I decided to go for a walk around the Pulgas Water Temple this morning. It is where the Hetch Hetchy reservoir pipe ends. The temple is a little over the top, but still decent. There is a huge grate over the water, so you can’t see it rushing out, but you can certainly hear it.
Ryan, Liana, Caryn and I did an escape room together, with 7 people we didn’t know. We had a good go at it, with a time of 41 minutes. It was one of the faster times, and had we found one of the clues earlier we could have had the fastest time on it. I had a ton of fun, and our group did most of the solving of puzzles.
We then went to a beer garden and had a drink and dinner before heading home. Nima joined us part way through the dinner and we chatted about all sorts of things, but mainly job search stuff.
I went to the Ixalan pre-release event at Game Kastle. Kevin organized, and Andrew participated with us. Lindsay, Debby, and Marily were there. Marily brought her nephew and friend. I got an amazing draw, with a very strong green and decent blue. Lindsay was nice enough to get Steph some marzipan pastries, and they were adorable. Unfortunately since I didn’t want them to melt in my pocket, Lindsay held them in her purse, but we both forgot about it by the end of the evening.
In the matches I played I lost the first 0-2. Then I won the second 2-0 when a little kid scooped as soon as I played the Carnage Tyrant. I also got the best mythic land, also green.
The final match I lost the first one, then won the second just barely. The third went really long as he was doing a ton of life gain, then I did a lot of life gain, then we just hit each other until one died, which was him. I gave the cards afterwards and the look on his face was great.
After MTG we all went to Pho Vi Hoa and had dinner. I got the lemongrass beef, and it as amazing. I’m finding that at pho places I prefer to get the lemongrass flavored meat. It is always spicy and well flavored, plus it isn’t a ton of noodles. I couldn’t finish, but Andrew liked it and helped me out.
Friday I had dinner with George and Adam S at Speedy’s Tacos. I couldn’t eat much but it was still delicious. We went back to George’s place and started up some Karaoke. Kevin doesn’t sing and doesn’t drink, so we pulled out Mysterium. It is a light board game that doesn’t require everyone pay attention all the time, which worked well in that social setting. I started as the ghost with Kevin and Adam S as the psychics. We did ok, but didn’t make it to the final round. Then Kevin took a turn as the ghost and we did better, but still didn’t quite make it. The with Adam as the ghost we made it to the final round, but lost badly on the final.
^ Kevin trolling
I had a good hike through Eaton Park Saturday morning. The temperature and weather were perfect. I had a bit of a harder time getting to the park than I expected. I knew that there were hills on the way, but I didn’t think they would be as steep as they ended up being. The motor on my electric bike couldn’t handle them so I was peddling pretty hard.
I was surprised the views were so good with such a small hill. At the top there was a labyrinth made of bricks, which I found surprising. I hiked the loop around the park and headed out. I noticed lots of yellow jackets buzzing around, so I’ll probably not go back on my own.
George had Tina and I over to play games, and we chose Scythe. Tina had played a few times before, but George and I hadn’t played before. I didn’t understand exactly how to go about things at the start, and did some really stupid moves. Besides the stupid moves I was feeling a bit out of it from the fast I had been doing. Tina didn’t quite double our scores, but she was way out in front. We had a good time with it and I would love to play again.
This was a very contentious book. I liked what it implied in the way of technology not changing the human condition of being superstitious and irrational. The mirroring of the past and present was well done, and figuring out which bits were supposed to relate to each other was fun. This did make the characters more of caricatures in many instances, so the people who didn’t really pick up on the mirroring hated the book with a passion. To be fair I didn’t really pick up on the mirroring until the second read through. There were also a lot of characters that were supposed to be irrational and portray the worst parts of human nature. Those characters annoyed the hell out of most of the people who read the book. There were also a few that got annoyed by the main characters because of their blind spots. Another complaint was the trope of someone going unconscious just when they needed to do or say something. This was a bit overused throughout the book. The last complaint was the miss on technology, in that there were no cell phones.
I did an 80 hour fast this week from 11pm on Monday to 9am on Friday. It wasn’t as hard as I was expecting, but it was uncomfortable in ways I didn’t. I should have expected not being able to think as clearly, but it was more pronounced than I would have thought. I also started getting light headed at times. I started feeling sick in other ways and decided to stop.
During the fast I had black coffee, mint tea, diet coke, and lots of water. I also took multivitamins and ate random pinches of salt. I chose a time that wouldn’t mess with social engagements too much, although the time period did include a wedding celebration. That wedding celebration was low key enough that I could avoid food with only one person wondering why. In total I only had to mention it to 2 people, the one at the wedding and one that invited me to dinner. I also told Steph. I’d do it again, but maybe with more prep.
I broke my fast with my standard two scoops of chocolate protein powder mixed with half a scoop of instant coffee breakfast. My stomach was ok with that, so I’ll try a bit more at lunch and maybe have pho for dinner.
I went to Nick’s wedding celebration in the Mission in SF. He had it at an adorable brewpub and restaurant called Southpaw BBQ & Brewery. The only person there, besides Nick, that I knew well was Brian. I talked with him for most of the time, and got to talk to Eric and Andrea for a while as well. I had to leave early to make it back to my house to host book club, but I enjoyed the time I spent there.
It's an Exciting World 