Star Trek & game night

We had a busy day of social events yesterday - first it was a Star Trek marathon with some law school people, then game night with some high school folks. It was an awesome day for an extrovert like me, and even the introverted Dave had fun and made it out alive.

At my law friends' Lincoln Square apartment, we had a Star Trek marathon from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and I made many specialty pizzas. I made spicy chicken sausage pizza, pesto pizza, roasted garlic pizza, and a special dessert pizza of my own design: bleu cheese & walnut pizza.


Dave picked out some of the best episodes, and I realized how much I'm beginning to get into the series with him. I bought him the complete Next Generation series for his birthday (and his next few birthdays...), so we've been watching it lately. So far, my favorite characters are Worf and Data. Worf is angry and awesome, and Data is sensitive and interesting.

From the Star Trek marathon, we headed over to Jackie's house for game night and Italian food. Jackie cooked up an amazing meal of rotini and Italian sausage, which is always delicious.

After we had dinner and chatted, we busted out some of the games that we brought, including Bandu, one of my favorite games from childhood.

This relatively obscure game is one that my parents brought home at some point and became a regular rotation for us. Basically it's like Jenga and Uno combined into one: you give your neighbor strange-shaped pieces and challenge them to stack them up without falling.

Diane, Jackie, and Dave were out relatively early, but Rob, Brian, and I dueled it out to the end.

Brian got one of the tallest Bandu towers going that I've ever seen. This was his, and it was pretty scary to have that thing next to mine. (Mine never got much taller than it was in the above picture.)

We kept going for a really long time, with tensions running high. It's always crazy how much fun we have playing this game, because I never have this much fun with Jenga. But it's always uproarious.

Rob's structure was also pretty insane, by the way. This thing looks like Gringott's Bank from the Harry Potter series. We couldn't believe that it stayed up for so long, and when he put he top (and final) piece on, he had a "gosh!" beauty queen moment that we all enjoyed.

In the end, Brian's tower fell, bringing Rob's down with it. Mine stayed up stoically through the destruction, making me the winner.

We also played Wits & Wagers, a fun trivia & betting game. I really enjoy the game, which is a blend of Trivial Pursuit and betting games. You guess what the answer is, and so does everyone else, and then you bet on who's right. Somehow I won this game, also, but Diane and I were close with our conservative betting.

It was a blast of a day. Every time I do a game night, it makes me want to incorporate more games into my life - they're so fun, especially ones with trivia. I'm doing another pizza today (Mexican bean!), but Dave and I are hanging out at home. After all, we've got to get Dave re-charged after so much social interaction!