2651: I Can't Get Behind That!
I may have jinxed myself by not gloating over my Power Grid win last session--thereby slighting the Power Grid Gads and incurring their Random-Factor-Driven wrath--but there were too many things on my mind at the time. The best win I could claim for tonight was solving Fawx's Puzzle-A-Day for the day after looking at it for about a minute, several minutes before Fawx [indeterminable amount, as he had looked at it before but not solved it] and half an hour? before Jon... but then, I've played a lot of anagram-related word games to know lots of five-letter words, especially.
Here it is, if you were curious [about the closest I'll get to tying in riddles to the post instead of having them be the junk non-sequiturs they are]:
The secret five-letter word
_ _ _ _ _
shares 4 letters with
CAKED
and shares 4 letters with
CHIDE
What is the word?
The actual phrasing was "tiles" instead of "letters," which seemed to confuse Jon for reasons I can't fathom, but that's the gist of it. I also added that the secret word was five letters, since the five-tile illustration suggested to Jon that there was a possibility it was an eight-letter word 9_9
I will concede my defeats, though:
Power Grid I: We played the Manughen-Bacon-Hoogan-Whatever-the-Fuck map that gets shit for coal, and I made the mistake of being 1. capacity-happy, and 2. coal-dependent. Loss all around. To my credit, though, it was an easy-expansion map, and in past games it got hoary due to everyone getting tied at 18 capacity, and that elusive 19 cap always seems a sure win, however unfeasible to acquire.
Ra: I got too focused on my monument haul, but the draw was against me anyway, particularly as I got "stuck" with the 13 in the second epoch [not good not using it and having to spend it in the last epoch].
A Very Clever Pipe Game II: Game I was easy enough, since I claimed lots of little wins and Chars just seemed to be experimenting. Game II, though, the draw was against me, and Jon decided to never let me have a single claim, almost to the point of, "Aww, I'm going to lose because you're going to get one, even though I have fifty points to your none..." I'm finding it difficult to believe I could have possibly won from the draw I was getting, but it's also a sorer defeat because I was the only person playing against Jon, instead of, "There are only two players: Jon and us."
Perhaps with more plays, though. I'm not going to be so poor a sport about it that I can't lose gracefully, particularly after only playing a couple of games, but it is frustrating playing with an opponent that, by what luck of the draw, would not concede even ONE point until the very end and against whom I could not retaliate at any turn.
Power Grid II: Inwardly, I was shaking my fist at a second go, not just because we spent time watching 1. teaser material for Fawx ["...edited by Tokido?! GFDI!!1"] and 2. NOT FUNNEHZ X( [does not deserve the dignity of being described but was at least cut short], but also because by the time we finished, there wasn't time to play the game of Mr. Jack I have been shaking my fist at Fawx to play with me since he bought it months and months ago that he said he wanted to play with me and hasn't yet [unfortunately 2p--teams or anything like that wouldn't work].
Germany at least gave me the small luxury of being able to settle safely for 17 cap, but I got screwed by draw [again] and, to a lesser extent, placement. I did at least do my part to minimize Jon's chances of running away with it, instead of--say--Char's strategy of screwing everyone else over as equally as possible, and I let Fawx have the Victoly! when it came down to what I did to determine who won. The additional plays have not helped me figure out how to make my strategy more fool-proof, though I feel strongly that getting incremental capacities of approx. 2, 5, 8, 12, and 17 are key, especially that early 2. Certainly an early, steady lead helps more than it hurts, if played right, contrary to strategies we've been using before.
Of course, I think my sorest defeat EVAR for our game sessions was the riddle that started it all [#1], because Lorn not only cheated by iPhoning it in, but he blurted out the answer once he found it, rather than letting the rest of us think of the answer [for today's, I simply said, "I know what it is," and gave Fawx the hint of fake-punching him in the arm when he said he figured it out but didn't know if it was the same word I found]. I've been looking for a similar sort of riddle, but none have really measured up =(
...except possibly the most clever riddle EVARWhy do mathematicians confuse Hallowe'en with Christmas?
but I didn't get that one myself, either. [I've also prolly posted it before, but correct me if I'm wrong.] The unfortunate thing with riddles, besides matchstick/coin puzzles and such like that where I might forget after a bit, is I can't unlearn the answer and try it again if spoiled. That's why I'm better at solving word puzzles like today's, but any real "wit" riddle I'll either have to have heard it before or I'll take much longer on it.
The job search has me frowning, 'cause on Friday I even expanded my criteria to include shit like data entry, and I came up with a result that looked mediocre but promising [in its limited sense] that was $10-11/hr scanning in documents. What had me balking was less that it was crap work for not quite what I was making at Target but that one of the three requirements was "min. 1 yr experience working in an office environment"... \:' I could possibly argue with them over it, but there's really no way I can lie my way into having had that. At best, I spent a semester in college sleeping in a computer lab while "monitoring" the two people who used it.
It's frustrating that this six-year gap between graduation and my actual real "as job" design work [and even a noticeable gap between graduation and when I started at Target] means getting, at best, intern positions with actual real design places, regardless of my own interest or lack thereof, so it's really kind of putting me at a crossroads of, "Do I want to fight to get my foot in the door with these peeps, or should I just barge into the same kind of non-design crap I've been doing but which stand a stronger chance of getting me hired with enough time to ask for Japan II time off and not have to bug my father for money?"
*shrug* We'll see what the new day brings =/ and by new day/tomorrow I always mean after I've gone to bed and properly rested again.
Also, need to [qualifier: EVENTUALLY] invest in a proper iPod car adapter, rather than the clearance speaker dealie. Two highway commutes have shown it to be too quiet even at full blast to fulfill its purpose as good non-headphones, and I'm rather annoyed at having to physically [so to speak] amplify the MP3s to get up to even that quiet level they're playing. Granted, part of the problem is that Henry Rollins' spoken word bits fluctuate in volume too much compared to--say--Eddie Izzard or even Lewis Black, so perhaps I'll just have to leave him out of the list, but I'd rather just have speakers that can play audibly at a more medium volume.
Here it is, if you were curious [about the closest I'll get to tying in riddles to the post instead of having them be the junk non-sequiturs they are]:
The secret five-letter word
_ _ _ _ _
shares 4 letters with
CAKED
and shares 4 letters with
CHIDE
What is the word?
The actual phrasing was "tiles" instead of "letters," which seemed to confuse Jon for reasons I can't fathom, but that's the gist of it. I also added that the secret word was five letters, since the five-tile illustration suggested to Jon that there was a possibility it was an eight-letter word 9_9
I will concede my defeats, though:
Power Grid I: We played the Manughen-Bacon-Hoogan-Whatever-the-Fuck map that gets shit for coal, and I made the mistake of being 1. capacity-happy, and 2. coal-dependent. Loss all around. To my credit, though, it was an easy-expansion map, and in past games it got hoary due to everyone getting tied at 18 capacity, and that elusive 19 cap always seems a sure win, however unfeasible to acquire.
Ra: I got too focused on my monument haul, but the draw was against me anyway, particularly as I got "stuck" with the 13 in the second epoch [not good not using it and having to spend it in the last epoch].
A Very Clever Pipe Game II: Game I was easy enough, since I claimed lots of little wins and Chars just seemed to be experimenting. Game II, though, the draw was against me, and Jon decided to never let me have a single claim, almost to the point of, "Aww, I'm going to lose because you're going to get one, even though I have fifty points to your none..." I'm finding it difficult to believe I could have possibly won from the draw I was getting, but it's also a sorer defeat because I was the only person playing against Jon, instead of, "There are only two players: Jon and us."
Perhaps with more plays, though. I'm not going to be so poor a sport about it that I can't lose gracefully, particularly after only playing a couple of games, but it is frustrating playing with an opponent that, by what luck of the draw, would not concede even ONE point until the very end and against whom I could not retaliate at any turn.
Power Grid II: Inwardly, I was shaking my fist at a second go, not just because we spent time watching 1. teaser material for Fawx ["...edited by Tokido?! GFDI!!1"] and 2. NOT FUNNEHZ X( [does not deserve the dignity of being described but was at least cut short], but also because by the time we finished, there wasn't time to play the game of Mr. Jack I have been shaking my fist at Fawx to play with me since he bought it months and months ago that he said he wanted to play with me and hasn't yet [unfortunately 2p--teams or anything like that wouldn't work].
Germany at least gave me the small luxury of being able to settle safely for 17 cap, but I got screwed by draw [again] and, to a lesser extent, placement. I did at least do my part to minimize Jon's chances of running away with it, instead of--say--Char's strategy of screwing everyone else over as equally as possible, and I let Fawx have the Victoly! when it came down to what I did to determine who won. The additional plays have not helped me figure out how to make my strategy more fool-proof, though I feel strongly that getting incremental capacities of approx. 2, 5, 8, 12, and 17 are key, especially that early 2. Certainly an early, steady lead helps more than it hurts, if played right, contrary to strategies we've been using before.
Of course, I think my sorest defeat EVAR for our game sessions was the riddle that started it all [#1], because Lorn not only cheated by iPhoning it in, but he blurted out the answer once he found it, rather than letting the rest of us think of the answer [for today's, I simply said, "I know what it is," and gave Fawx the hint of fake-punching him in the arm when he said he figured it out but didn't know if it was the same word I found]. I've been looking for a similar sort of riddle, but none have really measured up =(
...except possibly the most clever riddle EVARWhy do mathematicians confuse Hallowe'en with Christmas?
but I didn't get that one myself, either. [I've also prolly posted it before, but correct me if I'm wrong.] The unfortunate thing with riddles, besides matchstick/coin puzzles and such like that where I might forget after a bit, is I can't unlearn the answer and try it again if spoiled. That's why I'm better at solving word puzzles like today's, but any real "wit" riddle I'll either have to have heard it before or I'll take much longer on it.
The job search has me frowning, 'cause on Friday I even expanded my criteria to include shit like data entry, and I came up with a result that looked mediocre but promising [in its limited sense] that was $10-11/hr scanning in documents. What had me balking was less that it was crap work for not quite what I was making at Target but that one of the three requirements was "min. 1 yr experience working in an office environment"... \:' I could possibly argue with them over it, but there's really no way I can lie my way into having had that. At best, I spent a semester in college sleeping in a computer lab while "monitoring" the two people who used it.
It's frustrating that this six-year gap between graduation and my actual real "as job" design work [and even a noticeable gap between graduation and when I started at Target] means getting, at best, intern positions with actual real design places, regardless of my own interest or lack thereof, so it's really kind of putting me at a crossroads of, "Do I want to fight to get my foot in the door with these peeps, or should I just barge into the same kind of non-design crap I've been doing but which stand a stronger chance of getting me hired with enough time to ask for Japan II time off and not have to bug my father for money?"
*shrug* We'll see what the new day brings =/ and by new day/tomorrow I always mean after I've gone to bed and properly rested again.
Also, need to [qualifier: EVENTUALLY] invest in a proper iPod car adapter, rather than the clearance speaker dealie. Two highway commutes have shown it to be too quiet even at full blast to fulfill its purpose as good non-headphones, and I'm rather annoyed at having to physically [so to speak] amplify the MP3s to get up to even that quiet level they're playing. Granted, part of the problem is that Henry Rollins' spoken word bits fluctuate in volume too much compared to--say--Eddie Izzard or even Lewis Black, so perhaps I'll just have to leave him out of the list, but I'd rather just have speakers that can play audibly at a more medium volume.