October 2006 Archives

Skidboot link via

Top 10: Controversial pieces of evidence for extraterrestrial life link via

Boobkini (a flesh colored adhesive bikini - might be NSFW) link via

A 5 minute exposure of a shuttle launch link via

Face blind link via

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) rewires his brain link1 link2 via

Japanese race with a Ferrari, Lamborghinis, a Porsche, a Honda, a BMW, and a Mercedes on the track link via

Where we live link via

Out at lunch today, I noticed this on a car. We definately need to "Keep Austin Weird!".

Perhaps there is some truth to the above poll...

On my bike ride today, I saw that plane again. It was flying around off in the distance. I was really tempted to go home, get my camera, and try to chase the plane down.

While I was riding down County Road 110 (aka Hutto Road), I saw a huge flock of birds that landed on the road. I was wondering what I would do when I got to them when an oncoming truck got there first and solved that problem. I think that birds have right-of-way. And, plus, if you scare them, you can get pooped on!

We went to Old Settler's Park for some disc golf today. I noticed that there was a propeller driven plane slowly flying around. I wonder what it was. My neighbor saw it as well and guessed that it was a B-17. I saw it on Sunday also. Too bad I didn't have my 70-200 lens on hand...

It was the second time playing the "winter course" variant. I like the new holes. But the whole course is not only comprised of new holes. It uses the original holes. Plus, we don't do 18 holes. So I think we need to come up with a new course. How about teeing off from the previous hole to the next hole's goal?

die Mauer

We went to Chuy's for lunch. And while we were there, we played a game of die Mauer. It was a bluffing/guessing game. Everyone simultaneously reveals one of seven pieces. If someone else guesses your piece, they get to build. Otherwise you do. An empty fist will place any piece (however, if more than two empty hands are revealed, then no one builds).

I made pizza from the recipie that I linked to earlier. Seven days ago, I made the dough and put it in my refrigerator. Periodically, I would burp the containers and/or punch the dough back down. So today, I am in the mood to make some pizza. I notice two things: 1) the dough is very loose and relaxed and 2) the aroma is not like a "fine wine" at all. I think that my sourdough culture is rather laid back. Maybe I don't feed it enough...

Anyways, so I heat up the grill and cook the ingredients. I get the pizza stone up to 650 degrees Fahrenheit. I flour the peel and flour the bottom of the dough. I put the dough on the peel and then put on the ingredients. But when I put it on the grill, I can't get it off. That dough is loose, loose, loose. So I turn lemons into lemonaide and turn my disaster into a calzone. It turned out pretty good even when I forgot to cut some vents for the steam.

I have one more container of the dough and, tomorrow, I am going to make some bread.

I wonder how long this one is going to remain upright. It was leaning just a little bit recently. But then came the rains and now it is really tipping over.

I went out this morning to get some photos of birds. And I learned some things. More pictures after the break...

It was rainy out so it was the perfect opportunity for Old Settler's Park. Some people don't like to go out in the rain, but I say "why not?". Its warm out, its not raining that hard, there is no lightning, I am wearing my bathing suit and my rubber sandles, and its close to my house.

The additional rules are that any new streams or pools of water are not considered out-of-bounds. I am glad that I went. I had fun. And I had some pretty great throws. On hole 1, my second throw (an arcing anheizer fell within a foot of the basket). On hole 11b, my first throw (also an arcing anheizer) fell within three feet of the basket. I also experimented with an new throw by wrapping my arm around the disc so that when it left my hand it would be spinning more than normal. That throw worked perfectly on hole 9. The second throw landed within a couple feet of the basket after the first normal throw hit a nearby tree.

John and I went to Cat Hollow for some disc golf. I arrived early to photograph this. Unfortunately someone stole the basket for hole 13. All that is left now is a bucket. Which is sad since my throw was like right next to it.

I went to Duke's BBQ Smokehouse to try out their breakfast tacos. I noticed that they were now offering waffles and I was amused by their choices for accompaniment. I guess that "chop" is chopped beef. But what would "puddin" be? Bread pudding? More likely it would be bananna pudding. "BBQ sauce" is just plain gross.

Afterward I went to the Rivery to photograph this.

Trying out the Canon 1200mm f/5.6 lens link via

Building Stonehenge with one person link via

Ms. Dewey search engine link via

Lonleygirl15 is asked by the U.N. to fight poverty link via

Liberty and habeas corpus link1 link2 via

Top 10 ad-tricks in Tokyo's train stations link via

Anti-tank dog link via

Sony Bravia Paint commercial link via

One Citizen's Bill of Impeachment link via

Lords of the Logistic link via

Cops Use Suspect's GPS to Find Pot Fields link via

One grain sushi link via

Telemarketer Nightmare link via

Fastest street legal car (2000hp, 0-60 in 1 second) link via

The Onomy Tilty Table link via

DM of the Rings link via

"Paris Syndrome" leaves Japanese tourists in shock link via

Pi in colors link via

Subliminal Nude Pictures Focus Attention link via

The group went out to the Rivery today after realizing that The Hairy Man Festival was being held at Cat Hollow and The Outlaw Trail 100 was being held at Old Settler's Park. Unfortunately Jon didn't receive the memo in time to switch to The Rivery. I was teamed up with John today and my first throw was great (matching other's seconds).

My first throw at hole 10 was also great. 2 of 18 is a good percentage, right?

The next hole, 11, looked to be a muddy mess! Adam and Rehana didn't want to deal with it. John, however, being an ex-caver, was adventerous enough to give it a try. I threw as well. Fortunately for me, I was able to carefully walk around the edges and make it past the obstacle.

That big rock that you saw in the previous picture had this spray painted all over it. Vandals? Future construction?

We ate at Dos Salsas again. We seem to be stuck in a rut and are not trying different Georgetown restaurants. I ordered the Queso Flameadado this time. Every time that I have gone here in the past, I have been tempted to try this dish. Flaming cheese! How much more satisfying can that be? Unfortunately, our group has different tastes, and noone can agree on one of the four choices available. So this time I told myself: "screw it!", and I ordered it.

There was a lot of cheese in this dish. It turned out to be very gooey and stringy and fun to play with as you tried to separate a portion for yourself. It would make a good Knizia game.

Afterwards, our group played a quick nine at San Gabriel Park.

Adam, Rehana, John and myself played the "winter course" at old Settler's Park. We used different tees and threw towards existing baskets. Well, not every tee was different. Some of the holes were the same as the original. When you approach a basket that you know well but from a different angle and path, it gives you a new experience. It is definately gives the course a different feel. Much shorter holes as well.

On hole 10 (same as the original), I had a long throw. It looked like it hit the trees and stopped. When we finally found it, we realized that it had punched through and kept going. Right in line with the basket.

I went to Leif Johnson Ford today for my 30K checkup. While I was waiting, I looked around in the showroom. They had three new 2007 Shelby GT500 Cobras there. These are the Mustang versions of my truck. The new model boasts 500hp! So very tempting. However, I don't think that they are pretty and, at 45K, they are expensive. I think that I would rather get a Corvette at that price. Look at that sticker in the second picture. There is a 20K "fair money adjustment" charge added on. And it was sold! For 65K, you are in performance Corvette territory.

They also had two Ford GTs there for 150K a pop. Definately a pretty car, but it costs as much as a house.

They even had a 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1 for sale for 40K. While old cars look cool and retro, they do not have all of the technology that has been discovered in the past 30 years. Technology which I would consider as critical.

I stopped by Ichiban for lunch afterwards and was greeted with this sight in the restroom. A urinal full of ice. Must be a Japanese thing...

For my birthday present and Christmas present, I bought myself another camera lens. A EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM lens. This complements my already existing EF 24-70mm f/2.8L IS lens. I hope to take some birding pictures with it. Since I am a member of Amazon prime, next day shipping is only $4 per item. Pretty cheap given the price of the lens. Also, Canon came out with a rebate program that included this lens. So, I decided to order it. What I was not expecting was just how long it would take to deliver the lens. I waited around my house all day for the delivery person to arrive. So long that I gave up hope. It arrived at 8pm at night! After being "out for delivery" at 6:30am in the morning! Gah! That is not next day air. I am sure that businesses get packages early in the morning when they can actually use them that day. I was reduced to taking a picture of the refrigerator magnets at night. That depth-of-field is razor thin!

In fact, you notice it when using this telephoto lens. By default, the picture that you see through the viewfinder is at maximum aperature of f/2.8. This allows for the brightest picture. But the trade off is that the amount of the picture that is in focus is thin. When you zoom in and out, you can see that thin field moving back and forth.

This lens is also big and heavy. It is almost 8 inches long and weighs 3 1/4 pounds. The lens is so heavy that you mount both the lens and the camera at a balancing point on the lens itself. Which is what alot of people complain about. They prefer the much lighter and cheaper f/4.0 (at 27 ounces). But you loose a full stop of light gathering ability. At an equivalent ISO film speed, your shutter speed will be twice as much.

This lens also has a gyroscope built into it. Which will allow it to be stable at slower shutter speeds. The trade of is a slight loss of image quality as you add more glass elements for the gyroscope bit.

I also bought the Extender EF 2x II. This doubles the focal length of a lens at the cost of 2 f/stops of light gathering power. That water tower is at a 385mm focal length from my back porch.

Gloria Mundi

Another playing of Gloria Mundi for me. I am trying to see if this game is not flawed. This time, I am trying to keep my resource cards alive as long as possible in order to gather more income. However, we played this game with 6 people. That seems like a lot of people. You only get three white and yellow cards. Things went okay at first. Everyone was paying off the barbarian. However, when it got around to Adam, he didn't pay off the barbarian. At this point, Mike and John were able to build victory point generation building. So Adam was trying to set up a group-think situation where we could hurt him. However, he had to work through both Jon and myself before getting at Mike. And both Jon and myself have different opinions on what is the best course of action for ourselves. He proved to be unsuccessful at his attempts.

Towards the end of the game, it really broke down for me. I was able to generate three greens and one victory point for every green card that was played. I also had one yellow card with a yellow building and one white card with a white building. In my hand were only green cards. Every time that it was my turn to play, there were no green building cards in the display! So I did nothing. This went on for four turns. I collected so many green blocks that we ran out. And yet no green building was seen. How very flawed!

The order of winners in this game corresponded to the victory point cards that they were able to buy. Every other building card was essentially worthless. This game needs some fixing. Either the ability to trade cubes for other cubes, or score points for cubes at the end, or auction off building cards, or something.

During the game, Adam is bored and plays with his white peace chiklets.

Mu

John had to leave early. So we had 5 people for a game of Mu. Adam and Jon are both aggressive bidders. Here, my 8776 is not worthy of attraction from a potential chief. Mike though was. His 99997 allowed Adam and Jon to over bid even more. Jon won that battle with a 9 card bid. He called green as trump and Adam called 1s. Sadly, he was set by 4.

Tichu

Ahh, Tichu was next when Mike left. The first picture is my hand when Doug calls Tichu. Say what Dougie? You know you need some control cards in your hand, don't you? I was able to help him make his Tichu call and go out second for the 1-2. The next picture is Jon's hand for his Tichu call. Pretty unstoppable.

After Day Gaming, John and I went to Old Settler's park to play a round of golf. Fortunately for John, his water bound disc floated.

Evo

John held another day-gaming session. Since I was on vacation and had nothing better to do, I went. Susan showed up. And Ed took off work to play with us. So John did some research and came up with a list of 5 player games based on Ed's recommendations on the 'geek and John's games that he has not played. Evo was first up. I always like to play it. I may not win it. But it can be fun at times to play.

Especially when you have horns. But the auctions were such that I got another horn. Over specialization is a bad thing. You really want a balanced creature. Able to move fast, have lots of babies and survive in inhospitable climates. Which is the opposite of my creature. I could only do one thing -- attack. And I went on a rampage. Much to Ed's dissapointment. He wanted to be left alone but he looked like a tasty morsel to me. The only problem with attacking is that you are not guaranteed to always win. So you should only attack as a last resort. My clan slowly died off. So sad.

Il Principe

Next up on the table was a game that Mike had bought a while ago. We played it once (incorrectly). And then never played it again. So it was mostly a new experience to me. Not one that I liked either. It went on too long for the type of game that it was.

Loopin' Louie

Ed and Susan had to leave. So did Gina when her loud and annoying alarm went off (reminding her to pick the kids up from school). John tried to tempt me to stay to play another game. However, I was leaning against that. But I spied the title of "Loopin' Louie" and I wondered what it was. John takes it out and sets it up for me. So we play it. Its a cute manual dexterity game of trying to knock down the other person's chickens with a common plane. The only thing that you can do to affect the plane is to spring it up in the air when it passes you. If you time that move perfectly, you can bounce the plane up and over the opponent's spring and have it hit their chicken. A little bit off, and you can have it go far enough to not let the opponent get a swing at it. Mostly, you just take a stab at it. Which is returned by the opponent. When Clint showed up from school, he jumped right in. I was out early. So I helped him get his father out in revenge.

Just the sort of game that would make Adam's head explode in a cloud of fluff.

Guh, my truck is getting so old!!!! Everything is too spread out around here.

On the drive out to South Oklahoma, I mean Liberty Hill, I passed a Circus. What a rainy and miserable day for a Circus.

Hornochsen

Ed held a game day. Its been a while since I have been to one. We started off with Hornochsen -- a milder form of Take 6. You have a hand of card to get rid of. You are trying to avoid negative cards. And you place the cards following simple rules of closeness. But it plays differently. You still have a sense of impending doom. However it is very watered down and dampened. In this game, I had no opportunity to take stacks of 5 positive cards. So I waited it out. I had a feeling that others would soon be forced to take the stacks which held the big negative cards. And it worked out that way for me. I ended up finishing the game with a small positive score. In this game, that is a good thing.

Gloria Mundi

After playing two very flawed versions of this game, I had to give it one more chance. Rio Grande does not publish bad games. However, after playing it, I think we could have played it better. You see, this game is a return on investments game. And you should be trying hard to keep your income generating cards in front of you. Instead of discarding them in order to hose your opponents.

Leonardo da Vinci

My second playing of this game. And basically, the same thing happened. You finish the game and punish yourself for playing it inefficiently. You do not want to have, in your possesion, unused resource cards. They are useless and you have wasted money and meeples to get them. Also, you want both your labs to finish a work before the game ends. If one or both are idle, it costs you victory points. The problem with this game is you just cannot predict which invention cards will come up and then properly plan for them. Yeah, you can look at the next four in the queue and reorder them. But other people will as well.

Here, Ed takes a picture a picture like this.

Nexus Ops

Adam got me to play Nexus Ops. Which is a positive rating for me. He likes meatier games. So if he is willing to play a dice-fest game, there must be something to it. And I didn't mind playing the game at all. It reminded me a lot of Samurai Swords. There is a heirarchy of troops that you can buy. The more expensive hit first and are more likely to hit. The cheapest hit last and rarely hit. You manuever over territory to acheive secret objectives that you collect. And it is relatively quick to play. I liked it.

My problem was that I was to timid in attacking others. I was building up for a big fight. But Carl was able to win the game before I would. I should have went for it one round earlier.

A Jeep and a snowmobile race across a lake link via

Make love not Warcraft link via

Stalking Haruhi Suzumiya link via

Handheld printer link via

Facadeprinter link via

"I'm wearing boots of escaping" link via

The Atheist Tapes - Steven Weinberg link via

Free Hugs Campaign link via

What would happen if man would dissapear today? link1 link2 via

The World's Highest Resolution Seamless Display link via

Man shells out 14k Pounds on army tank for supermarket run link via

A useless home security system link via

Conformal mappings link1 link2 via

Deep fried Coca-Cola link via

Observations on Arabs link via

Bugzilla Bug 95849: Lack of Sex is interfering with my ability to triage bugs link via

The perception of beauty link via

Who killed the Electric Car (this is going to be removed soon I bet as it is a MPAA screener) link via

Repairing Canon's Gem of a Zoom, the 70-200L link via

After Extreme Gloria Flawdi, we went back to Wilco. The dollar per player fee is good all day. On hole 17, John makes an invalid putt. Not the fact that he is using a long range driver called the Orc to putt with. But the fact that on top of the goal does not count. Sorry, John.

Gloria Mundi

John brought Gloria Mundi into Extreme Pizza for us to play. He wanted to play outside. But since I had spent all of disc golfing outside and we were going to go disc golfing again, I opted to play indoors. So John explained the rules to us and we started to play. However, the game was extremly broken (I would call it flawed). The game was progressing. But no one was building a building that would last more than one turn. Looking at the rules again, we noticed that you start with resources. So we tried it again. But it was still broken (Gloria Flawedi). We kept playing and, every time it got to my turn, I couldn't shake the flawed feeling. There was no good move for me and I could not make a building. Finally, someone spotted that we start out with one of each resource card down (or built). This would at least provide some income to bribe the barbarians with and help protect your buildings. But would it fix this game?

T.P. It could be toilet paper, or it could be teepees. On a disc golf course, you are likely to encounter either. Our group went to Wilco today. The weather was ominous and threatening rain. There was a tiny bit of mist rain, but that was it.

We encountered a kitty cat today. I assumed that it was feral. But it seemed pretty healthy or at least not starving. At first, it was wary of us and stalked our group out of curiousity. Adam turned a stalk of grass into a cat toy.

This at least allowed Rehana to pick it up. Twice. But it didn't like that at all. We lost it when we walked too far to the next hole and went out of range of the cat's stalking pace.

At Old Settler's Park today, I noticed that there were more trees down. They seem to be slowly being destroyed by nature on the order of 1 or 2 a week. This tree is hanging on by a thread of bark. But its dead Jim, and I can't do anything about it.

There is something about hole 3. Every single time I throw there, I go towards the stream. But even knowing this does not help me avoid the stream. Usually, John throws towards the right. However, today it went left into the stream (I avoided it by a couple of feet -- twice!)

Snakes on a disc: On the next hole John throws his disc and, when he finds it, he discovers a problem. There is a small snake in close proximity to it. I walk up and ask him what is wrong. He asks me how do I determine if a snake is poisonous. I respond "when in doubt, assume non-poisonous." Fat lot of help I am... let me tell you. So John starts chanting "black next to red: you're dead", "red next to black: heart attack" or some such unhelpful mnemonic. I just walk up to it, take its picture, scare it away, pick up the disc, and hand it to him. Case solved.

Keytown

First up was another old game and one we haven't played in quite a while: Keytown. Of course, we had to read the rules, for I didn't remember anything about it. And, after we answered all of the questions that came up during the rules discussion, we started playing the game. This is an area majority game where the pieces that you use for majority are townspeople. You start out with 6 level 1 people. You can increase them in two ways. First, you can birth more of them in cottages. Second, you increase their levels in villages. Both of these actions can be fought against by your opponents. In the cottages, the person who has the lowest count will have two babies (level 1 people). For ties, both people will have one baby. In the villages, only the three people who have the lowest count will be promoted. Ties are bad here -- no one is promoted. The count is determined by the level of the person and the number of blocks that are "supporting" the person. Blocks are counted as one apiece except when one time modifiers (a x2 or a x0) are played in an area. The block are "mined" from 5 different resource locations around the board. Players who put the most numbers (counting their levels) will mine first with ties resolved by nearest to the start player. Keep in mind that there are limited numbers of blocks in the game. Since blocks are bad things and work against you when you are promoting or birthing your people, the reward for having them played on your people is that you get to keep them for later rounds. After four rounds of play the game is over. Your final score is the square of each of the levels of your people minus any victory points that you used to bid for start person. The bidding for start player is a meta-action. It will interrupt normal play and, once it is resolved, it will change the player order immediately.

The last round was quite the free-for-all. I should have realized that my people were not going to be promoted to level 3 and I should, instead, have concentrated on birthing more people. Jon (green) has only two people in one town and concentrated all of his cubes in stopping both of my people in that same town. He won that battle but I think that he should have put his twos in that town (9+9 vs 4+4). In another town, Mike (yellow) was making sure that I was not promoted. Fortunately, I was able to retaliate and keep his person from being promoted as well. In the third town, I was lucky and people left me alone. The scores were all close at the end of the game. What hurt Jon and Mike was the bidding victory points for start player. Jon went from 1st to 2nd and Mike went from a tie for 3rd to 4th. I went from 2nd to 1st since I bid 0!

Tichu

John leaves which left us with four people. Hrm, what game can we play with four people? Do I even need to ask this question??

What would you expect with two experts versus two newbies? The answer would be a total slaughter. But I think that some of it was the luck of the card draw. Still, we won the game by two winning conditions: 1000 points and 1000 point differential! If you remove all of the tichu bets and 1/2 points, our team only scored 200 points more than the other...

I eat at Taco Bell perhaps too much. I don't like overcooked hamburgers (Fuddruckers is one of the few that will cook a medium rare burger) and there aren't any veggie fast food places.

If you wonder why Americans are so fat nowadays, it because mega-corporations are putting extra calories in their food. Taco bell has recently changed their default style of menu items. What was once a plain taco now has a mayonnaise based sauce added to it. And they have done this to all of their items. I now have to order everything "without sauce" or "Fresco Style". Look how bad it is. For example, the Ranchero Chicken Soft Taco and the Baja Beef Gordita have a 100 extra calories added to them! Oh my God, Magnum!

And speaking of my favorite restaurants, you cannot forget about Gumbo's. I first found this restaurant on Merriltown road off of 1325. There have been many incarnations of this restaurant. I believe this happened because the owners created a chain out of it. When they sold it off, they couldn't open a competing restaurant. So they opened Yoli's. I think it started out as Mediterranian restaurant. And when their non-compete clause expired, they switched back to Cajun food. They then bought back Gumbo's and opened it back up on 620 close to IH-35. Where it still stands today.

Their food is still as good as ever. My favorite food is the crawfish etouffee with dirty rice. Today, I ordered the blackened catfish over the shrimp gumbo. The only oddity was that there was no vegtable part of the gumbo in the dish (like the okra, onions, or bell peppers). But the resulting gumbo sauce was divine. It used a very dark roux that was not burned at all and it was not oily at all. There were hints of coffee from the over-carmelization of the four. Truely something that I would love to be able to reproduce at home.

I had some spare time before I had to go somewhere, so I went for a few throws at Old Settler's Park. And look what I found. A floating disc. It must have been kicked up by the recent rains... It may just be promoted to Darwin-III when, the now current, Darwin-II lands feet-wet and unretrievable.

Well, its about time! Dot has finally opened up a new restaurant in Pflugerville at the corner of 1825 and Windermere Drive. I learned about the opening from John and then found this on News 8 Austin's web site.

Her old restaurant on Howard lane had a lot of character. It was located in a very run down area full of junk yards and abandoned homes. Parking was always tricky. You had to park along the side of the road if you were lucky. The building was an old house that was converted to a restaurant. And the place was always packed full of people. The line started outside the building. When you finally got inside, you then saw a huge line of people that snaked back and forth in front of the buffet line. After you ordered your food you searched for an empty table in one of the many rooms. Tables have little room to themselves and it can be the perfect opportunity to get to know a stranger.

For the new restaurant, not much has changed. There is still a long line of people. I arrived at 11:15 and I barely fit inside the door. However, there is not a big waiting area inside the restaurant like there was in the old one. The food is still as great as ever. But it seems that the serving size for the helpings has been reduced. The meal choices are the same. You can order: fried catfish, liver and onions, beef tips in rice, chicken and dumpling, chicken and rice, meatloaf, roast beef, mexican lasagna, chicken fried steak, and others. There is a big selection of sides to choose from: black-eyed peas, collard greens, okra, green beans, macaroni and cheese, and more. The corn muffin is excellent. And don't forget about the desserts: pecan pie, sweet potato pie, lemon pie, chocolate pie, cobblers, and I should really stop now.

Suffice it to say that this would be in my top ten list and some place that I would go to eat weekly. The only problem is that it is farther away from work...

After gaming, John and I went out for a round of disc golf at Old Settlers park. This was before I went to yoga. It looks like they are going to plant a bunch of new trees to match the new trees they must have planted a couple of years ago. I hope they thrive in this inhospitable climate...

Zenix

Since John is only working six days during the month of October, he decided to hold a day gaming session. We started out with this wooden abstract three player game. Your goal is to build the longest path by dropping logs to form a triangle. John managed to tie me for longest path, but my 2nd longest path was bigger than his. Which gave me the win.

Great Wall of China

Our next game was the English version of Chinesische Mauer. The artwork is not as good as the German one. In the middle of the game I was in a two way fight with both John and Gina. Not a good position to be in. But somehow I managed to eek out a win.

Leonardo da Vinci

Ahh, the new meaty game that just came out. Certain members of the cult-of-the-new were lusting after playing this. So I was happy when Susan brought it out. This is a game where you want to be as efficient as possible. And when the game is over, you beat yourself up over the wasted inefficiencies. However, for some reason, the rules and game play did not blow me away in my first playing of it. Who knows what this game is lacking. But I'll give it another chance.

Blue Moon City

Another playing of this lighter Knizia game. I still haven't won it or even come close to winning it. But I don't mind playing it. It is kind of random what cards you draw and what buildings other people go after. So I don't think there is much long term strategy to this game. Only tactical playing based on what cards you hold now. There is an end-game problem though. During my two playings of it, when it came close to the end of the game, one person set another person up to win the game. I don't think that they realized it at the time of the playing, or maybe they just didn't care. But it would be interesting to see how it would play out if everyone knew just what moves other people needed for the win.

Die Weinhändler

To finish off our game day, Susan brought out this older game. The only difference between the German version and the English is the little plastice wine bottles that mark player colors. They didn't bother to change the name (umlauts anyone), the decimal point (a comma versus a period), or the currency (Euros versus Dollars). In this game, I knew I was hosed from the start. I did not have a good selection of wine bottles that I could use in future auctions and I didn't have any good matching bottles. The sad thing is that there is not much you can do to alter your situation.

Ah, you have to love the name of "Hairy Man." I am a hairy man and I do. Especially when they celebrate it. Run, hairy man, run.

Our group went to Cat Hollow for disc golf. All seven of us. We are getting quite large.

We had Jon in our group and we didn't have long to wait to invoke his powers. On hole 3, he had to climb up a tree.

Sadly, someone has started to advertise on the goals. Grrr...

For lunch we went to Extreme pizza again. Jon brought a Tichu deck for us to play. However, Adam hosed us by yanking out the special cards and making us play mini bridge.

Apparently everyone did not get enough disc golf. There was enough interest in playing again. So we went to Wilco. Adam and I were still partners. But instead of sucking like we did at Cat Hollow, we did great. We jumped out in the lead. And then to keep John and Rehana from catching up, we kept "push"ing John. Each time John's team scored great, our team received the same score. This is a "push" in bridge terminology. And hence the cry of: "Push the Gravitt" was heard.

John found a rather large bee-hive in a tree on hole 18. Mmmmm, honey....

John and I took a road trip to Circle R Disc Golf Ranch out in Wimberly Texas. It was quite the drive, but then, all things in Texas are. I was a little worried about rush hour traffic. We left at 8:30 and drove down IH-35. But, surprisingly, it was not bad at all! Only a little bit of a hiccup at the upper/lower deck split. We made it down to Circle-R at 10am. Since we were the first ones there, and there were no well defined parking spots, John made one up. Only to be yelled at by one of the employees.

After golfing, we went out to get lunch. Circle-R is in the middle of nowhere. So we drove into town. I spotted a "New Orleans Style Restaurant" in Dripping Springs and told John to pull in. It was Orgeron’s Restaurant. We both had the stewed okra with shrimp and andouille sausage. It was excellent! The stock was thick and rich and flavourful. Highly recommended...

Expand the entry to see each hole and more...

Chinesische Mauer

About time. We finally play this light Knizia game about helping to build the Great Wall of China. There are four groups of victory point chits that people compete for majority presence. On the beginning of your turn, you check for majority in each group of chits. If your card point total is more than everyone else, you can place one the victory point chits onto one of your cards. This adds to your total the negative amount on the chit and it protects the card from being buried by another card. If both victory chits are owned, then players score them, the cards are removed, and new victory chits are revealed. Next, you have two actions. You can either place a group of cards with the same number next to one of the groups. Or you can draw a card. The cards are numbered from 1 to 3 and have special powers. For example, there is the Nobleman which changes every other card to be valued 1. The Dragon can lay over a card and remove it from the game.

All in all, it is a light, simple, and quick game to play -- a nice filler to start out a gaming session.

Vinci

John brought this game out on the table. Another game that we rarely play. Especially with a decent version that is playable on the web. Only Jon and myself had played this game before, so a rules explination was in order. Once we started playing, Jon and myself jumped out into the lead. But it was clear that Jon had the better civilizations. Jon's declining civilizations were scoring him a lot of points. And everyone left them alone. This, of course, gave him the win.

Vinci can be mean sometimes. Here, Mike hoses John by declaring a truce with him and then surrounding him.

Mu

To finish off the night, we played two hands of Mu. On the first hand, we were able to set Adam's two bid. For the next hand, bidding was fierce. Jon went for a bid of seven. Late into the bidding war, I showed two nines. This was part of the reason why Jon thought he could up it to seven. And we made it by capturing 48 triangles (Jon could have bid it up to 9!). This catapulted me into first and Jon into second.

El Cobalto link via

Wordless pancake recipie link via

Tivo your power link via

Who controlled the middle east throughout history link via

Talk like a Lumberjack day link via

Sun-cam link via

Katamari-inspired commercial link via

Zombie rights march to city hall that was protested by pirates (why do I find out about these things too late?) link via

Ronald Rivest's three ballot voting system link via

Fast times at Hero High link via

Playing volleyball across the US/Mexico border link via

How to run a meeting like Google link via

How the Japanese people play rock, paper, scissors link via

Similiarities between Rome's downfall and 9/11 link via

Dirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industry link via

How many Earths would we need if we all lived like Tom Cruise? link via

Help me buy a laptop link via

Recharge your ink cartridges with a refil system in a store link via

Rice's single-pixel camera takes high-res images link via

I went to the disc golf course to practice throws. For every drive, I would throw the disc so that it curves to the right. Which is a style that I haven't used up to this point. It was good practice. Although I did have a problem on hole 2. This hole has the river to my left and a huge tree to the right. Which is not the type of throw for this hole. But I did it anyways. Much to my dismay. The disc flew right into the stinky, murky, scummy, tepid water. Fortunately, there was a plastic bag floating near to where the disc went in. So I waded in and found it! (This is the same disc that Chapel gave up when it went into the water. I have been using that disc for a while now. Thanks Mike!).

On a whim I drove out to Llano for lunch today at the Cooper's Pit BBQ. Thats a 146 mile trip. For bar-b-que. I've been itching to go, and on a whim and a moment's notice, I went.

Its a good thing that I arrived hungry. Because there is a lot of meats to choose from. I bought the Jalapeno sausage, the beef brisket, and a pork chop. The sausage was so-so and rather tough. The brisket was good and tender. I haven't tried the pork chop yet.

I was disapointed in the sauce. Very watery. You get free pinto beans which were also okay. The berry cobbler was yucky. My biggest problem with BBQ joints is the lack of veggie options. Your choices are cole slaw, potato salad, or beans. And the cheap white bread is another pet peave. Good bread is out there folks!

On the way back, I passed a huge farm truck convoy. You know you are out in the middle of nowhere when they need these monsters.

What is that about??? Do semi-trucks make lots of noise when they use their engine to slow down? Well, my truck didn't. (It does make a lot of noise when I floor it though).

Went out to the Rivery today with John. I guess being on vacation seems to mean more disc golf at the moment. And apparently other people had too much time on their hands. This poor tree was toilet papered. Out here in the middle of nowhere. I guess some homeless person had their house TPed.

This here is one of the new holes. A short throw but there are difficulties. First, there are trees on both sides. Second, it is uphill. And third there was this tree that had fallen in the middle of the "fairway". Oh wait, looks like someone cleaned it up a bit and pushed the dead tree off to the side. Jon?

Before I gave the Canon TS-E 24/3.5L lens up, I had to take a couple more pictures. But there are not many large structures around here. This church is plenty large. Far larger than it needs to be. It was built for sunsets. That cross must inspire fear and terror, errr, devotion, in the parishioners.

And this water tower is large and frightening. That Dragon also inspires fear and terror, errr, athletic pride in its citizens.