American Myths

What Classic Archetypes are your favorite superheroes based on? Here are my thoughts. Let's hear yours:

The Hulk: Mr. Hyde

Superman:Hercules

Captain America: Achilles

Batman: Sherlock Holmes

Iron Man: Frankenstein's Monster

Wonder Woman: Atalanta

Is Pegasus Next?

Here is a picture of a unicorn. This is not a joke and I do not know how to photoshop. This is an actual picture of an actual unicorn discovered in Italy this week. It's not as smooth-looking as the unicorns you see illustrated in storybooks, but reality rarely is. Still. A unicorn.

Selective Memory

I saw a comment online the other day where someone said that if Hillary Clinton was the VP choice she would vote for McCain because she would rather die than see another Clinton in the White House. How can the average person be so psychologically deluded as to buy into this? How can people fail to remember how great things were when Bill Clinton was President? Here's a quick reminder:

Unemployment Rate in 2000: 4 percent
Drop in Violent Crime 1992-2000: 506,784
Hostile Action Military Deaths: 76
Federal Surplus: +230 Billion
Cost of a Gallon of Gas: $1.51

By way of comparison, here are some more current numbers:

Unemployment Rate in 2008: 5.5 percent
Drop in Violent Crime 2000-2006: 7,741
Hostile Action Military Deaths: 2,596
Federal Deficit: -410 Billion
Cost of a Gallon of Gas $4.00

But everyone should keep on voting Republican for President and blaming Democrats and see how much better things get.

The System is Broken

CNN reports today that after the results from Puerto Rico are tallied, Hillary Clinton will have more of the popular vote than Barack Obama. If Obama wins the general election, he will be the second consecutive President who takes office despite another candidate winning the popular vote.

We can all see how well the first one worked out.

The Electoral College system is a dinosaur. It was designed for times when there was no direct communication between states, let alone instant communication all over the world. It was for a time when a local man in a small town had to get up in the town square and say "This man Thomas Jefferson is a great man! Vote for me to ride my horse to Philadelphia and represent Smithtown's interest in Thomas Jefferson!"

That man was called a delegate, and he clearly isn't needed any more. It's time for America to have a true democracy where everyone's vote counts. We can rebuild it. We have the technology.

Wiki Fugue

I have invented a new disease. It is called Wiki Fugue and is characterized by suddenly finding yourself on a Wikipedia page with no explanation and no memory of how you got there. There is no reason for you to be at any of the following Wikipedia pages (except as a link from this one), so if you fnd yourself at any one of these, contact your Internet psychiatrist immediately:

Old Oak Common TMD

Carolyn Waldo

Gauteng

Rhodes Hall

Psychotria Bryonicola

You're Part of a Dystopian Alternate Reality, Charlie Brown

Here's a cute picture of the Peanuts gang depicted as characters from Alan Moore's Watchmen, which I found on a German site called Nerdcore.



While I love the sentiment, I think the creator got the characters a bit wrong, to wit:

Charlie Brown is definitely Nite-Owl. Nite-Owl is an every man, who does his best despite knowing that most of his efforts are ultimately doomed to failure.

I like Schroeder as Ozymandias. They look sort of similar, and both clearly have some special gifts.

Pig Pen has got to be Rorschach. A traumatic childhood would explain a lot about why PigPen is such a mess.

I think Linus is Dr. Manhattan. Linus is sort of the moral center that the Peanuts world revolves around. Although Manhattan has his own unique morality, both he and Manhattan are Jesus-like figures in their respective universes.

By extension this would make Sally the Silk Spectre, since their relationship is a key element of both universes.

Finally I think Lucy is the Comedian. She sees the world as it is and finds it both wanting and entertaining at once, as she pulls the football away every time.

I'll See That Bet, and Raise...

Heroes of the big and small screen have found themselves in gambling situations for as long as television and movies have existed. Here are some common film and TV related gambling tropes.

Craps: Despite the fact that most craps tables have a throng of people crowding to get any piece of the table where they can bet from, and that most of the time the players are betting on someone else's roll, our hero will always be at the head of the table and will always be the shooter for the length of the sequence.

Roulette: Our hero never bets groups of numbers. He only bets a single number or on red or black. He never bets on odd/even. He almost always puts all his chips down on a single spin. This is especially true if he is playing red/black.

(4:30-6:23)

Blackjack: All movie and television heroes can count cards. Not only that, but this ability allows them to win instantly and consistently, despite the fact that real card counting may take hours of meticulous concentration before paying off. The hero will usually get escorted or chased away by casino security rather than getting up of his own accord.



Poker: At some point during the sequence, our hero, whether bluffing or holding the nuts, will go all-in for his entire stack. He is also likely to say "I call your (x amount) and raise you (y amount)" even though calling and raising are two separate actions and to try to do both is a clearly illegal string bet.


Slot Machines: Playing slot machines is not heroic. Our hero will play one coin by accident (he happens to have an extra quarter while waiting for a friend, for example). This coin will win him or her a huge jackpot, despite that most slot machines will not pay off a major jackpot unless you play at least five coins. If a secondary character has played a machine for hours to no avail, the very next person who puts a coin in the machine will win a huge jackpot.

Baccarat: Our hero will appear to be a very skilled baccarat player, despite the fact that there is not an iota of skill involved in baccarat.

Sports Betting: Sports betting is for losers. If our hero bets on sports, it's only to show that he has a gambling problem. Anyone else who bets on sports will usually lose, although a final bet may become a miracle win to save the bettor from total disaster, at least temporarily.

There Will Be Blood (But Not Too Much)

I finally got around to seeing the critically acclaimed Oscar winner "There Will Be Blood," starring Daniel-Day Lewis as ruthless oilman Daniel Plainview. While the movie is a bit of a slow starter, it does get going late in Act II, and the pace of this expose of the oil world based on Upton Sinclair's best seller "Oil!" is not my issue with the movie.

My problem with this movie is it is simply out of date. This should not come as much of a surprise to anyone. The novel on which it is based was published in 1927. The problem is that Mr. Plainview, whom we are supposed to see as a sinister, diabolical, ruthless businessman, simply isn't that big a deal by today's standards. Sure, he ruins a small town or two, shows little compassion for workers killed in his employ, and takes revenge on one or two people who wronged him, but can this really compare with Halliburton's role in the war in Iraq?

Sinclair, who in his time turned a magnifying glass on the ills of industrial society, no doubt meant Oil! to be a cautionary tale on the dangers of business run rampant. Sadly, many more people then, as today, needed jobs than needed books, and the warning went unheeded. As a result, Oil!s bogeyman Plainview, with his odd gait, appearance, and speech patterns and his devastating fury which results in the death of a handful of people at most, is little more than quaint, and most of us probably long for the days when men with as little ambition posed the greatest threat to society.

Will the WSOP Ever Be the Same?

In a stunning move of corporate greed, Harrah's Entertainment has decided to reformat the main event of the World Series of Poker so that the final table, determined in July, will not be played out until November. This is almost universally thought of as a terrible decision by the players, except for the celebrity pros of course, who stand to benefit tremendously from the hype and the publicity, especially if they are chosen to coach one of the final table participants.

There are a ton of reasons why this is a bad idea. One that concerns me the most is the safety of the participants. With millions of dollars on the line, who is to say that some unscrupulous type might not pay someone to make one or more of his opponents "disappear?" It sounds dramatic, but things like this happen in other countries all the time, eliminating the competition, as it were, with a lot less money at stake.

Here are the main reasons why this idea is a disaster and how Harrah's addresses them.

1. Harrah's is getting the "float" from all the entry fee money while waiting for the main event to finish.

Harrahs: The money will be put into an interest-bearing account and the full amount of that account will be distributed to the players when the time comes.

2. The players may have only been able to afford one trip to Vegas this year.

Harrahs: All players will receive ninth place money once the final table is set. In addition, sponsorship deals made in the interim are likely.

3. The players' safety may be at risk.

Harrahs: Each of the players at the final table will be followed closely by television cameras and documentarians up until the final. This close scrutiny should protect them from harm.

4. The players may collude.

Harrahs: See above. Also, Harrah's will take every anti-collusion step they deem possible and effective.

5. A player may die in the intervening months.

Harrahs: A player could just as easily die in the day between the final table being set and the final table commencing under the current format.

I still don't like it, but the chances of my being at the final table of the WSOP this year are negligible, so I guess I'll just sit back and see what happens.

Elvis or Beatles?

In the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction, Uma Thurman's character says that everyone is an Elvis person or a Beatles person (I'm a Beatles person). Personally I think the dichotomy is Beatles/Rolling Stones, but the point is that there are certain areas of pop culture and of societal preference where you have to take a stand. There are Beatles people and Rolling Stones people. There are cat people and dog people. There are Star Wars people and Star Trek people.

And there are Superman people and Batman people.

I have always been a Batman person. When I was an avid comic book collector in my youth I was accused of buying anything with Batman on the cover. Not true (although I did buy this).

A great argument for why Batman is the more intriguing character is presented at BamKapow.com here. You can guess the basic reason: Batman is human and therefore relatable, Superman is basically a God. Alan Moore knew this, and gave us the kind of Superman we could understand in MiracleMan and Dr. Manhattan. As the article points out though, if Superman had too much depth, he would cease to be Superman.

I actually recently heard from a Superman fan the only good counterargument I've ever heard, which went a little something like this:

"Imagine that anything you ever wanted you could just take, and no one could stop you. Any frustration could be dispelled, any desire immediately quenched. You decide not to act on those desires. Now imagine you have to make that choice every second of every day. Most of us don't have the willpower to skip a tasty looking donut even though we know it's not good for us. Now look at Superman."

Does sort of put the debate in a different light, I must admit.

Why Not Backgammon?

Why isn't backgammon televised? I can understand why chess is not televised, or is televised rarely. The strategy of chess is fascinating and there are even some interesting personalities. However, chess, like poker before hole card cams, is basically unwatchable. A half hour or more can go without anything happening at all (this happens in soccer too, but at least there are a lot of people running around to distract viewers). In addition, the players are generally immobile and quiet, which is not good television. Plus, the finer points of the game are difficult for the average viewer to grasp.


Backgammon is a different story. Many of today's poker pros, like Gus Hansen and Paul Magriel, are top backgammon players. Backgammon can also be played for huge sums of money, and the amount of money at stake can even change with the strategic application of the doubling cube. Also, backgammon is highly accessible, as a brief primer on the rules can make it easy to understand for everybody. Additionally, there is constant action, one player or another is always on move, and while finding the correct move can be difficult, the options are usually somewhat limited. Finally, backgammon can be played online, both for money and for free, so people can watch the action and then jump in themselves.

I am only a casual backgammon player, but I'm ready for the World Backgammon Tour. Steve Lipscomb, are you listening?

In the Beginning...

I recently stumbled upon the American Book Review’s “100 Best First Lines from Novels.” I immediately began to wonder by what standard these lines were judged. It seems to me that many of them were judged based on the novels that were to follow, or on how familiar the line was as belonging to a particular work.

To me this does not seem to me a fair way to judge. Is the first line on the list: “Call me Ishmael,” really such a great line? Or is it great because it is so recognizable as the opening line of Moby Dick? Or how about Marcel Proust’s “For a long time, I went to bed early”? A great first line? One of the 100 greatest? Really? Some of these lines I agree are truly great, for example, 6, 8, 18 and 29. Others are severely wanting.

To me, a great first line is one that compels the reader to read not just the next line, but to the very end, on the strength of that single line. It is a line that tells the reader everything about the novel to follow, and yet nothing. That having been said, here are some of my “best” opening lines of novels:

1. When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.-Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

2. This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.-Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

3. If you’re going to read this, don’t bother. –Choke, Chuck Palahniuk

4. Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that, Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.-Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk

5. ONCE UPON A TIME, not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.-Cujo, Stephen King

6. You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning.-Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney

There are others, but I think you get the idea—C.

Harrington

I'm halfway through Volume 1 of Dan Harrington's latest book, Harrington on Cash Games, so I thought it would be a good time for a preliminary review.

Dan Harrington is one ofthe great tournament hold'em players of all time. He won the World Series of Poker championship in 1995 and has made the final four not once but twice since then, navigating huge fields to do so. His Harrington on Hold'em series changed the way people think about tournament poker. In fact, a week after I finished them, this happened.

Naturally, I was excited to pick up these volumes, since my no limit hold'em cash game has been a bit lacking compared to no limit tournaments or other forms of poker. While I'd still recommend getting the book, I must say that halfway through I am a bit disappointed.

My main issue is the way Harrington conceptualizes no limit cash game players. He essentially says that everyone at the table should have at least 100 big blinds worth of chips at all times, since anyone can rebuy whenever they want, so there's no reason anyone should have less than this unless they are specifically playing a short stack strategy.

Of course, there are many reasons why someone would have less than this. Unlike Dan Harrington, some people have financial considerations and can't afford to continually rebuy not only when they go broke, but whenever they dip below their starting stack. Others come to play their buy-in and that's it.

Furthermore, in Los Angeles where I play, most of the no limit games I play are capped buy-in, which means that it is mandatory that all players start with around 40 big blinds.

What all this means is that I'm not sure how much the information applies to the non-pro, unless the online no limit game is radically different from the one I play, since I rarely play NL cash games online. While I recognize and appreciate the need for deepstack cash game advice, I'm not sure that deepstack high bankroll pros are the main audience for the book, and if they are, there's no need to waste 50 pages explaining concepts like pot odds, implied odds, calculating outs and bluffs.

I like the way the book is constructed, with detailed hand analysis and problems to check your work, and I still have high hopes for the rest of the Volume and part 2. My only hope is at some point the book addresses the games that have plenty of stack sizes anywhere from less than 10 to greater than 300 which I commonly play in.

Hail Caesars!

I was in Las Vegas last weekend with my main goal being to play as many poker tourn-aments as possible. I stumbled upon the Caesars Palace Poker Room and I'm glad I did. Hidden in an alcove between the PURE nightclub and the sports book, this room is one of the best kept secrets in Las Vegas. The room is huge, probably the biggest one in Las Vegas. It is ornately decorated with comfortable chairs for lounging throughout the room. A doorway leads to a separate poker room which is just as spacious as the main room.

The tournaments match the decor. Professionally run, their structure is the best I've ever seen outside of a WSOP tournament or WPT main event. 40 minute rounds with 10,000 in chips at best, 30 minutes with 4000 in chips at worst. On top of this, they offer a second chance jackpot where if you are still in the room playing a cash game an hour after the tournament ends, you get a bonus. I actually won it to the tune of $400 and it really made a difference in my trip. Anyway, if you love poker tournaments or poker in general and you are in Vegas, you need to check out the Caesar's Palace Poker room.

Tournament Room

Oh, as for my results, 4 Caesar's Palace tournaments: 1 final table, once final two tables. 1 Venetian Tournament: no cash, 1 Monte Carlo tournament: 1st place.

Kudos to the Writers of the Sarah Connor Chronicles

Great line from the season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: (1:09 on the clip)

John: Well I guess when they say you can't fight city hall, they really mean it."

Reese: Well, whoever said that didn't have as much plastique as we do."

And the Oscar Goes To....

Your 2008 Best Picture is No Country for Old Men. I've made my feelings about that particular film very clear over at USeeThat, but I have another axe to grind.

It's more of a question really. I watched the Oscar broadcast to see a countdown of all the Best Pictures leading to the present one, and I wondered: Where have all the great films gone?

Here in reverse chronological order are all the Best Picture wins of the 21st century:


No Country for Old Men

The Departed

Crash

Million Dollar Baby

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Chicago

A Beautiful Mind

Some of these are good movies. Some of them are great movies. But are they All-Time Great movies?

Here's the lineup for Best Picture in the decade of the 1970s:

Kramer vs. Kramer

The Deer Hunter

Annie Hall

Rocky

One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest

The Godfather Part II

The Sting

The Godfather

The French Connection

Can anyone realistically say that a Crash or a Chicago or a Lord of the Rings has the drama of a Kramer vs. Kramer? The cultural influence of a Godfather? The pathos of a Deer Hunter? The timelessness of a Rocky? The wit of an Annie Hall? Is it even close? Should a cinematic adaptation of a play or the third movie in a trilogy even really be considered for Best Picture?

Perhaps the Best Pictures of the modern day will be looked back upon as timeless classics, and it is only through the opaque, rose colored glass of history that the best films of thirty years ago seem so superior. But if not, why? Are the true best pictures falling through the cracks? Are modern film making techniques somehow diluting the quality of the films they purport to improve? I'm certain the directors, writers, et. al of the modern era are working just as hard as their predecessors to produce quality products, so why the disparity?

As someone who was a mere child in the 70s and has never been a Hollywood insider, I don' t know if I'm qualified to speculate intelligently about this, but it sure does arouse my curiosity.

Five Coolest Lines from "The Terminator" (1984)

1. "That Terminator is out there. It' can't be bargained with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear and it absolutely WILL NOT STOP. Ever. UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD."

2. "He'll find her. That's what he does. That's ALL HE DOES."

3. "I'll be back."

4. "Come with me if you want to live."

5. "You'll be perfectly safe. We got 30 cops in this building."

Super Bowl Wrapup II

Okay, time now to continue my annual tradition of recapping the Super Bowl.

The Game:

The NEW YORK GIANTS are your Super Bowl XLII Champions! Who could have predicted it? Oh wait, I did, a week and a half ago.

In all fairness, it's easy to pick an underdog; if they lose, you get credit for making such a bold prediction and if they win, you look like a genius. And it was sort of a soft prediction. Nevertheless, I put it out there.

Since it seems like it will still be a long time before my long-suffering Jets make the big dance, I will have to live vicariously through their sister team. I will definitely enjoy the blemish on Belicheck's perfect season. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Congratulations 1972 Miami Dolphins.

Objectively, I think any football fan can be happy that we had a great game where each team had their destiny in their own hands down to the final minute of play. Everyone wants a great game (except perhaps Patriot fans, who would have been completely intolerable had Brady pulled out a last second miracle) and we got one.

Oh. And the commercials. Every year, the cry goes out that the commercials aren't what they used to be. Don't believe me? Click here. And every year I insist that they were NEVER what they used to be. I think we always got one or two good ads, which lingered in our memory as a spate of great Super Bowl commercials. The commercials haven't changed, WE'VE changed. If we could have hopped online in 1970 or 80 or 90 to dissect every commercial that appeared, as we can today, I wonder if we would ever have learned to romanticize Super Bowl ads. Furthermore, in the last decade, there has been a quantum leap in the level of ingenuity required by advertisers looking to attract clients online, and the tools they have at hand to entertain, surprise and amuse viewers thanks to technology. Traditional T.V. commercials really don't stand that much of a chance.

In sum, we had an exciting season, a great final game, some cool commercials (Alex Rocco reprising his Godfather "Horse head" scene with a car grill), some lame ones (a baby buying stocks on eTrade, Coke bringing Republicans and Democrats together, these are just tired retreads as far as I'm concerned...besides the only kind of coke that brings Republicans and Democrats together doesn't come in soda bottles) and a bunch in between. Next up, Super Tuesday, a contest whose outcome is actually of genuine importance.

How Much Longer Will This Go On?

The producers of the Miss America pageant pulled out all the stops this year, offering a hip new show with hotter swimsuits, text message voting, and pop culture related questions. How could viewers watch this annual tribute to the glorification of women?

On TLC as the culmination of a four week long reality series.

America, it's time to let your girl go. In the first place, no one has ever seen the Miss America pageant as anything less than a beauty contest except its producers, who diligently weight talent and Q/A categories, the only result being to leave viewers puzzled as to why the most beautiful girls never seem to win.

In the second place, the Miss America pageant was conceived in 1921. Television didn't even come into existence in the United States until 1940. The concept of Miss America came to light at a time before teenage girls could be world famous pop stars and championship athletes, before adult women could manage billion dollar companies and run for President, before anyone in America could flip on their computers and find pictures and biographical data on hundreds of beautiful, talented women in moments on the Internet.

In short, the time for beauty pageants, particularly this one, has long past. Let it die.

Oh, and congratulations to the beautiful and talented Kristen Haglund, Miss Michigan, on being selected Miss America 2008.

Do the Giants Have a Chance?

The New York Giants are going to Super Bowl XLII. It's hard to believe. At the beginning of the season, it would have been an iffy proposition as to whether or not they would have made the playoffs. Now only one thing stands between them and hoisting their third Vince Lombardi Trophy.

That one thing? One of the greatest football teams of all time.

As a Jets fan, it pains me to say this, but the New England Patriots, like the Green Bay Packers of the '60s, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins of the '70s, San Francisco 49ers of the '80s, and Dallas Cowboys of the '90s, have earned the title of team of the decade. The Patriots are the team of the '00s, and, video assistance or not, are going to be tough to beat.

Can the Giants do it? Of course they can. They were an underdog to Dallas; an underdog to Green Bay. They've shown they can put up points, and they've shown they can play defense. If anyone can put a blemish on the Patriots perfect season, it's the Giants.

Then again, I could be biased. I really, really hate the Patriots.

Ch-ch-changes

The Democratic Primary battle has been cast by the mainstream media (who we learned in New Hampshire don't have a clue) as "Change vs. Experience." But what does this really mean? What are voters supposedly asking for when they ask for "change?" Change to me means something different from what is currently there. Given that we currently have a NeoConservative Republican regime, it seems pretty clear that any Democrat, be he or she moderate or liberal, will represent a change.



ITS THE CHANGIEST!



So what does it mean? Are we to believe that Barack Obama is somehow changier than Hillary? Clearly, both are opposed to every position the government currently holds, be it on Health Care, Abortion Rights, Gay Rights, The Economy or any other issue you can think of. Are we to believe that once Hillary gets into office, she'll say "hmm, I wanted to be President so I could do all of these things, but they're just too "changy?" The whole concept is utterly ridiculous. Some suggest that voting for Hillary would just send us back to the Clinton Era. The Clinton Era where the twin towers were still standing, there was no war in Iraq, the Federal Deficit was a Federal Surplus, and crime and unemployment were down instead of rising? That all sounds pretty good and changy to me.

How Do You Mount A Comeback When You're The Frontrunner? With a Little Help from Iowa, CNN and FOX News

With apologies to L.L. Cool J, DO call it a comeback. In 1992, an overlooked Bill Clinton began a massive surge to the Presidency when he shocked the world with a second place finish in New Hampshire, causing him to be annointed "The Comeback Kid."

But it seemed that for Hillary, there would be no energizing "Comeback Moment." How could there be? Hillary was the presumptive frontrunner, and even a second place finish might be viewed as a devastating loss.

But then something changed. Polls showed Obama not only gaining ground, but taking the lead over Clinton. A CNN poll showing Obama as a 9 percent favorite was viewed by Fox "analysts" (in whose hands the poll lead magically morphed into "12 or 13 percent") as a massive defeat for Clinton. the Fox pundits gleefully readied themselves to desecrate Clinton's corpse. Other news agencies quickly followed suit.

Even I, who predicted Hillary's nomination a year ago, was beginning to feel some cracks in my armor of confidence. But I never should have doubted the Clinton machine.

Whether it was targeting younger voters, preparing a shakeup of staff, or Clinton's showing of actual emotion at a speech in New Hampshire (see below), she pulled it off, not only winning in New Hampshire but turning herself into a comeback kid.

All I can say is. Look out Obama.

While Edwards claims he is in this to the end, I think the handwriting is on the wall. Clinton's best move now would be to reach out to Edwards with a VP spot on her ticket as soon as possible and lock him up before he throws his weight on Obama's side. Hillary, if you're reading this, give John a call.

Oh, Roger....

Well, Roger Clemens, to no one's surprise, is denying allegations of steroid abuse as outlined in the Mitchell Report. The real surprise is that anyone is taking his denials seriously. His pathetic argument, which seems like it may have been constructed while watching a "Bonds on Bonds" marathon over a bottle of Jim Beam, is that he was injecting B-12 and Lidocaine for his joints. As Dan Patrick remarked on his radio show: "When will he start taking Truthdocaine?

Another radio host commented, and I paraphrase: If Clemens did steroids under the current climate of scrutiny, he would have to be the dumbest person of all time.

I can see why someone would think Roger Clemens is very smart and self aware, after all, this is the guy who thew a SHARP STAKE at an innocent person on INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION.

This is also a guy who lied every time he said he retired as soon as another team made him a better offer and whose teammates are pretty much giving up that they use performance enhancing drugs (making this the year that both the Yankees and Patriots are correctly accused of cheating which is deeply satisfying). A guy who continues to throw ungodly fastballs ten years after he should have been retired, and whose excuse is just a weird combination of the first two excuses he heard: Bonds' "I didn't know the substance was steroids" and Petite's "I was just doing it to come back from injury."

I'm not afraid to say it here (since no one is reading this): Roger Clemens, you are a lying sack of crap and I can't wait to see you embarrass yourself on 60 Minutes.

There.

The Race is On!

So the Iowa Caucuses have come and gone, and the big winner on the Democrats side is Barack Obama. Good for Obama, but I'm not ready to back off my prediction just yet. First of all, the Iowa Caucuses are the perfect place for a guy like Obama to shine. It may be possible to actually shake the hand of every single Democratic Iowa Caucus voter, and that's just the kind of thing Obama's good at. Secondly, this sweeping, crushing 38% plurality of Obama's results in a net gain of how many delegates? One. This is a deficit I think the Clinton machine can make up.

Edwards, on the other hand, may be in some trouble. Shaking the hands of rural folk is also what Edwards does best, and if Obama does it better, he may be looking at a Vice Presidential nod once again. Time will tell.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee is your big winner. Huckabee is just the kind of religious loon that right wingers love to vote for. Sure, he seems like a nice guy day-to-day. On the other hand he compared abortion to the holocaust and homosexuality to necrophilia. This guy will be one to watch.

Jerry, Where Art Thou?

It's been nearly six months since Jerry Yang won the World Series of Poker.



Since then, there's been no sign of him. Sure, he hasn't had any big tournament success since then, but Jamie Gold didn't have any major cashes in his first six months and it seems like his name and face were everywhere.

Now, of course, circumstances were a bit different. Gold was involved in a massive lawsuit involving the right to his winnings. But this did not affect the fact that Gold has appeared on numerous televised poker programs featuring celebrity pros, such as Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker, while Yang is nowhere to be seen. A Google search of Yang turns up mostly links to the guy who owns Yahoo:

Yahoo Champion----------Poker Champion

So where is Yang? Is it simply too soon? I don't think so. The word was that Yang was going to be an "Ambassador of Poker." He was going to usher in a new era of poker that would wash clean the stain of Gold's lawsuit-tainted victory.

But I think maybe people like the taint. They like their poker champions with a little edge. Either that, or maybe the poker boom is finally coming to a head. With U.S. restrictions on Internet poker and nearly five years since Chris Moneymaker's historic victory, maybe the bloom is off the poker rose.

Time will tell. In the meantime, I'm playing in a tournament next week.

One Awesome Christmas Present

Look what just turned up in my stocking!

Evil for Dummies

Last night, as I prepared to slip off to Slumberland with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head, I suggested to my girlfriend "why don't we watch a pleasant Christmas show to fall asleep to?" Purposefully aiming the remote, she responded: "How about MOST EVIL?"

MOST EVIL is a gratuitous program on the Discovery Channel wherein Dr. Michael Stone fetishises serial killers by placing them on a scale which he has the audacity refer to as a "scientific tool," his MOST EVIL scale.

The only scientific tool anywhere near this scale is the guy who invented it. Calling a scale of evil a scientific tool is like calling One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi a scientific time measurement. There is no conceivable diagnostic value in deciding that Charles Manson is a 15 and the Reverend Jim Jones is a 22. Stone offers no suggestions for treatment of those on the scale, and it's clear that the designations are fairly arbitrary and mostly speak to how strong the ego is of the subject (if you got other people to kill for you, you score high. If you killed for someone else, you score lower).

Will Smith, Basically a Good Person

In an atrocious example of yellow journalism, Hollywood.com attempted to stir up some trouble last week by printing that Will Smith thought that Hitler was a good person. This is of course not what he said. He essentially said that no one with any modicum of sanity wakes up in the morning planning to do evil, or thinking they are evil. This wild, politically incorrect idea was first suggested by well-known close-minded bigot Socrates. So Will, why don't you go hang out with your own kind at any Philosophy department in the country if you love Hitler so much?

That last bit was sarcasm. The fact is, people all think what they are doing is right and good. That's why we have those terms. Does it seem more likely that Saddam Hussein woke up in the morning thinking that he was evil and George Bush was good, that he wanted the dark forces to win like he was some kind of desert Sith Lord? Or did he probably think that a white infidel was evil for threatening his and his people's way of life? If he didn't think he was evil, did this make him a good person? Obviously not.


Labeling others as evil is just a way for us to feel superior. Feeling superior is not a good starting point if you are trying to understand others who behave in a way you don't care for. This does not mean that people cannot commit horrible acts and be deserving of punishment for it. It's even okay to hate them. But calling them evil is just howling at the moon, and I think that was Will's point, and it's a good one. Take note, Dr. Stone.

The True Meaning of Christmas

At this time of year, as people rush around trying to finish off their last minute Christmas shopping, I think it's important for all of us to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

Christmas, as Sol Invictus, has been a pagan ritual for thousands of years celebrating the winter solstice. Why is the winter solstice so important? It represents the time that the Earth's orbit begins to bring the Northern hemisphere closer to the sun; in effect, the days get longer again. For ancient peoples, this represented the Sun God's reemergence, hence, the celebration of Sol Invictus: "the unconquered sun." In later years, Jesus ("the unconquered son?") fit neatly into the pantheon of gods whose rebirth was signified by the solstice.

The point being that it's okay to get psyched about Christmas because of the presents. Christmas is a celebration of new life and rebirth, "the sun will come out tomorrow," as it were. Save your whining about peace on Earth and goodwill towards men for Easter.

Christmas is also a good time for us to remember Odin. Odin, the Norse God who was All-father to folks like Thor and Baldur, also liked to fly through the air on his eight-legged horse. Did he give presents to all the good little boys and girls? One can only look to the skies and wonder.

Users are Losers

So, the Mitchell report is out, and it turns out that....wait for it....a bunch of baseball players use steroids. Hard to believe, I know, but it's true. The biggest revelation the report revealed?

No one cares.

No one I know, anyway. I mean once you get past the fact that the best player in the game, the best slugger of all time, went from looking

like this:

To like this:

What else is there? So a bunch of names came out. There are probably a bunch more that didn't, and who knows, maybe even one or two on the list are wrongly accused. The point is, America has gotten far beyond the point of being so naive about its national pasttime as to believe that its players are moral paragons. We know they cheat, we sort of hope our favorites don't, but we watch them anyway. I don't think there's a name on that list that shocked anyone, and if there is, there shouldn't be. If Major League Baseball thinks steroids are a problem that should be corrected, they should fix it, with better and more frequent tests and harsher penalties. Naming names is boring. Besides that, it's fascist.

Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution!

Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution! is a system for beating Craps promoted by gambling authority Frank Scoblete.

I have nothing interesting to say on the subject of Craps. It's a casino table game which can be a lot of fun if you have money to burn and don't mind a lot of people around you screaming.

I just love saying "Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution! Doesn't it sound like the name of a Japanese Game Show?

Show Me the Money

I signed with The Gage Group on Thursday. My agent, Josh Orenstein, is a smart guy who always seems to be hustling and has a lot of stuff going on, so I'm pretty sure we're going to make a bunch of money together once this strike ends.

If it ever ends....

Anyway if someone happens to stumble upon this blog and wants to hire me for something, contact him.

Once this wretched strike ends....

Casino Games that Sound Dirty But Are Not

1. Three Way Action

2. Around the World

3. Big Split Poker

4. Double Exposure

5. Flip It

Strike!

So as of last Monday, the Writer's Guild is on strike. Although I am not currently a member of the guild, I had hoped to be one soon, so this is still bad for me. To me this is reminiscent of one of those TV or movie scenes where the executive slides a piece of paper over to the hapless worker and says "this is what I am prepared to offer you" then cackles with glee as the worker opens the paper to find a big fat zero written on it.

The worst was the New York Times article which referred to the Rockefeller Center picketers being just like real picketers except "instead of hard hats and work boots they sported fancy scarves and arty glasses," or something to that effect. I guess journalists somehow consider themselves superior as writers to screen and television writers. I look forward to seeing you pull on your work boots and tool belt when your union strikes.

The fact is that when labor knuckles, all workers lose, whether it's Hollywood screenwriters, baseball players, sanitation workers or fry cooks. In almost every case, whatever labor wants, it's inevitably about one percent or less of what management is getting, despite the fact that labor does all the work (hence "labor"). The writers are asking for very little, just a small piece, ANY piece, of the new media pie. Considering that there is no new media without them and that the producers are offering nothing, does that really make them worthy of derision?

By the way, has everyone heard about "Aqua Dots?" They are this new candy imported by the Chinese that contain the date rape drug. Aren't the Chinese scoring enough points with us without making Christmas come early for American pedophiles? It seems to me like we didn't have these many problems with the Chinese when Clinton was in office.

Poker Guide for Tourists

If you're planning to play live poker, you should expect to find different types of players at different types of games. Of course, every game will have their share of nice guys and jerks, but certain types seem to gravitate more to some games than others. To wit:

7 card Stud: This game tends to consist of elderly players waiting to die.

Omaha: Omaha seems to attract the most wretched refuse of poker playing society. Omaha players always seem to be looking for a fight, whether it's with other players or the dealer, and often display some of the sourest pusses you've ever seen. A fun tactic Omaha players seem to enjoy is lying to the dealer about the strength of their hand. Omaha hands are already the toughest in poker to read, plus the dealer has to make sure that the pot is split properly, which if there are side pots and quartering, can be extremely difficult to do correctly, so for a player to announce they have a straight or a nut low when they know they don't really adds to the fun. And of course, the players will not hesitate to berate the dealer mercilessly if he/she makes any mistake.

Limit Hold'em: I've actually found limit players to be among the most pleasant of poker players. Life or death (by way of your entire stack) does not hinge on the turn of every card, so it's a much more relaxed atmosphere. These players are much happier to chat with you and enjoy playing the game.

No Limit: This game, being the most popular, attracts the biggest mix of players. There are some very nice players in the NL game, and some miserable SOBs as well. Many NL players want you to think they are professionals (generally the ones who really aren't) and a lot of them look around as if they are waiting for a bigger game, especially if they've just lost a huge pot in this one. On the other hand, this game also has players who very quietly and patiently collect everyone's chips.

Tournament: I find that a lot of tournament players have something to prove. That is, they want everyone to know that they're not the dead money at the table, somebody else is. This can be characterized by wild, inappropriate aggression or a lot of big table talk. Tournaments are also where you will find the most Internet wizards, skinny kids who are barely old enough to shave and calculate every move seemingly perfectly as they push chips into the pot and build their stacks, mostly unfazed by the occasional, inevitable bad beat.

High Stakes

If any of you out there are poker fans (if there is anyone out there) you owe it to yourself to check out High Stakes Poker. I had a previous post that explained why:

http://craigshappyplace.blogspot.com/2006/07/tournament-poker-is-for-sissies.html

This season, season 4, the players came up with a brilliant innovation that should have the producers kissing their collective feet. Unlike the usual prop bets that no one outside of the game can appreciate, they came up with an ingenious one that drove the action like crazy. It was this: Anyone who wins with "The Hammer" (7-2) gets $500 from each player.



The most brilliant thing about this is that the amount won from each player was less than one big blind, but every player is willing to put thousands at risk in order to win the prop. Think of an arrangement in your $5/$10 game where everyone has to pay you eight bucks if you win with 7-2, so every player ends up risking $200 or $300 in order to collect a $60 or $70 bounty.

I also enjoyed when Phil Hellmuth says "Mike, explain to the viewers at home what it means to 'buy the button,'" when it was clear that Phil didn't know and there were probably about a hundred thousand "viewers at home" who knew exactly what was going on.

Do Pink's Hot Dogs Contain Peyote?

There's a very famous Hot Dog stand on La Brea in Los Angeles called Pink's. No matter when you go, any day of the week, day or night, there is a line down the block for this place's specialty sausages, hot dogs and other assorted junk foods. Now I don't want to slander anybody, but I just want to point out that I (and others) find myself experiencing strange, vivid dreams after a night at Pink's, and even immediately after ingesting one of their spicy sausage dogs find myself feeling in somewhat of an altered state.

Think about it. What could REALLY make someone stand in line for two hours to get a stinkin hot dog?

Here She Is.....

Miss New Jersey has a problem.

Apparently some unflattering photos of her have surfaced and some blackmailers are attempting to use them to extort her.

These are far from the guys in Tony Soprano's crew trying to pull off this caper. Would you really want to brag about using photos you pulled off the Internet (Facebook, to be exact) to try to blackmail MISS FREAKIN JERSEY? Is there any reason to believe Miss New Jersey even has any money?

She's not standing for it, inspiring beauty pageant contestants with checkered pasts everywhere. "Go ahead," she defiantly cries, "show my Girls Gone Wild tryout to the world. See if I care!" It's an admirable stand, and it brings up an interesting point. As of this moment I'm calling for Smut Unrestricted Beauty Peagants.

They have this in Body building, some contests are tested for steroids, and some aren't. Sure in the drug free competitions you see what heights the body can attain naturally, but for the real musclebound behemoths, you've got to go to the steroid guys.

I say it should be the same for beauty pageants. Did you ever see a beauty pageant winner and think, "gee, with all the incredibly beautiful actresses, musicians, supermodels and athletes out there, this is the best of the best?" More to the point, did you ever think "oh, there was a beauty pageant?"

Beauty pageants used to mean something in this country. Now, no one cares. Some may argue that this is due to a moving away from sexism and objectification of women in this country, but both Donald Trump and I say, "pshaw!" The Donald was happy to forgive his current crown holder, Tara Conner, her indiscretions, and he's got the right idea. Other competitions have changed with the times. The Olympics started allowing pros to generate ratings, and it's time for Beauty Pageants to follow suit. Let's allow the most ethically bankrupt contestants possible. Give me your Meth heads, your dominatrices, your prostitutes, your huddled heroin addicts yearning to be free. THEN you'll see a beauty pageant worth watching, one in which the winner can hold her smutty head up high with pride.

Arrivederci Tony

So the final episode of the Sopranos has come and gone, and the virtual watercooler has been buzzing non-stop. First, the theories. I've heard three popular theories about the meaning of the final scene.

1) Life goes on for Tony, but what a life! The building tension of this scene tells us how Tony lives his existence and how he will continue to do so until he ends up either whacked or in jail, that is, constantly on the lookout for enemies, even during something as mundane as a family dinner outing.

2) The sudden ending of the scene represents Tony getting whacked, probably by the guy who just headed to the bathroom, as a bit of a Godfather homage.

3) The sudden ending of the scene means that we, the audience, have been whacked.

I like the first theory a lot. It fits. Tony's existence has been alternatively glamorized and made to repulse us. In the end, Tony doesn't change, and therefore nothing in his life does, hence the final song lyrics "Don't stop--" as in, perhaps, don't stop looking over your shoulder, even when spending quality time with your "real" family.

The second theory just doesn't make any sense. There's no reason to assume that anyone has it in for Tony right now. It's politically expedient based on the episode for New York to keep Tony right where he is, and he has a good relationship with the Feds too. In fact, other than the fact that the core of his casa nostra family has been decimated, Tony has emerged pretty much on top, with his position as Capo di Tutti Capi secure, his daughter looking at a bright future as a sleazy lawyer and his whiny bratty son finding his perfect niche as a future whiny bratty movie producer (anyone notice the irony of Tony pushing his son into the Hollywood life that Christopher longed for but Tony would never let him have?)

The third theory is just stupid. We've been whacked? This show has never broken the fourth wall in any way before, why start now?

All in all, I think the finale was satisfying not in spite of the abrupt ending, but because of it. The bottom line is nearly all series finales are unsatisfying if the series was of high quality, because no matter how you slice it, it's over. Might as well cut it off in the middle to show that nothing ever really ends. In fact

Are NBC's HEROES the X-Men?

There was some buzz after one of the later episodes of Season 1 of NBC's "Heroes" regarding its similarity to the classic X-Men story arc "Days of Future Past." But how similar are "the Heroes" to "The X-Men?" Let's see how many Heroes have X-Counterparts:

Hero/Power/X-Man
Claire Bennett /Healing Factor/ Wolverine
Hiro Nakamura /Teleportation /Nightcrawler
Niki Sanders /Combat Ability-Strength/Beast
Nathan Petrelli /Flight /Angel
Peter Petrelli /Absorb others Abilities-Benign /Mimic
Sylar /Absorb others Abilities-Parasitic /Rogue
Matt Parkman /Telepathy /Professor X
Micah Sanders /Technopath /Forge
D.L. Hawkins /Phase through Solid Matter /Shadowcat
Candace Wilmer/Change Appearance/Mystique
Isaac Mendez /See the Future /Destiny
Linderman /Healing Ability /Healer

I recognize that there are only a limited number of powers out there and a lot of mutants in the X-men universe AND that these powers are not exact analogues, however, most of the major Heroes and primary X-men seem to be represented here although Mimic is a secondary character, Healer is a Morlock and Mystique and Destiny are Brotherhood. Are the similarities to close to be ignored? You be the judge.

The Ten Most Influential Mainstream Comic Books In History

In no particular order.

1. Saga of the Swamp Thing #21 "The Anatomy Lesson" By Alan Moore, Steven Bisette, John Tottleben and Rick Veitch.

Alan Moore received critical acclaim and his legendary status in graphic novel writing history with his seminal work "Watchmen," but it all started two years earlier when Moore was called upon to save the struggling "Swamp Thing." Moore's take on the character, that he was a monster masquerading as a man rather than a man who had become a monster, revolutionized mainstream comic books, and set the stage for what was to come.

2. The Dark Knight Returns #1 "The Dark Knight Returns" By Frank Miller

As Moore was doing his part to change the way people thought about comic books, Frank Miller was contributing in his own way. His saga of Batman at 50 brought Batman back from the freewheeling, camped out version of the 60s and 70s and restored the character to his darker roots, without which hit movies like "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" would never have happened.

3. Watchmen #1 "At Midnight All the Agents..." By Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons


The graphic novel Moore is best known for, and recognized as one of TIME's 100 greatest novels of all time, Moore deconstructed super heroes in Watchmen in a way that had never seen before, but has been often imitated since.

4. Giant Size X-Men #1 "Deadly Genesis!" By Len Wein and Dave Cockrum

The X-Men are arguably the most popular superhero group of all time, and it all started with this "reinvention of the super team in the mid 70s, which gave us Wolverine, years before Hugh Jackman ever graced a camera lens.

5. Sandman #1 "Sleep of the Just" By Neil Gaiman and Sam Kieth


Where Moore started things, Neil Gaiman took over (literally, in the case of another popular Moore book, "Miracleman"). In Sandman, another struggling DC property, Gaiman made a rich mythology all his own, drawing on sources as far ranging as Crowleyan Mysticism and Chinese Legend.

6. Uncanny X-Men #137 "The Fate of the Phoenix" by Chris Claremont and John Byrne



While Len Wein may have reinvented the superteam with the X-Men, Chris Claremont defined it. The pathos of his stories kept readers rapt for years, particulalrly this one, where he was bold enough to kill off a major character who had been beloved for years. In contrast to most comic book deaths, she actually stayed dead for quite some time too.

7. Action Comics #1 "Superman" by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

This is really the one that started it all. Although there were costumed crusaders before Superman appeared, Siegel and Shuster's creation truly represented the birth of the costumed superhero.

8. Amazing Fantasy #15 "The Amazing Spider-Man" by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

While much of the four color world of Superman was cast in black and white, Spiderman was the first hero to live in a world where life was not perfect, and the problems he evaded when he put on his super-suit and fought crime were still there waiting for him when the mask came off.

9. Detective Comics #27 "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate" by Bill Finger and Bob Kane

The comic book that spawned a thousand stories, books, T.V. shows and movies, Batman is the archetype of the "human" superhero, one that is pushed to become something better than a mere mortal by circumstance and his own indomitable will.

10. Flash #123 "Flash of Two Worlds" by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino

Before the idea of parallel universes became commonplace, the Flash introduced us to the idea of Earth-2, a world that was much like our own, but different in some very significant ways. This concept reshaped the entire D.C. Universe, and perhaps the way we look at our own universe as well.

Two final notes: 1, I apologize for my DC bias. I grew up a DC guy, and I'll always be one. 2. I recognize that many people go into the creation of these books, including inkers, letterers, and colorists, and I honor and respect their contributions, even if I did not have the room to include all of their names here.