nags of a similar ilk

Let's compare and contrast, shall we? In particular, the results of the the beers around the world celebration of the New Year.

Kris, asleep until 4pm.

Andy, awake and productive at 8am.

Given a choice, I'll vote for Andy's liver.

Kris and Andy decided some time in the last few weeks that the best way to celebrate the changing of the new year and new decade (yeah, yeah, don't tell me 2010 isn't the new decade because there was no year 0 - there was no year 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or a whole bunch of other years, either. 2001 represents the END of the FIRST year, so yeah, there was a year zero and 2010 is the END of the first 10 years and January 1st 2010 is, therefore, the start of the new decade) is to celebrate the new year in each timezone as the day progresses. And what better way to celebrate each of these new years than by toasting, and drinking, a beer made in each of those time zones.

While they thought this was a brilliant idea, they had sufficient reservations to start in Russia instead of some place over the Pacific Ocean, which is what they did. Starting at noon yesterday, they toasted the timezones, drank a beer, waited twenty minutes, and tested their blood alcohol levels, and recorded them in a spreadsheet.

They started over at Kris' work, where I went to pick them up after they'd been drinking for a few hours, and to catch up on the festivities.

Well, where "catching up" means "find out what happened."

They were entertaining, to say the least.

I had handed Kris a camera and told him he had to take pictures, a directive that I impressed upon him by IMing a few minutes after the hour and reminding him to TAKE PICTURES. He did a good job, which thrilled me.

Fortunately, I showed up and saved him from having to take any more pictures. And even more fortunately, I took a lot of pictures to make up for Kris' lack.

So, like I mentioned, the timing of the day was supposed to go something like cheers! at the top of the hour, drink the beer for the next twenty minutes or so, wait 20 minutes for the alcohol to process through their systems. The twenty minute was was part of the instructions to get an accurate rating.

I was a the control. Hey look, the bottom end of the meter works!

I'm not quite sure how Kris thought he was going to continue working after having had a couple beers, but his coworkers didn't seem to think anything about it. While Kris tried to work, Andy and I goofed off. We went off to a furniture store to look for a bar for Andy (I think, I couldn't tell, though, given how much he had been drinking, but, hey, the other furniture was interesting, if only I had a bigger house or another house to furnish). We had to dash back for the next round, which pretty much set the tune for our merriment which included being accosted by an elevator, and teaching Bella what life on Jupiter must be like, include harder breathing with the greater gravity.

After their drinking for another two hours, three clinking of beers, we dashed off to P.F.Changs to pick up dinner and continued to Andy's house. We were originally going to go to Heidi and John's house, to continue our 5 year tradition of celebrating New Year's with them, but the boys were ill, and my house was a mess.

Besides, at Andy's everyone is greeted at the door by a chicken. Why would you want to go any place else?

Jessica and Eric joined us soon after for dinner. At this point, I didn't know if I should be embarrassed, embarrassed for Kris and Andy, or indifferent to their New Year's shenanigans. When Eric joined in and started drinking with them, I decided I didn't need to worry. Thankfully, Jessica was willing to drink the bubbly apple juice, so I had some who could easily interpret my eyerolls.

We had dinner, then toured the chicken coop, and noticed the blue moon with enjoyment.

Annoyingly, I discovered the time on my camera was off by an hour. Yeargh.

Around 8PM, Andy suggested a game of PowerGrid, with his Christmas present of the China/Korea board. In retrospect, that was a mistake. The game lasted FOR-EV-VER. Gah. The Chinese version had a different power station distribution model, with a much, much slower pace. The game we played before took 3 hours, this one would have taken 6 hours if we had bothered to finish it. Needless to say, the soufflés were MUCH more interesting, both to bake and to eat.

THAT tradition was definitely staying, even if going to Heidi and John's wasn't.

So, the night became each hour, we'd stop for a toast. Five minutes before, we'd be caught off-guard that an hour had passed already, the beers would change, we would be completely unable to find the ball dropping in NY on any cable channel including the Spanish channels, we'd cheer the hour, and continue playing.

Even after midnight, Andy and Kris were intent on continuing drinking and playing PowerGrid. They had beers for 1AM and 2AM. Jessica was done at midnight, even though Eric seemed willing to continue. I, too, was way done, especially with PowerGrid, so we managed to shanghai the drunken boys into ending the game. Oh, thank GOODNESS Jessica was there to help me on that one.

After Jessica and Eric left, Andy, Kris and I hit the hot tub. I was more than a little worried when the two of them started slurring their speech, but figured as long as I was alert, I could keep them out of most trouble. That midnight beer was not a good choice. The two of them were blasted.

The evening wound down with the three of us watching some really, really bad videos. They made it through thirteen beers in twelve hours, some of them really impressively alcoholic (the 12% one was a little overwhelming). Kris never managed a BAC less than 0.4 according to the breathalyzer he was using, which caused much mirth throughout the evening.

While I have to say being the sober person in a group of drunks isn't exactly the easiest way to transition to a new year, it's still an entertaining way to do it.

Welcome 2010. There are a few ways you could be worse than 2009, but let's not go there, okay?

After meeting up with Kris' cousin Tim, Kris, Bob, Lil and I went over to Andy's for some games. Andy had not only rearranged his living room / dining room area, but he had also bought a few new games for the evening. Tonights game was Powergrid.

The goal of the game is to build and power 17 power stations. Each player starts with two power stations, and builds more each round. For each city that is powered at the end of the round, a player receives funds. Powering requires purchasing resources to run the power stations: oil, coal, garbage or barrels of fissionable material for the nuclear plant. Of course, if you had managed to purchase the a wind, turbine, solar or fusion plant, no additional resources are needed to generate electricity from the plant.

Kris needed to work some, and I wanted to work some during the evening, so I managed to finagle us on the same team. For the record, this was the most entertaining way I could possibly think to play this game. Not because we were both half distracted, but because I've always played board/table games against Kris, not with Kris (ultimate doesn't count here, people), and hoo boy, was it fun to work with him in this game. He suggested moves I would never have thought of (bold! daring! exciting! stupid!), and I suggested strategies he'd never try (horde! conserve! expand! explode!). Together, we captured the Eastern Seaboard:

Part of the game that changes each step of the game (because, really, the way "step" and "phase" are translated during the game is completely backwards: step should be phase and phase should be step, and knowing this, I'm using the terms the way they SHOULD be used, not the way the documentation suggests) is the order of play: the team that is currently losing gets to go first in one part of the round, but the leading team goes first in a different part of the round. I had suggested a couple times that we deliberately not expand during a round in order to drop into last place so that we would first in the resource buying and power station building steps.

Not building not only dropped us back a power station, it also enabled us to horde our money for a round so that we could break free of the station block that Andy, Andy and Bob had successfully put against us. We were able to build on the transmission lines across country and build in Billings, then Seattle and Portland. A good part of this was based on the green energy power stations we had acquired early in the game. Since the transmission lines were so expensive on the West Coast, no one really built too far west, and we ended up being the East Coast / West Coast king pins:

And, in doing so, opened up the whole board again for everyone to play. Once one player (the player known as KrisKitt, in this case) powers seven cities, each city can have two players building power stations in them. Andy and Andy quickly shared the Eastern Seaboard with us, but, by that point, we has solidified our resources.

Kris and I built six cities in the last round to win at 12:45 in the morning, way too late for most of the McQueens to be thinking coherently. Our resource hording allowed us to build a power plant that powered all of them (green energy be damned! Though I really did want the clean fusion power plant, sigh...), and we won, with a city to spare.

It was a fun game. I'd play it again. If Andy suggests Diplomacy, I'll diplomatically suggest we power up.

Not five minutes after we left the field yesterday, my phone rang as Chookie was driving the three of us back home. I answered, and Fatty Fat Andy (Fisher, a necessary distinction in this story) asked if I could pick him up from the airport, his roommate having just bailed on picking him up in four hours or so. Kris and I had plans with Skinny Andy (Crews, see? you needed the distinction), but figured I could sneak away as needed after dinner to pick him up.

A nice advantage to living 15 minutes door to door to the airport: picking people up from it is No Big Deal.

A couple hours later, when Kris and I arrived at Skinny Andy's house, I commented to Skinny Boy that I would need to dash away around 8 to pick up Fatty, I hoped that would be okay. Skinny Boy agreed it would be fine, and hey, if we go to the Cheesecake Factory (my current favorite dessert restaurant, trumping Cold Stone Creamery as of late), we could be even closer to the airport.

So, after dinner, the three of us, along with Blue and Shadow, piled into Andy's car and off we went to the Factory. After arriving, and realizing there were no bar seats available, we decided to order to-go, including a fourth slice for Fatty Fat. We looked at all our 1500 calorie choices, and found this one:

Yes, people, you see that correctly. Low Carb Cheesecake.

The three of us looked at that cheesecake, burst out laughing, and immediately agreed that Fatty Fat would receive the Low Carb Cheesecake Made With Splenda. After all, who else would be a better candidate for such a tasty bite?

I went to the counter, and ordered a slice of the French Silk Chocolate cheesecake, a slice of the Vanilla Bean cheesecake, a slice of the Key Lime cheesecake, and a slice of the Low Carb Cheesecake Made With Splenda.

The guy on the other side of the counter paused at the last slice, looked up at me and stated, "You don't want that."

Startled, I could only respond wittily with "I don't?"

Quite the comeback, eh?

"No, you don't want that."

"Why not?"

"Low Carb? Cheesecake? They don't go together. You don't want that."

Skinny Boy piped up next to me, "But it's for a prank."

"A cruel one at that. You don't want the Low Carb," the guy behind the counter insisted.

Okay, okay, I relented, and ordered a slice of the White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle cheesecaske, my favorite after Pumpkin cheesecake.

As we were standing there waiting for our order, Kris piped up, "So, man, how far did you get with the Low Carb?" asking the guy who took our order.

He turned to us. "I haven't. I've never tried it."

"WHAT?!" Good lord, man, you haven't tried it but you won't let us order it? Dammit, man, "I'd like to order a slice."

He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and rang one up for me.

The three of us waited for our order of five cheesecake slices, then wandered to the car to be greeted by two happy, cramped dogs, and managed to distribute our slices before Fatty Fat called, he had just landed, and would be walking to the pickup spot shortly. Off we went to pick him up.

After a round about the airport and a valiant attempt not to be shooed away from the curb while waiting for Fatty Fat, we found him. He piled into the car, and off we went back to Skinny Boy's house. Kris handed Fatty Fat his cheesecake, and we all waited with bated breath.

Two bites later, "MMMMMMMmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMmmmmmmMmm! Thanks guys! It's DEE-LISH-US!"

Unable to contain ourselves, the three of us burst into laughter.

Oh, sure, we eventually gave him the tasty raspberry slice, and, sure, we told him about what we had done.

And, maybe, just maybe, the second slice tasted better than the first.

But only in comparison.