I just bought something online that, assuming it's not a scam and I get ripped off, has made me very happy. I'm pretty sure I made an entry about it once upon a time, buy damned if I can find it now. Way back I stumbled across a boardgame geek entry for Darkies in the Melon Patch which just tickled me pink. Just the sheer un-PC of it all made me happy. Well, that and the fact that when first listed it had the same printing date as the infamous Juden Raus. Sorta makes you think about how things really weren't all that different around the world. Anyway, I rated the game a '10' partially out of mischief and partly because I really did want a copy. The only problem is that I wasn't even sure it even existed. Most people had written it off as a mockup and a scam for the lulz.

That said, prismcat tipped me off earlier today that someone had 1 set left for sale out an initial batch of 6. Hell, I'd shocked to even find one of these but this guy was selling 6. God only knows where he managed to find them all. Maybe the KKK had a rummage sale or something. Better yet, the guy only wanted $30 for it shipped. I jumped on the deal and with a little luck, I should have my own copy of Darkies in the Melon Patch in a couple of weeks. I'm already thinking about where I should unveil it. Local gameday? Special event? Bring it to Origins?

If I'm lucky, this will one day appreciate in value and I can drag it with me to the antiques roadshow or something of the sort.

I spent most of the day sleeping despite my initial plans to pop over to the Panera game day. I didn't end up getting to bed until the early morning and though I got up a few hours later, ended up dozing off again. About the only useful thing I did today was to start prepping for the True Realm trip on Tuesday. It was time to haul out the old suitcase and play another game of packing Tetris.

Oh, I got a package from Curt of Smirk and Dagger a few days ago. He very kindly decided to send me a copy of the new Cutthroat Caverns expansions. They're fresh off the presses and probably haven't even hit the stores yet. It was incredibly generous of him and I really need to drop him an email to let him know I received it and to thank him again. I'm thinking of bringing the games with me to True Realm where I can run an event or two with them. It's only fair that I try to promote the game and company as much as I can given how great he's been.

Speaking of games, I got around to uploading a video from Dreamation a couple days ago. It was basically my first look at Munchkin Quest, a boardgame version of Munchkin. It looked pretty spiffy to tell you the truth and I feel a bit conflicted. I made a promise to myself a couple of years ago that I would never, ever, ever give any more money to Steve Jackson and his shlocky games. I was just so disgusted with the low value for the money. Every single time I bought another expansion of Munchkin I had this image of a naked Steve Jackson rolling around on a bed made of my money. It was horrible.

For those of you who don't know Steve Jackson, here he is:



Feel my pain.

That being said though, the new board game did look sorta spiffy. Here's the video.

So Valentine's day passed yesterday with nary a whimper. It seems sort of strange but I didn't see much of any runup this year. It's like Valentine's day dropped out of the nowhere without even the slightest bit of fanfare. I didn't see a single red heart or anything when I went out yesterday nor was there the saturation bombing online by florists and chocolateers. Maybe they figure with the economic outlook not as rosy as it has been in years past, people will cut back on Valentine's day purchases no matter what. There could be few things that qualify more as discretionary spending after all.

I ended up spending my Valentine's day at the Panera and learning the tyranny of New York first hand. Even before I became decrepit, I never really roamed around all that often. The area I'm in is crammed with stores of all types and I seldom have to travel more than 5 minutes to find what I'm looking for be it retailer or movie theater or whatever. BestBuy was having a sale on DS games and the only location that had it in stock for certain was in Staten Island. The only times I end up going to NY has been to get to NYC, which means the holland tunnel for the most part. I knew that that crossing was sort of pricey, as well it should be given the cost it must've taken to build the tunnels and also maintain them. I figured that crossing the bridge over to Staten Island would cost a few bucks tops given that it's a small bridge and a small road. $8. And of course they don't list the price until you get right to the toll booth so there's nothing to do but pay it. So in the end, the deal wasn't much of a deal but I felt sort of obligated to buy something anyway just so I didn't come away empty handed.

The gameday was pretty typical. No one I know is really Valetine's Day sort of people, regardless of whether they're in a relationship or not. All of the usual suspects were there and we ran through yet another game of Railroad Tycoon and then Agricola. Bill S is still obsessed with Railroad Tycoon, wanting to play it at every opportunity. My attention span for games is much shorter. I usually only end up playing, even something I love, half a dozen times tops before wanting to move on to something else. I have craploads of games still in my closet in shrinkwrap that never even got brought out.

Things wrapped up pretty early and we spent some time discussing education and just chitchatting in general. The general consensus seems to be that if the children really are our future, we might as well slit our wrists right now and spare ourselves the agony later. I suggested just shipping all of our underclass to Greenland. It worked for Great Britain after all and Australia turned out pretty well.

Welp, I finally got all the videos and pictures uploaded and ready. Our story begins Christmas day as I raced along trying to get to the theater on time and help Bill out on my way there.



I actually liked the movie quite a bit, though the plot was more than a bit confused. It seemed like I wasn't watching a movie as much as every other episode of a 20 episode animated series. There were characters and events that they seem to have added for next to no reason. If you get a chance to see the movie and can figure out what was up with that vegetable man, you're more astute than I am. It just seemed like whoever wrote the screenplay was either too much of a fan of the books or he really wanted to cater to the fans of the book. Everything was thrown in whether it really fit with the main plot or not. I also didn't like some of the moral relativity in the movie either. The idea that someone owe you an apology or anything at all simply because you feel gyped by life is sort of ridiculous. I know that doesn't make much sense, but I don't want to spoil the film for anyone by giving real details. Lets just say that I think the princess was fully justified in feeling as she did and didn't owe anything to either the rat or the pig-girl.

Moving on, the animation was really wonderful. I love fantasy to begin with and the animators really managed to bring the story to life. I've actually decided that I have to pick up these books and give them a read, children's books or not. I just love the whole idea of quests and adventure and the whole fantasy package. I will admit the 'longing' thing was a bit disturbing. At one point when Desperaux goes to pick up the pendant I commented to Bill that I'll bet he coped a feel.

As we were leaving the theater, I saw one of those big standup movie advertisements and insisted that we get a picture taken in front of it. My only regret is that the person I asked to take it couldn't work a digital camera well and it came out unfocused. By shrinking it down, it's not as noticeable though.



Pretty spiffy, eh?

After the movie we headed out for lunch at wonder seafood. Lori's husband Ron met us there. Unbeknownst to me, Bill turns out to not be a fan of seafood and Ron's an out and out vegetarian. That made things a bit problematic but they seemed to enjoy it overall.



Alright. I have to finish this up later. Something is really pissing me the fuck off right now and I have to go and try to deal with it.

---

Back. I was getting really infuriated with the fact that the video quality was still so horrible with the Flip Mino. I couldn't figure out why and I just had to go do some research online. It took quite a while but I finally figured out what was up. It turns out that it's youtube's fault in the end. When videos are uploaded to their site, they compress the hell out of it. The reason that my videos always looked like crap and other people using a Mino HD had beautiful videos was because there's a workaround/hack where you can get youtube to play the video in HD. You have to add a bit of extra code to the embedding and poof, it looks so much better. Right? Better.

Anyways, back to the recap.

---

After we finished our Jewmas day meal, we went over to Lori's house. We decided to play a game of Agricola, which I ended up winning to my complete surprise. I think it just shows that I haven't even come close to mastering that game yet.

As we were playing, Karen and Bernie also decided to show up and play. Ron broke out the Chinese Checkers set and attempted to play with Karen. Unfortunately, neither of them remembered the rules. Luckily, I was there to provide guidance. It's only right after all since it was chinese checkers.

You can see the game in progress here.



Karen won by 3 moves, which might be the first time I've ever seen her win anything. She's not nearly as competitive as Bernie as far as gaming goes and she's generally pretty half-hearted about it.

After that, Lori broke out the dreidels and we played some sort of weird Jewish gambling game. Each of the symbols on the dreidel corresponds like a roll of the dice to a result. We used poker chips and everyone would ante a chip before each spin. The results were pot, half the pot, nothing, and add another chip. I managed to get a defective dreidel that was clearly weighted. I'm not kidding either. This thing came up with the same losing result at least 60-70% of the time. When others tried my driedel, the same losing streak occurred. Needless to say, I lost in a hurry. By the end, Lori claimed victory but that was only to be expected. I mean, she is Jewish and all. I would figure that constitutes an unfair advantage.

When the game ended, Lori broke out the Menorah. I managed to get it on video so I'll let it speak for itself. That Channukah song is whacky.

All but one of the PSPs are gone already. They've been going like hotcakes. I always feel a bit ambivalent when something sells well. On one hand, I'm happy to get rid of the items. On the otherhand, the fact they're moving so quickly probably means I didn't charge enough for them. I always have this fear that I'm going to get stuck with some of these items if I don't price them really competitively. It's amazing how many sellers on ebay are trying to sell their PSP's for around $50 more than I'm asking. I guess it's that old adage that there's a sucker born every minute and they're all hoping a sucker walks through their door.

Speaking of getting stuck with inventory, I've still got 7 copies of Blokus 3D sitting around. It seems clear that they aren't going to move as stocking stuffers. It's just good that I got it cheap andd if all else fails, I can still use them as presents. I wouldn't be adverse to the idea of keeping a copy myself. Playing Rumis at Ubercon was sort of fun, even if I did end up getting my ass handed to me both times I played.

I'm also thinking that maybe it'd be worthwhile to keep one of the PSP's for myself as a backup. There's notta wrong with the one I've got but I'm a little worried about finding a PSP 2000 once the 3000's flood the market. There are huge graphical issues with the new system and Sony has no intention of fixing them. According to them, the scan line defects are a 'hardware feature', which doesn't make much sense at all. Labeling a defect as a feature still makes it a defect. I had been looking forward to upgrading in the next few months but with those sort of reported problems, I think I'm going to pass. I guess I can always buy a PSP 2000 off of ebay if I need to when the time comes. Hopefully by then it might be possible to snag one for better than $109 a pop.

It always sucks when you're incredibly sleepy and you're stuck waiting around for pills to kick in. There are certain things that should not go together. For some reason, sushi and ice cream immediately comes to mind as an example. Another pairing that should not be is a muddleheaded sleepy exhaustion mixed with periodic stabbing pain. It's just not going to sell.

Yesterday was a game day at the Panera. I arrived a bit later than I was expecting because of devilzfood. I was completely enraptured with the nigga fridge.



Because who couldn't use a few extra pairs of vagina panties, right? Frankly, I just don't think I could be bothered to keep a fridge stocked like that. I'm going to ignore al the other prominent reasons and conclude that the lack of this fridge-o-plenty is the reason there aren't vagina panties all over this hiz'ouse.

Anyway, upon getting to the Panera, things were pretty par for the course. We played a game of transamerica and then one of St Petersburg with the new expansion. The latter qualifies as the ripoff of the year btw. MSRP over twenty dollars and all you get are a couple wooden bits and a small deck of cards. A factory full of Indonesian kids are probably churning out complete sets for around a buck fifty per unit. I don't mind a reasonable profit, but this is price gouging pure and simple. Fuck you, Jay from Rio Grande. It doesn't help that they put the handful of pieces into a box 5 times too big so it seems as if there is more value to it.

For all that I think the expansion was a ripoff, I actually found the gameplay with 5 players sort of interesting. St Petersburg has become one of those games that I can play on autopilot before now. I know, more or less, what I and everyone else is going to do on their turn. The only randomness is in which cards pop up. The expansion has added a lot of uncertainty back. Well, until we play it a dozen more times and figure out all of the ins and outs.

After that the Bills ended up having to leave to playtest caterers. They always have their annual Christmas/Holiday party catered and the guy they've used in previous years has gotten too pricey so they're looking for a replacement. A relative was having a party and invited them along to sample the cuisine and see if they want to use the same company. Frankly, I think they should just save the money and get the whole thing catered by Subway. Many of the other attendees are probably more discerning but I don't really care what I end up eating. Just slop me regularly and I'm indifferent whether I'm munching prime rib or a pile of ham and cheese sandwiches. Besides, a penny saved is a penny earned.

After the Bills left, those of us who remained ran through a game of Year of the Dragon (which I have subtitled: It's not easy being Chinese) and Alhambra. YotD is one of those games where you constantly have to make hard decisions. Bad things are constantly happening and you're forced to decide who amongst your courtiers must get the axe. It's a good strategy game, but just heavy on the doom and gloom.

Welp, I think those meds are finally doing their thing so I'm going to go to bed.

For the first time ever, the existence of Craig's list has actually resulted in a positive. I was finally able to foist off those cases of energy drink for some small pittance. It was harder than it should have been. All in all, I had to repost the item twice and the first two people who said they were interested flaked on me and never showed. I guess the third time's the charm. I just got finished exchanging the product for cash. Turns out the guy picked up some for himself, some for his dad, and he's going to try to flip the rest at some nascar convention or somesuch. I'm guessing these things must retail for around a buck fifty per pop, so it's not a bad profit margin if he can offload them.

Frankly, I just don't get energy drinks. That's probably mostly because I'm a non-responder when it comes to caffeine. I never get that pick-me-up boost that people are always talking about. The one time I gave caffeine a whirl was in college when I had a final I was completely unprepared for. I ended up popping 6 pills of vivarin that had been in that welcome-to-college-here's-a-shoebox-full-of-advertising-and-free-samples we all got at the start of the year. It didn't wake me up but it did put me into a zombified state where I couldn't sleep, but couldn't do anything else either. I ended up staggering to the final, stopping every block or so to vomit noisily into the bushes or whatever was at hand. I still remember puking into a waterfountain at one point on my journey. Anyway, suffice to say that I failed my Physics II final exam and I never trusted caffine again.

In addition to not having any pleasant stimulant effects, the amount of calories in a can of this stuff is insane. Six pack of energy drink vs ice cream sundae, and it's not even close. Not that you're forced to one or the other, but it just seems to be a huge mismatch.

So now that I'm done with the energy drinks, all the Wii's are on their way, the lego advent calenders are long gone, and I sold most of Connie's knickknacks for her, all I need is to find something new to flip to keep myself occupied. I picked up 10 copies of Blokus 3D at a good price and I'll see how those go. If I can't find anyone who wants to pay for them, they'll make for nice Christmas presents. Blokus 3D is based on Rumis, which I got a chance to try at Ubercon. It's not a bad game at all, and usually I'm not one for spatial puzzles. I'm not exactly bad at them, it's just that I prefer not to use my brain any more than necessary when playing board games. Anything that requires actual thought and concentration over an extended period of time is usually a downer.

* In case you were curious, that would translate as a Single/Straight Asian male in search of a Bisexual Jewish couple with no kids for Bondage-dominance long distance relationship. Disturbing, eh?

I never got around to recapping the poker tourney this past saturday but you can assume from the delay that I didn't win. I actually did pretty well in the beginning, just like normal. I seem to always get off to a good start but then throw it away around halfway through the event. The real problem is that I play like crap. I never take the time to calculate odds and the minute I start going on a losing streak, my instinct is to throw all my chips into the middle and ride the poker table like a slot machine. What I should do is bring a cooking timer with me and set it to 2 minutes each time I'm in a hand so that I can't make a decision until the bell goes off. I'm sure that would infuriate my tablemates but it's probably the only way I could get myself to actually slow down and really rationally think about what to do next.

I will admit that I did at least go out in style. 4 people in the hand with 3 of us all in. I flopped a flush, someone else flopped a straight, a third flopped trips, and the last guy (who wasn't all in) had the nut flush draw. He managed to hit the bugger on the river or I would have managed to quadruple up. Just as well I didn't. It would have just prolonged the agony I guess.

Woot. I was just delivered some spiffy soup and dumplings so I will get back to this later

---

After washing out of the tournament, I stuck around and played a handful of board and card games. The Bills both showed up and the usual suspects were there for the most part. I didn't try anything all that impressive, mostly consisting of games I had played before. The only thing of note is I actually managed to win Race for the Galaxy a couple times. I still don't like it, but at least I'm not completely inept at it anymore.

Pain management was a major problem, like usual, and I spent a lot of time limping around. In the past, I could usually disguise the symptoms a bit more so this time around I had a lot of people asking me what was wrong. That's not exactly a lot of fun either.

I'm really not sure how many more Ubercon's there will be. The entire thing was on rocky financial footing even before the recent economic problems. Add that into the mix and my personal guess is that there will be perhaps one more before it ends in flames.

THat said, this particular con didn't seem to go badly. The attendance numbers seemed to be steady if not up based on the number of people I saw in the main ballroom each day. That should mean that the revenue stream is steady. The problem is that I'll bet the costs to run the event have increased with changes in hotels and whatnot. I had really liked the previous location since it was close by and had a Harold's on site. If you look at the ubercon tag, you can see some past entries with pictures of the food provided at Harold's. Pancakes bigger than a person's head and heaps of dead animals parts all roasted to perfection. I ended up having a single meal at the new hotel's restaurant and it's not one I'm soon to forget. It was cheap as hell but also featured meat that was one step above dog food. This stuff was so tough that I could have spent half the day chewing on it and not made a dent. Never before had I had a meal that so brought into focus that old apocryphal tale of there being 5 pounds of undigested red meat in every person's colon when they die.

I seem to have gotten off on a tangent there. The point of the con wasn't the shoddy food after all. The point was supposed to be the gaming. I ended up playing a buncha various board and card games. Most of it was retreads and I didn't get the opportunity to play many things that were new. I did get to try Gill Hova's game Prolix, which was fun despite the fact I got my ass kicked. Other than that there was a game of Cash and Guns, Illuminati, Agricola, Munchkin, Hex-Hex, etc.

The conflict came on Sunday when Robert Washington was running a game of War on Terror, something I had signed up for on a lark. Right before the game started, a bunch of us at the table had ordered Chinese food and I was the one who was holding all the money and was going to go get it when it arrived. I didn't want it to disrupt the middle of gameplay so I let someone else get in on the game and decided instead to watch. I had mentioned to Robert that I wasn't sure about the quality of the game design in the first place since it seemed to be so heavy on theme. In my experience, theme-heavy games seldom make for ones with good game play. His take was that it was a fantastic game and that he had never known anyone to not rave ecstatically about it. He even questioned whether it was even possible for someone to not love it after playing it.

So the game unwound and other than a few tidbits here and there, I wasn't all that impressed. During the game, I was chatting with a couple of the players closest to me about the game design and they were showing me the various cards they had. There seemed to be some monstrous sized flaws including the fact that it was all but impossible to really beat anyone in the game as a terrorist player since at any time they can choose to change sides and join you. That ended up happening quite a few times as someone would be on the brink of losing and then just switch and now they were winning. That seemed a little weak to me and to some of the terrorist players who had done all the heavy lifting up to that point. There were also a bunch of issues with card balance and we were discussing ways it could be changed to make it more balanced.

Anyway, Robert was clearly unhappy that the people playing the games were not having an unalloyed fabulous time. He started to make comments that he was starting to see a correlation because it was the only time he had ever run the game where people didn't love it. Basically, he claimed that the only reason to players didn't love it was because I was watching the game. Soon after, he told me that he would prefer if I stopped watching the game. I should have told him right then and there that I would prefer if he went and fucked himself. Instead I simply refused and he threatened to call security, which I thought was a fabulous idea. Of course, the wanker didn't follow through on the threat, but he did go off whining to the head of boardgaming and nothing game of it. The game wrapped up soon after that with basically all the remaining players changing sides so in effect, they all won. Despite the fact that the other players all told him that my presence had no impact upon their lukewarm reactions to the game, Mr Paranoid continued to insist that the only reason they hadn't loved it was that I was there. You'd think that if I really had such powers of mind control, I'd find better uses for it. I'm just not sure what is wrong with the guy. He must seriously be fucked in the head. I can understand liking a board game and even becomming attached to it, but actually believing that it's humanly impossible for anyone to not like it is insane.

All in all, I was relatively happy about the altercation. I've never really liked that asshole but I've never really had a good solid reason why. I did have a run-in with him at the last ubercon where I couldn't get rid of his crazy ass but it didn't feel like sufficient reason to loathe someone. Thankfully, now I feel fully justified in thinking he's a psychotic spazzcase. Seriously, what a fuckup.

I haven't been very active on here lately in either writing or reading. It's not exactly that things are going badly, but there's a lot of transition. When it's good, it's quite good and when it's bad, it's pretty damn bad. The problem is that the situation changes at a drop of a hat. That means that I don't tend to plan as much and end up doing more spur of the moment things. Certainly I've put off the gencon recap for weeks now for the very reason that I'm not sure I could finish them if I started it and then the whole thing would hang over my head like a sword.

I should also mention that this past Sunday was Bernie and Karen's birthday party and it was pretty spiffy. We ran through yet another game of Agricola, which I won this time though I'm still not sure exactly how. I just don't know what to think about the game. It leaves me in a state of bewilderment each time I play it. There's just never enough time to do everything you want and you feel like you're constantly trying to keep ahead of the mudslide that's about to consume you. Maybe that's really part of the appeal for me. I can't pin down one single strategy or figure out how everything is supposed to work. That's why I keep wanting to play it again and again as if it were some sort of complex machine I could break down and understand if I just see it running enough times.

Anyway, back to the party. A lot of people ended up showing and we all got to meet Karen's sister who was a barrel of monkeys. She's preggers so everyone made sure to share with her all the intestines popping out and anus explosion stories they had about births. I couldn't figure out what all the shrieking was about at first. I had been in the kitchen at the time leaning on a kitchen stool waiting for my second round of meds to kick in.

When things had mostly died down that night and many people had left, I got to play a final game with Lori, Randy, and Karen which was nice. I don't get the chance to see Randy all that often since he's usually MIA at the panera events and some of the Bills' parties as well. The same usually goes for Lori and I haven't attended one of the meetups since around half a year ago. It's just too much of a price to pay in pain and discomfort for an experience I might not even enjoy. Plenty of people at the meetup are great, but it doesn't take too many shortbus-riding spazzcases to ruin the event.

I <3 cupcakes more than life itself. This reflects not only my love for cupcakes, but also my general dissatisfaction with life in general. Still, on a morning where I'm getting to scarf cupcakes, things don't seem all that bad. Surely it could be worse.

Despite my love of cupcakes, I don't actually get the opportunity to eat them very often. The only reason I have some now is due to a mini quirk of fate that started yesterday. It was another generic gameday at the Panera and I made the trek over hoping to give Agricola another whirl. It turns out that the Bills were hosting a birthday party for Andrea at their place that night but had forgotten to send out the evite invitations. That meant that everyone would\e cutting out of the gameday around 5:30 or so and there wouldn't be enough time to run through the game. Brian had also invited me over to his place that night but the lure of getting another Agricola runthrough at the Bills won out. When I went to call him to let him know, I discovered that I not only had forgotten my cell phone as well but my bottle of pills as well. The latter didn't turn out to be as much as a problem as I feared as the patches were working okay supplemented with some borrowed advil.

The party went over pretty well. I spent a good chunk of the evening getting that second play of Agricola and got my ass handed to me. We had a small rules snafu in the beginning that just ended up domino'ing into a disaster for me. Andrea had made a big mess of cupcakes as well and normally I would have been all over them but my stomach felt a bit off. I ended up snagging some and bringing them home with me and it ended up being a good decision. I'm not sure exactly what was the cause, be it medication or lack of sleep or something else but I was feeling nauseous and ill on the drive home. I didn't eat much at the party, only trying Bill's somosas as I was heading out the door and I ended up distributing it all over the street outside when I got home. I ended up with a stabbing headache interspersed with more nausea until I finally dozed off.

Still, all's well that ends well. I woke up feeling better and I have a plateful of cupcakes to eat. I just have to remember to give Brian a ring sometime today and apologize for last night's snafu. Karen and Bernie are holding a joint birthday party at their place today and if I'm lucky, there might be more cupcakes.

I ended up experiencing my first side-effect/overdose senario yesterday with the fentanyl patches. It wasn't intentional definitely caught me off guard. The fact of the matter is that the patches are supposed to last 3 days. The problem, from my perspective, is that it takes between 12-24 hours for a new patch to hit peak efficiency. That means that I often leave the old one on for at least an extra 12 hours or so after I apply the new. This hasn't been a problem so far, and I'd like to believe that overlapping in this fashion has saved me some unnecessary agony from breakout pain. I also don't like the idea of 'wasting' any of the meds that might be left in the patch so I figure there's no reason not to leave it on until every last drop is gone. The problem is that the time of day I apply the patches varies. It just so happened that I had applied the previous one very late in the day and the new one yesterday early. I figure I must've spent at least a handful of hours getting much more of the fentanyl on board than I should have.

Yesterday was a game day at the Panera and I really wanted to make it there because a new game order had come in a few days ago and contained Agricola. It's the new 'hottest game' with the most buzz and excitement. People have actually been quite rabid in defending its merits. You'd think that the cure for cancer was included free in every box.

Anyway, I wanted a chance to run through it and I was actually very happy with the results. Hell, I can't remember the last time I was this favorably inclined toward a board game. It took us around 4 hours to run through it from start to finish, not bad considering that I was trying to read the rules as we went along. The problem was that halfway through I started to get nauseous. I wasn't especially sleep deprived, so I knew it was likely due to the medication. I tried to just ignore and ride through it, but that was a no go. I ended up nearly puking all over the place a couple times and that convinced me to yank the new patch off. That seemed to sort things out eventually and the rest of the day ran much more smoothly.

All in all, it was an interesting experience. I had always wondered how much patch would be too much for me. I had no negative reactions at all when I first started taking it and with the more than occasional presence of pain, I figured I was actually taking less than I really should. Now I know that double the dose is way too much. That might come in handy when I finally get to see the pain specialist on the 19th. I'm just hoping that the guy doesn't end up being a wankjob.

I really have to wonder if the current pain patch I'm wearing is somehow defective. I've had to pop a hell of a lot of codeine today, more than I've taken on any day since starting up the patches. It's usually only taken a pop here or there to keep me pain free but I've been having quite a few issues. I'm probably at or exceeding the amount I'd have taken in a single day before I started using the patches. That's a bit deceptive since I'm not feeling nearly as crummy as I would have back then, but it's like seeing an unwelcome sight just when you had hoped you might have gotten rid of it, if only temporarily. Suffice to say, I have no clue what the hell is going on.

I should mention that today was Bill S's 40th birthday and I spent a chunk of time at their place and also out to dinner with the gang. I had been planning to get there right around noon, but lack of sleep from the previous night combined with other distractions delayed me. Those crazy-ass hippies are persuing wild rumors that Sarah Palin didn't really give birth to her 5th child this past April. The nutjobs claim that it's really her 16 year old daughter's baby and that she faked a pregnancy to cover for her. To 'prove' that this is true, they have some really fucked up photographic 'evidence' where they basically claim the kid has a 'baby bump' in the picture. Of course, what hasn't yet started to filter through to those assholes yet is that at least one of the picture they're using to show this was republished this year, but was actually taken back in '06. Not that there really needs to be much to feed this sort of insanity. If you're curious you can take a look for yourself.

Frankly, I'm cheering these wankers on. A couple of mainstream people have already bit on the rumor including Andrew Sullivan who is now demanding medical records to prove that Palin really was pregnant. It's doesn't get much better than this. I only hope that the storm continues rolling until it hits a crescendo. At that point, I'd love to see Palin come out for a press conference where she says something along the lines of this is what change means under Barack Obama, that his campaign's supporters will attack a teenage girl and try to destroy her just in the hopes they can damage her mom. Man, that would be wonderful. I think the backlash will get across even without the explicit dig, but I figure the dig would score major points.

Anyway, following the tales of the crazy made me even later and I didn't get over there until around 4 pm. I mostly hung around chitchatting with various people while others finished up various board games they were playing. I got to see Matt and Joyce's kid for the first time. He was pretty well-behaved considering that he's only two months old. I remember Madeline doing a lot of screaming at that age. Maybe it is true what they say about boy infants being easier or maybe he's just better tempered in general.

For dinner we went to a Irish pub in downtown Rahway. It was nothing spectacular, but nice general English cuisine. Most people either had the bangers and mash, the fish and chips, or the shepard's pie. I went for the latter and liked it well enough. After dinner was a Carvel ice cream cake, which is always spiffy. Not a cookie puss, I'm sorry to say, but you can't have everything.

After dinner we headed back to the Bill's place and I played a game of Oasis with Randy, Bill S, and girl whose name I can't remember for some reason. Bill edged me out in the last round and I finished a semi-close second. Everyone more or less gathered up to go home after that.

Welp, the start of Dexcon could have been worse. As the time was approaching that I really had to leave in order to get there on time, the pain wouldn't go away. I kept popping pills and even went on to swilling what was left of the vodka but still had issues on my way there. I think that's the main difference between my life now and my life back around 6-7 months ago. Back then, I knew the pills would work. There was no real uncertainty in it and the only decision I had to make was whether or not I wanted to take one or if I thought I could muddle through and endure without it. Nowadays, there are times like last night where no matter what I do, I just can't get a handle on things. I ended up popping 4 codeine and downing a quarter of the bottle of vodka as a chaser and still felt terrible. I took all of this on an empty stomach and was anticipating more of a kick than I got. I managed to limp my way to the hotel and things weren't going horribly until after I had eaten and the opening ceremonies were close to ending. All of a sudden it was like I was hit by a drug-induced freight train. I was heavy headed, nauseous, and have never felt so 'stoned' in my life. I ended up on my knees, sprawled across a chair in the corner for the next 45 minutes. I can only assume that all the drugs had a real delayed response and chose to all kick in at once. My main goal was just to not fall asleep and also try to not redecorate the floor. Eventually, I staggered my way over to a game of Alhambra and perhaps it was the mental activity that helped to sort me out. By the end of the game, I was feeling better and while still a bit heavy headed, wasn't apt to fall over anymore. I decided to stay on for a quick game of Gloom and then made my way home, getting back a little after 1am.

I had planned to head back today at 2pm, but ran into the same problems with the drugs again. They just didn't seem to be doing anything and I was pretty incapacitated. Since there was no dire need to get to the con, I decided to just wait it out this time rather than running the risk of the drug induced coma I was fiddling around with last night. It's only now that I'm starting to feel somewhat like a functioning human being and I've already missed all the afternoon slots. The next games won't begin until 8pm and so I'm twittering my thumbs until then.

To entertain myself, I decided to make a new icon that I thought would be funny. I figured that if nothing else, it would drive hippies insane, and that's always a bonus no matter how you slice it.



I'm really sort of proud of the effort since it's likely the only icon I've ever made that another person might want to use as well. I wonder if I should find some political communities and offer it up to the participants?

So, the party at the Bills went over pretty well though there were a few notable downsides. For one thing, I was feeling a little subpar due to some stomach upset. The night before the party I had eaten some leftover pizza upon getting home and it didn't agree with me. I'm not sure why but that seems to be a common response for me and pizza lately. Maybe it was just all the oil or something but it was not a pleasant morning. By the time I left for the party, I thought it had cleared itself up and snacking on chips and vegetables saw no problems. Having a hotdog and a sausage though brought on a lingering series of mild abdominal pain and a vague sense of nausea. It may have had something to do with taking my meds on an empty stomach as well. I do that all the time but in this case, I was already feeling a bit bleh to begin with. Really, the only real net effect is I didn't want to eat anything else for several hours after that and just wanted to have a nice restful sit down.

I ended up playing a lot more games at this party than most of the previous. A lot of that was due to the not feeling well. Usually I tend to move around chatting with people but this time I just planted myself downstairs on the couch and games sprang up more or less organically. I must've played 8 or more games of Cash 'n Guns last night. There were also a couple of rounds of Pow-Wow and then a final game of Ra. Other activites included watching a really whacky Dr Who parody on youtube through the Wii's Opera browser, seeing bits and pieces of Return of the Jedi on tv, and I also got to spent a lot of time chatting with Bob. Him and Randy just got back from a trip to Barcelona and France and they were telling me about the trip. I didn't see much of Randy after that since he got himself entangled in a 5 and a half hour game of Through the Ages.

That was pretty much it. I held up pretty well on the whole pain front, mostly due to the fact I popped some steroids in the morning. Things were really starting to go downhill by the time I left though and the drive home wasn't pleasant. It took hours for the inflammation to die down and the accompanying issues. I don't think I actually got to sleep until around 4 or 5 am and then got up again way too early. What I really need right now is a good nap. I'm going to see if I can find one.

I'd much rather be in bed right now. Well, actually, let me rephrase that since I am in bed right now. I'd rather be sleeping in bed right now. I was exhausted by 1am or so and fell asleep only to springboard back up 2 hours later. Pain issues have since kept me from being able to try to sleep again and so I've just been puttering around online, looking for something with which to occupy my time. It's amazing just how many hours of my life is taken up in this sort of activity. After running out of things to read, I figured I might as well update the LJ.

Yesterday was another game day at the Panera. In general, the usual suspects showed up though Lori missed this one due to prior commitments. I hear she was busy shaking her money maker somewhere upstate. I had been hoping to at least pass her the copies of Runebound expansions since prismcat didn't show either.

It ended up being a fairly light game day overall. I brought along a buncha small games and we ended up running through around a half dozen games of No Thanks, a couple of King's Breakfast, and then one of Through the Desert. I also tortuously sat through a game of Puerto Rico. The only options were that or Settlers, which is to say a rock and a hard place. Things didn't end up running as long as usual since the Bill's wanted to get home early in order to clean the house before their Memorial Day party today. According to them, Randy's RSVP'ed which is good to hear. I haven't seen him in ages.

I was a little late getting to the poker tourney today. It was the last day of the sale on pints of Ben and Jerry's at Walgreens and I decided to stop off and pick up a couple. I've never had Ben and Jerry's in my life and the idea of 'Phish Food' as a flavor sort of intrigued me. I don't like their hippie politics, of course, but I figured since it was on sale, I could unbend enough to pick up some. I came back to drop it off at home and zipped off to the tourney, arriving around 10 minutes late. Things are always a bit slow to start though and I was able to get settled in without much trouble.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm not even sure why I play in the poker tournament exactly. I'm not very good at the game, that's for certain. I don't spend my time calculating pot odds and I usually grow frustrated at some point at which I begin throwing chips around in random pots. The best I had ever managed before was to place 5th and I always considered that to have been a fluke. I did passably well through the early part of the game. It was an incredibly aggressive table to start with and people were being knocked out left and right. I made it through the first table merge and then to the final table itself. I informed everyone that my goal was to fold my way to 3rd place if I could manage it. All I wanted was a piece of the money. I actually ended up knocking out the 4th person and was so happy about making it, I didn't care how the rest of the game finished. I even offered to just cut to the chase and flip a coin or have high card take it. I called someone's all-in knowing I was probably beat. I then proceeded to suck out in the form of runner-runner quads.

This is from a camera phone so the quality isn't the best:



That left just me and the chip leader. I again offered a coin flip which he, of course, turned down. He had a massive chip lead and I was more than happy to just have the game end at that point. I went all-in on a draw and sucked out again, amassing a chip lead. Just when it seemed that I had an improbable win on my hands, he managed to get lucky on the river on an all-in and that was more or less all she wrote.

Considering that all I wanted was third and frankly, I shouldn't even have gotten that far, I'm happy with the outcome. I'm $180 richer and that money will offset my poker tournament losses for at least a couple years.

After the poker game I stuck around and played a few other things. It would have been a far more enjoyable day if the basement we were in didn't have a humidity level high enough that I was expecting rain at any moment. It was like a sauna down there. I ended up not being able to handle the temperature and headed upstairs where it was cooler, and wandered around the back yard for a bit. It was just impossible to stay in the basement for any real length of time and some of us heat refugees gathered to play Bohnanza and then Volcano using Ice House pieces.

Overall, it was a pretty good day. There were problems and issues, but winning money compensates for a lot of things.

I got back from the gameday at the Panera a couple hours ago a complete mess. I'll spare you any descriptions but suffice to say that you'd probably be horrified if I didn't. It shouldn't have been completely unexpected. Even with my drugs, there's just a limited amount of time I can be out and about like a normal person. Going to game days in general is pushing it when I spent 6-7 hours there. Today was simply worse because my day started earlier. Since my mom is going to be working at the restaurant tomorrow, my sisters and I went with her and my grandmother out to eat for mother's day. We went to the Bennigan's out near Middlesex mall and it was pretty spiffy overall. Business can't be very good at these sort of places lately given the state of the economy and it shows. There were some pretty incredible deals including a 7-day a week lunch special consisting of an entree and drink for only $6 or you could get an appetizer, entree, and dessert for $11.99. Even with those promotions going, the place was like a ghost town with only a few tables occupied while we were there. Food prices up, patronage down. It can't be a happy time.

Connie brought Madeline along with her and it's the first time I've seen her in around a month. She looks absolutely huge to me though I'm sure a lot of that is perception rather than reality. Connie did say that she's in the 95th percentile for head size so she's inherited our family's giant melon head. She's also a lot more behaved in general. What I remember most about my previous encounters was that it was almost impossible to see her both awake and not screaming. There was usually only a 10-15 minute window after she woke up or was fed or was changed before she would start to cry and had to sleep, eat, or be changed again. She's actually starting to develop a personality and would break into a huge smile whenever she looked at my mom or grandmother. Her brows would furrow in a puzzled/slightly disturbed expression whenever she glanced my way, though that's better than her reaction to my father which is to immediately break into tears. I'm sure a lot of it is just familiarity.

Madeline was well behaved enough that there weren't any real disturbances with the meal. For the most part, my sisters just passed her back and forth as the other would eat. The meal itself was very good for the price. I ended up having a cheese burger with fried mushrooms as an appetizer. When it's piping hot and done right, I just <3 batter-dipped fried vegetables. I did end up scalding my mouth at one point though.

After the meal, it was still around 45 minutes before the gameday would start and I made the mistake of just going there early and waiting in the car. What I should have done is just gone home and 'reset the clock' on my issues and arrived late. Instead I sat around listening to NPR until everyone else arrived. I spent most of the game day playing Through the Ages again. No doubt that was part of the problem. The game must've run at least 5-6 hours where I just sat there without moving. By the time I was finally forced to get up to make my bladder gladder, everything had just snowballed into a real cockup. Inflammation issues are like that. You can take anti-inflammatories or other drugs but time works against you. All you can do is slow the issues, but there's always a piper to pay at some point. I managed to limp my way back to finish the game because I didn't want to just abandon it so close to the end. As soon as it was over I made my way to the car and came home.

Situations like this always make me worried when it comes to cons and other sorts of situations where I'm stuck out for extended periods. It's no wonder why things like that have become less appealing over the years as things have gotten worse.

Sunday started earlier than I might have wished. I was hoping to sleep right up until I had to leave for the con, but stabbing pain had other plans. The real irritation is once up, the pain always gets worse and all you can do at that point is wake up, pop pills, and hope they eventually kick in. Since it takes up to 2 hours for that process to work itself out there was no opportunity to get any more sleep. Since I was up anyway, I headed over to the con early. To my complete lack of surprise, there weren't many people up and about. Certainly there were no games running and I spent my time playing old D&D games on the emulator until it was time for the Peggle championship.

As I recall, Lori had actually gotten the slot of first alternate for the competition but she hadn't been feeling well the day before and decided to skip Sunday altogether. Karen filled in for her and it was a Peggle duel to the death. I vanquished her in round 1 without too many problems but found myself behind early in the finals round. I managed to get lucky a few times and pulled it out. Here's a video of how Peggle works and a part of another game I played with last year's champion:



By coming out victorious, I won the grand prize. I never really was clear what the grand prize was, but I think it included a bunch of their game software. I guess I'll find out one of these days whenever they get around to mailing it to me.

If you think you'd like to give Peggle a whirl, here's a free version of it at Pop Cap Games. After a quick google search it seems that Peggle is pretty damn popular. It's made a number of most addictive/best internet game lists and has been ported to quite a few consoles. There's even a DS version set to come out soon from what I'm reading. Anyway, give it a whirl and let me know what you think.

After winning the Peggle championship, it was time to go back to running games. I taught and watched over a game of Dead Man's Treasure while simultaneously thumping Karen and Bernie at Ingenious. For my 'leet skillz, I was given a gift certificate for a 1 month membership to Board Game King in Bayonne. A bunch of us had made a trip there once to check it out but it's too far and I'm too adverse to going anywhere for it to be useful. Ideally, I'll be able to find someone to hock it to who might actually get some benefit out of it. Anyone willing to pay $20 for it? Retail price is $40. Anyone?

In addition to the Playroom games, I had also signed up to run a couple from Smirk and Dagger. The way the schedule worked out, they were placed back to back on Sunday with Hex-Hex first. I <3 Hex-Hex. It's one of those games that's quick and entertaining, requiring no real effort or thought. It's one game where I don't really mind the effect of luck and I personally think it's a lot more strategic than many people give it credit for. I took some video of the event:



Right after I turned off the camera, the guy who had held his cards in front of his face the entire time said 'some people think it's rude to take video or pictures of people without asking their permission' to which I responded, 'Luckily, I don't give a crap.' 10 to 1 he's probably some child molester on a FBI watch list. If any of you out there recognize him based on his forehead and hands, feel free to dial 9-1-1.

The game of Cutthroat Caverns didn't go nearly as smoothly as Hex-Hex. It ended up degenerating at some point into a pissing match between a few of the players. That seems to be a common phenomenon since so many of the cards end up being of the 'screw you' variety. Everyone starts politicin' trying to form cabals and convince people to hit others with the cards. If you let it go on, it usually degenerates into a mess. While I can usually sit in and play hex-hex while running it, I prefer to not play along with Cutthroat as long as I'm the one in charge. It makes it easier to push on with the game, establishing time limits and keeping the chaos at a minimum. In the end, the entire party perished by the time the last monster rolled around. I'm not sure they ever really got a handle on the whole teamwork aspect of the game, but they mastered backstabbing in spades.

By this point the con was winding down. There were only a couple games left on the schedule to be run and I decided to join in on a game of Pow Wow. This is one of the games I own whose box got crushed a couple of weeks ago.



I didn't end up winning, getting knocked out fairly early. I didn't have much to do after that so I wandered around twiddling my thumbs. As I was strolling past a table, someone offered me a white castle cheeseburger. Never one to turn free food, I of course accepted and in so doing picked up some unusual video.



And that was more or less it. Karen, Bernie, and I went to get something to eat at Harold's after that. I ordered a pastrami sandwich and an order of cheese fries, most of which I packed up and took home with me. Around halfway through the meal, I started to feel ill for some unknown reason. I broke out into a sweat and was having some stomach ache problems. I dunno what was causing it but I decided to cut the meal short and head out after that. Upon going to pick up my things, I found that some of my games had accidentally been packed up with the rest of the Ubercon stuff, though hopefully that'll be resolved at some point. At the time, I really couldn't spare the time to go into it.

And thus ends another Ubercon. It wasn't a total disaster, and in general went pretty well. I'll update at some point as to what I got for winning the Peggle championship and also if I ever get my games back from Ubercon.

Since I hadn't gone to bed and I wasn't doing much of anything anyway, I decided to head over to the con early on Saturday. The earliest thing on the schedule was a game of Oregon, a game I had never heard of before but was willing to try given the lack of other options. This was pretty much what I found when I got there:



Luckily, there were a few other early risers about and I spent most of my time chatting with June. That is, until I found out they had The Simpsons arcade game on the emulator. I then proceeded to play the game until I finally defeated Mr Burns and rescued Maggie. It turns out they also had the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game on there too, another one of my favorites, but I never found the time to go and give it a whirl. I used to love arcade games that would allow 4 or more players at once.

While sitting around and chatting with June and another person whose name I never got, they were describing the size of the pancakes at Harold's, the deli restaurant in the hotel. I was telling them confidently that I thought I could eat the whole thing, a claim that they expressed great disbelief in. I had never actually seen an order of pancakes from Harold's but everything there is super sized. I figured that I was hungry enough that I could at least put a significant dent in a short stack. I was wrong:



I knew I was in trouble the minute they handed me my order. The pancakes, as you can see, were beyond ridiculously sized but what I hadn't counted on was the thickness. They were around a inch thick in the middle. There was no conceivable way I was going to be able to eat the whole thing but I figured I would at least give it a go and see how far I could get. I took a few bites but then put it aside to join in a game of Key Largo.



The game was simple and fun, and the production value was high. There were actually little cardboard divers with lengths of hose that you could buy and attach to the top of their helmets. I thought I had actually won the game, making a gigantic score near the end, but Gil managed to pull it out with his slow but steady strategy. Well, either that or he was stealing money from the bank.

After the game I reapplied myself to the pancakes from hell. I tried, I really did, but was unable to finish even one of them. The attempt alone was enough to make me nauseous and I ended up having to have a lie down in the corner for around a half hour before I started to feel better. All I know for sure is that I won't be buying pancakes again anytime soon. It's officially on my Do Not Eat list for the foreseeable future.

After I had recovered enough so that the chances of puking all over myself were minimal, I decided to join in on wanderingasian's game of Illuminati. I'm not a huge fan of the game, but it's fun as long as you disable the cheating rules. It's probably the only game in existence where the rules explicitly state that it's not cheating unless you get caught. This has lead to a variety of ingenious ways to thwart the system include pocketfuls of spare money chits and incredibly fuzzy math. I'm pretty sure that I'd be a good cheater, but I just don't have the will or inclination to watch other people like a hawk to make sure they aren't doing the same. The simple fact of it is, I just don't give a damn.

For those of you who have never played Illuminati, the basic idea is that there are secretive and powerful cabals (read: Jews/stone masons, etc) who are striving to control the world by dominating diverse groups and organizations. You job is to control more groups than the other cabals (read: other Jews/stone masons, etc) or to accomplish your group's goal. Illuminati almost always devolves into a pissing match at some point. Luckily, as soon as one started, I was able to grab the flip ultra.



Murph ended up being right so far as the game ended before wanderingasian got another turn to go. Victory wasn't as certain as he thought though. The next two people both failed to snatch it and I ended up winning. As I recall, I also won the last Illuminati game that wanderingasian ran at Ubercon IX. Despite my general ambivalence about the game, I've now struck gold twice. Not bad considering I only play it at Ubercon which means twice a year tops.

After the game I couldn't find anything interesting on the schedule so I mostly just lounged around while running the remainder of my Playroom schedule. It wasn't all that bad, though I thought I was going to have some major problems for the Killer Bunnies game. Of the four people who wanted to play, two of them had never played before. Considering that I had all the expansions with me, I was pretty sure it was going to be a nightmare. In the end, they didn't seem to have any real problems. I had to be around to answer lotsa rules questions, but the game kept moving for the most part.

By this point, it was getting on to early evening and I was dragging. The lack of sleep the night before had finally kicked in and I had to resist the urge to just lie down in a corner somewhere and go to bed. The really obnoxious part of it was that there were no games on the schedule worth playing. I just ended up sitting around twiddling my thumbs, well, up until someone from the neighboring LAN setup asked if anyone wanted to join some sort of video game championship. Normally, I wouldn't touch something like that with a 10' pole because I have no interest in repeatedly being headshot and having no clue wtf is going on. The game he described though was like the old Price is Right game, Plinko. I <3 Plinko. Actually, I don't think I know a single person who doesn't love Plinko. It was a game that gave you money and required absolutely no effort on your part. It was like a slot machine that you were almost certain would pay out.

The reason he was trying to drum up players is that only 2 people had shown up and it would be a pretty crappy qualifier round if they advanced without even having to play. In the end, Lori, Karen, and I all decided to give it a whirl. I got a buy in the first round so ended up sitting around practicing. The game is simple enough. All you have to do is hit all the orange blocks with a limited number of balls. The green ones active a special ability, the purple ones give you bonus points, and the blue ones are just the peons. There's also a bucket floating around at the bottom of the screen and if your ball falls in, it means even more bonus points.

I don't remember the order of it all, but I beat Lori at some point and ended up advancing to the finals the next day. By then, I could barely keep my eyes open. As I staggered my way to my car, I seriously wondered if I would wreck before getting home. Luckily, it's only a 10 minute drive or so and I made it without any problems. I stuffed the leftover pancakes into the fridge, took a shower and then passed out.