The New Road

Google Gears

I'm really psyched about Google Gears. Like the addition of XMLHTTPRequest to the browser, I think this will have a profound impact. Every time I talk with someone about a full web-based approach to an application I inevitably get the 'what about when I'm not connected?' question. Well, Google Gears is the answer. And it's here today, not just in the minds of some standards geeks to be rolled out three years from now. Plus, it's well done. I really like the presence of the SQL engine. I'm sure that's something the standards guys weren't talking about, and now that Google has pushed the envelope they really should consider it. I far prefer a relational database to a simple object soup.

Way Too Thin

Nicole Richie came out with an invitation to her party that said a weight scale would be at the door and no woman over 100lbs would be let in. Yes, the emphasis on uber-thin is back and it's really kind of disgusting, as seen in this post.

Rib cleavage. Ugh.

Trashing Rosie

I'm not a huge Rosie O'Donnell fan. I thought she did add a lot of content to the usually content-free 'The View'. But I also thought of her appearances that she both brought good points, but that she didn't defend them particularly well. It's possible that she was holding back a little because the show is supposed to have a lighter tone.

Anyway, what's happening now with Fox Noise just piling on her is a new low for the news network. This most recent character assassination session between O'Reilly and Trump was particularly disgusting. They call her a monster and throw other crass epithets around, all while she is not present to defend herself. At one point O'Reilly does try and interject some actual facts by quoting a Fox Noise viewers poll that shows Rosie has worse approval numbers than Bush. Wow, you don't say. Fox Noise viewers hate Rosie. Surprise, surprise.

I thought her decision to leave early was a little gutless. But now I just feel sorry for her. She is on the wrong end of the spearhead of the far right wing spin machine. And that spin machine, since it can no longer support Bush and his policies and retain it's audience, spends all of it's time slamming critics of Bush's insane policies.

Kiera Knightely

I seem to be the only man who isn't drooling over Kiera Knightely. Call me crazy, but the super-boney triple-zero look just isn't appealing to me. Case in point:

Holy crap! Somebody call the clinic. This girl needs a cheeseburger injection. Stat!

And not only that, but, you know, seriously, for a breast crazy society, I find it amazing that guys can drool all over Kiera. She's got nothing going on in the boobeses department.

I'll take Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson, or Kate Hudson any day over Kiera.

And, while I'm on the Pirates beat, if I were a woman, or gay, I'm not even sure I could get all that excited over Orlando Bloom. He seems kinda, well, kinda feminine to me, or at least emasculated. He can't hold the screen worth a damn. If you want a striking masculine presence, it's Depp, of course. Well, at least in the Pirates movie. Depp doesn't hold a candle to a guy like Clooney in the masculinity department.

Pirates

Lori and I went to see the third Pirates installment last night. I liked the first movie, I was ok with the second. The third just completely lost me. Which is sad because I really like Pirate movies. I love the high seas adventure, the swashbuckling sword fights, the whole thing. The problem is that this movie had almost none of that in any simple understandable way. It was all this supernatural hocuspocus about death, immortality, goddesses, the edge of the world and all kinds of weirdness.

There was so much happening, where so little of it I could genuinely understand, that I couldn't engage with the movie at all. I mean, come on, when the first thing you do is save your hero from death, can you really suspend any tension about death through the rest of the movie?

The movie was just plain weird at some points. It was as if I had stumbled into a half billion dollar art house movie. Little Johnny Depp angels and devils sitting on his shoulder and waxing lyrical about immortality. The key players going on, and on, and on, about almost nothing. IMDB says the movie started filming without a completed script. Either they needed more time to complete all the small talk, or they decided not to take out the ad-libbing. Either way I found myself wanting the characters to just shut up, and do some damn pirating.

Even the scene where the villain dies was weird. In a normal movie, where they set up the villain to be the bad guy by showing him do bad things, you want to see him die. In this movie he was a side player. So his death scene met complete audience silence. It was a beautiful effects shot. But there was really no reason for us to hate this man, so there was no reaction at all in the crowd.

Disney brought out there suped-up new castle graphics to start the movie, which lead me to ask a question; would Walt have liked this movie? I don't think so. Yes the visuals were stunning. But the story was completely bloated.

It's so sad. What happened to the franchise since the first movie? Too much money and expectations I suppose. I would see the fourth movie, if it promised far less hocuspocus, more genuine pirating in the Caribbean, and a budget of less than $100 million.

Recent IED attacks

There was a recent improvised explosive device (IED) attack that killed six soldiers when the explosive, hidden under the concrete of the road, went off. It was large enough to get through the concrete and flip the Stryker vehicle. I hesitate to call anything that massive or well planned improvised.

I prefer to look at this type of news practically. What did it take to attack us this way? How can we defend against it? The news, viewed through this prism, is disturbing indeed.

• Putting a device under the concrete took industrial style effort. That would take big equipment, supplies and effort. That means large numbers of people working as a team.
• The device itself must have been massive, upping the level of sophistication significantly.
• There had to be community support because tearing up a road, planting a bomb, covering up the road and masking the evidence would be a major project that would take at last two or three days to implement.
• In that entire community, nobody decided to contact our troops. Nor did we have anyone inside the insurgency who could provide intelligence about the impending attack.

And that's really just the beginning. This is a bad, bad sign. 80% of Iraqis want us out. 70% of Iraqis believe it's ok to attack Americans. Those are relatively old numbers. And the political situation there has only been getting worse.

This is Vietnam all over again. We are stuck in the middle of a war between people that we don't understand. We don't know why we are there. There is no local support for our presence there. In fact, there is a locally based effort to attack us with the support of the community.

Friday Mission Peak Hike

On Friday Eric and I hiked with Harold Davis up to the top of Mission Peak. He took some photos along the way, but the real reason he was for the pictures after the sun had set. His results are astounding. You just wouldn't expect to see this much detail from pictures taken in the black of night, but the camera finds a way to find all the photons it can on his 30 second exposures.

For my part, I really enjoyed the company. We had some great conversations about work and life in the valley. I have come to look at Mission Peak like some sort of beautiful, but mean, beast. I run up it, hit the top, and get back down fast because the sweat on my shirt makes the summit super cold. But staying there for as long as we did, I really gained a new appreciation for the hill. I'll have to go up another time soon and hike south along the ridge. I think you can get a far ways down and see some different angles of the valley.

In the meantime the next site for hiking appears to be an SFO overlook from the area around Skyline College. Much less of a hike and much more about enjoying the view. For that I'll bring some food, hot chocolate, and more comfortable clothes.

I suppose I should apologize to Harold for patronizing him about the hike. Honestly, he handled it better than anyone I have gone with their first time up. It's really about pacing yourself, and he did a good job of finding a pace that worked for him and left lots of energy for a late night photo shoot and pitch black decent.

Myths of Innovation Review : Slashdotted

One of my book reviews was just Slashdotted. Myths of Innovation is a good book. I highly recommend it for the entrepreneurial among you.

Bay To Breakers Photos

I have no idea why anyone other than myself would want to do this, but for the curious, photos of me are online from the Bay To Breakers run. My bib # is 2912.

I'm starting to get the hang of this posing for the race photo thing. No matter how much pain you are in, always smile for the cameras and always smile when you are running, walking, or getting dragged across the finish line.

I probably won't order the prints. But they do give me some hints about my running stride problems. My feet are definitely pinching in towards the middle as they come forward. I'm not getting my feet off the ground quickly enough in the back. And I'm spending too much time on the ground altogether. Lots to work on.

Goodling

Monica Goodling is up on the hill now trying to explain away why the Bush administration fired eight attorney generals. To say that her testimony is weak would be a kindness. She can't seem to distinguish between legal and illegal behavior. And while she will admit to having crossed the line, she says she didn't mean to do it. Which I guess means it's legal, right? Any Regent University legal grads out there? Oh, I guess it's not illegal because she was motivated by good intentions so her soul is pure with the Lord.

Honestly, these scandals are as ridiculous as they are pathetic.

What I will admit has been well played recently is Bush's fight with Congress about funding. Rove must have been planning this for months, and he has done a great job so far. Of course, the result is a political win for Bush and a resounding disaster for America, our troops, Iraq and the world. Which is so often the case with this guy.

Shrek The Third

Critics be damned, I liked Shrek The Third and Megan liked it too. She is going back for a second round in a couple of days and that proves it. She even gives it the 'big thumbs up'.

It's different from the other two. It's more complex. There are more characters and more plots to service. And given that they probably have a fixed running time to work with, there are only so many scenes and they can be only so long. So that means that the luxuriant scene lengths of the past, which allow them to do build-ups and pay-offs which create cinema classics, are gone.

That doesn't mean the movie is bad though. It's just more modern than the other two. It's a bigger film, there are more locations, more action, more story, more everything. And it's honestly, all high quality goodness. There are some standout moments; the high school sequences, the jail scene between the princesses, most of the scenes Charming is in, etc.

Is it my favorite Shrek movie? That's a tough question. I look at Shrek and Shrek II as different movies from this one. And between those two I would pick Shrek II, and say that this is a tangential work to that. In reality, all three of the movies are great.

I do have some minor gripes. While some of the humor was very edgy, there wasn't as much edge as there was in the second movie. I thought the princess attacks scene with the birds and the Led Zeppelin soundtrack worked better on paper than on the screen. It felt like they knew it didn't work but that they paid so much for the rights to the song that it had to be there. The climactic scene, while good, didn't have the same energy as the climax in Shrek II. And finally, the princesses weren't clearly defined to me, I couldn't figure out which one was Beauty, and because of Megan that's important to me.

I also have to give this movie a bit of the benefit of the doubt because I was so hard on Shrek II right after I saw it, and it has definitely warmed on me since.

Sopranos Ballot

The Sopranos has been heating up in the last few episodes, reminding us of why we loved the show in the first place. Given that there are a lot of plot lines up in the air and only two shows left I reckon it's time for a little betting game. So...

Here is your Sopranos ballot for the last two episodes. Every right answer is worth a point. The winners are the people at the end with the highest number of points. Each ballot is $10. The winner(s) will take the whole pot or a percentage thereof if there are multiple winners. Due date for entry is 6/2/2007. Be sure to sign and date at the top of the ballot. I'll let the winners know the day after the finale.

Legalia:

As judger of the competition, I Jack Herrington, will hold no vested interest in it's outcome. Thus I will not have an entry form or money in the pool.

In the event of a 'Six Feet Under' style conclusion where we find out everything that happens in the future full stop and every dies, the deaths will be judged by those who died before the flash forward segment.

In the even that it's impossible to accurately determine winners, or if everyone wins, then the proceeds will be donated to a worthy charity.

Bay To Breakers

I ran the Bay To Breakers this morning. It was the first time in five years that I've run it and the first time I ran it alone. All in all it was my best race experience so far. I smiled for the cameras. Dunked a basketball on the run. Saw all manner of things. And did pretty well with the running thing too.

I intentionally kept my pace down. 7.4 miles is a lot for me right now. I usually mess myself up on 10Ks, and this was 12K. Around mile 6 I picked up the pace figuring that I could walk if I blew myself out, but my legs lasted.

I was a little worried about heat exhaustion because of what happened the last time I ran, but this time was cooler and I took every water opportunity offered.

I must have felt good about the race because I went swimming with Megan when I got home, then took her to go see Shrek The Third, which is far better than the reviews indicate.

Allergies Settling Down

It looks like my allergies have settled down again. I got refills for the usual suspects; Advair, Nasonex and Albuterol. The Advair is the one that really helps me. It gets rid of the wheezing and lets me breath deeply and easily. Having the buffs around has helped as well. When I'm outside and it's windy I can just lift it up like a mask. And it doesn't look at silly as the surgical mask thing.

Hopefully I will be 100% by Sunday so that I can easily run the Bay To Breakers. I'll have to keep an eye on the conditions and take it easy on Saturday. Which won't be that easy since we will be camping. But hopefully the kids will keep themselves entertained.

Chris Matthews Eats A Congressman

Chris Matthews finally took a moronic Republican congressman to task about his rhetoric on the war. The congressman went on about how we should look at Iraq like Germany or South Korea. It's an idiotic comparison that has no basis in the current situation. It's disingenuous. It does nothing to add to the conversation and implies that somehow the speaker has some longer view, when in fact, they are just clouded by their own rhetoric and blind to the fax on the ground. Which combine to leave them completely out of touch.

There are many rhetorical arguments in the right wing bag of tricks, and they are all despicable; anyone against the war is against our troops and thus a traitor, the war just needs one more chance to get it right, it's the media's fault, and on and on. But this comparison to Germany is the one I find the worst of all. I'm glad Chris finally handed this moron his ass about it. Every time one of these Republicans spouts this crap on real news (not Fox Noise) he ought to be shut down.

No Pain... No Pain

I've been reading this book on triathlon training. It stresses working out smarter as opposed to harder. One thing in particular that struck me was how the author debunked the old 'No pain, no gain' idea. Or I should say, that there is nothing to be gained from intense pain or real agony. The key to being a good triathlete is continuous training. Day after day. Year after year. It's not glamorous.

In hindsight it now seems obvious to me. But I can still remember times when I thought that just this one more ultra-intense workout would do the trick. The trick to what? Right? I could just stop after that?

Now I suppose I argue against myself and say that the 'Jackathlon' I tried last weekend was torture. But I did give up at the four hour mark and go home. And I was fighting against the elements more than my own exhaustion. Will I do it again? If I put Mission Peak in the rotation it would probably be for just a duathlon. Mission Peak and swimming, or Mission Peak and biking again. The mountain is just too tough on it's own. But I might find a nice long trail run and use that instead. There is a nice trailhead near the Treeview pool so I could just as easily use that.

I'm also beginning to notice how fitness advice seems to make a little more sense to me now. For example, on the one hand you would have these sweeping change suggestions; eat less fat, eat more protein, drop caffeine. And then there would be these micro suggestions; increase your footfall speed, sit back further in your saddle, push out with your arms at the apex of each stroke. And now it kind of makes sense to me that in the beginning you need the big macro changes to get into the whole deal. Then when you are into it for a while, it's the micro changes that start shaving off time here and there, or making longer runs, bikes, or swims possible with less effort. In golfing magazines they have advice targeted for each skill level, I wish they had the same kind of things in magazines for triathletes.

Anywho, still suffering a little from the allergy stuff. I definitely sucked a lot of crud into my lungs which I'm coughing out. I also went to REI and bought some buffs so that I can have a handy face mask on hikes, bikes and runs. If you want to have some fun watch the 'demo' video on the REI page. It's amazing what you can do with just a little piece of fabric. I talked to Lori about it and she said that I hadn't watched enough Survivor. On that show they use the buffs for everything. Here are some more ideas, though I can't vouch for 'blind chicken'.

Slammed By Allergies

A couple of weeks ago Dru asked me how my allergies were going and I said something to the effect of; 'they are gone'. And of course, they started to come back a little almost immediately. I've notice over the past several weeks that he heat, rain and wind have gotten stuff blooming again. But those nuisances were nothing in comparison to this weekend.

I tried on Saturday to take on the Jackathlon. The wind was pretty tough at first, but heading towards the hills it eased up. I made it to the base of Mission Peak after 20 miles, and some pretty tough slogging. Getting up the hill was pretty tough. I hadn't brought along any food, so I was hungry. And I took some shortcuts which left me huffing and puffing.

The real trouble was from the wind though, which all along the way was just howling. The way over to the swimming club was miserable. There was wind from every direction and it was intense. I figured after about 4 hours of biking and hiking that I was pretty much done. So I headed back to the house. Every... single... turn... was... into... the... wind. It was some of the toughest biking I have ever done.

I got home complete exhausted. And then the allergies came. And came. And came. It seems that all that wind blew the pollen of the flowers and it damn near killed me.

Sunday was even worse. I was able to pull it together enough to make breakfast for Lori, Megan and Josephine. But overall I spent as much of the day in bed as could. My head was completely stuff, even on the meds, and I was coughing up all kinds of gunk.

On the up side, it was the only other time that I have seen a Survivor finale since the original show. Dreamz was such an idiot. He gave up all his credibility for nothing. I didn't watch any of the shows during the season but clearly Cassandra pissed some folks off given that Earl won every vote from the jury.

Anywho, back to the allergy thing. I'll definitely be going back to the doctor to update my prescription. And I'm thinking about putting a bandana over my mouth when I am biking or hiking to cut down on the dust, pollen and stuff. I see some people use them on the trail so I shouldn't be too out of place with it.

Beautiful Bay Area shots

Here are some amazing shots of the Bay Area by Harold Davis. A friend of mine tells me he might be happy with some company on his hikes up to get these shots. I certainly would be up for that.

The Jackathlon v. 1

The 100K bike rides, while interesting, are getting a little boring since I don't have company and I'm generally just doing the rides and hoping not to get a flat out in the middle of nowhere. Plus I like the whole multi-sport aspect of the triathlon, so this weekend I'm going to try out something new; The Jackathlon, version 1.

The first leg is a bike ride along creek trail to the bay and then back to mission hills (14 miles), then down to mission peak (~5 miles?). (1 hour)

The second leg starts with locking up the bike and hiking up Mission Peak, then back down again (~45 minutes).

The third leg is a bike from Mission Peak to the Treeview Swim Club (~10 miles, ~35 minutes).

The fourth leg is a half mile swim at the Treeview Swim Club (~20 minutes).

The fifth leg is the ride back to the house from the Treeview Swim Club (~7 miles, 25 minutes).

So around about three hours. Which is a medium speed 100K. But it's a much more interesting go around.

NCBIC

I've lived in the Bay Area now for over a decade and one thing I still can't get used to is the standard "NorCal Business Idea Conversation" (NCBIC). Whether you are at the ball game, or taking a hike, a passing around a bong in some loft in the city, the conversation always ends up talking about potential business ideas. This recent editorial by David Pogue is a classic example of a bad NCBIC, filled with bad ideas that will go nowhere fast. Oh, yeah, a cold and flu tracking site. Sign me up!

I've gone so far recently as to complain about it mid-conversation with folks. "Come on, can't we talk about NASCAR or Football, or something, anything other than lame half-assed Web 2.0 ideas?"

I think it's just ingrained in the culture around these parts. The NorCal natives are all cool and don't really do that NCBIC thing, but the imports, which are far and away the majority of the people here go NCBIC crazy. Probably because they came here to make money, like the gold rush, and have no interest in staying long term. Hell, I don't see myself retiring here. Not with housing prices as high as they are and gas prices the highest in the country.

I've submitted NCBIC to the UrbanDictionary. We will see if they pick up on it.

Speeding Up Firefox

I took a little time yesterday to un-install all of my Add-Ons to Firefox save two; Ad Block and Firebug. And what I got in return is my old fast browser back. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. Clearly a big lesson for the day, if you want a fast browser, don't install the extras.

Silverlight

I've been ruminating on Microsoft's Silverlight announcement for a week. I've actually been following WPF and it's bastard cousin WPF/e for a while now. I even went up to Redmond for a 'deep dive' course about a month ago. What struck me at the time was that Microsoft's pitch at that time was a Flash killer perfect for lightweight Youtube style applications. The Silverlight PR seems like it's from a distant galaxy in comparison to that. What I heard in Redmond was WPF/e working in conjunction with AJAX, not an AJAX killer.

Which brings me to my first observation about Microsoft; it's marketing department sucks. The .NET announcement, years ahead of prime time for that technology, a complete disaster. And the Vista release, what a joke. And now Silverlight? An AJAX killer? Maybe in a year or two, but the alpha bits are nowhere near ready for prime time and I think they are going to get ripped apart in the blogosphere, perhaps sinking the WPF/e ship before it even gets out of dry dock.

Which is unfortunate because I actually really like WPF and WPF/e from a technical perspective. I love declarative UI. I like Laszlo and Flex too, especially since Flex 2.

On the technical front I think Silverlight is interesting because you can run the same code in the same language on both the front and back ends. That means you can use the same model code in your UI as you can on the back end, with one persisting to XML for web transit, and the other persisting to the database. Cool, huh? Revolutionary? No, but I suppose practically yes. We have it today actually, it's called applets, and I only say that half heartedly because nobody is using them.

You see, the problem is that with applets the tail lead the horse. Java started in applets, which gave it the perception of a toy language. The when that failed Sun said, "No, no, no! Java's real power is in the back end. See JSP! See J2EE! Forget that applet stuff." So people did. Forgetting this idea that you could actually have both the front and back ends running the same code in the same language.

So a decade later along comes Microsoft with Silverlight, having ruled the back end for a while, now touting a front end technology that runs the same code. Should be a slam dunk, right? But the problem is that the front end tools are lacking. There are no standard controls, no buttons, no sliders, no tabs. What they needed to do was wait for the Flex style user control kit. Which they said they are working on. But marketing jumped the gun and now the early adopters are going to be stuck either doing their own UI or looking around for a toolkit.

And Sun, ironically, has announced a new Java technology called Java FX which sounds a lot like Flash. An interpreted language sitting on top of Swing. Or at least that's what some say it is. The details are murky. Either way, seems actually like a step backwards, or over into the Flash camp.

I really wish Microsoft had waiting on Silverlight until the front end tools were ready. There is so much potential in that technology. There is a whole new book of design patterns just waiting to be written about how to make the best use of a distributed client/server platform where both back-end and interface are running the same code.

I also wish that the Microsoft marketing folks hadn't taken the road of going against AJAX performance problems. AJAX doesn't have performance problems in small scale applications. And only the big guys are pushing it hard enough to see performance problems in the higher end applications, and they are smart enough to figure it out on their own. So long story short; the AJAX performance criticisms don't play. And worse, they will likely poison the well for solid technologies, like ATLAS, for the Microsoft faithful who believe every word they say.

Ah well, whichever way this cookie crumbles I know two things. First that the next year is going to be a pretty interesting one for Sun, Microsoft and Adobe as they trade shots over the RIA space. And second, AJAX isn't going anywhere fast. Whenever the big boys shoot it out there is always room for low-impact pragmatic technologies, like AJAX, to make a big impact.

Jail Paris!

In the 80s it was "Save Ferris". Now it's jail Paris. Please sign the petition to put Paris behind bars for her full sentence (a mere 45 days).

If you were wondering; why the petition? Turns out Paris has her fans signing a petition to lean on Arnold to pardon her. I'm not going to link to it because I know y'all will do the right thing and choose to jail Paris, baby!

It's 45 days Paris! Sheesh. It's not like it's a real amount of time. You've probably had manicures that lasted longer. Besides I'm sure you will be going to some posh farm for the insanely wealthy like where Martha did her time. Your not going to get any prison tats and be anyone's bitch there. Which is kinda sad, actually. But I digress.

Three New Mac Ads

Apple has come out with three more of their awesome Macintosh ads. I love the one about spinning the wheel to find the right version of Vista. Classic.

Moved To Google Reader

I've moved over my RSS reading to Google Reader. I was using Sage on Firefox, but it's buggy, super slow and doesn't share feeds between machines. Google Reader on the other hand, loves even bad feeds, works super fast, has great key bindings, and is available wherever, whenever I want it, even on my cell phone.

I'm Mal

I took the same test Lori did and where she turned out to be Zoe, I turned out to be Mal:

Webvisions Vodcast 1

And here is some video podcasting stuff, mheh.

Webvisions Interview 1

Here is an interview we did at Webvisions.

And here is some video podcasting stuff, mheh.

WV Test 2

Another audio test

Webvisions, Part I

I'm up at the Webvisions conference in Portland. It's beautiful up here and the people have been great so far. I did a workshop this morning on Ajax (slides, code).

After that I had a chance to work out then have a walk around. The local bookstore, Powells, is amazing. It's like a warehouse. Far bigger than any other bookstore I have ever been in. And that one didn't even have a technical section. The technical bookstore was in a whole other location. I visited that one as well and had some fun looking over their museum of old personal computers. They had a C64, TI-99, original Mac, Apple II and so on. And they were just sitting out waiting to be played with. What a blast from the past.

I also stopped by Lululemon Athletica, which is a chain of stores just in the paciific northwest and canada that sells athletic gear. They specialize in lightweight loose fitting stuff for dance/yoga/tai-chi/martial arts work. The prices are high to be sure. But the materials are amazing.

The hotel I'm staying at is a trip. It's got that trendy W feel to it. Lots of modern furnishings and modern prints and such. Turns out I screwed up on my reservation and arrived a day early. So they had to give me a suite for the price of a regular room. Now I have a king sized bed, two bathrooms, each with a phone. A huge LCD flat panel screen to watch TV on. A little sitting area and such. It's very posh. I feel kinda spoiled.

Tomorrow I give a short talk on podcasting in the afternoon then I'll probably do a bit more walking around and maybe get to the airport early to see if I can catch an earlier flight back. The Portland airport is actually quite nice so it's not a big downer to stay there for a couple of hours. Plus I got a good book on tape and I wouldn't mind getting back into that.

Chernobyl

Chernobyl is a game I designed for poker night 'crazy games'. It's fairly simple, allows for up to eight players, and really twists the game around. The game is basically Hold 'Em. The twist starts on the deal when everyone gets five cards. Betting is normal pre-flop.

When the flop comes out everyone discards one card face up, then betting proceeds as normal. The same goes for the turn and the river. At the end you should be left with two cards in your hand and three on the table face up. The three face up cards are discards and cannot be played.

The end result is exactly like Hold 'Em. You have two in your hand and the winner makes the best five card hand with the two in their hand and the five community cards on the table.

We play this game quite a bit during the 'crazy games' portion of the night. What I can say is the fourth street is usually the hardest. It's when you have to decide between going for a straight and going for a full house. It's amazing to see when people make the wrong choice and get stuck.

It's hard to say what a 'great starting Chernobyl hand' is. Having a straight in your hand is actually a bad thing because you have your own outs and you are going to discard some of them. The same goes with three or four of a kind in hand. Having four or five of one suit is also a problem since again you have your own outs and you will be discarding them.

Anyway, give this a shot at your poker game some time and let me know how it goes.

The Mormons

I watched part of the PBS special on The Mormons last night. The show is well done, as you would expect. It's very informative. But I find, as an atheist, the whole thing kind of silly. Particularly when they have on disciples of other religions who are basically laughing at the Mormons for their beliefs, as if their own beliefs are any more rooted in fact. You have one guy saying, "My sky god gave me a gold book with his writings on it". Then another guy say, "Well, that's crazy, the real sky god gives rock tablets!" Riiight.

Almost Handsome

I had a little time while the water was filling up in the tub for Megan's bath. So I sat down on a short stool we have in the bathroom and let her do my hair. She had a blast with that, saying that she was going to 'make me handsome', and that I was 'almost handsome' at one point. When she was done I would be 'handsome', but before she was done I was only 'almost handsome'. I was trying really hard to not crack up when she was telling me this.