update

i know i haven't blogged in some time. just haven't felt like it. it honestly is much easier to do when i am home most of the time. which hasn't been the case for the most part. i have played a bunch of local trnys and cash games. with mixed success. when i have played trnys i am reaching the final tables. granted they are only 2,3,4 tables. i was most excited to play the deep stack trny we had last saturday. i never caught a hand better than JJ which i folded on a flop of TTx after i was check raised early on. yes i was bluffed SHE had 99. w/e. i pretty much just stole chips thru squeeze plays & blind steals. would have been nice to make some sort of hand. so i went out in 10th place out of like 35 players i belive. only paid the top 4 i think.

i have played some cash games. i started to belive that my cold streak had come to and end but it isn't so. i am getting pretty dam upset about constantly making these good folds. example... i played wed night in WEBSTER i limp the SB. it is a 7 way pot. i have 6/8 flop is 884 i check raise the flop. get 1 caller. Ace on the turn. so i pot the turn. he calls. river brings a 2. i bet 1/2 pot. guy moves in for about $140. i get i sick feeling i am out kicked or that he hit a set on the river. which is insane. he must have a boat. of course. 22. i fold. disgusting and he shows me. he thought i was bluffing he says. ??? the folds i made were probly the best i have ever made for such a short span of time. and they were all good folds. they love to show hands at that game.

i feel as though my NL cash game is the best it has ever been. i am classifing players and reading hands as well as i ever have. i do need to be calling these river bluffs that have been made vs me though. i just don't get why they cal,call,call. then go for the big bluff. i would never do that. i just need to think those hands thru more and see that they can almost never have the hand they are trying to represent.

life wise. work is fine. the lil girl is in MD for another few weeks. miss her alot. marriage wise things are problematic at best. i won't go into it.

i am looking forward to football season. 2 weeks away!!!! can't wait for summer to end. the new MADDEN game comes out in a few weeks also. i got the new NCAA10. ehhh. just about seems the same with a tweak here and there.

WOLVERINE

what a major disappointment. but expected. of the comic book movies released over the past 10 years this might be the worst yet. how do you screw up one of the most intriguing characters around? well i guess you make this schlock.

the problems:

1) PG-13 i understand you need a commercially viable movie. but look how they made DARK KNIGHT. the movie is too glossy. where was the blood? severed limbs? the one time i did see blood they flash back and IT wasn't even real.
2) script. all ya need to do is adapt his origin to the big screen. but they went and hollywoodized it instead. really i mean how difficult would this have been. they started off fine. SHOW how he got his training.
3) nationality. he's American?? since when? c'mon.
4) special effects. might be some of the worst looking i have seen in a major summer release type movie in years.
5) level boss ending. for christ sake!! ridiculous.

i might not know all about WOLVERINE but i do know that after waiting 23 years for a movie about him. this was awful.

poker?

poker what is that? i haven't really played in close to a month. i had to cash out my STARS account for some personal expenses. honestly though, i doubt i would even have played. guess that would be part of playing positive EV hours. i do have a plan for when i get the urge to play again. i have FPP's on stars i plan to use then to play satellites and use those to build up from ZERO. i just need the motivation to do this.

so what have i been doing? well following baseball. playing the new MLB'09 game. which is the NUTS btw. getting back into fantasy baseball. catching up on t.v. shows i had DVR'd. spending time with my daughter. and just been plain old tired after working.

i am really getting pretty psyched about baseball this season. now that the home run outburst is gone. adios steroid!! pitching and fielding matters again. i miss the days of baseball during the 80's. and i think they are back.

global warming!!

OTTAWA (AFP) – A group of stranded British explorers fighting to survive at the North Pole received vital supplies of food, fuel and equipment Wednesday after a mission hampered by bad weather finally reached them, organizers of the aid effort said.

An airplane laden with supplies flew from the remote Inuit hamlet of Resolute on Cornwallis Island in northern Canada and reached the team at 2115 GMT.

The group -- Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels -- set off on an 85-day hike to the North Pole on February 28 to measure the thickness of sea ice, but bad weather has hampered supply flights.

They were down to half-rations and battling desperate sub-zero weather conditions, waiting for a break in the weather for a plane to reach them.

Hadow, speaking after the pilot made a safe landing, recounted how it has been a "pretty grim time waiting for the weather to lift."

The North Pole, he said, is "no place to just hang around" when temperatures drop below minus 40 degrees Celsius -- equivalent to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

"The team could not afford to move without our essential kit, food, fuel and batteries for our survey and communications gear," he said.

"All of us are just wanting to get going quickly and have a high calorie meal to fuel ourselves up."

The resupply flight was to return with scientific data collected by the team as part of an effort to capture data on floating ice in the Arctic Ocean.

The team aims to gather data to complement satellite and submarine observations to measure the sea ice and plot how fast it is disappearing during their 850-kilometer (530-mile) trek.

Global warming is believed to be the main culprit in the rapidly melting north polar ice cap that is freeing up new sea routes and untapped mineral resources on the ocean bottom.

"It's a relief to have finally get the plane down. The longer we were forced to delay by the weather the worse we knew it would get for the team," Simon Harris-Ward said Wednesday in a statement from the London headquarters of the Catlin Arctic Survey.

The expedition now expects to arrive at the North Pole in late May.

Three earlier flight to drop food supplies to the team had to turn back because of bad weather.

In an earlier statement, Hadow described the team's desperate plight.

"We're hungry, the cold is relentless, our sleeping bags are full of ice and because we're not moving, the colder we get," he said.

REALLY??

street kings review / MLB 09'

very under rated movie. decent amount of star power. James Ellroy wrote it. good story. i liked Keanu Reeves character. seemed to be more complex & conflicted than i thought it would be. i didn't have high expectations for this movie. i think that's why i liked it. i always enjoy movies more when i hear nothing about them and expect very little.

i bought the new MLB 09' last week. last years version was very good. this years is even better. it is almost a simulation game. that's how good it is.

graphics 10
sound 10
gameplay 10
replay value 10

tons of things you can do in the game. i am looking forward tototally geek out and download the song "WILD THING" put it in the game for when my closer comes to the mound. the amount of things you can customize is cool. franchise mode is unreal they have the rule 5 draft in it!! if ya like video games and baseball get this game. this is a consloe seller type of game.

frustration & elation

well i played the league tonight. nothing to really speak of. went out 1st. had 2 decent hands and lost. oh well. so i decided to play some PLO SNG tonight. i kept getting disconnected. yes. right on the bubble. so i decided i wasn't gonna deal with the disconnect. i was gonna play some 6-max cash. so i loaded up hold em manager. screeech. except it won't load up. i go to the H.M. site. seems the newest VISTA update has fucked up H.M. i saw they figure it out but i don't know how to do that stuff. so i need the wife to fix it or have them TEAMVIEWER it up for me.

i did play PLO 6 max real quick earlier today though. and this happened.



Dear themerk08,

Congratulations! You have fully earned your Deposit Bonus. Your
PokerStars account has been credited in the amount of $150.00.

Thanks for participating in the PokerStars World Record Week 25% Reload Deposit Bonus, and
we'll see you at the tables.

The PokerStars Cashier

well maybe i will go play something other than 6-max.

past week and other ramblings...

it has been a very unpoker like week. guess that is due to vacation. haven't played online since tuesday night donkfest league. took 2nd in that. my buddy from MD came up and stayed with me since tuesday night. we played the new MLB '09. WOW! talk about realistic. we pretty much played that for like 4 days straight. that and the occassional game of MADDEN. and drank lots o' BUUUUUUUR, and girly drinks for him.

we did happen to find time to make it out to play a live 3/6 H.O.R.S.E. game and 3/6H.O. that was cool since i haven't played a "live cash" game since ooooo. October!! probly the longest strech since i started playing poker. i was on fire in the HORSE up over $200 playing 6 handed. then that table broke and we played H.O. 10 handed. lost a good chunk i was as flop dead as you could get. still left up $65. and had a blast playing poker with my old poker spouse. (Greg) :)

i still have off till the 17th. i plan on finally watching all those episodes of 24 from this season that i havent seen yet still. going to see THE WATCHMEN Friday with my jeff and josh. that should be totally comic book geekiness/drunkeness.

i would like to grind online at some point this week. i am sooo close to clearing that $150 STARS bonus. i would like to try and keep my silver star status. doubt it will happen though. don't feel like it all right now. and i said one of my goals was to play +EV hours. which means playing when my head is really into it.

looking forward to going totall MLB '09 geek. i reallized how out of touch i am with MLB nowadays. i used to be a total baseball nerd. then i got married and had our daughter and it became all football. baseball just sort of fadded out of my life. but with this game and a fantasy baseball draft waiting in the wings i really would like to back into it. whats funny is during the "steriod"era i lost intrest. i loved the 2b that would hit .250 hit 10HR and field like a god on turf. i loved the closer that would get K's like they were going out of style. my favs back in my day were Mitch Williams, Rob Dibble and the nasty boys Calvin Schiraldi. i loved my red sox form the late 80's. baseball was just so pure and awesome back then.

i remember playing purse the pennant with Ruben. we would spend hours playing that game. talk about 2 baseball nerds. while other high schoolers were going out meeting chicks, drinking & doing what "normal" kids would do we would play that game at his kitchen table ALL WEEKEND LONG. wouldn't trade those days away for anything.

wow is this getting long. lol

lastly i joined facebook this past week. so my 3 readers now have company as i probly picked up a 4th reader. and for all of you that haven't heard or seen me since high school,military,maryland or whatever else.

hey.

yup i am a poker geek.