Mattazuma's Revenge

Some Microsoft Praise

My Xbox 360 died around a month ago.  Microsoft's repair service for the 360 was impressive.

I was at the tail end of my warranty, so Microsoft picked up the repair price ($140 out of warranty).  Four business days after calling them, a box to send my 360 back in arrived via UPS.  The box had foam supports for the 360, a return UPS label & even a piece of tape to reseal the box.

Nine days later, I get an automated call saying the 360 would be delivered the next day.  Sure enough, UPS dropped it off the next day.  In the box, along with the 360, was an apology letter and an one month Xbox Live Gold subscription card.

Best of all, the warranty for the 360 gets reset for another year.

I know that Microsoft didn't do a great job for the people who had problems with their 360s a year ago, but the current process is fair and very fast.

Oddest love note ever?

Being an engineer, I occasionally looks at stuff most people ignore.  Like electrical meters on the back on bathrooms at a beach in Florida.  Well, there was the oddest stuff on this equipment. 

Someone used a label maker to put love notes on the boxes:

Here are a couple of closeups:

Florida Vacation Day 1

We're down in Florida for the weekend.  It's my Grandmother's 90th birthday, so my entire family has headed down to New Port Richey for a few days.  After that, I am heading over to Disney with my sisters & parents.  I get to see my 5 & 4 year old nieces' first trip to Disney World, which should be fun.

Here are a few pictures from our first day down here.

We stumbled upon this real kitschy place for lunch on Friday, when a place has Harley's and 911s in front of it, the food has to be good.

I ended up getting a super fried grouper sandwich.  Their tarter sauce was very good as well.  It's a lousy camera phone picture.

The goal for this part of the trip is to have fish at every meal.  I had more grouper at dinner, it wasn't nearly as good as lunch.

On Saturday, I missed out on going to the dog track with my cousin.  That's the only form of pari-mutual wagering I haven't been to.  I've bet on thoroughbred horses, harness horses, quarter horses and Jai Alai.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Folding Three Aces

So I've run into the exact same situation twice in the past couple months playing in blogger tournaments.  Here's what happened:

I was in the small blind with A4 suited.  It is pretty late in the tournament, last night there were eight people left and I was in 4th place with about $23k in chips, which was more than average.  The blinds were 500/1000 with a 125 ante.  I just call and bayne_s, who was in the big blind calls.  Bayne was in 1st place at the time.  There is $3k in the pot.  The flop comes down A9A.  I do the cute thing and check.  Bayne bets 3000 & I just call.  The turn was a 6.  I check, Bayne bets 9000 (the pot) and I once again call.  The river was a Q and I push in my last 9000 or so.  Bayne calls and flips over A9 for a full house and I am out.

So, where did I goof this up?

    Not raising preflop? It was a good but not great hand, so I figured I'd limp in & see what happens. I don't think Bayne was going to fold his A9 with any kind of "normal" raise.

   

Not betting out on the flop? I'm not sure betting out on the flop would have told me anything about his hand, but if he raised back into me, I would have known at that point he had something.

   

Not check-raising the flop? I think that this is what I should have done in retrospect.  Raise it up to $9k from $3k and see what he does.  If he calls I know I'm in trouble.  The down side is if he's bluffing he folds and I don't get any more of his chips, which with 8 people left could be important.

   

Not thinking about what the turn bet meant? At the moment he made the bet, I wasn't thinking about why bayne would make a bet that large on such a scary board if he didn't have either 99 or Ax.  I was in full donk mode pushing the chips in the middle.

   

Pushing on the river?  I was somewhat resigned to pushing on the river no matter what happened.  That was another dumb move, there was very little chance Bayne was going to fold if he had me beat and it was unlikely he was going to call my bet if I had him beat.

Usually I let these bad moves go not long after they happen.  This one ate at me for a few hours after it happened, which did a number on how much sleep I got last night.  I played pretty damn good tight (somewhat) aggressive poker for almost three hours and one bad play most likely cost me money, as I was only two people away from the money.

Dumpster of CDs

Here's the last CD related picture:

Bye bye CD cases. 

My Derby Picks

Well, I spent some time looking the Form, and man this is a tough field.  Outside of Street Sense in the B.C. Juvenile, no horse has a Beyer number over 103.

Here's what I'm betting:

My big Exacta:

7 (Street Sense), 15 (Tiago) & 18 (Any Given Saturday) with 7,15,18, 2 (Curlin), 12 (Nobiz Like Shobiz) & 16 (Circular Quay)

The covering exacta:  2 with 7,15 & 18

And I'm going to bet either Tiago or Any Given Saturday to win.  I haven't decided yet.  Mike Smith needs a perfect ride to get Tiago past all of the tiring horses in the stretch and Gomez somehow has to get Any Given Saturday close to the rail on the first turn without using him too much.

I don't think Curlin can do it from post 2 in a field this large.

My CD Jewel Case Pyramid

I've been slowly ripping all of my CDs onto my PC.  I finally got done a few days ago.  I ended up with a little over 68GB of MP3 files.  I am going to toss all of the jewel cases to make a little space in the condo.

I made a pyramid of the roughly 350 CD cases I have:

There are 12 CDs in each block.

I got hacked! - Update: No I wasn't

I think my Full Tilt account got hacked.

Over the past few weeks I'd log into Full Tilt and see my balance & it seemed a little lower than it was when I had last logged in.  I think about it for awhile and then I would rationalize that my memory was off.

Last night I made sure I paid attention when I logged off to what my balance was.  Today it was $10 less.  Either I'm going nuts or I got hacked.

I sent them an E-Mail, we'll see what happens.

UPDATE:

Well, I think I need to drink less while playing in these tournaments.  Full Tilt sent me the report of my activity over the last 6 months & everything looks fine.  That was only moderately embarrassing. :)

Nothing to see here...