Monthly Archives: July 2007

Game Day 07/19/2007

Tichu

While we waited for Doug to show up, we played some Tichu. My 1223345555Ph777 somehow stopped Jon’s Tichu call. And, afterwards, John plays a 6 bomb. So there was no way Jon could have made that Tichu call…


07/19/2007 The scorecard for a game of Tichu

GT or T bet made or lost

This team scored more points than the other or one twoed

GT/T Team #1 GT/T GT/T Team #2 GT/T
MarkH & JohnG MikeCh & Jon
 
55
    45  
 
115
  T- -15  
  415 T+   -15  
Game #2

Taj Mahal

I always like playing this Knizia game. Although with five people it can be tough to know what battle others will get into. You do not want to fight somewhere where everyone else is. I did make that mistake early in the game. In an elephant battle with two others. If I would have stayed out of it, I could have got second place. Still fun playing it though.

Tichu

Game #3

And another game of Tichu to finish up the night. This one being a full game. On our second one/two both Dough and Mike had long run bombs. And yet they were unable to stop us from going out one/two. Doug’s was a length seven straight and in the lengthy questioning from Doug, the following statement came out:

Doug has the longest one I have ever seen!

Which led to much ribbing. On Mike’s second Tichu call, I had the above hand. Which contained the rarely played straight with a bomb inside of it. I think that it is the second-most annoying type of bomb (the intersection of two bombs (a straight and quads) being the first and the Ace bomb being the third) there is.

For our final one/two, I had AKKQJ and a Mahjong through nine with a Phoenix in there somewhere. Yet I didn’t call Tichu with it. Too wussy I guess.

We lost by 5 points! Argh! Close game though…


07/19/2007 The scorecard for a game of Tichu

GT or T bet made or lost

This team scored more points than the other or one twoed

GT/T Team #1 GT/T GT/T Team #2 GT/T
MarkH & Jon MikeCh & DougG
  0    
200
T+
  200     200  
  400     200  
 
460
  T+ 340  
  495   T-
305
 
  495     505  
  495     705  
T+ 610    
790
 
  810     790  
 
990
T+   810  
  995    
1005
T+

Weird fungus

weird fungus

With all of the rain falling in central Texas this summer it is no surprise that some opportunistic fungus will sprout up. Quite a strange looking ball if you ask me.

Kona Grill

New road to Burnet

I walked over to try out the Kona Grill over in the Domain. It looks like they are finishing up the new road that will connect to Burnet.

barrier rocks

It looks like they are using rocks dug up during excavation to block off unfinished parts of the road. And, being the pedestrian hating town that it is, there are no sidewalks lining this road.

saran wrapped trees

I don’t know what they are doing to these poor trees. Trying to save them I guess. The saran wrapping probably keeps in water.

Oh, and the restaurant? So so food and a bit over-priced.

Marketing spam

Hi,

I am interested in advertising on your web site, specifically on your page:
http://www.hamzy.info/blog/archives/2007/06/airport_ordeal.html

The ad would be for a airport parking web site, and would consist of a 2-3 lines of text with links
to the site. I can pay you $35 for the ad, and send it via PayPal, or check.

Would you be interested?

Bruce Armstrong

I received the above unsolicited email today. Somehow they tracked me down to another email. It doesn’t even really apply to the URL. And I do not think that my readership would even appreciate having to read advertisements along with my drivel.

links

Horse or Deer might replace Tuna on sushi link via

For evey 100 girls link via

Flip link via

The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence link via

On Serious Literature link via

Ten politically incorrect truths about human nature link via

Human Pixels Perform Huge Real-Time Animation link via

“William the Bloody” by Lydia Chalmers. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Watcher’s Diploma (W.D.), Watcher’s Academy, London, 1998 link via

Why new music doesn’t sound as good as it did link via

What’s hidden in the iPhone’s ‘fine print’? link via

How not to get hit by a bike link via

Why doesn’t evolution get rid of ugly people? link via

Cool commercial link via

For parking space, the price is right at $225,000 link via

Big Wendy link via

WWI color photographs of the battle of Passchendaele link via

Gummi Bear Torture link via

Periodic table of the internet link via

Everyone’s a winner link via

Brown Sugar Cookies

Brown Sugar Cookies

I finally got a chance to make this recipe from Cook’s Illustrated after being sold on it by Adam. These cookies are pretty good and are a step above sugar cookies because of a couple of factors. Both the molasses from the brown sugar and the browning of the butter give this cookie extra depth. And I chose to add another complementary flavor of toffee bits.

Sadly, it was almost a non-start. After browning the butter in a pan, I poured it off into a metal bowl. When I moved the bowl to set it aside, I changed my grip from the top of the bowl to the bottom. Where it was hot enough to make me jerk my hand away. The bowl fell on the floor and sprayed hot, melted, slippery, butter everywhere. I waited a couple of days before I tried the recipe again.

Tichu and Tex-Mex 07/15/2007

Traci and John

Wow, it has been almost a month since I have last played Tichu. Unfortunately, there were six people present to play a four player game. The only problem that I noticed was a minor one of not trying to feed point cards to the trick that Dragon takes. Here is a scenario: your partner goes out first and you are left with one other person. You know that the Dragon has not been played. So, on single card tricks, you play a King. This will force a remaining ace out of your opponent’s hand. Or, if your opponent plays the Dragon, it will go to your partner.


07/15/2007 The scorecard for a game of Tichu

GT or T bet made or lost

This team scored more points than the other or one twoed

GT/T Team #1 GT/T GT/T Team #2 GT/T
MarkH & JohnG Traci & Nick / Jeff
  50     -50 T-
  250   T- -150  
 
410
T+   -110  
 
530
  T- -230  
T+
695
    -195  
 
760
  GT- -360  

Disc Golf 07/14/2007

Rainy registration

Today was the Three Disc Challenge. Which was an interesting concept for a tournament. Give everyone three brand new discs (a long-range disc, a mid-range disc, and a putter) and let them compete on the same course. But that was my ideal version. Reality was a let down. The biggest one was that you could use any Millennium disc in your bag. Another was that there was some variety in the selection with 5 or so long-range discs and a couple of mid-ranges to choose from. You could even choose multiple of one kind even. I did see some people trying to “break in” their brand new discs by scratching them up on the road or banging them on rocks.

The day started out poorly. It was raining heavily in the morning. A lot of people were standing around with umbrellas. In fact, this is the first time that I have played disc golf with an umbrella. Unfortunately, this course is not built to handle rain. The tee boxes turned into mud pits. You could not take any steps to throw the disc.

One amusing thing was that, out of the four people in my group, they were all project managers (or people who teach project management)! What are the odds of that?

Game Day 07/13/2007

Game #1

Notre Dame

I finally got a chance to play this game. Although it looked iffy that I would play a game for a while. I arrived a little late to the monthly meetup. Everyone had started a game already. After a while some more people joined and I tried reading the rules to Notre Dame but no one was paying attention. Thankfully, John had just finished his game and came over to explain the rules.

The game was interesting to play. Everyone has nine different action card in a draw deck. They draw three of them, pick one and send the remaining two to their left. Again, one card is picked and the remaining card is passed to the left. Now, out of the three cards in your hand (one you chose and two that were passed to you), you choose two to perform the action on the card. Sometimes the choices are tough and sometimes you have no good choice. You have a number of factors to balance during the game. You need to get cubes out of your supply to place on the board. You need to control the increasing population of rats (when the counter becomes too high, bad things happen). You need to get money during the game since money is tight. Oh, and by the way, you need to score some victory points!

With all of this random card drawing and useless card passing, there are some mitigating factors. You will go through your entire action deck three times during the game. And everyone will see the same majority of characters show up.

Disc Golf 07/13/2007

Good approach shots #1
Good approach shots #2
Good approach shots #4

I played Wilco one last time before the tournament tomorrow. And have still not improved much. Yes, I can throw close to the basket on a couple of holes… at least occasionally. But there are other holes on this course where I keep going into the brush on the sides. And that is not a good position to be in.

Course mowed

They have mowed the course. Which makes it look rather presentable…