One of life's primal situations; the game of hide and seek. Oh, the delicious thrill of hiding while the others come looking for you, the delicious terror of being discovered, but what panic when, after a long search, the others abandon you! You mustn't hide too well. You mustn't be too good at the game. The player must never be bigger than the game itself.
--Jean Baudrillard
Laboratory of FunFriday, October 24, 1997 As I'm writing this, I am listening to "This American Life" on NPR radio. I love this show! So much great writing, and wonderful distinctive voices. Hey, some of the same reasons I like online journals! Alan, if you should read this and want to send me mail, please do it from an address that may be replied to. If you prefer not to get a response, why send the mail?
Tonight I went to Entros with a group from work. The group was mostly people from the PSDG. That stands for "Philosophers' Stone Discussion Group" which was formed by a woman who didn't think the caliber of the discussions in the Singles Discussion pf (public folder, like a newsgroup) was good enough. She felt that a folder where the audience was known would be better. Entros is great! I've been there a few times before, most recently for one of Jane Hawkins' birthday in 1996. It's a restaurant with games, or is it a game place with food? They change the games periodically, so even being there before I wasn't sure what to expect. Tonight I went home from work first, then changed to my new black velour dress. I like it! It's a little shorter than most of my wardrobe, but not too extreme. I got a sense-memory when sitting down in it, back to high school or junior high which may be the last time I was wearing a short skirt. I was suddenly aware of where the hemline was meeting my thighs in back. Entros is a little difficult to get to. I was just a few blocks away, when I ended up in the wrong lane and was forced on to the highway, in a dreaded left-hand merge! I had to drive north over the bridge, and work my way over to an exit and come back over the University Bridge. So instead of being neurotically prompt, I ended up being a few minutes late, which was fine. Our group was very easy to find, since it was still early in the evening and I knew quite a few of them already. Jennifer, who was organizing us, had printed up name tags. We had dinner as a group, which took some negotiation. The family-style prix-fixe meals didn't quite have enough veggie options, and a few meat-eating guys insisted that we needed the flank steak dish. All was resolved, and we wondered if this was meant as the first game of the evening! The food was great! Spaghetti squash with black bean and rice croquettes, lime-chili marinated prawns, bruschetti with roasted peppers and roasted garlic, caesar salad. The games person came by while we were eating and gave us the rundown on what there was to do, and when might be the best time to try each thing. Then came the bill. For some reason, this took an enormous time to figure out, what with one person arriving late and ordering separately, some people buying game passes that were included on the dinner bill, drinks being extra.... But we finally got paid off. We waited to play this game-show type deal, where the contestants are the audience, but didn't get in the first time, so we went off to play with the "Big Toys." This was great! They had a burger assembly line where you stacked up burger-cheese-lettuce-tomato-bun, working against the clock (fake food of course). There was a game that resembled those little roll-the-bb pocket games, except that this was about seven feet wide and took a team hanging on to the outside to tilt the game and roll the ball. The last of the big toys has four people manipulating the ropes that controlled a toy helicopter with a hook, in order to move toys from one island to another. I did the Interface game with a guy who is changing his name from his native Indian name to an English word that he likes. (If you were to change your name, what would you pick?) Interface has one person wearing a mask with a camera attached, and another person sees the camera feed on screen, and controls the mask wearer via microphone. This game is great! and a little easier than the last time I played. This time you just had to accomplish various goals, as many as possible. The last time there was a spy motif, and if your operative stepped in the wrong place, buzzers went off and the game was over! The Blender was the game show thing, which could only take a limited amount of people (like sixty). The host was a very funny woman, who also seemed to be working the other games at various times during the evening. Your team had to figure out the answers to questions from pictures on a large screen at the front, then press the correct buttons. The Broken Line was a treasure hunt, which had teams going all over the place looking for clues and solving puzzles. Fun! At various times during the evening, we won tokens for finishing a puzzle, or winning the game show, or at a host's whim. At the end of the evening I suggested we gather them together and risk them on a spin of the wheel by the front door (you needed six to spin). I got Mike (a test lead on the IE team) to spin the wheel. The host said she'd never seen it go around so many times! And he won! The top prize on the wheel was a fifty dollar gift certificate for a friend, so we decided that Joan was the friend. It will come to her in the mail, then we'll get another group together in January and use it up!
|
