Happy Halloween

Probably the best Halloween gift that I could get is this. Any day with Karl is better than the days without him.

I've made it to today without having any of those mini chocolate bars. I might sneak into the grocery store or pharmacy tomorrow to buy a couple of packs when they're on sale. I know myself well enough to know that I will not be able to stockpile them. I just eat them all in one sitting. It doesn't matter how small they are if you eat 12 of them at a time.

My medical benefits company has lost my claimant report and they want me to fax it to them. I asked them if I could scan and email a jpeg, but they want it as a fax for some stupid reason. I will send it so that I can get my money, but it frustrates me that I have to pay for their mistake.

Rage Incorporated

I'm heading off with my Dad to take care of a tree. This thing has crossed us one too many times, and we're going to make the problem disappear. Actually, the tree died of old age a couple of years ago and my father is afraid that it is going to fall down and land on something important. He originally said that he was going to arrive at 1:00 pm, but I should have anticipated that he'd be three hours late. He has always been horribly late, and now that he is on his own, it's much worse.

I got up early this morning so that I could rake up the leaves around the house and get them to the curb before the garbage truck came by. I got changed into my running gear and took care of the yard waste and then went for a run. It was a cold morning, but I dressed too warmly and struggled. It is amazing how quickly a person can lose their fitness. I was able to run 20 kilometres five times a week and now I'm having a hard time running 8. It will come back in time, but it's a hard adjustment to be knocked back so soundly.

I went to bed late last night because I started watching the first five episodes of The Amazing Race. I am rooting for the single mothers and for the brothers simply because they seem like nice people. That's my only criteria. I can't stand it when the team shouts at each other, but I wonder if faced with all that stress and competition, if I might also lose my patience. Probably.

I went to bed but was awoken by the two upstairs neighbours having a scrap out. They fight like crazy up there and they aren't just little ones either. Screaming, yelling, stomping around. It's quite funny to listen to as a completely innocent bystander (even if it is 2:30 in the morning), but there is also something vaguely disturbing about it. I have never heard them do anything up there except yell at each other. They are recent newlyweds and from the sounds of it they are doing all the fighting and none of the making up. That doesn't bother me too much because I certainly don't want to hear them horizontally resolving their dispute, but it does make me wonder how much fighting is acceptable in a relationship.

My mother and father always seemed to be arguing with each other and they were married for 35 years. I don't know how they worked out their problems, and I know that some days were frosty between them. Still, you don't stay married to someone for 35 years if you can't find a way to live together. Perhaps a healthy screaming bout is how to make a relationship work.

I don't recall very many situations (if any) where I've yelled and screamed at my partner. I'm not a yeller, I guess. Maybe it's unhealthy, or maybe I just don't get bothered by things in the same way that other people do. I like to think that I'm fairly easy-going and very patient. I don't think that I could be in a relationship where someone feels like they can yell and scream and get into huge arguments at me. That's certainly the way it sounds upstairs. She seems to be doing most of the work. I'm not a person who relishes confrontation, and I can't ever see myself sleeping next to someone who has just unleashed spleen at me. Granted, I may deserve it, but I think that there are better ways to deal with anger than to pitch a fit.

Championship Television

Thursday at 6:30 is quickly becoming my favourite television time of the week. I am loving Championship Bridge with Charles Goren on CGTV. The black-and-white show, airing on ABC from 1958-1962, is fantastic camp complete with corny commentating, stilted dialogue, and vintage advertisements.

I played a lot of Euchre in high school (too much some might argue), and while I do think that it is a fine game, I maintain that it is nothing when compared to bridge. With great players, Euchre is just second nature. The hands play themselves, and there is no way of making the great play that wins you the game. It's more a matter of luck of the cards than playmanship. It seems to me that to play Euchre well, you simply have to avoid screwing up.

I started playing bridge when I was in South America. My father and his friends taught me to play. It was a home rules variation that simplified it a little. Bridge is a very complex game and, while were certainly weren't playing it at its most sophisticated, I was hooked.

Championship Bridge is a great show that walks you through the game and allows you to follow along with players during some of their matches. It is a great insight into television history and is a refreshing change from the rest of the televised games, reality tv, and Deal or No Deal drivel.

One of the best aspects of the show is that it is aired with the original advertisements. I have long thought that it would be great to have a television show that airs advertising from the early days of television. It would feature great old ads from companies that still exist today as well as ones from long since bankrupt or conglomerated companies. The real appeal would be the real-life-sold-with-a-smile Mr. Burnsesque tributes to theories, practices, and products that have long become discredited, destructive, or found to be carcinogenic. It Seems Like Yesterday does it to some degrees, but as you can see by their crude website, their budget is poor and the show has an air of lethargic crumminess about it.

At the risk of sounding the curmudgeon, I have long believed that if you want something great, embrace that which pleases the aged. If want the best beer, just look for the oldest person in the bar and drink whatever they're drinking. If you want to the best cookies, find the oldest person at the bake sale and buy whatever they've made. If you want insight into music, rummage through the record collection of the oldest person you know.

Bridge is a fantastic game that I can't play simply because I'm the only person my age that I know who knows how to play it. I am no expert, and that doesn't help matters either since I don't know enough about it to teach anyone about it. I figure that if they can make poker an online sensation, and high-stakes backgammon a strong underdog, then competitive bridge has a lot of pop-culture explosion potential. If so, the creators of Charles Goren's Championship Bridge are ahead of their time, and if not, it's still quality entertainment.

Entertainment Week

Stone Roses - "Elephant Stone"

I have finished listening to all of the Rick Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington broadcasts, and spent last week listening to the series 2 podcast. Over the weekend, I listened to the first four episodes of series 3. I didn't think that anything could outdo Karl's diary, but Karl's poems have done it. The ramblings of a madman... Brilliant.

During the XFM broadcasts, Ricky spoke about training for a celebrity boxing event. I managed to find them on Youtube (Ricky Gervais boxing). It's not bad. As I was searching, I found a ton of great Karl videos. His acting in famous movies segments are fantastic. These are my two favourites:







I've started back with the running. I'm not going crazy, but ran 7.5k today and on Saturday.

My nails remain unbitten.

I'm still in search of a halloween costume.

Blogger spell-check suggests Gervais be changed to "gravies".

Kicking the Habit

I've decided that I can no longer live with my fingernails in their current state. I have been a chronic nail biter for as long as I can remember. My father has been trying for more than 20 years to get me to stop biting my fingernails. It's a disgusting habit on par with, or worse than, nose picking and smoking.

I decided last weekend that I would stop biting my nails. I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe I'm growing more vain, maybe I need to reduce the number of vices in my life, maybe I'm just sick and tired of looking at them. I paused for a moment while typing last week and they turned my stomach. They were jagged, rough, bloodied, and gross. I'm 30 years old for God's sake!

Last Sunday, I went to the nail polish section of the pharmacy. I felt quite foolish scanning the bottles trying to get exactly what I was looking for. I ended up purchasing a bottle of Sally Hansen brand Nail Biter. It's a clear liquid that you brush onto the nails, cuticles, and fingertips. Its active ingredient is sucrose octa acetate and it tastes terrible, but smells vaguely like bananas.

This is one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do. Forget about starting a small business, forget about moving across the country, forget about giving up all forms of sugar for eight months. It's awful. Every waking moment I am thinking about my nails and wanting to gnaw them down to the quick. My fingers feel strange and unusual to me. It's the same feeling you get when you can just feel an ingrown hair coming, or that you have a splinter in your skin; something just isn't right.

I haven't bitten my nails in over one week, but am on the verge of going mad. I know how people feel when they are trying to stop smoking or kick a drug addiction. The light at the end seems so far away, and all I really want is to give up.

They are, however, coming along nicely. There is white at the ends and even though they are still quite jagged I have been very disciplined and have resisted all temptation. When I'm really struggling, I been fiddling with a little plastic grape that I plucked off of a bowl of artificial fruit. It makes a nice suction cup, and occasionally I get a tiny little fart sound from it. It's great fun, but I'm not sure if that is any better or worse than the nail biting. All that matters right now is that it keeps my hands busy during this torture.

Lazy Shirt

I've been very lazy this week when it comes to getting dressed. It has been quite cool in Toronto this week (for the past couple of months, actually) and I've been wearing sweaters. At the end of the day, I should take my shirts off one at a time and place them neatly into my laundry basket, but instead I take the t-shirt, collared shirt, long sleeved sweater, and fleece off all at once. The advantage is that, next morning, I can just slide back into them in a similar one-shot deal.

It is important to overlook the grossness of wearing the same clothes for four days in a row. That's not something I'm proud of, but I'm also not too proud of the fact that I haven't really left the house in the past four days. I don't believe that the clothes were stinky. I'm still showering and wearing deodorant after all. Let's not go nuts here.

I decided last night to play free poker at a bar near my house. I went for a run, took out the recycling and yard waste, and then took a shower. I was running late so I jumped into my russian doll shirt pile. I walked to the bar and played. It was one of those days when every hand you fold hits, and every hand you play misses. I folded Q3 and the flop hits QTQ and the 3 hits on the turn, for example. Then I get eliminated with pocket Aces as the other guy hit a club on a four club board. I'm glad it was free.

Anyway, as I'm getting up to leave, I notice that there is a white t-shirt on the floor beside my chair. I didn't think much of it. I picked it up and commented, "Someone dropped a shirt on the floor." I thought that maybe someone won it in a raffle or something. Why hadn't I heard about any raffle? I put the shirt on the back of a chair and then headed home.

I got up this morning and deciding to fart around the house a little, I didn't have to worry about my clothes. I grabbed my shirts and started to crawl into them. No t-shirt. I looked around the floor and under the bed for it. Nothing.

That t-shirt that I found at the bar was mine. I must have missed it in my rush to not be late. It must have stayed tucked in during my walk to the bar and then when I took my sweater off while playing poker it was able to squeak free.

It's a little embarrassing knowing that the undershirt the I have worn every day since Monday is now at the bar. Did someone pick it up? Is it in the lost and found? Did it get thrown into the garbage? Will it be waiting for me when I go back next week? The biggest question, I think, is: Can I conceivably go back and ask for it?

Risk-Free Rounding

About ten months ago, my friend Colin and I decided to play a poker freeroll online. It was quite a lot of fun simply because the goal became to outlast each other. It didn't cost anything, but with 12,000 players it was all but impossible to make it into the money.

A little later, Colin was eager for a visit to the casino, but I was against it. We decided, instead, to make a deposit at an online poker site. It turned out that his bank wouldn't let him deposit, but mine would. I deposited $100.

I played that money for a long time. It would go up and down, but it didn't run out. When it was my brother-in-law's birthday, I transferred $50 into his account. I continued to play that initial $100 deposit until this past Tuesday. I cashed out $115 which left me with $12.84. Certainly not the big time, but I made a little money, had some fun, and paid for a birthday gift with someone else's money.

Even though I ended up in the black, the thing that troubled me was that I always felt like I was risking too much. I felt as though I was gambling and that I wasn't being smart. I felt that eventually I'd get stupid, greedy, or outplayed and lose it all.

I was listening to Chris Ferguson on this podcast and I decided that his idea makes sense. He took $1 and played it into $20,000 by managing his money with strict discipline. Poker, often equated with degenerates, is a game that can be played with class. Chris Ferguson certainly does that.

With the popularity of poker these days, I've seen degenerates. What fascinates me the most about poker are the professionals that are clearly very intelligent, bright, gifted people who choose to play poker over being mathematicians, doctors, and scientists. With so many degenerates, it's nice to think about poker as a game that requires thought, discipline, and proper money management.

This is money after all. It should be managed properly especially when it's in short supply and especially when you are gambling. Casinos make billions because people are willing to risk their whole bankroll on "a feeling." While I don't think that it's possible to beat a casino, I do think that it's possible to take someone's money at the poker table. I also know that everyone I play with has got their sights on me. It important to be mindful of that and to protect your money. It's sad that banks think of your money in the same way. Leave your money in a savings account long enough and it will disappear through service charges. It's sad that the only way to protect your money from the banks is to keep it under your mattress. I digress.

Chris Ferguson outlines how he used a very strict money management system to grind his way to $20,000. I have decided after cashing out that with my remaining $12.84 I would use the same money management system to try to build my bankroll.

Rules:
1) Only sit down with 5% of your total bankroll.
2) Leave the table when you have 10% of your bankroll at the table.
3) If you lose what you bring to the table, do not play for at least 1 hour (stopping for the day is best).

The system does have to be adapted because poker sites have minimum table buy-ins. The minimum buy-in at the 1c/2c table is $1.00. Though I should really only be bringing $0.64 to the table, I must bring $1.00 to meet the table minimum. That's fine. I will still leave the table with 10% of my bankroll. When I get above $20 the 5% rule will be strictly enforced.

So on the first day with my $12.84, I brought $1.00 to the table and had to leave the table when I had grown it to $1.28. I couldn't let it ride and I couldn't bring more money to the table. I hit a big pot and left the table with $1.71.

This system is going to take a long time. It's going to be tough to stick to it and to not get greedy. It's going to be difficult to be satisfied winning 71 cents. In time, my bankroll will grow and when I get a run of bad cards, it is very unlikely (if not impossible) for me to lose my entire bankroll simply because I'm never risking very much. I think that in the long run, this is a solid system that will ensure profit, and hopefully big profit.

Here's a breakdown of the week so far:



It's frightening having that written out because it clearly shows that I have spent a huge amount of time earning a whopping $4.95. It's hardly worth it if you break it down into an hourly wage. The way I see it is that I am paying my dues now with the knowledge that bigger payoffs are coming down the road.

I'm not going to become a professional poker player. I enjoy the game and I play it in my spare time. I take it seriously, but I'm not going to give up my life, friends, or work for poker. When I have spare time I'll play. This system, I believe, will ensure that I will be able to play for a long time and will earn money in the long run. With the risk all but removed, I can enjoy wins and losses knowing that after having cashed back my initial $100 deposit on Tuesday, all this is profit.

Procrastinating 101

As is typical with me these days, I only make time to blog when I have something really important to do.

I made it back to Ontario on Friday. The plane was delayed because of the nasty weather that hit Ottawa on Friday afternoon. The headwinds were quite strong and the plane was 30 minutes late. My Dad picked me up and drove me to the farm. I was knackered so I went straight to bed.

The next morning was all about cleaning up. The house was in great shape, but the yard needed to be raked. Friday's high winds and rain knocked most of the leaves off the trees and my Dad wanted the interment area to be neat and tidy. My sister, brother-in-law, and neice arrived at about 11:30 and they all headed inside. I was left to finish working as always seems to be the case. It's actually quite funny how some people can avoid work so craftily. I don't know how you can sit by the woodstove drinking a Mike's Hard Lemonade and having a chat while someone is outside working. I digress, but will digress again later.

The interment ceremony was very nice. The funeral director asked if I wanted to carry the cremains and I agreed without really thinking. He placed them into my hands and my Dad started crying. I realized that what I should have said was, "Not on your life am I going to hold the ashes of my mother, you psychopath." They were quite heavy. Heavier than I thought they would be. I looked down at them and realized that all that remained of my mother's body was wrapped up in a blue satin bag and that I was actually carrying it across the lawn. It was sickening, but not traumatic. It made me realize that, for the most part, I've come to terms with what happened.

We intered the cremains and laid some roses. We hugged each other and then went inside. I ate a big piece of apple crisp with milk on top. The sun had come out during the ceremony so I decided that I'd do some work. I got changed into my work clothes and headed out to stack wood. I filled up the truck three times and made two neat piles by the door of my Dad's house. That should last him a while. I expect that now that the precedent has been set, every time that I visit my father I will now have wood stacking detail. It was amazing, yet again, that I did all the work myself while the others watched television. I marvelled at their ability to come and check on me exactly as the last pieces of wood were being placed on the pile. I didn't care too much other than the fact that I kept thinking that this would go on forever and that it will someday be my job to take care of the farm and that I will invariably have to do it by myself.

We had turkey dinner on Saturday night and, again, my fears for the future continued to percolate. The kitchen was a complete disaster and so I loaded the dishwasher. I did get a little bit of help loading it, but there were still a lot of dishes to hand wash. My father fell asleep in a chair and my sister, after putting the baby to bed, decided to watch television. Now, I know that taking care of a baby all day is hard work, but cleaning up this gigantic mess wasn't my idea of a relaxing way to spend an evening either. I would have much preferred to have not raked leaves all morning, stacked wood all afternoon, and then washed dishes all evening. Playing with a baby sounds like much more fun to me especially if it allows you to lie on the couch ten minutes after you put her down for the night.

Anyway, my brother-in-law lost interest in the dishes when the composting needed attention, and made the excuse that there wasn't enough dishsoap. I turned the bottle upsidedown and balanced it delicately while the last of the liquid soap slid down inside of the bottle. I dug my hand into the sinkful of potato skins, egg shells, broccoli stems, and soggy breadcrumbs and took care of the composting. I washed the sink and by then gravity had helped salvage enough soap to wash the dishes. By then, too, I was all by myself in the kitchen and I resigned myself to washing up the stacks of pots, trays, and bowls alone.

How hard done by am I? What a whinging moaner! It wasn't all bad and I did manage to finish with enough time to watch an episode of the Professional Poker Tour on tv. My Dad thanked me for all my work and I sat smugly knowing that I put in a good day's work.

The next morning, I caught a ride with my sister's family to Ajax. The ride ended at the Pickering GO Train station and I was left to fend for myself. I was tired and a little bummed out about my vacation being over and having to return to real life again, so I fit right in on the GO Train. I didn't let the horror of the commute bother me. I took the train to Union Station and then took the subway home.

This week is all about finding a job. I need to stop procrastinating and get back to the task at hand. With luck, my posting will be more frequent.

Heading Home

After promising some posts, days have gone by and I haven't managed to complete one. Nevertheless, I am heading back to Ontario this evening. It has been a great week and I hope to document it and to post some pictures when I get home. I am spending the weekend at my father's house as my mother's remains are being interred on Saturday afternoon. I hope that I'll be able to make some time early next week to catch up on all my goings on.

Computers, Argh!

I just spent the last 45 minutes typing up a long blog entry. It was incomplete, but I had to get a glass of water and so I tried to save it. There was an error and I lost the whole thing. I committed the cardinal sin of not copying the entry to the clipboard before saving and the post is gone.

I will retype it later on this afternoon/evening or tomorrow, but I can't do it now. It is so demoralizing to do that much work only to have to start again.

The short version of the story is that right now I am in Iqaluit, Nunavut and will be here until Friday. More dispatches from the North to follow.

Lost Again

I'm quite sure that the people who created the X-Files had no idea that it would become such a hit, and I suspect that this is the reason why the show always seemed to be floundering as the writers struggled to have all their ridiculous storylines tie together and make sense.

I have watched the last two seasons of Lost and even though it seemed complex and each week brought new fodder for geeks and water coolers, I had this sneaking suspicion that there was indeed a plan and that the writers had some idea as to where the story would eventually end up. That is not to say that I don't think that there is a certain amount of panic in the writing process, but I think that, on the whole, the plot has already been determined.

After a summer of waiting, I was a little disappointed in tonight's season premiere. I'm not sure if I can put my finger on it exactly, but perhaps it's just that some of the mystery is gone. We now know much more about The Others, and I wonder if some of the cache is gone. Sure there are a lot of question marks, but I think that the very fact that the three main characters have been separated from the secondary characters has taken away some of the tension and some of the strength that the group had. It seems now as though The Others will simply break them down. I liked it when I thought that "our team" had a fighting chance, but now all hope seems lost.

New-Age Advertising

A friend sent me Jose Gonzalez's cover of The Knife's "Heartbeats" about six months ago. It popped up on a random iPod playlist today and I was reminded about how great a track it is. I did some searching and discovered that the song was used (or is being used) in a Sony advertising campaign. It's an interesting ad so I'll post it, but will get no remuneration.



It's a strange world we live in where the Internet is being used to hock products in a way that makes people think they are being entertained. Today's ads are tricky and devious, but I suppose that it's just advertising adapting to the modern world.

I rarely watch television, and I only listen to public radio. I'm a money earning 30 year old who likes to think that he has a grasp, however tenuous, on what is new and exciting. I, and people like me, use the Internet when they have free time, and advertisers know that it's vital to hook in to that market. It isn't by accident that the above ad is on youtube. It isn't by accident that Tango has a spoof ad on youtube. It isn't by accident that there is a making of video on youtube which acts as much as a polished piece of advertising as the commerical itself. Sony and its advertisers are not stupid, and want people like me to help their campaigns. I am a patsy who is receiving absolutely nothing to post their ad, build up hype, and create brand for Sony televisions.

So devious (and I might say despicable) is this new modern search for advertising that it has become a blight to the Internet itself. Worse than the effects of any possible legislation or imploring stuntmen, is the greatest hindrance to music/video sharing: misnaming files. I was searching for last week's episode of Lost. I found a nice file called "Lost Season 3 Episode 1" only to discover that it was an 84-minute documentary about the conspiracy of 9/11 as an inside job set in motion by the government and those who could cash in. While an interesting argument, I am intrigued more by the fact that my Windows Media Player crashed in such a way that I could only stop the movie from playing by restarting my computer. I was doing something else, and ended up watching the whole thing. The closing line was something to the effect of: "Tell your friends about this. Tell everyone you know. Spread the word."

Advertising, I think, is a huge obstacle that the Internet has to overcome in order to ensure its future viability as a medium. Companies see the Internet as dollar signs, and they prey upon the foolish. Though I've likely defined advertising there, Internet advertising seems much more underhanded.

While I would like to believe that the Internet is still a place of freedom and democracy (to those who can afford it), I am increasingly shocked by just how much companies and swindlers are getting away with. The Internet is beyond law for the most part, and I fear that its anarcistic utopia will be destroyed by that freedom. It won't be long before we'll get sick of interactive Flash animated marketing campaigns, heading online to register and enter an under-the-cap code, and tailored spam from under the gaze of Big Brother. Will we end up chucking the whole thing? Can we do anything to keep the it from being a worldwide consumption tool?

Slow Sunday

My blog received its 10,000th visitor this afternoon. Pretty awesome!

Went to a friend's birthday party last night and drank too much. I shocked myself by getting up at 8:45 and taking the subway to Eglinton. I was supposed to have brunch with friends, and was scheduled to arrive at 10:30. As I approached the door, I looked at my watch. 10:29. I climbed the steps and the door opened. My friend had just commented to his wife, "I don't think that he's going to be here at 10:30." He looked out the window and there I was.

I had a nice morning chatting and spending time with their baby. They weren't too pleased with their electrician who was supposed to arrive at 12:00 to give them an estimate. He was a no-show for the second time this week. It must be nice to have people so over a barrel that you can stand them up twice and still be so busy that you have to turn down jobs.

I was lucky enough to get a ride home, and the baby got to come along for the ride. For the first little bit, he looked out the window and listened to music, but as we approached my house, he started to fade. Knowing that it would ruin his nap, we opened the window, and I tried to engage him with toys and books. I jostled his foot, but those eyes were heavy. The whole thing seemed like those scenes in movies when the hero is trying to rescue someone from an overdose.

It was no use. The baby fell asleep, and I expect that the Sunday afternoon nap at their house was replaced with a rejuvenated baby on the tear for the afternoon. My afternoon nap, on the other hand, was a perfect 3 hours of destroying the last remnants of a hangover.