfunded, so I can't say I blame them too much. In any case, I know that Gilad, who is trying to start a Board Gaming organization in Israel (Hebrew speaking), is looking for a place to play in Tel Aviv, and Helena sounded enthusiastic about hosting his group, so maybe the connection will work out.

In other news, I bought a used copy of Queries and Theories from someone on the Jerusalem mailing list. It is an old game about logic and natural language. Some of you computer geeks may remember that languages are formed by sentences (such as A, PQ, and ABG) and rules (such as P -> BA). In the preceding example, we know that BAQ is a legal sentence in the language because it can be formed by some combination of the sentences and the rules.

You are supposed to guess the language; that's all I know so far. The game consists of a bunch of colored chips, a mat, and a 50 page rulebook in itsy print. I suspect that this rulebook could probably be rewritten as 8 colored glossy pages with pictures, but I wouldn't complain about the rules with DW around to scold me. Hee hee.

I think my son Saarya might enjoy playing it, as he is learning logic and computers in his ninth grade science high school class, and he likes games.

I also got the first three books of Pratchett's Diskworld series in pristine condition. The person selling me the game was getting rid of them, so I bought them, too. If you want them, make me an offer.

Yehuda