November 2006 Archives

Leonardo da Vinci

Today, I stopped by the post office to pick up my latest lens rental. It is the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens. I have been dying to try this one for a while now. It is amazing in a number of ways. First, is the price ($1830 versus $340 for a f/1.8 lens). $1500 for a full stop bigger aperture. That is a lot of money for the next better model. Second, is the weight. This lens is 2 pounds (of glass) heaver. Of course, with the weight comes size. The thing seems like it barely fits on the camera. It looks like it is bigger than Dan Becker's head! One oddity that I noticed right on the bat was that the focus ring wasn't working. I had to Google to find that the lens needs to be powered on with a half-press before you can focus. Weird. Now I can see why Canon is introducing the 50mm f/1.2. Because the 85mm is not the right lens for 1.6 frame cameras like my EOS 20D. The 1.6 multiplier turns the 85mm into an effective 136mm. Which is too long for me. The 50mm would turn into an 80mm. I had to stand some distance away to take these pictures.

I uploaded both of these pictures to boardgamegeek. This one was denied and the other one was accepted. The reasons were:

• Reason: The image was too blurry.
• Reason: The image was too similar to another image already in the database.
• Reason: The image was irrelevant to the subject.

All I can say is "Huh?!". First, the image was not blurry. What some people don't understand is that the depth of field for a f/1.2 aperture is razor thin. In this picture, the depth of field is less than 2 inches deep. Second, I doubt that Adam teaching a game is in the database already. And, third, how can a session of playing/teaching the game be irrelevant? Maybe the two chairs got in the way of the board. I should have moved them out of the way.

This game is still painful in the feeling of wasted inefficiencies you have after playing it. I tried to be better this game, but we just were not producing enough inventions. So I couldn't plan ahead to have two inventions going during the last two phases. And that cost me the game.

Tichu

In the first Tichu game of the night, the heroic team could not get any points at all. We scored 30 points in seven hands! However, our four Tichu calls and three 1/2s gave us the win! On the first hand of the game, I call Tichu. I called it after Adam bombed with a two wish. Little do I know that Doug had passed bombs to both Adam and Jon. Fortunately for me, Jon bombed too early on a full house lead from me. Adam would have played Queens-full and I would have played Aces full, Jon should have bombed, and I would have been hosed.

I don't know if I should call the second game a real game. Rehana shows up to take Adam home and we call last hand. Adam makes a Tichu call and most of the points for the win. I believe that our team could have come back for the real win! I demand a replay!!!

A few degrees makes all the difference between freezing rain and cold rain, and between icy roads and wet roads. It also helps that the ground has retained some heat from the previous warm day...

Why is sugar so expensive in the US? link via

Deep fried pizza link via

Making a large Cadbury Egg link via

Dot-matrix toaster link via

Trade Your PS3 for Lifetime Taco Supply* (only if you don't eat there a lot) link via

Motorists cannot avoid accidents because they are incapable of reacting quickly enough when moving at high speed. Their flicker fusion frequency (the point at which an animal sees an increasingly rapid flashing light as a continuous beam) is too slow. link via

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In space, if unprotected pieces of metal touch each other, they stick together permanently. link via

Traffic experiments link via

Tree of life link via

An experiment in which people eat soup from a bottomless bowl link via

How To Make (and grow) A Luffa! link via

Tried another pizza tonight. But I still have yet to achieve a qualified success. I like my sauce, the toppings, and how it cooks, but I do not like the dough. I think that there is a basic failure somewhere.

I don't think that it was elastic enough to rise properly on the stone. At that point in the cooking process, the yeast has done its thing and now it is steam's turn to blow that balloon up. Which it didn't because the dough was too tough.

Of course I was side tracked because I tried a different type of flour. An Italian flour called "Belaria: Farina di grano tenero tipo 'OO'". I don't think I am ready to experiment with different flours. It is cool that Central Market offers different types of flours that are not readily available. But I shouldn't be distracted at this point.

So, this time, I went back to King Arthur bread flour. I used a packet of yeast to supplement the sourdough culture (my culture seems to be rather laid back). And I performed a "window pane" test on the dough. Which it seemed to pass.

I shall see how it turns out in less than a week.

Another day of disc golf before a day of gaming. This time at Cat Hollow. It seems there are some taggers running around here...

So sad...

One running commentary that we make is the term "pipped". We use it to mean passed by the smallest unit. Here, I pip Gravitt by two discs! Woowoo!

Hole 13 still has not been fixed. But the bucket is still sitting there. My shot was the closest in the group. What was amusing was that the disc embedded itself in some cotton insulation. That disc won't skip.

Jon's putt landed on the basket. Unfortunately, that shot is invalid. As some R.N.s would point out...

Reef Encounters of the Second Kind

Ed had another game day. We had seven people today so we broke up into two tables (4 and 3). Mike and I wanted to play a meaty game (he suggested Reef Encounters). Thankfully, John decided to play with us. The others went off to play fluffy games. We have played Reef Encounter before. So we only needed to figure out what the expansion offered. And it is three things. The first is an additional set of tiles. They are tiles that can be one of two colors (depending on which side is up), tiles with a blue shrimp on them, tiles that count as two when eaten, rock tiles, deep water tiles, and crown of thorn tiles. The second thing are action cards which give you special, one time abilities. And the third thing is an extra shrimp that can help you protect your coral.

This is definitely a game that I will play again. The cards are mostly pretty powerful and they are easy to get. So I am wondering just how much they will affect game play. I will hold off reviewing this until I get more plays under my belt.

Age of Steam: Northern California

Next up on the meaty table was a new Age of Steam variant. It was one that none of us have played, but was one that Mike said "had good reviews". When we set up the board and looked it over, I knew that this game was going to be extra tough. There were not many good deliveries at all. Everyone started the game by taking one extra share while Ed decided to be different and took two. I ended up bidding enough to go second with Ed going first. So, I waited to see what direction Ed would go. He chose Urbanization, I went for first build, Mike took Locomotive, and Jon camped on turn order. Since I had first bid, I decided to go for the obvious route of connecting San Fransisco to Half Moon Bay. Ed connected Santa Cruz through Scotts Valley to Los Gatos (urbanized to New City C). Mike took a risk and connected San Jose to New City C. Jon saw a brutal opening left by Ed and connected Santa Cruz directly to New City C. This allowed Jon to deliver the black good sitting on Santa Cruz to New City C before Ed could upgrade his train to handle two city deliveries. This essentially took Ed out of the game (although I will give him credit for playing the game to its completion).

I was left alone for most of the game. And I finally broke even after the halfway point in the game (which is a good accomplishment in this game). My only flaw was that I built too many 7 length connections to deliver goods. I was only able to deliver goods that went along 5 of my tracks and one of Ed's. Jon was able to mostly keep up with me and was finally able to deliver some 5+ goods. He also benefited from other people using his track (unlike me). Mike was never able to deliver long chains. The best he could do was length 3 goods.

Settlers of Catan

With six people, we broke out Settlers of Catan. Instead of using dice, we used the new deck of dice with events. The events (when they happened) were mostly bad. I liked the deck of dice because it evens out the rolls. All but 5 of the 36 dice combinations will be rolled. With dice, you can have improbable events happen like never rolling an eight (this would suck for your houses on that 8 tile).

I tried to go for different numbers when I placed my initial two houses. Unfortunately, my numbers were not the best (9, 6, 12 and 3, 5, 10). It was the best that I could do going fifth. When I could finally build my first two roads, I picked a spot off to the right. So I was extremely worried when John built there as well. Fortunately for me, I was able to build my house there first. And I was able to grab and keep the longest road from Jon. But Jon was too much the powerhouse in this game and he easily won.

Tichu

Paul wanted to play Tichu, so I stayed late and happily obliged. Paul made the mistake that all new players to this game make. And that is not calling Tichu when you have a Tichu hand. But that skill takes time to acquire. I could have called Tichu one more time in this game but I did not when I thought that it was likely that there was a bomb out there (there was: Ed had a 10-bomb, sigh). Ed's Tichu call was stopped by two bombs. He could have handled one bomb but not two.

John and myself went disc golfing at the Rivery before gaming at Ed's. On hole 3, I had a great first throw (probably my best ever there). John went into a tree.

My second throw was close to the basket. While John's was in the cactus bush. I made him get right in it to throw it out. Hehehe...

This sign was propped up against a tree. Is disc golf all that challenging? I hope not. Although I do imagine that certain members of our group probably need supervision...

It is impressive how tenacious life can be some times. That vine is making its way up the basket. It probably won't be killed by the discs hitting the basket either.

Complica

John invited me over for some Thanksgiving dinner (and some gaming). I knew that he liked two player, abstract, wooden games. So I brought over some which I have bought but never played. The first game that we picked was Complica. It is a slightly meatier version of Connect-4. Players shove their pieces into one side of the board trying to connect four in a row (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal). You can place the piece in any of the four rows except for the row where your opponent has placed. The only exceptions to this rule is when there are three contiguous pieces of your opponent's in a row or if there is no other free row left.

A short and simple game.

Prisma

The second game is played on a 5 x 5 grid with 5 different colored sets of five pieces. You start out with one of each color and the rest are placed in the middle. You place a piece on an empty spot and pick up any remaining piece. Play continues until every piece has been placed. The score is based on triangle numbers (1, 3, 6, 10) for connected pieces of a color. You are trying to connect pieces in rows and your opponent is trying to connect pieces in columns.

Another short and simple game.

Catena

For the last of the series, we played Catena. This game uses a majority scoring based on spots in a column. The columns are arranged in a diamond. Spots are filled one at a time. For each location, players simultaneously reveal one of a set of numbered tokens (0 - 10, *). The higher number wins the battle with the exception that a 1 will always beat a 10. The * always looses but you get to replace one of your already played pieces with that one. In the case of a tie, you choose again. If still tied, then the spot is replaced with a neutral piece. After all of the pieces have been filled, the majority in a column gets one victory point (ties broken by the sum of the numbers).

Here, John's un-crated son, Clint, poses for a picture.

Aqua Romana

The last game was Aqua Romana. Which was a game where you build aqueducts and score them based on their length. Kinda like the Tron lightcycle game but set in old-school Rome. One of the interesting bits about this game is that only one player can occupy a spot on the victory track. So when someone scores an 11 long aqueduct, another person scoring an 11 long aqueduct would score the next empty spot further back along the board (with two spots available on 7 and 3).

With the impending Thanksgiving day holiday, Wednesday was turned into a virtual Friday. Which meant a round at Old Settler's. The weather was been absolutely beautiful out! It was cloudless and in the high 70s. I wish more of Fall was like this.

Hrm, colored sandbags cannot be a good sign. I wonder what is in store for the future...

And here is a line of colored flags. A race perhaps? It is certainly not for disc golfers.

I met up with John and Jon at hole 11. They had been playing the winter course, where I had been playing the original. I did have a good first throw on hole 12.

There are a lot of breakfast taco options for me. The IBM cafeteria makes a rather generous, filling, and cheap taco. But with Thanksgiving coming up, the cafeteria is mostly closed up. On Metric I go to the Taco Shack. You gotta love a restaurant that is only open for breakfast and lunch. Why work more hours than you have to?

Today, I went to Rufi's on Lamar. I thought I was in trouble when I noticed that the siding was removed from the building. But then I saw a sign pointing to the right. So I looked around and realized that Rufi's had moved to a new building. They seem to be doing well.

I like breakfast taco places that have more options available to you. And this one has Mexican options out the wazoo: Chorizo, Picadillo, Carne Guisada, Barbacoa, Al Pastor, Steak Ranchero, ...

Yep, the rotisserie burner cooked the top nicely. But the problem now is that it is done in four minutes. The dough needs a little bit more time to cook all of the way through. So, for the next time, I will try turning off the burners, removing it from the screen, letting it cook, and then finishing it off with the rotisserie. Will that work?

I am starting to get sick of pizza by now...

Living What You Do Every Day link via

re: Am I the only sane lesbian with a house, an income >100,000? link via

Is this the end of the road for traffic lights? link via

Office Space trailer as a horror flick link via

The 10 Regions of American Politics link via

Inner workings of art auctions link via

Convert an analog wall clock into a binary clock link via

FSM sighted in Germany link via

A Florida voter may have unwittingly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars by using an extremely rare stamp to mail an absentee ballot in Tuesday's congressional election link via

What looks like a landlocked aircraft carrier in China link1 link2 via

Time gun map for Edinburgh link via

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Dice stacking moves link via

"The monkey works 10 times quicker than a man" link via

Little People - a tiny street art project link via

2006 NFL TV distribution maps link via

"Bush hid the facts" Notepad bug link via

I was a 20-something dethroned dotcom ceo that went to work the counter at mcdonald's link via

Candlestick rockets link via

The Secret World of Lonelygirl link via

In flight safety demo link via

Samsung develops machine gun sentry robot costs $200k link via

Cinemark opened up a new theater recently just 2 1/2 miles from my house. How convenient! Its got 14 screens, what seems to be a smaller parking lot, and a really lame name (Cinemark 14 Round Rock). Being so close makes it possible to leave quite late and still get there in time to watch a movie. But the quickest route is Sunrise Road. So you can't speed like you might on IH-35.

Unfortunately, they converted Round Rock's original theater into a discount movie theater instead of a theater that shows less mainstream and more artsy movies.

I christened the theater by watching Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. This is a film that tries to push every boundary. I am surprised that it made an R rating. America needs to distribute more NC-17 and X films in theaters.

I made pizza again tonight. I used the dough that I made two weeks ago. There didn't seem to be any problems using it. This time the bottom crust turn out nicely cooked. The pizza stone was at 750 degrees and I used a screen for almost all of the time while it was cooking. I think that I won't bother taking it off for the next attempt.

One problem though. The top didn't cook enough. Well, it did melt the cheese. But I was looking for some nice browning. For the next time, I am going to turn on the rotisserie burner when the pizza is in there. I probably let out all of the heat when I open the grill and put the pizza in (as well when I check on the progress). To bad I dot not have a Salamander burner on top.

The group went to Wilco today. I got there early and walked around the course taking pictures. Sadly, there is still no progress on course improvements. This course really needs signs for tees, garbage baskets, and par and yardage information. It looks like someone got fed up with their disc and nailed it to a tree.

Today, there were six people which made three teams. What was strange was that it took us a long time to finish the course. Not that I noticed when we were playing, but we ended at 12:45pm. I wonder why?

And it seemed that it was butterfly mating season. So the phrase for today was "butterflies!"! B u t t e r f l i e s ! 

I still haven't mastered this course yet. There is not a lot of room for error here. So I didn't do too well today. Although I did have one great first throw under the basket.

John and I played at Old Settler's park today. I was a little worried when I drove in and saw that the Texas Country Music Festival was starting up. That would have made a couple of holes difficult to play with the cars and all. But we played the winter course and all of those holes were free. Cool!

On the first hole, my second throw landed pretty close to the basket. And this flag too. Which John claims is the closest to the pin flag.

John and I were pretty close today in the score. First I was leading and then John was. But on the last hole, my first throw landed close to the basket. Close enough to get me a birdie and the win! Good game, John!

The Downfall of Pompeii

Ed and Susan came tonight for one of their biannual gaming fixes. Six is a hard number to resolve -- do you play one game, or two? We chose the two route with a heavily meaty table (Neuland) and a light meaty table (Pompeii). I chose Pompeii because I haven't played it before and would like to try it at least once.

This game is quite thematic. You are trying to save your villagers before the volcano erupts. And you get to sacrifice other people's villagers into that volcano during the beginning portion of the game. There is a nice, large plastic volcano as part of the game board. Believe me, I was tempted to put some baking soda and vinegar into that thing...

The game is divided into two phases. During the first phase, you place your villagers onto the board by playing one of four cards and drawing up. Obviously, you want to put them into buildings that are close to the exits of the village. When you place a villager into a spot that is already occupied, you can place relatives equal to the number that were there. This gives you more chances to successfully place people who can escape this nightmare situation. If a puff of smoke card is drawn, you can choose one villager and toss that person into the volcano in a vain attempt to appease the gods. Don't forget to make a show of dragging the helpless villager up the slope of the mountain...

Ed started out by sacrificing one of my people in a prime building location. I planned to retaliate. But my chance didn't come around for a while. By the time I drew a smoke card, Ed had been thoroughly picked on by his family and I felt bad. So I chose some one else.

Once the second volcano card is drawn, we immediately move into the second phase of the game. Now, on your turn, you draw a lava chip and place it on the board. You may then move two people. A person can move as many spaces as there were people on their start location. If they move outside of the village (past the gates), then they are turned into a victory point.

There are six types of lava. And the first of each type must be placed on its starting location on the board. After that, each piece can be placed orthogonally next to other pieces of its type. If a piece of lava goes on top of some people, then too bad. Those people are burnt to a cinder and die. They are taken off of the board and are thrown into the volcano. The game ends when the last lava piece is drawn and placed.

If there is a tie, then the tie is broken by whoever has the fewest of their pieces in the volcano. It is a short, simple, and lightly meaty game. Thankfully, the Rozmiareks were mainly picking on each other and I was able to sneak past the lava flows to win the game.

Ta Yü

Susan had to leave to pick up her son after a basketball game was over. I say make him wait there and work on his homework! So, Ed and I played a two player game. He chose Ta Yü. This is a game that I played once long ago during the now defunct Russcon.

This is a simple tile laying game where you are trying to create routes from one side of your board to the other side. All while your opponent is simultaneously trying to do the same.

I started off slow and was not trying to connect either of my sides. Ed got off to a good run by setting up three routes on one side of his board. When I noticed that a route was going to make it to the other side for Ed, I shook myself awake. I started to place pieces that would hose Ed on that other side. And I was pretty successful by cutting off a rather large section of the board. Now my goal was to make connections on both of my sides before Ed could retaliate. Thankfully, I was able to draw enough pieces to make connections for me and Ed was not able to hurt me with his pieces. This gave me enough points for the win.

Tichu

To finish off the night, we played some Tichu. I had the option to take Jon as my partner or cut for partners. I chose Jon. Little did I realize that that was a very bad choice!

On the first hand, John calls Tichu and goes out first. Usually that is not a problem. Of course, when someone on the opposing team calls Tichu, you try to set that person. When that person goes out, you must now really try hard and stop the teammate from going out second. So, when your partner is currently winning a trick, and you can overtake that trick. You must decide if you are guaranteed to go out second. If you believe so, then do it. Otherwise, let your partner win that trick. Unfortunately for me, I was winning a trick and Jon overtook it. Adam was able to take the next trick that Jon played and went out second. If Jon had not played, I would have been able to go out second. The sad thing is that this happened twice during the game. Sigh.

On the last hand of the game, I called Grand Tichu. Little did I know that my partner was actively playing against me. He passed me a two and then wished for an Ace! John had none and I was forced to play one of mine. I gave up at that point and called the game.

Wow, Jon was able to have lunch with us and we were able to play a game! I need to find more Tichuers out there. Ed was smacked down once today. Jon played the Mahjong and made a wish (2?). Ed satisfied it and called Tichu. I played a low card. Ed wins the trick and plays a length 10 straight. I play a higher straight (Adam also has a length 10 straight and the Dog but it can't beat mine. I play Ace+Phoenix (and then one other card?) and go out. Setting Ed.

Balam

Last night, Mike told me to try out Balam. He had liked it. So, when I saw it in the library, I checked it out. And for the first thing today, I sat down and started puzzling out the rules. Luckily, two people came by and I convinced them to play the game. There were English rules, but the translation was really, really, bad. It lead to a lot of confusion. But we persevered and finally figured out how the game play went.

The first city that I built was simple (two villages and a palace). The next city was placed on a 4 spot obsidian tile and built two villages and two garrisons. This immediately caused a reaction as the other players scrambled to build garrisons as well. I was not going to provoke a fight yet. However, Nightmare decided to attack me. I was a little suspicious when she picked me and not her boyfriend. But I could see that my city was undefended and his was not. She rolled a two and got to destroy my palace. I realized that this effectively took me out of the game since I could not move the goods that are produced into my king's personal finances. Which meant that I could not build buildings anymore.

So, after we had discussed this all out, I retaliated and picked one of her undefended cities and rolled a 3. This destroyed her palace and a village. Two people out of the game on turn 3. And upon a reread of the rules, I notice that we missed the "Leniency of Chaak" bit where we get two more corn goods on each round before the Eclipse.

We decided to call the game at that point. I was happy that I played it though. That play certinally took it off of my buy list. Because I have heard that the bad events are really nasty in this game. Maybe it just needs the proper mindset from the start to plan for catastrophies or wars to turn it into a better experience.

Mu

We tried a hand of Control Nut and then moved to the game of Mu. Marty went out looking for a fifth and found Lewis. So we taught the game to him. I was successful in my powers of suckup. He picked me twice as a partner because of the cards that I was displaying. Unfortunately for us, we failed our goal. I was also more agressive in bidding in this game. I made one goal and lost another (to Gravitt of all people ;).

Minor regrets:

• Not playing more new Essen games. My main goal of this con was to check out all of the releases and determine if I should buy them.
• Some new Essen games had no English rules translations yet.
• Not playing a full game of Tichu at all! WTF?
• Being burned by the camera flash. Apparently, it was not having enough power to recharge the flash. But it had enough power to keep the display on and make the capacitor whining noise. Which made me think that it was on but not working for some unknown reason.
• Not playing disc golf in Dallas or in Waco on the trip up or back. No biggie...

Interesting facts:

• I only checked out two games out of the library (Fiji and Balam) and I didn't bring any games from home to the con.

Still, it was a blast.

I was reading the rules to Fiji, but had to take a break. For it was flea market time. What a madhouse! I did buy Goldbräu but had to leave since the mad press of people was getting to me...

Fiji

The first of the new Friese games that I played was Fiji. It is a quick and light filler game that uses simultaneous reveal as its mechanics. There are four rounds of the following:

• Distribute beads: Everyone gets 5 green, 4 red, 3 yellow, and 2 blue beads. Put the same amount in the center of the board.
• Determine exchange conditions: There will be four groups of two cards. The first card says what the goal is. The second card is the action that is taken if the goal is fulfilled. A goal can be the most of one or more colors or the least of one or more colors. The action can be to take some number of gems (varies based on the color), or half rounded down of a color, or everyone else but you takes one, or some funky actions like mess with the ranking of colors or take back what gems that you showed.
• Determine goal conditions: There are four cards (one for each color). The card will say if you are going for the most or the fewest of a color. Remember that when you shuffle these cards, suffle their orientations as well! The order of the cards determine tie breakers. The color on the leftmost is the one that you are going for with ties broken by the next leftmost.
• The exchange: There are three rounds of exchanging. Players simultaneously pick from one to four beads and place them in their hand. They are revealed and we will check the four conditions one at a time. The trick here is that if players are tied for the most/least of something, then the next place person wins. If everyone is tied, then noone wins.
• Distribute shrunken heads: The first place player will get a number of heads totalling the number of people in the game minus one. The second player will get one less. And so on...

All in all, it was a light game. You must like the simultaneous revealing of gems part because you do a lot of it. Of course, it sucks to have your count be duplicated by people for one or more goal conditions and therefore be nullified.

Perikles

I was happy when Kevin was carrying around Perikles and wanted to play it. We found four other people and started explaining the game. Unfortunately for me, it was right around 1pm when we finished the first round of the game. I was hungry for lunch and wanted to run down to get something to go. Sadly, no one else wanted to do that so they used that opportunity to stop playing the game. So not much to report here as I need a full playing of it. Gah! Too bad my gaming group is anti-Wallace.

I went to lunch with Kevin, Debra, Kevin, Tim, Mary, and Marty. During lunch, the topic of which show had the most spinoffs. Both Happy Days and Cheers were discussed. Of course, there was massive verification as three people in this picture web surfed on their PDAs. Such geeks...

Imperial

Another playing of Imperial. And this time I knew what I was doing and I was France. I was able to build up her forces rather nicely. Which painted a hugh bulls-eye on me. One of the interesting things about this is that there are two ways people can resolve this. They can either beat the country down by taking back the territory and destroying the armies/navies. Or, they can just buy shares in that country. If they go the shares route, then they can either go for a minority holding in your country and let you run things because you know what you are doing. Or, they can go for a hostile takeover and do something else with the country. Interesting.

Age of Steam - Japan

For the first game, Age of Steam looked like a likely candidate. Some one had set it up and was willing to play. Little did I know that he has played in a lot of tournaments and had designed this map. But I wanted to get more AOS experience under my belt, so I was game to try it out.

This map introduces a couple of new features. The first is building over water. This is more costly than over mountains (costs 6 dollars) and can only be built over one water section. The second is water/land hexes. When you build on these, there are two cases. If the next tile is land, then the tile acts like a river, otherwise it acts like a water hex. The last new feature is the engineer action is a temporary +1 link ability. This allows you to deliver length 7 goods for one turn if you engine capacity is at six.

The map is very tight. I passed the first auction and built off by myself. When the game was 2/3rds over, I finally broke even. Dakarp was probably hurt by building next to rri1 (the designer). So, the game turned out into a pretty obvious first (rri1 - ending in the 100s), second (me), and third (dakarp).

Imperial

Eggert Spiele's new game is called Imperial. I have learned that the game has been in development for years now and was actually the precursor to Antike. People who have played Antike will recognize a lot of similiarity to Antike. A roundel determines what action is performed. You can move three spaces for free and optionally pay to move up to three more. The actions are as follows:

• Maneuver - move ships and armies. You can convoy armies across ships. Armies and ships can occupy neutral territorys to gain income. Or they can attack other country's troops or factories.
• Investor - causes a payout to shareholders from the countries bank. The investor marker moves around.
• Import
• Production - All factories may produce their corresponding units.
• Taxation - generates income to the country's bank and may give you money.
• Factory - the country pays five million to create a factory (either an army or naval factory).

What is different in this game is that you are an investor in countries. If you own the most shares in a country, then you determine its actions when the country's turn comes up. Shares have a cost to purchase, a percentage of interest that you receive when the investor action is taken, and a victory point total. The score track on the board acts like Antike. When one country reaches 25, then the game is over. This track is also broken up into sections. These sections tell you what multiplier to use against the corresponding country shares. It starts out with a x0 and goes up to a x5 for the 25 spot. So if United Kingdom won and I had a 6 million share in it, then my victory points would be 5x3 since that share has a 3

In the game, I was hosed early. I sent one fleet out into the Mediterranean sea. I had wanted to use that ship to move my armies into Africa. However, France decided to attack me and remove the ship instead of peacefully coexisting. This forced me to then spend turns building up my armies and attacking France back to get controll that I needed. This pissed off France (the person playing it) because he was not in the lead and he wanted my to attack the leader. I just needed to increase Italy's presence to get more money. Since having money allows you to buy shares in the countries that are winning.

Still, it is a cool game and one that I will definately buy.

Hermagor

Mike checked this game out of the library because it is another new Essen game where we had English rules for it. We only got to play a couple of rounds for it since I needed to head off for dinner soon. The Texas Hold-Em tournament would be immediately after dinner.

This game is like Thurn und Taxis. But the new thing that it brings to the table is the process to determine which tiles you receive. On the lower left section of the board is a grid. You can place pieces either on the numbered circles or on top of the tiles. To place a piece, you pay the price in the circle. If you go on top of a tile, you pay 2 dollars. After everyone has placed all four of their pieces, we determine who receives the tiles. If a tile is surrounded by more of your pieces than someone else's (including being on top of it), then you get it. Ties are broken by first being on top of the tile, or second, having more pieces orthagonally touching the tile. After all of the tiles have been resolved, then we determine payouts. For all of the numbered rows and columns, a person gets the triangle point value in dollars.

The next phase is the placing of the tiles. Essentially, you move your marker around the board while paying the cost on the paths. If you turn in a tile for a city (which only takes one type of tile), then you place a house down. And when an area is surrounded by houses, you get to put a marker in the lower right section of the board. This section will give you victory points.

In this game, poor Mike was alway hosed by me. I was sitting to his right. And when I needed to commit my pieces to try and get certain tiles, it just happened to be what Mike was going after. Sadly, due to the luck of the draw for the tiles, there was really no other choice for me. I needed those pieces for my path.

Jon and I drove up to Dallas this morning at 7 am. We stopped at Rudy's for some breakfast tacos and geeked out on the ride up. We arrived in Dallas at 10:30. So we wandered around town for a bit. Wouldn't this make a great spot for a game of Big City?

There it is, the Plaza of the Americas! The building that holds the convention. It is a pretty nice architecture. A giant enclosed area gives a feeling of spaciousness. See the skyway that allows travel from the Adam's Mark to the Plaza? Who needs to go out in the real world now?

Here it is...the tunnel into goodness...

The Red Prize tables

The Blue Prize table

Badges

People are playing before the registration even...

Oooo... Space Dealer...

New games from Essen (front)

New games from Essen (back)

The game library is in a new and bigger room.

The rare game, Big Boss, is sitting there in shrink!

And Age of Renaissance is there also in shrink!

Space Dealer

This is one of the new Eggert-Spiele games that I have been dying to try. It is a 30 minute game with two one-minute sandtimers that perform actions for you. You use them to produce goods, move your ship to transport goods to other player's locations (dropping them off for victory points), building on to your space station, research new technology, or mining goods (generally causing modules to function). Each card that you build has a one-time demand of goods. When the matching goods are delivered by another person, they place their marker on your building and they will score victory points. Usually, you score lesser victory points as well. So it is in your best interest to build building cards to lure people to your space station. One thing to keep in mind is that the modules must be powered in order to function. So, it is critical to upgrade your generators from level 1 (powering two spots) to level 3 (powering four spots). Ships move around a round track which also serves as the score track. There is each of the individual player's planet seperated by a neutral planet. For example, to move to my right hand player's space station, I need to spend one action to move right and arrive at a neutral planet, spend another action to move to the next planet. Then, you can drop off the goods to fufill victory points. It costs you nothing to teleport back to your home planet, but you loose any undelivered goods.

The game is short, tense, and deviod of waiting on other people to calculate their turns. You spend most of your short downtime planning future moves. And you definately want to keep track on what other people are mining to see if they can deliver their goods before you can.

This game is off to a great start. Now will it be a lasting game and have enough staying power to keep it fresh and interesting? Only the sands of time will tell...

Green Town

Mike brought us another new Essen game to try. One made by the Bambus Spieleverlag company. I definately recognized the green box from an earlier game of theirs: Kanaloa. It billed itself as a 45-60 minute game. The rules were not that difficult to figure out from the translation (there was one hiccup of determining the order of player actions). This game is about performing tours of the country side for victory points. You are either building up the country side or holding a tour. At the start of the game you can choose one of four actions: 1) tour, 2) build, 3) build OR tour, 4) build AND tour. Once you have performed an action, you flip that marker face down (taking it out of your possible choices), and play passes to the left. When the last player has played, they move a "x2" marker to the person on their right and perform one extra turn. This process continues until everyone uses all of their actions. Then, the actions are flipped back to face up and everything repeats. Players have one tour card in front of them. This is the goal that they are trying to fulfil. It has the length of the hex spots that must be crossed and the numbers of things that people want to see. These can be nature areas (trees), culture spots (houses), sports locations (circles), and/or shopping locations (cubes). The cards also tell you the minimum and maximum possible numbers of each of spots. For example, you might have to perform a tour over nine hexes that must visit at least one nature area (with a maximum of three), two culture spots, one sports location (with a maximum of two), and one shopping area (with a maximum of three). For each of your own buildings and nature areas that you visit, you get a buck (a victory point). Other people's building pay the corresponding person. And if you do not meet the critera of the tour, you loose dollars for each thing that was missed. This game was simple in concept. But our group turned it into a real brain burner. The game lasted two hours and thirty minutes! It was rather difficult trying to figure out valid tour paths. The length of the tour was what was killing us. It is hard to find a tour that travels exactly nine hexes and fufils the conditions.

Iliad

Mike Chapel succumbed to call of new, shrink-wrapped games and bought one. It was Iliad. Which was a card game about battles. What was amusing was that Mike couldn't handle the continued use of the term "her" where you would normally use the sexist "his".

The army cards represent units. And the units follow rock/paper/scissors like rules. For example, the Archer defeats Chariots and Hoplites. Ballista defeat Chariots and Elephants. Chariots defeat Archers and Hoplites. Hoplites can form phalanxes where their total is the sum of the points times the number of cards.

There are two types of rounds: Thanatos or Gorgons. For Thanatos rounds, everyone plays cards until they pass. When you pass, you get the highest ranking hero (from 4 down to 1). The person with the most units left on the board (plus the hero) gets their choice of one of two victory cards. The second place person gets the other. And the person who had the least number will get the Thanatos card which contains a negative victory point number. A Gorgon round is quicker in that, at the start of a person's turn, if they have the highest army, then they immediately win. They get one victory card and the battle is over.

For our first Gorgon round, Jon essentially played a spoiler. I started out with a hariot (a wall that stops chariots and has 0 value). Paul dropped out. Mike played an elephant (x2 multiplier). Jon played an elephant. I played a hoplite (valued 4). Mike played a hoplite on the elephant valued 3 (x2 = 6). Jon put an archer on his elephant. Now it comes to my turn. If I play a 2 valued hoplite (4+3x2 = 6), then Mike will likely play another hoplite on his elephant. Jon does something. I would go for more hoplites to get my multiplier greater than Mike but then Jon would have no choice to use that archer to stop me. This would give the victory to Mike since Jon's army value is so low. So, instead, I dropped out and gave the battle to Mike. Sigh.

Tichu

We had 30 minutes to kill before we had to go and play the ultimate meaty game of Texas De Brazil. So, Jon and myself taught newbies jridpath and John Pastor the ultimate partner game of trick taking -- Tichu. After explaining the rules we played a couple of hands. The first hand was an uninteresting 50/50. But on the second hand, in my first eight cards were two aces and the Dragon. So I called Grand Tichu. In the next six were the Phoenix and my partner passed me another Ace. Of course, the other team passed me the Dog. I had no trouble making that hand. Hopefully, we planted the seed of Tichu in two new people.

Bas-relief tiles made from photos link via

Photo sculpture link via

You can learn a lot from a rich girl link via

Driftwood horses link via

Bar code building link via

Seasoning buckshot link via

Why do birds fly in a V formation? link via

Hybrid images link via

Grand Theft Mario link via

Robot Chicken does Calvin and Hobbes Peanuts via

I did the early voting during my vacation, so I have already voted. Have you? This was my ballot. What I found disheartining was the fact that there are uncontested seats! And everyone of them is a Republican.

Last week I saw the documentary on HBO called Hacking Democracy. And it was absolutely shocking. It was about the lack of review of the electronic voting machines and how it could affect our democracy. What really drove the point home was when they proved just how easy it was to change votes. They went to an official Florida voting station and got an official to run a test. They created a sample ballot and, in the open, put six votes for "no" and two for "yes". The hacker's only involvement was to supply an electronic memory card. Which the scanning machine validated as having 0 votes on it. When they ran the results, it came out for "yes". This was because there were negative votes for "no" and cancelling positive votes for "yes". Apparently, the totalling system just adds the two together and tests for zero.

Watch it on HBO, or on Google video while you still can.

Beethoven Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major link via

Minesweeper in pixel blocks link via

"We got literally every girls costume in the god damn universe!" (NSFW - foul language) link via

Worst Congress Ever link via

Economics for the citizen link via

In F.S.M. we trust (someone should make a rubber stam for this)link via

Top 100 photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope link via

Brain in a dish link via

2054 Volkswagen Beetle link via

Olbermann's Special Comment: "There is no line this President has not crossed -- nor will not cross -- to keep one political party, in power." link via

Stephen Wiltshire draws panoramic pictures of Rome and Tokyo from memory via

Bush said, quote, "I'd like to leave behind a legacy or think-tank, a place for people to talk about freedom and liberty, and the De Tocqueville model."
De Tocqueville once observed that it's easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
   ZeFrank

Pimp my Carabande link via

A picture containing all 16,777,216 colors link via

Überschwerer Kampfschreitpanzer link via

The group went down to Pease park again for some disc golf. You know, for such a dry riverbed that runs through this course, our group managed to get discs into the water. A lot...

And Adam managed to land in the mostly dry riverbed twice...

Hey! At least I managed to have one good throw today...

Tonight, I whipped up another pizza for dinner. I was already set up with ingredients from last week: sausage, cooked onions, tomato sauce, and mozzarella cheese. So no time spent there. This time, I used a recently purchased pizza screen. The pizza screen worked pretty well. At least initially. I was worried that the pizza might sink in between the holes in the screen and stick to it. But it didn't. However, it was removed from the hot stone (an aluminum screen is not very conductive). So it didn't brown as well as it could have.

There were problems however. Last week, I mixed more dough up and let it sit in the refrigerator over the week. Which was, of course, packed full. So I crammed them in where ever they would fit. And wouldn't you know it but one of them fell down. Yesterday, I noticed that the plastic container had broken a hole in it. Fortunately, the dough was not dried out. So I patched the hole with scotch tape. The second problem was the fact that it is a really wet dough. I thought I was good about sprinkling flour on it when I was rolling it out. But it eventually stuck to the counter. I pulled it off and reformed a new ball and rolled it out again. Maybe the second time around it was a little tougher with that extra gluten from kneading back into shape.

For the next time, I am going to try to "blind bake" the dough. Put just the dough on the screen and then cook it for a minute or two. And quickly pull it off. Put the toppings on, and use the peel to transfer it back and finish cooking it.

Update:
I left the dough in the final shape too long on the counter. The dough absorbed the light flour dusting and stuck to the counter. I did blind bake the dough. But when I took it out and went to put the toppings on it, I learned that the wet dough steamed a lot. Water condensed on the bottom, which was not good. Also, this time I heated the stone for a good 45 minutes. The temperature went up to 750 degrees. And after 5 minutes, I went outside and found that the bottom had burned. There was a thick crust of carbon. Next time, I am going back to the screen and the longer preheating time.

I hate supermarkets. Their business model seems to be constantly churning the list of products that they carry. Or maybe its the manufactures that get rid of products that I like and introduce "new and improved" products that I don't like. So, when I was hooked on 4 teas that I used to make iced tea with (in an effort to move away from high sugar fruit juices in the morning). I knew I was in a bind. It came as no surprise to me when my local grocery stopped carrying the variants that I liked. I now had to drive down to Central Market to buy the tea I wanted. Why one store stops carrying something when another store in the same chain still carrys it is a mystery to me.

So, this week I said "screw it!" This is what the inter-webs are for. Amazon.com grocery with prime shipping carrys my flavours. They even offered a $10 dollar off coupon and with prime shipping I can get it in two days for free. The only problem is that the minimum size is a case. Now I have 24 boxes of tea. That is probably a year's supply for me.

E & T

With four players comes a lot of good gaming options. Our group was slow off the start in picking a game. So when John suggested E & T, Adam latched on like a bulldog. This was a slower game with not many battles. Fortunately, I was able to win most of them. By green leader was kicked out in an internal conflict. Adam was speeding the game's end up by discarding tiles. He was looking for tiles to support his goals. Too bad he didn't find any. The game ended with some tight scoring. Two people were tied for first and two people for second. It came down to second and third resources. And I had more than Doug for the win.

Mykerinos

John also suggested this game. I think that it was the first time where we played with all of the correct rules. In the beginning, I was trying to get one of each kind of Patron. And I was placing men in the Museum so that I would score at least two for each Patron. John jumped on the 5 spot for Sir Brown. Towards the end of the game, I switched strategies and went for a lot of Lady Violets. I secured 4 of them and got Doug to give me another one when he went into the Museum. This was enough for the win.

San Juan

Doug left, so we were down to three. Out came San Juan and Adam latched onto this one to avoid playing any fluff-like game. I didn't do so well in this game. My special building were not working so well for me. And when I was finally able to build the big Triumphal arch, I was not able to draw all three monuments.

Minibridge

We played a couple of hands of minibridge to finish out the night. John was getting the luck of the draw and was having most of the card points. Phear my 8 points!

Sigh. This news really crushed me today. I was really psyched about Yoga and getting into a weekly rhythm of 3 sessions a week. At the end of June, I bought a one year pass.

But then the owner announced that he was having health problems. In July, he said that he had soft cell renal carcinoma (kidney cancer). The docters found out it was a rare type and very slow growing. But when they tried to remove it, they could not control his heart rate or blood pressure. So they aborted the operation.

I thought he was making progress when he got three yoga instructors to teach his classes. But the turnout was on a downward spiral. And he has been continually cutting back classes over the years. I guess it was finally apparent that this studio would not turn a profit.

So now I am trying classes out at Yoga Yoga. Fortunately, it is right across the street from work.

I wish Joey the best of luck. He is the most positive person that I have ever known. And a role model for how more positive I should view this life.

Today was a good day at 42. I made a 2 mark bid. And I was able to set a 37 point bid after bidding 36.

Its good that I can at least play 42. Of course, I would much rather play Tichu. But that seems to be life for the moment. The 42 group is actually pretty successful. They play all five days of the week. And they have an attendance of 4-9 people per day.

42 does have some problems. This is another game where the luck of the shuffle exists. Sometimes, you just get dealt bad "cards" or bones as they are called in this game. Other negatives about this game:

• 1) The round is over quickly. Sometimes before all of the bones have been played. Either the other team has been set, or your team claims the round. This can be confusing if you are a beginner. Every one else agreed with the analysis and you are still trying to figure out what happened.
• 2) The group uses two varients that make the play even easier. The first is the lead off variant. You can turn a weak bone into a stronger one by leading it as the opposite of what it would normally be. If you have the 2:2 and the 6:2, you can lead the 6:2 as a two (2:6). This converts the weak 6 bone into a winning 2 bone. The second is the splash/plunge variant. If your partner has 3 or more doubles, then they can call splash (with 3) or plunge (with 4 or more). It is assumed that they have the double 6. If the bid succeeds, then you get to call trump and lead. You lead your winners and then transfer control over to your partner with a 6.
• 3) A game is only 7 marks (the number of strokes to write "ALL"). A bid can be more than one mark which only makes it over quicker.
• 4) This group loves to play the "put away game". This is not related to 42. They turn the act of putting the bones back into the container as a game. On your turn, if you have the lowest bone, you put it in the box. Otherwise you draw a bone from someone else. This turns into a major mind game with a lot of kingmaking thrown in. Not my type of game. They could have played another round of 42 in the time that it took them to put the game away.

They finally opened up the toll roads today! Now, I have a more direct way into work. And it is pretty fast. I can get into work in 15 minutes. But that was because that the couple mile stretch of IH-35 from Old Settlers Road to the toll road onramp was empty. It is normally stop and go for that length of road on most days. So it would be interesting to see if this is a new flow for IH-35 or those days were aberations.

Going south on IH-35, there are two exit lanes. There are three lanes for the toll roads (even for the speed-pass part). And there are three lanes when you drop off into Mopac. The only problem is the constant stream of people driving from Parmer onto Mopac. I have to weave through these people when I exit onto Duvall.

Going the other way is not so easy. It is fine until you try and exit the toll road onto IH-35. There is a hugh overpass that narrows down to one lane and merges into IH-35. IH-35 is stop and go through this section. So there is quite a backup on the toll road. They really need to fix the 620 exit. Because when that backs up, it causes a lane of 35 to be stopped. That causes gridlock for miles both behind and past the exit.

What I really don't like about this toll road is how they screwed up IH-35 and 1325. Remember back a couple of years when they spent millions of dollars building U-turn lanes to help fix 1325 traffic flow problems? Well, they have removed an on-ramp and an off-ramp for both directions! If I want to head south to la Frontera or the big-block stores on the east side of IH-35 (Home-Depot, Walmart, OfficeMax, etc), I now have to exit at Hester's Crossing. And go through the light! Hester's Crossing cannot handle this load of traffic any more than 1325 could. So now many, many, millions of dollars have been spent building roads and we still have hugh traffic problems. There was enough room for another lane where the onramp now is. They could have kept the 1325 exit!

Flawed!