The Fabulous Fox Theater

I've mentioned to people my entertainment with St Louis business names. They do not mess around. You name a place by who owns it and/or what it does. Pappy's Smokehouse, Ted's Frozen Custard, Standard Artificial Limb (REAL!). Hell, Panera is called The Atlantic Bread Company.

So, The FABULOUS Fox Theater. Turns out it's damn fabulous indeed. Built 1920-30s, much like all theaters from that age (think Orpheum), but bigger - seats 4200. And it's nice and shiny, refurbished in full within last twenty, lobby redone after small fire few years back. Just a pretty, big-ass theater used year-round, concerts in the summer/fall, broadway type shows winter/spring.

Urban Chestnut Brewing Company

St Loius, MO. Nice place. Not a brew pub, but a tasting room with some appetizers, including a weisswurst with mustard and roll that almost makes me wish I hadn't had that second half-rack of ribs.
Anyway, nice presentation, nice beer, nice meat and cheese platter, nice beer so far sampled. Nice, that describes it. Nothing special, nothing horrible.

Back in St Louis

Which automatically means in line for BBQ at Pappy's. This is the line outside to get to the line inside. I figure an hour to get my food, completely expected for Saturday noon.

Test Post against Google+

Did I mention it's a test?

Second try

Forgot to photo when I stopped yesterday, so I had to stop on way to airport for 'breakfast' because I'm way more scared of Sari than I am cardiac arrest.

(glad I stopped, for whatever reason, this one is pretty good. Faith is restored.)

Art History

The Philadelphia Art Museum has over a dozen statues around it's grounds of varying historical significance. This is the line for people taking a picture of the Rocky statue. I believe it goes without saying that there were no lines for any other statue.

Whew, that was close

Third place in semi-final RA! the Dice Game game.  Do not advance, maybe can show my face around gaming circles again some day.

Crud

Won quarterfinal game of RA! the Dice Game, and into the semis.  Can't play Titan for a damn, but I apparently rule at multi-colored yatzee. Yay me. :-(

Semi-Final time

So in semis, starting in a few minutes, which is cool. But trying to keep in mind that it's NHL here, 16 of the 40 persons who participated move on.

Humorous aside - I woke up at 6:15am CST on a Saturday for this, an hour earlier than I do for work. I apparently don't vacation very well.

Quiet day

Not much to say about today. Up at 9:00, game of Tikal at 11:00 (was crushed), Titan at 2:00 (practice), Titan or Tikal at 6:00 (likely the latter because...), Wits & Wager showcase at 8:00 which I assume will be they're typical large-crowd game with teams of 8-10 each. Good fun, have dine it at GenCon a few times. Put on by the game creators, part game part sales pitch. Then a race to get some pizza delivered from a local place everyone recommends but closes at 10:00.

Short topic for today is city names of Pennsylvania. There are a lot of funny ones. Mist of these I've gotten from talking with locals, although ins the exit sign for my favorite one. In no particular order:
Peach
Plum
Indiana
Mars
Moon
Blue Ball
Intercourse
Climax
Buck
and my favorite
King of Prussia

Unless something unexpected happens, see you tomorrow from the Titan semis.

Maybe the night isn't quite done

So I rinsed the gamer stank off of me and decided to buck-up and look for a good beer in Pennsylvania. Infinitely harder than it sounds (more on that later, legal problems, not brewer's desires). So looked around and found a mere 30 miles away (more on that later too) the lovely Stoudt's Black Angus Restaurant. Good steak, friendly staff, nice selection of micro-brews. Beers were good, not excellent. Favorite by far was the ESB (pictured), a solid tribute to the English bitter.

Into the Black

That's it for today. I need a real meal and some time away. May be participating in a 9am Circus Maximus session tomorrow - dude GMing it is really cool and he uses little horse figurines and everything.

And Ted, when my whip hand veers a fellow charioteer into the wall, it'll be in honor of you!

Oh, shit...

I just won the game of RA! the Dice Game. I'm now in the semi-final on Saturday. I don't know the last time I was this embarrassed. I probably should duck it; if word gets out I'll never be taken seriously as a gamer. It's a travmockeryaster.

Another win, and a lesson learned

Yay me, a second win and I'm in the semi-finals. Convincing win, but against not great competition. So 9:00am Saturday begins the most Important Game of Titan IN MY LIFE!!! An event I rank, in anticipation, somewhere between finding a good beer in Lancaster County and my next successful trip to the rest room (irregular schedule and menus have not been my friend and I'll leave it at that...).

And lesson learned. I knew I needed to walk away from the Titan area and do something else, which was the demo for 7 Wonders, but it turned out to be a silly card/economy game I had no interest in. So I went back to familiar lands, gig in a Titan game at last second and was out in seven turns. So now I'm in a room waiting for a heat of RA! The Dice Game to start. Have pity on my soul (James would understand).

Day Two

Third hour of first Titan game in progress. Down to two, but my lead is deteriorating after a series of sub-par movement rolls. Still, I have confidence.

First big disappointment found in Lancaster County - it's Coca-Cola land. Sad face.