LAN party

Andy, in Luisa's and Reid's basement.
In background: Jasba, Jeff.


For those interested, I have updated my comic strip, My Life in a Nutshell. New character: my friend Luisa!



Playing Munchkin while we waited for others to arrive.
From L to R: Jeff, Reid, Ronnie, Luisa, Michael.


Speaking of Luisa, Jeff and I had a good time on Friday and Saturday at the small LAN party that she and Reid hosted. They had a great setup where people on one team were upstairs and the other team was in the basement. Everyone was networked together, of course, and they even had several iSight cameras set up as well as Walkie-Talkies so everyone could happily hurl insults and threats back and forth as they massacred each other, etc.



Sample card from Munchkin. Same artist does Dork Tower,
one of my favorite comics!


This was not an event for those hoping for regular party conversation (we all knew this in advance): networked gaming was the main focus. I'm not a gamer, but intended to and did spend most of the time on my laptop playing with Corel Painter, surfing the Web, working on comics, researching for the short story I'm doing with Michelle.



Reid and Gillian.


It's hard to explain to most people (people outside of the computer nerd/gamer mindset) why I enjoy these events so much since I'm not actively participating and spend most of the time doing my own thing. I think that the key factor is that I'm doing my own thing in an atmosphere I find enormously entertaining and comforting at the same time, and with people I like.



Ray, killing things.


I've always loved people-watching, and LAN parties are wonderful for this. I especially get a huge kick out of watching people enjoy themselves, my friends in particular. The positive vibe is great, and much conducive to creative projects of all kinds... one of the reasons I like taking my laptop and Wacom artpad to Jeff's Friday night gaming sometimes.



One of the upstairs computer rooms. Note that the
monitor behind them shows the downstairs computer room (Jeff on screen).
L to R: Michael, Iain, and Eric.


Had my first Tim Horton's maple baked good, by the way! The chain has been heavily pushing their new line of "maple baked goods" recently in television commercials and billboards. On the way home in the car Friday night, Andy talked about this a bit while I was dozing...enough bits infiltrated my subconscious to wake me up with a terrible craving for a maple baked good from Tim Horton's.



Downstairs computer room. Jasba, Andy and Jeff.
David Barker was also in that room Saturday, Ray on Friday.


We pulled into at least one Tim Horton's, but THEY WERE SOLD OUT OF DONUTS. They told us to come back several hours later at 6 a.m., when they would get more donuts. AUGH. Of course this made my craving even worse, which highly amused Jeff, Ray and especially Andy.

ANDY (cheerfully): "Hey look! There's a Country Style Donuts. That's no good, sorry."

ANDY (a few minutes later): "Hey look, Debbie! There's another one of those Tim Horton's billboards!"

ANDY (again): "I see another Tim Horton's! Oh, their racks look empty. Too bad."

I started hitting him with my pillow, but he wouldn't stop, the sadistic cad.

Jeff and I bought a bag of maple baked goods from Tim Horton's on the way back to Reid's and Luisa's this morning, and I happily hoovered an entire dipped maple walnut donut.

Yum, well worth the wait. Hope you're all having a great weekend!



Ray took this photo of me on the way home
late Friday night (about 3 a.m.).

May 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal