Holidays: 2 - GWAN: 0

The holidays win!

GWAN (typically pronounced "Gwahn", or kind of like what I think someone from The Bronx would sound if they were saying "Go on!") stands for Gamers Without A Name, which is the name of the weekly gaming group that I host at our home. We gather every Wednesday at 7:00 PM and game until everyone leaves.

Although I would love to do more gaming with all of the good friends I have here in Brisbane, I work to keep the group down to a manageable size (generally 3-6 players) so everyone can game together at one table. Even though the weekly email goes out to 20 people, most of those are individuals who came in the early days but haven't been seen in a long time, or were pretty regular until they moved out of the state (or, in some cases, the country).

We have 3-4 regular attendees, counting myself, and two kind-of-regular attendees, so I'm mostly able to attain my desired number of players. But occasionally I get a little stuck.

Like last week. I finally realised that GWAN's weekly gathering was going to fall on Christmas Eve. Hey, *I* was available and interested in gaming! But I figured the others would have family affairs to attend. So I sent out an email to see what sort of availability people would have on Monday or Tuesday. The result: Trevor - the most faithful attendee other than myself - was happy to play on Wednesday and no one else was available on any other day!

But, since Trevor and I don't really play two-player games, GWAN was cancelled on account of Christmas. (Just another reason for me to like the holiday so much....)

This week, I figured my enthusiastic gamers would enjoy ringing in the New Year with games. In the past I've held special New Year's Eve gaming events, sometimes going for 24 hours (12 noon December 31 to 12 noon January 1). But this year I was just aiming for a regular GWAN event - which often goes past midnight, anyway.

You already know the result: Trevor and I were totally ready, but no one else was. (Though Ann might have been able to play a game. But she's still experiencing jet lag and is falling asleep this week around 8:30 PM.) So GWAN was cancelled on account of New Year's Eve.

Like I said, the holidays win!

Still, I wonder what the gamers I know in Cleveland, Ohio will be doing on New Year's Eve, or the guys down in Sydney....

Anyway, I do want to take a moment to sing the praises of Trevor! He's pretty much always been there for GWAN, and I really appreciate that. (There is a certain irony here, though, in that Trevor is the only group member without internet access, so he'll probably never see this.)