Origins is over, and I came home with the following:
Merchants of Amsterdam (free)
Dragon Parade (free)
Wars of the Roses
Thebes
Railways of Europe
Bisikles
Pirate v. Pirate
Alchemist

I was impressed with Queen games in general, and two of their offerings (besides Thebes) specifically, Samarkand and Fresco. The former is essentially Chicago Express adapted to caravans and camels. Players try to control families ( instead of companies) and extend their trading routes. Points are gained for including spices on the routes, initiating trade agreements (mergers) and having spice cards that correspond to where trade routes run. It looks very good after one play - especially the wooden camels - but time will tell. Bob brought home a copy.

Mayfair seemed difficult to work with, and had little of interest except Settlers: America, which was overpriced and not subject to discount. I played Alchemist four times, and never well, and decided to use the 50% off coupon for that. It's not a great game, but it has some depth and replay ability.

Rio Grande had several new offerings, but we only got a chance to play Havana, which was unimpressive. Since Rio offers no discount, and some of their games were not there, nothing came from them.

Z-Man games offered no teaching or demos of interest, but did discount their games. So I bought Wars of the Roses, which I hope might give us some Kingmaker flavor without lasting too many hours.

More later.

Grant and I also spent Friday and Saturday at Colum­bus, Ohio; and - although we've been there before, still I must say – what a mar­velous place!

Between the Ori­gins game con­ven­tion and the superb, mar­velous, col­or­ful, and com­pletely enjoy­able Com­Fest (across the way at Goodale Park), and then spend­ing a day at COSI (mostly look­ing at RMS Titanic arti­facts, but also many other neat things), we’re plumb tuck­ered out. I think if all one did was walk down High Street (start­ing at Broad) – THAT would make for a full week­end; but we did more than that.

Friday morning we rolled into the convention center and promptly got into the wrong line to gain admission. They had an "Event Registration" line, and then a "Site Registration" line. We started in the "Event" line, and then noted that people ahead of us were working on forms and trying to decide which events they wanted to participate in (I took it we were in the game token line, where for $2 you had the right to play in a particular scheduled game - for example Tigris & Euphrates at 10:30am).

So we switched to the "Site Registration" line; the thinking being that we wanted to wander all around the site, right? Well, no. But on the bright side, while we were wasting time in the second wrong line, good ol' Mark & Bob & Bobbie spotted us, and came over and said 'hello'! So we had a pleasant conversation, and planned on meeting up in the open-gaming area, whereupon they left us to our own devices. (Once we got to the front of that line, the fellow at the counter pointed out the CORRECT line, which was across the way!! As a confused gamer, I took this all in stride, and Grant had no real choice in the matter except to be patient with ol' dad)

A note on Origins: I will never understand their pricing structure. Or, if I do not MISunderstand - a lot of what Origins is, is not for me. What IS "for me" is the enchanting Vendor Area, and the Open Gaming area. I also immensely enjoy the Auction area - although this year I was only at the auction for about 15 minutes, and never made it back there (but more on that later). As Mark and I discussed, I just cannot see why I would ever spend more than the $5 that a wristband daypass costs; it gets me access to everything I like, and in fact provides such a full plate of goodies that I can't do much more than those things anyway.

For example, Grant and I exited the convention hall and spent a very pleasant few hours at Goodale Park (just across the street), getting a taste of Columbus's very cool "ComFest" music/art/food festival. The upshot of that was that Friday was a very full, fun day - with Grant and I gaming in the Open Gaming room with a few borrowed games, plus gaming with Bob and Bobby and Mark with their new games, plus the borrowed Kinizia game 8th Wonder; plus wandering the vendor area and also watching the minis guys fight naval battles; plus occasionally gazing at some of the RPG girls' navels (and other things); plus eating - the auction - which I dearly love, got just one 20 minute visit from us (in which we bumped into Tom and his lovely wife!). I thought "we'll come back here" - but one way and another we never did get back there, before it was closed for the day at 9.

What would I do with a second day at Origins? More of the same, plus short excursions outside the center - still not missing the extras that are available.

And let me just say, that RMS Titanic display at COSI is just sublime. It is not an exaggeration to say that I spent close to four hours walking and reading and gazing and taking in that extensive, marvelous display. Grant was with me for more than half, and then he went on(!). We again ran into Tom and his lovely wife there, and we got a laugh out of our "Boarding Passes"; it turned out that I had a 1st class boarding pass, and they had 3rd class passes; so we decided that it was improper for us to be seen talking together! Seriously - those artifacts are genuinley wonderful, and the text and accompanying materials are informative and evocative.

And all the usual COSI stuff is just too cool for school. Grant and I enjoyed the movie about the USS Endurance, and the heroism of the trapped captain and crew of South Pole explorers who manned her, amongst the usual COSI things.

This is a discussion Bob and I have every year. It is pretty clear that if you are coming just for the day, the $5 daypass is the way to go. There's plenty to do, and you won't be staying after dinner anyway.

It gets a little murkier when you spend two or three days, or when there is an expensive Mayfair game you really want. The badge itself, at $50 if you order early, doesn't bring you much - it's just a base on which ribbons can be attached. It does allow you to collect the Mayfair resources ribbons, which can gain you a 50% off coupon and some small prize. You may need to spend $2 for a game in the Mayfair room to get all the ribbons, but once you've completed the set you play there for free.
One thing you can do with the badge is buy a Boardroom ribbon. The price of these has been reduced to $16, and they gain you two somewhat random free games from Rio Grande (though chances are you will not receive their best) and access to the huge collection of games from CABS. This year brought another bonus, as Queen Games setup an area in the Boardroom where you could learn any of their games. Here they would teach you, walk you through a turn or two, and revisit the table to make sure everything was proceeding well. Both Bob and I came away with very positive impressions of Queen Games, despite the fact that they did not offer a discount. Their attention to players was wonderful.

We also bought Mayfair ribbons at $16 and, it would seem along with Mayfair, struggled to figure out what advantage these gave us. We were treated somewhat rudely in the Mayfair room, despite our Mayfair ribbons and Mayfair resource ribbons aplenty. I think it was primarily due to a few Mayfair workers who sought to enforce rather odd rules without any consideration of context. In fact, the worst thing about Origins and especially Mayfair, is the incredible lack of clear information, as experienced by Brian as he searched for the correct line. I had difficulty at first finding the Auction, as it was listed in Ballroom 3, but there were no numbers on the rooms. And Mayfair excelled at keeping secret all the rules and opportunities that pertained to them, and I think they kept things from some of their own; actually, I think over the course of the four days they changed the rules. In the end, our ribbon allowed us priority when it came to non-ticketed seats, but that was never important as seats were available. It allowed us free play in the Mayfair room, which was only of benefit until we got our Knight ribbon. And it allowed us free access to the Mayfair room from 8pm-12pm, with snacks and drinks, which worked out to be a real benefit. If you're only staying for the day, this would be meaningless, but for us it was a good thing. It would have been better if Mayfair, like Queen, took the time to teach their games, but they seemed interested in running events instead. Those are important, but surely helping out the newbies would be a better investment for their company. My Mayfair experience was also lessened by the fact that Mayfair produced little over the year that interested me; Settlers of America looked good, but that was exempted from the 50% discount. Bah.

So for me, if I return to Origins on a multi-day trip, I will buy the badge again, and hang the Mayfair and Boardroom ribbons from it. If on a one-day trip, I would probably go with the daypass. If you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have told you that I would not be returning to Origins after 2010. But the experience this year was very positive, and so I may just continue to throw the time and money into the convention. And, as Brian mentions, the Columbus venue is quite appealing in its own right.

As Jan and I reached the Columbus Zoo, the midday sun was draining energy like Mad Max siphoning gasoline. In the North American section we saw a napping grizzly bear, a slumbering brown bear, dead-to-the-world polar bears, a passed out puma and mexican foxes on siesta. We did watch two tumbling, amusing artic foxes who would rather play than sleep, but initial impressions were not reaching expectations.

As we crossed into Asia, we crossed into a better frame of mind. The Asia exhibit was well done complete with lions, siberian tigers and sun bears. Following Asia we wandered to the Shores through revitalizing air conditioned aquarium buildings. The highlight was five huge manatees in their equally large viewing tank.

We left the shores to a welcome change - cooler temperatures and smaller crowds. During the summer, zoo hours are extended to 7 PM and we relished that extra time. With the cooler air even the 22 hour-a-day sleeping Koala bears were alert and active. The African gorilla exhibit was the largest I've seen with apes ranging from a tiny baby to the oldest in captivity. On the way out we saw a couple of exhibits we skipped earlier and then headed out to the hotel.

Our GPS preformed flawlessly during the day, but was slightly off for the hotel sending us instead to the next door Infinity car lot. When we checked in we had a bit of good luck and received a recently refurbished room. Each night involved a spot of tea by the pool and in the morning we enjoyed a very good complimentary breakfast.

Friday was for Origins and the oddities started early. While in the parking garage I heard a small gasp from Jan. I turned to see a guy in a green wig adjusting his girlfriend's complete cat outfit. We saw catwoman later in the hall giving out free hugs. No thanks! Jan was already a bit nervous and in her coral pink blouse she stood out like a flamingo in a goth coal mine. Eventually she relaxed and really enjoyed the pace and activity of the auction. In our wanderings we saw Mark, Bob, Bobby, Brian and Grant, but unfortunately did not sit down to play any games. We left around 3 PM with several bargains under arm.

(Continued below)

After a quick uneventful turn through German village, we went to an art fair at the upscale Easton mall. The show was 2 to 3 times as large as Freimann Square's "Art in the Park" and had a little of everything. After a nice dinner and a purchased ceramic wind chime we returned to the Hampton Inn.

The GPS efficiently directed us to COSI, Columbus' science museum the following morning and we headed straight to the Titanic artifact exhibit. At the beginning, each person is given a boarding pass with the name of an actual Titanic passenger and a bit of their back story. This is a stroke of genius because it provides and emotional link to the tragedy and at the end you find out whether your character (you) lives or dies. It also sets up a class structure as we overheard some people crowing about their first class status. Jan and I were both 3rd class. Character actors appeared in several areas and helped set the mood, provided additional information and answered questions.

Jan and I met Brian near the full scale Grand Staircase replica. As it turned out, Brian was a first class patron. After several minutes of polite conversation we parted and I heard low mutterings of "those little people" and "dirty peasants". I think I heard that, but I could be mistaken.

The final room had a large display with the names of the living and the dead. Jan survived, but I perished. Jan offered a less than sympathetic, "In your face." Dying is bad enough, but is the gloating really necessary?

The rest of COSI was hit and miss. The replica 1898 street with the morse code speaking crow was fun as was the 1962 TV news studio. Jan gave a stirring Cuban misslile crisis newsbreak reading from the news teleprompter. The Black Hole space exhibit was also excellent. It is a walkway through a rotating drum of lights which warps your sense of perception and affects your balance. With our minds sufficiently warped, Jan and I then set back on the road to Fort Wayne normalcy.