Purely for the sake of not breaking my streak

...I posted today! See? Go me, being all consistent and junk.

But frankly, I'm pretty exhausted. Elisa's party was fun, and there was surprisingly little drunkenness. We had a water-gun fight, sat around in the hot-tub, played Settlers of Catan (second place), played Apples to Apples (second place, again). Two new-ish strategies:

1) In Settlers, don't put your first two settlements next to each other and connected by a road. Especially in a four-player game, that little island fills up really fast, and its easy to get locked out with literally no legal place to build new settlements. It becomes significantly harder to win without getting all your settlements on the board, and by splitting your deployment, you might have to work harder to get Longest Road, but you're a lot harder to box off.

2) In Apples to Apples, it seems to be better to pick out cards that are just inherently useful for a specific person, and save them for when it's that person's turn. Maybe that's obvious to people who play a lot, but I never noticed how much easier it is to make winning selections when you've got at least one card to play 'on' each other person. Also, you're guaranteed that each person will come up, unlike picking red cards based on which green cards they would be good with.

Follow these iron-clad battle tactics, and you're sure to not quite win, every time.

Also: I traveled around the entire center of the state today, and I've realized 90% of what you need to know can be summarized down to 5 Interstates, which form an upside-down triangle (or... y'know).

I-270) Runs through the heart of MoCo, and connects Frederick to Washington D.C., forming the bottom-left edge of the triangle. Nearly anywhere in the county can be found by getting on 270 and then taking the right exit.

I-495) Also known as the Capital Beltway, this highway encircles the capital like a bracelet. If you're going anywhere in the suburbs of D.C., chances are you'll get on this and then circle around to your exit. 495 is the bottom vertex of the triangle.

I-95) I-95 connects Washington D.C. to Baltimore. Actually, it goes from Maine to Flo rida, but for our purposes its main function to to let you get to Baltimore from the southern part of the state. 95 is the bottom-right edge of the triangle.

I-695) Maybe you've guessed, but 695 is the Baltimore Beltway. Its the simplest way to get anywhere in the suburbs of Baltimore, including UMBC and BWI Airport. I-695 is the upper-right vertex, and connects I-95 to...

I-70) The top edge of the triangle. 70 runs through the northern part of Maryland from Baltimore to Frederick. If you live in northern Montgomery County (Germantown and up), its quicker to get to Baltimore by going up to I-70 rather than down 270, around 495, and back up 95.

I-70 meets I-270 in Frederick, completing the triangle without benefit of a beltway. Thus, only 5 vital interstates rather than 6. I'm pretty bad with directions (my car is littered with Google-maps; it's kind of ridiculous), but usually if I follow the 'get to the highway I need and find the right exit' method I do alright.

Okay, enough for now. I'm tired and I have work tomorrow.

Next Time: The Paradox of Duality & Half-Life 2