Things That Are Not Transsomatechnics Or Tasklists

[rax]

Here's some random stuff that is potentially of interest:

•  I keep finding great people interested in living with me next year, but no luck so far for right now. This is irritating, but I am kind of getting used to living alone; it is not so bad, although it is sometimes a bit lonely. I have people over periodically and that's pretty awesome.
• I have discovered the amazing game that is Dominion. I don't know how I manage to avoid it until now. In short, it's a deck-building game --- you build a deck as part of the process of playing the game and how well your deck plays determines whether or not you win. For extra bonus points, it's slightly different every time, since the pieces available are unlikely to be the same each time, especially if you have the expansions. It is all jsmthng's fault that I have this now, as well as the new Cosmic Encounter. If anyone local wishes to play these things... let me know. :)
• Pokemon Black and White, the new generation of games, were released in Japan today. (They don't hit the US until March.) The ROMs are already available, people downloaded them, hacked them, started playing --- and there's copy protection that prevents you from leveling up your pokemon. <3 I find this hilarious. (And I'm sure it will be beaten, like, tomorrow. I am probably going to wait until I can buy it and play it for real. I am in grad school.)
• Please tell me I should not buy this amazing stained-glass window. I cannot afford this thing, or, I guess I probably could, but there are many better things I could spend that money on, like visiting people terribly dear to me. Please remind me of this.
• Speaking of stuff, Gaudior made a roomba sound pretty amazing, but again, would I rather spend more time sweeping and vacuuming and have the money? ... probably? I can sweep while I'm on the phone and that also levels up my pokemon because I am walking around; unfortunately vacuuming and phone don't really mix.
• Zanazibar has convinced me to go to Anime Crossroads. I've never been to an anime convention before. Are there any social niceties I should pick up beforehand? Am I about to feel so amazingly old? (I need to find some activities to go to where I will feel young; spending so much time around universities has me thinking I'm old when I am totally not.)
• I spent basically all of today digging through, debugging, and writing Python code I didn't write --- and I found the bug the customer had uncovered and found a fix to at least run tests against! I'm pretty proud of myself; usually my job doesn't involve diving half that deep into the product code, and while I bet other people could have done that faster, it's good to know that, at least to a certain extent, I've still got it. The customer, of course, doesn't really care whether I have it or not, unless "it" is a way to make the feature work on their machine now, so I still have work to do. :) 
• If I have a Catgirl Goth Rave in the San Francisco bay area in, oh, mid-December, would people show up? If not, when/where would you show up to a Catgirl Goth Rave?
• How many things can I italicize today? (There's no good reason for that link, I just really love that sentence.)

Hope y'all are doin' rockin'.

Comments

[sixolet]

I would very likely come to a bay-area CGR

[picklish]

Ooh, so would I!

[chagrined]

I'M A LOCAL AND I WISH TO PLAY THESE THINGS!

[rax]

We TOTALLY need to have a board game night.

Want to do it when we would have had a transsomatechnics class but won't? Or is that too soon and we should try to find a time in another week or two?

[chagrined]

That'd work for me. :)

[hebinekohime]

If I have a Catgirl Goth Rave in the San Francisco bay area in, oh, mid-December, would people show up?

I would! I'll be on winter break starting 12/10, and a Catgirl Goth Rave is an excellent excuse to visit the bay area. :)

I've never been to an anime convention before. Are there any social niceties I should pick up beforehand?

IME, the social niceties of anime cons are much the same as they are at any other con. Make sure to set some time aside to people-watch, and feel free to ask the cosplayers for their picture; they're there to show off!

[bookofjude]

Someone told me the other day that I should buy Dominion and I'm seriously thinking about it but it's gotten to the point where there are so many awesome board games that I've looked at online, I know that I can't afford all of them! Unfortunately, the thing that has turned me off Dominion is that it is apparently best with more than two players and I currently only have one person who will play board games with me.

[rax]

I have groups over a lot and many of the games I prefer are best with two people, and so it's a worthwhile investment for me. Probably. :)

Apparently you can play Dominion online if you use this crazy German site, but I haven't poked at it much due to not wanting to get sucked in.

[bookofjude]

I get sucked into online things extremely easy so I am basically avoiding any link on bgg that says "online play here". It should maybe instead warn "BEWARD, HERE LIES A THERE-HEADED TIME-EATING MONSTER".

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Re: anime convention: yes, you are about to feel so amazingly old. I started having that with those in college. That said, it should be a pretty awesome time anyway.

Will cheerfully attend a Catgirl Goth Rave with sufficient notice a) anywhere I can drive in like three days b) the East Coast if financially reasonable i.e. like next spring.

[slashaddict.livejournal.com]

I am a huuuuuuge Pokefan and I am very excited :D I am sort of avoiding info about the new Pokemon--I've already seen the starters and a few of the new ones that were released before the game came out, but I'm trying to avoid too many spoilers before playing the game for myself :D I should probably just avoid the entire internet before then, but it's a long time to go until they come out in America. I'm very excited though...it's going to be a good time :3

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

That stained glass fox--oh my. That's iconic. I'm the wrong person to ask. I find myself talking about the whatever I didn't buy in 1979, the one that got away. Never about regrettable purchases. On the other hand, seeing people is vital.

Nine

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

I can't say anything much about that lovely window without involving myself in a conflict of interest. But I will caution you that it may be dicey to start spending money because you feel that you can't afford to spend time. <3

[kelkyag]

I'm most curious -- what's your conflict of interest regarding the stained glass fox?

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

I'm one of the people she could conceivably spend money visiting. :)

[kelkyag]

I've also recently met Dominion, and am enjoying flailing through trying to learn it. I suspect you'd kick my butt, but it'd be fun to play the next time we're in the same city. When'd be a good time to invade?

You are not allowed to feel old, as then I would be obliged to feel even older. Cut that out right now!

I don't think I can fairly opine on the window beyond what I have already.

Congratulations on the successful debugging run!

[schrodi-kitten.livejournal.com]

Dominion is AWESOME. I wish I had the chance to play it regularly.

And I'd come to a catgirl goth rave if it was being held, um, anywhere within the St. Louis-Kansas City corridor. Which is a bit far away for pretty much everybody. But if you hold one, I'll be there! It'll be me and...well, more or less just me.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Would you come to one in Bloomington?

[schrodi-kitten.livejournal.com]

...hmmm. Possibly. That's about three hours from here.

[calamarain.livejournal.com]

Dominion is indeed awesome, but you have to choose appropriate cards if you're playing 2 player. It balances a lot better with 3-5 people. I'm very fond of the Seaside expansion. Intrigue is good, but not brilliant. Alchemy I've only played once so I couldn't really comment on it.

[lutris.livejournal.com]

I've not tried Dominion, I'll have to see if I can find it. Cosmic Encounter is a favorite of mine, I really should have played it sooner. All of the folks at college who liked it had played it enough that they rarely used the base rules, and double-power double-blind isn't exactly the way to learn. Well, it might be a way to learn, I suppose. :]

I've always been fond of copy protection that doesn't prevent piracy but does put weird restrictions on gameplay. If I recall, Master of Orion 1 used the traditional 'look this up in the manual' questions, but if you got them wrong all of the AI players would immediately declare war on you. It made for an interesting challenge if you ere good at the game. I'm not sure if that changed the AI difficulty, either.

That is a pretty wonderful stained glass window! I don't think I'd be a good influence keeping you from buying it, it suits you well.

If you hold Goth Catgirl Rave on the moon, I'll check what Virgin Galacic's rates are. I'm sure I can drum up a place to stay wherever, and providing the fights aren't egregiously expensive I'll head there. It's sufficiently off-season that flying shouldn't be too expensive, at least.

[doma.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think, "not levelling up your pokemon" would lead to an interesting, "well, how far can I get?" challenge.

[coffeekitty.livejournal.com]

i'd totally go to a catgirl goth rave if it would be okay to show up as a plain old girl goth with pulsed LEDs. i don't cat so well...
getting to the Bay Area in December...can collective imagination drum up a plausible invited talk on DNA repair in that context? ;-)

[ab3nd.livejournal.com]

If you do not have cat ears, you will be issued a set.

[rax.livejournal.com]

To be clear, the set of cat ears you will be issued will be optional. (Although I try to bring enough for everybody.)

[doma.livejournal.com]

I have used up my travel budget for this year, so I'm unlikely to attend a Catgirl Goth Rave I can't drive to. (That will probably be different next year.)

[ab3nd.livejournal.com]

Mid-December is a tricky time for me, but I'll see what is up.

I have a friend who worked QA at iRobot for a while. The roomba has some...idiosyncrasies. They sometimes can't tell the difference between black carpet and edges of stairs, and so won't vacuum the black spots. Also, if the battery dies, replacing it is a problem solved better with money than time. One wouldn't work for me, it might work better for you, depending on how much you tend to have things on the scale of a breadbox on the floor.

[eredien]

I like the window, but you could also commission people to build you one.

Speaking of stuff, Gaudior made a roomba sound pretty amazing, but again, would I rather spend more time sweeping and vacuuming and have the money? ... probably? I can sweep while I'm on the phone and that also levels up my pokemon because I am walking around; unfortunately vacuuming and phone don't really mix.

Roombas do not do stairs, so you'd have to do stairs and crevices by hand. That being said, if at any point you do not want the vacuum bought three months ago, I will take it off your hands.

Anime conventions will probably make you feel old. They are populated by teenagers who live on the internet and are all on sugar-highs and all wearing hair with improbable angles and colors. They can also be fun, though.

I would come to a catgirl goth rave just about anywhere, if I can afford to go, because I need a vacation.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I think me and my boyfriends could very easily appear for a SF-area CGR.

[baniszew.livejournal.com]

You should talk to vogt about Roombas, given how much time he spends with them. (And he might be able to get you a discount.) My impression is that they make you need to vacuum less often, but you should still use a big burly vacuum cleaner on your floors occasionally.

I am scheduled to run a LARP at MIT the weekend of 12/10, so I shouldn't go to CGGR then. I would probably go to one in SF, Bloomington, or anywhere with comparable airfare prices if it was the weekend of 12/18.

[a-wry.livejournal.com]

I will show up to your putative SF bay area Catgirl Goth Rave, with bells on.

And I will bring my friends.

[anasai.livejournal.com]

If I have a Catgirl Goth Rave in the San Francisco bay area in, oh, mid-December, would people show up? If not, when/where would you show up to a Catgirl Goth Rave?

YES YES YES. If it's heading towards later December I might want warning to avoid being out of town.

As for anime conventions, I definitely feel old and out of the loop at them, but loved them as a kid. I think it's less a problem of actually being older than most of the people there (though yes, we are older than most of the people there) and more a problem of being out of the loop on anime since I got more hobbies. I'd recommend at least catching a few episodes of whatever the hot new series are that everyone will be excited about. Getting dragged by friends at least means you'll fit in with someone.

[rainfae.livejournal.com]

Buy it. Your friends can come out to visit you, admire the new window, and all will be happy. :)

[(Anonymous)]

The fox panel is gorgeous. And so expensive. And so gorgeous.

I would total chip in for it as a birthday / solstice / Sparkle Pony Day gift.

- lb