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I had heard good things about the Outer Banks of North Carolina, so that area was on my list of places to visit eventually. No one came up with other ideas, so we went to the Outer Banks (AKA OBX).

Plus I wanted to get there before the ocean levels rise and wipe out coastal touristy areas.

Day 1:
We drove. All day. Made it to Virginia.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

Day 2:
We took a break from a lot of driving and did some hiking.

Our first activity was a cave tour. We have toured a number of caves and I don’t know that I would have been that excited about this one, but they do have the world’s largest musical instrument – the Stalacpipe Organ.

Much of the cave was the typical cave stuff, but it was a self-guided tour so we didn’t get the turn-off-all-the-lights bit.

This formation was called Curtains:

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It is time once again to update Some Blog Site readers on the results of my Some Fun Site project to create a more accurate football prediction method.
The 2025 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results (wins-losses):

• DPE: 65%
• ITP: 65%
• MYW: 63%

This was the second time in a few years that MPWHFA was not the top percentage. I don’t know what to make of that, other than this year seemed to have some streaky teams, which helps the DPE method. We’ll see what next year holds in store.

If you think you have a formula that can predict the winner of an NFL game better than 62.6% of the time, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.
(For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

Today is a holiday, and I’m not posting anything today.

Today is a holiday, and I’m not posting anything today.

This is a guide for how to play the game Azul.

1. How do I win?
By having the most points at the end of all the rounds.

2. How do I get points?
By placing tiles on The Wall during The Wall Phase. Update your score each round.

3. How do I place tiles?
You place them on The Wall from each line you’ve completed in your Pattern Lines during The Factory phase (or Pattern Line phase).

4. How do you get tiles in your Pattern Lines?
You draw them from the Factory, in turns until all tiles are gone. You draw all tiles of one color from one pile at a time. Fill in your pattern lines, making sure to complete pattern lines during this time so that you can place tiles on The Wall after The Factory phase.

5. How does the game end?
On the round when someone fills one horizontal row with all 5 tiles, that becomes the last round. You do your scoring like normal, and then you add in the bonus scoring to finish.

It took us a round or two for it to make sense. I recommend paying attention to the bonus scoring items so you know what your goals should be.

There, now go play Azul.

I thought it was bad last year with players sitting out college bowl games so as not to risk injury. But now we have entire teams sitting out college bowl games because they are not the playoff games. Which is understandable, seeing as non-playoff bowl games are more pointless than ever. Or would that be less pointed than ever? Less pointful? What is the opposite of pointless? Your answer must contain the word “point” in it somehow.

And the bowl games are changing names so quickly these days it’s hard to keep track, so it’s hard to care about most of them. I am slightly disappointed that the playoff games are just called “playoff game” and don’t have a decent bowl game name.

Since last year the college football bowl post-season is just like any other sport – fill out a playoff bracket. I don’t participate in brackets for other sports, so I don’t anticipate doing this every year. But I haven’t been inspired with any other ideas for the CFP yet so here it is. Note this is more wishful thinking than actual expectations.

First Round
Oregon over JMU
Oklahoma over Alabama
Tulane over Ole Miss
Texas AM over Miami Fl.

Quarterfinals
Oregon over Texas Tech
Indiana over Oklahoma (Hoosier vs. Sooner)
Georgia over Tulane
Texas AM over Ohio State

Semifinals
Indiana over Oregon
Georgia over Texas AM

Finals
Indiana over Georgia

We’ll see how it goes.

At a store this fall, the younger two boys and I were given free reign to wander while Some Wife did her shopping. We ended up finding some puzzles and the Delta engaged in his favorite pasttime of finding things that are AI-generated.

We decided this puzzle was the winner, in terms of most AI content. I suppose “loser” would be a better term than “winner”, given the goal in our lives is to avoid AI stuff.

It’s hard to see the details in that photo, so I’ve zoomed in for some of the best/worst parts of it.

Example 1: The Trapped Present
Good luck getting whatever is inside this present out. You’ll have to destroy the box, probably.

Example 2: New Species of Rabbit
They took the facial features of the deer and applied them to the rabbit. What species of rabbit has a long snout and black nose?

Plus the snowman has a hat that is both top hat and Santa hat together.

Example 3: Santa Smoking a Cookie
Really, who holds a cookie like that? Unless it’s a middle-schooler trying to be funny. And why is the glass of milk steaming?

Example 4: Earthworm Canes
Those things are supposed to be candy canes but they are shaped more like earthworms.

And a couple of those cookies are vaguely tree-shaped, so that’s good. But the others are random shapes with no relation to Christmas, or any other valid shape.

We did not buy that puzzle, but it gave us a lot of amusement looking at it.