Dark Knight Triumphant

"The Dark Knight" is currently the 12th highest grossing movie of all time, and is projected to eventually slide into the #2 spot between "Star Wars (A New Hope)" and "Titanic". It's definitely a quality movie and one that is true to the 1985 "Post-Crisis" movement, what I like to call the "Reality Shift" movement of comics. It shouldn't be surprising that a movie like this has finally come out, as guys like me who were comic-reading teenagers in the 80s have finally become old enough to make movies. It will be very interesting to see what Hollywood does with "Watchmen" and how both the non-comic reading public and the fans respond.


So, hits and misses with "The Dark Knight" from a Fanboy's perspective.

Hits:

The Joker: Heath Ledger's performance is a hit, of course, although in all fairness, this is not a role that lacks meat. William Goldman, the legendary screenwriter, points out that while Dustin Hoffman received accolades for playing the autistic brother in "Rain Man," the far more challenging role is the one Tom Cruise portrays, as the brother who doesn't have all sorts of built in tics and mannerisms to play with. I think Dark Knight presents the same issue. The Joker is easy to play. Jack Nicholson had no trouble with the character in the original Batman movie and Cesar Romero didn't in the 60s TV Show. In contrast, look at the disastrous turns that guys like Val Kilmer and George Clooney had as the Caped Crusader. Playing the guy who is supposed to be in control and subdued all the time and still reveal the rage boiling underneath, that's the tough job, and I think Christian Bale pulls it off excellently. I think the real problem is that those prior actors didn't know how to play Bruce Wayne. Christian Bale does.

Two-Face: A great job actually taking the time to explore this character's backstory (although they actually changed his origin significantly) and incredible makeup/digital photography. This Two-Face looks like Two-Face is supposed to look. I hope they do more with him in the next movie.

Misses:

The Joker. Didn't expect that, did you? My issue is this. In his first appearance, the Joker used Joker Venom. It poisoned his victims while causing their faces to spasm in a crooked, twisted smile. This made his murders all the more horrible and it was ignored in this film. Maybe Nolan thought corpses with big smiles would look too cartoony but I think it's an important part of the character.

Two Face: The original story, where Dent becomes Two Face after being sprayed with acid by a vengeful mobster during a prosecution, fits the character better, and I would have liked them to have worked this in. Also, we didn't get a chance to see any of Dent's "dual themed" crimes, so I sincerely hope we'll see this character again.

Still, this is definitely the movie that comic book fans have been waiting for and if you haven't seen it yet, you definitely should.

Side Note: The 999th highest grossing film of all time? Oh God! Starring George Burns.

Update: No doubt the football elite have been reading my blog, as Brett Favre has agreed to return to the Packers and the Packers have agreed to give him a shot at the starting job. See? Everybody does the right thing, everybody's happy!

Tales of Great Quarterbacks

OK, now that we've gotten our buddy Zac Sunderland out of the way, let's get back to Brett Favre. There is a camp of people that feels sorry for Favre. They say all he wants to do is play football and the Packers are preventing him from doing that. They say, just release him from his contract, or let him come back with the promise that they will trade him to another team. It's just not fair to Brett!

Listen, Brett Favre seems like a nice guy. But he wasn't too worried about what was fair in 2001 when he signed a $100 MILLION DOLLAR LIFETIME CONTRACT. That is not a misprint. Favre agreed to play out his career in Green Bay, and the Packers agreed to pay him more money than you or I or 90% of those Packer fans that feel so bad for him will probably ever see in a lifetime. Brett, you had a charmed career and are rich beyond belief. Either go out on top or go hold a clipboard for Aaron Rodgers but don't make the Packers the bad guy here. I am generally a labor guy and I am telling you the Brett boosters are wrong on this one.

Just for fun, take this little quiz. Which of the following were actually said by Brett Favre?

A) "I don't want to move. I enjoy the fans. I just want to stay. I couldn't envision myself playing for another team."

B) "If (playing for another team) would ever come up, I'd probably just retire. I've made enough money that I don't need to jump ship and go somewhere else."

C) "I know it shouldn’t feel unsuccessful, but the only way to come back and make that be the right decision would be to come back and win a Super Bowl. And honestly, the odds of that, they’re tough. Those are big shoes for me to fill, and I guess it was a challenge I wasn’t up for."

D) All of the Above


If you said D, you deserve $100 million dollars!

Tales of Great Teenagers

It seems that some people may take offense to my suggestion that the Zac Sunderland story is overblown, that in fact this is a young man who is really doing something great with his life and should be admired. Here is a link to the story of Ateqeh Rajabi. Like Zac, she was 16. Like Zac, she stood up for what she believed in, in his case, sailing the ocean blue, in her case, protesting the "misogyny and injustice" of Islamic Fundamentalism. Zac got a shiny sailboat and a nice puff piece on CNN.

Ateqeh was hanged to death in the city square and then had her grave defiled. There was a report on it in the Iranian Press Service. As far as I know Wolf Blitzer had no comment.

Sail on, Zac! TEEN POWER!

Sometimes I Just Hate People....

Brett Favre, who"retired" last year, is asking for his release from the Green Bay Packers so he can go try to hook up with another team. The Packers have refused. And I say: Good for them! I'm so sick of these fake retirements by athletes that it makes me want to puke. They have their tearful press conference, they accept commemoration and adulation from their adoring fans, while all the while they're planning their next move. The repugnant Roger Clemens tried this routine a couple of times and it's just sickening. Retirement should not be a backdoor way to get out of your contract and try to get a better deal. Either retire, or stick it out, but don't fake it, screw with the emotions of your fans, and completely ruin their image of you and your team loyalty by jumping to a new ship at the first good opportunity. Stick to your guns, Packers! Favre was a great player, but he made his choice and now he needs to either hold Aaron Rodgers clip board or go back to mowing the lawn and playing catch with the dog.

Someone else I hate is Zac Sunderland. This little 16 year old punk is getting all sort of publicity because he's going to try to sail around the world. Big F-ing Deal. He's got a state of the art sailboat with full Internet and phone access and he can stop whenever and for as long as he wants. He's not doing it to raise awareness for any cause except himself. As far as I know this will not prove anything except that his parents have way too much money and he has way too much time. Go do an internship somewhere! Get a paper route! I'm hard pressed to see why we should be impressed if he succeeds. As far as I know, no one is going to try to stop him. That actually might make it interesting, if there were people out there whose goal was to thwart Sunderland in his mission by any means necessary (short of severe physical injury or death of course). Unfortunately I cannot afford to pay for such an assignment but if anyone wants to give it a shot, his route can be found here.

Shuffle Up and Deal!

The 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event is underway, and the tenure of "Ambassador of Poker" Jerry Yang, who as far as I can tell did not do a thing for or with poker during his reign, is almost over. A friend and I have a gentleman's wager, a "last longer" bet for which name player will go deepest in the tournament.

My Team:

Men Nguyen
Phil Hellmuth
Chris Ferguson
Phil Ivey
Mike Matusow

His Team:

Greg Raymer
Johnny Chan
Allen Cunningham
Daniel Negreanu
Gus Hansen

I've taken an early lead as Raymer and Negreanu both made swift exits, but anything can happen. That's poker!

Free Gas

Well, not quite free, but while we're on the subject of cool websites, another one to check out is GasPriceWatch.com. There are a number of gas pricing sites popping up on the web but I've found this one to be both fairly comprehensive and easy to use. It's a peer contributor website, where "spotters" (and anyone can be a spotter) input gas prices they have seen around the nation.

You simply put in your address or area of interest and you will get reports of gas prices in your area, color coded to indicate how recently the prices have been updated. It couldn't be easier, and the only way we're going to get these gas prices down is by consistently going to the cheapest pumps, so let's get cracking.

Taking Harp Lessons....

George Carlin died last week. Almost every modern comedian owes a debt to George Carlin. From Jerry Seinfeld to Chris Rock, the modern brand of smart, cutting, sometimes unforgiving observational comedy was perfected by Carlin.

The pabulum spouting mainstream media outlets responded by taking about the "7 words you can't say on television." Oh those 7 words." "Oh George, you and your seven dirty words." "Who can forget those seven dirty words!" Most of these newsreaders on CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc., have probably never seen a Carlin routine in their lives.

Carlin was about so much more than fighting censorship. Carlin pointed out the absurdity of life with an unbiased eye. Whatever ridiculous platitudes and self-serving cliches you thought you could get away with in real life, Carlin would deconstruct mercilessly, making you laugh all the way. Rest in Peace, George, wherever you are. Here is the master himself giving his thoughts on death and the afterlife. They're not very comforting, but it wouldn't be Carlin if they were. (Note: The explanation of this post's title can also be found within.)

Free Rice

There is an awesome site that everyone should check out. It's called FreeRice.com. Here's how it works: You get quizzed on words. Every time you get one right, you earn points towards increasing your vocabulary level. More importantly, every time you get one right, the site donates 20 grains of rice to feed starving people. Instead of simply wasting time and getting meaningless points for playing an online quiz, you FEED STARVING PEOPLE. Your knowledge is actually USEFUL.

In addition, the game is designed to actually teach you and increase your vocabulary. It's a win win. You get smarter and starving people get to eat. How often do you get a win-win in life?

The Bush Legacy

The Supreme Court just ruled that restrictive gun control laws are unconstitutional. Some pundits are saying that the ruling is not a big deal. That it doesn't change that much. But it is a big deal.

It's a big deal because it's the Supreme Court giving a big F-U to the American people. The Court is saying that no matter how many people want a government led according to the principles of the Democratic party, the right wing court will always be there to wield the power. They have five activist judges willing to overstep their bounds and make their own laws and that's what they're going to do.

And make no mistake, that is what they've done here. The text of the Second Amendment is quite clear:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

In any country not full of gun nuts, that would not be open to interpretation (and don't come at me with the commas issue. It says what it says). There's a dependent clause in there. It says because we need a militia (because we have no standing army), everyone needs to be able to have a gun (in case the Redcoats come). The conservatives would have you believe that despite the fact that every other part of the consititution is carefully worded with specific purpose, the Founders just threw in that part about the militia for the hell of it. That it was just a bit of a jerk off. That they got together and said: We think every nut should be entitled to pack heat but instead of writing that, let's mention that a militia is important. It's ridiculous. It's nonsense.

And the Court knows it's ridiculous. They ruled that people were entitled to own a gun subject to certain limitations. Unh uh. That's not what it says either. It says shall not be infringed. No limitations. It was okay that they wrote that because if you only have your gun to fight off invading Redcoats and the occasional Cherokee, there's no reason for limitations. On the other hand, if the national defense issue is off the table and has nothing to do with the right to own a gun, even the Court understood that limitations are needed. So they decided limitations were legal. Even though the constitution says they're not. They simply wrote a law. One that says the opposite of what the constitution actually says.

This is the Bush legacy. Activist judges who control our government like it was Fascist Italy or Communist Russia. Possibly for decades to come. So much for checks and balances. So much for the American experiment.

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.