Sadness can be eaten via Waxy.org

Lies I’ve told my 3 year old recently

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I was going to leave an entry discussing an upcoming labyrinth training event that I’m running in Deptford, NJ, but rather than write my own, I thought I’d quote a good amount from Jane McGonigal who is also going to an event, and did a wonderful Q&A for that one:

You should note that the flash animation training link that she posted was done by me. /me does a little jig.

I’ve been talking it up and hoping to get some of you involved. Now might be a great opportunity.

You don’t have to know anything.
You don’t have to bring anything.
Just show up, alone or with everyone you know.

And prepare to have an amazing adventure as you learn how to play The Lost Sport of Olympia.

Playing the lost sport is pretty much the most fun I’ve ever had. That’s all you need to know. But if want to know more, some FAQ are below.

FAQ

Q: What’s the Lost Sport of Olympia?
A: According to legend, this blindfolded sport was played and then banned by the ancient Greeks, who attempted to destroy all evidence that the game ever existed. It was completely forgotten by history — until 2008. That’s when a small online community began investigating the lost sport. The community got bigger and bigger, and recently they actually pieced together the rules of the game — simply by analyzing clues found in ancient artifacts. They’re still working out some of the kinks of the game, but so far, lost sport training events have have happened all over the world, from Canada to Brazil to Spain to New Zealand!

Q: Is the lost sport hard to play?
A: Like any great game, it’s incredibly easy to learn and extremely challenging to master. But, you don’t need to be traditionally athletic to excel at this sport. Instead, you’ll need trust, courage, memory, and teamwork.

Q: Is it fun to play?
A: I’ve only played it once before, but it was unforgettably awesome. You will almost certainly laugh until it hurts. Watch this recent training video from some aspiring Lost Sport champions in Kitchener, Ontario — my favorite part is the referee yelling repeatedly (to no avail), “No laughing! No laughing!”

Q: So can I just show up, or do I have to learn how to play it first?

A: Just show up! You don’t need to know anything about it, just show up. Your friends don’t need to know anything about it either, so bring them. Plenty of people there will be able to explain it, but most of the people who show up will also be playing the lost sport for the very first time.

Q: How’s it work, exactly?
A: It’s a blindfolded team sport, with 1 runner and 10 - 100 teammates who form a human labyrinth around the runner. Just like the Minotaur, the runner must escape from the center of the labyrinth as fast as possible!
Runners can’t see, and they can’t use their hands to feel their way. So they must draw on courage, their spatial memory of the labyrinth pattern, and the sound of the walls humming to guide them.
Meanwhile, the walls run ahead of the runner to keep him or her safely penned in at all times. It’s total collaboration. (The walls and the runner are on the same team.)

You can catch on faster by watching this flash animation of the gameplay.

Q: What’s the legend, exactly?
A: If you’ve never heard of the Lost Sport, you can learn about it in this podcast about ancient mysteries and forgotten secrets of the Ancient Games.

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Went to the World Cafe Live in Philly last night for an awesome performance by Jonathan Coulton. I’m really glad that we got a chance to go and didn’t miss it. There’s something magical about the addition of a audience, the resonance of the room with live voices and instruments and the subtle changes of a live performer that really help the songs come alive.

The tickets were really well priced at $16 (with a $5 processing fee), but there was a $10 food/drink minimum. So we skipped dinner and decided we’d get our food there and hit our goal. Its easy to see how you can quickly reach and surpass the $10 min. though. My soda was $2.25, but my ‘wonderful’ Tommy Gunn pulled pork sandwich was $13.

I had to send the first one back because it was probably the worse one I’d ever had. It had dry bread which broke as I picked the sandwich up, and worse, there were several large pieces of fat (sans meat) on top. Now, it’s pulled pork. There is a certain amount of fat in there, but the pork itself was not finely chopped, so neither was the large pieces of fat (about the size of a 50 cent piece). So when the waiter brought the replacement, he said “I hope this one’s better. It’s pig. It’s going to have fat on it”. The second sandwich was edible, but I’ve had *wayyyyyyy* better at prices far less.

Alright, back to the concert.. Couple of cool things… When he was singing “Still Alive” (watch), a few people held up cell phones instead of lighters, which was very apropos as it was a technology song. Soon enough, most of the crowd was waving glowing cell phone screens in the air.. even saw a couple of DS’.. really kinda awesome.

Another was a point where he was asking the crowd for a choice in song — who then proceeded to all shout at the same time in a classic jumble, and JoCo told us all to shut up since we weren’t being orderly. Then one guy yells out “Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance” (listen). Jonathan kinda shakes his head, thinks about it, mutters to himself, and then you realize he really wants to play it, but hasn’t in concert for quite some time. So he says he’s going to do it, apologizes in advance for screw ups and even think he might have to bail half way through. He then tells his intro story, sings the song, proceeds to screw up several times, but recovers with an occasional “shit”, and mulls through to the clapping crowd.

Jeremy got his prototype shirt signed, which was great. When we first got there, we sat with a couple of other geeks (more on that in a second), we talked about the concert and how it was our first one. Jeremy mentions that his claim to fame was ‘this shirt’, and Rachel (from the couple we just met and a marketing person), smiled and said she saw it in the contest — we continued talking,  and I realized that she didn’t really ‘get it’. I said, “No, he doesn’t just own the shirt. He designed the shirt.” You should’ve seen her face light up.

So the geek factor was very high, as to be expected at a JoCo show. There was humour at that from Paul and Storm and Jonathan himself. At one point, Paul asked “Seriously, how many of you in here have never had a Calculus class”, and less than 10% raised their hands. Whether from trepidation or truthfulness, it was funny as hell.

Looking forward to seeing him come back.

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