Office

Watching some more of the UK version of the Office. So funny, and so non-PC. I don't really watch the American version yet. I'm sure it's good, but I wanted to watch the original first. I'm guessing even with the same writers that it can't be as offensive due to our censors... a lot of the jokes just wouldn't fly in our country (at least on network tv).
After watching a few episodes of both the US one and the UK one, I have to say I prefer theirs. A lot of the same situations get adapted and I'm guessing that will continue throughout the season, but I think the UK one has a little more edge.
Anyway, quite excellent if you like the English brand of humor... it's just obnoxious. Not for everyone, but if you like witty, dry humor, check it out.

And ya, I may have turned into an Anglophile the last few years. IF I hadn't been a fan of Red Dwarf in the past, I might wonder if it's all a recent thing.

petrolhead... (eh?)

Over here we call them gearheads... in the UK it's a petrolhead. Either way: car. geek.

This is an interesting episode of Fifth Gear from BBC. This one guy owns both a McLaren F1 and a Ferrarri Enzo... which is just rediculous, as that's over $3Million US in two cars. Just the 6000-mile service on the McLaren will set you back 30,000 pounds...

Anyway, what excited me and the other car-geeks from the MINI boards is that sitting in his driveway with these two monsters is a BMW and yes... a MINI Cooper :)

Good taste there, mate.

new kid on the block

September 25, 2006. Welcome baby Lilah Marie Wyman. Mom, Dad, Big Bro and the newbie girl are all doing well. Congrats!

Got Shades?

This is pretty funny... I think I did occasionally read pvponline a while back when I played EQ, and so I followed the link on Mypetrock's page. I have to agree with the author that classic Ray Ban Aviators are well, classic. I think I have some of mine from circa 1990 laying around still. Now it's true that none of us look as cool as Sting in them... case in point--



but hey, that is the best band of all time, so I can live with that.

So, on the subject of Shades--I love my new shades. I had a semi-cheapie pair ($40 is a semi-cheapie pair in my opinion) from Eddie Bauer the last few years that I really liked, but I had the same old problem I've had my whole life with sunglasses. I don't wear my contacts most of the time, and choosing to have my "real" glasses on so I can see, or my shades so I can tone down the sunlight and look cool at the same time--well, that's not much of a choice. Particularly when I'm driving. You people with good vision just don't know how good you have it.

For the record, I have about 20/40 vision now, with a moderate astigmatism. I've worn glasses since I was in 4th grade, and with my ego I always kinda' considered that a tragedy. I look much cuter without the glasses! (oh so vain...but hey, no one reads my blog, so I can say what I want here.) Now, in junior high and high school I wore my contacts most of the time and yes it did help with the ladies. And you thought 'four-eyes' ostracism in school-kid culture was a myth didn't you? Nope, that stuff really happens. Luckily, most people grow out of such shallow judgments by the time they're 21. Anyway, to get back to the point -- I had worse vision until I was in my late 20s and then it got better, as unbelievable as that might sound to you if you don't know much about eyes. You probably know our eyesight can shift over time, but going from near-sighted to almost-far sighted is a bit of a weird pattern. One of my eyes is close to far-sighted now, if you don't factor in the astigmatism. What that means is I can basically drive fine during the day except that I have to get to within 100 feet of a road sign to read it, whereas you can see it from 200 feet. Not a major deal if your major concern while driving is 'Do not hit things!' instead of 'hey, what's that guy's license plate number?'

I digress, as usual. Point is, I had to get some new spectacles a few months ago, and with the 'buy one get one' deals that places run now, I treated myself to some nice prescription Oakley Teaspoons.

I almost went with some more conservative black wire-frames, but I figured I'd live a little, and like I said, I was an ugly duckling for way too many years, so I'm not shy anymore. And I love these shades! I would have preferred to get LASIK, yes, and ditch the whole need for prescription lenses, but oh well, that wasn't in the cards. The story on that: I was set to get it last year and sadly, one of the reasons my vision changed in my late 20s was my developing mild keratoconus, which affects about 1 in every 2000 people. Therefore, not a candidate for Lasik. Oh well, while it still annoys me that I can't just fix my eyes like most people with glasses can, the experience did scare me a bit by revealing that I could be much worse off. I'm pretty relieved that my KC is mild enough that it's correctable, and in the same line of thinking...there are a ton of worse things you can be diagnosed with. So as a result, I finally got around to getting some prescription shades, which I like very much. I still don't look as cool as Maverick though.

Do you wear shades? What's your look? Cheap-but-functional, or stylish and pricey? Over the top, trendy or high fashion? If you wear glasses normally and haven't ever gotten some Rx ones, try em out. Not cheap, so don't lose em, but I can tell you it is NICE to have the option when you want 'em.

web searches, Google, pageviews and musing

I was surfing around tonight...from the CNN list of top US billionaires, to the Wiki pages of Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page (both 33 and worth way more cash than you and I will ever be) and such. It's fascinating to read about entrepreneurs that have grabbed the world by the tail...you wonder if you had really applied yourself and studied the right area of computer science back in the 90s when the web was new... could that be you? Similarly, I've enjoyed reading the bios on guys like Jobs, Gates, Ellison, Wozniak... and even Mark Cuban over the years. I guess as I get older I am realizing I may never leave a huge mark on the human race like I once hoped, but I'm happy with my modest successes at life for now, and I'm not half done yet, so who knows.

Anyway, I read up on PageRank and that's one of those things like the explanation of gravity or newton's laws...you read it *now* and say 'well duh, that makes sense', but obviously figuring it out first takes the whole apple, research and patents process. Cool for them...I hated the way search engines behaved back in 1997 too. There are some bad ones now, but thumbs up for anyone who works on making them more intelligent.

Anyway, those pages are fascinating... there's some interesting stuff like the initial paper on the search engine Google here and some other good stuff. Then I was intrigued a bit more thinking of what a crap product by comparison something like Myspace is (ha, no hyperlink for them, editor's license), and in googling that, I found this interesting article stating how pageviews are obsolete. That's a pretty cool read.

Good moments of the day: driving to work, an interesting pair of meetings at work, driving home, hugging my wife when she got home, carrying my son up to bed after he fell asleep. Spoke to my aunt and uncle, who are really cool people. Pondering career future at work and not feeling too much pressure, just take it a day at a time. Went to store late with Cam so Dar could enjoy her Grey's Anatomy fix. Stood outside briefly and enjoyed a strong pre-storm wind on a cloudy moonlit night. Watched LOST episode S02E11.

Crummy moments: it was a good day, no real complaints. Poker was cancelled though. Boo. Cards blew a meaningless game, possibly hurting Carpenter's Cy Young chances. Not enough time with Dar. Insomnia returns this week.

Nice Hand, Sir

Okay, so I've never actually had a Royal Flush in poker when playing without wilds...until this last weekend.

Much like a hole-in-one in golf, or a 300 game in bowling I imagine...it's pretty damn cool to have something like that happen and for you to be the one doing it. I wasn't playing online or on the boat, and no serious money changed hands, but I am thankful that Doug didn't fold since I got to enjoy the hand longer that way. In fact since we were early into the game, he wasn't paying enough attention to realize the flush had hit and he reraised me all-in thinking we were splitting the pot with matching straights, so hey the $20 doesn't hurt either--it is a small bet in the games he plays at the boat and it's a nice pot for me and my small-stakes game.

I was dealt AsJs and raised the big blind, but at the same time I was thinking to myself.. 'Ace-Jack...a hand many people die on.' It's known to be not such a great hand for no-limit poker, but very nice in low-limit like we were playing (we play .30/.60 blinds, everyone buys in for $20).
The flop came Ks, Ts and something red, I forget what. I either bet and he called or I may have checked and called him. I'm not really excited about the chances at that point because it's still only 2 chances at 1 card in the deck, but hey a flush makes me money here most of the time, so that's good enough for me. Then the Qs hit...

My mind immediately forgot about what money I could earn on the hand and started thinking "O...kay... Wow. Now how can I make sure I get to show this hand, and not in that 'oh you folded, good move because I had' way."
Poker face wasn't an issue as I was ready to make the nut flush with any spade, and now with the nuts...(and I mean THE nuts.... usually you preface nuts with 'stone cold' or 'absolute' or something like that when your hand is better than a full house) well I was doing a good job of smiling on the inside at this point, but selling the concerned 'hmm, do you have it, or are we both still racing?' look that everyone in is expected to throw in this situation.

I did say 'I have to bet this hand' as I bet the turn, but people say that when they have a good draw, two pair, or even a set, so I figured it to be a nice smokescreen. Doug and I always tend to not believe each other (/salute) so I actually had a feeling he would call me even if he had just a pair. An ace hit the river and I bet, he raised, so I figured he had the lower flush then...reraise right back at you. He reraised ME then again...which made me wonder what the heck he had..had the board paired? I admit when you have a royal flush you reallly don't look very hard at the other cards...unlike about any other poker hand. We were not allowing 5-of-a-kinds tonight ya know? So I reraise again, and Sarah or someone said 'holy...' and then Doug says 'i'm all in' and sadly, the first thing I thought was not 'Ah Doug, I'm sorry,' no the first thing I thought was 'hey, that's $20, cool!' and then I thought, 'ah man, I'm sorry' and I felt a bit bad turning em over... Especially when we all realized at the same time that Doug hadn't noticed 3 spades on the board, so he had made a fatal misread. *I* have done that before when a flush hit too, so I know it happens. Sometimes you are just thinking of all the other potential hands and forget about the flush.

P.S. Doug was a good sport and could care less about the money because he's hit the same hand on the boat before with a poor dude making quads in front of him and a third maniac in front of both of them pushing all his chips. That pays pretty well no matter what limits you're playing, trust me.

AKQJT spades. Nice hand, sir.

And I tripled up for the night, so I did play okay when I wasn't being handed cards as well. Against that table, that's a good night too, there are no easy fish in that group.

My other funny hand that night was when I hadn't looked at my cards yet and I said, 'you I know I'm going to have to raise you because I have pocket rockets here.' Then I looked at them and yes, they were Aces... They held up too and I got called all the way down since you can't take anyone serious who lies like that then starts betting heavily. Better to be lucky than psychic.

p.s. The phrase in the title comes from a funny pokerism/t-shirt that goes, 'Nice Hand, Sir...and by hand I mean Catch, and by Sir I mean moron.'

film adaptations, part II

Hmmmm

Wolfgang Peterson. Original author helping with the story adaptation.
There may be hope.

updates

no blogging lately... too busy. wake, kids to school, work, kids back home, eat, sleep, lather rinse repeat. One year at Jones now. I like it a lot--we're both happy with each other.

So what is everyone else up to?

• Dan and Star bought a house and are engaged.
  
• Merl and Kristi are expecting!
  
• Mike and Sara are very expecting and may be parents any day now...or even right now since I didn't hear from him today.
  
• Adam, Lisa and Oliver and I went to the Rams game the other day...lots of fun. Lisa's sister and brother in law are Broncos fans and really enjoyed the Wilkins show.
  
• Haven't seen John and Chrissy since Alan's moving party..I hope they are well.
  
• Paul is apparently only playing WoW or poker now...we never see him. This actually helps my poker cash flow but I miss him.
  
• Missed Lynn's last party. Still bummed about it. Cameron thinks Lynn is the best. Whenever I say I'm going to see my friends, Cam says 'Is Lynn going to be there?' Did you know you had a fan club Lynn?
  
• Sarah Lynn and Paul - also expecting.
  
• Cam is going to be working on swim lessons next few weeks.
  
• Patrick is thinking of being cute for a living.
  
• Doug came to play poker with us a while back at Sarah's house but since then... where are you Doug?
  
• Amanda and Phil still don't know when or if going to England--that's the last update I heard.
  
• Adam and Jennifer--we're all working so haven't seen em enough. They totally should babysit more often though, because my kids love 'em.
  
• Owen turns 3 this weekend, so we should see most of the old crew there.
  
• I'm watching Lost Season 2 still. Oh wait, this isn't about me.
  
• Still haven't seen Sukanek's kid yet, but I'm sure he's awesome and learning to handle a puck right now. See you at the draft Steve!
  
• No update from Danny in almost a year now! I must email the boy and make him come visit.
  
• Ditto on Martin. His daughter's going to be 11 soon..how weird is that? Time flies.
  
• I want to go see Blue Man Group in October! Oh wait, that was about me again.
  
• Donna Mackay is coming in town next week, woohoo!
  
• Adam likes working at the new company, where Randy is as well. Long time no see the Randy.
  
• Speaking of long time no see... did Enrique get married? Where's he been?
  
• Man I need to have a party. It's the only way to get updates on all you slackers.
  
• Really want to get Center Ice this year. Ha, me again! Mmmm...hockeyyy...