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Hell, I Miss Water
It was a very long day. I'm going to break this into two entries, for those who wish to skim. Part One below, is a description of the Puzzle Party that took up most of the day. Part Two, to follow, is my thoughts on the Easter Vigil Mass and my rather uncowardly connection with T.
After work, I drove home quickly, jumped into bed and closed my eyes. Two and a half hours later, my alarm went off and I was up for the day. I gathered my things (but forgot my graph paper) and headed to La Mirada.
It took about seventy-five minutes to arrive at the home of NPL-member Bartok. (Members of the NPL typically choose a pseudonym when joining. This nom-de-puzzle, or just nom, is a way to identify each other in NPL publications and gatherings. "Bartok" is not Bartok's real name. My nom, predictably, is Tablesaw.) I had misjudged the timing (as I often do during the day) and arrived about fifteen minutes before the starting time of noon. I laid down my puzzle, picked up Bartok's and settled down to work.
Between noon and one, the full company of around twenty people arrived. Many brought paper puzzles which were done, mostly individually, until we started the first game at one. I should mention one puzzle, a black-box cryptic by Elfman, which featured the noms of all those in attendance (and some who would normally have been). It is huge, 27x27, and I am one of the clues! Yay! I've been working on it for two days now, and I'm still nowhere close to finishing it, though. Sigh.
The first game was by Bluff, and was, essentially, a trivia-list game. "In three minutes, list as many countries as you can that use only the vowel 'a.'" Ghana, Canada, Japan, Khazakstan... My team ended up coming in second (I think) with twenty-something points. After that came a game by Panache which asked people to come up with, among other things, eight-, ten- and twelve-letter words with "LA" at their centers. aduLAtor, jubiLAting, um...YugosLAviate? My team didn't do so good this time.
At the business meeting, we discussed our plan to bring the Annual NPL Convention to Los Angeles in 2004. This planning began long before I started attending these meetings, so mostly I just smile and nod. Several LA members will be presenting our proposal to host the 2004 convention at this year's convention in Vancouver. Our main competition seems to be a small town in Northern Louisiana and a group of unorganized Bostonians. We expect to win.
Music Man gave us a sneak preview of one of the puzzles from his upcoming Mensa book of brainteasers. It was nice to have a less competitive activity, and my solving group managed to solve eighteen out of twenty. Then we dropped our paper and pencils and went on to the games of Action!
Body Language was invented by a SanFran NPLer and then transplanted to LA by Artistry. This game was very complicated, with several parts, but at it's heart it was a quick-fire game of charades, with five words or phrases to clue in seventy-five seconds. I ended up as one of the best, managing to get three and a half of the five. (The three were "mattress," "fan," and "basketball." The one half was getting to "water ballet" on the way to "Esther Williams.")
After Body Language, there was some Whose Line Is It Anyway-style improv games based on wordplay, but I was starting to get woozy. I hadn't eaten a good meal for a while and the time was nearing six o'clock, when I had to return home. I snuck into the kitchen and grabbed a hearty cup of beef stew before the dinner was set out. I wolfed down some other dishes as they became ready, and as the rest of the group gathered to eat, I hit the freeway.
I reached home at about 7:30, with just enough time to fix up my hair and go over my reading for Mass. I hopped into the car with my mother, and drove to the church.
Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of Tablesaw's Long Day!
After work, I drove home quickly, jumped into bed and closed my eyes. Two and a half hours later, my alarm went off and I was up for the day. I gathered my things (but forgot my graph paper) and headed to La Mirada.
It took about seventy-five minutes to arrive at the home of NPL-member Bartok. (Members of the NPL typically choose a pseudonym when joining. This nom-de-puzzle, or just nom, is a way to identify each other in NPL publications and gatherings. "Bartok" is not Bartok's real name. My nom, predictably, is Tablesaw.) I had misjudged the timing (as I often do during the day) and arrived about fifteen minutes before the starting time of noon. I laid down my puzzle, picked up Bartok's and settled down to work.
Between noon and one, the full company of around twenty people arrived. Many brought paper puzzles which were done, mostly individually, until we started the first game at one. I should mention one puzzle, a black-box cryptic by Elfman, which featured the noms of all those in attendance (and some who would normally have been). It is huge, 27x27, and I am one of the clues! Yay! I've been working on it for two days now, and I'm still nowhere close to finishing it, though. Sigh.
The first game was by Bluff, and was, essentially, a trivia-list game. "In three minutes, list as many countries as you can that use only the vowel 'a.'" Ghana, Canada, Japan, Khazakstan... My team ended up coming in second (I think) with twenty-something points. After that came a game by Panache which asked people to come up with, among other things, eight-, ten- and twelve-letter words with "LA" at their centers. aduLAtor, jubiLAting, um...YugosLAviate? My team didn't do so good this time.
At the business meeting, we discussed our plan to bring the Annual NPL Convention to Los Angeles in 2004. This planning began long before I started attending these meetings, so mostly I just smile and nod. Several LA members will be presenting our proposal to host the 2004 convention at this year's convention in Vancouver. Our main competition seems to be a small town in Northern Louisiana and a group of unorganized Bostonians. We expect to win.
Music Man gave us a sneak preview of one of the puzzles from his upcoming Mensa book of brainteasers. It was nice to have a less competitive activity, and my solving group managed to solve eighteen out of twenty. Then we dropped our paper and pencils and went on to the games of Action!
Body Language was invented by a SanFran NPLer and then transplanted to LA by Artistry. This game was very complicated, with several parts, but at it's heart it was a quick-fire game of charades, with five words or phrases to clue in seventy-five seconds. I ended up as one of the best, managing to get three and a half of the five. (The three were "mattress," "fan," and "basketball." The one half was getting to "water ballet" on the way to "Esther Williams.")
After Body Language, there was some Whose Line Is It Anyway-style improv games based on wordplay, but I was starting to get woozy. I hadn't eaten a good meal for a while and the time was nearing six o'clock, when I had to return home. I snuck into the kitchen and grabbed a hearty cup of beef stew before the dinner was set out. I wolfed down some other dishes as they became ready, and as the rest of the group gathered to eat, I hit the freeway.
I reached home at about 7:30, with just enough time to fix up my hair and go over my reading for Mass. I hopped into the car with my mother, and drove to the church.
Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of Tablesaw's Long Day!