Primrose vs Harrier - Troll Challenges

Harrier88
Primrose took special interest in these spathiphyllum plants, I think she had some personal experience with them

Had once such a plant but was too stupid to care for it properly. This is years ago. I´m thinking of maybe buying one or two of them for the a bit darker places in our appartment. Not so sure how much light they need and which soil. Also the dry air in winter, when you turn on the heater in your appartment can become a problem for them because they like warm and humid air. Still thinking about the design of our "winter garden". At the moment we only have cactusses and two chilis, of which one, however, refused to flower and the other one (Jalapeno) is flowering.

Troll Trivia of the Week

In 2007, Harrier took a school trip to Berlin and wanted to help out his bunkmates with a map of the city. As it turned out, however...

1) ...the map was not up to date
2) ...this was a map of an entirely different city
3) ...what he brought was not a map at all

Originally posted by Harrier88
Troll Trivia of the Week

Nature-loving Primrose has a certain habit when she is around plants, which is...

1) sniffing blossoms
2) picking daisies
3) blowing dandelion seeds

I would have picked the 3... wrong again, but I love doing it so I would have picked it

Originally posted by Harrier88
Troll Trivia of the Week

In 2007, Harrier took a school trip to Berlin and wanted to help out his bunkmates with a map of the city. As it turned out, however...

1) ...the map was not up to date
2) ...this was a map of an entirely different city
3) ...what he brought was not a map at all

3
let me win

Originally posted by Harrier88
Troll Trivia of the Week

In 2007, Harrier took a school trip to Berlin and wanted to help out his bunkmates with a map of the city. As it turned out, however...

1) ...the map was not up to date
2) ...this was a map of an entirely different city
3) ...what he brought was not a map at all

Solution:

Although I don't win, interest in reading you and primm hasn't waned. I just have to keep in mind that it's a game of knowledge and perception. Real life does not always admit constancy but even when you decide to interrupt I will continue to follow you, perhaps without interacting but for sure I will not stop reading you, both you and primm
♡♧

Originally posted by Saffo7
Real life does not always admit constancy but even when you decide to interrupt I will continue to follow you, perhaps without interacting but for sure I will not stop reading you, both you and primm
♡♧

Thank you. Primrose and I had a lot of plans for challenges this year which we didn't get to because of unforeseen circumstances. Prim's injury prevented most of the sporting challenges we had planned for our summer meetups, and the new poker regulations in our country and Prim's subsequent exodus from Pokerstars halted most of the poker challenges we had in mind. But it's nice to see that some people still like to read and follow.

In general, I assume there are plenty of lurkers on the forum who read along without posting themselves, also in the blogs. They too are appreciated.

At least the individual sporting challenges should continue soon, with the Trollympics returning for a final stretch before we wrap things up for the summer, and of course I will soon start my lifeguard training to follow up on the badges from this year's aquatic challenges. We may soon add new poker challenges as well, as Primrose is eager to return to the tables next month. She is, however, currently dealing with some PC troubles that should hopefully be just about solved by now, and poker for me is going through a bit of a crisis right now, as I pointed out on my own blog.

Oh, and I have a new burger version prepared that I didn't post about yet, maybe I'll get to it tomorrow.

As for the Trivia Questions, I usually make sure to choose questions that require as much guessing as possible, without having much prior information available to make it easier, so anyone can join in with just about even chances, whether they know us personally or not.

PC troubles is good! My laptop broke down. We gave it for repair today, this one here is my "emergency laptop".

Originally posted by Primrose6789
PC troubles is good! My laptop broke down. We gave it for repair today, this one here is my "emergency laptop".
I heard it could become your new "gaming laptop" too.

Today, I made the decision to take inventory of one of those forgotten cupboards upstairs - I expect we all have at least one of those at home, filled with all kinds of old stuff. I thought I should systematically go through it at one point, possibly uncovering some old, forgotten treasures.

Well, I made an interesting discovery today already, even though I only went through the first two shelves so far. One of those drawers contained my old Seahorse badge from 1995, the first swimming badge I ever did. Remember my Troll Trivia question about it?

Actually, there is a slight chance that this is my brother's, but I assume it is mine, because there was more stuff relating to me in that drawer.

Here it is together with the new badges I got this year. We sure have come a long way, haven't we?

Maybe we can add our first lifeguard badges to it as well later this year.

Troll of the Day

We got one yesterday. As I mentioned on my blog, it was my mother's birthday on Friday, so I wanted to spend some time with her this weekend. I did - though not in the way I imagined. Determined, apparently, to get a Troll of the Day nomination herself, my mum enlisted me to accompany her to a hardware store out of town to possibly help her haul a new lawnmower, which turned out to be unnecessary, of course, because they had plenty of people working there who were responsible for this instead.

Still, my mother is not my Troll of the Day - it's someone else we met on the way. For whatever reason, we had to slow down quite a bit on the road to the store, where people typically drive around 100 km/h. We and the cars in front of us were going somewhere around 30 km/h instead, and I first assumed that it was another one of those tractors blocking traffic. As annoying as they can be, I still respect them, farmers are hardworking people who do a very important job for us all. I almost considered going into agriculture myself at one point.

But no, it wasn't one of them. When we were finally able to pass him, my Troll of the Day turned out to be:

The guy driving the old-timer vehicle

I do think that those vintage cars are kind of cool... but surely, they were going a little faster back in the day? Maybe it was just some other kind of vehicle that somehow got remade in one of those old styles, but evidently, it wasn't even supposed to go faster, because it had a clearly visible "25 (km/h)" sign in the back. We seemed to be going around 30 km/h instead, so I guess he really pushed his cute little car to the limit.

Honestly, if you need to go to another town with that vehicle, wouldn't it be a much better idea to just load it on a trailer, or something? It was a very small car anyway. Do you really want to go on a big drive with it on a road where people are driving more than three times as fast? Including some truck drivers and other people who need to keep a schedule? I don't imagine it's all that safe for that old-timer driver either.

He chose to take the long drive himself anyway, other traffic be damned... and for this, he is my Troll of the Day.

As a "freetime farmer" I totally agree: Respect to all the farmers who cultivate and deliver the food! What would we do without them? Who will provide us with foods? And as for oldtimers: Some of them can be quite slow. I know a couple of oldtimer collectors and not all of them can go fast, some of them in fact can only go slowly.

Originally posted by Primrose6789
I know a couple of oldtimer collectors and not all of them can go fast, some of them in fact can only go slowly.
Nice, I did not know that. Yeah, I do think those kinds of cars are pretty cool, but surely, some of them are going at least a little faster? That guy might as well have taken our new lawnmower for a drive on that road.

Well, looks like we had plenty to talk about this weekend after all, despite an otherwise slow trolling week. I still have one burger left to post, and there may be a new one next week too, but I'm not sure.

We wish Prim the best with her old and new laptops, and I expect we can see her back at the tables too within a couple of weeks at the latest. Once this is done, nothing should stand in the way of new poker challenges for the two of us.

Also, we should see more Trollympics tomorrow. As you may remember, we already have Gold secured in all four areas and also in the overall rating, but maybe we can add a few more events, just for fun? There is no pressure now. In the previous events, I was competing for an official medal of the Federal Republic of Germany, complete with a certificate that looks good on any résumé. The next events will just be for sh*ts and giggles, but as you know, sh*ts and giggles are what the Trolls are all about, at the end of the day - sometimes one more than the other.

I will give the people a call before I go back to the Trollympic Stadium tomorrow to make sure I won't make the trip for nothing, but I expect everything should be in order. Here's our current "medal table" once again:

3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Bronze
800 Meter Freestyle (Stamina): Silver
Medicine Ball Throw (Strength): Gold
Standing Long Jump (Strength): Silver
100 Meter Dash (Speed): Gold
25 Meter Freestyle (Speed): Silver
Long Jump (Coordination): Bronze
Sling Ball Throw (Coordination): Gold

Maybe we can add a few more to the list tomorrow, or improve in some previous events.

Troll Trivia of the Week

I forgot to mention in the solution to last week's Troll Trivia question that the 2007 Berlin trip included my first introduction to the game of Texas Hold'em - or any poker version that wasn't Five Card Draw, which was simply "poker" to me back then.

My first "serious" game of NL Hold'em, though, which was the one that first really sparked my interest, occurred on another trip one year later. What was the location?

1) A village in the Swiss Alps
2) A spa town in Alsace
3) A harbor town in Devon

Originally posted by Harrier88
My first "serious" game of NL Hold'em, though, which was the one that first really sparked my interest, occurred on another trip one year later. What was the location?

1) A village in the Swiss Alps
2) A spa town in Alsace
3) A harbor town in Devon

I will go for option 2, but alle options could be right

The Trollympics are back for a couple more weeks - just for fun. We already have the Gold, so what else can we do?

Well, I would at least like to complete a decent 3,000 meter run, after my last clumsy attempt where I was barely staggering over the finish line for a Bronze time after dealing with some bad side stitches. Not today, though. There were no other runners doing the 3,000 meters, but plenty of other athletes doing attempts in the other events - mostly kids this time. There is only so much the organizers can do at the same time, so taking my time in there would have taken too long.

However, one girl who was about 12 or 13 years old was attempting the 800 meters instead. This is not a "Trollympic" event, but children aged 6 to 17 do compete in it instead of the 3,000 meters when they are going for the badge. Since I'm only in it for fun by now, I thought I might as well give it a shot too.

800 Meter Run (Not a Trollympic Event)
No Bronze/Silver/Gold times applicable.

Olympic/World Record: 1:40.91 minutes by David Rudisha (KEN) at the 2012 London Olympics, August 9th, 2012

Harrier's time: 3:25 minutes

My split time for the first lap was 1:25 minutes, so I had a much better start than finish, even though I did try to get a bit of a final sprint in. I then got besieged by an angry wasp after crossing the finish line...

Having no time to aim for, I guess I didn't really push myself as much as I could have.

Well, for reference, my time would have been just barely good enough for Silver in the category for boys aged 16 to 17, which is the toughest category that still takes the 800 meter run. For girls in the same age group, it would have been barely good enough for Gold - 3:25 is exactly the cutoff point in both cases. We would have to go down all the way to ages 10 to 11 to have this count as a Gold time for boys, where 3:35 would have already been good enough.

So yes, not a great time, but I was doing it just for fun anyway.

I didn't see a lot of the preteen girl who was competing for real alongside of me. As it turned out, she got out of breath along the way and didn't finish the race this time - I guess I will see her at the track again next week. Maybe she tried too hard to keep up with me.

I saw some younger kids doing the standing long jump later on too, so I decided to join the fun for one more attempt.

Standing Long Jump (Strength)
Bronze: 1.65 meters
Silver: 1.95 meters
Gold: 2.25 meters

Olympic Record: 3.47 meters by Ray Ewry (USA) at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, September 3rd, 1904.
World Record: 3.73 meters by Byron Jones (USA) at the NFL Combine, February 23rd, 2015.

Harrier's distance: 2.23 meters

Well, a considerable improvement over my previous distance, which was just a little over 2 meters. My leg exercises before work may have paid off.

However, we are still just shy of the Gold distance... so unfortunately, no changes to the medal table yet. If I had done a real attempt, maybe we even would have let it slide... but no, let's not cut any corners. 2.25m is 2.25m, we are still at Silver in this event.

We could unofficially count my 800 meter run time as Silver, since it would have been good enough for this in the 16 to 17 year old boys category - and that wouldn't even be cheating, since the requirements for boys in this age group in most other comparable events are actually higher than for men in my age group. Still, it is not an official "Trollympic" event, so the medal table will stay as it is:

3,000 Meter Run (Stamina): Bronze
800 Meter Freestyle (Stamina): Silver
Medicine Ball Throw (Strength): Gold
Standing Long Jump (Strength): Silver
100 Meter Dash (Speed): Gold
25 Meter Freestyle (Speed): Silver
Long Jump (Coordination): Bronze
Sling Ball Throw (Coordination): Gold

We are a bit late, but it's finally time for our Aussie-burger.

No kangaroo meat, sorry. I will mostly use the recipe I linked a while ago for reference. No beetroot, no chutney, no pineapple, but some shrimps instead.

The fried egg stays. It's not a problem if I'm cooking it in the same pan where I previously cooked the shrimps, right?

The patties are mixed beef/pork again. I think I should switch back to all beef next time, they seem a little heavy on the pork.

Let's start with some mashed avocados...

...add lettuce and tomatoes...

...bacon, shrimps...

...then the patty...

...and finally the fried egg, sunnyside up.

That's it - our Aussie-burger is ready.

It could have done with some sauce... it was a little blander than I imagined, but still good. For Primrose, however, this burger is as banhauser as expected, and no amount of standing on her head would fix that.

Compared to the other ones from the list, it won't rank that highly for me, though. I will put it below the California version, despite some similar ingredients, but I think the toppings just worked better with each other in that one, if that makes sense. I think I will put it above England... but above Turkey too? That one was just dragged down by my bread experiments, the spices were a lot better. Let's put it below it.

1st Switzerland
2nd Cyprus
3rd Israel
4th Greece
5th Mongolia
6th China
7th Denmark
8th Korea
9th Spain
10th Germany
11th Russia
12th Madagascar
13th Alsace
14th Italy
15th Texas
16th California
17th Mexico
18th Morocco
19th Brazil
20th Arabia
21st Turkey
22nd Australia
23rd England
24th France
25th Colombia
26th Cuba
27th Canada
28th Hungary
29th The Netherlands

Hey guys, just so you know, I intend to solve last week's Troll Trivia tomorrow, I just came back from a pretty long poker session, so I'm a little tired.

If you haven't guessed yet, and you would like to, at least that will give you one more day for it. Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Originally posted by Harrier88
Troll Trivia of the Week

I forgot to mention in the solution to last week's Troll Trivia question that the 2007 Berlin trip included my first introduction to the game of Texas Hold'em - or any poker version that wasn't Five Card Draw, which was simply "poker" to me back then.

My first "serious" game of NL Hold'em, though, which was the one that first really sparked my interest, occurred on another trip one year later. What was the location?

1) A village in the Swiss Alps
2) A spa town in Alsace
3) A harbor town in Devon

Originally posted by Harrier88
Troll Trivia of the Week

I forgot to mention in the solution to last week's Troll Trivia question that the 2007 Berlin trip included my first introduction to the game of Texas Hold'em - or any poker version that wasn't Five Card Draw, which was simply "poker" to me back then.

My first "serious" game of NL Hold'em, though, which was the one that first really sparked my interest, occurred on another trip one year later. What was the location?

1) A village in the Swiss Alps
2) A spa town in Alsace
3) A harbor town in Devon

Solution:

Troll Trivia of the Week

We heard about Harrier's first proper Hold'em game, but let's go even further back to the mid 90's, to Harrier's first real game of Five Card Draw.

I will tell you the location this time, it was during a camping trip at the Edersee, a reservoir in my home state of Hesse. But what were we gambling in our game?

1) Candy
2) Monopoly money
3) Rocks