We're No. 1!

I'm not one to celebrate early, but I will say that I'm impressed that our team, with an infusion of new energy, is in the lead early on. You all amaze me.

As I say over and over, I don't want to insist that people meet a minimum participation level in order to be part of our group. At the same time, I'd rather not have people fill slots and never play.

When it comes to "help" points for scratchers, rolls and tourney passes, I no longer care if your score is 200+ or 0. We have multiple people who are awesome. It never takes more than an  hour to get the help you need for a free roll or scratcher. As long as we have such an active group, we're covered. Thanks all of you for checking in and helping each other when you do.

As for the Feast... that's where we really need help from as many as possible. I'm trying to make allowances for those who have helped in the past and are currently not active. The drawback: I don't keep scorecards, I don't keep stats. I have to go by memory, and I may have booted a past contributor the other day and didn't realize it, as I didn't recognize her screen name as one that is active. I'll resolve that in the next few days.

I don't have "rules" about when and how I remove somebody from the team. I'm hoping I'll soon have 50 active people and not have to think about it any more. Again, I never intended this group to be militant. I created it because I could, and named it after my podcast because I could. Fun fact: New episode should be dropping on Monday.*

Another fun fact: I'm recording another episode on Saturday night, remotely, and I'm interviewing a guy who has a super cool "hobby." Hobby isn't the right word, but you'll understand if you listen to ep. 38  on June 17 at cantturnitoff.com.*

I have no idea why DARNDICE's comments disappeared from our group chat this evening, or how she returned. But it was the crowning moment of a bizarre evening.

She brought a new group of active players, and they chat a lot. Awesome, that's what the chat is for. We also have other groups/duos on the team, some that chat, some that don't. And then we have plenty of loners in the group that wound up with us for no reason. I'm a loner, I have no friends or family that play Yahtzee. I think my Yahtzee wife, MysticShores, was also a loner who found her way into our group by chance. I don't know how or why I ended up with all of you in a group I created for the hell of it, but it has shaped up to be an active group. I'm very fortunate to be a part of it.

As I noted Friday evening, some of you offer words of encouragement to others, and those words come in many forms. I haven't seen every last comment made in the group chat lately. I've been on a long, busy, tiring run the past several weeks. And lately I'm falling behind on the daily chatting.

But I have yet to see anything that seemed critical of others. There was joking about level of activity on a weekday afternoon, but nobody has been openly critical of others, as best I can tell.

I don't want anyone to feel unwelcome, or criticized. I hope none of you feel that way. If, however, you are not happy with the group dynamics, I don't want you to feel guilty about moving on and finding another group. I don't like losing people, but it happens, as this group has seen several times. If you want to find a new group to socialize with, or follow a friend to their group, don't feel guilty. It'd be nice if you'd say goodbye first, at least privately to me, but you're not obligated to do that, either. I hate when people say goodbye in a group chat, then leave. Yahtzee changes their display name to "former member," so it's not immediately clear who announced their departure. How stupid is that?

If you're not happy with the group chat, ignore it for a day or two. Come and get your freebies, play some Feast and enjoy the world around you. Take a break from Yahtzee's chat. Hell, play less dice altogether for a day. Sometimes it's nice to put the phone down for a few hours. I don't do it often enough. I hardly touched mine for two days during my Memorial Day weekend camping, and I didn't miss it. I survived!

Do what's best for you, assume the best of others, and keep plugging away at the Feast. It's a fun challenge, and we've got a good thing going right now, it seems. Let's keep it going.

In the interest of sharing tidbits about our lives, I will tell all of you that I have a pacemaker. I've had one since I was 35 years old. I'm actually on unit 2 at this point. The battery hit its end of life after about 9-1/2 years. I'm expecting to get 11 years out of unit 2. Yes, I have a pacemaker. It's really no big deal.

*Fact is not fun