Other Stuff

The Doors were unusual among rock groups because they did not use a bass guitar in concert. Instead, Manzarek played the bass lines with his left hand on the newly invented Fender Rhodes bass keyboard, an offshoot of the well-known Fender Rhodes electric piano, and keyboards with his right hand

- Wikipedia

Kids In The Hall - Until Proven Guilty


The Phish message board that I frequent did a top 100 poll of best albums of 2006...here is the top 20 FWIW

19. The Hold Steady - Boys & Girls In America
18. Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
17. Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, & Bastards
16. Hot Chip - The Warning
15. Joanna Newsom - Ys
14. Built To Spill - You In Reverse
13. Nas - Hip-Hop Is Dead
12. Beck - The Information
11. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
10. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
9. The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
8. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
7. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
6. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
5. Yo La Tengo - I'm Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
4. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
3. Thom Yorke - The Eraser
2. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
1. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

You Tube

Kids In The Hall - The Eradicator

Kids In The Hall - Running Faggot

Kids In The Hall - The Doors

Mr. Show - Lie Detector

Playoffs!

I am on 2 soccer teams over at Chelsea Piers, one in Division 1 and one in Division 2. This is my first year on both teams, and amazingly both teams made the playoffs. It has been a wild ride in both leagues and our playoff berths came down to the wire. Out of more than 60 teams that started off in each division we have advanced to the final 16 in both. Playoffs are a single elimination tournament.

Tonight was my first game. Our division 1 team the Equinunk Warriors, only went 6-4 this year, but we snuck in to the playoffs from a mediocre league. Amazingly we won 19-10 tonight, and advance to the "Elite Eight" on Thursday night at 7 PM. We should have our work cut out for us in that round as we most likely will face Melmac United, a tough team that went 9-1 in the reular season.

Tomorrow night, my division 2 team the BallStars play at 9PM. I have a lot of confidence in our squad in this league. We came on strong at the end of the year. Our goalie can't make the first round though which could really hurt us. Unlike Equinunk where we are underdogs and rely on our defense and hustle to scrap wins, the BallStars have as good a shot as anyone at making a run at the title.

If BallStars win then I will end up playing back to back games in the second round on Thursday night. The playoff brackets should be linked the morning after each game, so anyone who is a Chelsea Piers soccer fan should bookmark those pages!

In other playoff news, my squad "So Many Roads" in my fantasy football league, that I do with a bunch of my best friends in the world clinched a final 4 berth this week with the weeks high score. I am planning on riding Steven Jackson, Torry Holt, Rudi Johnson and company to a championship this year.

Updates will come

Apparently...

It's J.C. Tran's World, we are all just living in it. He snapped off yet another pre-lim event. Congrats to J.C. and all his loyal fans

Why I hate Matt Maroon's online persona

Matt Maroon's blog on December 6th titled PokerStars and Retards has hit a new low. Its such a disgusting entry and exactly what poker professionals SHOULD NOT be writing. Now I admit that he has done a good job cultivating a blog audience with this awful drivel he comes out with from week to week, but as has been proven in many forms of American Culture, just cause the idiot masses enjoy it doesnt mean it is any good. I am not sure if he is completely selling out to make a name for himself in the poker world, or as I suspect he really is this miserable and unlikeable, either way this stuff is garbage.

His recent post about calling out "retards" for playing bad is awful on so many levels. He is encouraging his reading audience (for the most part a miserable crew who share the same negative attitude, and curmudgeon-like attitude on the world as Maroon) to not only act like assholes and make this world a worse place, but also to make fun of people for playing poker poorly. Neither of these things do anything to help poker progress or even stay stagnant. I really wonder how someone like Maroon, who is presumably pretty intelligent (just ask him) can produce garbage like this. His entry is clearly a mediocre attempt at humor (although they also seem to be his true feelings), but just saying "retard" a bunch of times does not make you Howard Stern.

Im not sure what drove me to make this entry, but I decided to open up his blog like a do once a week or so, and I needed to get this off my chest. I have a number of good friends that vouch for Maroon in real life. These are all good people whose opinion I trust and respect. This is probably why it is so puzzling to me why Maroon continually spreads bad vibes and ideas through the poker world. I give him credit that he has built up a blog audience and a name for himself in the poker world for being the "bad boy of blogging". Having a succesful blog is no small feat (by the way this is certainly not a goal of mine, but I do respect the quest.) Its just too bad that Maroon has to act like a social retard while doing so.

Poker Content / Concussion

Saturday morning I played touch football with a group of friends on the East River, early on I was injured. The injury and aftermath is documented here
I spent Saturday afternoon with a slight headache watching some great College Football games and Syracuse Basketball with a friend of mine. Afternoon slowly turned in to night and my buddy left around 10 PM to do whatever it is non-mild-concussed people do on a beautiful Saturday night in New York City. It was around this time that I decided to make the aforementioned post on a poker and Phish message board and research a bit more on my injury. After consulting with my mother and lurkers of many message boards, I was confident enough that I probably was fine and didnt need to go to the Hospital. My plan was to stay up for another few hours, watch a movie, surf the internet etc.

I hadnt played poker all day. I put in a lot of hours during the week, so I was using Saturday as a much needed day off from poker. My headache so far had further disauded me from jumping in and screwing around for a few hands, which is normally standard for a "day off from poker".

I was pretty bored though and was still reading up on mild-concussions on the computer. I decided to pull up Full Tilt in hopes of sweating a couple big games that I assumed would be running. I cant remember what real big games were running, but I had found Full Tilt Pro Roland de Wolfe playing Heads Up 100-200 limit hold em vs a tough opponent and also sitting in a 100-200 6 Max table playing Heads Up vs a guy I had never played with before.

For the first time all day I started to have the very familiar itch to play poker.

Roland, has had an amazing run at NL tournaments over the past year or two. By all accounts he is a great NL tourney player and probably a great NL player in general. Despite his tournament resume, my guess was that he might not be a great shorthanded limit hold em player on the internet, especially while also paying attention to another HU limit table and who knows what else.

I decided to sit down. My first hand in the bigblind I was dealt 85 offsuit and folded to the 3rd player Reshos' button raise. Once that hand was over Resoh quit and left me heads up with Roland. I was stuck 100 bucks now, so obv quitting wasnt an option.

We played 21 more hands over the next 7 minutes before Roland quit. I wrote up my recap of the hands mostly for entertainment value, but I do believe there was some interesting stuff.

Our complete heads up match unfolded as follows...

Hand #1 of HU

Me ($3900)
Roland ($5,034)

I raise 3c Qh on button, Roland calls...Roland check-folds A77 rainbow flop

Hand #2

PRE-FLOP : Roland Raises the button, I just call in the BB with [Ts Ad]

FLOP : [As 4c 2s] I check-call

TURN : [As 4c 2s] [6s] I check-raise, Roland 3-bets, I call

River : [As 4c 2s 6s] [9s] I bet and Roland folds.

Hand #3

I raise KK on the button and Roland folds

Hand #4

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with [9c Td]

FLOP : [5s 8d 7d] I check-call

TURN : [5s 8d 7d] [8h] I check-call

River is a 4, we both check and Rolands J5o wins.


(Right or wrong, I Played hand #4 passive because I had won the first 3 and figured he was gonna try his best to win this pot)

Hand #5

PRE-FLOP : I raise [As 3s] on the button, Roland defends

FLOP : [3d 7d 8c] I get checkraised and I call.

TURN : [3d 7d 8c] [Ts] Roland bets I call

RIVER : [3d 7d 8c Ts] [Kh] Roland bets I call, he shows 65 offsuit and I win.

Hand #6

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with [3h 5s]

FLOP : [6h 5c Td] I check-call

TURN : [6h 5c Td] [Jh] I bet and call Rolands Raise

RIVER : [6h 5c Td Jh] [5d] I check planning to raise and Roland checks behind with Kh8h

Hand #7

PRE-FLOP : I raise J3o, Roland calls in BB

FLOP : [Kc 9h 5d] Roland leads and I fold

Hand #8

Roland open folds his Button, I had K2

Hand #9

I raise 33 on the button. Roland defends and check-folds a QJ5 two-toned flop

Hand #10

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with 5c3c

FLOP : 2h As 5h, I check-raise and get called

TURN : 2h As 5h [Qs]....I check and call

RIVER : 2h As 5h Qs [Ac]....check-check and I beat his Jack High [3s Jd]

Hand #11

PRE-FLOP : I raise 63s, Roland 3-bets from the BB and I call

FLOP : [3h Ah 7c] Roland bets I call

TURN : [3h Ah 7c] [Ac] Roland bets I call

RIVER : [3h Ah 7c Ac] [5d] check-check and Rolands Fullhouse 5s Ad wins

Hand #12

PRE-FLOP : I defned my BB with [Kc Qd]

FLOP : [Ac Tc 4c] I check, he checks

TURN : Ac Tc 4c [6c] check-check again

RIVER : [Ac Tc 4c 6c] [8d] I bet, he folds

Hand #13

PRE-FLOP : I raise [As 6d] on button, Roland defends

FLOP : [4h Th Jh] Roland leads and I call

TURN : [4h Th Jh] [Jd] Roland leads and I call

RIVER : [4h Th Jh Jd] [2c] Roland checks and I check, he has (6h Kc)...I may have missed a value bet here

Hand #14

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with [Th Qs]

FLOP : [2s 7d 5d] I check-call

TURN : [2s 7d 5d] [5c] I check-fold...this was possibly poorly played, but a combination of not having much of a hand and also picking up something small on his betting speed, not wanting to give him momemtum and also obv being a pusse led me to take this line here.

Hand #15

PRE-FLOP : I raise [5h Kd], Roland defends

FLOP : [2d Td Ts]...I get check-raised and call

TURN : 2d Td Ts [Kh]...I call Rolands bet

RIVER : 2d Td Ts Kh [4d]...I call Rolands bet and beat his [2s 9s]


Hand #16

ME $7,345.50
Roland $1,582

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with AsTs

FLOP : [4s 8c 3s] I check-raise and Roland calls.

TURN : [4s 8c 3s] [2s] I lead and 3-bet when Roland raises me...roland folds (sigh)

Hand #17

ME $8,145
Roland $782

PRE-FLOP : I raise the button with AhTh and cap when rolland 3-bets me from the BB

The rest of the money goes in post flop and I lose to [Kd 9s]

Hand #18

Roland raises the button and I fold [2c Ts]

Hand #19

I raise 9h 4c on the button, roland defends and folds to my bet on a A39 two-toned board

Hand #20

PRE-FLOP : Roland raises and I defend with [Qh Th]

FLOP : 3c 6d 7d...I check-call

TURN : 3c 6d 7d [8s] I check-call

RIVER : 3c 6d 7d 8s [Kd] check-check and my queen high beats his [Js 9h]

Hand #21

ME $7,962
Roland $963.50

PRE-FLOP : I raise 9s 7h, Roland 3-bets and I call

FLOP : Ah 9h 4c...I call Rolands bet

TURN : Ah 9h 4c [6c]...Roland checks and calls my bet

RIVER: Ah 9h 4c 6c [3d]...Roland checks and calls my bet. His K8 offsuit loses.


After this hand Roland left the table.

I won $4600 in 7 minutes...now I just had to get through a night of sleep without falling in to a coma and it wouldnt be such a bad Saturday.

NFL Week 13 UnderDogs

I put in some small bets on Underdogs this week. I think they all have value, If u are looking for a bigger play I would go with Buffalo or San Fran. Tampa Bay and Tennessee are just value picks where I think the line should be slightly lower.

BUFFALO +6 (-105) vs San Diego
San Francisco +7 (-107) vs NEW ORLEANS
TENNESSEE + 7.5 (-107) vs Indy
Tampa Bay +7 (+103) @ PITTSBURG

Want to post this now, just in case anyone is scrambling for ideas...will give a few reasons later

NFL Bet

San Francisco (+7) @ New Orleans

I like San Fran to keep it within 7 vs New Orleans. The 49ers are still playing for something in this game and have been playing well for a number of weeks now. Public is still in love with New Orleans and are betting that side of the line at a 2 to 1 clip. Frank Gore is a monster, despite me trading him a few weeks ago in both my fantasy leagues (for Torry Holt in one and Peyton Manning in the other, so not too bad).

I am looking at some other games, but this one really jumped out at me.