Spiral Cafe

Kiva at the cafe: the place was pretty full and it was a nice evening except for four people at the very back of the cafe who would NOT stop talking at the tops of their voices about their cycling and hiking trips up-island; as Kiva played they would just yell louder. And they kept it up for over two hours. I felt like causing a scene but there's no percentage in that.

I talked to Kiva for a moment about Tyva Kyzy, an all-women throat singing group from Tuva who toured around the Northwest in early 2006. She knew about them and had met them in Finland (for some reason Finland is a magnet for throat-singers, and I don't know why), told me she had written a song about them that was performed there with three other throat-singers and an enthusiastic dog!

In other happenings, I mowed the lawn before the next crop of dandelions went to seed, planted some parsley and radishes where the spinach didn't come up, and stuck in some trellises for the peas. Many of my papaver somniferum, though small, have now bloomed and they are all dark purple, though there has been one pure white one. The red ones bloom later.

Hooked on Phoenix

Well, the gaming convention at Phoenix (Tempe, actually) was pretty good, but it could have been a lot better if I hadn't been so ill. Fateful Readuhs will know that a few weeks ago, I picked up a cold that was circulating around the office and it turned into bronchitis. I was getting worse and worse and finally got some antibiotics from the local clinic, three days before leaving for Phoenix. They did the trick and it was 105 degrees and clear there, no dust storms as there had been a day or two before. The winds are hot down there - I felt as if someone had turned the biggest hair dryer in the world on me.

The bronchitis cleared up but then turned quickly into laryngitis, so I could not speak above a whisper without triggering a coughing fit that would throw my back out (never had that problem before). It figures - the one week in the year I really want to use my voice, it fails me. I did not have a very high energy level either, so I ended up not playing any games at all, just walking around and talking to people as best I could.

My copies of War Plan Crimson arrived from the publisher the day before I left, so I sold a few of those in the dealer's room, as well as some other tin-box games I brought down. It occasioned a lot of comment, unfortunately fascist-US-invading-other-countries-for-their-natural-resources games were not a theme of the conference, so I did not sell as many as two years ago when the theme was the Battle of the Bulge and I happened to have the newest one published at the time.

A game magazine publisher asked me to write up Arriba Espana and Battle for China as feedback game proposal items - I guess now that I have sold a couple thousand of these, he can take a flutter on re-re-publishing it! A small-press publisher and I will be working on a revision and re-issue of Green Beret as a map-counter-card game, and I was also asked to send something to another gaming magazine that publishes micro-games (one-page maps, few counters, several games in an issue and very nicely printed).

I got a few nice items in the flea market, and the game auction was very funny, as always. Lianne baked herself poolside like a pork chop, and we went out a couple of times, including hitting a music/video store a few blocks down the street. I got some good "difficult music".

The flights there and back weren't bad except for the stupid airport security, it seems to be routine to have to remove one's shoes now. Surprisingly, all the metal in my leg doesn't seem to trip the detectors.

Cane-raising

Self-defence with a Walking-stick: The Different Methods of Defending Oneself with a Walking-Stick or Umbrella when Attacked under Unequal Conditions

http://ejmas.com/jnc/jncart_barton-wright_0400.htm