In other random news, this last weekend was party weekend in Telford — probably the last one there as the hosts are moving South later this year. We played a game of Ticket to Ride in which I came last, 98 points below the third-place player (and scores in this game are generally around the 120–150 range). But I came second in the replay, so that wasn't too bad. We also tried the German version which is a bit more complicated. I picked up lots of passenger points but fell down in not picking up enough routes. Although I eventually came in third it was a very close game (and quite a long one — I didn't realise until it was over that it was after 6pm and time to rush off).
With the exception of a walk round the lake and pub lunch, most of the rest of the weekend was multimedia based — DVD games and PlayStation games (in particular Buzz and a couple of EyeToyTM games including the one where you have to shepherd swarms of coloured blobs into the correct trays using your arms and possibly other parts of your body). There was a DVD game that came with four controllers (in the manner of Buzz but much smaller) which was an interesting idea but rather let down by the quiz format — apart from anything else it played an unnecessary 30-second jingle at the start of every round and waiting for the scores was tedious. It could have been so much better, but in the event we were quite glad when it ended.
Oh, there were a couple of card games too. In one, whose name I forget, you are given five random letters of the alphabet (face down) and a topic and have to reveal each letter and name something starting with that letter (which is quite difficult when you are on the spot). The other was Blag, which is more or less the picture version of Absolute Balderdash where you have to write down what you think the picture might be of, and then all guess which of the written captions is the correct one.
So a good time was had by all, and it made up for the slightly irritating start on Friday when I went to Tesco to buy fuel because I had one of those 5p-off vouchers and then forgot to get the voucher out when I got to the checkout. And it expired on Saturday. Oh well, it was only £1.50.