chipperAs I said, I've been yelling at
johnstevensaul to show kikibird and runstaverun Jeffrey. After last week's mediocre night (mostly after Perfect Son), he also wanted to show us It's My Party. So, due to the former not being on DVD yet and him having the latter on VHS, we did a retro all VHS Movie Night. No Netflix movies at all for once.As before, I asked that we do the down note first and end on a better note. So we watched It's My Party to start the evening off. As
kikibird said, there wasn't a dry eye in the fucking house. As they walked to the neighbor's house, I lost it. When they reached the neighbor's back yard, she lost it. I don't know when runstaverun started up the waterworks. johnstevensaul had seen it over a dozen times, and still lost it. An emotional rollercoaster. It keeps on cracking you up, with Balki being a hilarious flaming queen with a quick wit. The Greek family is priceless. You, unlike last week (as johnstevensaul pointed out) actually give a fuck about the characters. The friends, the family, the failed relationship, the fights, the memories. It was a well-crafted powerful story, cracking you up and tearing your heart apart. When the ``asshole'' broke down begging, it just eviscerated me. Amazing film. All four of us looked like residents of London right after a German bombing during WWII.After that, we watched Jeffrey for a hilarious pick me up. Like Six String Samurai, I had been introduced to the movie through the soundtrack. My mom used to listen to it constantly, it was always playing in her car when she picked me up for her visitation evenings. Nothing like getting picked up by your mother while she's listening to a clip from a movie with a gay man's parents asking him if he's a top or a bottom. *shudder* Considering that her other favorite movie was Welcome to the Dollhouse, what does that say about my mom?
Darius: Just think of AIDS as the guest that won't leave, the one we all hate. But you have to remember: Hey! It's still our party.
Anyway, Jeffrey was just as hilarious as I remembered it being. Some great NYC shots, tons of hilarious dream sequences, wonderful dialogue, and Patrick Stewart as a gay interior decorator asking if a garment makes him look like a gay superhero. How can you go wrong? He's boffing a dancer from Cats! Those who had not seen it enjoyed it, and we came up with a new nickname for someone.
We thought our two guests from last week were showing up to this Game Night, but we didn't find out until fairly late that they weren't going to make it. They even promised to bring Hunter for us all to play! So instead
runstaverun and I played Brute Force for a while. He kept on dying, which was costing us money, so I was snapping at him. If it was Ghost Recon with only one character, I'd have been screaming. It was just a game, I possibly came across as being upset when it really didn't matter to me at all in the ``real world'', but I think they didn't pick up on that. I'm capable of tearing someone a new one professionally/game-world/etc. and being totally cool with them on a personal non-professional level. Not everyone ``work[s] like a light switch'' as my brother and I have heard from upset girlfriends/fiances over the years so often. So runstaverun got cranky as I continued to correct him when he failed to cover my ass or wandered off to die. And kikibird, who was there at that point, really seemed to soak it up. When we tried to order food she said everyone was acting like bitches and wasn't going to get anything until I ordered sesame shrimp for her based on a prior choice of a place that closed early.Things calmed down, and we played Therapy.
kikibird was the childhood therapist, runstaverun was the adolescence therapist, and I was the cosmos (after seniority) therapist. It was a fun game, but it really could have used more players. I tried inviting track44 as one of the only non-idle people I could see online, but she logged off. So it ended up being the four of us trying to provide each other therapy. It was interesting playing as the spare wheel, trying to think through each question as playing through each other's heads. A few times, when providing group therapy for a member of the couple, I got the answer that they were thinking of while the partner didn't. Unfortunately, we all knew each other way too well, so the game wasn't as interesting as it could have been. The questions about the rest of the world were pretty cool. It's a game I'd like to play again, with other people. Most of the ``revelations'' about each other were just confirming hunches about each other. I think kikibird won, they seemed pretty tired when the game ended.I downloaded the new modes/maps/mechs and new arenas to make use of their bandwidth, and found that I couldn't sleep. The silence was killing me. I finally had to set up Hambone as a UC server to get some white noise to sleep.
As I mentioned, I was going off to attend
redvector's last minute LAN party with shmivejournal. periol nicely invited me over his pad at the last minute, but I'd already promised my services to the celebrity. Picked the aforementioned celebrity up from his central Jersey safehouse, and ventured off to Casa Del redvector. Luckily, due to the shitty weather, there wasn't a sea of shore traffic to battle through. The weather that ruined everyone else's weekend saved our asses. I was almost late, as my secret girlfriend/crush logged on just as I was zipping out the door, so I heard the stalker bell ringing in my office as I talked to the janitor. I know, kingfox is late for everything, so whatever. But I somehow resisted (maybe knowing that I have 
noballs) and got off campus. As I was just pulling out the front gate, I saw a clear sign representing her as the Dropkick Murphys came on WSOU. Good times.But then I got stuck in traffic anyway, so I might as well have stayed a wee bit longer, right?
We were greated at the door by a pack of poofy white dogs, not something I expected from
redvector's residence. And, as windexcowboy predicted at lunch earlier today, someone else's dog that they were taking care of. And the wicker baskets... the wicker baskets... The sheer amount of baskets really freaked shmivejournal out. We got to meet his MR buddies, and play lots of Halo. Lots and LOTS of it. Despite it being a LAN party, you know geeks playing on computers and all, it ended up mostly being an Xbox party. For those that know me, you know this was not a problem. You had your usual ``look at this cool video'' show and tell segment. You had people drooling over someone's case. But you didn't have much in the way of PC gaming. We played Halo CTF, Halo team Oddball, Halo team Deathmatch, Halo everything. Vehicles, no vehicles, only Warthogs, whatever. This map, that map, we played Halo until it hurt. The other Xbox there was illegally modified, and was unable to pirate Brute Force for us to play that through system link as well (which I was secretly glad about, being down on piracy and all). They did, however, get to play some Soulcalibur 2, which looked amazing.Our gracious host provided tons of drinks, and a grill running most of the night. He knows how to make a pack of geeks feel welcome.
shmivejournal made a drawing of the dog being watched, and gave redvector a contract for his ownership of my genitals. Good times.One Halo game, it was four of them against
redvector and I. While one of them wasn't playing, and one of them was pretty new, it was entertaining to beat them one to nothing in CTF against the odds. ``How's it feel to outnumber us and still suck so much!'' Yeah, I'm a trash talking geek. I placed second in most rounds, and redvector placed first or third. I was impressed with his mad skills.At some point,
redvector and I started playing Brute Force. We re-played some of the earlier levels that runstaverun and I missed DNA on, and had fun. I got to pull a runstaverun and fell asleep playing. The dog sitter who his parents hired came by and left during the session, and I finally nodded off at the helm at half-past eight. redvector told me he looked over and noticed that I had fallen asleep walking in a circle. He needed Brutus to use his special vision to find people for the sniper Flint to snipe, and woke me up. ``C'mon buddy, I just need you to use your power here.'' I woke up, walked over to his character, triggered the power, and fell asleep with my character looking down at the ground. ``I'll just beat this mission, then you can go to sleep.'' Week after week kikibird and I would nudge runstaverun when we noticed that the archer was standing still shooting at nothing, so I got to follow in his noble footsteps.We woke up, cleaned up, and left. I dropped
shmivejournal back off at his safehouse, and went off to stepson's apartment. He graciously let me use his laundry facilities and shower, so I didn't look like the disgusting greasy geek I felt like. Despite my plans, I failed to get him out and about doing something interesting. We mostly just chatted for hours, and eventually went out for steaks. Afterwards I had an Italian ice while he had coffee. He somehow resisted Hambone all night long. April and Corrine were off camping, and I asked stepson where. When he pulled out the map, I laughed my ass off. They drove past my place, going through the light I turn at a quarter-mile from my place. At some point they called, explaining that the weather had driven them off.stepson and I were talking about work for quite a while, and I think we were talking about Active Directory and some of the games he's figured out how to play with Active Directory and linux, when the campers came home. We helped them unpack, and his sugar got a bit low turning him wacky. After he had some juice, the three of us chuckled at how he could go from Active Directory shortcomings to being unable to properly vocalize their new chinchilla looking cute in a matter of minutes. I found out why they call this cute little guy the stinky man. Their chinchilla bounced all over the bathroom, drying his coat in the little house and leaving a trail everywhere. After helping them a bit with their animal duties, I headed off home, exhausted. I don't know how I made it home in one piece, after not getting much sleep all week or the night before in particular.The next day I worked at EB with JiminyB. Good times. After that, well, you know the rest...
