- They have deployed their weapons! Quick! Engage evasive maneuvers!
- What?
- You, know… when you want to get away!
- What?
Boom.
It might seem weird, but I’ve done some thinking. This is a blog, and I’m hardly blogging. There are posts actually, but it’s hardly a chronological online diary, but rather a lunatic compilation of random thoughts and bizarre imaginary information. Well, for a change, let’s review a very frequent thing from my life: a card game called Race for the Galaxy.
OK, let’s not get carried away and expect a decent, outlined and planed presentation that you could find elsewhere. This will be more of a brief insight into my brain activities which arise while I’m playing this fantastic and mind-boggling game.
The first thing about the game, is that playing it properly is art. Pure art. Sure there is a lot of complicated interactions, little pictures and bits of text on cards you need to memorize and understand in order to play it according to the rules, but immersing your self in the game, absorbing it’s intoxicating and elusive nature requires far more effort, practice and patience. Often times I find my self literally lightheaded as I play the game. I feel as if even two brains like the one I have wouldn’t suffice.
There are two big parts of this game: an analytical brain of the game that is the card interaction, and an unfathomable soul – the player interaction.
The brain of the game is somewhat hard to grasp. You have to learn the rules, endure the frustration of cards not obeying your imagination and planning, and carve a handful of weird symbols in your brain using a dentists metal toothpick that you shove up your nose and scratch on the lobes. Well OK, let’s say it isn’t so hard after all you go through, having in mind the understanding of the games essence, the player interaction, the „phase selection“. It goes like this: the game consists of rounds, in which every player selects one of the seven phases that then all of the players will play, having the player that has selected that phase receive a small bonus while playing it. Each round of the game, all of the players select the phase that would benefit them the most, avoiding to select a phase that another player would obviously select, for that saves him a round of game in which he could select some other phase than the one that would benefit him the most, having the chance of having two phases played that would both be beneficial to him. Add a third player and watch your brain clutch in agony, for now there are two unpredictable phase selecting factors that are plotting against the others. Add a fourth player and watch your brain explode. Then buy the first expansion of the game, scrape your brain off the walls with a toothbrush, put it in a bag, use nanotechnology to reassemble it, add a fifth player, and watch it explode again. It will be more fun the second time, believe me.
Five player Race for the Galaxy game, is one of the most savage torments you could stick your head into. The first couple of rounds you will be watching closely on your opponents, their cards, face expressions, and phase selection. After that brief but agonizing experience, you will continue on just giving up on holistic approach, minding your own cards, calculating and counting, and isn’t it obvious by now – losing. You will lose so badly for not following your opponents plays, that you could easily assume that your brain was experimentally switched with a squirrels, done by mentally ill aliens, without you noticing, this morning while you were emptying your bowels. Then you will suspect that your opponents are actually the aliens that did this to you, for there is no possible way for a human being to follow his own hand of cards, four other plateaus of placed opponent cards, and four poker faces trying to persuade you passively that they are holding a hand of crap.
Then someone unfamiliar with the game will come along, watch the gameplay and simply say that the game is boring and looks like playing multiplayer solitaire. Well for a distant spectator it sure does look like a bloody solitaire game! And for a distant spectator he sure has a lot of nerve blabbering such nonsense out loud! And for such a rude and annoying person he sure deserves to be stabbed through his throat and tickled to death. But take my advice, teach him the game. And buy him a toothbrush.
Bio jednom jedan šašav lik Šraf, i imao je posao. Ne baš neki fascinantan posao ali solidan u smislu… pa recimo da nije bio uopšte solidan. Poprilično dosadan beše taj njegov posao. Radio je na jednoj velikoj mašini, moćnoj, glasnoj, zastrašujućoj i masnoj, a spektar delatnosti prostirao mu se od ultra-dosadnjičaste do infra-zatupljujuće. Elem, Šraf, dovitljiv i razigran kakav je bio, pronalazio je načine da svoje radno vreme ispuni kvalitetnije. Ponekad pružajući razne vrste zabave, Mašina, koja je obično radila sa 20% svog kapaciteta, bila je potencijalni izvor astrofizičkih fenomena. U toku praznog hoda, dok su određeni moduli čekali na neke druge, Šhraf je zadavao Mašhini krajnje zastrašujuće komande. U prvo vreme je proizvodio malene crne rupe i vežbajući se u gađanju, ubacivao ljuske od bundevinih semenki u njih.
A onda su ga oteli vanzemaljci i spakovali mu mozak u kompjuter svemirskog broda. Čiča Miča, i gotova priča.
Tada ćemo svi džogirati u kukuruznim poljima. Vaspitavaćemo cvrčke ementalerom i rašćemo kao da jedemo margarin. Nećemo imati potrebe da idemo u WC, jel on će biti uvek u nama. Imaćemo nožne prste kao patke, i plivaćemo kao hijene u šlafroku. Lupaćemo čekićem po nebu, i moraćemo da ga lepimo selotejpom kad počne da curi. Živećemo u akvarijumu od drveta i papira, i jedino Sunce koje ćemo imati će biti štedljivo, i umesto sto vati koje izsijava, trošiće samo dvadeset.
U saradnji sa Nenadom Natoševićem :)
Dakle:
OMG = OMB = O Moj Bože
OMFG = OMJB = {Naslov pesme od Strapping young lad}
WTF = ŠKK = [ko je razumeo shvatiće]
ROFL = VSOS = Valjam Se Od Smeha
??? = USOS = Upišah Se Od Smeha
BRB = OSV = Odma’ Se Vraćam
Mor tu kam… probabli :)
Sede tri drugara sa fakulteta u kafiću: biolog, fizičar, i matematičar, i piju votku, rum i šljivovicu u tom redosledu. Preko puta njihovog stola, stoji jedna potpuno obična kuća, sa malo neobičnim dešavanjima. (?)
U jednom trenutku, u kuću uđe dvoje ljudi. U sledećem izađe troje! Fascinirani ovim fenomenom, tri naučnika krenu da ređaju svoje teorije:
Prvi je prokomentarisao biolog: „Ha, kakva fascinantna sposobnost razmnožavanja!“
„Ne kolega“, utrčava fizičar „to mora da je neka greška u našim merenjima!“
Najotkinutiji, matematičar, na to sve odgovori sa svojom teorijom: „Vidite kolege, ovako stoje stvari, ako u kuću sada uđe TAČNO jedna osoba… …kuća će biti prazna!“
