My kettlebell came today, via UPS. I got the 20kg version instead of the usual 16kg for beginners, figuring I'm stronger than the average beginner. Maybe that was a bad idea, cuz it seems really freaking heavy. That's 44 lbs., btw. I have a midterm tomorrow, so I haven't been able to play around with it much yet. I did take the time to try a few of the most basic move, the swing. I did about 20, and it had me huffing and puffing big time. Overhead press was difficult, but I got off a few reps. Things like windmills and snatches are a little tougher, I want to wait till I get the swings down well first. The overhead grip hurts at this point, because the weight hangs down onto the forearm. I need to read up on some stuff before I try anything else.

Ugh! Poker can be so frustrating. I wanted to play a $100 tourney this afternoon, but decided only to do it if I could win the entry fee with a $25 one table tourney. So I enter, we're down to three, so I am making a profit no matter. I go all in with A6, some guy calls me with 96, making me a gigantic favorite, since he can't win with the 6, only the 9. Of course he hits the 9. But I still have enough chips to survive since I had him covered. So a few hands later I have built my stack back up, and go all in with KQ. Same guy calls, this time with KJ, making me an even bigger favorite than on the first hand. And of course a J hits. It was one of the few times I sat at the table cussing someone out. it only shows *** in the chat when you type bad word anyway. His KJ call wasn't horrible, but not great, and it sucks that he sucked out. But the 96 call was horrendous and karma alone from him making a bad play should have given me the victory. Anyway, I'm trying again, no $100 for me yet.

If any of my readers are interested in working out and lifting weights, but are a little intimidated, and don't know what to do... Start by watching this: http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...ohn+video&hl=en

That's a video of a seminar put on by Dan John, an expert in the field. After watching this, you will know how to squat, and that is the single most important exercise you should be doing.

I met a friend for lunch today, and the restaurant was by a bookstore, so of course I had to go in and browse for a bit. I wasn't planning on buying anything, but if there's one thing I can't resist, it's an interesting book, so I picked up "Radicals For Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement" by Brian Doherty. It seems to be a series of profiles on famous libertarians, and by that I mean people who espoused libertarian thought, not necessarily people in the Libertarian party. Although as I flip through, it seems there may be more a narrative to it than simply a series of biographies.

Anyway, there's a cool little exchange quoted on the back which I have seen before, but absolutely love, so I shall repeat it here. General William Westmoreland (one of the high up Vietnam guys) said that he was not interested in leading an army of mercenaries. Milton Friedman, economist famous for his staunch free market stand and the "Free to Choose" books and PBS series covering the wonders of capitalism, replied, "Would you rather lead an army of slaves?" Westmoreland said he took offense at "patriotic draftees" being referred to as slaves, and Friedman retorted, "I don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries."

If you are interested at all in what's going on in the Middle East, you HAVE to read this article, which explains the history of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and gives the Israeli side of the story, instead of the Muslim side which is all you see in the newspaper.

The Temple Mount is fairly small compared to the entire world, but what happens there affects all of humanity, like it or not.

Oh, how I HATE Comcast. Our HD DVR has been acting up, making it so you couldn't watch anything you recorded without it freezing or pixilating every 10 seconds, so we have a technician over here, and of course he sees no problem. I know what the problem is. Comcast sucks. If there was another decent choice in this region... I hear that CoxCable sucks around here, too. You would think that someone out there would say, "Hey, there's a lot of room to differentiate ourselves here by actually providing service for our customers instead of treating them like they are either 3 years old or the enemy.

I got the seed of this idea of Instapundit, and decided to talk a bit about it. So let's say you are an employer and you got sued for firing someone the previous year and had to pay out a lot of money. You felt the suit was unfair because you had a legit reason to fire the person. So now you have a choice between two candidates for another job, equally qualified, but one of them is in the same situation as the person you fired, so you hire the other.

Now consider what happened with the initial suit. A female employee dropped the ball with a client and lost the company money. You fired her, and she sued saying she had PMS that day, and she won. So when you are confronted with two equal candidates for a job, you go with the man because you know he won't be able to blame poor performance on PMS.

Can't have it both ways. Either you can use PMS as an excuse and get paid less, or you can not and just have to deal with it. But getting the same money and then saying you are not responsible for your actions 3 days of every month. Sorry, that ain't gonna cut it.

Did you know that very detailed studies have been done showing that if you take out maternal leave and that sort of thing, women do actually earn about the same money as men in equivalent jobs? And fair or not, why should someone be paid as much when they might decide to leave for 6 months at any time, and have their job protected by law (ok, that might not be true, I don't know if companies are required to provide maternity leave and keep the job available like they are supposed to for the military).

Anyway, if women want to be treated the same as men, then they need to stop expecting me to hold doors open and put toilet seats down.

Now look, I'm not saying women are worse than men in any way. But they are different, and there's something wrong with the dichotomy between how men are expected to act with women and how the law treats women.

As long-time followers of my blog know, I'm very antsy when it comes to exercise. I'm constantly changing up goals, ideas, methods, programs, whatever. Now I've got something new I really want to try. It's called a kettlebell, and they come from Russia. They resemble cannonballs with a handle on the side. Basically you do a lot of lifts just like with a dumbell, but the placement of the handle puts the weight outside of the handle where it is in a dumbell, completing changing the impact of each movement. And there are certain things you do with a kettlebell, like swinging under your torso, that you couldn't do as easily or comfortably with a dumbell. For me the most exciting aspect of a kettlebell is the portability. I can buy one, keep it at home, and walk outside on a nice, sunny day and get a whole body workout that will wipe me out right there in my yard.

Check out kettlebells at dragondoor.com if you are curious. I'm going to CrossFit Atlanta soon to try their kettlebells and see which weight I want to get for myself.

I went to see my friend's band last night at the Masquerade. They are called Curb of Leona, and they were surprisingly decent. They have a lot of work to do, but they had some catchy tunes and put on a fun show.

I still don't know enough about Mitt Romney to endorse him in any way, but I have noticed, along with other followers of media and politics, that Romney is being treated differently than other candidates. When they talk about Hillary, it's all about how strong she is, and how great it would be to be diverse and get a female President. With Obama, you also have the media playing the proud diversity card (though admittedly the luster is coming off Obama, not because he's black but because he ain't done shit). But with Romney, all you see is that his Mormonism is going to hurt him. Why is it great to be different and diverse if you are Democrat, but bad if you are Republican? Isn't religious diversity diverse, also?

I decided to do a poker post, only because the three hands I am going to show personify a lot of online poker. You have some good play by me, some luck in favor of me, and some idiots in chat all in just three hands. I rarely chat, but sometimes people make annoying comments when I take their chips, and I mouth off a little. It's nothing compared to some of the stuff people say. Things about unborn babies and stuff.

Oh, I should point out that I am "foucault x" in the online poker world.

#1
Dealer: You have been dealt [Kd Js]
Dealer: UcO J SiN folds
Dealer: foucault x calls 100
Dealer: arobinson11 raises to 450
Dealer: pokermaster43 folds
Dealer: vee-rock folds
Dealer: kyro69 folds
Dealer: foucault x calls 350
Dealer: The flop is [Ts Qh Ks]
Dealer: foucault x bets 800
Dealer: arobinson11 folds
Dealer: Uncalled bet of 800 returned to foucault x
Dealer: foucault x mucks
arobinson11: nice catch
Dealer: foucault x wins the pot (1,050)

I get KJ preflop, an ok hand, there's a raise, I decide to see what happens, so I call. I flop top pair and an open ended straight draw, so I bet, he folds. Very standard. It was the "nice catch" comment that ticked me off.

#2 This was two hands later, like 10 seconds since everyone folded the interim hand.
Dealer: UcO J SiN posts the small blind of 50
Dealer: foucault x posts the big blind of 100
Dealer: You have been dealt [Kc Jc]
Dealer: arobinson11 folds
foucault x: nice meaningless comment
Dealer: pokermaster43 has 15 seconds left to act
Dealer: pokermaster43 is sitting out
Dealer: pokermaster43 has timed out
Dealer: pokermaster43 folds
Dealer: vee-rock folds
Dealer: kyro69 raises to 300
Dealer: pokermaster43 has returned
Dealer: UcO J SiN folds
Dealer: foucault x calls 200
Dealer: The flop is [7h 9c Qc]
Dealer: foucault x bets 500
Dealer: kyro69 calls 500
Dealer: The turn is [4c]
Dealer: foucault x bets 1,100
Dealer: kyro69 raises to 5,400
arobinson11: kiss my @&!
Dealer: foucault x calls 3,210, and is all in
Dealer: kyro69 shows [4d 9d]
Dealer: foucault x shows [Kc Jc]
Dealer: Uncalled bet of 1,090 returned to kyro69
Dealer: The river is [6d]
Dealer: kyro69 shows two pair, Nines and Fours
Dealer: foucault x shows a flush, King high
Dealer: foucault x wins the pot (10,270) with a
flush, King high

First notice how I say, "Nice meaningliess comment" in response to the "nice catch" guy. He says, "kiss my ass," but it got autocensored by the poker site. This hand was fun. I have KJ suited preflop. I call a small raise and get a flush draw on the flop. I make a bet to show I'm serious, he calls. I get the flush and he decides to ignore the three suited cards on the board and get me with his two pair, so we get it all in, and the river doesn't help him.

#3, this one's pretty much luck
Dealer: foucault x posts the small blind of 50
Dealer: arobinson11 posts the big blind of 100
Dealer: You have been dealt [Ah Kd]
kyro69: nice catch
Dealer: pokermaster43 folds
Dealer: vee-rock folds
kyro69: moron
foucault x: oh, and 4 9 is a great hand?
kyro69: better
Dealer: kyro69 has 15 seconds left to act
Dealer: kyro69 calls 100
Dealer: UcO J SiN folds
foucault x: than KJs?
Dealer: foucault x raises to 400
Dealer: arobinson11 folds
kyro69: on flop
arobinson11: not really
foucault x: i had a flush draw, dude
Dealer: kyro69 has 15 seconds left to act
Dealer: kyro69 calls 300
Dealer: The flop is [Ac 7h 2s]
kyro69: so
Dealer: foucault x bets 700
Dealer: kyro69 calls 700
Dealer: The turn is [As]
Dealer: vee-rock has returned
foucault x: and it wasn't even a big part of my
stack
Dealer: foucault x bets 1,900
Dealer: kyro69 raises to 2,145, and is all in
foucault x: not my fault you play weak
Dealer: foucault x calls 245
Dealer: kyro69 shows [7c 5h]
Dealer: foucault x shows [Ah Kd]
Dealer: The river is [4d]
Dealer: kyro69 shows two pair, Aces and Sevens
Dealer: foucault x shows three of a kind, Aces
Dealer: foucault x wins the pot (6,590) with three
of a kind, Aces
Dealer: kyro69 stands up
foucault x: great hand, dude, you really know how
to play


I get AK, a good hand, I bet, he's on tilt, blah blah, I get all his chips. Notice more fun in the chat spread sporadically throughout the hand. Oh, I'm gonna go back and boldify all the chat for easier reading.

The online poker scene is a dangerous place where there's a new story every day of someone having their account hacked. But what happens when someone does hack a poker account? What can they do? They can only withdraw to the preset withdraw options chosen by the real user, anything else would take days to set up. They can't transfer the money to their own account because that would just be a flashing red light pointing out who did it. All they can really do is play, and perhaps lose some of the money to their own account or a friends.

So there's this player Annette_15, a 19 year old Scandinavian girl who has been destroying the online poker tournament scene, and is now ranked #1 in the world in what is the most well known online-only ranking system. Anyway, her account on Ultimate Bet was hacked, and the hacker decided to play $50/$100 Omaha. He was going nuts. An onlooker noticed play that was very atypical of Annette (for one thing, she would never play a cash game of stakes that high, she plays tourneys) and alerted the "authorities" who then investigated and froze the account. Scary, huh? Well maybe, but not so bad once you realize that the hacker won $10,000 for Annette before they were shut down.