Not Exactly Free Time
It does seem that my last couple of weeks have been relatively busy. Here are some brief notes about what I've been up to.
Monday Night Poker
I've still been regularly participating in the Monday night poker tournament. With the end of the previous season, everyone now has a chance to earn their way into the final game. That poker involves skill is demonstrated by the fact that several of my friends consistently finish higher than me, but of course the games are fun regardless of how I do. That poker involves luck is demonstrated by the fact that, two weeks go, I finished in fifth place (out of maybe 40-50 people). I don't recall doing anything particularly fancy; I just caught some cards early on and was therefore able to bide my time. Last week, I didn't do as well (finishing ~ 15th) and, apparently, every decision I asked about was incorrect. Oh well, live and (hopefully) learn.
Tuesday Night Trivia
Trivia on Tuesdays is always interesting, and our group has done a reasonable job of attracting new members (if temporarily). Two weeks ago the theme was "sports," and you can imagine how well a bunch of people I'd normally hang out with would do with such a category. That written, we didn't do too badly (despite Lauren, our "ringer," memorizing the wrong basketball list), and the following week, with general questions, we had our best result ever, third place! This was worth another gift certificate, but more importantly it earned us playoff points. The teams with the most playoff points compete in the final game (at the end of the season) for serious money, so it's good to have a chance at that. We seem to be on a roll with the name-that-tune themes (last week it was "Numbers"(!)) and final questions, so hopefully that will continue.
Of course, those are among my regular diversions, but the last couple of weeks have included some interesting one-time events.
Singing Singles
There was the "Dinner followed by Karaoke Mayhem" event with the "DC Fun & Educated SINGLE Professionals (20's & 30's)" Meetup group, an event that was obviously right up my alley. I convinced terra-lily to come along, but surprisingly she already knew one person there and had a work connection to another. Dinner was at Perry's Restaurant, a restaurant that is certainly more upscale than those I'm used to frequenting. The food was served in small portions, thereby encouraging everyone to try multiple dishes. The food was generally arranged nicely (the sushi plate was HUGE!), and I think everyone was satisfied with it. Still, the goal was to converse, and that went pretty well as well. We had a good number of people; any more, and it might have been hard to chat with everyone. After dinner, we headed over to Peyote Cafe for some singing. I'm not sure how many of us actually sang; it wasn't just me, but certainly some people just hung out and enjoyed the performances. Even terra-lily sang despite not finding her preferred song(s). (I was really spoiled by the karaoke list in Princeton.) The shots flowed pretty freely, and I think I convinced some people that chocolate cake shots are delicious. Overall, it was a very fun night, and everyone there was a pleasure to meet.
Birthday Lies
The following Thursday was Lisa's 28th birthday celebration at DC Improv. I recognized some people there (and I should have recognized others), but the table arrangement wasn't so conducive to conversation IMO. Still, it was possible to chat with those nearby before the show. We all caught The Liar Show, and I was pleasantly surprised that the stories were, in some sense, stand-up routines (and therefore quite funny). The goal was to guess whose story was fabricated, and I don't think any of us had any real trouble, so we all got t-shirts. I suspect we were all amazed and/or disturbed by the other stories that were, apparently, true (though probably somewhat embellished for the sake of humor).
The Gathering
The following weekend was the Mensa Regional Gathering. There were lots of lectures, though I didn't end up attending any. Friday night was the chocolate orgy and the Fishbowl. Due to the nature of the questions at the latter, I didn't really have anything to say (sob), so I settled for listening. Oddly, I often found the questions more surprising than the answers - I never realized what people actually wonder about. Still, it was entertaining, and afterward the Gen-Yers settled into our shared hotel room for random discussions and various alcoholic beverages, though there was a small break for the magic tricks. I wasn't around much the following day (see the next paragraph), but there was a game requiring coming up with song lyrics matching various themes (similar to this, but without any equipment) that I just had to check out. It does seem that music comes up more often at these Mensa events than one would expect; it's probably just a function of who I choose to hang out with, but it's still not a correlation I would have anticipated. That was the last real event I attended at the gathering; maybe I'll check out the Annual Gathering in July.
On the Hunt
That Saturday, I took a break from the gathering and participated in a scavenger hunt throughout the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. terra-lily accepted my invitation, and the two of us joined three others to make team number four. We were given lists of questions to answer and pictures to identify. Some of the question answers would earn puzzle pieces, and the completed puzzles were to be used to help solve the ciphers at the end and thereby reveal more questions. We had two hours to explore the museum, which wasn't nearly enough; besides there being lots of sections, each section of the museum is quite "dense" in terms of information content. There was even one question for which we changed our answer at least three times as we kept finding new displays. We answered several of the "puzzle piece questions" but struggled to find people to give us the pieces; in fact, the only piece we did collect came when Jared mistakenly thought we were looking for him to collect a piece! By the end of the hunt, we were exhausted and somewhat sad about our inability to even attempt the puzzles, and as we saw other people putting them together, we weren't too optimistic about our place. After the hunt, most if not all of the teams went to Elephant & Castle for dinner and to await the results tabulation. The team numbers were announced in reverse order, and we kept expecting our number to be called, but other numbers kept coming. Amazingly, we actually finished in first place, earning ourselves $125 and small bragging rights! After that announcement, there was pleasant dinner conversation between all the people there, and the food wasn't too bad either. Overall, it was a very fun event, and I offer my thanks to the organizers!
Where No One Had Gone Yet?
I caught "Star Trek" (the latest movie) on an IMAX screen with a fairly large group (in which, once again, I should have known more people than I did) the night before the official release. I agree with others that it's quite hard to give comments about this movie without providing spoilers, so I'll settle for noting that I liked the movie despite not really following the Star Trek series while the others in my party liked the movie despite avidly following it.
Misc.
Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Marc's "Diez de Mayo" party (complete with fajitas and margaritas!) and the get-together at Moishe House Silver Spring. These were generally just chances to hang out with friends, old in the former and new (hopefully) at the latter, both quite casual, and very pleasant ways to spend a weekend.
Monday Night Poker
I've still been regularly participating in the Monday night poker tournament. With the end of the previous season, everyone now has a chance to earn their way into the final game. That poker involves skill is demonstrated by the fact that several of my friends consistently finish higher than me, but of course the games are fun regardless of how I do. That poker involves luck is demonstrated by the fact that, two weeks go, I finished in fifth place (out of maybe 40-50 people). I don't recall doing anything particularly fancy; I just caught some cards early on and was therefore able to bide my time. Last week, I didn't do as well (finishing ~ 15th) and, apparently, every decision I asked about was incorrect. Oh well, live and (hopefully) learn.
Tuesday Night Trivia
Trivia on Tuesdays is always interesting, and our group has done a reasonable job of attracting new members (if temporarily). Two weeks ago the theme was "sports," and you can imagine how well a bunch of people I'd normally hang out with would do with such a category. That written, we didn't do too badly (despite Lauren, our "ringer," memorizing the wrong basketball list), and the following week, with general questions, we had our best result ever, third place! This was worth another gift certificate, but more importantly it earned us playoff points. The teams with the most playoff points compete in the final game (at the end of the season) for serious money, so it's good to have a chance at that. We seem to be on a roll with the name-that-tune themes (last week it was "Numbers"(!)) and final questions, so hopefully that will continue.
Of course, those are among my regular diversions, but the last couple of weeks have included some interesting one-time events.
Singing Singles
There was the "Dinner followed by Karaoke Mayhem" event with the "DC Fun & Educated SINGLE Professionals (20's & 30's)" Meetup group, an event that was obviously right up my alley. I convinced terra-lily to come along, but surprisingly she already knew one person there and had a work connection to another. Dinner was at Perry's Restaurant, a restaurant that is certainly more upscale than those I'm used to frequenting. The food was served in small portions, thereby encouraging everyone to try multiple dishes. The food was generally arranged nicely (the sushi plate was HUGE!), and I think everyone was satisfied with it. Still, the goal was to converse, and that went pretty well as well. We had a good number of people; any more, and it might have been hard to chat with everyone. After dinner, we headed over to Peyote Cafe for some singing. I'm not sure how many of us actually sang; it wasn't just me, but certainly some people just hung out and enjoyed the performances. Even terra-lily sang despite not finding her preferred song(s). (I was really spoiled by the karaoke list in Princeton.) The shots flowed pretty freely, and I think I convinced some people that chocolate cake shots are delicious. Overall, it was a very fun night, and everyone there was a pleasure to meet.
Birthday Lies
The following Thursday was Lisa's 28th birthday celebration at DC Improv. I recognized some people there (and I should have recognized others), but the table arrangement wasn't so conducive to conversation IMO. Still, it was possible to chat with those nearby before the show. We all caught The Liar Show, and I was pleasantly surprised that the stories were, in some sense, stand-up routines (and therefore quite funny). The goal was to guess whose story was fabricated, and I don't think any of us had any real trouble, so we all got t-shirts. I suspect we were all amazed and/or disturbed by the other stories that were, apparently, true (though probably somewhat embellished for the sake of humor).
The Gathering
The following weekend was the Mensa Regional Gathering. There were lots of lectures, though I didn't end up attending any. Friday night was the chocolate orgy and the Fishbowl. Due to the nature of the questions at the latter, I didn't really have anything to say (sob), so I settled for listening. Oddly, I often found the questions more surprising than the answers - I never realized what people actually wonder about. Still, it was entertaining, and afterward the Gen-Yers settled into our shared hotel room for random discussions and various alcoholic beverages, though there was a small break for the magic tricks. I wasn't around much the following day (see the next paragraph), but there was a game requiring coming up with song lyrics matching various themes (similar to this, but without any equipment) that I just had to check out. It does seem that music comes up more often at these Mensa events than one would expect; it's probably just a function of who I choose to hang out with, but it's still not a correlation I would have anticipated. That was the last real event I attended at the gathering; maybe I'll check out the Annual Gathering in July.
On the Hunt
That Saturday, I took a break from the gathering and participated in a scavenger hunt throughout the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. terra-lily accepted my invitation, and the two of us joined three others to make team number four. We were given lists of questions to answer and pictures to identify. Some of the question answers would earn puzzle pieces, and the completed puzzles were to be used to help solve the ciphers at the end and thereby reveal more questions. We had two hours to explore the museum, which wasn't nearly enough; besides there being lots of sections, each section of the museum is quite "dense" in terms of information content. There was even one question for which we changed our answer at least three times as we kept finding new displays. We answered several of the "puzzle piece questions" but struggled to find people to give us the pieces; in fact, the only piece we did collect came when Jared mistakenly thought we were looking for him to collect a piece! By the end of the hunt, we were exhausted and somewhat sad about our inability to even attempt the puzzles, and as we saw other people putting them together, we weren't too optimistic about our place. After the hunt, most if not all of the teams went to Elephant & Castle for dinner and to await the results tabulation. The team numbers were announced in reverse order, and we kept expecting our number to be called, but other numbers kept coming. Amazingly, we actually finished in first place, earning ourselves $125 and small bragging rights! After that announcement, there was pleasant dinner conversation between all the people there, and the food wasn't too bad either. Overall, it was a very fun event, and I offer my thanks to the organizers!
Where No One Had Gone Yet?
I caught "Star Trek" (the latest movie) on an IMAX screen with a fairly large group (in which, once again, I should have known more people than I did) the night before the official release. I agree with others that it's quite hard to give comments about this movie without providing spoilers, so I'll settle for noting that I liked the movie despite not really following the Star Trek series while the others in my party liked the movie despite avidly following it.
Misc.
Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Marc's "Diez de Mayo" party (complete with fajitas and margaritas!) and the get-together at Moishe House Silver Spring. These were generally just chances to hang out with friends, old in the former and new (hopefully) at the latter, both quite casual, and very pleasant ways to spend a weekend.