May 11th, 2012  
 
After a restful nights sleep, Jeremiah and I both met at the Starbucks in the lobby of the Cambridge Marriott and sipped our morning cup of scalding lava delicately. Then we set off to find the Gambit Game Lab to meet up with Sir Todd Harper. After rounding the entire block, we realized the lab was right next door. So we checked in at the front desk and rounded the corner to the elevators, where the doors opened and lo and behold Todd Harper greeted us with open arms. It was not unlike Carol Channing popping out of a window in the wall on Laugh In. I felt like Ruth Buzzi. We laughed, we kikied, we hugged, a lovely time was had by all.
 
Then we got down to business, headed to the 3rd floor where Gambit shares office space with Google. We met Patrick Kelly who coordinated our trip and accomodations.  He welcomed us to Gambit, and indeed we felt very welcome.
 
We proceeded down the hall of games created by the game lab. A whole wall of beautiful posters emblazoned with some fabulous art from their games. They were impeccably accomplished works of graphic design in their own right.

I'm glad we were both dressed to the nine's for our tour of the lab, because we were then introduced to a Lord. As we were ladies ourselves, we were in proper company. In the next office Todd introduced us to Generoso Fierro a Lord of the Principality of Sealand, which was news to me because I had not known a Sealand before today.
 
Then we went to Todd's office where I was reunited with a delightful old friend of mine, Clara Fernandez who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the lab. We worked together in the testing lab at GameTap on Sam & Max Season One and URU, and hadn't seen one another in over 5 years. It was a delightful reunion and we quickly dived into the details of the past few years, games that we loved, and plans for the next few days. She showed me a very sexy Japanes DS game called Dual Love. The demo she showed me involved a mini-game where the player massages a twink in a shower, while he lets out pleasurably nelly grunts and groans. She gets our taste in games, but not in men. I haven't tasted a Twinkie in years.
 
After a while we toured around the rest of the department and saw the various labs, offices, and met a gauntlet of professors and students of Gambit.

Later on we parted ways and Jeremiah and myself were let loose on Cambridge, so what did we do? Commenced a'shopping, of course. We took the train down to Harvard square and basked in some proper New England realness. There were people bustling about on their daily tasks in the overcast coolness of the early afternoon.

We essentially had no idea of what we were doing, or where we were heading when we happened upon a haberdasher, a hat shop! No, not any hat shop, a Goorin Bros. Hat Shoppe, my favsies.  At the time I was wearing a Goorin Bros. cap and the various salesfolk complemented mon chapeau. At one point we had all of the lovely ladies working the store closely held within our court. We told them we were on a hat diplomacy mission from Atlanta and we were in desperate need of some dashing lids. They helped sir Bratton into a delightful embroidered cap, and pegged me as a felt-blocked fedora type of fellow. They were right, and so was the hat.
 
Upon leaving the shop, we sauntered around Harvard square and saw the statue of Sir John Harvard, who started the whole institution. Tourists were posing around the statue for their pics. It irks my nerves when anyone does that. How gauche. I politely snapped a photo of the statue by himself, out of respect, and carried about my merry way.

After several hours of shopping and galavanting around the square, we messaged Sir Harper and met back up with him at Gambit. He was playing Skullgirls on the PS3 when we arrived and demoed all of the characters in the game.
 
The animation is flawless in Skullgirls, but the HUD is a mess of ungodly proportions. You would think since they put so much attention into making a fighting game featuring an exclusive lineup of ladies, they could have at least femmed-up the displays a bit. The life bars and meters were all metallic with harsh angles. They should have added some frippery to soften all that butchiness.

We left Gambit to eat at Rolling Bones for some good olde-fashioned southern sweet tea in a mason jar, fried okra, corn fritters, and pulled pork sandwiches. Todd had mentioned they used to cater friday lunches with BBQ from this joint, but had to quit because everyone was asleep by 2:30. I caught wind of the tranquilizing effect an hour later where I had to retire to my room to have a fall-out of my own. The cholesteral-laden goodness in my tummy sent me down into a deep sleep, which I welcomed while covered in plush white bedding.