An interesting euchre case study

I just played some euchre online and came across a very interesting hand. I'd like to make a note on it so I don't forget. If you're not well-versed in euchre, don't waste your time but if you play cards at all, you might want to have a read.

The situation is this: I am dealer. My partner called spades. In my hand I have the jack of clubs, ace of spades, ten of spades, ace and queen of diamonds. The player to my left leads the ace of clubs, my partner has cut with the nine of spades, and the other player has followed suit. What should I play?

The natural answer is probably to ruff my off-queen and let my partner take it. If my partner is void in diamonds, we'll probably take all of the tricks. If my partner has a diamond, he will lead it, hoping that I've voided myself. I haven't, and this gives the other team a chance to cut on this trick, which I can't prevent. I'd say ruffing the queen will lead to getting all five tricks 4 times out of 5.

Now let's try something different: instead of ruffing the queen, let's overtrump my partner's nine with my ten to take the lead. Now I lead the left.

Case 1: My partner has only the right bower left in his hand. Then he wins, and probably leads an ace (otherwise he made a pretty risky call). Now I ruff my queen knowing that my opponents are probably void in trump, and my two aces will win the last two tricks, unless one of my opponents was lucky enough to get the two remaining trump in the deck.

Case 2: My partner has another low trump, which he plays under my left. I bleed the one trump left in my opponents' hands, and lead my ace of diamonds safely on the third trick. Next, I lead the queen of diamonds, and one of two things will happen:
a) My partner trumps it with the right bower. Then my ace of trump wins the last trick.
b) My partner trusts it. The queen will lose ONLY if one of my opponents was dealt the king of diamonds plus another diamond. Otherwise the queen stands and my partner's right wins the last trick.

Now it seems like the probability of one of my opponents being dealt two diamonds, one of which is the king is lower than the odds that one will be void in diamonds and be able to cut a diamonds trick. Thus, I think that the way I played (overtrumping my partner's nine to take the lead), while counter-intuitive, gives our team a better chance of taking all five tricks.

I hope SOMEONE found this interesting.

Listening to... Cream - Pressed Rat and Warthog
Link of the moment... Don't forget my old strategy articles!

Reading week? More like...BLEEDING week...yeah.

Well this is my reading week, but I've had a lot of work tacked on to me, so I've had to spend a good part of it working. Two loads of marking, two assignments (one in TeX), a lecture to prepare, and my usual commitment of trying to find a research topic. I think I've found out so far that research just isn't my thing.

Well, another lonesome valentine's day has passed. If I recall correctly, it was a pretty lousy day for me. I've been having more lousy days than normal lately. I just don't really look forward to anything anymore. I live every day thinking "alright, if I sludge through today, maybe things will be better tomorrow". I miss the life I was leading when I was in Waterloo. I got out of the house more often, and enjoyed spending time with all my friends there. To be honest, I don't really enjoy the time I spend with my friends here. Sure, it beats doing nothing, but it just doesn't have the same feeling as when I hung out with my old roommies.

[Edit: Alright, alright, that sounds a bit malicious. I guess what I really meant to say is that I miss hanging out with my roommies because after spending so much time with them, my personality changed, and after hanging out with them for so long, I feel like I'm not really being "myself" when I'm hanging out with my friends in Thunder Bay. Besides Adam, who I only see on the weekends, I don't really have anyone here that I feel I can just be myself around.]

Speaking of which, John was in town this previous weekend for "Family Day" (what a lame name for a holiday). I had fun hanging out with him this weekend. I played lots of games over the weekend with him and his parents, including 7 hands of euchre. To be honest though, playing euchre with his mom is like being skinned alive. She never retains any of the rules of the game. Sure, I understand if you can't remember the order of trump if you're just starting, but she's played at least a dozen games now. On Saturday night, I went to John's house along with Adam and we played "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" with John's cousin Dina. Well, apparently I am indeed smarter than a fifth grader cause I won the game. After that we played Balderdash (well, Ultimate Balderdash to be honest). It turns out that John is the best Balderdasher among us, and it was a close game for second, with Dina coming out on top in the last round, and Adam and I tying for third. Overall good times!

We had a game of Risk 2210 that spanned the last 2 games nights. I enjoyed it, but it would be much better playing with people that actually wanted to play. It felt like Chanel was just going through the motions, making truces with everyone possible. I guess it kind of worked for her, but on the last turn she could have easily taken over lots more territory, but didn't. I think she's too impatient for a game as long as Risk 2210. By the end of the game, I was left with 3 territories and no chance to win, but for some reason, Sheena saw it fit to try to obliterate me (even though doing so would give her no real benefit). Luckily I got some good dice rolls to secure my 9 point last place (the next lowest was around 20 I think).

In an effort to try to veer my life off its current path, I've asked someone out on a movie date. You can argue all you want that asking via email is a coward's way out, but I think it's better than phoning someone up and putting them on the spot, as well as not putting me at risk of saying something stupid. If this was someone I see in person regularly, I'd ask face-to-face, but I don't have that luxury.

Listening to... Matchbook Romance - The Greatest Fall
Link of the moment... Funny little video

Farewell, euchre peeps!

Well, euchre is now over. We had the end-of-term tournament the other day. I didn't get to play since I was organizing it, and the teams worked out in such a way that my playing would throw off parity. Molly and I got to play against a few teams though, and we were doing really well in the games that we played. Sean and Quinn wound up winning. There were a few complications, but overall I'm a big fan of the triple elimination style. We got a massive turnout because Molly advertised in the Village 1 cafetorium. We got 17 new members at the last meeting, which gave the club's pocket a nice padding.

I swear I'm borderline bipolar. I keep shifting between good moods and bad moods over the course of a day. I'm getting to the point where some time away from my roommates would do me some good, but I'm not particularly looking forward to moving out, back into my parents' house.

So I wound up getting a mark of 83% on that makeup midterm for Network Design. I think our class broke Swamy's spirit. He's marking a lot easier this time around. I made some mistakes that he would normally have taken off a handful of marks from, but he only penalized me a mark at the most. The assignments are a lot more managable too, so if the final exam follows the same trend, I can actually pull off a pretty good mark in this course.

I've got three assignments due on Monday, none of which I've started. I can only assume that I'm going to neglect Network Flow again (c'mon, each assignment is only worth ~1.7%). I skipped a day of classes one day as well, so I hope that doesn't affect anything.

Well, I guess that's all I have to say. How disappointing.

Listening to... In Flames - Free Fall
Link of the moment... My new Flickr account which currently holds the euchre pictures

Que sera, sera

I feel like I'm not entirely content with my life as of late. I feel like I need a clean slate, a fresh start. I recently got my offer of admission from LU, and I'm torn between sending it off with my deposit and ripping it up in an act of defiance. I'm getting entirely sick of math, and school in general. Well, hopefully life gets better after an undergrad.

I don't think I've really done a stitch of work lately. I haven't had an assignment due in a while; I have one due on Monday, but I think I might just not submit it again (it's only 2%). I wrote my (makeup) midterm for CO453. I think I passed it, but then again, that's what I said about the first one. Hopefully, I'll at least get more than 35% on this one. As for that crypto midterm? 98%.

Well, at least I seem to be involved with more stuff lately. Tomorrow, Andrew and I will play in a euchre tournament at St. Jerome's. On Tuesday, we're skipping euchre to play in a Smash Bros. team tournament (hopefully this will also knock me out of my #1 ranking so I don't have to wind up buying a prize for myself). On last Wednesday, I went out for Nathalie's birthday. We went to some Vietnamese/Thai place. The food was ok, but nothing to scream about. For a few days there, I was eating very poorly. I had a meal at midnight the night before, then the dinner that I got that night lasted me two small meals for the rest of the day. The next day, I had a pizza pop around 4 PM and a small frozen dinner later that night. Now that we've gone to Sobey's, I've got more food in the house.

After the dinner at Nathalie's, we went back to her apartment. I won a match of Wii Tennis, and had a terrible try at Wii bowling because I randomly picked a left-handed player (as a result, every shot had massive amounts of spin in it). We also played a game she got as a gift called Loaded Questions. One player asks a question from a card, everyone else answers, the person to the right of the player reads them all, and the player has to guess which player picked which answer. Since there were six of us playing, things dragged on a little late (six players gives the player a 1/120 chance of guessing correctly, five players gives a 1/24 chance). Overall, a good time was had.

I had high hopes of getting some good sleep tonight, but again my nightly sleep cycle turned into an hour and a half nap.

I really hope I'm drawing near the end of Shadow Hearts. My characters are Lvl40, and I think the cap is Lvl50. It's a decent game and all, but things are getting a bit repetitive. Battles all seem to follow the same pattern. I hope you'll also notice the completion of Megamans three through 5; John and I are just before the Wily stages in 6.

My dog, Skipper, died the other day. My sister is really broken up about it (as well I would expect her to be), and my mom was getting choked up on the phone too. Me? Eh, I guess I'm pretty unaffected. He was a good dog, and he'll be missed around the household, but I'm not going to shed any tears for him.

Listening to... Hatebreed - Tear it Down
Link of the moment... Mike Joooooooones.....HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW

Did I just say "ego-testicle?"

Beware the pronunciation of the word egotistical.

Well, my two pre-reading-week midterms are over and done with. I expect between 50-65 on Network Design (hey, a pass is a win in my books!), and perhaps between 75-85 on my network flows midterm. Another day of studying probably would have gone a long way towards the latter test, but what's another ten percent on my midterm going to get me in life? Nowhere, I'm sure.

I've only got a few hours of class tomorrow before I can truly start my week off. I think I'm already starting to go crazy from hanging around the house too much, so we'll see how long it takes before I snap.

It turns out that Katie (from the euchre club) lives a stone's throw away from my house. She walked home with Andrew and I last Tuesday. Last night, she was talking to Andrew on MSN, insisting that we play euchre with her and her friend. Long story short, we played euchre and crokinole until about 1:30. It was good times, but I was really dead tired before they even showed up, so I may have been a bit crankier than usual. The both of them convinced me to play Mario Party and Scene It in the near future with them. I'm pretty excited that I've got a friend that lives close by. We rarely have people over, and last night was a lot of fun!

Sometime this weekend, I've got to get my car to Canadian Tire to get the battery charged or replaced. I think I'll call CAA, get them to give me a boost to get my car started in the parking lot, drive to Canadian Tire, and then leave it running while I go in to get serviced. It'll take a few hours out of my day, but I'll have the time for it, and it'll be well worth it to have the car for the rest of the week.

Well, I've still got class tomorrow, and I'm pretty bushed, so I think I'm gonna get some sleep. Until later, diary!

Listening to... Billy Talent - Fallen Leaves
Link of the moment... Happy Valentine's day! Maybe next year I'll have someone with which to celebrate it.

Don't let the euchre club die!

Well, it seems like none of the current euchre exec want to come back for another year. I'll be graduated, and the other three have just been doing it too long and want to move on. I hope we get a good set of people who want to be exec for next year; it would be a shame if a club that I care about so much was to die out so quickly after it was started.

Speaking of euchre, I had a really good night yesterday. I had seven wins and one loss, and it shot me into second place in the rankings! I also enjoyed the company of everyone else I played with, of course, but it's nice to have a solid set of wins for a change. Let's see how long it lasts...

I had a pretty good weekend, overall. I was feeling pretty nauseous for most of it, unfortunately. I got some Mario Party and Ticket To Ride out of my system. We went out for dinner on Saturday night, and man it was freezing. A blizzard started up just as we were leaving for dinner. What's worse is that we had to keep going out into it becuase we couldn't find anyplace with a short enough wait time. We eventually settled on Kelsey's, and waited the 50 minutes.

Earlier that day, my car wouldn't start in the Sobey's parking lot. I had to call CAA, and wait for a towtruck. He gave me a jump, as the battery was lacking sufficient juice. I'm a little wary to use my car now, at least until the weather starts to get a little less harsh. Unfortunately, I seem to keep finding uses for my car; Quinn wants me to get pop for the next euchre meeting again. I'll probably use it while John is in Las Vegas, since our parking spot will be otherwise empty.

It looks like it might be another lonesome Valentine's day. I have a date with a midterm that night, so even if I did want to ask some girl out (say, someone in the euchre club), I wouldn't be able to go out that night.

At least it looks like I'll be able to kick back for the reading week. Like I said, John will be going to Las Vegas, and Andrew might be going on a ski trip. Hugh said he'll probably go home for a few days, so I might find myself home alone to catch up on some gaming. I might be able to find a person or two in the K-W area who might want to catch a movie, who knows.

My Network Designs course is not getting any easier. I haven't been able to follow along with the lecutres; the material is really over my head at the moment. I've got an assignment due Monday, which means I have to ask questions on Friday, which means I have to work on the assignment tomorrow. Of course, working on the assignment is pretty well dependent on my understanding the course, so in a perfect world, I'll learn most of the course tomorrow afternoon, at least to the point where I can understand the assignment. Then, I'll have to learn the rest for the midterm next Wednesday. Luckily, I'm done my two assignments that are due Friday, so I only have the one thing to worry about.

I bought Through the Desert this previous weekend, and had a game with Andrew and John. It was pretty good. As usual, there's not a very explicit sense of interaction with other players, but you do have to consider what other players will do on their turns. Andrew won and I came in a pretty distant second. This Saturday, there will be another games day, so I think I'll get out to it again (but this time I'll bring something with me in case I find myself waiting on games to finish again).

I'm not fond of my sleeping habits lately. I honestly find myself sleeping for eleven hours when given the opportunity. I suspect that it is due to my lack of physical activity (aparently walking an hour to and from class doesn't cut it), but I am unwilling to do anything about it. To actually get out and do some exercise would take at least a two hour commitment, and then I'd be using two hours a day to cut back on an hour of unnecessary sleep.

Speaking of, I think I'll get some sleep now. My mind and body need to be well rested to bend some approximation algorithms to do my bidding.

Listening to... The Distillers - For Tonight You're Only Here to Know
Link of the moment... I think I'll order this game this weekend, to save the use of my car

Karmic retribution in the form of cookies

Not a very apt title, but I like how it sounds. I'm trying to make sure that no two posts have the same title.

I'm posting from home today. I really don't know what it is in my body that makes me wake up JUST at the moment where I have to decide between getting to Linguistics on time or having lunch, but time and time again I'm looking at the clock between 11:03 and 11:18 (keep in mind my clock is 7 minutes fast for psyche-out reasons). Usually this only happens on Thursdays. I think this might be the first Tuesday linguistics I've missed. At least it will make my stay on campus shorter than the usual 10 hours.

I didn't do nearly as much this weekend as I had set out to do, but I set higher goals for myself than I expected to reach, so I guess it worked out. I'm still a bit uneducated about the grad studies application process, but I think I'm a few steps closer to knowing how to apply to UW. LU and the NSERC application are still foreign to me, though. I still have to get reference letters from profs, but before I do that I need to pick a C&O focus. I'm fairly certain it'll be graph theory, but I've only really done about 2 courses worth of graph theory, so I might just be interested in the baby part of it. Besides that, my next choice of focus would be either Cryptography or Algebraic and Enumerative Combinatorics, mainly because they both deal with group theory and modulo arithmetic, which is a shameful joy of mine. I wish I had more time to take courses related to the three areas to decide which one has a future with me.

I watched Steve's poker game on TV the other day. It was pretty fun to watch. He caught a LOT of really lucky breaks. There were plenty of times where he was a big underdog when he went all in and then caught a good card.

It's getting too effing cold out these days, and it'll only get colder once the blizzards come. I think I'm gonna have to start sleeping with some warmer jammy-jams, lest my roommates find my frozen corpse one morning.

Tonight is the last 'regular' euchre meeting (that is, random games that are counted towards the term scores). Next week will be a tournament, which I will hopefully win. I think maybe next week I'll put out a survey dealing with what people think of the statistics and how they could be improved.

I think everyone who plays RPGs has, at some point in their childhood/adolescence thought that they should attempt to make a game. After playing so many different styles and systems, each person thinks of ways to combine all the games they've enjoyed in some way to create some sort of master game. I know about a year ago (and just about once every three years before that), I started working on the basis of one of my dream games, but of course it never got out. The reason I bring this up is because since I've started playing FF5 again, I've been thinking about the parts of their class system that I enjoy and the parts that I would like to improve. Lemme tell you, if I was living with Phil and some other guy who enjoys sprite work, the three of us probably COULD put out a game (perhaps a crappy one, but it would be our child nonetheless).

Listening to... Dream Theatre - Under a Glass Moon
Link of the moment... I hope I make the right decision

Now with 120% more bloggy goodness!

I'm updating my blog in some way or another. I'm not sure if this post will even make it into the world. Something to do with Google being the new Blogger head-honcho. All I've noticed so far is that I can add labels (which I look forward to, but less useful for long posts that will problably span every label I can think of), and the text in this text box I'm typing into is delayed, making it VERY difficult to correct typos. Bear with me.

Saturday's euchre tournament was pretty disappointing. We BARELY got eight teams, enough for the bracket structure, and even then, one of the teams left when the movie started. We spent too much time waiting for more teams to show up, so we got a late start and got a little rushed out near the end of the ranking phase, but when we moved into the other room there was no rush and things were a lot more relaxed. The UWGamers were in the room as well, so I even got to fit in a song in Guitar Hero and a match in Smash Brothers Melee.

I placed fourth in the tournament with my makeshift partner. Brian won his second tournament for the term. If he wins the next one, it'll be a grand slam for him. The progressive scoring worked pretty well, we'll probably do it again.

The song I played on Guitar Hero was Monkey Wrench by Foo Fighters. I think I was pretty disappointed with the game and no longer plan to blow ~$90 on it. Firstly, the guitar controller feels like a small, plastic guitar, which is exactly what it is. When I was trying to play along with the song, I was playing the rhythm that I knew for the song and would have played on a real guitar, which sometimes is not always what is on the screen in the game. It's a game I'd love to play if one of my friends had it, but not something I plan to invest in myself.

As far as Smash bros goes, I played as Falco (my main man) against two links and Shiek. I was the first one to get knocked out, but considering I've never played against anyone other than Andrew, I'd say I did not so bad. After Andrew schooled me a million times the other day, though, I think I'm going to put that game on the backburner again. It's just too frustrating.

Andrew's family is moving into a new house, and the new house has two bigscreen tvs in it, so his family gave their current TV to him. It's sitting in our TV room now, and it's a pretty big step up from the other TV we were using.

I got a pretty good bargain the other day. Walmart had a misprinted price for Final Fantasy V Advance. They listed it as $16.88, which is actually the price of the strategy guide for the game. I brought the flyer to Zellers, who had the game for $39.99 and got them to price match it to get the brand new game for under twenty bucks after tax. I don't think I'd have bought it otherwise, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I think that for a lot of games (especially RPGs, and especially those with job classes), the best part of the game is the first five or so hours, when items, spells, and abilities are in short supply and you've got to figure out your own little arrangement for all your characters.

We plan to go bowling this Friday. I'm wondring who all I should invite. I don't want to mix up too many different groups of friends, lest I take over the event, but I want to see some people I haven't seen in a while.

Today I think I'm going to stay after Crypto for upwards of an hour to talk to the prof about the assignment. I'm having a lot of trouble with the questions I've looked at, and I'm sure the ones I haven't looked at will give me even more trouble. His hints have REALLY helped in the past, so I'd better take advantage of his help while I'm on campus.

Oh, as for that research thing I talked about last post, it turns out it's during the summer, so I'm not as interested. I'm almost contemplating staying during the summer so that I can get a 'real' job like that research position. There is absolutely no opportunity for people like me in Thunder Bay. Besides, I stayed in Waterloo last summer, and since I'm finishing my undergrad thisyear, I really think I could use a four-month break at home, away from UW. But, at what point should I be more concerned about getting on with my adult life and leaving my 'old' life in the past? I certainly can't live in Thunder Bay too long after I graduate. Even John is staying in Southern Ontario next summer instead of going back to Thuner Bay. Some people are lucky enough to live in cities that have some sort of opportunity, or at least that are within commuting distance of opportunity.

On a discussive note, what is your opinion on warranties? Should I get a warranty with a new camera? Cell phone? Should I have gotten one with my Nintendo DS?

Listening to... Monster Magnet - Space Lord
Link of the moment... Hugh schooled me last night

"Yeah baby, I can do it TWICE in one week"

I'm currently waiting around the MC on a Friday when I don't have any more classes. It makes me feel dirty and I don't like it, but I'd like to talk to my Graph Theory prof sometime today, and I know he'll be in his office *eventually*. I skipped class for some extra sleep on Wednesday, and Andrea has alerted me to the fact that he made some mention of looking for some students to do research. She didn't know the details, but if he's looking for next term or the first term of my grad studies (assuming I do them), rather than during the summer, it sounds like it could be a really good opportunity for me.

I've finally surpassed Andrew on the euchre rankings to take sixth place, and I'm within two points of Quinn who is in fifth. With only three meetings left, the rankings are more or less set in stone (unless the top three people fall ill and miss some meetings), but fifth ain't that bad.

I'm wary to say that after this weekend I'll be on easy street for a while, because I said something to that effect LAST weekend. I don't know what made me think I'd have it much easier this weekend, perhaps just because I thought I'd spend more time studying for my two midterms than I actually did. This weekend (and early next week) I'll have to finish my marking, physics assignment, and a crypto assignment. Unless I'm mistaken, next weekend the only thing I'll have on my plate is some marking. Of course, if I were smart I'd start studying for final exams that weekend, but exam studying is much more of a December thing, don't you think?

I'm come to the conclusion that if I had some romantic prospects in my life, I'd probably do a lot more stuff. I was looking in Imprint which had a few adverts for some plays going on, and I thought to myself "that would be something fun to do for a date". I wouldn't really go for many other reasons, unless someone was deadset on going.

I was watching some videos of Guitar Hero the other night...how lame is that? If one thing keeps me from buying it, it is probably the TERRIBLE vocals on the Bad Religion cover ("Infected"). It was actually quite painful to listen to after hearing the song so many times before. I think there was some other song where the vocals were quite questionable, but I forget which it was. Perhaps if I find myself with nothing to do next weekend, and a newfound research position, I could justify such a purchase (BTW Paul, how much did you pay and from where did you get it? FShop has it for $89.99 but I'm certain I could find it for $79.99 somewhere in Canada).

I almost feel like I shouldn't buy mcuh for myself for the sole fact that my parents never know what to get me for Xmas (and they really like to spoil me). A camera would be nice, but I would use it so rarely. GH2 would be fun, but I'd like that before Xmas. A Wii would be a great gift, but I have no time to play it. Maybe a list of DVD sets and DS games. I guess that's one of the VERY FEW problems with having enough money to buy stuff that I want (but of course I'm not complaining).

I wonder when Richter will be back in his office...I have to trek up two flights of stairs so I don't want to make a wasted trip if he's not back yet. I think I'll browse the internets for some 20 minutes.

Listening to... N/A
Link of the moment... Joystiq, a blog with gaming news and articles.

Sudden EMP shockwave?

I don't seem to be having much luck with electronic devices lately. My digital camera has recently been showing signs of being useless lately (fresh batteries usually take more than one picture) and more importantly, my cell phone isn't working. The inside display no longer shows anything, just a black screen. It would cost ~$100 to ship and repair it, and about ~$180 to buy a new rogers phone. I've still got 6 months left on my Rogers contract, so I'm going to try to get a phone off of eBay for less than $60 that will be able to last me the rest of my contract and however long I'll need a Pay as you Go phone after my contract is up. Thank god my DS and Zen are still in tip-top shape (knock on wood).

I've been sick as of last Tuesday night. I had a nasty headacke the first two days, and the usual congestion, but the thing that's really annoying me about this cold is the nagging cough. Most of the time it's a really dry cough so it really hurts my throat after a while. By the way, I recommend Halls over Fisherman's Friend by a long shot. It looks like I'm on the road to recovery though. I'm glad to get this year's cold over with, but that logic may be along the same vein as taking a bomb on an airplane because the odds of there being TWO bombs on the same plane is so drastically small.

Andrew and I (aka Smith and Wesson, he was Agent Smith and I was a cowboy, get it?) did alright in the tournament, but we caught an unfortunate break. We placed fourth out of ten in the pre-ranking games, so that got us started off in the quarter-finals in the knockout tournament (four teams had to compete to get in the quarter-finals). We beat the first team pretty easily, and in the semi-finals we held a two-point lead for most of the game. Unfortunately, they caught up on a couple of good hands and wound up beating us 10-9. I picked up the nine of hearts to give myself the Jack and nine of trump and some black kings. It wasn't a very good hand, but since I was the dealer I was more worried about being stuck and having to call one of my really weak black suits. The team that wound up winning was the one that was ranked tenth in the ranking, so good on them.

I was too lazy to update the euchre site this week since there were only a handful of new scores, I was hard up for a strategy article, and I didn't have any pictures of the tournament. This wekend, the club is holding a euchre tournament at the Warrior Weekends event (about time WW got back to us), and of course we'll be having an end-of-term club tournament at the last meeting in three weeks, so that's a pretty tourny-filled month for the club. I'm not sure if I'll be able to participate in the WW tuornament since I should be the one keeping score for the night. Such is the life of a club executive!

Looks like Guitar Hero 2 is currently carrying a 99% ranking. That $90 is looking like a pretty good investment for my Christmas holiday. Maybe (pimping DS) + (Guitar Hero 2) + (Buying Wii at presumed price drop in 2008) = success. It's not even a matter of having the money; I definitely do. It's a matter of not having the time for so many games.

Congratulations to John and Julie who have been together for a year now.

I looked at my notes and I've skipped four Linguistics classes that deal with the midterm on Thursday. Meh. I'm really not taking school seriously at all anymore. I have a crypto midterm in two hours that I'm very unprepared for. I don't know much about any of the signature schemes, or attacks on any of them, or any algorithms dealing with some attacks. My only hope is that the midterm is strictly easy number theory and hopefully an algorithm that is somewhere in my accessible memory. Looks like it's only worth 20%, but I suppose a bigger concern is that I'm even less prepared for the 50% final exam.

I don't know what to do for reading week this year. This is the first year that math students actually get a full week off, so I feel like maybe I should treasure it. Andrew is going on a ski trip and John and Julie are going to Las Vegas. My dad will have a condo in Florida again, but I feel like the trip is wasted unless I go with someone. My big plan was to have a girlfriend by now so that by mid-February we'd be in a position where we could go on a trip together and let our winter love blossom in the warmth of the Florida sun.

It was my mom's birthday on Sunday. I ordered a bunch of CDs and a Sudoku book for her. She went to the casino with some people (she only goes about once a year no gambling problem), and she wound up winning $1000! She was playing video poker as always, held the Jack of Spades, and wound up getting a royal flush! Good birthday gift, eh?

I really should find a second day a week to set aside time to make a post. Trying to sum up all the meaningless events of a week makes for too large of a post. Besides, as someone who checks for blog updates many times a day, I can understand that sometimes you people out on the interweb need something to keep yuo entertained throughout the week.

Listening to... Closed Captioned - Fugazi
Link of the moment... Honestly? Not entirely impressed with this either. Super Mario World was better...

Cowboy? Again?

Well, here I am, in the lab, dressed up like a cowboy. It's not nearly as good as last year. Last year, I had a much better hat (I waited too long this year and wound up with a pink mylar hat, but it's the only one that fit!), and wearing a recycled costume isn't as fun as wearing one that you've never worn before.

This halloween seems to have been a bit of a bust. Last year, at least I went to a party in CLV with a bunch of foreigners. This year, we attempted to go to Rev(olutions), but no one there was dressed up. There were just the generic "sexy angel", "sexy devil", and "guy wearing a fuzzy pimp hat", and even those people made up less than a quarter of all people there. Well, maybe next year.

Tonight is a euchre tournament. I'm a bit skeptical about what the turnout is going to be. I guess we'll probably get the same turnout as regular meetings.

I tried sniping some eBay auctions the other day. One (for New Super Mario Bros.) got really pricey. I'm suprised that the other guy that was bidding on it went as high as he did. At that price, it's just about the same as getting one new from stores. I did, however, win Super Mario Kart DS for under thirty bucks after shipping (it's $45+tax in stores). I also got Donkey Kong Country in the mail the other day...good game, but it's very difficult to play on a handheld system.

I tried to trade in my Mario vs Donkey Kong at EBGames, but they would only give me a paltry ten dollars (TEN DOLLARS!), so I put it up on ebay instead. At the moment, it's up to $6.50 US, but I expect it to get up to at least $15 within the last 24 hours. I was just going to get in store credit at EB anyways, which would have one towards an overpriced new game, or an overpriced used game. eBay is the way to go, my friends.

I have only seen two other people on campus dressed up. Supposedly Molly and Quinn will be dressed up tonight, but I guess it's a bit weirder during the day. I like Halloween. I even like the fact that not many people are dressed up, because it makes my costume all that much more entertaining.

I got lucky and did most of my physics assignment in about an hour and a half. At the moment, I'm in the clear, but I've got midterms on the 7th and 9th, so I should get ahead and study for those. Especially because one is Crypto, and the other is Linguistics, the class that I've been regularly skipping. I would not be surprised to find that I have skipped about half of the classes that deal with material that will be on this next midterm, but I should be able to extract all the information I need to off of the class slides. It's just a matter of actually gathering the motivation to do so...

Tomorrow I'm going to go to the mall after class (about 11 AM) and load up on cheap halloween candy, a tradition that I hold dear to my heart. I seem to be using my car quite a bit lately. I have this system worked out: I take my bike to school, then after class I bike to the parking lot, leave my bike chained to a no parking sign, and then drive my car to my house. When I bring it back, I ride my bike back home. It saves a fair bit of time.

Even though there will be no new scores from euchre tonight, I guess I'll still have to update the website with the results of the tournament along with pictures. I was going to bring my camera, but it's really messed up. I put in fresh batteries about a week ago, and today I turned it on, took a picture, and it turned off (meaning the batteries are dead). I think it's beyond all help. Sooner or later I'll buy a new one, but I use it so rarely that I can't imagine spending too much on one. I really, really hope that someone else at the club has a camera, or Andrew gets my message and brings his own if he has one.

I'm getting really, really sick of the same old food these days. My pasta always smells like it's mouldy. Pasta sauce just tastes terrible after having it all the time. I'm too lazy to make 'real' food, and it would yield too much anyways (like meatloaf of shephard's pie or stuff like that).

Ah, back to that time again...still lots of time before Crypto, but nothing else to talk about. What to do, what to do. I guess I'll head over to RCH and play games like I did last week. Yup, sounds like a good plan.

Listening to... Refused - Liberation Frequency
Link of the moment... Time to start thinking about next year's costume!

$220 later...

Given that I'll be getting $500 from marking, and I have renewed my $1000 scholarship for yet another year, I felt as though I deserved to treat myself to something, as money was burning a hole in my pocket. I forget where I got the idea from, but recently found myself with an urge to get a Nintendo DS. So I did.

The service at FutureShop was terrible as usual, but they had a deal where I could get a game for $10 with the system. I wound up going with Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2, which is a pretty decent game, but I'll need to invest in some more titles sometime soon. I started playing and noticed a dead (blue) pixel on the right side of the top screen. I threw out some of the packaging, but I'm hoping if I bring the DS along with the box with the same serial #, I can exchange it at FShop. It's not a terrible error, but if I'm going to pay $160 for something, I might as well get something without any flaws.

Along with my new system purchase, I got Super Mario Strikers for GC, because it underwent a recent price drop. It's a pretty decent multiplayer game, but single player doesn't have that same feeling. As far as a mario game goes, I feel it's sort of lacking. More play modes and minigames would have been nice as well as unique fields to play on and unlockable content (new captains and sidekicks perhaps?). Now I bide my time until Mario Power Tennis gets its price chopped...

Well I guess I'm sort of caught up now. I've got a few assignment deadlines coming up, but I have enough time to relax for a while. I got my ENGL midterm back: I scored an 84.5%. I guess that's ok, but it's below my peronal goal of 87%. Next is CO342...I think I have a good feeling about that midterm. I understand Graph Theory pretty well, and now we're getting into Vector Spaces, which I've already (more or less) covered in Rings and Group Theory. I only got 33/40 on the last assigment, so I've got to make sure I don't make any errors on this next one.

The other day, John Julie and I wanted to play kickball. We went to the school nearest my house, and sure enough, the very first kick of the game resulted in Julie kicking the ball onto the roof of the school. We spent most of the rest of the afternoon getting a ladder from Julie's house and getting the ball. It was an adventure to say the least. After that, the three of us went to Red Lobster to celebrate getting the ball. Well, in reality, we all just wanted to go to Red Lobster.

I updated the euchre website! Now we have the house rules listed, the current scores for the members, and some of my personal tips on the strategy page. Quinn and I had a dispute over the colour scheme of the site. We decided Molly's vote should be the deciding vote, and unfortunately she went with him on it. I still completey stand by my argument, but I'm willing to concede the point since we agreed Molly would have the final say. I should start my own Euchre Club, one that's not color-blind...

It's been almost two weeks since I played euchre. I'm dying to take some tricks! Now that midterms are starting, I wonder if our member turnout is going to be lower than usual. Well, so long as we have enough for at least one table, I guess it doesn't really matter.

I think my DS purchase is going to push back my Wii purchase...I'm not sure if I can justify buying so many systems in such a short period of time. The way I figure, I'll be getting a Wii for Christmas; it's just a matter of who is paying for it.

Well, I think I've run out of things to say. I'll head over to RCH and play my DS until Nathalie shows up.

Listening to... AFI - File 13
Link of the moment... Any thoughts on what I should buy next?

Aparently I'm too ugly for the other three

I've been working myself silly lately, but I'm not entirely sure I've really made as much progress as I should have. I did my marking all in the first two days, and did my physics assignment in the course of about a day, but CO485 is killing me. I'm not sure when the last time was that I spent so much time on an assignment. I have a feeling I'll be handing it in with some questions left unanswered. I'm hoping to confer with Nathalie today, but I'm not sure if she's looked at the entire assignment. It looks like the tables might be turned for a change, where I'm the one who has it done way ahead of time.

Clubs days went well. Waking up early enough to be on campus at 8:30 was no fun, but it's not as though I was put under any strenuous work. We got at least 70 new people sign up, and it's very likely that another 20 came after I left on Friday before lunch. Of those, I'm not sure how many will actually show up to meetings, but it looks like we should have a turnout at least as large as other terms.

I think the weekend is where all my juicy info comes from. On Saturday, I went to the Watsfic games day, at abuot 4-5PM. There were a fair number of people already playing game. I wouldn't say that I got an overly warm welcome, but I made myself visible enough to warrant being invited to play a game (Princes of Florence). None of us knew how to play, save one or two of the five players, so I didn't feel like I was slowing things down too much. I came in dead last, by a fair margin, but I enjoyed learning the game.

During the game, Nicole phoned because she was in town. I told her I could meet up with her in the plaza for supper at about 8, and we did. At 9PM, I headed over to the speed dating event and signed up. They told me I'd be in the "second round", so I played some DDR for a while with Nicole and Carissa. After working up a sweat, I headed back to wait for the call. Eventually, they herded us in, ten guys and ten girls. Each 'date' lasted only three minutes, and I found it difficult to get a good impression from each girl. After all was said and done, I gave a "yes" to four of the girls, and eagerly awaited a reply from the Warrior Weekends staff. After that, John and Julie appeared as if from nowhere, and they said they phoned Nicole as they were on their way back from bowling. We headed home (I opted out of Superman Returns), and started watching LotR: tTT on CBC. Not much else to say about that.

Yesterday, I got a reply from WW, saying that I got one match, so now I've got the email of a girl who supposedly would like to get to know me a little better. Unfortunately, I'm pretty well busy until next weekend, what with thanksgiving leaving me little time to get any assignments or midterm studying done.

There's a new show in my Monday line-up: Heroes. I caught the first episode, and found myself a little intrigued. To be honest, I found the first episode pretty dull, but I'm curious to see where the series is headed. The second episode did a bit more to catch my curiosity, and I figure since it's on right after Prison Break, I might as well give it a go. I've realized that Monday is my TV night, as there's not really much else on any other night. Sure, I'll watch CSI if I'm home on Thursdays, but it's not enough to say "no, I don't want to miss CSI" if someone has a better idea. Family Guy on Sunday is the highlight of my week as well, but half an hour isn't much of a line-up.

I started fiddling a bit with my euchre system. I've got two spreadsheets filled with paid members and game scores, as well as a score sheet to bring to meetings. I've yet to set up the database aspect of it yet, but I don't think there's any need to have stats after only one meeting.

I think I had the epiphany the other day that I enjoy graph theory the most out of all the CO disciplines. I enjoy doing math-like proofs, and graph theory is chock-full of that stuff. I'm disappointed that I'm unable to take CO442, as it's only offered in the fall term, and I'm currently doing my last fall term of my undergraduate degree. I'm still debating donig grad studies. Unfortunately, I'd be forced to take some courses I'd rather not (optimization courses, etc). Isn't that kind of funny to think about? Not only am I interested in Math, and not only am I interested in Combinatorics and Optimizatin, but I'm interested in Graph Theory. I'm sure that most people in the world didn't know that math could be broken down into so many disciplines.

Tomorrow there is a lunch for students and staff in CO, giving the students a chance to meet some of the profs. I'm going, mostly for the fact that it's a free lunch. I also realize, though, that if I apply for grad studies, I'll need three reference letters. I think my best bet is going to be with Willard and Tasic, since I've had two classes with them each, and I did very well in all four of those courses. For the last one, I'll probably choose either Richter or Menezes, since they're teaching me this term. Whatever...I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Well, I've spent entirely too much time NOT working on my CO485 assignment, so I'm gonig to head over to RCH and work on that until the class starts.

I don't know when I'll update next, since I'll be in Tbay next Tuesday, but it shan't be very long.

Listening to... Refuse Resist - Sepultura
Link of the moment... I signed up for this stupid shit by request, but I'll NOT be one of the 60% that log in daily, nor of the 85% that log in weekly.

You know who I miss? Serial Joe.

Time for my regularly scheduled Tuesday afternoon post. Today has been a pretty filled day for me. I woke up earlier to get to campus at 10:30 so I could pick up some supplies for the euchre meeting tonight (none of the other execs could be there early enough to set up). When I picked up "the goods", I fired up a physics lecture I put on my Zen so I could try to get back on schedule with the lectures. Then Linguistics, as usual, followed by lunch, and then another t-e-r-r-i-b-l-y p-a-c-e-d physics lecture, and a Nathalie-filled Cryptography. And now here I am, preaching to my wonderful audience of (what I expect to be) three.

I'm a little disappointed at the moment...it turns out that euchre night and mathsoc games night is the same night, during the same timeslot. I suppose my existence as an exec of the euchre club obligates me to favour the prior, but perhaps in the future I could play games at 6, and when that game ends, clock in my time at the euchre club. If the gods are smiling on me, mathsoc will change the games night schedule.

I've been doing a pretty good job of staying on top of work (or so I think). Every day I have about an hour and a half to work on campus, away from the syren's call of my computer. So long as I keep throwing physics lectures onto my zen, I should never be at a loss for work, and the time I spend on the work on campus turns out to be pretty productive.

I baked up a storm last night. Well, just muffins and cinnamon rolls, but that's two more things than I usually cook on a given night. The rolls were on sale; 8 small ones for $2.50. They're really tasty, but any less than two makes for nothing more than a taste.

For all of you who are wondering what I did after beating Paper Mario (ie no one), I chose to start up a game in Dragon Quest VIII. It's got really nice graphics and music over my other main choice, Shadow Hearts Covenant (which I am also looking forward to playing through).

This last Friday, I was pretty well bored to tears. I was home alone for a while, and for some reason was not in the mood for sitting in front of the TV (be it TV, games, or a movie), so I just sort of sulked around the house for a while. On Saturday night, I visited the Medieval Faire in Waterloo Park. I got to see a few choreographed and even unchoreographed displays of weaponry and armor, among other events set up mostly for kids. I didn't really walk away with anything besides the program, but it was time well spent in Waterloo,, seeing something that I wouldn't be able to see in Thunder Bay. I'm glad I got to do some things like that in the summer.

Later on in the night, some of us hopped in John's car and drove to Brantford so Nicole would stop asking us to. We went bowling (where I got the high score and an impressive shot), and then to Boston Pizza where I got a piece of cake (hey! I already ate supper....I'm not a pig, really). After that we drove around looking for a bar, and found one. As usual, I sat around wondering exactly what the draw to such places was. The majority of us sat around at a table, complaining about the music, paying for overpriced beer, while some others got up and danced (besides picking up questionable people, dancing is the only other reason I can imagine people would want to go to these places). I can't say I had a good time, but I had a time nonetheless.

Phil (from Calgary) phoned me the other day. We had a nice chat about video games (he being one of a very few people who I can have such talks with). Aparently he's making some very nice green at his new job, because he was telling me how he was going to play a game on his 62" TV. He says he got some nice furniture, a fully paid pre-order on a PS3, and even a new truck, so it sounds like he's definitely doing well for himself. I can't imagine he'd have half of what he has if he'd stayed in Thunder Bay (though he doesn't have me, and I'm worth more than any amount of money).

There's a Warrior Weekend this weekend, so I guess I'll be going to it alone once again. They're showing three movies I haven't yet seen (Click, Pirates 2, and Superman Returns), and on the Saturday, they're having a speed dating event. I am both looking forward to and dreading the speed dating. I would really feel more comfortable if I could find someone else to bring with me, but I don't really know anyone who would be willing.

This Thursday and Friday is clubs days, so I expect that I'll be sitting at the euchre booth. Mr. President hasn't delegated any hours yet, but I've volunteered myself for all of Friday, and aparently the parts of Thursday where he has classes, so I will probably be doing a fair bit of sitting.

I've been typing pretty furiously, and I have really tapped my brain on non-video game related matters to dicuss, so I think I'll go find something else to do before grabbing some supper from Brubakers.

Listening to... Nothing...
Link of the moment... WW schedule

I can hear again!

I woke up the other day unable to hear out of my left ear. I've had this happen once before, about two years ago. Last time I went to Health Services on campus and they flushed my ear out. Unfortunately this time it was 4:45 on a Friday (I awoke from a nap, you see), so Health Services was closed. I went to the walk in clinic on campus but the wait was too long. I suffered the annoyance through the night and went the next morning, and they cleared me up again. I fear this may be a regular occurrence now.

My PS2 has been veru finicky lately. It will no longer play burned DVDs, and for some reason it won't read my Firefly disc either. I'm still waiting for Future Shop or Best Buy to have ANY sort of a deal on PS2s, whether it be a small discount or some special offer.

I'm also still waiting for my Zen armor to come in the mail. Pretty slow, if I may say.

I dragged Andrew out to a Euchre night last Thursday. I was shocked to hear that a fair handful of people felt that calling trump and then leading with the right bower from the first seat is a bad play. I argued my case but I don't think I convinced anyone. Perry, if you still read my blog, please back me up. Sadly, their argument is that you're drawing out your partner's trump, which may be a lone left bower. I tried to convince them that there is twice the chance that a lone left is in one of your opponents' hands than in your partner's. I also argue that if you have an off-ace and the right, it's far better to play the right first, as it will draw out trump that might have been used to otherwise cut on your ace. Bleh, whatever.

I have barely started on my process paper, and it's due Wednesday. That is, I have to present it Wednesday. For my topic, I chose "how to use mathematical induction". A bit simple, perhaps, but I couldn't think of anything else very relevent. I keep telling myself that even if I wing it, I can get a passing mark, so any actual work I do on it should be gravy. I'm not sure if I'm taking this term very seriously, but that was sort of my intention to begin with.

I've started looking at my courses for next term, and it looks like if I take CO485 (Public key cryptography), CO342 (Graph Theory), CLAS100 (Intro to Classical Studies) and ENGL306A (Intro to Linguistics), the schedule would work out pretty well. Those are pretty much all the courses I wanted to take, so it looks like things are working out nicely with my planning ahead. I'm almost done!

Listening to... Helmet - Wilma's Rainbow
Link of the moment... *Thumbs up*