Monthly Archives: October 2005

Disc Golf 10/29/2005

Course

Another round of Disc Golf. This time at Georgetown. And I didn’t have to drive! Doug volunteered to act as a bus for four of us since he was the southern most from the course. We had three teams of two. And of course, John’s team was in the lead. However, I still had fun.

Close

The highlight was this shot of mine that landed so close to the hole! When I threw it, I could not see the hole at all. I just winged it…

Game Day 10/27/2005

Game #1

Liar’s Dice

Well, we started out the night by waiting for everyone to show up. So we brought out this light filler game. I went for the law of averages by calling whenever the target was above and pushing up whenever it was below. This got me third place in the game. One interesting roll for me was the two stars roll. That got one of Mike’s dice!

Game #2

RailRoad Dice Germany

Finally! I got to play a game that I have had on the table for a while now. I am just not forcefull enough to make other people play a game that I want to play.

There was some good news and some bad news. The good news was the at least there was English rules for the game. The bad news was that English was obviously a second language for the writer. Which meant that there were a number of questions that we had during the game. And I hate people trying to break a game by asking intensive questions (“What happens in this far fetched scenario?” Grr!). So there were no clear answers and we just made up some house rules to get the game going. Another unfortunate thing was that we got a rule wrong (no surprise there) that enhanced a runaway leader problem.

I tried to get Doug and Mike to play the game again. After all, we had just learned the rules and set everything up from the previous game. Sadly, Mike was burnt out and didn’t want to play again. I guess that I will have to wait a couple of months for the next playing…

Game #3

Feurio!

Well, it doesn’t seem like we will be able to time the games so that both tables end at close to the same time. So Mike suggested that we play Feurio! The game ended in a two way tie for the win for myself and Mike. And Mike invoked my patented read-the-rules-for-the-tie-breaker strategy for the chance of winning the tie-breaker. Unfortunately, Mike won the tie breaker…

Game #4

That’s Life!

We ended up the night by playing That’s Life. In this game, I only had three fortune tiles. Mike and Doug had collected a lot of the positive and negative tiles. I knew I was in last place currently. So my strategy was to try and collect some high value negative tiles. Unfortunately, I rolled high numbers and could only collect two negative tiles.

The weather is outta control

It seems like it was a month ago when we were having 100+ degree temperatures. And now, for tomorrow morning, we have freeze warnings for western counties. I don’t know how plants can handle these radical swings. I just wish we had a reasonable fall…

links

Sunken cheese is lost link via

Stone keyboard link via

Radical cartography link via

Vatican astronomer asks: could you baptise ET? link via

Alton Brown’s refrigerator link via

Set your camera on long exposure and toss into the air link via

EFF decodes scheme to forensically link color laserjet printouts to a printer link via

A Japanese Cassanova gives 17 women gifts from stolen money link via

Face in sand dune link via

Fractal cabbage link via

Thomas Keller’s butter supplier link via

How many men does it take to change a lightbulb link via

The path of instability link via

32 seconds link via

NSFW: Why are men supposed to wash their hands after urination? link via

The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race link via

Gigapixel portrait of America link via

NSFW: Beer made with yeast from a surprising source link via

Disc Golf 10/22/2005

Course

Another round of Disc Golf. This time at Old Settlers Park. This is definately a different course than Cat Hollow. A much longer course. With less trees but with water hazzards. On the 16 hole, you have to throw over part of a lake! Doug tried to be safe and threw it towards land. I tried to go over but ended up in the water. Well, Mike was already down close to the lake retreiving his disc. And fortunately, he waded in and got my disc! Well, immediately after that, Doug threw his disc (he was borrowing mine) right into the lake! And luckily Mike waded after that one as well. After rescuing two of my discs, I offered to treat Mike to lunch. The sad thing was that after two more throws, I soon lost that disc that Mike saved. Into the one group of trees on this course. Sigh… Still fun…

RR Fit

RR Fit

During my morning bike ride, there was a water station that was set up and some signs. It looks like there was to be a running event later on in the day. This was along the same stretch of road that the Outlaw classic used.

Game Day 10/20/2005

Game #1

Anno 1503 – Aristokraten und Piraten

There was a full house tonight and I had to break out the third table! Fortunately, I was able to convince two others to my one of my Essen purchases which had been languishing in my bookshelf for a while. And boy did it kill my mood! The dice freakin hated me!! No one rolled a five, which was my wild card resource. While Doug’s and Susan’s wild card resource was rolled multiple times. And I could not set up a valuable production. Susan was making a ton of money selling Tobacco and Doug was making a lot of money as well. I could only sell wood and stone for 1 dollar. 1 dollar!!! Gah! I would still play it again. I do not hold the weird results that dice can have too much against this game.

Game #2

Metro

Well, there was no chance to switch players. So Susan pulled out Metro. A fun game of screwing other people. And it is surprising that she pulled it out, since I had a lot of build up rage after the previous game. So I relieved it by whining about how “I was so in last place”. Well, my Jedi mind trick must have worked because Susan and Doug left me alone a tiny bit and I was able to win the game.

Game #3

Nicht die Bohne

Most of the people left for the night and we had 5 people left. Jon suggested a card game and I responed with the perfect for 5 game of Mu. However, we had Mike with us and he hates most trick taking card games (and Doug was whining as well). So I drug out Nicht die Bohne. Which is another game of screw your opponent. The problem was that after two hands Doug was in first and I was in second (Mike was in third). And being in the lead is a bad position to be in for this game. So I was picked on severely. And what was worse was that for the last card that was played, Mike was in a king-maker situation. He chose to give the positive points to Doug and the negative to me. Which ended up in Mike winning the game, Doug in 2nd, and myself in third. Sigh…

Last Russcon eva!

Russcon

Sigh. The end of an era. After 8 years of holding weekly gaming sessions and after over 400 game nights, this is the last Russcon session. You see, Russ is selling off all his worldly possessions and moving to Wroclaw, Poland.

I am sure that people will pick up the torch and hold weekly gaming sessions. But it won’t be the same. In a different house, and with no Russ, and with a slightly different group of people, the old chemistry will be gone.

Many people were in attendance and the mood was festive. I played one game of Tichu and then talked to people. Russ finally showed up from Polish class and there was much rejoicing. And then I drove off into the night…

Dot’s still not rebuilt

Missing Dot's

Well Tichu was not going to happen today, so I went out to lunch. I decided to go to Dot’s and see if they have rebuilt yet or not. See, a year ago, a fire burned down a great restaurant. Dot (the owner and chef) cooks a great lunch menu. There are many choices of “meats” (fried catfish, Lasagna, Roast Beef, etc), many choices of vegetables (black eyed peas, collard greens, sweet potatos, etc), rolls (white or corn bread), desserts (pecan pie, fruit cobbler, chocolate pie, etc), and drinks (water after all those calories for me). The location is in a bad part of town filled with junk yards and run down houses. And you have to park off the road. But that is part of its charm.

But, it was still not rebuilt. Luckily, there was a little trailer with Dot in it and coolers filled with steaming food. So I drove back to work with my to go lunch. This Thursday there will be a fund raising event to start rebuilding the restaurant.