Mattazuma's Revenge

Matt's Movie Review - Slither

I don't like horror movies.  They are all dumb.

That being said, I really liked Slither.  It was alot of fun.  They tried to make a silly 80s horror movie, and they did a great job.  Nathan Fillian (from Firefly) was great as the sheriff, and the other actors had a lot of fun with their rolls as well.

The basic plot is: a very slimy alien comes to town & the sheriff has to save the world.

It's an hour and a half of good "hard R" fun.  The rating is mostly because of very bad language.  The DVD has some of the funniest special features I've seen in a long time, also full of bad language.

The writer/director James Gunn previously wrote the Dawn of the Dead remake, so he's pretty good at silly horror.  He also wrote both Scooby Doo films, but don't hold that too much against him.

So go rent it.  I'm probably going to buy the DVD, it was that good.  I also want to hear the commentary track with Fillian & Gunn, it will most likely be hilarious.

Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II - The Domino Effect

The guys from EepyBird are back, with 251 bottles of Diet Coke and over 1,500 Mentos mints. This time they are sponsored by Coke & Mentos & there's a contest where the winner gets to be in their next video. Keywords: eepybird eepy bird mentos coke diet coke mentos experiment fountain soda science geyser experiments fountains geysers

Poker Funk

I'm in a poker funk.  I've been somewhat depressed since the "poker ban" was signed.  Party Poker is gone, FirePay is gone, heck, even Interpoker is gone.

I've been playing ok on Full TIlt, but I've been in a slump on Poker Stars.

I feel like I'm playing out the string, since Neteller has said they are pulling the plug when the banking regulations are issued.  I know there are six more months, but it doesn't feel like that.

My online poker "going away present" would be getting into the Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure.  I may blow some money trying to win the vacation.

I am going to have to get back to playing limit hold-em at the boats.  I'll need to practice a lot before I'm comfortable, I've been playing NL Sit-n-go's and tournaments for the last year and a half.

Put Neteller in the "Out" Column

Well, it looks like Neteller is going to pull out of the US market.  Bill Rini has posted the text of a Neteller press release which states that Neteller will comply with the UIGEA as if they were an US entity once the Feds write the new banking regulations.  Money quote:

NETELLER, a company registered outside the US, will comply with the Act and its
related regulations as if it were subject to the Act’s jurisdiction. This action is
intended to ensure that the Company is able to continue to operate with the support of
its principal commercial partners and to protect its shareholders, business partners, employees and reputation.

It sounds to me that their bank was going to cut them off if they didn't agree to comply.  The Royal Bank of Scotland has recently stated that all of their customers had to comply with the act no matter where they were located.

So in around 6-9 months Neteller will be gone and there won't be an easy way to deposit money.  I hope Neteller will still allow withdrawals.

Once again, this sucks.  As a life-long Republican, I am very disappointed with what Frist & Company have done to me and all of the other poker players in the US.

Best Firefox Plugin - Googlepedia

Googlepedia is a Firefox plugin which splitscreens your Google search results, with Google on one side and Wikipedia on the other.  Here's a screenshot:

Thanks to Amber MacArthur for mentioning this on the Inside the Net #38.

SNL Season 1 on DVD!!!

The Digital Bits just learned that full seasons of Saturday Night Live are finally coming out on DVD.

All 90 minutes (minus commercials), all 24 episodes.  This is great.  I want this!!!

Season 1 is coming out on December 5, just in time for Christmas.

On Vox: QotD: My First Gig

What was your very first job? Submitted by Laurel.

» Read more on Vox

The Best Treo app ever

Sorry for not posting for a while.  Go to my Vox site for more posts.

Google recently released a Google Maps application for the Treo 600, 650 & 700p.  It is the best application I've seen yet for the Treo.

It does maps, it does the satellite view, it does directions.  The coolest thing is it has traffic info.  For the parts of Chicago I looked at, it appeared to be accurate.  I don't know where they get the data from or how often it is refreshed.

The data downloads pretty fast on my GSM (Edge data) Treo 650 and it was really really fast on my boss' Sprint Treo 700p.

If you have a Treo go to www.google.com/gmm and download it.  It's only a 460k file. 

They also have programs for Blackberries and some fancier cell phones (including the RAZR), but remember that you need a data plan for the software to work.

The Party (Poker) is over

The online gambling legislation passed last weekend looks like it is going to kill most online poker.

Go read this post by Iggy with a long statement by Nolan Dalla on what is happening.

Party, 888 & Cryptologic are shutting down their US operations, Stars isn't for now.  Full Tilt is going to stay up until the FTC (I think) finishes its rulemaking, which will take up to 270 days.  We'll see what the smaller sites do.

My 2 cents:

One of the sites it going to have to battle the US government in court once the rules are set down.  My guess is it will be Full Tilt.  They are the most closely tied to the US market, and probably can't survive without their US players.  Party & Stars have enough non-US customers to probably stay afloat.  Also, Full Tilt's owners include alot of American poker "celebrities" who aren't going to want to either move out of the country & never return or sell their stakes at very depressed prices.

What's going to happen with Tradesports?  They are in kind of a gray area, they don't really take bets, they just own the market.

I bet most of the second tier poker & gambling sites will be out of business within six months.  The big sites will either be fighting the government or will have cut off the US completely.

And how does all of this work with Neteller?  They are the middleman for most of the poker sites.  Does using them create a buffer that the poker sites can use as cover?  And to borrow a phrase from IP law, does Neteller have enough "non-infringing uses" so banks can legally continue to allow money transfers in and out of them?

In the next day or so, I'm going to read the whole act & may have more comments at that point.

For a bunch of good posts, go read Bill Rini's blog.

Yeah, this really sucks.