i’ve reached that point in my life where i am so insanely busy (running a business, starting a nonprofit, volunteering, training for a marathon, etc) that if i don’t put something on my to-do list, then it is quickly overlooked. for this reason, i completely overlooked the second blog for radical fun day. i have to admit, though, this past friday wasn’t much fun for me (it was the deadline for one project, a milestone for another project, and i volunteer at the coop on fridays). not being one to back out of my promises (even if i’m late in meeting those promises), i’ve decided to share some of the things i do for fun.

With Friends:
My best memories with friends all involve food. Ask anyone who has been vegan for a long time and they’ll tell you how much they love food. Veganism really does give you a new relationship with food. So one of the things i love to do with friends is to cook. I just can’t imagine a better time than a group of friends in the kitchen, working together, cracking jokes (not eggs:), and talking the hours away.

Of course, you can’t eat all the time. This is where my love for games comes in. In my closet, i have a twister board that i made with an old sheet, duct tape, and markers. Instead of just colors, i used political ideologies that i disagree with (red=commies, green=primitivists, blue=democrats, yellow=libertarians). Unfortunately not many of my friends like to play twister as much as i do. But that’s ok cuz we have lots of other free and cheap games that we can play. Some of my other favorites are spin the bottle and truth or dare.

And there’s always the “anarchist outings” where we play ordinary games with the word “anarchist” attached to the beginning. Games like “anarchist” kickball and “anarchist” freeze tag. Usually the only difference between the anarchist version and the garden variety version is that we don’t keep score and teams are usually pretty fluid (proof that anarchists have no loyalty:).

With Family:
I can’t remember a family gathering that doesn’t involve board games. I recently spent a week with my mom and sister and i can’t count how many times we play sequence, scattegories, boggle, and the-game-with-no-name (its a dice game similar to craps, i guess).

By Myself:
I’m a sorta gamer. Meaning i usually don’t have time to play games, but occasionally i treat myself. The game i play most is Civilization. To me, this proves i have a sense of humor. I mean come on, a social justice, anti-imperialist activist who plays a game where the sole purpose is to become a global hegemony? Sure, you can take the route of achieving diplomatic victory, getting all the other nations to see just how wonderful and peaceful you are, but that makes for a boring game and will likely result in a lower score than genocide. An chances are that at some point in time, a neighbor won’t like the fact that you have no flaws so they’ll try to kill you anyway.

Occasionally i’ll play some online flash games, too. Eric Stoller recently introduced me to the highly addictive Line Rider.

With Everyone:
I like to laugh. My best friends all have two things in common: they make me think and they make me laugh. A recent example of a friend providing laughter was when i was sent the following video:

So you see, us rad folks aren’t much different from everyone else. We’re just a bunch of monkeys who like to dance (and play games).