Is election math really that hard?

It seems that, for a set of the population, it might be. The current format for reporting election results is that the networks report the current total, that total as a percentage of the counted votes, and the percentage of the votes counted.



For a very simple example, in a riding of 100000 people, at the start of the counting the counts could be:

Red 9000 90%
Blue 1000 10%
With 10% of the vote counted


As more votes are counted, the score could be:

Red 25000 50%
Blue 25000 50%
With 50% of the vote counted.


It could end up being:

Red 30000 30%
Blue 70000 70%
With 100% of the vote counted.


Now, if you understand how math works, (and have a decent grasp of time progression) this seems entirely reasonable. The amount of votes keeps increasing for both candidates and the percentages reflect the percentage for each of the percentage counted.


But, if you don’t, and you are only looking at the percentages, it can seem odd that some numbers are dropping.



To help those people out, and to avoid them complaining about rigged elections as the percentages adjust as more votes are counted, I propose the following change.


I believe the networks should report the current total, that total as a percentage of the total votes, and the percentage of the votes counted.


So using the previous example of a riding of 100000 people the same results would now look like:

Red 9000 9%
Blue 1000 1%
With 10% of the vote counted



As more votes are counted, the score could be:

Red 25000 25%
Blue 25000 25%
With 50% of the vote counted.


It could end up being:

Red 30000 30%
Blue 70000 70%
With 100% of the vote counted.


This way the percentages only increase as more votes are counted, and they never decrease. It also becomes quite clear when one candidate has won as they finally achieve over 50% of the total votes, not just the current counted total.

Scrappy-Doo - menace or misunderstood?

 I am quite surprised at the love and acceptance for Scrappy. I can only assume that these viewers started with the series at Scooby-Doo and Scrappy Doo or later. For me and my friends, who started with the New Scooby movies, the reruns of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? and then the Scooby-Doo/Dyno-Mutt Hour and then Laff-a-Lympics, we were already fond of the standard formula.

The change in Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, both in replacing the main 'normal' characters characters of Fred, Daphne, and Velma with Scrappy, as well as crossing into actual supernatural villains was a bit jarring. Even bringing back Daphne in later seasons didn't help. While we loved Daphne at the time, we didn't realize we needed Velma's competency for success.

Scrappy was loud, brash, over confident, unrealistic in his abilities, and a bully. He was like the friend you have who gets you into fights because he couldn't keep his mouth shut when in dicey situations. He was the friend who 'helped' build a deck on improper footings, or took out a load-bearing wall, while assuring you that he knew what he doing.

Flim-Flam compounded this with many similar traits in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.

Bikes in the zombie apocalypse

 So we watched The Walking Dead: The Ones that Lived. I got to thinking - why aren't more characters riding bicycles? They don't need fuel, you can have a basket, they are pretty quiet, and yet easy to lift and push if the roads get rough.

Sure, it's not at cool as a motorcycle but you can draw zombies by ringing the bell, or putting cards in the spokes.

Also, why aren't more characters using cell phones? You should be able to charge from the solar chargers if no other source of electricity is available. Even if the networks finally go down, you should still be able to take and look at pictures and videos.

Or did all the cell-distracted characters get cleared out earlier?

Buy Snow Tires

 We live in a region that has snow for four to six months of the year.  Growing up, we used to have ‘all-season’ tires on our vehicles and thought that was fine.  Since then, they had come up with specially formatted ‘winter’ tires but we never really thought much of them, until we tried them.

Up here, the temperature can drop to as low as -40 degrees Celsius (234 Kelvin), and regular tires, even all-season tires, get solid and lose a lot of their grip.  Fishtails and sliding on ice are sort of a rite of passage for young drivers.  It’s like drifting, but with actual snow drifts.

When we inherited the van from Shan’s dad, it also came with snow tires.  When we had them installed, we noticed a major difference in the stopping ability.  Instead of that slow sliding which normally accompanied stopping with all-season tires in deep winter, braking occurred at a much shorter distance.  It is a total game changer, and one that I highly recommend for those people who experience actual winter.

It is a major expense, both for the tires themselves, and for the extra rims and possibly sensors needed.  Plus add the cost of having them changed, or having to change them yourselves twice a year.  But it is easily worth it, both in the better traction and safety as well as not having to deal with cracked bumpers, or the hassle of getting stuck.  Plus, your tires will last longer as they are only being driven on half as much.  You can’t use snow tires all year as they as softer than regular tires and wear out much quicker on the summer roads.

The only thing to watch out for is that people behind you may not be able to stop as short as you are if they are still trying to get by on all-seasons.

 

Yearbook rant

 I’ve been pushing my daughter to pick up her yearbook from last year before the schools close again for another summer.  I suppose yearbooks are not quite the thing that they were when we were younger.

Even back in the Eighties, yearbooks were a pretty tough sell to the kids.  I remember we had various ads that we had played over the announcements in order to get the students to buy one in time.  One involved us singing an ad to the tune of ‘We Are the World’, and another reminded them that if they did not buy one in time . . . and ending in a flushing sound.

This was back when you used to get your yearbook on one of the last days of school.  This allowed you to get well wishes, and signatures from all your friends before they went their separate ways for the summer.  This was your final chance to get that special someone to acknowledge you and write something nice for you to remember them by,

It was always a bit of a scramble, trying to finish the books in time and get photos from the grad celebration added in time, so the publishing company has managed to move the delivery dates to the following school year.  This does mean that you don’t have a bunch of people there to sign it when you go to pick it up. 

This cuts out on all the clever variations of ‘Have a great summer!’ and ‘See you in the fall’ but makes it less of a keepsake.  Plus, kids these days have their photos on their phones, and are able to keep in touch with their classmates a lot more than we did.

Covid - second lockdown

Things had been getting progressively worse here as cases kept spiking. They finally locked the province down again in mid November. It is set to be locked down for another month.  Just prior to the lockdown, Gee and I zipped out to pick up some gloss coat and a few Christmas presents.

 Some people, especially on social media, keep posting the memes that "If it worked the first time, why are we doing it again? If it didn't work the first time, why are we doing it again?"

 The simple answer is, it did work the first time. Shutting everything down helped to keep our case numbers low. When we opened up, people were very casual about getting together in groups.

 When schools started up again in September, and the inevitable cases started up, instead of shutting back down as we should have, we tried to ride it out to allow businesses to catch up. Left unchecked, the infections increased until we finally had to admit that we needed to shut back down. 

 It's frustrating. It's sounding more like we'll be working from home through the winter. Halloween was all but cancelled. We set up a few decoration and gave out candy but only five dedicated kids showed up in the chill rain. 

 Christmas will be rough. The local stores will have a hard time as people will either have to rush together to get their gifts in the final two weeks before the holiday, or will have already bought their gifts online. So far we are still doing well. 

 There are two or three good vaccines that are close to being released, probably early next year, but I wonder how many people will not bother taking them. Our neighbors to the south finished their election. With the final flurry of campaigning as well as their refusal to not gather together for their Thanksgiving, their numbers continue to rise. With the expected crowds for the Black Friday sales, I fear the following weeks will be rough for them.

Painting – Lead it Be

I popped in to one of my local stores last weekend to pick up a pin vise. I’ve been assembling the Marvel/DC Universe figures over the last while and some of the limbs are so thin that they need to be pinned. The weather had warmed up enough that I was also able to prime a bunch of the ones I’ve already assembled.

While there, the owner showed me some figures that he had painted. He knew I used to paint (a lot more than my recent figure painting totals would reflect). These were the first figures that he had painted, having mostly been a card gamer. He had painted some of the Rebel Legion figures in a light green color. He was going for an ‘army men’ look.

I congratulated him a bit for painting but then mentioned that if he hit them with a wash, the details would really pop. We discussed drybrushing a bit as well.


Later, upon reflection, I realized that I had done him a disservice in this. While I would apply a wash and then highlights, as well as basing, he may not want to take these extra steps. In fact, in doing these extra details, it might even take away from his design aesthetic.

I messaged him later and pointed out my error. I circled back and welcomed him into the painting fold, advising him that he had taken his first steps into a larger world. I stressed that he did not need to make any other changes to what he had done, unless he wanted to. I blamed my years of Games Workshop 3-color-standard.

Just a reminder to us to think back to when we first started out painting. We need to celebrate what has been accomplished, and point out the good. If asked, we can give advice to nudge the new painters along the path but they don’t ever have to get to the same destination that we are at or heading to.

I remember seeing a 40K battle at a convention in Regina back in the late 90s. One player had painted his Tyranid army in pastel colors – blue, pink, yellow. A lot of the people walking by did not like it, but I found his sherbet-colored forces quite striking on the table.

Celebration of Life

Because I turned 50 last month, my wife held a celebration of life on Saturday. She cooked up hot dogs and hamburgers, and my mother brought potato salad and coleslaw. She invited a bunch of my friends and we got together around the fire. I had wanted to do a spread of condiments for hot dogs for a while and this was finally the excuse. We had ketchup, mustard, barbeque sauce, and sriracha sauce as well as relish, onions, hot bell peppers, sauerkraut, pickles, and cheese, as well as the two types of buns.


She had also made a trivia contest and scavenger hunt. This allowed those friends who were not able to attend in person to still participate. I thought that this was a brilliant idea. Apparently my friends did not.
One of my friends who was not able to make it sent in some pictures for the scavenger hunt, and my sister did the trivia even though she could not come. My mother, who did come, did the trivia, and had some pictures for the scavenger hunt. The rest of those friends who showed up did neither, and the rest who were not able to able it did not even try the trivia. My kids, who have access to everything from the scavenger hunt at our house did not even try.
We ended up going through the trivia questions (all about me) and I gave the answers provided by my mom and sister, and then the actual answer. My wife had come up with the questions but did not have all the answers. While I normally dislike trivia games that do that, I had fun with this one. It gave me the chance to wax philosophical to my friends.

While it would have been nice to have more friends show up, and more of those who did and didn’t come to have done the scavenger hunt or trivia contest, we still had a good time. We even ended up trying a modified version of Geek Out – another trivia game that only provides questions.
We had two Jeanne’s cakes – marble and banana. We had a lot of food left over. We ended the night having a bonfire and hanging around and chatting. It had rained briefly early in the afternoon but otherwise the weather was very nice, and we were mosquito free.

New new Age of Sigmar

The last two sets of Warhammer were placeholder sets for me. The 7th edition Dwarves vs Goblins starter is still on sprues and I haven’t even opened the 8th edition Elves vs Skaven starter yet. Even though, as an undead player, Nagash was a big character for me I didn’t get the End Times books either.

When they went to Age of Sigmar, it was a clean break for me, and I didn’t pick up anything from it. I’m not a big fan of the new names, and I think the Stormcast Eternals look too much like Space Marines. I’m not even tempted by the new sea elves. Two years in, they are doing a second edition.
The new starter set includes Night Haunts which look very pretty. It’s very tempting.

I do have to say that, in packing away some of the older sets, I saw the starters again. As well, I recently went through some older figures that I was in the process of painting and saw that I have 10 halfling archers, a hot pot artillery set, 20 dwarf slayers, 10 dwarf crossbowmen, 10 dwarf hammerers, as well as some vampires and necromancers, ghouls, and zombies all in various states of base coats. Since the Empire and the Bretonians didn’t really make the jump from the old world, and I’m not a huge fan of the new fire dwarves, I’m not sure how quick I am to finish them.

Approaching end of second quarter century

When you are young, your age is super important to you. A lot of place have age restrictions and as you age are able to do more things. Some things you eventually age out of, but most require you to be at least so old to do.
For the first five years (or at least the last three of those first five), you can track your years on your hand. Below 10, breaking down by years isn’t specific enough so you also track the half years. School makes it easier to track your age, you can add 5 to your grade and usually be right.
You also have the built in milestones. You become a teenager at 13. You can get your driver’s license at 16. You can legally drink at 18 (or 21) as well as vote. At 20 you are no longer a teenager. At 21, you are legal across Canada and the United States.
At 25 you have passed your first quarter century. Some friends that you knew from school have gotten married, and some have had kids. If you went to college or university, you are probably done your program, and should have an idea of what you are doing with your life.
Then it slows down. You still track the big dates every 5 years but don’t really notice it as much. You are probably working with people of a wider spread age group than you have been in school. Kids lump all of you together into a generic ‘old’ category. You get to the point where you have to do the math to figure out exactly how old you are at present on the off-big date years.

Then the second quarter century draws to an end.

By this point you should have a solid idea of what you have been doing with your life. Some people who have gotten married are no longer that way. Some of the kids that you and your friends have had may be getting married or having kids of their own. Some of your friend’s parents and even a few of your friends may have passed on. Some of the injuries you have accumulated over the year have added up and are coming back to revisit you. Health-wise, a lot of us have dropped a step. You no longer spring back from simple injuries and staying up late has more consequences than it used to. The overnighters take a bit longer to recover from.
You have had a lot of time to figure out what is important to you. Some people radically change their lifestyle if they feel the needs aren’t aligning with their goals, either health and diet-wise, or job and relationship wise. The things that we have accumulated start to loom over you as legacies. You might divest of some things that used to be important to you but you haven’t really used in over a decade.
Hopefully by now you have already taken a hard look at your finances and are in a good state. You do still have a bit of time to make a few corrections but you should have your big costs out of the way. Your house, if you have one, should be close to being paid off. You should take some time and really lay down your funerary plans, as it makes it a lot easier on those you leave behind.
Depending on your costs, and what you have saved, you may be looking forward to retiring in the next few years, maybe a bit later, or maybe even not at all. You will still need to find something to keep busy. You probably don’t want to be one of those people who works right until the end, or retires and then dies shortly afterwards.

I am approaching this point. My health is not what it was even 10 years ago, but I’m still feeling okay. I have slowly gotten to the point of taking a second look at my possessions. I can see that they weigh you down, and that your possessions end up owning you, but I am not ready to streamline right down. I am starting to work towards it though.
Making a list of my top 100 games has helped to cut back on my purchases. It has made me aware of what games I already have, and what games I like. Tracking my plays on BGG has shown me what games we actually play, with the caveat that I am trying a lot of unplayed games to see if we like them. If I already have 5 great skirmish, race, or word games, do I really need another? It depends – but I’m giving it a lot more thought now.
The house isn’t as close to being paid off as we would like, and we will need to replace the vehicles in the near future. Hopefully not too near, but certainly in the next 5 years. The storage locker is still a drain, we’ll have to see if we can part with some stuff and bring that down to a smaller locker or even do away with it altogether.

All in all, it has been a pretty good run so far. I look forward to see how much of the next quarter century I will be able to enjoy.

Passport to adventure - renewed!

We used to be able to travel across the border to the states with only a driver’s license for ID. In the last two decades they tightened up security – needing a passport to fly to the U.S., but we were still able to drive across the border with just a license.

Then they tightened up the border as well and we came out with an enhanced ID that you could get instead of getting a passport. Since I don’t fly a lot, I got that instead. It was a bit cheaper, but you had to go for an interview to get it done.

When it was came up to expire in 2012, I was told that I had to interview again. Since we were travelling too soon and their office hours were not good, I was unable to get an appointment before we had to travel so I rushed a 5 year passport.
I then got a renewed enhanced license in the mail.
On the upside, when we went to Disney World last year, my passport was still valid so I didn’t have to get one.

This summer, I kept mentioning that I should probably check to see if I needed to renew it. When I finally got around to digging it out and checking, it turns out that my instincts were right. So I had to scramble to get it renewed before it expired.
The office close at 4:30 pm but I was able to squeak in and get it done in time. I ended up getting a 10 year renewal. This should cover most of my remaining travelling days. It works out to under $20 a year, which I consider a bargain for the ability to go anywhere at a moment’s notice.

Not that I often get a chance to do that. But I could.

Knight Models update - Batman Miniatures, Marvel/DC Universe, Suicide Squad

I did pick up the Flash and Arrow expansion on sale from Miniature Market in January. It has the rules for speedsters, new teams, and vehicles. It only give I got the Black Flash model as a bonus and also purchased a Heath Ledger Joker. The other Jokers look too skinny and I’m not a big fan of the Jared Leto Joker.

I was going to wait to get the Suicide Squad box but Knight Models posted that purchases from them or retailers until Feb 15 would also include a Ben Affleck Batman figure as well as a Bombshell Harley Quinn figure. So I ordered one from a MeepleMart at the end of January. The shipping was super fast – it came within a week but it did not have the extra Harley. There was a bunch of finger pointing between both companies. Knight Models said that MeepleMart should have received a box of the extra figures to send and MeepleMart said that they did not get them and that I should check with Knight Models.
So as a result, even though I bought the set they said during the time they said, Knight Models isn't honoring what they said it would include. I'm disappointed in their customer service in this regard.
Aside from that, the set is great. In contains thirteen figures – enough for two teams – Joker and Task Force X. It also includes a streamlined rulebook, counters, dice, and two stand-up buildings that can be combined into one taller building.

Knight Models also just announced that they are stopping their Marvel Universe line. They are still keeping the DC Universe line which has the same rules. It allows you to use a lot of the major figures from the Batman Miniature game in an easier skirmish game. The Marvel version was on my list to get some teams and try but now it is going to be harder to get so I may have to rethink that. The nice thing was that if I was building scenery for the Batman Miniatures game anyways, I could also use it for the Universe games.
I was going to get the DC Universe Starter for the rules (which are also available online from their site). I put that aside to get the Suicide Squad set first due to the promos. I might still get some starters of the Marvel set, and a few of the figures if they are still available in a few months.

My take on the next step of "better" games.

Tom, Sam, and Zee over at the Dice Tower posted an interesting top 10 list - Top 10 "Better" Games. In it they list alternatives for 10 of the more common ‘regular’ games. If you like the regular game, you would probably also like the alternative game. It’s an interesting idea – but a lot of their choices seem a bit too ‘gamey’ to me.

A lot of newer gamers tend to look down on these more mainstream games. But those of us who grew up before the wave of Magic the Gathering and Settlers of Catan tend to be a bit more open-armed about the ‘classic’ games. We played Monopoly, Scrabble, Yahtzee, and even Risk. We were there when Trivial Pursuit first came out and when Uno proved that you could get people to spend money on a Crazy Eights variant.

My take on the alternative list would be a bit different. It includes a lot more games that would bridge the gap between the mainstream ones and the more obscure specialty games.


Sorry! – a basic ‘take that’ style of game where you interfere with the other players’ pieces and send them home. Trouble is another basic example of this type of game. A good next step game would be Walk the Plank, or even Family Business. Both have you directly affecting the other players’ pieces and play quick enough to play again. Walk the Plank is pirate themed and the simpler game while Family Business is mobster themed and a bit more complex and a bit longer.


Uno! – is basically Crazy 8s. I’m not sure why they singled this game out from the deck of cards but I suppose enough people play just this. You could try Uno Hearts to advance the depth of the rules a bit or even one of the other simple deck games – Spooks, Canasta Caliente, Rook, or even Pit.


Deck of cards – they had this on their lists for Poker or Hearts. Any game that you can play with a deck of cards can be played with a Wizard deck. Besides the Wizard game itself which is a really good trump game, it is basically a deck of cards with 8 extra cards – 4 wizards, and 4 jesters. These can always be removed from the deck if you need less cards for the game.


Cranium – I haven’t actually played one of the many Cranium variations but it is a party game with many parts to it. Depending on which aspect you like of Cranium, there are games which match that. Some good examples would be Tsuro – a simple path making game that can play up to 8 people, and Telestrations – which is more of a party game where you each have a phrase that you have to draw in a booklet, and then pass those around for the next player to guess the phrase, and then draw it.


Scrabble – some people like the word making aspect of this game and some like the grid of it. If you like working with the grid, Quirkle is for you. Iota is similar but with much less expensive pieces. If you prefer the word making, try Quiddler – in which you make words from hand that increases each round but doesn’t allow people to take too long with their turns. Another good game is Word Thief which is older but has been reprinted recently.


Trivial Pursuit – a trivia game. Good replacements are Wits & Wagers – Family – where everyone answers and then you bet who answered closest, or even Timeline: Challenge – which has a variety of games to play with the Timeline cards included – where you have to guess the dates of when things happened.


Clue – a nice deduction game marred by an awkward way of having to move around the board. They do have a card game version that does away with the board and have made some variations in the newer Clue games to address this issue. They can also try Resistance – which is a great deduction game if you have at least 5 people or even Scotland Yard – in which one player has to hide their position and movements from the other players while using train, taxi, and the subway.


Chess – an old classic stylized wargame. Bosworth – is a nice variation that allows up to 4 players and the pieces all move similar to chess pieces. Go is and even older game with even simpler rules than chess but a higher amount of strategy available. Hive is a nice two player game with a lot of strategy and lovely pieces if you aren’t bothered by the bug tiles.


Risk – an area conquest game. Like Clue, it has come out with many variations that change the rules a bit. These players can try Diplomacy – which is a WW1 game that is often described as Risk without the dice. If they like the dice but want more complexity, they can try Fortress America or one of the Axis & Allies boxed games.


Monopoly – a much maligned trading/property game. Most people who have bad experiences with playing this game are simply not using the actual rules. A quick read through the rules may surprise you and might be worth giving it another try. If they like the property trading they can try Catan or even Catan Jr – which allows you to make trades with the board and is a little more forgiving. If they really like bankrupting the other players, they can try Acquire – which is a classic hotel stock game that is still in print.


Yahtzee – you try to get combinations on dice, keeping some and rerolling others. I am not sure how many people still play this one. There are a few variations of this as well, with Yahtzee Free For All being very the best – it plays quick and allows you to steal other player’s scores. But a good game to try is King of Tokyo – which is easier and quicker than King of New York. Both are giant monster battles using a similar dice rolling technique. This one wasn't on their list but deserves to mentioned as well.


If you find that the people you play with are stuck in a rut with the older games, or have family that you only play with occasionally, they can try these games. This should allow them to take the first step into a larger world of gaming and, if they like these, may allow you to expose them to even more esoteric games.

Rainbows - more than just pretty science?

Recently, at the same time as the passing of the same-sex marriage laws in The States, Facebook had a feature that let you change your avatar to add a rainbow effect. One of my friends was upset as she felt that people were changing their avatar even though they didn’t fully support the LGBTQ lifestyle. She was not impressed when I pointed out that some people just like rainbows. She felt that the rainbow was clearly a symbol of the LGBTQ lifestyle and didn’t like people co-opting it.

I didn’t press it with her as it seemed a sore point but it did get me thinking about how many groups has used the rainbow as their symbol over the years.

The bible has the rainbow as a covenant between God and Noah and the Jewish people after destroying the world with a flood.
For the Norse, Bifrost was a rainbow bridge leading from Midgard (Earth) to Asgard.
The rainbow has been linked to the Irish people – with leprechauns having their pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Pink Floyd fans could be seen sporting the rainbow from a prism patch or even the poster based on the 1973 Dark Side of the Moon album.
The LGB, then LGBT, and now LGBTQ movements have been using the rainbow flag, in a few variations since 1978.
If you grew up since the eighties, you probably caught Levar Burton on Reading Rainbow which ran on PBS from 1983 to 2006.
Tom Clancy wrote Rainbow 6 in 1998 about a fictional multinational counter-terrorist unit and a series of video games were based off of it.
In Guiding, the first level – below Brownies, is called Rainbows in the UK. (It is Daisy in the US, and Sparks in Canada)
Skittles has been running their “Taste the rainbow” campaign since 2009.
In 2010 My Little Pony came out with a new series - Friendship is Magic. Included is Rainbow Dash - a pony who has a ‘cutie mark’ on her flank of a rainbow colored lightning bolt.

Tolkien rant

Checking through back posts, I thought that I had posted this one but it looks like I had left it as pending. The rant I have left the way I wrote it back in 2009 – based on the rant I used to use about the book - before all the LOTR movies had been made.

I was a big fan of The Hobbit book and had seen the animated versions of both Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (and The Return of The King) and liked them enough but always felt the LOTR wasn’t as well written as the Hobbit. I think the achievement of making the movies in a live-action format was a wonderful achievement, and that the movies keep very true to the spirit of the books. I just believe that the book weren't very well written.

To explain - behold my rant.


First they're chased by 1 wraith and it's terrible - but they barely escape. Then they're chased by a few wraiths (in Bree) and it's terrible - but they barely escape. Then they're chased by the wraiths on horseback and it's terrible - and they barely escape.

Then they form a Fellowship that lasts the first encounter until they meet a Balrog - which is terrible - and they barely escape - but lose Gandalf. The fellowship then breaks up - never to join again. Boromir dies, Pippin/Merry are captured, Aragorn/Boromir/Legolas chase after them, and Frodo/Sam go off on their own.

A/B/L chase after the orks who have M/P and almost catch them, but then they need horses so they run into the Rohan who give them horses. They find Gandalf who needs a horse but luckily, he's befriended this great horse who helps them out. There's some minor intrigue with Rohan (Grimer Wormtoungue untrustworthy - what a fortuotous name). And then the big battle at Helm's Deep, followed by the bigger battle at Gondor, followed by the really Big Battle at the gates - where they are defeated and going to lose when - luckily, the ring is dropped and they win.

The hobbits (F/S) get to almost where they need to be, get captured and get taken back, and have to go over again. When it comes time to drop their load, Frodo can't even do it, Gollum has to. Oh, and about that ring, even though Gandalf knew about it, and knew what it did, he only now learns that it's The Ring - they one they've all been looking for all this time. But then he wanders off for months and months, gets trapped in a tower, and finally luckily escapes.

Costuming

Cosplayers tend to dress up in costume and act as that character. Costumers tend to dress up in costume but still act normally. While I might throw out some quotes from movies, I remain mostly a costumer.
That said, I need to speak out about costume contests at conventions. I’ve been in a few, my children have been in a few, we’ve both won some contests, and been in contests without winning. Granted, we’ve only been at the small-to-middle-sized conventions so they may have vast differences at the big conventions.

Prizes
The prizes for the contests have been mostly improving over the years. The top prize can usually be a membership to next year’s convention but most of the time it is merchandise. Sometimes, if the convention truly values the costume contest, the prizes make sense – like gift certificates to a local fabric place or the convention dealer’s room, or even theme-related prizes but they are usually random items donated by the dealers in the dealer’s room.
Sometimes they will also give certificates, ribbons, or medals. I know the kids like the ribbons and medals. For me, we’re really not in the contests for the prizes. (Especially with most prizes being what they are). The recognition is more what we are after.

Often they will have some categories in mind – workmanship, junior, group, but a lot of times we have found that they decide on winners and then pick a category to assign them. This helps to cover if there are no costumes in a category and allows them to recognize extra costumes that might miss out by being the second or third in a category. This allowed our friend Sean to win as Best Female Hormonal Response.

Time
While some costumes can be pulled together in short time, a lot of costumers will spend a lot of time working on their costumes. This is not to say that we haven’t been working on the final touches of a costume the night before or even final modifications just before the contest. Any extra time allows for extra touches or tweaking up until the last minute. The bad part about some judging is the amount of time it eats up of the convention. A lot of contests will want you to show up for a walkthrough to show you the contest space and where they will often do some prejudging. Even with this, you have to be there before the contest itself, the entire length of the contest, and then wait around while the judges take their time to decide on the winners. At one convention we were at, that ate up over four hours in a row on a Saturday for the kids’ part of the costume contest. Judges
Often the judges will include the guest, who may or may not know anything about costumes. Sometimes you will also have at least one judge who does know about costuming and will look for details like stitching, materials, and techniques. Hopefully this knowledgeable judge will be at the prejudging and can check for all this at that time. The other judges will often be committee members who have been rounded up to judge without haven been given much instruction.
At the smaller conventions the judging may even be done by crowd response – which can allow a store-bought costume of a popular character to beat a fabulous costume of an obscure character. Sometime the MC will be the judge although it often works quicker if they aren’t.

Prejudging
During the walkthrough the judges will sometimes take the time to inspect the costumes up close and ask questions. This allows them to take their time and helps to speed up the actual contest. This should allow them to have those portions already scored and only require them to note presentation and crowd response during the actual contest and then add them to the totals, but it still seems to take an hour for the judging to finish.

MCs
A good MC can help explain a costume or help to bridge those who don’t have a good write-up or music. A bad MC can distract from a good presentation. We’ve seen an MC treat the costume contest as her own personal stand up routine. They can definitely lead an audience if the judging is by audience response.

So, of the three conventions we go to, while some of us will costume (to varying degrees) at all of them, my daughter only really enters the costume contest at Keycon now. Although, if we get a great costume idea done, we might try again at Valleycon.

Your daughter can't be The Doctor - boo hoo

This gets into some of what people might consider spoilers  - which is always the case when talking about a series that's been around for 50 years - some people may not have seen several years worth.

While I have watched the series since Tom Baker (and Leela) on late night PBS in the eighties, I don't consider myself an expert.  I have friends who are though.  I didn't follow the rest of the doctors as much but have seen episode from all the incarnations.  I watched the American Doctor Who movie when it was on in 1996, and have followed the new series since they brought it back with "Rose" in 2005.  I believe that, if you're not going to watch the entire series from the beginning, "Rose" is the best place to start.


It's been announced that the current actor, Matt Smith, is retiring as The Doctor on the long-lived British series Doctor Who.  Some of the Internet seems to be upset that the new Doctor will not be played by a female actor.  They want to know how they can tell their daughters that she can't be The Doctor but are relegated to being companions as they are female.


Well, if you have watched the series, they have had female Time Lords (Romana) and even male companions (Rory and Adric). "The Doctor" is not really a position but more of a name. It would be like saying you can have a woman be a Green Lantern but not a Hal Jordan.

People say that this answer is a cop out as, since the Time War, there are no more Time Lords.  There were no more Daleks at one point due to the Time War - but that didn't last either.   The Master, another Time Lord also has made appearances since then. It seems that the Time War wasn't quite as final as we were led to believe.

What to tell your daughter?  How about telling her that she cannot become 'the Doctor' as she is already her own person and could no more become 'the Doctor' than she could be you or even her brother. Since neither she, nor you were (probably) born on Gallifrey, she cannot become a Time Lord as she is not already a Time Lord.

If she's more concerned about how she would like to play the Doctor, then she can, all she wants. That's what imagination is for. She could make her own videos and fanfic and be whatever doctor she wants - male or female.  She can dress up as her favorite Doctor as much and go to conventions and be appreciated. 
My son has dressed up as the Matt Smith Doctor and we have run into at least two other women dressed as the same Doctor, here at ComicCon and at ValleyCon.  Besides Fez's being cool, Matt Smith's hair and features seem to lead itself moreso than Christopher Eccleston's did.  Laurie Smith has also dressed up as a convincing Tom Baker version Doctor back in the pre-internet eighties.
  
If she's petulant enough to want to be The Offical Doctor on The Real TV series then you have more important issues to discuss with her - like how the world is inherently unfair and that it incredibly unlikely her, or even her brother will ever play a character that less than 20 professional actors out of a population of several billion have played.

Passport to adventure?

Since we don’t really travel beyond our borders except for the occasional trip down to Fargo, I never needed a passport. The one time I flew, to Vegas for the GAMA Trade Show, was back in 2000 so we didn’t need passports yet.


When the requirements came around for greater security when crossing the border by car, instead of getting a passport, I opted for an Enhanced ID card. Besides being cheaper, it was much more convenient to get. With the RFID chip and the sleeve to block the RFID signal, I don’t usually keep the card with me – and opted not to change my Driver’s License over to one that included the Enhanced ID.

I only use the Enhanced ID when I cross into the States and don’t use it the rest of the year. I had neglected to check last year after we got back and didn’t notice that it had expired.

When I went to renew it, I was told that it was too late to renew it and that I would have to go down and re-apply again – meaning that I wouldn’t get my card back in time to go to the states last weekend. Frustrating – but totally my fault.

So I had to rush to apply for a passport and then rush downtown to drop it off and pay extra for the faster service to ensure it was here it time. I had to pop down last Thursday to get it.

So, what do I get in the mail last week Tuesday? An Enhanced ID. The renewed one that they said they couldn’t do in time and without me having to go down and re-interview.

dial of the times

Back in the day, the odometers on cars used to actually be a series of dials. As the lower dials rolled past nine back to zero, the dial to the left would increment one as well. This became more fun when you ‘rolled it’ or went from 99999.9 to 00000.0 (as they didn’t show hundreds of thousands).   I remember seeing it happen a few times from when I was a youth and it always left an impression on me.



So on the old car, when we came close to rolling the odometer, we piled the kids in the backseat and drove around the Safeway parking lot a bit until it rolled over so they could see.

 

With the van, I recently ‘rolled it’ from 199,000 to 200,000. 

With the new digital odometers, it’s not nearly as cool.

Penny, ... penny, ...penny.

They are pressing the last pennies today.  

I still blame you.

Well, the blue party took the power from their majority win and went ahead and did it.  They have phased out part of our currency.  Granted, the pennies cost more to make then they are worth, but metal currency also lasts longer than paper currency - which is why they replaced our paper ones and twos with loonies and twonies (and why they are talking about doing the same to the five).  But most people kept socking them away in jars instead of actually using them.

 The old pennies will still be legal tender for years but they will no longer make any more new ones.  Pennies that are still in circulation can still be used.  Maybe this will get some of you to cash in some of the bowls and jars of pennies you are hording.  Purchases will be rounded off to the nearest penny for anyone paying by cash.  Payments by cheque, debit, or plastic will still be exact change.

I am so ashamed of our country for doing this.  I can't believe we let this happen.

Fair warning to you all.  The penny will remain on any scavenger hunt list I make for quite a while – so save at least one.