Photo Wrapping!

This Christmas I came up with a method of wrapping presents that made me happy. It couldn't possibly be something entirely new, but I've never seen anyone do it. I don't feel like searching the internet for the people who did it first; I'm just gonna write it up!

I was wrapping a final round of presents and I didn't have enough paper or labels. I realized I had a color printer. And lots of great photos of the people we were giving gifts to. So all I had to do was print pictures of a gift's recipient on several sheets of 8.5" by 11" paper, fold and tape the sheets together to cover the key portions of the present, ensure that the face got central position on the packaging, and voila: no need for a label! For extra effect, use pictures the gift's recipient has never seen.

Depending on the size of the gift, you may have to use other bits of contact paper to hide portions of the gift. I feel like this style of 'wrapping' is more about providing the moment of opening-discovery, not trying to wrap the present tightly as if it was being probed by a 7 year-old.

This is a photo of the top of a present to my wife Lisa, two prints used on the top, taped together, featuring the moment we saw that the angel wing mural in northern Oahu had been rendered in the colors of the dress Lisa was wearing!

Carp, Dragon, Generals

This is the Chinese Garden by South Seattle College in West Seattle, on an almost deserted Thanksgiving weekend during covid.  

Things to find if you click to enlarge: a giant carp called the dragon carp (from the legend that any carp that could climb the cascades at Dragon Gate on the Yellow River in Hunan would be transformed into a dragon), two terra-cotta generals, the downtown Seattle skyline, and two lions. 

Kussen Verboten

 

Ruby Beach is one of the most beautiful beaches in Washington. This panorama shot is from 2017, catching a moment when Lisa, our dog Roo, and my cousin and her husband were the only people in the panorama.

We saw amusing evidence of Ruby Beach’s international appeal on this trip. We just missed the people who scratched this message into the sand, so we can’t be 100% sure they were German.

But we were positive of the language spoken by the next three people to arrive. Three French folks showed up as we were admiring the no-kissing sign and immediately started scratching a response in the sand to the south.

I’m still bummed we didn’t stick around to read the French response, but we were running late and maybe a little cold and we kept walking.

Appropriate French responses accepted here!

Birthday Games

When I was a kid, my family used April Fools Day as the reference point to track my end-of-March birthday. Last year, in sunnier times, I had a big birthday party, something I usually avoid. To make it sing, our friends Elise & Aaron let us use their big-enough-for-a-big-party-house. Of course Elise went one step further: she arranged a birthday piñata, stuffed with something for everyone: Kinder eggs, fruit snacks, gluten-free cookies; chocolate truffles, dinosaurs, and so on. You can see the birthday piñata below. Elise went to the internet to find a picture of me to hit, so of course she ended up with my blog's Diabolic Tutor face, minus the tutor. 

I love this Harlequinade of a photo that Lisa took while the teenager-most-likely-to-slay-the-pinata was taking his second turn. A great ending to a wonderful party.

Earlier in the party we played a game I can share. It's a human bingo game, meant to be played when you're lucky enough to be able to gather a large number of friends who don't all know each other. Lisa brought it into our lives from working in environmental education and we've used it for several big parties, including the intermission at our wedding. 

The hosts make a bingo card ahead of time with items oriented towards people they expect to see at the party. If you've got kids attending, you make sure to include a number of questions that kids will be likely to qualify for, because kids turn out to be highly active participants, buzzing between circles of adults and helping make all new introductions. 

As the card says, you're looking for signatures from party-goers who can say "Yes, I did that," and each person can only sign your card once, so you gotta mingle. Some people play super-competitively until they've scored a bingo, others fill the card. Choose the right categories and you ensure you're going to hear interesting stories. 

Here's the card from last year's game . . . .

Gaming this week: Book of the Underworld, Wingspan, Cypher System

The wonderful car-web photo above was taken by Lisa Eschenbach, and I'm using it to acknowledge that I finished the development phase on Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan's Book of the Underworld earlier this week. Yeah, it took a few weeks longer than I expected. The book is now with the editor. All the art is coming in on schedule so it won't be too long before it's in layout.

Also this week, I made huge progress on two new designs. The secret card/boardgame I've been designing for my own personal satisfaction has achieved harmony. Players have been enjoying it for awhile, and now I'm also simply having fun rather than seeing things that need fixing. Notably, I'm no longer winning every game. There's a specific type of imbalance when the designer's advantage in knowing what might be unbalanced pays off too often. Happily, I'm losing now, so that development phase is over.  I'll be looking for a publisher soon.

Meanwhile on a different unannounced boardgame project that has a publisher already, I solved the last of the design problems that was bugging me and am making a pass through the cardset and other components to live up to the new solutions. I'm looking forward to playtesting next week.

I also enjoyed a couple first-plays this week. I've only been able to find the European supplement for Wingspan, but friends Brittany and Miguel brought over the core game. We all loved it. Lisa used the Audubon app on her phone to accompany turns with the calls of the newly played birds. Brittany arranged a ridiculous combo and stuffed what she called a 'Christmas goose' with 20 VP, so curses accompanied the bird calls.

I also got to play my first game of the Cypher system, in a highly diverting fantasy genre session run by Bruce Cordell. I had fun as a Resilient Speaker Who Keeps a Magic Ally. Specifically, I'm playing a priest of a war god that died in apocalyptic fashion (the god I mean), and now I get my spells from random deities, changing every day, who are using me as an experiment, or a bet, or something. More or less a One Unique Thing that will definitely make for fun prayers. Also: I'm a kite-fighting and bocce ball aficionado. My comrades are considerably doughtier (more on them next time), so all shall be well.

And though we didn't play The Gods War this week, it launched a Kickstarter with Gloranthan gods of War, Secrets, and Magic, and I'm pretty sure I never shared this method-acting photo from our Gods War game. From right to left, Sean pulled faces as Chaos, Jonathan was a stickler-for-rules Solar, and I was a Storm player who never rolled a 6 after mistakenly using a wargaming plan in an area control universe. The sword was an attempt to compensate for 6-less-ness. Paul, the Darkness troll photographer, ate us all.

Red Base Yellow Base

Walking our dog Roo early this morning in the fog, outside the Rainier Arts Center, I found myself standing on what felt like an art project, or perhaps a section of a game board, one base red, one base yellow.