October 29 2003 RussCon Report

News

Happy Halloween! We had a French maid, a marine, an Africa dude, "Fro"-do Baggins, and the Plague Fairy! (And in the photo above, you can see my alien sock monkey chest burster from last year...) There was bobbing for apples which was fun (thanks Harry and Becky!), and I made a spooky fun jack-o-lantern and freshly toasted pumpkin seeds. Thanks Whendy and Dan for additional photos of the festivities!

On Halloween itself I'm hoping to see Maggie Drennon play at the Witches Ball at Saengerrunde Hall 1607 San JacintoWyrdgrl, and/or hit parties or Sixth Street. If you want to try hooking up, email me during the day.

I expect to be out all weekend at the Austin Celtic Festival is this weekend (Saturday Nov 1 and Sunday Nov 2). Hopefully I'll see some of y'all there, since it is The Best Weekend Of The Year!

Speaking of Celtic music, for those interested in the doings of the Clandestine folks now that they've split up, I saw this note on a Clandestine mailing list, about a recent concert of the Willow Band (EJ's new project): "The last set Willow played at the Icehouse was fun too! Emily jammed w/ the band, and then later on in the set Jen got up and sang Isle of Malachy, a song from her cd which Gerry O'Beirne wrote. It was amazing." I would have liked to have seen that!

Sabaton la 8-an de novembro okazos la TutTeksasa Kunveno, por ĉiuj teksasaj esperantistoj!

And Houston Go Club is hosting a weekend tournament November 15 and 16.

I've sold more of my games to RussCon friends. If anyone else is interested, here is the current list. Also if anyone wants some of these vinyl records for your listening pleasure, I'd be happy to pass them along, and I'm going to go sell the rest when I get off my lazy ass and do it. And if no one claims the two ever-popular butt monsters, I'm taking them to my office to amuse people there.

Game Results

GhostParty	8	RussW 7 JP 5 Whendy 3 Dan 1 Harry -1 Matt -3 Clayton -5 Dan -7
Vampire	3	Fred 2 Fina 0 Clayton -2
Guillotine	3	MarkY 2 RussW 0 Whendy -2
Blokus	4	RussW 3 MarkY 1 Whendy -1 JimG -3
Tichu	2	( MarkH MarkG ) 1 ( Ben Justin ) -1
BalloonCup	2	Fina 1 Clayton -1
WitchTrial	6	RussW 5 Justin 3 MarkY 1 Fina -1 Ben -3 JimG -5
GreatKhanGame	3	JP 2 Harry 0 Matt -2
Alhambra	4	MarkG 3 MarkH 1 Clayton -1 Marty -3
HighSociety	5	JP 4 Fina 2 Harry -1 Matt -1 RussW -4
GiveMeTheBrain	5	Matt 4 Fina -1 RussW -1 MarkG -1 JP -1
Bluff	4	RussW 3 MarkY 1 Matt -1 MarkG -3
Settlers	3	JimG 2 Justin 0 MarkY -2

As is our tradition, we played several spooky gory games in honor of Halloween, e.g. Ghost Party (seen in this photo), Vampire, Guillotine, Witch Trial, Give Me The Brain...

I'd not played Witch Trial before; it seems to be an ok but not great Cheapass game, with better than average flavor text and art!

I was happy to see Alhambra (which I played once and enjoyed at Marty's house in the summer) appear at RussCon finally, and I hope to play it.

Ratings

Rank Ratings:      
 4.8112 RussW
 3.7377 JP
 1.0986 Fred
 1.0986 MarkH
 1.0986 MarkY
 0.8755 Fina
 0.4700 MarkG
 0.2231 Justin
-0.5108 Harry
-0.8109 Whendy
-0.8755 Matt
-1.3863 Marty
-1.6094 Ben
-1.8563 Dan
-2.0794 JimG
-3.4500 Clayton

Win Ratings:
 5.7920 RussW won 4 of 7
 2.3514 JP won 2 of 4
 1.5686 MarkG won 2 of 4
 1.0986 Fred won 1 of 1
 0.6286 JimG won 1 of 3
 0.5596 Matt won 1 of 5
 0.4055 MarkH won 1 of 2
-0.0645 MarkY won 1 of 5
-0.2671 Dan won 0 of 2
-0.2877 Marty won 0 of 1
-0.3409 Fina won 1 of 5
-0.7621 Harry won 0 of 3
-0.8267 Whendy won 0 of 3
-0.8755 Ben won 0 of 2
-1.2809 Justin won 0 of 3
-1.5198 Clayton won 0 of 4

I am the Devil! JP is Vice-Devil. Fred and MarkG are Co-Vice-Vice-Devils. Clayton is the Generous Angel.

If you are confused how the ratings work, you could peruse the FAQ.

Meta Game

Harry was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he mailed out:

The Metagame for October 29th is Halloween party.

Scoring as follows:

1 point for wearing a costume
or
2 points for wearing a funny hat
or
3 points if the costume or funny hat is related to a Russcon game
or
5 points if the costume or funny hat is related to a Russcon metagame

Each person may only score once for this portion of the game.

Additionally there will be apple bobbing with scoring as follows

2 points for finding a silver coin in your apple
5 points for finding a gold coin in your apple

Only one apple per participant

Finally

2 points will be awarded for each bag of Halloween candy brought.
5 points will be awarded if your candy is so gross that no one eats any of it at Russcon.

You may score multiple times here.

I will bring the apples.

So there have been Meta Games in the past related to costumes and to hats, so essentially anyone who wore a costume or hat earned 5 meta points. Harry didn't intend that. Oh the irony - he was rules-lawyered!

Bobbing for apples was good fun! I'm not sure I've ever actually done it before. It really gets you wet, and it's hard to get a biting grip on a floating apple unless you push against the wall of the tub.

Matt brought zillions of candies (estimated 10 bags), and so his candy points overwhelm the costume and apple points! Thanks for all the candy Matt - you are the Meta Devil and will design next week's Meta Game!

Evening's Soundtrack

Cradle Of Filth, Cruelty and the Beast
My Dying Bride, The Dreadful Hours
Radio Werewolf, Songs for the End of the World
Rasputina, Transylvanian Regurgitations
28 Days Later, the soundtrack album

Spooky stuff, kids! Sadly I missed Rasputina's appearance Monday night at Stubb's. Did anyone see them? Also every time I play the 28 Days Later soundtrack, Clayton hears the ethereal beautiful track 10 (by Brian Eno) and asks what CD this is, but remains steadfast in his stubborn refusal to see the movie.

Links

Online version of Whendy's story The Black Mother (original published in Analog in 1991)

Whendy's photo gallery of this Halloween RussCon

Hello Kitty Sandwich Maker

6 or 7 years ago I visited Seattle and saw Brandon Lee's grave and liked the quotation on it. I just learned that a cow-orker brianca recently visited Seattle; unlike me, he got a photo of Brandon Lee's grave