The major bummer of the evening: someone brought a party game that was a
combination of Charades and the $24,000 Pyramid. He literally forced
everyone (except the hosts) to play. It was called "Claim to Fame" and it
probably would've been OK if he hadn't taken the game completely seriously
and kept obsessively close ties on which team was winning! (Needless to
say, it was about half an hour to midnight and almost everyone was
half-plastered to begin with). You were given the name of a celebrity,
which you shared with everyone else on your team, and then you tried to
get them to guess keywords related to that person. In my case, I had to
give clues about Valerie Harper. The guy who brought the game strenuously
objected because I apparently said the word "show" when trying to get my
teammates to say "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". Yeesh! Anyway, midnight
finally arrived and the ball dropped. Hurray!
On New Year's Day, we went to a party where nearly all the male guests
were pediatricians. All the women, somehow, were in publishing. Again, I
spent a lot of time talking to a couple who'd just gotten back from a year
and 1/2 of living in Paris (in the 12th and 15th arrondisements, they
said). They didn't bring any smuggled cheese, though (thank goodness!).
What does this have to do with interactive fiction? Admittedly, not much,
but I figured it would be a welcome change of pace from all these weird
Sarfatti Project posts I came across upon my return. Happy New Year's, and
look for issue #1 of XYZZYnews later this month!
Best regards,
Eileen