| Blog Entry - Tuesday, May 4th, 2004 | Add / Read (2) |
So, over the weekend while I was up in Portland (a much-needed visit with my favorite person: my mom), we took a few hours and drove up to Seattle. First, let me say that it was one of the most beautiful drives I've ever been on -- the weather was perfect and warm and sunny; the grass was that new spring-shade of green that it only is for a few weeks each year; the trees were fully leafed; there were mounds of yellow wild flowers and bushes (I thought they were forsythia, but my mom says they're something else) that made a bright yellow band between the green of the grass and the green of the trees. Exquisite.
The purpose of the drive was to visit my friend Chris, who recently moved to Seattle with his SO, Jason. Chris and I have been friends since we met my first year in college, and at some point, he'll make bonebox.net live again. But not yet.
Chris introduced me to a new word that he's trying to get into the common parlance while I was up there visiting, so I thought I'd help out by sharing it with all you folks.
Deroganym: A derogatory play on the name of a company, for example "Microsucks" or "IBM stands for I've Been Moved..."
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We also spent some time playing a game that Chris is testing out before sending to his godchild. The game, which I think is called Landlocked (although I haven't been able to find it on a few game sites) is a logic/math/strategy game that's actually quite addictive and fun. You have cards that have pieces of a river and cards that have pieces of a land path. Your goal is to try to connect either water or land (depending on which one you are) so that it creates a path through the 6x6 grid you're creating by placing these cards. You are also trying to prevent your opponent from doing the same thing. As you draw cards, you might be able to turn his path into an island by surrounding it with water, or make his river a pond by cutting it off with land. There are also some bridges, gnomes, and other creatures that you place in the grid to earn points, prevent points, or link segments. While we were playing, I was convinced that there was some kind of benefit to playing water, but when you count up all the cards, there isn't a mathematical benefit -- it seems completely equal. It maybe more like tic-tac-toe, however, in that there's a benefit to going first, and it just happened that in all three games the winner both went first and chose to play water. Fun game and I recommend it to any of you with children who might think they're not so great at math -- play this with them. And then, long after they've already decided they like the game, you can begin to explain how logic and math are related and that they've just been improving/using those skills. ;-)
Update: Ah -- Chris tells me the full name is actually "The Legend of Landlock" and it can be found at the mensaboutique's list of games.
Author: Libby
Posted at: 01:23:19 PM
