Chicago Bob

Costa Rica 2009

2009-08-11T14:48:00.002-06:00

A Flickr set with all our pictures and videos.

Costa Rica 2009

Blade Runner, The Musical

2008-12-11T09:57:00.007-06:00

I wrote this back in May and none of my friends thought it was funny. Or if they did, they didn't tell me after I emailed it to them. So I'm sticking it here in case somebody runs across it and appreciates it. Because I like it.

I should explain about the scene near the end. I told my brother I wanted to make a movie where Maggie Gyllenhaal and Kirsten Dunst make out. You know, stictly for artistic reasons.

Based on the Tony and Grammy award-winning Broadway hit musical, I present

Blade Runner, the (Movie of the) Musical

Directed by Spike Lee
Written by Alan Moore and Michael Chabon
Special Artistic Consultants Tim Burton and Katsuhiro Ōtomo

Featuring the hit songs "Running the Blade" by Steely Dan, and "Nothing but a Knife Between Us" by Jonathan Coulton

As the credits lift, we are introduced through a montage of aerial shots and a placard to "New Orleans - 2050: two days before Mardi Gras". A jazz funeral plays a futuristic arrangement of "A Closer Walk to Thee" as it winds through a sci-fi French Quarter. This same jazz funeral appears periodically throughout the movie to tie scenes together (and it's, like, symbolic and stuff).

We track a trenchcoated man winding his way through the band until he finds another similar dressed man eating from a street vendor. These are Deckard (Scott Bakula) and Gaff (Jackie Chan). (Reviews call Chan's performance "The worst miscasting of an actor since Keanu Reeves in...everything). Gaff leads Deckard to his old boss Bryant (Joe Don Baker) who explains, through song, that Deckard must find and terminate "Four or five skin jobs. Give or take." Deckard agrees to do this provided Bryant never sings again.

Deckard and Gaff head on over to meet the creator of the replicants, Tyrell (Richard O'Brien) who introduces them to his assistant Rachael (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The two of them explain about Voight-Kampf to the tune of a horrible zydeco number called "Replicant Applicant", performed by Devo, with a robotic Weird Al on accordion.

Pris (Kirsten Dunst) learns about and then go visit the building of J.F. Sebastian (William H. Macy), which is in the ruined and abandoned former ninth ward (referred to in the film as "the back nine"). He gives her a tour of her apartment, and we get to see his midget and proto robots (which include cameo's by midget Mark Hammill, Peter Jackson, and Ron Perlman). Pris sings "Running the Blade" to explain the situation.

Deckard ploddingly follows the case, dodging drunken frat boys ramping up for the big third act Mardi Gras party. He is visited by Rachael, who learns she is a replicant, and they sing the touching "Nothing but a Blade Between us". He then hits the streets and has his fight sequence with Leon and a trio of backup assassin robots he brought with him for good measure (The Rock and The Rockettes). They sing an Indian dance-pop arrangement of "Helpless Automaton" by Men At Work.

Leon's trail leads Deckard to a sleazy bar run by Vic Vacendak (Mick Jagger). The bar is full of holiday celebrants; it is a long time before Deckard can work his way across the bar. During that time he sees Vacendak make out with Zhora (Rae Dawn Chong) and reasons "You'd have to be a replicant to do that." So he shoots her. Vacendak sings a delta blues song about losing yo' woman to the man, plus yo' woman turn out to be a low-down cheatin' robot.

Back at Sebastian's, Roy Batty (Christopher Walken) arrives and explains to Pris that they are the only two left. They sing the a capella duet "Batty for You". Roy then heads to Tyrell's for their big confrontation. They reprise "Batty For You"; now the chess pieces come to life for a combination battle and dance number on the rooftop of the Tyrell building during a torrential early morning thunderstorm. It is the film's biggest setpiece. As Batty kills Tyrell, the storm breaks and Batty can see the parade beginning in streets below him.

Deckard takes Rachael to Sebastian's where they find Pris. She claims to be a "totally human" prisoner of Batty. Deckard bemoans having to do the stupid Voight-Kampf test again. However, Rachael explains that there is an easier way; she is equipped to detect other repicants by sampling their body fluids. Deckard convinces Rachael and Pris to make out. Rachael says that Pris is a replicant, but Deckard loudly announces that he's not convinced. "You'd better repeat the test." This goes on for several minutes. Deckard eventually allows Pris to live if she'll reveal what Batty is up to.

Deckard rushes off to the Tyrell building; he lands just too late to save Tyrell. He and Batty engage in an epic duel. It's a rooftop-to-rooftop chase above and occasionally through the Mardi Gras parade. Deckard is silent; Roy is singing the maniacal "Running the Blade". Eventually the movie plays about about the same as the original. Deckard slips while jumping from a balloon to a building; Batty saves him; Batty makes his famous speech.

Deckard learns that Rachael and Pris have run off together. He joins the parade, and is lost forever in the crowd. As the credits roll we are treated to outtakes of Jackie Chan injuring himself several times, even though he didn't have any stunts in this film.

Cubs Game #3, 2008

2008-04-11T15:13:00.002-06:00

My buddy Mike won 4 seats to the rubber match of the first Cubs home series. In all my times at Wrigley, these were the best seats I'd ever had. It was a totally awesome game. I saw everything I want to see in a game, including:

Come from behind victory.
Home team home runs.
Fukudome doing awesome.
Marmol doing awesome.
Kerry Wood's first save.
Amusing drunken heckler.

Here is the picture set. I annotated. Check it out. Unfortunately, I forgot to charge the camera, so I only caught some early inning action.

I did take one video, of Fukudome doubling to the wall and bringing in the go-ahead runs:

Live Poker Again

2008-01-28T11:44:00.001-06:00

This weekend, for the first time in about seven years, I played live poker-room poker again.

I don't know when or how the laws changed to allow it, but there are a couple charity organizations operating out of Chicago that offer real cash games and low-level tournaments. The best of these is Chicago Charitable Games. This is where I played.

I was initially quite nervous about returning to real play, but after about an hour I was right back into the groove, thoroughly enjoying the intense, immersing, calculation of it, matched with the outward-facing bored detachment one has to feign. The one big change between when I played years ago and now is that the average age was much lower than me. The players have gotten much younger and I've gotten older. Also you no longer have to squint through a haze of thick smoke to see the table. Yay!

I wouldn't mention the results of my play were they not so notable, but I played two hands worth mentioning.

Hand #1 - Big bad beat gripe. This was midway through a $25 single-table SNG. The blind structure of these was extremely aggressive, and even though I about starting chips, I only had an M near 3 or so, with 7 or 8 players left. Most people are in the same boat. I have 77 late. Someone limps, a small stack goes all in, and it comes to me. I don't have to think long before I push. Two more all-ins behind me. Literally I'm all in for a chance to make 5x my chips, which would be the most of the chips on the table.

Flop comes 4-5-7 rainbow! The last two big stacks involved both go all in. Hands are A-J, 44, 99, my 77, and one got mucked immediately. Yes!

Turn, unfortunately, is a 9, and the worst player at the table scoops almost all the chips at the table. I lost on a 2-outer. If I win the hand, I could take a nap and still be in the money. Sigh.

Hand #3 - $20 MTT, 3000 chips and 50 players start. I have about 6K in chips one hour in, blinds 300-600. I post my BB just as the clock rings for the next blind tier and the break. I don't want to post an 800 blind instead of 600, of course, so I gripe that I'd already posted and demand the hand. Most people had already got up and walked off and had to be called back (angrily) to the table.

I get dealt 2-7 suited. Whee. 2 limpers plus me. Flop is...wait for it...229 rainbow! I check, first limper bets 1000, second limper is all-in 7500!. I happily call and go from 6K to 14K because I demanded the hand.

The bad news is, ultimately, the tournament paid 5 places, and I finished 6th... Oh well, live to fight another day. It was a fun $20.

I'll definitely be back for more live poker on those rare times I can find the time. It was a blast.

Martin Luther King speaks out about the war

2008-01-23T12:58:00.001-06:00

Lest we forget a great speech by a great man.

I wish he were alive to speak out against today's war. But I guess it can't be reduced to a 15 second clip, so it wouldn't make the news anyway.

It's weird, (other than the religious part) hearing this is like hearing the voice in my head. I wonder how anyone can hear this and disagree. I wonder how people who claim to idolize this man can piss on all he stood for, day after day after day. I wonder how Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, and swiftboating would marginalize him today.

Christmas 2007

2008-01-16T15:50:00.000-06:00

Every Christmas we've been together, Hiroko and I have held a big Christmas-day bash for all our friends to come to our house. This is because we know a large amount of people who for whatever reason don't have family to spend the holiday with. It's always a fine time. This year was particularly special because we have the new house, and Ren is now a member of our family.

Also shortly before Christmas we had a big night out, where we dined at a fondue restaurant and went to Christkindlmarket. Both were a great time. Hiroko in particular had an unexpectedly great time at Christkindlmarket, despite the deeply bitter cold the night we were there.

We look forward to many Christmases like this one, to come.

Here is a set of pictures from Christmas. A couple from Christkindlmarket, and a few from Christmas dinner. They're sparse because this was during the time when Ren went crazy in the presence of the camera.

Mammoth Cave, 2007

2008-01-14T10:16:00.000-06:00

On Thanksgiving day, my mom agreed to babysit for us for two days, giving Hiroko and I a chance to get away for a "date" together. We stayed at a bed and breakfast in Louisville the night before, ate at a fancy restaurant, and had a great time at a piano bar.

But the next day was Thanksgiving. I'd spent a couple weeks trying to find something for two unattached young people to do on a day when everything, everywhere, was shut down. We finally settled on Mammoth Cave. To our surprise, it was quite busy. I guess a lot of other people had the same idea. In particular there were a few Asian families who we talked to who agreed that they were off work and, having no holiday to identify with, had nothing better to do.

Hiroko had never been in a cave before, and I haven't been to Mammoth in years. We had a great time. I don't recall which tour we took, but it was a relatively long one through a constructed entrance. Everything was very interesting. If you're in the area, don't miss it.

Here's a photo set.

Guitar Hero, Hiroko Style

2007-12-17T09:23:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-27T09:54:00.001-06:00

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!!

2007-10-03T13:47:00.000-06:00

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

2007-10-02T11:52:00.000-06:00

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

2007-10-02T10:38:00.001-06:00

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

2007-09-28T07:53:00.001-06:00

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!

2007-09-27T10:00:00.001-06:00

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

Good Morning America, How Are You?

2007-09-27T09:35:00.000-06:00

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?

2007-08-29T08:22:00.001-06:00

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...

2007-08-29T08:12:00.000-06:00

This is for you.

Cool Tech: Cicadas in their Prime

2007-04-10T08:13:00.000-06:00

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

2007-04-03T08:43:00.000-06:00

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!

2007-04-02T13:10:00.000-06:00

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

2007-04-02T09:04:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-28T16:00:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-28T12:05:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-28T08:04:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-27T08:00:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-26T11:46:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-08T10:52:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-05T14:50:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-01T12:00:00.000-06:00

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!

2007-02-26T10:16:00.000-06:00

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

2007-02-23T18:30:00.000-06:00

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

2007-02-23T11:40:00.000-06:00

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

Oh Make Me Over

2007-02-22T10:38:00.000-06:00

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

2007-02-22T08:00:00.000-06:00

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

2007-02-21T17:00:00.000-06:00

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

2007-02-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

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

2007-02-20T09:01:00.000-06:00

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

2007-02-20T08:00:00.000-06:00

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

2007-02-19T17:42:00.000-06:00

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

2007-02-19T11:37:00.000-06:00

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)

2007-02-01T13:52:00.000-06:00

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!

2007-01-31T15:15:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-29T20:38:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-28T08:52:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-27T16:00:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-26T10:00:00.000-06:00

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!

2007-01-25T21:00:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-25T15:30:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-23T21:00:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-22T10:25:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-21T17:16:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-19T11:00:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-15T14:52:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-15T14:42:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-09T14:11:00.000-06:00

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!

2007-01-08T18:09:00.000-06:00

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

2007-01-08T12:27:00.000-06:00

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.

I'm a Daddy

2007-01-04T14:11:00.000-06:00

I see trees of green
Red roses too I see 'em bloom
For me and for you And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.

This is the first song that came on the radio, how about that?

Ren Akiko Goodfriend, born 1pm today, 7lb3oz. Everything smooth and easy. More later.

You can call tonight but I might not answer...I'll try to answer tomorrow. You can _ask_ about visiting tomorrow afternoon.

Here Are The Pictures!!
Movie to follow at a later date.

There's an Enormous Hole in my Floor

2007-01-02T11:19:00.000-06:00

If you've ever been to my house, you know that the stairs between my two floors are about 12" apart (versus the standard 7-8") and ugly as sin. When the previous owner self-finished the basement, he did virtually everything in a very half-ass style. The stairs, on the other hand, are fully ass. The seven million potential buyers who've come and decided not to buy the place have all mentioned it. Also Hiroko can't use them at all, and I don't think they're a walk in the park for Yasuko.

So they're going. Outta here. Gone. Ripped out by contractors. It's loud and dusty here, which is good for nobody, but it should only take a day.

Right now I'm off work indefinitely, waiting for Hiroko to give birth to Ren, which means I can take photos and blog about. So here you go. I'll keep adding to this photo set throughout the day.

Update: I added a bunch more pics. My whole house is really dusty now. Lots of cleaning to look forward to.

Fixed Gear Fun Video

2007-01-01T19:44:00.000-06:00

If you didn't know, a fixed gear bicycle is a bike without a freewheel. Originally used primarily for track racing, they are also well-suited (with a front brake) for city and/or winter riding. My winter bike is a fixed gear.

There are a lot of tricks and stunts you can do only on a fixed gear bike, such as special braking techniques, cycling backwards, balancing without support (a "track stand") etc. Check out this video combining ballet techniques with fixed gear bike techniques. Cool!

New Year's 2007

2007-01-01T19:02:00.000-06:00

"A person who celebrates this day will accumulate virtue and be loved by all" -- Nichiren, "New Year's Gosho"

New Year's Day is a big day for Soka Gakkai Buddhists. Other religions have the births (and rebirths) of their respective superstars and stuff, but we've got nothing like that. So there it is, we celebrate New Year's in style, with new resolutions, celebrations, experiences, and song.

Here's a picture set, including lots of pictures of the celebration. There are also some before/after shots. These include this great picture of Martin, the Region Young Men's Division leader, with myself and Yasuko. Martin's doing Gajokai today:

And this picture of my good friend Derek, heading Gajokai for the afternoon. Derek trained me to become Gajokai and still epitomizes for me what it is to be a Gajokai: responsible, reliable, supportive, attentive. Here you see him with the "fine sword" of Gajokai! "Iron, when heated in the flames and pounded, becomes a fine sword." -- Nichiren

And finally, an auspicious day. Today I "graduated" from the Young Men's Division to the Men's Division, in preparation for Ren's birth. This means I abdicated my Gajokai leadership position. Here is a picture of me turning over my keys to the center, which I have guarded for two years. I've opened and closed the center hundreds of times (including both of the last two New Years) and gained so much good fortune from doing so. I look forward to these keys going to the next young man -- may he grow into the program as much as I have!

Dinner Party Story #1 -- Hiroko's Parents Meet

2006-12-31T22:34:00.000-06:00

This is the first in a series where I explain the origins of my family. The first story is about how Hiroko's parents met. It sets the stage for the other two stories, after all.

See the picture on the left? Here's a close up. It's a newspaper clipping from the Seikyo Shimbun, a Soka Gakkai publication from Japan. It's a daily Buddhist newspaper. The photograph is from April 1968, of a gathering of young women from that year. Specifically you're seeing the photo as it's passed around this year's Christmas dinner party. The woman right under Pablo's ear is Yasuko.

Hiroko's father Kentaro saw the picture, and said, "I'm going to marry that woman!" So he sought out someone who knew her, and got himself introduced. At the time he was 31 and she was 23, but he knew that wasn't exactly an asset, so he told her he was 29. He waited until it didn't matter before finally confessing.

One big problem early in their relationship was that Kentaro accidentally went to jail. It's sort of a long story, but at this time in Japanese history, the Soka Gakkai was participating heavily to establish an election reform political party. The local police were on the established government's side and every year they'd round up a lot of Gakkai members on drummed up charges after the election. In 1968, Kentaro's mother had hosted some political operations at her house, so the police arrested her for election fraud. Kentaro, ignorant of the law, went to the police station and told them that his mother was frail and couldn't be in prison, and offered to change places with her...so the police arrested him as an accomplice. Kentaro refused to confess, saying "truth is truth". 21 days later, he was released and cleared of all charges (given that there was no actual evidence against him). The fact that Kentaro stood up for justice impressed Yasuko.

Kentaro and Yasuko were married 5 months after they met (which was reasonable at that time), in late September. They proceeded to have four children, all daughters, named Toshiko, Mayumi, Nobuko, and Hiroko, who was the last.

One month before Hiroko was due, Yasuko was cleaning the bathtub when her water broke. She got an emergency taxi ride to the hospital and Hiroko was born. Hiroko had spina bifida, a disorder in which one's spine is split at the tail end, and spinal fluid is leaking out. Given the gravity of her disorder, she should have died or been severely crippled. Due to the power of her parents' faith and their determination to have a healthy daughter, they saw her through 7-8 major surgeries, and Hiroko was in and out of hospitals for the first six years of her life.

Two different times, doctors told Yasuko that Hiroko required major surgery which would permanently cripple her to survive. Both times Yasuko refused to comply and prayed deeply for the best result. Both times, Hiroko's condition improved until she didn't need those surgeries.

As a result of seeing Hiroko through these surgeries, she became especially precious to her parents as an example of the result of their faith. I believe this has given Hiroko the sense of mission that's led her to focus on and empathise with the suffering of others. It also is something to keep in mind when you read the story of the first time I met her parents, which I promise to post soon.

Thanks for listening!

The Human Revolution

2006-12-26T22:49:00.000-06:00

At the start of the year I set a lot of ambitious goals for myself. Some of them got invalidated by the pregnancy, but mostly I'm very happy with how my year has progressed. I used to pooh-pooh setting annual goals like this, but I've accomplished a lot of big things in my life by seeing them through. A lot of times with the bigger goals, you can get halfway through something and forget why you wanted to do it, or it will seem impossible. You sort of lose yourself in the middle.

As part of my responsibilities as Region Gajokai Chief, I made it my goal this year to read The Human Revolution. At 2000 pages of historical novelization, sometimes heavy with explanations of logistics and Japanese history, it was difficult. It was also one of the most rewarding reads I've ever had.

It's rare to read something that I can say really changes my life and outlook. I've read a lot of classics of literature that I can say have enriched me and left me feeling great, but even those books virtually never changed me on a fundamental level. They didn't inspire me to want to go out and change the world for a better place. This book did that.

Very briefly, it's the story of the origin and growth of the Soka Gakkai, from 1944 to 1960. Josei Toda, a teacher, publisher, and Buddhist, was jailed during the war for refusing to follow state Shinto. Instead, he opted to be jailed and tortured to keep alive the flame of a sect of Buddhism which virtually no one still cared about. After the war, despite fundamental sickness and poverty, he created and grew an organization 750,000 strong of believers. His chief student (and the serial's author), Daisaku Ikeda, then took the reins and grew the organization to the international religious movement it is today, 13 million strong.

I think it's a rare and wonderful thing to have such a candid and complete history of a religion and its key figures. It candidly describes not just their challenges and successes, but stumblings, doubts, and failures as well. It contains central messages that peace is possible, that every person can grow and change no matter what their past or origin, and that it is all up to us.

I have always been proud to be part of a group that's so empowering and offers its members so much power and opportunity to practice their own Revolution. Having this complete view of its history has strengthened this view. I wish everyone could read this. Particularly, every idealistic youth who is looking to save people from sorrow and yearning to find the best way forward.

Dinner Party Stories

2006-12-26T21:50:00.000-06:00

Every year since I bought my first house, we've had over a host of people for a potluck on/near Christmas who for whatever reason don't get to be with their family. It's always a great time with great conversation, and I get a great meal out of the deal. Since we know in particular a lot of young Japanese folk in Chicago through the Soka Gakkai, there's always a lot of people. There have been lots of others over the years, but this year it happened to be mostly Japanese young women. I've put together a full picture set here.

One thing that happened at dinner was we got to telling stories about how we met. This included Hiroko and I telling the story of how we got together, and Yasuko (my mother in law) telling the story of how she and Kentaro got together, and also about my trip to Japan and meeting Kentaro's father. These were all such great stories that I decided I'd better blog about them over the coming days. with everything else going on for me to blog about (or, alternatively get too busy to blog about) I don't know specifically when they'll come, but it's something I hope you'll look forward to.

It's All About the Lions, Baby

2006-12-22T22:55:00.000-06:00

What is up, my homeys, roar! Mr. Lion in the house! Some day when I run your country, I will put myself on your money, like this, ROAR! Then you can all think of me when you are doing your money thing. Lions don't have money, roar. We want something, we take it, ROAR!

Lately I have learned there is mouse in house. House has mouse, roar! As chief lion and wild animal defense expert of house, I am greatly concerned, ROAR!! Something must be done before you monkeys start to think I have gone soft. Well, obviously as stuffed lion, I am always soft, but you know what I mean, roar.

Mouse has eaten some crackers and noodles in cabinets, roar. Mouse also ate snickers bars in box by sofa, roar! Yes, it was definitely mouse that ate delicious candy, and not lion during middle of the night when everyone was asleep, roar. Rest assured about that. I should say, I assume candy was delicious. As definitely creature who did not eat candy, I wouldn't know, roar.

Mouse also left droppings, roar. That is gross, ROAR! Mr. Lion never leaves droppings. It is one more advantage to having lion who is stuffed as your friend.

Anyway, Bob put traps with peanut butter all over house. Let me tell you something about these traps-they can definitely hurt your paws, roar! You definitely don't want to lick that peanut butter, no matter how...sweet and tempting...ROAR! Of course we will not need traps, but just to make Bob feel good, I will put mice I catch inside the traps, so he thinks it is him, roar. He will think I am being lazy and sleeping all night. But I am definitely out catching mice, roar! I'm just so stealthy you can't even hear me stalking. I'm, like, ninja lion. ROOOAR!

Fun with Yasuko

2006-12-22T11:00:00.000-06:00

My awesome mother in law Yasuko is in town. You can see pics and read some about it at my blog for my daughter. I thought I'd mention that among the gifts, yasuko borough summer kimonos (jinbei) for gifts for a lot of people. Here's a picture of me wearing my top.

After the gifts on Wednesday, we took Yasuko to eat at Joy Yee's in Chinatown, and then drove up Michigan so she could see the Christmas activity on the Magnificent Mile.

Also last night, in celebration of a difficult work week and not having to get up in the morning, I set up Battlelore. To my surprise, Yasuko took a great interest. She help me sort the pieces and board, and I explained the rules to her as best I could, given the rulebook is 80 pages long and we speak different languages... But I know the colors and numbers, so I could explain a lot. She got to roll all the dice. She definitely at least understood the magic (lore) deck, the deck for determining what the armies do (command cards), and who was attacking who. I even tried to explain the support rules, but the language barrier dropped. I played both sides, but at the end the side she was sitting at won, so she declared victory over me.

Yasuko also promised to teach me a version of Japanese chess. I'll keep you posted.

Last Gajokai shift

2006-12-22T10:09:00.000-06:00

Last Sunday was my very last Gajokai shift. Three hours on a Sunday is always exciting, and I found myself reflecting that, after four years and thousands of hours managing the culture center for the SGI, it was a pretty typical shift. I think it's in the spirit of doing Gajokai that I was about to go out as I came in...relatively uneventfully.

Joel Carboni, the YMD Central Zone leader, was present in the center. He was around a lot and helped raise me during my first formative year in Buddhism, and on a personal level I consider him a friend. He once remarked to me, (paraphrasing from memory) "Gajokai is all about, if you say you're going to do something, DO IT!" I couldn't have summarized it better myself. I always tried to bring a sense of responsibility with me on shift, because I thought it was the most important lesson I learned.

For myself, it's time I got on to other responsibilities. Given how much energy and well-being doing shift gives me, I'm glad to find the confidence that I can let go. It's time for someone else to learn the lessons I learned.

Last Free Weekend

2006-12-16T23:19:00.000-06:00

Hiroko's mom Yasuko is about to come to town for the birth of Ren, so this is our last free weekend as a couple before we begin the new era as a family. Hiroko celebrated by going out to breakfast and dinner together, and watching a movie at home. We've never felt closer and it's like there's a sort of honeymoon sense about the relationship again. It's a funny thing, since I'm recovering from a cold, and having minor physical ailments with one eye and knee, and work is crazy, and she's got all these physiological issues. But despite that I'm overwhelmed with a stream of joy and security.

Speaking of generating joy, since Hiroko can't go down the stairs, we've moved our Omamori Gohonzon to the bedroom. For those who don't know, the Omamori is a tiny version of the Gohonzon meant primarily for travel. Having it here means Hiroko can chant where she's most comfortable, in bed.

She also plays Chuzzle all the time. And I mean ALL the time. I guess we all have our game loves. My mom plays Sudoku. My dad just plays solitaire. Joe used to play the Playstation version of Civilization 2 for hours and hours.

I'm totally in love with Battlelore. Even the small things I thought I didn't like about the game, I like after playing it a bit. The core game engine is pretty simple and open to randomness, but the possibilities and additional complexity are endless, while remaining fun. It's a very expandable game system and I look forward to diving deeper and deeper into it. I finally got a chance to show it to Mike. He also dug it a lot. When I get the chance (presumably, months from now) I'll go looking for more opponents. Really, it's a blast.

Guess it's cool my kid is just around the corner, and I can talk about having fun with my wife, and playing games.

Pics from my dad

2006-12-15T10:08:00.000-06:00

Check out a few pictures my dad took.

Cool, Battlelore

2006-12-14T13:43:00.000-06:00

With my wife sick, I've been spending a lot of time at home. Especially since I know I'll have little chance soon, I've really been geeking out, playing video and board games. A lot. Now I've done a lot of other stuff so it's not like I'm spending all my time getting reversed-tanned in front of an anodized tube. But in the last two weeks I've played:

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell -- The original, purchased long ago but never played. This game is available practically free in stores, which is a good deal, because it's a whopper of a great game. Many sequels which I've yet to see. Playing this game is like being the hero of a spy novel. Highly recommended.

Prince of Persia and Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones -- These are very much like Tomb Raider. Light, simple, first person jumping puzzlers. The action is very smooth, the scenery beautiful. There's a lot of silly fighting and everything is far too easy, and there's no replay value, but these are packed with enough fun to make them more than just rentals. They have a cool love story, a real rarity in video games, and it's not just tacked on.

Spiderman 2 -- Grand Theft Auto, except you're Spiderman. It's amazingly fun and thrillingly well implemented to swing around a beautifully rendered New York. Unfortunately, there's not a lot else to do, especially for an "open-ended" title. Great game, but it could have been so much more.

But none of that matters now...Battlelore has arrived. The acclaimed new fantasy war game from Days of Wonder, it's a big fantasy battle game ala Warhammer, the 8-million pound gorilla of wargaming, except that it's got more in common with the "German games", which is to say it's quick, lighter, and playable. This game is so highly anticipated that it was rated #1 wargame of all time on BoardGameGeek the day it came out. And now it's in my living room.

Tonight...I douse myself in geekery, and light the match of...um...nerdiness.

Back in the Saddle

2006-12-13T13:00:00.000-06:00

Rode my bicycle to work today. That's not particularly notable, except that it's the first time in two weeks I've done so, which is an awfully long stretch. It couldn't be helped. There's been doctors' appointments, a back injury, a 10-day cold, and inclement weather to avoid.

I bought my self a totally fly used fixed-gear about three months back for winter and city riding. I'll post pictures of my bikes soon. It's a perfect commuter, especially in this balmy weather. This morning it was 35 degrees and hazy...perfect bicycling weather!

Today is just about the midpoint between last year and next year's Ragbrai. It's a long way away, but the team is already starting to ramp up, talking about putting together a roster, and training and equipment for next year, and budget, and the bus, and all that. You can read about the team at our team website. I can't figure a way to get pictures off there, but here's a good pic of me with some dudes from the team.

Mr. Lion Update

2006-12-12T14:00:00.000-06:00

Hello monkeys. Roar! Since we last spoke, the snow has come, roar. We didn't have that in Africa, Roar! Bob does not seem to like it. Especially when he has to go like he does everyday, roar. Incidentally, did you know that male lions sleep 20 hours a day, while the females do our hunting? ROAR! Also, when mating, we copulate 20-40 times a day. I would like to point out how sweet it is to be a lion, roar.

Hiroko is very big now, roar! Her belly moves on its own. I think it is the little monkey inside, roar!! I like to rub my head against it and purr. Lately all Bob and Hiroko talk about is the new monkey. Roar. They should remember they also have a lion, roar. I understand they have named the baby after a flower, roar. That is very lame. Baby needs name like Simba or Nala, roar.

Now listen, monkeys. I'd like to deviate from talking about Bob for a second. Last time I told you to send food, roar. Even stuffed lions need to eat, roar. You do not want to get on my bad side, roar. I am two and a half inches of pure muscle. ROAR!!

Oh right...

2006-12-11T22:34:00.000-06:00

With the Marquis trade, I almost forgot to mention a couple other moves. The Cubs signed Daryle Ward, a pretty good veteran first baseman. He can play off the bench or fill in Derrek Lee.
Pros: If we don't need him he'll be good trade bait, and if we do, it'll be $1 million well-spent insurance. Good deal.
Cons: Not particularly good at anything, except batting average. No experience as pinch hitter. No utility.
Wild Card: In 2004, he hit for the cycle for Pittsburg. With father Gary, they're the only father-son pair to do so.

Also, the Cubs gave away Freddie Bynum, to free a slot on the roster prior to a rule-5 draft. He was one of the fourth or fifth stringers who got to play last year when the Cubs had about 75 injured players. He was kinda fast. He won't really be missed.

Marquis de Sade

2006-12-11T10:45:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend, the Cubs signed Jason Marquis, continuing their trend of overpaying for washed-up third-tier talent. To avoid confusion and ambiguity, please not the following:
* Jason is not Jeff Suppan, the other Cardinals pitcher on the free agent market. That guy can pitch.
* Jason is also not the Marquis de Sade, although beat writers' review of his play over the last two seasons has also featured references to torture and pornography.
* Jason is also not the Mercury Grand Marquis, although it was also constructed in St. Louis until it got shipped out when it got too expensive.
* His name is pronounced "marquee" as in, "Is certainly not a marquee player."

Pros: Somehow managed to bat .310 in 2005, which would give him a better batting average than last year's entire Cubs lineup. Seriously.
Cons: Hasn't pitched well in 2 years. Last year he was the worst full-season pitcher in baseball. And then the Cubs gave him a huge raise. No one anywhere knows why.
Wild Card: Strict Jewish. There's got to be a joke in there somewhere.

Mr. Lion and Me

2006-12-11T10:42:00.000-06:00

This is my favorite photo, and the one that appears in my profile. It's a picture of myself late on the wedding day with my best friend, Mr. Lion. He's been with us since I met him at FNCC in 2004 and brought him back to Illinois.

This picture was taken by Laura Hamm-Goetchell, our wedding photographer. She was great.

Lilly Livered

2006-12-08T11:08:00.000-06:00

Pitches from Lilly made my life so wonderful
Pitches from Lilly helped me sleep at night
Pitches from Lilly solved my childhood problems
Pitches from Lilly helped me feel alright
-- The Who (well, more or less)

Ok, so let's face it, for the last three years, the Cubs have been a mercenary team. Each year they've tried to buy themselves a title, Yankees-style, and each year they've been a little (okay, a lot) worse. They must be asking themselves, how much money does it take to win a title?

This year, after firing the management and facing a mass player exodus, they answered themselves: $136 million. That's how much they threw at Alfonso Soriano. Signing him made the Cubs a draw again. If the team's press releases are to be believed, Soriano's 9 1/2 feet tall, spits fire at opposing pitchers, and can hit home runs using only his mind. Anyway, it seems to have worked, because the other players have found faith. In a single week and for $230 million, the Cubs signed or re-signed Soriano, Ramirez, Miller, Blanco, Zambrano, Cotts, and DeRosa.

So fear not, Cubs fans! With a budget the size of Jim Hendry's heart condition, the franchise has created...er...well, pretty much the same sucky team as last year. PLUS SORIANO!! YEAH!!

One big problem though: we blew our whole wad and forgot to get a pitching staff. Is that important?

Thus, Ted Lilly.
Pros: He was available. Oh, and he's consistent. He'll pitch the whole season. Versus, say, coming down with a cold that keeps him from playing. Or developing some mysterious shoulder condition which benches him but lets him party 'till dawn all over town. Oh, and he's a lefty with variety and velocity. That's sorta good.
Cons: We gave him a 250% pay raise, so he'd better work out, because he'll be hard to dump. Oh, and he's completely unsuited for Wrigley. He's a popup pitcher who gives up a lot of walks, and has control/consistency problems. He needs a big field with no wind. Er...uh oh.
Wild Card: He's been called "uncoachable". For example, last August when Athletics manager John Gibbons went to pull him from the mound, Lilly drew him into a fistfight, bloodying his nose. Boy, good thing Lou Pinella's so cool-headed, right? Er...right?
"You don't know where I been, Lou! You don't know where I've been!" -- Tyler Durden

Goodbye, Gajokai

2006-12-08T10:19:00.000-06:00

I joined the Soka Gakkai and became a buddhist four years ago. I'm a happier stabler, more productive person because of it. Moreover, I believe to some small degree, the world has become a better place.

Since day one, I was in a program called "Gajokai", which is Japanese for "teeth of the castle". It's a volunteer program for young men to do security and service at the community centers where we practice. Two years ago I got put in charge of running the program for Chicago, which means handling the local community center, and a few other off-site events, such as our annual participation in the Pride Parade, etc.

Every day for two years I've sweated making sure the center gets opened and closed, and making sure there's always someone behind the desk to greet people, keep the environment clean and friendly, answer questions and phones, maintain the schedule, and a gazillion other tasks. I've done this on a rotation of about 15 guys (plus 20 more assistants) covering about 50 shifts a month. With nothing driving us but pride, we've kept it together, and also generated growth, development, camaraderie, and prayer.

I have got so much out of the experience, and of the hundreds of hours I've mopped and cleaned and planned and sweated, it was all worth it. Conspicuously, I learned critical job skills (management, customer service) and met my wife through the program. Inconspicuously, I've grown by becoming comfortable with using my life as a platform to care for and develop those around me. Plus somewhere along the line I got a lot of lessons in humility.

I'll be leaving the program behind, hopefully in good hands, in about 10 days. There was a time when it could be my number one focus, but now I've got a family to take care of. That's a whole new horizon, but the steady faith and steady practice that Gajokai has drilled into me makes it a challenge I'm sure I can handle.

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Bob.

Chess Computers Rule the World

2006-12-06T11:29:00.000-06:00

I've got so much to talk about on this blog that I don't know where to start. Seems kind of odd to just jump right in with a post about chess, but there it is.

"From the indigo, an even deeper blue." -- Buddhist aphorism

Back in 1997, IBM built a chess-playing computer named Deep Blue and won a match against raining world champion Garry Kasparov. It was such a huge event at the time that social knowledge spilled over past the nerd world. Ask normal people to name two things that ever happened in chess, and they'll probably name the "Match of the Century" and this.

Why was it so important? Because it was the first instance of a computer being able to beat the best player in the world. Subsequently the IBM team would be accused by Kasparov and others of cheating. Although some of the more grandiose claims are unsubstantiated, everyone agreed that IBM hadn't really built a computer to be good at chess in general, but to be good at beating Garry Kasparov. Specifically, they analyzed Kasparov's games, found his weaknesses, and biased the computer to favor lines to exploit those weaknesses. Kasparov wasn't given a chance to analyze Deep Blue's games, so the match up wasn't really fair.

Flash forward almost 10 years later, and computers are routinely beating up humans. No one even argues the point anymore; computers are simply better. After every serious match most humans play, they immediately turn to computers to analyze the game and tell them where they went wrong.

How good are the computers? This week a computer program played a tournament against the new world champion, Kramnik. You might have heard about Kramnik; he made front pages during his title match in October because his opponent accused him of cheating, because he went to the bathroom too much. America snoozes about such chess trivia, but the rest of the world watches closely.

This new program, Deep Fritz, easily beat Kramnik. It wasn't even a match; Kramnik didn't win a single game. Which is bad for humans, because this is what he had to say before the tournament: "The day will come when we will no longer have a chance against computers. If I indeed manage to beat Fritz in this match it will probably be the last time that a human being wins against a computer." Uh oh.

But what really makes Deep Fritz amazing is that you can buy it off the shelf, and run it in your own home.

Humanity has made itself obsolete.

A Special Message From Mr. Lion

2006-12-04T20:51:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone, Roar!! I'm Mr. Lion, Roar! I'm Bob's best friend and #1 chief lion of this house ROOOAR! Bob is also my favorite monkey as well. Whenever there is a mouse or elk or...let's see... elephant or....water buffalo...or...um...wildebeest...which needs to be slaughtered, or a naptime which needs to be napped, I am ready to handle it like only the king of the jungle could, roar! Also I am cute. Roar.

You will have to come back to Bob's blog if you want to get updates on me roar. I promise to tell you all about my best naptimes, snoozes in the sun, and...ummm...other stuff that I do. That I can't tell you about right now but it's really interesting, and you could be scared by all...um...

Anyway, I have been living with Bob a long time and I can tell you all about him. ROAR! Ok, so, every day we get up together and say hi to his wife, then I go back to bed. Then later I get up and he comes home, roar. I don't really know where he goes all day, but I don't think he likes it. Then he comes home and does some stuff...I don't really pay attention, roar. Then he goes to sleep, where I'm usually at, and we talk a while. Roar.

There used to be a taller, redheaded monkey around here as well. I miss him sometimes, roar. And Africa, I really miss Africa. Also Bob and Hiroko are breeding now, roar. Which is pretty typical of the monkeys I know...ROAR!

I lead a pretty good life considering I'm only a stuffed lion, roar!! Thank you monkeys for your time. Send food.