(no subject)

[vyvyanx]

A few things have happened of particular note recently. Last weekend G and I were at Conjuration, a role-playing convention at New Hall. G was there primarily to man the Games and Puzzles stall in the (very quiet) Dealers' Room; I was there to help on the Real Ale bar (as requested earlier this year by Paul Treadaway, who was in charge of the bar). I suppose I had imagined it might be the same sort of deal as working at a beer festival i.e. unpaid, but with perks like cheap/free beer and lunch. Alas, no; I worked till the early hours, and opened up the bar before 11am, and still had to pay for drinks et al. full price. In fact the weekend was rather more expensive than most weekends.

Still, though it was hard and mostly thankless work, I had a good time talking to various people I don't see so much these days: PT, obviously (who is a much more congenial chap than he used to be, and makes me feel like a newcomer to Cambridge, since he came up in the 80s, and was always one of the Old Guard when I used to go to those parties in Scotland Road); damerell, who is always good to talk to; dreamingchristi (who admittedly I do still see quite frequently, but who was arrayed in a series of delightful costumes over the weekend); and DC, my ex from 1995, brother of Silver (known to alixandrea), who is now line editor for Ars Magica, and about to head off to Japan for a few years. With him I had a very long chat about the difficulty of getting academic jobs in our fields, the difficulty of getting non-academic jobs we're ridiculously over-qualified for, the difficulty of getting benefit, the difficulty of finding somewhere cheap to live in Cambridge, and hence the difficulty of making ends meet.

Another fun thing I did at Conjuration was to see (most of) Gamers, a quite hilarious film which I'd recommend to anyone who has ever role-played even a little bit.

Last night involved even more gaming goodness, as I participated in robinbloke's Paranoia game at the Wednesday night games evening at the shop. It was a hilarious game, involving much messy killing and wounding, explosive cheese balls, anaesthetic doughnuts, a Hoop of Death, and a herd of mutant telepathic cows, for whom my character became the New Messiah. Many thanks to R for running such a thoroughly fun game.

In other news, it's rather hot. But I guess you all noticed.

Comments

[surje.livejournal.com]

the film i was thinking of was Mazes and Monsters (http://uk.imdb.com/Title?0084314) which was Tom Hanks third film!