I said whoa no, William and Mary won’t do now

I had a rare Friday with a choice of four simultaneous engagements to go to. I honored two of them: watching Game 6 of the Celtics / Pistons series at a bar in Watertown with some friends from jiu-jitsu, then catching up with Kate G. for a drink at Bukowski’s. The former involved sliders, talk about Baltimore and two Guinness; the latter, a surprise visit from Dana J. and Orit, the soundtrack to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and two PBR.

Melissa and Fraley had their engagement party on Saturday, so I dressed reasonably well and helped toast their upcoming marriage. Dave Green had unearthed the infamous “Reality Bites” photo of Mel, Fraley and I on the night of their first date, way back in … March of ‘04? Holy hell … and framed it for the two of them. Now I want a copy. Fraley and Mel ordered catering, so we ate tasty steak tips and exotic cheeses while sipping champagne and toasting the happy couple. Christine and I held court in a small corner with Edward Tufte horror stories. PowerPoint is evil, people! Learn it and fear it!

I excused myself early to stop in on the BC reunion which, as I speculated, did not turn out to be awesome fun. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed seeing Lindsay M. (now Lindsay D., and I approve of her husband), and hanging out with Aaron and Tim H. always means a good time, but all of those people live in the Commonwealth. I can do that any weekend - and not in a humid gymnasium that I didn’t need to pay $45 to get into, since I had to write my name on a badge anyway. I saw a roomful of people I took one class with or lived across from, tried to place the names of girls I hadn’t had the courage to talk to as a college student and couldn’t, and drank cheap beer. I left early.

More updates to come re: Sunday.

like a castle in its corner, in a medieval game

CNN confirms the passing of Gary Gygax.

I think I first started recognizing Dungeons and Dragons from ads in the back of the occasional Marvel Comic that I’d buy. One day in 4th grade I discovered a huge standing display of D&D boxed sets in the local Waldenbooks - the black box with the red dragon on the cover, for those who remember it. I begged my parents to let me buy one, which they said I could - out of my own pocket. So I scrimped and saved twenty whole dollars (plus $1 tax) and walked out with one about a month later¹. I was already familiar with Choose Your Own Adventure books, and video game RPGs like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. But the idea that I could make and explore my own worlds thrilled me to no end. It turned on an addiction that I’m probably never going to get over.

Now here’s the pathetic part: I spent far more time preparing to play D&D than I spent actually playing. I had a friend, Stephen, who’d play D&D on occasion but liked Champions and Marvel Super Heroes better. My friend Patrick liked Shadowrun - the cyberpunk RPG where the 2050s look just like the nightmare of 1985 - and we played on and off for a couple summers. Other than that, though, I never had a regular gaming crew in high school. I was always too conscious of the judgment of the “cool kids” to risk admitting that yes, I liked half-elven fighter/mages and slaying pit fiends. Those kids at the corner table? With the greasy black hair and the pasty skin and the Dungeon Masters Guide with the cracked spine? They had more cojones than I did.²

I got back into D&D in college, with the gentle coaxing of Kevin H. and Serpico. I played a big, glorious mess of a one-off game with them and about seven other people one spring. Inspired, I took the slow steps necessary to start running my own campaign. Melissa, Serpico, Kevin and Aaron followed the trail I set for them, recovering two ancient artifacts that outlined a ritual for godhood and keeping them out of the hands of the demonic/celestial crossbreed, Duvaran the Fair. There were vicious halfling mercenaries and religious zealots and genocidal elves and half-orc barbarians and snow dragons and kobold traps galore. I think I even worked a barbazu in there. Good times.

Without RPGs, I never would have run the 7th Sea campaign (The Lost Histories) that got Melissa and Fraley better acquainted. Without RPGs, I never would have known Christine any better than I did. I probably wouldn’t still be friends with Bobby, Auston, Dana J., Will S. or half the people I went to school with. I probably wouldn’t still be reading. Or writing.

I’d also probably be at least $1000 richer, judging by the contents of the bookshelf closest to my computer, but that’s neither here nor there.

I’ve had a rich and imaginative gaming life so far and I’ve only been at it sixteen years. You’ll find me and a regular crew at the nursing home, shaking polyhedral dice and arguing over who has initiative. I can almost promise.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.” - Oscar Wilde

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¹ This should be especially funny to anyone still in the hobby, where $20 will buy you about 2/3 of one of the three core handbooks you need to play D&D today.

² Not hanging out with geeks all the time in my developing years had its other advantages, of course, so I don’t rue the whole experience.

end of work week, chillin’ on a saturday

I sat down and crunched some numbers last night and I’m pretty sure this past weekend was a good one on net.

Check for yourself:

+: I spent Friday evening in, watching Breach instead of heading to 90s’ Night. Sparkgrrl suggests that this was the wiser course, as apparently Allston has been invaded by drunken college kids. I’m as shocked as you.

-: The Saturday jiu-jitsu workout felt marginal. I had a hard time focusing for the first hour - couldn’t remember obvious stuff, couldn’t commit to what was in front of me. I knocked over one of the fancy blown glass soap dispensers in Paul’s bathroom, scattering a fist-sized blob of soap and several shards of glass across the tile floor. It actually took a sharp blow to the head - from someone’s knee - to wake me up.

-: On top of that, every time I make progress on one set of techniques I lose ground on another. I found myself struggling with stuff that I blew people away with three weeks ago (arm bars off of multiple attackers), though I had surprising luck with a usual trouble spot (irimi nage off of multiple attackers). And I haven’t even reached the stuff that I know I’m going to have trouble with - the black belt techniques. I’d lump this in under the point above but it’s a broad frustration, not a particular incident.

-: And I still can’t do judo.

+: I caught up with Vickie and heard about her weekend. We talked about her review gigs, our first concerts and the Red Sox whipping up on BC. Ask her how much she loves Ashlee Simpson, because you will be hard-pressed to find a bigger fan in Boston.

+: The Neutrino writing team for the ITV submission had a remarkably productive meeting on Saturday night. I think we were all amazed at how much we cranked out in 2 hours. We’ve got some compelling and interesting characters who all have real reasons to be doing what they’re doing - namely, typical sitcom hijinks. We also established that the opposite of “womanizer” is “man-eater,” and that nothing’s funnier than a waiter dropping a tray of glasses. Nothing.

+: After sitting untouched for weeks, two of the books on my Amazon storefront sold within 36 hours of each other. I have no idea how Amazon makes money off this. They gave me $8 for shipping the two books, and even buying those cushioned MediaMailer envelopes at the Post Office I only spent $7 on Standard shipping. Hello, pocket change!

-: I felt pretty tired on Saturday and Sunday. I pulled something in my lats on Friday after working them out really hard and then reclining funny on the bed later that evening.

-: Also, it snowed again. Could someone just dump three feet of snow on Boston and then stop for the year, rather than three to five inches every six days?

+: I went grocery shopping on Sunday. I now have a variety of healthy snacks at my desk at work: Honey Nut Cheerios, Craisins, etc.

So the + and - seem pretty even. But I inflated my jiu-jitsu anxiety out into three separate entries where two might have sufficed. So I think, on net, that the weekend turned out productive.