Discount on Firenze Luxury Games

The manager of Made in Firenze just noticed my three year old post about the top ten most expensive board games in the world. He was pleased to see one of his products listed.

(Unfortunately for him, if I did an update to the list his games wouldn't make the cut; since I wrote the post I've been made aware of a number of additional games costing over a million dollars.)


If you're so inclined, he is offering a 12% discount to my readers who buy any of his beautiful products using the code 03AA100YEHUD2012 at checkout. This code expires at the end of 2012.


Enjoy,
Yehuda

Things Fall Apart (Mostly MY Things)

In the last two weeks ...

Water

I'm supposed to change the outdoor water filter every three months or so (or so they tell me). I've been renting since last August, so I thought it was about time. I ordered some filters and went outside to find my water main.

Lucky for me, there were six pipes corresponding to the six apartments on my side of the building, and each was numbered clearly on the pipe itself with magic marker 1 through 6. My apartment is apartment number 1, so it seemed clear enough. Only three of the mains had water filters, and mine was one.

What didn't enter my mind was the following fact: the six apartments on my side of the building were not numbered 1 through 6, but apartments 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, and 10.

Foreshadowing: the mark of great literature.

The filter container is a plastic cylinder that screws into an upside down plastic dish permanently connected to the water pipes. Water flows into the cylinder from a pipe that enters a side of the "dish" to the center, flows down the filter which is a hollowed out smaller cylinder, through the filter, and out the other side. It looks like this:

On the top of the dish is a red button. Pressing the red button lets water out from around the button sides. You can't easily unscrew the container until the water pressure goes down. So you have to turn off the water, let it drain out in your apartment or by pressing the red button for a while. Then you can unscrew.

After turning off the water, I went back to my apartment and tried to drain the pipes but the water never slowed down. It occurred to me even then that I may have turned off the water to the wrong apartment. But I thought it was more likely that I had some kind of reservoir water tank on the roof. So I went back down to the main and held down the red button for a while. I unscrewed, replaced the filter, and re-screwed. Unfortunately, when I turned the water back on, the area around the whole screw wasn't tight enough and the water was spraying out in all directions. Try as I could, I couldn't tighten it any further.

So I resigned myself to leaving the water off for a day and calling a plumber. Can't have a continuous water leak. The water pressure in my apartment stayed steady during the evening and the night, nevertheless, and I began to suspect that I had gotten the wrong water main after all.

In the morning, I went outside to find the water tap turned back on and no leak from the filter. I was confused, and decided to check it again later in the evening.

I came home from work to find the entire pipe between the apartment main and the the water filter I had replaced GONE with a note from the water company saying that the water was turned off due to unpaid bills.

Finally finally I went looking for a permanent resident in the apartment building, aka someone who would know which is actually my water main. Yes, it turned out that a) my tap is number 4, not number 1 (even though my apartment is number 1), b) the water company and unpaid bills is entirely coincidental, and c) the apartment that belongs to that pipe doesn't rely on the outside filter since they also have an in-house inside filter. So I could have my filter back. They were confused yesterday as to who had turned their water off. But not at all confused that the water company turned it off and took their pipe the next day.

Sandals

I noticed that the soles in my sandals were cracked all the way across. There's only one cobbler in Raanana, but his store opens after I go to work and closes before I return from work. I just happened to have Thursday off last week, so after weeks of waiting I went to him to see if he could fix them but he said it wasn't worth it, since it would cost as much as new sandals.

I was trying to be Earth-conscientious - repair and reuse, rather than toss out - but he wouldn't touch them. Ah well.

Shaver

When my shaver broke two weeks ago, I approached the repair with the same attitude. I found three places on the Internet selling replacement parts for the shaver. The part that broke was the top frame that holds the circular blade guards in place. A new frame cost half the price of a new shaver, but Earth conscientiousness and all that. So I ordered the part. Still waiting to receive it (two weeks later). In the meantime, I went on a date in Beit Shemesh to which I showed up scraggly.

Car

My car broke down in Beit Shemesh last week following the date. The car kept overheating, so I brought it back, kilometer by kilometer to a garage in Beit Shemesh. Foolish me. It would have been better for me to have called a tow truck and have it towed to Raanana.

I thought it might be a busted fan, but the garage replaced the entire radiator, temperature gauge, some hoses and fluids for 1,850 NIS. I wasn't convinced that all of this was necessary, but there you go.

Today (5 days later), my car breaks down and won't start while I'm halfway to work. I look around the car and under the hood and all the fluid had drained from the radiator within a few seconds - the ground was covered with the green fluidy goop that the mechanic had put in.

Of course, I don't live anywhere near Beit Shemesh, but of course I had the tow company tow it to Beit Shemesh since he was the one who had fixed it. So 3 hours of missed work, a taxi to work, and a 90 minute train to Beit Shemesh after work (and a subsequent hour drive back to Raanana), to discover that - of course - my new car problem had NOTHING to do with what had been fixed before, says the mechanic. This time a hose burst and the fan stopped. But it wasn't a hose that he had fixed. And there was nothing wrong with that hose last time he checked. So I owed him another 600 NIS. That was after he graciously threw in more green fluidy goop for the radiator, for free.

And now

And now my freezer is frosting up all the time and the door won't close all the way unless you shove it. I chipped my stapler and broke three glass cups on three separate occasions in one day.

Updated Elevator Technology

I had an eventful weekend.

- Wed night I went to an engagement party.

- Thursday I had a day off, since my company moved buildings (one over to the left).

- Thursday morning: chores, haircut, pick up three pairs of pants I had patched up. When I paid the bill, I pointed out to the store that they misspelled their service as "Swing Services" in English, instead of "Sewing Services" on their card. The owner was shocked. "I just ordered 40,000 more cards today!"

- Thursday noon I attended the funeral of a lovely 52 year old man who died after a long illness. The funeral was at the cemetery outside of Beit Shemesh. The chevra kadisha performed some odd kabbalistic (and undoubtedly idolatrous) ritual of holding hands and walking around the body some number of times chanting verses and waving their hands to ward off spirits (I'm guessing Lilith). Less and less like Judaism and more and more like idol worship. Please don't let anyone do that over my body when I'm dead.

- I spent the rest of Thursday working on my book at a restaurant in Beit Shemesh. I've started an Excel sheet to track all of the articles and books I've now read as research for the book. Lots and lots about the "magic circle".

- Thursday evening I had a date in Beit Shemesh. I liked her, but I received a termination notice from her on Sat night. Oh well.

- About 10 km out on my way to Jerusalem from Beit Shemesh, my car lost its ability to regulate temperature; i.e. it went from cold to severely overheated in a matter of a km. I had to slowly return (drive, wait, drive, wait, ...) to Beit Shemesh. Fan problem? Radiator? Temperature gauge? Oil?

- After dozens of calls, I finally found a friend to put me up for the night in Beit Shemesh.

- The car had a blocked radiator; I don't know what repairs were actually required, but what I ended up with was a new radiator, temperature gauge, some hoses, fluids, etc costing1,845 NIS. Bleah.

- I missed two engagements I had scheduled for Friday morning in Jerusalem (a game designer who wanted to consult with me about publishing, and another date).

- Shabbat with mom and my shul.

- Shiva visit Sat night

- Sunday morning I arrived at my new building on the left. I'm fairly sure that the technology defining the elevator interface (buttons) has remained relatively unchanged for 100 years or so. This elevator's designer decided that "Up" and "Down" wasn't interesting enough. Instead, the controls are a number pad - no instructions as to what to do with it. Apparently you key in the floor to which you want to go to, whereupon the pad informs you by which of four elevators to wait. There is no indication as what floor the elevator is currently, so no progressive feedback as to how long you will be waiting for it to arrive. The elevators have no floor buttons in them. Once you're inside one, you have no opportunity to change your floor number. The only controls are "keep open", "close", and "emergency".

Update: apparently this is called a "destination control system".

Yehuda

Shabbat Games

I played three games last shabbat:

Anagrams: I was invited to the house of a family that I didn't know (we were put together by a mutual friend). While walking there, it came up that I played games, and that the wife played Scrabble and Anagrams. I mentioned that I tend to not find people who can play at my level, which was interpreted as a challenge. It was, I suppose. A few weeks ago I mentioned the same thing to a different couple whom I entertained at lunch for the first time; we played Anagrams and we all did about equally. I was pleased, since Anagrams is a game you really want to play with people who are about the same skill level as you.

So I played Anagrams with the wife after dinner, and she cleaned my clock. First off, I tend to draw tiles from the bag slowly; if I don't see an immediate match or letter for which I'm waiting, I scan the words trying to think of ways to rearrange them with one or multiple letters. This takes me some time. So I draw a tile and then hesitate for up to 30 seconds before drawing the next tile.

This was terribly frustrating for her. She fired me as tile drawer and started drawing tiles every five seconds. I think this speed tends to favor shorter words comprised of the tiles in the center. But she was still able to store in her brain the specific letters she was waiting for and the words to which to apply them; I wasn't able to do it that fast. I think I ended with three words to her fifteen or so.

Glen More: After playing this at Eitan and Emily, I asked Ken to pick me up a copy which I received this week. It's a nifty game engine. After playing twice, I still don't understand the implications of skipping tiles, but I kind of started to get an idea about it that I can flesh out during my next play. There are only a certain number of tiles, and you don't get to go until everyone else has passed your tile; skipping not only makes that take longer, but it gives other people free turns. I'll get it eventually. And, because of the rest of the tile laying mechanics and random tile order, there will still be a lot of game to play.

I played with Abraham and Sarah after lunch. I thought I had very bad sente during the game, but I only lost 52 to Abraham's 58. Sarah had 51.

Homesteaders: After playing with Abraham and Sarah's baby for a while, we wanted to play another game. This time I thought I was doing well, but I still lost out to Abraham in a close game. I took a third round Gold Mine, but it couldn't compete with Abraham's second round Steel Mill (even though Sarah took the other Gold Mine). Abraham had 68, I had 58, Sarah had 52 (or something like that).

10 recent things about me, movies

"The sale of MP3 Downloads is currently available only to US customers located in the United States." -Amazon.com, on my attempt to "purchase" a free MP3 download.

When I did nothing else, I wrote a lot of good content on this blog. When I devoted my time to Purple Pawn, this blog suffered. Now that I'm devoting my time to writing a book, I can't seem to blog at all. Priorities, priorities.

10 recent things about me:

- I am no longer writing for Purple Pawn, although I may still contribute something now and then. David Miller is now head honcho of the site.

- I had a harder time than I would have anticipated meeting my ex-wife and her boyfriend, here from the US together for the first time. I was snarky to her and I also took it out on someone else at shabbat lunch the next day (this someone adamantly insisted that Obama was a Muslim, so she deserved it, but still). I've apologized to both of them.

- I have backed two projects on Kickstarter, one on 09/05/2010 and one on 08/22/2011. I haven't received any of my backer rewards yet, though I get occasional updates from the project owners.

- You should read The Hunger Games trilogy. Seriously.

- I've been posting session reports on the Raanana game group blog.

- I'm actively looking for dates on Frumster.com and SawYouAtSinai.com. I thought my profile was pretty boring, so I changed it, and I changed my criteria for a match to be: "Able to intelligently discuss Joni Mitchell, George Elliot, and James Kugel." My first date question is generally: "What books have transformed your life?"

- My first cousin visited Israel for the first time in her life. Actually, she left America for the first time in her life. Her trip has had ups (in Israel and Italy so far) and downs (in Ukraine), but she has had her eyes opened and her mind blown a number of times over. Which is good. And she now loves felafel.

- I played Reef Encounter with Abraham and Sara on a shabbat. It may be that I'm just too unfamiliar with the game, but it seems so chaotic and random until two thirds of the way through the game; it's probably even worse with more than three players.

- I'm officially staying in Raanana for at least another year.

- Movies I watched:

  - The Avengers: Basically Iron Man III with support from the other super hero guys. It's great fun and destruction, as I'm sure you've heard. It's still kind of odd that Thor and Loki, supposedly gods, are so piddling compared to humans; last I heard, Thor's hammer would break the heck out of anything it hit. Apparently not.

  - John Carter: Actually pretty fun, too. But the existence of a breathable atmosphere, as well as life on Mars in more than one sentient race, and that one of these races is able to cross-breed with humans, is hard to hold in one's head. Still, I think this one will have a long underground life, not unlike Tron and (to a lesser extent) Dune.

  - Girl with a Pearl Earring: A beautiful movie that I watched right after reading the book. The book lingers on some rich scenes in a way that the movie doesn't, but the movie hits all the right parts. About a poor woman who works for a painter and ends up helping with the paintings to her (and the painter's) surprise (and not in any salacious way).

  - A Dangerous Method: The story of Freud, Jung, and their patient/protege Sabrina who must first acknowledge her penchant for masochism and then her attraction (eventually returned) for Jung. It was interesting here and there, but the proper and dull reserve of the two male leads made for a boring movie that I abandoned about two thirds of the way through.
  - My Dinner with Andre: Always thought I would be interested in seeing this. It's not really a great movie, but it's nice enough if you like listening to a decent storyteller for two hours. The other guy - Wally - gets to say "Really?" and "So what happened next?" a lot, except for a little bit in the middle. Other than its audacity for a setting, I can't see why it's so famous; other heavy talking movies, like Before Sunrise and After the Rehearsal, are better.

  - 12 Angry Men: Still an absolute classic and a powerful movie. I think its only misstep is in showing us the accused at the beginning; it works better when you don't know his race or looks, except from the descriptions in the dialog.

(Bassie, you should stop reading here.)

  - The Reader: Half a torrid sexual affair between a 15/16 year old boy and a 30 year old woman (who thinks he's 18), and half a trial of several Nazi guards.
    You get to see as much as you want of both Kate Winslet and newcomer David Kross, from every angle. (They waited to shoot the heavy stuff until his 18th birthday; Kate supposedly had to help talk David through the scenes and put his mind at ease. I find that difficult to believe; I would think that shooting explicit sex and nude scenes with Kate Winslet would be an 18th birthday present dream for most boys.) It was way more explicit than it had to be. A little flesh and some tasteful shots of them lying in bed together would have conveyed what was required.

    More powerful and striking was the trial and the seeming lack of comprehension on the part of the guards as to what they did wrong and then how they try to find someone else on which to pin the blame. And then the odd friendship that follows the sentencing. It was interesting.

  - Hysteria: The story of the invention of the vibrator, as well as the genesis of the idea that women could, in fact, have orgasms - and not simply hysterical paroxysm as a temporary cure for the fictitious female hysteria. It's a comedy, which was unnecessary, since the actual history is comedic enough. Maggie Gyllenhaal provides anachronistic spunk as a woman who already knows that women have orgasms and that the doctors are too stupid to recognize it (and has no inhibitions in discussing it with these doctors).

    It's light predictable fluff. It's funnier if you think watching women (with only their faces exposed) have sitcom-style orgasms next to a working bored and tired doctor is funny, which I didn't really.

Shabbat Gaming

A new guy Ken and his son Oren came over after lunch to play with me, Abraham, Sara, and Nadine. They were cool. Ken and co live in Raanana and have a large Eurogame collection and have played for a while, but this was his first attempt to contact other gamers in the area. Weird. There are little pockets of gamers everywhere it seems.

Abraham taught them Container, which they liked. Meanwhile, Nadine, Sara, and I played Troyes. Nadine scored heavy scoring yellow and white cards and a strong cathedral presence which I realized was victory already by round 3. I came closer than I expected: 44 to 38 or so. I had strong red and utility cards and so was short in money. I fought a few events - which no one else did, so we had piles of events by the end of the game.

After Ken and Oren left, Sara and I teamed up against Nadine and Abraham for Tichu. They took the lead and won every hand until the last one. There were a few multi-Tichu calls: by me and Abraham and by me and Nadine. In the last round I won my Tichu against their Tichu loss; they were still winning but we had to end.

Ignorance Sucks

Not knowing things irritates me. I may be in the minority on this.

Exhibit A: Snaps

Last sukkot I was introduced to the bar puzzle/game Snaps, one of those hilarious "in-the-know" games enjoyed by the people who know the rules and supposedly challenging and frustrating for those who don't. The game is allegedly about trying to guess a word given clues by one player, but it's actually about figuring out how the clue system works. Something to do with snapping fingers.

To some people, this is entertaining; if you're one of those people, don't clink on the above link. I was simply irritated. You would think that a game-player like me would be interested in trying to figure the game out, and I was for about four minutes. After that I got bored and wanted the answer.

The person leading the game was not tuned into this; he thought it was unsporting to give away the answer, so he just kept playing new words. After unsuccessfull trying to persuade him that I was no longer interested in guessing, I used my smart phone and looked up the answer. This might be construed as cheating, except that I never agreed to participate in the game in the first place.

Exhibit B: Books (and films, and other media)

I enjoy books, movies, etc a lot more when they've been "spoiled" for me. To me, the enjoyment from art isn't the anticipation and suspense of not knowing what is going to happen. It's from the artful way it is done. I've downloaded movies just to watch them at home before going to the cinema to see them. I read plot summaries online before reading a book, watching a movie, or even a television episode. If it's good art, I like to watch or read it more than once.

The term itself - "spoil" - implies that I'm out of touch with the common folk on this one. It's not spoiling to me; it's getting the plot out of the way so I can concentrate on the enjoyment of the media.

Exhibit C: Dice

For some, the anticipation of the unknown and uncontrollable is a thrill, for me it's a pain. I feel that the game is over right before the die is tossed: in the planning and the strategy that brought us to that point that matters. Once it's tossed, it doesn't even feel like playing to me anymore; it's like punishment. The win isn't exciting; the loss is irritating. It's a no win scenario for me.

Oddly, I don't mind at all when an opponent does something unexpected. In fact I love it; that's playing. I love talking to people who say unexpected things. In fact, I love the unexpected all over the place: random encounters in the real world, serendipitous discoveries in stores or on the radio.

In other words, I'm happy to continuously discover the interesting and good. Withholding knowledge just for the sake of withholding it is not my idea of fun.