Weekend!
As you know, the Xanatos Gambit is a way for the mastermind to win no matter which option gets chosen.
When it comes to gaming night, there are so very many different things that could go wrong. If you’ve got six people who have to show up, who knows what will come up? Bobby’s got a girlfriend. Tony’s sick. Wally’s in Wyoming. Wait, why is he in Wyoming? He doesn’t know anybody there. So on and so forth.
And it gets worse when you’re, like, old. Kids, spouses, “real life”, all sorts of junk.
So that pretty much means that you need to have game night set up in such a way that it doesn’t matter who is and who is not there. Bobby’s on a date? We’ll play Descent: Road to Legends. Tony’s sick? That means that we can play Lords of Waterdeep. Why in the heck is Wally in Wyoming? Guess we’ll have to play Small World.
Plus the games for the nights when there are two or more who are otherwise in Wyoming.
All that to say, this weekend is Descent: Road to Legends. (But I also have a date scheduled for Sunday. Brunch with Maribou and then off to the theater where I’m going to see Mission Impossible and she’s going to see Trainwreck and then we’ll both tell each other all about it on the way home.)
As such, it’s shaping up to be a good weekend.
Especially since we’re poised for a TPK in 5th Edition.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Photo is “Footrace finish line, 1925” from the Seattle Municipal Archives, used under a creative commons license)
A week on a New Jersey beach. The term of art is that I am going “down the shore.” Why this is is a dark mystery. In any case, you guys will have to get along without me (mostly).Report
Get a picture next to the duck phone!Report
I am starting a job on Monday with a reverse commute. First time I have needed my car to commute to work so this should be interesting. Normally I have worked from my apartment or taken the bus downtown. First non-contract position to after 3.5 years of freelancing. So I have first day jitters.Report
Congratulations, Saul! I’m really happy for you.Report
Thank you!Report
Congrats, and good luck.Report
Congrats! Whereabouts is it, if I might ask?Report
NovatoReport
Congratulations!Report
In effete Marin County. How long does the drive take?
Edit: Answered below, so don’t feel any obligation to repeat yourself. 40 minutes is actually a very reasonable commute, by modern standards.Report
I’ve told this story, I’m sure.
I was driving my daughter and one of her classmates, who lived someplace like Belvedere, to a track meet at San Marin High. As we got off the freeway, he looked around at the houses that barely sold for half a million, and shared “I never really feel safe in Novato.”
So watch out.Report
Dude. Awesome.Report
What’s a “reverse commute”? To me, any distance you have to travel is a “commute”, there’s not really a direction to them (though the return trip I guess could be the ‘reverse’).Report
Out of town then in, instead of into town then out.
In terms of cost, it’s the worst of both worlds!Report
Actually it might be better in terms of time. I could take a bus to downtown SF and it could take me 40 minutes to an hour in rush hour traffic even though this is only a few miles from my house. My commute is twenty plus miles from my apartment and will take about 40 minutes to drive because I am going against traffic.Report
Ah, well that works out well. And what a dysfunctional city that is!
Austin, which has always emulated San Fran to some degree, is doing its best to catch up in terms of transportation dysfunction, though.Report
A while back I linkied an article about the reverse commute along a particular Interstate in Houston having more travelers that the standard commute.
I’ve had the reverse commute a couple times, and a regular commute just once. The reverse commute was better, but only in the sense of being less bad.Report
Houston is what insanity looks like when it manifests as a city-like thing.
My point about worst of both worlds, cost-wise, is that you still have suburb-like commuting costs, but with city housing costs.Report
Houston is so bad that people who love sprawl have accepted the need for mass transit.
People ride the bus. Downtown. To work. In their jackets and ties. park and Ride has been wildly successful due to abject necessity, even though people down here HATE buses. Because if you’re gonna be stuck in traffic for an hour each way, you might as well be able to work or read.Report
ROFL. Houston, we are all laughing at you.Report
It usually means in the opposite direction of most other people. Employment is polycentric in most metropolitan areas these days but some still have a plurality or majority of jobs in the traditional downtown area. I think over 50% of the jobs in the New York metropolitan area is in Manhattan and bellow 60th Street at that. A person who lives in Manhattan but works in Westchester would have a reverse commute because she is going against traffic.
San Francisco is a lot more polycentric than New York but the downtown area of San Francisco still holds a plurality of jobs, especially in the legal field. More people commute from outside San Francisco to inside it than vice versa. Marin County is still mainly residential. Most people in Marin work in San Francisco or some other county in the area. By going in the opposite direction, Saul has a reverse commute.Report
And many of the people who do retail or other lesser-paying jobs in Marin live in the East Bay. That is one hellish commute, which I know from having done the reverse of it for many years.Report
@glyph
What Lee said. I am going against traffic because I live in the city and my job is in a suburban/rural area. Most people commute from the suburban area to the city. So theoretically I am usually not going to be in much traffic.Report
Congrats Saul. Good for you.Report
Hey, awesome news! I’m happy for you. The reverse commute should be convenient, at least once you get onto the bridge.
If it were me, I’d rather be in Novato the whole damn time and only come in to SF to play and shop, on weekends and such. But that’s me, I’m middle-aged and boring.
In any event, I know of people who commute into the city every day from Healdsburg. Think about that if you get frustrated.Report
@burt-likko
Thanks! I’ve met people who commuted to SF everyday from Napa, Sonoma, Fairfield/Vallejo, etc. So yeah there are people who do this insane thing.
I’ve discussed this before but I am not at a point in my life where I need that much space yet. Though I am starting to get the appeal of living in a quieter area. Healdsburg is charming and has good restaurants because of wine country and tourism. I never quiet got the American desire for large amounts of property. I will probably want and need more than my current one-bedroom but right now my one bedroom is fine.
I think part of this is because I am a culture addict. I’ve seen people say stuff like “Now that I moved from NYC to Charlotte, I have all this property and my taxes are much lower.” And all I can think of is “Does Charlotte have a Brooklyn Academy of Music or Cal Performances or Lincoln Center?”
Maybe this will change one day. Maybe not.Report
I’ve met people who commuted to SF everyday from Napa, Sonoma, Fairfield/Vallejo, etc.
And they’re relatively sane, because some people do the same but into San Jose.Report
Wonderful! I hope that it turns out not to be just a job, but an interesting one.Report
Woot Congrats Saul! Good luck.Report
New television arrives today! I’m pretty jazzed, though feeling sad and a little bit guilty that about the functional television in the basement. I mean, that TV is… fine. But I do a lot of my television interaction through a computer, and that’s increasingly difficult with that old machine attached to it, and on a CRT display.
We’re going to be getting DirecTV soon, and so it’s one of those “do it now or make things really complicated down the line” things.
So I’m getting a new TV for the living room and moving the one there downstairs. The Vizio I currently have was a great value, but has certain blind spots. One of which is that it has bad SD display from cable/satellite. Which, if we’re getting cable/satellite, kind of matters.
A frustrating thing is that new TVs don’t have VGA inputs, and VGA is what I use to attach the computer. The media PC does have a DisplayPort, which can convert into HDMI. So I got the applicable cable and was, alas, disappointed by the results. The video looks okay, but the Windows interface looks less than stellar. I am hoping that this is a Vizio problem, and that the new Samsung will look better. The Vizio has the VGA outlet, and so I can continue to use them for that TV.
Another alternative is that I got a bad cable. Cables matter a lot for such things. While I didn’t skimp, I also apparently did not get a 4K HDMI. Now, the TV and computer are 1080, but it’s possible that you might want to overshoot on something like this?Report
Do cables really matter??? For some things they truly don’t as long as there are the correct plugs on both ends.Report
This is especially true for cables for digital signals — typically, delivery is either perfect or completely unusable.
I suspect that Will will continue to be frustrated by using a monitor for both TV and PC purposes. My experience with that is the two applications are best served by quite different settings for color balance, brightness, and contrast. I usually watch “television” in a window on my computer monitor while I’m doing other things. The monitor overall is configured to work well as a computer display; I often have to tinker with the settings in the player application in order to offset that and have television that looks like television is supposed to.Report
Video cables matter. I learned that the hard way.
The good new is that it is indeed a television issue! The new TV didn’t look good at first, but it was a screen tracking issue resolved in the settings. The same could be true of the Vizio.
The Smart TV features are not very good, alas. Could be fixed by plugging it into the network (instead of WiFi) but if not I’ll be doing all of that through the computer.Report
Okay, if you guys say so. I’m still not going to use any GMO cables or ones with gluten in them.Report
I’m going to a West Coast Swing congress in New York City. Since dance congresses need space and space is at a premium in New York, they tend to happen outside the city. Without a car commuting back and forth everyday is not easy, so you end up getting a hotel room for a congress/convention/competition that is only a short distance away from your home. Even if you have a car, congresses tend to end late and your tired from dancing all day; so car drivers usually end up getting a room to. This makes congresses expensive and timely. I’m excited that we have one in New York and on the right subway lines to.Report
Ugh! Truly bummed that I can’t make it tomorrow. I’ve been looking forward to more of the exploits of Clint the drow-paladin-who-was-raised-by-humans since our last session. At least I should get a good dinner and some good conversation out of the deal.Report
You will, of course, be missed.Report
The other thing I will be doing this weekend is All The Chores in the Entire World* (and also a therapy session), because next weekend I’m traveling back home to Canada for a visit and will be there for about** 8 days. Also, I’m supposed to be resting so the travel isn’t as miserable. And getting extra exercise on top of my normal ration of daily exercise, for the same reason. Good thing I have a 3-day weekend, I guess.
* (all my chores that is. which is plenty of chores. do not ask if that means I will do your chores. you might be sorry.)
** depending on whether i get overnighted in any airports on the way back. stupid air canada changing my flight times and thus making me have layovers that are too short for customs pass-through.Report
Eight days in PEI yes? Smuggle me home some potatoes and lobster.Report
Prepare for an airdrop 😀Report
Going to a local show tonight, which would be fine and not worth mentioning, except…
I have very few rules in life: don’t tug on Superman’s cape, don’t spit in the wind, don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger, and don’t go to 6th Street on a Friday or Saturday night. Unfortunately, my rules don’t always win out (which is also why I got a really nasty black eye at “The Lone Ranger On Ice”).Report
I haven’t been to a show since Built to Spill came through. I’m antsy.
I got tix for me & the wife to go see one of those “band plays one of their classic records front-to-back” (never been to one of these) deals for our anniversary in a few months, we’re going to make a little weekend trip of it and lounge off our hangovers at the hotel pool. The venue looks nice, and I’ve heard good things about the tour; last time I saw this particular band (1992) it wasn’t the greatest show (inapt venue/timing), so hopefully it’ll be better this time.
Hoping to line up grandparental childcare tomorrow night, so we can go dance at a club that’s closing down after this weekend. It was inevitable, but still a bummer.Report
Well, childcare is a go, so it looks like I have a duty to shake my booty.Report
If the club isn’t hopping, feel free to join us in Sixth Street. It just visit the closest zombie apocalypse, which will be just like being on Sixth Street.Report
Fledermaus, Mr. T, and Kiddo are going to Calgary for what will be a general family get-together of Mr. T’s family, excuse being a kid’s birthday party. Mr. T is staying out of town this coming week for work, Fledermaus and Kiddo get back probably on Monday.
Which: Fledermaus has been working a lighting gig in Banff for the past week, that she got by voluntarily making the lights better at the festival we were at weekend before last – the sound guy offered her the job on the strength of her obvious chops at stage lighting. And if that didn’t make me proud of her just on its own, I guess she saved some folks from having a 20′ steel pipe drop on them yesterday. Cause she’s a superhero or something.
Tonight a friend’s birthday party, probably a pretty low-key sort of thing. Which is good, as today has been a pretty draining one at work.
Tomorrow a day trip to do some walking around the badlands near Drumheller with a friend; maybe stop for a dip at a lake on the way back.
So Sunday, I have the house to myself, and so many chores to catch up on – I could clean, start getting my winter bike built, put insulation in the second part of the basement ceiling…Report