Originally posted by Harrier88
Troll Trivia of the Week
1) passed the test before
2) was afraid to dive in the deep end
3) demonstrated a very advanced swimming style
Yup, I'll go for 3 as well
Notifications
Clear all
Originally posted by Harrier88
I'm ready to do it any time. Toss me in the water right now, and I'll do it.
Well... I had about an hour to spare before dinner after doing some paperwork at home, so I went to the pool real quick and did it. How's that for some German efficiency? 
Easy peasy 4-bet squeezy, but the next one will be tougher. The Bronze badge pretty much just certifies that you are capable of swimming unsupervised - it used to be called the "Free Swimmer Badge", as in "swimming freely". So this is certainly no time to get complacent, but it is an early victory.
It was a good idea to revisit those bathing rules last night, because my examiner actually expected me to recite them, rather than just answering questions about them that might be guessed by common sense alone. Also, contrary to the rules I posted above, which are consistent with the ones seen in the passport thing, I was asked to perform not one, but two different jumps: A head-first dive from the edge, and a "cannonball" version from 1 meter height - a special one where you would spread out your arms after hitting the water in order to surface as quickly as possible. I was asked to repeat them several times to get them down - my initial head-first dive almost went straight down to the bottom, a standard starting dive was preferred.
The swimming part was easy, I got the required 200 meters done after about 7 minutes of casual swimming, which is good to know as a reference for the tougher tests in the future. The test was mostly about stamina anyway, the 15 minutes of non-stop swimming were the main challenge, which is also not hard.
Time to practice for Silver, but first, let's celebrate the Bronze. 
Now that we're all dried off again, it's time for another burger break. We're going to Colombia.
I'm thinking about coffee... can we add coffee to a burger? We can, and possibly should. I will use the linked recipe for reference to make a coffee-based burger rub.
Originally, I wanted to use this old manual coffee grinder from my Grandma's days, made by "Haha" - making hilarious kitchen appliances since 1875.
However, having had a look inside that little compartment... it may not be all that sanitary anymore, after all those years. It still smells nice, though.
No, we will use this more modern device here:
That's the coffee I'm about to use, around a tablespoon or so.
Combined with some salt, paprika, brown sugar, black pepper, onion and garlic powder, as well as a little bit of ground coriander, it makes this seasoning for our burgers:
Maybe I should have used it more like a proper rub instead, but it will work that way.
For the sauce, I will use this recipe for reference to make a Colombian "Aji" style salsa. We will use some tomatoes, onions, pickled jalapeños and some fresh coriander (should have de-stemmed it). Also some of the liquid from the picked jalapeños and a pinch of salt.
I will use my blender for it.
I don't think it's supposed to look like this, it's quite smooth. Not a bad taste, however, though it's a little heavy on the coriander.
Now for the actual burger. We will use our coffee-seasoned beef patty with some avocado slices...
...and then simply add our Aji salsa.
Our Colombia inspired burger is ready.
We did it! We made the #1 most banhauser burger in Primrose's book. It was up against some stiff competition, and it may be difficult to beat.
As far as I am concerned, the burgers were okay. Subtle coffee flavor, a little stronger in some parts, and as I said, the salsa was a bit heavy on the coriander, but otherwise nice and spicy. Not much that stands out, but passable enough.
I think I will rank it around 19th place at the moment.
1st Switzerland
2nd Cyprus
3rd Greece
4th Mongolia
5th Denmark
6th Korea
7th Spain
8th Germany
9th Alsace
10th Italy
11th Texas
12th California
13th Mexico
14th Brazil
15th Arabia
16th Turkey
17th England
18th France
19th Colombia
20th Cuba
21st Canada
22nd Hungary
23rd The Netherlands
Going for Silver
Bronze was easy, but the next badge is going to be a little tougher.
The stamina part requires you to keep going for longer at a higher pace, and the theory exam goes beyond the basic bathing rules to cover what to do to stay safe when things are not going according to plan. It also introduces the first distance diving goal.
The exact requirements for Silver are:
Theoretical part
- Knowledge of the bathing rules and self-rescue measures, e.g. in case of cramps or exhaustion.
Practical Part
- Jumping heads first from the edge of the pool and swimming continuously for 20 minutes, making at least 400 meters of distance in a recognizable swimming style, including at least 100 meters of backstroke swimming.
- Retrieving two objects from the bottom of a 2 meters deep part of the pool.
- Diving for 10 meters after a push-off start.
- Jumping from a height of 3 meters or performing two kinds of jumps from a height of 1 meter.
For reference, the Bronze badge required me to keep swimming for 15 minutes, making 200 meters. This gave me 1 minute and 52.5 seconds for each 25 meters lane, which is a very generous time limit that basically just requires you to go forward.
For Silver, I need to make twice that distance in five extra minutes, giving me 1 minute and 15 seconds for each lane. That's still a pretty casual pace, but you can't dawdle too much anymore, you need to keep it steady.
Diving should not be a problem, considering that I already made a full 25 meters lane as part of my latest Live Troll Challenge. As for the jumps, I guess it will depend on the examiner. I already had to do two different jumps last time, and I was told that it would be better to do a 3 meter jump somewhere else (my pool doesn't have any 3 meter boards), rather than doing two different jumps there. Obviously, this would complicate things.
In general, I think all of this should be quite doable at my current level of training. I plan to do a practice run on Saturday, and if I feel ready, I will try to do an attempt next week already.
What about you guys? Any swimmers among you? Could you do it?
Originally posted by Primrose6789
I can do it! ♠_biggrin:♠_cool:
Well, that's not news. 
Sure enough, Prim did all the badges back then, and even completed the lifeguard training that comes afterwards. The challenge is to see whether both Trolls can rule in the water - we already know that Prim does.
But maybe we have some other swimmers around here, ambitious or casual. It would be interesting to hear whether you guys could pull it off too. Well, feel free to try next time you're out for a swim, you know the requirements now.
Oh, and I forgot - I wanted to post a fitting song for making each of my badges. It's a long way to becoming a proper shark at the pool, but I took my first step with Bronze.
Originally posted by Harrier88
Troll Trivia of the WeekWhen it was time to lose those swimmies in the early to mid 90's, little Harrier was sent to some swimming classes. Eventually, he took the "Seahorse" test to prove that he learned to swim, but one thing baffled his examiner: Harrier...
1) passed the test before
2) was afraid to dive in the deep end
3) demonstrated a very advanced swimming style
Solution:
Spoiler
1) passed the test before
Actually, yes, I was afraid to dive in the deep end back then - but that didn't come up during the test, I was only required to dive in shoulder deep water.
My swimming classes took place over several weeks, with different instructors. It must have been some time in mid-1995 when I took my Seahorse exam to finish things off, and the woman who supervised me was someone I hadn't met during any of my previous swimming lessons. She was quite supportive and friendly.
I swam my 25 meter lane, did my jump, did the diving... we were just about done with the test. The examiner pointed to my mother sitting in the adjacent cafeteria section with a view to the pool - the room still exists, but it is now empty and sometimes used for some exercising classes, I took a "Strong by Zumba" course there myself a few years ago. She praised me for my performance in the test and said that we were almost done, and then I could tell my mother the good news.
"What good news?", I asked. The woman was visibly confused. "Why, the news about you passing your Seahorse exam, of course." I flatly told her "She already knows that." Now she was really confused. "How would she know?". That's when I finally told her "Because I already passed the test last week". Her face was priceless.
Yes, with all the different instructors in charge of my swimming lessons, there must have been some misunderstandings among them, and so I ended up taking the Seahorse exam twice. As usual, I just dutifully did what my instructors told me to do, so I didn't say that I already passed that test - not until the very end, that is. I guess I was a bit of a Troll already. 
My swimming style was not very advanced at all, I only learned a basic breast stroke, and it had been pointed out that my leg movement was still a little erratic back then. Here is some footage of me taking a swim during my 1995 summer vacation on Kos, probably a few months after I made my Seahorse. It was my first vacation where I did some proper swimming on my own, without any floaties or other swimming aids.
I was supposed to take some more advanced classes later on, in order to fix my bad leg movement, but I bowed out after a couple of weeks - because I was afraid to go diving in the deep end, which is what they expected me to do.
No winners this time, better luck next week.
I guess I have some bad news. You may have heard about Primrose's troubles with Pokerstars after their bungled account migration that has been forced on all German players to comply with new laws. It has been quite a nuisance on all players from that country, myself included, but many of us got through it in one way or another, even if it wasn't easy on our nerves and cost some players their SCOOP seats.
Primrose, on the other hand, had to deal with a special kind of incompetence by the support staff, receiving the same email with the same nonfunctional link three times in a row, despite specifically telling them about the problems with it and that another way needs to be found. It got too much for her, and last evening, she announced on her blog that she intends to leave Pokerstars.
I have voiced my concerns and objections about it, both here on the forum and in private chats, but it looks like the grindette has made her decision. Unless she changes her mind at a later point, this will mean that there is no longer a poker room where both of us have a functional account. Therefore, we will not be able to do any poker challenges against each other any longer.
I enjoy working on this blog, I like the cooking, the sports, the quizzes and all that, and I hope you guys like it too. Still, this is a poker forum, so I would like to keep this blog poker related as well, at least to some degree. We didn't even do a lot of versus stuff in general lately, poker or otherwise.
There should be new kinds of poker challenges, I believe. Maybe we could set some goals for each other instead, for individual challenges? If all else fails, maybe I could join Prim at Party, or possibly even have her come over to any of my crypto rooms, just so we can keep playing against each other.
Suggestions are very much welcome.
I designed this logo about a week ago for the swimming challenges we might have for each other during our live meetups, but I guess I can use it for my quest to get the three German swimming badges as well already.
I went to the pool earlier today as part of my usual Saturday morning routine, and practiced for the Silver badge exam. It went well, I did the required distance, including the backstroke part, in about 15 minutes, and still managed to carry on for the full 20 minutes that I need to last. In fact, I kept going for about half an hour in total without any breaks, and 15 additional minutes later on, in order to already practice for the Gold badge that comes later. I didn't count my laps afterwards, but I think I just about kept the pace, which should at least put me within spitting distance of Gold in that regard.
The rest should be no big deal, I just need to read up on theory. The only thing that could cause some delay is that I might be required to take a dive from a 3 meter board somewhere else, which means that I couldn't do the whole test in one sitting. In either case, I'm sure we can find a way.
So I think I should be ready to take a shot at Silver next week, possibly Tuesday. I also have another sporting challenge planned that requires some more organization with other people, I will get to it when the time is right, let's get those swimming badges first. But I can already say that your little squirrel friend is getting himself into quite a challenge this summer. I plan to be very active this season, let's hope there won't be any injuries or other ailments throwing a wrench in my works.
Poker challenges are currently on hold after Prim's exodus from Pokerstars, and live sports challenges are an issue as well due to her injuries...
It's not really going according to plan, but I hope we can still deliver stuff to keep you interested. At least my personal athletic challenges seem to have a very positive impact on my health and well-being so far.
I have some ideas for new international burger versions, not sure if I will get to any of them next week already. Thursday is a holiday, so we may take it a little slower than usual. We also intend to meet up in person this week, which normally would be an excellent opportunity for something sporty at home, but as I said, we need to watch out for Prim's injuries, and also her skin in the summer sun.
Keep your Troll-fingers crossed that I can at least grab my Silver swimming badge.
Troll Trivia of the Week
I guess we all have a song we absolutely can't stand... there's definitely one that Primrose despises, which is...
1) Saturday Night by Whigfield
2) Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega
3) The Ketchup Song by Las Ketchup
Ugh... 
Got a bad cramp in my left shoulder. I must have slept in an unfavorable position in the night to Monday. I was hoping that it would be all okay by now, but every once in a while, when doing certain movements, it starts acting up again.
I don't think I should do my swimming badge exam in that condition, which is a bummer, because I was hyped to go for it. I think I will either go for a jog instead, or simply swim casually, without any tests. If I noticed that it was going well, I could then still change my mind and do the exam after all.
Still, odds are that I will have to postpone it, probably to next week. In this case, I'm afraid we won't have a lot to offer you guys this week except for the Troll Trivia, so feel free to have a guess - it may be all we have for you this time.
Update: I did not hit the pool, but I went jogging for about half an hour in preparation for an even bigger challenge that will be coming soon.
Maybe I can shoot for a badge on the weekend instead, if my cramp eases a little.
It's not really an injury, not even an "ouchie", but it is something that gets in the way, and more importantly, something to look out for so it won't get any worse.
Luckily, it's only the left shoulder, so I should be fine on the tennis court tomorrow.
No guesses this time? Here is the solution for this week's Troll Trivia question all the same.
Originally posted by Harrier88
Troll Trivia of the WeekI guess we all have a song we absolutely can't stand... there's definitely one that Primrose despises, which is...
1) Saturday Night by Whigfield
2) Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega
3) The Ketchup Song by Las Ketchup
Solution:
Spoiler
2) Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega
The grindette doesn't want to hear the Lou Bega version of Mambo No. 5 ever again, mostly for one simple reason: This song was played ad nauseam in 1999 (and some of the following years).
The other choices on the list can certainly go on your nerves, but Primrose doesn't really mind them (though she does consider the Saturday Night song a little annoying, I believe).
In general, every song can probably be "heard to death" eventually, no matter how good it is, and with mainstream music like this, oversaturation can often be enough to make you outright hate an otherwise "harmless" song. You can probably think of several examples yourselves.
I remember getting similarly annoyed with the brass intro (but not the rest of the song) of Samba de Janeiro during that decade. Prim and I met up today, and I actually prepared a little 90's playlist for our "afterparty", which also included that song - but mercifully left out Mambo No.5. We had a blast - and remembered that Sweat by Inner Circle could give Mambo No.5 a run for its money. It could be considered an early 90's example of the same phenomenon.
Most importantly, I was pleased to see that both of us can still do the Macarena dance, like true 90's kids.
Primrose and I went to the pool, and as a challenge of sorts, we were mostly working on my crawling technique, which could use a lot of improvements. Mind you, I pretty much just learned how to crawl from the grindette a few weeks ago, when we met up last time, so it's no surprise that I still need to practice.
Prim gave me some important pointers, and by the end of our swimming trip, she was very pleased with the improvements I had made today - but I will let her elaborate on it herself, she knows best what I used to do wrong, where I am still making mistakes, and where I improved today.
So that was my challenge, more or less, just improving my crawling technique. A proper crawl will not be expected of me during my Silver badge exam, which I intend to take soon, but it will come up eventually. I should get it right - not just for the badges and similar tests, but also because it is simply the fastest way to swim.
Other than that, still no proper versus challenge. I considered playing some backgammon against each other, now that I started a side challenge about it on my own blog. However, after explaining the rules a bit, it seemed like I would end up making most of the moves for Prim, and that it wouldn't be much of a game. At least she found a creative use for those checkers and chess pieces:
You see, all those pieces are tired of fighting each other, so the two opposing royal couples have sent diplomats to each other to negotiate peace terms, while staying in the safety of their castle and having their cavalry ready in case the negotiations fail. The diplomats brought a lot of bargaining chips too, and the dice are rolling - stakes may be very high indeed...
When I asked her if she knew how to play real chess, she said that she didn't... but when I set up a proper chess board after all, to see how she would do, she did a perfectly solid e4, d3 book opening. I guess at the end of the day, Primrose is simply a troll.
In other news, my Greek takeout place has increased their prices yet again. €41.50 for our usual meat plate for two, and an outrageous €5 for an extra bowl of tzatziki... 
I checked what a standard gyro pita would cost, and it is now at €8 - I remember thinking that €6.50 was too much when the price first reached this level.
The food is still as great as it used to be, but at those prices, we are unlikely to get it again. I guess we will do some more of our own cooking during our next meetups.
Well, I think our kings and queens hopefully have found a peaceful solution by now, even though there must have been a lot of bribary. I really suck at chess, I used to play it every now and then just for fun. 
So, I decided, instead of "going to war", the kings and queens better may send their diplomats. :f_biggrin::f_biggrin::f_ugly::f_ugly: Was just not in the mood for intellectual performances I have more than enough complex stuff to do at work, so sometimes, I prefer to keep it simple (and childish). :f_biggrin::f_ugly: Yesterday, I decided to keep it creative and sporty. 
Harrier´s crawl style has improved a lot and as we went to the pool yesterday, I gave him some more advices. Swimming is not a big problem for me, even with torn muscle fibers, because at the moment, I´m just using ONE leg. Don´t do breast stroke but crawl and back stroke works perfectly fine with only one leg. :f_thumbsup::f_thumbsup: Speaking for swimming: Found out, that synchronized swimming is not Marios forte. 
Of course we played a lot of Mario games yesterday, mainly Mario summer olympics and little Bowser jr. (was Harriers character) turned out to be a very sporty and skilled little guy! ♠_cool: I mostly chose either princess Daisy, princess Peach or Bowser. Unfortunately no baby princesses are available in that game, and princess Peach could set a new record in long jump! 
Papa Bowser and Bowser jr. turned out to be GREAT soccer- and beach-volleyball players and princess Daisy did great in gymnastics.
Was a wonderful, funny and sporty day yesterday and hopefully, next time I already will be able to do a bit more live sports.
Originally posted by Primrose6789
So, I decided, instead of "going to war", the kings and queens better may send their diplomats. :f_biggrin::f_biggrin::f_ugly::f_ugly: Was just not in the mood for intellectual performances
Prim mentioned yesterday that she was using her "free time brain" when she did her chess artwork.
I'm not great at chess either, I would like to improve at it some time, I already took some online lessons last year. I think Prim may be better at this game than she might think.Originally posted by Primrose6789
Speaking for swimming: Found out, that synchronized swimming is not Marios forte.To be fair, the synchronized swimming event in that game seems to be broken, certain movements simply do not seem to register. Maybe it's my setup. Pity, because I think it is otherwise quite fun.
And yes, Bowser Jr. is quickly turning into a favorite of mine, that new plushie of yours that you showed in your blog really warmed me up to him.
I hope we can do some real sports together again soon, but until that injury has healed, those sports games on the Wii will have to do. At least the characters are adorable.
