gonzai: (Squirrel)
Another year, another Euroquest on the books. It's the only gaming tournament I participate in, so I was there for pretty much the duration & participated in as many tournaments as I could. Skipped the wild card this time, a whopping two Can't Stop games both of which were horrid, & only a few 'Play to Win' games, I played but didn't win. Also stayed out of the side tourneys & demos. In the past 5-6 years, I made it into 5 semi-finals & 1 final. This year, I made 2 finals, qualified for 6 semis and played in 4 of them. Twice I was eligible for 2 semis that were played at the same time. Figures. Also was reduced to just 1 heat of Ticket to Ride - my strong game - by both finals being against TTR heats. My one heat of TTR (& lone heat of Castles of Burgundy, another one I'm good at) were atrociously bad. Some of the worst games I've every played of them.

Meanwhile, I learned two tourney games this year - Thurn Und Taxis, where I picked up two very close seconds, but opted for St Petersburg instead, in which I'd also landed a pair of seconds, played the semi against 3 sharks, & finished second again. They were all
convinced I was 'playing it wrong', but hey, I beat two of them. I've made semis in Settlers of Catan & Lords of Waterdeep before, but this time I graduated to the finals. I alternated terrible & great games at Settlers, meaning the great game was the semi & the terrible was the final. I wound up 4th. I never actually won a heat of Waterdeep, but did make the semis & won handily there. The final was close until the very end, when I finished 3rd. My friend Jay won the tourney. I rocked the Splendor heats, but came up one turn short in the semi. One more turn, augh. Last year I was knocked out of the Carcassonne tourney by the eventual champ; this year, I made it to the 'elite eight' before losing by 1 point. If nothing else, I seem to be getting generally better at tourney play.

The non-gaming aspects of the con...not so great. Won a game, but had no idea what any of the games were & picked something randomly. Went to the auction store & found one deal, but wasn't able to go back to bid on anything else. Couldn't afford to buy any new games. Locked my keys in the car Thursday night & had to get AAA out there. Lot of people I like to see didn't make it this year; lot of the ones that did make it weren't their usual selves this year.

Which leads to the part that the worst - one of my favorite people to play games with, Doug Hoylman, died last week. Pretty much that's all we know, he died. Doug had played nearly every game every created & he was a great & very willing teacher. He probably taught me half the games I know, even taught my nephews a couple games. A really patient & pleasant gentleman. we missed him this weekend & I'm already a bit adrift. I'm going to miss him a lot.
gonzai: (How Nice)
Well, that was different. Usually I either go to these things alone (and I spend hours, take a ton of photos and buy more than I probably should) or with Mom, where we don't make it through the whole expo. Today Mom and I went with my buds Jim and Jeff, who were new to this whole thing and forgot to bring their dog. That was a good move, it turned out, because the place was both packed and a madhouse of dogs. Not much non-dog this year, in fact, the petting zoo shrank and didn't include ponies, cows or alpacas, the only small rodent I laid eyes on was sugar gliders (barely), the reptile section shrank, no mini horses this time and there was a whopping 1 ferret present. There was, however, a 23 pound rabbit. Meep.

It was also a good thing there weren't that many critters for me to photograph, because the guys were perpetually on the move. They rarely gave anything much more than a glance and unlike Mom, didn't stop to visit every dog on the way. The guys did want to check out Dock Dogs (they concluded their Dobie would never pass muster at it) and agility trials (they're giving some thought to trying that one.) We found watching the handlers walking the course to be most amusing, I dubbed it a disorganized flash mob and Jeff declared it Zombieville.

JasmineJasmine, a long haired chihuahua. Chihuahuas and golden retrievers ruled the place.
KangaThe wild animal display featured baboons (too far away for pics) and a kangaroo in repose.
macawThis guy is brightly colored. His neighbor was a good dancer, but that made for blurry photos.
PoopedAnd in the end, even the fans are dog-tired.
gonzai: (Kermit)
I don't know what it is about benefits for animal charities, but nobody buys my stuff. I barely made my expenses, and as it turned out, I need not have bothered with anything other than Ravens & Orioles. Nothing else drew interest at all. Still, I did better than two of my three 'roommates', one had a single sale and the other had none. (The fourth cleaned up. Go figure.) But I met lots of doggies, plus some rats, chinchillas, guinea pigs and bunnies. I had help from my buddies Jim and Jeff, so it was a easy and social occasion if naught else. Trying to decide if I should bother with another show, I need the money but do I need the aggravation?
gonzai: (Checking In)
Without me, at the moment, I'm not into masquerade and I didn't know anyone at the game room, so I cam home to try and catch up a bit on things. I've spent more money than I should have (surprise, it's a con) but not a lot comparatively speaking. Got my vinyl 'Talk Show' signed and had a nice chat with Jane Wiedlin, spoke briefly with Thomas Dekker and hopefully will talk with him some more tomorrow. Lots of panels, been running my yap plenty all day. Talked with a bunch of authors last night, including [livejournal.com profile] terri_osborne and [livejournal.com profile] tiggerallyn, visited briefly with [livejournal.com profile] jslinder although I've seen much more of his better half Pam than I've seen of him, and today I saw and chatted with  [livejournal.com profile] aprilvalentine on my way out.

Two days down, one to go.
gonzai: (Checking In)
Well, worked my tailfeathers off in the art show yesterday, hanging all of the mail-in art and half the print shop and I have the raw knees, sore quads and achy back to prove it. It was all I did at the con yesterday other than a (very good) dinner. Today was the 'easy' day, with nothing to go up or come down. However, most of the day was either hectic (at one point 5 different people wanted my help at the same time) or completely dead. Thus, I called it a day at 7, helped a friend get registered, and then went up to gaming and squeezed in a couple of games, both of which I won easily. I wasn't surprised I won Ticket to Ride, the other players were not playing wisely, but I was surprised I won Carcassonne over 3 of the local Carc sharks. While I was playing that game, [livejournal.com profile] firesign10 happened to pass us in the hallway and by some miracle I recognized her, 'cause we've never met before. We didn't get to talk, though, because one of the Carc players was in a hurry to finish the game. Hopefully tomorrow.

But the big thing today was that before Balticon, I returned the Kindle to the person I bought it from. I did that not because I didn't like it, or because Mom didn't like it, but because...I couldn't register the danged thing with Amazon, which would kind of help for buying books and such. Amazon gave me a 'call customer service' alert, so I did. End result - seems the Kindle had been reported 'lost or stolen' back in December and accordingly, Amazon would not register it unless the person who made that report withdrew it. The person who sold it to me responded in 10 minutes to my e-mail and offered to return my money, so I really lucked out in that regard. We did like what we'd seen of it, so I'll probably wind up getting one somewhere along the line. Just not using Craigslist.
gonzai: (Emerson)
[Error: unknown template qotd]From my gaming friend Jim: "I'm going to write a book of all the things you say."  (He thinks just about everything I say is really weird/funny/crazy.)
gonzai: (Checking In)
It's been oddly up and down...

Originally I was supposed to be at a memorial service for my uncle, but his friends didn't want to have one and finally said so a few days ago. So no service. And between the short notice and a broken toe, I didn't think going to the 'restore sanity' gig was a good idea. So no big whoops today.

Went on another 'ornament quest' to Westminster - no ornaments there. They did still have DecoColor pens, which they're clearing out, so I was able to stock up on some colors I could use. Then gaming - a place that usually goes Friday nights when I'm too tired, but ran Saturday this time. Finally learned to play Maori, more than a year after it was first suggested to me.

Home was different too. Did woodburning for the first time in a year instead of doing ornaments. Killed my hand in the process.

Last but not least, I had to unfriend someone who was pretty much the first person I ever friended. We've been RL friends for almost 10 years and often roomed/rode together to events, but she's decided she doesn't want to be friends with anyone who won't switch to Dreamwidth. I'm on more sites/networks/etc than I'm comfortable with in the first place and I don't like being ordered to do something. And she pretty much announced that if you won't switch, then unfriend her. So I did. Not happy about it but I figure it's really her decision - she's the one giving ultimatums. Sad, but clearly we're no longer on the same page, literally.
gonzai: (Bad Day)
I have lost more friends and acquaintances in the last 12 months than in the last 10+ years. (And, increasingly, there is no notice/obituary or service.) The latest one came today, in a death notice published in the paper 3 days early. Our family has always been tight with another family that lived across the street from my grandfather. My first job was babysitting for the oldest son. When the youngest son decided he wanted to have his own contracting business, we gave him his first job. He continued to handle our yard and handy work up until about 5 years ago, when he decided he'd had enough of working for himself and took a regular job. He died suddenly and alone 11 days ago, and wasn't found for a couple days. The middle brother has decided that, despite the few family and friends still in the area, he's having a memorial Saturday, darn it. And the notice popped up in today's paper, though it wasn't supposed to until Wednesday. So fortunately we found out about it, and I'm trying to rearrange the Shore Leave deck chairs to go to it. But this is getting ridiculous, losing so many people in so short a time. Stop it. 
gonzai: (Checking In)
And I'm back home. Our next door neighbor, Joan, had a big party at a local restaurant this evening for all of her friends and family, around 90 or so. Joan is 80 and she decided she wanted to have her wake while she was here to enjoy it. Nice if you can do it. We were at the 'neighbors' table, which worked out well as we don't get to talk to the folks across the street much and we'd never met the neighbors on the other side of Joan at all. Fortuitous, as both sets of neighbors have, like us, joined the the YMCA that will open this summer, and they're interested in the same classes as my mother. So she now has people to go with. Meanwhile we had crab cakes, notable because the restaurant is well-known for their crab cakes, arguably the best in town. And an open bar, so I had a rare drink. But then it turned into professional karaoke, 50's style, and most of our table called it a night.
gonzai: (Owen)
In looking back on 2009, it seems to me to be the year I didn't do anything:

This is really depressing )

This is the depressing list I came up with off the top of my head. Obviously, there is work to be done in 2010. Hoo boy, a lot of work.
gonzai: (Bad Day)
Finally home after braving the panicky Balmorons at the supermarket, only to get a call from Aimee, from the old Roots Cafe gang. Margo, who worked the door with me for 10+ years and who is presently the cleaning person at the office, passed away on Wednesday. Her family didn't bother telling any of her friends or her employer that she passed, and the only reason Aimee found out was because she called a couple hours ago to tell Margo the concert they were supposed to go to tomorrow was cancelled, and one of her sons answered the phone. No word at all about arrangements, cause of death, or anything else. Just that she's gone. Second year in a row and 4th out of six that a Roots person has died during the holidays.

The one good thing is I know Margo's with her husband Joe now, and that will make her very, very happy.
gonzai: (Crews)
The party did get moved inside, sort of - the band and most of the food were inside, the seats and most of the drinks were outside. And apparently everyone took the 'tex-mex' theme to heart - food-wise, only my cookies and Margo's brownies were not spicy. So very little food for me. But many sodas and waters. And trips to the potty. It didn't start raining until around the same time the band (The Tarbox Ramblers) started playing, but then it poured down mightily. So we all crammed into the house and staked out spots to either watch or dance to the band. I camped out on the staircase, which turned out to be one of the few places to sit in the house, and got a good view.

The primary entertainment, though, was Petula, Ken & Aimee's new puppy. A 6 month old boxer mix and a total sweetheart. My face and ears are thoroughly kissed and cleaned now. Visited with their other dog, Mamou, quite a bit as well. And watched the two of them try to play Frisbee with the same Frisbee at the same time. Caught up with Ken & Aimee, Etta, Jim & Bryce, who I haven't seen in ages. Seems I'm about the only person at the party who came up with the Springsteen tickets, most folks didn't bother trying despite wanting to go. I'm not used to having folks jealous of me.

All in all, a good social event, got me out of the house, and I made sure not to overdo, I left before the second set. Not bad for a rainy day.
gonzai: (Dr Who)
Don't know how long I may have internet access, so a very quick but heartfelt HAPPY BIRTHDAY to [personal profile] sol_se !

Have a great one!
gonzai: (Emerson)
My best bud Dan moved to the Netherlands back in December, and I hadn't heard much from him until the last couple weeks, in which he became a legal resident of the Netherlands, started proper Dutch classes (he was conversational in it before he left, but needed more work) and as of yesterday, he has a job. At a coffeehouse. Yes, THAT kind of coffeehouse. He's always, ahem, known his way around the ganja, but for the first time, he has to learn to properly roll a joint. I find this all quite hilarious. And in a fit of irony, his last job in the States was working at my office, with the dogs - said coffeehouse has a resident dog and he thinks a lot of his getting the job was that the dog likes him.

Glad it's all working out for him, changing continents/languages/etc is one heckuva life change.

Profile

gonzai: (Default)
gonzai

August 2017

S M T W T F S
  12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 7th, 2025 10:51 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios