PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

By lytspeed Posted in Poker Leave a reply

It’s that time of year again. I’m registering for the WBCoOP, assuming the Powers That Be approve this entry. I entered 2007 and 2005, as well, but didn’t do so well either time. This year has been better for me in the world of play money tournaments; the highlight was one of the giant freerolls that PokerStars hosts, the Hubble No-Limit Tournament. Out of 12,000 people I took 5th place. Yow! Here’s a paste from the results e-mail (emphasis mine.)

PokerStars Tournament #95460789, No Limit Hold’em
Freeroll Super Satellite
12000 players
Target Tournament #95435810
99 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started – 2008/07/17 – 22:32:00 (ET)
Tournament finished – 2008/07/18 – 01:43:32 (ET)
1: SirKenin (Unmouse me heathen), (qualified for the target tournament)
2: edabbott (orlando ), (qualified for the target tournament)
3: aleman 72 (berisso), (qualified for the target tournament)
4: mariellexx (cornwall), (qualified for the target tournament)
5: Lytspeed (Federal Heights), (qualified for the target tournament)

I’m hopeful that the incoming Democratic presidential administration and Congress will repeal or at least revise the stupid law (link goes to PDF file) hindering online poker that were passed in October of 2006. I hear that Obama is a pretty good poker player himself. Here’s hoping the Poker Players Alliance, of which I am a member, will gain some traction in the next few years.

Doorbusters

By lytspeed Posted in Opinion 4 Replies

Mr. Jdimytai Damour has been on my mind lately. If you don’t recognize the name, you might recognize his story. Damour was the 34 year old temporary worker assigned to the maintenance department of a Wal*Mart in Valley Stream, New York, who was trampled to death as a mob of bargain shoppers broke down the doors in their intense desire to nab the deep discounts on Black Friday.

Doorbusters, all right.

I still hear radio commercials using that term in regard to holiday discount sales. The latest one I heard was a J.C. Penney ad. Is the irony lost on them? How can they continue to use that term in the wake of the Valley Stream trampling?

Wal*Mart calls the day after Thanksgiving “the Blitz.” Blitz means “lightning” in German (cf. “Blitzkrieg,” or “lightning war.”) I suspect the Wal*Mart term doesn’t actually refer to the meteorological event, but to the store assault staged by buyers.

Why do companies use images of violence to promote holiday sales, especially during a time we are encouraged to show gratitude and respect to others? What do Wal*Mart and J.C. Penney expect when they use these terms? Is it fair to say that retailers foster feelings of competition and violence in their holiday advertising?

Where does the retailer’s responsibility end and the consumer’s responsibility begin? I’m sure no one in that mob went to Wal*Mart intending to trample anyone to death. Certainly, people need to accept personal responsibility for their actions, but in a mob mentality, self-preservation comes first, and conscious protection of others is secondary at best.

Of course, because it’s difficult (if not impossible) to determine who delivered the killing blow to Damour, so Wal*Mart will be left holding the bag. Don’t get me wrong, I think it would be appropriate for Wal*Mart to offer some kind of voluntary compensation to Damour’s family; the company certainly could have taken better security measures to protect employees and customers alike. But I don’t think Wal*Mart bears the full responsibility for Damour’s death.

Feel free to share any thoughts and opinions below. I’m curious to get other perspectives.

From Database Debacle to Unintended Upgrade

By lytspeed Posted in Computers 1 Reply

You may notice that this page does not look like it used to. That’s because I realized tonight that I accidentally blew away the directory on my host server that contained all the files to display this blog.

I choose to see this as a self-created opportunity.

My personal blog software was behind by several stable versions, and my data was still intact in the databases. So, I took this self-created opportunity to upgrade to the latest blog software, and will be tweaking the design to better match the overall site design in the near future.

In the meantime, my data is back, this page is blue and white, and that’s as far as I’m going to go tonight.

Generally Excellent Dude

By lytspeed Posted in Family, Geek 9 Replies

I got a great Father’s Day present today. My son, Keith (MySpace, Facebook), called and said that he had completed his GED!

If you’ve been a long time reader of this blog (yeah, you two, there) you might remember a post I wrote a couple of years ago expressing concern about the alarming dropout rate among high school students, and how it affects the way young adults talk about graduation. Little did I know that only about six months after I wrote that, my own son would drop out, just prior to graduation.

It doesn’t have anything to do with intelligence; he is a smart kid — er, young man — although he hasn’t always made wise choices (as is often the case when one is in one’s late teens.) He passed the GED easily, which is no surprise to me. He is faster than I am at solving a standard 3x3x3 Rubik’s cube, and he can solve the harder 4x4x4 Rubik’s Revenge and even the 5x5x5 Professor’s Cube. His musical, spatial, and artistic talents have always been his strengths, but he is no slouch at poetry, abstract thinking, or math, either. (I have no idea how many digits of π he is currently able to recite, but it’s many times further than my mere 3.1415926535.)

And to top things off, he’s decided to enroll in the Art Institute of Colorado, something that thrills both me and Lannette. We’ve always tried to encourage him to expand upon his natural artistic talents, and now he appears to be doing exactly that.

There have been many times when I’ve been proud of Keith: each time he scored a “1” in his fine arts solo competitions, each time he drew fantastic image that simply sprung from somewhere deep in his mind, each time he told a horrible pun, or even out-geeked me on a geek test. But I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of him than I am right now.

Congratulations, son, on completing your GED and on your choice to continue your schooling. You have grown into a Generally Excellent Dude.

Pwned

By lytspeed Posted in Music Leave a reply

I’ve always had a poor relationship with money, and with pawn shops in particular. Currently, my Takamine acoustic-electric (which I’ve owned for a dozen years) and my Carvin Bolt guitar (which I built and finished from a Carvin kit) have both been in the pawn shop for two months. In addition, my Fender Cyber-Twin amp and Behringer foot controller have been in for over two months.

The paycheck I’m getting tomorrow is already committed to other, more important debts (mortgage, space rent, car payment), and I already skipped one month of payments on the pawned items. This particular pawn shop allows a loan to roll over one month; the payment amount is simply doubled in the second month. However, I would be surprised if they will let me roll into a third month without payment. They will probably just call it a breach of contract and put the gear up for sale.

That means I will have to say goodbye to Leslie, the Carvin I built and named after my Uncle Leslie, who was also a guitar player. And I will have to say goodbye to the Takamine, which I never named, but dearly love playing, especially at night with the lights off while my wife dozes next to me. I will also have to say goodbye to the most versatile amp I’ve ever owned.

This is not new for me. There have been a long string of guitars that I’ve loved, but parted with because of poor money management. In reverse order, the guitars and amps I’ve previously given up in order to pay creditors include the following:

Fender Contemporary Stratocaster (Japanese 1986 model)
Peavey Ecoustic amp
Gibson Les Paul Standard (American 1977 model, which I purchased from a friend; that one really hurts, because I not only lost a beautiful instrument, I feel like I let my friend down.)
Peavey Backstage Plus amp
Sigma/Martin acoustic guitar (which I modified to be an acoustic/electric)
Epiphone Strat Clone
Unbranded ES-335 Clone and small practice amp (which I inherited from the aforementioned Uncle Leslie)
Yamaha Classical Guitar (a gift from my first mother-in-law)
Takamine Mahogany Acoustic/Electric (early model; would be worth a lot of money today)
JB Player Strat Clone (nice, with a through-the-body neck and a Seymour Duncan humbucker in the bridge)
Carlos acoustic (a piece of junk, but my first acoustic)
Roland practice amp
Gibson Sonex 180 electric (my first guitar, also purchased from a friend)

As I said, it’s not a new process to part with guitars and amps in order to pay bills. But it doesn’t get any easier. In fact, it gets harder every time, and I’m tired of having to give up my music equipment in order to shut the creditors up. I’ve been doing it for nearly twenty years now, and it’s getting very old and depressing.

I do still have one guitar at home, thankfully: a Line 6 Variax 300. The Variax is the most versatile guitar I’ve ever owned — despite the fact that it has rather poor build quality — and it’s become my main gigging guitar. I won’t be letting down my band mates if I lose the guitars and amp, I’ll just be letting myself down.

Again.

I’ll talk with the pawn shop tomorrow and see if they will let me roll over one more month. If they won’t, I’ll just ask to say goodbye then and there.