Guitar Hero, Hiroko Style

Long winter hours at home with no baseball and with baby means new Xbox. New xbox means guitar hero, the addictive fake-music game for every man-boy who grew up in the 80's. The only greater joy than playing this game is talking your loved ones into playing it. So here you go, videos of Hiroko playing "Heart Shaped Box".


In this second one, she plays while our friend Carmela watches. I'm not sure of the song.

The Chicago Tunnels

Hey, what's the coolest website you'll waste time at today?

If you didn't say "The Chicago Tunnels", you haven't yet clicked the link.

Hello again, ROAR!!

Hello again all monkeys, roar! It has been long time since I blogged, and you must be wondering what's going on in wild world of Mr. Lion. Roar. I have petitioned nature and house channels to do a special on me, but they not interested, roar. Hey, roar, how cool am I?

Lion ladies watch out, I am on the prowl, ROAR!

Back in June, Hiroko and little monkey had to go to Japan for a while. They took plane, roar. This is thing for flying in the air. No thank you, roar! I always land on feet, but...still.

While they were gone, it was bachelor time around the house again. I got a little crazy, roar. Here is me playing video games and eating Hiroko's tea candy, roar:


Also, I got a little crazy with the eating, roar.

And...umm...no comment on this last picture. Roar. Oh, I'm going to need that ibuprofen in the morning. So hard to get open with tiny stuffed paws. Roar!

But just so you know, it wasn't all fun and games. I also helped Bob paint living room and kitchen. I have steady hand, roar. Here is me doing the cornering. Roar!

Despite the good time Bob and I had with the house to ourselves, we are glad that Hiroko and Ren are home. After all, I need to be fed. ROAR!

Cubs vs. Diamondbacs

Here we go. (pic stolen from mlb.com)

Quick Summary: I predict Cubs in 4. I predict it all depends on the first game.

The race to see which team loses to the American League in the World Series begins tomorrow. Thanks to the Gods at TBS, I get to stay up late Wednesday and Thursday to watch 9pm games. But at least my daughter will be in bed by the first pitch. That way I can be good and snookered should Zambrano go south in the 5th inning.

The first matchup for the Cubs is against the worst team in the playoffs, Arizona. Here's some highlights of the matchup:

Starting Pitching: The Cubs have four solid starters. The Diamondbacks have Brandon Webb and...uhh...three other guys. If the Diamondbacks could start Webb every day, they'd bury every team. Fortunately for the Cubs, they can't. Also, fortunately, three of the D-Backs' starters are righties. That's very good news.

Relief Pitching: Both teams solid. No question this series is going to be a pitching duel.

Pitching Overall: D-Backs have the 4th best ERA in the NL; Cubs marginally beat them with second best. Here's a couple stats you haven't heard enough about: Cubs gave up the least hits and pitched the most strikeouts in all of baseball this year. We do have a lot of walks though.

Offense: No question just being average makes the Cubs easily better than the awful D-Backs. Their OBP is a joke. Much has been said about the low HR output of the Cubs this year, which was due to a lot of factors that no longer apply, such as nagging injuries and wind. That's why they turned it around so much in September. Luck was also a factor here; the Cubs had a franchise-record 340 doubles. Add 2 feet to all those hits and there'd be a lot more home runs.

Defense: The Diamondbacks have the best defense in baseball. The Cubs are also at the top of the heap. It's hard to say this will have an effect over one week.

Other Stuff: Both teams have deep benches. Diamondbacks are marginally faster. Cubs are much more experienced.

Summary: Brandon Webb is the giant of the Diamondbacks. The Cubs have a definite advantage in the other games, albeit not a huge one. I really think if they lose the first game, they'll be hard pressed to come back. But if they win it, they'll be sitting pretty. That's why Webb is the linchpin...I think we'll know early in the first game what our chances are.

Either way, you're going to see a bunch of heavy-defense, hard-fought low scoring games. Look for Pinella to try freaky stuff like squeeze plays. If you want to see some crazy games, watch Colorado vs. Philadelphia. Those games should all be blowouts.

My pick: If the Cubs lose game one, they lose in four or five. If they win game one, they win in four.

Padres vs. Rockies

Before I post about the Cubs, I just wanted to nod to the Rockies. I sure thought San Diego was gonig to make it, but they've worked and worked at it and managed to fail to clinch the post season.

Last night's one-game playoff was one of the most incredible games I've ever seen, and I have to tip my hat to the Rockies, even if I wanted them to lose. If you didn't see the last inning, check it out at mlb.com.

Father's Day 2007

Wrigley Field - Father's Day 2007 - Priceless
Originally uploaded by melmanintex

This is a picture from my father's flickr site. Hiroko and Ren were in Japan for Hiroko's father's funeral, and my parents visited me for the weekend. so we all got to go to the game for Father's Day.

It was the only game I saw this year. I was excited to see Rich Hill for the first time (and Maddux pitching in Wrigley again), but he had one of his worst outings and the Cubs fell to San Diego.

Pictured here is the three of us, with the ghost of Harry Caray about to beat my father with his microphone. I've blogged about the statue before.

By the way, Go Cubs Go!

My baby just wanted to let you know: don't worry, the Cubs are going to win it.

Good Morning America, How Are You?

This blog has suddenly seen a huge burst of hits over the last week, from people googling Steve Goodman, and ending up at my old post about him.

There's a recent biography about Goodman out, but mostly I think it's probably Cubs fans wondering about "Go Cubs Go", Goodman's song that's getting a lot of airplay as the Cubs prepare to in the division. (something I'm pretty excited about)

So I thought I'd just say hello to anyone who checks out my blog. Hi, world, and thanks for finally making my blog quasi-popular for a week or two. It's nice to know somebody besides my parents saw this for once.

Obviously I'm not really updating anymore, but if you happen to want to see some really cute baby pictures, check out my daughter's blog.

Er, what?

This video is so much like my dreams, it's scary.


This is what happens when you sign Terry Gilliam and Franz Kafka to your advertising agency. I wonder what focus groups said about the ad. "Hmm...can't you make the girls uglier?"

In case you're feeling dumb today...

This is for you.

Cool Tech: Cicadas in their Prime

This year there will be a massive swarm of cicadas in the Chicago area. I remember cicadas from when I was a kid. After they moulted they'd leave a cool hollow bug shell on the trees all over our yard. You could hear them all night every night over summer, and it's a sound I was so used to that I can sometimes still "hear" it at night when I am drifting off.

Cicadas live on extremely long lifestyles. They spend 99% of their life digging around underground sucking on the roots of trees, before burrowing up one summer, growing wings, and participating in a massive orgy of sex and singing for a few brief weeks before spawning the next generation and dying.

Cicadas have differing cycles depending on the many breeds, but check this out: all cicadas live for a prime number of years. The number depends on species, including 7, 13, and (including the coming local swarm) 17. Nobody knows why, but there's no 11-year cicadas.

So are these cicadas just cool geek types, or is it a coincidence, or what? There are differing theories. Some think they developed it as a survival mechanism to avoid predators. By picking a long prime cycle, they decrease the chance of synergy with cycling predators. For instance, if they'd picked 15 instead of 17, a predator could feast on them by being particularly active every 3 or 5 years.

Another possibility is that they do it to avoid other cicada breeds. If there are 13-year cicadas and 17-year cicadas active in an area, they can avoid running into each other except every 221 years. At which point, presumably, it's insect armageddon!

A time lapse of a cicada moulting.

Sea Otter Love

Very early in our relationship, Hiroko and I went to Shedd Aquarium (among other places) for Valentine's day. Some of my favorite photographs of her or us are still from that day, including this one.

On that day, we fell in love with Shedd's sea otters. While virtually every other creature in captivity manages to look apathetic, sleepy, or miserable, the otters were downright ecstatic to see us. They kept performing, swimming, and diving for us, with these big grins on our faces. It looked like they were saying to each other, "Look, the humans are here (again)! We're so glad to see the humans!"

After that, we kept bringing them up in front of others, and my sister gave us a couple of stuffed otters, who used to greet Hiroko every morning (before Mr. Lion came along). Sadly, every time we've been to Shedd since that first time, the otter exhibit has been dirtier, almost to the point that you couldn't see anything through the dirty glass last time. And the otters have looked fatter, sicker, and sad. It's too bad.

But despite that, I wanted to share this clip with you. It's really cute, especially when they break off and then embrace again. It's the best clip of sea otters you'll see all day.

Countdown to Baseball -- Baseball is here!

As Soriano comes to bat against Harang to begin the 2007 season, I thought I'd post one last bit of youtube Cubs history. This is an audio clip from a famous press release by 1983 Cubs coach Lee Elia. Saddled with a terrible team and angry fans, he lost it in a post-game interview, creating this instant Cubs classic.

The "video" is just some Cubs fan's personal photo collection, and can be ignored.

Warning: contains extraordinarily adult content. Especially for a public figure in a public interview. :)

Tomorrow: some predictions.

Hey Hey, the Cubs will Go

Not satisfied with the press noise of opening day, the Trib announced today that they've accepted Zell's offer and will be selling off the Cubs.

Countdown to Baseball -- Harry Caray

Perhaps the most iconic announcer in Cubs history is Harry Caray. He's certainly the most famous (well, discounting Ronald Reagan). This will perhaps change with time, as most Wrigley attendees these days seem unaware that there were seasons before 2003, and don't know why we sing during the seventh inning stretch.

Shown here is the commemorative statue of Caray at the southeast corner outside Wrigley. On home game days, it's mobbed by shutterbug tourists. It depicts a terrified Caray attempting to escape a mob of ghost children swirling around him and sucking him into the hell of Wrigley Field. I don't know where the ghosts come from; they are perhaps children abandoned at Wrigley, or the lost childhoods of kids raised by the players. Or they represent the wrathful lost innocence of people foolish enough to believe in the Cubs during Caray's announcing days. Or they're just hallucinations brought on by all of Caray's drinking. All I know is the statue is way creepy. The artist did do a good job of capturing his fat, though.

Here's a little piece of Americana. Obviously broadcast shortly after the 1984 season, when, briefly, there was hope. The predictions of Cubs glory look kind of funny and/or sad now.

Urbina sentenced

Today a Venezuelan court handed down a 14 year sentence to former Phillies closer Ugueth Urbina. His crimes include attempted murder and related activities. On October 16, 2005, he participated with others in taking a machete to and pouring gasoline on a group of workers at his Venezuelan ranch. Report vary as to the nature of the dispute; it could have been over a gun, or the workers' misuse of his grounds. [SI] [CBS]

A similar cloud hangs over the White Sox' Juan Uribe, who is accused of shooting a farmer near his Dominican Republic spread. [ESPN]

I'm not sure what the point of it all is. I'm reminded of all the basketball stars who make it big but get involved in bizarre paternity suits or street shootings. Maybe you can't escape your past.

Maybe you just shouldn't hang out with Central American ballplayers whose last name starts with "U". At least for the time being.

Craigslist house ad

When I'm not busy losing money on the stock market, I have a part-time hours-a-week hobby not selling my house. I thought some might be interested in my recently placed Craigslist ad along those lines. It's got a flyer embedded within. If you're interested in a too-large condo with a bad layout and desperate needs for improvements to the floor, windows, kitchen, and bath, this place is for you! Come on by anytime; I'll be the guy on my knees sobbing and begging you to make me an offer, any offer.

What a difference gears make

I bought a used fixed gear bike (above) last September with the intention of using it over winter. But I've loved it so much that it's become my daily bike for getting around Chicago. It's perfect for those conditions, and I can understand why they've become so popular. It's really a lot of fun. It does take a whole different set of skills, though.

Last week I took my road bike in for a spring check-up, and when it came back, I wanted to test it out. Plus the fixie is having a couple minor problems that require a shop visit. So I switched back...

It's interesting. I've done thousands and thousands of miles on a multigear bike. It's the only way most people ever experience bikes. But after a few hundred miles on the fixie, it feels unnatural.

Things I used to take for granted but now have to get used to again:

• I don't have to pedal all the time. It's the weirdest thing that moment that I stop turning the crank. Even though my brain decided to do it, my legs get all gummy.
• The crank won't carry my legs around.
  
• I can turn corners super-tight without having to think about possibly accidentally jamming my feet into the ground. I can just stop pedaling. Similarly, I can make tight turns and not ever bang my front wheel into my feet (which is more of a problem with the dimensions of my fixer than with fixer in general).
  
• I can't brake by slowing or reversing the force on the crank. Similarly, instead of a single front brake on right handlebar, I have a front on the left and a rear on the right.
• When I stop, I tend to turn the crank in to put my lead foot at the top, as anyone would do. But I still do it the fixie way...by holding the front brake and pulling the rear wheel off the ground. It's senseless since the drivetrain is independent of the wheel, but I can't stop myself.

Countdown to Baseball -- the 2003 clinch

It's been forever since I posted anything, meaning it's only two posts back that I was trashing the Cubs. They'd dropped all their spring training games at that point. Well actually with the camp almost wrapped up, the Cubs have had a fantastic spring, performing very well in all categories, and showing off a lot of up and coming talent as well. Starting pitching is a little shaking, but we are firing on all other cylinders. I can't say for sure we're the best in the division, but I'm excited that it's going to be a great season regardless.

I wanted to share a memory: on September 27, 2003, I moved from my apartment, a mile from Wrigley, to my first home, a condo half a mile from Wrigley. That was the same day that the Cubs won both games of a Pirates doubleheader, and Houston lost, clinching the NLC for the Cubs. All day as we moved stuff back and forth between my homes, we could hear the crowd going crazy at Wrigley. It's a vivid and precious memory o my time here in the heart of it all.

Hopefully, I'll be moving soon this summer, and it'll be on a day when the Cubs are on top again.

Just one week until baseball! Here's a video I wanted to share, to say that there are some good memories for Cubs fans:

One Got Fat

I ran across this old bicycle safety video made in 1963. I can't say it's good, but it's kind of interesting. Modern safety is a little more refined. It's sort of an amusing slice of the time. Very "MST3K shorts".

Cubs Stink

Well the Cubs haven't won a game. Today they're well on their way to losing to Seattle, who until now hadn't won a game.

Our batting has has been same as last season...sinks as soon as they're men on base.

Our pitching...well we might as well set up a tee out there.

Remember all that crap we heard about how Mark Prior was all healthy, etc? Today he had an 83mph fastball. He couldn't even make it through 2 innings! Of spring fricking training! They pulled him after 4 hits and 2 walks in 1 1/3 innings.

If things dont turn around and fast, we've got a $300 million goose egg on our hands. The Trib will have to sell the team, and Hendry and Rothschild will be so fired you'll hear the explosion twice.

Go Cubs Go! A Tribute to Steve Goodman

Intra-squad spring training games start today! Is everybody excited! Another year, another chance for the Cubs to eke out some way to screw it all up...I'll be listening anyway. In honor of another season, I wanted to write a little blog love letter to Steve Goodman.

You can't call yourself a Cubs fan unless you know who Steve Goodman (wiki) is. Born and raised in Chicago, Goodman became quickly famous in folk guitar circles right out of high school. He was also diagnosed with leukemia. He's most famous for "City of New Orleans" made famous by Arlo Guthrie (youtube). His was a die-hard Cubs fans, and his contributions include "Go Cubs Go", still played constantly in Chicago, and the following, recorded here from one of the Waveland rooftops:

Steve died at the age of 36, on September 20, 1984, 11 days before the Cubs played their first playoff game since 1945 (meaning they never made the playoffs during his lifetime).

His ashes are buried underneath home plate at Wrigley Field, making him part of the legend. After Ron Santo, who was yesterday denied entry into the Hall of Fame by a mere handful of votes, he is perhaps the most famous and most diehard cubs fan.

Run Forest, Run!

So Forest Whitaker won best actor for portraying Idi Amin. Personally, I don't think his performance was as good as his brilliant turn in Battlefield Earth. He'd taken a lot of flak recently for incoherent speeches at other awards shows (but at least he didn't thank Hitler). I thought he played it cool though.

It's funny that it would be Forest though, because on Friday night around midnight, I was half-drunk from Old Style Light and watching Bloodsport on the Spanish channel. It's the type of thing you do when you have a kid keeping you up and no cable. Actually, some movies are a lot more entertaining and easier to follow if you aren't distracted by the dialogue, such as Broken Arrow, Predator 2, or Commando.

Anyway, so as I say we're watching Jean-Claude steal lines and moves from Enter the Dragon while doing his best Johnny Cage when I suddenly realize the movie's black guy is...Forest Whitaker! Wow, how'd a legitimate actor end up in this schlock, especially after making Platoon, The Color of Money, and Good Morning Vietnam? Huh, movie coincidences.

Bloodsport is actually a true story based on the life of the film's action coordinator, Frank Dux. And by "true" they mean "colossal pack of lies". Dux once hilariously showed off the trophy he got from the fight portrayed in Bloodsport, and the LA Times proved that he'd bought it at a store hours earlier. Other amazing made up facts about Dux's life include his incredible turn as a paramilitary secret agent for the CIA.

Bloodsport also stars Ogre. That dude is cool. Cooler than John-Clod.

Bloodsport was Van Damnit's breakout movie. He stopped playing gay dudes and background dancers and launch a still-continuing career as a brainless guy who hits things until they're better. Admired by red-state maladjusted teen boys everywhere, he was too big for the 8 million Bloodsport sequels, but he did star in a long series of B-list "action" films with ironically homoerotic titles, such as Double Impact, Hard Target, Double Team, The Hard Corps, and the ironically titled Knock Off.

I wonder if Forest takes his calls.

Immortal question: who's a more embarassing artifact of the 90s, Jean-Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal?

Winning Poker Tournament #2 of 2

This is my Hand for Hand analysis.

As I said in the first half, I voluntarily played 109 hands. I'll be covering all the interesting hands from that set. I won't cover dull hands, or any hands where I just folded (even though there were a couple interesting ones). So here we go.

Format is #Hand, blinds, starting chips, hand, explanation.

#2 10/20 1500 6-6 from the BB. Flop is A-6-5. +500. A nice way to start!
#6 15/30 2550 AsJs from #2. Raise 4x with one late caller. 285 in the pot. Flop is 8h-3s-Qs. I bet 150 for continuation and get raised 450. Call with odds. Turn makes my flush and I clean him out. +1500
#8 15/30 4286 KsJs from #2. Gun calls, I call, BB calls, 105 pot. Flop is Kc-Qh-9S. I bet 90, gun calls. Turn is 9c, he raises my 150 to 300. I call (probably bad). River is 10c and saves me. +500
#10 25/50 4605 AcQc from SB. Middle position raises, I call, BB goes all in (1000). I fold. Middle had AJ, BB had KK. I congratulate myself. -150.
#12 25/50 4780 8-8 from #5. Open for 4x, SB calls, 450 pot. Flop Q-4-7 rainbow. He checks and calls my 250 continuation, 950 pot. Turn is 8 giving me trips on great board. He checks, I check (probably a little too clever here). River he bets 500, I raise, he goes all in and is cleaned out with K-Q. He could have won on the flop but instead...+2620
#13 25/50 7475 A-Q from SB. Call a raise. Nobody improves until the river A, when he decides to "bluff" with 1820 into a pot of 750. He had 6-6. +2220
#23 100/200 13551 Kc7c from SB. #3 raises 3x. I chose to call. I can't really explain this call; when I saw it in the DB I was pretty shocked. I'm sure I had a reason at the time, but it was probably a bad one. Anyway, I'm less than 1% to flop a flush, much less the nut flush, but that's exactly what happens...Ac-9c-Jc. He has AK, and I stack him. +7470.

At this point, I was in #1 for the entire tournament, probably about 1000 places left. That's never happened to me in a big tourney. Since I play conservative, I'm used to maniacs pushing chips all over the table while I try to slowly gain in front of the blinds. Here, my (well mostly) good play has put me up and up and up. Except for #23. That was just dumb.

#24 100/200/a25 20.5K A-10 BB. This was a supertight table, with tons of blind-stealing and only about 1/3 flops. On this hand the button and SB called, so I raised 4x (should have been more) properly expecting to win the hand. Button called, pot 2025. Flop 10h-5h-7d. Button calls my 1500, pot 5K. Turn Js. I check, he bets 2800, I call, pot ~10K. River 7s, I call his 1800, and lose to 10-Jo. -6925. Oops. His play on preflop and flop was terrible. My turn and river were bad. This hand really haunted me. I did kind of make friends with the winner, though. He eventually finished #40 and then railed and rooted for me the rest of the way.
#27 200/400/a25 13K JJ SB. #4 goes all in 2920, I call, lose to AA. Loose? -2945.
#36 300/600/a50 19K KK #2. I run into AK all-in with 8.5K. Board is 10-J-A-Q-4 and I am saved by a split. +625
#38 400/800/a50 17K KQ BB. Loose-aggressive SB open-raises, I call. I call (??) a flop of 7-9-J rainbow, but get out when he bets the 8 on the turn. -5K. Damn it.
#41 600/1200/a75 14.5K Ac7c #3. I open raise (??), SB goes all-in with 8k, I call at about 3.5-1. He turns over QQ. Board comes A-7-Q and I have a heart attack. Turn is A. If I were him, I'd be pissed. +10.5K.
#42 same 21K QQ BB. I lose to all-in K-10 when he gets a K on the flop. Kind of ironic. -7.5K.
#45 800/1600/a75 11.5K QQ button. My all-in gets called by AcKc; I hold up. +14.5K
#46-56 A long run of bad cards, where my only action was blind steals. At this point the blinds have climbed until I'm getting +7K on a win though. 54-56 I go from 21K to 50K.
#57 2K/4K/a200 52k J-4 BB. Big stack SB calls, I see free flop of Q-J-7 and he calls me down with bad odds to a straight draw. +17K and I'm in much better position now.
#58 2K/4K/a200 71K A-10 SB. Small early stack raises 4x, I call, pot 22K. Flop is 9-Q-K and I feel obligated to call his lst 9K. I wrongly figured A's were outs; he had AQ. -17.5K
After this, another long string where I'm being slowly blinded out.
#60 3K/6K/a300 45K AdKh SB. I reraise, he calls 70K in the pot for a flop of Q-5-6. With 18K left I feel committed anyway and semibluff the rest of my chips in. fortunately my AK nothing beats his AJ nothing, and I double. +56K This one hand gave me enough chips to maybe reach the final table if I could be steady.
#61-69 Are all blind steals that build me significantly.
#70 6K/12K/a600 112K QQ gun. I raise, #2 goes all in over my count, and I beat his 7's. How did this guy get this far in the tournament? His donation doubles me +133K.
This came just in time for two reasons. First, we were down to about 12 players, and things got really tight for a long time. Second, I saw no cards and floated in 9th for many rounds. Before I knew it, i was back down to ~100K just from getting blinded out on the short-handed table. We sat forever with 1 out to final table, when this happened:
#75 8K/16K/a800 141K As6s gun (5 handed). I raise 40 to steal, BB calls. Board 6d-4s-Ks gives me middle pair, top kicker, nut flush draw. He checks, I bet half, he goes all in well over my stack. Pot is 220 and I have 50K, so this is supereasy. He had 99; the turn gave me my Ace and high placement on the final table! +152K.

Beyond this the play actually kind of breaks down in being interesting. I obviously won a lot of hands, but they were all pretty much dull, just blind steals or folds on the flop. The blinds were big enough that they were all significant, though. I was chip leader almost the entire time. I did have them both short stacked and might have won uncontested were it not for this hand near the end:
#?? 20K/40K/a2K 1600K K-J SB (3 handed). I open raise 120, BB reraises 360, I call, pot 726. Flop is 7c-2c-7s. BB puts in his last 275K. I folded, but later realized that he would have bet with basically anything here, and I'm getting 4-1. On the one hand I'm probably beat, but on the other if I call and win it's over, and if I call and lose it's no big swing either way. Don't know. -362K.

But since I lost that hand we were basically even, and chopped after #3 was eliminated. It may very well have cost me $200. But who am I to complain. +$1200 tourney!

New House Photos

I promised pictures of the new house, so here they are. Share and enjoy.

Oh Make Me Over

I just found out Courtney Love is a Soka Gakkai member. Apparently she joined Nichiren Shoshou in the mid-90's. After quitting twice and nearly killing herself with drugs in 2005, she switched to us. Here's a video which includes her chanting and briefly explaining her faith.

Pretty neat.

Feb. 18 2007 Winning Poker Tournament Report #1 of 2

I'm going to split my tournament report into two parts. I'm going to use a lot of jargon, so if you're not a regular player, you might not get it. The second half will be posted Saturday. I am eager for skilled criticism of my play.

At noon on Sunday I entered an open tournament on PokerStars. It was a $5 tournament (plus $0.50 fee to the house) with 1638 players. I've entered a number of these low-stakes tournaments before and finished about even money, which is to say in the top 20%. It's not hard at all, given I play quite conservatively and many players are wild, because they are bad and/or aren't invested in the tournament. My goal this time, as always, was to learn and have fun.

6 1/4 hours later, I was dead-even heads up and agreed to split the top two places with my opponent. Top prizes were about $1400 and $900, so I got $1176. As a casual "student of the game" this was my biggest single-day payout ever. It also makes me a lifetime winner, which I'm happy about. I suppose for many players this is nothing, and the money isn't a big deal, but for me emotionally this was a big win.

On Saturday I'll post a (significant) hand-for-hand analysis, but today I wanted to talk about how the tournament went in general.

The Tournament in Essay Form
It started out immediately well, with me doubling up twice and winning a couple other key hands, to move me from $1500 to $10k. Then I got shifted to a very tough table--the tightest I have ever seen online. There were two players with a VP$IP around 22-25. Everyone else (including yours truly) was 16 or below. Only about 1/3 of hands were seeing flops. "Fold to the raiser" was the theme of the day.

Despite the field, I almost immediately doubled up to $20K when I flopped nut flush from the big blind against an aggressor. Then I lost about $7K in a difficult hand which I and some friends have been kicking around the Internet ever since (more on Saturday). At $14K and still near the top of the heap, I had even worse luck. I was shifted to a table with the #1 and #3 players. I couldn't find purchase and for a long time barely held on.

I grew slowly but steadily before being crippled down to about $50K, putting me near the bottom with about 100 players. Then suddenly I went all in and doubled up with AK vs AJ. Incredibly, I misread the board and thought I'd been eliminated. Good thing I didn't run too fast!

I floated for a long time after that until, just a couple seats short of final table, I quadrupled with two good hands (one suck out). That put me in first shortly after the table convened. There were big swings after that, but those big hands were really all she wrote.

Some Interesting Stats

I saw a total of 478 hands. At the end both my opponent and I sat out for about 20 hands waiting for the arbiter to come split the prize pool. Other than that, I actually played virtually every hand. I entered the pot 109 times, which sounds large, but was skewed up by the super-aggressive final 100 hands -- 38 of my hands were blind steals.

Thus my total VP$IP was a high 22.80%. My preflop raise was 15.06%. When I entered a pot, I eventually won 54% of the time. I won almost exactly 2/3 of my showdowns.

Ok, I ought to have seen each pair about twice. In fact I ran very rich this tournament, seeing AA twice, KK three times, JJ three times, and QQ six (!!) times. Other hands ran near average. I did get one hand nearly twice as much as any other: 14 times. That hand? 2-7 off!! To quote a friend, "That proves they're cheating."

The hands than won and lost for me paint an interesting picture. Among my top 15 winning (meaning BB/hand) hands were (most to not as much):
AJs, 88, AQo, KJs, AJo, AKs, KK, AA, QQ, AKo

Among my bottom 11 (worst to less worse):
ATo, JJ, KQs, 33, 76s, QTo, QJs, KJo

And remember, we're talking my biggest losers here. That's sure a big lesson to me about getting in with less than premium hands (except for the jacks).

Okay, that's it until my hand-for-hand on Saturday. I'd really love to hear what any skilled poker players have to say about my game.

Countdown to Baseball -- Larry Bowa

Just a few days until Cubs action. I said I'd be highlighting some youtube videos. This is the first. Larry Bowa was an all-star shortstop for the Phillies in the 70's, and is now an effective manager. He won manager of the year in 2001 on the Phillies and is currently 3rd base coach for the Yankees. MLB Wikipedia

He's also known as quite the hothead, which this video demonstrates. This is from his 4-year stint with the Cubs at the end of his career. Warning: This contains extremely adult language. Extremely.

Preview of Coming House Photos

Today I go to the official inspection of the new house. If everything goes well, we'll sell our current place and move in real soon. There will be lots more pictures to come on Friday. For now, there's a (badly taken) pic of one of the stained glass windows (original!) and a picture of the decorative front room fireplace. The dude in the second picture is the current owner.

Cool Tech: Pull My Finger

We all know from Monty Python that sheep's bladders can prevent earthquakes. But this just in: pig's bladders have a use other than for American football! They can also be used to regrow severed fingers. No, seriously. AOL CNN

Big Money Win

Well the big news of the day is my big poker win! Last Sunday I entered a $5 poker tournament with about 1600 people. I mostly was playing for fun and experience. 6 1/4 hours later, I came to an agreement with the one remaining player, and we split first and second place. I took home $1200.

This is huge. It represents my biggest single-day win and my biggest tournament win. Plus it was a ton of fun and I learned a lot. I have ton a lot of analysis already and might go over the tournament hand-by-hand later (I keep a live database, of course).

I first started playing poker about 8 years ago, long before TV made it hugely popular. Back then I learned a lot from the school of hard knocks and lost a little most times I went out. But this win makes me a lifetime winner again, so I'm very happy about that. Plus I have now "paid for" my laptop, which I bought in part to play online games, including poker.

Hiroko's getting pretty tired of me bringing up the win every time I make a small purchase. I'm going to the grocery...to spend some of my winnings! Sure we can stop at White Castle...I'll buy a shake with my winnings!

And so on.

Catching Up

It's obviously been a very long time since I blogged, and I apologize. I do plan on going back to an average-1-a-day schedule. Currently I have tons to post, so it should be easy. Also check out my blog for my daughter for pictures and stuff.

Let me try to catch up categorically with everything that's been going on.

Personal Life
We bought a house. For real and sure this time, I swear. Not like the last four times. I'll have pictures really soon; the inspection should be this week. All we have to do now (as before) is sell our place. But we've dropped price again and the market is looking up, so we're pretty confident.

There was a massive cascading hardware failure at work two weekends ago, that cost our tech department hundreds of hours of overtime. If the original failure hadn't been Friday night (giving us until Monday morning to get things back up) the AMA could have been in serious trouble. We're all working super hard to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Hiroko added to her endless medical travails by having another kidney infection, and she was feverish and in pain for a week. Also she got a huge blister that a dermatologist is just guessing is some kind of bite. Poor lady.

Sports
The Bears lost the Superbowl. It sucked a lot. We took Ren to a party, which was her first significant time outside the house.

It's 41 days until baseball, and just a few days until spring training games. I am very excited. I'll be posting more and more Cubs stuff over the next couple months. Maybe I should just make another blog...

Chess
I've been playing about an average of 1 game a day online, and playing my best chess ever.

Also Morelia, a major international tournament is going on right now. There's been one big upset. But probably if you care you already knew.

Poker
Last April, Jamie Gold won the 2006 World Series of Poker, which, if measured in participation and money involved, was the largest sporting event in history. He won $12 million. But it came out later that before the tournament, he'd verbally agreed to give half of any of his winnings to another guy. On February 7, he actually did it. That's some payout.

Also I have big news personally about poker, but I'll save that for a separate post.

Okay, that's all I can think of at the moment. Much more to follow in the coming days.

Griffey Wrist

Oh my god, Ken Griffey Jr. isn't even waiting for the season to start now! He's already injured himself. Maybe he should relax in Kerry Wood's hot tub.

Pictures of Japan (not mine)

My friend Paul in California went to Japan to visit his friend and sister. Here are pictures he took of his travels.

I'm in a world of Chuzzle, Roar!

Hello everyone, roar! At my house, all the monkeys play video games. It looks like waste of time to me, roar. Time you could spend sleeping or hunting, roar!

This picture is me in the game Chuzzle. It's like my own disco, roar! I could really pick up the lady lions if they saw me here. ROAR! I am disco dancer lion, roar.

All things are good with family, roar. You might have seen picture of me and my little sister Ren frolicking at her website. I know in that picture it looks like we're having fun together, but don't get the wrong idea, roar. Any second, I could tear her to little pieces because I am fierce lion, ROAR!

Actually we spend a lot of time together and I have been doing good job taking care of her. Roar. With the mice gone, I have had to hunt harder stuff. I caught this wolf in her crib and took care of it, roar. I will eat like a king (a lion king) for weeks. Roar!

That's about it. I hope all you monkeys are okay, and feel free to write anytime, roar. As for myself...well...sometimes even I fall victim to the video games. ROAR!

Cool Tech: Helmet Hack

I'm a tech geek guy, but I haven't yet posted anything about that. So this is my first Cool Tech article, in which I'll highlight neat tech and hacks I've found or done, which you can use. All of them will carry the Cool Tech label.

Check out this simple helmet hack. I bought a pair of LED mini-flashlights off Tanga and electric-taped them to my helmet. It's not car light bright, but now I've got a bright spot wherever I look.

You're probably aware that lights on bikes are for being seen, not for seeing. Well now if I'm alert about a car, I'm looking at them, so they certainly will be aware of me. Plus it's bitchin'-cool looking.

This gives me four lights on my bike. Anyway, I'm proud of myself.

Sheldon Brown has a lot to say about lights for commuting here.

NYT Article about Microsoft

The New York Times is running an extensive article about the current and future state of Microsoft. About half the article reads like a love letter to Steve Ballmer, but the beginning and ending are fairly insightful about some of Microsoft's previous and current market failures.

Registration required.

Goodbye Glendon

Hey, do you think Cubs pitching coach Larry Rothschild sucks? So does everyone else who doesn't directly work for the Cubs. Rothschild couldn't generate more injuries in his pitchers if he was taking a practice bat to their knees. But I can think of one guy he got really really right. Glendon Rusch.

I remember the moment I heard the Cubs were letting Rusch pitch in 2004. I thought the management had finally flown off the handle (it actually took them 2 more years). In 2002, Rusch had the most losses in baseball. The year before we signed him, he was one and twelve with an ERA of 6.42. Milwaukee was so bad they just let him pitch a whole season anyway.

I couldn't believe we offered him even a minor league contract. I wrote posts to all my friends about how the whole season was going to crash and burn because we let this loser pitch. But then...he was good. No, not good, great. I saw a lot of games that year, and he was masterful. He could pitch and pitch and pitch and never get tired, and his breaking stuff was fantastic. He was also a really nice guy.

This guy was done with baseball, and he turned it around and pitched really well for a couple years. And then all of a sudden it's all over. He was suddenly diagnosed with a blood clot in the middle of the 2006 season. And now, presumably, he'll never pitch again. What a shame.

Goodbye, Glendon.

Pretty Boy Floyd

Yesterday the Cubs signed Cliff Floyd to a 1-year, incentive laden contract. Last year was the year the Cubs had about 8 2nd basemen. This year in the outfield they have Murton, Floyd, Pagan, Soriano, Pie, Jones and Coats.

Nobody thinks Floyd will be as good as Jones would be, and he costs about as much. But the Cubs have been trying to seal this deal since October on the theory that they only need a 1-year veteran while they build up child phenom Felix Pie. So they're unwilling to give Jones the long-term contract he deserves, and will trade him instead before spring. Floyd needs a 1-year because he's coming off an injury season.

It's also sort of a sad day for Matt Murton, who's good enough to play all season. The Cubs are all agog because Floyd's a lefty, but frankly his numbers are no better than Murton, who comparatively plays for free.

Pros: He probably won't suck.
Cons: Any way you look at it, he's a wash-up or a never-was. Unremarkable in every way. He's a left-field warm body.
Wild Card: Grew up a White Sox fan on the south side. Which is cool for him, because on his off days he can go watch a team play that he cares about.

Tomorrow: Glendon Rusch.

The Route is Out!

The Ragbrai route is out! It's just the overnight towns, but it makes Ragbrai a little more real. Already my team (Brewhaha) is coming together and all the veterans will be there...Huffy, Papa T, Squirt, Stuck, Bullet, MamaDoc, Mullah, and of course myself, BuddhaBob.

We are gonna ride and ride and ride, and party and party and party.

I also can't wait to blog about it. Months of experience get packed into that week. But of course you won't hear every story. Because what goes on Ragbrai...stays on Ragbrai.

Dinner Party Story #2

This second Dinner Party Story is about how Hiroko and I met. Here's the first story, if you missed it.

You can't understand the story of Hiroko and I without understanding that we're both devoted Nichiren Buddhists. She's been a member for life, and was already very active as a local leader when I started going to meetings in 2002. In fact, she was at a couple of the very first meetings I went to, and we seemed to have a habit of running into each other.

But she pretty much disliked me. I don't blame her. I hadn't yet discovered and practiced the kind of self discipline this faith can provide. I thought my biggest problems were depression and aimlessness. Those masked more fundamental problems of distrust, doubt, and selfishness. I found Hiroko attractive, but only in the general sense that the despondent are attracted to anyone with a spark of life in them.

For two years I practiced Buddhism and had a lot of growth, but it was inconsistent. I was changing though, becoming generally more happy. I was starting to learn compassion and empathy as skills. I was starting to support those around me, really, listen and care.

At the end of 2003, I was doing a lot of Gajokai, but I wasn't yet in charge of the program. Since she was in the Byakuren, the equivalent young women's' program, we spent a fair amount of time together behind the desk. See this picture of her? Cuuuuuuuute!


I used to think she was quiet and reserved, since that's how she acted at the center. I teased her about it incessantly. It also meant she got to be witness to the big change Buddhism wrought in my life. She told me she was very glad to see an American so excited about the practice.

At the end of 2003, I went to the Florida Nature and Culture Center, a Buddhist weekend retreat and conservation site. It was a transformational experience, where I had a chance to meet hundreds of youths who all had the stand alone spirit to develop their compassion. I was witness to how Buddhism could be used to directly make the world better. I came back feeling responsible for my life and the lives of those I loved in a new way, and threw myself into my favorite activities. My entire life was very fit. My little brother David also began attending meetings at this time.

Hiroko noticed all these changes. One day when I was walking her to the train, she suddenly said, "You should call me up. I will come to your house if you make me dinner". She claims this wasn't an invitation to a date (yeah right) but the date was set for right after Thanksgiving.

Since I was (and am) a geek I knew nothing about inviting someone to dinner, so I spent an entire weekend quizzing my relatives (including my brother in law who loves to cook), buying new dishware and table settings, and cleaning house. The dinner (date?) went well and was soon repeated.

In March, we did a short tour of the Midwest including Kentucky's natural bridge park, and a John Mayer concert. Hiroko met my parents on this trip. On Memorial Day we went to Florida for my little brother's Gohonzon conferral, his formal induction into Buddhism. Here's a picture I love of us in a wharf restaurant:


On Labor Day, I asked Hiroko to marry me in the Signature Room of the John Hancock Building, during Navy Pier's last fireworks display of the season. The ring was inherited and Hiroko's the fourth generation of my family to wear it, so I purchased us a beautiful new altar instead. It better represents our relationship anyway.

It was a quick courting, but we both "just knew". And we were right. I didn't know it at the time, but we barely knew each other then. The real discoveries of marriage come well after the ceremony, and I'm definitely still learning. The deepening of trust and interdependence grows stronger all the time.

We got married in secret on April 28, in a short ceremony at the Chicago Culture Center. This was done to expedite Hiroko's visa. But the date was chosen because it was the first time Nichiren Daishonin chanted nam myoho renge kyo.

Our real marriage was on September 11 (yeah, I know, but it was cheaper), 2005. It's a long enough story to save for another time. It was a glory and a trial.

But one major challenge came between the betrothal and the marriage: meeting Hiroko's father. It's a story of epic proportions, and I will tell it next. Stay tuned.

Erstad

The White Sox announced today that their leadoff hittter, Podsednik, has a long-term injury. They reacted by quickly signing Darin Erstad. Erstad has previously played for four teams in 11 years: The California Angels, the Los Angeles Angels, the Anaheim Angels, and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Erstad had a ridiculously good 2000 season, with 25 home runs, 28 stolen bases, .355 AVG, and a gold glove. No other season has come close. Last year he was injured and seriously overpaid, signaling it was time for the many Angels teams to drop him. He took a 2/3 pay cut for a 1-year contract with the Sox.

Pros: Can platoon in Center with the ridiculously sucky Brian Anderson, bringing the batting average of the position up about 200 points. Great on defense.
Cons: Overpaid, injury-ridden, with his best years behind him. Maybe he should be playing for the Cubs.
Wild Card: I noticed a lot of anagrams for his name. "Drain Trades", "Starred and I", "A Stair Dander" and my favorite, "Sadder At Rain".

My Dad's Photos

My dad's got some updates on his flickr website. It includes great pictures of the new stairs, and baby Ren pics. Check out this shot of Hiroko and I, which my dad calls "10 days and no sleep".

Chicago Bears, NFC Champs

TOUCHDOWN!!

What a game! If only there was some metaphor we could use for the way we absolutely destroyed New Orleans. You know...the way we stormed the field, wore down their defense, and flooded through their lines.

If only there was a metaphor...anyway...

See you in two weeks! Until then:

We are the Bears Shufflin' Crew
Shufflin' on down, doin' it for you.
We're so bad we know we're good.
Blowin' your mind like we knew we would.
You know we're just struttin' for fun
Struttin' our stuff for everyone.
We're not here to start no trouble.
We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle.

Watching Da Bears

My parents came into town last weekend. It was their first chance to see Ren. Mom was very pleased with her ability to feed and play with a baby for a while. It was a whiplash-visit over the 3 day MLK weekend, cut off even more because they got worried about inclement weather and took off on Sunday afternoon. I figure they spent just a little more time in Chicago than they did driving back and forth from their home in Lexington.

One cool thing that went on was I got to actually go to a bar, and have a beer, which I haven't done in six months (as I was not drinking during the pregnancy). I took my Dad to hook up with some guy friends and watch the Bears/Seattle playoff game, which the Bears won in incredible fashion in overtime.

Here's a small picture set of the guys at the bar. Most everybody at the table is a Soka Gakkai youth leader.

I wrote a little more about my parents here at my blog for my daughter.

Corus 2007

Corus is on. It's one of the premier chess tournaments of the year. It's been held in the Netherlands for 70 years. One thing that makes this tournament awesome is that there are live webcasts every evening, which is daytime here, so you can keep one eye on the games from your desk.

If you care about chess. Which you probably don't. But anyway

coruschess.com -- Official Corus website

chessbase.com -- Great chess news site, with heavy coverage and next-day analysis.

playchess.com -- This popular chess server offers live audio commentary on the games with Yasser Seirawan for just over $1/day.

chessgames.com -- The chess database site also offers live coverage with attached forum postings.

Head Buried Deep

Hi,

Okay, I know it's been a week since I blogged. No excuse other than business when I'm busy, and lack of energy when I'm not. I've got a few things half-written. Lots of pictures taken which I ought to be showing to you rather than talking about them. But just so we're updated:

• The Chicago Bears won the first round of the playoffs. Normally I don't care that much about football, but it was a great game. And I do care about hanging out with the guys. Also I got to watch the game with my dad, which I liked.
  
• Speaking of which, my dad and mom were in town for about 24 hours. It was supposed to be longer, but Chicago's in a snowstorm so they bolted early. It was my parents' first chance to see my daughter Ren, which was cool.
• I've been really focused on Chess, for whatever reason, lately. My yahoo chess rating is the highest it's ever been.
  
• My kid is healthy, my wife is great. I've even lost a couple pounds. And there's been some nascent interest indicated in someone buying my house (finally). so things are going well. Yay me.
  

VASSAL

I added a link on my (also recently added) links list to VASSAL, an online game-playing engine. You can load separate modules for separate games, including a lot of very popular current geek games and old war games. I've used it to play a few different games, but recently they added a module for my favorite current game obsession, Battlelore.

The great thing about being able to play this via computer is that I can play without having to set up the board, which is disruptive in my current baby-intensive home. I can also play around the world. I just finished losing to someone in Germany while discussing the game with someone in France. Cool, eh? My geek-dom has reached global proportions.

I'm a Big Brother now, ROAR!

I know what you're thinking, roar. Which one is cuter!? I can't even decide myself, roar!

Hiroko and Bob finally had their baby monkey. We all went to some place I've never seen before where it was all white everywhere, and there were lots of monkeys in costumes, roar. Then I had to leave for a while, so I'm not sure what happened, but when I came back they had a tiny monkey! Monkey's name is Ren, and she is my little sister. ROAR!

I'm not sure what happened to the rest of Hiroko's litter. I'm gravely concerned, ROAR!! I can only assume there are wild animals in the hospital. I have therefore put myself on 24 hour watch, roar.

Ren is a really awesome baby. I look forward to knowing her as my sister, roar. I think I'm closer to her than anybody else in the house, roar. This is because I speak baby monkey, which I picked up in the jungle, roar. Cry of baby monkey is similar to roar of lion, after all. Unfortunately, all Ren really says is "I am hungry", "I am sleepy", and "I need to be changed", roar. But I already love her, because she is just so darn cute, roar! (Even for monkey, roar).

At first, Ren was in plastic bucket, and I wasn't allowed in, roar. This was a little like when you go to the zoo to see lion, except in reverse, roar. Here's a picture of me pressed up against the glass, roar:


Bob and Hiroko make Ren wear clothes and diaper, roar. I have explained that these would be unnecessary if we all moved to Africa and got a watering hole, roar. But you know these monkeys and their "houses", roar. So primitive!!

Eventually we were allowed to play together, roar. This was important so I could confirm that she had the proper number of body parts, roar. You never know when a cheetah or mongoose is going to eat your baby toes, roar. Here is a picture of me checking out Ren's toes, which, fortunately, were all there:


So as you can see, I am doing a good job, ROAAAR! Thank you for listening, roar. Send food, roar. Er...for the baby. If necessary. Roar!!

2007 Resolutions

I've got quite a backlog of blogging. I want to post a "how I blog" post with all my equipment, and get started on a FAQ. I've got more "dinner party" stories about my family to blog. I want to talk about my bicycles.

But when you spend four days in the hospital having a kid, everything else sort of gets put on the back burner.

That includes New Years' Resolutions. I always thought this tradition was hokey before I became a Buddhist, but a lot of Buddhists take it seriously. This is because we believe determination is a big part of faith. there's no point in daily practice to improve oneself if one doesn't know how they're trying to improve.

I figured I'd share with everybody, because making my resolutions public makes me more accountable. So I'll go over everything I resolved for 2006, and lay out for 2007. Pretty much categorically, my resolutions are about the same anyway.

• Maintain Health. Lose Weight. -- At the start of 2006, I weighed about 205. It swung slowly up and down until a summer effort, when I got myself down to 195. During that time I was also doing tons of cardio and some muscle work, and feeling quite strong. Then with work stress and needing to stay home for Hiroko's health (and...um...laziness) I started tanking up, to the tune of about a pound a week. So now unfortunately I'm about 208! Final call: on a scale of 1 to 5, this is a 1. Dang. 2007 resolution: Same. Exercise regularly in small amounts instead of big 4-6 week pushes.
  
• Job Success -- This resolution is very quantitatively detailed, but I won't share everything I wrote down. The first 6 months of the year were solid, and I got a great mid-year review. After that I continued to work pretty steadily, but was less effective. In particular my year-long projects kind of went south. I did hit my training goals, though. I don't yet know how it'll all shake out financially. Final call: 2 1/2 out of 5. 2007 resolution: Same. December was a good month, so when I'm back at work I should be chomping at the bit.
• Gajokai -- This is the Soka Gakkai program I ran until recently (back link). Before the pregnancy and Hiroko's health problems, I was very solid here. After that, there were a lot of troubles. I ended the year by pushing very hard to keep the program going without me, and new leaders are emerging. On a personal note, I benefited tremendously from my position, growing as a man. Final call: 3 out of 5. 2007 resolution: Succeed as a Men's Division, particularly in the areas of leading study and being a role model and supporter for YMD.
• Study -- I set out to read all of the Human Revolution, and succeeded right at the end of the year (back link). This was a huge success, and a big factor in my growth for the year. Final call: 5 out of 5! 2007 resolution: Keep up on the publications (World Tribune and Living Buddhism). Read 500 pages of the Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, and really study them. Take notes.
• Healthy Family -- No question here. We all stayed healthy despite big problems, and Ren is just fine. 5 out of 5. 2007 resolution: Do everything possible to raise Ren right.
• No Fights -- Hiroko and I both wanted to cut down on the amount of our fights. We also wanted to make the fights more productive/positive. We wanted to "practice the strategy of the Lotus Sutra", which is to say chant for change and life condition. We were very successful here. At the start of the year we were fighting constantly and nastily, but it's steadily shrank. Now we almost never fight, we usually get something positive out of it when we do, and we remember to chant. 4 out of 5. 2007 resolution: Keep up the good work.
  

So that's it. If you read this, make me stand up for it by asking me about it all the time. This is how I can become a better person, for myself, my family, and the world.