Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Or: we see a movie with a whole bunch of other people.

We got to see ALL of the Twenty (now called First Look, but even more annoying than when it was the Twenty).  (The Twenty is a way for stupid Regal Theaters to make us watch destracting ads before the movie instead of talking.  Back in the day there were featurettes interspersed with ads.  Now there are just longer ads and shorter ads.) 

This was my establishing shot to show you the full theater. As you can see, it didn't work.  But I did catch a good screen shot.  (double pun!)

Here is our "before" self portrait.  This is the point where I thought it would be fun to watch it with 10 or so ten-year-old boys sitting next to us.  I figured we would get instant feedback from one-half of the target audience.

And feedback we did get.  Those boys talked through every thing that wasn't an action scene.  At one point, one of them was throwing things into the audience.  I said something and the woman in front of them said something, but no adult-in-charge appeared.  I spent a lot of time blocking them out.

Other than that, it was very fun to see this opening weekend in a nearly-full theater.

Xmas prep

I had a carefully planned out schedule of easy steps to a prepared Christmas.  It was a really good plan.  I didn't follow any of it and now have a lot of catching up to do.

To the left of the stove:  the non perishables.

To the right of the stove: the perishables.  

Phew.  Shopping is over.  Now I only have to make everything.

Passport page completed: SW Portland and Suburbs

The plan was to combine a viewing of Tuba Christmas (I've never been!) with walking around downtown and completing our Downtown McMenamins Passport page.  However, there was a lot of rain.  A. Lot. Of. Rain. and I'd been soaking wet due to bike commuting several times this week already. So we changed plans.  Sorry Tuba Christmas.  Hopefully next year will be the year.

I discovered a great new site (http://findthebestroute.com/) that calculates the best trip order for multiple addresses. This comes in handy as we attempt to finish passport pages with multiple locations in parts of town with which I am not familiar.

First (after there was a bit of a wrong turn due to me not correctly reading Google Map directions.  We got the car washed at the turn around spot, so we didn't entirely waste time.) we went to the Raleigh Hills Pub.

Next was the Greenway Pub.  This is the part of McMenamin's territory that has locations in strip malls. 

There was a Little Ceaser's next to the Greenway Pub and we got a snack to tide us over.  I could tell it was going to be a long afternoon of rainy driving and I needed something to settle my stomach.

Next was a trip to Sherwood for the Sherwood Pub.

Then a drive through the country to get to I-5.

Have I mentioned it was a rainy day.  So much rain!

The Wilsonville Old Church and Pub was in the parking lot of a strip mall, not in the strip mall itself. It also is located in both the building in the front and that Old Church in the background.  The stained glass in the windows was pretty, though I neglected to take a picture.

John Barlycorns (also in Tigard) was our next destination.  This was the prettiest stop on our passport page.

Our last stop was the Fulton Pub.

It's a tiny little place tucked in Johns Landing off of Macadam.  We stopped to eat here.

I liked the chalk drawings above our booth, including this sleeping cat.

Having completed our passport page we both received a growler and a gift card to fill the growler.  Being people who don't drink much beer, the growlers have already gone elsewhere.  Matt filled one with M&Ms and gave it away as a White Elephant gift.  I set mine outside with a "free" sign.  We both still have our gift cards.  We can spend them on things that are not beer.

Here is our completed page:

Note that we didn't go to the Hillsdale Pub this time because that was where we visited on Matt's birthday so he could get his birthday stamp.

A new helper comes to live with us.

Leaving my current job for my new job meant an end to free printing.  For years I've forwarded documents to myself and printed them at school. I barely made it two months before I broke down and bought us this printer.  This is a black and white wireless laser printer which I'm quite excited about mostly because it's not an inkjet printer.  I loathe inkjet printers, both professionally (I used to have to order all the replacement ink at school) and personally.  Hopefully this laser printer will serve us well.

I printed a note for Matt using the new printer. It encouraged him to set up his computers to print to this printer also.  Because printing wirelessly is almost as cool as Channing Tatum.

Z to A games: King of Tokyo, Guillotine, Flux

Another date night where we opted to stay in.  We only only have one game that begins with "k" it seems: King of Tokyo which is a dice rolling game (with a little bit of card enhancing).  I handily defeated Matt with this pumpkin guy.

We have no games that begin with "h", "i",  [actually we have iKnow, which isn't a 2 player game] or "j" so our next game was Guillotine, which is one of my favorites.  It's a card game where you attempt to execute the most nobles by collecting their cards.  It's pretty fast to learn and has a lot of variation due to strategy, though it's also possible to enjoy ambling through the game.  (You aren't going to win if you amble, though.) This game was recommended to me by Dan, who was in my teaching cohort in graduate school.  We used to have two copies, from before we moved in together when we each had our own.

 Sadly, Matt handily defeated me.

Guillotine is our only "g" game and so that brought us to Flux.  We're getting close to the end of our game tour, though I think we need to loop back around and catch the games that have been acquired since we began our quest.

Flux is a card game where the rules and the goals are constantly changing.  I really enjoy the fast-paced nature of Flux and how variable it is.  Matt beat me, though.

Date at the Portland Community College Sylvania Campus Theater.

Matt picked out a surprise date for us, a theatrical production based on Stan Sakai's samurai comic.  He was very excited about the surprise.

Our tickets.  The ticket machine wasn't quite working.  We were at the 7pm show on 11/13.

There were refreshments for sale including these cookies.  Many people asked about the price and the person selling kept repeating the same thing over and over again.  "The Usagi Yojimbo cookies are three dollars, or we have the yin-yang for $2.00."   

I had some popcorn.  Matt went for one of the yin-yang.  It was two dollars, in case you didn't know.

I enjoyed the play.  I find masks off-putting in theater, and so there was that.  The masks were nicely constructed though.  I appreciated their craftsmanship.

Z to A games: Letters from Whitechapel

We've made it to the letter "L" in our quest to play all of our games.  In this game, one person is Jack the Ripper, who attempts to travel from a murder back to his base before the detectives discover him.  The other person plays the detectives searching for him.  Ideally you play this with six people total so five people can be a detective, but it's just us, so Matt played all five detectives.

I'm happy to report I WON this game.  And very handily too.  It did get a bit dodgy there in a few places, but I succeeded in my tasks.  I guess I make a great Victorian-era serial killer.