W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

Friday night was fun! martang got folks together for a dinner at the delicious Brazilian restaurant in N. Austin, Sampaio's. Oh, those delicious little wheat-free, rice-bread yeast rolls were as good as I remembered! With my allergies, eating bread in a restaurant is a rare event, so got one whole order of them to myself. Ah, cheesy deliciousness! We missed jipp, but it was fun to see willyumtx again and Jeffles and his (now) wife Sarah, she whom I hadn't seen since the Easter-egg/Engagement party in April of last year. There was a dish on the menu, grilled pork rolled in coffee, with a red cherry reduction sauce, that had intrigued me when I was there before. This time, Marty, William and I all three got it! And... it was only okay. The guys loved theirs, but I felt like I was eating overcooked meat crusty with coffee grounds. Not a primo experience. My next time, I'll stick with their fish dishes.

Left that dinner and was a little late for my dream-study group. A good gathering, the closest thing I do to going to church. One of my buddies there had a dream the very night he learned about a tragedy. His ill and manic/depressive older brother had committed suicide 10 days earlier and they'd only just located family to tell them. My friend dreamed his brother was younger, with two strong hips (multiple hip replacements had made him disabled), walking along a narrow wall away from my friend, with wonderful balance, and he'd turned back enough to grin broadly in goodbye. Very poignant! ( Read More... )

I remember telling a gay gamer friend about this study a few years ago, and him getting a surprised and interested look on this face:

"I think it's almost beyond a doubt that genes have some influence," said Ray Blanchard, a researcher at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, who studies the effect of birth order in predicting whether a male will be born homosexual. "My personal view is that there is probably more than one biological mechanism contributing toward homosexuality. I think it's also safe to say that there is at least one non-genetic influence."

Blanchard found that with each older brother in a family, the odds increase by about a third that a boy born later will be gay. This effect is not thought to be caused by genetics, but rather by antibodies produced by the mother's immune system during pregnancy.

This aside about birth order was embedded in a study report about how one theory of "the gay gene" is that it makes the females/daughters more prolific, while it makes the males/sons gay. This model addresses the nature versus nurture questions about "how can homosexuality be inherited; it should have died out if so."

It was interesting about my gamer friend because he is Sibling No.8 in a family with 8 kids, many of whom are boys. Sibling No.7 is also a gay son, and Sibling No.6 is a son who "sometimes has feelings like that." The Blanchard study showed how a woman gets progressively more estrogen with each pregnancy, so that once past the 4th baby, the fetus is typically awash in it. The likelihood of the boy baby growing up to be gay is way more than the norm.

When I read about the study, the thing that occurred to me was all the Catholic and fundamentalist religions with an emphasis on large families. Especially macho Latin cultures. So those poor boys; biology combined with religion pushed them to have a certain orientation. But that very religion often required that they be closeted.

So misguided. I'm glad that the youth of today are being a lot more color blind and accepting of orientation...

Gamers across the world are begging for another saving throw (the catch phrase I must've read a dozen times) about the death of D&D creator, Gary Gygax. I personally like the phrase and image in Penny Arcade better:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/03/04

He did have a huge effect on geek culture, and MURPS and GURPS evolved from his creation. I myself only started to play one D&D game one time. I was intrigued when my brother would describe his games (he's been a Dungeon Master for, like, 30 years) with all this action and intrigue, as if this band of adventurers had actual adventures. But the reality was "roll your weird dice, write on your character sheet."

However, from hearing my brother describe his games, I was inspired to write sword and sorcery for Marion Zimmer Bradley. MZB wrote me long letters to tell me why she didn't take my stories (which I am told was a wonderful boon from a mostly crippled woman), so I sold them elsewhere. And Ace Books has for years begged me to turn them into a novel.

So I guess I indirectly got some Gygax influence as well.

November 11 I hosted a potluck BBQ in honor of goulo and a2na visting Austin from Poland. LeslieC took photos (dang, I was running around and could not get my camera out) so much of the evening was documented. It was great to see some folks. It was fun to see Russ and Anna, and we had people hanging out, drinking beer and talking until late. My favorite quote of the night was Anna quizzing Jason about a wild story: "Were you totally full of consciousness at the time?" If you know Jason, this is pretty funny.

Russ also brought me some sort of carrot salsa (?) from Fredericksburg, which I plan to take to a holiday party this Friday night...

( And here are the pictures... )

Haven't seen goulo for two years! But he and his fiancee a2na are visiting from Poland. Saw them at the Celtic Fest this past Saturday and had a good talk. (The fest itself was smaller and closed at 8:00 pm both nights! Weird...) They appear to have a full calendar of fun and games too. I hooked up with them and RussCon guys for lunch Tuesday at Madras Pavilion -- 10 of us there! And went last night to jipp and willyumtx's place for a smallish gathering of RussCon folks for gaming.

Russ and Anna surprised me with a game they'd gotten for me at Essen-- the big boardgaming convention in Germany. It's called something like "Cockroach Poker" and has fairly simple rules and is played mostly by bluffing. Plus the art is cute and sort of expressionistic. But they were surprised that a game that played so fast in Germany became long and ponder-y when played by RussCon people. Here's the cover of the box:


Here's Russ and Anna at Celtic Fest:


And here's some of the "Viking Invasion" players we were watching fight. They were entertainingly corny. Their ringleader was a handsome blond flinging his long hair around (see the arrow). Russ reminded me that when the ringleader was bested, the victor called to the crowd, "What shall I do with him?!" And the little kids answered: "Cut off his hair!"


And let me remind people there will be another Russ and Anna visit at my house this Sunday for a potluck BBQ.

By now surely everyone who knows goulo knows that he's coming back to Texas for a month soon with Anna. I've offered to host a potluck BBQ and gaming day/evening on Sunday, November 11. Starts at 4pm and goes until...?

I'll have sodas, beer, wine, waters. I'll have fixings for both meat and meat-free burgers for the grill. People can bring other dishes to share or meats to grill. Oh, I'll also marinate the delicious steaks I always have as well.

The idea is bring in folks from RussCon (gaming) and SlugTribe (SF/F) and any other folks who might want to hang out. My place is in north Austin... More details as we know them.

There's a new restaurant in south Austin called Estancia Churrascaria ("churra-scare-REE-ah"). I emailed martang, another meat-loving, non-vegetarian friend, about it. On Thursday, a group of us took the trek and really enjoyed ourselves! Marty and I had eaten at them before (there were two churrascarias in Dallas). Everybody else was trying it for the first time.

These are Brazilian/Argentian restaurants where they grill the meat on spits -- like the South American cowboys ("gauchos") do. They cook their meat over coals banked from fires they build in holes in the ground. The restaurants set up some spits and kitchen grills to make the same effect. While you sit at your table, men in gaucho outfits with beef, chicken, lamb, and pork -- various cuts and preparations -- on spits wander around and invite you to take some. They usually have a coaster-type thing that's green/Yes on one side and red/No on the other so you can stop them from putting their spits in your face if you want!

Also the salad bars are usually smallish but with rare and delicious options -- like artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, asparagus spears, sun dried tomato halves, balls of mozzarella, etc. Oh, it was so good. There are also fried plantains, fried yucca, cheese rolls and mashed potatoes at the table. Really, an embarrassment of riches. All so delicious! (Well, I gagged on the lamb, but others liked it.) And the group -- with J4, Carla, Niecie, Marty and FredS -- was a fun crowd enthusiastic about everything too. You do have to withstand some hardsell Brazilian waiters (oh, they really want you to drink the wine, try a martini, get a dessert) but you find it easier and easier to say no the more you eat. I think the winner at our table was Marty, who appeared to get 3-4 plates of meat and 2 big plates of salad.

Yummm! Very worth the $30 plus tax, tip, drink and dessert.

We had a lovely dinner at Serrano's, the RussCon guys and me. Unlike last year's dinner, jipp was there. So was TimS, martang and Clayton. No Jeffles though.

(Jungle) Bob is going from a foreign service post in Qatar to the American embassy in Berlin. That'll be gemutlich! And he'll be within a train's ride of goulo. We were talking at the table about how Bob and K.T. will have a 5-bedroom apartment in Berlin, so we need to go visiting. Especially since RussCon was built around the idea of German-style boardgames...! A RussCon field trip to Berlin & Poland would be awesome!

I did a Simpson's avatar for all the folks who showed up, which went over well.

( See a photo and the avatars behind the cut... )

In case somebody reads LJ who isn't on the RussCon mailing list, our world-traveling gamer buddy, Bob (Jungle Bob) Kirk is back in Austin for a week or so in between U.S. Foreign Service deployments. We're having a dinner for him Thursday (July 27). We'll be at the Serrano's out at the Arboretum (used to be called On the Border) at 7pm.

You'll find me, Jungle Bob, Marty (martang), JP (jipp), Jeffles, TimS and Clayton. If you know us, join us!

If you go to a 3:00 p.m. Sunday showing of SHREK THE THIRD, you should expect a theater full of screaming, crying, talking kids. Just in case you didn't know that. Or like me, chose to be optimistic.

The movie is fine, for what it is. If you've seen the previous two, like I have, then the characters, plots and jokes start looking a little threadworn. The first SHREK is remarkable for combining gross, low humor with a really heartfelt romantic twist. As I may have posted here before, I once won an argument with a roomful of computer and game geeks when I claimed that they didn't work very hard to figure out what women wanted, but women were always studying up to please men. When they challenged me on that, it went something like this:

Me: I can probably name the most romantic movie you've ever seen.
Geek Boys: [jeers] Yeah!
Me: Okay. Okay. Shrek!
Geek Boys: Oh! [moonily] Yeeesss.

So in SIII, there is less geek romance and more high-school-level geekery. They get lots of mileage out of their fairytale high school, what with the cheerleaders and Valley Girls talking in Olde English. I have to admit that every time I see Justin Timberlake in something new, he blows me away with the range of his talents. He kills me on Saturday Night Live with his skits and dancing (especially in a big foam rubber costume with big shoes and Mickey Mouse gloves), then he's always the musical act for the night as well. In this movie, he voices the character of teenage Arthur, the 2nd in line to the throne. The movie also features the voice of two Monthy Pythons this time: John Cleese is the frog king, Princess Fiona's dad, whose animated death scene is amazing. Eric Idle plays Merlin, now more of a hugger and crystal meditator than a wizard after his nervous breakdown. But my favorite voicer in Far, Far Away is always Rupert Everett, who is Prince Charming. Rupert seems to be game for any silly bit, so in this one, though he's the main antagonist, he also does musical dinner theatre and attempts singing. He's still charming even when he's a man in search of a musical key.

Oh, and let me note that no commercials ever show the ogre baby. Shrek and Fiona are expecting in this movie, which is the natural progression of their relationship. I'm betting big $$ that we can expect to see those brown-eyed, green, tulip-eared dolls in the stores very soon now. Yep, they're cute alright.