Birthday Weekend

I had a wonderful birthday weekend. It started on Friday night with dinner at Kushi Izakaya. On Saturday the foodie group had hot pot at Peter's condo. Gabe and Peter bought a variety meat and veggies and other goodies. I brought some ice cream - Heavenly Hash and Black Cherry. Since we got there first we washed and chopped the stuff they bought.

Fiona made some cookies for me for my birthday. That was nice of her. Justin ended up eating most of them though.

After dinner they gave me a carrot cake cupcake with a candle on it. I made them sing, Happy Birthday, to me.

After that we played Monopoly Deal card game. I think Peter picked it up in Hong Kong while he was there. It ended up taking a lot longer to play than we expected. After than Martin and Edna went home. That left Peter, Gabe, Emily, Fiona, Justin and me.

We played Saboteur next. It's Emily's game. I played it once before when she brought it to game night at Shopsy's on Woodbine. I liked it.

This time we had seven players, which according to an online game players poll, is the best number of players to have.

The game isn't too complicated. The objective of it is either to build a path from the starting point to one of three cards opposite of it, one of which is "gold", or to block players from doing it.

At the beginning you are given a card which deems you either a miner or a "Saboteur" (the name of the game). If you are a miner you have to build a seven card path to the gold. If you are a Saboteur you have to block the miners from accomplishing that task.

You are dealt five cards next. The cards will allow you to build or block the path to the gold depending on your objective. Other cards are maps cards which allow you check one of the three cards to see which one might be the gold (so you know which one to build the path to); action cards which allow you to penalize or free people from taking their turn depending on who you believe is your enemy or ally. There is also a card that can blow up part of the path to delay the miners from their goal.

People take turns either playing a card or discarding one (if they choose not to play one). They then pick up a new card from the deck and the next player goes. If the miners don't build their path to the gold by the time the cards run out the Saboteurs win that round.

It's a really fun game. You never know who to trust. Games are short and miners and Saboteurs constantly change. Though, this evening, Justin ended up being the Saboteur at least 8 of the 10 or so games we played. I was a Saboteur twice.

We ended up staying at Peter's until nearly 2:00 a.m.

On Sunday I met Lawrence for dinner at Tucker's Marketplace near his place off Highway 401 and Highway 27.