Usually I am content to just post my star rating for the books I read and the movies I see, but I feel compelled to make some additional commentary on this one.
I think the rating I gave this book (3 Stars) is probably the lowest one I've given any book since I started posting ratings on here. While some (i.e. Weir) would argue that it means my rating system is too generous, I would argue that it's because I really try to limit myself to books that are really good (or at least ones that I'm really likely to enjoy). I don't mind occasionally throwing away 2 hours on a crappy movie, but giving 10-12 hours of your life to a book that sucks is not something I enjoy doing. And while I wouldn't go so far as to say that this book sucked, it was extraordinarily disappointing.
This is the 5th Woodward book I've read, although 2 of them I haven't read all the way through (I'm still in the middle of The Agenda and I only read about half of All the President's Men while researching for a paper on Watergate in high school). Until now, I'd always enjoyed them thoroughly. But he took a big step backwards here. To me I think it seems obvious that he really wanted to put out the first "big" book about the Obama presidency and it seems really rushed as a result. It seems like he thought "hmm, I've still got lots of military contacts from writing the Bush books and it'll take me too long to get new ones in the Fed and with various economic advisors so I'm just going to completely ignore that aspect." That's fair enough, but the problem is that there's just not enough there to fill up a 400 page book. You get a very good first 50 pages where he discusses the transition from Bush to Obama and a very good last 50 pages when they kind of open things up and talk about how Obama reacted to various situations as they occurred (e.g. the underwear bomber, the McChrystal Rolling Stones interview). But in between you get 300 pages of what is essentially recaps of minutes from various strategy meetings where Obama, the cabinet, and the generals try to agree on whether or not to send more troops into Afghanistan. Was that an important decision that is worthy of being put into print? Of course; but it can easily be accomplished in 50 or (at most) 100 pages. To say that it's padded is the understatement of the year. The central question that everyone is deciding on is "are we doing a full counter-insurgency, just a pure counter-terrorism, or trying some combination?" That question, in some form, is asked and answered no less than 30 times in the book. Instead of just saying "W,X, Y, and Z believed this while A,B, C, and D believed this" he gets detailed quotes from all of them. So even though there's just 2 different answers he gives it to you 8 times. It just makes for some painful reading.
Which is not to say that there's not some good information in here. You definitely get a sense of the inner workings of the administration (semi-dysfunctional, not moreso than the past couple administrations but certainly no better) and you also realize how quickly a lot of the "official statements" that are realeased to the press are thrown together, often without a lot of consensus within the administation. And I think that overall Woodward is relatively unbiased in his reporting, which is extremely valuable. But the bottom line is that if you're looking for a good overview of the first 18 months inside the Obama Presidency, you need to look elsewhere.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Some Thoughts on Unemployment
I just finished reading This Time is Different, it's a great but very dry read about the history of financial crises. The authors put together what is probably the largest amount of data ever compiled on economic statistics over the last 1000 years in an attempt to perform some analytics and draw some conclusions about what economies look like in the run up to a crises (useful in helping to avoid them) and what kind of severity and duration can be expected after they occur.
I lack the time and, quite frankly, the ability to relate even a fraction of what the book has to say. I can, however, summarize quite nicely. The power of delusion is so nearly absolute that with almost no exception the general public will deny all the signs pointing to a crises and will be thoroughly convinced that "this time really is different" all the way up until the crises finally hits. At that point the leaders will then usually throw up their hands and remark how it was impossible to predict. Finally, the return to "normalcy" is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than anyone likes to admit, especially when a banking crises is involved.
But my point today is not to review or rehash the book. I just wanted to use one piece of it as a stepping off point for some comments about unemployment. In an analysis of post-1900 banking crises which have occurred (of which there are 14), the authors found that on average the unemployment rises (as measured from trough to peak) by 7 percent and takes an average of 4.8 years to do so. Interestingly enough, on average the unemployment rates in emerging economies tend to rise less and last shorter than those in developed country. It's speculated (though not proven) that this has a lot to do with far more wage flexibility in the emerging economies.
So I thought that I would use this to see how our current situation stacks up to these historical averages. Here's a graph of unemployment since 2000 (which comes directly from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics):
Unemployment basically started increasing around June of 2007 (when it jumped from 4.4 to 4.6%), although it was actually fairly flat until 2008. The peak to this point (and hopefully THE peak) occurred in October 2009 at 10.1%. So all in all, we've got an increase of 5.7% (about 20% less than the average) in ~29 months (almost exactly half the average).
There's a couple conclusions to draw from this. First, compared to historical average we've actually done quite well. Certainly a double-dip recession is possible, but we've now had a year of decreasing unemployment (albeit a painfully slow decrease) so I don't think I'm jumping the gun too much. Of course, the big question now is whether or not this is because of the stimulus or whether this was going to transpire anyway and the stimulus just represented futile paddling against the current.
Speaking of the stimulus, it was pretty comically inept for Obama and his advisers to ever make the statement that with the stimulus they hoped unemployment would peak at 8%. It's usually not politically smart to ever tie yourself to any one number but if you're going to do it the 8% number was an incredibly bad one to use. Of course, by the same token it's also just as ridiculous to say that the stimulus was a failure because it didn't keep unemployment under 8%. Now the argument about whether or not the stimulus worked is for another time. I'm just saying you can't criticize a car because it can't take you to the moon, even if the car salesman told you it could.
As to where we go from here, prognosticator John says that we'll finally get unemployment down below 9% by mid-2011, hopefully below 8% by end of 2011, and below 7% by mid-2012 right when the election starts really ramping up. And I really think that 7% is the key number. If it gets below that, I think Obama is reelected easily. If it doesn't, he's got big problems.
I lack the time and, quite frankly, the ability to relate even a fraction of what the book has to say. I can, however, summarize quite nicely. The power of delusion is so nearly absolute that with almost no exception the general public will deny all the signs pointing to a crises and will be thoroughly convinced that "this time really is different" all the way up until the crises finally hits. At that point the leaders will then usually throw up their hands and remark how it was impossible to predict. Finally, the return to "normalcy" is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than anyone likes to admit, especially when a banking crises is involved.
But my point today is not to review or rehash the book. I just wanted to use one piece of it as a stepping off point for some comments about unemployment. In an analysis of post-1900 banking crises which have occurred (of which there are 14), the authors found that on average the unemployment rises (as measured from trough to peak) by 7 percent and takes an average of 4.8 years to do so. Interestingly enough, on average the unemployment rates in emerging economies tend to rise less and last shorter than those in developed country. It's speculated (though not proven) that this has a lot to do with far more wage flexibility in the emerging economies.
So I thought that I would use this to see how our current situation stacks up to these historical averages. Here's a graph of unemployment since 2000 (which comes directly from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics):
Unemployment basically started increasing around June of 2007 (when it jumped from 4.4 to 4.6%), although it was actually fairly flat until 2008. The peak to this point (and hopefully THE peak) occurred in October 2009 at 10.1%. So all in all, we've got an increase of 5.7% (about 20% less than the average) in ~29 months (almost exactly half the average).
There's a couple conclusions to draw from this. First, compared to historical average we've actually done quite well. Certainly a double-dip recession is possible, but we've now had a year of decreasing unemployment (albeit a painfully slow decrease) so I don't think I'm jumping the gun too much. Of course, the big question now is whether or not this is because of the stimulus or whether this was going to transpire anyway and the stimulus just represented futile paddling against the current.
Speaking of the stimulus, it was pretty comically inept for Obama and his advisers to ever make the statement that with the stimulus they hoped unemployment would peak at 8%. It's usually not politically smart to ever tie yourself to any one number but if you're going to do it the 8% number was an incredibly bad one to use. Of course, by the same token it's also just as ridiculous to say that the stimulus was a failure because it didn't keep unemployment under 8%. Now the argument about whether or not the stimulus worked is for another time. I'm just saying you can't criticize a car because it can't take you to the moon, even if the car salesman told you it could.
As to where we go from here, prognosticator John says that we'll finally get unemployment down below 9% by mid-2011, hopefully below 8% by end of 2011, and below 7% by mid-2012 right when the election starts really ramping up. And I really think that 7% is the key number. If it gets below that, I think Obama is reelected easily. If it doesn't, he's got big problems.
Friday, October 15, 2010
John'sApologeticBlog.Blogspot.Com
I'm contemplating changing this blog's name to the above because I feel like every post in the last 3 months has been me apologizing for not blogging more. And the reason, more than anything, is that I usually prefer to talk about weightier things and shy away from the more frivolous (or at least achieve a 60-40 mix) and I haven't found myself with a whole lot to say about some of the weightier stuff lately.
Actually, to be more precise I haven't really found anything new to say. I still have the same problems with both the Republican and Democratic parties and I just haven't felt compelled to rehash my feelings when the Democrats continue to do next to nothing with the largest majority in decades while the Republicans continue to act like they've basically erased capitalism completely. As a result, I've actually returned to being somewhat apolitical. To be sure, I still keep myself informed and will definitely be voting next month. I just no longer devour my weekly Economist and I tend to skip the podcasts of the Sunday morning political shows in favor of This American Life and Zencast.
I guess this is the so-called "enthusiasm gap", which Obama talked about in a recent Rolling Stone interview. He said it was "inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines" and while I agree with him in the strictest sense that choosing not to vote is a terrible option (as it always is) I don't agree with the larger sentiment. In a way it reminds me of the Windows commercials from a few years ago. Vista had gotten such horrible reviews that they decided to take groups of people and demo for them a supposedly new Windows operating system. At the end of each session they asked for feedback and apparently the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Of course, it wasn't a new operating system, it was Vista. So essentially their marketing campaign consisted of saying "You know this thing you have that you've all told us you don't like? You actually like it." Not surprisingly, Windows Vista has now given way to Windows 7. So, in a similar vein, Obama is now telling all of his 2008 supporters "You know those things we've done in the last 2 years that you're not excited about? You should be." When a candidate, or a company, or anyoneelse trying to market something fails to generate excitement it is their failure, not the failure of the populace.
Of course, I'm not exactly shocked by this outcome. I have a standing bet with my friend Joe (made in mid-2008) that if Obama was elected he would be a 1 term President. Not because I didn't think he would do a good job but because the expectations that were being set (and that he was feeding into) were so high that he couldn't possibly live up to them. While I think I was dead-on with that assessment, to this point I still think I'm probably going to lose that bet. We're only a year away from the full-blown kickoff of primary season and I just don't see any Republican out there who's going to beat him. Republicans like to say that this year will be 1994 all over again. I say be careful what you wish for, because after that it's also just as likely to be 1996 all over again too. Ironically, I think the Republican's best path to the White House in 2012 is for the Democrats to retain both houses, because Congress is almost always extremely unpopular and the Republicans will benefit more from 2 more years of voter angst at a Democratic Congress rather than if it's split between the parties. I don't think that's likely though. The Republicans are almost certainly going to take control of the House, and the Senate is likely to wind up close to split (+ or - 2 seats).
In a slight topic change, the one issue I am fairly decisive about as it relates to the state elections is the proposed amendment to the IL State Constitution which would allow for a vote to recall the governor if enough people sign a petition. First I cannot imagine how anyone could have looked at the California recall election circus and thought "boy I wish we could have that here!" And second, I cannot think of a more hideous outcome for governance than to have a governor that is forever in campaign mode. I urge my fellow Illinoisans to vote no on the Governor Recall Amendment.
Actually, to be more precise I haven't really found anything new to say. I still have the same problems with both the Republican and Democratic parties and I just haven't felt compelled to rehash my feelings when the Democrats continue to do next to nothing with the largest majority in decades while the Republicans continue to act like they've basically erased capitalism completely. As a result, I've actually returned to being somewhat apolitical. To be sure, I still keep myself informed and will definitely be voting next month. I just no longer devour my weekly Economist and I tend to skip the podcasts of the Sunday morning political shows in favor of This American Life and Zencast.
I guess this is the so-called "enthusiasm gap", which Obama talked about in a recent Rolling Stone interview. He said it was "inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines" and while I agree with him in the strictest sense that choosing not to vote is a terrible option (as it always is) I don't agree with the larger sentiment. In a way it reminds me of the Windows commercials from a few years ago. Vista had gotten such horrible reviews that they decided to take groups of people and demo for them a supposedly new Windows operating system. At the end of each session they asked for feedback and apparently the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Of course, it wasn't a new operating system, it was Vista. So essentially their marketing campaign consisted of saying "You know this thing you have that you've all told us you don't like? You actually like it." Not surprisingly, Windows Vista has now given way to Windows 7. So, in a similar vein, Obama is now telling all of his 2008 supporters "You know those things we've done in the last 2 years that you're not excited about? You should be." When a candidate, or a company, or anyoneelse trying to market something fails to generate excitement it is their failure, not the failure of the populace.
Of course, I'm not exactly shocked by this outcome. I have a standing bet with my friend Joe (made in mid-2008) that if Obama was elected he would be a 1 term President. Not because I didn't think he would do a good job but because the expectations that were being set (and that he was feeding into) were so high that he couldn't possibly live up to them. While I think I was dead-on with that assessment, to this point I still think I'm probably going to lose that bet. We're only a year away from the full-blown kickoff of primary season and I just don't see any Republican out there who's going to beat him. Republicans like to say that this year will be 1994 all over again. I say be careful what you wish for, because after that it's also just as likely to be 1996 all over again too. Ironically, I think the Republican's best path to the White House in 2012 is for the Democrats to retain both houses, because Congress is almost always extremely unpopular and the Republicans will benefit more from 2 more years of voter angst at a Democratic Congress rather than if it's split between the parties. I don't think that's likely though. The Republicans are almost certainly going to take control of the House, and the Senate is likely to wind up close to split (+ or - 2 seats).
In a slight topic change, the one issue I am fairly decisive about as it relates to the state elections is the proposed amendment to the IL State Constitution which would allow for a vote to recall the governor if enough people sign a petition. First I cannot imagine how anyone could have looked at the California recall election circus and thought "boy I wish we could have that here!" And second, I cannot think of a more hideous outcome for governance than to have a governor that is forever in campaign mode. I urge my fellow Illinoisans to vote no on the Governor Recall Amendment.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
An End of an Era . . .
Or at least a pause in one. This week I officially resigned my membership with the Chicago Curling Club. I didn't want to but the dues were getting pretty pricey (they work on a graduated scale and for my 3rd year it was going to be $500), we now live a whole lot farther away from Northbrook, and we only have one car. I did the math and figured that I'd probably be able to play in about 10-15 games and I just don't think it's worth $35 - $50 per game. As weird a sport as most people consider it, I will miss it because it was something different to do and I felt like I was just starting to "get it". Hopefully I'll be able to go back to it in a few years when time and money become more plentiful but it has been my experience these last 10 years that free time gets ever more, not less, scarce.
I'd also like to make a comment on the "controversial" call in the Bears game last weekend, so I apologize to you readers that couldn't care less about football. OK, well obviously I'm a Bears fan so there's no way that I can disprove that I have a bias here. However, a lot of random fans and commentators have commented that they had never heard of this rule before. Well I have. In fact, this exact rule has screwed me over on at least half a dozen bets over the last couple years. But usually you don't see it in the end zone. Usually it's on the sidelines; a receiver catches the ball, gets both feet in bounds, then lands 5 feet out of bounds and drops the ball in the process. That's ruled an incomplete pass; and if that one is then so was Johnson's. It's the same rule. It is, however, the most ridiculous manifestation of that rule. Before last Sunday that would have been one of those hypothetical situations someone would have brought up and everyone would have said "pssh, that'll never happen". And I might add that the rule is basically the same as it is in baseball. If a fielder dives for the ball, clearly has it in his mitt, and then in the course of landing the ball comes out it's not a catch. In fact it's not a catch until he takes his other hand and reaches for the ball in his mitt (then it's considered lost in transfer). So imagine a third baseman catches a pop-up bunt with his bare hand, tumbles to the ground, and the ball squirts out as he taps it on the ground. In my opinion, that wouldn't even be controversial that it was called a non-catch. What trips a lot of people up is that on end-zone plays sometimes a player will fumble the ball but it will still be ruled a touchdown because he broke the plane before he fumbled it. In other words, as soon as a player has possession and breaks the plane the play is over. The difference is the word "possession"; in that situation there is no question of possession because it's already been established well before the player reaches the goal line; in the Johnson catch "possession" is not achieved until he completes the catch by maintaining control all the way to the ground.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Did You Hear the One About the Imam, the Pastor, and the Burning Books?
I don't even really know where to start with this whole thing. So I'll just start by saying that Pastor Terry Jones is a lunatic. Seriously, I can make some coherent and logical arguments here but all you really need to do is look at him:
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I mean, if you're not a major league closer or a 40-year-old softball player, you have no business having that 'stache. Seriously, you're an insult to the ghost of Rod Beck.
And you're an even bigger insult to one of my heroes who has the misfortune to share the same name as you:.jpg)
But of course besides those two individuals, there's also the minor matter of the roughly 1.5 billion Muslims you've managed to insult in the last week. And that fact alone would actually be mightily impressive if it wasn't for something so despicable. I mean, I'm lucky if I get around to insulting 9 or 10 people per month.
So if you happen to be one of the few people who haven't yet made up your mind about whether or not this guy's crazy, you can read an interview with him here. Here's one of my favorite passages, which does a good job of summing things up. He was asked about the comparison between him and the Nazis, who were also quite fond of books as an alternative energy source:
"Well I think it is very easy to see a difference. We have tried to make it very clear that even though this is a very radical message, a radical way of doing something we are not against Muslims. We do not hate them. And plus the Nazis, what the Nazis did was the Nazis gathered up all the books that were against their ideology and burned them. That's not what we are doing. We are not by any means promoting the burning of books."
So let's play a quick game of "Spot the Hypocrisy"; it's like "Where's Waldo" only waaaaaay easier. OK you're not against Muslims, you just want to burn their sacred text. You're not like the Nazis because they burned books that were against their ideology whereas you are just, um, burning a book because it doesn't agree with your ideology. And finally, you are certainly not by means promoting the burning of books, you're just hosting "International Burn a Koran Day."
This is my 2nd favorite passage:
"But we have also made it very clear that here in the United States we have a constitution, we have freedom of religion they are more than welcome to be here and worship and build mosques."
This one is particularly good because now he has apparently decided to call off the burning because he's supposedly gotten an agreement that the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" (which is neither a mosque or at ground zero) will be moved. Prior to calling it off, he had never made any connection whatsoever that his burning had anything to do with the GZM.
One of my favorite expressions (which to my knowledge I made up) is "don't act surprised when crazy people say or do crazy things." That would appear to be obvious but apparently it isn't. When Ahmadinejad, or Dick Cheney, or Sarah Palin, or Glen Beck, or Carl Everett, or Pat Robertson say offensive and inflammatory things it shouldn't be news. They're crazy, and that's what crazy people do (quick aside, for the sake of this discussion I am not differentiating between actual insanity and politically calculated insanity). So really I'm arguing (yet again) that this should not be being covered to the extent that it is. If some group of wackos wants to burn a Koran, it's pretty clear that in this country they are within their rights to do so. So let them, and don't give them the thing that they desperately want: attention. And at this point, from a damage standpoint he might as well go ahead and do it. The Muslim world is already pissed off enough about it that most of them are not going to bother following up to see if he actually did it or not.
But what I think is probably most striking is that we need to step back and ask the question of why exactly is this happening now. Why specifically the 9th anniversary of 9/11/01? Why didn't this happen a year ago, or five? And I'll just cut through the suspense and say, yes, I'm going to blame the Republicans for this one (technically the Republicans and Tea Partiers if you consider them different). George W, for all his numerous faults, always made it very clear that we were not at war with Islam and that it was paramount to respect peaceful Muslims of all nations. And when a Republican leader says that, the right doesn't jump on him for it and the left certainly doesn't (of course they generally don't give him credit for it either). But let a Democratic leader say the same thing and now the right not only doesn't agree with him - they accuse him of being a Muslim! And of course it doesn't do any good to make that accusation unless you whip up an anti-Muslim frenzy. The "Ground Zero Mosque" and this latest incidents are perfect manifestations of that. In the last few decades Republicans have been the "freedom of religion" banner-carriers. I think it's now been exposed once and for all as only a "freedom of Christianity" banner.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Fear not my fellow loyal blog readers . . .what? I don't have any of those? OK, well then fear not my fellow occasional drop-by-when-you're-really-bored-and-there's-nothing-left-to-view-on-youtube readers. I have not abandoned you! I have, however, vacationed from you. And for that I apologize. I promise to do better.
Well my poker streak finally ended, but not before I cashed out $1400. Of course, I've since lost the remaining $200 I had in my account and have dumped another $50 in, but I'm currently up to $108 so maybe it's the start of a new streak! See how the mind of a degenerate gambler works?
I also finally got around to updating the movies and books I've seen and read recently, so there's that. Definitely was a big fan of Inception, although I could tell as I was watching it that it was the kind of movie that some people would praise for being absolutely genius and other people would claim was completely incoherent drivel. I'm somewhere in the middle, although more towards the side of genius.
If you're bored (and I assume you are since you came here) I'd highly advise you to read this article on the MARS turbine. It's an awesome prototype of a wind generator that floats in the atmosphere rather than being anchored to the ground. Once they get the price down (like way, way down) it might be possible someday soon for consumers to own their own wind generators.
OK, that's it for the moment but I promise that I'll be back in less than 3 weeks with things that are more interesting and or stimulating.
Well my poker streak finally ended, but not before I cashed out $1400. Of course, I've since lost the remaining $200 I had in my account and have dumped another $50 in, but I'm currently up to $108 so maybe it's the start of a new streak! See how the mind of a degenerate gambler works?
I also finally got around to updating the movies and books I've seen and read recently, so there's that. Definitely was a big fan of Inception, although I could tell as I was watching it that it was the kind of movie that some people would praise for being absolutely genius and other people would claim was completely incoherent drivel. I'm somewhere in the middle, although more towards the side of genius.
If you're bored (and I assume you are since you came here) I'd highly advise you to read this article on the MARS turbine. It's an awesome prototype of a wind generator that floats in the atmosphere rather than being anchored to the ground. Once they get the price down (like way, way down) it might be possible someday soon for consumers to own their own wind generators.
OK, that's it for the moment but I promise that I'll be back in less than 3 weeks with things that are more interesting and or stimulating.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Poker? I Don't Even Know Her . . .
Would you believe that I stared blankly at the title bar for 10 minutes trying to think of a way to NOT use that as the title of this poker-themed entry?
In any event, before I go into this story I want to make one thing very clear: I lose money at poker (as I do at all my gambling). Not a ton (that's relative of course) and I don't have the detailed records for it but I am quite confident in the fact that in my gambling life, which stretches back more than 20 years now, I am in the red overall. Non-gamblers hear that and think "oh, so you're admitting that it's stupid" and nothing could be further from the truth. I view it as entertainment and view it in the similar vein of spending money to see a movie, or buy a video game, or having a night out. The key difference is that when I pay money to see a movie I know exactly what I'm purchasing (roughly 2 hours of entertainment) but when I put money in my poker account I don't know how much I'm getting. I might be gone in the first hand or I might be able to play for 30 hours over the next month. But in the end, my expectation for both is the same. When I put down money, I'm not expecting to get it back. That doesn't mean that I'm not trying to win or don't get upset when I lose, it just means that I'm a realist about it.
I use all this as a preface so you will understand why I choose to play the types of games that I do. Since I expect to lose most of the time, I want the few times that I win to be memorable. As such, I tend to play in really large tournaments where the odds of cashing are small but the payouts are large. I also like to play in "Satelite" tournaments - these are tournaments where the buy-in is pretty low and the "prize" is an entry into a much bigger tournament with a much bigger payout.
Every week at Full-Tilt (I swear I'm not doing a commercial for them) they have a $220 buy-in tournament that has a total of $750,000 in prize money. The winner gets $130k. Not bad. Well I don't exactly often have a spare $220 lying around, so every once in a while I like to play in $22 Satelite tournaments where the top finishers get entry into the big tournament. Over the last year or so I've managed to get into it 5 or 6 times but until a couple weeks ago had never cashed. Well I finally ended that streak early last month, finishing in 180th place (out of 3600) and cashing $375. I cashed $250 out and then lost the rest over the next week(naturally).
Since that time I've put back in roughly another $125 and lost it (again, naturally). But every time you play in one of those tournaments you earn "Full Tilt Points" which (like carnival tickets) you can use to buy useless crap or to play in special tournaments. So on Tuesday night, not wanting to put anymore money into my account, I used all of my poker points to play in a tournament where the top 5 got entry into a big $22 tournament on Sunday and I finished in the top-5. This one only has a $200,000 total prize pool but it's still cool. I'll let you all know how I do in that one. In any case, that proved to be unsatisfying because even though I'd "won" I didn't have any money to show for it and now I didn't have any more poker points so I'd have to wait till Sunday to play again. So I put in $15 and played in a tournament where the top-20 finishers earn a token to play in any $75 tournament. Again, I finished in the top-20 and "won". So I went to bed on Tuesday night having "won" two tournaments but with a total cashflow of -$15.
So last night I used my $75 token to play in a 45-person game and ended up winning it. Actually, when it got down to two of us we just decided to split it. Total payout: $984! Although in practical terms I really won $750 because that's the amount I cashed out and I have no doubt that I will flitter the rest away in the next couple of days.
Now what's particularly crazy about the whole thing is that at one point in the $15 Satelite I thought that I had been eliminated. I got beaten but it turned out that I had 25 chips more than the guy that beat me so I was still alive. At that point the blinds were 200/400 with a 50 chip ante: I didn't even have enough to cover the ante! I was literally down to "a chip and a chair." But I won the next hand to get to 225 (still below the big blind) and then I won the next hand to get to over 1000 and then I had a tiny bit of breathing room and got a good run of cards after that to climb back into it and eventually get the $75 token which ultimately led to winning almost $1000. That means that if, at the pivotal moment early on, I had just 25 less chips or if that guy had had 25 more, I'd be $1000 poorer right now.
Furthermore, in the $75 tournament only 6 people get paid. I had been doing well for most of it but had hit a bad run of cards and by the time it was down to 12 players I was in last place. Needing to make a move, I pushed all-in with pocket 4s pretty much hoping that no one would call me and I could steal the blinds. Unfortunately, the player behind me had pocket Queens and called me instantly. For those of you not totally into poker (who for some reason are still reading this) that makes me about a 4.5 to 1 underdog, definitely not where you want to be with your tournament life on the line. But lo and behold I hit a 4 on the flop for three of a kind and go on to win the hand and I'm still alive! A little while later we're down to 7 people and since the top-6 get paid the next person eliminated will be the final person who doesn't cash (the aptly-named "bubble boy"). I'm not involved in the hand but for the two people who are all-in it's pocket Kings versus pocket Aces. Again, the lower pair hits for trips as a King comes on the flop and the Aces are eliminated. I can't think of a more agonizing way to have your bubble burst.
One final little tale from the tourney. When we got to heads-up (i.e. the last two people) I had the chip lead and was an eyelash away from winning it outright. I got dealt pocket Jacks and he went all-in with what turned out to be Ace-5. No Ace comes out but 5 spades do and, since neither of us has a spade, we both have flushes and split the pot. A couple hands later we had roughly equal stacks so I offered to split and he took it.
I take from all of this 2 things:
1. No matter how good or bad you are, luck is always going to play a role and you're always going to need to get insanely lucky at least once to win a big tournament;
2) The next time you're on the small blind with crap cards and think "it's only another 25 to call, why not?" realize that you might be making a bigger decision than you think.
In any event, before I go into this story I want to make one thing very clear: I lose money at poker (as I do at all my gambling). Not a ton (that's relative of course) and I don't have the detailed records for it but I am quite confident in the fact that in my gambling life, which stretches back more than 20 years now, I am in the red overall. Non-gamblers hear that and think "oh, so you're admitting that it's stupid" and nothing could be further from the truth. I view it as entertainment and view it in the similar vein of spending money to see a movie, or buy a video game, or having a night out. The key difference is that when I pay money to see a movie I know exactly what I'm purchasing (roughly 2 hours of entertainment) but when I put money in my poker account I don't know how much I'm getting. I might be gone in the first hand or I might be able to play for 30 hours over the next month. But in the end, my expectation for both is the same. When I put down money, I'm not expecting to get it back. That doesn't mean that I'm not trying to win or don't get upset when I lose, it just means that I'm a realist about it.
I use all this as a preface so you will understand why I choose to play the types of games that I do. Since I expect to lose most of the time, I want the few times that I win to be memorable. As such, I tend to play in really large tournaments where the odds of cashing are small but the payouts are large. I also like to play in "Satelite" tournaments - these are tournaments where the buy-in is pretty low and the "prize" is an entry into a much bigger tournament with a much bigger payout.
Every week at Full-Tilt (I swear I'm not doing a commercial for them) they have a $220 buy-in tournament that has a total of $750,000 in prize money. The winner gets $130k. Not bad. Well I don't exactly often have a spare $220 lying around, so every once in a while I like to play in $22 Satelite tournaments where the top finishers get entry into the big tournament. Over the last year or so I've managed to get into it 5 or 6 times but until a couple weeks ago had never cashed. Well I finally ended that streak early last month, finishing in 180th place (out of 3600) and cashing $375. I cashed $250 out and then lost the rest over the next week(naturally).
Since that time I've put back in roughly another $125 and lost it (again, naturally). But every time you play in one of those tournaments you earn "Full Tilt Points" which (like carnival tickets) you can use to buy useless crap or to play in special tournaments. So on Tuesday night, not wanting to put anymore money into my account, I used all of my poker points to play in a tournament where the top 5 got entry into a big $22 tournament on Sunday and I finished in the top-5. This one only has a $200,000 total prize pool but it's still cool. I'll let you all know how I do in that one. In any case, that proved to be unsatisfying because even though I'd "won" I didn't have any money to show for it and now I didn't have any more poker points so I'd have to wait till Sunday to play again. So I put in $15 and played in a tournament where the top-20 finishers earn a token to play in any $75 tournament. Again, I finished in the top-20 and "won". So I went to bed on Tuesday night having "won" two tournaments but with a total cashflow of -$15.
So last night I used my $75 token to play in a 45-person game and ended up winning it. Actually, when it got down to two of us we just decided to split it. Total payout: $984! Although in practical terms I really won $750 because that's the amount I cashed out and I have no doubt that I will flitter the rest away in the next couple of days.
Now what's particularly crazy about the whole thing is that at one point in the $15 Satelite I thought that I had been eliminated. I got beaten but it turned out that I had 25 chips more than the guy that beat me so I was still alive. At that point the blinds were 200/400 with a 50 chip ante: I didn't even have enough to cover the ante! I was literally down to "a chip and a chair." But I won the next hand to get to 225 (still below the big blind) and then I won the next hand to get to over 1000 and then I had a tiny bit of breathing room and got a good run of cards after that to climb back into it and eventually get the $75 token which ultimately led to winning almost $1000. That means that if, at the pivotal moment early on, I had just 25 less chips or if that guy had had 25 more, I'd be $1000 poorer right now.
Furthermore, in the $75 tournament only 6 people get paid. I had been doing well for most of it but had hit a bad run of cards and by the time it was down to 12 players I was in last place. Needing to make a move, I pushed all-in with pocket 4s pretty much hoping that no one would call me and I could steal the blinds. Unfortunately, the player behind me had pocket Queens and called me instantly. For those of you not totally into poker (who for some reason are still reading this) that makes me about a 4.5 to 1 underdog, definitely not where you want to be with your tournament life on the line. But lo and behold I hit a 4 on the flop for three of a kind and go on to win the hand and I'm still alive! A little while later we're down to 7 people and since the top-6 get paid the next person eliminated will be the final person who doesn't cash (the aptly-named "bubble boy"). I'm not involved in the hand but for the two people who are all-in it's pocket Kings versus pocket Aces. Again, the lower pair hits for trips as a King comes on the flop and the Aces are eliminated. I can't think of a more agonizing way to have your bubble burst.
One final little tale from the tourney. When we got to heads-up (i.e. the last two people) I had the chip lead and was an eyelash away from winning it outright. I got dealt pocket Jacks and he went all-in with what turned out to be Ace-5. No Ace comes out but 5 spades do and, since neither of us has a spade, we both have flushes and split the pot. A couple hands later we had roughly equal stacks so I offered to split and he took it.
I take from all of this 2 things:
1. No matter how good or bad you are, luck is always going to play a role and you're always going to need to get insanely lucky at least once to win a big tournament;
2) The next time you're on the small blind with crap cards and think "it's only another 25 to call, why not?" realize that you might be making a bigger decision than you think.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Blog? What Blog?
I happened upon this picture and found it both interesting and slightly disturbing:
It's a Zedonk (a donkey and zebra hybrid). This brings up a couple questions. First, who came up with that name? It sounds like something Phil Hellmuth would call somebody at the poker table ("That frickin' Zedonk called me with nothing but an inside straight draw and hit it!"). I guess Donkbra isn't any better (sounds like a retarded cobra), but how about Zebkey? Second, why is it only the legs that are striped? I know that it's different because we're dealing with two different species here, but can you imagine if this is what happened when people of different races had kids?
In another amusing but equally trivial matter, I was browsing on Amazon the other day and thinking of picking up the DVD of the Hawks season that just came out. I was scrolling down to look at reviews of it and noticed the section where Amazon lists what people who viewed this page ultimately buy. This is what it said:
"Hmm, I want to see dudes in suits fighting but I'm not sure if I feel like watching it on ice or not". Or maybe this is person who is both a huge Hawks and Robert Downey Jr. fan but is on a very limited budget. This is kind of like shopping for a new car and having it narrowed down to a Honda Fit or a Nissan Murano.
Lastly John Delaney, Financial Advisor to the Stars, is recommending that if you are just interested in making money (and don't really have a lot of moral qualms about it) you should buy BP stock. As of this morning it's trading at just under $38/share. It's not quite as good of a deal as it was last month when it was trading at its low of $26, but back then there were serious questions about whether or not it would even be able to survive. But now that the leak has stopped (presumably) and the relief well is nearing completion, combined with the fact that BP is very profitable in just about every other aspect of their business it makes them a good buy. I think within 6 months they'll be trading at least at $45/share and within 2 years they'll be up at $60 (where Exxon is right now). That's about a 25% annual return, not including any dividends that get paid in the interim. The world is certainly not going to need any less oil between now and then, and even if the U.S. market is able to hold a grudge for that long (which I doubt) our market is no longer the giant it once was in the global oil market.
And one final point, which I'll just touch on briefly. The thing that has bothered me the most about this spill is the fact that it has only resulted in finger-pointing and just general BP, Halliburton, and Federal Government bashing. I hoped that this event would become a catalyst for the U.S. to finally take the development of a comprehensive energy policy seriously. We put a moratorium on off-shore drilling but don't even pay lip-service to the fact that we still need the same amount (actually, an increasing amount) of oil, so where are we going to get it from? All the foreign sources that we supposedly want to get away from relying on. Somewhere along the way we need to have an honest discussion about this where we lay out exactly what our energy needs are projected to be for the next 25 years and where we plan to get the resources for it. But the left is too busy with their own fights on immigration and financial reform and the right is trying to distance themselves from "drill baby drill" and want to concentrate instead on the incompetence of the Federal Government. So instead of a good debate we get silence, which (apart from individual politicians giving blustery speeches) has pretty much been our official energy policy for the last 50 years.
It's a Zedonk (a donkey and zebra hybrid). This brings up a couple questions. First, who came up with that name? It sounds like something Phil Hellmuth would call somebody at the poker table ("That frickin' Zedonk called me with nothing but an inside straight draw and hit it!"). I guess Donkbra isn't any better (sounds like a retarded cobra), but how about Zebkey? Second, why is it only the legs that are striped? I know that it's different because we're dealing with two different species here, but can you imagine if this is what happened when people of different races had kids?
In another amusing but equally trivial matter, I was browsing on Amazon the other day and thinking of picking up the DVD of the Hawks season that just came out. I was scrolling down to look at reviews of it and noticed the section where Amazon lists what people who viewed this page ultimately buy. This is what it said:
"Hmm, I want to see dudes in suits fighting but I'm not sure if I feel like watching it on ice or not". Or maybe this is person who is both a huge Hawks and Robert Downey Jr. fan but is on a very limited budget. This is kind of like shopping for a new car and having it narrowed down to a Honda Fit or a Nissan Murano.
Lastly John Delaney, Financial Advisor to the Stars, is recommending that if you are just interested in making money (and don't really have a lot of moral qualms about it) you should buy BP stock. As of this morning it's trading at just under $38/share. It's not quite as good of a deal as it was last month when it was trading at its low of $26, but back then there were serious questions about whether or not it would even be able to survive. But now that the leak has stopped (presumably) and the relief well is nearing completion, combined with the fact that BP is very profitable in just about every other aspect of their business it makes them a good buy. I think within 6 months they'll be trading at least at $45/share and within 2 years they'll be up at $60 (where Exxon is right now). That's about a 25% annual return, not including any dividends that get paid in the interim. The world is certainly not going to need any less oil between now and then, and even if the U.S. market is able to hold a grudge for that long (which I doubt) our market is no longer the giant it once was in the global oil market.
And one final point, which I'll just touch on briefly. The thing that has bothered me the most about this spill is the fact that it has only resulted in finger-pointing and just general BP, Halliburton, and Federal Government bashing. I hoped that this event would become a catalyst for the U.S. to finally take the development of a comprehensive energy policy seriously. We put a moratorium on off-shore drilling but don't even pay lip-service to the fact that we still need the same amount (actually, an increasing amount) of oil, so where are we going to get it from? All the foreign sources that we supposedly want to get away from relying on. Somewhere along the way we need to have an honest discussion about this where we lay out exactly what our energy needs are projected to be for the next 25 years and where we plan to get the resources for it. But the left is too busy with their own fights on immigration and financial reform and the right is trying to distance themselves from "drill baby drill" and want to concentrate instead on the incompetence of the Federal Government. So instead of a good debate we get silence, which (apart from individual politicians giving blustery speeches) has pretty much been our official energy policy for the last 50 years.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
It's been a fairly exhausting couple of weeks and (as perhaps evidenced by my last post) I've gone a bit nutty. I now start every morning with a 1.25 mile walk to the Naperville train station and then have another 1.25 mile walk to work once I get into Chicago. Then I get to do it all in reverse at 5:00. I like that I now have some level of forced exercise but my body is not yet used to walking 5 miles a day. Also doesn't make it any easier that it's been 90 the last couple days. There are some bus options both in Naperville and (obviously) in the Loop, but I'm going to try and save those for when it's -20 with a foot of snow on the ground.
So the move happened and everything went pretty well, all things considered. We got the place in pretty decent shape fairly quickly and now Christy is busy doing all the little decorating touches to make it feel like home again. Already there are things I really like and things I really miss. I miss our automatic ice maker, our garbage disposal, and the fact that our garage is not attached. But I love having a yard, all the extra space, and (most importantly) I love how when we aren't making noise - it's actually quiet! No clomp clomp clomp from the upstairs neighbors' high heels or giggling and/or thumping bass music at 2:00 A.M. from the girls downstairs. I'd actually like to know if there is something chemical that happens in your brain as you get older that just makes you completely intolerant of ambient noise. 5 years ago hearing my neighbors wouldn't (and didn't) bother me at all, but the last 2 years or so it became intolerable. It's really scary that I can already see myself in 10 years going up to Anabelle's room and telling her to "turn down that racket!" You know, I don't think it's the actually growing older that is disturbing; it's the acting older (and in particular, acting more like your parents).
In any case, Anabelle seems to be enjoying the new place. That's important because if baby isn't happy then nobody's happy. I am constantly amazed at the level of energy she has, but then again she sleeps 16 hours a day. If I did that maybe I'd have a lot of energy the other 8 hours too (probably not). She can really cruise now with the crawling, but she's at the point where she really really wants to walk. She can pull herself up on things but she doesn't really like doing that; she just keeps trying to stand up in the middle of the room but still doesn't have the balance for it and if you try and help her she gets mad. On Saturday she'll officially be 10 months old and I'm predicting that she'll take her first steps on her own sometime in the next 4-6 weeks and be toddling around pretty good by her first birthday.
Think that's all I got for now. I'll try to get back to some weightier subjects now that the moving chaos is done and my vacation has come and gone.
So the move happened and everything went pretty well, all things considered. We got the place in pretty decent shape fairly quickly and now Christy is busy doing all the little decorating touches to make it feel like home again. Already there are things I really like and things I really miss. I miss our automatic ice maker, our garbage disposal, and the fact that our garage is not attached. But I love having a yard, all the extra space, and (most importantly) I love how when we aren't making noise - it's actually quiet! No clomp clomp clomp from the upstairs neighbors' high heels or giggling and/or thumping bass music at 2:00 A.M. from the girls downstairs. I'd actually like to know if there is something chemical that happens in your brain as you get older that just makes you completely intolerant of ambient noise. 5 years ago hearing my neighbors wouldn't (and didn't) bother me at all, but the last 2 years or so it became intolerable. It's really scary that I can already see myself in 10 years going up to Anabelle's room and telling her to "turn down that racket!" You know, I don't think it's the actually growing older that is disturbing; it's the acting older (and in particular, acting more like your parents).
In any case, Anabelle seems to be enjoying the new place. That's important because if baby isn't happy then nobody's happy. I am constantly amazed at the level of energy she has, but then again she sleeps 16 hours a day. If I did that maybe I'd have a lot of energy the other 8 hours too (probably not). She can really cruise now with the crawling, but she's at the point where she really really wants to walk. She can pull herself up on things but she doesn't really like doing that; she just keeps trying to stand up in the middle of the room but still doesn't have the balance for it and if you try and help her she gets mad. On Saturday she'll officially be 10 months old and I'm predicting that she'll take her first steps on her own sometime in the next 4-6 weeks and be toddling around pretty good by her first birthday.
Think that's all I got for now. I'll try to get back to some weightier subjects now that the moving chaos is done and my vacation has come and gone.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Screw you Dippin' Dots!
I saw my first Dippin' Dots stand in a mall in 1994 and was somewhat intrigued by "The Ice Cream of the Future" slogan (although not enough to try it). According to their website, they've been around since 1988. I just saw a Dippin' Dots stand at Ribfest last night and they are still advertising themselves at "The Ice Cream of the Future". You can't advertise the exact same product as being "of the Future" for 22 straight years. That's bullshit.
Don't ever let it be said of me that I'm afraid to tackle the tough issues.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Lots of Celebrating
So since my last post I've aged a year. Actually, I guess technically I've only aged by 12 days but my year count has increased by 1. You know how you know you're getting old? When people hear it's your birthday and don't instantly ask how old you are for fear of possibly offending you.
So my birthday was last Thursday and 2 hours before I officially turned 31 I got undoubtedly the best birthday present I could have ever asked for when the Hawks won the Cup! Of course, with all the celebrating that went on that night it made me feel . . . less than optimal on my actual birthday. That's in fact the 2nd time I've done that to myself, where I've partied so much on my birthday eve (and, naturally, when it became my birthday at midnight) that I've had to somewhat suffer through my actual birthday. The other one was my 20th, so it's good to see I'm progressing. Take that maturity!
This weekend was pretty action-packed. Went to the Cubs/Sox game on Friday, which was weird because of what a complete after-thought it was in light of the Hawks parade and rally. Usually the whole city gets baseball fever for the Crosstown Classic (regardless of the teams' records) but this year it was much more of a "baseball? they're still playing that?" kind of feel. Still was a lot of fun even though the Cubs were roundly trounced. Right after the game I hitched a ride (being in no driving shape myself) out to Davis, IL for my friend Chicken's bachelor party. Having been drinking for the better part of 9 hours by the time I arrived, my memory is a bit on the hazy side (to put it mildly) but what I remember was a good time. It is funny how full circle things come. You party and drink with all your friends in college and for a really long time it's just an unbelievable amount of fun. But inevitably you get into your mid-to-late 20s and you're still doing the same thing. And it's still fun, but it's just no longer the unbelievably awesome time it once was (particularly because the hangovers start getting way worse). Then you get older still and you and your friends don't get together nearly that often anymore, and so now when you do you start to appreciate how rare it is. And in that way this thing that was really fun and then kinda old becomes really fun again.
Anyway, Saturday was my brother's college graduation (Congrats Zac!) and then that night we went up to Ravinia to see Steve Martin play some bluegrass. That was a ton of fun and Ravinia is definitely the best type of environment to see that in. He's a great banjo player and of course was quite entertaining between songs too. I remember listening to Steve Martin records as a kid (I know that makes me sound like I'm 50 but it's true) and always wanting to see him live so to finally get a chance was really something special. And the fact that he wasn't doing stand-up actually makes it better in a way. While I still love those records (now, of course, updated to MP3s) that comedy is definitely a product of its time and to see him up there now doing the "wild and crazy guy" routine would have just seemed really stale and dated. So I'm glad I got to see him doing something that you can tell he loves and is still challenged by. The one real piece of nostalgia he allowed himself (and his audience) was closing with a bluegrass version of King Tut, and that was awesome!
This weekend I am running in this. Climbing up cargo nets, scrambling over cars, leaping through fire, and crawling in mud under barbed wire! Woo hoo! Gonna be 85 degrees too! At least it's only a 5k. Too bad I've run a total of 3 times in the last month. Happy first father's day to me!
Getting excited for the move, yet dreading all the packing that still needs to be done between now and next Friday. And with a wedding to go to this Friday, a Cubs game and Patton Oswalt show on Saturday, and then the race Sunday this weekend doesn't appear to offer much in the way of free time either. I foresee a lot of frantic packing next week and a very late night next Thursday. We hope to have everybody over for a housewarming/poker/grilling/karaoke party sometime this summer if we can ever find a free weekend to do it.
So my birthday was last Thursday and 2 hours before I officially turned 31 I got undoubtedly the best birthday present I could have ever asked for when the Hawks won the Cup! Of course, with all the celebrating that went on that night it made me feel . . . less than optimal on my actual birthday. That's in fact the 2nd time I've done that to myself, where I've partied so much on my birthday eve (and, naturally, when it became my birthday at midnight) that I've had to somewhat suffer through my actual birthday. The other one was my 20th, so it's good to see I'm progressing. Take that maturity!
This weekend was pretty action-packed. Went to the Cubs/Sox game on Friday, which was weird because of what a complete after-thought it was in light of the Hawks parade and rally. Usually the whole city gets baseball fever for the Crosstown Classic (regardless of the teams' records) but this year it was much more of a "baseball? they're still playing that?" kind of feel. Still was a lot of fun even though the Cubs were roundly trounced. Right after the game I hitched a ride (being in no driving shape myself) out to Davis, IL for my friend Chicken's bachelor party. Having been drinking for the better part of 9 hours by the time I arrived, my memory is a bit on the hazy side (to put it mildly) but what I remember was a good time. It is funny how full circle things come. You party and drink with all your friends in college and for a really long time it's just an unbelievable amount of fun. But inevitably you get into your mid-to-late 20s and you're still doing the same thing. And it's still fun, but it's just no longer the unbelievably awesome time it once was (particularly because the hangovers start getting way worse). Then you get older still and you and your friends don't get together nearly that often anymore, and so now when you do you start to appreciate how rare it is. And in that way this thing that was really fun and then kinda old becomes really fun again.
Anyway, Saturday was my brother's college graduation (Congrats Zac!) and then that night we went up to Ravinia to see Steve Martin play some bluegrass. That was a ton of fun and Ravinia is definitely the best type of environment to see that in. He's a great banjo player and of course was quite entertaining between songs too. I remember listening to Steve Martin records as a kid (I know that makes me sound like I'm 50 but it's true) and always wanting to see him live so to finally get a chance was really something special. And the fact that he wasn't doing stand-up actually makes it better in a way. While I still love those records (now, of course, updated to MP3s) that comedy is definitely a product of its time and to see him up there now doing the "wild and crazy guy" routine would have just seemed really stale and dated. So I'm glad I got to see him doing something that you can tell he loves and is still challenged by. The one real piece of nostalgia he allowed himself (and his audience) was closing with a bluegrass version of King Tut, and that was awesome!
This weekend I am running in this. Climbing up cargo nets, scrambling over cars, leaping through fire, and crawling in mud under barbed wire! Woo hoo! Gonna be 85 degrees too! At least it's only a 5k. Too bad I've run a total of 3 times in the last month. Happy first father's day to me!
Getting excited for the move, yet dreading all the packing that still needs to be done between now and next Friday. And with a wedding to go to this Friday, a Cubs game and Patton Oswalt show on Saturday, and then the race Sunday this weekend doesn't appear to offer much in the way of free time either. I foresee a lot of frantic packing next week and a very late night next Thursday. We hope to have everybody over for a housewarming/poker/grilling/karaoke party sometime this summer if we can ever find a free weekend to do it.
Friday, June 04, 2010
Back again after a long hiatus. I'll spare you the excuses.
First of all (and sorry for those not interested in sports) I have to weigh in on the perfect game that was but wasn't. I definitely think the call should have been overturned. I've read a lot of arguments online about why it shouldn't be reversed and it all basically boils down to the fact that blown calls happen all the time and you can't just cherry-pick one time to reverse it no matter how big the moment was. In other words, outs 1-26 should be treated the same as out #27. And I couldn't disagree more. Out #27 is different because it ends the game. If you blow a call at any other point in the game, it changes the circumstances from that point forward so you can't reverse it later because there's no way to know conclusively what would have happened. But that's not the case here. At the moment that Galarraga had the ball in his mitt and his foot on the bag the game was over. End of story.
All Bud Selig would have been doing by reversing the call is acknowledging that fact. And a fact is exactly what it is; this is not the Music City Miracle here, which some people still dispute. There is not one person in the world (including the umpire who made the call) that is making the argument that the guy was actually safe. So all this nonsense about it being a slippery slope and opening Pandora's Box to reverse this call is just that - nonsense. Every week scorekeepers retroactively change hits to errors and vice versa, and in 1991 an MLB panel got together and retroactively decided to throw out over 50 no-hitters for various reasons. So it's just completely preposterous to say we can't change something "once it's in the books". I don't understand how you can make the argument that what's best for the game and the right thing to do is to have the official record acknowledge something that everyone on the planet is in complete agreement on as being incorrect.
Now believe me, if we were talking about matters from a legal standpoint I would have completely the opposite opinion. In fact, that's the position I do have now when people want to retroactively change the law to make BP pay more than what they're legally required to for the spill. But this is not a criminal proceeding. I'm just about the biggest sports fan in the world, but it's just sports. Bud should have done the right thing. It's the right thing for Galarraga, it's the right thing for the Tigers, it's the right thing for the fans, it's the right thing for the game, and (possibly most importantly) it's the right thing for the umpire. All Bud's done is prove himself to be completely gutless. I have always, well, if not quite defended him then at least held the opinion that he wasn't deserving of the disdain that most fans have for him. But this was it. I will gladly sign any "fire Bud Selig" petition that comes my way.
One final note on this. A man in Ohio with the same name as the umpire has had to shut off his phone service because he's being harassed. God, people are idiots.
Speaking of BP, I do find it hilarious that starting this year the Cubs/Sox series is now for the right to hoist - the BP Cup. Who the hell wants to win that? I hope that whoever wins the season series this year refuses to take it.
Finally, and again on the oil spill, I do think that Obama has screwed this up pretty bad. Not in any specific action that he's taken with regards to the cleanup, but in his other actions. Bush was (rightfully) criticized for waiting too long to visit Louisiana after Katrina and going on vacation before the situation was resolved. Obama, to starkly contrast himself with the actions of his predecessor, decided to wait a while before visiting Louisiana after the spill and to go on vacation before the situation was resolved. And I'd also suggest that in the middle of two wars, the worst oil spill in US history, and a potentially explosive situation in the Koreas, that now is not the ideal time to give an interview to Marv Albert and talk about Lebron James and the Bulls. Two days after the spill, the right-wingers were already screaming about it being "Obama's Katrina" - which was totally ridiculous at the time. But it should have served as a strict warning that they needed to do everything in their power to not even appear anything like Bush with regards to this incident. In that they failed miserably. With all that being said, however, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that a huge difference in the situations is that the cleanup of New Orleans was always the domain of the federal government once it was declared a federal disaster area, while the spill was caused by corporations and they are the ones responsible for the cleanup. All Obama can do is hold their feet to the fire.
First of all (and sorry for those not interested in sports) I have to weigh in on the perfect game that was but wasn't. I definitely think the call should have been overturned. I've read a lot of arguments online about why it shouldn't be reversed and it all basically boils down to the fact that blown calls happen all the time and you can't just cherry-pick one time to reverse it no matter how big the moment was. In other words, outs 1-26 should be treated the same as out #27. And I couldn't disagree more. Out #27 is different because it ends the game. If you blow a call at any other point in the game, it changes the circumstances from that point forward so you can't reverse it later because there's no way to know conclusively what would have happened. But that's not the case here. At the moment that Galarraga had the ball in his mitt and his foot on the bag the game was over. End of story.
All Bud Selig would have been doing by reversing the call is acknowledging that fact. And a fact is exactly what it is; this is not the Music City Miracle here, which some people still dispute. There is not one person in the world (including the umpire who made the call) that is making the argument that the guy was actually safe. So all this nonsense about it being a slippery slope and opening Pandora's Box to reverse this call is just that - nonsense. Every week scorekeepers retroactively change hits to errors and vice versa, and in 1991 an MLB panel got together and retroactively decided to throw out over 50 no-hitters for various reasons. So it's just completely preposterous to say we can't change something "once it's in the books". I don't understand how you can make the argument that what's best for the game and the right thing to do is to have the official record acknowledge something that everyone on the planet is in complete agreement on as being incorrect.
Now believe me, if we were talking about matters from a legal standpoint I would have completely the opposite opinion. In fact, that's the position I do have now when people want to retroactively change the law to make BP pay more than what they're legally required to for the spill. But this is not a criminal proceeding. I'm just about the biggest sports fan in the world, but it's just sports. Bud should have done the right thing. It's the right thing for Galarraga, it's the right thing for the Tigers, it's the right thing for the fans, it's the right thing for the game, and (possibly most importantly) it's the right thing for the umpire. All Bud's done is prove himself to be completely gutless. I have always, well, if not quite defended him then at least held the opinion that he wasn't deserving of the disdain that most fans have for him. But this was it. I will gladly sign any "fire Bud Selig" petition that comes my way.
One final note on this. A man in Ohio with the same name as the umpire has had to shut off his phone service because he's being harassed. God, people are idiots.
Speaking of BP, I do find it hilarious that starting this year the Cubs/Sox series is now for the right to hoist - the BP Cup. Who the hell wants to win that? I hope that whoever wins the season series this year refuses to take it.
Finally, and again on the oil spill, I do think that Obama has screwed this up pretty bad. Not in any specific action that he's taken with regards to the cleanup, but in his other actions. Bush was (rightfully) criticized for waiting too long to visit Louisiana after Katrina and going on vacation before the situation was resolved. Obama, to starkly contrast himself with the actions of his predecessor, decided to wait a while before visiting Louisiana after the spill and to go on vacation before the situation was resolved. And I'd also suggest that in the middle of two wars, the worst oil spill in US history, and a potentially explosive situation in the Koreas, that now is not the ideal time to give an interview to Marv Albert and talk about Lebron James and the Bulls. Two days after the spill, the right-wingers were already screaming about it being "Obama's Katrina" - which was totally ridiculous at the time. But it should have served as a strict warning that they needed to do everything in their power to not even appear anything like Bush with regards to this incident. In that they failed miserably. With all that being said, however, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that a huge difference in the situations is that the cleanup of New Orleans was always the domain of the federal government once it was declared a federal disaster area, while the spill was caused by corporations and they are the ones responsible for the cleanup. All Obama can do is hold their feet to the fire.
Monday, May 24, 2010
What's wrong with Rand Paul?
(Another guest blog from our buddy Joe Mays)
So I find myself in the unusual position of defending a Republican, as I'm going to give what some may consider a defense of Rand Paul's controversial stance on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
As many of you may know, I'm a long-time supporter of most social legislation promoting racial equality in both the public and private sectors. I think that such legislation is necessary in order to counteract the long-standing institutionalized racism that exists in our country.
For those of you that don't know, Dr. Paul is under fire because he has questioned the legitimacy of legislation forcing *private* institutions to provide equal service to all citizens, which includes parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It should be noted that Dr. Paul has consistently supported legislation enforcing equal rights in the *public* sector, and has stated that he would never give personal support to businesses that discriminate in any way.
I think Dr. Paul has a right to his beliefs about the role of government in business, and he has demonstrated a willingness to logically discuss the subject. The center-left owes him a civil debate. While I do not agree with Dr. Paul's conclusions, it is unfair to paint him as a racist - which I firmly believe he is not. The case for equality - even with government intervention in the private sector - is sufficiently strong to stand on its own. The country is tired of political bullshit. Let's listen to Dr. Paul and discuss the issue on its merits, please.
So I find myself in the unusual position of defending a Republican, as I'm going to give what some may consider a defense of Rand Paul's controversial stance on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
As many of you may know, I'm a long-time supporter of most social legislation promoting racial equality in both the public and private sectors. I think that such legislation is necessary in order to counteract the long-standing institutionalized racism that exists in our country.
For those of you that don't know, Dr. Paul is under fire because he has questioned the legitimacy of legislation forcing *private* institutions to provide equal service to all citizens, which includes parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It should be noted that Dr. Paul has consistently supported legislation enforcing equal rights in the *public* sector, and has stated that he would never give personal support to businesses that discriminate in any way.
I think Dr. Paul has a right to his beliefs about the role of government in business, and he has demonstrated a willingness to logically discuss the subject. The center-left owes him a civil debate. While I do not agree with Dr. Paul's conclusions, it is unfair to paint him as a racist - which I firmly believe he is not. The case for equality - even with government intervention in the private sector - is sufficiently strong to stand on its own. The country is tired of political bullshit. Let's listen to Dr. Paul and discuss the issue on its merits, please.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Some Oddities in the World
Well, as injustices in the world go this one is pretty near the bottom of the list but while randomly surfing the net the other day I discovered that Gene Wilder does not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. George Lopez has a star, but not Gene Wilder. Winona Ryder has a star, but not Gene Wilder. Ricky Martin, Kenny Loggins, Erik Estrada, and Ryan f'n Seacrest all have stars, but not Gene Wilder! Even the fictional characters Godzilla and Pee-Wee Herman have stars! Yes, that's right; Paul Reubens' fictional creation that was popular for about 4 years in the late 80s and hasn't been heard from since is enshrined for all posterity in the Walk of Fame. There's about 100 reasons why Wilder deserves one, but I think I only need to list 4: Willy Wonka, The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein. End of discussion. Well, Mel Brooks just got his 3 weeks ago, so maybe now some people will think "yeah, I remember all those funny movies Mel Brooks did. Who was that one guy that was in most of them that made them so good?"
So this morning while on my way to work I was offered a sample box of Oatmeal Squares by a sales rep on the corner of Michigan and Randolph. As she handed it to me and others she cheerfully informed us that it was "a healthy and crunchy way to start your day." Hmmm; yes there have been some days where I've woken up and thought "I want to start the day healthy; I think I'll go for a run." But I can't recall a day where I've thought "Gee, I'd sure love to start my day in a crunchy way!" In fact, the only times I can remember where I DID start my day in a crunchy way was back in college when I hadn't done laundry in about 3 weeks and had to put on well-used socks. Speaking of unusual places for descriptions, it reminds me of walking around the farmer's market in Madison and seeing cheese curds advertised as "Guaranteed to squeak!" Now usually when something is advertised as "guaranteed" it's something that is undeniably good, but up until that moment it had never occurred to me to judge food, in any form, by squeakiness. But of course once you see it advertised in that way a couple times, it quickly becomes "well hell yeah my curds better squeak! In fact I am gonna search this whole market till I find the squeakiest damn curds here!" Ah, the power of advertising. And for the uninitiated, yes good cheese curds really do squeak when you eat them and yes you do actually want that.
Something that makes me feel old: I just saw a headline that Survivor has now been on the air for 10 years. I'd still been thinking of it as "one of those new, annoying reality shows."
Something that makes me feel young: Jamie Moyer, who broke in with the Cubs in 1986 and who I remember watching pitch while growing up, is still pitching today. And actually pitching pretty well (he just pitched a complete game shutout two weeks ago). Seeing so many of the players I watched as a kid now become coaches and announcers, it's nice to know that there's still at least one out there who's still doing the same thing he's done for pretty much my whole life.
Something that I'm not sure if it makes me feel old or young: Vin Scully has been the announcer for the Dodgers since 1950. That's 60 years. In other words, he's been doing the same job since not only before I was born but before my parents were born.
Friday, May 07, 2010
And Back to Trivial Matters . . .
So as some of you may know, Anabelle was originally going to be "Isabella". Back in about 2004, before we were even married we (i.e. Christy) started thinking about names for our eventual kids. And we happened upon "Isabella" pretty quickly. It was kind of amazing. I don't remember exactly who said it first but once we came up with it we both were like "yep, that's a really good girl's name." And had we been ready for our little bundle of joy back then we would have been ahead of the curve. But slowly as time passed we were getting birth announcements from various friends and families and, although I know it wasn't, it seemed like every girl was being named "Isabella". I think that the final straw was 2 years ago when Christy had 3 Isabellas in her pre-school class at the same time. It was like "hmm; not so original anymore." So we kept a variation of the "Bella" and added an "Ana" and, presto chango, we have Anabelle.
I bring this up because today I saw a real good reason why it seemed like every girl was being named Isabella: every girl was! Well not really, but it did overtake "Emma" as the most popular name for girls in 2009. While I'm not one of those people that needs to have their child have a name that no one in the history of the world has ever had (e.g. Apple, Pilot Inspektor), I'm glad that she will not have to go through school with likely 5 or 6 other people in her grade having the same name. FYI, Anabelle is the 46th most popular girl's name while its components (Ana and Bella) are respectively 44th and 18th. Although it certainly seems to be the case that "Bella" has shot up in popularity due to the Twilight series, it's going to annoy me to no end if 10 years from now people just assume that she got the "Belle" part from that.
The big news of the week is that it is now 95% certain that 7 weeks from today we will be full-fledged suburbanites again! I liked to fool myself into believing that we were still quasi-urban up in Evanston, but now there will be nothing ambiguous about it at all anymore as we are moving into a house in Naperville. It's not without more than a little bit of irony seeing as how Christy and I have been quoted on many occasions as saying "well, we might move back out into the suburbs again at some point, but we are NEVER moving to Naperville." But we basically had a checklist of 8 things (house, 3-bedrooms, AC, dishwasher, yard, garage, within a mile of the Metra, and less than $1600/month) and this one met them all so it seemed pretty stupid to turn it down just because we didn't like the idea of "being Napervillians" (actually I think I might start referring to myself as a Napervillain, that sounds way cooler).
And just so I comment on something with a little bit of weight, today saw another bad news is good headline as the unemployment rate went up. Why is this good news? Because in April the private sector added the most jobs (231,000) in any one month since March 2006. However, as a result of the labor market looking better people who had previously given up on looking for jobs have now crowded back into the job search and as a result the unemployment levels have gone up. Seems like there should be a better statistic given to track the unemployment rate so that you wouldn't have two (those unemployed and actively seeking work and those just unemployed) and you wouldn't have counterintuitive effects like these. It's important because this weekend a Republican can go out and say "the economy is horrible; the labor numbers came out on Friday and unemployment is up again" while a Democrat can say "the economy is much improved; the labor numbers came out on Friday and in April we added the most jobs in any one month in 4 years" and both statements would be absolutely correct.
Finally, anybody else see the fun little roller-coaster the Dow decided to do yesterday (plunging 1000 points before getting about 2/3 of it back by day's end). Apparently the culprit is that some specific set of circumstances hit which triggered a massive selloff by computerized programs. I swear, computers are going to destroy the world but it's not going to be in some cool "Skynet launching nukes" or "machines turning us into batteries" way. No, I think that one day a computer network is going to decide to sell all the world's assets to a dead guy in Iceland for $1.95 and everybody's going to be wiped out in one fell swoop.
I bring this up because today I saw a real good reason why it seemed like every girl was being named Isabella: every girl was! Well not really, but it did overtake "Emma" as the most popular name for girls in 2009. While I'm not one of those people that needs to have their child have a name that no one in the history of the world has ever had (e.g. Apple, Pilot Inspektor), I'm glad that she will not have to go through school with likely 5 or 6 other people in her grade having the same name. FYI, Anabelle is the 46th most popular girl's name while its components (Ana and Bella) are respectively 44th and 18th. Although it certainly seems to be the case that "Bella" has shot up in popularity due to the Twilight series, it's going to annoy me to no end if 10 years from now people just assume that she got the "Belle" part from that.
The big news of the week is that it is now 95% certain that 7 weeks from today we will be full-fledged suburbanites again! I liked to fool myself into believing that we were still quasi-urban up in Evanston, but now there will be nothing ambiguous about it at all anymore as we are moving into a house in Naperville. It's not without more than a little bit of irony seeing as how Christy and I have been quoted on many occasions as saying "well, we might move back out into the suburbs again at some point, but we are NEVER moving to Naperville." But we basically had a checklist of 8 things (house, 3-bedrooms, AC, dishwasher, yard, garage, within a mile of the Metra, and less than $1600/month) and this one met them all so it seemed pretty stupid to turn it down just because we didn't like the idea of "being Napervillians" (actually I think I might start referring to myself as a Napervillain, that sounds way cooler).
And just so I comment on something with a little bit of weight, today saw another bad news is good headline as the unemployment rate went up. Why is this good news? Because in April the private sector added the most jobs (231,000) in any one month since March 2006. However, as a result of the labor market looking better people who had previously given up on looking for jobs have now crowded back into the job search and as a result the unemployment levels have gone up. Seems like there should be a better statistic given to track the unemployment rate so that you wouldn't have two (those unemployed and actively seeking work and those just unemployed) and you wouldn't have counterintuitive effects like these. It's important because this weekend a Republican can go out and say "the economy is horrible; the labor numbers came out on Friday and unemployment is up again" while a Democrat can say "the economy is much improved; the labor numbers came out on Friday and in April we added the most jobs in any one month in 4 years" and both statements would be absolutely correct.
Finally, anybody else see the fun little roller-coaster the Dow decided to do yesterday (plunging 1000 points before getting about 2/3 of it back by day's end). Apparently the culprit is that some specific set of circumstances hit which triggered a massive selloff by computerized programs. I swear, computers are going to destroy the world but it's not going to be in some cool "Skynet launching nukes" or "machines turning us into batteries" way. No, I think that one day a computer network is going to decide to sell all the world's assets to a dead guy in Iceland for $1.95 and everybody's going to be wiped out in one fell swoop.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Define Free Speech
I think that the time has come where we need to establish a clear and unambiguous line on what constitutes protected free speech. And yes I'm sure that it exists in some legal jargon already but we need something that every layperson can easily understand.
I've been thinking a lot about this because it seems like just about every week someone is getting into trouble or being warned that they will get in trouble for something they've said. Whether it's the infamous Imus "nappy-headed hoes" comment on the air or an Oregon football player losing his scholarship due to comments on Facebook or Ozzie Guillen's son "resigning" in the wake of a Twitter controversy.
Here's my question, is the only pre-requisite for considering something to be free speech that you don't get thrown in jail for it? It seems to me that if you're losing (or being threatened with) your job and/or other tangible things of value as a direct result of something you've said, then your speech is not "free".
Now of course there are some exceptions that I agree with. Obviously you're not (and shouldn't be) allowed free reign to make slanderous and libelous claims against a person or a company. And you shouldn't be permitted to use company time and resources to put out a personal message that's not in the company's interests (that's what your free time is for) and you're also not allowed to say something that can be interpreted as you speaking for a company or organization when you aren't authorized to do so.
But (setting aside the Imus example) what we're talking about here are people using their own personal accounts (whether Twitter, Facebook, or blog) to express something that's clearly just their opinion and being disciplined for it. How is that permitted?
In this age, people have almost unlimited outlets for expressing themselves and a lot of people are choosing to do just that. Things that used to be said to your close friends and/or behind closed doors are now available to a much wider audience. But why should the rules be any different? If you have the right to say something verbally to someone, you should have the right to express it in any medium you wish.
I think this is only going to become a bigger and bigger issue as this happens to more and more people. And I think the only reason it's not huge already is that you have a perfect storm of both organizations and media having their interests aligned. An organization wants to control what gets said about it, so they're not happy with any member being able to spout out to the world. And the media doesn't like the idea that people no longer need to go through them to get the word out. It's hard to get the scoop on a story when it breaks on Twitter.
So, first, can we get a list of the words that no one is allowed to say on the public air? And, most importantly, it has to be the same list for everyone. Either everyone can use "nappy-headed hoes" or no one can. Then, I want it defined when and where I can issue my opinion on any subject. Can I use this post to blast Blue Cross for doing something I don't agree with it? Can I not do it right now because I'm on my work computer? Is it ok if I do it from home on my own time? Or can I never do it as long as I'm an employee?
Now if you'll excuse me, I've just been informed that I have a meeting with HR in 10 minutes . . .
I've been thinking a lot about this because it seems like just about every week someone is getting into trouble or being warned that they will get in trouble for something they've said. Whether it's the infamous Imus "nappy-headed hoes" comment on the air or an Oregon football player losing his scholarship due to comments on Facebook or Ozzie Guillen's son "resigning" in the wake of a Twitter controversy.
Here's my question, is the only pre-requisite for considering something to be free speech that you don't get thrown in jail for it? It seems to me that if you're losing (or being threatened with) your job and/or other tangible things of value as a direct result of something you've said, then your speech is not "free".
Now of course there are some exceptions that I agree with. Obviously you're not (and shouldn't be) allowed free reign to make slanderous and libelous claims against a person or a company. And you shouldn't be permitted to use company time and resources to put out a personal message that's not in the company's interests (that's what your free time is for) and you're also not allowed to say something that can be interpreted as you speaking for a company or organization when you aren't authorized to do so.
But (setting aside the Imus example) what we're talking about here are people using their own personal accounts (whether Twitter, Facebook, or blog) to express something that's clearly just their opinion and being disciplined for it. How is that permitted?
In this age, people have almost unlimited outlets for expressing themselves and a lot of people are choosing to do just that. Things that used to be said to your close friends and/or behind closed doors are now available to a much wider audience. But why should the rules be any different? If you have the right to say something verbally to someone, you should have the right to express it in any medium you wish.
I think this is only going to become a bigger and bigger issue as this happens to more and more people. And I think the only reason it's not huge already is that you have a perfect storm of both organizations and media having their interests aligned. An organization wants to control what gets said about it, so they're not happy with any member being able to spout out to the world. And the media doesn't like the idea that people no longer need to go through them to get the word out. It's hard to get the scoop on a story when it breaks on Twitter.
So, first, can we get a list of the words that no one is allowed to say on the public air? And, most importantly, it has to be the same list for everyone. Either everyone can use "nappy-headed hoes" or no one can. Then, I want it defined when and where I can issue my opinion on any subject. Can I use this post to blast Blue Cross for doing something I don't agree with it? Can I not do it right now because I'm on my work computer? Is it ok if I do it from home on my own time? Or can I never do it as long as I'm an employee?
Now if you'll excuse me, I've just been informed that I have a meeting with HR in 10 minutes . . .
Monday, April 26, 2010
Lying Down on the Job Again
Yeah, so 3 weeks have gone by. It's easier to do than you might think. And what's worse is that I still don't have a heck of a lot to write about.
Finally got around to watching Precious last night. Definitely the feel-good, laugh-out-loud, uproarious comedy of 2009! I can't believe that was Tyler Perry playing Precious! Seriously though, you can put that one squarely in the category of "really good movie that I never want to watch again." Still to this day I don't know when a good time to watch a movie like that is. You don't wanna watch it when you're in a great mood 'cause it'll certainly put a stop to that and I'm not sure you wanna watch it if you're already feeling crappy 'cause then you'll really feel awful. Still, probably better off with the latter as opposed to the former. Then again, if you're a big fan of schadenfreude, then this is definetely the movie for you! In any case, very good performances all around and I believe this marks the first appearance of Mariah Carey in a non-terrible movie. Funny side story; her role was originally to be played by Halle Berry, but she had to cancel at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict. I would have loved to have sat in on that casting session:
"Guys, bad news. Halle Berry's out."
"Great; who are we gonna get to replace an Oscar-winning actress on short notice?"
"I've got it: Mariah Carey!"
"Perfect!"
In other news, if you've got even a tinge of sci-fi nerdish tendencies I recommend that you head over to http://www.redlettermedia.com/ and check out the 70-minute Phantom Menace or 90-minute Attack of the Clones reviews. Both are pretty hilarious and are easily more watchable (and rewatchable) than the films themselves. I can't really explain them in any way that actually will mean anything to the uninitiated; it's one of those things that has to be experienced. Most people watch the first one (they're divided into 10-minute chunks on Youtube) and are like "huh?!?" but you develop this weird compulsion to keep going. By the end of about the 3rd or 4th, though, you'll "get it" and be able to decide if it's your cup of tea or not. He's also done some Star Trek reviews too, and they're really good too but since I'm not as big of a Trekkie I like the Star Wars ones better.
That's it for now. I'll try not to make it another 3 weeks again.
Finally got around to watching Precious last night. Definitely the feel-good, laugh-out-loud, uproarious comedy of 2009! I can't believe that was Tyler Perry playing Precious! Seriously though, you can put that one squarely in the category of "really good movie that I never want to watch again." Still to this day I don't know when a good time to watch a movie like that is. You don't wanna watch it when you're in a great mood 'cause it'll certainly put a stop to that and I'm not sure you wanna watch it if you're already feeling crappy 'cause then you'll really feel awful. Still, probably better off with the latter as opposed to the former. Then again, if you're a big fan of schadenfreude, then this is definetely the movie for you! In any case, very good performances all around and I believe this marks the first appearance of Mariah Carey in a non-terrible movie. Funny side story; her role was originally to be played by Halle Berry, but she had to cancel at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict. I would have loved to have sat in on that casting session:
"Guys, bad news. Halle Berry's out."
"Great; who are we gonna get to replace an Oscar-winning actress on short notice?"
"I've got it: Mariah Carey!"
"Perfect!"
In other news, if you've got even a tinge of sci-fi nerdish tendencies I recommend that you head over to http://www.redlettermedia.com/ and check out the 70-minute Phantom Menace or 90-minute Attack of the Clones reviews. Both are pretty hilarious and are easily more watchable (and rewatchable) than the films themselves. I can't really explain them in any way that actually will mean anything to the uninitiated; it's one of those things that has to be experienced. Most people watch the first one (they're divided into 10-minute chunks on Youtube) and are like "huh?!?" but you develop this weird compulsion to keep going. By the end of about the 3rd or 4th, though, you'll "get it" and be able to decide if it's your cup of tea or not. He's also done some Star Trek reviews too, and they're really good too but since I'm not as big of a Trekkie I like the Star Wars ones better.
That's it for now. I'll try not to make it another 3 weeks again.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
In Celebration of Pedestrian Accomplishments
So on Tuesday I broke my previous record for beating the original Legend of Zelda on the NES: the new record is 54 minutes. I was on the el when I did it and yelled out in celebration. Somehow the other passengers weren't quite as enthused as me and edged slowly away from me. Oh well; more seat room for me. I had initially set a goal of beating it in 45 minutes, but now I don't think it very likely. This new time was only 3 minutes faster than my old best and I don't really see a whole lot of places where I can get that much faster. Probably time to turn my attention to another pointless activity.
Anyone else sick to death of hearing about Tiger Woods? Am I missing something that makes this a big story that needs to be reported on daily? And I would have no problem if it was just the tabloid shows, late night TV, and E! talking about it - that's what they're for. But I have a real problem when CNN starts reporting this as actual news. Let me recap the story from my perspective: it turns out that an extremely wealthy and successful athlete was repeatedly unfaithful to his wife, who was not at all pleased with him when she found out and assaulted him, and as a result he took 4 months off of golf. Which part of this even qualifies as mildly surprising? I know that not all athletes cheat on their wives but the perception is that most do so, again, it shouldn't be very surprising. Exempting Tiger Woods from this was as foolish as exempting Michael Jordan from it.
Of course, I guess I'm the one who shouldn't be surprised. I've never agreed with the media's obsession with Tiger. I have no problem when they focus on him when he's atop the leaderboard, but I can't tell you the number of times I've seen the highlight recap or a golf tournament where all they do is show shots of Tiger and then say something like "Tiger finished in 6th, 5 shots behind the winner." And then maybe they show one 2-second shot of the winner getting his trophy and then move on. That's disrespectful to the winner and to the game.
All that being said, Augusta is easily the most beautiful course in the country and looks fantastic in HD, so I'll definitely be adding golf into the hockey-and-Cubs sports repertoire this weekend.
Anyone else sick to death of hearing about Tiger Woods? Am I missing something that makes this a big story that needs to be reported on daily? And I would have no problem if it was just the tabloid shows, late night TV, and E! talking about it - that's what they're for. But I have a real problem when CNN starts reporting this as actual news. Let me recap the story from my perspective: it turns out that an extremely wealthy and successful athlete was repeatedly unfaithful to his wife, who was not at all pleased with him when she found out and assaulted him, and as a result he took 4 months off of golf. Which part of this even qualifies as mildly surprising? I know that not all athletes cheat on their wives but the perception is that most do so, again, it shouldn't be very surprising. Exempting Tiger Woods from this was as foolish as exempting Michael Jordan from it.
Of course, I guess I'm the one who shouldn't be surprised. I've never agreed with the media's obsession with Tiger. I have no problem when they focus on him when he's atop the leaderboard, but I can't tell you the number of times I've seen the highlight recap or a golf tournament where all they do is show shots of Tiger and then say something like "Tiger finished in 6th, 5 shots behind the winner." And then maybe they show one 2-second shot of the winner getting his trophy and then move on. That's disrespectful to the winner and to the game.
All that being said, Augusta is easily the most beautiful course in the country and looks fantastic in HD, so I'll definitely be adding golf into the hockey-and-Cubs sports repertoire this weekend.
Monday, April 05, 2010
I'm Back!
You may have noticed a slightly new look to the blog. I got a few complaints that the white font on black background was such a stark contrast to the rest of the web's black-on-white that it was hard on the eyes so I decided to change it. After having a few days to get used to it I think I like it better, even if it now looks more like almost every other blog on the net.
So after a week of R&R down in Houston I'm back and . . . well, pretty damn tired actually. But no matter. Today is Opening Day so all is right with the world! It will also hopefully be the day that we get to witness Duke go down in humiliating fashion to big underdog Butler. And if we can add in a Cubs victory the day will be complete! I'll try to put together a Cubs preview (which I skipped last year) sometime this week but overall I'm actually a lot more optimistic than most Cubs fans are. I'm predicting 89 wins and a wild-card berth.
Didn't do a whole lot down in Houston, which is exactly how we planned it. Got out to play golf once and grandma and grandpa were nice enough to babysit one night so Christy and I could go out to dinner and see Hot Tub Time Machine. The movie was meh but it was very nice to be able to get out and have a date night. Other than that we just did a lot of visiting with family and chilling out as best we could and as baby would allow. There are some flight horror stories but I think I'll let my wife handle those tales over on her blog. Overall Anabelle was a real trooper and was happy to just go along with whatever we were doing on any particular day. We're very lucky that we've got such an easygoing baby. Hopefully she doesn't realize that she's going easy on us and decide to ramp it up.
We got back in yesterday and I had a package from Amazon waiting for me. It was the new blu-ray of Toy Story that just came out last week. So I popped it in last night and Wow! That is definitely a showcase disc for a blu-ray player and HDTV. And that's pretty amazing considering that the movie is almost 15 years old. Given the limitations of the projectors at the time I think it's quite probable that the movie has never looked as good as it does now. It's also the first time I've watched the movie in about 6 or 7 years and it's every bit as good as I remembered it. It's probably the quintessential example of a film with a story so simple that even 2 and 3-year-olds can understand it but with a ton of extra layers packed in for older kids and adults too. Highly recommended addition to your blu-ray collection. It's also made me excited to see Toy Story 3 this summer; although I think Anabelle will still be too young for it. That one may end up being a rental.
So after a week of R&R down in Houston I'm back and . . . well, pretty damn tired actually. But no matter. Today is Opening Day so all is right with the world! It will also hopefully be the day that we get to witness Duke go down in humiliating fashion to big underdog Butler. And if we can add in a Cubs victory the day will be complete! I'll try to put together a Cubs preview (which I skipped last year) sometime this week but overall I'm actually a lot more optimistic than most Cubs fans are. I'm predicting 89 wins and a wild-card berth.
Didn't do a whole lot down in Houston, which is exactly how we planned it. Got out to play golf once and grandma and grandpa were nice enough to babysit one night so Christy and I could go out to dinner and see Hot Tub Time Machine. The movie was meh but it was very nice to be able to get out and have a date night. Other than that we just did a lot of visiting with family and chilling out as best we could and as baby would allow. There are some flight horror stories but I think I'll let my wife handle those tales over on her blog. Overall Anabelle was a real trooper and was happy to just go along with whatever we were doing on any particular day. We're very lucky that we've got such an easygoing baby. Hopefully she doesn't realize that she's going easy on us and decide to ramp it up.
We got back in yesterday and I had a package from Amazon waiting for me. It was the new blu-ray of Toy Story that just came out last week. So I popped it in last night and Wow! That is definitely a showcase disc for a blu-ray player and HDTV. And that's pretty amazing considering that the movie is almost 15 years old. Given the limitations of the projectors at the time I think it's quite probable that the movie has never looked as good as it does now. It's also the first time I've watched the movie in about 6 or 7 years and it's every bit as good as I remembered it. It's probably the quintessential example of a film with a story so simple that even 2 and 3-year-olds can understand it but with a ton of extra layers packed in for older kids and adults too. Highly recommended addition to your blu-ray collection. It's also made me excited to see Toy Story 3 this summer; although I think Anabelle will still be too young for it. That one may end up being a rental.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
What the health?!?!? (Revisited)
Well, that was quite an exciting weekend to say the least! 48 NCAA tournament games and health care reform. What will this weekend bring? Forecast calls for a flurry of basketball activity ending by Sunday and continuing fronts of Republican anger. So either because I work in the healthcare industry or because I'm viewed as a super-being of awesome intellect (I'm sure it's the former but I like to pretend that it's the latter) people have been asking for my take on the newly enacted healthcare legislation. My take on it has pretty much been consistent and was well articulated by last week's Economist: it was worth passing, but only just barely.
The positives that the bill does are very real. An additional 32 million people getting insurance, an end to lifetime caps, and an end to denial due to pre-existing conditions. Now the negatives. It does pretty much nothing to bring down the skyrocketing costs of healthcare apart from the fact that providers shouldn't have to worry nearly as much about the uninsured not paying since, in theory, almost everyone will be insured. But offset that against a lot of these newly insured now consuming more health products than they did before and I'm not sure you have a gain. Then there's the suspect claim that it's going to be partially paid for by cuts in Medicare and to that I'll just say this: I'll believe it when I see it.
It also does nothing to address medical malpractice reform. In fact, probably the thing that sticks out most and the biggest overall negative are the things that this bill doesn't do. For all the fury and threats from the bill's opponents you'd think that we had just taken a bulldozer to the entire healthcare industry. But what's remarkable is that very very little has changed. The insurance industry basically just gained 32 million more members thanks to the new quasi-mandate that everyone has to buy health insurance. It's a bit of a double-edged sword though since insurers can't deny people and can no longer place lifetime caps. That makes pricing policies a great deal trickier. The hope is that the increased membership spreads the extra costs around enough to not drive up premiums. We'll see if that pans out.
And that's pretty much the extent of it. We've decided to spread out our health costs over a wider base in exchange for less people being without coverage. That's all well and good except that the health care costs, along with Social Security, are going to beyond bankrupt us and, while I don't believe that this bill hurts us in that regard, it really doesn't help us either. And given the shitstorm the country went through to get it passed it's extremely unlikely that this issue gets touched again for a long long time (with the exception that Republicans are certainly going to run on a platform to repeal it).
One long-term effect that I do see is that this in fact *could* be the beginning of the end for private insurance in this country and the first step towards single payer. Not that I think that's a bad thing, mind you (other than the unfortunate side effect of me losing gainful employment). Here's why. It has to do with the combination of insurers not being allowed to deny for a pre-existing condition and the penalty on consumers for not buying insurance. The key will be the dollar amount they put the penalty at, and the correct amount would be whatever the cheapest insurance policy is. Otherwise you've basically taken away any incentive for anyone to buy insurance. Think about it. You don't carry insurance and maybe pay out of pocket for seeing a doctor a couple times of year when you get sick (which is still much cheaper than insurance). Then something catastrophic like a heart attack happens to you. Well, you just have a family member fill out an insurance application on your way to the hospital: the insurer can't deny you for a pre-existing condition and can't charge you more for being higher risk. Then of course once you recover you instantly cancel your policy again, because why would you carry it when you can just get it again if/when you need it later? It doesn't take a whole of this happening before it quickly becomes an unprofitable model for the insurance industry. Now maybe there's something else in this bill that prevents the situation I've described from happening, but I haven't seen it. The strength of the mandate to buy insurance will be absolutely key.
Oh, and I was a bit amused when I got an e-mail from John McCain right after the legislation passed. He had this to say: "The fact remains that by a two-to-one margin, Americans do not want this bill to become law. " Boy, the Republicans and Fox News sure do love their polls lately. I remember when polls were nothing more than just, like, a puff of air. But apparently they're quite important now, since the Republicans agree with them. But probably not for long considering that now that the bill became law the opinion has changed again and is now favorable. Allow me to just state unequivocally that a poll should never be a reason to do or not do anything. It should only be used as an indicator to tell you how good of a job you're doing at getting your message out. The poll itself should not be the message. The tactic of endlessly repeating one poll that favors your position so that the next time it's taken it favors your position even more is a stupid human trick worthy of Letterman and should be treated as such.
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