Tag Archives: friends

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A Paw-full of Honey

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Last weekend I went to a party at Adam and Christine’s where many things were discussed. The Little Rooster. Snorks that live in Gene’s urine. But perhaps my favorite was when Kris and I somehow came to the conclusion that if we only had a contraption of floating bees you could wear–like a neck-mobile–and we put it on Jon and a jar in his hand he could be Winnie-the-Pooh and get his paw stuck in the honey.

Oh, I remember how this came about now. Gene told us that Jon had bought 10 gallons of honey to make mead and I pictured him just eating 10 gallons of honey by the paw-full. Possibly swimming in it like Pooh does in the new movie. The point is that I’m going to make him (and mostly me for my own delight) a bee neck-mobile.

But on with my story which really occurred last night.

Yesterday I drove with my mom up to Salem to my Aunt Mary’s house. I forgot my toothbrush at home but Mary said I could have one of the ones the dentist foisted on her. So we got to her house and she offered me my choice of two toothbrushes. One just an ordinary guy–blue and clear plastic. The other! A Winnie-the-Pooh toothbrush with a bee hive and bees and Pooh on it!

“Jon!” I cried, “How did you get here so tiny and cute?”

Oh adorable toothbrush, you have reinforced my need to see the man in a bee-mobile. Buzzzzzzzzzz.

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Friends, old and new.

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At the last game night at Jacob and Lisa’s (10 days ago), I had this whole argument with Tami and Aaron beforehand in their bedroom. Where I was lying on the bed, Tami was bra-less and Aaron had man-stink. Let me explain because it’s not as dirty as you might think. Except for Aaron who was as dirty as you’re thinking.

After my internship ended for the day at 4pm, I was hanging out in Berkeley with nothing to do till 5:30 when I could go bug Lisa at pre-Game Night. But I got bored and so I went to Tami’s and knocked on the door till she opened it in pajamas and bullied my way in. Then we lay around on her bed chatting till Aaron got home (smelly) and he showered and then we went to play games. But first we argued about how I was competitive. With me saying I’m much less competitive now than I used to be and Aaron snorting with laughter at my protestations. Tami hid a smile and remained silent.

And they were proved right a few hours later when Tami thwarted me in the Blue Moon City game for the 3rd time in a row and I called her a “ho” with heat. Sigh. Competitive and truculent. I really need to work on these things.

Later, Tami got me back by calling me a ‘whore’ for no good reason. I mean, maybe there was a reason? I can’t even actually remember where we were when she called me that. It was either at Jon’s Burning Man party or at Fondue night. I do remember laughing very hard because it was kind of incongruous coming out of her mouth. Much like that time Kris and I were drunk on the back of Baby Albee yelling out “bird” to Adam on the second deck and she yelled out “bug!” Hilarious.

Also at the Burning Man party, showing off my whoredom (which I’m not), I pointed out all the people I knew to Christine who had demanded as “an old married lady” to know “all the gossip about us single people”. And I knew a surprising amount of people at this party really. And gossip about them. But then she got upset and claimed that it’s weird me knowing all these people she doesn’t know and she doesn’t like it. Not like she’s actually against it but she was more like, “When did this happen?” This came about because I was talking to Tim and Ally for a while and she came up to stand by me so I introduced them but then the whole conversation was about me complimenting Ally’s new haircut and Tim berating me for not noticing he shaved off his goatee and the last movie the three of us saw together and the movie Tim’s making. So we went back to our table and friends and Christine was all accusingly, “You’re friends with them!” And I don’t know if that’s really true especially since I don’t know if she spells it Ally or Allie but I guess maybe we’re friends? I think we are. And it is weird. I mean, this weekend, I kicked Rob in the thigh until he said ‘hi’ to Tim for me over the phone and then Ally said ‘hi’ to me thru Tim thru Rob. And then I chortled gleefully and possibly kicked Rob in the thigh again for fun. And you know what, that is weird. Or normal? I don’t know. I know I like it.

But just last night Jason too was like, “Where have all these new people come from? All of a sudden there’s these people. I don’t like it.” But it’s not like it happened overnight. It’s been a year since we started hanging out with all of them. But I guess it’s been 21, 14, and 10 years for most of the rest of us. Our last new person was possibly Lisa, right? In 2007. It’s probably time for some new friends. And they are fun. What with all the calling me a whore and letting me kick them. Good times.

Friends, old and new.

More pictures from the Burning Man party (and also Int’l Highland Games Fest) here.

Oh wow, it’s Ale. Which is totally different than both Ally and Allie. Maybe we’re not friends.

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Fondue, I got this.

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At the first of the fabulous fondue fetes/Magic: The Gathering/Ladies Craft Night (we like combos), I propped the camera on top of my water glass and pushed the timer button. Tami walked in.

Tami: What are you doing?

Me: Taking my picture.

Tami: Do you want me to do that?

Me: I got it. See?

Tami: Yeaaaah.

Click click click.

Me: Aw, it’s fuzzy.

Lisa: (snort)

I set the camera up again. Tami walks back by the room and shakes her head in despair.

Lisa: I could take it?

Tami: I could call you ‘whore’ again?

Me: I got this!

Fondue/Magic/Crafts = a good night. All whore-calling aside.

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More photos from fondue night here.

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Shadowrun that is mostly about how funny Adam is

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In the final Shadowrun game that Gene hosted he tried to kill all of us and I got drunk and found pretty much everything Adam said to be hilarious. The next day, when I also got drunk, Adam was eying me askance and Rob called me blotto two days after that. Do I have a drinking problem? I haven’t drunk since then. Except, you know, water. And lemonade. Oh, and fascinating coconut water flavored with berries by my fave fruit bar manufacturer, SunRype. Gah, I love them. I love them a little too much lately though because that’s a lot of fiber. Drum cymbal noise. And on that note.

This final game was game day in the game. Game game game. The dogs were racing and a lot of stuff was happening.Mostly concession snack eating. Mostly.

Jacob tried to remind us that it wasn’t all about cotton candy.

Yacob: I do not want five years from now to be killed by a bookie. Now is the time for the serious time. One must make executive decision in this trying time, yes?

This is due to the fact that there’s an unconscious man in the back of his truck who has seen some of our faces and we’re trying to decide what to do about him. Yacob’s solution is clear. The method is unclear.

Emmy: Do you not have a silencer?

Yacob (winking outrageously): No. I make LOUD bang.

Ridge has a knife. Yacob has upholstery fears.

Yacob: Scott! We have knife but no bucket! You break neck.

Eventually the security guard is dead. It’s amazing how long it took to happen though. If I had been there…

End of that scene:

Yacob: I go, I suppose, loiter.

Smoky: Loiter….Murder….Eh.

Scott: We’re an all or nothing crew.

So then we’re still kind of waiting for shit to happen, right? Actually, I guess some of us are in a firefight at the bookie building. But Scott and Ridge are just hanging out.

Scott to Ridge: You wanna go get a hot dog or a fro-yo or something? I like that I’m in a tux and eating a corn dog.

Then Yacob and Alfred are both shot. But heaven forbid some mustard gets on the suit. Roll for stains.

I’m not sure how this was going to come in handy, but…

Scott: I have Matrix theory.

Emmy: Matrix fury?

Scott: That would be better. Matrix fury. In theory.

Emmy: (laughing hysterically. Hey. Drunk, here.)

Oh, it might have had to do with the computer hacking plan. Or the sniper on the roof circumnavigating the surveillance cameras plan. Anyway, in theory, he should have also known what eating eight corn dogs would do.

Scott: I am vomiting up corn dogs in the corner.

But in theory doesn’t apply to Scott’s relationship with food. I’m pretty sure I am narrowly escaping death at this point from a stupid magician who spelled me.

Scott: Every so often, I reach up and pick a piece of funnel cake and eat it. Brush off the powder sugar. Wouldn’t want to dirty my suit. It’s a hard life.

I’m unconscious. Gene is checking what the players are doing.

GM: You’re at serious (Emmy). You’re at medium (Alfred and Yacob). Everyone else is fine, right?

Scott: I feel a little bloated from the corn dogs.

GM: Roll for bloat.

This stupid magician falling from the sky (jumped out of a plane) is bugging everyone. Yacob has a plan to shoot him but is waiting for him to come into range while I’m unconscious and Ridge is on fire. Possibly Alfred is also unconscious.

Scott: You’re going to be so upset when he turns out to be Bob Hope.

Yes, we really are.

At the end, Yacob did shoot the magician. We all survived. We protected the one dog from the magician. And we fixed the race (in (matrix) theory. At least we got the hacker in and out). But we didn’t re-kidnap the pretty dog for the lady who hired us. And it was midnight. So we gave up.

Yacob: We can crush a woman’s hope and dreams.

The End.

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Shadowrun Parts 5 and 6

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In honor of the fact that the last Shadowrun game is tonight, I’m going to give you my favorite lines from the previous two sessions. Somehow I either didn’t take notes the first Gene-run game or I lost them. You get what you get.

For past games see here and here and here.

So this game is being run by Gene and has all the same characters as the one Jacob ran–Emmy the troll (me), Scott the Batman (Adam), Smoky the high shaman (Ivan), and Alfred the yacht owning rich magician (Aaron). But it also has Yacob the short, smelly, bad English speaking guy (Jacob) and Ridge the poor dice rolling thief (Tami).

In the first one, we fought out in the mountains against ant people. In this one we are in the city attending a dog race. We’re protecting 1 dog, stealing a 2nd dog (back), and fixing the track betting bookie system with some computer whiz guy we’re sneaking in. TOO MANY JOBS.

In the first 3 sessions we made it thru like two weeks of doing not much. In tonight’s session it’s like 4 hours to race time and a lot of shit is going to hit the fan. As they say.

So ahem, without further ado.

They’re discussing our background music and arguing what movie it’s from.

Adam: Where Sylvester Stallone plays a soccer goalie.

Ivan: Oh yeah.

Me: What?

Gene: It’s actually Gangs of New York of all things.

Where we’re eating dinner and talking about one of the dogs and how we need to know what he looks like so Alfred can impersonate him.

Yacob: What was he wearing?

Emmy: Ear cocked? Half-cocked?

Ridge/Tami: Tastes like salmon.

Hilarious because why would the dog be wearing clothes? My question was mocking, but still more astute. And Tami was in her own little word of hating fish flavors in dinner.

GM: These aren’t the dogs you’re looking for.

Because we always need a little Star Wars reference in our role-playing.

Alfred needs to learn a new spell to impersonate one of the dogs if he shape-shifts and switches places.

Alfred: I’m pretty sure I can learn to glow.

Scott: Or we’ll go to the party store and get you some glow sticks.

GM: And play some German techno music.

GM: Ah-ah-ah-ahem. Woof. Bow-wow.

I’m pretty sure that’s either because we asked what the dogs sound like so Aaron could fake it. OR he was role-playing what Aaron would sound like as a dog. Or maybe a dog was actually barking? Hard to say. Either way, hilarious.

Random lines:

Yacob: Has dog killed a man?

GM: Johnny Cash style?

Alfred: I touch myself and glow.

Scott: That’s not a rocket launcher in my pocket.

Emmy: Cause you left it on a roof up north.

Oh I bring back that joke.

Ivan shows up late the second day because he had to go to the hospital because he stepped on glass and had no trauma patches (yes, that last part’s a game joke).

Gene: Did you get it out?

Ivan: No.

The man had glass in his foot so far in they couldn’t remove it and he still came to Shadowrun. Plus, he came ON HIS BIKE.

Emmy: It’s bed and ration bar time.

I have priorities.

In the limo at 11am with Scott and Alfred:

GM: Pass the cheese plate.

We argue about how we will do some of the jobs we have without arousing suspicion.

Scott: I think a clipboard, a hard hat and a confident wave will get you in.

We go to a bar to meet some guy who is hot. For something… We seriously played weeks ago, I don’t remember. Tami suggests he looks like Johnny Depp in Alice. Ridge and Emmy try to flirt.

GM: Give me a charisma test.

Emmy: One success! Suck on that charisma!

(I have very low charisma as a troll)

GM: He notices you blinking your eyes.

Emmy: He might just think we have something in them.

Ridge: He offers us visine.

Adam’s plans to confound Gene proceed apace. I like that this is his ultimate goal in the game. Well, this and cheese plates in limos.

Scott: I plug in ‘Group Behavior’ Soft.

GM: What does that do?

Scott: Deal with it, Gene! I don’t know!

Ridge is trying to plant explosives under the truck of the company we’re going to steal a dog from and keeps getting shitty dice rolls and attracting attention from guards. I am trying to protect her so I throw her over the fence so she can hide.

Scott: Stick the landing!

Yacob: For stealth!

Smoky: 9.5.

I do not remember what this next bit was about but I remember the giggling.

Smoky: What are you wearing?

Scott: What are YOU wearing?

Adam then proceeds to giggle like a girl for at least 30 seconds.

OK! Last one tonight. Will I punch people? FINGERS CROSSED. I hope we save the pretty dog. And that none of us dies.

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Suck on that, Pinocchio

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On Monday, I let my freak flag fly and attended a Shadowrun RPG.

A role playing game, yes! I haven’t played a role-playing game since I was maybe 14 and in Oregon at my grandparent’s house. Let me set the scene for you. Earlier in the day, we went crawdad’ing in the crick. My aunt by marriage’s nephew was there and he threw a crawdad at a tree and bashed its brains out. I decided I hated him. Back at Grandpa’s, me, my cousins John and James and this jerkwad sat around the pool table playing some D&D. Jerkwad kept trying to tie me up with rope in the game. It was a toss up between being flattered or disgusted. I erred on the side of horror. I could still see the poor crawdad. I mean, I can still see the poor thing. This story has hit a low note. Ok, the point is that I last did a RPG many many years ago. I’m not telling you how many. And everyone involved was 16 or younger so we weren’t super great at it. My review of this experience was, “Meh. Gross boys wanting to tie me up. Won’t be doing that again.” But then a couple months ago, Jacob was looking for people to join a game and I thought, “I might not mind some rope burns…”

We spent many hours making characters. More hours than I would have thought possible. At the end of all these hours, I had created an alter-ego. Let me tell you about her! She’s 32, her name is Emmy, and she’s a metahuman Troll Physical Adept. Seven feet tall, +1 reach, dermal body armor, thermographic vision. Let’s be clear here, she KICKS ASS. She’s crazy powerful and I expended a lot of points buying agility and stealth skills so she’s also flexible unlike a normal troll. My backstory is that she grew up in a circus with a famous trapeze artist mother and martial arts father. Best of both worlds.

I had some favorite moments from the first day in the campaign. The first part happened in San Francisco and we were kind of wandering around trying to figure some things out. And mostly just mocking ourselves and each other.

So, favorites quotes from that:

Alfred (Aaron): Do you want to go sailing?

(Alfred lives on a yacht at the yacht club and dresses like a preppie golf aficionado in Burberry. Sailing is now a running joke. Evidence again when I changed our audio aid from the bumping club mix for classical Vivaldi when we moved to the yacht.)

Smoky (Ivan): I don’t think the library is open.

(Mocking Gene’s desire to go use the internet at the public library at midnight because none of us had a smartphone)

Rusty (Gene): This community college is *awesome*.

(A comment directed at Smoky’s awesome dice rolling to achieve internet searches, which, you know, he learned at CC).

Next we were planning an attack:

Scott (Adam): Let’s send our troll thing down.

Me: Thing?!?

Smoky: Watch out. You’ll hurt its feelings.

Me: IT?!?!

We were in a fight where I threw a hick bandit at two other bandits and killed all three of them (and caused two of their heads to explode into fine mist). Aaron had been planning on doing some magic against the foes, instead:

Alfred: I change my action to a slow golf clap.

Gene shoots a 20 foot bear with a loaded cannon.

Me: Would there be treasure in the bear if I ripped it open and searched?

GM (Jacob): You really want loot, don’t you?

Me: Shiny things are my favorite!

Then we got attacked by some half-man, half-ant/centipede things and I jumped off the roof of a building on to one, putting my knee through its back and my fist through it’s skull. I made that bitch my hand-puppet. Suck on that, Pinocchio.

TO BE CONTINUED…

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Next Weekend, Staid.

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Though I’m enjoying these insanely awesome weekends, I think I might need next weekend to be kind of staid. You know, for recovery. And because I’m house-sitting. Speaking of which, POOL PARTY!

This weekend consisted of a game night and a tea party. Both events = awesome. Both events also = photo ops.

How divine is everything about this picture? I mean, I look like one of the ladies from Gray Gardens. I don’t think that’s something I actually want to look like, but I am enjoying the mental image all the same.

Having a Finer Things Club (yes, our tea is snotty) without Nuala is depressing. This was our first go of it. I have to say though much as I missed Nuala it turns out I missed the little sandwiches more. So good. I want more little sandwiches in my life. Also more Nuala. But I will accept little sandwiches until she’s back where she belongs in this empty space.

Being tickled as she properly ought.

The Game Night was also hilarious (and also at Kristen’s). Mostly I loved it for the new game Erica taught us. She showed up in a gorgeous flowered gown and said, “Let’s play this.” And we all said, “We bow to your experience.” Yes, it happened just like that. Just like, I’m telling you.

Erica’s game involved paper, pens, and cliches. It was a cross between Pictionary and Telephone. I liked best how much hilarity it engendered.

Also how it gave us the new catch phrase, “Up my ass and down the hatch”, and really just everything about the completed products. I took pictures of our efforts from the first round. I was too tired after the second. Takes a lot out of you, that much laughing.

You can see pictures from Game Night here. And more pictures from the Tea Party here.

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