Let the good times (and the dice) roll

Science, Copious drinking, Warhammer, Board Games, Profane Friendship

March 30-April 1st.‒A weekend which will live in infamy. My good pal and esteemed colleague Martin Kronberg rode the train into Seattle King Street Station that Friday afternoon. The debauchery and nerdliness began shortly thereafter.

Visiting my buddy Jack in Capitol Hill, we were soon at the Summit Pub. After a rousing few rounds, Martin and I started arguing about dark matter. He was arguing some BS about non-Newtonian physics; but there’s already tons of observations of gravitational lensing where no visible matter exists–dark matter filaments. Here’s a website he designed for his adviser as part of the LSST. A listener nearby named Tophir heard us and interjected “Yo guys, did you know that Neil deGrasse Tyson is in town tonight?” My jaw dropped, I’d been watching his videos all day. I liked this one the best that day:

He has been a role model of mine since I was 16; the man knows how to inspire. Needless to say, we had found our mission for the night. After trying to find tickets online or by phone to no avail, we drove to the Neptune to try our luck. SOLD OUT!

We would not be defeated so easily. After a quick trip to Samir’s we rushed back to the ticket booth for an update. There was about 30 people in line to get in. We talked to the woman at the ticket counter, I bought THE LAST TICKET. But that left Martin without a ticket. I started accosting the line for a spare, and lo and behold I scalped one from a dude. We got into that show by the skin of our necks, approximately the same way we finished college.

The show itself was pretty good. If you want a full synopsis I found a great blog which covers the whole of the evening. The highlight was Neil’s enthusiasm for all things astronomy. Wil Wheaton was not as entertaining as we might have hoped.. but I can’t imagine going toe to toe with a living legend like Tyson and not looking a dim white dwarf binary in comparison. When the stage panel was talking about Ringworld it was Martin who shouted “its unstable!” The motif persisted throughout the night. Overall it was a good time.

The rest of the weekend was a blur. Martin and I studied physics and astronomy in our heyday, but we probably spent more time studying the effects of intoxication on passing classes. I Tom Sawyer’d my friends into doing some yard work, but other than that things were pretty destructive.

We did however go to an awesome gaming bar called Cafe Mox. It’s attached to Card Kingdom which is a place for nerds of all types to meet up and play board+card games. We spent the better part of 5 hours on that Saturday learning how to play Warhammer: Chaos in the Old World. If you really want to know about the game, you can watch this:

 

Saturday night was spent on Capitol Hill; Sunday should have been a night to recover, but instead we went out for round three. Monday was the worst day I’ve had in a long long time. The moral of the story… when your girlfriend asks you to come home early after drinking for two days straight, its because she’s worried you’ll hurt yourself. She was right, I came home a sick, bloody mess. Something about having a college drinking buddy in town just brings out the worst in my character; I rarely drink normally. It’s funny how much identity can change depending on the company present; like everything else, balance should be the ideal. Ah well, I’ll behave better next time but I certainly had some fun anyway!