More randomness today

Well, I'm obviously in a random mood today as I'm posting a couple of items that I wouldn't normally have. So, here goes the next two:

First, a joke that broke up the montony of my day:

Dont Lie to yout mom!"

John invited
his mother over for dinner. During the meal, his mother couldn't help
noticing how beautiful John's roommate was. She had long been
suspicious of a relationship between John and his roommate, and this
only made her more curious.Over the course of the evening, while
watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more
between John and the roommate than met the eye. Reading his mom's
thoughts, John volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I
assure you, Julie and I are just roommates."About a week later, Julie
came to John and said, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've
been unable to find the beautiful silver gravy ladle. You don't suppose
she took it, do you?" John said, "Well, I doubt it, but I'll write her
a letter just to be sure."So he sat down and wrote "Dear Mother, I'm
not saying you did take a gravy ladle from my house, and I'm not saying
you did not take a gravy ladle. But the fact remains that one has been
missing ever since you were here for dinner."Several days later, John
received a letter from his mother which read: "Dear Son, I'm not saying
that you do sleep with Julie, and I'm not saying that you do not sleep
with Julie. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her own
bed, she would have found the gravy ladle by now. Love, Mom."Lesson of
the day...Don't Lie To Your Mother.

And second..a great link. I can't wait for this guys dvd to come out..I will definately buy it. (note: be sure to turn your sound WAY up.:)

Today's interesting factoid from the wrapper of my oatmeal

On average, each year, each American consumes:

1. 117 pounds of potatoes
2. 116 pounds of beef
3. 100 pounds of vegetables
4. 80 pounds of fruit
5. 286 eggs

The only one that kind of surprised me was the eggs.

My Firefox Addons

Just thought I'd give a nod to the addons I currently have installed in Firefox. 

1. Performancing - Lets you post to your blog from inside of firefox, via a WYSIWYG editor.  This is pretty much the only way I have been posting to this blog.
   
2. User Agent Switcher - A necessity if you are using firefox. Sets the useragent of your browser to a different browser. Useful when browsing sites that only allow internet explorer access.
3. Web Developer - If you are any kind of web developer, this toolbar is a MUST.  There are too many features to list here, go and check it out for your self.
   
4. Adblock - self explanitory
5. Orbit 3+1 - This is a theme and I love the look!
   

NBA Question

While watching the Suns/Lakers NBA Playoff game last night, I had an interesting thought come into my head. Let's pretend for a second that I (you) were either the coach or owner of an NBA team.  Your team is now down by 1 point with 4 seconds left in the game, and it's your ball.  If you could have any current NBA player take that shot, who would it be?  This question totally floored me for one reason, the answer I came to is one that I didn't think I would.  The player I decided on is a player that I really don't like or care for.  Initially my answer was, "oh easy, LeBron James..he's finally grown into his shoes now with his last second heroics in this year's playoffs and become a superstar."  But, I the more I thought about it, I knew I had to switch who I would want to take that shot...my new answer was........Kobe Bryant. Don't know why, but I think if I had an interest in the game, that is who I would want controlling my fate.  Just my 2 cents. If anyone out there reads this, respond with who you would want to take the shot (I don't actually pretend to think anyone reads this other than my wife:).

My Poker Progress

Well, last night was a good night for me, I won a sit-n-go and also won my heads-up match against Big Poppa in the MySportsRadio Heads-Up Tournament. 

We'll start with my sit-n-go win.  I was just passing time while waiting for Big Poppa to get off from work so we could start our match and figured why not enter a sit-n-go to get some hands in first.  Well, being that I have a limited bankroll, I entered the $1 6 max sit-n-go on Titan Poker.  I won a couple of smaller pots early on.  The player to my left got a huge chip lead very early on, so I had to play a little more conservatively than I normally would have.  Around the middle of the tournament, I ended up doubling up off of the big stack (still the player to the left) which put me in the chip lead.  I then promptly lost that lead back to him after my turned top two pair lost to his rivered straight. Oh well, I promptly took all the chips back from him (and more) a few hands later and eliminated him in 3rd place.  When we got to heads up I had about a 3:1 chip lead, which I used to cruise to a victory.  Oh yeah, a profit of a whole $3.80...I rule.

Now,  for the real match of the day, my heads up war (not a battle...a war) with Big Poppa.  Wow, it was definately a draining match.  I went from huge chip lead (1800- under 200) to a huge underdog (200-1800) and back again.  I was finally able to bust out Big Poppa to emerge victorious.  I had to go all-in twice in a row once when I got down to under 200 in chips, and luckily for me, I caught good cards both times.  My next match is with Unimpressed (3 time winner of the email/message board tourney).  I think I'm going to have my work cut out for me. I'll let you know the results of that match as soon as it happens.  Also, if I get time tonight, I may post some hand histories from my battle with Big Poppa here (at least some of the more important hands). But we'll see as I'm heading out to Prairie Meadows tonight to eat with my little brother so the night might disappear into being void of time.

Cool new tool for Firefox!

I have now found my second favorite add-on for Firefox.  The tool is Performancing, and it lets you post to your blog via firefox with a very nice WYSIWYG editor that pops up on the bottom half of your screen. VERY COOL! I'm using it right now actually.

I made it in the money!

Well, I finally did it. I made it into the money on the absolute poker freerolls on Saturday. Ok, so I only made $1. But I could have made more. I was actually chip leader with 13 players left before I had to leave the tournament. The issue at hand was my brother's 21st birthday (Happy Birthday Paul!). A bunch of us had plans to go out, so I couldn't really hold everyone up that long. I ended up getting 10th. It's too bad I couldn't have got 9th, as that would have been $2. Oh well, I'll probably have to play the freeroll again another day and try to get better. Tonight I plan on trying to turn my "lucky" dollar into more. I'll let ya know how I do (if I get a chance to play that is).

I feel that I played pretty well. I did play a little tighter than I normally do, but with half of the field going out in the first like 20 minutes, I figured if I didn't have the cards, I'd let them knock each other out. After about 30-45 minutes, I loosened up and started playing really well. With about 100 players left, I was in 55th place and below average in chip count. I knew I'd have to make some plays soon. Luckily, I got a good rush of cards to help out, and I had the player who was 3rd in chips at my table to contribute to my stack when I got those cards. I just kept moving up the ladder with a couple of well timed all-in's where once I doubled up and another time I was lucky enough to tripple up. That's when I got the chip lead. About that time, parents and friends arrived for our night out to celebrate Paul's birthday. And that ended my tournament. So, $1 down, $299 to go.

Challenge Progress - Not there yet!

Ok, so I haven't made it into the money yet on the freerolls on Absolute Poker, but last night I was oh so close. I was 12th in chips with about 28 people left (top 18 pay out). I had around 38,000 in chips. The hand I get knocked out on? Ok, I'm on the button. I get pocket aces. One of the chip leaders is to my right. Blinds are 1000/2000 ante: 150. Gets raised by someone in early position (2nd to act I believe). By the time it gets to me there are 4 players in the pot, including the person on my right. I move all in (knowing that I can probably get the original raiser to fold as he was just raising pots all night with practically nothing). Only person to worry about is the big stack. Everyone folds.....except the person to my right (the big stack, he had me covered by over 100,000). He flips his cards AK of hearts. So, ya know, I'm feeling pretty good about my chances here. Flop comes 8d,2c,Ks rainbow. Still feeling pretty good, little nervous though. Turn comes, Kc. Oh CRAP! I only have 1 out left in the deck (the other ace). Needless to say, it didn't come. River comes Q of diamonds. Can't blame the big stack for calling here. He told me that he actually put me on Queens or Jacks, and since he had me easily covered, he called. Don't blame him there, I'd probably do the same if I were in his position. So, I finished in 27th place out of 2000, out of the money again. But my best showing yet in the freerolls. The challenge continues.

My Favorite Sql "Feature"

I just thought I'd share my two favorite Sql features with everyone. They come in very handy when moving data around between tables. The first is a nifty way of creating a table and inserting into the table in one easy step.

Create table fooTable as

select a.key, a.first, a.last, b.street, b.zip

from aTable a,

anotherTable b

where

a.key = b.key

and a.other = b.other

The above statement will actually create a table with the columns key, first, last, street, and zip and also insert all rows returned by the select query. Now for the second useful statement. Suppose you already have a table created, and you need to insert a whole bunch of data. Instead of writing a pesky pl-sql procedure/function, just use an sql select instead.

insert into fooTable a (
a.key, a.first, a.last, b.street, b.zip)
select b.key, b.first, b.last, c.street, c.zip
from aTable b,
anotherTable c
where a.key = b.key
and a.other = b.other

And now you can move your database data around with ease. I know that many of you probably already knew all of this, but hey...I thought it was cool.

So, I haven't yet got in the money in the freerolls on Absolute. The last two times I've finished 66th and ....well, lets not talk about the other time, it wasn't pretty. I'm beginning to realize that this may be harder than I originally planned on it being. I think the major obsticle for me is going to be time. It's hard for me to find time where I can spend 5-6 hours on a tournament and not have something important interupt me. Anyways, the "dream" is still alive, and I'll work towards it whenever my free time allows. I'll keep everyone posted.

Poker Challenge Progress

Ok, so I haven't had time yet to play (it's been a busy week). I'm currently registered in a freeroll on absolute, and if the wife doesn't make me do anything for the next couple of hours, I might actually get to play it. Lately, I've had to unregister before the tournament starts because of "other events" going on. Ha Ha. Anyways, I'll let everyone know if I get to play and how I finish.

My Poker Challenge

Ok, so I’ve taken up a challenge that WSOPDream on the poker forum I frequent over at My Sports Radio posted a while ago. The challenge he made was to make a $1000 by years end without depositing a dime in a poker site. I’ve decided to adjust this to my amount of free time, and say I’ll go for $300 profit by years end. I’m going to start either tonight or tomorrow, depending if I can get into a freeroll on absolute poker. I’ll let everyone know my progress as I go.

My Home Game Bad Beat

Ok, here’s the scene: we’re playing a friendly home game with a couple of friends and their friends who I’ve never met before while watching the Bear lose to Carolina. I look down at my hole cards and see Q 8 hearts. Now, up until this point I’ve been playing pretty tight and have only really used it to my advantage once or twice up until now to steal pots. Everyone folds around to me, I’m in small blind. I raise $1, which with this crowd (mostly my old college friends who are still in college, so they’re broke), is a pretty big raise. The big blind quickly calls. Flop comes Q 8 3 rainbow. Ok, I flop top two pair. I move all in (about $12). The big blind calls (he had about 9.50 left). We flip over our cards and he has J 6 offsuit... of course I’m thinking what an idiot this guy is at this point. He didn’t even have a pair, no possible flush draw…really nothing. Well, to make a long story short both the turn and the river reveal 6’s. I loose to a set of 6’s. I ended up going out about 5 hands later when my AK clubs don’t hit and I lost to the same person, only this time he beat me with a pair of pocket 8’s (which wasn’t bad).

Mr. Artest demands trade, then sorry?

I didn't want to do it, but I now feel that I have to. Just what lala land does Ron Artest or his agent think us fans are living in? I will admit that I was shocked to hear Artest's demand to be traded, not by the fact that it happened, but by the fact that it was done in a very public manner. I thought Artest had more class than that. But in today's professional sports world, it happens. We fans move on. However, apparently Artest and his agent think that us fans are stupid. While reading espn tonight, I came accross this quote from Artest's agent.

Stevens said though he understands the Pacers' desire to trade Artest, he's
disappointed that his client's apologies to teammates and management didn't
change the situation.
"What's more complicated is when you feel sorrowful for
the things you have said and there's no room for amends," Stevens said. "Now,
we're moving past that."

Like anyone's going to believe Artest now? I know I don't. So, here's my christmas wish, that NO general manager in the NBA will want Mr. Artest and that he'll never play again in the NBA. It's attitudes like his that have caused fans to leave the NBA.

Article Link [^]

Code Project - Java Forum

Once again I would like to post the link to the java forum on code project. It gets lost in the "anti-java" sentiment of the site, but somehow it's still there, you just can't find a link to it anywhere. So, here it is.... Java Board

I try to check the message board as often as possible, but if you find no one is getting back to you, leave a comment on this post and I'll hurry over and check it.

Rss feed

Ok, since I haven't found out how to get blogger to automatically add an rss button to my page, I'll post one here. (Actually this is an ATOM feed, not an rss feed. But if you're using a feed reader that doesn't support ATOM, I don't feel sorry for you). So here's the link.

My feed

I have now added a link to the feed for this blog on the sidebar

For all of you (broke) betters out there.

Just a quick shout out to the boys over at My Sports Radio on yet another cool feature they've added. If you go to the sports betting podcasts message board, there is now a thread for vBookie. This feature is a way for listeners of the podcast to make their predictions on games and track their bets. But that's not all, there is also a competition, a race to 5000 vBucks. The first to get there gets a free 6 month subscription to Sports Illustrated. I like this feature because it allows people like me to get involved and attached to the podcast and also some experience on the sports betting scene.

Java Gregorian calendar

Is it just me or do others also hate the gregorian calendar implementation in java? The problem arises when saving a date to a database. As you know, we save the date as a java.sql.date format. So first, in my data acess object, I have to do the following conversion code:

Date l_date = newResultSet.getDate("transaction_date");
if(l_date != null){
transactionDate= new GregorianCalendar();
transactionDate.setTimeInMillis(l_date.getTime());
}

And then of course when saving back to the database, I must use the following code:

java.sql.Date l_date = null;
if(newRow.getTransactionDate() != null){
l_date = new java.sql.Date(newRow.getTransactionDate().getTimeInMillis());
}

SqlStatement.setDate(
newPreparedStatement,
l_index++,
l_date);

I do all of this because the setYear method, setMonth method, and constructor with params for day, month, and year are depricated for the java.sql.Date and java.util.Date classes. And I am one of those people who absolutely hates seeing the stupid warning signs in eclipse saying "method x is depricated". So, there's my rant. What do you all think?

What podcasts do I listen to?

I thought it would be nice to give a shout out to the podcasts that I listen to reguarly. I figured this would be a good idea for a couple of reasons. First, to give these podcasts the exposure they deserve. And second, because I find it hard to find good quality podcasts. I end up wasting time downloading shows just to listen to a really crappy podcast. So here goes.....(p.s. I'll put a (M) next to the podcasts which I consider mature in nature).

1. Mondays - a GREAT podcast. This one is my favorite. Comes out on...you guessed it every monday. This is seriously the FUNNIEST podcast you will ever listen to....(M)

2. All-In Poker Podcast - fun podcast. One of the few poker podcasts that actually are worth listening to. (M) (side note: also take a look at the other podcasts on this site)

3. Michael and Evo's Slice of Scifi - just an overall fun podcast

4. Treks in SciFi - fun Star Trek podcast

5. Rounders the Poker Show - podcast of a radio show. Good interviews with professional poker players are this shows main strong point.

6. The two Harry Potter Podcasts (MuggleCast and PotterCast). I'm sorry, but I'm a Harry Potter geek.....(p.s. if anyone knows of a Narnia podcast, let me know).

7. The Java Posse - good overall discussion of java related topics

8. DotNetRocks - maybe the grand daddy of all computer programming related podcasts. They never cease to deliver quality informative content.

Well, that's it for the one's that I recommend. I also do listen to various video gaming podcasts, if you'd like to know which ones, let me know and maybe I'll post them at a later date.


Also, let me know which podcasts you're listening to, I'm always on the lookout for any good podcasts to add to my work week listening time.

First Post

Just a quick link to my previous blog (on msn spaces). I'll probably keep it around to host my pictures and links and etc....

link to: My Previous Blog