NWSL Playoffs

Playoff time for the National Women's Soccer League begins this weekend.

The first semi-final match has already been played, with the Washington Spirit hosting the Chicago Red Stars. Looked like a pretty wet night out in Maryland just north of Washington D.C. More than four thousand fans still made it out to the match, though.

Washington looked like the better side through most of regulation time, in my opinion, with many more offensive chances and better ball control for about 75 minutes. They had the 1-0 lead at halftime on an Ali Krieger goal. Of course, since there's so few goals scored in most soccer games, it just needs to be close for both sides to have a chance. That's certainly how this one played out, with Chicago finally getting their offense going late and Christen Press getting the equalizer. She almost won it, too, but hit the crossbar on what looked like a near-certain shot at the end of regulation in stoppage time. That miss meant extra time, in which I thought both sides had some decent scoring chances. Only the Spirit were able to put one home, though, thanks to a great team effort with multiple passes right around the penalty area leading to a Francisca Ordega goal. That sent Washington to the NWSL final with a 2-1 win.

The other semi-final happens Sunday in Portland, with my Thorns playing the Western New York Flash. Portland finished the regular season strong, ending up on top of the standings to win the NWSL Shield. Looking forward to watching that one. Sadly, it's a long way from Michigan to Portland so I won't be there in person, but it'll be on FS1 and I can get that through Playstation Vue. I'll be ready in front of the TV with my Tobin Heath jersey on.

Regardless of who wins this weekend, I'll be watching the championship match next week. That's in Houston on Sunday October 9th. Of course, I'll be much happier if Portland is one of the participants - go Thorns!

Chilly Weather in Cities: Skylines

Just as I was starting to consider putting Cities: Skylines aside for a while, a sale offer shows up in my inbox for the After Dark and Snowfall expansions.

Lot of white landscape on the winter maps.

The deal was essentially two expansions for the price of one, not bad especially when you consider that both are fairly recent. After Dark released just over a year ago, and Snowfall last February.

I started a new city after enabling the upgrades, using a map with the Winter theme. A winter map feels like living in Alaska or Greenland. It gets really cold in the winter, snow is everywhere, and you can provide amenities like ice sculpture parks and hockey rinks to beautify your city. The occasional snowstorm will cover everything, including the roads, requiring plows to keep things running.

Those extra requirements make building a winter city more challenging than the more temperature climes. All the other services are still in demand as well, so managing finances to provide it all is more difficult. I found myself expanding much more slowly than I had previously, and paying more attention to the details of my city finances.

There's a temperature gauge to keep an eye on - the colder it gets, the more your citizens will demand heat. At first, I didn't realize that a new heating system was available, so a lot of money and time was spent on extra power production for electric heating. Eventually I discovered the ability to build a heating utility and run heating pipes along water lines, and that made things significantly easier to manage. Adding that heating system isn't cheap, though, and slows growth even more.

Between the two expansions, there's plenty of other additions besides the cold weather. New transportation options like taxi stands, requirements for road maintenance facilities, commercial zones specializing in nightlife, etc, etc. Some existing features have been tweaked as well, such as a smaller footprint for certain buildings (like the high school). And of course there are new unique buildings to unlock.

The new features certainly bring new life to the city-building experience. Plenty of new things to try out, and the cold-weather challenges are fun to work with. Looking forward to more of the same with future expansions.

ArtPrize 2016

Fall in Grand Rapids is ArtPrize season. The annual art competition is in its eighth year, and I've found time to see at least some of the pieces in all eight. I plan to spend a few hours roaming around the event this year, probably on a few different occasions. Expect a lot of pictures each time I go out. (Apologies for the quality...cheap camera phone.) Larger versions in my ArtPrize 2016 photo album.

 I generally like pattern-based pieces and this one is no exception.

Robots are always interesting subject matter, in this case out "watering" mechanical flowers with a gas can. That's the artist on the floor, putting on some finishing touches. Most pieces are finished before being installed, but you see work still being done on occassion.

I'm a sucker for space and stars, too. Hard to see in the picture, but this one has some figures hidden in the image...like the whale in the lower right.

Another pattern-based piece. You can kind of see land and sky, but mainly it's abstract.

I thought this was an interesting series of paintings, meant to signify struggle against life's circumstances.

This piece was done entirely by using different colors of duct tape to form the image. 

A metallic eagle, posed as if in flight.

This entry had a whole table full of metal wire figures.

Large painting of lions on the savanna. Hard to see scale, but it took up an entire wall.

Each of the small Christmas-ornament-style balls in this entry was painted with the face of a Native American. You can only see one side here - there's an entire circle of displays.

Another wall-sized painting, this one of a forest on fire. Meant to draw attention to the dwindling rain forests, according to the author's note nearby.

This may look like a child's drawing, but it required some complex construction since it's entirely made of plastic lids.

"Grand Rabbits" - enough said.

Not sure entirely what this thing is, but it looked interesting out on the lawn beside the GR Public Museum.

About a dozen little metal cages with metal animal models made up this installation.

The other side of that same entry, showing different animals.

Another picture done in duct tape. Apparently duct tape art is a thing. Who knew?

As I first caught sight of this one from a distance, I thought "huh, wonder what that thing that looks like a tin-foil giraffe is." Thought maybe it would be part of another robot or something. Turns out, it actually was a tin-foil giraffe, along with various other animals.

You can't see this in the picture, but there are a bunch of small desks in front of the paintings in this installation. Kids were encouraged to sit down and write out a goal or dream, and put it up on the wall with many others.

Nice landscape that covered probably a good 15-20 feet along the wall.

Map of the United States made of colored glass, with lots of images representing the various states/regions.

This fish is a long, flat piece in the GR Ford Museum. Didn't look like much from ground level, but when you went up the stairs (where I took this picture) you could see the whole thing as intended.

A large, inflatable, rainbow-colored...something. Kind of looks like an elephant from a distance, but when you get closer it's clear that there's just a bunch of legs. Whatever it was, plenty of kids were very happy running around underneath it.

A very long model of a railroad bridge - it stretched down a hallway for about 30 feet. There's a train that's a bit hard to see behind the bridge supports.

This was an interesting series of paintings that each showed a circular grouping of different items - kitchen utensils, fruit, guns, medicines, toys.

A sculpture named Hand of God. There was a nice little booklet left by the author for people to write prayers in.

A complicated-looking device, complete with gears and circuits. I don't think it actually moved (and wasn't about to touch it to find out) but it looked like it might go into motion at any moment.

Nice painting of a hummingbird in mid-hover.

That's a whole lot of legos. And who doesn't love a little programming on their art?

Yep, those are painted toilets. The idea is to draw attention to colorectal cancer. Pretty sure that's working.

Metal stylized soldier surrounded by stones with names of various weapons, vehicles, etc used in Vietnam.

Dancing figure made of metal wires.

There was an entire series of these large wooden figures, representing some kind of fantastic story featuring the triumph of good over evil.

This large mural shows a battle scene from the history of Grenada.

An entire wall covered with a representation of a crowded poor neighborhood. In many of the windows were small screens, like you'd see on a cell phone, playing short videos of scenes you might expect to see in such an area.

Phone Update

A few weeks after my old phone died, I am once again phone positive.

The new phone is a Motorola Moto E, which is definitely on the lower end of the smartphone spectrum. Low amount of memory, not particularly impressive camera, and it can be slow. But I don't need much, and it didn't cost a lot, so it fits my needs right now.

On the plus side, the Moto E is smaller and lighter than my old phone, so it's easier to carry around. Especially handy when I'm out running, since it fits much easier in the armband I use.

All I really need on the phone is:

• Google Voice/Hangouts for incoming calls and texts. This lets me use my Google Voice number, so the actual phone number doesn't really matter.
• GMail for email.
• Player FM for podcasts.
• Runkeeper for tracking workouts.
• Google Maps for navigation.

Unsurprisingly, there's a whole lot of unnecessary stuff installed by default. I spent a while going through and disabling extra apps. On a more powerful device it might not be necessary, but on this one I want to make sure that I'm only spending resources on apps that I'll actually use.

I may upgrade if a great deal on a better phone comes along, but it's no problem to wait. For now, this one does what I need.

The First 2016 Presidential Debate

I watched the US Presidential Debate last night.

In most election years, I don't bother watching the debates. We already know what the candidates' positions are, since they've been all over the news for the last year or more. The only real question is whether one or the other of the candidates will stumble over a question, or come up with some kind of cutting remark. Do we really want to be basing our votes on who can come up with the better insults or comebacks? Pretty sure that's not how I want our nation's leader representing me in domestic matters and international diplomacy.

Nonetheless, I was honestly curious about what was going to happen this year since the two sides are so far apart. Trump is nothing like any presidential candidate we've ever had before. Clinton is the stereotypical political insider (except for being a woman, which is new). I knew going in that nothing said was going to change my vote - I've pretty much already decided on Clinton, for reasons I laid out back in primary season - so I tried to leave aside whether I agreed with what was being said and instead focus on how each candidate handled the process.

Things went pretty well for both parties in the first half-hour or so. Both more or less stuck to the time they were given, without a lot of interruptions and staying mostly on topic. Trump had some sort of problem with the sniffles, and Clinton came across as a bit wooden, but those were pretty minor things.

The tone changed pretty quickly as the debate moved along, though. Clinton made a few points that seemed to really upset Trump: about his taking advantage of the housing crisis in 2008, how little federal tax he paid, that he called climate change a hoax, his support of the war in Iraq. (According to the NPR fact check, all of those had some basis in fact, though she exaggerated at least the tax claim.) He interrupted her several times and flatly denied some of the points, though the fact check found evidence otherwise.

Through the remaining hour, Trump sounded more emotional and less measured. Several times, he seemed to forget that he was debating and instead went into a stump-speech style. It sounded like he was preaching to a supportive crowd and was waiting for the applause. Instead, he got a response from Clinton or moderator Lester Holt, often calling into question whatever he just said. Sometimes, that put him on the defensive; other times, he'd try to counterattack the point. Either way, it didn't seem like he was prepared for argument.

Clinton, on the other hand, seemed prepared for just about every topic. Even when the subject of her private email server was brought up, she had her response ready - admitted it had been a mistake and moved onto other topics. She seemed to always have a counter-point ready for whatever Trump brought up. And she stayed quiet when Trump was floundering. The exchange on Trump's support of the "birther" movement was a particularly good example of that.

I'd like to compliment Lester Holt on his performance as the moderator. He did his best to rein in both candidates when they went over time or off topic. Not that it always worked - they are politicians, going on at length and avoiding topics is what they do - but he made a good effort. I think he did call out Trump more often than Clinton, which is to be expected since Trump made more obviously false claims. I'm sure he'll be attacked for that from some quarters, but in my book that's good moderating.

In the end, I doubt the debate changed the mind of anyone who already had an opinion. We didn't learn anything new about either candidate: Trump plays fast and loose with the facts, appeals to emotion, and promises radical change; Clinton is more measured, less exciting, and unlikely to significantly alter the status quo. The question is whether the undecided voters out there were influenced by Clinton's better preparation and handling of the debate format, or if they will overlook that in favor of Trump's promise of major changes regardless of the possible consequences. With two more debates to go, the answer may be that fence-sitters will be staying right in the middle for a while yet.

MTG: Kaladesh Pre-Release (2HG)

After playing in an individual event on Saturday, Sunday was team day for Kaladesh pre-release weekend.

My friend Dan and I played in this two-headed giant limited format event for the last set release, and it was a lot of fun. So I was happy to do it again for Kaladesh. We played up at Big Kidz Games, and the turnout was great - 13 teams, 26 players.

Considering how heavy Kaladesh is with artifacts, our shared card pool didn't have very many of them that were useful. We only had about 5 vehicles between the two of us, very few useful artifact creatures, and our only mythic rare was Aetherworks Marvel. Could be an interesting combo card, but not that useful in limited. We ended up building a red-green deck for me, with fairly aggressive creatures and some removal, and a black-white deck for Dan, with a lot of fabricate creatures and several combat tricks.

Unfortunately, it didn't really matter much what was in our decks. That's because three of the four rounds we played were decided by land draws (or lack thereof) for one team or the other. Round 1, one opponent had to mulligan multiple times and still ended up with only one land for the whole game, so we won easily. Round 3, one opponent got stuck with a bunch of high-casting-cost stuff in his hand and never drew into enough lands, so again we won easily. Round 4, I kept a two-land hand with several two- and three-cost playables but never drew the third land, while Dan was flooded with all lands. Lost that one badly.

Only round two was a real game, and that one we lost as well. Both sides played a whole lot of ground creatures, resulting in a stand-off where neither team could attack. The only threat we managed to get on the board was a Sky Skiff, the only vehicle I had in my deck, but then they stole it with a Shrewd Negotiation. Then the better card quality of their pool showed up, with an Aethersquall Ancient and Wispweaver Angel on one side, and multiple graveyard recursion effects on the other. The game ended quickly from that point.

That put us at 2-2, firmly in the middle of the pack. Too bad about all the poor shuffles, and we didn't win any extra prizes, but that's all right. Still had a good time hanging out with Dan and the rest of the folks up at Big Kidz Games!

Sharp Ends by Joe Abercrombie

Joe Abercrombie's First Law world features a wide variety of characters across its six novels. The Sharp Ends collection of short stories features many of those familiar faces.

There are thirteen stories in Sharp Ends, most of which took me 15-20 minutes to read. Many had been published previously, in various anthologies or special editions. They take place all across the First Law world, revisiting people and places from the novels. It's been a while since I read those, but I remembered enough to recognize key people and events. You could read these stories without any knowledge of the novels, but I don't recommend it - you'd lose a lot of added depth.

For instance, "Freedom" is a tale recounted from the perspective of a writer paid to publish the life of famous mercenary captain Nicomo Costa. It's written in an amusing over-the-top florid style, clearly a whitewashed account having little to do with the actual events. The story is entertaining on its own, but it's even more so when associated with the way that Costa actually operates as recounted in the novels.

Each of the stories in Sharp Ends stands on its own, but there are also some recurring characters. Most notably, the thief Shevedieh and warrior Javre are the leads in four stories and appear in a fifth. They're a mismatched pair in almost every way, but still end up forming a friendship that lasts over a decade through misadventures of all kinds. Those stories were my favorites and I'd be happy to see Abercrombie write a few more Shev and Javre tales.

As with the First Law novels, Sharp Ends has plenty of adult themes. The world is a pretty dark place, with largely unsavory characters, plenty of wars, and betrayal around every corner. The language is harsh and graphic violence is everywhere. Despite all this, Abercrombie writes characters and dialogue to find the humor in many situations. And when a good deed or kind person does make an appearance, the dark nature of the majority of people and situations serves to make it stand out all the more.

The First Law world isn't for everyone, but if you enjoyed any of the novels, then Sharp Ends is a good companion. Lots of familiar names and places, and alternate viewpoints for some key events. An entertaining read.