Postcards: Calvinball, Seasonality, Political Risk and the Weak Ahead

Did you know that there was a massive air strike in Yemen yesterday? Things are about to escalate.

Dear Fellow Expat,

In the board game my daughter invented, if you roll a FOUR on your first effort, you go to a “Shop.”

There, you get to choose how many spots you want to go from a “special space” near the end of the game. You bypass about 85 spaces on the board… And then you’re just five or six spots away from winning the game.

Wait… I'm sorry.

If you roll a THREE on your first effort, you get to go to the Shop. You just have to change the rules of the game off the bat and start on the first square instead of behind the first square.

My daughter tried to change the rules after rolling a three instead of a 4… in the second game we played yesterday.

You know where this is going?

Calvinball.

Calvinball is a game invented by Calvin and his tiger Hobbes in Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. The game's only rule is that each game must be different and fun, and players can make up and change the rules at any time.

I stopped her from advancing from that new starting spot…

Then, I p…