Archive for January, 2023

The 5 Hows: Herd Mentality

Jan

25

2023

This is a guide for how to play the game Herd Mentality. This is a game in the spirit of Apples to Apples, but you’re trying to please the crowd rather than one specific person. I like it better than Apples to Apples, because I’m not subjected to the whims of someone else’s mood. Some people may like it less, because they get less of a chance to be silly.

1. How do I win?
By being the first player to 7 (or 5, or 10, we change it depending on how the game is going and how people are feeling) points.

2. How do I get points?
You get a point when your answer matches the majority’s answer.

3. How do people answer?
Each turn, the leader/reader guy will take a question from the box and read it to the group. Everyone writes down an answer. Once everyone has an answer, you read them aloud and compare/tally answers. If there is a majority answer, everyone who has that answer gets a point. Slight correction, it doesn’t need to be a majority, just an answer from more people than any other answer.

4. How do I not win?
If, when the answers are tallied, your answer is the only one by itself, you get the pink cow (pink, because it stands out from the herd). Note that multiple lone answers cancel each other out and the cow does not change ownership. If you have the cow, you can’t win – you can still accumulate points but you can’t win unless someone else earns the cow away from you.

5. How do I let other people know they are taking too long to write down an answer?
You moo at them.

It is a simple game, and can accommodate a wide number of players. It used to be that for family gatherings with more than 10 people, the only game we could play was Apples to Apples. It’s nice to have more options.

There, now go play Herd Mentality.

A mixed multitude also went up with them, along with flocks and herds, a very large number of livestock.

Exodus 12:38

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Football Winner Guesser Results – 2022

Jan

18

2023

It is time once again to update Some Blog Site readers on the results of my Some Fun Site project to create a more accurate football prediction method.
The 2022 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results (wins-losses):

  • MPWHFA: 61%
  • MYW: 57%
  • MPWLS: 56%
  • DPE: 56%

The Home Field Advantage factor finally came back into play this year, after still being an effect from the no-crowd games of the Covid era.

If you think you have a formula that can predict the winner of an NFL game better than 61% of the time, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.
(For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

You are wearied with your many counsels; Let now the astrologers, Those who prophesy by the stars, Those who predict by the new moons, Stand up and save you from what will come upon you.

Isaiah 47:13

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All-Haiku Bowl Results, 2022

Jan

11

2023

Okay, okay, it is 2023 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2022 because they match with the 2022 predictions made in 2022 for the 2022 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 2022”.

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.
(more…)

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Fall Book Thingy 2022

Jan

5

2023

This review is of five books but in two series.

First up: The Great Peach Experiment series by Erin Soderberg Downing

This has two books:
When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Peach Pie and
The Peach Pit

image of The Great Peach Experiment When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Peach Pie book by Erin Soderberg Downing
image of The Great Peach Experiment The Peach Pit book by Erin Soderberg Downing

The first book was okay. The second book was better in some ways and worse in others. To make my life easier, I’m just going to call the first book the Peach Pie book and the second book the Peach Pit book.

The Peach Pie book was a little slow. It was fun to see the small towns that the author put in the book, including some in my area. It’s not every day that a town you know gets put into a book like this. But other than that fun tidbit, it didn’t exactly capture my attention. It wasn’t bad, and nothing offensive, so there are worse ways to spend you time.

Which brings me to the Peach Pit book. There was a little more going on in this book, so it was a little better in that regard. But it has a nod to – how shall I say it – alternative lifestyles, so it is worse in that regard.

It seems my overall rating is going to be one sideways thumb.

Last up: The Storm Keeper’s Island series by Catherine Doyle

This has three books:
The Storm Keeper’s Island, The Lost Tide Warriors, and
The Storm Keeper’s Battle
image of The Storm Keeper's Island book by Catherine Doyle
image of The Lost Tide Warriors book by Catherine Doyle
image of The Storm Keeper's Battle book by Catherine Doyle

The series was written as a series – i.e. when the first book ends it is not the end of the story so you can’t just enjoy the one book. In general, I dislike that trend, but I won’t count that too much against this series.

This series was certainly better for me than the Peach bilogy, but it didn’t capture my attention fully the way some books do. There was nothing bad or wrong with the books, although my kids did think it was a Harry Potter knockoff when I started describing the story to them.

Spoiler Alert
I told them it’s about a boy who doesn’t know he’s a wizard, and then he has to learn to become one and handle the magic he didn’t know was in him. And they asked a couple follow up questions, and for each one they asked, the answer could fit for either this book or Harry Potter. Sadly, I can’t remember any of them, and all the questions I could think of now in lieu of their questions do not apply to both sets of books.

End Spoiler Alert

Overall, I’d say one thumb’s up. If you need a fill a wintry weekend or something, you could do worse.

That’s it for this review. More book reviews coming up later this year.

Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island.

Acts 27:26

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