humor – Page 10 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

A Few Thoughts on Calvinball Cribbage

OK, so Sena and I have been experimenting with a few cribbage variants in the last few days and I ran into this Calvinball comment on a Reddit cribbage thread about 10-card cribbage. Yes, people play that! I’m afraid to look on the web for 11-card cribbage although Sena asked about it.

Briefly, 10-card cribbage is usually a two-player game. Deal 10 cards each; 2 cards from each player go to the dealer’s crib; each player divides the remaining 8 cards into 2 four card hands, one for pegging and either one or both for the show.

As an aside, the Reddit thread person who started the thread about 10 card cribbage asked if anyone else ever played it. One commenter facetiously replied “Yes, there have been many many posts of Calvinball crib.”

You have to know where that term “Calvinball” comes from. I’m pretty sure it’s from another social media forum which plays a game called Calvinball—which is a whimsical, forever evolving game which has nothing to do with playing cards, is based on the comic Calvin & Hobbes and has no real rules whatsoever. Participants make it up as they go along. So, I think what the commenter might have meant was that 10-card cribbage is yet another of the many proliferating variants (some better than others) of the more well-established game, usually identified as 6-card cribbage.

Anyway, we found out later that there are two sets of rules for 10-card cribbage. The intent is to make the game play faster and yield higher scores.

Given that context, we played it both ways to 121. In the one set according to AI, you deal each player 10 cards and both throw 2 cards to the dealer’s crib. Each player divides the remaining cards into hands of 4 cards each. You play one hand only during the pegging phase and the other for the show (scoring the hand). It was pretty slow and didn’t yield high scores, partly because we used only the four card hand for the show.

And then there’s a Wikipedia article which says you peg with one hand and score both for the show. We got higher scores all around, the game was faster, and we both enjoyed it much more.

As a reminder follow up to the post about the 9-card and 8-card cribbage games, Sena still likes the 9-card variant but doesn’t care for the 8-card (neither do I) because it seems clunkier, probably because you need to bury cards under the deck. The 9-card variant has an on-line scorer which didn’t work consistently. We seemed to fare pretty well without it for the most part. The suggestion to play to 323 (up, back, and there again on a 121-hole board) seems like overkill. I’m retired but not that retired.

I Shall Wear My Trousers Rolled

Sena noticed that I didn’t roll up my trousers the way you’re supposed to do it. I had no idea. I guess you’re supposed to double roll the bottoms of your trousers.

I got to wondering how James Dean rolled the bottom of his jeans. It turns out he didn’t, at least in the film “Rebel Without a Clue” (excuse me, “…without a cause”).

My jeans are a little on the long side and, as usual, that makes me wonder if I’m shrinking as a I get older. Height shrinkage is normal at my age.

Anyway, she double-rolled the bottoms of my jeans—the proper way. It reminds me of T.S. Eliot’s lines in his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

“I grow old…I grow old…

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”

By the way, this reminds me that we’ll be turning our clocks back by one hour tomorrow. I usually prefer doing it the day before, which always disorients Sena, but makes me feel ahead of the game. But there’s no reason to do it earlier—except to feel an hour younger and to give me a little more time to get the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

You Need to Check Out the Storyshucker Blog Now!

I stopped by the Storyshucker blog today and it sent me on a wave of nostalgia. You really out to stop by Stuart Perkins’ blog and get that feeling. You can read his post, “Baby Bear” in The Local Scoop Magazine. The link is on my menu, so there’s no excuse!

Stuart has his baby bear and, although I don’t have keepsakes going that far back, it sent me back. It reminded me of our last move (I hate moving!). We have this piggy bank we toss loose change into. I can’t remember when we first got it, ages ago. When we moved last year, we tried to get all the coins in it into our bank, but they wouldn’t just count them and deposit the amount—I had to learn how to roll and wrap them myself! That’s not a great memory.

I had a spark plug gap measuring tool and that was back in the day when guys adjusted stuff like that by hand when tuning up their car engines. It’s a good thing I don’t do that anymore. I accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake one time and put a dent in the garage wall. That’s not such a great memory, either.

We used to have an old vintage calculator I used when I was a student at Iowa State University. Memories linked to that are a little better.

We lose track of some things from our past and that can be a good thing occasionally. Guys like Stuart know what’s worth keeping.

Thoughts on Retirement, MIB Style

Sena alerted me to an article about the 28^th anniversary of when the first Men in Black movie hit the theaters in 1997. The author praises it and says it’s still pretty good.

I can’t remember the first time I saw it, but it was probably not in 1997. I was in my second year of being an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics (now called University of Iowa Health Care). I was too busy to do much of anything except run around the hospital responding to requests for psychiatry consultations from medicine and surgery. I did that a long time.

I’ve been blogging since 2010. I cancelled my first blog which was called The Practical Psychosomaticist. I then restarted blogging, calling it Go Retire Psychiatrist. One blog that pays homage to my career and to the Men in Black films is “The Last White Coat I’ll Ever Wear.”

It’s part reminiscence and part comedy in the style of Men in Black dialogue and jokes. Since I retired, I have not been back to the hospital except for scheduled appointments in the eye and dentistry clinics. I don’t know if I’ve ever reconciled myself to being retired. If someone were to tell me “We have a situation and we need your help” (think Men in Black II), I would probably say something like “There is a free mental health clinic on the corner of Lilac and East Valley.”

Working on a Simple Plan to Stay Fit?

I saw a couple of web resources about staying healthy and fit that seem to make sense to me. One of them was actually a YouTube video by a personal trainer advising people to stop doing certain kinds of workouts that could be unhealthy. He recommended avoiding certain kinds of weight lifting exercises, especially for those over 40. I’m way over 40 and I agreed with him.

The video was posted about 2 months ago and there are so far 725,000 view and well over 2,000 comments, both for and against the trainer’s advice. Many of the older commenters disagreed with slowing down after the age of 40.

I’m 70 and I’m a minimalist when it comes to exercising. I’ve slowed down from daily exercise, but I still enjoy juggling, riding an exercise bicycle, limited use of dumbbells, body weight squats, a step platform routine, planks, stretching and wrestling grizzly bears. I occasionally go for walks when the weather permits.

I remember trying to lift really old barbells in the free weight room at the YMCA when I was a kid. I dropped them once and the director directed me out of the room. After they got a weight machine, a guy bet me and a friend a dollar that he could jump over a broom handle (in another variant of this stunt you try to jump over a dollar bill, I think) while bent over and grasping his toes. He did it but we couldn’t. We didn’t pay him any money. I still can’t do that trick. Nobody recommends doing this as a regular fitness exercise.

On the other hand, patient YMCA teachers taught me how to swim and helped me get over my severe headaches related to my initial fear of the water.

The other web source is an article that actually recommends we stop focusing on working out. In fact, the title is “Stop focusing on working out”—a professor says you should follow these five science-backed steps to improve your wellness instead.”

There are so far no comments on it. The authors have five suggestions:

Make movement fun

Be socially active

Use mindfulness as a stress buster

Be kind to yourself and others

Prioritize quality sleep

The last one usually is difficult for me. Ever since kindergarten, when the teacher wanted the class to take a nap, I’ve had trouble sleeping. The teacher never understood that. I also tend to be shy. I like playing cribbage, though my wife is my only partner. I still practice mindfulness meditation. Juggling is a fun movement activity and it’s also beneficial exercise.

I think it might be a little safer to try to jump over a dollar bill while squatting and grabbing your toes than squatting with barbells if you’re 70. You’re welcome. That’ll be one dollar, please.

Big Mo Pod Show: “Cheers to Kevin”

I’m a little slow getting to the Big Mo Pod Show after his blues show this last Saturday night. I guess that’s just the way things go. The title of the pod show “Cheers to Kevin” is a shout out to somebody important in Big Mo’s life. It turns out Kevin was really supportive of Big Mo when he was just getting started years ago when he was first starting on the KCCK blues show. Kevin has also made many donations to KCCK to support the show. Big Mo calls him his favorite bartender.

Big Mo Pod Show 081 – “Cheers To Kevin”

That gets me started with the last of the 5 songs Big Mo and Producer Noah talked about, which was Bob Margolin singing the song “Brown Liquor in a Dirty Glass.” I remember speculating in a past blog that the “dirty glass” part might have meant putting olives or olive brine in the drink—but I don’t think so after listening to the song again.

I’m pretty sure it means the singer is feeling so down and dirty himself that he might actually want a dirty glass in the usual sense of the word.

And by the way, Big Mo mentioned “mambo” again. Last week, it was hard to tell what he meant, but this time it sounds like he might be referring to a Latin American dance rhythm influence—maybe. The influence of different rhythms on blues music was a topic in that maybe steered the discussion about one song on the list, and I believe it was “Star” by Gary Clark, Jr., which Big Mo thought had more of a reggae than a blues rhythm to it.

One interesting song was from someone who has been around a long time but I’ve not heard her before, Duffy Bishop. She sang “69 Years Old.” It mentions Viagra, which is in line with the general theme, which is sex and not just for the old. I stumbled on an article in which she’s interviewed about her music. When they start talking about this “69 Years Old song,” Bishop has this funny anecdote. She had just finished singing it at a club in Daytona Beach and some old gentleman walks up to her and says, “Here, I got something for you, pass these on to someone who needs them,” and then hands her some Cialis.

I’m 70 and I’m a little embarrassed about it but I want to pass the tune on to you guys because we just never know.

Svengoolie Show Movie: “The Fly”

We watched the Svengoolie show 1958 movie “The Fly” last night and Sena says she’s seen it before. I can’t remember seeing the full movie, but for some reason the final scenes when the tiny creature in a tiny voice keeps screaming “Help me!” sounds familiar. I don’t know why I would “remember” only that scene.

That brings up something Sena alerted me to and which I’ve mentioned before in an oblique reference to the non-review I did of the Svengoolie movie, “Young Frankenstein” a week ago. It’s the Mandela Effect.

Some trivia about “The Fly” included the Mandela Effect about whether it was made in black and white—which didn’t happen. It was made in color. But many believe it was made in black and white.

Anyway, as a guy who writes parodic reviews, I can say that I have a couple of issues about this film directed by Kurt Neumann and starting Vincent Price (Francois Delambre), David Hedison (Andre Delambre), Patricia Owens (Helene Delambre), Charles Herbert (Phillipe Delambre), Herbert Marshall (Inspector Charas) and a white-headed fly as himself.

Andre is a dedicated scientist who develops the early version of the Star Trek transporter for which he gets no credit and his brother, Francois, who secretly loves his brother’s wife, Helene, eventually tricks her by lying about having the white headed fly locked in his desk drawer next to his shaving kit, convincing her to tell him the whole story about how and why Andre can apparently see just fine to use a typewriter, write on a black board and operate all the knobs and dials in his lab despite wearing a black beach towel draped over his head, which essentially makes this movie a very long flashback about the original theft of the x-ray vision technique from Superman, who already had a patent on it for about 20 years.

That’s one thing I don’t get about this film. Flies have compound eyes, but they don’t see in the dark any better than humans do, partly because they’re not related to bats who use sonar to guide them in dark caves where they zero in on your hair because you’re fool enough to blunder into the Bat Cave in order to find out just how Alfred keeps Bruce Wayne’s suits so nicely pressed.

Another thing that “bugs” me (Har! See what I did there?) is why do I not remember seeing Andre ever talking to his son, Phillipe. Is that some other variant of the Mandela Effect, only, of course, if my experience is similar to that of anyone else who has seen this movie? I know I didn’t fall asleep during the movie and miss the scenes of heartfelt interactions between father and son. Phillipe and his mother get along just fine and discuss the finer points of capturing white headed flies with Zagnut bars, which Beetlejuice described in the materials and methods section of his article published in the Lancet some time ago.

Svengoolie mentioned something pretty funny about the only scene which I seem to remember, which is the white-headed fly (which is you know who!) incessantly screaming “Help me deepen my voice so that Herbert Marshall and Vincent Price won’t bust out laughing at me!”

I think this movie is OK, and I give it a shrilling chicken rating of 4/5.

15 Minute Push in Cribbage Game Today!

Today we filmed our cribbage game with a goal of completing a game in 15 minutes. We managed to do it, although I played out of turn on the last pegging phase. Sena got skunked today, but that’s rare!

You have to pay attention to the clock on the table in the video, showing we essentially made the 15-minute mark that cribbage tournament rules require for playing a game. We also decided to shuffle a few times every deal so as to try to mix the cards enough.

This is better than the time we usually take to play a typical game, which is generally 20 minutes. It’s hard to shave just 5 minutes off the game. I get pretty jittery trying to stay that focused, but today we did it. We helped each other, which doesn’t happen in tournaments. And there’s not the distraction of hundreds of other players in a giant auditorium all crammed together cheek by jowl and talking at once.

We’re not going to play that fast all the time.

Cribbage Could Help Preserve Your Brain Health!

I just saw an article that working on your cognitive skills might make you less susceptible to dementia. There are some websites that help you, but I think some, like BrainHQ, could cost you money.

On the other hand, there is some evidence that playing card games can help protect your brain. I think cribbage could be one of them, although it’s tough to find specific studies on it.

I checked around and found a few studies about how playing games like solitaire and hearts could help keep you sharp. On the other hand, when I was a young man, I worked on a land survey crew. We played hearts over lunch hour and when it rained. I consistently lost.

But for the last several years, Sena and I have regularly played cribbage, a card game that calls for some math skills, concentration, attentiveness, and strategy.

The one problem I see with picking cribbage as one of your main sources of cognitive stimulation is that many people see it has an old person’s game. They should try playing cribbage with someone who really knows how to play.

Cribbage players tend to be older; many tend to be over 50. The American Cribbage Congress (ACC) is the major organization for cribbage and they hold lots of tournaments, both local (called grass roots clubs) and national. They always welcome new and younger players. In general, you need to be able to play a game in 15 minutes in tournaments.

We have tried to finish a cribbage game in 15 minutes, but we can’t seem to do it in less than 20 minutes. I always know when Sena wants to play. She like to use the automatic card shuffler (I like to shuffle manually) and whenever I hear the card shuffling machine (which is loud enough to hear from all over the house), I know it’s time for a game!

Upcoming Svengoolie Movie: “The Fly”!

Svengoolie Intro: “Calling all stations! Clear the air lanes! Clear all air lanes for the big broadcast!”

We got the 1958 classic bug flick “The Fly” with Vincent Price coming up this Saturday and boy can I wait…no, sorry, I mean I can’t wait. I’ve never seen this particular film, but I did see the one made in 1986 in which Jeff Goldblum played the fly and developed superhuman strength, busting a man’s arm in a wrist wrestling match.

Until now, the insects we’ve seen on the Svengoolie show have been atomic bomb testing created giant insects like spiders and ants. Now we get to see a dead guy who survived the black plague, went to Harvard Business School and Julliard, and saw the Exorcist 167 times trick a giant fly by tempting it with a Zagnut bar, and drag it into his dining room where he has built the well-known transporter room with only limited help from chief engineer Scotty and also they’ve modified it to rearrange the atoms of creatures including humans and extraterrestrial giraffes, enabling them to prevail in stomping combat with the army of the planet of the apes who are just looking for a decent banana split for crying out loud and…well, that’s probably not how this movie goes, but I’m not in charge here.