hey look at this thing i made: -XX

I was cleaning up my apartment the other day and it occurred to me that I have a lot of tools. In fact at first glance it appeared that the amount of tools I had were wayyyyy out of proportion to the amount of things that I make. I started putting thought to what things I had made in the past, long before this blog. I ended up deciding to do a series of retro posts. First up is one of my ten favorite things I ever made. It was a collaboration with the illusive El Fuego. We (or at least I) needed a wedding gift for our good friends, the crintocks, wedding. I was on AIM constantly back then and since I have Trillian set up to log all conversations I knew that the conversations that birthed this project would be around.

My intention was to simply use the parts of the conversation that directly talked about this, but reading through them I realized something. It's pretty rare that I think about myself, which is to say that I don't consider the image that I present to the world, or how I might be different from other people. By that same token, I don't consider how my friendships and the interactions therein might be different from those of other people. These things seem to be more clear in retrospect though, so when I read through these logs my reaction was, "is this really how we talk?" Of course I was laughing most of the time, they're kind of ridiculous. I decided I would just include all the conversations unedited and add commentary.

Session Start (son0fireland:mono del agua 84): Tue Apr 11 23:13:03 2006

[23:13] Son 0f Ireland: so then i looked it up

[23:13] Son 0f Ireland: and matt/tawnees wedding is the 6th

[23:13] mono del agua 84: ya know what, i just dont care anymore

[23:14] mono del agua 84: as far as i can tell the entire month of may will just merge into one long unending shitty day, and then ill get drunk for a week and call it a day

[23:14] Son 0f Ireland: haha beautiful

I tend to get my catchphrases more from Donny than anyone else. I assume it's due to the same trait that makes him an excellent car salesman. I can distinctly recall him saying beautiful a lot, subsequently I did too.

[23:15] mono del agua 84: ya, ive got matts wedding, my sisters two graduations, my sisters moving, the end of my school for tests/papers/finals, my graduation, some form of graduation party/parties, and a need to look for a job that i can quit 2 months later all during may

[23:16] mono del agua 84: so thats just gonna be one crappy day that will require some heavy drinkin to get through

[23:16] Son 0f Ireland: she has 2 graduations!?

[23:16] mono del agua 84: well, technically its her gradutaion and then ill go to her boyfriends graduation most likely also

[23:16] Son 0f Ireland: oh yea, rodrigo right?

[23:16] mono del agua 84: it seems pretty likely theyll end up engaged at some point

[23:16] mono del agua 84: rodrigo?

[23:17] Son 0f Ireland: isn't that her boyfriend?

[23:17] mono del agua 84: danny

[23:17] Son 0f Ireland: definitly not rodrigo?

[23:17] mono del agua 84: not so far as i know

[23:17] mono del agua 84: unless she has a rodrigo on the side, which isnt entirely unlikely

I was 100% sure her boyfriend's name was Rodrigo. In retrospect I don't recall having any reason for thinking that. I assume at some point, since I didn't know anything about her boyfriend, I just invented a person in my head, who was named Rodrigo (presumably he was a bandit, see below).

[23:17] Son 0f Ireland: what was he, +1/+1 for each farm?

[23:17] Son 0f Ireland: was he an ashigaru bandit

[23:18] mono del agua 84: honestly i dont remember what he did

[23:18] Son 0f Ireland: i'm on it!@

[23:18] mono del agua 84: he was a bandit i think, i remember cornejo was the explosives master

[23:18] Son 0f Ireland: 1/2

[23:18] Son 0f Ireland: -/3/1

[23:18] Son 0f Ireland: unaligneed bandit leader, gets +2/_1 while attacking for each merchant caravan controlled by the defender

[23:19] mono del agua 84: nice

[23:19] Son 0f Ireland: so they got like, 10 mercahnt caravans out

[23:19] Son 0f Ireland: he's like 21/12

[23:19] Son 0f Ireland: for 3 gold

[23:19] Son 0f Ireland: broken

[23:19] Son 0f Ireland: first turn

[23:19] mono del agua 84: no doubt

[23:20] mono del agua 84: the infamous first turn rodrigo and 3x merchant caravan, then u gift of fealty for holdings all the caravans to them and bone em

[23:20] Son 0f Ireland: noice

[23:20] mono del agua 84: man i wish there was a gift of fealty for holdings, this combo would be broken

[23:21] Son 0f Ireland: you could do the infamous, slide em across the table

[23:21] mono del agua 84: thats true

[23:21] mono del agua 84: the patented "hey look over there" maneiver

[23:24] Son 0f Ireland: heh

I'm going on record right now as saying legend of the five rings is a terrible game. There are any number of card games that are better designed, better supported and well, just better. But L5R is the game we played. Not just me and El Fuego, but our whole circle of friends. Without L5R I don't have the friends I have today. Shit, without L5R, I'm not writing this. That was the arena where I met crintock. It was during battles on card tables that the bonds were formed that would one day lead me to to pitch the following idea:

[23:28] Son 0f Ireland: so uh, you wanna go in on a plate as a wedding gift for matt and tawnee?

[23:29] mono del agua 84: possibly, i havent actually bothered to check into anything for that

[23:29] Son 0f Ireland: i figure we buy 1 plate and get inscired " i hate you so much crintok"

[23:29] mono del agua 84: hehehe, im in

[23:29] mono del agua 84: that might be the greatest gift of all time

[23:29] Son 0f Ireland: haha, i think we have to do it now

[23:30] mono del agua 84: we are, in fact, in too deep

Do I have any idea what compelled me to suggest that? No. It's interesting. If you were to read transcripts of conversations held amongst this group of friends, ignoring tone, ignoring context, you would probably be at a loss as to why we were friends. It would be wrong to say that it's a term of endearment, but, it speaks to *something* that we wanted to make this sentiment platterized (platterized is a word godamnit).

[23:30] Son 0f Ireland: haha

[23:30] Son 0f Ireland: remember sinbad jewlers?

[23:30] mono del agua 84: ahahahaha

[23:31] mono del agua 84: vandalizing that sign, thats classic

[23:31] Son 0f Ireland: total classic

Sinbad jewlers. Huh. So. Remember the show monster house? No? Well, in the intro there was this cg neon sign that said something like "damon stern's house" and then the da and the n's burned out and it said monster house. That was essentially the concept behind Sinbad jewelers. The sin and the elers would get vandalized so the sign would say "bad jew." If I recall correctly (and I like to think I do) this came about after we had been discussing free speech in social studies, specifically "fighting words." The idea was, if sinbad jewelers existed and their sign was vandalized as such, would they be forced to pay to have it repaired? What if the repairs would cost $10,000? What if that would bankrupt them (sinbad was not a very good jeweler)? This is pretty much exactly what I mean when I say it doesn't occur to me how the conversations me and my friends have might not be normal.

[23:32] mono del agua 84: man, based on these random posts on the l5r board i can only assume that its on

[23:32] Son 0f Ireland: oh yea?

[23:32] mono del agua 84: alright so j random dude wins a kotei right

[23:33] mono del agua 84: and then on the boards the guys friend and some opponent the guy knocked out in top 16 have gone into verbal bitch slap mode

[23:33] Son 0f Ireland: ahaha

[23:33] mono del agua 84: its actually pretty funny but it makes very little sense, in various disjointed posts these guys are just totally rippin into each other

[23:34] Son 0f Ireland: oh flame wars

[23:34] Son 0f Ireland: like old skool decktech days

[23:34] mono del agua 84: hehe, exactly

Decktech was (and still is) a website where you could post Star Wars CCG (another game, in the vein of L5R) decks. In addition there was a forum. Now, flame wars are a natural side effect of any place on the internet where people can convene, Decktech, however, had a twist. Typically in any sort of forum you're required to sign in and are thus liable for one specific screen name. On Decktech, however, you could post under any name. So, if I wanted to post as gsiva (I think was snyder's name) and say a close friend of his was dumb, I could. It was the lowest of the low.

[23:40] Son 0f Ireland: so anyway

[23:40] Son 0f Ireland: i sure do hate you

[23:41] mono del agua 84: no doubt

[23:41] mono del agua 84: although i have to say my hatred of u is slightly reduced after the awesome engraved plate plan

Again, if someone were to quote you that passage, you would be inclined to assume we pretty actively disliked each other right?

[23:41] Son 0f Ireland: haha, it is phenomenal, where does one get a plate engraved?

[23:41] mono del agua 84: but the sheer overwhelming amount of hate i had to begin with means the change is pretty much nonexistant

[23:42] mono del agua 84: i have absolutely no idea

[23:42] Son 0f Ireland: haha

[23:42] mono del agua 84: is it at least a metal plate of some sort so that this plan could work

[23:42] Son 0f Ireland: that's thinking with your ass!

Gratuitous Futurama quote.

[23:42] mono del agua 84: cause engraving china seems like a bad idea

[23:43] Son 0f Ireland: a metal platter'd be easy enough, goto the jewler

[23:43] mono del agua 84: hehe, i gotta say i actually cant stop laughing right now

[23:43] mono del agua 84: the plate is just that funny to me and im not sure why

[23:43] Son 0f Ireland: haha

[23:44] mono del agua 84: frankly im not sure we are capable of goin with a different plan now

[23:44] mono del agua 84: this one is just too funny, and for us funny trumps everything else for some reason

[23:45] Son 0f Ireland: indeed

[23:59] Son 0f Ireland: aight, i'm going ot the gas station, peace

[23:59] mono del agua 84: later

[23:59] *** Auto-response sent to mono del agua 84: and at the end of the day, all you can do is pray, without hope you might as well be blind

[00:05] *** "mono del agua 84" signed off at Wed Apr 12 00:05:54 2006.

Session Close (mono del agua 84): Wed Apr 12 00:18:45 2006

I'm not sure I had any reason to think that we could get a platter engraved at the jeweler, but it stood to reason right? Also, that quote at the end is from a Flogging Molly song, just fyi.

Session Start (son0fireland:mono del agua 84): Mon Apr 17 17:31:28 2006

[17:31] Son 0f Ireland: anyway, i'ma need like 300 bucks, chu got on that?

[17:31] mono del agua 84: pretty much nothin

[17:31] mono del agua 84: y do u need 300?

[17:32] Son 0f Ireland: we found this badass fucking apartment for the summer right, but i'd have to pay 600 up front

[17:32] mono del agua 84: well, i guess its time for the infamous sexual favors maneuver then

[17:33] Son 0f Ireland: ahaha

omfg that was a sweet apartment. Apparently sexual favors was our goto source of making money.

[17:37] Son 0f Ireland: so your boy

[17:37] Son 0f Ireland: rudy gay

[17:37] Son 0f Ireland: declared for the draft

[17:37] Son 0f Ireland: thoughts?

[17:37] mono del agua 84: not happy about this i gotta say

[17:37] mono del agua 84: clearly unless u are in high school and have uber hype there is just no point

[17:42] Son 0f Ireland: haha

[17:43] Son 0f Ireland: but no high schoolers are getting drafted this year

Years of watching PTI made it so that anytime I talk to El Fuego about sports I refer to any person as your boy and any team as your boys. El Fuego has been forced into the tragic role of hearing me talk about any sports topic that currently piques my interest.

[17:43] Son 0f Ireland: so you should dig around your basement and try and find a silver platter

[17:43] Son 0f Ireland: i'll do likewise

[17:43] mono del agua 84: hehe

[17:44] mono del agua 84: honestly i think there might be a box of really awful plates/platters downstairs somewhere

[17:44] Son 0f Ireland: you do have a lot of stff in the room of hell

[17:44] mono del agua 84: they were my sisters but then she got better flatware and i think we could still have those

[17:44] mono del agua 84: anyway though, im gonna go eat dinner, ill check on that sometime and let u know

[17:44] mono del agua 84: later man

[17:45] *** "mono del agua 84" signed off at Mon Apr 17 17:45:01 2006.

Session Close (mono del agua 84): Mon Apr 17 17:45:08 2006

As much as I wanted to do this platter thing, I pretty actively did not want to buy a platter, hence trying to get one for free. El Fuego had, in his basement, a room that was packed to the brim of random boxes, it was staggering how jam packed this room was, hence room of hell.

Session Start (son0fireland:mono del agua 84): Tue Apr 18 22:56:23 2006

[22:56] Son 0f Ireland: so i ask you for 200 dollars yet?

[22:56] mono del agua 84: it was 300 last time actually

[22:56] Son 0f Ireland: haha, well it's down to 200

[22:56] mono del agua 84: but the answer remains no

[22:57] Son 0f Ireland: damnit

[23:00] Son 0f Ireland: you got a suit for the wedding yet?

[23:00] mono del agua 84: well seeing as how im only goin to the reception, cant say as i do

[23:01] mono del agua 84: however, if i were to go to the wedding i certainly wouldnt be wearin a suit

[23:01] mono del agua 84: just 8 or 9 suit jackets

[23:01] Son 0f Ireland: haha beautiful

There's beautiful again. So the suit jacket thing. Hmm. Well, you know how Tiger Woods won the masters a lot? I once pitched to El Fuego the question, "do you think Tiger Woods ever just puts all his masters jacketrs on at once?" Of course we ran with that and it is to this day the default response of his when asked about putting on a suit.

[23:03] mono del agua 84: so apparently we have restarted rings at though and a deck buildin frenzy has begun

[23:03] Son 0f Ireland: noice

It's important to note, about L5R, that after our initial phase, we have stopped and started playing no fewer than five times.

[23:03] mono del agua 84: and man is the new crane funny

[23:04] mono del agua 84: they have 2 non unique guys from the last set that are 3/3 with no ability if u just buy them, but they can be overlayed onto any personality with the harrier trait and then they get broken

[23:06] Son 0f Ireland: noice

[23:10] Son 0f Ireland: so you wanna goto meijier

[23:10] mono del agua 84: not really

[23:11] Son 0f Ireland: i'm scared if i go by myself the meijier demons will get me

Meijier demons, wtf was I talking about?

[23:11] mono del agua 84: and they will

[23:11] mono del agua 84: but at this point i think death is layin in wait for us, so he prolly wont let the meijer get u

[23:11] Son 0f Ireland: haha, sweet

[23:11] mono del agua 84: more likely a couch or somethin will fall out of the sky and land on u

[23:12] mono del agua 84: cause death is a bastard like that

[23:13] mono del agua 84: well anyway, looks like im outta here

[23:13] mono del agua 84: ill talk to ya later man

[23:13] Son 0f Ireland: peace son

[23:14] *** "mono del agua 84" signed off at Tue Apr 18 23:14:01 2006.

Session Close (mono del agua 84): Tue Apr 18 23:14:03 2006

So me, El Fuego, crintock and mista spaaaaakle were once in a car crash. It was kind of impressive that no one was hurt. Of course this meant that death was out to get us. I have no idea where the couch thing came from, I think I wasn't part of that conversation.

UPDATE: El Fuego writes in:

So the thing with death killing us with a couch was from a roadtrip, i think to chicago. Crintock might have been driving at the time, but anyway there was a chair int he middle of the highway lane we had to swerve to avoid. So the joke was that death would have to escalate, and the next logical step up was a couch.

See, that makes perfect sense.

Session Start (son0fireland:mono del agua 84): Wed Apr 19 22:14:58 2006

[22:15] Son 0f Ireland: SUIT UP

[22:15] mono del agua 84: INDEED

How I Met Your Mother was a fixture in my life back then, which isn't to say it's not now, but I was more prone to quoting it at random back then.

[22:15] mono del agua 84: so apparently rings felt that feenix was suckin it up too much lately, so they get these really busted cards next set to make up for it

[22:16] Son 0f Ireland: haha, clasic rings st yle

[22:16] mono del agua 84: no doubt

[22:16] mono del agua 84: seriously though listed to some of these

[22:17] mono del agua 84: theres a non-unique 2/3 for 6 which is a shugenja and cavalry, and as a reaction after a spell, kiho or ranged attack targets one of your cards you can bow and destroy her or one of her spells to negate the actions effect

[22:17] Son 0f Ireland: ...

[22:18] mono del agua 84: theres also a non-unique 3/4 for 7 shugenja who has the battle action, target a number of cards up to her chi, straighten them

[22:19] mono del agua 84: and there is a non-unique 2/4 for 8 shugenja who has the reaction: before one of your feenix people is destroyed by an effect remove him from the game to negate the destruction, this can be done while hes dead

[22:20] mono del agua 84: now if feenix had military besides the elemental dragons this would all be even more broken granted

[22:20] mono del agua 84: but now u can make an elemental dragons military deck and slap all your control spells and shit onto one of your feenix mopes and they will never, ever die

[22:23] Son 0f Ireland: damn

[22:23] Son 0f Ireland: that seems kinda, what's the word im' looking for

[22:23] Son 0f Ireland: good

[22:24] mono del agua 84: thats all im sayin

[22:24] mono del agua 84: or u can always go with the super pissed kuros fire unit of doom military deck

[22:24] mono del agua 84: then that one guy wont die unless they can bow/kill him like 15 times in a turn

[22:25] Son 0f Ireland: haha

[22:30] Son 0f Ireland: so, i got another soccer team coming up, you coaching?

[22:31] mono del agua 84: if by coachin u mean bein listed as coach but not actually bein affliated in any way

[22:31] mono del agua 84: then yes, yes i am

[22:31] mono del agua 84: who the hell is even around to be on a team anymore though

I organized a series of indoor soccer teams and the entry form required that you list a coach. So I listed El Fuego. He never showed up, but they called him for some reason on at least one occasion.

[22:31] Son 0f Ireland: haha, well it's not my team

[22:31] Son 0f Ireland: it's the jim boyer party possee

[22:31] Son 0f Ireland: tho susan brumbaugh is making an appearance

[22:32] mono del agua 84: didnt know she was even still here

[22:32] mono del agua 84: so she was one of the few who went to isu and actually stayed there

[22:32] Son 0f Ireland: haha indeed

[22:32] Son 0f Ireland: she was in spain last semester

[22:32] mono del agua 84: hehe

[22:33] mono del agua 84: so in a wild change of topic though did u want to go to a kotei this year with us or are u just done with rings

I was done with rings.

[22:33] Son 0f Ireland: if someone makes me a deck, and i can get the day off, then i am completly down

I'm also like ship.

[22:34] mono del agua 84: hehe, well i think we will have a lot of decks built, i have 3 put together right now

[22:34] Son 0f Ireland: i just need to know like 2 weeks in advance

[22:34] mono del agua 84: although they started fuckin with the rules some so we'd have to go through that at some point

[22:34] Son 0f Ireland: heh

[22:34] Son 0f Ireland: werd

[22:34] mono del agua 84: may 20th i think is the one in chicago that we are plannin on goin to

[22:35] Son 0f Ireland: boy i'm asking for like 50 days off in may, hope they don't get pissed

[22:35] mono del agua 84: hehe

[22:35] mono del agua 84: well if i had a job right now id basically have to ask off from may 5th forward

[22:35] Son 0f Ireland: heh

[22:35] Son 0f Ireland: i'm shocked you're actually going to your graduation

He wasn't high up on that sort of thing.

[22:35] mono del agua 84: fuck that, im not goin to my own

[22:36] Son 0f Ireland: haha, good, scared me for a sec

[22:36] mono del agua 84: matt and tawneys wedding is that weekend and then the next week is finals/helpin my sister move, then that weekend is her graduation, followed by some sort of graduation party thing for the two of us, then a kotei

[22:37] mono del agua 84: at least i think thats the order, kotei may be the weekend before crappy graduation party weekend, i dont remember

[22:39] mono del agua 84: alright anyway though, im jumpin off for a while

[22:39] mono del agua 84: later

[22:39] *** "mono del agua 84" signed off at Wed Apr 19 22:39:19 2006.

Session Close (mono del agua 84): Wed Apr 19 22:39:21 2006

Session Start (son0fireland:mono del agua 84): Thu Apr 20 17:34:05 2006

[17:34] mono del agua 84: its go time

[17:34] *** Auto-response sent to mono del agua 84: don't worry be happy was a number one jam, damn, if i say it you can slap me right here

Elvis

Was a hero to most but

Elvis

Was a hero to most but

Elvis

Was a hero to most but he never meant shit me you see straight out racist that sucker was simple and plain (motherfuck him AND John wayne).

Did you know that before being a national disgrace Flava Flav was part of the most important political rap group ever? Normally I would qualify a statement like that by saying arguably the most important, but no, they just are, it's a fact, I feel you need to know these things.

[17:35] Son 0f Ireland: you get nates message?

[17:35] mono del agua 84: yep

[17:35] Son 0f Ireland: good!

[17:35] mono del agua 84: indeed!

I kind of wish I knew what nates message was. Maybe we were having a party? That seems plausible.

[17:36] Son 0f Ireland: so, how's school

[17:36] mono del agua 84: pretty shitty, pretty shitty

While he hasn't been in school in quite some time, I still ask this almost every time I see him.

[17:36] mono del agua 84: how's things?

[17:37] Son 0f Ireland: oh you know

[17:37] Son 0f Ireland: pretty shitty

[18:02] *** "mono del agua 84" signed off at Thu Apr 20 18:02:23 2006.

Session Close (mono del agua 84): Thu Apr 20 18:49:31 2006

Session Start (son0fireland:mono del agua 84): Sat Apr 22 16:42:44 2006

[16:42] Son 0f Ireland: you coming over tonight?

[16:42] mono del agua 84: doubtin it

[16:42] *** Auto-response sent to mono del agua 84: it's a paaaaaarty tonight and, oooo she's so excited, "tell me who's invited!" you, your friends and my dick

[16:43] Son 0f Ireland: boo

we were having a party!

[16:43] mono del agua 84: i do feel awfully terrible

[16:43] Son 0f Ireland: haha, oh really

[16:44] mono del agua 84: i was outside from 9 am to about 3 or 3:30 doin yard work

[16:44] mono del agua 84: so both arms, my neck, and my face are really sunburned and everything hurts

[16:44] Son 0f Ireland: you play the smash your jonts game again?

Smash joints game goes back a long time (this is someone I've been friends with since the third grade or so) either I complained about a knee hurting or he did and the response was, what, were you playing the smash joints game?

[16:44] mono del agua 84: im pretty sure if i went anywhere to do anything tonight id just fall asleep by 10 or 11

[16:45] mono del agua 84: no, mustly the shovel huge amounts of dirt/mulch game

[16:45] Son 0f Ireland: sooo mix uppers and downers

[16:45] mono del agua 84: which in the end run is more like the tear lots of muscles game

[16:46] mono del agua 84: "accidental" suicide via mixing drugs does remain an option

[16:46] Son 0f Ireland: when's the kotei again?

[16:47] mono del agua 84: may 20

[16:47] Son 0f Ireland: jew junction eh?

[16:47] mono del agua 84: jewton perhaps

[16:48] mono del agua 84: or was it jewtown

[16:48] Son 0f Ireland: naw i think jewton

[16:48] Son 0f Ireland: cause it was prounced yewton right

[16:48] mono del agua 84: ya

Session Close (mono del agua 84): Sat Apr 22 17:05:10 2006

So jew junction. This was kind of *kind of* like sinbad jewlers. I say kind of because it stemmed from that same trait I possess that prevents me from being able to take things at face value and stop there. There was a film competition of some kind at our high school. The rules weren't very comprehensive but did include some line about no offensive material. Given that this was a high school setting, that was probably pretty self explanatory as to what it meant, but uh, well I just explained my problem. So that led to this conversation:

me: So what constitutes offensive material?

film person: I don't know, what did you have in mind?

me: It would be a movie about a guy named jewy mcjew jew, from jew junction.

film person: Um, no, that's not ok.

me: No but see, he's not actually jewish.

I think they walked away at that point. Jewton came about when this was later brought up amongst friends. The idea was that since it's pronounced yewton it's somehow less offensive. I was, apparently, a troubled youth.

Session Start (son0fireland:mono del agua 84): Mon Apr 24 22:16:36 2006

[22:16] Son 0f Ireland: oh godamnit

[22:16] mono del agua 84: ?

[22:16] *** Auto-response sent to mono del agua 84: so what do you think, downward spiral? kk

[22:17] Son 0f Ireland: i hate you : D

[22:17] Son 0f Ireland: just saying

[22:17] mono del agua 84: fair enough

[22:17] Son 0f Ireland: so i realized wehre we can get the platter engraved

[22:17] Son 0f Ireland: it's like special memories, or somethinge qually dumb, in the mall

[22:18] mono del agua 84: ahahaha

[22:18] mono del agua 84: thats so spectacularly ironic though

[22:18] mono del agua 84: go into a store called special memories to have them engrave "hate u so much crintok" on a platter

[22:19] Son 0f Ireland: ya, that'd be pretty funny just for the part where they're like, so what do you want it to say

I was excited when I thought that up because it seemed easy. Of course as we would later find out that kiosk A) did not sell platters (you didn't bring stuff to them, they had shit for sale, I guess maybe you could bring stuff in, we didn't ask) B) they were damn expensive.

[22:19] Son 0f Ireland: brb

Session Close (mono del agua 84): Mon Apr 24 22:19:53 2006

Session Start (son0fireland:mono del agua 84): Mon Apr 24 22:24:38 2006

[22:24] Son 0f Ireland: so apparently everyone thinks i quit my job, including my boss

[22:24] Son 0f Ireland: so who knows, maybe i'll be all free for kotei season

[22:25] mono del agua 84: y

[22:25] *** Auto-response sent to mono del agua 84: so what do you think, downward spiral? kk

[22:25] Son 0f Ireland: d00d it was fuckt

[22:26] Son 0f Ireland: so usually 2 cooks work right, but the other d00d was going to the kanye west show, so i'm by myself all night, but the tradeoff here is that i only have to do like 2 things for closing and then he's gonna come in later and do em, so i do my stuff and jet, so then i get a missed call later where the people working leave a message like "if you were gonna walk out you shoulda at least had the decency to tell us"

[22:26] Son 0f Ireland: they apparently didn't know d00d was coming in, so they thought i just elft all that stuff

[22:26] Son 0f Ireland: fucking stupid

[22:26] Son 0f Ireland: godamn hippies

[22:26] Son 0f Ireland: tyler

[22:26] Son 0f Ireland: i hate all hippies

[22:27] mono del agua 84: hehe

[22:27] mono del agua 84: and rightfully so

That's an entirely true story. I've never had a job before or since where I swung so wildly between hating it and loving it.

[22:28] mono del agua 84: so as for koteis though i have no idea wtf we are really gonna do with that this year seeing as how may is most likely gonna explode and crintok has turned into a workin man

[22:28] mono del agua 84: i know we are supposed to hit up the chicago one but im not sure about anything else this time around

[22:28] Son 0f Ireland: /nod

[22:29] mono del agua 84: but i do find a whole bunch of different decks funny at the moment, theyre all just incomplete

[22:29] Son 0f Ireland: haha noice

[22:29] mono del agua 84: mantis orochi, crane harriers and shadowlands military in general all seem like a lot of fun though

[22:30] mono del agua 84: lion seems amusing but not especially good, it feels like the crane deck but less hilarious

[22:30] Son 0f Ireland: no good

[22:30] mono del agua 84: thats what im sayin

[22:30] mono del agua 84: the crane deck does have some nice flavor to it i think, plus the whole mechanic itself is just funny to me

[22:31] Son 0f Ireland: haha

[22:32] mono del agua 84: the last set hey released these 2 nonunique harrier guys, one is a 3/3 for 8 and the other is a 3/3 for 7

[22:32] mono del agua 84: both of them can be bought as regualr peeps and they are just blank harriers, or u can overlay them for free onto any harrier personality already in play and then they get broken

[22:33] mono del agua 84: the 3/3 for 8 gets +1 force, cavalry and the ability tomove into the current battle, and then he can make a ranged 4 attack

[22:33] mono del agua 84: so hes 4/3 cav with super movement

[22:34] mono del agua 84: and the other one is 3/3 for 7 and if he is overlayed he gets +2/+1 and the ability, any number of times per turn target an opposing unit without more cards in it than this unit, pay 2 gold, send home the target unit

[22:34] Son 0f Ireland: noice

[22:35] mono del agua 84: but thats 6 people u never want to actually straight buy, and then im runnin 3 of this 1/3 courtier, so u actually have this really small personality base

[22:35] Son 0f Ireland: haha

[22:35] mono del agua 84: but the whole thing is just hilarious cause it actually seems to work out somehow most of the time

[22:37] Son 0f Ireland: i iwsh i had a chemical burns shower

See, they dump like 50 gallons of water on you all at once, seemed more efficient than a normal shower.

[22:38] mono del agua 84: hehe

[22:38] Son 0f Ireland: no but really

[22:38] Son 0f Ireland: SUIT UP!

[22:39] mono del agua 84: SUIT JACKET UP!

[22:39] Son 0f Ireland: haha

[22:40] mono del agua 84: so anyway though, the other deck that amuses the next most is actually this stupid ass goblin military deck

[22:40] Son 0f Ireland: it's like gold all over again

[22:40] mono del agua 84: i dont think it would really win anything but the entire thing is really just so amazingly funny to me i cant help but like it

[22:40] mono del agua 84: actually this one is even better cause now there are like 7 nonunqiue goblins legal

[22:41] mono del agua 84: and they got a sensei

[22:41] Son 0f Ireland: werd

[22:41] mono del agua 84: it makes all your nongoblins cost 2 more gold, but twice per turn when u buy a goblin from province u can fill that province face up, u cant target the same province more than once with the ability though

[22:41] Son 0f Ireland: noice

[22:42] mono del agua 84: but still, buyin like 5 goblins a turn is just so funny

[22:42] mono del agua 84: they are all such weenies, but when u have like 15 of em on the table they can fuck some shit up

[22:42] Son 0f Ireland: heh no doubt

[22:46] mono del agua 84: anyway, looks like im out for now

[22:46] mono del agua 84: later man

[22:46] Son 0f Ireland: aight bro, peace

Session Close (mono del agua 84): Mon Apr 24 22:46:42 2006

We apparently didn't talk for the next two weeks before the wedding. The day of the wedding he came over and we went to the mall to try the above mentioned kiosk. Like I said it didn't go well. This put us in a bit of a bind because we didn't have a plan B. We decided that it couldn't be *that* hard to engrave a platter, so we went in search of a platter.

I think we ended up going to every store in the mall that seemed like it would sell a silver platter and, as these things tend to go, it was in the last place we checked. Tragically what was not in any of these places was an engraver. This meant a trip up to Menards. They had one and we also picked up a stencil as I didn't have much faith in my ability to freehand engrave.

Fuego went off to do something I went back home and got to engraving. Looked like this:

See it's adorable because it says Crintocks, so it's not just that we hate the one, we hate the whole newly formed family. This entertained me to no end. Not just the obvious humor about this, but because between searching for the various parts needed and actually making the thing we spent five or six hours on this. Let's give that the generic label of "gift acquisition time." What do you imagine the average gift acquisition time was for most people at the wedding? I assume the vast majority went to a store, checked the registry and picked something, maybe an hour tops. I feel like five or six hours was, if not the most time spent, pretty near the top of the list. Five or six hours spent on getting a silver platter that read "god I hate you crintocks." They often have parties (fun fact, the crintocks have the highest party success rate of anyone I've ever met) and I often berate the mister into getting the platter out for various food they're serving. Still makes me laugh every time.

Session Start (son0fireland:mono del agua 84): Sun May 07 00:53:18 2006

[00:53] Son 0f Ireland: broken

[00:53] mono del agua 84: ?

[00:53] Son 0f Ireland: i'm just saying

[00:53] mono del agua 84: platter ftw

[00:53] Son 0f Ireland: haha

[00:53] Son 0f Ireland: i'm still stoked on that

[00:54] mono del agua 84: no doubt

[00:54] mono del agua 84: in my long history of gag gifts and goofy shit that is quite possibly a crowning achievment

[00:54] Son 0f Ireland: haha, defintily

[01:04] Son 0f Ireland: so uh, i'm calling in a whole black operative team

[01:04] mono del agua 84: to...

[01:04] Son 0f Ireland: that's all i know from that song : D

[01:05] mono del agua 84: hehe

[01:07] Son 0f Ireland: alright i'm out

[01:07] mono del agua 84: later

Session Close (mono del agua 84): Sun May 07 01:07:12 2006

Session Start (son0fireland:mono del agua 84): Sun May 07 13:50:42 2006

[13:50] mono del agua 84: ass

[13:50] Son 0f Ireland: :'(

[13:51] mono del agua 84: thats right, u better fuckin cry for that

[13:52] Son 0f Ireland: haha

[13:52] Son 0f Ireland: i hope they send us a thank you card

[13:53] mono del agua 84: me too

[13:53] mono del agua 84: im mostly waitin out the phone call sayin, this wasnt legendary, its just a fuckin platter

[13:53] mono del agua 84: that way i can say, or is it...

[13:54] Son 0f Ireland: ahahahaha

[13:54] Son 0f Ireland: YES!

[13:55] mono del agua 84: i gotta say, even the next day im still pretty pumped about that in general

[13:55] Son 0f Ireland: i know right