grinninfoole | Entries tagged with fun

After a few days with Usakeh in the hills of Northern California, I have come now to my uncle's in Honolulu to visit for Thanksgiving. He's looking rather well for a gentleman of more than 80 summers. His third wife (who I shall call Kindness unless I can think of a better adjective) has been wonderfully hospitable, and it's been good to get to know her better. She's only a few years older than I, which could be awkward but thankfully isn't.

I haven't done much sightseeing on Oahu, but I have only been here for a couple of days, as I caught a neighbor island flight to Hawaii itself to see folks in Kona. My uncle's first wife had two kids by her first husband (who was killed in Vietnam), and I hadn't seen them in this century. I was a bit nervous to go and visit, but Sweet and her husband have a couple of guest cottages and do a solid business renting them out.

(The cottage was homey and comfortable, and my cousin is a conscientious host.) Happily, they were tremendously welcoming and I immediately felt like family (which I kind of already was, but it was nice to be reaffirmed.). As an added bonus, Aunt Patty was there visiting, so I got to catch up with her for the first time since the '90s.

Circumstances permitting, I definitely intend to go back for a longer visit and see some sights (like Kilauea) that I skipped this time, because I wanted to spend the two days I was there actually with family. Maybe Millari and Angry would like to come with me?

I still haven't heard anything from my uncle's second wife or my biological cousin Birdwatcher. I hope to see them on this trip, but the awkwardness of ten years ago may still linger.

Stoic has been running a pathfinder game inspired by the Sharpe's Rifles books for a couple of years now, I think, and I joined in about a year ago as a !Quaker chaplain. It's been quite fun, the sort of game that makes it worth dealing with all of Pathfinder's rules apparatus. A couple of months ago he decided that he wanted to run a session only every other weeks, so I offered to run an alternating Deadlands game. (Why Deadlands? I was familiar with the Savage World rules after playing in another one myself, the rules are fairly simple but flexible enough to allow for players to customize their characters, and the feel of the game with an initiative system using a poker deck and drawing fate chips from a bag would be a nice change of pace from what the other guys were used to.).

We're down to four of us, just now, so I invited MaMEd to join us for our first session of 2016, which was yesterday--I thought it would be a good excuse to see more of him. On the spur of the moment, after stopping by the shop and chatting with Successor at the Roost, I invited her to join. Given how busy she is, I was shocked she said yes, but I'm delighted I did so. She hit the ground running, and her shapeshifter bounty hunter is a great addition to the group. Ironically, MaMEd had to cancel at the last minute, so I'll have to work him in next time.

Current Mood: happy

Today, I got a tutorial on the basics of editing audio files with Audacity. This will be useful, I'm sure, at some point in my radio career. I also went shopping in Hadley with Stoic. Maple line Farms and Aldis are, he says, the places to get the optimal combination of fresh produce and groceries at low prices. It took longer than my usual method (go to a market, fill the cart with the stuff I want, pay for it, and leave), but who knows? It might do me good to spend less money.

I made my cannellini, artichokes, portobellos and stuff over rice dish, then M came over and we three played Dominion. It was fun. I look forward to perhaps trying it again, maybe with something other than the intro set up of cards.

Chatted online with

usakeh and now I'm posting this. Am I really forming a new habit?

Oh, and my show went well on Friday, and mom listened in using the iPad I got her for Xmas, so that's starting to pay off.

I started 2016 off well. I spent New Year's Eve with MaMEd and his family, swapping gifts and enjoying each other's company. The Attraction game (which is like playing marbles with magnets) was a big hit with Princess C. Saturday into Sunday was a lot of games.

millari and I had a nice supper at Mulino's Saturday evening, followed by some Chrononauts at her place. Sunday was twelve hours of gaming fun at my house. M came over, as well as Suave, and folks from my Deadlands/Transhuman gaming group (until I come up with nicknames: SS, TJ, JEL, JE). We played a cute trick-taking game called Friday the 13th, then Lords of Waterdeep (as there were only five of us yet–poor M had to wait an hour for us to finish, but was very chill about it–and it was a close game to the end), and all seven of us played Shadows Over Camelot. It turned out that none of us was a traitor (only 12.5% chance of that) and we managed to find the Grail, retrieve Excalibur and Lancelot's Armor, defeat the Black Knight, and drive off an invasion of Picts. Ironically, we won by allowing an invasion of Saxons to proceed, thus filling up the Table. After that, Suave took off, so we played Unspeakable Words (the Lovecraftian word game) and more Friday 13th. Then TJ and M departed, so the four of us remaining wrapped up with an old chestnut (for me, at least), Reiner Knizia's Lord Of The Rings coop game. I got that game back in 2001, and I have played it dozens of times (according to the scoring sheet), but not since 2007. It was a bit of a roller-coaster as I tried to recall the rules, but the hobbits managed to chuck the ring into the fire all the same. Poor Stoic, who has been my houseguest for the past month as he reboots and regroups, is also recuperating from an injury, and he felt too unwell to join us. Perhaps next time.

It was enormous fun, exactly why I keep trying to have these sorts of parties. I hope to have more luck with them in the year to come.

Current Mood: rejuvenated

This past weekend, M and I went back East. We drove out on Friday evening after I got out of work, and went to Sol Azteca for supper. (Pollo a la pimienta, mmmmm), and had dinner with Papi and Gato. Then we went back to M's family homestead, where we went to bed (though I stayed up and watched the end of game 2 of the Sox/Angels series.)

On Saturday, we slept late and had a lovely and leisurely breakfast with Papi and Mami. Eventually, we managed to collect ourselves and drive to Somerville to stay with

wandelrust and

omnia_mutantur in their beautiful new home. We had lovely chats and walked around Mission Hill, checked out Hub Comics, went out for tasty Greek food, and then back to the house. OM schooled us all at boggle once again, and then we watched Snatch on DVD, which was just as funny as I recalled. (Brad Pitt and his adorable accent!) And, wow, that movie is well acted, well filmed, and well written, but really blows me away is how well plotted it is. I hope someday to be able to do something like that myself.

Sunday, we went for brunch with both of our families. The food was OK, and the socializing as pleasant as one might expect. I have to put learning Spanish on my to do list, so Mami is more included.

Then home, to do lots of much delayed house cleaning, watching the VP debate on tivo (with nerf guns), and then bed.

Married life is good.

Current Mood: cheerful

If you like either fun or musicals, you should check out Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, aka Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion screwing around during the writers' strike. Episode One (of Three) has been posted just now.

On a more serious note, and wow this should have been the top news story for months now, Slate has posted an article discussing the real possibility that the Bush administration has drafted a secret Executive Order to bypass the line of presidential succession if the President and Vice-President both die. Which would be the textbook example of a high crime and/or misdemeanor, if they wrote text books for committing such acts.

Current Mood: conflicted

Our friend Arnaud is visiting from France for the next week. I haven't seen him in four years, and it's good to catch up. He arrived late yesterday, and after he went to sleep, I stayed up later because a friend wasn't doing well. (Sadly, said friend will be spending a couple of days in a psych ward--let's hope it's a short stay.) Anyway, I slept late.

Today, we lazed about, watching some Monty Python episodes. This evening, we went over to UMass and watched the Amherst fireworks, which were lovely. After a bite at the diner, we went to Friday Night Rewind (thanks to

sundart for getting us tickets) to 1996's tour de farce Independence Day. I didn't remember the details very well, but it certainly punished me for knowing things as much as I recalled, and the story was full of ridiculous and unlikely coincidences. And bad acting, too. However, Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch were lots of fun, and watching this cheese-puff patriotism was greatly improved by the rewind crowd, who had seen it before and helped coat the stupidest bits with irony to ease them down my throat. Best part of the screening: a tie between

kjpepper stripping the H, the N and A from a HANCOCK visor; and trading snarky comments with reigning Pioneer Valley Queen of Snark,

sydneycat. Hurray! Tomorrow, I'll take Arnaud to game night at the store, and next week, we'll go camping and hiking for a couple of days. And next weekend, we'll throw a little birthday party for my mom. Ah, it's nice to have a few days off in a row.

ETA: Today, for the first time since she joined our pride, Tilda caught a mouse and brought it inside. Then, an hour later, she caught another one. I don't know what's up with that, but I hope she doesn't keep bringing them inside.

Current Mood: sleepy

I spent the evening playing a wizard, trying out the new fourth edition of D&D in the just released adventure Keep On The Shadowfell. Nutshell version: wow, it really is a great new game.

( Somewhat longer version... )

All in all, I'm thoroughly sold on the new version, and I look forward to playing it. But I won't be chucking my 3.5 books yet, either.

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: home
Current Music: Price Of Love by New Order

Saturday evening,

millari and I hosted

wandelrust and

omnia_mutantur for an evening of takeout falafel and the World of Warcraft board game. It took over 5 hours to finish one game, so we were all fading into exhaustion when it was done, but it was actually fun. The pieces are well made, the game mechanic balanced stategic and tactical concerns, and you get to pick up handfuls of dice and roll them to kill monsters, take their stuff, and gain XP. Not an everyday game, but a satisfying return to the fun of those early 80s all night D&D games with my friends.

Oh, and the wedding is now less than two weeks away.

Current Mood: cheerful

M and I watched this last night, so I have at last seen it. I thought it was a pretty good film. I quite understand fuschia's little thing for Monica Bellucci, and for the other pretty young thing, too. I found the story itself an engaging mix of Enlightenment rationalism and Hollywood hokum. Since in a weird way the film is all about the revolution, and since that is still a very live topic in French society, I wonder how the French audiences understood the depiction of aristocrats in the film. I detected a lingering sympathy for them.

I also had no idea that the Mohawks knew kung fu, but I probably shouldn't make too much of that. Certainly, the fight scenes looked a lot cooler than many others I have seen. And the CGI beast was surprisingly good.