MOOP!

SO LET'S TALK ABOUT BODA BORG!

Boda Borg is a team puzzle solving challenge dungeon. There are seventeen quests, each consisting of 2+ rooms. Every room has a success mode and at least one failure mode. Sometimes a lot of failure modes. They warn you right off the bat, and repeatedly, that you are going to fail, a lot. Especially because not one of the rooms comes with instructions...

Insert evil laughter and a whole lot of YES here. This is the sort of thing my parents were talking about when they wistfully sigh about how they wanted a big ol' warehouse on the nice side of town. They wanted to make their friends do this bullshit, and how!

Some of the quests are purely mental. Some of them are purely physical. Lots are in between! And I just spent EIGHT HOURS kicking ass, taking names, and having an absolutely great time.

mindways organized a group of 21 of us --eight veterans and thirteen newbies-- to come check it out. We got together at 2:00, and I wound up in a group with three strangers. The four of us kicked ass and had a lovely time --and yes, we failed a lot-- until about 5:30 when two of them had to leave.

Cue dinner and a group switch. I was itching to try some of the hardcore physical challenges --which I had been warned ranged from "kinda tough" to "American Ninja Warrior". And yes, there are at least two challenges that I am physically incapable of doing right now, which is genuinely and actually awesome. So I ran about with two different strangers, and Mindways, with me and Alex making lots of jokes about how Mindways and Ted had it SO MUCH EASIER being that they're both in the 6'+ range and Alex and I were...not.

Around 8:30, Mindways had to head home. Ted and I found his (??), Rebecca, who was the last of the other group, and the three of us decided to be the last stragglers. We finished another few rooms together, and finally at 9:30, our bodies decided to call it quits.

I had an absolute blast. I love the way that sticking with one group is good, in terms of solving puzzles, and I was very pleased with how well my later groups did with letting me take point on rooms I hadn't seen, to figure out how to solve them (and they would just do whatever physical things I requested). I got one nice compliment from Mindways, when I finished a room in about three and a half seconds and he sorta looked at me and said "so most people find that part to be really challenging, because [thing x]" and I just sortof goggled and replied that I hadn't even noticed.

I would one thousand percent go back, and am lightly planning to with Mindways and his sister in June once my school year ends (they both have often-free-during-the-day schedules). If you would like to go, hit me up! I will not spoil the quests for you! I will be obedient and maybe give hints if I am nice and be competent on the things that require competence.

( Final verdict (no spoilers but I do say which rooms I found difficult or not )

I am all for puzzles and I am all for physicality and I am all for situations in which you are expected and encourage to fail better. It was a really great time, I enjoyed hanging out with all my teammates, and I encourage all of you to try it too.

And now I sleep for fifty years and see if my shoulders stop aching. :D!

~Sor
MOOP!

Of all the ways to be fucked up, I really really wish I didn't have so much trouble dealing with the fact that sometimes people want to be kind to me, without expecting or requiring kindness in return.

Attention is hard, sex is hard, support is hard, gifts are hard, friendship is hard.

And love? Love is damn near impossible.

R.
MOOP!

A/N: The events and things and thoughts and feelings leading up to this particular thoughtstream have been sorted out and reasoned with and talked over and etc. In short, please don't read too deeply into this post, I'm not trying to put it out there as a hint to anyone*, it is merely some words that I think sound good strung together.

***

( friendship privileges )

~Sor
MOOP!

*...anymore.
**This may be less true than I think. I'm not sure how body shy I am at the moment, it tends to vary across a long range, even within the same people.
***Well, technically, I don't want to stoink anybody. Replace with snog/date/pet as appropriate.

Not private because I'm better than that.

1. Who is your best friend?
2. Why did you become friends?
3. How did you meet?
4. Why have you stayed friends?
5. How long (realistically) do you think you'll be friends?

1) Veronica! *sends love*

2) Because our parents were friends in high school, our birthdays were three days apart, and it was more then a month after our birthdays and neither of us had gotten a party.

3) In third grade class. She was brand new! And then she was all "My dad and your mom equal bff's!"

4) Honestly? I'm not quite sure. I think it's mostly because we're different enough to keep the other one sane. For me, I know that part of it at least is that I need a Best Friend --the person who I can cry on their shoulder for no reason at all, and have them understand.

Another part is that I don't tend to make friends really easily (Or at least, I don't feel like I do.) So it's way too much hassle to make a new best friend, especially when I've poured so much of my emotions and energy into this one. :D

Relating to that point, there are very few people who I be my complete self to. Veronica is one of those very few people. As the scale of everything goes, Veronica probably knows more about who I REALLY am then pretty much anyone else. (Mostly because she's known me so long, too.)

5) We've managed it for ten years. I don't see why that would stop anytime soon. I'm thinking that as long as we keep in touch, we'll be friends. Constantly, when out exploring, I'm thinking of dragging her up here and forcing her to meet my world and stuff --hopefully not in the winter, though. *grin*

AND

(Questions repeated to reduce scrolling)
1. Who is your best friend?
2. Why did you become friends?
3. How did you meet?
4. Why have you stayed friends?
5. How long (realistically) do you think you'll be friends?

1) The Katters! My clone.

2) Uhm. Because we had the same name, and we both liked Artemis Fowl?

3) I suspect that she randomly IM'd me out of the blue one day, because she was bored and I was online. We'd had cursory contact before that, on sluggy.net, and of course, we were both madly in love with the same fictional charecter.

4) ...

Dude.

Because she is my sun, my moon, and my hot air balloon.* She is more like me then pretty much anyone else, and a lot of what I want to be like. She yells at strangers on the sidewalk, and puts together thrift store costumes with uncanny ease.

A lot of it is the same as Veronica, too. Once I've put an emotional investment into a person, I don't want to lose them. Even if I haven't seen them in a long time, they're still a part of my conciousness that I don't want to lose track of.

Also: Clone!

5) Realistically? Forever. Or until we both die. At which point we'll probably meet up in some discordian/pastafarian heaven and continue on with the mayhem.

I'll give you actual updates later. In the meantime....stuff.

~Sor
MOOP!


* *raises an eyebrow at Kat.* Well? Found it yet?
* actually, so are a lot of people, Veronica included. It's just unlikely that they'd appreciate the quote.