A friend was nearly scammed and robbed on Craigslist

The scammers, robbers, and thieves in the world often prey on the too-trusting elderly; in the case of Internet scammers, the non-techworldly elderly.

If you know a nice, trusting, technophobe who uses the Internet (such as your parents), do them and the world a favor by explaining to them that there are thieves out there, how the thieves hide their tracks, and how to not get robbed. My friend is just - nearly - starting to get it.

Her email, after she advertised a computer for sale on Craig's Listl:

Mike Anderson wrote to me and stated that he wanted to buy the PC for his grandson who was in Nigeria (that alone should have been a red flag for me), and that we would safeguard our deal by him putting $900 into my PayPal account and once they notified me that the money was there, I could safely send the package to Nigeria, to his grandson (he provided a nice long address for me).  Sure enough, I received confirmation from PayPal and I went to the Post Office and mailed the package out and got insurance (I didn't really need insurance, I figured out later).  Anyway, I wanted PayPal to transfer the money to my checking account but they said I would first have to prove that I sent out the package by giving them the tracking number.  I did that.  While I was waiting for my money, I quickly wrote to a young savvy computer guy that my daughter works with to thank him encouraging me to put the PC on Craig's List and to tell him what I sweet deal I got.  He immediate called and said he wanted me to go to the Internet and log in with my codes and see how much money was in there.  I did that immediately and my heart felt like it stopped beating.  $0 and I had just send out my PC to a major thief.  I could not think straight because I could hardly move.  Nevertheless, this young man kept writing to me and telling me to take immediate action, namely go to the post office in [nearest city] ([my town] was already closed) and take immediate action.  I did.  I was supposed to have someone track down the package and return it to me.  The postman said that if it got on the plane early next morning, I would never see it again.  All alarms were on.  I was very ill and despondent.  However close to 9 pm, I received a call that the package was found.  She would hold it.  I would have to fax a release form.  She made sure I got it back the next day, Saturday.  I did.

I'm somewhat confused about Paypal asking to see a tracking number to release funds, but I'm amazed and happy that she got her package back, and is now only out the $85 shipping fee. Many others have suffered much worse.

Session Report, in which I play both Summoner Wars and Dungeon Lords for the first time

The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: Summoner Wars, Homesteaders, Dungeon Lords.

First pay for me for Summoner Wars and for Dungeon Lords. Well, first half a play for Dungeon Lords, anyway.

I forgot to mention that my aunt, uncle, and mom had a great time going through the questions from the trivia game Moot on Shavuot.

Shavuot Gaming

I followed Tal to one of her friend's, whose parents are also friends with my parents, and discovered that the parents are secret Cities & Knights of Catan players. How come I didn't know about this when I was living in Beit Shemesh?

How did they get into the game? The guy was on his way to a theater in the US, and the theater ended up being closed, so he popped next door into an FLGS and asked for a recommendation to bring back to his family. It was Settlers of Catan.

They also had Bananagrams (popular in Israel), which Tal played with her friend, and Zobmondo's Would You Rather?, as well as some other fluff.

I played a three-way C&K game with the couple. I started out strong, but I couldn't gain an ore to save my life, or much in the way of wheat, either. The other two caught up to me, but I stayed 1 point ahead of each of them throughout the game - despite trying NOT to do so, since several cards give a benefit only if you have less VP than another player.

Eventually, one of them succeed in gaining 1 point more than I had, and I got to use my card. The game was close. When I made it to 8 points, I planned out the rest of my game. I plunked down a settlement and then finally had enough to upgrade to my second city. The next round I played Merchant and a road to steal Longest Road.

This was my first time playing C&K 4th edition, and there are a few changes from third edition. For example, the Saboteur, instead of knocking down someone's city, makes them discard half their resource cards. There were a few other small changes like that.

Prototype

I left them to visit Abbagav, who was playing a card game he had designed with his kids. He had also brought it to the Beit Shemesh board game club a week or so ago.

I liked it. It's in the same space as No Thanks and Parade, but a little odder and perhaps a little more frustrating to figure out. I will have to analyze it more to see how it replays. More about it when I can.

Bridge

I also played a number of hands of Bridge with my mom, aunt, and uncle. It's been a long time since my aunt and uncle have played.

Parents, Relatives, and Bridge

Tal and I are off to my parents in Beit Shemesh for Shavuot. My aunt and uncle will also be there.

My aunt and uncle and parents played Bridge before I was born. My father took it somewhat seriously, but he was never a tournament level player - though he got upset with everyone else's mistakes as if he was. The other three were casual, social players.

My parents taught my brothers and me how to play as each of us turned four or five years old. By the time we were ten or so, any of us could outplay any of them. My dad eventually gave up playing because it led to too many fights. We can still rope him in occasionally, for short sessions, if he doesn't partner with my mom. My mom's playing has deteriorated somewhat, though she's still quite intelligent; other than for the made up modern Scrabble words, she's a tough Scrabble opponent.

Both of my brothers excelled beyond me in Bridge. David became tournament level, while Ben became even better and actually won or placed in several tournaments. Partially, I didn't excel as much because I also enjoyed playing other games as much as Bridge, while both of them thought, and think, that Bridge is the only game to play when you've got four people.

It's probably too late to teach my parents and aunt and uncle new games. My mom has tried Settlers of Catan and It's Alive, but both without much enthusiasm. She prefers Sorry, Scrabble, and Progressive Rummy. But I would like to see how they fare with something like Tichu or Mu. Heh. Or RoboRally.

Slap Deck, a game for 2 to 6 Players

Shuffle a standard deck of playing cards. Flip over cards one at a time. Whenever any player wants, he or she may slap the face up pile and take it, placing it face down in front of him or her. A player may only do this three times. Players may not look at any face down pile during play. Whenever a 2 is flipped, remove it along with the face up pile. Continue until all players have slapped three times, or until the fourth 2 is flipped.

Scoring:

Black number cards are = +points equal to their value
Red number cards are = -points equal to their value
Two matching black or red cards may be discarded
Picture cards (J, Q, K): 1 of a kind = -10, 2 = 10, 3 = 30, 4 = 50
Aces: Player(s) with the most aces split 30 points, player(s) with the least each get -10

High score wins. Alternately, with more than two players, high score wins the high pot, low score wins the low pot. Alternately, play multiple hands, accumulating scores until a set value.

Yehuda

My Publisher is Shutting Down

Jack started his company Reiver Games on the basis of my game It's Alive. He sold out a first edition of the game, and then 2/3 of the second edition. He also published two other games. But he wasn't able to make enough money to keep cash flow and to keep it going. On the verge of publishing his fourth game, he decided instead to fold up shop. He blogged, and continues to blog, the whole sordid affair here.

I think he is now in discussion regarding selling the remaining stock and/or the company IP, including name, publishing rights to the games, etc. So I'm not sure yet what's happening with my game rights. If no one buys the rights, they could revert back to me. Otherwise, they would go to the buyer.

A shame. Jack's cool.

In other news, maybe I'll get to publish The Menorah Game, again.

Shabbat Gaming

Why does a stitch in time save nine? Why not eight? Or ten? Or 215? Better yet, why not save the whales? Isn't saving the whales better than saving nine?

All aphorisms can be improved by changing their ending to "save the whales". A rolling stone saves the whales. Look before you save the whales. He who hesitates saves the whales. Sounds a lot better, right? And we'll save more whales.

Anagrams

I played Anagrams one and a half times with my Scrabble-champion friend. The first game started off rather slow for me; he's better at finding strange words I don't know about, especially of the three-letter variety. However, I'm somewhat more creative when it comes to anagramming on a busy board, and I slowly depleted his words as the game went on. I ended with more letters and words, though he had all the high-point letters.

He challenged me to a rematch, and this time we played a four-letter minimum word length. I started as strong as he did, and that, combined with a headache he had from too much Krupnik's Polish honey liqueur, led us to abandon the game midway. It's no fun to win when your opponent isn't into it.

Plus, it isn't whether you win or lose, it's how you save the whales.