September 2006 Archives

The group went down to Pease Park today. I can see why they want to close Pease down for disc golfers. There is no grass anywhere! The millions of people that have walked around here have destroyed all of the ground cover. And with all of the trees, the slow growing grass does not have a chance get grow back.

This is the first time that our group has played singles. Curt suggested it and noone disagreed. Oh, and Curt brought his dog, Mingus, with him as well.

Rehana lost her disc up in the tree in hole 2. We called out for our super-hero to save us. Unfortunately, no one responded! I wonder where the masked man went to? "Stick Man" Adam was forced to rip off a branch from a poor unsuspecting tree and knock the disc down.

And on this hole, we had our first animal hit and run. John threw his disc, the disc hit the ground, skipped up, and hit a dog. Who then whimpered very loudly and ran to its owner. It was inevitable I guess. Too many people walking their dogs around here.

My best shot was within range of hole 3. A birdieable putt for sure... but, sadly, I missed....

We went to Hula Hut for lunch afterwards. Good food, but still lacking in spinach. John brought out a deck of cards while we were waiting and we played one hand of mini-bridge. I had the most points (in AKQJ cards) so I was the declarer. Rehana put her cards down and showed me KJ09 and some other diamond cards. I had the Ace and Queen so of course diamonds were trump. Mini-Bridge is interesting and all, but I don't think it will replace Tichu in its greatness.

John didn't play with me today. He said that he had to work today. Work?!? What's that? "Work at home", I say...

On hole 6, I had some pretty far throws. My second throw landed within sight of the goal. Too bad I missed...

There is this tree at hole 14 that is birthing a baby Lorax. I wonder how long the gestation period is?

Unfortunately, plants only seem to think about giving birth to more plants. And my body is getting more sensitive to pollen. Welcome to the allergy capitol of the world.

Tahj Mahal

It has been a while since I have played this classic game from Knizia. Marty likes it as well, so it was easy to bring it to the table. For this game, I decided to concentrate on elephants. I picked and chose my battles, concentrating on gems. I also skipped a lot of battles and, as a result, had a large hand. There were enough cards for my final two battles and for a large bonus at the end. This was enough to give me the win.

Tichu

Marty had to leave soon, but he had enough time for a quick game of Tichu. Unfotunately, our team had the luck-of-the-Ed. The one time I had a halfway decent hand, I was set. I had the Dog, two Aces, and the Mahjong with other good cards. I called Tichu before the pass and passed my partner the Dog. I wished for an Ace which hit my partner. He dogged me back but I could not go out first. Sigh...

Other games played:

Neuland

Today was the last game of Tichu for the lunch-time group for a while. Our group is on critical life support now. So sad...

This was a slow game of Tichu. Very see-saw like. First the opponents score most of the points. And then the heroes scored most of the points. After 8 hands, the score was tied at 350 to 350. On one hand, I had an Ace bomb, no Dragon or Phoenix, and a number of single cards -- such a waste of Aces. And then I had a Tichu hand. But I made a mistake. I was left with QQ2Phoenix and I lead the pair of Queens instead of trip-Queens. For the next hand, I was slightly on tilt. I called Tichu again. Fortunately, Adam had a Phoenix and an Ace to help me out. Next up to the plate, was Ed. He called Tichu and led an eight card straight. Adam over Tichued and played a higher length eight straight. He then played the Dragon and Jacks-full over Kings. Ed took that full house with Aces-full over Kings just to show that he really did have a Tichu hand.

Went to the Golden Wok today for Dim Sum. Their Dim Sum is satisfying enough. Nothing spectacular and certinally not as good as Marco Polo. But the problem with Marco Polo is the distance. Golden Wok is 12 miles away from me whereas Marco Polo is 24 miles away. Twice as far, 12 minutes longer, and 1 more gallon of fuel spent. And then you have to spend it again to get back home. The difference between the food is not that much better.

Male restroom etiquette link via

Tank recovered from the bottom of a lake after fighting on both sides link via

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. link via

Penn and Teller: Bullshit link via

How to talk like a pirate link via

A gambler with the equipment can gain an edge of between 20% and 100% over the casino on roulette link via

Minature food link via

Finish college in one year and earn a profit link via

I like tacos link via

What you can learn from spaghetti sauce link via

Working 1:3 scale model Ferrari 312PB link via

Pantone matching link via

The Supersonic Future link via

Moonwalking bird link via

Using a gun to protect camera equipment on airlines link via

Viking Fury

Tim had a game day to both celebrate his birthday and to sell of some of his large collection of games. So the group went to eat lunch at Extreme Pizza after disc golf. Afterwards, we stopped here for some gaming. I brought out Viking Fury to the table. The Ragnar Brothers started out by producing games on tea towels. And this is one of them. On the plus side, the game is about Vikings, so there is possibilities for some role playing. But the negatives of this game really dampen my enthusium of it. There are quests that you perform that provide a sense of history of the Viking people. But it is hard to complete them yourself in one turn. If you do not finish a scenario, it is really easy for other people to just swoop in and steal that card from your grasp. It kind of unmotivates you to try and perform one of the requirements for those cards. Since it makes it easier for someone else to finish.

Still, I am glad I played it. I would place this game into the once-a-year category of games.

The group went out to Cat Hollow to play disc golf today. Nick brought out his brother-in-law, Eric. John and myself were on one team. And we were playing pretty good today.

My best throw of the day was at hole 12. I was also the farthest that I have thrown it here. Within site of the basket. But my partner was able to throw even better and land it on that ring of rocks that define the putting "green". Way to go pardner...

At Old Settlers, I was waiting for John to show up, so I practiced by throwing some discs. Unfortunately, I almost lost one. I must have spent twenty minutes looking for it. I mean, how hard can that be? You would think that it would be easy to spot a bright yellow disc in the middle of a green field while standing on top of the hill. But it was not where I thought it would likely be. Finally, out of desperation, I walked along the river and found it. If you squint hard enough, you can spot hole one off in the distance...

John finally catches up to me on hole three. And he shows me his birdie beads that he bought to help him keep track of the score. Unfortunately for him, I was beating him by a stoke a hole. He eventually ran out of beads after hole 6 and gave up keeping score...

A front was moving through and it was really windy out. It was hard controlling our discs. The wind would rotate the discs during their flight so that they hit the ground at an angle. They would then start rolling in a curving direction. The last time we were in high winds that were blowing against us, the discs would turn around and roll back past us. This time, the wind forced one of John's discs to perform a U-turn on the road. Very amusing...

I had a good first throw on hole 9. Close enough to be within birdie range. But with this wind, it was really hard to putt. We stopped on hole 15 due to time running out. On that hole, I putted three times trying to get the disc in the hole. Tough putting indeed...

El Grande

We continued the old game theme by bringing out El Grande to the table. Another game that has sadly been ignored by the Cult of the Newists. It seems like that was one of the first area control games that I have been introduced to way back when. But, perhaps my nostalgia is affecting my memories. And it hasn't lost anything from its old age, either. There is still a lot of tough choices that you are forced to make in the battle for royal favor.

Tichu

But we cannot forget Tichu either. Mike was willing to play once again so Jon and myself took advantage of the opportunity. The heroic team jumped out to an early lead. But we learned to not count the opposing team out. They were able to claw their way back into the lead and race to the finish for the win. The luck just left us and we were unable to score any points to get us the win. Above is one of my two Tichu hands.

And here is what happened: I was able to play my 5, King, and Ace. I then lead my loosing full house. Jon plays over it with Jacks-full. I bomb with my 9s. Jon responds with an over-bomb of 10s. Mike over-bombs again to wrest control away from Jon. Mike had passed me the Phoenix and I was left with two cards (the other being the Dragon). Mike had two choices to lead next and he correctly chose the single card. John then wakes up and over Tichus me! I play the Dragon and then Phoenix to go out first.

Mike likes to sing songs in a stream of conscienceness. Because of this, people call him Mike-Pod. So, in an effort to quiet him, I challenged him to sing a song that contains the word "chocolate". Mike could not think of a song. But John could:

Laughing gas these hazmats, fast cats,
Lining them up like ass cracks,
Ladies, homies, at the track
It's my chocolate attack
Shit, I'm stepping in the heart of this here
Care bear bumping in the heart of this here
Watch me as I gravitate,
Yo, we gonna go ghost town,
This motown,
With yo sound
You're in the place
You gonna bite the dust
Can't fight with us
With yo sound
You kill the Inc.
So dont stop, get it, get it
Until you're cheddar header
Yo, watch the way I navigate,

The Gorillas, Feel Good Inc.

Mike still claims that there is no song that contains the word chocolate...

Time for more large pictures... I used the Canon TS-E 24mm lens to take a panoramic picture of my game shelves. with available lighting. There is a large window in that room, but it is in a protected location and only receives indirect lighting. You can really tell how the light is stronger at one end and trails off to the end that has that large window.

Click on them for the larger versions. I try to cram as many games in those bookshelves as possible. So I usually sort them by size instead of similiar games or titles or authors or whatever. This causes problems for some of our game members.

I wanted to try out Dot's new location for lunch today. Dot's burned down last year. And they were trying to raise money for a new place in the interim. I read in our Community Impact Newspaper July edition that Dot's had rebuilt a new restaurant in Pflugerville. I figured that it would be open by now. Sadly, it wasn't. So I drove over to that African restaurant (Ts?). But it was closed as well. Gah!

On the way out of Pflugerville, I ran across Cafe Mangú. I had read about it but was unable to find it. It is pretty well hidden on the west side of 1825 pretty close to IH-35. The restaurant doesn't even have its own parking. You have to park in the auto repair shop next door.

I ordered the Cubano and it was pretty good (although they used a runny mayonnaise sauce). The maduras (plantain banannas) were excellent. It has been a long time since I have had a Cubano. I miss South Florida at times.

How to remove logos from cell phones/PDAs with sugar link via

Probability and game theory link via

Lego Settlers of Catan link via

Countries ranked by balance link via

Wearing helmets more dangerous for cyclists link via

Bridge, by Wolfgang Kramer (use the cool Wizard deck) link via

World's largest telephoto lens link via

"I'm waiting for the kind of Monty Python court case where exhibit A is a pot of cleaning fluid and exhibit B is a pair of my old socks," he jokes. link via

Can you drive too fast for a speed camera? link via

Reverse engineering Patsy's pizza link via

Weather forecast accuracy details link via

Man finds car seven months after loosing it link via

Today we took a road trip and went to a course out in Lago Vista that was new to us. John, myself, Mike and Jon carpooled there (meeting Jon at Starbuck's of course). We arrived early, so we practiced a bit. When everyone else arrived we chose teams. But, instead of our usual process of flipping discs, John got out a deck of cards. We had decided to have three teams of 2, 2, and 3. I imagined that he would use sets of cards to distinguish the people like Clubs for team 1 and Hearts for team 2. Or, perhaps, he would use the rank of cards like Aces, Kings, or Queens. But he was determined to be different. The black Aces would go together, the red Aces would be a team, and the three Kings would form the last team. Okay. And after all of that, we still rearranged the teams...

Man, the lake is low! No possibility of water on our course.

Seven people is a lot to play with. But we played quickly today. Perhaps it was because the course was shorter than usual. Or the fact that we were the only people out there today.

On hole 5, they had tied together with bailing wire a large vine that had been cut apart. It made an effective obstacle since the majority of people hit it.

It seems that hole 6 is no more... I wonder why?

There are an aweful lot of deer around here in Lakeway. Unfortunately, none of them chose to be targets for John when he was throwing discs. They stayed away from the course while we were there. Perhaps the Elk warned them...

Curt was having problems with his foot today. So he took his shoe off and played with out it. It didn't prove to be any handicap.

I had a nice throw on hole 18. The tee is at the base of the hill and the basket is on the top. The basket is protected by cedar trees.

Adam looks like a Cheshire Cat, don't you think? We went to a restaurant for lunch. And on our way home, we decided to take a detour to check out another close course in Leander. However, it was quite the adventure to get find it. The directions are truely atrocious: "Directions: At the corner of Osage Dr. and Bagdad Rd. West on 1431, go 1 mile past 183 and turn right on Bagdad. The park is 4 miles down on the left at the entrance to the subdivision."

It didn't help that John's odometer doesn't have tenths of a mile and I used it to measure out four miles. Eventually we gave up and turned around and started looking for parks. Not many people have heard of disc golf, so the general public turned out to be no help at all. We drove around some subdivisions a bit and eventually worked our way back to the corned of Osage and Bagdad. Of course, after all that effort, I finally noticed that the park was visible from that intersection.

The corrected directions should say: "At the corner of Osage Dr. and Bagdad Rd. ... The park is ... on the left at the entrance to the subdivision."

The park is really tiny and crowded with residents. It is perhaps 200 feet on each side with a gated swimming pool in the middle of it.

Jon managed to throw out of bounds into a condominium. Mike then proceded to throw his disc into the side of one of those buildings narrowly missing a window. He ditched that disc.

Oh yeah, now you tell us that this is a private park.

For my Pilates class tonight, I had a real workout. I was the only one to show up tonight and so my teacher, Joey, took this opportunity to show me flow yoga. You see, I am a big fan of working on "core" in yoga. This is the strengthening of your abdomen and back muscles. Because I constantly request a hard workout, I was shown one tonight.

In flow yoga, you move from position to position while breathing. On your drawn in breath, you perform one pose. And on the exhalation, you move to the next pose. Together, these poses are called a Vinyasa.

Joey felt that a warm environment would help loosen and stretch the muscles. So he turned off the ceiling fans and the air conditioner. Now, I didn't mind that so much. But I do question how much warmer my muscles were. There is not that much range in muscle temperature. Too cold and you experience hypothermia and die. Too warm and your brain cooks and you die. Anyways, back to the sweat...

We started out with 5 Sun Salutations called Surya Namaskara A. We then moved on to the next more complicated series called Surya Namaskara B. And, after that we moved to different stretches and poses.

This was the most I have ever sweated. Not like its an accurate measurement, but it felt like I sweated 1/2 liter of water in an hour. I went through the following stages of sweat:

• my arms and legs are getting sweaty now
• ok, they are covered in sweat
• my mat is starting to get wet
• now my chest is starting to sweat
• I am damp now
• my shirt is starting to stick
• gah, every part of the shirt is stuck to me
• I feel like I participated in a wet tee-shirt contest and all I got was this soaking wet t-shirt

I was certianly not ready for that. And if you think that yoga can not be strenuous, then you must try this out!

Besides being draining, my real problem was controlling my breath. I am not used to breathing like this. I started to breath in and out a little more quickly than I should have. Which caused me to hyperventilate. You can catch your breath in the last down dog pose of the series, but it is hard to breath normally in this unnatural position. Also, in the poses, you are stretching out. You are supposed to use your breath to help stretch out. And this extra effort is taxing you and making it more difficult to catch your breath.

The other time I was alone with Joey, we did a more strenuous version of Pilates. And on that day, I had a pretty wicked charley horse. I was limping for a couple of days afterward. Between those two days, I think that this day was the toughest.

Ahhh... a new toy arrived. No, wait. I don't own that toy yet. I have been intrigued by the tilt/shift lenses that Canon makes. You can read more about them and what they do here and here. So I decided to test drive one out by renting it from this store. RentGlass.com has a cool model. Very Netflix like. Their only problem is that they have very low inventory. So you have to fight over renting one. You get notified over email that a lens that you are interested in is in stock. So you hurry up and try to rent it. But 99% of the time, someone else got lucky and rented it first.

My first picture was one of Roads and Boats. I set up the tripod against the table. The camera was positioned about three feet above the table and was pointed downwards at a 47 degree angle. This is a fixed (or prime) lens, so I positioned the box on the table mostly in the field of view. I then adjusted the shift to move the box into the frame.

There are two problems with this lens. The first is that it is manual focus. You can overcome this by repeatedly half-pressing the shutter while moving the focus around. The familiar red boxes will light up when a focus lock is detected. However, the focus can get squirley when the lens plane is moved around. The other problem is that the minimum aperature is f/3.5. This is 2/3 of a stop bigger than a f/2.8 lens. Which requires more light to shoot and looses out on bokeh. 24mm is a pretty good field of view if I wanted to get this to take food shots, or architecture shots. The 45mm version has a minimum aperature of f/2.8 which is the minimum that I want, but it is not an "L" lens. The 45mm would have a smaller field of view as well, so I would have to possibly stitch pictures together.

Although I will admit that the histogram looks suspicious. Small range and some blown colors.

At our weekly game at Old Settler's Park, we came across some weird signs. Perhaps they were for a tournament. Four groups of people who switch against each other at each hole? Strange.

On hole 1, I had my longest throw yet. Right in line with the hole. Just way off to the right. It looked like it was going for the lake. And I was not even trying my hardest.

This week was a repeat of last week! John and I were competitive at first. But I pulled ahead. John made a run for it on the last three holes. However, I remained in the lead at the end. Good game, John.

Merchants of Amsterdam

Tonight we concentrated on older games. And first on the table was a game that I don't think that I have played yet (sad but true). This is a majority game where there are three main areas where you fight over (the city of Amsterdam, the four seas, and the commodity market). On a player's turn, they flip a card over and assign it to one of three places. One place is the discard pile (no one gets to use it). One place is on the auction block (everyone has the chance to bid on it). And the other place is only for the current player's use. For the auction, this game has a rather unique auction clock. It slowly counts down from 200 to 50. The person who stops it first gets to buy it. And since I have heard stories about how fragile it is, I decided to keep it safe. I would start it ticking and then someone would shout out "stop" and I would stop the clock. The only problem was if multiple people said "stop" at the same time. And to resolve that tie we used modsies (much to the chagrin of Gravitt).

In this game, everyone bid way too much for cards. But since everyone was doing it, I don't think that that mattered as much. Prices were relative. The final scoring round was very tense with Jon winning the game.

Ursuppe

Ahhh, Ursuppe, the game of poop... teheheh... how I love to say that. Excuse me, sir. Please take that chit somewhere else... hohoho.

Its been a while since have played this game. And of course you forget which combinations of genes you should go for. Adam went for tentacles and substition, Jon went for movement I and Life Expectancy, Mike and I went for Parasitism. Which put fear into the others. And, of course, we ran into a rules question. The rules state "For each Foodstuff cube less an amoeba needs a foreign amoeba on the same square, who's owner pays 1BP to the bank instead." Mike and I took that to mean that one person could pay 2BPs for us. While everyone else took it to mean that we needed two amoebas for 1BP each.

Still a fun game to play after all these years.

Ichiban is currently my favorite place to eat lunch. And it is certinally the best lunch-time sushi restaurant (my favorite for dinner being Musashino). What won me over was its close proximity to work (an hour lunch including drive time is easily doable), their sushi combination lunch, and their friendly sushi chefs. The restaurant has changed management during this year. And because of that, the experience has suffered. But let me describe what you used to get.

You would be greeted with a very excellent smoked eel salad made with cucumbers, daikon, seeweed, and other green vegtables. I have yet to find a close match in grocery stores so I could make my own. I order the Sushi combo "C". It comes with miso soup and a salad. The salad is basic, but the carrot-based dressing is divine. I should try and replicate that recipe sometime.

The sushi "C" combo has a salmon roll and six pieces of nigiri sushi (salmon, two tuna, snapper?, krab, and shrimp). Also accompanying the combo is some tsukemono which is pickled vegtables. The japanese sure know how to pickle things. I don't like pickles but I love this.

And after the meal, you would be given something for dessert like a piece of fruit (orange or watermellon) or the tasty mochi ice cream.

Of course the occasional treat from the chefs were good tasty surprises.

Blue Moon City

Mike had us over for the college football game (#1 Ohio State vs. #2 U.T. Austin). I was hoping for a nice lively game on Mike's new HD-TV. But with Vince Young gone, U.T. was playing poorly.

John brought Blue Moon City for us to try. This is another new Knizia game (surprise, surprise) that uses artwork from his Blue Moon series. It was a nice game. And one that I will play again.

You move your piece around the board and try to build (cities?). When all of the spots on a tile are filled up, crystals are then awarded according to the majorities. Completed tiles also give bonuses to orthagonal tiles (snowballing the crystal income). In the middle of the board, you offer your crystals to the obelisk for one of four needed spots. The person who completes four spots wins the game. Pretty simple.

Oh yeah, perhaps I didn't watch the game because the view of the TV was blocked! Flawed!!

Tichu

Mikey likes Tichu now! So I am obligated to force him to play. And Gravitt gets caught in the cross-fire. I'll turn them both into Tichu players yet...

This was a painful game for me. There was a lot of random wishing. Jon started it out by wishing for an Ace and playing a straight. Unfortunately, I had the Phoenix and could satisfy that wish. Next, John wish for a four out of me. And then John wished for an Ace out of me. Sigh... We seem to be regressing here...

The group went out to the Rivery today. All the usual suspects, and one long-time lost player: Michael Chapel. I guess the pendulum swung back the other way... I think it has been 8 months since he played last.

I wonder what caused this? High winds, lightning, lack of water?

We split up into groups and I teamed with John. We got into some trouble today. Like the time when we were deep in the trees. The best group of the day was Jon and Adam.

Mike had been here once, but that was way back before they changed the course around. So most of the course was new to him. We introduced him to the holes and he introduced himself to a cactus. A nice, large, friendly cactus.

Update: Adam had a quote "that was entirely sock and shoe oriented" but as the mists of time advance, I can't figure out what that was about... teeing off?

I tried another recipe out today. On some PBS cooking show, I saw them make an asparagus tart with Gruyére cheese to bind it. So, I bought the supplies and prepared to make it. And then I wussed out and searched for a recipe and found this. It is really simple to make. Although I did manage to mess it up. I used a plastic pizza cutter to straighten the edges on the puff pastry dough. And then I tried to cut a border with it and "dock" the middle part with a fork. Unfortunately, I didn't cut deep enough and the whole sheet rose up. But it was easy to recover from. I recut the border with a knife and pushed the middle down with a fork.

Next time, I will add some prosciutto ham to add another flavor note to the medley...

I also used two 1250 watt halogen lights to brighten up the picture. And to compensate for this yellowish light, I used an Expodisc. This is an 18% filter. You take a picture and use that picture (see above) as the color temperature of the following pictures. It is pretty surprising to see just how brown the light is...

I forgot my wallet and phone so you are saved from the blurry photos. Today, I was doing pretty good. Well, better than pretty good. John and I were keeping neck and neck in scoring. But then I started pulling ahead. On hole 10, I threw my farthest shot. So far that it sailed past the hole. But I was able to birdie it on the next shot. I stayed in the lead as was able to win three shots ahead of John.

It also felt cooler out. And the grass seems to have sprung back thanks to a couple of rainy days. We were able to play the course really quickly (within an hour). And when I was driving to the Mexican Ice Cream place, I look up to the temperature gauge and saw that it was 90 degrees out. It was surprising just how acclimated I was to 103 days to think that 90 was cool.

Elasund

We started out this game day with six people. So we split into two groups of three. Mike suggested Java. And I nominated Elasund. Yeah, I know Ed and Susan might revoke my meaty card, but I was in the mood for settlers!

I like this settlers. It is different enough from the other settlers games to justify itself as a stand-alone game. And it has a nasty bite to it. You see, your buildings which you built are not safe. People can build over them if they play correctly and there is space around your building. Jon was in a tough position. The dice were not going his way (no big surprise there. Someone always gets hosed in settlers games). And Francesca and myself were attacking his buildings. Towards the end of the game, his hope was to save enough money to build three church pieces for the win. But I was able to build a medium sized building on a double-windmill spot to place two cubes for the win!

Carcassonne

Next up, was Carcassonne. Which I haven't played in a while. I was burned out for quite a long time when I played it a lot in Russcon. But it made it back on the table. And this time Francesca dominated in the game. She was able to score many large cities for the win.

Masons

Finishing out the night was a quick game of Masons. I like Colovini games and their abstract feel. However, this game is a little bit too reliant on the luck of the card draw. I was able to get good cards for most of the game. But Adam was able to score more than I during the end game. My three choices were not that great. Peter and Francesca did not have that good of luck in drawing cards either.

I think that perhaps instead of discarding one card and drawing two during a scoring round. You should be able to draw four. You are already giving up on a lot of points (anywhere from 6 to 20 or more points other people can score in a round). I think that drawing two cards is not enough of a compensation for missing out on a scoring opportunity. The other option would be to start off with more cards in your hand (instead of 6).

Other games played:

Java

Programmer's bill of rights link via

Create your own panorama planet link via

Wifi camera link via

The War on Terror, as viewed from the Bourne shell link via

X-Ray records link via

Dealer's choice link via

Deblurring camera link via

No seatbelt, no excuse link via

The little girl giant link via

Analog phone + cell phone link via

Commodore 64 USB keyboard link via

100 Acre Deadwood (NSFW) link via

1,000 cars racing at the same time link via

Man wins lotto again reenacting how he won in lotto link via

What color is the moon, really? link via

Confidential "do not distribute." link via

Paper cut link via

Softening Us Up for Torture, 24 Hours at a Time link via

Another game where a lot of hands have uneven card distribution. For the first two hands, I had all of the winners. So it was unsurprising when I called and made Tichu. And for a sense of completness, on the last hand, our team had all the cards for the win.

For Labor Day, we went to a disc golf tournament. This was our first tournament since the other one that we tried to attend was rained out. It was the inaugural Blue Skies Over Texas Tournament. We met at Starbucks on 620 at 7 am to carpool down. When we got there, Jon realized that he forgot to transfer his bag of discs to the car! Doh! So he bought a new bag and some discs and borrowed some more.

We entered the novice division. And luckily, I was grouped with John and Jon. It seems that they used alphabetical order for the groupings (Gravitt, Grimm, Hamzy). We were grouped with "Nacho" who was a pro and who was also our guide for this round. He was laid back and fun to play with (and also quite the mary-jane smoker).

Each hole had sponsor signs by the tee box. Beware the Blair Keebler Project!

John lost his disc in a tree. So we invoked Jon's super powers and got him to climb up the tree. Unfortunately he was not able to quickly get to the top of the tree and we were holding up other golfers. So he dropped down. Luckily, the next group was able to knock it down and gave it back to John.

After we were finished with the round, we went and ate lunch. They provided us with hamburgers and hot dogs. And after that, was the ring of fire. The ring is a contest where everyone gathers around a goal and putts at the same time. Whoever's disc makes it into the goal gets to putt again. Until there is one putter left and that person wins a prize. Sadly, I did not win any prizes...

After that we still had an hour before the next round of golf started. So we played a game of Tichu and introduced Curt to the game.

For round two, we played the course backwards. They had reversed all of the tees and goals for the course. This created a challenging and completly different experience. Fun! This time I was only grouped with Jon. It seems that they used the scores to create the new groupings.

I bought a Lensbaby as well and experimented with it. It is a real manual lens that uses a rubber bellows to achieve focus. You push or pull on it and twist it around to get a picture that you like. With the end result being a part of the picture that is in focus and the rest out of focus. It highlights and draws attention to a part of the picture.

I also experimented taking a picture of the Roads and Boats box cover. And, on a whim, submitted it to the geek. I was not surprised at all when it was rejected for being "too blurry". That is the whole point, people! It was also "irrelevant to the subject". Huh?

I do want to take it to Ed's some game day. I want to get a picture of Susan performing an act of goose-thieving! Then that picture would represent what was going on in my head when I was full of rage. Gooooooooooooooose thiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeefffffffffffffffffffffffff! Hehehe...

Titan

Tim had gaming during the Labor day weekend. There were the most number of people there that I have ever seen at Tim's! We started out with this classic dice fest. We even had two games of it going. I was with Marty, Mary, and Scott. I started out okay. Better than Scott, who was having terrible rolls.

And speaking of good rolls, look at my roll! My Cyclops obliterated two Centaurs!!!! He needed sixes to hit and boy did I ever roll them. Six of them! Marty was having correspondingly bad luck. His monsters could not hit worth a damn and I was able to hurt him by killing his Wyvern. He had to leave after that. And a little later, Mary's Titan attacked one of my stacks. I was defending in the Jungle and I was able to keep two Behemoths alive to summon a Serpent. It was enough to give me the edge and I was able to kill her Titan for the win. Fun game...

Can't Stop

Kevin and Deborah showed up which surprised me. They live in Houston and drove up here for gaming. It was fun to chat with Kevin and catch up. We played another dice fest. Little thought required. Just play, have fun, and socialize...

That tomatoey plant is still there at the Cat Hollow disc golf course. But it is blooming now. Strange. It looks like it has fruits but it is flowering... Doesn't the flowering come first?

I was teamed with Jon this morning. And he threw a good first throw at hole 6! We were on fire today! According to my records, we birdied five holes! But were were only partly on fire. Jon was not putting well and the weight fell on my shoulders. Unfortunately, me missed a couple of putts for pars or bogies.

Interesting. They moved a hole! A new house was built next to the existing hole and the metal fence was like ten feet away. Needless to say, I bet they got some discs thrown at their new house. So the home owners must have complaned and moved the hole. Well, duh! Don't build next to a target!

Another course improvement: chairs. Let's get the party started...

Curt lost a disc in a house's yard. He left afterwards to go retrieve it...

We went to have lunch at Extreme Pizza since it is on the way to Tim's house. He was having gaming during this Labor day weekend. We finished a little early, so I whipped out the tichu deck!

I was partnered with John. And he called Tichu. I had this hand (I was passed the dog and a four luckily enough). And he made it!

More disc golf at Old Settlers Park. I was surprised to see some new goings on. There was a lot of white, spray painted, lines with flags stuck in it. They were all around the holes for the disc golf course. But it is hard to guess what they were for. Construction? But what kind? They kind of look like they were following the contours of the ground. But not really. Time will tell...

Do they lead to gold??? If so, I'm diggin'!!!