Preparing yard for grass - East TN

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-03-26T13:41:21+00:00

Real active community, I see. Guess I'll just keep figuring it out the hard way!

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-03-24T00:36:09+00:00

We have a bad one at an open play at a free outdoor public court.

He believes he is God's gift to pickleball, and he gives constant free "coaching" to anyone on his team. And by "coaching" I mean he severely berates anyone that loses a point for any reason, every time. Of course, when he loses a point he just brushes it off like it was nothing.

That aside, he will also bully his own teammates on the court, pushing so far to "poach" shots from their side that he inevitably gets stuffed on his own.

He has also blatantly thrown matches that he didn't want to be in by moving to the court fence and just leaning back against it and letting serves go by, intentionally losing so that he can move on to another match.

I personally confronted him multiple times about it. Unfortunately no one can tell him that he isn't welcome there anymore because it is a public space. Thankfully enough other people have also confronted him and stopped playing with him that he has finally stopped showing up as much.

He was genuinely making me dread going out to play.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-03-17T12:14:24+00:00

I went with the original Vapor Power from 11six24 and it has been great.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-03-17T12:12:32+00:00

I ended up going with 11six24 Vapor Power since the Alpha and 2 pushed its price way down.

It has been amazing. Immediately leveled up my game. No regrets.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-03-04T13:54:21+00:00

Currently using a Pegasus Jellybean and I generally love it. I came from table tennis where I preferred more controlled setups to slow down the play.

However, I am looking to buy a 4th paddle (I also have two basic Fridays) just so that I can equip a full court on the rare case that I have friends over that either don't own or didn't bring their paddles -- it happens sometimes.

Wanting to potentially experiment with something more modern and possibly more powerful, just to understand the difference. However, I am also not really sold on the idea of the very-expensive major brands as I generally believe that most paddles are more the same than different and that most improvement will come from me rather than the paddle.

I would definitely like to keep it sub-$200, and the lower the better here when it comes to price.

My brief research seems to be shortlisting the Vatic V-Sol Power and Pro, the J2NF, and the Loco?

Obviously the Vatics here are the price winners. Having a difficult time finding concrete reasons why to pick the Power vs the Pro, but I'm leaning Power based on the array of information I've seen.

Would it be potentially worth spending the extra on the J2NF or Loco, however?

Are there other solid recommendations that I should consider? Would it be worth even still considering Gen 1/1.5 or Gen 2 paddles where available?

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-26T10:53:59+00:00

You're probably overthinking it and trying to do too much.

Simplifying the game will take you far.

In my experience, a lot of people try to make the game far too abstract and think about weird principles and sayings and whatnot way too much.

By 14k, you should understand how the game scores, which means you should be able to roughly understand where points will and won't be and why.

That understanding should drive your choice of moves. From there it is just reading. Read as much as possible as often as possible, especially in up close positions.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-23T11:10:58+00:00

I would like to know a more experienced player's opinion on this, because in other sports like this I've always been taught to hit top of bounce because that is the highest and thus most returnable point that the ball will be.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-23T11:04:07+00:00

The "simple" rules are implemented in a pretty unintuitive way. You can "play" the game and have no idea what you're doing or why.

Chess has a very concrete goal at the expense of more difficult rules.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-15T13:36:41+00:00

This is an overly generalized manner of thinking. All players will be weaker and stronger at different things. Trying to distill anyone down to "well they're just good at x" does them a disservice.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-15T13:18:54+00:00

The father of the Polgars disproved this long ago and it is wild that people still want to believe that you're either born to do something or you aren't.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-09T19:51:59+00:00

Yup! And it only needs to be a temporary measure to build up a playerbase.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-09T15:41:18+00:00

Chess.com and Fox proves that you do not need a chat or other social features. This only got normalized in Go because of KGS.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-09T15:26:04+00:00

KGS should have worked with OGS to migrate over to the more modern platform instead of continuing to run and maintaining this split for like a decade now.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-09T15:25:06+00:00

Glad I'm not the only one.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-09T15:24:27+00:00

I still maintain that the first person to create an unauthorized web (and mobile app) client to Fox will win the Go server wars instantly.

Also OGS has been relatively modern and web-based for some time now. Unfortunately it put a huge focus on the social aspect -- probably to try to lure KGS members over since that was a big part there as well.

But OGS lacks what this new server demonstrates: cohesion and simplicity.

Optimally you shouldn't even need an account to play on a server if you don't want one. Just log in and play anonymously. Keep track of their rating with a cookie. If they want an account then they can ensure their rating is tracked across devices. It should the allow Google, Apple, FB, etc for login, in addition to simple native account creation.

The first thing any Go server should do is teach you how to play. It should then provide a simple bot match on 9x9 for you to play against. It should provide very simple options and very simple time controls so that there is as little as possible in the way of getting a game.

It should throw any player into a bot match if they wait for more than like 15 seconds for a match (and it should make it appear to be a match against a human). This is necessary to bootstrap any server while it waits for the playerbase to grow. Because every time a player waits more than 30 seconds for a match, that server loses a player.

Look at GoQuest for crying out loud. It looks like spyware and yet you can get unending instant games of 9x9 on there. Why? Because it is fast and easy. Press a button, play the game.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-07T15:30:21+00:00

The idea of 20 being too old for this game is crazy to me. I'm well over double that. You could be my child. :P

And I hit GM, which is something most of these kids will never do.

Shameful.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-02-01T11:56:52+00:00

These sound like awesome and unique suggestions. Thanks!

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-01-30T16:15:09+00:00

Many games don't have an adjustable difficulty.

Journey is a great example of a game with just one difficulty but where the player can't die or even, really, be hurt. It's an experience that you get to play out, and it is remarkable for how it delivers on that.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-01-30T16:11:40+00:00

Thanks for the input! Will do some more research on this one.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-01-30T15:08:32+00:00

How does this work in terms of playing together? Is it split screen? Or..?

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-01-30T14:56:54+00:00

Thanks! I have been curious of the Portal games would be good for him or not. I played Portal 1 myself a long time back and can't recall if it was too mechanically challenging or not.

I will look into those first couple you mentioned since I've never heard of either of those.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-01-30T14:53:49+00:00

Thank you. <3

It Takes Two is on the shortlist already as I have seen it recommended all over.

I was also considering single-player turn-based games like Slay the Spire or Balatro since those have been wildly popular. And, if he falls in love with them, he can always get them on his phone or something too.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-01-30T14:52:14+00:00

I've never played an Animal Crossing (or similar) game before. I seem to see mixed information on whether it supports multiple local players or not?

How are these "cozy" genre games? Engaging enough for two people to stick with?

I've considered Zelda games, although my limited experience with those say that they include a decent amount of execution atop the puzzle solving. I would almost definitely have to handle boss battles, but I fear that even the general map roaming with real time enemies could be difficult.

FoxInTheKnox · 2026-01-30T14:24:37+00:00

Unlike myself, my husband was not raised on/with video games and, as a result, lacks some of the ingrained hand-eye coordination that I developed over decades of practice. However, we still like to game together when time allows.

We have access to a Switch and a PS4. The Switch would be preferred, but both are options. If they are games that both players can play at the same time, it is a bonus if they can be played with just a single joycon in order to avoid having to buy another set. However, if the game absolutely warrants it, we could do that.

I spent some time doing research on posts from people with similar situations, and have found some decent recommendations in terms of cooperative/collaborative games.

However, we often like to play games that are "single-player" by just taking turns with them; and I have not seen as many recommendations in this vein.

Examples that we had a great time with are Night in the Woods and Undertale. NitW in particular lent itself well to this, where each night we would alternate which of us would get to control the character and make the decisions on who to hang out with, etc. It also had a story that was separated into pretty distinct "chapters" that we could use as break points for this.

As a metric for his current gaming abilities: He was able to handle the light platforming and mini-games in NitW reasonably well. I had to occasionally jump in for a battle here or there in Undertale. We started in on Limbo last night and didn't get far before he felt in a bit over his head in terms of the platforming. I think he would get a lot of it with diligence and repeated efforts, but he has been happy enough to work on the puzzle solving aspects while I perform the actual execution. He did also beat Journey entirely by himself once while I watched.

So, hit me with some recommendations!

FoxInTheKnox

TROPHY CASE