off to a wicked start

11:26 PM

Managed to get some work done after sleeping in past 9, felt like I got a really solid jumpstart on the week that lays ahead, and spent the afternoon doing what I love most these days: playing board games with buds. Two arrived in the early afternoon, one with soda and Eve's Quest, the other with doughnuts, frozen pizza and Cranium. I had the espresso, Typhoo, and some smokes on hand. Really, it doesn't get much better than that.

Eve's Quest was met with a real anticipation by us all - none of us had played it before - and we were working almost solely on the assumptions laid out by the mad press the game has received. After playing a couple of rounds, we realized something was very, very wrong. It wasn't at all what any of us were expecting...in fact, it wasn't even close. I think that one of two things actually happened: either we completely misunderstood the games' advertising in terms of genre and target audience and political scope; or our hopes for a game that was smartly woman-centred - as in not intrinsically linked to the stereotypes and tropes of white North American femininity - were just two damn high. I suspect it was a little of both. An example: landing on a particular block gives you a charades task - to silently act out the object/action/etc. that is listed on the card. The objects? An Indian sari, thong underwear, a diaper bag, a kimono. Um....need I say more?

Fortunately we had our good ole standby warming up in the dugout, complete with grape-scented plastercine and loads of Canadiana. Cranium is one of those games that anyone can play and everyone inevitably ends up excelling in at least one task (but usually more). Plus, it's best played with only three people - that way the "teams" are actually individuals with rotating partners, and the fierceness of heated competition is alleviated - but you still end up with one winner. We call it feminist Cranium, and it can so easily cause a time warp, make your face hurt from laughing, and kill an entire afternoon.

Hold up. "Feminist gaming"?? Could that be the magic ingredient that was so desperately missing from Eve's Quest? A little politics mixed in with the pantyhouse?

Now THAT sounds like a game!