Poker hands, no particular order.

/ 2009-06-25 / 1245987748 / @philadelphia /

One more week in Philadelphia...

Jim for eagle

/ 2009-06-14 / 1245028351 / @philadelphia /

ESPN Classic had Game 6 from last year's finals on this afternoon to ease the pain of Friday night. It little affect.

Jim "Homeless" Stevenson made the two and a half our drive up from DC on Saturday. With some crew we saw the Hangover last night after testing the quality of Jim's Steaks (southside). Besides a few plot holes it was entertaining. We went through 18 at Cobb's Creek this afternoon. No eagles were had.

Harry and Jeremy have set off trailorless and jobless for LA from Michigan this afternoon. God speed. I will be living large vicariously through them.

baseball field

/ 2009-06-10 / 1244684869 / @philadelphia /

Megan Sklut's grad party went brilliantly on Saturday. John Amicci brought the ovens and the pizza ingredients.

Pitt has forced a game 7. The domination of the home team in this series has been spectacular. Specifically: the home team has gone 6-0, outscoring the away team 21-7 (all while the away team has been outshooting 180-168). The final of the finals: Friday/8p est.

killies

/ 2009-05-27 / 1243424531 / @philadelphia /

We stayed until the ninth yesterday. Almost out of princple did we tough it out - but no one had any allegiance to the home team. Then the Marlins made a game out of it putting up three in the ninth to come within two of tying.

The local staple product at the park is crab fries. No crab - just fries with Old Bay seasoning. A warm dollup of American cheese is an extra $2. They worked together better than I had guessed.

With their World Series win last year they had some well priced merchandise only tourists would buy: $100 green Phillies sweatshirts. It being a cold night a couple of our group threw down. For sweatshirts.

And then NY. You have 30 seconds to play with

/ 2009-05-25 / 1243302868 / @Philadelphia /

BBB came in for the weekend from the Chicagoland area. We Brewpubbed on Friday night in Manayunk (the Lakeview of Philadelphia) with some SIG peoples for an hour or two. An above mediocre band played some Alice Lloyd mixes for most of the evening - Sublime and 311 covers.

We Amtrak'd to Penn Station in the morning. After a walk to the midtown TKTS booth (evening shows aren't sold until 3p for future reference) we met up with Carolyn and Michael in Brooklyn. We started with some day drinking and pizza at Bklynyard - food truck vendors, a dj, booze tent, port-a-johns. The next stop was The Bell House (on 7th between 2/3rd aves, Brooklyn). They had a Memorial Day BBQ in memory of Dom DeLuise. $1 burgers and dogs.

Back to midtown. We saw Shrek on Broadway (because it was a damn good movie to begin with). They had a nice stage. We met up with the SIG guys in town in the Meatpacking District for the rest of the night.

We started Saturday at the MET and then some Central Park. Somewhere on the south end we ran into a dance skate party. Those involved loved it. Seventh Ave was closed to cars from the south end of the park to about Times Square; chicken on a stick and roasted nuts. Then downtown to the financial district and Century 21. And then back up to midtown in Hell's Kitchen for some dinner.

Carolyn and Michael met us at House of Brews on 51st. Our last stop was a bar near NYU - rooftop with a garden and a basement performance. Back to Philadelphia.

are you double dipping?

/ 2009-05-16 / 1242506960 / @philadelphia /

Post-college house parties have been so far made by the number quality activities people can get into. Beyond this considerations include the beverages, food, etc. Last night's had a nice spread: badminton, pool and ping pong, beer pong, backgammon and Rock Band.

I put up a version of Black Scholes for the TI-83 Plus here.

2d3d6c7c

/ 2009-05-10 / 1241970422 / @philadelphia /

Five of us likely overconfident poker players went to Atlantic City after work on Friday to see if we could collect us some tourist money. Most of us went from about 6:30p to midnight, a couple up through 3am. I met former actors, high school English teachers, and retirees. People at the 10-20 limit Holdem tables seemed to have a little more skill than the 3-6 kind. Party flops were very common early in the evening. Tightening up and joining in the pissing contests when you had the nuts was the best way to get paid - patience was key.

We finished the night with some pot limit Omaha-high. Said pissing contests became a little more extreme. One showdown with a pot 200x the size of the big blind featured kings defeating ace high. But most of the players at the bigger tables seemed to know what they were doing.

Versus Vegas: everything is a little smaller and the strip isn't as exciting, cocktail waitresses turned "coffee" into "cwoffee". The Borgata was on the higher end - all a little cheaper than the nicer hotels in the West.

"It is... GONE!... No it's not. Granderson caught it."

Universal Mind Control

/ 2009-05-04 / 1241483102 / @c_g_p /

I asked Little Matt Sklut to send me a photo of how he feels today, what with it being his 21st birthday and all. I actually pulled the below off his facebook archives. Because of his two finals today and another tomorrow he's been taking it easy. As if the connoisseur himself would be binging anyway - the kid "enjoyed" coffee at age seven and was probably drinking shortly thereafter.

The Wings fell in a triple OT heartbreak yesterday afternoon. The action will pick back up in Anaheim tomorrow night at 1030edt. The Tigers have put together a little streak... Inge has been killing it for my fantasy team, reaching base in twenty-four of twenty-four games to start the season.

Yes it's true. This man has no dick.

/ 2009-05-03 / 1241372691 / @philadelphia /

"...Human sacrifice, dogs and cats - living together! - mass hysteria!"

You meet a new social clique and if you get along there are likely some similarities from your previous. There's subtly differences in mannerisms, group dynamics, and most importantly quoted movies. See the title and quote continued above - there are a couple of Ghostbusters aficionados in the group.

The weather has been Chicago like (all over the place). I stepped off the plane in Philly a week ago to what would be come a string of 90+ days. The last three have seen fog and rain.

An Australian, an Irish, and myself walk into a bar... We watched downtown the Heineken Cup (rugby) semi-final game between Leinster and Munster. From what I gather Leinster (with the upset) represented the city-slickers of Dublin and Munster was more of the everyone-else rural types.

Why do sharks live in salt water?

/ 2009-04-23 / 1240543653 / @c_g_p /

Because pepper water makes them sneeze... (Oscar).

Peter, Tina and I went to the Cubs game last night. Bleacher bums are a different kind of animal. We had the "right field sucks" chant going on a little early, and more than a few people mistook Monopoly for a Milton Bradley game (it's Parker Brothers, as Peter points out).

Some derivative of Seafood Paella tonight with the Lisa/Rob/Oscar team. It worked.

The secret is no PB, double J

/ 2009-04-19 / 1240195009 / c_g_p /

Besides some early trip expenses Brooke and I spent about $21 more than we won at the casinos. Most of it was had from Texas Holdem Bonus, which apparently has 2.4% or so to the house (worse than blackjack and craps), so: pure luck. But we ended up doing a lot of activities (like staying on the strip) that otherwise wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Doug came up Friday with Scott (who turned 24ish the same day) and a couple other crew. We hung out by the pool and played some beer pong at Excalibur. Texts after I left the city indicated he was having some luck - up quite a bit last night.

Anyway: Vegas was fun. Especially fun when paying for most of our expenses with casino winnings. We visited a lot of the casinos on the strip - some not so nice (Tropicana), some themed (Excalibur, Venetian), and some upscale (Wynn). There were a lot of nice restaurants at which to blow cash, but the service all over the place was seemed sub par. Whereas Tucker Max says New York's Times Square doesn't compare to the strip, I'd say they're very comparable in brightness.

Easter break highlights

/ 2009-04-13 / 1239664192 / @c_g_p /

Grand Rapids. Missed Victor Too-Late Sultana but played Wii Fit with Robin and Aaron. Saw Tommy Keys tear it up at an empty Mojos on Thursday night.

Northville and Detroit. Cabrera & Co. beat up on Texas in what would become a sweep of an Home Opening series. Kid Rock threw out the first pitch. Blouses hang out and PLine reunion - everyone's doing well. Non PLiners doing well too (Jeremy, Nate). The Sklut family left for FL Saturday morning.

Holland. Semi-automatic shotguns and two for ten with the clay pigeons. Food, O-Heck, and powerpoints at church. Brooke beat me in a basketball game (like the time that I beat Harry).

And tomorrow: Las Vegas. Things to study: The Theory of Poker (David Sklansky), card counting in black jack, and craps arbitrage (which apparently does not exist).

500 miles

/ 2009-04-07 / 1239155556 / @c_g_p /

At least MSU made it to the finals... It's unfortunate the game was never at all close after a minute in.

Wikipedia says it was the decade of "anti-fashion". The key to a 90s themed party is clearly the music, with creative outfits on deck.

Our Tuesday BDay crew went to Hot Chocolate for drinks, food and dessert after work today. It's a few times pricier than our normal Cactus hangout, but well done.

chicago craigslist

/ 2009-04-01 / 1238624577 / @c_g_p /

It was when back in 2003 when Damion Easley became the largest cut in MLB history. We paid him a cool $14.3 million as Tamba paid him minimum wage all while either hitting a game winning hit against us or scoring the game winning run (my memory is jogged). The Tigers guarenteed Gary Sheffield just shy of that mark for just this season ($14mm) before releasing him yesterday, and he's since mentioned looking to play for Tampa as well. He's one HR away from his career 500th.

The RSS feed is reportedly in working condition now.

stormsabrewin

/ 2009-03-31 / 1238552315 / @c_g_p /

A record number of soybeans to be planted, per the USDA planting estimate from this morning. But the number comes in below the consensus - bullish beans. Corn didn't have the same excitement today.

With the recent printing of dollars by the Treasury there's been a lot of talk from lesser superpowers on the creation of new currency systems. China's been on an ego trip for a while now, talking about dumping dollars because of the US's monster deficits. Medvedev has joined the discussion.

So large currency players are worried that their dollar reserves are going to decay with the new medium-run inflationary expectations. Welcome to the world of risk. And how risky it is - trading paper with these faces for those. I'm not sure how a new multi-national currency does much to help. The Euro has done well in its ten years but today comes under considerable strain and risk of its own. At least with multiple strong currencies are other creditor nations able to keep reserves in diversified and liquid markets.

At some point the scale may tip and the US dollar will no longer be King - but something would probably need to replace it. A currency is worth what it can buy - what people believe its worth. All of the ranting against the US dollar seems worthy, but I've not seen any good solutions. Here's mine: diversify your holdings. Where are you going to go? Other large currencies are likely as unstable in the near term. And: buy options. It's makes for good business for the market makers. Hedging against inflation isn't too difficult.

In the Mar 12 Economist, Dani Rodrik wrote about the need for "stronger national regulation, not the global sort" (A Plan B for global finance). From what I recall the idea was not to push for wasteful, large, bureaucratic and likely fiat regulatory systems. Stable nations should invest in their own systems and allow markets to price the risk of others. Relating to the dollar - a larger number of well supported currencies will reduce risk (not the creation of a new super system).

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\Va"frous\, a. [L. vafer.] Crafty; cunning; sly; as, vafrous tricks.