submitted on Monday, June 30, 2008 at 3:06:33 PM

I normally try and keep this blog on the upbeat side, because I enjoy having fun more than I enjoy being somber and serious. But, I guess it's time for a serious post. (Actually, it's not really that serious, it just won't be frequently laced with my hysterical jokes)

My company decided earlier this year to restructure how our U.S. field offices were organized. It was set up so that all of our offices were split up into five different 'zones' around the country. So the structure changes basically involved going from five zones, to two 'territories', East and West. This is one of those shakeups that affects pretty much everyone, because there are many jobs in our different SBUs that are set up as zonal positions, not to mention the general structure of all of the SBUs has to change.

My department is a little unique in its setup, as there are only 15 or so of us out in the field, but since I've only been in my current position for about a year, I was at the bottom of the totem pole as far as seniority goes. Turns out they had to trim down on the number of jobs they had out in the field and in Home Office, which basically meant my position was being eliminated. I guess I had kept the possibility in the back of my head when I first heard about all of these changes, but at the same time, our Chicago office is one of the biggest offices in the field, so I thought I might be safe so that they could have a presence here. Considering the two other people they got rid of were in L.A. and Boston, clearly having a body in our big offices was not a priority.

So, that's the bad news, as I really enjoyed my job and felt there were a lot of things that I had wanted to do with the position that I never had time for. The good news is that I was able to secure another position in my company in a different department. One of the nice things about working in an office with hundreds of employees is that there is usually a few open positions available at any given time. I don't think my new job will be as challenging as my current job, but at the same time it's in a very different area from where I'm at now, and I will get to learn a lot about the underwriting side of the business. Plus, I think it will be nice to actually have a team of people in the office to work with again, instead of my job now which is very isolated.

As it's set up now, I'm scheduled to finish up my current job on Wednesday, and I move into my new position starting next Monday. It's disappointing to have to leave my current job, but on the bright side, it's good to have any kind of job at all considering how things are going these days, especially with our newly acquired mortgage to look after.

  submitted on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 12:12:06 PM

Okay, VH1's "I Love the 80s" was a brilliant idea. People love nostalgia, and so putting together a one-hour clip show on each year of the 1980s full of nothing but pop culture references is sure to be loved by all. And it was, it was a great series. Even doing "I Love the 80s Strikes Back" was fine, because there's no way for you to cover everything from the year in the course of an hour. "I Love the 70s" wasn't quite as cool of an idea, although a lot of that is me speaking as a 25-year old, I suppose it's entirely possible that some of the Gen-Xers and older got more out of it than I did. "I Love the 90s" was definitely a successful decade, so that worked, and so did "Part Deux".

However, VH1 just couldn't stop, and decided to overexpose the series. First was "I Love the 80s 3-D". Now, it's entirely possible that three hours may have been enough time to spend on a particular year, but watching some of the shows, the content definitely came across as pretty weak compared to what we saw in the first two incarnations. Then they came out with crap like "I Love the Holidays" and "I Love Toys" which were either just bad, or had a very hollow feel to them.

While we're on the subject, all the "I Love" series shows led to the creation of "Best Week Ever", which was a similarly formatted show to all of the "I Love" series, only it was a weekly show that discussed the latest goings on in pop culture. Good show at first, but definitely unable to maintain its momentum, and any time I watch it now, I feel like I'm watching Talk Soup, which makes me sad, because Talk Soup was a pretty funny show back when it was just John Henson by himself with the crew for the show serving as his audience as well. Now, it just sucks. That's kind of how "Best Week Ever" is.

But anyways, we're talking about the "I Love" series jumping the shark. It may have already occurred with the 80s 3-D, but if not, it definitely did this week. Because VH1 has decided to debut "I Love the New Millennium". So, what's the problem with this? I mean, they've done the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the 00s are the next decade up, right? Yes, I suppose that's true. Too bad the decade isn't over yet! So what's their solution? They've only produced shows for 2000 to 2007. Nice. Way to capitalize on the popularity of the series by completely screwing up the premise of it.

Honestly though, it's not even that part of the series that drives me nuts. I tried watching an episode last night, I think it was 2003. At the start of my post, I talked about why the series was successfull: nostalgia. For a lot of people watching "I Love the 80s/90s", it brings them back to another time, most likely when they were kids, or growing up. They can reflect fondly about that time in their lives. When I'm watching a show recapping 2003, it's not really doing it for me. Many things they talk about are still prominent today. For example:

-The O.C. - Okay, this isn't on TV anymore, but it was up until last year.
-Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - Okay, this movie was part of a trilogy, and the last part of the trilogy came out last year.
-Arnold Schwarzenegger - Yes, he became the Governator in 2003. Newsflash, still governor.
-Chappelle's Show - Only lasted from 2003 to 2006, but is still in heavy syndication.
-Michael Jackson accused of child molestation - Boy, good thing Michael Jackson jokes have really died down...
-Joe Millionaire - Okay, this show isn't around anymore, but why the hell are they bringing it up anyways? Considering how easy it is to put together a successful reality show these days, the fact that this show bombed in its second season probably means it isn't worth remembering.
-Paris Hilton's sextape - Again, good thing Paris Hilton being a slut isn't ever talked about in today's media so that we can reflect on the good ol' days.
-McGriddles - um, what? I love me a McGriddle, but I must have missed the part where they were ever a dominant part of pop culture. Not to mention, they're still a commonplace item on the breakfast menu at McDonalds.

Really, the only item that they talked about that should actually have been on the show was Saddam Hussein getting captured, since that was a moment in history that everyone can reflect on.

If there's no nostalgia feel to the show, then what's the point? That's what the show is there for, people aren't going to feel nostalgic about crap that happened a few years ago. You have to give a decade a few years to get settled and establish an identity before you start revisiting it and making people feel all warm and fuzzy.

The basic principle of the entire "I Love" series is completely missing in "I Love the New Millennium", and as a result, the series has officially jumped the shark. But considering how much the entertainment industry loves to run ideas into the ground until no one cares about them anymore, it was really only a matter of time before it happened with this show.

  submitted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 3:14:20 PM

I was taking a look at some of my recent website stats, and as always, one of the more entertaining sections is the 'Search Engine Referrers'. This is where you can see what kind of search engine queries people typed in to find my site, and then click on it, so I thought I would share some of them with you. I don't have any super bizarre entries, but some are amusing.

-"lying out your ass" will find a post written by me as the very first result, lol. It's actually a post where I discuss the prospects of someone playing 100NL poker online full-time asa job.

-"'playing draws' poker shoving" doesn't really have anything interesting as a result, aside from the fact that my site shows up just before Alan's, just to provide a little bit of evidence that I am, in fact, better than him.

-Probably my favorite, "bill simmons jackass" was a post I made after Bill Simmons decided to write this retarded piece comparing the 2007 New England Patriots to a championship Boston Celtics team...before the New England Patriots had even made it to the Super Bowl. Well, we know how well that turned out. Nice to see my post is the top result, although a little surprising, since it's not like the internet hating on Bill Simmons is anything new.

-"福留 孝介 jersey". Fukudome, whoot! I'm fairly surprised that this is the second result, since it's not like Kosuke Fukudome is the most obscure name ever.

Okay, those were just a few I wanted to share with you.

  submitted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 2:55:16 PM

I've been notified that some people are having problems leaving comments on here. I think I've got a solution worked out, so I'll have to sit down and change up some of my code and see what we can figure out.

  submitted on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 10:15:29 AM

I played the Mookie last night, first blogger tournament that I've played in quite a while. I don't have any specific hand histories to cover, because really it was a fairly mundane tournament for me. I didn't get much in the way of cards, but I also didn't get much in the way of opportunities, meaning I really didn't have many chances to play position at all. I think I 3-bet columbo once, and I stole from the button a couple times, but not much else other than that. So the result was me playing super tight, I think my flop percentage for the tournament was at about 8%.

First significant hand for me was actually a laydown. It was probably during the 40/80 or 50/100 level, I raised in MP/LP with JJ and had a player to my left jam for about 3,000 (I was a little below the starting stack, 2,700 or 2,800). The player had been fairly loose in his range, so I thought there was a good chance I was ahead. I tanked and ended up folding because it was still early on in the tournament. I think that's the right play there, because I only want to call if I'm fairly certain he's holding a mid-pocket pair, and honestly I wasn't totally sure. I think it's equally likely that he has AK/AQ, maybe QQ, probably not KK or AA though. I dunno, I just didn't think Jacks were very strong there.

I chipped up a bit when I got it all-in on the flop with Fuel, who was a short stack at the time. I raised in MP with 99, and the two blinds called (Fuel was in the SB with about 650 left). Flop was K-6-8, and Fuel checked, which really bothered me since he called the preflop raise for about 25-30% of his stack, then he just checks the flop. But, with a third person in the hand, and it checked around to me, I felt like I had to bet there. Fuel jammed, and I was already priced in to call, so he flipped over 6-8 for two pair. However, I think we hit runner runner fours to send Fuel home. Wheeeeeeeee!

Second big hand was when I had in MP and raised it up, only to get re-raised from the button. I raised up to 300, he re-raised to 1,000, which was a third of his stack, so he seemed to be pretty committed. I thought about it, and decided this was a good time to take a stand and pushed. He actually called pretty quickly, but only had AQo, which I think is a bad hand to play that hard. If I had been very loose with my preflop raises then I get the desire to play back, but I had been very tight. Anyways, my AK held up and I was up to around 6,000 in chips.

I pretty much stayed around that level for a while, although I did get up to 8,000 or so after re-stealing in the SB with A-x. This led to the next significant hand, I think blinds were at 150/300. CO+1 raises up to 900, I'm in the CO with JJ, so I re-raise up to 2700. I thought about pushing, but didn't. CO+1 flat calls, then jams the flop which comes down Q-A-Q. Pretty much a bad flop for me, but is there any way you call that jam here? I couldn't justify it, so I ended up folding and losing a third of my stack. That was a tough hand, as I went from a top 10 stack to down near the bottom of the pile. I ended up trying to re-steal in the SB with A-4, but I didn't have the fold equity that I was hoping for, and the button called with K-J. Flop was Q-10-x, turn was a J, and the river was an Ace to give him the straight, and IGH in 20th.

Tough way to go out, but as I said, didn't get much to work with, card-wise or position-wise, so my opportunities were limited. There were some sick hands last night, though, I forgot how brutal these things are sometimes. LJ had a hand where she got it in preflop with A8 against KK. Opponent flops a set, LJ pairs her A, turn is an 8, river is an A for the better full house. So crazy.

I felt like I saw too many people getting it all-in with TPTK. It's like, once people see that TP drop, they completely forget about how the rest of the hand played out, and they just can't fathom that they might not be ahead. I also saw someone call off over half their stack, then fold the river on what appears to be an obvious busted flush draw. Lots of -EV plays, with people not being careful enough with their stacks, and willing to give up large portions of their stacks with draws, or TP. Gotta be smarter than that.

It was nice to get back into the blonkaments, and I even got a couple bounties, which was nice, as I do not appear to be very conducive to picking up bounties in knockout tourneys for whatever reason.