Five & Dime 2011: Wide Angle Lens (Twelve Year Pix)

These graphs cover 2011 (top bar) through 2000 (bottom bar). The bar is the percentage of players reporting who played the game 5+ times in the given year. The games here first appeared on the Five & Dime lists in 2000.
 

Battle Cry (AH)

Carcassonne (includes expansions but not stand-alone "cousins")

Cartagena (includes Cartagena 2)

Citadels

Lord of the Rings (includes expansions)

Princes of Florence

Taj Mahal

Tichu

Web of Power (includes China)

Zertz

Five & Dime 2011: Wide Angle Lens (Thirteen Year Pix)

These graphs cover 2011 (top bar) through 1999 (bottom bar). The bar is the percentage of players reporting who played the game 5+ times in the given year. The games here first appeared on the first Five & Dime list in 1999.
 

Apples to Apples

Crokinole

Loopin' Louie

Lost Cities

Mamma Mia (includes Sole Mio)

Ra

Ricochet Robot(s)

Schotten-Totten/Battleline

Union Pacific

Zirkus Flohcati

Five & Dime 2011: Wide Angle Lens (Fourteen Year Pix)

This is Year Fourteen - each additional year means that the graphs get better & better at showing patterns of repeated play.

These graphs cover 2011 (top bar) through 1998 (bottom bar). The bar is the percentage of players reporting who played the game 5+ times in the given year. The games here first appeared on the first Five & Dime list in 1998, though many of them were released before that.  

Acquire


Bohnanza (includes expansions)

Can't Stop

Carabande (includes Pitchcar)


El Grande

Euphrat & Tigris

For Sale

Formula De (includes Formula De Mini & Formula D)

Guillotine

Liar's Dice (includes Perudo)

Medici

Metro (includes Iron Horse & Cable Car)

Mu & Mehr

Samurai

Schnäppchen Jagd/Bargain Hunter

Settlers of Catan (includes expansions but not stand-alone "cousins")

Settlers of Catan Card Game (includes The Rivals for Catan)

Showmanager (includes Atlantic Star)

Take 6/6 Nimmt/Slide 5

Take It Easy

Through the Desert

Five & Dime 2011: Nickels (31st - 50th)

As this is the second year that I'm posting the main results over at the Opinionated Gamers website, I thought I'd offer some extra-special goodies here on aka pastor guy... so, for those who are willing to follow the links, here's the next 25 games in the Nickels List! (There are some extras, since there was a tie for 50th.) 

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer	5.23%
Dixit	5.23%
The Castles of Burgundy	5.23%
Settlers of Catan	4.90%
Puerto Rico	4.90%
Survive: Escape From Atlantis	4.90%
Hanabi & Ikebana	4.90%
Forbidden Island	4.58%
King of Tokyo	4.58%
Glory to Rome	4.58%
Arkham Horror	4.58%
Haggis	4.58%
Jaipur	4.58%
Parade	4.58%
Dominant Species	4.58%
TransAmerica	4.58%
Battle Line	4.25%
10 Days...	4.25%
Glen More	4.25%
Thurn and Taxis	4.25%
A Few Acres of Snow	4.25%
Alhambra	4.25%
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork	4.25%

My beloved Memoir '44 missed this list by ONE place... 3.92%. Sigh

Five & Dime 2011: Dimes (27th-50th)

This is Year Two of posting the main results over at the Opinionated Gamers website - and that means it's also Year Two of me offering extra goodies hear at aka pastor guy. 

So, for those of you who were willing to follow the links, here's the next 25 games in the Dimes List! (There are some extras, since there was a tie for 50th.) 

For Sale	3.92%
Can't Stop	3.92%
Dixit	3.92%
The Settlers of Catan	3.92%
Coloretto	3.92%
Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization	3.92%
Loopin' Louie	3.59%
Battlestar Galactica	3.59%
Yomi	3.59%
Dragonheart	3.59%
Summoner Wars	3.59%
Scrabble	3.59%
Kingdom Builder	3.27%
The Castles of Burgundy	3.27%
Glory to Rome	3.27%
Hey, That's My Fish!	3.27%
Incan Gold	3.27%
Ingenious	3.27%
Small World	2.94%
Lost Cities	2.94%
10 Days in the...	2.94%
Biblios	2.94%
Ra	2.94%
Onirim	2.94%
Saint Petersburg	2.94%
Spot It!	2.94%

Five & Dime 2011: Most Played Games (28th-50th)

Just like last year, I'm posting the main results over at the Opinionated Gamers website. And just like last year, I thought I'd offer some extra-special goodies here on aka pastor guy.

So, for those of you who were willing to follow the links, here's the next 25 games in the Most Played List!

Kingdom Builder	195	9.48%
The Settlers of Catan	195	8.82%
Pandemic	190	7.84%
Eminent Domain	185	10.13%
Troyes	180	9.15%
The Castles of Burgundy	180	8.50%
Space Alert	180	7.19%
Lost Cities	175	8.50%
Coloretto	175	7.52%
Zombie Dice	175	6.86%
Glory to Rome	170	7.84%
Hansa Teutonica	160	8.82%
Hey, That's My Fish!	160	7.19%
Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization	160	6.54%
San Juan	155	8.17%
Take 6/6 Nimmt	155	7.84%
10 Days... (series)	155	7.19%
Loopin' Louie	155	6.54%
Incan Gold	150	6.54%
Ingenious	150	6.54%
Battlestar Galactica	150	6.21%
London	145	7.52%
Puerto Rico	145	7.19%

Hot Links w/a Side of Political & Spiritual Opinions

An open letter to my brothers & sisters in Christ from a conservative evangelical Southern Baptist pastor...

Let's keep this simple, shall we? Because so much of what's being posted this morning veers between political hay-making & ad hominem argumentation... and it's just making me tired & cranky.

First, before anybody types ONE MORE STINKIN' SENTENCE, go read the actual transcript of what President Obama said (and quit relying on soundbites & clips for news, for crying out loud.) 

We've learned some very bad habits from both the mainstream media and from conservative talk radio regarding the "art" of yanking quotes out of context - if it's bad Biblical exegesis (and it is!) to prooftext, then it's bad form to do it with our political discussions as well. 

Of course it's OK to quote public figures in order to expose their hypocrisy - there's no ethical, moral or Biblical problems with that. But we must do so while preserving the context & tone of their original remarks.

Second, you MUST re-read what I wrote nearly 2 years ago here on this blog. If necessary, read it twice.

What in the world makes us think that by attacking our political opponents that people will suddenly say, "Oh, wow - you know, I've never seriously considered the claims of Christianity... but hearing you trash the President I voted for has totally opened my eyes to my need for grace & forgiveness"?

This, by the way, is what ad hominem means - it's a logical fallacy (that's philosophy talk for "argument that doesn't hold water") that attacks the person rather than their actual point. When we focus on President Obama's "evolving" views as if it were some sort of fatal character/leadership flaw, that's exactly what we're doing.

I am not suggesting that you "shut up & sit down" - there are very big questions about Biblical marriage & religious freedom that need discussing in public forums - but I am strongly encouraging you to discuss the issues in question rather than figure out ways to sound like a SuperPAC attack ad.

Third, the most thoughtful response I've seen so far is from Ed Stetzer... I'll quote a bit here but you need to follow the link & read his whole post: President Obama, Same-Sex Marriage & the Future of Evangelical Response.

Building bridges and showing grace and love is needed, lacking, and essential when dealing with people with different views and values.
Some Christians seem driven by the need to take every opportunity to condemn homosexuality. Instead, I do not think you or I need to begin every conversation with a statement of our opposition of homosexuality. We can, indeed, show grace and friendship to those who struggle, while believing and teaching what the scriptures clearly say. Without hiding our beliefs, we need to look for opportunities to have conversations, build relationships, and show grace.

Finally, I've been clear over the years about my views on same-sex marriage... I wrote a long series of blog posts entitled Framing the Conversation that was my attempt to present a Biblical position without resorting to name-calling or fear-mongering. So I'll end with quoting a large chunk from the first post in that series,

How To Get Yourself Fired From An Ultra-Traditional SBC Church:

I've actually been fired from a ministry position. OK, that's not the way the Personnel Committee phrased it - they favored the weenie dodge of "we're eliminating your youth minister position in three months for financial reasons" which had the equivalent effect. Either way, I don't have a job & you guys just spent the last 45 minutes telling me about all the mistakes I've been making as youth minister while my senior pastor sits there like a bump on a log. (Table ready for Bitter, party of one... we can seat you right now.)

 One of those "mistakes" (if you want to hear more of the story, you can check out How The Heck Did I End Up Here?) was some teaching I'd done about sexual sin. I'd explained to the youth that adultery (a husband or wife engaging in a sexual relationship outside their marriage) and homosexuality (a man or woman engaging in a sexual relationship with someone of their own sex) were both sins - and that one wasn't more or less sinful than the other. BTW, the "mistake" wasn't the content what I taught - it was that the teaching itself cut a little too close to the bone for one of the committee members.

But that teaching is at the heart of anything else that I write about same sex attraction & marriage. I really do believe that:

• pornography
• heterosexual sex between two unmarried people (fornication)
• prostitution
• heterosexual sex between a married person & someone who is not their spouse (adultery)
• polygamy
• group sex
• homosexual sex

...are all sexual sin of equivalent weight, regardless of the orientation and/or inclinations of the person(s) involved. They may have different consequences in a temporal sense - what effect they have during our lives on this earth - but they all have the same spiritual consequence. A quick example to clarify: someone who downloads pornographic pictures is less likely - at least at the early stages of the behavior - to have less emotional & physical health consequences than a prostitute. But both the streetwalker & the upstanding businessman with a hard drive full of downloaded videos are in the same boat spiritually - they've sinned.

Sin, btw, is not simply "doing bad stuff" or "doing stuff Mark doesn't like" or "doing stuff that is distasteful to someone/thing who has set themselves up as a moral authority." Man, I wish it was that easy - we could just change authority figures & get a new set of rules to live by.

According to Ephesians 2:1, you were "dead in your trespasses & sins." The two Greek words are paraptoma (trespasses) and hamartia (sins). The definition of paraptoma means "to go off the path, to wander," while hamartia means to "miss the mark or target." The implication is that sin is failing to be the people we were designed to be - people of purity & honor & integrity.

I'll get into this in more detail in another post, but God created man & woman and the marriage relationship not only for our pleasure & for procreation, but also to act as a picture of His love for us... and same-sex marriage warps that picture just as surely as adultery does. We've missed the mark... we are, as the old hymn writer put it, "prone to wander."

This means that we have to approach the conversation in a different way - this is NOT about "homosexuality vs heterosexuality." It is about marriage between a man & a woman vs a plethora of lesser & more destructive options - one of those being same-sex marriage. 

Comments & questions are welcome... but as always, I'll blow up stuff that is rude and, because of the nature of this discussion, I will not tolerate anonymous postings.

What I Played At The Gathering of Friends 2012

I'm working on some more detailed posts about the games I played... and even a couple of reviews - but for the time being, here's the "big list".

Some of you may not know what The Gathering of Friends is... I refer you to an old post here on aka pastor guy: "Singin' the Gathering Blues".

7 plays

• The City

5 plays

• Wurfel Bohnanza

4 plays

• Abaddon (pre-production copy)

3 plays

• 1st & Goal
• Africana
• 7 Wonders: Cities (pre-production copy)

2 plays

• Bears!
• Can't Stop
• Escape... from the Mayan Temple (pre-production copy)
• Fast Food Franchise
• Group Battleship (pencil & paper game)
• Kalimambo
• Kissenschacht!
• Mutant Meeples (pre-production copy)
• Race for the Galaxy: Alien Artifacts (prototype)
• Roll for the Galaxy (prototype)
• Santa Cruz
• Surburbia (prototype)

1 play

• 5 vor 12
• A Fistful of Penguins
• Airlines: Europe
• Airships
• Bargain Hunter
• Beowulf: The Legend
• Bohnanza: High Bohn
• Burger Joint
• City Tycoon
• Coney Island
• DTM Das Motorsportspiel
• Dungeon Lords expansion (pre-production copy)
• Insider! (prototype)
• Eminent Domain
• Entenrallye
• Exxtra
• Fauna
• For Sale
• Founding Fathers
• Francis Drake (prototype)
• Geistesblitz
• Geistesblitz 2.0
• Glen More
• Gnadenlos
• Hawaii
• Innovation: Echoes of the Past
• Jumbo Grand Prix
• Keltis Wurfelspiel
• Last Will
• Lords of Vegas
• Memoir '44: Overlord
• Mord im Arosa
• Pandemic: Lab expansion (prototype)
• Pax
• Rapa Nui
• Roman Senators (prototype)
• San Francisco
• Showmanager
• Stimmt So
• Stone Age: Style is the Goal
• Sunrise City (pre-production copy)
• Sun Sea & Sand
• Survive! 30th Anniversary Edition
• The Battle for Hill 218
• Ticket to Ride: India
• Tumbleweed (prototype)
• Upon a Salty Ocean
• Waka Waka
• Web of Power
• Welcome to Walnut Grove
• Wurfel Wolfe
• Zahltag
• Zooloretto Wurfelspiel