05.08.08
One
posted by Absinthe | 11:24 AM
A year ago yesterday we met the boy for the first time. I thought about commemorating the occasion with a long, flowery post, replete with links to all of the touchstones I reported on along the way (the somewhat harrowing birth tale, parts one, two and three is maybe worth a look), some greatest hits from the boy’s first year, and much gushing about how lucky I am and how awesome he is. So let’s call that option A.
This was option B:
I’m thinking I made a good call.
Dodgers got absolutely pasted, by the way.
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Topics: Human Interests | 3 Comments »
05.05.08
Better Late Than Never, But Just Barely
posted by Absinthe | 2:10 AM
So it’s official: the WSOP main event final table will be delayed by 117 days … so it can be delayed a few days more. In order to give ESPN a slightly less surprised audience (but not really, as the most interested viewers will know the results in advance of the broadcast anyway), Caesar’s is playing the ME down to the final nine and then closing up shop for nearly four months, reconvening the proceedings so they can dovetail nicely with the broadcast schedule.
This is not the dumbest idea in the history of poker - I still think that’s the flush - but speaking as a sometime-player instead of a spokesman for Caesar’s or ESPN, I can say with a great deal of certainty that it’s still pretty dumb.
The argument that this will make it easier for players to get sponsorship doesn’t move me much, since it’s only the nine people at the final table who’ll have that flexibility, and all of them are going to be making out pretty well on that basis. The rest of the close-but-not-quite field is going to be out of luck. I’d guess that most of the last three tables in recent years have been able to eke out five-figure deals with somebody, a nice bonus if you’re not going to go all the way - which obviously 2/3 of them aren’t.
Is this going to build excitement, or halt the decay/slide in entrants? No. The only thing that will do that is the express legalization of online poker in the US, something that the casinos don’t particularly want to see anyway. This plan is in place in order for ESPN to realize what will be at best a marginal ratings increase, which - again speaking as a player - who gives a fuck? ESPN does not pay the monies.
Is it going to be good for poker’s image? I dunno. Give nine people, most of whom have never had that kind of cash before, four months to fuck up in public? There’s a chance that might happen. Richard Lee, who ran 6th in the 2006 main event, didn’t even last a month before his house was raided; he was eventually brought up on bookmaking charges. And then there’s Eskimo Clark, who’d have to have been surgically detached from the rail, four months be damned; good television, maybe, but not good branding.
The most irksome thing about it to me from a player’s perspective is that it messes with my edge. Make the final table and some people are going to be worn out, strung out, nervous, wired, frazzled from interviews and makeup and calling the family; they are also going to have four months’ less education about what to do at a final table. I count on being able to pace myself for the marathon when others can’t; the delay gives everyone at the table a chance to recharge and prepare, and plenty of time and incentive to eradicate the bad habits that pay my rent.
Not that I was going to play this year anyway; it’s a long damn time away from house and kin, and I doubt I’d forgive myself if I was playing cards while the boy took his first steps. And, probably, not that the prospect of a delay will stop me throwing my money down in future years. I’m just carping knowing that nobody in the position to do anything about it will read this, because to be reading this, they’d have to care. And they clearly don’t.
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Topics: Poker | 1 Comment »
04.30.08
Abstract Conversations In Modern Parenting: #1
posted by Absinthe | 5:12 PM
jd 4:55 singing about ninjas is like dancing about architecture
troublecat 4:57 still, play the song for your kid and they will get the message. No fucking with ninjas.
jd 4:57 fuck that. i want Ninj to teach her a few things. a pint-sized female ninja could come in awfully handy.
troublecat 4:59 I believe that would more properly be a kunoichi.
jd 4:59 color me schooled
troublecat 5:00 so I guess the translated title “Kunoichi: Lady Ninja” is “Lady Ninja: Lady Ninja”
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Topics: Human Interests, Impending Parenthood | No Comments »
04.29.08
Mister Bat Says Hello
posted by Absinthe | 8:51 AM
It’s been a few years since the last iteration of Grand Theft Auto, the occasionally controversial game from Rockstar that lets you do … well, anything you want, though since it’s a video game most of your interactions with the game’s world are based on kicking, punching, shooting, or waling on random passersby with a bat, which was kind of the PS2 version of a stress ball for a while there. If what you really want is to do nothing, you can just get behind the wheel of a (hopefully unalarmed) car and drive for as long as you want, taking in crude parody ads and kicking soundtracks through the radio as you put a pictures to the dots on the map. (Given the price of gas, fake joyrides have a certain allure.)
Was on my way home from a screening last night around 10pm and noticed there was a line outside the local GameStop. Did not choose to join the crowd so I could be first-first-first to have the game in my sweaty, clutching hands; that way lay madness, a personal wormhole straight to hell that begins with watching the introductory cinematic and ends five hours later with the dawn leaking through the shutters and the cry of a baby who is - still! - more fun than any videogame ever invented, though I am positive there are dedicated men and women working on that problem around. the. clock.
I did the responsible thing and drove home. Picked up milk on the way; did not jack any cars or go on a massive rocket-launcher spree. And my reward for my restraint will be, I think, to go and get the damn game this morning instead. I held out for ten hours; I am not made of stone. I have an afternoon window to take a tour of my new virtual surroundings, but that requires that I navigate my real environment first; just so I don’t get any really bad ideas on the way, I’m going to walk.
At least, I’m going to walk there.
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Topics: Bleep Bleep Bleep | 2 Comments »
04.28.08
A Few Words About Sponsorship
posted by Absinthe | 2:56 PM
I get emails every so often asking to buy a link or a textbox or whatever. Mostly I ignore them because, what, are you high? I sometimes go two months without posting and I’ve seen my traffic numbers, which though it may not figure in RSS readership, well, those people don’t see the ads anyway. I played with Google ads for a while until I realized that the extra three bucks a month wasn’t doing much for me.
Yes, there are ads on the site. One from Full Tilt, which was purchased way back when I was even more of a nobody than I am now, which amply covers hosting and bandwidth and would probably buy me cheap dinner and a movie once per quarter to boot; the other is just an affiliate link and search box to Amazon, for which I once had fiendish plans that may one day yet come to fruition.
And still, I get requests. Sometimes several from the same person. They’re not grating or anything, they’re just something that I might as well address here and now so I can stop feeling guilty about ignoring them.
Here it is: the Official Absinthetics Advertising Policy.
1. If I don’t use your product, I’m not going to put your ad on the site. As far as poker-related stuff goes, that pretty much limits my potential market to Full Tilt, Stars, and I guess the pokerdb and PokerTracker, though since when I have time to play nowadays I’m usually on a Mac my PT connection is tenuous. I’ve never seen a Cardrunners video (though in the interests of oppo intel I suppose I should).
2. Small and tasteful. A few rotating images is fine. Blinkyflashies make me itch. And if you’re trying to be funny, for fuck’s sake achieve it. For a guy who doesn’t look like much, I have standards.
3. Make it worth my while. Math and economics both say I should be putting away ten grand a year starting now for my son’s college fund. If your offer isn’t at least going to put a substantial dent in that, I’ll pass.
4. What, you’re still here? OK. No Comic Sans, or Kevin will make fun of me. No funny stuff - I don’t know what they told you at the agency but I don’t do that. And no! wire! hangers!
Of course, if I do like/use your product, you could just sit on your hands for a while because eventually I’ll talk it up for free. I’m mouthy.
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Topics: Poker, Random Thoughts | No Comments »
04.25.08
Babyproofing In 11 Easy Steps
posted by Absinthe | 10:51 AM
The child is becoming more mobile. As we live in a place that’s practically a deathtrap for ourselves, I’ve devoted considerable thought to how best to make it - or any living space - into a suitable environment for child “development”, otherwise known as maintaining metabolic viability. All of this careful thought has revealed to me a process that should work for anyone. Here it is:
1. Obtain a credit card. This is very important. Ideally the credit card is not yours.
2. Multiply the number of doors in your home by two; add to this the number of other things in your home that can theoretically be opened, including cabinets, bottles and small animals. Multiply this sum by the number of potential fire sources in your home, again including small animals. Multiply this subtotal by your desired household safety rating on a scale from one to five, bearing in mind that the life expectancy of a mobile toddler in a three-star-or-less environment is measured in minutes. Write this total down on a piece of paper. Do not lose the piece of paper.
3. Look at the number on the piece of paper. If the number is greater than 100, drink. If not, continue to stare at the flickering shadows on the unadorned walls of your cave.
4. Look at the number again. Pop quiz time! Is the number:
a. roughly equal to the number of nice things you will not be buying for yourself, your spouse or significant other within the next decade;
b. less than half of what a babyproofing expert would charge you to make your environment baby-tolerable;
c. hey, what about all this stuff on the shelves? Where are you supposed to put stuff that normally goes on shelves?
5. Forget about the paper for a moment and get down on all fours so you can view the world from your child’s perspective. Look for things you might conceivably use to kill yourself located at or near eye level. Probably you have already begun doing this, or at least thinking about it. Remember to make it look like an accident!
6. Look at the number on the paper again. If you are very, very lucky, you can babyproof your house for slightly less than that in real, actual dollars, that you will never stand any chance of recouping. Kiss it goodbye.
7. Remember the credit card? Get it out, find a website that sells babyproofing gear, and order several hundred dollars’ worth. Hope that the delivery is prompt because your child is growing every day.
8. When the gear arrives, come to the realization that the primary effect of the influx of several hundred dollars’ worth of baby gear on the average residence is to make the environment hazardous for adults as well as toddlers. Get used to leaving the lights on 24/7 until you find a way to assimilate everything. Oh, right, electricity. You know what fits neatly into the ground plug socket? A child’s finger, that’s what. Probably should make that a priority.
9. Consider the following paradox: the mounting hardware of so-called safety gates requires access to tools of such lethality that their mutual presence on the property is zero-sum.
10. Settle for establishing one baby-safe zone in your home, buttressed with pillows, couch cushions and reasonably intact sandbags. Begin selling off your worldly goods. Move to cave. Repeat process from the beginning until the number on the paper from step 2 is indeed less than 100.
11. Rediscover fire.
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Topics: Experiments In Terror, Human Interests, Impending Parenthood | 4 Comments »