"Follow The Game That Failed..."

It was a great Kingdoms of Kalamar game we Olivehurst Boyz had on May 13th. As in there wasn't one. At least Dean and Glen had the courtesy of letting me know ahead of time that they wouldn't make it. Seth, however, had no excuse. I tried to get a hold of him all day with no luck. I guess he was out of range or his phone was off. Willie showed up and we played a few hands of Magic: The Gathering then we got on Mike's X-Box and played Halo 2 for 4+ hours! We were playing the cooperative campaign and made it to the point where you play arbiters of the Covenant. Mike said by the time we called it a day that we were halfway through the single-player campaign. Wow. We must have kicked ass! After Willie had to leave (something about a boxing match he had to watch), Mike and I broke out Mom's Ronrico white rum and started playing Carcassonne for shots. Mike had never played before, so he got soused. Our rules were thus: Your opponent drinks one shot for every meeple you get back after a successful score. Of course, we soon amended it to: score must be at least 4 points to qualify for a shot. That way Mike had a semi-decent chance of staying sober through one game. Mikey, I think he likes it! The game that is, though the rum probably helped. It came out pretty even. Mike beat me on his first game as far as points (the farmers kicked down at the end) but we were even with shots. I think we had six each. So now I got my Mom and Mike hooked on Carcassonne! Yes!! Glen likes it, too, judging from the last time we played, so progress is being made toward total ludographic supremacy.
We played Settlers of Catan the next day (Mother's Day) and Mike was not impressed (probably because no alcohol was involved). He said he liked Carcassonne better because there was less downtime. My mom agreed. Oh well, can't win 'em all....
We played another game of Carcassonne after Settlers and, this time, we added the Inns & Cathedrals expansion set (along with The River I). It was quite interesting. I used my big meeple to good effect as I blocked off my mom (regrettably) from making any points on her road. I tried to do the same for a field against Mike, but it ended up getting shared as he had two meeples in the same field. Mom lost out on mega points because her unfinished megalopolis had a cathedral in it. I won that game, with Mike a close second. Mom refused to play again... (but we ended up playing another round anyway, go figure).

But, man, I was so looking forward to this D&D game. It was a shame that it didn't materialize. But this is to be expected when the sun starts coming out from its long hiatus behind the clouds. We had a long, wet winter this year and everyone is chomping at the bit to get outside and do something. I can't blame them, why would I? The next game, however, won't be until the middle of June because 1) I have a D&D game on the 20th in Tracy. 2) The week after that, Mike and I will be at KublaCon. 3) June 3rd I promised a friend that I would show up at her wedding. So, there ya go.
Until next time...