election-night party (light stuff)

[cellio]

Dani brought a game called "Ideology" to the election-night party. It's for five players, playing Communisiom, Capitalism, Fascism, Imperialism, and Islamic Fundamentalism. There are three factors -- culture, economics, and military -- and you use these to try to gain influence in the world. (Each ideology has different strengths and weaknesses, and they mostly make sense.) It looks like a fun game, though we'll need to try it with an all-adult group to really evaluate. There was one child playing with us and that both slowed things down and (occasionally) added frustration.

Other games present were Nuclear War (a classic for these parties), Chrononauts (looked like the new edition), and a politically-customized Fluxx deck. There were probably others.

A lot of people there had not yet seen Marry an American. It went over well.

Most appropriate food at the party: a confection depicting a US flag with a bush trampling across it, shedding. The artist explained that the bush was leaving a mess for others to clean up. There were also the obligatory pork rinds, baked beans (both Heinz and Bush's), meringues (cookies made from hot air), nuts, and random snack food. Oh, and Johan managed to find blue wine [1] to accompany the red and white wines. The beer selection included Blithering Idiot and Arrogant Bastard.

[1] The label actually said "apple flavored wine product" and did not include an ingredients list, though it did include a government warning about alcohol. "Wine product"? Maybe I don't want to know.

Comments

[cellio]

This stuff actually came in a bottle rather than a box. They needed clear colorless glass to show off that unnatural blue. Someone described it as like drinking one of those blue freezer-pops.

[siderea]

I suppose I should mention that one of the other heuristics is "Don't drink anything blue". (I got that from a "How to survive Pennsic" class. :)

[cellio]

That's just a specialization of classic Erma Bombeck: "Never eat anything blue. Blue food signifies death." (I've never heard her response to the blue-cheese challenge.)

There are lots of things one shouldn't drink at Pennsic -- like anything for which you don't have either an accurate ingredients list or an absolutely trustworthy certifier. Though "things in Gatorade colors" might be a useful heuristic. :-)