Mah-Jongg

One of my housemates wanted to play Mah-Jongg yesterday, and by a miracle we were all home and awake, so I broke out my set and we played several hands. At the rate we were playing, a full cycle (20ish hands) would have taken four hours or so, I think, which is a while, but we play games that long all the time anyways. Everyone seemed to have fun, even if the person who really wanted to play didn't manage to win a single hand (and also lost at Mississippi Queen and Carcassonne: Hunters and Gathers).

The one mistake I made was trying to score the hands. This involved trying to explain things like the winds. ("Hmm. Set of west winds. That's four points, plus a double." "Why's it a double?" "Well, he's east, and you're sitting opposite him, so you're west." "I have a set of south winds. Is that a double?" "No, you're sitting in the north seat. North and south are backwards from the way you expect. No, really." "You're making this up.") But having gotten that far, special hands weren't that much of a surprise. ("So, if you make a set of four, you draw an extra tile. If you use that extra tile to make another set of four, you get another extra tile. And if you use that extra tile to win...") The game was likened to Mao. Which isn't entirely true; the play is fairly straightforward, and I can explain all of the rules, and we can talk. It's just the scoring that's obscure.

Weekend: Wedding and watertown

Saturday was the wedding of a slightly older ET person, which I RSVP'd for at pretty much the last minute. But I got a ride out to Sturbridge (left two and a half hours before the wedding to go 80 miles or so...), we hung out in the cold, and got to watch two people get married. The wedding was nice, if on the small side; I expected more people from the greater ET world to be there, somehow. But if I ever get married...eclipse good, even if causes all of the guests to foolishly run outside in the cold; square dancing bad. Undecided whether competent dancers are an asset (fun to watch) or a liability (makes others, including bride and groom, afraid to dance).

Sunday, got dragged to BJ's. Bought soap. w00t. Made lunch, see recipe previously. Actually booted watertown and discovered that (a) it was confused about Daylight Savings and (b) ntp wasn't working. Fixed (b), which caused (a) to work. Hacked on lm-sensors enough to convince myself that it was okay to put out new packages of the newer version; disabled the mangling I went through to build modules for stock kernels since doing that causes said kernels to explode. Discovered that I had eaten the useful food I had as lunch and went to Boston Market for dinner. Talked to parents. Came home. Tested lm-sensors build, uploaded. Watched vicious Hunters and Gatherers game. Played Mah-Jongg. Went to bed.