Category Archives: Columns

NogFest Analysis: Player Performance

This Blogcat is a continuation of some posts I've previously written regarding my fraternity's game of Pong: The Brother Pi Breakdown Pong II: Advanced Analytics DKE Pong Rules & Regulations Don't Doobie To bring everyone on the same page: at the end of May, my friend Nog hosted a Pong tournament called NogFest, with 9 different teams Read more [...]

Don’t Doobie

Apologies again to all non-frat readers; these next blogcats are going to concentrate heavily (i.e., entirely) on pong. Also, yes, I’m aware I take this way too seriously. Never played pong before? Or just played a bit, and it’s been awhile? Well, if you want to get scrubbed in on the rules so you can follow what’s going on in my previous, Read more [...]

DKE Pong Rules & Regulations

As I've made painfully clear in a number of this website's columns, my fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, plays Beer Pong. Regulation games are played to 21 points, between 2 teams of 2 players on a ping-pong-sized, wooden, metal-trimmed table using four wooden-block paddles, four plastic cups of beer, a wooden dividing "net," and an orange 3-Star Read more [...]

Zion Bible Institute (Part 2)

If you haven't read Part 1, you can find it here. As mentioned in Part 1, the pictures in these articles are only a small sample of the pictures I took on site. You can view the rest of them here. While walking around the courtyard behind Belton Court, I found an open window. Clearly the egress point for whoever had last been inside the building; Read more [...]

Brother Pi II: Advanced Analytics

Apologies to all non-DKE readers; this one's pretty fratty. In light of my friend Nog putting the finishing touches on his own personal Pong table - and me playing on said table this past weekend - I've been thinking a lot about pong. That train of thought lead me, once again, back to the Brother Pi Pong Tournament, and the data we collected Read more [...]

Daylight, Save Me

By all accounts (or at least mine), this winter has been pretty miserable this year for those of us who live on the East Coast. Though December was relatively mild, the subsequent two months were bitterly cold, and filled with seemingly-constant snowfall. Every time it snowed, I would think to myself, "this HAS to be the last time, we're through Read more [...]

Zion Bible Institute (Part 1)

One afternoon this past December, while I was back in Rhode Island for Christmas, the day was unseasonably warm, so I decided to take a walk around town. It has been a couple of years since I've spent any length of time in Barrington, so I thought it might be interesting to just look around and see what had changed in my hometown. Going down Middle Read more [...]

End Games

The Good Life, a philosophical topic that's been around for millennia, focuses on uncovering the secret to happiness - Eudaimonia, as Aristotle called it. Many different theories attempt to define the nature of happiness - Hedonism, for instance, asserts that Pleasure is the key ingredient - but regardless of one's take, how to lead a happier Read more [...]

Courtside

This past Sunday, I was offered free tickets to Monday's basketball game between the Washington (Char)Wizards and the Bos(Magne)ton Celtics at the Verizon Center in DC. As some of you know, I'm fan of the NBA, and the Wizards, in particular. In fact, since moving to our nation's capital a few years ago, I've attended at least 15 'Zards games, Read more [...]

Family and Fandom

A few days ago, I made an oblique reference to my parents about the Thanksgiving Day slate of football games. My mom, confused, responded, "Oh, there's football on Thanksgiving?" Over the course of the ensuing conversation, my parents essentially came to the mutual agreement that the very fact that there exist people who might be interested in Read more [...]