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Yesterday I went to James_r's to play apples with people (thank you), and then on to Numberland's, where we exchanged media, and watched Tin Man[1]. Susan is cuddly.

Today, I chatted to livredor, and experienced a power cut. Which wasn't all bad, as it was an excuse to go outside and see the neighbours -- everyone popped their heads out to see if anyone else was doing so. I was worried it might be complicated, as it seemed to be local, just downstairs flats in this close, courtyard, and wasn't sure if it was correct to call the property company, the energy company, or call the letting agents and ask them who to call. But it all came on again that night.

It was also an excuse to light some candles. If it had gone on all evening I would have gone round to a friend's for the evening, or at least a pub, but in the early evening it was lovely to have some candlelight. I lit four candles on a saucer, which was just enough to read by, and I had a little candle-lit storytime, just for me. (It's something my family did a few times, reading the Borrowers. It's a nice memory.)

Remember not to look at candles, even when you're illuminating your way, that really doesn't help you see :)

Just now, I've ended up with a really impressive pile of warm wax. [Just now, that was strange! the flames stopped moving for just thirty seconds.] I think part may have superfluously melted; it's quite a pile. In the end, it ended up with quite a crater of molten wax amidst a mountain. Then I wisely or not, burnt a piece of scrap paper, and dropped it onto the dish to finish burning -- it was veyr impressive, it stayed burning for ages.

Drops of wax strange. They feel really, really hot for a moment, but then cool really quickly. But leave a little blob of wax molded to you.

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Default hosue rules

I was recently in a position to wonder what other people's default house rules for a couple of common games were. Most of these don't make a big difference so I'd suggest adopting the host's rules rather than worrying about it, but I was curious what people thought worked best.

Robo-Rally

* Do you use life tokens? I was used to ignoring them (by inclination I much prefer Lucasarts adventures to sierra). But playing a board that isn't overly complicated showed they did have several pros I hadn't thought of: (a) if you die three times, you often don't really want to continue (the other players could let it slide if you're having bad luck and want to play anyway); (b) you can try to win by ramming too (c) it gives an extra reward to being careful.

* Do you award option cards for people 2nd, 3rd etc to a checkpoint? This seems uncontroversial, the affect is non-trivial, yet fairly obvious. It means you get to play with option cards and you can catch up more often.

Indeed, maybe you should get an option card as soon as the first (or third) player reaches a checkpoint even if you're marooned and haven't got to the first yet.

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