Online French Open Round 5

I think I only won one hand this round, but we had a player on a roll, and although the other two also won a hand or two, they were the ones who were feeding. So -- second place at the table for another two points, climbing back into 29th place.

Online French Open Round 4

I lost two mahjongs in this round, one when the person to my left claimed the same tile for mahjong, and one when I threw away a perfectly good mahjong self-picked (I missed a point, so thought it was only worth 7). Winning that hand probably wouldn't have got me out of third place, but it would have switched the top two players (since the eventual winner won that hand a couple picks later). One more point, so six total; now in 32nd place.

OFMC Hands part 1

I've put a PDF of the hands from the east round of Round 1 of the OFMC up here. The rest of the hands will be put up, eventually.

Online French Open Round 3

Finally. Managed to win three hands in a row, and didn't feed anybody. The 8th game was such that pretty much whoever won, won the table. It ended up a wall game (everybody holding on to 1, 2, and 4 dots) -- since I was in the lead, I win. Highlights: winning games 3-5. Lowlights: having the power (and therefore the internet connection) go out in the middle of game 6. Fortunately, I got back before the end of the hand; unfortunately, the bot had destroyed my hand in the meantime. Oh well.

Five points for the first day puts me right in the middle of the pack -- 28th out of 52 (the five-point players are at 24 through 30, so my tiebreaker score isn't great).

Online French Open Round 2

Ugh. Just ugh. No tiles whatever; often I would just need two or three from the start, and never ever ever get them. We only got through six hands, and I fed four of them. Ugh.

Online French Open Round 1

Not a great start -- fed a 15-point hand in the first game, fed a 9-point hand in the third. I won hands 6 (all pungs, two concealed, double 7s) and 8 (with 0:01 on the clock, all types and a dragon) to end up in 3rd place, for 1 point. (If the last hand was worth two more points, I would have had second, since the second-place player fed me that hand.) Tried for several pure straights and missed them all.

Password

CBS put out their newest game show last night, Million Dollar Password. Observations:

1. Shortest game ever. With celebrity plugs, and explaining the rules, and contestant chat, the first front game still only lasted nine minutes total. I like that they tried to level out celebrity skill by giving more-or-less equal chances with both, giving and receiving. I wish there was still competition with one-clue-at-a-time and both teams playing. Granted, that would require building an actual set.
2. Someone needs to shut the crowd up during timed rounds. No really. The one (or was there two?) times that a team got four out of five in the front game, the crowd drowned out their last five seconds leaving them with four out of five. And while we're talking about timers: all the previous incarnations of Password allowed the clue-giver to look at the first word before the clock started. Not only does that not happen here, but the clock starts a good second before the first word shows up.
3. If you can't get "Ohio" in three clues, you don't even deserve the $25,000.
4. The 1:30 timer in the bonus rounds will never come into play, I'm willing to bet money on that.
5. I agree with Eric's decision to go for the quarter-million; I thought he could have gotten them too. Granted the clue I came up with for "corner" was "street" and "drugstore", which is obvious going backwards, but probably also wouldn't have gotten me any money.
6. I wonder how many dry runs it took for them to realize that they were going to have to show the words for the last two spots or no one would ever try. Even double-or-nothing from $50K to $100K seems outrageous (to me, but I'm a coward), unless the celebrity and I are really clicking.
7. I thought Neil Patrick Harris showed himself to be an excellent Password player, so good for him. (Rachael Ray: not embarrassing, and who knows how she would have done in the bonus rounds.)
   

This obscure cultural reference brought to you by The Price Is Right

Go to cbs.com, watch the TPIR Million Dollar Spectacular for May 21 (specifically, the first pricing game), and ask yourself: "Does this girl know who Gracie Allen is?"

At least on the night time specials they still read mostly-real prize cues, although that does make the generic ones stand out more ("Enjoy your meal with soup!" -- no mention of Campbell's, etc.) I think it is kind of sad, though, that the daytime shows aren't even forty minutes long after you take out the commercials.

The Ceremonial Turning Off of the Alarm Clock

Yesterday was the final installment of the latest go-round of medical math. They have improved significantly ever since they were permitted to use their calculators (nine-point jump from test one to test two, and a sixteen-point jump from test two to test three). They still have test four and a final exam, but I won't be there to watch (I still have to grade them, of course). We can only hope that they will find jobs with tolerant employers who will also allow them to use calculators. I think I convinced them yesterday that "mL/hr" requires dividing milliliters by hours and that "gtt/min" requires dividing drops by minutes; we'll find out.

After I got home, I had a brief ceremony turning off the "Saturday" part of the alarm (those seven-day alarm clocks are great) and then took a nap. Unfortunately, I had a dream involving teaching my nursing students the mathematics of 3D computer graphics. Fortunately, I was awoken by my phone ringing, although I was in no state to actually answer it. (For that matter, I was briefly awoken by the phone ringing this morning, too, but I think I fell asleep again before it finished.) I woke up for good about three-quarters of an hour ago, which means I will be useless on Monday, since I probably won't be able to get to sleep again until at least 4am. Fortunately, I just have a night class Monday.

Impulse purchase: I saw (and bought) a TI nSpire in WalMart the other day, the "handheld for math and science" or some such. TI is still pushing the CBL data collection tool, although this new version also apparently accepts electronic sensors from Vernier, so you can attach a temperature sensor or the like. I need to go through the included CD which contains the manual as well as classroom activities and videos (and that's just the version that you can buy at WalMart; I'm sure TI has additional instructor things on their website). Statistics starts in a week, you know.

You can't win: I recently purchased some Bounce dryer sheets. The instructions are to put a fresh sheet on top of your clothes in the dryer before you start. However, there's a big warning on the side of the box: "avoid direct contact with fabrics".

Historical research: A question I have been pondering recently: Why do root beer companies, and only root beer companies, make vanilla cream soda?

More numbers

I've hit a snag in my puzzle 5 parody. I also may do charts of performances at ACPT, 'cause they gave us the numbers and charts are cool. (I smell a final exam question here somewhere.)

Anyway, since this is all about me me me, more stats about my performance:
My performance on puzzle #1: 19-way tie for 1st.
My performance on puzzle #2: 6-way tie for 13th, 3 minutes behind the pace.
My performance on puzzle #3: 18-way tie for 30th, 4 minutes behind the pace.
My performance on puzzle #4: 44-way tie for 23rd, 2 minutes behind the pace (yes there's someone listed as having 2000 points on a maximum 1265-point puzzle... I took him out)
And then the wheels came off:
My performance on puzzle #5: alone in 52nd, one error + 11 minutes behind the pace.
My performance on puzzle #6: alone in 253rd, one error + 2 minutes behind the pace (a lot of people didn't screw up puzzle 6)
My performance on puzzle #7: 8-way tie for 241st, two errors + 11 minutes behind the pace.