Monday, January 29, 2007

I hate you spatial relations, I hate you so much

After spending the morning waiting for, and then leisurely enjoying brunch at Open City, I spent the afternoon at Paul's playing games. Towzer, Libby, Paul, Ann, Jess and I tried our hands at Carcassone and Settlers. We've newly acquired Carcasonne, and it attacks my spatial cognition weakness with precision usually only seen in those grainy 1992 Pentagon smart bomb videos. A large portion of the game involves placing tiles in such a way that you continue to build a logical and cohesive board. But that often means being able to rotate the tiles in your head. This being a task that I simply cannot do. Those tests you took in elementary school where they show you a sheet of paper and then describe the folds and the incisions made to the paper and then ask what the sheet will look like unfolded, those were a special kind of torture. Hell, I'd have scrap sheets of paper, fold them, cut them and still not get it right. I can't tell you want any object apart from a circle looks like when rotated 90 degrees. But I still enjoy Carcassone and am getting better.

After Carcasonne and some yummy apple pie courtesy of Libby, we settled down to play some settlers. Libby opted for some New Yorker reading instead, which given the frustration I felt in gettting smoked by Paul (eventually winner) and Jess (2nd place) might have been a better choice for me.

We finished off the evening with some Martinique beer and some Pennsylvannia beer (Yeungling) and a second game of Carcasonne. After a somewhat narrow loss in the first game. (Finished 5th of 5). I managed to get destroyed in the 2nd game. 6th place, and I'm sure if we could have found another sentient being to join us I'd have placed 7th. But abject failure aside, it was a great game and a really enjoyable evening.

Pictures of the participants below.

No comments: