Last night Jamie’s four-day Trivia Blitz ended with our team (team name: Neal and the Unemployed Librarians) answering the most questions correctly and thus receiving a pitcher of beer. We missed out on the $50 gift certificate because of the way that prize is randomly allocated. Selah. The real challenge of the evening was paying the bill. After everyone had paid, many with cards, some with cash, the manager came back and said we were $10 short. Careful examination of his copy of the bill and the receipts the people with cards had gotten showed consistent discrepancies. There was a slight argument over what those discrepancies meant, but Alex did a fine job of resolving it in the end, making him the Applied Knowledge champion.
Today was 420 day and there was a huge event on the steps of the art gallery. So much selling of weed and weed-food. With banners advertising prices and varieties and such. It was odd seeing it all so concentratedly open. There were biker-types and hippies and a bunch of high-school students wearing Portland NBA hats. After I realized stuff was happening, walking around downtown was fun. It was easy to spot people who were obviously going to the square, but it was more fun to watch people avoiding the 420ers.
I’d gotten some books from the library so I went down to the harbour to read comics in the sun. I hadn’t been to the square where the Olympic cauldron before, and though I’d seen the Digital Orca from a distance today was the first time I got up close. It was made by Douglas Coupland. Maybe if I’d paid better attention to the Olympics I’d have known that already, but there’s a handy plaque I read it from.
Tomorrow I’ll head up to the North Shore Writers Festival to blog it up. We had a meeting yesterday and it is not as intense as it might have been. It’ll be a longish day, but fun. There will be wine and cheese I was told to eat a lot of. I plan to comply.
