submitted on Sunday, May 11, 2008 at 10:36:44 PM

Been a while since I've had any good pictures to post. We went to the Shedd Aquarium with the family for Mother's Day. The fish and the dolphins and the Beluga whales and the penguins were all cool and everything, but I was only really excited for the Komodo Dragon exhibit they had there (A bunch of lizards at an aquarium??). It did not fail to disappoint, as not only was it cool to see an 8-foot long 150 lb. dragon, but there were a bunch of cool looking lizards to check out, too.

I absolutely love our new camera, too. No flash opportunities, and taking pictures through glass and dealing with crappy reflections, I'm pretty impressed with how well many of the photos turned out.

  submitted on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 11:02:56 AM

So I got my copy of Grand Theft Auto IV on Wednesday. To say it's very engrossing is a mild understatement. I was so into it that when I stopped playing to eat dinner, Melissa mentioned something about LOST and I had completely forgotten it was going to be on last night. Yikes. Melissa's birthday is at the end of the month, let's hope I don't forget that too.

Well, I did manage to catch LOST last night, and it was about what I expected, although there were some nice bonuses placed throughout the episode. The 'Jack is sick' plot line was one of the weaker stories they've had going this season. One of the drawbacks to having flash forwards is that you can't tease the audience with character deaths anymore. We know Jack survives. We've seen it. So you can't have him develop appendicitis and try and draw any drama out of having to perform this life-saving surgery on him, because everyone knows he's going to survive. And the story didn't serve as a vehicle to deliver some side bit of information, aside from dealing with the Jack/Kate love affair, which, again, not really that important. It wasn't as over the top dramatic as the previews made it out to be, but it was still a pretty lame story to put in the show. But, we had other stuff that did a better job of piquing my interest:

-Christian's back. Whoo! Easily one of my favorite characters, the way he is seemingly intertwined with so many people on this show, and is constantly showing up in the most random of places, despite, ya know, dying. Too bad those bastard writers just teased his appearance, having him appear for all of ten seconds on the show. I guess they still know how to reel me in.

-So first we have Christian showing up to haunt Jack after Hurley tells him that Charlie said someone was going to visit Jack. Interesting that he and Charlie have regular conversations, as opposed to just the one off that we saw in the season premiere. He also mentioned that Jack "shouldn't raise him", presumably talking about Aaron. Interesting tidbit, and could go back to the fortune teller's warning to Claire about how she must raise Aaron, and that he can't be raised by another (Unless he said an Other, which carries a whole different meaning to it).

-Our other Jack flash forward showed Jack as a depressed, drug-addicted, alcoholic, etc. doctor, contemplating suicide and clearly wanting to go back to the island. After seeing him at Kate's trial, it seemed as though this was significantly further into the future. However, after watching this episode, it might not be as far ahead as I thought. I like the irony of his father of all people driving him into this drunken downward spiral. Obviously this thing with Kate isn't going to last, but I'll be interested to see what it takes for him to find his desire to return to the island. Whatever it is, it better involve Christian Shepard.

-Jack mentioned that Sawyer made the choice to stay on the island. So perhaps he's not dead?

-Claire is now officially recognized as Christian's daughter. We've been lead to believe that ever since Christian went with Ana Lucia to a house in Australia to see his daughter, but now we have some confirmation. Some very interesting things about that brief confrontation:

*Claire recognizes who her father is, despite the fact that Christian lived and worked in Los Angeles. Australia isn't exactly a quick trip around the block, and yet he must have had some semi-frequent contact with Claire. I had just assumed that he hadn't seen her since she was an infant.

*It would seem that the drama behind who is the baby's daddy is going to be revealed to Jack and Claire (or at least Jack) at some point in time, since he seems to be aware that Aaron is his half-nephew.

*Here's the real kicker: Miles saw Claire walk off with Christian in the middle of the night! Now, we have to remember that Miles has some weird mental ability that we don't completely understand, so this may have something to do with that, but still, the fact that he actually saw Christian, wow. I don't even know what to make of that.

-As I mention constantly, Sawyer is totally under appreciated and is a totally awesome character. He's a very protective guy, despite what people may want to think of him. It's very endearing to see him protect Claire and Aaron the way that he did. Of course, Claire's gone now, so I guess he's not that great at it.

-I wonder if we'll ever see Claire again. There has to be some kind of resolution to her story, you can't just go from her wandering off into the jungle with her father and leaving her baby behind to Kate claiming the child and raising it as her own.

-Last week we discovered that Dr. Bernard knows Morse code, this week we learn that Charlotte knows Korean. Oh, snap. Nice job by Jin to totally call her out on it. It also looks like we're setting up our separation of Sun and Jin, with Sun getting off the island, and Jin...well, not. As long as I can still hold out hope that he survives on the island, and doesn't die.

-Kate looks completely out of character trying to be Suzy Homemaker. It's probably because I've grown to distrust her so much over the course of the show, but she just looks like someone who is always on the run (And given her flashbacks, they certainly seem to back that theory up), so the idea of her just hangin' at home with her kid is amusing to say the least. Jack trying to read a kid bedtime stories is almost as awkward, but not quite.

That's everything I can think of for now. Next week's episode looked bizarre. Was that guy they showed Ben's father? Or was it Jacob? Whoever it is, no wonder poor Hurley ends up in the nuthouse when he gets rescued.

  submitted on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 2:02:28 PM

It's nice to see that I'm not the only one who gets annoyed at the ghey ass poker advertising blogger posts. You wanna get paid to have that crap on your blog? Fine, go for it. I just think it's awful, and I'm with Astin, it just makes me want to avoid places like BetUS.

Static links and ads on your page are one thing, although I've discovered some bloggers have no concept of page layout whatsoever, and the result is something I would expect from a Myspace page, and just reminds me to stick to reading their posts in Google Reader. Any time I get offers for text ads on my site, I usually respond with some ridiculous fee, because I spent a lot of time on my site, and I'd rather not have some schmuck's advertising being a nuisance.

That's all, just wanted to rant for a second.

  submitted on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 1:37:43 PM

By 'later today' I meant 'tomorrow', of course.

So, LOST is finally back for another 5 episodes (Although I don't know how many hours that translates to because I heard the finale is something like 3 hours). Let's all do a happy dance!

They certainly kicked off the return with a bang, giving us one of the biggest, most significant episodes we've had in quite some time. I'm glad my other respected LOST buddies also appreciated the episode's importance. LOST has always been about more than just people stranded on an island trying to get off, that's been clear since the first episode. However, getting off the island has always been the overall primary purpose of the show. Until this season, that is. With the introduction of the flash forward concept, we now understand that there are survivors who get off the island, and there are others who do not. We are still learning bits and pieces of everyone's fate, but now that we know that there are in fact survivors who are rescued and taken off the island, that aspect of the show has really ceased to be its primary driver.

Benjamin Linus, and really, the island, have taken over the show. This is now what LOST is about. It's about the island, it's about Ben, and it's about Charles Widmore. It's Ben vs. Charles in a war over the island. The survivors are still present, and they still play a role in the story, but the focus is no longer on them. Will they ever get the focus back? I'm guessing not, but it's possible. Last week's episode really hammered home the point that this new path is what the show is going to be until its story is completed. The episode featured Ben, and we saw our second fast-forward involving Ben (We previously saw that Sayid was working for Ben in the future as some kind of hired gunman). The fast-forward opened many questions, but also served to provide us with some much needed exposition regarding the afore mentioned battle between Ben and Charles.

I really feel like this episode was the foundation for the rest of the show. Just something to keep in mind going forward.

-It appears that Mr. Keamy is, in fact, one bad dude. As we learned from Ben, the guy is a textbook mercenary, and appears to be a pretty good one at that. I've always referred to him as Test, because he reminds me a lot of ex-WWE wrestler Andrew "Test" Martin:



although I like Goat referring to him as a roided up Matthew Lillard:



We find out his team was responsible for offing Karl and Rousseau last week, not the Others as I had speculated, and then to really put him over the evil edge, he executes Ben's daughter right in front of Ben. That's some cold-blooded stuff right there. It looks like Keamy's not done yet, so it'll be interesting to see going forward just how much of a bad guy he turns out to be. All I know is that I hope Ben gets the opportunity to mess him up.

-Okay, I don't know what the LOST writers were going for during Sawyer's big heroic scene, but it ended up being completely hilarious. The endless stream of people coming out of the house to see what was going on, only to get shot in the chest, followed by Sawyer taking cover behind a fence post, reminiscent of Tom Arnold hiding behind a street light in True Lies (Which was meant to be a joke, by the way), and then saving Claire (Who did not die when her house exploded), all without getting nary a scratch on him. So...yeah. I know Ben said that the mercs wanted Sawyer to throw Ben out of the house, which is why he was still alive, but come on, I'm not buying it. Just an odd over-the-top action scene that seemed out of character for the show.

-Jack, tired of everyone lying to him (Because they figure if he's going to be an asshole either way, why tell the truth?), gets Dr. McCoy to help interpret some Morse code so that we can find out that Daniel Faraday isn't telling the truth (I know, I'm shocked too). Faraday lets us know that they were never there to rescue the survivors (Shocker #2). So we know why Keamy & Co. were recruited...still trying to figure out what the 4 weirdos are doing there.

-Enough about everyone else, let's talk about Ben. First, I hope everyone is okay with the idea that Ben's a good guy. As I said, this show has moved past the survivors, where Ben was a bad guy. It's now about the island, and in that story, Widmore is the bad guy, Linus is the good guy. Yes, Ben is creepy, deceptive, manipulative, and dangerous. He also cares about the integrity of the island, and will do whatever it takes to protect it, and that makes him the good guy.

-So, Ben can time travel. Neat. He also seems to be able to go to "arrive" at different places in the world. Again, going under the assumption that this theory is some semblance of the truth, it certainly seems feasible for Ben to be able to do these things. It would also explain the Dharma polar bar in the Tunisian Desert. Now, how he goes about doing these things remains to be seen, but the key thing right now is that he can. Also, depending on what his options are as far as traveling through time goes, it would certainly explain his seemingly endless wealth. It would also explain why a greedy millionaire like Charles Widmore might be so interested in Ben's island.

-Didn't take much to recruit Sayid, did it? I don't know how strongly I should feel about this, but my initial impressions are that Ben could have easily hired this guy to kill Sayid's wife, all so he could ultimately recruit Sayid to help him. What motivation does Widmore have to kill his wife? Anyways, nothing to base that on but speculation, just something that made sense to me.

-We get our first Ben vs. Charles showdown in the episode, which appears to be their first face-to-face meeting ever, and I doubt will be their last. Ben "can't" kill Charles for some reason, he mostly seems to be there to let him know that he's pissed about Keamy killing Alex, and he's going to kill Penny in a turn of sweet revenge. I thought the show did a great job of making you feel the magnitude of this scene. Reminds me of Carnivale (*tear*), when Ben and Brother Justin had their first (and sadly, only) encounter. It just 'felt' big. That's how this felt.

-Then of course there is the smoke monster. We discover that Ben has some ability to control the smoke monster, although we don't know to what extent. When he left to summon the monster, he definitely came back looking noticeably disheveled and dirtier, which is odd. So the smoke monster is still a big mystery, but at least we have been given our first clue as to its operation. Also makes sense why we haven't seen it for a while.

I think that's it for this week. Next week's preview looked beyond lame, with a big "Oh no Jack is sick and dying" teaser. I really hope that doesn't take up too much of the episode, because it really does look awful. Especially since I know there's no chance of him dying.

  submitted on Monday, April 28, 2008 at 12:15:40 PM

(EDITOR'S NOTE: LOST post is coming later today, not to worry)

My Internet, despite previous reports to the contrary, has been noticeably better as of late. It's still not perfect, but my disconnects are infrequent enough that I have been able to partake in the occasional poker playing.

Before my internet issues began, my bankroll had taken a pretty significant hit. Mostly due to poor cash play on my part, and it was also a low point for me from a variance perspective in a lot of the MTT/S&G tournaments I was playing. Once I ran into internet issues, me being blinded out of tournaments coupled with the tilted attitude I would frequently develop from my frustrations really dropped my bankroll to next-to-nothing.

Now that we are past that, I have an opportunity to sort of start over. It's frustrating from a money standpoint, because I would like to be making more money at the moment than I am, but at the same time, it's good for my patience level, and will ultimately result in me playing better. Something I was having some real issues with at the beginning of the year, mostly at the cash tables but really everywhere, was my lack of patience. I knew what I needed to do, but I didn't always exhibit the patience and control to execute properly.

So like I said, I'm starting over. I'm hitting the 25NL tables and keeping my S&G buy-ins to around $5 for the most part. I've actually had a strong desire to sit down at the cash games a lot and see what happens, which is definitely different from my normal MTT-first mindset. Part of this is probably because how ridiculous the play at 25NL is, but part of it is that my MTT-game right now is very rusty, and I need more of a bankroll before I'll really feel comfortable jumping head-on into it.

I've got a few goals to focus on at the moment. One is to get in a good number of hands at 25NL and maintain a high enough ptbb/100 that I feel confident enough about moving up to 50NL. I don't think this will be an issue, I just need to get the hands in, since I'm not enough of a degenerate to consider working all weekend and only fitting in about 7 hours to play poker a "small" amount. I would like to try and be more consistent about playing for about 60-90 minutes a day, not much, but enough to get in a couple hundred hands or so.

My other goal is to figure out how to play these damn turbo S&Gs. It drives me nuts to no end that I can do fine at regular S&Gs, but the Turbos just kick my ass constantly. I think I played about 8 or so of the $6 turbos for a profit of about -$8. A couple I was bounced from overplaying my hand, which is really something I need to do a better job with. I need to find the balance between being aggressive because of the structure of the tournament, and not overplaying my hand because I feel rushed. I think I'm getting to a better place to be able to handle these, but I'm going to keep at it and see if I can improve my results.

So that's kind of where I'm at right now; just hanging out in the low stakes area of Full Tilt, rebuilding my bankroll and getting back in touch with my game. Maybe after May is over and we've closed on our place and moved in and are all settled down I can really put some more focus on poker. Well, if I'm not still playing GTA IV all the time. Damn video games.