A quick update
Those of you keeping score at home already know that I have been delinquent about updating my journal. Sure, you say, no one says you have to write in your journal every day, right? Well, you're too kind, but as we all know the word "journal" comes from "jour", meaning "day", and "nal", which maybe has something to do with annals or being anal or something. But wouldn't "annals" suggest something on the scale of years, not days? I'm so confused. Note: persons pointing out the actual etymology of "journal" will be shot.
Yeah, but anyway: "I haven't written in so long because I've been so busy working on a paper deadline on Friday (Happy Valentine's Day!)." I wrote that in quotes because it's only my cover story. I have been working on my research for Peter Stone, but I'm finding it far too easy to be distracted. My distraction level is highly unsatisfactory. I must rectify that somehow.
Speaking of rectitude, I have less cash on me right now than I've ever had. The reason I free associate this fact to "rectitude" is that, as you may know, I aggressively maintain at most 99¢ in change at all times. When I bought a twelve-pack of root beer to bring to Adam's yesterday¹, the price modulo a dollar turned out to be exactly equal to the value of the dime, nickel, and five pennies I had on me. (I had five pennies due to an error.) Then when I needed to pay for my $5 entry at bridge today², the only currency I had on me was a single bill of precisely the desired denomination.
Sorry, I just find it amusing.
¹ We played good ole' standbys Puerto Rico and Settlers of Catan. I sucked.
² Jeff and I did not suck. I roughly tied my best performance ever at duplicate, about 59%. Except this time I actually won, receiving 0.70 Black. The weird part is that I didn't think we did nearly that well. Very few boards felt like tops. In fact, our three tops came on 1N making exactly and setting two game contracts (arrived at in uncontested auctions) one trick each³. On the other hand, we had four bottoms, two of which were my fault. We also failed to reach our two slams, though neither turned out to be a bad result. We did get a number of gifts, though.
³ Though one of these tops was really memorable for me. LHO opens with 1♦, and RHO responds with 2♣. You hold, among other things, the ♠A and ♣KQJ10xx. The opponents stumble into 3N, but before I can double for a club lead, RHO pulls to 4♠ down 1. Nuts.
Yeah, but anyway: "I haven't written in so long because I've been so busy working on a paper deadline on Friday (Happy Valentine's Day!)." I wrote that in quotes because it's only my cover story. I have been working on my research for Peter Stone, but I'm finding it far too easy to be distracted. My distraction level is highly unsatisfactory. I must rectify that somehow.
Speaking of rectitude, I have less cash on me right now than I've ever had. The reason I free associate this fact to "rectitude" is that, as you may know, I aggressively maintain at most 99¢ in change at all times. When I bought a twelve-pack of root beer to bring to Adam's yesterday¹, the price modulo a dollar turned out to be exactly equal to the value of the dime, nickel, and five pennies I had on me. (I had five pennies due to an error.) Then when I needed to pay for my $5 entry at bridge today², the only currency I had on me was a single bill of precisely the desired denomination.
Sorry, I just find it amusing.
¹ We played good ole' standbys Puerto Rico and Settlers of Catan. I sucked.
² Jeff and I did not suck. I roughly tied my best performance ever at duplicate, about 59%. Except this time I actually won, receiving 0.70 Black. The weird part is that I didn't think we did nearly that well. Very few boards felt like tops. In fact, our three tops came on 1N making exactly and setting two game contracts (arrived at in uncontested auctions) one trick each³. On the other hand, we had four bottoms, two of which were my fault. We also failed to reach our two slams, though neither turned out to be a bad result. We did get a number of gifts, though.
³ Though one of these tops was really memorable for me. LHO opens with 1♦, and RHO responds with 2♣. You hold, among other things, the ♠A and ♣KQJ10xx. The opponents stumble into 3N, but before I can double for a club lead, RHO pulls to 4♠ down 1. Nuts.