Oil and The Slow Death of Addiction

The argument against the off shore drilling moratorium reminds me of an addict. There are alcoholics, for example, that will drink themselves to death. Even after the alcoholic has had a 'scare' and been hospitalized with a serve health concern. And once released, he still continues his deleterious ways, until he dies. I had an uncle like this.

The same idea can be applied to a smoker. Everyone understands that smoking slowly kills you. In addition, it makes one smell like shit and look worse. It discolors teeth and skin and makes one look like a leather mitt. Have you ever seen a 20 year smoker? Nasty.

And yet the argument against off shore drilling is being made because of jobs. I understand that folks need to live, but do we have to continue to destroy ourselves in the process? Let's face it, the oil spill says more about us than it does about anything else. The destruction is ours, collectively. And so the argument is made that we need to continue drinking, even though we have slcerosis, or that we should continue to smoke, even though we have lung cancer, so that we may pay the bills. We are killing a part of us, the Gulf, so that we may have oil, our addiction. If we are sick, shouldn't we stop and diagnose the problem then take steps to correct it? A moratorium makes all the sense in the world, but I am sure it will be lifted to allow us to continue the slow death.

ESPN Can't Trick Me Into Caring About the World Cup

ESPN and other corporate interests can try to convince me to pay attention to the World Cup, but it won't happen for this sports-minded American. Even with the rage against BP(I say seize the company), I still won't be interested in the outcome of the USA v. England game. Indeed, the US could lose or win every World Cup game, and I still would not be interested. But, boy oh boy, do corporate interests try to convince us that we should care. "It's the most popular sport on the planet," is often the fallacious bandwagon appeal these interests make. "Yes," I say that may be true, but so what--it's also the most boring. I can no more watch a soccer game than I could watch old people watch Wheel Of Fortune. Boring and more boring.

So go on spend and spend some more to convince me that the World Cup matters, that I should be interested, that I should join the rest of the world and give a shit by painting my face and chanting sing-alongs and assaulting my rival countries fans. I won't, I can't care. Please give me something worthwhile, like real football, American Style, then I will pay attention.

By the way, did you see the Rachel Nichols report today--terrible.

Favorite Movies

Some of my favorite films, in no particular order:

Memento
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Fargo (really any Coen film)
Henry V (Branagh’s version is best)
Citizen Cane
8 ½ weeks (Fellini)
Amadeus
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Thirty-two Short Films About Glen Gould
The Last Detail
Chinatown
Five Easy Pieces
Se7en
Platoon
Raging Bull
Annie Hall
Manhattan
Mulholland Drive
Double Indemnity
The Pianist
Short Cuts
Mosquito Coast
Inglorious Basterds/Jackie Brown (best of Tarantino)
Capturing the Friedmans
The Matrix
There Will Be Blood
Midnight Cowboy
The Empire Strikes Back
30 Days Later
Frenzy
Saving Private Ryan
Midnight Cowboy

Which ones have I missed?

The Grand Series at the Nugget--Awesome

Now that the WSOP is in town, many other poker rooms are offering ‘special’ tournaments, I assume, to capture the influx of players. The buy-ins for the WSOP are prohibitive for many, though this year there are several $1,000 tournaments. Still a grand is too much, so it is nice to see that there are tournaments catering to the lower limit players, but still offering excellent structures and chip stacks.

There is hardly a paucity of tournaments to play year round, but for the lower limit player, these 40, 50, 60 dollar buy-ins offer terrible structures--usually 20 minute blinds and starting stacks of 3,000 to 4,000. Those games don’t allow any ‘play.’ After an hour the blinds have increase three-fold and one need to start pushing all-in.

This past Saturday, I played in a tournament that offered terrific blind structures and starting chip stacks: 40 minutes and 12,000 chips, respectively. These types of tournament are usually more expensive to play year-round, but not this time of year.

The Grand Series of Poker at the Golden Nugget offered the above tournament for $135. Truly awesome. It even received a ‘good luck’ and ‘hello’ from Phil Hulmuth, in person. The series continues through July with buy-ins ranging from 135 to 235 to 500 and the most expensive, 1,000. Every day there is one going on and most of the time two. The tournaments don’t just offer No Limit. There’s stud hi-low, Omaha, pot limit, HORSE, etc.

So when I played the room had two games going—stud high-low and no limit hold ‘em. The stud tournament had 119 players and the no limit had 372 players. As I was playing no limit, I really did not pay too much attention to the stud game, but did note how many players entered. The hold ‘em tournament paid out 37 places with 1st place offer $8,700—not too bad for 135 bucks.

I started playing at noon and busted out about 3:30 with still well over 260 players left—it’s a grind. My poker run is still going terribly wrong, and this tournament proved no exception as did the subsequent games I played over the weekend. What’s new there? Nothing. However, stupid is as stupid does and thus stupid will enter in another tournament. The Nugget is not the only place offering these ‘special’ tournaments, but it’s the best one for the price that I have found.

Why Rachel Nichols Sucks

ESPN tends to be a bore in the summer, namely because football season is over, and I am really no basketball fan. The only thing the network covers is basketball seems like. Where’s hockey? They do offer token coverage, but the coverage seems be treated like the annoying uncle that has to be tolerated during the holidays than wanting him to attend because the family likes him. The network seems simply apoplectic about basketball, Kobe and LeBron. And I don’t care how many promos the network produces about the World Cup and soccer. I don’t care if the USA loses every game, or wins every game, I won’t be interested. But, I really wanted to discuss Rachel Nichols.

She seems to report on every big story and thus is always on the channel. Her reports are terrible, both in content and delivery. In fact, I almost always change when she comes on. However, I have suffered through many of her lame reports to assert that she is terrible. I know with certainty that she will communicate nothing interesting or worthwhile. Her cream puff reports are almost infantile in their content. I am really surprised that her reports qualify as reports—it’s more like gossip than actual sporting news. But it’s the delivery that I find insufferable.

Next time watch her mannerisms and inflections and ask yourself if you really would want someone to talk to you in that way. For example, she shimmies her shoulders and raises her eyebrows all the while cooing with a soft, fake voice. Last night she was on live after the Celtics domination, and she was terribly stiff and mannered. Fake, really. She struck me as someone who really has no interest in sports—it’s something she does but has no interest in the subject—this undoubtedly explains the content of her reports. I know that reporters exaggerate mannerisms so to ‘connect’ with the audience, but she seems to play to a high school telecommunications class: really obvious, fake and overly mannered gesticulations of a neophyte learning how to ‘report.’ She is terrible and I vow to turn off her reports. Do you agree

Apocalypse of capitalism

Doesn’t the oil spill feel apocalyptic? The oil spill is killing everything it touches: animals and plants. It robs the ocean of oxygen and thus kills everything in it. It will kill the islands and destroy the beaches it washes upon. The oil is likely to get around Florida and up the east coast destroying animals and plants along the way. Although I am no religious guy, this seems apocalyptic. The end is near. The spilling may well continue until the end of the year, as the ‘relief’ well is the only way to stop the leak that oil companies know work. Everything that is being tried is guess work. So the oil spills until the end of the year—how much killing will it do? How much will it kill in its aftermath?

Drill, baby, drill, indeed. And still there are some who believe that we should continue to drill and risk everything in the process. Yes, this is the beginning of the end. It may take some time, but we do not have the capacity to fight the corporations that will destroy the environment. Many believe that we should still not regulate corporations lest it stymie profits and innovation. So many will actively aid and facilitate the end.

The Poker Gods Hate Me; or it is not a trend if it happens all the time

I decided to play a limit game for the hell of it. Try to refine some basic strategy as I had not been playing for a while. Easy myself back into playing, as it were. The trend last time I played was not good. Amazing suck outs, always on the wrong side. The bad beats simply forced me to stop playing for a good 6-7 months. It was not worth playing when miracles happen for everyone in a hand with me. So a limit game might help easy into the no limit game I normally play. Now I am coming, painfully, to the conclusion that I am not very good, and simply should stop playing al together. Or understand that when I do play, I won’t win, no matter how I play. I plan to give a deep stack tournament at the Nugget this weekend a go. If the “trend” continues, well, I must stop playing for good. It’s the only sensible thing to do.

So I am in a 2/4 game at the Green Valley. I think I won a hand or two and was up a bit. How misleading that was. The comes this gift.
I was in middle position, and look down at 10,10. Pretty good, but nothing to get crazy about. In a 2/4 game, there are always, always, multiple folks to the flop no matter if there is a raise or not. So I call and there maybe 3 or 4 to flop.

The flop comes 6,10,6

Holy shit, I flopped a full house. I have the best of it, unless someone has pocket sixes. Perhaps, I think, things are changing for me. This is the poker gods laughing at me and spiting my very attempt to play poker. Expect that I am an atheist. Quite a confusing state, to say the least. Fourth street is a blank, an 8. The board reads thusly:

6,10,6, 8

I raise the bettor. It is just the two of us at this point. The river is a six; the board is

6,10, 6, 8, 6

When the my heads-up player bets, I know, I know with certainly that she has a six. And sure enough, when I call her bet, she flips over 3,6. Sadly for me, awesome for every asshole that I wind up in a pot with, she has quad sixes.

The numbers:

Tens heads up, the odds are 86% to win against a 6,3. In a 2/4 game, one is never heads up before the flop. So the true odds are not known, but after the flop I was heads up.

So I had pocket 10s. After the flop I am 96% to win. So I raise her bet and a blank comes: 8. So now I am 98% to win. She checks and I bet; she calls

She has a 2% chance of winning and wins. The thing is that this happens all the time, and by all the time, I mean every time I play. At least every time that I can recall. This is why I have slowed down and have not played much at all.

So after this beat, I was cracked and proceed to lose. I buckled down and only played premium hands—did not matter. I then played rags, did not matter. More later