I have allergies. They're not crippling, and it's not that there's any one thing that I'm allergic to. It's just a standard way of life that if I'm not medicated, and regularly, I'm a bit stuffy and sniffly. And since snot is no fun in a meeting, I take allergy drugs. I figured out that Claritin-D is the best thing for me, mostly because I'm a little clueless about most things and can't be trusted to remember to take anything more than once a day. Plus I don't want to be bothered.
Enter the nanny state. Because Claritin-D contains psuedoephedrine, and some folks can use psuedoephedrine to cook up a nice batch of methamphetamine, it's a regulated substance. So every two weeks when I buy my allergy drugs I get to go to the back of the pharmacy and ask for my drugs like I'm buying cigarettes at the grocery store. Then I get my driver's license scanned, sign the little box that says I understand that you can only buy so much cold medicine in a week, and go on my merry way.
Except this weekend. As I was packing for Atlanta, I noticed that I only had three pills left. Now I've run into issues buying my allergy meds in states that don't match my driver's license before, so I figured I'd pick some up on my way out of town. WRONG!
I go to my local drug store, and as the pharmacist scans my license, the machine beeps unpleasantly at him and refuses to sell me my drugs. Seems that since I had only bought these drugs a week or so ago (I had pills left, and had shared my allergy meds at a poker game where other folks were suffering) I couldn't purchase my cold medicine again because I was obviously going to cook up some meth. Fortunately for me the pharmacist wasn't a complete douchebag and he overrode the system, telling me to bring my wife's license in next time. So now I know that I'll have to alternate drug store chains where I buy my medicine so that I can actually continue to breathe easily. Fuckers.
The nanny-state mentality makes me sick. Wouldn't it make sense to just ask the checkout folks at the drug stores to think a moment before they sell someone a case of cold medicine instead of making it difficult for normal people to get their drugs? I mean damn, next thing you know they're going to legislate seat belt use for my own good, and make people wear helmets when they ride motorcycles. Oh wait...
On another front, I'm thinking of acquiring a handgun for the house. Any suggestions on preferred home defense handguns. I'm not looking for something to carry around concealed, I'm not that paranoid. But I think that it's probably time to have a pistol floating around somewhere in case of emergencies.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Interesting tidbit from W-by god Vegas
This is really Special K's story to tell, but I don't see a write up from him, and he's off winning won in K-Vegas, so I'll recount an interesting event from our trip to Charleston a couple weeks ago. It's hard to find something I've never seen in a casino anymore, but this certainly qualifies. I'm going to write this from the perspective of someone who actually saw what happened, which is stretching things a bit, but you'll have to live with it.
So in the middle of a down, a replacement dealer wanders over to Special K's table, taps out the current dealer, and motions to some Mounties that want to have a chat with him. He walks over, talks to the cops for a few minutes, and then the cops turn him around, cuff him, and perp-walk him through the casino out the front door and apparently into a waiting ride to the lockup. It took a little while of quizzing subsequent dealers to get an idea what happened, but it seems that since the dealers there use a toke box that hooks on to the rail of the table, and they hook it onto the table directly behind the slot for the jackpot drop, this dealer had been just scooping the jackpot drop into his toke box instead of into the slot in the table for the jackpot.
So for a couple dollars a down, maybe $100/day in a good day, homeboy got himself escorted off the property, never to work there again, and likely will never work in a casino anywhere again. Not to mention the night he got to spend with his new boyfriends in the West Virginia lockup. Real smart, buddy.
So in the middle of a down, a replacement dealer wanders over to Special K's table, taps out the current dealer, and motions to some Mounties that want to have a chat with him. He walks over, talks to the cops for a few minutes, and then the cops turn him around, cuff him, and perp-walk him through the casino out the front door and apparently into a waiting ride to the lockup. It took a little while of quizzing subsequent dealers to get an idea what happened, but it seems that since the dealers there use a toke box that hooks on to the rail of the table, and they hook it onto the table directly behind the slot for the jackpot drop, this dealer had been just scooping the jackpot drop into his toke box instead of into the slot in the table for the jackpot.
So for a couple dollars a down, maybe $100/day in a good day, homeboy got himself escorted off the property, never to work there again, and likely will never work in a casino anywhere again. Not to mention the night he got to spend with his new boyfriends in the West Virginia lockup. Real smart, buddy.
It was the best of times...
A tale of two home games...
So Friday night I rolled south to G-Vegas to play with Bad Blood, the recently un-retired from poker G-Rob, Otis, Lee Jones, Gucci Rick and a host of other degenerates. Over the course of the evening I managed to uphold one goal - to not get my money in bad more than once per orbit. That didn't stop me losing three buy-ins, but given the fact that I may actually have been a slight favorite (still behind, but a slight favorite) for at least half the last pot I lost, I think my PLO game might actually be improving by the most incremental of degrees. At this rate by 2020 I'll be a break-even PLO player.
So my love of PLO dims a bit whenever I pick up a big hand in early position, because I can't raise enough to get anyone to fold. So when I pick up AA72 with one suit under the gun, I can only make it $5 to go (1/1 PLO with a straddle). Several callers come along, but Lee makes my dream move and re-pots it. I'm fairly short already, and with aces and the hammer, I ship it in. Everyone else folds and we're heads up.
Of course he has the other two aces, and he's suited in clubs to my diamonds (or vice versa, but we each had one suit). Rainbow flop, no flush on the turn, but my hammer makes trips on the river to double through. Hammer good! That got me back to even for buy-in #2, and I don't remember how I lost the rest of it, but I'm sure I was overvaluing two pair chasing the boat or something equally inane. So let's fast forward to the end of the evening, in what became a pretty interesting hand. Otis raised it up preflop, and several of us called, including myself (10-10-J-9 with two crubs) and Bad Blood.
The flop came down with about everything I could ask for in a board - 8-9-4 with two clubs. I didn't have the open-ended straight flush draw, but I did have the open-ender and a decent flush draw. We had switched to PLO8 by this point, so I was less than thrilled about the two low cards on the board, but I led out anyway. My recollection is a little fuzzy, but I think I moved all in on the flop, Blood called and Otis moved all in over the top. I may have led out with a pot-sized bet, Blood called, Otis shoved, and Blood and I called. Either way, all the money ended up in the middle. I showed my crub flush draw and straight draw, Otis showed A-A-3-5 with the 3 and 5 of clubs, and Blood showed A-9-rag-rag for a silly call that I asked him about the next night. He didn't really defend it other than mumbling something about Grey Goose. EDIT - Mr. Blood has reminded me that he had A239 for top pair, nut low draw, so he made a good call for 25% of the pot :).
I had a pile of outs for half the pot, which I think made me around 60% to chop and around 20% to scoop. But the turn and river didn't bring me a 10, 7, Q or a club, and I was done for the night.Otis scooped the pot with his unimproved aces to get himself unstuck for the night. I think it was one of the less bad moves I made all night, but of course, I was working on a fundamental theorem of poker that proved to be faulty - crubs always get there.
The next night the degeneracy moved to my house, and it might be the fastest I've ever seen Nate blow through 5 buy-ins (at $60 per). I stacked him once in the first orbit when my flush got there on the river to bust his turned straight. Brian the Red stacked him later when his flush got there on the flop to crack Nate's pair (or maybe it was a smaller flush). It was actually kinda gross to watch as he just turned over second-best hand after second-best hand, which gets expensive in short order.
I had a rare evening at my home game where I bought in just the once, and built a ridiculous stack early, but bled off some of it late in the game. It was a jovial game, and great fun for all but probably Nate, who was busto by 10PM. I thought that in the absence of Special K and Jim the Knife that the game would play smaller, but every chip I had under $20 was on the table by 8:30, and I don't think we've ever had that many black ($20) chips on the table before. So it was a fun game, and I made back 2/3 of what I left in G-Vegas, so that's always helpful. I don't really remember many hands, but my reads were at least as bad as they usually are, and I resorted to suckouts on more than one occassion after I decided to call with crap because I was sire somebody was raising light preflop. They weren't, and I had to get lucky to win, but since I've given up on being good, I'll take lucky whenever I can get it :).
So Friday night I rolled south to G-Vegas to play with Bad Blood, the recently un-retired from poker G-Rob, Otis, Lee Jones, Gucci Rick and a host of other degenerates. Over the course of the evening I managed to uphold one goal - to not get my money in bad more than once per orbit. That didn't stop me losing three buy-ins, but given the fact that I may actually have been a slight favorite (still behind, but a slight favorite) for at least half the last pot I lost, I think my PLO game might actually be improving by the most incremental of degrees. At this rate by 2020 I'll be a break-even PLO player.
So my love of PLO dims a bit whenever I pick up a big hand in early position, because I can't raise enough to get anyone to fold. So when I pick up AA72 with one suit under the gun, I can only make it $5 to go (1/1 PLO with a straddle). Several callers come along, but Lee makes my dream move and re-pots it. I'm fairly short already, and with aces and the hammer, I ship it in. Everyone else folds and we're heads up.
Of course he has the other two aces, and he's suited in clubs to my diamonds (or vice versa, but we each had one suit). Rainbow flop, no flush on the turn, but my hammer makes trips on the river to double through. Hammer good! That got me back to even for buy-in #2, and I don't remember how I lost the rest of it, but I'm sure I was overvaluing two pair chasing the boat or something equally inane. So let's fast forward to the end of the evening, in what became a pretty interesting hand. Otis raised it up preflop, and several of us called, including myself (10-10-J-9 with two crubs) and Bad Blood.
The flop came down with about everything I could ask for in a board - 8-9-4 with two clubs. I didn't have the open-ended straight flush draw, but I did have the open-ender and a decent flush draw. We had switched to PLO8 by this point, so I was less than thrilled about the two low cards on the board, but I led out anyway. My recollection is a little fuzzy, but I think I moved all in on the flop, Blood called and Otis moved all in over the top. I may have led out with a pot-sized bet, Blood called, Otis shoved, and Blood and I called. Either way, all the money ended up in the middle. I showed my crub flush draw and straight draw, Otis showed A-A-3-5 with the 3 and 5 of clubs, and Blood showed A-9-rag-rag for a silly call that I asked him about the next night. He didn't really defend it other than mumbling something about Grey Goose. EDIT - Mr. Blood has reminded me that he had A239 for top pair, nut low draw, so he made a good call for 25% of the pot :).
I had a pile of outs for half the pot, which I think made me around 60% to chop and around 20% to scoop. But the turn and river didn't bring me a 10, 7, Q or a club, and I was done for the night.Otis scooped the pot with his unimproved aces to get himself unstuck for the night. I think it was one of the less bad moves I made all night, but of course, I was working on a fundamental theorem of poker that proved to be faulty - crubs always get there.
The next night the degeneracy moved to my house, and it might be the fastest I've ever seen Nate blow through 5 buy-ins (at $60 per). I stacked him once in the first orbit when my flush got there on the river to bust his turned straight. Brian the Red stacked him later when his flush got there on the flop to crack Nate's pair (or maybe it was a smaller flush). It was actually kinda gross to watch as he just turned over second-best hand after second-best hand, which gets expensive in short order.
I had a rare evening at my home game where I bought in just the once, and built a ridiculous stack early, but bled off some of it late in the game. It was a jovial game, and great fun for all but probably Nate, who was busto by 10PM. I thought that in the absence of Special K and Jim the Knife that the game would play smaller, but every chip I had under $20 was on the table by 8:30, and I don't think we've ever had that many black ($20) chips on the table before. So it was a fun game, and I made back 2/3 of what I left in G-Vegas, so that's always helpful. I don't really remember many hands, but my reads were at least as bad as they usually are, and I resorted to suckouts on more than one occassion after I decided to call with crap because I was sire somebody was raising light preflop. They weren't, and I had to get lucky to win, but since I've given up on being good, I'll take lucky whenever I can get it :).
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Lovin' the ATL?
Not really. I don't dislike it, and I think I've located the hotel that I'll make my base of operations whenever I'm here, so that's helpful. It's a straight shot down 85 to the office, and there are plenty of places to eat around the hotel, plus it has the most important thing for me - comfortable beds!
But I promised the story of my amazing fall from grace in West Virginia, so here it is in short order. I spent the first four hours of Friday night on the most amazing run of cards I've ever experienced, picking up aces, kings, queens, jacks, tens and most of them multiple times. I also found action almost every time, which is always a bonus. My table started off a dream, several very loose-passive players, with a couple of gambooly bigger stacks. I managed to chip up from my initial $100 buy-in to $300 in short order, then doubled through the other big stack when I picked up aces for the second time in four hands. He didn't give me credit for yet another big pair, so he paid me off on every street with an inferior hand. He didn't show, but I'm assuming he had top pair on the king-high board. With him gone, I had the rest of the table covered.
No, add everyone's chips together, and I had them covered. Now it's not that I had that much money in front of me, about $650. It's that these guys were playing that short. I looked around and decided that I should probably rack up in a little bit, since only one other guy had more than $300 in front of him, and he was pretty tight.
Then I stacked him to bring my total chips up over $850. I was looking at a +$750 night, and didn't rack up when the table went to shit. It's all my fault, I could have gotten up, checked on the others, and maybe gone to the hotel early. Or not. Just gone south with my profit and tried the Stud game for a little while. Or just gone south with my profit and moved to a better table. Or played slots. Or whatever.
But since I don't often get the chance to play casino poker, it's hard for me to get up and cut my sessions short. And this time it got really expensive. Three young guys who could play all sat down at my table, then T and Special K moved over, and by the time the night was over I'd given away $500 in profits. So I learned a lesson - if I've got the table covered by such a huge margin, move on to greener pastures. At that point there was no significant reward left for me, just risk. And as I doubled up short stack after short stack, I kept on risking. So rather than doubling my bankroll on the trip, I finished down $100 after playing like ass the next day.
Yeah, winning $750 would have almost doubled my paltry bankroll. After some Christmas purchases, and the Macbook I bought last summer, not to mention a gross losing streak the last half of 2008, I've barely cracked a four-digit bankroll since October. At one point at Bad Blood's last month, I was within one buy-in of busto again before Brian the Red gifted me his stack a couple of times. So I'm trying not to play like as much of a dumbass without playing too much like scared money, which is a delicate balance. And really, I'm typically neither delicate nor particularly well-balanced. I'll keep you posted.
But I promised the story of my amazing fall from grace in West Virginia, so here it is in short order. I spent the first four hours of Friday night on the most amazing run of cards I've ever experienced, picking up aces, kings, queens, jacks, tens and most of them multiple times. I also found action almost every time, which is always a bonus. My table started off a dream, several very loose-passive players, with a couple of gambooly bigger stacks. I managed to chip up from my initial $100 buy-in to $300 in short order, then doubled through the other big stack when I picked up aces for the second time in four hands. He didn't give me credit for yet another big pair, so he paid me off on every street with an inferior hand. He didn't show, but I'm assuming he had top pair on the king-high board. With him gone, I had the rest of the table covered.
No, add everyone's chips together, and I had them covered. Now it's not that I had that much money in front of me, about $650. It's that these guys were playing that short. I looked around and decided that I should probably rack up in a little bit, since only one other guy had more than $300 in front of him, and he was pretty tight.
Then I stacked him to bring my total chips up over $850. I was looking at a +$750 night, and didn't rack up when the table went to shit. It's all my fault, I could have gotten up, checked on the others, and maybe gone to the hotel early. Or not. Just gone south with my profit and tried the Stud game for a little while. Or just gone south with my profit and moved to a better table. Or played slots. Or whatever.
But since I don't often get the chance to play casino poker, it's hard for me to get up and cut my sessions short. And this time it got really expensive. Three young guys who could play all sat down at my table, then T and Special K moved over, and by the time the night was over I'd given away $500 in profits. So I learned a lesson - if I've got the table covered by such a huge margin, move on to greener pastures. At that point there was no significant reward left for me, just risk. And as I doubled up short stack after short stack, I kept on risking. So rather than doubling my bankroll on the trip, I finished down $100 after playing like ass the next day.
Yeah, winning $750 would have almost doubled my paltry bankroll. After some Christmas purchases, and the Macbook I bought last summer, not to mention a gross losing streak the last half of 2008, I've barely cracked a four-digit bankroll since October. At one point at Bad Blood's last month, I was within one buy-in of busto again before Brian the Red gifted me his stack a couple of times. So I'm trying not to play like as much of a dumbass without playing too much like scared money, which is a delicate balance. And really, I'm typically neither delicate nor particularly well-balanced. I'll keep you posted.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Well that was a first...
None of my fantasies about me and a gaggle of nurses in the middle of the night start or ended this way. And yes, there's more than one. And no, I'm not going to share them with you.
I was in Chapel Hill for work on Wednesday, having driven up there for a 9AM Thursday meeting that was cancelled around 8PM Wednesday night, well after I had arrived in my hotel room. Lemon. So after a nice dinner with a buddy, I went back to the hotel, read a little bit, watched NCIS and went to sleep. I know, I lead an exciting life on the road.
But at about 4:24 AM, it got a lot more exciting. In all my travels, I've never had a fire alarm go off in the middle of the night when I was in a hotel. It took me a second to figure out what that noise was, then I did all the normal things you're supposed to do. I went to the door, and didn't smell smoke. I felt the door handle, and it wasn't hot. So I decided that the odds of me dying imminently were slim, and got dressed. I tossed on pants, shoes, shirt and my jacket. Then I thought about it for a second, and decided that since my death apparently wasn't an immediate concern, I put my laptop in my bag, put my ipod in my pocket and headed for the door. I did eventually decide that I wouldn't waste the time for socks or to pack the rest of my clothes in a bag, figuring that might be a little excessive.
By the way, in January, even in the south, 4:30 AM is COLD. So I walked down the stairs, thanking Marriott Rewards once again for honoring my "low floor" request, and headed out into the night with all my fellow hotel guests. Obviously most of them were more concerned for their safety, as quite a few of them were in their pjs with no shoes.
And no, none of the pjs were terribly interesting. I was also disappointed. I look around at the bevy of freezing women and announce "I brought my car keys. I'll be going over to the Honda to get warm. Up to four of you are welcome to join me." I had a pile of takers, four nice young women who were in town for a nursing conference on hyperbaric chambers.
Yep, it's the middle of the night and I've got four nurses in their pajamas in my car with me. No baby oil, no Twister, not even any peppermint hand lotion. And frankly, it was too damn cold to take anything off anyway. Not to mention that whole married thing, and the fact that two of the four were uglier than a bulldog chewing on a bumblebee. So we sat there for a few minutes before the fire department gave us the all clear, and went back to our respective rooms.
I know, it started out sounding like it was exciting, but really wasn't. Sorry, I'll try to do better on the hijinks and shenanigans front next time.
I was in Chapel Hill for work on Wednesday, having driven up there for a 9AM Thursday meeting that was cancelled around 8PM Wednesday night, well after I had arrived in my hotel room. Lemon. So after a nice dinner with a buddy, I went back to the hotel, read a little bit, watched NCIS and went to sleep. I know, I lead an exciting life on the road.
But at about 4:24 AM, it got a lot more exciting. In all my travels, I've never had a fire alarm go off in the middle of the night when I was in a hotel. It took me a second to figure out what that noise was, then I did all the normal things you're supposed to do. I went to the door, and didn't smell smoke. I felt the door handle, and it wasn't hot. So I decided that the odds of me dying imminently were slim, and got dressed. I tossed on pants, shoes, shirt and my jacket. Then I thought about it for a second, and decided that since my death apparently wasn't an immediate concern, I put my laptop in my bag, put my ipod in my pocket and headed for the door. I did eventually decide that I wouldn't waste the time for socks or to pack the rest of my clothes in a bag, figuring that might be a little excessive.
By the way, in January, even in the south, 4:30 AM is COLD. So I walked down the stairs, thanking Marriott Rewards once again for honoring my "low floor" request, and headed out into the night with all my fellow hotel guests. Obviously most of them were more concerned for their safety, as quite a few of them were in their pjs with no shoes.
And no, none of the pjs were terribly interesting. I was also disappointed. I look around at the bevy of freezing women and announce "I brought my car keys. I'll be going over to the Honda to get warm. Up to four of you are welcome to join me." I had a pile of takers, four nice young women who were in town for a nursing conference on hyperbaric chambers.
Yep, it's the middle of the night and I've got four nurses in their pajamas in my car with me. No baby oil, no Twister, not even any peppermint hand lotion. And frankly, it was too damn cold to take anything off anyway. Not to mention that whole married thing, and the fact that two of the four were uglier than a bulldog chewing on a bumblebee. So we sat there for a few minutes before the fire department gave us the all clear, and went back to our respective rooms.
I know, it started out sounding like it was exciting, but really wasn't. Sorry, I'll try to do better on the hijinks and shenanigans front next time.
Monday, January 26, 2009
More on the Media Question...
Here's what I currently have -
1) 46" LCD TV (in den)
1) Xbox 360 (also in den)
1) PS3 (ditto)
1) 500GB external HD (in office next room over)
2) laptop computers, 1 Mac 1 PC, neither one stays on or in one place all the time
I currently come home most days, plug my laptop into a USB hub on my desk which hooks into the external HD, and then when I download stuff from iTunes or bittorrent sites, it's all set up to download to the external HD.
What I'm trying to figure out is the best way to be able to listen to my music in the den using either the PS3 or the Xbox, as well as play back the TV shows and Movies I've downloaded on the big TV. Watching them on the 22" monitor in the office is fine, but I'd like to be able to watch them with Suzy, and seating in the office is limited.
So what I think I should do is this -
1) Get a cheapo PC with Vista Home Premium and a couple gigs of RAM (looks like abuot $3-400)
2) Get a small network switch and run a hard line into the back of the Xbox
3) Put all the stuff that's currently on the external HD into the PC, and set it up as a shared network drive, then set that as my destination download drive for iTunes etc.
4) Use my existing external HD as a backup
Does that make sense? Smells like the whole mess is gonna run me around $400 total, which ain't bad, but it would sure be nice to only do this once.
1) 46" LCD TV (in den)
1) Xbox 360 (also in den)
1) PS3 (ditto)
1) 500GB external HD (in office next room over)
2) laptop computers, 1 Mac 1 PC, neither one stays on or in one place all the time
I currently come home most days, plug my laptop into a USB hub on my desk which hooks into the external HD, and then when I download stuff from iTunes or bittorrent sites, it's all set up to download to the external HD.
What I'm trying to figure out is the best way to be able to listen to my music in the den using either the PS3 or the Xbox, as well as play back the TV shows and Movies I've downloaded on the big TV. Watching them on the 22" monitor in the office is fine, but I'd like to be able to watch them with Suzy, and seating in the office is limited.
So what I think I should do is this -
1) Get a cheapo PC with Vista Home Premium and a couple gigs of RAM (looks like abuot $3-400)
2) Get a small network switch and run a hard line into the back of the Xbox
3) Put all the stuff that's currently on the external HD into the PC, and set it up as a shared network drive, then set that as my destination download drive for iTunes etc.
4) Use my existing external HD as a backup
Does that make sense? Smells like the whole mess is gonna run me around $400 total, which ain't bad, but it would sure be nice to only do this once.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Media Management
There will be a poker post coming about my trip West by God Virginia. For now, suffice to say that I need to learn when to get up and put money in my pocket. It suck to be up $750 in four hours and still finish -$100 on a two-day trip. It sucks more when it's against players that suck. I am becoming a big fan of West Virginia poker.
But anyway - here's a question for my geek friends (and you know who you are). I have a shitload of music, movies, TV shows, stuff like that. I live off my laptop, so I store all my stuff on a 500GB external drive. I would like to be able to easily view those TV shows, play that music, etc. on my TV. I have an Xbox 360 and a PS3, both of which can do something like this. But the networking is what is giving me issues.
Is my life going to be easier if I just set up a PC somewhere that is hard-wired on a network to my 360 and store all my media on that PC?Or is there a solution I don't know about?
What about an Apple TV? Can I play stuff on there that I don't buy off iTunes?
And what about stuff I download via BitTorrent? What do I have to do to get one of these devices to play unprotected avi and mpg files?
I'm obviously not averse to spending money on this shit (note ridiculously large TV in my den), but I'd like something that's at least a little bit seamless on the execution side of things.
But anyway - here's a question for my geek friends (and you know who you are). I have a shitload of music, movies, TV shows, stuff like that. I live off my laptop, so I store all my stuff on a 500GB external drive. I would like to be able to easily view those TV shows, play that music, etc. on my TV. I have an Xbox 360 and a PS3, both of which can do something like this. But the networking is what is giving me issues.
Is my life going to be easier if I just set up a PC somewhere that is hard-wired on a network to my 360 and store all my media on that PC?Or is there a solution I don't know about?
What about an Apple TV? Can I play stuff on there that I don't buy off iTunes?
And what about stuff I download via BitTorrent? What do I have to do to get one of these devices to play unprotected avi and mpg files?
I'm obviously not averse to spending money on this shit (note ridiculously large TV in my den), but I'd like something that's at least a little bit seamless on the execution side of things.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Once upon a time...
There was a really, really bad day in America. Some really bad men hijacked some airplanes and killed a lot of people. Some brave people fought back and crashed their airplane to keep them from killing other people. In North Carolina, a guy that had been pretty outspoken against the new President had only one thought, "Where is the President? We need a leader. Right. Now." And he decided to give the President that he did not vote for and didn't really believe had been elected in the first place his support. Because the country needed a leader, and he was the one we had, even if he wasn't the one he wanted. And in the first few days and weeks after those attacks, that President did pretty good. He exceeded the expectations of the vocal critic from North Carolina, and handled the worst crisis of my generation as well as could be expected. We won't discuss the seven years that followed, because they are actually beside the point.
The point is this - our country is now in a crisis of a different sort, but one that is no less real and will in the end directly affect more people than the first one. We have a new President, who has the opportunity to be a leader. I'd like to ask all my friends that didn't support Obama in his campaign and don't like anything he stands for to give him the same chance that I gave W. He might not be any good at anything. He might be just more of the same. He might be worse, and he might mortgage our future even more heavily to make today's balance sheet look better.
But he might be good for us. He might be able to do 1/3 of what he says he wants to do. And he deserves the benefit of the doubt for a little while. So give him a shot, even if you don't like him. If I can be big enough to do it for a President I hated, you can too. Then, if he screws up as bad as W, feel free to resume the hate.
The point is this - our country is now in a crisis of a different sort, but one that is no less real and will in the end directly affect more people than the first one. We have a new President, who has the opportunity to be a leader. I'd like to ask all my friends that didn't support Obama in his campaign and don't like anything he stands for to give him the same chance that I gave W. He might not be any good at anything. He might be just more of the same. He might be worse, and he might mortgage our future even more heavily to make today's balance sheet look better.
But he might be good for us. He might be able to do 1/3 of what he says he wants to do. And he deserves the benefit of the doubt for a little while. So give him a shot, even if you don't like him. If I can be big enough to do it for a President I hated, you can too. Then, if he screws up as bad as W, feel free to resume the hate.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Bad Read, Good Outcome
That might have been the theme of my weekend. It was certainly the theme of two big hands I dragged the pot in.
Firstly - Special K raised preflop to $2.75 from early position. One caller before it gets to me on the button, where I had straddled to $1. I make the loose call of $1.75 with J6o, and the flop comes down a lovely J-6-x (x might = a king, but I don't really remember). K bets out, the other preflop caller folds, and I raise. I put him on AK or something of that nature. He thinks for a moment before he raised all in, and I call. He tables the first pair of aces he's seen since October (and I can attest to most of this, since I've been around for most of his sessions since October), and they've been cracked by some dumbass with J6o. The board doesn't pair and I double up.
Secondly - I don't remember any of the preflop action, but the flop came down with a king, and I had KJ soooted. Jim the Knife was firing on every street, and I was calling him down. I didn't feel like I could really re-raise with the Jack, but it was good enough to keep calling with. Everything finished out and Jim tabled a King as well, but no kicker. I didn't put him on anything that strong, but it was a good result. So my reads weren't spectacular, but the results were ok.
One hand where my read was good, and hand held up, went down a little like this. I'm in a blind. BadBlood raised, Jim called, and I looked down at 5d-2d. I remark that I have recently fallen in love with this trashy-assed hand, and make the call. The flop comes down 5-2-9 with two clubs, and I remark that I can't talk about how shitty my hand is, get a raggedy-ass flop like that and NOT bet out, so I bet out at it. Blood raised me, Jim moved all in over the top, and I had to have a nice long think about things. It took me a while, but I finally decided that Jim would make that move with a huge range of hands, and moved all in over the top for my last few pennies. Blood got out of the way, and Jim turned over the best and worst of all possible worlds for me - Kc-7c. I saw the flush draw, and did something I practically never do: I offered to run it twice.
It shows how snakebit I still feel about the last half of 2008 that I even offered to run it twice when I was a 64% favorite to win the hand. Jim agreed, and the board ran out club-free both times, leaving me to drag a huge pot. I finished up pretty significantly on the evening, making up for an awful showing the last time we had a game at my house. I thought about it later, and am still intrigued by my own offer to run it twice. It probably stemmed partially from playing at Blood's house the night before, where running it twice when there are big pots on the line is a fairly common occurence. It also stemmed from a sense of impending doom that goes back to last year, but the fact was that I was only on buy-in #1, and that's a pretty rare place for me to be that late in the evening.
So all in all it was a good weekend of poker, with me logging a rare pair of back-to-back winning sessions to put me back in the black for the year. It looks like the home game is on the road this weekend as your intrepid heroes head north into real hillbilly country to take on the games at the Tri-State race track in Charleston, WV. Lemme know if that's close to your neck of the woods (literally, woods) and we'll grab a beer.
Firstly - Special K raised preflop to $2.75 from early position. One caller before it gets to me on the button, where I had straddled to $1. I make the loose call of $1.75 with J6o, and the flop comes down a lovely J-6-x (x might = a king, but I don't really remember). K bets out, the other preflop caller folds, and I raise. I put him on AK or something of that nature. He thinks for a moment before he raised all in, and I call. He tables the first pair of aces he's seen since October (and I can attest to most of this, since I've been around for most of his sessions since October), and they've been cracked by some dumbass with J6o. The board doesn't pair and I double up.
Secondly - I don't remember any of the preflop action, but the flop came down with a king, and I had KJ soooted. Jim the Knife was firing on every street, and I was calling him down. I didn't feel like I could really re-raise with the Jack, but it was good enough to keep calling with. Everything finished out and Jim tabled a King as well, but no kicker. I didn't put him on anything that strong, but it was a good result. So my reads weren't spectacular, but the results were ok.
One hand where my read was good, and hand held up, went down a little like this. I'm in a blind. BadBlood raised, Jim called, and I looked down at 5d-2d. I remark that I have recently fallen in love with this trashy-assed hand, and make the call. The flop comes down 5-2-9 with two clubs, and I remark that I can't talk about how shitty my hand is, get a raggedy-ass flop like that and NOT bet out, so I bet out at it. Blood raised me, Jim moved all in over the top, and I had to have a nice long think about things. It took me a while, but I finally decided that Jim would make that move with a huge range of hands, and moved all in over the top for my last few pennies. Blood got out of the way, and Jim turned over the best and worst of all possible worlds for me - Kc-7c. I saw the flush draw, and did something I practically never do: I offered to run it twice.
It shows how snakebit I still feel about the last half of 2008 that I even offered to run it twice when I was a 64% favorite to win the hand. Jim agreed, and the board ran out club-free both times, leaving me to drag a huge pot. I finished up pretty significantly on the evening, making up for an awful showing the last time we had a game at my house. I thought about it later, and am still intrigued by my own offer to run it twice. It probably stemmed partially from playing at Blood's house the night before, where running it twice when there are big pots on the line is a fairly common occurence. It also stemmed from a sense of impending doom that goes back to last year, but the fact was that I was only on buy-in #1, and that's a pretty rare place for me to be that late in the evening.
So all in all it was a good weekend of poker, with me logging a rare pair of back-to-back winning sessions to put me back in the black for the year. It looks like the home game is on the road this weekend as your intrepid heroes head north into real hillbilly country to take on the games at the Tri-State race track in Charleston, WV. Lemme know if that's close to your neck of the woods (literally, woods) and we'll grab a beer.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
My first post of the new year
Is lame. I'm alive, but still have nothing interesting to say. Work is keeping me busy, and I'm actually pretty happy about that. I'm writing a good bit about the Aussie Millions over on PokerNews, so that's good. Caldwell resigned, that's kind of a bummer. I like John, and his cute wife and baby too. even though I haven't met the baby. But really, what's not to like about a baby?
I've played a little poker. It's all kinda sucked, so I'm stuck already. Headed south tomorrow night to play in a game where I am absolutely going to be one of the softer spots at the table. But who cares? I get to hang out with Otis, G-Rob, BadBlood, Brian the Red and Absinthe. And I hear there's some dude coming down from the mountains who might have written a thing or two about poker himself.
I've played a little poker. It's all kinda sucked, so I'm stuck already. Headed south tomorrow night to play in a game where I am absolutely going to be one of the softer spots at the table. But who cares? I get to hang out with Otis, G-Rob, BadBlood, Brian the Red and Absinthe. And I hear there's some dude coming down from the mountains who might have written a thing or two about poker himself.
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