Catan

Oh god! When we first moved to Pittsburgh, our wonderful upstairs neighbors introduced us to the fabulous world of Catan. I cannot explain to you the vast awesome-ness of this game. It is probably the best game in existence. Maybe even cooler than rugby?

Anyway, we were delighted when our new neighbors on Duffield Street revealed not only a shared love of this game, but that they OWNED a copy!!! We spend many of our free evenings over there, trying to take over the island.

My brother-in-law recently tipped me off to the fact that you can play Catan online. For free! This is not good. Not good at all. I spent pretty much all of yesterday playing Catan.

It all started when two of my phone interviews stood me up. This meant I not only couldn't work on the drafts of those stories, but I couldn't refine or edit them either. Pretty much my whole afternoon was shot. A sensible person would have shifted tasks from later in the week into this new hole. Not me. I played Catan. All day.

Then I got invited to play Settlers in real life with the neighbors, but I was having strange abdominal cramps in the evening and had to lie on the couch with my feet up...and the laptop on my belly as I...played Catan! I even got Corey involved. He wouldn't create a screen name himself, but watched me play and offered lots of "input."

At first I hated these online people because they were mean to me. They called me an idiot, said I was brainless when I made mistakes, were generally hostile. But Corey reminded me that I have a rich life in the real world whereas they have only Catan and their petty words to act out against the world that shuns them. He's so wise. I felt so happy about it I played a few more games.

Right now, I am desperately behind on my grading and haven't planned out the class I teach at 2:30 this afternoon. And still I am having to force myself to NOT play this online game of trading and world domination! Gah! I am hooked!