It's Gonna Fog

That's what the locals told the rodeo announcer in Orick today when he asked if it was going to rain and did he need to cover his speakers: "No rain, but it's gonna fog."

And fog it did: I woke up dreaming about rain, and went outside to see everything dripping wet. But the wet start to the day did not dampen our desire to attend Orick's rodeo. See?

"Rodeo—the No. 1 homegrown American sport." Huh. Isn't that NASCAR?

Greg and Noah, post-bbq, waiting for the rodeo to start. Greg's wearing his "blending in" hat.

The first event was the animal scramble: a truckload of hens, roosters, bantams, goats, geese, and a piglet is let loose in the arena. Whatever the kids can grab they can keep—or sell to the spectators immediately after the scramble. Some of the goats went for $50 or more!

The next event was mutton bustin'. That's right: parents strapped their children to ewes and pushed them out the gate to see who could ride a sheep the farthest. Seven-year-old Austin of McKinleyville won the event. Some of the kids mutton bustin' were as young as four!

That's me, enjoying my rodeo Sunday in Orick.

I love the flashy colors favored by Western riders. Lots of roans, palominos, paints, and tobianos at the rodeo...including these guys taking a break between events.

Again with the flashy colors, plus coordinating purple tack, Orick's cowgirls...

...and cowboys. I'm guessing that liver chestnut is a Quarter Horse or Quarter Horse mix, though a fair number of Arabs were in the arena, too.

Hangin' at the rodeo.

Show us your class, Orick!

But the event most people want to see is the bull riding, so they do that one last. I'm fine waiting til the end of the day. I'm partial to bareback bronc riding myself, and Greg likes the steer wrestling. Really, though, everyone likes bull riding:









Even though most of the riders did poorly this year, nobody left in the ambulence. So all in all it was a pretty good day of rodeo.

Summer jobs

Usually I only see kids out on Saturdays, but with school out it's an everyday event: kids riding bikes, riding skateboards, huddled in awkward co-ed groups or hunched over in gender-specific plotting. Sitting on porches, gazing at shop windows, eating bagels.

I've also seen a fair number of kids at the workplace, and generally involved with whatever it is their parent does for a living. Even a few lemonade stands—my neighbor says her kids used to make bank with their stand on Farmers Market Saturdays.

Today I was delivering mail around the corner from the house, on the street we like to think of as Boom Town. We call it that after an Ian Livingstone game of the same name. You play a 1950s developer trying to build the most desirable subdivision you can while steering the little unpleasantries of town life into someone else's subdivision. (Nobody wants to live next door to a pawnshop.) In our little Boom Town we have a DIY carwash, a car repair shop, a tattoo parlor, a medical marijuana clinic, an Internet cafe, and a used clothing store, one right next to the other!

I'm not sure who the enterprising party here was, the kids or the parent, but whoever it was was having a summer sale, parked across the street from Boom Town in their brown beater of a car: mom smoking a cigarette and talking on her cell phone, two 8- to 10-year-old boys goofing off in, on, and around the car, and a cardboard box of glass pipes sitting open on the trunk.

If you think about it, it really was a good location to sell glass pipes.

I sprayed a dog today

It's the first time I've used pepper spray: surprisingly pretty, orange-red and holiday appropriate. It stopped the dog, but I didn't get the full, satisfying reaction of yelping and carrying on about being sprayed. It just turned away. I've heard that pit bulls are spray-resistant.

Despite the jolt of adrenaline, the whole thing bummed me out. I've had dogs lunge at me, charge me from down the block, slam into doors trying to reach me...usually my satchel and a stern word is enough.

So I was jittery and feeling irritated at stereotypical dreaded hippies keeping poorly-trained pit bulls when a block and a half later some other stereotypical hippies offered me a handful of fresh-picked berries, and then it wasn't so bad.

May I ask you a question?

(Couldn't find a credit for this photo from the article "Rebranding Humboldt" by Ryan Burns in the June 25, 2009, issue of The Journal.)

Humboldt's Office of Economic Development wants you to know that Humboldt has more to offer than, uh, a chronic good time. 4:20 to be precise.

So during our recent 19th annual Oyster Festival, Mr. Burns of the North Coast Journal pinned that sign to his shirt and asked 105 attendees what Humboldt is known for—only thirty of whom chose an answer from the Not Obvious column...

Granted, this informal survey was conducted on the Arcata Plaza—essentially the bowl of Humboldt County's bong.

"I was in St. Croix recently and when I told this guy that I was from Humboldt he went, 'Oooh yeah.'"

So to all you Tentacles Omega attendees who only heard about the dank, green life of the north coast, please know that we have a lot of natural beauty in Humboldt, a lot of outdoor sport opportunities, and a bunch of really nice people. So what if half of them are stoned?

Don't Say No to Tom

Les Claypool is a busy, busy man:

Q: How did you get roped into doing a movie with a 3,000-pound mechanical pig?

A: I think my question to you is, how could anyone on the planet turn down the opportunity to do a movie with a 3,000-pound mechanical pig?

More over at the Chronicle.

Gaming in Germany

Just back from Tentacles Omega, a very fine convention in the European style (high-quality rpgs, tabletop, and freeform games, attendees from around the globe, almost no dealers, and alcohol) in the best setting ever for a game con: a castle-now-hostel perched above a medieval town on the banks of the Rhine. Yes!

Gregory brought his elaborate tabletop Escape from Innsmouth game; people ran freeforms for Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Joss Whedon's Serenity 'Verse, and the Second Crusade; Greg introduced the Pendragon battle system to a room full of thirty people; Sandy brought a couple of new boardgames (Dominion and Race for the Galaxy) and happily played them with whoever wandered by. So many of us had small children in tow that a creche would've been handy.

And because it was the last one, everyone was there: gamers from the US, France, Germany (natch), the UK, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Australia, Singapore, Poland, the Netherlands. I don't recall anyone from Canada, Spain, or Italy, but I don't remember where Pablo's from.

It took a long time to say goodbye.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown: Sven in the InfoShrine.

L-R: Pummel, Chrissy, some dude I don't know, and Hahn in front of the microfleet of European cars.

From a previous Tentacles: Fabian and Greg get ready to Do What Is Necessary to Daughters of Darkness.

Also from a previous Tentacles: Greg and Sandy's secret game designer's handshake. Shhh.

The Butcher of Bacharach has been grilling for a few years now. At a previous Tentacles, Charlie and Hahn prepare at the local Rewe. This year, Charlie estimated he grilled about 100kg of meat.

Awww...reunited in the InfoShrine. (Greg got picked up at the airport; I took the train.)

Daniel Fahey out in the courtyard. He spent most of the con cradling either a bottle of hooch or Gregory's daughter Amandine. But not at the same time.

Alex, Sandy, and Grant Spawn of Sandy, also out in the courtyard of the castle. Did I mention they had an espresso machine this year? VERY handy, but I think I spent about 30 euro on coffee drinks during the con!

ConFabian with his Commanding Cap of Obedience. He foolishly set it aside during our trip to Dreieich after the con. It was like herding cats.

That's the gaming part. For the food part, Charlie Krank (Chaosium) busted out his grill—the one that lives in Germany—and cooked whatever was brought to him: pork steaks, beek steaks, duck sausages, Thuringer sausages, bratwurst, a Turducken (with gravy! thanks, Megan)...we ate a lot of meat. Including a fun wildegoulash in the castle cafeteria made with venison. And doner kebaps. And Turkish pide. And flammekuchen (Alsatian pizza).

We also ate a lot of ice cream. Well, gelato really. Including Riesling gelato and spagetti ice.

Other notable foods eaten: handkasse mit musik, dinkelbrot, green sauce over potatoes and eggs, apfelwein, and a shitload of beer.

More photos, including German bumper cars, after G-man gets back with the camera.

A Rainy May Day