Swings

So, I was looking through Kurt Halsey's website per xkcd suggestion, and I was looking at the calendar in his store. When I'm too lazy to look at an entire calendar, I just skip to May to see if May is any good. Well, May is AWESOME. So, if you google Kurt Halsey and enter his website and look at store, click on the calendar (the image for the calendar is a boy and a girl jumping a fence), then look at May. Don't know 'bout the rest of the calendar... let me know if you look at the others.

Also, do we have flying foxes (the playground equipment) in the States? I know that we never had one in Juneau, but that's also just Juneau. Apparently it is like a zipline but on a much much smaller scale. Of course, this is coming from someone who didn't know what a zipline was until I explained it, so perhaps not the best of descriptions. If anyone has more information on this topic, I would love to know. I saw Weet-bix today, and next is the flying fox at the playground down the street. Eventually a proper rugby game. Lord of the Rings marathon (Nick is sure that it will happen, but I think that I am going to be ready to leave by hour eight... and leave with four hours left...). But how awesome would it be to watch it with a bunch of Kiwis who can just tell you where all of the movie is shot? Because it was shot all over New Zealand, there are locations on both Islands. But really, twelve hours?

Also, this will probably not mean much to any of you, but the Black Caps got to 619 today before declaring!!! It means 1) that they had an awesome first inning, and 2) they had SUCH an awesome first inning that they had to stop before they were batted out because if they don't finish all four innings in five days, it is a draw. So, this is cricket, and here is what will hopefully be a brief explanation:

The cricket game I went to was a Twenty20 game, which means 20 overs per team. A test, which is what the Black Caps are playing against India now, goes until the entire team is batted out. That means that each batsman on the team plays until he is out, so they cycle through all 11 (ten outs, because the last batsman cannot play without a partner), and that is the inning. There are two innings per team for a total of four, BUT if not all the innings are completed within a five day period, the game is a draw. So, even if you are doing awesomely and you score like a thousand points (which would be ridiculous) before you are batted out, that would likely take three or four or five days. Then the chances of getting through all four innings are very slim, and at the end you'd have nothing to show for all your awesomeness because it would just show as a tie. So, each team has the option of declaring (ending its inning early, before all the batsmen are out). It is tricky to find the balance between declaring at a high enough score that your opponent doesn't then beat it and declaring early enough that all the innings get played through. I didn't know this until today, but 619 is like ridiculously high. So they declared at 619, and tomorrow will start the second inning, India batting. There are three days left in the test, so hopefully they'll get through all the innings, and hopefully, the Black Caps will win.

That was not brief and I apologize. But maybe you understood?

Games night tomorrow, so pictionary, taboo, all manner of excellent games to be played. Also tomorrow, fencers go to Cherry Blossom! Good luck, fencers!

Okay, last last last thing: I came so close to beating Greg at pool today. Well, not really, but we each had one ball left, which is the closest I've ever come to beating anyone, much less Greg (the best player I've played with). We were playing on the cruddy table in the common room, which spits every ball out of the corner pockets and makes life difficult. Okay, that was it! Bye!