Steph and I joined Tina, Amit, Jeff, and Patty at Rooster T. Feathers on Friday for a set of four comics. The first guy was trying out a lot of material for the first time, but a good bit was funny. The woman that came second was pretty funny, but it was because she was somewhere between a train wreck and awkwardly cute. She was also describing things that we couldn’t really relate with, but it was still decent. The third guy was really funny and had a really well planned performance. He was probably my favorite. The headliner was playing off the crowd really well, but there were lots of awkward and down moments. The night was a lot of fun and the spiked hot chocolate I got was delicious.
There was a small and quiet games night of just Chris, Jeff, and myself. We started out with Fall in a Pit and Die (Dungeon Quest). I did really badly on that one, not even making to the dragon before getting destroyed. Jeff ended up winning, since Chris wasn’t able to make it out in time. We then played a fun round of Galaxy Trucker, where we bid on the number of handicaps that we tried to make it trough the universe with. We did really well despite the obscene number of handicaps, and ended positive. I survived 9, and Chris survived 8. We will probably play that again but with us both doing the same handicaps.
Steph and I joined Andrew, Kevin, and Lindsay at a Pho place on Friday night. The food there was pretty good, and the conversation was interesting, but it was all leading up to the karaoke. We went to a place nearby and got a room. The interface on the karaoke machine was amazingly terrible, like being able to hand write letters for the song you are looking up. We got a book and mainly were inputting numbers. I put in some Beatles songs since they are fun, short, and most everyone knows them. I had a sore throat that day so it was a little tough to sing. Lindsay and Debby were singing amazingly well. Steph was doing pretty good, and then there were the guys. Andrew was ok, Kevin was a little worse, and I was pretty bad due to the sore throat. I had a great time.
We played another game of Dungeon Quest yesterday, and I got insanely lucky again. I was able to make it into the catacombs, and get the gigantic diamond there, then make it to the dragon’s room. I took some treasure and left through the other side. Everyone else died. It was a very interesting game, and I enjoyed it. The luck I was getting was a bit absurd.
I then got on beyond earth with Steph and we played for about 3 hours, with it not going all that great.
The kitties are doing really well, and have been enjoying their Christmas presents. They have played with the spinning toy the Lee’s got them, Lana has actually been sitting in the crate that Steph got, and Archer has been enjoying the new fleece sheets that Steph bought. He looks like Jabba kitty in the picture below.
We played a good game of Mage Knight with myself being the generalist, Adam was the unit guy, Tina was the blood lady, and Nick was the movement person. We did a co-op scenario where there was a large army going to a city and we had to get there first. I was able to pick up a lot of great combo spells and artifacts along the way that let me do blanket damage to tons of enemies, so when it got time to fight the final boss I took most of the smaller minions. In the city assault I was barely able to hold off the one guy I was up against, but he was a very powerful guy. I enjoyed the afternoon/evening, especially since we ended up winning, but it was a challenge.
Steph and I joined a large group at the Symphony and Dance Libre show, Including Adam, Amit, Leyan, Andrew, and Debby. It was a pretty decent show, but I was feeling restless that evening for some reason. We had a decent dinner beforehand at Three in San Mateo, that had great service and great sauces. The appetizers were the best part of the meal by far, with the flaming cheese being both entertaining and delicious. I thought the sauces were fantastic but the bases were a little lacking. The steak didn’t have much of a flavor besides balsamic sauce, and the bread wasn’t terribly good, but for the cheese on it. I still had a great time there, especially with Steph.
This was a great time in the city with Nick and Sarah. Steph and I took the train and rode our bikes to the Caltrain and took that to the City. We rode our bikes along the bay, and to the pier. There was a farmer’s market around the pier and we got some food there before continuing on to the exploratorium. We got inside and Nick and I almost immediately got distracted by one of the exhibits, it was a horizontal spinning plate that you could put small plastic wheels onto. The wheels would roll along the plate and if you got it right would stay on and make interesting patterns. We stayed there longer than the girls would have liked. We then went to see many other interesting exhibits, including some geysers that were constructed to go off at 20-30 minutes depending on height, there was a room that had photo-reactive walls, there was an infrared camera to see how hot things were. It was a great time, and I’d be up for going again.
After that we went to Nick’s place and washed our hands a half dozen times because of all the exhibits that everyone had been touching. Then we went to the Ethiopian place near where he lives. The food there was amazing, and the bread they had was better than any other’s we’d had before, because it was made with the Ethiopian starch instead of wheat. It was a great time.
I was hosting last night for games, still at Beachhead, and it ended up being the latest games night in a very long time. It started out with Iliya stopping by and hanging out for a bit. He brought beer and chatted about immigration stories. Once 8:30 rolled around Chris showed up and Jeff and I joined him in a game of Blood Bowl. It was a hilarious game, and I got out to a quick start. I wasn’t in as many of the matches so I ended up winning most of the ones I was in. The final round they caught up some, but it wasn’t quite enough.
After we wrapped that up we played Dungeon Quest (aka Fall in a Pit and Die). The game is very unforgiving, there isn’t much choice involved, and you can die immediately and unexpectedly. The game revolves around luck mitigation, which is achieved primarily by drawing for a large number of decks depending on what you are trying to do. We ended up playing three rounds of this with Adam joining for the second two rounds. We had a great time, with everyone dying the first and second games, with myself making it out with a good deal of treasure on the third game. Adam also made it out on the third game, but he left with a small amount of treasure. I got insanely lucky on many draws on that third game, with doors opening for me, rooms being empty, and the dragon not waking up. I even had some time to spare, and a potion to get more when I exited. Jeff got caught by the dragon, and Chris died in a trap on that last go around.
It's an Exciting World 