Acquire

There's this game called Acquire that I had heard a lot about before, so last Christmas I bought it for my sister. It was not until this past weekend that we got a chance to play it. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the game, and I think there is a ton of strategy to it.

I was surprised to learn that the game had been around since the 1960's having been originally developed by 3M. Although I have played this game exactly one time, I think that it's a lot more fun and more thought provoking than Monopoly, and an entire game can be played out in a lot less time.

I don't have the time to go over all the rules, but I will say that the game is all about making money by growing hotel chains via M&A. So, it all comes down to making strategic business decisions. Lots of fun. If you haven't played it before, and you like strategy-based board games, then I highly recommend this one.

Punk Bands and Homemade Sushi

I went and saw a friend's punk band, Culo a Boca, perform over at the Retox this weekend. Ya, ya, I know what you Spanish-speaking people are thinking... and ya, I agree that it's a fairly vulgar name for a band. I mean, would you want it any other way? To add to your horror, one of their songs is titled Two Girls, One Cup. Ha ha.

Anyway, it was a good show, and it was definitely a fun night out especially given that beers were cheap there ($2 PBR, $3 for other domestics). Though their band was headlining that night, we got there a little early to check out a couple of other bands that played... the Formaldebrides and hmm, I can't remember what the name of the other one was.

Saturday rolled around, and we attempted to make some of our own sushi. Neither of us had any experience, but JC had the required tools already, so that was nice. All I can say is that I now know that making good looking sushi is harder than you'd think. After a few failures, we managed to make an Unagi cut roll that didn't look like a kindergarten art project. And, we also made some Uni pieces, because it just tastes awesome.

Here are a couple of pictures showcasing the results of our effort.

Smell, I Mean, Spell My Finger

I am digging this fast-paced action word game called Spell My Finger on AdultSwim.com. My current best is 23,660, which was good enough to make the top 100 scores.

If you like word games, you might enjoy this one. So, check it out.

Bought Gamestop

Picked up a small number Gamestop (GME) shares at 24.13.

Wildcat Spotting

I've seen a lot of different wild animals around my place... coyotes, wild hogs, deer, etc. But, today is a first. We spotted a wildcat from our bedroom window. It's very well camouflaged, but we managed to get a few shots of it.

Math Joke for Today

I saw this math joke on someone's Facebook, and I thought it was pretty good. Here it is. Enjoy!

A bunch of functions are hanging out at a bar. There are trigonometric functions, logarithmic functions, polynomials, all different kinds of functions just hanging out and drinking. Suddenly the door flies open and a differential walks in. The functions are all terrified. Some dive behind the bar, some jump out of the windows, and others hide under their tables. Everybody is generally trying to get the hell away from this differential.

However, there's this one function that just sits calmly at the bar sipping his drink. The differential walks up to him and says "What is this? You should fear me like everyone else. Why aren't you running away?" The function shoots the differential a nasty look and replies, "I am e^x, bitch! You can't touch me." The differential just looks at him and says, "Who said I differentiate with respect to x?"

Halloween Weekend

We had a blast out in Vegas. It was pretty wild and crazy, but it makes me wonder just how much crazier things get when Vegas is actually doing well. In any case, we stayed out there a day longer than usual, so at least we got in some relaxing on our final day there.

We met up with two different groups of friends that were out there the same weekend by coincidence -- we only found out about them in the couple weeks leading up it. Friday night was fun, as we went out drinking and dancing at the side bar of the Wasted Space nightclub. There were lots of wild people ready to party dressed scantily and slut-worthily just as you would expect from Vegas.

The next night a high school friend of mine, JC, I all found ourselves at a super low-limit poker table at the Mandalay Bay. It's a lot of fun when you play well below your usual limits. I got to splash around a lot while doing my pre-party drinking. Basically, I get to enjoy myself rather than be forced to play seriously.

Finally for Halloween night, we started off at a bar at the MGM and eventually made our way over to Studio 54 once it got less crazy. Apparently, one of the "Girls Next Door" stars (Holly Madison) was the host for the night, and when she left things got less hectic. It was a good thing to wait, since I don't think I was really up for fighting crowds to enjoy the night.

Both JC and I dressed up as vampires, and surprisingly, it was not as popular a costume as we were initially fearing. The costumes worked well, and I had my fair share of randoms that wanted me to bite them, etc. But, those stories will have to stay in Vegas... it's the rule after all.

On Sunday night, JC and I went to watch the Cirque du Soleil show, Zumanity. I had seen Mystere and O before, and I would say that Zumanity would rank third of the three. But, it was still highly entertaining -- definitely not something you should go see if you're conservative and opposed to adult conversations and themes. While many of the acts were impressive, I was not as big a fan of the music as I have been of the other shows.

Later on, we ate at an overpriced Japanese restaurant at Planet Hollywood called Koi. The quality was perfectly fine. I felt the salmon was par at best, but most everything else I had was decent quality, but not worth the prices they were charging. After our meal though, as we were about to take off, a nearby table blurted out that they saw a rat. Turns out that JC also spotted it. We did not try to get any refund or anything... seems like poor form when we were very much done with our meal. Still pretty gross though. In short, I wouldn't recommend Koi to anyone.

Since I'm too lazy to put up pictures of the food at Koi, I'll share a picture I took of some non-alcoholic Berry Fizz drink that JC at some cafe in one of the hotels.



Then, on Monday we went over to the downtown area and grabbed a lot of souvenir chips for JC's collection. Also, we did some gambling, but overall it was a more relaxing day of recovery. I also have a silly story about getting tricked to tell.

So, we are walking out of the El Cortez and we walk towards the intersection, and we decide to turn around since there were no more hotels in the direction that we were walking. A cop then tells us to halt and tells us that we had been tagged for jaywalking by a police car. We are in disbelief, because we hadn't even set foot on the street let alone jaywalked. The officer then talks on his radio saying that he has secured the suspects, and as we verbalized (loudly) our incredulity, he started laughing and said, "I got you guys." He sure did.

The End.

Halloween in Vegas, Badugi, and Sports Betting Update

The bad news is that I've been incredibly busy at work recently. The good news is that I get to party it up a bit this coming Halloween weekend as JC and I are meeting up with a few friends in Vegas. We'll be dressed up, but there aren't any hard plans regarding where we'll be going. On Sunday, we're going to see Zumanity, the adult-themed Cirque du Soleil show. It's been a long time since I've seen a show in Vegas, and JC has never been to one... so hope it's a good one.

Now, it's time to talk briefly about this poker game called Badugi. PokerStars has it available online for as low as 25 cent/50 cent stakes. I've mostly been playing 0.25/0.50 through $1/2. Anyway, it's a lowball triple draw game where you try to make a badugi, which is a 4 card hand with 4 different suits and 4 different ranks. A 4-Card Badugi will beat any 3-card hand will beat any 2-card hand, etc.

For example, a Jh 5d 3c Ah is a 3-card hand: Ah 3c and 5d play. The Jh won't play since it copies the heart. This would beat someone who held 7d 6c 2s Ac, as they would play Ac 2s 7d for a 7-high 3-card hand. Any badugi, say Kh Qc 8d 7s, would beat both of these 3-card hands.

Well, to make a long story short, I've been semi-hooked on this seemingly simple game. The players at the lowest limits are horrible... at least that's what it seems so far. I don't think I'm simply getting lucky though it's certainly possible given that I haven't put in a ton of hands yet. I am up roughly 120 bets so far... we'll see if this trend continues.

And, a quick update on the sports betting. Basically, I'm very close to break-even after 81 bets. I'm up a whopping $25.20 with an average wager of $17. So, it's not good, but I guess it's not horrible either. Hehe.

Mudd #1 at Victoria's Secret Site

Well, the West Dormers at Harvey Mudd College have pulled off a prank on Victoria's Secret's Nominate Your School page. The Mudd ranked #1 with all the fake votes, and the next 6 schools conveniently spell out WIBSTR. Awesome.

Here's a link to a story about it: Harvey Mudd 1, Victoria's Secret 0.

Done Buying For Now

Just finished this round of buying... picked up shared of Charles Schwab (SCHW) at 18.02. I won't be buying anything more until I raise more cash.

Given that Wet Seal (WTSLA) is down roughly 9% from the sell point, it seems that the recent purchases were a good thing. For a more general comparison, the S&P is up roughly two and a half percent from the partial sale of the Wet Seal on 9/21/09.

The following is based on intra-day prices.

WTSLA: 4.00, 3.65, -8.75%
APEI: 34.93, 35.88, +2.7%
ARNA: 4.90, 4.40, -10.2%
CVX: 69.00, 76.43, +10.8%
PM: 47.57, 50.39, +5.9%
RIMM: 74.82, 68.32, -8.7%
SCHW: 18.02, 18.02, 0%