Bob J

HBO has done it again. If you aren't watching Generation Kill, you should be. Think "Band of Brothers" for the Iraq war.

to Julia Nunes. I can't quite put my finger on why, but I love these videos.

Thanks to djjohnnymac for the link.

I'm becoming more and more cynical that Obama won't win this fall. It has nothing to do his positions, statements, or actions. We live in a nation of rednecks who just won't vote for a black guy name Obama who had a Muslim father. I've been reading a lot of the comments in online news articles about Obama and invariably someone makes a comment that he's Muslim. You also see a lot crap like what rcfox, a presumably rational individual, linked to the other day, where the author has such insights as 9. The name John McCain sounds like “John McClain,” the action hero played by Bruce Willis in the manly Die Hard series. "Barack Obama" sounds like the kind of elitist villain John McClain has to outwit and defeat. You still see the news stations, slipping in the occasional "Obama bin Laden." You guys talk about media bias, I think it's more a case of media incompetence.

Given that only something like 2/3rds of Americans know who the VP is and even fewer know who their Senators are, it doesn't take much to sway perceptions.

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Is the economy in "shambles?" That's what John McCain says in his new ad that's getting a lot of play here in Colorado. Of course in June he thought everything was great. One interesting thing in the ad is he shows himself with Reagan, but neither Bush is anywhere to be seen. I'm actually surprised that I've only seen McCain ads so far. The basic theme is that words can't make things better. Maybe he needs to talk to his economic adviser Phil Gramm who said that the recession is just psychological. I wonder how the senior citizens feel about his comments that social security is an "absolute disgrace". I'm sure if that meme ever gets any momentum, we'll hear how he mis-spoke and social security is wonderful.

But it doesn't matter. For the next three months we'll see subtly racist commentary, ads, and whispers that will slowly undermine Obama and we'll end up with a doddering old fool for President. I'm pretty tempted to buy some McCain on Intrade.

If you're even a casual golf fan, the British Open is worth watching. It's ridiculously windy, one guy 4 putted from 18" (I can do that without any wind), and Greg Norman is tied for the lead. He's really the story, to be contending at 53 is unbelievable. I would love to see him win after all the chokes in majors all those years ago. As ABC keeps reminding us, he was the world #1 for 6 straight years. In '86 he went into Sunday with the lead for all four majors, but only won one of them, the British Open. I think the wind helps him. Because he's older he's up a club or two from the other players, i.e. using a 3 iron when the other guys are using a 4 or 5. This means his shots are lower than the other guys, which is usually a detriment, but is an advantage in a 40 mph breeze. Plus, he's married Chris Everett, who was one of my favorite tennis players growing up. She's still cute at whatever age she is.

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Update: Norman has the 54 hole lead by 2 shots to become the oldest guy to ever have the 54 hole lead in a major.

Since it's supposed to hit 100 this weekend, I need some strategies for keeping cool. Yes, it's a "dry heat", but 100 is 100. I should note that I do not have air conditioning, which is fine for about 50 weeks a year. This is not going to be one of those weeks.

Options include:
-Spending the weekend at the movie theater. Any early feedback on Batman? (No spoilers please!) What else is worth seeing?
-Going up to the mountains.
-Getting a kiddy pool and sit in it for two days.
-Make a bunch of Bob's Brainfreezes (schmengie, I've named it now) which consist of lemonade concetrate, ice, vodka, blended to a slurpee level of consistancy. I'm supposed to avoid alcohol with the gout and all, but wth.
-Buying an air conditioner. I actually bought a window unit last year. It works about as well as a ronsrant fart at cooling. Maybe I should get swamp cooler (evaporative cooler). Those actually work reasonably well out here because it is so dry.

Any other ideas?

Today's lefty blogs bring you 64 McCain flip-flops.

They've got Scrabble. There is also a Texas Hold'em game that I'll report on later if it's any good.

Edit: The Texas Hold'em game isn't too bad, definitely worth $5 for a SNG simulator on the iPhone. I haven't played multi-player, but playing the machine is reasonable, although it's fucking rigged just like Stars and I'm 0-3.

was awesome. I suck at music reviews, but I'll give it a shot. The scene was just awesome. Rothbury is up in the woods of western Michigan with a few fields that were the perfect size to set up three big stages. The weather was spectacular. Apparently, it had been raining cats and dogs on Wednesday, but by Thursday a high pressure system had moved in and we had four days of 75 degrees and sunny. The best call we made was going high end and getting a cabin. It was expensive and over priced, but in the end we all agreed that it was worth it.

Update: added some links to some youtube clips
( Rothbury )

At tie-dying? Made half a dozen shirts this weekend in preparation for Rothbury. Two came out great (the two where I followed directions I found on the intertubes most closely), two came out okay, and two sucked, so not a bad average. Maybe I've found my artistic calling.

( Click for hideous hippie goodness )

After posting about bad customer service, it's only fair that I post about a good experience. About a week ago, my iPhone developed a dead streak where the touch screen didn't work. This morning I made an appointment at the "genius bar" at the closest store. I took the dog with me and headed down there (this yuppie strip mall is catering to the Colorado dog community and most the stores allow dogs). Within about 3 minutes of my appointment, they were looking at the phone, agreed that there was a problem, then spent about 10 minutes swapping the SIM card and configuring a new phone, which they handed me and sent me on my way. No muss, no fuss, no questions about why it looked like the phone had been dropped (it was, months ago), just a new phone and a "have a nice day!"

Here is today's entry in the ironic files. This morning, "Denver Recycles" had an event where you could drop off any tvs or monitors for only $5. I've had a 32" non-working tv collecting dust, so I took it down to the drop off spot. As I sat in a long line idling the car, releasing greenhouse gasses and contributing to today's Ozone problem, they handed me a green bag. WTF? It's from "Plnaet Green", a new Discovery channel dedicated to the environment. Inside the cloth bag, that I suppose I'm now supposed to shop with to avoid getting plastic bags, was a polycarbonate water bottle with a plastic lined metal cap (made in China, class 7 non-recyclable). Gee, I wonder how many of these pieces of junk end up in the landfill, to say nothing of the impact of making and shipping them.

I am supposed to be off on Monday and the rest of the week, plus the following Monday. I'm headed to Chicago and then Rothbury. Because of this, I decided to not go to BARGE until Wednesday, since I feel a little guilty about doing that much vacation a month a part. Because of some things going on at work now I'm definitely working Monday and will likely work Tuesday-Thursday from Chicago. Depending on how things go, maybe I'll try to get to BARGE a day early to donk it up in some crazy action $2-4 games.

At least the work stuff is something I'm psyched about, so I actually don't mind...too much. There is something we absolutely have to be done with by the 4th and there are about a billion moving pieces (mostly non-software). Maybe I'll blog about it soon.

From schmengie and whipartist
The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read (I skipped this)
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike out the ones you thought SUCKED.

( The List: )

I rarely cook. And by rarely, I mean almost never. This means I tend to go out to eat a lot, usually just picking up a sandwich or a burrito or whatever, but on the weekends I like to get a nice breakfast. Gosh, why I can't I lose any weight? Anyway, I've got two or three places that I cycle through fairly often. A couple of months ago, a new place opened up a mile down the road from me, so I tried it. They've got good food, and a nice atmosphere despite being in a strip mall. Some weekends they have someone sitting in the corner playing the guitar. They've got $4 bottomless mimosas, which I haven't hit, but it's good to know if I feel the need to get my drink on at 10 am on a Sunday they can help.

But, I'm done with them. Their service sucks ass. Once they acknowledge your existence and take your order, they are pretty quick, but... I generally sit at the bar and they just seem to ignore me. A couple times it's taken more than five minutes for a waitperson to even give me a cup of coffee & a menu and this past Sunday I was there for more than 10 minutes without being acknowledged at all so I just walked out never to return. I had been recommending them, but won't now. Maybe I'm being petty. Maybe I should have told them why I was leaving. But fuck it, it's their job to make me the customer happy and they failed to even try.

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In other news, I finally played in the old home game last night. My crappy play at poker continues. I chased draws without the proper odds (banking on those ol' implied odds), and pretty much failed to get there. The one hand I would have turned the flush and gotten paid off huge by a flopped set, I had folded my 87s pre-flop. I found myself down almost $200 after getting stacked once by two pair and spewing the rest. I got bluffed off of a nice pot by someone I totally didn't think had it in him, so kudos there. I need to keep my eye on that guy.

Towards the end of the evening, I had A9o. This is $1 blind PLHE. UTG min-raises to $2. Call, call, call...hmmmm fuck it, I'll make the stupid call despite the fact that A9o plays horribly multi-way in a big pot, so I call, call, button pops it to $10, blind folds, UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, everyone else folds to me. Hmmm. Now this changes things a bit. I felt like everyone was pretty weak and had thought about popping it myself and suspect the button was just trying to steal. I also think the UTG+1 just has some crap drawing hand that we all tend to play way too much.

Fuck it, I shove all in for another $33. Button calls. UTG+1 calls. Oops, this can't be good. Flop is some crap like 4d4x5d. UTG+1 bets like $40. Button calls all-in. Double oops, that really can't be good. House rule is when you're all in and their can't be any more betting, everyone flips them up. I've got the A9o (9 is a diamond). UTG+1 has K2d for the flush draw. Button has KQh. Holy shit, I'm in the lead with my ace high, but there are a ton of outs. I can dodge bullets, baby, and they fail to suck out, so I triple up and cut my losses in half. KQh loses a little and K2d turned his winning night into a losing night.

I should so be crushing this game. I lack the discipline to not get caught up in all of it's wackiness, however, and tend to think everyone is completely full of shit most of the time.

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Anyone good at tie-dying? I'm going to do some t-shirts to wear at the Rothbury Music Festival next week and could use some tips. I found some good web sites and a couple decent YouTube videos, so I think I'll be okay, but if you've got ideas, let me know.

I think Jesper Hougaard is the guy who pwnd Jamie Gold at least year's WSOP. He's chip leader today in a $1500 NL event. I'm rooting for him just for his smackdown of Gold.

Apparently due to pressure from the Obama campaign, Moveon has decided to close their 527. So much for the idea that the Presidential campaigns have no ability to influence 527s.

At least Quinnipiac thinks so.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/06/stick-a-pin-in-it.html

Most of the dealers I had were pretty good, a couple of them were really good. One sucked. He was slow and you could tell just didn't give a shit. On one hand, someone bet the flop and everyone folded. The bettor showed his neighbor and mucked. I asked to see the hand. The dealer ignored me and pulled them in and shuffled (I was in the 5 seat, so there's no way he didn't here me. The neighbor who had seen it said "jacks", but it wasn't clear if it was a set or not (there was a jack on the board), so it was a little annoying. Kevin Saul got into it with the dealer a bit about how he couldn't do that and the dealer said that it didn't matter because the other guy had told us what the bettor had. Kevin got pretty pissed at this, more by the dealer's attitude than anything else I suspect, and gave him a big lecture which basically got a "yeah, yeah" response.

I had one dealer who said it was like his 12th WSOP, but not all from the last 12 years so he had dealt some of the old ones. He gave us some poker trivia, none of which I can recall. At least he kept things moving while doing so. Another was the most cheeful dealer I think I've ever seen. He was really fast, which was nice since I was getting short and needed to see some hands before the blinds went up again.

What do people think of the clock rules? I don't think it should be on the players to call a clock, and wish the dealers would give the players a reasonable amount of time and then they activate a clock. One of my tables had a bunch of hollywooders who would ponder every decision, every street, for sometimes multiple minutes. We had a couple hands that took close to 10 minutes. It's funny how it becomes obvious someone is going to fold, but they keep staring at their opponents and then the board, then the pot, for minutes at a time. You just want to say, "come on buddy, we all know you're going to fold". I know I tend to act too fast in critical situations, but there were two or three guys who would tank over and over.

mickdog found a quarter on the floor of the Pallazzo, so we decided he needed to parlay it into a WSOP entry and we set about finding a machine to put it in. First problem is nothing takes coins any more. Second problem is table games don't take a quarter or even a dollar. Then we saw the answer: The Big Wheel! They wouldn't take a quarter so I backed him the other seventy five cents. After a discussion of whether to go with the $5 or $10 spot, we decided not to be greedy and went with $5. $10 hit. mickdog's career as a professional big wheel player ended almost before it started.

TARGET. Pre-tourney brunch was excellent. My first table had whipartist, rcfox, mickdog, Kevan Garret, Steve Nissman, Ken Kubey and a couple of guys I didn't know. First hand is my big blind. Guy unknown to me (named Ron I think), limps UTG. We pick up another limper or two, so I check with the hammer, 72o. Flop is T73r. I throw out $150. Only UTG calls. Turn is a deuce. I bet $200. He raises to $600. I think I should shove. Instead I fold. He showed QQ. I suck. I really thought he had either 33 or less likely 77 (since I had one too). I last about an hour, winning a small pot against mickdog with 88 and another with a short stack shove that doubled me up against Steve Nissman. I over played middle pair twice, once into KK and once into top pair. I'm out not long after. Congrats whipartist and Mark Ferguson! Win us all some moola!

$1-2 NL. Lots of middle pairs, never caught sets. QQ did flop a set, but didn't get paid off. Probably should have checked the flop, but the guy was calling a lot, so I figured I'd hope he caught part of the flop. Lost $220 in about 5 hours. rcfox sat next to me for much of it. He says I call too many raises. I say folding is boring! My NL ring game skills are non-existent.

Had dinner with rcfox, mickdog, and Nick Christianson, so that was good. Although by then I had a really bad headache, so I probably seemed like I was in a bad mood.

WSOP. AA three times in the first three levels. Once won a small pot, once won a decent pot, once got cracked by a short stack's A4o. Stole a fair amount. Called a raise from the BB w/JTo and semi bluffed the 79K flop, he jammed, I folded. Got caught stealing once or twice. Won a decent pot with a resteal from the BB with AJ. Ran JJ into QQ, putting me at $150 with $200-400 blinds +$50 ante. Went all in next hand w/74o, rivered a 7. Went all in again w/95s, ran into JJ, sucked out. Ran 44 into 99 & KK and IGHN.

Overall, I was pretty happy with my play. I suspect I missed some stealing opportunities (and need to work on my restealing), but the only hand that I did play that I think played really poorly was maybe the JTo hand. I didn't pay enough attention to the raiser's stack size and probably should have just folded. Once I stepped in it, I probably was close to getting the right price to call, I'll need to check the numbers. I think I was at 5 different tables for some period of time. Only one was at all scary, (Kevin Saul on my right, LAG guy two to my left, really LAG guy with lots of chips four to my left). Three of the tables were really soft, including my last one. Everyone tightened up way too much when the antes hit, there was lots of really bad short stack play, etc.

I did get to meet evwhore during one of the breaks, so that was cool. He really doesn't look that much like tiltcity. I also got to have dinner with a bunch of bargers, mickdog, terrancechan, sabyl, prock, tiltcity, jpmassar, chrishartman, Steve Landrum, and Matt G. So that was really nice too. The best part was I FINALLY BEAT tiltcity AT A FINAL TABLE!!! Yes, that's right, he lost credit card roulette.

After dinner, mickdog and I played a little more $1-2 NL at the venetian. I spewed with top pair that turned into middle pair. I thought the villain missed his flush draw. No, he made his straight draw. I knew he was on a flush draw. My biggest NL hand of the weekend got counterfitted. I had KK in the BB, bunch of people limp, I make it $15, woman jams, I jam, everyone else folds. She's got TT. I flop a set, but the board comes all spades and we split. I was kind of tilted about this and quit shortly after.

And that was it for another year. Thanks to all my backers, I really appreciate it. Sorry I didn't make you any money.