Doesn’t that sign seem wrong somehow? What are they really trying to say? They are under new management now. Which is sad. I hope that my favorite lunch time sushi place has a little more stability in its life…
Now we are open
Monthly Archives: December 2008
Pyramidic step pattern of beer foam
Originally, I had wanted to take a picture of the pyramidic step pattern of the beer foam. But my crappy iPhone had some electronic, drunken hiccup and produced another level of step pattern!
A second attempt at bread
I had another go at experimenting with bread. And ended up with a loaf that looked like a cake!
I tried taking this picture outside. But the stainless steel bowl was creating a crescent shaped blown out area. So I moved it into the shade. However, the colors were slightly off. There was a bluish tint in the shadows.
For the cake bread, I used clamshell lighting. Two light stands pressed as close to the camera and food as possible. At an eight power, I was able to get f/11 at ISO 200. The only weirdness was that one flash was slaved over Canon’s IR. This halved my sync speed from 1/250 to 1/125. I would have thought that I could have at least seen one of the flashes light the picture. Maybe the IR communication parted needed extra time to complete. But the picture was black at 1/250 and lit at 1/125.
Recipe follows:
Garage door torsion spring broke
It seems that my garage door has broken! Which was not a surprise, really. A couple of months ago, my neighbor across the street was experiencing problems with his garage door. It would act like the pressure sensor was broken and change directions occasionally. Soon after that the spring broke. Given that our houses were built at the same time, it was no surprise when that happened to me. And it looks like the garage door opener almost ripped out the bar off the door from the now extremely heavy door.
Sweet Potato + Plantain + Caramel
Equals good. Different tasting, that’s for sure. I think that the balance is tipped towards the plantain in this equation. So, the next time I will use more sweet potatoes.
I removed the skin of a plantain banana and roasted it in the oven. I also roasted one whole sweet potato until it was a charred and blackened lump. I placed the banana and the scooped out potato into a blender and added some of the left over caramel. And blended it until it was smooth. Or at least I tried that. It seemed like it needed a little bit more liquid to get it blended fully. So I added some of my holiday eggnog (heavy cream, rum, brandy, and whiskey).
Disc Golf 12/13/2008
We played disc golf at Cat Hollow today. As I was practicing throwing, one of my discs flew off-course. Way, way, off-course, across the street, and into someone’s front lawn…
Ugh, it seems that the Cedar (aka Juniper) trees are starting to show signs of blooming. I sense much mucus in my future…
I had a near ace on one of the holes this morning. My disc hit the yellow metal on the basket. Which, sadly, does not count in the least…
I know that Central Texas is in a severe drought and such. But I didn’t think that it was this bad. A shredded tire is seen growing out of the ground.
Game Day 12/12/2008
Vacation is running out of time to be used. So we might as well use it on gaming. Ed and Susan brought new games with them which effectively rendered my large collection useless. We started with a new Alea game about collecting ingredients to build potions and score them. Unfortunately for me, this is a blind guessing game. Everyone selects 5 cards from a hand of 12 roles. Then the roles are individually revealed. If no one else picked your role, you lucked out! If they did, the first person very likely to be screwed. The second person must decide to let it pass and get less of the result or try and take over the first person’s role. If you are the last person in the chain, the decision is a no-brainer: screw the first person! Otherwise, you must decide if the people downstream of you are likely to have the card.
This type of mechanic immediately puts this game in the the light-weight category. Sure, you might be able to guess what people are likely to go for. But not entirely and not with any surety. Definitely not one for my game collection. And not one to play again any time soon with all of the choices out there…
Next up was a game with more of a perfect information, no luck based design. Thematically, it is set in the gold-rush Old West. It has two major phases: building up your pieces and abilities, and tearing down what you previously built up. The key decision in this game is deciding when to switch from build-up to tear-down. Because you cannot go back!
It was my favorite of the night. And one I would be willing to try again.
Ahh, a two-sided game. Good versus Evil. Or, in this Sci-Fi themed game: Humans versus Cylons. You start off the game as everyone being Humans. Or at least claiming to be Humans. There are secret identities that are dealt out. One at the beginning and a second during the halfway point in the game. So, you could start out as a Human only to discover that you are actually a Cylon sleeper agent! Neat. This means that you have to play the game on the edge of a balanced agenda. You don’t want to help the Humans out too much because you just might be doing the wrong thing.
Chapel was playing Gaius Baltar, and he had the first move in the game. He plays a card that allows him to look at Susan’s (playing Laura Roslin) secret identity. He then loudly declares that Roslin is a Cylon! Hrm, how interesting. It wouldn’t make sense that one Human says that another Human is actually the enemy. Or that one Cylon would out a co-conspirator as an enemy. That would mean that either Baltar is a Cylon or Roslin is a Cylon. But who do I believe? And that is the real dilemma here. Susan was pretty quiet so I leaned towards believing Mike. But, as a group, we did nothing. However, Mike’s constant accusations did force Susan’s hand. She declared herself as a Cylon, switched sides, and started working to help the enemy.
In this game there are two Cylons and three Humans. Who is the second one? And would we have to wait until the second half of the game to find out? But it turned out that Jon was indeed an early Cylon. He declared himself and switched sides as well. Unfortunately, we could do nothing about it.
The Humans at this point were in a world of pain. Critical supplies such as food, fuel, and population were running out. We fought the brave fight, took many risks to try and reach Earth, but, in the end, we failed…
Nowadays, there are many choices for cooperative games where someone (or some group of people) is a traitor. I am not a fan of owning them all, so I would have to pick one. And this one would be it. I like the Sci-Fi theme and the mechanics just fine.
Game Day 12/11/2008
We started out with a filler game of Bunte Runde. It was nice and quick and definitely ranks high on Knizia fillers.
Next up was a quick game of Big Three. We were waiting for a fourth but he never showed. It was quick and brutally one-sided. I ruled them all!
Well, onto the meat for the night. I used the same strategy as I did in my first playing of it: secure Nippur and control a lot of Sumer. And it worked well, putting me way ahead in the game. I was able to score with one completed city and troops as much points as people with two completed cities and no troops. So, when I started scoring my cities, I pulled ahead for the win.
Snow/Sleet/And/Or/Ice
Apparently it snowed in Austin last night! I woke up in the morning an found a little bit of evidence still lurking in a corner of the yard…
Super unleaded gas finally falls below $2.00
Yea! One good thing about a depression…