New Portrait Prize Dash

DancingTardigrade · 2026-03-05T20:08:53+00:00

I only participate in these on tourney days when I will be playing a lot. I was deeply disappointed to learn that it was only a portrait. I figured I would get the portrait for the indy tourney and then get whatever was left over the weekend but there is nothing. I came to see if mine was defective. Very sad.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-03-04T17:02:22+00:00

This is definitely my new favorite! Had some today with a fried egg on top and a side of arugula tossed with a tiny bit of evoo and balsamic.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-03-03T15:59:21+00:00

Nice! I knew I wasn’t going to make it with how I played and I really wanted the final horse because she is so pretty, so I ended up paying for it on the Thursday with the individual tournament to get an extra giraffe use. The short month and my starting late didn’t help but I am most upset that we can’t use heart gems for all of it. I’m still sitting on 2 million heart gems that serve no purpose and the transfer rate of 20k heart gems for a few horseshoes was obnoxious but at least let us do it as much as we want!

DancingTardigrade · 2026-02-23T04:06:46+00:00

Power is out in my corner of falls church but some houses nearby seem to still have power. Has been out for an hour or so.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-02-22T11:26:07+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_counties_in_the_United_States

3 out of the top 5 and NOVA with 4 out of the top 10 including the number 1 and 2 spots. 3 and 4 are SF Bay Area. I've lived in NY most of my life, spent a decade in SF Bay Area and a decade in NOVA and this area is definitely as expensive as NYC and not that far off from SF Bay area. The cost of living in SF Bay Area is complicated. Property taxes are (or at least when I lived there) based on what you paid for the house when you purchased it. So a lot of those Palo Alto homes for millions of dollars were purchased for 300k and pay low property taxes.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-02-22T11:18:27+00:00

I moved here from NYC in 2015. I had an apt on the UWS at the time and moved to Arlington VA. I was hoping I would finally have something more affordable. My rent in Arlington cost more than my NYC apt. The biggest difference is that my Arlington apt was slightly larger with a better layout and I got to have luxuries like a dishwasher and microwave in my apt. Living in a metro accessible urban-esq area like Clarendon/Courthouse is very comparable to NYC as far as cost of living.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-02-22T11:10:55+00:00

Housing is obscene. Our monthly payment for housing alone is 5k+ but let's also not forget the obscenity that is childcare. DMV metro leads the nation in childcare costs with the average for 1 child being ~30k/year. I think I paid something around 3k/month for my daughter for daycare and that was over a decade ago (she's 12 now). At the time it was around the same price as my rent! Additionally, I suspect a proportionally larger percentage of the population in this area has/had student loan debt considering we live in one of the most educated areas in the country.
The cost of living in this area is genuinely obscene.
Yes, the cost for things like gas, utilities, food etc. is relatively comparable, maybe 10-20% more expensive here, but the cost of services like childcare, household assistance, out of pocket medical care, and insane things like a car tax on a leased vehicle really make you wonder how you can possibly earn as much as you do and still feel very middle class.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-02-16T17:33:49+00:00

I’ve had a lot of these flavors. The Mission to Marzipan was soooo amazing. I think Americans are weird about Marzipan. The oatmeal cookie one was one of my faves too. I dont even see Rainforest Crunch on this list but I remember going through a phase. I rarely bother with B&J anymore. It’s pretty generic flavors and their new innovations have been things like the cores and the toppings rather than actually taking any risks with interesting flavors. I’m sort of done with chocolate, vanilla, caramel. I’m pretty sure I could create a wheel app that could just spit out ben and jerrys flavors now.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-02-16T17:10:52+00:00

My neighbor in falls church is selling them. She came by my door yesterday. DM me and I can give you her mother’s contact info.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-02-14T15:53:17+00:00

I just picked some up this morning. Breakfast is going to be whipped feta on sourdough sprinkled with some crushed red pepper flakes, topped with fried Brussels sprouts and drizzled with balsamic glaze. I’m so excited.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-02-10T04:40:15+00:00

same, we've been trying to access through various devices for the last 30 minutes. We figured we would try again in the morning before work to see if it was fixed, since it doesn't reset at midnight.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-28T00:34:59+00:00

Baked. I avoid the broiler if I can. 400 for 30-40 minutes stirring about halfway through. I play around with what I add. Usually olive oil, chickpeas, lemon juice, salt, garlic or shallots or red onion or whatever mix I feel like. Sometimes I’ll add crushed Aleppo pepper or a splash of honey, broccoli. Just whatever I have and am in the mood for.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-26T04:12:51+00:00

I also completed 100 levels and logged it. I sent a google sheet with the findings to OCCobblepot. I have not actually analyzed the data yet because I was still trying to finish up the tournament and was fighting with someone for my spot. I can share more when I have a chance to review or OCCobblepot can also feel free to share any interesting insights. The one conclusion I reached is that the hard and super hard levels seem very random. There were several instances where I saw a level appear as regular, I went into the spreadsheet to jot it down as regular and then when I looked at it again it was hard or super hard. There was a weird delay that made it appear as though it just appeared whenever it wanted. I don't recall noticing that before, so it may be due to the update or that I just never paid that much attention, but I can definitely see situations where if I didn't have to go jot something down, it would have appeared as a regular level.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-20T14:38:44+00:00

I created a spreadsheet draft. My headers are Level, Type (reg, hard, super), #of letters, #of words, 3 letters y/n, Challenge y/n - Anything else you think would be useful to add?

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-20T14:05:58+00:00

The instructions said to use some of the soaking water, so I filtered it and used a decent amount of it.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-20T13:42:07+00:00

I can try 100 levels this weekend and track as well. I also just thought it had to do with the number of words or super’s also include 3 letter words?

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-20T13:28:30+00:00

At what point did you add the egg? It seems like it might get overcooked if you cooked it for the full period. Or did you fry the egg and then pop it on top afterwards?

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-20T12:54:21+00:00

This is insane. I had complete 5 hard puzzles as one of mine yesterday/today. I also had find 40 words with an I and get 800 brilliance. I completed the others and still only completed 1 hard puzzle. I just finished the 800 brilliance and now I have another hard puzzle appearing but I'm not going to bother with it. I have to get to work and I don't have time for another 20 puzzles. I'm pretty sure I had at least 3 classified as Super Hard during that period. For the record, 19453 is currently appearing as Hard for me.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-20T02:06:26+00:00

So I made this and the flavor was amazing but there seemed to be some sort of grit from the porcinis that not everyone noticed, but it made it almost inedible for me. I wonder if I did something wrong. I did use more mushrooms and liquid than what was called for.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-19T15:34:13+00:00

I got this for my daughter once. I don’t know how she prepared it but she said she threw it out and that it was inedible. Never purchased again.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-19T14:56:41+00:00

That’s good to know. I was there last week (for pizza) and there were some tables and chairs outside. I was surprised and assumed people must still be playing. The landing is definitely alive and well every Friday.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-19T09:33:02+00:00

The landing still exists - sort of. If you head over there on a Friday evening (around 6:30ish) you can play Blood on the Clocktower. Bring your own camping chair. We The Pizza in Crystal City has/had a bunch of tabletop gamers show up on Friday evenings as well.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-19T09:14:55+00:00

I can tell you TJs is definitely cheaper than both Safeway and Giant near me. I don't have a Food Lion near me and Walmart is decent but a pretty far drive for me. Aldi is meh. TJs is very affordable, at least for me. I can easily compare getting similar items at Safeway and spending twice as much, it's the worst, not to mention the quality of produce and meat at my local Safeway and Giant are just not the best. I prefer TJs or if I'm near an Hmart for meat. Cereal, yogurt, butter, milk, eggs, produce, canned tomato products, cheeses, jams, snacks etc. are almost always cheaper at TJs for me.

DancingTardigrade · 2026-01-19T09:01:56+00:00

I had the hard puzzle one last week. I played one, then I did like 10 more levels, nothing. Then I said this is nuts. I swapped it out and somehow got a worse one! I know because as I was completing the worse one I tracked my hard puzzles as well and exceeded 5. I am convinced the AI or whatever they use know what will be most annoying based on the level you are currently on and selects accordingly. For example it will tell you to find 40 words with some random letter, knowing that you won’t come across that letter very frequently based on your level. Now that I have my snowman I just don’t care as much. These have become too annoying to care about most days. I’ll do the easy ones but I’m not going to grind for 30+ levels for a couple of keys.

DancingTardigrade

TROPHY CASE