testmeat photoblog

a couple of nights ago i played risk for the first time in probably 15-20 years. i think when i played it before it was just on the computer - and i soon learnt it's a very different experience playing with real humans. particularly when two of those humans are really into it. if you haven't played it, the simplified rules involve placing your armies on different countries and then rolling dice to determine if you can successfully invade and claim your opponents countries. the non-simplified rules start to get really confusing. the best part of the game is the internal politics involved. you can't attack everyone at once, so you end up forming alliances with your opponents - i won't attack you, if you don't attack me and help me attack the other guy. this is all done in front of everyone, which leads to trash talk and attempts to get inside the other players heads - sample quote: "oh check out tony blair licking george bush's arse" when europe was about to conspire with america. in fact the aussie guy i was playing with said that when he plays with his friends back home colluding is outlawed which means they have to play the game in silence. i think him and his friends take it rather seriously. the game rolled on for hours, and we got kicked out of the pub before we had a chance to finish. i was hanging onto oceania and most of south america at the time, but america was dominant, fucking over africa and making strides to the middle east. i'll leave it to you to draw any real world parallels there.

this is the sun setting over the moon valley in san pedro de atacama in chile - and here's the original