I wanted to come up with some clever title for my blog, but instead I just listed the last name of the people I am going to talk about. I hope by only listing the last names I have created enough suspense that people will want to continue reading.

Firstly Nassim Taleb, who is best known for writing the Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. I just finished Fooled by Randomness and I loved it, it wasn't a tough read, but it wasn't as easy a read as the Gladwell books or Freakonomics, where I could zone out and read 100 pages without thinking. A lot of poker players recommend this book, because it talks a lot about variance, luck, cognitive biases and other misapplications of randomness. While the book does focus on those concepts it does go a lot deeper and does a good job explaining why people are Fooled by Randomness.Hint it's not just that people are dumb as I initially hypothesized. As someone who is majoring in finance and employed as a poker player, but treats both as a means to an end it is nice to see someone like Taleb write a book from a similar perspective It would be exaggeration to say it is a life changing book, but it is a book that re-affirms most of my world view, which is a nice reminder of my perceived saneness. Taleb is insightful, funny, and self-aware, one thing he constantly brings up is that he constantly gets Fooled by Randomness; it is really hard not to, but by being self-aware he can control it's effect over him. He has a great dry sense of humour that is present throughout the book and eventhough it may seem like a serious book I did laugh out loud a couple of times while reading it.

If you think that this book will make you better at poker; you are wrong, however it could make you better at life. A lot of what is written in the book applies loosely to poker, but you won't think boy I remember when Taleb talked about Prospect Theory so I am going to c/rai here.. I think the notion of getting Fooled by Randomness doesn't exist in poker in the same way it exists in Finance, because skill converges relatively quickly in poker. Things like survivorship bias don't really exist in poker, except for at nosebleeds and big tournaments since the sample sizes are lower and the swings are higher. It is a lot harder to run good in poker for 5-10 years, than it is in finance and if you are just running good at poker you will fall down to earth pretty quickly.

Eagles blogged about Michael Ian Black's blog, http://michaelianblack.typepad.com/. I think he is incredibly funny and if you disagree with me, I would suggest watching some sketches from The State specifically, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2xyiiW0j4s and http://video.aol.com/video-detail/mi...ate/2857176228. If you don't find those funny, I'm sorry you don't have a good sense of humour, if you do, congratulations you can now buy and enjoy this http://www.amazon.ca/My-Custom-Van-M.../dp/1416964053. I have gotten through the first couple essays and while some of them are weaker or just flat out miss. but that tends to happen when you write 50 absurd essays with titles like "Vampires -- Good for the economy?, but the bulk of them are very good.

Finally someone linked me to Ed Byrne's comedy special Pedantic and Whimsical, which is on youtube starting here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhqxBUqzt_4. It is one of the better standup specials I have seen in awhile and I can't believe it has taken me this long to find out he existed.

Reading week started on Thursday and I have been chilling this weekend thus far. I saw a bunch of old friends/family, had an awesome dim sum meal at Lai Toh Heen , saw Taken which I would only recommend to people who want to see Liam Neeson acting like a huge bad ass for 90 minutes. I am going to the Raptors game on sunday, but will probably start grinding a lot on Monday when I realize I get incredibly bored lying around the house doing nothing.