So Reno has this pretty cool festival called Artown - it’s a month of concerts, art shows, classes, performances…. just lots going on.  And it lasts the entire month of July.  Our improv troupe, Stage Fright, is performing each Wed during Artown.

Now our troupe has had audiences ranging from 1 to 12 or maybe 15.  I mean, we’re not talking big crowds.  So this month was gonna be sort of do-or-die for us.  Well, because we are advertised in the booklet for Artown, we had a crowd.  In fact, we ran out of seats.  To top that off, Channel 8 (the local news) came by with their camera and taped some for the evening news.  He shot some footage of the show, and then did interviews with me and Mia (the founder of Stage Fright).

The piece was a minute long and it was fun.  It was sorta a me-spotlight, which my vain side enjoyed.  But it did look good for our troupe, and hopefully next week we’ll have to add some extra seats or something.  Maybe we’ll even remember to charge admission.

Stage Fright: Every Wednesday in July

7pm at Studio on 4th (4th and Valley)

During yesterday’s round, I impaled myself on a chunk of sagebrush.  Because of that, my leg swelled up last night and it was extremely painful.  So I began favoring it, throwing my back out during the night, amidst my three hours of sleep.  There, that ought to cover my excuses.

I start out on a very difficult hole 1 - throwing it within 10′ for an easy birdie, the only one.  One off the lead.  I throw a perfect spike hyzer on my second shot, landing it within 10′, only NO!!!  It hits off a rock and skips thirty feet past!  I miss the putt.  Oh well.  Hole 3 (you’ll remember I 4′ed it during the final round of King of the Lake and lost the playoff on that same hole) - I throw a great shot, finally past the guardian trees that were my nemesis.  BUT NO!!!  I hit a tiny branch past the trunks that knocks me down.  One bad upshot and putt later, and I 4 that one.  Hole 4, I play the flick, which is the “safe” shot, having the disc hyzer INTO the hill as opposed to down it.  I get a nasty skip and I go down the hill anyway.  I take another 4.  Five holes in and I’ve had three bad breaks.  Then the wheels come off (bad to say AFTER two 4s).  I just start throwing terrible shot after terrible shot.  I miss two putts within 20′ for birdie, and after the front nine, I’m +2.  Now I’m just hoping for last cash (4th out of 8 - they’re thankfully paying deep)

I start to pull out of it with three birdies over the next seven holes, bringing me back under.  With two holes left, I’m tied for third, pretty much out of contention for 1st and 2nd.  The guy I’m tied with birdies both, and I bogey both.  Fortunately, the guy behind me didn’t play hot and I snuck into last cash.  Second pro cash in a row.

What went wrong?  Everything.  I just felt weak, distracted, and in pain.  Once I had those bad breaks, I got into my own head “I have to make this putt to stay in it… this is a must-deuce hole”  I wasn’t playing my shots anymore, I was playing the tournament.  Pro rookie no no.

Anyway, it was fun, and I’m glad to be done with it.  Taking a little vacation from disc golf.  Too much other stuff going on.

Back to Truckee, the site of the final round of last week’s King of the Lake tournament, for the Hula Bowl. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to round 1, where all 18 holes were set up as birdie runs. We all know how much I love short courses.

Round 1: I started on hole two with a deuce, letting me think maybe I could finally combat short courses. I then proceeded to par 6 out of the next 7 holes, all of which are extremely deucable. I managed to birdie 10, 11, and 12, my first turkey in tournament play (11 is a nice park job deuce). I step up to 14, one of my favorite holes, and do a terrible drive, a tough up, and a missed 20′ putt. There goes my bogey-free on this very easy layout. I step up to 15, a hole I usually hit a tree to the left, so I take a different disc. It’s a 270′ uphill hole where you throw straight through a gap and high, and let the disc hyzer to a basket on a hill. It looked good out of my hand, and we hear a CHING!!! IT’S IN!!! My first tournament ace!

Ace pots work a bit different in CA. Instead of an optional $1 pot that goes to anyone who hits an ace, it’s more an honor’s system thing: those in your group should pay you $5 (and the three of them did) and anyone at the tournament should pay you a buck. I have gotten $49 so far with a few people saying they’ll hit me tomorrow. Sweet!

I end up at -7… sadly not great, but the best was a -9. Because the course was so easy, there was an intermediate player who shot -7 and an advanced guy who shot -9. The ratings for the tourney are gonna SUCK. (Edit: they do suck)

Round 2: Two strokes off the leader, and in a tie for second, I head out for my second lead card in two weekends. Admittedly, there are only 8 in pro open today, but whatever. I step up and birdie my first two and end up in a tie for first. Shizzle. This is an easier round to break down: I shot 7 birdies and no bogeys (only my second ever bogey-free tourney round). I missed three putts within 25′ this round and I chained out of a 40′ putt. That would have KILLED at -11, but instead, I have another -7 on a slightly harder course. There was only one hotter score than that, yet I still didn’t even get in the 990s. D’oh! Stupid low ratings.

So after two rounds, I’m 2 strokes off the lead, and one stroke ahead of a tie for 3rd. They only pay top 3, so I gotta play solid tomorrow in the longest layout. Doesn’t matter, because with the ace, I ALREADY CASHED! Woo!

Starting the day, I was 10 strokes of the lead, but only 5 off 2nd, which seemed far more attainable, especially since I knew the two courses better than anyone ahead of me.

Round 3: Tahoe Vista

I have played this course a couple of times during doubles and knew it pretty well. I started off by missing hole one (everyone did) and having a drop-in birdie on hole two. Hole three and four I also had birdie putts, making the one on 4 (I’d never birdied that before). I misthrew hole five (as I always do) and bogeyed, but followed up with another drop in deuce on 6. I’m being this detailed for a reason - my driving was great and I was getting the must-deuce holes! I never do that! Hole 9 changed everything. It’s a tough flick S shot. I throw literally the best forehand of my life. It skips up by the basket, close to the parking lot OB behind. I get up to find out it’s leaning over the edge. If the concrete had been poured straight down, I would have been in bounds (my disc was hanging over the lip). However, the concrete then bowed out about an inch and a half, and I wasn’t over that. So a poor concrete-pouring job cost me a stroke, maybe two (I missed the putt for my circle 3 - remember that for later).

Derek (the leader by a ton) starts saying: “C’mon guys, we gotta step it up!” I’m sitting there thinking, “Ummm, this is me stepping it up. I’m playing really well.” I proceed to birdie 10, had a putt on 11, parked 12 for a bird, and only took a bogey or two here and there. Hole 17, a HUGE downhill hole with a natural tree backstop - I throw a crap drive but throw my up straight into the backstop. My disc somehow manages (parallel to the ground) to get caught between a 2′ truck and a 2″ branch, over 8′. Another very painful OB stroke (the comebacker was a 6′ putt). I finish with a par 4 on 18. That puts me at -1 on the round, though I was -3 without those two painful OB strokes. Anyway, despite beating everyone in my group but Derek (who only shot -2), I lose ground. Two guys on other cards shoot -7 and -6 and leap up to lead card. Good, I don’t like being lead card.

Round 4: Truckee

This is gonna be simpler. I start out 4 4 on tough holes, but still not good. I then go 3 2 3 2. So I’m even with many many birdie holes left. There is some SICK wind, and everyone is having trouble. I proceed to par the next 11 holes (ugh). I finish the round with a 15′ birdie and come back with a -1 (my 2nd card shot even, +1 and +2, so I knew unless someone shot lights out on the 3rd card, the worst I could do was 5th place (in the cash baby!)

A guy from the lead card Tom (who shot the -7 in the morning) comes up to me and says, “You shot -1? You and I are tied for 3rd.” WHUUUA!? -1 on Truckee is NOT good, how did I advance? Well, two guys on the lead card shot +4s (like I said, BIG winds). At this point, I didn’t care if I won a little disc trophy that said “3rd place” so I went into the playoff just trying to not embarrass myself.

Playoff:

Hole 1 is a must-deuce. I yanked my drive and ricocheted off a fence for a 30′ windy putt. Tom gacked his too and flew well past the hole (but I think hit a tree to slow him as well). He had a 30′ putt. I went first and canned it (longest put of the day, sadly). He then hit his. 2nd hole - another must-deuce. I put it within 15′. He shows me up and puts it within 10′. Both make it. 3rd hole (where I started with a 4 during the round). I hit the early guardians and he didn’t. So I had to make a 300′ upshot with a tree right in my face. I throw a low shot with my Sidewinder, hoping for a skip, and I hit a rock, stopped me 60′ short. I miss that and he wins.

I later find out that the ’silly trophies” are these absolutely beautiful hand-carved dragon statues. Oh, I wish I knew that before that playoff. Anyway, I split 3rd place cash and walk home with $220, my best tourney by a long shot.

w00t!

So King of the Lake is the Tahoe extravaganza: all four Tahoe courses (Zephyr Cove, Bijou, Tahoe Vista, and Truckee) in two days. Despite a few locals telling me to “bag it in am, nobody knows who you are anyway”, I play pro. It’s a diluted field because most top pros are down in LA playing a bigger tournament. I started out the day hitting a bird with my car - sweet, I already hit a birdie!!!

Round 1: Zephyr Cove

This course is lots of tough threes, a couple of gimmes, and not too many long long holes. That’s not to say there isn’t trouble to be found, but if you play smart, you should be ending up even or better. I start out with a 25′ uphill putt on my first hole, a VERY hard hole to deuce. I miss it, and then 4 4 the next two holes. NOT the start I wanted. I hit a couple of birdies here and there, take few more pars. Like most tournaments, my biggest problem was throwing it flat at high elevations - everything was hyzering… still. Anyway, I ended up at +1, with only three birdies (not good) and four bogies. The only reason I was that good was two of the LUCKIEST kicks I’ve gotten in a while. Someone was smiling down on me today. The leaders were at -5, and I was on third card (of four).

Round 2: Bijou

I’d only ever played this course once, last year, it was 100+ degrees out, and I only had three discs on me. Today, there were some strong winds and sprinkles of rain coming down. Fun. The layout was fairly simple: the front nine were mostly deuce holes, the middle 9 (there were 27 holes) were mostly tough threes, and the back nine were a mix of some tougher ones with some gimmes. As usual, I missed all of the gimmes. But I started very hot, throwing four birdies in my first 9 holes (I started on five, so it wasn’t all the easy ones). But then I went through a long drought without birdies, play blah golf. After a few bogeys, I had ruined my excellent start and was back to even. D’oh! I missed three putts between 20′ - 30′ during that span too. But I pulled my head back into it and proceeded to hit three deuces in my last six holes. I ended at -3, putting me -2 overall. The hot round (the leader) was -7, and then my -3 was next best. w00t! It leapfrogged me all the way to the lead card. It’s be a -12 (Derek Billings), a -7, a -3, and my -2. There’s another guy tied with me at -2 and one at -1. Tight race.

So tomorrow I will play the last two courses starting on the LEAD CARD. It’s my first time on a lead card since turning pro. Let’s hope I get some sleep tonight.

As I stated before, the old Reno sayings says you shouldn’t plant your tomatoes until all the snow is melted off Peavine.  Today is the first day of summer and there’s still snow on Mount Peavine, which Ash says usually melts by April, maybe May.  Good thing I haven’t planted any tomato plants.

I’ve just completed Final Fantasy IV - and I still love this game.  There’s a great story, albeit limited by the seriously lame graphics of the time.  Ashley made sure to make that point abundantly clear while watching me beat it.  It took 32 hours to complete it with a cast of characters all named interjections (Crap!, Wait, Shhhh, Huh?… etc… seriously, it makes the dialogue so much more interesting to do that).

Anyway, I’ve also completed the fourth game without getting everything.  In fact, far from it.  There are four “bonus” call spells - Imp, Mage, Coctrice and Bomb - that sometimes are randomly dropped by those creatures.  No such luck.  I read the odds of them dropping it could be as high as 64 to 1.  Yikes.

Speaking of odds, I was probably at a level to beat the game at around 23 hours.  But I was trying to get the Adamant Armor, supposedly the hardest item to get in ANY Final Fantasy game.  How do you get it?  You have to have a Pink Puff drop a Pink Tail, which you give to the tail collector, who gives you the armor.  Where do you fight Pink Puffs?  In one specific tiny room in the final castle.  I’ve read varying accounts of the probability of running into them.  It ranges from 64 to 1, to 156 to 1.  And the probability of them dropping the tail when you do manage to find one?  I’ve read ranges from 16 to 1 to 64 to one.  That means in best case scenario, it could take you 1024 battles to do it.  Worst case scenario (assuming these online numbers are correct) could be just about 10,000 battles.  I ended up fighting 9 sets of Pink Puffs in my 6-7 hours of trying, probably about 1500 - 2000 battles.  They left me some neat stuff, but no pink tail.

I later found there’s a “cheat”.  There’s a rare item (Alert) that allows you to basically summon them once per use of the item.  I used my only one to make sure I was in the right room.  Stupidly, I saved my game, because the secret is to keep fighting them using that item, and if they don’t drop the tail, restart the game and use the Alert again.  I really really wish I had seen that before I used it up.

Anyway, FFIV is done.  Easily the best of the first four.  We’ll see how it holds up in the long run.  Total time on the first four: ~ 124 hours.  I’m running out of time, in a number of ways.

Onto FFV.

It’s been awfully quiet here at esoderek.com.  Awfully quiet indeed.  Kinda seems like the calm before the storm, does it?

…

A young dude in a tiny tiny car fell in love with my shoes, Ashley’s boobs made a fat man fall off a treadmill, and we bought bacon-wrapped filets from a traveling meat salesman.

It was a pretty good day indeed.

Camelot Shiraz 2003 - I have been red-heavy of late, and for the few white purists out there, I have this to say: I’m a lazy lazy person. Reds require no preparation other than a corkscrew. Whites require such massive preparation as KNOWING WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE IT so you can have it refrigerated. I don’t premeditate my wine-drinking, so you are out of luck.

In rereading some old entries, I see I have been pretty hard on Shiraz’. One would imagine that I would stop buying them. But no, I am loyal to those who come here for my review columns (mainly because I believe you to have some mental illness and I feel bad). Finally, the mantle of bad Shiraz’ has been cast aside. This is a delicious wine. Although the exact circumstances of purchasing this wine are now cloudy, I can pretty safely assume it was because it was cheap. And that should be reason enough, provided you can find this California red.

It has no thorax-strangling punch that puts you off at first, and it just coats your entire mouth as if each grape is trying to french kiss you individually. Each glass fresh out of the bottle is delightful in terms of smell, taste, and color (it is not blue). And I saved some of it for later, and it works well as a refrigerated leftover wine as well. With food or on an empty stomach, this is a must-have for those who like shiraz’, or those who, like me, don’t like them but feel they should.

8.5/10