Belated Birthday Gifts

Rachel's birthday gift to me, a copy of Chris Crawford on Game Design, finally arrived. Looks big. Hopefully it's not already out of date.

I just finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I'm not sure what to make of it, yet. While highly stylized like his other books, I was less convinced that he actually had something important to say here. But then every once in a while he wrote a few beautiful passages. Maybe I'll give it a full review.

I, or rather, I on behalf of my game group, just ordered a few games, including Hellas, Industria, Atlantic Star, Lost Valley, and Mississippi Queen. Why these? The right part of the curve between price and reputation, along with reviews that indicate that there is at least a possibility that the games will be the type we enjoy.

I tentatively will be getting Robo Rally later in the year from someone, too, which I think will go over well with everyone in the group except for Nadine (too random and too complicated).

And I still have a dozen or so games and books waiting for me in New Jersey and New York, if I can every get there to pick them up.

Shavuot

Tonight is Shavuot, one of the six major holidays in Judaism. Each holiday is paired up with another:

- Shmini Atzeret comes immediately after Sukkot
- Yom Kippur comes 9 days after Rosh Hashana
- Shavuot comes 43 days after Pesach (Passover)

Shavuot is the feast of weeks. We count 7 full weeks, 49 days, from after the first day of Passover, and at the end, we have Shavuot. The holiday is associated with the giving of the Torah of Mount Sinai. In ancient times, it marked a particular harvest period.

Various customs include staying up all night learning, reading the Book of Ruth, eating dairy foods, and adorning the house and synagogue with flowers.

It also means I'll be off-line again from tonight until Wed evening.

Game News

Daniel Levin, a first grader from the Kiryat Motzkin area of Haifa, scored 2nd place in the World Children’s Chess Championship in Greece last week.

Niall Ferguson uses games to study alternative history scenarios in this Wired piece.

Just like in the Australian Monopoly bid, the UK Monopoly bid for the new edition is also rotten with cheating. Monopoly fans continue to show the higher importance of winning over playing, I see.

American Chronicle article promotes board and card games over video games.

Elementeo, a new combat card game about chemistry, is looking for 100k of funding with the goal of making a million on its products. It's CEO is a thirteen year old. Watch his explanation in this clip. (source)

Love Me

If you like my blogging, consider clicking the donation button on the sidebar of my page. You can think of your donation as a subscription, if you like.

To make things interesting, I'll send any one item of your choice from my garage sale for free (assuming no one else has bought it by then) to whomever sends me the highest donation by May 31. If you've already donated in the past, you're already automatically included in this.

Yehuda

P.S. Here's one for the Darwin Awards: a guy tries to kill his girlfriend by parking his car with her inside in the path of a moving train and then jumping out of the car. The train hits the car which lands on top of him and kills him. The girl is seriously injured, but will recover.