But lately I’ve been really interested in playing other kinds of games. It started when I dug out my copy of Carcassonne: Travel Edition to play with my Mom & Dad. Well, it was a huge success and the family now owns two sets of the regular game as well. My nephews have really become cutthroat players; we pretty much play every Sunday.

A while back I also purchased a Mahjong set in Chinatown thinking it would be something interesting to learn. So far, we’ve begun playing it on Sundays as well using a super-simplified version of the Chinese Official Rules that I found online–it’s starting to get pretty fun now that everyone’s getting the hang of it.

I also recently bought a book about chess and signed up at chess.com. My grandpa Kendrick taught me the game when I was a kid and I’ve played on-and-off for years (mostly off), but it’s yet another game I’ve been wanting to play recently. I’m also determined to learn to play Shogi (Japanese Chess) and actually use the set I purchased off eBay a couple years ago. Oh yeah, and now that I’m working in Thousand Oaks again, I seriously mean to attend the Ventura County Go Club on Wednesdays and start playing Go again.

There’s just something really interesting to me about playing these old standards right now. I think part of it is because I can play with my family and other friends as opposed to wargaming with my wargame friends (i.e. miniature wargames don’t seem to be quite as accessible to the “average” person).

Anybody up for a game? There’s also Scrabble and I suppose I should dig out my Backgammon set. I’m even thinking about hosting a once-a-month “Non-wargame Game Day” at my house on some Saturday…