Tag dodgeball (9)
(no subject)
Mood: energetic
Music: "Sweet Georgia Brown", whistled (IMH)
Posted on 2007-03-05 08:47:00
Tags: dodgeball microresolution
Words: 292
We had an action-packed weekend! <cut to commercial> We got together to play games Friday night, I played dodgeball Saturday night, we had quijax and thaneofross over on Saturday and Sunday, and Sunday night we went to a Harlem Globetrotters game.
Saturday morning was the dodgeball tournament - we lost in the first round, as expected, but we did win a game. (and had a "no decision", when it was down to one on one and their guy hit our guy in the head, which means they're both out. I thought it should a tie, which would give us another .5 points, but to no avail) We ended up losing 13-1 or something like that. Although I did get the last person out in the game we won :-)
Hosting people was fun, too - we walked around Annapolis for a while, found a new good Chinese place in Columbia, and played a good game of Starfarers of Catan (as well as some Rayman Raving Rabbids).
The Globetrotters were...interesting. It was fun, and I liked the way they mixed the "real" basketball and the comic asides. I keep thinking that I've seen them before - not a full show, but maybe they made a cameo at a Rockets game once upon a time? Anyway, the Wikipedia link above has lots of information - they played the New York Nationals, which I discovered is the new name of the Washington Generals.
Microresolution: no soda this week (until Friday, inclusive) before dinner. I've gotten into the habit of having one with lunch, which is a bad thing. (although the caffeine helps me get through the afternoon...but if I'm really desperate I can have tea instead)
An article on how to be an optimist (and why it's good for you)
weeeeekend
Mood: energetic
Posted on 2007-02-24 12:37:00
Tags: dodgeball
Words: 147
We lost at dodgeball this morning, but it was close - 8 games to 6. Had we not started out so slowly (we lost the first 4 in a row, I think) we might have had a shot.
On the way back, I heard "Ladies and Gentlemen" by Saliva. I've heard the song before, and it's not bad, but it irritates me a bit. I think I've figured out why. The rhyme scheme for the verses is AAAA (clever, no?), and the rhymes are usually pretty bad. Like, for example:
Hold tight cause the show it not over
If you will please move in closer
You're about to be bowled over
By the wonders you're about to behold here
Recent local laws...
Mood: hungry
Posted on 2007-02-12 11:51:00
Tags: dodgeball taxes snow poll
Words: 316
I heard about two proposed laws around here that I thought were interesting. One, in New York, would ban using electronic devices (such as iPods) while crossing the street (in response to the death of two such pedestrians) - the penalty would be a $100 fine. The other, in New Jersey (and proposed in Washington DC as well), would ban smoking in a car with children in it.
In my opinion, the New York law is way beyond the bounds of what the law should cover. It's common sense that you should pay attention while crossing the street - why not make it illegal not to look both ways?
The New Jersey one is a lot tougher...protecting children from secondhand smoke versus legislating what you can do in your car. I voted "No", but I could probably be convinced to vote "Yes". Maybe.
Anyway, I was just interested in what y'all thought.
Dodgeball was fun this weekend, except for getting the glasses knocked off of my face (they were OK, albeit a little more bent than before...I really need to get new frames at some point!) and running into a teammate which left my left cheek a bit tender. And this was in the match where the other team didn't have enough players! (so we lent them some of ours and played for fun)
There's supposed to be a big storm coming through tonight and tomorrow. Winter weather advisories and such. Hoping we get the day off!
Finally got around to doing my taxes this weekend - it was less painful than I thought and I ended up with a smallish refund. The state taxes thing was new, but you can do them online in a mostly painless manner. State taxes are high, though, especially considering that sales tax here is 5%, which doesn't seem like that much less than 8.25%. I guess property taxes are significantly lower, too?
math and dodgeball
Mood: cheerful
Posted on 2007-01-20 12:59:00
Tags: dodgeball math
Words: 358
As I was laying in bed last night, I realized that there was a simplification for the sum in yesterday's post. So the number of possible auctions we calculated to be 1 + 28 * sum from i=1 to 35 of (35 C i)*21^(i-1). Let's look at sum from i=1 to 35 of (35 C i)*21^(i-1) = (1/21) * sum from i=1 to 35 of (35 C i)*21^i = (1/21) * [(sum from i=0 to 35 of (35 C i)*21^i) - 1]. (this will make our argument easier)
So what is sum from i=0 to 35 of (35 C i)*21^i? We can use a combinatorial argument (counting the same thing two different ways) to simplify this. Let's say we have 35 slots, and for each slot we have a choice of the numbers 0 through 21 (inclusive). One way to count this is that we have 22 choices for each slot, and since there are 35 slots, there are 22^35 configurations. Another way to count this is to first choose how many slots will contain the number 0 - let's say there are i such slots. Well, we have (35 C i) ways to choose which slots have 0, and then there are 21 choices (since 0 isn't a possibility) for the other (35-i) slots, so this gives (35 C i)*21^(35-i). Since i can be anything from 0 to 35, there are in total sum from i=0 to 35 of (35 C i)*21^(35-i) configurations. Now, if we let j=35-i, this is the same as the sum from j=0 to 35 of (35 C (35-j))*21^j (since j will range from 0 to 35 just like i did), which is equal to the sum from j=0 to 35 of (35 C j)*21^j. This is just what we wanted!
So we have shown that the sum from j=0 to 35 of (35 C j)*21^j=22^35. Plugging this back in to our expression for the number of possible auctions, we get 1 + 28 * [(1/21) * (22^35 - 1)], which is in fact 128745650347030683120231926111609371363122697557 as desired. So I didn't have to do that ugly sum after all :-)
Dodgeball was rough - we lost 10-1 and 13 or 14-0. No major injuries, though, so that's something!
A series of unusual dodgeball games
Mood: content
Posted on 2007-01-13 23:01:00
Tags: dodgeball
Words: 573
Saturday is dodgeball day! We had the late shift today, which means I didn't have to show up until 11. We only had six people, which means all of us would be playing every game, which is kinda tiring. The first team we played only had six people as well, so at least it was fair. We hadn't played them before, and we lost the first game as usual. But then something unusual happened (read: unprecedented): we won three games in a row! I got the last person out in two of them (one by throwing, one by catching) and was generally on fire when it game to catching balls. They didn't throw balls too hard so it was just a matter of being alert and going for it. After a few more games we were up 5 games to 3 with 4 minutes left (which is time enough for around two games). We won the next game, which virtually ensured our victory. (hurrah!) The last game, I threw a stinger which wasn't aimed downward like it was supposed to and hit this guy square in the face (he wasn't looking). I was out for a headshot, and felt pretty bad about it. He looked OK afterwards, though (and they won that game so I felt a little better). Anyway, that was our first "real" victory (we won a forfeit when the other team only had 5 players...we played unofficially 6 on 5 and they beat us :-) ), so that was nice.
The next game was odd. We had played the other team before and they had beaten us pretty bad (I think we won one game against them). Before they came in our captain told us that there had been some kinda incident in the earlier game they had played (he didn't know what it was) and so they were upset or something, and the head ref was going to come in and ref our game. Well, OK. So then the team came in and the head ref came in and they were clearly arguing about something. And they continued to argue for like 5 minutes, and we still didn't know what was going on and just wanted to play a nice friendly game of dodgeball. We played for a couple of games and they won all of them, and then started to act strange. Like beating us to the balls on the rush but then rolling them to us. In one game, one guy sat down on the floor for a while. After that game, the head ref started yelling at them again and they argued for a little while longer. Apparently the earlier conversation had been about how they thrown too hard and left marks on people (girls especially?) and that they were too aggressive, or something. I'm still not entirely sure what the deal was, but it made the whole game fairly tense. After that they went back to their previous style, and they throw pretty darn hard. They ended up winning 9-0 and argued some more as we left. Meh.
We had some people over to watch the Ravens game. It was fun! (despite the Ravens' loss, in a game that featured no touchdowns. Whee.) We played some games after that, including some Wii and Tsuro. And I've almost finished one of the projects I microresolutioned about - just need to test the Windows version. And still a 3-day weekend!
Microresolutions
Mood: optimistic
Music: Radiohead - "OK Computer" album
Posted on 2007-01-08 09:37:00
Tags: music dodgeball microresolution
Words: 274
Like most people, I would often make New Year's Resolutions and promptly forget/ignore them come, say, January 15. But in an age of microgames (WarioWare series of games) and microtransactions (Xbox Live Marketplace, Wii Virtual Console), why not microresolutions? On Friday, I made a microresolution that I would work out at least twice over the weekend (stipulating that dodgeball Saturday morning counted), and I ended up going to the gym Sunday to fulfill the microresolution. Success! Next up: I had a few bad headaches this weekend and I bet they're from caffeine withdrawal. Microresolution: no caffeine (tea/chocolate excluded) from today until Wednesday (inclusive). We'll see how this one goes.
Speaking of dodgeball, djedi came to watch my game on Saturday. We lost both rounds, but I did "win" our only game for our team. It came down to me and a girl on the other team, and I threw maybe five balls at her before I finally (barely) hit her. She was good at dodging! I felt a little bad because she's a girl (and I was throwing the ball fairly hard, which was helpful because when I missed it would bounce off the wall and come back to me), but one of the consequences of feminism is that I'm not supposed to feel bad about stuff like that, right?
I spent a Best Buy gift card this weekend and, on a whim, I bought the Radiohead "OK Computer" album without hearing any songs on it, although it's ridiculously critically acclaimed. Listening to it now for the first time - my microreaction is that I like it. :-)
Why doesn't the LJ spell checker recognize "dodgeball"?
update day?
Music: "Hooked on a Feeling" by David Hasselhoff (thanks, David!)
Posted on 2006-12-16 23:04:00
Tags: ljbackup dodgeball wii
Words: 469
Hmm, Friday was quiet on LJ and today seems to be update day. So I'll continue the trend!
Last night djedi and I went over to a new friend's place to play Wii. It was fun! Although, a lot of what we played was Monkey Ball minigames, and these don't seem to be up to the caliber of previous versions. There are some good ones in there, though - the key is avoiding the stupid or impossible to control ones.
This morning was dodgeball! Unfortunately it was another stupid 9:00 start, but I was dedicated enough to get up on time. :-) Anyway, our first match was against a team that only have five players (six play at a time), so we went six on five against them. We did well at first, holding about even with them, but they ended up winning 10-4. Had some good games, though, including trading "I got you outs" with a cute muscled guy on the other team. He was better than me, though...
The second match was against "The Hasselhoffs" (yeah, really). They even had matching shirts with David Hasselhoff's face surrounded by the text "Don't Hassle the Hoff". As could be expected of a team that has uniforms, they crushed us 14-2 (and the last game we won because they were screwing around). One guy on their team even made a phenomenal catch - he was on the ground and caught the ball between his legs. It was unreal. Also, I got hit by a stinger (the small balls that hurt!) twice dangerous close to the crotch area. Luckily, no permanent damage was done.
Came back home and did some programming and played some more Wii Sports. I've already reached Pro level at tennis and I'm getting closeish with baseball! It's a lot of fun.
Played some WoW...had a slightly frustrating MC run because the server reset twice, so we had to basically start over twice. Luckily we weren't too far in, and the rest of the run went relatively well, including our first downing of Ragnaros after the patch.
Just went to djedi's office's holiday party - it was a lot of fun! We played ping-pong and air hockey and watched some football. I think my Wii Tennis is helping my ping-pong game. Also, I want to be warmed up for facing destroyerj come New Year's :-)
Finally fixed the frustrating LJBackup problem over which I almost killed a hard drive. It turns out when you're using prototype.js to do an Ajax call, you have to use "post" as the method, not "POST" (even though "POST" is supposed to be more compliant, or something). Anyway, making decent progress and I'm hoping to wrap things up before we leave on Friday!
Hope everyone's holiday season is going well. Only one week (give or take) until Christmas!
I've never owned a console on launch day...
Mood: sore
Posted on 2006-11-19 23:22:00
Tags: ljbackup dodgeball wii
Words: 270
...and today is no exception! I woke up at 6:45 and went to a number of different stores to try to obtain a Wii, but to no avail. I really should have preordered - didn't want to because I've seen people get screwed with that. (i.e. PS3 where they don't receive enough units to cover the preorders) But there seem to be plenty of Wiis today (the first Target I went to had 120), just none went to me. I did manage to snag an extra controller and the two games we wanted, though. (new monkey ball and zelda) A gaming store near work said they're getting another shipment in Tuesday, so I'm still hopeful! Interesting Wii FAQ here.
In other news, I was tired after dodgeball yesterday (lots of running around!), and I noticed my arm kinda hurt when trying to throw. So I'm already feeling kinda sick (think it's just a mild cold or allergies at this point), and today I'm sore all over my freaking body. I didn't put two and two together until just now when I tried to do the throwing motion with my right arm and it hurt in like 8 different places. Hopefully that'll go away tomorrow.
My LJ backup project is coming along decently - I'm now downloading all posts and comments and saving them, as well as displaying some neat statistics. Things left to do:
- generate yearly archive pages, like this
- read in polls and parse and display them
- hopefully find some way to find out which posts are memories
- more neat statistics, like who you use the <lj user="whoever"> tag for most
Go Turbulent Firewhirls!
Mood: energetic
Posted on 2006-11-18 12:16:00
Tags: dodgeball religion
Words: 93
We won a match! Granted, it was by forfeit because the other team didn't have enough players. But I'll take it, especially after we lost the first match 13(!) games to 1. Also, my glasses are intact, although I did bang my elbow a little bit on the gym floor.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops announced new guidelines about gay people, including this nicety:
Gays also are discouraged from telling anyone about their sexual orientation outside a close circle of friends and supporters in the church.
This backup was done by LJBackup.