…are writing and eating. Often at once. This is why I’m thrilled to have finally gotten into doing restaurant reviews. A few weeks ago I reviewed an Italian restaurant, and yesterday they ran my article on the local greasy spoon.  Writing down the price range for Jack’s in comparison to most other places I reviewed was just plain entertaining.

Speaking of my life as a gourmet, tonight I had a seafood casserole with lobster, crab, scallops, shrimp, garlic, cilantro, white wine, and parmesan. It was, frankly, pretty damn tasty. And the best part is, I didn’t have to go to a restaurant to get it.

The problem with unreasonable people (aside from the fact that they are sufficiently unreasonable that such is the main adjective you use to describe them) is that you can’t complain to them that they are being unreasonable, or they will simply get stubbornly huffy and continue being unreasonable while calling you an unreasonable complainer. This is as true in real life as it is in politics.

Writing about writing. Although I suppose this blog post is now meta-meta-writing. And every time I mention it, I add another meta. I never met a meta I didn’t like.

Anyway, yesterday’s column was about J.K. Rowling and her lawsuit against the Harry Potter Lexicon. And I just finished next week’s column, which was supposed to be entirely unrelated to writing, but I ended up dropping in a footnote about a famous author… I bet you know who.

I sometimes wonder if our perception of time is based entirely on relative lengths of time experienced now and time already experienced previously. Because waiting ten minutes used to seem like a year, but these days years are going by in a matter of minutes, and I have it on good authority that it just gets worse. Bad authority?

Man, Rodney Dangerfield was crazy, but he had a certain charm about him.

Anyway, it’s around the time of the year when people who aren’t me have to go back to school. To them, in the words of Dave Barry, I would like to say: “Neener, neener.”

If you miss the pointless exams of school, don’t fret. I wrote a fun little Back to School Quiz that you can take.

A little while back, a friend of mine pointed me to a pretty neat Diablo 2 mod, and I started playing again. Now, one of the things about Diablo 2 that makes it so addictive is that your character levels up and gets to pick a set of skills to increase. (This is similar to Blizzard’s other big hit, World of Warcraft.) My problem is, rather than focus on one skill that becomes powerful, my natural instinct is to put one point into everything because I want to try it out. Then later in the game, I realize I don’t have enough points to raise any one skillset high enough to rule the world, because I’ve tried a bit of everything. But in those early levels, with all the potential skills spread out in front of me, I envision all the different paths I could take, becoming a master of one or the other. Inevitably, I dabble here and there and don’t focus enough on one thing because everything seems so fun.

Life is like that.

Well, it’s September. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it. The months start to speed by, and I’m sure the year will be over before I know it. The Olympics are already over, although you can relive all the highlights in my most recent column. And I’m back from attending yet another wedding, for what will in all probability be my last time in a tuxedo. Tuxedos are bizarre, and wearing one with any frequency seems more trouble than it’s worth. Honestly, I don’t know how penguins do it.*

Still, catching up with old friends is always delightful. Whether it’s playing board games, or hearing interesting anecdotes (one of my lawyer friends had an objection sustained against him for “being sarcastic”), or just hanging out, weddings provide one of the few reliable reunions that gather many of my friends from all over the country.

Speaking of country, my article about Country Joe McDonald was published last week, so feel free to read it if that sort of thing interests you. Right now, I think what interests me is lunch.

*please do not take this as an invitation to send me videos of penguins mating.

Y’know, summer doesn’t go by any slower just because you don’t have to go back to school in September. I feel like it was just June last week, and then I blinked, and here I am. The moral? Never blink.

Which is not to say I haven’t enjoyed my summer. I have, quite a bit. I’ve eaten some fine food, both at restaurants and cooked right at home. I’ve acquired and played many, many board games, although none so often as the much-vaunted Agricola, which amazingly managed to live up to my high expectations in every way. I’ve even been getting a little culture. I went to see Waiting for Godot (which I’d never seen on stage), and saw a local production of Romeo & Juliet.

Actually, Friday’s column was about the play, which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected to. (The play, not the column.) And I got to interview Country Joe McDonald for a piece about his Woody Guthrie Tribute concert, which I’ll post here as soon as it’s published. (The piece, not the concert.)

A lot of people seem to be getting married and having babies. Better them than me, I suppose. (The people, not the babies.)

I’ve been getting rid of the favorite objects of my youth, lately. I didn’t know it would all happen in the span of a few weeks, but it sort of shook out that way. Last week’s column was about my Magic addiction, and how I’ve finally started getting rid of all my cards. I think it’s a fairly accurate depiction of the hobby, and have been told it’s one of my better columns. So maybe you should read it.

Nobody has yet made a similar comment about this week’s column, but if you want to read about how I also sold all my action figures to a local collector, and sold all my old Nintendo games to a slightly less local store, go right ahead.

Also, I should perhaps mention that “local” in the previous paragraph refers to Rhode Island. I was back visiting last weekend, and am still a Rhode Islander at heart. Now and forever. Best of all, I got to stop at my favorite ice cream stand, Hill Top Creamery. Pina Colada Glacier Freeze (a slushee mixed with vanilla ice cream) is still the most refreshing thing you can possibly have on a summer day.

Normally, when I write a column, I’d like everyone in the world to read it. But sometimes that’s not the case. For example, last weekend I was at a wedding. And my column about that wedding should probably not be read by a certain attendee of the wedding. Of course, this is the Internet, so anything I post on here can be read by anyone at all.

So it would be especially foolish to then write something on this blog that even more people shouldn’t see. And yet… some things cannot pass without comment. (Or at least, cannot pass by me without comment.) So it’s hard to say which of the two speeches at the wedding irked me more — the wedding “toast” which exhorted the groom to realize he would be wrong in all arguments (and practice saying “Yes, Dear”), or the priest’s reading during the ceremony that said anyone not accepting Christ will burn in a fire.

The fusion of the two, however, is most excellent. People faced with crazy religious intolerance should smile condescendingly and say “Yes, Dear”.  And people who believe that certain gendered stereotypes or condescension should take the place of rational discourse should churn in a mire. And people who blather on their blogs should stop writing and go to sleep.

At the monthly local creatively-aligned potluck I attend, there are always interesting people. There are various artists of all types, including our frequent host, the inimitable Howard Cruse. There was once even a witch. But there are also two people who really, really care about the welfare of dogs, and vehemently oppose anything that might make canines suffer in the slightest bit. They should not read today’s column. The rest of you, though, should go right ahead.

Acquired some new board games yesterday, among them Power Grid and Caylus, both longish brain-busting sorts of games produced by the fine people at Rio Grande, and both currently on BoardGameGeek’s top ten list. We’ve already played three games, and are looking forward to more. While playing this game, it occured to me that some games are less suited for certain modifications than others. For example, in spite of how many people seem to enjoy it with poker, I imagine that Strip Caylus or Strip Power Grid (a.k.a. “Power Strip”) just wouldn’t be the same.

And no, I don’t plan to test this empirically, so if you want to find out, you’ll have to test it yourself. But if you do, let me know how it goes.

Well, I’m back from my weekend in Maine attending a wedding. The first of four for the year, albeit the only one likely to be held on a family farm while various people gleefully drive a rented golf cart all over the property. These kids were clearly abusing a vehicle meant for transporting deck chairs across the fields and doing other serious work. Personally, I would never condone frivolous use of such a vehicle, especially since I almost fell off while joyriding on the back as we went over some hills at top speed. I may have to write my upcoming column about my trip.

Meanwhilst, last Friday’s column was about the Fourth of July in general, although I couldn’t post it because I was on the road. Fireworks are apparently illegal in the entire state of Maine, so I won’t confirm or deny rumors that there were fireworks at said wedding. It does seem odd, though, that celebrating patriotism is illegal. Then again, rebelling against unjust governance is patriotic too.

I’ve developed an addiction to board games.

Perhaps that’s not quite right. More accurate would be to say, I’ve nurtured an addiction to board games. Because I’ve always loved board games, as far back as I can remember. And not those endless games like Monopoly, or lame games of chance like War or Life, but board games that tend to fall in the “euro” style. Games that involve lots of strategy without involving six hour wargaming sessions. (If I wanted to spend six hours repeatedly adding things up in the hopes of figuring out the best way not to be killed by my opponent, I’d do my taxes.)

Anyway, the point is, I like my board games. And so I’ve bought a fair number of them (or, some might say, an unfair number) in the past few months. I’ve gotten in a few shipments of multiple games, and another is on the way. Unfortunately, it’s somewhat rare that I have more than one person around to play with. So I’ve now stocked my shelves with games which, for the most part, sit unplayed.

And it was still a much better use of money than the dollar I spent on the Ace Ventura video in the bargain bin.