LJ Meetup

Went to the LiveJournal meetup. brad (the site founder), gelasia, zon14, shademalek, xiara, xgirl, hindimoire, ellipsisdbg supervillaingin, qousqous, clipdude, sandy (brad's mother), brad's father and some other people whose names I have forgotten were all there. We had 2 pitchers of Black Butte Porter. Whee. Then some of us played with this big sculpture thingie. qousqous took pictures, which hopefully will be posted soon.

Oh, and we talked to shademalek and he says that SpiritOne has static IP DSL with no bandwidth limits and doesn't mind if you host your own server, so qousqous, clipdude and I are thinking of setting up a hobby server at qousqous's house. The price is quite decent, especially if we can get an educational discount (which we probably can, all 3 of us are students and I currently have their student-priced dialup access, so I don't see it as likely to be an issue). The speed won't be very high (it's just DSL, after all) but it's mostly so we can play with server stuff anyway, and also it's a good place to put all of that crap that no one will ever look at but you want online anyway on basic principle (like large photo albums) since disk space isn't really an issue with your own server.

I hung out with qousqous and clipdude for quite a while and then finally headed home a bit before 0200. I would have been home in about 20 minutes (the Sunset Highway is quite effcient when everyone else is asleep) but there was some big wreck at Cornelius Pass and Cornell, and the road was closed. This is mostly disturbing because this was the second time that a big wreck has completely closed this road at about this spot when I personally was trying to drive on it in the last 6 months or so. It doesn't strike me as a particularly complicated place to drive, so it makes me worry about what kind of lunatics must be driving on it. Since they hadn't bothered to make an official detour (they hadn't last time either) I had to improvise one. The truck behind me followed me, which was a little worrisome because a) I wasn't real sure of the best way to detour and b) I had no idea if they were trying to avoid the mess or trying to follow me home. However, I managed to piece together a route that at least worked (there may have been a shorter one but I wasn't sure if that road went all the way through) and the guy stopped following me once I turned into my neighborhood, so it all worked out. I tend to follow people who look like they know where they're going when I'm lost too (sometimes even when there isn't a detour, I'm just lost and they look confident ^_^;;) so I guess it was just my turn to be the pilot car.

I've had a sore throat since Friday or Saturday, and I don't think talking over the noise in a pizza restaurant and then playing out in the cold was exactly what it wanted me to do tonight. I don't really care, though. I don't have to be anywhere until 1400 tomorrow. However, I kind of want to bake cookies before then because I bitched at the DM last week (and chewed out the pixie-fairy's player, who was being both an annoying twink and a big attention hog) and figure that cookies might help improve my welcome. Will probably sleep soon.

Oh, and joyquality, if you see this I heard a rumor that sushi is happening tomorrow afternoon. Is this true? I am busy from 1400-1500 and from 2000-0000 but am otherwise free. I could go either way on sushi but feel like I never get to see you anymore. Call me?

How can I be so busy with so little productive happening in my life?

Today, despite being sick, I spent almost the entire day out. I had a doctor's appointment from 1400 to 1500, and then after that I didn't want to go home because I was meeting people for sushi at 1650 and it takes about a half hour to get home when it's not rush hour, so I'd basically have time to go home, touch my front door, and leave again.

So instead, I met qousqous downtown and wandered around. We walked over kind of by the train station and he took pictures. Then we went to Portland City Grill (which we were very underdressed for, it's a fancy restaurant) and had drinks just because we could. Sadly, drinks there aren't cheaper during happy hour, just food. Bah. Pretty view though (it's on the 30th floor of one of the buildings downtown). Next time, I'm going to brush my hair and not wear jeans, although there were a few other people also wearing jeans since it is, after all, Portland. (I wear my hair in a braid and generally only brush it on days that I wash it, because it takes a wave when I braid it wet and if I rebraid it little wisps always stick out.)

Then qousqous and I met joyquality for sushi at this nifty little sushi place that has a model train that the sushi comes by on. I had a fruit salad, salmon and oysters. The oysters were battered, which I wasn't expecting, but it all was pretty good. I ended up spending over $7 for dinner and I'm hungry again now, though. That place is terrible for encouraging impulse choices, but that's probably good for people like me who do better picking things if they can see what they're getting (the oysters I actually ordered, so I didn't get to see them first). clipdude was supposed to meet us there, but got lost and showed up a little before we all wanted to leave. There was also another friend of joyquality's there, Bobby, but I didn't really get to talk to him since he was sitting at the other end of the group.

Then I checked the voicemail on my cell phone (I swear my phone chooses not to ring sometimes) and got a message from my dad saying that safetygoth had called and that game was canceled for good because Eri(c|k)'s work schedule got busy. My guess is that Eri(c|k) and/or Dan don't want to deal with us anymore because we bitched at them last week, but I really don't care. I think I'll start up a GURPS game again, since I'm happier GMing anyway because then when players are annoying, spotlight-hogging twinks I can smack them. Also, I find it more fun to prepare background than to actually roleplay, and mostly what a GM does is prepare a background and some plot hooks for players to interact with. If any of you local people would be interested in playing in a GURPS game if I start running one (probably weekly, but fortnightly would be fine by me too) comment and let me know. If you want more information, comments are good for that too. I'm not going to start up a game with less than 3 players, but if there's interest I would like to run one again. I don't think I want to resurrect the Pirate Illuminati one right now because so few of the previous players can do it (if I get at least 3 people from that group then I'll consider it and just add in new people again, since I do have more plot and it isn't tied to any one character) but I have some other settings bouncing around in my head. Possibly some fantasy, just for a change of pace, although I'm not sure I want to mess with magic since it can be such a setting-destroyer if you assume non-PC people actually use the spells on a regular basis. Or really cheesy SF, if I end up with people would would go for that. I could do another modern game, but not in Europe this time, I suppose. I think it'll probably end up depending on the interests of the people who want to play, assuming I get enough.

I need to get my minis back from Eri(c|k). Bah. Grr. I hate loaning stuff out, it's such a pain getting it back.

Anyway, after calling both safetygoth and my dad back clipdude and I went over to his house and hung out for a while. Now I'm home and not nearly tired enough to go to sleep like I should.

Oh, and qousqous posted the pictures from the meetup here: http://qousqo.us/lj/ . I'm the one in the blue sweater and the grey hat. My boyfriend clipdude and I are the ones holding the sign that qousqous and I (mostly him) made the time before and wearing blue shirts and hats (which was not on purpose) in this picture: http://qousqo.us/lj/s_IMG_0453.JPG . xiara is holding the sign I made All By My Self (and in a big hurry since I wanted a sign that was big and had bells on it to go with the other sign, which is small and does not make noise).