I was amused this weekend, if not particularly surprised, to learn of quizbowl connections among the group I play boardgames with. I suppose the center of that particular Venn diagram is fuller than one might suspect, no matter how marginalized "geek stuff" is in trash. More than one gamer has expressed interest in curling, too. That should be interesting. Now, to set up more enclaves of Movie Dictator Nights...



So Saturday afternoon, the much-planned face-to-face game of Diplomacy (if you're not sure what I'm talking about and don't want to follow the link, think of the backstabbing and alliance aspects of Survivor without immunity challenges, product placements, and, um, swimsuit models) finally happened. My jargon-filled recap of same is

here.

Saturday night K. and I saw The Funseekers, a Minneapolis band from my youth who reunited for a Mod fest in Chicago. They were great, and one opening act was good enough for me to buy the CD. The crowd was a little odd, with over half wearing various Mod attire. Kirsti nailed it: like Goths, the women usually look good, but the guys were just sad with maybe one or two exceptions. White belts! Ascots! Orange double-breasted suits! And scooters, scooters, scooters, seemingly all wedged in tightly around my parking space. I needed some Astroglide to get home.



Sunday we went to the last day of the Brandeis Book Sale (everything for 50 cents) with Jenni and Alexis. I got a bunch of stuff that'll become trash prizes, and regrettably few things that I'll keep. We and Steve had brunch and questionable service at Cheesecake Factory, then Jenni came back and hung out with us for a few hours.