Murder! Mayhem! Mischief!

In honor of my upcoming birthday, I decided to bring the delight that are the freeform murder mystery games to Bourne Chambers - technically, I could've waited until closer to my actual birthday, but... well... that would've involved actually waiting. :) As always, the invitation list changed dramatically the night before/day of as some got sick, some got called for work early the next morning, etc and new people stepped in last minute - but I think we finally ended up with 14 - all the necessary characters, and two of the extra characters. The game was pirate themed: think of a cliche from Pirates of the Caribbean or Treasure Island, and it was there - the womanizer pirate captain and his rival cutthroat female captain, the kidnapped governor and his daughter, the natives of the Caribbean isle, the mysterious masked avenger, the marooned pirate who's gone crazed by the sun, etc. We took over the top floor (the common room, kitchen, hallway, and both Lars' and Patrick's rooms were available for running about, plotting, conversing, and fights TO THE DEATH. 

I was quite impressed with how well everyone played the game - a few people got confused or missed out on doing their goals, but most were running around, making deals and planning to stab each other in the back. I can't decide who won MVP - 

John put the most effort into his costume (he played the colonial captain who came to rescue the governor and his daughter - basically, Commodore Norrington from the

 Pirates of the Caribbean movies) and he managed to tack a massive amount of trim and buttons onto his normal black overcoat - quite impressive. 

(Although, in this category, credit must be given to Lars' cardboard

 and construction paper tricorn hat and Ciaran's egg carton armor) Ciaran was the mad pirate, but managed to keep under wraps that he had been cured within the first ten minutes of the game - he stole the second treasure map (there were two) and managed to bargain his freedom from two different groups with both, then stole the treasure back once it was found [he wasn't allowed to go search for it himself] and hid it. He later married the Taino princess, meaning he was allied with all three major enemies of the game, pretty much guaranteeing his place off of the island and completing his goals.

 

Lars, meanwhile, was the male pirate captain - for most of the game he had an "alliance" with Julia, the female pirate captain, all the while stealing nearly all of her crew, getting the colonials to support him, getting a Royal Pardon from the governor (the only one handed out), and finally had Julia killed off and received every single vote at the end of the game, giving him control of both ships off of the island. He promised Abigail that she could be the captain of the second ship if she gave him the treasure - she did, he took the treasure, then gave the second ship instead to Patrick - again, he won every last goal, put everyone else on the second ship, and sailed off into the sunset with the treasure, his own ship, his rival dead, and a Royal Pardon that prevented him from being trialled or punished for his crimes of piracy.

Though, props should be given to Tristin, thrown into the game at the last minute, one of his abilities was the ability to poison food - all he had to do was make someone eat or drink something he'd touched, and he could poison them. This ability took out the Spaniard Don Inigo. He nearly killed off Ciaran's mad pirate (after curing him earlier in the game...) but Ciaran instead took the cheese and tried to poison the governor with it. (Fortunately, Jack saw through the ploy as well)

The game was a great success and we're already planning the next one - Lars and I are going to joint host Hollywood Lies, since I've played it before, but it's perfectly suited for the crowd around here. :) 

In other murderous, destructive news (which I realize I haven't posted here yet), Lars bought Risk... and we've all become absolutely addicted. (Actually, to be fair, it's the guys and myself - Julia and Mione played a game or two, but haven't played since) For a bit of bragging (and to make mes freres proud), I have *won* two of the games we've played! (I won the first game of Mission Risk that we played, and won Team Risk [even more incredible, since Lars, Will, and Ciaran were all on the other team] ) and oh-so-nearly won the last game we played - it was the second game of Mission Risk, and I had finished three of my four missions - the final one being "Conquer Europe" - while I didn't have any men on Europe, I controlled North and South America, as well as territories in Asia and one on Australia, and had cards to turn in - basically, I loaded up Iceland and Brazil with about a million men and just went on a massive spree. I managed to take out all of Europe and North Africa (as a buffer zone, and way into Europe)... except for stupid 'Southern Europe', which defended itself with one man pretty much miraculously until I was forced to retreat as I had no men left. With only one man left on pretty much all of my territories and the guys knowing that they had to crush me or I'd win, I was pretty much destroyed the ensuing round, except for a sole territory in northeastern Russia, which I held for round after round after round. Good times. :) 

Superbowl Snowday (And Various Miscellany)

I arrived home from London, only to have a day and a half to throw together my presentation for the assessment of Stage 1 - (eeek!) Lots of hurry, hurry, hurry - then the stress of trying to present four months of research into fifteen minutes of talk - followed by the "ahwwhh..." of a week and a half of break. (Although it was terrible to have to go, basically, first, it meant that I was free for the rest of the week, while everyone else was stressing about getting theirs ready) 

Because of this, I - well - went a bit underwater as far as everyone in Seattle could tell - about halfway through the week, I received an email from mom and dad, basically - subtly - asking if I was still alive. :) So, here's what I've been up to in this time off:

- Superbowl Sunday.... Well, Monday, Really. (Monday Night AMERICAN Football?) Patrick, Will, John, Dave, Naomi and I took over the upstairs lounge (not hard to do, since I think about three quarters of the Halls had gone up to London for the weekend, and it was - after all - well past 11:30PM before we even got to kick-off) - though it was Will, Patrick, John and I who painted our faces for the occasion. We were cheering on the Cardinals, based on the oh-so-technical arguments of "west" coast pride (me), John is from New Jersey and thus is contractually obligated to hate anything from Pennsylvania, Patrick prefers the NFC to the AFC, Will was rooting for the underdog, and Dave and Naomi were just following along. We hooked up Patrick's computer to the BBC's video player, and thus missed the commercials, but had a British commentator. Very amusing. We thought for a moment that the Cardinals were going to win for Patrick's birthday, but... well... both sides got their miraculous come-back moments, after all. And hey, for his actual birthday (Monday)...

- SNOWDAY! Well, when we say "snow", we mean some very lovely flakes falling all day that didn't stick except on the grass, and then only a light dusting; mostly just slush along the ground. That said, it is truly bizarre for Dorset and, well, you'd think the world had just ended - half of the buses stopped running, car accidents galore, shops not opening, uni cancelled - I woke up that Monday, read the email that said classes were cancelled due to professors being unable to make it in, and looked out my window - "umm... what snow?" Still, there was enough for snowball fights, Patrick made a snow angel, and for those who just don't get snow, it was fun. Meanwhile, up in London they got about 7" and, yes, the city absolutely shut down. For those who complained that Seattle freaked out at the snow, you can point and laugh at the Londoners. The trains stopped running, everything was shut down, Les Mis CANCELLED their shows (!) - I actually was a little nervous for everyone up in London trying to get home, but happily ran into Ciaran and Lars just getting back home when I came back from my walk down to the beach. (That said, it was about half 4, and they had expected to be home around 11AM)

- More Nerdiness! My room, being the biggest in the Halls, has unofficially become the studio/playroom - from editing films to making sugar glass to target practice for trebuchets to games of Risk wherein Lars always manages to completely take over the world (even with my lone Irishman struggling so hard to hold on to Great Britain), it's all down here. As of yesterday, we can add a new one - weaponry creation. I'm hosting a murder mystery party game here this weekend in honour of my upcoming birthday (well, my birthday isn't until the *end* of February, but I couldn't wait that long), which requires four cutlasses and one rapier. Needless to say, all you really need are hangers, tinfoil, duct tape, and cardboard. Really, do you need anything else in life, for that matter?

- The Joys of British Workmanship - So, my fridge stopped 

working sometime over Christmas break, and I let James (our Halls Officer) know this fact as soon as he came back from holiday. (*After* we had come back from ours, I should point out) I went about a week without a fridge (a week after letting him know, mind), then he finally brought me a mini-fridge which is currently living under my kitchen table. It's maybe half or a third of the size of my real fridge, but at least my milk doesn't have to live in the freezer anymore. Cut to, well, this morning (about a month after I was able to report the fridge broken), and James shows up to knock on my door, pry, jimmy, and finally cut the whole unit away from the wall and pull it about a foot away from the wall, then leave, saying that someone's coming to fix it tomorrow and will I be here to let them in? He, of course, can't give a time, so I finally just give him my cell, saying to call a half-hour before they'll be here, and if I'm not here, he'll need to show up with them to let them in. Anyone want to take bets on whether they'll end up being able to do anything? He assured me that he'd tell the guys to push the unit back up against the wall, and that he'll come back in to seal it back to the wall. ("But, I'm on holiday next week, so it'll be the week after that.") I was asked what the biggest culture shock was, coming to the UK from the States, and this is it in a nutshell. The stereotypical "American" is generally painted as demanding - I *need* it RIGHT NOW, just EXACTLY the way I want it, and if I don't get it JUST RIGHT, RIGHT NOW I'm going to make a HUGE STINK" - this is an ugly picture and one I always hated, but... well... let's just say it's interesting to come from a culture that bends over backwards to appease the customer at every turn, to a culture where the predominant view is just "Well... we'll get to it when we get to it. Not much you can do." This translates to long queues, long hold times (where you're getting charged to be on hold for twenty minutes), and - well - fridge units being pulled out from the wall 14", then left there for the electricians coming the next day - who you are responsible for letting in.