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Capricorn gamers (Astrology Files) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you, pick up and deliver the podcast where
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I pick up my audio recorder as I step out
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: for a walk and deliver an episode to you while
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I stroll around. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listener.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: It's a chilly, chilly day here in suburban Chicago. When
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I got up this morning, I thought it might be
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  Speaker 1: too cold to take this walk and talk to you.
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  Speaker 1: But as of this moment, my home info station said
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  Speaker 1: it was seventeen degrees out, which probably puts it in
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the single digit fahrenheit for the wind chill. So I thought,
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  Speaker 1: h I'll give it a try. So I'm walking up
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to the library to return a movie and then walking
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: back home and recording a couple episodes of the podcast
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: for you while I do so. All right, So I
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: thought I would try something new. It's a new year.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I'm always trying to think of new ideas. This will
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: be a once a month's segment for a year, and
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: we'll see how it goes. This was inspired by one
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  Speaker 1: a long term sort of interest I've had in the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: culture and to a thing that I heard on a
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  Speaker 1: podcast yesterday. So I was really surprised about a decade
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  Speaker 1: ago now when a student in class said something, well,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I'm a virgo or whatever as a reason
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  Speaker 1: for some quirk of her personality. And that's the sort
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  Speaker 1: of the moment where I discovered astrology had come back
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  Speaker 1: into vogue for people younger than me in a way
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  Speaker 1: that it never was, at least visibly when I was
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  Speaker 1: their age. And it's continued to be a thing. I
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  Speaker 1: continue to hear people talk about it. And last night,
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  Speaker 1: when I was listening to the Spare Parts podcast, which
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  Speaker 1: is a Letter Kenny rewatch, michaela who plays on Letter
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  Speaker 1: Kenny said something about astrology and signs and such, and
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  Speaker 1: so I thought what I would do this year is
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: once a month, I'm going to look around the middle
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  Speaker 1: of the month. It's the twelfth right now, I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to look at a description I found online of ideas
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  Speaker 1: about people of a certain star sign of the current
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  Speaker 1: star sign, and talk a little bit about what games
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  Speaker 1: I think fit those personality traits as described now. I
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  Speaker 1: found a article in I think Esquire magazine that lists
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  Speaker 1: the twelve main star signs and personality traits that go
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  Speaker 1: with them. So I'm using that if these don't fit
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  Speaker 1: your view of star signs, well, okay, sorry. I will
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  Speaker 1: also say I'm going to try to be respectful, but
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  Speaker 1: this doesn't really make any sense to me. I have
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  Speaker 1: a lot of trouble believing in this stuff, but I
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  Speaker 1: think it's an interesting to listen to what people have
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  Speaker 1: to say about it and go from there. So today
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: we're starting the first episode of pick up and Deliver
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  Speaker 1: Astrology Files, starting with Capricorn, which goes from mid December
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  Speaker 1: to mid January. So we are in the finishing of
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  Speaker 1: Capricorn right now. Here is what it says, what is
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  Speaker 1: the most valuable resource for Capricorn. The answer is clear time.
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  Speaker 1: Capricorn is climbing the mountain straight to the top and
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  Speaker 1: knows that patience, perseverance, and dedication are the way to scale. Capricorn,
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  Speaker 1: the last Earth sign of the zodiac, is represented by
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  Speaker 1: the sea goat, a mythological creature with the body of
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  Speaker 1: a goat and the tail of a fish. Accordingly, Capricorns
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  Speaker 1: are skilled at navigating both the material and emotional realms.
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  Speaker 1: All right, So here's what I picked out of that.
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  Speaker 1: First off, the most important resource is time. So I
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  Speaker 1: was thinking about what are the games that use time? Now,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of games use time, games that have action
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  Speaker 1: points will generally have a time thing. Often time is
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  Speaker 1: the signifier of the movement of a game, but it's
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  Speaker 1: not always a resource. The place where I think it's
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  Speaker 1: best seen as a resource are games that have a
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  Speaker 1: time track. Two that I wanted to point to are
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Australia and Tokido. Takido has the sort of classic time
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  Speaker 1: track in that on your turn, you're going to spend
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  Speaker 1: a certain amount of time walking along and the things
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  Speaker 1: you encounter you get to do until you choose, or
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  Speaker 1: you're going to pass by things until you choose to stop,
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  Speaker 1: and the thing you stop at is the thing you
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  Speaker 1: get to do. But then it won't be your turn
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  Speaker 1: again until it's your time till everyone else has used
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  Speaker 1: the same amount of time as you. Although maybe now
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  Speaker 1: that I think about it, maybe Tokido translates to distance
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  Speaker 1: rather than time, so maybe that's not the best example,
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  Speaker 1: so I'll point to Australia. In Australia, you are using
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  Speaker 1: time to do things around your farm, but also to
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  Speaker 1: explore the outback and to build up military strength against
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  Speaker 1: the ancient Cuthulu monsters that are growing there. One of
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  Speaker 1: the fun things about the game is after each player
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  Speaker 1: has taken their turn or the player whose turn is
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  Speaker 1: next is always the player who's at the back of
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  Speaker 1: the time time and one of the markers on the
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  Speaker 1: time track is the Elder Gods marker, and so it
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  Speaker 1: is Australia is a competitive, a semi cooperative game in
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  Speaker 1: that you all have to work together to defeat Cuthulu
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  Speaker 1: or the Elder Gods, but only one player will win,
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  Speaker 1: and the time track kind of determines what's going on
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  Speaker 1: with Cuthulhu. It's an interesting game and one where time
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  Speaker 1: is a resource. Next has said patience, perseverance, and dedication
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  Speaker 1: are three things that you have to do to persevere
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  Speaker 1: to succeed as a Capricorn, and so I can't help
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  Speaker 1: but think of patience, which is, of course the name
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  Speaker 1: of a game at Lisa I was taught at a
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  Speaker 1: name of a game I've since since then come to
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  Speaker 1: learn that the game Klondike Solitaire is the game that
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  Speaker 1: I learned was called Patience when I was young, and
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I looked it up and apparently patience is kind of
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  Speaker 1: a generic name for solitaire card games, and the most
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  Speaker 1: often played solitaire card game is Klondike Solitaire, which is
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  Speaker 1: a game many of us have played on paper. My
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: family used to play double solitaire, which is sort of
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  Speaker 1: like playing solitaire, but you're trying to beat your opponent,
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  Speaker 1: trying to finish first, but there's some flexibility there. It
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  Speaker 1: also gets in the way because you're you're putting cards
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  Speaker 1: into the same middle. You have double stacks, kind of
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  Speaker 1: like Dutch Blitz. But that's an amusing game, but it's
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  Speaker 1: one of those ones where like sometimes you can win
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  Speaker 1: or lose just based on how the cards are dealt.
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  Speaker 1: You know, if your aces are all buried too far
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  Speaker 1: down on the deck, you can never start your stacks
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  Speaker 1: or your kings. I mean, if the kings are buried
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  Speaker 1: too far down in the stacks, you could just never
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  Speaker 1: be able to play them, and you could never know
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  Speaker 1: it's the aces, it's the aces. So Patients is a
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  Speaker 1: game you could play similarly. Perseverance is of course the
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  Speaker 1: name of a game from Mind Clash Games, which I
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  Speaker 1: think I like better than most, But I haven't actually
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  Speaker 1: played the second Perseverance game, which actually looks more interesting.
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  Speaker 1: So I've played the first one a couple times and
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  Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. Then we never got around to playing
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  Speaker 1: the second one. I really should because I did order
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  Speaker 1: the third and fourth one, so it feels kind of
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  Speaker 1: lame that I haven't. Maybe I'll do that this year.
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  Speaker 1: As part of my challenge to clear specific sets of
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  Speaker 1: games off of my shelf of opportunity is to play
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  Speaker 1: Perseverance Castaway Chronicles Volume two. We'll see. Actually, I don't
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  Speaker 1: even know if that's on my shelf of opportunity because
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  Speaker 1: it's in one box with Perseverance once. I don't know
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  Speaker 1: if I have Perseverance too in there as a separate game.
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  Speaker 1: I probably should. We may have to go back and
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  Speaker 1: add that. We'll see, But anyway, Perseverance and then I
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  Speaker 1: would say a game where you have to persevere as innovation.
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  Speaker 1: Innovation is one of those games where the tide switches
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  Speaker 1: dramatically as the game goes along, so it's really easy
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  Speaker 1: to feel like you're on the back foot and losing
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  Speaker 1: and then suddenly things will switch. But in order to
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  Speaker 1: do that, you have to be willing to kind of
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  Speaker 1: endure the difficulties and persevere into the high qualities. So
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  Speaker 1: I guess Capricorns would be good at that. Then finally, dedication.
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  Speaker 1: I was thinking about what dedication would mean in the
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  Speaker 1: context of board games of course, there is the dedication
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  Speaker 1: of learning a game that's truly deep. Point to chess
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  Speaker 1: or Go, one of these life lifetime games where people
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  Speaker 1: just play that. You could point to games with intense
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  Speaker 1: complexity like Magic the Gathering or in my case Netrunner right,
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  Speaker 1: a game where you put a lot of hours into
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  Speaker 1: learning to play the game well, and you're dedicated that way.
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  Speaker 1: But I'm going to point two for myself. Through the Ages,
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  Speaker 1: a game that I've played hundreds of times. I was looking.
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  Speaker 1: I'm over two hundred plays now, and I think is
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  Speaker 1: pretty great, Like, I still have fun every time I
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  Speaker 1: play it. It's pretty interesting, still have new experiences. I
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  Speaker 1: recently had a game where I came as close as
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  Speaker 1: I've ever come to resigning because I just got rocked
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: and there's a point in the game where you really
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  Speaker 1: can't recover, and if you're playing multiplayer multiple players, you
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  Speaker 1: can just become the target for everyone else at the table.
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  Speaker 1: And it was a brutal game, but interesting and fun
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  Speaker 1: even in being brutal. So it's taken me dedication to
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  Speaker 1: get pretty good at that game. And yeah, so I'll
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  Speaker 1: say dedication is through the Ages. The next thing I
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  Speaker 1: noticed is the bit about the representation of the Capricorn
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  Speaker 1: in the zodiac is the sea goat, a mythological creature
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  Speaker 1: with the body of a goat and the tail of
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  Speaker 1: a fish. So of course I think about goats and
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  Speaker 1: fish first, and to point to my favorite game with
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  Speaker 1: goats maybe as Mountain Goats, which is a game of
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  Speaker 1: sort of playing King of the Hill. It's a light
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  Speaker 1: a filler published by all Play. I don't recall who
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  Speaker 1: the designer is, but it's a nice little game. And
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  Speaker 1: then if I was going to point to fish, I
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  Speaker 1: think my favorite game with fish is Noose Fjord, which
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  Speaker 1: has a nice rhythm in which you're gathering fish and
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  Speaker 1: then you're bringing elders into your village who give you
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  Speaker 1: special bonuses, but then you have to feed them fish,
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  Speaker 1: and there's this element of building your fishing fleet and
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  Speaker 1: trying to go out and find enough fish to feed
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  Speaker 1: your elders. It works really well. It's a solid game.
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  Speaker 1: One I need to get back to the table a
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  Speaker 1: few more times. It's been a while. So that's Noose Fjord,
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  Speaker 1: an excellent fish game. And then if I was thinking
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  Speaker 1: about I was thinking about what game would have a
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  Speaker 1: sea goat in it? If I was going to point
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  Speaker 1: to one, and I'm sure there isn't one, But if
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  Speaker 1: a game did have a sea goat, I would expect
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  Speaker 1: it to be blood Rage. Like I could totally see
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  Speaker 1: opening up a pack of blood Rage and having one
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  Speaker 1: of those big monster meanings be a combination mermaid goat monstrosity.
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  Speaker 1: So I say blood rage is somehow related to the
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  Speaker 1: sea goat, although I can't really see how it would
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  Speaker 1: be represented by capricorns. And then, if you're skilled at
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  Speaker 1: navigating both the material and the emotional realms, it seems
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  Speaker 1: like you're probably gonna be good at playing splatter games. Now.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I haven't played them, so this is based on hearing
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: about them. But the whole thing about splatter games is
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: that they are intense, really interesting economic games with a
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  Speaker 1: high learning curve and a really easy fail rate where
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: you could just suddenly be doing very badly and recovering
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  Speaker 1: is very difficult. What if I interesting about that is
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  Speaker 1: this notion or this feeling that you have to do well,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: but you might you might suddenly do badly, but you
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: should just keep trying because someone else might suddenly do
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  Speaker 1: badly and then you can catch up to them. That
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: there's an element of keeping your emotions managed, figuring out
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  Speaker 1: the best way to deal with the disappointment that comes
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  Speaker 1: from playing really badly kind of going on tilt or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: And it feels like if you are good at managing
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  Speaker 1: both of those things, you're probably going to be good
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  Speaker 1: at slaughter games. You can recover quickly, you won't get
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  Speaker 1: mired in the bad feelings of, say, having your game
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  Speaker 1: just go down the tubes, not get on tilt, as
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  Speaker 1: they say. So it feels like people who are capricorns,
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  Speaker 1: who are good at managing the realms of material and
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  Speaker 1: emotional things would be good at splatter games. So that's
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: my assessment of games that capricorns should be good at,
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  Speaker 1: based on this description of what capricorns are from Esquire MAGAZINEO. So,
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  Speaker 1: I'm curious if any of you listeners are capricorns born
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: between late December and mid January. I'd love to hear
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: what you think of this analysis. Does this fit you?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Do you think it doesn't fit you? How come? I'd
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: also like to hear from other listeners if you found
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: this really unpleasant to listen to. If I can overwhelming
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: feedback that this was stupid, I will happily discontinue it,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: but it feels like an interesting way to think through
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  Speaker 1: new questions of what games would be fun for what contexts,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: which is kind of the point of a podcast where
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you're chatting with somebody about board games while they're out
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: walking around. So that's my thinking on this new segment.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed it. I'm curious to hear what
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: games you would suggest for a time patience, perseverance, dedication,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: or sea goats. Head over to board game Geek gild
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: three two six nine and share your thoughts about what
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: games you think Capricorns would be good at. And like
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: I said, if you are a Capricorn, maybe come over
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  Speaker 1: there and tell me, hey, you left off this game,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: which is the game I'm best at or something like that.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear it. Well that's about it for
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: me today. Thanks for joining me on my walk. I
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: hope that your next box is Closins's Mind Wan bye bye.
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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by Rattle Box