It's been a while since I have made pizza. This time out it was with Italian Dry Salami and caramelized onions.
March 2009 Archives
I had a craving for B.B.Q. today and decided to drive out to Taylor for some Louis Mueller B.B.Q.. It was a 15 mile drive out there. When I arrived, the line was already to the door. Apparently, the credit card machine was giving them problems. I tried the moist brisket, chipotle sausage, and peach cobbler. Not bad at all. But not worth the long drive.
We started out with Le Havre. Which turned out to be quite different from all of the other games that I have played of it. Certain critical buildings were buried. Buildings like the Bakery, the Smokehouse, and the Brickworks. This meant that more concentrated food production was delayed. Which turned the game rather lean. None of us built steel or Luxury Liners. Mike even managed to take out two loans during the game (which is the first time that I have seen someone take out a loan). I did manage to build a lot of buildings though and easily win the game.
We finished up with a short game of Big Three.
My oak trees are just bursting with pollen. Ugh. Fortunately, I am not having an allergic reaction to it. But it is impressive just how much resources it puts towards reproduction.
A friend took me out to one of his favorite local eateries: Enchiladas y mas. It was good. Although he was telling how packed this place gets and that you had to go early if you don't want to wait. But it wasn't busy today. Perhaps the recession is affecting people's enchiladas cravings?
A Day in the Life of Abbey Road link via
Woman blinded by acid wants same fate for attacker link via
A photo shoot with one model made up in several looks to show increasing ages link via
Unauthorized Trader Joe's commercial link via
An RSS feed is required for the government stimulus bill results link via
Standing in one place has never been more fun link via
Phil Hansen's approach to art link via
Taking pictures from a kite link via
Basketball slamdunk team link via
Visualising the credit crises link via
Sliding down a zip line to enter/leave the town link via
Fibre optic ring flash link via
Public urination permitted after 7:30pm link via
Giant breasts increase people's appreciation for natural curves link via
1500 Archers on a 28.8: Network Programming in Age of Empires and Beyond link via
I captured the château de Tornac ! link via
Camcorder in kaiten (conveyor) sushi link1 link2 via
Thank God you're a man link1 link2 link3 via
A matter of perspective link via
It may not be much, but at least we have satellite link via
Predicting and controlling NetHack's randomness link via
Happy square root day link via
If condoms had sponsors link via
A bicycle built for two thousand link via
Aimee Mullins: How my legs give me super-powers link via
The periodic table of typefaces link via
Lex Luthor asks for a government bailout link via
Book review of Twilight link via
Painting the Mona Lisa in hamburger grease link via
FREE mini icecream in a restaurant link via
How to make solar cells from donuts and tea link via
Today we went to Wilco. It was another nice morning. Even when you are stuck out in the weeds.
And I got a birdie on hole 11 even.
It was a beautiful Friday and this motivated us to play some disc golf. We decided to try the normal Old Settler's Park course. When the dam was being worked on, some stole one of the extra baskets (I believe the C hole). Well, it looks like the Round Rock disc golf group went ahead and built another basket. This one seems like it would be a lot harder to run over.
We started out with a game of Cities and Knights. Mike had been wanting to play this. So we accommodated him. I was the third player to start. My first pick was okay and my second pick was not good at all. I had an 11 and a 12 among the numbers that I was sitting on. Which is not a good start. But I was lucky. We rolled both 11 and 12 a number of times! You gotta love the dice sometimes. This was able to place me in the running during the mid-game. However, the dice eventually turned back to their expected distribution. Sigh.
Ed apparently was hating this game. Enough to leave. Fortunately, Marty had arrived and was more than willing to take his place over. In a couple of turns, he had doubled his score. And the game ended a half an hour later with Mike finally claiming enough victory points for a win.
We ended with a game of Tichu.
| GT/T | Team #1 | GT/T | GT/T | Team #2 | GT/T |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MarkH & Jon | MikeCh & Marty | ||||
|
75
|
125 | T+ | |||
| 275 | 125 | ||||
|
340
|
60 | T- | |||
| 370 |
330
|
GT+ | |||
| T+ |
525
|
375 | |||
|
485
|
T- | 415 | |||
| 485 | 715 | T+ | |||
| 705 | GT+ |
795
|
I went to play some disc golf before watching the Watchmen today. It was a nice day out and I haven't been to the Luthern Church in a while. Its a really short course and easy to make birdies.
There were these small orange flags on the course. I wonder what they were originally used for?
And there were a number of bent pipes sticking in the ground as well. Weird.
There is a new Sonic right next to the Church. Which is just what the world needs...
You know, I never did notice this hidden cross before. It is located near the three large crosses. Churches seem to love cross iconography.
I woke up to find this snake warming up on the driveway. It took probably 8 years before I started seeing squirrels in the neighborhood. And now I am seeing a snake. Will it never end?
I got lucky to play one of my new Age of Steam maps. This one is about India. There are a couple of changes to the rules (of course). The first is that a die is rolled to simulate monsoon rains. Depending on the roll (0:0, 1-5:1, 6:2), money must be payed for upkeep to your tracks. The killer part is that this happens *before* you collect income. How painful. Especially since I rolled a 6 for 5 times during the game. The second rules change is that no dice are rolled for goods production. Instead, goods come out when unique players connect to the corresponding city.
In this game, I struck off by myself. And was fortunate enough to be left alone. I was also able to secure the Engineer for first the three rounds. This allowed me to get my engine level up which I used to make long deliveries. I jumped out far ahead of the others and stayed that way for the entire game. There was one moment during the game where I was set up to make a couple of 5 long blue deliveries. The turn before Jon took Urbanization. I was worried that he might spot the Urbanization that would ruin these deliveries. But he didn't. Phew. Then Marty gets first choice of actions selects an action and then takes it back to perform the harmful Urbanization. He was in last place and that Urbanization really didn't help him. But it was a hurt the leader move. However, it really didn't hurt me all that much. I was so far out in the lead and I was more worried at that time of finding other deliveries to make. Those were the last of the good deliveries in that area and I needed to branch out.
The pink sunset combined nicely with pink peach flowers with a slight pink tint via Photoshop.
I have been playing around with a Desktop Tower Defense clone game. This one is space based. And is quite fun to play. I just wish that the screen was bigger...
It took me a while to figure out how to survive some of the tougher levels. You need to upgrade the mineral miner. This brings your minerals from 80 mpm to 200 mpm! This is a 2.5x increase. This will help you get the income stream necessary to build the weapons necessary to stay alive. The other tip is to turn off the miners when you are severely under attack. Running out of power is to be avoided at all costs!
Since all chocolate milk made in America (and pretty much everything else) is made from High Fructose Corn Syrup, I make my own. I take a quart milk bottle and drink off about 2 inches of headroom. I then pour in two tablespoons of Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa power. And then add 60 grams of Blue Agave sweetener.
I was in the mood for some pancakes. I also wanted to try a sourdough version. There is quite a bit of discarded sourdough mixture when I go through a couple of feeding cycles. So I searched around for a basic recipe and found this. It seemed that you mix flour, milk, scrambled eggs, melted butter, and baking power together and cook them. I took the sourdough mixture and poured off the hooch (water/alcohol) and then poured the thick spent flour into a bowl. I added one scrambled egg, two tablespoons of melted butter, maybe half a cup of extra flour, and enough milk to bring it to the desired consistency. Turned out great! But maybe I was just hungry...
