Going Over the Edge

Last night I realized just how far I've fallen for gaming.

Because I help out with the youth group and teach a Sunday school class, our church graciously gave me a gift certificate to Borders. So in I went with a 30% off coupon to blow that gift certificate. I saw plenty of books that I'd like to pick up, but I also noticed they had Knizia's Lord of the Rings. It's a cooperative game where players are working together to battle the game itself rather than each other.
Now I've played LotR once, and while I didn't think it was a bad game, I felt no need to own it. But I started to think about what a good deal 30% off was, and I knew people, such as Chris Farrell, who adore the game, so I figured I must be missing something. In the end, I picked it up since it was basically like getting the game for free.
My point? This is unheard of for me. I have always blown money on books, and for me to voluntarily choose a game over books is crazy. Part of my reasoning was that I'd just received the gigantic 22nd Annual Year's Best Science Fiction anthology as a Christmas gift from my wife...so I had a fair bit of reading ahead of me. But still...
As an upside, I think Janna might take to this because it's cooperative. Plus it plays as few as two. We'll give it a spin soon.

Tonight we're playing one of my new games, Santiago, for the first time. I am really looking forward to it. Report to come.