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Frilly Ciphers, Silly Games
J: I've been
wasting my time this week with two of my favorite hobbies— cryptology
and game design. The cryptology hasn't paid off yet (I'm obsessed with
a hundred-year old Victorian cipher and it's driving me insane). With
my new game design, however, I have reached a milestone. For many years
now I've wanted to design a game that Gina likes. She is very
particular about her games and I'm fairly sure that any game she likes
is likely to become popular. Up till now I've been unable to entertain
her with my designs, most of which admittedly are abstract war games
made for a small niche market. My latest game is a silly psychological
card game; I think it's tense and
funny, hard qualities to bring together in a game. It has opened new
doors in my design mentality, too; I really want to get away from the
war games and design more silly kids games that grown kids like Gina
and I can enjoy together. Now that I've proved it's possible, I'm ready
to design another. In the meantime we're continuing to playtest and
tweak this one, along with the indispensable help of fellow game
experts Kory, Dave, Gavin, and Leo.
G: This week I've
spent most of my time working in the yard and reading stuff. I've raked
and mowed and mulched and put in flowers and some vegetable plants, and
read magazines and books and web pages. The yard looks great, and I've
stuffed my brain with stuff that won't stick around long enough to
matter, but, anyway, it's been fun. Although I feel like working in the
yard was productive and all the reading (and of course lounging while
doing so) has been more wasteful. I've also been making myself
delicious vegan milkshakes everyday. I've run out of stuff to make them
for now. That's probably a good thing.
I'm really enjoying playing John's latest game design, which is rare
for me. I don't think I've ever played his other games more than a few
times. I respect them, but they're not silly enough for me, I guess.
This one is, and it started out so well formed that even playtesting it
has been fun, which is unusual as well. Kory and I are saying to John
we think it could be a great game to be published, so we are even
thinking about trying to do that... I'm pretty excited about it! I even
lie in bed at night giggling while thinking about games we played.
Weird.
In fact we've spent so much time with it tonight that John has to go to
bed so he can get up for work tomorrow and I'm writing most of the
web page. I stay up late and sleep in a lot anyway.
On Thursday we met Brick, who provided tickets for us, at RFK stadium
for a baseball game between the local team, the Washington
Nationals (Nats), and Kyle's team, the Oakland
Athletics (A's). Kyle had gone earlier in the day, but I got him on
his cell phone and he came and sat with us. I've never been to a
baseball game before, and it was pretty fun! I don't care a whit about
teams, so I rooted for the underdog, the A's, to support Kyle. They'd
already lost two games to the Nats but there was a moment near the end
they had a chance to turn that game around, but they didn't. They lost.
Meanwhile, John found where they sold
the veggie hot dogs, and I had some cotton candy and fries too. We
chatted and watched the game and had a real nice time. Thanks, Brick!
We even made it to the Looneys' afterwards, where I won a game of
Shaufenster and John lost at Hold'em.
Friday night Kyle and Kory took us to dinner and duck pin bowling. We
called a few people who'd been bowling with us before and Kyle
mentioned it would be nice to see again. Shaun, Mi Ae, Rizolda, and Leo
all went with us to dinner at Chef's Secret first, then to late night
bowling. We had to talk Leo into going and then he kicked our butts. By
the last game I was doing a lot better than when I started out, but my
fingertips were getting sore! It was a great time. Kyle left early the
next morning.
Saturday was another late night of fun. We and Kory, Dave C., Rizolda,
and Jacob had tickets to Brian Regan at the
Baltimore Improv, an 11pm show. We drove up to B'more in two cars
(except Izolda, she joined us later) planning on meeting at the Nile
Cafe in Fell's Point, but figured it might be out of business when we
tried to call first and the number was disconnected. It was, but we
parked in the area anyway and tried to find Liquid
Earth, a great vegetarian restaurant. I was worried it was gone
too, we walked by where I was almost certain it was supposed to be, and
nada. But just now, Google to the rescue - I noticed a bar called
Friends around where we were looking, and was thinking Liquid Earth was
probably right next door but dark so it slipped my notice. Sure enough
it was.
Anyway, we decided to just keep walking towards the Improv instead of
going back to the cars and trying to re-park closer. Dave assured us
there was a Chipotle's near our destination, but we happened upon a
Taco Fiesta first and just went there. On my way to the bathroom at the
end of the meal, a woman stopped me and said, "Excuse me, but you look
very familiar and I think we might have gone to school together or
something." I said, "Well, did you go to Alfred?" She said, "Yes, I
did!" She started looking familiar to me too. She was a year ahead of
me and in graphic arts (I was in ceramics), but she spent her last year
doing ceramics and has kept it up. See some of her work here! I had
to get going so we exchanged some info and then the gang headed for the
Improv. But it was neat to be recognized by someone I went to college
with over 15 years ago!
When we got to the Power Plant Live area, I was a bit dismayed to see
huge crowds about. I was more dismayed to see a long line at the Improv
door, we were there 1/2 hour before the show! We waited a long time,
and then they let us in so we could get in another line. We waited in a
hallway that was very noisy until after 11 before they let us in. Our
seats were close but off to the side, which was OK but the speakers
didn't really point toward us so the sound wasn't as good as I would
have liked, but it was good enough. The MC was funny and so was the
opening act, a comedian with cerebral palsy who's name I can't remember
and can't figure out from the Improv site or Google (who knew there
were several comedians with cerebral palsy?). Brian Regan was also
funny, of course, but I think the material on his (Live!) album is
funnier. The show seemed kind of short and no encore, but Brian walked
right by me going off so I held out my hand to give 'im five. He
clasped it briefly but warmly. Awww.
Sunday Kory, Dave, and Gavin came over for some gaming, I worked in the
yard a lot while they did that until later when we all played John's
game for a long time.
Monday I did some of that reading I was telling you about and John
stared at paper all night, trying to figure out ciphers. Tuesday we
watched a few episodes of The Office that my
brother Grant sent us (very painful to watch, but great stuff), then
several episodes of Robot Chicken
that Dave gave us. John nearly died laughing at the first one.
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