August 2007 Archives

Apparently John Houck is closing the Circle-C course for some improvements. Gravitt announced it on the newsgroup. This prompted me to drive down and take pictures before it closed. And it was a good time of the year to go! With all of this recent rain, the grass is now green and the water is flowing...

Those spiders are out here as well. And their yellow camouflage works well. I wonder if that thing will eat discs?

Hole seven is a tough hole. You are on the left side of a stream. About 250 feet out is a waterfall and pond. Just to the right of that pond is a small "island" where the basket lies. There is a lot of vegetation providing a barrier along both sides. Man, that is really tempting to swim in!

Along the left side of hole 16, there is water. You can't see it through all of the trees and underbrush, but its there. Believe me. But then you really do not need believe, because John's disc found the water. Fortunately, the water was rather clear.

We met up with Jon at Mary Moore Searight park to practice for the upcoming tournament. I had a couple of good throws from the tees. Which led to birdies on 6 and 18.

Notre Dame

Mike and I wanted to play Phoenicia with five players, but that was nixxed by John. So, instead we played Notre Dame. I still don't know what to think about this game. It has some good mechanisms. But it is really influenced by who is playing at the table. More specifically, it is heavily influenced by who is sitting at your right. In this game, it was John. And he filtered the cards that he passed me. I would mostly see the two different rat management cards. And sometimes the Notre Dame card. Never the move your vehicle around the board card. Which left me with no ability to pursue the travel around the board and collect a lot of tokens victory path.

And I don't like the luck involved of being able to draw your own Notre Dame card in the last pile of three before a scoring. All during the game, I kept drawing it in my first group of three cards. So, I got in there early and was able to see if others would go in there or not.

Tichu

In tonight's Tichu game, I made a mistake in going out third instead of fourth. I should have passed when Mike played and let his team take the Phoenix for minus twenty-five points. All of the other points were out of my hand and my partner, Doug, had gone out first. Sigh. I am really getting rusty at Tichu. Seventeen days have passed since I have played it last...

On the second hand, I call Tichu with a one through Jack straight, a Dragon, a Dog, and a three. Unfortunately, a bomb stopped me. But you can't predict when that will happen, so you just have to accept it.

Doug was a little bit of a wimp tonight. He did not call Tichu three times and still went out first with no real competition. Fortunately, we were able to coast for the win before the other team caught up.

During the 42 session today, I was reminded again about a couple of the things that I do not like about 42. The first was the person overbidding what you really want to play. In this case, that person was me. The person to my right bid 41 and I was the last to bid. A bid of 41 means that you are going to only lose one trick and that trick will have no bones with points on them. Usually, the loosing trick will be a trump trick. However, my hand contained: 0:0, 5:5, 4:4, 4:5, 4:2, 4:1, and 4:0. In the unlikely 0:0:2 trump split I go down. So I overbid to one-mark. Which is pretty tame. It is definitely a two-mark bid. However, we were ahead and I did not want the other team to catch up more than necessary. Needless to say, I made my bid.

The other thing I do not like is the desperation bonus bid. The other team was behind 5 to 0. My partner passes. The first person on the other team bids plunge (a three-mark bid signifying that he has the 6:6 and three other doubles). I cannot over bid so I pass. And, John, the last person (the other person on the team) increases the bid to four-marks. This is a bonus mark! John is going to call trump suit and lead anyways thanks to the plunge convention. But now the opposing team will win four marks instead of three. If the score were 6 to 3, and if the opposing team made the bid, they would win the game! Flawed.

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

Marty, Harry, and I played Through the Ages tonight. The three player game was pretty quick at three and a half hours long. I did pretty well with my leaders.

Homer was first. This was the first time that I have played with him. I liked him because he gives you easier troop building and victory points for the troops.

Michelangelo was next. I didn't bother to get the St. Peter's Basilica. Instead, I built the University Carolina which gave me much needed science income. I did build a theater though. They are certainly helpful later on in the game. And they give bonuses for certain leaders.

Bach was next. This fit in perfectly with my theater strategy. Since I knew that there were some leader killing cards out there, I didn't want to get too dependent on the leader bonuses. I built the Eiffel tower for a straight 4 victory point generation. And, what a surprise, an Iconoclasm came out and made me discard him.

But Elvis was waiting in the wings. So I built the movies to get a good bonus. And Fast Food chains for a one time bonus.

This game is all about being well rounded and still generating victory points. And my problem was my armies. Fortunately, I was just enough ahead in the first and second ages to not be attacked. Surprisingly enough, I made it through the third age with out any wars declared on me and only one attack on a colony which I let succeed.

I was also surprised to see that no one kept up with me in culture point generation. I was at 12 and Marty and Harry were at 3 for a long while. And, by the end of the game, I was 50 points ahead of Marty. I didn't do that well in the end game scoring, but my lead was too substantial to overcome.

See the tree for the forest link via

Today's human population is descended from twice as many women as men link via

Google Sky link via

The Atlanta Humane Society is now accepting Michael Vick t-shirts and jerseys. They'll be used as bedding, chew toys and rags for cleaning up dog doo. link via

Advanced photo resizing link via

Interesting how the meter keeps being redefined over time link via

Collaborative, detailed, fictional galaxy -- a wiki for creating fantasy solar-systems in a shared galaxy link via

Hummingbird shot with a macro lens link via

I haven't been seeing any Mud Dauber's nests hanging from under the soffits lately. And it seems that it may be because a new species has moved in. I wonder if these are Organ Pipe Mud Dauber's residences?

And I have no clue what insect is responsible for the tiny ones! Mini Mud Dauber's?

It's getting pretty dark out and I have busy making a pizza, but I had to take a picture. I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a HDR photo. I used a tripod, the 16-35 lens, high speed mode, and set it to take a sequence of 5 photos at the following exposure compensations (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2). The only problem was a light wind gently moving some of the branches.

The almost full moon is rising above the clouds. Don't forget about the lunar eclipse, this Tuesday morning starting at 3:51 am. I wonder if I should wake up for it. I still haven't found a great spot to take pictures...

I went to Wilco again today but limited myself to three discs only: two mid-range discs: a Star TL and a Millennium Aurora Midrange Straight, and my putter, the Thumbtrac Birdie. For each shot, I would throw both mid-range discs. I need the practice. And when I putt, I putted with all three of my putters.

It was good practice. And even throwing so much, I still made good time on the course. Which was packed today for some reason. I had to skip around some holes to bypass the slower players...

John, Jon, and myself played disc golf at Wilco. And boy did I suck today. I have nothing more to say on that topic except to point out this scary spider...

I drove down to Bartholomew District Park to take pictures of the course. However, that posed to be a problem. The park was abandoned and overgrown! Which is weird. Construction has been going on there for years now, but why abandon a city park? Especially one that has a swimming pool, basket ball courts, baseball fields, etc.

The buffalo grass was thick overgrown, but it was not a problem. The real problem was the wall of foliage. There were 15 foot high plants (bamboo and others) along the river. I could trace the path of the first nine holes, but could not find the next. I guess I will have to wait until winter comes around to try again. Maybe the plants will die off and I can spot the baskets...

So I drove to Amaya's Taco Village for some tacos. The place was packed as usual and I had to wait 20 minutes to get a seat. The only problem that I have with this place is that their cheese is rather poor quality. It seems like it is shredded Velveeta.

Phoenicia

First up was Phoenicia again. This time a fort was in the initial three cards. I had seven dollars, so I bid on it and won it. This hurt me getting my initial production ramped up for a couple of rounds. But with two forts in the game, I thought it was worth it. John went for dye houses and was able to purchase both of them. But he was unable to get a fort. Which meant he was limited in the number of workers. I went after mining. However, in a three player game, there is only one smelter. So I was only able to convert my mining into improved mining. I was eventually able to move all of my workers over to mining and keep my production in the lead. Mike was certainly lagging in production. But he was able to buy a city center.

And then came a critical round. I wanted a public works. I made a mistake in letting Mike get the first one cheaply. Mike then bid all of his money for the second. Which was more than I wanted to pay. I turned my sights on the Refugee Settlement, but John bid all of his money to get it. Mike was then able to get a City Walls to go beyond 28. John bought the Trade Fleet. And I bought the second City Walls. I was hoping to buy the Trade Fleet as well to first place guaranteed. But I was able to train enough workers to pip Mike at the end.

Next time, I will try and remember just how important the City Center/Shipyard and the Public Works are to end-game victory point generation. It is not just about ramping up your income production.

Aquadukt

John brought out Aquadukt which is a short and simple dice fest. But not the kind of dice game that I like. On your turn, you can either place up to three of your houses randomly (with a 20 sided die), place a well, or build irrigation channels. Houses can only last on the board if they are next to a 1-sized canal or up to two away from a 2-sized canal. The strategy in this game is when and where you place the wells, and how you extend the canals. When you place houses, it is random in which of the 20 neighborhoods you can place a house. And you might have a choice on where to place the house in the neighborhood.

Today, I won two 2 mark hands. They were pretty similar in that, for the last bone that I would play, I need it to be a "walker." Which means that it needed to be the top value in its suit with no trump possible.

The first hand was: 1:1 2:2 4:4 5:5 6:3 3:3 3:2. For this hand, I called no trump, and led the 6:3 as a three. One of the opponents knew I was going to walk a small three but my 1:1 drew out his 3:1. So when I played my 3:3 it would draw out his last three. And I would claim with the 3:2.

The other hand was: 4:4 6:4 4:3 4:1 1:1 3:3 3:2. For this hand, I called 4's as trump. I needed that no one on the opposing team had all three of the remaining 4s. Fortunately, they did not and I was able to run trump out. Next up was to play my double 1, the double 3, and then the 3:2. Once again, no one had "protection for threes" (meaning that they could keep two threes and play the low one on the double three and keep the high one to stop the 3:2).

The initial draw was amusing today. When there are more than four people waiting to play a game, we each draw one bone randomly and the people who hold the highest four bones will play. I drew a 6:5 so I was guaranteed to play. The second to the last person drew the 1:0. And, surprisingly, the last person drew the 0:0 (4% chance)!

Normally I hate the advertisements that litter my front door. Whenever I see something sticking in my door, I throw it away. But Fuddrucker's was holding a one-day only special for a 1/3 pound hamburger, french fries, and drink for $5.00. Which is pretty cheap. So it seems that there does exist an ad that I will not throw away. I wonder if this is the start of a slippery slope?

It is so sad how accustomed I am to the huge American sized platters. Not that I eat everything on my plate -- I rarely do. It is just that I expect to be served more food than is proper for a meal. When I picked up the plate, I noticed that the burger and bun was a little larger than my fist in size. It looked tiny compared to the plate and the fries. But it was more than satisfying. And I even did not finish the fries...

Had my first attempt at making breakfast tacos. With a quarter of a cup of fat, I split it between butter and lard. Which made the tortilla yellowish looking when raw. But it whitened up after cooking.

I had a bit of a panic when I couldn't find the tortilla press. So I just rolled the dough out by hand. Fortunately, with that much fat in it, there was no problem of sticking...

Total Solar Eclipse Paths link via

Coke vending machine carried by Pepsi truck link via

Church and Gay connector link via

Pizza Hut's Double Roll pie link via

21 amazing facts you didn't know about pigeons link via

A Canon MPP view camera link via

Official iPhone tool link via

World's quickest electric motorcycle link via

When Amber met Amber link via

Sport Utility Bicycles link via

Cops punished by having to wear Hello Kitty armbands link via

Papercraft stirling engine that runs on coffee link via

Root beer float cupcakes link via

Highway typography link via

When placed in the spa, these fish can feed themselves on the dead cells of the human body link via

Brand new 2 million dollar boat is destroyed during delivery link via

The little purple lie link via

A father posed for a publicity picture in a desperate attempt to find the daughter he has not seen for ten years unaware she was just a few yards behind him. link via

Logomotto link via

A 1905 version of Google street view link via

A crazy hand of poker link via

Today was the Ace Race 2007 tournament. There were 12 holes. At each hole, a tee box was marked that was 180 to 235 feet away. Almost every hole was a different approach to the basket from the normal course layout. We then played these holes three times around. You only got one throw. If it went in (called an ace) or hit the basket (called metal), it would count. At the end of the game, the highest number of aces would win. In the case of a tie, the highest number of metals would win. And in the case of a tie, a "closest to the pin" round would occur.

For a twenty dollar entry fee, we received two mid-range prototype discs, a hat, and a marker. Which was a pretty good deal. The only problem was the rain and the wind. You could only throw those prototype discs. Which gave everyone a level playing field. But the wind was the randomness in this game. It was hard enough to throw a brand new disc. Throwing it into the wind was even harder.

John tried breaking the discs in by throwing them on the concrete tees. I don't know how much that helped, though.

We played with Damon Neth and his son, Spencer. Damon owns the Disc Nation store down in South Austin. He was a nice guy and very friendly. Luckily, I was able to hit basket number 1 on the second time around. And I was the only one in the group to do so. Unfortunately, there were other people who were able to hit metal twice. So a play-off round was held. My group was impatient to wait for the finish and they went off to the Tilted Kilt to eat.

John and I practiced for the upcoming Ace Race 2007 tournament. Tees are placed around 200 feet from the baskets. Only aces or hits of the metal basket count.

The stubby pecan tree was looking pretty ripe. Ripe enough to warn people off.

Phoenicia

First up was Phoenicia -- a game I have been waiting on for a while now. Thankfully, the publisher allowed people to play an online version for free while the game was being published. This allowed me to try it to see if it was different from Zepter which I already own. And it is. It is much more condensed and quicker. The only problem with it is how to explain the "technology tree" to new people. There is something on the board that shows what cards give discounts or abilities to other cards. But it shows farming (which does neither) and doesn't show the granary (which gives improved storage) or five of the other cards in the game.

I took the dyer and dye house, but I was limited by the number of workers since I missed out on both forts. Doug was doing advanced mining, but he was limited by storehouses (and had to discard money). I was eventually able to end it by buying a city wall.

UR

Next up was UR which I bought during Boulder Game's Saturday night sale. With a FAQ, we had another go at the game. Everyone pretty much left each other alone during the beginning of the game. I had a sweet setup in the corner with Culture and Agriculture rapidly growing my civilization.

Railroad Dice 2

After John nixed To Court the King, we surprisingly settled on Railroad Dice 2! I was glad to get this game back on my radar. After a quick rules refresher (these are perhaps the most poorly translated rules that I own -- and after the game was over, I noticed that we got two things wrong.), we played the game. The game bogged down towards the end as all of the simple dice were gone and we could not replace them with complex dice quickly enough. But I still like this game and consider it a fun and innovative game.

With both ends of the toll road blocked by stop and go traffic, what is the point of being able to drive 80 in the middle?

What a painfully slow starting Tichu game it was. Perhaps the worst one ever. The score should not be 185 to 215 after six hands!

I took advantage of Traci's mistake when she tried to go on top of my eight high length 6 straight. After everyone had passed, I played the Mahjong and wished for a 4. Unfortunately, she had another four in her hand. :(

Oh, and by the way Dougie, I have now seen for my own one as long as yours...

Out in the parking lot, I almost stepped on an Onion headline. I wonder if whoever passes out literature on global warming realizes that it will only end up as litter. All those resources have gone to waste...

I went out to Wilco a little bit late today. At least hole 5 was a birdie...

I went down to Mary Moore Searight Metropolitan park to take some pictures. With a new camera and a new lens, I just had to take some more course photos.

The weather was brutally hot out. I worked up quite a sweat walking around the course. As hot as it was, there were still people playing out here. I don't think that this course is ever empty. Afterwards, I played a round of disc golf. And I even had to take a break or two in the shade to cool off.

I played through a rather large group. And, wouldn't you know it, but I played badly that hole. My disc hit a tree, I cut my leg getting the disc out, and then I missed the put into the hole. Sigh.

But then on hole 6 and 7, I had back-to-back birdies. I ended up 3 over par.

Next, I went to Circle C. Disc Nation was kind enough to print me out a course map. Unfortunately, the course was far too overgrown. Almost every field was full of waist-high grassy shrubs. I was real careful in throwing discs. And, even then, I would sometimes have to search a while to find where it landed.

I did have one birdie on hole 4.

Hole 15 was unplayable due to the really high level of Slaughter Creek. And it was fun making my way across the creek balancing from unstable rock to submerged rock. At hole 17 (out of 21), I finally gave up. It was no fun trying to find your disc in a sea of green. And I eventually found the hike and bike trail and made my way out of the park.

Alhambra: The dice game

We started out tonight with a new dice game. This one is built on the Alhambra franchise. It is not that bad, actually. If you can get over the fact this is a dice game after all. There are six areas: one for each of the colored building types. The game is played over five rounds with scoring opportunities for the first, third, and fifth round. For each round, people try and compete for buildings that show up. There is one of each type guaranteed and five extra drawn from a bag. In a four player game, you get four opportunities to roll high in a color. You place your marker when you are done rolling. There are three chances to roll the dice. And you can carry over dice in later rolls by not rolling them again. The only problem is that the number of dice showing has three levels based on how many times you rolled to achieve that result. So six of a color on the third roll can be beaten by another person who rolled six of that color using two rolls.

After everyone has rolled, we go through the buildings and hand them out. The first player in the line gets first choice and must place the building using the usual rules or place it in the holding area. Which is not that bad, because you can decide after rolling the dice one or two times to abort and move a piece from the holding area to your board.

As you can see from the above, John built a walled in garden of Alhambra (with only one mistake noticed after the fact. Mike was even worse with the mistakes...)

Taluva

Next up was Taluva. Which is not a bad three player game. The game has some pretty short rules. Although the rule set did pose a problem with our group.

To Court The King

And to finish out the night we played another light dice game. This is another interesting game where you try and get certain combinations of dice that match personalities. These personalities will give you either more dice or a power to alter the dice. This process snowballs during the game until you can successfully roll seven dice that have the same number. And then it enters the final round. It is not that painful to miss rolling for your target personality. You can always get at least one personality.

Wikinger

Another playing of Wikinger for me. The first time I played, the game was a little broken. But that was because we got a rule wrong. This time, the game played okay. Maybe a 5 or so.

Antiquity

Kevin and Debra Nunn showed up for Ed's game day. It was good to see them again. Unfortunately, I could not play with them because this ultra meaty game beckoned. And it took a while to play since we had a new player with us. I love this game. The theme is great and the rules fit almost perfectly. The only down side is maintaining hundreds of tiny, little cardboard chits. We ended one turn early when I claimed the win. With five cart houses and a bunch of food, I could easily surround poor Paul. He was already feeling the effects of not being able to dump pollution in his homelands once I made the run into his territory. Jon said he would have won as well, but I had much more unpolluted territory than he did.

Ed dutifully takes pictures of every game that is played for his photo gallery. And, because of that, you almost never seem him in a picture. One word of advice, Ed: tripod. Another amusing moment was when both Ed and I were taking multiple pictures of a game in progress. It made for a paparazzi moment...

Ra

Last up was Ra -- one of my favorite Knizia bidding games. Unfortunately, the Egyptian gods were not with me. During the first era, the person on my right kept pulling Ra chits. Which stopped me from getting small groups to bid with my 2 money. And, during the second and third eras, I scored zero points! Ras came up awfully quick. And there was no way for me to bid on anything with my middle money.

Thebes

The monthly The Central Texas Boardgames Meetup Group A.K.A. First Friday Fluffers was held today. I brought Thebes, which is the commercial reprint of Jenseits von Theben. Which is a nice and thematic game with only a little bit of the luck of the draw in it. This printing is very pretty. You get five individualized draw bags, spinning wheels to show columns in a table of dig data, and a nice game board. It is very different from its first edition. And it makes that first edition look like a prototype. Also, the rules have changed somewhat. I kind of miss the scoring for most well rounded knowledge. And the way the exhibitions are held...

Tichu

Jon was late as usual. So we played a couple of practice hands of Tichu. Which some how turned into a real game. Of pain...

Age of Steam: Korea

Picking a game for five players is hard. Well, if you want everyone to agree, that is. We decided on Age of Steam and for a variant chose the Korea map. This was a first playing for every one. So no one would have an advantage. The map is rather mountainous. But, fortunately, mountains only cost 3 dollars to build on. Also, there are some spots where you can't build through that are marked with thick black lines. I guest those spots exist to make the map look more like the country that it is trying to represent.

The big difference here is that cities are not the color of the tile. Rather, a city will accept any colored good that is currently on top of it. This makes for a very changing game. One where you have to play tactically and over the short-term. Because other people will change your plans by delivering goods.

For some reason, the starting player bid was rather low. I got second place for 2 dollars. Jon was first and chose deliver first to allow himself some protection. Which is clearly more powerful in this game. I was very lucky to get locomotive! Doug chose build first, John chose turn order, and Ed chose engineer. Jon built off in the south east of the board. Doug built in the south west. And I built in the middle which allowed me to make two length two deliveries on the first turn. Ed built in the north east and was trying to set up a length two delivery by going through another city to get to his intended good. John chose a route in the north that connected to Ed's target city.

When it got around to John making his first delivery. He chose to deliver one red good from the northern-most city to Ed's target city. I quickly pointed out that he should have done that the other way. He should deliver the good in the target city to the northern-most. So that in the future, if someone were to deliver that good, at least it would have to go along his rail for one length. Unfortunately, I did this quickly and without thinking. After I said it, I realized that, if John were to change the move, it would hose Ed and leave him unable to deliver any goods that turn. Of course, in general, that is what you are supposed to do in this game. Now some people were clamoring for John to do exactly that. But, in the end, he chose to be nice to Ed. Ed later on in the game makes a delivery that helps himself and hurts John.

And this happened again in the game. John wondered whether he should build tracks and I replied that at least it would get you victory points even if you do not use those tracks to deliver goods. I then pointed out some cheap spots to build a track. And then realized that it would cut of Ed's southern route from his northern route. Doh! I really should keep my mouth shut at this point. John picks somewhere else to build.

In this game, you can't really compete with someone else over the same goods. Not without knocking both people out of the running for the game. However, after having a couple of rounds of loosing victory points for not having enough income, John was able to climb out of a death-spiral by delivering a number of length four goods. He was doing this in the middle of my territory. But I was occupying myself with longer deliveries.

Suicide Tichu

And finally we wanted one more quickish game to close out the night. Tichu, of course, came up again. We seem to always play this game -- perhaps too much at times. But it is relatively easy to get all four people to agree to play it.

This time I wanted to try out a variant. I think it was Adam and Rehana that had mentioned suicide Spades. We discussed how it would work in Tichu and came up with the following, simple, rule: One person on each team must call Tichu (before they play their first card). I found a reference on BoardGameGeek called Chaos Tichu here. But it is a little more chaotic, so to speak.

I like this variant! It intensifies the gaming experience. You feel like you are in a crucible. You must make hard decisions with little information. When you pass a card to your partner, you pass your best card if it is clear you are not going to call Tichu. But what if they then play some cards without calling Tichu? Well, you are screwed and you have to call a doomed Tichu. There is more calling of Tichus before the pass. And the Mahjong is a little more powerful in this variant. If I am going to call Tichu and I have the Mahjong, then I wish out an Ace. If it doesn't backfire, then the person on the opposing team must play an ace and then be forced to make a less likely Tichu call (or hose his partner).