Kento was the big winner last night in our first monthly poker tournament.
It was quite fun, we made a few mistakes here and there, and a few people bet big early to get out more than anything, but I think it’s safe to say a good time was had by all.
Liquor flowed freely, food was consumed, and money exchanged hands. How can it get any better! 🙂
I’ll do a recap of how I did later. For now, all the photo’s from Fri. night are here on my Flickr site.
Know When to Hold ‘Em, Know When to Fold ‘Em, as the great Kenny Rogers sang once.
Tonight starts our first, of monthly, poker tournaments with our little clique of friends. 8 guys, 2 of which whom know how to play Texas Hold ‘Em are gathering together.
Lots of chats and figuring out the rules have taken place. We’ve each been assigned what to bring (food, licquor, beer, snacks, etc).
I’ll grab my camera and see if I can’t add some pics when all is said & done.
Should be a good time.
John Hughes’ seminal teenage movie, The Breakfast Club, turns 20 next month. I stumbled across an article on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel discussing the film’s anniversary. It briefly covers the movie, and also 5 things you might not know, 5 things that would be different, and 5 reasons why it’s still relevant.
The Breakfast Club still remains my favorite John Hughes movie, but Pretty in Pink has to be a close second. The Breakfast Club introduced us to the actors that become the Brat Pack in the late 80’s, and the view on high school it had in 1985 isn’t too different even 20 years later.
The EFF has launched a new campaign: Endangered Gizmos. As Big Media threatens innovation, reverse engineering, and freedom of invention, the EFF has put up a list of Extinct technology (/wave Replay, DVD-X-Copy), Endangered (HDTV Tuners, Open WiFi hotspots, MP3 players), and products that have been Saved in the court system (from the Betamax which begat VHS which begat DVD to printer cartridges).
Each product carries a link to more information, whether it’s the HDTV Broadcast Flag, information on the court cases that have saved innovation, or the history of the product itself.
This is why the EFF matters. It’s not just the court cases they wage every day, it’s the education they provide, like this, that everyone can understand, not just technophiles.
Go Go EFF!
My corporate firewall / proxy server defeated me at work today. I was unable to stream the Windows Media stream for 89.3, KCMP The Current. So tomorrow, I shall go old school, and bring an old radio / small boombox. Take that corporate IT managers!
The Current publishes their playlist for the last 6 hours, here’s a sample (in reverse order) of what I heard on the way home from work today:
The Jayhawks – I’d Run Away
Shivaree – I Close My Eyes
Iron & Wine – Teeth In The Grass
Pinetop Perkins – Meanest Woman
The Black Keys – Girl Is On My Mind
A.C. Newman – Miracle Drug
R.E.M. – Driver 8
T Rex – Mambo Sun
Fountains of Wayne – Radiation Vibe
They had a Beach Boys song in there too, that there website doesn’t list for whatever reason.
Looking through today’s playlist is absolutely amazing – Ani DiFranco (32 Flavors!), Dylan, Soul Coughing, a bunch of REM, Luna, deep cuts from Liz Phair, Luna, Muddy Waters and Sonic Youth. I could go on. This is everything I expected and more. I can’t communicate how happy and excited I am.
This is music. This is radio. This is freedom.
I’ve been meaning to blog this all weekend, but I got distracted.
MPR has re-launched their website, replacing just the blog, including bios of the on-air talent, a feedback form, a FAQ, and donation information.
Speaking of donating, in the age of XM, Sirius, and Napster, when you can pay $10-$15 month for hundreds of stations, why donate? Because 89.3 is public radio, a community service, and is unlike and other radio station out there. Where DJ’s control the playlists, not big media (yes, even XM has a significant Clear Channel stake), and 89.3 will also have a heavy local focus for Minnesota artists. I did my part, and put my money where my mouth is.
They will be streaming live, including Windows Media Player (more ick), and aacPlus, a fairly new MPEG-4 audio stream that supposedly has excellent quality at low bandwidth. The open source VLC project has a player available for Windows, Mac, and Linux that will stream aacPlus. I’ll be installing that this morning!.
Give it a try, and listen in.
I recently blogged about Alias’ current reboot, and as I try and get caught up on my TiVo, I finally watched the two hour premier of 24.
Talk about how to reboot a show in two totally different ways. I’ve already complained about Alias and my inability to suspend my imagination about the reboot. 24 handled it the opposite – in less than 5 minutes they explained the changes in Jack’s life, made it believable, and then the action just grabbed you and didn’t let go for two hours. Sure, Jack becoming a temporary field agent stretches the imagination a bit, but no where near how Sydney’s working for Sloan again does.
I was very impressed with 24’s season premiere, and couldn’t stop watching. Where with Alias, I watched it, but I was just waiting for the next thing to happen.
The 3rd season of 24 might have been the weakest in some regards, but it was also better with how they kept the plot moving, 3 major plot shifts instead of 2 at the twelve hour mark, (which helps people watching for continuity’s sake). The 4th kicked off with a bang, and hasn’t let go yet.
I’ll continue to watch both shows, but for very different reasons.
As seen on Slashdot, TiVo is in the news today, starting with a New York Times article (Registration required or visit Bugmenot that paints a bleak future for the company. With TiVo’s CEO promoted out of his job due to failing to close the Comcast deal, many talking heads on the ‘netare pointing to failed negotiation as sealing TiVo’s doom. According to these news reports, TiVo was offered less than one dollar a month from Comcast to license the TiVo technology in Comacst set top boxes. This offer was less than what DirecTV was currently paying, but Comcast has twice as many subscribers – almost 40 million. And it was no secret that with Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of DirecTV that DirecTV was looking at other PVR ideas than TiVO, which has since been announced.
My thoughts? I believe TiVo is the greatest device invented in the last 20 years, eclipsing DVD, CD, and MP3 players (sorry folks, the internet has been around a lot longer than 20 years). TiVo has changed the way I live my life and watch TV. The functionality and features are second to none, including the old Replay I own or any other PVR or Media Center PC I’ve seen. TiVo’s Season Pass functionality to record a show on any channel, by new, repeat or any and all, ranking of what shows to record when, quality, I could go on forever. I would hate to see this company go under, but they just haven’t struck the deals necessary to keep going. By building their own box, and getting away from relationships with Sony and Philips, limited functionality with the TiVo basic service in DVD recorders, and the DirecTV deal slipping away from them, the writing looks to be on the wall.
And this doesn’t even touch on what the Broadcast Flag going live on July 1st could do to their functionality moving forward. Sure, existing devices will be grandfathered in, but will Big Media try and hamstring them after July 1st? Things like the Strangeberry acquisition and TiVo2Go (burning your shows from your TiVo to your PC and sharing them) are steps in the right direction, but is it too little to late?
I know in the future as I move to finish my basement, I have a goal of building a Home Theater PC that will run MythTV, a Linux PVR solution that layers on top of an existing Linux installation. MythTV is in active developement, and with the inclusion of a Linux HDTV card on the market, I will have similar functionality to record DirecTV programming (except their HD signals) and off air HD. MythTV will allow me to save my television shows on one box, and stream to any other Linux PC in my home, say, my den, as I’m gaming. From there, I can easily edit and burn to DVD to archive shows or save on DVD if my HD starts to get full. It also has a series of modules so I can check the weather on my TV, stream my music from the HTPC or my server, rip and back up DVDs or CDs, the list goes on.
I love my TiVo, but I may have to plan for a day they are no longer around.
Good football weekend. After the disappointing Wild Card weekend, the top 4 seeds in both conferences advanced this weekend to the Conference Championships.
How must Doug Brien of the Jets be feeling this weekend? To win in overtime in the Wild Card, to missing two in the Divisional game versus the best team in football? The Jets kept pace all game, with Big Ben having one of his worst performances of the year. To doink the crossbar, and then wide left, Brien must be kicking himself (pun intended).
I didn’t expect the Falcons to manhandle the Rams as much as they did. I’m not a big Vick believer, but his escapability in the pocket was amazing. To think Donatell got canned in Green Bay and had such success in Atlanta. Sure, the head coach is a former defensive coordinator as well, but based on Green Bay’s performance this year defensively, I have a hard time blaming the defensive coordinator.
The Eagles game wasn’t a surprise at all, that game went as expected. The Pats – Colts game on the other hand was. I was hoping the Pats would win, and with the field conditions I held out hope. But to utterly dominate the Colts high powered offense with the injuries the Pats have on defense, was quite a surprise. Dillon ran hard, and three of the Pats scoring drives (FG, TD, TD) each averaged 8 minute drives. When you can keep Manning off the field like that, you’ll win.
Two more weekends of football, and then the long dark time until late summer.
