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Nov 23
Mostly stayed home reading and cooking, then went out to the St Kilda games. The cute girls from last week weren't there. :( But I got to teach people Settlers of Catan, and to my surprise ended up winning after a long game. My expansion sucked but I bought lots of dev cards, got largest army and longest road and manages to break out a bit, then build a sheep port, then get lucky rolls, trades, and the sheep port to build cities and win. Sheep were usually abundant -- rolled on 5, 6, 8, or 9! -- but I think my final trade was in fact to buy an extra sheep so I could port it into stone and build my city.
Then played more Bang! the Dice game. Couple with 5 players, couple with 7. I think the AWOL organizer had a houserule last week for 7 players, where you randomize whether there are 2 deputies or 2 renegades; I applied that and people seemed to like it. Also the one where you deal out two characters per player so people can pick an ability.
Chatted about accents and politics before going home.
Nov 24
Went to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Any actual botany was mostly wasted on me, but as experiences I liked some lake with islands (and a gondola), a rather large fern gully, and a rather small and hot tropical greenhouse. There are also various signs about plants and ecology used by the aborigines.
Went to a Meetup to see that penguin colony at dusk. The organizer messed with the times so I walked in earlier, running into a couple from the stargazing Monday, so we hung out. The penguins don't really come in until half an hour after sunset, but if you wait until it's dark and the people go away, you can have a pretty rocking penguin experience. There are streetlights so you can actually see them, also rangers with red flashlights (torches, here). They swim out before sunrise and return after sunset and spend their time deep in the water, so apparently they can't see red light and have no ability to protect their eyes from bright white light. No flash!
Tram out announced stops, tram home on the same line didn't.
Mostly stayed home reading and cooking, then went out to the St Kilda games. The cute girls from last week weren't there. :( But I got to teach people Settlers of Catan, and to my surprise ended up winning after a long game. My expansion sucked but I bought lots of dev cards, got largest army and longest road and manages to break out a bit, then build a sheep port, then get lucky rolls, trades, and the sheep port to build cities and win. Sheep were usually abundant -- rolled on 5, 6, 8, or 9! -- but I think my final trade was in fact to buy an extra sheep so I could port it into stone and build my city.
Then played more Bang! the Dice game. Couple with 5 players, couple with 7. I think the AWOL organizer had a houserule last week for 7 players, where you randomize whether there are 2 deputies or 2 renegades; I applied that and people seemed to like it. Also the one where you deal out two characters per player so people can pick an ability.
Chatted about accents and politics before going home.
Nov 24
Went to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Any actual botany was mostly wasted on me, but as experiences I liked some lake with islands (and a gondola), a rather large fern gully, and a rather small and hot tropical greenhouse. There are also various signs about plants and ecology used by the aborigines.
Went to a Meetup to see that penguin colony at dusk. The organizer messed with the times so I walked in earlier, running into a couple from the stargazing Monday, so we hung out. The penguins don't really come in until half an hour after sunset, but if you wait until it's dark and the people go away, you can have a pretty rocking penguin experience. There are streetlights so you can actually see them, also rangers with red flashlights (torches, here). They swim out before sunrise and return after sunset and spend their time deep in the water, so apparently they can't see red light and have no ability to protect their eyes from bright white light. No flash!
Tram out announced stops, tram home on the same line didn't.