February 2006 Archives

Tough Toyota truck link via

Electric racecar link via

Ten successes that shaped the 20th Century American city link via

Manholes of Japan link via

"Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quailtards is letting the quail know 'how' we're hunting them." link via

Bollywood's remake of Fight Club link via

The myth of the rule of law link via

Articles on watches link via

Eye : hand link via

Personal yacht not big enough? Buy a shadow boat link via

Modern Distribution of World Religions link via

Lego Chainsaw massacre link via

Petri gardens link via

The calculus of chasing a stick? link via

"Forced to submerge during attack, depth charges. Last enemy location 08:30h, Marqu AJ 9863, 220 degrees, 8 nautical miles, (I am) following (the enemy). (Barometer) falls (by) 14 Millibar, NNO 4, visibility 10." link1 link2 via

I'm your biggest fan link via

The internet is a great equalizer: an abortion manual link via

Its interesting how one sided Tichu can get sometimes... For a whole game, one team will score all of the points. And it certinally seemed that way this time. However, the last 3 hands were enough for the other team to come back from behind and win. BTW, this score card is missing a desparate Grand Tichu call made by myself at the last hand.

If disc golf is considered a sport, then I picked the right city to live in! I like how their icon is a char. Sitting is not a sport!

So I arrived early to practice. And after a while, I had to go to the bathroom. The problem is that this park is wide open. There are no convienient bushes to use. So I wander over to the baseball buildings and am greeted with this sign. Gah! What am I supposed to do now?

John arrives and gets us to help untangle his disc retriever. He tells us its a new Knizia game.

Which was promptly put to good use at hole 2. On hole 3, I threw a pretty good approach shot which landed 10' from the hole. The trees on hole 4 held John's long range throws back.

At hole 5, John's disc lands pretty far into a prickly bush. Fortunately for John, Rehana volunteers to retrieve it (earning her a disc for her efforts). And on hole 7, both Mike and myself putted for around 30'!

At hole 9, Mike looses his disc high in the trees. And after it is knocked down, John comments on being blinded by the Sun. Which reminded me of my +1 Mike of blinding. And also at this hole, I had a pretty good yoga putt (where I hold on to the tree and bend around it to throw it into the hole).

At hole 12 is my best throw for that hole so far. Certinally within sight of the hole. Our mantra when we throw is "There are no trees." Just pretend there are no trees and throw! It is your mind that causes the disc to fall to the ground...

We also saw this lady who hooked her dog up to this sled like contraption. I wonder what that was about. At least she wasn't riding it.

And whats another water hole without a retrieval attempt?

Lexio

Another game of Lexio for us. It is a game with a good "feel" factor. The tiles are large and attractive. And today the luck was with me. I finished in 2nd.

Hacienda

And another game of Hacienda for us. This time, I decided to try and connect as many markets as possible. What was amusing was that I had complained about always playing this game as the start player. So when Mike pulls out my blue score marker when determining the start player, I seriously thought that he "fixed" it (still do in fact :-).

Tihcu

Ahh, such a one sided game. But I can't complain since I was on the winning side. ;) The only mistake that I made was not calling Tichu after Marty called Tichu before the pass. In my hand was a number of winners (Aces, Phoenix, etc). So I figure he must of had a bomb. It turned out that he did have one but broke it up to play over my straight.

We had a chili cook-off at work this afternoon, complete with beer. Once beer is in the picture, employees go home afterwards. So, since I came home at 4:30, I decided to head out and do a round of disc golf. It was sunny and some what warm. However, there was a constant breeze. I was surprised that I was able to complete the round in less than an hour. In fact, I had to wait 10 minutes for other golfers in front of me (so I could have done it even quicker). The good news was that I was able to par 4 holes (3 shots) and had 6 holes requiring 4 shots. The rest were worse ;). What was amusing was that I was able to throw it across the lake. But on the next hole, my throw went 45 degrees off course into the water. Sigh. It required some wading to retreive it.

Sigh. Still haven't won a lunch time Tichu game this year. Perhaps a small part of that is because we don't play to 1000 points? Still, it was amusing to have a bomb and set Ed's tichu call..

Lexio

Since today was a holiday and the stock markets were closed, Marty had the day off. So he called a game day. And since, over the weekend we had freezing rain and I didn't want to drive in that environment (400+ wrecks in Austin) so I worked instead. Therefore, I decided to take today off and game.

We started out with Lexio. After the rules explination (with one hiccup that I didn't catch when Marty explained the rules), we played. Lauren had all the luck in this game. On one hand, she had all of the twos! Another odity that I noticed was that no one was caught with a two in their hand when the round ended. So no one was really rushing to play 2's.

Hacienda

The next game out on the table was Hacienda. And what was amusing was that Ed had stopped by during his lunch hour and was roped into explaining the rules to this game. This game was fustrating in that Lauren asked questions during every play that she made. And at the end of the game, everyone else performed a group-think and advised her on how to score the most points. Sigh!

Susan seems to be a natural at this game and used lakes and haciendas to get her the win. An amusing quote that she made was that she wanted to eel her bull first before she sent it to the market.

Ostia

Susan brought out a new game that I had wanted to try before possibly buying it. This game has some interesting mechanisms that turn out to be annoying. The first is that people can make any bid amount for cards in a one around bidding. The person who put the cards up for auction can then take any bid or overbid and keep the cards. So you may bid the highest amount and yet loose the auction because the person gave it to someone else. The second mechanism that I didnt like was the blind allocation of cards. You can group your cards into three areas. One gets you money, the other gets you victory points and the third is for the next round. Everyone reveals their selections at the same time. So you might get hosed if you guess wrong. Not a game that I would buy. Or probably play again either.

Get the goods

This is the first time that I played this particular Alan Moon game. Although I have played the mechanics a lot. It feels exactly like a condensed card version of Union Pacific.

Antiquity

Only four tonight as two people cancelled out (because of work even). And I only played one game tonight. But it is a game that I like to play even though I haven;t won yet. But I have an excuse. Two of them are human computers. ;)

This was Doug's first playing and he did well. By well, I meant that he kept his culture alive. Although he was flirting with death. He was always low on food and we had high famine levels. He was barely able to keep up with the incomming graves. Take a look at his necropolis...

I think that one of my problems is that I play it too safe. I should take some graves if it means that I can get more production going. This game does have a snow-ball effect on production.

This game had an interesting hand. Adam calls Grand Tichu. Ed has the Mahjong and a long straight (12 card). So he decides to call Tichu. Unfortunately, Mike bombs Ed. At the end of the hand, Ed, Adam and myself all have one card. Fortunately, Mike leads a single card which both Ed and Adam were forced to pass on and I was able to play on. This allowed a net -100 point loss for the opposing team.

There were able to come back from behind with 3 one/twos which was enough to give them the game.

Kodak camera running Mame link via

Recover fallen balloons and get paid link via

Parking stripe advertising link via

Fighting radish link via

Lego Testament link via

Telescope technology in eyeglasses link via

Food world link via

An airplane taxies in one direction on a moving conveyor belt going the opposite direction. Can the plane take off? link via

Engines of Democracy link via

Another round of disc golf for us. This time, it was cold and windy out with high temperatures in the lower 60s. It was also poorly attended with only Mike A, Adam, Rehana, and myself playing. So the teams ended up with the Ms vs. AR. I was a little worried when Mike "Tomahawk" keeps saying "That was conservative... I am going wild with this throw..." I definately need to teach him how to throw it horizontally.

We had one geeky moment. Adam looked up to see Mike throw his disc and was momentarily blinded by the sun. So I joked that Mike had a +1 disc of blinding. Adam then commented that it was intrinsic to Mike so I had a Mike of +1 blinding...

The above picture was my best shot of the day at hole two. This is a straight throw through trees on either side and over a small hill to the basket.

Another amusing moment was on hole 15. Myself, Adam and Rehana threw into the trees from the high winds. So we joked to Mike that he had better amaze us. So he threw it up into the air and it hit the powerlines once on the way up and again on the way down...

On hole 18 was my best putt. Our first throw was way off to the left and into the trees. Our second throw got us about 15 feet to the hole. But we were down at the bottom of a hill looking up to the hole. And I was able to sink it for a tie for that hole!

Antike

Mike and I planned on playing Antike and then Indonesia for Ed's long game day. So I was looking forward to the trip up north. And this game was different than the other playing was. (Besides the fact that the red tide was not present). There was very little fighting during the game. However, there was a massive military build up. Jon would be the first to build troops. And the rest of us, fearing an invasion from Jon, would build up as well. Towards the end of the game, I built up all of my ships and all but 4 of my armies. I was the first to fight when I needed 1 more city for another card (by attacking Roxana). Jon messed up by missing an opportunity to take out one of Ed's temples for the win. And instead, Mike built another temple for the win.

Kubb

Unfortunately, Mike hosed me by not playing Indonesia. Clark, who we had not seen in a while, brought a Viking throwing sticks game. And he set it up outside and taught us the rules. I braved the cold winds to play with Jon. And we did very well and were in the lead for the whole game. After knocking down the opponent's sticks, I had one shot to knock down the king for the win. Which I did!

Hacienda

Another playing for me, and this is the third time that I have started this game! Which I think is a disadvantage, but anyways... I taught this game to two new people. We used the symmetrical board but I didn't concentrate on building a large land area. Instead, I tried to connect to as many markets as I could. So I played a lot of animals. This probably speeded up the game. At the end of the first scoring I was behind. But during the final scoring I was in the lead. Until Susan's water scored for 20+ points which vaulted her into first! Good first game win Susan!

Jambo

While we were waiting for the others to finish their games, Susan and I started a game of Jambo. This is a game of buying and selling goods. However there are an awful lot of special event cards (items, animals, or people) for my tastes. I had trouble finding the cards that you actually need to win the game. Namely the buy or sell cards. And of the few that I did find, only a couple were usefull to me. Probably a game that I would not play again...

Intrigue

Ed suggested we play this game of backstabing and treachery. And I acquiessed reluctantly. You have a house that has four positions in in that pay 1K, 3K, 6K, and 10K per turn. And you have two each of four types of workers that you send out. And once one category of worker is in a position in a house, only that category can work there. So, you first collect income. And then you make deals with applicants sitting in front of your house. And then send two applicants in front of other people's houses. The meat of the game is in the deal making part. You can make deals with people but they are not honor bound to follow them on their turns.

On the first turn, I sent two people to Ed's house since he was going next and there would be no conflict. I made an agreement for a 6K position and I hoped that he would place the other in at least a 3K position. But Ed put him in the 1K spot. However, I was at least able to maintain parity with Ed during the game since I kept his person in my 6K spot as long as he kept mine in his 6K spot. On my next turn, I sent a person to Mike and gave him 5K to put him in a good spot. However he choose to put him in the worst spot (1K). This effectively burned any future deals with Mike for the rest of the game. Which was surprising that he did that so early in the game.

It was clear that Mike was winning the game. However, only Ed and I saw that and tried to make deals to avoid that. The other players were not so concerned with that and allowed Mike to get paying positions. Ed's workers were decimated towards the end. He had only one worker in a paying position. However, the surprise ending was that Roxana pipped Mike by one 1K for the win! We were definately giving her too much money in our deals with her...

Easy Come, Easy Go

While we waited for the fifth person to show, we played this light filler. But then he showed up and joined the game already in session. Which seemed to work ok. We went for two goals instead of three.

Mu

Next up was this classic trick taking card game which is perfect for five people. Even if one of those people is Doug, who is not totally in love with this game yet. The bidding was quite high for our group. A number of hands had 8 cards bid. I wasn't too successful in trying to be the partner to the Chief. Not even my two 7s...

Hacienda

Another playing of this game for me. This time we used the asymmetrical side of the board. There were no hugh chains of land this time. And many people were trying to connect to a lot of markets. The usual strategy was to place one land and one or two animals to reach the market. Which doesn't give you that much money (2 or 3 dollars). I made one mistake in this game by letting Mike connect to a market and not actively blocking him. And he won (beating me by less than 10 points).

Tichu

Ahh... a good end to the night. I started off pretty well with 2 Ace bombs. But then Adam and Mike scored too many points. So Jon calls Grand Tichu. I was worried that he would be set since Mike also calls Tichu. However, Mike messed up by playing the Phoenix when Jon only had one card left (instead of the Dragon. He was trying to be cute in getting Jon to take -25 points). After we caught back up (800/800), we won the game!

Our heroic team was down 350 points. The game was almost over. This was the time to call Grand Tichu. And, unfortunately, it was not me. Although I did force Mike to do it. And apparaently, it was a risky call. Adam was strong and would have gone out. But Mike did have the right cards needed to go out!

On the next hand, we are now down 90 points. In all probability, this is the last hand. No Grand Tichu call was made. So I called Tichu before the pass. And if I were to make it, it would then be a battle over points. Another problem is that during the play, a lot of points were given to Adam. So now I need to go out first and force Adam to go out last. Sadly, my goal was not accomplished. Although it was an amusing hand!

This game had a lot of one/twos in it. On the 5th hand, I made a risky GrandTichu calll with only the Ace and the Phoenix in my first eight cards. Ed passed me the Dragon. Adam starts out with the standard Ace wish. Both Adam and Mike destroyed their hands trying to stop me. I later find out that Ed had all of the good cards and he was able to stop Mike and Adam when they went over my plays...

Well, it just had to be done. My tree was growing into a dense ball. And given enough time, it would grow into a black hole which would devour the earth. Fortunately for me, my neighbor, Warren, likes to prune trees. And he helped me out this weekend. Well, let me rephrase that. He did all of the work and I stood there while meditating over bonsais. Maybe I should take time lapse pictures of this tree...

Another week of disc golf for us. We started out by flipping discs to choose teams. However, after the dust settled and John and Mike were paired, John declares that he wants to play individually instead. So we needed to reorganize. I am not competitive enough to want to play individually yet.

The only major trouble that we got into this week was on hole 8. John had initially thrown bad. So, he takes a penality and throws again. Only this time, the throw went wild and into a house's yard. Fortunately, he was able to retreive it...

For lunch, we all went to Chipoltes. And it was rather difficult to maintain a chain of cars to the restaurant. Only two of us knew where it was. Fortunately Jon and myself were able to successfully play sheep herder and lead the pack to safety. It seems it was easy to get separated in the drive over there.

Saboteur

Tonight we started out with a light filler. I started out as a saboteur and, rather than playing a card that moves towards the gold, instead played a broken light against Mike. And, of course, now Mike starts calling me a saboteur. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in stopping those damn good dwarves! This game seems stacked against the saboteurs since there is at most 2 of them active. You need to get some good cards in order to win the round. In fact, none of the saboteurs won their round.

Antike

Mike brought a new game for us to play. Your goal is to get a certain number of acheivements in the game. These are for the number of cities (5, 10, 15...), for the number of temples (3, 6, ...), for being the first to discover technologies, for destroying enemies temples, and for the number of occupied sea territories (7 & 14). This game has a circular list of actions where you can move up to three spaces for free and pay if you want to move further. You can mine for resources (either iron, gold, or marble), move armies, build armies, build temples, or make discoveries. Quite simple and yet seems to allow for different strategies. In fact, the FAQ gives you three different strategies to pick. In our game, the people who started the military strategy were in contention for the win.

There were some amusing moments my combination of cards produced the following quote: "My Arabian mother is a MILF." After barbarian Adam decimated Mike, I taunted Mike with the following statement: "I am coming up your rear, Mike" Jon then laughed and said that should be in the movie Brokeback Mountain.

Tichu

When I brought the Tichu deck to the table, Mike bolted! John didn't want to stay for Mu either. So, Tichu it was! Which was good since I didn't play a game of it this week...

For the last hand of the game, Adam calls Grand Tichu since we were behind. I pass an ace to him. But strangely, Jon passes the Mah-Jong to me. So I wish for the 2 I passed to MikeA. Fortunately, we made the bet to win the game. Mike had said that he would have gone out first if Jon had passed it to him instead.