Met up with J.R., Scott, Jesuses 1 & 2 and some other people Friday night; as usual there was entirely way-lots-of cooking, Katamari, geeking around… and an interminable (but fun) round of Taboo; Engineer Geeks vs. Everyone Else. (Being scientifically minded makes it just too easy sometimes. For example, “Poles”. Taboo words mainly relating to flags, rods, fences, Poland, and so on. But no restriction on zeros, or right-half planes, or magnetic mono….) Eventually crashed out in preparation for getting up bright and early (noonish), making a ton of food, then heading out to Vericon, a geek convention held on the Harvard campus. It ended up with kind of a slow start as everyone went their separate ways–the videogaming room, with huddles formed around involved games of Katamari and Smash Bros.; the Magic tournamenty area, where it smelled like nobody had bathed in a week, even though it was only the second day of the convention; board gaming; art; anime. Later on there was a cosplay chess game featuring a buch of, well, costumed people playing live-action chess. (And yes, there was even a Duct Tape Girl! She was, like, 14 though.) J.R., Vi* and myself popped in to a pretty good story-telling session in the next room. (J.R. kind of popped in and out (and napped)). At one point, two writers made up and told a story in realtime, after soliciting from the audience-group a few characters, places, and things the story was to involve (among them: Twinkies, and the King of All Cosmos). Which in itself was amazing to me, I’m no good in realtime. (Heck, I’m much better “talking” to someone over instant message; can barely carry a conversation in live conversation form.) But here’s the catch on top of the catch: they alternated back and forth, each in turn supplying the next word to the story. At some point I got called out on an emergency food-eating session at Brother Bob’s, or some similarly-named (bar)becue house, with the members of the gang that didn’t get sucked away into Magic tournaments and the like. Good food, but it also reminded me of why I don’t really come to places like this, sitting right next to a big loud speaker blaring late-nineties alternacrap, not being able to hear myself think, let alone hear each other talk, or give directions to people over the phone. Eventually escaped Bob’s Alterna-Shack with a tummyfull of pulled pork and ears ringing, met up with No* at the T and dragged her on back to the Room Where Things Were Happening on the far side of campus. While the rest of the free world played pool and/or attempted to dance, we staked out a less-loud corner and talked computers, assembly language, and ideas about Cool Hardware That Should Exist. Yes, we’re wierd – but in a good way. She had to ditch out before the T turned into pumpkin pi for the night. Around 12:30ish it came to pass that The Place Aforementioned was turning into, if not anything pumpkin-related, a very dark, very locked little place where people shouldn’t be anymore. So everyone got escorted out and we made way for a few unlocked rooms in the science center while scouts went in search of actual student lounges/etc. to descend upon. Ended up with probably 100 of the remaining crowd packed into a wayyy too small lounge with foosball tables, air hockey and similar, while the search for an ever better landing place continued. Somehow, it ended up that the whole kit-n-caboodle made way for an unlocked/unguarded dining hall, where it helped itself to all the hot chocolate and caffeinated soda it could suck out of the fountain machines, followed by a way-too-ornate lounge big enough to hold everyone. Played Carcasonnes until the wee hours (wait…it already was the wee hours…so, the wee-er hours, I guess), ’til it was eventually decided it was time to return to the land of beds and sleeping. Scott offered to drive everyone in his Big Ass Minivan, but couldn’t remember where it was parked. While looking for it, passed loudly by a Staples with a large, basementy picture window where a lone Staples Guy was staring into a monitor. I assume loudly because he looked up and kind of glared at us. With Scott still unable to find his car, we re-passed the window going the other direction and got glared again. Waved, although this did not seem to affect the nature of the glare. Finally found it and made for J.R.’s place, probably 5-ish. Beds never looked so good.
They didn’t. Nope….they did.
The Prince of All Cosmos.
The Pretender to the Throne.
QOTD: “What fraction of Americans believe Wrestling is real and NASA is fake?” – Van Snyder, JPL
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