BGG.Con 2007

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I spent four days in Irving, Texas playing board games with people from all over the place. It was a fabulous good time. With a game library of over 1000 games, not including those brought by the attendees, there were orders of magnitude more options than time allowed.

My photos are on flickr, and are mostly of games.

My only regret is not playing a game of Dune, and out of print game. They had an unpunched version of it in the library. A $100-$200 value in the current market. The game is going to be re-released in a year or two but without the Dune theme.

The hottest game of the convention was Agricola, which isn’t even available yet. There was one English copy and a few German ones with the cards in sleeves and printed translations accompanying them.

There were raffle drawing giveaway items each day with fabulous lists of prizes. And every attendee received a free game of our choice (in the pile) in addition to the two small games in the swag bag.

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In Defense of Patriotism

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There was a brilliant essay by Ron Rosenbaum in Monday’s Slate.com that I didn’t hear until today on Slate’s daily podcast. It’s titled In Defense of Obama’s Patriotism: a dissent on the pledge. You should read the whole thing, but here’s a snip: I certainly feel allegiance, though less to the inanimate flag than to … Read more

Avant Garden

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I went to a happy hour on Tuesday at Avant Garden.  It’s the old Helios at 411 Westheimer.  It’s had quite a bit of going over and is somewhat of a snazzy place.  If you’re looking for a place to have a drink with a friend, I highly suggest it. Upstairs, outside on the patio, … Read more

I Voted

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I voted. Didn’t even remember until my way home. Lots of NOs on my ballot. Of course, that’s assuming that it gets counted. With no possible way to audit an electronic Harris County ballot, we have no way of knowing that the buttons we clicked had anything to do with the outcome. As I computer … Read more

Tim Russert and UFOs

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What was the deal with Tim Russert asking UFO questions to Dennis Kucinich during a presidential debate?  I certainly was asking myself that.  So was Senator Mike Gravel who is also a presidential candidate but was excluded from that same debate. What’s up with the Democratic Party for allowing a network to exclude one of … Read more