it's hard out here for a pimp

I just watched Salman Rushdie introduce Three 6 Mafia on Craig Ferguson. He described their new song as a 'lovely tune about shorties'. Bizarre.

Today was v. much a family day. When I woke up, I discovered that the rest of the family was waiting for me to wake up so that we could do family things, since I'm leaving on Monday. We ended up going to Chariton for lunch, and then came home to spend the entire rest of the day playing Rail Baron. I'm not kidding -- Rail Baron is an incredibly time-consuming game, and we played straight through from 3pm until 10pm with a break around 7pm for some takeout from the local tavern.

The premise of Rail Baron, for those of you unlucky enough to have never played before, is almost similar to Monopoly -- the board is a map of the major railways in the US circa 1900. You start out with $20,000, and the goal is to build up a network of railways that can get you across the country and be vital enough that your opponents are forced to take your lines and pay you exorbitant fees for the privilege. Then you roll the dice to get different routes across the country, using the payouts from the routes to buy more railroads (or pay for disastrous trips into unfriendly territory).

I thought my game was going pretty well; I built a great network, including the Southern Pacific, the MoPac, the B&O, the L&N, the CB&Q, and the T&P, which enabled me to get almost anywhere I wanted to get with few payments to the other players (although I lived in dread of going to the Southeast or to the far Northeast). However, Michael and Mom pretty much tied up the Northeast, which sealed the game. I made it to $200,000 at the very end, but didn't get a chance to declare and make the move for home; Michael ended up winning, although it was v. close. It turns out that a few turns earlier, Mom was only two spaces away from her home city...but she was $500 short of being able to get there and still have $200,000 on arrival. To lose by $500 is pretty incredible, and rather devastating if you've been playing for seven hours.

So, clearly that's the only thing I have to report tonight, since the entire day was taken up by Rail Baron. Tomorrow, though, I really should start packing. And now it's time for bed -- there's an awesome thunderstorm going on outside, but I've had enough practice to sleep right through it. Goodnight!