Saturday, October 30, 2004

Boo!

Raked big yellow maple leaves at mom's house, a really autumny halloweeny look.

Celebrated the birthday at dad's house. One of the gifts I got was an Alessi frame (my sister usually gives me designed Alessi items of the blue plastic variety, which is nice) with a picture of niece Julia in it. The picture was taken today and she was wearing the romper suit with UNCLE'S FAVORITE printed on it that I gave her yesterday. It's an on demand world, so you have to act fast in this digital age! Thank goodness for digital cameras and color printers.

I took pictures with my digital camera and I also recorded some wimpering and hiccuping.

Friday, October 29, 2004

Chip rebuy

I travelled south by train, bus, feet and car to meet up with family to quietly celebrate my birthday. In the town where I switched from train to bus I had a few hours to kill so I wandered around "shopping". Didn't find much, but in a game store (board games, roleplaying games, card games) I found two full shelves with poker equipment. I have already bought five hundred-packs of the cheapest kind - thin interlocking 2-gram plastic chips with the distribution 50 white, 25 blue, 25 red - so I wasn't really looking for more chips, but they had some cheap (a little less than half price of really real casino-style clay chips) thick and heavy plastic chips of the brand "Marion Heavy Diamond Chips" in a transparent plastic rack so I bought a hundred. Could use them for heads-up games and (not unimportant) practicing chip tricks.

Was picked up by my mother and we went to my sister's house where I met my niece Julia for the first time. Nearly two weeks old now. Her father had e-mailed some pictures but they don't really convey the size. Babies are unbelievably tiny!

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Rag River Kicker

Sooo, I was in another live tournament today.

There were more players in this one, 32, some of which I recognized from my first one.

I don't think I played badly, I simply got almost no playable cards. I was eaten by the blinds and cold calls. I only played one or two hands to a showdown (which I lost to better kicker), otherwise it was just fold pre- or post-flop since my hand had nothing, no made hand, no draws. Just one of those days I guess. Out at 21st place. Like many other of the outfrozen ones, I hung around and watched the final table. Ah, so there's where all the good cards, lucky draws and fantastic rivers went!

Went home, saw Sopranos where Tony Blundetto loses a (draw?) poker hand going up with three Jacks against a Full House. Madonn'! That poker is everywhere. Didn't watch WPT because it's on late and like Tony B. I have to get up early for work.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

It's been a while

That took some time... I've been slugging away at the daily Expekt NLHE $1000 freerolls but they're too crowded. Around six thousand players and only 130 paid, each time. They used to have a lower maximum, three tousand. It's a matter of waiting out the all-in-every-time maniacs and slapping them silly with an AA or KK when they for the eighth time in a row bully the blinds.

But today I finally ended up "in the money" again. 113th place out of 6337 entrants, earning me $1 after nearly three hours of play. Wow! One dollar, for free! This I'll take to a Sit'n'Go table later.

And I'm going to another live tournament this Sunday. I won't have to worry if I go down to the felt (as the lingo is for being short of chips) since I'll be bringing it. The felt. Haha. You can laugh now.

Sunday, October 17, 2004

The uncle from M.A.N.

My sister had a little girl today, named Julia, so I'm now officially an uncle. Later I'll be a godfather and in a few years time probably Santa Claus too.

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Mustek DV5000 review

I've used my Mustek DV5000 multi-function digital camera for a while now and I must say I'm really liking it. Not loving it, but it's really neatykeen.

Pros:
The size: It's truly pocket sized and fits in the palm of your hand. About the size of a pack of cigarettes, only thicker.
Its versatility: It's a video camera, a still camera, a voice recorder and an MP3 player.
The simplicity: I was up and running without reading the manual in a matter of seconds after inserting the batteries. There are nine buttons out of which seven or eight really matter and you'll mostly be using at most four of them. The icons onscreen are intuitive but may take some quick leafing through the manual to make sure what they really mean.
Night Shot and flash: For poor light, you can turn on Night Shot which enhances the picture (both in video and still mode). The flash seems powerful but doesn't reach far. Good for a small to medium room perhaps.

Cons:
Simplicity: There are no advanced functions, for example locking the light or white balance or manually selecting shutter speed. It's all continually adapting.
Screen: The screen only folds straight out, it's not tiltable, that's a feature on the followup DV5500, but this DV5000 is good enough (and better/more functions than the DV4000). The screen is also so small you can't really tell from the preview if it's blurry or not.
Artefacts: There are artefacts sometimes (white, green or red pixels that shouldn't be there) when shooting objects with much detail or when using the digital zoom.
Settings: The settings don't seem to stay until the next session. Each time I have to deselect Info to not get the date stamped onto the picture in still mode. Or Night Shot.

But hey, it's very good value for money. An Instamatic or Super-8 or Walkman all-in-one for the ... (wait for it) ... digital age! Good enough for "amateur" use, versatile and small enough for the "I wish I had a camera with me" moments.

Mustek DV5000 digital camera