Berkeley: Day Four & Returning Home
Dec. 31st, 2023 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aHAUNTED SHOWER. Water flowing into the shower head at our hotel in Berkeley made a weird metallic ringing sound that made me constantly feel like there was a van backing up. Add that to our haunted refrigerator, I guess.
DON'T EAT THE ALLIGATOR. Our ultimate day in Berkeley (yesterday) began with an early lunch with EV. It was at Angeline's, one of our favorite restaurants in Berkeley with its New Orleans cuisine (and something totally unavailable on-island). I had my yearly shrimp po'boy, Kimberly had her yearly voodoo shrimp, and EV opted to try the alligator. Suffice to say, he can now say he's eaten alligator, but it wasn't a big success.
PLANET CASCADIA MYSTERIUM FURNACE. The main event for me for yesterday was gaming with members of the old Endgame crew. (Alas, Endgame, we knew you well!) Ironically, we met at Games of Berkeley. They actually have a gorgeous gaming space, not just a big room in the back, but also three themed side rooms. (We were in the Tavern.) They charge a fee for gaming, without reimbursing it in the store or anything, which would have kept me from gaming there on a regular basis, but being able to rent a quiet private room for the day for $25 when we no longer have any good gaming space in the Bay Area was heaven-sent.
And we had a good day of gaming. PLANET was an interesting tile-drafting game where you placed the magnetic tiles on a globe and were constantly trying to be the best at majority-control tests, some of which required you NOT to have certain sorts of tiles in certain places. I was ready to play it again after a first play, even if it had the annoyance of not being able to see other players' board positions (because they were on these magnetic globes that the other players were holding). CASCADIA came out of my bag and got its fourth (I think) play for the trip. Apparently I didn't need to bring anything else. By the time we got to MYSTERIUM, we were drawing out of Games of Berkeley's excellent gaming library. The co-op is by now a classic, and we did quite well, maxing all players out at three cards for the final clue and then 3/4th of us guessing the right solution. FURNACE was another new offering (again drawn from GoB's library), a fairly traditional convert-the-one-resource-into-another tableau builder with a rather unique auction system where you got "compensation" for losing. It was enjoyable, but if the small-press game had received additional development to highlight its unique elements I think it could have been great.
We all browsed around Games of Berkeley a bit, and it seems to once more be a high-quality game store. I first visited Games of Berkeley in 1989, so I've seen its lows, when gamers all derided it as "Kites of Berkeley", and its highs. It seems to be at a high right now with row after row of carefully curated and organized material and even a few high-quality, great-condition used games. It made me realize that I need to make a point to get into a game store whenever I'm off-island and really take the time to browse it, so that I can see what's new, what's hot, and even what's available in both the board game and roleplaying categories. Seeing things for sale online STILL doesn't provide the same experience as browsing.
LAST DANCE. From GoB I walked out to University with S., him on the way home, me to get a simple lunch at McDonald's before the plane trip. I enjoyed the walk through the UCB campus and talking to S. at more length. (Much as with the talk with EV earlier in the day, I learned so much more about what was going on than I do from a couple of minutes of dialogue here and there during online play.) And then it was back to the hotel for our last tango in Berkeley.
HAUNTED PHONE. Was the whole hotel room haunted? Maybe. On our second day here, our "Messages" light started blinking red on the phone. But if you tried to retrieve it, it just kept repeating the retrieve-your-message menu. I could get into a delete-your-message menu if I hit some buttons in the middle of the message, but that also resulted in nothing. So I had to cover the blinking red light with clothing when we went to bed on our last several nights in Berkeley.
THE BART DEATH SPIRAL. This morning at 7.30 we ordered an Uber to take us to Oakland Airport. As we stood out in front of our hotel we could see the BART station across the street, and it was still locked up. Now I know BART always had horrible Sunday hours, so I don't know if this is business as usual or things have gotten even worse. Good thing we didn't plan on taking BART into the airport, which I would have thought totally reasonable if not for Kimberly's knee.
KEEP THEM TALKING. At Oakland Airport, our checkin agent was exceedingly friendly. We chatted jovially about our last name (always a favorite topic), marriage advice, and other stuff, to the point where I wondered if she was keeping us talking until the police arrived — which I know is very common from any number of TV shows. But no, she eventually saw us off, and I decided it was just the first-class experience. Again, for Kimberly's knee, though the first-class seats were _so_ cheap with miles (just 50% or so more than the miles cost for regular seats) that we would probably have gotten them anyway.
UNATTENDED LUGGAGE IS SUBJECT TO DAMAGE. This is always one of my favorite phrases at the airport, because I imagine the bomb squad blowing up that luggage and then later telling you, "Sorry, your luggage was 'damaged'."
I MUST BE IN THE FRONT ROW. The first-class seats were spacious. But the biggest delight was the actually tasty food as opposed to the muck I've had on my last few flights. Potatoes and an omelette were the highlights. I even game one of my three potatoes to Kimberly because she eyed them longingly, and I love her. (She was forced to get an egg-free meal, and sadly it was potato-free as well.)
BUTTHURT. A bit more than four hours into our flight, my butt was hurting. Could the first-class seats actually be less comfortable than coach? I mean, as I said, they were wonderfully spacious, but I think the cushion was a bit more like a thin rock.
HANDCAP DUDE (NOT HANDICAPPED). Arriving in Lihue, we planted ourselves in front of a handicap parking space so that my dad and Mary can pick us up without Kimberly having to walk any more. Which was a great idea until jeep-dude sped over to the curb and parked himself in the back third of the handicap space. It was like he didn't even really care, he just didn't mind that he was blocking the space. So welcome back to Hawaii. Yes, we love our island, and we love a lot of things about it, but the negligent attitude toward handicaps has never been one of them, sadly.
THE COOL CATS ARE BACK. The cats were a bit freaked when we came in, but pretty soon Elmer was lounging across my shoes, looking like we'd never been gone.
_And now we're back home just in time for a deafening night of illegal fireworks, many of them actually huge explosive bombs. But we didn't want the kitties facing that alone, even before we heard how skittish Elmer was._
DON'T EAT THE ALLIGATOR. Our ultimate day in Berkeley (yesterday) began with an early lunch with EV. It was at Angeline's, one of our favorite restaurants in Berkeley with its New Orleans cuisine (and something totally unavailable on-island). I had my yearly shrimp po'boy, Kimberly had her yearly voodoo shrimp, and EV opted to try the alligator. Suffice to say, he can now say he's eaten alligator, but it wasn't a big success.
PLANET CASCADIA MYSTERIUM FURNACE. The main event for me for yesterday was gaming with members of the old Endgame crew. (Alas, Endgame, we knew you well!) Ironically, we met at Games of Berkeley. They actually have a gorgeous gaming space, not just a big room in the back, but also three themed side rooms. (We were in the Tavern.) They charge a fee for gaming, without reimbursing it in the store or anything, which would have kept me from gaming there on a regular basis, but being able to rent a quiet private room for the day for $25 when we no longer have any good gaming space in the Bay Area was heaven-sent.
And we had a good day of gaming. PLANET was an interesting tile-drafting game where you placed the magnetic tiles on a globe and were constantly trying to be the best at majority-control tests, some of which required you NOT to have certain sorts of tiles in certain places. I was ready to play it again after a first play, even if it had the annoyance of not being able to see other players' board positions (because they were on these magnetic globes that the other players were holding). CASCADIA came out of my bag and got its fourth (I think) play for the trip. Apparently I didn't need to bring anything else. By the time we got to MYSTERIUM, we were drawing out of Games of Berkeley's excellent gaming library. The co-op is by now a classic, and we did quite well, maxing all players out at three cards for the final clue and then 3/4th of us guessing the right solution. FURNACE was another new offering (again drawn from GoB's library), a fairly traditional convert-the-one-resource-into-another tableau builder with a rather unique auction system where you got "compensation" for losing. It was enjoyable, but if the small-press game had received additional development to highlight its unique elements I think it could have been great.
We all browsed around Games of Berkeley a bit, and it seems to once more be a high-quality game store. I first visited Games of Berkeley in 1989, so I've seen its lows, when gamers all derided it as "Kites of Berkeley", and its highs. It seems to be at a high right now with row after row of carefully curated and organized material and even a few high-quality, great-condition used games. It made me realize that I need to make a point to get into a game store whenever I'm off-island and really take the time to browse it, so that I can see what's new, what's hot, and even what's available in both the board game and roleplaying categories. Seeing things for sale online STILL doesn't provide the same experience as browsing.
LAST DANCE. From GoB I walked out to University with S., him on the way home, me to get a simple lunch at McDonald's before the plane trip. I enjoyed the walk through the UCB campus and talking to S. at more length. (Much as with the talk with EV earlier in the day, I learned so much more about what was going on than I do from a couple of minutes of dialogue here and there during online play.) And then it was back to the hotel for our last tango in Berkeley.
HAUNTED PHONE. Was the whole hotel room haunted? Maybe. On our second day here, our "Messages" light started blinking red on the phone. But if you tried to retrieve it, it just kept repeating the retrieve-your-message menu. I could get into a delete-your-message menu if I hit some buttons in the middle of the message, but that also resulted in nothing. So I had to cover the blinking red light with clothing when we went to bed on our last several nights in Berkeley.
THE BART DEATH SPIRAL. This morning at 7.30 we ordered an Uber to take us to Oakland Airport. As we stood out in front of our hotel we could see the BART station across the street, and it was still locked up. Now I know BART always had horrible Sunday hours, so I don't know if this is business as usual or things have gotten even worse. Good thing we didn't plan on taking BART into the airport, which I would have thought totally reasonable if not for Kimberly's knee.
KEEP THEM TALKING. At Oakland Airport, our checkin agent was exceedingly friendly. We chatted jovially about our last name (always a favorite topic), marriage advice, and other stuff, to the point where I wondered if she was keeping us talking until the police arrived — which I know is very common from any number of TV shows. But no, she eventually saw us off, and I decided it was just the first-class experience. Again, for Kimberly's knee, though the first-class seats were _so_ cheap with miles (just 50% or so more than the miles cost for regular seats) that we would probably have gotten them anyway.
UNATTENDED LUGGAGE IS SUBJECT TO DAMAGE. This is always one of my favorite phrases at the airport, because I imagine the bomb squad blowing up that luggage and then later telling you, "Sorry, your luggage was 'damaged'."
I MUST BE IN THE FRONT ROW. The first-class seats were spacious. But the biggest delight was the actually tasty food as opposed to the muck I've had on my last few flights. Potatoes and an omelette were the highlights. I even game one of my three potatoes to Kimberly because she eyed them longingly, and I love her. (She was forced to get an egg-free meal, and sadly it was potato-free as well.)
BUTTHURT. A bit more than four hours into our flight, my butt was hurting. Could the first-class seats actually be less comfortable than coach? I mean, as I said, they were wonderfully spacious, but I think the cushion was a bit more like a thin rock.
HANDCAP DUDE (NOT HANDICAPPED). Arriving in Lihue, we planted ourselves in front of a handicap parking space so that my dad and Mary can pick us up without Kimberly having to walk any more. Which was a great idea until jeep-dude sped over to the curb and parked himself in the back third of the handicap space. It was like he didn't even really care, he just didn't mind that he was blocking the space. So welcome back to Hawaii. Yes, we love our island, and we love a lot of things about it, but the negligent attitude toward handicaps has never been one of them, sadly.
THE COOL CATS ARE BACK. The cats were a bit freaked when we came in, but pretty soon Elmer was lounging across my shoes, looking like we'd never been gone.
_And now we're back home just in time for a deafening night of illegal fireworks, many of them actually huge explosive bombs. But we didn't want the kitties facing that alone, even before we heard how skittish Elmer was._