How to Bachelor Party (for Geeks)

One week ago today was the start of a two-solid-day bachelor party for me. My brother, being both my best man and in Tennessee, was not going to be able to come to Seattle and throw me a bachelor party, so three of my friends and co-workers (all of whom are named Chris, weirdly enough) hatched a plan a few months back to be my best man surrogates and throw me a bachelor party. Over the course of a couple of months, the plans solidified, and when they asked me what I wanted out of my bachelor party, I said I wanted to play games (including beer pong), drink beer, and eat food that is delicious and bad for me. I also had a trio of don't wants: I didn't want it to turn into a drink-so-much-you-barf debauchery fest, I didn't want strippers, hookers, or anything stripper or hooker related, and I didn't want to do any extreme sports. I basically wanted a weekend away with my friends where I could enjoy myself and not worry about things like counting calories and transportation.

After giving them these guidelines, and setting up a list of the folks I'd like to invite, the guys decided that our best bet was to rent a house or two in the Ballard area of Seattle; it's hip, there's tons of good food there, and it's practically exploding with new breweries. Last Friday we set out early from work and drove up to Ballard, dropping our stuff off at one of the houses and then beginning the first real activity of the weekend: a brewery crawl. We had brought several growlers with us, planning on getting them filled with beer at the breweries we went to so that on Saturday we would have plenty of good, local craft beers at the house.

I was hoping when I took this photo that it would not become "Exhibit A" in some future trial.

Over the course of a couple of hours, we hit up Maritime Pacific Brewery (and filled up one some starchy foods to prep us for the brewery crawl), Reuben's Brews, Stoup Brewing, and finally (on the way to dinner) Hilliard's Beer taproom. It was at this last destination that I learned a valuable lesson: losing over 100 lbs. (and drastically reducing your beer intake in the process) does some serious violence to one's alcohol tolerance. Granted, I was about seven beers in by this point, but it had been nearly four hours since we started this magical mystery tour of beer, and I'd expected a slight buzz. Fortunately, we had about a mile walk to the place where we were having dinner, and I think if it hadn't been for that bit of brisk exercise I would have wound up at dinner far more than the pleasantly jubilant that I was.

Who could say no to a face like this?

Dinner that night was at the Ballard Pizza Company, a relatively new pizza place that I'd never been to before. They put a beer in front of me, but my lower weight and lack of tolerance was catching up to me, so I eschewed the brew (blasphemy, I know) and focused on the pizza, which was pretty good. In Seattle, the pizza is...typically not great. This place served New York style pizza, and it was pretty tasty. The first slice I had was delicious and covered in meat, just the way I like it. Unfortunately, I think I bit right into a small bit of pepper, because very quickly my mouth was on fire. Downing a couple of glasses of water (which was probably a good thing, given my swimming head) did little to alleviate the heat, so I forged ahead with a slice of pizza that wasn't covered in spicy meats, hoping to cleanse my palate. Dinner was great, but after two slices of pizza I was stuffed. Of course, it was time for dessert, and that meant heading over to Hot Cakes, a great dessert shop, where I got a spiked milkshake that was far, far more strong than I anticipated it would be. Any gains I made at dinner were quickly lost, but once again I was saved by the mile walk in the cool Seattle air back to the house. By the time I arrived home, I'd hit my second wind, and managed to get in a few games before bed.

The next day I woke up feeling not so great. Fortunately, I'd been drinking a lot of water the night before, so I was in mostly good shape; however, I'd had to skip on my allergy medicine, and my stomach was just not used to the amount of rich food that I'd put into it the previous day, so all I wanted was some coffee and something a little more tame than pizza for breakfast.

I opened the fridge looking for half-and-half for coffee. This is what I saw.

Of course, the plans for someone to go out and get pastries for breakfast and bring them back to the house never materialized (partly because one group of folks decided to go out for breakfast, and partly because the folks at the second house decided to sleep in), so instead I had a plate of Girl Scout Cookies (which I'd purchased from Girl Scout Fiancée's troop that week in anticipation) for breakfast. Breakfast of champions, I tells ya!

Thanks for the healthy breakfast, Girl Scouts of America!

Saturday was set aside as a day of geeky gaming, which is exactly what I wanted, and it began with a one-two punch of awesome surprises. First, my good buddy and coworker Pete painted a custom set of six miniatures for me, each representing one of the characters from the Tales of the Arabian Nights board game (and also their real Arabian Nights counterparts), and they were gorgeous.Then, one of the Chrises who helped set up my bachelor party revealed that he had designed a custom Dungeons & Dragons adventure for my bachelor party, themed after the stories from 1,001 Arabian Nights. It is well known among my friends that I love Arabian myth, and my favorite campaign setting for D&D is based on that mythology, so this was a real treat for me.

Pete is an amazing painter. I was completely stunned by this awesome gift!

So, we played D&D for a few hours. When another couple of guys announced they were going out to get some more beer, I was baffled (our refrigerator was crammed full of beer still), but I figured maybe they didn't like what we had in the fridge and wanted something specific. Over time, I noticed that they'd been gone an awfully long time, but my buddies assured me that they were just stuck in traffic. Soon, though, they sprung a huge surprise on me: my brother! These awesome fellas had all pitched in to fly my brother out from Tennessee as a surprise, and what an awesome surprise it was! I was astonished and pleasantly surprised to see him, and we had a blast together for the rest of the weekend.

Five minutes after he arrived, he had a beer and a character sheet in hand.

The rest of Saturday was filled with gaming of all kinds. We ordered lunch in from Red Mill (some of the best burgers in Seattle), and while some of us continued playing D&D, others were playing board games in the other room. We broke for dinner and headed out to Skillet Diner, recently opened in Ballard, and then headed back to the house for more gaming.

Skillet put us at the big table right in the middle of the floor, so everyone could see our gluttony.

Grilled peanut butter, jelly, and banana sandwich with a side of poutine. That's right, I said it.

Among the highlights of the night's gaming were getting Towerfall Ascension and Nidhogg going on the TV in the living room (both of these games are part of a retro aesthetic local multiplayer renaissance taking place in PC games right now), while others played board games (including Concept, which I purchased on Sunday from Card Kingdom on our way out of Ballard because it sounded so great).

Towerfall, shortly before the screaming and threatening began.

More beer was consumed, and as the evening turned into true night, my brother and I descended into the basement to claim our rightful place as the beer pong champions of the weekend. It is true that my love of beer pong labels me as a frat boy (which I am), but I don't care. How can I not love a game that combines manual dexterity, strategy, and beer? My brother and I ended up going 6-1, including winning a best two-out-of-three championship round against two of the Chrises, with bragging rights and a randomly scraped together $26 pot on the line.

Shot of the weekend, folks.

My boss/the Commissioner of Beer Pong awards us our prize.

The following morning we did a little gaming, but alas it was time to check out and head home. Some folks had already had to bail, since GDC was this week and many of my friends were headed to San Francisco for that convention, or to Las Vegas for the GAMA Trade Show. After leaving the houses, a small contingent of my friends humored me and went to the always delicious Hi Life with me for breakfast (we waited for nearly an hour on a table, but I still say it was worth it). A quick stop at Card Kingdom later and we headed south, bound for home.

It was a great weekend that generated a lot of memories and memes (including hot booze, Chris's sarcastic celebration of feeble accomplishments, my brother sleep-creeping behind the door of another bedroom, and more). I really hope everyone had a good time; I know I did, and everyone did such an amazing job of making sure I was having fun and keeping me pleasantly surprised. The toughest part of the weekend was that I spent more time with some folks than with others, just by virtue of the large number of people that were there for the weekend, so I hope I didn't neglect anyone. I'm grateful to have such awesome friends, and desperately needed the stress relief that the weekend provided.

A hot booze maker.