Say Cheeze!

Taking photos at Pitstop Cafe has definitely become a ritual. Most group that comes by enjoy the part where they posed for the pictures to be taken and subsequently paste on our "mega photos" wall. Some even has so many of their photos on the wall that they have their own "turf" where all their pictures are paste.

Many have bought back the photos after all fun memories are worth remembering. Some more the pictures that we took are very nice. Ya i know you are going to say that it is because you are chio / yandao but our photography skills are not bad too.

When we take the pictures, we don't use flash. That is much better because the color looks more natural without the shiny highlights that comes from the flash. We also try to get you guys to go to one side of the tables so that the photos taken are well focused.

Anyway there has been suggestion on our forum wondering why the digital copy is not available. I think most people often jump to the conclusion that because we are trying to sell the pictures hence we purposely do not make it available online.

The truth is that is just too much work to email the photos to individual. But we hear your feedback so what we can do is every once in awhile we try to upload the pictures taken from the previous month onto our forum. I can't promise to do it regularly but i definitely try. So if you like to check out the photos do visit our forum.













You simply can feel the fun and laughter just by looking at all these pictures. So if you come to Pitstop Cafe recently, perhaps you can find your pictures in our forum as well.

Pitstop Cafe, we listen to your feedbacks

astroboy

Goodbye Sweet Little Things

Sometimes i wonder why is it that hard to do extra nice little things. We always thoughts that having free sweets at the counter is a really nice thing to do for folks that comes to the cafe.


popular sweet little things...

It make the cafe environment feel more personal and more homely. But sometimes such good gesture on our part can become a nightmare for us. Some folks seemly throw the wrapper wherever that is convenient for them.

We found the sweet wrappers in all sort of places, on the floor, inside the flower pots, between the sofa seats, inside the sugar container, in the toilet bowl, inside the boardgames and along our stairway.

This really adds to the inconvenience and the extra work of cleaning up the place. And at times, it is really upsetting not because of the work but rather it is pretty demoralizing to be treated this way.

Hence after much consideration, we will be saying goodbye to these sweet little things soon until we can think of an alternative. Any suggestions?

However for all you nice folks that are reading this blog, if you like one of the sweet things, just let our friendly crew know!

astroboy

Anything, Whatever

I believe everyone must have heard of the new drinks in town, Anything and Whatever. Really an interesting concept. One of our crew, Mrs Reeves was suggesting...


MrsReeves: hey we should order and provide these drinks as well...

astroboy: Eh we have such drinks available already mah...

MrsReeves: Got meh? Since when?

astroboy: Got, everytime customer says anything is fine, then i just tikum and pick one of the drinks available from the list lar..

MrsReeves: Like that also can???

astroboy: Same concept mah :P


Actually we also have 2 very interesting drink. However they are available only once in a blue moon. In the earlier scenario you don't know what drink you want and you get something different. This time you know exactly what drink you want. However you still ended up having something completely different! How's that for a new experience?

So what are these 2 new drinks called?
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Wrong Order

Pretty waitress: Sir your hot ribenna mixed with lemonade...

Friendly Pitstopper: Eh i order cold coke leh

Pretty waitress (smile sweetly and look innocently): Huh then how?

Friendly Pitstopper: Ok, no problem, i think this hot ribenna with lemonade is a good choice...


Out of Stock

Friendly Pitstopper: Eh can i have sprite?

Pretty waitress: Out of stock

Friendly Pitstopper: how about lemon tea?

Pretty waitress: Out of stock

Pretty waitress (smile sweetly and look innocently): We do have soya coke, coke mixed with soya bean. Will that do???

Friendly Pitstopper: Ok, no problem, i think this soya coke is a good choice...


Wrong Order, Out of Stock, which one you like?

Pitstop Cafe, be part of the fun!

astroboy

Disclaimer: astroboy internal circuit has been shorted due to the recent fever. This short entry is just a nonsensical thought from his damage brain. We never serve hot ribenna with lemonade nor soya coke, so please don't ask for it.

Astroboy would also like to take the opportunity to congrats the folks at Out of the Box for successfully bringing their creative ideas into an actual product. This is something which i think everyone could learn from. So if you have an idea, make it happen!

Small things make a great difference

In the service line, it is really a tough challenge to provide the best customer experience for various reasons. Maybe some folks like me might have a "not-so-bright" face and hence look abit fierce. Of course we constantly try to learn from various experiences.

But sometimes it is really great and shiok to hear about good things that happened at the cafe. In the story below, the star is our good looking Tim....

From twirlingpenguin blog:

I had such fun at this place, Im inspired to blog about it.

http://www.pitstopcafe.blogspot.com/

Settler's cafe was fully booked, and I found this place by chance on the web and we decided to give it a try.

Cozy spacious place, much better than Mind's Cafe, and not too crowded like Settler's. We played Ugly Ugly Ugly Doll which was a good warm up game, and then one of the guy there (Tim) introduced us to the Spy Game! That was when the fun start, and we all had secret identities as spies, and we had to do our best to hide our identity. Liling betrayed herself twice, and it was v funny becoz Tim walked over n asked "Oh, u out again ah" in a non-humiliating, just shocked n amused manner, which made all of us burst up laughing. And he proceeded to hand Liling the manual "How to be a better spy", which made us luff even harder! Very considerate staff they have here, afraid that Liling will be bored, he soon handed her a fishing game she could play by herself! hahaha

More about the fishing game.

It always warm our heart to know that folks came and enjoyed the experience at Pitstop Cafe. Thanks!

This is definitely a good learning experience and encouragement for everyone of us to remember that no matter what you do (in personal or in work), sometimes small things make a great difference....

Pitstop Cafe, be part of the fun!

astroboy

The Revenge of the Chao Turtle

The problem with calling people names is that they will gang up and call you back names and that is not good sign. Since the
story of chao turtle, people started to call me names too!

nadnut calls me chao astro and CPR calls me ass-tro! Recently was talking to this crew which i should term her as piggy...

piggy: Eh you called Eve chao turtle (乌龟), then doesn't that make you a 龟公???

astro: @#$@%@%&*%@!!!



See lar, now people start calling me names too. So what is the moral of the story???

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No point crying over spill milk. So chao turtle, chao cookie, chao CPR, chao piggy...

Pitstop Cafe, be part of the nonsense

astroboy

Top 15 Bits and Pieces Revealed

Having played quite a couple of different board games you can't help but noticed some of interesting and unique bits and pieces used in various games. The ability to identify these pieces is definitely useful at times when we picked up stray pieces from the floor dropped by careless folks at the cafe.

I think the most embrassing moment for me was that i found a pieces but just could not figure out which eurogames it belonged to. Tim was quick to point out that it is from Monopoly. Sometime it is so easy to miss out something so common!

Anyway i gonna share the top 15 interesting bits and pieces from some of the board games. Thanks for those who mentioned the "chewy" camels, yeah i agreed that those definitely deserve a hightlight. Ok so now that me share why i pick these games.

Carcassonne

While this isn't really my favourite game,, these wooden folks (colloquially called meeples, a portmanteau of my people), is definitely one the most recognised symbol in Euro board gaming.



Ticket to Ride Marklin Edition

Ticket to Ride series is one of my favourite range of board games that i think is really fun and great for first timer Euro board gamers. While the trains components are something most folks are familiar with, i personally find that these little passengers are the most unique pieces in the whole series.



Cartegena

A simple game to learn but definitley hard to master. This little pirates are unique especially at the head portion. I reminds me of some other thing rather than pirates heads....



Thurn and Taxis

Another one of my favourite games. High tension, various ways of winning...characteristic of good euro board games. These little houses are sure memorable to those who enjoy this game as well.



Mystery of the Abbey

Surprisingly, i have not played or actually even learn how to play this game at all. But when you are speaking about bits and pieces, you can't go wrong with games published by Days of Wonder.



Pillars of the Earth

My current top favourite! Amazing illustration and exciting gameplay. I just have to showcase components from this game. Wait till you see the rest of the game board. You will be amazed!



Traders of Genoa

A great and perhaps a deeper negotiation game compared to I'm the boss. However seldom teach this game as i personally find it quite diffcult to teach. Furthermore most of the folks at the cafe are more of board games hopper rather than board gamers so this game seldom see the light.



Puerto Rico

Another one of my long time favourite. Excellent game. Do can forget thoses bits of corn, indigo, sugar, tobacco and coffee. Not that hard to learn just that it is a longer learning curve. Again not really suitable for the board game hoppers.



Power Grid

Sad to say i have not really get a chance to complete this game at all. It is a great and challenging game but for first time play, i think you need more than 2 hours, something that most folks do not have the patience for...



Settlers of Zarahemla

Most have thought that the pieces are from Settlers of Catan, which isn't totally correct. It is actually from Settlers of Zarahemla, which is very slightly different from Settlers of Catan. Personally i hate Settlers of Catan because the setup is pretty cumbersome depending on whether it is for 4 or 6 player. But this version makes it easy which make me have a second opinion on this game...



Citadels

Another solid game. The king counter is definitely one of the more recognisable piece in Euro board gaming. The gold are unique too, look like sweets as some folks claim.



Hey That's My Fish

A short but challenging game. A pity is that most people only give this game one try and hence could not appreciate the depth of the game.



Modern Art

When it comes to action games, i think Modern Art is one of the best game in this genre. I personally do not like the plastic chips, but after seeing other bits and pieces, these chips definitely are unique!



Scotland Yard

A old classic Euro board games. I think most folks were not born or perhaps still a baby when this game was out. Mr X, represent by the transparent piece make it one of the more interesting and unique piece.



Galloping Pigs

Like Mark, i hate teaching this game too. In fact i hate to teach most of the party games. Luckily got the rest of the talented crew to do the job....but still these colorful pigs are worth noting!



So how many of the bits and pieces could you identify? I think there are more interesting bits and pieces but i do hope that through this entry, i am able to share with you more interesting details in euro board games.

Pitstop Cafe, be part of the fun

astroboy

Random stuff about thePitstoppers Network

Yeah, i finally finish sending most of the invitation for the Pitstoppers Network. It was really time consuming as i can't do a mass invitation. I can only invite 20 people at a time. So imagine me sending out 500 plus invites to everyone! But it is definitely worth it as we started to see more and more folks joining our network.

I had a tough time deciding whether to use the conventional forum or try a new platform. It think so far it has been a good choice as the new platform definitely has lots of interesting bells and whistle.

So what is this Pitstoppers network all about?

We like to create a forum which allow us to be able to keep in touch with folks that come to Pitstop Cafe as well as folks who enjoy board games as a hobby. It will provide a nice outlet for our Pitstop Crew to KCSS and interact and make friends with everyone. Hopefully this will make your next visit to Pitstop Cafe an even more unique experience.

One interesting thing that we notice at the cafe is that we realize a lot of our folks actually know someone else who had also visited the cafe. It is like they will look at the photos on our walls and exclaimed, "hey isn't that so and so from blah blah blah...". So hopefully through this forum, you get to find back old friends as well as make new friends!

Last but not least, i guess you guys know that one of the unique part of Pitstop Cafe is our photos walls. And guess what, we will try to bring some of these photos online too so that you can catch up with all the latest happenings at the cafe.

So once again, I welcome all of you who has join in the forum. Do feel free to start any discussions, share interesting photos and videos!

By the way, do you like the name Pitstop Board Gamers Club? I kinda of like the new phrase, Pitstoppers Network. Hmmmm should i change the name???

Pitstop Cafe, keeping in touch with you!

astroboy, exhausted...1 more day to go!

New Pitstop Outlet Information

Ok i am going to provide more information on the new outlet. It is going to be an interesting outlet...

The name of the outlet is Pitstop Board Gamers Club and its address is going to be....

http://pitstoppers.ning.com or you can simply click on the Pitstoppers Network link at the righ side bar of the site.



Ok i can hear you guys going "chey, i thought what...", but hey what i say in my previous entry is correct also mah. Although we can't really open another brick and mortar outlet, it definitely has not stop us from doing more in sharing our passion for board games.

So wassup with this Pitstop Board Gamers Club? I will keep you guys updated again. At the meantime, do join in our Pitstoppers Network...

Pitstop Cafe, be part of the network!

astroboy, warming up his rocket boots for tomorrow IPPT...

Game Review: Ugly Ugly Ugly

Ok this isn't exactly the name of the game. The name of the game is actually ugly doll but most folks only remember it just as the ugly game.

In general i don't like party games but this game is interesting for the fact that it is really easy to play, funny theme and you get to call people names!


Ugly dolls...

Basically this is a card game that plays from 2 to 6 folk. Inside the box are lots of ugly dolls,infact 70 of them...


10 different ugly species

So these 70 cards are mainly dolls from the above 10 species. In the beginning, all these cards are covered faced down and spread over the table. Everyone will get a turn opening a card...


You need a pretty big space to spread out the cards

So you can imagine that there will be opened cards and closed cards spread over the place. The moment you see 3 of the same ugly doll, you got to quickly snatch all 3 of them! You can imagine that this is not a easy task. You got to be fast and remember the locations of the various ugly dolls before the rest of your friends.


Crazy snatch for the ugly dolls

If you are snatching the same ugly doll card as your friends, you got to quickly call them "Ugly, Ugly, Ugly". The first folk who did that will get to keep the card. Of course you can see, the game is to try to collect as many ugly doll cards as possible and the winner is the one with the most cards!

Overall this is a decent filler game. The illustration are nice. The ugly dolls are more of adorable than ugly. It is easy to learn and it is definitely pack with lots of laughter and action as folks try to snatch as many cards while calling their friends ugly!

Hmmm should have a version where you have to be the first to call others chao turtle...

Pitstop Cafe, be part of the fun

astroboy