Less Distance Than There Seems

There is less distance than there seems between here and there.

I played my first online game of Santiago against Alfred, Jonathan Takagi, Scott Firestone, and Scott Slomiany. I concentrated on an early large territory, expecting others to come back as the game progressed. Only, in the last half of the game, no one was able to connect more than three tiles of the same type. Furthermore, the entire center of the board was completely barren. My early territory, which was the only thing that I acquired during the game, secured a win for me.

It's a joy to be able to play with friends around the world, so easily.

In other news, Chris Brooks, extraordinary game blogger and co-founder of Sunriver Games, will be in Israel again at the end of November, and we are going to try to hook up again. Our record is 1 for 2 on his Israeli visits, so far.

Another blogger, Maksim Smelchak, has also hinted at a visit to Israel sometime soon.

It's so nice to have contact with the outside world. I wish I could have gone to Essen or go to BGG.con, but we can't have everything, I guess.

Serious Games is now listing open job positions.

I also want to mention today's Something Positive, where Fred MacIntire gets "jewed". By "jewed", I don't mean the traditional offensive meaning of the word, which is to get cheated. I mean to get treated as Jews get treated: blamed for anything wrong that any other Jew does, and often something that hasn't been done at all.

Today, Fred, who is a sensible believing Christian, gets grouped in the same bucket as obnoxious fundamentalists, whom he despises as much as his accuser does. I feel for him.

Yehuda