| Word of Year 32: Auspicious |
[May. 1st, 2012|09:55 pm] |
-Almost forgot. This happened.
-AT LONG LAST. My party. Couldn't wait.
I don't know why I get ready expecting anybody to show up on time. I was playing pinball by myself for forty minutes wondering why Joe wasn't being his usual punctual self. Everybody ended up arriving almost at exactly the same time, hilariously.
The main objective this year was for there to be FOOD. And holy shiny baby Jesus did we succeed on that front. I got a giant tray of fried chicken and two dozen pita sandwiches from Ralph's. I told everyone to at least bring drinks but they all came with mad extra stuff. Gene brought a 24-pack of Sprite, two quarts of ice cream, mashed potatoes and Hawaiian rolls. Will and Misa brought corn chips, Ruffles, queso, guac, french onion dip and Pringles. Joe brought like five different kinds of dip, a MILLION corn chips from Trader Joe's and root beer. Howie brought cake, Sue and Rob brought cheese & crackers and Coke & Sprite. Did I mention! Tremendous success.
It was basically the same crowd from last year minus Zack and plus Misa. It was an ideal number of people.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I Gigas'd the shit out of Gene's Alex 2-0 before we officially got started moo hoo a ha ha ha
Will was last year's winner in the Connect Four tournament. In the opening rounds Sue won vs Rob, Will won vs Misa, Joe won vs Howie and I won vs Gene. Will sent Sue to Losers and Joe defeated me. Will then sent Joe to Losers. In the first round of Losers, Rob eliminated Misa and Gene eliminated Howie.
Then stunningly, for the first time, there was not only one but TWO STALEMATES. And they happened within minutes of each other. I got stuck against Rob and Gene stalled against Sue. In the immediate rematches Sue and I managed to win.
Although if you look at the bottom right of Gene and Sue's game, Spongebob/Gene won. And they both missed it completely. Good thing Sue didn't win 1st overall or there would've been a scandal. Anyway, Gene gets a bye against Sue next year.
I lost to Sue next (at least three times people didn't see the win AT ALL until someone else pointed it out, usually a diagonal in the corner), Sue won over Joe, and so the finals ONCE AGAIN was Will vs Sue. In an almost anticlimactically quick win, Will remained undefeated and successfully defended his crown.
Last year for Calling All Cars the top 3 finishers were Sue (1st), Will (2nd), and Howie (3rd). This year we broke it up into two teams, 3 games/maps each, and the top two finishers from each would move to the finals. Unfortunately for Will he had his worst showing ever and was kept to under five points for each map of the prelims. Misa also had the worst time as she proclaimed her inability to multitask (particularly during such a completely chaotic game) but managed to score one glorious point during Alpine.
"NOOO!" "FFFFFFF-" "REALLY?!"
The first prelim (City/Alpine/Trainyard) went Howie (6-7-6), Sue (7-3-8), Joe (3-5-5) and Rob (6-3-3). The second prelim was much more lopsided in terms of points. Gene went on a complete tear and won overall (9-2-12). Then it was me (11-7-4), Will (1-3-5), and Misa (0-1-0).
The final three matches went Burbs/Trainyard/City. After being shutout on the Burbs, Sue came back and took 1st overall with (0-8-13). Howie placed 2nd with (10-3-3), and Gene (0-4-11) and I (7-7-1) tied for third.
The most hilarious thing about the Calling All Cars tournament to me is that it's the only time of the year that Sue CACKLES and jumps up and down in her seat. She cackles with this vindictive edge, especially when all four cars are running in and out of the goal and she steals the point. Which happened often. Freaking cat car.
And SO! It was time to introduce Will, Misa and Gene into the FABULOUS world of BEAN FARMING. I knew Will and Gene would be the hardest sells because if you're not already into nerd-ass games then that initial rule hump is hard to get over. Misa took a big interest to the game almost immediately. It took a trying fifteen minutes to go over everything in the first few rounds. Will was not at all into it and Gene's smart ass said "So when does the fun start?" But after about four full turns it all fell into place.
We could tell when Will gets into something because he becomes SUPER competitive. It's pretty funny. When I play I don't mind making a lot of generous trades because it's more interesting for me just to see a whole lot of major harvesting going on which tends to benefit my fields. Will however is an ultra vindictive farmer who second-guesses the OTHER PLAYERS' decisions and tries to shut down any kind of gold making by competitors.
Joe's girlfriend Autumn arrived around this time which was fortunate because Gene had to leave early.
Felt by H. Perry
Playing with eight people (one over the max) the intro game went by super fast because the draw deck becomes so small that the second and third times going through the deck are nothing. Autumn joined in and Sue/Rob had brought their deck so I split the table up. Rob/Sue/Joe/Autumn/Howie played with one deck while Will/Gene/Misa/Me played with the other. I didn't keep score but I ended up clinching the win by two gold while everyone else had almost the same amount. It was a sure fire hit, thankfully. Now I get to bring my deck to Willemisa's so we don't just get bored of video games and watch basketball.
Never did organize a tournament for Bohnanza but now that everyone knows the game I'm definitely having one next year to go into the usual rotation.
AND THEN. Time for cake. Howie had remembered that forever ago I snapped a picture of a cookie monster cake and had always wanted one. So he made that dream happen.
I am horrifying.
We suspected the cake was 100% frosting but it turned out to be about 15%. That blue frosting, man, that shit got all over and everyone had thick blue smiles for hours. My fingers were blue for two days. Despite that it was a damned delicious cake.
Hilariously, I discovered that my body did NOT digest any of that blue coloring and it went through me faster than any diuretic in my life. Needless to say THAT made for one interesting revelation in the bathroom. AND YET I FINISHED THE CAKE (today, actually).
After we turned parts of my tablecloth and the floor and our bodies blue there wasn't much left except to bust out Celebrity. Will was super hype for this game because it is a guaranteed laugh riot. I tried to randomize the teams as best I could with the more theatrical/less theatrical types. First game was the team of US4 (Autumn/Howie/Rob/Will) vs The Navy Testicles (Misa/Joe/Sue/Me). The description round was pretty close (18-17) but US4 took a strong lead on the one-word round (25-17). The pantomime round was also close at (15-16). So US4 took a solid win of 58-50, much to Will's satisfaction.
It's the most dignified time of the year.
Second teams were The Anderson Coopers (Rob/Howie/Sue/Joe) vs The Neanderson Coopers (Misa/Autumn/Will/Larry). First round again was very close (21-22), second round was the same (21-22), but the Neanderson Coopers clinched it during the third round (13-17) and won 61-55. Notable subjects included Christopher Reeve ("DEAD SUPERMAN!"), Sherlock Holmes, Goofy, Anderson Cooper, Robocop, Tony Horton, Adele, Gandalf, Liberace, Tim Tebow.
I still had a prize to give away so I held a vote for Player of the Game. There were four votes for Will, two for Howie, one for me, one for Rob (first time playing), and one joke vote for Zack which went to Howie. Will already won Connect Four so Howie won.
I had gone much easier on prizes this year but the distribution of the few of them couldn't have gone more perfectly. I warned Will ahead of time that his prize was possibly racist but he ended up enjoying it considerably. Sue was initially jealous of Howie's prize but lit up when she won the frog hat. Now she is the fastest swimmer among us.
This picture is so hardcore.
We wrapped things up about 10:40. Everything was a ROUSING SUCCESS. It couldn't have gone better. It was the best time and by Krishna we're gonna do the same thing NEXT bloody year and it's gonna be fucking amazing. Somehow I had enough energy to clean up and move all the furniture back.
-Sunday I woke up at 9:30, decided not to go hang out at Pierce and went right back to sleep. Staggered out of bed around 2. Karuna had something planned for me that evening so I didn't do much besides hack away at the leftovers.
Karuna was attempting (poorly) to make our destination a secret but it had been fairly obvious to me for a while. So long story short she drove me into downtown to see Cirque du Soleil's Iris. It was no surprise to me because I'd already met the aerial rigger and the broomstick performer via Karuna and I also happened to know one of the drummers. We got a VIP box just above the aforementioned drummers' station (all the musicians were placed in box seats enclosed in glass).
The show turned out to be one of my favorites (beside Saltimbanco and Dralion) and the third one I've seen live (previously Alegria and Quidam). The presentation was NUTS, the things they did with video projection on the back wall. Lots of animation. Unfortunately during two acts in particular (filmstrip and movie set) they really did go overboard with the amount of stuff going on. I would've preferred there be clear focus in every act. It's hard to say which act was my favorite. The aerialists that open the show were incredible, the contortion act was definitely the best I've seen from Cirque thus far, the Kiriki act was jaw-droppingly TREMENDOUS (they did a four person simultaneous side-somersault I've never seen before), and the rooftop trampoline act was definitely the best theme I've seen for that act.
Unfortunately with Cirque shows their clowns always rate from terrible to okay at best. I have never seen Cirque clowns that I've LOVED. The audience really loved them but for the most part I thought their shtick was too pandering and hokey. I would've thought it was comedy gold had I been ten years old.
It felt a bit rushed towards the end but I found out later it was because their typical second to last act was cut out due to the hand balancer being on leave. Also discovered there's quite a heavy rotation of replacements and backups since they do eight(!) shows a week and are coming up on twelve(!!) shows a week for a short time.
Nipples
After the show we went to meet Robert (the broomstick specialist) and he took us on a tour backstage. I had assumed that one production office looks the same as any other and I was basically right, it was mostly a lot of storage containers and narrow hallways. Got to see their break room, their props construction table, warmup rooms, physical therapy room (schedule was filled up pretty good) and backstage from the wings. Also got to see the $40 million pit underneath the stage where all the hydraulics are. Incidentally it turned out that Robert and I both knew the same teacher at the SF School of Circus Arts. Six degrees of Xia Hong.
It was a really remarkable show and I'd recommend it to anyone who can afford it (tickets run like $50-$120 or something). The show's due to run for another decade. There is some seriously mind-blowing skill in that show, it's easy to take Cirque for granted until you see it in person. Makes all the difference in the world.
This is the part where I usually write a shitload about personal revelation blah blah dick but this year I really don't feel like it.
Every year since 30 has been amazing, every day is amazing, bright side lookin' all the time, working out furiously, just consistently happier than I've ever been and enjoying the crap out of plain ol' being alive. It's practically disgusting how completely non-stressed I am. Everything's awesome. 31 was the best year yet and 32 is going to be a DAMNED AUSPICIOUS YEAR. OH YEAH. I AM SERIOUSABLE. GOOD VIBES GOING OUT AND WASHING OVER ALL Y'ALLS. HOT TIME.
NOW WITH MORE LOOKING EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE PAST EIGHT YEARS!
-I had to get up at 4:30 am on Monday and go to work but I ended up having a pretty nice day. My NCIS partner Bonnie was there and I asked her how old she thought I was. After a long pause she said, "Older than 22." Took her four guesses after that to nail it. Wardrobe had given me this ridiculous purple coat to wear over my black dress shirt & slacks and at one point two women stopped me and said I looked like the Chinese Dr Dre. Same swagger and everything. That was a first.
And NOW I'm about to get back on the squat train because I've been away for three days and that is like torture.
Edit: I can do 4x8 back squats at 174 so my max must easily be in the 200's by now but I'm wary of testing it just yet. Getting stuck in the lowest position sucks. Working normal sets at a moderate weight has been a lot of fun, actually. Progress is quick. Same thing applies to the bench press which is tomorrow WHOO ARGH I CAN'T WAIT WORKING OUT IS AWESOME THIS VITALITY WHAT SURGES THROUGH ME AND SO ON augh |
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