Common Grounds Christmas Party

originally, i was going to go to george's deli to pick up some chicken, some ribs, and perhaps another item. to my chagrin, my mom refused to let me go and purchase food. instead, she insisted on making lasagna. i'm all for lasagna, but for the number of people we were going to have show up to the party, i wanted something a little more substantial. i also wanted more variety.

i went out and picked up some frozen foods for the party as well. considering how much the raw materials for the lasagna, the additional food, and the labor, it would have ended up costing roughly the same amount, with just less fuss.

i spent most of the afternoon running around to different groceries to get soda and different foods. i got this great deal on soda at pathmark. buy 4 2-liter bottles for 3$ and then each 3 bottles received an additional 1$ off. i bought a total of 8 bottles, only because i was limited to 2.

i also picked up frozen quesadilla rolls, pillsbury crescents, and hebrew nationals little franks to make pigs in blankets.

before guests arrived, m and i set up signs on the walls and doors to let people know where the bathroom was, and where the coatroom was. even w/ the assistance of signs, some people still failed to comprehend.

guests started arriving promptly. and i was kind of put off when they decided to watch tv. you can watch tv any other time, but you choose to spend the time at a party watching tv. what a shame. eventually, the tv was turned off and people started playing other games. texas hold'em was really big.

luckily, sara showed up not too long after. m was supposed to go over earlier in the day to hang out w/ her, but by the time that m would have gotten there, she would have had to come to the party. luckily, sara brought w/ her a plethora of classic games: uno, jenga, scrabble, yahtzy, and clue. we busted out the scrabble pretty early. many of the kids were uninitiated to speed scrabble, so we explained the rules to them, and they were hooked.

a few of us played jenga building a tower to 28 stories before being toppled over. others continued to play cards.

the food turned out not to be enough. which i had suspected would be the case. we pulled out some extra rations from somewhere, and threw something together. all the food pretty much flew off the tables.

after dinner, we played cut-throat santa. the best gift out there was a 15$ gift card to best buy. the second best was a nerf gun, third, was an "airzooka". the rest of the items were pretty much dead: 16 packs of gum, photo album, i am sam dvd, plus one cd, body gel, coloring set, chocolates, a book, and magic cards. i ended up w/ the nerf gun.

ben and brian gave me a rang, saying that they were bored. they came by and joined us in the festivities. when they got here, we played some clue. i remember playing this game when i was a kid, but never really played it right. we actually read the rules, and played through it. the first time, it was terrible. no one had any idea who it was or where with what. eventually, we all pretty much gave up and just made a wild guess. i was close, guessing the correct person: professor plum.

the next game was a little better. i had devised a good system of marking to see who had guessed what and what not to try and determine who had what cards. in order to do this, i had to get my laptop and use a spreadsheet. but it worked. i made my guess: scarlet, wrench, ballroom. and i was right. that just goes to prove that technology will win any conflict.


magic

by then, it was getting late, and kids started trickling out the door. eventually, all that was left were: brian, ben, todd, and myself. we decided to play a bit of chaos magic.

i started with my really terrible r/g artifact deck. todd played ben's r/b discard, brian played ben's mono-b reanimator, while ben played g/w enchantress.

i ended up dropping a platinum angel on the board and killed todd. i was dropped to 0 life and waited for ben and brian to deck out. brian couldn't attack ben becuase ben had a solitary confinement in play. ben eventually pulled a seal of cleansing and popped my platinum angel. he then ran over brian w/ auratogs.

the next game was pretty much the same. the only highlight was that i imprinted a platinum angel on my soul foundry. too bad i only made one angel.

the next game, i decided to play ben's gay fish deck. i managed to counter two of ben's auratogs, the rest of which were in the removed from game pile. w/ a combination of his enchantresses and future sight, ben drew down to two cards left in his library. on my turn, i dropped a standstill and broke it myself forcing ben to deck out. by then, i was in position to beat brian, but made a play mistake by attacking w/ a stolen creature when i should have just held it back to block. brian's creatures were just too big and too many for me to handle.