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[NOTICE: This may be one of the most boring LJ entries ever. Skip it now. Don't say you weren't warned!]
Day three of the George Orwell Tea Challenge. I think that I now know what smokers feel like when they try to quit. As I drink my tea each morning -- living in England, we have daily meetings at 11am over tea -- I find myself craving my sugar.
I have, at least, learned one very important lesson: Although I may be able to tolerate black Earl Grey without sugar, I should not drink Early Grey with milk and no sugar. I tried this yesterday, since my usual cup contains both milk and sugar, and regretted it almost immediately. The stuff was nearly undrinkable! Not quite as bad as warm Mountain Dew (or flat Mountain Dew or diet Mountain Dew or using Mountain Dew to wet your toothpaste), but pretty close!
I also find myself wondering if it is a good test to take the George Orwell challenge while basically ignoring ten of his eleven golden rules on making a good cup of tea. For instance, I am drinking Earl Grey, which is a Chinese tea, and that specifically violates his rule on sticking to Indian or Ceylonese teas. Ah well, in for a penny in for a pound. It is too late to turn back now!
On a completely and utterly unrelated note, here is an update on games that I have recently played. I realize that nobody cares -- why should they? -- but I like to keep a record of the games that I play. I usually do it during the course of ordinary updates, but I seem to have been very bad about basic journaling of late. Ah well.
Anyway, here goes: When I was in Vegas, visiting with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kat1031 and satorisearching, I learned to play Iron Dragon. I had seen the game before, as xirpha has brought it to parties at the Event Horizon, but had never played it. Surprisingly, even though it was my first game, I did not win. I came close, and held the lead for some time, but the luck of the cards was against me. satorisearching won with over 250 gold, while I came in second with 202 (one valuable delivery away from a win), and kat1031 had about 184 gold.
Since returning to Oxford on Saturday afternoon, I have played a fair number of games. C&M came over on Saturday evening, and I played my first game of Puerto Rico in over a month. Good to get my fix! I won, with 59 points... butcheshcat came in a very close second with 58 points! Whew!
On Sunday, as part of our anniversary,cheshcat and I learned to play Carcassonne: The Castle, which is a two player version of Carcassonne. She had gotten it for me last Yule, as we were trying to increase the number of two player games at Skullcrusher Mountain, but we did not play it until now. We played two games, one before seeing Harry Potter V and one after. I won both, but we each improved from the first game to the second. I suspect that it will not be long until cheshcat is easily able to give me a run for my proverbial money in this game.
Finally, last nightcheshcat and I broke out the Skip-Bo deck and played two games. The first was very close, but I managed to pull out ahead in the end. The second was very strongly influenced by luck, and I won by a large margin.
Still here? Why? I did say that this would be just about the most boring LJ entry ever, didn't I?
Day three of the George Orwell Tea Challenge. I think that I now know what smokers feel like when they try to quit. As I drink my tea each morning -- living in England, we have daily meetings at 11am over tea -- I find myself craving my sugar.
I have, at least, learned one very important lesson: Although I may be able to tolerate black Earl Grey without sugar, I should not drink Early Grey with milk and no sugar. I tried this yesterday, since my usual cup contains both milk and sugar, and regretted it almost immediately. The stuff was nearly undrinkable! Not quite as bad as warm Mountain Dew (or flat Mountain Dew or diet Mountain Dew or using Mountain Dew to wet your toothpaste), but pretty close!
I also find myself wondering if it is a good test to take the George Orwell challenge while basically ignoring ten of his eleven golden rules on making a good cup of tea. For instance, I am drinking Earl Grey, which is a Chinese tea, and that specifically violates his rule on sticking to Indian or Ceylonese teas. Ah well, in for a penny in for a pound. It is too late to turn back now!
On a completely and utterly unrelated note, here is an update on games that I have recently played. I realize that nobody cares -- why should they? -- but I like to keep a record of the games that I play. I usually do it during the course of ordinary updates, but I seem to have been very bad about basic journaling of late. Ah well.
Anyway, here goes: When I was in Vegas, visiting with
kat1031 and satorisearching, I learned to play Iron Dragon. I had seen the game before, as xirpha has brought it to parties at the Event Horizon, but had never played it. Surprisingly, even though it was my first game, I did not win. I came close, and held the lead for some time, but the luck of the cards was against me. satorisearching won with over 250 gold, while I came in second with 202 (one valuable delivery away from a win), and kat1031 had about 184 gold.Since returning to Oxford on Saturday afternoon, I have played a fair number of games. C&M came over on Saturday evening, and I played my first game of Puerto Rico in over a month. Good to get my fix! I won, with 59 points... but
cheshcat came in a very close second with 58 points! Whew!On Sunday, as part of our anniversary,
cheshcat and I learned to play Carcassonne: The Castle, which is a two player version of Carcassonne. She had gotten it for me last Yule, as we were trying to increase the number of two player games at Skullcrusher Mountain, but we did not play it until now. We played two games, one before seeing Harry Potter V and one after. I won both, but we each improved from the first game to the second. I suspect that it will not be long until cheshcat is easily able to give me a run for my proverbial money in this game.Finally, last night
cheshcat and I broke out the Skip-Bo deck and played two games. The first was very close, but I managed to pull out ahead in the end. The second was very strongly influenced by luck, and I won by a large margin.Still here? Why? I did say that this would be just about the most boring LJ entry ever, didn't I?
