There was a shooting at a post office less than two miles from me. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/31/postal.shooting.ap/

GOLETA, California (AP) — A former postal worker shot five people to death at a huge mail-processing center and then killed herself in what was believed to be the nation’s deadliest workplace shooting ever carried out by a woman.

The attack Monday night was also the biggest bloodbath at a U.S. postal installation since a massacre 20 years ago helped give rise to the term “going postal.”

I finally got my ring for my 299 game. Here’s a picture, which will probably get changed once I manage to actually take a good picture of it.

Tonight is the WWdN: penner42 Invitational. I busted Wil last week when my AK beat his TT, becoming the first former champion to get this tournament named after him. I’ll do my best to win my own tournament.

Everyone go wish Ryan good luck tonight in LAPC event #12. Play resumes tonight at 7PM, with 29 remaining and 27 getting paid.

I haven’t been playing much poker, online or live, lately. Too busy playing with my new toys. Last week, I got a Cox HD DVR (Scientific Atlanta 8300), and it’s a piece of crap. It has so many stupid issues that could be solved easily by any decent programmer who cared about it at all. It’s such a shame to switch from Tivo to this thing, except that it displays and records high definition shows. It’s worth all the hassles just for the HD recording. 24 in high definition last night was amazing. I just can’t wait until Tivo releases their cablecard/HD box later this year.

I also got a Logitech Harmony 880 remote. This thing is amazing. 5 minute setup on the computer, and it controls all my devices (DVR, receiver, projector) perfectly. It also has a battery charging base, and a screen better than most phones. Very happy with it.

I probably have more I could talk about, but I can’t think of anything right now. I really need to start blogging more often, just because I think of things I want to write about and then later forget them.

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I did it again.

I played some online poker. But it wasn’t real online poker, honest (it was .50/1 limit, and the fishiest I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t remember the low limits being that bad when I started). And I wasn’t playing it to play poker, I was playing it to test out wine. I swear.

I was chatting with helixx in IRC, and he said he was playing at FullTilt. They just released a Mac (beta) client, but sadly nothing for Linux. Not that I’m surprised. That market is probably all of a couple dozen people, if that. 🙂 Anyway, it got me playing with wine and really banging on it until I could get things to work.

Then of course, once it was up and running, I had to actually test it. I successfully played at FullTilt on my Linux desktop for two hours. It crashed once, but that computer has other issues and other things (Firefox, for one) crash on it, too. There are some graphics and drawing issues, but for the most part it is very playable. I ended up losing a little bit of money, but the side chat about the other players at the table was hilarious and worth it. April also sat down at the table for a bit while we were there.

I got Party and Stars going, too. UB is sort of halfway working, but I don’t really plan to play there much in the near future anyway. I’m seriously considering setting up a “Poker on Linux” website with instructions on how to do all of this (complete with affiliate links to all the poker sites, of course). Here’s a nice little screenshot of me not actually playing poker:

On a totally unrelated topic, I took some more pictures of my house. They’re up in the gallery.

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…and too lazy to type it all out.

I got my new receiver, and then promptly killed it in less than a day. Warranties are good. Before it broke, though, it’s speaker autosetup detected that two of my speakers were hooked up out of phase. Cool.

I have a desk and a makeshift monitor shelf. My house is actually almost clean.

I’ve been getting killed at the cash game at Stars. I seem to do fine anywhere else, but just can’t make money there, even though the play looks just as bad. People always just seem to catch their card on me. Two days ago, the money got in when I had top two pair back to back hands, and the idiots promptly hit their flush and straight cards respectively. Today, second nut flush on the turn, and a guy calls a ton to catch a four-outer with his two pair. I am paying them off too much when they hit, though. The only things I seem to do well at on Stars are the WWdN tourneys. One win, and four final tables at those. Just the right mix of reliable play and fish for my liking.

Vegas! I leave in less than 48 hours. Things I want to do: Tournament at the IP, of course. Gracie’s geeky thing to do. We must drag Wil along. Storm the Castle. Play lots of poker. Bowl with bloggers.

Preparing for that, I got myself a nice smaller bowling bag that only holds two bowling balls. I still have to check it on the plane, but at least it’s lighter and easier. I also got a new ball. I’d seen a few people use it, and only throw great games. It’s called The One. I used someone else’s last night, and like the way it moved, so I bought one today and had it drilled. I then threw my highest ever four game series with it, in my first four games. 247-185-255-268 for a 955. Unbelievable. All prop bets we make regarding bowling have to be on me. 🙂

I think that’s it. I have to get back to cleaning. I said it’s almost clean.

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I seem to keep myself one step behind when it comes to game consoles. Until last week, the newest system I owned was a Playstation 2. Given Sony’s recent actions, it’s unlikely I will ever buy a PS3 (or anything else from them). They’re too big a company for me to avoid entirely, probably, but I’m going to do my best.

Anyway, I just got myself an Xbox, pre-modded with an Xecuter 3 modchip. I can’t really recommend the company I got it from, as there was a long delay, unprofessional and worrisome (ie, I thought there was a chance I’d never get it) emails, and the DVD kit they sent was a third party region 2 kit. Useful. When I finally did get the Xbox, though, it worked as it was supposed to.

I will probably eventually get a few games for it, but the primary reason for the purchase was to use as a media center, with XBMC. After dealing with flashing the ROM on the modchip (after realizing that I needed to hook up composite cables first to get this done), and installing the software, I’m very happy with the end result. I had it scan my mp3 directories over a samba share, and can now play all my music through my stereo system with a very nice interface, including visualizations and album cover art. It can also play just about any movie file out there. The next step is to rip my DVDs to server storage and use the Xbox to play those over the network as well. That would probably require another hard drive purchase or two, though. My DVDs may well end up in a box in my garage like my CDs are now. I can also now copy shows off of my Tivo, and play them back through the Xbox (I’m behind the times with a hacked series 1 Tivo, too, so it doesn’t have that feature built in). It also has a nice photo browser and slideshow feature.

In addition to XBMC, I also installed an NES emulator. I can now play any old NES game on my 74″ projected screen through my new toy. It looks good. There are also emulators for N64, SNES, Genesis, and other systems, which I have yet to try. There’s also lots of other nice software I can play with. I think it’s gonna be fun. Given the cost of the alternative that I was considering, and how much more the Xbox does, I’m very happy I decided to go this route. I know the Xbox 360 will do some of the media center stuff itself, but I like being able to customize it and play with it as much as I can with the modded Xbox. I suppose I could have waited for 360 modchips.

Now I just need to get the right DVD kit so I can start using the remote control for everything.

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Dammit, why can’t everything stay working all the time?

It appears my laptop’s wireless has died. I have an internal mini-pci wireless card… two actually, and neither work. The antenna connection or something else inside the laptop is messed up. My wireless router still works, and tested with my portable D-Link ($20 after rebate a few weeks ago… I knew it would come in handy).

Grr… I really don’t want to send my laptop back to Dell again.

Update: My old 802.11b mini-pci is working (after a little electrical tape on the internal antenna – don’t know if that has anything to do with it). It’s just my 802.11a/b/g card that doesn’t. My computer recognizes the card, it just can’t get any wireless signal. I guess I should try it on someone else’s machine to make sure it’s not something with the signal not being strong enough because of the damaged antenna or something, and if not, replace it.

Update 2: I doubt it has to do with the antenna. The 802.11b card works without them even attached to it. Guess I just need a replacement.

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My current a/v receiver is showing it’s age. I bought it in 2001, and it was probably introduced a year or two earlier than that. It’s a Pioneer VSX-D509s. It works great for what it does, but it’s now lacking features that I want. Component video switching, composite and s-video to component up-conversion, more than two optical audio inputs, and more. I think I’ve picked out what I’d like replace it: Denon AVR-2106. It’s not cheap, at $700 (or $500 refurb). I can afford it, but I think could probably get by just fine with my current setup and a Pelican HD Selector. It just seems like a lot of money to spend on something I don’t really need. On the other hand, I could then sell my recently purchased Polk XM Receiver, and get a much cheaper connect-and-play antenna instead, as the Denon receiver is XM ready. But then I have to deal with the hassle of actually selling it. One reason I sort of don’t want to buy it now is that I know I’ll want another one in a few years for DVI. Receivers with DVI are terribly expensive at the moment, but I could definitely see myself wanting one.

Dammit, I wish I could just make a decision.

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Thanks to FatWallet, I picked up a nice new Darth Tater at Kmart today. $3.99 + tax. Sweet. No clue what I’m going to do with it, but I couldn’t pass it up for $4 (of course, regular price is only like $9).

My file cabinets were delivered today! So, combined with the kitchen countertop I got at Home Depot, I now finally have a desk. It’s not exactly how I expected, but I think it’s going to work out very nicely. The sticker on the countertop said 30 x 96, so I stupidly assumed it would be 30″ deep. I ordered 28 1/2″ deep file cabinets. As it turns out, the countertop is only 24 1/2″ or so deep, so with the top sitting flush against the front of the cabinets, it’s between 4 and 5 inches away from the wall. It’s actually quite handy, as I have all my cabling running across there now. I set up my Windows box on it and can finally play poker without killing myself sideways on my couch. Now I just need a new chair.

With my poker machine set up on my new desk, I actually got around to playing a little bit tonight. I discovered Stars’ new 20 table (180 player) SNGs. Awesome idea. I love being able to get into a smallish MTT any time I want. It’s part of the reason I liked UB back when I started playing. They had those $5 tourneys like every half hour. I played in one $20+2 20-table SNG, was absolutely card dead for the whole thing, and finally busted in 92nd when the first real hand I saw was dominated (KK vs AA). I think I’m really going to like these things, though. I made around $60 (including losing $40 with AA vs 99 all-in preflop) playing two $100NL 6max games at Stars while playing in the SNG. I used to not play there because the competition was so tough… well, it seems to have changed. I saw some of the most horrible plays there that I’ve ever seen. I think I’m going to have to go back. Maybe just the limit game at Stars is tough. Or I suck at limit. Either way.

Hopefully, I’ll really get back into the online poker thing shortly.

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Because everyone else is doing it:

My blog really isn’t worth nearly that, even by whatever method was used to come up with the value. Sadly, as far as links back to the actual blog, it’d be worth far less than that. Tehcnorati counts every link to my terror alert page as a link to my blog, though, which pumps up my value nicely.

Here’s a little reminder that the third weekly WWDN Tourney, this one called the Up4Poker Invitational, is tomorrow at 9 PM EST (6 PM in California! I can play from home!). It’s a $10+1 at PokerStars. Don’t forget to sign up and play! These tournaments, and the Blogger Championship on Sunday have pretty much been the only poker I’ve been able to play lately. I still need to get a new desk and set up my computers again so I can get back into it.

Last week, I cracked and bought a $700 item from Woot. It’s something I’d been planning to get eventually, just not quite so soon. Well, my InFocus ScreenPlay 4805 showed up yesterday, with Fedex nicely redelivering a second time when I called them after they tried to deliver while I was at work the first time. It came a 76″ 16:9 screen, and the 10 disc Matrix DVD collector’s set (eBay, here I come!) Sadly, it also came with a wimpy 6 foot s-video cable. I was able to connect two composite video cables I had together and get the thing working (it’s awesome!), but composite doesn’t compare to s-video or component. I spent a little more than I had to on some longer cables, because I think these look pretty cool, and I do want to run both s-video and component to the projector. I’m not one of those people who thinks Monster cables are better because they’re more expensive, though. I also got myself a ceiling mount for it. I can’t wait until it’s all set up. I don’t know if I’m going to mount the screen; it looks pretty damn good on my wall. Very pleased with my purchase.

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Saturday, I did some board gaming with some friends. Played a couple of games I had never played before, and a game of Power Grid. The first was a game with cooperative gameplay. We were all (except one, the traitor, whose identity was unknown and might not have even existed) trying to win together. It’s called Shadows over Camelot, and was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the traitor ended up winning, but it’s definitely a game I want to play again sometime. The other new game I played was Through the Desert, which is a very quick, fun game. I lost everything I played, but had a good time anyway.

Sunday was the Pokerstars Blogger Championship. I had already won my sweatshirt and hat from being chosen as one of the daily winners, and as expected, that was all I ended up with from the tournament. I feel like I played well, and was pretty happy with every single decision I made. Early on, I had a stack about 2500, and got crippled when actyper rivered a 5-outer on me. Instead of having 4500, and being able to play aggressively and push people around, I had 600, and had to pick my spots carefully. I managed to steal blinds from people sitting out for a while, and then double up with AQ vs Q9, and then double up again through Ugarte with TT vs AQ. I pulled a stop-and-go on the low flop from the big blind, and got called anyway. The blinds were big at this point, though, and I just never got anything from then on. On actyper’s final hand, I had AKs, but had to get away from it, as you can see from that hand history. I was card dead to basically blind and ante me off. My final hand I had A3s in the small blind, and just called all-in, as I had less than one blind. The big blind raised to protect my his hand, and I never improved against his KK. I went out in 354th. Pauly has a nice list of where all the poker bloggers finished. Congrats to everyone who made the money!

This weekend, I also got to set up my Polk XM Receiver. It’s pretty cool. Strangely, the best place for the antenna seems to be in my bedroom closet facing the wall. I also got my replacement Treo 650 from Amazon today, and everything seems to have restored off the SD card nicely. I think once the old one dries out, it’ll actually work again, too, but I needed a replacement before that happened. My new printer/copier/scanner/fax is awesome. I plugged it into my network, and am printing to it from both Linux and Windows as if it’s JetDirect device. I also installed my new 100gb hard drive in my laptop, and managed to get everything moved over to it without having to reinstall Ubuntu. As an added bonus, I discovered my laptop has USB 2.0 (not just 1.1 as I thought), and I have a nice portable 30gb drive now, thanks to this.

Overall, not a bad weekend considering how the end of last week went. (Oh yeah, the drawers I special ordered from Home Depot for my kitchen came in Friday – except they were the wrong size.)

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For future reference: A Treo 650 doesn’t work too well after running through the washing machine. Now I’m gonna be out another $600, plus I won’t have a cellphone until Monday. This happened not even a day after I finally sold my old Treo 600… at least I got $200 for that.

Update: The SD card in my Treo is fine. I haven’t lost any data.

Update 2: I have a phone. Got a free after rebate Nokia from the T-Mobile store with a 1 year contract extension, which is fine since I have no plans to switch anytime soon and I’ve been with them almost 4 years now. I’d been meaning to get a backup/spare phone anyway.

Poker related… I’m putting a bounty on myself for the WPBT Winter Classic. Whoever knocks me out gets a Poker Padz mousepad (thanks to Grinder for finding them, and posting a comment here so I could find him!). These things look cool. I’ll put up a review when I get it. I’d also be interested in getting custom ones made with the WPBT logo, but the information page says minimum custom order is 200 units. Would anyone else be interested? Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll quite get enough people wanting one to make that happen.

I’m sure I had other things to say, but this Treo thing has pissed me off to the point that I don’t want to write anymore.

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