Mon | January 01, 2007
Scrabble
NSA Player Information: Panupol Sujjayakorn
Last night I played Scrabble for like the third time in my life, like with actual people and scoring and everything. I got a 198, which I don't think is considered a high score. If I had broken 200 then that would have been going too far. I did tone it down a little. I didn't use two letter words that weren't in everyday usage. I only went for things like or and do, I think re was as far as I went. If I wanted to be better at scrabble I would go learn all their official two and three letter words.
But I will probably never need them, when playing with most people, as they wouldn't know them either. The question is how I would hold up against devoted scrabblers. I think when I meet them, I will learn those words then, when they use them. Until then, it's a nice handicap, to only allow myself the indisputable two letter words. I also resolved to not take too long for my turns, basically always went right away. This puts pressure on people though to keep up with the pace, and so it isn't such a good equalizing tactic.
Posted by Lily at 12:49 PM
Fri | September 29, 2006
qu'est-ce que je fais ?
J'ai joué trois jeux de literati. Je ne pourrais pas décider quoi faire. Quand je ne sais pas quoi faire, je joue des jeux... jusqu'à ce que je sois fatiguée, jusqu'à ce qu'il soit trop tard, et alors je couche.
Posted by Lily at 01:06 AM
Wed | September 27, 2006
les puzzles
solvepuzzles - Wei Hwa's Puzzle Challenges by Google
Posted by Lily at 01:27 AM
Sat | September 02, 2006
u.s. open
The US Open 2006 - Grand Slam Tennis - Official Site by IBM - News
So some guy named Yeu-Tzuoo Wang from Chinese Taipei (what's Chinese Taipei? is there a Taipei in China?) played his first U.S. Open this year. Unfortunately he ended up playing against Roger Federer in the first round, which if you know anything about tennis, is sooo funny. I guess someone has to play Federer in the first round. If it were me I would just leave, I'd be too embarrassed to play. I'd feel like they were trying to make a fool out of me, like it was some sort of joke. I suppose the right attitude would be to look at it as an opportunity to go up against Federer when there are no expectations and there is just the experience of playing against him. I'm guessing that it was so unevenly matched that he couldn't learn much from the experience though. When the lesson is too far above the level of the student, it never works.
Posted by Lily at 11:56 PM | comment
Thu | July 06, 2006
Comic book about Go
Good explanation of basic Go. This is about as much as I know about the game.
Posted by Lily at 05:47 PM
Fri | February 17, 2006
softball
I am going to hit the batting cages at Chelsea Piers. I have until next Friday to decide whether to join the Kaplan softball team. That is, I have to figure out if I am good enough. I am pretty bad at all sports, softball not being the worst, but that isn't saying much.
The last time I played softball was when I was in fifth grade on the town softball team. There was only person worse than I was-- Emma, this British girl who wasn't even trying. So basically I have worse softball skills than the average ten year old. Plus, I don't even know the rules. I don't even watch baseball. I wouldn't know what to do even if I could hit the ball.
I often say that I would rather exercise by playing sports than by going to the gym (which I don't even do anymore because I dropped my membership over a year ago). Not that softball is much exercise. But I like the concept of sports, I like the idea of it, hanging out and having fun. At the same time I don't think it will be much fun if I am the worst player, or even one of the worst players.
Posted by Lily at 04:49 PM | comment
Lily said on Feb 6, 07 03:16 PM:
I went on Friday night with Janica, forgetting all about Zack's writing group.
I think I will not join the team. As much as I want to, I'm obviously not good enough right now, since it took me several swings even to start making contact with the ball, and even after I got used to it, I wasn't consistent. I think there is too much I'd need to do to get up to speed, and I don't have that much time.
Sat | January 14, 2006
football
Because I had nothing better to do, and I wanted to "be there" for my parents, who are going to Mexico tomorrow, I sat around and watched football all day today.
"How much football can they have in a day?" I asked my dad, when another game started.
"Two," my dad said.
Bizarrely, my understanding of football mostly comes from high school gym class. One year we took a break from perpetual volleyball to play touch football for several weeks. It's funny how some things which you think are small and insignificant at the time end up being useful or holding you in good stead for years to come.
Not that football is so useful to me. But in recent years I have found it somewhat interesting to watch. I experience what is perhaps a sadistic fascination in watching people make a tremendous effort for very little result-- for progress of a few feet. There has been so much slow futility in my post-undergraduate years that it feels comforting to watch someone else's unproductive efforts.
The essence of football, to me, seems to be frustration. And of baseball-- waiting. But football-- frustration and also wasted effort and unproductivity, a lot of it seemingly unnecessary. I mean, if I controlled the world, and someone wanted to run a ball to the other end of a field, I would just let him. I wouldn't want to be an obstacle; in fact I would get out of the way.
Which is pretty much how I played football in high school. I wonder if the guys who were into it were annoyed about the lackadaisical attitude towards gym class. But football was a little different because at some point people did get into it. I think this was in part because it was the one sport where we had fixed teams, instead of drifting randomly into groups, or worse, getting chosen.
I remember the day that I realized we were actually having fun in gym. Greg Tsang was our captain and we were playing Paul Hajjar's team. We had played them a couple of days ago and lost. And after the first few attempts Greg said he had an idea. He told us all to run to one side of the field, leading all the people marking us along. Then he faked out Paul and ran for a touchdown.
The whole thing was unprecedented because usually, everyone ran wherever they felt like, trying to get open. It was unusual to have a plan at all.
So that was kind of fun and memorable. And then "football season" was over and I remember kind of missing it. I also remember that when Greg called us into a huddle, saying, I have a plan, Holly said amusedly, Greg thinks about this. It was the only non-peevish thing she had ever said within my hearing. And I had never agreed with anything that Holly had ever said, ever. But she had said exactly what I was thinking.
That was high school. I guess school wasn't bad all the time. Of high school, I mostly remember the seemingly irremediable frustration with "the system" that I felt during my last year, and my desire to simply leave. I was happy the first year, and maybe another, and then increasingly disillusioned the third year, and miserable the last.
Today it was the Seahawks versus the Redskins. If deciding what team to root for, I think about what word I like better. Patriots versus Broncos, this second game, is easier. Broncos are definitely better because I have very little remaining American patriotism. The quarterback is very cute but this doesn't make up for it. Also, I am a horse in Chinese astrology so wild horses are definitely favored. Between seahawks and redskins, there are reasons to like both. Redskins represent injustice, and seahawks are animals, and apparently they have some connection to the sea.
Posted by Lily at 11:24 PM
Fri | December 02, 2005
Mind Game
This morning on the train everyone reminded me of Jake. This was not difficult, since Jake is a white guy with brown hair and brown eyes and this pretty much describes half the men on the 8:06 Dover train. But I had never thought of it this way before; it was only in broadening my idea of him to that concept that I was able to see him in everyone. And I felt better because even though I never see him, I could look at the brown hair on the train and feel somehow closer to him.
Now I am at Kap and I am looking at everyone and changing them in my mind until they are Jake. I do this even with people who are very different from Jake. I start with the hair and then the body and always finish with the chin. There is something about Jake's chin-- or perhaps it's the angle of his jaw-- that is reminiscent of an old man. This doesn't sound appealing and it probably isn't, to a rational person. But I like him, and that's that.
Posted by Lily at 12:41 PM
Fri | July 08, 2005
watching baseball
New York Yankees : The Official Site
I am watching sports this here friday night. It's pouring rain. It is the yankees vs. the indians.
I am actually not very sporty, though I have started to like sports more in the past year or so. I think I realized at some point that what people are saying, when they say they are going to watch sports, is that they are going to sit around doing basically nothing. Which I do very well. So I guess I do like sports.
I would like to go see a baseball game. I think I am going to one, in fact, on the 23rd. brooklyn cyclones. I would like to go just to sit in a stadium. There is something fun, and refreshing, about sitting in a stadium.
Posted by Lily at 07:45 PM | comment
Wed | July 06, 2005
chess puzzles
I'm not at all good at chess, but I still like it. The trick is to not play people who rank too far above you, on yahoo games. Always losing and never ever winning, or even coming close, is not encouraging. or fun.