Kalimat al-Mutafalsif

So I spent this previous weekend visiting Malaprop in Chicago. I also had the wonderful please of getting to meet another admin (Acius) from the project I met Malap on, Walraven. Where to begin...?

First off, how I know them.
It's very interesting meeting people in an online environment, getting to "know" them pretty well, then transferring that knowledge to real life. I met them when I applied to be a wizard (programmer) on the online game, Walraven.

Malap was the one who interviewed me and (hence) got the pleasure (not) of teaching me LPC and how our world works. I am very, very sorry. All kidding aside it was a good day as within 3 hours of the "interview" he said "Ok, there's your home directory, pick something and play with it." Best way to learn that I know of, hands on.

Acius (I believe) was working hard core when I started, so didn't really get to know him, except for the few rare occurances when Malap had no clue. Apparently Acius knows LPC better than english, or some such non-sense as he is disgustingly good at it. (That is a compliment, not an insult). But it was good to get to meet him finally, he was as smart in real-life as he has been when I ping him over AIM.

Next, the weekend itself
I went up Friday night to meet malap at his place, and Acius had gotten in that day. Went out for some good Chicago pizza then the important part of the night, and my first shameless plug - Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. This is by far the best theatre I've seen. That's not a cop-out as I'm male yet really love theater. Specifically things written in Iambic Pentameter or good existentialist plays. But this theater is just beyond fun. Very interactive with the crowd, very geeky (d6s are involved). It does have a very liberal slant to it, however, so if you're easily offended don't go. At the same time, all the plays have elements of truths and, by the artists admission, are written from their point of view. What's true for me is not going to be true for you, so if you look at it as a way to see where they're coming from you shouldn't be offended. I personally disagree with some of the plays I saw, but it was still hilarious, saddening, and everything in between.

Saturday Acius and I went for a tour of Chicago (I took him around as he'd never been before). Had many, many good talks about cool things I've never dealt with before, and was overall a good geeky time. Then, the best part, we had a little codefest on Walraven. I say best part because normally I'm just bugging these guys via ones and zeros and don't really get as much of a bouncing ideas off each other feel. Here the three of us were in the same room, and working off what eachother had. It was cool. The idea we were working on in something World of Warcraft will never have, Random Dungeon Generation.

Sunday was not much more than a lot more coding to get our first dungeon generated. Great fun, though I'll admit I felt a little out of place as rusty I was with LPC. I probably held the whole deal up a few hours, but they were nice about it and I learned stuff. End of the day, learning is what matters.