It's time to post a new blog, aren't you excited? Huh, aren't ya?
Ok, first off, why does the internet think that aren't isn't a word?
Stupid.
I digress. Happy Father's Day!
Everybody loves Father's Day, its a time when fathers are appreciated for stuff and get bad greeting cards, usually with tools on the front, and a pseudo-witty saying inside. I don't believe in greeting cards personally, I think they're a waste of paper, and why don't you just say what you mean yourself? Slacker. You don't need a monkey chained to a typewriter to write a greeting for one of your loved ones!
Just like the best gifts are gifts that people can use!!! Now, expand your thinking on this, we're not just talking about practicality, but things that people need and will enjoy. A piece of art, DVD boxed set, tools, a Van Halen CD...
I'm on another Van Halen kick. It happens about once a year. I don't know what it is. I think Eddie is a great guitar player, but I'm just not really into it all the time. I will probably be working out tonight listening to 'Panama' and 'Ain't talkin bout' Love' all night though.
Well, what's the rundown of my time?
Sleep, PT, work, gym, sleep.
On the weekends I sleep, eat pizza, play guitar, and play poker on Sunday night.
Now you know why my blogs are always about something, and not the interesting things I do.
Truth is, I don't really do anything interesting. Well, I take that back...
Let's see, I did an organizational tour of the ROKAF's side of the base we are at. That was interesting, well, for me, I'm sure anyone else would have been bored out of their minds. It was cool though, we walked through their hangars and looked at their stuff. The best part was at the end though, when they fed us. I just about ate my body weight in kimchi. They also had fried chicken, rice, hor de'oeurves (wow, the internet didn't try to correct me on that... is it right? did I seriously just spell hor de'oeurves right?) , various fried things vegetables, shrimp, octopus, unknown meat product. That was great. I ate a lot. They gave us beer too, but since I had to go into work later I gave mine to my Chief. And by gave I mean he took when I wasn't looking.
Yep. Drinking seems to be a large part of Korean culture. At the end of the day they told us that they were out of alcohol so they were calling it a day. They also told us that we would have been drinking soju, but they were in mourning because of the former president's death.
I got Forza 2 for the xbox yesterday, I didn't realize that it's such an old game, but I guess it is. Anyhoo, I started playing it last night, and will probably continue playing it today. It sounds like it's raining outside. I plan on going to the gym today, but probably when everyone has gone out to party...my roomate will probably-
Oh wow, I just realized... hmm, this will require a little backstory...
Hokay, at about 645 this morning, we got a knock at the door. "Is Ken up? We need someone to play softball."
Uh... ok? So my roomate filled an empty spot on the softball team(yeah, we have a softball team, it's more ridiculous than it sounds.), and I was awake until about 8. Anyway, I just realized that since it is raining cats and dogs out here, the game will probably get rained out. I don't know if it's one of those games where they have to stay the night wherever they are, but that would be crappy to sub in on a team, not get to play, and have to stay at an Army base in strangeland.
Well, that's all for today folks.
5/11/2009
When the levee breaks
So it started raining today. It rained all day and has continued through the night, it is currently 4:16 A.M. as I write this, and it seems to have no intention of letting up.
They say that in Korea it rains like this for days and days in the summer, and when it does, it is just about hell. I can see that, it's only 64 degrees out (apparently) and 100% humidity. It feels like its about 85. I'm writing this in boxers with the window open, sweating.
Icky.
That being said, it has inspired me to play a 12 string version of 'When the Levee Breaks' by Led Zeppelin with a slide. The first verse came quickly:
If it keeps on rainin, the levee's gonna break,
If it keeps on rainin, the levee's gonna break,
The jets keep flyin but the tools all washed away...
Other than that, yeah, its been a while, but i'm still not terribly interesting.
I decided to save up for a 12 string acoustic guitar(the above is in anticipation) after much thinking. Reason being is that I already have an awesome acoustic guitar and 3 electric guitars, and it wouldn't make much sense to buy something I already have. I could get a 12 string electric guitar, but play it on what? I guess I could get a 7 string Ibanez, but I don't play heavy metal, and thus don't necessitate the lower string. No, a 12 string acoustic is both practical for here and forethought for being the next logical step as far as a guitar purchase. There are other guitars that I would also like to own, but to do so would take away from the other guitars I already own.
Phew, enough guitarness. Poker recently hasn't been great. Usually I can wait out an entire game playing decent cards, but lately the decent cards don't come as often, and when they do, they get counterfeit by lesser hands. Another problem is that I can usually maximize my return in a hand by careful betting, but now everyone knows that when I have a hand, I bet it very well. My best hand last night was 3 of a kind - Nines, and I didn't make terribly much out of it. I was able to extract just about as much as I could out of it, but it didn't really help out. Kinda crappy for 2 hours of poker. Whats worse is even the cards I was folding weren't hitting.
I typically like to just play my cards and stay out of the mind games, but I think soon i'm going to have to start really getting into tells and bluffing again. I used to be able to play many hands without looking at my cards... you only have to show them to take a pot after the river! Its just that playing poker like that can get exhausting and frustrating when people call whenever they have a pair, which is basically the situation here. Its way more exhausting and frustrating when you can't put together two cards to save your life, and when you do, someone gets lucky on the turn or river.
I did introduce another facet to my strategies; playing early hand positions. You see, there are advantages and disadvantages to early position. The largest of the extremes are as follows:
Advantage - Often the first person to bet at a hand will win the hand. This is simply because not everyone has great cards, so you can get them out of a hand before they try to get in it. You're just adding more incentive for them to fold a hand they may not have liked in the first place. You may be betting with nothing but people fold because they have nothing as well, or not enough to call a raise with.
Disadvantage - You don't know if anyone has great cards. Nobody has had the opportunity to make a move, and good poker players usually don't look at thier cards until it is their turn to act. This is so they don't give away their hand strength. You may look down and see a semi decent hand like Ace-9 suited and raise it up, all of a sudden there is a reraise and a re-reraise on top of what you put into the pot. Now what do you do?
I definitely tighten my starting hand requirements when there are people to my left that haven't gotten a chance to make a move. If you did play the kind of hand from the second scenario you have to look at a couple different things when there is a bet. How much is the bet against how much you've put in? How much is in the pot already? Is how much more you have to put in versus how much is in the pot a good ratio?
You also have to factor the percentage your hand has of "hitting," that is, how likely it is the cards will give you a winning hand. This is actually easier than it sounds.
There are 52 cards in the deck, and 2 in your hand. So there are 50 cards that we don't know about. After the preflop round of betting, the first three cards hit the board(the flop). Now you have 3 cards that can give you many possibilities. For a flush or a straight you need 5 cards of the same suit or 5 consecutive numbered(or faced) cards. Lets say you have 4 cards to a flush. You have 2 more cards coming, thus 2 more chances to hit your flush. Since there are 13 cards in a suit, you have 9 cards that are in the deck that will grant you the flush. These cards are called outs. Here's the simple part. Off the flop, you have 2 more cards coming, so you have 4% for every out. Since we have 9 outs, for 4% per out, we have a 36% chance of hitting that flush.
Now, we're weighing the percentage to hit against the ratio of how much money you have to put into the pot. Since we have a 36% chance of hitting a flush, it is highly recommended to call up to 36% of the pot. I like to round, so if the pot is 300, we would want to call up to about 100.
You can call more if you like, or you can call less if you like, but if you were to play this system, you would (mathematically) have a higher win to loss ratio.
To elaborate on the preflop starting hand requirements, you have roughly a 40% chance to pair the board(everyone does) with one of your cards, significantly less if you have a pocket pair(two of a kind in your hold cards). So you would be able to call up to 40% with just about anything, but know, again, everyone that is in the hand has those odds. It never fails that a pair of 8s will beat a pair of 7s at the showdown, therefore it is wise to bring cards into the hand that are high enough to win with.
If you can apply these principles to a poker game, you're already better than 95% of poker players out there. Skill-wise anyway... the cards have to fall in your favor and the other player has to be good enough to fold when you want them to and call when you want them to.
Yes, I said GOOD enough. Go out and play some poker and you'll understand what I mean.
Or you could play like Aunt Cory, honestly, that style has quite some merit to it. Oddly enough, based on the first poker scenario, it probably makes more money than it loses.
Ok, enough about poker.
Yay! L sent the PSP game that my Super Wonderful Aunt Cory got me, and I got it today. Now I need to get off my butt and buy a PSP. PSP and a 12 String.
Recap: Rain, 12 string, a whole lot of poker, PSP Game. Aunt Cory.
They say that in Korea it rains like this for days and days in the summer, and when it does, it is just about hell. I can see that, it's only 64 degrees out (apparently) and 100% humidity. It feels like its about 85. I'm writing this in boxers with the window open, sweating.
Icky.
That being said, it has inspired me to play a 12 string version of 'When the Levee Breaks' by Led Zeppelin with a slide. The first verse came quickly:
If it keeps on rainin, the levee's gonna break,
If it keeps on rainin, the levee's gonna break,
The jets keep flyin but the tools all washed away...
Other than that, yeah, its been a while, but i'm still not terribly interesting.
I decided to save up for a 12 string acoustic guitar(the above is in anticipation) after much thinking. Reason being is that I already have an awesome acoustic guitar and 3 electric guitars, and it wouldn't make much sense to buy something I already have. I could get a 12 string electric guitar, but play it on what? I guess I could get a 7 string Ibanez, but I don't play heavy metal, and thus don't necessitate the lower string. No, a 12 string acoustic is both practical for here and forethought for being the next logical step as far as a guitar purchase. There are other guitars that I would also like to own, but to do so would take away from the other guitars I already own.
Phew, enough guitarness. Poker recently hasn't been great. Usually I can wait out an entire game playing decent cards, but lately the decent cards don't come as often, and when they do, they get counterfeit by lesser hands. Another problem is that I can usually maximize my return in a hand by careful betting, but now everyone knows that when I have a hand, I bet it very well. My best hand last night was 3 of a kind - Nines, and I didn't make terribly much out of it. I was able to extract just about as much as I could out of it, but it didn't really help out. Kinda crappy for 2 hours of poker. Whats worse is even the cards I was folding weren't hitting.
I typically like to just play my cards and stay out of the mind games, but I think soon i'm going to have to start really getting into tells and bluffing again. I used to be able to play many hands without looking at my cards... you only have to show them to take a pot after the river! Its just that playing poker like that can get exhausting and frustrating when people call whenever they have a pair, which is basically the situation here. Its way more exhausting and frustrating when you can't put together two cards to save your life, and when you do, someone gets lucky on the turn or river.
I did introduce another facet to my strategies; playing early hand positions. You see, there are advantages and disadvantages to early position. The largest of the extremes are as follows:
Advantage - Often the first person to bet at a hand will win the hand. This is simply because not everyone has great cards, so you can get them out of a hand before they try to get in it. You're just adding more incentive for them to fold a hand they may not have liked in the first place. You may be betting with nothing but people fold because they have nothing as well, or not enough to call a raise with.
Disadvantage - You don't know if anyone has great cards. Nobody has had the opportunity to make a move, and good poker players usually don't look at thier cards until it is their turn to act. This is so they don't give away their hand strength. You may look down and see a semi decent hand like Ace-9 suited and raise it up, all of a sudden there is a reraise and a re-reraise on top of what you put into the pot. Now what do you do?
I definitely tighten my starting hand requirements when there are people to my left that haven't gotten a chance to make a move. If you did play the kind of hand from the second scenario you have to look at a couple different things when there is a bet. How much is the bet against how much you've put in? How much is in the pot already? Is how much more you have to put in versus how much is in the pot a good ratio?
You also have to factor the percentage your hand has of "hitting," that is, how likely it is the cards will give you a winning hand. This is actually easier than it sounds.
There are 52 cards in the deck, and 2 in your hand. So there are 50 cards that we don't know about. After the preflop round of betting, the first three cards hit the board(the flop). Now you have 3 cards that can give you many possibilities. For a flush or a straight you need 5 cards of the same suit or 5 consecutive numbered(or faced) cards. Lets say you have 4 cards to a flush. You have 2 more cards coming, thus 2 more chances to hit your flush. Since there are 13 cards in a suit, you have 9 cards that are in the deck that will grant you the flush. These cards are called outs. Here's the simple part. Off the flop, you have 2 more cards coming, so you have 4% for every out. Since we have 9 outs, for 4% per out, we have a 36% chance of hitting that flush.
Now, we're weighing the percentage to hit against the ratio of how much money you have to put into the pot. Since we have a 36% chance of hitting a flush, it is highly recommended to call up to 36% of the pot. I like to round, so if the pot is 300, we would want to call up to about 100.
You can call more if you like, or you can call less if you like, but if you were to play this system, you would (mathematically) have a higher win to loss ratio.
To elaborate on the preflop starting hand requirements, you have roughly a 40% chance to pair the board(everyone does) with one of your cards, significantly less if you have a pocket pair(two of a kind in your hold cards). So you would be able to call up to 40% with just about anything, but know, again, everyone that is in the hand has those odds. It never fails that a pair of 8s will beat a pair of 7s at the showdown, therefore it is wise to bring cards into the hand that are high enough to win with.
If you can apply these principles to a poker game, you're already better than 95% of poker players out there. Skill-wise anyway... the cards have to fall in your favor and the other player has to be good enough to fold when you want them to and call when you want them to.
Yes, I said GOOD enough. Go out and play some poker and you'll understand what I mean.
Or you could play like Aunt Cory, honestly, that style has quite some merit to it. Oddly enough, based on the first poker scenario, it probably makes more money than it loses.
Ok, enough about poker.
Yay! L sent the PSP game that my Super Wonderful Aunt Cory got me, and I got it today. Now I need to get off my butt and buy a PSP. PSP and a 12 String.
Recap: Rain, 12 string, a whole lot of poker, PSP Game. Aunt Cory.
4/11/2009
I'm on a boat!
Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOvaCV6uQp8 Do it now!
I was in a club in Songtan and they played this song... everyone was dancing, and I was like... are you serious? The songs about being on a boat! Little did I (and probably everyone else) know that its a big joke. Funny how you can throw good rhythm at a song and make it a hit. My awesome, ridiculously awesome brother sent me the video... it all came together.
Also someone who proves this fact; (Disclaimer: Naked Gunther Butt!)
Gunther was a find while researching for much of Moustache March, Aviator April, and the upcoming Moustache de Mayo.
Anyhoo, went to the BX, bought a shirt, picked up my suit, bought another shirt. Ate a personal pan pizza at pizza hut.
Well, go find yourselves a boat!
I was in a club in Songtan and they played this song... everyone was dancing, and I was like... are you serious? The songs about being on a boat! Little did I (and probably everyone else) know that its a big joke. Funny how you can throw good rhythm at a song and make it a hit. My awesome, ridiculously awesome brother sent me the video... it all came together.
Also someone who proves this fact; (Disclaimer: Naked Gunther Butt!)
Gunther was a find while researching for much of Moustache March, Aviator April, and the upcoming Moustache de Mayo.
Anyhoo, went to the BX, bought a shirt, picked up my suit, bought another shirt. Ate a personal pan pizza at pizza hut.
Well, go find yourselves a boat!
4/01/2009
Here comes a new post!
Today is my birfday, well, yesterday was my birfday, which in dog years makes me... 168. Maybe.
Well well well, what have I been up to... Work work work. I have absolutely nothing interesting to say. Maybe that's why i don't blog. I dunno. I wish that I had the excellent prose for articulating musings like my super-mother, or an interesting life like my darling wife.
I think for now, I will stick to an interpretation of an underlying element of the story in the movie Fight Club. If you haven't seen the movie (shame on you), I'm gonna drop some spoilers. I will also drop some Mad Science, which is a snow ninja skill they teach in the academy.
There is a part of the movie where the Narrator (Edward Norton (Herein referred to as "N")) beats the living tar out of the blonde guy. He really knocks the crap out of him, to the point that all the others in the club are staring silently in shock at N's display of violence.
N thinks to himself: I felt like putting a bullet in between the eyes of every panda that wouldn't screw to save its own species...
Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt("T")) asks, "When did you go psycho boy?"
N replies, "I felt like destroying something beautiful."
Now, if you're familiar with the story, lets go back, just prior to that nights fight club. N, T, and the rest of Project Mayhem go and do some dirty work to further thier cause. On thier getaway, N sees T congratulating the blonde guy and ignoring N. N says that he felt abandoned, like how he felt about his dad.
Take a second to think about how I just related that. There is nowhere in the movie that just comes out and says it, but it seems as plain as day doesn't it? N was jealous of the blonde guy, felt betrayed by T, and severely took it out on blondie. But to look deeper into N's psyche, you also need to understand that T is everything that N wants to be. We know this because of the nature of Tyler Durden. We know that Tyler Durden is both Ed Norton and Brad Pitt. But T is a figment of N's imagination developed to help him cope with his own excessive inhibitions.
I'll summarize. N knocked the snot out of blondie because he was angry at T for abandoning him, and jealous of his affection towards blondie. He was angry at his imaginary friend for ignoring him for someone else, and beat up that someone else for it!
Lets go even further back into the movie (and N's psyche). Early in the movie, N and T are talking about thier fathers, and how they were raised. T makes a comment about how they grow up thier whole lives following in thier fathers footsteps to become more of the establishment that T is against. Do your homework, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids. T says no thank you to that, while N pauses to consider. T adds that all that life will get you is for you to replace your father.
Time to get sauer on some kraut: Remember how I said that N felt abandoned, like he did with his dad when T ditched him for blondie? N is replacing his father in this role with T, who is, by the way, not only his imaginary friend, but a manifestation of everything that he wants to be. In effect, N had replaced his father in his mind with how he wishes he was, and in that one action that he projected Tyler Durden on....Tyler Durden. And then he got upset about it!
Basically, at the end of the story, if you look at it this way, is Brad Pitt really the bad guy? Or just Ed Norton's thoughts running wildly through a separate personality that acts in the physical realm?
While you're thinking about that, listen to Cream's Sunshine, and then listen to Tales of the Ulysses back to back. They're basically the same song as far as chord progression goes. Off the top of my head, its something like D, C, G and then a different kind of turnaround... on "Sunshine," its an A#-C, and on "Tales of the Ulysses" its something lower.... possibly an E? I don't know, maybe an F, I would need my guitar to figure it out.
Still playing guitar in my head...even if I can't play with my fingies.
That's it for today!
Well well well, what have I been up to... Work work work. I have absolutely nothing interesting to say. Maybe that's why i don't blog. I dunno. I wish that I had the excellent prose for articulating musings like my super-mother, or an interesting life like my darling wife.
I think for now, I will stick to an interpretation of an underlying element of the story in the movie Fight Club. If you haven't seen the movie (shame on you), I'm gonna drop some spoilers. I will also drop some Mad Science, which is a snow ninja skill they teach in the academy.
There is a part of the movie where the Narrator (Edward Norton (Herein referred to as "N")) beats the living tar out of the blonde guy. He really knocks the crap out of him, to the point that all the others in the club are staring silently in shock at N's display of violence.
N thinks to himself: I felt like putting a bullet in between the eyes of every panda that wouldn't screw to save its own species...
Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt("T")) asks, "When did you go psycho boy?"
N replies, "I felt like destroying something beautiful."
Now, if you're familiar with the story, lets go back, just prior to that nights fight club. N, T, and the rest of Project Mayhem go and do some dirty work to further thier cause. On thier getaway, N sees T congratulating the blonde guy and ignoring N. N says that he felt abandoned, like how he felt about his dad.
Take a second to think about how I just related that. There is nowhere in the movie that just comes out and says it, but it seems as plain as day doesn't it? N was jealous of the blonde guy, felt betrayed by T, and severely took it out on blondie. But to look deeper into N's psyche, you also need to understand that T is everything that N wants to be. We know this because of the nature of Tyler Durden. We know that Tyler Durden is both Ed Norton and Brad Pitt. But T is a figment of N's imagination developed to help him cope with his own excessive inhibitions.
I'll summarize. N knocked the snot out of blondie because he was angry at T for abandoning him, and jealous of his affection towards blondie. He was angry at his imaginary friend for ignoring him for someone else, and beat up that someone else for it!
Lets go even further back into the movie (and N's psyche). Early in the movie, N and T are talking about thier fathers, and how they were raised. T makes a comment about how they grow up thier whole lives following in thier fathers footsteps to become more of the establishment that T is against. Do your homework, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids. T says no thank you to that, while N pauses to consider. T adds that all that life will get you is for you to replace your father.
Time to get sauer on some kraut: Remember how I said that N felt abandoned, like he did with his dad when T ditched him for blondie? N is replacing his father in this role with T, who is, by the way, not only his imaginary friend, but a manifestation of everything that he wants to be. In effect, N had replaced his father in his mind with how he wishes he was, and in that one action that he projected Tyler Durden on....Tyler Durden. And then he got upset about it!
Basically, at the end of the story, if you look at it this way, is Brad Pitt really the bad guy? Or just Ed Norton's thoughts running wildly through a separate personality that acts in the physical realm?
While you're thinking about that, listen to Cream's Sunshine, and then listen to Tales of the Ulysses back to back. They're basically the same song as far as chord progression goes. Off the top of my head, its something like D, C, G and then a different kind of turnaround... on "Sunshine," its an A#-C, and on "Tales of the Ulysses" its something lower.... possibly an E? I don't know, maybe an F, I would need my guitar to figure it out.
Still playing guitar in my head...even if I can't play with my fingies.
That's it for today!
3/04/2009
Oh snap!
So I figured out how to blog on blogspot in korean.
This is rather difficult, I accidentally made the name of my blog awesomeness, which is cool, but i thought that awesomeness would be the category of which my blog would fall into.
oh well.
I think this is the first post, but i don't know. It's all in korean.
This is rather difficult, I accidentally made the name of my blog awesomeness, which is cool, but i thought that awesomeness would be the category of which my blog would fall into.
oh well.
I think this is the first post, but i don't know. It's all in korean.
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