Cassandra

Prepare for a Knuckle Sammich!

Or, well, it isn’t so much a Knuckle Sammich as a Kobold sammich or just a non-descript sammich… but that doesn’t sound as cool, so Knuckle Sammich it is!

In Knuckle Sammich, everyone is a Kobold, trying to eat the most sammiches without getting eaten by your friends (oh yeah, did I forget to mention that Kobolds have cannibalistic tendencies?) and serving King Torg (“All Hail King Torg!”). Because Kobold paws are quite small and don’t have opposable thumbs, they can only hold one card at a time, so when they draw a card at the beginning of their turn they must immediately play one of their two cards.

Knuckle Sammich Card Game (Kobolds Ate My Baby!) Cards have five important parts. There’s the meat, the flavor, when in activates, what it does, and the footnote. Meat is only really important if a card someone plays specifically says so. The numbers range from -1 to 13, and there are also variables such as how many beverages are on the table or how many sammiches you’ve eaten. Flavor can be chicken, bacon, beer, Kobold, baby, pretzel, everything, and, if you have the Kickstarter special, pickle. Again, these only really matter if a card brings it up.

Cards can activate in three different locations: In Your Paw, When Played, or On Your Plate (your plate is the pile of cards you’ve played). In Your Paw cards react to what someone does while you’re holding the card. There’s a card called Cursing where if one of the players swears while you have Cursing in hand you eat them. Eating a Kobold means that they place their paw face-down on their plate and are out for the rest of the round, and you get to eat a sammich. When Played is exactly what it sounds like, and On Your Plate means that it is the most recent card you have played (so, at the top of your plate).

Obviously, the most important part of the card is what it actually does. I used the example of Cursing earlier for In Your Paw. A common card is Fork, where you guess a Kobold’s flavor, and, if you’re right, you get to eat them. While the action is the most important part of the card, it’s also pretty straightforward, so I’m just going to move on. My favorite part of the card is definitely the footnote. Occasionally it’s something useful, like “You both get a sammich if you tie,” but most of the time it’s just funny. Some of my personal favorites are, “You would be surprised at what a Kobold considers soup,” “Kobolds have been known to not stop eating when they reach the plate,” “Kobolds will never understand why ‘adventuring parties’ don’t have a buffet,” “Random horrible death is the leading cause of death in Kobolds. Being lunch is in the top ten though,” and “#Drunk #Yolo #BeerAndPretzels #AllHailKingTorg.” I was shocked to find out that not all cards are fortunate to have a footnote. Oh, and I suppose the title of the card is mildly important. But not important enough for me to actually talk about.

A round ends when there is one Kobold left or when all Kobolds have been eaten, a card says to end the round or the deck (“Kitchen”) runs out and a Kobold needs to draw. The survivor (if there is one) and King Torg (“All Hail King Torg”) each eat a sammich before everyone is brought back to life, their paws and plates discarded, and a new round started. The game ends when the Pantry is out of sammiches, or if King Torg (“All Hail King Torg”) eats nine sammiches, automatically winning the game. Whichever Kobold (King Torg [“All Hail King Torg”] included) has the most sammiches by the end of the game wins and is crowned The Victor of Lunch! All Hail King Torg!

AsapSCIENCE

Yeah, I’m talking about another YouTube channel. Sorry, not sorry. At least this one is educational! Well, my kind of educational, meaning random interesting facts. AsapSCIENCE produces a few different types of videos. Mostly, I watch the What If (and other question based) videos and songs, but there are also the other illustrated science videos and The Lab.

The What If videos include What if The World Went Vegetarian? and its counter, What If You Only Ate Meat? Not all of their question based videos had “What If” in the title. An example of this is Can Plants Think? All of these have drawings to accompany the script. Other scripted videos don’t have questions in the title, like How To Learn Faster and the Amazing Facts collection (part 1 here).

They also have an interesting song selection, such as The Periodic Table Song (which was actually my introduction to AsapSCIENCE), The Science Love Song, and Science Wars, in case you want a science-y Star Wars medley cover, because why not? I would include some links to The Lab videos, but I haven’t actually watched any of those.

They have another channel, Greg and Mitch, where they have more real life activities and less script, like their video How To Eat Bugs, where they made food out of bugs and tried it. This video is actually a companion to one of the AsapSCIENCE question based videos, Should We All Be Eating Insects?

Most of their videos aren’t specifically funny, but I find them amusing anyhow, possibly because of the illustrations. More importantly, I find their work interesting, since random facts and statistics are my kind of thing, and, as a writer, What If questions are always important. It’s interesting to see What If questions actually being answered scientifically, whereas most of us just ask them because they’re amusing to ponder.

Train That Brain!

Or, the free version of training it, anyhow. But I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s this program called Lumosity that had a whole bunch of ads going around a few years back, and, while I usually ignore ads with extreme prejudice, I eventually caved and downloaded it. I completely forgot that it existed for a couple years until it found its way into my Facebook feed, and I’ve since restarted the habit of using it. Like I said, I use the free version, so, while I’ll try to point out premium stuff, that’s not my focus.

Lumosity is a program that uses a plethora of games to train different aspects of your mind, namely Speed, Memory, Attention, Flexibility, Problem Solving, Math, and, more recently, Vocabulary. It does this by, each day, selecting games for you to play (free version – 3, Premium – 5). Each game has its own scoring methods, in which you attempt to beat your personal high scores. The scores of the games in each category are averaged for the score listed for each of those categories, except for Vocabulary, where they just count the unique words you’ve used, and the scores of all of the games are averaged to form your LPI, or Lumosity Performance Index, which is “a standardized scale calculated from all your game scores.” In the free version, you are able to see your Best LPI, Current LPI, and LPI’s for each “Cognitive Area,” which I usually just refer to as categories. They also track your mood and sleep trends based off of the questions at the beginning of the lesson, and average them.

In free version, you are able to go back and repeatedly play the three games you had that day as much as you would like, but in the Premium version, not only do you get 5 games, but you have access to all 60+ games. These aren’t the only Premium perks. You also get an algorithm that “generates workouts based on your training habits and preferences,” a more detailed training history, how you compare to other people, and a system called “Insights.”

Insights has a lot of subsets, presently 9. Four of these appear to be an overall program: Your Monthly Gains and Drops, Your Occupation Profile, Your Lumosity Community, and Your Game Strength Profile. The others are each based off of a different game, which is listed at the beginning of the title — Train of Thought: Your Planning Skills, Disillusion: Your Play Style, Lost in Migration: How You Filter Information, Ebb and Flow: Your Speed and Accuracy, and Word Bubbles: Your Writer Profile. What do each of these mean? For the most part, I have no clue.

The only one of these I have had the pleasure of trying (thanks e-mail promo codes!) was the Writer Profile. I enjoyed the game Word Bubbles already, which gives you two starter letters on the first round for you to make words out of (ex: PR), three for the first half of the second round and then two (TRI, then TR) and four for the first third of the third round, going down incrementally (you get the idea and I’m out of examples, so yeah). Your Writer Profile matches your vocabulary with the most unique and frequently used thousand or so words from famous writers, to compare your top six matches. Each time you play, this updates, so your matches may shift over time. Though the order of them varied, I spent my three days of Writer Profile with only one set of matches: J. K. Rowling, Agatha Christie, Stephen Hawking, Martin Luther King Jr., William Shakespeare, and Stephen Covey. I had to look up the last guy (it provided brief bios on each in case you didn’t know who they were), but I was pleased with my selection overall.

Lumosity has also recently added a side program called Mindfulness, which focuses on breathing and being in the moment. I was tentative about trying it, but determined that I should, if only to say that I had tried. I would best summarize it as poking the dot on the screen to sync with your breathing. When you inhaled, you held your finger on the screen (or clicked on the computer, I assume) and the little white circle got bigger, then watched it contract when you exhaled and let go. As amusing as it was, it was also surprisingly effective. This noted, I’ve only done the first three or so exercises on it, all in one day, and then forgotten about it until this post. Whoops.

The Word On The Street is… Junior!

Gee, another Out-Of-The-Box game! It’s almost like we have a lot of those in our house… Word On The Street Junior — surprise! — a word game. And, more than that, it’s on a street! That would make sense, given the name, right? Well, it’s true. The board is a five lane street (Honestly folks, can’t you choose an even number like a normal street? Jeez.) with the entire alphabet up the middle. Oh, wait! The middle is green, so it’s probably the grass divider between the two directions of traffic. But then the letters are… Yikes! Yes, kids, drive perpendicular to the street and across the dividers. Good plan.

The players divide themselves into two teams and sit on opposite sides of the street. At the beginning, everyone decides whether it will be a green game or a blue game (easy or hard). The cards are shuffled and then set to have either the green or blue side facing out from the little card holder that just barely covers the questions (so you can’t cheat).

One team flips the timer while the other pulls a card. The card has a category (like “A Month” or “Something Blue.”) The team with the card has until the timer runs out to confer and choose something of that category. It must be one word (proper nouns are allowed, obviously, otherwise “A Month” would be pretty hard criteria to meet) and in English (no smart translations, sorry!), and the whole team must agree on it.

When the team has decided, they go through, spelling the word, moving each letter tile in the word one space closer to their side of the board. Once they move the third time in that direction and off the board, they have been captured and can no longer be moved. Whenever that letter is used in a word, it is simply noted as out of play and they spell the rest of the word. This is partially because the game would be incredibly difficult to play once the main letters (especially the vowels) had been used if you couldn’t use words with letters that had been captured, and the game would be over far too quickly.

For similar reasons, the board is five lanes instead of one or three, to allow the space for the players to give and take with the pieces, pulling it to the brink, then having it pulled back to the center, then slightly one way, then further the other, and so on. It’s quite amusing to watch the pieces move back and forth, and adds a strategy level to the game: it isn’t just about long words, it’s about finding the words with the letters on either edge to steal theirs and capture yours.

I think it would be fun to just play through everything and count up at the end, but that gets hard when the only letters left on the board are Q, U, W, V, Y, X and Z, in any combination thereof. So instead, the goal of the game is to have captured at least eight letters. The first team to do so wins.

Fleeing the Complex

Well, I’m not just talking about Fleeing the Complex. I’m also talking about Infiltrating the Airship, Stealing the Diamond, Escaping the Prison, and Breaking the Bank. But the website is called Fleeing the Complex. I wouldn’t count Breaking the Bank, but it’s referenced in Infiltrating the Airship and in Escaping the Prison, and stars Henry Stickman, so I will.

Each game has a plot, choices to make, crazy reactions to those choices that make no sense, hilarious effects, numerous references (“‘You’re a bender, Harry.’ -Gandalf.”) and epic fails. Breaking the Bank doesn’t have much of a plot on its own, but the rest have an intro and extensive inter-weaving of events meant to make it as enjoyable as possible. I would love to give more examples, but that would spoil the fun!

Perhaps my one complaint with these is that the timeline is confusing. Infiltrating the Airship referenced Escaping the Prison, Stealing the Diamond, and Breaking the Bank, Escaping the Prison made a reference to the teleporter’s previous uses and also made it clear that it came after Breaking the Bank, and Fleeing the Complex mentioned the character Charlie, who Henry met in Infiltrating the Airship. By this, I’d guess that it goes Breaking the Bank, Escaping the Prison, Stealing the Diamond, Infiltrating the Airship, and then Fleeing the Complex. I confirmed this by going to the Henry Stickman Wiki. I guess I didn’t need to do a complicated tangle of deduction? Oh well, it was good practice.

Anyways, these games are madcap silly and loads of fun. One of the reasons they’re so great is that each game has multiple endings, and, with the exception of Breaking the Bank, several ways to win, each with its own label. For example, Stealing the Diamond has three endings: The Aggressive Ending, The Epic Ending, and The Undetected Ending.

Ranting About Compasses

No, I have nothing against navigational compasses. They’re just fine. What I do have an issue with are geometric compasses. That’s right, the ones that you use to make the circles but sticking the point in the paper and swing the pencil part around that point. But what have I got against them?

To be clear, I have no issue with their use to draw circles. That makes sense. Actually, it’s the only way I know of to draw a decent circle (eyeballing it doesn’t end well for me). It’s the other geometric stuff it’s used for that irks me.

We’ve been told that, back in the day, mathematicians used only a compass and a straightedge to draw their shapes. That’s all well and good, but why do we still have to draw squares, hexagons and triangles from this object that only draws circles? It takes several, complicated steps and is quite frankly obsolete in the face of these things called rulers and protractors that allow us to actually measure our angles and lines in a timely fashion.

“Well, that’s just how they used to do it back in the day.” This I understand, and I’m fine with being taught how they did their math. I just don’t want to be expected to do it that way when there are other, more efficient methods. I am, as well as a writer, an inventor, and our goal is frequently to reach the intended goal with as little work as possible.

What do you think? Is there some benefit to the compass method that I’ve overlooked? Or do you concur with my frustration?

Rhett And Link

Who? Rhett and Link are YouTubers. They’re best known for the daily talk show, Good Mythical Morning, where they either learn about, or, more often, try different things, mostly food. They frequently try foods blindfolded or just without being told what they’re eating and then have to guess what it is. Some examples are Whole Foods vs. 99 Cent Store, Blind Fast Food Sub Sandwich Taste Test, The Blind Chicken Nugget Taste Test, and, one of my favorites, The Ultimate Water Taste Test.

They do “International” taste tests (International BBQ Taste Test here) where they taste something from one of the countries highlighted on their map, and then not only have to guess where it’s from, but throw a dart at that place on the map. The darts are scored on how close they are to the correct answer, and the player with the lowest score wins (like golf).

Other times, they’re testing assorted “Hacks” (Crazy Airplane Cocktail Hacks). Sometimes they have guests on the show, such as Feel & Squeal Challenge ft. Hank Green, The What If? Game ft. Daniel Radcliffe, Duo or Don’t-O ft. SMOSH, and Christmas Song Challenge ft. Jack Black.

Not only do they have a talk show, they also do skits and music videos! Some skits are The Puzzle, BFF’s, and Campin’. Their music videos include My OCD, the Graduation Song, BFF (not to be confused with the skit BFF‘s), Tough Decisions (A Whale Is Gonna Die), and Just Being Honest, just to name a few. They’ve also started a thing called SongBiscuits where they write a song with a fellow musician and then perform it. One of my favorites of these is the Cat’s 9 Lives Song. You can find the video where they write and perform it here and the animated song here.

As great as their talk show is, I prefer their music, mostly for timing, since their show is usually somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes, whereas their songs seem to cap at 5. But whichever you’re watching, they’re still light-hearted and silly.

GeekCraft Expo

This weekend, we drove to a GeekCraft Expo in Madison. It was smaller than I expected, but it made up for it with cool stuff and friendly people.

The cafeteria in the building had a sign plastered over the door that said “Mos Eisley Cantina,” which added to the geek vibe, but, unfortunately, the menu had not been geeked. There were no Star Wars foods, just burgers and brats.

The actual Expo was in a small room, with only a few rows of booths. There were geeky words, geeky images and a general air of geekiness. I saw booths with embroidered references, punny cards, and create-your-own superhero masks. There was a coloring book with assorted organs, handmade dice sets, and interesting soaps. For the full list of venders, go here.

Probably my favorite booth was one with crossover drawings. There was a Princess Leia water-bending, Sokka dressed as Han Solo, Zuko as a Sith, and Kaylee knocking on the door of the TARDIS (which I couldn’t find a link for, sorry!).

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