July 2 2003 RussCon Report

News

Happy 4th of July. Sunday Matt's having a party starting at 1:00 and at 3:00 is Esperanto club, which is a first Sunday of the month meeting (mostly in English and good for interested newbies) at Texspresso.

Last week several of us enjoyed the Celtic stylings of Poor Man's Fortune at the Cactus Cafe. Next Saturday (July 12) Al Stewart plays at the Cactus Cafe.

Game Results

Blokus	4	Tim 3 Dan 1 RussW -1 Alfred -3
Babel	2	RussW 1 Alfred -1
Tichu	2	( Tim Dan ) 1 ( JimG Fred ) -1
Tichu	2	( MarkH Whendy ) 1 ( Ben PJ ) -1
Carcassonne	4	Clayton 3 Alfred 1 William -1 RussW -3
Exxtra	3	PJ 2 Ben 0 Tim -2
Exxtra	3	JimG 2 Tim 0 Fred -2
TitanArena	4	Tim 3 PJ 1 Ben -1 MarkH -3
ZirkusFlohcati	5	William 4 Alfred 2 Crash 0 RussW -2 Clayton -4
PuertoRico	3	JimG 2 Whendy 0 Fred -2
Amun-Re	5	Matt 4 MarkG 2 JP 0 GW -2 MarkY -4
Vampire	5	RussW 4 Clayton 2 Crash 0 Tim -3 Alfred -3
Bluff	8	Alfred 7 William 5 Clayton 3 MarkY 1 RussW -1 Crash -3 PJ -5 Whendy -7
Guillotine	4	Crash 3 RussW 1 Alfred -1 MarkY -3
PuertoRico	4	JP 3 Matt 1 GW -1 MarkG -3
Can'tStop	4	Alfred 3 MarkY 1 Crash -1 MarkG -3

I got some serious smackdown in Blokus and Carcassonne, but held my own in Babel and Vampire...

Ratings

Rank Ratings:     
 2.4567 William
 2.0149 Matt
 1.5041 JimG
 1.4508 Tim
 1.3863 JP
 1.1632 Alfred
 1.1632 Clayton
 1.0986 Dan
 0.2877 Crash
 0.0000 RussW
-0.4418 PJ
-0.6931 MarkH
-1.0986 Ben
-1.0986 GW
-1.3863 Whendy
-2.0794 MarkG
-2.3671 MarkY
-2.8904 Fred

Win Ratings:
 2.4317 Tim won 3 of 6
 1.5041 JimG won 2 of 3
 1.4633 Alfred won 2 of 8
 1.3218 Matt won 1 of 2
 1.1882 William won 1 of 3
 1.1632 JP won 1 of 2
 1.0829 RussW won 2 of 7
 0.8065 Clayton won 1 of 4
 0.5188 Crash won 1 of 5
 0.4055 Dan won 1 of 2
 0.4055 MarkH won 1 of 2
 0.1542 Whendy won 1 of 3
-0.0157 PJ won 1 of 4
-0.5108 GW won 0 of 2
-0.7985 MarkG won 0 of 3
-0.9320 MarkY won 0 of 4
-1.3863 Ben won 0 of 3
-1.5041 Fred won 0 of 3

JimG, Tim, Matt, and William are Co-Devils! Alfred and JP are Co-Vice-Devils. Clayton and I are Co-Vice-Vice-Devils. Fred is the Generous Angel.

If you are confused how the ratings work, you could peruse the FAQ.

Meta Game

I was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game I mailed out:

To celebrate summer, the Meta Devil will be chosen randomly from among those who wear a Hawaiian shirt to RussCon.

There were 7 Hawaiian shirts, which I thought created an unusually festive ambience, and I enjoyed it. People with Hawaiian shirts were me, Dan, JimG, JP, MarkG, MarkH, MarkY. The randomly chosen Meta Devil is JimG, who will design next week's Meta Game!

Evening's Soundtrack

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Source Tags & Codes
Battlefield Band, Threads
Fortran 5, Blues
Skinny Puppy, The Process
The Sundays, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

As Crash observed, this is the geekiest theme ever. (If you don't grok it, then you are not a computer geek.)

Links

On a mailing list I'm on, someone recently accidentally spammed the whole list with a controversial email meant just for me, and then someone accidentally spammed the whole list with a harsh complaint about it meant just for the sender. "Reply-To" Munging Considered Harmful makes a case for why mailing lists shouldn't be set up so that "Reply" goes to the whole list (that's what "Reply All" is for).

The National Do Not Call Registry is managed by the FTC to let you get fewer junk calls.

Octodog: Frankfurter Converter, the fun, simple and safer way to turn ordinary hotdogs into exciting to cook and super fun to eat...

The horror of blimps

Chilean scientists work to ID mysterious sea creature

Sobig.a and the Spam You Received Today and Sobig.e - Evolution of the Worm tell more than you probably want to know about the recent big@boss virus/spam/scam.

These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed 404 page

Is the universe giving us the finger?

Fitness gym irony