Thursday, September 15, 2005
Unforgiven
It's been a while since I've done one of these, but I'm feeling particularly lazy today. So without further ado, my thoughts on this coming Sunday's WWE Pay-Per-View, Unforgiven:
WWE CHAMPIONSHIP- JOHN CENA vs. KURT ANGLE
This feud is just getting underway; in the long run I think Angle might take Cena's belt, but it's too soon. This one might end in a DQ or something to set up future matches.
INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP- CARLITO vs. RIC FLAIR
All due respect to Flair, who is a bona fide living legend, but he has no business competing for a major championship anymore....unless he is used to put over a young guy. Which is what should happen here. Carlito wins, probably by cheating.
SHAWN MICHAELS vs. CHRIS MASTERS
Masters is getting a huge push right now, but I'm not convinced he'll beat HBK on a PPV. Give it to Michaels, but like the Cena-Angle angle, this one won't end tonight.
EDGE vs. MATT HARDY
Hardy has to win one against Edge eventually. I think tonight is it.
BIG SHOW vs. SNITSKY
Ugh. Show wins. That's all the space I'm giving to this.
TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP- HURRICANE & ROSEY vs. CADE & MURDOCH
I love it when they take a guy who was on television for like a year (Cade), then take him away for 6 months and bring him back and try and pretend we've never seen him before. Hysterical. He's grown his hair and changed his first name but we don't know it's the same guy. And I hate that the Tag Team division is so pathetic right now that a team who has had exactly two matches to date are not only competing for the Championships, but doing so on a Pay Per View. And I hate even more that they are going to win. I hope I'm wrong, but if I'm right...well, that's just bad storytelling.
ASHLEY & TRISH vs. VICTORIA & TORRIE
Thank god Trish is back after a lengthy injury-related hiatus, because she's the only Diva that's worth a damn (yes, Craig, Torrie looks good, but she's complete shit on both the mic AND in the ring). Ashley & Trish will win. Next step is to get Trish back to being a heel again.
WWE CHAMPIONSHIP- JOHN CENA vs. KURT ANGLE
This feud is just getting underway; in the long run I think Angle might take Cena's belt, but it's too soon. This one might end in a DQ or something to set up future matches.
INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP- CARLITO vs. RIC FLAIR
All due respect to Flair, who is a bona fide living legend, but he has no business competing for a major championship anymore....unless he is used to put over a young guy. Which is what should happen here. Carlito wins, probably by cheating.
SHAWN MICHAELS vs. CHRIS MASTERS
Masters is getting a huge push right now, but I'm not convinced he'll beat HBK on a PPV. Give it to Michaels, but like the Cena-Angle angle, this one won't end tonight.
EDGE vs. MATT HARDY
Hardy has to win one against Edge eventually. I think tonight is it.
BIG SHOW vs. SNITSKY
Ugh. Show wins. That's all the space I'm giving to this.
TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP- HURRICANE & ROSEY vs. CADE & MURDOCH
I love it when they take a guy who was on television for like a year (Cade), then take him away for 6 months and bring him back and try and pretend we've never seen him before. Hysterical. He's grown his hair and changed his first name but we don't know it's the same guy. And I hate that the Tag Team division is so pathetic right now that a team who has had exactly two matches to date are not only competing for the Championships, but doing so on a Pay Per View. And I hate even more that they are going to win. I hope I'm wrong, but if I'm right...well, that's just bad storytelling.
ASHLEY & TRISH vs. VICTORIA & TORRIE
Thank god Trish is back after a lengthy injury-related hiatus, because she's the only Diva that's worth a damn (yes, Craig, Torrie looks good, but she's complete shit on both the mic AND in the ring). Ashley & Trish will win. Next step is to get Trish back to being a heel again.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
A Small Victory
My daughter's latest musical obsession is The Click Five. If you ever watch any music video channels you've probably seen the video, since it airs roughly 97 times a day (I've seen it 27 times since yesterday). They describe their sound as "Power Pop," comparing themselves to Cheap Trick and The Cars. At any rate, my daughter saw on the band's official website that if you pre-ordered their debut CD "Greetings From Imrie House" directly from the site, it would come with a booklet autographed by the band (this actually has nothing to do with the story, but I thought it was a pretty cool thing to do, and it made her year when it came in the mail).
As fate would have it, on the very same day that she got the CD, she came to me rather sheepishly with a pretty bizarre question: "Hey Dad, did you ever notice something in the video?" As mentioned earlier, I have seen the video numerous times; the basic "plot" is that The Click Five land on the roof of a school via helicopter, and all the kids sneak out of class to catch the impromptu performance. The only thing I did notice was that the bewildered teacher who can't figure out where his students have gone is played by Peter Brady. But I had mentioned this to her earlier so I knew it wasn't that. I told her I didn't have a clue what she was talking about, so she said the words that she never wanted to say: "In the beginning when they show the school, I think the sign says Paul Stanley Prep."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Now, she has always made fun of my lifelong obsession with KISS, even insisting that I not pick her up from school wearing any KISS T-shirts lest she die of embarrassment. So, the fact that her favorite band may have been paying homage to the legendary KISS frontman had to be devastating. But I needed proof. We hopped onto the web and checked out the video there, although if we had just turned the channel to MTV Hits it probably would have been on within 10 minutes. Sure enough, the school's billboard clearly read PAUL STANLEY PREP. Intrigued, I needed to dig deeper. My first stop was to KISS' official website to see if anybody there noticed it. As it turned out, I didn't need to go any further, as a banner headline jumped out at me: "Paul Stanley and The Click Five." I read the story and laughed some more. My daughter, who had since retreated to her room, called out to ask what was so funny. "Bring me your CD," I shouted back. She bought it over and I took it from her, pulled out the booklet, and flipped it open to show her what I knew it already said: Track #6, co-written by Paul Stanley. "Oh, man," she moaned, "that was my favorite song!"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Since this discovery, I have gotten her back for nearly 11 years of being teased. She can't say anything bad about KISS anymore. It's a minor moral victory, but I'll take it.
P.S.: I have since listened to the entire CD, and it's not bad for what it is. "Power Pop" just like they advertised, although a bit more bubblegum than either Cheap Trick or The Cars. In addition to the Stanley co-write, a few tracks were written with Adam Schlesinger of Fountains Of Wayne, who do Power Pop better than just about anybody else currently out there. And Elliot Easton of the guitars supplies some guitar work. Plus, the keyboard player is actually rocking a kee-tar on the back photo. Anyone who rocks the kee-tar is OK in my book.
As fate would have it, on the very same day that she got the CD, she came to me rather sheepishly with a pretty bizarre question: "Hey Dad, did you ever notice something in the video?" As mentioned earlier, I have seen the video numerous times; the basic "plot" is that The Click Five land on the roof of a school via helicopter, and all the kids sneak out of class to catch the impromptu performance. The only thing I did notice was that the bewildered teacher who can't figure out where his students have gone is played by Peter Brady. But I had mentioned this to her earlier so I knew it wasn't that. I told her I didn't have a clue what she was talking about, so she said the words that she never wanted to say: "In the beginning when they show the school, I think the sign says Paul Stanley Prep."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Now, she has always made fun of my lifelong obsession with KISS, even insisting that I not pick her up from school wearing any KISS T-shirts lest she die of embarrassment. So, the fact that her favorite band may have been paying homage to the legendary KISS frontman had to be devastating. But I needed proof. We hopped onto the web and checked out the video there, although if we had just turned the channel to MTV Hits it probably would have been on within 10 minutes. Sure enough, the school's billboard clearly read PAUL STANLEY PREP. Intrigued, I needed to dig deeper. My first stop was to KISS' official website to see if anybody there noticed it. As it turned out, I didn't need to go any further, as a banner headline jumped out at me: "Paul Stanley and The Click Five." I read the story and laughed some more. My daughter, who had since retreated to her room, called out to ask what was so funny. "Bring me your CD," I shouted back. She bought it over and I took it from her, pulled out the booklet, and flipped it open to show her what I knew it already said: Track #6, co-written by Paul Stanley. "Oh, man," she moaned, "that was my favorite song!"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Since this discovery, I have gotten her back for nearly 11 years of being teased. She can't say anything bad about KISS anymore. It's a minor moral victory, but I'll take it.
P.S.: I have since listened to the entire CD, and it's not bad for what it is. "Power Pop" just like they advertised, although a bit more bubblegum than either Cheap Trick or The Cars. In addition to the Stanley co-write, a few tracks were written with Adam Schlesinger of Fountains Of Wayne, who do Power Pop better than just about anybody else currently out there. And Elliot Easton of the guitars supplies some guitar work. Plus, the keyboard player is actually rocking a kee-tar on the back photo. Anyone who rocks the kee-tar is OK in my book.
Friday, September 02, 2005
The Obligatory Poker Story
I've been playing Poker online quite a bit recently. Usually nothing much of interest happens that is worth writing about, but I have noticed a slight trend.
SPOILER WARNING: If you don't know anything about Texas Hold 'Em or its terminology, the rest of this post will be completely meaningless to you.
The trend is this: An ALARMING number of people who play have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE what the hell they are doing. And I'm talking about in the REAL MONEY rooms, not the Play Money. I practiced for months with Play Money before I even thought about attempting using my own hard-earned ducats. I just can't imagine taking money that I worked my ass off to get, only to just hand it over to total strangers for no reason (by the way, for the record, my real money adventures in online poker have netted me a profit...so far).
What I've noticed is that most people have no concept of raising pre-flop. When I'm not in a blind and am dealt any kind of a decent hand, you can be sure I'm going to raise, usually around 3 times the size of the big blind. It pushes out anybody who is not in the blinds with a marginal hand that may have called the blind, but, more importantly, prevents the blinds from seeing the flop either cheap or free. But when I am in the blind, NOBODY EVER DOES THIS. It's unbelievable to me how many times people have let me see the flop for free. Why would someone with pocket Queens simply call the Big Blind, allowing me to check my King-Seven off-suit and flop Two Pair or a Set? I guess I shouldn't complain, because it has led to me making some extra money, but the problem I have is that these people think they are AWESOME players, and drive me crazy with their whining when the cards don't go their way.
Here's a perfect example of the kind of person I'm talking about. I was in a single table Sit & Go yesterday, and playing very tight early on. Anybody with an ounce of Poker skill should have noticed that I wasn't getting involved in any pots. Then I was dealt pocket Tens and raised 3 times the blind. This one guy, I'll call him AssClown, calls. I flopped a set. I don't remember the exact details, but every round of betting I'd do a pot sized bet and he'd call. There were no overcards on the board, so I put him on a higher pocket pair than mine. I was right and I ended up taking a good size part of his stack. On the very next hand, I held pocket Aces. Again I raised pre-flop and again AssClown calls. After the last hand, I had more chips than him and he ended up All In. My Aces held up and AssClown was gone. But he began pissing and moaning from the observer box: "Fuck you, man, I could outplay you all day long, you just had two lucky hands in a row." I just ignored him and he went away, but the sad thing is that he probably really believes this, when the evidence clearly states otherwise. I had a very tight table image before those two hands, and then suddenly came out firing chips, and he doesn't have the poker sense to lay down? Apparently, AssClown, you can't outplay me all day long, but as long as people like you are out there, I'll happily keep taking your money.
SPOILER WARNING: If you don't know anything about Texas Hold 'Em or its terminology, the rest of this post will be completely meaningless to you.
The trend is this: An ALARMING number of people who play have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE what the hell they are doing. And I'm talking about in the REAL MONEY rooms, not the Play Money. I practiced for months with Play Money before I even thought about attempting using my own hard-earned ducats. I just can't imagine taking money that I worked my ass off to get, only to just hand it over to total strangers for no reason (by the way, for the record, my real money adventures in online poker have netted me a profit...so far).
What I've noticed is that most people have no concept of raising pre-flop. When I'm not in a blind and am dealt any kind of a decent hand, you can be sure I'm going to raise, usually around 3 times the size of the big blind. It pushes out anybody who is not in the blinds with a marginal hand that may have called the blind, but, more importantly, prevents the blinds from seeing the flop either cheap or free. But when I am in the blind, NOBODY EVER DOES THIS. It's unbelievable to me how many times people have let me see the flop for free. Why would someone with pocket Queens simply call the Big Blind, allowing me to check my King-Seven off-suit and flop Two Pair or a Set? I guess I shouldn't complain, because it has led to me making some extra money, but the problem I have is that these people think they are AWESOME players, and drive me crazy with their whining when the cards don't go their way.
Here's a perfect example of the kind of person I'm talking about. I was in a single table Sit & Go yesterday, and playing very tight early on. Anybody with an ounce of Poker skill should have noticed that I wasn't getting involved in any pots. Then I was dealt pocket Tens and raised 3 times the blind. This one guy, I'll call him AssClown, calls. I flopped a set. I don't remember the exact details, but every round of betting I'd do a pot sized bet and he'd call. There were no overcards on the board, so I put him on a higher pocket pair than mine. I was right and I ended up taking a good size part of his stack. On the very next hand, I held pocket Aces. Again I raised pre-flop and again AssClown calls. After the last hand, I had more chips than him and he ended up All In. My Aces held up and AssClown was gone. But he began pissing and moaning from the observer box: "Fuck you, man, I could outplay you all day long, you just had two lucky hands in a row." I just ignored him and he went away, but the sad thing is that he probably really believes this, when the evidence clearly states otherwise. I had a very tight table image before those two hands, and then suddenly came out firing chips, and he doesn't have the poker sense to lay down? Apparently, AssClown, you can't outplay me all day long, but as long as people like you are out there, I'll happily keep taking your money.
