Drinking Games for Non-Drinkers, Soul Stealing RPGs, and DIY Designer Fashion Accessories

Okay, just one more blog post.  Really, I'm going to turn in my computer today.  Or maybe early tomorrow morning.  Surely one more day won't matter.

I couldn't not tell everyone about the fun I had with some young friends on Saturday night.  My birthday is coming up next week...wait...this week?  I forget.  Anyway, Jayson and I had planned to have my birthday dinner on Friday night since he was leaving to go back to Houston early Saturday.  Friday was my last day at work and I had stayed late to make sure all my loose ends were tied up.  Around 6:00 I sent Jayson a text message telling him that I would be home in an hour or so, at which time he reminded me that we were supposed to go out to dinner.  We decided to postpone until his next trip to town since it was getting late and I was in "the zone" and couldn't be stopped.  So basically I forgot my own birthday dinner.

Some of my writing friends, who all happen to be in their early 20s, had planned to go out to dinner on Saturday night and invited me to join them.  I love hanging out with them despite the age difference and the fact that we live in very different worlds.  I like hanging with people who aren't in my "world".  Not that I don't like the people in my world, I do very much.  But I think we're missing out if we don't step outside our normal circle of friends to see who else is out there.  I get few opportunities to do that so I try to take advantage of them when I can.

We met for dinner at the Longhorn Steakhouse.  I'm still on this 'trying to eat healthy' kick but I just can't not get a steak at a steakhouse.  I got a small steak but instead of the loaded baked potato that I wanted, I opted for the steamed veggies.  I think that canceled out the steak so it's all good.  Actually, it was very good.  The steak was delicious and cooked just right.  Which is to say, it was barely cooked.  I like my meat as rare as the health department will let them serve it.

One of the girls ordered a beer with dinner and when the bartender brought it over to our table he looked right at me and tried to hand it to me.  I found this absolutely hilarious.  Obviously I was the oldest one at the table so I'm sure it looked like I was the mom taking all my kids out to dinner and could probably use a beer.  Then we talked about how he could have tried to hand it to the only man in our group, assuming he would be the one to order the beer since girls like girlie drinks...which is obviously not always the case.

After dinner it was decided that we would be going to Pilot's Pub, which I visited for the first time with these same friends not too long ago.  It's not someplace I typically hang out since I don't drink (anymore) but I wasn't there to drink, I was there to play darts.

I've never played darts before.  I'm not exactly sure how I've avoided it all these years but I've never thrown a dart at a dartboard and was excited to learn how.  Well, there's not much to learn really, but I did get some good strategy tips that I'm sure I'll be able to use in the future when I'm hanging out at other bars not drinking.

I found that I can play darts but not particularly well.  I can aim well enough to hit the board most of the time, but I can't aim well enough to hit a specific number.  We played a game called 301 which was fun but it required entirely too much math.

After darts, we switched to card games.  One was called Egyptian Ratscrew and I liked it a lot.  It reminded me of speed.  I had to have a constant running tutorial because I kept forgetting how many cards followed each face card, but on the other hand I did pretty good at slapping since everyone else's reflexes had been slowed due to alcohol.  Note to self: next time put some money on the game.

James proving she did not cheek her meds.

Angel & James doin' the waterfall.

Jerrit & Cat completing the waterfall.

The other card game we played was a drinking game called Captain Dickhead.  I'd never played anything quite like this before.  The whole deck of cards is spread out face down in the center of the table and everyone takes turn drawing a card.  Depending on the card you draw, different actions are performed, always resulting in a lot of drinking.  Since I was drinking water this wasn't a big deal but I did have to pee pretty badly so I though that sort of put us on an even playing field.  During the game, you hope to draw an Ace because that makes you Captain Dickhead and you can make up any action you want to that carries through until the end of the game, or until another Captain negates it.  I got to be the Captain early on and decided that we all should speak with British accents for the rest of the game.  Of course, those who forgot had to take a drink.  The only trouble with that one is that once the game ended it was really hard to drop the accent.  I was British for pretty much the rest of the weekend.

Egyptian Ratscrew is a game you can play with your family but Captain Dickhead, obviously, is not.  You can play darts with your family too, as long as at least one of you can do math.  Pilot's Pub also has pool tables but I am a terrible pool player so I'm glad we didn't play that.  Just about the only bar game that I'm any good at is foosball but they don't have any foosball tables there.  They did have a beer pong table which I thought to be a ludicrous waste of someone's resources.  It had little recessed places for the cups and an acrylic cover on the top.  Seriously?  You really don't need a special table for that game.

I also learned, sort of, about tabletop RPGs (role playing games).  One of the girls who was invited to join us couldn't because she was playing one of these.  Dungeons and Dragons came out when I was a kid but for some reason my mother declared it Satanic and I wasn't allowed to play it, to know about it, to be friends with anyone who played, to ask about it, or to ever speak its name out loud.  That wasn't the weirdest thing she ever did so whatever.

Anyway, I got a short primer on RPGs and I have to say that they are no more clear to me now than before.  I understand there are characters and depending on your character there are different qualities you possess, but your real personality may have qualities that your character does not and that can count for something.  There may be some kind of dice that you use and there's a table, I presume, since it's a tabletop RPG.  I dunno.  I think I definitely need to see one of these played so that I can understand.  I have no desire to actually play one, and not because I fear it will instantly send my soul straight to hell like my mother told me, but it's something that I don't know anything about therefore is a learning opportunity and I crave those even if what I'm learning isn't exactly of any great value.

Oh, I learned another new thing too.  It's a newfangled fashion accessory (or at least new to me) called wrist warmers or arm warmers.  If you look in the pictures above you can see that both James and Catherine had on some variation of these.  I'm not much of a fashionista since my idea of good fashion is something that fits, is comfortable, and I didn't pay more than $10 for it.  After examining Catherine's funky and fun striped wrist warmers, I determined that I could probably make my own.

These are pictures of my fancy Hanes Her Way wrist warmers.  I think mine are better than your average retail wrist warmers because mine come with the special "heel" where you can store things like your car keys.  You don't get that feature with most wrist warmers.  And, of course, the name brand is prominently displayed because when you own designer garments you want to show them off.  I grew up during the era of the leg warmer so I know what I'm talking about.