Wednesday, June 29, 2016

June hodgepodge

The last month or so has been filled with a lot of tabletop and board gaming. Most of the time, it involved playing games at someone's place but I also did get to visit DyceNDyne once. I got to play many games for the first time. Quadropolis, a city-building game, was quite interesting and I am happy that I ended up in second place while playing with a group of people who had played it before. Dixit is a bit of a strange game which involves being on the same wavelength as other people in the group. Sheriff of Nottingham is like a bluffing game but also depends quite heavily on the cards you end up getting so I didn't quite enjoy it. Princess Bride is a card game that I didn't quite enjoy because it depends quite heavily on the cards you have and it's quite easy to get majorly screwed by someone else but it makes for interesting interactions I guess. :) Bruges is another game that requires you to amass the most points by building houses and canals and having the most powerful and influential people and in the two times that I played this game, I ended up a close second and a big winner. Cool!

Of course, I also got to play games that I have played in the past like Viticulture, Rococo, Orleans, 7 Wonders Leaders, and Istanbul. What I have noticed is that no matter which group of people I play with, I have a good record of placing second or even first place, at least in the games that require you to rack up and win the most points. In fact, I'm on a bit of a winning streak as I have won the last 2 games I played (Istanbul and Bruges). I also won 4 of the last 6 games I played (I also won 7 Wonders Leaders and Orleans) and ended up in second place in one (Quadropolis). Princess Bride was the only game I lost (so maybe that's why I don't like it so much haha).

Apart from enjoying playing these games, it's great that I got to do with many different sets of friends. I played with my (ex)co-leads of our CSR organization at work, my travel buddies, and my gaming friends. In fact, I now have even more gaming friends because I got introduced to a new set of them last weekend. That means there will be a whole lot more tabletop and board game playing in the near future.

Of course, it wasn't all about games. :) It also involved dinners and drinking. I met up with Joh and Raffa for dinner in Brera Delicatessen in Savemore Acacia Estates and after dinner, Mike joined us for coffee and dessert at Brewhilde. As if that wasn't enough, we decided to organize dinner again, this time in XO 46 Heritage Bistro at SM Aura, this time with Alvin as well. I also got to hang out with my friends Jim, Rose and Lawrence for drinks at Skinny Mike's. It was the first time I got to hang out with them since we went to Baler so it was great to catch up (and plan the next trip).

I also realized recently that I just used my 500th voucher. (Actually, I am now up to 501.) The unfortunate bit is that I missed using one voucher. I thought I had used up all of what I had but I realized there was one voucher print-out that was stuck in the middle of a lot of other documents. Too bad. Of the 531 vouchers that I have purchased over the years, I missed using only 30 of them. That's not a bad percentage. In any case, I have no purchased a dozen more vouchers that are valid until the end of the year so hopefully my percent usage goes up over the next few months.

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