Sunshine & Lemonade

Last night was my night with the boardgame group. I'm starting to get my sealegs with these guys. When we first started meeting I was more than a tad intimidated. The host is the grogniest grognard I've ever met. On a table in his basement is an in-progress setup of a playtest version of one of those supermonster hex-n-chit games where you play out the entirety of WWII on the sqad level or whatever. This same guy is retired from being one of the brains they plug into the system to keep the U of I's computer networks up and running. And then there's my brother-in-law. He's also a grade 'A' computer jockey and counter-pusher. And then when you get the whole group together the lot of them talk about sports using that arcane lingo that is impenetrable to any but the sort of feller who has followed the pro scene their entire lives. Any one of these guys has forgotten more about sports than I'll ever know.

So it's nice to know that once in a while I can squeeze a win out from under the noses of this set. Last night we played El Grande. I must admit that it was entirely my idea to play this game. El Grande is one of those games with a deucedly simple core mechanic but lots of fiddly little bits that a game nut can chew on. Last night was a nice boost to the confidence because I was able to take the lead fairly early into the game and hold on to it, all while most of the rest of the table was rightfully attacking me as the points leader. Sweet!

Not so sweet is the Flat Con situation. I am still going to the con. But I can't go the Friday as planned and will probably get to one session on Saturday morning. Somewhere along the way in planning for this event, my sister contacted our mother about babysitting the grandkids. I love my mom, but anytime stuff like this comes up I end with my schedule unnecessarily complicated. Since more scheduling shenangins could happen between now and then I'm going to preemptively cancel my Excursion into the Bizarre event. And they just got it onto the official schedule. Le sigh.