Lots of Photos and Endless Fame

The Kirkland Urban development thing near our apartment was having a Santa do some free photos and Lydia and Zoe took Big Wernie over for an appearance. We did our paid photo shoot at the mall a few weeks ago and... you definitely get what you pay for.

In observance of the Christmas spirit I won't criticize too much. It's a nice thing to offer for free especially to needy folks out there.

I think Zoe played around with the background later on to spruce it up a bit.

Ernie seems interested anyway.

My buddy British Mike was working on a cool and asked me to be a play tester. It was pretty cool, kind of a choose your own adventure book where when you meet a bad guy you then go into a Magic the Gathering card game mode and fight it out. It was a fun experience. As a thank you they mailed me the finished product once they had finished.

It's up on Amazon now and it's fun to see the breathless marketing they conjured for it:

"Explore new lands, battle monsters, and uncover secrets in this imaginative reinvention of the choose-your-own-path adventure game - complete with an interactive gamebook and 52 combat cards.

You've never seen anything like the City - a vast metal mechanism, hovering above the plains of the Continent, crackling with magical energy. Its ancient mechanisms once regulated the ebb and flow of arcane power; but now its clockwork is failing, wrecked by a saboteur who moves in the shadows. Can you survive a journey across a land racked by chaos to reach the City, and find a way to restore order? Draw action cards, annotate interactive maps-and carve out your own, unique path in a land of endless destinies!

• EMBARK ON A NEW TYPE OF QUEST: This innovative narrative experience brings together the thrilling story arc o­f a choose-your-own-path adventure and the exciting play style of a modern deck-builder card game.

• EXPLORE AN ORIGINAL FANTASY WORLD: The gamebook is artfully written by poet and author Corinna Keefe; and beautifully realized with full-color book and card illustrations by Paula Zorite.

• CREATE A UNIQUE PROTAGONIST: Use the bespoke character sheet to design a champion like no other. Equip powerful items and take advantage of a unique "leveling-up" system to choose new cards for your deck, developing incredible abilities.

• EXPLORE INTERACTIVE MAPS: The skillfully illustrated maps in the gamebook allow you explore new areas freely. As you discover new rumors or make significant changes to places you visit, you will annotate and rework each map.

• CALL THE SHOTS: Every time you make a decision, your journey will branch down a different path. Are you noble or morally ambiguous? Choose the quest that calls to you, for good or for ill ...

• NO DICE NEEDED: Don't place your destiny in the roll of a dice. Instead use combat cards to choose your battle.

• HOW-TO-PLAY VIDEO AND DOWLOADABLES INCLUDED: Don't like reading instructions? Follow the QR code instead to access an easy-to-follow gameplay video and handy downloadable content.

FORGE YOUR FATE WITH ENDLESS DESTINIES!"

I got a mention in the credits in the front of the book! IMMORTALITY IS MINE

We made up for that questionable Santa thing with some home photos in matching jammies.

I thought they came out pretty spiffy.

My ex boss Roger from Microsoft is cool enough that we still hang out even though we're no longer coworkers. He invited me over to his house for a holiday party and it was a whole lot of fun. These might be the rowdiest people I know in the state of Washington. They even had a make your own ramen bar which was baller.

I already had my jam jams on so I just wore them out for maximum jolliness.

Ernie Meets Santy

Today was a big day: Ernesto had an appointment to meet Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Santa, or Santy).

We learned from a photo shoot that Ernie (also known as Ern Dawg) will get slobber all over his nice clothes, so we came prepared with a bib.

He looks a little bit like a Klondike prospector.

The Snowflake Lane Factory set up at Bellevue Square was pretty quality.

They did a good job of having interesting things to look at while waiting in line. They also had the different Santas photos up so you could book a session with a particular one rather than just showing up and chancing it.

They had a nice little conversation before doing the photos which was nice. Santa said that Ernie would be walking up to see him next year which I was not ready to hear.

I was proud of him for being chill.

Columbia City's Off Alley was definitely a fine dining experience that was out of the ordinary. 

The space is legit in a converted alleyway, so the 14 seats are scrunched in along a brick wall. I bumped into the guy sitting next to me on more than one occasion.

Holy Mountain's White Lodge has some fun Twin Peaks references on the label.

I will give them one thing, the portions were generous which is not usually the case for fancy pants places. I was not able to finish all of what was served. When you don't exactly know how many courses are remaining or what they will be it's hard to pace yourself.

Ern was busy doing good boy stuff to stay in Santa's good graces.

Holiday World

Lydia and I went to Holiday World today. You might be asking yourself "why would two Six Flags season ticket holders drive 3 hours to go to a strange theme park in rural Indiana?" The answer would be "for fun, duh".

Holiday World is a theme park in Santa Claus, Indiana. The different zones of the park all have different holiday associations such as Christmas, 4th of July, and Halloween. And it has history: Holiday World grew out of Santa Claus Land, which was the first theme park in the world. It opened its gates on August 3, 1946.

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One of the most interesting things about the park was the bottomless free soft drink policy. Six Flags likes to make a point out of hurting my wallet with soda charges. Because I don't negotiate with terrorists, this means I usually don't drink a single thing in the place. It's silly but I think this small point alone made Holiday World awesome. I was rocking a diet peach tea concoction that was quite refreshing. As with any policy so liberal as this one, though, there will always be those who can't handle the freedom. I saw several children suffering from the dreaded condition known as "Kool-Aid mustache".

Business-wise I think the sort of generic holiday branding is pretty genius because it allows the park to not have to pay gigantic licensing fees for popular characters. Santa works for cheap.

It was pretty hot out so we stuck to the Splashin' Safari water park area for the most part.

In addition to the ever-flowing free soft drinks, there were little kiosks dispensing free sun block! It was super creamy cheap stuff and it came out of gallon jugs with hand pumps on top. It was kind of like going crazy with the mayonnaise at an Arby's.

There were little shows around to watch as well. This is probably the best diving show I've ever seen, and I've been to several.

My theory is that Holiday World's population is so large compared to that of the nearby town that they had to build their own water tower.

The gas stations in town were full-service.