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ho hum, another day in an empty office. i actually have a 1pm meeting today, so i guess that leaves me about a half hour to waste typing a blog entry.i woke up this morning, as usual, with an npr report buzzing in my ear. it was about the bird flu and how a pandemic is looking somewhat likely and we should all run around screaming in terror. or something like that. as i was groggily listening, i started thinking: maybe i already have the bird flu. i mean, for the past few weeks, i’ve had this nagging sore throat in the morning, combined with a mild cough that my mom always comments on (more on that later). maybe i already HAVE the bird flu. as i finally came into consciousness, i realized i was ridiculous and that these symptoms are much more likely remnants of my human flu from a few weeks ago. nope, not a bird.

so what am i doing about it? i’ve decided that i am going to completely drown the shit out of this sore throat with a barrage of juices, teas, cough drops, and cough medicines. it’ll be like the german blitzkrieg, but without guns and with cough medicine. i went to safeway and armed myself with a whole box of cold-eeze, a pack of halls honey-lemon cough drops (read: candy), and a small container of macaroni salad. why macaroni salad? mm, i don’t know. i do think it will be helpful though, or else why would it taste so good? good logic, i know.

i was talking to eafong today about how she has this conflict between missing being home and realizing that she might have outgrown home. in my mind it’s because few parents, particularly asian mothers, have the ability to fully and completely detach themselves from mom mode. they want to both coddle and lord over their child, no matter the age, even if they realize that they shouldn’t.

my sore throat is a good example. whenever i see my mom, which is often during the holidays, she immediately notices the slight cough. her response is always a bizarre combination of irritation, command, motherly advice, and outright anger. something to the effect of “are you sick, again?!” in chinese. um, a little bit, mom. “you need to TAKE BETTER CARE of yourself. always getting sick.” then she will shake her head in a look of disappointment with some mutterings in chinese and follow that up with a deluge of medicine that would make salk piss his pants. she actually seems to be ANGRY that i have let this virus enter my body and hold me mildly captive. my question to her is always: what is there to get angry about? never get an answer for that one.

yes, i could see how that could make sense, as a mother, but there are other, even smaller things that drive wedges. as i was telling kingsley earlier, four minutes is enough for an asian mother to nag, so four DAYS is an eternity to put the Chinese Mother Torture in full effect.

another example: i walk in the door with a pair of my nice new leather dress shoes. the FIRST words out of my mom’s mouth will INVARIABLY be, “wow, those shoes look expensive.” not hello and not in admiration. i will dryly respond with something like “yeah mom, they cost a fortune.” she will give me “the look” (any asian-american male under the age of 75 can describe to you the look) and ask “where did you get them?” this of course can end here in one of three scenarios:

1. i honestly say i got the shoes from nordstrom’s for about $150. she gives me the lecture about saving money and i am forced to listen to it. i have had my testicles removed.
2. i lie and say i got the shoes from payless on sale for $15. she suspiciously congratulates me and finds something else to get on my case about. i have lied to feel ok about myself when i actually had no reason to feel bad.
3. i sarcastically say i got the shoes from ferragamo for $90,000. she remarks that “well, you must be very rich.” i have drawn a line in the sand that indicates to my mom that i don’t want to discuss how much the shoes cost.

which one would YOU choose? as crazy as it sounds, this mental warfare occurs immediately upon entering the house and does not end until i die. i love my parents, but ths is the sort of banter that occurs around shoes. just imagine when it comes to dating or jobs or graduate school. just remember, everyone, particularly white people: when an asian mother asks you where your shoes are from, are you sick, where do you work, or do you have a girlfriend, it is ALWAYS a loaded question with a sledgehammer behind it if you come forth with the wrong response. be ready to go to war. have a good answer ready to lie with, or actually FIND yourself a good answer.

my good answers currently?
- “yeah, they are exorbitantly expensive. it’s the only thing i purchased this whole past year. every other cent of my salary went into my 401(k). i have not been to vegas once a month for the past half year. i do not know what las vegas is.”
- “a little bit. i’m a trial patient for a new flu vaccine, so it gives me a little cough. the trial pays a little bit of money that i am investing in mutual funds. the annual rate of return is around 10%, which i will eventually invest in a house.”
- “i work in the computer software industry at oracle corporation. i’m in product management which are code words for ‘i will be able to support a family one day.’ i make a pretty good salary and put ALL of my money in my 401(k), an IRA, or my brokerage account. i save small orphaned children on the side.”
- “yes, her name is ivy. her last name is chen. she lives in saratoga with her family in a large house. she went to uc berkeley and graduated from the EE/CS department. she has a good paying engineering job in redwood city. she is taiwanese.”

for all of us niners fans, that was a real disastrous victory this past weekend over the rams. losing that game would have meant that we would get to play the texans next weekend in a real “Reggie Bush Bowl”. instead, it now looks like we’re gonna get tossed from not only the first pick, but also the second and third picks, when we could’ve taken the big left tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson, from Virginia (and yes, that is his real name. isn’t that reason enough to pick him?).incidentally, on the topic of bush, i was starting to get really excited about having him on the niners. the guy is clearly a special player. and perhaps even a once-a-generation talent. here’s an excerpt from espn.com’s scouts’ take on him:

“Strengths: The most dynamic and explosive playmaker in college football. Is a versatile weapon. A huge threat every time he touches the ball as a runner, receiver and return specialist. Has exceptional quickness, body control and speed. Shows a rare second-gear in space and will run away from defenders once he reaches the second level. His vision is outstanding. He sees things quickly and has the stop-and-start ability to exploit small creases when they become available. His balance is exceptional. He is a slippery runner who will spin through would-be tacklers and crawl for extra yards at the end of runs. His ability to pivot and hit cutback lanes is outstanding. Lacks bulk but he has impressive natural strength. Has the frame to improve his bulk. He shows a tremendous feel for the passing game. He is a smooth, crafty route runner. Plucks well on the run and will adjust to the poorly thrown ball. Is a deep threat as a receiver; shows the ability to consistently separate. Also is a huge weapon after the catch. Tremendous elusiveness in space.”

they also happened to grade him a 98 out of 100. sheesh. he’s the type of talent that you don’t even want to pigeonhole as just a RB or just a WR. who cares what he’s listed at? just get the guy the ball in opportunities 20-30 times a game and watch him work. who cares where he gets it? i was talking to somebody a few months ago who said (definitively) that bush would play wide receiver in the nfl. sorry, but that’s absurd; why would you limit him to 5-8 touches a game? have him return punts, return kick-offs, run 10-15 standard rushes, catch 5 balls out of the backfield, and run 20 receiving routes a game. bingo. the team that gets him is gonna do that and they’re gonna feel very lucky having him.

so where does the leave the niners? well, there is one dream scenario, in which new orleans (at TB), green bay (vs. Seattle), and the jets (vs. Buffalo) could all miraculously win next weekend in the early games. if that happens, you can find me glued to my couch from 1pm to 4pm next sunday watching the niners-texans game. if not, and we lose out on the #1 pick and lose out on Ferguson, then we get kinda hosed. cross your fingers, niners fans…

tags: 49ers

so i found a pretty nicely-built hold’em odds calculator on cardplayer.com. see it here:
http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_odds/texas_holdem/index.phpmight be fun to click around on it. i like doing it just for kicks (really, seriously). i always get surprised (still) by hands like AK vs. 78, where AK is only a 3:2 favorite. seems pretty nuts. think about it:

– let’s say you raise on the button to $20 in a 2-5 NL game with 78 suited because it’s folded around to you
– small blind folds
– big blind moves all-in for $50 total, putting $72 in the pot

if you could put him on two overcards, somehow (maybe he’s a wild player or maybe he feels like your’e stealing), you should actually call that because the pot’s laying you almost 2.5:1 on your $30. that always kinda boggles my mind.

anyway, i find this kind of stuff fun…i remember reading Super System the first time and thinking “why does he keep talking about these situations that seem like they shouldn’t show up that much?” probably because all heads-up pre-flop play can be put into a simple bucket.

also another fun one, this time more relevant to limit, is to put four players up there, and give them these hands:

AK
JT
QQ
2c5c

that’s always fun to think about. when i did it, with the suits i gave them, 2c5c is 18.3% to win, which is about the same percentage that hand would have against QQ straight up. that’s not to mention the huge implied odds you would get flopping a hand like 2d5sJc rainbow with a Kc on the turn. almost makes you think all those crazy players at GC are playing really smart!

6:02 PM – add eprops – add comments – email it

another wednesday, another four-year $52 million dollar deal doled out by the yankees. this george steinbrenner guy must have a lot of money. a couple of things about the deal, now that i equally hate the yankees and red sox, and can speak objectively about them:first, i think the yankees made a huge pick-up here. from everything i had heard, they were merely in the bidding for damon purely to drive the price up on the red sox. it’s almost like they called boras, said “4 years, $52M. that’s our best offer”, hung up, and went on to other business because they figured the sox would have to out-bid that. imagine cashman’s surprise at actually getting a top-five leadoff man and speedy center fielder for reasonable market value. true, his arm’s not great and his road splits have been just good lately, but he’s a big upgrade defensively over bernie williams and bubba sparxx, er, crosby. he’ll also score 120 runs at the top of that lineup, allow jeter to return to the two-hole, and give them more speed on the basepaths. good pick-up.

second, i think this is a disaster for the red sox. they have to be scrambling in their front office right now, because i can’t imagine theo epstein would’ve let this happen. i really think this is a catastrophe. who’s going to be at the top of their order? mark bellhorn? this was the one guy would they could always count on to get on base ahead of big papi, put pressure on the basepaths, and suck pitchers into 13-pitch at-bats twice a game. now they’re talking about making a deal of arroyo for jeremy reed from seattle. sure the kid’s talented, but he was a disaster last season (i know, i drafted him in a fantasy league). now you want to stick him in one of the most pressure-packed franchises in sports? good luck. combined with the possible manny departure, questions about their rotation, and a hectic front office, i don’t see how they recover from this mess. the one positive is that they didn’t let boras drive the price up, but that seems like a small consolation. 3rd in the AL East this season?

third, scott boras just got kicked in the nuts, and i love that. the same jerk-off that got texas to drive up the price on itself for a-rod just got a deal that was three years and about $30 million less than he wanted for his client. awesome.

tags: sports

the weekend turned out to be pretty nice up in tahoe. it snowed a dumpload on saturday night and sunday morning. nobody played poker. gookie and loooooooocy made a snow man/bunny. i drank hot cocoa.

one thing i discovered this weekend is that reno might be the most depressing place ever. it’s as if you put a few dirty casinos into a miniature detroit. this is of course based on my personal understanding of detroit. sorry, detroit.

for anyone in the city on friday (12/23) night, come hang out at gordon biersch on harrison and embarcadero in the evening. say, oh, 9pm. if you somehow were missed on the evite, let me know.

so i’ve been looking back over some posts from the past year, as i generally like to do in december, and i’ve found that all my posts can generally be grouped into three categories:

1. poker stuff: i like typing about bad beats, good hands, and the general process of trying to become a good all-around poker player. i’m gonna start pulling back on the bad beats and try to just relate hands that i find interesting. the end goal of this whole process is to someday do one of the following: 1) cash in a wsop event, or 2) sit down in a high-limit mixed game at bellagio
2. sports stuff: sometimes i enjoy using the blog to vent about sports stories or issues. it’s almost like having my own column, i suppose. i think i’m relatively knowledgeable about the subject and i’m DEFINITELY opinionated enough about sports.
3. miscellaneous stuff: i think this is probably the stuff most people actually come here for. life comments. interesting notes from work. weekend events. etc.

so, seeing as i am in the software business, i’m going to try to service the requirements of readers by allowing them to quickly determine what an entire post is going to be about. in the title of the post, i’ll just put in parentheses the category.

i think this’ll be useful because, for example, someone like katie hill or glyzz will be entirely uninterested in poker or sports posts, but might be interested in miscellaneous. at the same time, someone like mike lee is wholly uninterested in my life, but is probably interested in poker and sports. some people might be interested in all three. other people might be interested in none of them (which begs the question: why are you reading this?).

in case you’re wondering, this is in fact one of the types of things i do at work as a Product Manager:

1. examine the use case of common users (gookie does not want to read everything that i write.)
2. develop requirements (gookie needs to know immediately whether he wants to read this thing. knowing this will give him more time to play video games and eat brownies.)
3. come up with a functional design (tell gookie when he opens the page what the new post is about, by putting the category in the title).

in this case there’s no real coding needed, which is where the developers come in, but you get the point. what would be nice is if xanga had the ability to actually stripe the posts, allowing people to just see the ones they’re interested in. someone let me know if there’s a blogging application that lets you do that.

merry christmas, everyone

so on our recent team event, we got a list of scavenger hunt items to track down in the city. a bunch of them were “get a picture of…” items where you had to go do something uniquely san franciscan. that got me thinking…a running list of things i want to do in the next five years, along with scavenger hunt point values:

1. get into a business school that i want to attend — 500 points
2. consume the best rib eye steak ever — 50 points for each new best. current leader: ruth’s chris san diego
3. live somewhere new — 400 points
4. drink a guinness in ireland — 100 points for first guinness, 1 point for each subsequent (not trying to die here, you know…)
5. travel to a new continent — 250 points per continent
6. win a $5000+ pot — 100 points for each such pot
7. quit a job — 150 points for each job
8. lay on a steaming hot beach in mexico — 45 points for each day on such a beach
9. consistently use the word “neat” instead of “cool” — 2 points per usage
10. ski somewhere outside of california — 20 points per lift ticket purchased
11. be in a las vegas sportsbook the first morning of march madness — 150 points
12. eat ice cream — 1 point per scoop
13. have a meal of paella and sangria in spain — 100 points per meal
14. run from the cops — 900 points per occasion. kidding…
15. watch as many *great* live stand-up acts as possible — 45 points per act, ‘great’ subjective
16. punch phillip lehman in the face — 100 points per punch
17. see a stanford bowl game victory in-person — 250 points
18. get into “game shape” — 5 points per day in such shape
19. sell a boat — 200 points
20. cash in a World Series Of Poker event — 650 points

anyway, now you’ve seen the list. let me know if you’re interested in doing any of the above, except for #14.

hmm, gonna try mirroring this for a little while…