Woody Allen has this sketch where he jokes about a time when he got an offer to do a vodka ad. Apparently, a big vodka company wanted him to do a prestige ad for their product. At first, he says no, he won't do it. Then when he finds out how much it pays, he says, 'Hold on, I'll put Mr. Allen on the phone.'
So we have an ethical crisis: Woody is not a drinker because his body 'will not tolerate any spirits.' And yet he could make a bunch of money by doing this vodka ad. Eventually, after getting advice from his rabbi, he passes the ad up. Later on, he sees a vodka ad with a scantily clad woman and his rabbi drinking vodka.
So how does this relate to me? Well, the other day all the grad students at Steward received an email from some representative from Levi's asking for:
ATTRACTIVE people who work and or are studying in the following professional fields:
ACCOUNTANT, IT, LIBRARIAN, FASHION DESIGNER, PATTERN MAKER
BEEKEEPER, DETECTIVE, ELECTRICIAN, ASTRONOMER
(CAN BE STUDENTS IN THESE FIELDS OR DISTANTLY INVOLVED IN THEM!)
MALE: STRONG, COOL,SEXY, CONFIDENT, GORGEOUS
AGE: 16 - 35
ALL ETHNICITY
YOU MUST INCLUDE:
- Your age, profession field, jeans size
- 72 dpi, jpeg format headshots ? smiling and not smiling plus a full length front and profile shot (not smiling).
- please try and shoot your images on a blank wall background.
- If we like you, we will call you in for a casting next week
Personally, I don't like Levi's jeans. They've always been uncomfortable to me so I've never even purchased a pair. So, should I send in a picture of myself so I can potentially advertise a product that I don't use? Well, it's a moot point, because I have no intention of sending in a picture anyway.
Unless, of course, I send in a ridiculous picture of myself. Like say I tuck my t-shirt in, pull my shorts up as far as they go, pull my socks up, put on my big glasses, and get a pocket protector for the ultimate in nerdiness. Yeah, I'd send in that kind of picture.
My throat, that is. It hasn't really changed at all in fact. Normally it's fine, but any time I swallow, there's that feeling somewhere between discomfort and pain. I hope it's one its way out.
My ultimate team went 1-1 last night. We got throttled in the first game. Incidentally, that was my worst game of the season thus far. I'd have to say it was the worst game of the season for many of us though. HOWEVER, it's very important to note that a large part of the reason we played so badly was because the other team was simply better than us. Faster and more experienced and there wasn't much we could do. Then the next game was very close, but we managed to pull it out in the end, 11-10. We scored on the last point which ended the game.
I also got a nice t-shirt for my efforts on Saturday at the mirror lab. It might be too big though. We'll see.
The last hand of the tournament for me was the first time I got a pocket pair all night. I had pocket 10's and made raised to about 2.5 times the big blind and got two callers. The flop came AK9. I figured one of the two other players had a piece of it, but I bet all-in for about a 1/2-pot size bet anyway, hoping they'd fold. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. My opponent turned over a K and I had only two outs. Obviously, they didn't hit and I was out in ninth or tenth place. Disappointing yeah, but then again I didn't get much in the way of cards most of the night. Still though, I should've gone all-in before the flop because my stack wasn't large enough to bluff anyone off post-flop. Live and learn.
I've had a "sort of" sore throat for the past week or so. I say "sort of" because it doesn't hurt unless I swallow. Unfortunately, that's not much of a reprieve because I've gotten trained such that swallowing is not something I look forward to. Maybe I need more vitamin C.
Yesterday was a busy day for me (and Tiffany as well). I went to bed at something around 1am, then woke up at 7:30am to bike in to the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab. There I served as a "security guard" during the Open House they were having in honor of the casting of the first mirror of the Giant Magellan Telescope, preventing people from wandering into areas they shouldn't between 8:30-9:45am. The only thing I did that was worthwhile during that time was waking a computer up that had fallen asleep. Yeah, I don't think they really needed me there. But they were very appreciative nonetheless.
Then around 10am Tiff and Eric biked in to tour the mirror lab with me. We spent about an hour checking the place out and taking pictures (they should be posted in a year or so, promise!). Then it was over to a "pre-prospective" lunch with REU students from Flagstaff. The way the interacted reminded me of the fun I had during my REU experience in Flagstaff three years ago.
After that I took a couple hours at home to rest before shopping for dinner. Then over to a friend's house for cheesecake till about 8pm or so. The cheesecake was very good.
Then Tiff and I decided to try out this "bike gang" thing I'd gotten wind of through ultimate mailing lists. We found the bike gang at a bar called Che's, but I was nervous at first about joining the group, since I didn't really know anyone there. After a long period of waffling, I finally took a shot of whiskey with Tiffany and plunged into the crowd. It ended up being the best night I've had in Tucson, so I'd say I made the right decision.
Basically, the theme was bike from bar to bar and get drunk in the process. There was a theme of yellow vs. green, but somehow I forgot that fact so I wore white. Serendipitously, Tiff was wearing a yellow shirt, so she fit right in. The theme for me and Tiff for the night was whiskey, since at each of four bars we went to we had at least one shot of whiskey.
I even ended up dancing at two of the bars/clubs we went to. Now, I'm not one to dance you know. But the people we were hanging out with were the type of people that I'd feel comfortable dancing around: not caring what other people think of them. In fact, at the second club we went to I wore a camelback while dancing. It was very convenient. After four hours of biking/partying, it was time to head home.
I woke up at 9:30am this morning and spent the entire day inside except for a short bike ride with Tiff after anime night. We did do a nice job of cleaning up the house before anime night. In fact, the kitchen is still in pretty good shape, amazingly. Well, I should get going.
One of the more interesting developments at work lately has been a new undergrad in the radio astronomy group. What's interesting is that I'm supposed to be coming up with tasks for him to work on. This is unfamiliar territory for me. I'm trying to remember what things other people did when they were teaching me that I did/didn't like, but it's kind of difficult. Actually, the main problem is that I don't really know what I should be doing myself, so it's pretty hard for me to be giving orders to anyone else!
Still though, I like the process of helping someone else understand something. I think that's a good sign.
I'm not an especially confident driver. In fact, a lot of times, I'm able to envision the way a car crash would turn out. This tends to happen a lot when I'm listening to music on the radio. I'll think to myself: 'It would be weird to get in an accident and have the car totalled while this song is playing.' See, when I picture all this happening, the radio never breaks during the crash, so it's playing the whole time. There are certain songs that I would be very embarasses to crash while they are on the air. I think that's kinda weird.
I was thinking last night about Calvin & Hobbes. Specifically, I was thinking about how there are two realities in the comic strip--Calvin's and everyone else's. So I thought it was really cool how Bill Watterson was able to combine the two realities and make them both seem real in the comic strip. From my standpoint, as a reader of the strip, I felt that both realities were legitimate. That, to me, was one of the main driving forces behind the strip. That and it has always made me laugh. =)
I won the weekly poker tournament I play in last night for tidy profit of about $40. Of course, last week I lost $10 in the same tournament, so... Overall, I'm up about $90 after playing in six tournaments. That's about $15 per tournament, or about $5 per hour, since the tournaments typically last about three hours. Once again, I'd definitely say I'm ready to be a professional.
Yesterday I repotted Jaws, Fuzzball, and Whitey. Both Jaws and Fuzzball needed bigger pots and Whitey just needed his soil loosened up a bit since I packed it in too hard when I first potted him. Hopefully, they'll all start growing again, since before they were looking a bit droopy and brown.
I continue to think that poker on TV can be done live. I also continue to think that it can be televised in much the same way as a golf tournament is televised. Furthermore, the more I think about it, the more I think that the final table wouldn't be boring at all, as long as you had good commentary.
Eric and I are looking to buy a house here in Tucson in the next few weeks. My motives are mainly economical, but I am also keen on ownership instead of renting. I feel like it will make me more responsible for fixing things that break in the house.
As a start to that initiative, Eric, Tiffany and I drove around town Saturday afternoon to check out houses in our price range (about 200k). I made a list of about 15 houses we could check out, but I didn't contact any agents to see if anyone would be in the homes when we visited, so it turned out that we only got to see the inside of one house--when the owner was there and was kind enough to show us around despite the house already being under contract. Out of 15 houses, we only saw 2-4 that deserved a closer look. However, the one we actually got to see sold for exactly 200k, and both Eric and I liked the place. So I think there is hope for the future. Lots of work left though.
I've noticed when I bike in to work in the morning that a lot of bikers nod at me when we pass each other going in opposite directions. Being a kind of shy person, I don't usually nod back. So I'm wondering if there's some kind of general consensus as to when you should nod at people on bikes and when you shouldn't. Maybe I just have the look of a biker who should be nodded at when I'm wearing a helmet, sunglasses, and a camelback. Maybe bikers are just friendly people. Maybe I'll never know?!?!
A fire started on Mount Wrightson (south of Tucson) has advanced thanks to the help of strong winds to threaten to burn down several observatories on Mount Hopkins. Here's a picture of the fire and the related news story. Fortunately, it looks like the primary telescope on Hopkins, the MMT, will survive. Other telescopes on the mountain may not be so lucky however.
TV coverage of poker tournaments has exploded over the past few years. It started about three years ago with the World Poker Tour (which is still going strong), but it really took off when Chris Moneymaker, an amateur, won the main event at the World Series of Poker in 2003 and everybody saw it on ESPN. Now, you can find poker on almost all of the major networks including NBC, Fox Sports Net, and ESPN. Unfortunately, none of this TV coverage is live.
All of the networks choose to tape the action, provide voiceovers from commentators and then air the show well after the actual event has been played. The primary reason for this is that poker tournaments generally take too long for them to be seen live on TV in their entirety. At least, that's the current common knowledge. I would like to see that common knowledge changed.
I think a pretty good model for this situation is the PGA tour, where the best golfers in the world get together on a weekly basis and play at golf courses around the world in tournaments for a lot of money. On the PGA tour, you have about 100 professionals competing to win the tournament. Similarly, I imagine you could create a "Professional Poker Player's Circuit" or some such thing, where you'd have about 100 professional poker players competing for the top prize at weekly tournaments. In golf, they have a bunch of cameras with commentators all over the course so that they catch any amazing shots like a hole-in-one. This could be done in the early stages of the poker tournament as well. I'm sure you could get 10 decent poker pros who weren't playing in the tournament to comment on what was happening at the ~10 tables. Then, just like in golf, you'd have 2 or 3 people at some desk tying all the commentating together. You know, a Jim Nance type of guy.
It's important to explain how different this would be from the current setup. As things are now, we have poker tournaments that have huge numbers of entries, especially at the World Series of Poker. My idea would definitely reduce the number of these gigantic tournaments. But I feel like the size of the huge tournaments makes winning them more a matter of luck than skill. Therefore, I don't think it will make as good TV -- at least as a sport on TV. However, I'm not proposing to eliminate all the WSOP-like tournaments. You could still have an "open" tournament like the U.S. Open in golf, where qualifying could happen over the course of a week before the actual televised event. In this case, you would definitely end up with a bunch of amateurs in the final 100 or however many end up getting televised.
I really think live poker on TV has potential, but there are still some kinks. For instance, how do we deal with the final table action? When it's down to 9 players or fewer, will it just be too boring with all the folding that happens? Is there a fair way to increase the speed of the action such that the final table can be completed in 4-5 hours?
Another idea I had was to use a modified version of a format that has been employed in this years' WSOP: the six-handed shootout. Here, you start out with 12 tables with six players each. Each table continues until only one player is left. Thus, after the first day you have only 12 players left, making two tables of six each. The second day then consists of getting down to a total of two players. The third day is heads-up action to determine the champion.
I think the real problem is figuring out a reasonable way to increase the blinds as the tournament progresses such that the players feel it is fair and the fans feel it is exciting. I haven't thought much about that yet, but maybe in the future I will.
As promised, here is All You Ever Wanted To Know About Stephen Schaefer. That leaves Tony S as the last member of bigwhoop to be interviewed. Don't worry, I'll get it done within a year or two!
Oh yeah, I also played poker last night for the first time in a month. Tiffany played with us this time too. Naturally, she busted me out of the tournament! Eerily similar to when my sister busted me out awhile back.
We made it back to Tucson this evening. I've got lots of stuff to say but I'm too tired. I've also got an interview from SPS on the way in the near future. So hang on, info is coming!
In case you didn't know, I'm on the road.
Check out http://bussmann.bigwhoop.org/~bussmann/galleries/ starting with 050623 for pictures and http://bussmann.bigwhoop.org/~bussmann/galleries/roadtrip1.txt for my typically dry assessment of the trip so far!