Boston Convention: Stray Notes.

I'm doing some cleaning, and in the process, I'm seeing a bunch of scraps of paper from the convention. So I thought I'd present some of them. As usual, I ended up picking up a bunch of scraps that others left lying near me. So most of these aren't actually mine.

Dada Trivia was presented by Bartok in LA before appearing at the convention. The rules are available online, but the general gist is that people have to create trivia questions based on randomly selected subjects and predicates in the form "What _____ is ______?" What follows is someone's answer sheet, found on the back of a variety cryptic. The first six appear to have notes about whether or not the answer was "correct."

( Dada Answers )

As part of the Saturday night extravaganza, teams had to create a short song, an excerpt from the finale of MTA, The Musical. In addition, the team had to incorporate special word, provided by the organizers, into the song's lyrics. Here's an example from some team, who was given the word "eland." Somewhere, there's a video of this song, along with all of the others.

( This Eland's Our Eland )

Cluesome is a very popular game at conventions, as well as LA gatherings. The rules are online, but I'll give you the basics. Everyone submits "answers" to the other players. On a person's (the cluegiver's) turn, that player chooses one of the "answers" available and tries to create a clue, any sort of clue. The other players (other than the one who submitted the answer) take time to write down what they think the answer is, then reveal their answers. The cluegiver wants to get at least one player, but less than half of the players, to answer correctly. If nobody gets the answer right, the cluegiver gives another clue for the same answer. If too many people guess correctly, the cluegiver has to select another answer and start again.

This is my answer sheet from a game of Cluesome. When an answer had to be clued more than once, subsequent answers are marked with letters. When the same cluegiver had to start cluing a new answer, my answers are marked with decimals. The word "Bet" applies to scoring, and generally means that I thought the answer was correct. Changes in score are marked in parentheses.

( Saturday Night Cluesome )

More as it turns up.

Blah-B-Blah

Well, my house is only marginally cleaner. In one sense, that's not good because it's not clean. On the other hand, it's not making me disgusted with myself anymore. Hooray for a positive homebody image. Anyway, instead of continuing to clean, I'm going to go to bed early, with the goal of waking up early in the afternoon. Then maybe seeing a movie or something. Possibly with real human beings.

Airplane! The Reading! The Return! was a lot of fun. My friend turned out to be one of the performers, with roles including the non-singing nun and Lt. Herwitz. It was a pretty off-the-cuff performance, but listening to the script I was surprised at how structurally good the movie was. There's a really solid framework underneath all of those stupid, stupid jokes. If you missed it, don't worry, it should be back next year. It was apparently a regular thing between 1998 and 2000. But in 2001, it was felt that maybe it wouldn't be quite so funny if they performed it on the scheduled weekend, September 13 and 14. Between anniversaries and construction in the park, this is the first time they've been able to do it since.

NYTX: 4.