I'll just write about my weekend instead

I could write about how I'm an old fogey and Do Not Approve of people who have their faces in their mobile phones instead of conversing with the people they're nominally having dinner with. Or I could write about how little sleep I've had (despite Wifey's best efforts) and how much pain I'm in. Or I could write about how seriously discombobulated I was most of the weekend. Or I could write about how bad this AM was with L's explosion. Or I could write about the mess the work day is going to be.

But I'd rather tell you about the good things from my weekend. First, two babysittings in one weekend, OMG thank you guys. First token let us get out to a small party thrown by some local friends. The party was great and I got to do a couple things I haven't gotten to do in a long time. That was very nice. One of the hosts made comment about how I might host a party - something I like doing anyway - and that's gotten me thinking. The devil, as always, is in the details.

Amusing "social network" moment of the weekend - at the party I had a pleasant chat with someone I don't see very often. The next AM I think to myself "hunh, I wonder if they're in my online network." Check - yeah, friend request pending. It's been pending for a while - OK, that's cool. About an hour later in comes an email "Friend request accepted." This is the future we're living in, and I like it.

Sunday we had D&D and it was great. I like putting my players in situations where it's not always clear what the right answer is, and letting them play it out. This situation developed because a Power in the game had convinced one of the characters to act as his agent in something that wasn't entirely clearly a good thing to do. So the party fly in to confront someone who is not at all a good person - he's a tribal warlord with a large aggressive male ego - but on the other hand, he isn't exactly doing all bad things. He's not capital-e Evil, in the way that fantasy worlds let you create big Evils like demons or undead. So what will the players do?

Most of the session was people trying to explain or justify their points of view on what should be done, and then we got nervous people on a hair trigger and someone did something that caused someone else to jump and it may all still go seriously south despite peoples' best efforts. I had a blast.

Then Sunday night we got out again to have dinner with a friend who's in town for a book signing and some publicity events. There were four other people at dinner we didn't know, and one we had met before. It was the sort of high intellectual-geek conversation one doesn't get very often(*) and we ended up out later than expected.

In other news, Pygment worked the flu clinic, we got the boys H1N1 shots, K took another test in his Aikido class, and I think we mostly held the house-mess monsters at bay. It was a busy weekend.

(*) Without checking a map, can you tell which South American country you will overfly first if you leave Miami and head due south?

I'll just write about my weekend instead

I could write about how I'm an old fogey and Do Not Approve of people who have their faces in their mobile phones instead of conversing with the people they're nominally having dinner with. Or I could write about how little sleep I've had (despite Wifey's best efforts) and how much pain I'm in. Or I could write about how seriously discombobulated I was most of the weekend. Or I could write about how bad this AM was with L's explosion. Or I could write about the mess the work day is going to be.

But I'd rather tell you about the good things from my weekend. First, two babysittings in one weekend, OMG thank you guys. First token let us get out to a small party thrown by some local friends. The party was great and I got to do a couple things I haven't gotten to do in a long time. That was very nice. One of the hosts made comment about how I might host a party - something I like doing anyway - and that's gotten me thinking. The devil, as always, is in the details.

Amusing "social network" moment of the weekend - at the party I had a pleasant chat with someone I don't see very often. The next AM I think to myself "hunh, I wonder if they're in my online network." Check - yeah, friend request pending. It's been pending for a while - OK, that's cool. About an hour later in comes an email "Friend request accepted." This is the future we're living in, and I like it.

Sunday we had D&D and it was great. I like putting my players in situations where it's not always clear what the right answer is, and letting them play it out. This situation developed because a Power in the game had convinced one of the characters to act as his agent in something that wasn't entirely clearly a good thing to do. So the party fly in to confront someone who is not at all a good person - he's a tribal warlord with a large aggressive male ego - but on the other hand, he isn't exactly doing all bad things. He's not capital-e Evil, in the way that fantasy worlds let you create big Evils like demons or undead. So what will the players do?

Most of the session was people trying to explain or justify their points of view on what should be done, and then we got nervous people on a hair trigger and someone did something that caused someone else to jump and it may all still go seriously south despite peoples' best efforts. I had a blast.

Then Sunday night we got out again to have dinner with a friend who's in town for a book signing and some publicity events. There were four other people at dinner we didn't know, and one we had met before. It was the sort of high intellectual-geek conversation one doesn't get very often(*) and we ended up out later than expected.

In other news, Pygment worked the flu clinic, we got the boys H1N1 shots, K took another test in his Aikido class, and I think we mostly held the house-mess monsters at bay. It was a busy weekend.

(*) Without checking a map, can you tell which South American country you will overfly first if you leave Miami and head due south?