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In 2004, Karen got me interested in an online game called Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates. It's got a great online community and encourages lots of teamwork at little Tetris-like puzzles in a supercute and non-violent environment. I was hooked pretty much on the spot.

Little did I know that scarcely a month after Karen convinced me to start playing, she would be flying out to San Francisco for a Yohoho! Puzzle Pirate party with the game developers and lots of members of the community. I had something like two days of notice in which to whip out a pirate costume for that party. I decided to try to recreate the outfit that my little pirate always wears, with a bit of a twist because real life is always a bit different from video games. (For example, I have a nose.)

I was working on this costume right up until Karen arrived. The night of the party, she was in the bathroom getting into her blue furry mermaid outfit, and as she came out of the bathroom, she caught me feeding the sash into the sewing machine while it was still around my waist. (I had sized the sash incorrectly and didn't have time to fix it.) Spending a night with people I'd only met through the internet was a very strange experience; all night I wore a nametag which read, "Me mates call me Shantybones." In 2006 I won 2nd prize in a Puzzle Pirates video contest, and for the prize Nemo, one of the staff artists, drew a portrait of my Puzzle Pirates character. The portrait was based on this costume, so it was Shantybones dressed up like me dressed up like Shantybones. Bizarre!

Photos by dmk26.net.

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