Cough, cold and card games

I am stuck at home with a cough and cold - throat infection. The work I do - can only get done in office.

Hence, I have some free time. Thus, this blog and frequent posts. Yesterday, when I was going to sleep, I was getting this craving for UNO.

Our team has a deep interest in the card game (even Senior Leadership participates).
In fact, inspired by our team, the game, invented in a barbershop in Reading, has sparked off quite a following on the 22nd floor. Every day some team would drop by into our room, asking us for a game. Usually, we would be playing the game, when they would drop by (this has changed slightly now, with us working from a different office during the day).

We have also 'invented' some rules. Well, the same rules also have been thought up by others (so we can't claim a patent), in various other versions of UNO that are on the net.

However, our combination of rules which we need to name, works for us (Maqsood/ Kaju/ Christophe/ Mulund/ Mowgli). The main rules are:
1) The dealer will deal 13 cards each in the beginning. The rest are put on a pile face-down, with the top card being put up face-up for starting the game. Standard rules of matching either the colour or number applies from now on. The objective of the game is to get rid of your cards
(I am assuming you already know the basic rules, from now on).

2) If you can't/ don't want to play a card, you draw one card from the face-down pile. You can choose to play a card (including the card which has been drawn) after you draw. Otherwise, you can pass.
3) The Draw-2 and Draw-4 cards are cumulative. You can choose to 'ward off' the drawing of 2 or 4 cards by playing one of your Draw-2s or Draw-4s respectively. However, you can't play Draw-4 on a Draw-2 and vice-versa.
4) The penalty for not saying UNO, when you have one card left, is drawing 4 cards.
5) The final, and in our opinion the best, rule is the blank card rule. If you play the blank card (there are 3 of them in the pack), you can make any two people (including yourself) exchange their hands.
This can prove very useful when someone has only 1-2 cards and you make him exchange his cards with yourself or with your team-mate. This can also prove useful, relatively early on, in getting to know your team-mates cards.
6) Teams can be made, if an even number of people are playing. We form 2 teams of (n/2) members each. The game is over when one member of a team finishes all his cards. Sacrificial plays come into play in this game!!
7) No looking at another person's card (That's for Sun/ North Star and other people whom we have observed over the last few weeks!!)