White, King, Cute and no loss of Wordles
THIS snow, we got, precisely on schedule and in pretty much the predicted amount:
Somewhere between one and two feet, depending on the drifting. That's from a few minutes ago, not much more than when I went out to shovel the sidewalk a few hours before. Fortunately, we had no place we needed to go outside these walls, so we've not needed to test what it looks like beyond our lines of sight. It's fitting, I suppose, that on an American icon's 100th birthday, we got so much White.
The holiday that kept me home was one honoring a legend in our Black history, though; it's a day best devoted to remembering all of his accomplishments, speeches and stances, and not the only one that any current right wing nutjob deigns to sputter out:
----
It hasn't just been today; after the final clients arrived and departed Friday following my last post here, we've left the house between us a grand total of four times, and two of them were Eleanor going to the same store to buy, then get an adjustment on, some fabric she wants to get sewing with. My only others were a run to bank, office and Wegmans on Saturday and then a late-afternoon trail walk with Pepper yesterday once the temperature finally climbed out of single daytime digits. Our other exciting homebound adventure Sunday was isolating Jack in a single room to coax a stool sample out of him; there's some suspicion that he's got a bit of internal livestock. Eleanor finally snagged one while I was out with the dog yesterday, but we weren't able to bring it to the vet today. We won't find out until tomorrow if it will still be viable 48 hours later or if we're going to have to do it all over again.
Jack, for his part, isn't terribly upset about the traumatic separation:
----
Otherwise, inside has been a mixture of a little cook (my first solo attempt at chili) a little read (switching memoirs between the Mel Brooks one and the combined bio of Ron and Clint Howard), some cleaning and some bingewatching (we're now caught up on Succession, and I'm finally getting to my free-trial-week binge of the new Dexter), but for me, an assortment of games.
The Bills finally destroyed the New England Death Star on their frigid home field Saturday night, defeating the Patriots convincingly. They now get to travel to KC next weekend for another Saturday night game to attempt to advance further. While I await that, I've discovered the newest game distraction all the cool kids are getting into:
Wordle.
(That's an explanatory site, though it does have a link to it in it.) It's one-player, web-only, free, quick and as addictive as crack. Guess a five-letter word, any five-letter word, though experts will tell you to begin with certain algorithm-friendly ones. A letter goes gray if it's not in the target word, yellow if it's in the word but not the place you put it, and green for correct in both respects. Six tries are all you get, and only one new one arrives per calendar day.
The nerdy thing to do is always begin with a three-vowel combination, like Wheel of Fortune contestants always picked the same ones until they gave them to every one. I find it more interesting to start with something themed to the day. So, yesterday I said BILLS, which had the first L in green and the S in yellow and I got the full word SOLAR in four tries. Today, duh, I went with SNOWY, from which I deduced SHIRE in only three tries.
Too easy, you say? Well, then meet:
Absurdle.
(Also a link to the actual game in that explainer.) This version gives you unlimited guesses. You'll need them. Because even if you somehow guess the entire correct five letter word on the first try, it will tell you NO! and replace it with another word. I can't even understand, much less explain, the working of this algorithm (this is the developer's attempt). All's I know is it's evil and wrong, but since you can play unlimited rounds and then unlimited games at a time, it's the sort of addictive crack that Wordle is just a gateway drug for.
Or we could just play Password on Betty White's 100th birthday. This entry was originally posted at https://captainsblog.dreamwidth.org/1682883.html. Please comment here, or there using OpenID.
Somewhere between one and two feet, depending on the drifting. That's from a few minutes ago, not much more than when I went out to shovel the sidewalk a few hours before. Fortunately, we had no place we needed to go outside these walls, so we've not needed to test what it looks like beyond our lines of sight. It's fitting, I suppose, that on an American icon's 100th birthday, we got so much White.
The holiday that kept me home was one honoring a legend in our Black history, though; it's a day best devoted to remembering all of his accomplishments, speeches and stances, and not the only one that any current right wing nutjob deigns to sputter out:
----
It hasn't just been today; after the final clients arrived and departed Friday following my last post here, we've left the house between us a grand total of four times, and two of them were Eleanor going to the same store to buy, then get an adjustment on, some fabric she wants to get sewing with. My only others were a run to bank, office and Wegmans on Saturday and then a late-afternoon trail walk with Pepper yesterday once the temperature finally climbed out of single daytime digits. Our other exciting homebound adventure Sunday was isolating Jack in a single room to coax a stool sample out of him; there's some suspicion that he's got a bit of internal livestock. Eleanor finally snagged one while I was out with the dog yesterday, but we weren't able to bring it to the vet today. We won't find out until tomorrow if it will still be viable 48 hours later or if we're going to have to do it all over again.
Jack, for his part, isn't terribly upset about the traumatic separation:
----
Otherwise, inside has been a mixture of a little cook (my first solo attempt at chili) a little read (switching memoirs between the Mel Brooks one and the combined bio of Ron and Clint Howard), some cleaning and some bingewatching (we're now caught up on Succession, and I'm finally getting to my free-trial-week binge of the new Dexter), but for me, an assortment of games.
The Bills finally destroyed the New England Death Star on their frigid home field Saturday night, defeating the Patriots convincingly. They now get to travel to KC next weekend for another Saturday night game to attempt to advance further. While I await that, I've discovered the newest game distraction all the cool kids are getting into:
Wordle.
(That's an explanatory site, though it does have a link to it in it.) It's one-player, web-only, free, quick and as addictive as crack. Guess a five-letter word, any five-letter word, though experts will tell you to begin with certain algorithm-friendly ones. A letter goes gray if it's not in the target word, yellow if it's in the word but not the place you put it, and green for correct in both respects. Six tries are all you get, and only one new one arrives per calendar day.
The nerdy thing to do is always begin with a three-vowel combination, like Wheel of Fortune contestants always picked the same ones until they gave them to every one. I find it more interesting to start with something themed to the day. So, yesterday I said BILLS, which had the first L in green and the S in yellow and I got the full word SOLAR in four tries. Today, duh, I went with SNOWY, from which I deduced SHIRE in only three tries.
Too easy, you say? Well, then meet:
Absurdle.
(Also a link to the actual game in that explainer.) This version gives you unlimited guesses. You'll need them. Because even if you somehow guess the entire correct five letter word on the first try, it will tell you NO! and replace it with another word. I can't even understand, much less explain, the working of this algorithm (this is the developer's attempt). All's I know is it's evil and wrong, but since you can play unlimited rounds and then unlimited games at a time, it's the sort of addictive crack that Wordle is just a gateway drug for.
Or we could just play Password on Betty White's 100th birthday. This entry was originally posted at https://captainsblog.dreamwidth.org/1682883.html. Please comment here, or there using OpenID.