Hey, Coretta Scott King died. You knows what that means? Her money-grubbing children will have even less resistance to their usual m.o. of tarnishing their father's name and legacy for a dollar.

I just found out that Justice League Unlimited has been canceled, ending the Dini-verse of cartoons. I know, you have no idea what I'm talking about, so here it is. Round about 14 years ago a man named Paul Dini got involved in writing (or maybe animating, I'm not sure) a Batman cartoon for TV. He used some adult-ish themes, at least more hardcore than the Smurfs ever got, storylines that continued from episode to episode, and much better characterization than most any other televised superhero show. He went on to do several other series set in the same continuity (as in a shared universe where what happens on one series will affect or reference another), including Superman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond, and, of course, Justice League Unlimited. With the cancelation of JLU and Teen Titans, Dini is out of the DC-cartoon business, and a new day will dawn. Unfortunately this day will probably involve less name-characters from comics, and be aimed solely at a younger crowd, instead of having the several levels of understanding Dini always included.

I will leave you with a funny gag from a recent episode, though I'm not sure my description will have the same effect.

Superman, Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter are hanging out on their space station and Superman is teling them about a wonderful milkshake he had earlier that day. At the same time a "ghost of vengeance" type character called Deadman had taken posession of someone in his quest for whatever, and had seen something bad. Being a basically good ghost, he decided to get help from the Justice League. The only way he can communicate is to possess someone, so he flys up to space and possesses Superman.

Superman: "I'm telling you, this milkshake was SO thick.... [Enter Deadman] ...I need help!"

Wonder Woman: "Wow, that's pretty thick!"

I saw a report on CNN that angered me. An attractive black woman and her family of 7 had lost their home or homes in New Orleans and were living in an 800 square foot apartment, which was crammed with all their possessions, and obviously a very tight fit. THey were waiting for a FEMA trailer, and the crux of the story is that the trailers end up costing FEMA about $3300 a month, once utilities, shipping, removal, and other fees are added on. The reporter goes on to show us a beautiful and large residence that the family could have in New Orleans for less money per month. Ok, the trailers are stupid, I've thought that from the beginning. I'm unhappy that anyone was dumb enough to decide to use that idea after seeing the costs.

But that's not the part of the story that really made mad. When they returned to the small apartment to show the kids going to bed on an air matress while the mother laid down on a couch, I noticed a gigantic, 60" widescreen projection TV. And in that short time I saw several other expensive items. I can't really blame the family for not wanting to sell their stuff when they know the government is going to take care of them, but I can blame the government for training people not to take care of themselves. I love my TV, my CDs, my books, but if I just lost my home and had all my goods intact, I'd be selling off a number of items. Maybe I'm overreacting, but it seemed a symbol of a lot that I think is going wrong in this country.

Know anyone that wants a room in a house in Sandy Springs? One roommate is leaving, so we need another one.

A German archaeologist was kidnapped by Iraqis and held for ransom, which the German government decided to pay (an action which only encourages more kidnappings, and more beheadings to show that they are serious). The released woman said that she didn't blame them for kidanpping her because "They can't get in to the green zone to kidnap Americans." The real story here, however, is that a lot fcot he moneyt he Germans paid to release her was found on her person (same sequential serial numbers and all) after her release. This could mean several things, but the most likely are that she was in on a plan to extort money fromt eh German government all along, or she developed a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome (something Jill Carroll is probably doing, as she was in Iraq with preconcieved notions about how terrorists are good people) and joined in the fun to help her kidnappers. Either way, without a really good explanation, the woman is a traitor to her country.

Sorry it's been a while since my last post, I've been pretty busy. I moved, I got a computer virus (don't click on IM links from people you haven't talked to in years), and I had to deal with the always present school. In fact I have some homework I need to do, but I seem to have packed away the book I need, and it'll probably take like half an hour to find it in the morning. And I had to take a bath. I HATE baths, but there's no shower curtain here, and the new one I got recently is on the flor of my old bathroom still in the packaging. I still have that lease for another week, so I'll run down before class and get it tomorrow. Unless I can't find my textbook, in which case I'll have to go down a lot earlier to find it. Hmmm... I have to give a presentation of some sort in class tomorrow, and I'm supposed to dress nice, but most of my clothes are wrinkled and I don't feel like finding my iron yet. She'll have to live with a nice sweater.

I had an incredibly frustrating poker experience last night. I was in $10 multi table tourney which started with 500 or so people, with 1st paying $12k. We're down to seven people left, and I'm in 2nd. At this point the table became incredibly tight and slow. Everyone seemed to be taking their full time allotment and it took forever. Finally I decided to take advantage by being aggressive, and I knocked out a player. Then things got even tighter!! I slowly moved up until I had a commanding chip lead. Then a small stack goes all-in, when he had been just raising preflop, so I called with my pocket 3's. He turns over 4-5 suited and gets a 4 on the river to beat me. Very next hand I have AJ and raise a small stack all-in. He calls with AQ and I don't improve. I've lost about half my chips in these two hands, but I'm still close to the new chip leader, and then I get AQ on the next hand. Now mind you, this is three hands in a row I'm relating to you. So I bet, a guy who barely has me covered raises, I go all-in, he calls with KQ. KQ is like a 9-2 underdog to AQ, so I'm feeling confident until he gets his K on the turn and I'm out. From dominant chip leader to bum on three straight hands I played correctly. I ended up with a $250 profit for 5 hours of work instead of $1250.

I would have preferred to go out, but I'm having some stomach issues. :(

Last night was the first session of my "Law and Ethics in the Business and Emplyment" environment, and it's taught by Ed Palmer, who has a long and distinguished career in law, a lot of it dealing with bankruptcy and other business issues, as a lawyer, a board member, and a U.S. Trustee. What does all that mean? Not sure. I went in thinking it was going to be long and boring, and I came out much less certain. Long yes, boring? No, I'm thinking we're going to spend the semester discussing many of the same issues I rant about here on my blog. Should give me a leg up on the competition.

Overall I don't think this semester should be too much trouble. I have several projects, but they're mostly group projects on interesting topics. As long as I don't procrastinate too mcuh a 4.0 seemss fairly likely. Of course I will be taking two more courses in the second half of the semester, so who knows how that will go.

This is just too funny! Ever heard of facebook.com? It's basically a networking tool for college kids, and has become quite popular. Some kids at some school had organized a party through it, and it was busted by campus police. The kids immediately suspected the police had used facebook to find out about the party, so they planned another huge bash. This time when the police showed up to bust it, they found 40 college kids eating cookies and doing "cakestands". Needless to say, that party was not busted up, and the cops looked like a bunch of morons.

I know I've talk about how much I like to play poker on FullTiltPoker.com, but lately I've become more and more enamored of Pokerstars. They seem to have the best of both worlds, in that they both have a large player base (which FTP is missing) an are innovative in the poker formats they offer (which PartyPoker is not). Last night and today I played in 4 person heads-up tourneys, and won for a $50 profit. I also saw they are doing some really nifty at the WPT event in the Bahamas this weekend. They're calling it Battleship and aiming at players already knocked out of the $10k buy-in main event. Headsup competition where you bring your own laptop and play face-to-face with your opponent for a $1k entry fee. Of course we'll be able to follow the action by logging in to Pokerstars, and they are going to put the final four up live on a big screen TV at the WPT event. Wish I could be down there.

There's this huge community of kids in their 20's playing and winning at poker, and populating these big events. I need to figure out the difference between them and me, so I can start winning a lot more.

They had the party. Someone really did some great research and bought cheesecake, so I had one bite so I didn't look like a jerk, and then I snuck away and trashed it. :)

I've never given a goodbye speech like that, so I thanked everyone, mentioned a bit about what I was doing, and said, "Bye." And now I'm sitting at my desk waiting to leave. BossX said I'd pribably be able to sneak out a little early.... I also made sure to say bye to Boss3x, 4x, and 6x. I don't really know 5x, and 2x I have no desire to talk to, so it's all good.

Not working is going to be strange. I'm already having a hard time adjusting. My roommate has been out of town for two weeks and is getting back Sunday night. I was thinking, "Damn, I'm hardly going to see him before I have to go to bed." Then I remembered I don't have to go to bed Sunday night!!! I don't have to be awake until like 6 or so Monday evening for my first class.

This strikes me as a prank simply because it's too close to the "theories" that many science-fiction authors made up to be able to use FTL travel in their stories. It would be cool if Larry Niven's ideas on hyperspace turn out to be true, but it just seems too pat. But wouldn't it be cool if this worked out? It would certainly fit in with the singularity.

Today's my last day of work and their about to throw a party for me. I will blush a lot.

Turner Class Movies is showing Miyazaki movies each Thursday night for the next month. Miyazaki is Japan's Walt Disney, but better. Tonight they are showing Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, the #1 and #3 highest grossing movies in Japanese history (Titanic is #2). I give them both my highest rating, and they are both dubbed in English with some good voice actors (Patrick Stewart among others).

Direct from Powerline:
Rep. Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Dec. 21:

"As the Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, I have been briefed since 2003 on a highly classified NSA foreign collection program that targeted Al Qaeda. I believe the program is essential to US national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities."
----------------------------

So much for the canard that Bush lied about informing members of Congress about the wiretapping program. He did tell them, and even Nancy Pelosi admits it, yet other Democrats continue to say he lied and went behind Congress to do this. Sounds like some of the Democrats are lying, because for sure they must know by now that Bush did tell people. They also know that much of the country will ignore the evidence and continue to believe anything that makes Bush look bad, so they can continue spreading lies knowing that they won't get called on it, except by a few right wing nuts like myself.

I can't imagine Ariel Sharon is ever going to recover enough from his stroke to run Israel again, and even if he does recover completely, should he be trusted with leadership due to his health issues? Probably not. What does this mean for Israel and the powder keg they live on?

Sharon, despite being a military minded right-wing icon for many years, has dragged the country leftwards in its dealings with Palestine. My early speculation is that Bibi gets back on top and takes a harder stance with the Palestinians. He, like much of the right over there, seems to be fed up with giving all the concessions, and not even receiving what the Palestinians promised, much less peace. Just look at the newly de-Israelized "Palestinian" border with Egypt. It's become a weapons expressway, which is exactly why Israel had restricted access previously. And where are those weapons going? A lot of them are being shot at Jews from the recently de-Jewed Gaza. It's amazing how Israel, with Muslim citizens and even Muslims in their legislature, is supposedly a racist state, but Palestine, where they destroy any sign of Jews, and they chant death to the Jews, and they do not allow Jews to live, is a bunch of opressed angels. That's the story from much of the left, anyway.

The things people point to as symptoms of the death knell of an industry are usually short sighted. The big thing in poker has been to say that the boom is over and the easy money is going away. I think it was the AP that just ran an article about how Wal-Mart and other retailers are heavily discounting their poker chip sets this year, and how that's obvious the end of the road for poker. Of course Wal-Mart and other retailers also heavily discount their clothing following the holiday season, and I don't see anyone saying that the clothing boom is just a fad and 2006 will be the year of the nude. It all depends on how you define boom. If anything except 300% growth is not a boom, then yes, it's over. But it's not over, because the opposite of a boom is a bust, and poker has definitely not come close to busting. Pokerstars and many other online poker sites are reporting record numbers, though ratings may have slipped on TV, but that's due to oversaturation, splitting the attention of enthusiasts between too many choices. The chip sets? most everyone who wanted a cheap piece of crap plastic set has bought one. Real poker players want good chips which places like Wal-Mart aren't likely to carry. And even those real players probably already have chips by now. But what does continous buying chips have to do with playing poker? I only need one set, and that will last me forever (unless Charlie eats them). As long as people were buying chips, that meant that there were less than the maximum potential buying chips, and some people who might have played hadn't yet done so. Now that the chip sets are down in sales, that tells me that poker is at the absolute peak. No longer on the way up, but certainly not yet going down. And even if it does go down, it will still be far bigger than 2 or 3 years ago, and will be for many years yet. And kids will still go to college and learn the game there and give me their parents' money.

My usual poker pattern continued yesterday when I followed up the big win of the day before with lots of losses. I'm pretty sure it was me and not just bad luck necause I did win one SNG for a $35 profit. I hadn't played many hands, and then a small stack went all-in for like 300 chips (I had about 1500), and the big stack raised all-in with 4500 chips, and everyone else folded, so I decided to call with AK suited. My feeling was that if the big stack had a good hand, he wouldn't have gone all-in, hoping to get more chips off people, but instead he raised to isolate the small stack, leading me to believe that he wasn't very strong and didn't want anyone else in the pot. I put him on pocket Q's at worst for me, and really just about any pocket pair would fit, which gave me any Ace or any King to win, and I didn't care about the small stack since that pot was miniscule. Anyway, big stack turns over pockets Kings, taking away 3 of my outs, but I got an Ace on the flop, and a lot of derision from the other players. I decided to ignore it, and they kept dissing on me until I took all their chips. I think the insults made me more determined to beat them with good play, though sometimes I just end up on tilt in the same spot.

I sort of set this one guy up. Not really a setup, just using previous knowledge against him. On one hand he bet, and I had pockets 10s and figured he'd fold with a raise, which he did. A few orbits later with the button in the same place, he bet again, but this time I had pocket aces. I raised about the same amount I had the last time, knowing he would think I was bluffing this time, and he pushed. Obviously I called and knocked him out.

The main guy who had been insulting me (and ahd played the pocket Kings in the earlier hand) made it pretty obvious he considered himself a solid player and exhibited much derision against people who play less than great cards (less than great in his opinion, to me ANY cards are great if I think I can win the pot). From this I figured his small raises are probably vulnerable and that he wouldn't adapt too much. Twice I raised over his bets, and twice he folded. One he said "You have a large PP" and the other time he said, "I think I have you beat, bluffer." I love it when people say stuff like that. He was wrong both times, as I had raised with crap (who needs cards when you know the other guy will fold to a raise?), but the second time really takes the cake. If he's so sure he has better cards, then he should call or raise, not fold. Only an idiot folds what they think is the best hand (except in certain circumstances which this did not involve). Think about it this way, if you are going to fold even though you think you have the best hand, when are you going to play? When you think you have the worst of it?

Anyway, the fact that I was being insulted ticked me off and made me pay a lot more attention and use some psychology and planning against these guys, and it worked big time! Granted, the aces came at a lucky time, but I probably would have made less with them if I hadn't remembered the earlier hand. Anyway, despite overall losses yesterday, I'm really excited about the progress of my skills. I'm going to have less time to play starting next week, hopefully my skills won't dissolve.

If anyone out there reading this is interested, I'd be glad to give a short tutorial on getting in to online play.

Have you seen the new Citibank commerical? It's incredibly irritating, and somewhat dangerous. It starts off with the sound of a smoke alarm, and it sounds just like the real thing. The first few times, I started looking for a fire until a realized it was the TV. Now I ignore it. I'm being desensitized to the noise of a smoke alarm.

I went to watch cousin Michael fly one of his radio control airplanes. Those things are awesome!!!!! I'm hooked and if I had the money to spend on frivilous things, I'd go out and get one tomorrow. You can get started in that hobby for as little as $250 (controller, plane, battery), but once you start flying a lot, you'll end up spending more eventually.

Another great day in poker yesterday. All weekend I'd been having decent success, cashing in a lot of tourneys, but never for more than twice my buy-in or so. I got home from an interview for the part-time job I want to have while I do school full-time, and entered a $6+0.60 satellite to a $24+2 MTT, and I won my way in. Then I finished 5th out of 500 or so for $843!! I took out $600, which is over a month's rent, and I will try to win more with the rest.

Once we were down to about 15 people I was very close to 1st, but went card dead. I folded my way down to 7th where I had to make a decision. I got KQ and there was a large raise before me. Go all-in or fold? If I go all-in and lose, I only get $300 or so. If I win... Well that's great, but is it worth the risk? And if I fold, there are two short stacks that are likely to go out, so I folded and got 5th. I went out when I had less than half the chips of the 4th place guy and pushed with K9, losing to AQ.

The most emotion twisting hand of my life happened with about 35 people left. I was starting to get a little low in chips and a guy who had a bit less than me raises, so I decide my AQ is probably better than what he has because I think he's playing desperate. I put him all-in, he calls with 99. Flop comes. I see an Ace. YES!!!! Then I see a Q. YES!!! It was only then that I noticed the 9 sandwiched between the A and Q, and I started crying. Not really, but you know what I mean. But then the turn came A, and I screamed, and pumped my fist and kissed my dog and then fell on my face jumping over a couch while running around the room. It was worth it. Even so, I can't do that ina live game. Nor can I shake like a leaf, which is something I often do in big hands. And I do think there's an obvious visual difference between my shaking when I'm in a big hand and I'm certain I've got the guy, and when I'm bluffing. All my life in big confrontations I've gotten shaky and blood rushes to my face and my eyes get red/teary. I really need to figure out how to keep calm. Strange how I've always been cool and collected in real emergencies, but if I'm facing down a bully, or arguing for on my behalf in a retail exchange of some sort, or playing a big hand in poker, my heart just goes crazy in a way it doesn't if I'm in a car crash or some other dangerous situation. Maybe because I can't control one, so I don't feel the need to stress about it?

Edit: I just ran the math. I multiplied my initial $6.60 investment by 12788%. Unless I got the math wrong, which I doubt. 843.96/6.6

Those of you who follow poker will know who Daniel Negreanu is, and for those who don't, he's considered one of the top poker players int he world. He wins big tourneys, he plays in the Big Game at the Bellagio, and he has his own poker site. Anyway, he started playing online more recently since he got his won site and wants to draw players by playing on it himself. A week or so ago he starts playing this guy named Dreamclown in large heads up cash games. Dreamclown left after not too long a time, saying he didn't want to play sicne Negreanu didn't have as much money on the table. Negreanu, of course, has tons of money, but the wire to the site hadn't gone through yet so he was limited to what was already in his account. As he later found out, Dreamclown was actually a team of players pooling their money together. Anyway, Negreanu's money finally showed, and they've played several times since. In live play it would be extremely rude to hit and run and that sort of thing, but since Dreamclown did it to him, Negreanu has been hitting for $20k or so, and hen taking off when he feels like it. I love it!!! He even got slammed for this in the online poker world until it was revealed that he's simply doing what Dreamclown did to him.

As far as my poker goes... My biggest issue is still discipline, but I feel like I'm getting better and better at reading people every day. Still playing very low stakes, and maybe that's all I'll ever play, but I do think I would have a decent shot at a good career in the game if I really dedicated myself to improving. I don't think I want to put in that kind of time, not while I'm in school and all, so I'll probably never progress much past where I am, which I would say is far better than a recreational player, but sadly lacking in comparison to anyone who makes a living doing this.

Well 2006 has started out just dandy. As usual, I was unable to sleep for more than 6 hours, meaning I'm pretty tired and probably won't go out tonight. It really sucks, I go out a lot less than I used to, and about 50% of that is because of my sleeping troubles. I'm hoping that once I'm not working every day adn don't have to set my alarm for 7 am, I 'll slowly get back in to sleeping for a decent length.