Posted by Dr Fro 9:03 AM

City of Houston
population 2.2 million

I was in Houston for about 24 hours earlier this week. Up in Dallas, I was pretty plugged into the Ike news given all the fam and friends I have there, but I didn't really appreciate the devastation until I saw it firsthand. The most noticeable thing is the trees. That is, the trees that were uprooted and are now chopped into pieces and sitting on the curb. Throughout my parents' neighborhood, there were piles and piles of branches, trunks, etc. curb-to-curb waiting to be picked up.

The second most obvious damage is to the traffic lights. By my count, about 1/2 of all lights I went through were not working. The ones that blinked red were safe enough, but you had to watch out for the intersections where the lights were completely missing.

One site the struck me (and I saw it more than once) was when a series of extention cords stretched across the street to share electricity with those without.

I loved reading and listening to the stories about Mayor White cussing out the workers from Georgia and Governor Perry's miscalculation in trying to use that to his political advantage (note to Perry, when people are out of electricity and water, they aren't amused by partisan politics).

On a a non-weather related note, I very much enjoyed listening to the radio in Houston. In Dallas, you have the Ticket, which rarely discusses sports and 103.3 whose local shows only talk about the Cowboys (you would think that there was no MLB hunt for October going on). In Houston, not only do they talk about sports, they talk a lot of college football. I loved it. When they weren't talking cfb, they were talking MLB. (Boy are they are still mad at Bud Selig!)

Another thing I always look forward to in Houston is the Mexican food. Dallas is too close to Oklahoma to know anything about good Mexican food. To be fair, there are good Mexican restaurants in Dallas. The problem is that there are also a lot of terrible ones (ones that would go out of business quickly in Houston) that are very popular. I think the quality of TexMex is a function of the distance from the border, so you get this pecking order for good TexMex: San Antonio, then Houston, then Dallas. Houston beats out Austin not due to distance from Mexico but because Austin is basically a melting pot of Texans. That is, Austin has too many transplants from places like Dallas, so it offers a mix of good and mediocre and bad TexMex. If anybody from Dallas disagrees with this assessment, it can only be out of ignorance. I'll take said ignoramus to Irma's or perhaps Lupi's and if they haven't changed their mind, then there is no hope that they ever will. If a Houstonian doesn't know how bad TexMex sucks in Dallas, I'll take you to Mi Cocina. (btw, shortly after Mi Cocina opened up in Houston, it went out of business. Hmm.)

Dallas does have Houston beat in several areas: traffic, overall asthetics, mass transit, proximity to legal gambling (!) and professional sports teams. Houston has Dallas beat beyond TexMex in areas such as: downtown baseball, downtown in general, international diversity and restaurants in general. Dallas chicks are hotter, Houston chicks are cooler. I'll take Beyonce over Jessica Simpson, but I'll take Ron Kirk over Tom Delay. White Rock versus Memorial? White Rock in a close one. Oil versus real estate? Hey, there's a reason JR was an oil man and not a developer. I-10 or I-35? Do I have to pick? OK, I-35 is better. Ft Worth or Galveston as a neighbor? I'll take the beach. Lakewood or The Heights? Lakewood. In fact, Houston has no answer to east Dallas. Lance and John or the Hard Line? Well if you think sports radio should be about sports, then Lance and John win. Texans versus Cowboys? Cmon, the Texans suck ass. Rangers or Astros? The Rangers couldn't spell "October" if you spotted them O, C and T.

I consider the two cities to be a push, all things considered, so this isn't about that (I always have to make that qualification because any conversation that touches on comparing the two cities is always met with major sensitivity at the thought that one might think that one city is better than the other.)

I do like Houston quite a bit, even if everyone else here in Dallas does not.

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Posted by Johnnymac 8:16 AM
Mrs Johnnymac and I saw Burn After Reading last night and I thought it was fantastic. If you like Coen Brothers movies and/or dark comedies, you'll like this one quite a bit. And although it takes a while for the plot to get going, it's very good once it does and I was still laughing when we pulled into the driveway 30 minutes later.


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Posted by Johnnymac 7:32 AM
And now, two weeks later, I finally get to watch football at my house:

See the third photo in this post, for background.


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Posted by Johnnymac 7:09 AM
I can think of at least two off the top of my head that rank higher in terms of great "catches" (Tyrone Prothro and David Tyree) and not just feats of athleticism, but this is still pretty darn nice:




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Posted by Junelli 2:10 PM
Classic...




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Posted by Dr Fro 8:58 PM

After the Absolute Poker scandal and rumors about its sister, Ultimate Bet, there is now an actual court case against Ultimate Bet. Now that the case is not being tried in the court of public opinion, it will be interesting to see where it goes.

I like how the article keeps mentioning an anonymous poker pro that may own a share of UB, points out that Phil Hellmuth may own a share of UB and puts a picture of Hellmuth on the article, but the article never says that he might be the very pro they keep mentioning.

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Posted by Dr Fro 9:16 AM
Some of my favorite Gameday signs from this past Saturday:

- Beaux Kneauxs

- Perriloux for Heisman

- Chaz Ramsey chop blocked my other sign.
(if you don't get it, read this)


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Posted by Johnnymac 1:52 PM
I am not going to steal someone else's picture, but follow this link to get a view of the Chase Tower. Good Lord.


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Posted by Johnnymac 1:19 PM
I am not going to write a long bitchy post on this subject, but let me just say that having lived through this, I am sick of hearing about "price gouging" from politicians and media types who don't know shit about economics or what the true function of prices are in a free market. The price of something is not just some arbitrary number that a business owner puts on a sticker on a carton of milk, and if you think it is, you are just plain ignorant.

In fact, to get really academic here, you may think that the "price" of gasoline is still around $4.00 a gallon, right?

Wrong.

Your time is worth something, too, so all the law did was actually make the price less transparent - and muddle the economy even more - by changing a monetary cost into a non-monetary one. You're still paying the same "price" for that gallon of gasoline, but now the supplier isn't getting rewarded for his effort to get you gasoline and he has less incentive to get more gasoline into the area. In essence, the law that is meant to "protect" consumers has just made things worse because now the value of your time in line is being wasted and is a deadweight loss on society.

Way to go Big Government!


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Posted by Johnnymac 11:30 AM
Greetings from West Houston. We have moved back in with Mrs Johnnymac's parents for a few days while the power is out at our house. They got their power and cable and internet back yesterday out here, so we're actually doing pretty well compared to some of the people down south.

Our house flooded a little bit when the gutters were ripped from the house and water backed up into the weepholes. It was only about a half inch and it all drained pretty rapidly when the storm was over, but the floors will need to be replaced. We also had a tiny bit of roof damage and two leaks inside, but otherwise we were very lucky. I had our large trees trimmed back in January and am now very pleased with that decision.

It could have been much worse, like the neighbor across the street:



Or our next door neighbor:



Not only did his tree fall into a bad spot for cleanup, it also did this to the pole out back (note the broken arm hanging off the side):



Given that this pole only serves 5-6 houses total, it might be a while until our power is fully restored.

But all in all, we are very lucky.


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Posted by Dr Fro 8:40 AM
"Commissioner Bud Selig should be embarrassed to have thrown a team in the thick of playoff contention into this situation. If the Astros miss the playoffs by a game, remember this one."

"If this was the best baseball could do, this series should have been played after the season."

Link


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Posted by Dr Fro 9:47 PM
That was bullshit. The Astros have to deal with a flooded city, no electricity and little water then they have to move their "home game" to Milwaukee, a short drive from Chicago. I swear there were more Cubs fans there than at Wrigley on a typical night. Total bullshit. Complete and total bullshit. Nice job Carlos, you struck out a bunch of guys that didn't sleep last night. You are a fucking stud. Who cares? You will either blow it down the stretch or in the first round of the playoffs. Fucking Losers.


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Posted by Dr Fro 1:34 PM

I love to read Paul Samuel. Maybe because he quoted me once. Maybe because he has written about playing in my favorite UK cardrooms. I ran across this one recently, and it caught my attention on two fronts. It says:

Look at the following selection of rules. Are you a follower or a transgressor?

• Do NOT persistently limp with small pairs or weak suited aces from early position.


• Do not play hands such as KQ, QT, QJ, KJ, and JT in raised pots, except in very special circumstances.


• 22-88 are SMALL pairs, 99-JJ are medium pairs. QQ is awkward. The others are big. Do not forget this.


• Almost never limp with a big Ace, especially from early position. It is awful.


• Rarely limp with AA, KK, except occasionally from early position when you think there is a good chance of a raise.


• Take account of others stack sizes before stealing their blinds. If they are low stacked, they may call you with anything. If that is the case, you weren't stealing in the first place.


• Play suited cards as if they they were unsuited. Their suitedness only gives you an advantage of another few percent!


• Do not habitually make up the small blind 'for value'. A hand like 9-2 only hits a really good flop about two percent of the time! (I don't count top pair as truly good). A number of these bets saved will eventually add up to a lot.


• Do not on a regular basis commit all your chips pre-flop. Hold'em is a seven card game!


• Do not persistently play 'cliché' moves; like going all in on the BB to a limping field, or stealing from the button. Online these moves are well known and you may get an unwelcome play-back.


• Never show bluffs. You are giving away free information and those players who claim they do this to create value later are either fools or liars. Usually, players show bluffs to show off. Any player who thinks there is enough good opposition at his e-table to react in a way that makes him money at a later hand because of his 'show' is delusional.

I actually get a green check on all but one bullet point. I still struggle with bullet point #2. It is so hard for me to lay these hands down to a 2x-3xBB bet when I have position.

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Posted by Dr Fro 5:59 PM

I've been watching WSOP on TV. I find it interesting that Matusow and Hellmuth are so well-behaved these days. Funny how things change when an obscure sport is put into the spotlight and gets big sponsors. There is now way in hell either of those guys initiated the change in their behavior. They have been getting pressure, and I am glad they are. Televised poker was turning into a circus.

Phil Ivey got a little sassy when he lost most of his stack. By sassy, I mean rude. To Phil's credit, once he realized he was out of line, he did good and said something to the effect of "no worry, we just see things differently is all." Good for Phil.

Can you imagine what KTL would do on TV if he took a bad beat? Merr would have to put earmuffs on the kids for sure!

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Posted by Dr Fro 5:45 PM

I have a feeling that I won't see the Horns or the Astros lose this weekend. The only chance will be Sunday, if the Astros do in fact play that day.

How bout them Astros?

They have the best record in MLB after the All-Star Break and are 14 of their last 15. Last night, Roy O. pithched a complete game....to only 27 batters. We won the wild card coin toss against the only team ahead of us in the Wild Card chase, the Brewers. We now trail them by 3 games.

Who'd a thunk it?

This club has more late season improbably runs for the playoff than any of which I know.

I will only be in Houston one night for the rest of the season, so I won't make any of the games, but if they make the playoffs, this Dallasite will get playoff tickest (I still gots my season tickets).

Well, I may not make an Astro game, but I am going to the Eagles-Cowboys game on Monday night. That must bother a lot of people who are big Cowboy fans. I'll be sporting green and given support to my man, Super Dave, who is a part-time CPA and part-time Philly Phanatic.

While Dave and I will be chummy on Monday, we may end up rooting against each other in October. If Philly kicks the Brewers' ass this weekend, they will make up ground on the Mets and help the Astros' cause. If we do win the wild card, we can't play the Cubs, so we'll play the Mets/Phillies. F yeah.

On to a little bit of college football. I like South Florida over Kansas tonight. I also think the Horns and Aggies each avoid defeat Saturday. While OU is much better than Washington, this game just seems to have the potential for something whacky (ala the OU-Oregon B.S. penalty game).

My friend Russ pointed out to me today that you can't spell "Friou" without "F. OU". Briliant.

I am taking suggestions for our second IAG SNG. I suggest 1:15 on a Sunday - you tell me which Sunday works. Oh, Junell/Morris - that is 1:15 CENTRAL TIME or 2:15 POKERSTARS time. Dumbasses.

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Posted by Dr Fro 3:48 PM
What would you have done?

PokerStars Game #20353475514: Hold'em No Limit ($1/$2) - 2008/09/12 16:39:58 ET
Table 'Tiflis II' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Zilent ($60.40 in chips)
Seat 2: DaddiFatStax ($201.70 in chips)
Seat 3: phreaux ($200.55 in chips)
Seat 4: ixplosive ($39 in chips)
Seat 5: sucout ($310.95 in chips)
Seat 7: ChipRick ($195.20 in chips)
Seat 8: JuantotheC ($239.70 in chips)
Seat 9: Ghisi ($211.60 in chips)
phreaux: posts small blind $1
ixplosive: posts big blind $2
TomasQ: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to phreaux [Jh Jc]
sucout: folds
ChipRick: folds
JuantotheC: folds
Ghisi: raises $4 to $6
Zilent: folds
DaddiFatStax: folds
phreaux: calls $5
ixplosive: raises $14 to $20
Ghisi: raises $40 to $60
phreaux: folds
ixplosive: calls $19 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($21) returned to Ghisi
*** FLOP *** [6d Jd Ks]
*** TURN *** [6d Jd Ks] [2h]
*** RIVER *** [6d Jd Ks 2h] [8c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ixplosive: shows [Th Tc] (a pair of Tens)
Ghisi: shows [Kh Ac] (a pair of Kings)
Ghisi collected $81 from pot


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Posted by Johnnymac 2:01 PM
Who says we're not taking this threat seriously?



My money says that's CKA. "Going to Telluride" my ass!


UPDATE: found the actual video




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Posted by Johnnymac 2:38 PM
A hurricane may be coming to Houston this weekend. I am worried about whether to board up my windows, whether we have enough water to last a few days in case the power goes out (fill up the bathtub!), and whether or not we'll see the same amount of apocalyptic panic that we saw three years ago for Rita.

Some people are worried about other things (from the Chron's live Hurricane Chat):

2:37
[Comment From cww] : Do you have any recommendations for pets? Our dog is an outside dog, and I don't want him to leave a brownie on my carpet. Can I tie him to a tree? We are in the Woodlands if this helps...

Eric Berger: I'd try to at least bring him in the garage if you can. Would you want to be tied to a tree during a hurricane?

I am thinking this was a very effective trolling expedition and the host bought it. And if it's not, "cww" is really stupid.


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Posted by Dr Fro 10:06 AM
We played poker in Orlando last week. I got killed. Full House Rob won >$1,300 in a $0.50-$1.00 NLHE game. I'd say 1,300 BBs is a good day at the office.

We played again on Sunday for the league night. Here is the last hand of the night:

Levi and Jeff post blinds of .50 and .50
Straddle 1
Re straddle 2
Re re straddle 4
Fold
I call 4
Levi calls 4
Jeff goes all in 30.50
All folds to the re re straddle (Matt)who calls 26.50. He has 40.00 more in his stack.
It costs me 26.5 to call.

I think about it for a while and then decide that it is the last hand of the night and thus Jeff is probably on a total steal or is basically semi-bluffing with a low pair. I can't fathom that he'd play Ace-big this way. Then I decide that the first caller, Matt, is playing something like 88. (I'd probably call with a hand like 88.) I would probably fold most hands in Matt's spot with Ax. However, I am willing to call in my spot with my Ax because I am now getting pot odds due to Matt's call.

I call, hoping that I am right that neither player has an Ace.

Levi calls for the 26.6 and now has another 17.00 in his stack.

Pot is now 125.00.

Flop comes AQQ. Check, I go all-in, get a call from Levi of 17.00 and Matt folds. Side pot is 34.00.

Turn and river were of no consequence. My A2 beats Levi's T8 for the side pot and beats Jeff's 22 for the main pot. Matt folded 44.

Here is what is interesting:

When Matt called 26.50, he was getting 2.2:1, but he was almost a 4:1 favorite to Jeff. A good call.

When I called 26.5, I was getting 3.5:1. The odds to win were: 26.81% (me), 62.85% (Matt) and 9.26% (Jeff). This doesn't add up to 100% due to ties. Thus, I needed 2.7:1 pot odds to call. Getting 3.5:1, I made a good call.

When Levi called 26.5, he was getting 4.8:1. Nice pot odds. And what were his chances of winning with a measly T8? He was a 37% chance (don't believe me, see attachment) of winning, so he needed about 1.7:1 to win. Getting 4.8:1, his call was a massively brave but massively proper.

I can't think of many hands I have seen where each and every caller was actually correct in calling. Further, the guy who made the fishiest call actually made the most profitable call (in terms of EV, not in terms of how the hand actually played out). In a multiway like that, at least one guy is usually dominated and making the wrong call. Very interesting how this played out.



Note that I didn't consider suits (as I could not recall them) in the above calculation, but they would not have changed the basic (interesting) fact that each of us donkeys (probably on accident) actually made good decisions.


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Posted by Dr Fro 3:48 PM
I thought the East Carolina victory was interesting, but this was Hall of Fame material (from UT game):




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Posted by Johnnymac 3:02 PM
This is really good:

But instead of protecting their precious advantage, [the Democrats] succumbed to a spasm of hatred and threw the vase, the crockery, the cutlery and the kitchen sink at an obscure politician from Alaska. For once, the postmodern theories so many of them were taught at university are a help to the rest of us. As a Christian, conservative anti-abortionist who proved her support for the Iraq War by sending her son to fight in it, Sarah Palin was 'the other' - the threatening alien presence they defined themselves against. They might have soberly examined her reputation as an opponent of political corruption to see if she was truly the reformer she claimed to be. They might have gently mocked her idiotic creationism, while carefully avoiding all discussion of the racist conspiracy theories of Barack Obama's church. But instead of following a measured strategy, they went berserk…Hatred is the most powerful emotion in politics. At present, American liberals are not fighting for an Obama presidency. I suspect that most have only the haziest idea of what it would mean for their country. The slogans that move their hearts and stir their souls are directed against their enemies: Bush, the neo-cons, the religious right. In this, American liberals are no different from the politically committed the world over…When a hate campaign goes wrong, however, disaster follows… when the politically committed go on a berserker you should listen for the sound of their own principles smacking them in the face.

Journalists who believe in women's equality should not spread sexual smears about a candidate, or snigger at her teenage daughter's pregnancy, or declare that a mother with a young family cannot hold down a responsible job for the pragmatic reason that they will look like gross hypocrites if they do. Before Palin, we saw hypocrisy of the right when shock jocks who had spent years denouncing feminism came over all politically correct when Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. In Britain, the most snobbish attacks on Margaret Thatcher did not come from aristocrats but from the communist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who opined that Thatcherism was the 'anarchism of the lower middle classes' and the liberal Jonathan Miller, who deplored her 'odious suburban gentility'….In an age when politics is choreographed, voters watch out for the moments when the public-relations facade breaks down and venom pours through the cracks. Their judgment is rarely favourable when it does. Barack Obama knows it. All last week, he was warning American liberals to stay away from the Palin family. He understands better than his supporters that it is not a politician's enemies who lose elections, but his friends.

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Posted by Johnnymac 10:55 AM


credit here


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Posted by Dr Fro 2:09 PM
There were a lot of big stories in college football and some small stories, too.

C. "B." Wells got hurt. USC took notice. Jeremy Maclin got hurt, too, but he's going to be o.k.

Several big name teams took a dive, including Michigan (I called that!), Clemson and Virginia Tech. All three got beat by better teams.

Some big name teams had close calls to no-name schools: Maryland barely beat Delaware and Arkansas State needed some luck to squeeze past their opponent.

UT looks completely different than last year, particularly the offensive line. Colt McCoy had better numbers than Tim Tebow, but unfortunately Lamarr Houston had more arrests than Tim Tebow (1-0). Matthew "Dude" McCaunahey was interviewed at halftime of our game and appeared to have had more beers than Tim Tebow (and even more than Lamarr Houston) but not more than Howard Schnellenberger. Speaking of which, wtf was FAU running when they had the big fumble in the 1Q? Maybe it was a screen, but if so, I can't figure out who was the intended receiver. All I could see was three UT lineman running untouched into the backfield.

======================================================

I ran a $100 deposit into Pokerstars from a while ago into $560. In one sitting a couple weeks ago, I blew all $560. It was $1-$2, and I bought $80 seven times and busted out seven times. KK v AA, JJ v KK, AK v KK, etc. I was getting killed. My biggest weakness at the poker table is my inability to leave a table when losing. This is particuarly dangerous when the reason that I am losing is that the opponents are better than I. I just get emotionally attached to a game. That, and I want to exact revenge on teh bastards that have my money. I really need to get over this. If I can, then I have a chance of being a really good poker player not sucking.

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Random link of the day.

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Did you see last week's episode of WSOP? It was a bit of a snoozer, but there was a lot of Hellmuth coverage, which is always entertaining. Although I watch the WSOP on ESPN, I have to admit that it kinda sucks. This was particularly apparent last week when I watched an episode of High Stakes Poker right after the WSOP. The analysis by Gabe Kaplan is fantanstic. Contrast it with Norman Chad, who pointed out that a player raised with T8o but folded KJs. Un, yeah, but in the first instance (T8o), he raised a pot after being folded to on the button. In the second (KJs), the pot had been raised and re-raised and he was out of position. (I may have the facts slightly off, but I deleted the episode already...that's the gist of it at least). Gabe would not have missed that one.


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Posted by Dr Fro 11:49 AM
I never play J9o. However, if it is cheap to see the flop, I have good position and I don't expect a raise from the blinds, I might play J9s. By might, I mean like 5-10% of the time. Anyway, I played it yesterday. Do you think I made the right decision?




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Posted by Dr Fro 10:58 AM



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