Shortlog - a log of everyday things

2011-03-20

Wow, awesome party was awesome.

Andy had some folks over for a St. Patrick's Day (observed) party. We totalled 8 - Andy and his girlfriend Kim, Kim's friend Judy, housemate Rachel, former BiD student Seth, and I drove myself, Wes, and Kim from the BiD lab (same name, different person). We had TONS of corned beef, cabbage, and carrots, with Guinness Extra Stout. I baked a tasty loaf of bread, and Wes made soda bread. There was much food and drink and merriment.

I also had passed Games of Berkeley on my way to the FedEx shipping center this morning (mailing back signed forms for my summer internship), and decided I would find Pandemic, a board game that I played with Nick and Eric over winter break and rather enjoyed (though I neglected to mention it in the relevant blog entry). So Andy, Wes, Judy, and I played Pandemic. I forgot the win condition, though, and thought that although we had collected all four cures, we had to eradicate all the diseases as well, so at the time, we kept playing until we ran out of cards, seemingly clutching defeat from the jaws of victory. It wasn't until after the fact that I realized we had actually won. I had fun, either way, and want to play that game more often.

The group also played a bit of Dance Central with Andy's Xbox360 and Kinect. It turns out I do know someone in town with both pieces! It also turns out that Judy is delightfully nerdy, has been following the OpenKinect project, and has been super excited about it! Suffice it to say that her reaction was priceless when I shared that I'm one of the devs on the project. :) It was really neat to randomly meet someone who was familiar with and appreciated my work. I hope we get a chance to meet again - she seemed like a pretty cool friend to have. As a bonus, Andy let me confirm my suspicions about the Kinect audio calibration routine by letting me run it and listen to his speakers, so I can say for certain that I have the audio channels labelled correctly now. Who says you can't have a party and make project progress at the same time! :D

I also wound up teaching Andy's Kim how to French braid hair - Kim has really long, thin, straight blonde hair that braids very nicely. Judy has layered hair and bangs that made it more difficult for me to demonstrate on, but her braid turned out decently too.

Then we played through New Super Mario Bros Wii. I picked up the controller somewhere in World 2, and we played through to the end of the game, which took until shortly after 3am. Practically the entire time was filled with laughter, which is an excellent way for a party to turn out. Fun activities, interesting people, delicious food, and laughter. What a great way to start Spring Break!

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