On monday I went to geek pizza. The was only a couple of us, but it was fun. We nearly had a GGD in the midst of a html-email debate in the midst of an lj-debate in the midst of an actually interesting debate about what would be a good compromise between lj and news, but managed to claw it back.
Then we played games. First "no merci" or "no mercy" -- I can't remember, both make sense -- a nicely elegant game that's apparently in some sense Sebby's fault. You have a stack of cards numbered from 3-35 with nine of them removed. You have 11 counters each. The cards are bad, and the counters are good. You turn one card up and have a dollar auction type thing to see who gets it: in turn every player either pays a counter, or takes the card and all the accumulated counters. At the end your penalty is (sum of cards)-(counters left)
The twist is that if you have consecutive cards, only the weest counts, so if you have 18, you can pick up 19 for free, and if you have 19, you'd benefit by taking 18. And if no-one else wants it, you might be able to make them all pay a counter first as well.
It was interesting, because it was a slightly more poker-style human-interaction thing than normal. You have to adjust your play to the meta-game, resist the temptation to play vindictively, and make bluffs and threats. This caused some tension, when one person's non-optimum play affects others.
Then we moved on to a hearts variant which was very definitely simon's fault, and was quite fun though I normally don't like hearts. I didn't do very well -- I'm bad at remembering cards played -- but wasn't embarassed, and did in fact beat Colin.
I drank a very large amount of port, possibly because I was feeling quite relaxed, but got home safely. Thanks to people who suggested I might like to drink some juice or water as well, and to push my cycle for a bit.
On tuesday I went to cts reading evening. I nearly skipped it -- readings are not quite my favorite -- but it was fun. No Jeremy, but Emma still came after the foreyule feast :) I must advertise the society at the start of next term. And remember who I haven't seen for ages: Tim, for instance. And some freshers. And Pip, even.
I cheekily read some of Pip's fanfic, which went down quite well.