Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Poker Comic #169

Sponsored by Free Poker Money

Poker Comic presented by Free Poker Money. Some places offer $25 Free Money. Some offer $50 or $75 Free Money. Here you get $100, with No Deposit Required and No Credit Card Required. (New Players Only, Must be 21 or older.)

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

Monday, October 29, 2007

I like My Alarm Clock

I really like my alarm clock. I think it has every feature that I want in an alarm clock.

It doesn't beep very loud, but it always wakes me up. It isn't shocking, just annoying enough to do the job.

It has two alarms, so I don't have to reset the alarm all the time when my needs change between waking up early or normal time. The alarm has a programmable snooze. You can set it for 4 minutes for 10 minutes, or whatever you want.

It runs off of batteries instead of being plugged in, so it doesn't lose its mind when the power goes out. It sets itself based on atomic time, so when you have to change the batteries you don't have to reset it, except for the time zone.

It even tells you the temperature in the room, which was FUCKING FREEZING this morning because Mrs. Bogey left the windows open last night and it went down below 40 degrees.

The only feature I could imagine wanting is a TAZER so I could ZAP the next person who makes me get up when it's FUCKING FREEZING in the house.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Poker Comic #168

Sponsored by Free Poker Money

Poker Comic presented by Free Poker Money. Some places offer $25 Free Money. Some offer $50 or $75 Free Money. Here you get $100, with No Deposit Required and No Credit Card Required. (New Players Only, Must be 21 or older.)

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

Conversation with a coworker

Him: "So you play poker?"
Me: "A little."
"Do you play online?"
"Not as much as I used to."
"Is it safe?"
"Yeah, I don't worry about it."
"Have you ever been ripped off?"
"Yeah, once for over $500"
"$500!? You call that safe?"
"I was pretty upset at the time."
"Are the games rigged?"
"No, the games are fair."
"Are there cheaters?"
"Yeah but the sites look out for them."
"Have they caught anyone."
"Yeah, some guys have won tournaments and been disqualified."
"Any people that didn't win?"
"No, not that I've heard of."
"What about guys who are working together?"
"I'm sure it happens."
"Can other players see your hole cards?"
"Not normally, but it has happened."
"Really? What happened?"
"Apparently someone that worked for the site had access and won a tournament."
"What? The sites were involved?"
"Yeah, it was pretty big news in the online poker world."
"Wow, your idea of safe and my idea of safe are two different things."

I need to stop wearing poker polo shirts to work.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Enterprise IT Evolution

I work in Information Technology. "IT." I specifically work in "Enterprise" IT. It is, without a doubt, the most retarded business in the world.

Enterprise IT is a system of IT departments, all working together. Or actually NOT working together, but just pretending to work together. Here's how it happens.

At first there were a bunch of manufacturing facilities. Each facility had its own IT department. Not very efficient eh? Not really. So all the IT departments got together and decided to "standardize." That way people can move between IT departments, other locations can help each other, etc.

So all the departments worked on basically the same equipment and all the same systems. Some brilliant management person looks at all the different IT departments all doing basically the same thing and thinks "why can't we have just ONE BIG IT department handle IT for ALL the locations?"

This sounds brilliant, but in reality it is completely retarded. Because it is impossible to implement, and here's why.

At first you think, I don't need people at every location that know everything about the systems, because they can just call experts at other locations when they don't know how to handle things locally. That way we just need at least one expert working at one location somewhere in the world whenever there's a problem.

But that system never works, because when you are at a location, you ALWAYS give your current location priority over problems elsewhere. The remote locations can never truly get the help they need because the remote people will ALWAYS find and excuse to do something, even if it is trivial, at their local facility before working on something more important elsewhere.

So to solve the locality problem the management creates a "central location" where the "experts" will all move to and then there will never be local issues, only remote ones.

But the people who are experts aren't just experts because they are good at one thing. They are usually experts because they are really smart people and they could be doing anything or working anywhere if they like. Your company is just lucky enough to have them. And they live where they live for A REASON, and it's not because your facility is there. They don't want to move. If you ask them to they'll say "no." If you require them to, they'll quit.

So the call goes out to all the experts to fill the jobs in these centers for experts, and all the experts refuse to go. So they keep looking. These are jobs that have been created, and by GOD they have to be filled. So who fills them? The USELESS people. The people that the individual plants are HAPPY to get rid of.

So all the useless people are gathered together in a central location, called experts, and asked to solve all the problems for all the remote locations. But there generally are NO problems at the remote locations for them to solve! Why? Because NONE of the remote locations were DUMB enough to let the local experts go! They KNOW the Central Location Experts are idiots, so they keep enough local experts around to handle any real crisis. If they can't keep them in their current jobs, they rehire them as contractors.

So now you have a bunch of idiots in a central location with nothing to support, no facility to keep running, and NOTHING TO DO. So what do they do? They do BUSYWORK. Not just ordinary busy work. They create busywork for the remote locations to do. After all, THEY are the team of experts. The remote locations should do their bidding whenever they ask! So in order to make it look like they are working, they send out surveys and pretend to be solving problems, merely to justify their existence.

So the remote locations have had their staff cut in order to pay for this useless central location, so fewer people are doing the REAL support work. And now the Central Location of Experts is creating MORE and MORE work for them, mostly pointless, useless paperwork.

That's why Enterprise IT is the most retarded business in the world.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Welcome Back!

It's official, Doyle's Room has begun accepting US players again.

This is a fantastic sign for US online poker players, in a sea of disappointing news of cheaters and rigged poker sites. I've never played at Doyle's Room and have no opinion of its quality, but you have to take it as a HUGE good sign of things to come.

It was only a matter of time before some site that pulled out of the US market realized that the UIGEA has no teeth and probably never will. The mass hysteria and pullout of many major poker sites was short sighted and stupid.

They simply jumped off a ship that they thought was sinking. Many of them drowned rather than stay on a perfectly good ship until they knew for sure whether they had to jump or not. Some smart operators like Bodog, Full Tilt and PokerStars knew better.

Hopefully Doyle's is not the only company to realize that the best market in the world for online poker players is the United States, and the do-nothing useless piece-of-shit government is no obstacle to their desired customers.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Poker Comic #167

Sponsored by Free Poker Money

Poker Comic presented by Free Poker Money. Some places offer $25 Free Money. Some offer $50 or $75 Free Money. Here you get $100, with No Deposit Required and No Credit Card Required. (New Players Only, Must be 21 or older.)

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Poker Comic #166

Sponsored by Free Poker Money

Poker Comic presented by Free Poker Money. Some places offer $25 Free Money. Some offer $50 or $75 Free Money. Here you get $100, with No Deposit Required and No Credit Card Required. (New Players Only, Must be 21 or older.)

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Poker Comic #165

Sponsored by Free Poker Money

Poker Comic presented by Free Poker Money. Some places offer $25 Free Money. Some offer $50 or $75 Free Money. Here you get $100, with No Deposit Required and No Credit Card Required. (New Players Only, Must be 21 or older.)

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

Monday, October 15, 2007

One-Liner of the Day

When the fuck did Ann Coulter start dating Mel Gibson?

Lets Do The Time Warp Again

I actually thought I finished up the last post at 1:22am. From there I went to bed and watched a Jim Norton comedy special I recorded on HBO earlier in the evening. It only felt like half an hour, but when I next looked at the clock by the television, it was 3:00am. "Geez, I must be drowsy," I thought to myself.

I wasn't drowsy. The system clock on my computer had adjusted for what should have been Daylight Savings Time and fucked me all up. But I was totally unaware that it was actually 2:30am when I finished that post.

At noon I started watching a football game and fired up WoW for some pre-tournament time killing. When my computer clock read 1:30 I fired up PokerStars to register for the tournament. And it was already running for half an hour, with the ludicrous 1337 (how elite) players. WoW is definitely a time warp and I had spent two and a half hours when it felt like one and a half.

One thing that threw me off was that I bought my wife a Microsoft Zune for her birthday, and synchronized it with my computer. All the music and video is on my computer, so that made the most sense. Only my computer wouldn't install the Zune software because you have to have at least XP Service Pack 2 to install the software. The last time I tried to upgrade to service pack 2 my computer got caught in a reboot loop and I had to reformat from scratch. With no other need for SP2 I just lived without it.

Now with a need, I installed SP2 and it worked fine. Not fine enough to fix the DST problem, obviously. There are probably still patches to install, it seems like I have installed dozens already.

Congrats to Surflexus for finishing high in the blogger tourney. He's a hell of a tournament player.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Inevitability

I never post on the weekends. I'd say I'm too busy but that would be a lie. I'm just too lazy. You'll believe that one.

I haven't played a long session of poker in quite a while. I've done hit and runs at the Full Tilt $25 tables, usually doubling up and leaving fast. I like tables where someone is playing crazy. I LOVE tables where two or more players are playing crazy. I was at one tonight, for over three hours. I had around $50 and the two nutballs were in the $80's. An hour later I was still around $50 but both nutballs were broke within two hands of each other. I always type the same thing into chat: "Inevitability." I'm not sure if they get it. I get called names for almost everything else I type in chat except that one. Perhaps it cruises just above scalp level. Or maybe they are just gone and the software hasn't caught up yet.

Oddly I thought I should play something to prepare for the Blogger Freeroll tomorrow at PokerStars. I couldn't find a tourney I liked, so I ended up right back at my favorite short handed $25 tables. You stick with what's working I guess. It's probably the worst preparation for a big tournament you can do though. If I play the tournament like I played that ridiculous cash table, I'd be done in about 10 minutes. Hmmm...a strategy emerges.

I just can't get into tournaments anymore. Poker is such a low priority that almost anything else will take my attention away from it. Even the commitment of 45 minutes for a SNG makes me think "it's not worth it." Yet I will commit to playing WoW for hours if my friends sign on and want to play. But I guess I could leave if I wanted to. In general I enjoy playing it more than poker. It's less financially rewarding, but the money was never really that great, just a nice side effect of an entertaining hobby.

Before playing we went to the drive-in. Second week in a row. This week was "The Brave One" and "Resident Evil: Extinction." "Brave" was good, "Extinction" was pretty typical for a zombie movie. Last week was "Mr. Woodcock" and "Shoot Em Up." "Woodcock" was godawful. Not funny. Very poorly written. "We'll set it in Nebraska, and they'll have a CORN eating contest. That'll be hilarious!" Uh, NO, it won't. "Shoot Em" was fantastic. The action sequences, while ludicrous, were VERY entertaining.

Now that it's getting darker earlier, the drive-in starts at 7pm, which I prefer. I guess because I'm used to my alarm going off at 4:45am I don't like staying up till midnight, especially when I'm reclined in my car seat, watching a movie through my windshield. Yet here I am at 1:22am, writing a pointless post. Sleep is beckoning me. See you all tomorrow at 3pm Eastern Daylight Time.

If you're going to play the Blogger Championship Freeroll, why not play in the British Bloggerment 30 at 4PM Sunday at PokerStars too? It's just $5.50 and the password is "Donkament." Could be fun.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Poker Comic #164

Sponsored by Free Poker Money

Poker Comic presented by Free Poker Money. Some places offer $25 Free Money. Some offer $50 or $75 Free Money. Here you get $100, with No Deposit Required and No Credit Card Required. (New Players Only, Must be 21 or older.)

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

Monday, October 08, 2007

A Real Skill Game

Fantasy Football obviously requires a great deal of skill. A skill I don't have. Up until this week I am completely winless in my league, even though I played the lowest scoring players (even lower than me) in the last two weeks. Yet this week I have the highest score in the league by A LOT. And as we speak my players are still racking up points.

I should finish with at least 30% more points than the next closest player. Oops, there's another field goal for my kicker. Three more points. Ironically, not a single player from Buffalo's team is starting for any team in my league, and they are kicking the shit out of the Cowboys. Skill game indeed.

Unfortunately one of my most (okay, only) consistent players has been Travis Henry, Denver running back. Since he popped positive on a Marijuana test, he's likely to be suspended. Since it's his second positive (he popped on one when he was with the Tennessee Titans too) he'll likely be suspended for the year. Time to shop for a free agent running back. I'm so screwed.

What kind of fucking retard gets busted TWICE for smoking pot? I bet if there were MILLIONS OF DOLLARS on the line, any halfway intelligent person could quit smoking pot until they retired from football...at the ancient age of what, 34? I bet even Pauly could give up the ganja for a decade if you put a cool Mil a year on the table.

But no, smoking pot is more important to this guy than his football career and the millions of dollars he could earn. He must REALLY love pot. It must be REALLY GOOD.

pot puzzleI actually wouldn't know. I never smoked pot. Someone asked me why I never did, even though it was all around me when I was growing up (I did grow up in the 70's-80's, after all.) I think it was that I didn't understand what smoking pot was all about. I got the wrong impression, and I was pretty impressionable.

See, whenever I saw someone smoking pot when I was a teen, that person was a loser. I know it's not an amazing coincidence that a lot of people who are losers smoke pot, but I somehow came to the conclusion that they were losers BECAUSE they smoked pot all the time. My best friend smoked pot with the guys he worked with at the Car Wash. I went with him to their apartments once in a while, and these guys were really sad. It seemed like all they did was get high, or try to figure out how they were going to get high in the future.

I didn't know what pot did to you, but I knew I didn't want to be like those guys, so I stayed away from the pot. It continued through my young adult life. I worked for a guy at a newspaper that smoked pot. At first he seemed like a successful guy to me, Assistant Sports Editor and all. But then I saw where he lived and gave him a ride to work a few times because his moped was broke down.

Sophisticated people drank. Losers did drugs. Even pot. It seemed really harmless, but I wasn't going to risk eternal loserdom just for a toke or two. It never bothered me to be around them, even when they were smoking. I just always passed when it was offered.

Later in my life I met people who smoked pot, some of them who I would have considered absolute losers at the time, who turned out to be pretty successful. Most of them have grown out of their pot smoking phase. Funny how having kids seems to accelerate that little transformation. I am 100% in favor of decriminalizing pot. The laws are absolutely ridiculous. Just some of many asinine laws, of course.

When I finally figured out that being a loser means you probably smoke a lot of pot, not the other way around, the temptation had pretty much completely passed. I still get an opportunity once in a while, but I still pass. I guess I have a perfect game going, and I don't want to blow it.

Friday, October 05, 2007

The Yankees Got Destroyed Last Night

yankees 3D uncle sam hat Or did they?

Yes, they lost 12-3, and at first glance that is a real shellacking. But the Yankees lineup wasn't supposed to get to the hard-throwing lefty, CC Sabathia. Yet they did get three runs from him in the first five innings, with six walks. They loaded the bases in the fifth inning when they were behind 4-3 with only one out. An extra-base hit in that spot by the switch hitting Posada could make it a completely different game.

But Posada struck out, and (0-11 vs Sabathia) Matsui popped out to end the inning. That was their shot, their chance to sucker punch Cleveland into submission. They weren't even supposed to get that opportunity. Too bad they missed it.

Another bright spot is that the Indians used their other lefty, reliever Rafael Perez for two full innings. Why burn your obvious Yankee killer lefty in a game you have wrapped up? Because no game is wrapped up versus this lineup, that's why.

lebronGame two sees Andy Pettitte vs. Fausto Carmona. Pettitte has been a solid post season pitcher, going 14-9 in previous Octobers. Carmona led the league in ERA, but lost his only decision vs the Yankees earlier this year, along with a no decision.

But lets not forget the most important story from last night's game. LeBron James wore a Yankee cap to a baseball game. Honestly, who gives a fuck?

Thursday, October 04, 2007

You're Never As Good As The Pros

You'll just never be as good as the professionals. I make (admittedly lame) attempts at humor on this here blog, and once in a while I come close to the target, just by the sheer odds of my number of attempts.

But I don't think I'll ever come up with a line that is singularly as funny as this one by Scott Adams in his blog. First he sets up a premise that he has a plan to solve all the country's problems. Then he whips out this little gem:

I think you can see many problems with this plan. But you have to compare it to the current political process where idiots elect liars to transfer wealth to crooks. How's that working out for you?
I don't think I've ever even thought of something that funny, much less written it down.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

40K Yo!

Texas Holdem Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 2862658










Yo.