In case people have been missing my combination of misanthropy and self-indulgence, I have started a new blog at http://dontcallitthat.blogspot.com this will primarily be a TV blog and will be much more focused than my other blogs.

I am stupid. Well not really that was just a hook to get you to read the blog. I am actually pretty smart; probably smarter than 95% of the population, I went to a good high school and go to a good university, I can think rationally and I retain a lot of information. Unfortunately I am not smart enough and there is nothing I can do about it. I am not a genius, I will not be solving world hunger or causing world peace or even inventing a new form of drywall. Most likely I will be living a typical life, where my happiness will occasionally mix with resentment towards those who are undeservedly doing better than me, which would be enjoyable, but not perfect.

Earlier this year I read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and for me the most telling thing in the book was that even incredibly gifted people, like Robert Oppenheimer, still needed to be incredibly lucky to accomplish what they did. I am not Robert Oppenheimer, so if he needed everything to work out perfectly, what chance do I have? Possibly because of extreme narcissism, I have always had grandiose plans for myself, even though I have always realized that these plans would rarely come to fruition. When expressing this view to a friend he said, "don't worry, you will be successful" while simultaneously removing all sharp objects from the room. However he missed the point; the issue for me never was being successful, because I figured that was a given. I am pretty confident I will be successful according to most conventional definitions, however I want to transcend middle-upper class success. In order for that to happen, I would need to focus on one discipline or get incredibly lucky. Ideally I would pick the most esoteric discipline to focus on so I could print out business cards that would say things like "Sam Greenwood: Global Authority in Post-Modern Metafiction". However I do value happiness, so while claiming to be a global authority would be awesome, I would much rather do something I like than get interviewed on CNN whenever an expert is needed to discuss the mating rituals of the Norweigan Black Bear. While I could make a conscious attempt to become world class at a discipline, getting really lucky is something I have little control over, but it would be awesome if it happened. Instead of being the bitter person expressed in the opening paragraph, other people would be jealous and bitter of me, which would do a great job of feeding both my ego and my insecurity.

The irony of all this is that one of my best skills is my ability to think rationally and this same skill makes it really hard to motivate me, because I realize how lucky I will need to get to accomplish what I want to accomplish. If were less rational I could delude myself into accomplishing things that I would accomplish a very small percent of the time and if I were genius level smart I may be able to actually accomplish these things. While this was a little depressing initially, I have come to terms with the fact I won't be curing cancer (sorry world) and have realized that I can still have an awesome life without being immortalized by one idea or invention, but I can still hope to get really lucky.

Thanks for the response to the last blog, I appreciate most comments, because at least I know people are reading this and writing the blog is slightly more than intellectual masturbation.

Whenever I see a reference to the seven deadly sins; I usually do the most childish thing possible and try to list them as quickly as possible. The one sin that usually stumps me is pride; in contemporary society pride doesn't have the same negative connotation as lust or greed or sloth, eventhough pride was traditionally considered the worst sin since it enabled all others. Pride doesn't conjure up the same negative emotions because it can be a good characteristic; one should be proud of good things they do. Currently I think pride deserves it's classical notoreity because people are prideful of things they shouldn't be. People are proud doing everyday activities that anyone can do. This is frequently seen in national pride; it takes no skill to be born in a good country, so one shouldn't be proud of themselves for being born there. This differs from being proud of the actions or beliefs of the country you live in, however being associated with a group that was chosen randomly isn't something one should be proud of.

I have noticed pride of association in the poker world based on where people play and what type of games they play. Most of the best NLHE and PLO cash game players in the world are online players, there are many live pros who's fame isn't equal to thier poker ability and they seen as being world class because they have been on TV. For some reason many online pro choose to group themselves with the top players, because they make most of thier money on the same medium as these to players. Obvioulsy most online games are harder than the equivalent live games, however many people are proud essentialy because they began playing online as a default. If I started off playing live I am sure many of my default lines would suck, but they would work very well in the games I cut my teeth in, luckily I started playing online first, but that was mainly because I was too young to play live and not because I was a savant and realized that online would be a better arena to hone my skills. The same applies to live pros who think they are playing "real poker" I am sure if these guys were born 20 years later they would be grinding online games, the games you pick are largely chosen out of circumstance and developing skills to beat the games you arbirtraily chose isn't something to be proud of.

If you sub dividde this even further many players think they are superior because they play different forms of poker, while ignoring that they arbitrarily chose a tougher game and luckboxed their way into a correct strategy. This is most apparent in the dichtomoty between cash games and tournaments, many cash regs started playing 100bb 6max cash and have gotten really good at beating that specific game. They have put in a lot of hands and have great fundamentals, but they don't necessarily mean they have a special aptitude that allows them to beat 6max cash, that others don't have. They just ran good by playing 6max cash when they begun playing poker. Some tournament players have a similar aptitude, but have put all their time and energy into mastering another form of poker. I am not saying that these games are equally easy, because they aren't. There are people who couldn't beat certain games no matter how much work they put in, however there are people who could beat tougher games, but they haven't attempted mastering these games due to other circumstances. Bragging about beating a game that someone else hasn't attempted to beat, is a pretty lame brag; I'm sure right now I am better at poker than Stephen Hawking, however if he applied himself he would certaintly be better than me, so my hypothetical brag is futile.

Another form of sinful pride I have noticed is intellectual pride among people who just regurgitate others ideas. I don't know if they are proud because they have good reading comprehension or if they believe they are smart because they can summarize others arguments. It seems like many people are concerned with having similar opinions of other smart people than actually analyzing problems in an intelligent way. I noticed this a lot among athiests, who think they are a genius for taking grade 9 philosophy and concluding that God doesn't exist. Being an athiest doesn't make you smart, it is correlated with intelligence, but that correlation is decreasing as athiesm becomes more popular. When people like Galileo fought against the church they created logically consistent arguments and believed in thier convictions so strongly that they were willing to get punished for it. Currently that deterrent doesn't exist, I know very few people who have been blackballed or had any serious reprecussions from being an athiest. Most people I know didn't go to church every day or even every Sunday growing up for them being an athiest wasn't a tough decision. If anything it is a an easy decision, because it can lessen moral accountablity, since there is no deterrent in the after life. I am not arguing that god's exists, I'm arguing that people who feel intelligent for regurgitiang a fairly simple argument, without even attempting to look at a counter argument are simple minded. Thomas Aquinas' five proofs for god's existence requred much more original thought and intelligence than some random douche telling me that he doesn't believe in god because organized religion has killed more people than AIDs and Cancer combined. It doesn't matter that if his conclusion is wrong, because he used original rational thinking to come to that conclusion, instead of trite, cliche arguments that are plagarized from someone who had an original thought.

Similarly in baseball I have noticed more and more people following SABRmetrics and while thier conclusions are often correct their process is uninspired., I have noticed people repeating arguments that don't apply to the situation or arguments they don't even fully understand. Tuesday night I noticed many people complaining that Roy Halladay should have been pulled before he could throw too many pitches in the Jays Angels games. These people have obviously empirically noticed many pitchers with high pitch counts getting injured or read statisical studies showing how pitch counts and injuries are correlated. Because of this having pitchers on pitch counts have become en vogue and it makes sense, many young pitchers have blown out thier arms pitching in low leverage situations, ruining otherwise promising careers. As pitch counts became more popular, traditionalists expressed outrage citing anecdotal evidence about Three Finger Brown's rubber arm or Juan Marichal's 17 inning game. Reactionary fans started using 100 pitches as an arbitrary benchmark so they could prove that they aren't a traditionalist who don't understand simple statistics or what creates value. These same people were quick to criticize Cito Gaston for leaving Halladay in because they have developed a knee jerk reaction to anyone throwing more than 100 pitches. While they may think they have an insight, they have just overadjusted and are ignoring context to confirm their "rational" belief. Throughout his career Doc has been much more durable than other pitchers, he probably has a good idea if his arm...

I didn't blog at all in Europe or during exams, but since I am back for the summer, I am going to try and blog 2/3 times a week. If anyone wants to make a blogging related bet I am all ears.

Playing The "Right" Way
About two weeks ago I was talking to a friend about the NBA and I casually mentioned that Dwight Howard was a top 5 player in the NBA. He gave me a look that said I was wrong, we started talking about Dwight and his main argument was that Dwight didn't have any good low post moves and his only offensive weapon was dunking. While he is developing a hook shot where he takes the ball whips a 4 seamer at the backboard and hopes the ball somehow falls in the hoop, for all intents and purposes he was right Dwight's offensive game is basically dunking/putbacks and getting to the FT line where he shoots inefficiently. Dwight doesn't have the low post game of Hakeem or David Robinson or Al Jefferson; however it doesn't matter. The goal of an individual player shouldn't be to mimic other greats or play aesthetically beautiful basketball it is to add the most value to one's team. Dwight would be a much better player if he developed killer low post moves, but he is still the best defensive player and one of the most efficient offensive players in the NBA in spite of this. These critiscms of Howard assume that there is a right way to play and all the previous great centres played this way. While Dwight isn't a basketball savant who showed us the light by proving that dunking is valuable, he is creating his value in a different way from most other elite centres and because of this most people are hesitant to compare him to them.

One of the reasons Dwight has been so succesfull is because he has played his own game and hasn't tried to mimc people who have skill sets he can't copy. In poker there is an opposite trend as poker communties have grown there are people who are more concerned with being "good" than actually have a high winrate. Often times taking lines that aren't standard will be very profitable, especially because most regs will assume you are taking their standard line with whatever hand you are trying to rep. This doesn't mean one should play differently for the sake of playing differently, it means their goal should be making the best decisions instead of making the standard decision. A lot of times the standard line will be the best line, however there are a lot of times when regs will make plays that seem good instead of plays that are actually good. People vbet too thin because they want to be percieved as someone who can vbet thin and not a pussy who checks back strong hands, some people won't c/c three with strong hands because they are a afraid of villian checking back the turn causing them to sheepishly showdown a set in a 10bb pot. People will stack off in terrible spots because they have the top of their range and it would be a sick spot for villian to bluff eventhough he never actually bluffs there. These things shouldn't matter at all if your goal is to make correct decisions and increase your winrate/hourly, however they do effect a lot of players (including me) decisions.

Recently I had a hand blind versus blind vs. a reg. I raised KK from the SB he called. I bet/3b on 969 with a FD, I was three betting the flop for value so he could shove air/draws etc. I had my hand hovering over the call button and was thinking "you won't shove" when he decided to call. The turn was an offsuit ten and my B game thought process would be I have pot left I value three bet the flop ... fuck it I'll put him on a dumb hand and shove the rest in and hope he calls with worse. Thinking about the hand I realized that my flop three bet for value was made under the assumption that will usually shove/fold the flop and considering he isn't raising bluff catchers on the flop his range on the turn is made up exclusively of floats or hands that have me dead to two outs. It's possible he could have floated with Tx that is now a bluff catcher, but that makes up a tiny percent of his range, so it isn't really relevant. Afer tanking I decided to c/f because I felt he would have way more nut hands than floats in his range. If I got bluffed well I guess I suck. I certainly didn't play this hand the "right" way value three bet flop, c/f blank turn isn't really in the arsenal of most players. Additionaly I probably didn't play the hand the best way, I overestimated his flop bluffraising and bluff 4betting frequency and calling the flop is probably best, however I make the best decision on the turn instead of the standard decision, because I was thinking and playing well.

I don't want people to read this and think "Just be yourself. Play your style and you will win money" What I am saying is that the right way to play is the way that will optimize your winrate. It doesn't matter how you optimize your winrate just so long as you do it. Dwight Howard is currently playing the style of basketball that makes his skill set most valuable and while he is trying to develop low post moves, he still currently playing the best way instead of the right way and that is why he is a top 5 player in the NBA.

I am somehow down 15k in 9k hands of 2/4 6max. Some of that is all in EV, where I am 8k below expectation, some of that is playing badly, but I think I am running bad. I have had a couple of close spots where I could have folded stuff like top two, but I get it in. I figured I could get out of this downswing my winning some donkaments I got HU for a 10k scoop seat vs.a guy who missed like 10 atc shoves I had a 10:1 chiplead and lost every preflop allin and didn't flop a pair before getting it in with tp vs. a flush and losing. I came 20th in the 2kra, I played this tourney for 12 hours and felt I played great, I can't really think of any big mistakes I made. I raised CO, Tsoprano three bet btn he had three bet folded vvs. me earlier so I thought his range was pretty strong, but I figured he could be light or value three betting light so I 4bet jammed like 35bbs with 99 he had AA and I didn't get there.

I have two exams on the 16th and than I am basically done for the school year. I am probably going to see Seinfeld and FOTC in Toronto next week and then going to Europe for Montecarlo and WPT Venice.

So you would think I would have some content to add, (turns out I went on a couple rants so I do have content) but I really don't. I have been relatively busy with school and been watching a lot of March Madness. I have gotten crushed in all my brackets and most of my bets, which isn't fun. When I win money sports betting it feels like free money, when I lose money sports betting I feel like I just burnt money. Anyways I have been grinding 2/4 and "knock on wood" might get out of this downswing soon. Hopefully I can scoop a couple of SCOOP events and be a lot richer than I am right now.

If you haven't started watching 30 Rock, I would highly recommend it. It is clearly the best comedy on tv right now and probably the best comedy since Arrested Development it is incredible.

www.carollaradio.com is incredible. The podcast is basically Adam Carolla shooting the **** with a bunch of different comedians/writers and it is incredible, although it does get pretty offensive at points.

I realize the potential hypocrisy in this because I just mentioned my bracket in the opening paragraph, but I think my rant is towards different people. A note to everyone in the world NO ONE GIVES A **** ABOUT YOUR BRACKET. I don't care if you picked Mizzou to make it the F4, I don't care if you picked Butler to beat LSU, I don't care. This is meant for most people, but especially to the douchebag jumping up and down ecause his 8 seed might not get him 2 points in a $10 pool before they get soul crushed by the 1 seed in the next round, when I have to sit quietly like reasonable human being as I lose 1k. While these people are bad, they are not nearly as bad as the people who brag about their bracket success. You are not a college basketball expert or a savant and stop acting like one because you luckboxed a couple of games. I want to print this out and force people to read it Clockwork Orange style until they understand it or stop bragging. The more practical thing that would probably own them even more would be to say "Wow I bet you made a ton of money because you thought that Cleveland State could beat Wake Forest. Oh really you didnt? Why didn't you bet on them if you were so sure they were going to win? you must feel like a huge idiot."

While this problem isn't symptomatic of only our society, people talking about their brackets is a perfect illustration of how narcissistic society has become. People assume that you will be interested in the fact that they picked Michigan to beat Clemson, despite the fact they have no reasoning or expertise behind their pick. It's would be as if I said I flipped a coin and it came up heads as an interesting story or anecdote. This problem is best illustrated with facebook and twitter, just taking a quick look at the front page of my facebook, I noticed the two following things.
1. "John Smith forgot how important the poutine food group was"
No one in the world should care whether this person just had poutine. His observation isn't interesting or insightful or funny. He just had poutine and decided "This poutine is delicious I should tell all of my friends over the internet how awesome poutine is, despite the fact they probably all know already"

The second thing was an album where someone took a picture of two finished Scrabble games they played. How self-centered do you have to be to think that people will be interested in seeing scrabble games you played. It's not like the board is funny or he managed to correctly use onomatopoeia or that the person he was playing against thought samon was a word. It is just attention whoring LOOK AT ME I PLAYED SCRABBLE WHAT I DO IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT EVEN WHEN IT IS MUNDANE.

People may say, well don't you do this by blogging. I think there are times when I have, but I generally disagree, I try not to make blogs that are like. I went to class today the professor taught us about optimal capital structure for firms, then I was tired and took a nap, I accidentally overslept and missed my next class. After that I played nba 2k9 and .... see even I am getting bored writing, this I don't want to subject people to reading about mundane things in my life, so I try to post interesting stories or observations and arguments I have instead of posting trivial events in my day to day life.

Edit: I was just reminded of the best example of this, earth hour. Not using electricity for an hour has no real effect on global warming, pollution or other environmental issues. People do it for an hour so they can feel good about themselves and act like they are helping the world; because it is easier than making any sort of real change over a long period of time that will actually make a difference in your personal consumption.

Well not really, I don't know him at all, I usually enjoy The Daily Show and watch it very frequently, but it always bothered me is when it took himself seriously and if you watched his interview tonight with Jim Cramer, he took himself much too seriously. There is nothing wrong with taking an issue like the financial crisis seriously, however if you are going grandstand and not make valid arguments, while being serious you look like a douchebag.
In the interview he jumps around making different arguments, sometimes even directly contradicting himself. He begins by saying both him and Cramer are snake oil's salesman, but he admits he is; given that he ends up spending the whole interview appealing to emotions or showcasing his misunderstanding about the markets, instead of creating real arguments I found this pretty funny.

Stewart begins by blaming the media for the collapse, this is such a typical move for pundits; members of the media, whether they are Limbaughs or Frankens or Bayless' tend overstate their own importance. So of course it makes more sense to blame other media outlets for not reporting what is going on, instead of the people responsible for what is happening. I think what a lot of news channels do are stupid, but they are clearly catering towards an audience; blaming CNBC for the economic collapse is similarly to blaming music or television for corrupting the youth. If CNBC didn't exist people would still be aware of others getting huge returns in the stock markets and they would attempt to replicate them. People are not losing money because they are following Cramer or any other pundit de jour. They are losing money because they don't know anything about financial markets; however if their neighbour had a hot stock tip he would still probably be investing. Stewart said he wants CNBC to be a watchdog and "a powerful tool of illumination" this is ridiculous. They are a business trying to make a profit; it shouldn't be their responsibility to perform tasks others are failing to do. This flawless idealistic news channel is a great idea in theory, but until someone feels paying for that ideal it won't happen.

Stewart proceeds to say that their are two markets; a 401k market and an equity trading market. He makes it seem as if the equity market consists solely of day traders and corporations preying on the weak and the bond markets consist solely of little old lady's living off their 401k; this is false. There are individuals who trade in equity and tons of corporations/traders are active in the bond market. He is creating a false dichotomy where you are either Joe everyman or the monopoly man. He is ignoring that equity returns are correlated bond returns and on of the reason individuals can live off their 401k is because of this evil market. I am not saying that super gambly borrowers are justified, but that ignoring the correlation between the two is intellectually dishonest. Eventhough there is very little risk in retirement plans, ignoring any sort of risk is either stupid or ignorant and while it sucks when stuff like this happens; ignorance or risk should not be a defense when **** happens.

Throughout the whole show Stewart acts as if the only greedy people are the wall street traders and ceos; most of the people are greedy. People are investing for a safe retirement, but they are also attempting to make a profit. Just like any market their are fish and the fish in this market are trying to make profits as well. There are traders who lost tons of money; there are fish who made a ton of money, pinning this greed on traders and ceos, while victimizing everyone who lost money in the market is stupid. A lot of people knew what they were getting into. If they didn't know what they were getting into that is their own fault for not doing due diligence, while that may seem callous it is necessary for the market to work.

The climax of his stupidity comes when he compares the stock market to infomercials and get rich quick schemes; promising certain returns. He is ignoring that the stock market as a whole serves a purpose. It allows businesses to raise money so they can hire workers, so they can manufacture products, etc, while there are flaws in the market for sure it serves a very clear useful purpose and comparing it to infomercials or get rich quick schemes ignores the social utility created by the market. Just because people will get hurt/lose some money for making bad decisions doesn't make the system wrong or unfair.

All this being said I don't think Cramer won, he didn't answer Stewart's questions, he appeared weak and wasn't compelling at all. Cramer did seem genuine and even kind of likeable despite getting railroaded throughout the whole interview.

That was therapeutic

I had a bunch of thoughts that weren't really worthy of a whole blog, but I figured could make a decent blog if I posted them all together.

A lot of people would title this blog Random Thoughts, that really tilts me. The thoughts I am writing here are not random thoughts that come into my head if that were the case thoughts like, "What should I wear today?, would be just as likely to be mentioned. The thoughts I am picking may not be the most interesting, but they are picked by design not randomly. I would say if I randomly picked 100 people off the street 10% would use random correctly.

Assuming tests are bell curved, I think I prefer harder tests, although I have a good memory it is really hard for me to beat people in a regurgitating information test, since they will study a lot more than me. Tough tests give me an advantage because most people are stupid and can't apply knowledge.

I think "My President" by Young Jeezy is ruined because Obama got elected. The metaphor is completely ruined since every American's president is black, unless someone racist flipped the metaphor around and started saying My Preisdent is white.

I bet all rappers who made lyrics comparing themselves to Steve Francis or Stephon Marbury feel really stupid.

"I can't get no satisfaction" is a double negative, so it really means I can get satisfaction, which is the exact opposite of what they want to say.

Eventhough a lot of the sketch comedy sucks, Important Things with Demetri Martin is very good.
Right now funniest shows on TV go like this 30 Rock > Flight of the Conchords > The Office > Important Things > Eastbound and Down. I would recommend watching all of them. I bought the Breaking Bad boxset, because I hear it is good. Conan O'Brien was on Inside the Actors Studio recently and most of it is on youtube, it's hilarious and because of that and his cameo in Arrested Development I don't think James Lipton is a huge douche.

I have three exams. The first day of exams is the 15th. Two of them are on the 16th, one is on the 28th, EPT MonteCarlo starts on the 28th.

The Jesus Freaks came back to my neighbours apartment, luckily I could hear them in the hallway and I waited for them to leave, before I left my apartment.

I got a haircut yesterday and about halfway through I realized the barber sucked. He had passed the point of no return, so the rest of the haircut was incredibly stressful. Luckily there is no sitcom style ending where I need to shave my head/ wear a hat for a month.

I'm really going to enjoy watching the media backpedal when Matt Cassell turns out to be a average QB at best.

I saw Milk and didn't think I was going to like it very much, but I did.
I saw Shawshank for the first time expecting to love it and I didn't.

I feel asleep watching Sportscentre, while I was asleep Sportscentre ended and curling started. During my sleep I had a dream that people were playing a huge game of Clue in a stadium with massive dice and board game pieces etc. I am a little disappointed my subconscious came up with a better insult about curling that I ever could consciously.

The Rock is one of my favorite people ever, I have probably watched this video a dozen times in the past 2-3 days. I was really excited when I found out he was hosting SNL, but I ended up a disappointed. There were some good sketches, but both the monologue and "The Rock Obama" sketch should have been a lot better, I think this happened because he is trying to distance himself from the WWE and a lot of his catchphrases may be the WWE's intellectual property. That being said I don't think I can get in trouble for stealing there intellectual property so I really want to start setting people up so I can use IT DOESNT MATTER in real life.

I didn't think it was possible for me to be more excited for an SNL host than The Rock, but Tracy Morgan is hosting next week.

I think signing TO is a great move by the Bills they are risking very little and pre-TO the Bills would have another mediocre season. I still think there most likely win total is going to be something like 7 wins, but at least they have a chance to run good now. They will probably make more than 6.5 million in things like jersey sales, more nationally televised games, etc.

I'm thinking of buying a new desktop so if people have any experience with the HP Touchsmart, New Imacs or the Sony VAIO, any information would be appreciated.

I was going to give a shout out to someone, but can't think of a reason to give a shout out, so I'll give myself a shout out for being awesome.

I had a really awesome reading week, nothing that eventful, met up with a lot of old friends, played a little bit of poker, saw some movies, had a couple great meals, went to a Raptors game etc. Scott convinced me to play tourneys on Sunday because of the Party $640 and I switched to a train on Monday, I ended up cashing in a couple tourneys, but not going deep enough to warrant whining, just a pretty standard losing Sunday. Monday I had a 5:00 train, grabbed lunch with Scott, Max and Peter (Apathy) at the Four Seasons in Toronto, when I realized I would never make the train on time, I called and delayed my train to 635. I hung out with them for a bit more played a couple games of pool and hopped on the Subway at around 6:00. What is usually at most a 15 minute subway, took me close to 30 minutes because someone had jumped on the track. I don't know the exact circumstances, if it was a suicide or someone just tripped and fell, I don't know if someone died or if they got electrocuted by the tracks or whatever. While I was waiting I choose to worry about whether or not I would miss my train, instead of thinking about the well being of the person who was responsible for the delay. Leading to the question from the title of the blog Am I Selfish? (well technically the question is Or am I?, but that is ambiguous)

My first thought was there is an obvious sample size problem here, a selfish act doesn't make a selfish person. There is some line where people act selfish on a frequent enough basis that one can correctly call them selfish as a whole, but that seemed behind the scope of my specific quandary.

My next thought was, were my thoughts selfish? This seemed like a pretty slam dunk yes, but that isn't necessarily bad. If I am starving and choose to eat it is fulfilling an important needs, but it is also selfish. I am not benefiting others by eating (although staying alive does allow others to embrace my awesomeness, so not starving to death may be a net positive).

So I guess instead of asking "Or am I?" I should be asking, Is prioritizing a relatively trivial, but personal event over a tragic, but not very personal event wrong?
Level 1: Yes it is wrong death > missing a train, you are acting selfish and wrong.
Level 2: Wait people die everyday you prioritize what you are going to for dinner over helping homeless people or people in third world countries everyday, just because something hits a little close to home doesn't mean you should suddenly become Mother Teresa.
Level 3: Well unless I am an egoist there has to be a point where I put others ahead of myself and does this qualify? I don't think it does qualify because ultimately I don't even know what happened, for all I know some idiot jumped on the tracks, almost died, but just ended up getting fined or arrested for being retarded. It's not like I saw his dead body and thought "Wow I am going to miss my train they better scrape him up asap."

I have been playing a decent amount of poker lately, had a really annoying session yesterday, and might post a whiny blog with a graph and HH's where I get two outed on the turn.

It's 9am, and Eagles woke me up to catch his train back to Kingston, I don't really feel like writing paragraphs that connect to each other, so I am just going to write scattered thoughts.

- If everyone who conducts interviews on the red carpet got hit by a truck, I don't think I would care. I would love to see an SNL skit where they have someone on the red carpet asking hard hitting questions, mixed in with the vain retarded ones. "Oh and what are you wearing tonight?" "Do you think Heath Ledger's death was a suicide?" "Is it true you just got out of rehab?" Eventhough I hate these people they should get one of those douchebags from TMZ to do this.

- The Dark Knight got snubbed for Best Picture and Best Director nominations. I really liked Frost/Nixon, but it shouldn't have gotten a Best Director nomination. The acting was what made Frost/ Nixon great and Howard had nothing to do with that as Langella/Sheen acted in the play, which was not directed by Howard. If there was a quantitative way to measure this and I could bet on it I would bet 10k on TDK having a much better legacy than any other nominated movies this year. When TDK first came out I thought the best picture hype was ridiculous, because there were tons of other movies that had yet to be released. However after seeing a lot of potential Oscar Candidates get panned critically, I assumed TDK would be a lock to get nominated.


I am going to watch Milk later today, so my opinion might change, but Rourke got snubbed. Rourke was fantastic in The Wrestler, which was imo the best picture of the year. I have heard a lot of people say The Wrestler is over the top and melodramatic, but most of those people are ignorant about wrestiling. The plot of The Wrestler is slightly exaggerated, but it is basically what happens to 90% of wrestlers when they retire. The story is very real and it is only real because of Rourke's incredible performance. I keep hearing that Rourke is playing himself in The Wrestler, that is bull**** and it really marginalizes his performance. He is playing someone with parallels to his life, but Ram isn't very similar to Rourke. Ram is a much different character than Rourke and if Rourke quit acting to go into another craft outside of boxing, no comparison would be made. The comparison is that Rourke and Ram were both washed up, Rourke and Ram both participate in combat sports, Rourke and Ram both love their craft. It's cool to create a narrative about how Rourke is playing himself and he is getting the comeback Ram never got, but it just isn't true. While this doesn't make his performance better or worse his speech would have been legendary so they really should have given it to him for that.

- I think the biggest snub of the whole night was The Wrestler not getting nominated for best song. Slumdog gets nominated for two ****ing songs and The Boss can't get one ****ing nomination, game is rigged yo.

-It would have been awesome if they gave out technical the same way they gave out acting awards. Having some fat, pasty special effects wizard standing up there giving flowery praise to the sound editing nominees would have been awesome. "The majestical splendor that was the sound editing in your film Wanted, really lifted this film from an ordinary blockbuster, to the brilliance of cinema that America has grown to love, just as we have grown to love you, Wylie Stateman"

- All the acting nominees must have felt pretty awesome to have a legendary actor like Anthony Hopkins fellate them in front of hundreds of millions of people.

Slumdog didn't deserve best picture. I think The Wrestler, The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon and Man on Wire all deserved it more. Slumdog is a nice movie. That is all. Slumdog benefited a lot from voters who used the narrative fallacy. Instead of judging the movie they personified it, Slumdog is the little Indian indie film that could, it keeps on trucking just like Jamal Malik and yesterday it found it's Latika. This type of narrative is retarded. Art should be judged by it's merits not the circumstances under, which it was made. If it was filmed with actors from a city that wasn't Mumbai it wouldn't have gotten the buzz that it did. It would have been a cute indie film like Juno or Little Miss Sunshine, that people would love, but it wouldn't be a best picture winner. The following has actual spoilers in case you haven't seen the movie ( I still recommend you see it, it just wasn't best picture caliber)

At no point in the movie did I empathize with any of the characters. The whole love story is incredibly contrived and it makes no sense that they love each other. It felt as if a lot of the shots and cuts were just showing off what they were capable of doing. The plot itself is very gimmicky and if you eliminated the Who Wants to a Millionaire framework and it being filmed in India it just becomes a very good romantic drama. I liked it but it wasn't best picture worthy.

- Note to everyone in the media stop making retarded puns. I am not a Joker, but I Doubt that many people wrestled with the decision. They wanted to have a tall glass of Milk, but did not want it to be a Dark Night for Slumdog Millionare.

diaf

- Love Sam