Author Archives: Shadowtwin

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

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I am absolutely incapable of doing an objective review of anything. It is with that spirit that I will now delve into the many mysteries of the HBP. There will be spoilers galore so please don’t read on if you have yet to read the book.

The book seems to have left the entire world with two burning questions, the first being is Dumbledore really dead, the second concerns Snape’s true intentions. I am really up in the air about both.

Rowling has certainly made the books more complex as the series has evolved, but I find it hard to believe that she has added so much complexity to the characters and plot since the first book. While it is true that being wealthy enough to do nothing but work on the novels for the last few years should have given her enough free time to come up with elaborate plots, she hasn’t really done that. The characters have remained pretty static the entire series with only Harry himself appearing to grow in any noticeable way. The only other character growth seems to be in height, as Hermione is still a little bookworm, Ron is still an awkward pansy, Draco is still just an evil little pain in the ass, Ginny, while now having enough charm (read breasts) to attract the boys is still in every way just Ron’s little sister. I suppose Snape could be an exception, but his motives have been in doubt since the first book, he has not changed one bit, though the situations he is placed in may have.

I will address the Dumbledore issue first. The book leaves the possibility that he is still alive pretty wide open. Even before he is killed he is having a conversation with Draco in which he states “Voldemort can not kill you if you are already dead”, or something quite similar. This leaves the possibility that Dumbledore has the ability to fake death an open ended one. Is it possible that Dumbledore knew that he was going to be facing Draco atop that tower and hoped that Draco would not have the nerve to kill him? This would have forced Snape to complete the job as part of his unbreakable vow. But in an earlier book it was explained that the unforgivable spells could only be successful if the one who cast it had enough hatred and desire in them to actually kill. Perhaps Snape didn’t have that desire within him since he is really on Dumbledore’s side, so the spell appears to work yet it is all a clever ruse to keep Draco from performing the act with actual intent? Draco, however much an asshole he is, has still not actually killed anyone and if there is anything that Dumbledore has ever been guilty of it is believing in the good nature of the worst people (Snape for example).

Isn’t it an extremely odd coincidence that Dumbledore decides to take Harry to the cave at the precise time that the Death Eaters are going to come flooding into the castle? Did he just discover the Horcrux at exactly that moment in time? Even if he did what would be the importance of having Harry take his invisibility cloak? He takes it off nearly the second they leave Hogwarts, but he is instructed to put it on before returning, why? Was Dumbledore trying to make doubly sure that his death was witnessed by someone that everyone had to believe (what with no one believing Harry the entire last book even though he was telling the complete truth)?

Dumbledore seemed to know exactly how to get to the the Horcrux that they were looking for. Beyond that he knew that he needed blood to open the door, he knew where to find the chain for the boat, and he attempted to stick his hand into the murky green water without a thought. He then decided that his best option was to drink the strange liquid, knowing nothing about it, but told Harry to force feed him all of the liquid. It seems Dumbledore might now a tad more about that cave than he is letting on. Near the end of the book, when the locket appears next to Dumbledore’s body, the note is signed by R.A.B.. So someone had been to the cave before and taken the initial Horcrux, but Dumbledore said that it would take two people to do it. I am guessing that it was Regulus Black that left the note, but who was his partner, possibly Dumbledore? That would have given him all the necessary information on how to get there and retrieve the locket. But why retrieve the locket if Dumbledore knew it was a fake? To get the note which had been left behind all those years ago, in the hopes that Harry would be able to figure out who R.A.B. was.

The book also leaves open the possibility that, since the Horcrux had already been removed, whoever took it could have replaced the liquid in the bowl with any potion of their choosing. Not to mention that if it really was Regulus Black and Dumbledore that were there to take it in the first place, and Black drank the potion, but died a few days later, it could be that Black is not dead at all, but that he too was able to use the effects of the potion to appear so dead as the wizarding community simply forgot about him (that theory really doesn’t hold any water though, as Kreacher would have had to be loyal to Regulus if he were still alive, yet he was forced to be loyal to Harry). At any rate, Dumbledore could have been in that cave previously, broken all the enchantments and set up some of his own. Dumbledore mentioned that he burnt his hand in search of one of the Horcrux items, perhaps it was this one and it really didn’t require any help to obtain, but the potion he left in its place must be administered, since you won’t drink it of your own free will after the first couple of cups. Then again Dumbledore may have been acting as he seemed to lose so much of his physical capacity, perhaps he thought that Harry would not believe him dead unless Harry saw his slow decay before being finished off by an inferior wizard.

I am not making predictions here, I am just saying that it is plausible that Dumbledore is still alive.

Snape is a completely different issue.

Who is Snape loyal to? Which side is he playing? No one will know until Rowling releases the next book of course, but I have my suspicions. Snape is far too evil to be evil. Wouldn’t make for much of a septology if he was simply evil for the sake of being evil. Harry obviously hates Snape and that hate is clouding Harry’s mind. Dumbledore has said, again and again, that he trusts Snape implicitly. Maybe Snape really is on the wrong side but I doubt that. Snape has had many opportunities to betray the order and hasn’t really acted on any of them. Sure he is harsh on Harry, even knocked him down a couple of times while Harry was in pursuit, but I don’t see him as being the villain that Harry thinks he is.

While Harry is pursuing Snape on the grounds of Hogwarts, well when he catches up to him really, Snape does not allow Harry to actually cast an unforgivable spell. Snape actually says “No unforgivable spells for you, Potter.”, or something very similar. Is Snape trying to protect himself? It seems unlikely given the fact that Harry can’t seem to cast a stone in the water at his feet, let alone a decent spell. Why does Snape then go on to tell Harry that he needs to be better at Legilimency and non verbal spell casting? Perhaps Snape knows that without Dumbledore in the public eye (apparently dead) he, Snape, will not see Harry again until the very conclusion of the conflict. Snape just wants Harry to know what he needs to work on.

Being realistic, Harry is a loser. He has never done a damn thing other than survive an attack that his mother seemed to take the major force of. He has never succeeded without the help of several friends. His sudden potion mastery came from Snape himself, who likely knew that there were attempts being made on Dumbledore and made sure that Harry got the potions book with the helpful hints. All Harry can do is use his invisibility cloak (doesn’t it seem odd that he is the only one in the entire wizarding world that has one of those?) and get caught doing it a good half of the time. He is the chosen one why? Oh yeah. Some witch with thick glasses foretold it, though she wasn’t able to foretell being thrown out of a room seconds before it happened, she was able to foretell the fate of all wizardkind many, many years in advance. I’m thinking that Trewlany and Dumbledore may just have picked the wrong kid: A three year old with a crayon would be a more formidable opponent.

If Harry Potter, the most inept wizard since Rincewind, is actually the ‘Chosen One’ then it is a pretty dark day in the wizarding community. If I were the wizarding gods (if they have them, of course) I would have chosen someone more like Hermione Granger. At least Hermione can perform the simplest of spells, even some of the more advanced ones. Harry, on the other hand, was able to call a Patronus at the age of 13, yet somehow completely forgot how by the age of 16. Harry doesn’t even know how to repair his own bloody nose. How sad is that? If Harry actually defeats Voldemort in the final book it is gonna take a lot of doing, considering the fact that he seems to know about five spells, only one of which is used for offense, none of which have the ability to kill. Unless the grand finale involves Harry standing around singing old Beatles songs, since, All You Need is Love. As luck would have it, that is all that Harry has. No skill, no ability, but he can love…Where was that three year old with a crayon at again?

A ring is forever

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In a previous entry I mentioned that the diamond on my wife’s wedding (engagement really) ring was lost. The loss has turned out to be a good thing though.

Now for a bit of the back-story about the ring in question.

I am a cheap bastard through and through. I get annoyed when there are lights left on in rooms that aren’t occupied, even knowing that it only costs a couple of cents a day to power a light bulb. I wear a pair of shoes long after my feet begin to stick out the torn seams since they still protect the bottoms of my feet, that is the point of shoes, right? As long as my underwear have a waistband they are still in the rotation, regardless of the number of holes in them. My wife has been trying to help me to change some of the cheap bastard in me, as far as clothes are concerned, and I suppose I do look more presentable when not one (visible) article of clothing has a hole in it. I am still a cheap bastard though.

When I went to find an engagement ring the first thing I did was to throw the two months salary rhetoric right out the window. Not that I don’t love my wife, more that I don’t see how having a huge rock means that you somehow love her more, in fact it seems to work inversely; the women with the huge diamonds generally have the most adulterous husbands. I was looking for ring set (you know, the engagement ring and wedding band fit together) that was simply very pretty. When I found the one that I bought for her I paid far less than I had expected, but the center stone was quite small, I only found out how small after she lost it when my Mother-in-law said that it was only 1/10th of a karat (which was not what it was advertised as, but judging by the price I paid, and the fact that the Mother-in-law has been in the jewelry business, I must assume that to be true).

When I initially bought the ring I wanted to be able to pay cash for it, my intention was to upgrade the diamond somewhere around our 5th anniversary. I wasn’t sure how big of a diamond I would be looking for at that point, but definitely bigger and more sparkly, as the little sliver on what I bought her could barely catch enough light to reflect anything. I have heard people argue that the meaning is lost once you alter the ring, but I simply have to think back to an axe (of all things) that my dad had to disprove that notion.

An axe is a very simple tool, well it used to be. A wooden handle with a metal blade. Yet men take their tools seriously, well they used to, some still do. Tools would pass from generation to generation of men much the way that precious china does among women. I guess all men are cheap bastards at heart though, as the tool never moves to the next generation the same as it was in the last. Take the axe in question for instance. It was allegedly my Great Grandfather’s axe. The one he used every day to chop firewood. Through even twenty years of use the axe must have had the handle broken and replaced several times. The blade must have been dulled and re-sharpened to the point that it had to be replaced at least once, yet the tool, which likely had no part of the original was still considered the same tool. Considered so some sixty years later! I suppose that it is possible that my Grandfather touched the same handle as my Great Grandfather, possibly even used the same blade, but at some point Great Grandpa died and Grandpa had to repair the axe himself, slowly making a newer axe that had never been touched by his father, but it was still his father’s. Sentiment is a powerful thing.

But back to the ring. The loss of the stone prompted my wife to try to find some replacement estimates, which seem astronomical since some were damn near half of what I paid for the whole thing in the first place. Thankfully, my Mother-in-law stepped in to say that she still had the ring from her broken marriage with my wife’s father, and that she could have it for free (which translates to owing a lot of favors but no cash). The diamond on this ring was 1/4th of a karat and a different cut, but it was still far less expensive, while much larger, than the original stone. That stone was added to my wife’s ring. The ring looks absolutely gorgeous with the new stone. Many kudos to the Mother-in-law.

My plans to enhance the ring are still not gone though. I may put it off for additional years now that it looks so perfect, but I do have a goal. Among the rhetoric in the diamond commercials it sometimes mentions that less than 10% of women will ever own a diamond of 1 karat or larger size. My wife deserves to be in that less than 10% bracket since she has been 100% perfect to me since the day we met.

At the risk of sounding campy, if love could pay for the diamond, my wife’s would be this one. If love is never recognized as currency, however, I may have to set my sights a bit lower.

Using your body in odd ways hurts

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No, not like that you sick freak. I just had one leg suspended by a ceiling fan while the other was attached to the far leg of the bed. It was all going well until someone turned on the damn ceiling fan. Ouchers… I only wish I was so flexible.

The action in question is much more mundane; I was trimming the limbs from a tree. That doesn’t sound like something that would lead to discomfort, but it sure did. The tree is pretty tall, probably about 18 feet at its highest point, but I was trying to trim away the smaller branches that were growing down instead of up. Since the tree had portions of nearly every limb touching the ground this took quite some time. About thirty minutes into it I had all of the small, off-shoot limbs taken care of, which simply left a huge tree with large branches still touching the ground. Bring on the pain.

I was equipped with both a hand saw and a pair of lopping shears. While the saw was easier, the lopping shears were faster by far. Of course they aren’t really designed to be lopping dozens upon dozens of 1.5″-2.5″ thick limbs that happen to be above your head, did I let that stop me? Hell no!

Imagine, if you will, trying to do a standard Butterfly press (I apologize for the lack of linkage, thing is I was not able to find an example of someone actually doing the press ((in image form anyway)), all that I was able to find were images of the butterfly stroke ((in swimming)) and pressed butterflies ((in some pseudo art type thing)), I was able to find a machine that allowed you to do the butterfly press for weight training purposes but that would hardly help to illustrate my point), you know, with your arms out to your sides and bent to square at the elbow, the weights are set up so that they are moved by the pads on your forearms. When you bring your arms together (looking like you are praying basically) it burns in your Pectoral muscles. Now imagine a similar action, but above your head. Arms outstretched moving towards the center, but above your head. The Pectoral’s sure aren’t helping there.

I would like to get into a long-winded rave about how this exercise has helped me in some way, but the fact is that all it has done has made it so that my shoulder hurts so bad that I can hardly move it. If you want to hold a sword above your head and scream “I have the power” then, by all means, do it. Don’t try to actually chop shit up while you are doing it though, it will hurt the next day…Mostly in the shoulders.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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This started as a comment on a BlackChampagne post. If some thoughts seem more incomplete than usual that is probably why.

I saw the film this morning, luckily for me the children in attendance kept mostly quiet throughout.

I have a completely different take on the movie though, as I watched and loved the original version of it. I have seen it several times in the last five years or so and still really enjoy it. It has a great message and Wilder as Wonka is so eccentric that he might actually be insane.

After having read reviews for the new version I had pretty low expectations. Much to my surprise I actually enjoyed it. While I have never read the book, the fact that both Wilder and Depp played Wonka in the same manner would imply that that is how he is supposed to act. How can you fault an actor for portraying a character as it was written?

The addition of the childhood scenes made this movie better than the original. In the original Wonka was just crazy and there was never a mention of how he got that way. He was a bit darker in the original film also, a quote:

“There’s no earthly way of knowing / Which direction we are going / There’s no knowing where we’re rowing / Or which way the river’s flowing / Is it raining? / Is it snowing? / Is a hurricane a-blowing? / Not a speck of light is showing / So the danger must be growing / Are the fires of hell a-glowing? / Is the grisly reaper mowing? / Yes, the danger must be growing / ‘Cause the rowers keep on rowing / And they’re certainly not showing / Any signs that they are slowing.”

That is damn creepy to a five year old, especially when you hear the tone and building frenzy with which it is delivered. The addition of the childhood flashbacks, and the subtraction of the dark undertones, made a lot more sense. If you could say that anything about it actually made sense, that is.

The new version also removed one of the most ridiculous parts of the old one, which I am gonna spoil right here. In the original movie each child is approached by Slugworth and offered a bunch of money to get him an everlasting gobstopper. Charlie, after being viciously demoralized by Wonka and denied the prize he was due, gave the candy back to Wonka. No one, not even a saint, would have done that. Though it was a necessary plot element in the first film, thus making it all the more ridiculous.

The only thing that I really didn’t like about the new movie was the way it ended. It made it seem as though the grand prize was to be a slave to Wonka forever; he would never be able to see his family again after all. I suppose that was necessary to the plot, but at that point anyone over the age of about six had to have already figured out the last ten minutes. I guess it was included to tie it up as a nice little family film. Much in the way that Disney destroys films by making the endings absurdly happy.

The Cap Alert Guy gave this one such a good review that I am pretty surprised I like it at all. Though I do wonder where he saw a nude statue, why a mannequin in underwear is a sex offense, who he saw drinking, and what was the one use of the 3 or 4 letter word. There was one instance where someone was about to use a profanity but the audio was removed so that all you could see was a child with his ears being blocked. Of course my ears/eyes might not be quite so in tune with the Devil’s handiwork to pick up a passing word. Unless, of course, the use of the word nuts was considered obscene by context, who knows.

Possibly the only thing that was actually worse about the second film was the Oompa Loompa songs. The ones in the first film were cheese-tastic in a way that only a 1970’s film can be, but the ones in the newer version seemed like drug induced adaptations of the originals. Though I really doubt a child today would sit through the old songs, which were basically public service announcements, I also doubt that we will be seeing a spike in the piracy of Oompa Loompa songs onto iPods in the near future. The old songs were cute and cheesy, the new ones are just bizarre.

I am still pretty fond of the first movie, but the second movie tied things together a bit more cohesively. I am now curious to read the book to see which version is closer to it. Probably not so curious as to actually read it though.

Now, just for fun, I offer up my initial comment about the movie, before I saw it obviously

The trailers for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory show exactly what the reviews you are quoting say. I know that not everyone in the world, especially children today, have seen the original movie, maybe it will seem new and fresh to them?

My wife is still creeped out by the performance of Gene Wilder in the original movie. The majority of the creepiness is that Wilder doesn’t try to do an over-the-top caricature for the role, he is just a guy, any guy, who happens to be extremely eccentric. Wilder does have the crazy hair and pale eyes at his disposal which probably makes it easier but, he still looks human.

I can judge only by the trailers as I have yet to see the film but, my guess is that Depp was trying to combine Edward Scissorhands with the smooth clay Gumby figure when he was acting it out. Of course it should also be noted that he might have stolen the teeth directly from Mr. Ed.

I hope that I enjoy it when I do see it, but if the trailers are representative of the rest of the film I really doubt that will be a possibility.

I am glad that I was so wrong.

False advertising!

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So do you remember all of those commercials from the 1990’s that said, “A diamond is forever.”? They lied.

It turns out that the actual lifespan of said diamond is about four years, seven months and three days. That all being based on the date that I gave my wife her engagement ring (Xmas Eve of 2000) to the day that the diamond was noticed to be missing, which was yesterday.

Do you have any idea how bad a diamond ring looks without the diamond? It is not pretty.

I thought the diamond was supposed to last forever. Why is it that the ring is still in decent shape (with the possible exception of missing one of the mounts that held the diamond) while the diamond has vanished completely? Is this some strange conspiracy cooked up by the diamond sellers? Diamonds don’t usually just disappear you know.

I know the missing mount might be part of the reason that the diamond has gone missing, probably the main reason really, but it still just doesn’t seem right to have my wife, in all her beauty, walking around with a tan line around where her wedding band should be. She is my wife dammit! Hands off! And while I am on that subject, neither her or myself appreciate you gawking at her breasts. Hands off!

Anyway. If a diamond really is forever, shouldn’t they come up with a mount that is at least a decade? Failing that, they could at least mention that since the diamond is going to outlast the ring you might want to have it checked on occasion. No one ever told me that when I bought the damn ring. Now I have a wife walking around with a black heart on her left hand where her wedding band should be (of course the black heart was the ring that she wore for years before I actually decided to propose so it’s not so bad). Still, the diamond may be forever (wherever you lost it, forever) but the ring is still on the finger. While the diamond is gone…Work on that all you jewelers, we need to make the rings last as long as the diamonds.

Archaeologists have unearthed jewelry that is over 2,000 years old, many of those pieces still have the precious gems intact. Are you telling me that two millennia of technology has worsened the process? Damn lazy jewelers with their damn profit margins.

Pass me the duct tape!

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Kudos to NASA, who released this statement, “NASA: No Flights Until Foam Issue Fixed “. That should be a comforting thought, right? Well, when the article that it leads to is This one, I am not so sure. The last time an American shuttle left the ground heading for space some foam tore away from it, that led directly to the deaths of a bunch of people. What on earth were the people on the ground doing after that? I ask only because,

SPACE CENTER, Houston – NASA grounded future shuttle flights Wednesday because a big chunk of insulating foam flew off Discovery’s fuel tank during liftoff — as it did with Columbia — but this time apparently missed the spacecraft.


So they went ahead and investigated the whole spacecraft, yet neglected to look at the weird foam flying off issue? As if they didn’t have any knowledge that the foam would rip right off of the craft as it ascended towards the heavens (heavens meant as the clouds)? They had warning, it happened the very last time they tried to go to space…And people died.

This time was going way better though:

The chunk of foam flew off Discovery’s redesigned tank just two minutes after what initially looked like a perfect liftoff Tuesday morning. But in less than an hour NASA had spotted images of a mysterious object whirling away from the tank.

Wow, it took only two minutes for this mission to go horribly wrong. Is that a record? Probably not. As I recall the complete annihilation of the crew of the Challenger took only about, what, a minute? Technology is certainly making for better space flight (at least until they want me to board that death trap).

Was something done wrong to make the foam blow away? Were therulterioror motives behind the actions of those involved? I really don’t think so. Beyond that, I am pretty sure that it was good old ignorance that caused the problem, as opposed to terrorism. I certainly hopre that the crew make it back alive, yet, it would be a stern, in-your-face moment if they didn’t. That may sound crass, but the guy said:

“You have to admit when you’re wrong. We were wrong,” Parsons said. “We need to do some work here, and so we’re telling you right now that the … foam should not have come off. It came off. We’ve got to go do something about that.”

I didn’t put those words into his mouth. Though I would try crazy glue or duct tape before I sent the damn thing out again. It is a death trap as it is, not a lot of people going gung ho to jump on. I might, but I don’t really care whether I live or die. Perhaps that should be on thquestionnairere that you fill out. If you would rather live you are not qualified.

Stupid teen ruins it for everyone

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I must admit that when I was in my teens I would often fantasize about having sex with one of my friend’s Mother. Of course nothing came of it, not that I didn’t try, I even busted out the “I don’t bite either but I swing a pretty mean tongue” line. Still she wouldn’t succumb to my blatant sexual advances. She missed out on the greatest thirty seconds of her life.

But enough about me.

It seems that one mother was into fulfilling fantasies. She invited all the boys over for parties with alcohol, drugs, and sex! The trifecta! I am not sure that it is such a good idea to be giving the juveniles drugs, probably not alcohol either, for those offenses she should be punished, but the sex?


Johnson, who is free on bail, held parties for the boys almost weekly between October 2003 and October 2004, authorities said. She was accused of providing drugs and alcohol to eight boys and having sex with five of them.

Seriously now, those boys are in their teens, they have probably tried to masturbate with anything that they find laying around that has a hole in it. They have probably tried to buy sex from girls in their neighborhood, maybe even ruined an apple pie or two, who knows. Then someone just offers them sex, what are they gonna do? Damn right they are gonna take it. They don’t care if they have to fight off the crabs with a machete or scrape the puss away before they dive in, it is sex, the ‘Holy Grail’ of the teen boy.

As per usual, one of the kids had a big mouth and screwed it up for everybody.

Police said the investigation began after one of the boys told his mother about the encounters, and she reported it to authorities.

I’m sure that these boys have been traumatized by the experience, you know the no strings attached sex with an older woman. They are probably shells of the boys they used to be. That or they are so giddy about the whole experience that they went back for more every week for a whole damn year. I am pretty sure that the sex was consensual, if anyone was coerced into it it was likely not the boys.

Supplying drugs and alcohol to the kids was pretty stupid, but not unheard of. Better judgment could have been used there. But the sex, I am all for it. The woman did nothing more than give them what they wanted, is that such a crime (well I mean it is a crime, I was meaning that to be rhetorical).

An aside about teens and drinking. In my High School one student died as a result of driving drunk. The parents of the rest of the students decided that the best way to keep that from happening again would be to host (supervise really) the parties that they knew were going to occur (homecoming night and the such). There was alcohol at the parties, no illegal drugs though, and everyone in attendance was forced to surrender their car keys upon entering. Everyone had to stay in the designated house the entire night. The parents that were hosting the party had to get notice, in writing, from the parents’ of each of the teens in attendance. There were no more deaths due to drunk driving while I was in High School.

That plan (even though I doubt whether it was actually legal, yet everyone knew they were doing it, including the police) had the major problem of requiring the kids to tell their parents that they would be drinking, then the parents had to sign a paper allowing it. No one in my group would dare to tell their parents they would be drinking, much less ask for their approval. Instead we would just take our beer out into the wilderness (there is much of that in Oregon) to get wasted while camping out. In retrospect I am pretty sure that our parents knew what we were up to but thought it better that we do it while camping out than to try to drive home after. Probably a good call.

The same was true of lots of the other groups in my school though. I am not sure exactly how many people ever showed up to one of the supervised parties, but I can tell you that there were times when I saw half the school at a party on the hill. I have rather a humorous anecdote about the hill parties but I will save that for later. I have gone way off topic as it is.

Monsoon at last

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After a week of temperatures 110+ degrees, while the humidity has been steadily rising, the monsoon is here at last.

I am not sure exactly how they calculate when the monsoon finally arrives so I am calling it myself. It arrived at precisely 3:42p.m. today. That is when the black clouds blocked out the sun and the temperature mysteriously dropped about 20 degrees in ten minutes. Not to mention the smell of rain, and not the good kind, the smell of rain that you can only find in an arid region with a lot of pollution. It doesn’t rain much and when it does it smells like the billowing smoke from an enormous industrial furnace, at least for the first few minutes.

I don’t know the numbers, and am not going to waste the time to look them up, but I would guess that at lest 2/3 of the annual rainfall here comes during the monsoon season. This being the latest the monsoon has arrived since 1977 I am not sure this bodes well for the drought we have been in for the last ten years. Hopefully it will at least cut down on the wildfires that have been happening so frequently for the past few months. Hard to say really, even as I sit typing this the sky is black, there is thunder and lightning, it smells like rain, but not a drop has fallen. Or perhaps it is so damn hot that the water evaporates before it gets to the ground?

An upside, well for a twisted mind like mine, is that the news will start to get interesting again. It is so much fun to watch the dramatic rescues of people who were caught in flash floods. Not because I am really that sick that I want to see people die, no, no, I just love to watch it because the cameras are always rolling from the road, and there is always a sign in one of the shots that says either “flash flood area” or “do not enter when flooded”. They had their warning, why are we trying to disprove Darwin?

Let’s play some cards

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With the popularity of the World Series of Poker on television, not to mention my insatiable desire to know everything, and be better at it than everyone else, right now, dammit. I was forced to learn how to play Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. The game is pretty simple, actually it is much easier than any other poker game that comes to mind. There are certain hands that are good, certain hands that are bad, and certain hands that you wish were never dealt to you.

If you are not familiar with the game I will break it down for you, in a nutshell; to win you have to have the best 5card poker hand, based on two cards that are your own and five that are common. The highest possible hand is calculated based on your cards (and your opponents as well), whoever has the best hand wins. Really a simple game.

The problem with the game comes into play when you are doing your initial bet, after you have been dealt two cards you have to bet. If you have a pair of aces you should be guaranteed of the victory, right? Nope. If someone else has a pair of threes and another three gets dealt during the game your coveted aces will lose to a three of a kind, of threes no less.

I know that I am over simplifying the concept of the game but, there are 300+ page books written about it, odds and all, and that is not the purpose of this post. Without getting into a lot of strategy, I will simply say that a pair, even in aces, is not the best possible scenario. If you have two aces that means that there are only two more in the deck, odds of someone else having one are pretty good. If, however, you have a King and a Jack, you are in pretty good shape for making a straight that is either king or ace high. There is the possibility that you have the pair of aces and will get dealt an ace, but that is unlikely. Most winning hands in Texas Hold ‘Em are won by a pair or two pair. The three-of-a-kind is rare, as are all hands above it.

I spent some time learning how to play the game at pokerstars.net, but quickly found that to be either boring or requiring money, depending on the room (I did actually pocket a robust 34 cents for my curiosity while playing with real money though).

The most humorous thing happened when I logged into POGO and played for tokens though. I said to the room, after I had been dealt a King of diamonds and three of spades, “Beware my off suit 3 king”. Which got a couple of LOLs from the room, but that was what I actually had. The flop turned a king, seven, nine so I stayed in it. The turn was a 7 of diamonds, but I stayed in it (possible four-of-a-kind at that point ((in sevens, not for me))). When the river came up a King, I told everyone to just fold since I had the hand, they didn’t believe me and a raising war happened. I won almost 20,000 on that single hand…even after I told the room what I had at the beginning.

Also it is hard to bluff when playing on the pc. If you take too long they boot you, sunglasses don’t mask a damn thing, and for the most part the money isn’t real. If you do play for real money however, the bets are more realistic and the bluffs not as often, at least in my meager experience.

Something in the shot?

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My happy, playful, non-aggressive dogs don’t do much other than lay around and eat on occasion, yet there must be something in the shots that they get at the vet that changes all of that. Zelda, the younger of the two dogs, the female one as well, was needing to renew her shot status to get new dog tags (If you own a dog and don’t care enough to get him/her vaccinated once every couple of years to keep their registration current, you should be put to death without a trial) so the wife took her over this morning. It was, in her words, “a really bad experience.” But also, “It only took about twenty minutes.”.

Just a quick aside to mention the importance of registering your dogs, if you don’t have them registered you will never know where they are once they leave the confines of your yard. Sure the little collar emblem that you made at the local Wal-Mart will have their name and your phone number, but at the point that they are in the custody of animal control you will have to provide records of all of their shots, from their birth to current. If you do not have those documents the dog will have to be given the same shots, again, and likely won’t be too happy about it. The shots cost very little (sometimes free) while the registration is only a 10-20 bucks as well. It might seem expensive, but, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t the unconditional love of your pet worth 20 bucks every few years? (if you said no you might as well get a one way ticket to the seventh level of hell).

The little puppy Zelda (I call her a puppy despite the fact that she has easily surpassed the first year of her life, not to mention the fact that she can kick the ass of Warlock, who is older than her and triples her in weight) required one of the shots today. The wife took Zelda down to get her shots (and shiny new collar bling) without question.

Warlock did not take their absence well. My wife is the one who chose Warlock from the pound, despite my arguments that he was too big, it seems that he has never forgotten that…Or something… Once my wife (Warlock’s master) and Zelda (Warlock’s playmate) were gone Warlock just ran around the house whining….Constantly…. In theory that would be a good attribute for your pet (you know, wanting their master and/or friend near them), in practice it kind of sucks. No amount of petting was able to sate his need for the female portion of the household. I was nearly thankful when I had to go to work.

….

The strange thing is that now Zelda will sit under my desk as I type but, she won’t go outside. She loves to be petted but, when I do pet her, she is happy only when inside the house. When I try to make her go outside she starts to shake with such vigor that I am sure it is not healthy. You can actually feel her shaking right through her coat! Problem seems to be that she is going to have to pee sometime, I really hope that the sometime happens when she is not in the house….

If I were a religious man I would ask God to knock a few degrees off of the temperature for the next few days, since I am not I just hope that her need to pee overpowers her fear of all that which is not inside the house.