One Down, One To Go

Greetings,

The marathon, 10.000 point Uno game with the daughter is finally over and I have emerged victorious.  Actually, the outcomes was never in doubt after about 300 games or so.  Here is a chart of the lead over the course of the game…

The daughter was leading for the first (7) games and then I led for the final (423) games.  I won 229 games and she won 193 games (there were an amazing 8 ties where the loser only had 0’s in their hands).  She was a trouper and played until the end even when it was just to get the whole thing over with.  She is a very gracious loser.

The son on the other hand, well that is a different story.  We are about 250 hands into our match and I have a 1,024 point lead.  The son is convinced I am cheating.  He says I am cheating when I go out and catch him holding high cards.  He says I am cheating when he goes out and I have only low cards in my hand.  He says I am cheating when HE gets to call the color (after paying a wild) and HE picks the EXACT color that I need to go out.  I shuffle thoroughly, I even let him cut the cards and yet he still thinks that somehow I am cheating.  I tried to explain that if I had that kind of power over the 108 card Uno deck, I would not be killing time in Kokomo but rather hitting the tables in Vegas.  He has no idea what I mean when I say that.

The wife had some extra blow money from substitute teaching a while back and she used it to buy a gas grill.  It sat in the back of the van for a week and then in the garage for 2 weeks (still in the box) but today I decided to tackle it.  I unpacked it and surveyed all the parts and did an inventory to make sure I was not missing anything (this was actually step one of the instructions).  Step two was to put the legs on the base.  It was simple, it said, “Attach legs to base as shown” and then with a grainy, black and white picture it gave you a vague idea of where to stick the bolt into what hole.  What it did NOT tell you was that it MATTERED which direction the OTHER holes on the legs were pointing.  Now, you do not need those holes until step ten or so and by the time I reached that step I had a decision to make.  Take the whole thing apart and start over or press on and hope that a missing bolt (or three) would not matter in the whole grand scheme of things.  I chose option B (as if you ever had a doubt) and pressed onward.  I got as far as step sixteen when I realized that not only had I put (3) of the legs on backwards but I had also used the wrong bolts and now could not complete step sixteen.  Now I was met with another decision but this time I had either to start over or go to the hardware store to buy more bolts of the size that I needed.  I decided that option B was best again and I will have to put the assembly on hold for now as the wife has the van and the Buick is out of commission until we can get it into the shop (this is why I decided to blog, to kill some time until the van is back).

We have more kittens underneath one of our back sheds.  I have not seen them yet but the wife and daughter have and the dogs want to go outside continually.  Once outside, all they do is sit, perched and staring at the base of the shed eagerly anticipating some kind of movement and sound.  Nina is particularly bad and will sit and stare for an hour or more at a time.  I would not want to go up against her in any type of patience game.  I will have to keep you posted on the kittens as the story develops.

Jon

No Puppies In The Freezer

Greetings,

One of my first blogs was titled “I’ve Never Heard That Before” and I talked about phrases that might never before have been uttered in the English language.  My wife actually said “No puppies in the freezer” to my daughter the other day and may I suggest to you that this phrase might be an original.  The daughter likes these toys called Littlest Pet Shop.  She recently purchased (with her hard earned allowance) a new set and has been playing with it every waking moment.  She is quite created in her play (as noted in this earlier blog) and as such there is not end to the adventures these little pets get into.  These adventures almost stretched into our freezer until my wife uttered this new phrase “No puppies in the freezer!”  The adventures continued from there, just not in the arctic regions of our kitchen appliances.

Several Christmas’ ago I bought a used, hard backed copy of “Watership Down” for the wife.  She has yet to read it despite my near constant reminder for her to do so.  She did get a chapter or two into it but then was distracted by some other book.  After I finished “Kidnapped” by Robert Louis Stevenson I decided to reread “Watership Down" (due partly to seeing the Sawyer character reading it in the early seasons of Lost which we are rewatching in anticipation of the final season this year).  After about 10 chapters I decided that I would read this book to the kids.  It is about bunny rabbits after all so I hoped they would like it.  I had each of them get 2 pieces of paper and label one “rabbits” and the other “terms” so we could keep track of the characters and some of the rabbit language.  We are about 5 chapters in (there are 50 in the book) and they are really enjoying it thus far.  Even if they get bored with it, at least the wife (who is also listening) will have read the book (or listened to it I guess).

The Uno games are on hold (partly due to the reading of the book) and partly because each child appears to be hopelessly outmatched in Uno skills and is in no hurry to reach the inevitable end of the game where I win by a large margin.

Out HP netbook woes continue in that after sending the netbook and and receiving it back (no charge for us on the shipping) the software that was missing before is still missing.  We are sending it back in again.  It is more annoying than anything but the help desk / case manager could not be more helpful.  Hopefully the 2nd time is the charm and we will have the netbook in perfect order in short order.

Well it is getting late and it is time to get the puppies (not the ones in the freezer, the real dogs) out one more time for the night and hit the sack.

Jon

Replacement Parts

Greetings,

For Father’s Day many years ago (maybe 6 or 7) I received a coffee grinder.  It is a really nice quality KitchenAid Model BCG100ER1 and has worked great lo these many years despite being used every other day.  The grinder basically works like this…

 

The base has two little buttons (circled in yellow above) that need to be pressed at the same time to make the grinder work.  The plastic top has two little bumps (circled in red above) build in so that when you put the top onto the base and press down, the buttons are pressed.  This is all fine and dandy until one of the bumps on the plastic top breaks and then we have problems.  If I were a betting man, I would have bet on this being the part that broke first.  Like I said, we have had it for many years so we had a good run.

Not wanting to run out and spend the $60 or so a new model would cost I thought out it and decided to make it work without the cap.  I tried several techniques that worked but had the undesirable effect of coffee being all over the counter (my clothes, the floor, etc).  Ultimately I used a technique best demonstrated by the picture below…

I solved the “coffee all over the counter” problem by using the plastic top (only up side down) and steadying it with my chin.  To depress the buttons I use 2 spoons.  The wife was “kind” enough to snap this picture.  She did drink the coffee though that this grinding produced.

Jon

I Learned Something Today

Greetings,

I was reading this article at cnn.com about body scanning at a Miami airport.  In this article they quoted one of the people involved and at the end of the quote (but still inside the quotation marks) was the text [sic].  Now I have seen [sic] in articles before but I have never known why it is used.  Now I do, thanks to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is an awesome concept and I use it a lot, mostly to scratch those itches in my brain when I want to know something.  For instance, last night we were watching the results show of American Idol.  The mentor this week as Harry Connick Jr.  During the show, the wife said out loud, “I wonder if his father was a band leader?”  Well, my dear, there is no need to wonder when (with only a few clicks) we can know this information right now.  You can research for yourself the answer but be careful, once you are at that sight, it is hard to quit clicking on the embedded links about related items.

Anyway, I looked up [sic] at Wikipedia and discovered that…

Sic is a Latin word meaning "thus", "so", "as such", or "in such a manner"

Basically it is used in quotes when the quoted item might appear to be a mistake (typo, bad english, etc) to emphasize that they know the quoted text appears odd but it really is what was said.  At the bottom of the article, it mentions that…

On occasion, sic has been misidentified as an abbreviation for "said in context", "spelled in context", "said in copy", "spelling is correct", "spelled incorrectly" and other phrases. These are all backronyms from sic.

Then of course I wondered, what is a “backronym” exactly?  Thankfully, there is an article in Wikipedia for that as well.  A backronym is an acronym where the acronym letters are thought of first and then the words that make up the acronym.  The example that I am most familiar with is FORD (either First On Race Day or the negative Fix Or Repaired Daily or Found On Road Dead).  So I have used backronyms my entire life probably but not known it (or that they had a name).

I thought I might be done with my Wikipedia romp but at the bottom of the backronym article there was…

See also: Retronym

Great, now I have to know what a retronym is!  It turns out I have been using retronyms my whole life as well, go figure.

A retronym is a new name for an object or concept to differentiate the original form or version of it from a more recent form or version.

There are several good examples given like…

• Coca-Cola Classic: This is the name given to the normal coke after “new coke” came (and went).
• Acoustic Guitar: Before the electric guitar, we just called this a guitar.
• AM Radio: Just radio before FM came along.
• Bar Soap, Dirt Road, Live Music, Old Testament, Plain M&Ms, Push Lawnmower, Regular Coffee, Sit Down Restaurant, and our personal favorite, Raw Milk

Anyway, I got away with only about 30 minutes lost in Wikipedia land.  This is not too bad compared to normal.

An update on the Uno games.  I don’t think the son and I have played much since my last blog. but the daughter and I have.

	Games	Score	Lead	Pace
Dad / Son	85	1,454 / 2,241	787	379 games
Dad / Daughter	330	5,778 / 7,368	1,590	447 games

I have led the game with the son for all 85 games.  The daughter was winning for the first 7 games but I have been in the lead for the past 323 games.

Jon

Internet, Even When It Rains

Greetings,

Since the good folks at Hoosier Broadband came out and mounted what looks like an 8’ pole to my roof and pointed my antennae at a different tower, all has been well in internet land. We even maintained a good connection during the worst of the storms over this past weekend. It makes me think I might be able to work from home full time if I so desired. I might need to pay the extra $25 a month to go from 256 up / 768 down to 512 up / 1024 down though to make it work. There are times during my job that require me to share my desktop and 256 up is not quite enough oomph to do it without some buffering problems. No matter, I have a good connection for what I need it for and I can always go up a level in my service if need be at a later date.

We did make a run to Meijer’s to pick a new deck of Uno cards. I was surprised that it was only $4.44 as I was expecting $6 or $7. It is just plastic cards I guess and you could probably play the game with (2) decks of regular cards (10’s = 0’s, jacks = skips, queens = draw twos, kings = reverse, and maybe jokers = wilds) but $4.44 is an OK price for me. Currently in the race to 10,000 points between the daughter and I, I have a lead of about 700 points (6,011 to 5,318) but the lead (that was once over 1,000) got down in the lower 500’s tonight before I made a small run. She is wearing me down and no lead is safe even though we are 60% of the way done. We have played 285 hands so far. The son and I have started a separate game to 10,000 points and after 85 games I am leading by over 800 points (2,241 to 1,454). The son jokingly claims I am cheating when he goes out and I have only low cards left in my hand. He also claims I am cheating when I have nothing but high cards in my hand to play toward the end or when I have a wild or draw four at just the right time. I pointed out that it is not possible to cheat no matter what I have in my hand and then he decided I was watching the cards somehow as I was shuffling. He gives me too much credit. The real reason I am winning as he plays with a very steady pattern and I can usually tell (like in poker) what is in his hand. The daughter is much tougher to read so she is staying closer to me thus far. I think I need to get a shuffling machine or something as my fingers are quite sore from shuffling 3 or so times after every hand.

Another thing we bought at Meijer’s was a wireless keyboard and mouse (Logitech S520). It was on clearance for 1/2 price and we have been wanting one of these for a while now. We use our 32” flat panel (el cheapo) TV as our computer monitor and it was a pain to get up and walk to the keyboard and mouse when we needed to. This was $30 well spent. The daughter thinks it is really cool to sit on the couch and surf her favorite site.

Much like last year at this time, I have started the diet and exercise. Last year I started on 24 April and this year I started on 01 May. I have a head start this year in that I am 16 lbs lighter than last year at this time. I still put on 15 lbs or so over the winter so my goal is to get back to where I was (around 180). Since 5:00 comes early I need to get off of this computer an into bed.

Jon

Another Trip To The Pawn Shop

Greetings,

Since I broke my “purchase no new music” resolution at the Michael Roe concert, I decided to visit my favorite pawn shop and dig through the $0.50 rack again. Here is what I ended up purchasing…

1. Bamba by Clannad
2. America Town by Five For Fighting
3. Vegas Car Chasers by Silage
4. Browbeat – Unplugged Alternative by Various
5. Mane Attraction by White Lion
6. Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt
7. In Square Circle by Steve Wonder
8. To The Faithful Departed by The Cranberries

To those of you with comments about #5 or #7, may I remind you of the price ($0.50). I have actually listened to the White Lion CD twice and it is pretty good. I have a few other Clannad CDs so this is just building my collection. Silage is an obscure Christian group that (after about 1/2 a listen) I think might just gather dust like most of my collection. The Cranberries are a group I like and really enjoy the lead vocalist. I was also able to grab 2 DVDs for the kids ($3 each)…

1. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
2. Monsters Vs Aliens

Monsters Vs Aliens was just released about a year ago so the DVD is only been around a short time. Odd that someone would pawn it so quickly (but I have never pawned anything so I do not know much about the pawn business).

When I walked into the shop, the folks that are always working there were watching TV. This is normal as they usually have several TVs to sell and having them on shows off their quality. The show “The Price Is Right” was on and evidently it was time for the end of the show (the showcase showdown). The lady who works there was giving one of the contestants grief about a poor bid. She rattled off the various things in the showcase (which included a car) and then noted that she underbid by almost $30,000. This lady was going on and on about how poor of a bid this was. I thought it was a bit harsh but I went back to my pile of CDs. Then I began to think about this. These folks are uniquely qualified as pawn shop owners at knowing the value of various items. Watching a show like “The Price Is Right” must be frustrating. All these everyday folks trying to guess the value of an item having obviously never shopped for anything like what is usually in front of them. I would think that they would watch some other show to keep their sanity.

The 10,000 Uno game drudges on. After 200 games I have a lead of 4,485 – 3,789. My largest lead of over 1,000 points has long been gone and the daughter has been plugging away. The current lead of 696 points is making me a little nervous actually. We are on pace to be done after 483 games so we are not quite 1/2 way done. We are desperately in need of an new Uno deck though as we have worn off the glossy covering and the cards are sticking together quite badly. A Target run might be in order soon to alleviate this problem (with the purchase of a new deck).

Jon