Season Four. The Best Season of Voyager to Date.

As you know I have been geting old TV series on DVD through my Netflix subscription. This has been a little frustrating to me because, lately, I have been getting a lot of DVDs out of order. If you don't know, with Netflix, you make a list of DVDs to be sent to you. They are supposed to send the movie at the top of your list. I have Been getting Star Trek Voyager lately. It is probably my favorite Star Trek series. Deep Space nine may be a close second. Anyway, I guess someone else in the general area is getting Voyager too, because there have been a few times that I get movies further down on my list. I am glad that Netflix doesn't just send me disk one of season five if I am waiting to receve disk two of season four. They have the brains to know that I have all seven Voyager seasons on my queue and want to watch them in order. Well, let me bet back to the point.

The reasons that Voyager is my favorite it because:

1. The story is compelling. A Star Fleet ship is flung across the galaxy my a powerful entity and are stranded 70 years from home. The crew meets all sorts of hostile aliens that want to steal their technology or just plain kill them. They spend the next seven seasons trying to get back to Federation space.

2. Kinda connected to reason 1, there is all sorts of special effects and space battles. This probable raises me up on the geek factor, but I could watch hours of space battles with good special effects. I think that a great Star Trek Series would be full of space battles, like the Federation is being invaded by a superior force. Kinda like Deep Space Nine when the Dominion invaded, but at a larger scale. Similar to Battle Star Galactica, only based in the Trekkie universe. They'd have to create new technology to defend themselves against a superior force.

3. Finally, three words - Seven of Nine (See picture). As a teen, The addition of Seven of Nine to the Voyager crew (in season four) put a smile on my face and a funny feeling in my trousers. I saw an interview with the actress, Jeri Ryan, who said that her uniform was so tight that she almost passed out once. She was added to the show to try to perk the interest of the viewers in an attempt to stimulate the dropping ratings. I'd say it worked since the series went another four seasons.

Anyway, season four is the best Voyager season to date. I have disk one at home and already watched it once. I think I will try to watch it again this morning before the mail is picked up. It is just full of non stop action (and Seven of Nine). Seasons one through three are deffinately worth the watch, but I may have to go out ane buy season four.

Poker Pet Peeves

As you all know, I enjoy playing Texas Hold'em. If I were granted a 'Make a Wish' type thing, my wish would be to be flown out to Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker's big game. It's, like, $10000 to get into that game, but it's huge. Lots of celebs and pokers best players get together for a gianormous tourney that usually lasts days. I'd get my ass kicked, but at least I'd know if I was as good as I think I may be. A few weeks ago I turned $13 into $130 and last night I turned $20 into $144. Am I that good, or are the people I played just that bad? I think it's a combination, but mostly the latter applies. Needless to say, I am happy that the past few games I've played have put me in the plus in the money department. The best feeling in the world is when you know that you have the best hand and someone else initiates the betting. I swear that I could hear the opening cash register sound inside my head. Anyway, I have several pet peeves when I play poker, and I experienced some of them last night:

Loud Players. I can't stand being at a table with someone that thinks that they will get a read off of me by talking loud being irritating. Not to sound racist, but this tactict is usually is a black thing. One game I played in, there was a guy that would literally talk (loudly) for five to ten minutes before making a bet or a call. You aren't going to read me, just play your fucking cards. I was thankful when he was taken out of the game.

Table Talkers. This is slightly different from Loud Players. Table talkers are people who show their cards to other players that have already folded in order to get their opinion, people that encourage other players to make a call, or that give playing advice in the middle of a hand. They'd kick you out of a game in Vegas for pulling that kind of crap. A memorable case of this is a game I played when I bet big on a bluff (I knew the other guy in the hand had nothing and was going to fold) and someone talked the other player into calling me. I lost.

Chasers. A chaser is someone who has an OK hand, but stay in the hand all the way to the river card to try to catch a hand. This is acceptable sometimes, (like if you already have a lot of money in the pot and don't want to throw it away by folding) but there are some players that start out with crap, the flop gives them more crap, and instead of folding, they stay in the hand until the end. The worst part is when they get the one card that helps them on the river.

Criers. Now, this doesn't actually mean that people break down and cry. A crier is someone that gets beat and then whines about it. Usually, they whine because of a bad beat (which means that they had the best hand going in, but get beat by a lucky card coming up.) but I feel that, if you are willing to bet money on a game of chance, you shouldn't whine when the cards don't fall your way. For example, last night one of the players was talking about someone else whining about a bad beat and he said something like, "It's happened to everyone before. Don't play if you aren't prepared to lose. So play or go home." After saying that, this guy started losing and then whining almost every time. He'd get angry, he'd get sarcastic about the best hand losing, and sarcastic about "the best players always win". When he said that, I wanted to say, "Yes, the best players DO win. You just aren't one of them." What irritated me the most wasn't that he was whining, he was getting bad beats all night, I was irritated that he complained about whiners earlier in the night and then was the whiner. Don't play if you aren't willing to lose. I don't feel sorry for him at all.

A few things...

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I guess there hasn't been too much going on lately. I've mostly been working and hangin with the fam. There are a few things to report though:

We are going to proceed with out 'reunion' cookout. In case you are unaware, I am inviting all of the people I know from high school (at least the ones I like) for a cook out before everyone moves their own directions. We will kick things off at 2:00 so that out of town people can come early and leave at a decent time (unless they want to find somewhere to crash). We'll keep going until everyone wants to leave. I'm also going to invite local friends, so we should have a good crowd.

I am really looking forward to Jessica's birthday this year. In lieu of our crappy past few months, we have decided to go on a weekend trip to celebrate Jessica's birthday. We have booked two nights in a hotel at Put-In-Bay. It should be a good time. We're going to go on a tour of some wineries and other attractions and I guess that weekend there will be a casino type party going on. We'll be able to get shnockered and lose some money. I am already excited. We will drop the kids off at my parent's house and have some adult fun. Anyone been to Put-In-Bay lately? Any suggestions on what we should do?

Lawyers are scum

Well, I should ammend the title by stating that SOME lawyers are scum. There are some lawyers that devote their lives to helping others. The lawyers that I am talking about are the ambulance chasers that have been sending us mail daily regarding the accident that Jessica's mom was in last month. Now, I understand that they need to make their money somehow, but you'd think that they would have a little bit of tack when it comes to stuff like this. We've gotten at least twenty letters and packages from lawyers trying to get our business. Don't these people think that accident victems and their families are smart enough to use Google or the phone book to find their own lawyers? There have been letters, folders with sales materials, and even a video tape. Each claiming that the soliciting lawyer will get us the maximum amount of money. The biggest ass of them all was the one that sent to letter to Jessica's mom that started, "I understand that you may have been injured in an automobile accident." Well, I'm afraid that it was a little more serious than that. READ THE WHOLE NEWS ARTICLE DICK HEAD!!! We now just throw away anything that we get from law offices. We do have a lawyer that is going to help us get everything taken care of. My mom knows a lawyer who knew another lawyer that handles accidental death cases. We're meeting with him this week to get some issues ironed out. I really can't wait for this whole mess to be done and over with. This situation is rough enough without needing to worry about the legal aspect.

Thank You!

I just wanted to send a quick 'thank you' to To all of you for your thoughts, prayers, and cards that you have sent to my family during the past few weeks. As you all know, it has been a really rough time for us over the past month. Your support and well wishes are greatly appreciated. Also, thanks for all of the cards and gifts for Alydia's birthday. The party was exactly what we needed to get our minds off of things for a little while. I am thankful to have so many good friends that would come help us celebrate on such short notice. Alydia is having fun with her toys and Jessica is having fun with the cute outfits. I'll send more personal thank you cards when I get the time. If any of you need anything from us at any time, don't hesitate to ask.

Tourneys vs. Cash Games

Last night I played in a cash game (poker). Basically, what tham means is if you take $20, you play with $20. The chip amounts are based on the money you brought ($.25 $.50 $1.00 etc.). I usually play in tournaments ($20 gets you a specified amount of chips, like $2000) so the cash game experience was a bit different for me. The big difference is that, in tournaments, when you are out of chips, you are out of the game. In cash games, you can play until your wallet is empty. So, if you put in $20 and lose it all, you can buy another $20 of chips and keep going. Ideally, you want to win money without needing to buy in more than once. Another big difference in the cash games is the mentality of the players. People are more likely to overbet their hand or try to chase a hand when they know that they can get more chips if they lose. I can't tell you how many games I had won early, but I'd get called by someone chasing a hand. Then they's hit their had on the river. I started with $73, went down to under $10, and ended up with $130. I almost left, but am glad I didn't. Hand I played of note:

1. I hit a flush when I had less than $10 to get back into the game.
2. I had Ace six of clubs, hit the flush on the flop and slow played two players for about $50
3. The best play of the night: I had 6 3 of clubs and tried to buy the pot (I was on a flush draw). I was raised, and then I went over the top with an all in. I had nothing, but I could tell that the other guy had nothing too. I was able to scare him out of the hand (or else I would have been broke). To add insult to injury, I showed my cards. He was not happy about folding to a six high. I love poker.

X-Men 3..... I liked it.

This Memorial Day, I took the boys to see the latest (and last?) installment of the X-Men movie series. I was a little nervous about this movie. In general, as a movie, I really liked X3. It was full of action and the story was good. Plus, this film added two of my favs to the X-Men movie mix: The Juggernaut and Kitty Pryde. I always liked the Juggernaut as a bad guy. The unstoppable force. It was a great book when they put Juggernaut up against the Blog (the immovable object). Kitty Pryde was a bit of a highschool crush for me. I know she's a comic book character, but I didn't get much play back in my comic reading day. Also, Kelsey Grammer play the Beast very well. They did a good job with that character. Another thing that I liked about all of the X-Men movies, is that they all kept a certain distance from the comic books. Yes, there are some similarities in the plot lines, but the movie makers never completely stole whole stories from the pages of the Marvel Comics. Now, as a fan of the comic book, there are a few things about X3 that did NOT like (If you have not seen thios movie, you may not want to read the following ...SPOILERS!!!:

1. Magneto and Mystique were made human. If they killed them it would be one thing, but to strip these two bad ass mutants of their powers is criminal.
2. Cyclops was killed in the first half hour of the movie. He was an original member of the X-Men. How can you just kill him off like that?
3. Mr. Multiple (Multiple Man?) was a bad guy. If memory serves, he was one of the good guys on the X-Factor team.
4. Rogue took the cure. She is one of my favs from the comic book. Of course, the movie makers took alot of liberties with this character throughout the films, but she was such a powerful mutant and they never really scratched the surface of her potential.
5. Professor X was killed. Yeah, he died in the comic books, and he was brought back, but to see him get killed so easily kinda bothered me. I guess the movie makers were pulling out all of the stops trying to make this film shocking and dark.

As I said, all in all this was a good movie to watch. I'm sure that comic book purists may have several problems with it, but I will definately buy the DVD.