September 25 2002 RussCon Report

News

I am enjoying the ongoing Dovzhenko retrospective series of free silent films with live music, which continues for the next few Tuesday evenings at Alamo Drafthouse. This past Tuesday's (Earth, 1930) was quite interesting, especially since the show started late and we were told that they learned 20 minutes before showtime that pianist Peter Stopchinski had broken his arm or fallen off a cliff or something, and luckily they'd been able to reach Graham Reynolds on his cellphone and he was going to fill in and improvise -- and he'd never seen the film before! So that was pretty fun, and Graham did a great job. The film was good, and parts of it reminded me of Baraka which was made 60 years later and some of us saw recently at the Paramount.

A couple weekends before that they showed 2 films (The Love Berry and The Diplomat's Pouch). The Love Berry was a madcap comedy in the vein of Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd (which was still clearly Soviet, since people addressed each other as "citizen", etc.), and all of a sudden there was a dark brooding scene subtitled "Inspector White summoned the fueller", which was an interrogation. The house lights came up, and Graham Reynolds announced that they'd accidentally swapped in a reel from The Diplomat's Pouch, and so in a little while we'd get to learn more about Inspector White and the fueller... The projectionist later apologized, explaining that the reels were all labelled in Russian, and he only spoke Ukrainian... The Diplomat's Pouch was a murder/suspense/espionage thriller. Dovzhenko was quite a versatile filmmaker.

Saturday October 5 there will be a special spooky outdoor showing of Nosferatu with Brown Whörnet playing live.

Squeaky sends word that Texas Early Music Project will have a concert Sunday October 20 (apparently 7:30pm) at First English Lutheran Church (3001 Whitis at 30th St), in which he'll be playing. Our Most Assiduous Reader will recall some of us saw these dudes play a few years ago.

I'll be going to Houston this weekend to visit family and check out a new exhibit of prints from the Weimar Republic at the cool Museum of Printing History. When I get back I plan to finishing hammering out the details on my second programming/testing challenge!

Meta Game

This week's Metagame will be simple. But there will be valuable prizes!

You've probably heard of it. I'll call it "Who Am I?"

When you get to RussCon and want to play, I'll attach a card to your back. The card will have a famous character on it. The character can be real or fictional. The object is for you to try to figure out who you are (i.e. the character on the card on your back).

When you finish a game that has three or more total players, you may be able to ask YES/NO questions to help you figure out your character. The winner can ask all those who placed below him/her a question that can be answer with a YES or a NO about the character on their card. Those ranking below the winner can ask those who placed below them in the game a question.

So. If you win a five player game, you would be able to ask four questions. One question per person you "beat." If you come in dead last in a game, you don't get to ask any questions, but you can whine all you want.

Whoever figures out who they are first, gets their choice of a prize.
Whoever figures out their card second gets a choice of the remaining prizes.

There will be three prizes. One package of Asian munchies/goodies. One package of European goodies. And the title of MetaDevil for next week. So, if you want to play and don't want to be MetaDevil, just don't pick that as a prize.

If the MetaDevil prize is not picked/won by midnight, we'll have a lightning round. All those interested will be take turns asking questions until someone figures out their character. I'll have details about that if necessary.

So.

Some clarifications.

Two players games are not eligible for getting to ask questions. Even if you don't play the game, you may be asked YES/NO questions by those ranked above you in the game - please help out and play along.

You cannot use other methods to figure out who you are (i.e. no cheating) with the exception of mental powers/telepathy.

Please ask only YES/NO questions. Please answer questions truthfully. If you cannot figure out how to answer a question, please see me.

If there are and problems, I'll be the sole aribiter. I will not be participating. But if the goodies are not won/chosen, I may dispose of them as I see fit.

'later,
William - the MetaDevil AND the Devil this week. Woo hoo!!!

Ben = Britney Spears -- Ben chose from the "European" pile (which was actually Mexican -- geography is hard, let's go shopping!)

JP = Zeus -- JP chose the Asian stash

RussD = Brad Pitt -- RussD is the Meta Devil!

RussW = Tiger Woods

MarkY = Mahatma Gandhi

BobR = Genghis Khan

Sea Biscuit gave up; he was Liberace

Steve = Snoopy (after much hinting)

Zack gave up; he was Russell Swayne Williams, your RussCon host!

Here are the lucky winners:

New Multiplicative Rank Ratings:
 3.4657 32.0000 Whendy (3)
 2.7081 15.0000 William (5)
 2.3795 10.8000 RussW (4)
 2.1327 8.4375 RussD (6)
 2.0794 8.0000 MarkY (2)
 2.0794 8.0000 JP (4)
 2.0794 8.0000 Daniel (2)
 1.6094 5.0000 Jonobie (1)
 0.4055 1.5000 Dudley (1)
 0.2877 1.3333 JimG (4)
 0.2231 1.2500 Clay (1)
-0.1823 0.8333 JonathanC (5)
-0.6931 0.5000 JeffF (1)
-0.6931 0.5000 Ben (6)
-1.3863 0.2500 Dan (2)
-2.5903 0.0750 MarkH (3)
-2.6672 0.0694 BobR (5)
-3.2958 0.0370 Clayton (5)
-3.8067 0.0222 Steve (5)
-4.8520 0.0078 Zack (6)

New Multiplicative Win Ratings:
 3.7658 43.2000 RussW won 3 of 4
 3.4657 32.0000 Whendy won 3 of 3
 3.0366 20.8333 William won 3 of 5
 2.0794 8.0000 MarkY won 2 of 2
 1.6094 5.0000 Jonobie won 1 of 1
 1.5041 4.5000 JP won 2 of 4
 1.5041 4.5000 JimG won 2 of 4
 1.4395 4.2188 RussD won 3 of 6
 1.1632 3.2000 Daniel won 1 of 2
 0.4055 1.5000 Dudley won 1 of 1
-0.1823 0.8333 Clay won 0 of 1
-0.2231 0.8000 JeffF won 0 of 1
-0.5108 0.6000 Dan won 0 of 2
-0.7985 0.4500 MarkH won 0 of 3
-1.1507 0.3164 Ben won 1 of 6
-1.7272 0.1778 BobR won 0 of 5
-1.7272 0.1778 JonathanC won 0 of 5
-1.7272 0.1778 Steve won 0 of 5
-2.3671 0.0938 Clayton won 0 of 5
-2.6548 0.0703 Zack won 0 of 6