A few weeks ago I heard about a game and decided to
order a board for it. I ordered from Canada and it took
forever to get here, but it arrived today. The game is
called Crokinole. It is  played on a round board a few
feet in diamater (between three and four?). The outer
area of the circle is a moat. Inside the moat is a
raised flat circular board with lines on making circles
within the circle of the board. Three of them. The third,
innermost, has stubby peggs at intervals along its path.
In the very center of the board is a small circle dug
into the board a centimeter or so.

    The game is played with small wooden pucks. Players
alternate turns flicking the pucks from the outer line of
the board toward the hole in the center. If none of your
opponents pieces are on the board then your goal is simple:
get your piece to land in the center hole. Absent that you
must at least have it come to rest within the innermost
circle, else it is removed from the board.

    If an opponents piece is on the board then you must make
contact with at least one of their pieces with one of
your pieces. You still want your pieces to land in the hole
or in as inner a circle as you can manage.

    Landing a piece in the center hole gets you an immediate
20 points (and the piece is removed from the board so that
others may occupy that space). At the end of a round the
score for the remaining pieces is added up. 15 points for
the innermost circle, then 10 for the next circle, and 5
for the outer circle (0 for the moat or for pieces that
were removed from the board). A big part of the game is
trying to knock your opponents pieces off the board while
still positioning your pieces well. The person with the
higher score subtracts the score of the person with the
lwoer score from their score and the result is the points
they get for the round. Multiple rounds are played until
someone gets to 100 points.

    We played a few full games tonight and had a blast! It
is somewhere between bumper pool, shuffleboard, curling,
and caroms. Really fun. Expensive board, but definitely a
fun game for 2 or 4 players (4 player is played as pairs).


    In other news, I am reading 2001 a Space Odyssey and it
is one of the most boring books I have ever read. I started
it after finishing "The City and the Stars", also by Arthur
C Clarke... which was fantastic. I also loved Rendezvous
With Rama, so 2001 has been a big disappointment so far.

    We also applied for pre-approval on a home loan today.
So we hope to be buying a house sometime in the coming
months. Finally time to move out of the urban sprawl of
coastal southern california and up to the mountains to get
a little space and air and nature. Hopefully a slower life
with some room to grow some things and have our daughter
get to play outside a bit more.