Today's big treat was the geeksoc quiz, which I've been looking forward to ever since coming second by half a point this time last year. It was an experience of mixed delights. We'd been thrown out of our corner of the pub by a double-booking, leaving us cramped up. Our team got a second "Summon James to Tell You The Answer" card precisely because only two of us had chairs - Calypso spent much of the quiz standing, while the rest crouched on the floor. This made discussion quite hard, and the quiz was less fun accordingly. Half-way through, the other party brought in their DJ making it impossible to hear anything, and also barring any sort of involvement unless you knew exactly what the answer was.

The quiz itself was probably fine, but for me a pub quiz is not a matter of merely getting answers right - it's about the conversation the questions produce - and this element was spoilt. The noise prevented the quizmasters from telling us who the other teams were or how they were doing - thus removing the element of competition, and I think at the end most people were ambivalent to having won or lost. A shame.

Obviously, being a geeky one, it was a mixed bag - obscure questions about things which were obscure in the first place. I know more about Death Note than the average human being, but the questions were aimed at the super-average nerd. I was a useless team member for the Anime, Video Games and RPG rounds, and only sparingly helpful in Film and Sci Fi and Fantasy. Which was no different to last year, but the uncomfortable backdrop as described above made it more pronounced. Still, I acquitted myself well - by which I mean there were no questions I should have known but didn't.

Still, I made a few friends. I glomped someone into the team because of his "Frak You" tee - a soft spoken American here for a year - but it soon turned out he was a huge Doctor Who fan (Troughton - Donna - Cybermen, but only the Mondas ones), so we had a bit of a blissful natter. The rest of the team was a future nurse and a former mathematician. A friendly Fresher, Alzarius, who I met playing "Which Character from Sci Fi am I?" - he was a particular extra from Return of the Jedi. Neat, but he struck me as a little arrogant - which is a trait I tend to like when not being pointed at me. There's a particular blend of perky that reminds me of one of Friend 1's exes. He rubbed me up the wrong way very badly the last time we met - rumours that this was merely cos he killed Adric in the Doctor Who Game have been exaggerated. He was also a shallow attention-seeker, and every time I meet someone of his Type now I instantly see through them and become antagonistic.

This manifested itself when Alzarius started making origami boxes, and handed one over to me, evidently very proud of himself. Which I shouldn't have resented, because it's something I do all the time - but I like to think I do it not to show off, but to give my friends genuinely cool gifts because I adore them and they're marvellous. We were smack bang in the middle of the Anime round, to which I couldn't contribute a jot. So I unfolded his box, refolded it as the Starship Enterprise and handed it straight back. Felt a bit like using the Force for evil (anger leads to suffering...), but it was still fun and as a party trick, got me noticed by everyone - I've promised to demonstrate proper origami to a mathematician and old friend at the next geek meet.

This was also how I met Navi, another Fresher. I wonder if I seem as old to him as he seemed young to me. A Trekkie whose ex-girlfriend did origami - make of that tidbit what you will. Everyone kept getting his name wrong, because the biro had died before he could do the last letter of his name on his name label, but it turned out he was auditioning for the same band I am so we talked music a bit. All the while, the new piece of paper in my hand had turned into the Liberator. At last! I know this means nothing to you, but the Enterprise only turns into a ship because it is Box Pleated, and I suddenly realised that this was the breakthrough I had sought. There are sci-fi ships all over the origami-web, but my two are sorely ignored - I've designed an origami TARDIS and Dalek to fill the gap, but now I feel a real sense of achievement. Especially because Tydar, Prince of Cats, guessed which show and ship it was with only the smallest of clues. He is my new best everything.

It struck me again that we were the irritatingly cliquey people from last year - I felt a lot more at home in the soc with there being little people beneath me. Not being a roleplayer, video gamer or anime fan, Geeksoc has me at a disadvantage much of the time. Everyone else went on to Pub II - the combination of temperature + loud music + cramped made me unbearable on the train home. I still have a bit of a headache this morning.

Home was cosy. I've rearranged the room again - I like it less now, but the desk had to go somewhere. It sort of works, and probably uses space better, but I do lament the loss of my photo shrine. A letter had come for me from Australia - can you remember me plugging Swap-Bot a while back? I'd posted off all my swaps a few days earlier. The theme was Mascarade Masks - she's sent a close up of a small face-mask, pink and studded and marvellous. I don't know why it seems familiar. She'd also stuffed the envelope with pretty papers and art bits. Woo hoo!

Oh, and Friend 4 had been to see John Simm in a play. She ended up sitting two seats away from David Tennant and Georgia Moffat, two rows behind Catherine Tate and within spitting distance of Tim MckInnery. Emoticons are not something I like to do on my erudite blog, but some times words are just insufficient:

0_o