Well, I’m back from MacWorld San Francisco, finally, after spending the entire day from 9AM until midnight at the airport or in the air.

While feorlen and I were in SF, we had the unique pleasure of meeting altenra, who is an all-around cool chick.

I say “unique pleasure” because the first day I met her, she broke me, and sent me back to my hotel room damaged goods. Undaunted, I spent a second day with her, and she took me to a bathhouse, made me dirty, led me into a dark place, and covered me with chicken feathers.

And it isn’t what you think.

First day, she offered to take me on a walking tour of the city. Her: “How much walking can you do?” Me: “As much as you can. Do your worst!”

Fifteen miles later, she was still skipping and bouncing while I was limping along behind her. I finally hobbled back to the hotel, and spent the rest of the week limping around the convention.

The second day I spent with her, she took me to Sutro Baths, the ruins of an old nineteenth-century bathhouse on Ocean Beach:

You can’t tell from the picture, but rain and constant salt spray have turned the ground into a sea of slippery mud. Behind me as I took this image was a cave, which we went into, stopping along the way just long enough to get COVERED in mud.

“But the chicken feathers!” I hear you say. “Tell us of the chicken feathers!”

Ah, yes, the chicken feathers.

When nightfall comes in San Francisco, the temperature drops very, very fast. feorlen and I didn’t really realize that. We went to meet altenra on a sunny afternoon. Feorlen didn’t spend the whole day with us, but as night was falling, we were still out exploring, and it got suddenly very cold.

“The chicken feathers! The chicken feathers!”

I’m getting to the chicken feathers. She let me wear her down jacket. It sheds. I was wearing a black sweater underneath. Hence: Chicken feathers.

Ah, yes, one more point of interest:

Above Sutro baths is a museum of old penny-arcade machines. And video games, mostly dating back to the Golden Age of the Video Game (about 1980-1984). They had a Star Wars video game–an old vector game made by Atari.

I LOVED this game as a kid. in 1983, I could play for hours on one quarter; my high score was just over two million, nine hundred thousand points.

They had one! They had one at the museum!

First time I have played since 1984, and on altenra‘s quarter. Score: 300,000 points.