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!