Pilot's Log

I bought more Race Day packs today and it closed up much of my collection's gaps. At least the ones in the "old" set, anyway. The "new" set packs are cheaper and two of the drivers I still want are commons so I'm pretty much assured that I'll get them eventually if I keep buying packs. I'm already hitting the Law of Diminishing Returns, tho'; three of the eight cards I got today were duplicates, so if the averages keep going as seen, I'll have a load of them if I buy too many packs.

I don't so much want to complete the set as to have the overwhelming majority of the available drivers, but with a minimum of duplicates.

Meanwhile, I have to buy new ink for my printer as we need to have a lot of documents copied and run off in the near future. My unit takes two different sizes of ink cartridges (black and tri-color each), and while our favorite office supply store markets their own cartridges that are cheaper than the original manufacturers', they don't have the larger black one in their stocks. But they might have two-for-one packs of the smaller black ones.

The art of this bargain is to decide which combination of cartridges is more economic for our uses. Which means I won't just have to bring product numbers and a coupon...I'll need my calculator.

--And possibly random shopping.

I found a tourist trap shop that has an abundant supply of now-passe NASCAR Race Day packs. Race Day is a game that Wizkids put out in 2005~'06 with stock car models printed onto plastic card pieces that the user assembles. The track is a poster-sized sheet of paper that is also included in the game pack. (Suddenly I want to call it "NASCARcheezi".) I got five packs, opened them, and got a little educated on the game itself and the topic of "rarity" as it applies to such things.

There are three levels of rarity at play here: COMMON, UNCOMMON and RARE. Every pack in my sample had an Uncommon, and since there are twelve Uncommons in the set if the selection premise holds, then there is a 1 in 12 chance of getting any specific Uncommon in any pack. The remaining pieces in my sample were split between Commons and Rares 3 to 2, so if that held, then logically the likelihood of getting a specific Rare is 40% less than that of getting a specific Uncommon, since there are an equal number of Uncommons and Rares in the total series set.

Again presuming my selection premise is true, there is a 60% chance of getting a Common in any pack, and so because there are only 4 Commons in the set, a 15% chance of getting a specific Common. And a mathematic certainty of getting a specific Common from buying only seven packs at a random.

I'm glad that I didn't have a fandom reason to get into this earlier, but at the same time, I wish I could have done a better job learning probability math in college.

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Depends on him-me of course. I'd probably take him-me to the NASCAR park in Sevierville and let him drive karts and show him why I didn't become a race car driver like he dreamed.

I'm sure I'd have a lot of explaining to do.

And, with as much persuasion as I could muster, I'd tell him to take up Algebra as early as he could get it. That way he could avoid taking years of the wrong math and science classes and actually graduate high school.

At the Rusty Wallace Toyota dealership in Morristown, the showroom has on display this driving kit set of Mr. Wallace's; the helmet visor has his autograph. (For those of you who don't know NASCAR, he had been one of the stars on the track till just a few seasons ago; he's now a trackside personality for FOX Sports' coverage of the races, and his "ride" has since passed through the hands of Kurt Busch to Brad Keslowski.)

I tried taking a few photos of the suit overday for research and planning purposes, but as you can see, it was too bright around for me to avoid capturing reflections from the display case glass.

Okay, so I added the Numbers.

( Aussie Race Car Reveal! )

Is it wrong to want to see a throwdown between Supercars and NASCAR Cup cars?

*) Did the Gamers' Bizarre Bazaar at HobbyTown. Sold a few things; bought nothing, made enough cash to go from "nowhere near enough money" to "not quite enough money".

*) Got a couple stickers that I will need to scan and post a separate entry about.

*) Missed my aunt and uncle when they visited Rather Manor for lunch. Did NOT miss Lynn's cake, however. In fact, I'm doing everything in my power to avoid the siren song of another piece. Granted, I will need a midnight snack in a couple hours.

*) Saw the ESPN show on ABC today about the life of NASCAR would-be superstar Tim Richmond. The ultimate spoiled rich boy/enfant terrible/non-Good Ol' Boy whose career and life were cut short by AIDS-related health problems.
Links...
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/cup/columns/story?columnist=mcgee_ryan&id=5696274
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4397552
http://30for30.espn.com/film/tim-richmond-to-the-limit.html

*) Got to re-friend former Livejournal user Jolly Roger Blackburn on Facebook. I know I should have done it long ago, but there was no need as I participate very often on the official Kenzerco boards.