Today's Lunch

included a peanut butter, honey, and banana sandwich. When I started to protest, I was told, "You told us to give you things we like and things we make ourselves."

What could I do?

I need to have a talk with my daughter.

I mean, the daughter that makes my lunches. Today's lunch: Peanut Butter and Mustard Sandwiches.

Xiangqi and a Business Idea

I guess I'm not that bad of a chess player. I mean, for the general population, I'm a pretty good chess player. But, once you get into the "set of adults that are good chess players", then I'm not really all that good. Anyway, that's beside the point. For whatever reason, I'm interested in learning to play xiangqi, or Chinese Chess. I don't know a whole lot of the history of chess, and there are conflicting theories anyway, but it's obvious that xiangqi and "international" chess share a common ancestry. Most of the xiangqi pieces have a corresponding piece in chess. For example, xiangqi horses are very much like chess knights, except that they can't jump the same way. However, the xiangqi cannon seems unique!

One problem I am having with the game is that it's all in Chinese! I mean, traditionally, the pieces are discs with Chinese characters printed on them. So, not only do you need to learn the game, you also need to learn the characters. Now, I can recognise a handful of Chinese characters, but if I want to play online or buy a set, I'm basically limited to something looking like the following:

Wow. I mean, if I spent some time on it, I could probably get used telling the elephants (who are like weak bishops) and the cannons apart. But it would take an even greater effort in teaching them to my kids or anyone else. It ain't likely.

What I would like to see (and would buy one if I could find it) is a Xiangqi set that has pieces that look a lot more like "international" chess pieces. Maybe they could have the "traditional" (or Simplified, for you Chinese language buffs) character on one side, and a more language-neutral symbol on the other.

I did find the following photo on the web. If you're familiar with chess, it's a lot less intimidating than the above one, isn't it?

I'd like to be able to play online with a set like the second one. I'd probably buy a set like the second one. I might even consider getting into the business of selling them. But probably not.

The List

As suggested by our friends over at The djl Zone, I will list all the stadiums/arenas/venues in which I've seen a sporting event. There's a good chance I'm forgetting a few. Here they are, in no particular order within the sport types.

MLB
Candlestick Park (San Francisco)
Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles)
Royals/Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City)
Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
County Stadium (Milwaukee)
(Old) Comisky Park (Chicago)
Wrigley Field (Chicago)
Tiger Stadium (Detroit)
Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati)
Municipal Stadium (Cleveland)
Jacobs Field (Cleveland)
Three Rivers Stadium (Pittsburgh)
Olympic Stadium (Montreal)
Fenway Park (Boston)
Yankee Stadium (New York)
Memorial Stadium (Baltimore)
Vererans Stadium (Philadelphia)
Fulton County Stadium (Atlanta)
Turner Field (Atlanta)

MiLB
City Island Park (Daytona Beach)
Thurman Munson Stadium (Canton)
Cooper Stadium (Columbus)
Joe Davis Stadium (Huntsville)
Greer Stadium (Nashville)

NFL
Municipal Stadium (Cleveland)
Fawcett Stadium (Canton)
Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati)
Browns Stadium (Cleveland)

CFL
BC Place (Vancouver)
Commonwealth Stadium (Edmonton)
Canad Inns/Winnipeg Stadium (Winnipeg)
Memorial Stadium (Baltimore)
Ivor Wynne Stadium (Hamilton)
SkyDome (Toronto)

USFL
Tampa Stadium (Tampa)
Giants Stadium (New Jersey)

WLAF
Legion Field (Birmingham)

Arena/Indoor Football
Nationwide Arena (Columbus)
Civic Arena (Pittsburgh)
Civic Center (Canton)

College Football
Doyt Perry Stadium (Bowling Green)
Ball State Stadium (Muncie)
Dix Stadium (Kent State)
Rubber Bowl (Akron)
Yager Stadium (Miami)
Ohio Stadium (Ohio State)
Spartan Stadium (Michigan State)
Pitt Stadium (Pittsburgh)

NBA
Richfield Coliseum (Cleveland)

ABL - American (Women's) Basketball League, 1996-1998
Battelle Hall (Columbus)

College Basketball
St. John Arena (Ohio State)
Value City Arena (Ohio State)
Savage Hall (Toledo)
MAC Center (Kent State)

Women's College Basketball
St. John Arena (Ohio State)

NHL
Richfield Coliseum (Cleveland - exhibition between Pittsburgh Penguins and US Olympic team)
Civic Arena (Pittsburgh)
Nationwide Arena (Columbus)

Minor League Hockey
Fairgrounds Coliseum (Columbus)
Von Braun Civic Center (Huntsville)
Gund Arena (Cleveland)

College Hockey
University Ice Arena (Kent State)
Value City Arena (Ohio State)
Bradley Center (Milwaukee-Frozen Four)

MLS
Crew Stadium (Columbus)

Indoor Soccer
Civic Center (Canton)
Richfield Coliseum (Cleveland)
Convention Center (Dayton)
Fairgrounds Coliseum (Columbus)

College Lacrosse
Ohio Stadium (Ohio State)

Pro Indoor Lacrosse
Nationwide Arena (Columbus)

Club Lacrosse (only "interesting" venues listed)
Bobby Dodd Stadium (Atlanta)
Neyland Stadium (Knoxville)
The University of the South (Sewanee, TN -- what's the stadium name?)
Glass Bowl (Toledo)

College Fencing
Larkins Hall (Ohio State)

Australian Rules Football
Telstra Dome (Melbourne)

The Missing Magical Mystery Post

I was going to post about something, but instead, I think I'll go to sleep. Sorry; maybe next time.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

In general, I like time travel stories and movies, so I expected to like this one. And, in general, I did, except for some points which I'll get to momentarily. But first, let me explain the story:

Henry DeTamble is a not-so mild mannered twentysomething librarian with a slight genetic abnormality. He uncontrollably time travels, which is compared to an epileptic having a seizure. While he has no control over the time, place, or duration of his forays out of the present, in general, he ends up in places that are important to him. One common destination is to the home of his wife, and these tend to be when she is between the ages of 6 and 18. So, one theme of the book is a what-if. What if, growing up as a child, you knew your future spouse as an adult? (But then, when you first meet your spouse in real-time, your spouse is close to your age, and actually younger than those times you spent with him as a child. So, he has no present knowledge of those past meetings, because they are still in his future. Confusing, huh?) This what-if makes up a good portion of the book. By the way, if you think about it, the answer to the question is that you'll end up with a pretty messed-up person.

The cover states that the Chicago Tribune calls it "A soaring celebration of the victory of love over time." And maybe it's more of a love story than a time travel story. While forward and backward time travel is involved, there aren't any "visions" of the future and the past as you might see in more of a SciFi novel. Also, while the future and the past are known, it turns out that they can't be changed. With no hope of changing the past or the known future, the reader is left to wonder if there is any hope of changing the present.

There were a few other negatives with the book. It was a tad too "explicit" for my tastes in reading material. Also, it was just too l o n g and seemed to drag on for a bit, but then I'm a slow reader. Still, it was about 540 pages, and I wonder if the author could have told the same story in 200 or so fewer pages.

All-in-all, though, there were more positives than negatives. It was an interesting story that, other than its length, made for fast reading. The main characters and their predicament were interesting. But don't think about it too much. It's the kind of book that, the more you think about it, the more flaws you can find. Along those lines, I was going to give it 4 stars, but I think I'll instead make my rating

Three stars out of five.

Finally, if you read it, there was something I didn't understand, and maybe you can explain it to me. Near the very end of the book Clare made a piece of art. The way it was explained, it seemed to hold some significance for her future. But, I couldn't figure out exactly what it meant. (Maybe I should try reading it again.) But, my question is, what did this tell us about what her future would be like? I got the impression that it was supposed to be obvious, but maybe it wasn't.

APÏ

Lately at work, I've been discussing work-related things with a developer in France via e-mail. As you know*, an API is an "Application Program Interface". However, in the e-mail from France, it was spelled APÏ. I guess the e-mail hadn't yet met its quota of diaereses**.


* Or, as anyone with internet access can determine by entering "define: API" at Google.

** No, this is not an intestinal ailment.

Omniless

Almost 11 years ago, I used my insurance settlement from the totaling of the short-lived LTD, plus a little more, and bought an over-priced '89 Dodge Omni for $2500. I was attracted to the car, since it didn't have anything on it that could break, like an automatic transmission or a radio. Since I expect a car to last 1 year per $1000 paid, I'd say we got our money's worth. We put on about an additional 100,000 miles, but this is another car that didn't quite get up to 200,000 miles.

We've probably owned it about a year too long, but it still runs, despite the bad habit of stalling when stopped, or just when the clutch is depressed. We've been advised that it would likely cost more to repair it than it is worth, so (effective late last year) it has been donated to charity.

I hope that they can get something positive out of it.

See if you can make out the old stickers.

(DFV, I still feel bad about your Akron Experience in this car.)

Bundesrepublik Super Nintendo

I'm becoming big fan of Wikipedia. However, one piece of advice I've seen is "never trust a Wiki". I'm currently reminded of how true this is. The current article for Germany begins as follows:

Super Nintendo, officially the Federal Republic of Super Nintendo (German: Super Nintendo or Bundesrepublik Super Nintendo) is one of the world's leading industrialised countries, located in Europe.

This is all cute and everything, but if someone can do this sort of overt vandalism, surely someone with other (more sinister?) objectives can more subtly skew articles away from the truth to push his or her agenda.

Un bon plan à découvrir !!!

While I no longer consider Yahoo! to be my primary home e-mail account, I still use it for some things. Yahoo! does seem to do a pretty good job of filtering out spam from its e-mail, as I rarely see it. In English. Je ne parle pas français, but for some reason I've been getting French spam. The most recent one had "Un bon plan à découvrir !!!" as its subject.

While it is somewhat annoying (of course) to receive such junk, I do take some solace in that I don't understand it anyway.

But if you'd like to "Gagner de l'argent pendant qu'on surfe sur internet," (Make money while you surf the internet), let me know and I'll hook you up.