phthalombrage | (no subject)

Randall Munroe came to CMU. It was intense. He gave us the exact value of the Ballmer Peak and various other insights into human nature. ABTech had a raptor projected behind him and a couch right onstage. There was also a kite.

It was kind of surreal for various reasons.
1.) Randall Munroe was there.
2.) Most of the people asking questions were affiliated with KGB. Yay nerds.
3.) I recognized a lot of the people there.
4.) Ed happened to be on the stage and invited Randall to come play CtFwS with us in front of the whole Wiegand gym.
5.) He did!

I went to some place down the street with Kartik, labbott, Marty, Damo, and some other guy who was born in August, and ate food, missing the rules presentation. Dinner was good. We discussed the universal mind of the cluster (which I brought up independently of Jared). Right when we were discussing being a snarky bastard (we had to teach the Indian kid whose name I forget what "snarky" meant), I got a sappy fortune about being nice/not being a snarky bastard, with "Learn Chinese: it doesn't matter (not related)" on the back. So that went to Alan.

I got to 7500 like wtf? This room is packed and I have no idea what is going on, but I was on the Red Team. Yeah. We got to defend Doherty first, which is apparently much easier than defending Wean, because whoever had Doherty won each time. Consequently, we won, since three games were played and we had Doherty for two of them. I took it as an excuse to explore the sketchy areas of the buildings, and Doherty has more of those. There's a creepy fireplace/pipes room somewhere on the fourth floor or so, and a bunch of cool stuff in the basements. Now I think of CtFwS when I cross between buildings.

I didn't exactly know what I was doing despite having acquired a cheat sheet at the last minute and having read the rules before in the Cluster. But I was on defense, so it didn't really matter. The only really awkward part came when Matt Goldfarb threw a light grenade at me and I really didn't know what to do. I got out my cheat sheet and probably stood there much longer than was prescribed. Then I tried to give it to Abe in the jail, but he didn't want it. But I saw Evan and asked and he said the game was over, so it didn't matter. I mostly had fun climbing up and down stairwells and jumping out of recessed parts of B-level and lurking in hallways. Chris and I skipped after a goombah chain consisting of Physics Josh from The Group, Kempy, tiny-hands Steve from The Group, and possibly others. Another great moment from Physics Josh: He tripped, slid, and hit his head on a wall past the booths on the first floor of Wean. Randall Munroe hung out in the judges' room, played a bit in the second round (for red!) and then hung out in the judges' room some more until like 2 AM. He is really not an asshole at all. It was awesome. I felt kind of bad because The Group was surrounding him and being themselves, but ehh. He is cool and smart and awkward.

Then, after another painful Info Session (I preferred walking the groups to PH100 because it was a lot less awkward than having to talk to individual people), I returned to 7500 for the Puzzle Challenge. After picking up colored pencils and my laptop and other necessary crap, I went back.

There was a puzzle on the T-shirt, three packets of puzzles, five pre-puzzles and one big meta. We didn't start the meta early enough, so despite our initial awesome puzzle skillz, we kind of sucked. Also, whoever wrote the hunt is kind of assholes. The staff guy agreed. So much ambiguity. So many hints that were not optional. Bad flavortext. gwillen said our hunt is quality. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU? Hercules. Also, severed puppy head != whale. The portal song was going the whole time. Some of the puzzles were pretty awesome. Some were much less awesome. I was glad to see a Scrabble puzzle (even if it took me a while to get the answer). There was also minesweeper, dice rotations/locks, music videos, and various other topics. Dom came in and lectured us on the format of SNL. Overall, the hunt was sinusoidally fun and miserable. I liked it.

I had to get rid of my stuff at Donner because I was tired, but I actually ended up staying at Roselawn until 3 AM anyway. I sat on the couch and stood around awkwardly and observed people most of the time. People kept telling me I wasn't having any fun. Drunk people are awkward. Lots of people came and sat on the couch to tell me I was awkward. There were glowsticks. Wes even had a laser. There was dancing. There was msarnoff being creepy. There was no Rigel. It was fun to try to figure out how drunk people were, what people don't normally act like that sober, and which people were just crazy and not drunk.

I took a shower this morning! And cleaned my room!
But then I decided I didn't want baggers. So now I just have a clean room. I hope my roommate didn't get her hopes up. She was so creepy happy the last time I saw her.

Talked to Rigel, went to cluster, fed people with my DineX (Yay!), came back to cluster, and will be dancing soon. Then homework.

This actually isn't a terribly interesting entry because I am pretty tired. Woot.