some weekend highlights

[magid]

Rereading "The Lions of al-Rassan" in almost one gulp.

Eating nice food I'd made for myself (rather than just settling for a meal-in-a-pot as I usually do when it's just me), plus finding it was food I was really in the mood to be eating (thanks to queue for the dumplings-in-cooked-fruit suggestion, as well as the dumpling recipe).

Lots of conversations.

The Israeli Independence Day fair on the Common.
It turned out to have a lot more security than previous year s, partly a symptom of the times, partly due to the large Palestinian protest. There were lots of cops around, a check of bags and persons entering, and barriers to ensure people entered through the approved entrances.
The fair itself was ok, but not ama zing: the usual tables run by all sorts of community groups, from shuls of all flavors to schools to jewish environmental groups to Israeli support groups to aliyah groups, the inevitable Chabad tables, etc. There were some vendors there, and some food th at was ok, not amazing (still, it was kosher...). There was a stage that had music most of the time, though there were definite lulls, and a place where people could draw with intensely-colored sidewalk chalk.
A moment of odd contrast when the Palestinian s and/or supporters who were left at the end of the afternoon set up a call for prayer at the same time the musical performers were doing an eastern style piece that involved artistic, er, wailing that sounded similar. The headliner group included some co ol Israeli music that had a set of *bagpipes* playing! I was amazed to hear how good it sounded...


Playing a new game, Xactika, for the first time.
It's produced by the company that makes Set, and was interesting, though definitely not _really_ a 2 player game, no matter what the box says (ooh, a talking box!). There are 4 kinds of objects on each card: spheres, cubes, cones, and something they call "stars" that are some form of mega-polyhedron. The name comes b/c you bid for tricks, and get positive points only if you make your bid exactly. Over or under, you get negative points. (I started to type in my understanding of the rules, then realized that's why they include them with the cards...) It's a fun game, worth playing again..

Comments

[queue.livejournal.com]

The Set web page (http://www.setgame.com) has information on Xactika. One thing they note is that the Xactika cards are really just Set cards. There are 4 attributes (the shapes), and each attribute has one of 3 values (1, 2, or 3 of that shape). So, you could set up a 1-to-1 correspondence between Set cards and Xactika cards. I wonder how mind-bending it would be to play Set with Xactika cards, or Xactika with Set cards.

It's also worth noting that they have a daily puzzle for Xactika, which is not really like game play, but it's a good exercise in any case, I think.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I wonder how mind-bending it would be to play Set with Xactika cards, or Xactika with Set cards.

I would think it would be hard in the extreme, for me, anyway: the Set cards have one of each attribute on them, while the Xatika cards have all the shapes, so I'd have to remember which number of each shape corresponded to what...
p

[queue.livejournal.com]

No, the Set cards all have each attribute on them: shape, color, shading, number. It's just that, for the Xactika cards, all 4 attributes are shapes.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I think I put that poorly: for each Set attribute, one of the choices is on each card. I would have a hard time keeping shape X --> color/shape/number/shading, or vice versa, I think. There's nothing that says "cones = shading" or something, to me.
a

[queue.livejournal.com]

Now that I think about it, I wonder if it might be easier with Xactika cards. Because you are looking at all of the same type of thing, instead of 4 radically different attributes.

So, there would have to be all the same number of cones or all different, all the same number of cubes or all different, etc. Of course, they might not pop out as easily as sets with Set cards. Hmm. It would be worth experimenting with, anyway.

Playing Xactika with Set cards would be a bit easier than the other way around, I think.