Posted by Johnnymac 11:45 AM
So Mrs Johnnymac and I went to see Borat on Friday night and I must say that both of us didn't particularly care for the movie. I don't want to say that I was disappointed, but I was. And it's not that I don't like Sacha Baron Cohen - for the most part I love Ali G (especially bits like the Veteran/Veterinarian on the farm) and Borat on TV - but the movie just seemed really lacking and in the end I was underwhelmed. I think there are two reasons for this: 1.) the backstory was clunky and really took away from the humor of the too-brief candid segments and 2.) all of the gags mostly ended up as opportunities for crude bathroom humor and were much less sophisticated and cerebral than the jokes on TV.

The Borat character is meant to be a parody of an Eastern European weirdo, but the joke itself is satire of everyday American life - you don't go to a matchmaker and say you want to find a nice woman with big boobs for "sexy time", nor do you go door-to-door with a candidate for Congress and compare him to Stalin and laugh at women having the right to vote. That's satire and the premise of Borat makes it work on TV. But the movie is mostly about Borat the parody, in fact, it's more like a parody of the parody, and the whole thing falls flat, because Borat himself isn't funny. What's funny is what he does.

Yes, there were funny parts in the movie: the interview with the feminists was good, the driving instructor was quite funny, and the scene with Borat being terrified the tottering elderly jewish couple was a great idea, but Borat as a fictional character in a gross-out movie was decidedly different and harder to laugh at than Borat as a premise for acting silly and getting people to react. Most of the movie just felt like a contrived excuse for scatalogical jokes and attempts to shock and anger people. Why did everything have to revolve around bodily functions and naked penises? That's not witty, that's lazy.

So I will disagree with Mark and say it's not worth the money. My advice is to wait for it to come on HBO and then Tivo the movie and fast forward to the funny parts, which when you think about it, is what the Ali G show already does, right?


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Posted by Dr Fro 9:22 AM

Oh, Canada!

I got back from Vancouver yesterday. I was there for a week but only managed to play poker one night. We were too busy drinking working.

We found out that the nearby Edgewater Casino only had 4 poker tables, all of which spread 4-8 limit poker. So we took some cheap (that is, cheap when split 4-ways) cabs to the River Rock Casino in Richmond. Since we got there at 9ish, the place was packed. I put my name on just about every list. The place was huge. Just a guess, but there must have been 50 poker tables there. With that many tables, I figured the wait wouldn't be long, and I was right.

Just in case you didn't already believe that all gambling is highly politicized, I need to tell you about the sign on the wall at RRC. It read:

Alcoholic beverages are sold at prices meant to discourage overconsumption while gambling.

I thought the the whole point was to overconsume?

I had one drink and paid $7 for it. Being cheap, I decided this was maybe a good thing that the drinks were pricey. Maybe my lack of drinking would lend itself to profits.

My name was first called for the $3-$6 NL game (or, in US$, the $2.64-$5.28 NL game), and that is where I stayed all night. I sat down at a table with 8 Asians and one other gringo. It felt a lot like Dallas and Houston. There were some very aggressive players, including one guy (we will call him "Nigel" although I seriously doubt he or anyone in his family is named "Nigel"). Nigel ran $100 (maybe it was $200) into $1,700 in 2 hours. He once called all-in with K9. Even if you have never met Nigel, I know you know the type.

So when I get AK and raise to $20 preflop and Nigel raises to $60, I figured it was a no-brainer to go all-in. Against another player, I won't do this because the odds are that the player either has AA/KK which dominates me or a lower pair against which I am 50/50. I have nothing to gain by going all in (in fact, I have a half-written post on this subject that I intend to publish someday...the problem is that I keep changing my mind on a few points. Specifically, the value of getting KK to fold to an all-in raise has me hung up - how many people would ever fold KK to an all-in bet? Maybe ARH would. Maybe JohnnyMac would. Maybe. ) Where was I? Yes, I had AK and went all-in, thinking that it was reasonably possible that Nigel would call me with something like AQ. Nigel had JJ. All was not lost, it was a coin toss, which is what I figured my worst case scenario was. I lost.

And so the evening went. I didn't have any other devastating hands. I mainly paid to see the flop and folded when the flop came all night. I once hit a flush and lost to a boat, but surprisingly limited my losses to not very much. But mainly, I just lost on the flop all night.

I don't know exactly how much I lost for the night becuase I didn't pay much attention, but some back of the envelope calculations, including estimates for other things purchased with my Canadian dollars told me that I must have lost around $450. Oh well, at least I got a $7 Jameson out of it.

Of my mates, only KTL and AD won anything, both of which did it at the $1-$2 table. AD must have been happy to play poker. He lives in Luanda, Angola, which is not known to be a Mecca of poker. I was told the players were even looser there than at my table.

If you ever make it to British Columbia, I suggest you check out the River Rock. The place is nice and clean. They spread every imaginable game. The players are very loose, and the staff are very nice. Two thumbs up.

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Posted by Johnnymac 11:08 PM
I don't know why these didn't get posted yesterday, but here they are, after the fact:

RUTGERS +6.5 vs Louisville
Wisconsin -2 at IOWA
TEXAS A&M +1 vs Nebraska
INDIANA +19 vs Michigan
Wake Forest +8.5 at FLORIDA STATE


Kansas City PK at MIAMI
INDIANPOLIS -12 vs Buffalo
New Orleans +4.5 at PITTSBURGH
Chicago +1 at GIANTS
Baltimore -7 at TENNESSEE


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Posted by Junelli 10:26 AM
Next in our exploration of the poker wisdom of Paula Abdul, we take a look at her advice on playing draws as conveyed in the song “Straight Up”.

Straight Up

Lost in a dream
Don’t know which way to go
If you are all that you seem
Then baby I’m movin’ way too slow

One of the more obvious problems when playing a made straight is knowing when to drop the hammer on your opponent. Here Paula is somewhat lost in a hand. She can’t tell if her opponent has made his hand yet. If he has, then she’s playing to slow and needs to ram and jam it to get some more money into the pot.

I’ve been a fool before
Wouldn’t like to get my love caught
In the slammin’ door
How about some information–please

Yes, haven’t we all? How many times have we all strung an opponent along on a flopped straight only to have them boat up or make a runner, runner flush? Paula is raising here in order to get some information about the strength of her opponent’s hand.

::Chorus::LyricsCafe.com::
Straight up now tell me
Do you really want to love me forever oh oh oh
Or am I caught in a hit and run

Straight up now tell me
Is it gonna be you and me together oh oh oh
Are you just having fun

Ahhh, that moment after you’ve popped your opponent for a raise on the turn and they Hollywood it making you wonder if you sprung your trap too early. Here she’s worried that her opponent didn’t have an ace and might fold (”Are you just having fun”). Of course, what she wants here is a call or a re-raise which will commit her opponent to call everything to the river (”Do you really want to love me forever oh oh oh”).

Time’s standing still
Waiting for some small clue
I keep getting chills
When I think your love is true

Even top pros like Paula can get nervous waiting for their opponents to act and she’s saying that being nervous is okay. Obviously her opponent is taking way too long to make a decision which means he’s probably on a marginal hand. She’s looking for a tell that will indicate to her what his move will be but she’s pretty sure he’s got a good enough hand to call here.

I’ve been a fool before
Wouldn’t like to get my love caught
In the slammin’ door
How about some information–please

Again, she wants some information.

::Chorus::LyricsCafe.com::
Straight up now tell me
Do you really want to love me forever oh oh oh
Or am I caught in a hit and run
Straight up now tell me
Is it gonna be you and me together oh oh oh
Are you just having fun

This is a little repetative, agreed, but she must have felt it very important for her readers to grasp so pay attention here.

You are so hard to read
You play hide and seek
With your true intentions
If you’re only playing games
I’ll just have to say–bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

Wow, her opponent must really be solid because she can’t get any sort of read on him. Obviously, now she’s a little worried that if the board pairs or the river puts another flush card on the board she might have to fold.

Do do you love me
Do do you love me
Do do you love me
Do do you love me ?

*I lost the link to the website where I got this. It is not an original work...


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Posted by Johnnymac 7:32 AM
Couple of things this morning:

1.) Remember this picture of the bathroom (scroll down)? Well, now that the contractors have been at the house for three days straight, half of my house looks like that. Luckily, I'm not doing hardly any of the work this time, although I am going to cable the whole house with coax and Cat5 while the walls are open. We can't go back now, but the ultimate goal of having a very nice kitchen and master suite in a few months is a nice reward. These guys did one heck of a quick job at gutting the house and stripping up the terrazzo tile so quickly. I wish I had honed my Spanish before I did that bathroom last year because that is obviously the secret to high quality demolition.

2.) I played in another free energy trader poker tournament last night at the Armadillo. Going in, in addition to not overeating on the appetizers and not getting too drunk, I resolved top play a little more aggressively at the start in order to either be done early or avoid being crippled two hours later. So I pissed away half of my 6000T stack in the first four hands on draws and middle pairs, and then was eliminated 15 minutes into the tourney by a coworker's loose call when his three outer K9 beat my AK. Oh well.

So I sat there and drank a few more beers and smoked a cigar and finally relaxed for the first time in what seemed like weeks, you know, with the baby on the way and a ripped up house and having to live with my inlaws for 2 more months... But I felt good, and when Mrs Johnnymac was mad at me for smelling like smoke even when I got home 90 minutes earlier than expected, I didn't even care.

3.) I'll post football picks this afternoon or tomorrow, but just to be on record, I am taking RUTGERS +6.5 tonight. In fact, I think Rutgers wins this game outright, and then loses to West Virginia three weeks from now and ends all this crazy Big East BCS Championship talk, but that's a little beyond the scope of picking against the spread right now, isn't it?


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Posted by Junelli 10:38 AM
This just in....Doogie Howser is gay.

Also, if you haven't seen Borat yet, run don't walk. It is a full frontal assault on everything that is common and decent, yet you cannot stop laughing. The entire theater was rolling from the opening credits until the end of the movie.

One warning however, don't go if you're easily offended. He takes shots at just about everyone.




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Posted by Johnnymac 9:22 AM
Time for one of my rare political postings... it will be short.

I am not commenting on the morality of doing meth. I am not commenting on the morality of paying a man for gay sex. I don't agree with either of those things, obviously, but that's not my point. Nor am I making a comment on the hypocrcy of preaching against those things and then doing them.

No, my point is this: if you are a male pastor of a huge congregation and someone accuses you of paying him for sex and doing meth right before said sex, you can either deny it all unequivocally or you can admit to everything, whether you actually did it or not.... and if someone has a voice recording of you in the act, and you admit that it is indeed your voice on the tape and that you do indeed know this male prostitute who is accusing you of these things, you might as well own up to it and move on and forget about things ever getting back to normal... You're fucked, OK?

BUT... you're NOT fooling ANYONE if you admit to buying the meth but then say you never used it... and that you got a massage from said male prostitute but never actually had sex. You are not fooling anyone and it just makes you look like an even bigger fool and hypocrite, OK?


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Posted by Johnnymac 1:51 PM
College (1-4 last week; 15-18-2 season):

WISCONSIN - 7 vs Penn State
North Carolina +24.5 at NOTRE DAME
UCLA +17 at CALIFORNIA
TEXAS A&M +3 vs Oklahoma
Virgina Tech -2.5 at MIAMI

UPDATE: 5-0 Baby!



Pro (4-1 last week; 17-16-2 season):

Kansas City +2 at ST LOUIS
Dallas -3 at WASHINGTON
BALTIMORE -3 vs Cincinnati
DETROIT +5 vs Atlanta
Denver +3 at PITTSBURGH

UPDATE: 4-1, with the wild ending of the Cowboys ending not making a difference either way...

Not a bad gambling weekend: I made actual wagers on WISC, UNC, UCLA, KC (x2), BAL (x2), and DEN and hit all 8 bets.


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Posted by Junelli 10:52 AM
Bruno v Alabama



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Posted by Junelli 4:21 PM
Borat in South

Is anybody as excitied as I am about this movie??


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