Damn, its been a month.
I haven't had any desire to blog at all. I figure I should throw something out there and see what comes up. Recent events both big and small.
1. Manhattan Adventures with wife. Always fun. Explored and explored. There is soo much to see and do and eat that at times it can be bit overwhelming. We thoroughly explored Central Park and the Upper East side via Madison and Park Avenue. Re. the Upper East side, the people here look like they've all walked off some Paris runway, and by Jeebus, two million for a 1000 square foot apartment?!?!?
Saw a Broadway Show, took a tour, and walked close to 10 miles over two days. BTW, there's a Deli across from Carnegie Hall called "Carnegies". They're known for their corned beef and pastrami. With cozy seating arrangements, we had opportunities to chat with our table neighbors. One guy next to us (strangely enough, a tourist from San Francisco) was told by his parents to order the Matzo-Ball soup and Reuben. When it arrived, I swear to you, the Matzo Ball was the size of a Soft Ball, and the Reuben....well, I can't describe its dimensions without sounding exaggerated so I'll just give you a pic.
It's unfortunate that I don't have anything to show scale but lets just say that it was 5 inches high and the plate was 12 inches across. Here is a pic of there "Small Plate" Pastrami sandwich.
2. July 4th Parade and Fireworks in Small-Town Pennsylvania. Spent several days with my wife's sister's family. My niece and nephew are always loads of fun. We swam, ate ice-cream, BBQ'd, caught Fire-bugs, had cold drinks on a porch rocker, and went without shoes the entire time. The parade and the street they ran the parade seemed straight out of some Norman Rockwell digest on Americana...at least it seemed like it to me. I half expected Charlie Brown and Linus to walk down some Elm and Maple lined street with Snoopy in tow...very quaint neighborhoods.
3. Worked on the Craftsman's brakes one entire night. I'm really getting the hang of this. In fact, while in Penn., my wife's family friend and neighbor just purchased an E36 M3. He's a track guy; a retired Navy fighter pilot and commercial pilot and now looking to track driving to fill that need for speed.
It's funny; my wife's family consider the man to be a quiet man...a man of few words. But when we discovered we shared this mutual hobby/passion, we couldn't stop talking shop! Swapping track stories and car plans the entire day. I ended up spending the most of one day helping out replacing control arms, suspension, and brakes on his new track car. And let me tell you, retired Fighter Pilots tell the best frickin stories....I was enthralled.
4. Lost a colleague to budget cuts. He was reassigned. The rest of us will survive.
5. Wife scouring the web for a new job. I have NO DOUBT IN MY MIND that she will be hired by any School District with a position to fill...but the problem is, there's no positions to fill. Most districts are experiencing a contraction in staffing, and those that are not aren't expanding. But we're only mid-summer and there is still hope.
6. Discovered TETRIS FRIENDS and I'm hooked. I try not play every day but my goodness, I feel I may succumb to addiction. BTW, I think I'm pretty darn good at playing Tetris. I'll let you guys watch me one day. The speed at which I play now is truly impressive...hehehehe.
You may know Tetris from its early Game-boy version, the 89 version. NEW Tetris, post 96, is based on the original but has some updated features that make for super fast game play. At Tetris Friends, a website with tens of thousands of Tetris players from across the globe, you'll find the old and slow retro Tetris, and you'll find four new variations: Survival, Marathon, Ultra, and Sprint. You'll also find two player, five player, and six player battles. In battles, you develop a RANKING. The ranks are from ONE to TWENTY. Of the thousand upon thousand of players, there are only a few hundred rank TWENTY players. In California, there are only 29 rank TWENTY players. I'm rank fifteen which puts me somewhere in the top 200 in the State of California.
In two-player battle, I can't seem to beat the Rank sixteen players. I can't even imagine the Rank Twenty folks. If you're interested, check out some of the Rank Twenty player replays. I'm not kidding you...they are soo fast, you don't even see the pieces come down, all you see is the blocks building at times five pieces PER SECOND!!! Furthermore, in the highest level, you don't even have the benefit of SEEING THE BOARD!!!!! It's invisible!!!!! I'm quite good at Survival and one of these days I'll show you the invisible bonus round.
If your curious, here are my stats. See if you can even come close. I have no doubt you won't...hehe.
SPRINT: 1 minute 20 seconds, but I can beat that time. My fastest time on my phone Tetris is 58 seconds.
ULTRA: 17,392. I think I can get 20,000 if I utilize more T-spins.
SURVIVAL: 440,000. That game ranks probably in the top thousand ever played!
Check it out. If you're as obsessive as I am, you'll get hooked in no time!!
Gotta go.
1. Manhattan Adventures with wife. Always fun. Explored and explored. There is soo much to see and do and eat that at times it can be bit overwhelming. We thoroughly explored Central Park and the Upper East side via Madison and Park Avenue. Re. the Upper East side, the people here look like they've all walked off some Paris runway, and by Jeebus, two million for a 1000 square foot apartment?!?!?
Saw a Broadway Show, took a tour, and walked close to 10 miles over two days. BTW, there's a Deli across from Carnegie Hall called "Carnegies". They're known for their corned beef and pastrami. With cozy seating arrangements, we had opportunities to chat with our table neighbors. One guy next to us (strangely enough, a tourist from San Francisco) was told by his parents to order the Matzo-Ball soup and Reuben. When it arrived, I swear to you, the Matzo Ball was the size of a Soft Ball, and the Reuben....well, I can't describe its dimensions without sounding exaggerated so I'll just give you a pic.
It's unfortunate that I don't have anything to show scale but lets just say that it was 5 inches high and the plate was 12 inches across. Here is a pic of there "Small Plate" Pastrami sandwich.
2. July 4th Parade and Fireworks in Small-Town Pennsylvania. Spent several days with my wife's sister's family. My niece and nephew are always loads of fun. We swam, ate ice-cream, BBQ'd, caught Fire-bugs, had cold drinks on a porch rocker, and went without shoes the entire time. The parade and the street they ran the parade seemed straight out of some Norman Rockwell digest on Americana...at least it seemed like it to me. I half expected Charlie Brown and Linus to walk down some Elm and Maple lined street with Snoopy in tow...very quaint neighborhoods.
3. Worked on the Craftsman's brakes one entire night. I'm really getting the hang of this. In fact, while in Penn., my wife's family friend and neighbor just purchased an E36 M3. He's a track guy; a retired Navy fighter pilot and commercial pilot and now looking to track driving to fill that need for speed.
It's funny; my wife's family consider the man to be a quiet man...a man of few words. But when we discovered we shared this mutual hobby/passion, we couldn't stop talking shop! Swapping track stories and car plans the entire day. I ended up spending the most of one day helping out replacing control arms, suspension, and brakes on his new track car. And let me tell you, retired Fighter Pilots tell the best frickin stories....I was enthralled.
4. Lost a colleague to budget cuts. He was reassigned. The rest of us will survive.
5. Wife scouring the web for a new job. I have NO DOUBT IN MY MIND that she will be hired by any School District with a position to fill...but the problem is, there's no positions to fill. Most districts are experiencing a contraction in staffing, and those that are not aren't expanding. But we're only mid-summer and there is still hope.
6. Discovered TETRIS FRIENDS and I'm hooked. I try not play every day but my goodness, I feel I may succumb to addiction. BTW, I think I'm pretty darn good at playing Tetris. I'll let you guys watch me one day. The speed at which I play now is truly impressive...hehehehe.
You may know Tetris from its early Game-boy version, the 89 version. NEW Tetris, post 96, is based on the original but has some updated features that make for super fast game play. At Tetris Friends, a website with tens of thousands of Tetris players from across the globe, you'll find the old and slow retro Tetris, and you'll find four new variations: Survival, Marathon, Ultra, and Sprint. You'll also find two player, five player, and six player battles. In battles, you develop a RANKING. The ranks are from ONE to TWENTY. Of the thousand upon thousand of players, there are only a few hundred rank TWENTY players. In California, there are only 29 rank TWENTY players. I'm rank fifteen which puts me somewhere in the top 200 in the State of California.
In two-player battle, I can't seem to beat the Rank sixteen players. I can't even imagine the Rank Twenty folks. If you're interested, check out some of the Rank Twenty player replays. I'm not kidding you...they are soo fast, you don't even see the pieces come down, all you see is the blocks building at times five pieces PER SECOND!!! Furthermore, in the highest level, you don't even have the benefit of SEEING THE BOARD!!!!! It's invisible!!!!! I'm quite good at Survival and one of these days I'll show you the invisible bonus round.
If your curious, here are my stats. See if you can even come close. I have no doubt you won't...hehe.
SPRINT: 1 minute 20 seconds, but I can beat that time. My fastest time on my phone Tetris is 58 seconds.
ULTRA: 17,392. I think I can get 20,000 if I utilize more T-spins.
SURVIVAL: 440,000. That game ranks probably in the top thousand ever played!
Check it out. If you're as obsessive as I am, you'll get hooked in no time!!
Gotta go.
posted by supergoober at
11:36 AM
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