Double Trouble with Prim and Harrier - Poker, Sports, Cooking, Gardening, Mixed Drinks and more

Hi guys,
and HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!
I´m Prim and Harrier and I decided to blog as a "friends-couple". I had my own poker blogs, was playing PLO and SnG but unfortunately, for time reasons also due to lack of motivation, I do not play so much poker anymore, so that I decided to share this "friends-blog" with Harrier. As you can see, my friend already introduced me perfectly, there is not much more to say about me, maybe that I went from grinding SnGs to pure recreational player - that is mainly because of the harsh restrictions on us German poker players. I will be playing PLO CG, MTTs and maybe some Spins (like BLAST on 888 or Spin Overdrive on Partypoker). Do not have a BR at the moment, cashed it out, but I have 30€ left on Partypoker and 20€ left on 888. Let´s see what will happen with them ...

What I already have started is the HOT STUFF!

We got here different chilis and peppers I´m going to grow in 2024 - from SUPER HOT! to purely sweet.

The REALLY HOT STUFF:
- Carolina Reaper
- Apocalypse Red
- Trinidad Moruga Scorpion (already got 2 plants hibernating)

The spicy ones:
- Lila Luzi
- "Feuerküsschen" (="Fire kisses", dwarf chili)
- Aji Charapita
- Hungarian Wax
- Pimientos de Padron
- Thai Dragon
- Dragon´s Back
- Zimbabwe Bird´s Eye (already got one plant hibernating)

The sweet ones:
-Sweet Banana
-Piquillo
-Sweet Pepper

So, got a little bit of everything this year. I know I´m early with the chilis, but I like to have some time buffer: Chilis grow slowly and if some of them do not germinate, I still have time to sow them again without loosing time (and harvest).

Looking good, Prim! Best of luck with those chilis, I am already looking forward to trying some of them - especially the extra spicy ones. ♠_wink:

And look, we may now even have our own theme song. There is actually a lot of stuff with that title, but this is the one that instantly came to my mind:

The two of us are still getting settled into the new year, we are going to reveal our plans and goals soon.

Oh, and to explain some inside jokes and memes to any of our newcomers: Primrose and I sometimes refer to the two of us as "Trolls", based on us being part of a once bigger group of people on the forum known for their lighthearted jest around many threads a few years ago. We are not actual trolls who like to rile up people, nor do we encourage this kind of behavior, it's all fun and games.

You may also often see Primrose being referred to as a puppy and me as a squirrel, also in some cartoons that I make. This too is based on an old forum meme, explained by Prim in this post in our previous shared blog. We still sometimes use those as endearing nicknames for each other.

Another term you may see here often is banhauser, which is what Prim likes to call me whenever I get "unconventional" in my cooking, in a way she doesn't approve of. This goes back to a former fellow "Troll" once hearing Primrose calling me by the German word "Banause" (someone with poor taste) to comment on my latest takeout meal in a Skype group, and this "Troll", who is a native speaker of French, later trying to write the word from memory on the forum, thus coining a new term.

You can also check out this post, where I link to the exact origin points of those memes in the forum.

And if you would like to check out any of our old blogs, here they are in one convenient place:

Here we (Sit and) Go again: Germanys next grindette is back with SnG, PLO and HOT stuff (chilis)! (Primrose's previous poker blog)

Harrier's Blog - Mixed Games & Mixed Drinks (Harrier's previous poker blog)

Primrose vs Harrier - Troll Challenges (previous shared challenges blog)

!!! NEW NEW NEW!!! in 2024!!

And with all this clarified, I can now announce the breaking gardening NEWS in 2024: I did not only rent a garden this year, but also a greenhouse!! Yaaaay!

As you guys can see, I´m growing my own veggies and I´m mostly independent of the grocery stores, I use to buy fruits and those veggies which I cannot grow, at the local farmers shop (I live in a small village). Besides chilis and peppers I grow tomatoes, salads, carrots, beetroot (well, that´s the plan), zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, bush-beans, "spanish salad", and this year NEW! will be kale! I´m just a freetime farmer, not a pro, but trying to improve my skills and knowledge. I work as a freelancer, so I can decide myself, when I take time for the gardening, the sports, the housework and poker. Normally, I use to do the gardening or the housework during lunchbreaks. In winter, I also use to do the endurance sports (running, swimming) and the strength training (crossfit) during lunchbreaks as well, mostly, one day gardening/housework and one day sports. Tennis practice is in the evenings. This winter again, got tennis practice on Friday evenings, which prevents me to play poker on Friday evening, but during spring/summer-season, this will change. At the moment, I think I will be playing poker on Saturday evenings, the rest has to be figured out.

All the best in 2024 to the both of you!

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
All the best in 2024 to the both of you!

Thank you very much! We hope to be back at the tables soon, and apart from that, we have plenty of other plans too, but more on that later.

New Year's custom at Harrier's: Instead of joining in with the big fireworks after midnight, which we typically just watch, we do our fireworks at 7 PM on New Year's Day, in honor of my father who passed away at around this time on January 1st, 2018.

After that, it is usually time to reflect on my own goals and plans for the new year. And now that we have a brand new blog, which also goes a little beyond poker, the time for this is better than ever. So what are the plans?

Poker

Starting with poker, you may have read on my old blog that 2023 was not exactly a successful poker year, with the exception of Open Face Chinese poker. In general, I didn't play a whole lot at all. Before setting any specific goals, I suppose I should just aim to just get out of that slump.

How exactly do we do this? Well, for OFC, it is exclusively technical problems that are holding me back. My poker client, which is an obscure crypto site known as SwC, has simply stopped working some time in December. I suppose a re-installation will be required, but I was having problems with the uninstaller, while a newly downloaded setup file yielded a Windows Defender warning, which may or may not be a false positive. I have had my break from this game, now I would like to get back and get this sorted out, so that in the future, the only issue impeding me should be terrible traffic.

The meat of the grind was always supposed to be MTTs and SNGs on Pokerstars, however, and these games have been on a hiatus now too. Main issues are bad traffic at SNGs, and difficulties to fit the MTTs I like into my schedule. I will probably have to do a lot of de-rusting now as well. Figuring out a good way to re-introduce poker will be the big riddle to solve for now.

Shall we set some goals, with that many questions left unanswered? Let's do it for reference, but only combined profit goals across all formats. $500 will make me consider it an okay year, $1K will make it a good year, and playing for monthly withdrawals again in addition to that makes it an excellent year at that front.

Sports

This was the big success story of 2023. Remember the Troll Challenges? All three DLRG swimming badges, a Bronze lifeguard badge, a successful 5K meters run after dedicated practice and the German Sports Badge in Gold were more than satisfactory achievements. Where do we go from there?

Even though my lifeguard course was not such a great experience overall, mostly thanks to an inconvenient schedule, I would like to shoot for Silver this year. This one will be tough, especially because my performance in the Bronze was only barely sufficient in some areas. Still, let's give it a try, but with a different schedule. An alternative would be the Snorkeling badge, for which I am now eligible after getting the Bronze lifeguard badge. It's what it says on the tin, you are getting trained in the area of diving and snorkeling in order to expand your skill set as a swimmer and lifeguard. I would like to get at least one of those badges in 2024, ideally both.

The German Sports Badge, still known as the "Trollympics" here, shall be back for its second "Trollympiad". Let's get Gold once again, now that I've shown how achievable it is. Repeating this will not necessarily be as easy as it sounds, though... I may have gotten lucky with the wind in the 100 meter dash and the sling ball throw events last year. Nevertheless, Gold is definitely the goal, and I would also like to beat at least two of my PBs from last year.

As for other sports, tennis will continue this spring, and I intend to stick with it for at least one more year, I can review my plans afterwards. I would also like to add some new sports, however. Right now, I have plans to get started with karate, I am still in discussions with the local dojo about when new courses will become available, and how to carry on from there. If everything goes well, I would like to complete at least one belt graduation exam this year, if given the chance.

Maybe, just maybe, Primrose and I, or at least one of us, can compete in some kind of public race? A 5K run, 10K maybe... possibly even a half-marathon? Or beyond? ♠_o: I don't know... but if we get a chance, this would be a very cool additional achievement.

What else?

Primrose and I will stick around on Duolingo, also continuing some of the language-related challenges we have set for each other, there are some creative projects I would like to get into, some new spreadsheets to prepare, and of course, I hope that things will continue to go well at work, where I will be looking to get some more convenient work hours for me, which may require some experimenting. That's just some of the other stuff, my main goals will be poker and sports-related, I think - but let's see what else 2024 brings.

Most importantly, let's all just stay safe and healthy, 2023 was a bit of a doozy, and I think people from all kinds of worldviews could find plenty of reasons to be concerned about the upcoming year too. As long as we are all sitting here safe and sound on New Year's Day 2025, peacefully reflecting on what went wrong and what went right, I believe we will have a lot to be grateful for this year, right?

With that out of the way, I will continue my best wishes to all of you guys. Primrose has already shared some of her personal plans, maybe she will have some more goals to add later.

More housekeeping: I decided that it's best to include a copy of the linked drinks recipe list and Burgers around the World final ranking from my sig in this new blog, so that I can link to a thread that is still active. The drinks recipe list can be expanded in the future, the other one will only be included for reference because it was such a big series. We may eventually see some kind of follow-up, though.

Just a moment...

These are the drinks I have made or discussed so far on this forum:

Cocktails
Chocolate Squirrel
Corpse Reviver #2
Espresso Martini
Final Table
Grasshopper, Pink Squirrel
Green Russian
Golden Dream
Knecht Ruprecht
Japanese Slipper
Lemon Drop Martini
Lion's Tail
Margarita, Blue Margarita
Mosquito Killer/Summer's Night
Sapphire Martini
Scarlett O'Hara
Sex with an Alligator
White Lady

Longdrinks
Bahamas Rum Punch
Blue Gin Kinley
Deep Blue Ocean
John Collins, Gin Fizz
Long Island Iced Tea, Tokyo Tea
Mojito
Moscow Mule
Perfect Storm
Poison
San Francisco
Sex on the Beach
Swimming Pool, Bushwacker
Tequila Sunrise

Lowballs
Brave Bull
Caipirinha
Casino
Falling Homer
Fernandito
Godfather, Godmother, Deep Horse
Masturbating Butterfly
Negroni, Americano
Nsavov's Underpants
Old-Fashioned
White Russian

Shots
B-52
Dead Nazi
Red, White and Blue Shot, Freedom Shot

Non-Alcoholic Mixed Drinks
Caramel Frappuccino (revisited here and here)
Chocolate Milkshake
Highway, Yellow Orchid, Davis Cup, Surfing Woman
Mint Cooler
Lemonade
Orange Smoothie (revisited here)
Oreo Milkshake (Blondie version)

Cocoa
Plain Milk Chocolate
Dark Chocolate with Salted Caramel
Chili Chocolate
Madagascar Noir
Kinder Riegel
After Eight Chocolate
Toblerone
Lumumba

Other Hot Drinks
Caffé Americano
Drambuie Coffee
Maple Pecan Latte
Pumpkin Spice Latte

Useful Notes
About Ice
How to make simple syrup (Sweet and sour mix briefly discussed here)
Allspice Dram Recipe Link
Shaking vs. Stirring
How to serve Absinthe (revisited)
How to apply a salt/sugar rim

Final Ranking
As chosen by Harrier

1st Switzerland
2nd Cyprus
3rd Israel
4th Senegal
5th Greece
6th Japan
7th Mongolia
8th India
9th China
10th Denmark
11th Korea
12th Spain
13th Germany
14th Pakistan
15th Indonesia
16th Russia
17th Madagascar
18th Alsace
19th Italy
20th Texas
21st California
22nd Mexico
23rd Morocco
24th Brazil
25th Namibia
26th Arabia
27th Turkey
28th Australia
29th England
30th France
31st Colombia
32nd Cuba
33rd Canada
34th Hungary
35th The Netherlands
36th Thailand
37th South Africa

BONUS: The World

Originally posted by Primrose6789
!!! NEW NEW NEW!!! in 2024!!

And with all this clarified, I can now announce the breaking gardening NEWS in 2024: I did not only rent a garden this year, but also a greenhouse!! Yaaaay!

As you guys can see, I´m growing my own veggies and I´m mostly independent of the grocery stores, I use to buy fruits and those veggies which I cannot grow, at the local farmers shop (I live in a small village). Besides chilis and peppers I grow tomatoes, salads, carrots, beetroot (well, that´s the plan), zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, bush-beans, "spanish salad", and this year NEW! will be kale! I´m just a freetime farmer, not a pro, but trying to improve my skills and knowledge. I work as a freelancer, so I can decide myself, when I take time for the gardening, the sports, the housework and poker. Normally, I use to do the gardening or the housework during lunchbreaks. In winter, I also use to do the endurance sports (running, swimming) and the strength training (crossfit) during lunchbreaks as well, mostly, one day gardening/housework and one day sports. Tennis practice is in the evenings. This winter again, got tennis practice on Friday evenings, which prevents me to play poker on Friday evening, but during spring/summer-season, this will change. At the moment, I think I will be playing poker on Saturday evenings, the rest has to be figured out.

Greenhouse is mostly good. You can start in January. Only problem is heat and water in summertime

Originally posted by DonWolfo
Greenhouse is mostly good. You can start in January. Only problem is heat and water in summertime

Thanks for stopping by, DonWolfo. I'll leave the gardening to Prim, I think, even though I am still considering planting some veggies myself this year. But I am excited to see how her gardening will go this season, I am usually the first person to receive updates on that.

Out with the old, in with the new

Primrose and I are still getting "settled in", she actually had to start working again today already, while I myself have one more day of vacation left tomorrow, then it is back to the grind for me too. It has been a very enjoyable Christmas break for me, much better than last year's, when there were still so many loose ends left to be tied up.

I have used the time to prepare my poker spreadsheets (and other personal ones) for the new year, which tends to take a while. It doesn't help that 2024 is a leap year, meaning that I can't even copy any of my old calendar sheets one-to-one. To my surprise, I noticed that I had already made one of my longer-running spreadsheets "leap year proof", by having my February statistics formulas always include the cells below February 28th, no matter if they are empty or not. It doesn't seem to cause any problems with the data, so I implemented this in my newer poker spreadsheets now too.

MTT tracking, OFC tracking, Mahjong tracking and OFC stats should be ready now, though I think I accidentally deleted some formulas in the OFC tracking one, but they should be easy to recover. MTT stats still need some work, and then I have to prepare the SNG and Satty stuff too, and the combined stats. I should be able to finish this tomorrow already, if things go well, and then I should finally be ready for some poker again too.

I plan to play my first games of 2024 on the weekend, and I think Primrose would also like to play already. Let's see how this new year will treat us at the tables.

Apart from that, we are actively preparing for our big sporting plans, Prim even already hit the tennis court on New Year's Day, and our pre-season workout schedules are already underway - so as you can see, the two of us are wasting no time to get out of "vacation mode".

A very important sentence!!!

:f_biggrin::f_biggrin::f_biggrin::f_biggrin:

Very important besides:
"Я хочу кофе" (= I want coffee)
"Я xочу десерт" (= I want dessert)

Guess those are the most important sentences for me to learn! :mdr::sifflote:

Originally posted by Primrose6789
Very important besides:
"Я хочу кофе" (= I want coffee)
"Я xочу десерт" (= I want dessert)

Guess those are the most important sentences for me to learn! :mdr::sifflote:

Other important phrases for "that" time of the month:

Conversely, I'm still calling BS on that correction:

The Russian language omits both definite and indefinite articles, so including "the" is up to interpretation, but my sentence made sense as it is.

Both of us are still struggling a little with our Russian lessons, which is the language we are focusing on the most, but our "Finno-Japanese" language challenge will be carried over from the Troll Challenges blog. You practiced with those hiragana yet, Prim?

And aside from that, I guess I will have to get back to that song eventually too...

In fact, I found several versions of "my" competition-song

I always listen to that song before a tennis competition:

but found other cool versions for our language challenges:

Good luck with singing along!

Originally posted by Primrose6789
In fact, I found several versions of "my" competition-song

I always listen to that song before a tennis competition

I see Prim doesn't mess around, once again.

But let's get the old song down first.

Already a sporting challenge? Yes, in fact, I started this one during my vacation already - right on Christmas, even, on December 25th in the afternoon.

This is not the first time that I have attempted this program, I even did a failed attempt as part of our "Troll Challenges" before. The problem was that there was always something interfering with it. Last time, it was that physically demanding job I had, and yes, I still have a physical labor job, so it could still be a bit of an issue... but not as much anymore, I believe. It shouldn't be as demanding as what I did back then, at least I know that I won't have to unload any truck containers anymore.

Here's a link to the program, feel free to join in. Anyone can join, regardless of age or personal fitness, and do it anywhere. You don't even need any equipment, nor do you need to download anything. The idea is to spend a couple of weeks - six according to the standard plan - to prepare to eventually do 100 consecutive good form pushups in one go. You do this by scheduling three sets of smaller workouts per week, with rest days in-between.

I am currently in the middle of week two. You are normally supposed to do an initial test starting out, and depending on whether you can do less than 6, 6 to 10, or 11 to 20 pushups, you would use a different column in the program to fit your current level - if you can already do more than 20 pushups, it is recommended that you skip the first few weeks entirely and start at a later point.

I would usually do 10 pushups as part of my pre-work exercise routine, so I skipped the test and put me in the 11-20 pushups column... but I thought that the going was pretty tough already. See for yourself, if you can do 11 pushups max, you are already supposed to do sets of 10, 12, 7, 7 and 9+ reps on day one? That's ambitious, at that level...

Well, I made it through day one on Christmas with that set, but the follow-up after one day of rest had me collapsing. I decided to simply drop down one column, for people who managed to do 6-10 pushups on the first test, and then still consider Week 1 done after completing the Friday workout. I followed the same column for Week 2, and... that's where we are right now, I made it through the second workout day. Next one will be Friday, after a day of rest.

Let's see how it goes this time. Being able to do 100 pushups in a row by the end of winter should put me in an excellent position to pass any of my other athletic challenges this year.

Look what finally arrived in the mail yesterday:

It's my International Lifesaving Certificate for completing the Trollwatch challenge in December.

It was always a little awkward to translate these things without knowing about any international equivalents, but the certificate has some information to help us out:

Let's take a look at the part for the Bronze course I finished, complete with its stamp and all (the name of my examiner and parts of his signature have been removed for the sake of privacy). As we can see, the Bronze badge or its equivalent is called "International Junior Lifesaver" by the International Life Saving Federation.

Taking a look at the empty slots for the Silver and Gold badge, we can see that they would be called "International Lifesaver" and "International Pool Lifeguard", respectively. Maybe we will shoot for the Silver this year.

What is missing is an actual badge - and I hope that I can still get my hands on one, just because I think it is cool. My certificate is valid either way, and I can now call myself an International Junior Lifesaver.

It looks good next to the other badges I earned last year: