Good evening! My comedy mom Allie Yada had a song lyric craft party tonight. Stephen Ferris carved up his bookshelf into wooden blocks, and we used them to make tiles.
Name that tune
That was my contribution. I left early because I get up at zero dark thirty for work, but I'm excited to see how everyone else's tiles turned out.
Time for sleep. See you guys in the morning.
Happy almost tomorrow! Last night I went to my high school friend Joel's house to watch he and his friends play Pathfinder.
Pathfinder is a fantasy role-playing game that is very combat-based, and very complicated. This particular group of 6 friends (and two gamemasters) had already been playing since the end of 2014, so I popped in somewhere in the middle of their progress through the book.
From what I could gather, there is a map in the middle of the table with a grid on it, and each character has a figurine that appears to serve approximately the same purpose as a Monopoly piece. Each person has a set of dice (SO. MANY. DICE.), and the numbers they roll determine what happens next in the game. Joel and the other gamemaster sat and crunched numbers the entire time. Another player was on a laptop the whole time manipulating data. It was a lot to take in. Joel mentioned that it takes a ridiculous amount of prep to get ready for one of these game nights, and I believe him.
Each player has a sheet with information about his/her character. The other side of the page also has a ridiculous amount of data. I understood almost none of it. Joel tried his best to explain it to me, but I had too many questions and I didn't want to interrupt everyone's game.
The game took about 3 hours. It was intense, but there was also a lot of laughter. Everyone brought food and beverages and had a great time hanging out. It was a lot of math, but also a lot of problem-solving. Even though I had no idea what was going on, it was still fascinating to watch.
My main takeaway from watching this campaign is that it's about the game, but not really. It's a bunch of friends getting together to enjoy a common interest and each others' company. Everyone I met last night is really awesome, and I hope to see them all again at some point.
This is going to be an interesting week. I have speed dating on Wednesday, plus I'm going to be reuniting with someone I haven't seen in a really long time. I'll keep you posted. Right now I need some sleep.
See you all in the morning.
Greetings! Logan Banner and I are pre-partying with our liquors of choice. At precisely 7 pm, we are going to hit Play on our devices and start watching Back to the Future, with our running commentary in the Comments section of the post. Feel free to join in, or just watch us get progressively sillier and more intoxicated.
Sorry that this post is super late. I just got home from learning about wrestling with Damian Harmony. If you know Damian, you're probably wondering why the hell he watches pro wrestling. Damian is super intellectual, to the point where he conjugates Latin verbs for fun. This does not fit with what I know of him, but he got into it as a kid and it stuck.
Damian began by telling me the basics of how wrestling works. It is largely staged, but there are some improv aspects as well (most of his metaphors were comedy-related). Generally, the story involves either a personal conflict or some kind of championship, and some do both. Most pro wrestlers hit their stride about 10 years into their careers (although I can only imagine how their joints are doing by then).
My initial impression from watching a few men's matches was that everyone looks like they smell like B.O. All of the wrestlers are shiny with what I'm assuming is sweat, but could maybe be bacon grease. The refs all dress like soda jerks in old-timey malt shops. Everything looks like a testosterone ballet.
Damian started to explain some of the logistical aspects, like how when the wrestlers are in a headlock, they're actually communicating the next few moves. Grabbing someone's wrist means you're checking that they're alright. A lot of the theatrical aspect is playing to the audience, which I can appreciate from doing stand-up. Some of the theatrics is just filling time, which I also get.
One of the first videos we watched was Ravishing Rick Rude vs Jake the Snake Roberts. Apparently Jake was the antagonist until Rick kissed Jake's wife. I can see her confusion. They both have terrible mustaches and 80s hair. At this point Damian explained that each wrestler has their own finishing move which is usually their punch line, so to speak.
The last video we watched was Sasha Banks vs. Bayley, which was actually a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It still involved a lot of theatrics, but this was after Bayley had broken her hand in real life, so a lot of the drama focused on Sasha fake re-injuring her hand. It was obviously staged, but still had a lot of drama and was suspenseful enough to keep me interested in what was happening.
Consensus: it was a fun night. Am I going to watch wrestling again? Probably not. Thanks to Damian Harmony for entertaining me and putting up with my endless questions.
Alright, gang, I'm getting up in four hours, so I need to go to sleep. I have a super fun guest post lined up for tomorrow night, courtesy of a guy friend from high school. I'll figure out the morning post once I wake up. Catch you guys in a ridiculously short amount of time.