I got a lamb something that wasn't vindaloo(started with a J, hell if I remember)
Rogan josh, probably.
Anyway! DJ and Shun departed today, so even the epilogue of DLCon 11 has come to a close. Going to try to wrap up my memories of things here:
Grefter stayed with us from late July until the Tuesday before Con. We didn't really do much touristy, just chilled and played games and chatted a bunch. 10/10 would invite him to crash on our couch again. One particular highlight of the visit was our D&D sessions, in which Grefter rolled up a Cthulhu-worshipping warlock (of course), promised that he could get the rest of the party a boat, then promptly went off and murdered a fisherman using Tasha's Hideous Laughter. When this eventually comes out this earns the admiration of the party's other warlock and the horror of the party's one good-alligned character. ("You killed him and stole his boat!" "And you paid me to do it. You're an accomplice!" *trollface*)
DJ and Shun arrived on Tuesday. I don't think we did too much that day, relatively, since they were getting over jet lag.
On Wednesday all five of us went up to Capilano Suspension Bridge. It is really high up and really swingy, not terrifying at all nope. We had a lot of fun walking around the park and seeing both giant birds of prey and a Dragonite which derailed the expedition for a while as DJ and Shun tried (unsuccessfully) to locate and capture it.
In the evening, Sopko/Snowfire/Meeple/Tonfa/Tal arrived. Yay! We played some of Snowfire's games while waiting for the last three to arrive, and ate chili. Ciato made a whole bunch and then sadly we forgot about it for the remainder of the weekend due to being so busy so we had to throw out the remainder because it had been 5 days.
On Thursday, a bunch of us (myself + Snowfire/Meeple/Tonfa/Tal/DJ/Shun) took a trip around Stanley Park. Weather was great, we saw several adorable wild animals (raccoon, heron, baby seal). This was also my main opportunity to hang out with Tonfa/Tal before they were claimed by mahjong and other Laggy-related hijinks, so that was a good time. DJ and Shun rented bikes and periodically past us and spent the extra time hunting pokemon because that's what people do outdoors in 2016. We returned to our apartment where MC/Laggy/Alex had already arrived. At this point we should have the house, but we learn that the previous tenants were mystified by this idea of a "check-out time" so no we don't actually have it yet. Then a whole bunch of us went out for dinner at White Spot. Right before we order I remember that oh shit Cmdr is arriving at the airport in ilke half an hour so I dash down there to get him, fortunately (?) his flight is delayed slightly even compared to the delay he had already told us about. Cmdr and I arrive at the house where Ashley/Andy/Gate are patiently waiting for someone to let them in, we knock loudly and Laggy shows up. Clearly Laggy did not want to be alone in a house with San Franciscans wait what-
Rest of the evening featured stressful times of trying to discover where Ciato's credit card was (we did find it eventually), although it meant we hung out with MC/Tal/Grefter while retracing her steps at the mall, etc. I then went and picked up Jim + Nick and returned to the house. Went out and bought/assembled a fan because south-facing second-floor room without some sort of cooling is a bad time during summer months. Went home and finally had dinner before going to sleep as Ciato needed to work at 5:30 the next morning~
After all that I really needed to relax a bit on Friday morning so I slept in + cleaned up the apartment a bunch while waiting for Ciato to get off work. We headed down to the house around noon. Hung out with various people and played games, etc. Took a trip to the Handi, our fave Indian place, with about half the group, for dinner.
On Saturday, we arrived at the house much earlier, for more fun times around there. Went out for breakfast at the Dutch Wooden Shoe with a large group of people, returned and hung out / played games / etc. In the mid afternoon we went with Grefter/Ashley/Andy/Snowfire to see
Romeo and Juliet at Bard. It was a hot day but the tent was cooler; play was good as Bard stuff usually is. After the play there was Cmdr-made lasagna (good stuff) and the music quiz; the main thing I remember is that Cmdr and I tied and that there was the worst adaptation of the Ghostbusters theme I have ever heard. Immediately after that there was bowling; Ashley et al. drove so they had a pretty big head start on us. In total I believe 16 of us bowled (4 lanes of 4). I'm sure Sopko will post the results eventually; I know Shun did really well (DJ bringing in ringers). Went back to the house for a while and played various things; chatted with Grefter/Ashley some after the rest of our group had departed and/or fallen asleep on the couch.
On Sunday, Jim made apple pancakes for breakfast, yum. Otherwise it was another day of mostly hanging out and playing various things at the house. Sadly MC/Ashley/Andy had to leave relatively early on, so we snuck in our group photo first (unfortunately this meant the photo lacked Excal and Magey, since we weren't organised enough to take one earlier). Rest of the day was more of the usual. A highlight was Nick reading from Romeo and/or Juliet, which was pretty topical and good fun, and we learned that for Romeo and Julient, as for the rest of us, things tend to turn out better when you actually communicate properly. In the evening we went to our second Bard play,
Othello, this one with Grefter/Snowfire/Gate. Again, good stuff.
On Monday the main set of departures occured. The house got cleaned up very nicely; thanks again to everyone who helped with that! Those of us who were still around after the house closed took a trip out to a mediterranean restaurant, which was tasty. (This was also about the only day I got in much conversation with Laggy/Alex, with whom my path had sadly not crossed much at Con itself, so glad I was able to get that in.) Then we went back to our apartment and played various games and such (plus took a short trip to Queen Elizabeth Park) while one by one everyone else departed until it was just Snowfire/Meeple/DJ/Shun. After DJ and Shun left to go clubbing, the rest of us were going to go grab a final ice cream from the usual place, but this plan got derailed by a call from my parents trying to set up some stuff at their Sechelt house. By the time it ended we figured we could still make the ice cream store if we jogged, so we did, and made it there with like 4-5 minutes to spare. Good times.
On Tuesday we had breakfast with Snowfire/Meeple before seeing them off to the airport. We then returned home to where DJ and Shun were staying the night, and headed off to Sechelt (for the uninitiated: it's on the mainland northwest of Vancouver, but you have to take a ferry to get there because there's no road that goes around Howe Sound, the fjord which separates it from the city). We had an excellent time just hanging out there for that day and most of Wednesday as well; we had intended to rent a car and explore more but instead just walking around locally proved enough adventure for us nerds. We returned home in the evening.
Thursday/Friday/Saturday/today I don't have much to say about; I'd say both Ciato and I took a bunch of time to recover but that's a lie because Ciato has had to go back to work during these days.
Still as much as DLCon was a huge amount of fun it's been good to unwind and return to normalcy. We did hang out with DJ and Shun a few times but largely we let them do their own thing, past that, which they can detail or not as they wish~
Games played at Con:
-Codenames was definitely the highlight for me; really fun game which both makes you think a lot about word associations but also a fun social thing that involves knowing your fellow players.
-Spyfall was the other new game I played, also pretty cool.
-Love Letter was something we just snuck in rounds of here or there when time allowed with different groups.
-Asshole was a good excuse to show off our new Kirby cards, thank you DJ and Shun~
-I feel like I'm forgetting something.
I also watched Tichu and Cards Against Humanity but didn't end up playing either due to personal preference (Tichu) and just not having enough time and/or realizing a game was going on because it was played in the basement (CAH).
For video games, I tried out both Pokken and Towerfall Ascension. Neither really grabbed me with a "you must play more of this" feel but that shouldn't really be taken as a reflection on the games and more what I wanted to do at the time. We also played a bunch of Smash because yeah obvious. Also there was a lot of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, which Ciato played to entertain first Grefter and then DJ, though I'm pretty sure both got rather different things out of watching it. Highly enjoyable regardless.
Once again I'd like to thank everyone who came; it was great to see all of you and hang out with all of you. Hope you enjoyed Vancouver, and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible next year.
