"It's DES-car-teez. He was Greek."
Jul. 16th, 2004 06:56 pmBleh, no time to update yesterday. Anyway, to start with Josh's lecture (2 days ago at this point)...
It mostly went well - well, except for the constant throwing of chalk - but at one point when Josh said "Euler", somebody insisted it was pronounced "Yuler". This of course soon devolved into a big argument between those who decided to pronounce it correctly and those who for whatever reason decided to go ahead and call him "Yuler" (and of course those one or two people who actually did think it was pronounced that way) (not to mention I'm sure at least one person brought up the Russian pronunciation, A-ler). Anyway it got back under control, but whenever Josh said "Euler" (or "Yuler") someone would insist it was the other, so eventually he just resorted to calling him "that Swiss guy" (at which point, of course, Etienne insisted that was actually *him*). When at one point Josh referred to Descartes, Liz supplied us with the title of this entry.
After the lecture we came back to find Etienne's door left slightly open (actually slightly open, not just unlocked). We figured this was the perfect opportunity to play some sort of prank on him, though we didn't really know what. Eventually we moved the couch into his room, and had Xiao and Funto hide in the closet, ready to jump out. I'm not sure what the point of the couch was. Also soon after Funto decided not to hide anymore, so just Xiao was. And he stayed there. Etienne didn't arrive for several hours. When Xiao came out, we made him go back in. Eventually Josh arrived, and we told him, and he asked just what Xiao was doing in there. "Nothing." So he's not working in there with a flashlight? He told Xiao to go get some work to do in there. He didn't have a flashlight, so he brought in his laptop to work on instead.
...finally Etienne arrived. "Why is my door unlocked?" he asked. I had thought we should lock it, but the others figured he would probably know that he had left his door slightly open and so we should leave it so. Oh well. Anyway, he realized something is up, as we're all kind of crowding around near his room. He goes in, and finds - a couch! "OK, I have no problem with that," he says, and moves it to be in front of his desk. But we're still watching him, he knows something else is going on. Eventually he closes the door. We crowd around. We're wondering why Xiao hasn't jumped out yet... Funto even shouts something along the lines of "Attack!" essentially telling him to jump out, but he doesn't. Eventually Etienne opens the door again. He sees us still crowded around us. According to Xiao (in his LJ (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ahhhdontpokeme), someone made some sort of signal towards the closet.
He opens the closet, confused... while looking at us. Then suddenly a hand appears and pokes Etienne! ...so, yeah, I suppose we scared him. Etienne got Xiao's laptop, though. Xiao got it back, but I wasn't watching then... see his LJ for that story.
As for yesterday.
Cameron was actually at lecture yesterday, and for a very specific reason - they did the skit! Justin was Arthur/Justin/Billy. (Did anybody else do that?) Yaaay!
After the utter screw-up last week, we had thought of getting permission to do it ourselves, but when we asked about it, we were told it was being taken care of... and it was!
There was also a mandatory guest lecture yesterday. It was called "Unique factorization and Diophantine equations". It was... ungood. Did anyone really learn anything from it, other than the horribly general technique of trying to solve equations by putting them in Z[√n] (where n is something convenient) instead of in Z? A lot of the stuff he did didn't really work... which I think was part of the point. I think. It was confusing. I didn't really pay attention. Also he alerted the first years to the fact that there could be Z[√n] where UPF doesn't hold. Of course we were accidentally told that too[0], but not so early, and at least that was by counselors.
Anyway, yesterday's Mandatory Fun was Casino Night, much less organized than last year's, not necessarily a bad thing. Of course last year's could hardly be called organized either, but this was even less so. It was in Franklin instead of the basement, not everybody got the money[3]. Also Evan decided to put definite restrictions on what games could be played; he put signs up at the different places where they were supposed to be played[5]. There was also a sign explicitly banning Mafia for the duration of Casino Night/Game Night (until 23:00)[6]. I wanted to play Puerto Rico, but we couldn't get players. There was nobody playing Blackjack or 24 or SoC either. The problem was that only a small number of people were actually there. There was a game of Kriegspiel[4], which was very interesting to watch, though I only saw part of it. The Diplomacy game actually ended up being in the East Lounge, so you couldn't really get up and look at it that easily. Apparently after a while it just ended when everyone decided it was getting boring.
At first I was just trying to get players for Puerto Rico (while most of my friends played Munchkin). That fell apart, as you know. Eventually we found some people who wanted to play Illuminati. I didn't really want to play, but I had nothing better to do... anyway I was stuck with explaining the rules, but I got my voice back eventually. We had 8 people, so we split into 2 games. My game was me, Evan, Anton, and Svetlana, me being the only of those 4 that had played before. We had the Y2K deck. The other game was Josh, Chris, NonDustin Dan[8], and Mung. Wait, Mung must have replaced someone... it was supposed to be that Josh and Chris were the only ones in that game who had played before. Well, I don't know who he replaced. They didn't have the Y2K expansion.
Chris's game had an interesting ending. Josh (Cthulhu) had eliminated Mung earlier. Now, everybody (remaining, that is :P ) was 2 away from their special goal; Josh suggested they all be allowed to get to 1 away! It sounds crazy, but they did it. After Josh destroyed his 7th group, he spent a lot of time asking the other players if he could take this group, if he could take that group, they all figured he was up to something (seeing as how he was smiling so much) and of course wouldn't let him, so eventually he just gave up and said, "OK. I win." What Chris forgot, and what Dan didn't know because I forgot it too when explaining the rules, was that eliminating a player counts as destroying a group! Josh *already* had destroyed 7 groups.
As for our game... it ended when Svetlana (Zurich) wouldn't spend her part to prevent Etienne from winning. She insisted she would not reduce herself below 100 MB! "You're Zurich, you're *supposed* to have less than that!" "You have way more money than either of us, you should spend the most!" "If you don't do this, you're going to lose!". Anyway she inisted Evan and I do all the defense, which we didn't have enough money to do. I said I wasn't spending until she was; she should spent about twice as much as me. Evan had by this point gotten up and left to do other things, though still actually playing. Finally, I said, "This is ridiculous. Just roll." And so Etienne won. "In other words", Josh said when I told him, "You played chicken and crashed into each other." I suppose so, but I think it's pretty clear Ebay should have spent considerably more? Etienne most probably would have won soon anyway, but not necessarily...
I was so annoyed I didn't bother to take down the power structures for that game.
Then I joined Mafia. No particularly interesting stories there - not that I can remember or tell right, anyway. During one game I actually fell asleep for a moment during the night. That was the last game I played, unsurprisingly. :P
As for today... not very eventful so far. My back has been hurting all day. I actually did work (yes, on a Saturday!). Pinyan will be back again tonight.
Hm. Did I just miss dinner?
-Sniffnoy
[0]"Um um um um... that is classified."
[3]The fake money, with pictures of Dustin, Lorelei, and what looked like Lorelei but I'm told was actually Glenn.
[4]Not quite with the rules listed there, but nearly.
[5]Including comments about the games. Diplomacy: "The very best game ever." Munchkin: "Not so great if you've already seen the cards." Blackjack: "24 is a better game than 21." SoC: "Nearly as good as Puerto Rico." The "No Mafia" sign: "It's a lame game anyway." Illuminati: "Don't worry, Josh won't be playing." (This turned out not to be true.) Puerto Rico: "Don't worry, Evan won't be playing." (Well, seeing as *nobody* played... (though Evan *was* going to play, considering we had such trouble finding players.))
[6]This really annoyed Pinyan when he arrived, as he couldn't stay past curfew...
[8]All the Dans are getting nicknames, so they can be told apart. Dan Rubin doesn't need one, he's just Dan Rubin, Dan Le... nobody cares about him, that leaves the 4 first year Dans. (And ODan, I suppose, but he already has a nickname.) One of those 4, well, nobody cares about him either. That leaves NonDustin Dan (the only Dan not to have Dustin as his counselor), Abandon Dan (who got his nickname at Dustin's lecture) and Tan Dan, whose name is self-explanatory.
--
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve
immortality through not dying."
-Woody Allen
It mostly went well - well, except for the constant throwing of chalk - but at one point when Josh said "Euler", somebody insisted it was pronounced "Yuler". This of course soon devolved into a big argument between those who decided to pronounce it correctly and those who for whatever reason decided to go ahead and call him "Yuler" (and of course those one or two people who actually did think it was pronounced that way) (not to mention I'm sure at least one person brought up the Russian pronunciation, A-ler). Anyway it got back under control, but whenever Josh said "Euler" (or "Yuler") someone would insist it was the other, so eventually he just resorted to calling him "that Swiss guy" (at which point, of course, Etienne insisted that was actually *him*). When at one point Josh referred to Descartes, Liz supplied us with the title of this entry.
After the lecture we came back to find Etienne's door left slightly open (actually slightly open, not just unlocked). We figured this was the perfect opportunity to play some sort of prank on him, though we didn't really know what. Eventually we moved the couch into his room, and had Xiao and Funto hide in the closet, ready to jump out. I'm not sure what the point of the couch was. Also soon after Funto decided not to hide anymore, so just Xiao was. And he stayed there. Etienne didn't arrive for several hours. When Xiao came out, we made him go back in. Eventually Josh arrived, and we told him, and he asked just what Xiao was doing in there. "Nothing." So he's not working in there with a flashlight? He told Xiao to go get some work to do in there. He didn't have a flashlight, so he brought in his laptop to work on instead.
...finally Etienne arrived. "Why is my door unlocked?" he asked. I had thought we should lock it, but the others figured he would probably know that he had left his door slightly open and so we should leave it so. Oh well. Anyway, he realized something is up, as we're all kind of crowding around near his room. He goes in, and finds - a couch! "OK, I have no problem with that," he says, and moves it to be in front of his desk. But we're still watching him, he knows something else is going on. Eventually he closes the door. We crowd around. We're wondering why Xiao hasn't jumped out yet... Funto even shouts something along the lines of "Attack!" essentially telling him to jump out, but he doesn't. Eventually Etienne opens the door again. He sees us still crowded around us. According to Xiao (in his LJ (
ahhhdontpokeme), someone made some sort of signal towards the closet. He opens the closet, confused... while looking at us. Then suddenly a hand appears and pokes Etienne! ...so, yeah, I suppose we scared him. Etienne got Xiao's laptop, though. Xiao got it back, but I wasn't watching then... see his LJ for that story.
As for yesterday.
Cameron was actually at lecture yesterday, and for a very specific reason - they did the skit! Justin was Arthur/Justin/Billy. (Did anybody else do that?) Yaaay!
After the utter screw-up last week, we had thought of getting permission to do it ourselves, but when we asked about it, we were told it was being taken care of... and it was!
There was also a mandatory guest lecture yesterday. It was called "Unique factorization and Diophantine equations". It was... ungood. Did anyone really learn anything from it, other than the horribly general technique of trying to solve equations by putting them in Z[√n] (where n is something convenient) instead of in Z? A lot of the stuff he did didn't really work... which I think was part of the point. I think. It was confusing. I didn't really pay attention. Also he alerted the first years to the fact that there could be Z[√n] where UPF doesn't hold. Of course we were accidentally told that too[0], but not so early, and at least that was by counselors.
Anyway, yesterday's Mandatory Fun was Casino Night, much less organized than last year's, not necessarily a bad thing. Of course last year's could hardly be called organized either, but this was even less so. It was in Franklin instead of the basement, not everybody got the money[3]. Also Evan decided to put definite restrictions on what games could be played; he put signs up at the different places where they were supposed to be played[5]. There was also a sign explicitly banning Mafia for the duration of Casino Night/Game Night (until 23:00)[6]. I wanted to play Puerto Rico, but we couldn't get players. There was nobody playing Blackjack or 24 or SoC either. The problem was that only a small number of people were actually there. There was a game of Kriegspiel[4], which was very interesting to watch, though I only saw part of it. The Diplomacy game actually ended up being in the East Lounge, so you couldn't really get up and look at it that easily. Apparently after a while it just ended when everyone decided it was getting boring.
At first I was just trying to get players for Puerto Rico (while most of my friends played Munchkin). That fell apart, as you know. Eventually we found some people who wanted to play Illuminati. I didn't really want to play, but I had nothing better to do... anyway I was stuck with explaining the rules, but I got my voice back eventually. We had 8 people, so we split into 2 games. My game was me, Evan, Anton, and Svetlana, me being the only of those 4 that had played before. We had the Y2K deck. The other game was Josh, Chris, NonDustin Dan[8], and Mung. Wait, Mung must have replaced someone... it was supposed to be that Josh and Chris were the only ones in that game who had played before. Well, I don't know who he replaced. They didn't have the Y2K expansion.
Chris's game had an interesting ending. Josh (Cthulhu) had eliminated Mung earlier. Now, everybody (remaining, that is :P ) was 2 away from their special goal; Josh suggested they all be allowed to get to 1 away! It sounds crazy, but they did it. After Josh destroyed his 7th group, he spent a lot of time asking the other players if he could take this group, if he could take that group, they all figured he was up to something (seeing as how he was smiling so much) and of course wouldn't let him, so eventually he just gave up and said, "OK. I win." What Chris forgot, and what Dan didn't know because I forgot it too when explaining the rules, was that eliminating a player counts as destroying a group! Josh *already* had destroyed 7 groups.
As for our game... it ended when Svetlana (Zurich) wouldn't spend her part to prevent Etienne from winning. She insisted she would not reduce herself below 100 MB! "You're Zurich, you're *supposed* to have less than that!" "You have way more money than either of us, you should spend the most!" "If you don't do this, you're going to lose!". Anyway she inisted Evan and I do all the defense, which we didn't have enough money to do. I said I wasn't spending until she was; she should spent about twice as much as me. Evan had by this point gotten up and left to do other things, though still actually playing. Finally, I said, "This is ridiculous. Just roll." And so Etienne won. "In other words", Josh said when I told him, "You played chicken and crashed into each other." I suppose so, but I think it's pretty clear Ebay should have spent considerably more? Etienne most probably would have won soon anyway, but not necessarily...
I was so annoyed I didn't bother to take down the power structures for that game.
Then I joined Mafia. No particularly interesting stories there - not that I can remember or tell right, anyway. During one game I actually fell asleep for a moment during the night. That was the last game I played, unsurprisingly. :P
As for today... not very eventful so far. My back has been hurting all day. I actually did work (yes, on a Saturday!). Pinyan will be back again tonight.
Hm. Did I just miss dinner?
-Sniffnoy
[0]"Um um um um... that is classified."
[3]The fake money, with pictures of Dustin, Lorelei, and what looked like Lorelei but I'm told was actually Glenn.
[4]Not quite with the rules listed there, but nearly.
[5]Including comments about the games. Diplomacy: "The very best game ever." Munchkin: "Not so great if you've already seen the cards." Blackjack: "24 is a better game than 21." SoC: "Nearly as good as Puerto Rico." The "No Mafia" sign: "It's a lame game anyway." Illuminati: "Don't worry, Josh won't be playing." (This turned out not to be true.) Puerto Rico: "Don't worry, Evan won't be playing." (Well, seeing as *nobody* played... (though Evan *was* going to play, considering we had such trouble finding players.))
[6]This really annoyed Pinyan when he arrived, as he couldn't stay past curfew...
[8]All the Dans are getting nicknames, so they can be told apart. Dan Rubin doesn't need one, he's just Dan Rubin, Dan Le... nobody cares about him, that leaves the 4 first year Dans. (And ODan, I suppose, but he already has a nickname.) One of those 4, well, nobody cares about him either. That leaves NonDustin Dan (the only Dan not to have Dustin as his counselor), Abandon Dan (who got his nickname at Dustin's lecture) and Tan Dan, whose name is self-explanatory.
--
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve
immortality through not dying."
-Woody Allen
