Friday, January 7, 2000

7 January 2000

It's Friday. No one really works on Friday, right?

CK actually spoke four or five consecutive sentences to me this morning! Without my talking to him first! Astonishing. (According to my dad, when CK first started working here, he wouldn't even respond to a friendly "Hello" in the halls. Dad says that getting married and having kids have really improved him. Dad likes this joke, but every time he tells it, I wonder how someone as anti-social as CK apparently was could have met someone and gotten to know them well enough to get married!)


We have to fill out weekly status reports here. Yuck. At least CK doesn't care if we use the actual form or just drop him an e-mail. As I told K.T. earlier, there are certain advantages to recording what you're working on, but having to fill out a report every Friday smacks of micro-management and corporate clusterfuck.

K.T. thought that was very poetic, so I thought I'd share.


Mike Behind The File Cabinet actually spoke to me today! He asked to see my t-shirt (I'm wearing the shirt that says <body> on the front and </body> on the back) and laughed and asked if I had the matching hat (which would presumeably read <head> and </head>). I don't, but it's a neat idea - maybe I'll find out how much it would cost to get one.


Hmm. Lots of short sections. Well, that's been my day so far, anyway - A half-hour to play with the phone system, a little time spent filling in my timesheet and sending off my status report, a little time talking with CK about what he wants me to do next... I haven't actually had time to do more than half an hour's work on programming, but I haven't spent much time goofing off, either. Weird.


The weekend's going to be busy. I'm going shopping tonight for some things I need, now that I'm working here. Tomorrow we're going to meet some friends from out of town who just spontaneously decided to come visit - they're staying with other friends, but want to meet us for lunch or something. Saturday afternoon and evening we're going to my parents' house to have dinner and help them figure out their new computer.

Sunday afternoon K.T. is having a MissMas party. MissMas started as an annual event in my parents' circle of friends. It's something like a White Elephant party - you take something awful and wrap it beautifully and bring it, and there's a game to determine the exchange of the gifts. With MissMas, though, it's a hard-and-fast rule that the thing you bring to exchange had to have been given to you as a gift - it can't just be something old you had around the house and were going to replace or give to goodwill anyway.

The usual game goes like this: You sit in a circle, with all the presents piled in the middle, and the host of the party puts a pair of dice in play, starting with a single winning combination, and the dice pass around the circle from hand to hand. If you roll one of the winning combinations, you get to select any present in the circle - including presents held by other players. As the game continues, the host gradually adds additional pairs of dice and additional winning combinations. (Winning combinations start with traditional things like 7, 11, snake-eyes, doubles, etc.) By the end of the game, almost every dice throw is a winner, and people have begun to fight over the most attractive or intriguing presents. This usually takes several hours, with a break in the middle for people to stretch and snack and such. At a pre-determined time, the game is stopped, and everyone holding more than one present chooses one present to keep and puts the rest back in the center. Then the game starts back up, with the additional rule that if you have a present in front of you, then you're not allowed to roll the dice. This game is obviously much shorter, and ends once everyone has a present. And then, going around the circle one final time, everyone opens their presents. MissMas rules state that if the present can be used, demonstrated, or worn, it must be. (It doesn't necessarily have to be used, demonstrated, or worn in its intended fashion, however. Many an awful piece of lingerie has been displayed as a belt or hat.)

I was chatting with K.T. about the party a bit ago, and it occured to me that since something like 80% of the people coming to her party are gamers, we could add a gaming twist - throw in a 20-sided die to each set of dice as a sort of wild die: If you roll a 20, you get to pick two presents, and if you roll a 1 (on the 20-sider, not on the 6s) you'd have to put all your presents back in the middle. I think I'm getting carried away.


I forget - did I ever mention that the pictures from the New Year's party were up?

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