TeleFictionary and the Festival of Lights

I had some folks over for a Chanukah celebration last week. As a result, the apartment smells like latkes. But more importantly, I had a new stack of TeleFictionary papers to scan!

We started off as a group of five, but a couple of stragglers joined us later in the evening, bumping us up to seven. Included in the mix were a couple of non-native English speakers, at varying levels, which added an extra, welcome element of interpretation.

A great night with some great results, which you can see after the jump, along with a shout-out to our friend Meli, who wasn't able to join us. Click on the pictures to enlarge them if you find yourself squinting.  (FYI, a couple of the rounds are a little NSFW).

But first, it appears that the War on Christmas continues to rage:

When you're even, it's a draw

A few months ago, I had some people over for a slumber party. Of course, we inevitably sat down for a few rounds of TeleFictionary. There was a complication, however. We were a group of six.

The number of participants impacts how the game is played. If you have an odd number of people, you start with a sentence and you end with a sentence. As customary in the Telephone games of yore, this allows you to compare where you started to where you ended. Input and output. But if you have an even number of people, you start with a sentence and end with a picture. This isn't a disaster; it's just apples and oranges (which, by the way, are comparable...).

One solution is to stop at the last sentence before the paper makes it back to its starting point. Basically, that's playing as though you had an odd number of people. For the mathy types out there, if your group has n people, and n is an even number, you can play as though your group had n-1 participants. Given our group of six, we could have played as though we had five people.

Another solution is to just end with a picture. After all, you still get the same last sentence; you just get a bonus picture! No harm in that! So we decided to end with pictures at the slumber party.  Often, the bonus picture added something nice to the rounds.

More highlights from the slumber party after the jump....