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I just returned from a week spent ignoring all of my problems by attending the World Board Gaming Championships in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. esrblog and I first attended WBC last year and loved it, so we decided to avoid the cost and hassle of attending the Montreal Worldcon and went to WBC instead.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, WBC is a gaming convention for people who like to play strategy games of all types. Some of the games played are military strategy games, like one of esrblog's favorite, Commands and Colors: Ancients, but lighter "Euro" board games such as Empire Builder, Puerto Rico and Power Grid also abound. It is possible to find people to play a friendly game of just about every board game ever invented, but the main event at WBC are tournaments in a large variety of board games both old and new.

This year, esrblog and I took pains to talk WBC up to those of our friends who are interested enough in board gaming to be likely to go, and as a result never had any trouble finding people to game with. We'd invited one of our Michigan sword-fighting buddies to come out to Pennsylvania and crash with us while we were at WBC, and our friends Craig and Carrie were there, as well a number of friends we know from live-action roleplaying, and some of the gang who frequents our favorite game store, The Games Keep, also showed up, as well as Even pmat and shakati drove out to check out the scene on Friday.

So we had an excellent time overall, even though we did not win any tournaments, and despite the fact that the restaurant food most easily available in the Lancaster area is the kind of heavy, greasy "good ol' American" stuff I've been trying to avoid for the last 15 years. The week is kind of a blur, but moments do stand out. For those people on my friends list who don't want my graphic account of My Week to hog their Friends Pages, I'll put my blow-by-blow account under an lj-cut.

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