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i finished up the book high fidelity while i was on the plane last night. it’s actually rather remarkable that i had never read the novel, considering how i’ve had many people (who know me pretty well) over the years tell me how much i would enjoy nick hornby’s work. so high fidelity was number two on my list of hornby novels, the first being about a boy.first of all, i’ll start by saying that the movie version of high fidelity, starring john cusack, has absolutely no chance at providing an accurate reproduction of the novel. there’s just too much introspective and masculine mumbling to properly transfer to the hollywood visual medium. the reason that’s important is that the book is great, while the movie is, depending on who you ask, good or garbage.i never really put much stock in comments like, “he writes men/women very well,” but somehow i found myself saying that while i read high fidelity. hornby has a frank and honest male voice, filled with all of its truthful inadequacies and asshole qualities. it’s the kind of narrative that i would hear in my own head if i was, er, more of a jerk and much more bitter. he’s not complicated, but he’s so perfectly expressive.

which brings me to why i find people like nick hornby amazing. whenever i jot something on paper (or in this case: bits), i find it hard to transfer pure honesty and self-reflection into writing. people like nick hornby humble me because i can read what he writes and find myself saying, “man, his writing is exactly how i would feel there.” it’s inspiring, and maybe that’s why i’m gonna start writing here more often again. promise.

oh, one more note: when i got to the end of the novel, i finally saw a picture of hornby and was shocked to see a very plain-looking bald english man. not sure what i was expecting, but that wasn’t it. i guess i expected someone who knew me so well to share SOMETHING in common with me. ah well…

Prohibition II: Good Grief
When government restricts Americans’ choices, ostensibly for their own good, someone is going to profit from the paternalism.By George F. Will Newsweek Oct. 23, 2006 issue -Perhaps Prohibition II is being launched because Prohibition I worked so well at getting rid of gin. Or maybe the point is to reassure social conservatives that Republicans remain resolved to purify Americans’ behavior. Incorrigible cynics will say Prohibition II is being undertaken because someone stands to make money from interfering with other people making money.For whatever reason, last Friday the president signed into law Prohibition II. You almost have to admire the government’s plucky refusal to heed history’s warnings about the probable futility of this adventure. This time the government is prohibiting Internet gambling by making it illegal for banks or credit-card companies to process payments to online gambling operations on a list the government will prepare.

Last year about 12 million Americans wagered $6 billion online. But after Congress, 32 minutes before adjourning, passed its ban, the stock of the largest online-gambling business, Gibraltar-based PartyGaming, which gets 85 percent of its $1 billion annual revenue from Americans, declined 58 percent in one day, wiping out about $5 billion in market value. The stock of a British company, World Gaming PLC, which gets about 95 percent of its revenue from Americans, plunged 88 percent. The industry, which has some 2,300 Web sites and did half of its business last year with Americans, has lost $8 billion in market value because of the new law. And you thought the 109th Congress did not accomplish anything.

Supporters of the new law say it merely strengthens enforcement; they claim that Internet gambling is illegal under the Wire Act enacted in 1961, before Al Gore, who was then 13, had invented the Internet. But not all courts agree. Supporters of the new law say online gambling sends billions of dollars overseas. But the way to keep the money here is to decriminalize the activity.

The number of online American gamblers, although just one sixth the number of Americans who visit real casinos annually, doubled in the last year. This competition alarms the nation’s biggest gambling interests-state governments.

It is an iron law: When government uses laws, tariffs and regulations to restrict the choices of Americans, ostensibly for their own good, someone is going to make money from the paternalism. One of the big winners from the government’s action against online gambling will be the state governments that are America’s most relentless promoters of gambling. Forty-eight states (all but Hawaii and Utah) have some form of legalized gambling. Forty-two states have lottery monopolies. Thirty-four states rake in part of the take from casino gambling, slot machines or video poker.

The new law actually legalizes online betting on horse racing, Internet state lotteries and some fantasy sports. The horse-racing industry is a powerful interest. The solidarity of the political class prevents the federal officials from interfering with state officials’ lucrative gambling. And woe unto the politicians who get between a sports fan and his fun.

In the private sector, where realism prevails, casino operators are not hot for criminalizing Internet gambling. This is so for two reasons: It is not in their interest for government to wax censorious. And online gambling might whet the appetites of millions for the real casino experience.

Granted, some people gamble too much. And some people eat too many cheeseburgers. But who wants to live in a society that protects the weak-willed by criminalizing cheeseburgers? Besides, the problems-frequently exaggerated-of criminal involvement in gambling, and of underage and addictive gamblers, can be best dealt with by legalization and regulation utilizing new software solutions. Furthermore, taxation of online poker and other gambling could generate billions for governments.

Prohibition I was a porous wall between Americans and their martinis, giving rise to bad gin supplied by bad people. Prohibition II will provoke imaginative evasions as the market supplies what gamblers will demand-payment methods beyond the reach of Congress.

But governments and sundry busybodies seem affronted by the Internet, as they are by any unregulated sphere of life. The speech police are itching to bring bloggers under campaign-finance laws that control the quantity, content and timing of political discourse. And now, by banning a particular behavior-the entertainment some people choose, using their own money-government has advanced its mother-hen agenda of putting a saddle and bridle on the Internet.

my name is jack. i have a blog that, like, ten of my friends read. i almost forgot about it. anyhow, sorry for the lack of updates lately. things have been moving fast and it feels good. one of the underrated experiences in the world is being busy and booked enough to feel full. i think that’s a good way to say it. for some reason i was never the type of person to feel stressed about things. it was always, “ok, let’s get organized and pack my schedule in a little tighter.” that always felt good and “right” to me. it sounds kind of sick, but in high school i was always invigorated by returning home late (7pm) after basketball practice and needing to finish hours and hours of homework before heading to bed. it made me feel accomplished and ‘in motion’. i can only remember once when i felt truly overwhelmed, but that’s when i was a freshman in college and on medication. we’ll write it off to those two reasons.i’m heading to las vegas on friday, for actually only the fourth time this year. this comes after a 2005 in which i went around eight or nine times (that’s a lot). interestingly enough, this’ll also probably be the last large-scale vegas soiree that i try to direct. by now i generally have an idea of who actually enjoys going to vegas, who doesn’t, and who doesn’t but thinks he does. like chris noted the other day, “you shouldn’t have to CONVINCE people to go to las vegas.” he’s right: vegas sucks if you don’t have the right interests. there’s no need to try to pull those people in. for degenerate gamblers like myself it’s awesome .

seeing a lot of wsop coverage on espn the last few weeks has been jogging my memory back to july when, if you don’t recall, i parked my ass at harrah’s on the strip for an entire week and did nothing but play poker. i think the biggest overriding lesson (besides “Tell Better Stories“, “A Healthy Disregard for Money“, and “Poker is Tiring“) is that i could never play poker for a living for a lifetime-significant period of time. the reason i use that wording is that i could imagine doing it for a constrained period of time (and i imagine i will at some point). but honestly? there are a lot of things to do in the world and i’d be unfulfilled playing poker every day for the rest of my life. i think that’s a message that has needed a few months of reflection to properly drill into my head, but it’s there now. i’m glad i know.

but for now, i’ll be happy to do my weekend trips 4-8 times a year and perhaps take a week off in the summer to play a bit of the wsop every year. i think that’s enough for me. playing poker for a living? mm, no thanks…

on that note: vegas, here i come…

i always get the sense that sports non-fans have trouble understanding why we sports fans care so much. in fact, sometimes i even forget why we care so much. but occasionally, a sports moment is so special that you immediately remember what it is that we love so much about sports.i was at old pro (we’re gonna start calling it OP from now) this afternoon, watching the end of the detroit and new york american league division series (that’s baseball for any of you non-fans). now certainly everyone knows who new york’s american league team is (the yankees), but you’ll certainly be excused if you don’t actually know that detroit’s team is called the ‘tigers.’ that’s because, for the past twenty years or so, the tigers have been crap. at times, much worse than crap. in fact, for the past ten years, seeing one of your fantasy baseball pitchers ready to face detroit has meant comfort and relief. the tigers have been so bad that they turned a once-proud baseball town into a baseball graveyard.that’s until this year, when jim leyland (baseball’s grandfatherly tough nice guy, one of the most respected managers in the game) came to town, just as the tigers’ 20-year rebuilding process was ready to come to fruition. mix in a few nice free agent pickups, and voila! playoff and (now) ALCS appearance. and they’re not done yet.

but why is this worth writing about? because anyone who watched the postgame celebration by the tigers couldn’t help but feel great for them. i’ve had about ten skin-tingling sports moments in my life (the first definitely being john taylor’s super bowl winning catch and the latest being tiger woods’ sobbing british open victory this year) and today, sitting at the OP, watching the postgame (with no audio, mind you) was the latest.

first came the eruption of elation by the entire bar as the yankees were knocked out (that’s standard in any sports bar outside of new york city). but it was much more than the usual “goodbye yankees” cheers. the group of true tigers fans in the bar screamed and hugged each other as if they had just been released from prison. and on the screen? a postgame scene unlike any other for an anti-climactic 3-1 division series victory. every fan stayed standing at his seat, deliriously cheering, screaming, and singing even as the tigers players ran into the lockerroom to spray champagne on one another. but the fans were not disappointed, because soon the entire team had returned to the field, champagne bottles in hand, to spray on the fans themselves. kenny rogers, he of the embarrassing camera incident a few years ago, snuck out of the dugout with three bottles, passing them out to fans and dumping the third on a uniformed security guard. groups of detroit players literally skipped down along the field walls, slapping hands with the fans and sharing a special sports moment. i cheered for the tigers this series precisely because i knew detroit would enjoy it more, but even i was surprised by the celebration. it was great and i loved it.

and off on the side, the camera caught an emotional moment. pudge rodriguez stood celebrating with another player, as leyland came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. they exchanged a quick nod and a genuine smile, and hugged each other. no words, just the respectful and fatherly acknowledgement of a great manager with a great player.

that is why we watch sports, for moments like today. congratulations to detroit the city, detroit the fans, and detroit the team. i hope you lose in seven .

so sad day for the online poker world today. apparently the us senate decided to stick a little provision into the defense bill that aims to stop online gambling. it is yet to be seen how this will actually affect online poker, but one the world’s largest online poker site (party poker) has already said that they’ll stop operations if/when bush signs the bill into law. full tilt published a little bit more contentious of a response today on their blog.you probably know where i stand on the question of whether poker is a game of skill or a game of chance (there’s chance involved, but anyone who believes it is solely gambling wasn’t sitting at the same stud eight-or-better table as me tonight). but let’s not even get into that. let’s get into how ridiculous it is to outlaw online gambling, when i can walk down to garden city today and chuck hundreds of dollars into live poker games or (even worse) california blackjack.i guess the only good thing is that banning online poker might drive a lot of these online players into real cardrooms on real felt. that should prove pretty lucrative for those of us who play live regularly for a while. i can’t wait to see the numerous beginners’ tells i’ll get to see at garden city in the next few months…