Originally posted by Harrier88
I happen to have some SoCo at home, so I will probably serve that one up some time. Nice find!
I had forgotten about the lime juice -- that is definitely it.
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A lot of action these days, as expected. Last evening, there was a +1 hour dedicated tackling practice at football, followed by an Oklahoma drill, and tomorrow evening, there will be the same thing all over again. In addition to that, I had to show up at a potential new job to work a shift on a trial basis while the employer figures out who to hire - and it started at 6 AM. Only managed to sleep about an hour to maybe an hour and a half before that, and my legs still feel heavy from all the exercise.
I would normally be at ballet practice as I'm typing this too, but I decided to take a break this time. In my current condition, it would be difficult enough to even make my way over there, let alone doing any kind of exercising, and I still have another tough football practice ahead of me tomorrow.
I also won't be in the best condition for poker, so I won't play that either. Instead, let's take a look at that cocktail Vorpal mentioned yesterday:
This is the Scarlett O'Hara drink, and I've found several different ratios of the ingredients, but one of the most commonly suggested is:
- 2 oz / 60 ml of Southern Comfort (I recommend using only 1.5 oz / 45 ml)
- 2 oz / 60 ml (or more, to taste) of cranberry juice
- 0.5 oz / 15 ml of lime juice
I've seen different serving suggestions, including pouring it into a rocks glass, but it seems to be more commonly served shaken in a cocktail glass. I served it in a margarita glass, just for variety.
If you were to garnish it, a lime wheel would be recommended this time.
Yet again, I didn't try it and instead served it for my mum in the backyard. She recently retired and I now happily serve as her personal barkeeper. 
She liked the drink, though she would rather sip on some longdrinks instead, just her overall preference.
Originally posted by Harrier88
A lot of action these days, as expected. Last evening, there was a +1 hour dedicated tackling practice at football, followed by an Oklahoma drill, and tomorrow evening, there will be the same thing all over again. In addition to that, I had to show up at a potential new job to work a shift on a trial basis while the employer figures out who to hire - and it started at 6 AM. Only managed to sleep about an hour to maybe an hour and a half before that, and my legs still feel heavy from all the exercise.I would normally be at ballet practice as I'm typing this too, but I decided to take a break this time. In my current condition, it would be difficult enough to even make my way over there, let alone doing any kind of exercising, and I still have another tough football practice ahead of me tomorrow.
I also won't be in the best condition for poker, so I won't play that either. Instead, let's take a look at that cocktail Vorpal mentioned yesterday:
This is the Scarlett O'Hara drink, and I've found several different ratios of the ingredients, but one of the most commonly suggested is:
- 2 oz / 60 ml of Southern Comfort (I recommend using only 1.5 oz / 45 ml)
- 2 oz / 60 ml (or more, to taste) of cranberry juice
- 0.5 oz / 15 ml of lime juiceI've seen different serving suggestions, including pouring it into a rocks glass, but it seems to be more commonly served shaken in a cocktail glass. I served it in a margarita glass, just for variety.
If you were to garnish it, a lime wheel would be recommended this time.
Yet again, I didn't try it and instead served it for my mum in the backyard. She recently retired and I now happily serve as her personal barkeeper.
She liked the drink, though she would rather sip on some longdrinks instead, just her overall preference.
I have two conflicting mental images:
A football player in full gear doing a grand jeté
A ballet dancer doing a broken field punt return
Does the reference to "rocks glass" have anything to do with the collection of stones on the table?
Do I see jade in there?
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Does the reference to "rocks glass" have anything to do with the collection of stones on the table?
Do I see jade in there?
I was referring to those lowball or Old-Fashioned glasses, which are sometimes called rocks glasses too, since they are commonly used for drinks poured over ice cubes (i.e. "on the rocks"). Not sure if there is an exact difference between those, I tend to use these three terms interchangeably.
The photo still would have been a nice visual analogy for an actual rocks glass. 
It was taken on the front porch to our house, which features a mostly decorative table. The table and chairs are fully functional, of course, but it only has those decorative items sitting on top of it without room for much else, so the entire table is pretty much just decoration.
Not sure about those rocks, they come from a set of decorative stones that were once received as a gift, I believe. I can only tell that they are sitting on a piece of slate.
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I have two conflicting mental images:
I have always enjoyed the football/ballet combo. Originally, I was playing rugby when I got started with ballet, which was also nice, especially because some teammates and even my coach had daughters who would train with the same ballet teacher as me, and we would sometimes see each other as I went there and they arrived to pick up their kids.
I switched to American football in January 2019, originally as a bit of a "side project" to ballet, which was my main athletic focus back then, though the situation is now reversed. It was meant as my last hurrah in the area of organized team sports, having reached the age of 30 just a few months earlier at that point. Rather than continuing to stay with my struggling rugby club for a few more years, I figured it's time for one more big challenge before I retire from organized sports and stick to playing casually in recreational leagues and exercising for myself.
Fittingly, it's also probably my most ambitious challenge in that area. My team was playing at a national level when I joined them without any prior experience, though I picked a tough season and they were relegated to regional level that same year. Now everyone is eager to get back, and with me having gained some experience too, I should also be able play a bigger role in my team while we are getting there than during my rookie year.
I didn't play any organized sports after elementary school.
High school it was track, and after that skiing.
Our team made the finals in provincial relays when I was in Gr 10.
I think it was the 4 x 220 (yes, that is yards), but it might have been the 440.
This ranks as my only success in sports
They went to metres the next year, and although I excelled at the 100 yards, I was middle of the pack at the finish in the 100m
The extra 10 yards ...
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I didn't play any organized sports after elementary school.
High school it was track, and after that skiing.
I think organized sports are a lot more tied to the school and education system in North America than they are over here. At least in the US, they appear to be.
Over here, even kids and preschoolers would play sports at dedicated clubs, the same clubs that would usually have an adult team to potentially take them up too, in a league system that would, theoretically, go all the way up to the professional national leagues. There is gym class at school, of course, but extra curricular sports teams or groups are not very common and usually serve to introduce students to certain sports rather than to compete against other schools. If there ever are any inter-school competitions in a certain sport, it's usually a pretty casual affair.
I've played a bunch of different sports at university too, and from what I can tell, the situation is similar there. There may be a couple of rather competitive teams, but for the most part, university sports groups tend to be either for exercise purposes only, occasionally competing in some casual tournaments, or serving as a springboard for potential recruits into a proper sports club, in which case that club would usually be involved in the organization of that university group too. It's certainly a far cry from the quasi-professional sports seen at US colleges.
I don't have too many concrete sporting achievements to boast about either, aside from a 1st place in a U-19 soccer league at the lowest regional level, winning an in-university team handball tournament, other good finishes in regional level sports tournaments and some personal awards. Overall, though, I'm quite pleased with my sporting career, going from that scrawny, wimpy kid at middle school age who already had enough trouble handling gym class to confidently competing as an adult in sports I wouldn't have dreamed of ever touching back then. It was a character-building experience, and I have learned a lot from it. So it still feels like I have a bit of a "legacy" to protect in my current sporting adventures.
Good point.
In larger towns and cities such clubs exist, but I grew up in a town of about 2000 people.
We had to bus 10km to school after gr 7 (age 13).
Only the school system has the $ required to support the travel necessary for inter-school competition -- which where I lived involved bus trips of >100km
Also, this is Canada. Very few people care about high-school sport -- or even university-level sport.
In the US, it is vastly different. People donate tens of thousands to local school teams.
Small towns have stadiums for school sports with capacities greater than the population of the town -- and fill them with paying customers.
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
In larger towns and cities such clubs exist, but I grew up in a town of about 2000 people.
Even tiny German villages with a couple hundred people at least tend to have their own soccer club more often than not. The level of play is typically not very advanced in there, obviously, and neither is the attendance, but I guess it's still nice that even people in small villages have their own home team to watch and support, in addition to any professional teams they may follow. It's a nice place to socialize or to get involved for people in those towns who are interested in sports too, even if they are not playing themselves. Not to mention that it provides an opportunity for kids to compete in this sport from an early age. And from my own experience playing in such clubs (I grew up in a town of about 13K people, but also played for other teams), players and coaches in there often do take the game quite seriously.
Of course, the entire country of Germany is much smaller than most states and provinces in North America, and it also includes 16 states, which are further subdivided into administrative provinces and then further into districts. There are sporting leagues and competitions on the levels of those states, provinces and districts too, so you can tell that most of the low-level sports are a pretty local affair. My own district, for example, would only cover an area of about 850 square kilometers. For reference, my administrative province would be around 5,380 km², while my state of Hesse would cover 21,100 km².
As for my current American football team, our regional league does include the entire state of Hesse, as well as some states around it, so there are still some decently long drives.
I also had to travel around 15 km to my school since grade 5, btw. Luckily, I had my parents organizing carpools with the parents of other kids from my classes, and eventually ended up driving myself in my last year at school, so I didn't usually have to bother with the even longer bus trips.
Oh, and the busy poker-less week is almost coming to a close. Tomorrow, I will be away to visit my brother, whose son turned 3 this week, but I should have time for some tournaments in the evening already. Following that, things should be more or less back to normal again.
Originally posted by Harrier88
Originally posted by VorpalF2F
In larger towns and cities such clubs exist, but I grew up in a town of about 2000 people.Even tiny German villages with a couple hundred people at least tend to have their own soccer club more often than not. The level of play is typically not very advanced in there, obviously, and neither is the attendance, but I guess it's still nice that even people in small villages have their own home team to watch and support, in addition to any professional teams they may follow. It's a nice place to socialize or to get involved for people in those towns who are interested in sports too, even if they are not playing themselves. Not to mention that it provides an opportunity for kids to compete in this sport from an early age. And from my own experience playing in such clubs (I grew up in a town of about 13K people, but also played for other teams), players and coaches in there often do take the game quite seriously.
Our town had men's and women's softball teams.
Other towns around had teams as well, mostly organized around industry -- the major logging companies each had a team, as did the pulp mill.
Ours was a mining town, and on most summer evenings there was a game to watch.
That's all gone now.
There are few (if any) major logging companies, no sawmills, no pulp mills, and the mine has been closed for nearly 50 years.
Poker update: It's just too dang hot...
Might play some tournaments again tonight, yesterday it was only the "troll freeroll". The heat wave is still a piece of work, though at least results-wise, I am not facing a "summer downswing" so far, more like the opposite. And it's supposed to get a lot cooler again in the next few days.
While poker is still going slowly, let's look at something else you can do in this brutal heat - like making some refreshing ice cold lemonade. 
Yes, we don't need to be sipping on alcoholic cocktails the whole time, though there are some that include lemonade as well, maybe we'll get to them later. For now, we will be making some classic lemonade, which is essentially just lemon juice, sugar and water.
Some people already insist on using freshly pressed juice for their cocktails - I usually don't consider it such a big deal, though I prefer it too if I have some fresh fruit at home. For lemonade, however, I think it really is a good idea to use fresh lemons, even though I have heard some people use bottled lemon juice for that one too. Feel free to try it out, but I'll be making the real deal here, which means that I'll be getting out my old juicer:
We will be making one liter of refreshing lemonade, and while different people have different ideas about the ratios, I'll show you the one that works for me. For starters, we will need about 150 ml of lemon juice, or the juice of three standard sized lemons.
Just press that stuff out, and as you can see, we got pretty much exactly the required amount out of it.
Now, how much sugar do we need? My suggestion is a 1 to 1 ratio with the lemon juice, but I would also suggest to use some simple syrup instead of plain sugar, it is easier to mix. Simple syrup is easy to make at home, and you can refer to my guide from last year over here, you basically just dissolve some sugar in an equal amount of water. So, for this lemonade, we will need 150 ml of simple syrup.
All we need now is some water, and I recommend using some ice with it right away too, it's pretty much the same thing as water anyway and it provides a cooling effect right off the bat. We'll need 700 ml of it, and what I did is to just use some lumps of crushed ice until I have almost the required amount, and fill the rest up with plain water - so I'm using mostly ice, but that's okay.
We got everything we need, now we just have to pour it all together and give it a stir, and we have 1 liter of fresh homemade lemonade. As I said, I'm quite happy with the ratio in that one, but feel free to experiment.
Those pictures were all actually taken last year, I just never got around to posting them back then. But I did make some lemonade the same way just the other day.
I tried it too on Friday. It was very good and very refreshing. :f_love::f_thumbsup:
Yeah, it's one of those nifty angled measuring cups from Oxo, with measurements on both the outside and the inside.
It does come in handy, especially when there is some "fine tuning" involved with the amounts you need.
Morale is back after improving results this month. Motivation isn't, at least for now.
I did not always have time for poker in the evening, but on the ones when I did have time, I often didn't even make a conscious decision not to play, I simply forgot about poker. I guess I got a bit detached from the grind after the busy last two weeks.
I should finally have a pretty eventless weekend ahead of me now, or at least I hope so. Maybe this will get me back into the rhythm.
Actually, I did not do a lot of playing this weekend, only one Badugi tournament tonight, but I made it count. Final result was another 3rd place for $35.02 including bounties.
I already noted down my (expected) appointments for next month and the beginning of next week, there's really nothing out of the ordinary this time. The only things to impede my poker grind in the evening are the usual sports (with the occasional fire department meetups) from Monday through Wednesday, and I should even be able to sneak in a few sessions on Tuesday evenings. Maybe I can eventually get back to the idea of afternoon grinds for the earlier half of the week to fill in the gaps.
This means that there will be a maximum of one more session this month. No matter how it will go, things went really well overall, exactly what I needed. I look forward to presenting some good graphs for once.
I noted a few weeks ago that the $1.10 8-Game may have improved their guaranteed prize pool again and that we might see a return of that game, but it looks like it was only temporary, possibly even a one-time thing. Prize pool is back to $100 again. As people say in Germany, that's not enough to lure a dog who's sitting behind the oven - and it's certainly not enough to lure me. So it's back to Badugi only for the time being, but I'm still working on expanding the grind.
I think that the $1.10 8-Game guarantee varies.
Some days it's $250, some days $100
Tomorrow it's $100 though, so yeah I won't play it either.
I really wish there was a razz at a decent time...
Didn't play tonight after all, and I know I won't be playing tomorrow evening, so let's have those updated stats for the month already.
Now that's more like it! 
Also helps out nicely in the overall stats, where I had even more catching up to do:
As I mentioned, this month was exactly what I needed.
Badugi made a $121.70 profit over only 10 games this month, for an ROI of 276.59% - which puts my overall ROI this year at 7.95% over 86 games in this format, yet again demonstrating how much I had to catch up. Since I started to keep track in 2020, my ROI in Badugi would be at 56.30% now (2020 ROI was 92.75%), which is not bad, but way behind my expectations. Those things won't turn around in a day, though, and we took some important steps this month.
As you could see from the graphs above, those winnings were enough to get back into profit in my overall poker stats too, but this only takes my standard evening sessions into account (graphs for afternoon games have not been implemented yet). If we include the numbers of those three expensive afternoon sessions I tried earlier this year, we would still be at an overall poker loss of $36.83 in 2021.
All in all, great results in June, but we will need a lot more of it. Hopefully this was only the first step, not just a flash in the pan.
Happy Fourth, everyone!
A backyard barbecue would have been great, but frying some burgers indoors is also nice.
Had some cashes at poker in the meantime, nothing big. Some really nasty coolers prevented me from getting the really good finishes.
I'm happy to report that I did get started with NL 2-7 Single Draw tournaments, at least. Results weren't good yet, but I expected that much, and I'm willing to pay a bit of a "tuition fee" while I'm learning the ropes. This game requires nerves of steel, but it seems to be a decent option for the grind, I would like to stay at it for a while.
We'll be entering the slow part of the week when it comes to poker now, but stay tuned.
Originally posted by Harrier88
Happy Fourth, everyone!
Thanks!
Originally posted by Harrier88
Had some cashes at poker in the meantime, nothing big. Some really nasty coolers prevented me from getting the really good finishes.
I have a nasty cooler, but it keeps the beer cold 
Originally posted by Harrier88
I'm happy to report that I did get started with NL 2-7 Single Draw tournaments, at least. Results weren't good yet, but I expected that much, and I'm willing to pay a bit of a "tuition fee" while I'm learning the ropes. This game requires nerves of steel, but it seems to be a decent option for the grind, I would like to stay at it for a while.
The phrase that fits is "more guts than a slaughterhouse".
The game is the essence of poker -- a combination of knowing the odds, and unbridled aggression.