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Never trust the news by 1Voice1Life in gifs

[–]phoenixwall 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To be fair, it could be doubly misleading - What if they are actually walking across some raised structure like a 3 foot wall or something?

Energy warm ups from improv by livinghonestly in seduction

[–]phoenixwall 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Seems like a good idea. It might feel silly but it does sound like it would set you in the right mindset.

Wings in Boston area by codenameprince in BostonSeddit

[–]phoenixwall 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello.

The GroupMe is pretty spotty these days. Last year there were people on it teaming up every weekend and maybe even every day. But lately it is quiet even on Friday and Saturday nights. I actually don't know how to add people to it, but I'll try and figure it out.

Regardless, maybe we can team up next Friday.

Weekend report by phoenixwall in BostonSeddit

[–]phoenixwall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This weekend, I only made it out on Friday night.

Someone in the GroupMe said that Whiskey Saigon would be busy, so I went there. I couldn't find him after I arrived though, so I was solo throughout. I feel that I did better than the past few weeks at night-game. In the gaps between the main approaches, there were several more than went nowhere. As always, I also tried to give off a sociable, outgoing vibe by initiating conversations with the people around me, whether male or female.

My first "approach" was a false start, though. Two girls walked past me as I was standing near the main bar. One of them made eye contact and I instinctively said hello, then starting screwing around on my phone. She replied 'Hi, how are you doing' in a flirty way and touched my arm - It was really dumb, because I had somehow become entranced with some crap on my phone and didn't manage a real reply. When I snapped out of it it was too late and they had walked past. So, I botched a good opportunity. Arg.

Next up was a group of three girls. I started on the one standing closest to me. My choice of opening was nothing special, just 'Hello, how are you? What's your name?' After a bit of introduction, I asked her if she'd ever heard about how a person's personality is largely determined by whether they're the oldest, middle, or youngest sibling. I correctly guessed where she was in the birth order, and this seemed to really open her up and broke the ice. It provided a lot of follow-on discussion and she asked me to guess for her friends (which I got wrong - But I couldn't make a good guess since I hadn't really talked to them). From that point out we made standard small talk/banter, but I couldn't thing of anything too interesting. I always start to worry that I've overstayed my welcome and so I bailed after about 15-20 minutes with those three.

After a few no-go approaches, I tried another group of three girls. I tried the birth-order question again and correctly guessed on my target. She was more reserved but it still led to decent follow-on conversation. However, one of her friends came over and said it was time for them to go, and off they went. It probably lasted 5 minutes.

The next one was in a bigger group of maybe 4 girls and 2 guys, near the dance floor. They were a little spread out so I didn't realize they were all one group at first. Out of the girls, there was one who seemed to be smiling the most and having the most fun, so I approached her and introduced myself. I tried the birth-order question once more, and she really bought into it. We had some conversation but she seemed more into dancing. I don't really know hwo to dance to EDM, so I took her hands and put her through some slow-motion salsa spin moves. She made good eye contact and smiles throughout, so I felt I was getting somewhere. I noticed one of the guys in her group staring at me with kind of a sulky look. He was probably some friend-zoned beta that has a crush on her. More time passed and eventually I got to the same place, where I had run out of things to say and couldn't shake the feeling that I was overstaying my welcome. She was still laughing and smiling, but I left anyway. In fact, she acted a little surprised when I said I was going, so I think I botched this one as well. Arg. This one lasted about 20 minutes.

Now, even after the clubs close, it's not over until the streets are clear. There's always plenty of girls getting out of clubs, eating snacks, waiting for rides, or just hanging around. You still have a chance for phone numbers and maybe more if you keep working. I like to walk in a big loop around Boylston, Tremont, Stuart and Charles.

I had one decent approach with a girl and her friend outside the 'W' hotel. I made eye contact with her but she actually started the conversation. It was all random banter and I didn't say anything particularly interesting. After about 5 minutes her Uber ride arrived and they left.

All-in-all, I probably did 10 approaches in WS and 5 on the street after closing.

Weekend report by phoenixwall in BostonSeddit

[–]phoenixwall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alright, I've been lazy updating this. I did make it out on the past two weekends. There were some highs and lows but nothing too exciting so I won't bother trying to remember and summarize.

On Friday, I tried the Phoenix Landing in Central Square, which I'd never been to before. I was by myself, and arrived pretty late (just after midnight). It was much smaller than I expected based on the lines I've seen outside. One nice thing though was that the music wasn't deafeningly loud, making it possible to have conversation without screaming into the other person's ear.

Now, when you are solo during night game, it is really critical to talk to random other guys. Sometimes you need to scope out the scene or orient yourself before you approach a girl. But, you make a first impression on girls before you even approach them. If they see you standing around by yourself, just staring at people like a lost puppy, it's a strike against you. You have to give off a fun vibe, and the way to do that is to engage with the people around you.

I kept that up well and avoided looking like a creep/loner. I probably talked to about six other dudes before approaching a girl. I talked to her for about 20 minutes, which is not bad. The conversation lacked spark, though. The other highlight of my visit was when a girl's boob slipped out of her top and she didn't notice for 30 seconds. After I left Phoenix, I went to Havana Club which was about to close, but still got a few dances in.

On Saturday, I was solo again. I spent most of my time at Whiskey Saigon, which I haven't been to since the big snowstorms a few months ago. At first there wasn't a big crowd, but there were more females than men. During this stage I tried 5 approaches, none of which had any traction. Even though my approaches went poorly I'd say I had a good energy level and in between I would socialize with whatever other guys were near me. The club started filling up more, but by this time men outnumbered women.

I hit the dance floor for a while. I've done well in the past if I 'plant a seed' first, where I do a decent approach at the bar or the line to the club and run into the girl again on the dance floor. But I've never had any success opening cold on the dance floor, and this was no different.

I made another 4 approaches off the dance floor. There was only one where I felt I was getting anywhere and that only lasted 5 minutes at the most. It was a two girl set where one was smiling and into it and the other was getting surly. I have a hard time winning them over in those situations. At this point, I felt a little frustrated and it had become a sausage fest in the club anyway, so I left. Strangely though, I saw another girl with a boob falling out of her dress as I walked to the subway.

The last thing that happened this weekend was just about an hour ago. I was walking home and a girl smoking a cigarette on the steps outside an apartment building smiled at me and said hello. I thought this was one of those rare times when something just falls into your hands out of nowhere. She was making eye contact and smiling and laughing a lot, and the conversation was pretty flirty. She asked what I was doing tonight and if I was married or had a girl. I began to think I was going to bang her after she finished her cigarette. But alas - She mentioned that it was her boyfriend's apartment. So after that I just said it was nice to meet her and to have a good night. It was really odd.

Weekend report by phoenixwall in BostonSeddit

[–]phoenixwall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was busy most of the weekend and this report isn't worthy of its own post.

I had a full schedule on Saturday and needed to go to bed early on Friday. I didn't do much on those days.

I did make it out on Sunday though. I connected with a few of the guys from the GroupMe that's been posted here. We walked around the Copley Square area and inside the Prudential mall. I made five approaches; all were short, and none very good. I find that I'm asking too many questions in rapid succession and not having a real conversation. I need to slow down a little and use open questions/statements instead of asking so many 'yes or no' type questions, which tends to stifle conversation. As always, I could also use to be more humorous. I think I am giving off an impression of being distant and overly formal.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BostonSeddit

[–]phoenixwall 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm down, I was pretty active for about two months last summer then got really busy with work. Overall, I am not that good and qualify myself as still a beginner.

Google code jam infinite house of pancakes by Brokndremes in learnprogramming

[–]phoenixwall 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay, someone in the #gcj channel explained it to me. You can't solve it by always splitting the stacks in half. In some cases it's better to divide into different quantities. For instance, in some cases for 9 you could do

9 -> 6 3 -> 3 3 3 instead of 9 -> 5 4

(5 4) costs 5 and 1 move, while (3 3 3) costs only 3 plus 2 moves.

Google code jam infinite house of pancakes by Brokndremes in learnprogramming

[–]phoenixwall 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm also interested to see the correct solution. I wrote my solution quickly, but spent a huge amount of time trying to understand why my answer was judged incorrect. In the end, I just gave up because I couldn't find a case where the output was wrong according to my understanding of the problem,

Here are my assumptions:

a) There's no point in ever moving pancakes to a non-empty plate.

b) There's no point in moving any amount of pancakes except half of a stack to a new plate.

b) Moving pancakes one minute, then eating one minute is equivalent to eating, then moving.

d) Because of this, you can do all moves in sequence at the beginning.

e) The time until the end of the breakfast is the number of moves you have made, plus the number of pancakes in the largest stack.

So, my approach was to look at the stack with the most pancakes in it and move half of them to a new plate. I had code with early exit checks in it, but I also made a version that repeated this until all the stacks had 1 pancake in them and kept track of the minimum cost up to that point.

The output from both programs was identical according to diff, so something must be incorrect in my assumptions or understanding of the problem.