Links o’ Interest

God covers Beyonce

This movie stars brands. Try it.

Upside down celebrities

Stay classy Canada

Financial Planning

Pirate vs Legal movies.

Found in a 1st graders backpack

Wes Anderson directs Spiderman

Babies with laser eyes.

Ouroborus.

The real America. Sadly.

Supercut of mirror scares

Traffic girls from North Korea are hypnotic

Redundant Clock

A letter from 14-year old Slash, apologizing for talking about his guitar so much.

School uses spycams installed in take-home laptops to monitor students. At home. Unreal.

Antarctica is bleeding.

Understanding the Bush years and Desert Storm.

Networking passive aggressive notes

UPS Update

Bad timing

A brief history of pretty much everything

6 crazy coincidences

It happened

After hours at the airport

Understanding the derivatives market. I’m sure there’s a logic hole somewhere, but I can’t find it.


Atheist 1, Women preacher 0

Americas top 50 franchises

The man who escaped into Auschwitz.

On Catholics and torture. Worth reading in full.

Roger Ebert’s Last Words. And his remembrance of Gene Siskel.

Lighting a cigarette from the Olympic torch – that’s an arrest.

The science of touch.

Triumph of the Cyborg Musician

How Google works.

The Who at the Super Bowl

If I were a 20-something who was seeing the Who for the first time, my main reaction would be “Their drummer is pretty good. The singers good for an old guy. I don’t get the guitar player, is he a singer also?”

They needed more practice. They needed it because of all the changes they made to their signature songs, amending them for time. Almost all of the transistions were shaky. These were the worst parts. Invariably, someone in the band was a little unsure if the switch was happening. Pete was often cutting out at these points. When he was playing it was not with his usual confidence.

Whenever they did happen to play 30 seconds or more of a song with no edits, it was great. They looked like a fantastic band. These are the parts I’m going to reply tonight before hitting delete. But just then a chorus would get skipped, Pete wasn’t sure if they were supposed to go to the break so he’d a big sustain note to cover it… sloppy work. And his voice was just horrible. What was going on there?

They did say afterwards that they couldn’t see anything, and it appeared they were having trouble hearing.

These days they say about themselves, “We’re not The Who. But we’re the best damn Who cover band in the world!” Unfortunately last night, they weren’t even that.

Update: Just listened to a second time. I upgrade it to a B-.

Links o’ Interest

The first Calvin & Hobbes interview in 21 years. Boring, but still.

How a corporation became a person: An overzealous court reporter.

Gravity sucks

Unclear on how a dollar store works.

An interactive visual look at bipartisanship in the Senate.

Scale. No, forget that. Here’s scale a hundred times better. Truly mindblowing.
Charlie Brown at 35

Saints, Colts Hoping To Resolve Super Bowl Through Diplomacy

Even though I disagree with the message, this is a very clever ad.

Westboro Church meets it’s match. (If you don’t know who they are, google it. The most despicable human beings on Earth.)

Frog fail

125 rare photos of famous people.

Drunk guy comics

Man saved on frozen sea by webcam spotter

Winter 2010 Olympic Hotties. Here’s my favorite.
hottie

Links o’ Interest

Must.. buy.. groceries…

Baby platypuses. Platypi?

The final frontier

Learn about blue whales

Boy calls police to surrender his pacifiers.

Press this in dire situations.

Alzheimers

The origin of evil

What to do if I’m murdered

Why did Sauron attack Middle-Earth? Self-defense against Gondorian aggression!

They’re going to expect more of you

1. Go to google.com. 2. Type “where is Chuck Norris”. 3. Press “I’m feeling lucky”. 4. You are welcome.

How a stray mouseclick cost a bank $150K and chocked the NYSE. Adventures in poor user interface.

The MacGyver multi-tool

Lunch notes from my wife

Cooper Manning, the other Manning brother

Before they were too big to fail.

Using the zero-rupee note to fight corruption in India. When psychology meets corruption.

Links o’ Interest

Dear sailors

The gathering

Priorities

5 Insane Fan Theories that make the movie better

The fake freeway sign that made the roads better

Reddit’s comment of the year

Jesus makes things so hard

Whoa…

Dirty Harry has a problem

Maybe it’s just a phase

Fun with Mormons

The dungeonmaster of the rings

This poor guy – and so funny

Printers are from hell

That’s how it happened, street life

Drumming up business

Fantastic law firm ad

What? You were the Joker, right?

The 4 myths of profile pictures

The band OKGo explains why they can’t allow their YouTube videos to be embedded on any other sites

Google’s new approach to China

He calmly announced his own murder, and almost brought down the president of Guatemala. Then it got weird.

Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster: The downfall of John Edwards

Poker Update: Even More Whining

Wow. That was a fun night, fun people, but boy o boy, the poker is just ridiculous. Plenty of good starting hands, plenty of good flops, and yet I was eliminated in 35 minutes flat. It went so fast I didn’t have time to pay for my Coke, I had to track down a waitress on the way out.

The first hand, A-10. I raise it. The flop is K-Q-x. I raise again on a semi-bluff and I’m called. I raise again on the turn and I’m called. I check the river, he turns over pocket queens.

The third hand I have A-10 suited. Again I raise. The flop is 6-8-J and there are two hearts. I raise again. Still two callers. The turn is a 4. The river is a 5. No hearts. There is a raise. She’s got the 7 for the straight, I can tell. I fold. Yes, she had Q-7. So did the other person. Both fo them stayed in for 3 raises and hit inside straights.

The fifth hand I have to fold my pocket sixes to big raises after a flop with two overcards with 3 players in the hand.

I am now short stacked. I have A-9. I raise preflop and get one caller. The flop is A-8-5. I got all in with my last 300. I am so excited that I knock over my Coke when I’m pushing my chips in. Soda all over the place, but mostly on me. Son of a gun. He calls with pocket 9s, and I double up, though I’m still short-stacked.

(They are supposed to give me bonus chips for ordering something, even if it’s only a Coke. Where’s that lady with the bonus chips, I need them!)

The next hand there are three limpers, and I look down at pocket Aces from the big blind. Yes!! I raise it up to 150, they all stay in. The flop is K-x-x. I slowplay it with a check. I figure one of these three will have a King and raise it. Yep, she puts another 150 in. I go all in, another 520. The first raiser thinks about it. She has a big stack and what the heck, she calls. The second player has no idea what’s going on and randomly throws her chips in. The first player turns over K-Q (yes!), the second player K-6 (yes!). All I have to do is avoid queens and 6s. I am roughly a 75% favorite. The river is a 6. The clueless dumbo wins. Talk about being Hellmuth’d! I have no beef with the first player. Top pair and a queen kicker, of course you call. But the second player had top pair with a weak kicker and two all-in players in front of her. She should have folded, she didn’t, and she tripled up.

At least the second player didn’t have quite enough to cover me, so I have 220 left. Blinds are now at 20-40. I’m in the small blind on the next hand. With two limpers I look down at A-Q. I go all-in. I get knocked out.

I mean, c’mon! This just ain’t right. That’s six hands with good cards. Only two of them connected (you would expect about 50% to), and of those two, one was a monsterous bad beat with pocket aces to a know-nothing. Geez, I just can’t win this year.

Poker Update: A Fine Whine

That was the most frustratingly unlucky night of poker I’ve ever had. I didn’t whine at all about my lack of cards in the neighborhood Tournament of Champions, but I am now.

Is it possible to go three hours without connecting on one flop? Oh yes it is. Every hand I played, every single bloody hand I played, not one time did I hit the flop. Not only that. I had pocket 8s twice and pocket 9s twice. Every single time I raised pre-flop. Every single time I was called, often by multiple players, and every single time an Ace came on the flop, and every time someone else put in a big bet and I had to fold. It was the kind of night were two players go all-in, so I fold my K-J, and the flop is K-J-x. It was that kind of night.

Here’s really the kind of night it was: Time was running out for rebuys. With a small stack I knew I was going in. I would either double-up to a moderate stack, or rebuy for a moderate stack. But I couldn’t even get playable cards. In two orbits around the table I never saw a card higher than an eight. But what’s this? With time for two hands left, I get a Q! I go all-in and I am knocked out. Hey, that’s okay. That’s fine. I get my new batch of chips and sit down for the last hand before rebuys are over. Two players limp in. I look down at pocket kings. Holy cow, real cards! I go all-in. The guy to my left says what the hell and calls me. He has J-2. I like this guy, I really do. He’s completely unpredictable, impossible to read, and generally a lot of fun. Why did he call? Either as a pure what-the-hell, or he didn’t realize I had just rebought and figured I was going in with anything. At any rate, I have pocket kings vs J-2, so I have an 5:1 edge. The board gets 3,4,5,6, his six high straight knocks me out.

It’s a miracle I lasted as long as I did. I’m pretty sure the only hands I won the whole night were from raising pre-flop and stealing the blinds.

Oh yeah, and I was paying a babysitter to watch the kids the whole time. Ugh!