Excessive Variance

So I had a bit of an accident Friday morning, and I made a post on Facebook about getting into a fight with a wall and the floor and losing which prompted many questions about what happened.  Since I’m a bit tired of repeating the story and I’m always up for poking fun at myself I’ll just explain what happened here, with the assistance of my awesome whiteboard and drawing skills.  You bitches better recognize…

So there I was sleeping peacefully on the living room couch Friday morning.  This is normal for me, since I don’t have a television in my room right now and I have trouble sleeping without one going in the background.

Sleep is pretty awesome!

Eventually my plan of sleeping in till the last possible minute was being foiled by both Travis walking around the living room and my Iphone’s alarm going off to tell me if I don’t get up now I will surely be late.  It’s really very subtle…

Imagine it yelling at you, thats what it was doing!

Now I needed to get up, but before I get to that part let me show you the layout of the living room.  Keep in mind this isn’t exactly scale, but you can get the rough idea.  The front of the living room has  42 inch plasma HD television sitting on a steel stand that’s wedged between a corner closet and the stairs going up to the bedrooms.  Please note the sharp pointy corner on the wall by the closet.

Living Room

Sorry about the lighting in the pic, I threw this little thing together pretty quick so don’t expect everything to be top notch here.  I’m working with limited materials.

Anyway, what I did after shutting off my alarm was stand up by the right side of the couch really fast because I realized I had like two minutes to get ready and leave or I was going to be late.  I felt a bit light headed when I stood up, and the last thing I remember is going to take a step forward… then everything went black.  There was a huge noise, Travis came running into the living room from the kitchen (note his bald spot, I’m all about the details!) to see what just happened.

X was where I stood up

Now it doesn’t look like a long distance, but my scale is off.  From where I stood to where I fell was probably 3-4 steps.  I woke back up and looked up at Travis asking if I was alright…

The foggy view as I first regained conciousness

So when I stood up, I blacked out, fell forward taking a few steps to try and keep my balance and falling head first into the corner of pain.  Based on the damage to my face, it appears that the right side of my face hit pretty flush against the corner and just missed the TV stand where I knocked a few blu-ray discs that were hanging off the edge off the rear of the stand.  Then my head bounced on the tile floor and I rolled over onto my back where I regained consciousness.  My response to Travis asking me if I was okay was “How did I get here?” and I was pretty confused and in a lot of pain.

I have a bruise that runs from the top right corner of my head all the way down my cheek, a red burn mark on the same cheek, and somehow I put a really bad bruise on my right earlobe.  My knee was on fire and I discovered that I covered the entire top of my right knee with the worst carpet burn I’ve ever seen.  Later I also discovered a really bad bruise on my left bicep from the fall.  Travis said it sounded like I sprinted across the living room and dove head first into the wall, which is probably about how it happened. I’m really lucky I didn’t get bounced between the corner and the TV stand, or I could have been in much worse shape.

I got up and gimped around to get dressed and get to work on time, where Travis spent time telling everyone what happened and making fun of me for the day.  I got checked out later in the day at a walk in clinic and the doctor told me it was probably just a momentary low blood pressure issue, though I checked out and everything was normal.  She advised me to take my time getting out of bed.  My face is telling me the same thing.  Hopefully I won’t be picking anymore fights with walls & floors.

So to make myself feel better I offer up one last image for this entry, fortunately for everyone this isn’t one that I created on a small whiteboard.  Hot redheads with huge boobs always cheer me up.

Christina Hendricks @ the Oscars

If you want to see more of her, check out the gallery at What Would Tyler Durden Do.

Until I write again…

I’ve been following the development of the pilot episode of Game of Thrones since it was announced that HBO picked up the rights to the series over two years ago.  For those of you not familiar with the title it is the first book in George RR Martin’s epic fantasy series The Song of Ice & Fire.  The story isn’t your typical high fantasy like so many Lord of the Rings clones, it is filled with a gritty realism found in characters that are not either good or bad, but very human.  The story is graphic, intense, exciting, engaging and fantastical from start to the end of the 4th book (5-7 have yet to be released).  Also the nature of the story telling have always led me to believe an excellent adaptation could be done for either film or television.  The story is far to big for a series of films, and regular television stations aren’t capable of airing the material without severe editing.  Only HBO could possibly pull off this project so it’s official announcement that HBO gave the greenlight to the first season after previewing the pilot episode last month.  I have doubts HBO can put enough of the story of each book into a ten episode season, but I can’t wait to see what they pull off.  I’ll be hoping some fanboy gets a hold of the pilot at HBO and leaks it like the True Blood one was.  HBO did release the first promo shot of the series, which looks to be taken from the prologue of the first book.

If you want to read more about the series check out the link to the side for Winter is Coming, a blog dedicated to the production news on the show.   And if you haven’t read the books, then shame on you.  Get that shit done.

Funny sidenote… I didn’t have my blog bookmarked so I went to do a google search for it, and they following happened thanks to Google’s autocomplete.

I just want to know why everything that is excessive is bad?  It wouldn’t have been so bad if I was buried under excessive celebration, or excessive cleavage, or excessive sex for golf pros.  Not this site, we are under urine and saliva.  I guess I can tell Kanye what it’s like to wake up to be the shit and the urine.

So the Winter Olympics are over, and I spent a reasonable amount of time watching them.  Okay that’s not really true… I spent a good amount of time watching curling, hockey, bobsled and speed skating and skipping out on ice dancing and cross country skiing and the other events that suck to watch.

I spent more time watching curling than any other sport.  I’m not even sure what my fascination is.  I know the Canadian mens team has some guys on it who seems to make ridiculous shot after ridiculous shot, but none of their shots are as ridiculous as the pants worn by the team from Norway they faced in the gold medal match.   Ridiculous is the wrong word here, I think I’m going to go with spectacular… yep that’s it, they had spectacular pants.  I think the appeal of curling is that it looks like something anyone could be good at and they could do while drinking excessive amounts of alcohol.  I mean there was a woman competing who was 5 months pregnant so clearly she wasn’t drinking, but that has to be part of the appeal right.  Also, there are lots of good looking women in curling, eye candy never hurts* sports you don’t fully understand.

Can NBC do anything else to prove how poorly run that company is.  First they had the Leno/Conan fiasco, and now with the Olympics  I don’t understand how an action sport like Hockey is left on MSNBC while cross country skiing gets the NBC feed.  The main difference being which one is available in high definition.  Hockey is one of the sporting events that benefits most from an HD feed, because it allows you to follow the puck more closely.  Cross country skiing on the other hand is not dramatically improved by HD.  So fuck you NBC for partially ruining what was a very enjoyable hockey tournament.  As for the tournament itself, it’s pretty clear that the two best teams made it to the final game and played for the gold.  Two things however were disappointing.  First that we couldn’t get a 7 game series between these two teams, because the quality of play and the drama was very high.  Second losing the gold medal game in overtime after beating Canada by two is a little frustrating.  In two games Canada was outscored 7-5 in regulation play on thier home ice, and they had to go to OT to win one of the two games.  As close as that was I find it hilarious the bragging from Canadians about “this is our game!!!”.  If the US ever happens to lose to Canada in a international basketball tournament during the round robin portion and we came back and barely beat them in the medal rounds I think I’ be happy about escaping with a win, not gloating about how great we are.  I will give credit to the Canadian fans who showed appreciation for a few of the US players who put on great performances, very classy showing.

It’s also been reported that the NHL is considering not letting their players play in the Olympics.  Being just a very casual Blackhawk fan I can say that this was some of the most enjoyable hockey I’ve watched in a long time and I think it would be a mistake for the NHL players to not be able to play.   It’s like all star teams that care and try hard, how can that be wrong?

The one thing I can’t stand about the Olympics is the judged events.  There is just something wrong about the scoring systems to me and it makes me lose complete interest when the performance is subjectively scored.  Not to mention some events are just boring, and could use some interesting twists like allowing the crowd to throw snowballs at the competitors.  Just imagine ow crazy some of those speed skating relays would be if they were each allowed a skater to go around and pelt the competition with snowballs.

Also the award for best quote of the Olympics goes to Odd-Bjoern Hjelmeset who said this… “”My name is Odd-Bjoern Hjelmeset. I skied the second lap and I f’d up today. I think I have seen too much porn in the last 14 days. I have the room next to Petter Northhug and every day there is noise in there. So I think that is the reason I f’d up. By the way, Tiger Woods is a really good man.” I have no idea who this guy is, what sport he competes in, or why he feels the need to discuss porn and comment on Tiger Wood’s character, but I like it.

Anyway enough with the Olympics.  I missed work last Friday due to pulling a muscle in my back, and then while heading in for the second half of the day I blew out a tire on my truck and found out I don’t have the proper tools to replace it.  So I missed the whole day and ended up getting picked up by my pal to go see Shutter Island.  What follows is a my brief review (sans spoilers).

Shutter Island is well made as you would expect from a Scorsese film, however I did have a few issues with it.  I think the first 15 minutes of the film tried way to hard to set a mood with background music that was way out of proportion and overly dramatic lighting effects that seemed better meant for a horror film than what this story is about.  The story itself is good, not great, but I thought it was a little predictable.  When I got home after seeing it I actually saw a new preview for the film talking about the “twist ending that leaves audiences in suspense”… I’m just going to go ahead and disagree with that.  This isn’t the Sixth Sense v2.0, but it doesn’t really need a twist to be entertaining.  The acting was pretty solid, the pace was a little slow at times but nothing to complain about.  I do think its a movie people will want to watch a second time to catch a few things they ma have missed, but after that I’d say it has little to no worth as something you can watch repeatedly.

*Ice dancing is an exception, no amount of eye candy makes that shit worth while.

Poker has been sort of slow the last two weeks, but here is a quick run down of what I’ve done.

Played in the $40 dollar buy in Sunday tournament on Stars for the 40 Billion hand promotion where first place was 125k.  The field was just over 41 thousand players, and I busted out in 202nd place running AK into AQ all in preflop.  Good cash, but very disappointing after 9 hours of play.

After running sort of bad in cash games during the week, I was excited to head to Council Bluffs/Omaha for the WSOP circuit event they had going just for a change of scenery.  I had last Friday off for my presidents day holiday, so I took off in the middle of a snow storm and drove to Omaha.  Normally its a 2 hour drive, but since I rarely ever exceeded 40mph on the way there it was closer to 4 hours.  Mother nature is a whore… I was worried this would affect the turnouts for the tournaments and cash games, but it appeared I was incorrect.  The place was packed.

Friday night I played in a 2/5 NL game with a 10 dollar mandatory straddle.  Great action in that game, and I booked a decent win after an 8 hour session.  Found a hotel, got some sleep as I planned on playing the HORSE event the next day.  Had an angry run in with housekeeping from the hotel as they were mad I wasn’t ready to leave at checkout time, but I didn’t really care.  Hit Ruby Tuesday for a decent brunch and headed back to the card room.  Got in a 10/20 O8 game and ran good in it for about a hour and 1/2 making back about 150% of what I bought in for.  At this point, the tournament was more than a freeroll for me.

The tournament area in the casino was horrible. They had the tables packed way to tightly, and didn’t have enough room for all the players so some of the tournament tables were spilling over into the live action area.  I got off to a decent start in the tournament, much like the one I played in Chicago I was chip leader of my table at the first break.  After that I just ran horribly, especially in Razz.  I lasted to just before the 3rd break before busting on a O8 hand where I flopped the nut flush draw and a wheel wrap and ended up making trips and losing to a full house and my low didn’t get there.  It would be nice to run good in one of these tournaments.

After the tournament I checked the cash game tables.  There was a 5/10 game, but I was around 13th on the list and they didn’t have room to start new games.  The 2/5 list was excessively long too so I just headed home.  The trip was worth while money wise, after entry fees and expenses I cleared about $1500 for a day and a half.

Sunday I played the Stars 4 Million guarantee.  Once again I ran AK into AQ all in preflop and lost, this time it wasn’t after 9 hours of play, but it also means I wasn’t in the money.

I had been enjoying Rush Poker on Full Tilt the last couple of weeks, until I took a brutal beat for a 250bb stack.  I opened with 77 in first position, only the big blind calls.  Flop was Ah, 7s, 5h, he checked I bet and he called.  Turn was a 6.  He checked, I bet, he raised, I pushed all in and he has a set of 5’s, drawing to 1 card left in the deck.  And he hits quads on the river… and my ass is still sore.  So I haven’t been playing Rush since then.  I’ve been playing around with some mix games and short handed limit games on Stars lately, and if it wasn’t for running horribly in 2-7 triple draw I would be doing fantastic.  I’m doing pretty well though, so I’ll just keep grinding and see how things go.

I don’t have a fancy intro this time… this is just stuff I compiled over the last two weeks and purged it here like a supermodel after a trip to Taco Bell.

The Superbowl

Was like watching a couple of cute college lesbians have a pillow fight in their panties… it was a fun game to watch, but I didn’t care if the brunette or the redhead won.  I was a little tired of hearing about the two things that every sports show was covering for the two weeks before the game .  Peyton Manning is the best QB ever, and the Saints are a great story because of Katrina.  Both may be true but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t tired of hearing about them.   The game delivered for entertainment value, and it was nice to see one of the coaches I like in the league take some risks and get rewarded.  Congrats to the redhe Saints.

Side note… There is a lot of talk of Peyton Manning being a choke artist again and not preforming well in big games.  His playoff record of 9-9 keeps getting tossed around which I find sort of funny.  The Colts have been good enough because because of Manning that they are consistently one of the top seeds, usually getting a bye, and as a result playing teams at the end of the year that are usually at the top of their game.  Being 9-9 against the best each and every year, isn’t really bad.  It’s not like they are losing a bunch of wild card games every year.  Ripping on Manning for one bad play in the Superbowl is ridiculous.

I don’t really recall any outstanding commercials this year.  The Tebow anti-abortion ad wasn’t worth the hoopla, and the only ads I really remember were the first few Bud Light spots.  Pretty bland overall.  Speaking of bland, when the age of every member of the halftime show is older than the Superbowl itself, it’s probably not that entertaining.  I suppose I could blame Janet Jackson’s nipple for The Who being the halftime show, but really it’s just old white people who are to blame.  I find it odd that networks are all opposed to a little boob shot, but have no problems performers who have a history with child porn.  I was half expecting to see Chris Hansen show up at halftime and interrupt the show.  I’ve read the notes on him being let off and what his excuse was for paying for access to the material.   However just because he didn’t download any onto his PC doesn’t mean he wasn’t viewing it, which isn’t really any better than having it in your possession is it?

Entertainment

Zombieland:  Picked up the blu-ray sight unseen based on reviews from my friends.  I think my expectations were a bit high going in which left me with a certain amount of disappointment when the movie ended.  I’d compare it to when you first sleep with a hot girl that you have imagined to be extremely great in bed, but she actually has no enthusiasm and ends up being boring.  Sure it’s a bit satisfying, but it was less spectacular than you were expecting.  After a second viewing over the weekend I think I enjoyed it a bit more since I was just watching it for enjoyment and I realized that I should have approached it like an average looking girl who is fun and frisky in bed.  That’s Zombieland, a 6.5 that tries hard and has fun which makes the experience more enjoyable than the packaging.

Dollhouse: Watched the series finale after downloading the missing episode from season 1, which was actually the prequel to the finale.  I thought it was a great way to wrap up the series.  The show had a few problems to begin with (mostly Eliza Dushku’s acting being blown away by the rest of the cast), but by the end it was really sorting those out and the attachment to the characters had gotten much deeper over the last few episodes.  I’m disappointed it’s going away, but not on the same level of Joss’s previous series Firefly.  I really hope someday he lands a series on a HBO or Showtime where he can do more without the typical constraints of network television.

Game of Thrones:  Based on comments on Winter is Coming and Martin’s blog some HBO execs have already screened the pilot.  There are also reports of them renting out the location the pilot was shot in for the next 5 years, so a series order seems probable.  The list of HBO’s future shows looks really strong with Game of Thrones, Treme (from David Simon), and Boardwalk Empire.  Martin also posted in his blog he is pushing 1200 pages on the manuscript for the 5th book, which means it has to be getting close to completion.  In anticipation of it showing up sometime this year I’ve been listening to the first book again in audio format, and the narration is exceptional.  Fans of the series should really check out the audio books.

Speaking of books, or in this case graphic novels, a friend posted on her Facebook page a little bit ago about reading Vol 1 of Niel Gaimon’s Sandman series which got me thinking about reading it again since its been probably ten years since I read it the first time.  Instead of digging through my stuff in storage looking for it I just went out and purchased it again, along with a few other books that maybe I’ll get around to posting my thoughts on later.  My list of things to read is actually getting pretty long.  I’m not sure how I’m going to get through my backlog anytime soon.

Poker

Played the Sunday Million tournament on Stars two weeks ago, the one with the 2 Million dollar guaranteed prize pool which actually ended up being over 3 million.  I ended up cashing for a little more than my buy in.  Shortly after the money bubble broke I lost a flip with with a pair of 5’s to AJ and was out.   Pretty good considering I only really had 4 hands the entire time I was playing.  I survived mostly by stealing and getting lucky to spike a 3 outer about two hours in the one time I was short and was trying to resteal.  I have a pretty good string of cashing in events like this, just never making it really deep where the big money is at.  I sort of feel like I’m due to make a good run, but I haven’t been playing enough tournaments to actually have that happen.

Last weekend I put money back on Full Tilt to give Rush Poker a try.  I put in 1 quick thousand hands over the weekend and was winning at a 38bb/100 clip.  It would have been much higher if it wasn’t for losing the two largest pots where I was a more than a 90% favorite when the money went in.   Hooray for short term variance.  I’ve played a bit of full ring and 6-max, and so far the full ring has produced better results for me though 6-max has been decent.

Nothing interesting about playing live to discuss.  Assuming the weather is decent I plan on heading over to Council Bluffs next weekend to play in a couple of WSOP circuit events.  I also finished booking my trip to LA I am taking in March.  Will be playing some cash games at the Commerce and maybe playing some WSOP events over at Harrah’s Rincon if we feel like driving a couple hours.  I’ve been looking around for things to do in LA besides play cards and I’m not finding much that looks interesting to me.

So I watched the Grammy’s last night while flipping back and forth with the pro-bowl and I noticed something was missing… Kanye West.  I just can’t figure out why he would not be at the biggest music award show of the year when he is one of the largest personalities, not to mention most talented people, in the entire industry.  This is the same guy who’s first 3 albums have been up for Album of the year, and from 2005 to 2009 he won 12 Grammy’s out of 29 total nominations and his last album is arguably his best, though apparently the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences didn’t think so.  Admittedly Kayne has a sketchy past with award shows.  Everyone knows about the Taylor Swift incident at MTV’s award show, which was completely blown out of proportion, and he got mad at the Grammy’s when his speech thanking his dead mother was cut off by an insensitive program director among other incidents, but that’s exactly why he should be there.

Maybe I want something different from these shows that other people don’t.  I enjoy the outspoken and opinionated celebrity who isn’t afraid to say anything, because that is infinitely more interesting to me than all the cookie cutter appearances we get thanking god, moms, record execs and a bunch of other people we don’t know or care about in an effort to be nice.  Charles Barkley is my favorite sports personality because he isn’t afraid to say anything to anyone.  I watched SNL for the first time in probably 8 years because he was the host a couple months ago, sure it wasn’t great but it was interesting.  Apparently in the land of free speech and open conversation, we only want to hear from people we agree with and that means Kanye can’t be at the Grammy’s.  Why is interesting so much to ask for?

I do think it was great that Taylor Swift, the girl who couldn’t maintain a steady pitch during her performance, won album of the year.  Way to solidify the status of your show as a joke.  She should probably thank Kanye too, since his stunt at the other award show built up sympathy for her to win, because it was not her overwhelming musical talent that won that award.

On another note… I mentioned the other day on Facebook that I set up a rule in my email that any emails containing the word Valentine would get automatically moved to the trash bin.  I’ve gotten a bit of grief over my negative attitude towards Valentines Day so I’ll expand on it here for anyone who gives a shit.  I’ll admit that I have never been fond of the Hallmark holiday, but I think I have good reasons.  Most importantly I’ve never understood the need for there to be a day where I should show affection toward my loved ones more than other days.  Shouldn’t they know it every day based on my actions?  Then when you add in the commercialism of the whole day which is what prompted my Facebook post in the first place.  I can’t stand how all of a sudden rose prices go from 12.99 a dozen to 49.99 a dozen, and I get flooded with advertisements wanting me to purchase everything from heart shaped pizzas to hand made teddy bears. I just don’t feel obligated to do these things on one particular day.  Maybe VD works out best for the people who have trouble communicating with their significant others, or those who aren’t using protection.  See what I did there?

So the other day while ranting about the commercialism of VD to my pal Brandee, she dug up some links for some… lets call them interesting… VD gifts that I thought I would share for those if you who are doing last minute shopping.  There is this kickass yellow hoodie, or if you want to go the more traditional jewelery route here is a lovely charm or even some nice suckers if candy works out better for you.  I know some people like to pick up pampering supplies for baths and such, so here is another great idea or you could try the Twilight version for the people who are fans of those books and films.   Of course if all else fails, I highly recommend a vampire vagina mole.  Who wouldn’t want one of those?

Side note - since the VD rule is working so well on my inbox, it’s going to spread to every other holiday too.  I might skip doing it to fathers day because maybe I’ll buy myself a gift though.

Welcome to Total Random Friday, where anything and everything is possible!!!  Okay not really, but it’s an exciting intro right?  I was going to try and do this every Friday, but discovered I’m sort of lazy… so every other week might work.  So onto my random bullshit…

Poker

Games have finally been picking back up couple weeks.  Last week I put in 3 sessions.  Monday at 2/5 was a small loss, Tuesday at the 15/30 HORSE game I had a pretty good win, and Thursday I played a little 2/5 PLO and 2/5 NL.  The NL game Thursday was one of the sickest games I’ve ever seen.   At one point there was nearly 20k on the table and half of that was split up between the two loosest maniacs that play there.  You know it’s an insane game when you make is 75 as a opening raise in first position and get 6 callers.  I couldn’t tell you the number of times it was an opening bet of 100 or more and there would be at least 3 callers.  I only pulled out a small win for the night, but that’s because I was stuck 2 buy-ins in the feeder game before I got to the main game.   I put in about 22 hours of play last week, and my hourly rate was pretty good, so no complaints.  This week I haven’t gotten as much time in, mostly because games have not really been going thanks to really bad weather.

I redeposited on Stars and started grinding out some micro stakes games to see if I can stay focused on online poker for any real period of time.  The full ring games are so tight it’s kind of easy to exploit them for small wins, but it seems short handed and heads up seems to be where all the action is.  I’ll keep feeling my way around and see how things go.

Other Stuff (News/Entertainment)

I watched the Golden Globes when they were on.  A few things stood out about the show.  First was Robert Downey Jr’s acceptance speech for whatever award he won because he the most entertaining guy in front of the camera.  That guy is pure hilarity… The second and third things that stood out was Christina Hendrick’s (of Firefly and Mad Men fame) cleavage.  Hottest ginger ever, possibly… and in her honor I bring you the picture of the week.

The non-animated Jessica Rabbit?

I’m sure by now you have seen previews for Kick Ass the movie.  At first I thought it looked really sort of dumb, but a while ago I got to see this clip on YouTube and now I think I want to see it.  I mean it’s Nick Cage shooting his own daughter in exchange for ice cream.  How great is that?

Speaking of Nick Cage, if you enjoy making fun of him check out Nick Cage as Everyone.

It’s amazing how quick things go viral on the internet.  It took me all of 5 minutes for the novelty of Pants on the Ground to wear off.  Though I have to give credit to some of the creative people who keep remixing it and putting new videos out, but I can’t wait for its 15 minutes to be up.  Based on this weeks Google trends it looks like we might have Greg Oden’s penis to thank for one upping general Larry Platt.  Or maybe not… fucking internet.

While I didn’t watch any of it, the clips I’ve seen of the last week of Conan on the tonight show have been pretty funny.  There were jokes about him blowing a ton of NBC money during his last couple weeks on the show.  This article seems to back up that claim.  Must be nice to make a song that someone has to pay 25k a second to use.  I’m in the wrong business.

Here is an early submission for dumb ass of the year… Paul Shirley.   For those of you not familiar with Paul he is a former Iowa State basketball player who had a brief stint as a bench warmer in the NBA but has become a bit of a celebrity for his blog and Q&A sessions on ESPN where he discusses basketball and pop culture.   His latest blog entry on the disaster in Haiti might be the most ill timed and horribly written pieces ever.  I get some people are going to agree with him on some level, but this might be the worst timing on voicing that opinion ever.  Aside form being an ass on this issue, some of his older entries are entertaining reading.

Sports Betting

I made a small profit the divisional  NFL games thanks to the Jets, but for the most part I hated the lines on the that weekend so I stayed away from them.  I did make a small play on the Jets to cover vs Indy and the NFC game to go over, one out of two isn’t bad I guess.  Cricket continues to be very profitable though as I have yet to lose a bet on it.  It’s weird trying to pay attention to five day long matches though when you don’t understand the scoring.

Sports (Sans Betting)

The Vikings crushed my Cowboys.  Can’t say I’m totally shocked though since like I mentioned last week everyone was jumping on the bandwagon just like they did to the Packers, and look what happens.  It looks like Favre turned back into Favre though against the Saints.  Guess he should have saved that extra TD pass he tacked on against the Cowboys for the Saints. I had no rooting interest in the AFC.  I guess in a weird way I was sort of hoping the Jets win because of the dual entertainment value of Rex Ryan press conferences and the fallout that would happen on the the Dan LeBatard show if a bunch of NY/NJ fans bum rush southern Florida. The Colts however prevailed and now the biggest question we have for Superbowl week is will Archie Manning wear his old jersey to the game while he roots for Peyton.  Not so exciting…

The start of conference play in college basketball has been so bad for one of my teams I’m just going to ignore it until football is over.  I will say Michigan losing to MSU by one the other night was pretty painful to watch.

The NFL draft combine is taking place, and I (along with everyone else) am interested in where Tim Tebow is going to land since he now has to try that complex NFL thing where you take the snap from under center.  The guys at Every Day Should Be Saturday put together a nice preview of the worst QB’s in the draft class, featuring a brilliant breakdown of Tebow’s throwing motion.  Funny stuff on that site if you like college football at all.

For the most part I’m not really uptight about anything.  My friends ask me where I want to go eat or what I want to go do, and I usually let them pick and just go with whatever.  However when it comes to pop culture stuff like movies and music I get a bit anal about labeling everything.  I didn’t even realize it until it was pointed out to me a couple weeks ago when I said something about some song being my 3rd favorite on a CD while driving.  So for the last couple weeks I’ve been watching myself to see how often I do that, and yea… it’s like a habit.

Anyway another one of my friends tells me today that she updated her blog with her 100 favorite movies and suggested I do the same thing.  “It’s fun” she says, so whatever I go along with it.  I took her list, removed all the stuff I don’t like, and rebuilt it to make it better stronger and faster.

I ran into a few problems though.  First I realized it’s hard to pinpoint a favorite movie because on any given day I’d consider any one of the movies that made my top ten my current favorite depending on what I’m in the mood for.  So while the top ten are in fact my top ten, they are completely interchangeable.    Another thing I had a problem with was how to judge films against each other.  Since it’s my list and I get to call all the shots, I decided I’d go with entertainment value as based on quality of the film plus replayability.  So while a movie like American History X is a really well done movie, the subject matter keeps me from rewatching it regularly and dropping it way down on my list.  On the flip side a movie like 8 Mile which was reasonably good, but not spectacular from a film making/story standpoint, moves way up my list because the entertainment I get from repeated viewings.  Also I discovered that after number 40 or so it was getting harder to decide what I liked better between two films, so everything from 40+ is nearly interchangeable.

I also listed the Trilogy’s as one entry in most cases.  Sure we all know Empire Strikes Back is better than Jedi, but I wanted to leave room for other films.  Also note the Matrix is not listed as a trilogy and I shouldn’t have to explain why.

If I left something off I’m gonna be pissed at myself…

I’m bored at work and don’t have anything else to do so I’m going to write something here, so my incoherent rambling that is about to follow may or may not be entertaining.  That’s my idea of a disclaimer, if you don’t like it.  Piss off.

Sports Betting

I made a deposit on Bodog last week to dabble in some sports betting.  My first weekend went pretty well highlighted by hitting a 4 team parlay where I took the Jets, Cowboys, Ravens and the over in the Arizona/Green Bay game.  I also had some small prop bets on individual performances.  I picked Aaron Rodgers to have the most yards of any QB in the first round, and that Ray Rice would go over 85 and 1/2 yards against the Patriots.  Aaron came through in a great QB duel and Ray scores a 83 yard TD on the first play from scrimmage on his way to crushing that line in the first quarter.

To further test my degeneracy I have a parlay in on a couple of cricket matches (go Australia and South Africa!) this week.  So far through the first day of each match the bets are looking pretty good.   Betting cricket matches is really odd, since they last 5 days.  It’s providing one hell of a sweat and I get to read interesting updates from the games where a commentator says things like “That was a wicked googley!!”.  So great!

Poker

Last night I was spinning at a table for the first time in a while.  I had the biggest fish in the game sitting on my left and I had to up my average preflop raise to keep him out of pots, but it didn’t matter as he snapped my set of aces with J9o and my set of Kings with 75s, then followed that up by beating my JJ with a running two pair on a ten high board.  The set of Kings was particularly sick as I don’t think I could have played it any better to get maximum value.  So I was stuck 3 buy in’s pretty quick and with the way games have been closing early this week there wasn’t much of a shot for me to make it back up.  I did make a bit back, and finished the night down less than 1 buy-in, but what a frustrating session.  Being emotionally stable I’ve always felt is the strongest parts of my game, but it was sure tested last night.

Other Stuff (News/Entertainment)

I picked up a pair of the Beats By Dre headphones recently after I accidentally ran my nice ear buds through the washer and dryer.  I highly recommend them and I also recommend not putting headphones in with your laundry.

Everyone seems pretty excited about Jersey Shore… I haven’t watched it, and I don’t intend too.  It’s on my list of popular things I’m avoiding right next to Twilight.  I can only think of one circumstance where I would willingly watch Twilight, and lets just say at this point it’s really unlikely.  Not to mention that my memories of Jersey are trying to hold my breath while driving through that pile of trash, so it’s hard for me to get into the idea of watching retarded 20 something from that area despite how entertaining a stupid girl getting punched in the face may be.  I hope they stop infiltrating pop culture, I’m tired of hearing about them already.  Speaking of television there are a lot of shows I like back on again, so I’m busy clearing up DVR space.  Fox is burning through Dollhouse episodes at a speedy pace to end the show, which is too bad since it’s getting really interesting.  Breaking Bad and V will be back soon, not to mention House and Heroes are back on though at this point I’m just watching Heroes out of habit.  I compare Heroes to a ex girlfriend who you randomly get booty calls from.  Sure the sex is fun, but the conversation probably sucks or she wouldn’t be an ex.  I’m not real sure if I will watch this season of 24 yet since I only got 1/3rd of the way through last season before quitting.  Maybe that’s something I’ll download and watch casually on my phone.

I’ve never really watched a ton of the late night talk shows since Arsenio Hall went off the air.  I usually only pay attention to any of them if there is a guest I want to see which is very rare.  However this drama with Conan and Leno has made for some funny TV moments.  Especially when Kimmel starts posing as Leno and Conan just takes repeated shots at NBC.  I was actually shocked to find out that Leno was more popular than Letterman.  If there is a late night talk show I specifically avoid because of the host it’s Leno.  I’ve can’t remember ever laughing at superchin’s jokes… ever.

I ran across an interesting article about people living in the sewers in Vegas, it’s worth a read.  I think it’s odd how we rush to help Haiti after the earthquake, but don’t help out the people who are clearly in need closer to home.  I’m not against helping Haiti by any means.  I actually sent in a donation earlier today which was something I haven’t done before under similar circumstances.  I referenced a previous blog earlier this month that I didn’t publish and part of it discussed charitable work and contributions, which is what kind of spurred me to do something for the earthquake in Haiti.  I’m sure it will be money well spent, but I don’t feel like it’s the best use of my money/effort.  Giving is never a bad thing though, so whatever.

This wasn’t supposed to get serious, my bad.

Sports (Sans Betting)

I wish the NBA had not suspended Gilbert Arenas, that guy cracks me up.  I wanted to see the pretend John Wayne duel with a teammate that he was planning.  I can’t believe the league fined four of his teammates for laughing in that now infamous picture.  Here I was stuck thinking the NFL was the No Fun League.  I think for the next NBA fantasy league I do I’m going to draft the all personality team.  In addition to Agent Zero I think I’d need to grab Ron Artest, Rasheed Wallace, Michael Beasley, and Shaq.  Just the idea of the relationship drama with Shaq and Arenas on the team would make be exciting.

I like how the Cowboys are playing, however I’m a bit nervous about everyone jumping on the bandwagon this week against the Vikings.  It feels a lot like how everyone was so high on Green Bay before the Arizona game so the possibility of a big letdown seems likely.  I’m also looking forward to Jets/Chargers since there are some really interesting matchups in that game.

Now that college basketball has gotten into conference play I’m trying to catch more games.  Michigan hoops has been about what I expected which means I think they end up winning a game in the tournament and if they are lucky a shot at the sweet 16.  The Big-10 is pretty deep and they should be fairly tested going into the tournament.  I can’t say I’m as excited about UNC right now.  They had some tough loses early to a lot of the top teams, but the last couple loses have been scary.  They can play with anyone, but they are definitely lacking some outside scoring punch.

Until I have something else to bitch or be happy about… later.

Sidenote: Worst Day Ever… fuck me.

A while back I was looking for good podcasts to listen while at work and I ran through probably two dozen suggestions before I heard about the Dan Le Betard Show with Stugotz.   I was mildly familiar with Dan Le Betard from his guest appearances on PTI and other appearances on various ESPN programs.   I was hoping to find some simple  entertaining  sports talk show similar to PTI, so this sounded like a good fit.

To be honest the show wasn’t quite what I expected.  Dan along with his cohost Stugotz lead a pretty lively group that spends more time discussing random topics than sports.  When they do discuss sports they approach it from a unique angle and go out of their way to challenge the standard thought processes of fans while never taking themselves too seriously.  It makes for a highly entertaining show and one that has had me hooked for a couple of months now.  I listen to the previous days podcast every morning at work and it eats up the first 3 hours of the day so quick my job is almost bearable.

So a few weeks ago I found out Dan also hosted a weekly Q&A session Monday afternoons on the Miami Herald’s website.  I’ve followed a few Q&A chats on ESPN’s website before, and most of them are boring because the hosts will only answer serious questions.  Like a Q&A session should be life and death.  These people need to take lessons from Kevin Smith and not take themselves so seriously.  Fortunately, Dan seems to like to entertain himself while doing these Q&A’s so they are fun to read.

Today Travis and I decided we would bombard the Q&A session with questions mostly posing as various athletes or celebrities… and Dan answered quite a few of them for us.  Here are the highlights of how we wasted nearly an hour and 20 minutes of our day today…

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Submitted by Shawn Kemp from Seattle (Travis)
Q: Hey dan, I’m happy for you and i’mma let you finish. But me or Karl Malone had some of the BEST BACHELOR RUNS OF ALL TIME!!!

A: not like jeter, you didn’t….going to have to go out of sports to find better than jeter, i think….wilt married?

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Submitted by Mark Sanchez from The Jersey Shore (me)
Q: Why when I make a lighthearted joke about my old coach going pro does ESPN act like I was serious? Wasn’t us winning a game a big enough headline?

A: it was funny….i think everyone took it as a joke….i love that two weeks ago the jets coach himself said they weren’t going to the playoffs and now they’re calling their season a success regardless of where it goes from here….funny

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Submitted by Aaron Rodgers from My attempt to kick a football to myself while being sacked (travis)
Q: boom goes the dynamite

A: agreed

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Submitted by Kurt Warner from Arizona (me)
Q: Hey Dan, I’m just curious why when I have games where I have more TD passes than incompletions in the playoffs everyone still goes on about how great Farve is at his age and I don’t get nearly as much love. Can you explain that to me?

A: kurt warner has kind of become a hall of famer, hasn’t he?….i think rodgers had the most amazing season i saw this year….his oline stunk….he was sacked 50 times….can anyone name the yardage passing later in a year of great passers? romo and rodgers and peyton manning and drew brees were all great but the yardage leader with nearly 5,000 yards was…….

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Submitted by Travis from Iowa
Q: Future request for a Goal call - ‘You can call me aaron burr from the way i’m dropping hamiltons!’

A: excellent…..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3b_7S-sGBo

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Submitted by Manny Pacquiao from Hiding from drug testing (me)
Q: Are you going to say I’m ducking the big fight too?

A: i won’t believe that fight won’t happen until it doesn’t happen….too much money involved….and i know pacquiao has scheduled another fight

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Submitted by Lebron James from Cleveland (me)
Q: Dan… you got any pull at TMZsports? I need to make sure no one is trying to Tiger Woods me.

A: we’re lurking, king….and we’ll get you, and i’ll rail about it, and everyone will ignore me and laugh at me and consume the cotton candy happily….the worst will be when tmz sports ruins someone’s life by outing the first active gay athlete

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Submitted by Nick Saban from Alabama (me)
Q: See my Gatorade bath? What kind of punishment do those two players deserve for trying to knock me out. I think i need to hire Levitt or Leech to handle these situations for me.

A: that was kind of the reaction, wasn’t it?

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Submitted by Janet Reno from Picking my teeth with Elian Gonzales’ femur (travis)
Q: All this talk about Cuban defects is making me hungry!

A: femur, funny word

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Submitted by Josh

Q: Tiger Woods sex tape, your trying to track down a copy aren’t you? Can we get Roy to do a Top Ten Most Wanted Sex Tapes?

A: i have my own personal copy ….Range balls

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Submitted by Woody Hayes from Deep south (Travis)
Q: With the talks about Leach, Levitt and Mangino, we need to settle the score now. Worst treatment of a student/student athlete by a coach. Mangino, Levitt, Leach, myself (Hayes) or the dean of mean Bob Knight? Certainly not Mike Gundy, he’s a man, he’s 40!

A: leavitt, i think……physical and then lying….

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There were a few other ones that have to me taken in the flow of the conversation, like Travis as Captain Kirk and me referencing his cohost pick of the Packer to win the Superbowl.  This will now be our new way to kill Monday afternoons.

Also I highly recommend the podcast, as long as you are okay with a lot of discussion about southern Florida.