BBRX
Brian's Birthday Revolution X
Another party is history. This past weekend I hosted the 10th installment of my birthday party with the people I've met playing DDR over the years. That's right, this is the 10th anniversary! I can hardly believe I'm still playing this game (at least a little) and am still in contact with so many of the people that I've met as a result. I certainly had no idea what I was getting into the first time I played DDR almost 10 years ago.
Technically, while this is the 10th year, this is the 11th of these parties since I had two in 2003 because I had a "make up" party for the many people who didn't make it to the original party due to bad weather. Given the wild weather and crazy amounts of snow we've been having lately, I was a little concerned that might happen again. But, the weather cleared, most of the snow and ice melted, and it was actually a fairly nice day outside...not that it matters except for getting there since the party is inside and mostly after the sun goes down. :P
This party has a lot of history and, as a result, a lot of ongoing traditions. One of them is this LJ entry--usually anywhere from a couple days to a month or more later--where I go over stats and recount my experiences and feelings about the party. It's only been about a week this time around, so hopefully I have some fresher memories to write about.
First off, some stats!
There's 33 people in the group picture. Add Heath who, as usual, took the picture and was therefore behind the camera. Molly made her first party appearance since 2003 with her husband and daughter in tow. However, she made just made a short appearance at the beginning of the party since it was one of three for her that day and isn't in the big group photo. At any rate, that's +3. Finally, I can think of three more people (Laura, Matt, and Chrys) that arrived after the group photo was taken.
33+1+3+3 = 40!
I don't think I'm missing anyone from that count, but there were at least that many people there. This isn't a record (which is still held by the 2005 party at 44), but it is a little larger than any party since. However, there were several last-minute cancellations that would have easily pushed this party to a new record attendance.
I had been actively trying to keep the numbers down a bit since the 2005 party as it was rather overwhelmingly large. But this year I kind of threw caution to the wind and invited many more people than usual with over 75 on the list. I figured actual attendance wouldn't be too much larger than normal given that many people now live far away, have other obligations, etc. And, it seems I was right.
While the invitation list was substantially larger, the final number of attendees was only a little larger. And that's fine. Especially with the seemingly ever-growing number of games taking up floor space in the basement, too many more people would just be uncomfortably cramped and a number like 75 sounds downright unmanageable.
Only one person from the original 2001 party came this year: Jon flew in from Japan to surprise everyone (except me). It wasn't a surprise to me since we had arranged it a month before and he had been staying at my house a week before. Beyond Jon, no one else from the original GameWorks crew was present (not including me and Lissa, of course).
So it seems that most of the people in my early experience have dropped out and moved on to other things and, as my own involvement has diminished, there aren't many new people being added (only 4 new people this year other than SOs, and 2 of them are actually people I've known awhile). Most people in attendance were from the 2003-2007 timeframe including Westside, Bloomington (LazerLite, Great X Scape, DDR-A-Thons), X-Site, and my Pump era. So that leaves a big chunk of people from the "middle" of my experience...and I'm very glad to have them!
I started something new this year: awards! Everyone likes to get awards, and I'm happy to oblige. Of course far be it for me to be serious about such things. I whipped up an award certificate template earlier on the day of the party and had the printer ready to go down in the basement. Whenever someone did something I found interesting, unique, funny, etc., I printed up a certificate for that person. And to keep with the lightheartedness of the awards, each certificate read: "Congratulations, you won a pointless award! Be proud of yourself (nobody else is)." In all, 33 award certificates were given out.
Jon, of course, got an award for traveling the farthest to attend. It'd be a pretty hard record to beat.
Shane, Kristen, and Melissa came together and arrived about half an hour early due to a miscalculation in travel time. They each received an award for being unfashionably early.
I looked at the clock when Brandon arrived...it was 5:00 on the dot. He received an award for being precisely on-time.
Jeremy was the first person to play one of the laserdisc games. I wasn't anticipating very many people would even try them, much less play them repeatedly. While they are a big part of my video game history, they pre-date most of the people at the party. Without the nostalgia factor, I'll be the first to point out that the games themselves are very cool to watch but not that much fun to actually play. In spite of all that, Jeremy seemed determined to master them.
V and I were talking to Jon about visiting Japan. I suggested that V should come with me on a future visit with a single goal in mind: find a Japanese girlfriend. Her response, "We'll find cute Japanese girls. I'll be a lesbian for a week." That was worth a memorable quote award in my humble opinion.
Jason and Chad got awards for being the first people to play a game with me. That was around 7:15pm--over two hours into the party. We played a GuitarFreaks/DrumMania session together. That ended up being one of only two games I played all night.
Brandon, David, Merk, Tim, and Jason played the first Super Session filling all 5 positions on GuitarFreaks, DrumMania, and KeyboardMania.
Jason somehow managed to get a royal flush in the poker game that seems to always pop up at the party. And if that wasn't already wild enough, he got it on the very first hand of the game!
Chrys was the last person to arrive at the party. It was well past 10pm by then and the party was over 5 hours old. Of course it was only about half over at that point, so whatever.
I saw Matt a few minutes after Chrys and was ready to give him the award for being last to arrive when he informed me that he had actually been there about half an hour. Sneaky guy... I gave him an award for being at the party longest before I noticed.
Merk was full-time dealer when the poker game came down to just Jon and Jason. Two tens and a king came up in a flop and he declared, "Two dimes and a king. That's called the drug dealer flop." The laugh that got was worth an award.
Laura received a best ass award as she, Chad, and Scott were all leaning over the back of the couch to watch the poker game. "One out of three ain't bad."
Zach and Melody got an award for best gift wrap. How can you go wrong with a mylar balloon and a rainbow pinwheel? I mean, really...
Dave got an award for "failing to pull out" (the receipt from his gift). He also left the price sticker on it.
Finally, everyone left at the end of the party received an "I made it to the clock picture" award: 12 in all (including me). That was a new record for number of people left at the end of the party. 7 of those people (also including me) stayed overnight--another new record.
Other party highlights...
There was a good chunk of time spent with a group of us sitting around the TV in the corner of the basement looking at old pictures and videos on the internet of DDR days gone by. That was followed by a similar session of internet memes. The latter was as funny as the former was nostalgic.
We actually ran out of pizza this year. I counted about 28 people when I ordered pizzas. I ordered what I thought would be enough for about 32 people. And then a bunch of people showed up in between when I ordered and when the pizzas arrived. Sorry to those of you who didn't get enough or didn't get any at all. Every year I worry about having too much. This is the first time I didn't have enough. At any rate, thanks to Lissa and Heath who graciously went to go get the pizzas.
The group of us that went to Bowlmani Festival back in 2007 re-enacted the group photo of us that was taken there as it was noted that this was the first time that all of us were all together again.
It was decided that there's never enough scandal at these parties, so we all jumped in bed together. ;)
Actually...no. Jon, V, Lolo, and I were sitting around the kitchen table talking when the conversation turned to beds. I mentioned that I have a Tempur-Pedic. No sooner did those words fall out of my mouth then V and Lolo made a b-line for the bedroom. So of course a demonstration was in order. These things really do sell themselves. :P
I think I'm finally figuring out how to enjoy myself at these parties. I've learned a number of tricks over the years of hosting on how to make things go smoothly with minimal effort. For instance, Papa Murphy's pizzas were great...arguably better than Papa John's. The problem is that I can only bake one at a time and they take about 10 minutes each. That means I could be taken out of the party for an hour or longer while I tend to them.
Second, there are problems and there are non-problems. I'm getting better at identifying which is which and just letting the non-problems go. For instance, if a game breaks...oh well. I mean, if it's a quick fix like rebooting it, ok. But if it's going to take longer than about 5-10 minutes, it can wait. It's a bummer to have a game down, but if that's going to be a major hardship for anyone, they're at the wrong party.
This year I really set out what I wanted to accomplish for myself at this party, and that was to reconnect with people. And I did just that! I actually only played two games the whole night. The rest of the time, if I wasn't tending to some hosting duty, I was sitting (or perhaps standing) with a group of people and just talking. It was fantastic...just what I wanted.