Costco in Loudoun County is allowed to sell bulk packs of fireworks. If you wander all the way to the back, near the bakery goods, you'll see massive pallets of fireworks stacked to the ceiling on the overstock shelves. I'm surprised they don't have a sign up, "No open flames near our muffins."

I'm about 200 pages into Traitor's Knot so far. So far so good. For more thoughts on this series, see my news posts from 12/8/01, 1/29/02, and 2/13/04.

There will be no updates tomorrow because I'll be down in Colonial Beach for Anna's wedding. Updates will resume next Monday. Have a good weekend!

Friday Fragments

because no one wants to write with coherency on a Friday

I won't be buying cat food this weekend though because it's Bonus Honor Weekend in World of Warcraft, so I'll be devoting most of the weekend to geeking out in front of a computer. I need to rush KNIGHT-LIEUTENANT PLINKY up to Rank 8 before the next game patch or else I won't be able to wear any of the neat-o gear rewards. Plinky is currently the highest ranked character under level 55 on the Lightning's Blade server and is #430 in the top 2000 players. My e-peen is bigger than yours.

List Day: Five Satisfying Moments

Driving down Sanger Avenue, seeing some clown try to drive in reverse out of a parking lot onto a busy road and hearing Rebecca shout, "YOU'RE DOIN' IT WRONG!"

What satisfies you?

Museday Tuesday

Idyllic: (adj.) Charmingly simple or rustic

I wanted to try something more melodic since so many of my musedays end up over vamps. This one's written for strings, horns, and glockenpsiel, with the melodic line on a bowed glass patch. I hear shades of the soundtrack from Dances with Wolves when I listen to it, although that was not an intentional design.

List Day: A Training Timeline

Monday

• 7:30 AM: Arrive for the 7:45 class.


• 8:10 AM: Class has not yet started.


• 8:30 AM: I have learned that the instructor is Canadian and has four daughters who got an award for dancing or something.


• 8:40 AM: I have learned that the CEO of the training company is leaving to go to Costco now.


• 12:00 PM: 20 Powerpoint Slides complete at lunch time. We are still in the "Overview" section and have not started Chapter 1.


• 1:00 PM: Back from a lunch of leftover Cornish game hen.


• 2:00 PM: I come to the dramatic realization that this week-long course has been, and will continue to be, a pure lecture-based training and eat some chocolate-chip muffins.


• 5:00 PM: Break for the day. We have gotten through 72 more slides and are halfway through Chapter 1. I have learned that spam is "unrequested or unsolicited junk mail". Thank goodness the company is paying for this.

Tuesday

• 8:30 AM: Day Two of the Languorous Lecture of Lethargy commences. We still have 44 slides left in Chapter One.


• 11:00 AM: Chapter One complete! Five more chapters to go by midday on Friday.


• 12:00 PM: Chef Boyardee for lunch. I have now completed 70% of an online version of this same class. Thank goodness for laptops.


• 1:30 PM: I eat a bunch of grapes.


• 3:30 PM: I eat a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.


• 5:00 PM: We get through the first 72 slides in Chapter Two. I learn that the Extranet is the part outside the Intranet.

Wednesday

• 7:30 AM: For giggles, I count the slides remaining in Chapter Two. There are 110 left in this chapter, and roughly 300 left in the booklet. It's time for a chocolate-chip muffin.

Review Day: Lost Cities

Lost Cities is a rare two-player game that's actually designed for two players. There are only two pages of rules, and setup involves shuffling the playing deck, meaning that this is a very easy game to dive into for a couple quick rounds. In spite of the very simple rule set, gameplay is surprisingly deep, and there are many controllable layers of strategy.

The exploration motif is really just a backdrop for a Skip-Bo-like card game. There are five coloured suits of cards, representing five expeditions you can launch. You play cards in ascending order from your hand and try to get the sum of your cards (2 through 10) as high as possible before the game ends (each expedition needs 20 points to break even on the cost of supplies and travel). If you're feeling lucky, you can "invest" up to three times at the start of an expedition, which could double or quadruple your final score, but this could also backfire and multiply your losses if the expedition doesn't break even.

The most difficult part of this game is the simple math required at the end of each round. You can master the rules in no time, and then the depth of gameplay quickly becomes apparent. Because a round ends when you run out of cards in the draw pile, trying to start and complete all five expeditions is generally a bad idea. Will you play offensively and max out a couple expeditions? Or defensively, and hoard the cards your opponent needs to finish his expeditions? Because there are only a single set of numbered cards for each expedition, things can get dicey if both players decided to compete on the same expedition. If your opponent is spreading too thin, you can try to "run down the clock" by always drawing from the draw pile to end the game. If you want to buy some time yourself, you can delay the game by only taking from the discard piles.

The investment multipliers give the game some suspense, and really make comebacks viable if you're down by a whole lot. If you're in the last round and going to lose by 50 points anyhow, you might as we go out with a bang and try to invest heavily in one or two expeditions.

Overall, this is an enjoyable, fast-moving, two-player game with minimal learning, wheat, or setup involved. Once both players are in the rhythm, a single round can last as little as ten minutes. Definitely recommended.

Final Grade: A

Weekend Wrap-up

With DC humidity levels plateauing near 120% (the point at which you can swipe a bottle through the air and capture enough water to drink, and possibly, a heart faerie), we braved the multiple bands of thunderstorms to attend the Taste of Reston festival (a Restival) with Kathy in tow. Among the foods we sampled were scallop sandwiches, foie gras, burgers, and multiple scoops of ice cream. A storm did end up coming through towards the end, but it was short-lived enough that we just ducked and covered under an awning outside of an overpriced clothing store.

On Saturday morning, I played meat bingo at Costco and restocked supplies of steak, chicken, and pork. Since the humidity had broken like an opium fever, we went for a run through Sugarland in the afternoon, and enjoyed the surprisingly cool weather. In the evening, we drove out to Rosslyn for a pops concert by the Symphony Orchestra of NOVA (SONOVA, or as I prefer to pronounce it, "SONuva"). Arlington has changed very little in the past few years -- its major roadways continue to twist and turn like a level out of Marble Madness, with occasional hazards in the road like the oblivious girl opening her car door into a traffic lane, and guys in pink shirts and backwards hats.

Sunday, as usual, was our enforced relaxation day. Rebecca went to church and took a two hour bike ride, while I stayed home doing nothing of note. We had an early dinner at Delmarva's, baking on the sun-drenched patio with just enough awning to protect the pale and keep our beers cool.

How was your weekend?

Shed Day

Work on a new shed has begun, with the haphazard construction from 2003 razed for a fresh new foundation. The old shed had been in place since I bought the house, and was only missing a pair of ruby slippers sticking out from underneath it to make it a perfect replica of something that might have landed there during a tornado.

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Running on Air by Bliss n Eso:
Another album of Australian hip-hop with a wide variety of influencing styles in their beats. It has fewer stand-out singles than Circus in the Sky, but is still a fun listen. Late On Night is pretty representative of the album as a whole.

Final Grade: B

Game of Thrones, Season Five:
I haven't really liked any season of Game of Thrones as much as the first one and this one didn't change my mind. (I still watch because Rebecca likes it more than I do). The number of interesting plots thins (while I was glad that we didn't have to see more scenes of Bran possessing wolves, I was also disappointed that Arya's storyline turned into a biding time treadmill).

This season felt a lot like Star Wars in that most of the scenes involved people traveling somewhere and accidentally furthering the plot. There are a lot of big moments towards the end of the season, but without fail, every single one of them was poorly set up and lacked any emotional investment. That said, the traditional big battle beyond the Wall was well-done and gripping.

All of the scenes are too dark as well, which is probably an intentional design idea to save money for battle scenes by skimping on the sets. If your TV has the least bit of glare, you'll want to watch at night.

Final Grade: C-

Modern Nature by Charlatans UK:
This newer album by the Charlatans has a warm, mature frat-rock sound that reminds me of being in college. The arrangements are clean and pleasant on the ear. Trouble Understanding is a good representative track. Free on Amazon Prime.

Final Grade: B

Hannibal takes Edinburgh:
This is not a comedy special so much as a documentary on how stand-up routines evolve, based on a month-long Fringe festival in Edinburgh. It's very hit-or-miss with a minimal number of new jokes, and the first half is more interesting than the second. Hannibal is definitely a comic that is incredibly funny when tightly edited, but the dead air and self-laughs of his live performances kill the momentum. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: C-

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Off the Grid by Bliss n' Eso:
Bliss n' Eso's newest album feels a little calmer and centered than their previous work, but not quite as infectiously fun -- it seems like many of the hip-hop artists I like at this stage in my life are all rapping about how they've kicked their alcoholism and are raising kids. I enjoyed Whatever Happened to the DJ? and a few other tracks. As an import CD, it's probably not worth the higher cost unless you're a fan.

Final Grade: B

Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King:
This standup special featuring one of the Daily Show correspondents is great -- best if you enjoy a story-telling style of stand-up. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: B

Modern Family, Season Seven:
I can't believe there are seven seasons of this show now. This season is one of the stronger ones (with 4 or 5 being something of a low point), as it returns to the style and feel of the first seasons. The main stumble is giving more air time to yet another toddler -- toddler humor just isn't very funny, and should have been allowed to fade off the show when the first toddler grew up.

Final Grade: B

Patriot, Season One:
This is a show with a very unique feel about a depressed spy that struggles to complete his missions. Although it has shades of Fargo, the creator is obviously trying for something very different from your normal TV fare, and it works more often than it doesn't. If you can give it a little patience (at least 3 trial episodes) and can appreciate a plot that unfolds and expands more than it progresses in a straight line, you'll really enjoy this. I'm watching it again with Rebecca and it continues to grow on me. Free on Amazon Prime.

Final Grade: A-

Ian Week #7 Battle Report

Ian has made it to 7 weeks and is somewhere over 12 pounds at the moment. Having his weekly milestone tied to a Sunday is very logistically convenient, because I can also remember to do other household chores based on multiples (deep clean the bathroom on week multiples of 4, wash the sheets on multiples of 3, etc.)

He is staying awake and alert much more now but still doesn't like being on his own for very long. He also has trouble with digestion and spends a lot of time grunting and whining about the air in his belly.

Just yesterday, he learned how to social smile!

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (PG-13):
This is a pleasant stab at a movie set in the D&D world that doesn't require a lot of background lore going in. Hugh Grant as the villainous conman is probably the best part.

Final Grade: B-

John Mulaney: Baby J:
John Mulaney's most recent standup special is pretty personal, focusing on his recent drug rehab, but still very funny. On Netflix.

Final Grade: B

I Think You Should Leave, Season Three:
There are maybe three skits that are as funny as those found in the first excellent season of this show, but it's still worth watching (episodes are very short) just to appreciate the crazy connections that Tim Robinson came up with as each skit steadily goes off the rails. On Netflix.

Final Grade: B-

Wanda Sykes: I'm an Entertainer:
Wanda Sykes' latest standup hour starts strong but gets a little too serious by the end, killing off the momentum. On Netflix. Can you tell we've temporarily reactivated our Netflix account?

Final Grade: B-