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

[jducoeur]

"never drink wine that comes in a box"

Except that wine-in-a-box is going upscale, just like screw caps. It's difficult to overcome the "tacky" response, so it's happening slowly, but both actually *work* better than the traditional cork-sealed-bottle, so some Real Vineyards are starting to take them seriously...

[cellio]

I've had some very good wine that came with screw-caps and, like you, I find the interface much easier. I don't know how much of it is (lack of) sufficient wrist strength and how much is poor technique, but I have a lot of trouble with corked bottles. And ending up with little bits of cork in the wine is even more tacky than the screw-top, in my opinion.

I've also had decent boxed wine, though I don't have as much experience there. Certainly, though, the days of boxed wine being at about Mad-Dog grade are past.