Inventor Night

Geek party idea: get a bunch of wacky creative people together, hand them a lot of scratch paper, and give them an inventor challenge. Instead of having a games night, you have an Inventor Night. At the end of it you wind up with six or seven designs for Self-Ironing Shirts, or a sturdy Homemade Pogo Stick Shoe, or an Inexpensive One-Use Emergency Insulin Refrigerator.

If you can snag some people with specialized domain knowledge that'd be handy. Otherwise keep a computer with a 'net connection nearby. Just saying "Oh, there would be some electronics to take care of that part" is nowhere near as effective as sketching the circuit or writing pseudo-microcode. Even better if, for the simpler challenges, there are some materials and guests can try some things. (Reality TV rights optional.)

Staying on-topic isn't strictly necessary. It's fun to start out with one challenge, but maybe everyone will get off-topic and you'll wind up with a Solar-Powered Hovercraft and an Automated Dice Roller. Who knows? :-)

One of those days

Ever have one of those days when you're pretty much sorry you did every single thing you did that day?

1. Woke up. Found about eight million spots of cat puke all over the house. Again.
2. Went to work. A bummer right there, really.
3. Bought lunch; arrived back at work just when the delicious leftovers from the sales meeting became available for the rest of us.
4. Got productive just when I was starting to feel guilty for not coming home.
5. Made a side trip to pick up some stuff rfrench and I needed. Bad idea. Mostly, all I found was crap we didn't really need, crap I then felt obligated to spend money on.
6. Came home. Was greeted with "You missed some spots of cat puke this morning. It ruined the finish on the dining room table."

Right then. Can I have today over?