A few random comments

- I'm now poksoc's secretary. Game was quite fun as I wanted to be off quickly to watch Arsenal-Spurs and hurl abuse at Reyes - won about the first 10 hands, indiscriminately raising with junk (only decent hand I got in that spell was 6-4), then got knocked down to 600 when I lost a race with A-J vs. John's 8-8. Lost the rest soon after when my preflop raise with 8-6 was called, flop comes A-K-10 all diamonds, my all-in was called by John again with 7d-7 and IGNH. Initial tactic only worked because Milan was on another table and the table was generally tight. And five handed, as well.

- Signed for the house today. It's costing me less than Woodvale is at the moment for an extra three months, but bills have to be paid for there. It's in a nice enough place with some good pubs nearby.

- This week's Steel Press is the most pro-Lib Dem thing I've read outside of their party literature. I wonder if they'll print my tirade complaining about it. Hell, if they printed my diatribe about their crossword they ought to print a serious complaint...

- The Crucible is a really nice venue to watch snooker in. Got nowhere else to compare it to (may have to try to get to York next year) but it's decent. Funniest moments were "baulk colour sweepstakes" and one of the steward's radios going off.

- Apparently March was Dora The Explorer month on Nick Jr. Damn, I missed it.

- Why people are speculating about who gets the fourth CL spot next year if Liverpool win the thing is pointless, as Liverpool will get a kicking by Chelsea. In any case, they'll give it to Liverpool as, unless you're Man United off on a jolly to Brazil or wherever, you defend a trophy. Incidentally, if Liverpool did win it, would they then get a bye to the group stage and reduce Arsenal to the qualifying stage? I really don't see why we don't get an extra place anyway, that's the way it always worked. Imagine if a country with only one qualifier won it, and that team somehow didn't win their domestic. Do you pick the champions of the country (who, unlike Chelsea, Liverpool and PSV, actually befit the term Champions League) or the holders of the CL?

Sheffield students stupid?

Long time no post...

Anyways, I happened to be in our student shop the other day and noticed that several of the beer stacks had pieces of paper by them, clearly indicating there's an offer on. Hmm, let's investigate:

Fosters' 99p/can, 4 for 3.96

Hmm, that's not cheap... wait, that's not even an offer? Why the hell are they telling us the price of a four pack if it's exactly the same as the price of four single cans? It's the same on all of them.

I'm guessing they assume we can't multiply by four or something. Jesus.

Best of the web

It's bloody snowing again. It's April. The weather can fuck off. Anyways, the chances are that if you're reading this, you've either clicked the wrong link somewhere or you've got some similar interest to me or something. So here's 10 websites I couldn't do without which you might want to check out:

Newgrounds - The best collection of Flash on the web, with over five years of good stuff to look through. Decent BBS as well, and developing audio section.

GameFAQs - An absolute godsend if you play video games. Tips on pretty much every game in existence, and a huge selection of forums.

Project Rockstar - referred to in my previous post, this is a pretty neat online music management simulation, probably the best online game I've played.

Internet Movie Database - this thing is probably the most in depth single topic site there is. If you want to know anything about films, it should be your first stop.

Wikipedia - it's so easy to waste hours here. An online encyclopedia, edited by normal users. It's so easy just to click from one thing to another, the way the web was designed to work.

Fark - should be a first port of call for all things news. Collates serious, funny and sheer stupid articles from around the world. Handy as a live bookmark in Firefox.

Mozilla Firefox - if you're not using this already, start now.

Slashdot - similar to Fark but more technology based.

Urban 75 - I don't visit this as often as I used to, but it's a good read.

b3ta - best known for their weekly newsletter, an ideal place for Photoshoppers and all things random.

Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars

Just a quick post to point out that I have the number 1 album on Project Rockstar. Woo hoo.

Somerfield = crap, forthcoming election

Having been accused of writing about nothing but poker, and having been the result of well thought out, intellectual comments like "You are gay", I thought I'd alter the tone of this blog slightly and bitch about things other than poker. Although I will add that I grabbed another $7.50 for 16th in last Monday's freeroll...

Somerfield, not being one of the bigger supermarkets, is always overpriced. But what I don't understand is that their special offers fall into two categories. One is the normal offers, the other are "saver card deals". I never understood the latter for several reasons:

1) It's completely free to get a saver card, and it's just adding to their costs to produce them (and those new keyfob barcode things that you can use as well, which, incidentally, Tesco have sent to me, despite only registering for their online shopping and browsing).

2) The idea of getting people to sign up for one is so that they'll stupidly give out real addresses on the forms so they can send you junk mail and random coupons that might persuade you to buy stuff from them. But when was the last time anyone ever took up an offer that they received through junk mail?

3) Even if you don't have a saver card, it doesn't matter because every single till has one anyway which they swipe through so you get the offers anyway.

So why don't they just do away with this loyalty card bullshit and make all their goods cheaper?

Blair's called an election. Whoopee-do. Millions couldn't care. Because:

- The vast majority of people live in safe seats for one of the big two parties so their vote doesn't count
- The vast majority of people who live in a marginal constituency couldn't give a fuck anyway as all the main parties are just as bad as each other

Who am I likely to vote for? The last time, I voted in Macclesfield (rated, IIRC, the fifth safest Tory seat in the country at the time) and voted Lib Dem for some unknown reason - a mental aberration, I'd guess. This time, I may vote in Sheffield, but will have to do the research as to whether there's any chance (probably not) of Labour being ousted and whether UKIP are standing. They're my first choice of party and will vote in Sheffield if they're standing there. If not, I'll get a postal and vote in Macc if they're standing there. The only reason I vote for them is that they are primarily a single issue party and said issue is the one I find the most important. If I can't vote UKIP, I don't know. I'm hugely against party politics anyway, but I'll never vote Labour (as they've quite frankly done a shit job with respect to the issues I find important) and won't be voting Lib Dem either, as they'll sell our country to Brussels before Kennedy can get to the bar for a celebratory drink. Tories? Seem the best option. I like their immigration policies, views on travellers, seem to talk the most sense.

If you want people to care about politics, abolish the party system. Force candidates to stand on what they believe, not what their party tells them to do. People would be elected more on local issues, and what their local people want. You'd also get rid of the farcical system whereby Labour with its' big majority can pass whatever the hell it likes, even when the Lords repeatedly tell them to fuck off (see the hunting furore). With no party line to toe, MP's would vote on what they believe (and likely what their constituents believe due to the reformed electoral system) and we'd have government policy more accurately reflecting what the public want.

Of course, nobody in power would ever allow that to happen as that would be career suicide. I only hope that some day there's hundreds of Wyre Forest style people standing on local issues, enough to win a large number of seats to make the leading party's influence minimal unless they actually have to listen to and be influenced by normal people. The one thing that would be an absolute disaster is a hung Parliament, then Kennedy's europhiles might actually have a say in things.

Multitabling and other poker things

Will quickly detail this heads up SNG I just played - outchipped more than 3 to 1, then won one with the Hammer (7-2) all-in, making a straight at the same time his 10-8 makes two pair, then got all the money in again with K-K, the other guy putting all his money in on a K turn drawing dead, then killing him off with the filthy McBastard (K-6s). Only trouble was that I didn't get the Arlo in anywhere.

Have started multitabling the small NL tables on Stars, due to killing my bankroll with $5 SNG's and bad play at the next level up of cash game - have got my bankroll back above the VC level at least. It really helps playing two tables at once - you get more hands (duh) so it helps with patience - it's easier to muck junk if you're getting twice as many hands. The decent hands come along more often. Results have been good as well. Don't think I'll go back to one tabling until I step up, although I may as well get the roll high enough to two table that level.

I believe today's results resulted in Stockport getting relegated. Like the Pope really, not if but when. Old Division 4, here we come.

Was reading the Times yesterday and there was a proposal to restructure the Premiership along the lines of the NFL, whereby 32 teams compete in two 16-team conferences, each with four divisions and everything. One thing it didn't mention, namely how to get promoted/relegated from this cartel. Answers on a postcard please.

CD want list, funny poker hand

Will detail the poker hand first. VC heads-up, get dealt J-2 off the button. Get called, raise to 100, get called. Flop J-4-2. Bet, call. Turn Q. Bet, call. River J. Bet, he raises all in, I call, he shows J-4 for a bigger boat...

Some CD's I want: the new ones from Queens Of The Stone Age, Daft Punk, Doves (may actually have this one off Ourtunes) and British Sea Power. Also want the singles from Hard Fi and Subfocus.

Nothing else to say... was another album I want but I forget for now, may edit later if I remember :-)