God, this is funny.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Jumpin Jive - Two versions
Saw this joyous clip of Cab Calloway and the amazing Nicholas Brothers doing "Jumpin' Jive", and from there, I just couldn't resist seeing if Joe Jackson's version (his 1981 album of swing tunes was about 15 years ahead of the genre's revival) was up as well, and sure enough...
Compare, contrast, enjoy.
Compare, contrast, enjoy.
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Gates thing
Tell you what.
Read Crowley's arrest report.
Then I'll concede that Obama saying that the police had acted "stupidly" before having all the facts was unwise if you'll concede that the arrest, which by Crowley's own admission, was for YELLING, which does not meet the Massachusetts definition of disorderly conduct, actually was stupid.
Deal?
Read Crowley's arrest report.
Then I'll concede that Obama saying that the police had acted "stupidly" before having all the facts was unwise if you'll concede that the arrest, which by Crowley's own admission, was for YELLING, which does not meet the Massachusetts definition of disorderly conduct, actually was stupid.
Deal?
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Pre-Flop Raises
When I first started playing, I rarely did them, did pretty well for a beginner.
Then: Read a bunch books, watched the videos, started following the pros' advice, raised pre-flop whenever the experts deemed appropriate, followed them up with continuation bets if need be...
Game went straight down the toilet.
All but cut the PFR's and am doing a lot better now (particularly in tourneys). The more I think about them, the less sense they make to me. I could expand on this and probably will in the near future, but for now I'll just put the question out there for my fellow poker players:
Do they work for you, or am I right in feeling like they kinda suck?
Then: Read a bunch books, watched the videos, started following the pros' advice, raised pre-flop whenever the experts deemed appropriate, followed them up with continuation bets if need be...
Game went straight down the toilet.
All but cut the PFR's and am doing a lot better now (particularly in tourneys). The more I think about them, the less sense they make to me. I could expand on this and probably will in the near future, but for now I'll just put the question out there for my fellow poker players:
Do they work for you, or am I right in feeling like they kinda suck?
Birthers
I gotta admit it, I just love these goofy bastards. They're not just wrong, they're deliriously wrong, and they KNOW they're wrong, but they can't admit it because they're so far-gone wrong that they've landed their spaceships on a Hobson's Choice planet of:
1. Admit being wrong, look like total jackass
2. Refuse to admit being wrong, look insane AND like total jackass.
The delightful Jon Stewart clip below says pretty much all there is to say about this nonsense, but I do want to touch upon one thing that was probably just too ridiculous to make the cut.
Argue with enough birthers, and you'll come across a few for whom the Certificate of Live Birth posted at and confirmed by Factcheck.org isn't enough. First they'll dismiss Factcheck.org as being biased. Okay, easy enough, just point out that Factcheck is actually non-partisan, non-profit, and a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and if Walter Annenberg was biased toward anyone...it sure as hell wasn't Democrats.
But okay, so you get past that, and then they'll dismiss the evidence as merely a "Certificate of Live Birth" and not an official "Birth Certificate." (All the while avoiding the secondary evidence, that the birth was announced in two major Honolulu newspapers. But anyway...) Then you ask them what the difference is, and they'll proudly demonstrate their proficiency with the Google by coughing up this paragraph:
"Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence," the document said. "The only way to know where Senator Obama was actually born is to view Senator Obama's original birth certificate from 1961 that shows the name of the hospital and the name and signature of the doctor that delivered him."
Now this thing is in practically every tube of the interwebs, but I'm damned if I can find the original source of it (I'd love to tell you that it's Alan Keyes, really I would, but honestly...no idea). Apparently, nobody wants to claim credit, and it's hard to blame them, since a) There is no such law as Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178, and b) There IS a Hawaii Revised Statute 338-17.8, but it pertains to those born out of state, not out of the country. Which is to say that this argument is completely fucking irrelevant, but admittedly great fun to shoot down.
Anyway, I'll let Mr. Stewart take it from here...
1. Admit being wrong, look like total jackass
2. Refuse to admit being wrong, look insane AND like total jackass.
The delightful Jon Stewart clip below says pretty much all there is to say about this nonsense, but I do want to touch upon one thing that was probably just too ridiculous to make the cut.
Argue with enough birthers, and you'll come across a few for whom the Certificate of Live Birth posted at and confirmed by Factcheck.org isn't enough. First they'll dismiss Factcheck.org as being biased. Okay, easy enough, just point out that Factcheck is actually non-partisan, non-profit, and a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and if Walter Annenberg was biased toward anyone...it sure as hell wasn't Democrats.
But okay, so you get past that, and then they'll dismiss the evidence as merely a "Certificate of Live Birth" and not an official "Birth Certificate." (All the while avoiding the secondary evidence, that the birth was announced in two major Honolulu newspapers. But anyway...) Then you ask them what the difference is, and they'll proudly demonstrate their proficiency with the Google by coughing up this paragraph:
"Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence," the document said. "The only way to know where Senator Obama was actually born is to view Senator Obama's original birth certificate from 1961 that shows the name of the hospital and the name and signature of the doctor that delivered him."
Now this thing is in practically every tube of the interwebs, but I'm damned if I can find the original source of it (I'd love to tell you that it's Alan Keyes, really I would, but honestly...no idea). Apparently, nobody wants to claim credit, and it's hard to blame them, since a) There is no such law as Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178, and b) There IS a Hawaii Revised Statute 338-17.8, but it pertains to those born out of state, not out of the country. Which is to say that this argument is completely fucking irrelevant, but admittedly great fun to shoot down.
Anyway, I'll let Mr. Stewart take it from here...
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Born Identity | ||||
| ||||
Movies - The Year So Far
Rent them if you missed them:
Duplicity
Anvil!: The Story of Anvil
Two Lovers
Mandatory viewing:
Food, Inc.
Good but a tad over-praised:
The Hurt Locker
Up
Star Trek
Surprisingly amusing:
The Hangover
I Love You, Man
Mediocre and wildly over-praised:
(500) Days of Summer
Adventureland
Not great, but glad I saw them:
Moon
Brothers Bloom
Flawed but unfairly maligned:
Watchmen
Why were they so dull?:
Public Enemies
Tyson
Really just not good at all:
Drag Me to Hell
Rental recommendation of the year:
"Stranded: I've Come from a Plane that Crashed on the Mountains"
Might be hard to find at the video store, but you can download it from Amazon. It's basically "Alive", only it's a documentary, it's really good, and is devoid of Vincent Spano. What more do you want?
Duplicity
Anvil!: The Story of Anvil
Two Lovers
Mandatory viewing:
Food, Inc.
Good but a tad over-praised:
The Hurt Locker
Up
Star Trek
Surprisingly amusing:
The Hangover
I Love You, Man
Mediocre and wildly over-praised:
(500) Days of Summer
Adventureland
Not great, but glad I saw them:
Moon
Brothers Bloom
Flawed but unfairly maligned:
Watchmen
Why were they so dull?:
Public Enemies
Tyson
Really just not good at all:
Drag Me to Hell
Rental recommendation of the year:
"Stranded: I've Come from a Plane that Crashed on the Mountains"
Might be hard to find at the video store, but you can download it from Amazon. It's basically "Alive", only it's a documentary, it's really good, and is devoid of Vincent Spano. What more do you want?
Casino school
Hey, everyone...
So obviously I haven't posted in a while, largely due to being busy with a new script and going to poker dealer school, so I'm going to take advantage of this lull of a weekend and blather a bit starting with this handy FAQ on what the hell I'm doing in casino school.
Why casino school?
Part and parcel with being a screenwriter out here is finding alternative means of income during the inevitable dry spells. For me, that's been mostly office jobs, many of them temporary, which is to say, erratic, lacking in benefits, modestly salaried, and frequently just sort of awful, and in the last couple years, few things could cheer me up from the doldrums such jobs would cause more effectively than poker. So the fact that it took this long to occur to me to make poker my day job is really quite sad, but anyway, I had the belated epiphany back in March, just as my last, torturous office job was winding down, and here we are.
Also, it's a way to meet cocktail waitresses.
What do they teach at casino school?
There's a table games course (blackjack, baccarat, and pai gow) and the one I'm taking, the poker-dealer course, which covers Limit Hold 'em, Hi-Lo Omaha, Hi-Lo 7-card Stud, and Mexican Poker.
What in God's name is Mexican Poker?
Yeah, I hadn't heard of it either, but basically it's a 5-card stud game; the 8's, 9's and 10's aren't in the deck, you choose whether you want your card up or down on 3rd and 4th streets, there's a joker that's "wild" when dealt down and is either an Ace or completes a straight or flush when dealt up, a flush beats a full house--
Okay, stop, stop, stop, never mind. That sounds insane.
It is.
So how long is the course?
As long as it takes, which is to say that it's not really a "course" in the sense of there being "classes" to attend. Once you've learned the mechanics (shuffling, dealing, chip-cutting, etc.) and passed the written test, you're ready to start dealing Hold 'em (the students all take turns "shilling" for each other). Then when you're ready, they give you a "pre-audition", where basically you deal for 20 minutes and try not to screw up at all. Pass that, and you move on to the next game. Pass all four games, then you take the final, which is one hand of each game. Pass that, and you're ready to pound the pavement with your certificate.
Okay...So how long does all THAT take?
It varies, but if you're there every weekday and get in 3-4 "downs" (20 minute segments) per day, you're probably looking at 2-3 months, depending on how many times you screw up your tests.
So where are you now in the class?
I just passed Hold 'em and am on the verge of passing Stud, so I think I'm looking at another 4-6 weeks or so, provided that I don't botch the remaining tests as many times as I botched the Hold 'em.
How many--
Move on.
Does all this dealing make you a better poker player?
I'm hoping it will eventually, but I wouldn't say it has yet, because the "shilled" games we play at the school does not remotely resemble how real games go, since a) We're not playing for real money, and b) Most players stay all the way to the end whether they have a hand or not (sometimes they don't even look at their hands), so the dealer can practice reading hands.
What's the hardest thing about dealing?
Well, creating side pots and learning the half-bet rule both take some time, but once you get those down, the hardest part is remembering to "clear" one's hands (i.e., briefly turning the hand palm up, so the ceiling camera sees it) EVERY DAMN TIME you touch the chips. Seriously, that's an exhausting habit to form. But I suspect this will be child's play compared to dealing with actual casino patrons in varying degrees of inebriation.
Hey, why are so many dealers Asian?
I have no idea. The students at the school are an eclectic mix of races and ages (not genders, though...It's mostly guys.), but yeah, when I head down the block to Hawaiian Gardens after school, the dealers are almost entirely Asian. (So I figure I'll have the "token" thing going for me...)
How much do dealers make?
It's mostly tips, but getting tipped every hand adds up; I'm told a full-time casino dealer makes somewhere in the $50-70K range, which beats those horrendous temp jobs AND comes with benefits.
Cool. Well, good luck with it.
(takes tip, taps it on the table)
Thank you, sir!
So obviously I haven't posted in a while, largely due to being busy with a new script and going to poker dealer school, so I'm going to take advantage of this lull of a weekend and blather a bit starting with this handy FAQ on what the hell I'm doing in casino school.
Why casino school?
Part and parcel with being a screenwriter out here is finding alternative means of income during the inevitable dry spells. For me, that's been mostly office jobs, many of them temporary, which is to say, erratic, lacking in benefits, modestly salaried, and frequently just sort of awful, and in the last couple years, few things could cheer me up from the doldrums such jobs would cause more effectively than poker. So the fact that it took this long to occur to me to make poker my day job is really quite sad, but anyway, I had the belated epiphany back in March, just as my last, torturous office job was winding down, and here we are.
Also, it's a way to meet cocktail waitresses.
What do they teach at casino school?
There's a table games course (blackjack, baccarat, and pai gow) and the one I'm taking, the poker-dealer course, which covers Limit Hold 'em, Hi-Lo Omaha, Hi-Lo 7-card Stud, and Mexican Poker.
What in God's name is Mexican Poker?
Yeah, I hadn't heard of it either, but basically it's a 5-card stud game; the 8's, 9's and 10's aren't in the deck, you choose whether you want your card up or down on 3rd and 4th streets, there's a joker that's "wild" when dealt down and is either an Ace or completes a straight or flush when dealt up, a flush beats a full house--
Okay, stop, stop, stop, never mind. That sounds insane.
It is.
So how long is the course?
As long as it takes, which is to say that it's not really a "course" in the sense of there being "classes" to attend. Once you've learned the mechanics (shuffling, dealing, chip-cutting, etc.) and passed the written test, you're ready to start dealing Hold 'em (the students all take turns "shilling" for each other). Then when you're ready, they give you a "pre-audition", where basically you deal for 20 minutes and try not to screw up at all. Pass that, and you move on to the next game. Pass all four games, then you take the final, which is one hand of each game. Pass that, and you're ready to pound the pavement with your certificate.
Okay...So how long does all THAT take?
It varies, but if you're there every weekday and get in 3-4 "downs" (20 minute segments) per day, you're probably looking at 2-3 months, depending on how many times you screw up your tests.
So where are you now in the class?
I just passed Hold 'em and am on the verge of passing Stud, so I think I'm looking at another 4-6 weeks or so, provided that I don't botch the remaining tests as many times as I botched the Hold 'em.
How many--
Move on.
Does all this dealing make you a better poker player?
I'm hoping it will eventually, but I wouldn't say it has yet, because the "shilled" games we play at the school does not remotely resemble how real games go, since a) We're not playing for real money, and b) Most players stay all the way to the end whether they have a hand or not (sometimes they don't even look at their hands), so the dealer can practice reading hands.
What's the hardest thing about dealing?
Well, creating side pots and learning the half-bet rule both take some time, but once you get those down, the hardest part is remembering to "clear" one's hands (i.e., briefly turning the hand palm up, so the ceiling camera sees it) EVERY DAMN TIME you touch the chips. Seriously, that's an exhausting habit to form. But I suspect this will be child's play compared to dealing with actual casino patrons in varying degrees of inebriation.
Hey, why are so many dealers Asian?
I have no idea. The students at the school are an eclectic mix of races and ages (not genders, though...It's mostly guys.), but yeah, when I head down the block to Hawaiian Gardens after school, the dealers are almost entirely Asian. (So I figure I'll have the "token" thing going for me...)
How much do dealers make?
It's mostly tips, but getting tipped every hand adds up; I'm told a full-time casino dealer makes somewhere in the $50-70K range, which beats those horrendous temp jobs AND comes with benefits.
Cool. Well, good luck with it.
(takes tip, taps it on the table)
Thank you, sir!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Oh, Sweet, Sweet Lord at Long Last...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/30/minnesota-decision-al-fra_n_223258.html
Senator Al Franken. How fucking great is that? I'm just gonna keep saying it all day.
I'm also gonna watch some of my favorites again...
(Oh, to be a fly on the wall when O'Reilly, Coulter and the rest of these assholes got the news...)
Senator Al Franken. How fucking great is that? I'm just gonna keep saying it all day.
I'm also gonna watch some of my favorites again...
(Oh, to be a fly on the wall when O'Reilly, Coulter and the rest of these assholes got the news...)
Friday, June 19, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Food, Inc.
So maybe you read "Fast Food Nation" or "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and thought to yourself, "This is pretty fascinating, illuminating, even stomach-churning stuff...But damnit, I need some audio/visual aids to really send the points home."
The movie for you to see, then, is "Food, Inc.", which is at the Nuart in Los Angeles and presumably will open wider. David Edelstein says it best:
After an hour and a half of sighing, wincing, and clucking over the manifold outrages portrayed in Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc., I gave up the thought of “reviewing” the documentary and decided, instead, to exhort you: See it. Bring your kids if you have them. Bring someone else’s kids if you don’t. The message is nothing new if you’ve read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation or Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (both are in the film). But every frame makes you choke on your popcorn—if for no other reason than the focus on government-underwritten corn and the companies who put it into everything from soda to Midol to the gassy, E. coli–ridden bellies of factory-farmed cows. The sheer scale of the movie is mind-blowing—it touches on every aspect of modern life. It’s the documentary equivalent of The Matrix: It shows us how we’re living in a simulacrum, fed by machines run by larger machines with names like Monsanto, Perdue, Tyson, and the handful of other corporations that make everything. We humans can win, but we should hurry, before Monsanto makes a time machine and sends back a Terminator to get rid of Schlosser and Pollan.
If nothing else, the movie has convinced me to TRY buying only organic food products for a while. The immediate cost is slightly higher, but (the film makes the case) the long-term savings, to your healthy, the rest of the world, and the future, make up the difference many times over, so...
Organic for a month! Let's try it!
Who's with me?
The movie for you to see, then, is "Food, Inc.", which is at the Nuart in Los Angeles and presumably will open wider. David Edelstein says it best:
After an hour and a half of sighing, wincing, and clucking over the manifold outrages portrayed in Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc., I gave up the thought of “reviewing” the documentary and decided, instead, to exhort you: See it. Bring your kids if you have them. Bring someone else’s kids if you don’t. The message is nothing new if you’ve read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation or Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (both are in the film). But every frame makes you choke on your popcorn—if for no other reason than the focus on government-underwritten corn and the companies who put it into everything from soda to Midol to the gassy, E. coli–ridden bellies of factory-farmed cows. The sheer scale of the movie is mind-blowing—it touches on every aspect of modern life. It’s the documentary equivalent of The Matrix: It shows us how we’re living in a simulacrum, fed by machines run by larger machines with names like Monsanto, Perdue, Tyson, and the handful of other corporations that make everything. We humans can win, but we should hurry, before Monsanto makes a time machine and sends back a Terminator to get rid of Schlosser and Pollan.
If nothing else, the movie has convinced me to TRY buying only organic food products for a while. The immediate cost is slightly higher, but (the film makes the case) the long-term savings, to your healthy, the rest of the world, and the future, make up the difference many times over, so...
Organic for a month! Let's try it!
Who's with me?
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Troll
Sigh...Yeah, I guess there's one at every blog. But this one has a back story that I might as well share. Nutshell version is this:
I'm a regular poster on a message board that consists of Writers Guild members. Most of the posters there are kind, witty, helpful, incredibly smart, gifted writers, many of whom I am proud to call my friends. The majority of them, myself included, are also politically liberal, which has led to many a bitter political argument when one of the conservatives makes his/her case. Most of the time, it's a perfectly civil disagreement that gradually peters out. But naturally, because it's the internet, the board also attracted a serious devoted and demented troll whose stated goal was to be contrarian, to insult everyone else, to cause trouble, to basically be, as a colleague put it, the turd in the punch bowl.
His typical M.O. would be to regurgitate a pile of wildly extreme right-wing views and talking points that he didn't even believe for the sole purpose of creating havoc and disrupting conversations, and when these hysterics would be invariably dismantled with simple logic, common sense, and facts, he would quickly resort to name-calling and profanity, his mouth getting frothier and frothier until he finally melted down to such a degree that he'd say something so outrageously horrible and inappropriate that he'd get banned from the board for a while. Then he'd come back, not the least bit humbled, start posting his ravings again, and the cycle would start anew.
But his last visit to the board, several months ago, topped them all, when he tried to show off his bona fides as a "journalist" while arguing with someone who actually DID have years of experience as a journalist. He did so by posting a press release about his having won a large monetary award for his financial journalism articles online. The only problem? The award didn't exist, the entity giving the award didn't exist, and the day of the week listed in the "press release" that the award was supposedly given to him on did not match the actual day of the week that the date fell on.
In other words, dude was so pathetically desperate to make his point, and so cheerfully willing to be completely dishonest about it, that he invented an award for himself and concocted a phony press release about it.
So naturally, because it was so transparently phony that it took about two seconds of research to reveal it as such, he was outed as, on top of being a miserable troll, a blatant liar. Yet he continued to post, despite now having gambled away what little credibility he'd had left and was now basically the laughingstock of the board.
So he continued blathering his nonsense, and I and others continued rebutting him at every turn, never forgetting to remind him of the phony journalist award debacle (which he never even bothered to defend or explain), so he started issuing "warnings" to me to leave him alone...until he finally revealed what lay in store for me for not heeding his dire warnings: A blog post he'd written elsewhere (he has since deleted it) that called me out as a "cyber-stalker", took a bunch of baseless potshots at me, and somewhere in there mentioned that he had a gun, the implication being a pretty strong one that he intended to shoot me if I continued "stalking" him.
Well, the moderators of our message board didn't take too kindly to one of the members making what was essentially a death threat against another, so they banned him for an extensive period this time, and that's how it's been, and the board is all the better for his absence, and I went right on living my life.
And now...he's here.
Cats and kittens, meet I Lost the Nest Egg's most prolific commenter: "Karen".
Oh, make no mistake, it's him. He's denied it, of course, but judging from the instantly recognizable stylistic touches (the high school logic, the baseless potshots, the insulting tone, the crude sexual analogies, the insistence that I'm wasting my time responding to him (on the old board, he would ridicule anyone with a high post count) the use of LOL's (he's big on emoticons too), the begging me to delete his posts (on the old board he would constantly beg anyone he argued with to "Put me on IGNORE!")), and the fact that there's simply no one else in the world who would go to this much trouble to try to demean me in the way that "Karen" is trying, I would happily swear on a thousand Bibles that it's my old buddy.
Anyway, that's the back story behind all these "Karen" posts. I've deleted a few of them because they consisted almost entirely of potshots and served no purpose other than to stink up the joint, but I'm going to leave the lion's share of them up, because they so beautifully illustrate the sort of inanity I spent countless hours at various day jobs demolishing.
Oh, also, as you read them and take in all the cartoonishly nasty comments about my career and the "schooling" of me he's doing on how the business works and ridiculing me for embarking on a career outside the industry?
Keep in mind: This dude runs a payday loan company and spends much of his time lately blogging in defense of the wondrous world of payday loans. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course (well, actually many would argue that there's PLENTY wrong with payday loans, but that's for another day), in fact, more power to him for finding an alternative line of work, since apparently the writing thing didn't pan out too well for him. It's just not really helping his case against MY career all that much.
So...fun's fun, "Karen", but I think you've worn out your welcome here at I Lost the Nest Egg.
And anyway, don't you have some more journalism awards to win?
I'm a regular poster on a message board that consists of Writers Guild members. Most of the posters there are kind, witty, helpful, incredibly smart, gifted writers, many of whom I am proud to call my friends. The majority of them, myself included, are also politically liberal, which has led to many a bitter political argument when one of the conservatives makes his/her case. Most of the time, it's a perfectly civil disagreement that gradually peters out. But naturally, because it's the internet, the board also attracted a serious devoted and demented troll whose stated goal was to be contrarian, to insult everyone else, to cause trouble, to basically be, as a colleague put it, the turd in the punch bowl.
His typical M.O. would be to regurgitate a pile of wildly extreme right-wing views and talking points that he didn't even believe for the sole purpose of creating havoc and disrupting conversations, and when these hysterics would be invariably dismantled with simple logic, common sense, and facts, he would quickly resort to name-calling and profanity, his mouth getting frothier and frothier until he finally melted down to such a degree that he'd say something so outrageously horrible and inappropriate that he'd get banned from the board for a while. Then he'd come back, not the least bit humbled, start posting his ravings again, and the cycle would start anew.
But his last visit to the board, several months ago, topped them all, when he tried to show off his bona fides as a "journalist" while arguing with someone who actually DID have years of experience as a journalist. He did so by posting a press release about his having won a large monetary award for his financial journalism articles online. The only problem? The award didn't exist, the entity giving the award didn't exist, and the day of the week listed in the "press release" that the award was supposedly given to him on did not match the actual day of the week that the date fell on.
In other words, dude was so pathetically desperate to make his point, and so cheerfully willing to be completely dishonest about it, that he invented an award for himself and concocted a phony press release about it.
So naturally, because it was so transparently phony that it took about two seconds of research to reveal it as such, he was outed as, on top of being a miserable troll, a blatant liar. Yet he continued to post, despite now having gambled away what little credibility he'd had left and was now basically the laughingstock of the board.
So he continued blathering his nonsense, and I and others continued rebutting him at every turn, never forgetting to remind him of the phony journalist award debacle (which he never even bothered to defend or explain), so he started issuing "warnings" to me to leave him alone...until he finally revealed what lay in store for me for not heeding his dire warnings: A blog post he'd written elsewhere (he has since deleted it) that called me out as a "cyber-stalker", took a bunch of baseless potshots at me, and somewhere in there mentioned that he had a gun, the implication being a pretty strong one that he intended to shoot me if I continued "stalking" him.
Well, the moderators of our message board didn't take too kindly to one of the members making what was essentially a death threat against another, so they banned him for an extensive period this time, and that's how it's been, and the board is all the better for his absence, and I went right on living my life.
And now...he's here.
Cats and kittens, meet I Lost the Nest Egg's most prolific commenter: "Karen".
Oh, make no mistake, it's him. He's denied it, of course, but judging from the instantly recognizable stylistic touches (the high school logic, the baseless potshots, the insulting tone, the crude sexual analogies, the insistence that I'm wasting my time responding to him (on the old board, he would ridicule anyone with a high post count) the use of LOL's (he's big on emoticons too), the begging me to delete his posts (on the old board he would constantly beg anyone he argued with to "Put me on IGNORE!")), and the fact that there's simply no one else in the world who would go to this much trouble to try to demean me in the way that "Karen" is trying, I would happily swear on a thousand Bibles that it's my old buddy.
Anyway, that's the back story behind all these "Karen" posts. I've deleted a few of them because they consisted almost entirely of potshots and served no purpose other than to stink up the joint, but I'm going to leave the lion's share of them up, because they so beautifully illustrate the sort of inanity I spent countless hours at various day jobs demolishing.
Oh, also, as you read them and take in all the cartoonishly nasty comments about my career and the "schooling" of me he's doing on how the business works and ridiculing me for embarking on a career outside the industry?
Keep in mind: This dude runs a payday loan company and spends much of his time lately blogging in defense of the wondrous world of payday loans. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course (well, actually many would argue that there's PLENTY wrong with payday loans, but that's for another day), in fact, more power to him for finding an alternative line of work, since apparently the writing thing didn't pan out too well for him. It's just not really helping his case against MY career all that much.
So...fun's fun, "Karen", but I think you've worn out your welcome here at I Lost the Nest Egg.
And anyway, don't you have some more journalism awards to win?
Friday, June 12, 2009
Ross Whats-his-name
Okay, look...Sure, Bill Kristol was a smug, pathologically wrong asshat whose writing skill level on a good day hovered around that of cocktail napkin riddles, but at least he was always good for a laugh around the water cooler. It is simply impossible for a conversation that begins "Did you read Kristol's column today?" not to dissolve into stomach-cramping guffaws. In my book, that's worth something. Whereas...
This guy hasn't expressed a single memorable thought or composed a single quotable sentence yet. Note to Douthat: If you can't even make a column headlined "Cheney for President" memorable, you're in the wrong line of work.
Compare with this recent column from Kristol, now at WaPo, who crams more nonsense into a few lazily dictated paragraphs than even Joe Scarborough can regurgitate in his daily seven-hour show.
"But the most successful conservative intervention in the first four months of the Obama presidency has been -- counter to predictions by consultants and pundits -- that of Dick Cheney on national security policy. He may be the only Republican so far who’s really forced Obama onto the defensive."
Don't you just love that herky-jerky -- and by "herky-jerky" I mean a style wherein rather than going to the trouble to create a smoothly flowing sentence, a writer -- a man or woman, as the case may be -- instead just stops the sentence cold -- or at least lukewarm -- to insert a qualifying clause -- style of his (Kristol's)?
Here, you can even make a game out of this next example; try to make it to the end of this sentence a) without having to reread any part of it, and b) without giggling.
"And most conservatives and Republicans would, I think, agree that the other Republican who’s effectively -- if episodically -- challenged Obama on foreign and national security policy has been Newt Gingrich."
How'd you do?
"Here’s an interesting question: (Little-known fact: Whenever Bill Kristol says "Here's an interesting question", what follows is not an interesting question. It's true!) Will any Republican whose career lies mostly ahead of him -- or her -- step up to confront Obama on the foreign policy and national security front?" (See?)
"Both Cheney and Gingrich have the background and stature to address credibly national security issues."
Yup. A grown man actually wrote that. Really. You couldn't make this shit up.
Douthat, my man...You have some big, stupid shoes to fill.
This guy hasn't expressed a single memorable thought or composed a single quotable sentence yet. Note to Douthat: If you can't even make a column headlined "Cheney for President" memorable, you're in the wrong line of work.
Compare with this recent column from Kristol, now at WaPo, who crams more nonsense into a few lazily dictated paragraphs than even Joe Scarborough can regurgitate in his daily seven-hour show.
"But the most successful conservative intervention in the first four months of the Obama presidency has been -- counter to predictions by consultants and pundits -- that of Dick Cheney on national security policy. He may be the only Republican so far who’s really forced Obama onto the defensive."
Don't you just love that herky-jerky -- and by "herky-jerky" I mean a style wherein rather than going to the trouble to create a smoothly flowing sentence, a writer -- a man or woman, as the case may be -- instead just stops the sentence cold -- or at least lukewarm -- to insert a qualifying clause -- style of his (Kristol's)?
Here, you can even make a game out of this next example; try to make it to the end of this sentence a) without having to reread any part of it, and b) without giggling.
"And most conservatives and Republicans would, I think, agree that the other Republican who’s effectively -- if episodically -- challenged Obama on foreign and national security policy has been Newt Gingrich."
How'd you do?
"Here’s an interesting question: (Little-known fact: Whenever Bill Kristol says "Here's an interesting question", what follows is not an interesting question. It's true!) Will any Republican whose career lies mostly ahead of him -- or her -- step up to confront Obama on the foreign policy and national security front?" (See?)
"Both Cheney and Gingrich have the background and stature to address credibly national security issues."
Yup. A grown man actually wrote that. Really. You couldn't make this shit up.
Douthat, my man...You have some big, stupid shoes to fill.
Intelligent Design on Trial
This isn't new, but I just got around to watching it. It's a 2-hour "Nova" episode on a case, Kitzmiller v. Dover, that I've been researching for a project about the landmark defeat of the attempt to sneak the intelligent design textbook "Of Pandas and People" into the science classes in Dover, Pennsylvania. The trial dramatizations are kinda cheesy, but this show covers the saga quite thoroughly.
The good guys didn't win too often in the last 8 years. This time, they did.
And keep the link bookmarked for the next time some chowderhead tries to tell you that evolution is "just a theory."
The good guys didn't win too often in the last 8 years. This time, they did.
And keep the link bookmarked for the next time some chowderhead tries to tell you that evolution is "just a theory."
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The Hangover
Yup, it's all true. The guys who wrote "Four Christmases" and the director of "Starsky and Hutch" somehow bring you the funniest Hollywood comedy since...Okay, since "I Love You, Man", but before THAT, it was a long dry spell.
Remember the names: Zach Galifinakis, Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper. You'll be seeing more of them (particularly Zach, who steals it). Hell, I'll bet they're signing the deal for the sequel as I type this.
Oh, and Heather Graham?
Welcome back.
Remember the names: Zach Galifinakis, Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper. You'll be seeing more of them (particularly Zach, who steals it). Hell, I'll bet they're signing the deal for the sequel as I type this.
Oh, and Heather Graham?
Welcome back.
Straight Flush
So I've started visiting the Hawaiian Gardens Casino with some regularity lately, as it's just down the block from the casino dealer school. Also, the cocktail waitresses are hot. If you don't usually hear HG mentioned in the same breath as the Bike, Commerce and Hustler, it's probably because it's a bit further south (off the 605, Carson exit), but as far as I'm concerned, it's worth the extra few miles. The vibe, with its tropical theme, is decidedly cozier than the others, the wait-lists are never too long, and did I mention the cocktail waitresses?
Anyway, so I'd been a couple times earlier in the week, the only memorable moment in the two visits being when I flopped Quad 6's. I hadn't seen Quads in a while; I barely recognized them. So the hand soon whittled down to me (6's) and Seat #1, who had bet about half his stack on the flop (K-6-6) and then checked the turn. The river brought another King, and I pushed my stack (about equal with his) all in. He hesitated, muttering his concern that I had hit a Full House. Arguably foolish to respond, but too deliciously tempted to resist, I turned to him and assured him that no, I did not have a Full House. He finally shrugged, "Well, I'm pot-committed at this point" and pushed in. We showed down. The table had a good laugh. To the villain's credit, he was a good sport about it.
So I left having doubled up my $40 and then proceeded to lose $30 of it two days later, and by yesterday, it had finally dawned on me that playing the $40 table ($1/$2 blinds) makes practically no sense when there is a $100 table ($2/$3 blinds). Well, okay, it makes sense if a) You have only $40; or b) You want to make absolutely positively sure that you don't lose more than $40. Other than THAT, it's silly.
At the $40 table, you are buying in for a mere 20 big blinds; at the $100 table, you get 33.3 blinds. Or to use Dan Harrington's "M" figure (which actually pertains more to tournaments, but it's a useful barometer for cash games as well) of your stack divided by the combined total of blinds (i.e. small+ big)...
$40/$3 = M of 13.3
$100/$5 = M of 20
...it's just no contest. So I figured I'd try the $100 table, promising myself that I'd probably walk away if my stack dipped below $50. My promises to myself are generally pretty weak. So anyway, after about a half hour, I was about even when I finally hit pocket aces and managed to scoop a big pot from the table's chip leader and her pocket Kings. This gave me some breathing room to widen my list of playable hands, so a few minutes later, when I got J/9 of spades, and only a minor raise was made, I threw in.
And the flop....
Q, 10, 8 of spades.
Rechecked the hand. Nope, wasn't dreaming, wasn't hallucinating. Holiest of craps, I'd just flopped a straight flush. I still carry the wound of having had my Ace-high flush walloped by a straight flush last year, in my own home, no less. But of the hundreds (thousands?) of poker hands I've possessed in the last few years since I started playing, I had never actually HELD a straight flush until that moment.
It felt...good.
The only question was how to maximize the profits off of it, and I wish I could report back that I had done so, but...Well, see for yourself:
Seat #2 bet $20. I called.
Guy to my left raises to $50, just less than half his stack.
Seat #2 folded.
I called, somehow refraining from weeping tears of joy.
The turn: King of spades. Not that it made any difference, but now I had a SIX CARD straight flush. I'm willing to take odds that I will never see a hand that good again, never, ever, ever.
So what to do?
Only the stupidest thing I could have possibly done.
Thinking something along the lines of, "Well, he's pot-committed at this point (apparently I had him confused with the Quad-6's villain), he's not going to just fold away his $50"...I bet. $50. Relatively meager, less than half the pot, not his entire stack, thinking he would have no choice but to go all-in at that point...
But nope. He considered it for a minute, then shook his head, turned his cards over. Two pair. What I hadn't considered, idiotically, was what a scare-card the King of spades would have been for him, creating a entirely possible straight and a highly probable flush for his opponent.
Thus, one could argue, even if I had checked, as any other moron would have done in my shoes, I still might not have made any money on the river. So...that's what I'm TRYING to convince myself of, but not really succeeding.
In any case, I flipped my hand, got a collective gasp from the table, scooped the pot...and all I could think was, GODDAMNIT, I should've checked.
Oh, sure, sure, sure, on the one hand, I scooped a decent pot and eventually walked out of there $115 up, so it's rather undignified to grouse. Guilty as charged.
But on the other hand, goddamnit all...Best hand I'll ever have, and basically, I blew it, and I deserve all your scorn.
I'm still a relative novice at Hold 'em, so don't expect to find any great pearls of wisdom on these pages, but this one you can take to your grave:
Never friggin' bet the friggin' turn when you have a straight friggin' flush.
Class dismissed.
Anyway, so I'd been a couple times earlier in the week, the only memorable moment in the two visits being when I flopped Quad 6's. I hadn't seen Quads in a while; I barely recognized them. So the hand soon whittled down to me (6's) and Seat #1, who had bet about half his stack on the flop (K-6-6) and then checked the turn. The river brought another King, and I pushed my stack (about equal with his) all in. He hesitated, muttering his concern that I had hit a Full House. Arguably foolish to respond, but too deliciously tempted to resist, I turned to him and assured him that no, I did not have a Full House. He finally shrugged, "Well, I'm pot-committed at this point" and pushed in. We showed down. The table had a good laugh. To the villain's credit, he was a good sport about it.
So I left having doubled up my $40 and then proceeded to lose $30 of it two days later, and by yesterday, it had finally dawned on me that playing the $40 table ($1/$2 blinds) makes practically no sense when there is a $100 table ($2/$3 blinds). Well, okay, it makes sense if a) You have only $40; or b) You want to make absolutely positively sure that you don't lose more than $40. Other than THAT, it's silly.
At the $40 table, you are buying in for a mere 20 big blinds; at the $100 table, you get 33.3 blinds. Or to use Dan Harrington's "M" figure (which actually pertains more to tournaments, but it's a useful barometer for cash games as well) of your stack divided by the combined total of blinds (i.e. small+ big)...
$40/$3 = M of 13.3
$100/$5 = M of 20
...it's just no contest. So I figured I'd try the $100 table, promising myself that I'd probably walk away if my stack dipped below $50. My promises to myself are generally pretty weak. So anyway, after about a half hour, I was about even when I finally hit pocket aces and managed to scoop a big pot from the table's chip leader and her pocket Kings. This gave me some breathing room to widen my list of playable hands, so a few minutes later, when I got J/9 of spades, and only a minor raise was made, I threw in.
And the flop....
Q, 10, 8 of spades.
Rechecked the hand. Nope, wasn't dreaming, wasn't hallucinating. Holiest of craps, I'd just flopped a straight flush. I still carry the wound of having had my Ace-high flush walloped by a straight flush last year, in my own home, no less. But of the hundreds (thousands?) of poker hands I've possessed in the last few years since I started playing, I had never actually HELD a straight flush until that moment.
It felt...good.
The only question was how to maximize the profits off of it, and I wish I could report back that I had done so, but...Well, see for yourself:
Seat #2 bet $20. I called.
Guy to my left raises to $50, just less than half his stack.
Seat #2 folded.
I called, somehow refraining from weeping tears of joy.
The turn: King of spades. Not that it made any difference, but now I had a SIX CARD straight flush. I'm willing to take odds that I will never see a hand that good again, never, ever, ever.
So what to do?
Only the stupidest thing I could have possibly done.
Thinking something along the lines of, "Well, he's pot-committed at this point (apparently I had him confused with the Quad-6's villain), he's not going to just fold away his $50"...I bet. $50. Relatively meager, less than half the pot, not his entire stack, thinking he would have no choice but to go all-in at that point...
But nope. He considered it for a minute, then shook his head, turned his cards over. Two pair. What I hadn't considered, idiotically, was what a scare-card the King of spades would have been for him, creating a entirely possible straight and a highly probable flush for his opponent.
Thus, one could argue, even if I had checked, as any other moron would have done in my shoes, I still might not have made any money on the river. So...that's what I'm TRYING to convince myself of, but not really succeeding.
In any case, I flipped my hand, got a collective gasp from the table, scooped the pot...and all I could think was, GODDAMNIT, I should've checked.
Oh, sure, sure, sure, on the one hand, I scooped a decent pot and eventually walked out of there $115 up, so it's rather undignified to grouse. Guilty as charged.
But on the other hand, goddamnit all...Best hand I'll ever have, and basically, I blew it, and I deserve all your scorn.
I'm still a relative novice at Hold 'em, so don't expect to find any great pearls of wisdom on these pages, but this one you can take to your grave:
Never friggin' bet the friggin' turn when you have a straight friggin' flush.
Class dismissed.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Video Post Test
Just seeing how this "video posting" thing goes...Might as well try it with one of my very favorite clips, Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell beginning the beguine. Whatever that means. Just watch. Guaranteed smile.
Hey, check me out, it worked!
Hey, check me out, it worked!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Ann Coulter
Let's just do this once, just to acknowledge that "she" is still out there and is the same as "she" ever was (other than her dwindling book sales figures), which is to say, a dishonest, racist, homophobic shrew. Or at least, that's the character "she" plays. Some highlights from her latest masterpiece, which harshly condemns the cold-blooded slaying of abortionist George Tiller.
Ha, ha! Just kidding.
For years, we've had to hear about the grave threat that Americans might overreact to a terrorist attack committed by 19 Muslims shouting "Allahu akbar" as they flew commercial jets into American skyscrapers. That would be the equivalent of 19 pro-lifers shouting "Abortion kills a beating heart!" as they gunned down thousands of innocent citizens in Wichita, Kan.
Why aren't liberals rushing to assure us this time that "most pro-lifers are peaceful"? Unlike Muslims, pro-lifers actually are peaceful.
Uh, yes, and unlike Muslims (particularly Muslims in the wake of 9/11) pro-lifers (her term...I still prefer "anti-choiceists") have never been the victims of any hate crimes. See how that works? You don't need to warn people not to do shit that they never do in the first place.
According to recent polling, a majority of Americans oppose abortion
I assume she's referring to the recent Gallup poll in which 51% to 42% of 1,015 people, asked whether they consider themselves pro-choice or pro-life, said the latter. 'kay...
a) So 517 people said they were pro-life, and 426 people said they were pro-choice, in this one poll, and from that difference of less than 100 people, Ann concludes that "the majority of Americans oppose abortion." Got it.
b) Pretending for just a moment that THIS ONE POLL is the end-all be-all barometer on the subject how does she explain the results from another of its questions:
"Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?"
"Legal under any circumstances": 22%
"Legal under certain circumstances": 53%
"Illegal in all circumstances": 23%
So according to this poll, the SAME poll that Ann is touting as evidence that America is against abortion, 3 out of 4 people think abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances. Go, Ann!
c) Aside from the Fox "News" poll, that is the ONLY poll (really the only PORTION of a poll) on this entire list of polls from the last few years on the subject that doesn't have abortion being legal to some degree coming out ahead.
d) Okay, now let's go stop pretending that a poll of this tiny a slice of the population has anything to say about anything.
which is consistent with liberals' hysterical refusal to allow us to vote on the subject.
Sorry? What? "Allow" us to vote on the subject? Could some 8th-grader out there correct her on this one? We don't "vote" on Supreme Court decisions. They either get reversed or they don't. Is that what she means by the "hysterical refusal" to allow it? It's not "allowed" because...it's not how things work? She's blaming the liberals for how the Constitution set the system up? Um...Okay.
And in any case, there kinda, you know, WAS a pretty high-profile national vote recently. A pro-choice guy was running against an anti-choice guy and his even more anti-choice running mate. How'd that pan out again?
In that same 36 years, more than 49 million babies have been killed by abortionists.
Why is Ann Coulter willing to live in a country where she believes it's legal to kill babies? She's got plenty of money; why doesn't she move to a less barbaric country where infanticide is illegal?
But the killing of about one abortionist per decade leads liberals to condemn the entire pro-life movement as "domestic terrorists."
Uh, no, no one's doing that. (Hiya, Strawman!) I've admittedly heard this one act referred to as "domestic terrorism". Probably because one American killed another as an act of political protest. Is there a better term for it?
Kansas law allows late-term abortions only to save the mother's life or to prevent "irreversible physical damage" to the mother. But Tiller was more than happy to kill viable babies, provided the mothers: (1) forked over $5,000; and (2) mentioned "substantial and irreversible conditions," which, in Tiller's view, apparently included not being able to go to concerts or rodeos or being "temporarily depressed" on account of their pregnancies.
Ha, ha! She's doing that thing she does. You know...lying?
Tiller's admission criteria:
In order to offer you an appointment, we require that a physician refer you to our center. In addition, we need your genetic counselor or doctor to provide us with gestational and diagnostic information regarding your pregnancy. Over the past twenty-five years, we have had experience with pregnancy terminations in such situations as anencephaly, Trisomy 13, 18, and 21, polycystic kidney disease, spina bifida, hydrocephalus, Potter's syndrome, lethal dwarfism, holoprosencephaly, anterior and posterior encephalocele, non-immune hydrops, and a variety of other very significant abnormalities.
As long as we're deciding who does and doesn't have an "absolute right to be born," who's to say late-term abortionists have an "absolute right" to live? I wouldn't kill an abortionist myself, but I wouldn't want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for shooting abortionists. But how will criminalizing men making difficult, often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the shootings of abortionists?
So this is Ann's idea of "satire." (I think. It's really hard to tell with her.) Her way of equating Tiller's "killing" of babies with his own murder. Naturally she doesn't come out and actually SAY that he got what he deserved, because that would be too transparently monstrous, as opposed to cloaking it in humor, which downgrades it to merely obliquely monstrous.
Or to put it another way:
On top of everything else...She's a coward.
She's also far too irrelevant for me to waste one more word on her, but if you're really jonesing...Well, you're in luck.
(Warning: Not anatomically correct.)
Ha, ha! Just kidding.
For years, we've had to hear about the grave threat that Americans might overreact to a terrorist attack committed by 19 Muslims shouting "Allahu akbar" as they flew commercial jets into American skyscrapers. That would be the equivalent of 19 pro-lifers shouting "Abortion kills a beating heart!" as they gunned down thousands of innocent citizens in Wichita, Kan.
Why aren't liberals rushing to assure us this time that "most pro-lifers are peaceful"? Unlike Muslims, pro-lifers actually are peaceful.
Uh, yes, and unlike Muslims (particularly Muslims in the wake of 9/11) pro-lifers (her term...I still prefer "anti-choiceists") have never been the victims of any hate crimes. See how that works? You don't need to warn people not to do shit that they never do in the first place.
According to recent polling, a majority of Americans oppose abortion
I assume she's referring to the recent Gallup poll in which 51% to 42% of 1,015 people, asked whether they consider themselves pro-choice or pro-life, said the latter. 'kay...
a) So 517 people said they were pro-life, and 426 people said they were pro-choice, in this one poll, and from that difference of less than 100 people, Ann concludes that "the majority of Americans oppose abortion." Got it.
b) Pretending for just a moment that THIS ONE POLL is the end-all be-all barometer on the subject how does she explain the results from another of its questions:
"Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?"
"Legal under any circumstances": 22%
"Legal under certain circumstances": 53%
"Illegal in all circumstances": 23%
So according to this poll, the SAME poll that Ann is touting as evidence that America is against abortion, 3 out of 4 people think abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances. Go, Ann!
c) Aside from the Fox "News" poll, that is the ONLY poll (really the only PORTION of a poll) on this entire list of polls from the last few years on the subject that doesn't have abortion being legal to some degree coming out ahead.
d) Okay, now let's go stop pretending that a poll of this tiny a slice of the population has anything to say about anything.
which is consistent with liberals' hysterical refusal to allow us to vote on the subject.
Sorry? What? "Allow" us to vote on the subject? Could some 8th-grader out there correct her on this one? We don't "vote" on Supreme Court decisions. They either get reversed or they don't. Is that what she means by the "hysterical refusal" to allow it? It's not "allowed" because...it's not how things work? She's blaming the liberals for how the Constitution set the system up? Um...Okay.
And in any case, there kinda, you know, WAS a pretty high-profile national vote recently. A pro-choice guy was running against an anti-choice guy and his even more anti-choice running mate. How'd that pan out again?
In that same 36 years, more than 49 million babies have been killed by abortionists.
Why is Ann Coulter willing to live in a country where she believes it's legal to kill babies? She's got plenty of money; why doesn't she move to a less barbaric country where infanticide is illegal?
But the killing of about one abortionist per decade leads liberals to condemn the entire pro-life movement as "domestic terrorists."
Uh, no, no one's doing that. (Hiya, Strawman!) I've admittedly heard this one act referred to as "domestic terrorism". Probably because one American killed another as an act of political protest. Is there a better term for it?
Kansas law allows late-term abortions only to save the mother's life or to prevent "irreversible physical damage" to the mother. But Tiller was more than happy to kill viable babies, provided the mothers: (1) forked over $5,000; and (2) mentioned "substantial and irreversible conditions," which, in Tiller's view, apparently included not being able to go to concerts or rodeos or being "temporarily depressed" on account of their pregnancies.
Ha, ha! She's doing that thing she does. You know...lying?
Tiller's admission criteria:
In order to offer you an appointment, we require that a physician refer you to our center. In addition, we need your genetic counselor or doctor to provide us with gestational and diagnostic information regarding your pregnancy. Over the past twenty-five years, we have had experience with pregnancy terminations in such situations as anencephaly, Trisomy 13, 18, and 21, polycystic kidney disease, spina bifida, hydrocephalus, Potter's syndrome, lethal dwarfism, holoprosencephaly, anterior and posterior encephalocele, non-immune hydrops, and a variety of other very significant abnormalities.
As long as we're deciding who does and doesn't have an "absolute right to be born," who's to say late-term abortionists have an "absolute right" to live? I wouldn't kill an abortionist myself, but I wouldn't want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for shooting abortionists. But how will criminalizing men making difficult, often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the shootings of abortionists?
So this is Ann's idea of "satire." (I think. It's really hard to tell with her.) Her way of equating Tiller's "killing" of babies with his own murder. Naturally she doesn't come out and actually SAY that he got what he deserved, because that would be too transparently monstrous, as opposed to cloaking it in humor, which downgrades it to merely obliquely monstrous.
Or to put it another way:
On top of everything else...She's a coward.
She's also far too irrelevant for me to waste one more word on her, but if you're really jonesing...Well, you're in luck.
(Warning: Not anatomically correct.)
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Dictionary definition of irony
The writer/director of "Superhero Movie" wringing his hands over the death of spoofs.
Whose fault is it?
Apparently, everybody except the writer/director of "Superhero Movie." The makers of other spoofs, the public for being tired of spoofs, and whoever didn't give him enough money to do the ending he wanted to do.
Yep, there's plenty of blame to go around, except for the guy who actually made a spoof that bombed, like...well, like "Superhero Movie" bombed.
He's the real victim here.
In fact, as we learn in the Comments section, "Superhero Movie" is actually one of the few spoofs that the writer-director of "Superhero Movie" thinks is good.
Young Frankenstein Airplane! Top Secret! I’m Gonna Git You Sucka Don’t Be A Menace…. Hot Shots! Scary Movie Scary Movie 3 Scary Movie 4 Portions of Superhero
"Scary Movie 3" and "Scary Movie 4" incidentally, were also co-written by the writer/director of "Superhero Movie."
So to review, three of the 10 spoofs that the writer/director of "Superhero Movie" thinks are good were written and/or directed by the writer/director of "Superhero Movie."
Jeez, so they MUST be good. Way better than those crappy "Naked Gun" movies that didn't make the cut.
Thanks for the recommend, writer/director of "Superhero Movie"! I just added all three of your movies to the top of my Netflix queue.
ETA: After some very careful reflection, on second thought, I've decided to just go on living my life.
Whose fault is it?
Apparently, everybody except the writer/director of "Superhero Movie." The makers of other spoofs, the public for being tired of spoofs, and whoever didn't give him enough money to do the ending he wanted to do.
Yep, there's plenty of blame to go around, except for the guy who actually made a spoof that bombed, like...well, like "Superhero Movie" bombed.
He's the real victim here.
In fact, as we learn in the Comments section, "Superhero Movie" is actually one of the few spoofs that the writer-director of "Superhero Movie" thinks is good.
Young Frankenstein Airplane! Top Secret! I’m Gonna Git You Sucka Don’t Be A Menace…. Hot Shots! Scary Movie Scary Movie 3 Scary Movie 4 Portions of Superhero
"Scary Movie 3" and "Scary Movie 4" incidentally, were also co-written by the writer/director of "Superhero Movie."
So to review, three of the 10 spoofs that the writer/director of "Superhero Movie" thinks are good were written and/or directed by the writer/director of "Superhero Movie."
Jeez, so they MUST be good. Way better than those crappy "Naked Gun" movies that didn't make the cut.
Thanks for the recommend, writer/director of "Superhero Movie"! I just added all three of your movies to the top of my Netflix queue.
ETA: After some very careful reflection, on second thought, I've decided to just go on living my life.
Sotomayor Mad-libs
It's easy! Just fill in the blanks of this sentence for maximum irony:
The party of ___________________ is complaining that Sotomayor __________________.
Examples:
The party of George W. Bush is complaining that Sotomayor is unintelligent.
The party of Dick Cheney is complaining that Sotomayor is a bully.
The party of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage is complaining that Sotomayor is racist.
The party of Clarence Thomas is complaining that Sotomayor benefited from affirmative action.
The party of Bush v. Gore is complaining that Sotomayor makes decisions based on feelings instead of the law.
Try it! It's fun!
The party of ___________________ is complaining that Sotomayor __________________.
Examples:
The party of George W. Bush is complaining that Sotomayor is unintelligent.
The party of Dick Cheney is complaining that Sotomayor is a bully.
The party of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage is complaining that Sotomayor is racist.
The party of Clarence Thomas is complaining that Sotomayor benefited from affirmative action.
The party of Bush v. Gore is complaining that Sotomayor makes decisions based on feelings instead of the law.
Try it! It's fun!
Yes, I'm a cold-hearted bastard...
...but I just didn't love "Up" all that much.
I mean, sure...LIKED it. Nearly impossible not to. And it's swell seeing Spencer Tracy resurrected and all. And it really opened beautifully...but then settled down into "decent" and pretty much stayed there. I'm in agreement with pretty much everything in Joe Morgenstern's review.
The best Pixar movies remain "Finding Nemo", "Toy Story 2", and "Wall-E".
And I remain a cold-hearted bastard.
Incidentally, don't make the same mistake I did and go to the wrong version.
I mean, sure...LIKED it. Nearly impossible not to. And it's swell seeing Spencer Tracy resurrected and all. And it really opened beautifully...but then settled down into "decent" and pretty much stayed there. I'm in agreement with pretty much everything in Joe Morgenstern's review.
The best Pixar movies remain "Finding Nemo", "Toy Story 2", and "Wall-E".
And I remain a cold-hearted bastard.
Incidentally, don't make the same mistake I did and go to the wrong version.
Wha?
Did I hear Olbermann say yesterday that because of this Tiller shooting, he wasn't going to even mention Bill O'Reilly anymore?
I mean, I respect the decision and all, but jeez...that's half the fun of the show.
Thanks a lot, shooter jerk.
I mean, I respect the decision and all, but jeez...that's half the fun of the show.
Thanks a lot, shooter jerk.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Screenwriting 101
So let's say your protagonist has a major, life-threatening problem. The clock is ticking, like, seriously, if she doesn't solve the problem, she's gonna DIE in a couple days.
Protagonist has a friend who is extremely well-versed in the area in which her problem lies. He knows how to solve her problem. But rather than doing anything along the lines of telling her what the solution would be, he instead makes a whole bunch of other irrelevant and far more complicated suggestions, which she follows to the letter, that serve absolutely no purpose, put her in jeopardy, waste an immense amount of time, and bring her not one step closer to solving her problem. And the reason he eventually gives for waiting so long makes absolutely no sense.
Basically, you just wrote a seriously crappy script that should never have been put before cameras, much less gotten any sort of theatrical release.
Congratulations!
Protagonist has a friend who is extremely well-versed in the area in which her problem lies. He knows how to solve her problem. But rather than doing anything along the lines of telling her what the solution would be, he instead makes a whole bunch of other irrelevant and far more complicated suggestions, which she follows to the letter, that serve absolutely no purpose, put her in jeopardy, waste an immense amount of time, and bring her not one step closer to solving her problem. And the reason he eventually gives for waiting so long makes absolutely no sense.
Basically, you just wrote a seriously crappy script that should never have been put before cameras, much less gotten any sort of theatrical release.
Congratulations!
WTF am I gonna do without "Breaking Bad"?
The Season Two finale of AMC's "Breaking Bad" aired last night, which means that I've officially run out of TV series to follow for the summer (suggestions?), but the bigger point here is this:
If you're not watching this show, your life took a horribly wrong turn somewhere. Sorry, but that's a fact.
All 13 episodes of this season weren't merely good, they knocked it out of the goddamn park. Even "The Sopranos" and "Deadwood", in their best seasons, didn't accomplish THAT.
Your guess is as good as mine as to what two of the best series on television are doing on a network named American Movie Classics, but then again, I have no fucking clue what movies like "Chain Reaction" are doing on there either.
In any case, if you missed the boat on this puppy, it's easily rectified. Rent Season One. Thanks to me and my WGA brethren shortening last year's TV seasons for reasons too complicated to go into here, it's only eight (44-minute) episodes long, so you can knock that out in two nights, easy.
Then you can even watch the entire Season Two premiere online here. (And while you're over there, incidentally, you can watch any episode of "The Prisoner" you want. How great is that?) (If you've never seen "The Prisoner"...Again, somewhere along the way, you made a terrible mistake.)
Then you can rent the rest of Season Two from Amazon for $2 a pop, or just wait for the reruns or the DVDs (but do you really want to wait that long?) (Hint: No.)
And okay, yes, it's Bryan Cranston, the dad from the odious "Malcolm in the Middle", but he fucking rocks, and that's all I'm going to say about it.
Just trust me on this. Watch the show.
You're welcome.
If you're not watching this show, your life took a horribly wrong turn somewhere. Sorry, but that's a fact.
All 13 episodes of this season weren't merely good, they knocked it out of the goddamn park. Even "The Sopranos" and "Deadwood", in their best seasons, didn't accomplish THAT.
Your guess is as good as mine as to what two of the best series on television are doing on a network named American Movie Classics, but then again, I have no fucking clue what movies like "Chain Reaction" are doing on there either.
In any case, if you missed the boat on this puppy, it's easily rectified. Rent Season One. Thanks to me and my WGA brethren shortening last year's TV seasons for reasons too complicated to go into here, it's only eight (44-minute) episodes long, so you can knock that out in two nights, easy.
Then you can even watch the entire Season Two premiere online here. (And while you're over there, incidentally, you can watch any episode of "The Prisoner" you want. How great is that?) (If you've never seen "The Prisoner"...Again, somewhere along the way, you made a terrible mistake.)
Then you can rent the rest of Season Two from Amazon for $2 a pop, or just wait for the reruns or the DVDs (but do you really want to wait that long?) (Hint: No.)
And okay, yes, it's Bryan Cranston, the dad from the odious "Malcolm in the Middle", but he fucking rocks, and that's all I'm going to say about it.
Just trust me on this. Watch the show.
You're welcome.
Question for Anti-Choiceists*
Why are you still here?
In America, I mean?
According to you, abortion is the killing of infants, right? That's why you're all so delighted about the murder of Dr. George Tiller, right? Because he was a monster who deserved to die for killing all those thousands of babies? That's why you've so gleefully dubbed him "Tiller the Killer" and "Baby Killer Tiller"? That's why you're doing the happy-feet dance over the cold-blooded shooting of an unarmed man (husband, father of four and grandfather of 10, btw) at his church? Because he was an evil mass murderer who had personally committed Baby Holocaust?
So basically, as far as you're concerned, America is a country (the country that many of you insistently, stridently, refer to as "the greatest country in the world") where it's legal to kill babies.
So why are you living in such a place? Why is that not a deal-breaker for you?
I mean, if I genuinely believed my country had legalized infanticide...Hell, let's even take it down a few notches...If my country had legalized the murder of kittens, I'd be on the next plane out.
Seriously, not being hyperbolic, if it suddenly became officially legal to buy a kitten, take it home and decapitate it, I'd start pricing apartments in less barbaric countries.
But YOU think it's legal to kill babies here, and you're still hanging around?
Why?
Keep in mind...This isn't me saying "Love it or leave it" (though lord knows I've heard it enough), I'm genuinely asking, if you really feel that way, that America green-lights baby-murders, how CAN you love it, and why haven't you left it?
I mean, near as I can figure, it's either a) You don't REALLY think abortion is the murder of babies (in which case you can spare us the righteous indignation about it); or b) You do think that, but you're willing to put up with it because...I dunno, you like the schools for your kids or you have a really kick-ass view or something (in which case, you're not exactly on the moral high ground, so you too can spare us your preachy bullshit).
Which is it?
Seriously. Why haven't you left? There are plenty of other countries to choose from where what you believe to be infanticide is illegal (which isn't to say that it doesn't go on just as much there...just not legally) Why haven't you washed your hands of this baby-murdering country of ours? If legalized baby-killing isn't enough to turn you off of this place, what would be?
Why are you still fucking here?
*That's right, that's what I'm calling you. Not "pro-lifers", because who, other than serial killers, isn't pro-life? Not even "anti-abortionists", because even pro-choicers are not actually FOR abortions, we're just in favor of the option to HAVE them. You, on the other hand, are ANTI-choice, so that's the label you get. Deal with it.
In America, I mean?
According to you, abortion is the killing of infants, right? That's why you're all so delighted about the murder of Dr. George Tiller, right? Because he was a monster who deserved to die for killing all those thousands of babies? That's why you've so gleefully dubbed him "Tiller the Killer" and "Baby Killer Tiller"? That's why you're doing the happy-feet dance over the cold-blooded shooting of an unarmed man (husband, father of four and grandfather of 10, btw) at his church? Because he was an evil mass murderer who had personally committed Baby Holocaust?
So basically, as far as you're concerned, America is a country (the country that many of you insistently, stridently, refer to as "the greatest country in the world") where it's legal to kill babies.
So why are you living in such a place? Why is that not a deal-breaker for you?
I mean, if I genuinely believed my country had legalized infanticide...Hell, let's even take it down a few notches...If my country had legalized the murder of kittens, I'd be on the next plane out.
Seriously, not being hyperbolic, if it suddenly became officially legal to buy a kitten, take it home and decapitate it, I'd start pricing apartments in less barbaric countries.
But YOU think it's legal to kill babies here, and you're still hanging around?
Why?
Keep in mind...This isn't me saying "Love it or leave it" (though lord knows I've heard it enough), I'm genuinely asking, if you really feel that way, that America green-lights baby-murders, how CAN you love it, and why haven't you left it?
I mean, near as I can figure, it's either a) You don't REALLY think abortion is the murder of babies (in which case you can spare us the righteous indignation about it); or b) You do think that, but you're willing to put up with it because...I dunno, you like the schools for your kids or you have a really kick-ass view or something (in which case, you're not exactly on the moral high ground, so you too can spare us your preachy bullshit).
Which is it?
Seriously. Why haven't you left? There are plenty of other countries to choose from where what you believe to be infanticide is illegal (which isn't to say that it doesn't go on just as much there...just not legally) Why haven't you washed your hands of this baby-murdering country of ours? If legalized baby-killing isn't enough to turn you off of this place, what would be?
Why are you still fucking here?
*That's right, that's what I'm calling you. Not "pro-lifers", because who, other than serial killers, isn't pro-life? Not even "anti-abortionists", because even pro-choicers are not actually FOR abortions, we're just in favor of the option to HAVE them. You, on the other hand, are ANTI-choice, so that's the label you get. Deal with it.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
About Me
All right, let's get the introductions and all that crap out of the way, for those of you who require back-story of your bloggers...
My name is Arthur Tiersky.
I'm 39 years old.
I grew up in the Chicago area, attended Oberlin College and currently live in Glendale, California with my two cats, Kramer and Judd.
I write screenplays, play no-limit hold 'em, see a lot of movies, and am currently attending dealer school.
My politics are what the conservatives call "moonbat" and everyone else calls "normal."
I am an atheist.
My claims to fame: I've had a short film I wrote produced and a feature partially produced (Why it's only partially produced is a post for another day.). I've been on three game shows, won one of them, came maddeningly close to winning another, and was basically a big fat load of goo on the third.
I do not suffer fools gladly, nor am I entirely sure what that means.
I started this blog because I now finally have some time on my hands now that I am all caught up with the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.
I intend to use this space to primarily discuss politics, movies, poker, atheism, and anything else that tickles my fancy.
Don't expect anything too fancy. I've never even used Photoshop and probably would not recognize it if I found a big chunk of it in my food. Primarily, I'm going to be typing stuff and linking to stuff that other people have typed. Possibly the occasional pasted photo or embedded video, if I'm feeling really ambitious.
The title of this blog is a reference to "Lost in America", an Albert Brooks film I absolutely adore, and if you haven't seen it yet, your life took a horribly wrong turn somewhere. That said, the title has no actual thematic resonance with regard to this blog, it was simply that it was the first title I could think of that wasn't already taken.
(Seriously, who took "Pointy Birds"? And why? What the hell are YOU gonna do with it?)
Lastly:
I've had my posts deleted from two other blogs now, for no other reason than that they were in disagreement with the bloggers in question. I don't quite understand that line of thinking; one of my main concerns with this thing is how I'm going to attract people to it who disagree with me, since comments sections in which everyone is in accord are dull as dust, but okay, some people just blog to hear a chorus of "Amens" from their friends and parents, and whatcha gonna do, but the point is I'm making a personal vow to you, here and now, that I will not delete your comments no matter how completely fucking wrong you are, and I will especially not delete them if, conversely, they reveal me to be completely fucking wrong. I might delete them, however, if they genuinely serve no purpose other than being inflammatory. You want to write grafitti, grab a fucking spray paint can, find the nearest underpass, and knock yourself out. Hard. Other than that, rules are, there are no rules.
That said...
Welcome to my world.
Let's get started.
My name is Arthur Tiersky.
I'm 39 years old.
I grew up in the Chicago area, attended Oberlin College and currently live in Glendale, California with my two cats, Kramer and Judd.
I write screenplays, play no-limit hold 'em, see a lot of movies, and am currently attending dealer school.
My politics are what the conservatives call "moonbat" and everyone else calls "normal."
I am an atheist.
My claims to fame: I've had a short film I wrote produced and a feature partially produced (Why it's only partially produced is a post for another day.). I've been on three game shows, won one of them, came maddeningly close to winning another, and was basically a big fat load of goo on the third.
I do not suffer fools gladly, nor am I entirely sure what that means.
I started this blog because I now finally have some time on my hands now that I am all caught up with the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.
I intend to use this space to primarily discuss politics, movies, poker, atheism, and anything else that tickles my fancy.
Don't expect anything too fancy. I've never even used Photoshop and probably would not recognize it if I found a big chunk of it in my food. Primarily, I'm going to be typing stuff and linking to stuff that other people have typed. Possibly the occasional pasted photo or embedded video, if I'm feeling really ambitious.
The title of this blog is a reference to "Lost in America", an Albert Brooks film I absolutely adore, and if you haven't seen it yet, your life took a horribly wrong turn somewhere. That said, the title has no actual thematic resonance with regard to this blog, it was simply that it was the first title I could think of that wasn't already taken.
(Seriously, who took "Pointy Birds"? And why? What the hell are YOU gonna do with it?)
Lastly:
I've had my posts deleted from two other blogs now, for no other reason than that they were in disagreement with the bloggers in question. I don't quite understand that line of thinking; one of my main concerns with this thing is how I'm going to attract people to it who disagree with me, since comments sections in which everyone is in accord are dull as dust, but okay, some people just blog to hear a chorus of "Amens" from their friends and parents, and whatcha gonna do, but the point is I'm making a personal vow to you, here and now, that I will not delete your comments no matter how completely fucking wrong you are, and I will especially not delete them if, conversely, they reveal me to be completely fucking wrong. I might delete them, however, if they genuinely serve no purpose other than being inflammatory. You want to write grafitti, grab a fucking spray paint can, find the nearest underpass, and knock yourself out. Hard. Other than that, rules are, there are no rules.
That said...
Welcome to my world.
Let's get started.
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