Last night Tina, Chris, Steph, Brian, Nick, Riley, and Amit were at Beachhead for dinner. I brought over some berries and wine, but ended finishing off most of the Riesling by myself. Tina was making spaghetti with her grandmother’s sauce, which was really tasty. Chris brought over a rum chocolate cake, which was delicious. The cream cheese icing always gets me.
This book had a lot of good tips to keep yourself free of distraction. I was very surprised at how much they pulled on the Buddhist teachings about mindfulness. The entire book is rife with the Buddhist teachings and the practices that are taught in this book are just modernized versions of them. The goal of Buddhism isn’t really brought up, but the practice of mindfulness is key to the core fo the book. The book bases it’s teaching on a story of two people, a husband and a wife. They play out the scenarios in bad ways and then in good ways. The good ways have pretty much everything go right, and many times in serendipitous ways, which bothered me a bit. I think they should have done only outcomes that were resultant of being mindful, and using the techniques, instead of having everything go right even if it was mostly unrelated to the core tenants of the book.
Robert and I had a very nice meal at Curry Up Now and we talked about art styles and all kickstarter. I took it upon myself to start an analysis of kickstarter campaigns based on the top campaigns in the games category. I’m looking at the tiers and how many people backed them, at the stretch goal spacing, and at the qualities of the posters.
We watched this movie with Candice and Brian while waiting to go to the Sabercats game. It was a really good movie, but the starting premise was lost along the way with the main character being able to talk to all these ghosts that were around the city. Then zombies come along and the ghosts are completely forgot for the next 50% of the movie. It was a decently dark movie, and in some ways surprisingly so. I really enjoyed it and the end was pretty spectacular.
Today was the season Finale of Game of Thrones Season 3. It was pretty much what I expected from the season finale. They closed up a few loose ends, and set up for next season. Nothing really happened, but they hinted at a lot of what was about to happen. There was some foreshadowing, but I’m not sure if it is real or not since it doesn’t seem to fit at all the way things happen in the books. I’ll just have to wait and see I suppose, and what a long wait it will be.
We went over to Tony and Elizabeth’s place for the viewing tonight and we had some burgers and mead. We are thinking of continuing the Sunday night get togethers, but over Venture Brothers now. It won’t be quite the same, but still should be a good time. I won’t be able to make the next 3 no matter what. Nick won’t be able to make next week either, so it is like that they won’t be happening again for a while. I’d like to keep in touch with Simon, since he is a really fun and smart guy. It is interesting how he hides his intelligence, which is a characteristic I see a lot from smart guys in the south.
Brian got a new game at the Game Kastle flee market called Villa Paletti, and it is a strategic Jenga like game. You have to take your color columns and put the as high as you can, when you can’t move any higher you add on another story to the structure. The person with the most pieces the highest wins. The strategy is trying to force the timing of the person who places the next story to be the person before you, and also to make sure that your high value pieces are mobile. The control of what happens it the game is a little lacking and once a player starts winning there is very little you can do to stop it.
Today I went sailing with Jeremy B, Adam, Tina, Amit, Brian, Candice, and Steph. We went to pick up Brian and Candice and drove over the mountains with them. We got to the harbor and checked out the boat. It was hard to get the sail out, but we managed once the owner showed up and gave us tips on how to work it. The owner of the ship is a really nice guy in his 70’s. I hope he liked us, as we would like to take his ship out a lot more.
As we were preparing the ship an otter showed up in the bay hanging out around the fishing vessels. Probably picking up the scraps from the morning catch. Once we got out on the water the wind was really nice and steady. The whole time we were able to keep a speed of between 3 and 5 knots. The surge was a little big and the weather was a little cold and overcast, but all in all I had a great time sailing. Brian, Candice, Tina, Amit, and Jeremy were getting seasick, with Amit taking the worst of it.
While we were under way we had a good bit of guac and chips, with some really nice cider. Once we got back into the harbor we had lunch of salami, bread, cheese, and mustard that Adam brought. The mustard and salami were really good. We then went up to Java Junction and had some hot drinks to shake off the cold from the ocean. I realized that we were late to get to Nima’s recital when I noticed that it was in the East Bay. I feel really bad about missing it since it was a piece he composed and the first time he was performing with his Cello. I’ll have to find a way to make it up to him. The traffic to get over 17 was the worst I’ve ever seen it. It went on and on, to the point that we were in stop and go traffic before we even got over the summit. Brian and Candice were feeling the drowsy effects of the Dramamine, so they passed out in the back seat. I was feeling pretty sleepy myself, but the traffic wasn’t letting me relax for a second. We made it back to Brian and Candice’s place just fine.
After the Sabercats game we went to a place called the Old Wagon Saloon. I met this overly talkative guy names David. He was sooo over the top, but I have to admit that it was entertaining for a little while. I don’t think I would want to spend much time around someone that is that loud. I had 2 Blue Moons while I was there, making the start of the day correlate somewhat with the end of the day. I finally found the Blue Moon, just not the one I was originally after.
Brian, Ben, Candice, and I went to the Sabercats game. The Sabercats are the Arena football team for San Jose. I have to say that this is much more entertaining to watch than almost any other sport I’ve gotten to watch. It has the mechanics of football, but the gameplay is much faster. It has the slamming people into walls like hockey. It has amazing plays much more often. The field is half as long and half as wide. The teams always go for it on 4th down. They had a harley drive out onto the field for no apparent reason. Everything was appropriately over the top. They handed out hats to everyone as we walked it. There is no sidelines, the field goes right to the stands. It was great.
The game itself was very close up to the end. With a minute to go the Sabercats turned it over to the Pittsburg Power, who returned it for a TD. They missed the extra point to make it a tied game. The Sabercats got a quick TD, and then intercepted a pass from the Power to finish off the game. This sport is incredibly offense heavy, which makes it fantastic to watch. The final score was 68/54.
It's an Exciting World 