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Where The Spotlight Is

August 30, 2005 By Leave a Comment

No, its not a new book by Shel Silverstein.

Faithful readers of this blog know of my distaste for anything Al Sharpton (see Tony’s Spelling Bee) so imagine how un-surprised I was when I heard The Rev announce he was going to make a trip down to Crawford, Texas in support of Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war demonstration.

Does this guy EVER miss a chance to get into the spotlight? What exactly is his motivation, anyway? We all know he will run for president (and lose) again in the next election – surely he must know that too. So why fly out to every possible publicity opportunity? Doesn’t he remember what happened to Jesse Jackson – he became a joke.

To add even more insult to his Pubclity Whoreness, the Rev even led police on a nine-minute 110 mile-per-hour car chase through Texas trying to get back to his plane leaving for New York.

I just wish he would disappear. Maybe Pat Robertson can help out with that. But seriously, The Rev needs to pick and choose his battles carefully rather than rushing off to every social issue/cause hoping to get his 30 seconds of sount bites. Otherwise, his message (if he really has one) is completely lost.

Filed Under: Blog

PokerStars Sunday Night

August 28, 2005 By 1 Comment

Seems as though the natives are getting restless over at WIl Wheaton’s blog, admonishing him for his daily entries dealing with his latest poker exploits. Meanwhile my luck at PokerStars.com was ok, and at the time of this writing was going REALLY well.

During current Hold’em session you were dealt 11 hands and saw flop:
– 1 out of 1 times while in big blind (100%)
– 1 out of 1 times while in small blind (100%)
– 5 out of 9 times in other positions (55%)
– a total of 7 out of 11 (63%)
Pots won at showdown – 4 of 4 (100%)
Pots won without showdown – 1

Started tonight with $26, and now at about $39 in half an hour. Definitely better. I need to keep an eye on the pots won at showdown and keep that percentage up.

UPDATE…

Take a look at this hand…

PokerStars Game #2446468475: Hold’em Limit ($0.25/$0.50) – 2005/08/28 – 21:33:35 (ET)
Table ‘Deimos III’ Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: dy/dx ($12.65 in chips)
Seat 2: CladdaghMan ($8.50 in chips)
Seat 3: oxford44 ($3.90 in chips)
Seat 4: jenniscool ($13.30 in chips)
Seat 5: Marusha ($12.25 in chips)
Seat 6: meepforme ($14.10 in chips)
Seat 7: lowes48fan ($7.30 in chips)
Seat 8: SlowBeat ($4.75 in chips)
Seat 9: wwdnposse ($39.10 in chips)
Seat 10: jhall014 ($13.30 in chips)
jenniscool: posts small blind $0.10
Marusha: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to wwdnposse [9d Jd]
meepforme: folds
lowes48fan: folds
SlowBeat: folds
wwdnposse: calls $0.25
jhall014: calls $0.25
dy/dx: folds
CladdaghMan: folds
oxford44: raises $0.25 to $0.50
jenniscool: calls $0.40
Marusha: folds
wwdnposse: calls $0.25
jhall014: calls $0.25
*** FLOP *** [8h 7h Ah]
jenniscool: bets $0.25
wwdnposse: calls $0.25
jhall014: folds
oxford44: raises $0.25 to $0.50
jenniscool: calls $0.25
wwdnposse: calls $0.25
*** TURN *** [8h 7h Ah] [7c]
jenniscool: bets $0.50
wwdnposse: calls $0.50
oxford44: raises $0.50 to $1
jenniscool: calls $0.50
wwdnposse: calls $0.50
*** RIVER *** [8h 7h Ah 7c] [Tc]
jenniscool: bets $0.50
wwdnposse: calls $0.50
oxford44: raises $0.50 to $1
jenniscool: calls $0.50
wwdnposse: calls $0.50
*** SHOW DOWN ***
oxford44: shows [Ac 8c] (two pair, Aces and Eights)
jenniscool: mucks hand
wwdnposse: shows [9d Jd] (a straight, Seven to Jack)
wwdnposse collected $9.50 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $9.75 | Rake $0.25
Board [8h 7h Ah 7c Tc]
Seat 1: dy/dx folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 2: CladdaghMan folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: oxford44 (button) showed [Ac 8c] and lost with two pair, Aces and Eights
Seat 4: jenniscool (small blind) mucked [Kc As]
Seat 5: Marusha (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: meepforme folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: lowes48fan folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: SlowBeat folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 9: wwdnposse showed [9d Jd] and won ($9.50) with a straight, Seven to Jack
Seat 10: jhall014 folded on the Flop

Nothing like winning a straight on the river, eh?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Dick Van Patten Goes to the Dogs

August 26, 2005 By 1 Comment

vanpatten.jpgI grew up watching Dick Van Patten on “Eight is Enough” and so when I moved to Los Angeles and started working with young actors and actresses, I snagged a copy of his book at the store and read it fairly quickly. While a critical review of his book is not really the place here, I found it rather disappointing, since the book’s photos and examples related to his own experiences as a child actor and really were not relevant to what young performers are going through today.

Naturally when I heard his name on Good Morning America today I was intrigued and sat down to see what he was up to. Well, he is up to no good in my opinion.

We have all heard the horror stories of over-zealous parents at youth sports activities, and I saw it firsthand at the Iowa Games this summer. However, Mr. Patten has taken this to an extreme high by sponsoring a 9-year-old baseball team in Thousand Oaks, California.

Not only is Mr. Patten buying sponsoring the team with his new “Natural Balance” pet food company, but he has gone overboard in terms of outfitting the team. According to an article in the LA Daily News, Patten has bought not one but two sets of uniforms for the team (home vs visitors I guess) and has also purchased over $10,000 in pitching machines, fly ball machines and other contraptions designed to help the youngsters win more games. He also hired a professional baseball coach to coach the team to victory.

Today on Good Morning America, Patten exclaimed that baseball is “a war” and he is helping the “men” be the best they can be.

A war? Men? These are 9-year-old boys Mr. Patten.

Patten should know, both from his own experience as a young actor, and from his book, that youth in sports have some of the same concerns as those in the entertainment industry – the requirement to perform. The kids seem to love it because they are learning more, but is this teaching kids the right thing – that money buys success? One of the parents on the Pony league team is none other than Lenny Dykstra (former Mets star who happens to have a kick-ass car wash in my former home of Simi Valley).

Its a shame that Mr. Patten is using these boys as publicity for his pet food company, and is obviously enjoying all the media attention he is getting. His attitude in the interviews I have seen are disgusting – he loves it.

Some of us, though, Mr. Patten are NOT amused. And I certainly will not be purchasing any product you recommend.

Filed Under: Kids in the Biz, Writing

New Book Project

August 21, 2005 By 3 Comments

In my neverending quest to have zero free-time, I have started work on a new book project. While I don’t want to entirely divulge the contents of said manuscript, I will say it is something I have wanted to do since 1995 or 1996, and that it will be a dream given form.

No publisher as of yet, so for now I am just doing it to do it.

Look for periodic updates here on the blog.

Troy

Filed Under: Blog

Tried a Couple Things, Still No Dice

August 19, 2005 By 1 Comment

I tried every variation of trying to restore the old blog database to no avail. I tried installing different versions, along with trying to install th newer betas and nightly builds. And the version you see right now is running off of mySQL isntead of the DBI (yep, tried that too) still nothing.

It just doesn’t like me.

So, I will probably keep this beta version of MT for now, and upgrade to 3.2 final when it is available. Then I will wait for WordPress to make the next MT importer and try switching over to that. All in all Im happy with MT, just their constant changing of the DB schema is enough to drive anybody crazy.

Filed Under: Blog