We’ve made it to “E” in our Z-A quest to play all our games. This brings us to Eggs and Empires, a game I enjoy because it’s quick to learn, has a strategy, and also isn’t called Exit Empires, like I originally thought when Matt was first talking about it.
In this game, you play cards attempting to capture “good” eggs, and avoiding “bad” eggs. I killed Matt in this contest, making this one of my few wins in this project.
First, there was the phone. Until 2013, I was a landline-only person. I loved my phone number, so much so that when I moved from downtown, I called the phone company and told them, “I’m moving and I want to keep my phone number.” Thankfully, rules had relaxed and it came with me when Matt and I moved in together, and then followed us to the Orange Door.
In 2013, I bought my first cell phone*, skipping over all other incarnations and jumping in at the smartphone period. I was surprised at how much I liked it. So this was why everyone was always staring at them. One thing I didn’t like? My cell phone number. It started with 971, for one thing. Who wants that stupid area code? I didn’t actually want to talk on my cell phone, so I kept the landline, and my awesome phone number.
Just this year, I learned you can keep your landline number and have it ported to your cell phone company. I would not have to give up my beloved phone number! It happened that I was due for a new phone, so instead of upgrading and transferring my cell number to my new phone, I instead transferred my landline number to my new phone. It was easy!**
Now we are not paying the monthly bill for a landline AND I have my favorite phone number. All is well.
I realize that cool phone numbers are more-or-less moot. Once the number gets programmed into someone’s phone they never look at it again. But I know how cool my phone number is. It’s mathematically correct! So I’m happy.
*Note that this is not cell phone, version 1, it’s cell phone version 2.
**Porting the number was easy, dealing with the fallout from the landline people was not. We lost internet for a few days, which wasn’t fun, and turned out to have not been necessary.
Nerdfighteria is a strange place, where random things pop up. One of them is Pizza John, the origins of which you can learn for yourself by watching this video.
Anyway, Pizza John eventually lead to Pizzamas, which is best described as a 2-week special promotion at dftba records, which is where you can buy all sorts of Nerdfighteria merch.
This year, I was swayed by the Pizzamas package, which came in its own Pizzamas pizza box. I had birthday money and so I spent it.
Aside from the awesome box, I received an apron, t-shirt, pizza cutter and sticky note pad, all with the Pizza John image. 
Is this a great world, or what?
Our Holiday Party coincided with the first big (actual) snow. We started the party at 4pm (the early start time seems to be a regular thing with my company) and played poker and blackjack until 7pm as the snow came down.
One of our contests was to write a word that describes 2016. Then, we voted on our favorite.
“Surreal” was the winner. (It doesn’t look like it, because I took these photos two days after the party. The star stickers weren’t very sticky and had fallen off.) “Emotional” and “Teamwork” were runners up.
I was quite pleased when, later that month, “surreal” also became the word of 2016. Way to predict it DHM Research.
When you don’t have enough snow to make a regular snowman, this tiny one will have to do.
Walking over the Steel Bridge this morning.
The east side of Portland has the sun, but the clouds are creeping in from the west side.
On the left, current cell phone, nearly two years old. On the right current tablet, nearly one year old. In the middle, the new cell phone.
There are plans for this new phone. But that’s a post for a later day.
We celebrated Xmas Eve Eve early this year. Normally, we celebrate on 12/23 (the Eve of Christmas Eve) but moving it up allowed us to have more things to chat about. When we have three days in a row of hanging out with the fam, we’ve exhausted all conversation.
We celebrated with the traditional soups and bread. And Mom brought along this fun decorating kit purchased at Trader Joe’s.
I made these white chocolate peppermint covered brownies for dessert, which were delicious.
Our decorated sweaters.They were great fun. Good choice, mom!
This year, I again scored Jane’s favorite songs at the Heidi and Kevin’s White Elephant Christmas party. Jane is eight now, and our musical taste still hasn’t quite lined up.
That “Closer” song by the Chainsmokers is always on the radio. I kind of like it, even if it’s fairly repetitive and a little too overproduced for my tastes. Matt was really annoyed by the Kidz Bop Kids version of “Call Me Maybe,” I’m not sure why he cared that much, but he did.
Hopefully I will have a threepeat in 2017.
