Playing games

Since choir seems to be over until sometime in September (apart from the odd summer sing every third monday of the month) I've suddenly got time on my hands Monday nights.
What a nice coincidence to go to www.meetup.com and find a group of people meeting up every monday night to play games at a bookstore here in the close vicinity!
Needless to say I was very excited because I LOVE games of all kinds but by choosing to live apart from friends and family (and choosing new friends who really aren't into games) I never get to play anything apart from stupid computer games.
So off I went to the bookstore this evening to see what the Meetup group is all about. I played two games, one very short, the other longer and more demanding.
The first was called Rumis and was really fun. You gotta play a few times to get into it obviously but it was over in something like 10 minutes. That's the kinda game that is cool to play when you're tired and not up for much more.
The next game I played was called "El Grande" and thankfully, 4 out of the 5 players (me included) had never played this before. So it took us about 2 hours to play it and I have to admit that everyone else got the game much faster than me and I did end up feeling like I was holding everyone up. Which isn't nice when you play a game and are supposed to be having fun. But it was a good time nevertheless and once I was done playing, I looked around at all the other games that people were playing and came across what they call Ligretto in Germany. Here in the US they call it something different altogether and it's only a teensy bit different but I recognized it as soon as I heard the squeaks and the laughter and saw everyone wildly reaching to place cards on the table.
The people were really nice, I took an instant dislike to one of them but everyone else seemed really cool and patient and there to have fun. There was one table piled high with games everyone had bought and I was dying to play them all right then and there!!! Needless to say, depending on the game, there's only time to play one or two games in the two, three hour period we've got so there's all those games that are being left unplayed! To think that I spend EIGHT HOURS a day working, and only have two hours a week to play games drives me nuts!!! Oh, I wish I was rich!

Anyway... it was all great fun, I'll need to make sure to play other games next week and with other people so I get to meet others from the group as well. And maybe, just maybe, there could be another day of the week this could be done too, not just Mondays. Because let's face it - NOTHING goes over my choir practice!

Oh and I'm the new owner of a 2003 Toyota Corolla! YEY! I bought the car after realizing that my current piece of crap wasn't going to get me through the next few weeks. Looking back on the fact that I spent $5000 on a Kia Spectra (that I used for about four months until it started doing funny business, like stalling on me while driving 60mph), then got this Dodge Stratus from the dealer as a replacement for the Kia, but no money back or anything even though this Dodge was never worth more than $2000, makes me realize how badly that asshole treated me and how gullible I am when it comes to cars. Of course I had no choice back then, he was a friend of my boss's boss and the only one who was willing to give me a car without asking for a credit check, but still... I should've known better.
In fact, I DID know better - when the time came to move to the US I always said I can deal with ANYTHING on my own... anything. I just can't deal with buying a new car. And I was right. I couldn't deal with it, I got screwed by a lying car dealer and I learned my lesson.
This car will hopefully be better and less bad luck (this car salesman seemed much nicer and more trustworthy... well as trustworthy as a car salesman will get). I paid $9999 for it in the end (they gave me $500 for the Dodge as a trade-in) so I think it's a good deal.
I will take pictures once I get it on Wednesday and post them up here.

Time for bed now... goodnight! :-)