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I never posted about Jason's memorial service
One thing that I have not talked about is the memorial service for my friend, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
magic_rat. It was held April 21 in Tempe at The Game Depot, the game store where he had the stroke that took his life. Russet came down Thursday night and I worked a half-day Friday so that we could get into Phoenix early enough to get a decent night's sleep before the memorial service Saturday evening. We also had an engagement Saturday afternoon: Jason's mother invited us over to view three scrap books about Jason that she had previously made (Jason was her firstborn and thus the most thoroughly documented). It was really pleasant spending time with his mother, Grace. She's your classic small Japanese woman with just a bit of an accent: I think she and her husband moved to Hawaii after WW II, which is where Jason was born. They later moved to El Paso and then to Tempe.
The scrap books were a lot of fun, full of stuff that would make wonderful blackmail material should it be shown to a future spouse (though I doubt he ever would have married). It also collected a number of stories and poems that Jason wrote during the years. I think one of the most interesting inclusions were letters that he had sent to his aunt and uncle in Hawaii, thanking for presents, looking forward to seeing them in a future trip, etc. It was very interesting seeing these glimpses into Jason's life. It was also interesting seeing his handwriting over the years: he always had very precise printing.
The only uncomfortable bit was when Grace asked me to go to Jason's bedroom and take a few things.joecthulhu had gone over for a few days and organized things and he'd announced on a private mailing list that she wanted his friends to take some of his games to remember him by, so I knew this was coming but didn't expect it quite so soon. Still, I took a few small games and one larger one: Tortoise and Hare, a German racing game that's a lot of fun. Jason introduced me to this game and I won the first time that I played.
The memorial itself was a lot of fun. Over ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE showed up! It was simply an amazing turn-out. I saw one friend whom I don't think I'd seen in probably 15 years, also saw my friend Kevin whom I last saw at my bachelor's party two years ago. We had over twenty Ex-Buffalos and got a decent group picture which I really need to get posted. But surprisingly, with all the games being played, I didn't play a single one! I was having a great time talking to old friends, talking to Mrs. Sato, etc.
Mrs. Sato had written a thank you speech to all of his friends that was read by a friend of the family. It was quite touching and there were very few dry eyes in the house by the time that it was over. I made a Photoshop collage of 20ish photos that people were able to send me, it came out fairly well and was given to the family a day or two later. It hung on the wall for the entire evening.
Afterwards, some of us old-timers decided to re-enact an old Flying Buffalo tradition and returned to the Denny's that we frequented after seriously long Champions games when the store was in Tempe back in the early 80's. I was more than a little bit tired and went to the wrong location. We ended up at the right location in fairly short order and learned that something was missing when we arrived: the Denny's had no cook! So we ended up at yet a third location and had some fun reminiscing. Unfortunately we had to leave earlier than I would have liked, still, Russet and I had an excellent time.
Jason was a major record-keeper. His LJ blog he used for movie reviews which I always enjoyed reading. His review style was rather different than mine (I write occasional reviews for my Phoenix film club) and it was nice seeing a different perspective on films. We had similar tastes and saw lots of films together. Jason's Xanga blog was a rather different creature. One of us Ex-Buffaloes got a Xanga blog and several of us followed her over and started blogging occasionally. She moved to LJ mainly because of stability/availability issues with Xanga, I followed a little later for the same reasons. There's also one thing that I really like about LJ vs Xanga (though it's possible that Xanga has changed things since then): the way that your Flist works in LJ is so much better than Xanga's, you also get replies to messages instantly, with Xanga you got replies on a daily basis and if you as the blog owner replied to a reply by a fellow Xanga member, they never received notification that you replied to them! I didn't like that.
ANYWAY, the reason for talking about Jason's Xanga blog is that he logged EVERY single game that he played! He always had a notebook in his gaming kit, and when he played he logged the date, time, name of game played, the names of all players, and who won. He updated it regularly and, if he was able to do it soon enough after the game, included a lot of detailed information from the game. It's interesting to read for some game tactics, and he discussed what worked and what didn't. His goal was to average more than one game per day for an entire year. As an average, he came close: here's his February 2007 summary, he listed "62 playings of 41 games, 6 of which were new to me". He was out every Friday night with one of two game groups, and generally every Saturday and Wednesday night. I later asked him to compile a monthly list of games played and the number of playings: it's a frightening list. ;-) Even more frightening was his annual list: for 2006, "634 playings of 275 different games, 114 of which were new to me. My totals from last year were 616 playings of 246 different games, of which 111 were new to me, so I managed to increase slightly in all three categories."
I definitely miss The Rat. He was a cool friend. We're doing a Champions game at the convention next month, sort of a memorial for him.
magic_rat. It was held April 21 in Tempe at The Game Depot, the game store where he had the stroke that took his life. Russet came down Thursday night and I worked a half-day Friday so that we could get into Phoenix early enough to get a decent night's sleep before the memorial service Saturday evening. We also had an engagement Saturday afternoon: Jason's mother invited us over to view three scrap books about Jason that she had previously made (Jason was her firstborn and thus the most thoroughly documented). It was really pleasant spending time with his mother, Grace. She's your classic small Japanese woman with just a bit of an accent: I think she and her husband moved to Hawaii after WW II, which is where Jason was born. They later moved to El Paso and then to Tempe.The scrap books were a lot of fun, full of stuff that would make wonderful blackmail material should it be shown to a future spouse (though I doubt he ever would have married). It also collected a number of stories and poems that Jason wrote during the years. I think one of the most interesting inclusions were letters that he had sent to his aunt and uncle in Hawaii, thanking for presents, looking forward to seeing them in a future trip, etc. It was very interesting seeing these glimpses into Jason's life. It was also interesting seeing his handwriting over the years: he always had very precise printing.
The only uncomfortable bit was when Grace asked me to go to Jason's bedroom and take a few things.
joecthulhu had gone over for a few days and organized things and he'd announced on a private mailing list that she wanted his friends to take some of his games to remember him by, so I knew this was coming but didn't expect it quite so soon. Still, I took a few small games and one larger one: Tortoise and Hare, a German racing game that's a lot of fun. Jason introduced me to this game and I won the first time that I played.The memorial itself was a lot of fun. Over ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE showed up! It was simply an amazing turn-out. I saw one friend whom I don't think I'd seen in probably 15 years, also saw my friend Kevin whom I last saw at my bachelor's party two years ago. We had over twenty Ex-Buffalos and got a decent group picture which I really need to get posted. But surprisingly, with all the games being played, I didn't play a single one! I was having a great time talking to old friends, talking to Mrs. Sato, etc.
Mrs. Sato had written a thank you speech to all of his friends that was read by a friend of the family. It was quite touching and there were very few dry eyes in the house by the time that it was over. I made a Photoshop collage of 20ish photos that people were able to send me, it came out fairly well and was given to the family a day or two later. It hung on the wall for the entire evening.
Afterwards, some of us old-timers decided to re-enact an old Flying Buffalo tradition and returned to the Denny's that we frequented after seriously long Champions games when the store was in Tempe back in the early 80's. I was more than a little bit tired and went to the wrong location. We ended up at the right location in fairly short order and learned that something was missing when we arrived: the Denny's had no cook! So we ended up at yet a third location and had some fun reminiscing. Unfortunately we had to leave earlier than I would have liked, still, Russet and I had an excellent time.
Jason was a major record-keeper. His LJ blog he used for movie reviews which I always enjoyed reading. His review style was rather different than mine (I write occasional reviews for my Phoenix film club) and it was nice seeing a different perspective on films. We had similar tastes and saw lots of films together. Jason's Xanga blog was a rather different creature. One of us Ex-Buffaloes got a Xanga blog and several of us followed her over and started blogging occasionally. She moved to LJ mainly because of stability/availability issues with Xanga, I followed a little later for the same reasons. There's also one thing that I really like about LJ vs Xanga (though it's possible that Xanga has changed things since then): the way that your Flist works in LJ is so much better than Xanga's, you also get replies to messages instantly, with Xanga you got replies on a daily basis and if you as the blog owner replied to a reply by a fellow Xanga member, they never received notification that you replied to them! I didn't like that.
ANYWAY, the reason for talking about Jason's Xanga blog is that he logged EVERY single game that he played! He always had a notebook in his gaming kit, and when he played he logged the date, time, name of game played, the names of all players, and who won. He updated it regularly and, if he was able to do it soon enough after the game, included a lot of detailed information from the game. It's interesting to read for some game tactics, and he discussed what worked and what didn't. His goal was to average more than one game per day for an entire year. As an average, he came close: here's his February 2007 summary, he listed "62 playings of 41 games, 6 of which were new to me". He was out every Friday night with one of two game groups, and generally every Saturday and Wednesday night. I later asked him to compile a monthly list of games played and the number of playings: it's a frightening list. ;-) Even more frightening was his annual list: for 2006, "634 playings of 275 different games, 114 of which were new to me. My totals from last year were 616 playings of 246 different games, of which 111 were new to me, so I managed to increase slightly in all three categories."
I definitely miss The Rat. He was a cool friend. We're doing a Champions game at the convention next month, sort of a memorial for him.