New Year's Gaming Eve

So I'm moving a little slow, this first day of 2009. Was up until 2ish as the Lovely Bride and I hosted a Gaming Open House for friends of our various gaming groups (The LB's Thursday night and Saturday games, my Thursday D&D session, and our semi-regular CoC/Open Design group). We ran from 2 in the afternoon to well after midnight, when the last guests headed to the door and we did some preliminary cleanup (because no one wants to look at a mess on the first morning of the year).

The general rule was "come when you can, and stay as long as you wish". I think I've found capacity for the house - about 20 people playing games, with the limiting factors being table space and room in the u-shaped driveway for cars (there was a lot of Tetris-like shifting as people had to get in and out). We had a huge amount of food and drink, and a lot of games.

I discovered Dominion, which was a very nice card game in a very big box with some interesting counter-standard mechanics. The group played the old regulars - Tikal, Formula De, Citadels, Flux, even some Magic: The Gathering. Sacnoth brought and taught an ancient game of Dogfight, from Milton Bradley, one of the first "warrish games" that I played as a kid. He and the Lovely Bride also led a group through Tales of the Arabian Nights, a more modern classic, that ran late into the evening.

And after it all, I'm a bit worn out, between the hosting stuff and the gaming to all ours. Time for a day off.

More later,

Steve Shafer

So, long-time friend Steve Shafer (That's him on the left) celebrated his 50th birthday this afternoon with a party that involved a large group of his friends taking to Lake Union in small boats on a scavenger hunt.

Let me explain.

Steve's lovely bride, Kelly, made arrangements with the Seattle Electric Boat Company for a party, in groups of 10 or so we all took electric boats (about twenty feet in length), given a camera and a list of things to find. The ship named after Tolkien's first novel (Hobbit), the ship named after the Norse goddess of love (Freya, though we never found it), count the smokestacks on the top of a local genetics building or the dishes on top of Channel 13.

We thought we did very well, in part since we had me and my Lovely Bride, a champion navigator, and a lot of people who were long-term natives of Seattle. And despite a rather hairy moment with a landing seaplane (we zigged and it zigged in our direction, we zagged and it zagged back), we thought we did pretty well. Alas, the other boats ALSO had long-term natives, and we didn't even place (mind you, we were CONVINCED we had found everything correctly, which may have just been madness of the sea).

Still, we had a great time, and wish Steve a most merry birthday at the half-century mark, and promised we would spread his adorable mug, complete with pirate hat, far and wide. Such in the gift of the Internets.

More later,

Allez Cuisine!

Memories are made of this - The Monkey King was taking photos at the holiday party.

Left to right: Janna, Janice and Our Flounder, decked out in stylish Christmas Hawai'ian Shirt and kilt (mostly hidden by the counter). The implement of destruction in my right hand is a fork/meat thermometer which I think is real cool.

Yeah, this goes on the Christmas cards next year.

More later,