No TV Day 1

You never realize how many hours are in a day until you live life without television. Sure television can be useful, but more and more it is sucking the life out of Americans, myself included. I thought long and hard about the decision to get rid of TV. I had to ask myself, "What good does TV bring to my life?". The only answer was entertainment. However, lately, that isn't the truth. There really isn't anything interesting on TV. Here's what I'm missing out on:

Mondays: ???? never watched much TV on Mondays
Tuesdays: American Idol (sucks) and Hell's Kitchen (douchebag yelling at wannabe cooks for an hour)
Wednesdays: Ultimate Fighter and DEA (which I throughly enjoy and will continue to do so thru the magic of the internet
Thursdays: Lost (tough to lose this one, but ABC.com carries all the episodes)
Fridays: don't watch much TV on Fridays
Saturdays-Sundays: Sporting events (I have mlb.tv now)

As you can see I didn't watch a whole lot of TV throughtout the week, but it was a constant distraction. Cutting out just those few shows saves me at least 6 hours a week. Add a sporting event and we are talking 10 hours a week in front of the tube.

Yesterday was my first TV free day. I coped fairly well because I don't normally watch anything on Mondays anyway. Tonight, on the other hand will be a test. I don't mind missing American Idol because it's at that point now where the show is monotaneous. They choose a terrible performer and then idolize that performer while the contestants sing bag cover songs written/performed by the chosen performer. Hells Kitchen is also the same thing over and over. Here's a summary of the season so far: "YOU CAN'T FUCKING COOK AND I CAN SCREAM LIKE THIS FOR THE ENTIRE HOUR!"

It amazed me yesterday how much extra time there seemed to be in the day. The TV wasn't even turned on as a distraction when I walked by. I just worked on my chores and went along on my daily routine. Once my daily routine was done, then I had plenty of time to kill before bed time.

I can see where the lack of TV will benefit me in life. For one, I have freed up maybe 10 hours a week that can be converted to productive hours. Maybe I'll allocate a few of those hours to exercise and a few to poker. The possibilities seem endless. I have extra time to work in the yard (which I have been thoroughly enjoying lately), work on the house, hang with friends, work on a side project, go for a walk, etc, etc, etc.

You ever have that person tell you that they just haven't had time to do whatever it was they were supposed to do? Well, maybe suggest to that person that getting rid of the television in the home creates time. I know I'm one of those people always running around saying "I haven't had time" or "I've been so swamped". Truth be told, I have plenty of time, I've just been wasting it.

TV Debut

I might be making my Television debut this November. No, I'm not at the final table of some random tournament nor am I the guy threatening to swan dive off the top of building. All I did was attend a music show.

I have some friends that I went to high school with that have started a new band. They are not your typical local cover band. These guys are an acoustic old time sounding string band. Think Old Crowe Medicine Show. They had a special guest singer with them Saturday night by the name of Charly Markwart. Evidently she's big time or an big time up and comer in that genre of music.

After the 1st set, these British guys show up. They were a film crew for the BBC. They were filming for a documentary on old time music. Now this band, The Poor Taters, is not your typical "old time" band. They just sound that way. They do cover a couple songs, most notably a Beatles and Rolling Stones song. Anway, the lead singer/guitarist/mandolin/harmonica/kazoo :) player was really excited when the British were making requests. Myspace has to be the best thing that ever happened to local music.

So the film crew filmed the 2nd set for their documentary. I may have made history in the process. I could be the first person in the history of the BBC to flash the devil horns to the camera at a old time music concert :) These boys are that damn good though!

A tribute to The Wire

Two years ago I was introduced to the best television show ever made: The Wire. I was behind the times and didn't start watching until Season 4 had just ended. This show consumed me. It was brilliant, smart, and most of all entertaining. The character development of the show was awesome. You felt like you actually knew these people. I watched the final ever episode last night and felt like an era had ended.

Not many people know about The Wire...at least in my circle of friends. I do my best to spread the word because this show deserves to be watched by all. The show is based on Baltimore, MD and the drug trade. The best part is that the show successfully shows points of view from the drug dealers and from the police. And with that you grow to love both the dealers and the cops in the show.

The cops: Daniels, Carver, Herc, McNulty, Freamon, Kima, Bunk, Sydnor, Prezbo, Ralls, Jay, and Bunny Colvin. These are the men in blue that you grew to love over the 5 seaons.

The dealers: Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell, Slim Charles, Prop Joe, Bodie, D'angelo, Poot, Michael, Naymond, Wee Bay, Omar (awesome), Bubbles, Marlo Stanfield, Chris Partlow, Snoop, Cutty, Cheese Wagstaff. These were the "ganstas" of the show. They would put a bullet in your dome without hesitation.

Then there were just those involved such as the politicians: Clay Davis, Thomas Carcetti, Frank and Nick Sobotka.

When you think about it, this is an awesome list of characters and I'm probably only scratching the surface. But over the course of 5 seasons, we got to know all about these characters. You almost grew to love them all, no matter if they were good or bad.

The show is basically 1 huge movie that never gets boring. Season 1 starts us out in the project apartments where the low level slingers do their work. You are introduced to the middle management in the drug trade and the 2 kingpins that put it all together, Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell. Together, they took over the best drug areas in West Baltimore and started an empire. However, they felt constant pressure at the top because their product was sub-par and they knew it. However, they held the best real estate and that's what kept them going. Meanwhile the police start a new investigation unit and Barksdale is the #1 name on the list thanks to McNulty stirring up a little shit as he always does.



Season 2 was my favorite by far. This season takes us to the docks and explains how the drugs get into the country and how they make it into the hands of the dealers. The dock workers are an awesome group of characters in themselves. Nick and Frank Sobotka were my favorite characters of the entire series and they did all their work in season 2. The cops end up chasing down dock workers, but find out that the rabbit hole goes much deeper as they get into some real gangster stuff.



Season 3 takes us back out into the streets. Avon is back in business and wants his corners back. However, while in jail, Stringer has been running things more like a business and business is good. Stringer is more worried about getting in a connect to the good dope while Barksdale is looking to get his corners back. The cops are still chasing Stringer, but he's keeping his nose clean by doing more and more legit business, distancing himself from "The Game". This season introduces us to the politics of Baltimore. The politicians are even more criminal than than the drug dealers.




Season 4 stays in the streets, but gives us more of a perspective from the children's standpoint. With Avon and Stringer out of the picture, new blood Marlo Stanfield takes over all the good real estate. All the drug dealers form a co-op as well, getting a good connect to the best dope and pooling their money together to get the high volume deals. Marlo resists this co-op because he is a gangster at heart, but eventually goes along with it. However, he's constantly looking for a way to go out on his own. This time, the cops are chasing Marlo and his crew. A crew which is putting down a lot of bodies, but nobody can find them.



Season 5 is the final season of the saga. This season is more from the media side of things as we get a glimpse into the Baltimore Sun. we see that some of the children from season 4 have grown up and gotten into the game, some have gotten out. McNulty and Freamon are tired of the Baltimore PD's financial difficulties handed down by the mayor. They device a scheme to fund their own investigation into Marlo Stanfield to take him down once and for all.



If you've never watched The Wire, you are missing out. Fuck The Sopranos, Lost, 24, Grey's Anatomy, ER, whatever. The Wire has them all topped.

God Damned American Idol!

It's worse than turning on the TV in March when every channel is showing basketball. Now I sit down to watch me some House. Much to my dismay, American Idol decides to suck up 2 hours of TV tonight. Fuck you Fox!

Super Bowl Blahday

The Super Bowl is kind of ghey when you don't care who wins. I was rooting for the Patriots because I would have liked to have seen the 19-0 before I die. I was also rooting for the Giants because Ahmad Bradshaw is from the next town over. I've hung out in the same places as this guy. How cool is that? Not very cool.

I'm not big on the commercials, but the lizards dancing to Thriller was pretty entertaining. I spent some of the football game channel surfing. For some damn reason I decided to cook fudge with 2 minutes left to go in the game. So I caught all of the excitement out of the corner of my eye. The fudge was excellent though.

I thought the new episode of House was sub-par at best. It was like it was rushed or something. I'm no expert, I just didn't think it lived up to House standards. I finished that episode and went to bed...fairly early for a Super Bowl Sunday I might add.

Tonight, I plan on playing some poker. I have that wave of motivation to play now. Probably because I had a losing session yesterday.

Movin' Up Day 1

I played my first batch of $50 NL hands last night with positive results. It was one of those nights when you can make a hand, but nobody will pay you off though. I ended up winning a shade over 1 buyin over 650 or so hands. Nothing major, but nothing to write home about.

I was surprised the doubling of stakes didn't affect me more mentally than it did. Of course, I've been here before. I remember back in the day when I'd move up, it would take me a few sessions to get the "feel" for the higher bets. I'm still playing low enough that it doesn't phase me.

I also noticed that I've taken too many days off again this month, so I'm going to be down to the wire trying to make Ironman. Why can't they just change this so that it's based on total points for the month and not total days with x number of points? That's a stupid idea. At least it seemed like the points added up quicker on the $50NL tables. I'm assuming that's because a higher percentage of those hands are raked.

Tonight is my bowling night. However, I do want to get in my hands this evening as well too. The good news is that I really don't have much to watch on TV. I have the latest episode of The Wire to watch, but I can hold off on that.

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Also, I started watching season 1 of Dexter last night on Netflix's instant viewing deal. I saw 3 episodes and really liked it. I don't know a whole lot about the show, but I saw advertisements that it is coming to CBS. I wasn't sure if that means new episodes or old episodes. I don't see network television doing that show any justice.

Speaking of Netflix, those douchebags at Microsoft decided they weren't going to support my operating system anymore. I have an older version of Windows XP Media Center. I'm running all the latest updates and such too. So when I go to watch my Netflix show, it says I need a Windows Media Player upgrade. I go to do the upgrade and it said my operating system was incompatible... no work-around, no nothing. I finally started asking Mr. Google for an answer and he helped me out with these instructions:

1) download Media Player 11 exe (wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu.exe) to a folder
2) Install 7-Zip from http://www.7-zip.org
3) Run 7-Zip and have it extract the files from wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu.exe into another folder (eg: c:\download\wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu)
4) Run C:\download\wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu\wmfdist11.exe
5) Run C:\download\wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu\wmp11.exe

I will add that you need to reboot after step 4 for it to work properly though. So if you have MCE 2002 and Netflix, you can thank me by sending me some moneys.

The best damn television show period

Those who know me, know I love television series. Not the "reality" TV crap that's far removed from reality, but the good fictional stuff. Over the years I've found some real gems on the small screen. It all started when I stumbled across 24. I used to think it was the best thing since sliced bread. That show eventually went down hill and I moved on to bigger and better things. Over the years, I've sang praises to 24, The Sopranos, Lost, The Shield, Rescue Me, Freaks and Geeks, Arrested Development, and a few others probably. Arrested Development was the latest champ amongst my TV programs. However, this week, I realized, it was de-throned.

What show is the new champ? The Wire! What an awesome show. I have the first 4 seasons on DVD and have watched all 4 seasons 4 times now. It never gets old either. The Wire is really a genious show too. It takes a common theme (drugs) and then innovates television with the different points of view. You have the point of view from the street dealers, the fiends, the kingpins, the smugglers, the politicians, and the police. There are so many aspects to this show. As I finished up season 4 last night for the 4th time, I was still noticing things I had missed before.

The characters in the show are great too. Of course, you got the loose cannon cop (McNulty), the tight assed bosses (Burrell, Rawls, Daniels, etc), the comedy (Bunk), and many others. You grow to love these characters no matter how good or bad they might be. Chris and Snoop are some of the most cold-hearted fuckers on this planet, yet I can't help but crack up everytime a word comes out of Snoop's mouth. You actually get to a point where you care about the characters and what happens to them. Nothing is more sad than Bodie getting shot down defending his corner. Bodie was a soldier. He slang dope, but all around he was a good guy. This is what you feel for these characters.

I think they sitting for the show is awesome too. I have been to Baltimore several times in my life and that's pretty much how I remember it. Baltimore is a rough city. I think The Wire really nailed it too... From the beautiful harbor to the rat infested vacants.

If you haven't seen The Wire, you are missing out on the greatest television show of all time. At least for now anyway.