I sent Ed a congratulatory email about not having to fix this particular fax machine, as he’s no longer Ed-the-printer-repair-guy. As it turns out, plenty of fax machines and printers get destroyed by urine…only it’s usually mice.
Last winter, I simply couldn’t get warm from November through early April. This past week, the daily high temperature has been heading towards 90 degrees (Farenheit), and in contrast to recent years…it’s not so bad. That’s not to say it’s been great, but I’ve spent every summer in recent memory holed up in dark, cool places as much as possible. This year, the outdoors is ever so much more inviting. Of course, we’ll have to see what it’s like when the August humidity hits, but it’s nice to know that I got some heat-tolerance in return for shivering all winter.
I expressed my amazement that someone had to instant-message me to ask my phone number, which happened to be on a sticky note on the piece of paper he was looking at. I was overheard.
Her: You know how helpless he is!
Me: I’m surprised he remembers to get dressed before leaving for work some days
Her: True
Me: I dread the day he shows up in his jammies
Her: *shudders* I HOPE he wears Jammies
Me: you had to go there
Her: Weeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Me: you. had. to. go. there.
Her: Sorry!
Me: I only hope that the image in your mind is worse than the one in mine
“I’m too old to make new crazy friends. I’m gonna stick with the old crazy friends I’ve already got.”—Rachel R.
I’m nicking this week’s Lunchtime Poll from a comment on a discussion on the 20′ x 20′ room. The commenter states:
But your group is not all female, Mike. You’re the GM. Not that the dynamic isn’t interesting and your comments aren’t valid - it just struck me as odd that you’d refer to this game and others you’ve run as “all female” and not “mixed.”
As interesting as the gender aspect of the discussion is, what caught my attention was Mike’s implication that the GM isn’t part of the group. So this week’s question is:
Do you consider the GM part of the group, and why or why not?
Personally, I can’t imagine a GM not being part of the group, but my group has a lot of history together as friends in and out of gaming. Furthermore, there’s more than one person in the group who GMs. For years and years, either Rob or Doug ran our regularly-scheduled games, and I’d occasionally run a short-term humor campaign. All three of us were players in each others’ games; it wasn’t uncommon for Rob and Doug to have simultaneous every-other-week campaigns on complementary schedules. When Rob moved to another city, I found myself stepping into his spot as a full-time GM (much to my surprise). I refer to our delightful band of misfits and nutjobs players as “my group,” but that is no more than a convenient shorthand, because I haven’t ever felt that I’m not part of the group, or even that I’m “in charge.” More often than not, I’m fairly certain that the inmates are running the asylum, and I’m just helping them along.
Years can go by without a single band in town that Ed and I both want to see, and now there are two in three weeks. Gaelic Storm is going to be in town at a new venue on the northeast side, the Music Mill. I decided to check the place out as I had to buy tickets anyway, and was exceptionally pleased to discover that entire building is nonsmoking. I didn’t actually see the concert/event hall, but I’m told that it’s SRO and there are two bars inside. There’s also a bar in the restaurant, and the hostess was kind enough to give me a menu to take home.
Fortuitously enough, we were planning on having dinner with a friend that evening, and she’s always up for a new restaurant, so long as there are a couple of vegetarian options. Rachel, Ed, and I decided to try it out. The three of us started with the cheese and fruit appetizer, which was so enormous that we ended up taking half of it home. The fruit was good, the cheese was excellent, and there was a nice assortment of breads. Afterwards, Ed tried the sirloin, Rachel had the black bean burger, and my entree was the Caribbean grouper sandwich. The kitchen was very accomodating, letting me trade fries for roasted potatoes, Ed switch his mashed potatoes for fries, and Rachel swap her potato product for a salad. Ed’s steak was done exactly to his preference (on the rare side of medium rare), and while he enjoyed it, he said he’d probably ask them not to cook it with peppers next time. The grouper sandwich was also good, although it didn’t have much of a coconut taste to it, and I would have like more of the avocado sauce. The roasted potatoes were excellent, though; crispy on the outside, lightly drizzled with olive oil, and tossed with herbs. Rachel’s not normally one for salad dressing, but she enjoyed the Italian version that she got, and her salad was mixed baby greens, rather than basic iceberg. The wine list is small, but I did get a kick out of discovering that one of the wineries we’d visited in Oregon had a couple of offerings. None of us could possibly manage dessert, but there seems to be a nice variety to choose from and I’m sure I’ll have the opportunity soon enough. It’s a very trendy place (I suspect they serve a lot of drinks at the bars that end in “-tini”) but the food’s good and the company was excellent.
What with all the other things going on, I’d almost forgotten that the Talbot Street Art Fair is this weekend; thanks, John, for jogging my memory. I’ve got a special fondness for this particular event because the first time I went, I lived at 19th and Pennsylvania, and it was practically in my backyard. I ended up with some lovely Chinese watercolors that, although not sold as a triptych, serendipitously worked as one.
Ed was in one of the local game and hobby shops a while ago, and overheard a conversation between the store’s owner and a customer who had called in for help putting together her jigsaw puzzle.
On Saturday, Ed came home and said he’d heard something on the radio and then had to go spend a lot of money. This is so contrary to normal Ed behavior that I was stunned. It turns out that the Pixies were playing a show in Indianapolis last night, and tickets were still available. Unfortunately, the venue is acoustically questionable, and the last time we went to a concert there, I had a headache halfway through the opening act. However, when one of the short list of bands that both Ed and I like comes to town, even massive amounts of trepidation wouldn’t keep me away.
Still, it didn’t start well. I shoved some earplugs halfway to my brain, crossed my fingers, and settled into my seat.
The opening act, which I will simply call The Band Without a Musical Identity, was certainly not the worst I’ve ever seen; they were solidly mediocre. Their singer had a good voice, and if you can imagine a thirtysomething Tina Turner as a self-proclaimed punk goddess, you’ll get a reasonably good idea of what their entire set was like. On the other hand, I always feel a little sorry for opening acts. I can’t help but think of what Henry Rollins used to say about Black Flag opening for Judas Priest, “Everyone in the audience is there to see one band…and you are not in that band.” Then, the intermission stretched out rather long, during which time we had ample opportunity to mock bad tattoos and I saw a lot of outfits I’d like to be able to wear…but wouldn’t.
Finally, the lights went down again. Disdaining theatrics, the Pixies simply stepped out onto the stage and right into “Allison.” Immediately, my disappointment melted away and I was having a great time, which lasted right through their encore of “Winterlong.” In between, they played every single song you could possibly want to hear, earning huge applause for “Debaser” and “Gigantic.” I couldn’t have been happier with their down-tempo and ethereal rendition of “Wave of Mutilation,” which is not only my favorite Pixies song, but the only song I’ve ever claimed to know all the words to, period. Frank Black’s and Kim Deal’s voices are as good as ever; last’s night’s performances of “Into the White” and “Winterlong” were better than any album version I’ve heard. The band was so tight, and so obviously enjoying themselves, that you’d never know this was a reunion tour. I didn’t even notice that I was on my feet the entire time that they played. I haven’t had this much fun at a concert since I saw the Drovers ten (twelve?) years ago.
I haven’t heard from my Ivorian phishing buddy for some time now. I guess he’s taken his worms and gone home.
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