Ren Fest 09

Met one of my oldest and closest friends with her kids out at Ren Fest today, a good time was had by all.



Had a Scotch Egg, which was really good. One of things like mayo on fries: I was better off not knowing this was delicious. It's a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage and fried to decadent perfection.



Got my ass handed to me in a chess match. It's cool, I'm used to it. Been playing at GameKnot for four years now, still lose 2/3 of my games, still struggle to get my rating above 1200. I'll never 'get' chess, but I doubt I'll ever give up pretending I might learn.



I did feel good that I spotted a checkmate the guy could have taken that he missed, prolonging the game by two moves. After, when I showed him, he seemed a bit embarrassed to have missed it (look at the pic, if he moves his Queen to D2, I'm toast, almost resigned when I saw it). There was no way out for me at that point. He had me dead to rights. I did okay with the opening, and managed to make it further than I expected before he was ahead of me in points. You know that saying, if you can't do something well learn to enjoy doing it badly? That's me and chess.



I rode an elephant. Third time I've offered this to my kids, and third time they refuse to get on. So screw it, Daddy rode the elephant. So did Rachel and her kids. It's alarmingly high up. I know they're big, hell they're elephants, but I guess I didn't really appreciate the scale of the animal until I was on his back. I guess I should have known, one of his turds was in a wheelbarrow and it filled the wheelbarrow.





My two sticks in the mud might not see the charm of riding an elephant, but cross that one off my bucket list.







Oh, I saw a dog in chain-mail. People who don't have kids will do the most fucked up sit to their dogs and think the dogs are their children.





Took in the Jolly Rogers, said hi to my old friend Mark, aka Mayhem, the guy with the resonator guitar. Been a friend and bad influence of mine since around 1982. Back when the plains were black with buffalo you there was no such thing as email.







I saw a knight on a date with Hellboy's sister.



Saw a joust to the death, pro wresting style, complete with fake blood when the throat was cut. Then a kid said loud enough for the whole grandstand to hear, 'I see him breathing.'



Kid, the dude was just in a sword fight following a joust. It may be staged, but it's still an athletic event. Do you want we should dock his pay for being out of breath after all that?



Did not get Mo on the Pirate Plunge, we were out of time (and running low on funds). But both girls took some shots at Vegetable Justice, where you pay a buck to throw a tomato at a guy who is insulting you. He told me it looked like Miami Vice had thrown up on my shirt. Insulted Em as an 'Eskimo Hannah Montana.' I wished the throw line was closer to this guy, also wished for his job. Insult comedy all day, knowing 3/4 of the people you insult can't get a tomato to go that far.





The weather wasn't that bad. The girls wore their coats but I wore my Miami Vice Vomit shirt, a flamingo splashed Aloha thing, and was only cold when we sat still for the joust.