Exercise for the Cranium.

Okay so I actually got off my ass this weekend. This is a good thing.

Friday night I got an IM from a friend who was a bit on the depressed side, so given I had no plans for the evening/morning I decided to take the slightly longer than average drive to go keep them company. While in the car I heard plenty of good music, among which was Frankie J's "Don't Wanna Try." I'd seen the video the day before, pretty heartfelt stuff. Downloaded the main version that was out, but it was too quiet and had that annoying timer error where it counts too fast through sections, so I fixed it up with soundforge and now it's muy perfecto. Something very satisfying about taking something and making it better to share with other people.

So anyway, was an entertaining evening to say the least. Around 6 I ended up getting to sleep, and unfortunately plowed right through my 9am intended wakeup for a hiking trip. Then traffic reared its ugly head, and we finally got going up 154 to the trail around 2. It ended up working out though, we all took bathing suit attire so we could take advantage of the pools and rivers located along the trail. Unfortunately since the last time I was at Red Rock the rope swing had been shortened, so it no longer reaches as far out into the deeper water as it used to. I of course was smart (read: stupid) enough to try anyway, and impressed the ten or so spectators with a flying leap from way up on the bank, which swung me way too high in the air, and was followed with nice crash into the water with a good sized splash. Somehow I managed to completely misjudge where I was going to go, and thus landed right on an enormous rock. The good news is I landed flat on my ass with my legs out straight, so my whole body took the blow pretty well. That and I had a few feet of water to slow me down. Not even a bruise. I enjoyed the ovation from the grown men across the river who hadn't had the nerve anyway. The water was just amazing. It wasn't the warmest at first, but I felt that made it even more refreshing. It had been an incredibly long time since I'd been in water that didn't involve chlorine, or salt. Made it a tremendously relaxing experience. I really savor those times when I'm out in the middle of nowhere, away from everything but nature. I'm sure I'll find myself in places like that throughout my life, whenever I feel the need to get away.

Afterwards we all headed back to get cleaned up a bit (especially me, I hadn't been home since the day before) and after a bit of DDR, went over to one of their places for dinner. Scrumptious salmon was inhaled by all, along with a cookie cake representing the fact that one of them was moving to Northern California soon afterward. We then enjoyed a rousing board game which I really must plug here.

Cranium is one of the more fun games I've played, and I've played a lot. It combines a lot of different aspects into one game. It's part trivia, part charades, part clay sculpting skills, part spelling backwards talent, part blindfolded drawing, and part humming. There's just a load of different things you have to be able to do well in order to win. There's an equal number of "left brain" tasks to go with an equal number of "right brain" tasks, so you really need a team with both. We had three teams of two, but just about any number of teams and number of people per team were possible. Nonstop hilarity ensued throughout, especially during portions that involved charades or blindfolded drawing, as people found pretty unique ways of getting their partner to say the buzz word. Highlights involved my partner pumping his fist and saying "BOOM" whenever I got anything right ever, and him bouncing from foot to foot saying "I'm so happy" in a high pitched voice while trying to act like a teletubby.

This game really looks like it would be a real party time amont the Wilson family, although we'd need someone to sub in as a 6th member to have three teams. Then again two more well-rounded people might do just as well as three less-rounded people. Of course the arguments about attempted cheating and extensive discussions over exact interpretations of the rules would ensue regularly. Hopefully there will be a few more nights of such activities before I go jaunting across the country, it's hard to find things that entertaining.