A pleasant day

[vyvyanx]

Today has been nice. Woke around 10, slightly hung over, and coaxed a sleepy G into sex. Both lazed around in bed for a while, reading and drinking tea; then I had a bath and G faffed with his computer for a bit. Went out for lunch as a treat, to Madal Bal - the mystic Buddhist vegetarian cafe nearby. Ate lovely bagels and played Volcano with G's recently-acquired Icehouse pieces. They're so attractive: stackable translucent plastic pyramids in different jewel-like colours. I feel like I'm in Blake's 7 when I play with Icehouse pieces: the games have that retro-futuristic look to them :-) I suppose to complete the image, I should be drinking gin and tonic dyed green with food colouring (as we were doing last night, in fact, while watching B7).

Came home; G fiddled with his computer a bit more, and I rang HM Prison Leicester to see how my OU student there is doing. Wrote a letter to him, explaining what we've covered in the group tutorials so far, and enclosing some handouts and photocopies of stuff to keep him involved with the group. Then G and I played some more Volcano, this time with 7 stashes of pyramids. (I won.) Began drinking wine around this time. Caught up on lj and news; hung up some laundry and washed up. G embarked on his regular Monday-night Counterstrike session, with various others including robinbloke and deliberateblank. I made mushroom omelettes, and we ate them. Opened another bottle of wine.

Looked out the back window at the moon and stars. Very beautiful and clear tonight: gazed at the crescent moon with binoculars. Just above it was a planet - Venus I think. Venus is supposed to be bright at the moment. Also looked for a while at Orion and the Pleiades. So lovely. Will now go and read new Stephen Baxter book for a while; maybe watch some more B7 with G later.

Work tomorrow, alas.

Comments

[angoel.livejournal.com]

Cool. I've never been able to convince people that Volcano was a sensible game, and that they wanted to replay it. (assuming that I remember correctly which Volcano is - it's one which starts with the diagonal stripes, isn't it).

Re:

[cjwatson]

I've played it a couple of times, and quite enjoy it ...

Re:

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

The suggested set-up involves the red stash in a stripe along the diagonal, yes; with the other four colours not quite in stripes on each side. But they're not dogmatic about the layout - they suggest experimenting with different starting patterns, just so long as you keep the black caps on the reds. With 7 stashes, it's a bit more complicated: you leave a gap in one of the four central squares (in a 6x6 notional grid) where you put a single white tower: its pieces count as blanks enabling you to make "single colour" trees more easily; if one player gets all three white pieces, they automatically win the game. These added features made the game even better, I thought.

Re:

[mageboltrat.livejournal.com]

Isn't that the 9 stash version. 7 stashes + 1 Nest for the board and 1 Stash for caps?

Re:

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

I meant 7 full (coloured) stashes; you do of course need a few pyramids from 2 more stashes for additional features. But basically I think of it as a 7-stash game, because your main goal will usually be to get at least one of each of the 7 colours: you don't try to collect caps, and the extra nest is only an issue early on, because of the importance of stopping your opponent getting all three bits of it!

[mageboltrat.livejournal.com]

You also need suishi colour blue. of course.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Not played Volcano, though I'm rather attached to Zendo (http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Kory/Games/Zendo/).

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

I have played that a couple of times - it is quite fun too!

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Indeed, though I hadn't realised that it came as a boxed set now (http://www.wunderland.com/icehouse/Zendo/index.html) (likewise Icetowers). I don't quite see the point of having a deck of Buddha-rule cardes, though; surely the fun is in devising your own?

[velvetfox.livejournal.com]

*hug*

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

*hugs* to you also!

[queerpup.livejournal.com]

What is Volcano?

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Description here: http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Kristin/Games/Volcano.html
It's one of many games devised for playing with Icehouse pieces (http://www.wunderland.com/icehouse/).

Hello, by the way! Did you find me through the OU lj community?

[queerpup.livejournal.com]

Hallo! Yes, sorry for not introducing myself, I'm piss poor at netiquette. Indeed I did find you on the OU community - I was giggling at the names of people in teh community thinking, "Christ, I've finally found my place in the world!", and saw Vyvyan, and thought "ooh, Young Ones mayhap, so nosed at your journal, then got sucked into your entries and was compelled to ask about Volcano. It looks like a good game. Can yoiu get the pieces in the UK, or are they only available via the internet?

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Well, they're still being sold at the games shop where my husband works in Cambridge, but unfortunately it's closing down very soon. I'm not sure where else you could get them, though in London there's probably a few places.

And I am a fan of the Young Ones :-)