1812 Overture (I)

My all time favorite

I knew this masterpiece through my seniors. I was in a Marching Band at that time. I was in Trumpet division. I was lucky to have two nice seniors who took care of me very much. One senior was Trumpet Solo and the other was Baritone Solo. We three usually gathered together after 5pm in front of the music instrument basement. At senior high it was rare to ignore homework but practice music. It was quite crazy. But we did not care. We took instruments out, sit on the field, and practiced. Music was all over. Of course, at that time nice music was by no means from me. I was a rookie. I learned how to appreciate music through them. My Trumpet senior knew a lot about brass. She had many collections. Most collections were Trumpet related. She was a Trumpet Solo and it made sense for her in favor of Trumpet when she shopped CDs. She liked to lend her CDs to us (good for us). At that time I barely knew anything about symphony and orchestra. I picked up knowledge through her opinions and her CDs.

I came across 1812 Overture and could not help loving it immediately. 1812 Overture has good amount of time in favor of Trumpets. You can hear Trumpet's signature masculine sound often especially in the climax of this overture.

Freebird in Guitar Hero

What's wrong with this person? He got 99% in this monster song

Freebird, everyone wants to beat freebird to claim s/he rocks Guitar Hero 2. But, as the level goes up, the difficulty becomes more and more impossible. Totof and I looked for some hints on YouTube one day and came across some clips. This attached one rocks.

You may noticed that I removed the previous one. The previous one did not have good sound quality. So I replaced it by request.

Rock you like a Hurricane

It was all Guitar Hero's fault

Suddenly, I started listening rock music. Suddenly, I knew how to appreciate Scorpions' music.

I heard Rock you like a Hurricane through Guitar Hero 3's preview. I loved its rhythm and melody. So, I went to YouTube and looked into Scorpions. I came across several video clips about Rock you like a Hurricane. Among them, the one I attached below has better sound quality.

You may need to turn up volume since this video clip's sound is dim.

Crêpe Recipe

Want to make some crêpes at home?

You should not miss this post if your answer is positive. As usual, we have Chef Totof to show everyone how to make sweet crêpes.

Preparation for Crêpes Sucrées

3 eggs

750 millilitre milk

3 cup all-purpose flour

Vanilla extract

Brandy (Whisky or similar kind good liquor)

1 tablespoon oil

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

How to make crêpes

1. Mix all ingredients mentioned above.

2. Let the dough stand for couple hours (one day old dough will make better crêpes).

3. Get a flat pan.

4. Put some oil on it and use napkin to even out the oil.

5. After the pan is hot, scoop some dough into the pan.

6. Cook both sides to golden brown

You can add your favorite toppings or fillings on just-finished crêpes. We normally add Nutella, strawberry jam, honey, maple syrup, sugar on our crêpes. Chef Totof likes the combination of Nutella and strawberry jam very much. Just putting sugar and butter on crêpes is classic. You can let your imagination go wild by adding some creative toppings. Your crêpes will turn out delicious as long as you do put some extreme toppings.

Power Grid

Cannot say no to German games any more

German board games are so fun.

Emily and Danny introduced this game to Totof and me. It was at a game night at Emily's place. Emily and Danny are advanced gamers. So, whenever they show you something, it must mean this something is sophisticated enough and fun enough.

We had six people. Emily, Danny, Jason (Danny's college roommate), Dan, and us. Apparently Steve was also a professional gamer. It seemed like tonight would be tough.

Let's power up

The goal of Power Grid is to supply the most cities with power. You have six maps to choose: German, Italy, US, France, Central Euroupe, and Lux. Each map is designed marvelously. You do not feel you play in the same game when you change your map. You need to change your strategies and approaches to the winner position.

The first part is auction. You obtain a power plant by auction. You do not need to get one if you do not want. As plants are purchased, newer more efficient plants become available so you're potentially allowing others to access to superior equipment merely by purchasing at all. The second part is to acquire materials for your power plants. Players must acquire the raw materials, like coal, oil, garbage, or uranium to power up their power plants. Unless your power plants use green energy like wind, you need to feed your plants materials. Some materials are more costly than others. For various reasons. More demand even though it is a common material. More efficient. More rare. Sometimes costly materials return you more pleasant results. For example, you just need to have one power plant to power 5 cities while another player needs two power plants to power his 5 cities. The third part is to buy cities. There is no limit on number of cities you can get at one turn. It depends purely on your budget.

The fun part of this game is that you need to think all strategies in parallel. You bump into financial crisis often. You struggle to upgrade power plants for maximum efficiency while you want to retain enough wealth to acquire materials or cities. You want to expand your network without spending too much. So you try hard to find a cheap route. But other players can see it too. They block you. Otherwise they go for the same route too. So there comes competition. In the first auction part, you do not want to lose your wealth. But you want others to lose their wealth. You need to position yourself carefully in order to get other people to pay more so they will not have enough money to compete with you in later stages. For material acquisitions, you can buy more than you need at this turn to let other pay more on their desired materials. But if you do not need those materials at next round, you will get a backfire. Those materials will go away and you cant stop it. Player order is important too. You do not want to show all your strengths immediately otherwise you will get the last order all the time. The last order would let you lose all your advantages dramatically.

Fun, absolutely.