On the many occasions that I have been invited to Abe and Sara's over the years, I always asked her if what she was serving was representative of native Colombian cuisine. It never was, and this became a running joke: Native Colombian challah and hummus! I would say, or Oh, Colombian Coca-Cola!
I told her that one day we were going to have a meal of Colombian food, even if I had to cook it myself. Seeing as this was the last time that we (and some friends) would be sharing a shabbat meal for some time, I decided to cook Colombian cuisine as a going away present.
The problem with cooking Colombian in Israel is that a number of essential Colombian ingredients are not available in Israel, such as plantains, yuca, guascas, and so on. So I either had to choose recipes that didn't require these ingredients or substitute and fudge the flavors. My menu included Ajiaco Bogotano (chicken, corn, and potato soup with garnishes including Aji (cilatnro, pepper, and onion)), empanadas, chorizos, beef skewers, roast "Columbian-style" chicken, guacamole, hummus with roast pepper, and coconut rice, as well as salad and so on.
The results were a true mixture of classic success and failure.
Sara didn't recognize most of the dishes. What's this? she asked. When I said It's a classic Colombian dish, she would say It is? Ok, so apparently the native Colombian didn't recognize anything I cooked as actually Colombian. Luckily it was mostly tasty anyway. Sara recognized the coconut rice as Colombian, but I didn't use enough coconut milk, and she is used to a presentation that includes coconut shavings and the rice served in a ball.
My ajiaco presentation was correct. I brought out garnishes of shredded chicken, capers, sliced avocado, and aji (she didn't recognize aji; also, I couldn't use sour cream, since this was a meat soup), and even before I brought the soup out she asked Oh, did you try to make ajiaco?
Real ajiaco requires three different types of potatoes, at least one is a specific variety that you can't get here, as well as the herb guascas. Real ajiaco is also boiled down to a thick cream, whereas mine was more soupy. And anyway, ajiaco comes from Bogota- which is the capital of Colombia - but not from the region of Colombia from which Sara comes, so she didn't actually grow up eating it. Nevertheless, it's one of her favorite dishes (when she would go to Bogota). And while my soup didn't taste much like Ajiaco Bogotano, it was similar and familiar enough to make her happy.
After dinner we split into two groups. Nadine, Eitan, and Emily played Thunderstone. First plays for Eitan and Emily, who didn't like it that much. Eitan prefers games where the scores are visible during the game so that he knows how to pace his strategy (when to ramp up and when to cash out).
Sara, Anne, and I played Castles of Burgundy. First plays for both of them, third play for me. Both Thunderstone and CoB have long setup times and lots of moving parts, but during play the turns flow fairly smoothly. CoB is beginning to make more sense to me. It still seems to be one phase too long. Thankfully, by the last phase we were all playing fairly quickly, so it was soon over. In the last phase I completed a large district or two which jumped me ahead some 30 points from where we were all clustered in the scoring.
The next day's lunch was with two families each of whom had four children. I didn't bring games with me, but two of the kids engaged me in a game of Rummikub. Often, the finagling of the melds are held up by the lack of a few key tiles. The first to draw one of the tiles and recognize what to do with it then goes out. The following player is usually then able to go out immediately after, or at least would be able to if the game were to continue. That's what happened with us.
This was followed by Crazy Eights where the rules changed (not by me) whenever it looked like I had won.
Showing posts with label rummikub. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rummikub. Show all posts
Sunday, January 06, 2013
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Weekend Gaming: Tichu
We had a farewell lunch to our good friends Bill and Shirley, who are leaving the country for an indefinite period of time. We expect them back soon: either July, or September, or 6 months from now at the very least.
The Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club gave them a copy of Rummikub: Israeli game, actually fun, language-independent, and also easy enough for any non-gamers they run into.
We split into two groups to play. Bill, Abraham, Sarah, and Nadine played Dungeon Lords. They started at around 4:00 and were still going when I left at 7:30. It's an epic game.
Meanwhile, Shirley, Tal (my daughter), Toby (her boyfriend), and I played Rummikub. I think she enjoyed it, although the game gets kind of thought-intensive near the end. Most players are usually one turn away from winning when the game ends.
After Rummikub, I taught Shirley and Toby how to play Tichu. Tal , who has played many times, insisted on being my partner, which left the teams a tad unfair. However, Tal is unskilled in the art of calling Tichu (she never does ... or had never done so until today). Shirley is Chinese and grew up in China, and so found Tichu's ad copy amusing. She says that the symbols on the backs of the decks are random gibberish words.
Both Shirley and Toby were overwhelmed by the initial explanation, but within a few hands, they were up to speed. Things swung our way to start with, and stayed our way throughout the game. At one point we were up around 600 points; that gap eventually narrowed to within 250.
Toby was the first, other than me, to venture a bid of Tichu. Unfortunately, it took him until the third time that he called Tichu before he actually made a bid of Tichu. As a result, they were down to nearly -200 at one point. Tal utterly failed to bid of Tichu early on which she should have, and then finally ventured to bid, but not make, Tichu later in the game.
With all of the failed Tichus, the game took quite a lot of time. Tal and I cycled up and down in the 600s for several hands, by which point Toby and Shirley had climbed to the 300s. We finally made it to 775 to 525. I then made a Tichu, and we made enough in the last two hands. In the very last hand, we only made it because Tal just managed to go out before Toby, and so didn't lose all of her accumulated trick points to Shirley.
A fun, funny, and long game.
The Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club gave them a copy of Rummikub: Israeli game, actually fun, language-independent, and also easy enough for any non-gamers they run into.
We split into two groups to play. Bill, Abraham, Sarah, and Nadine played Dungeon Lords. They started at around 4:00 and were still going when I left at 7:30. It's an epic game.
Meanwhile, Shirley, Tal (my daughter), Toby (her boyfriend), and I played Rummikub. I think she enjoyed it, although the game gets kind of thought-intensive near the end. Most players are usually one turn away from winning when the game ends.
After Rummikub, I taught Shirley and Toby how to play Tichu. Tal , who has played many times, insisted on being my partner, which left the teams a tad unfair. However, Tal is unskilled in the art of calling Tichu (she never does ... or had never done so until today). Shirley is Chinese and grew up in China, and so found Tichu's ad copy amusing. She says that the symbols on the backs of the decks are random gibberish words.
Both Shirley and Toby were overwhelmed by the initial explanation, but within a few hands, they were up to speed. Things swung our way to start with, and stayed our way throughout the game. At one point we were up around 600 points; that gap eventually narrowed to within 250.
Toby was the first, other than me, to venture a bid of Tichu. Unfortunately, it took him until the third time that he called Tichu before he actually made a bid of Tichu. As a result, they were down to nearly -200 at one point. Tal utterly failed to bid of Tichu early on which she should have, and then finally ventured to bid, but not make, Tichu later in the game.
With all of the failed Tichus, the game took quite a lot of time. Tal and I cycled up and down in the 600s for several hands, by which point Toby and Shirley had climbed to the 300s. We finally made it to 775 to 525. I then made a Tichu, and we made enough in the last two hands. In the very last hand, we only made it because Tal just managed to go out before Toby, and so didn't lose all of her accumulated trick points to Shirley.
A fun, funny, and long game.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Shabbat Gaming
Puerto Rico
I'm glad that Nadine and Rachel and I got in at least one three-player PR game before Rachel returns to Canada on Monday. The three of us playing PR was our shabbat afternoon tradition for the last few years.
We played with half the buildings from my funky sets, something Nadine and I don't get to do when we play online, since no one has tried to program any of them yet.
For those who don't know, many of my alternate buildings for Puerto Rico are better than, and in any case a nice change of pace from, the original buildings.
We played one game, and quickly decided that Rachel was going to win by a decent margin. She had corn in the opening, and was already running ahead in shipping points, while still not neglecting a decent money infrastructure. I was going to have more building points, but not enough. And so it was, but closer than I imagined. Rachel won 59 to my 56 to Nadine's 54. Pretty close after all.
Rummikub
The next day we were invited to lunch, and as I arrived about a half hour before lunch was to begin, I had the opportunity to play a game with my hosts' 11 year old boy. I picked Rummikub off the shelf.
Rummikub is a game of luck, skill, and pushing your luck.
A good player will beat a beginning player most of the time. However, the mastery required to be a good Rummikub player is not very deep. Once you've got the basic pattern recognition down, the only thing you can do is wait around for the tiles you need to show up.
Other than this basic mastery of pattern recognition, the only other skill potential in the game is deciding when to play your pieces and when to hold them. Playing your pieces gets them out of your hand, but also gives your opponent the opportunity to get his own pieces out; unless you somehow block the pieces he was going to use.
On the other hand, holding the pieces introduces the risk of getting caught with playable pieces if your opponent suddenly goes out. In this way, it's kind of a push your luck game. Many people don't bother with this aspect of the game. Playing against someone who plays this way can be rather dull, so I also don't bother to do it most of the time.
I picked or played most rounds, not bothering to hold onto anything I could play. When I couldn't see anything to play at a glance, I just passed, without giving the board the extra minute of careful checking to ensure that I wasn't missing anything. Again: better to be am enjoyable opponent, than a boring one, especially against an 11 year old boy.
My opponent also played rather quickly, so the game ended up being both enjoyable and quick. And I won right when we were called to lunch.
Game News
The Big News of the day is that Hasbro is expanding its already vast monopoly by buying Cranium Industries.
Hasbro is also moving forward on the new Trivial Pursuit game show.
The Baltimore Sun on Maryland game groups.
As reported on Techdirt and other places, every major internet site on the planet is being sued over a ridiculous patent which supposedly covers online solitaire. Truly amazing.
Adam points to a nice article on the Geek on simple counting techniques to determine if someone has a bomb in Tichu.
I'm glad that Nadine and Rachel and I got in at least one three-player PR game before Rachel returns to Canada on Monday. The three of us playing PR was our shabbat afternoon tradition for the last few years.
We played with half the buildings from my funky sets, something Nadine and I don't get to do when we play online, since no one has tried to program any of them yet.
For those who don't know, many of my alternate buildings for Puerto Rico are better than, and in any case a nice change of pace from, the original buildings.
We played one game, and quickly decided that Rachel was going to win by a decent margin. She had corn in the opening, and was already running ahead in shipping points, while still not neglecting a decent money infrastructure. I was going to have more building points, but not enough. And so it was, but closer than I imagined. Rachel won 59 to my 56 to Nadine's 54. Pretty close after all.
Rummikub
The next day we were invited to lunch, and as I arrived about a half hour before lunch was to begin, I had the opportunity to play a game with my hosts' 11 year old boy. I picked Rummikub off the shelf.
Rummikub is a game of luck, skill, and pushing your luck.
A good player will beat a beginning player most of the time. However, the mastery required to be a good Rummikub player is not very deep. Once you've got the basic pattern recognition down, the only thing you can do is wait around for the tiles you need to show up.
Other than this basic mastery of pattern recognition, the only other skill potential in the game is deciding when to play your pieces and when to hold them. Playing your pieces gets them out of your hand, but also gives your opponent the opportunity to get his own pieces out; unless you somehow block the pieces he was going to use.
On the other hand, holding the pieces introduces the risk of getting caught with playable pieces if your opponent suddenly goes out. In this way, it's kind of a push your luck game. Many people don't bother with this aspect of the game. Playing against someone who plays this way can be rather dull, so I also don't bother to do it most of the time.
I picked or played most rounds, not bothering to hold onto anything I could play. When I couldn't see anything to play at a glance, I just passed, without giving the board the extra minute of careful checking to ensure that I wasn't missing anything. Again: better to be am enjoyable opponent, than a boring one, especially against an 11 year old boy.
My opponent also played rather quickly, so the game ended up being both enjoyable and quick. And I won right when we were called to lunch.
Game News
The Big News of the day is that Hasbro is expanding its already vast monopoly by buying Cranium Industries.
Hasbro is also moving forward on the new Trivial Pursuit game show.
The Baltimore Sun on Maryland game groups.
As reported on Techdirt and other places, every major internet site on the planet is being sued over a ridiculous patent which supposedly covers online solitaire. Truly amazing.
Adam points to a nice article on the Geek on simple counting techniques to determine if someone has a bomb in Tichu.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Weekend Gaming
On Thursday I still hadn't found anyone else who was going up north to take the two Citadels games. Then I saw a request for games and toys from a location right down the street from me. Midreshet Lindenbaum is hosting numerous families from up north who are displaced from their homes.
So on Friday I dropped by and delivered the two games to them. I also issued a general invitation to come play on Wed evenings, and I left my phone number if they needed someone to come to play with the kids.
Friday evening I ate at the Kummer's, non-gamers. Their kids play the usual fare. They have this boxed poker game, essentially a deck of cards, some chips, and rules for poker in a glorified box.
Some friends of the kids were also over and were going to play when I asked to join them. One of them was really suspicious about me, and had a hard time believing that I knew anything about games. I don't know what he suspected me of, exactly. He began to grill me about games to see if I was telling the truth: What is Pokemon? How do you play Magic? What are the two types of Warhammer?
Then he kept complaining: why are you acting like a thirteen year old? You're a grownup!
I played a few hands of poker with chips and lost gloriously.
Saturday for lunch Tal and I ate at some other friends. After lunch we played Rummikub with the father and kids. Rummikub does not represent much of a challenge for me, but it's a reasonable pastime. I warned them that I was pretty good at the game. Between Tal and me playing together, we won fairly handily.
As the other players tried to rearrange the melds trying to figure out if they could get out more pieces, I kept repeating this mantra: You can't do it unless you have the black eleven. You can't do it unless you have the black eleven. You can't ... And lo and behold, they couldn't figure out what to do with the last black nine and ten, or the last two elevens.
Yehuda
So on Friday I dropped by and delivered the two games to them. I also issued a general invitation to come play on Wed evenings, and I left my phone number if they needed someone to come to play with the kids.
Friday evening I ate at the Kummer's, non-gamers. Their kids play the usual fare. They have this boxed poker game, essentially a deck of cards, some chips, and rules for poker in a glorified box.
Some friends of the kids were also over and were going to play when I asked to join them. One of them was really suspicious about me, and had a hard time believing that I knew anything about games. I don't know what he suspected me of, exactly. He began to grill me about games to see if I was telling the truth: What is Pokemon? How do you play Magic? What are the two types of Warhammer?
Then he kept complaining: why are you acting like a thirteen year old? You're a grownup!
I played a few hands of poker with chips and lost gloriously.
Saturday for lunch Tal and I ate at some other friends. After lunch we played Rummikub with the father and kids. Rummikub does not represent much of a challenge for me, but it's a reasonable pastime. I warned them that I was pretty good at the game. Between Tal and me playing together, we won fairly handily.
As the other players tried to rearrange the melds trying to figure out if they could get out more pieces, I kept repeating this mantra: You can't do it unless you have the black eleven. You can't do it unless you have the black eleven. You can't ... And lo and behold, they couldn't figure out what to do with the last black nine and ten, or the last two elevens.
Yehuda
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Weekend Gaming
Comments
Something screwy is happening with the comments on my posts. At least two comments seem to have disappeared between the time that I went to reply and the time that the reply showed up. I don't mean "Deleted by the user" because that leaves a message to that effect.
Weird.
Google
As I predicted a few weeks ago, Google is starting to fall. We'll see how far this continues to go. Right now they are making one misstep after another: useless video search, untenable Ad-sense terms, Chinese censorship, poor concept for book search. Too much hubris.
Children of Fire
Friday night I went to friends - total non-game players, but into therapy, social discussion, religious left-wing spiritual types, bibliodrama, and so forth. They also had another family over, similar and also friends of ours. The hosts I had gotten to play Settlers of Catan, and they loved it, but I have never been able to convince them to play anything else. They will try some other games, but the only one they love to play is Settlers.
I described for them the RPG system that I wanted to play based on Children of Fire, and as soon they heard the words "role-playing angels" they went ballistic and wanted to play, wanted me to market it (I kept telling them it wasn't my idea, but they didn't listen), and were "all ababble" about it.
Before dinner I ran a few of them through an impromptu session to show them what it was like, making it up off the top of my head. Of course, when you do that, you lose a lot of the great vivid color descriptions that you would want to have prepared in advance.
I explained a little bit about the angel world, angel forms, and so on, and a bit about role-playing. The difficulty was in trying to get them to understand that I was the GM, and they were the players, as they kept trying to make up what happened in the world, instead of just telling me what they did themselves. Kind of amusing.
The story I made up:
They were newly born angels. Mike the archangel greets them and tells them that their purpose as angels is to gain grace, which they do by going on missions that he assigns. He immediately assigns them a mission to go to NYC, find someone named Herbert Smith, who is scheduled to die within 24 hours, and ensure that he regains his faith before dying, as he is right on the edge at this moment. He also warns them not to interfere with human's free will, and not appear in divine form (winged) unless absolutely necessary, as this appearance usually interferes with people's beliefs.
First they wanted to see Gabriel (I told them that this was impossible, as he was too high a rank). Then they tried to pester all of the other angels floating around to find out more info. I told them the clock was ticking and they would have to go already.
Then they said "We go straight to Howard Smith." I said "Where is he?" "In NYC" "Yes, but where?" "We're angels! We know everything!"
So I spent some more time explaining. This whole exercise doesn't really work very well unless your players have at least read some of the source material first.
They asked me some more questions: what can angels do (can't use the Internet)? How much do they know about Howard Smith (just his name)? and so on.
So they went down to NYC as humans and found it to be twilight. First they tried crying, hoping to attract attention, but then they weren't happy with the attention they attracted. So they tried getting a policeman to tell them where the library was, but the policeman, who was very busy, said that it would be closed right now.
They tried to pester him into using his policie ways to find someone for them at HQ, but the policeman firmly told them (ten times) that their best bet was a phone book, and eventually managed to get rid of them.
In a shop they found a phone book with twenty-six Howard Smiths. However, strangely near one of them was a black checkmark. They called this one and heard the message: "Hi! I'm probably out partying right now, so leave your name and number and I'll get back to you. BEEP!"
Then they tried calling all 25 other numbers and heard similar messages, no answer, hang-ups, and so forth. They argued about the checkmark for a while, and decided to go to that one's apartment.
Someone let them into the building, and they found this note on his door: "Howard, you bum! We came and you must have left already. We'll meet you down at the Manhattan club! See you, Paulie and Josie!"
More searching phone books, and down to the Manhattan club. Thump thumpa thumpa. They went inside and saw lots of people dancing around, and then they saw, headed toward them, a man with horns and fiery eyes.
At this point we had to stop for dinner, so I told them them rest: the man is a devil sent to stop them on their mission. They will have to tussle or otherwise occupy him and divide up. After entering the dance floor, they will see a man standing by himself by the side of the room. If they check closely, he is sweating and carrying explosives.
I asked them what they would do next. They said "Knock him down and cut the wire". I said "You just failed your mission". "Oh, because we interfered with free will?"
"Yes, which doesn't mean that you did the wrong thing." Herbert is one of the dancers, of course, and he is about to be killed without deciding once and for all if he has faith. If they convince Herbert before he dies, they fulfill their mission.
As far as stopping the explosives, this is a keen moral question for an angel, of course. On the one hand, your archangel is telling you that this is the will of god and that you are failing your mission. On the other hand, not stopping it would strike most people as immoral. What do you do? If you stop him, can you appeal the decision to a higher angelic court? And so on ...
I think those are interesting role-playing situations, which I would like to explore further. Unfortunately, my game players want to play Elves and Dwarves and bash Ogres. :-)
Rummikub
Lunch we went to somewhere else where I played a game of Rummikub with one of the kids before we started eating. It's a nice, quick game, albeit not a gamer's game.
I'm getting much better at not taking forever in passing. I just look at the board, go about two or three finagles deep, and if I haven't found a solution by then, I pass. Oh, I could probably win a few more games by looking deeper, but it isn't worth if, for me, to spend 80% more time to win 5% more often.
In any case, I accumulated first one, then the other joker, and finally found a way to put out all of my tiles at once using both of them. My opponent then could have gone out the next round.
Shul vote
Sat night my "old" shul, of which I'm still a member, had a long meeting about finally, finally building a shul. They have been renting this location for ten years, and the owners have been trying to get rid of them for about eight of those years. The latest plan is to build on the roof of this building. I wish them success, although I don't know if I should be voting, since I'm kind of involved in a new shul, now, and probably won't be participating, anyway.
Yehuda
Something screwy is happening with the comments on my posts. At least two comments seem to have disappeared between the time that I went to reply and the time that the reply showed up. I don't mean "Deleted by the user" because that leaves a message to that effect.
Weird.
As I predicted a few weeks ago, Google is starting to fall. We'll see how far this continues to go. Right now they are making one misstep after another: useless video search, untenable Ad-sense terms, Chinese censorship, poor concept for book search. Too much hubris.
Children of Fire
Friday night I went to friends - total non-game players, but into therapy, social discussion, religious left-wing spiritual types, bibliodrama, and so forth. They also had another family over, similar and also friends of ours. The hosts I had gotten to play Settlers of Catan, and they loved it, but I have never been able to convince them to play anything else. They will try some other games, but the only one they love to play is Settlers.
I described for them the RPG system that I wanted to play based on Children of Fire, and as soon they heard the words "role-playing angels" they went ballistic and wanted to play, wanted me to market it (I kept telling them it wasn't my idea, but they didn't listen), and were "all ababble" about it.
Before dinner I ran a few of them through an impromptu session to show them what it was like, making it up off the top of my head. Of course, when you do that, you lose a lot of the great vivid color descriptions that you would want to have prepared in advance.
I explained a little bit about the angel world, angel forms, and so on, and a bit about role-playing. The difficulty was in trying to get them to understand that I was the GM, and they were the players, as they kept trying to make up what happened in the world, instead of just telling me what they did themselves. Kind of amusing.
The story I made up:
They were newly born angels. Mike the archangel greets them and tells them that their purpose as angels is to gain grace, which they do by going on missions that he assigns. He immediately assigns them a mission to go to NYC, find someone named Herbert Smith, who is scheduled to die within 24 hours, and ensure that he regains his faith before dying, as he is right on the edge at this moment. He also warns them not to interfere with human's free will, and not appear in divine form (winged) unless absolutely necessary, as this appearance usually interferes with people's beliefs.
First they wanted to see Gabriel (I told them that this was impossible, as he was too high a rank). Then they tried to pester all of the other angels floating around to find out more info. I told them the clock was ticking and they would have to go already.
Then they said "We go straight to Howard Smith." I said "Where is he?" "In NYC" "Yes, but where?" "We're angels! We know everything!"
So I spent some more time explaining. This whole exercise doesn't really work very well unless your players have at least read some of the source material first.
They asked me some more questions: what can angels do (can't use the Internet)? How much do they know about Howard Smith (just his name)? and so on.
So they went down to NYC as humans and found it to be twilight. First they tried crying, hoping to attract attention, but then they weren't happy with the attention they attracted. So they tried getting a policeman to tell them where the library was, but the policeman, who was very busy, said that it would be closed right now.
They tried to pester him into using his policie ways to find someone for them at HQ, but the policeman firmly told them (ten times) that their best bet was a phone book, and eventually managed to get rid of them.
In a shop they found a phone book with twenty-six Howard Smiths. However, strangely near one of them was a black checkmark. They called this one and heard the message: "Hi! I'm probably out partying right now, so leave your name and number and I'll get back to you. BEEP!"
Then they tried calling all 25 other numbers and heard similar messages, no answer, hang-ups, and so forth. They argued about the checkmark for a while, and decided to go to that one's apartment.
Someone let them into the building, and they found this note on his door: "Howard, you bum! We came and you must have left already. We'll meet you down at the Manhattan club! See you, Paulie and Josie!"
More searching phone books, and down to the Manhattan club. Thump thumpa thumpa. They went inside and saw lots of people dancing around, and then they saw, headed toward them, a man with horns and fiery eyes.
At this point we had to stop for dinner, so I told them them rest: the man is a devil sent to stop them on their mission. They will have to tussle or otherwise occupy him and divide up. After entering the dance floor, they will see a man standing by himself by the side of the room. If they check closely, he is sweating and carrying explosives.
I asked them what they would do next. They said "Knock him down and cut the wire". I said "You just failed your mission". "Oh, because we interfered with free will?"
"Yes, which doesn't mean that you did the wrong thing." Herbert is one of the dancers, of course, and he is about to be killed without deciding once and for all if he has faith. If they convince Herbert before he dies, they fulfill their mission.
As far as stopping the explosives, this is a keen moral question for an angel, of course. On the one hand, your archangel is telling you that this is the will of god and that you are failing your mission. On the other hand, not stopping it would strike most people as immoral. What do you do? If you stop him, can you appeal the decision to a higher angelic court? And so on ...
I think those are interesting role-playing situations, which I would like to explore further. Unfortunately, my game players want to play Elves and Dwarves and bash Ogres. :-)
Rummikub
Lunch we went to somewhere else where I played a game of Rummikub with one of the kids before we started eating. It's a nice, quick game, albeit not a gamer's game.
I'm getting much better at not taking forever in passing. I just look at the board, go about two or three finagles deep, and if I haven't found a solution by then, I pass. Oh, I could probably win a few more games by looking deeper, but it isn't worth if, for me, to spend 80% more time to win 5% more often.
In any case, I accumulated first one, then the other joker, and finally found a way to put out all of my tiles at once using both of them. My opponent then could have gone out the next round.
Shul vote
Sat night my "old" shul, of which I'm still a member, had a long meeting about finally, finally building a shul. They have been renting this location for ten years, and the owners have been trying to get rid of them for about eight of those years. The latest plan is to build on the roof of this building. I wish them success, although I don't know if I should be voting, since I'm kind of involved in a new shul, now, and probably won't be participating, anyway.
Yehuda
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