The Question on everyones mind

Having just filled up my truck with over priced gas, I was standing in line at the gas station waiting to pay, when I caught a glimpse of yet another front page headline on the sunday paper reporting of increased trouble in the middle east. Usually on my blog I don’t delve into social issues of great importance but I think It’s about time I answer… or attempt to answer the question that is on most peoples minds. That question of course is, If you could have one super power what would it be? I know that this is not a popular question for some because of the inherant controverial nature, but I feel it time that as a nation we open up a constructive dialouge to find an answer to this question.

Because this question is so complex I will need to add some qualifiers to my answers before I begin.

1. Omnipotance is not a super power.
2. Only one superpower can be chosen as my number one choice.
3. Alternate superpowers will be chosen in the intrest of openeing up a debate on each powers qualifications.
4. A super power must be specific. This means I can not say “The powers of superman”.
5. A super power can not create additional super powers. This means I can not say “The power to create infinite super powers”
6. These powers would be used in today’s world, not a hypothetical super hero world.
7. Rules of nature and physics need not apply to the superpower because the concept of super powers is in of it’s self fantasy and there fore not bound by science.
8. The fantasy aspect of a super power can only apply to the specific super power and not to the “side effects”, Any side affect would need to be easily explained by science or logic. For example, If my super power was super strength I couldn’t say that this would also give me invinciblity unless I came up with a specific reason why.

With those rules out of the way I present to you my number one choice along with a list of alternates.

1. The ability to manipulate time (Quantum Leap time travel, not 12 monkeys time travel) – I already know that this is going to be controversial number one pick because of the potential impact rule 7 and 8 would have on this. I feel that implied in the ability to move through time, would be the fact that doing so would allow you to alter the future, and that your mind would retain everything you already know, but your body would adjust to the time you have moved into. So if I travel back to grade school I would have all my current memory but i would be a little kid, if I travel to the future I would age as well. Now the side effects of time travel I just listed can be argued a couple of different ways. Maybe I never age during time travel but only age while i’m in a certain time period. I can accept that Over all I just want the ability to freeze time, or go back and change things when I do something stupid.

2. (first Alternate) – Ability to read minds. I like the super powers that are not painfully obvious. I would love to read minds because of all the cool shit you could find out from people. This would also help my poker game, and would give me an edge with the ladies.

3. The super power of knowing who someone has slept with and the quality of said encounters. This power really should be lower on the list but it ranks at number three cause of it’s uniquness. Some times i’m at work and I see two people talking to each other, and I think… hmmmm I wonder if those two ever hooked up. If you have never worked in an office enviroment where the potential for adultry is high than you probably don’t understand this aspect of this super power. The other cool part of this super power is I could make a website or something and report on which celebrities are hooking up. Then if I get sued I can give the quality and details of the encounter under oath and then the celebs would have to admit that I was telling the truth so what I am saying is not slandeerous or liable…ess.

4. Super Strenght… without being any larger than a normal in shape man. Part of this power would be the ability to control how strong I am trying. So if I try to hold a glass of milk I don’t always smash it in my hand, but if I want to pull a Superman pimptastick move and squeeze a piece of coal and make a diamond for a hot bid than I could do that without a ton of strain.

5. Mind control. I like the reading minds thing better but I would settle for this just as long as after the mind control is over the women… I mean person who may or may not have been mentaly forced to engage in sexual intorcorse with me, would not ever realized that they were mind controled but rather some how rationalize that it was something she wanted to do.

5. Super Speed – Now we are in the crate and barrel of super powers, but this is still important to note as an alternate.

6. Invisibility. It is important that this is the kind you can turn on and off, and not the invisible man type. Ohhhhh and have you ever really listened to the words of that clay akin song “If i was invisible”? If you really listen to what he’s saying he is basically saying that he is a peeping tom rapists. Listen to the song if you don’t believe me. I wouldn’t do that with these power. I would only use my powers for good to slightly evil reasons. Never for blatintly evil reasons.

Well those are my top choices. If you have any other suggestions post it on the friday night felt forum or email me MikeJohnson@fridaynightfelt.com

later
Lazy

Can’t sleep, so here are some pictures from Europe

For some reason I can’t sleep so like most people who can’t sleep I decided to learn how to edit pictures once they are scanned into a computer. Not very difficult, I just wish i could do more with the imagin software from HP. These pictures were all taken when I was in europe. I converted most of the images to black and white to see if I could get a snooty pretentious look to them but I just don’t think they looks as good as they do in color. I plan on printing these up on the photo printer and hanging them up. Let me know what you think by adding comments.

I’m not really sure about how this blog software will list these images. My guess is that it will look like a giant cluster f**k. I think when I print out the photos i’ll go with the black and white for most since… well… most of these pics were taken with cheap disposable cameras so i’m not overly proud of the colors.
I think the key to good photogrophy is having the ability to bring out the potential in what is allready there. Usually this just means waiting for the right moment or stumbling accross a pictures scene. Michallangelo felt that his sculptures allreadys exsisted in the slabs of marble, and his only job was to chip away the extra pieces. I think there is probably a corolation there. But it’s 4:30 am so i’m going to try and get some sleep.
later
lazy

The fun is over

Starting tomorrow I will be back at work now that my vacation has ended. I am not dissapointed that I didn’t get a lot… or anything accouplished. I am reluctant to go to work and tell everyone that I did absolutly nothing on vacation. I think they might mock me. Actually there are a couple of htings I accomplished this week.

• Redid the HTML on this blog.
• Setup affiliate programs with some of the major retailors from the US
• Updated my resume (probably not going to mention this one at work)
• Set up a new online store for Friday Night Felt at http://www.cafepress.com/shopfnf
• Finished the designs on www.pokersoftly.com where I will soon begin to rotate galleries on a daily basis
• Came up with ideas for several new sites that I would like to work on over the next several months.
• Lost $40 at FNF
• Spent several hours playing PS2 (WSOP, MVP Baseball)
• Watched Suicide Kings, GoodFellas, Hitchickers Guide to the Galaxy, and a couple other movies
• Sat back at home while the FNF forum blew up
• Updated a ton of the FNF pages
• Updated a few of the biglazypoker.com pages
• Hung out with Rocco
• Hung out with Gamble
• Hung out with my Grand Ma who turned 90 this week

And that’s about it. Nothing really worth bragging to the people at work about, but I do feel relaxed in an odd sort of way. So I got the next week of work gearing up for two months worth of training, followed by a week of jury duty. ILLLLLLLL hopefully i get selected for a bad ass court case where it’s a dope case and i get sequestered. illlllllll. Well I still got some time to kill before i got to bed so I’m going to work some more on pokersoftly and then watch some cartoon network.

later
Jack Storm

i like to sleep

Well I said i would work on the FNF website in the afternoon and well yeah i did since 10:00 pm (which is when I woke up from my nap) is technically after noon. well at 11:45 i finished the update of this past weeks game. I’m hoping that I can convince the in the money people fromt he tournaments to start writting the recaps of the tournaments, because well Its a lot of work, and if i’m not in the money what kind of view point am I really going to give if I was watching reruns of Martin on BET instead of watching the final 4 players get whittled down to 1 winner. I just noticed that my posts are in west coast time so add three hours to anything I say. So since I had a 5 hour cat nakp today i’m going to work all night and not sleep till tomorrow morning. This way i can go to sleep at 9:00 pm get plenty of sleep and be back on track for work on monday.

So what do I plan on accomplishing tonight?

• Launch www.Pokersoftly.com – I think this might initally be my most profitable… only profitable website. Plus its an easy design, so I should get it up and running fairly quickly.
• Set up a shopping links section so that I can email the link to everyone I know who does shopping on the net – In the long run I want to set up a website where if you shop through it you will get entered in drawings for gift certificates or some other gift from your favorite retailer. For now i just want to make sure the people i know who actually shop online aren’t missing out.
• Set up the chair I bought from office depot close out sale – I really don’t need to explain that any further.
• Get affiliate programs set up with online gambling sites – i already have an affilitate account with http://www.betcris.com/ which is where sixpicks plays, but I want to set up the rest for http://www.thesmartbet.com/
• Play some jetsetpoker – I really haven’t played in a while and I should get back to it since it has paid for two trips to vegas and all of my christmas shopping this past year.

Hopefully the niners are able to keep their winning streak (1 game) going against the struggling and injured eagles tomorrow) illllllll.

later
Mr. Mike

FNF recap

I haven’t updated the site yet, but will probbly get to updating fnf and TSB sometime this afternoon. I did want to hop on here and just post some comments/highlights from last night.

• Matt G made some kick ass cake and bean dip – I think for next week at six’s I’ll have to make my chilli cause it’s unfair that Matt does all the baking.
• Brown returns to FNF action – Since brown has been working eleventy thousand hours a week at pepsi, he hasn’t been able to hit up fnf as of late. I was glad to see he was able to make it last night… we until he floped two pair agaisnt me and took 3000 chips from me in game 1.
• Mace has a mini meltdown follwed by his first money finish – After the first tournemant mace was pissed and in typical mace fashion vowed to leave, which he did, but then came back 5 minutes later. I can understand why mace was pissed cause he got a run of good cards in bad situations. In truth that is much more frustrating than just not getting any good cards. Mace rebounded though in the second game and was able to take down 2nd place.
• Two newbies donate to their first FNF – I’m not the type to use that term when describing somones play, but I heard a couple of the other players mention it. Actually I kind of loose respect for people who say thing. If they really feel that these people are donating they shouldn’t let it be known cause all it can do is upset the donators (if it gets back to them)and keep them from comming back. Or if they are the competitive type and they hear the donation comment, then they might try to get better before they come back. It’s tough though cause poker is an emotional game that has it’s roots in perceived power and respect. At the table you want to convey an image that you are the best and a dangerous opponent. In the wild west it wasn’t just your play but also your rep off the table. That’s why people like Wild Bill Hicock and Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday were always linked to gambling, and more specifically poker. Imagine trying to bluff someone like jim bowie on a river boat card room back in the 1800’s. You have to worry about not getting called, and worry about him not cutting you with his nife after you leave the table if you piss him off. Something had to take the place of that in a more civilized area and I think that’s where some of the table chat comes into place. This isn’t something that really does on at FNF very often but occasionaly it creeps into place. Like I said it’s tough, I know that when I make a good play I want to talk a little trash to try and assert myself as the Alpha player, and sometimes it even slips out if I start to feel anyone else is starting to get a big head or my perceived abilities come into question. That being said if I come out on top I don’t want to do anything to change the way my opponent plays even if I only came out on top because I got lucky. If my opponent plays the same way every time then I’ll have the advantage, since I can addapt to his play, but he won’t adapt to mine. That being said both of the newbies busted out early and were unable to see a return on their investment.
• Speaking of trash talk, what is with mace and six questioning my math skills – Granted I mess up when i’m talking my self through pot odds or when figuring out what 3x BB is, but usually that’s because I forget what the blind is, or with the pot odds well usually halfway thought figureing out the pot odds I start to think about what my odds of winning are and what hands my opponent has. But here’s the thing off all the people to make fun of my math skills it shouldn’t be thoes two because they are accounts which means they practice math all day long and how many times have i seen thoes two screwing up trying to figure out what is in a side pot or how many chips are going to be raced off. The reason they mess up is the same reason i mess up cause they are probably thinking about three or four things at once, and with all the numbers flying around it’s easy to switch them up. I normally wouldn’t have said anything at the game but mace thought my 60 30 comment was the stupidist thing ever said. Six asked after an all in race what the odds were for a race with 1010 vs A3 suited. (I’m not sure if thoes were exact cards) The next hand had already been started and it was my turn to act so I didn’t give much thought to my answer especially since it wasn’t meant to answer the real question. Six was really asking cause he though the fact that thoes cards were suited might have made it a lot closer in comparison to just one over card when going against a high pair. At least that was my guess since matt had just caught the flush with the hand. From what I’ve read being suited is just a nice bonus and rarely will be the deciding factor in an all in race. In my head i’m thinking that everytime i’ve seen the percentages in that situation (not specifically suited) the 10s would have a 60 something percent chance of winning. Maybe 66 maybe 62 maybe 68, I have no idea what the exact percentage was because… i didn’t care at that moment since I had 10 4 again, but was thinking about trying to steal the blinds. So if the 10s are a 60 something then the A 3 would be a 30 something percent. So instead of saying all of this though, i just said 60 30, which mace picked up on was 10% shy of 100 percent. At first I didn’t care, but mace started to say something about how bad my was so I had to defend my self. Anyone who knows mace knows he can’t stand to have a logical conversation for more than 15 seconds in which there is a deferent point of view expressed. So mace immediatly goes to the “Shut up, I don’t care” deffence so that he doesn’t have to hurt his brain trying to be creative in forming a responce or god forbid concider the possibility that someone with a different view point my be correct, or at least not wrong in his or her conclusion. I love mace, but I know I can never talk with him as an adult in these situations. Yes the 60/30 comment on the surface was “stupid” or “incorrect” but at least it wasn’t “stupid” or “incorrect”. Of course Six and Tmace could have done all of that just to put me on tilt, which i don’t think it did, but if that was the case then well played guys.
• Matt G had a manic depressive chip stack in the 2nd game – On one of the first plays of the 2nd tournament Matt G is able to knock out Tyrel (a newbie) and push his stack to over 1700 chips. He is able to build this stack even higher but when the blinds start to reach the 500 1000 levle he finds himself all in with only 4500 chips left. After doubling up a couple of times he is able to get heads up with T-Mace and takes down the win when his King high wins an all in race.
• Six and Daddy tear through Matt’s Cake – Look the cake was that good that I had to mention it twice.

Overall i felt i had played well but just didn’t get the cards at the right spot. The biggest hit I took had to be when we got to 5 handed and the blinds were 1 and 2 thousand and I had KQ suited and raised, but mace and ray had AK, It was checked down and i was happy i didn’t loose anymore, but it crushed me from that point. Then again, short handed with blinds going up you can’t fold or just call thoes hands. Granted i’m sure there were times I was bluffed, and times I could have won more, but I’m not going to complain.

Late
– pops

Back to Poker

It looks like there is going to big FNF event tonight with about 7 to 10 people. So far Ray, Six, T-Mace, Brown, Noze, Matt G, and myself are all deffinates. Rocco might play, as is the case with several other of the lebanon crew. With over $300 up for grabs I want to make sure to bring my A game. What my A game is i’m not sure, but hopefully I have it. Often before a game I try to evaluate how I want to play, do I want to be aggressive early, or do I want to wait for big hands, is my goal to win, or just to make the money and see where i end up. I think that this way of thinking is usefull when analyzing past tournaments, but as far as looking to future tournaments it can be harmfull. Instead you should base your play on the play of your opponents at that time. If you play with a very tight group of players and going in you say to yourself, i need to loosen up and be the aggressor might be a good idea. but what if everyone else made the same conclusion before they got there, now you should actually tighten your play since they are all playing loose. I would go into further explanation but i just got tired of typing and want to watch hitchikers guide to the galaxy.

Comedy links

ok www.pokersoftly.com isn’t up and running quite yet but I thought I’d throw up some kickass content since i have nothing to do right now. Actually I have a lot of stuff to do, but I’d rather ignore it an hope it all works it’self out. Below are some SNL clips I find funny, yes they are clips from SNL which stands for Saturday night Live, not Slim Noreigan Ladies or whatever you probably thought of when you saw that i was posing moview onto pokersoftly.

• www.pokersoftly.com/movies/PunkdSNL.wmv I thought this was a great sketch “I love Justing Timberlake”
• www.pokersoftly.com/movies/DebbieDowner.wmv I always liked this sketch, but watching everyone loose it made it funnier, plus linsey lohan is in it who is someone i would love to feature on pokersoftly.com
• www.pokersoftly.com/movies/Farley-Mcartney.wmv I love his very last question he asks in this interview. Chris Farley was so good at playing a lovable dope, as was adam sandler… and rob shcneider too… actually with joe dirt david spade kind of jumped on the late 80s early 90s lovable dope snl goes to the movies band wagon. Mike myers was wayne who could also fall under this catagory as well. Well I commend Dennis Miller for breaking that mold and only making really terrible vampire movies.
• www.pokersoftly.com/movies/WalkenCensus.mpg I have a huge man crush on christopher walken. I think it’s because of the way he talks. He needs a reality show.
• www.pokersoftly.com/movies/CowBell.mpeg probably the funniest sketch in the history of sketch comedy. I will fight any one who argues my point.
• www.pokersoftly.com/movies/SWAuditions.mpg What’s funnier than a sketch with christopher walken, how about a sketch with kevin spacey doing an impression of him.
• www.pokersoftly.com/movies/crazyboss.mpg A clip with one of my other man crushes will ferrel. Kind of a slow start because i hate peirce brosnan, but it builds so well.
• www.pokersoftly.com/movies/SNLSportscenter.mpg This one is for Ray.

Some of the files are rather large so it maybe faster to right click and save as.

Week off progress report

So what have I actually done?

• Spent a total of one hour working on www.biglazypoker.com and www.TheSmartBet.com combined.
• Spent a lot more time working on updating www.FridayNightFelt.com with new ads and making sure all the pages match.
• Made some posts to this blog, and to the FNF Forum.
• Decided to set up www.PokerSoftly.com as a TGP (thumbnail gallery post) site, and try and make some money off of it. (Home page is done, but it will be a while till I have links and more than the first 15 galleries.)
• Did some shopping for my mom, and also for my Grandma’s B-Day, which is the same day as mine for convience sake. Happy Birthday Grandma.
• Called two places to inquire about their part time jobs, and recieved voice mails both times.
• Spent a lot of time exercising… mostly wight lifting…. well that is if you conider playing with my p*n*s weight lifting….. which no woman or gay man would.
• Spoke with my sister about moving into her exboyfriend/business partner’s apartment, since he wants to move out. (Here’s the jack: my sis is probably going to get this painting job in westchester, so bob would have to move there and get a place, but would still need a place here in hbg for when he comes home like everyother weekend or so. his idea is to move into my mom’s house, so basically we would be switching places. The only problem is that his place, while nice, is $635 a month cause it’s a 2 bedroom. With all the crap i have, i probably need a two bedroom, but it doesn’t change the fact that i’m poor, but that’s another topic and I digress)
• Talked with my brother about how germany is, and then I talked about how america is, then we discussed the media differences. Later we discussed other topics like how poor I am.
• Revamped and sent out the FNF newsletter.
• Helped Rocco with his dad’s business and in return he bought me WSOP for PS2. It should be noted that WSOP from activision is one of the worse games ever because it can be tedious, but you can’t stop playing it… eventhough you know it’s terrible… and you should be weight lifting or working on your websites or discussing your economic situation, but instead you have to compulsively play the game, eventhough there isn’t any real goal, just an ongoing campaign in which you tell yourself that it’s the journey not the destination that brings you enjoyment.
• Came up with two new ideas for websites that I am going to share with you right now.

www.TitForThat.com (don’t click on the link since i haven’t bought it) is an idea right now.. so delicate that if you even whisper it’s name it may dissapear. There are a ton of high end women shopping sites that offer refferal programs that I would like to cash in on. All though the site will be “Geared” towards men, it will have that man show feel where it half mocks men so the women don’t get too upset, and will hopefully check it out as well. The way the site is geared to wards men, is that it offers a guide on what to buy women and what they should expect in return. An example would be if a man buys his woman a gucci purse then he should get oral. If he get’s Steve Madden shoes, then it should be 3-way with her best friend (not the fat one). Obviously the key to site would be comical drawings for the rating systems. Graphics aside I think the site would be fairly easy to maintain. Since I have so many things going on right now, I might work up a test site in the interum and see how people react.

www.DailyGolfTips.com (Don’t click cause I don’t even know if it’s available.) Just like the titforthat site this is just an idea that was fuled by the number of golf retailers that are on the net. I would like to set up a site that gives golfers daily tips on … golf. Nothing special just a quick “When teeing off, make sure to only hit your ball.” or something a little more pratical and informative. With each tip would be a link to some piece of golf equipment or what ever. The trick here is getting the tips without breaking copy write. My guess is that I will hit up amazon.com and find a couple of tips from there, and just make sure to include the source for each tip, and a link to buy the book it’self.

Actually now that I’m writting these ideas down I have though of a simple yet cost effective way of setting these sites up, that should also be quick and painless. Maybe. Once again very little poker was discussed but I am confident that my poker obsession will pick up in the next couple of days especially if Kant has a tourney at his place.

One Love

– Lazy

WSOP for PS2 sucks

Just as the title indicates, the World Series of Poker game for PS2 sucks. It’s a shame too, because the design of the game is pretty kickass. I like the game play, Ilike the carrer mode, the design you own charachter thing is decent. But, the AI (artificial Intellegence) in the game is terrible. I know in real life there are people who play terrible hands for what seems like no apparent reason. But, and this is a big But, thoes people don’t end up at final tables. In this game I would be allright if the deuring the early stages you knock some people out who draw to terrible hands or even if you get knocked out when they hit a terrible draw. That’s fine, but When you start with 500 people and there are only 8 left, thoes 8 should be real good and not make donkey moves. My uess is that the designers probably made an AI that played tight and they then realized that they needed to throw fish in there. But they didn’t set it up so the fish get weeded out at the beggining. Or they set up some AI designed to simulate a bluff, but the blufing is done at random, and continues on until the very end even if in any real life situation the bluffer would have given up.

There is one potential upside to this game however. You can set up online play through your ps2 with an internet connection. I have high speed andthe network adapter and I played an online sit and go, and loved it. This could be our solution to the whole online tournament for FNF thing. I’ll have to ask on the forum who all has a PS2 with the internet connection. If a lot of people do, then we could play through that and not have to worry about a rake or anything else.

And this little tid bit has nothing to do with poker. On the blog you can add comments. Like for instance you read a post and think “Mike you are witty and insightful” you could post that thought, or if you visit the blog you could post “Damn Johnson is one sexy mother f**ker”, or “Why doesn’t daddy know how to spell?” all of thoes could be posted. For some reason there is some tool who I guess goes to all of the blogs and posts the following.

“Anonymous said…
This is a excellent blog. Keep it going. Here’s the resolve a lot of people are searching for; how to buy & sell everything, like music on interest free credit; pay whenever you want.”

What kind of crap is that. ok i’m done for today, i’m going to hit up amazon and look for the little house on the prarie dvd box set for my grandma’s B-Day.

Obligatory Blog entry

Well I guess there is a purpose for this entry but I really like using the work obligatory. Anyways, I did some more work on the Biglazypoker site, and fnf site yesterday and begining of today. Not much will look different at biglazy, but FNF I updated the current schedule and all of the players profiles. The format of thoes pages previously was so far off in terms of margins and spacings. Now they should have all the proper links, and I also added in some advertising that isn’t poker related. Actually… I guess the advertising is kind of obligatory now that I think about it. Most of the adds should be guy type stuff. I’m not really expecting to generate any real income from thoes adds, I mostly just wanted to play around with this new affiliate program that I have signed up for. Some of the companies I now have advertising with our:

• WalMart
• Shop.com
• Playboy Store
• Over Stock
• Champion
• Target
• Hotwire
• Match.com
• Swiss Army
• Time life
• and a bunch of other smaller sites.

Following Mike H’s advice I set up a sponsor page that you can go to view all of the different adds, and hopefully if your going to do any type of shopping online you can go there and probably find what your looking for. www.fridaynightfelt.com/sponsors.htm. Yes I know the design is not at all creative, but the added benefit for me is that when I work on biglazypoker.com or thesmartbet.com i can just click and drag these images and they will work. This saves me time over having to create them from scratch. I also adjusted the HTML on the blog so that there is a rotating banner at the top with a few of the advertisers so feel free to click on it.

Oh here is my only poker news to report. I played a sit n go on full tilt last night and got down to three handed after the guy with 10,000 chips knocked another person out. I had 800 and the other guy left had 950, so i was happy with finishing third and winning what ever that payed, so I went all in after seeing a free flop with a open ended straight draw. I get called, loose, and then I wait to see how much I won. And i keep waiting… wait for it… wait for it… wtf. So i go to the tourney lobby and I see that only 1st and 2nd pay. HUGE mistake by me. You should always look and see what the payouts are, but i didn’t so i’m a moron.