Muttroxia

We found five comic book stores within a few blocks of each other. I particularly liked this one that specialized in Tintin. We got a Tintin notebook for one of the kids.

Here are the two facts that most surprised us:

• The bloodline of Louis XIV is still alive. We assumed they had all been killed off. Not so, there are many descendants. They are the equivalent of Americans descending from George Washington. It’s an interesting thing to know about someone, and that’s it.
• Storekeepers can only have sales at two times during the year.

The second was the more shocking of the two. We happened to be there during the spring sale (that’s the “soldes” sign from the last post). They simply can’t have a sale at any other times during the year, by law. That’s just crazy. How on earth can a shopkeeper compete? Maybe that’s why every store and every restaurant looked the same – they are legally constrained from differentiating themselves. (That’s just a theory. I would think that if your prices have to stay the same, the only way to get more business is to differentiate yourself in some other way, yet no one does. Culture or Law, I wonder which.)

That’s real socialism in action.

They sure make them big in France.

Allright, so Muttroxia is a little backed up! Our trip to France was 3 months ago, but we’re finally sorting things out now. Sadly, our journal, a work of art, so very literary and insightful and humorous and… well, it doesn’t matter because everything after page 4 got lost somehow. We’re pretty sure our daughter put them down the toilet.

We do have the photos though. For the next couple weeks, Muttroxia will feature photographs of odd little things that struck me as interesting. Allons-y!

One of the perils of suburbia is Mrs. Muttrox getting invitations to things like Bunco (some people think this is a game of skill) and even Tupperware parties. I can’t believe these things still exist. It feels like something from the Mad Men days. I imagine it is hard to sell the stuff. I mean, I can buy plastic bins at the supermarket, ya know? One clever parent combined the sales schtick with a get-to-know-you of our childs class.

This part of the invitation just killed me.

Dads and children are invited to play outside and enjoy the slip n slide while moms mingle and see the newest in reusable products.

I don’t know which is funnier: That Dads are seen as boisterous morons who will be delighted to be exiled to the slip n’ slide, or the prhase “newest in reusable products”.

(or at least the fairly well-to-do middle-class)

I missed a couple payments on my credit card. I called up and asked them to take off the late fees and interest charged. Sir, were there any special circumstances? No, I just don’t want those charges. OK sir, let me see what I can do. 2 minutes of silence, and then, “Thank you sir, those charges have been removed is there anything else I can do for you today?”

Why on earth does this work? Because I have been with them for 21 years, and I have a good credit score and enough money that they want to keep me as a customer. They think it’s worth refunding me that money to keep my business.

The crazy part is, I’m a terrible customer for them! I haven’t paid any fees to them for the last 15 years! Whenever they get me with something, I call them and they take it off. They don’t make a dime off of me. They just keep extending me short-term loans (that’s what credit is). Free money!

(As ad-libbed to the kids a few nights ago, when they demanded a made-up story.)

Once there were a people who lived in the deep deep South. They were called Mexicans. The Mexicans were good people. They worked hard. They liked the same things we do. The liked their families, they liked Rajon Rando, and they liked deep rugs and comfy blankets.

They had one big problem. They worked hard and because they worked hard they had money, but all the money was a kind of money called pesos. And nobody liked pesos. Pesos!? That’s not money!, the shopkeepers would say. Come back with dollars. Pesos – is that even a real word? So the Mexicans went hungry. They hadn’t had any food for years. They would turn to each other and say, “These are tough times, we’ll get through this somehow.” Of course they would say this in their own language, which is called Spanish, even though they weren’t from Spain. Don’t ask about that part.

One morning, a young lad (for there weren’t any other kinds of lads) had an idea. He had seen Joan Rivers on TV a few days ago (imagine one of the skeletons from Scooby Doo), remembered his Dad telling him about a superhero who could help them. He called for Letterman!

Letterman saw the problem. He took the pesos, and turned the “P” into a “T”, the “e” into an “A”, and the “s” into a “c”. The day was saved!

And that’s how tacos were invented. Now go to bed.

There is a new category in the Emmys, interactive media. The first winner is Star Wars Uncut. Check it out.

Star Wars was chopped up into 15-second segments. Then anyone who wanted to could film their own version of a 15-minute segment and send it back. Eventually, they ended up with the entire movie, redone. It’s incredibly entertaining. One segment will be serious, the next will be legos, the next will have children actors, the next will be animated, you never know what’s coming next.

You can also vote any particular version of a segment up or down. If there are enough votes, a segment will be switched out. Every time you watch the movie, it will be a little different.

How to do Facebook wrong.

A very pleasant walkway

Very sad picture

Girl quits her job on dry erase boards – fantastic HOPA resignation. It turned out to be a hoax, and you’ve probably seen it by now, but it’s still funny.

Scissors beats paper

You will never look at ducks the same way

What about Norway?

Matt LeBlanc auditions to be Matt LeBlanc

Slogan win

I don’t want directions

Heros essay

Nirvana’s viewpoint on lip-synching

A serious badass

A victim treats his mugger right

Understanding a PhD

Hello from my lighthouse

Squid attack!

Just a terrible terrible football play

Meanwhile in Australia

Chicken McNuggets rage

Spidercan makes me giggle

Jenny McCarthy bodycount

Yes another high school classmate of mine has a novel out (there are at least 4 other published authors from my class). I went to the web to figure out what it was. I found his website. And couldn’t log in. Yes, I had to log in. I am very confused by this. You’d think the first thing any author would have is a publicly available website with everything and everything about them and the book.

Anyhow, here’s the book.

My biggest flaw in poker is my inability to read people. I’m not an expert with the math and game theory, but I am more than strong enough for the level I play at. I’ve never been that kind of social person, I am not that great at reading cues from body language and tone. My nerd background focuses me on actions and content, it assumes people are doing their best to communicate the truth.

Playing poker without reading people well is playing with a serious handicap. I have been playing with the same group of people for three years or so, and I don’t even try to read at least half of them, because I just can’t.

Last night was worse though. Last night I had good reads, but I didn’t trust myself.

Hand One: From the small blind, I min-raise with A-3. Three of us go to the flop, which is A-A-x. I suspect that the big blind also has an ace with a bigger kicker. Sure enough, he raises. And I can’t let go of my trip Aces. I just can’t. I manage to convince myself that he’s bluffing. Eventually he turns over A-8 and I have lost half my stack on that one hand. Ugh.

Hand Two: A conservative player raises pre-flop. I call with A-J. The flop is Q-8-5 or something. He raises again. I don’t believe him. Even with his tight playing style and two raises, I think he has nothing. Or at least not very much. I call. On the turn he goes all-in. I still don’t believe he has a Queen or a monster hand. But with nothing made in my own hand, I grudgingly fold. He turns over 7-2. (We had a 7-2 bounty.) Nyarrgghh, I almost never have a read on him, and when I did I didn’t believe myself.

Hand None: There is one player I have a strong tell on. When he has the nuts (e.g. he has Q-J, and Q-Q-J comes out) he does the same thing every time. I discovered the tell two years ago, and I haven’t been able to utilize it. Just by chance it hasn’t come up in the last two years, he’s never had a monster hand against me. That’s annoying. And even if I did get to use it, it’s not very cool to just fold. It’s much more interesting to have a tell that let’s you know when he’s bluffing.

In summary, it’s taken me three years to get a few partial reads on a few people, and I don’t trust myself to use them. Not good!