Frederick 09/13/2008

Cynthia here; I'm the host of Frederick Games. David Fair asked me to write an entry describing our last session. I've had the week from hell, work-wise, and don't find myself with enough leftover brainpower to do it justice. I understand that it's customary on this blog to include everyone's scores. But there won't be any accounting of points in my post since, well, I don't remember who scored what.

I do remember who attended:

• Leslie Barkley
• Carolyn Lewis
• Jack Ridgeway
• Jim Sparks
• me

...and what we ate and drank, which included:

• The delicious sangria that Jack often brings
• Tortilla chips with salsa, hummus, or nacho cheese
• Pumpkin bread
• Salami
• Veggies and ranch dip
• Chopped-up Amish people (there's a funny story behind this, but if I try to tell it right now it would probably sound offensive rather than humorous)

...and what we played:

• Squint - A game Leslie brought that was new to the group, wherein players must assemble representations of words out of cards with various shapes on them. I found it quite fun and challenging. The group was especially entertained by Carolyn's attempt at representing a "flood", which involved the enthusiastic tossing about of cards with wavy lines on them. I don't remember who won.
• Guillotine - This is a game I have had on loan from Jim for quite a while, which we play regularly. Players act as executioners from the French Revolution, and their task is to behead as many nobles as possible. This is a good game for shy computer geeks with latent aggressive tendencies (I'm not naming any names). I don't remember who won.
• Dominoes - we played several games using Jack's set. I know that I didn't win any of them, but I don't remember who did.
  
• Poker
  

Carolyn left first, to feed a hungry parrot his dinner.

After Jim Sparks abandoned us to our own devices around 9, Leslie, Jack and I spent several more hours trying wacky poker variants such as Elevator, Harem, Have a Heart, Iron Cross, Jack the Shifter, night Baseball, and Want It? Want It? Got It! Jim left when he was exactly even. After having to borrow heavily early on, Leslie made a nice recovery and, I believe, ended up only a little bit down. The majority of the money shifted from me to Jack in only a few rounds of our dangerous home-grown version of Pass the Trash, and Jack ended up winning, with me $1 in the hole.

What we almost always play that we did not play this time: Pegs and Jokers. It's best for four people, and most of the time at this session, there were either five or three. This means that I did not get my fix, and is probably why I have been so cranky the rest of the week.

So, in a nutshell, you should consider coming to Frederick games because:

• You will be able to keep track, should you desire, of who wins what, since I am constitutionally unable to (unless we're talking $ instead of points, apparently).
• You will be able to find out about the chopped-up Amish people; we might even have additional chopped-up Amish people on hand this week.
• You may be able to say that you have met the person who folds more frequently at poker than anyone else you have ever met (Note: this person was not in attendance at this session, but I'm hoping he will make an appearance at our next).
• If we have enough attendees, we can almost certainly play Pegs and Jokers. This will make the whole world a better place to live in.

Hope to see at least one or two of you at our next session, this Saturday, September 20th @ 2 PM.

~Cynthia