Had a bunch of people (Andy & Julie, Myles & Betsy, Brian, Nate, Kevin) over on Saturday, before the football game. We mostly chatted and played Ninja Burger (with a smattering of Soul Calibur III in between), and then walked over to the downtown American Dream Pizza to eat pizza and drink beer on the roof—realizing a long-standing goal for Brian and me. (The last time we ate pizza on the room of American Dream was a few years ago, with Eric; it’s a fun place to eat—provided it’s sunny, dry, and warm out. Saturday fit the bill perfectly.)

Afterwards Nick joined the remaining crowd (Nate, Brian, and me) for another game of Ninja Burger (it’s actually fun, and not so complicated that my simpleton brain loses track of everything), followed by the inaugural play-through of Fury of Dracula. Nate made a more-than-competent Dracula, while the rest of us made a more-than-competent ragtag group of vampire hunters.

My first comment, after poking through a few of the vampire hunter profiles: how in the world are we going to defeat Dracula without a single Belmont among us? Immediately after uttering my question, I happened across the Van Helsing card. [This being based off of the literary Dracula, however, Van Helsing isn’t some action movie hero.]

The worst part of the game was that we started playing at about 8:30 pm, and finally killed Dracula at 3:30 am. Wow.

The game took so long that I wound up taking power naps in between determining the fate of my character (Lord Godalming, or… uh… Lord Gayforvampires, as we wound up calling him) in the eleven-to-midnight range. Good thing, too, because I was there and ready when it came time to kick Dracula’s tail. Godalming, it seems, is as close to a tank as you get with the vampire hunters.

Of course […], all I know about the Dracula novel I learned from what I read of Dracula Blogged. That’s a sad note for humanity.

…

It might not surprise you to learn that, after that late-night stunt, whatever virus had been lingering in my body pretty much came back with a vengeance. Monday was a total wash (I managed to exercise before falling into a coma for the rest of the day); Tuesday was only marginally better.

…

Today I stood my ground against my boss [so much for a genial, no-stress process] in negotiations for compensation for the work I’ve done (it helps that they need me more than I need them). Time will tell if logic and fair-play win the day. This evening I went to dance practice and danced most songs that I could dance to, with a variety of follows. Summer actually noticed, and commented that I “was finally dancing!”

Yep. This school year is the year of dance. As in actually dancing. Once I get the whole “actually dancing” thing down, I’ll move on towards my next goal: actually dancing well.

Highlight of the dance evening: repeated Jan Ken Pon (or, to be pedestrian: rock, paper, scissors) with another guy over which one of us would dance the last waltz with Janis. I lost after some five ties, uttered blast!, spun around to find another gal—Mai—asking me if I’d like to dance, and seamlessly segued into a gracious acceptance and a fun waltz. Seamless, I tell you.