I’ll be back again soon.
Category: Trip
Masters Of The Game
Yesterday Bernard and I went to the Powerhouse museum to see this:
Overall I thought it was a good, but not great exhibit. It focuses on individuals (rather than genres or eras) and showcases many playable games from creators like Ed Logg, Hideo Kojima, Yuji Naka or Chris Metzen.
We were most interested in the retro room:
There were about 20 games on free play, including classics (Pac Man, Asteroids) and obscure examples (Reactor, Ripoff, Bee Gee). Ultimately we settled comfortably in front of Defender and Robotron, playing each for about an hour.
After twenty+ games, I was happy dominating the high score chart (#4 overall!) on Robotron even though the firing joystick was a bit wonky. Bernard wrestled with Defender (the hardest game of all time after Defender 2) and ended up with a top score over 8,000.
That’s me having a gander at Ultima Underworld, a real blast from my past!
After the game exhibit, we headed to the ABC building for the Doctor Who mini-exhibit:
We posed with out favourites:
The game mania continued later that night, with the start of our ‘Dreamgear’ (a $5 plug-and-play TV game) tournament:
We played half the games on the unit, and will finish tonight. Stay tuned!
The Beginning Of The End
Yesterday, in the morning, I visited Kirsten again, and her mum joined us. This was special since she was my math teacher in high school! Many funny and nostalgic stories were shared 🙂
I couldn’t stay for long since I had an important obligation: the horses! Yes my friends, the gambling continued with yet another track meet, this time at the Broadmeadow racecourse just a hop and skip from mum and dads.
Bernard and I both managed to bet on losing horses in the first and second race. One of them only ran slightly better than another horse who’s jockey had fallen off!
Following these two losses, I then did some brainstorming and developed a sure-fire winning technique! At this point, the money started rolling in…
In a nutshell, here’s the method:
1) Pick 2 horses with middle-of-the-field place odds (not win, place)
2) Ensure the odds are better than 3 times bet
3) Bet equal amounts on each for a place
4) Become filthy rich
Using the above technique, I was able to exit the racecourse almost $6 richer than when I entered! While this wouldn’t have covered the cost of a beer had I bought one, it did mean that I was still +$2 even after buying a Lift 😉
Two races deserve special mention. In race 6, an 1850 meter run, there was a horse named:
Obviously, I had to ignore my own system and bet on it for the win!
Despite leading – by 3 lengths! – for about 99% of the race…. Shen Long didn’t even place!
Dad had joined us for the above race, and the last one as well. In that race was a horse called ‘Al’s Pride’ ridden by a jockey with a name suspiciously close to Schmitz. Both dad and Bernard bet big on it…. and won nothing!
Me, I followed my system and walked off with $4.55 on a $0.50 bet on ‘Beaveroo’ to place 😉
So Bernard’s lucky streak of gambling seemingly came to an end yesterday. But we haven’t yet forgotten his luckiest day two years ago was the last of the trip…