geoo visiting IchoTolot & Simon, August 2015

[Simon]

Hi,

geoo is coming to Göttingen, most likely for 2 weeks. He will arrive at July 31st, at 23 local time == 21 UTC. Return ticket isn't booked yet. He'll stay at my place, and I'm sure we'll be meeting with Ichotolot on several days.

We've scheduled a multiplayer Lix game on Saturday, August 1, 22 UTC. This is midnight in Germany, early afternoon in Canada, and late morning on Sunday, August 2 in New Zealand. Everyone is invited to join! At that time, join IRC at quakenet.org #lix or log onto the Lix central server.

<SimonN> maybe (geoo & Simon == Simon)
<NaOH> how does that work
<geoo> I'm all ones

• Link to the 2014 visit
  
• Link to the 2010/2011 visits

-- Simon

[grams88]

Hope all goes well for everyone. That's good members are meeting up with each other.

[Simon]

geoo arrived at 23:14, porquing me with a porcupine quill. Many thanks for this special present from Ethiopia!

The lovely porcupine is considered a pest by the local farmers. It wants to eat the corn ears, but cannot reach them on the plants. To get the ears, it bites through the stem.



<Ramond> IchoTolot: have you met geoo before?
<IchoTolot> no
<Ramond> are you planning to touch his beard?
<IchoTolot> just saw a picture of him+simon
<IchoTolot> if it gives good luck to yourself XD
<Ramond> maybe it does

<Akseli> geoo and IchoTolot must be shaking hands and hugging and touching each other's beards and stuff at the moment

Ichotolot usually doesn't have a beard, even!

<Akseli> this might be light entertainment: I thought what would happen if I and geoo visit IRL
<SimonN> sure, explain
<Akseli> geoo: "Hi, I'm geoo"
<Akseli> Me: "Hey, I'm Akseli, can I touch your beard?"
<Akseli> geoo: "What?! No..."
<Akseli> *awkward silence*
<Akseli> end of story
<Akseli> good night! :)
<SimonN> I'm sure geoo would allow that. I haven't felt the need to touch the beard yet, but I see how that beard is a cult object in the Lemmings community.



The frog is already thinking "I want to get away!"

-- Simon

[ccexplore]

geoo is turning into the Lemmings community Jesus with the miracle beard thing.

Now all that's left is the obligatory photo of hammed noodles......   [I see that Club-Mate's already ticked off the checklist.]

[Clam]

We've scheduled a multiplayer Lix game on Saturday, August 1, 22 UTC. This is midnight in Germany, early afternoon in Canada, and late morning on Sunday, August 2 in New Zealand. Everyone is invited to join! At that time, join IRC at quakenet.org #lix or log onto the Lix central server.

Game is now underway, everybody join!

Great games, we even had 8 players at once!

[Simon]

Here's a recipe that works every time.

• 500 g broccoli, i.e., one head of broccoli
  
• 400 g crème fraîche (Quote geoo: Frặîçħè! Put 5 accents on every word! Simon: No, NaOH will be angry.)
  
• 400 g noodles
  
• 250 g cubed ham
  
• some butter or margerine

Spawn 2 side threads. Cook noodles and brokkoli in one thread each. In the parent thread, put butter/margerine in your pot/pan/wok, and fry the ham. Put the cream in. Wait for the brokkoli thread and merge that in. This is the sauce.

Wait for the noodle thread and put the noodles in the sauce. Our result looks like those clean humps of rice served in noble restaurants!



We have played 4 hours of Lix last night. It was an exciting mixture of 7- and 8-pepole free-for-alls, 2v2v2 team games, and strategic 4v4 attack-and-defense maps. Thanks to everyone who joined!

Here's a scene during a 3v3 game on Stepping Stones. The game was extremely close, with both sides exploiting opportunities.



This is Marble Run, where you have to race a lone lix to the finish, ahead of everyone else. It was a blast with 8 players at the same time. New and exciting: The running jumper rolls into a cute ball, like Sonic the Jazz Jackrabbit, our beloved DOS hero!



This morning, geoo and I have played Tetris attack, the hot-headed action puzzle game, via SNES emulator. When you attack with a huge block, maybe you win the game, otherwise your opponent will send back an even bigger one! Steve would have loved being with us. We're sure he would have annihilated either of us in Tetris Attack 1v1.



-- Simon

[geoo]

Last night we were racing the Shadow Tribe of L2. Needless to say, Simon won again. Roper physics are very ropey. I had to abandon two attempts at The School Gate because both ropers failed me at the very end in getting the lemmings out of the big holding pit.

Instead, I proposed a different challenge:
Get to the upper right platform in the Medieval practice level with the skills shown below:

Simon thought it was impossible. Later he proposed using the hopper glitch to get from the very bottom to the top, but the hopper disappears to the right halfway up. One could turn it into a wall crawler though, but then it will bypass the platform and just disappear through the top of the level.

He's an L2 pop quiz that we came up with after some more experimenting:
Which skills can be used to pop a ballooner's balloon?

• Archer
• Club Basher
• Thrower
• Bazooka
• Spearer
• Fencer
• Mortar
• Diver
• Flame Thrower
• Superlem
• Roper

Solution:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

These work: Archer, Bazooka, Spearer, Mortar, Superlem, Roper
These don't work: Club Basher, Thrower, Fencer, Diver, Flame Thrower
Here's a pic of a Superlem in action:

[ccexplore]

Last night we were racing the Shadow Tribe of L2. <snip>

Hmm, so no one has troubles with the twister on level 9 ("SPINNY THANG....")?

Instead, I proposed a different challenge:
Get to the upper right platform in the Medieval practice level with the skills shown below:

Wow, that looks kinda impressive I must say.   I'm tempted to try this myself one of these days and see how few skills I can get away with.

Later he proposed using the hopper glitch to get from the very bottom to the top, but the hopper disappears to the right halfway up.

Huh. I don't remember (granted, it's been a while) the hopper glitch doing that sort of thing, will have to check this out.

Which skills can be used to pop a ballooner's balloon?

Interesting result.  (Rest of comments in spoilers to avoid, well, spoilers):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As geoo well know, I knew spearer works since I created a custom L2 level featuring that.  So I expect all the projectile skills (archer, bazooka, spearer, mortar, thrower) to work, but apparently thrower doesn't work.  Wasn't really sure if roper counts as a projectile skills for this, suspect it doesn't and looks like I guessed wrong there.

Really surprised about SuperLem though since I didn't expect other lemmings to have any effect on the balloon.  I guess it's called "Super" for a reason.

[ccexplore]

One could turn it into a wall crawler though, but then it will bypass the platform and just disappear through the top of the level.

Is it possible to get a bazooka crater into that wall so it will stop crawling?  It does seem a bit too far way to work, but hard to tell by eye and memory.

[geoo]

Yeah, we thought about using the bazooka to make a hole for the wall crawler, but I'm pretty sure you need to get up to the chain at least to launch it...maybe that can be done with a bazooka too?

Two little (easy) Outdoor challenges:
Outdoor 1: platformers and glue pourers only (should even work with 5 of each).
Outdoor 2: stackers only.

One thing that's a bit off in your previous spoiler tag:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The roper projectile is sufficient to pop the balloon, even while it is still in the air.

[ccexplore]

One thing that's a bit off in your previous spoiler tag:

Oops, I misread your post. My reply now corrected.

[Clam]

Later he proposed using the hopper glitch to get from the very bottom to the top, but the hopper disappears to the right halfway up.

Huh. I don't remember (granted, it's been a while) the hopper glitch doing that sort of thing, will have to check this out.

Original report in the L2 glitches topic (unfortunately the pictures are missing)

And it gets weirder - if the hopper encounters an obstacle on the way up, it starts hopping into the wall.

[ccexplore]

Yeah, we thought about using the bazooka to make a hole for the wall crawler, but I'm pretty sure you need to get up to the chain at least to launch it...maybe that can be done with a bazooka too?

I worked out a way to get up to the chain using basically 3 archers (1 purely for timing), 1 hopper (mostly for timing the fling from the first bomber), and 2 bombers.  Anyway, the pictures should explain it.

I'm somewhat tempted to go for a solution that uses flinging as well to get from top of chain to target area.  But with L2 lacking replay ability, not tempted enough to bother.

[Simon]

Hmm, so no one has troubles with the twister on level 9 ("SPINNY THANG....")?

Right. I did it on first try, with 2 twisters. geoo took more twisters, and was too trigger-happy with the laser blasters, destroyed necessary terrain, and had to fix that with glue.

We met at Ichotolot's place yesterday. Ichotolot has a nice gaming mouse, but he's set it to have acceleration. He likes this in every other game, but it makes smooth L2 twister control impossible.

The meal of the day was Gargantua Blargg's lava pot, a spicey stew.

This list of ingredients works for about 5 people.

• 1 bottle of white wine
  
• 400 g of goulash, we chose lean beef goulash
  
• 800 g of carrots
  
• 500 g of mushrooms
  
• 1 liter of puréed tomatoes
  
• 100 ml of olive oil
  
• 4 onions
  
• 1 Gargantua Blargg
  
• 1 bulb of garlic
  
• 1 bundle of spring onions
  
• 2 bundles of parsley
  
• some leaves of laurel
  
• some allspice, some pepper, some salt, some herbes de provence, some oregano or marjoram
  
• 3 baguettes, or any preferred type of bread
  

Cut carrots, onions, and spring onions into little pieces. Cut mushrooms into slices. The goulash should already come in handy cubes that don't need further cutting.

<IchoTolot> we are cooking right now and geoo put way too much garlic (the whole tuber) in our meal
<NaOH> there's no such thing as too much garlic
<IchoTolot> oh yes, i smell it in the next room
<IchoTolot> it's waaaaaay too much
<NaOH> that's like saying Akseli doesn't have enough towels
<IchoTolot> bite in pure garlic, that's what it is right now :P
<NaOH> well, tell geoo I applaud his audacity

Why all this rage? In general, you have two choices with garlic. Take all the cloves from the bulb and crush them into a few pieces, or take a few cloves only and grate them finely. Expert chefs claim there's a difference in flavor, at the same strength. The lava pot recipe calls for many cloves, crushed. You should never take all the cloves and grate them, that would have been way to strong. (geoo declines to comment on this last statement.)

Take the largest pot you can find. Pour the oil in. Put crushed garlic and cut onions in. Fry the onions until they are transparent.

Put everything else into the pot, except for the bread. Mix thoroughly. When you think you've added enough parsley, add again twice that amount.

Cook for at least 3 hours with medium heat. The carrots take very long to get soft. Stir the stew every once in a while, but overall maintainance is very low. Enjoy your video games. The wine prevents the stew from sticking against the pot. The blargg will enjoy the hot stew and rise out of the pot, see picture below.

Serve with bread.



-- Simon

[ccexplore]

NaOH's assertions about garlic reads like a challenge.  If anyone ever met up with her in real life, they should totally do a modified recipe that uses all grated cloves of a garlic and have her eat it.   (Maybe do it just before she leaves so you don't have to put up with bad breath for rest of the entire visit. )

Regarding parsley, I've seen in some cooking shows to add them later in the stewing process so they retain more of their fresh flavors.  So perhaps you could add some of it at the beginning and the rest towards the end and get away with using less.  Then again this is all armchair cooking on my part, if the existing recipe ain't broken, no need to change it.

I'm also thinking there may be some way to save time (if you want; after all, stews are mostly set-and-forget so time isn't usually a big deal) with the carrots by pre-cooking them a little via microwave or something, but I didn't even get that from any credible cooking source materials so probably not the best idea to follow through with this idea.