…has come to a close.
But first a rewind.
A bit over a week ago I attended a friend-of-a-friend’s birthday party. There was this awesome party game going on where one player had to come up with a cohesive story while each player took it in turns to provide a word to the “it” player that they’d have to work into their story, one sentence at a time. If the other players don’t like your story or don’t think it’s self-consistent they vote you out. I immediately knew it’d be just up my alley. Had to partner with another player since there weren’t any open slots, so we’d be alternating who came up with the sentence. When it got to our turn I started off strong but then the first sentence my partner came up with just threw everyone off so we got immediately voted out. Fooey.
Ended up playing the game What’s In Your Milk, which is where the “it” player selects an answer to the question “what’s in your milk” – it can be a totally random answer: bugs, a scarf, chocolate, whatever. Then all other players take turns asking the “it” player questions, and that player must respond with the answer already selected; the goal is to get them to laugh. Good late-night game.
The next day I hosted a double birthday party. My friend in the ward was turning one year older, and as it happened she’d been chatting with an old mission buddy for a good while, who decided to pay her a visit for her big day. It was great catching up with him, swapping stories and funny mission videos.
Properly prepared vegemite isn’t half bad. 
The next morning I had him over at Google for a tour and breakfast before he shot off for the airport.
A rare sighting of a Waymo self-driving test vehicle.
That evening I decided to go check out the Single Adults FHE for kicks and giggles. It was a game night and we ended up playing Coup and Castle Panic. We barely won the day.
That night Cleo actually warmed up to me!
Had to put them in time-out when they got in the way of brushing my teeth. 
On Wednesday I got invited out to Mox Boarding House for a game night – Code Names, picture edition.
Really fun-looking tabletop games going on – I think Warhammer but who knows. 
On Thursday I had to rush out early from work to help Michael get his place put together before the wedding the next day. They’re gearing up to live in a newly-renovated house while working as caregivers for mentally challenged adults. Gonna be an interesting experience, but the house is super nice.
A bit subtle if you ask me. 
This new carpet was really nice.
Drove from there to a date in Fremont. Met her outside the Google office buildings there, then settled on a random place to eat and headed off walking. Good conversation. Ended up back at the office where we played pinball and ping pong.
Some randoms back in the day decided that this specific street corner was mathematically the center of the universe. Makes sense to me. 
Then it was Friday, the big day. The sealing was short and to the point, no advice monologues, a nice change. Pictures afterwards, then the groomsmen went to lunch at a burger place before making our way to the chapel for a reception.
Groomsmen hard at work preparing. 
Lookin’ classy during cleanup.
So a successful send-off all around.
This post could also be called Welcome to the Hotel Andersen or something. A buddy of mine flew in from Hawaii to see the wedding, and crashed at my place Friday night. The next morning he left super early to go up skiing. I wanted to go so badly, but was too paranoid about my back, so I sat it out. My buddy would be out that entire day and night, and come back to stay at my place Sunday night.
Mid-morning on Saturday I got a Facebook message from an old friend from my BYU days. His flight out of SeaTac had been cancelled and he was wondering if I had a place for him to stay that night. Well it was just his luck, the spare room was open that single night. I drove down to pick him up and dropped him at my place. It was a bit awkward since he didn’t have transportation or anything, so I left him there when I went out for a few errands.
The errand I went off to was actually one of the first meetings of a local indie game developer group spear-headed by a friend in the ward. Looked interesting from the event description so I thought I’d come sit in even though I had no interest in actually contributing to whatever game they ended up creating. Thought I could at least act as a sounding board or an ideas person or something.
The group consisted of graphics designers, programmers, 3D modelers, and (my friend) a composer. We spent the time airing different game ideas and settling on a mechanic to try and make real, a puzzle-based game having to do with a tree and root systems.
The group met in a very “Seattle” coffee house. 
Pretty exciting vibe by the end of it.
From the meet-up I drove to Costco to do some shopping, and failed miserably. Arrived at 5:50, figured I’d grab some food and chill before it closed at 6:30. Didn’t have much to get so I let it get to like 6:15. The food court was in-doors, so I walked out to the entrance and only then noticed that the entrance door had completely closed. I made a move to head back in, since I hadn’t completely left yet and figured I could get past the registers or something, but an attendant called me out and said Sorry, you’re not allowed to go inside. No it closes at 6, not 6:30. I didn’t have it together enough to explain that I’d just come from inside and I dunno, forgot my wallet or something. No instead I just walked out and fumed for a bit. It was ok though, I had plenty of frozen food.
From there I drove down to a friend’s house for a Bollywood movie night. We watched “3 Idiots”, a really nice movie that I think people at home will enjoy.
This morning I drove my college friend off to the airport, then gave a couple of ward members rides to church, who didn’t have licenses. It was my turn to arrange for Third Sunday teachers this week, when our Sunday School consists of small tables with one teacher each. Half our teachers couldn’t make it, a couple people called in sick, but we made it work. Great food afterwards.
After church I had a few friends over to play Tales of the Arabian Nights. It was a bit of a marathon – the thing started at 5 and it finished up a bit after 10. I’ll definitely be bringing it back home for some fun, it doesn’t necessarily need to be played for that long.
These past few weeks I’ve been watching the latest season of Young Justice. This is an animated show that centers around the side-kicks in the DC universe – Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, etcetera. This show was kicked off the air almost six years ago. Rumor has it that the show was performing too well in the female demographic and wasn’t selling as many toys to young boys as the network would’ve liked, so they yanked it.
After all these years the show is back, this time being streamed online through the new DC Universe service. Yet another silo’d service, competing with Netflix. Nonetheless I subscribed, cause I could afford it and wanted to do my part to show DC that Young Justice was worth keeping around.
Well it turns out that there are some side-effects to being a stream-only show. Without the broadcasters there’s little standing in the way of the showrunners introducing some really gritty elements. The series has gotten incredibly dark, and though I’ve waited six years for this I don’t think I’ll continue watching much longer.
To illustrate – one of the (many) new characters they introduced is named Halo. Among her many abilities are regeneration and even resurrection. Unfortunately the showrunners seem to have written her in for the purpose of showing off gruesome death sequences without having to burn through characters. Every week they find new ways to kill her, only to bring her back with a bit of resurrection magic. I’ll spare the details.
The main premise of the season involves Earth kids getting abducted, given super-powers, trafficked to off-world buyers, and used in combat. Again I’ll spare the details.
I decided to cancel my subscription to the service, as the whole reason I got it in the first place was to support the show, and I don’t think I can do that in its current form. It’ll mean I can’t podcast on the show much longer, but that’s ok. I’ll just replace it with Star Trek Discovery episodes, should be much cheerier.