I was in the Austin-Bergstrom Airport this morning and noticed this sign. Round Rock donuts are "world famous"? Yeah, right! Dream on Round Rock! I am sure that some Azerbiajani fondly remembers the time that he ate one of these delicious donuts... Or, maybe they just consider that Texas is the only world that matters. And then I am sure that someone from Impact Town, Texas has a craving for Round Rock donuts this morning!
During my bike ride this morning I noticed 32 other cyclists (for an all time high). I wonder if it was because I left my house later than normal (08:12am)? And after I got back, I noticed another record. I have cycled 622.92462 miles on my Revive. Thats, like, from Round Rock, Texas to New Cambria, Kansas!
I am being plauged by water problems recently. My refrigerator's water supply was not working well. The ice machine stopped spitting out ice. So I changed the water filter, well that had an effect... of stopping the water running at all! So, I yanked the refrigerator out and unconnected the water supply. When I turned back on the water, this is what came out: strange blue shit. Gah! What is in our water supply? Well, at least the water runs now, but it takes like five seconds before it starts flowing from the water dispenser. Sigh...
I went to see the Lord of the Rings trilogy at the Alamo Drafthouse today. The main selling point of it was seven meals! Yes, you read that correctly. The menu was the following:
First Breakfast:
Fresh Hens eggs, nice crispy bacon, grilled mushrooms and orange slice
Second Breakfast:
Strawberries and Cream
Elevensies:
Pan Seared Sausage and tomatoes with cheeses, cabbage and pickles
Luncheon:
Braised Spareribs with mashed potatoes, roast carrots
Afternoon Tea:
Baby greens with garlic blackberry vinaigrette, cheese herb galette, served with tea cookies
Dinner: Stewed Coney (rabbit) with taters, carrot, and leek, fresh garden herbs with crusty bread
Supper: Swirl of tomato and spinach soups wild mushroom crouton, apple pie
The food was very tasty and each meal was rather large. I finished off the first three plates and was full after that. So I made my self taste the other meals, but there was no way I could eat that much food in one sitting! Another interesting thing was eating the food in a dark theater. You experience food differently if you cannot see what you are eating.
I was there for a while! They played the extended film version of the first two movies and the normal DVD verson of the final movie. And I was glad that it was not the extended version because I wanted to get home before 11pm. I had arrived there at 9am, so I essentially spent 14 hours for this festival. I was certinally burned out!
The other exciting thing that happened was that there was a fire at the Spaghetti Warehouse across the street. During the first break, I went outside to warm up (because the theatre was cold not because of the fire) and I must have counted 13 fire trucks out there. I couldn't leave even if I wanted to since my poor truck was surrounded by fire hoses.
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I drove to South Oklahoma for another Saturday gaming day with Ed and Susan and arrived a little early. Marty was also there so I brought out Coloretto Amazonas and started explaining the rules. However, other people started arriving and everyone forgot about playing the game. Sigh. So we started with another new game, King Solomon's Mine. In it you try and dig for artifacts by playing cards that describe a shape. You rearrange pieces on the board so that the pieces that fit the shape are all on the same level. You can then pick up the pieces. I had low numbered cards (but not as low as Ed's). In the end, Doug pipped me in the scoring for magic items and pipped Adam and Mike in the scoring for cursed items. It was an not so bad game.
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For the next game, we played Shadows over Camelot. In the last game that Susan played, she was the traitor and amusingly enough, she was the traitor in this game. Everyone is trying to beat the game and have good triumph. The traitor (if there is one) is trying to get evil to succeed. You perform a number of quests such as finding the Holy Grail, and defeating the Saxons, etc. If you succeed, then good swords come out and if you fail then bad swords come out. And when the round table fills up, hopefully good prevails. I started out by going for Lancelot's Armour since Susan had mentioned that it was good for the traitor and I knew I was not the traitor. I also met the requirement of having a full house. I was successful and then went on to find the Holy Grail next! Because I got the Armour, people suspected me of being a traitor which was amusing. Susan was trying to hide by helping to search for the Grail. No one else was accussed and we ended the game by killing the Dragon!
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Another playing of this fun, push your luck game. And for this game, I pushed my luck too far! I only successfully predicted one mine and lost my fortune in the others...
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Ed brought out this game for us to try since Mayfair gave it to him to review. My initial impression of this game was hopeful. After all, it is a trick taking card game. However, during the game play, my impression turned less than favorable. In each round, you can only take three tricks and you know what suit the trump card will be in for the next round. I was trying to take trump cards for the next round but my choices were very limited. I was forced to follow suit too often. And after my three tricks were captured, I could only possibly decide who would receive points or trumps if I didn't have to follow suit. In the end, the scoring changes to a color based system. And because John kept the three highest trump cards and gave them all to Doug, Doug was able to claim all but three tricks which gave him the win. What a flawed game!
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Next was Niagara. Still a decent game to play. However, I made one mistake that allowed Ed to steal a gem from me and win the game. Had I been paying attention and card counting I might have been able to stop it. Not a biggie though... I don't think that I want to play the game that way anyways...
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And another playing of Around the World. Still a decent game to play as well. In this game, people played some of the most time consuming travel cards that I have seen (like a 6 train and an 8 ship together). And another strange thing was that all trains came up one time.
Hello Kitty headlights link via
50 foot long Viking ship made from 15 million popsicle sticks link via
Urine powered battery link via
"Nobody knows how this place is run," says Rep. Bernie Sanders. "If they did, they'd go nuts." link via
Porn will be our gift to the next civilization link1 and porn is also made with radioactive material link2 via
"I doubt whether the agony an irradiated soldier goes through in the process of dying is any worse than that produced by having your body charred to a crisp by napalm, your guts being ripped apart by shrapnel, your lungs blown in by concussion weapons, and all those other sweet things that happen when conventional weapons ... are used." After assessing every aspect and implication of his concept, he reached his modest conclusion: "The neutron bomb has to be the most moral weapon ever invented." link via
How small bookstores can compete with retail giants link via
E-mail Erosion is an installation that automatically creates sculptures, using spam and e-mail as data to trigger the sculpting process link via
Formula one steering wheel has more buttons than Nintendo link via
Flying Spaghetti Monster link via
A color portrait of the English language link via
Visiball glasses are equipped with a specially designed lens that blocks out the majority of the foliage and grass from your field of view when you are looking for your lost golf ball link via
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What the hell is a Keet? And why would I want to buy one? Are they tasty?
Well, the Adam Spielt order showed up on Tuesday and Diamant was in it and we started the night by playing it. This is a fun and quick filler game where you try to push your luck. Initially both myself and Ed were rather bold and ultimately unsuccessful at recovering the gold. However as the mines started closing up, the other learned from our example to leave early. On the other hand, Ed and I had to keep trying to strike it rich and catch up in the score. Fortunately, we were quite successful in the last two mines which gave us the win.
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One group went off to play Palazzo so we started up Tower of Babel to compete. Unfortunately, my strategy was off tonight and I built poorly. Still a good game that I want to play more of though.
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Adam suggested this game and Jon and I quickly agreed. Peter and Francesca finished out the 5 needed. They were also newbies to this game. And what was surprising was the fact that Francesca was bidding rather aggressively (showing 5 cards). I don't think that her cards were that good, but at least she wasn't timid. I was out in the early lead. However, Adam got some good cards towards the end which gave him the win.
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When I got back in from helping Ed load some extra chairs and a table for Saturday gaming, I found that the group opened up Medici (which was surprising because the lunch time gamers played it on Wednesday). John, Peter and Francesca were new to the game and the usual advice of muddying a load was told to them when a particularly good load for me was about to be auctioned. For the first round I didnt buy anything until the end and as a result I got cards for really cheap prices. For the second and third rounds, I concentrated soley on getting more cards in the two colors that I had established to the exclusion of having the least total. I knew that this hurt me when Adam pipped me by one point for the win! Still a good game and one that I seem to have a strong inner merchant.
When I can home, I was greeted by the following mana from heaven. Mike and I were good acolytes and prayed daily. And Wilson! answered our prayers.
New bikes from Specialized link1 The other articles are amusing as well link2 link3 via
Star Trek business cards link1 Star Wars business cards link2 via
Ford CEO's Expedition? link via
Science fiction story leaks nuclear secrets link via
Robbery occurs on a live TV show link via
In the near future, a soldier who needs a quick look over the next hill will be able to aim his rifle skyward, fire a grenade-sized reconnaissance device and instantly receive imagery on his pocket computer link via
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On my bike ride this morning, I noticed something very weird. I mean like X-files weird. Someone placed the heads of four dead catfish on fence posts of the barbed wire fence running along the road. Why?? What is this supposed to prevent?? Very bizzare!
We started out the night with all seven people playing one game. Ed brought out a rerealease of an older game called Saboteur. In this game there are dwarves trying to find gold in a mine. However, some dwarves are trying to sabotage the mission. We played three rounds and in each one I was the good dwarf. I was successful twice and was stoped once. And I also proved to be the best dwarf there!
The key to this game is to be the person who connects our route to the gold. If you do that then you get the best pick of the victory points and you will also get another victory point card if there are extras. I was unable to do that but at least I was sitting next to the person who did.
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Doug completely ruined this game for me. He was quiet when I had rolled exactly his number (but I was trying to get a higher number). However, when Roxana was rolling he shouted that she had rolled my number. He also made sure to emphasise that point and convice her to stop rolling and take my number. Gah! I should have just gotten up and let them finish the game without me.
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Another game of Palazzo where I sucked badly. Sigh! Still willing to play it though...
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We noticed that the Rio Grand version had slightly different rules, so we used the their version for a change. In this game, I was really lucky. I kept turning up sevens! What hurt me though was I only was able to put out one set. I needed to turn up a 2 or a 3 for another set.
The Christian paradox link via
How many punch cards would it take for a 3 minute MP3? link via
For fun, you can launch up to 20 balloons at once with less distance. All our models will disassemble at the barrel for maximum portability even on aircraft link via
Amazon offers the 1,802 titles in the Penguin Classics Complete Library for $7,989.99 link via
Virtue and vice outperforms S&P500 link via
Bikini life jacket link1 link2 via
Golden Numbers is a sound installation consisting of 32 gigantic military speakers removed from the DMZ link via
Microsoft makes $471 profit/second link1, Google makes $44 profit/second link2 via
Cows dyed and used as advertising link via
As tempting as it is to picture a blood-spattered Canadarm flinging goat carcasses into the void, we know that the Shuttle is the fruit of what was supposed to be a rational decision making process link via
Well, after investing all this effort into searching for a terrestrial (although very spacey looking) craft, I'm pretty skeptical that any remnants of an actual saucer crash (assuming one really occurred) could be found. I was dealing here with an event I knew had occurred, which had a reasonable amount of documentation, was in favorable, open terrain, and proved nearly impossible to find. link via
On my bike ride this morning, I came across these words spray painted on the road.
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I think it has something to do with the two holes on both sides of the road. Perhaps they are laying pipe underneath the road? Which is a shame actually. This is a brand new road! You would think that they would get everything correct the first time! Sigh... Our tax dollars at work.
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While we were waiting for Jon to show up, we chose this quick game as a filler. And, indeed, Jon showed up after the first round. So, he just joined in the game essentially one turn behind. I haven't played this game in a while since it is played at Russcon a lot and I was burned out on it. The dice loved me tonight and I easily won the game.
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Mike brought two new Shadow games tonight and we chose this one to play. I had played this game once before so I knew a little of what to do for the strategy. After a fustrating rules explination, we started the game. I chose to go after a district that Mike controlled but, unfortunately, Mike decided to defend it. Mike soon learned later on in the game that you need to go after new districts for points rather than defending old districts for no points. What was fustrating was the end of the game. Jon was in last place and he controlled who was going to win the Papal election. I needed the extra point for going with Jon's decision. But he chose randomly and I had to chose randomly as well by fliping my card. Unfortunately, the card fell on the wrong outcome. I lost that point and was tied for second with Mike. Gah!
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To end the night, we resurrected an old but good game. The first game went rather poorly for me.
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But the second game went much better!
