WWdN: In Exile

the perfect plan

I've been a baseball fan my entire life. I've been known to keep score at games, carry the binoculars, listen to the radio, and manage the game from the stands. I've been known to play fantasy baseball (and win my league all the time, because it's all about using math to get solid players in trades for over valued marquee players) and I've been known to drop everything when a friend says, "Hey, I have an extra ticket to the game tonight, can you be ready to leave in twenty minutes?"

However, my love affair with baseball has diminished over the last decade.

I guess the steroid abuse, the strike, and Scott Boras have driven me away from baseball as much as the increased responsibilities which have made my free time more valuable and limited. I still care about the game, though, and I still watch games a few times a month (down from a record high of several times a week, keeping score and referring to the Baseball Prospectus between innings).

I know a lot of other once-faithful fans who are as disillusioned with baseball as I am, but I have this great idea (which has nothing at all to do with me being a Dodger fan, I swear, really,) to restore our faith in the game: for the rest of the season, whenever Barry* comes to the plate, every single team in Major League Baseball pitches around him, regardless of the game situation. When he is finally forced out of the game for being a lying sack of shit and a cheater, Hank Aaron's record finally falls to someone with class who earned the title.

It's the perfect plan. Bulletproof, really. [mustache twirl]

yet another sniglet

A typo just gave me another new sniglet:

Celebrage: What Los Angeles and Detroit sports fans do after their team wins a championship game.

I will now take the extraordinarily pretentious step of releasing this new Sniglet, which could also earn me millions of dollars and buy me a mansion and a yacht, under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License, with a badge and everything.



Sweet.

and now your occasional WWdN poker tourney reminder

It occurs to me that I haven't mentioned my weekly WWdN poker tournaments at PokerStars in quite some time.

So I'm going to do that right now (no worries, this isn't a big old pokerfest entry, and I'm doing fine on my deadline: current word count is 679 out of about 1200 or so, and I'm actually enjoying what this week's column is about, so panic has given way to excitement and a touch of anxiety. Thanks for your concern, though.)

Every Tuesday night, I host an eleven dollar No Limit Hold'Em poker tournament at Poker Stars (where I'm on Team PokerStars, much to the chagrin of players who frequently tell me "u suck. y r u on da team? lol." Yeah. Awesome.) We average about 60 entrants each week from places as exotic as Germany and Santa Barbara, and typically pay out the final table. It's a lot of fun, with varying levels of competition (though it's a much tougher game than the average $10 +1 online tourney) and one of the most friendly and enjoyable groups of people you'll ever find in an online game.

To find the game, log on to PokerStars and click the Tourney tab in the lobby. Once you're there, click the Private tab, and sort by name to find the WWdN Invitational. The password is always monkey and the buy-in is always $11 +1. We always start at 8:30 Eastern time. If you knock me out of the tourney, you get the next week's tourney named after you.

A few weeks ago, I started adding a 2nd chance tournament with a later starting time for people on the West Coast, with a twist: the buy-in is only $5 +.50, and we play a different game every week. If you knock me out of this one, you not only get the next week's game named after you, but you also get to choose the game we play. So far, I've final tabled and bubbled all but one of them. Just like the other tourney, it's in the private tab, and called WWdN: 2nd chance funtimes. The password is also monkey, and the start time is 10:30 Eastern. I think we're playing pot-limit omaha this week, which is one of my favorite games.

Incidentally, I've just discovered that you can play poker in Suomi. I, for one, welcome our new Finnish poker overlords.

the not so super bowl

Though I really enjoy (and used to play) ice hockey, and enjoy soccer and baseball tremendously, I'm not a huge sports fan. I don't really live or die when teams win or lose, and until recently, I couldn't stand football.

That all changed when I got HDTV. I can't quantify why, but football went from something I just didn't understand to something I felt excited to watch and really enjoyed. Unless someone is playing against the Cowboys, I don't really have a team to cheer for, so I prefer close, hard-fought, exciting games. Games in extreme conditions, especially snow and ice, are also highly regarded.

For this year's superbowl, I didn't really have an emotional investment in either team. Yeah, I get the Payton Manning thing, and who of my generation doesn't remember the Superbowl Shuffle, but I was just hoping for a close, hard-fought, exciting game.

Also, because it was the superbowl, I was hoping for some entertaining commercials, as well.

Man, was I disappointed on all counts. I find turnovers and fumbles to be the opposite of exciting (unless they're made by the Cowboys, in which case they are the equivalent of finding twenty dollars in my pants after they've been washed) and though the game was close until the half, it was pretty clear to me, in my entirely uninformed opinion, that the Colts were just a better all-around team.

But let's talk about the commercials, which media seems to make a really big deal out of hyping up every year: what a pile of crap they were!

I can think of three four* that made any impression on me at all:

1. Rock, Paper, Scissors. Very funny.
2. The Garmin one with the Japanese monster movie theme. Very clever.
3. The Snickers thing. I didn't see that coming, and it made me laugh.
4. KFed. I hate to admit it, but I laughed very hard at this one.

(Incidentally, I wonder what sort of deal SAG has worked out for these commercials being featured and replayed online? One of the big concerns actors have with commercials is getting over exposed by one popular spot and losing work on other spots as a result of it, so those actors in very successful commercials typically get good residuals to make up for the new work they're not getting; I wonder how SAG has addressed this with regard to online reuse? When I negotiated for SAG, the producers were real shitcocks about online stuff.)

Around the end of the third quarter, I observed that I really missed the dot com era, when creative people had stupid amounts of money to spend on creatively risky commercials that didn't care if they offended anyone, or were just too silly or outlandish. You know what I wanted to see? Edgy commercials, and instead I saw commercials that were boring, bland, "safe" and predictable. Why do advertising executives think talking animals and computer graphics are clever? The "user generated" commercials seemed as uncreative as the "ad agency generated" ones, which really disappointed me.

I'm happy for Peyton Manning; he seems like one of those guys who always gets nominated and never wins, but I didn't enjoy the game as much as I enjoyed some of the playoff games.

So all you football fans out there: what did you think? And are any of you going to watch the Pro Bowl? That seems like the most useless all-star kind of game in professional sports to me.

* I missed the Robert Goulet spot, but just saw it at YouTube. I really liked it, because it's that absurd kind of silliness that appeals to me, but do the damn kids today know who Robert Goulet is? And this doesn't get included in the list, because I was so bored by the whole thing by the time this spot aired, I'd walked away from the TV for some reason. Probably to walk away from the TV.

motivation

When I was younger, I was in fantastic shape. I played hockey three nights a week on average, plus a game on the weekends. I walked everywhere I could, just because. I ate well, I stretched . . . in other words, I did everything I could to take good care of myself.

Then I got older, got busier, and slowly but steadily allowed my once-perfect system of exercise to break down.

Though broken by occasional events like a 5K, marathon or 3 day walk, I admit and acknowledge (with no small amount of disgust and disappointment) that I am stuck in a go-nowhere pattern of rolling out of bed, working all day, sitting with my family at night, and going to sleep so I can start the whole thing over again the next day.

I recently saw some film of myself from about two weeks ago, where I'm sitting weird in a chair, and holy shit do I look like a fat bitch. I only weigh about 155, which is good and average for my height and body type, but the way I was sitting pushed what little tubby gut I have up over my belt, and made me look about thirty pounds heavier than I am. Yeah, goodtimes. Good times. "Hey, he's not smuggling hams, he's just a big fat kid!"

Anyway, this is all to introduce today's xkcd, which may just give me the motivation I need to use the chin-up bar that my wife keeps threatening to take down, clean up my diet (which is already significantly better than the average American diet, but could stand a reduction in coffee and beer) and get out to walk -- and maybe even run -- more.

Why is it that these great ideas always come up right around the beginning of Winter, instead of the middle of Spring when, you know, it would actually be nice to get outside every day? I mean, here in Los Angeles, it can get all the way down to 55 degrees -- during the day, no less -- and sometimes, it's even cloudy! It's madness. Pure madness.

by the numbers

I just got an e-mail from the Rock-N-Roll Marathon. Check out these numbers:

The 2006 edition of the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon brought over 22,000 registered participants to the starting line. Of this group over 4,000 participants ran for charity, raising $12.5 million (net) for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through Team In Training. This equates to an astounding $109.6 million (net) total over the past 9 years. Congrats TNT, and big thank you to all rock 'n' rollers who contributed to Make Cures Happen.

Remember when I wrote that anything you donated, even if it was just a couple of dollars, would pool together and add up to something significant? Well, there it is. We all helped do this together, and that rules.

I'm going to be very busy this summer with World Series of Poker stuff, but I'm already working out the logistics of doing another event in winter with Team in Training, either the Santa Barbara Half Marathon in November, or PF Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon in January.

dropped to the sun alone

Anne and Ryan were out on Friday, which left Nolan and me to goof off at home when I got back from working on Legion of Super Heroes.

We had big plans: some Magic: The Gathering, a little Brawl, and maybe some OGRE and heads-up poker.

But when I got home, the goddamn pine tree in the front yard dropped a huge ball of pollen down on my car, and I spent the next four hours on the couch sneezing and trying to fight off the allergy-induced headache that felt like it was going to split my head in twain. Good times. Good times.

Nolan ended up playing Diablo II while I watched the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles pwn the Los Angeles Angels of Not Los Angeles Because We Play In Orange County But Our Idiot Owner Wants To Have Los Angeles In Our Name Because He's A Moron.

For those of you who missed the sixth inning massacre, the final board was:

LAD - 16 25 1
LAANLABWPOCBOIOWHLAIOWBHAM: 3 10 2

Of course, the Dodgers did their best to blow their fifteen run lead, by letting Carter come in and give up three hits and a run, and though I normally don't like games that are total blowouts, watching the Dodgers on the winning side of it for a change, and especially at the expense of the stupid Angels who swept us last year, was awesome. I should also add that the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles shutout the Los Angeles Because We Play In Orange County But Our Idiot Owner Wants To Have Los Angeles In Our Name Because He's A Moron to complete the sweep, and move up to 1/2 a game out of first in what is probably the weakest division this side of 7 year-olds playing little league.

Speaking of the Dodgers, yesterday, my dad took me to Chavez Ravine for some LAD vs LAANLABWPOCBOIOWHLAIOWBHAM action, and it was awesome. There are pictures in my buzznet blog, including a shot of Tommy Lasorda, who is the closest to royalty you'll see at Dodger Stadium, who got a standing ovation from our entire section when he walked from his seat to wherever it is you go when you're Tommy Fucking Lasorda and you rule.

Anyway, back to Friday: After the only team on the field worthy of having Los Angeles in their name blew the game wide open, I picked up my bag of comics from Free Comic Book Day, and finally had a look at the books I picked up. Most of them were a solid "meh," but that's the whole point of FCBD: to see new stuff that may not excite everyone, but introduce new readers to new material. If you're a guy like me who is already pretty narrow in tastes, it's unlikely you're going to find much that excites you. However, there were a few things that I really liked that I'll pick up next time I'm at my friendly local comics shop:

• Shadowhawk, from Image
• Dead at 17, from Viper
• Superman/Batman from DC

The Bongo freebie was also funny (and funnier than the average episode of the Simpsons these days, which is not meant as a backhanded complement) and the Fantagraphics Funnybook was fantastic.

Around ten, my antihistamines finally started to work, and my headache began to subside as it was overtaken by drowsiness. I fell asleep watching Dark City, which is still a hell of a lot of fun to watch, whether you've got a head filled with antihistamines or not.

Today, Anne and I opened up a new front in the War on Shit All Over Our House and Yard (Operation Enduring Yardwork) and pruned the hell out of a tree in the front yard, as well as tearing out all the weeds that had attempted to establish a beachhead in one of our front yard planters. Rain threatened all day today, but never arrived, which was great, because the combination of breeze and humidity provided just the right level of comfort for fighting the forces of Bermuda grass and their allies the tree-looking things that spring up all over the goddamn place. In a fit of planning ahead, I did my best Sean Penn imitation and snorted a whole bunch of Flonase (relax, I have a prescription) before I started the work today, and I was able to work for about five hours before simple exhaustion overcame me (rather than the sneezing and allergy-related misery I experienced Friday night.)

After all my yard work was done, I decided to take a break and play a little poker at PokerStars, so I hopped into a 4-player heads-up sit-n-go (I was inspired after watching the Heads-up Championship on NBC this morning.) I really like those matches, because most of the players at the lower buy-ins are very straightforward (so you know your pair of kings is no good when they bet into you on an A-high board) and you only have to beat two players to win three buy-ins, instead of 8 players in a regular sit-n-go. At one point, my first round opponent had me down to just a few big blinds, but I got insanely lucky and bounced back, tilting him in the process and taking it down. My second round opponent had the classic online tell: he'd check the "check/fold" box when he was in the BB if he didn't like his hand, so I'd call and if he insta-checked, I knew I could bet no matter what on the flop and get him to fold. I rode the right combination of luck and trusting my reads to victory, turning my mighty five dollar buy-in into twenty dollars when I flopped TP and a flush draw with AT and got him to call me with KT when my flush missed.

Okay, now it's time to go watch The Simpsons, in the lame hope that it manges to be funny this week.

Uh, okay, the whole opening bit with the attacking couches? Brilliant. Even if the rest of the show veers off into that weird Jesusland they've been hitting so frequently this season, that was worth the price of admission.

Wait. The baseball bit? Very funny. This "homer is the relationship counselor" bit? The polar opposite of funny. Are they hiring old 1970s sit-com writers? This is like a rejected Three's Company script. Give me another monorail, please. Please, I beg you.

quasi-live blogging wednesday's dodger bullpen meltdown

I was supposed to take Nolan to the Dodger game on Wednesday, but he opted to stay home and work on a history project, because he wants to get the best grade possible. "There will be a lot of Dodger games this year," he said on Tuesday, "but if I blow it on this project, I don't get a second chance. I'm sorry we can't go together."

Longtime readers of my blog know how that made me feel, and I'm still proud of him, three days later.

Since I already bought our tickets, I called my brother Jeremy and asked him if he'd like to go in Nolan's place. He accepted, and we had an absolute blast at the game, even though the Dodger bullpen is painfully bad this year.

I blogged it, live-to-Molskine, and transcribed the whole thing at blogging.la:

7:47 PM - Navarro is up with the bases empty. I say to Jeremy, "You know, not only can Navarro not make the throw to second, he can't hit, either." The words are barely out of my mouth when Navarro slams the second pitch about 380' for a solo homer. Jeremy says, "Yes! Get angry at my brother, Navarro! Who's up next? You also suck!"

7:50 PM - The kid in front of us to our left has a chocolate malt with a wooden spoon-shaped thing. I guess the plastic spoon was just user error. Whew.

7:55 PM - Seo has a really great curveball.

7:58 PM - Piazza breaks up the no-hitter with a double to the wall in center-right. Whatever. He's still totally gay (not that there's anything wrong with that.) Jeremy blames me because I pointed out that Seo had a no-hitter through four.

8:01 PM - Middle of the 4th, and they're doing that Coca Cola answer a question and win a coke thing down on the field. The guy gets it right, and a really hot girl walks off the field with him. I say, "Hey, she thinks she's getting his coke, and doesn't even know it's soda!" Jeremy says, "Yeah, she's toatally a Coke whore." We think we're the funniest guys in the world. High-five.

8:06 PM - Kent is up with runners at the corners. I say to Jeremy, "You know, the problem with Kent is that he's really on the downside of his career. Not only does he stuggle to turn two, he can't come through in the clutch with runners at the corners." I look down at the field and say, "Your move, Mister Kent." Unfortunately, my Navarro-fu doesn't work and Kent is out.

the los angeles flatheads

Two tickets from TicketBastard: $52

Parking: $10

Four Dodger Dogs, two sodas: $27

Crushing heads with my stepson: Priceless

Watching the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles blow a one-run lead in the 8th to lose to the Cubs: Sadly predictable.