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This is a guide for how to play the game Carcassonne. It’s a fun, slightly involved tile game.

There, now go play Carcassonne.

This is a guide for how to play the game Kingdom Builder. It’s a fun, slightly involved board game.

There, now go play Kingdom Builder.

This is a guide for how to play the game Machi Koro. It’s a fun, involved card game.

There, now go play Machi Koro.

This is a guide for how to play the game Sushi Go. It’s a fun, simple card game.

There, now go play Sushi Go.

There are a number of fun things that happen when you drive a 15-year-old car. One of which is replacing light bulbs.

One headlight stopped working. Not knowing exactly how old the bulb was (worst case: 15 years), I stopped by the parts store and bought a pair of headlight bulbs.

After I got home, I opened the back of the headlight and started to replace the bulb. Once I finally unplugged the bulb from the connector, I was greeted by a lump of melted and burned plastic. The connector of the wiring harness was partially gone and the terminals were not making a solid connection. I put the new bulb on just for fun but it didn’t fare any better. So I adjusted the terminals on the connector and plugged the old bulb back in. Success! So I left the old bulbs in place.

Since I didn’t trust the connector (something is not right if plastic is melting and charring), I ordered a replacement wiring connector. The bulb stopped working a couple days later again, so I swapped out the old connector for the new connector and the bulb has been fine ever since.

Then a couple weeks later, the turn signal starting blinking rapidly. That usually means one of the bulbs burned out, so I went and bought replacement turn signal bulbs. However, the new bulb didn’t work either.

Hmm…

I put the old bulb back in and it didn’t work. I set the assembly down so I could figure out what was going on and the old bulb started working again. Turns out the wiring harness was a little flaky. The bulb stopped and started working a couple more times as I reinstalled the turn signal assembly. But I got it stable and everything was good.

For a couple days.

Then the turn signal started blinking rapidly again, telling me that the wiring harness flaked out again. So I ordered a replacement turn signal connector and wiring. And I drove for a few days with a bad turn signal while I waited for the equipment to come in the mail.

Finally, the connector arrived. I went out to the car and turned on the signal. I was surprised to see that the front turn signal was fine and the back turn signal was bad. Of course, the back turn signal uses a different bulb than the front. So now I had to stop at the parts store and get a new bulb.

I replaced the back bulb and everything was fine.

So now I have a spare set of headlights and a spare turn signal connector, so I’ll be prepared in case they ever go out.

Moral of the story: diagnose the problem before buying replacement parts, not after.

Okay, okay, it is 2017 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2016 because they match with the 2016 predictions made in 2016 for the 2016 season. Also, the results are not all-haiku, just the predictions were. A more accurate title would be “Results for the All-Haiku Predictions made in 2016”.

Before the bowl games commenced for this past college football season, I made some predictions. Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the tally of those predictions. Note that the results are not in haiku form, in contrast to the predictions.
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Here are some entries for the Hindsight is 20/20 Department:

• Maybe a college team that didn’t win its conference shouldn’t be in the playoffs ahead of the team that beat it and did win the conference.
• Maybe the Heisman should be awarded after the bowl games.
• Maybe we shouldn’t doubt the Packers, especially if Aaron Rogers makes a declaration as such.

Regarding the second point: maybe Lamar Jackson had a lackluster bowl performance because he’s not that good. Or maybe it was because LSU was looking to shutdown the Heisman winner. Or maybe it was because Jackson already won the Heisman so he wasn’t very motivated. There may be other reasons too, but all of them reinforce the idea that the Heisman should come later.