The picnic was great, though I can't help but think it would have been better if we'd made it a potluck in some quiet place rather than sharing an inferior catered event with hundreds of other people (note, however, that it was still great). Sumana came with and got her face painted with
"Free Dmitry". We played badminton with Jason Brittain and his wife. Pictures are on the other computer and I am lazy, so you probably
won't see them until tomorrow. Wait, you know what I just realized? The
flyer claimed there would be corn on the cob at the picnic, but there was no corn and no cob.
I knew I was missing something!
I have some other ideas, mostly for non-interactive fiction, the
authorship of which is a skill I have yet to master. I waffle and rewrite endlessly and am never satisfied with the result. The security guard encounter in Jake Berendes West Covina makes me wince. I need practice.
Sun Aug 12 2001 21:20:
During my afternoon nap I dreamed a sitcom in which the family
whose sitcom it was kept changing ethnicities (and therefore actors).
As far as premises for sitcoms go, this is actually above average, but my dream can't take credit for it because it's a special case of an idea I've had for a while.
It got me thinking about an adversarial card game centered around an episode of
a sitcom, in which some players are working to disrupt the sitcom
by causing problems for the characters,
and other players are working to resolve those problems before the end of the half-hour.
As usual, however, I don't know how to design adversarial card games (all I know is that there would be a "Very Special Episode" card),
and mere ideas for them are a dime a dozen. My idea is worth $0.008333...