We went to Jeremy’s for Rock Band last night and had a good time. I was so tired, but was still social. I wasn’t up for playing any of the instruments. The game style just doesn’t interest me and never has. I do enjoy watching the others play and the karaoke element is always a winner. Jeremy was nice enough to get a cake for Lindsay and we split it. Since it was an Alexanders cake it was phenomenally good.
We had a pretty good discussion of The Code Book, which was a little surprising. I had my doubts if the others would find it interesting or not. I found most of it interesting, but skimmed over a lot of the in depth explanations I had heard before. I find a lot of the implications of what was in the book to be fascinating more than the processes.
I’ve enjoyed having Steph back and we’ve gotten to do some nice things together. We went to the Mayfield holiday party, she made me some tasty tasty ramen, and we tried a restaurant from some of the recommendations she tracks, Pausa.
George hosted a holiday themed karaoke night on Friday. Steph and I joined everyone for dinner beforehand at Pho Vy. We got there with George, Adam, and Tina. Then the holiday spirit arrived with Debby, Lindsay, Kevin, and Andrew wearing horrible holiday sweaters.
After dinner we headed to George’s to start the karaoke. I put on a few of my favorite Christmas songs. I like that many of the Christmas songs are for baritones, making it much easier for me to sing. The ones I ended up singing were, ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,’ ‘Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,’ ‘You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch,’ and ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside.’
We also ended up pulling out some board games. Adam, Tina, Steph, and I played Terraforming Mars. I got a good start, but Adam pulled way out ahead with the milestones. Kevin, Steph, and I also played a round of Mysterium, and did really, really badly.
Steph and I joined Lindsay, Andrew, Kevin, and Debby at Lost Colony for a movie night. They had leftover snacks from poker on Friday, and some ice cream. The stars of the night, however, were the new kittens. Ajani(AJ) and Kiora(Kiki) were adorable. I played with them a good bit, and they used my legs as a playground. The only not so great part is when they ran across my face, but it didn’t hurt that much.
The movie was good. As with many of the older movies, it is interesting to see what modern movies take from it. Watching it now without taking into account that this movie predates most others we’ve seen would make it feel like the movie is overusing tropes. The difference comes when you realize those tropes started with these older movies.
Steph and I went over to Tina’s for long games. Steph was just there to hang out for a bit, and we all feasted on Thanksgiving leftovers. I jumped into a game of Feast for Odin with Adam, Tina, and Jon. I ended up winning with the pillage strategy, but there were lots of inefficiencies. The second game, Tina switched with Neta. Adam won that game by a lot, with a houses strategy. The third game I won by a lot with the Whaling strategy. We are still trying to figure out the limiting factor for the game, which makes it fun to play over and over.
The other table was playing a game called Spirit Island. After board games we played a bit of a multi-player puzzle game on a console, and they ordered pizza.
Thanksgiving morning I got up and got the turkey in the oven. I decided to go with Chef John’s recipe from Food Wishes; he’s never steered us wrong before. I had defrosted the turkey over the past 4 days, and made the herb butter. I got to use lots of the herbs in our yard for this including: thyme, rosemary, and sage. I also started up some of the potato and leek soup, another Food Wishes recipe. The turkey got 2 hours in the oven before we left for the Lee’s house.
I helped Mr. Lee with the TV, cleaning up the wires in the back and making sure everything was working properly. We got everything set up before heading to dinner. Jeff and Patty brought their baby, who was surprisingly well behaved. We had a nice dinner, and as it happens, the conversation tended to center on the baby. Stephanie’s cornbread went over really well. We managed to make it out of the house without piles of leftovers, which was nice, as we had a ton of food for the next get together already.
We got back and put the turkey back in the oven for another two hours. The drippings were more voluminous than I had expected and the bottom of the oven got a decent coating of turkey fat. We got everything cleaned up and set up, and got a little bit to relax before people showed up. We were joined by Lindsay, Kevin, Debby, Andrew, and Adam. Adam brought over some really tasty drink mixes. I want to make more of the ginger pepper mix in the future. It might be worth while to drop some ginger and pepper in a cider and see what happens.
The timing couldn’t have been better, as Andrew and Debby showed up as the turkey was ready to come out of the oven. It turned out much better than expected, and I would say it was one of the best turkeys I’ve had. I got the 16 lb turkey, and we ate about 2/3 of it. After dinner Lindsay had a great exercise in showing appreciation for each other, which didn’t go exactly as she expected, I think. It was still great to hear the appreciation that was shared. We played a special round of Scatagories that Lindsay planned as well, and it was a lot harder than I would have thought.
The guys and gals split after that; guys drafting mtg, and gals doing a kitty puzzle. We ended at about the same time and had another round of drinks and some pie. The pie was from Alexanders, and Debby was nice enough to bring them for us. We started playing some jackbox games after pie. We went through 5 different games, and it was a lot of fun. I didn’t win any of the games, but it was still great fun. We played another round of mtg with the cards we had drafted and it turned out almost exactly like the previous round. I was dealing a ton of damage, but I got focused down by everyone else.
It was a great evening, and I appreciated the great people I got to spend the day with.
Adam, Lee, Tina, and I played a game of Mage Knight on Tuesday. The game didn’t start well for me, as I was handed starting cards 4, 5, and 6, insuring that I go last. The start saw me sitting back for Adam to leave the maze he was sitting on, then I got the only enemy I couldn’t kill. I ended up just sitting there most of the first day and doing nothing, putting me really far behind. Lee got into a few situations early on that gave him four wounds, which wasn’t great for him either. His bigger issue is he didn’t manage to recruit any good units, and the special cards he was taking had to do with healing mostly. I got some amazing spells and special actions, leading to me being able to take on a city earlier than anyone else. It took me a long time to defeat the city, but It worked out. I was still really far behind, and just ran to Lee’s city to finish the game. The scores pretty much said what we expected them to, once someone corrected Adam’s math. Adam won by a lot, followed by Tina. I was way behind Tina, and Lee was another large drop behind me.
I’ve had fun going to George’s for Wednesdays. The board games have been fun, and the people have been good to spend time with. We played codenames with both words and pictures one week, then played terraforming Mars with an expansion the next week.
It's an Exciting World 