Texas Calculatem and Poker Office Blog

I just went to see 300 at the Wimbledon Odeon with Juice and my cheapskate mate.

It's going to be a pure classic and attain a cult following.

Based on an ancient tale from before the birth of Christ, this story of 300 white dudes wearing He-Man pants, battling for freedom against an invading horde of evil dark skinned dudes from Asia, is remarkably relevant to modern times.

And modern CGI affects, along with the minimal wardrobe, were used to highlight the rippling six packs of the 300 Spartan warriors. While some critics have accused the cast of wearing body suits, the makers have claimed that computers were used to enhance the shadowing of the actors' physiques, thus making muscles stand out through an increase in contrast.

There are many other contrasts in the film. In your face homoeroticism (I've haven't even heard of another film with 300 dudes wearing nothing but their pants) goes hand in hand with homophobia (in one scene the Spartans mock "man loving Athenians"). And the initial team based shield wall clash later degrades into a mass brawl of individuals (or pairs) battling for glory.

Having a small interest in historical warfare, I was interested to see the director's interpretation of the Greek phalanx formation. A good attempt was made in the initial battle scene, with a clash of shields, followed by a rugby like scrum, followed by men in pants stabbing dark heathens with spears and swords.

King Leonidas repeatedly mentions the importance of the phalanx formation, and of each warrior protecting the soldier to his left with his shield. He even rejects the vile hunchback, Ephialtes, from his army, due to his inability to hold his shield high. So why the Spartans proceed to charge headlong into an overwhelmingly large army is beyond me.

In terms of acting, the film was nothing but pants. King Leonidas even put on a slight Scottish accent during some rousing pre-battle speeches, suggesting that Gerald Butler watched Braveheart one too many times.

Labels: 300, Gerald Butler, he man, homoerotic, Leonidas, pants, spartan, y fronts

I went to look at some woodland with my cheapskate mate today. We were thinking of doing some buy-and-forget investing. Basically, everyone knows there's a shortage of space in the UK, and we therefore thought that some land could be a good investment. So despite the land not having any permission, we hypothesised that in the long term, someone is going to want to knock down the trees and builder over it.

However, the wood was a bit hard to access, on sloping ground, and very densely populated with trees. While we had no intention of purchasing the woodland with the aim of actualy clearing the land ourselves, we didn't think other punters would be keen on the idea either. However, we did meet a nice placid horse (see picture above), and the kind owner showed around the place explaining the pros and cons of the situation.

The trading world has been pretty tough in the past week. Barclays Bank put in a bid for ABN Amro, Norway's biggest bank. This caused my arbitrage relationships to stretch in scary ways, as ABN Amro's share price rocketed over 8%, and the fundamentals therefore changed.

On Wednesday, the FOMC failed to use the word "tentative" in their statement, and that led to some big moves after the European markets had closed.

While I managed to sidestep the unforeseen volatility, it wasn't a fun week!

In terms of Poker, I didn't bother going to a home game last night. Instead, one of my buddies cooked me some chilli and rice. It was good shit. Though she cheekily used a packet instead of mixing the spices herself. My brother has just signed up with PKR, that 3D poker site. PKR also sent me a letter offering me a $250 match deposit bonus if I made a deposit. However, I'm still not feeling the love from the cards. I think I should stay away until I feel more motivated again.

The stats for this Poker Blog are going down the drain.

While people used to come here to read about Texas Calculatem and Poker Office 2, now all they want is dirty smut!

My most popular page at time of writing is http://www.financialcharting.com/poker/blog/2006/08/gift-for-miasdad.html. And people are getting their via searches for things like "Kylie Minogue", "Wet Girls", "Good Looking Wet Girls" etc... I'm not sure whether or not I should be proud of this achievement.

While doing a search for that post, I also found that Jordo Media somehow beats me in a search for "A gift for Miasdad". By pure virtue of displaying my RSS feed. How rude! Anyway, if you have two seconds to spare, please go to Jordo Media and vote for this blog.

Juicy Juice is doing a sponsored walk for the charity he works for.

Readers can sponsor his here.

He has promised to strip and post pictures of his blog if he can raise £200. He's so popular that even the Acorn's dog has donated.

This afternoon Patrick Mercer, a Tory MP, was sacked for making allegedly racist comments (click here to read the BBC report). The poor guy was only trying to tell things the way they are in laddish environments. But the moment people say anything that might be remotely non-PC they are attacked for being racist and discarded from society. Absurd.

The things he describes aren't as bad as many incidents I've witnessed. For example, I know of a guy who sent a news story about Indian men having small penises to his whole company, which includes a couple of Indian dudes. Should those guys have decided to abuse the legal resources of this country, they could have wasted a lot of time by filing a discrimination suite. But instead, they replied with an article, explaining why fat people are stupid. That gave everyone a good laugh, instead of giving reporters more racially divisive material to play around with.

On the other end of the scale, when a car crash nearly kills a pregnant woman (Rare Bugatti crashes into trees), the news report focuses more on the value of the car than the lives of those who'd narrowly avoided death.

Labels: Bugatti, correctness, political

My flatmate was trying out Poker Office 2 last night. Unfortunately it didn't seem to read any cards from Party Poker, and thus didn't work. Oh well.

The global stock market decline from last week appears to be abating. Next to a newsclip on the event, The Metro (free London newspaper) showed a picture of a smiling trader, with the caption stating that the poor guy was relieved that the markets had started to recover. What bullshit! Do those journalists really think that traders make money when the markets rise and lose it when markets fall? If that was the case, trading wouldn't really be a full time job.

The Rotster was rather upset by my Fair Trade post last week, and responded to it here. I'm not sure if I agree with her arguments, but supermarkets are going to start stocking fair trade stuff over the next few years, and I'm hardly going to go out of my way to avoid paying 3 pence extra for it. So whether or not fair trade is a good idea, the supporters have won already. Anyway, here's an article about fair trade from the BBC [click here to read it]. It tries to present arguments from both sides of the debate.

Labels: bbc, fair trade, poker office 2, rotweiler

I tried some Omaha last night at Pacific. Rosie has been experimenting with it and I thought I'd take a punt as well. True to form, I just paid blinds for half an hour before getting bored. SMT SMT.

A buddy has been running a humour site for a while. It's called Crazy Emma. It used to get thousands of visitors a day, but those numbers have since diminished. Please share the love...

I've just had pretty tough week. It started off with getting fished at the live Poker game I played with Juice on Tuesday. The only hand I had was a set of 4's. But those were beaten by a set of Queens. SMT SMT.

In the financial world, the global stock markets totally tanked after China sneezed and volatility has rocketed. As a result, fear has ruled, and mispricings have been appearing all over the place. I've therefore been working 12 hour days, but can hardly complain, seeing as I've spent most of the year asleep so far.

One thing I find slightly bemusing about all this crash malarky is the public perception of city workers. And the BBC moderators have outdone themselves by publishing what, in my view, is the most ridiculous ever "Have Your Say" debate. The question was "Have you been affected by world stock slump?" and some of the responses were so wrong it was hilarious.

For example, the second most recommended comment is:

"Not yet, but I bet my endowment and pension suffer far more than the bonuses received by overpaid gamblers - sorry - city market analysts."

For a start, market analysts don't manage client funds, so calling them gamblers is just wrong. The gamblers are the traders and fund managers. And a lot of them have been making a killing from the crazy conditions. So the reader's rather sarcastic bet will be correct. As the overpaid gamblers should be in for higher rather than lower bonuses.

Other posters have attacked brokers, unaware that those middlemen have seen volumes, and thus commissions, rocket. One guy thought that any blow to the casinos of the rich was a good thing. But all the exchanges must be loving this, as they're making cash in the same way that the brokers are.

The true losers are those who hold long positions in shares. And the bulk of those long positions are held by pensions and institutions such as insurance companies. However, they can hardly complain of this small decline, as prices are still much higher than they were 6 months ago.

Before I sign off, I'd like to mention that a friend has had some builder problems in his flat, and has started a blog about it. It's called Ascent Loft Conversions Hole Problem Blog. Hardly a good name, but not everyone can have MiasDad's wit, or the world would die with laughter.

Related links

Have you been affected by world stock slump? - a debate.

US Follows Stock Market Sell-Off