my own worst enemy

Skype!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

If you haven't discovered Skype yet, you are living in the Dark Ages my friend. "What is Skype?"
you ask. Well, let me educate you, caveman. Stop looking at those shadows on the wall and come see the light. Skype is a free internet service that allows you to make video calls to your friends anywhere in the world. "But Goat, I already do that with AIM or Yahoo Messenger." Yeah, Ginger and I were using Yahoo but it didn't have audio, and it didn't let you go full screen on the video. iChat and AIM weren't compatible with Ginger's webcam. And then came Skype, fulfilling our video teleconferencing (VTC, to you non-engineers) dreams.


If you have a webcam already, go download Skype now (http://www.skype.com). If you don't have a webcam, get in your car and drive to Best Buy and shell out the $30 for the cheapest one. And when you get it all set up you can call me. My username is "TheNDGoat".

Author: Goat » Comments:

Tone-tastic!

Monday, November 19, 2007

There have been several developing stories amongst my fellow Tones as of late, and I figure it's time to report them to you, my loyal readers. *crickets chirping*

Okay, this one I've been waiting like two weeks to tell y'all about so I wouldn't be stealing his thunder. But seeing as how he finally announced it to everyone today...

Cahk is getting married!!

That's right, Rooster and Christine are officially engaged. He popped the question the last weekend in October. I got a call from him the next week asking me to be one of his groomsmen, which is super-sweet. This is the first wedding I've been asked to be in the wedding party since I was ring-bearer at a couple of my cousins' weddings. I don't know yet who else is in the wedding party besides his buddy Hen, but I can already tell it's going to be a hell of a good time. Between Rooster and Animal's weddings, I'm going to make up for not going to ND once this fall. Pack your drinking pants, folks.

Also in the world of Tones, we made contact with da BooBoo thanks to a fortuitous email mishap. Turns out Malibu is married now and living happily with the wife in Cincinatti. Sure, it's no Steubenville ("DON'T CALL IT STUPID-VILLE!"), but I guess it works. Congrats, BooBoo!

Labels: All my friends are getting married, Domers, e-mail, Tones

Author: Goat » Comments:

Take Two

Monday, November 12, 2007

Pangle introduced me to a sweet new game a while back called Take Two. Admittedly, Matty GP introduced her to it -- it was a game he and his 12 siblings played as kids. It cheap, easy to learn, and addicting as hell. Here's how you play:

What you need:

A set of Scrabble tiles (just the tiles, no board)
A flat playing surface, preferably a large table

How to play:

Start by laying all the tiles face down in the middle of the playing surface. Mix up the letters. Each player selects 7 tiles and places them face-down in the palm of their hand (don't look!). When each player has their tiles in hand, someone says "Go!" and everyone flips their hand over onto the table so the tiles are now face up.


The object is to form a crossword using all of your letters -- i.e., imagine you are playing Scrabble by yourself, positioning word after word, only you have to use all seven letters. All standard Scrabble rules apply. House rules generally dictate that the "Q" tile counts as "Qu" for the sake of player sanity, and the well-being of the player who gets all the "U" tiles.

The first person to use all seven letters yells "Take Two!" Every player then takes two more tiles, regardless of whether or not they finished using the first seven.


Now each player must use all nine tiles to form a new crossword. Players can build off the crossword they already built or rearrange any or all of the tiles to make a new one.


The first player to use all their tiles shouts "Take Two!". Every player again takes two more tiles. This continues until all of the Scrabble tiles in the center of the playing surface are gone.

If a player shouts "Take Two!" and there are no tiles left (or not enough for everyone to take two), then that player is the winner of the round. You can keep score of how many rounds each player wins, or just play for the fun of it.

The rounds are hectic and a little nerve-wracking, especially if you fall behind the person shouting "Take Two". Often times the winner of a round is different than the person who shouted "Take Two!" the most, so don't get flustered. Also, sometimes you have to be willing to abandon the words you already have to fit in the new letters. And even if you don't win one round, there's another one coming in a matter of minutes.

A group of us played last night for about two hours, and if it hadn't been for work today we would have played longer.

Labels: I'm a big nerd, Pangalicious, weekend

Author: Goat » Comments: