Archive for May, 2007
Sculptures
May 11th
This is the sculptures visible from the south side of the Student’s Union Building at the University of Alberta. I actually really like how this photo turned out for some reason. Not too sure why.
I’ve been paying more and more attention to my Flickr photos over the last little while. I will continue to upload photos on a regular basis, but now they will all be in full resolution size (since I have a pro account now). I went through and replaced all my previous photos with their full resolution versions as well. So that’s that. Next week, I think I’m going to start uploading some old photos so that I can get them up and into the public eye. I’ve been sitting on them just a bit too long – and some of them go back to my powershot A10 days!
Spider Man 3
May 10th
Last night I got the chance to see spider man with Diane and most of her family. I didn’t really know what to expect. To be honest, I don’t actually know very much about the spiderman series. What I *did* know has already been covered in the first movie. The first two flicks were pretty good though so I was quite willing to go see the third one.
All in all, I thought the movie was very good. If you haven’t heard, they really crammed a lot of stuff into the show. With 3 different enemies to fight over the course of the movie, the action doesn’t really stop – which I suppose is a good thing for this type of movie. It did feel like you were getting a whirlwind tour of spidey’s enemies though.
Potential spoilers follow.
There’s a couple of complaints I did have though. First, does anyone else think that the Sandman’s defeat at the end of the movie seemed a tad random? It seemed like he was able to recover from every hit and bomb and everything that was thrown his way until he inexplicably crumbles after taking a couple more bombs. I don’t get it. The second complaint is that for a movie promising to showcase Venom as Spider-man’s main nemesis, you really didn’t get to see much of him. Venom really existed for a span of about 15 minutes of movie time – and most of that was the final battle sequence. Hmmm.
The movie was very formulaic, though I suppose you can’t really fault them for that. It has the typical movie-romance difficulties including Peter Parker being totally stupid with MJ. *sigh*. I really don’t like watching that sort of thing go on. I know it’s hard to come up with scenarios that don’t make the main characters look dumb but still put them into a difficult positions… but why can’t you at least try?
So, that’s what I thought anyways. It was good, but as expected it wasn’t very deep. What’d you think?
Heraldk
24 Hours of Flickr – Candidates
May 6th
I need your help!
The 24 Hours of Flickr day has passed and I took a handful of photos which I must now choose ONE to enter into the contest. A set of photos will be selected from the submitted photos and will either be printed in a book or used in future Flickr events during the summer. I was rather excited at the opportunity to submit a photo, so I took a few photos in and around the poker tournament yesterday so I could submit a photo. I’ve narrowed the selection down to 5 photos and would like to garner any opinions on which one I should select. Here, in no particular order, are the 5 photographs:
If you have an opinion, please leave me a comment here or on the appropriate photo’s flickr page within the next couple of days. I’d like to submit a photo fairly soon.
Thanks!
Heraldk
Card Dead
May 6th
Well this has been a busy weekend so I haven’t had a chance to talk about my CPT experience yesterday. In a word … frustrating. The level of play was definitely stronger than at the satellite, which was to be expected. That being said, I didn’t feel all that uncomfortable. The trouble was, I just couldn’t catch any cards.
Fairly early in the tourney, I played KQo in early position, got a single caller from the player to my left. Flop is ten high and pretty dry. I continuation bet and get called. Turn is a queen giving me top pair. I make a pot sized bet and get called. River is a blank, but I’m not too happy with the call so I check intending to call a small bet. He checks behind and shows me … KK?? Huh. He missed a value bet.
After winning a couple small pots (a raise collects the blinds and a walk in the big blind… weee!), I get dealt 85o in the big blind. There’s a min-raise, followed by a couple callers so I call in the big blind getting 7 to 1 immediate pot odds. I flop 88Q. I check, to the aggressive player on my left who bets a small amount. The other players fold and I smooth call. I check the turn (a ten, if I remember correctly) intending to check raise (this was a mistake I think). He checks behind. The river is a deuce, finishing a 3-flush on the board. I make a pot size bet and get raised … uhoh. I think for awhile, but call and he shows me … 22. Hrm. I think I may have played that hand badly …
The dinner break was almost upon us so I limped my way into dinner with 6600 in chips (after starting with 10K). The blinds after the break were going to be 150/300 with 25 antes. Not something to immediately be concerned about, but certainly getting significant for my stack. When I got back from dinner I just couldn’t get any hands. The couple of times I picked up hands I didn’t like the situation I was in – a raiser from early position seemed to be the rule when I looked at the couple decent hands I saw (and by decent, I mean KQo and QTo). Finally, with my chip stack dwindling to 5500 or so, I got moved from my initial table and got seated at another just in time to get the big blind again (now at 400 chips). A few hands later, I see an open limper, and folds around to me in the cutoff. I decided to push with A9s, hoping to just pick the pot up because I needed to try and reverse my downward trend. I didn’t like being so tight as I’d been playing so far, but I didn’t really want a lot of action with my shortstack. Anyways, I get called by the open limper who has JJ and I whiff on the flop. *sigh*.
So my day was pretty frustrating. The best hands I saw all day were: 44, ATs, and KQo (twice). Other than that, I certainly remember seeing Q2o, 93o, and 94o a lot more than I cared to. Sometimes, variance sucks.
Still, it was good to be back in the casino playing a big tournament. That was my 3rd big CPT event. Those of you who know me might recall that I finished 6th in the first $500 CPT event I played in. I entirely realize that that first time was a lot of luck combined with a little insight that Darse helped me with. But mostly the whole ride was a huge upswing in variance which is the only reason why I made it so far. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t put in a repeat performance this time. It would’ve been nice, the top prize at this tourney was $51K. Oh well – there’ll be a next time I’m sure!
Heraldk
CPT Satellite
May 3rd
My friend Curtis and I played in a $105+$10 satellite tournament at the Yellowhead casino last night. The satellite was for a $1000+$50 tournament that will run on Saturday, also at the Yellowhead. The tournament started at 4:00, and it didn’t take long for the action to go wild. 2 people were knocked out at my table on the very first hand of the tournament when KK and A2s lost to QQ when a queen + flush draw landed on the flop. A few hands later, I managed to double up when my turned nut flush beat the second nut flush. w00t!
I managed to get myself into a little trouble after the dinner break. The guy to my left was rather clueless, but got really lucky so he built himself a huge stack. He was willing to call down in pots with 2nd pair … and I had little respect for him being a good player. However, because he had position on me for most of the time I didn’t really feel very good making raises and having him call me. When the table got broken up, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I got to my new table shortstacked… so I needed to make some moves quick. Luckily, I hit a decent selection of face-card quality hands and was able to steal some blinds (the blind structure was super fast, as I kind of expected). I lost one hand against a shortstack who pushed on me with TT when I had AT. Nevertheless, I managed to steal some more blinds with a few all-in bets and then doubled up with AJ over TT when I spiked an ace on the flop.
At this point, everyone was shortstacked, but people continued their tight play style so I was able to make more from blind steals than I paid myself. The 2nd table I was at broke up in a little while and I got moved to a 3rd table. At this point there was less than 40 people left with the top 19 places being seats in the Saturday tourney. I felt rather comfortable at this point – my stack was above average and I continued being able to add to my stack slowly, but surely.
I got moved again, this time to table 1. I think, after thinking about this a bit, that this table was rather an unfair table for a number of reasons. This table never got broken up. The only time people left was when they got knocked out. So chips never left that table. *shrug* – maybe it isn’t incredibly unfair, but I’m wondering whether it makes a difference or not.
Anyways, I get to that table as a mid-sized stack. A couple of my pf-raises get called and I’m starting to hurt a little. Then I get these hands: In 2nd position, I pick up AKo. Raise and pick up the sizable blinds. UTG I pick up TT – raise and pick up the blinds again. Then, I’m in the big blind. Guy in 2nd position min-raises and everyone folds to me. I look down at AA (sweet set of 3 hands in a row huh?). I re-raise about half my stack. They guy pushes and I call. Turns out I’ve got him covered and my AA holds up over his AQo.
At this point, I’m golden. I held almost 90K in chips with the blinds just entering 4K/8K. There was about 23-24 people left in the tournament which meant that a few knockouts at the other tables (where there was a lot of shortstacks) gave me a seat. So I played ultra-conservatively from that point on (I don’t think I actually played another hand) and waited out the last few knockouts. So I get to play in the upcoming tourney on Saturday! Woohoo!
My friend Curtis also placed so we’ll both be playing for a pretty decently sized pot on Saturday. Hopefully we can repeat our performance from last night and place somewhere deep in the money!
Heraldk
White Bud
May 1st
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