Thoughts of a Flying Sheep

Happy Halloween!

Have fun tonight, be safe and all that.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 9:26 AM 0 comments

By the way, sick people who go to work anyway are selfish, inconsiderate bastards who think they are dedicated heros.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 10:22 AM 0 comments

ABCNEWS.com : Pentagon Mulls Shifting Experts Away from Iraq Arms Hunt:

"Officials said Pentagon leaders are considering reassigning a number of intelligence officers, interrogators, translators, linguists and others from the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group, which is conducting the hunt for weapons of mass destruction.

President Bush cited what he said were Iraq's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons to help justify the war that toppled President Saddam Hussein, but such arms have not yet been uncovered."

Now, I'm not a very political person. I try to avoid politics as much as possible, but I heard this on the radio this morning and had an immediate reaction. It seems that he's calling off the hunt for WMD.

So, suppose the local cops knocked on your door and accused you of having drugs. You deny it, heck, you even have an independent party come in and check out the place to declare it drug-free. The cops ignore all this and turn your house/apartment upside down, searching for drugs. After ruining your place, before finding anything, they leave, saying, "We've got something more important to do now."

It's not a perfect analogy, but it strikes me as similar to the above situation.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 9:05 AM 0 comments

I have thoughts that I think are blog-worthy, but the disappear before I get a chance to record them. Someone needs to invent a wet-blog that connects directly to the brain and records all of your thoughts. It could output, on demand or on a scheduled basis, all the thoughts you've had that day, organized and sortable in different ways. You could erase the thoughts you didn't like, and keep the ones that you wanted to remember.

Basically, I'm talking about external memory.

Is erasing unwanted thoughts sufficient? Perhaps you could even locate the neurons responsible and reprogram them? This device should be able to encourage and inhibit different thoughts. That would be useful.

Of course, you'd want the security on such a device to be infallable, wouldn't you?

posted by FlyingSheep @ 1:48 PM 0 comments

I'm looking forward to Halloween. I hope I get my costume finished in time. I have a feeling that tomorrow night is going to be very busy.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 9:39 AM 0 comments

Session Report: October 27, 2003
Games Played: Merchants of Amsterdam, 6 Nimmt!
Gamers: Josh, Chip, Mark, Lewis, Eric

Thanks to Mark for hosting, thanks to Lewis for driving.

MERCHANTS OF AMSTERDAM (1:20 + 0:20 rules)
Mark: 1,180
Josh: 1,140
Chip: 1,060
Lewis: 820
Eric: 670

I had requested this game, having played it once before, to cement my opinion of it. Josh brought his copy and, after explaining the rules, we began.
I remember that people tended to over-bid the last time I played, and this was certainly the case at the start of the game. I believe the first auction went to Eric for 240,000 (or something similar). I think I got most of my auctions at the bargain price of 180,000 or less, but, of course, that means I didn't win many auctions.
Early in the game almost everyone (except for Josh and I) took the loan token when it was offered. I don't think this benefited any of them, with possible exception of Eric, who was cash-poor after his first auction. It seems that the loans only serve to punish new players.
I believe a good card distribution strategy at the start of the game is to hold out for the 3 commodities card, which seems better then the others. Almost any card will help you when you are just starting out, so there's little fear of getting stuck with a useless card.
Ideally, one would advance equally on all three fronts: commodities, global trade centers, and warehouses in Amsterdam. If you were to sacrifice one in order to concentrate on the others, I would give up the global trade centers. They are finicky at best, as you may end up taking a commodity that you don't particularly want in order to have a presence in that area. Also, the commodities bonus is an extra warehouse, not an extra trade center.
So, next time I play, I'll hope that I remember to not take the loan, hold out early for 3x commodities card, and ignore the trade centers completely. And I would like to play again. I don't think this will make it to my purchase list as long as Josh is willing to bring his copy to SOG sessions.

6 NIMMT! (0:45)
Chip: 36
Josh: 57
Lewis: 61
Mark: 69
Eric: 77

We discussed playing Bohnanza, which I was initially in favor of, but we decided to play something quicker to end the night. 6 Nimmt! is something of a staple at SOG, we've played it more then any other game.
I've only played it with exactly players once before, and it struck me as a bad number of people to play with. Once most of the four piles are dead or unplayable, each round plays exactly the same: The player with the lowest card takes a stack, and everyone else plays on that stack, leaving the board exactly as it was before the round began. I noticed that this was the case in the last 3 or 4 tricks during a few of the rounds.
In the last round in particular, I was nervously holding onto the 3 (I believe the 1 had already been played). During the last trick, however, Mark played the 2, saving me from taking any cards that round.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 10:02 AM 0 comments

Over the weekend, I had an argument with the disposal in the sink. The subject of the argument was whether it would process the spinach stalks and garlic skins I had generously given it.

As it turns out, disposals are not fun to argue with. They spit. They don't really play fair at all. Then they refuse to drain, which is an underhanded tactic, to say the least.

In the end, I won somehow. Sure, I had to spend about an hour fishing have-chopped up spinach from the disposal, and had to evacuate my counter when the sink overflowed, but it's a small price to pay.

Gaming session report is on its way.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 9:58 AM 0 comments

Wen Christmas shopping over the weekend. Yes, I know it's terribly early, but we're going to give a bunch of presents to my travelling father-in-law to take to distant relatives (instead of shipping the gifts, as we usually do). Fortunately, the mall wasn't too crowded and it didn't take too long, although we were both exhausted when we returned home.

It's nice to think that a big chunk of Christmas shopping is over with.

What are you going to be for holloween? The Wonder Goldfish's sister is going to be a ladybug, which got me thinking about other insects, so I'm going to be a spider, and the Jedi Princess, inspired by a new brown jumpsuit, is going to be a palm tree.

posted by FlyingSheep @ 9:13 AM 0 comments