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.

Well, if I don't do this now I never will. Recapping is always such a pain and I've let too many event slide by without making entries about it as it is. What's the point of having a journal if you don't put in all the daily bits you're likely to forget or misremember years down the line, eh?

Anyway, Ubercon X took place this past weekend and I trekked over there around 3:30 pm on Friday. To no surprise, I was having pain management issues at the time so I spent the first 15 minutes or so huddled at a table popping additional drugs and waiting for them to kick in. It was in my infirmity that I was cruelly set upon by another fellow con goer. An errant comment on my part made him believe that I gave a flying fuck what was going on in his life. After that, it was impossible to get rid of him as he ranted and raved and frothed at the mouth about his housing issues.

I had met Robert Washington at previous gaming events and he had always seemed like a relatively normal person. He mostly whored games for Days of Wonder so I would often see him with Matt Lee. This time around he was all upset about the fact that he was being kicked out of his apartment. Apparently he lives in some rat trap in New York where he only pays something like $300 a month with utilities included. There were severe building code violations there and the housing inspectors came by telling everyone to get the hell out immediately. My comment was that it didn't seem likely to me that they would just throw everyone out on the street, only giving them a day or two to comply. At that point he started to froth at the mouth and spray spittle as he repeatedly told me I was wrong and he knew how the system worked, and assorted other derranged rantings. Like I said, I was dealing with pain issues at the time and was just hunched at the table hoping my meds to kick in as he went on and on. It was my own fault really. I should have just told him to fuck off but I kept throwing out the occassional comment which no doubt he interpreted as interest. It was clear he just wanted someone to rant to and if I wasn't there he would have accosted some other poor schlub. Eventually, after around 15-20 minutes, he finally ran out of steam and I was able to sit in peace until my pills kicked in.

The first thing I did gamewise, was run a game of Bull in a China Shop for some other early arrivers. It went off without a problem, though some of the players took an inordinate amount of time to complete their turns. It's a very simple game and it's not like there are a huge number of options. It's like watching someone suffer analysis paralysis over a game of Candy Land. After that I was over, I went to Gil Hova's table where I had signed up to learn Year of the Dragon. I currently have the game on pre-order almost entirely because it looked interesting. I figured I should at least play it once beforehand to see if maybe I'd want to cancel it in case it was a real stinker. All in all, it turned out to be one of those grind you to death games with people constantly dying and you being perpetually short of vital commodities/income. It reminded me a lot of Age of Steam where there are also no perfect options and you always stand on the brink of collapse. If the railroad barons had to go through something like Age of Steam, it's a miracle they came out of it with 2 pennies to rub together.

I ended up having to leave Year of the Dragon early because I had another game I needed to run. Portobello Market went pretty smoothly and all I had to do was teach the rules. The players handled the rest themselves, playing the game twice in the end. By then Lori, as well as Bernie and Karen, had arrived and I spent some time chitchatting with them. Bernie had signed on for the con as my helper monkey and to fulfill her exulted role, proceeded to run Poison while I tried my hand at the Munchkin tournament. The latter went on for what seemed like forever. I qualified for the final round pretty easily but we all got snookered by Eileen who snatched victory because no one was paying attention. This was only after repeatedly complaining throughout the game she was losing, of course.

I just don't like Munchkin much anymore. The feedforward system where whoever's in the lead just has a tendency to get stronger irritates me. Still, we were playing with the original which is a bit better balanced than some of the dozen or so add-ons since then. Just thinking about my one experience with Super Munchkin makes me want to punch Steve Jackson in the face. Not only was it and most of the other expansions an absolute abortion, but he charges $25 for a product with some of the most shoddy print quality I've ever seen. Munchkin cards start to fray and whiten around the edges fresh from the box before you even touch them. I've seen toilet paper that stands up to harsher handling.

After the Munchkin game, I decided to just head home and call it a night. Despite being tired, I ended up staying up all night watching episodes of 24. By the time morning rolled around and it was time to go back to the con, I was starting to feel the effects of exhaustion.

Well, today was a mixed sort of day for sure. It started out fine enough but I soon ran into a couple of snafu's. On the plus side, I got to snag breakfast this morning, which is always a plus. I was back home and loafing about when Bill S called and asked if I could swing by the Panera for the gameday a bit early. He had decided to buy a car on the spur of the moment after seeing it in stock and wanted to make sure that someone was there to hold down the fort. I had been planning to be late like normal, but since I wasn't doing anything anyway, it wasn't really an imposition.

The first fuckup happened soon after I arrived. I found, that unbeknownst to me, my mom had shuffled around the games I kept in the back of the car the last time she had swapped vehicles with me. For some inconceivable reason, she decided to pile all of them, tight to the gills, right behind and under the driver's seat. This mean that when I went to move the chair back with the electric motor whozit, it crushed a bunch of my games into smithereens. The boxes actually ruptured and rent all over the place. I ended up losing the box to Pow Wow and Cash n' Guns completely. There was also more minor damage to El Grande and Die Macher. On top of that, as I was hoping up and down in an incandescent rage I found out that she had also at some point moved some of my games into the god damn trunk. A trunk that we all know leaks when it rains and had acutally destroyed a previous board game she did the same thing to. Now a couple of games have water damage too.

When I got to the Panera, my first throught upon finding this was to launch into a tirade. Lucky me, I had forgotten to bring my cell phone. I ended up having to borrow George's phone so I could call her and ask what in the frak had she been thinking. Her response? Well, why would you want to move the chair back in the first place? WTF?! Why would I want to move the chair back? WTF?!? It's not like she dosen't know about my issues or anything. She also claimed that it was me who must've put the games in the trunk at some point which is simply insane. I more or less hung up at that point and went back into the Panera to silently fume to myself.

The game day itself started out fine but had one incredibly pissy part to it. I had been listening to the radio on the way over and Avril Lavigne's song girlfriend had been playing. Catchy songs get into my head really easily and while waiting for someone else to return to the room so we could start a new game, I started to whistle the tune. People at the other tables began complaining about it, citing it as 'annoying'. My first thought was that they should fuck off. It's not like I was whistling really loudly or anything and certainly it wasn't any louder then their assorted game chatter. I really don't get what the fuck is with people who think they can just order others around. I blew my top at that point. I eventually recovered my composure but just thinking about it still irks me.

Other than that, the game lineup consisted of Bonanza, Race for the Galaxy (which I still don't really get), and an epic 5 hour plus attempt at Through the Ages. The game isn't bad at all but the production value is god awful. I don't think they could have made the game any cheaper than they did. It didn't help that there were dozens of little itty, bitty wooden pieces, all of which have a tendency to roll and aren't exactly fun to manipulate with sausage fingers. I spent most of the game dead last by orders of magnitude. I think I had something like 15 victory points when other people were rounding 100. I had a late game strategy, that probably ended up just being a little too late. I ended up closing the gap but even if we had finished the game it would have been a foregone conclusion.

Anyway, I got home a few hours ago and only just got sorted out. Being out and sitting for long periods is never good for me. I'm a bloody mess by the end of it. Not to mention I usually have to then wait around for the inflammation to die down before getting the rest. I probably end up losing a half dozen tablespoons of blood after every single one of these events. No wonder I don't go out much.

So, I ended up getting almost everything done yesterday that I was supposed to. I zipped around to a couple of gamestops and picked up the psp games I wanted to, did the whole test drive thing (Yay! $50!), and went to meetup and dropped off all the prize support stuff with Lori. I've spent most of the time since then watching Babylon 5 episodes (Up to the middle of season 4 now) and playing Patapon.

My fears of a lack of rhythm have been proven true in large part. I just can't seem to maintain Fever during the game. I think I'm hitting the damn buttons when I'm supposed to but the machine keeps telling I'm wrong. No doubt the game is mistaken, but until they come out with a patch fixing it so that it sees things my way, I'm sort of stuck. It's still addictive as ever so I keep plugging away at it with minimal results.

I also picked up the Nightmare Before Christmas on UMD. It's the second video whozit I've gotten for the PSP. The bundle originally came with a disk that had 4-5 Family Guy episodes on it. I'm one of those people who don't usually tend to watch movies over and over, so in general I've refrained from picking up more video UMDs. I figure I can make an exception for the NBC because it'll give me something to sing along with if I'm ever stuck somewhere and bored.

I should also mention that I got lucky with the test drive whozit. The dealer just signed my slip and filled out all the info without actually requiring me to take a test drive. No doubt, he took one look at me and realized that it would just be a tremendous waste of his time. There was no way I was there to seriously buy a car. On one hand, I'm happy I was able to skip the drive and sales pitch but on another level, it is a bit depressing. I was instantly sized up and judged not new car purchase worthy. Oh well, I'm sure the $50 bestbuy giftcard will more than soothe my ego.

In addition to handing out the prize support at the meetup, I also sat in on a game of Hex-Hex and then of Goa. Things went pretty well overall thought by the end of it, I was feeling sorta bloody and bleh. I ended up passing on the birthday party and that means I'll have to find some time in the next few weeks to pop over to Brian's place and drop off his gift.

Yay! I just got an email from Curt of Smirk and Dagger letting me know that one of my monster entries placed in the Cutthroat Caverns contest. I had always meant to get around to submitting more entries for it, but it just slipped my mind over time. The one that got picked was the 'Muck Monster' and you can see the contest results listed here.

In the original contest rules, there were only supposed to be two levels of prizes, a grand prize and then a bunch of first prizes. I guess there were enough entries that they decided to add another level and that's where I managed to slip in. To be honest, this was all so long ago that I didn't even remember exactly what the monster I created was supposed to do. I searched back through my email and here was the entry:

Encounter Name: Muck Monster

Each player targeted by Muck Monster gains a Muck Token. Any player
with a token takes damage equal to 10 points times the number of
rounds you've been battling the Muck Monster.

3: 160 (Mucks player #1) 4: 200 (Mucks player #1 and #2) 5: 240 (Mucks
player #1, #2, #3) 6: 280 (Mucks player #1, #2, #3, #4)

Looking at it now, I wonder if it's too tough and deals too much damage. Maybe I should have made the points multiple a 5x rather than 10x. That would give people some more leeway to collect muck tokens before they start getting whacked for obscene amounts of damage. Curt said they ended up playtesting all the various entries so maybe they noticed the same thing and self-adjusted it.

This'll be the first time my name has actually made it into print in any game. I sorta feel like I should frame it or pin it to the fridge when it finally gets printed. Maybe next time I'll come up with something better and snag a grand prize.

So yesterday was the Smirk and Dagger Tournament at the Meetup. Things were a bit rocky at times, but in the end we got through it without any blood being spilled. There were a few conflicts and issues between some of the players and I had my hands full trying to keep everything running. At times, it was just a little ball of tightly rolled insanity. I think around 12 people participated from start to finish in the end. A few more of the late arrivers jumped in on a couple of games here and there, but weren't actually in the running.

The really disapointing part of all of this is that the prize support from Smirk and Dagger never arrived. I had sent emails to Curt about it early on and he seemed enthusiastic about the idea and providing some sort of prizes. I emailed him recently to let him know how the training day went and things were still all spiffy. I then asked about what he would be sending for support and I haven't heard from him since. I ended up having to use a few of my own games as prizes, including a sealed copy of Run for your life Candyman I had picked up last year at a con. Luckily, I also had some of the promo items I could give away from the game that I snagged at the same time. I didn't have any other Smirk and Dagger games to give as prizes for 2nd and 3rd so I ended up just rumaging through the game closet and looking for whatever was still sealed in plastic. What I came up with was Relationship Tightrope and Fishing for Terrorists. Ya, I know, but you make do with what you've got. I told the people that Curt might still come through in the end and there could be additional items if prize support actually arrives. Heck, if nothing else, I wouldn't mind getting my copy of Candyman back.



After the tournament ended, I rocketed out of the meetup like a bat out of hell along with Lori and some others. It had been a long day and everyone else had already gathered at the Panera for the regular game day. It was nice just to sit around, chat, and unwind.

So, things actually went pretty at the smirk and dagger day. By the end, I was more than a little tired of running the games over and over and there were a couple other minor issues, but that was about it. I guess I should just list the downside first.

Well, first and foremost, Sue Ellen was a major pain in the ass today. I have no clue if she's just gotten more whiney and obnoxious over the months I haven't been around or she was just being more of a bitch than normal. I've just about had it though. I've told Lori already that the next time she spends an entire game whining at me, I'm going to slap the stupid out of her. It's one of the most annoying and rude personality traits I've ever seen in my life, and coming from me, that should mean something. Hell, if I call someone else rude, they must really be fucked up. Anyway, I endured two sessions this time around and I simply refuse to do it again.

Other than that, I had some drug issues. I hadn't eaten anything all day other than a little bit of pasta that Bernie didn't want and I think that's what caused the nausea and dizziness. Just the normal sort of side-effects I get when I pop too much of the codeine. It wasn't dehabilitating and I was able to work through it.

All in all, around 20 or so people participated and we ran 3 games of Candy Man, 2 of Hex-Hex, and 1 of Cutthroat Caverns. Those who played seemed to have a good time (with the exception of Sue Ellen) and I hope at least a few of them decide to show up for the tourney. I was surprised to discover that I scheduled the thing for the day before Easter, and that Easter falls on my birthday this year. I don't think I can ever recall an Easter coming so early. I've always thought of it as an April holiday. That proximity may be helping to drive down registrations and turnout.

In other news, I called Bill S tonight to see if he and the other Bill wanted to go for breakfast tommorrow morning like we had talked about. His mom ended up calling me back on his cell to tell me that he's in surgery at the hospital and that she and Bill M were waiting for him to regain consciousness. I immediately thought something truly catastrophic had happened. I mean, death or dismemberment, or something along those lines. Apparently he had an appendicitis attack the night before and they called 911 to get him to the hospital. Once there, an x-ray showed it was about to pop so they snicker-snacked it out of there. He should make a full recovery though he'll be in the hospital for another day or two. It's a good thing they got medical attention for him when they did. Hell, if it had been me, I probably would have just popped more codeine and spent the next day hoping it'd go away.

True Dungeon treasure tokens arrived today and I can't help but feel incredibly ambivalent about it. When I lift the package, it weighs a ton and I can't help but boggle at the fact that I payed a thousand dollars for it. Sometimes I think I must be clinically insane. I don't even want to open them up right now, though I am sort of curious if there's a Golden Ticket in there somewhere. That's about the only way I'd feel good about the purchase right now. The fact is that I simply have too many of these darn tokens. I really need to weed the numbers down to something more manageable. If I tried to drag the whole thing to Gencon with me this summer, I'd probably have to split them into two cases because they'd go over the weight limit. I'm never going to do anything with the large majority of them and at least when I was collecting magic cards, they were light.

Other than the tokens, I had the dubious pleasure of buying breast milk bags for the first time ever. I was going to Target to see if there was anything interesting in the video game section since I had both a gift card from Christmas and a $5 off $25 coupon. I checked with Connie and Shelley to see if they needed anything and it turns out that breast milk bags were on the shopping list. I can't help but look at the bags and think of them like those CapriSun juice containers. I don't imagine a lot of people jab a straw into a bag of breast milk and just start sucking away though. In the end, the video game selection was beyond pathetic and I wouldn't have bought anything there at half the price.

Lastly, (Though it's firstly in chronology) I went out the a Korean BBQ restaurant for lunch with my Mom, Grandmother, and Shelley. It ended up being a lot more tasty than I expected. It was a pretty pricey meal but fun was had by all and I gorged myself until I was ready to tip over. It's one of those places where the meal is about the experience as much as the food itself. Sort of like fondue restaurants or Beni Hana's. After we were finished, Shelley headed down to Atlantic City to meet friends and I began the breastmilk bag adventure and after that it was gameday at the Panera.

Lotsa fun overall, though I had some issues at one point with pain management. We spent a good chunk of time chatting about politics which I always find interesting. I'm almost always willing to join in on political debates no matter what. There was a lot of speculation about whether or not Hillary Clinton really is the devil and what will happen with the primaries and then the general election in the fall. I'm always a little surprised with how much some people on the Left loathe her. It's sort of sad really. I wonder if all that vitriol hurts her feelings sometimes. Well, if she had feelings.

Yesterday went pretty spiffy. All in all, it went much better than I had expected. It was time for another Game and Poker day at the Stronghold and I decided to go to make my customary donation to charity in the form of the poker tournament. I dunno why I even bother really. I'm hardly a very good player and I quickly get frustrated with the whole thing. On the plus side, that usually means I start doing stupid stuff and end up washing out pretty early.

What ended up really being nice about the whole day is I popped some steroids before heading over and they, along with 4 or so codeines and a handful of ibuprofen throughout the day, managed to keep me feeling pretty good. Normally I'm only good for 5-6 hours before things start to turn south on me but I ended up there until past 1am.

The other spiffy thing is that Pat and sunfirejade showed up unexpectedly. They don't always make the local events since at a hour commute each way it's not exactly local for them. Pat's a good guy and oftentimes snarky sarcastic bastards. I probbaly find that sort of thing appealing since I can readily relate to it. As for sunfirejade, she's just a sweetie all around. She got more than a weeee bit sloshed at one point and lets just say that evervescent dosen't even begin to sum it up. She was practically running over the top with good cheer. That and she said several very complementary things about me which you have to laud her impeccable judgement and good taste for. It was a little unnerving though. I don't usually have people waxing positive about me. Well, not unless they're going to follow it up by wanting to borrow money or something.

I ended up exiting the poker tournament fairly early, bluffing my way into Hades. I did get to try a buncha new games, the only one I really enjoyed being Freya's Folly. The board reminded me immediately og Dig Dug and I spent several enjoyable moments singing/humming the theme song. Apparently Eileen has never played Dig Dug before and was not amused by the fact that the next 2-3 people who came by to look at the board made the exact same comment. I can only assume she had a deprived childhood when it came to video arcades.

All in all, the socializing was much more interesting than the gaming overall. Just about everyone was there so we often just had a big yak-fest going. Oh, maigrey won the poker tourney in the end. It had been her first time playing there to boot. The funny thing was that right after she told me she had won, I stumbled into other people bitching about her in another room. I guess not everyone loves a winner.

So, I went to the meetup last night and it wasn't a complete disaster or anything. I ended up playing three games and, shockers, ended up winning all of them. This was ecspecially unexpected considering that one of them was Santiago. I've got a closet full of various board games, most I've never even played once and a significant minority of which are still shrink wrapped. If I were going to try to play each game I owned at least once, it'd probably be a quest that would easily last over a year. That being said, Santiago is one game I own that I do enjoy playing repeatedly. Mostly I just get bored but there's something about running a plantation and offering bribes that appeals to me I guess.

Anyway, playing games isn't the real reason to go to Lori's meetup. The real reason is so I can partly fulfill my purpose in life. You see, I've known for a while now that I've been granted the special privlege of personally interacting with ever slack-jawed, mouthbreathing, ass-burger sucking, mental reject in the local gaming community. I swear to God there must be some sort of newsletter they all subscribe to so they know when I actually venture out to one of these game days. They then draw lots and I get to encounter the lucky winner.

This particular dingus started out pretty normal. He seemed like a nice guy and we chatted for a bit while waiting for a game to start. What was baffling was his behavior during the game. At some point he just decided to throw it completely and was making completely useless moves. I hadn't been paying that much attention and didn't realize that it was intentional at first. I asked him if he was sure that was what he wanted to do and eventually, when things became completely ridiculous, if he even understood how the game was supposed to be played. His response was that since he didn't feel like he had a chance to win and he felt I had cheated, his goal during the game was to try to screw up my efforts. I can only assume he wasn't all that good at it since I wouldn't even have realized that ha