November 2007 Archives

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone. As part of our Thanksgiving tradition with the Jones family (my wife's side, that is), there is a game of Risk that is played. After winning the first year I attended, I certainly had a big target on my back the following year. Thankfully, I was able to repeat my victory and assert myself as a dominant Risk player.

That is in the past however, as my brother-in-law Scott won last year, and there is yet another new champion this year, and it all came down to one roll of the dice.

You see, after establishing myself in Europe quickly, I found myself the target of the more powerful players based in Asia and N. America. Having lost Ukraine in a big battle, I was weak and without my +5 bonus. Also, the four cards I was holding in my hand were totally worthless. My only chance was to take out a weaker player in Africa, get his cards and then turn in twice, for a much-needed infusion of some 45 armies. I had him pinned down to Madagascar with but one army left. Sadly, my campaign had not gone as well as I would have hoped, and I was left with only one army with which to attack. According to my brief calculations, that meant I had only a 5/12** chance of taking him down, but it was my only hope.

By surviving that roll of the dice, my cousin Ryan was able to breathe for a little while. The next player then attempted to take me down, but a stand in Iceland prevented my demise. With but one army, then, Ryan turned in his cards, advanced to my position with his new strength, and in an ironic twist took me out, took my cards, cashed in for more armies to reinforce his position, and eventually go on to win the game.

I've never seen a player come back from so little. Congrats, Ryan!

**6x6 possible combinations of two dice being rolled. In a normal situation, you'd have 6 ties and 15 possibilities of victory for each side, 6+15+15=36. Since ties go to the defender, though, those six are added to his 15, giving 21 to the defender and only 15 to the attacker. Thus, the odds of me, the attacker winning are 15/36 or 5/12.

Carrie watched a report that mentioned a statistic associated with down syndrome. A quick look at wikipedia and the linked study confirmed the statistic. Here's the abstract from the study.

The aims of this systematic literature review are to estimate termination rates after prenatal diagnosis of one of five conditions: Down syndrome, spina bifida, anencephaly, and Turner and Klinefelter syndromes, and to determine the extent to which rates vary across conditions and with year of publication. Papers were included if they reported (i) numbers of prenatally diagnosed conditions that were terminated, (ii) at least five cases diagnosed with one of the five specified conditions, and (iii) were published between 1980 and 1998. 20 papers were found which met the inclusion criteria. Termination rates varied across conditions. They were highest following a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome (92 per cent; CI: 91 per cent to 93 per cent) and lowest following diagnosis of Klinefelter syndrome (58 per cent; CI: 50 per cent to 66 per cent). Where comparisons could be made, termination rates were similar in the 1990s to those reported in the 1980s. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

So just over 90% of children that are diagnosed with down syndrome prenatally are aborted. I don't even know what to say to that...

Fact: I love movies. I love watching movies at home, that is. Carrie and I went to go see Dan in Real Life last night, which was quite good, but once again reminded me as to why we don't go to theaters anymore. Sure, there's the price that's a factor, but we had a deal where we both got in for $2. So that wasn't it. Of course, it was all the annoying people in the theater.

At first, things looked like they'd be good. The theater wasn't full, and the audience was mostly older. So far so good. Unfortunately, during the previews, about a dozen teenagers (imagine me saying that word with as much disgust and vehement loathing as I can muster) run giggling into the theater. We were spared somewhat as most of them left a few minutes into the movie once they realized that Dane Cook wasn't going to be funny nor was Carell going to be repeating a 40 year-old virgin role. Still, those that stayed back made their presence known, even from the very back of the theater. Someone was playing a game on their cell phone or something to that effect because there were constant beep, beep, beeps coming from the back row. It was even so bad that one of the group even told that individual to be quiet.

If I recall from a recent Oscars show that some executive was bemoaning the lack of people going to theaters and was trying to romanticize the experience. I'm sorry, but I'm going to be sticking to my home theater for a long, long time to come.

Oh, and you should see Dan in Real Life. It was good.