Thanksgiving wrap-up

We went up to Memphis on Wednesday and stayed through Sunday, and it was great to have an extended visit with the family. My niece Kate is now a little over two years old so it's fun to see her communicating more clearly...at least more clearly to me. My nephew Logan is almost two months old and I can't believe how much he has grown since the last time I saw him, which wasn't that long ago! Thanksgiving day was great. I fried a turkey since most of my family had never had it that way, plus Mom roasted one so there was plenty of bird to go around all day and all weekend for leftovers. Beth and I went to the Memphis Grizzlies-Houston Rockets game on Friday night--Dad bought a ten game pack of tickets and this is the first time we've gotten to go. Now, the following will make me sound like a bitter, old man but the NBA certainly wasn't like this when I was a kid. For me, the most jarring thing was the music that they blast during every single play. I knew that it would be a "show," rather than a game, but the tunes while playing caught me off-guard. Granted, I'm used to the Boston Garden in the '80s, with Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and company, where nothing but the finest basketball team in history was needed to keep the crowd's attention. And I'm all for blasting music--I even got into it a few times when they played good stuff. But it was the presence of the pre-loaded 24 second snippets that they played every single time that really threw me off. But the FedEx Forum is a great arena and the experience was definitely fun. On Saturday, Casey and I headed down to a casino in Tunica for a few hours. I had never been there before but it was about what I expected. I played $3-$6 limit Hold 'Em for a couple of hours and although I didn't catch any cards and lost a little bit of money I was amazed at how bad the players were. At a table full of ten people, there were maybe three that seemed like they knew what they were doing, and the rest were just awful--calling down to the river with second or third pair, no kicker, etc. The twenty five cent-fifty cent games on Full Tilt have much better players, no joke. Anyway, I can't wait to go back with a nice roll and sit in for an extended session, because I have faith that I could destroy that game. The Pats game on Sunday was pretty bad, but they are so banged up that I really can't even be disappointed...we just don't have a healthy enough team this year. Case in point, we have six defensive backs alone out for the season. Six. I can't complain, or at least I won't, given how much success we've had the last few years. We should still win the division, so we'll see how things go, but I'm certainly not expecting an automatic Super Bowl win like I have the last couple of years.

Goblet of Fire

We caught Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on opening night and it was really good--right now I think it's my favorite one of the movies thus far. It was my favorite book in the series so my expectations were high, but I also knew that they would have to trim a ton of material, but they did a good job with it. Several scenes were exactly like I pictured them, which is great. I won't give anything away in case people haven't seen it yet, but if you dig the books or the movies, check it out and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I cashed in another tournament on Friday evening and although I didn't win much it felt like quite an accomplishment. Early on, I had AQ and raised it up and got a caller, only to see the flop come A-Q-J. Needless to say, he hadK-10 and I lost a bundle. I didn't have any kind of a read on him at that point so I couldn't lay down top two but I was a little surprised that he'd see a pre-flop raise that big with just K-10 off-suit...but really, nothing should surprise me in the world of on-line poker anymore. So that loss dropped me below 300 chips (started with 1500) and I battled all the way back, doubling up a couple of times when I needed to, and I ended up cashing in 25th place out of 211 players. I was very satisfied with my effort and being able to stay focused with such a short stack early on. But I need to break through and win one of these suckers. The last tourney I actually won (aside from SNGs) was the Full Tilt freeroll that sent me to Vegas. I've cashed and made final tables since then, but in these rinky-dink $5 and $10 tournaments I play there's no decent money to be made unless you're in the top 3-4. Unfortunately my final table appearances have seen me going out earlier. I think it could be that I'm too concerned with making the money, as opposed to flat-out playing to win during the early stages, and that's something that I plan to address in the future. I also want to re-read both of Dan Harrington's books, just to brush up.

The script / a final table

We turned in the first draft of Eden's Bluff on Tuesday. We had to scramble a little bit to meet the deadline (not shocking to anyone that knows me), but that is due in part to the fact that our filthy little nudist colony comedy clocked in at a robust 121 pages. Yes, that's long for a comedy script, but our mindset was simply that we wouldn't throw anything out of the first draft--instead, we'll let the producer make those decisions for us. There's definitely too much in there for the rumored budget number that we have heard but, again, we can deal with that later. We really just wanted to make it as funny and as good as possible for this draft and we really feel that we succeeded. There are parts that still make each of us laugh out loud when we read it, and that's a great sign.

I made the final table of a $5 tournament on Full Tilt the other night (265 players) and it's my first strong showing in a while. I was actually the chip leader a couple of hours into the tourney after winning a huge pot like this: I had pocket queens and raised three times the big blind before the flop and got two callers. Flop came down with two clubs, including a queen. All the money ended up going in the middle right there for all three of us--I had the top set, the guy to my left had a set of 8s, and the third player had A-Q of clubs for top pair and the nut flush draw. The turn and river were bricks and bingo, my stack was gigantic. Quite a hand. Then I went card dead for the last hour and got knocked out in 8th place.

No such luck last night. Experts say that all you can do in poker is make correct decisions, but that is little solace when you do it and it still doesn't work--especially twice in half an hour. Case in point: I'm in the same $5 tourney last night, looking for back-to-back cashes. I've got pocket jacks, only to see my raise re-raised and re-raised again. I know that one of them has me beat so I lay it down. I was right--one of them had pocket kings...but the flop would have given me a set of jacks and a monster pot. Later, with a somewhat dwindling stack, I was faced with a big decision on the turn--I had top two pair and I knew my hand was winning at that point in the heads-up pot. I just knew it. There was a flush draw on the board, so I pushed it all in...and the guy called me with a K-8 off suit, and only the 8 to the flush draw! Naturally, he caught it on the river and I was out before the first break. Two correct decisions...and neither one helped me at all. That's poker.

WSOP Final Table

The World Series of Poker final table coverage is tonight on ESPN. And so far, the episodes have been really entertaining. I used to think Mike Matusow was just a total jackass but he has been hilarious to watch throughout the WSOP. And even though I know how it ends up, it will be fun to watch Tex Barch at the final table. He was a really nice guy during the little bit that I played with him, so big congrats to him for all his success.

$7.5 million for first place is just mind-boggling. And Harrah's is clearly expecting that to go even higher next year judging by the 2006 schedule they released--four day ones and two day twos...that could accomodate almost 10,000 players if it comes to that. I need to go back!

Good script, bad football

Eden's Bluff, our screenplay about the "clothing optional resort," is coming along nicely. It has turned out to be much funnier and much easier to write than I had anticipated. When we got the whole batch of producer's notes, I really didn't know how we could manage it all. The protagonist seemed like a character that I couldn't relate to at all, and thus I thought she'd be really hard to write for. But the time in L.A. with Johnny was huge--we came up with a great outline and we've been working faithfully off of that. I don't think that this script would be in nearly the shape that it is if I hadn't made the trip out there. We're turning in the first draft next week and I'm very curious about what kind of feedback we'll get from our producer. The big plan has simply been to make it so funny and so good that he has to shoot it. But with two subsequent drafts in our contract, that would be quite a ways away, if it happens at all.

Last weekend we went up to Fayetteville for the Arkansas-South Carolina game. Let me tell you, it's a strange experience to be at a sporting event with no emotional investment in the game whatsoever. I was even planning to place a bet on Arkansas, just so that I'd have a real reason to root for the Hogs...until I saw that they were favored. I didn't want to be an ass and go the other way, so instead I just went to the game and it was pretty brutal to watch, even from a neutral observer's point of view. Their quarterback situation is a mess but they have a couple of decent young running backs, which translates into the most vanilla, predictable play calling you've ever seen. To sum up: in the 4th quarter, facing a 4th and 1 with the game and, essentially, their season on the line, Arkansas called time out. They came out with a formation that they had used all day, one that I immediately recognized indicated that they would probably run it off tackle. Now, throwing a nice play action pass or a little bootleg out of that set would have been great--it would have been almost guaranteed to pick up a first, if not score. Instead, they ran off right tackle...which they had done about 30 times already. Obviously, they got stuffed, and ended up losing. Their coach needs to go.

On the way back, we stopped on a scenic road called The Pig Trail to scatter some of Jim Bob's ashes. It was a beautiful spot, up in the mountains, surrounded by trees full of autumn foliage. The moment itself passed pretty quickly, but at least it was done nicely.

Other than that, not too much happening on the home front. I can't believe that it's the second week of November already. I find myself saying this every year, but every year it really seems like the holiday season arrives earlier and earlier. Thanksgiving is just over two weeks away! Crazy. The script will keep me busy for a little while but I'm curious to see where things take me after that.