Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Munchkin Land

We went to play games with some other couples at a friend’s house today.  Both The Guru and I love games.  He’s more into arcade and video games than I, but we both enjoy games, whether card games, board games, or video games.  I even used to skip class in college to stay and play Spades with other Honor’s students.  *shhh*

At the beginning of the day everything was running pretty smoothly.  We played a couple new games including Pirate Fluxx, Saboteur, and Werewolf.  We also recently acquired Munchkin, some expansions, and some variants (Superhero, Space, etc.) for a pittance and wanted to try it out since we haven’t played that before.  One guy had played a lot of these games and helped explain the rules to us newbies.

We laughed.  We ate junk food.  We joked.  Then I started to notice rules guy was turning into a complete tool.  We’re pretty casual players and we engage in a lot of side talk, taunts, and general ribbing while gaming.  No way was this guy into that.

When it finally came time for some of us to learn to play Munchkin, including the person hosting this event at their home, things went down hill fast.  First, Mr. Grumpy Pants didn’t seem to want to play at all.  Second, Mr. Grumpy Pants seemed particularly grumpy that I was attempting to twist the rules to my advantage (which I was told was the way you play the game).  Or at least, Mr. Grumps was fine with rule twisting in HIS favor.  It all came to a head when I started to play a card then changed my mind and Hubs and our host both played something instead.

This guy had to try to tell my husband off for my misplay that he apparently was “taking advantage of”.  BTW, this was close to when Jerk-Face was going to win.  Umm, chill out dude, we’re still learning how to play.  When Hubs basically told him to back off (and so did the host) he then had to try and school Hubs as to how he wasn’t paying attention when the rules were being explained.  I’m proud to say that Hubs didn’t back down, and I controlled my – what normally would have been – extremely vicious reaction and took the higher road.

The game broke up after that and Mr. Sore Sport and posse left.  We stayed and talked to the host.  I demanded he not invite the jerk back to game night again to which he agreed.  I can see that Munchkin would be a fun game with a friendly group, but today as a poor introduction to Munchkin Land.

 

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Link up your post below.
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Scared Shitless

A year into playing hookie from a job with a decent salary, vacation time, and health benefits and I’m scared out of my wits.

Some people, like internet music superstar, Jonathan Coulton, can take a year off and turn straw into gold.  Others like me, take that year and mostly squander it away in a drunken, drug-induced haze.  Hrrmm…okay…that DID NOT happen…however when I am a rock star/brain surgeon/samurai it will.

Team Banzai!

Jeff Goldblum is DEAD sexy.

Alright, alright, I haven’t completely squandered the last year.  I have accomplished some cool things.  Even more importantly I’ve learned.

Learned things like I value my freedom and loathe working the 9-5 cubicle type job.  I enjoy being in charge and leading a team.  I don’t tolerate carelessness or stupidity.  I’m a hard-ass but I succeed in getting my underlings to learn along the way.  The underlings like me.

I’ve done way too little acting and singing and painting (despite my Painting of the Month project…YIKES!).  I’ve done a lot of crying, a lot of fighting, a lot of being depressed.  I’ve hidden myself from myself and those who love me best.

Sticking my neck out even further by putting on a HUGE hobby show makes me freak out even more.   A show that if it flops will leave me up debt creek without any extra dollars.

Only two weeks away and I’m dreaming about the show, eating, sleeping and breathing this damned show.  But in the end it IS going to work out.  It has to.  How do I know?  ‘Cause if you’re scared shitless you must be doing it right.

The Meeting Planning Maze

One thing I’ve discovered in the last few hectic, crazy months: event planning is NOT easy!

I’m planning and organizing a show in the Orlando area for arcade, pinball and gaming.

Starting off this adventure I made the discovery that not only do meeting/event planners speak a foreign language they also have their own secret society of service providers.

For example, that space where you have cocktails and hors d’oeuvres before an event?  It’s called “pre-function” space.

Wow. 

PRE. FUNCTION.

As in – before the function. 

SO-ooooo clever.

However, I learned the hard way that you will not be taken seriously if you don’t know the language.

Employ Babel Fish if needed

Another example – who knew that meeting rooms don’t come wired for electricity?  That’s right.  Don’t try walking into a meeting room and plugging stuff in.  The circuits in there don’t power much more than a hair dryer.

Instead the true circuits are installed AND un-installed after each customer.

As this “service” is provided by a third-party and not the hotel I see it as an ingenious monopoly designed to suck as much money out of customers as possible (coff coff….rip…coff…coff…off).  This opinion may be what caused the electric company representative I was speaking with to declare “I was too difficult to deal with” and hang up.

Difficult?!  DIFFICULT!! **takes 10 calming breaths**

Breathe in, count to three, breathe out

 

Another example – Interacting with many of the hotel sales staff was akin to dealing with the Keystone Cops.  Some still haven’t answered my emails or calls from months ago, despite clearly asking me on my request for proposal the cutoff date for booking the event.   What an odd and disappointing response from a team of sales “professionals”.

Despite the learning curve, drama, monopolies, hang ups, haggling of prices and slow response, I successfully booked the event!

If you build it, they will come!

I even managed to wrangle the price of electric (a critical part of the event) to a reasonable (if still fairly high) rate.

I’m excited and nervous about the event.  Will people attend?  Will they like it?

I don’t really subscribe to the Field of Dreams theory of event planning so I have been plugging this shamelessly on Facebook, through email, ads, twitter and everything else I can think of.

Readers – check out the show website at www.gamewarp.org.  Spread the word!  More importantly, attend if you’re in the area.

See you at the show!

http://www.Facebook.com/GameWarpShow

Twitter@GameWarpShow

RSVP for the Event at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179716948749468