Board Game Geek
Around about October of last year, I awoke a demon that I didn't know I had: I'm a board game geek. Beth and I were in the recent habit of playing card games at night, our favorite being Phase 10. We got a little burned out, so we started looking for other similar games at toy stores, Target, Hobby Bench, Wal-Mart, you name it. We found a few other card games, but for the most part they sucked.
I remembered that the website BoardGameGeek.com contained a comprehensive database, so I hit it up to try and find something that would suit us. That led us to the brilliant game Lost Cities, and from there we researched games that were purported to be great for couples. That led us directly to Ticket to Ride, and a full-on addiction. At one point, Beth had the "urges" so bad that she went online to play Ticket to Ride against - gasp! - complete strangers. (TtR comes with a code that allows you to play online - it's a brilliant idea.)
And so it is that I re-discovered that my preferred form of gaming is the board game - specifically the "light Euro-style" board game. If you've played Settlers of Catan, you know the type. Back in the mid-90's, I frequently played Settlers (we called it by the German name Siedler for short) with a few friends and Tikal after that. We even received a copy of Tikal as a wedding gift.
If you have not been to boardgamegeek.com, I recommend you pay a visit and look around. As websites go, the depth and breadth of information is staggering. More interestingly, the site has its own form of currency, Geek Gold, earned by contributing to the site, which you can then use to "buy" things like custom forum avatars and even board games. You can find me there under the cryptically-chosen name of "Brad Oliver". ;-)
As a parallel to this, I've discovered tanga.com, a "deal of the day" website that markets to the boardgamegeek crowd by frequently offering up board games for their daily deal. But the best part of tanga is the daily puzzles. Since its launch late last year, I've attempted to do every daily tanga puzzle. You get "tanga points" for completing the puzzles, which you can then use later on as currency to pay for items in special auctions. In this way, I was able to purchase the very first tanga auction item - a board game - for 150 tanga points and $7.00 shipping. Yeah, the shipping is where they nail you, but you still come out way ahead if it's an item of interest to you.
Tanga frequently has "Puzzlethons" where they run 1 puzzle an hour for 24 hours, and award prizes at the end. I managed to solve all 24 puzzles in the puzzlethon from this past weekend and had a lot of fun doing it. The hardest puzzle in the contest (IMHO) was the very last one, which added a little stress. I was able to get it with just minutes to spare! Great fun - I highly recommend it.