July 14, 2004: We Came, We Saw, We Yelled "Arrrrrrr!"

I spent the weekend at the Puzzle Pirates party in San Francisco. Truly huge fun. Friday we cruised the Bay on an actual sailing vessel. Saturday morning and afternoon there was talk/argument/hint-sharing about the game . . . and Saturday night was parrrrrrrrrrrrty time.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned here how much I was enjoying the game. Still true. And at the event I was impressed by how intelligent, and fun, and just plain NICE my fellow players turned out to be. You hear some bad things about the big online RPGs . . . how they're full of player-killers, griefers, uncommunicative level-grubbers, and so on. All I can say is . . . this is a different world, and I like it.

When I joined Puzzle Pirates, I wanted to get the regular player experience, figuring that some people would be unreasonably nice to Steve Jackson and others would whack me on general purposes. So I just entered as "Evilstevie" (grr, names have to be one word) and went rolling along. A couple of people busted me . . . but they did it in private mail. A few others suspected but didn't say anything till I showed up at the party. Now, though, I'm "out," and don't have to watch what I say around my crew. (And I'm in a GOOD crew. Any of ye who want to sail with the Cookie Pirates, and who value friendship and chat as much as pilin' up the loot, feel free to send me a /tell in-game, or check with our captain, Angie. OK, end of plug fer me crew.)

All in all, a fun, tiring weekend. My voice has almost come back (there was a Piratey Shouting contest. I split the win with Judith, who is also in me crew. Arrrr!). Random lessons learned included:

• Air travel is not getting any less inconvenient, intimidating, or unpleasant. But the folks at Southwest Airlines go many, many extra miles to help out their passengers. This is a big thanks from a passenger who appreciated that help.
• "Nelson's Blood," aka "Roll The Old Chariot Along," is a good chantey, and I sure wish I could get it unstuck from my head.
• Odwalla's "Superfood." Weird green drink, but good. Will have to buy some.
• The Argent Hotel in San Francisco (or, as we called it till we got tired of the joke, the Arrrrrrrrgent) also takes good care of its guests. And actually, we never got tired of the joke, and they didn't seem to get tired of having a lobby full of pirates.
• When rum is poured into a pina colada, it layers!

-- Evil Stevie

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