tigertoy

I played my Hardened Scales deck again at FNM. Came in 3rd out of 8 players.

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So I am safely home from MFF. It was a fun weekend, but a lot less fun than it could have been for me. The convention has just gotten too big. It started sometime last Spring when I learned that the Hyatt was already sold out, before I'd learned that the room block was open. So it was the first year that I've been in someone else's room, and because they didn't want to stay over Sunday night, I didn't either. We ended up in the Hyatt Thursday night and then at the Hilton Friday and Saturday, which meant (a) having to move hotels, (b) having to figure out where to park for Friday and Saturday, and (c) having the room very inconveniently far from the con.

We left town on Thursday at 4, picking up the fourth passenger at Parkland on the way out of town. The trip to the hotel was uneventful. I went to make myself a sandwich and discovered that I'd forgotten my mustard, which made my dinner much less appealing. I picked up my badge and signed up as a gopher. I went to the Art Show, thinking I would be helping to set up, to find that they were packing up for the evening. So I went back to ops and asked where I could help set up, and they sent me to Con Suite, where I did things for 15 minutes, and then spent most of the rest of an hour waiting for someone in charge to tell me what I needed to do, and then they said they were done for the evening. I decided I was through volunteering for the evening and went to the game room, where I played a couple of games of magic before they closed the room at midnight.

Friday, we managed to check in early at the Hilton, so we were able to move our stuff directly from one room to the other. We went to the Fashion Mall food court for lunch, and I snagged a handful of mustard packets from the pretzel stand (I bought some cinnamon pretzel bits, so I wasn't just mooching) so I could make edible sandwiches. I moved the car into the convention center parking across the driveway from the Hyatt parking. I hit the dealer's and got a couple of books and a couple of shirts. Went to the concert, which was headlined by Amadhia, backed up by Fox Amoore and Pepper Coyote. I liked the music, despite the make-your-ears-bleed volume which was not appropriate to their music. Other than that, I hung around in the game room a lot.

Saturday, I watched the fursuit parade, checked out the art show, which is shrinking in size and awesomeness even as the rest of the con grows -- it seems like art shows are just not working as ways for artists to reach their audience, even in the furry fandom where art is huge. I texted a few people about dinner but couldn't find any takers. Was planning to hit the Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind show, when Sci texted me that he was planning to see the Pepper Coyote and Fox Amoore concert at the same time which I'd missed on the schedule. I'm glad I went, because Pepper hadn't impressed me in the Friday concert, but Saturday he got to show off some beatboxing and looping skills. I wandered around the convention area a lot, wondering why I found so few people I knew, and spent some more hours in the game room. Ended the night by stopping by the dance to see what it was like -- the light show was impressive and and the big ballroom was moderately full of furs, mostly at least kind of dancing, but I was weighed down by my backpack and not much in the mood to do what dancing I do.

Sunday, got up in time to shower and leave the room at noon, then watched the dance competition, and we headed home.

The combination of my room being a half-mile walk from the con and my having packed much more than I should in the backpack I wanted to carry with me really weighed me down. I definitely shouldn't have brought Dominion with me -- it's just too much of an anchor. Of course, even if I'd been in the main hotel, if I'd been stuck on a high floor, my room would have been almost as inaccessible, because they were running elevator control -- MFF attendees could only get on the elevator on the main floor, which meant that the traffic jam around the escalators was even more phenomenal than last year -- and you had to line up and wait to get on. If I go next year -- which, for the first time ever I'm not completely sure I will -- I will really want to have a room in the Hyatt on a walkable floor. And I want to tell myself now that having a good con experience will depend on having some things planned in advance, because the con has gotten too big to just bump into people I know and tag along with them.

I just played a game of Dominion which featured the most complete drubbing I've ever seen in a game of Dominion, so I'm going to record it for posterity. Since I recently got the Adventures expansion, we were playing with events. Specifically, Expedition, which allows you to pay 3 and get two extra cards for your next hand, and Inheritance, which allows you to pay 7 to turn all of your Estates into an action card (costing no more than 4). Also relevant in the mix were Worker's Village, Bridge, Bridge Troll, and Rabble. On the first two turns, I bought a Silver and Bridge. Then on turn 3, I drew 3 Copper and 2 Estates. I thought about it for a moment, and spent the 3 copper for Expedition. I drew my other 7 cards for my next turn, which were Silver, 5 Copper, and an Estate, for a total of 7, which I used to buy Inheritance, turning my Estates into Worker's Villages. A couple of turns later, I bought 3 Estates. A couple of turns after that, I had two Bridge effects in play, and bought all of the remaining Estates. I had won at this point, but we kept playing. I bought a couple more Rabbles, a couple of Cities, a Province, and a couple of Great Halls. I put together a turn where I played all 15 Estates, 3 Rabbles, 4 Bridges, a Bridge Troll, and a bunch of treasures. I had 20 extra buys and a discount of 5, so I proceeded to buy all 12 Duchies (emptying the second pile), and then just bought the three remaining Cities to end the game. I could have scored more points on my final turn, but why bother? I had 59 points, Yoshi had 3, and Ricardo had 1, because he'd Expanded away two of his Estates.

Safely home from Windycon. There was a lot of music. Wall to wall concerts from Friday at 8 until Sunday at 2, the only gap being Saturday evening. They need the stage for the masquerade. Enough of the concerts were ones I wanted to hear that I didn't get to any other programming (even though there was a fair bit of programming I would have attended if I'd been idle, and a few things I really didn't want to miss). I did manage a turn through the art show. It was cool to see the Eisenstein collection, and there were some good pieces, but certainly not the amount of stuff that we used to see in the Windycon art show a few years ago. (One of the panels I didn't make it to discussed this trend and the future of art shows.) I made it to open filk Friday, with very few other people, and ran out of steam early. Went to dinner at a place called Dao Sushi and Thai, where I had a decent red curry. My table mates let me have a bite of one of their super fancy maki rolls; I can't recall what was in it but it was amazing. Expensive, though. We got back to the hotel a bit before 9 and the music was getting started, so I skipped the parties completely. The filk was good until I packed it in around 1:30 because I had to get up at 10 to get stuff out of the room before the concerts began at 11. This is about where the bad part of the con started for me, because I just couldn't get to sleep. It was around 5 when I broke out the occasional-use extra sleeping medication (I was tired enough that I didn't remember it before then, but didn't sleep). My poor sleep had me enjoying Sunday less than I would have, but there was some good music. I got a couple of songs in in the dead dog circle, but I realized that if I stayed very long, I would probably not be able to make it home.

I have a shelf in my bedroom that I've had for longer than I've had the house. It's a particle board wonder, but it holds up my alarm clock and also is the place where I put my shoes. But I have more shoes than fit on it, which means that extra shoes are part of the perpetual clutter in the bedroom.

It occurred to me that I have boards and a circular saw, which is enough to make me dangerous. I set out to cut a couple more shelves. I'm still rather incompetent at these little woodworking projects, so it took longer and involved considerably more swearing than it should have, but I now have two extra shelves. I'm also out of time, thanks to the swearing -- it's time to head to FNM -- so there's a little more cleanup to do. But I now have an away in which to put 6 more pairs of shoes, and if I have more than that, it's time to throw some of the more fallen apart ones away.

Hopefully I'm learning a little from all the mistakes I'm making. I'm definitely convinced that I need to replace my drill/driver -- I'm reasonably sure I put it away fully charged the last time I used it, and it went dead halfway through this small job.

So, many months ago, one of the hinge mounts on my guitar case handle half broke. I could still carry the case, but one side of the handle was not held quite as well as it should have been, and it looked like it would probably break at some point. So, after some while, I thought to ask at Upper Bout (the new guitar store that's in the same commercial building as Titan Games where I often play games) if they could fix it. They said no, but there was a guy who could and they gave me his number.

Last Friday at OVFF, as I was taking my guitar down, the hinge mount finished dying. The handle was now only attached at one end, which felt really awkward and also like it might fall off at any moment. So today, I called the number the guitar store gave me. The guy answered the phone, "Shoe repair." This sounded slightly off, but I told him my problem, and he said that he used to do that kind of work, but it often didn't work out, so he decided to quit and just do shoes, and he doesn't have the parts any more. And he doesn't know of anyone else who does it, so I'm on my own.

So I looked a little closer at what was broken. The brass bit that attaches to the case was actually broken, but the longer part still seemed to be securely attached to the other brass bit that actually is connected to the handle. The rivet that had held the broken bit was simply gone. I looked at it and decided that if I could bolt this metal bit back on, it would probably hold, even though only being anchored at one end was less than perfect. This would also have the drawback that one end of the bolt would have to be in the case, and I'm not up to re-upholstering the inside, so it would stick in. But I checked how the guitar sits in the case, and it conveniently protrudes into an empty space; the guitar shouldn't come near it. Just to be sure, though, I decided that it might be better to have a scrap of cloth over the metal. I can't manage a scrap of cloth that will look like it belongs, but I can manage a scrap. So a few bits of hardware out of the collection, a quick drilling, and some tightening, and I think I can use my guitar case again.

Which is good, not because it's an exceptionally well-made case, but because I would be very sad to have to retire the collection of stickers.

The weather is lovely, and I've been feeling good lately. I decided to do the Lake Mingo trail today. I haven't done it since before my surgery, and until a couple of months ago I definitely wouldn't have been up to it. I'm a bit tired, and I'm glad I ran out of trail when I did, but I feel good.

I only changed a few cards from last week. Some crummy hands got me to 4th place out of 8 players.

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Today, in the spirit of locking the barn door long after the horses were stolen, I put chicken wire over the opening to the attic that the raccoons came through. I also built a little table out of wood lying around, which I put beside the door in the garage, where I can set the groceries while I open the door. I'm not a very good carpenter, but the table should get the job done.

I also made an appointment to see a dentist. I haven't seen a dentist in a very long time, and I've developed some problems, so hopefully they can do something about them.

For years, I've had this notion of how to make a bookshelf. This week, pushed by the fact that I was about to not have the car with the cargo capacity to easily carry larger stuff, I bought the lumber I needed. For the last couple of days, I've been drilling and screwing boards together. There were a couple of bumps along the road, like when I realized that I'd gotten a couple of the wrong boards. But happily, a couple of 6'6" boards fit into a Civic sedan. And as it came together, realizing just how unequal the lengths of a lot of nominally 6' boards were. But I got it all together. And now I have all of my books on shelves, and a certain feeling of accomplishment.