Viva Las Vegas, Viva GNN

With Covid 19 making its unwelcome way around the world, it made no sense to ignore all medical advice and meet up, especially with our longstanding snack-sharing habits and tendency to high-five or spit insults at each other. Times are worrying, but when worrying times are upon us it does no good to simply wring our hands - and to that end, Ian set up a Discord channel and Adam, Andrew, Martin and I all joined him on the hallowed Tuesday evening... to play a game.

Initially the web wasn't that welcoming - with thousands if not millions around the world having the same idea, two gaming websites were struggling with traffic. Then Martin suggested yucata.de and after a bit of discussion over how much he would hate Castles of Burgundy - one day we'll know - we settled on the mini-classic that is Las Vegas.

vegas

Yucata's gaming interface was pretty straightforward - even a dunce like me could, eventually, work out how to use it. It was intriguing though to hear the others all trying out various buttons whilst we were online. I was relieved I knew how to take my turn, particularly after we discovered that we were all seeing different colours. To me, I was red, but to everyone else I was blue or green or something.

Ian to me

In the game itself Ian and Adam got off to a flier whilst Andrew and I tailed behind. Martin got stiffed in the first round and looked to be out of it after the second he was so far behind. He then had a very strong third to come back into contention, but at this point we were all trying to stop Adam - words that over the last nine and a bit years have so often come with the addendum: in vain.

Round four wrapped the game up as Adam yet again scored big and wrapped up a convincing win:

Adam $280,000

Ian  $260,000

Andrew/Sam $250,000

qwertyMartin $180,000

Martin and I had to then exit, I'm not sure if the others went on to play something else...? I hope so. Although it's not the same as being in the room together, there was something really lovely about hearing everyone still being: Hannah's peals of laughter in the background, Ian's music, Andrew's habit of speaking in a very quiet voice away from the mic, while Stan and Joe came in and out and examined the screen in fascination. All rather lovely.... again next week?

Stay safe all 

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