Super Bowl

It's been ages since I've watched a Super Bowl, but our pastor was having a party at his house and Josh invited me to go along. I may have been there to contrast with Josh--he had a fleur de lis painted on his face and was the most gung ho fan there. It was a good game, and it was nice to see the Saints pull off the onside kick and come back from behind. We noticed both quarterbacks were well-protected--the Saints never got through to Manning at all; Brees got dragged down once but it wasn't a solid hit.

Most amusing comment, from one of the college guys there, to Josh and me: "Are you two roommates?"

Best comment on a commercial--the Budweiser one where the Clydesdale and the cow are friends: "Budweiser Milk!"

Best commercial: Tim, the Dorito Samurai.

Duty

He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

Wellington

When you play a wargame, you want to win--but you don't want to win too quickly. When you wipe out the enemy in less time than it takes to set the game up, it makes for a good story, but it's a bit disconcerting.

In this case, we're talking about Wellington, a card-driven game dealing with the Peninsular War. The 1812 scenario starts with Wellington himself--along with 5 British units, an allied Spanish general and one Spanish unit--besieging the French-held fortress at Ciudad Rodrigo. In the first turn, first segment, the British announce an assault on the fortress. The French play the Cavalry Raid card; the British count their units in the space, roll that many d6s, and lose a unit for every roll of 6. There are two leaders and six troops, so the Brits roll eight dice, and turn up four 6s--half the army is wiped out before the first siege gun fires! The Brits remove the one Spanish unit and three Redcoats, leaving the Iron Duke and two British units to conduct the siege. They roll eight dice against the French fortress and score zero hits. The French roll three dice in return....three hits! That destroys the rest of the British force, including Wellington; only the Spanish general is left. There are British and Spanish forces elsewhere on the map, but the shock of losing the main field force, in what should have been an easy win, demoralizes the Allied player.

The game does look like a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to a more complete playing of it.

More snow

Most of last weekend's snow melted during the weekend; however, the rain this morning gradually became snow showers, and now it's snow. It doesn't seem to be sticking to the roads, but the grass and cars are covered.

Barbra's son flew from here to Philadelphia yesterday, but his second flight was cancelled, and then the airline said that Saturday's flights were also cancelled and Sunday wasn't looking all that promising either. It was looking like he might have to camp at the airport--no flights home, and Greyhound and Amtrak shut down as well--but he eventually managed to rent a car and drive through the night.

Some of Josh's friends have reported 24 to 30 inches around Washington DC, and over a thousand weather-related traffic accidents.

Breaking two squares

On July 23, 1812, two Anglo-German cavalry brigades, total 1800 men, attacked 4000 French infantry at Garcia Hernandez in Spain. The French formed battalion squares, which usually was sufficient to defend against enemy horsemen. In this battle, however, the King's German Legion dragoons pressed their attack so closely that when the French fired, a mortally wounded horse caromed into the square, knocking men over and opening a gap. A German captain rode into the opening, his troopers followed, and the square broke. A second battalion saw this disaster, faltered under the KGL's attack, and also broke. Anglo-German losses were about 55 killed and 65 wounded; French losses were 200 killed and wounded, 1400 captured.

Living in the future

I was driving to work the other day when a pair of Raptors passed overhead, and thought "Those are one step away from being space fighters."

Just to add to that feeling, I saw reports of ultra hard diamonds, liquid glass coatings, and metal foam. And these are being treated as front-page, earth shaking news--they're "just" material science results, not something to go crazy over. "Did you hear we discovered ultra hard diamonds?" "Really? Cool. Who do you like for the Super Bowl?"

We are living our lives in a science fiction story.

Quantum Sheep Haiku

Or at least that's what the poet is calling it. The idea is, you spray paint sheep with words a haiku--one word per sheep--and let the sheep wander around while you take notes on the arrangements. It doesn't actually have anything to do with quantum mechanics, but saying "randomly arranged words " probably wouldn't have gotten her the GBP2000 grant that "quantum sheep haiku" did. Hat tip Marginal Revolution.