OK, because I played this hand today at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, CA today, I want to see what you would have done. Here is the situation:

You are playing in sit-n-go and started with $700 in chips. You currently have $750 and the blinds are $25-$50 (second level). There have already been several hands for you to feel out the table. You deduce that the player on the big-blind is a strong player as well as the player to the left of the BB. The player to you left is the chip leader and has been playing a little tight. There are seven players remaining. Four of them have you covered (including the player to your left, the BB and the player who raised).

The player to the left of the BB raised to $200, the next player folds and now the action is on you. You look at your cards and you have QQ. How would you play this hand?

So what would you do? Leave a comment and tell the world.
Click on the link to see how the hand played out.
Continue reading →

Bubble the movie will be released in theaters and on DVD on Jan 27th, and on DVD on Jan 31st (Tusday). The movie was filmed in a small mid-west town using local actors and shot entirely on HD cameras. It was an idea that was put into action by Steven Soderbergh, Todd Wagner, and Mark Cuban. Steven is one of the finest directors in the industry. I still think “Out of Sight” is one of the best films ever made. I have been hearing great reviews about the film. You can learn more about the film, the process of creating this film and the distribution at the movie’s web site, BubbleTheFilm.com. On that site, you can hear Steven Soderbergh talk about his deal with HDNet and the distribution. There is also a Bubble podcast channel that has three espoides about the movie and the deal.

So what is this blog entry all about? Well, this distribution method and film method (HD to video, theatre, TV) was something I dreamed up a few years ago (I have witnesses). But so what. I just like talking about stuff I dreamed of.

I will start blogging about my ideas. Then, when they are put into action, I can take a royalty.

On Jan 26, 1986, I was in camp. 5th grade camp to be exact. During 5th grade, you get to go to Wrightwood, CA for a week of nature learning and outside fun. That Sunday, 60 students boarded the yellow bus in the parking lot of Allen Ave Elementary School and headed to the woody goodness. I was excited.

Sunday we settled in, moved into our cabins and went to dinner. That night we had a campfire and were introduced to our counselors/teachers. On Monday, we hiked, learned about science and nature stuff. On Tuesday, we were back in the woods.

After we returned from lunch, it was obvious that something was wrong. Some of the teachers who traveled with us were crying. One of the counselors came over to our counselor and pulled him aside. The guy looked shocked and hung his head a little. I heard him ask, “Are we going to tell them?”

Then we had lunch. During lunch, our teacher came over to our table and said, “This morning, during lift off, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded during liftoff.”

The only thing I could think of was, “DAMN, on LIVE TV and I totally missed it. That sucks.” To this very day, I have never seen the full launch video of the Challenger (only the NASA Challenger video) or any of the news broadcast (CBS, NBC, ABC) that aired that day.

I got home from camp in time to watch the funeral.
It has been twenty years.

Okay, so here’s the deal, find out how you end your life, the google way. Go to google, type “(your name) was killed by” and see what the end of life holds in store for you. Remember to use the quotation marks, else it wont work.

For example, “Montez was killed by” yeilds: “Montez was killed by a couple who were babysitting him and his 4 year old sister.”

California Hold’em Company, Inc. has developed a new poker game called (surprisingly) California Hold’em. It’s designed to DECREASE the luck involved in Texas Hold’em. How does it do that? By adding eight cards to the deck. Four 11′s (non-suited) and four 12′s (suited). Also, the 10′s are also unsuited. The non-suited cards can be used to complete a straight but can not complete a flush or straight flush. “The addition of eight cards to a deck makes it that much harder for a player to hit his gutshot straight, for example. “Coin flips” between pocket pairs and overcards also change because of the eight new cards. People holding pocket pairs have a slightly better advantage in California Hold’em simply because there are more cards in the deck.”

More info can be found at Poker News.

TV in the bedroom halves your sex life.

Jan 16, 2006 — ROME (Reuters) – Thinking of buying a TV for the bedroom? Think again — it could ruin your sex life.

A study by an Italian sexologist has found that couples who have a TV set in their bedroom have sex half as often as those who don’t.

“If there’s no television in the bedroom, the frequency (of sexual intercourse) doubles,” said Serenella Salomoni whose team of psychologists questioned 523 Italian couples to see what effect television had on their sex lives.

On average, Italians who live without TV in the bedroom have sex twice a week, or eight times a month. This drops to an average of four times a month for those with a TV, the study found.

For the over-50s the effect is even more marked, with the average of seven couplings a month falling to just 1.5 times.

The study found certain programmes are far more likely to impede passion than others. Violent films will put a stop to sexual relations for half of all couples, while reality shows stem passion for a third of couples.

Copyright 2006 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

I enjoy music. Rock, pop, house, techno, and everything in between (except Country, never really got into it). When it was time for me to go get a job, I headed to MusicPlus (an old music store chain that was bought out by The Warehouse and then by Blickbuster) and applied for a job. By alll means, I was not cool enough to work there. I was a high school student at Damien High School and I looked like it. Not to menton I was chubby and had no purple hair or earrings. I didn’t get the job, nor any other record store job that I later applied for.

Would it have changed my life if I had? What was a better high school job, working at McDonalds or MusicPlus/The Warehouse?