Ever live in California?

Or know someone who did? Maybe there's some money waiting for you or them. Find out at the Unclaimed Property Search page maintained by the California State Controller's Office. Like Mark Evanier, I started plugging in the names of friends/acquaintances from the days I lived in CA, and quickly found a couple of hits. No big money for me, though.

Cool Tunes

Mike's Classic Cartoon Themes has just that, and I just had a great time listening to some of my faves, including Spiderman (is he cool, listen, bub, he has radioactive blood), Spaaaaace Ghost, and my all-time fave, Jonny Quest... although I'm sad to say that it doesn't have the pterodactyl scream that should properly open the music.

via BoingBoing

Cool Tools

Although its content could be wildly hit-or-miss, especially in its waning years, I miss The Whole Earth Review (which looks like it completely stopped publication, virtual or otherwise, in 2003), especially when it was being edited by Howard Rheingold or Kevin Kelly.

Part of Kelly's web site is devoted to Cool Tools, and immediately reminded me of the old WE mag, and the even older Whole Earth catalog. Lot of "I wants" found, just on the initial browse, although I could have done without knowledge of the reusable menstrual cup.

A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. I am chiefly interested in stuff that is extraordinary, better than similar products, little-known, and reliably useful for an individual or small group.

I've added "Cool Tools" as a "Places to Go" link.

Americans Would Abstain From Sex for One Year for a $2.3M Online Poker Jackpot

Since this survey was published on PRNewswire and was conducted by a so-called "independent public opinion research firm" (which also happens to be a marketing communications company) on the behalf of PokerStars.Com, I would take the ah, results, with a full salt shaker. But it is amusing.

When it came to the pot needed to win, size mattered to men. The average
cash amount men cited they would require to live sex-free for 365 days was
$2.1 million; women were willing to sleep solo for a lesser $1.9 million.

The survey also asked respondents who they would most want to ante up with
in a game of online poker. Americans selected President George W. Bush as
their most-preferred celebrity poker competitor, followed closely by Oprah
Winfrey and Bill Clinton.

Yeah, right. Bush, Clinton, and Oprah are who I'm looking for at my table. Me, I'd prefer Dylan, Wil Wheaton, and Shana Hiatt.

Link

Will the last writer leaving the Blogosphere please turn off the lights?

The Morning Improv.

02/20: Taking a break from blogging until Monday, February 28.

The Disney Blog

Yeah, I know technically it's not yet spring. But never the less I'm taking a vacation from blogging, email, and the like, until March 6th or 7th.

John Batelle's SearchBlog

It's Winter Break, and that means time to pack the kids into our car and head on down the road. Posting will be light...

Maudie's Poker Perspectives

I'm feeling rather insignificant and stupid right now. So, don't expect to hear from me for a while. There's far better and more interesting content happening elsewhere.

Ciao.

BurningBird

Saturday I’m off on a road trip where I have no intention of weblogging, or even accessing the internet. I decided that this would be a good time to take a longer break, and focus on matters outside of this weblog. Besides, Spring is a good time to try new things, don’t you think?

*****

I'm as restless as a willow in a windstorm, I'm as jumpy as puppet on a string
I'd say that I had spring fever, but I know it isn't Spring
I am starry eyed and vaguely discontented, like a nightingale without a song to sing
O why should I have spring fever, when it isn't even Spring
I keep wishing I were someone else, walking down a strange new street
And hearing words that I've never heard from a girl I've yet to meet
I'm as busy as spider spinning daydreams, spinning spinning daydreams
I'm as giddy as a baby on a swing
I haven't seen a crocus or a rosebud, or a robin on the wing
But I feel so gay in a melancholy way, that it might as well be Spring
It might as well
be Spring.

(Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstain II)

Maybe you could see it coming

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

Color Blind

She repeatedly described her characters as women with blue eyes, fair hair, and skin as white as ''pure'' or ''driven'' snow. Her books ''Four Girls at Cottage City'' and ''Megda'' follow a group of adolescent female friends in eastern Massachusetts from childhood to marriage, with no mention of the difficulties facing black women. In fact, in her complete works, there are only brief references to "colored" characters, usually servants.

So how did Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins become cited as one of the leading black writers of the 1890s by scholars of African-American studies, even inspiring, according to editor Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Oxford University Press's 40-volume Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers?

It apparently started with a misinterpreted photograph and was later compounded by torturous scholarly arguments such as the one that her characters would have been understood as ''white mulattos'' by readers in the late 1800s, or that her works were meant to represent a color-blind utopian future. Holly Jackson presents the story of how a woman thought to be a pioneer of African-American women's literature turns out to be a case of mistaken identity.

What fascinates me about this article is the a priori thinking demonstrated by the critics studying Kelley-Hawkins. Apparently because she has (arguably) African-American features in the photograph published in her novel, "Megda", critics claimed that she was clearly trying to identify herself as a black writer. And, if she were a black writer, then her work has to be African-American, even though her characters and subject matter had nothing to do with racial concerns of the 1890s.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. says he does not know how Kelley-Hawkins came to be
identified as African American. ''I'm intrigued by the idea, however, that so
many scholars have concluded that this woman was black, and it certainly will be
interesting for us to figure out why,'' he said in a telephone
interview.

Low tech

I've decided to say goodbye to WeatherBlox for the time being, still having my suspicions that the Flash plugin is causing Firefox to crash and contributing to the instability of my laptop system, which is still crashing regularly.

It's one of those real annoying problems, as there are sites, such as the Flash ad-laden CNN site, that will cause Firefox to crash immediately, while other sites - such as fhb - will work fine for awhile, and then cause Firefox to spew out an error message about the plugin. Still other sites with Flash seemingly have no problem at all. I suspect it's the number of instances that Firefox loads a Flash animation. fhb will usually blow up if I have several tabs open simultaneously, all running Flash animations.

Who knows? Who cares? As far as I can determine from digging around the web, it's a reported problem to Mozilla and Macromedia is rumored to be working on a fix.

In the meantime, I've restored a links menu and will be improving the decor of fhb with imagery as the mood strikes.

Even more dogs playing poker

Trust the internets that no matter how arcane the subject matter, someone has put up a site about it. I somehow missed the Dogs Playing Poker site which has, yes, everything you ever wanted to know about dogs playing poker.

If it's not in the blog, it hasn't happened yet

After her crash in the Rodeo and my subsequent posting on the accident, Peg wondered, only half-jokingly, how long it would be before various family members started calling us. As it turned out, my brother emailed me that evening offering legal help if needed, and my brother-in-law, after reading fhb that weekend, turned to Roberta and said, "you better call Peg."

The blog, the new millenium's version of keeping in touch with family.

I picked up the repaired Rodeo on Tuesday, and turned in the brand-new Taurus with only 1,900 miles on it that I had had as my rental.

The Taurus is long, at least compared to the Mini-Cooper, and even the Rodeo, and I had had a lot of trouble fitting it into the garage. Last week I came home, parked the Taurus in the garage, and hit the button to close the door. As I was heading into the house, I heard a "bang!", turned around and saw that the door had hit the back of the Taurus. Although the automatic garage door has the usual safety feature which automatically lifts it if it touches anything, it hadn't started back up.

"Jesus!" Frantic Fred screams, dropping his packages and rushing back to the garage, visions of how he's going to tell Allstate about this. I hit the garage door opener, and the door starts lifting the back of the Taurus into the air.

"Jesus!" Redundant Fred screams again, and I hit the button again to stop it.

"Calm down," I encourage myself, since I think I'm on the edge of a heart attack, and seriously consider gobbling some of Peg's blood pressure pills.

I scramble over the hood of the Taurus, as I can't get around it (Peg asked later, "Why didn't you open the passenger side door?" And you know, it never occurred to me), get into the driver's seat, start it, try to pull ahead, can't, realize I have the parking brake on, pull a lever, nothing happens, realize I still have the parking brake on, pull another lever, hit the gas... and bang hard into the wall.

The hood flies open.

"Nooo," Fred screams at this point, thinking I've now succeeded in damaging both the front and back of the Taurus. I get out of the car, circle to the back, where I've now cleared the garage door, and open the door fully, waiting to see how bad the damage is.

There's no damage. Not even a scratch. Nowhere. Bumper's fine, trunk lid is fine. Underside is fine. My God. So I hop back into the Taurus, back it out, and take a look at the front end. No damage. And I finally realize the first lever I had yanked was the hood release, and that's why the hood opened.

I stagger into the house, where Bear is screaming, because he had heard me screaming, and Kittenish is howling because Bear is screaming, and we all calm down.

I have a big martini later.

New York is Book Country

Some beautiful, and very reasonably priced, posters from the New York Book Festival, including Tara McPherson's Dream and Death from 2004, and my favorite, Leo and Diane Dillon's poster of one of the lions at the NYPL.

Neil Gaiman notes that you can get a signed copy of Tara's Dream poster directly from the artist.

More on dogs playing poker

"The (paintings') sequential narrative follows the same 'players' in the course of a hand of poker," said an auction note from Doyle. "In the first, our main character, the St. Bernard, holds a weak hand as the rest of the crew maintains their best poker faces. In the following scene, we see the St. Bernard raking in the large pot, much to the very obvious dismay of his fellow players."

And the lady who is sometimes referred to as the Great Whore of the Universe in our household, not in a sexual sense, but because she's so successful in appearing everywhere, was of course at the auction...

Comedian Caroline Rhea of Manhattan, who attended the auction, told the New York Daily News that the Coolidge paintings were the highlight of the event.

"It's not the Mona Lisa -- we were joking it's the 'Bona Lisa'," she told the paper.

Rhea is such a publicity hound (pun intended) that she'd attend the opening of a letter.

Link to the CNN story.

More on the fired Google blogger

An interesting interview with Mark Jen.

“At first, they beat around the bush,” Jen said. “But then they told me my blog had upset people and that I wasn’t a good fit. I asked them if there was anything I could do to change their minds, but it was a one-sided conversation. So I said ‘I’ll see you guys later.’ ”

In a nice piece of symbiotic irony, Jen's site now gets so many hits that he's using Google's AdSense.

via John Battelle

Own your own Disney gondola

All sorts of cool ephemera is being auctioned off by Disney, including a teal-blue gondola from the Disneyland Skyway ride. This would be perfect in our back yard, possibly as a planter. Peg!

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom where Someone from the Eastern Standard Tribe Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

Cory Doctorow, who is a pretty good writer, but can sometimes hit the height of pomposity in his BoingBoing postings, writes:

Last spring, in the wake of Ray Bradbury pitching a tantrum over Michael
Moore appropriating the title of Fahrenheit 451 to make Fahrenheit 9/11, I
conceived of a plan to write a series of stories with the same titles as famous
sf shorts, which would pick apart the totalitarian assumptions underpinning some
of sf's classic narratives.

Which made me want to write a series of stories with the same titles as Cory's works which would pick apart the egalitarian pretensions of someone not fit to shine Bradbury's shoes. "Totalitarian assumptions," Jesus. And Shakespeare is anti-Semitic and we don't even want to talk about Mark Twain. Cory's first theft ah, sorry, "title appropriation" demonstrating his remix of Asimov's totalitarian assumptions is "I, Robot."

You have till tomorrow to get to be in a movie with Drew Barrymore

Drew Barrymore and Eric Bana are set to star in "Lucky You" at Warner Bros.
Story revolves around struggling singer (Drew Barrymore)who hooks up with
professional poker player (Eric Bana)as he collides with his estranged father at
the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. The casting company for the movie is
currently seeking poker players and dealers for the film.

Details and application forms are available here.

Casting Search for a Major Motion Picture seeks Los Angeles and Las Vegas
based TEXAS HOLD’EM DEALERS and PLAYERS.
Males and Females of All Ethnicities
and Ages Wanted.
No previous film experience necessary.
Deadline for submission, February 18, 2005

We’re looking at all different skill levels.Your experience determines the
role you may play. If cast, you’ll be playing a role close to yourself at a poker
table.

Poker playing dogs paintings fetch nearly $600k

NEW YORK - A pair of paintings from the famed series depicting dogs playing
poker fetched nearly $600,000 at auction Tuesday.

link to the news story and links to various images of "A Bold Bluff" and "Waterloo" Who says we don't have poker content at fhb?

One more poker post

I requested a hand history from my Saturday $10 Sit-and-Go at Party (the one where I placed third) because, for the first time in my Hold `Em (if not my entire poker) career, I hit a straight flush.

The play is shown below, but for my poker-vernacular -challenged friends, here's a summary: We're playing limit Hold `Em with T150/300 blinds (T=tournament dollars). There are four players left from the 10 who started. Blinds are forced bets so that every hand has some money in the pot, in this case, T450. To get into the game before any cards are dealt you have to at a minimum match the so-called "Big Blind", at this point T300.

I'm "ricoM" and at this point have 1550 in chips (T1550). I'm dealt a Jack and 10 of spades pre-flop (before the first three community cards are dealt), and being the tight-ass I am, merely call, T300. The other player out of the blinds folds. The Small Blind, who already has been forced to contribute T150 to the pot, adds in another T150 to stay in. The Big Blind, having already contributed his T300, merely has to check.

***** Hand History for Game 1580185174 ***** 300/600 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (Limit)
(Tournament 9498614) - Sat Feb 12 14:45:36 EST 2005 Table Table 11495 (Real Money)
-- Seat 6 is the button Total number of players : 4
Seat 3: Justin_F (2005)
Seat 4: WMeister (3530)
Seat 6: ricoM (1550)
Seat 10: Jrwayne (915)

Jrwayne posts small blind (150) Justin_F posts big blind (300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ricoM [ Ts, Js ]
WMeister folds.
ricoM calls (300)
Jrwayne calls (150)
Justin_F checks.

Oh my. Look below and you'll see that Little Rico just got the nuts straight flush and is praying that the other two players think they have a hand, as I can't be beaten. Jrwayne bets T300. JustinF apparently can't beat a flush, and decides discretion is the better part of valor. As we're in a limit game, I can only raise the max, T600. But I still luck out, `cause Jrwayne is short stacked (in other words, with few chips left) and has a pair of 7s and a nut flush draw (he has the Ace of spades although I don't see that yet), and goes All-In with T315. A lesson for the student: it will only cost ricoM T15 more to call. What is his decision?

** Dealing Flop ** : [ 7s, 9s, 8s ]
Jrwayne bets (300) Justin_F folds.
ricoM raises (600) to 600
Jrwayne bets (315) Jrwayne is all-In.
ricoM calls (15)

The game is over at this point, although two more cards, the turn, and the river, need to be dealt.

** Dealing Turn ** : [ 5s ] **

Jrwayne probably thinks he has the hand won at this point, having made his flush. Even if I've made a flush, he's holding the Ace. Poor Jrwayne is soon to be disappointed.

Dealing River ** : [ Kd ]

A meaningless card to either of us.

So, I won the pot, T2130 and also knocked out player 4 at the same time, thus guaranteeing I'd be in the money. A few hands later I'd be short-stacked, and go All-In with a flush draw that I wouldn't hit.

Creating Main Pot with $2130 with Jrwayne
** Summary ** Main Pot: 2130 Board: [ 7s 9s 8s 5s Kd ]
Justin_F balance 1705, lost 300 (folded)
WMeister balance 3530, didn't bet (folded)
ricoM balance 2765, bet 915, collected 2130, net +1215 [ Ts Js ] [ a straight flush, jack high -- Js,Ts,9s,8s,7s ]
Jrwayne balance 0, lost 915 [ 7d As ] [ a flush, ace high -- As,9s,8s,7s,5s ]

How much does a science fiction writer make for a 1st novel?

Not a heckuva lot (surprise, surprise), according to Tobias S. Buckell's informal survey of 74 writers:

The range was from $0-$40,000 for an advance on a first novel.

The average was $6363.

The median advance is $5000. The median figure is a better indicator of what most people consider 'average.'

Payments tend to go up, of course, the more you publish, and if you can get agented, but most professional science fiction writers main source of income isn't from sf, in my experience, or even from writing. Most have a day job, which makes their ability to finish anything even more impressive. Most of the successful writers I've met are driven to write. The money has had little to do with it.

My advance for my only piece of professional sf/fantasy was $1,500 for "Once in a Lullaby", a novelette published in Bantam's first "Full Spectrum" anthology, and apparently not a bad payment, considering that sale was almost 20 years ago. Although I still dabble in fiction writing, and suspect there will be a day when I return my focus to it, the effort/reward ratio as shown above forced me away into other things that paid better and more consistently; multimedia development for about 10 years, now back to freelance business writing.

There are times I regret that choice... but not all that often. And I still have time.

If you were looking for a good way to learn more about comic books...

I couldn't think of a better place to start than Alan David Doane's 100 Things I Love About Comics. And be sure to check out his 100 annotations to the list. Of particular note, and certainly in my top 100 list would be:

#21 - Ernie Colon's Richie Rich.
#40 - Hellboy.
#48 - Alan Moore's Marvelman/Miracleman
#78 - Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson.
#83 - Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
#85 - Daniel G. Clowes. (for Ghost World in fhb's opinion)
#91 - Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.

And because I can't look at such a list without adding some of my own amendments, I'll add three more to round up to ten.

Daredevil - Born Again Frank Miller with artist David Mazzucchelli.
Scott McClouds's Understanding Comics
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Lynn Varley

Time for a poker posting

My luck, she apparently had a good time at Mardi Gras last week and rewarded me with the golden chip in all three games I played this weekend... two Sit-and-Goes (SnG) and one ring game. I cleared around $35, big deal that I am.

Finally worn down by Iggy's constant, merciless shilling of Party Poker (Bonus code IGGY, damnit!) and hypnotized by the flashing animated gifs on his site, I had moved some of my winnings from PokerStars over to Party Poker in January after getting my initial $50 stake there a bit over $150. But at some unremembered point in 2004 I had already signed up at Party so could neither collect a bonus or toss anything Iggy's way.

The humanity.

Perhaps suffering the curse of no bonus code IGGY, I almost immediately went on a losing streak both at Party and at PokerStars, dropping my initial Party stake from $50 to $11 within a few weeks and shrinking my PokerStars stack from around the remaining $100 to less than $60. Admittedly, I had gotten hooked on the "Step Challege" at Party, mini-tournaments where the pay-out could be as much as $9k for a $12 buy-in. The size of my remaining stack should provide a clue on my success to date at the step challenge.

In fact, in the month or so I played at Party, my only winning was a 1st place in a SnG, which I actually accomplished in the first game I played there. As I said, by this Saturday I had $11 left in my stake, and went into a $10 +$1 limit SnG... where I placed third and won $20.

So I'm still in at Party, but unless I continue to stay lucky, when the stack goes, so do I. While Iggy and some other poker bloggers are vocal fans of Party, I'm less than enthusiastic about the site. I don't like the interface, which is like a crude version of the Sims. And maybe I've been spoiled by UtimateBet and PokerStars, where you start with T1000 or T1500 in SnGs as opposed to Party's T800, but that smaller stack means you need loose play right from the git go to stay alive... a strategy which does not suit tight as a tick Mr. Rico.

Loose play is of course the reason Iggy and other poker bloggers crow about Party, a virtual aquarium of fish, according to some. But they're playing ring games, mostly, where you can afford to sit out hand-after-hand, at least opposed to SnGs where the blinds will eventually force you to gamble, strong hand or not. With no rebuy in a SnG, a fish's loose play - where they still win the hand - can make your stack drop drastically, no matter how well you're playing.

And it moves too damn fast! Again, I suspect it's one of the reasons that the younger bloggers like Party, but at age 52 you lose a few steps and half the time the cards are flopping so quickly at the turn and river that I have to scroll back up the Dealer's chat box to discover how I won - or lost - the previous hand.

I had been on such a bad roll through most of January that I was thinking about taking some time off from on-line poker and hit some live charity tournaments instead, but I enjoyed the last World Poker Bloggers Tour event so much that I decided to take the $50 I had bankrolled for live play and drop it into UltimateBet instead. The fact that UltimateBet had sent me a "you used to be a player" promotion with a 100 percent deposit bonus also had a little to do with it, too.

So, I'm back with UltimateBet, where is where you'll find me as ricoM most times these days, as I (very) slowly work to convert my bonus money into real money. I currently have $60 at UB, $62 at PokerStars, and $20 at Party, giving me a grand current profit of $42 from my two $50 investments to date. I've been playing at PokerStars since October of last year, still living the large (at least my version of it) from my 8th place finish in the October bloggers tourney. $100 spent where I've played on the average of two to three times a week for four months isn't a bad investment - one of my cheaper hobbies, in fact.

Batman unbound

	Separated at Birth?

Over at "news from me" Mark Evanier has another funny and thought-provoking post on the ah, "gayness" of the Dark Knight.

Dr. Fredric Wertham, who looks surprisingly like The Meanest Old Man in the World (on the other hand, why is that a surprise?) wrote a book, as you probably know, called "Seduction of the Innocent" and suceeded in making my childhood life a living hell. For several years, I had to hide my comic books from my father who would trash them upon discovery, convinced as he was that comics would lead me to J.D.ism, depravity, drugs and wild sex with blonde bombshells who smoked a lot and carried pistols in their purses (well, I was hoping for that last one). I'm not sure my Dad ever actually ever read Wertham''s book, but he had somehow picked up the gist of it and I suffered mightily as a consequence. After awhile my father gave up on trying to wean me away from comics, more put out by that time that I was now openly reading Playboy and Penthouse.

One of Wertham's more provocative claims was that Batman annd Robin were gay, although as Mark points out, that's not what he said, but rather something to the effect that their lifestyle was "...like a wish dream of two homosexuals living together." I know very few homosexuals whose wish dream is to beat up criminals on a nightly basis, well maybe a couple into S&M, but I'm digressing. Mark wrote a book with the joking title, "Wertham was Right" (at least about some stuff) where he noted:

In one issue of Justice League of America in the sixties, the heroes discover they have contracted a cosmic plague that will doom everyone they've recently touched. Green Lantern shudders to think that he has infected his eternal fiancée, Carol Ferris. The Flash realizes he has doomed his beloved, Iris West. Even the Atom thinks about the fate that will befall the woman in his life, Jean Loring...

Batman, meanwhile, thinks: "Robin...what have I done to you?"

There is a wonderful copy of that comics panel at the link above. As Mark says, the great Gardner Fox probably dissolved into giggles while writing that scene. It's amazing that D.C. let it go.

Liveplasma

An affinity search engine that I've been having fun with over the past several days. Hooked into Amazon data, Liveplasma displays a visual map of music/movies that you might like based on your selection of other music/movies.

via John Battelle

Hello, it's fucking radioactive!

Since it was filed under the heading, "Diamonds are for Pussies", one could safely assume that most readers would figure out that Xeni Jardin's post on giving your sweetheart a highly radioactive uranium ore sample as a Valentine's Day gift was a joke.

But this is after all, the internets, and Xeni later posted a clarification explaining that irradiating your lover is probably not the most romantic thing to do, as well as a PC acknowledgement that... "it appears to be a product of the same deeply corrupt, violent economic system that surrounds production of most of the world's diamonds..."

Cyber romance ends in divorce

I suspect this is a little too perfect to be true, but what the heck.

A budding romance between a Jordanian man and woman turned into an ugly
public divorce when the couple found out that they were in fact man and wife,
state media reported.

via BoingBoing

You're better off shoplifting than downloading

Here's one of those items that just make you stop and realize how crazy the world is. Not-a -lawyer, Karl Wagenfuehr, posts an article on the Penalties of Stealing vs. Infringment.

Summary

	Stealing	Infringing
Absolute Minimum	$0 no jail	$4,400
Absolute Maximum	$100,000 1 year jail	$3,400,000 1 year jail lawyer fees and costs
Real World Example	Winona Ryder*: $2,700 fine $6,355 restitution $1,000 court cost 3 years probation	An Average RIAA settlement**: $14,875

via BoingBoing

Tired of seeing some OTHER guy win the big stuffed animal?

Impress your girlfriend/wife (preferably not simultaneously). Be THE MAN!

Knock down those milk cans, shoot the red star out of the card, get the hoop over those blocks! Now you can, or at least have a better shot, with the self-published, "The Secrets of Amusement Park Games... Revealed! (Third Edition)"

via BoingBoing

Blog at Google at your peril

A Google employee, who blogged about the company's activities, has left Google, according to John Battelle. The ex-employee, Mark Jen, wrote on January 26th:

i goofed and put some stuff up on my blog that's not supposed to be there. nothing serious and they didn't ask me to take anything down (even the stuff where i'm critical about the company). i'm learning that google is understandably careful about disclosing sensitive information, even vague financial-related things. the quickest way for me to fix the situation at the time was to take it all down. now i'm back up. just so you know, google was pretty cool about all this. thanks for and sorry for the frenzy of speculation.

Apparently Google wasn't as cool as Mark thought. Fired, quit, or something in-between? We'll probably never know for sure.

Google was the second super-secretive company I worked for (as a Google Answers contractor. Google would take the position I never actually "worked" for them), so paranoid about revealing any information that in my year's employment, I never knew the names of anyone at Google I worked for/with. The Google Answers editors -- themselves rumored to be contractors - preferred to hide behind the portmanteau "Google Answers Team" title and email address and used much of their anonymous correspondence to remind researchers that we were never, ever to reveal any information about GA or Google itself that we might become privy to.

About the only pieces of information I can remember that I did discover were that the engineer charged with maintaining the GA system had a pair of ferrets and wasn't good about doing her laundry, and that I didn't want to work for Google, either as a contractor or otherwise.

To my knowledge, at least three Google Answers Researchers (or "GARs") were either fired/suspended/quit over Google secrecy paranoia. Again, with Google you're never completely sure what is going on. At least one of those people thought she had been fired from Google Answers, but they claimed a suspension/misunderstanding and that she could regain researcher status by acknowledging that she'd never write about Google Answers again without first being vetted by Google. She refused.

Me, I just got frustrated with GA editorial incompetence, finally said the Bad Word to an editor in an email, and quit shortly thereafter.

The CEO of the other super-secretive company I worked for, which is now out-of-business but still shall remain nameless, once told me when I complained about the virtual information vacuum everyone labored under, "I like not revealing too much. I think it makes me more... intimidating."

Personally, I thought she was an idiot.

My Life with Pets

Everyone who loves animals has one of these, if only as a mental image. As Scott says, it would make a great poster.

Way cool

... is the new Google Maps application, full of the "Wow" factor. Wonder how long it will be before they hook into a satellite map?

(via BoingBoing)

Complete Calvin & Hobbes available as pre-order on Amazon

The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, three hardcover, four-color volumes, 1440 pages, in a slipcase edition, is now available for pre-order at Amazon at more than a 1/3 discount on pre-orders. Getting to September is going to be a long wait.

One percent of Dutch Boy

is worth $178.50, according to the market.

Now that'd be an interesting idea, which somebody has probably come up with already - a poker players market. Buy, sell. and trade shares in pro poker players, market prices based on how well they're doing on the circuit.

Boyd has taken grief on selling stakes in himself, but I suspect it's the wave of the future for players .

"Toot Sweet" => "It's Really Love" => "Johnny's Song"

Mark Evanier posts a fascinating history of "The Tonight Show" theme, including a link to an MP3 excerpt of Annette Funicello (!!!) singing "It's Really Love", written for her by Paul Anka, who had recycled the song from an earlier Anka composition, "Toot Sweet" as he would recycle it again into "Johnny's Song."

Apropos of nothing, all men of a certain age had the hots for Annette, as I did, and as I did for Hayley Mills. Annette wrote a charming autobiography several years ago titled, A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes, which I heartily recommend if no other reason that it's one of the few autobiographies I've read where there are no stories of exploitation, abuse, or backstabbing.

If not fully a charmed life, as she now suffers from multiple sclerosis, Annette seems to have had a pretty good one, and one that she's appreciated even through illness.

Deep Throat's identity may soon be revealed

according to an L.A. times article.

Bob Woodward, a reporter on the team that covered the Watergate story, has advised his executive editor at the Washington Post that Throat is ill. And Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Post and one of the few people to whom Woodward confided his source's identity, has publicly acknowledged that he has written Throat's obituary.

via Mark Evanier

Send some mojo...

...to Sketch, Wil Wheaton's cat, please, who at last report is doing better. But Wil is going through a rough time, as we all do when a pet is sick. Peg and I still miss Speedy Tomato something awful, even after almost four years.

Hah! As I started to write this, "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats" started playing on MusicChoice. A good sign, Wil.

Death on Wheels

A man, a plan, and a car named Alexi.

Propane is actually pretty damned safe, at least as safe as you get when you are in the market of 15 foot fireballs.

via William Gibson

Blinds and Kings were my undoing

I placed a respectable, but out-of the-money, 39th out of 151 entrants in the World Poker Blogger Tour tourney last night, 21 slots away from any winnings. But I had fun.

Sometime in Hour 1 the Big Blind went all-in with about $2k worth of chips after I raised with pocket Ks. He had a pair of 9s. I got burnt by the “maldito rio” when another 9 surfaced on the river and Sinatra sang in my head, “Kings don’t mean a thing…” It took me a moment to realize that I wasn’t out of the game, but still had a meager $350 stack left.

My luck, she decided to turn at this point, and I was dealt suited AJ, AQ, and an unsuited Big Slick in close succession. Called each time on all three all-ins, I tripled my stack in about 15 minutes back to where it had been before being crippled by the 9s. Someone commented at this point that if I succeeded in doubling up a couple more times I would have gone from last place to chip leader in five hands.

But my luck, she decided to go out for a drink and the cards stopped coming. I finished Hour 1 with around $2,900 in chips. Sometime before getting stripped of my stack and recovering I had been dealt the infamous Poker blogger hammer while in mid-position. Everyone in front of me having folded, I threw out a triple the BB raise, about $600 in chips I think at that point. And everyone folded. And of course I showed my cards and crowed. And everyone congratulated me.

Iggy would have been proud.

My stack yo-yoed up-`n-down in Hour 2. I picked up a few hands, but lost more, and the blinds continued to increase. At some point I was moved to a new table, which also threw me off my stride. Probably like most players I play better the longer I stay at the same table. You tend to pick up the rhythm of the table and the other player’s betting patterns.

Someone once said that it’s never the hand that you go out on that’s beaten you, but usually several hands before. I think the game changer for me was when I called in late position with a suited K7, and one other player called. The flop showed a rainbow 77J, and I went all-in with my set. After a few moments my opponent called and flipped over a Q7. So he also had the set with a weaker kicker and I thought I was on my way to doubling my $1,600 in chips if I could avoid the Q. As it turned out, the board paired the J on the turn, and we ended up chopping the pot with a board full house.

Chopping’s better than losing, of course, but missing that pot really took the wind out of my sails, as it had been the best hand I had seen in the past 45 minutes. And the pitiless blinds kept eroding my stack.

About five minutes before the close of Hour 2 and the start of the next break I was in mid-position again when The Hammer reappeared in my hand. Everyone in front of me folded again and I raised to $800 with half my remaining stack. I thought I had the blinds stolen as I watched a succession of folds until the BB re-raised. Calling him would put me all-in with my remaining $835 of chips.

At this point ricoM is faced with a decision. I have a 7 deuce off-suit, the well-known “worse starting hand in poker” and the chances are better than good that whatever Mr. BB has it’s more powerful than what I have. On the other hand, letting the $800 I’ve already committed to the pot go leaves me with a pitiful short stack and I’m then going to need a series of monster hands and successive all-ins to survive much longer.

And, after all, it’s pre-flop, where Spring is in the air and anything seems possible. And it is The Hammer, and it is a poker blogger tourney. As someone who regularly plays the blogger tables had said earlier, “Welcome to my world, where 7 and 2s on the flop are more feared than As and Ks.”

I call.

I flip my Hammer, getting a laugh from the table, and the BB shows what I had lost with much earlier in the tourney, a pair of Kings. The poker gods, being the whimsical characters they are, give my opponent a scare and me some hope when the flop shows a 7. Another 7, or a deuce, and avoiding a K would make me a winner, but the turn and river bring no joy and I’m out in position 39.

“Good try,” someone notes in the chat box. And you know what? I’m satisfied, loose crazy move that it was. You’re usually only one card away from winning, and I was.

Less chat than I expected in this tourney, maybe because there seemed to be less bloggers and more readers this time around. Or maybe I was just at the wrong tables. Many of the heavyweight bloggers whose names I recognized finished early. One-armed Iggy went out very early at place 102, maybe due to his game being off from his recent operation. Again, I didn’t get to play at a table with him, something I’ve always wanted to do, but maybe next time. If Fast Eddie was in this one, he was under a new handle I didn’t recognize. Wil Wheaton didn’t play this time either as far as I could tell. I think life has been getting in the way of Wil over the past few days. He has a sick Maine Coon, btw, and Bear and I are beaming “get well” thoughts to Sketch in California as I write this.

One chat conversation that did annoy me happened during Hour 2, where a player complained when another player re-raised him and forced him to fold. In the subsequent play, #2 won the pot and knocked an all-in out. Player #1 apparently had the strongest hand and would have won the pot if he had stayed in, and went into the usual whine about “How could you raise like that with that hand?” #2 politely noted his thinking, which just infuriated #1 more. “Bad move,” he said. “Okay,” said #2.

“You know,” I wrote in the chat box, “I think I’d rather win than be right.”

“Thank you, rico,” Player #2 replied.

The $22 buy-in shrunk my stake by half, but I’ve been playing off my winnings from the last blogger tourney in October for the past three months, and I’m okay with that. At one point I was up to $150, but variance, bad beats, and bad play when I tried to force hands have taken their toll. I was planning on hitting a live tourney this Saturday with a $50 buy-in, but I think I’m going to drop some more change into PokerStars instead.

“You need some socialization past Bear and Kittenish,” says Peg, but you know, I have a pretty active social life, even though it’s with people I never see.

A day without a crash would be like a day with sunshine

If you're watching carefully, you'll note that the two Blox apps to the right are no longer with us. As Roseann Roseanna Danna used to say, "If it's not one thing, it's two things." My Dell laptop, my primary work PC during the winter months, has been having serious crashes on a near-daily basis during the past week or so. I haven't been able to identify what's going on, as symptoms vary, but one suspect on my list is Firefox having some sort of problem with more than one Flash app loading at a time...and that can possibly be traced to the Lazlo "Blox" apps.

Ironically, I found a possible reference to the problem on John Dowdell's blog. "Ironically" because Dowdell, whose on-line personality could best be described as this in my opinion, and I used to exchange barbs on a semi-regular basis on the DIRECT-L mailing list back when I was doing Director work.

In any case, one error message I'm getting on a regular basis when in Firefox is about the Flash plug-in. And I usually crash when I have the fhb site open in Firefox (that's not much of a clue, because I usually have the fhb site open). So, I'm disabling the Blox applications -- at least for a bit -- to test and see whether that will make the problem go away. I've never been real happy with the LinkBlox app in any case and, the WeatherBox app, while cute, can be replaced with something else if necessary.

At some point I'm going to redesign "fhb" once more again, as it's become a pretty hacked-together piece of work.

Merle Haggard to join Dylan on next tour

Bob Dylan will be doing March and April concerts in five cities, including multi-night runs in Seattle, Los Angeles and Chicago. Joining him on the tour--which is dubbed "The Bob Dylan Show"--will be Merle Haggard and The Strangers, as well as Amos Lee.

The hippo and the whale might be cousins

ahem, a zen poem

The problem with hippos is

A group of four-footed mammals that flourished
worldwide
for 40 million
(40 million!)
years
and then died out in the ice ages
is the missing link between the whale and its not-so-obvious nearest relative,

the hippopotamus.

The hippo and the whale might be cousins
the loon and the vulture bros
The hippo and the whale might be cousins
one sleek, one not necessarily so.

Peeing your way out of trouble

A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

(via Rising Slowly)

I'm feeling tricksy

Fark, which is a site hard to explain, even if you read its FARQ, ah, FAQ, is having a "hack Google's interface with Photoshop" contest. Many of the results are hilarious. Here's my current favorite, which would be the result if MiddleEarth had had a Google.

(via John Battelle's Searchblog)

MOJO's Top 100 Soundtracks of All Time List

Maybe it just reflects my tastes for music of the `60s (not just R&R, but anything from the `60s. I'm an unrepentent Bacharach & Davis fan, f'r instance) but I think this is one of those lists where you could simply go through it and buy each pick and be pretty much happy.

A little earlier in time than most of the picks is #4 - Miles Davis' "Ascenseur pour l'echfaud" (Lift to the Scaffold), a soundtrack to an early Lous Malle film noir that I had never heard of. I bought it on Friday, and love it.

(via BoingBoing)

In more pleasant news

After dealing with snow, bruised trees, and crumpled cars yesterday (see below) I went back to the Web, and eventually looked at my blog stats during lunch. I had a cascade of hits -- "cascade" being many more than my usual handful of daily visits, most from family and friends, plus the usual odd visit from people looking for the First Hawaiian Bank, which shares my initials.

Almost all the hits were originating from Mark Evaniers' site, so I went to see why and found to my delight that Mark had "cribbed" (his word), my story about the Rose Marie segment on Carson, linking back to me in the process. As could be expected, not only did Mark remember the segment, he remembered it much better than I did (a little scary for me as Mark and I are the same age and I, or at least used to, pride myself on my memory), even to the point of naming the other guests that night (John Byner???). There's a bit of recursion for you. You can go to Mark's blog, back to my story, and then back to Mark's posting about my story if you follow those links.

Mark pegs the show airing circa 1969 or `70, which would have made us both between 17 and 18 and, if he's right, means I was living in a different city (L.A.) than I thought, and it was a different summer. But I was pretty much the nightbird from age 15 to around 25, when I was out of the Army, went back to college, and started keeping more regular hours, so it's possible. Anyway, as I suspected, as I've never seen that segment again, and it would have been a natural for any "Best of" special (certainly equal to the overused Ed Ames tomahawk segment), Mark thinks the show was probably one of the many that were lost, taped over, by NBC, who apparently had no sense of history at the time.

However, there still may be copies in existence. Stay tuned.

A Winter's Tale

It's another winter in New England. Snow again yesterday, an additional 5 to 7 inches. Temperatures relatively warm, in the 20s. Peg hit a patch of ice on the way to work yesterday morning, spun out, bounced off a telephone pole and ended up in a snowdrift with the SUV's crumpled nose resting against a tree.

She called me about 10 minutes after leaving the house, so I jumped into the Mini and went to get her. She was less than a mile up the back road, the Rodeo off to the side, facing the wrong way. Peg was unhurt having worn her seatbelt, although upset, as anyone would be. But it was an ice patch on a snowy back road, and if you've ever hit one just the right way you know you have as little control as if you were on ball bearings or an oil slick. All you can do is steer, wait for traction, and ride it out. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you don't. A few miles up the road Peg might have ended up in an open field or might have ended up in someone's yard, as she later saw another car had done.

I put her in the Mini, checked out the Rodeo, and after some effort, was able to get it back out on the road. The Rodeo was still drivable... or was after I pried some stuff away from the driver's side tire.

I took it home, and Peg, conscientious do-bee she is, went on to work in the Mini. `Bout five minutes after I got back inside, Peg called me on my cell phone (hers having died right after she called me), and near-gives me a heart attack as I think she's been in another accident. But she's just wants to tell me that she's now stuck in traffic as another car has slid off the road - the car in the front yard - and they're trying to pull it out. Twenty minutes later she calls to let me know she's finally at work.

I've called Allstate and our mechanic, and brought the Rodeo into Paul's this morning to see what's what. And I need to call Allstate Claims to see if I can pin down when the claims adjuster might come to look at it past "before next Tuesday", as I was told yesterday.

My biggest concern is that they'll try to total the Rodeo rather than pay the full repair amount, given that it's a seven-year-old car with 106,000 miles on it. Yesterday I was guessing about $3-4k worth of work, but in this morning's light it looks like the whole front end, hood, and driver's side bumper will need replacement... and that's before any assessment of the famous "hidden damage." Fair value on a Rodeo with that age/mileage ranges around $6 to 7K, so I think we're going to be on the edge of being totaled. We still have payments on the Mini and I don't want two car payments if I can avoid it. But, there's no use obsessing about it yet, Fred tells his Monk-self.

Definitely an AWD car the next time around, but preferably not for this year.

The answer is: "I'll be right back"

and the question to Johnny Carson was, "What would you like your epitaph to be?"

Pre-SNL, pre-anything except bad old movies and a revolving cast of competitors on the other channels, the chances were you watched Carson if you were watching late night TV at all. And you either said, "Johnny Carson" or just "Carson." I don't think I ever heard anyone ever refer to it as the "Tonight Show" except in commercials or Ed McMahon in the intro.

I had a summer in my life, probably around age 15, where I never went to bed before 2 a.m. and seldom got up before noon. And each night, if I was home, I watched Carson alone in the living room of my parent's house.

One of the funniest live moments I ever saw was on the Carson show during that summer -- a guest appearance by Rose Marie (of "Dick Van Dyke" fame), whose age Carson had jokingly referred to in his introduction. Another guest - whose identity I've long forgotten - mentioned the joke to Rose Marie, and compounded it by saying that Carson had claimed that when they were building the first stage, Rose Marie held the hammer.

"Ooookay," a mock-angry Rose Marie said, smiled at Carson, stood up and walked off the set. In close order, each of the other guests got up, smiled at Carson, and also left, until only McMahon was there. And then he got up and left, leaving Carson with what must have been the living embodiment of a talk show host's nightmare.

"Is it time to go to a commercial?" he asked. "Not for five minutes," came the offstage reply as the audience roared.

A desperate Carson eventually went into a stripper act, peeling down to his bare chest, as the orchestra blared out "The Stripper." And then all the male guests returned to the stage, each of them bare-chested too, as the audience went into hysterics.

Well, you had to be there. And it was funny, funny enough to me that I can still remember the details from a show I saw only once nearly 40 years ago. They cut to a commercial, and when the show came back on, Carson and the bare-chested guests were seated and he looked into the camera and dead-panned, "Welcome to Rawhide."

I stopped watching Carson regularly long before he retired, as much because I had stopped staying up late as the fact that the guests he had on were of no interest to me. But there were moments: I made a special effort to watch the show when Robert Blake was a guest, back in his "Baretta" days. Carson seemed to have a special fondness for Blake and his war against "the suits." There was once a very funny interchange between Blake and Carson when Carson had Blake interview him in the persona of a sullen actor, who eventually dropped his pants and mooned the audience.

The first time I ever saw Andy Kaufman was on Carson, as Kaufman did his "foreigner does terrible imitations and then turns into Elvis" routine to an audience that had no idea where he was going.

Truman Capote. Robert Goulet. Carl Sagan. Bob Hope -- one of the few guests that could walk on to the set, say a few words, usually about whatever special he was flogging that week, and then leave without having to stay through the full show. An enormous Orson Welles. A very drunk Peter Falk, who told an endless story about drinking with Patrick McGoohan and who Carson kept encouraging to leave. "Well I know you have to go now." "I don't need to be anywhere," Falk replied.

Barbra Streisand reneging on her commitment to appear on Carson with opera star, Beverly Sills. After advertising Streisand's appearance for a full week, Carson told the audience, "Miss Streisand called and said she will not be on the show tonight. Nor will Miss Streisand be on any other night as long as I'm host."

The death of Robert Kennedy, and Carson doing a round table to discuss violence in America in lieu of the regular show. Carson in a Nehru jacket in the late `60s. The "Johnny Carson" line of clothing, which I always thought was pretty cool.

As one could expect, Mark Evanier has a slew of commentary and links about Carson, well worth reading, especially this article that Evanier originally wrote in 1990.

The World Poker Blogger Tour...

...continues.

Feb 2nd, 9pm EST
PokerStars
$20+2 buyin, NL tournament
Password: thehammer

Currently 20 sign-ups as of today, and a $400 pool. I haven't signed up, although I'm planning to. 133 entrants the last game, and lots of fun.

Mavis Staples and Dylan a One-time "Item"

In a recent interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the 63 year-old vocalist, Mavis Staples known for such soul classics as "I'll Take You There", told of a romantic relationship with Bob Dylan.

Definition of Fred

Fred: Great coolness instincts, shitty business instincts.

I have a tendency, as Peg will tell you, to champion very cool but ultimately unsuccessful technology. I'm praying that TiVo, which I love, doesn't become another "but it was so cool!" discard on the dust-bin of Fred history (howza `bout that for dramatic overstatement, huh?). The signs aren't good, but on the other hand, I've proclaimed the death of Apple and Amazon at various times, too (see definition of Fred again above).

Rather than provide all the links, here's the uber-link to Mark Evanier's posting on TiVo troubles.

Comcast or Time-Warner, buy my bankrupt, evil pirate cable company soon, please.

"Damn it, sheep, stay in line."

"It's not my job to make it easy for people..." -- ABC scheduling chief Jeff Bader

Gotta love that `tude. Bader's job, according to Bader, "..is to get people to stay with [ABC] from 8 to 11." To do so, ABC and other major networks are trying to "break" TiVos and other PVRs by scheduling shows to start just slightly off the usual hour/half-hour schedule.

Shows running a minute or more over their scheduled time period for the week ending Nov. 21 according to the USA Today article, included:

- Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS)

-Trading Spouses (Fox)

-Lost (ABC)

-That '70s Show (Fox)

-CSI (CBS)

-ER (NBC)

-The O.C. (Fox)

-Desperate Housewives (ABC)

-The Simpsons (Fox)

Except for Lost, whose storyline I gave up on too, there's nothing there I watch, but I bet the trend is pissing off a lot of people. I first noticed this in action (I think more in WB's attempt to pack as many commercials in as possible rather than to deliberately foil recording), when I started to TiVO the new "The Batman" animated series, which consistently starts and ends as much as 2 minutes off-schedule.

In honor of MLK and REL

A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, once remarked that God created Mississippi in order for the other Deep South states to have someplace to make fun of too. This MP3 file seems proof.

Partial transcript for those who don't want to play the MP3 file:

"You've reached the Mississippi State Tax Commission. On Monday January the 17^th the State Tax Commission offices will be closed in observance of Robert E. Lee and Dr. Martin Luther King's birthdays. Tax Commission offices will re-open on Tuesday January 18^th..."

The South does not need to rise again. It's never fallen in Mississippi. (via BoingBoing)

More pieces of Dutch Boyd for sale

I think it'd be fairly easy to write an article with the general theme of, "the pissy world of professional poker", as the current scene is primarily composed of very intelligent, but generally very unsocialized, very young men who spend as much time sniping at each other as they do playing. Kind of makes you long for the days of the Texas road crews, where arguments were settled with double-ought.

Dutch Boyd's ebay auction of himself was removed by the eBay gods. According to Boyd:

"...Grrrr... so after a few days of getting bids, I got an email from eBay on Friday saying they were taking the auction down because (1) I had a link to the site and (2) I had some search terms in the title that didn't relate to the auction (WPT?). I think it's for the best... got an email from a guy who said that the Copenhagen tournament was already sold out, so I'd probably have been in a bad spot if the listing DID sell."

Uh, yes. Bad spot, Dutch. Boyd is now auctioning 1 percent stakes in any winnings he earns in the San Diego WSOP Circuit main event on February 27th. An ex-colleague, Brett Jungblut, who terms himself "2004 WSOP Omaha Hi/low World Champion, and FORMER member of THE CREW" and who doesn't appear to want to head the Dutch Boyd fan club, has posted a pseudo-auction on eBay with the description:

"As a profesional poker player and former friend and colleague of Dutch Boyd, I felt obligated to tell you that I cut off all business and personal relationships with Dutch because I felt VERY uncomfortable trusting him on any level. Since he is using my picture in his auction, I wanted to make clear that I do not support him in anyway. Winning bidder of this auction will win 1/2 hour of phone time with me, to be used for poker/life related questions. [sic]"

I'm compiling a list of suitable life-related questions for Brett, so far including:

1. Do you need to spel gud to be a successful pro?
2. Where can you find a good nickel cigar?
3. When is the right time to use THE HAMMER?
4. Can I get Shana Hiatt's phone number?

The Hammer Redux

If you check out the comments link in my previous "Hammer" posting, you'll note that both Felicia Lee (the "another blogger" of the previous entry) and the Blogfather of Poker himself, Iggy, dropped by. Nice to see them both here and I appreciate their taking the time to comment... and also neither of them tasking me on the fact that the Hammer story as originally written would have made it impossible for me to win. I've corrected the play-by-play, but in all honesty I don't remember what the cards were (chalk it up to advancing age), except that I won an all-in with a 7 7 2 2 2 full house, and it drove my adversary bonkers, as all good Hammer wins should.

Felicia noted that closing her public blog was "because of hate mail containing lightly veiled threats", an unfortunate too often by-blow of writing outspoken commentary on-line. As I said, a pity she closed her public Weblog, although she generously (since I'm a stranger to her) gave me access to her new, restricted blog. How long she'll be willing to maintain even a restricted blog is an open question, as the problems are apparently continuing.

As to the "Hammer" debate, some more reading has left me more bemused, or confused, or whatever. Although I didn't think it a thing worth debating, I had thought Iggy's reference to the "Stripper by Night" as a "troll" was somewhat off-base. I think of on-line trolls as people who deliberately write provocative statements to generate reaction. A "Dylan has a voice like a frog and stole all his material to boot" posting in rec.music.dylan would be an example of a troll trolling.

The interchanges between Felicia and the "Stripper" (whose name, if it's real, I've forgotten) seemed more like the typical on-line feud, with various people lining up on one side or another, themselves generating sub-branches of arguments. The whole Hammer thread is a perfect example: Is it usually stupid to play, let alone raise with? Yes. Does that have anything to do with the blogger poker meme (as Iggy so elegantly puts it in his comments) that you should always raise with the Hammer, especially in a game with other poker bloggers? No.

One mark of maturity is the ability to hold two conflicting thoughts in mind at the same time.

Anyway, now I'm not so sure whether Iggy was wrong, as several bloggers are advancing the theory that the "Stripper" is a fake, and may be someone's elaborate hoax. And, just to keep the pot boiling at a fine froth, The Stripper is now claiming that her (or his) true identity has been uncovered and she (or he) is now receiving phone calls about his (or her) blog.

The Hammer Strikes

Time for a poker posting, not least `cause the next Bloggers tourney is in the midst of being scheduled, (currently set for Wednesday, Feb 2nd at 9pm EST) and there’s a faction that wants it to be bloggers only. Why, only the proponents know. I suspect it's for the same reason sf fans call the general populace, "mundanes." It's an "us vs. them, that ant's the wrong color, that lamb don't smell right" sort of thing.

But thus, consider this the official poker blog of ricoM, by God, where we don’t do anything but eat, sleep, read, and write about poker. We even occasionally play. Our top subjects:

1. All online poker is rigged.
   
   
2. How could that idiot call me with that hand?
   
   
3. How could that idiot have beaten me with that hand (see #1)?
   
   
4. Sign up at (insert name here) using bonus code (insert bonus code here)
   
   
5. I’m giving up my job and becoming a pro.
   
   
6. The pros and cons of using THE HAMMER

Well, maybe not that last, as there has been a furor in the poker corner of the blogosphere over the past couple of weeks that was apparently first triggered by one bloggers’ commentary that raising with the so-called “hammer” (7 2 off-suit, usually termed “the worst starting hand in hold `em”) is a “stupid move.” These two words unleashed an unbelievable torrent of criticisms, counter-arguments, personal vendettas, and escalating insults in different blogs. “Unbelievable”, of course unless you’re familiar with on-line communities, where every molehill has the potential to grow into Everest.

Apparently because of this another blogger has closed her blog to all but visitors she authorizes. A pity, as I enjoyed reading her postings, although though I thought she was a tad touchy even before this incident – especially with people who disagreed with her. And I’m using “apparently” repeatedly because the arguments seem to have been conducted equally through blog postings, emails, and commentary in several different blogs, making it extremely difficult to determine exactly what everyone is getting so crazy about. UPDATE: See Felicia's note in the comments on her reasons for closing her blog.

I’m not quite sure why, maybe it’s the nature of the beast, but most poker bloggers, and most poker players come to think of it, are very opinionated about play. Very sensitive when they feel their strategy is being criticized; very outspoken about other players’ strategy… especially if they consider a play a bonehead move, and even more especially when stupidity is rewarded, which it often is.

Poker tends to reflect the real world.

As I play more, I’m coming to the belief that most of the advice or commentary I read doesn’t have much to do with what I’m doing. As it stands, I do enough self-criticism of my own play to suffice the entire Red Chinese Army, as Peg will tell you, and I’ve found trying to apply someone else’s style to my play makes me resemble the centipede who was asked how he was able to keep his legs marching in sequence… and was never able to walk again.

I think it may be because my focus is on SnG’s and tournament play, or it may that I’m just not at the level yet where I can apply some strategies. Dunno. But much of the ring game strategy I read doesn’t work for those variants in my experience – or only will work in certain exceptional situations, at least for me. When you’re starting with a limited stack, and you’re gone when that stack is gone, you can’t play too aggressively or loosely. Can you raise with the Hammer and get away with it now and then? Sure, as you can in any game. But, get crazy, raise $200 with a $1,000 stack, get called, and any face card flops, now you’re faced with the decision of getting even more aggressive, with the potential to lose even more, or to cut your losses at $200.

And you’re down to $800. Make a few more loose moves, and you’re gone, unless you get lucky fast.

And before I invite my own firestorm of commentary (not from my handful of regular readers, who are a polite bunch, but if you happen to stumble across this by accident): IMO, only, `kay? Please keep your opinions to yourself. If you’re a poker blogger who has taken offense, go find me on PokerStars or Party and whup my poor little stake, if that’s your pleasure. But please keep how you think I should play to yourself, and I’ll do the same.

Having said that, here’s my personal Hammer story: I was playing in a PokerStars SnG, which is where I make most of my little money. It’s early in the game, still $10/20 blinds. I’m UTG and get 7 2 off-suit. “What the heck,” lil’ Rico thinks, and raises to $60, which I can afford to lose. Everybody folds up to the Button, who just calls me. The SB folds and the BB calls.

The flop hits 7, 2, K, and I have two pair, which ain’t bad, Rico thinks, and he bets $120. I get one fold and one call.

The turn is a nothing card, so I see how Mr. Caller feels and double up again to $240.

He calls. And the flop is a 2, giving me a full house. I go All-In… and he calls. He has two aces in his hand, which he’s been slow-playing.

The loser, who has been providing free advice to everyone on nearly every deal, goes ballistic when he sees what he’s lost to. He goes into the familiar on-line player, “You’re so dumb, how could you play that crap?” refrain where the lyrics change but the song remains the same.

I can’t resist. “THE HAMMER,” I taunt, “is Mighty!” The guy rants so much and for long that I think the Admin guys finally shut him off, at least he gets cut off in mid-rant.

In regards to another situation I recently told Peg, “The only thing better than getting money is taking money from someone you really don’t like.” That’s as true in poker as in anything else. My favorite line from the Hammer debate has been, “To be honest, if she liked me, I wouldn't like myself.” While it wouldn’t end the debate, nor make anyone love anyone else better, it’d be fun to see the various parties squaring off at each other at the tables. Probably won’t happen… but it’d be fun to watch.

The Nastiest Missle Ever Planned...

... may have been SLAM, a Supersonic Low-Altitude Missile, using nuclear ramjet power. The project to build the weapon's nuclear reactor was given the code name "Pluto," which ultimately became the name of the weapon itself.

"...a locomotive-size missile that would travel at near-treetop level at three times the speed of sound, tossing out hydrogen bombs as it roared overhead. Pluto's designers calculated that its shock wave alone might kill people on the ground....In addition to gamma and neutron radiation from the unshielded reactor, Pluto's nuclear ramjet would spew fission fragments out in its exhaust as it flew by."

Happily, on July 1, 1964, seven years and six months after it was born, Project Pluto was cancelled, for a variety of reasons, chief among them that Pluto would have irradiated our allies on its way to flatten the Soviet Union. Testing would also have been something of a problem. Where do you test-flight something that, "spews out fission fragments as it flies by"?

A peaceful counterpoint to Pluto was Project Orion, an atomic bomb-powered spacecraft conceived by Freeman Dyson that a group of scientists planned to use for a Grand Tour of the solar system... and reach Saturn by 1970. In some alternate, Heinleinesque, universe I hope they did it, and there is a base on the Moon, space stations orbiting their Earth, a small, growing colony on Mars, and explorers pushing out to the Asteroid Belt. It's a future I would like to have seen.

But I still have time.

First mention of...

Fun for geeks. Google holds over 20 years of Usenet postings -- more than 800 million messages, most of which are a waste of space -- in its Google Groups archives. Google posted a 20-year Usenet timeline page sometime in 2003, and recently re-publicized it to advertise their remake of the Google Groups interface.

If you're into productivity-busting mode, cruise on over and read such interesting postings as the first mention of Microsoft; Apple's Lisa; the first "me too" post; and much, much more.

Boxing Dylan

In a somewhat surrealistic interview, Sean Penn notes that he and Dylan used to box together at his house...

Q: You're the reader on the audio version of Bob Dylan's "Chronicles." How'd that come about?

A: He called. You don't say no to Bob. It's the first and last time I'll do it though. It's a big job.

Q: Are you friends?

A: Friendly acquaintances. I've never known him very well. There was a period of time when we used to box together. I had a ring at my house.

Q: Who came out ahead in those matches?

A: The interest was serious, but it was just for enjoyment.

Q: No broken bones?

A: No broken bones. No trips to the emergency room.

Q: You don't want to be the guy who put Bob Dylan in the hospital.

A: No. Or have it be the other way around.

Q: You say you'd never do another one of these audiobooks, but, you know, Dylan says he has two more volumes coming.

A: Yeah, I know. (Laughs) I've changed my number. (Laughs) I think you should only read books aloud for people who are shorter than you.

The full interview is here.

The Meanest Old Man in the World Hits 100

Charles Lane really isn't the meanest old man in the world, he just has played one numerous times in films and on TV.

You might remember him as Homer Bedloe, the mean old man who was always trying to shut down the Hooterville Cannonball on Petticoat Junction, but he's usually been some mean old man in whatever show or film he appeared in, an impressive list that includes, according to Mark Evanier, It's a Wonderful Life, 42nd Street, The Twentieth Century, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Big Store, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Music Man, State of the Union and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, one of Evanier's faves, and one of mine, too (I used to live in the guest cottage on the estate where the Big W was located).

Later this month Lane will reach his 100th birthday, and Evanier is organizing a campaign to send him congratulatory emails. More info here.

Show "Random Selection" from ANYWHERE

BoingBoing has been doing a series of posts on unsecured web cams that can be accessed through a Google search.

An enterprising (is there any other kind?) blogger uses the Google API to put together a neat page that lets you easily see screen captures from various cameras from around the world. Click on an image to go to a (sometimes) live video feed.

The Robin Hood of Poker...

... is a gentleman named Barry Greenstein, a self-made millionaire turned poker pro at age 36, who donates the bulk of his poker winnings to charity - over $2 million in 2004. Greenstein has a new book (as what pro doesn't) coming out this year, which I suspect will be more interesting reading than the majority of poker books. As valuable as Super System is claimed to be (and I'm in the minority opinion that I don't think it's all that good), stylistically it's almost unreadable.

You too can be a venture capitalist

Tempting. If I had a $2k poker stake - which I don't - I might consider this investment. Pro poker player, Dutch Boyd, is auctioning 50% of any earnings he wins at the European Poker Tour Copenhagen event being played at the end of this month for a current stake price of $1,825.00. Boyd is also willing to wear a t-shirt/hat with your logo, and will ...commit a couple hours to helping the winning bidder with their own poker game."

On the other hand, if I could get Boyd to wear "www.fredbals.com" gear, I suppose I could take off the cost next year as an advertising expense. Hmmmm. (via Iggy at Guinness and Poker).

UPDATE: The auction was apparently removed and re-listed. I've fixed the link (There's currently one bid).
UPDATE YET AGAIN: The auction was ultimately removed by eBay. More info here.

Winter Wonderland

Not from Merrimack, but from Vancouver, B.C. via William Gibson...

Working with the dead

All the entries from the Best of Still Photojournalism site are worth viewing, but this stunning set of photos from the Riverside County Sheriff Coroner's office are like a mini film noir, each photo by itself could generate a complete novel. Warning, though, many of the images are very graphic and disturbing. Not workplace-safe and not for children. (via BoingBoing)

R.I.P. Will Eisner

I was never all that big a fan of his storytelling, but I loved his art, especially his "The Spirit" splash pages. Among many other things, Eisner is acknowledged as the creator of the graphic novel genre. Here's a detailed biography of Eisner's life and accomplishments.

More signposts from the future

Motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel cannot sue a Web site that published a photo of him with two women above a caption reading "You're never too old to be a pimp," a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

The term "pimp" was probably intended as a compliment, the court said.

In keeping with this line of reasoning, Knievel complimented the court by responding, "What good is law in the United States of America if five or six goddamn bimbos are going to rule against it?"

sigh. Some days you can't tell the internets from The Onion. Link

A 5,0000-year-old comic "book"

The article calls it "the world's first animation", but Scott is right, it may be the first comic book ever made. You'll need to have read "Understanding Comics" to see why.

Nota bene: Although it's slow, be sure to watch the video animation. Link at the end of the article.

More signposts from the future

Her name is Dylan, she's 11. She's the youngest video blogger in the world. She's famous.

"My sister said she felt like she was going to pee in her pants after she saw it."

Signposts from the Future Department

From BoingBoing...

Futurismic's publishing some amazing science fiction and this story doesn't disappoint. It's a great 10 minute read, perfect for the Web.

Can "it's a great 10-second read, perfect for the iPod" be far away?

Red Sonja & the Savior of Comics

In the early `70s, the comic book industry was on its last legs (the comic book industry tends to get wobbly legs on an average 10 year cycle. It’s going through another down period as I write this). Mark Evanier has an interesting article about Phil Seuling, probably one of the most influential people in the industry that you’ve never heard of, who near-single-handedly convinced the major publishers that the direct market would be far more efficient than the traditional news stand distribution.

Seuling was right, Marvel and DC eventually bought into the idea, and now most comic fans go to a specialty comic book store rather than the corner drug store (sorry, Jill).

The photo in the link shows Seuling on the set of the Mike Douglas show with Douglas, Jamie Farr, and Wendy Pini(!!) costumed as Red Sonja. If you’re a comics fan, you know Pini as the co-creator of Elfquest, one of the first independent comics. I tend to forget how many authors and artists started as fans – not that surprising when you think about it.

I had an “I’m getting old” moment while reading Evanier’s teaser to the full article, when he found it necessary to explain exactly who Mike Douglas was. Since M.A.S.H. is still in re-runs, I’m assuming Mark was just covering the bases when he also felt the need to explain who Jamie Farr was. I hope, at least.

Things to do in 2005

I don't believe in making resolutions, as my "resolve" usually falters quickly. Instead, I've come up with a list of things I'd like to do in the coming year... some that I'm fairly certain I'll get to, others more problematic. In no particular order:

Return to the Birmingham-Southern College Conference "Writing Today" conference in March and see my `Bama family again. Last year was a little wild as my friend Jill's mother was in the hospital undergoing cardiac bypass surgery (she's now fully recovered), but a Saturday barbecue at her sister Leigh's house still remains as one the highlights of 2004 for me.

Go soaring. Think I'll try the Greater Boston Soaring Club first when spring comes. If they're not around in Sterling anymore, maybe a day trip up to Franconia to check out the Franconia Soaring Association.

Entice Peggy to the top of Mt. Washington for the MAMA Minis-on-top rally.

Win a "big" Texas Hold `Em tourney. I'm still working on the definition of what I think qualifies as satisfactorily "big", but the PartyPoker.com Million tournament is definitely on that plane.

Related to the above, I've been playing No Limit Hold `Em for a little over a year now, mostly on-line, and just recently for money. I think I’ve improved my game over the year, mainly by moving away from the on-line free-roll* tournaments (which have as little in common with real Texas Hold `Em poker tournaments as an Ashlee Simpson performance does with a real concert) and focusing on cash Sit-n-Goes.* I’ve tripled my stake (although it’s been recently been beaten down by my losing attempts at the progressive jackpot at Party Poker – a subject that deserves a post to itself), finished in 8^th place in a 133-player money tournament (the October Poker bloggers tourney), and tried my hand at a live tourney.

In 2005 I want the same steady progression. I want to be comfortable with bigger buy-ins… and I want to make some money not just from poker but from writing about poker.

We’ll see if I have anything interesting to say.

*“free-roll”: A tournament that doesn’t require money to enter. Most on-line free-rolls will get you an entry into another, often money, tourney if you place high enough. On-line free-rolls are characterized by high number of entries – several thousand isn’t unusual – and loose, often extremely stupid, play, especially in the first hour. Part of this is due to the theory that the best way of winning a free-roll is to build a large a stack as possible in the first hour. Most of this is due to the fact that many people playing free-rolls are bored, looking for action, and don’t care whether they win or lose.

**“Sit-n’-Goes”: a.k.a. SNGs. SNGs are mini-tourneys of 9 or 10 (or more) people. The name comes from when a table is filled, play begins. I do better at SNGs than I do at any other type of table. I suspect this is because I tend to lose my focus after a couple of hours of play, especially when the cards aren’t coming.

Back

A new year deserves a new epigram. This one's from Jim Harrison's valuable memoir, "Off to the Side." More tomorrow.