Categories
Sports

Dodgeball Fall 2013 Opener

Few things get me as excited as opening week of an SJSL sport. It’s like the first day of school, when you are bombarded with catching up with so many friends who you haven’t seen in a while. Lots of handshakes, how’ve you beens, and nods going around.

This season was particularly exciting for me as we had a lot of new free agents assigned to the team. I kept practicing their names and did my best to stalk them online beforehand (that sounds so much worse now that I read it) so that I had an idea of what they looked like and I could give them a proper greeting to the team. So I was eager to meet that and hoping that they would be a good fit for the team.

It turns out that they were all pretty great and team first players. Couldn’t of really asked for a better new bunch. They fit right in and brought our team much needed youth to our squad. Their energy and enthusiasm is a much needed addition to our seasoned vets (and I’m getting pretty old and gray).

We got beaten pretty handily against a very strong That’s What She Said team, but as the night went on you could see great improvement on our side, and we were able to win several of the later matches. I was really impressed with how our girls played against a very strong girl team, keeping those throws low and making some catches. I think on most nights that will win us a good amount of matches.

Our guys were very solid too. While we don’t have any extremely strong arms on the court, we made up with it with some smart throws and good teamwork. We really did a pretty great job playing together, especially considering all the new guys on the team.

Honey Badger of the Week Kevin had one of his better games I’d ever seen him play. Not only did he play great and went for catches, he also really stepped it up as a leader on the team! Constantly pointing out tactics to our new guys, he really made us all play better.

Very excited with our new energetic squad and can’t wait to see how the season unfolds.

Categories
Books

Inferno

InfernoSince Inferno was released a few months ago, I was checking each visit to the library if a copy was available. I did enjoy The Lost Symbol and everyone knows about The DaVinci Code, which Dan Brown has authored as well. Well a copy was in so I figured I’d finally give it a read.

It was pretty good, very similar to both books I mentioned above. Sticking with the now familiar script of scholar who decodes clues in awesome cities and ancient or really old things. Still a pretty solid formula which hasn’t gotten old to me at all.

The book has a couple of twists and turns, several of which did surprise me. However, the coolest thing about it was the whole topic on the potential of human extinction and how overpopulation is what would most likely cause it. I’ve long pointed to overpopulation as the problem of most problems we face as a society today. There’s some interesting ways that it gets addressed in this book.

Very good book, and I especially enjoyed it towards the end as things really started picking up.

Categories
Video Games

SteamWorld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt

SteamWorld DigWhen I saw that IGN had given SteamWorld Dig a 9.5, I figured I’d download it and give it a shot. Could use something new to kill some time with, plus I do like my trusty 3DS.

It was a very cool and addictive little game. I always root for the smaller game studios and their content on the eShop, and this one was pretty impressive. I’d have to agree with the reviews that compared it to a Dig Dug with some Metroid thrown in.

Power-ups are always great to get, and mining for treasure to buy them is very simple yet fun at the same time. A very simple but effective formula.

The pacing is what really made this one great to me. You’d sit for for small chunks of time and didn’t have to invest hours at a time to make progress.

Great little game.

 

Categories
Adventure

World Maker Faire: New York

Maker FaireDecided to finally attend the Maker Faire, which I’ve kinda wanted to do for a couple of years. It just looked really cool to me and making stuff is always good.  I asked NGM if he wanted to check it out too, and we made the adventure to experience it in person.

First I woke up pretty early so that I could drive to NGM’s home. I remembered how to get there and everything, and didn’t take a single wrong turn. This is a big achievement for myself.

We then departed from his home and went to Trenton (I think that’s where we were) to board a train to NYC. The train ride was pretty exciting, I really don’t get out much. However, what would make this trip forever standout were the completely drunk/high couple seated behind us.

They were truly amazing and I doubt my words could truly do them the justice they deserve. They were completely shot and I have not idea how they even walked onto the train (without tickets of course). The whole ride up they didn’t shut up once and constantly talked about some amazing nonsense.

Here are some excerpts that stood out to me:

  • wow (said like a million times)
  • asked if they had disabled tickets
  • the need of rain jackets
  • a tall building that is exactly 1776 feet high
  • trading in their Sebring for an Altima
  • crosswords make your brain smarter
  • how do you spell 2?

They appeared to be getting on NGM’s nerve, as well as the rest of the train’s as well. I didn’t mind and just took in the entire treasure for what it would be. It was truly amazing.

Once the train arrived in NYC, we boarded the subway to the New York Hall of Science inQueens where the Maker Faire was held. It took a little while to get out there, but the journey while interesting, wasn’t as eventful as the train ride for me. Sure there were some very weird people on the subway, but not as amazing as the train couple.

When we arrived to the Maker Faire, I was pretty overwhelmed. There was just so much going on, it took a while to figure out where to go and what to see. Once we walked around for a bit, and settled in we started to check out the various exhibits.

There was some really interesting stuff and it’s always impressive to me to see people actually making stuff and not just relying on a big company to make something that they have to then go out a buy at a Wal-Mart. I have a whole lot of respect for that crowd, that’s not an easy thing to do.

I mostly wanted to check out the electronics stuff, mostly the Arduino tents. I’ve been meaning to make something cool using that. There were some pretty amazing robots and other little contraptions that were very impressive too.

Though one of the coolest things I saw, and the only thing I bought a kit for were the Wool Buddies. Apparently you can make simple little stuff using wool and poking it with a needle. Some of the little critters offered were really cool looking to me and I would up buying a blue whale one that I’m hoping to complete soon.

We did check out an impressive Mentos and Diet Coke show. It was pretty amazing what those 2 guys were able to pull of with a simple combination. Also of note was the human mouse trap. Just like the board game, but much, much bigger. They put on an entertaining show.

The food there was a bit strange. I got a weird grilled cheese, tator tots for lunch. Eh, not so good but not bad. Then we got fancy ice cream sandwiches. I got fried chicken and waffles flavored ice cream on mine. I thought I’d be a bit adventurous, and it turned out to be not so bad.

After the faire, we stopped in Manhattan to get something to eat. The place we went to was some diner employing some Broadway people. I kinda hate Broadway, so having all the staff constantly singing way over the top renditions of songs was quite annoying. The food also was sub average, so I gotta say I was a bit disappointed with dinner. Oh well, I won’t forgot how annoying the staff was to me though.

Subway and train ride how were pretty smooth. No insane couples seated behind us, but we couldn’t stop quoting them the entire ride home.

Good stuff and a pretty awesome event. Even if you’re not into all that building stuff, it’s still pretty amazing to check out.

Categories
Adventure

Honey Badger Scavenger Hunt

Last night was our first every Honey Badgers Scavenger Hunt! We had a pretty great turnout, with current and past teammates as well as family members and friends too. I was very happy with the interest in the event and was glad to see it turned out well.

I decided to have the teams look for things on the OC boardwalk and beach, and take photos that they would have to share in person. I thought this would be easy, and also require some element of speed to cover as much ground as possible.

I also wanted to include some type of puzzles or riddles too. I was torn between a physical type of challenge or a mental one. I went the mental route with some riddles, a geometric puzzle and some trivia. I think it went over very well, and it was vey entertaining to watch the teams struggle with some of the questions. The triangle puzzle turned out to be the most challenging for most.

Then they had more things to find and take photos of for the last leg. I kinda wanted to mix up a scavenger hunt with the Amazing Race, and I do think it worked out well. Most teams seemed to finish up in an hour and a half or so.

The Meghan team were the victors in the end, narrowly edging out Jared and John B and Ginny, Dustin and Sean. It was very close, and I was very anxious to see just who would finish first!

Some stand out moments for me was watching the various teams try not to tip off the other teams. The frog with a crown and spinning wedding bears were both very funny for me to watch. Some teams just boldly took a photo, while others were a bit more convert and sneaking a photo in. Very funny to watch!

I’d deem this a very successful event and one that we will have to hold again!

Categories
Books

Kenobi: Star Wars

Kenobi: Star WarsI was pretty excited when I saw Kenobi: Star Wars at the library. Ben Kenobi was always a bit of a mystery watching Star Wars growing up, so a story about his time before episode IV seemed like something that would be cool to read.

It was a pretty good story. It was kinda written like a western, with the stranger coming into town (Ben) and helping the locals. Almost like an A-Team episode now that I think about it. I thought it was pretty well done and liked that the story didn’t just name drop well known characters from the franchise just for the sake of it.

While it hardly touched on him actually looking over Luke, it does do a great job of explaining his thought process after all the events at the conclusion of episode III. Being alone and unable to really do much about it, and his struggle with this new role of his while keeping his identity a mystery.