bloviation extrordinaire
I guess they’re teaching sarcasm classes earlier these days… kids these days… when *I* was a youngster, we quietly stood in the corner, and ate paint chips! AND WE LIKED IT!!
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Wren (doing a little bean voice impression): “and the big bean was too slow and it got ate-en…” Daddy: “eaten, Wren…” Wren: “No, they don’t know how to say it.” Daddy: “Why don’t you eat your broccoli stems with the tops? It’s the same thing…” |
I’ve been to Vegas once or twice. It’s fun to play, but I would never bet more than I expected to lose. You can see how people get addicted to it though – it’s easy to start fantasizing and lose track of reality. Case in point…
I thought I had perfected my gambling angle to the point where it couldn’t fail. The idea is to shift the long odds to shorter by decreasing the payout. Here’s the details, it’s pretty simple.
First, some basic Roulette. You can play red (or black) with a 2:1 payout. What this means is that if you bet $1 on red, and the little ball lands on a red number, you win $1. If it lands on black, you lose. All the numbers are either red or black, so it’s pretty good odds – the only down side is the 00 number – if that comes up, EVERYONE loses. OK, now for the angle.
If you lose, double your bet and play again. Keep doing this until you win. Once you win, if you do the math, you will see that you have won $1 since beginning the round of betting. You ALWAYS WIN $1!
OK, one bad assumption has ruined many a scheme, and the same is true here: you can’t double your bet indefinitely. Therefore, it’s just a matter of time until you lose several times in a row, doubling your bet each time, until you hit the betting limit and you’ve lost your shirt. Losing your shirt is typically seen as a BAD gambling strategy.
It’s still not too bad though, if you look at the numbers… UPDATE: yes it is… move on, nothing to see here…
Andrea and I were joking with the girls that when they were born, Mommy pulled something out of her nose, and it was Reiley, who’s really a booger. And Wrenny was throwup. Then we said, “No, you guys know where you really came from”.
To which Reiley replied “Gross, I need a bath.”
I won’t say much about the girls’ creation known to the world only as DiscLand, except that:
Enough said? :P
Yesterday Wrenny turned five! What a crazy day…
The day before her birthday, we had a party at
Sunday morning, we woke up on Wrenny’s birthday to find that the weatherman was only partially right – we got tons of stuff, but it was all lovely SNOW! Yipee!! I trudged off alone to church for my debut singing in the praise band (I blame NO ONE for skipping THAT…), and when I returned, it was sledding and snowball fighting for all. I played the human toboggan, with me lying on the saucers and the neighborhood kids all piling on top, until I could no longer feel my butt. Afterwards, we warmed up with hot chocolate. Awesome!
Today, in true North Carolina fashion, it has all turned to slush and ice, and more sleet is falling as I type. I have to admit that I love to drive on the ubiquitous sheet of ice it creates – there is nothing more pleasant than my little Honda go cart in a powerslide. The only problem is tolerating all the other North Carolina drivers’ ineptitude. They are all either going 2 mph or deeply embedded in the forests adjoining the highway…. cest la vie…
OK, I’ll make this short and sweet… the big V was straightforward, I was told the anaesthesia needle would be “something I would remember”, but it was painless – the only lingering memory I have is of the noxious smell of my cauterized vas…
BYE BYE MY LOVELY SPERM! You served me well. Now don’t anyone ever accuse me of holding back on the details of my personal life. :P
I got Carcasonne for Andrea for Christmas based on three factors: it was one of the “classics” that has several expansion packs available; everyone at Games Galore recommended it; and it claimed to be a ‘great game for two players’. It was a steal, too, even with the Castles and Inns expansion pack.
It’s been a lot of fun. It’s not too complicated, but there are lots of choices as you build out a map of interconnected cities, roads, and farms.
I’m going to score our games as I rate them on several categories, higher always being better:
| Pure strategy (no luck involved): | 7 |
| Player paths intertwined: | 10 |
| Multiple strategies available: | 9 |
| Complexity: | 7 |
All the Johns I know are brewing beer! Well, except John Bruno, but he makes up for that by drinking a lot of it while playing pool… John Carpenter has become quite good at it – I can personally vouch for that. And John Franklin’s leaving town to head to D.C., and on the way out had a home brew bottling party. Things I learned from the “Joys of Homebrewing” manual I found there:
Here’s a pic of Keith, John and Mike from Keith’s recent visit –
they came by to say hi while I sat there gaping back at them with the flu bug…
We had a great time on our whilrwind trip back to Florida.
It was a little rough starting out – Owen graced us with a present no more than a couple miles out the door, and we had nothing to clean it up. We stopped at an old auto parts store and a kind man gave us some old towels. Next, we realized that we didn’t have enough working cigarette lighter outlets for the cooler AND the VCR, both of which were absolutely necessary for survival on the 12-hour trip. So we had to stop at another auto parts store, and pick up a lighter y-adapter. By that time it started pouring out, and I blew a fuse plugging the cooler in in the rain. Back to the parts store! Bought a pack of fuses, figured out the fuse system on the van, and got it all humming – we even got an extra-large pack of shop towels to finish cleaning up after Owen.
Once we got out of town, we drove straightaway to Disneyworld without any more real hitches. We arrived at the Park the next day for beautiful weather and short lines – the week before Thanksgiving is a great time to go. Lunch at Tony’s was fantastic – the vinagrette glaze was to die for. We finished the day with some great fireworks.
The next day we headed deep down south into Florida to see all our kin. It was great to catch up with everybody. Dan, Corey and I stayed up into the night playing Jedi Academy every chance we got.
After the days in Fort Myers flew by, we headed up to see Andrea’s dad in St. Pete. It was good to catch up with him, too.
I’m sure there’s more I’m missing from all the time this site’s been down. I’ll try to add more here as my feeble brain recalls it… after all, that’s why I do this blog thing – write it all down, or it’s lost to me forever! :P
The neighborhood got together for a “How To Host A Murder” party on New Year’s Eve, aka Larry’s birthday. It was a hit! Larry stormed around as the captain, yelling “don’t call it a boat, it’s not a boat, it’s a ship!” and “I don’t remember what I was doing, I was drunk at the time…”. Scott was decked out in a racing jacket and gloves, and Greg played out the accusatory investment banker perfectly. All the ladies were “dressed to kill”, which played out perfectly, as they all ended up running brothels or being romantically linked to the deceased.
| To cap it all off, the role of the murdered host was played by none other than… Michael Jackson. Perfect casting! |
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Everybody had a blast, and we hope to do it again some time soon.
