Paper Napkins on the Edge of Insanity

How To Prepare A Huge Holiday Meal By Yourself And Still Have Time For Fun

2017-12-23T12:26:00.002-08:00

I was asked, recently, how I made a Holiday meal by myself for the whole family and still had time to enjoy the day. Here is the basic process. Everyone does it differently, but you don’t have to make a big deal cooking a huge dinner. It only takes a few hours and actually Saves time because I don’t end up cooking again for, like, two days.

Well, admittedly, the whole family is usually only 5 people, but I do like to be extravagant and make as much of it myself as possible. Once you are already cooking, most dishes can be upsized. Actually, having a bunch of people is easier because they can just bring sides to add on.

Over Thanksgiving I took notes on how the day(s) went, play-by-play in my (little apartment) kitchen. It’s kind of interesting. If you’ve ever wanted to make a big Holiday Meal to feed a bunch of people, you can look over how I do it and adapt as necessary. I didn’t take timestamps, but just the basic order of operations with a bit of advice I’ve picked up from doing this for a while.

This is Thanksgiving, but Christmas is Very Similar. I’ve included Kid Helpers occasionally, but it’s optional. Only include the kid helpers if you have kids available and want to be a good influence and teach them life skills AND have the extra time. Anytime kids are helping add an extra 10-15 minutes.

Generally speaking, except for Turkey, you can save a bunch of time by just going for boxed and store-bought. Don’t want to bake a pie? Just buy one.

Our American Thanksgiving is usually turkey, hot sides, rolls, jello salads, and pie.

Just a Note on Christmas: We try to mix it up so that Christmas isn’t Turkey. Last year I did a leg of lamb. I’ve made Cornish Game Hens. No one is wild about Ham here, but I know people make it. Do Prims rib, pork ribs, fish, duck, rack of lamb, whatever. One year I plan to make a goose. Arrange your plan accordingly, but roasting meat is pretty similar. It can be slotted in for when I do the Turkey prep pretty easily.

Here’s how it’s done:

(Warning: it’s a bit long-winded, but only because I’m describing all the steps. Sometimes it takes more time to tell how to do something than to actually do it.)

Wednesday Night: (about 1-2 hours)

Make the Pie:

Note: Pumpkin Pie is just a puree of pumpkin with added spices made into a custard pie. If you are going full baker mode... make the from scratch pumpkin puree ahead of time and use your best pie crust recipe. Otherwise, save time and use canned. Except for the baking time, these only take about 20 mins. I make two.

Let’s Do It:
Mix can of pumpkin, can of condensed milk (use goat milk if you have someone with milk issues), eggs, and all the spices. Add extra spices. This is Grandma’s recipe, after all.

Realize you didn’t take the Trader Joe’s frozen pie crusts out of fridge to finish softening. Stick them in the microwave on defrost for a few minutes to finish softening them.

Put pie crust in pan. Make a pretty crust edging, except on the one pan side you got lopsided, there’s no extra dough to make pretty on that side. Preheat oven. Pour in pumpkin mixture. Scrape that bowl really well with a spatula. You don’t want to waste any pie, even though the pans are already full. Cook those babies low and slow for like an hour. Don’t overcook. Make sure you set the timer.

If you wanted to make fruit pie, you can do that now too. I make one sometimes but don’t bake it until after dinner the next day so it’s served warm. Add about 30 minutes for a fruit pie.

Make the Jello Salads:

Note: So, jello salads are basically a dessert, but you eat it with dinner. They are sweet, usually have whipped cream and fruit and we always make them with holiday meals. I don’t know where they originated, but my wife's grandma and my grandmothers passed on recipes and I search through those and try to find new ones every few years.

Let’s Do It:

You can make these while the pie cooks. For Christmas I usually make a layered one. You have to give yourself a 30 mins or so to let each layer cook, so have a movie or book handy. If it’s a single bowl recipe with no layers, you are looking at, like, 20 minutes each. Make at least two. You mostly just have to make sure there is room in the fridge.

Grab your recipe. Follow the instructions witch will be something like this: Heat up jello and water and maybe fruit juice. Let cool, dump in cans of crushed pineapple or mandarin oranges or cherries or whatever the fruit is. Add whipped cream. Make the whipped cream yourself or save time and use Cool Whip. I save the fresh cream for the pies. Add whatever else it needs... nuts, coconut, marshmallows, etc. We always leave nuts OUT for my daughter, though. Chill overnight in a pretty bowl.

This year I made an Orange Ambrosia and a 2-layer Raspberry Cream.

That’s it. While the pie finishes in the oven, wash the pans or start the dishwasher.

Pull the pies out. Let them cool. You can leave them overnight.

Brine The Turkey:

Note: Brine your Turkey. Seriously. It turns out soooo much better. You don’t have to get fancy with spices and lemon peel and leeks and all that stuff. Just make a big pot of cold salt water. It should taste like seawater. All you really need is the salt. Oh, yeah. You need a big pot or sanitized food bucket big enough to hold the whole Turkey. I hope you didn’t buy a 28 pounder.

Pull your Turkey out of the fridge. You did remember to put it in the fridge a few days ago? Well, if not, brine it anyway, it will help it thaw. This year I did remember, so we are in luck.

Right, so pull the Turkey out, cut the bag or whatever off that Butterball. Throw out the giblets and neck. Submerge that entire bird in the salt water.

That’s it. You are done. See you in the morning.

Thursday Morning: (1-4 hours)

Hey, it’s a Holiday! Sleep in a bit. When the kids wake you up make a light breakfast. You are eating a feast today, no reason to go all out on Brunch. Make the kids put away the dishes from the dishwasher last night. Make Coffee!

Start making your big Holiday Dinner about 3.5 hours before you want to eat. We usually aim for late afternoon. But if you want to eat at Noon for some reason, best get up and get moving in the morning. Me? I’m going to play board games or video games or watch TV or something with the family till about Noon.

Start The Turkey, Cranberry Sauce, and Dinner Rolls: (about 45 minutes)

Prep and Sear Turkey:

LET’S COOK THIS BIRD

Note: Wash that roasting pan. Like seriously. It’s probably been under a counter or in the pantry for a year or so. You don’t need anything fancy. I have an old Blue Speckled Enamelware pan from a garage sale. You can get them new for under $20.

Carefully take turkey out of the brine. You don’t want to scrub raw turkey water off of things. I have the brine pot sitting in a sink. Throw away neck and giblets because you forgot to do that last night and they are still inside the body cavity. Let any water drip off.

Place Turkey in upside down roasting pan lid. Now pat it dry with some paper towels.

Now, preheat the oven to 450-500. It needs to be HOT but only what your oven can handle. Don’t go too hot unless you have a commercial oven and vent.

Transfer the Bird to the Roasting Pan. Pull off any plastic handles or pop timers or other things. Now we are going to rub it down with oil. Yup, this is hands on. If you can’ touch raw food, use a bbq basting brush. The easiest way to do this is only to use your off hand to touch the bird and keep your primary for pouring oil. I use Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO).

Massage both sides of that dead turkey (and inside) with EVOO. Wash hands. Salt and pepper all over the bird.

Place in the oven uncovered. You are going to sear it for about 30 minutes. This will make the skin all golden and lock in the moisture.

Don’t forget to start the timer! But if you do forget, you can wing it by just watching how golden the turkey skin gets. It’s not an exact science and depends on the size of your bird.

Wash the pans NOW.... The pot and the lid. They came in contact with the raw turkey so get them washed up right now. Plus they take up half your counter space.

Fresh Cranberry Sauce:

While the turkey is searing, this is your chance to make the cranberry sauce. We actually like both. I make a fresh sauce and put out a can of the jellied cranberry sauce from the store.

Let’s Do It:

This is really easy. You take a bunch of fresh cranberries and wash and de-stem them. Fill a saucepan halfway with berries. If you want more sauce, get a bigger pan and fill IT halfway. Add 3 tablespoons of water, a few shakes of salt, and about 3/4 cup of sugar for every 2 cups of berries. Simmer the berries on medium-low, stirring regularly so they don’t stick and the heat is evenly distributed. After about 8 minutes they will start to pop open and get mushier. Some recipes get fancy with all kinds of add-ins. You don’t need them. The cranberry flavor overpowers Everything. Except, I do like to add citrus; fresh lime, lemon, or orange juice, if I remember. This year I forgot to buy any, so no fresh citrus.

After about 10 minutes you’ll have a pan of molten lava. Don’t touch it and lost any fingers. Put some on a spoon and let it cool. Taste it to see if it needs more sugar. Add more sugar.

Take a teaspoon or two of cornstarch and add to a tiny bit of water in a teacup. Stir around and then Pour into the sauce. It will distribute evenly, instantly with no clumping. Simmer for two more minutes, stirring constantly. This will thicken it slightly.

Let the pan cool for a bit and then transfer to a bowl. If you want it still-warm at dinner, leave it out. Cold, put it in the fridge.

Rolls, Baby!

Note: Rolls are basically the most important part of the meal. Without these, the whole thing falls apart. You can buy some. It isn’t the same as fresh out of the oven, though. I usually use the frozen dough Rhodes dinner rolls. They are really cheap, anyway. I regularly forget about them until it’s too late to let them raise. This year I did not.

Your Turkey will be done searing soon. Keep an eye on it.

Let’s Do It:

Take some pyrex pans or baking pans and spray with cooking oil. I use the coconut oil one.

Arrange frozen rolls in pan so they have some space. Make a lot. You want some for leftovers too. Plan on, like, minimum of 3 rolls per person, those little monsters.

Cover with plastic wrap.

But after you hook plastic wrap on one side of the pan (this is easier on glass) spray the wrap with a bit of oil too or the rising roll will stick to it and then deflate when you pull it off. Several of this year’s rolls were a bit flat because I forgot this step.

Ignore what the package tells you. Put the pans on top of the oven, but not on top of the vent burner (if your oven has one). The heat from the oven will cause them to warm up and rise over the next 1.5 Hours or so.

Back to the Turkey:

Pull out the turkey. Turn oven heat down to 325. Use industrial foil and hot pads to make a foil tent. (Industrial is better because you only need one sheet, otherwise, layer several sheets to cover). Poke a few vent holes.

Searing heats up the whole bird. Put it back in the oven on a nice low heat to finish cooking for another 1-2 hours. My 21-pound bird took 1.5 hours.

Go Have Fun: (for about an hour)

Grab some Chevre goat cheese with cranberries, wafer crackers, and a can of black olives or sweet pickles. Grab a beer, ginger brew, glass of wine, some water, whatever you are in the mood for and go join the family in the main room for some video games or whatever board game they got out or jump in on the movie or whatever. You have just over an hour before you need to be back in the kitchen. This year it was Rock Band. I was on Drums.

The Final Meal Prep: (about an Hour, maybe more)

Let’s Do It:

While the turkey has about 30 minutes left, wander your way back to the kitchen. We are going to start prepping sides.

This year I made Sweet Potatoes, Mashed Potatoes, Stuffing, Gravy, and Green Beans. No one here likes that green bean casserole, but if you do, you can make that now, too. Adding honeyed carrots or pan-roasted sprouts is pretty easy.

You need three saucepans. Mine come in small, medium, and large and a lid for at least the medium one. Make sure they are clean.

Wash some sweet potatoes and wrap them in foil. You want to use long medium size ones. The massive large ones take too long to bake. Only use those if you are making medallions in a pan. Toss them in the oven now on or around the Turkey or on the rack underneath.

Wash and peel and cut some potatoes into chunks. If using red potatoes, don’t bother peeling. Place in pan about 2/3 full. We are making single pot mashed potatoes. Pour in milk till it’s almost, but not quite covering potatoes. Add a bunch of salt, 4 tablespoons of butter, garlic powder (unless you plan to roast some garlic), and fresh black pepper.

Move the rolls to the counter. They should be about raised. If not, leave them a bit longer.

The Turkey should timer should be chiming. Pull it out and pierce with a knife between the breast and the wing. The Juice should run clear. If not, put back for another 30 minutes. If it does, you can check with a meat thermometer (165F).

Fill 1/3 of your small saucepan with drippings from the Turkey. If you have a fancy fat separator, use that. I just ladle some drippings out because once again I have forgotten to buy the fat separator tool. Oh, well. This year we will just have full-fat gravy... AGAIN.

Turn oven up to 375 or 400 and keep baking the sweet potatoes.

Put the Turkey foil tent on back on. Cover with the roasting pan lid. Place roasting pan on the back burner of the stove top. This will keep it warm and safe. You lose a burner, but you only need three (or two, really).

Start the potatoes simmering. These will take 30-40 minutes to cook. Stir occasionally. A little milk will get scalded near the end. It’s fine.

Follow the directions on the box of stuffing you bought. You could make it fresh, but really, no one here cares that much. Add water, butter. Bring to boil, add stuffing, mix, cover. Move out of the way.

Start gravy. Add some milk to make the pan 2/3 full. Dump in a scoop of flour and add some salt and pepper. Put heat on medium low and Whisk the Heck out of that gravy for 5-8 minutes till it thickens. Turn heat off. Taste, see if it’s salty enough.

Keep stirring the potatoes.

Open oven, Stab a sweet potato with a knife to see if it is soft all the way through. Pull them out if they are.

Turn the oven to 350. Take the plastic wrap off the rolls and throw it away. Put them in the oven. SET TIMER for 15 minutes.

Tell the kids to Set the Table, unless you have a bar or side buffet where people get up to serve themselves. Use the good dishes. Otherwise, what’s the point of owning them?

Keep checking on and stirring the mashed potatoes pot. When they thicken and the potatoes start to fall apart, it’s done. Remove from heat and mash in the pan. Wash the potato masher.

Toss some frozen green beans in the microwave to steam. ‘

Carefully open up the foil on the sweet potatoes. Do it on a plate, they might be sticky. Using a fork and careful not to burn your fingers, peel back the skin (it should come right off) and put the potatoes in a bowl. I use a deep metal mixing bowl. Now, add a half a stick of butter, salt, a few tablespoons of brown sugar, and a few teaspoons of ground ginger. Mash them up. Transfer to a prettier bowl.

Open a can of Jellied Cranberries Sauce. Put it on your spare butter dish that you own because your three-year-old, one year, didn’t listen and broke the cover. It has ridges that keep the sauce from sliding around. Also, serve with a pie server. It’s straight and you can both cut and serve slices of cranberry with that.

Fluff Stuffing with a fork. Transfer to a bowl.

Put mashed potatoes in a bowl.

Find wherever you put the Gravy Boat since it hasn’t been used in several months. Pour in the gravy.

Put green beans in a bowl.

Pull the rolls out of the oven. Put in a basket with a pretty towel to cover.

Open up the Turkey and carve off some Meat. Be careful not to accidentally get any white meat because no one will eat it. Brining the turkey helps a lot, but the Dark Meat is still better.

Have the kids take everything to where you are serving it. In our case, the main table.

Change your shirt if you’ve gotten food on it or gotten too hot in the kitchen with the oven running.

[I know this last step seemed like a lot, but it is going concurrently. It only actually takes a few minutes for each item or just over an hour total.]

Grab the Wine, Water, Sparkling juice, belgian fruit beer, whatever. Go back for the bottle opener.

Grab any leftover olives and pickles from the coffee table.

ENJOY YOUR DINNER!

Go back and grab the jello salad you left in the fridge before you get too far into eating. Cringe mid-bite as a large crash reverberates from the kitchen. Go check on things to find that the fire extinguisher you moved to get into the cupboard above the fridge to find the gravy boat had shifted and knocked over the reusable bento containers you send in lunchboxes onto the counter where it murdered the inedible Halloween Haunted Gingerbread House be knocking it onto the floor. Oh, well. that was probably the best end possible. It also damaged a pie, but that can be hidden by whipped cream. Try to ignore the mess for a few minutes. Go back and finish eating. Pour an extra glass of wine.

After Dinner:

We usually wait a few hours and have pie.

(On Christmas, we often don’t even bother with pie. Usually Frosted Cookies and Eggnog or Cocoa are good enough.)

While waiting for the pie, clean up the leftovers.

This is the best time to pluck the meat off the turkey bones. It will still be warm. (You remembered to re-cover the roasting pan, right?). Separate the Good meat and the White meat into different containers. You can use the White meat later to make spicy chicken enchiladas, or pot pie, or a casserole.

Get the Turkey bones and other trash out of the house now.

Start your fruit pie cooking if you made one.

Make some fresh whipped cream. It only takes a few minutes if you have a mixer. Sugar and Heavy Cream and vanilla and a whisk attachment are all you need.

Enjoy the Pie. Put extra Whipped cream on it or what’s the point?

Make someone wash dishes.

A Final Note: Assuming we aren’t traveling or being invited anywhere... We’ve started doing Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve with a big meal in the early afternoon. Christmas Day we just have a brunch after gifts and then eat leftovers for dinner. It works much better and I get all of Christmas day to relax.

The Selfish Benefits of Book Parenting

2015-04-19T09:55:00.001-07:00

As you can imagine, my life is defined heavily by my identification as a geek and my role as a father. My children are tied directly to my reading life in so many ways. It’s not just that I might have at one point read Knuffle Bunny and Going on a Bear Hunt several times a day for a few months straight, but I also get to mold and influence their growth into readers, and yes, even influence what they read.

I remember taking my book-loving daughter to the library for the first time when she was about 2 years-old. We walked into the main room and her eyes just got huge and she stood there in awe for a while. She couldn’t comprehend that there existed in her little world a building this large completely full of books. It wasn’t long before she was discovering some new ones and insisted on taking them home. Nurturing a love for books is something I see as my responsibility as a parent and it’s going well so far. My children have no idea how long my secret to-read list of books that I know are excellent that I want them to experience someday, when they are ready. I have already had the chance to introduce Harry Potter and The Hobbit, which are much loved now. My oldest even thinks Encyclopedia Brown and The Great Brain were entirely her choices, having no idea how premeditated their placement was to achieve maximum interest.

I’m sure most parents like to introduce their favorite books to their children, but what took me longer to realize, is that I don’t just influence them, they influence me right back. Sometimes we choose books to read together, or start a series together, or I will read ahead so I can discuss the books with them when they catch up (because they can read the newest release when I’m done with it). In this way I have discovered many great YA titles I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed. Would I have read the adventures of Percy Jackson without my kids? Well, probably, but I can guarantee you that I wouldn’t have read Gregor the Overlander, or The 39 Clues on my own. This is perfectly fine. I still get to read my “adult literature” and I can delve into the fun, popular stories my kids are enjoying too. If this has taught me anything, its that good books are simply good books.

The second change in my reading life comes in the form of re-reading all these great books from my past. I am much more likely to revisit books with my kids than I am on my own. For me that has been wonderful as I personally enjoy re-reading books, despite the perils of potentially diminishing a favorite book or character. I used to scare myself with questions like, “What if the book actually isn’t any good if you aren’t still a kid?” or “What if it’s only a good book through a nostalgic lense?” and “What if the plot is actually really bad and the writing cliche?” I’ll tell you, my fears have yet to be validated. I’m not saying it won’t ever happen, but it hasn't yet. Maybe it’s luck and we just pick excellent books. But I doubt it. No, the stories hold up because we get to experience them again for the first time.

Your experience with a book will change as you change and grow and learn and experience life and hardship and joy, but, with my children reading with me, it’s a happy experience even if the characters and plot aren’t as good as I remember. Their innocence of the story and enthusiasm for the characters and joy in the experience temper any critical negativity of adulthood that seeps in over time and allow me to experience the books as they do, at least by vicariously. And that has been perfectly fine. As Tolkien reminded us, we are only little fellows in a wide world afterall.

I’ll leave you with this thought from Frank Herbert's Dune that has more relevence for me now than it ever did before.

“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”

Stories from the Gates of Camelot: Into the Ruins #1

2013-07-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

Several years ago contributing writer Orcrist had a job with a browser gaming company called SnakeHead Games. During this time he helped them make their first Facebook game, as well as do some work on their existing browser games. The Facebook game has sense been moved to a browser game (a whole blog could be written just about that experience - needless to say you don't need to send me any FB game invites). Now they've released the beta for a new game the Gates of Camelot. As an aside to training to be the best knight you can be, there are all sorts of opportunities to write. This has been wonderful opportunity for me to practice writing short story content and I thought I'd share some of the pieces that make the most sense outside of the game here on the blog.

To understand this piece it is important to know that every hour you are given the opportunity to "search the ruins." During this time you find money and random items. The challenge for this particular piece of writing was to give a possible explanation for how the following items were left in the ruins and subsequently found by the intrepid knight Sir Ducksalot - who is in fact, a duck. The items were: a small shield - improvised (described as a random bit of wood or branch which has been fashioned for use as a shield), a kinfe, an ale, and if applicable $2,508 silver. Get your tissues ready for the Tale of Cassandra (after the jump).

Not again,” Cassandra mumbled kicking a nearby stone. She just couldn’t believe her luck. It’d done nothing but go from bad, horrid, to worse. Her step-father kicked her out, without so much as a care package from her mother. For the last month she’d been sleeping in the ruins after spending the day in town searching for respectable work in vain. It was only in the last few days that she’d been trying to find work in the pubs at night. With the smell of rain in the air, she had hoped to scavenge enough money for a room, of course now all she could smell was the ale and slop in her hair.

She was getting better at lightening the purses of passing men over a glass of ale, as long as they were buying. She’d let them look into her rich brown eyes, and as soon as contact moved further south her hands shook free a few coins. She really hadn’t seen the barkeeper keeping an eye on her as she worked her way around the pub. “That’s quite enough of that he bellowed,” slamming his meaty fists into the bar sloshing an ale all over her. “We want none of your type in here!” At the same time the barmaid catching on, or maybe she’d tipped him off, the wench, flung the slop pail at her head.

Cassandra took flight clutching the last of the coins she’d managed to glean. She’d add this what, 300 silver to her stash when she made it back to the ruins. It was barely raining, she could make it to her shelter before it got bad. She kept a small stash near her room there. It wasn’t much of a room, just a bit of shelter in the stones, it stayed mostly dry and there was a compartment where she had her silver stash, 2,500 silver or so, her knife, and an emergency ale. It seemed silly sometimes, but other than the now smelly clothes on her back and the 300 silver in her pocket, it was all she had in the world.

The silver had mostly been from here work in the pub at night, although there was some honest work washing and whatnot in there as well. She hoped she'd be able to get a enough equipment to get out of this horrible town and away from her stepfather, she never saw her mother any more. The knife was one she’d snagged while doing some guys laundry. He’d left it with his breeches and she cleaned it up and claimed it as her own. She had no way to hide it in her dress and she had no belt to strap it on with, so she only used it to keep the snakes away at night. She daren't have a fire, it might attract bandits. Lastly there was her emergency ale. That was a story all it’s own.

Thinking about her ale sitting in the hiding hole in the ruins almost made her burst out laughing. The first night she’d tried life in the tavern. She chose the shady joint on the far end of town. It was a rough place and she’d never have gone in there in her old life, but she was starving. She’d only just found the knife so she’d carried it with her. She was so awkward and hungry she couldn’t even attract a lose pursed stranger. She sat by the fire twirling the blade and scouting the room. The barkeep either didn’t care that she was there or thought she was waiting for someone, so he left her alone. She watched as another girl worked the room, laughing with traveling knights and subtly tilting the tops of their purses into her hands.

Eventually the girl, who to Cassandra’s eyes was quite beautiful, came over to sit with her by the fire. She stowed her own purse where only the most foolish of nights would dare venture and brought two bottles of ale and set them on the table. “Don’t open it,” she whispered. Cassandra’s eyes darted from the bottle to the girl. She slumped into the chair across from Cassandra.

“I saw you watching me,” sad the strange girl, “but I know you don’t have any silver and I still had work to do.” The stranger placed her feet on the table in a most unladylike fashion, lifting her still capped ale to her lips and pretending to take a strong drink of ale. Then she laughed. “You are quite the little mouse!” she gasped, “Thank you sister, for waiting for me” she nearly yelled, leaning into Cassandra for a hug. Cassandra stared. She thought about pushing the knife blade forward, but the stranger beckoned with a glint and in glancing quickly Cassandra could see that everyone was watching. She leaned forward and embraced the stranger. “Make it look good, or we’ll both be hanged tonight” the other girl whispered into her ear.

After the embrace the pair was left alone, no eyes even drifted in their direction. “This place is good,” the bold girl commented turning a bit more to the fire. “You wouldn’t have to starve if you learned to work the room, you know?”

“Who are you?” Cassandra gasped, her eyes still wide with shock, her shoulders still trembling and the knife still clenched in her hand.

“Tonight, I am Violet, or maybe Vivan it was definitely something with a ‘V’ today.” laughed Violet. She had an amazing laugh, like bells chiming in the spring. It was enchanting and it did make some of the men notice them again. “Sorry,” Violet said, “We probably shouldn’t attract any attention.” She took another imaginary drink. “And you should put that knife away before you are tempted to use it and end up hurting the both of us,” she said with a cold, serious stare.

“I should have left by now,” Violet continued while Cassandra fumbled with hiding the knife in the folds of her dress, “but you caught my attention. I’ve seen you around town you know, all but begging in the streets.”

“ugh!” Cassandra choked in protest, but Violet just reached over and closed her jaw before continuing on.

“I don’t know your story, but I’m sure it’s not that different from anyone else. Look, you need to learn some things. First, get them to buy the food - she jerked her head at the men at the bar. Help yourself to a little of their silver when they buy you a drink, but don’t take much, and don’t get caught! Keep your head about you, drink some ale, but keep your wits. Most of all, never stick around.”

Cassandra gulped, but didn’t gasp anymore. She looked into Violet’s eyes, and there it was, the pain of going rough. She slowly realized that Violet was her saving angel, the best she was going to get anymore.

“Furthermore,” Violet barreled on, “You need a safe place to make a stash. Not a pub, not a public place. I’m not sure I’d even trust a room if you could get one. Just somewhere safe, that no one knows about. Keep that,” she pointed at the folds concealing the knife, “there. You don’t want to get caught with a weapon. You really don’t want to get caught at all. Don’t take too much, and keep moving. Never get a room in the pub you are working and never go back to their rooms, it’s just not safe. You probably shouldn’t trust anyone either, but I’m helping you, so maybe someone else might someday.”

Cassandra wanted to cry, but Violet just pointed to the ale. “Pretend to drink, love. Hide your fears and begin your fake life with a fake drink. That’s your emergency ale. You can keep it. Think about what you’ve learned, it’s not glamorous, but it’s better than starving, or not starving that way.” her eyes darted towards a pair of wenches on the stairs.

Cassandra’s eyes followed Violet’s gaze, she stared a little longer thinking about the life she’d been avoiding and the options Violet had just given her. “But where” she started to say, but as she looked across from her Violet was gone. She glanced around the bar, but she couldn’t see her anywhere. The barkeeper began to scowl at her, she turned away and took a long sip from her capped emergency ale. Grasping the bottle in one hand and her knife in the other she walked out of the tavern.

All that wait for her in her stash in the ruins. The memory of Violet, the promise of better times, and the future she was slowly gleaning off of men in return for small talk. She still begged the honest work during the day, but at night, she never was the one doing the buying. It was just tonight that it had all gone belly up, and slop down.

The rain began to pound harder and Cassandra was forced to duck into a different section of the ruins. She found some water and rinsed the slop from her hair. She was cold and we now, what did it matter. When the storm lifted she’d make her way to her hole and she could hang out her outer garments there. She didn’t like this spot, there were too many knights snooping around, her hole was well hidden though, if a bit popular with the snakes.

Eventually, the rain did clear and Cassandra roused herself enough to make a dash to her safe place, her little room in the ruins. She’d take an imaginary sip from her emergency ale, and begin again tomorrow. Unfortunately, it was not to be. As she approached her room, she saw a duck in a fine hat and glistening armor. Cassandra hid behind column as the duck tilted the rock that hid her ale, her silver, and her knife. The duck swept it all into a large case and mounted a magnificent horse, the likes of which she had never seen.

Cassandra knew it was gone, she turned and walked deeper into the ruins.

Spammed

2013-05-16T10:28:00.001-07:00

Dear Readers. I know this blog has been on an unimaginable hiatus. This is a hobby blog and I love having a space to share random thoughts with you all, given that I find the time to type them up. Orcrist and I have several things we are working on currently and some of it will eventually show up here (we hope!). In the meantime, it appears we have become a favorite of spammers. Many of our posts have become deluged with spam posts, that while relevant enough to get around the automated filters, did not add any significant discussion to the posts. As such I have disabled comments to all anonymous posts. I will crank the security up tighter if this doesn't solve the problem. I barely have time to write here, I don't need to spend it all clearing junk off the bottoms of the pages.

I want to personally thank Orcrist for taking an afternoon to clear the majority of the junk. If you want to link your blog, something cool you saw, or a contact info in the comments of a post - I'm actually ok with that, given that there is a valid reason for doing so - you and another commenter had a meaningful conversation and you want to continue it elsewhere, you are linking to something that directly relates to the post, etc. I do this too, and it's always tricky to say - hey I totally wrote something about the same thing, come see what I said. I know that. However, if your link is to a retail site, expect it to get nuked (unless we are talking product, which we may, but if you link a sale piece it had better be 100% relevant!) I hope to add some of the new G+ functionality to this blog soon. I want us to have conversations. I want our ideas to be discussed and shared. But I don't want you, the faithful, to have to be barraged with spam on these pages. It's bad enough I don't edit!

Thanks All

KtC

FIRST Diary Entry 1: Craming for the Qualifier

2013-01-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

I interviewed almost a month ago. I mean I know I was busy, had the big school fundraiser of the year event, Mom and Dad came for a visit, I was organizing Dr. Baird's Wilderness History collection - oh my gosh was that awesome reading! Yeah, I totally blew off the thank you note. I had been up all night reading historical documents and letters to Senators before the interview. They said they needed someone right away, and I talked too much... I always talk too much when I don't know what to say and feel responsible for carrying the conversation. I still feel like a little kid at the "grown up table" for the first time. So, it was with great reluctance that I announced at the PAT meeting that I probably didn't get the job. I accepted it. I didn't really need more work, I had two jobs and a good hobby. Maybe with my free time I could even make a hobby or two pay as well. Ok, my husband wanted me to bring in a bit more, but pttthbpt I didn't care anymore.

So when my phone rang interrupting the raptor club presentation (and scaring a poor falcon) on the all school field trip to the University where Orcrist works.... well I was not expecting a job offer! We'll let you know by the start of next week had become nearly 4 weeks. I quickly called back, worked out a few details (probably not nearly enough), and jumped in with both feet, starting just days before my daughter's birthday and the opening of the Hobbit - for which I'd been arranging childcare for over a year and a half (only to have to scramble at the last minute //sigh)

I guess I should step back a minute. I guess I'd kinda known about LEGO robotics for a while. My husband had done the IT support for the 4-H extension office as part of his job at this University. He'd talk to them about the cost of the Mindstorms, the program a bit, and getting started. Our friend's kids went to Denmark to represent the state (and country?), and we'd done the we-do stuff in Cloverbuds. Yet, I didn't really know anything about FIRST^© until GeekGirlCon this past summer. While at GeekGirlCon I decided to take the kids to see the FIRST panel where some girls from FTC and FRC were talking about the program. Unfortunately, someone felt my 2 year old playing ipad was too distracting and I was kicked out of the panel.... even though there were only a handful of people there and I sat in the back. I didn't give up though! I really wanted to know about this stuff. The ladies there would tell me much. Probably because they didn't know anything about the younger kid divisions and didn't really see me being in charge of this thing (disclaimer: I'm not actually in charge, my supervisor is. But, he's a pro at dumping the responsibility on everyone else!)

So I had just started the new job with the historical documents and I really didn't want more work, but I saw the advert come through my email for the 4-H robotics program..... It's been a long time since I've applied for a job that I just wanted to do and didn't need to do something.... like this may be the first time.

Well, I went in on Friday and talked to the team. All these strange people sizing me up and hoping I'll fulfill the role they need me to do with the limited hours they have to offer me. It was too perfect for me though. I don't want a full time job, I want to see my kids and work the school and have some flexibility. So I don't get health insurance, but I do get to be the Mom I want to be, and I get to play with LEGO. That's a mega win!

I started the next Monday, I got my own office (complete with a mess of papers, files, notes, bins and bins of LEGO, and well a mess). I also got a brand new box from LEGO. It was a field setup kit and I needed to have the giant 3" three ring binder of instructions understood before Saturday and the kit fully assembled. I also got to borrow a huge stack of compartmentalized trays to sort the bricks into! It only takes between 10 and 12 trays to sort a field set up kit and the packs are not numbered like a regular LEGO set, it's all or nothing!

Where have these babies been all my life? I'm in love!

So why the rush. I mean I had to take off most of Wednesday because it was my daughter's LEGO themed birthday party (boy did those awesome trays come in handy!), and Thursday I left mid-morning to get ready for the midnight release of the Hobbit. But Saturday was going to make up for those missed hours, because it was going to be my first taste of a FLL tournament. Oh, and that field setup kit needed to be ready to go. And, I needed to be ready to be a robot design judge.... no pressure!

Somehow I managed to make my way through the week. I took time for my daughter's party, and a day and a half to enjoy The Hobbit (well worth the midnight IMAX experience, even made some new friends). I got my field setup kit finished in time to take it to the Saturday tournament, not that it got used. I crammed the coaches manual and the judges materials in time for Saturday morning. Where, after driving 2 hours to the game site, I helped set the tables, setup the scorekeepers laptop, then faced the frightening prospect of judging all 9 teams at the qualifier. I survived being one of the only two robot design judges. I handed out trophies and medals, and I took a deep breath. At least with the holiday break I had a week to organize my office and finish my training materials, then two weeks off. Only thing I had to do before I left for Christmas..... Get together all the previous volunteer contact information and start rounding up volunteers for the two State Championship Tournaments..... I was going to be the volunteer coordinator AND the judge advisor, but not until after the new year.

Intro to FIRST

2013-01-29T20:22:00.002-08:00

I recently accepted a job with a local FIRST^© partner - 4-H Youth and Development. Which is an extension program of the local State Land Grant University. I am an associate (part-time) in their sciences robotics program. This means I work in a dorm turned offices, at the University where I did my undergrad. Furthermore, by starting in the middle of the tournament season - I'm getting a crash course in all thing FIRST.

I would like to share my experiences (starting from December when I began), in a series of diary-style entries, but first I will give you an overview of the program - after the jump.

FIRST is a volunteer based organization, based out if Manchester, New Hampshire. The goal of which is to get kids interested in science, engineering, community involvement, teamwork, and professionalism while surrounding it all with a sports-like competition. There are 4 levels of programs, three of which it is now my job to help administer for my state.

FIRST LEGO League (FLL)^© is a friendly competition for 9-14 year olds. The teams of up to 10 kids research a problem based on the year's theme, develop a solution, then also build a LEGO robot to compete in that years field competition.

Junior FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL)^© is a non-competitive learning opportunity for kids 6-9 years old. Unlike the other programs that run on a tournament season, Jr.FLL can start at any time in the year and take 6 weeks. Like FLL, the kids form teams and research a problem and create a solution. They then build a model using LEGO (with one simple machine and a moving part) and a show-me board based on their research. This is all taken to an Expo where they talk about their project and experience with an interviewer.

FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC)^© is a step up from FLL, inviting 7th-12th graders to firm a team and build a small robot that can compete in an alliance against two other allied teams. The game had active referees monitoring the action and is a very intense competition. Students also have to demonstrate the FIRST core values and discuss their robots and procedures with a panel of judges.

FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC)^© is the fourth and most advanced of the competition. It challenges high school students to spend an intense 6 weeks running a mock robotics company, developing, designing, programming, documenting, fund raising, the works! They build a large robot to compete in a competitive game. This program we are not currently running.

Check back soon to see how my first week went when I was dropped in just before Christmas for the last of the FLL qualifying tournaments!

In Memory of Green and White

2012-12-17T17:35:00.000-08:00

In the wake of the tragic shootings at Sand Hook Elementary school, the Internet has erupted with anger, confusion, and demands. Some people want tougher gun laws, some people want their access to guns of all kinds left alone. Some people blame the removal of a mainstream God from the schools. Some blame parents. Some blame working moms. Some blame public schools as a whole. There is plenty of blame, plenty of wants. In all of this anger and hurt I wrote something which is being shared in part. I'd like to share it now, on this site for all of you to read.

I'm a Christian - sometimes I wonder if it isn't against my better judgment, but that has nothing to do with the God I believe in. So when I say this, I want it with the full disclosure of my faith. My God has never been restricted by any idea, any border, any nation, nor any institution. I hardly think he experiences time, space, and reality in a way we can even comprehend. What is lacking in our schools, our communities, and our culture isn't a religion. It is a lack of humanity, that sense that we are all on this world together, with one another. That we rise and fall together, the weakest among as important as the strongest. We lack the message that Jesus brought and so many Christians are supposed to be reminded of this season.... that there is no Jew and Gentile (no race), there is no value in worldly wealth, there is only what we do for each other (ideally in his name, as our faith dictates). That's exactly what we are missing. That's exactly why I don't like being associated with the bulk of people claiming my faith.

This is very personal to me, so take it as it is.... my personal statement, not the beginning of a debate. For when we are hurting we can not debate, we can only shout. We need to stop shouting before the debate can begin.

Disney and Star Wars - Top 10 (Mostly) Awesome Things That Could Happen

2012-11-02T16:50:00.001-07:00

If you are a geek or have been near the internet, you have probably heard the big news about Star Wars. Disney recently purchased Lucasfilm for 4 billion dollars and so they now own Star Wars and everything that goes with it. Along with that announcement was the information about a new live action SW film coming out in a couple of years with more to follow, making it at least a new trilogy. This is big news for SW and there has been no shortage of commentary on it.

Yes, Lucas made 4 Billion Dollars.

(To Lucas’s credit, he is using that money to fund philanthropic endeavors)

I am going to add my own commentary. First off, let me just say that I am remaining patiently optimistic. SW is a big popular license and Disney is a big popular company. If this had happened 15 years ago I would have been apprehensive or mad, but George Lucas has pretty much finished everything he wanted to do with SW and this gives it a new lease on life. That coupled with the fact that the last several movies and lots of the merchandise have been uninspiring. Most adult fans I know are still nostalgic for the SW of their childhood and the new stuff just didn't resonate. The worst that can happen really, it that I just ignore the stuff Disney releases.

I think it is time for a new group of creative people to take over SW. There have been dozens of writers and artists and programmers making new games and books and comics for years, but not movies. Unfortunately, even the new stuff being put out by all those creative people rehashes familiar characters and plots (over and over). It’s like taking American history and only talking about the period from 1900 through World War Two and nothing else, Ever. All of the books and comics written after the movies link back to the original trilogy somehow. Obsidian Entertainment’s “Old Republic” was some of the most interesting new material seen in the SW universe when they released it. The point is, SW needs some “world building” and creative expansion to keep it interesting and that can happen now.

This image is going to haunt my dreams, so I had to share.

Disney for their part makes mistakes, but they have done well by the Marvel license and there are a lot of talented people there. Just remember, above all else, this is about money. Disney didn’t invest 4 Billion dollars just to say they own SW. They plan to market it and merchandise it and make money off of it. That means they might make a few missteps, but are going to try to make products that make the most money from the fans. That means releasing stuff that people want to buy. There is already tons of SW stuff out there, but most of it is a rehash of the original trilogy. If Disney can push new interesting quality stuff, they have a good chance at keeping it relevant.

So, here are is my (mostly) optimistic list of things that I hope could happen with Disney and Star Wars.

1. The new movies need to break new ground - The prequels were still about the story of Anakin Skywalker. They could have been better, but the plot idea was fine for the time and we did get a few new characters out of them. Like I said though, fans have been rehashing those characters and events for years and years. It’s a big galaxy. Give us some new stories. Jump into the future or far into the past. If you HAVE to link back to the original trilogy directly, then follow Luke and Leia’s kids as adults and present new planets with something to offer. What does the Rebellion do when rebels rise up against their own new government? What happened when the Old Republic was trying to unify the Galaxy? This is the stuff I want to know about.

Childhood. Well, for the lucky kids who didn't have to eat Corn Flakes.

2. All of those directors that grew up watching Star Wars can now get their hands on it. I can think of a dozen times when I have heard some director or writer say in an interview or commentary that SW influenced them as a kid and how they are still fans. Well now is their chance to actually make their own story and be super fans. (Brad Bird or maybe J.J. Abrams to name a few?)

Joss Whedon is our master now. Or something.

3. More specifically, Joss Whedon - Joss currently has a contract with Marvel/Disney to make the next Avengers film, but he also agreed to help develop the entire Marvel franchise for the next few years. Joss is kind of a geek legend having already made Firefly, Buffy, Doctor Horrible, etc. He actually has worked with Disney before on Atlantis (one of my favorite of the Disney animated movies). That was all small budget stuff though. Then he got the Avengers and a bigger budget and made the biggest movie EVER. Joss Whedon can tell a good story, but where he really excels is characters. Give him some free rein to develop some characters and story (even if he doesn't direct) and I guarantee we will have a dozen (minus the few he kills off) new SW characters that we actually care about, including some strong female leads (because space needs more than one woman). I actually think he could do this better than Lucas since there isn't really anyone in the prequels I cared about (and no, I am not going to sink so low as to mention JarJar here). Or, even better... hand him the Old Republic and tell him to make a space opera. We can all just sit around pretending it’s Firefly set in the SW universe.

How I always picture him.

4. ...And Kevin Smith. When Kevin Smith said, “I could have written a better Episode 1” we believed him. I would love to see Kevin do something official and Star Wars, but more to the point let him do it his way. Kevin Smith is at his best with dialogue, especially comedy so expect something comical, irreverent, and aimed at adult fans.

Personally I think a live action mini series or TV show would be awesome. Base it around the idea of old Troops shorts (showing the underside of the Empire) and follow some Storm Troopers around the galaxy. Remember the comics about Tag and Blink? Sort of like that with more of a Jay and Bob feel. (If you haven’t read them, go read them now.) Recruit the 501st legion to help out with extras and cameos for charity work. Give Kevin a shot at SW (so he can stop making spoofs) and you will have a SW show that college kids and adults can actually care about and enjoy again. He is all for the new trilogy anyway so bring him on board stat.

Merchandising!

5. Merchandising. This is what Disney does better than about any other company, (except maybe Spaceballs). The Disney Princess line has something like a million licensed products and a lot of it is junk. However, there is good stuff in there too. Same thing with SW. LEGO is probably the best use of the SW license I have seen for toys. There is a lot of merchandise, but a lot of it is junk, or has been recently.

Seriously, who carries an orange and white blaster?

What am I trying to say? Do more than just stick pictures of Star wars characters on backpacks and notebooks and stuff and call it merchandising. They can do better and Disney can help. My daughter wants a pink or purple lighsaber. I would love to get my son some cool SW vehicles so Lightening McQueen and Thomas can fend off those ATATs. How about some quality games and costumes? Where are the bikes/sleds/wagons with X-Wing and Tie Fighter like wings attached? Even the video game offerings have been lackluster recently. I have no doubt SW will be a big part of the Disney theme park expansions, but do some good merchandising too with customer surveys and make products I want to buy.

Sexy Leia is everywhere. You are welcome.

6. The "gender issue". Star Wars has never been great about the gender issues. I am not joking about the “one woman in space” thing. Leia was awesome (despite some weak characterization in places), but we need more appeal for girls and more strong characters they can relate to. (My girls happen to love SW, I am talking in general here.) My biggest fear is that Disney just bought SW to market to boys after they outgrow Cars (the Pixar movie). Then again, that's why I thought they bought Marvel too. Star Wars should be a cross gender license as it has so much to offer. If they market and merchandise only to boys, then it will be a big fail in my book. I’ll have to wait and see on this one.

Disney Princess Leia

7. Disney Princess Leia. This is the first thing everyone mentioned when they heard the announcement. (The second being Cinderella with a blue lightsaber right?) But, anyway... I would go with it. Make her a Disney Princess!

Wait, come back, hear me out...

Leia is feisty and independent, but at the same time, she was actually raised as a princess. The daughter of a wealthy royal from Alderaan named Bail Organa, who was also a member of the Galactic Senate. Develop a show/book/merchandise line with Leia at the center. A young Leia who follows her (adopted) father around the galaxy as he does “Galactic Diplomacy” stuff. Leia herself became a senator when she grew up, so she must have been greatly influenced by her father. She can have adventures, be a kid, and we get to see her early years and care more about Alderaan. At least until the Death Star comes along, the show would be very kid friendly. It would be pretty easy to make kids forget about Alderaan if they did a bunch of planet hopping anyway. Leia can even legitimately wear an Alderaan princess dress if you want.

Disney is developing a similar sounding show about a toddler princess named Sofia. Tap Lauren Faust for some creative input at the very least (you remember, she helped with Power Puff Girls and became goddess of the Bronies?) The point is Lauren makes awesome shows with strong female leads that also happen to be lots of fun. Perfect for this idea of a young Princess Leia. I would rather see a feisty little Leia taking on the galaxy than another classic (and pink) Disney Princess.

Pixar is kinda awesome.

8. Pixar! Yes, Pixar. The new studio that puts out all the best animated movies. It’s full of SW geeks too. Do I want John Lasseter to head up a new SW movie? No, not at all. But Pixar can and does influence some of Disney’s other properties. In this case I think it would be a great idea to have the world renown writing team at Pixar look over the new scripts for the new trilogy of movies Disney announced. I wouldn't be surprised if a Pixar writer was tapped for part of the script anyway. I would also love to see them produce a new Star Wars original trilogy Blu-ray release. Pixar has done well releasing Miyazaki’s work from Japan. They have done well because they are passionate about his movies and treat them with love. Have the people that are passionate about SW at Pixar spearhead a proper release of the original trilogy before Lucas started messing with it. Include the documentaries and details the fans want to see. The Blu-ray stuff Lucas released last year flopped because it wasn't what people really wanted. That’s how Disney can use Pixar to bolster their SW purchase. That and look over the scripts after Joss Whedon develops the characters. Actually, since they all work for Disney and live in California, maybe they can just sit at the same table and work in tandem. (Yes, I am writing fantasy, how could you tell?)

You can send me these for Christmas if you want to.

9. That brings me to Japan. Give Star Wars to Japan and see what happens. Am I joking? Not at all. Remember Kingdom Hearts the video game? It was kinda awesome. That’s what happened when Disney gave one of the best Japanese RPG companies (Square-Enix) the Disney license. Do it again with SW. Maybe we will see Kingdom Hearts 3 with lightsabers. Maybe, even better, we will see some original and new ideas for Star Wars video games or manga or anime or other merchandise come out of Japan. Would I play a SW epic Final Fantasy like game? You bet I would. How about Star Wars meets Animal Crossing? I have no idea, but Japan is creative in a whole different way than America. Let them have the license and see what happens. I mean, it’s not like they can do worse than some of the stuff Lucas released and if people don’t like it, they just won’t buy it.

Grand Admiral Thrawn

10. The Thrawn Trilogy. The first of the novels based on SW were written by Timothy Zahn. The trilogy that started the whole "expanded universe" of books. I consider Zahn's books to still be the best. They were completely in line with the SW original trilogy and still completely original, except for a few borrowed characters. If anything needs adapting into movies, it’s those three books.

That’s it for today. Leave some comments if there is anything you think I missed that is worth adding to the list, like right now while we are still speculating like fans.

Edit Update:

There has been plenty of rumor mongering about the prospective Cast of Star Wars Episode VII.

Here is what I want to see (with assumptions thrown in cause you know they are going to rehash character types from the other movies).

Christina Hendricks as Mara Jade.

I don't really care who else they cast, but if Mara Jade is in it, they had better hire Hendricks.
I don't care if the character is exactly the same as the books, etc. Have her toy with whatever character they fill in for the Han Solo rogue nice guy Jedi slots. Especially if she distracts the rogue from his stable relationship with the Princess Leia character while flirting with the Jedi. Make her dangerous physically and emotionally pulling strings.

Nathan Fillion is the Han Solo rogue we all love.

For whoever plays the Han Solo type character... it really has to be Nathan Fillion. Not because he was captain tight-pants, but because I can't really think of any other actor who can fill so in perfectly for a young "Harrison Ford playing Solo" vibe on camera. If the character isn't Han, then expect a friend, child, or another pilot from Corellia with a similar personality.

Judy Dench as Mon Mothma

If they need a leader for the new Republic after the Rebels defeat the Empire. It needs to be Judy Dench playing an older and wiser Mon Mothma holding the power vacuum together and playing the strings of politics.

That's what I want to see. In the hands of a good director and writer, I would go see it even if it was only those three with any acting ability.

And Then It Was Now

2012-07-13T10:43:00.001-07:00

I feel like I've just run a prolonged marathon. I've just returned from my second trip to the inlaws this year. This trip (which was much more relaxed than the last) netted me approximately 4270 miles of driving on my poor geekvan. My job went into crisis mode right after Christmas with a hard push to implement new changes to the website, that all fell flat on their face in a glorious display of abject failure. Now, I'm finishing documentation to hand it off onto some other unsuspecting sap, while I decide yet again, what it is I want to do with my life and what kind of job I can find to pass the time until I eventually make that decision.

I'm also running into a plethora of house projects, I can't believe the summer is half over already. I still have so much to do. Cosplay costumes, texturing the living room, putting together the LEGO room, and possibly even re-roofing. Not to mention we finally emptied the junk room (I have no closets!) so that all has to be organized.

I have started writing again. I recently saw a request for short stories and it's been my goal to actually finish a short story this year. However, I was 50% of the way to the word total for the request and I hadn't moved out of the first scene. I fear it is my lot to not write anything short and worthwhile. Now I see the story like a serial short story series that may work together into a book. We shall see, I'm still missing at least one important name and the experience of actually finishing one of these things.

I cruised through my drafts on this site and I do want to get some of those up. Especially my GeekGirlCon inspired fan club experience, before GeekGirlCon II this August!!!

KtC

DON'T PANIC

2012-05-25T13:43:00.001-07:00

Wow it's dusty in here!

Happy International Geek Day, Glorious 25, Star Wars Day (35th Anniversary even!), and Towel Day!!!!!

Here's the graphic I made to hang from my towel today:

Click to see full size and easier to read version

Whether you are watching Star Wars, reading or listening to Hitchhikers or Ringworld, or just generally geeking out in your favorite way. I hope you all take a moment to enjoy this geekiest of holidays in the exact way that you enjoy the most!

Geek Love from all of us at Paper Napkins, coming out of the dust soon to bring you new geeky thoughts and a bit of geek parenting (because we can't avoid the next generation for forever!)

The Hunger Games - A Historical Roman Perspective

2012-03-22T14:08:00.000-07:00

The Hunger Games is a great book trilogy. I just finished it last week and I am actually happy that Hollywood is releasing a movie of the first book (expect sequels) and they seem to be holding close to the story and themes in the books. It's no secret that scattered throughout the trilogy are myriad references to Roman culture. I'll touch on the obvious, but I think you might enjoy some of the more obscure references and how this adds another layer to the underlying world of the stories. If you have enjoyed the books or plan to see the movie, read on, I think you might be intrigued at just how detailed the author, Suzanne Collins, is with her historical references.

If you haven't read them, "The Hunger Games" is a sci-fi book trilogy set a few hundred years into the future of North America. The world has survived several catastrophes and some technology has been lost while other technologies have been adapted as needed (fascinating article about that). There is advanced medicine, cloaked flying ships, and the ability to produce genetically manipulated animals, for example. It's not post-apocalyptic exactly, more like a world that has survived several catastrophic events and changed as time progressed, while the world population has shrunk considerably, I don't think it was due to any one apocalyptic event. The population is divided into distinct "Districts" that produce raw goods under the heavy hand of the all powerful Capital city. It tells a story common to many sci-fi books... a cautionary tale of what humans in the future could be like if they fail to learn from human history and naively choose to repeat it.

The author pays homage to and incorporates many, many themes and allusions into the books. There are the references to reality TV, the invasion of Bagdad, a nod to both Bradbury and Orwell, a little Spartacus, and reference to the American colonies. The most intriguing part though is that the books make no secret of the references to Rome and Roman culture (as well as a little Greek storytelling influence from Theseus).

It is in many ways these books are a modern allegory to Rome and I find that completely fascinating. A few of the references are obvious, but to those unfamiliar with the culture and history of Rome, many will seem unfamiliar or obscure. That is, you probably missed them altogether. The books are told from a 1st person perspective and you only know what the protagonist knows. I think the books actually take on a deeper meaning when put up against this tapestry of history and some parts of the Hunger Games world the author chooses to not elaborate on become much more intricate when you see the historical allusions. There are indeed references to Gladiators and some people find the "children as gladiators" angle in the book to be very off-putting. To be fair the stories are much more nuanced than that and a lot of the plot doesn't directly involve the gladiator-like "Hunger Games". The author's characterization, plot, and style don't dwell on the gruesome, but it is in there. It's a bleak, gritty world she has created, but not horrific.

As a disclaimer, I am no Roman scholar, but for the last year I have been working on the development a game called Coliseum about Roman Gladiators. It's a great game and has kept me in constant immersion in books and facts about Rome and Gladiators. This immersion in Roman culture caused a lot of the subtle Roman references in the books to jump out at me a bit and what I noticed, I am happy to share. Other blogs and articles have probably touched on this subject, but not in any great detail. I want to get into the specifics of the Gladiator and Arena references, as well as more general similarities to Roman culture. You might be surprised how much the author packed in there.

On Spoilers:
I don't want to ruin the books for anyone, but I will be exploring the world of the Hunger Games and making comparisons to Roman culture and specifically Gladiators. I will try to be generic as possible. You will come away with an overview of the world, locations, and some names, but not the specific characters and hopefully I will reveal nothing about what actually happens in the plot of any of the books. You will be more familiar with the world and places and culture that reference back to Rome when you do read it though. If you want to explore the books for the first time entirely in the dark, then stop here, go read them first, and come back. Just do it soon if you want to avoid spoilers. There is a movie coming out this week based on the first book so you might want to turn off the TV and avoid the mall, teenagers, and social networking sites too.

PART TWO -- Society and Culture and What Not--

Character Names:
This seems to be the first Roman "thing" people jump on in the books. "Those names are Roman in origin." Yes, yes they are. And they work well. Most of the characters who are citizens from "The Capital" (and pretty much only these characters) have actual Roman names (Caesar, Portia, Venia, Octavia, Flavius, Seneca, Tigris, Claudius, Plutarch, etc.) and both Cinna and Coriolanus seem to have Roman names with a deeper historical reference to actual people. Names like Alma Coin are also interestingly historical. Besides the Capital, there are also several "Districts" and people from these have non-Roman names. This seems to indicate that the Districts are more like what the conquered Provinces were to Rome. This blog explores the meanings of the names more in depth if you are curious, but you know... spoilers.

Chariots:
We'll just get this out of the way. Yes, there is a scene where many of the characters ride through the city center on chariots pulled by four horses. Along with the names mentioned above, it's a very neat (and obvious) Roman reference. In Rome, emperors, returning generals, senators, and sometimes even popular gladiators would ride through the city in a chariot. It was a way to make yourself known, win the approval of the masses and was a very public spectacle. It works well in the books too. Chariots used in this way were like the modern day red carpet extravaganzas (they should really start using chariots at the Oscars,just sayin'). Interestingly, they have cars and planes in Panem too, but chariots are used in this instance as part of the Hunger Games media spectacle. Historically, using chariots or not, gladiators were paraded through the streets on the day of the fights as a way of drawing the crowds to the event.

The Capital:
The Capital is the actual name of the ruling city of the country of Panem, where the books take place. It is very much an allegory of Rome. The people there are wealthy, concerned with appearance and parties, and hold all the positions of real power.

Rome was a slave empire. The entire economy was held up by slave labor, but this had a downside, it meant those at the top, the middle class and wealthy citizens who lived in Rome and the other large cities, were basically unemployed, had little to do, and were often bored. To keep them from revolting, Rome would hold constant entertainment: chariot races, gladiator fights, parties, festivals, etc.

Panem itself is a reference to the latin word for bread and the method by which Rome kept it's citizens docile was through the use of food and entertainment (panem et circenses). The Hunger games are just as much about appeasing the Capital citizens as anything to do with keeping the Districts oppressed. Indicating that one main theme in the books is a direct reference to this key Roman practice.

In Panem, only the people of the Capital seem to be treated as actual citizens, the Districts are treated like provinces. The taxes collected from the conquered Roman provinces in the form of raw goods, money, and the direct labor of slaves were what enabled Rome itself to live a life of such splendor and excess. This is seen in Panem as well.

Little things such as comments made by Capital citizens, overeating at a party and then vomiting the food up ---just to eat more, and the remark two characters make that their displays of affection are mild by Capital standards, all reinforce the ancient Roman views of food, parties, public appearance, human rights, and sexuality evident in The Capital of Panem. As the books progress you learn more about the Capital and it's culture and secrets, but it is still mostly just alluded to in passing. It does sound more and more like Rome though.

Social Classes:
Panem is divided into several social classes. The same hierarchical and fairly ridged social classes that divided Rome. In ancient Rome you had the wealthy at the top called Patricians then Plebians and Slaves. Social status was carefully maintained and determined if you could own property and if you were considered an actual citizen. The Patricians were the wealthy aristocrats and inclusion in this group was mostly hereditary. Most Patricians lived in Rome or other wealthy cities. In Panem, they all live in the Capital. In The Capital there are those less wealthy citizens who run shops and keep things like trains running on time. Just as in Rome where there were some jobs in the government and temples that could only be held by a Patrician. These people are still citizens and possibly while middle class in practice, are still Patrician. In Panem, they still have all the benefits of living in the Capital as citizens.

Below that on the Roman hierarchy are the Plebians (or just Plebs). This is basically everyone else except slaves, but can be divided into distinct groups. The wealthier merchant class and the basic poor laborers. This is seen in Panem in several places. In the Districts, there are the merchants such as the Baker and Butcher (and to some extent the Mayor) who are also seen as distinctly more affluent, able to feed themselves regular meals, but are by no means wealthy. They are counted among the laborers and in Rome would have been considered and treated as Plebians, but not slaves. In Panem, there isn't really a middle class. The merchants are still barely above poverty and are still non-citizens of the Capital. Part of the country of Panem, yes, but not the affluent Capital.

Slavery in both Rome and Panem is evident in two distinct roles. The basic laborers in the mines and fields are forced to de facto slavery by station though not by name. Sometimes at gunpoint, other times with the fact that in each District there are only specific jobs you can have and if you don't do them at the wage offered, you don't eat. Just like in ancient Rome where slaves did the farming, mining, and building for little more than food and housing, often inadequate.

Slavery in Rome had another component. Slaves filled skilled roles as well such as shopkeepers, architects, artists, scribes, and personal attendants. In the Capital this is the role of the Avox. These are "traitors" who are forced into slavery and act as the basic servants in the Capital. they do all of the hard labor and dirty jobs as well as act as personal and household attendants. The Avox have their tongues removed so they can't talk. In some ways, their close proximity to the Capital citizens and maiming of the body (by removal of the tongue) suggests a variation on the Roman slave eunuchs. (If you don't know what a eunuch, I suggest you look it up yourself.)

Government:
The Hunger Games does not explore the government of Panem in any great detail. You have the President who rules from the Capital and each District has a Mayor. Nothing else is really revealed, except that the Gamemakers wear purple robes (I'll explore that later).

The President, if you read closely, has been in power for decades. He isn't an elected president as you might think of in a democratic country. He is in all respects a ruling Emperor who came to power using military force. The term "President" just seems to be handed down as a title of power form the past. The books also reveal that power in the Capital is maintained through intrigue, influence, poison, scandal, money, etc. all very Roman in their description as the same things happened in ancient Rome with the rise and fall of Caesar and the various Roman Emperors that followed. The Hunger Games books make no mention of any kind of Senate or ruling body, though there is reference to other powerful, wealthy individuals that seem to have influence.

Roman Provinces were ruled by Governors who reported directly to Rome (think Pontius Pilate from biblical reference) and Roman towns were controlled by Magistrates who performed many of the day-to-day enforcement or Roman law and maintained order in towns. Since each District is mostly just made up of one large town, the Mayors in Panem fill both of these roles perfectly.

Military:
Panem has one military/police force called the Peacekeepers. They seem to be the standing army of the all-controlling Capital. Interestingly, you seem to have to be a citizen of the Capital, or from a closely and highly favored District, to serve in the Peacekeepers. The Roman equivalent was the Roman army unit, the Legions were made up of Legionaries and their officers, Centurions and Generals. To serve in the Roman army, you had to be a Roman citizen. There is no great description of the organization of the Peacekeepers military unit across Panem, but there is one very specific reference to the Roman Legions. The fact that Peacekeepers must commit to 20 years in the service and can't marry during that time-- the Exact official requirement of a Roman soldier.

Also interesting is that the Tributes from the "Military District" will volunteer to enter the gladiatorial-like Hunger Games instead of being forced to enter. Something Roman citizens would sometimes do when enrollment in the Legions became mandatory. You could escape 20 years as a soldier if you were a successful gladiator and you might have the same odds of survival. A successful gladiator, however, would have a lot more money and fame than a career soldier.

The reference to a standing, working military base located outside the Capital might also be a reference to the fact that in ancient Rome the Legions could not enter Rome, the ruling city, for fear of a military coup. (perhaps you have heard reference to Caesar crossing the Rubicon? That's when that riule was broken.) The only soldiers allowed in Rome were the Praetorian Guard and they were the personal bodyguard/police force under direct command of the Emperor who also used them to control the capitol citizens.

City Layout:
Yes, even mundane things like the layout of the town and cities are direct references to Rome. It doesn't seem unfamiliar though as many cities in the world now follow the Roman grid design with the city square and government buildings in the center. Why don't we use a circular city design in North America like those often seen in classic European fortifications, some Native American tribes, and even in the Middle East? Because Rome conquered so much of the world and influenced so much architecture. The towns in Panem are very specifically described... and they are very Roman.

There is a town center, a square surrounded by the local businesses and contains the legitimate market. It is bordered by the Justice Building. The Capital also has the "City Center" which seems similar on a grander scale (as it was in Rome). The rest of the town is on a grid and people live in small houses or apartments. There is a nice section of town off to the side where larger houses are situated and where the Victors of the games live.

In the Roman Empire, towns varied in size, but were very uniform. They had a central square called the Forum where all business and most politics took place. It was surrounded by temples and businesses and often dominated by a large marble building called the Basilica. In the Roman era, these Basilica were official government buildings with courts and law offices, where contracts were signed and the Magistrate worked and received official visitors from Rome. It usually overlooked the Forum and had a raised platform for addressing the crowds (just like the Justice Building). The main population also lived in town in small houses or more likely apartment buildings. Wealthy citizens might have a large house in town (a Villa) and sometimes a country estate as well.

Luck, Gambling and Religion:
One thing The Hunger Games doesn't have that the Romans did is a major pantheon of gods and a superstitious populous. In fact religion of any kind seems to be entirely absent in Panem. However, there is a catch phrase used frequently, "May the odds be ever in your favor" and this hearkens directly to Roman culture. Romans were concerned with fate, luck, odds, etc. almost to a fault. They believed that your life was fated from birth, but could sometimes be changed by the gods and your own actions. They spent a lot of time with soothsayers trying to see this fated path. Romans were also big gamblers. They had several different deities that dealt directly with luck and fate; Fortuna, Nemesis, and the Fates. In fact all of the gods could interfere with your life and influence your luck. Sometimes when Roman writers and poets talked about Fortune or Luck they are referring to a personified deity, not just the generic concept.

In The Hunger Games, the Capital seems to spend a disproportional amount of time gambling on the games and worrying about odds. In the Districts there is a lot of discussion about the unlucky ones who get chosen for the Hunger Games and those lucky ones who survive, etc. If anything I would say the religion or at least superstitions of Panem involve Luck (in the Capital, beauty might also be considered a religion). The main character sometimes dismisses this dependence on luck, but many of the other characters don't.

PART THREE --The Games, The Arena, and Gladiator Types--

All of that cultural stuff aside, what I find particularly neat about The Hunger Games is all the gladiator references. It is often more subtle than you realize. In The Hunger Games, there are a type of gladiator contest called... The Hunger Games of course. The Capital forces two people form each district, called Tributes, to fight to the death in an Arena. It is a very modern update on the idea of a gladiator fight. The crowd watched via TV and the arena is much more like something from The Truman Show where the "Gamemakers" have complete control over the cameras and the Arena conditions, but not the players. It's more of a cross between a gladiator free-for-all, wilderness survival, and a reality show.

Ancient gladiator fights varied a lot, but the basic premise was pretty close to modern day wrestling shows such as the WWE... with the addition of deadly bladed weapons. The primary purpose of the fights was to entertain, not to kill. A lot of fights didn't end in death, despite what is shown in movies. The professionally trained and popular Gladiators were expensive and time consuming to replace. As long as they put on a good show that lasted for a while and bled a little, they were often spared. Gladiators were even trained to die properly for the crowd when the time came. Bad shows would end in death and accidents were frequent. Gladiators would sometimes fight in teams and often fights were balanced between gladiator types. Roman crowds loved to see a fast gladiator type against a slower more armored one. There were also elaborate sets, forests, water hazards, structures, wild animal hunts, blindfolds, feats of skill, and even all out naval battles with water flooding the entire arena floor. There were fights where they just put a sword into a slave's hand and pushed them into the arena. A lot of what actually happened is lost to history of course.

--The People--

The Tributes in The Hunger Games, the teenagers who have to go to the Arena, are not just tossed in unprepared. They have a support team over the course of several days to help them prepare. There are also people in charge of doing nothing but preparing and running the Arena where the fights takes place. Not surprisingly some of these roles all have direct Roman counterparts.

Gamemakers:
The Gamemakers seem to be a generic term that encompass several historic rolls. Gladiator shows, called Munera, had a main sponsor, in later Roman periods this was the Emperor (or government). However, he sometimes did little more than pay the bills. In Rome there was an Editor or Munerator who would watch the games and make life and death decisions about the contestants based on the whims of the crowds. It could be the Emperor, or another powerful individual, Senator, Magistrate, or sponsor. In the Hunger Games, this seems to be the role of the Head Gamemaker.

There was also the roll of the Impresario. These individuals were charged with the production of the entertainment in the Arena. If the fight needed an artificial set, or special animals, pairings of specific types of fighters, or even a grand reenactment of a military victory, complete with historic costumes, they were in charge of putting on the show. Preferably making is as entertaining as possible and within budget. The role of Impresario varied widely, but generally speaking, they were simply the producers of the spectacle. On the floor of the Arena was also depicted in historical pictures a referee or umpire called a Rudarius (one who holds the long wooden staff or sword) who had some role in making sure fights had an element of "fairness". Basically they didn't want the fight to be over too quickly as a longer fight means more entertainment. Sometimes the fighters were even allowed to rest and stop for a drink. The Impresario and the Rudarius are the Gamemakers in every respect.

It is also worth noting that the Gamemakers in The Hunger Games wear purple. In Rome only the Emperor could wear a toga entirely of purple, but the Senators wore clothes fringed with purple. This signifies in the books at least that the Gamemakers might be some kind of prestigious position either politically or socially with status similar to that of a Senator in ancient Rome. They also spend a lot of their time at banquets or parties eating and drinking wine, so it fits.

Mentors:
The Mentors in the books oversee the competitors and help them prepare, talk with sponsors, and even help them in the Arena to a very limited extent. The historical role they mimic is that of the Lanista. Now a Lanista would often own the gladiators or their contracts and made money from their fights or compensation on their deaths. They were the owners of a sports teams, if you will. On a day-to-day basis though, they made sure the gladiators were trained properly and well fed, similar to modern athletes. They also arranged public appearances, because a popular (or at least familiar) gladiator would gain more favor with the crowd and possibly earn their sympathy if they had a bad fight. Lanista wanted their gladiators to survive. It was both a business and a personal investment for them. Powerful Lanista could own their own schools and even fill the roll of Impresario. Mostly though, they were the coaches and mentors. The most common profession for a retired gladiator, one who "won" the games, was to become a Lanista. The Mentor you see most in the book is very concerned with the Tribute's survival, but it isn't clear if the Mentors from other districts aren't more concerned with the rewards to be gained for them and their District if their Tribute wins.

Trainers:
Worth touching on is the fact that the Tributes had access to professional and knowledgeable trainers. This is also a historic role. It could be filled by the Lanista, but more commonly they hired professional ex-soldiers and ex-gladiators to act as trainers for the new gladiators. I believe in some references these were called Doctore. Other times sometimes just Lanista or just "trainers".

Victor:
In the Hunger Games books, we meet several former Victors. These are people who have won the games and are then rewarded with food, money, and large homes. They also take on the role of Mentor for the new Tributes each year. Notably, they aren't treated as citizens of the Capital, although they do spend a lot of time there and are well known to the Capital citizens. It is important to note the historical similarities here to that of the successful gladiator.

A gladiator could generally retire after five years or if they gained fame with the crowds and frequently won fights in the Arena, the Editor might grant them a Rudis. This was a symbolic wooden sword signifying that they were free from their contract. Gladiators who won their freedom were also called Rudarius. They had "won" the games similar to how the Victors in The Hunger Games win. However, it goes deeper. Retired gladiators would often become trainers or Lanista, but sometimes they were eager to go back into the Arena to fight again, being unable to give up the blood lust or possibly the attention of the crowds. This is seen in the books among the Victors. Retired gladiators also much sought after as entertainers and were offered large sums of money or coerced into going back in and fighting again. Some gladiators won Rudis multiple times over. The easiest and best way for an Editor to please the crowd was by bringing back the most popular and famed of all gladiators.

True to the Roman ideals of worshiping god-like beautiful people, the most beautiful and impressive gladiators would often earn more gifts and more attention from the populous. Gladiators were even known to provide product endorsements. Romans also placed much value on oratory skills and showmanship. Gladiators, especially famous retired ones, were much sought after frequently by wealthy Romans as sexual liaisons. Gladiators were the movie stars and sports heroes of the day, but with less freedom as they were still treated as second class citizens. If they weren't a citizen before becoming a gladiator, they wouldn't become one when they earned their freedom. They were no longer considered slaves or criminals, but freedmen, just not citizens of Rome. These elements are all evident in the books.

--Buildings and Places--

The Arena:
There are several Arenas discussed in the Hunger Games. They are specially designed for each annual game and only used once. They vary in size from large to small, but all seem to be round. They are designed to give the crowds, watching through the eyes of the cameras, the best possible vantage of the action. The Gamemakers control the traps, water, temperature, and other things in order to manipulate the drama and entertainment. There are corridors underneath where tables and animals can be raised and lowered from the Arena. All said, the similarities to ancient arenas are present in more than just the name.

Rome had many different Arenas as each major town had their own. They were called Amphitheaters and the sand floor where the fights happened was the Arena, though the name has become interchangeable. Most of them were round, and made out of wood, stone, or both. The most famous and largest of course is the Coliseum in Rome. It also has corridors underneath and on the sides where things could be raised, lowered, and introduced into the Arena. The Roman arenas were very much like a modern stadium, while in the Hunger Games the Arena is a high-tech modern biosphere. Little things like the use of trumpets and the arrangement of the fighters standing still before the signal is given for the games to start have some historical significance as well.

The Cornucopia is also worth mentioning here. While I don't think it was ever used in the Roman arenas, the concept of the Cornucopia, which we often see at Thanksgiving, has a different origin story in both Greek and Roman myth.

Training Center:
This is where the Tributes live, eat, sleep, and train leading up to the games. In Rome, a gladiator school was called a Ludus. The Ludus is where gladiators lived, ate, slept, and trained under the watchful eye of the Lanista and Doctore trainers. Most cities had one atleast one. They were often close to the Amphitheater. There were also medical facilities and medical staff available to help heal injuries. Gladiators were an expensive investment. The largest Ludus was in Rome and was called the Ludus Magnus, which had tunnels that opened right into the Coliseum itself. It's interesting to note that the Training Center in Panem doesn't border the Arenas, but the Tributes never really leave the Training Center until they go to the tunnels that lead directly into the Arena.

Remake Center:
In Panem, the Remake Center is where the Tributes go to be "beautified". The Remake Center seems to hold the same role as the ancient Bath Houses, which were more like full feature beauty spas and gossip emporiums. While not social centers in Panem, the Remake Centers are probably where the populace goes to meet the hygienic/appearance expectations of society. In the Capital, cosmetic surgery and personal appearance is taken to a level far above what we see ancient Rome and even our modern world. However, the are a few key phrases that are with mentioning from these passages. The books describe one of the characters having all the hair on her legs removed... not too different from the modern North America really. Then it goes on to say that all the hair on her arms and torso are removed too, which isn't as common in our modern society. This tiny addition is a very Roman concept and you might have missed it. Romans saw body hair as barbaric and removed it from their arms, legs, torso, and faces. Men didn't wear beards in most of Roman history. It's an interesting little addition to the book.

They removed all of our body hair. Now where are those weapons?

--Gladiators--

Gladiator Types:
Finally, I'll talk about the Gladiator fighting styles. In Rome, there were distinctive fighting styles that gladiators trained in and these were distinguished by specific weapons, shields, and strategy. In The Hunger Games, there are no shields, but there are many, many weapons. The choice of weapons seems to indicate a direct reference to some of the ancient Roman gladiator styles. It is important to note that while the books will refer to "a pile of various weapons," The ones described in detail are Roman in nature. There are no European polarms, or claymores evident here. Also missing are Japanese and Chinese style weapons. There is mention of throwing knives and axes, snares, and a few other things, but most of the weapons reference back to Greece and Rome. There is a "short, sturdy sword" that sound like a Gladius and daggers, spears, bows, clubs, and tridents.

Now, many of the Tributes were not extensively trained and just used whatever they could get their hands on quickly, including rocks. There were other Tributes that the books described as having extensive training at their home districts from their Mentors and these are called "Careers". Interestingly, these professional, career fighters (even given the choice any of the weapons), all seem to conform loosely to a popular gladiator fighting style.

Instead of trying to tell you what characters I though were using a specific fighting style, I'll just list the ones I noticed while reading and you can assign them to characters as you see fit.

Hoplomachus - They used spears over about anything else and would have knives in reserve as back-up weapons. If you have seen a Greek Hoplite warrior, say the Spartans from the movie 300, then you can just say that this was the Roman Arena version of that.

Murmillo/Provocator/Secutor - Were the heavily armored types similar to the heavy Roman infantry soldier. They generally used a short Gladius sword and the heaviest and best armor and largest shields in the Arena. Secutors would leave off the heavy leg armor so they could move around faster.

Threax/Thracian - Used very light armor and relied on quick movement and their ability to dodge. They had a curved sword, but were also very commonly depicted with knives and a small shield for deflecting atttacks. Actually, most gladiators kept a knife in reserve, but this is the only class that would sometimes fight with a knife as their primary weapon of choice.

Retiarius - The most recognizable and iconic of all Gladiator styles. They used a Trident (a three pronged fishing spear that was also a weapon) and a Net intended to entangle opponents. Sometimes a cord would be tied to the trident or net to make it easy to draw back and use again. If you noticed any styles right off in the books, it was probably this one.

Dimachaerus - Used two swords or weapons of the same type, one in each hand.

Cestus - These were a type of fist-fighter, brawler, wrestler, or boxer.

Venator - Those trained specifically to hunt wild and exotic animals, usually with a bow and arrow, sometimes with horses. These hunts were usually a separate event from the Gladiator duels and Venators weren't considered gladiators, though the Romans weren't immune to putting a fighter wielding a bow or other ranged weapon such as a sling or javelin into a free-for-all event just to "see what happened".

Animals - Yes, the Roman arena had exotic animals that were often killed for sport or performed as gladiators in their own way. Lions, tigers, wolves, bears, rhinos, crocodiles, chimps, baboons, and a dozen others. It's worth noting that in Panem, they don't put wild animals in the arena. They genetically engineer exotic creatures for fighting. Which is about the same thing. (Here is a list of muttations for reference... and spoilers.)

If you want to know more about Gladiators in Rome, there is an excellent source here and on wikipedia. If you are a high school student looking for some book report material or something though, I recommend you check out one of the many books on Rome and Gladiators at the library. The resources online are horrible compared to the excellent and accurate books available, trust me, I have looked.

That's about it. Remember, May Fortune forever favor the bold.

Happy Pi Day

2012-03-13T23:27:00.000-07:00

While the team here at Paper Napkins is enjoying some much needed down time and trying to recover from the stupidity that is Daylight Savings Time by jumping time zones, I wanted to drop in a quick note to wish our loyal readers, and fervent Google Searchers - mostly still scouting my Link and Zelda pics and review - a most happy Pi Day! Pi Day is one of our favorite holidays and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do. If you are looking for those awesome songs, please feel free to review them on last years post.

Unfortunately, tomorrow our focus will be on 299,792,458 and associated properties. I think, we'll have to make some time, maybe in the afternoon or early evening for our favorite number holiday, and we'll definitely have a make up holiday when our research is over!

Happy Pi Day EVERYONE!

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A Rational Shopping List for the Expectant

2012-03-02T18:59:00.004-08:00

One of my high school reconnect friends is expecting her first baby. I remember being there. I was practically the first (and pretty much only - still) friend in my circle of close girlfriends - not that it's a big circle, but still - that plunged fully into the realm of mommyhood. Oh sure I've made Mommy friends since, and half the town came to my shower, but for the most part, I was on my own. I'm ashamed to say I knew nothing about the stuff involved with being a new mom and taking care of that little life. So when my friend asked me to email here with my must have list well, I didn't want to do a half arsed job. Plus my mouse was dead so I was stuck on my email. I sat down and wrote the following. I stand by it. I also think, if there are any other "new" moms out there, they may benefit from a less commercialized and judgmental list. This works for me, I had way more stuff than I needed for that first baby (and we won't talk about the clothes and socks I stock pilled - 90% of which didn't fit because her feet were/are so big)

To my dear pregnant friend:

First let me describe how I parent and use stuff so that you can see if any of this will be helpful to you. We live in a 900sq foot 3 bedroom home. My house has the bedrooms divided with the master bedroom on one end then on the opposite in two very small bedrooms. We decided early on that we would breast feed, and I still do breast feed my 2 year old son. As such, we felt it was extremely useful to be near the baby at all times. This means that we have the crib in our bedroom, and did not set up a nursery room. At first I was very opposed to some of the stuff I do, but after we were parents for a while, I began to embrace a much more attached parenting style. I don't wear my kids (with slings, mai tais, or wraps) as much as I would like, but I do try to keep my sling accessible when we are going to be gone for a while. Also, there were several things that have changed since we made our first parenting decisions. For example, cloth diapers were not more environmentally friendly when my first child was born, than disposables. So we went with disposables. By the time my second came along that had switched, but we did not switch because our daycare would not use cloth and I was commuting for work at the time. By the time my third came along we just couldn't afford to switch (well we could have, but not while still paying to get the middle out of diapers.)

So what are my must haves:

Everyday I use my good sturdy crib that my mother and mother-in-law bought. I also splurged with my baby shower money and got a bassinet. I love the bassinet, because when I first got home from the hospital I could put the bassinet in the living room and sleep on the couch. This was easier for me to get up and down to nurse and let me fall asleep faster after the baby was back in bed. I do not sleep in bed with the baby because, I couldn't side nurse until the baby was at least 2 months, and usually closer to 3 months. Also my husband has sleep apnea, so even when we do start nursing in bed in the middle of the night, he has to get out of bed and sit on a chair or sleep on the couch because he can't tell where the baby is in the bed when he falls asleep. A good crib is essential, don't skimp, especially if this is your first of many.

My diaper table. My diaper table has been in heavy use since the second month of my oldest daughter's life, and that's only because for the first month we changed her in the bassinet or playyard as often as we did at the diaper table. Once the bassinet wasn't being used as much and had gone to our bedroom (prior to putting the baby in the crib), the diaper table is essential until that wonderful day when the potty training can be declared a success sometime between their 2nd and 4th birthday. Keep in mind you will be changing diapers 10 times a day in the beginning. This will taper off to about 6, but you don't want to be bending down to the floor or a half height table, make sure the table fits you! Also my husband claims some diaper tables come in a smaller size, avoid those, you want one that will fit a 2 year old. We found our diaper table at a rummage sale. As such it was free to us. It is extremely sturdy. We have it against a wall so we put cardboard backing on the sides that face the wall so stuff doesn't get pushed off the end. Bulk diapers go underneath and we have a couple drawers for socks/shoes/booties and diapers. Wipes go on a shelf next to the table at hand height. You don't want to have to bend down when you change a diaper. If you have shelves you can mount on a wall over a dresser, most people prefer that, but I love the table because it organizes all of baby's diaper and bedtime needs. Our diaper table is not in the bathroom or a nursery, it's actually in a nook in a hallway, so it doesn't have water. We do have a pail that has a lid and foot lever (from Bed Bath and Beyond) we got that to replace the Diaper Genie which broke when our oldest was 5 months old (sitter didn't know how to open it), and really just didn't hold much. The pail as long as it's taken out regularly does a great job and soon (hopefully) it will just become a garbage can. If you can afford, start pre-buying your diapers now, cloth or disposable - get a variety of the sizes you will need (unless you are going cloth, then just get the first two sizes, and lots of fillers.) Pampers makes the Target generic brand, both are scented like baby powder. Huggies has a different scent, and the last time I checked white cloud was unscented. Name brands tend to be snugger than generic which are wider. Kirkland brand is very wide. I have extremely skinny babies so this is a factor to me, but some people have chubby rolley babies, so they have the opposite issue. Any unopened box can be returned and exchanged at most retailers.

An excellent car seat. When I first had my daughter I knew nothing about car seats. I highly recommend talking to a car seat specialist or going to a car seat clinic. There are lots of great websites out there. They are going to recommend some really expensive stuff, but a car seat is like a crib, one of the daily essentials and the simplest safety step you can take for your child on a somewhat daily basis. The more expensive car seats are going to be worlds easier to install and take out. Gator clips on the latch are much easier than the hooks. Those cute infant carriers are great, just remember not to leave your baby in them any longer than necessary. Also don't plan on them lasting more than 6 months. Some kids can stay in them longer, and I know they've made them bigger than they used to be, but height for us was the big issue with them, my kids were too tall by 6 months. Realize that even if you buy a carrier you will want a larger convertible car seat before you are ready to turn your baby around. Rear facing as long as possible is really just so much smarter. My one mommy regret with my oldest was turning her around at 18 months because of peer pressure. Do your own research, but in my family, my kids love being backwards and the only one that wants to turn my son around is his sister, who is tired of him being able to kick her. I used a Graco Snugride for the kids when they were infants and then moved them into Britax seats which get very snug in my van. ALWAYS fit the car seat to your vehicle before you buy! If you can't fit the brand you want, get online and see if anyone else has gotten it to fit in your car. Also you will need tether points when you get to forward booster age, if you don't have them in your car you will need to get them installed. Your car seat should not move side to side, it can move marginally up and down. It also needs to be positioned correctly. Look for an adjustment line or level. Additionally, make sure you are comfortable with the way you tighten and loosen the car seat. Never put anything other than clothing (not even coats or warmers) between the seat, your baby, or the under the seat straps. Soft clothing compresses in an accident and your child will not be properly restrained. We flip coats over and the kids wear them like blankets (sometimes upside down so their feet can go in the hood).

Frivolous things I love:

I love blankets I can throw over the stroller, or use on the floor. Until we are crawling I use lots of blankets. Swaddle blankets are too small to use, don't bother. Master your swaddle technique with a bigger blanket, some babies love it and my oldest had to be swaddled until she was a year old (it was hard to find blankets big enough). My next two didn't care for it as much. If they don't like to be swaddled, sleeper blankets are great, like Halo.

I used many boppies and even basic pillows to put the baby on my lap and for nursing. I like the my breast friend for the first few weeks the best, after that I just switched to a regular bed pillow or body pillow. I don't have any advice on bottles or binkies, my kids barely used them, my son was happy with any bottle for the 2 months he had to use one, my daughters hated all bottles.

I had a Moses basket, this is totally frivolous, but I loved it because I could throw it in the back of my car and have a safe place for the small baby to sleep that had them fully laying down where ever we were going. It also worked as a great baby laundry basket and just handy spot. It's safer to have the baby laying down all the way as the incline of the car seat or bouncer constricts the airway until the baby is big enough to hold their head really well. Eventually the basket lives in my bathroom, because then I don't have to hold the baby while I use the toilet. You have to take baby with you, even when they sit up, I just set them in the basket with a toy for the time it takes me to go and wash my hands. You need something for the bathroom. Some people use a bouncy seat. My kids didn't like the bouncer I was given, my youngest used it the most out of all of the kids. With older kids though we had to be very careful that they didn't bounce him too hard. They didn't like the incline and they didn't like being strapped into a device. If they wanted to be still they usually preferred laying down or being held. As I said earlier I like holding my kids, so that wasn't an issue and my husband is even alright at cooking while holding a baby.

I really like my playyard - it has a full length bassinet insert so that is actually what my oldest slept in so she could be next to the fireplace until she was maintaining her body temp with just blankets. But I have to be honest, as much as I love it our house is too small to leave it set up and I only really use it when we travel. My mother has her own playyard, so we don't even always take it when we go to Boise. We have used it camping though, and that was fun! These are easy to find on garage sales. Make sure you can set it up and take it down without the instructions, and imagine doing it in the dark.

Clothes:

I don't like onsies. I have tons I never used because I was given them at showers. For the first couple months my babies live in sleepers. I had cute sleepers for the day time and soft ones for at night and sometimes they wore the same one until it just had to be changed (which was usually more than once a day). Some people love onsies and they put them under everything. It's just personal preference, with a summer baby you may like them more, as it may be too hot for sleepers, but your are probably going to want to keep baby's feet covered.

If you are using sleepers you don't need socks, which is great, because unless you get brand new socks they don't stay on, and if you've used them a couple times they aren't new anymore and you end up losing them. Don't worry about socks until they are out of sleepers and into outfits. Don't worry about shoes either. We used booties until they started to stand and step (around 9 months) then we bought some Robeez or other very soft soled walking shoe. Stiff shoes are harder to walk in. Then be prepared to buy new shoes every 3 to 6 months until they slow down to 1-2 times a year.

You will get cute outfits at your baby shower, don't worry about it. You will also find them all over the stores and will have too many before you know it. 9 sleepers are more than enough to get your through the newborn to three month size. In fact unless your doctor says your baby is running small, one newborn outfit for first pictures is all you probably need. If you buy something cute buy the 3-6 or larger size, your baby will probably be able to wear it by 6 weeks old. Count on the sizes running small, if you want to buy seasonal items ahead of time. My son is closer to the labeled size than my daughters were.

All the Little Things:

We used quite a few burp clothes, we use the ones that look like old style flat diapers. You can also use large wash clothes, they need to be big enough to cover your shoulder.

We use my Graco stroller (that came with my snugride) more than even I like to admit. It's huge and clunky and takes up most of the trunk, but I LOVE it for shopping, it drives really easy on almost any surface, and it holds a ton. Test drive strollers. If you are going to be out and about - a jogger or a Phil and Ted or something of that nature will be worth it, if you are just going to indoor stores, you don't need something that fancy, or big (it's hard to get them through doors and in elevators). Make sure that if you are using a stroller with a newborn that it fully reclines. Propping up a baby in a stroller is dangerous! Having the baby able to face you is great especially for the first, as they will be more bonded with you.

On the same note you don't need a super fancy carrier, there are tons of online directions for making a Moby - which I've never used but always wanted. I have a basic ring sling, and I like that, but it takes practice and you really need to get one that fits you. The infant carriers my husband wore and he didn't like them that much and the kids didn't like them as much either. You can also get a long piece of cloth and tie the baby to your back (African style). This is awesome, but it takes a bit of practice. My husband loves the backpack carrier for outdoor events when the kids are bigger.

You want either infant clippers or nail scissors that mimic what you yourself use, I use clippers, so I got some that are similar to use to what I have. You have to be quick in the beginning so keep that in mind. Getting your husband to trim nails while you nurse, or one of you holds a sleeping baby and the other clips are great solutions, but it does come back to bite you as you eventually have to train your kid to tolerate it (although if they are awake and nursing or having a bottle that can be enough distraction.

The nasal aspirator is going to get used more than you want to think about. Keep the one they give you at the hospital and replace it if it gets bad.

On that same note, keeping some infant Tylenol and their own thermometer (we got one from the hospital) is going to be important. My doctor is fine with temperature taken under the armpit.

You will want some kind of diaper ointment for bad rashes. I don't use powder, nor do I apply cream every time. I only use Butt Paste or Desitin if there is a rash forming. If you get a really really bad rash, change diaper brands, make sure you use a free and clear detergent (Dreft is scented), and then if it doesn't clean up, keep a food log (if you are nursing) because you are probably dealing with an allergy.

Diaper bags are purely personal. It's your Mom purse. I hate purses so my diaper bag is a backpack style. I've had two different styles. My husband had his own diaper bag, it was a sling style and he loved it (I hated it, it didn't fit me well). You don't need a huge bag, just something to carry your diaper pad (which you will continue to carry after you are tired of the diaper bag), a change of outifit, and any ointments or nursing pads you need - I liked to put my phone and wallet in the bag as well. I moved all my important cards to one wallet so I could switch it between my going to work bag and my diaper bag.

For the diaper pad, you want a large flat pad (because you will be using this on floors and counters when there isn't a diaper table, and they aren't as everywhere as they should be.) I have a pad with two flaps on either side that have zippered pockets (GR8X brand). I use my pad still, I haven't taken my bag in at least a year. Getting a stand alone pad and using a shopping bag is better than get a pad you don't like and a bag you love.

If you nurse, Lansinoh. A handful of the free samples should be sufficient, unless you pump, in which case you want a double pump AND you want more lansinoh.

Also if you are nursing, go get fitted for some nursing bras, sometime right around the middle of your pregnancy. Your breasts will reduce back to about that size shortly after you get nursing established. I like cami's to bras, but it's all personal preference. You will have to sleep in one until the leaking stops, so find something you can sleep in as well. Some Moms get away with using sports bras that they just pull down. Anything is ok as long as it doesn't have wires (wires can block milk ducts and that causes infections, which you really want to avoid.)

We've really enjoyed having a rear-facing mirror mounted on the seat the baby faces. We only used sunshades when we had a car without tinted windows.

You need a good water bottle, it's vital to stay hydrated during labor, while you are healing, and whenever you are nursing. If baby is drinking you should be having water or juice too.

The mobile goes on the diaper table. It keeps little eyes and little hands distracted while you work the other end. Unfortunately, as soon as it is captured it has to go away. Find one with the tallest arm you can or mount it to your wall.

My husband says his favorite nighttime tool was an LED book light that pushed on and stayed on. He used it for changing diapers in the middle of the night, getting water for me, seeing what the random baby noise was, etc. He says a smart phone also works if you use an app to keep the back light on. My husband also claims every mom needs a smart phone to keep connected with the world so she doesn't get depressed by the isolation of being needed as "Mom" all the time. Whether you are nursing, rocking, or just up in the middle of the night.

On a sanity note: Budget a small amount for picking up new random board books. You will memorize EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. I recommend Eric Carle and Sandra Boynton.

Last thoughts on stuff that probably isn't necessary:

I'm mixed on the need for a high chair. I have one, we used it, but it's huge for what it does. There are lots of nicer smaller ones now, and unless you are putting baby in it just to join you at the table, you don't need it to recline at all. If you are feeding your baby, unless they have a medical condition, they need to sit upright before you can start solids. I have a travel chair that works great, food time is going to be messy no matter what you do. Some good kid sized silverware and a few plates and bowls and you will be fine. Don't feel like you need anything fancy, get what works with the space you have.

If you make your own baby food (I did), you don't need a bullet, or magic wand, or any of that, unless you want one. You just need either a blender or food processor to get a puree. It is handy to get an extra ice cube tray or two as freezing extra baby food is just smart. Make your food, keep 3 or 4 servings in the fridge, freeze the rest. Your baby will be eating with you before you know it. The baby food stage is very fast. I highly recommend http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/index.htm - I'm fairly sure that's the site I used to get started in baby food. It has great introduction charts too. Don't rush solids, there is plenty of time and your baby doesn't even start to depend on solids until a year or so old.

Swing, bouncer, exersaucer, etc.... I touched on the bouncer, but in my mind all of these are unnecessary. Walkers are flat out dangerous. The purpose of these devices is so you can set your baby down and walk away. I'm not that kind of mom, but also all of these devices really need to be supervised when in use so they don't even work for the walk away part. Some babies really love one of these things, and that's great, wait until your baby is big enough, find a friend with one, and try it out. Then get one. Odds are your friend will be just about done with it and you can have theirs. My son would have loved a swing, but we've never had the space for one. I did try him in one at my shower - which was very late because of everything that happened when he was born. Always be aware of how your child's head and spine are supported before putting them in any new device.

I hope this list isn't overwhelming. There are lots of things I've talked about, but many don't have to be expensive.

To help with the shopping, I recommend http://www.babycheapskate.com/ and http://babyhalfoff.com/blog/ Both of whom I follow on Facebook. http://slickdeals.net/ is a great general deals site and they have a very active Mom watch group. I just set alerts for the items I am looking for.

Feel free to contact me if you want to talk about anything in particular. Don't worry, you won't hurt my feelings if you are a different kind of mom than me.

I'm so happy for you!

KtC

Why Hasn't Someone Else Done This Already?

2012-02-22T01:04:00.002-08:00

A first in what may become a series, except I can't remember what the second thought was. I want to focus an idea that I had, which when it finally gelled into focus made me say, "Why isn't someone doing that!?!" I'm sure in 99.9% of the cases the answer will be "money" and "5 year planning goals", both of which are personal irritants for me (have I discussed my personal feelings on money here?).

This particular thought occurred to me while I was clearing the ash in my fireplace and prepping a new fire. We use a freestanding wood stove for most of our winter heat. I live in the cold, where snow used to be common (really it never seems to really arrive anymore, but whatever). For some reason I was thinking about energy, electricity, alternative energy (a thought hobby for me, remind me to write up my micro-wind power idea sometime), regulation, and a documentary I watched 4 years or so ago about California and their alternative energy goals. I'm sure the knowledge that solar panel plants started and failed in the last 4 years was in there as well.

I think solar is a fascinating industry. It's been around for ages, yet it's still a novelty. This is sad. Sure the panels from the 70s aren't nearly as efficient as their newer counterparts, but outside of the rare few you just don't see them around. There are houses here that have some, and I'll be the first to admit that direct solar radiation isn't the most common thing here; when most people go to work and return home in the dark. The decreased amount of solar availability for a significant part of the year, it sort of starts to make sense. But even in areas where the lack of light isn't the biggest detractor there is a universal problem that is: the cost. Solar tends to be prohibitively expensive, it's a "long-term" investment in a world where now is the only important concept. Homes rarely have generational value, and for those who can afford to place panels, they'll only begin seeing the financial returns in their retirement, if they don't sell first.

OMG! What is on that roof!?!

So with solar being one of the green industries that were such a hopeful boon a few years ago (which is a great idea, since most green energy ideas are too big to import efficiently and thus equals more local jobs), it's really really sad to see them closing up factories and giving up. As I knelt by my fireplace I wondered why exactly they were collapsing. Now, with my laptop DOA and my time limited, I did not do any research into this subject. Yet, some things aren't so hard to work out for yourself if you just apply a little logic to the chaos and snippets.

First up is the energy trap. As a humanitarian striving society we subsidize power so that the poorest amongst us will not freeze, boil, or go without what we consider the basic necessities of human society. This in and of itself is not a bad thing. It would be absolutely horrific if people couldn't cook because they don't have electricity or gas to turn on the burner, and asking them to crank up a fire in their apartment is just not a safe proposition. As a result we all benefit from lower utility costs and have the brunt of the payment taken from our taxes instead. Unfortunately, this means the costs of change are much higher than they would be if the full bill was on our doorstep directly. If we directly paid for our energy without subsidization the green energy payback would not take so many years, it would be seen much earlier. As result solar panels, in my dad's words, "Are only something you do if your kids are going to inherit your house, and keep it."

"Your lot buys them. Our lot inherits them." - Mary Crawley

In the US we don't have the culture of keeping inherited property. We have a lower income society that can not possibly face the brunt of their full utility bill. We have a dependence on energy that makes it a necessity. And we have an antiquated system, funded by our social need. Solar can't break ground because the cost of transitioning is just too high, but without increased sales to reduce manufacturing costs and overcome the training of installers costs, the price can't come down. So that the money saving, planet helping, new technology is undeniably completely unavailable to those who could use the utility break the most, those who would benefit the most from the savings, and from the possible payback of contributing to the grid, the lower classes.

A while ago I was watching a documentary on California and how governor Schwarzenegger had started a program to help bring older low income housing up to an energy efficient code. People were going around, replacing lights and windows and teaching low income Californians some simple cost effective ways to minimize heat and cooling loss in their homes. Fixing up ones home is usually completely cost prohibitive, when you can barely afford your next meal. Still the gesture of helping out and taking out some of the burden on the grid and therefore the government subsides was a good idea. As a side benefit it also brought up the value (although marginally) of the home that was occupied.

The governator wants his people to stay warm, without bankrupting the state.

So why couldn't a private individual start a foundation to put solar panels on low income houses? Oh sure it's way more expensive than changing a few light bulbs, but if a person went about it the right way, they may not lose money in the deal and a very worthwhile industry could boom.

First the given individual (hereafter referred to as you), is going to need some serious investment startup. You are going to start backing solar production and bankroll a foundation (or at least seed it) to start putting solar panels on low income houses. This insures at least a small level of demand for the new solar production facilities, which will have something to do while they wait for the economy to recover and people to start embracing the benefits of solar. They may even have enough to kick back into R&D, which in this authors mind is the most vital part of any industry, and make even more efficient easier to install solar panels, or an entire industry of replacing AC with the more efficient DC for standard household devices (since solar panels output in DC, but AC is used because it degrades less over long distance power lines.) Anyway, they are going to have stuff to do.

It takes genius to see the light.

Back at the foundation, some low income neighborhoods are going to get a value bump. People who live from paycheck to paycheck, but have had enough savvy to purchase a home are going to find a little more flexibility in their monthly budgets and a bit more value in that low end house they can barely maintain. They will have greater pride in their home, their neighborhood could be picked up just a bit more, for moral it'll be hard to beat. Furthermore, if they do decide to sell and cash in on their new foundation provided/sponsored improvement, they are going to see a slightly higher interest and those who move in are instantly going to be reaping the benefits while their enthusiasm for the new residence is at it's peak.

With more people using solar and the benefits being touted not just by those who understand the complexities of finance, but by the common person who can now afford a reliable car, or more regular shopping trips, the demand for solar will grow into the middle class. The middle class has long been recognized as the consumer heart of the country and the buying power that makes any industry desirable and successful. They also really don't like not having something that has become essential for others.

Think of all the savings, think of all the jobs!

As more and more people move off the conventional grids (or reduce their usage), the need for government subsidization will reduce and can be moved to the new power options, or reassigned completely. And we'll all live happily ever after. Or the whole thing could just blow up in your face, but to me, it seems like a good thing to try. Because the status is not quo (sorry after putting Dr. Horrible up there, I just had to throw in a quote) and we really do need to motivate our bottom line to change for the benefit of all society. I'd like to think I'm right on this, I'd love to see someone do this, and if you do - write me, I'd love to have panels here!

edit: Before all of you who think it's better to leave the poor alone and let them learn to pull themselves up with hard work; I challenge you that maintaining a solar panel so that it creates energy and enables you to reduce your costs or even make money with it is more work than managing investments for which your sole contribution is an influx of cash and you sit back and reap the outcomes. Therefore, I further challenge you, that this is not a free giveaway that will cause the poor to be unable to care for themselves, yet an investment opportunity being passed into the hands of those who could benefit most from being given a chance, and those who would most recognize the benefit being returned. Plus owning a residence and being low income already indicates, at least to me, that the owner is capable of managing money fairly well and is ready for the opportunity to continue bettering themselves.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T11:57:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines day to you all!

I know this day is way over marketed, as a way to sell chocolates, flowers, and skimpy unmentionables. Of course it serves a purpose, some people need to be reminded that if you love someone, you should let them know the other 364.24 days of the year, not just on this day. A reminder never hurts. I am also not one to turn down a holiday and if you have been reading this blog for very long, you know that we love to celebrate.

Geeks often get a bad rap for being overly analytical or anti-social. I can tell you that the analytical part might be true (sometimes), the anti-social thing is something else entirely and isn't unique to geeks. Geeks do have an advantage as a group though, when we love something, we love it passionately and obsessively. Two people who share interests, especially geeky ones, can talk for hours passionately and to an outside observer this looks like the cutest kind of love. Before I married my wife, in fact, before I was even dating her, (actually, in full disclosure, she wasn't interested in me at all and was engaged to someone else) we were good friends. We often had these kinds of deep, passionate, geeky discussions about anything and everything and I think it confused more than a few people. People often thought we were dating and I don't doubt it had a lot to do with why no one else seemed interested in dating me. They might not have been all wrong though, because here we are, together.

The point is when geeks love something, they love it a lot. As any actor in a Scifi show can tell you, this can be very scary at cons and there is another dark side to it. If you have ever heard of a WoW Widow or more recently a Skyrim Widow, you know that these passions for things (anything really) can turn into addictions and loved ones get pushed aside. This is especially harmful in relationships where a spouse doesn't share those same geeky interests. This is the same thing you see among car people, movie fanatics, and even sports fans. If you don't balance your passions, even if your spouse is included in them, you are pushing away people you love.

So this is a reminder to my friends and family (yes, even you Internet only ones). Take time to step back and tell the people you love and who love you that they are the most important things in your life. That's what Valentine's day should be celebrating and despite being turned away from the holiday due to the rampant commercialism, we geeks especially can use this day to remember to do that. Just try to remember the other 364.24 days too.

Credit for this awesome picture goes to this geeky artist.

Love passionately and obsessively, but try to direct that to the people in your life. If an object or a thing or an idea in your life becomes your precious, it's time to rethink priorities.

One more thing. What else do geeks do? Like Gollum up there, we make geeky jokes out of everything we love and reapply it to everything else society holds dear. Like these Valentine's Day cards.... Enjoy.

Doctor Who Cards
http://www.bbcamerica.com/doctor-who/extras/valentines-day-ecards/

LOTR Cards
http://geekisawesome.com/3431/lord-of-the-rings-valentines-day-cards/

Star Trek Cards
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/02/star-trek-valentines.html

I could find dozens more. Star Wars was intentionally left off of this list, too many bad Luke-Leia jokes.

(Oh, and darling, with all the mess from re-arranging our daughter's bedroom and getting their obligatory school valentines and parties ready... I didn't get you any flowers, chocolates, or skimpy unmentionables.

So... Happy Valentine's Day! I got you a blog post. You can also read every one of those cards I linked above as if they are from me. Remember when we used to give each other virtual flower bouquets? They got cooler.)

Stripped and Alone

2012-02-08T09:41:00.000-08:00

While Orcrist was away on his eye opening adventure to the American Midwest, my secondhand laptop, Hermes, decided it was time to emphasize just how much attention it needed. The noise from the dying fan became unbearable and even the kids were complaining it was giving them a headache. About halfway through the week, I simply gave up and turned off my personal connection to the rest of the world. I still had my husband's laptop, since he opted to take his iphone, ipad, and a netbook instead, but using beautiful shiny laptop, with all of his tabs in his browsers was not the same.

You know how it is when your car is in the shop for a long time and you borrow your friend, or worse, your Mom's car. It has a different feel, it doesn't park the same. The steering wheel has a different texture that just not quite the same. Not to mention, while you could reset the radio stations, you generally just set it to your favorite station, or worse, try to find one of their presets you can tolerate for the duration. It was the same with borrowing my husband's laptop. And worse, I couldn't be logged into my work/personal gmail account and blogger at the same time! This is a problem I tried to ask the blogger G+ group about, but they didn't get it. They couldn't fathom why I would want my blog on a different email from my work stuff. Oh well. I'm back now!

I have so much I've been wanting to write, I know I already lost one of my crazy ideas - the other is still hanging in there, so when I get time I'll try to at least draft it out so I can post it someday. It feels so good to be back on my giant screen with my familiar keyboard with the shiny smooth keys and the "N" key completely rubbed off. Oh and I have new bifocals now so the whole world looks different anyway.

Cherie's Law

2012-02-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

This is just a bit of fun. I have been reading a fair number of Steampunk themed blogs and discussions lately and made a realization.

The Steampunk community has their own version of Godwin's law. You know the slightly tongue-in-cheek rule about Internet forums?

From Wiki:
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." In other words, Godwin observed that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis.

(It's true, it really is.)

Within the Steampunk community though, there is seemingly another law in effect. There are of course no "online discussions or arguments," but Steampunks do indeed have "passionate civil discussions". It seems that anyone who wants to prove that their ideas or arguments are correct will likely call upon a quote (or misquote) and attribute it to Cherie Priest, the popular Steampunk genre novelist. This seems to hold true even if Ms. Priest wasn't the person who said the quote ("I remember someone said or wrote this, I think it was Cherie Priest."). This is to say nothing of blog posts, essays, and book reviews. It might be a lack of a specific creative tome or celebrity to point to within the community of pseudo-equals. But I digress, without further distraction...

I give you Cheries's Law:
As an online Steampunk discourse grows longer, the probability that the name Cherie Priest will be invoked, quoted, or misquoted approaches 1.

Have fun poking holes in that, but I am pretty sure it will stand true, I mean it has to. The law itself invokes the name of Cherie Priest. So the idea stands true on it's own.

There are other truisms in the Steampunk community as well. If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to post them below.

Musings on Minor Cultural Differences

2012-02-03T13:36:00.000-08:00

Every time I travel I am amazed how small differences make such a huge impact on the culture of a place. You get a reflection of the people, philosophies and businesses that make an area unique. Now I admit, these are small things that someone from a foreign country might not notice at all, but traveling within my own country, I seem to be more open to the minutiae and I find that it is always interesting.

I recently traveled to the Midwest to visit family and see my grandmother who was in the hospital. I had a good time seeing all of my family and these comments aren't meant in any way to be condescending, but to provide an interesting reflection on how many small things and regional things can make a place feel so foreign. Part of this might be my fault for expecting things to be similar to home and finding that I have changed and so has the region where I used to spend time every summer growing up. When I visit the "Deep South" I know a lot of what is different and what to expect. This trip caught me off-guard.

The things that made me feel out of place seem to fall into two categories: food and technology.

(I could make a third category for politics, but I think I'll leave that out because it just isn't particularly interesting or relevant to this blog.)

Part 1 Food:

Chopsticks:
I ordered (American) Chinese and ate it with chopsticks at the HyVee Deli (more on that below). My lunch companions consisting of my dad and uncle and they where amazed and spent several minutes commenting on it. I found this rather comical, I mean my 4 year-old can now eat with chopsticks, you just have to practice a few times. In retrospect, I haven't had a reaction like that to the proper use of chopsticks since a meal 7 years ago in a mall food court with my wife when a family sat staring at us when we picking up egg rolls with chopsticks and an old WWII vet came over and shared some nice stories about his time in Japan with us. At least I didn't order the Suishi (more accurately Nori and Nigiri). I am sure someone uses chopsticks in the midwest or there wouldn't be an Asian community offering Asian food.

You hold them like this.

Fry Sauce:
This is a silly little thing, but kind of bizarre too and takes some explaining. No one east of say, the West Coast seems to know what fry sauce is. When at home I can walk into almost any restaurant, burger joint, fast food place, sports bar, diner, etc and just ask for fry sauce and it will appear in packets or a squeeze bottle. At A&W there is a dispenser right next to the ketchup. The exception to the rule is McDonald's and Wendy's which never have any. Generally speaking this is true anywhere I have traveled in the Northwest US and Canada, despite the wiki article claiming that it is a regional sauce common in Utah and Idaho.

It pretty much looks like this.

In the Midwest and Southeast they just stare at me with a blank or dumb look when I ask about Fry Sauce. It isn't that they don't have any, they haven't even heard of it. One really nice waiter where I was eating an excellent hamburger with my uncle said, "Fry sauce? Sure, what kind of sauce would you like with your fries? we have...." when I explained that it was the name of the sauce, not a request for some random sauce, he said, "oh, would you like the cook to make you some?" It was a nice offer, but I just went with ranch dressing. It's not really a big deal, but very funny. My aunt looked up the recipe on her iPhone while eating to find out what it was. Yeah, you can just mix ketchup and mayo and/or thousand island dressing, but it's not as good as actually fry sauce with the rest of the ingredients (like dill vinegar from a pickle jar and some great spices)

The HyVee Deli "Diner":
All regions have different restaurants and grocery stores. In the region I was visiting the HyVee grocery chain is common and is actually a very nice store. Strategically, since my last visit at least, they have been positioning their deli as a kind of buffet/diner for people to treat like a restaurant or an all-in-one mall food court. There are booths and tables nearby and usually a selection of comfort foods (potatoes, pasta salad, meat loaf, fried chicken, pizza, pie, etc.) and one of the bigger stores even had Chinese and Sushi prepared by appropriately ethnic chefs (the smaller stores didn't have that variety). Every day there is a cheaper "special" dish and you can do an all-you-can-eat or a la carte selection. They also seem to have a large morning coffee business to rival McDonalds among the elderly population.

The stores in the smaller towns weren't this big.

The problem is, partially due to the other options just being fast food hamburgers or pizza, my family kept opting to "eat at HyVee". It was also cheaper if you weren't very hungry. The food wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as say, a Shari's or some nicer family restaurant that it seems to have replaced in the region since the later is impossible to find. I don't blame HyVee for filling a lucrative market niche. However, after the 4th time eating there in as many days I staged a revolt and said "please somewhere else?" You can only eat that same kind of "homemade processed food" you find in school cafeterias, nursing homes, and chain restaurants so many times in a row. I ended up there anyway because that's where everyone else went and I felt that the need to socialize with family I never get to see overrode the needs of a varied palate.

Mmmmm Meatloaf!

Coffee Shops:
The Midwest is home to the die-hard Folgers Freeze-Dried Ground Coffee In A Can culture. That's ok. My farmer grandparents and uncles grew-up drinking it constantly (like water) and it's what they like. I guess the combination of that and the hardworking frugality of the region kind of kills the (fancy overpriced) coffee shop though. I live in a small college town. Not only are the coffee shops open most of the night, but they often put the larger chains (like Starbucks) to shame with high quality immported self-roasted and ground coffee drinks.

Coffee for hard working farmers.

I asked about Internet (more on that below) and of course about coffee shops in the area (the mainstay of free Internet and relaxing chairs when you travel). Nope, none. The hospital I was visiting to see my grandmother had a coffee shop run by volunteers. It was nice atmosphere-wise with some bookshelves and padded chairs around little round tables (the hospital had free wifi too!), but they served coffee. You know, brewed coffee (read: drip from freeze-dried crystals out of a pot), there were three choices even. I expect that from a truck stop or a Denny's, not a coffee shop. Shows what I know. Over the course of the week I made 3-4 moffees (my emergency recipe: mix packet of hot chocolate powder and vanilla or hazelnut Coffee Cream Creamer™ into a cup of drip coffee). I am sure in the bigger cities you could find something, maybe a Starbucks. I guess I can't fault the logic though. When I think "coffee shop" I think espresso. Here is simply meant drip coffee, which is more technically correct right?

Coffee for hard working city yuppies.

One morning I bought one of those Starbucks bottled mochas from HyVee. It wasn't actually that bad at the time, but I was up at 7 am that day to help move some furniture and that is with a 2 hour difference in time zones (read: it was 5 am to me). So the whole coffee thing was actually kind of relevant to staying functional.

On the way out of town I bought a Mocha from the airport coffee shop. They had a proper espresso machine and I thought I would be in for a treat. Worst mocha I have ever had. It was burnt and probably from old grounds. I just couldn't win on this front.

(Update: I actually only drink coffee maybe once a week and soda only 2-3 times max. I simply like high quality coffee mixed with something sweet and creamy when I do indulge. After reading this post, I sound like a complete yuppie. Oh, well. )

Part 2: Internet and Technology

I ended up bringing an iPhone, an Asus Netbook, and an iPad for work and entertainment purposes on this trip since they all did something different that I needed to do.

This might just be my family specifically as I occasionally picked up wifi networks on my laptop from neighboring houses, but they just don't seem to use the Internet. Only one household was really connected -- one of my uncles had a few smart phones, home wifi, and even a 3G connection for his car. Of the rest of them, one family has a hard-wired desktop that doesn't see much use and one cousin has a smart phone she uses frequently as a mom. My own mom has high speed Internet, but I never see her online, just an occasional email. One of my aunts is outwardly anti-technology, though she did like seeing digital pictures of my kids on an iPad slide show. Overall though in the Midwest region, there seems to be less of a focus on connecting people through technology or a dependence on the Internet as where I live. I know there are geeks and techies out there though, Google just opened a server farm in Iowa of all places. Where I live, everything is wired up, elsewhere, probably in more rural areas, it might be different, however, on my wife's side, everyone has Internet, even out on the rural farms. I was able to find Internet at the hospital, and a few of the local restaurants (no coffee shops as per the above comments), but didn't spend enough time in those places to use it extensively. I was there to see family.

(editors note: In the local small farming community where Orcrist lives, some of the farmers have their entire farm with lighting fast high speed internet. They do this so that their new farm equipment can do precision treatments to the fields, varying the application by the foot. Granted it is still not the norm, but it is a big change from the experience Orcrist had and a little something to give you a comparison.)

Don't taunt me!

Internet vs TV:
You see, the Internet just isn't important here. I can understand when my grandmas don't see the appeal, but of the younger generations (my cousins and uncles) they mostly just watch TV. They pay for TV and have large TV's that are on frequently. We watch so little in our house (mostly hulu, netflix, and over the air PBS kids shows) that is was a bit of a culture shock that I forgot about; just how many people in the US still pay for traditional TV. I wish I could find the 2011 statistics I read a few weeks ago, but basically online video is growing and replacing traditional TV, just not very fast. A lot of people pay for both services and use both. Younger generations are forgoing traditional TV for Internet only TV and entertainment. Here are some older numbers.

Older TV Statistics.

Those statistics on TV watching habits don't hit home until you see a region where Internet is second to TV, unlike my hometown where it is opposite and people who do watch TV limit the screen time. As I said, what little TV I do watch usually comes over the Internet. The Internet has a lot of value to me, besides TV, I also use it for video games, work, socialization, shopping, bills, chatting, and news. I like to think that I have choices and access to a variety of non-biased information. Here all the news and entertainment is through one source. I saw a lot of Fox news, the weather channel, political ads, NCIS, and hours and hours of TV advertising. I forgot how much advertising there is. It's constant and completely foreign to me. I spent a lot of time reading a book during ads for the little but of TV I did watch. This information stream is backed up by local newspapers too, but really that's only two sources of information and I find it scary how skewed some of it is and how ubiquitous the TV is.

Ah, the American dream! Except that TV is kinda small, eh?

This isn't an issue of the digital divide (that means people can't afford access to the Internet or don't have Internet options available, and are cut off from the benefits). While having a computer and monthly internet service vs. a TV and monthly TV service are comparable in price, and some people do both... it's conscious choice and people are choosing to be cut off from the online world. It just doesn't have enough value to be worthwhile. I imagine there are lots of places in the US like this, but it's still a culture shock.

My iPad:

The iPad2 is HUGE! Look at that tiny little guy.

I'll admit, the iPad2 I own is pretty high tech and I wouldn't even have it if it wasn't for luck (I won it in a contest). However, besides that one uncle I mentioned, no one had really seen or heard of an iPad or a tablet. Being so ingrained in geek culture this caught me off guard. Everyone thought it was neat and I think my dad secretly wants one, but I got lots of "looks" from random people for carrying one around. We also did high tech stuff like looked at digital pictures and I used Skype to video chat with my wife and kids back home using the fast Wifi at the hospital. That is actually very cool and it feels like "the future is now". It was also helpful for my kids who missed me to see me each day and for them to get to talk to all of the extended family they don't see often enough. Even my 93 year-old grandma and all of my aunts and uncles had a good time video chatting and passing the video device around. It's pretty much "point and talk" simplicity.

It looked a lot like this as long as the Internet wasn't laggy.

My grandma in particular thought it was really neat and to put that in perspective... she grew up hearing about men like Nikola Tesla and the rise of the car, TV, flight, and the information age. Still, 80% of the people I encountered hadn't heard of the iPad or even the concept of tablets. I guess they didn't need to.... no Internet to use it with. I figured some TV ads or something might make them familiar, but after watching TV there for a week, I realize that only smart phones (the cash cow of big telecom with their monthly fees) are really advertised on TV. I personally see ads for tablets everywhere on the Internet (including internet video sites like hulu). This is just one of those odd cultural differences you don't think much about. At home, nobody really gives a tablet a second look. Come to think of it, the airport is the same way. In a small Midwestern town though, I feel like the rich city mouse with all the new ideas/things and that analogy might be closer to the truth than I realize. Except that I am not from a big city, I live in a small town too.

That's it for today. Just some interesting observations and overly wordy musings, a result I believe of having too much down time to think on the plane flight home.

The Book Dilemma

2012-01-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

For those of you that read Paper Napkins on our blog proper have probably noticed the big new "Currently-Reading" box from Good Reads. I know it's awkward and when I redo the header graphic (it was meant to be temporary), I'd like to move it to the other side. Anyway, that is in fact the last book I read or what I am currently reading and my thoughts on it at this time (based on the stars). At the point of me writing this piece it is still listed as The Dresden Files: Side Jobs by Jim Butcher. I actually read this over the Christmas break and I really loved it, but that lead to a problem, a dilemma if you will....

I want to read, but I have no idea what I want to do next, I just know that I want to have the same emotional investment as I do in Harry Dresden, Karen Murphy, and all the other regular members of the books. You see, Dresden is a long series (13 books strong if you don't count the short stories of Side Jobs), and that gives you a lot of time to become intimate with the characters. You don't get that in the first book of a new series. You don't get that from a completely new author.

Wizard defender (and Private Investigator) of Chicago is a tough act to follow

Many of the books in my stack are deal-of-the-day from pixel of ink, or are classics from Amazon. I have several bookcases of hardcover and paperback, but my eyes have been strained reading those books and so I've developed a preference for my Kindle, which I've learned I can even read while recovering from a migraine without additional strain! Yay Kindle! Paperback and small font hardcovers can trigger a migraine so this is huge for me. In fact I borrowed Side Jobs from my local library and took it on my holiday travels on my kindle, something I would have been reluctant to do with an actual library book. I'm always scared I'll leave it behind and not be able to return it on time.

Reading Side Jobs kicked up all the emotions after reading the horrific ending of Changes (book #12). Changes is probably the most emotionally wrenching of the Dresden books, and even though I've already read book #13, Ghost Story, I still felt the pain and emotions of Changes fresh again as they were felt by the characters in the last short story of Side Jobs. While the nature of the story left a strong raw emotion, the feeling of connection with the fantastical world and rich characters is something I long to repeat.

I did debate rereading the series (especially since my husband is only a few books in), but most of my copies are beautiful paperbacks, and the aforementioned vision issues make that unattractive. I'm also not in the position to spend the money to buy them all for the kindle, especially since I've already read them and own a copy already. So any suggestions on what to read next? Leave them in the comments, or drop me a note on good reads.

What's Good Reads? Well I'm not fully sure what the whole thing is about, but it fills a need I've been looking to fill for this blog since I started reviewing books here. Good reads offers me the opportunity to share with you what I'm reading right now, even if it's not immediately apparent to the blog. It also gives me a place to list stuff I've read, so I can remember which ones I have read, and so you my readers can see the literary me. Now I spent quite a bit of time putting stuff I've read or listened to in the last couple years on there, and I know I'm missing a ton of just the recently read stuff, but it's a start. I hope having a list of stuff I've read is as interesting for you as the idea is for me. If I've read it recently, or it left a really strong impact on me, I've rated the book. I hope to link to reviews here and maybe make a few short reviews for some of the books for when I don't want to or have time to write a full review.

Feel free to send a friend request to Good Reads for me, I'd love to see what you are reading!

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Where Did My Internet Go?

2012-01-18T01:06:00.000-08:00

If you've been living under a rock lately, or are unfortunate enough to be in an apolitical state, like I am. You may have woken up to a quite unpleasant reality on your favorite websites today. A big black box and a bunch of alphabet soup that makes no sense.

Well, once you know what SOPA and PIPA are they make even less sense. While Wikipedia is down today in protest - they have left the sites up to these two laws. Additionally, there are quite a few results on a Google search (also joining the protest although only with graphics).

The internet has become our front porch, our town square, and the primary way we "hang out" with our friends and family. There are small contributors like us here at Paper Napkins, there are social sites like G+, Twitter, and Facebook, there is music, movies, reviews, TV, newspapers, books, and shopping. We have created a virtual mall, with neighborhoods, jobs, factories, and all sorts of things to do. Even if the internet isn't a second perception of reality, it is our social home.

As such people have crafted spaces for themselves, their families, their friends, and associates. People have worked it to make a living, to share ideas, and to have fun. There are some not so great things, there are some wonderful things. It really is a reflection of the world. The internet is also changing, just as the world changes. More and more it allows us to interact and share our interests, thoughts, and loves with people all over the world. It also allows us to share other peoples ideas, hate, and all flavor of misinformation and perversion.

These undesirable elements do not need to be the mold that has us burn the village. I fully support people getting compensated for their ideas, this blog itself is copyrighted. Yet, the last few decades have seen the strive to protect corporate interests stampede the vital social interactions of society. Oh sure, it may not seem like that big of a deal to stop someone from posting their favorite music video, or their son singing to their favorite song, but those sorts of things are the bits of culture and shared experience that make us the humanity we are today. Sharing clips from favored shows, funny one liners by our favorite comics, these are a crucial part of our society.

I'm not saying pirating is fine, because it does happen, but taking away the shared experience is going to do more harm than good. Just the other day my husband and I were comparing the happenings to the insanity that surrounded prohibition of the 1920s. (It doesn't hurt that the Ken Burns series was on not that long ago). Pirating is wrong, downloading whole movies off of some site in Russia is bad, but legislating morality is something we are even worse at. These laws disregard due process, a current trend in law making that is absolutely frightening. The founding fathers may or may not have been geniuses, but even the toughest critic would be hard pressed to say they got all the principals of a fair government wrong, and due process, that was a big one for them.

Take some time today. Look into these laws, find out why so much of the internet is opposed to them. And then, before you get up from your keyboard.... write an email to your Senator. If you are as unlucky as I am and have a senator supporting these farces of free society, well.... then it's even more important. If you don't look after your elected officials, who is going to? The pirates they are trying to stop will have more morality as existing restrictions already affect them to a degree.

Interesting Links:
PBS Newshour Blackout Image Gallery
American Censorship
Stop Censorship
SOPA Wiki - not blacked out
PIPA Wiki - not blacked out
Craiglist SOPA Information
Google SOPA Petition Page
Gizmodo SOPA breakdown
Companies that SUPPORT SOPA
SOPA Known OPPOSITION
How SOPA will affect internet users (CNET)
A SOPA letter from the future
SOPA summary with a great analogy
Why SOPA won't work on the internet - a cultural language problem

Need a Flow Chart to know what to do next?

From Ape Con Myth

When Geeks Celebrate: All the Little Things

2012-01-17T23:32:00.000-08:00

So we've just about wrapped up geeks partying (and just before we get started on the next party!) There are just a few more little tips and tricks I think every host/hostess can add to to their bag of tricks that we used for the Unicorn Adventure. So lets jump right into them.

Decorations:
Balloons are a staple. I've learned that locally, mylar balloons at the dollar store are the same price as latex at the grocery store. The selection is moderate and you aren't going to find any of the themed characters, but if you can just about make a rainbow with basic stars and you can always find a few designs that say happy birthday. You can also get the fill your own kit, but then you have to find time to fill and tie and hope you don't run out of helium. I like the simplicity of picking them up, but I don't live very far from the dollar store either.

While you are at the dollar store, it's great to get creative with items. For the rainbow party we lucked out and scored some garland with stars in it. We got enough colors to simulate a rainbow feel and it didn't cost us nearly as much money as ordering stuff online. You can also score all kinds of creative things in the housewares, inexpensive clothes, and cheap theme toys.

Party Bags/Take Homes:
Before you load up on cheap toys for party bags, think, can you use them during the party? If you can, I think you should. It's always more fun to get something from the party rather than a bunch of candy in a bag. Of course the candy is cheaper, but if your kids are like mine they get so much candy throughout the year and are going to have so much at the party that it's not really a treat, plus with toys you can avoid most allergies. In fact if I can find an inexpensive party item to let the kids take home (like the stars) I'd rather spend a bit more on that, than get a bag of random junk for them.

Make it Work:
Now, what if you can't find the perfect thing. DIY. Did you know for example that plastic stones, or those gems in tiaras can undergo dramatic color change with the help of A SHARPIE! It's true, and the color doesn't rub off for almost a month of daily use (just tested it with Ver2's formerly pink, now yellow tiara). Darker colors last longer of course.

Crafts can be a great filler for the grouping kids together at the party, especially after an activity or when everyone first arrives. But the craft needs to be thematic, especially if its going to start the event. Getting everyone into the theme. With unicorns not being in the year, we were able to take some horse cut outs and pipe-cleaners and make our own unicorns. The kids were then able to color them with markers and sticker gems. Although I will have to say finding silver and gold pipe cleaners to twist together into a horn was much harder than a thought. A little school glue held the pipe cleaner horns in place with minimal drying time.

Name tags/or buttons can also be a fun craft. While those who make cards probably have an easier time of this, our local crafts store carries snap together buttons. This lets the kids color their name tags and by placing a sticker, or coloring with a sharpie, the back of the button allowed us to sort the kids into groups for the adventure. The same could be done for choosing teams, or a lotto prize.

I hope this brief list of party tricks has helped you out, or will help you out in the future.

Want to see all the other posts in this series? Start Here

When Geeks Celebrate: Food

2012-01-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid....

Sound advice for most things, but especially when it comes to party food. Oh sure, making decorative foods is fun and it looks really cool, but there are two problems; food doesn't keep for long and in most cases needs to be done when everything else is also happening (ie the at last minute), and kids get a little unsure what to do when they can't readily identify what you just presented them with (I learned this the hard way - although my daughter said that with the action of the party she wasn't that hungry either). Still, the lunch foods weren't a disaster, and the cake was a huge hit with the kids and adults (but when isn't cake welcomed by kids?)

As with any menu, keeping it basic, but offering variety is key. I don't know the food preferences of all the kids, but I also had to balance the allergies of my kids. After getting pizza tossed down by my daughter (who can have pizza from the local place as long as there is no cheese), and the game master informed me that lunch would be served in the middle of the game instead of at the beginning or the end, but as a scene in the story - and at the palace no less - although a picnic was debated, tea and finger foods became the way to do it. Now I've never been to a proper tea, I've been to a few American equivalents although none of them very formal, so when this idea became our starting point, I tried to think of reasonably healthy foods (after all we had a big cake to bring out at the end) that would be appealing to kids, easy to make, and look like something a Queen would serve company.... Yeah, no problem!

Finger sandwiches
It's easy to dress up sandwiches. We made two different sandwiches for the party. We made cream cheese (not allergy friendly) and cucumber on homemade wheat bread, we did these one layer and we used thin cucumber slices. The bread was de-crustes and the sandwiches cut into triangles (cut each diagonal), quick and easy. We also made fancy PB&J. Cutting the homemade wheat bread as thin as I dared I peanut buttered a slice and layed it down, then I put a thin layer of freezer jam (raspberry - and also homemade) on the next slice and lay it jam side up on the peanut butter. Finally I topped it off with a third slice of bread. Then the sandwich was de-crusted and sliced into squares. Since I'm not a fan of wasting food and the bread wasn't perfectly rectangular, some of the squares were more rhombuses and some even were in the pentagon family, but it still looked good enough.

Pinwheels
Ahh, the classic finger food standby. Quick, easy, and they added some color (and greens) to the options. Taking different color tortillas we spread cream cheese (although on some of them this time we got out the vegan substitute) added sliced deli meat, salad greens, and on the dairy-free rolls, cheese. Roll into a log and slice, then lay on their sides. Simple and fast. These were relatively popular.

Mini Cold Fruit Pies
Now, I don't bake pies... the truth is, that pie day is one of the few days of the year I go looking for pie. I'm not really a pie person. Part of it stems from the fact that I never really developed a love of warm fruit. Most fruit pies are either too sweet, or just generally unappealing to me. Now that both of my daughters can't have eggs or milk and pudding pies were my last hold out in the pie camp.... yeah I just don't really do pie. As a result I also didn't have a good pie crust recipe. Some food blogs I read came to the rescue and I made a pie crust in silicon cupcake holders. I eventually found my heart shaped silicon and those were amazing and looked great!

To get them to fit in the silicon and look nice you need a cutter that's just a bit bigger than whatever you are going to bake the crust in. Sure you could make a cardboard template tracing the opening of the silicon cupcake thing (since they are bigger at the top than the bottom) and hand cut them. I found a child's drinking glass that was the right size for the circles and just used a heart shaped cookie cutter for the hearts, it was slightly the wrong dimensions, but still looked fine.

With a basic pie crust roll it thin (a bit thinner than I ended up doing - as mine were a bit too thick to really work) and bake according to directions. Pop each batch out chill and repeat. Then on the night before the party, place jelly, jam, preserves, or you could use cream cheese, but with that being a milk product - it was out for us, anyway you can just follow fruit pizza directions from this point as with the exception of using a pie crust instead of a cookie that's what we were going for. After you have a binding layer decoratively put two or three pieces of fruit and chill. Fresh fruit looks nicest, but if it's December and the fresh fruit looks nasty, canned works as well. Frozen is a bit tricky since that tends to fall apart.

Salads
Yeah, ok, I'm not a health nut, but all of the above was really lacking in the green realm and seemed extremely sweet and rich; if the fresh veggies had looked any better than than the fresh fruit a veggie tray decoratively arranged may have been in order, but they didn't. The salad greens did, however; and I loved the idea of presenting each kid with a small personal salad.

I really wanted to make them look like flowers, but we come back to that KISS philosophy. Hand-tying lettuce bunches with an piece of spinach was just not on the itinerary especially since salad greens are one of the most finicky when it comes to the not able to make it ahead group.... nope minutes before the party started, (okay after it started, thanks friends!), salad was decoratively splashed onto clear plates. Orcrist had precut (that morning) some cherry tomatoes into flowers (cut in half with a zig-zag edge, makes two flowers) and those were lovingly added to the fresh greens and placed before each kid as they arrived for tea. Most of them went in the trash, but hey it's the thought, and at least one kid polished hers off!

Finally, we get to everyone's favorite. The must have for all birthday parties: The Cake.

Vegan Rainbow Cake
I think I've mentioned at least a dozen times that my kids have a cow's milk (protien) and egg white allergy. This has made cake a very fun challenge. Box cakes are right out. Thankfully, some friends have pointed me in the right direction and Google is amazing. Modern living is also a boon as there are more and more shopping options all the time.

So it was with a friend's introduction to the idea of a rainbow cake (and it being doable with everything you have on hand already - assuming you can find enough bowls - you need one for every color) and Google that helped me locate some vegan-ization of popular white/yellow cake recipes (which readily take coloring). I did cop out and use Wilton coloring for the cake, unlike last spring when I used natural juices to make colors. For the true dark shades pre-made colors are the fast way to get the job done.

Here's the recipe I used for the basic cake, but to get the rainbow you can use any white/yellow cake that you like.

2.5 Cups Flour

2 Cups Sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

*mix thoroughly

2 Cups Soy/Rice/Almond Milk (I used Vanilla Soy)

2/3 Cup Vegetable Oil

2 Tablespoons Vanilla

1/2 - 2 Tablespoons almond extract (use less if you want more vanilla flavor)

2 Tablespoons Vinegar **

** add immediately before baking to maximize fluffiness

Bake at 350* for 30-40 mins or until done

Even with the last note, the cake is dense and stacked fine for me.

Now to make it rainbow:
Before adding the vinegar (if you follow this recipe) divide the batter as evenly as possible into separate bowls, you need one bowl for every color you want, so if you are making a proper rainbow that's 7 bowls, if you are just getting close, you need 6, anyway you get the idea. Once you have them in the bowls, make one red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo (if you are making 7), and purple/violet. Once you have all the colors as dark as you like them (darker the truer they will be after they are baked), it's time to add the vinegar (if you follow the recipe). I divided the total by the number of bowls and measured that out each time.

Starting with red I added the vinegar, gave it a quick stir and because I was doing a one pan rainbow I drizzled it in a circle around the outside edge of a 9" baking pan. I followed this by adding the vinegar to the orange and drizzling it in a circle just inside of the red. I grabbed the yellow and repeated to the inside of the orange. At this point the bottom of the pan was covered. I grabbed the green added it's vinegar, and poured it directly into the middle of the 9" pan. Follow that with the blue, then the indigo, then the violet all into the middle of the pan one at a time. They push the colors before them out and you are left with rainbow when it's baked.

It should look like this before going into the oven (although if you do indigo you'll have one more color between blue and violet)

For the base, since we weren't making a layered rainbow - which I think would be possible if you carefully laid each layer into the pan or baked very small layers and stacked them with a small layer of icing between each. Anyway, we didn't do that, we make a tie-dye layer with all the colors mixed. Since the batter doesn't rise a lot and I wanted to get a good representation of all the colors throughout I did each color in two passes.

Take half of each color and let your inner Jackson Pollack out! After the first half is in give it a very slight swirl to finish the look. Then grab bowl by bowl and get the rest in there! Splatter away!!

Swirl it one more time, being careful not to over-swirl the bottom part. I just put a fork in top half made some swirls and zigs. It looks pretty and is lots of fun, right up until you have to wash all those bowls and drips....

The end results were worth the extra 15 minutes of work though. Below you can see the rainbow cake (half eaten) and the bottom tie-dye almost gone. The candles are back in this picture because my youngest insisted his sister get to blow out her candles again.

Since rainbow wasn't just intended to be a surprise decorating the rainbow meant I got out all of my icing bags, replicated the colors (adding indigo this time) and got to work. I used a start tip for the rainbow and a writing tip for most other things. I'm very proud of the end result! Even though it took quite a while to get the base smooth (I think fondant tastes horrible so I use decorators icing, since it tastes good and doesn't have any milk or eggs), and spent half the night finishing the design. Ver1 wanted a rainbow and unicorn, I think I met that requirement.

It looks the same on the other sides

To hold the rainbow on the cake, I used bamboo skewers which I removed just before putting the candles on (the four outside most candles are in the holes left by the skewers.) It balanced just fine and the skewers may not have been necessary, but I liked the security they provided and I didn't have to worry about cutting into anything since they removed right before serving. Also, since we served the cake at the end of the party, I kept the cake safely in the oven until it was time to get it prepped (add candles). This insured it's safety when the kids were running around playing the game (which was mostly outside, but if the weather hadn't cooperated would have been snuggly situated in our living room.) If you are having a home party I recommend keeping the cake safely out of the way until it's needed. It prevents a lot of accidents. Kids can cope with lots of party failures, but losing the cake is not one of them.

If you want to see what else happened at the party and get the links to our other tutorials, head back to the introductory post here.

When Geeks Celebrate: Story Games

2012-01-09T00:30:00.000-08:00

As my wife already mentioned, for her 7th birthday, my daughter requested that I invent a story adventure game for her since she knows I am a game designer and we have made up several stories together already. For theme she simply told me, "Rainbows and Unicorns" which we had as the theme of the whole party. I wasn't sure how the party guests would respond to the idea and we didn't have a lot of time for polish, but It turned out to be a lot of fun. I was actually surprised how complicated some of the logistics turned out on writing the whole thing. There are several pieces that came together and I'll touch on each to give you an idea of what we did and how well it worked.

You might describe the idea of a story game as more of a LARP (Live Action Role Play) with young kids. There were no weapons and no fighting involved. there was also no running around in the woods like a stereotypical LARP and very minimal cosplay. The idea was for all the kids to help each other, not fight each other and technically they weren't even "in character". Calling it a LARP is kind of a stretch. I prefer "Story Adventure".

Pictured: NOT what we had in mind for our party.

The birthday was in December so there was a chance the weather would be nasty and we would all be inside. I planned for this contingency, but it turned out to be a fairly beautiful day and the lawn was dry and snow free, so we did get to go outside part of the time. Jackets were required though. It was mostly a scripted story with little mini games and creative ways to uncover the party prizes. To complicate things, I decided that it would need to be run entirely by my wife and I, as I didn't want to count on any other adults at the party to be able/prepared to help and have it all fall apart. We were expecting about 12 kids, so we also decided that there would be two separate questing parties working together.

The Basic Game Design and Story:

I started writing it by outlining all the prizes and games and party events, then writing the story around those.

We found some neat blinking led star shaped necklaces on amazon.com for favors (we find one bigger item is a lot more fun for the kids then a bunch of little stickers and candy in a bag). My daughter also wanted a rainbow pinata (so we ended up with candy bags anyway). There were two craft activities involving unicorns and food that would be served in the middle of the party.

I came up with several "mini games" we could play with the age group (I'll get to those later). The idea was to start with an introductory story to introduce the world and the game, break into teams, and have each group busy going to different "stations" and meeting the characters and doing different mini games concurrently. As they finished a game, they would uncover a clue or get directions to travel to the next event. It would end with the cake celebrations and gifts back in the house. Also, it all had to happen in under two hours. It is all more complicated to plan and write about then it was to actually play (and no, I won't post all my notes and story and diagrams, that would be excessive... a GM has to have some secrets).

My daughter decided to call the world Ryana (Rye-Ana). The basic story is that the guardian unicorn has disappeared and you believe he was captured by the villain. The guardian unicorn was entrusted by Isis with the care of the rainbow, which must appear for the rains to stop falling. Since he is gone, the rains will keep falling and flood the lands (See... Rainbows and Unicorns!). There is actually a bit of back story for all this that I have written for another project I am working on, but we dumbed it down a lot here.

The kids were given the quest to find the rainbow and the missing unicorn by finding the 7 colored gems representing the colors of the rainbow which would allow them to summon the rainbow themselves. We only knew who had two of them at the start, but "maybe by asking those keepers of the gems for help, they could find the rest." We got a bag of large plastic multicolored gems online as well for this prop. The bad guy was already ahead of them, also trying to find these.

Large Plastic "Rainbow" Gems

There were characters linked to each color. My wife got to play the Red Queen and the Purple Sorceress. I was the Blue Wizard and the Bridge Troll (who was the last creature to see the Orange Knight alive). My youngest daughter played the Yellow Princess. They also got to travel to the nest of the Green Dragon and the Birthday girl was gifted the Indigo Gem at the end. Every time a kid found a gem, there was lots of squealing and "oohing". Each team found three colors. As we could only play one character at a time and there had to be two active games running, that added some fun logistics to the writing and planning.

Playing the Story:

The story began with the Red Queen welcoming the kids to the castle and everyone started on crafts at the table. One of which was to color a unicorn button that got pinned to their shirt. These has dots of color on the back denoting the teams. The kids sat down for a story by the Red Queen telling them about the world in general. Then the Yellow Princess ran in with a letter she found when she went to find the unicorn for their daily maiden ride through the forest. This was written "in unicorn language" and the queen read the letter (story intro). The teams then split up and went off to the first games. The Yellow Princess had the location of her gem in an envelope and the Purple Sorceress was outside in her forest home.

Mini games Part 1:

One team played a beanbag toss game involving matching the pattern found inside the yellow envelope and the other a "puzzle box" on a table. For the puzzle box there was a wooden fantasy themed jigsaw puzzle (a clue to the next location, but the bad guy had cursed it) inside of a cardboard box with holes cut out for arms to reach in. If the kids touched and looked at the puzzle at the same time, the clue would be lost. Two kids could touch the puzzle and the rest could give directions by looking over the side of the box. they only had to place a few pieces... doing the entire puzzle would be insane. Still...Craziness ensued.

"Don't look or the clue will shatter into exactly 32 pieces!"

There was a little bit of story exposition and one team found the Yellow gem and the others got a scroll with a trick for fighting bridge trolls. Then one team headed for the Purple Sorceress and the other for the castle, but they were intercepted by the Blue Wizard.

Mini games Part 2:
The Blue wizard would be happy to give them the blue gem, but they had to help him find some magic stars nearby that had fallen to the earth and would help them on their quest (queue "egg hunt" for the missing star favors scattered all over the yard). The other team did the Puzzle Box and got the purple gem and another troll spell.

Glowing LED Star Necklaces

Mini games Part 3:
Then all the teams headed to the castle to get the red gem from the Red Queen, but were all intercepted by the bridge troll (wearing a re-purposed brown Jedi cloak) on the bridge to the castle (aka the front porch). This gave the Purple Sorceress time to slip inside and become the Red Queen to set up a nice "tea luncheon". The troll gave them 3 chances to guess his name. The scrolls had instructions for tricking him, which involved asking about the letters of his name without guessing the name (queue Troll Bridge hangman). The kids had no trouble playing this (and I hammed up the troll a bit), but needed a parent to help them get started guessing letters. They guessed letters and uncovered the first and last names of the troll and then were able to pass. (If you want to know his silly name, you will have to guess it yourself.) On the way over the bridge they found the Orange gem left by the Orange Knight ("knights shouldn't try to swim across a river to avoid trolls, armor sinks you know...").

Them Trolls are Mean and Ugly!

Lunch:
Then we had tea while the Blue wizard handed out stars and turned them on ("they blinked when they got closer to the lost unicorn"). These were beloved by the guys and girls both. They had a nice tea luncheon and we discussed the story. It turns out that nothing can bind a unicorn, but because the Guardian Unicorn is magically tied to the rainbow, he must be able to be captured or tied up by the rainbow itself. We can use the blinking stars to find the unicorn and the colored gems to make the rainbow appear.

Ooooh fancy!

Mini games Part 4:
It was then back outside for one team to visit the Green Dragon by the jagged cliffs near the lonely tree (yeah, we have one tree in the middle of the yard with a rock border) while the other's used the Red Queen's code to unlock her gem at the bean bag toss game. The Dragon refused to help because she was distraught after someone evil stole all her eggs. The kids had a blast running around finding the missing speckled dragon eggs (Easter leftovers, but nice solid green and blue colors). The eggs had a green gem inside and little plastic bags in case they found treasure at the end of the rainbow. One of the kids later said via her mom on Facebook "that was a really fun party, they had dragon eggs!"

"Dragon eggs must be carried gently one at a time."

Finding the Rainbow:
Now we have most of the gems, the Blue Wizard led them on a hunt around the house to find the unicorn. They were able to find and pick up unicorn hair (tinsel) scattered along the path (all the way around the house) till they came to the Great Tree. There were still missing one color, but the birthday girl got a belated letter form the unicorn entrusting her as the new Indigo keeper. As soon as the gems were arranged in the proper rainbow order, the rainbow appeared.

That rainbow doesn't stand a chance...

Then they had to break open the rainbow to rescue the captured unicorn using the Troll's club. (Pinata time!). Incidentally there is treasure at the end of a rainbow (you just have to "end" the rainbow to find it, kind of like the Restaurant at the End of the Universe). After the pinata busted and they recovered the candy, pencils, and other neat stuff, they found a toy unicorn inside tied up with rainbow colored twine. They rescued him and all was well with the world again... except the bad guy was still around and we never actually saw him, maybe next year.

The Unicorn Guardian we rescued
(as seen at the store I, um, rescued him from earlier in the week).

Then it was time to head inside for the rainbow celebration cake and the gifts!

How things went:

The mini games were fun, but the beanbag one was a little hard so the kids had to move really close. The puzzle box blew off the table and scattered the pieces so that didn't go as well as it could have. The kids were also surprised that some of the games were actually not in the pushover simplistic category, but they had fun playing them. The dragon eggs and blinking star hunts were beloved by all. The pinata of course was a big hit, especially as they had a story reason to actually bust it open and this really added to the intensity of it.

It was also a lot of fun for them to discover and earn the prizes and things throughout the party instead of just being handed a bag of stuff at the end.

A few of the costumes could have been better. The Purple Sorceress (in a purple Jedi vest and black cloak), the Red Queen (in a crimson cloak and shirt), and Yellow Princess (wearing a yellow Belle dress) looked great. The kids also really liked the scary troll in the brown Jedi cloak. The Blue Wizard just had a blue dress shirt and a closet dowel as a staff though. He could have used a nice wizard's hat (or a Gandalf / Dumbledore costume) :D

(That last line was just another excuse to post this picture of
Sir Ian McKellen playing with dolls.)

No one seemed to care though, the kids really got into the story and the gem quest (and you could see they were taking it seriously by their expressions). The birthday girl felt important and included the whole time. They enjoyed the games well enough as obstacles. The other posts will talk more about the food and the crafts. The few parents who were around for the whole party said they had a great time too. If anything there was too much to do, the kids hadn't a single moment to find themselves bored as it was "go... quest... save the unicorn!" then entire time.

My younger daughter did have some tears near the end, due mostly to missing nap I think. My toddler did really well, I held him part of the time and he ran around playing games too.

We had some nice help too, one parent went around taking pictures for us and a few friends set up the food while we were outside so the Red Queen didn't even need all of the delay the Troll provided.

A few parents showed back up after 50 minutes of a 2 hour party (as we said on the invites) and then acted like "oh, yeah, we can wait cause you did say two hours... don't mind us looking impatient" :P
I have no idea what was up with that.

I had lots of fun writing the story, designing the games, and planing all the logistics and props. I think the kids had a blast too, so it might be worth doing again. One of my co-workers even suggested I should write a book on Party Adventure Story Games... um, yeah, I'll add that to the list of books I apparently need to write.

Want to see what else we did at the party? Head back to the introductory page.

When Geeks Celebrate: Piñata

2012-01-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

One thing that is universal if you are doing a non-commercial product party, you are going to have to make stuff yourself, and the store may at best get you halfway there. Lets just put it out there right now that finding a rainbow shaped/colored pinata was not going to happen, and given the "confusion" around the colors of the rainbow - even though any 4 year old I know can recite them in order for you if you forget - even if you did find something odds are very good that even if all 7 colors appeared, they wouldn't be in the right order!

Dragon Artz Designs can tell how to make a rainbow!

How hard is it? There are several songs, there's good ol' Roy G. Biv, and there's always a prism if you really can't figure it out. Still that doesn't stop us from having a Little People's Noah's Ark where the flag is colored completely at random (seriously, not even close), several books where it is wrong, and well... I'm sure you can do a Google image search yourself, even the rainbow on Ver1's invite was wrong on the base image before I fixed it. Anyway, I digress.... If we want stuff in true rainbow fashion - we have to make it. We also had to make our own unicorn crafts, apparently unicorns aren't in this year either.

Let's jump right in on the big project of the piñata. I wanted a nice large piñata, this is the first one I've made since I was in elementary school, and the first at any of our parties. I also wanted to have the piñata hold up to all the guests, so that everyone at least got a turn. Kids are used to the cardboard piñatas from the stores which don't have any paper mache to them at all. Paper mache can be strong, but in my memory it didn't take the same kind of hits as the modern counterparts.

First we started with a frame. I had originally planned to make a skinny frame of cardboard with four edges, but it was much simpler to make the top and bottom out of cardboard strips, I pinned the strips together with brads. So when I was done I had an upper edge and a bottom edge with a big hollow shaped rainbow in the middle. At the top of the upper edge I folded the pieces to leave an opening for stuffing. (Sorry I didn't take a picture, it'd make more sense if I had). Picture cardboard flaps, cut off a box bent into an arch, flat on the bottom, and then bent into a lower arch connected all together like one of those rubber-band bracelet things in the shape of a rainbow. I also put a couple of thin support beams in to hold the whole thing secure. - This is when I should have tied in the rope for the piñata to hang from, but I didn't... I did it after the first side was on, which was ok.

Next I took strips of cardboard about 2" wide and between 4 and 12 inches long and soaked them in a bucket overnight (which was too long they didn't just get soft, they got soaking). Then I mixed flour and water and a bottle of white glue (leftover from kindergarten) and took each wet strip dipped it in the glue mixer and smoothed it over the frame. I filled one side and let it dry for about two days (the cardboard was really wet. I was able to turn it over and lay it on the wet mache after about 18 hours and got a flatter end result. I dumped the water out of the remaining cardboard strips, but they were still very wet when I did the other side.

Before I put the second cardboard side on I tied twine onto the stabilizing pieces of the piñata structure. This allowed me to hang it and I had hoped would allow it to withstand the battering of abuse I had hoped to let the kids dish out. Unfortunately, the twine was the weakest link and even before these cardboard under-layers were damaged the twine snapped plummeting the piñata to the ground. Where I ripped it open and dumped it to the delight of the adventurers.

Next I added some paper filler to the deep holes, holding it in place with masking tape. This made it so I didn't have to place several layers of mache in any place where the cardboard sides sagged. I then hung the piñata from a hook in my ceiling (where my new chandelier normally hangs, but I moved it over to the box for this project). I placed a smooth layer of newspaper strips dipped in water and flour (no glue this time). After a couple of layers I had a relatively smooth surface to paint. Since I have left over primer from painting the house and redoing the ceiling I put a nice coat of that on after everything was dry. Having the piñata hanging made applying the primer simple.

Somewhere in the last couple steps I took the time to stuff the piñata with notepads, pencils, and unwanted Halloween candy. I also tied in a unicorn which was the ultimate goal for the adventure. It was tied to the twine in the piñata so that it would not fall and be mistaken for a prize, I did not want a fight over it, and even with me ripping the piñata open there wasn't one. I may have filled it too full, but none of the kids complained!

After the piñata was dry again I got out the paints the birthday girl had selected at the craft store and set to painting the rainbow, which should have been simple with the measured guide I had, but apparently I was ruler challenged that day and ended up having to make minor adjustments 2 colors in. We also bought glitter paints in most of the colors of the rainbow (I put black on indigo and gold on yellow, red, because it was so plentiful was both pink and maroon). It gave the rainbow that last bit of finish and really made it sparkle outside. - One quick painting tip - Save your fruit cup/individual serve applesauce containers, they work great for squirting a little paint into. Even if you tip them over they don't make a mess, and you have to really be trying to get your shirt or hair in them. You can see mine still on the table along with the little container of glitter paints in this finished picture, below. The individual cups were also wonderful when my daughter decided she didn't like one of the colors she had picked and I had to do a little mixing to make it better.

Fruit cup containers can keep paint contained and ready to use

It took a few nights to get the whole thing together, but it was fun and worth it. Next time I will use a better rope or wire and the piñata could last for quite a bit of a pounding!

Want to see the rest of the party: Head back to the introduction post - When Geeks Celebrate

When Geeks Celebrate

2012-01-02T12:23:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons things have been so quiet over the last months is that whether we like it or not the onset of winter brings numerous celebrations. And we don't go halfway when it's time to kick it up! Having my oldest child on the day of our previously annual Christmas party, which we haven't had since, would make you think that I've got it in hand. Yet, each year we step it up just a bit more and each year I fall just a bit further behind.

Since Ver1 is all into the idea of rainbows, that was what her starting theme was. She decided that unicorns go with rainbows and my little academic analytical girl was looking at a rather fantasy girlie party (a bit different for her, although she's not full on tomboy). To go a step further she wanted a couple things for certain, first there had to be a pinata. Second, once it was settled that for the first time in 5 years she was going to have the party at home, she really wanted her dad to write a custom role playing game for the party. And he did!

To get the unicorn riding pose I had my daughter sit on the rocking horse her grampa made her when she was 1.
*Unicorn is from The Last Unicorn

I got a late start on paper supplies and the invitation, but the later came together rather quickly. The former, well, I screwed the pooch on that one, but learned my lesson for next time... web first, town second, especially since the local dollar store has gotten rid of pretty much all of its "themes" and only carries the basic colors for most items (and not even all the colors of the rainbow as we found out in our final touches shopping spree).

Since we didn't see the perfect supplies set that was available at Oriental Trading Co, we ended up hodgepodging tablecloths that had deceptively undecorative middles, and generic colorful party plates from Walmart with some handmade unicorn crafts (which it was surprisingly difficult to find silver and gold pipe cleaners with it being two weeks before that big silver and gold holiday....) Later we decided that we would also be serving lunch, and then that lunch became a tea party type ordeal (minus the tea, but with lots of finger foods), so I filled that in with thematically appropriate clear plastic plates from the dollar store.

Since we weren't doing a theme based on a current movie, everything had to be hand constructed. Isn't that just the way it goes when you don't let your kids be brainwashed by television and instead ask them to have their own minds, thoughts, and interests? Better in the long run, but it sure adds to the short term work. Still, I don't mind and I've learned lots I plan to show you all over the next few posts (you didn't think I was going to do all the tutorials right now did you?)

First up, I made the pinata in the evenings while my husband worked on the custom adventure. I tried to include my daughter in the pinata making process (because I'm really bad about letting the kids help in building and making and I'm really trying to do better at that), but the reality worked out that several of the steps were done after her bedtime, and because I had to make it on the recently uncovered dining table (full write-up on the 2011 house changes coming soon, I hope), it just wasn't conductive to those good ol' slop it together in the driveway on a sunny afternoon pinatas we did when I was a kid. Oh well, maybe we can pre-make some this summer!

Next up was the food! We went with fruit pizza style mini pies, finger sandwiches, pinwheels, and flower salads Most of that I was able to at least start a few days ahead of time, some had to be pieced together that morning. That just left the cake.

A rainbow party calls for rainbow cake, no eggs or milk, means it has to be vegan, and in the end I had a very happy 7 year old. Even if it did mean I was up all night before the party finishing the decorating so that she could go to movie night at her school with her friends. The inside is also rainbow, although she voted that the base would be tie-dye colors instead of layered, I think it was more fun that way and it was definitely more fun to put into the pan!

That left just some final little touches to take care of like, decorating and setting up the adventure games. Oh and the costumes, because you can't tell a story without costumes. Thankfully we found existing wardrobe options (and I got to reuse my Jedi cloak and vest).

How do kids respond when they meet this troll during the party?

In the end, taking the kids on a homemade LARP (Live Action Role Play) was a big risk. It was not something other parents are doing and 7 year olds are starting to get into that age where they are a bit more unsure about what exactly is cool and what isn't. The end result, LARPing for a birthday is very cool! The kids were a lot more imaginative than I had thought and really really got into the game. Even though I was playing mulitiple characters, as was my husband, the kids played along. They really got into the quest, they struggled through the games, and they achieved ultimate victory... and I hope the other parents learn that when I say an hour and a half I mean it, because we went over and some parents were showing up an hour early, when we were only halfway through the party, oh well!

Go Check Out Our Party Tutorials:
Making the Pinata
Making a Story Adventure
Making Kid Friendly Royal Treats
Making the Details Work