What made you happy today?

[lepton*]

Agreed. Talkative interviewers ruin good television.

I am happy to be leaving the Caucasus region and heading home to Latvia. It's been an interesting vacation. Georgia's going to see me again, but Armenia was pretty boring, and I'll be a cold day in Nakhchivan before I return to Azerbaijan. A highlight has been meeting some of the permatravelers -- one guy who had been cycling over Asia for 2.5 years, others who has been backpacking different continents for months post retirement/etc.

[Jedo the Jedi]

Finally watched the season premiere of The Walking Dead. My mind is blown.
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Death Mage]

I knew Jedo was a zombie. Thankfully it sounds like someone put 'em in the ground for good.
_________________
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[Buzzsaw]

[Jedo the Jedi]

Are you asking because you disagree?

It's not like it was stellar in some awesome revelatory manner, but they keep doing the unexpected on me. They just chopped off his leg like nothing! Though, I did figure that there were survivors already in there.
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Jedo the Jedi]

Over the last two days I was able to solve two enigmas from my childhood. The first is the name of the movie about a blind man who has a sword hidden in his staff--Blind Fury--and the second is the name of a PS1 video game about a young boy which begins on a floating island--The Granstream Saga. The second was definitely the more difficult because I couldn't remember much, but I happened to stumble upon it today while surfing the web.

Now if only I could get my hands on these and experience them again...
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Zag]

Here's one solved: http://www.crackle.com/c/Blind_Fury/Blind_Fury/2481059

Also, the fact that you refer to a movie made in 1989 as "from my childhood" is annoying.

[Death Mage]

All I have to say about The Walking Dead is that I am really looking forward to this season.

The time at the prison was some of the best stuff in the comics. Not to mention that Michonne is one of the best chars too.
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[Jedo the Jedi]

[Buzzsaw]

[The Potter]

Oregon is warmer than Alaska. Oh, and I am bumming about 40 minutes from Bend right now. Hopefully on my way to New Zealand still

[itisally*]

So close to Eugene, yet still so far.

[Scurra]

After ten years waiting (yes, really - I paid for it ten years ago - I was the 12th person to order it!), The Fool and His Money, the sequel to one of the best puzzle games ever (The Fool's Errand) is finally out. Yes, it's actually here. No, I can't believe it either.
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_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Trojan Horse]

Starcraft: 1998
Starcraft II: 2010
time gap: 12 years

Duke Nukem 3D: 1996
Duke Nukem Forever: 2011
time gap: 15 years

The Fool's Errand: 1987
The Fool and His Money: 2012
time gap: 25 years

[The Potter]

!!!

(I liked 3 in Three and System's Twilight much more, But the world needs more puzzle games)
_________________
Artwork | Fractals | Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.

[Dragon Phoenix]

Seeing Jazz slowly recover after he had two teeth pulled earlier today under full anesthesia (and he did not go down easily after the injection).
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My photography:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artrock2006/

[Death Mage]

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to walk up to the biggest, burliest guy in a biker bar and ask which pony they liked best?
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[Zag]

Hi all!

Mrs. Zag and I just got back from a Murder Mystery Weekend. It was very well run, and quite a lot of fun. Of course, part of what made it fun was that M and I won by having the "most accurate" interpretation of the facts. (Frankly, the one difference we had from the official version is something that, in my humble opinion, our version is better. Their version requires one fairly significant coincidence for one of the significant people to be there at all, whereas our version explains why he was there.) Our prize was their home game DvD, which looks as if it will be rather fun.

I don't want to explain the whole plot, because that is their intellectual property and it would ruin the event for anyone reading this who might want to attend. However, I can describe what it was like without giving anything away.

Friday evening: Cocktail party with a cash bar and some quite good hors d'oeuvres. The woman who manages the event gave us a list of ice-breaker questions and pushed people to mingle. (Questions were things like, "Have you ever killed anyone?" You know, murder mystery stuff! ) She gave us a list of all the participants but she explained to us that everyone at the hotel other than her and the detective should be considered suspects (i.e. hotel staff, other guests, etc.)

Then the Detective arrived, overacting amusingly. He explained that he came here from Joisey tracking a known hit man, a hit man who has, unfortunately, turned up dead. After a fair bit of fluff and everyone introducing themselves, we all walked to one of the rooms where a man lay with a bloody knife sticking out of his chest. There were assassin's tools on the dresser, as if ready for use, and some other clues including the man's business card. It declared him to be a member of "Hits 'R' Us," with their slogan, "Nobody does it deader." (Are you catching on to the mood of the weekend, here?)

Anyway, after a question session, we broke for the night. The following morning we had a really terrific brunch (Did I mention that this costs $800 per couple for the weekend?), during which several clues were brought forward. There were some hand-written notes -- for instance one said, "Just walk away and no one else needs to get hurt." -- which had been found near the buffet line. A copy of an article from 2006 was found, talking about the "Pumpkin Massacre," a mob hit that happened on Halloween of that year. After some more info from the detective, we broke and were told where to show up for supper.

At supper, there was another killing -- one of the supposed paid attendees -- some more clues, another death, and some more info from the detective. The supper was really good, too, and also included a cash bar (of course). Finally, we were given instructions to write up our theory of what had happened, including specific questions that had to be answered. (Who killed the hit man? Whom was he here to hit? Etc.) We were to bring them to brunch the next morning, where all would be explained.

At Brunch, the detective explained what he had "figured out" (i.e. the official version of the story). Then we ate while the woman managing the event went through all the write-ups. She came and introduced all the actors, read some of the funnier comments in the write-ups, and finally gave the award to yours truly and spouse for being the closest to the official version. It was a self-consistent story, with the different clues being important to eliminate many alternative explanations. Many of the other theories that people had proposed were ones that M and I had discussed and discarded because this clue or that made such a theory impossible.

We likely spent more time than most discussing it, but we found it rather fun to work through all the clues and finally arrive at a coherent story. I had photographed all the clues with my phone, so we could go through them all in detail, and we really didn't skimp on effort for it. We definitely had a lot of fun and plan to go again.

[Death Mage]

Wishek sausage.
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[Jedo the Jedi]

That sounds awesome, Zagbot. (They really are getting more and more sophisticated these days. This one has been a member for a few years just to post the spam! )

I just enjoyed a good ol', guilt-free, Sunday nap.
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Courk]

[Zag]

[The Ragin' South Asian]

Woo nexus 10

[Neo]

6 weeks of unpaid leave started today.
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_{Ad Astra}

[Jedo the Jedi]

I just finished one of my exams. Whether I did well remains to be seen, but at least it is over.

12/12 Edit: I got an A on the exam, and consequently an A for the class! Considering I was setting my expectations for B's my first semester in grad school, I'm more than happy. It remains to be seen how well I did on my exam today.
_________________
Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[The Potter]

As seen on Facebook


Ah... a new car! A 1999 Rover.
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Artwork | Fractals | Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.

[Quailman]

Been swamped all week. Last Sunday I had my annual Christmas Bird Count. I look forward to it for weeks. I left town early Saturday morning (the count is in Freeport, about 85 miles south of here) so I could scout the area and decide where best to send the birders the next day.

My area is the only one in the count circle where Eastern Screech-owls are regularly seen, and I usually start at 5 AM playing a tape to listen for a response. Last year we missed them. I couldn't sleep this year, so I started at 3:30 AM. I found three screech-owls and three Great Horned Owls pretty quick, so I looked for rails and got Sora, Virginia Rail and a Barn Owl before 6 AM.

I had 18 volunteers in my area, including the guy who started the Freeport CBC 56 years ago, and another top birder. You can go on their next tour in February. It's an eight day birding cruise on the Amazon. And these guys came up to me and asked what I wanted them to do!

For the day, I saw 99 different birds, we had 144 in my area, and the total for the count circle was 198. Not a bad day's birding, even if it did rain most of the afternoon.

[Courk*]

I didn't realize how must I liked the Christmas bird count posts until I didn't see this year's and was about to ask you how it went.

[Zag]

In the xmas rush, I've missed the last few posts, here. Grats Jedo, MattV, and Quailman!

Q, I'm sure you are concerned to overloading us with stuff we might not be interested in. Let me state for the record that I (and, it sounds like, Courk) would be glad for more detail on what you saw, and any anecdotes from the day.

[Jedo the Jedi]

Our post carrier came to our door and asked if we had picked up our packages along with our stopped mail. I told him I wasn't aware we had any packages with what I picked up yesterday. He then made a special trip back to the Post Office around the corner to bring them to us.

Points for human decency and kindness.
_________________
Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[LordKinbote]

One of the best weeks of teaching I've had. I'm teaching an Intro to Programming class, and the kids in it are just a joy. They constantly try to go above and beyond just for the sake of learning something new so that they can become good programmers. They're smart and pleasant and appreciative of the knowledge I can give them.

I think the secret is that it's a completely elective class, and that every one of them wants to be there. Even in the most high level honors math class I've taught, even if they're good at the subject, they still view it as a means to an end or something that they *have* to take in order to get into a good college or do some tangential major when they get there. Few of them actually *love* math. But in this class, they are all different ability levels, and yet they all want to get better.

[Quailman]

That's great! I sort of know how you feel. In boy scouts I am a merit badge counselor for about ten badges. There are 130, and if you want to make Eagle, there are 12 that you need to earn, plus at least 9 electives. I won't touch the required ones. I hear those counselors complain about the kids who think they should get the badge just for showing up each day at camp. Last year at winter camp I had a couple of kids come up to me afterwards and say it (Bird Study, an elective) was their favorite merit badge ever. That's what keeps me going back.

[Quailman]

[Jedo the Jedi]

You still want to work for these people?
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Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Quailman]

Yes.

BTW, I heard the girl's performance. It was great, though I think she sang it better at the 2004 Superbowl.

[Scurra]

[Jedo the Jedi]

If you're hob-nobbing with celebs, what are you doing on the GL?
_________________
Paragon Tally: 18 mafia, 3 SKs (1 twice), 1 cultist, numerous chat scum...and counting.

[Zag]

[Dread Pirate Westley]

No Super Bowl since 1986 has truly lived up to the name.

[Courk*]

Aww, that's sweet that it's apparently still as simple for him as "my daughter's singing the national anthem, and I want to watch" -- just like any dad.