LIGHTING THE CANDLE

Everyone give a warm welcome to Boardgame News, the new Rick Thornquist joint. Congrats also go out to their Finnish correspondent, Mikko, whose internet boardgaming empire continues to grow.

Great times ahead!

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ME

...inspried by the comments.

Last names...overrated. At any rate, as Iain pointed out, my last name is indeed Wallace, named for this guy. My middle name was almost "Russel," but was changed at the last moment to "Hoyt." For the best.

Wash U...I attended WUSTL for a few summer courses, when I'd be back home from UT and again in the past few years while I was trying to get into grad school. I also worked in their bookstore for most of the four years between undergrad and grad school. ("I'll just be here for a few months," I said. Oh well...) Taking those German classes was one of the best things I've done--it's a very valuable (and underutilized) skill for Civil War historians. (Good to have you as a reader, Chris!)

Some one-liner summations of my existence:

• No pets.
• Likes to bake.
• Never been to a game convention.
• Likes studying languages.
• Goes to maybe one movie a year.
• Gets the writer's block something fierce sometimes.
• A cheese freak, much like another illustrious namesake.
• Loves watching baseball, football, hockey, auto racing, and most sports...but is only personally competent at archery.
• Wishes he brought more of his @#*!! research books with him on this trip.

Now that you know all that, what do you do? No idea...

ALFRED'S BEST OF THE BLOGOSPHERE

Happy Thanksgiving, all US-Dwellers! (And, I suppose, Happy Belated Thanksgiving to our Canadian readership.) (And other Early, On-Time, and Belated holiday greetings as appropriate.) I'm back in St. Louis, for a quick (non-gaming) trip into town to visit a little and work a lot on papers 'n' such. Which reminds me: This coming week has "living nightmare" written all over it; next week's BotB may wait until Saturday. We shall see...

This week's dedication goes out to Yehuda, for his helpful and interesting As Long as We're Linking post. He mentions, in his short blurb about this blog, that he doesn't know too much about me. I've never had much of an "autobiography" on here. When I started the blog, basically everyone who read this thing knew me personally...then came that fateful day when I linked to Mikko and Iain, and The World discovered this place.

Herewith, a brief discussion about Me.

I'm in my late twenties, and currently working on getting my MA in History at Missouri State University, specializing in Civil War history. (I may discuss my thesis in more detail a little later.) I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and got my undergraduate education at the University of Texas, hence the color choice of this blog. It took a little longer than I expected to graduate, for a host of reasons I choose to not get into here. After graduation, I went through a vast array of Plans--ranging from moving to Lithuania to teach English, to moving to Alaska to work at a radio station, to being a medieval English lit scholar, to a medieval economic history scholar, to a retail bookstore manager...and here I am, now, after umpteen spoiled plans and, doubtless, with a few more yet to come ahead of me. I'm not married, or anything; my "little joke" is that, at some point in my childhood, I was given a choice between having a thousand games or a girlfriend, and I made a very poor and ill-researched decision. "Cooties" my butt.

So, that's basically how I got where I am now: Sitting here, putting up links to boardgame blogs.

In the "real bloggers talking about games" category, Ann Althouse asks: "What's the board game people get most emotional about? In my experience, it's Risk." The comments are where it gets interesting--Who gets as worked up as some of these commenters about Monopoly? (First Lileks, now Althouse--trust me, when Kos or Matt Yglesias talk (or start a conversation) about boardgames in a fashion I find interesting, I'll post it.) A few people give the right answer, which is "Diplomacy."

Over on Gathering of Engineers, we get a look from KC about some of the changes that Havoc! underwent during testing, which I always find interesting. I like looking at the "sausage-making" aspects of the hobby/industry.

More great stuff from Yehuda...d6 or not d6 is great; I'm not sure if you have to like Hamlet to really enjoy it, or if it impedes enjoyment! I like 'em both, for one data point. Check it out, anyway.

Jacob at Gamer's Eye has a button I could use, sometimes.

Kind of a slow week, methinks; check out the blogs on Yehuda's post for ones you haven't discovered yet!

UPDATE: For the two of you interested, more info about me (including my long-hidden (cough) last name!) is available here.

QUICK HITS

Mark Johnson asks what my random landscape variant for Vinci is. You can't buy straight-lines like that, but the answer is going to wait for just a wee bit. It involves cannibalizing other games, I'll tell you that much.

Other things I'm getting to "later":

Hey! The "official" first issue of Knucklebones is out! There are some interestingly subtle ways it's different from the Commemorative Collectible Super-Special Premiere Issue, which I'll get into just as soon as I dig it back up.

What with Thanksgiving coming up for us Amis this Thursday, Best of the Blogosphere will appear sometime Friday rather than Thursday night; hard to tell exactly when. It'll depend on the tryptophan aftereffects more than anything.

I'm involved in some interesting games of Amun-Re over on Spielbyweb. In a couple of them, I'm following my usual strategy and as near as I can tell it's working very nicely. In others, though, I'm trying more experimental approaches. Then there's "our" game, where I'm doing what I usually try to do, but Mikko's doing it better...Neat stuff.

ONE HUNDRED WRAPUP

So, with great fanfare, by the standards of online gaming discussion, The One Hundred has wrapped up, declaring Puerto Rico to be, by Jiminy, the best boardgame ever as of whenever the poll was taken, which was a little while ago. The final list is here. My "score," the sum of the number of games on the list you own and the number you've played is 128--one higher than Chris Brooks, 28 or so less than Brian Bankler. I own 55, have played 73. It'd be higher, of course, if I were a "pure" Eurogamer. The highest-ranked game I wouldn't want to play is, of course, Ticket to Ride at #8. I'm not surprised it's that high, since this is from a year ago or so, but I'm curious where it'd land if the poll were taken again now, or a year or two from now. Will it have staying power? My guess is "no," but I have v. little empirical data to back this up, of course.

Fun project!

What would my ballot have looked like? I can't really remember what games I have only played in the past year, or exactly what I thought of games a year ago, so let's pretend I'm doing it now.

1. Up Front. This would have been largely a tactical vote; it's not necessarily my favorite game (although it's way up there), but I'd put it here to give it some chance of making the list.
2. Go. Similarly. I mean...#51? C'mon.
3. Amun-Re
4. Taj Mahal
5. Roads and Boats
6. Ambush!
7. Ricochet Robot(s)
8. Samurai
9. Adel Verpflichtet*, Chris Brooks be darned (but only darned)
10. Formula Dé
11. Source of the Nile
12. Through the Desert
13. Vinci (especially with my "random landscape" variant)
14. Blue vs. Gray
15. Breakout: Normandy

I know that list doesn't quite square with my BGG ratings, but it's close. My ratings for games seems to change with the moon phases, anyway; if I changed my BGG ratings every time I changed my mind about a game--from a 6 to a 7, from a 9 to an 8--I'd never get anything done.

I'd probably make a different list tomorrow.

*It is not "Hoity Toity." It's not it's not it's not! That new name does not exist.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

As posted over on the 'Geek, Rick Thornquist's new gig (with many others in tow--need a blog aggregator?) is on track for a Nov. 28 launch. Can't wait!

ALFRED'S BEST OF THE BLOGOSPHERE

Another Thursday night, another BotB.

This week's dedication goes out to--a game-related one!--Kris Burm, whose final chapter in the GIPF series, Pünct, has entered the collection. What an interesting project, with interesting games to match! Not all of them are my favorite games, but I love Zertz and Yinsh and they're all so interesting...I hope, some day, to play a "full" game with all the side-games and potentials.

On to the links!

I second ChiyoDad's suggestion that some maverick cabinetmaker create a Shaker-style floor goban. Interesting tables, though, over at Board Game Go.

Mikko has a new favorite color, and reports that at least one of the 14,454,338 new Sudoku games on the market looks interesting. I'm still not exaclty sure what the DVD does; I guess it checks for solvability. I like sudoku, but the games all leave me a little leery...

The One Hundred is winding down, with just two to go as of this writing. Brian Bankler is keeping the pace, and makes an interesting debate resolution on CCGs, and somewhat more broadly about how we view CCGs and Chess differently from "normal" games.

Chris Farrell, inspired by The One Hundred, seeks to encourage others to bring Civilization back from the dead. Civ may have a big fancy mausoleum, but it's still buried underneath. You know...I've never actually played "straight" Civilization, always Advanced Civ with all the trimmings. That's probably an oversight...I'd like to give it a try, now.

Peter at Nimrods wins this week's award for Most Determined Gamer, for the lengths he goes to play games, and his exemplary efforts to bring others into the fold. I suppose, given my own criteria, that I wouldn't consider Settlers to be a particularly great gateway game...but hey, it was the game that brought me into Eurogaming (I didn't know what they were when I was playing Scotland Yard, etc years before), and doubtless brought many of us into Eurogaming. Hard to knock it, I think, despite what strike many of us today as inelegancies.

I've owned a few games that I thought might taste better than they played. Joe Gola, apparently, has had similar thoughts.

The Ticket to Ride PC game is, apparently, less than totally amazing. But you get a Switzerland map! It'd be neat if it had some sort of CAD program for designing one's own maps, the way there are programs for Memoir 44 and Battle Cry maps. I mean, I doubt I'd like TTR any more, but, you know, for those who do.

Speaking of Switzerland maps, I'm kind of interested in seeing how the Age of Steam variant works (link to Billygames). I love how just tweaking a couple of rules can change the whole flavor of the game. I wonder if Eagle will have any expansions for Railroad Tycoon? One of my favorite parts of the computer game was trying the zillion scenarios. I'd love to see China...

Now for the special part of our program: Chess blogs!

If you thought I was lousy at go--and I did everything I could to convince you that I am--I'm a hundred times worse at chess. At some point the situation on the board enters a very strange zone, and it emerges from the darkness as a crushing loss for ol' Alfred. I've never really tried particularly hard to get better, but I still enjoy reading about chess history and chess culture generally. It seems to be full of intrigue and crazy characters, which always make for fun reading.

Anyway, until this week I've never made much of an effort to seek out chess blogs, but naturally this all changed.

The center of the chessblogging world is probably the Boylston Chess Club blog. It's quite interesting in its own right--I enjoyed reading about the tribulations of the US Chess League. The BCC Blog also maintains the fullest list of chess blogs, which I recommend checking out if you're at all interested. The highlights, from my (überpatzer) perspective:

Continuing a growing trend, there was another breakdown in talks to unify the World Championship--or, at least, have the major claimants (Veselin Topolov and Vladimir Kramnik) face off. It's discussed over at Chess Mind, Chess Ninja, Susan Polgar's blog, and, basically, just about everywhere. I haven't followed it all tremendously closely, but basically I've come to the opinion that chess "organizations" surpasseth all understanding.

The 64 Square Jungle reports on trophies in scholastic chess, which seems to be going the way of many other youth activities: Nuts. (I overgeneralize, I contain multitudes.)

One of my favorites is ChessWatch, although it hasn't been updated in a while, apparently...the kind of stuff I'm looking for, anyway, for my chess blog needs.

There's plenty more out there, as I said--I basically glazed over the ones with a lot of variations, since at my level they're basically all in Swedish as far as I'm concerned. For the discerning chess blog audience, however, they're worth looking into--but, as I'm beyond unqualified, I hold my tongue.

See y'all next week!

ANOTHER GAME NIGHT...

...another four fans of Santiago, or, as I like to think of it, The Truth.

Susan and Geoff Marker were kind enough to have me, and the Hummastis, George and Terttu, over last night for some games. A good time was has by all, methinks...

First up was Showmanager, which I had played over at Jay's a while back and had mixed feelings about. It was good to play it again, see how I like it after a little bit of a layoff. I like it somewhat better, doubtless partly because I did somewhat better. George won; I finished either second or third, I think. I asked Susan, at one point, if she had ever played Traumfabrik--she had, didn't like it as much, and sold it (for $$$). It's an interesting question--are there "Showmanager" people, and "Traumfabrik" people? Everyone at the table considered them to be comparable, and it seems like people have a clear preference for one or the other. I, for one, remain a Traumfabrik person but I won't turn down a Showmanager game if everyone else is for that...

Next, I introduced the other four to the glories that lurk within a five-player game of Santiago. Terttu won; she got big points out of two fields. I did well for picking my spots to be Pedro, but got diddly from my farms. (So I know when to pass, but not to bid, apparently...) Fun stuff--always glad to get that one on the table with five.

We finished up the (short) night with For Sale. The highlight of that game was when both "zilch" checks came out in the same round. Always fun times when that happens...a fine "dessert" game.

On the way to the Markers' house, I picked up a copy of Railroad Tycoon. I had brought in Troia to trade, expecting...I dunno...five bucks? Six? I didn't see much hope for it on the open market, so I toted it up to the trade-in table...and got $25! Score! It brought Railroad Tycoon down to a very reasonable price...I have most of the steps in the "evolution" of that series of games, so why not the latest? At some point I need to play Lancashire or New England Railways again, relive the early days...

But really, don't we all buy Eagle Games games just so we can get that first burst of mold-release solvents when we open the box? We don't? Never mind...

DEAR GOD ANOTHER AWARD

So, the good folks at BGG have floated a trial balloon for a BGG award. (Hat tip: Brian.) I'd post this to the 'Geek, but it's mostly been said already and the argument is getting away from me, so I'm taking my ball home for this one.

The concept of Yet Another Game of the Year Award (YAGOTYA) leaves me a bit cold, frankly. I mean, I know why it exists: It drums up business and exposure for the 'Geek, and gosh darn it what games need on them is another sticker, to go next to the Games Magazine sticker and the Mensa sticker and the Parents' Choice sticker and God knows what else.

Besides--as mentioned time and time again--it's not clear why this extra effort is needed to essentially duplicate the already-existing rating scheme.

There are a zillion fixes possible, which range from the cosmetic to the difficult, but I don't really care about the process as much as the end result. We just don't need another game of the year. I don't care if it's selected via a Condorcet, a panel of "BGG Royalty" (and their associated retainers), people who pay ten bucks, or just me.

I like Chad's idea for a waiting period, say a year or two, to determine what has staying power, and electing those to a hall of fame. It'd be a little different, for one thing. I mean, there's a Games Magazine hall of fame, but...I can't name five games on that list off the top of my head that I know to be on there. So there's that.

What amuses me is the notion that this could be the One True Award, if only it were properly determined. Ha! I haven't perfected my Quality-O-Meter yet, which when plugged into a game will return its Quality on a hundred-point scale. In the meantime, any award will either be a popular vote (which, indeed, will probably fairly often return either a dubious "intro" game or a "flavor of the month" we all end up regretting in a couple of years) or an essentially self-selected group of "insiders" or "experts" who select the winners based on the idiosyncracies of the group. For instance, Walt O'Hara's wargame preferences closely align with mine, but I don't think he and I are representative of the grognard population at large, and thus while I like the Games Magazine Games 100 wargame selections, as I mentioned before I imagine a fair bit of Consimworld swallows their own tongues when they see the winner.

Basically, though, my opposition boils down to that this is YAGOTYA, even if the year involved is 2003 instead of 2005.

Although I'd probably participate in some sort of "least hated" voting, if it comes to that...

ALWAYS A GOOD THING

Hey! I'm royalty! (#14.) Good to see that buying too many games and submitting Kuk-Nuk to the database gets me somewhere. But couldn't I have at least been represented by a better game?

CAN TV COVERAGE BE FAR BEHIND?

In case you were wondering, the Puerto Rico championships of the International Boardgaming League will be held in Las Vegas. $5000 prize pool!

Poke around that page a bit. Lord knows I'm 100% positive this thing's going to actually happen. Definitely. No question.

(So, partially I'm just jealous* that a game I'm actually good at isn't getting any prize money.)

*Or, possibly, envious

ALFRED'S BEST OF THE BLOGOSPHERE

We've got an Amun-Re game together! Excellent! Looking forward to this one...

Today, we have a dedication and an anti-dedication. The dedication goes out to Granny Smith apples, kings queens of the fruit kingdom. The anti-dedication goes out to the interlibrary loan department at Samford University, which kindly photocopied an article I needed...while cutting off the leftmost three letters of every line and the top line or two of every page. Thanks, guys!

On to the links. We're going to have some new ones today...

Best line I read about games this week: "Sorry is a vision of hell, frankly. Who designed this game? Sisyphus? It teaches several valuable lessons, such as the pleasure of revenge and the uselessness of initiative." From James Lileks, on playing games with kids.

The big gameblogging event is The One Hundred, which as of this writing is up to #26, Civilization. There are some great comments over there; providing extensive running commentary is Brian at Tao of Gaming, who takes (legitimate, I think) issue with the methodology. Myself, I'm eagerly awaiting for that moment, when all the games are finally up, for someone to express extreme displeasure that Caylus isn't on the list somewhere.

Matthew Gray, to his credit, has uncorked another web-based tool for us geeks: A Blue Moon Database. It's a little rough at the moment, but I'll be keeping an eye on it. He also breaks down the big Essen games. Mesopotamia, Antike, and...oh, heck...Caylus look like the winners for me. I'll try Beowulf--I like studying the "original" enough to do that--but I'm not persuaded as of yet.

Then again, maybe I'll try Caylus first, too. Three hours? For half the game?

DW Tripp begins his exploration of Gamer Types by profiling Skinny Little Dweebs and Large Blimpy Oafs. He claims there's going to be a follow-up, but I'm not sure what it could possibly contain...ba-dum bum! Speaking as a skinny little dweeb, striving to retard the metamorphosis into a blimpy oaf.

(You never hear the word "dweeb" anymore. It was such a major part of my elementary- and middle-school existence; it's wierd to not be around it anymore.)

The Dice Tower is giving away a copy of Memoir '44 and all the trimmings to the best answer to the question: Is Memoir '44 a simulation? Walt provides an interesting answer. I'm trying to come up with an answer that, contrary to my usual style, is "pithy" rather than "flogging the horse until there is nothing left to hit."

Walt's Look at Battleground is also interesting. I often have trouble getting myself involved in fantasy battles, so I'll probably pass on this until they come out with an ACW edition, but it looks like it could work, as a cheap and decent miniesque game. Which I suppose there's a market for...

According to Naturelich, there's a fan produced map for Ticket to Ride that depicts...um, Europe. I guess that makes sense. I also liked the news that there's a GoogleMaps Risk game out there. Lots of possibilities, indeed.

Interesting discussion over at Gathering of Engineers on growing the hobby, National Games Week, etc. Personally, all I've done for NGW is snag a game bundle off their website. If I do anything, it'll be accidental and I won't be hosting. The next...however many years aren't going to see me too active in organizing anything for games, or doing much active gamer-generation. I say, now.

Yehuda's American Adventure continues. Notably, he became the first person, I think, to walk into The Strand bookstore and not buy anything. I'll have to check out Mirrormask, though...

Neat BGG.con pictures from the Rozmiareks, possibly my favorite being the big ol' dice tower.

It occurred to me, as I started putting this together, that I've never sought out many Go blogs. There's not a particular reason for this, other than that the presence of stronger Go players makes me feel weak and ashamed. I'm pretty lousy. At one point I had lifted myself to where I was merely "bad," but I've since regressed from disuse of my Go faculties. Anyway, the point is that there are some good Go blogs out there; here are the more recently-active ones I've found...

Mr Ooijer's Blog is about a Dutch player who spends much of his time (apparently) in Seoul. The posts aren't all about Go--a fine thing--but most have nice pictures.

It seems popular to use a blog to narrate one's progress up the rating scale. Getting good is a lot of work. Such blogs include Go Shodan Challenge, frankiii, and The Axis of Heaven. A quote from Axis of Heaven: "Wow, now I think I know what it feels like to be an Insei. Ten hours a day of playing and instruction, then going home to stay up until 2 am replaying the day's games and playing new ones. Some of the college-level participants stayed up until 4:30, then fell asleep in class the next day."

For a look into the Malaysian Go scene, check out Falling Stones are Not Heavy. Again, a lot of other stuff, which I like.

My favorite, right now, is probably ChiyoDad Learns Go, with lots of reviews, meditations, MinuteManga, and much else. (And pictures. Lots of pictures.) I'm particularly fond of the "Lesson Plan" caroon. I suppose I suspected that there'd be a lot of Hikaru No Go junk memorabilia, but it's more extensive than I suspected (middle section). Is the world ready for HNG figurines? I sure hope so...

So, these are in the rotation. Next week, I'll see what I can dredge up for Chess blogs. I suppose I have this fear that it's nothing but a wasteland of twenty-move-deep variation analyses and conspiracy theories, but I could be wrong.

EBAY ANXIETY

Three days to go, and we're almost up to $200 total. Good times.

Does anyone else get anxious about the games they're selling? Not that they'll immediately miss them--I won't miss any of these, except maybe Peloponnesian War, but that's another subject. It's that I worry that I'll, I dunno, drop a book on them or something before they're out the door, or that I missed something when I looked over the components, or whatever. I'm pretty jealous of my 100% rating, which I'm sure will go down at some point due to some idiocy during the next two months, but still.

It's interesting that 7 Ages--including spiffy plastic deck protectors!--is lagging behind. I wasn't expecting to retire off it, and I know it'll go up a little by the end of the auction, but it's still interesting that this was one of the most-anticipated games before it came out, and it's kind of laid an egg once it did. Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't figure out how the game even worked. Not that it isn't a great game! You should buy a copy off eBay! There's a real bargain out there; it's at about $20 right now with $7 shipping!

One seat remaining for Amun-Re, by the way. Play with the best! "Game On! Woot!", tajmahalfred.

QUICK HITS

The games plucked off the pile "early" were sent out today. With any luck at all I put the right label on each box...let me know if anyone else is interested in these. Nobody wants Troia, huh? Will anyone on eBay want Troia? Will Troia or Kuk-Nuk go for more money? Anyone care to wager on this?

Spielbyweb has Amun-Re! I feel like I was the last to know. I like the interface; it makes keeping track of everything much simpler. I'm in one game thus far; I think I'm doing well but we'll see. I started a game for the readers of this blog (and its creator), who have consummate good taste and are thus exactly the kind of people I want to game with. It's called "Game on! Woot!" and the password is tajmahalfred. It's a five-player game. Amun-Re, like Santiago, is best played with five, I think. That, and its labyrinth of rules, are the only knocks against it, in my opinion.

LIke I said, the Blues are horrible. (Scroll way down on that ranked list of the NHL teams.)

Two of us submitted the same game to the BGG database at almost the same time; they both got accepted. Mine was the second turned in, so I'm going to do the right thing and ask that my submission be removed. For those that don't know, BGG users can now view the submissions queue, which I find to be fascinating reading. Lots of games in there that are already in the database, and then there's looking at all the Monopoly variants. A huge load of obscure -opolies just went through, so the list isn't so long now, but it's a geeky drinking game waiting to happen.

OK, so far I've suggested gambling and drinking. Which is interesting, since I virtually never do either. I've bought one lottery ticket in my life, the day I turned eighteen. I won my dollar back, and declared victory over all forms of gambling for life. When I took my winning ticket to the counter, the cashier asked if I wanted my dollar, or another ticket. I was the first person she ever had who just wanted the dollar back.

This week's over-spiced cookie recipe was for some nutmeg/cinnamon bar cookies. I'm not sure if I like them or not. There's no egg in them, so they're pretty crumbly; a texture I'm not used to. I like the flavor, particularly since I replaced "one teaspoon of ground nutmeg" with "grate nutmeg nuts until I get tired." (OK, it was just half of one. I doubt it was much more than the original teaspoon.) Cookie baking seems to be evolving into a real hobby. I'm still pretty tied to recipes, but I'm learning the trade.

I'd just like to briefly encourage all St. Louis-area readers--especially Euphrat & Tigris fans--to check out the Royal Treasures of Ur exhibition at the Art Museum. My class is actually taking a field trip up there soon, maybe with me in tow (depending on whether they do it on a Friday or Saturday). You don't get many chances to see this stuff...

Remember: "Game on! Woot!", password "tajmahalfred." See (four of) you online.

OH, RIGHT, THAT

They're up to $31.51, by the way.

I'm on eBay as "madtrader," and what I'm selling can (I think) be found here.

All wargames now--either they're games I decided I'd hate once I read (or tried to read) the rules, or duplicates I picked up here and there over the years. (Including Russ's disposition, which was not my intention, but when I had my agent acquire "all the Civil War games" it just kind of happened.) I figure I'll put up 8-12 a week; I toyed with putting on all 50+ at once but (A) that was going to take forever and (B) I don't feel like trying to extract money from that many buyers at once.

Next week: Euros, or at least non-obviously-wargames. Anno 1503, Jambo, Rat Hot, Quest of the Dragonlords and the Crystal of Power expansion, Entdecker, Troia, and Empires of the Ancient World are slated.

The other games on the list thus far:

• Kuk-Nuk
• New World
• Blackbeard
• Up Scope
• France 1944
• Buffalo (Complete your Alex Randolph collection!)
• Iron Dragon
• 1856 (I should own an 18XX game, I said...)
• JUMP Into the Unknown
• History of the World (new version)
• 6 Billion
• A Famous Victory
• Suzerain
• Trojan War (the old Microhistory game)
• La Guerre de L'Empereur
• Chickamauga (GDW)
• South Mountain
• Shiloh (GDW)
• Fire Team
• Battles for the Ardennes
• Flashpoint: Golan
• Toscana
• Settlers: Travel Edition
• Blue vs Gray (spare copy)

...and a huge mass of magazine wargames I haven't begun to sort yet. If you're looking for a ziploc wargame, and I'm listed on the 'Geek as owning it, I could probably be talked into parting with it even if it's not on On The Pile officially. There are a few special ones, but...

If anyone wants to buy any of "next week's slate" or anything from that list out from under me, make me an offer. Items I consider "small" cost $5 to ship, "medium" games cost $7, and "big" games $10 to the US. I'm mostly looking to sell, but I'll trade for something on my "wanted" list on the 'Geek. Especially The Spiro T. Agnew American History Challenge.

UPDATE: Two taken! Thanks, Josh!

And another gone...thank you, Jonathan!

WEALTH POURING IN

The first eight games are on eBay, and as of this writing (all of twelve hours into the bidding) I'm making $8.50. Dinner for a week!

I'm fascinated by the people who bid virtually nothing on games. With three bids under its belt, one game is up to $3.25, and normally goes for $60-80. Who bids three bucks on the first day of bidding? Who bids $2.50? Last day, last three minutes, sure--but this early?

PEA RIDGE

Greetings from Pea Ridge! That's a picture of Elkhorn Tavern, the center of action of the eastern half of the battle, and the building that lent its name to the Confederates for their name for the battle.

It's a beautiful park, I loved visiting. It is, as advertised, pretty well-preserved in its 1862 form--although I wish the deserted hamlet of Leetown, now just a field, could somehow be resurrected. I drove through a lot of small towns on my way to the park--Gateway Arkansas, population 161--but none of them were as tiny as Leetown, and I think people would get a lot out of seeing what a tiny town was like 140 years ago. The other thing is that, if you visit, bring your hiking shoes--you miss a lot if you stick to the "official" driving tour. That's true of most battlefield parks, though.

I created a flickr set of the best pictures, so I'll refer you to that so as to not make this page take longer to load than it already does. The biggest loss of the trip was when my camera didn't take a good picture of the deer I came across on the Telegraph Road just north of the tavern. (That part of the road was really dark, even at noon.) Apparently the prohibition on hunting actually works in the park, since they had no fear of me at all. I didn't get too terribly close, and I figured I'd leave 'em be (except for a few pictures...I thought) and explore the old road further my next time down.

A side benefit of the trip was the park's bookstore, which provided a diary I hadn't seen before that covers the operations I'm writing my thesis on. Score! Especially since it supports my argument. I also picked up a diary of a Union guerilla fighter. Well, mostly he hung out at the fort and tried to pick up women in town, but in theory he fought guerillas. It was published by the Bushwhacker Museum an hour or two north of Springfield, which could repay a visit.

If you find yourself in the "four-state" area, Pea Ridge is definitely worth a visit.

SON OF QUICK HITS

Pea Ridge was fun; pictures (I hope) later, once I figure out what I did with the cable for the digital camera. Gotta be around here somewhere.

If you were waiting on getting into Fantagraphics' Complete Peanuts series until it "really started getting good," the wait is over. The 1957-8 volume just came out, and while it's still not quite the "mature" Peanuts (there are still a few adult voices, for instance), the characters now are all very recognizable and have started to gel. Fans of Charlie Brown vs. his kite will find a lot to love in this one.

Ah, good--found the cord. Just a sec...

ALFRED'S BEST OF THE BLOGOSPHERE

Eat a little dinner, watch a little TV; back in the saddle.

This week's dedication goes out to the fine men and women (I think there are some women) of my apartment complex's maintainance crew. During their routine, scheduled replacement of my furnace filter, they spontaneously fixed the lock on my door (it was starting to stick) and did some other minor fixes as well without being asked, or me being even there. Nicely done.

The big event is still BGG Con, and the gold standard for BGGC reporting remains Yehuda. I'm especially grateful that he found a Half Price Books, the best thing to come out of Dallas since...uh...hang on...Meat Loaf? Help me out here.

(I kid because I love. There's a store called "Half Price Books" just a short walk from my apartment, but it's a pale imitation. I think Kansas City has the closest HPB--or, as I sometimes call it, (p/2)B.)

Someday, I know it, Yehuda will figure out the Dallas public transport system. Somebody tell him there's a strike; it's not true, but it makes the novice carless Metroplex-navigator feel better about the situation. I can't imagine being carless in Dallas/Ft. Worth; it was pretty easy in Austin, though. That post also mentions his gaming at Borders; for the Dallasian viewpoint, check out Lumbersmiths (with pictures!).

Chris Brooks and Sunriver is also there, Havoc in tow, and is posting pictures. He also has a flikr set going.

Am I the only one who's a little freaked out that a new, big-in-our-world gaming con is being attended, but not reported, by Rick Thornquist? Get that site up soon, man.

Diggin' the MacOS pumpkin chez Ladewig. (Also the pawprints, but definitely the Mac.)

Eric at Gathering of Engineers compares wargames and euros, and points out the biggest hang-ups "hardcore" war- and eurogamers have playing The Other Side's games: wargamers think Euros are dry and boring, Eurogamers can't believe the unmounted boards, tiny bits, and high prices. This has all been said before, but rarely all in one place and so succinctly. Most gamers these days at least dabble occasionally in both realms, but tend to identify with one more than the other. I don't, and I think that has a lot to do with my preference for playing wargames solo--it's a totally different gaming experience than euros, for me. 'Course, there are plenty of other "hybrid gamers" out there--Chris Farrell leaps to mind--who are competitive and social gamers in both worlds, so there are many paths here.

(Reminds me. My sense is that there are fewer wargame-bloggers out there--people who focus the great majority of their gaming efforts on wargames. Walt O'Hara has a good one, Joe Steadman's is coming along (although it's mostly personal items--by no means a bad thing), but it seems to me that most wargamers who have the blogging jones work it out in the "blogs" area of Consimworld, which for several reasons I can't bring myself to wade through.)

Speaking of Walt O'Hara, he pulls back the veil a bit on how he picks the wargames for the Games Magazine 100. I'm sure many Hardcore Wargamers swallowed their own tongues when they saw Friedrich get the prize, but that's fine with me. It might not have gotten my vote, but hey. What would I have given it to? I dunno; Downtown, maybe Sword of Rome? Neither of those is really "Games Magazine" material, though. Friedrich's a fine choice, I think, if a debatable one (But Aren't They All).

One of my goals is to sell off more games than Joe Steadman. Although I doubt I'll get rid of as high a percentage.

I've never played the game--and, oddly, have no desire to--but I like the concept behind this annotated web-bibliography of War of the Ring resources put together by Peter at Nimrods. (Peter the Nimrod doesn't sound right, somehow. For a couple of reasons.)

In picking his best game of Essen 2005, does Chris Farrell maintain his contrarian reputation? Yes. Yes he does. (I have no clue what the best games at Essen were, personally. Maybe Chris is right. The only one I know I'm buying is Pünct, to polish off the Gipf collection. The Caylus bandwagon looks a little crowded to me, I dunno.)

(Sidebar: Why the heck did my stereo just turn on? Oh yeah--The thing's possessed by the devil. Once a week or so, it just freezes up--even if it's in the middle of playing a CD. I usually unplug it and plug it back in, but this time I decided to see if it would "thaw" on its own. Just did! After three days...)

There are other cons in the world, of course, among them Helcon, written up by Mikko over at the Gameblog. Splotteriffic, indeed. I wish I could definitively talk myself into, or out of, buying Indonesia, but I can't. Splotter is one of the most intriguing game companies out there, making the Really Serious Euros. (As in big, complicated, etc.)

That's enough for this week, I think. Do be sure to poke around the blogs a bit, if I link to one that's new to you--there's usually good stuff left on the cutting-room floor. See y'all next week!

UPDATE: Almost forgot to thank Ryan Bretsch for his kind words earlier--much appreciated! Can't wait for his first post on the new "Gone Cardboard" or whatever it'll be called...

COUPLE OF NOTES...

...before starting work on BotB. The first part is a fairly self-indulgent rant about my day, which is less interesting than usual (no pervs, in other words), so you may want to skip down a couple of paragraphs (to my traditional, palate-cleansing "Anyway!"). Or blow off this whole post, whichever.

I hate being low rung on the ladder at work--not because I crave power, or think I'd get more money, but because I want to have responsibility for myself. Basically, almost as soon as I showed up at work today I screwed up. I was given a book to find, which was supposed to be in the reference area but was spirited off. It wasn't in the other logical places, so I decided (exceeding the letter of my instructions) to branch out into some of the less likely areas--the study carrels, by the copiers, and whatnot. Nothing. (In all liklihood, someone knew the book was needed for their class, and hid it so their classmates couldn't use it. It happens. It's easy to make a library book almost unfindable--put it in another part of the library shelves!) Anyway, the whole search took, I dunno, fifteen minutes or so. (As it happens, about ten minutes longer than I was expected to take, because of the detours.) I come back, report, nobody says anything and I go about my business, during which time I deal with basically everyone else in the department.

At the very end of my shift, four hours later, I hear back from my supervisor that she just got into trouble because I was away from the desk for too long, leaving too many patrons to deal with for the other (real) librarian (who said nothing to me). Whoever chewed her out had every opportunity to chew me out, but didn't do so because of the insane management practice (common, I hope, in not all circles) that the "true peons" should be disciplined only by their immediate report, who gets yelled at when their "people" mess up. This happened at the store, too; if one of the student workers was goofing off or doing something wrong, every manager in the store would walk right by until they found their immediate supervisor, who would really hear about it. It's obnoxious; I feel like I should be held responsible for what I do, good or bad, by everyone in the department. Bah. Soured my whole day. The ulcers I give myself for minimum-wage...

Anyway! Enough of that.

Thanks to everyone for their insights into eBay shipping; it seems like offering free shipping isn't worth the trouble--especially since that means you just have to pay eBay higher listing fees. I'm intrigued by the evidence (cited and found elsewhere) that overcharging for shipping (say, charging $15 for shipping costs of $8) leads to strange bidding practices--i.e., if the game's "worth" $50, bidding won't get up to $35 for a $15 shipping fee, but it'll get to $42 for an $8 shipping fee. There seems to be a curve for modeling shipping-vs-total bid, where reducing the cost pays off until you get to a certain point. Fascinating stuff...I think I'll stick to my usual pricing scheme. I find it interesting that the market could be rational enough to see through free shipping, but not adjust for inflated shipping.

What I'm wondering now is whether I should call my copy of Kuk-Nuk "rare." It is, after all, quite possibly the only copy in captivity. If you want an old, coffee-stained, three-hour-long Chinese Checkers variant using a hideous vinyl board, you gotta go through me. I think this may have to go into the "Bundle o' Garbage" lot. Or to another thrift store, whichever.

My other "big idea," my reform of my school's registration system, was treated with deafening silence by the registrar's office (to whom I sent a slightly refined version). Can't say I blame 'em. The course that inspired the idea, by the way, as of this writing is precisely half full, including me, so I had nothing to worry about--although one of my fellow grad students did get jacked over, for another small seminar, because of her ID number.

Road trip! I'm spending tomorrow at Pea Ridge, the last Civil War National Park I have not yet visited. It's eighty miles away, now, so I have no excuse (especially given the beautiful weather and low gas prices). I'll try to remember the camera; it's one of the battlefields most in its wartime condition, supposedly, which I think is neat. I've been told of a couple of trails that aren't on the official map that lead to important positions in the battle, too. I've been practicing saying I, sir, am a Civil War historian in the mirror in case I get stopped.

Back in a little while...

PONDERANCE

So, I've gotten the eBay pile up to forty games, without even looking at the ziploc bag games yet. (They store easily, so I'm less concerned with them.) Here's something I wondered: What would happen if I put a game on eBay and offered free shipping to the US? Theoretically, it shouldn't matter: If you're willing to pay $50, total, for a particular game you'd bid $50 with free shipping and $40 with $10 shipping, right? My strong suspicion, though, is that this wouldn't happen, but there'd be some sort of "irrational" bidding. Either people would all think they'd be getting some sort of deal and bid more than they otherwise would (i.e., more than the base price + the theoretical shipping price), unwittingly, or else they'd be stuck in their "subtract shipping" mode and refuse to bid more than the $40 they're used to seeing the game go for.

Has anyone studied (or tried) this? It seems like an interesting subject, but I've never seen it in any auction analyses I've come across. In traditional auction practice, a similar tactic would be for an auction house to advertise that they're not charging a buyer's premium. Would hammer prices go up, down, or stay the same? (I'd guess that they'd probably not go up enough for the house to make up the lost premium with the increased take percentage; I'm speaking theoretically here.)

I have some duplicate games; I have half a mind to put them both up at once (or staggered?), one with the usual $8 shipping and one with free US shipping, and see what happens.