Not ready for football? Well, fine. This is about the other big game night. At least around here. After MONTHS and MONTHS of planning (i.e. I finally nailed down a day and stuck with it) a game night. The cast; Me, Cute Teacher, Jay, and His own cute teacher, Susannah.
It started out with making a run to Toys 'R' Us to buy another game to add to the options that would already be present. Can you believe Toys 'R' Us didn't have regular Trivial Pursuit? WTF?! They had every spin off known to mankind. Well, almost every spin off. They didn't have the Pop Culture version that we were looking for. The original plan was Scene It, and we ended up sticking with it. CT and I felt very confident in our ability to kick some trivia ass at this game. Between the two of us, we were feeling pretty confident about our knowledge.
Dinner was nice. It's fun to meet someone new over dinner because you get to see everyone's personalities a lot sooner. Food has that tendency to make us more relaxed. At least it does me. I had been on kick where I was eating at so many different places and trying new places that something simple like Chili's is almost exotic. I had unintentionally avoided it til a recent dinner with CT, where I rediscovered some of the things on the menu I liked.
Moving on...
We get to Jay's house and take the tour (for the new people) and visit the attic that I'm pretty sure once housed an evil twin of a previous owner. I love the house, Jay, but your attic is creeping me out from here.
CT and I both consider ourselves to be competitive. Susannah admitted she was, which leaves Jay as the least competitive, by his own admission.
Game night started off simple with Clue. What I found interesting was everyone had a very different style of keeping track of their clues. I took the first game on a fluke, with a little help from Jay. CT took the second handily. I think the four of us are a very brainy bunch (that the way they became the Brainy Bunch). The level of concentration at playing Clue was entertaining. I think if a pin dropped at one point we all would've jumped when we heard it.
Moving on to Taboo, this was a bit more of a challenge. I had never played the actual rules with buzzers and timers and such. I think it's safe to say CT and I felt more comfortable when I was giving and he was receiving. The challenge came in having so many things to concentrate on. Getting someone to guess a word without using 5 of the most common words associated with it. I found myself talking very slowly as I repeatedly looked over the words. Then having someone from the other team ready to buzz you if you fucked up. Then watching the timer and knowing the score. No pressure. it definitely is good when you can relate the word to something personal that you have experienced and not even need to tabooed words at all. CT had a couple moments where he goes into what he calls "idiot savant mode" and he is just 'on' and guessing everything correctly. Fun game! In the end Jay and Susannah won in a tie breaker. But I maintain that is was slightly unfair because CT and I were unable to get a chance to tie the tie breaker. Sour grapes? No. Just competitive. :-) I'm sure there will be a rematch.
Finally, it was Scene It's turn. I was definitely over-confident going in to this game. CT and I started out with a good lead on the game board but came to a screeching halt when we couldn't answer the final question. What I love/hate about Scene It is, when you are giving a movie scene to watch and answer a question about... there is no way of knowing what you might get asked. It might simply be the title of the movie. Sometimes it's something obscure like "How many times did the cash register ring in the background?" You REALLY have to be paying attention. A photographic memory and some ADD is good. Pay attention to a little bit of EVERYTHING.
Jay & Susannah held their own quite well. Like I said, we were over-confident, but that's fine. It was still fun. There were definitely some questions that no one had any clue on. Which is good! Then it's not a run away for anyone.
Two things I'd say... 1) Get more people involved! Anyone up for it? 2) Various games to add to the collection. Rummikub. Mah Jongg. Life.
Bring it!Labels: cute teacher, friends, game night |
