New year, new contest

Every year the Minnesota lottery has a New Year’s Day raffle. They sell 700,000 tickets. There are several prizes, including two $1 million prizes.

As usual, I have a ticket for the 2020 raffle. What does this have to do with our contest?

Your goal is to guess the total of the 12 digits from the $1 million winning ticket numbers in the 2020 contest. The winner receives a prize package containing at least three items on nominal value.

An example: The winning numbers for the 2019 raffle were 091593 and 442917. Add up the 12 digits for those winning tickets and you get a total of 54. https://www.mnlottery.com/games/raffle/raffle-2019

Fun facts: The lowest total you could have is 2, and that could happen several ways. If the winning tickets are 000001 and 000100, the total is 2.

The highest total you could have is 101, and that could happen multiple ways, as well. If the winning tickets are 699999 and 699998, you get 101. It also happens if the winning tickets are 699999 and 698999.

To enter: Send your guess via private message to MikeVegas by Tuesday evening. At some point Tuesday night the contest will officially close. So don’t delay, enter today.

As usual, game show rules apply. The closest to the actual total, without going over, wins the prize package. If all guesses exceed the winning total, the guess closest to the total will be the winner. A tie-breaker will be held if necessary.

AND THE ENTRIES ARE:

Spartan75 43
DiceDominatorOKC 44
Azjim1 46
Alyssajandm 49
QuickSparrow14 56
GregRulz 58
Pinksushi66 63
Sheila618 63
Xray1989 64
71fraz 71
Jack664 73
Scracer 78

Thanks for the effort

Our team won its first Family Feast, and I was amazed by that. Plenty of people have come and gone since then. Life goes on, with or without Yahtzee.

A team member came to me with a crazy idea a couple of months after the Feasts were introduced: Delay our start and get into a less competitive pool of teams. It doesn't guarantee a win, but it avoids having to compete with super teams. As we've learned, some teams will earn more than 100,000 points in a Feast.

I liked the idea, floated it in the group chat, and others liked it to. We were about to start a Feast, and I thought it was too early to expect 50 people to be on the same page, but we tried to get everyone on that same page at the suggestion of several team members, and we delayed our start long enough to give us a less insane pool of competitors. It was very encouraging.

Moving forward, I determined we needed a more organized campaign, so I recruited team "captains" to send reminders to players prior to the start of each new Feast. In addition to private message reminders, we repeat our messaging in the general chat room. It does not take hours of our time to do this, but I have spent time organizing teams twice and communicating with the captains at the start of each Feast. We all spend time trying to make sure everybody is paying attention and on the same page.

I have never made winning the Feast a team priority. I don't pay close attention to the contributions of our members. I don't set participation benchmarks that team members must reach. It's just not that important to win a limited edition dice set or team emblem.

The current Feast started about four days after the previous Feast ended. A Facebook group I recently joined noted that the Feasts were starting about 7-8 days after the completion of the previous Feast. Somehow the current Feast had to start four days after the previous Feast, and without a 24-hour notice. I think we had about two hours notice.... too short to expect the captains to send reminders to the team members. We limited the announcement to our group chat and hoped for the best, knowing everyone on our team knows our strategy.

As I said, I recruited several people to help me keep 42 other players in the loop when a Feast is about to start. We've benefited from our communication/delay effort seemingly every time, but for whatever reason, it's just too difficult for our team to accomplish our one declared goal, to wait until the following day to start playing the Feast.

I can no longer ask people to dedicate their time toward a goal we can't accomplish collectively. We've been through several Feasts using a delayed start. When I add new team members, I communicate with them and make sure they understand that we skip the first day of the Feast. They all understand that. And yet, one of our veteran players has some extraordinary circumstances that necessitates starting the Feast.

I'm not interested in pointing a finger at any one person. It has happened a handful of times now, and I have no reason to assume it's not going to continue happening.

I won't ask the captains to spend any more time reminding everyone that we have one goal, and only one, on this team. There's no 75-bag requirement during each Feast. There's no 10 bags/day requirement. There's no help points requirements. But we can't, collectively, leave the Feast alone for 18-24 hours. We just can't. And asking team captains to work toward that is something I can no longer do.

You're all welcome to do what you want to do during future Feasts. My work is done.

Yahtzee is supposed to be fun, I'm told. If being part of our group and not paying attention to the one goal our team has agreed to makes it more fun, who am I to argue?

Good luck out there!

Happy Thanksgiving

First and foremost, whether you can sit back and enjoy the cooking of others or have to work and make life better for others, I hope you have a pleasant day and a chance to gather with family or friends in the days to come.

This contest attracted 15 entrants, I think that's a record. The contest is to pick the total points scored by all six NFL teams on Thanksgiving. Here are the picks:

45 GregRulz

67 ChrisBlackburn

77 JennaChelle

87 Sheila618

90 bluebelle27

97 Spartan75

100 QuickSparrow14

117 71fraz

120 Pinksushi66

128 DiceDominatorOKC

129 azjim1

129 PenguinRnbwUnicorn

129 totallyquacky

142 Xray1989

157 alyssajandm

It seems as if every contest has a number that two or three people pick, and that's the case here. DiceDominator can only win if his pick is exact. I'll hold a tiebreaker if the total is 129-141.

Fun fact, if we had held this contest on Thanksgiving last year, the winning total would have been 141.*

Finally: Here's recent video of the Goofball Bros., dancing to one of our favorite songs:

*fact is not fun

AND THE WINNER IS....

To be determined. Sure enough, the combined final score of all six teams is 129, which three people picked, so we need a tiebreaker.

If you're one of the three winners, send me a private message, picking three numbers from 1 to 3, in order of preference.

If your first choice is 3, your second choice is 2 and your third choice is 1, message me with 3-2-1. Once two people have picked their three numbers, in order of preference, we can hold a tiebreaker.

AND THE WINNER IS!

That didn't take long.

Funny story, PenguinRnbwUnicorn and totallyquacky are two of our new team members, and are husband and wife. They both picked 129 without consultation. Logic suggests they should compare notes and pick two different numbers to give their household a better chance of winning. They didn't, and they ended up picking the exact same number.

We'll be spinning the roulette wheel to choose our winner. Each player will get one column. If the wheel hits 0, we spin again. totallyquacky was first to respond, and her first pick was 2, so she gets column 2.

PenguinRnbwUnicorn responded second. His first pick was 2, which was already taken, so we go to his second pick, which is 1. He gets column 1.

Fun fact: They both picked 2-1-3 as their order of preference. After 21 years of marriage, you think alike. That's the lesson we're learning from all of this.

azjim1 is out of town this weekend, so it's no surprise he wasn't quick to respond. He gets column 3 since that's the only column left.

If you are the winner, send me your name and address by private message.

With that, here's our winner.

Another photo of the Goofball Bros.

I did not take this photo of the Goofball Bros., but it was taken a couple of hours after I picked them up from school on Oct. 8 and took them to the park for an hour or so. I think this was on their car ride to swimming lessons.

Rules of the game

I created our family on a lark and named it after my podcast because I could.

I had no idea there would be Family Feasts, and that having active family members would be beneficial to winning a few simple virtual prizes. But that's how it works.

As time marches on, we've learned that delaying the start of the Feast makes it easier to win them. Few people seem to object to that. I encouraged RDoc1 to move on and find a new team if s/he wasn't happy with having "boring" Feasts. I totally support moving onto a new team if there's any reason you're not happy with the one I put together.

As for RDoc1, s/he joined a team that requires you have 10 help points every week, and earn at least 50 bags in each Family Feast. If it makes him/her happy being part of such a team, I'm glad s/he joined it.

I have talked with one of the captains about having a minimum requirement for the Feast, but I have not implemented one. I'm still not going to.

But here's my loose-knit guidelines for membership. Apologies if I'm asking too much.

I don't care about how many or how few help points you have. I don't bother to look these days. If you ask for free rolls and scratchers, and don't help anybody earn them, it's no big deal. We have plenty of people who spend the 3 seconds it takes to help multiple times per day. Our team has a huge help score. As of this moment, two members have scores >200.

I am not setting a minimum on Feast contributions. Beyond the daily free game, I spent less than 20 rolls on the last Feast, and scored 40-something bags. I spent no rolls on the prior Feast and scored 30+ bags just by playing one free daily game.

All I hope for is to have active players who engage regularly and play their free daily Feast game, if nothing else. Almost everyone ends up with 20+ bags during each Feast. That takes very little effort.

But I'm not setting a minimum requirement. I try to watch the bottom of the player score total at the end of each Feast, but I don't keep stats. If I notice somebody is consistently inactive, I will consider removing them. I know people take breaks from the game, and some folks are kind enough to let us know. But I'm not going to set a minimum requirement for the Feasts. I couldn't care less if we win or finish in 20th place, but I'd rather have a chance at winning, and therefore I'd rather have modestly active players on our roster.

So what's my point? I'm not penalizing people simply for starting the Feast 3 or 4 hours after it begins, despite the fact our goal is to wait until the next day. But during the past two Feasts, the players who started it were players who contributed less than 30 bags. And when I sent them private messages, asking if they are paying attention to our delayed start notifications, I got no response. After several messages over several days, with zero response, I decided that it was time for them to go after we finished the Feast.

I don't care if you don't want to chat. We have active players who never chat in the group chat, and that's fine. But I don't think it's asking too much for anyone to acknowledge a private message when one is sent. So if a player starts the Feast, and never pays attention to our announcements or acknowledges a private message I've sent, I figure s/he doesn't much care if s/he is in our group or not.

Am I a jerk, or am I simply trying to build a team of players who pay attention to each other, even if they don't chat? That's for you to decide. If it turns out you all think I'm doing things all wrong, I'll happily turn over the leadership. But I don't see many complaints, and 95 percent of you seem to be active players. We all found our way to my team by happenstance, and it has turned out to be a fun, active group. I don't know how I got so lucky.

Finally, coordinating the delayed start of the Feast has been easy, thanks to our team captains. I set the teams up, and the captains spread the word each time via private messages and reminders in the group chat. Thanks to the seven of you for making it work!

How much do you want to spend to win the Family Feast?

It's boring when we delay the start of the Feast and end up in a pool of non-competitive teams. Although our current pool gave us two legit competitors, yet the only reason we'll finish in second is because one of the teams mysteriously vaporized.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not spending cash, or eight hours, every three weeks, to win another Feast. I'm glad we're delaying our start, even if we can't get everyone on the same page. More on that another day.

One of our family members sent us this image of a current Feast pool that we're not in. Would it be more fun to have this kind of competition? I say no.

One more time

We're going to have one more roulette contest, and it will be similar to the last contest.

But to start, we'll give everyone three options to choose from. We're going to open with columns. Pick your column: 1, 2 or 3.

If you pick column 1, you have 12 numbers on the board, and those are 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31 and 34.

Figure out which column your favorite number is in, and pick that column. Or pick one randomly. What do I care?

All you need to do is send a private message to MikeVegas with your column choice, then hope the ball lands in your column. And whatever online wheel I spin, it won't matter if it has only 0 or if it has 0 and 00. Those numbers are not in play during our contest. (We WON'T be using the same wheel as the last contest.)

So what will it be, 1, 2 or 3?

ROUND 1

We have 12 players for this contest. Here are the columns they picked.

1:

2:

MysticShores

GregRulz

QuickSparrow

71fraz

azjim

Xray

Pinksushi

Spartan

alyssa

spankie

3:

DiceDominator

CheerfulElk

That's right, 10 of you picked column 2. Nobody picked column 1. 

If column 2 is the winner, it is up to you to submit your next pick. If column 3 is the winner, I will contact the Elk and the Dominator to determine their final spin wager. If column 1 is the winner, none of you are. The contest ends. 

So what's the outcome? Witness the video: 

And for no good reason, here's a picture of the Goofball Bros. I took on Sunday.

ROUND 2

Final round already. It's amazing how so many of you are able to eliminate yourselves in the first spin of this contest.

Two players remaining means we go to a 50/50 proposition. In this case it is red or black. CheerfulElk won the choice by being the first to submit an entry in the previous round. Elk chooses red. That leaves black for DiceDominator. If the ball lands in a zero, we spin again.

If you're the winner, private message your name and address to MikeVegas. And choose one of the following prize descriptions: Sexy, pink or emoji.

Red:
CheerfulElk

Black:
DiceDominator

Thanks for playing everyone! New contest coming on Thanksgiving day.

Contest time

All updates will be via this blog post. We have 13 entries for the new contest. It's a roulette contest, one winner TBD. You're responsible for new entry submissions if you win the spin. I will not message participants after each round. If after 1-2 days you haven't responded, you're disqualified from the contest.

First spin is red or black. Here are the picks:

Black:

DiceDominator

PinkSushi

JennaChelle

QuickSparrow

GregRulz

CheerfulElk

Azjim

Alyssa

Sweetkitty

MysticShores

Red:

71fraz

Xray

Spartan

Yes, 10 for black, 3 for red.

If you are a winner, then pick odd or even for the next spin, and message MikeVegas via the app to submit your pick. Good luck!

ROUND 2

Three people left, and these are their picks:

Even:

71fraz

Xray

Odd:

Spartan

If it is odd, we'll have a winner. If it is even, I'll contact 71fraz and Xray about the final spin.

ROUND 3

So we need one final spin to determine a winner.

The final spin is high/low. High is 19-36. Low is 1-18. In order to guarantee a winner, one person picks and the other person receives the opposite choice. 71fraz received the choice as a result of being the first to pick even in round 2.

Therefore this is how it breaks down.

High (19-36):

71fraz

Low (1-18):
Xray

That was fun. Let's do it again next week. 

State of our union, October 2019

For those that don't know, or remember: We have been delaying the start of each new Family Feast in order to get a more favorable grouping.

Only so many teams are pooled together in competition, and all the super teams, composed of members who spend cash to buy rolls and will go nuts trying to win, go nuts as soon as a new Feast begins. By waiting hours to begin, we get a less competitive pool.

I am not obsessed with winning the Feast, but most -- if not all -- of us are casual players. We don't spend money to buy rolls, as far as I know. So after busting ass to collect free rolls for weeks, what fun is it to enter a tournament and have no chance of winning without spending money and committing hours of play to have a chance to win? We were in a pool once where the top team had over 100,000 points, and the runner-up had nearly as many. That's not fun.

It's not about winning, it's about not having to sell our souls in order to have a chance at winning. If we get a non-competitive pool, then we don't have to burn through hundreds of free rolls. And if it's a "boring" Feast, I say great, another Feast will start within three weeks. Guaranteed.

Make no mistake, the Feast exists to make the Yahtzee app money, and it seems to work. Does it generate significant cash? I have no idea.

So, once again we failed to delay the start of the Feast until the next day. One day we'll have an entire team on the same page. But our multi-hour delay is enough to accomplish what we set out to do. Thanks again to Greg for helping keep tabs on our opening day status.

MY IMMEDIATE FUTURE

If you don't know, MikeVegas runs this blog, and he's happy to report that he'll be in Las Vegas during Halloween week. He might do the unthinkable and ignore his Yahzee app for that entire week! (Yeah, right.) But that's the goal. His Yahtzee wife, MysticShores, can reach him if necessary during that time. But he'll be spending six nights in Vegas, so don't expect a lot of chatter from him that week.

MikeVegas is also a babysitter at the big corporate amusement park in the Minneapolis area during the Halloween season. That means he works until midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. It's not uncommon for him to go more than five hours without sitting down, and that was the case on Saturday night. And he worked outdoors all evening, with temperatures in the 30s F and plenty of wind. It was a nasty weekend by mid-October standards in Minnesota, but he survived. Three Saturdays previous he spent the entire evening walking around in a T-shirt until midnight, sweating quite a bit thanks to the humidity on that warm September night.

And MikeVegas is a newspaper reporter. October is always a busy month at his weekly newspaper. So he's a fool to work an extra job on the weekends at the amusement park during October, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

Needless to say, he's looking forward to the end of the month for multiple reasons. And needless to say, he likes writing about himself in the third person.

FUN AND GAMES

MikeVegas didn't win the last Feast for our family. Many people contributed. But he has a decent stockpile of rolls, and used a bunch of them to help the family keep pace with another team that seemed to lead our team for most of the Feast. Below are examples of what happens when you sit up late one night toward the end of the Feast and play games for two hours.

These were the top 3 contributors to a completed dish during the last night of the Feast.

MikeVegas is confident he has never completed an entire dish solo during a past Feast. 

Here are screenshots MikeVegas took on team leaders from recent Feasts. Thank you to all who have contributed, even if it's just 20 or 25 individual points. Not everyone can spend an hour every day playing Yahtzee, but your small daily contributions have a big impact on our final score. 

Again, thank you all for making Yahtzee fun to play. I mean that sincerely. So much so that I'm not writing about myself in the third person at this point. 

What other fun do I want to talk about? 

The rules of the Yahtzee app are different than the rules of this late 1990s handheld Yahtzee device that I owned. Anyone ever own one of these? 

That's a terrible picture, but you get the idea. It was an electronic Yahtzee game. It didn't have tournaments or any fancy variations of the game. It didn't even offer a free roll during your game. It was a simple, straightforward electronic Yahtzee game you could play while sitting on the toilet. 

There were two important rule differences between electronic Yahtzee and the app we all play today. 

Each bonus Yahtzee added 100 points to your score, not the 50 points the app gives us. And 100 points is what you earn for a bonus Yahtzee on the old-fashioned version of the game you played as a kid. I'm not sure why the app version set the bonus at 50. I never liked that. 

The other major difference in the '90s version was that your bonus Yahtzee could be used as a "wild card." Let's say you make a Yahtzee on the first roll of the game. You take it for 50 points. On your second turn you roll five deuces. That's a second Yahtzee. You'll get a 100-point bonus for it. You also mark one of the other 12 squares on your card. You could take 10 points in your twos. You could take 10 points in your four of a kind, as well. 

But unlike the app, you could use your bonus Yahtzee as a full house for 25 points. Since the Yahtzee was a wild card, you could also use it for a large straight and get your 40 points. The app doesn't let us do that. 

The handheld game wouldn't let you use a Yahtzee composed of deuces for points in your sixes. You'd get 100 points for the bonus Yahtzee, but if you marked the fives or sixes in the left column, you got a zero for that number. 

I played that old electronic game thousands of times over a period of years. I had four-Yahtzee games several times. The best score I ever got was 651. I could never get five Yahtzees in a game and top 700 points. 

Last week I was playing the app's "prize climb" game. It's a standard Yahtzee game, with one free bonus roll. I've often accused the app of being rigged, but if we believe the dice are random, then I finally had my five Yahtzee game. Here's a screen shot from near the end of my game. 

As you can see, I had not used by bonus roll at the end of my final turn. So, adding those final nine points into the left column, my final score is 533. That's right, five Yahtzees in the game put me over 500 points on the app. And I did it without any extra rolls. 

Using the electronic Yahtzee scoring system, each bonus Yahtzee would be worth 100 points, so for four bonus Yahtzees I would have another 200 points on my total. 

So, as far as I'm concerned, my app record is 533, but my all-time Yahtzee high score, using classic scoring, is now 733. I finally got my five Yahtzees and beat 651. 

And finally, here's one more screen shot, from a wild game Greg and I completed several weeks ago. When you roll three Yahtzees in a head-to-head game, you are guaranteed a win, right? 

Not always. 

As awesome as it was to pull off that win, I'd question my sanity if I scored 449 and lost a head-to-head game. 

NOTHING TO DO WITH YAHTZEE

Finally, my invite stands, despite how busy I am far too often. If you want to share a photo or story on this blog, contact me via the Yahtzee app and we'll arrange it. 

For several years running my girlfriend and I have hosted a Halloween party for our nieces and nephew. We decorate the yard with a bunch of inflatable Halloween toys. We use to host the party on the weekend after Halloween. But we moved it to pre-Halloween two years ago. We've never been rained out, and we hope our streak continues this Sunday. We end up buying a discount inflatable decoration or two to add to the scene every year. This year we only bought one. We have three huge ones already, and several smaller ones. Here's the new one for 2019: 

I'll try to post a video of our backyard at some point after the fact. Happy Halloween! 

Italian feasts and prize giveaways

So I and seven other members of our Yahtzee family (Pinksushi, MysticShores, Spartan, Sheila, GregRulz, DiceDominator and Xray) have organized "teams." The seven members noted are team captains, and it's up to the captains to reach out to players directly and remind them that we are using a delay tactic in playing the Family Feasts. Our goal is to delay the start of the Feast by at least 18 hours in order to get into an easier pool of teams, which ultimately costs us less dice rolls to compete in. Whether you buy rolls, or rely solely upon earning free rolls, the fewer you have to spend, the better. Simple economics, right?

So our message of delaying the start of the Feast didn't get to everyone, despite our efforts. Not everyone reads private messages, I have learned, and not everyone follows the group chat. Nonetheless, the delayed start of today's Feast, which seemed to begin without warning, helped us get into a less competitive field.

If you haven't heard, it appears that there's a new pricing structure for playing Feast games. Not sure if it resets daily, as it's still day one, but GregRulz noticed that after so many games, the cost to play another game of Feast went up from three rolls to four, and others are reporting that the cost increases again to five.

Yahtzee is trying to find ways to increase the spending by those who pay to play, of that I have no doubt. People spend money to buy rolls in order to help their team win a Feast, that's a fact. (The prizes aren't worth a buck, if you ask me.) Yahtzee is testing how much it can earn before driving people away, a common tactic used by many companies in many industries. It sucks, but that's commerce.

As I always say, play what makes sense for you. If you're playing free games of Feast only, that's good enough for me. I'm not interested in building a super team. I want active players, but that'a all. I don't give a DARN about how you earn or spend your DICE. When the game becomes a part-time job, it's not a game. I'm active daily, and it's still fun, because I refuse to let it become a job, no matter how many prize climbs they dangle in front of me. Honestly, I need to spend a lot less time playing games on my phone and more time pursuing my many writing projects I'd love to make time for, like blogging. But I digress.

Special thanks to Greg for helping coordinate and police our Feast status. He didn't volunteer for the gig, yet he did. And it's super helpful to have a person available for that job when a Feast starts. Thanks again.

And thanks to all of you who continue to contribute, through good times and bad. Not everyone chimes in on a regular basis, and I don't have communication with some of you, but I hope you enjoy having a group that does and will chat or socialize from time to time.

You're always welcome to submit something for this blog to share with all of our team. Contact me privately if you have a contribution.

Self-serving note: Season 3 of my podcast ended recently, and the episode was initially streamed live via YouTube. You can see that at tr.im/izzy. And the audio for the episode, and all others, is at cantturnitoff.com.

While season 3 ended and we're about three months away from the launch of season 4, there are "bonus" episodes coming up. The first should drop Monday, Aug. 26. Each season I do bonus episodes, known as "hiatus spectaculars," and at least one hiatus spectacular this year will deviate from the format of the past two seasons. That's episode 40, and it might not be of high interest to you if you haven't listened to many of my past episodes, but here's a spoiler for you folks only: Episode 40 will include updates on several past topics/guests. (Therefore, it's helpful to know the original story, but I will provide a simple summary of each story in presenting the updates. That summary may spoil the "twist" in the story that I withheld when I initially presented it, unfortunately. You've been warned.)

Finally: I have prizes coming in on slow boats from China, and I'm trying to get a few worthy, easy-to-mail prizes in the prize closet. I have some good secondary items, but not the greatest primary prizes. Keep in mind, I spend a buck or two on prizes, generally, but I aim for unusual, quirky and/or nostalgic. I have some fun stuff coming, someday, thanks to cheap foreign labor. The stuff I'm buying, by the way, is hard to find anywhere, let alone in bulk for a reasonable price anywhere close to my home. I'm all for buying American, but I'm not sure some of the things I'm looking at even have a local manufacturer. It's a weird world we live in.

I have two people awaiting prizes from the last two contests: azjim and MysticShores. I'll have a new contest when my next podcast episode drops. We haven't done that since June. And Google won't help you answer the question, whatever question I pose!

Behind these numbers is a puzzle

Can you solve it? (If you can, don't comment with the answer. If you can't, message MikeVegas72 directly.)

Camping party

We have the nieces and nephew gather together at our house each summer for a camping party, with themed activities. It was a rainy Saturday last weekend, so the camping was indoors rather than in tents in our backyard. Here are photos and video from the gathering.

And the dance song I have some of the kids hooked on: 

Funny story

This story has nothing to do with Yahtzee. I'm only going to correct obvious spelling errors tonight. I'm tired and meant to tell this story last week. 

There's a local bar/restaurant that runs contests on its Facebook pages for prizes. A lot of times it's restaurant gift cards, occasionally it's tickets to sporting events. The contest usually involves guessing the score of an upcoming sporting event, and sometimes something else. In a baseball game it might be predict the score, winning team and one Minnesota Twins player to get a  hit. 

It's not easy to win. First of all, picking the final score of a sporting event is rare, and then you have to pick the correct team to win. To top it off, you may have to name a player on the team that will meet whatever the criteria is for that contest. I've picked the score correct a few times, but often more than one person does, especially when it involves baseball or hockey. They'll have a drawing if there's more than one correct answer, and sometimes I've had the right score, but picked the wrong player for the final question. I did win a $20 gift certificate to the restaurant once for being correct but not winning the random drawing. They don't always have consolation prizes, but occasionally they do, and I won one. 

So last Thursday they had a simple pick the winner/score contest for the first night of a big four-game series between the hometown Twins and Cleveland Indians. Knowing most people will pick the Twins, I picked Cleveland. I figured if I was right, there'd be less people who might pick the same score as I did. I was going to pick a final score of 7-4, but I was inexplicably moved to type 7-5 as the final score. 

It was 6-5 in the ninth inning and Cleveland tacked on a run, making it 7-5. The Twins had one last inning to at least tie the score. They put runners on, threatening to score at least a run, but the Indians got out of it without allowing a run, and the final was 7-5 Cleveland. I had picked the correct score! 

Often there are 500+ entries for these contests, all entered in the comments of a Facebook post. For this contest there were only about 300, so my odds were already a bit better. I saw several people picked a final score of 7-5, but they picked the Twins to win. Unfortunately two people had picked a score of Cleveland 7, Twins 5. So I had a one-in-three chance of winning the prize, two "good" seats to any remaining Twins game. 

They don't announce the winner after the game, typically, they do it when they get around to it. When they post the winning announcement, they do it in the contest thread, so I get an alert that they've announced a winner. I went to see the winning entry and learned that some woman was the random winner. I was so disappointed, but for this contest I was getting a $20 gift certificate, so at least my correct guess wasn't for nothing. 

Since Facebook was showing "relevant" replies to the contest thread, mine was immediately under the contest winner's announcement. And the winning woman's entry was listed immediately below mine. Then I noticed this: 

See how it shows "edited" after it denotes she typed her pick 22h earlier? Yeah, I noticed that, too. And I happen to know you can see the edits that were made by clicking on the "edited" denotation. So, did Carrie edit her pick because she misspelled Indians? Here's what her edit history showed me:

It looks like Carrie made a lot of changes to her picks in a short period of time. And, funny, her picks reflected the score at different points during the late innings of the game. This was about noon on Friday, and it was a long game on Thursday night, lasting until nearly 11 p.m., as I was watching the final inning on my phone after 10:30 p.m., hoping my 7-5 prediction would hold up. And what time would it have been 14 hours earlier? Sometime between 10 and 11 p.m.

So I privately messaged the restaurant and sent them unedited screen shots, noting it appeared she changed her score multiple times, which they've policed in the past, because people have tried to get away with doing that in order to win. The Facebook admin for the restaurant noted that s/he usually looks for that, but obviously missed it. (My theory, s/he scrolled through the entries on a mobile phone, looking for any entry with the correct score, and as soon as s/he found one, that person was declared the winner.) 

After pointing out obvious cheating by Carrie, whose Facebook profile seems to show her to be a married mother of three teens and pre-teens who have enough money to afford plenty of life's luxuries, the restaurant told me I could have a pair of tickets to any game I wanted. 

I didn't note on the Facebook thread for the contest that the winner appeared to have cheated, and I told the restaurant they could handle it however they saw fit. I was told by the admin that s/he didn't want to call out Carrie on the page, and I didn't care that I wasn't declared a winner to the Facebook world. I can only hope that within a couple of hours of telling Carrie she won, they revoked her prize for cheating, but I don't know, and never will. 

So I'm a winner, and Carrie is a poor example of sportsmanship to her children, although they'll never know it. 

Important information

I'm super busy for the next 24+ hours with my day job, so I may be a bit quiet for the next 36 hours.

It seems that the Yahtzee app removes people from families without any prompting. Perhaps that's why we lost Jetguy a while ago.

Kitty has had it happen to her at least once. It appears it happened quite recently to DiceMafia187chris. That's what his mother, Kathyjh24, tells me.

I didn't remove Chris, so I'm sure he'll be back as soon as he sees the invite. I sent him a note, letting him know I did not remove him. If he's upset enough to tell Kathy, who informed me of it, then I'm sure he will be eager to rejoin us. (Kathy has moved on, too. She's a pal with DARNDICE, and where DARNDICE goes, she goes too, evidently.)

I did remove two members the other day. Both Deeznutz and AKhuntergirl have been completely absent for more than a month, probably more than six weeks. So I removed them. They had been contributors in the past, so I gave them some benefit of the doubt. I also sent them a private message, letting them know if they return to active play and want back in our family, they're welcome, I'll do what I can to find them a spot. At the time I had requests to add three players, and no open spots. This was right before the DARNDICE group took their action elsewhere. I chuckle at the insanity of that at this point.

If you read this blog, you're likely an active player. So, if you ever find yourself out of the family all of a sudden, don't assume I simply removed you. I'll send you a note informing you that I did, just as I did for Deeznutz and AKhuntergirl. So, if you wind up like DiceMafia one day, check with me, let me know you lost your spot, because I have no idea who disappears when the member count goes from 50 to 49. I have to figure it out, and I don't keep a membership roster.

To that end, I'm making MysticShores a co-leader of our group, so in the event I find myself out of the group somehow, she can guide it until I return.

Also, read the blog post below if you want in the new contest. Deadline is sometime tonight. And yes, you're still welcome to participate, Chris, despite the fact you're somehow on the outside today. Who knows, maybe you've already accepted my invite back to the group as I finish typing this.

Let's celebrate

We lost a few people who turned out to be less than wonderful human beings. They proved it. I was a jerk for assuming the worst of one of our family members, but I don't hide from that. The departed fools think they're victims, I'm sure. Good luck to them, they're going to need it.

So now that we've lost the unstable players, let's have a simple contest, with an unspectacular prize for the winner. These prizes are valued at no more than a buck, but the hope is that they put a smile on your face or give you an excuse to put a smile on someone else's face.

The winner gets a choice from the following:

An Elvis prize

A Prince prize

A Game of Thrones prize

I bought four GoT prizes, and have two left. Each one is different, and I'm not getting more of them when they're gone. The Prince prize is different than the first one I offered several weeks ago. The Elvis prize is new to the prize closet.

So what's the contest? It's simple.

My favorite baseball team, the Chicago White Sox, is hosting the baseball team that's 7 miles from my house, more or less, the Minnesota Twins. They play on Friday evening.

To enter, send me a private message via the Yahtzee app with your prediction of the total combined hits for both teams during Friday night's game. Person who comes the closest, without going over, wins an unspectacular prize. In the case of a tie, we'll have a random draw to determine the winner.

Entries due by late Thursday evening. Whenever I sit down to compile a list of the predictions, the entry period is over. Don't delay, enter today!

So long, farewell

On June 25 I assumed that a member of our "family" had left to seek a spot on the first-place team of the latest Feast, which had started hours earlier that day.

I don't have a long history with her, and based upon our limited history, I assumed the worst of her actions. I looked like a jerk because of it. 

I asked her why she suddenly bailed out of a group she professed devotion to, and the exchange we had, and her interest in returning to our group, despite the fact I had been a jerk was good enough for me to bring her back. I gave a person the benefit of the doubt, doubt I had expressed an hour earlier. 

That didn't sit well with DARNDICE, the new member who I thanked profusely in my previous post, for bringing a new group of players to the family. There is no doubt, DARNDICE was not upset that I was a jerk and assumed the worst of another player. She was upset that I decided to bring that person back, based upon that person's word. DARNDICE promptly left our group.

Again, she was clear in direct messages to me that she left because she didn't want me to bring the other player back. She never explained why she wanted the other player to remain exiled from our family.

Nothing I can do when people make puzzling decisions. I learned that weeks ago. 

I expect we'll lose others as a result. One of DARNDICE's followers gave me the third degree via private messaging. Questioning my judgment is fine, but being rude and insulting is not acceptable. I will say no more about it, other than to note I removed her from our group.

Within an hour one of her close comrades was also gone. I'm sure he won't be the last. 

Our group lost good contributors, but I won't apologize for trying to be kind to somebody who could have remained with the front runners, but accepted my apology and returned, claiming she left the group through no fault of her own. (The Yahtzee app has glitches, we've seen them, so it's not hard for me to believe that a member is having trouble with her phone/Yahtzee app.) 

I'm human, people will rub me the wrong way. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and I should have done so earlier this evening. Because I didn't, we lost three people so far. But given the reasons we lost them, our group is better off without them. It's too bad my act of kindness rubs people the wrong way, with no good explanation for it.

UPDATE on Thursday, June 26:
It's the morning after the big fiasco, and I am glad that three people are gone.

First and foremost, I feel like a jerk, still, for my knee-jerk reaction. I assumed the worst of a player who was no longer in our group, and I expressed that immediately without giving her a chance to respond. Ultimately it doesn't matter if she wants to leave and join the lead group. But given previous exchanges we'd had, I took it as an insult that she was in another group, and chastised her in our private group chat without waiting for her to respond to my inquiry as to why she was gone after all the effort she made to remain in our group. I look like an idiot because of it. No sugar coating it. It's a fact.

I received several, and I mean several, private messages from people as a result of the previous night's fiasco, and learned some interesting things about those who are no longer in our group.

I was quick to acknowledge my shortcoming as a team member. I'm not the only person with shortcomings, however, and others choose to take their Yahtzee action elsewhere and pretend they're victims, victims of something. They're victims of their own poor judgment and decisions, nothing more.

Let the good times roll! 

We did it again

Not all of you were here for the first Feast, when this group won its pool and took first place. I assumed that was a one-time thing, but we've managed to finish in the top 10 every time, and we just won another Feast. I can't tell you how blown away I am, or appreciative of everyone's effort to make it happen.

A special thanks to DARNDICE for joining us and bringing a new group of players to bolster our ranks. It was luck that I wound up in a group with all of you, and we've had a good group that has morphed since the first Feast. But my efforts to "recruit" weren't all that spectacular, and as a result we've never had an active group of 50. I don't expect to have 50 hardcore players at any given time, but it's nice to have a group that's 95 percent active players at this point.

I've never been militant about the membership of our group, and as I've noted, I'm hanging onto three people who aren't around much, and didn't contribute to the last Feast. I will give them the benefit of the doubt until I no longer can. There are a few folks who were nearly inactive for the Feast. While I don't need them to post big numbers, the Feast is the biggest reason we need active players. If they're too busy or not interested in making a modest contribution, I'll look at replacing them if we end up with interest from any of  your friends or family. I'm not asking for anyone to recruit new members right now, we don't have a lot of room to spare. I just brought back a former member today at the expense of a non-contributor to the last Feast. But perhaps after the next Feast I'll ask for nominations to fill a few slots that have been underwhelming for an extended period of time. Not everyone is a 24/7/365 player, I get that.

Thanks again to all for the last Feast contribution, and an added round of applause for this motley crew:

And finally, a contest. I still owe a prize for the last contest, and Pennie knows I haven't forgotten her. Finding fun, cheap prizes that don't require a giant box for shipping is not easy, unless I want to limit my prizes to cheap, old comic books. And I'd like to think I'm a little more creative than that.

So, here's a contest. It starts as soon as I post the link to this blog. And it's capped at the first five entries with the correct answer, or as many correct answers as I get by 8 p.m. central time on Thursday, June 20. If I don't have 5 correct answers by 8 p.m., then it will continue until I have 5, or realize nobody else cares enough to enter.

To enter, simply submit your answer to the following question by sending me a private message through our Yahtzee game. The answer can be found by listening to the latest episode of my podcast, Can't Turn it Off. https://www.jerseystudios.net/2019/06/17/038-andy-strano/

My guest, Andy, talks about the DeLorean Motor Company and its DMC-12, the "Back to the Future" car. Of those cars produced in the 1980s, how many are estimated to still be around, according to Andy?

We're No. 1!

I'm not one to celebrate early, but I will say that I'm impressed that our team, with an infusion of new energy, is in the lead early on. You all amaze me.

As I say over and over, I don't want to insist that people meet a minimum participation level in order to be part of our group. At the same time, I'd rather not have people fill slots and never play.

When it comes to "help" points for scratchers, rolls and tourney passes, I no longer care if your score is 200+ or 0. We have multiple people who are awesome. It never takes more than an  hour to get the help you need for a free roll or scratcher. As long as we have such an active group, we're covered. Thanks all of you for checking in and helping each other when you do.

As for the Feast... that's where we really need help from as many as possible. I'm trying to make allowances for those who have helped in the past and are currently not active. The drawback: I don't keep scorecards, I don't keep stats. I have to go by memory, and I may have booted a past contributor the other day and didn't realize it, as I didn't recognize her screen name as one that is active. I'll resolve that in the next few days.

I don't have "rules" about when and how I remove somebody from the team. I'm hoping I'll soon have 50 active people and not have to think about it any more. Again, I never intended this group to be militant. I created it because I could, and named it after my podcast because I could. Fun fact: New episode should be dropping on Monday.*

Another fun fact: I'm recording another episode on Saturday night, remotely, and I'm interviewing a guy who has a super cool "hobby." Hobby isn't the right word, but you'll understand if you listen to ep. 38  on June 17 at cantturnitoff.com.*

I have no idea why DARNDICE's comments disappeared from our group chat this evening, or how she returned. But it was the crowning moment of a bizarre evening.

She brought a new group of active players, and they chat a lot. Awesome, that's what the chat is for. We also have other groups/duos on the team, some that chat, some that don't. And then we have plenty of loners in the group that wound up with us for no reason. I'm a loner, I have no friends or family that play Yahtzee. I think my Yahtzee wife, MysticShores, was also a loner who found her way into our group by chance. I don't know how or why I ended up with all of you in a group I created for the hell of it, but it has shaped up to be an active group. I'm very fortunate to be a part of it.

As I noted Friday evening, some of you offer words of encouragement to others, and those words come in many forms. I haven't seen every last comment made in the group chat lately. I've been on a long, busy, tiring run the past several weeks. And lately I'm falling behind on the daily chatting.

But I have yet to see anything that seemed critical of others. There was joking about level of activity on a weekday afternoon, but nobody has been openly critical of others, as best I can tell.

I don't want anyone to feel unwelcome, or criticized. I hope none of you feel that way. If, however, you are not happy with the group dynamics, I don't want you to feel guilty about moving on and finding another group. I don't like losing people, but it happens, as this group has seen several times. If you want to find a new group to socialize with, or follow a friend to their group, don't feel guilty. It'd be nice if you'd say goodbye first, at least privately to me, but you're not obligated to do that, either. I hate when people say goodbye in a group chat, then leave. Yahtzee changes their display name to "former member," so it's not immediately clear who announced their departure. How stupid is that?

If you're not happy with the group chat, ignore it for a day or two. Come and get your freebies, play some Feast and enjoy the world around you. Take a break from Yahtzee's chat. Hell, play less dice altogether for a day. Sometimes it's nice to put the phone down for a few hours. I don't do it often enough. I hardly touched mine for two days during my Memorial Day weekend camping, and I didn't miss it. I survived!

Do what's best for you, assume the best of others, and keep plugging away at the Feast. It's a fun challenge, and we've got a good thing going right now, it seems. Let's keep it going.

In the interest of sharing tidbits about our lives, I will tell all of you that I have a pacemaker. I've had one since I was 35 years old. I'm actually on unit 2 at this point. The battery hit its end of life after about 9-1/2 years. I'm expecting to get 11 years out of unit 2. Yes, I have a pacemaker. It's really no big deal.

*Fact is not fun

I need help

Our new member, DARNDICE, has a handful of players she'd like to invite to our group. Players who are active, I am told.

As I have said many times, my goal is to have 50 active family members, but not to worry about every member meeting a minimum quota. I want an active group, not a super group. If folks want to chat and socialize, all the better. If not, no harm there.

I don't want to penalize people for taking a break. Despite the lack of activity from a couple of folks during the last Feast, they've been active in the past, so they're not on the chopping block as of yet.

I notice several names that I don't recognize, players that have zero help points. I'm not sure if they did or didn't contribute to the last Feast. I know some folks don't help with free rolls and scratchers, yet play the Feast and earn points.

If you happen to know which folks on the family never seem to help, or play the Feast, let me know. Send me a private message if you prefer.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, I just don't want to keep a spot filled by a player who never helps or earns Feast points. And if we can get more help for the Feast, all the better.

Memorial Day weekend

A few quick, random thoughts:

Thanks to all for your latest Feast contributions. We're not competing against every family on the planet. From what it appears, they herd families into groups of 100, so there are numerous first-place winners each time. Despite that, it's no easy feat to remain a top 10 team every time they roll out a new Feast every 3 weeks or so. You all amaze me. Thank you again.

To that end, I never expect people to spend money to participate in Yahtzee. Do what works for you. If you're active in any way, that's awesome. That's what I value more than the prize package we win for any one Feast.

I had an inquiry about one of our absent players. Someone who has been active in the past, but isn't at the moment. I have removed "deadbeats" who fill a slot and never contribute in any way, but I try not to be militant. For those who have been active but aren't this week, I am not in a hurry to take away their spot. I don't keep attendance records, or any other stats, so I have to rely upon my memory regarding who is and isn't active. It's not a perfect system.

While addressing the inquiry, I realized something I had never noticed before. We lost Jetguy, who was from Texas, I seem to recall, and was one of our early contributors. He was very kind in his praise of me, and was rather active, I thought. I don't recall him mentioning he was leaving...perhaps he dropped the app altogether. Either way, people will come and go, and he left rather quietly it seems. No big deal, but I'm always disappointed to see a friendly, helpful contributor move on, whatever the reason. I won't get a chance to say thanks one last time, but I appreciate his contributions early on.

Finally, best wishes to all. Safe travels if you're hitting the road this weekend, as I will be. I'll be out of touch for most of the holiday weekend, starting Saturday morning. I'm going camping. This annual spring trip hasn't always been a Memorial Day weekend event, but this marks the 30th year. There's a colorful history to it, and I really need to share some of those tales via my podcast. Maybe I'll do that next week. There are a few great stories that need to be recorded, and probably a lot of great moments that have been forgotten.

Fun facts*:

• I am the only person to have participated in all 30 editions of this camping trip, counting this year. 
• Of the previous 29 trips, 26 of them have been at the same site. We have used alternative sites three times. 
• I could not legally drink beer during the first two camping trips. 
• Of the original group that assembled back in 1990, three of those guys have participated in this annual trip with their children.

--Mike

*Facts are not fun

Did he win it?

Recorded a new episode of the podcast, finally, last night.

After recording, we often go to the nearby Dave & Bastard's for cheap beer and a little game play. I'm highly pissed about the lowered payout for the Pac-Man ticket game. That was my bread and butter, but I digress.

We often play this Yahtzee game which has a progressive bonus and a progressive jackpot. The progressive bonus is based upon scoring 100 points in five games. Total score of the dice, not the hand value in a traditional game. If you roll lots of ones and twos and make a full house, your score will be 7 or 8, not 25. A score of 7 or 8 means you won't have a five game aggregate of 100, most likely.

The progressive bonus never gets very high, as it's not too hard to pick off. You try not to let chasing the bonus steer you toward bad game play. If the bonus is at 100 tickets, you don't want to spend your money not winning 60 or 80 tickets during individual games in order to win 100 after five games. It's a delicate balance.

Each game is two rolls, not three. If you get a Yahtzee, you win up to 1,000 tickets. It's a progressive jackpot, so it starts at 500 and goes up a couple of tickets with each game, I assume. It's almost always at 1,000, as it's not easy to get in two rolls. The producer and I have played this game dozens of times, and never hit Yahtzee. We hit four of a kind occasionally, and that pays 296 tickets, but Yahtzee eludes us.

As the producer was playing his fifth game of a series, his aggregate score was 87 after four turns, so he needed only 13 points in that fifth game to reach 100 and receive the current progressive bonus of 114 tickets. A nice little bonus, but not substantial. (It resets at 50 every time it is hit.)

In a rare occurrence, he hits four of a kind on his first roll of that fifth game, and it is sixes. So he will finish with a minimum score of 25 and will win the progressive bonus. And 296 tickets for that four of a kind.

But he has one more turn and a chance at Yahtzee. Will he or won't he get it? There's a 30-second timer to decide what numbers you keep and discard for your second roll. As you'll see, there's no actual rolling involved. I figured I'd better get some video of the second roll, to record history if it happens. Does it? Or does his fifth game end in heartbreak? The video will tell all.

Feast 3 is complete

I feel like a broken record, but let me say it again: Thanks for contributing to our Yahtzee family. My goal is not to lead the top family, it’s to lead a group that has fun, with or without Family Feasts. Play the games the way you want to play. If you want to spend money and help us finish higher, please do. If you want to rely upon free rolls for your play, no need to apologize. My only criteria for our group is to have members who are active periodically. We’re all busy in life, but it’s not hard to find time now and again to contribute, if you enjoy playing Yahtzee. That’s my goal, to have a group of 50 who actively play Yahtzee.

With that said, we had 11 qualifiers for our latest Family Feast contest. It will take me about a week to send out prizes, but we will have two winners, starting with the grand prize winner. The person next on the list will be the runner up. As always, my Yahtzee wife MysticShores will pick the winner from a random list of numbers that is posted elsewhere. So it’s possible for her to win the grand prize. She does not know which number represents the qualifiers.

The winners will have a choice of the following:
Game of Thrones
Las Vegas
Prince (new prize)

Good luck!

Round 3

We all have priorities in life, and sometimes I wonder why my priorities are the way they are.

I don't go to movies often, and when I do, I tend to go at discount times, rather than pay $15 or more to see yet another superhero film. (I don't watch many of them, but I grew up collecting comic books, Marvel comics, mostly.) 

But I'll pay $10 or more once in a while for a couple hours of cinematic entertainment. 

And yet I have a hard time paying a simple $5 upgrade to a gaming app in order to remove the annoying ads between my games. That seems kinda silly. 

My initial reluctance is based upon the fact I'm not always certain how much I'll use a gaming app when I first install it and try it out. And then I continue down the road for months, waiting to bypass an ad and play my next game. Sometimes a simple $5 investment could eliminate that. And given how much I have played Yahtzee, perhaps some sort of investment wouldn't be silly. 

When Yahtzee started the Family Feast, I was fortunate. I had been amassing free rolls for months, and was able to use those to play for several hours. It helped or team reach first place. I was shocked, as you all know. 

I didn't go nuts during the second Feast, but I did contribute to our team effort beyond the daily free game that is offered, and we finished in third place. Another pleasant surprise, for sure. 

And just like that, we're onto Feast 3. 

I like the game, and I still have hundreds of free rolls in my account, despite using approximately 1,600 on the first Feast. 

Feast is a fun variation of Yahtzee, and it gives us a chance to work together instead of simply competing against each other. I'll contribute a bit, but I'll be traveling for four days this coming week, and I won't be logging into Yahtzee as frequently as I normally do. Perhaps I'll chip in more next weekend, as the Feast winds down.

As you all know, we lost members of our family following each Feast. I can't say why with absolute certainty, but I would guess that in some cases, the folks we lost were folks who spend cash to buy additional rolls. And they want to be on the best possible team to capitalize on that. And more power to them. Spend your money how you wish. If you want to spend money to play the Feast and want to be on a top team, go for it. Winning is fun, even if the prizes aren't anything spectacular.

There's a cost to running any app, and I assume that in many cases the app developer is trying to cover its costs. Perhaps in some cases the app is a marketing tool, not intended to generate income, but simply to promote a product. I use a casino app that provide prizes for prolonged play, prizes I can redeem in Vegas. The app may not make money, and the prizes cost the casino money, but the ultimate goal is to get me in the door. 

Yahtzee is probably not being produced in order to lose money. And I suspect more people spend money to play it than I'd guess. Therefore they're now rolling out new Feasts a week or two after a Feast ends, it appears.

As I said, I'm amazed by how well our team has done in two Feasts, no matter how we got there. Do what works best for you when it comes to the Feast. We can't finish top 3 every time if they're going to roll out new Feasts every few weeks. Enjoy the ride, whatever way works for you. 

Thanks for all the contributions to our group. Perhaps one day we'll have 50 people who are active/regular players, but we're not there yet. We have a nice core group, and some of you have brought others into the group, helping build that core. That's awesome, and that's what matters most. 

As for the contest, it'll be the same Feast contest as before. If your individual points during the Feast reach 100, you'll be in the prize drawing. I'll keep it simple this time, just one grand prize winner and one consolation prize. Each winner will have a choice that, at minimum, includes the following: 

Prince (A different prize than the last Prince prize)
Las Vegas
Game of Thrones

Feeding the ducks

Dian emailed me photos and video of the ducks outside of her house in Texas on Tuesday morning. Let's see how much of it I can upload here.

The view from Dian's waterfront home. She's living large! 

Third place is far better than fourth!

I'll continue to use this blog if it is convenient to do so for contest info. Otherwise I think it has served its purpose.

We're less than two hours from the completion of Family Feast 2. Last I checked our lead over 4th place had grown to nearly 5,000. Could that be right? Wow, just the other day it was down to about 2,500. Amazing.

And we've closed the gap on second place to about 2,000, but aren't going to overcome it. That's OK. We still get the picnic basket icon for third place, and we've "medaled" in both Feasts. (Notice how the team icons you win are gold, silver and bronze?)

We didn't win a second time, but I earned about 1,200 less points, and those points would translate into more than 6,000 team points when you count bonuses for completing each dish. But we had a very balanced attack at the leader board, and family members old and new put in a lot of effort. I'm impressed, humbled and appreciative. I don't expect to win these Feasts, my mental health doesn't depend upon the outcome, but you all put a smile on my face, so thanks.

So, about that prize: As noted previously, the winner gets a choice of Betty Boop, Prince or Scooby-Doo, as well as other prizes. I said there'd be a second prize if we finish in third place or better. We're going to. So we'll have a second prize.

And a third.

And a fourth.

And a fifth.

And a sixth.

And a seventh.

And an eighth.

And a ninth.

And a tenth.

Yes, I'm sending out 10 prizes. Now before you slap me on the back, keep in mind that the consolation prizes have a value of no more than $1. But perhaps they'll put a smile on your face. And if not, perhaps you can use them to put a smile on somebody else's face.

There will be a bit of a process to sending them out, but they'll get out to you all soon enough.

I already know how we will pick the winners, one through 10, and unless there's a late rally, we'll end up with 15 qualifiers. That means five of you will not win a consolation prize, unless one of the 10 winners declines his or her prize. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks everyone.

Self-serving announcement: A new episode of my podcast is now available at cantturnitoff.com.

Good luck, and thanks

Good luck to all of you who have qualified for our latest Family Feast contest by learning 100 individual points. There are 10 as of tonight, and probably a couple of more joining the ranks before it's over. And if our team finished in the top 3 of our bracket, there will be a second prize.

Remember, the winner gets to choose from Betty Boop, Prince and Scooby-Doo. Weird choice, I know, and even weirder since it's anybody's guess what the choice is about. But if I told you what the significance is, what fun would that be?

Most of all, thanks to all of you for contributing to our total. There was no reason to think our team would finish in the top 3 of our bracket, despite the fact our team dominated during the final days of the last Feast. I had already said I would't be as active in the next feast if it was held any time soon, so I didn't expect our effort to be as impressive this time around. You all have amazed me.

Here's a random picture or three, just because I can share them. You're welcome to email me pictures to share with our group, or anything else that might interest you. There's no obligation to do so, naturally, and I won't nag you all about it. If nobody is interested, that's OK. I have other blogs that need my attention. Yes, I have more than one.

This old bridge in Bloomington, Minn., is about 100 years old. It was restored a few years ago and is for pedestrian use only. When things start to flood, this bridge can get a little damp on the surface. Lots of snow in February means high water and flooding here in Minnesota this spring. Nebraska has it far worse. 

Sometimes I end up taking photos of the most amazing things for my newspaper. [/sarcasm]

Taken behind glass, these caiman are small alligators, essentially. You can see them for yourself at Mall of America's Sea Life aquarium.