Once Upon a Time

Just returned from the ALT/JTE Mid-Year Seminar in Hirata. Met a guy named Emmanuel who has awesome taste in card games. A few of us played Once Upon a Time. In this game, every player is dealt word/phrase cards which they must use to tell a story, as well as one ending card. So one player starts off with, "Once upon a time, nani nani nani," and he makes up a story, using as many of his cards as he can. If he mentions something in his story which is the same as another card someone else is holding, she can interrupt with her card, and carry on as the storyteller. There are special Interrupt cards that can interrupt any card of a certain type (Character, Place, Event, Aspect, Item).

Example:

Player 1: Once upon a time, there was an old woman [play Old Woman card]. She lived in a cottage [play Cottage card] at the edge of town.
Player 2 [interrupting]: Ohp, I've got the Town card! [play Town card] She was very lonely, but there was a wolf [play Wolf card] who sometimes came to visit her. Now, this wolf was a talking wolf [play This Animal Can Talk card].
Player 3 [interrupting]: That's an Aspect card [play Interrupt Aspect card].

And so forth, until one player uses up all her word/phrase cards, and wraps up the story with her ending card.
But I haven't done it justice: the cards are quite varied, so the story takes many twists and turns. During your turn, you might think you have the rest of the story all planned out, but then someone interrupts you and completely changes it. And it's hilarious. I haven't laughed that much in a long time.

I was going to blog about something more interesting, but I forgot what it was.
Off to Japanese conversation class. Maybe I'll have some stories when I return.