And, work being successful, I left earlyish and then went to geek pizza, which was very jolly. I was kind of hyper by the end of the evening though, though that may seem normal to everyone else, I'm not sure. At any rate, apologies to everyone I mispronounced the name of (I'm looking at you here, Schneier).
Post-pizza was very jolly.
* We played post-it game, where each person has a post-it on their forehead written by someone else, and has to ask yes-or-no questions (without semicolons in) to determine who they are.
I was the Archbishop of Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay), courtesy Tom. This in fact turned out pretty well, given that you can work it out. Better than, eg. "February" for guessing :) Although at the time I complained bitterly at being expected to know the capitals of all South American countries, and guessing someone no-one knew whether he was fictional or not.
OTOH, Tom was entirely right. There are no non-catholic south-American Archbishops, and most of the largest cities do have an Archbishop. And there are *some* Wikipedia mentions, though no page, to the person.
A widely circulated rumour had it that Brown had embarrassed himself while drunk at an official reception in South America. Brown was said to have lumbered over to a tall, elegant vision in red, and requested the honour of the next dance, to be told "I will not dance with you for three reasons. The first is that you are drunk. The second is that the band is not playing a waltz, but the Peruvian national anthem. The final reason is that I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Montevideo". However, checks that have been done on whether this could be a true story have not substantiated it.
* Iain and other people took many photos. Some of me, which made me embarrassed for a while, as I often don't like photos of me. Not that I object to on principle, although I have got into the habit of hiding, a lot I just don't like looking at because they don't look good. And they offered some nice advice on how to smile and be a subject :)
* We played bridge for another mumble four hours... I partnered Naath again, and again we got a lot of the cards, and some errors, but on the whole I definitely feel experience taking root :)
* I swear, staying up till four playing bridge can be just as bad for a hangover as drinking till four :) I guess it's a combination of concentrating hard, being jazzed and not sleeping, and not drinking enough water.
* We played post-it game, where each person has a post-it on their forehead written by someone else, and has to ask yes-or-no questions (without semicolons in) to determine who they are.
I was the Archbishop of Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay), courtesy Tom. This in fact turned out pretty well, given that you can work it out. Better than, eg. "February" for guessing :) Although at the time I complained bitterly at being expected to know the capitals of all South American countries, and guessing someone no-one knew whether he was fictional or not.
OTOH, Tom was entirely right. There are no non-catholic south-American Archbishops, and most of the largest cities do have an Archbishop. And there are *some* Wikipedia mentions, though no page, to the person.
A widely circulated rumour had it that Brown had embarrassed himself while drunk at an official reception in South America. Brown was said to have lumbered over to a tall, elegant vision in red, and requested the honour of the next dance, to be told "I will not dance with you for three reasons. The first is that you are drunk. The second is that the band is not playing a waltz, but the Peruvian national anthem. The final reason is that I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Montevideo". However, checks that have been done on whether this could be a true story have not substantiated it.
* Iain and other people took many photos. Some of me, which made me embarrassed for a while, as I often don't like photos of me. Not that I object to on principle, although I have got into the habit of hiding, a lot I just don't like looking at because they don't look good. And they offered some nice advice on how to smile and be a subject :)
* We played bridge for another mumble four hours... I partnered Naath again, and again we got a lot of the cards, and some errors, but on the whole I definitely feel experience taking root :)
* I swear, staying up till four playing bridge can be just as bad for a hangover as drinking till four :) I guess it's a combination of concentrating hard, being jazzed and not sleeping, and not drinking enough water.
Geek Pizza 6 November
Nov. 13th, 2006 05:46 pmAnd now, a few events from last week which were fun and didn't quite make it to the diary. At geek pizza:
* A few people were away, so it was quiet, but then because really quite jolly.
* I knew a fact about music!
* We exchanged anecdotes of Most Stupid Bridge Bidding Systems (TM). Where stupid means informational theory best.
* Simon really must stop caching "Most offensive things Jack says"! :)
* Wehit ouselves with spiky rods played anagram/word games. OK, it was pretty funny, I'm just a lot better at cheating ("What do you mean, apostrophe-umlaut doesn't count?") than thinking (oh! the letter isn't pronounced like that!), so normally I'd prefer anything else (mmm, spikes).
* I disagreed with someone and nearly, but not quite, resisted looking up the answer on the internet the next day :)
* A few people were away, so it was quiet, but then because really quite jolly.
* I knew a fact about music!
* We exchanged anecdotes of Most Stupid Bridge Bidding Systems (TM). Where stupid means informational theory best.
* Simon really must stop caching "Most offensive things Jack says"! :)
* We
* I disagreed with someone and nearly, but not quite, resisted looking up the answer on the internet the next day :)
They changed the menu at Pizza Express. They had a wide variety of intense mushroom consisting dishes, which we all ordered piles of and surrounded senji mwahahaing.
We visited Fivemack (thank you!) to taste eastern european wines of interesting quality.
We played bridge again. I enjoyed it, though would let the other players say whether they did or not :) I wouldn't say I played well, per se, but I think reasonably confidently, and with some idea of what was where. Of course, we played four hands and no-one scored any positive points at all (hey, the four-nil trump split wasn't my idea. Bidding the other hand up, I'll take the blame for), so it was fun, and I will try again again.
We visited Fivemack (thank you!) to taste eastern european wines of interesting quality.
We played bridge again. I enjoyed it, though would let the other players say whether they did or not :) I wouldn't say I played well, per se, but I think reasonably confidently, and with some idea of what was where. Of course, we played four hands and no-one scored any positive points at all (hey, the four-nil trump split wasn't my idea. Bidding the other hand up, I'll take the blame for), so it was fun, and I will try again again.