Friends

 This is the last (I mean it this time) of the true antelopes that are OWL2 acceptable.  (They were new in OWL2.)

This is the CHIRU, another endangered Tibetan antelope like the GOA.



The issue with these Tibetan antelopes is their fur, which is finer and softer than cashmere, and is almost worth it's weight in gold. The only problem is that you can't shear them for their wool like goats or sheep, you have to kill them, then remove the wool from the hides. 

SOWPODS only (in white) The wool is known as SHAHTOOSH.

Brought to you by the SF Scrabble Slakcerz

 Yes, you all have a temporary reprieve. (I repeat ... temporary.) Figured I'd catch up on a few other things.



2. I did that session where I acted as a mentor to a young playwright. She's eleven years old and wrote a sweet little fairy tale. I gave her a few suggestions -- mostly things to think about -- and she responded quite well and did some rewrites. It was very rewarding and right up my alley.

3. Despite the spread at Ira's tournament, I passed the 35 pound mark in weight loss this week. I would have passed it a few weeks ago, but I did some backsliding in the interim. Not much, just a little.

4. 

So, no work again today effectively because my computer's being used to set up the new confocal microscope. So I'm in the computer lab studying my words instead. There also happen to be dozens of high school kids working on some kind of summer camp project to do with the environment. Great. Except that somehow THEY ARE SO LOUD and it's making me cranky.

Plenty of other stuff to talk about, might write about it later. But I only have two weeks left in Hong Kong! :(

LIKUTA = a monetary unit of Zaire
MAKUTA = the plural of LIKUTA

No hooks for either one.

As too often happens, it's been a while again since I posted baby pictures. Enjoy, all! Oh, and check out all the rest of the new pictures here.

	Check out my teeth! Giving a big grin. (April 30th)
	Water! He just couldn't resist. (May 10th)
	By the big cottonwood tree Hanging out on our trip up to Santa Fe (May 16th)
	Hiking along the Rio Grande This is where he learned to say Rio Grande. (June 21st)
	Hmmm...

For must of us, doing our best work to help our employer prosper is an important part of our mission as a worker.

But what if you work for a tobacco company? Doing a good job means that more cancer causing products will be sold, and the evil corporation will have even more money to spend on expanding their reach.

So I think I know what my destiny is; get hired by a tobacco company, and do the worst job possible without getting fired. Productive employees do not belong at tobacco companies, they belong at companies that make the world a better place! I could displace a truly productive worker, and then cause evil tobbacco money to be wasted on by playing around on the Internet most of the day, while I find ways to create projects that will cost the company money without adding value. I could be a manager of IT there, and hire my Scrabble friends to be computer programmers (they wouldn't need to know how to program); we will always have an excuse why the IT projects will have to be cancelled (cause we are on the ISC all day.)

But there are no tobacco companies nearby, so maybe I need to work for a softdrink company. Those evil entities are spreading obesity with their corn-syrup teeth rotting products, thereby adding a negative value to society. We would be better off paying these companies not to produce soda - if soda dissappeared overnight, society would be a much better place.

However, we should not get hired to sabatoge the efforts of beer companies, because beer is food, and hops contains antioxidants. Beer is important, because if society collapsed fresh water would be hard to come by; beer is always safe because the alchohol kills the little germies. Think Dos Equis, made in Mexico!

I really want to try this out. I need to find an abandoned building that I can play on!


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

This is a fun 3 game sequence.  The first two games I outplayed them and maybe shouldn't have won the first one, but the last game I literally stole the game from Adrian.  Which, needless to say, made me feel frickin' right as rain.  I went from 152 points down to up 40 in two turns in the pre-endgame!  On to the games.





So now I am 6-1 +597.  Good for 1st, but now I face off with my Scrabble daddy.  The infamous (more than famous) porosus.

but it looks like I might be going to the World Championship...for ultimate. Pretty much figured I'd make it to the scrabble ones first.

It's not 100% guaranteed, but there's a fair chance that I'll be going to the championships from the 2nd of August to the 9th, in nowhere but Vancouver, Canada! The location is a big factor for me in going. That and the fact that I have a team to go with (the Hong Kong one, that is). James, that's why I wanted to talk to you - are you already going to be in Ghana at that point? Because I was hoping to ask you if I could stay at your place, and it might get dicey if I can't.

Somewhat worried about being completely outclassed, but if I work to get into shape hopefully I'll only be a little outclassed. And it should be fantastic no matter what.

I was nearly late for the club as a last minute trip to Home Depot to buy a ladder to clean to the eavestroughs in preparation for more rainfall took priority. Tinkering with the sump pump in the basement was also in order. The eavestroughs were surprisingly clean. The sump pump floater was the culprit -- blocked by two taut strings which needed removing. Last rainfall saw our basement's sump hole overflow a wee bit, and absorbing a $ hit for a freshly finished water-damaged basement isn't on my to-do list.

I ended up missing a bus and nearly missing game 1 at the club and I had to run to get to the club on time.

3 for 3 wins at the club with one claw-back-to-win game where I hit a lucky bingo (had to end with -SE or -SH). Then another 2 for 3 wins at Tim Horton's where Patrick smacked me down with a 3 bingo game. A lesson learned is that GARROTER and GAROTTER are the two forms of the word that take -ER. So the quick rule is that it has to be 8 letters with an -ER. GAROTE and GARROTTE do not take the R. It was very cool seeing the low probability GYMNaSTS get played, and knowing the anagram for it.

Club games:
424-384 Win. AIRFLOW BoORISH (106 pt.) / REAGENTS
368-314 Win. *GAROTER AROYnTS / none
419-341 Win. IRENICAL COONTIe / GYMNaSTS.

After hours:
420-390 Win. FONTANEl / GRANNIEs DOSSIERS
386-361 Win. EOBIOnT / LONElIER *STALLER (has STELLAR)
354-435 Loss. *SEEDABLE / TOtALLY mOONING SINTERS

When I start playing phonies like SEEDABLE* it's probably 2:00 AM and time to go home.

Overall my tile quality could have been a bit better tonight. I was low on the bingos, but still managed to grind out wins.

I played a couple of non-bingos which were pretty cool. The ugly AFEARD (had to ditch A's -- bag was overfull of A's), and POU(S)SIE (alternate spelling of PUSSY). It figures that I played LAYOUT in my last game yesterday to foreshadow what is going to start today.

On the work spectrum, I'm done with the pilot Chinatown Cops as of yesterday, and I'm rolling back on to Cyberchase to draw layouts today.

For all of my railing against reality television, I am a HUGE SUCKER for dance reality shows. (And dance movies, for that matter. If there's a film about an urban teenager overcoming tremendous odds through the power of dance, I AM SO THERE.)

My new job (where I work as an aide with a very cool woman in her apartment with her very cool roommates) gave me the opportunity to watch So You Think You Can Dance tonight.

I'm hooked.

During the commercial break, one of the roommates showed me a routine from earlier in the season. I was so moved, and she loved it so much, that we watched it twice. And now, back at home, I'm watching the video over and over again instead of sleeping, and when I'm not doing that, I'm dancing around to "Bleeding Love" on my iPod.

Enjoy.

Today, I'm 22.

No, not Age/Sex/Location. I was at a sports function tonight here in Kelowna, and two pals of mine (brothers) brought their stepbrother along. I was surprised to learn that my pals know ASL (American Sign Language), as their stepbrother is deaf. I've been aware of the existence of ASL, but I've never really seen it demonstrated. I think it's SO cool! After coming home from the function, I was inspired to learn how to sign "My name is Jesse". I think I've got it off by heart now!

Are there any LJers going to Orlando that know sign, or know people going to Orlando that know sign? I would love to learn a little to surprise my pals. Man, I love languages; I wish it were actually possible to learn them all! That obviously will never happen, but I hope to learn some along the way...

P.S. The $40 charge from OT was resolved, so all good there now.

I mentioned I missed some bingos at my last tournament. Here's an incredible instance in which there were six different bingos; I found only the lowest scoring of the six (63 points) and elected not to play it. There's one other that scores in the 60s, while all the rest score 84 points or more.
( How many can you find )

 A very common Scrabble word, but a rare antelope, the GOA.



Brought to you by the SF Scrabble Slakcerz.

 

• the Galatea website at http://adrianlee.com/galatea/index.htm.
  
  
• the Fringe Festival website at http://fringenyc.org/.

I don't know if I'll have enough time to get to all of them...I probably wont...but whatever.

Criteria: All sevens and eights beginning with A, with associated anagrams where applicable; Anagram Quiz mode with five second timer.

Results: 3275/3755 (87.2%)

No matter how much you like that Canadian power trio, you need to play RHAMNUS instead. RHAM is a high school in CT, think of RHAMNUS as alumnus from RHAM! Yea, I am finding more and more phoney bingos every day on JT/Aerolith. AABILLR looks like AIRBALL*, but it is BARILLA instead! HAIRBALL is good on the other hand. BEHIOTW is trickier than I think it should be... of course HOWBEIT. But I guarantee many won't be looking for a bingo with that rack. The bingo pair with CEINOPRT is trickier than it looks... ENTROPIC and INCEPTOR easy to miss if you don't go over the alphagram. That wasn't a JT/Aerolith, that was an ISC miss where I played CONTRI(T)E instead.

Tomorrow starts Albany, with 20 games of div 1! I need to win half of my games, just gotta stay focused and rested. I am declining the early birds, my full attention is on those 20 games!

I will be going without formal yoga for several days... it is funny last year I didn't do any yoga, and now if I go without a few days I feel guilty!

Here is yesterday's and then today's classes:
I tried the yoga class that Tolarjev has been recommending for months( Read more... )

I got this one from

verbophage, and here's how I scored. It does not sound like me to me! (The courage score is interesting, and true in many ways.)

Compassion is the most human of the virtues.  And you? Your heart has limits far beyond normal levels empathy, and your capacity for feeling the world's pain is boundless.  You poor, beautiful, wonderful thing. All 7 virtues are a part of you, but your compassion runs deepest.

 

It is likely you're an altruist.  And it's likely (but not necessarily true, think of Bono) that your humility score is high too.

Compassionate famous people:  Brad Pitt, Mother Theresa, The A-Team.

Your raw relative scores follow.  0% is low, and 100% is perfect, nearly impossible.  Note that I pitted the virtues against each other, so in some way these are relative scores. It's impossible to score high on all of them, and a low score on one is just relatively low compared to the other virtues.

        YOUR VIRTUES

        60% Compassion

        56% Intelligence

        25% Humility

        33% Honesty

        38% Discipline

        0% Courage

        33% Passion