Fannish Metro Transit Authority

I now own a new car. It was a big decision for me, but I'm pretty sure I made a good one. My paternal great-uncle, Merle, died last month and part of his estate was a two-year-old silver Saturn sedan. It is not my ideal car, for one thing it is an automatic and I prefer a stick (ha ha) and I like cars with a bit better gas mileage. But it definitely is a good thing to get a new car for a fairly low price, the equivalent of what the family could have gotten for it by selling it to a dealer. So yesterday I was very busy doing things like getting the title transferred and also doing my laundry out at the parent's house. Then I went and met a new friend at the gay Diedrich's Coffeehouse. (Andy is nice by the way, I might even be able to drag him into fandom.) So that's why there was no entry yesterday, I do hope everyone will forgive me.

Hopefully I'll be well enough off to trade it in on a new car in two years, maybe a Honda Civic gas-electric hybrid. Or maybe even a Toyota Prius, car of the future!

But until then my new car needs a name. My old Geo Prizm was my "White Ghost" from it's paint color and how it blended as an old but not too beat up car.

Fandom Explained: In The Sack

As I promised someone earlier this week here is an explanation of one of the party games that I've participated in with Denver fen.

In The Sack is a late night party game, I've most often played it with friends at Karval Kon, though occasionally a game will happen late at night at MileHiCon. A sheet of paper is found and cut up into pieces. Everyone gets five or six and writes questions on them. Any sort of question can be written down. Since this is about getting to know each other better most of the questions are related to habits, preferences, ethics and so on. Now this could get way out of control with questions that are too personal to be answered, the two checks on this are having a mostly reasonable group and if a question writer pulls his own question he will still have to answer it.

Variations include giving each person a pass on a question, complaining and getting a question thrown out by a majority, and having everyone answer every question pulled. We most often play with everyone answering every question pulled since often the questions are fun and everyone would like to answer. The game's biggest advantage is that it is easy to set up since no special equipment is needed, unlike something like twister.

I've tried to come up with an online version. Perhaps someone could announce a game in his or her livejournal and friends respond if they are willing to play. The next day he makes another post and allow anonymous posting of questions in response. (It would be best if the questions could be limited to those who have chosen to participate, I think that's possible by limiting who can see the open for questions post by a custom setting.) Then he vets the questions as being appropriate and everyone answers the questions in their own live journals of the next few days. It might need adjustment based upon flaws found in actual play, but it seems like it would work and be fun as well.

Who/What Are You Variation
Of a group of livejournal friends knows each other moderately well everyone could propose a funny, silly, whatever sort of Who or What similar to the quiz memes that propagate through livejournal regularly. One is picked and everyone participating writes on what they think they are in that category and gives reasoning. Then everyone else writes back saying "Oh I agree, because of thus and such" or "You're completely batty, you're much more like X because you've done this." I like the idea of a freeform system much better than the limited results that quizzes give.

I want everyone's opinion on this! Am I out of my mind? Do I have a fun idea? Do you have a better one? Write soon!

Feta Sauce Chicken

I just created something wonderful by accident. Take three medium sized carrots, cut them into coin pieces. Cut up two chicken leg quarters (two thighs, two drumsticks) into largish bite sized pieces. Start cooking the carrots with a generous slug of olive oil and a tablespoon or so of garlic. After a few moments add the chicken. Cook until the chicken is pretty much done and there is a good deal of juice and oil in the pan with the pieces. Add a generous amount of feta cheese (1/4 cup?). It will melt down and mix with oil and juices to make a sauce. Fantastic!

I got the chicken cheap on Tuesday, 40¢ a pound at King Soopers. The feta was in the fridge along with the garlic. The carrots I used were organic because they were on sale for $1 and I think the organic ones taste a bit better.

Next time I'll do some noodles with them or something.