Writing words on humain hair with polymer blobs link via
Researchers have finally decided how late is late - 10 minutes, 17 seconds link via
11 steps to a better brain link via
Another reason to get Ed, I mean red link
Parents can't teach pagan beliefs link via
Paris Hilton and Paris Latsis are engaged. She should change her last name to Latsis and name her first kid Paris! link
While it was summer outside, I was without the summer-time mojo inside. I tried to set up situations where I wouldnt score as good in one round in order to set myself up for the following round. But I was unsuccessful and my body rejected the ice cream.
.jpg)
During the beginning of the game I thought that I was doing poorly. My poor green hedgehogs were suffering at the bottoms of many piles of other hedgehogs. In the picture, you can see that Marty (purple) and Adam (blue) were vying for an early lead. Marty was caught using drugs when his hedgehog crossed the finish line first.
Then in the middle game, my hedgehogs were able to escape from the pack and move towards the goal. Marty's hedgehogs kept trying to jump apon my poor hedgehogs but it was not enough to make it clear that I was in position to win. Fortunately, no one was able to stop me and I won!
.jpg)
Seafarers of Catan: 5-6 Player Expansion
For the last game of the night, Roxana suggested Settlers and I jumped at the chance. Ed heard that were we going to play and he bolted to the other room. After an initial problem with selecting the wrong scenario, we were able to start the game.
Jon was clearly out in first place. I was unable to escape the main island but was lucky enough to draw 3 victory point cards. We were pretty viscous in deciding where to place the robber and Rhonda (a new player) was sitting quietly and avoiding confrontation. Fortunately, Jon was not able to build his last victory point in time and I was able to sneakily claim the win.
I have lived in Round Rock for more than 4 years now and am surprised by how many phone books that are delivered to me. Well, on Friday, another one has been delivered to me.
.jpg)
It is "The Greater Round Rock Phone Book". I would have thought that this would be the only book that I would own. Remember the days when you had one or, at most, two phone books? Well, my total is now 8! What is sad is that I do all of my searches online since it is so difficult to look anything up in the phone book.
P.S.: See that quaint old bridge with no saftey rail? Well, infront of that bridge is the rock that this town is named after. Yes. I live in a town named after a round rock.
I have lost count of the number of times that manufacturers stop producing my favorite products. I hate the churn of new products when it means the products that I rely on disappear. Sigh.
This is my last loaf of Jalapeno Cheese Bread by H-E-B. Fortunately, I found out about it a couple of weeks before they stopped making it and was able to stock some extra loaves in my freezer. The manager that I talked to told me that they tried ordering extra cases to no avail. They usually make only a couple of loaves at a time. Why can't they continue this model of small loaf production?!
Oh well... It will be a challenge to reproduce it myself.
Primate programmers for hire link via
Although it's fine at sucking up dirt, finding its way around the room and returning to its charging station, its real achievement is in not only getting the children to clean up their toys first but also tiring them out before bed link via
Country's flags represent other information link via
The first programming riddle on the net link via
Joseph Campbell/Star Wars/The Matrix link via
Cheap gas powered by Google Maps and Gas Buddy link via
Case Study: Accidental Leakage of Cesium-137 in Goiania, Brazil, in 1987 link via
Subject: Re: Gaaah! Back in the job market...
From: John Schmidt
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology
Mark Edwards wrote:
> Lost my perl programming job
<snip>
> I will miss the people, I will miss the work and mostly, I will miss
> the %&*\@%!& paycheck. At least until I find another job.
^^^^^^^^
No wonder you lost the gig - that's the worst data construct I've ever
seen. A hash of subroutines of fileglobs of array references to hashes
of bang line subroutines? That's just WRONG!!!
Ed received another free Mayfair game to review and I jumped at the chance to try it out. I am glad that I was able to try it before buying it because given the name I would have bought it sight unseen. I like settlers games. They are not perfect because they involve a dice. However, you can overcome the randomness of dice rolls by picking your initial sites and by making advantageous trades during the game.
Unfortunately, even though this game has the settlers name to it, it is not a settlers game! Instead, it is a solo adventure game much like Die Rückkehr der Helden. During the game, you explore the board by turning up movement cards. These cards show where you can move for free, where you can move and find resources, and where you must successfully adventure to move. When you finally make it to your selected spot on the board, you uncover a chit that gives you resources and you teleport back to the start city. When you are in the start city and not adventuring, you can turn in resources for victory points.
And that is pretty much it. The only negative thing that you can do to other people is drink a potion that can reduce everyone's hit points by one (which is used as the maximum movement. You can spend a turn healing it). We rarely traded in this game. And this game took a long time to play (2:30 with rules explination).
I spent much of the game increasing my statistics instead of getting victory points. It was a race between Ed and Jon winning the game. At least I was 1 victory point behind them when the game ended.
.jpg)
To finish out the night, I play this light and quick dice fest. Unfortunately, the dice hated me tonight and I was not able to lock out any column. You can see how poorly green is doing!
Wow. They turned a Ford F-250 pickup truck into a massive vehicle. I wonder if it gets above 10 miles per gallon?
Mmmmm.... tasty!
Wouldn't any kind of oil on the road be dangerous?
Be careful of who you piss off link via
Overheard in New York link via
Astrologer can sue Nasa over comet project link via
Print your own graph paper link via
There is a greater than 50 percent probability of a nuclear strike on U.S. targets within a decade link via
Morse code still beats SMS link via
Giving a $2 tip will get you in trouble with the Secret Service link via
The Swiss are protecting shrinking glaciers with blankets link via
Photos of a 28 course meal at Alinea link via
Testing the limits of human endurance link via
Tonight was a Joncon since Ed was busy this night. We started out by playing a new game that Jon brought back from Boeblingen. You travel from city to city by playing cards in combinations of 1, 2, or 3. Each card has a method of transportation and a number of days that it takes. The object is to travel around the world quicker than everyone else. There are a couple of ways that can make you loose more days in the game. One is to be stuck with the detective at the end of your turn (loose 2 days). Another is for at least one person to make it back to London before your do (loose 1 day). The last way is for someone to draw one of two action cards (out of 20?) that immediately cause everyone to miss one or two days. The last way happened far too many times!
Jon raced out in the lead and stayed there. I decided to say in the rear of the pack. Once Jon made it back to London, I decided to put on a burst of speed and was able to stay the fastest traveller in the game.
.jpg)
I suggested this game and Marty jumped on the chance to play. This time I decided to go for an Elephant strategy. It would have worked well but for one critical time. On the third to the last city, I believe that I played one too many elephants (3) at the start. I won that city but on the next city I got into an Elephant battle with Marty that I lost. If I had kept my other double Elephant card I could have played 6 by the second turn and won. Unfortunately, Marty switched suites and out-Elephanted me. I went from 2nd to 2nd to last.
Oh well, still a fun game!
.jpg)
Marty could not grok my Zero playing style. For one hand, when it was my turn, I could not improve my hand. So rather than giving someone else a better card in the hope of improving my hand in the future, I knocked the table. Someone else knocked the table soon after that and the round was quickly over. Marty was shocked to learn that I had a score of over 20 for that hand! He says that the Gathering of Friends plays this game differently.
.jpg)
For the last game of the night, Roxana played with us and chose this game. This was a somewhat quick and light game. Unfortunately, my travelling luck was weak tonight and I lost the game.
Matt decided that the Meta game would be a game of Kill Dog. So we played one practice game. Not a bad game. No one got in the mood and acted like a criminal. The game would be better with real money and plastic squirt guns filled with water.
Yay! Another game of Tichu! Sadly, I have gotten to the state where this is the only enjoyment that I get out of Russcon. I'm flawed, I know.
This game of Exxtra royally sucked for me! There were two new gamers playing this game and they did not make their own decisions. For example, at the beginning of the game, I had rolled a 7-3 and placed it on the 4 (leaving the 5 open). Play continued around the table until the person on my right's turn. He rolled a 7-6. Everyone started shouting to knock me off and he grinned and did it. So instead of getting 5 points for himself, he chose to take 3. Sure, during the game you knock off the leaders or people who you are competing with. But at the beginning of the game when we are all still at 0? Make your own decisions and don't listen to other people and help them win at your own expense.
Of course I was knocked off repeatedly during the game and came in last.
A miniature Christmas light gives off about four tenths of a watt of energy, mostly in the form of heat, so that, in effect, we have covered the earth with tiny bulbs, six for every square metre. These bulbs are burning twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, year in and year out. link via
E-mails 'hurt IQ more than pot' link
How the customer expained it link via
Hubble's top 10 discoveries link via
Orson Scott Card is glad Trek is dead link via
Combining Yahoo Traffic and Google Maps link via
The Oh-My-God [Magnum] particle link via
Real estate agents do not have your best interests at heart link via
IBM had its second annual (at least for me) car show. There were a lot of Corvettes (big surprise with rich IBMers), a DeLorean, a Ferrari, and some sweet Mustangs.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
This is a cute, somewhat quick, game where you are racing against others to guess how many Eskimo children (a.k.a. beads) are in igloo huts (a.k.a. small plastic containers). When you start, you quickly grab a hut and shake it. If you can guess with some confidence how many beads are in it, you can put your token on the hut and place it on a card. There are cards on the table (10?) that have either one, two, or three numbers on it. You then quickly grab another one and try again. Soon, all are claimed or no one wants to guess any further. Then, we go around the cards and see if the guesses were correct. If you are the correct and the highest number on the card, then you get your marker back, other people's markers who guess incorrectly, and the card. If you are correct but your number is lower than another person who correclty guess higher, you get your token back but they get the rest of the tokens and the card. If you are incorrect, you loose your token. Play continues until someone runs out of tokens.
I was at one with my inner Ice Giant and I won the game. It is a fun game when it is played with the right people.
.jpg)
This is the new Colovini game where you try and pick up treasures from the bottom of the sea. I didn't like the first playing. It was a brain burner of a game that seemed to drag on far too long. Perhaps other playings can redeem the game for me.
.jpg)
This is a good that that simulates a bicycle race. I always like playing this game. Although tonight I raced poorly. It also played differently than previous times. Adam jumped ahead quickly and stayed ahead the whole game (usually a biker has one burst of speed and then is out of the race). I tried to keep my bikers in a group to support one another but was unable to. So I quickly lost steam in all of my riders. Still, its an interesting game.
This is one of those times when the numbers align. Watch out for five year olds!
.jpg)
Marty brought this game to Russcon and I jumped out of the group that was starting Modern Art to play this game. This is a trick taking game that was self published and given out at the Gathering Of Friends. It is a partnership game that consists of 4 suits of 13 cards and 8 special power cards. At the beginning of the round, 4 of the special power cards are randomly drawn and then auctioned one at a time. Each player will have one bid where they must choose 3 cards from their hand and use them to bid for the card. The player with the highest total will then pass the three cards to the other three players. This happens for all three cards and who ever has the most special cards (or received the special card last in the case of a tie) determines trump.
So, there are already a number of interesting features of the game. You are given some knowledge of the cards in everyone's hand. You are given better cards from the winners of the bidding. And there are an unequal number of cards in people's hands.
The special cards are played during the game instead of a regular card (like Wizard where you can play the special card instead of being forced to play the lead card). Some of the special powers are always wins the trick, change the trump, and bonus points.
The play stops where both people on one team cannot play cards any more. The score is the number of stars taken (1s have 2, 3s have 1, and 7s have 1) times the number of tricks taken plus 5 points for each special card taken plus any bonus points from special cards.
Marty and I scored rather poorly this game. It definately requires some play to determine the best strategy.
Truely a classic partnership trick taking card game and my favorite of that genre. My partner for this game played rather horribly (like they have never played a trick taking game before). For example, with the following cards remaining: KK337, he led KK and then led 33 which lost and went out last because no single card lower than a 7 was played. On another hand, he played a Phoenix on top of a queen when there were aces and the Dragon still out there. We lost.
.jpg)
During my commute home, I experienced the worst driver that I have ever seen! I was on Parmer in the right lane approaching Lamar. The light just turned red. In my rear-view mirror, I see an SUV travelling in the emergency lane. I watch as this vehicle cuts in just behind me and then force its way across two other lanes of stopped cars into the left hand turn lane. Then while the light is still red, it goes straight through the intersection. I finally make my way on to the IH-35 onramp and notice the vehicle again. I watch as it turns into the right hand lane, and then go to the middle lane, and then back to the right hand lane, and then back to the offramp. I am finally approaching her in the right lane as the offramp begins to turn into the frontage road. I watch as she decides to cut in front of me just before the road disappears. This is when I take the picture and back off to give her some more room. As she approaches 1825, she swerves a couple of times like she is tempted to use the emergency lane. And just as it is possible to turn onto the offramp, she does (way before it is legal to do so). Thankfully, that is the last I see of her.
I wonder what the emergency was. I hope that is not how she normally drives in rush hour.
But that is not all! I see a WRX doing 90 mph and someone else cuts in front of me to avoid having to slow down in the lane that they were in.
.jpg)
.jpg)
I saw some rather stacked vehicles this morning...
Today I had two incidents where I lost computer data. The first time, my Linksys box lost all of its settings. I had to reconstruct that information. The second time, I lost my bookmarks when Windows XP crashed. This was most annoying!
I wish people would make the code more bullet-proof rather than adding new features...
HEB is building another grocery store on the corner of 79 & 1430. This store is less than one mile away from another HEB on 79. So my question is why are they building so close to one another? There are already 3 stores within a 3 mile area! We need a Central Market and not yet another HEB (don't get me started on why they insist on being two different stores)!
When I first moved to Round Rock, I dreamed of owning this large corner lot. In this dream, I would build a Central Market on the first floor, an Alamo Drafthouse on the second floor, some good restaurants (like Chuy's) on the third floor, and a bunch of apartments above that! The other building would be a parking garage that would have a oil change station, gas station, and car wash in it. The rest of the land would be devoted to a park. It would be a great place to live. Why commute if all your needs are in one area? It would be a micro-city.
