Yesterday I took a day off from work. An unscheduled day off and I didn't tell anyone. But a lot of people were gone anyway and I wasn't feeling in the mood to go to work. Intead I went to Shannon's place where Donald, Dave Sweet, Billy and I spent some time and waited for the new barbeque. In the morning I did my laundry and I got to Shannon's a little after 13:00.

Donald was there already. I had brought a bunch of games. After waiting a while Donald was getting hungry so I went out to guy some food and check my PO box. By the time I got back Dave had arrived. We ate and Billy arrived. Then we talked some until the delivery truck arrived.

The guy was friendly, the barbeque quite large. We set it up in the back yard, which is none too big. The technician tested it out, but there were some parts that hadn't been tightened and it took him a half hour to fix everything and make sure the barbeque was working. Then we chained it up and covered it, with Dave taking the propane tank to get it filled.

Then we started a game of Empire Builder. We broke open the new copy that Dave had bought for Pick. This version now includes Mexico. The map is the same size but everything is a bit smaller. Mexico City is a major city and there are new resources that only Mexican cities make, such as textiles, cocoa beans, and silver. You start out with $50 million instead of $40 million and the victory total is now $250 million instead of $200 million, with six of seven major cities connected.

I don't think the game is any longer. There are more long routes to Mexico that pay well, more room for each player to stake out some territory so that cities don't get blocked out as much. I like having some chance of making Los Angeles useful since Mexico is close by, Seattle is still way out of the way barred by mountains. It was a fun game, with Billy getting to the $250 million mark, but Donald was able to finish a run that last turn to get to $252 million. I got $180 million while Dave barely made it past the starting gate.

After that (it was 20:30) we went to eat at Red Tractor, a cafe near the Rockridge BART station. American type food: meat loaf and turkey and ham, sort of like Boston Market with better food. I had the barbeque pork chops with garlic mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese, plus the split pea soup. It was ok but not spectacular. Pork chop was good, mashed potatoes a bit plain, couldn't taste the garlic. Macaroni and cheese was good. Split Pea soup too thick and salty, probably the bottom of a batch.

Later that night we went back to Donald's to play games. While they watched some Wallace and Gromit short (The Wrong Trousers) I read the rules to Deadwood. We played a game and had a lot of fun. It is a small game where you play bit actors filming a western. You try to earn your pay, get screen credits which you can use to upgrade your status, then get bigger roles that pay the big bucks. The object is to make the most money after 4 days, with 40 possible scenes. Probably more fun with more players, but still fun. You try to steal scenes from other people, jump in and grab some money just as the scene closes. I won with some great rolling when I got paid, Donald in close second with Dave a distant third and Billy right behind him.

After that we played Taboo for a couple of hours. Billy and I versus Donald and Dave. Donald and Dave beat us soundly, but again we had a lot of fun. Billy and I rejoicing anytime we got a positive score. So after that long day we headed home. I drove Billy back to Pick's place and said goodbye. We'll have to try go to Billy's again for Thanksgiving.