1. I'm named after my dad's brother Alvin who was a bombardier in the Air Force during WWII. His plans after the war were to come back to the states, move form Denver to Los Angeles and go into business with my father. He was shot down over northern Europe and never made it home. The family business and I are both named after him.

2. I've had some sort of pet in the house ever since my fifth birthday when my parents gave me a dachshund. Since I left college I've always wanted another dog, but I've had cats instead because they just make more sense for someone who travels. Funny enough, my cats always act a little more like dogs than typical cats.

3. On the subject of pets, I killed my first pet bird when I was six. His name was coocoo and he was a parakeet. He lived outside of his cage and would always play with our dog on the floor. Really cool bird...unfortunately I was playing handball with a tennis ball one afternoon and coocoo flew right under the ball as it bounced. I was slightly traumatized...my parents took me to the farmers market that night and bought me another bird. This one I named coocootoo. I wasn't very creative at six.

4. I still remember the first girl I held hands with and had a crush on. It was at Marine Land on a second grade class trip. Funny enough, we're friends on facebook now.

5. I was a very late bloomer and never really felt comfortable in my own skin until college.

6. I am friendly with a lot of people, I always have been, but I trust very few. My inner circle of friends is very tight and have all been around for years. They've always got my back and I think they know that I've always got theirs.

7. I love to Bar-b-Q but I don't do it nearly enough. I don't really have an excuse, I just don't seem to cook enough things with fire.

8. I've become an indoor cat. Maybe that explains #7

9. I travel and play poker on the World Poker Tour but I don't have to rely on it to make my living. I have a lot of respect for the players for whom decisions mean rent, food, clothes etc.

10. I've always had a love for Video games ever since I was a kid and have never really grown up in that respect. Now I'm the 35 year old uncle who kicks the crap out of all the kids on xBox/Wii and they can't seem to figure out how.

11. I love reading magazines, I'll read them cover to cover, but I can't stand reading books. I just zone out after a few pages. I'll just wait for Ron Howard to make the movie.

12. To say the least, I'm a fan of the cupcake renaissance. I am also the West Coast's foremost connoisseur on Black and White cookies. If you're looking for answers, look to the cookie.

13. I'm good at coming up with witty nicknames for people, but not quite as good as Sawyer on LOST...he does have a higher paid writers bullpen than I do however.

14. My first car was a Cadillac Cimmarron...It was a hand me down from my mom, and I thought it was cool. It wasn't until years later that I figured out that it was a Chevy Cavalier with a Cadillac symbol on the hood.

15. I'm Jewish and my wife is Buddhist. We're the perfect Yin-Yang couple...whatever I am, she's the opposite and it works for us.

16. I'm very inquisitive and pretty argumentative...good if you're a trial Lawyer, but I never wanted to work that hard, so I use my skills to debate TV shows and sports with my friends. I'm sure it's a little annoying...guess what guys, I DON'T CARE, deal with it. :P

17. My father always told me I was a "Jack of all trades, but a master of none." It's both a blessing and a curse. I'm pretty good at a lot of things which is very nice, but I honestly believe that I'm not World Class at anything and it haunts me everyday.

18. I'm a very logical person, I believe in Occam's Razor, mathematical answers and that what has happened doesn't necessarily effect what will happen...until you get me at a craps table when I become the most superstitious person in the history of the Earth. I can't explain it, but it happens EVERY time.

19. I have the same smile in every picture ever taken. My friends call it Blue Steel.

20. I miss the days when I could go to Marty's on Pico, eat a Chili Cheese Combo (Hamburger and hot dog on the same bun) with Chili fries and an Orange Bang and not gain any weight...those days are gone. Now, I'll just have the salad please.

21. I'm a creature of habit. Once I get a routine going, I'd just as soon keep it going rather than change it.

22. I'm very bad at keeping in touch with everyone. As I said in #6, I've got a lot of friends who aren't really in my tight inner circle and I can't seem to keep in contact with all of them as much as I'd like. Some understand it, some take it personally.

23. I love sports, and I'm a gambler at heart. Strangely enough I don't bet on sports (pretty much, only the Super Bowl). I coached for about 10 years and I know how much little things can effect the outcome of a game and how fickle athletes are, no matter the age. I just can't trust that every athlete will be playing their hardest or their best in some random regular season game.

24. My wife gets me into so many things that I don't even know I was going to get into...I'm now the accounts receivable department at her company (she created an email with my name because people will react differently to a male's name, I don't do any work), I'm her business manager for her Acting and Writing Career, I get tricked into biking and walking further than I EVER planned, and I have three cats.

25. I joke all the time with Emi that people say we live this glamorous, exciting life. In actuality, we both like to put on sweatpants, get under a blanket and watch our favorite shows on TiVo. We're actually quite boring people. :)

God, it's really been a while since I've had anything to say, but with the LA Poker Classic in town this month, I think I'll make a concerted effort to get back to this writing thing once again.

As far as poker goes, I've basically taken some time off since Bellagio in December and I'm planning on playing a pretty full slate of tournaments here at Commerce for the next five to six weeks. Things started pretty well in the first event I played as I finished 68 out of 1600 people which was a small cash but it's always nice to finish in the money in the first live tournament of the year. It wasn't easy though as I never really had over 15-20 big blinds at any point in the day, never had any big starting hands, and I had to grind it out...that is until I ran my K8 suited into AA thirteen hours in. Oh well, GG me.

I took the next tournament off, which was won by David Plastik (Congrats Dave!) and got back to playing again yesterday in another $300 buy in, this time with 800 people in the field. Yes it's a bit of a crapshoot, but since Matt Savage came to Commerce the structures are REALLY fantastic in the middle level of the tournament. There really is a lot of play, and it gives an edge to the good or patient players. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a lot of pros do well this month.

Things went a little better for me yesterday as I'm still alive and go back to commerce to sit down and play with the 24 people remaining for a first prize of $65k. I don't have a ton of chips because with five hands to go in the day I ran my Pocket Queens into someone else's Pocket Kings which chopped my stack down to about 22k...five hands of Shovey Shoverson later and I was up to 50k by the time the night was over. The blinds will be 2500-5000 when we start up again, and there's a lot of players in the same situation as I am, so I'm going to have to find some spots to steal or just be a luck sack and pick up aces and kings a few times. I'll plan on the former but hope for the latter! Hopefully I can come home with the championship horse statue.

Wish me luck!

Yeah, the title might be there for a bit of shock vaue, but I don't care.  I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!  For those of you who have DirecTV you know exactly what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about these shitty new "upgraded" DVR's that replaced our old, PERFECTLY FUNCTIONING, HD TiVo units. 

Since hopping onto the TiVo train, albeit later than some, I've become an avid fan and don't know how to really watch TV anymore without it.  Emi and I always act utterly confused when we're watching TV when we're out on the road and a commercial comes on.  "Emilia?  What is this part of the show called?"  Honestly, I couldn't fathom how anyone with the means doesn't get it installed (to be honest, I've got two in my house, one in the bedroom and one in the den on the big screen)...that is, until this new "Upgrade" came out.

Since the upgrade, the upstairs DVR works fine (as is to be expected) even though the interface and menus are slow and crappy at best.  The downstairs DVR is a complete joke.  Sometimes shows that are set to record, show up as blank spaces on the recording.  HD channels from 230-300 seem to lose the sattelite signal randomly and produce a very choppy/unwatchable picture, and recently ABC, NBC and CBS have been acting up as well.

I've had a DirecTV tech come out to the house three times to try and fix it.  They've gone up on the roof to look at the sattelite (which feeds both the perfectly functioning box upstairs, and the janky one downstairs), they've swapped the boxes from upstairs to downstairs and whichever one is hooked to the downstairs TV acts janky.  They've even swapped out the box downstairs for a brand new one, but the same problems occur.  The sick thing is that none of this happened when the old HDTiVo was hooked up, only the new upgrade.

Their only answer is that they think that the problem exists in the wiring in my walls, but only to the downstairs because obv the upstairs one works perfectly.  So basically, you're telling me that a signal can be beamed WIRELESSLY 22,000 miles into space, then beamed from one sattelite to another WIRELESSLY , then redirected another 22,000 miles back down to Earth WIRELESSLY, where my little dish on the roof can pick up that signal, but the last 12 feet, which is hardwired to the dish mind you, is the source of all the problems.  Basically, they're trying to tell me that my DVR is like a golfer...drives the long distances really well, but has a crappy short game.  Give me a M-Effing break.

I then find out that three of my friends are having the EXACT same problem with the new DVR box.  They can't be the only ones.  Some of you guys reading this have to be having the same problems...maybe if we get enough people to read this and get to DirecTV as a sort of petition, MAYBE they'll actually do something about it instead of just ignoring the issue.

I think I remember reading somewhere that five political parties is the perfect amount of choices nescessary for a democracy to be run efficiently. We could actually get there by keeping the Libertarian party and splitting the Republican/Democratic parties into two new parties each.

The Republicans can be split into the "Christian right" (aka the Hasselbeck party), and the "Old guys who look out for my money" (what the Reps should be imo) parties. We would then split the Democratic party into the "Gay hippie cowboys eating pudding party" (aka the Jeanine Garafalo party) and the "I'mma tax you, but balance the budget party" (aka the Clinton Party).

So which one do you guys think you'd be a part of if this pipe dream of mine happened?

The Hasselbecks?

The Old guys who watch out for my Money?

The Gay Hippie Cowboys Eating Pudding?

Or the Clintons?

Well, I haven't blogged for a long time.  I very honestly haven't had much to say.  Still playing poker, still golfing, still trying to work out and take better care of myself.  Actually, I accomplished the first two over the past week as I've been in Vegas for the Festa Al Lago and got in a round of golf at the Wynn, but after three or four days there, I wasn't keeping up my end of the "eating right" bargain, but now that I'm back at home for another month or two, I'll get right back into it, no sweat. 

Tonight however, I encountered one of the most surreal events of my life.  My mom came over to go for a walk with Emi and I and pick up a sushi dinner from my favorite restaurant near our house.  We called in the order, as we do at least once a week, then walked the four blocks to the restaurant and were waiting outside for them to bring the bags to us...like we do at least once every week.  After waiting there for about ten minutes for the food, my mom, Emi and I were all standing around a parking meter in front of the restaurant when these two girls in their mid/late 20s (one we'll call Jeans, and the other well refer to as Skirt) come walking over and Jeans lunges at Emi and attacks her.  She dragged her to the ground, ripped her shirt and then Skirt tried to pile on.  I screamed out "GET THE FUCK OFF MY WIFE," and grabbed Jeans' head and hit it on the concrete, Skirt kicked me in the face, I shoved her away and then grabbed Jeans again, this time by both of her legs in an effort to pull her off of Emi and fling her about 15 feet away from the street and closer to the restaurant.  My thinking at the time was that if I could get the two girls separated from Emi and my mom that I could control the situation from inbetween them all.  Well, in mid fling, Jeans' head hit the post of the parking meter making a distinctive "clank" sound, and then I flung her towards the restaurant.  I then went back over to the pile up on the street where the tackle happened and grabbed two fistfulls of skirt's hair and dragged her away from mom and Emi and over where I had left Jeans laying on the sidewalk and took a step back away from the two of them to get my footing, regroup and basically take stock of the situation as best I could.  Amazingly Jeans was already getting up and started towards me.  I'd never hit a girl before, I guess I never had to, but those three hears I spend boxing in my early 20's came back to me REAL quick and I clocked Jeans with a straight right that landed right on target, spun her and knocked her back to the gorund with Skirt.  That basically ended things as they both got up, went back to their Jeep that was broken down about 20 feet away from us, got their bags and left the area pretty quickly shoting in spanish and throwing up gang signs.  We called 911, the police came to our house and took a report, but who knows if they'll ever find the two girls.  Hell, even if they do find them, arrest them AND convict them of assault with intent, what's the most they'll do?  Three to six months maximum?  Sick.

Pretty fucking scary situation.  For as wierd as it all was, I can't believe that it turned out as amazingly well as it did.  My mom didn't get hurt at all...she's 77 years old and could have fallen and broken something, or even worse hit her head on the asphault.  Emi is a pretty tough girl who can handle herself in most situations, but admits that if she were alone and the two of them had jumped her, who knows what could have happened.  She has a small scrape on her elbow, but that's all.  I've got no marks on me, but I can't say that I'm all that comfortable in my neighborhood right now.  We live in a nice part of Los Angeles, but if those girls or their boyfriends/gangsters live anywhere around here, I don't exactly want to be caught walking around the block and become just another victim of a driveby. 

Sad thing is, it could happen anywhere, to anyone, in any city.  That's the problem with trying to come up with a reason for random violence, it's just so....random.

I know I haven't blogged for a while, but I'll try and get back to it on a more semi-regular basis.  Actually, things have been pretty routine and normal for me since getting back from the WSOP...Wake up, grab breakfast, go golfing/workout, play poker/videogames, spend quality time with Emi.  It's been the same basic routine for a couple of months now and I really like it.  I've lost 15 pounds since the wedding (making 20 overall) and I'm looking and feeling better. 

With the Bicycle Casino hosting their Legends of Poker series this month, I've headed down to play a tournament or two leading up to the WPT that starts on the 23rd.  Last night was my first cash in the series (I had one other chance at cashing in the four tournaments I've played this month) but this one I had a real chance to take the whole thing down. 

It was the $500 rebuy event and as I've felt all month at the Bike, the play was pretty crappy.  I don't think I'm one of the best players in the world, but I knew that I held an edge in each of the tournaments I've played there this month, and yesterday I proved it.  There were about 160 players to start and once we hit the money with 18 players left, I had a slightly abov average stack, but when we redrew for the final table, I had a pretty sizable chip lead.  The whole time, all I wanted to do was book the win and was willing to chop the prize money in order to assure that (before the tournament became a bunch of coinflips for thousands of dollars).  We had a chop worked out with five players left, I'd take first and the fifth place finisher would take home more than double what he would get if his short stack busted out next (about 10k more).  He got greedy and demanded that every player give him $1000 more so basically no deal, and we played on...I busted him in fifth AA>AJoff and he lost 10k in equity for his bad decision.  I offered a chop again, while holding 40% of the chips in play but knowing that with where the blinds and antes were it was going to get ugly fast.  This time the person who would be getting 3rd place money wanted everyone to give him 1k more each (Even though I was willing to take 23k less than first place money to assure the 1st place finish)...so again, basically no deal, and insted of me getting to take my picture with a pile of chips, pocket Aces and my first "major" live tournament win.  From them on it did indeed get ugly for me, as my A8 lost to J6 all in pre flop taking half my stack and then losing the rest of my stack with A10dd losing to KQoff also, all in pre flop.  Exactly the sort of situations I'd been hoping to avoid by chopping and taking home first place, came up to cost me thousands of dollars and the ability to say I won major prelim. 

I think I'm playing live poker very well right now.  My reads and instincts are spot on, and everything seems to be coming together nicely.  I can honestly say that I didn't make one mistake in yesterdays tournament, but what can you do...I just wish I could have won the tournament instead of finishing 3rd.  Hopefully my time will come soon enough.

As many of you know, I took the majority of the WSOP off this year. Emi and I got married on the seventh of June and then went on our honeymoon soon after and everything went absolutely perfectly. It was pretty amazing how smoothly everything went in hindsight.

After all that time off, I felt completely recharged about poker and have been looking forward to getting back to the tables since we got home from Hawaii. I played online cash games a bit in the week leading up to yesterday just to "get back into the poker groove" and felt really confident going into the first of two events I'm planning on playing this year. WAY down from the 15-25 events I played the last two years.

Lets just say that after making to the first break and seeing my starting stack drop from 3000 to 850 at the break, I made an amazing run throughout the rest of the day to make it to the top of the chip chart or near it from level 6 until we bagged our chips. I ended the day with 180k which is good enough to put me second in chips heading into action today for day 2. There are roughly 200 players left and all of us have made the money and will play down to the final table tonight. Wish me luck!

If you'd like to follow me online from work, or at home, you can go to www.pokernews.com and click on live reporting.

By now everyone is well aware of the threat that global warming poses to the inhabitablility of this planet for our species.  I mean, you can't watch one television show, or read one magazine or newspaper without coming across some advertisement pitching one environmentally friendly product or another.  We even saw every television station display their logos in green for Earth Day a couple of weeks back...by the way, I'm sure that little gesture is going to re-freeze the polar ice caps and decrease the Co2 levels in the breathable air in and of itself, but that's for another blog.  Now, before everyone gets all huffy and decides that this is some blog about how global warming is a hoax, relax.  I'm also not such a gay hippy cowboy who eats pudding to think that mankind has caused this completely...it's most likely that the coming of the next ice age is simply an inevitable event in the cycle of this planet's life that would have occurred whether or not we ever existed.  However, I DO believe that there is one main factor that is greatly accelerating this unfortunate, yet seemingly inevitable event.  Human beings have to stop protecting the stupid people and just let them die if that's their wish!

There was one main theme that I remember vividly from the movie The Inconvenient Truth, and that was how the population numbers have grown out of control in the past 100 years.  If you look at the numbers a little closer you'll see how for the first time in history the world's population more than doubled in the past 50.  The reasons for this are clear...we just aren't allowing for Darwinism to take over and let the stupid people die.  Allow me to explain.

I'm going to work with the assumption that everyone reading this has watched one of those nature shows at some point in their life.  You know, the ones with the narrator with the whispering British accent who always seems like he's trying to make some money in the offseason from commentating on the Professional Golf Tour by doing voice over's for the Nature Channel.  At some point in that show one of the wildebeests strays away too far from the grazing herd and all of us just wait for the lion to go grab an afternoon snack.  I've seen it a hundred times, and it NEVER gets old.  Do you ever see the other wildebeests go over and picket the lion?  Have we ever seen a candlelight wildebeest vigil or seen GreenBeast or AmnestyWildenational hold a protest hoping for all the lions to stop the persecution?  Of course not.

As silly as that last paragraph may have sounded that's exactly what we've been doing as a society for the past 50-100 years.  We protect the weak, we handicap the strong, and we coddle the stupid.  You don't believe me?  Please explain Paris Hilton.  Well?  I'm waiting.  I'll give you a couple more chances, Lindsay Lohan, Steve-O and Brittany Spears.  Go.  I didn't think you could do it either...I guess it was a bit of a rhetorical question.  The saddest part is that these are only the visible examples, there are millions of other stupid people walking among us undetected every day.  Hell, a lot of them have been detected but unfortunately we just can't let the lion come get them.

Basically, if these people want to kill themselves, LET THEM!  They're taking up too many of our planet's valuable resources and the worst part of this whole equation is that they're meeting up with other stupid people and making new generations of stupid people to carry on the stupid gene. 

So please, the next time you come across someone who tells you they think they can jump over a dumptruck, or run across a freeway, or whatever amazingly stupid act they can dream up...don't try to talk them out of it.  Chalk it up to Social Darwinism and know that you're doing Mother Earth a favor by not getting in the way of fate.  Just make sure you have a video camera handy so I can watch the thing on youtube.com after they're done. 

 

Well, my latest nine night Vegas excursion is coming to an end, and wow...so many crappy (yet hilarious) things happened in the last 48 hours, that I have to let you guys know about them.

First off, Michael Jordan was just some old white guy who should be forced to change his name...I mean, come on. If you're going to be named Michael Jordan, you're not allowed to play golf, in an invite only high roller casino golf tournament and still use your name. I mean, it's like the reverse of Michael Bolton in Office Space.

My first round was best ball scramble style with my first foursome made up of a young bomber who was a really nice guy, and two other middle aged gentlemen who were very fun to play golf with. The bomber kid could hit the ball about 320 yards in the fairway consistently, totally amazing to watch. Everyone in our group had a great time and even though we didn't finish in the top 3 to take any prizes, I had a really great time.

Today was a completely different story. Our group was made up of a southern gentleman who could really play well and was generally fun to be around. An Asian man who was also very nice and also a good golfer. But completing our foursome was a man from Brookline, Mass named Steve Koplow who can only be described as Peter Griffin from Family Guy come to life...except he had a mustache. This ass clown made my day a living hell as I had to ride along with him in my cart. I should honestly devote an entire blog to the various shenanigans involving this guy, but I'll give you the lowlights here.

Naaaaa, fuck that, I need to vent!

First, after everyone's introductions (name, location, occupation) he proceeds to tell me that he fancies himself a poker player as he's won two satellites into WPT events and because of "all of that success" is seriously considering going on the tour. But here's the kicker...he would never consider buying directly into a 10k event. In his own words, "I should win every qualifying tournament I enter so there shouldn't ever be a problem getting an entry into a WPT for free." ooooooooohhhh kaaaaaayyyyyyy.

Secondly, as he volunteers specific information from the WPT championship tournament last week, he won't let me know any details from any hands because in his words, "I can't ever tell anyone what cards I had because I don't want people to use the information against me in the future." Basically, his big secret involves some hand where he got involved in a hand against Joe Hachem (pronounced HAY-chim by this genius) where at some point in the hand he made a big bet and Hachem folded a good hand. When I told him it was obviously a bluff he couldn't quite understand the logic that it isn't a story if he had the nuts and the other guy didn't pay him off.

Third, this character was our "D" golfer. Now I'm not bashing anyone who is a D golfer in a tournament like this, I'm a "C" golfer myself in this format, but to be completely honest calling this guy a D golfer is an insult to E and F golfers everywhere. We'd need to reach back to at least the 13th or 14th letters of the alphabet to correctly classify this guy. If any of you reading this could shoot 105-110 on an 18 hole course, I'd take you BLINDFOLDED over this asshat. Needless to say, playing with him in a scramble is not unlike playing a man down the whole day which officially put pressure on me as the highest handicapper in the group who actually had any chance of scoring at all.

There's so much more about this dreadful day of golf to tell you about, but if you want to know, just call me...I mean, I could go on for about 30 minutes with more gems from todays round if you're interested.

Finally, if the nightmare golf round wasn't enough, I get involved at a Craps table my last session of the week, and we're in the middle of a potentially great roll of the dice (I was already up about 10k during some random guy's roll) and had about 4-5k on the table and all five of us at the table were making money. Some bitter, bald, middle aged white guy decides to get all grumpy Gus in the middle of the roll. I ignore it as does everyone else, until the shooter rolled a hard 4. Now, only the shooter had any money on it, and they paid him (he was on the left side of the table, and grumpy gus and I were on the right side) then pushed the dice towards him and he began his shooting motion. Grumpy Gus decides that he wants to gripe that he didn't get paid the $175 for the $25 hard four, THAT WASN'T HIS!!! Not only wasn't it his, but he had never placed one in the entire 20 minutes that he was at the table. Anyway, all of this is happening in a split second, and the shooter flinches, sending one die all the way down the table, and the other trickling out of his hand...you can guess the number that showed up, and I fucking lost it and almost ripped this guys head off. Looking back at it it was pretty funny. I think I grabbed my chips out of the rack and yelled out, "I'm fucking out of here, color me the fuck up." Then I looked right at Grumpy Gus and MF'ed him up and down for about thirty seconds, at one point I even think I offered to pay him $175 out of my stack that the boxman was counting so he could, "Buy a bullet and rent a gun". He scurried his bitch ass off so fast that the dealers were all laughing...one of them shook my hand, and as I took my chips I apologized to the box and floor manager for blowing up and they laughed and said it was the best thing they'd seen in weeks. LOL!!!

Anyway, I can't wait to get home and lay down on my couch and watch some TiVo with my cats...I deserve some time off from these "vacations".

So, I checked into the Wynn today and have been running all over all afternoon. First we had a meeting with our newest wedding planner (the first two left the wynn for different jobs, hopefully not because of us), and we had a cake tasting. For those of you who will be coming to the wedding, I hope you like the cake...if not, more for me!

Then we had to get changed for the golf pairing meet and greet where they let you know who you'll be playing the scramble tournament with for the first day. A pretty swanky affair that they hold in the Ferrari/Maserati dealership they have here at the hotel. The food was delicious, but I digress.

I have no idea who the other three guys are who will be playing in my group, but I did recognize one of the names in the foursome teeing off directly behind me. Some guy name MICHAEL FREAKING JORDAN!!! Basically, I get to play ahead of the guy that everyone my age grew up idolizing. I'm sure to put the tee shot on the first three holes directly into the lumberyard...and I still don't care. All that and they're giving away a new four door maserati if anyone gets a hole in one on the eleventh hole. To make it more interesting, they've basically said that they have made the pin position as easy as possible on that hole as it's 157 away and a direct shot from the tee...don't have to worry bout water, bunkers or anything...just knock it in the hole, and drive home in a new car.

I may not have finished like I wanted to in the poker tournament, but this golf tournament seems like it could be the most fun I've had in a few weeks. I can't wait...who cares if I have to wake up before 8:00 AM to play.