Undisclosed Financial Settlement of Catan

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, undisclosed financial settlement of Catan.

Randy brings the case against their girlfriend, Lizzie.

Lizzie has a growing board game collection, and Randy would like her to pare it down.

Lizzie says her collection isn't disrupting anything.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Well, someone's got to break the ice, and it might as well be me.

I mean, I'm used to being a host.

It's part of my podcast work.

And it's always difficult when a group of new friends meet together for the first time to get acquainted, so I'm perfectly prepared to start the ball rolling.

I mean, I have absolutely no idea what we're doing here, or what I'm doing here, or what this is about, but I am determined to enjoy myself, and I'm very intrigued.

And oh my, this soup is delicious, isn't it?

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear them in.

Please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God, or whatever?

I do.

I do as well.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that his favorite board game is electronic talking maul madness?

I do.

That's very specific.

Not pop-o-matic maul madness, for example.

Judge Hodgman?

Very well.

Randy and Lizzie may be seated.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors, can either of you name the piece of culture I referenced when I entered the courtroom?

Randy, you're bringing this case against Lizzie.

Why don't you start?

What's your guess?

Oh, boy.

I'm going to go with sex in the city?

Sex in the city.

I will definitely enter that into the guess book.

And just curious, how did you come to that?

It's the first thing that popped in my head.

I love it.

You know, I wish more people would go with the first thing that popped in their head

instead of trying to out-game me, as it were, try to win this non-game that I start the podcast with every time.

All right, Lizzie, it's your turn to guess.

Are you going to blurt out the first thing that popped into your head, or do you have some stratagem?

Some obscure 1960s Campbell Soup commercial, perhaps?

Have either of you listened to the podcast?

Lizzie has not.

I have.

That's fair.

I figured I'd keep it interesting by knowing nothing.

She's coming in fresh.

Do you know what?

That's how I usually start the podcast as well.

So congratulations.

You've won the game.

But not this challenge, because both guesses are wrong.

And the only reason that I didn't mean podcast shame, either of you there, it's just that normally the cultural reference is something to do with the theme of the dispute, you see.

Ah.

I'm explaining that to you now, Lizzie.

Yes.

And since the dispute is that you have maybe, I'll be the judge, too many board games,

according to Randy,

I chose something from a movie based on the board game Clue.

Ah.

1985's movie Clue, specifically a quote from Mrs.

Peacock, played by the great Eileen Brennan and directed by Jonathan Lynn.

But on to justice.

Randy, you bring this case against Lizzie.

Do I understand that correctly?

Yes, sir, you do.

And you guys are a romantic couple?

Yes.

And you are cohabitators?

Yes.

And there is a problem with board games.

What is the problem?

The problem is our dining room is mostly board games.

We actually had to purchase shelves specifically for said board games, and we still did not have enough shelves.

Oh.

Wait, when you say you purchased shelves specifically for the board games, do you mean that

you needed some shelves to put board games on, so you went out and got some shelves?

Or do you mean that you went to the board game store and bought board game shelves?

As lovely as that sounds, no.

We had an overflux on our tiny little Walmart shelving unit and then actually had to go to the thrift store to buy full-sized bookcases, about four of them, to house all of her board games.

And we

still do not have enough room.

Lizzie, what kind of games do you like to play?

That's a pretty wide variety.

It depends on who I'm having over.

But

generally speaking, for people who are a little less familiar with board games, I'll break out something like what do you mean?

or something that can be picked up really quickly.

For people who are a little bit more into board games, I find a nice balanced game is Betrayal at the House on the Hill.

It's not too hard to explain, and it's

pretty fun.

Lots of different ways it can go.

It's one of my favorites.

That one is in my house, but I've never played it, Lizzie.

You should try it.

Do you have anything like Parcheesi or Royal Game of India or Scrabble?

Or, you know,

Life?

All of those, actually.

I'm pretty sure I counted last night when I counted up my board game collection.

How many do you currently have?

About 250.

I'm just going to write that down so I remember it.

250.

Do you have Girl Talk, a game of truth or dare?

I don't yet.

Give me time.

Please don't say yet.

Well, we have to.

I mean, if I'm going to rule in Lizzie's favor, we have to offer her some other ideas for board games to get.

When I was a kid, for some reason, I had Q-Bert the board game.

Oh, no.

Oh, man.

That sounds cool.

And, like, I'm not old enough to have ever played Q-bert in a video game thing.

I think it was a hand-me-down from my dad's girlfriend's son, who is like seven or eight years older than me.

I played Qbert the video game.

I'm definitely old enough.

And there's no way I was going to go board game on that.

Frankly, the Qbertiverse was not deep enough to explore further.

I am looking forward to the feature adaptation.

Now, if you give me a Crystal's Castles board game or RPG, I might do that because that was a bear collecting gems and he sometimes wore a wizard hat.

That was good.

Sorry, but this is a different subject.

Video games are not board games.

Lizzie, as a board game person ordering, you know,

250 board games, Lizzie, do you feel that they are preferable to you than video games and why?

Oh, that's difficult because I've also got a lot of video games.

I would say that for in person, I enjoy board games more than I would like video games, generally speaking, but I definitely dabble in both pretty strongly.

Do you have employment of a sort?

Oh, yes.

Okay.

May I ask what you do for a living?

I support internet people with their internet problems.

Oh, nice.

Basically.

Is that a work-from-home type of deal?

Sometimes.

I did today so that I can make this podcast, but I do generally go into the office.

Oh, okay.

So you have an office that you go out to,

and then you come home and you roll some dice and move some things and do some tokening and stuff.

Occasionally.

Okay.

And how often do you have people over for game night?

Well, that's a little tricky because I try to make it happen.

Like, I'd like to have it be maybe a once-a-week kind of thing, but getting people together for that with adult lives and jobs and tiredness is sometimes a little bit difficult.

So when you don't have people over, do you play with Randy or what's going on?

How often do you play and with whom?

I can almost always get another one of my peeps, Kim, in on a board game.

She's almost as enthusiastic about it as I am.

And I can usually get Aaron, another one of our cohabitators, in on a board game.

Randy proves to be rather difficult to lure into board game land.

Randy doesn't like it.

Randy,

Lizzie's got 250 board games.

She obviously loves them.

What's the problem?

Why don't you like this?

Okay, to be fair, to be fair, I do like board games.

I

think she says you never play and you have no sense of childish wonder.

I'm interpreting.

I am highly offended by this.

I do apologize.

She called you a monster.

What say you?

What say I?

Say I.

I do like board games.

I do enjoy them.

I just don't enjoy them to the level that she does.

I also enjoy simpler board games because, so my my um my profession is I'm a nanny.

I'm a nanny for a

three-year-old little boy and a seventh-month little girl.

And then on the weekends, I also am a delivery driver for a local bakery.

So I work seven days a week.

Yeah.

And

I get too tired to really get involved in a board game.

And when we do play, we kind of play the same ones again and again and again.

Well, that's weird because Lizzie has 250 of them.

Well, Red Dragon Inn gets a lot of play.

You should be able to play a different one for every night of

whatever portion of the year 250 days is.

And that is what I am here for, sir.

That is the kind of justice I am seeking.

Bring it on.

The problem isn't that Lizzie plays too many games.

It's that she plays too few games of the many, many, many games you're storing in your dining room.

Do I have that correct?

Well, it's more of an issue of purchasing.

Oh.

So the amount of games that she just gave you was, I believe,

250 roundabouts.

When I initially

put in for this podcast, she had 229 because I counted for the entry that I had sent y'all.

So since then.

And of course, you probably put in for this podcast 35 minutes ago because the turnover is that quick, right?

My email response is that fast.

You guys are on point.

No, but Lizzie has accumulated more games even as you have been waiting for justice to be served.

And to continue forward, just because this is a tidbit of knowledge that I do not know if y'all have, we have been living together for, I believe, two years now,

bordering on three.

Bordering on three.

When we first moved in together, she had less than 20 games.

Whoa.

Whoa.

How could you even live with that few board games?

That's what you're

upset about, right, John?

Yeah, that's what I was about to say.

How can you possibly?

That is quite an accumulation spike, Lizzie.

What happened when Randy moved in that you're like, I got to get all the board games I can?

Well, it was less Randy's moving in and more my moving out, to be honest.

When they moved in, it was into my parents' place, and it wasn't an ideal situation for anyone involved.

Shortly after Randy moved in, we moved into another place, and thus I was able to start filling it with stuff, and stuff, in this case, being board games.

I see.

So when Randy initially moved in, it was to your parents' house.

Do I understand that correctly?

Yeah, it was something of a rescue, not something to go too deep into, but

it was important at the time.

Right.

But then when you and Randy and your other cohabitators

found a new neutral space to inhabit, it was time to start getting as many board games as quickly as possible.

Now, to say as quickly as possible would be a bit much.

I have purchased almost all the board games I have on deals and on like trades with other gamers and when I go to conventions.

Anytime I can get a game for cheap is usually when it's going to happen.

Basically, would you say that what happened was you had about 20 board games, and then one day you were at a garage sale, and they had 231 copies of Vanilla Ice Electronic Rap Game.

And then all of a sudden, you had more than 250.

Yeah,

I think I was at Judge John Hodgman's Yard sale.

Got it.

Oh,

don't put that on me.

Just because I had multiples of Vanilla Ice Electronic Rap Game.

Judge John Hodgman only plays Electronic Dream Phone and Don't Wake Daddy.

Well, yeah, that's because I bought all those other ones from him.

Oh, here's one called, Hey, Paw, There's a Goat on the Roof.

What are you looking at?

I'm just going, just Google.

I just Googled old board games, and I'm just looking at the Google image search results.

It's really great.

Well, that's part of the issue, too, isn't it, Randy?

I mean, you'd sent in some evidence

that I'm going to take a look at now, including some evidence of games that are designed to never be played because they are so esoteric.

But first, let's take a look here.

And all these photos, of course, are going to be available on the show page at maximumfund.org, as well as on our Instagram page, which is instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman all one word.

And the first thing that I'm looking at here are these fabled dining room shelves that are,

you know what?

If shelves were fish, I'd say these were packed to the gills.

with games

and i'm going to see if i can even get a higher resolution to this.

Get in here and see what you got in the shelf here.

I definitely see a Yahtzee, another game I've never played.

Oh, my goodness.

I basically don't recognize any.

There's been something of a.

Oh, there's two copies of Dead of

What is Winter?

Is that right?

That's actually the game and its expansion.

Okay, so are any of these doubles or are these all individual games with their expansion packs or whatever?

So we have two copies of a game called

Cats Meow.

Here kitty kitty.

Here kitty kitty.

Sure.

And for some reason, we have six copies, five or six copies of a game called Skirmish.

Oh.

It's like a little deck of card size thing.

But why do you have six copies of it?

Because that's how they came to me when I bought them.

There was nothing they could do.

Nothing to be done there about that.

Did you come to a crossroads and find there an ancient wizard who has forced you to take six games of skirmish lest a curse fall upon you?

It was more of a box deal where I got a box of board games and they're in there and it was like 20 bucks.

And I'm like, okay, that seems reasonable.

I will figure out what to do with all these skirmishes later.

And later hasn't come yet.

Let's take a quick recess to hear about this week's sponsor.

We'll be back in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course.

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Just go to maximumfund.org/slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Made In.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Court's back in session.

Let's get back into the courtroom for more about Lizzie's growing board game collection.

Ruling number one, Randy, I mean,

you would want me to order Lizzie to dispose of five of six skirmishes, correct?

Correct.

No doubles.

What else would you have me rule?

I would like her to take it down a notch on purchasing games until we have actually gone through the entirety of our inventory, which you do see is fast.

So what portion of these games would you say you have never played?

I actually have that data.

Oh.

You are a Judge John Hodgman listener, after all, in spirit, if not in practice.

I sent it to

the evidence last night.

I don't know if you got it.

Here I scroll down to evidence submitted by Lizzie.

According to this, you have three active counters going on your smartphone.

Games we've played, 105.

Games we haven't played, 104.

Games still in shrink wrap, 46.

It's a little unfair there.

Your polling is a little off.

Because games still in shrink wrap are part of the games we haven't played count.

Correct.

I counted them in that way to give Randy even more evidence, just because I felt like it was only fair to be completely transparent about the state of our game shelf.

Please don't attempt to help your partner.

This is a podcast of dispute.

So games we haven't played, 104.

Games still in shrink wrap, 46.

That's 150 of them, correct.

Games we've played, 105, so that's 255, actually.

Lizzie, did you just buy five games since the podcast started?

Yeah, there was a guy in the lobby.

So exactly.

Some ancient wizard cursed you with five copies of Mystery Date.

Do you have Mystery Date?

It's not coming up in my mental dialogue.

Let's go back to the shelves.

Yeah, I'm looking at the shelves.

Now, these are in your living room.

Our dining room, sir.

Yeah.

How often do you play Toaster Oven?

Because there's definitely a Toaster Oven on these shelves.

Toaster Oven gets played at least twice a week.

Got it.

Okay, so that's safe.

Yeah, to be fair to Lizzie, there are other things on these shelves.

Okay, to be fair, there weren't until I had a day of I can't deal with it anymore.

Kitchen things need to go into place.

And I took all of the board games off of that shelf.

Yeah.

They annexed one of my board game shelves.

So

this shelf full of toaster ovens and colanders and breads and butters, that used to be a board game shelf?

Yes, sir.

There's also a neti pot there.

That's absolutely right, Jesse.

There is a neti pot there as well.

What happened to the games that were on this shelf?

What did you do with them, Randy?

They're mostly on top of the other shelves now and kind of jigsawed into the rest of the game shelves.

Nice tabletop recreation verb there.

Well done.

Thank you.

I've actually recently worked on refinishing a shelving unit that they found in our dumpster.

So we have more shelves so we can straighten out the board games and hopefully

do something.

Feels precarious.

Maybe because you took the photo at a Dutch angle.

But

it does feel a little bit like those shelves are a little overfull

and they might fall down and onto your dining room table and ruin your dinner of what looks like to be five gallons of spring water.

Actually, 12, sir.

What's going on with all the spring water on your dining room table?

Just temporary storage?

Our water had gone out and we were all getting our hair colored that day and I was determined to make it happen.

So I went and bought 12 gallons of water and by the time I got home the water had been turned back on.

It is from looking at the picture difficult to determine to what extent the board games are precarious on the shelves and to what extent the canted angle is just making everything seem like a scene from Citizen Kane.

I love this household

because here's why.

You're scrappy, you're resourceful, you're obviously playful.

And when that water goes out, you're not going to stop your hair coloring routine.

You're going to go out and get 12 gallons of water.

I like it.

I like the way you guys are living here, but I got one major complaint looking at this photo, Lizzie.

I can see Scrabble in there.

That's not the problem.

What I do see very clearly, boggle.

What are you doing?

What are you, peggy hill i'm fairly sure that boggle was a kim acquisition and i accept no blame on that all right so i'm gonna just say right now even before i go to verdict you're gonna take that boggle and you're gonna throw it in the gutter

i hate boggle everyone knows this because you know you know why

The letters point in all different directions, so they don't make words.

That's not making order out of chaos.

That's just making a different kind of chaos.

Can't stand it.

It's a word salad.

Is telestrations a game where you pretend to be a sportscaster like John Madden or something?

No, telestrations is a game where you get a word and you try to draw it, and then the next person looks at the thing you drew and tries to guess what that is, and then the next person draws what they wrote down.

And it's

basically diagrams of football play on the screen.

Yeah, if that's what they feel is right in their heart.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's pretty much the telephone game with

drawings.

So tell me, Lizzie, so how large is the home?

Not large enough.

We had to get into a place real quick because a job was lost and they were selling

our home before this one.

And I had to find a job and a new apartment in about a span of two weeks, which I did, but it maybe wasn't the biggest, best house I could have ever found if I had more than like two weeks to find it.

So your solution was, well, let's just fill it as quickly as possible with games.

No, no, mostly they were already there for the most part.

Well, wait, no, but my understanding was that it was when you moved into this place.

No, no, no.

We had a place before this place, whereas I started my game collection growth, and then we moved here.

And I have acquired some board games while we're here, but I don't feel like I've acquired a majority of them since we're here.

Was your home prior to this one larger than this one?

It was more spacious.

We were living in a town home that our landlord caught on fire.

And after that occurred, we

she paid for the repairs and then sold the house from under us and we had to relocate within a two-week time span.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

What part of the world is this that you guys live in?

Atlanta.

Atlanta, Georgia.

It's a fantastic town.

Say hi to Chuck Bryant and Josh Clark down there next time you see them.

If you ever can crawl out from under the pile of board games that fell on you that day.

Well, I'm very sorry to hear that.

I hope no one was hurt in the fire.

Oh, no, all people and cats were accounted for.

Oh, how many, how many,

I didn't even think about this.

How many pets are in this place?

We have two.

We have two cats, one named Daria and one named Nikki.

Okay.

I thought you were going to say we have six.

Skirmish, skirmish, skirmish, skirmish, skirmish, and skirmish.

It was a box set, you know, you can't break it up.

But Lizzie, I wanted to turn to this.

When you did get your own place after you moved out of your parents,

I got the impression that your accumulation of games spiked rather sharply because you went from 20

to 250 in two and a half years.

And if my math is correct, that's a thousand games per year, roughly.

Was getting a big collection of games something you've wanted to do for a while?

Well,

actually, I can trace back my

reinitiation into the love of board games to Randy.

Don't blame me there.

That's fine.

Go on.

But hold on.

Ouch.

Randy was dating someone at the time who was really into board games, and I hadn't really been playing them for a few years.

And we went over to their place and we played some board games.

And I was like, wow, I remember that I really like board games.

And then it just never stopped.

So Randy inadvertently reintroduced you to board games.

Inadvertently.

It wasn't intentional.

They weren't like drumming their fingers together and twirling their mustache going, I'm going to get them into board games again.

Yes.

That didn't happen.

That would have been very exciting, though.

It would have.

happened that way.

To what extent is this collection of board games about playing board games?

And to what extent is it about collecting a thing?

Could be a game.

Yeah, you got me there.

I will admit that I am pretty serious about collecting.

I do like to collect board games.

I do like to play them a lot, too.

It's just significantly easier to collect them than it is to actually get people to sit down to play them.

Is that distasteful to you, Randy, on some level?

Not really.

I'm a very clean and organized person.

I don't like clutter and I don't like disarray.

And right now, that's all those games are is clutter and disarray.

And to me, an eyesore because it's you really can't get to anything.

It's hard to find anything.

You have three, like one shelf might have like

games going back three games to the back of the thing.

What do you mean?

You're saying when I look at these shelves, there are games behind these games?

Oh, yes.

Oh, absolutely.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

Because I'm looking at, I want to be clear.

I'm looking at a lot of board games.

Maybe even a bunch of board games or a ton of board games.

But you're saying there are other board games hidden?

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

There is board game seption.

There is board games, on board games, games, on board games.

So,

okay.

And

I see.

And Lizzie,

I mean, obviously a solution for you

would be to have a larger place where all your board games could be kept neatly and in a beautiful state, correct?

That is the plan and desire, yes.

Right.

Why is it important for you to have a collection of board games, even even a collection the majority of which you have not yet played?

You know, it really comes down to, I feel like everybody has a hobby, has a collection, has a dragon's hoard, if you will.

And board games and games in general are my way of exploring media and exploring myself and getting people together and having a nice time.

I enjoy collecting them because they're my thing.

I think I heard about a Judge John Hodgman Hodgman case where somebody had like a lot of shoes.

And I'm like, hey, more power to you, shoe person.

That's cool.

Right.

And there are certain board games that you just don't play at all, though.

Right?

Just haven't gotten to them yet.

They're lower on the list.

Exhibits B through D are submitted by Randy.

Perhaps I'll read the names of these games and you can tell me whether you have or intend to play them.

Yeah, to be clear, Randy says these are games that Lizzie didn't purchase to play, but purchased for quote hipster cred.

Two words.

Oh, there's a couple of those for sure.

Nothing earns hipster cred like a board game collection.

Let's listen to these titles.

Seduction, a new variation of the oldest game in the world.

Have you or do you intend to play it?

I think it's a little heteronormative, so I'm not into that, but

you know, I'm like into it existing.

It's like a history lesson.

Yeah, it's a, I mean, this would turn my head at a yard sale.

Obviously, the photos are available on the show page at maximumfund.org and on our Instagram account as well.

And there's no question that it is pretty heteronormative.

It is clearly supposed to be a provocative game, probably from what year would you say it is from.

I believe the copyright in it is somewhere in the 1950s.

Somewhere in the 1950s.

Maybe 1960s.

Okay.

And is it a Hasbro?

Is it a Parker Brothers?

A great New England company, by the way, Jesse.

Who's the maker of the game?

I don't know that off the top of my head.

I don't think it was any of the mainstream ones.

It appears to be from the 1960s by the Createch company of Los Angeles.

Oh, you've zoomed in on the image.

My eyes were instead taken to the, I guess, the nude woman, and this is done in sort of like classical Greek vase illustration motif, a nude siren caressing the shoulder of a man wearing a toga.

I would call him a white Rick James wearing a toga.

That's probably his hair is pretty cool.

Next game, Jesse.

The Bible Man Adventure Board Game by Tally Core.

This features a superhero with a crucifix on his shoulder pad.

He is an armored superhero, of course, because that is the great teaching of Jesus.

Put on armor so you can punch someone without getting punched back.

To be fair, I would not call him a superhero.

I would call him a cyber hero.

That's probably true because there are a bunch of ones and zeros behind him.

As well as a vampire next to him.

This is a digital age Jesus metaphor.

Have you ever played this one, Lizzie?

I've read the rules on it.

I haven't played it for similar reasons, but that one was one of my

first

hipster purchases.

I was in a thrift store and I saw it and I knew I couldn't leave without it because it was $2 and too weird not to buy.

You know what I'm going to say?

Swift Justice right here?

Also, I agree with you.

Too weird not to buy.

You know what's not weird and not worth buying?

Six copies of Skirmish?

No, I was going to say this copy of this next game.

Jesse, what's it called?

Austin Powers Trivia Game.

Yeah, no.

You didn't need this one.

I probably didn't need that.

Why did you buy Austin Powers Trivia Game?

Because it was a dollar.

No.

To be clear, it was $2.

I'm looking at the price sticker right there.

Oh, shoot.

You're right.

You got me.

My grand plans have come unraveled.

And also, you know what?

It comes in a metal box.

What is the Mystery of the House on Haunted Hill or whatever it was you were talking about?

Betrayal at House on Hill.

Betrayal of the House on the Hill.

Right.

That's a metal box one, isn't it?

No.

Oh, let's see.

Then my theory holds up.

Metal box games, bad.

Cardboard box games, good.

Austin Powers trivia game really falls into a kind of uncanny valley between

ironic and not ironic that is completely unproductive.

Like if you're going to go to Austin Powers trivia game, first of all, Austin Powers was a pretty funny movie.

Sure.

Nothing wrong with knowing some trivia about Austin Powers.

But if you're going to go full ironic trivia game, you're going to want to go to the Wayne's World VCR trivia game, right?

That has scenes, Wayne's World scenes filmed exclusively for the board game.

Yeah.

This is not a good game, and it is in a little uncanny valley territory, as you say, Jesse.

I don't even want to put it on the Instagram.

Jennifer Marmor, don't put it on the Instagram.

Keep this one away.

Let's bury this as deep as we can.

This should be in no collection.

May I also note that that game was released before the rest of the Austin Power movies were out, so it's only for like the first two films.

Yeah, no, it's definitely for the first two because I see Vern Troyer as mini-me here on the cover.

And yeah, no.

Nope.

I thought you were going to say that it was released before Austin Powers was out, and I thought, wow, that is a bold gambit.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

All right.

And then here are the six copies of Skirmish.

Are they all the same again?

They're all the same game, right?

They're not variations.

I think they are all the same.

You don't even know.

You don't even know.

Yeah, that's correct.

Like I said, they...

I am not as much a fan of really simple games, and that one is one of those.

So I haven't looked that deeply into that one.

Have you looked so not deeply into it that this entire time we've been referring to it as skirmish and it appears to be called skirmish?

That's probably correct, considering Randy made that mistake too.

Yeah, but Randy is entitled to make that mistake.

Now you've got six copies of a game you don't even know the name of, and you named all your cats wrong at the same time.

It's terrible.

I know what Randy wants.

Should I rule in their favor?

Lizzie, what do you want if I were to rule in your favor?

I'm not opposed to getting rid of duplicate games that don't exist for some reason.

The Here Kitty Kitty mentioned earlier, we have two copies so that we can seat more players.

I thought you were tricking me there with a little wordplay by going, I'm fine with getting rid of duplicate games that don't exist.

I'm fine with getting rid of imaginary duplicate games.

Nothing so insidious.

I would like to have more game nights to play games.

to play.

The five copies of Malopoly that I have, I'm happy to get rid of.

I apologize, Daniel, for interrupting you.

Please go ahead.

Don't talk down Malopoly.

That was a heck of a game.

Anyway,

I'd like to have more board game nights to try games so that we can decide whether to put them on trial and serve them justice, i.e.

get rid of them.

Because until I've actually played a game, except for Austin Powers, the trivia game, and Boggle, I can't say for sure if I'd want to get rid of it or not.

One last question before I reach my verdict.

Randy, what's wrong with this plan of trying these games out

and playing more to find out which ones you like?

There's nothing wrong with that.

My whole issue is that she keeps accumulating games.

Right.

And I just want a...

In my wildest dreams, I would just like her to pause and just no longer purchase games until we've gone through what we have.

And then

once we have completed our task, then once again,

purchase games, you know, fill in spots that are now empty now that we don't have six copies of

scrummish.

Yeah.

And so you want to freeze on new acquisition until all the games have been played.

Yes, sir.

That is what I am here for, sir.

And how many people live in the home?

Five.

Five?

All right.

Good.

I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to attempt to navigate my human-sized version of mousetrap, and if I don't get caged in in my chambers, I will be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Okay, here's my real question.

This is like just a personal question for the two of you.

I am afraid to play board games because I'm worried that I'll want to win too bad.

And then if I do win, I won't feel good about it.

But if I lose, I'll feel bad.

And then the whole time you'll feel guilty about how bad I want to win.

Do you have any advice?

Well, I come from a point of

if you don't try, you'll never know.

You might play a game and then actually feel better.

about it once you're done.

But I'm also not a competitive person.

I don't have a competitive bone in my body.

Probably a defect, but I'm made the way I was made.

As for me,

if you want to try board games but don't want to have an intense competitive streak ruin it, there are a lot of board games out there that you can play that are cooperative and you can play against the board game with the other players.

And then your competitiveness is directed towards something that doesn't have feelings.

I'm way ahead of you.

I played a lot of save the whales the board game when I was a kid.

It's cooperative.

The goal is for everybody to save the whales.

Did you save the whales?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Do you think we should invite Hodgman over to play a round of Bigfoot, the giant snow monster game?

I mean, why not?

Isn't that a Yeti?

Aren't Yeti snow monsters?

Yeah, I mean, it does seem like a problematic name.

I'm pretty sure that Yeti is what I would think of as a giant snow monster.

Well, technically, Jesse, they're both considered to be cousins of the Gigantopithecus, the ancient giant giant hominid ape that supposedly went extinct, but it is believed still remains in several pockets around the globe.

It's not a big deal, unidentified voice.

We're going to play Do the Urkel anyway.

We'll be back with Judge John Hodgman's ruling in just a second.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years, and

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened, and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So, let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

This is an interesting case because it is not merely about a hobby

and it is not merely about a collection.

Two issues that have consistently bedeviled this courtroom and people who cohabit together.

One person has either a hobby that takes up a lot of time or is intrusive in some way, or one person has a collection that is spilling out all over the place

and intrusive in a different way.

Lizzie, you're managing to be intrusive in two ways.

Because your collection of games is also something that you use, right, actively.

And your passion is both a mix of using games, that is to say, playing them, and a mix of, I dare say, hoarding interesting games that you have no intention of playing.

So you love both the format of the game and you love also the playing of the game, but sometimes not the same way for for different games.

Seduction, a new variation of the oldest game in the world, has no seductive power over you.

But there are other games that you will happily take out and play.

In fact, based on your own data, far fewer of your collection are the games that you actually have in play, as it were.

Now, readers of the Judge John Hodgman column in the New York Times magazine of many years will recall a situation where a heteronormative husband and wife were in dispute over the husband's,

what he would claim to be collection

of Sunday cups in the shapes of baseball hats that he got at baseball parks.

Now, these are things that exist.

It took me about two years of research to understand what they were talking about.

But I guess if you go to baseball games regularly and you go to different baseball parks, they'll sometimes give out little plastic hats that they can get an ice cream in, or maybe you get by the ice cream, and they come in the hats of that team or whatever.

And he was collecting them and they were gunking up all of the shelves in the house

and i said that that you know there is a thin line there's a small distinction between a collection and a hoard and that distinction is a display case

is the collection

kept out of daily use is it enjoyed and curated and kept organized?

And that is the difference between a collection versus a hoard where it's just, I got to have this stuff and I'll shove it in any possible corner.

And looking at these shelves and the evidence that Randy submitted,

she used the term that she had to jigsaw the games in to make room for basic needs like toaster ovens and colanders in your life.

Which was a great word to use, but I would dare say they jenged them in.

Randy piled them up

in such a way that soon it will tumble into a massive pile of cardboard.

One thing won't be in that pile, of course, Boggle.

That will be thrown away immediately.

First ruling.

Sound of a mini-gavel.

Beep, beep, beep.

Have you ever played mini-gavel, you guys?

It's like regular gavel, but travel size.

Travel gavel.

Trive gavel.

This is not a collection.

This is a hoard.

You know it by looking at it, but I knew for sure that it was a hoard the moment that you showed me seduction.

You didn't know what year it came from.

You didn't know who made it.

If this were a proper weirdo

board game collection, this would be a prized possession.

The shelves themselves are three deep.

I do not see them in alphabetical order.

I do not see them in order by size or color.

I do not see any of the discernment or the careful organization or the curated interest

that would emanate from a proper collection.

And proof in the pudding

is Austin Power's trivia game.

Yeah, baby, this is a hoard.

It is not conducive to the happiness of at least one of your cohabitants.

And what's more, the games that you're not playing, which you are allowed to have, are hidden from view.

You're not even able to enjoy them for their collectibility appeal.

And so, very sorry, Lizzie.

I gotta find in favor of Randy.

You are not being fair to your cohabitants by taking up this much space for an indiscriminate

Tetris pile of junk.

But,

Lizzie, there's some justice here for you as well.

This is one of those games

where the two players play against the game and try to beat me.

And in a way, you both win.

Because

you're going to get what you want.

You are going to play these games.

Every week, one night a week, you and Randy are going to play a game.

And unfortunately, only Randy is going to be compelled to the table because

they were the one who brought this case to court.

And the two of you will pick a game, play it,

and if Randy likes the game, it stays.

If Randy doesn't like the game, You have to make an argument for why it's historically or personally valuable to you.

And then you will add it to the collection.

And if you can't make a good argument for that, and if Randy doesn't enjoy the game, it's going to go.

And there will be no

new acquisitions

until you've assessed the playability of the games you already have, and you have weeded out the ones that do not merit either playability or collectibility.

to your respective satisfactions.

You're going to have to exercise a certain amount of discipline, Lizzie, because I know you're going to go out there and you're going to see

some weird game that you want for $2.

And you're going to have to walk by it and not get it.

But I'm going to give you a couple of freebies because you're going to get rid of Austin Powers' trivia game, Boggle, and five of the skirmishes.

So that's seven.

That's seven that you can replace

during this game hiring freeze.

There's a Hannah Montana maw madness, just so you know.

No.

So get rid of those seven.

Over the next 250 weeks,

you can get seven more days until you have played each of these games and assessed its playability according to Randy and its collectibility according to you.

It is important now to start winnowing down the chaff and enjoy only only the wheat.

This is the sound of a travel gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Randy, how do you feel about the judge's decision?

I am absolutely elated.

I feel like this is going to be a very positive turn for the household.

Lizzie, how do you feel?

Seems reasonable to me.

I'm definitely going to be working on getting expanded storage because I don't want to wait five years to buy a new video game or buy a new board game.

Yeah, I mean, you can still buy as many video games as you want, apparently.

Yeah, that hasn't been limited.

Thank goodness.

I'm not a monster.

Did you know there's such a thing as Golden Girl's Clue?

I am very intrigued.

Well, Randy, Lizzie, thank you so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast, and best of luck with your collection management.

Well, another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

Before we dispense some swift justice and head off to play, Insane Clown Posse presents the quest for Shangri Law the board game.

We want to thank Adam Capybara, Tom Brinton, and Brad Daniels for naming this week's episode Undisclosed Financial Settlement of Catan.

If you want to name a future episode like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, it's easy.

Just go to Facebook and search for Judge John Hodgman and click on like.

There's my instructions on how to do that.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJHO.

And check out the MaxFun subreddit at maximumfund.redddit.com to chat about this episode.

Our thanks to Kevin Rinker at WABE Radio in Atlanta, Georgia.

Our producer on the program is Jennifer Marmer.

Now.

Swift justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

Megan says, my dear man hates board games.

He feels they trick you into doing work.

I've never thought about it that way before.

But there's something to it.

I would like to play Scrabble with him on the grounds that it is a slow, conversational, low-stakes, low-pressure game.

Can I get a ruling that he be made?

to play Scrabble with me.

Well, Megan knows how much this court loves Scrabble.

But indeed, Scrabble is pretty much the only board game that this court loves.

And by this court, I mean me, Judge Jen Hodgman, because I've had a long-standing dislike for board games because they are most often

played around a coffee table, and that comes into conflict with my lifelong distaste for leaning over.

Scrabble, I will play at a dining room table

with my most favorite person in the world, my wife, and that has become a great passion of mine.

And I do enjoy it, but only when sitting at a proper table with a proper cocktail.

It's a wonderful, exciting game, a perfectly balanced game.

And so, Megan, I agree with you.

I wish your dear man might enjoy it.

But, Megan, you're wrong.

You say that Scrabble is a slow conversational, low-stakes, low-pressure game.

It definitely is slow.

It can be conversational, but only if you're not doing it correctly.

And it is a very, very high stakes, high-pressure game.

You know, it's a vocabulary and spelling-based game, and people feel self-conscious a lot of the time about their spelling and their vocabulary.

And people feel a lot of pressure, like grade school pressure,

when they play Scrabble because they're afraid they're going to be...

called out as a bad speller, which is like deep, deep, you know, grammar school trauma.

And what's more, if I ordered him to play a game of Scrabble with you, that would not have the outcome that you want, unless you simply want to destroy him at Scrabble, because he doesn't know any of the techniques of Scrabble.

He probably doesn't even know most of the two-letter words.

You would just destroy him and he would be humiliated and he would walk away and never play again.

So my only option is to order him to play 250 games of Scrabble with you so that he becomes good at it and learns to enjoy it, or to order you to just simply acknowledge that people like what they like.

And in this case, he likes not liking board games.

And therefore, I am going to have to find in favor of Dear Man

and say, unless you're going to play 500 games of Scrabble, you're off the hook.

That's the sound of a gabble.

Do you know what game I play with my wife?

No.

Donkey Kong Country Pog Pitchin' Game.

Officially licensed product of the World Pog Federation.

I didn't realize it was sanctioned by the WPF.

That's about it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O or email hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No cases too small.

We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Travel Gabble.

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