I haven't been much for Christmas over the last 10 or 15 years, but I also don't mind admitting driving around aimlessly through various residential areas looking at Christmas displays makes for a good low-cost date activity.

I haven't looked through the Epstein files closely myself, but these seem like highlights to me. www.justice.gov/.../DataSet%... www.justice.gov/.../DataSet%...

Fun idea for later: we should get some of our musically inclined friends to do a karaoke mashup session...by which I mean, you pick the music of one song, but sing the lyrics of a completely unrelated song. Have fun choosing songs whose meter matches up close enough, but content definitely does not.

Today's crazy Huntington story: one of my SAT prep students had her last session today and got me a gift as thanks (a Dunkin Donuts gift card). I think it's only the second time that's ever happened.

Today's crazy Huntington story: this conversation, paraphrased. Student: You're really smart. Did you go to Harvard? Me: No, but I'm taking the fact that you thought I might as a compliment. Later... Student, to my manager: Did Mr. Tom go to Harvard?

Amy's side of the family tends to have a lot of the same bizarre family stories shared each family gathering. So next event, we're going to set up for family story bingo. Each time someone brings up a family story, mark it on your card.

#HeyTomWhatchaPlayingToday? Two sessions of Tokaido, with a side of Fromage!

On a certain other social network, I got into a discussion about the electoral college, mostly around the claim that going towards popular vote would weight things too much towards a few big cities. I'm accused of misunderstanding the point. But I didn't misunderstand. I outright reject it. /thread

For today's #HappyMondaySurvey, tell me what past event you would change if you had access to time travel. Historical and personal events are both fair game here.

The grand pic of all my PAX 2025 acquisitions! Top row are expansions, other two rows are new standalone games. Remember, friends, I'm just about always interested in setting aside time to play these (or anything else in the collection)!

By the afternoon I was reaching a point of physical exhaustion, so I came home a bit early. But I got some last minute goodies first!

#HeyTomWhatchaPlayingToday? We've got rounds of Wine Cellar, The Gang, and Junk Drawer with friends, plus sampling Goblin Laundromat in first look and Game Makers in the expo hall with Kristine!

I mostly spent the first day looking for clearance and discounted games. I think I did a pretty good job on it.

#HeyTomWhatchaPlayingToday? I spent most of today around friends and getting an idea of what was new, so not a lot of hands-on game time, but did play Number Drop and Tidal Blades: Banner Festival.

Meeting your favorite creators is a time honored con tradition. Here's me with Ify Nwadiwe, the original host of everyone's favorite game show of pedantic corrections, Umm Actually.

#HeyTomWhatchaPlayingToday? Little Tavern, then Takenoko! Side note, it's cool when I see old friends at a game site. I'll probably run into them and more at PAX.

#HeyTomWhatchaPlayingToday? We got a day at the street festival with Jokkmokk, then a day at the godfather's desk with Cash 'n' Guns!

Can I get a roll call on who's gonna be at PAX Unplugged next weekend? And if so, are you there for specific days, or trying to do certain events?

For today's #HappyMondaySurvey, tell me something you're glad you did, but have no desire to do again. What's something you're happy to have done once and only once?

Violets are blue My votes are too Now get out there and choose The best candidates for you

For today's #HappyMondaySurvey, tell me something you think you think more people should know. What are we not talking about enough?

Went to a Halloween party tonight. Since I was sick this week, I didn't have time to prepare a costume or even think much about planning for it...fortunately, someone else came with extra costumes for themselves that she offered to dress me up instead.

It's Halloween and having been sick all week, I didn't have time to prepare anything fun. I did, however, at least have a creative costume idea that felt quintessentially "me". I wanted to take a few decks of playing cards, connect them using metal rings...

Feeling a lot better today and gonna try to do a virtual work session tonight.

Okay, so I'm not sure how much this is a result of recovering from an illness, the fact that I've been exclusively accessing it from my phone for the last few days, and what's going on behind the scenes, but I've made an important observation:

I feel like I've been in this recurring state of "Do I need to start making radical changes to my life or am I just depressed?" over the last week or two and I need to snap out of it.

No context theater: "You don't pay me for my opinion. But you also don't pay me to pretend I don't have one."

#HeyTomWhatchaPlayingToday? The Fox Experiment! For some reason, my foxes all have Italian names.

I ended up with practically no plans over the past weekend, but I probably would have cancelled them. I caught some kind of illness that started getting worse on Friday night, and it's only this afternoon where I'm starting to feel more like myself and trying to do more.

I feel like I've reached a point where I'm consuming so much entertainment that I'm not doing much with creating it. I gotta do something to get myself back to that. So, for the creative and artist types among my friends list, what do you do when you hit that point?

#HeyTomWhatchaPlayingToday? Castles of Burgundy and Barenpark! I won both games, except that I accidentally placed a tile I shouldn't have been able to place on Burgundy.

Today's million dollar idea, courtesy of Amy: you know those ridiculous laws, the ones that are so unusual yet weirdly specific that there's gotta be an entertaining story around why they exist at all? There should be a show where each episode creates a skit on why these exist.

#HeyTomWhatchaPlayingToday? King of Tokyo, then Cascadia!

Dear Mother Nature, I'm cool with the occasional storm to keep things from getting too hot, but I'm not a fan of this whole "all the rain all at once" thing when you compress the whole storm into about 30 minutes. Let it have some time. Also, send more healthy snacks. I mean, you're still a mother.

I don't currently have plans for any protests tomorrow, and I'm not sure I can arrange any on short notice, but if you are, I salute you and owe you a pizza next time I see you.

No, I have not been spending my morning going through the Mario Kart World trailer looking for details that wouldn't be noticed on a first viewing.

Nintendo fans, does anyone want to make predictions for what we're going to see on the Nintendo Direct video the morning after next?

It's Trans Day of Visibility. I am aggressively pro-LGBTQ in all forms. I view my own gender as incidental. I acknowledge it's there, but feel like it means so little that I'd throw it away if it became inconvenient. I use traditionally male pronouns out of convenience, but I'm not attached to them.

#HeyTomWhatchaPlayingToday? Betting on Skull, socializing on Hit or Miss, and placing tiles on Lanterns!

No context theater: "I tried to make my therapist laugh, because that's how you win at therapy."

Today's crazy Lyft story: one of my rides got me within a few blocks of a good board game store, so I took some time off to see if they had some of the games I wanted to pick up previously at PAX Unplugged but weren't in stock then. Good news, they did!

Today's crazy Huntington story: I don't usually do desk duty, but ended up that way today, since I didn't have anyone scheduled for a significant portion of my shift. The way I phrased it was "I've never actually been trained for this, but if they're going to act like I am, I'll play the role".

Unexpected side benefits of visiting my wife while in the hospital: I get to see how much her heart rate changes as make out with her.

Did you know Field of Screams has an off-season haunt? I do now!

I was supposed to have a first date the other day, but she outright blocked me without explanation over what I'm fairly certain was a misunderstanding, and I definitely feel some type of way over it...not only from being misunderstood, but because I'm not given a chance to clear it up.

#HeyTomWhatchaPlayingToday? Video Game Champion! Whichever our NES-era selves is the best gamer? Also, how obvious is it how much the box art is clearly meant to be actual games?

So I don't mind following the planned economic blackout today, but my understanding of any sort of planned boycott, strike, or other money-motivated activism is that they usually aren't effective unless there are negotiations or demands involved. So...what are the demands?

For today's #HappyMondaySurvey, tell me a small change you've made to your regular routine that you think improved your quality of life.

So many are wrapped up in delusion and misunderstanding of the world around them. The blue is what Americans believe are the amount, the red is the actual amount. They're trying to make you believe that those minorities are going to harm you to keep their thumbs on you. #eattherich #propaganda