Marvel is Marvel Gift Exchange

A good mix of activities over the last seven days.

Games: Boardgame group has resumed, with the added bonus of two ridiculously cute and rambunctious new kittens. We played Everdell. And I mean played. ( We spent four hours on this 80 minute game. ) This is funny to remember now but it was even moreso to us at the time, when we were already slap happy from being up in the middle of the night, after a long gaming session, after a long week.

Music: We saw Nine Inch Nails, a phenomenal show and perhaps my favorite of the three times I've seen NIN live (the first with A Perfect Circle opening; the second their "final" show at Summer Sonic in Osaka). The GC, by contrast, had never seen them before and if you only had to see one of those shows, I think this was the one.( Read more... ) So yeah, freaking amazing show. I wish I could watch it all over again.

Monday's house session had seven people—the biggest attendance since I've started playing with this group, and a commensurately big sound. The number of players also meant each individual called fewer sets but we played a bigger range of sets, and at different tempos, than the norm, which was both challenging and fun. And I'm going to adopt a few of those sets for my own calls in future sessions.

Podcasts/Articles: No podcasts. I did read a couple of longform articles: Apocalypse No: How almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong and The Privileged Life and Tragic Death of an 11-Year-Old Tipperary Girl.

Roleplaying: Nothing.

Television: We finished the final episode of Max Headroom season 2, and with it, the entirety of Max Headroom itself. ( Read more... ) All that said, Max Headroom is still one of the shows that was before its time, and cancelled before its time, and setting aside the few dud episodes it still absolutely holds up.

Video Games: Nothing this week, what with the concert + standing post-work activities + peace monkpocalypse during my commute.

これで以上です。

Posted on the following Thursday, for reasons.

What I Finished Reading This Week

The Dog Stars – Peter Heller
This book did not agree with me and I HAD THOUGHTS. ( Strap in. )


What I Am Currently Reading

Lake of Souls - Ann Leckie
I'll have this wrapped up by next Wednesday for sure.

The Goddess and the Tree - Ellen Cannon Reed
I read the prologue.

The Laws of Brainjo – Josh Turknett
A reread; first completed in 2023.


What I’m Reading Next

This week I acquired Danielle Jensen's A Fate Inked in Blood, 김미정의 한나랑 떠나는 신나는 성경여행, and 한재홍의 콩쥐 팥쥐.


これで以上です。

Today was one of those days I had no choice but to drive, because I had no choice but to go to a transit-inaccessible worksite.

Today the Peace Monks came to DC. Because the Peace Monks came to DC, the final 3 miles of my commute took two hours and 17 minutes to complete. I can walk 10 and a half miles in that same amount of time.

And I would have walked those three—or even 10.5—miles, except the city still has not bothered to remove the snow, meaning there was no shoulder to park on and had I parked in the street I would have screwed over every other car behind me, Everybody Hurts style. (I have, on more than one occasion in the past when traffic was stupid American, parked my car on the shoulder, walked home, and then walked back to retrieve it at some later time.) By the 60 minute mark, people were throwing on their left turn signals, pulling into the left turn only lane, and then "realizing" that they'd meant to go straight all along, fucking everyone else who'd been waiting over. By the 90 minute mark, people were pulling into oncoming lanes and gunning it as far forward as they could before forcing themselves back into the head of the lane they wanted to be in all along as soon as oncoming traffic showed up. And maybe I could have got home faster if I'd acted similarly, but I do not have the confidence? Shittiness? Confident shittiness? Shitty confidence? To try it myself.

At about an hour into this shitshow, when I still though I'd be home in under a quarter of a work day, I was like, "Huh. Never thought I would actually want try a BG3 Durge playthrough, but maybe I will."

Then I spent another 75 minutes in the car, during which time I traveled a whopping 1.4 miles.

And you know what? No. At that point I had moved welllllll beyond a mere Durge playthrough. I get the appeal now. I UNDERSTAND HOW BHAALISTS ARE MADE YOUR IDEAS ARE INTRIGUING TO ME AND I WISH TO SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR NEWSLETTER ALL HAIL THE LORD OF MURDER.

Eh-hem.

Anyway. I consumed some media last week, do you want to hear about it?

Games: More Fishy, Squishy, Crusty, Quirky, which has become our go-to game for those "Huh, we have 27 random minutes to kill, what will we do with them?" situations.

I came home from a long day at work Thursday to a message from the resident who'd gone incommunicado after proposing a game night some weeks back had messaged again to say, "7:30 tonight." This occasioned some angst (Oh god, I have to do a socializing) but it turned out the other resident who expressed interest couldn't make it, so I got my introvert evening after all.

Two Geek BBQers had us over for dinner and games Saturday night. We played Jaws, a new-to-all-of-us game. I have no particular feelings about the movie one way or another but still enjoyed the game, which is essentially a simplified version of Betrayal at the House in the Hill. Three players playing as Brody, Hooper, and Quint cooperate to defeat the fourth player (who is obviously playing as Jaws). The game has two acts: the first on Amity Island, where all four players need to use different combinations of skills and movement to save as many swimmers as possible and locate Jaws. Once located, the game moves into the second act on the Orca, where characters attempt to kill Jaws before it kills them. The game introduces a bunch of new mechanics and abilities for each player at this point along with a much more complicated round structure. We managed it well enough but it's not the smoothest transition, nor one you could wing without frequent guidebook consultation. TL;DR—it's a fun enough game but one fans of the movie will probably get the most out of, as the comparative lack of randomization would make it pretty repetitive after awhile.

Music: One of the Monday house session folks hosted me at their place last Friday for a mini-session. It was WONDERFUL. Just two players (one full melody, one melody + chords), both of whom belong in the "slower with ornaments and rhythmic variation" camp versus the "125 BPM ride or die" camp. Bonus benefit: we could both hear ourselves playing. Additional bonus benefit: you can't hide when there are only two people playing, so those tricky bits? We actually had to correct them.

We wrapped up 30 minutes earlier than initially planned (important because the original finish time was when the GC and I had planned to meet at favorite Chinese takeout place for dinner). I considered calling to see if he could head down early, but this beautiful, twinkling snow was falling, like fairytale 3D snowflakes, so I spent the 30 minutes walking around the neighborhood, almost the only person out, enjoying the sights and the stillness, and the crackly, tinkling sound of the snow falling all around me.

Podcasts/Articles: I read a bunch of articles this week, but nothing that I'd consider longform. Still no podcasts.

Roleplaying: Still nothing.

Television: Does binging cute parrot, cat, or bunny videos count?

Video Games: Nothing this week, as I spent my gaming time reading books, and then drafting reviews of the same.

これで以上です。