GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Notes

  • A play session of Harry’s Grand Slam Baseball

    As I noted in my review, this game is an awesome simulation of listening to a baseball game.  You don’t have any control over the events in the game.  You are there to have it unfold in front of you!

    I loved this play, but I don’t think we’ll be playing it again anytime soon because my girlfriend felt it was too luck driven. Which is a reasonable criticism if one thought this was a baseball simulation. This is a game of your favorite baseball announcer calling an baseball game. Without the dulcet tones of Jon Miller in your mind’s year, Harry’s might seem capricious and dull.

    With that intro, here is a session report of the game we played.

    My girlfriend was the visiting team and I was the home team. It started a little slowly with a ton of outs played by each side, but I did score first with a single and a triple. The game was pretty even at the 7th inning stretch. But my girlfriend’s team broke down at the bottom of the 8th inning with a couple errors and so I was up 6-4 heading into the 9th inning.

    She led off the inning with a walk. Like any modern manager (and also realizing that she hated the game and most likely wouldn’t ever play with me again) I went to my Closer (relief pitcher card). Double! Then she dropped a single. 6-5, with men on first and third, no outs. Well it’s not his day, so let’s see what the next relief pitcher card had. Single! 6-6, first and second, no out. Then she drops a triple and its 8-6! Finally, my boys get their act together and the inning ends with a groundout, walk, and double play.

    Unfortunately my batters, who had been hitting well all game (a couple triples and a home run), just went quiet on me. She started with a strikeout. The next hitter saw a wild pitch (but no one was on base) and then grounded out. The last guy (going for a home run I presume) flied out on my card. A rough end for the home team.

    I love how this game simulates the ebb and flow of a baseball game, rolling in and out of your consciousness like a good game on the radio. However, if you aren’t in a lackadaisical mood, like my girlfriend by the end of the game, you won’t be able to enjoy the narrative.

    I had great fun but you need to love (listening to) baseball first.

  • Harry’s Grand Slam Baseball, Harry Obst, 1962

    I first heard about this game in passing and was intrigued. After listening to Mark Johnson’s Boardgames to Go “All About” show focused on this game I went out and bought it.

    A Quick Rules Summary

    Each player has three cards in their hands. They alternate plays.

    Each play has three steps:

    1. Lay down a card which depicts what happens at home plate.
    2. Resolve the action
    3. Draw a card from the deck (replenish the hand to 3).

    There are a couple exceptions to the rules. At the bottom of the 3rd and 6th innings both players discard their hands, reshuffle the deck with the discard pile and draw three new cards. The other exception is the “pinch hitter/relief pitcher” card. When you draw that card, you play it immediately and then take the top card of the deck and put it underneath the pinch/relief card without looking at it. On any turn, instead of playing a card from your hand, you may choose to use your pinch/relief card. If so, discard the pinch hitter/relief pitcher card and play the card underneath it (for better or ill).

    I also recommend doing a 7th inning stretch as mentioned on the Boardgames to Go Podcast. But aside from that, this is a very simple game.

    Listening to a Baseball Game

    Here is the point that I don’t think I’ve seen elsewhere.

    You are sitting there and the events just happen in front of you. Like on the radio, you’re emotionally invested in what’s going on in the game but you have (almost) no control over what happens on the field. Like radio, you get the results of the play and then you have to fill in the details of the play with your mind’s eye. As a spectator of the game, you really get that sinking feeling (or rising hope) as each inning ebbs and flows.

    The pinch hitter/relief pitcher is a great example of that dynamic. The new guy comes on and you have no idea what’s going to happen – especially in their first play. It really captures that hope for something good to happen even though you know the odds are leaning against you (the reason you’re resorting to the relief card is because you have a hand of crummy cards).

    War (the Card Game) Meets Baseball

    If you like baseball then this is worth having in your collection.

    Done.

    If you are still wondering if you would like playing the game, here is another thought that popped into my head.

    Can you ever see yourself playing a game of War or a slightly less passive variant such as Egyptian Ratscrew? If you hate such heavily luck based light games then I’d advise you to pass on Harry’s, even if you are a baseball aficionado.

    However, if you love baseball, and you can imagine a scenario where you are willing to play and exceedingly light game (such as burning the afternoon playing with a kiddo), then I think Harry’s is worth having in your collection.

    This is a game where you must chill and just let the game happen to you. You’re playing Mike Krukow, not Bruce Bochy (Vin Scully not Joe Torre). It works for me, because the announcers are my actual connection to baseball. I listen to the game more than I watch it (and with one game I’ve played more innings of Harry’s Grand Slam Baseball than in real life!)

    This game captures the spirit of listening to the game on the radio after mowing the lawn on a hot summer’s afternoon. If you love that, there’s a good chance you’ll love this game.

  • BDCS taken, hopefully only 4 more to go….

    I took my “Building Design and Construction Systems” test today. It was what it was, I think I did fine, but if I didn’t pass, I’m quite sure I’ll do fine the next time around. The test dealt with a lot of subjects and I’m quite sure that many of those questions will be covered by studying for the remaining 4 tests.

    In any case, more interesting than what happened in the test, was the show I stumbled across last night while trying to chill out and relax a bit. I stumbled across a show by Fox Sports Houston called “Athlete 360” Admittedly it is almost infomercial for Memorial Hermann Hospital, but still the episode with Kevin Everett (broke his spine while playing for the Buffalo Bills) was really interesting.

    There’s plenty to whine and complain about our profession (low pay, long hours) and getting licenced (missing out on parties and waking early up to study) but shoot…as I get older I get, the less envious I get of the lives of Pro-Athletes. These guys get paid well, but it must feel weird to know that general populace just sees you has basically a high performing piece of meat wearing the appropriately colored/patterned jerseys. And the idea that this guy’s profession was ended in split second at the very height of his career and physical prowess is just mind boggling. I have no idea how he keeps up a good attitude.

    In any case, if you’re a sports fan and kind of nerdy this series looks like an promising show. I think I’ll incorporate the other online episodes in my pre-test routine.

    Unfortunately they haven’t posted the episode with Kevin Everett yet but here’s the link to the show page.

  • Some State Parks we’ve been visiting

    So we have been visiting state parks in our spare time. I’ll spare you the reviews since you can just follow them on yelp. But that said, I’ve been having fun even with the deer incident and the awefully cold nights from last weekend. It was fun coming home and setting off the carbon monoxide alarm while changing the batteries that must have died while we were at Martin Dies Jr. State Park. I’m not so sure about the recuperative powers of being in nature – in the end you’re still there wherever you’re at – but it still is a nice change of pace, especially for someone like me who is somewhat obsessed with hanging out at home and reading a book (or studying the ARE’s or surfing the internets).

    So here’s yet another a photographic post for this friday (actually three if you count the 11/20 post I somehow never published until today and my retroactive thanksgiving picture that I’m just about to do right now =P )

    Lost Maples State Natural Area
    Lost Maples State Natural Area

    Martin Dies Junior State Park
    Martin Dies Junior State Park

    Livingston Lake State Park
    Livingston Lake State Park

  • A Map of Houston Hits.

    My friend is thinking about coming to Houston around rodeo time and she asked me about any good websites about Houston and things to do here.  Unfortunately I don’t know of any such sites, but I did find an old google map of my favorite places in the city which I had put together when Dongwoo came to town.

    I spent a couple hours updating it and here it is!

    I gotta say that my most interesting places are really just eateries.  But there is a reasonable helping of odd ideosyncratic places and wacky moments.  If you have anything you think I should add, ding me.  Otherwise, here is a snapshot of my mental map of Houston.

    Blue is places of interest
    Cyan is Eateries
    Magenta is places I still need to go visit

    Houston according to Justus

    If you click on this link that takes you to google maps, you’ll see a sidebar with all the places listed.

  • 189 Movies I wanna Watch

    I wonder how if Picasa 3.5 could work with prawns?  In any case, I have been having a lot of fun messing with the facial recognition on this latest release of Picasa.  It works quite nicely thought it does have a share of mistakes.

    So decided to make a list of movies I want to watch. I ended up with alist of 100 movies that I knew that I wanted to watch/rewatch and then threw in all the Fred Astair/Ginger Rogers collaborations, Hitchcock movies, and Jason Statham movies.   And this doesn’t include any asian action flicks I’d want to check out…yikes!

    Of course, until I get netflix (and a lot of free time) I doubt I’ll watch that many of them, but it was fun imagining how cultured I’d get if I actually saw these films!

    1920

    1. Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920
    2. Nosferatu 1922
    3. Number 13 1922
    4. Always Tell Your Wife 1923
    5. The Pleasure Garden 1925
    6. The Mountain Eagle 1926
    7. Downhill 1927
    8. Metropolis 1927
    9. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog 1927
    10. The Ring 1927
    11. Champagne 1928
    12. Easy Virtue 1928
    13. The Farmer’s Wife 1928
    14. Blackmail 1929
    15. Sound Test for Blackmail 1929
    16. The Manxman 1929

    1930

    1. An Elastic Affair 1930
    2. Elstree Calling 1930
    3. Juno and the Paycock 1930
    4. Murder! 1930
    5. City Lights 1931
    6. Mary 1931
    7. Rich and Strange 1931
    8. The Skin Game 1931
    9. Number Seventeen 1932
    10. Flying Down To Rio 1933
    11. The Gay Divorcee 1934
    12. The Man Who Knew Too Much 1934
    13. Waltzes from Vienna 1934
    14. Roberta 1935
    15. The 39 Steps 1935
    16. Top Hat 1935
    17. Follow the Fleet 1936
    18. Modern Times 1936
    19. Sabotage 1936
    20. Secret Agent 1936
    21. Swing Time 1936
    22. Shall We Dance? 1937
    23. Snow White and Seven Dwarfs 1937
    24. Young and Innocent 1937
    25. Carefree 1938
    26. The Lady Vanishes 1938
    27. Jamaica Inn 1939
    28. The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle 1939

    1940

    1. Fantasia 1940
    2. Foreign Correspondent 1940
    3. Rebecca 1940
    4. Citizen Kane (w/ commentary) 1941
    5. Mr. & Mrs. Smith 1941
    6. Suspicion 1941
    7. Casablanca 1942
    8. Saboteur 1942
    9. Shadow of a Doubt 1943
    10. Aventure malgache 1944
    11. Bon Voyage 1944
    12. Laura 1944
    13. Lifeboat 1944
    14. The Fighting Generation 1944
    15. Spellbound 1945
    16. Watchtower Over Tomorrow 1945
    17. Notorious 1946
    18. The Paradine Case 1947
    19. The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) 1949
    20. Third Man 1949
    21. Under Capricorn 1949

    1950

    1. Stage Fright 1950
    2. Sunset Blvd. 1950
    3. American in Paris 1951
    4. Strangers on a Train 1951
    5. Singing In the Rain 1952
    6. I Confess 1953
    7. Dial M for Murder 1954
    8. Rear Window 1954
    9. The Trouble with Harry 1955
    10. To Catch a Thief 1955
    11. The Man Who Knew Too Much 1956
    12. The Wrong Man 1956
    13. 12 Angry Men 1957
    14. Vertigo 1958
    15. North by Northwest 1959

    1960

    1. Psycho 1960
    2. Manchurian Candidate 1962
    3. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb 1964
    4. Goldfinger 1964
    5. Marnie 1964
    6. Good Bad and Ugly 1966
    7. Torn Curtain 1966
    8. Graduate 1967
    9. Play Time 1967
    10. 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
    11. Easy Rider 1969
    12. Topaz 1969

    1970

    1. Dirty Harry 1971
    2. Frenzy 1972
    3. Enter the Dragon 1973
    4. Exorcist 1973
    5. Chinatown 1974
    6. Jaws 1975
    7. Monty Python and the Holy Grail 1975
    8. Family Plot 1976
    9. Taxi Driver 1976
    10. Star Wars IV 1977
    11. Big Sleep 1978
    12. Alien 1979

    1980

    1. Raging Bull 1980
    2. Star Wars V 1980
    3. Das Boot 1981
    4. Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981
    5. ET the extra Terrestrial 1982
    6. Rambo, First Blood 1982
    7. Thing 1982
    8. Tron 1982
    9. Star Wars VI 1983
    10. War Games 1983
    11. Indiana Jones, and the Temple of Doom 1984
    12. Aliens 1986
    13. Big Trouble in Little China 1986
    14. Blue Velvet 1986
    15. Full Metal Jacket 1987
    16. Raising Arizona 1987
    17. Robocop 1987
    18. Untouchables 1987
    19. Bull Durham 1988
    20. Die Hard 1988
    21. They Live 1988
    22. Indiana Jones, and the Last Crusade 1989

    1990

    1. Robocop 2 1990
    2. Reservoir Dogs 1992
    3. Groundhog Day 1993
    4. Clerks 1994
    5. Hoop Dreams 1994
    6. Swingers 1996
    7. Grosse Point Blank 1997
    8. Cowboy Bebop 1998
    9. American Movie 1999
    10. Being John Malkovich 1999
    11. Fight Club 1999
    12. Ghengis Blues 1999
    13. Goodfellas 1999
    14. Matrix 1999
    15. Office Space 1999
    16. Run Lola Run 1999
    17. Sixth Sense 1999

    2000

    1. Remember the Titans 2000
    2. Turn It Up 2000
    3. Ghosts of Mars 2001
    4. Mean Machine 2001
    5. Spirited Away 2001
    6. The One 2001
    7. Hero 2002
    8. Red Faction II 2002
    9. Spider-Man 1 2002
    10. The Transporter 2002
    11. Lost in Translation 2003
    12. The Italian Job 2003
    13. Alien Versus Predator 2004
    14. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy 2004
    15. Cellular 2004
    16. Collateral 2004
    17. Crash 2004
    18. Donnie Darko 2004
    19. Napoleon Dynamite 2004
    20. Samurai Jack 2004
    21. Shrek 2 2004
    22. Spider-Man 2 2004
    23. Transporter 2 2004
    24. Batman Begins 2005
    25. London 2005
    26. Mirrormask 2005
    27. Revolver 2005
    28. Sin City 2005
    29. The Pink Panther 2005
    30. Chaos 2006
    31. Clerks II 2006
    32. Crank 2006
    33. In the Name of The King a Dungeon Siege Tale 2007
    34. Shrek 3 2007
    35. War 2007
    36. Be Kind Rewind 2008
    37. King of Kong 2008
    38. Rush Hour 3 2008
    39. Synecdoche, New York 2008
    40. The Bank Job 2008
    41. Transporter 3 2008
    42. 500 Days of Summer 2009
    43. Crank: High Voltage 2009
    44. Hangover 2009
    45. Hurt Locker 2009
    46. Up 2009

  • Griffs

    Griffs

    I just had a nice dinner with my girlfriend at Griffs, a local sports bar next door to the Chinese Consulate.

    We had $8 pork chops literally in the shadow of the mother country. The bartender/cook was kind enough to give us two helpings of sides (one on each plate) and this one order ended up filling both of us as well as giving us some leftovers for tomorrow.

    That said, I think we’ll most likely just stick with Tuesdays Steak Night from now on … for the extra $4 you get MORE GRILLIN’! MORE JUICYNESS and MORE FAT!

  • Open Source Software, 2009

    Free!  But not as easy….

    I’ve always been interested in open and legally free software. So between my mom’s visit to Houston and getting serious about studying for my architecture registration exams, I wasted the better part of the weekend installing Linux and various free software programs onto my computer. The most painful to install was Linux. Installing the new operating system was not a problem – the painful part was creating the separate partition on the hard disk on which I could install Linux. The partitioning software (provided with the Linux installation software) was pretty easy to use, it was just really painful to defragment my hard drive multiple times with different defrag preferences until it finally defraged in a way where I could partition the hard drive. Trying to set up my dual-monitor (or any drivers) was not much fun either. And in the end, Ubuntu is does not really boot up any faster than good old Windows XP.

    Fortunately, the other software programs, Open Office, GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP, the Photoshop replacement), Inkspace (Vector editor Illustrator replacement), and Scribus (book layout InDesign replacement) were all quite easy to install. I mean, install in Windows. I tried installing them in Ubuntu Linux, but none of them seemed to have a GUI installation package and I was sick of messing around in the Unix terminal. In any case, after playing around with these programs in Windows, I realized that I doubt I would ever get around to using any of these programs just due to the the hassle of learning how to use them.

    In the end, I got the impression that free software will always have a major problem – in general they are clones of the “standard”. As such, they don’t really present much of a feature upgrade (if at all) and people have enough trouble learning the “standard” interface that they aren’t really excited about spending time to learn the alternative, even if its free. If I was in an office, I would say that my time is valuable enough that it would be worth purchasing a license of Adobe CSx instead of wasting the company’s time to learn the new program.

    The exception that may prove the rule is Open Office. I haven’t messed with it much, but I have already ported over my Word and Excel Documents over to Open Office. I was using MS Office 2003 and the current version of Open Office emulates that interface almost perfectly. I’ve heard that Microsoft has messed with the UI of current version of MS Office and if that’s true I think I’ll just stick with what I know – Open Office. I don’t know how much one can emulate the UI of another company’s product, but if these other free image editors can get their UI much closer to the Adobe CS Standard, I’d seriously think about jumping over.

    I still might try to learn GIMP, Inkspace and Scribus, but now that I’m about to start my Architecture Registration Exams, I think I have a better use for my time than learning redundant software interfaces just for the conceptual pleasure of running on a all open-source rig.

  • ProOptic 500mm f/6.3 Cadioptric Mirror Lens

    I just got my new mirror lens from Adorama on Friday and I spent a good amount of time messing around with it today, stalking some birds and feral cats that hang out in a local parking lot.  For what its worth, I should preface that I have been messing around with a 50mm f/1.8 series E for the past couple weeks so I am pretty familiar with shooting in full manual without metering.

    So here are some general thoughts.  For a full review by Peter Kolonia check out popphoto.com.

    Given that I had wanted a 500mm lens and didn’t want to pay big money for it, the Mirror Lens is the way to go.  Basically, there is really only one common option (both new and used) – f/8.0.  The only alternative is the ProOptic lens from Adorama with f/6.3 (fyi, these lenses come with only one f/stop)  My question before purchasing the lens was whether the f/6.3 would be an unforgiving DOF (the manual says 1/2″ at 6′ close focus).  After playing around, I agree it is a very thin and unforgiving DOF, but as someone who is used to shooting wide open at f/1.8, it really isn’t that thin!

    What did surprise me was lens shake at 500mm.  As such I think the extra speed of f/6.3 was WELL worth it. As someone spoiled by f/1.8, going to f/6.3 was a shock. Combined with the desire to keep the shutter speed near the focal length for hand held shooting, I was shooting at iso400 around noon on a sunny bright day. By the time the sun just started setting, I was at iso800.

    I found focusing quite smooth. My only gripe with the lens is that I wish there was more barrel that did not rotate while focusing so that I could keep more of my hand supporting the lens while focusing.

    People say that mirror lenses are small and unobtrusive. Well they must be speaking in relative terms because is this lens is definitely big enough to be noticed when walking around. It doesn’t help that ProOptic decided to paint the barrel white instead of black. Then again, I haven’t handled a real 500mm lens, but from what I see online, I don’t think you can even really “walk around” with those beasts!

    Of course the big question with these lens are the bokeh rings.  And I can attest that those mirror lens bokeh rings do really show up any time you give them a chance. But, if you just roll with it, you’ll survive — and even have some extra optical tricks to play with when you get tired of straight photography.

    For $160 I think this is basically a no brainer if you have a little money and want to dabble in telephoto photography, as long as you don’t find the funny bokeh rings are as hideous as some people on photo forums like to exclaim.

    The 80/20 rule definitely applies, – you get 80% of the function for 20% of the price of a full size 500mm lens.

  • Felix

     

    Apparently these guys were the ones who brought Tex-Mex to Houston. They were clearly not at their apex when I arrived.  It was sad, but at least there was always someone at the restaurant.

    They closed last April.