So... Last weekend was fun. Saturday was "game day". And no, it doesn't have anything to do with sports. As you probably know I'm a well adjusted geek who has a social life and friends and stuff... but once in a while I like to geek out. Saturday was such an occasion.
The day started out around 10am in Belgatos park. There was a bunch of kids playing in the kiddy park, some people going for hikes and bike rides and only a few gamers. Paul and Cat were sitting on the picnic table that was going to be "monster camp" patiently waiting for people to arrive. The wait is part of the game I guess, because I've never seen one of these start at the arranged time. Honestly, geeks are just as late as the rest of the world...
By 10:30 enough people had shown up that we could start what is called "logistics". Basically people get their character sheets and associated tags to play the game. If you've never heard of Alliance, it's pretty simple. It's like Dungeons and Dragons, except it's "live action" so basically people get dressed up, and then beat each other up with foam weapons.
Each player has statistics that represent who they are in the world of Alliance, the longer they've been playing, the more powerful they are. Tags are little pieces of paper that represent your spells, potions, armor, life points, pretty much anything you can do uses a tag. Then there's physreps or physical representations. These are things you wear and use. If you character is wearing leather armor, you better be wearing leather armor yourself. If you have a sword tag, you need a "real" sword to go with it. A real sword would be dangerous, so we use "real" swords. By "real" I mean something made out of PVC pipe or bamboo and then covered in insulation foam, so it's pretty soft.
So now that Paul is wearing chainmail and Cat is wearing some flowery outfit and they have their logistics package, they're ready to play. There's also Snag, an ogre, he paints his face yellow and he should have some fangs but they broke last game, so he needs new ones. There's a couple of stone elves, face painted white, black lipstick and spell bags at the ready. Oh right, if you're casting spells or shooting arrows, you need "packets" they're little bean bags that you throw at people. You say some magic words, throw the bean bag and if you hit them with the bag, you hit them with the spell.
So I'm just helping out, I'm not wearing anything except black jogging pants and a black shirt. No fancy costume for me yet because I'm an NPC, non-player character. That means I unlike the players, do not have a character. So I'm not Snag the ogre or Legatho the ranger. My job is to be everyone they meet. Once logistics is done we start up with devious plans on how to kill the players. Kinda. Well, to be honest it's not really our choice. We're the "hired" help. We're not really hired cus we don't get paid. We just play the roles of monsters as deemed necessary by the powers that be... aka. staff members.
So our first "mod" or module of the day is split into two because there's low level players and high level players. If you don't know why I would be referring to low and high levels, then you should invest in more video games. So I went on the high level module because that's where I was needed. The plan was pretty confusing actually. The staff member had to explain it to us quite a few times. I did learn something new though. Brandon is not very good at explaining things. Yup, that's about all I learned from his explanation.
Here's the plot: First we're caravan guards who fought off some bandits, but during the whole turmoil, the bandit leader mind controlled us all with magical potions. Lucky for us the potions are of short duration. Now the caravan is running late, so someone mentions this to the players who are patiently waiting in the "inn" (another picnic table in the park). The players come upon us and see us hanging around the few wagons that make up the caravan. In reality what the players see is 6 guys dressed up in varying degrees of "in period" clothing with foam weapons and bean bags in hand. No wagons in sight. Using your imagination is a requirement for this game. I had on a medieval shirt over my black t-shirt, a belt, a hand full of bean bags and a foam sword in my belt.
I was a "templar", the easiest way to explain this is... first forget everything you know about templars, it's just a name. Ok... now, imagine a medieval fighter with sword and shield... good... now add magic! Perfect! Half magic guy half fighter... with a can of whoop-ass in tow.
The plan according to Brandon was quite simple. The players would attack us, then the big bad guy that controlled all the caravan guards would run away. But before running away he would turn one of the guards into an undead zombie of doom. Then once the players have killed us and revived us (you can do that in this game), we would tell them that the big bad guy was actually with the bandits and we would tell him were the bandits were.
Even the best laid plans go awry, and this one was far from being well laid in any sense. So it went really wrong. First off, the players didn't attack us, they talked to us. We told them we got stranded and we just wanted to get back on our way. Then when Brandon (who was playing the big bad guy) noticed that nobody was fighting he killed one of the guards himself and then turn him into a zombie of doom. As the players fought the zombie of doom, we ran away. He ordered us to defend him which should lead to us attacking the players but since the players were fighting the zombie, they let us run away.
So, 8 minutes elapse, the players have cured the guy afflicted of being a zombie of doom. He's now back to normal. Our mind control potions have worn off so we went back to the caravan. Now the players are all skeptical because we ran off with the big bad guy. So they pretty much make us captives and walk us back to town. Never asking us anything. So much for the bandits... Once we get to town they turn us over to the town guards and have us interrogated. Yay, back to bandit land. Notice that at this point almost nobody has even swung a blow.
So we went to set up as bandits and we just kept the same stats and skills since we didn't really fight. I was still a templar dude. This time we went up a trail until we found some shade. Belgatos park is pretty hilly so finding a good ambush spot was easy. Again the players started by asking questions when they found us. We did our best to confuse them, telling them that we were merchants and whatnot. Very entertaining.
Then the fight broke out. "With mystic force I bind you" I yell and toss a packet at the nearest fighter. He's hit but he has a spell shield. "Spell shield" he yells back. No problem that was a cheap spell anyways. "I summon a force to shatter your shield" and hit him again. No spell shield this time, so his physical shield is destroyed. He drops his wood and foam shield to the side, as it's now useless to him. He slips behind the ranks and his friends step up. Casters this time. So there's a lot of "Spell shield! I grant you the power of a spell shield" which means that my spell was cancelled by his spell shield and he cast another one in its place. I swear we must look like idiots playing this. Two groups of grown men yelling things like "With eldritch force I build a prison" and then throwing bean bags at each other. On the other side the person tries to dodge the bean bag. Sometimes there's stuff like "What spell just hit me?" -"Flame bolt" -"Oh, uh, Resist!" -"ok". Then once the spells start to dwindle and some people are pinned, bound, confined, slept, dead, whatever. The ranks close up and people start swinging.
"Prepare to die" I say. Not because it's a cool thing to say right before you start fighting, but because that's how fighters activate their powers. Now that I've said prepare to die I can follow up with "50 slay" or "Disarm weapon" or other fancy sounding things. I open with "50 slay" which means I swing for 50 damage, and it's a slay attack. I hit a shield, so it's blocked, "50 slay" again and I hit the guy in the side. "Riposte" he says, now my attack has been turned against me so I say "Parry" and the attack is gone. I follow up with "6 normal" I swing for 6 damage and it's not magical or flame or ice damage, it's just normal damage. You have to say what you swing so that people know how to react and how much damage to take. The fight goes on for a bit and I get hit with a confine spell and all my spell defenses are exhausted so I'm stuck I can't move.
The fight finally ends and the players have won. The player I knocked unconscious is woken up and the victims of my spells are cured. They drag us into town for more information. That's pretty much how the day goes. There was also some gambling, I learned a new dice game called 421. I was a shop keep that went to the inn for a quick gambling game. I lost a few silver coins to the players but another NPC won a few gold from another game.
So more of the same, barbarians defending a cave... dark ones inside the cave. Spirits defending the tomb inside the cave. All of these with some fighting and some killing. We inadvertently ended up killing a PC because the medics couldn't get to him in time to heal him. He died too close to the monsters and we pushed the line back over his body. So basically he lay there in the grass for 5 minutes and then that was it, his character was dead. Well, he had to go to the resurrection circle and have a death marked on his character sheet. You can only resurrect so many times... didn't you know? Heh.
As a side note, the little kids in the kiddy park liked to watch us play. And the people having a picnic also found us entertaining. So really, it was fun all around. I would probably feel foolish wearing chainmail in a park by myself. But if there's 15 other guys there also wearing strange looking things, I wouldn't care much. On the flip side, if I saw one person wearing chainmail in the park I would avoid them like the plague. But if I saw a group I would assume that they're an acting troupe or they're playing a game.
All in all a great day and a good workout. Lots of fun... you should try it... really... you should! If you want to know more, apparently there's a movie called role models that came out with some LARPing in it... that's Live Action Role Play ing. Come join the geeks! You know you want to.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
San Francisco - The Hip
The Tragically Hip aren't that popular in the states. Most people haven't heard of them, so when they came to play in San Francisco, the tickets were pretty cheap. Trish, Brian and I decided we would go to the concert. We got talking to people about it and Derek and Julia decided they would join us. Julia's a girl we met at a Trews concert a while back (again, nobody here has heard of the Trews).
Anyways, so the idea was that Derek would come by our place then we'd go pick up Julia, then Brian and then meet Jennifer for supper. Jennifer wasn't going to the concert, but she wanted to join us for supper. And so that's how it all started. Someone once said, and I quote very loosely here, that "Even the best laid plans turn to shit".
Trish and I were running a little late, and Trish asked Derek to grab her some Starbucks on the way over. At the Starbucks, Derek realized that he forgot his ticket at home!!! DOH! Now he was at the Starbucks right by our place, so he delivered Trish's coffee, he had already ordered and paid before he realized the ticket was missing. So he stops by our place and we make plans to meet at Brian's place in an hour.
Trish and I take off and grab Julia at her place. Julia lives on a busy street, so I wasn't able to go in the correct direction when pulling out of her driveway. But she assured me that if I kept going straight I could grab the highway and we'd be going the right way. Well, that turned out to be true eventually. But the ride was rather long. In the end it didn't matter because we got to Brian's before Derek, but still. I mean, it's true that we can do a U-turn 5 miles down the road, but why not do it right now seeing as we're driving in the wrong direction. Oh and if you ever read this Julia, I hope you're not too offended. You have every right to be offended, but really, it won't do much in the long run. I wrote it on the Internet, so that makes it 100% true, even if you're offended.
On the ride down to Brian's place, we learn a bit about Julia. Seeing as this was the second time I talked to this girl, there was a lot of stuff I didn't know. Not that I really know her that much now, but I know her better than I did. Turns out she's a chemist working in pharma who doesn't really enjoy her job and wants to move back to Canada. She wants to go to Ottawa or Toronto and find a job there. This reminded me of another person, Brian. Brian is a chemist working in biofuels, who wishes he was working in pharma who currently doesn't really enjoy is job. He moved to the states from Ottawa to get a job. When there's 5 people in a group, what are the odds that two people do practically the same job? Especially when that job doesn't involve programming computers, because everyone and their dog does this in silicon valley.
We get to Brian's and wait for Derek. Derek arrives not much later, we pile into the car and take off. Construction or not, there should not be any traffic on a Saturday at 6pm. But this is San Francisco, so of course there's traffic, why wouldn't there be? Stuck in traffic and running late for your supper appointment, what do you do?
Step one, text message your contact at the restaurant. In our case this was Jennifer, who was already sitting at a table for six. It started out as a table for eight, but two people had already texted her that they were bailing. She ended up alone at a table for six.
Step two, go online and find the menu. The restaurant we were heading to had an online menu, so we could read the menu on a phone.
Step three, figure out what everyone wants to eat. This sounds easy, but we were heading to a French restaurant that was obnoxiously snooty enough to have the menu be in french with a crappy English translation. This would normally not be a problem since most of you know that I am fluent in french. But I was driving. Reading a menu on a cell phone and driving on a traffic filled highway is not recommended by the Surgeon General in any circumstance. So I didn't. We did eventually figure out what people wanted to eat.
Step four, text your contact at the restaurant your final order so that she can pass it on to the waiter. This was apparently quite amusing to the waiter, who thought we were all crazy.
So we finally got there and found parking. We parked in a construction zone that said no parking until 6pm, it was 6:30 so we parked there. Quick walk to the restaurant, and on to our table. Turns out that ordering online didn't really save us time cus I'm 100% sure that they didn't start cooking until after we arrived. It took a good 15-20 minutes for our food to arrive, and no, cooking filet mignon does not take 30 minutes.
The food was really tasty, but the portions were very much on the small side. For $25 I expect to have a decent amount of food. I wasn't expecting a 6 ounce filet mignon with a thimble full of diced veggies and four fries made of chick peas. After supper Trish and I split a chocolate fondue which was pretty good as well. It was tasty, but I don't recommend this place, not that I could recommend it, because I don't remember what it was called. So avoid the french restaurant near the Fillmore at all costs! Unless of course you already ate before going there.
We get to the Fillmore at around 8:15, and there's no lineup to get in. The place is like a huge gymnasium, and it's mostly empty. We head towards the stage and hang out with the small crowd there. The place started to fill up over the next 45 minutes, and by the time the band hit the stage it was crowded. The Hip played two sets with a short break in between. The music was awesome, loud, but not ear splitting loud. The show was really good, and we had a lot of fun.
The band was big, Gordie was singing and sometimes playing guitar. They had 2 other guys on guitars, one on base, a keyboard and a drummer. I don't really know the band members, mostly because I don't care, but I'm not sure if they were all the permanent fixtures that make up the Hip. Trish would know, so if you really care, you can ask her. I expected just your regular four man crew, so I was a little surprised.
Gordie was hilarious, making all sorts of pantomimes, like pretending to clean a window, or shoot buffalo and stuff like that. But dude does that guy ever sweat! He kept wiping himself with a white handkerchief and then throwing it into the crowd. But honestly, would you want a dripping wet rag that someone just wiped himself with? The answer for most of the people there was yes, my answer was "hell no". Dude looked like he took a shower with his clothes on and forgot to towel off. Sweat dripped from his face, and ran like a faucet at his elbows. It made for a pretty entertaining night, but still, I would not want his sweat rags, ever. Well maybe if I could e-bay them for millions.
The show was good and most of the fans were fun, but there were some exceptions. Why the hell would you get stumbling drunk if beers cost $12 a pop? Who knows but a lot of people did. During the first act, there was one guy headbanging to Hip music. If you don't know what kind of music The Tragically Hip play, you can stop reading now, and go listen to a track or two before continuing. So this headbanger was making an ass of himself and he headbutts a couple of people on accident. The first person moved away and the second person turned out to be a bit beefy. Beefy guy looked like he was ready to beat headbanger into the floor, but headbanger had an equally beefy friend. So they talked and headbanger was moved away by his friend. He continued to make an ass of himself but he stopped headbanging and started hugging people at random and dancing with them. That didn't go over well either. So he ended up just dancing by himself and bumping into people.
During the break headbanger disappeared, but sadly he was replaced by super tall jerk guy. This guy had to be 6'8" and crazy skinny, but he was also crazy drunk and jumping up and down. Trish traded spots with me because he was being a dumbass. I elbowed him in the back a few times when he started jumping too close to me, but he'd just start jumping forward. I guess I wasn't hitting him hard enough for him to get the message. He kinda moved forward in the end so he wasn't my problem anymore.
Then some drunk girls were hugging random people and each other. Dancing all over the place and acting pretty slutty. It was pretty hilarious (to me anyways) when they collided with super drunk lecherous guy. He just grabbed on to them and started dancing with them. And from where I was standing he was pretty much humping their legs. Especially when the girls started jumping along with the music... this guy pretty much leaned back and let the girls jump up and down against his crotch. Like I said hilarious!
All these idiots didn't deter us from having a good time though. The music was good, the band was cool, they even did an encore. Though it's kinda lame when you can see the roadies fixing up the stage for the encore. The band walks off stage and the roadies immediately started tuning guitars and changing out microphones. It was pretty obvious they were coming right back.
The biggest problem of the night was heat. Everything was hot, everyone was sweating, not just Gordie. Derek and Brian found a cool spot by the door after the intermission, so we had to find them at the end of the night. One thing that was pretty funny and a little gross was that My skin on my arms was kinda peeling from the sun. And because I was sweating, the sweat made bubbles of dead skin with sweat inside them on my arms. They looked a little like blisters, but didn't hurt at all when they popped. Like I said, a little gross, but kinda funny.
So anyways, we left and went to a Belgian style pub for a glass. The place was pretty cool, but the bathrooms were covered floor to ceiling with graffiti. The only spots unmarked were the sink and the toilet. Everything else, including the soap and towel dispensers were covered. I had a dark beer and only paid $3 for it... not sure if the guy gave me the wrong change or not because I didn't know how much it was. It was Moonlight Black Lager or something like that, and it was pretty tasty.
A couple hours later and we were heading back home. I crawled into bed at around 3am... Sunday I woke up late, played on the computer for a bit and then went to Safeway for food. By the time breakfast was cooked it was 5pm... strange day.
One last note, I was trying to type "shift-w" to get a W to type "Well that's it for now" or something like that. Instead I hit "ctrl-w" which is close tab in FireFox... interesting, but kinda crappy. Thanks blogger for auto-saving all the time!
Anyways, so the idea was that Derek would come by our place then we'd go pick up Julia, then Brian and then meet Jennifer for supper. Jennifer wasn't going to the concert, but she wanted to join us for supper. And so that's how it all started. Someone once said, and I quote very loosely here, that "Even the best laid plans turn to shit".
Trish and I were running a little late, and Trish asked Derek to grab her some Starbucks on the way over. At the Starbucks, Derek realized that he forgot his ticket at home!!! DOH! Now he was at the Starbucks right by our place, so he delivered Trish's coffee, he had already ordered and paid before he realized the ticket was missing. So he stops by our place and we make plans to meet at Brian's place in an hour.
Trish and I take off and grab Julia at her place. Julia lives on a busy street, so I wasn't able to go in the correct direction when pulling out of her driveway. But she assured me that if I kept going straight I could grab the highway and we'd be going the right way. Well, that turned out to be true eventually. But the ride was rather long. In the end it didn't matter because we got to Brian's before Derek, but still. I mean, it's true that we can do a U-turn 5 miles down the road, but why not do it right now seeing as we're driving in the wrong direction. Oh and if you ever read this Julia, I hope you're not too offended. You have every right to be offended, but really, it won't do much in the long run. I wrote it on the Internet, so that makes it 100% true, even if you're offended.
On the ride down to Brian's place, we learn a bit about Julia. Seeing as this was the second time I talked to this girl, there was a lot of stuff I didn't know. Not that I really know her that much now, but I know her better than I did. Turns out she's a chemist working in pharma who doesn't really enjoy her job and wants to move back to Canada. She wants to go to Ottawa or Toronto and find a job there. This reminded me of another person, Brian. Brian is a chemist working in biofuels, who wishes he was working in pharma who currently doesn't really enjoy is job. He moved to the states from Ottawa to get a job. When there's 5 people in a group, what are the odds that two people do practically the same job? Especially when that job doesn't involve programming computers, because everyone and their dog does this in silicon valley.
We get to Brian's and wait for Derek. Derek arrives not much later, we pile into the car and take off. Construction or not, there should not be any traffic on a Saturday at 6pm. But this is San Francisco, so of course there's traffic, why wouldn't there be? Stuck in traffic and running late for your supper appointment, what do you do?
Step one, text message your contact at the restaurant. In our case this was Jennifer, who was already sitting at a table for six. It started out as a table for eight, but two people had already texted her that they were bailing. She ended up alone at a table for six.
Step two, go online and find the menu. The restaurant we were heading to had an online menu, so we could read the menu on a phone.
Step three, figure out what everyone wants to eat. This sounds easy, but we were heading to a French restaurant that was obnoxiously snooty enough to have the menu be in french with a crappy English translation. This would normally not be a problem since most of you know that I am fluent in french. But I was driving. Reading a menu on a cell phone and driving on a traffic filled highway is not recommended by the Surgeon General in any circumstance. So I didn't. We did eventually figure out what people wanted to eat.
Step four, text your contact at the restaurant your final order so that she can pass it on to the waiter. This was apparently quite amusing to the waiter, who thought we were all crazy.
So we finally got there and found parking. We parked in a construction zone that said no parking until 6pm, it was 6:30 so we parked there. Quick walk to the restaurant, and on to our table. Turns out that ordering online didn't really save us time cus I'm 100% sure that they didn't start cooking until after we arrived. It took a good 15-20 minutes for our food to arrive, and no, cooking filet mignon does not take 30 minutes.
The food was really tasty, but the portions were very much on the small side. For $25 I expect to have a decent amount of food. I wasn't expecting a 6 ounce filet mignon with a thimble full of diced veggies and four fries made of chick peas. After supper Trish and I split a chocolate fondue which was pretty good as well. It was tasty, but I don't recommend this place, not that I could recommend it, because I don't remember what it was called. So avoid the french restaurant near the Fillmore at all costs! Unless of course you already ate before going there.
We get to the Fillmore at around 8:15, and there's no lineup to get in. The place is like a huge gymnasium, and it's mostly empty. We head towards the stage and hang out with the small crowd there. The place started to fill up over the next 45 minutes, and by the time the band hit the stage it was crowded. The Hip played two sets with a short break in between. The music was awesome, loud, but not ear splitting loud. The show was really good, and we had a lot of fun.
The band was big, Gordie was singing and sometimes playing guitar. They had 2 other guys on guitars, one on base, a keyboard and a drummer. I don't really know the band members, mostly because I don't care, but I'm not sure if they were all the permanent fixtures that make up the Hip. Trish would know, so if you really care, you can ask her. I expected just your regular four man crew, so I was a little surprised.
Gordie was hilarious, making all sorts of pantomimes, like pretending to clean a window, or shoot buffalo and stuff like that. But dude does that guy ever sweat! He kept wiping himself with a white handkerchief and then throwing it into the crowd. But honestly, would you want a dripping wet rag that someone just wiped himself with? The answer for most of the people there was yes, my answer was "hell no". Dude looked like he took a shower with his clothes on and forgot to towel off. Sweat dripped from his face, and ran like a faucet at his elbows. It made for a pretty entertaining night, but still, I would not want his sweat rags, ever. Well maybe if I could e-bay them for millions.
The show was good and most of the fans were fun, but there were some exceptions. Why the hell would you get stumbling drunk if beers cost $12 a pop? Who knows but a lot of people did. During the first act, there was one guy headbanging to Hip music. If you don't know what kind of music The Tragically Hip play, you can stop reading now, and go listen to a track or two before continuing. So this headbanger was making an ass of himself and he headbutts a couple of people on accident. The first person moved away and the second person turned out to be a bit beefy. Beefy guy looked like he was ready to beat headbanger into the floor, but headbanger had an equally beefy friend. So they talked and headbanger was moved away by his friend. He continued to make an ass of himself but he stopped headbanging and started hugging people at random and dancing with them. That didn't go over well either. So he ended up just dancing by himself and bumping into people.
During the break headbanger disappeared, but sadly he was replaced by super tall jerk guy. This guy had to be 6'8" and crazy skinny, but he was also crazy drunk and jumping up and down. Trish traded spots with me because he was being a dumbass. I elbowed him in the back a few times when he started jumping too close to me, but he'd just start jumping forward. I guess I wasn't hitting him hard enough for him to get the message. He kinda moved forward in the end so he wasn't my problem anymore.
Then some drunk girls were hugging random people and each other. Dancing all over the place and acting pretty slutty. It was pretty hilarious (to me anyways) when they collided with super drunk lecherous guy. He just grabbed on to them and started dancing with them. And from where I was standing he was pretty much humping their legs. Especially when the girls started jumping along with the music... this guy pretty much leaned back and let the girls jump up and down against his crotch. Like I said hilarious!
All these idiots didn't deter us from having a good time though. The music was good, the band was cool, they even did an encore. Though it's kinda lame when you can see the roadies fixing up the stage for the encore. The band walks off stage and the roadies immediately started tuning guitars and changing out microphones. It was pretty obvious they were coming right back.
The biggest problem of the night was heat. Everything was hot, everyone was sweating, not just Gordie. Derek and Brian found a cool spot by the door after the intermission, so we had to find them at the end of the night. One thing that was pretty funny and a little gross was that My skin on my arms was kinda peeling from the sun. And because I was sweating, the sweat made bubbles of dead skin with sweat inside them on my arms. They looked a little like blisters, but didn't hurt at all when they popped. Like I said, a little gross, but kinda funny.
So anyways, we left and went to a Belgian style pub for a glass. The place was pretty cool, but the bathrooms were covered floor to ceiling with graffiti. The only spots unmarked were the sink and the toilet. Everything else, including the soap and towel dispensers were covered. I had a dark beer and only paid $3 for it... not sure if the guy gave me the wrong change or not because I didn't know how much it was. It was Moonlight Black Lager or something like that, and it was pretty tasty.
A couple hours later and we were heading back home. I crawled into bed at around 3am... Sunday I woke up late, played on the computer for a bit and then went to Safeway for food. By the time breakfast was cooked it was 5pm... strange day.
One last note, I was trying to type "shift-w" to get a W to type "Well that's it for now" or something like that. Instead I hit "ctrl-w" which is close tab in FireFox... interesting, but kinda crappy. Thanks blogger for auto-saving all the time!
Monday, June 8, 2009
San Francisco - Sunny Crawfish
Well, it's been a while since I last blogged something so I figured I'd blog about last weekend. Sadly, last weekend was double booked. I wanted to go to Alliance, a game where people pretend to be medieval adventures and hit each other with swords made out of plumbing supplies. Unfortunately, I had already booked the weekend for the Crawfish boil in San Fran.
I say unfortunately, but really the Crawfish boil was lots of fun, the only problem was that there was nobody to hit with insulation foam. We got up with the intent of getting to the city by 10:30am, the boil started at 11, but we wanted to be there a little early to organize things. By the time we really got going though, there was no way we'd be there before 11.
The weather underground page said that it would be cool and cloudy, so I wore shorts and a t-shirt. I mean, cool and cloudy for San Fran is 15 degrees Celsius and a bit of fog. I'd rather be cold than hot, so light clothes it is. Trish brought a hoodie and a scarf, just in case. We got there in the fog but by the time we found parking, the fog lifted and the sun came out to play.
We go in the crawfish boil and it was about 4 times bigger than last year. 8 tables instead of 2 and tons of the tasty little crawdads boiling away in giant pots. We set up our chairs and start eating. Brian, Antonio, Jaxs and Darren join us. There was also a new guy, but again, I don't remember his name. Sucks to be the new guy, but my memory is like Swiss cheese, and he landed in a hole. We'll call the new guy Jim, because I'm 100% sure that his name is NOT Jim.
We had good food, crappy beer, and lots of sun. Even though the saying goes "Free beer is good beer" that's not 100% accurate. When the only free beer is Miller Highlife and Pabst Blue Ribbon, it's just free beer, not to be confused with good beer. They also had some free red bull, but I prefer crappy beer over red bull any day.
So, 7 people present, eating crawfish and drinking beer. Guess how many people forgot to bring sun screen... that's right! 7! DOH! So, as it goes, hanging out in the sun from 11am to 5pm without sun screen will get you a pretty solid sun burn on all exposed flesh. My arms are toasty red, except for a strip on my left wrist where I wore the arm band that said I was allowed to eat. My face is pretty red, my nose is peeling, but as a bonus my hair protected my neck and ears! My legs are a little red too, but my arms got the brunt of the burn.
Was it worth it you ask? Of course it was! I hung out there eating crawfish for 6 hours! Yummy crawfish, with some corn and potatoes. There was also some people watching to be had. One guy had some sort of "I can't shut up" syndrome and he kept on babbling about stuff. "This girl looks like a young Jenna Jameson, you know that porn star and did you know that Alcatraz was a fort before it was a prison, that's how the defended the bay." Dude, lay off the crack and collect your thoughts before you speak. Porn stars and forts are not related and should not be part of the same sentence.
One of the girls in the same group as babbling guy had plumbers butt. Why is it that when guys have their pants so low that you can see the crack people are always going "eww, plumbers butt", but when girls have the same problem, people don't seem to mind one bit? Seems a little sexist to me. Then there was also a couple that had two dogs. A big mastiff or something, I'm not a dog person so if I got the breed wrong, that's just too bad. The only real questions I have about dogs now are related to eating them, but I digress. Their other dog was a little black thing with puffy hair. It was hillarious, the size of a football, probably closer to a softball if you soaked it in water. Super poofy hair dog was a little hyper and it was really funny when it ran around.
Anyways, we left around 5pm, mostly full of crawfish. I say mostly full because of the effort it takes to eat the stuff. I don't think you can get full of crawfish unless it's shelled for you. We had a great day, lots of fun and too much sun. So now I'm looking a little like tomato face guy and my chest is SUPER white compared to my arms but I'll survive. I'll have to even out my tan someday, maybe when I go to the pool next time I'll put SPF 75 on my arms and face and SPF 10 on the rest of me.
Well, next year you should all come to the crawfish boil cus it's awesome, and I won't forget sunscreen. Stayed tuned, because on the 20th I get to go to an Alliance day event, so I'll be beating people with foam padded pipe and I'll write a blog about it.
I say unfortunately, but really the Crawfish boil was lots of fun, the only problem was that there was nobody to hit with insulation foam. We got up with the intent of getting to the city by 10:30am, the boil started at 11, but we wanted to be there a little early to organize things. By the time we really got going though, there was no way we'd be there before 11.
The weather underground page said that it would be cool and cloudy, so I wore shorts and a t-shirt. I mean, cool and cloudy for San Fran is 15 degrees Celsius and a bit of fog. I'd rather be cold than hot, so light clothes it is. Trish brought a hoodie and a scarf, just in case. We got there in the fog but by the time we found parking, the fog lifted and the sun came out to play.
We go in the crawfish boil and it was about 4 times bigger than last year. 8 tables instead of 2 and tons of the tasty little crawdads boiling away in giant pots. We set up our chairs and start eating. Brian, Antonio, Jaxs and Darren join us. There was also a new guy, but again, I don't remember his name. Sucks to be the new guy, but my memory is like Swiss cheese, and he landed in a hole. We'll call the new guy Jim, because I'm 100% sure that his name is NOT Jim.
We had good food, crappy beer, and lots of sun. Even though the saying goes "Free beer is good beer" that's not 100% accurate. When the only free beer is Miller Highlife and Pabst Blue Ribbon, it's just free beer, not to be confused with good beer. They also had some free red bull, but I prefer crappy beer over red bull any day.
So, 7 people present, eating crawfish and drinking beer. Guess how many people forgot to bring sun screen... that's right! 7! DOH! So, as it goes, hanging out in the sun from 11am to 5pm without sun screen will get you a pretty solid sun burn on all exposed flesh. My arms are toasty red, except for a strip on my left wrist where I wore the arm band that said I was allowed to eat. My face is pretty red, my nose is peeling, but as a bonus my hair protected my neck and ears! My legs are a little red too, but my arms got the brunt of the burn.
Was it worth it you ask? Of course it was! I hung out there eating crawfish for 6 hours! Yummy crawfish, with some corn and potatoes. There was also some people watching to be had. One guy had some sort of "I can't shut up" syndrome and he kept on babbling about stuff. "This girl looks like a young Jenna Jameson, you know that porn star and did you know that Alcatraz was a fort before it was a prison, that's how the defended the bay." Dude, lay off the crack and collect your thoughts before you speak. Porn stars and forts are not related and should not be part of the same sentence.
One of the girls in the same group as babbling guy had plumbers butt. Why is it that when guys have their pants so low that you can see the crack people are always going "eww, plumbers butt", but when girls have the same problem, people don't seem to mind one bit? Seems a little sexist to me. Then there was also a couple that had two dogs. A big mastiff or something, I'm not a dog person so if I got the breed wrong, that's just too bad. The only real questions I have about dogs now are related to eating them, but I digress. Their other dog was a little black thing with puffy hair. It was hillarious, the size of a football, probably closer to a softball if you soaked it in water. Super poofy hair dog was a little hyper and it was really funny when it ran around.
Anyways, we left around 5pm, mostly full of crawfish. I say mostly full because of the effort it takes to eat the stuff. I don't think you can get full of crawfish unless it's shelled for you. We had a great day, lots of fun and too much sun. So now I'm looking a little like tomato face guy and my chest is SUPER white compared to my arms but I'll survive. I'll have to even out my tan someday, maybe when I go to the pool next time I'll put SPF 75 on my arms and face and SPF 10 on the rest of me.
Well, next year you should all come to the crawfish boil cus it's awesome, and I won't forget sunscreen. Stayed tuned, because on the 20th I get to go to an Alliance day event, so I'll be beating people with foam padded pipe and I'll write a blog about it.
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