Things of No Interest

• Well, what's new and not interesting? I think I'll have more nickles in 2010 than ever before - mostly thanks to the PBEM Olympics. By playing a load of four game series, I'm right there at the cusp of the nickle. In many cases, I've had to play one game just to get the rules down or re-figure the game out. I've also been a lot more inclined to play a lot of my older games than I have in the past. I don't know why - probably a combination of things. I've hit the saturation point on my collection. A lot of games I see or look into are just derivative of a game I have and the crop of recent games aren't over the top interesting (the exception being Chaos in the New World which is great). I'm also enjoying getting into the potential I saw in a lot of games by getting multiple plays. The flip side of that is that there are games that didn't deserve four (let alone five) playings. Puerto Rico, I'm speaking to you.
• Speaking of the PBEM Olympics, things are as Chester Ogborn suggested they might be - the metagame is almost as interesting as the games themselves. Thus far in our games, there is usually one guy who jumps out to a lead in the heats leaving the rest to fight for second and third. It also makes for "playing just to screw someone" moments. Sometimes you do something that screws the guy in third place instead of the leader, because you need to make sure the guy in third stays there. Sometimes you screw that guy because he screwed you in another game. Regardless, it is fun and adds a bit of unpredictability to some otherwise predictable games.
• I really like Heroscape. I LOVE the comic hero version. It is too bad that Hasbro / WoC decided (or were forced to) take the comics off the table. It is pretty cool that the Heroscape community has so many customs that can use cheap Heroclix minis because they really are a blast to play.
• I have WAY too many cards for A Game of Thrones LCG. Especially since I've only played it once. I finally broke down and bought a 3200 card deck box and dividers. Now, I don't have 3200 cards, but I'll load it up with all the CCG/LCG stuff I have (and maybe even Thunderstone).
  
• When is a deal too good to pass up? When it is Roads and Boats + &Cetra for $115 (plus $12 shipping). I don't know if I really want/need this, but $200 worth of games for $127? Worse case scenario, I'll math trade them.
• I swapped out all the little tiny wood bits from Through the Ages for glass stones. It is a small little parts upgrade, but the glass stones really look nice.