I loved the game show Password as a kid. Being a wordy kind of guy, it makes sense -- finding a way through one-word clues to get someone to guess the secret word is just my bag, baby.

A few years back, I picked up a Password home game, and got a chance to play it at our last game day here at the Consortium, and had a hell of a good time. Which made me go out to YouTube and find all sorts of Password clips -- mostly, alas, from the "Password Plus" color era post-Allen Ludden.

And now Mary informs me that the show is returning -- kinda -- as Million Dollar Password, hosted by Regis Philbin.  Alas, the format is changed quite a bit, it sounds like.

According to a report by an audience member, each team plays four rounds and must guess as many as five words correctly in 30 seconds, receiving one point for each word. Teams alternate giving and receiving clues after each round. Celebrities will then switch with the contestants halfway through the main game. The team with the most points earns the right to play the bonus round for up to $1,000,000. In the bonus round, the player must guess a word correctly from up to three clues provided by his partner. The player must correctly guess five words out of a certain total amount of words within 90 seconds in order to win.

Thus losing the whole back-and-forth clue-giving between sides is gone, which makes it a lot less interesting to my mind. I'll stick with the original, thanks.

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We took advantage of Mary visiting to have a Game Day at the Consortium. It was a bit of a last-minute affair, but we had a good time nonetheless. Jackie, Stan, Randy, Kate, Doyce, Angie, plus the three of us, plus Kitten for part of the time (and part of the time playing with Kaylee).

Started early on with some Apples to Apples (which Katherine did just fine with, and, in fact, won one round). After Kate and Doyce arrived (and showed off Kate's new toy), we had some make-your-own burritos, plus some tamales that Stan had brought. Angie showed up around then, and then, well-fed, we broke up into two groups -- Doyce, Jackie, Angie, Randy and Kate played some 5-person Cataan (Knights & Cities), while Margie, Mary, Stan and I played many rounds of (yay!) Password -- a game I've loved both as a game show and as a box game since childhood. (We tried to start up a Tikal game, but decided that Stan needed to refresh himself on the rules before we struggled with it ... :-) )

That all stretched on for a few hours. Once the Cataan game was over, and Jackie left with KK (a Katherine/Kaylee bath havng further occupied the two before bed time), we played a round of Turbo Cranium, which my team (Margie, Randy, Angie) barely won. 

Good fun all around. Things broke up about then, we did some basic clean-up, and headed for bed.

A very nice day indeed.

UPDATE: Egad. Forgot that we played Taboo before Apples to Apples. Kitten did great on that, too.

Filed under :: Gaming
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1. The Mysterious Case of Ohio's Voting Machines | Threat Level from Wired.com - e-voting "irregularities" may be a lot easier than normal voting, but they tend to be (so far) more obvious than "old school" voter fraud. Speaking of which (and I'm sure you'll find this shocking): Whistleblower: Voting Machine Company Lied to Election Officials About Reliability of Machines | Threat Level from Wired.com.
2. Five Things We've Learned From D&D from 1UP.com - The influence of D&D on Video Games.
3. Obama on ‘Renewing the American Economy’ - New York Times - Inspirational and erudite? Yeesh. I can't imagine either Clinton or McCain talking about economic renewal and regulatory reform by putting it into an historical context.
4. YouTube - Under the Tusken Sun - Star Wars fun in the sun!
5. Anti-Emo Riots Break Out Across Mexico | The Underwire from Wired.com - Anti ... emo ... riots?
6. Earth Hour US - Earth Hour 2008 - Turn off your lights for an hour on Saturday night at 8 p.m. Doesn't say anything about turning off the computer or TV ...
7. Restaurant Names - Amusing restaurant names, that is. Or, rather, an academic paper about amusing restaurant names.
8. Speed Racer trailers and video clips on Yahoo! Movies - Go, Speed Racer, Go!

Filed under :: Elections 2008 :: Food & Drink - Restaurants :: Gaming :: Hi-Tech :: Media - Music :: Politics & Law :: Potpourri
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1. A store for time travelers.
2. Tech travel tips.
3. It's bacon! It's salt! It's Bacon Salt!
4. Things that only happen in movies.
5. Bulbapedia - everything you (or your daughter) want to know about Pokemon.
6. Super-heroes as fine art? No, super-heroes in fine art.
7. A flow chart of the results of being exposed to D&D early in life.
8. Those darned n00b time travelers ...

Filed under :: Food & Drink :: Gaming :: Media - Art :: Media - Cartoons :: Media - Comics :: Media - Movies :: Travel
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Had a very pleasant day, with a passel of folks coming over to chit-chat, eat, and play games. Jackie, Stan, Randy, Bruce and his friend Mark, Lee & De, Doyce & Kate all showed up -- and Katherine, Rachel, and Kaylee got to do the Annual Living Room Easter Egg Hunt.

Rather than a sit-down dinner, Margie served up (along with goodies folks brought) a buffet in the kitchen, so people gorged themselves all day, alolng with beer, wine and soda. 

We played a mass game of Turbo Cranium (which was a very, very close game for all the teams), then split into smaller groups. Randy, Stan and I played Lee at the copy of Cosmic Encounters he brought over -- it's been ages since I played that game. 

Things eventually wound down, and folks left in time for us to get dishes all scrubbed and put away before we headed up to bed.

Kitten's on spring break this week -- doing a program down at the Rec Center. Margie and I are in full work-week mode, wrapping up (believe it or not) the month of March. 

Filed under :: Food & Drink :: Gaming
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Last Saturday we finally revisited my Primetime Adventures game, Ill Met by Gaslight, my "Murder, magic, and conspiracy in a Victorian England where the Fae are like honored -- and powerful -- foreign nobles" "TV series" campaign.

And a campaign it's been, time-wise. I think we beat finishing the three-part pilot episode within a year's time frame (May), but the last time that Margie and Doyce and Kate and I sat down to this was ... um ... last June. Yeesh. Post-wedding, I do expect Kate will be in town a lot more frequently ...

Many kudos to Doyce for actually finding and transcribing his notes from the previous session, without which I don't know what we would have done. Played something else, I suspect, given what I was able to remember prior to his e-mailing them to me.

Anyway, great fun, wrapped up the initial big mystery, and laid the groundwork for the ensuing series. I look forward to the next time.

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... (and, let's face it, how many times have those two gents appeared in the same sentence?) ... 

... the D&D Random Harlot Encounter Table.

Eliot seems to have been rolling pretty steadily in the 80 range. Someone should check his dice.

Filed under :: Gaming :: Politics & Law
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E. Gary Gygax, through his long-time leadership in the development of Dungeons & Dragons, probably gave me as many or more hours of geeky fun goodness than any other man out there (only Gene Roddenberry comes close). 

He passed away a few days ago (Doyce, Les, BD comment). I just want to say thanks -- even where I disagreed with his approach, I owe him, directly or indirectly, through the game genre he founded, for most of my friends. Not to mention my wife.

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Some screen caps of the character designer and game interface for the online version of D&D v4.  I'm not whelmed, but I'm not the target audience, I suspect.

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It was relatively quiet weekend at the Consortium, as we rested up from a very hectic week and tried to find some peace and quiet before our own personal March Madness commences. Most of it was relaxing, playing some LotRO, and sleeping in. 

But we also went on a flurry of errands on Sunday that included a stint at American Furniture Warehouse. While we didn't find what I was really looking for (a small sofa table for the breakfast room that I can use as a workspace rather than the breakfast table), we did pick up a new coffee table for the family room.

This week looks to be moderately hectic. Then a week from today I fly off to the Netherlands for a week of meetings, and fly out to Pasadena a week later for some other big action goodies. And elsewhere in the month we have a karate tournament (while I'm away), green belt testing (after I'm back), and ... just ... a lot of stuff. I added to that a bit by throwing some events onto the gaming schedule, but hopefully those will be more recreational than burdensome. 

Filed under :: Gaming :: Home Improvement :: Job Jollies :: Personal :: Travel
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