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Dorkstock 2023

Though the website never got updated this year (the logo wasn’t ready until a couple weeks before the convention), we had a fabulous time at Dorkstock, hosted again at the delightful Gamehole Con. We had a good assortment of scheduled games, some pick-up games, and the perennial Dorkstock coloring table which included this year’s logo in black and white. Here’s a copy if you missed out on coloring it at the convention:

This year’s Dorkstock included our Munchkin Block Party once per day – multiple Munchkin flavors running at up to three tables (depending on registration numbers), with an overarching half-hour rule that affects all tables (and change every half hour), and the new addition of stretch goals and rewards for achieving them. For example, one stretch goal was to defeat a monster while cursed; one half-hour rule was a +2 bonus in combat if you were wearing long sleeves. (It was pretty chilly in the Dorkstock room at that point, everyone had long sleeves on!)

Munchkin Grimm Tidings at Dorkstock, using the Crazy Cooks board for level tracking and cartoon figures borrowed from my Cartoon Frag Gold set.

For player convenience, we use a board from one of the Deluxe sets even if that Munchkin flavor doesn’t have one, which is how I ended up running Munchkin Grimm Tidings with a Crazy Cooks board. And just for fun, I asked the players if they wanted to use the cartoon figures I bring for Frag. It turned out to be a great game, with a lot of player interactions – well, Munchkinly ones, like messing with other people’s combat and asking for help against difficult monsters. Amusingly, the winner was the only player at level 8 when they kicked open the door and found a monster they could handily defeat. Another player slapped an extra monster onto the combat – one that could join that particular monster without a wandering monster card – and a third player forced the level 8 player to accept her help in the combat with a card, not realizing that defeating two monsters would give him the two levels he needed to win.

Pavlov's Dogs at Dorkstock, always a challenging and silly game.

We also welcomed 9th Level Games to Dorkstock this year, celebrating their new version of Kobolds At My Baby! with a frequently crowded table of players shouting “All hail King Torg!” We also had Pavlov’s Dogs and Schrödinger’s Cats on our schedule, followed by an impromptu Knuckle Sammich (also including random “All hail King Torg!” shouts). Immediately following the convention, they launched a Kickstarter for Scurvy Buggers, described as “a found family RPG.” It’s fully funded and they’ve already hit their first stretch goal, so now’s a great time to pick up an easy-to-learn pirate RPG. I look forward to playing it at next year’s Dorkstock.

The alternate owlbear at Gamhole Con - the official owlbears, leftover from a previous Gamehole Con and discovered in a warehouse, sold out; another vendor had a different style of owlbear.

Our life-sized games: Warhamster Rally, Escape from Dork Tower, and Kill Doctor Lucky, were located just inside the dealer’s hall, and I’m happy to report that Doctor Lucky was in fact killed in all four runs. (It was really close on one of them, there were less than five minutes left when Doctor Lucky finally died.) Alas, I did not get any photos of the life-size games this year. I did, however, take a photo of this cute owlbear at the Imagining Games booth. (Yes, one came home with me. And yes, I’ve hugged an owlbear today.)

Palais des congrès de Montréal

If you don’t speak French (I don’t), today’s title refers to Montreal’s Convention Center. Having visited there recently for a work trip, I checked into my hotel room and looked out the window to see a brilliant array of colorful windows. I wondered what the building was – maybe a museum? – until I opened Pokemon Go and realized that’s where our convention was being held. I didn’t capture the evening photo, when the colored windows projected their colors onto the office building across the park, making it appear that the offices had colored lights.

In addition to the colored windows, there was a clear effort to include some unusual seating in the public areas. The exhibit hall and session rooms themselves were fairly standard for a convention center (and they need more bathrooms), but someone made a clear effort to include cozy seating. In addition to what’s pictured below, I noted one table with six swing chairs attached to it, and several other colors of the blue table set-up.

Some choice seating in the convention center: a pair of translucent blue chairs with a matching roof facing each other with a small table between them; a pair of hammocks and some swings; a faux fireplace with log-shaped bean bags.

Have you seen a more memorable convention center?

Cat photos!

I have several things I wanted to write about this week, but alas, this cold I picked up in Montreal is knocking my socks off (well, if I usually wore socks around the house). So you get cat photos! The first is a rare occurrence: all four cats resting on the sofa. It’s rare because Diane usually growls anytime she notices Arwen trying to settle near her, even when Arwen’s actually trying to curl up nearby with June.

A rare sighting, four cats sitting peacefully on the sofa.

I have multiple hunt & feed style feeders for the cats. Diane, being a more dignified (and slower) eater, will not compete with the other cats for food, so she gets her bit of dry food separately while the others get to work for it. In this case, they’re hunting in a light bulb-shaped toy that wobbles.

Three cats hunting for food in a wobbly light bulb-shaped toy.

Taking a piece of home when I travel

I was traveling for work this week and have learned over the years that it’s useful to bring an element of home when staying in a hotel room, especially if it’s for more than one night. And while the hotel does allow pets, I doubted my cats would be enamored of flying or being stuck in a hotel room while I’m at a conference all day. I opted for other comforts instead.

Comforts from home: a small light brown teddy bear wearing a red bow; a miniature Wiccan altar with symbols for earth, air, fire, water, man, woman, and cat that fits in an Altoids tin; a lotion bar and its tin.

For my hotel room, I packed a small teddy bear (named Kane) and a travel Wiccan altar. The miniature altar fits in an empty Altoids tin, and includes symbols for earth, air, fire, water, as well as man and woman, with the bonus of a cat. While the layout of the elements is directional, the cat goes wherever it wants. Both of those items are in my checked luggage, while a lotion bar and its tin – screw top, so it’s won’t randomly flip open in my bag – travel in my backpack. Airplanes, convention centers, and hotels all tend to be fairly dry.

In addition to these pictured items, I also have a travel nightlight and mini-humidifier for hotel rooms. I loathe stumbling to an unfamiliar bathroom in the middle of the night and having to turn on a garishly bright overhead light simply because I’m unfamiliar with the layout. The humidifier stayed home this time since the weather was warm; I find it more necessary when the heat is running.

And that’s how I almost make up for having to sleep without my cats.

Appreciating the little things

On a recent morning, after feeding the cats, I noticed how dark it was outside, a combination of the early hour and the overcast sky. I turned off the kitchen light and stepped outside, standing just in the entryway – calling the area a “porch” would be too generous – listening to the pitter patter of the much-needed rain.

A mum, recently planted in a newly dug flower bed between the apple sapling and the rose bush. The mum has some small yellow flowers.

There’s a lot of green in our yard now, more so with the recent rain that has revived the lawn. Amidst that green is this small patch of brown and a growing patch of yellow – a recently cleared flower bed and a single mum. There are multiple little things to appreciate here:

The grass was cleared using my neighbor’s sod remover, which made the task far shorter than if I had been working with just a shovel.

The sod I removed ended up near our back compost pile, mostly yard waste, helping suppress weeds.

The same mum a couple weeks later, full of bright yellow flowers and more buds preparing to open.

The mum itself was a gift from a different neighbor, delivered a couple days after I had cleared the sod. Our front yard is visible from their front window, so hopefully she’s enjoying its growth as much as I am.

If you’re wondering why it’s alone in the flower bed, it’s because we had already purchased bulbs to plant there, which should emerge in the spring. If our timing was good and the winter somewhat mild, the mum may still be there.

A museum of wonder!

Well, actually, it’s a WNDR Museum – drop the vowels in “wonder”. It’s an interactive, one-way art museum, where you proceed along a marked path from entrance to exit. Technically, it’s one of four: there are locations in San Diego, Boston, and Seattle, as well as the one we visited in Chicago.

Admission is purchased online – if you arrive, as we did, without tickets, there’s a QR code to scan where you can select the date and time for your tickets. As you’re admitted, you also have the opportunity to purchase drinks to take with you along the path. There are also QR codes along the path to explain how to interact with some of the exhibits. We scanned a couple, but didn’t feel a need to scan every one. Here are some of the photos I took in the time we explored the museum.

“Colorbox” – colorful wall art
A wall of shimmering sequins with a fish shaped in it by a museum visitor
Art on the wall that reacts using a video camera to the viewer’s movement
A giant head with colorful strands of light flowing out of the top and into various spots on the wall
A visually reactive floor that responds to people moving across it
A painted mirror with background art
Stacks of cubes with rotating lights inside

In addition to the exhibits, several of which were reactive to movement of one sort or another, there were two poets stationed in the museum who were writing poems on the spot for whatever topic you threw at them (they had tip jars), and a magician near the end performing some stunning sleight of hand (no tip jar there). And, of course, a gift shop.

As fall arrives, my gardening chores subside.

Somehow it’s mid-September already and, as expected, the temperatures have started dropping as we near the end of a strange growing season. It started off cold and dry, we had a couple weird heat waves (also dry), with most comfortably warm weather in the middle – warm enough to have the air-conditioning on during the day with windows open most nights. Now we’re at the point where the windows can be open during the day, with just a couple cracked open for fresh air at night.

A small pile of white potatoes in various sizes, still bearing dirt from the garden.

We haven’t had a frost yet – probably won’t for another month or so – but the cooler temperatures have slowed down the garden growth. The potato plants began fading last week, so I dug them up this morning. While it’s a small crop, far smaller than the last two year’s potato harvest, the potatoes were a late planting from store-bought potatoes that had sprouted. The Red Alabama okra may be done flowering at this point, and I’m probably safe harvesting every three days instead of every two.

The tomatoes and raspberries, and even the strawberries are still ripening steadily. Our tomato supply has been smaller this year, partially because some of the plants are intertwined with pumpkin vines, which are both overwhelming the tomatoes and can be a bit scratchy when harvesting through. (No, we don’t need to discuss my catnip. Really, it’s fine, it’s a perennial and we’re never running out.)

What was your best garden crop this year?

Pokémon Go, Timed Investigation: Master Ball

Pokemon Go screenshot showing Timed Investigation: Master Ball goals

I mentioned a while ago – almost 5 years now! – that I play Pokémon Go as a way to motivate myself to get outside and walk. (In winter, that’s get into the garage and use the treadmill now that it can integrate with Google Fit.) Part of the basic functionality is research goals – timed, field, and special research. The field research comes from spinning stops when they’re nearby, whereas the special and timed ones are generated by the system. The timed ones vary from single day events to months-long challenges, like the GO Battle League challenges and this Master Ball challenge.

If you’re looking at the screenshot, you’ll notice some of those numbers (goals) are quite high… catch 1000 Pokémon! Complete 150 Field Research tasks! The reward is what makes it worth it… in addition to a bunch of stardust and experience points, there’s a Master Ball. And 80 days to complete all of it. (My timing was lucky, it started the day I went to a heavily Pokémon-ed area.)

There are three types of balls normally used in the game: Poké Ball, Great Ball, Ultra Ball. Increasingly powerful and increasingly rare, these balls are accrued by spinning stops and gyms and by opening gifts (received by… spinning stops and gyms) with your Poké Friends. The type of ball you want to use will depend on the level of the Pokémon you’re trying to catch and its difficulty (beyond the level – some are just harder to catch). As a general rule, I use a Poké Ball for anything under 400 CP, a Great Ball up to 800 CP, and an Ultra Ball above that. (For additional context, my highest CP Pokémon is currently 4248.)

Some Pokémon are just harder to catch… they’re elusive, appearing only occasionally, and likely to flee after one successful throw unless they actually stay contained. A successful throw means you hit the Pokémon with the ball and see it captured… it doesn’t always stay caught though. There are all sorts of calculations going on behind the scenes, with better throws (towards a diminishing circle) and curveballs adding bonuses that will help the Pokémon stay caught.

And then there’s the Master Ball… it has a 100% catch rate. When you get one, you save it for a hard to catch Pokémon.

Will I succeed at completing all of these goals? I have my doubts on completing 60 raids and the 120 Excellent Throws (that’s hitting a tiny circle on the Pokémon) in that time, but I’m certainly going to try.

A bathroom update, driven by necessity

The before shot: the old vanity and a space-hogging, dust-collecting radiator left over from when we had a boiler.

It wasn’t a terrible-looking bathroom, other than the bathtub that picks up color from the pipes and needs refinishing and a radiator that collected dust and anything that dropped down that narrow space between the vanity and the wall. But the sink drain periodically had issues, backing up soon after we cleared it. We hired a plumber, who disassembled the bits under the sink to clear it out with a “router” or drain cleaning machine (not to be confused with the router connected to your modem or the style used for woodcraft) and found that someone else had done that previously and left a broken metal rod in the pipe. Seriously, hearing the plumber exclaim “What the… ?” is never a good sign.

This metal rod was stuck in the pipe behind the bathroom sink, causing drainage issues. (Yes, the bathtub needs refinishing.)

The plumber put in a good effort, but ultimately said that he couldn’t get the rod out. The vanity would need to come out – outside of his scope of work – and in a worst case scenario, the pipe might have to be cut to get it out. I’m relieved to say that the handyman we hired did not have to cut the pipe to get this well-corroded chunk of metal out of the pipe. He did have to remove the vanity, and it seemed like a reasonable time to update that portion of the bathroom.

The fabulous looking bathroom after replacing the vanity & top, medicine cabinet and light, adding a door stop, and painting it dark blue.

The old vanity was 25 inches wide; removing the unused radiator from the floor gave us an additional 4 inches to play with on that side, so we updated to a 30-inch vanity with a 31-inch top. (We were told by multiple people that we could go as wide as 32 inches without interfering with the toilet, but 30 appears to be a standard size). In addition to the vanity, the medicine cabinet is significantly larger than the old one, the light fixture updated, and the walls are a lovely shade of blue. I keep poking my head into the bathroom just to smile at the overall effect of the change.

Do you still Wordle?

It’s been about 18 months since Wordle began appearing on my social media feeds, those green and yellow boxes asking for an explanation. I discussed Wordle variants soon after that. While I still play Wordle daily, the variants I play has shifted. I still play Daily Quordle, and its own variant Daily Sequence, which has four words that must be solved in order. While I enjoy Octordle (8 words) and Sedecordle (16 words!), I play on my phone, so managing 8 or 16 words was cumbersome.

Among the variants I’m enjoying are Connections, another puzzle hosted by The New York Times, and Keyword, hosted by The Washington Post. Keyword looks like part of a crossword puzzle – you’re given 6 vertical words, each missing one letter lined up in a horizontal row; your goal is to find the missing word in as few guesses as possible. (A perfect score is 6 letters.) It usually has a mix of easy and hard words. For example, “?ARROT” is probably CARROT, but “RI?E” could be any number of words. When you enter the correct letter, the square turns green; a wrong answer turns it pink. Either way, it shows a count of how many guesses you’ve taken on that letter.

Connections unstarted with the words: Jack, Press, Planet, Button, Plank, Squat, Snap, Obvious, Crunch, Buckle, Nothing, Curl, Zip, Kangaroo, Lunge, Nada

Connections takes a whole different approach, presenting you with a four-by-four grid of words. Your task is to determine what the connections are between the words, correctly grouping them in sets of four. What makes this difficult is the combination of overlapping categories – there’s usually a couple words that could fit into different categories, even once you successfully identify the categories. For example, yesterday’s Connections included the word “Duds” in the Slang for Clothes category, which was also a fit for the “Failures” category.

Connections solved with categories Slang for Zero, Fastening Verbs, Gym Exercises, and Captains

As you complete each grouping, the words move into a colored box; the different colors indicate the level of difficulty. You have up to four mistakes, so you want to be careful with your selections. On the plus side, it won’t let you submit the same erroneous group of four again. Sometimes the problem I have matching the categories is a lack of context, such as MTV shows or NFL players, which are both outside the scope of my fandoms and general knowledge.

Like Wordle, both Keyword and Connections provide a handy summary of your result that can be shared with friends without revealing the answers. Which are your favorite Wordle variants?