If you are in SoCal (or can make it down here), come on down to say 'hi' at Strategicon's Labor Day Weekend convention, Gateway 2007.

In addition to the normal mix of great open gaming, tournaments, and demonstrations, there are a few notable special events:

*  Play with the Creator sessions with Tom Jolly and other designers
*  Fermat Challenge - Beat Tom Jolly at his own game and you can win dealer dollars to be spent at the con
*  Live Action Wiz-War with a full-sized map, giant props and a quick-play qualifying round that will allow dozens to play
*  Q&A session with Tom Jolly on 9/2 at 1 PM - We'll get Tom to answer everyone's questions about his long career in game design, publishing and where the heck the new Wiz-War is! This session will be recorded for Boardgame Babylon
*  Protospiel West has a series of sessions to bring designers and playtesters together to try out the next generation of designer games.
*  Many seminars in the Strategicon War College.

In addition, I'll be running tournaments of Owner's Choice, Saboteur, Midgard, Stack Market, and Colosseum (maybe more that I am forgetting).

For more information, please see www.strategicon.net.

Come on down and say 'hi' - just look for me in the Boardgame Babylon t-shirt. I'll be there for most of the weekend.

On this session review show, I talk a bit about the new Days of Wonder offering, Wolfgang Kramer and Markus Lübke's Colosseum, and a new game from Z-Man called Owner's Choice from a designer to watch, Yasutaka Ikeda. Both are recommended titles that have been hitting tables around here quite a bit.

Also on this volume, you will find the nominees for the Boardgame Podcast Award for Innovative Concept discussed and the winner of said award officially announced. The nominees are:

BattleLore

Khet: Eye of Horus Beam Splitter

Pieces of Eight

Space Dealer

Yspahan

Don't forget that Gateway 2007 is just under two weeks away. Check out Strategicon's web site for more information about this great SoCal Game Con. I'll be running tournaments for a number of Z-Man games plus the aforementioned Colosseum. The special guest is Tom Jolly and we'll be running a variety of events with him, including Live Action Wiz-War - which will be run in a way to allow for lots of players so come on down and join the fun.

A sharp-eyed Boardgame Babylon listener recently pointed out that he found a picture of me on BGG.com so the jig is up - I'll stop posting joke photos and just show off my favorite picture of myself in the last couple of years. Here is a shot of yours truly - a big fan of Reiner Knizia's Taj Mahal - at the actual Taj Mahal. I carted one of my special oh-so-exclusive white palaces that were given out as promotional items all the way from Los Angeles to Agra, India to take this picture. The story of the journey there is something else, too, and I may find a way to work that anecdote into a show at some point.

Besides, I was heavily photographed at fellow podcaster Doug Garrett's West Coast MeepleFest this weekend (which was a blast), too, so I figured the image is out so I might as well embrace it. It was amusing (to me) while it lasted. I will post some comments on games played there (see the sidebar for some of them), although most will end up on a podcast.

Sorry for the dearth of podcasts this Summer. My walking pnuemonia seems to be back and my voice is a shade of its former strength. That and Skype/Total Recorder problems have kept me from a couple of projects. But a new series, another episode of a previous series and at least two session review shows are on the horizon.

...Sheylon