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.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
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!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
