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Captain America
Jan. 11th, 2007 11:49 amI hate the term "rockumentary". As portmanteaux go, it's right there at the bottom of the barrel with, er, well, I don't know what.
However, that doesn't stop the documentaries on musicians that I occasionally see from being top-notch, and last night's "The Devil And Daniel Johnston" was up there with the best. When this comes onto Channel Four in the UK, try to catch it, even if you have never heard of Daniel Johnston (or if you have heard of him, but, having heard his music, wish that you hadn't).
It was absolutely gripping for the entire two hours, questioning the way in which hip music fans put the mentally ill up on a pedestal and how they lionize those who die young (although Johnston is still very much alive). That would make for a fairly tedious "exposé". What made this different was that the film's director (name forgotten, mea culpa) was also a fan of Daniel Johnston's art and his music. I wouldn't call the film a joy from start to finish -- parts of it are too painful for that -- but it was superb to watch.
+++++++
I treated myself to a Pentax K100D yesterday, partly because I realized that I had never owned an SLR camera. Part of being behoven to booze for several decades is that you never have any money to spare. This kind of works to your advantage when you stop drinking (compared to those who have never drunk or smoked) because you are not used to spending money on anything apart from cigarettes and alcohol. So, although £400 (including 2GB card) seemed a bit of a jolt to me, I just had to tell myself that, in the grand scheme of things, it was far less than I save in an average month.
I put the settings to 1.5m pixels, partly because that's fine for smaller prints and partly because any uploaded pictures get cut down to far less than that anyway.
This was the maximum setting on my little Jena digital camera, and the memory card could manage 14 pictures at the setting. The 2gb card casually takes 1,300 pictures at that setting. Lots of changes in a couple of years, or what?
Fortuitously, there was a giant chess game taking place this morning in Trafalgar Square, so I could test the night-time settings. Seemed to work well, even with flash turned to "off".
+++++++++
Still awaiting news on Mr Ward's heroic back-to-back final table performance in Tunica. No news is in a way good news (no post overnight of "I'm out"). I can't access Gutshot from work (and it won't let me download Picasa, dammit!) so I can't say whether or not the forum is bursting with "congrats to Andy" posts, but I suspect (and rather hope) not.
The "GIQ" state of affairs on GIQ is the way I and Andy like it. Less of this high-profile stuff. I often goa couple of weeks these days without accessing either The Hendon Mob or Gutshot forums, because there is virtually no chance that there will be anything there that's worth reading. Now, The Mathematics of Poker, there's a book worth reading. But I really hope that nost of the posters on these forums never get beyond page 10.
I'm struggling through the EV Pot Limit fixed betting example at the moment (with three stake levels, short stack, medium stack and large stack). The conclusion is intuitive to most experienced players -- get all your money in early if you are on a draw -- but it does point out a distinct difference between Pot LImit and No Limit, and why poor PL players are likely to go broke far more quickly than poor NL players.
++++++++
Stop Press according to Poker Pages:
1 Andy Ward (London, United Kingdom) $81,694
Rock on.
PJ
However, that doesn't stop the documentaries on musicians that I occasionally see from being top-notch, and last night's "The Devil And Daniel Johnston" was up there with the best. When this comes onto Channel Four in the UK, try to catch it, even if you have never heard of Daniel Johnston (or if you have heard of him, but, having heard his music, wish that you hadn't).
It was absolutely gripping for the entire two hours, questioning the way in which hip music fans put the mentally ill up on a pedestal and how they lionize those who die young (although Johnston is still very much alive). That would make for a fairly tedious "exposé". What made this different was that the film's director (name forgotten, mea culpa) was also a fan of Daniel Johnston's art and his music. I wouldn't call the film a joy from start to finish -- parts of it are too painful for that -- but it was superb to watch.
+++++++
I treated myself to a Pentax K100D yesterday, partly because I realized that I had never owned an SLR camera. Part of being behoven to booze for several decades is that you never have any money to spare. This kind of works to your advantage when you stop drinking (compared to those who have never drunk or smoked) because you are not used to spending money on anything apart from cigarettes and alcohol. So, although £400 (including 2GB card) seemed a bit of a jolt to me, I just had to tell myself that, in the grand scheme of things, it was far less than I save in an average month.
I put the settings to 1.5m pixels, partly because that's fine for smaller prints and partly because any uploaded pictures get cut down to far less than that anyway.
This was the maximum setting on my little Jena digital camera, and the memory card could manage 14 pictures at the setting. The 2gb card casually takes 1,300 pictures at that setting. Lots of changes in a couple of years, or what?
Fortuitously, there was a giant chess game taking place this morning in Trafalgar Square, so I could test the night-time settings. Seemed to work well, even with flash turned to "off".
+++++++++
Still awaiting news on Mr Ward's heroic back-to-back final table performance in Tunica. No news is in a way good news (no post overnight of "I'm out"). I can't access Gutshot from work (and it won't let me download Picasa, dammit!) so I can't say whether or not the forum is bursting with "congrats to Andy" posts, but I suspect (and rather hope) not.
The "GIQ" state of affairs on GIQ is the way I and Andy like it. Less of this high-profile stuff. I often goa couple of weeks these days without accessing either The Hendon Mob or Gutshot forums, because there is virtually no chance that there will be anything there that's worth reading. Now, The Mathematics of Poker, there's a book worth reading. But I really hope that nost of the posters on these forums never get beyond page 10.
I'm struggling through the EV Pot Limit fixed betting example at the moment (with three stake levels, short stack, medium stack and large stack). The conclusion is intuitive to most experienced players -- get all your money in early if you are on a draw -- but it does point out a distinct difference between Pot LImit and No Limit, and why poor PL players are likely to go broke far more quickly than poor NL players.
++++++++
Stop Press according to Poker Pages:
1 Andy Ward (London, United Kingdom) $81,694
Rock on.
PJ
