USA vs. Germany! (and some nerdy analysis)

Today is the day!  Americans everywhere are finally excited for soccer and German-Americans are unsure who to cheer for.  It's exciting and nervewracking, even with statistics working in favor of both Germany and the USA.

Any real Patriot would be fine with red or blue outcomes (source: Forbes)

Some awesome person took the time to make that chart so lazier nerds like myself can see all the possible outcomes of the Group G games.  The chart is color-coded to show who would advance to the final 16 (the top 2 teams in each group advance).  It's like those Mendel Matrices we used to do in high school bio class to figure out the likelihood of a couple's child having blue or brown eyes.  This one is a little more complex, but works in the same way.  The US vs. Germany possible results are on the top and the Portugal vs. Ghana results are on the left.  Group G's top 2 depend on the outcome of both games.  So, for example, if it's a 1-1 draw in both games, Germany is 1st and US is 2nd, with both teams advancing.  In almost every outcome, if the US beats Germany, the US will be 1st and Germany 2nd, with both teams advancing.

Here's more of a breakdown:

• -218/256 (85%) possible outcomes have USA and Germany advancing. (Red + Blue)
  Not going into more detail, it's slightly more likely that Germany will take 1st in these outcomes.
• 30/256 (12%) possible outcomes have Germany and Ghana advancing. (Orange)
• 3/256 (1%) possible outcomes have Germany and Portugal advancing (Green) 
• 2/256 (0.8%) possible outcomes have Germany advancing and Portugal and USA drawing lots (Purple)
• 2/256 (0.8%) possible outcomes have USA advancing with Germany and Ghana drawing lots (Army Green)
• 1/256 (0.4%) of USA and Ghana advancing (Yellow)

I know most of my American friends will be rooting for the US to win, which is a totally fine outcome for me.  If they win, it's almost certain that both my teams will advance.

But, for anyone else cheering for Germany and USA to advance to the final 16, it's probably more important to cheer for Portugal.

Musik Monday - Weird Al, Yoda (live!)

Back in March I was the lucky, lucky winner of Weird Al tickets.  Then, I got even luckier and won backstage passes to a meet and greet after the show!  I could not have been more excited.  I got him to sign my copy of "When I Grow Up", the children's book by Weird Al.  I also had him sign a program for my friend who I didn't take to the show.  I'm running out of time and haven't gotten anywhere near uploading pictures, so I'll put another post just for all of that.

For now, I wanted to post a video of him performing "Yoda" live:

There's even a little hint of German culture at 4:05 or so, which is so fitting for my blog.  It goes beyond the Yoda song to one of the most impressive performances I have ever seen in a concert.  You have to see it - barely compares to live, but it's amazing.
I thought this was the best choice since I gave him the crochet Yoda I made from a previous blog entry.  He liked it!  He said it was pretty cool!  That made my day.  So now if you use the pattern for crocheting Yoda that's linked in that entry, you'll have a twin Yoda to the one Weird Al has.  What could be cooler than that?

May the Fourth be with you! (Yoda Crochet)

It's Star Wars Day!  As many a geek will say today, "May the fourth be with you".
According to wikipedia, the phrase dates back to a pun in a London newspaper headline in the late 70's.  There's more to it though.  This was the most interesting (and amusing) part of the article for me:

"In a 2005 interview on German news TV channel N24, George Lucas was asked to say the famous sentence "May the Force be with you." The interpreter simultaneously interpreted the sentence into German as Am 4. Mai sind wir bei Ihnen ("We shall be with you on May 4"). This was captured by TV Total and aired on May 18, 2005.^[5]"

In honor of the day, I finished what I started a while ago from this Yoda crochet pattern.  It took a while, but partially because my crochet skills are rusty.  I love amigurumi (making little figures pretty much), but I always run into problems when I'm crocheting in 3-D.  I had to start this over a couple of times before I got it right.

Finished Product - Step-by-step pictures after the break

Sheldon Cooper presents Fun mit Flags

I love, love, love, Big Bang Theory.  The guys are just like my guy friends growing up and I wish I was the 4th girl in the group.  Geeky goodness all around.

So when they added some German goodness to it...:



I could not have been happier.  I can watch this clip over and over again.  Nothing beats Sheldon saying "Guten Tag das youtube."
And that Pretzel/Bretzel costume?  That so fits under "The Crafty German" title.

Pi Day 2012!

It's Pi Day!  Almost the ides of March, but even better.


Some not-so-nerdy people may not get it.  March 14 is also 3/14 or 3.14, which equals Pi (π).  So, some of us geekier people find it important and necessary to celebrate the day.  Tonight, I'm "baking" a pie for Pi Day!  I'd have done it earlier, but I was too lazy to get ingredients and then was at a basketball game until tonight.


I ended up making a pie out of my Costco cookbook called "Chocolate Peanut Butter Mouse Pie" by Eagle Brand/Jif.  It uses a premade graham cracker crust, which made my life easier since I have no pie pan.  There's a layer of sweetened condensed milk/melted semisweet chocolate chip mixture over the bottom of the pie crust.  On top of that is a layer of:

A very geeky Christmas

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I've got an amazing boyfriend.  We decided to not spend much on gifts this year and he still found me the perfect present.  He got me the Planet Express shirt (Futurama) from thinkgeek.com!!  First of all, favorite show.  Secondly, one of my favorite websites.  Thirdly, I've been wanting this shirt since I first saw it years ago, but they never had it available.  Amazing.

I took a picture with my Halloween craft, Nibbler.  I was Leela for Halloween and needed a Nibbler with me to complete the costume.  Thinkgeek has the most adorable Nibbler stuffed animal, but they were out of stock and I needed something that week, so I decided to make my own.  After a failed attempt, I saw a craft kit for a big spider and bought some white, black, yellow, red, and peach felt.  Lots of cutting and scraps later, I ended up with something I was super proud of.  I'll post more of my Leela costume another time.  Until then, enjoy my awesome Christmas present with my awesome homemade Nibbler:

I kind of forgot the whole backwards text in the mirror thing

Snow-crastination

I really should be studying hard for finals right now (and I am!), but after a few hours it gets overwhelming. Sometime last week I decided to take a break from trying to absorb impossible Federal Income Tax material and made some paper snowflakes! I was inspired by a friend's facebook post about star wars snowflakes. I ended up with 4 that are now in my window.

The Star Wars (Darth Vader) one*:

Vader's head looks a little fat...

The Yankees one**: