The 1,500 piece masterpiece is titled “Fantastic” by the artists. I’m serious. Two horses passing through a bridge as they travel down a stone path…or are they running towards the stables at some fancy castle? Fan-tas-tic.
After three weeks of working on it, we’re one jigsaw short. Ugh.
(I’m convinced a cat stole a piece and is holding it ransom until I feed him a whole chicken but that’s a different post for a different blog. I’m not a crazy cat person. I swear.)
Though I possess some ability when it comes to mental puzzles, if you put me in front of an actual jigsaw puzzle it gets worse. I’m useless. Ms. B handled the bulk of this. I was able to piece together the horse faces and a some of the smaller horse’s body. The swirling colors and brush strokes made this one hell of a jumble. Each time I sat down to help out, I’d get frustrated after ten minutes and retire to SPM.
I do give credit to Ms. B for sticking to this until end. If I had worked on this myself, It would probably be in landfill right now. Instead it sits in my apartment begging for the final piece. Fan fucking tastic.
Worth the dollar spent at the dollar store? You betcha.
There are a number of things I could point out about these directions for preparing Pot Stickers that seem to be incorrect from a grammar standpoint or technically wrong (i.e. these are cooking directions and not serving directions). Anyway, what struck me about these directions is that they don’t appear to be a literal translation of Mandarin (which usually turn out jumbled and incoherent). Rather, they seem to have been recited by somebody with a basic grasp of English…I can actually hear these directions being recited by an old Asian woman (but not my mom). Something about that is endearing.
I don’t claim to be any sort of chess wizard, but the following opening sixteen moves to a current game being played over at chess.com show how adept I am at squandering a serious advantage.
(in progress at time of post)In this case I secured the opponent’s queen only to squander my advantage four moves later by surrendering mine.I’m sure mental development in terms of chess peaked because I don’t think I’m any better at chess now than I was fifteen years ago. Oblivious to all angles, too quick to make moves, bad at formulating any sort of plan, and unable to see past my own defense, maybe that’s how I run my life. Perhaps I should quit while I’m behind and relegate myself to war (no offense, War enthusiasts).
Hark! A contemporized version of the all-too-familiar subterranean level 2-1 from Super Mario Bros.
But wait. If I press a button on my controller, I get world 2-1 in 3-D. Mind = blowd.
This the gameplay basis of Super Paper Mario; a game that I’ve seen both highly praised and downright blasted throughout the internet. Well, I read just a handful of reviews but it seems everybody felt strongly either way. Personally, I had a lot of fun with this one.
Having the luxury of a three day weekend, Ms. B and I made our way out of town for the second consecutive year. We have yet to learn our lesson about going away to colder places. Temperatures held steady around the zero degree fahrenheit mark while I gave Ms. B the tour. The picture above is from the frozen waters of Lake Mendota. During the four and a half years I spent in Madison, I never once set foot on the frozen lake; nor did I actually venture outside to face a negative 20 windchill. Ms. B. and I did the smart thing by deciding to step out to the ice AS cross country skiiers and 10 students converged on the same area of ice. Smart idea. Ms. B was the ultimate sport in facing the elements to see a place from my past.
