In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2) by SIGNYM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Back and done for today. Supper on which is chicken wings but I don't know what else. And some luck at mah jong. I got 3rd place today. Finished with 4,040 points. Not bad as no one had huge scores. 1st went to the head of the group and she only had 5,000points.2nd was only 300 more than me.
Wow, this really IS a game of chance, isn't it? Sometimes all of the points land in one person's hands. And sometimes, like now, they divide almost evenly.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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It is true. A week ago one lady had over 11,000 points and so she got first.

I have had Thursdays were I can't even break 1,000 and everyone around me can.

It can be a very hard game to judge where certain tiles are. Sometimes at the end of a round we'll pick up what tiles remain to see where certain things were and sometimes that one piece you need is at the very end of the run. Now, that can get frustrating let me tell you.

But it's also what keep people coming back to the game because each hand is different. You can go from a really bad hand and get all the tiles you need and finish with a great hand. Then other times no way, no matter what you do it is the wrong thing.

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Friday, May 17, 2024 1:32 PM

Out for my walk. Need a couple of small things today.

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Friday, May 17, 2024 4:42 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Back and done for today. Supper on which is chicken wings but I don't know what else. And some luck at mah jong. I got 3rd place today. Finished with 4,040 points. Not bad as no one had huge scores. 1st went to the head of the group and she only had 5,000points.2nd was only 300 more than me.

SIGNY: Wow, this really IS a game of chance, isn't it? Sometimes all of the points land in one person's hands. And sometimes, like now, they divide almost evenly.

BRENDA: It is true. A week ago one lady had over 11,000 points and so she got first.

I have had Thursdays were I can't even break 1,000 and everyone around me can.

It can be a very hard game to judge where certain tiles are. Sometimes at the end of a round we'll pick up what tiles remain to see where certain things were and sometimes that one piece you need is at the very end of the run. Now, that can get frustrating let me tell you.

But it's also what keep people coming back to the game because each hand is different. You can go from a really bad hand and get all the tiles you need and finish with a great hand. Then other times no way, no matter what you do it is the wrong thing.

I don't know if I could deal with that level of uncertainty and frustration!

A good reason not to speculate in the markets.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
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Friday, May 17, 2024 5:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Back and done for today. Supper on which is chicken wings but I don't know what else. And some luck at mah jong. I got 3rd place today. Finished with 4,040 points. Not bad as no one had huge scores. 1st went to the head of the group and she only had 5,000points.2nd was only 300 more than me.

SIGNY: Wow, this really IS a game of chance, isn't it? Sometimes all of the points land in one person's hands. And sometimes, like now, they divide almost evenly.

BRENDA: It is true. A week ago one lady had over 11,000 points and so she got first.

I have had Thursdays were I can't even break 1,000 and everyone around me can.

It can be a very hard game to judge where certain tiles are. Sometimes at the end of a round we'll pick up what tiles remain to see where certain things were and sometimes that one piece you need is at the very end of the run. Now, that can get frustrating let me tell you.

But it's also what keep people coming back to the game because each hand is different. You can go from a really bad hand and get all the tiles you need and finish with a great hand. Then other times no way, no matter what you do it is the wrong thing.

I don't know if I could deal with that level of uncertainty and frustration!
A good reason not to speculate in the markets.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

That's why they call it gambling. You lay down your money and take your chances.

Stock market is too rich for my blood. I'll stick to mah jong.

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Friday, May 17, 2024 5:03 PM

Back and done for today. Got a bit of breeze blowing outside.

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Friday, May 17, 2024 5:44 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Well, the windows and door are in, shimmed, and functional. Mr Contractor is going to come back next week to finish the casing.

But while he and his crew were here, I asked him if they could dispose of a large pile of concrete rubble that's been piled up along our back wall for 15+ years, for which i would pay extra. Leftovers from when we had an outdoor patio/ pergola and step taken out. Most of the concrete was cut into 1' wide blocks that separate a garden area from the lawn. But there was a LOT of broken pieces left over, some of them very large and heavy. (I tried shifting one. I also tried breaking some apart. It's very heavy, high quality concrete!) So, THAT'S gone!

And he and his tile guy went to re-look at our bathrooms again. Also way cool.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
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Saturday, May 18, 2024 9:30 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I have, according to wunderground forecast, 10 days of "May gray" (highs 68-71) ahead of me, which is perfect for yardwork.

I did manage to get out for over an hour to start weeding the veggie patch (again). My original goal was to clear just enough for three tomatoes and three zucchini, but it looks so much better that Ill probably do up to where I laid tarp last year then weedproof with builder's paper. Two more days for weeding and one for raking and weedproofing and one for planting?

Then back to the front yard.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
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Saturday, May 18, 2024 1:04 PM

Mah Jong sounds too luck based for me. I haven't played it in ages, but I really loved playing Spades. But only with the official rules, which most people who play spades don't use, which is frustrating. It seems that everyone has their own "house rules" they play with. Spades when played by the rules is the Perfect Game. Any house rules completely unbalances it and it's not even worth playing if you deviate from any one of the established rules.

What I like about Spades is that you can be dealt a terrible, terrible hand, but if you have a partner that you trust knows how to play and you can both read each other, you have the option of going "Nil", which means that your team gets an additional 100 points in a race to 500 points for that round if you manage not to allow the other side to force you to take a trick and your partner can cover your hand. You also get any points your partner makes for predicting how many tricks they'd get.

You get 10 points for every trick you predicted, and 1 point for any trick above your prediction, and those single points are bad. If you get 10 single points at any time in the game you lose 100 points for the team. But bidding too high is even worse since you lose 10 points for every trick you predicted if you don't manage to make all of them. ie: If you bid 6 and your partner bids 2, you lose 80 points for the round if you only take 7 tricks or less.

The bad scenarios is if you got your hand and you were going to go nil and then your partner before you goes nil. It doesn't happen very often at all, but that likely means that your opponents have a vast majority of the good cards and the best you really can hope to do is cover your partner's nil and not pick up too many single points and hope for better luck next round. The worst situation is when you look at your hand and know that you have a perfect Nil and you know that you have to also bid Nil because there's no way that you can cover anything. There's almost zero chance that you're both going to get that Nil, although I have seen that happen once or twice. What you're doing here is just ensuring that your 100 points will cancel out the 100 points that your partner's Nil is going to lose when it busts.

The better players will bid Nil with hands that are questionable and would require smart play by their partner to cover, but that can bite you when your partner is left with absolutely nothing... like a hand with Jack High and only a low spade or two.

The biggest game-changer is the "Double Nil". Its when you predict that you won't get a single trick before you look at the cards. There's only two situations where doing this makes any sense at all. One is the hail Mary when it's obvious that your opponents are going to win this round without using it, but that extra 200 points could win the game for you if you manage it. The other, more reliable Double Nil is when you're the last of 4 to make your bet and there's already 11, 12, or 13 tricks claimed by the other 3 players. Even better if your partner has a good amount of them, but that almost doesn't matter at 12 or 13 tricks.* Be careful though... If you turn up the Queen or King of Spades after making that Double Nil proclamation you could be in trouble if your partner doesn't hold the Ace. And if you get the Ace... damn... You just lost 200 points.

* When I played, if I was the 3rd person to place my bid that round and I had such a great hand where my legitimate bid would have made the amount of tricks add up to 12 or 13, I'd always bid 1 or 2 less than I had, as not to incentivize player number 4 to bid Double Nil. It is still possible not to take those extra tricks by sniping some of your players high cards, but even if you get stuck with 2 or 3 single points that could make you lose 100 points when you get to 10, it's better than allowing the other team to run away with the game by pulling out an early Double Nil for 200 points. A Double Nil they wouldn't have any incentive to try if you lowballed your own bid by a few tricks.

I used to play it on Yahoo! Games all the time way back in the day and was in the upper echelon of the leaderboard there. It was a sad day when Yahoo! Games disappeared. I've tried some other spades services from time to time and although they all look very impressive compared to the simple Yahoo layout, it's just not the same. Matching up with players you played well with is all but impossible to do on these other sites, and all of the ranking data just isn't as great as it was over at Yahoo.

So yeah... like any game of cards there is an element of chance... But I feel that whoever came up with the official rules for Spades did an excellent job balancing that out as much as possibly could be done. A good player can thrive off of terrible cards, and a great team can win a lot of games even when luck was not on their side.

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Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Saturday, May 18, 2024 1:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Mah Jong sounds too luck based for me. I haven't played it in ages, but I really loved playing Spades. But only with the official rules, which most people who play spades don't use, which is frustrating. It seems that everyone has their own "house rules" they play with.

What I like about Spades is that you can be dealt a terrible, terrible hand, but if you have a partner that you trust knows how to play and you can both read each other, you have the option of going "Nil", which means that your team gets an additional 100 points in a race to 500 points for that round if you manage not to allow the other side to force you to take a trick and your partner can cover your hand. You also get any points your partner makes for predicting how many tricks they'd get. (You get 10 points for every trick you predicted, and 1 point for any trick above your prediction, and those single points are bad. If you get 10 single points at any time in the game you lose 100 points for the team)>

The worst part though is if you got your hand and you were going to go nil and then your partner before you goes nil. It doesn't happen very often at all, but that likely means that your opponents have a vast majority of the good cards and the best you really can hope to do is cover your partner's nil and not pick up too many single points and hope for better luck next round. The worst situation is when you look at your hand and know that you have a perfect Nil and you know that you have to also bid Nil because there's no way that you can cover anything. There's almost zero chance that you're both going to get that Nil, although I have seen that happen once or twice. What you're doing here is just ensuring that your 100 points will cancel out the 100 points that your partner's Nil is going to lose when it busts.

The better players will bid Nil with hands that are questionable and would require smart play by their partner to cover, but that can bite you when your partner is left with absolutely nothing... like a hand with Jack High and only a low spade or two.

The biggest game-changer is the "Double Nil". Its when you predict that you won't get a single trick before you look at the cards. There's only two situations where doing this makes any sense at all. One is the hail Mary when it's obvious that your opponents are going to win this round without using it, but that extra 200 points could win the game for you if you manage it. The other, more reliable Double Nil is when you're the last of 4 to make your bet and there's already 11, 12, or 13 tricks claimed by the other 3 players. Even better if your partner has a good amount of them, but that almost doesn't matter at 12 or 13 tricks. Be careful though... If you turn up the Queen or King of Spades after making that Double Nil proclamation you could be in trouble if your partner doesn't hold the Ace. And if you get the Ace... damn... You just lost 200 points.

I used to play it on Yahoo! Games all the time way back in the day and was in the upper echelon of the leaderboard there. It was a sad day when Yahoo! Games disappeared. I've tried some other spades services from time to time and although they all look very impressive compared to the simply Yahoo layout, it's just not the same. Matching up with players you played well with is all but impossible to do on these other sites, and all of the ranking data just isn't as great as it was over at Yahoo.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

There are no partners in Mah Jong everyone is out for their own points and like I said you could get dealt a crappy hand but then pick up what you need and finish with a great hand. Or nothing happens.

Mah Jong has rules that you have to follow and you go clockwise around the table. East is the first wind and everything follows after that. The person who is east throws the dice first. If no one "mah jongs" or goes out, then the East wind moves to the next person and they get the dice. You have to go through all 4 winds to finish the whole game, which is why we play 2 hours.

Everyone starts out with 13 tiles in their hand but one person who has the east gets 14 tiles, so they throw first. Whatever tile they don't think fits into their hand then the next person picks up a tile and decides if they want it or not. If someone else wants it because they have 2 of the same tile in their hand, they say, "pong" and lay the tiles out for everyone at the table to see. If you were dealt 3 of the same tiles and you pick up the fourth one, you lay them all out on the table. If the 3 were in your hand when you picked up the 4th then you put the 4th one down so you can't see it's face and you pick up an extra tile. But if you have the 3 already on the table then the 4th is place on them up, so everyone can see its face.

To go out you have to have a set of 3 all the same and pair the same of something else.

Then the counting begins. If you have 3 tiles the same that everyone sees they are worth 2 points, if you have 4 then counting them depends on their value and whether the 4th one is up or down. Winds and dragons are the most valuable tiles as even 3 of them are 4 points. If someone goes out and you have 3 of say green dragons in your hand but no one can see them then they are worth 8 points. Flower tiles are all worth 4 points. The counting can get really complicated.

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Saturday, May 18, 2024 1:24 PM

Out for my walk and I pulled a muscle doing some shopping yesterday. Not serious just a little annoying. Right side. Have to be more careful.

And we have gotten a bit of rain in my corner of BC today.

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Saturday, May 18, 2024 2:16 PM

I think I might mow the lawn today. I had planned for that, but boy it's hot. It will hit close to 90 degrees. I didn't put the A/C on yet, but I cleared out the filter and it's drying now. I'll probably have to turn it on tonight since it's already 73 degrees on the 2nd floor and we've got about 5 days in a row in the mid to high 80's ahead of us. The attic already feels like it's over 100 degrees.

I think I'll at least mow the front and see if I feel up to doing the back or putting it off until tomorrow. I'll probably do my best just to get it done tonight though since I'm going to be soaked from head to toe and wouldn't want to do that two days in a row if I don't need to.

Really wish I'd bought a self-propelled mower last year when I got that replacement. I thought it was, but didn't realize what I'd bought until I got back from the out-of-state store that still had some available and they hadn't wrapped all of them up and sent them back to the warehouse for the winter.

It's good exercise for sure, but it makes an already very time consuming job all the more exhausting.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Saturday, May 18, 2024 4:48 PM

Back and done and the rain has stopped for now.

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Saturday, May 18, 2024 4:49 PM

Hey SIX!!

My local tv mag mentioned "Fallout". It is on Video Prime, so it is possible that my local library may get a copy of it. Just have to keep an eye out for it.

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Saturday, May 18, 2024 5:07 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I think I might mow the lawn today. I had planned for that, but boy it's hot. It will hit close to 90 degrees. I didn't put the A/C on yet, but I cleared out the filter and it's drying now. I'll probably have to turn it on tonight since it's already 73 degrees on the 2nd floor and we've got about 5 days in a row in the mid to high 80's ahead of us. The attic already feels like it's over 100 degrees.

I think I'll at least mow the front and see if I feel up to doing the back or putting it off until tomorrow. I'll probably do my best just to get it done tonight though since I'm going to be soaked from head to toe and wouldn't want to do that two days in a row if I don't need to.

Really wish I'd bought a self-propelled mower last year when I got that replacement. I thought it was, but didn't realize what I'd bought until I got back from the out-of-state store that still had some available and they hadn't wrapped all of them up and sent them back to the warehouse for the winter.

It's good exercise for sure, but it makes an already very time consuming job all the more exhausting.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

Wow, you have really vaulted right into summer, haven't you?
What happened to spring?

I hope it cools down and you get a re-do on the season. I hate hot humid weather more than I hate cold!

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
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Saturday, May 18, 2024 9:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Hey SIX!!

My local tv mag mentioned "Fallout". It is on Video Prime, so it is possible that my local library may get a copy of it. Just have to keep an eye out for it.

Nice!

You'll have to know if you get to see it soon.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Saturday, May 18, 2024 9:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Wow, you have really vaulted right into summer, haven't you?
What happened to spring?

I hope it cools down and you get a re-do on the season. I hate hot humid weather more than I hate cold!

Yeah. None of this was in the forecast last week. It's going to be miserable until Thursday now from the looks of it.

I got a ton done today anyhow. I mowed, I got rid of all the helicopters I could. Swept the driveway and the walkway and got rid of all the piled up grass clippings from the season so far on both along with the helicopters. And I sprayed 3 gallons of weed killer around.

I still haven't gotten my leaf blower to start, which made a lot of that harder than it should have been.

Right now I'm a little worried about my A/C. I don't think it's working anymore. I started it when it was 73 upstairs and after a hot day of work it now says that it's 76 degrees upstairs. I checked outside and I didn't see any water dripping out of it, and there should be a bucket worth of it already. It's possible that it was at some point and it's so hot outside that it evaporated as it was dripping out, but it's not what I was expecting.

Might be time to buy a new A/C. That thing only lasted 3 seasons. Can't they make anything worth buying anymore?

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Saturday, May 18, 2024 11:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Hey SIX!!

My local tv mag mentioned "Fallout". It is on Video Prime, so it is possible that my local library may get a copy of it. Just have to keep an eye out for it.

Nice!

You'll have to know if you get to see it soon.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

I'll keep looking. Right now I got a pile of things to go through.

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Sunday, May 19, 2024 1:03 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Maybe it needs a recharge of refrigerant. Repair people can test for that. Not that that's cheap tho.

Possibly if you're lucky it's just has a case of vapor lock. That happened to our compressor a couple of times even if it's not supposed to. Try again tomorrow.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
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Sunday, May 19, 2024 2:26 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Spades.

The rules sound complicated! But I think I see what you mean about the rules evening it out, bc you can still get points with a dud hand. Right

*****

I think I sort of get the counting rules for Mahjong, but what I don't get is what the dice have to do with the game. Are they regular western dice? What happens if you roll one kind of number versus another?

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
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Sunday, May 19, 2024 6:00 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Spades.

The rules sound complicated! But I think I see what you mean about the rules evening it out, bc you can still get points with a dud hand. Right

It's not really that complicated. I probably made it sound that way. You get a feel for it pretty quick. By far, it's much easier to learn a game like this by playing it. I'm sure the same could be said of Mah Jong. I'll try to lay it out a little bit more.

You play to 500 points. If both teams get over 500 points in the same round, the team with the highest score wins. You can go into negative points if you fall below zero.

There are 2 people on a team and they sit across from each other. Players pull a card and the highest card deals first. Dealer is the most advantageous position. You get to bid last and see what everyone else did first. You also have the benefit of going last on the first turn.

Dealer switches clockwise every round. 1st person after dealer bids first, and when the bidding is done they play the first card. The total amount of Tricks that you and your partner bid is how many you need to get. A "Trick" means that you threw the high card out of all 4 players and you take those cards. There are 13 tricks in a round of spades. 52 cards / 4 players.

If you bid 3 Tricks and your partner bid 4 Tricks, you're aiming for 7 tricks. Get less than 7 tricks and you will lose 70 points, 10 points for all 7 you bid and failed to get. If you get 7 Tricks even you get 70 points, 10 points for each trick. Anything more than 7 tricks and you'll pick up single points called Bags. So if you got 9 Tricks than you'll get 72 points for the round.

A few Bags here or there are alright, but 10 Bags and your team loses 100 points. Sometimes you'll want to grab a few because it becomes obvious that your opponents bid too high and you can steal a few extra tricks to make them lose the amount of points they bid. If you're going to block your opponent from getting 70 points, which means they also lose 70 points, you've just got a 140 point swing in your favor. That would easily be worth taking 5 or 6 bags, although if you were close to being set back 100 before that hand it's not as big of a win... but your bag count is low again.

There are a lot of different ways that you could strategically use Bags in different scenarios that you'll just get a feel for as you play more games. Sometimes for fun I'd consistently bid low on purpose just to keep sandbagging the other team. That doesn't work with good players for very long, but sometimes it would be funny to drag out the game and make the other team go -300 by giving them 30 bags and watch somebody rage quit.

Early tricks are about getting rid of your crap. The first player, unless they're covering a Nil, is likely to throw their lowest card that isn't a Spade. 2nd player, unless they're covering a Nil is going to throw their lowest in the suit the 1st player chose too. 3rd player will usually either throw the Ace of that suit to take the Trick, or at least play a high enough card to make the 4th player work for it (You wouldn't want to throw the King of the suit if you didn't have the Spade and didn't yet know your partner had it by something they do to tip you off. But if you had the Queen or Jack too, it's probably the card to play in 3rd spot). This type of stuff you get a feel for even after just a few hands. Play can end up varying quite a bit depending on how many potential bags there are out there for the round.

The lowest Spade is the 2, and it will trump even the the Aces of all 3 other suits, which means you get the Trick. You could imagine how tables could be turned if you were dealt a hand without any clubs and you had 6 spades, and your opponent had the King and Ace of clubs and was counting on an easy 2 Tricks.

You can't put down a Spade until a Spade has been played. What this means is if somebody throws a suit that you don't have in your hand, you can play a spade and take the hand. However if somebody behind you also doesn't have that suit and has a higher spade they can take that trick from you. Once either of those scenarios happens, anybody can lay down a spade to start a trick if they wanted to (a good way to attempt to bust a nil, particularly a Double Nil). The only other way a spade can be played to start a turn if the aforementioned hasn't happened yet is if somebody only has spades left in their hand and have no choice but to play one. This is pretty uncommon.

Nil is betting that you won't take any tricks and is worth 100 points if you're successful. Your partner still bids their tricks and is responsible for making them and also for covering your Nil. If they bid before you went Nil, they likely are sitting at a table that only has around 8 or 9 tricks that were bid, so there's potential for a lot of Bags while covering your nil. This is one of the situations where having a skilled teammate covering you is evident. Unless your partner is just flush with great cards and underbid in the first place, a good player will be able to cover the nil while also giving away half of those bags or more on average.

Nil isn't only a safeguard to keep Spades a game of skill rather than luck, but you can also take some fairly risky nils. It doesn't make sense to do it early in the game unless you already know your partner well, but later in the game if you're behind it might be worth trying to Nil with a decent hand. Especially if your partner bid first and they bid quite a few tricks.

So if you get your nil and your partner had a great hand and bid 7 tricks and got them, that's 170 points for one round. But if your partner bid 7 and didn't get them, but you got your nil, you only gained 30 points that round. Or if your partner gets their 7 tricks but your nil busts, you lose 30 points that round.

The blind Double Nil I pretty much explained in full above. If you start a game with a new partner and their very first move is to Double Nil, don't expect to win that game.

The odds are so hard against you for being successful on a Double Nil that starting a game with one in hopes of being up 200 points after the first round would never be a viable strategy. The -200 point penalty if you bust is so catastrophic for a race to 500 it really is a last resort, and yes... you would now need 700 points to come back and win the game.

The only time I would ever try it outside of a game you're about to lose is if you have less experienced opponents who bid their actual amount of tricks in the 3rd position even though it put the total bid up to 12 or 13 before it was your turn. This signifies the best odds that you'll ever see in Spades for the success of a Double Nil. Whenever I'm in 3rd position and I'm sitting with an easy 5 tricks but the two people behind me have already bid 7 or 8 combined, I usually bid a few lower just to throw Player 4 off and not invite them to try a Double Nil. Unless you have all aces and kings, it's usually pretty easy to throw off a few bags intentionally or take tricks from your partner. Especially when you have the advantage of being the only one who knows that you're throwing off cards on purpose, as long as you're not too obvious about what you're doing. If you do that right, the opposing team doesn't realize what you've done until they've got all the high cards at the end and end up with all the bags.

And I probably just made it sound all complicated again.

I can't really just write out a list of boring rules. They're boring.

It really is a simple game to pick up. You could play it for a few hours one afternoon and you'd pretty much understand all the rules. It's one of those "takes a day to learn, takes a lifetime to master" type of thing.

The hardest part is being good at reading your partner once you've got a firm grasp on the rules and how to bend them to your will. Good players come in many different flavors, and even though they might not be behaving exactly as you would or how you've seen other good players typically play, you need to be able to read that and adjust on your end (and hope that they didn't try doing the same thing that you just did).

Reading your opponents is important, as is trying to throw them off of your scent every once in a while. I personally think that reading your partner and having a partner that can read you is more important than reading your opponents. If they're paying attention to what you're throwing and it looks like mistakes if taken out of context, they should be able to read you and know what you're doing.

Some days you'd just find that partner you really gibed with and you'd spend a few hours beating half a dozen other teams without losing because you were just on the same wavelength.

I always wondered what it would be like to play spades on a professional level with real cards at a table with other people. I don't honestly think it would be possible to do without cheating being rampant though. You couldn't allow teams to sign up. Not after they've spent the last few months practicing a lot of inconspicuous tells to give them an edge. I think it could only be done if you had random players for teams, and at that point you might as well just keep it all online where it's easy, the scoring is automated and there are tons of people waiting at a table for you to join.

I bet Spades in a 3D simulation could actually be pretty cool as the tech improves and gets cheaper. But they'd really have to work out the HUD and make sure that all of your stats and rankings in the leaderboard were accessible and easy to read. Many players will chose whether or not they even want to attempt a new game with a new partner based off of these rankings, so winning is important.

But like I said, simple little Yahoo! Games did Spades perfect. No frills. All spades. The table selection screen was little more than a spreadsheet that housed all of the available tables in a room on the top window and a list of all the players in the room on the bottom window. There were tons of different rooms broken down by "Casual" players and ranked difficulty (Novice/Intermediate/Expert).

And when you were at the table it looked like Solitaire on Windows, and every player saw themselves at the bottom of the screen with their cards face up, while their opponents were seated across from them at the top with the two opponents on the left and right sides. Nothing but your screen names and a little emoji style avatar pic for each of you.

It was perfect.

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Sunday, May 19, 2024 11:31 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

It sounds a bit like hearts, whuch i played one day 50 yesrs ago.

It also sounds a bit like bridge, except instead of having the trump suit being fixed, you and your across the - table partner bid for the trump suit as well as the # of tricks. Plus, if you get the bid your partner lays their cards on tge table face up, so everyone sees what they have.

I never did learn bridge scoring, it's notoriously complicated so we newbies left it to the experts. The fun is bidding and playing. There are rules for bidding. And since you're bidding for the trump suit you have to communucate your strongest suit to your partner, and they have to communicate with you.

Aces are high. Jacks are one point, going up to aces which are four. A very average hand, if cards distribute evenly, is 13 cards of 10 points, with some suits ofv3 cards andskme of four.

A better than average hand has more than 13 points, and can take more than the minimum of 6 tricks. And since you're bidding for a suit as well as total points, if you have five or more cards in a suit you would presumably want to in that suit, especially if your partner has a strong hand in that suit. If you and your partner have VERY strong hands in all suits, you can also bid "no trump", where the game is played strictly on points.

Add up your points, and, since distribution counts, add a point for every card over 5 that you have of any one suit.

Dealer starts the bidding and hidding goes to the left. If you have less than 13 points, generally you "pass". If you have a slightly better than average hand but no particular suit, you start with something modest, like one club.

As bidding progresses, one club can be overbid by one diamond, which can be overbid by one heart, one spade, or one no trump, before jumping to the next higher number.

Since we were limited to lab staff, it was the same roster of people to draw from. Experience ranged from a bridge Master thru very experienced players to absolute newbies like me. I was only included if there weren't four top players available, but it was as fun to watch as to play because of the personalities involved. Plus, there was a lot of "table talk" where people would comment on each other's bidding or play, and there were little plastic animals that came out as "awards" for overbdding otherwise screwing up. The only one I remember now is the "TF squared" (too far, too fast in bidding) when a little plastic triceratops would come out.

One person, we could count on bidding gonzo. We would always watch to see if he would make his bid, and since he was a shrewd player he quite often did. But we always kept it light. Beer and peanuts would have fit right in.

https://www.wikihow.com/Play-Bridge

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Sunday, May 19, 2024 1:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Spades.

The rules sound complicated! But I think I see what you mean about the rules evening it out, bc you can still get points with a dud hand. Right

*****

I think I sort of get the counting rules for Mahjong, but what I don't get is what the dice have to do with the game. Are they regular western dice? What happens if you roll one kind of number versus another?

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The dice are like western dice and if you are throwing your numbers to start are 5, 7, and 9.

The dice in mah jong in the beginning determine where you break a wall to start playing. You have to throw 5 or over if you are throwing then you count around. So, if I have the dice and I were to through a 7, then I start counting with 5, the next person is 6 then the next person is 7. 7 then counts out 7 tiles which are held back and a dice is put on top because that is the extra pile. The rest of the tiles are moved out into the middle of the table and the person who threw picks up 4, and each player after, then another 4 and the others, then another 4 along with the other players. So everyone has 12 tiles then the person who threw the dice gets an extra 2 tiles and every other player gets one. Once you set out your flower tiles for everyone to see, the person who threw gets an extra for how many flowers they have then every other player gets their extras for flowers. If you have no flowers you get no extra tiles. Once that is done the starting player throws out the first tile, whatever they decide doesn't go in their hand. Usually you start with a character or bamboo or circle tile. You never, ever throw a wind or dragon till there are a few tiles on the table.

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Sunday, May 19, 2024 1:40 PM

Sunday. Not much happening just got a publisher to send to this afternoon.

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Sunday, May 19, 2024 3:29 PM

Uggggh... yeah. Something is wrong with the A/C.

Tried turning it on again last night at some point and let it run a few hours and no dice. It does feel cold standing in front of it. It is putting in colder air than it's taking out, but it's almost inconsequential over time. I also don't believe that it's pulling any moisture out of the air at all.

Nothing is making any weird sounds. I can actually hear when the compressor starts up and is operating. The filter is clean, and I took it off again to check the coils behind it and there's nothing blocking them up at all. I have watched videos on youtube about cleaning these things and they can get obscenely filthy and require washing down outside with a hose. That's not my problem here. It almost looks brand new inside.

I'm surprised that the on-board computer isn't throwing any errors or simply refusing to let the thing run. I remember a few years ago that it didn't like something it was seeing and it stopped running. I had to let it sit unplugged for a day to reset and that seemed to do the trick.

It's been unplugged all fall/winter/spring though, and it fired right up when I plugged it in.

I'm going to have to do some research on the thing. Sadly, I don't think there's any way I could attempt to service it without removing it from the window. This sucks because when I put the insulation crap in on the sides I painstakingly put on a lot of white Duck Tape and wrapped that thing up tight and very aesthetically pleasing. 4 years later it looks as good as it did when I put it all up.

At the end of the day, it didn't cost me anything. I'd bought it on sale for $450 when it was normally $550. A month later the computer did something and it stopped working during the middle of a heatwave for a few days. They weren't able to send out a replacement unit because they were completely out of stock because of the heat wave. They just told me to keep it and they refunded my money since it's considered Hazmat because of the coolant and they didn't want me to return it.

Back then I was pissed off that I was going to have to take all that Duck Tape down and do it all over again with a new one, and it was so hot I kept trying to get it to work for the next few days and then all the sudden it started working again. Except for another similar problem the following year, it's worked fine ever since. Last year I didn't have a single problem with it.

Now I'm in the unenviable position of trying to find a similar unit that will cool the entire house like this one did, try to buy one that is going to last more than 3 seasons, AND find one at a reasonable price in the current economy. Summer is well on its way too, so stock may be limited.

That ancient A/C my folks gave me years back, which I threw away after I got this one, was bought in the early 80s and worked 12 years straight in the house I grew up in. It eventually had made its way up to my folks cottage and worked for years after that. It still worked when they gave it to me. The last time I'd used it was probably 8 years ago. That thing worked somewhere in the area of 30 to 35 years, and who knows... If I still had it today it may still have worked.

I always knew this one wasn't going to last me long after that first instance. The funny thing is though, I didn't go into this summer thinking it was a coin flip that it would work. After working flawlessly last season without any hiccups, I figured once I turned it on it would be good.

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Sunday, May 19, 2024 3:46 PM

Oh... ETA...

I do have my dehumidifier on in the basement. I kind of forgot it was down there because I heard it go on once a week or two ago and wondered what the hell that noise was. It's been left plugged in for years, but it was at 65% humidity and pretty much never kicked off all year long when I had the A/C on during the summers taking care of that well before humidity rose to 65%.

I turned it down to 50% after I turned off the A/C, and sleeping was easy with a fan on me.

It's still working, although I can't speak to its efficiency compared to when it was new 13 years ago. I can tell how much cooler it feels in my house today when the thermostat on the 2nd floor reads 76 degrees than last night when it hit 77 degrees.

It's only a high of 74 though today, and 71 degrees currently. It's hotter in my house than it is outside by 5 degrees. I'm sure that is because I have no window dressings in any room and that sunlight gets in everywhere now. Humidity outside is only 56% today, compared to 76% yesterday, so maybe the dehumidifier isn't actually doing much of anything.

I should probably just open up all the windows now. We're getting down to 58 degrees tonight, before it hits 90 degrees 2 days in a row and then we go back to the mid 70's for a while.

I'm perfectly fine with how the house felt yesterday. It had only been in the mid to high 80s for 3 days though. If we get a heat wave this summer and I haven't either got that working or replaced it by then, it's not going to be fun.

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Sunday, May 19, 2024 5:09 PM

Email to publisher sent.

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Sunday, May 19, 2024 6:22 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

In my experience, if the compressor turns on and you can hear it working but the air coming out is only marginally cooler, it probably leaked refrigerant out. I've had that happen with two car ACs, three central house ACs, and one frig. It's the most common problem. We've had vapor lock twice.

In three of the six times recharge was all it needed, the leak was so small it couldn't be found. In three cases the leak was catastrophic. In one case it was a leak in the evaporator coils, in one case it was a leak in a brazed copper line out of the compressor, and in one case it was the compressor itself.

There is a lubricant in the Freon refrigerant which creates an oily stain where it leaks. So I guess if you look at the evaporator coils if you can see them) and the inside of the case near the compressor and the evaporator coils and you see an oily stain, that's a parts replacement and will probably cost as much as new. If you can't see one I guess it's a little more ambiguous whether a recharge is worth the $$ and hassle.

This might help.

How To Recharge A Window AC Unit?
https://learnmetrics.com/how-to-recharge-window-air-conditioner-with-f
reon/

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Sunday, May 19, 2024 10:01 PM

Yeah, thanks... I'm not messing with any of that.

I got 3 summers out of it and it didn't cost me anything.

But now I've got to research a good unit and not buy another lemon. Why can't things just freakin' work anymore?

After having it off all day I turned it back on for a few hours with the door to the room closed. Meanwhile, I had all the windows in the house open. 2 hours later I open the door to that bedroom and it's hotter and more humid in that room than the rest of the house by a lot. It's already cooled off signifigantly with the outside temp. I just need to remember to set an alarm to wake myself up early to shut all those windows before it starts getting hot even if I go right back to sleep. Should get me through the next few days in the high-80s/low-90s.

I think having that porch finished with those huge slider windows really helps here. I've kept the kitchen door open to the porch and just locked the porch door and it seems to be working great. Airflow was always a problem in my house before, so I didn't really expect just opening windows would really do much. Hope to get it down to the mid 60s before closing them back up. Going to want to do that by around 7AM.

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Monday, May 20, 2024 12:18 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

How's your basement, temp-wise? Back in western NY, during hot and humid summer days, we ate dinner in the basement. If it had been at least a little finished I would have slept down there, too!

****

Making progress on the yardwork. I'm clearing up the veggie patch in prep for tomatoes and zucchini. Soon as I finish, gonna paper over that, and the area where the cement rubble pile used to be. No use clearing something just to have it grow weeds again!

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Monday, May 20, 2024 2:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
How's your basement, temp-wise? Back in western NY, during hot and humid summer days, we ate dinner in the basement. If it had been at least a little finished I would have slept down there, too!

****

Yeah... Temp is great in the basement. It's down to 72 from 78 on the 2nd floor right now, notably cooler on the 1st floor by maybe 4-5 degrees, and the basement is easily 60 degrees.

I just don't feel like lugging much down there when I've still got to bust out wall to put the generator plug outside, and I still want to run a new circuit to get a 2nd sump well with a backup installed. A pump that goes above ground where I have control over where it's directed, and not just my only existing pump that needs to be shut off if the city sewer is backed up for any reason. I could pretty easily bring the 2nd futon down there with a TV/Fire Stick and a rubbish table to set it on, but that would be about it. Still have no interest in bringing any real furniture or electronics down there until I've at least got all that done.

Flood season by all rights should be over, but you never know. 4 years ago when I was going through the worst it'd ever been, that was right around the end of May. I'm sure that the water table is nowhere near as high as it was at this time 4 years ago and it would probably take an act of god at this point to go through anything close to what I did in 2020 now, but it's not impossible. The less things in the basement to worry about right now the better.

Quote:
Making progress on the yardwork. I'm clearing up the veggie patch in prep for tomatoes and zucchini. Soon as I finish, gonna paper over that, and the area where the cement rubble pile used to be. No use clearing something just to have it grow weeds again!

Get them weeds.

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Monday, May 20, 2024 1:29 PM

Out for my walk soon. Couple of things to do. Holiday Monday up here.

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Monday, May 20, 2024 4:38 PM

Back and done for today. It is thinking about raining.

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Monday, May 20, 2024 6:18 PM

Tried the A/C again today. Even tried banging it around a bit like they do in the movies.

Funny thing is, I think it actually might have jostled something loose since it was notably putting out cooler air today than it was yesterday. But it's still nowhere near functional.

I forgot to set my alarm and it was already 9:30AM when I woke up, so all those gains in cooling I made overnight were just about wiped out. It was already 73 in the house again when I closed all the windows. It's not uncomfortable now, and I will be opening all the windows up again tonight even though it's going to be about 8 degrees warmer overnight than last night. Only one more hot day and then back into the 70's for a while. But I'm not going to go all summer without one. A 7 day streak in the 80's or 90's would make life miserable and I'm not doing that to myself again.

I wish I knew somebody with a 12,000BTU window unit that could give me a recommendation. Amazon reviews basically can't even be trusted at this point. And you're not going to find a single A/C at any price where somebody isn't complaining in the comments that the thing stopped working after a month or two. The manufacturer that made my old unit (which had VERY high reviews on Amazon) appears to have discontinued that unit quite a while ago, and I'd never buy from HomeLabs again.

GE, Whirlpool and Frigidaire meant something one day, but I'm sure their shit comes from China too.

I do think I'm going to buy one in a store this time, even though it will cost more, just so I can take it back with my receipt when it is DOA or dies after a month or two. I don't know if I'd luck out with a no-questions-asked refund on Amazon a 2nd time around, and bad comments on other air conditioners' reviews don't make it appear like customer service is helpful when there is a problem for any of the manufacturers now.

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Monday, May 20, 2024 7:32 PM

Damn... Thunderstorms until possibly 10PM tonight. And we don't even get any cool down from them.

Won't be opening up the windows any time soon. Hopefully the power stays on.

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Monday, May 20, 2024 11:24 PM

Got a nice Spring jacket in a store that is going out of business. $11CAD with tax was originally $39CAD.

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Monday, May 20, 2024 11:40 PM

Sweet.

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 12:49 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Wish I knew somebody with a 12,000BTU window unit that could give me a recommendation. Amazon reviews basically can't even be trusted at this point. And you're not going to find a single A/C at any price where somebody isn't complaining in the comments that the thing stopped working after a month or two. The manufacturer that made my old unit (which had VERY high reviews on Amazon) appears to have discontinued that unit quite a while ago, and I'd never buy from HomeLabs again.

when i was shopping for a replacement bathtub I looked at Amazon,Home Depot, Lowe's, Wayfair, Houzz, and Tubz and of course did a global search using DuckDuckGo in case I missed anything. In some cases most of them had the same American Standard porcelain on steel tub. So I could compare reviews too.

Gotta say, reviews on Amazon are far harsher than anywhere else!

Of course people will always complain, some of them pointless or misdirected ... "arrive broken" ... isn't that the shipper's problem?

But I have a system for evaluating reviews.

First of all, it's easy to swing an average if there are only a few votes.

So any product with less than 200 reviews, I look at those reviews pretty carefully.

I don't bother to look at the review average. Instead, I look at the % one stars.

A product that has 10% or more one star ratings ...wow! That's a serious qc problem! I tend to rank products inversely with % one-star ratings regardless of price.

I also read the one-star reviews. Like I said, people will complain, but if I see the SAME THING over and over again and it's a critical flaw, like a hotplate that catches on fire, or clothes that fall apart in the wash, I just won't buy that product if there's a 1 on 20 chance that could happen to me. Hubby doesn't think my procedure works, but I've never got a bad product that way.

All that being said, you could go to NewEgg.com. They sell 12,000 BTU A/Cs, and even if you don't buy there you can at least look at what's available. I see that not many ppl buy their ACs there, so there aren't a lot of ratings.

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 12:54 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Got a nice Spring jacket in a store that is going out of business. $11CAD with tax was originally $39CAD.

Lucky you!

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 1:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Got a nice Spring jacket in a store that is going out of business. $11CAD with tax was originally $39CAD.
Lucky you!

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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I'd been thinking about it for a bit since I noticed the sale sign and the going out of business signs. So, today I thought I'd better before they all go. It was really the last one in my size.

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 2:26 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Oh, so not luck.
Smart shopping!

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 11:32 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Finished the veggie patch weeding, cutting back an avocado branch that grew too low and other misc cleanup. Today my plan is to rake it level, and to level out the area revealed when the concrete rubble was removed, and paper it over. But have two appts today, one financial and one medical, so I don't know how far I can get with that. I'll do my best!

Once I get the veggies planted I'll turn my attention to the front yard for some remedial weeding, and then I can start cleaning areas for papering over. When I get about half of the front yard ready I'll buy about 10 yards of 3" cover mulch and get those areas mulched.

I still have a lot of sprinkler system repair and revision to do. Looking for a handyman who can manage some serious plumbing, maybe even sweat in ball valves instead of compression fittings, one line to dig in, and a couple of lines to cut and connect to make fifferent zones. Fortunately, since so much is unplanted I don't have a lot of watering to do out front. Backyard tho, thats another story.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 1:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, so not luck.
Smart shopping!

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
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Not really luck but definitely smart.

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 1:25 PM

Out in a bit. Got a watch battery to replace and then return something to the library. So, need my umbrella today.

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 3:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Wish I knew somebody with a 12,000BTU window unit that could give me a recommendation. Amazon reviews basically can't even be trusted at this point. And you're not going to find a single A/C at any price where somebody isn't complaining in the comments that the thing stopped working after a month or two. The manufacturer that made my old unit (which had VERY high reviews on Amazon) appears to have discontinued that unit quite a while ago, and I'd never buy from HomeLabs again.

when i was shopping for a replacement bathtub I looked at Amazon,Home Depot, Lowe's, Wayfair, Houzz, and Tubz and of course did a global search using DuckDuckGo in case I missed anything. In some cases most of them had the same American Standard porcelain on steel tub. So I could compare reviews too.

Gotta say, reviews on Amazon are far harsher than anywhere else!

Of course people will always complain, some of them pointless or misdirected ... "arrive broken" ... isn't that the shipper's problem?

But I have a system for evaluating reviews.

First of all, it's easy to swing an average if there are only a few votes.

So any product with less than 200 reviews, I look at those reviews pretty carefully.

I don't bother to look at the review average. Instead, I look at the % one stars.

A product that has 10% or more one star ratings ...wow! That's a serious qc problem! I tend to rank products inversely with % one-star ratings regardless of price.

I also read the one-star reviews. Like I said, people will complain, but if I see the SAME THING over and over again and it's a critical flaw, like a hotplate that catches on fire, or clothes that fall apart in the wash, I just won't buy that product if there's a 1 on 20 chance that could happen to me. Hubby doesn't think my procedure works, but I've never got a bad product that way.

All that being said, you could go to NewEgg.com. They sell 12,000 BTU A/Cs, and even if you don't buy there you can at least look at what's available. I see that not many ppl buy their ACs there, so there aren't a lot of ratings.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

Yeah... I've got similar methods when weighing reviews. In the end I don't think it really matters much though. All the cheap crap is made in China, cheaply. And most of the name brand stuff is also made in China, also cheaply, but with a slightly higher standard of quality control. But everything is made to fail so you have to buy it again and again and again regardless of where it was made. It's a built in feature of everything we buy these days.

I agonize over buying a $40 drill bit set. I spent 3 days putting together all the stuff I was going to buy for that generator plug solution, which cost me around $200 and had many different parts to buy. An A/C is a big purchase. I have a very strong aversion to making those types of decisions, and the fact that the last one I bought had problems evident only 1 month after I purchased it and failed completely to work at all after only 3 summer seasons isn't making that feeling any better.

It's got to be done though.

It's not miserable in my house right now, but it's just on the edge of being mildly uncomfortable. But that's only because this was a small 6 day heat wave with a very cool day in the middle and a few cooler nights to air the house out. We get a little reprieve starting tomorrow, but even that's been delayed with a few days back up in the 80's that weren't there just yesterday. After that it looks nice until the middle of next month, but I'm seeing about 10 straight days in the mid-to-upper 80s. I'm not going to do that without an A/C. I'll figure something out by then.

I do see that Sam's Club has a Midea A/C unit for only $300 that appears to be highly rated. I've seen the same model on Amazon for for close to $400. I might head up there with my old man and buy one of those when he's got the time to meet up.

I never heard of Midea before, but it's got 4.5 stars with over 1,600 reviews. 9% of those are 1 star reviews.

I'm actually interested in the other model that Midea makes, which Sam's Club is also selling for only $300. You close the window into it, as there is a connection piece at the bottom to the inside and outside bits of the unit that is only 4 inches high. Supposedly it's super quiet compared to your standard window A/C unit, but it would require me buying a separate shelf for it that I'd have to drill into the finish on the outside of the house and I have no interest in doing that. It looks really cool though. That one is going for something like $470 on Amazon, so Sam's is a much better deal.

I've also decided that I will make a project out of pulling the unit back into the house every season when I'm done with it. I'm not going to say that it broke because I left it in the window and used an A/C bag on it, but knowing how cheaply these things are made in current year, I'm not going to risk ever doing that again. So that means the energy efficiency isn't going to be as good as my old one because I'm not going to spend all that time and half a roll of duck tape making things airtight and aesthetically pleasing every summer.

In better news, my buddy finally sold that house for the price he was asking. I just got word today. I'm going to meet him in the morning and he's renting a truck so we can pull the rest of his stuff out of there. It's happening so fast he needs to take a day off of work to do that and they won't even give him until the weekend to get his stuff out.

I'm really happy for him. I'm sad his dad didn't get to see it finally sold after all the time he spent there fixing it up with him. Besides finally grieving over his loss, which I know he really hasn't done yet, everything that's been holding him back is finally off of his shoulders now. His boy is in college and somehow managed to have a good head on his shoulders despite all the crap with his parents over the years. She's out of his life completely now and the house is sold.

I know he had a few extra A/C units lying around at one point. Maybe he still does. I don't think they'd do the job on my house though. I was shocked at how well a 12,000 BTU unit cooled my entire house, but I don't think a 5k-8k BTU unit would do the trick.

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Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 5:17 PM

Back and done for today. Still raining some but at least my watch is working again.

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Tuesday, May 21, 2024 11:31 PM

Pick up game of mah jong for me tomorrow.

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Wednesday, May 22, 2024 1:05 PM

Out soon on a dry day to get a couple of things done before my pick up game this afternoon.

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Wednesday, May 22, 2024 11:21 PM

Got back today after 4pm. I won the first go round as I had a hand with 8 doubles in it. All 4 flowers of one colour and I don't remember what else. Oh well. It was worth over 8,000 points. We knocked off early today because another lady had a hand with 8 doubles in it as well but hers was worth 11,000 points.

Regular game tomorrow.

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Wednesday, May 22, 2024 11:39 PM