This lecture series I finished a while ago and never got around to posting about it since I was getting busy and distracted. I enjoyed most of what was said in this book. The series of books I’ve read have built up well, with logic, argumentation, and communication. There was a lot of repitition of concepts from the other books in this one, but it was taken in a new light. Instead of trying to win arguments you were trying to steer conversations. I like this approach much better than the previous ones, and I think it is more applicable in everyday situations. A lot of what is described can be summmarized as just talking to persons, not talking to people.
Today we had a lot more interesting maneuvers for the motorcycling. It wasn’t nearly as tiring and not nearly as hot it seemed. I had a good time and was taking corners a little too quickly in some situations. We all did rather well on everything except the U-turn box. Adam had the hardest time with the U-turn box, but he managed to pull it out in the end. I think that situation is the one we have to worry about the least, as you can always just roll the bike instead of riding it in tight quarters. I didn’t do great on the test, but was far from the worst score. Jeremy did the best with a score of 1.
After the motorcycle class Adam, Tina, Amit, Jeremy, Steph, and I went to the Counter on California Ave. Steph and I got there first with Adam showing up just afterwards. Jeremy took another 10 minutes to get there, but Amit and Tina took somewhere between 45min to 1hour to show up. They stopped by Amit’s and got all cleaned up. It was soooo nice to be in the air conditioning and have some nice cold beverages after the day out in the sun with the Motorcycling gear on. I got the contradiction burger on spinach instead of the bun. It was delicious and I ate more than I should have. I didn’t feel too bad about it since I had had a long day and was pretty light for what I normally like to weigh.
Adam destroyed me multiple times in all 3 games of Tzolk’in. I wasn’t able to get the resource strategy to generate points. It was strange to have so much resource, so many people, and so little points. I built more than 10 buildings in every game we played, and most of the games I also got a monument. Despite that I was scoring very poorly. I think the next strategy I’m going to try is the skull/god strategy. Nick joined in for the second two games. He got 2nd in the first play, and I got 2nd in the second play of him being at the table.
We had our first course on the motorcycles yesterday. It was hot out and we were all dying in the log sleeves. Some people even had the leather jackets that you might normally need for riding at full speed. With the speeds we were going at (max at about 15mph) there was little or no respite from the heat with any kind of wind. The class went at a good pace, but some of the other riders weren’t particularly learning quickly. Everyone in our group did really well. Steph got a difficult bike and couldn’t easily shift. She also dropped the bike twice, which I thought was a little funny. By the end of the day I was feeling rather comfortable on the bike, and I’d be willing to take a motorcycle out on the road (not yet highway). I probably was on the nicest of the bikes there, and it was really easy to handle and shift with.
David showed me a game on his PS3 called Hotline Miami. It was an incredibly violent stealth attacking game. The premise is that you are a hitman who needs to take out a ton of gangsters from the other sides. It is incredibly easy to kill and be killed and each building floor must be completed or you have to start over. I picked up the game decently quickly and was able to complete a level. I died so many times it was a little absurd. The game itself is really tight mechanically, but the theme isn’t something that I’m particularly drawn to.
Friday night Jimmy, Riley, and David were hanging out at Beachhead. David was just moving in and the others were sitting around the living room smoking hookah. David’s stuff was everywhere, but the TV was set up and he had his PS3 going. It looked almost exactly like the previous setup. It was interesting to see Riley back at Beachhead since he is so against going anywhere.
Steph downloaded Spelunky onto her computer and we played with 2 keyboards on the same computer. It was difficult to control the characters and the controls were not very intuitive. It was clear that the game had been made for the Xbox. This made us not enjoy it as much as we could have. Especially since we were always hitting each other into traps. Steph wasn’t the most observant player and she was particularly bad about jumping into the traps or bottomless pits. With the way the screen works the other players have to follow the leader by jumping down into the pit. It is really difficult to control a character off screen. If we got controllers for it I would want to play it again, but not otherwise.
On Friday I biked over to the San Antonio Shopping Center to get the boots for motorcycle riding class. I was able to get some cheap ones that were comfortable, along with a new set of sneakers. The old set of sneakers were falling apart and I could start to see my socks through the holes in the top of the shoe. They lasted a long time for $15 used shoes.
I met up with Steph outside of Milk Pail and we went inside for some tasty foods. We went back to my place after that and had some dinner of cheese and crackers with fruit.
It's an Exciting World 