We are top of the league, say we are top of the league

Rooney's double at the weekend finally sent Dinamo Red Star Something to the top of the jammyjarv league, despite the dodgy selection strategy of Norwich defenders, selling Robben two weeks before he got rid of his injury, no Chelsea defenders and no midfielders from Champions League clubs. Still, now I've got Petr Cech and sold Gary "Liability" Doherty. Only some nasty injuries can stop me now - second had better hurry up and sub out Gravesen, third has an inferior strike force (Defoe's better than that hogger Reyes and Dave knows it) and fourth's surely too far back. Ooh, the arrogance :-)

Here, fishy fishy fishy

Not sure what that title's supposed to mean, except that the Earnshaw quiz is full of fish. Took third (tagged onto another table, who promptly moved to be with the rest of their mates - making 10, split into 2 fives, they took second by stealing all our answers) for 10 bottles of Bud, two of which I'm working through now, whilst also picking up a Kingdom ticket which I must offload (while we can drink two bottles each, they can't use two tickets each, can they?). The reason for the post is the worst question in the world, in the "Sheffield" round: which famous rock band comes from Sheffield. Def Leppard (the answer) comes to mind but we go with the more famous Pulp. Cue a later "we'll also accept Pulp". Then a later "We'll also accept Human League". Then a later "we'll also accept Gomez", despite the fact that Gomez are from Southport. Morons.

Various stuff

Killing time at the moment as the advertised pool tournament in the union is off (due to exams, funnily enough - precisely why I went down as there'd be no competition), may nip down to Earnshaw in a bit. At least they've put the Coke back down to 1.25/pint now. Must comment on the Chelsea-Birmingham game - Steve Bruce must be absolutely disgusted with Upson for his challenge on Drogba which got him booked. Instead of the clearly intended elbow to the face, it just seemed to be a bit of a backhand to the throat. Glad to see the cheats didn't prosper, despite having an extra man when Huth limped off. And to be fair, if you let Robert Huth score against you, you deserve to lose.

Just in case the York wasn't clearly marketing itself as a student pub (as all Yellow card pubs do), there's a sign outside indicating that from 5.35 on weekdays they're showing Neighbours, the Simpsons and Hollyoaks on the big screen. Is that the sound of the bottom of the barrel being scraped there? All they need to do is say they'll show 24 and I'll be there...

Finished reading John Madden's "Hey, Wait a Minute (I wrote a book!)" today. Pretty good read, particularly if you're a Raider fan. The Metroid DVD arrived a bit ago, as did the Solar Jetman cart (just need the NES now) and everything else I've ordered off Ebay. Had a nice result on Stars earlier (actually got the bastard to connect for the first time in a couple of days) when I got let in free on the BB with 10-6 and flopped a boat, and when someone spiked a 5 on the river to make a smaller house I couldn't call fast enough. Getting back towards parity now.

Got a week off to do nothing now. Stars it is then :-)

Thornton vs. Shoe Lane Parking, bitches!

Yep, to show I've learned something this term, I could remember the case that would have nullified their lame attempt at an exclusion clause - you might try to deny responsibility for loss to my bag in the cloakroom, but if you only tell me on the actual exam answer book, that's not going to work, is it? Shame that's contract and not public law, which went OK or badly depending on whether they interpreted my essay question as a work of genius or a rant.

Good to see that Bar One have now cancelled the 1.25 a pint on Coke deal, making it the same price as Carling. Helps with the post-Xmas retox I guess, no incentive to drink quasi-healthily. Either that or the bloody do-gooders at people and planet have got through to them, inferring that my drinking of Coke helps torture Colombians or something. Will have to raise that with el presidente at one of those thursday u-time things.

Old boys stuff and that

Somewhat of a tiring weekend, that. Was a good laugh, and was good to see loads of people again. Cheers for coming to Bamer, Chris, los hermanos Baileyos, Rob "BJ in Cholo", Slinky, Marksman, Rib, Stokes, Luke, Phall, G-man, Hatt, Andy, Matt, Viper and anyone else I may have forgotten, and to all the new gits that came. We'll win it back next year :-)

Two down!

Blimey, contract took it out of me. Didn't go too badly, the two problem questions went well but the (seen) essay question was a bit tough, probably lack of preparation and/or time. Can't argue with it really. Public's going to be tough but that's not for another week so there's time to revise for that. Now down to Cov for a weekend's drinking and snooker, excellent.

One down!

Just got back from the first "exam" of the season, in that to call a one hour multiple choice test worth 20% of a module an exam would be akin to calling an Eastenders script a classic piece of literature, or some other crap metaphor. Anyway, there were a couple of absurdities with it - firstly, why the hell did we need 15 minutes reading time? Anyone with any sense will have interpreted that as 15 minutes "note down the answers on the question paper time to be transferred to answer sheet later" time. About half the paper was done by the time we could "start". Secondly there's the whole negative marking thing, whereby if you put down an answer and get it wrong you lose marks, meaning that instead of a 40% pass mark you actually need to get 56% of the questions correct to pass, assuming you answer all the questions (and because random guessing in this mark scheme is essentially a zero sum proposition, and there's no way that any of the questions should have been a random guess, meaning that even if you're 30% sure that something is right out of the four possible answers, mathematically it's correct to guess), and 78% to get a first. Which is a bit silly. Still, I think it went OK.

Must briefly mention a bad beat on Sunday night where I missed out on prizes in Earnshaw's hall quiz by a point, having talked myself out of two right answers. Even more of a bad beat considering that was a solo effort and some teams were the size of rugby squads. Well, must get back to contract revision now :-)

Edit: It's now snowing again.

Best video ever

http://www.energyradio.fm/content/sillycats.asx

Nothing to add to that.

Pokerstars micro NLHE is full of fish

Am playing and this cretin with a big stack is making lots of ridiculous all-in moves, and getting paid off with some of them. Needless to say, it didn't take long to get paid off - when he called the turn I figured at least a queen or jack... nope:

PokerStars Game #1085246321: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02) - 2005/01/16 - 08:03:06 (ET)
Table 'Celuta' Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: Qwade1 ($5 in chips)
Seat 2: hiroad400 ($0.98 in chips)
Seat 3: Golden_sun ($4.93 in chips)
Seat 4: jaytee2 ($1.94 in chips)
Seat 5: Wee_Nessie ($2.02 in chips)
Seat 6: jockstrap ($6.02 in chips)
Seat 7: Pluto77 ($1.65 in chips)
Seat 8: Brelle ($1.46 in chips)
Seat 9: sienna58 ($4.02 in chips)
sienna58: posts small blind $0.01
Qwade1: posts big blind $0.02
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to jaytee2 [Td Tc]
hiroad400: folds
Golden_sun: folds
jaytee2: raises $0.06 to $0.08
Wee_Nessie: calls $0.08
jockstrap: calls $0.08
Pluto77: calls $0.08
Brelle: calls $0.08
sienna58: calls $0.07
Qwade1: calls $0.06
*** FLOP *** [Ts Qd 9d]
sienna58: checks
Qwade1: checks
jaytee2: bets $0.50
Wee_Nessie: folds
jockstrap: calls $0.50
Pluto77: folds
Brelle: calls $0.50
sienna58: folds
Qwade1: folds
*** TURN *** [Ts Qd 9d] [Qs]
jaytee2: bets $1.36 and is all-in
jockstrap: calls $1.36
Brelle: folds
*** RIVER *** [Ts Qd 9d Qs] [Ad]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
jaytee2: shows [Td Tc] (a full house, Tens full of Queens)
jockstrap: mucks hand
jaytee2 collected $4.58 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $4.78 | Rake $0.20
Seat 4: jaytee2 showed [Td Tc] and won ($4.58) with a full house, Tens full of Queens
Seat 6: jockstrap mucked [Kh 2c]

Is nothing sacred?

Let's just ignore the fact for one moment that I busted out 18th in another limit stud freeroll with 4,000+ runners, annoyingly close to the final table and getting bugger all for it. I'm taking offers for WSOP buyins... Instead I'll briefly comment on the biggest news story of the year so far, that being the Busted split. Normally I wouldn't mention such trivial matters unless I was mentioning VH1's 100 Least Important Moments in Music (it's only a matter of time), but it just so happens that on the day that they announced the split, Charlie's new craply titled band, Fightstar, happened to be playing at my old uni. True to form, the Warwickensians are rumoured to have lobbed pint "glasses" at them, Daphne and Celeste style (of course then we were actually trusted with proper glasses - now they'd have to resort to VK or other expendable bottled drinks to do the job properly), but the question remains as to why a "band" featuring a now ex-member of Busted were booked to play Crash, the uni's indie night. Spirit of Top B invades everything still. Bet the crossword in the Boar's still crap... thank god for Fuzz.

Play money asshats

Just finished playing one of Pokerstars' play money Omaha/8 tourneys (10th/1600ish - have bottom set, river is an ace making a A24J10 board - didn't read him for the wheel but he did have the ace-high straight, no low for me...), just feel the need to comment on those guys who feel the need to use the chat to basically talk smack. Funniest thing was this guy who was moved to my table about 5 tables out with 400K in chips (about 1/6th of those in play), and continually badmouths all the players, thinking he's god etc. Needless to say those chips didn't last long and he busted out in 18th. I'm all for arrogance, but learn how to play the game before thinking you're the next Hellmuth or whatever.

The funny thing is as soon as he busts out he goes "at least it's one of those stupid play money tournaments" - I'd love to play him for real money any day of the week :-)

The aforementioned Survival of the Fattest 2 book arrived this morning, haven't had time to have more than a cursory glance at it yet, but it's something new to pick through in between revision. People are starting to come back to the flats now, uni starts again Monday. Must do some work now... after doing tea of course.

Managed to get first gold disc on Rockstar today. Second should follow tomorrow. Nice.

Bar One - back open, as mediocre as ever

This post is completely ignoring the "pool 10p per game, 4-11 January (read: when nobody's there to read the advertising or abuse the offer) posters I saw today...

Yeah, Bar One's open again. It was open yesterday, but my plan to head there and revise (I find revising in largely empty bars is useful, mainly because it has comfy chairs which my flat and the [full] library doesn't) then failed... mainly due to my failure to get out of bed before 1... anyway I head in for just after 12 (later than anticipated due to shaving taking forever - note to self - if you wait over a month between shaves, it takes longer than usual) to watch the cricket. All is well, they have most of the usual offers on, One to Go's chips still taste crap. The annoying thing comes when I go to have a few practice racks of pool after they call stumps. After a couple of games some security jobsworth comes in and turns all the lights off in the pool room, barring those physically over the tables. Needless to say you could see fuck all. I clear the table (only had two/three balls left on the credit I had) and leave, happening to catch the same jobsworth while heading out. I point out to him:
"You can't see a damn thing in there".
"That's what they want".
"Who's they?"
"The management".
Well, the management's just cost themselves at least a fiver (cost of another pint for me plus four-five more games), and would have cost his wages had I had a group of people coming down to play some pool who would have been diverted to Rileys where you can walk two feet without risk of walking into something. How hard would it have been to ask the people playing in there if they mind if they turn off the main lights?

This is, of course, completely ignoring the fact that 3 of the 4 games I played were worthless due to not having the correct number of balls on the table (adjacent tables had 8 red and 6 yellow, and vice versa) and the first table I played was tilting like the Titanic when it sank. Needless to say I'll be revising in the Fox and Duck tomorrow.

Jackpot!

Just won Survival of the Fattest 2 (the one I'm missing) for 1 penny off Ebay. Get in! Postage isn't included in that but it's the principle of the thing. He could make more pulping it...

Tilt!!!

Argh, just busted out of a stud tourney on Pokerstars first hand after the second break. In fairness, I only had less than one big bet left and was forced to bring in anyway, so I don't care about that. What is annoying that late in the last level before the break I played like a huge fish, first betting on sixth street with an open two pair to try to take the pot down, and then to re-raise when I got raised, and call the river as well. Dunno what I was thinking as all four of the cards I needed to make the boat were out and there's no way the other guy would raise when behind... a couple of hands later I folded the river after hitting two pair when some guy with open tens suddenly bets - third party calls, I fold and they both show down just one pair. Tournament poker's a bastard, you can play OK for 150-odd hands (didn't play that brilliantly, but well enough not to be out of it - paid 40, went out 97th of 500-ish) but mess up once and you're toast.

Ah well, may as well wait for the Project Rockstar update now, it'll only take another hour or so. The new programme on Radio 1 replacing Peel was pretty good, a mix of all sorts of ridiculous hard house, techno and general bonkers stuff. Will annoy many but it sounded OK.

University library facilities - an objective analysis

Seeing how I've got an exam in just a weeks' time, I thought I'd better go and do some revision. The library would seem a good place to do that, wouldn't it. It's still technically the holiday period, outside of term time, yet pretty much all of the study space in the library is full. Jesus. This would never happen at Warwick, albeit it's got a damn sight more space than Sheffield's (frankly tiny) main library. So, with all the bars closed, I'll have to go home to do some work. Arse.

I say Sheffield's main library, because we've got a separate law library (naturally, like anywhere you'd want to go, at the top of a big hill). Which is all quite nice and that, it's got a big computer room (compared to main campus, where I can't find a big computer room for love nor money, opting for floor 12 of the Arts Tower - if only to use the lift) and everything. Except, of course, it's not the main library, is it? Therefore, we'll open it for fewer hours than the main library, despite the fact that law students are one of the few groups that actually use libraries. Want to go in at the weekend? You're having a laugh. It'd be the sort of thing to raise with one of those SSLC things, if they actually gave a crap.

Still, we've got this new Learning Resources Centre (quote from several postgrads - "the undergraduate library" - quote from 2004 prospectus - "due to open in 2005" - quote from Sheffield website - "opening in September 2006") coming. No doubt that'll be like Warwick's new, on campus, not at the top of a hill maths department - actually opening after I graduate.

Targeted advertising

Was just interrupted (at slightly after 1pm) by the morning post. Sounded clunky, so thought it might be one of my long awaited DVD's (nope). It's one of those AOL trial CD's, those that they make planets out of. Anyway, deciding it's not worth the effort to chuck it in the bin, it makes me wonder why they're sending it to our flat when:

a) we're all supposedly intelligent university students and hence wouldn't touch their crap service with a barge pole
b) our flat's all got broadband anyway

Still, it's not costing them much. Their "throw enough crap and some of it's bound to stick" approach has done them well so far.

On an unrelated point, as a review mod on Newgrounds you see a lot of abusive crap. But it also offers some insights on why Americans are so disliked throughout the world when people come out with the likes of this:

" Oh, and some guy compared this [the tsunami incident] to 9/11 earlier, and I just have one thing to say to you: the US matters, these guys don't! I've spent enough time studying these people to realize that they are not on the same level of importance we are."

Ah well.

Ooh, shiny new blog

Thought I'd get one of these blog things, seeing how I never update my website (18 months and counting). Not much to say really, slightly on tilt after walking into pocket aces on PokerStars, lost three sit'n'goes today so will give it a break for the time being.

Edit: just thought of something to add. While having a long session surfing the web last night (was reading some of Andy Ward of pokersoft.co.uk's blog), I was up long enough to hear the Dreem Teem's soulful sessions show. It's on damn early in the morning (something like 3am - there's no-one in the flat and I'm not revising on the weekend) but it's the best thing on the station after the premature departures of Mark and Lard and John Peel in the past year. They've got that listen again feature so you can always have a listen at any time.