“[T]he administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq.”
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Author: Dan Dickinson
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Happy 1,000,000,000th Flop, PokerRoom
(There’s some irony in writing about Texas Hold’em – or poker in general – on a blog, when the overwhelming majority of comment and trackback spam I see these days is for poker sites. Nevertheless…)
I got my gaming addiction at a very early age, and despite the looks of it from my biography page, it’s never been limited to video games. Before the age of 10, most of my desires rested in board games of all shapes and sizes. When I was 7 or 8, I was grounded temporarily for spending the first day we had cable doing nothing but watching game shows on USA. My parents would be more than happy to show you pictures of me in a cabin in Maine pretending to host Press Your Luck.
Most of all, I have maintained a healthy level of interest in card games over the years. Sure, I played Uno, and I still have a huge pile of Magic: The Gathering cards kicking around my old bedroom – these are not terribly unique traits. But how many people do you know that would check out every book the library had about card games? (Hopefully, not many – we’re a frightening bunch.)
Poker, more than any other game, appeals to my sense of logic and analytical nature. I started off playing five-card draw; the constant tactical decisions on what to draw were, well, addictive. Sometime in the late 90’s I fell into Texas Hold’em, and while there weren’t a ton of opportunities to play in Ithaca, I did find somewhere online during college to let me partake in my poker needs: PokerRoom.
Now, there are a lot of poker sites online; I have a handful of criteria that must be met in order to satisfy me, and amazingly, this very first site I fell upon met all of them.
- The site has to support OS X. Sorry, but if I can’t play, I can’t play. (Pokerroom uses a Java client, so not only will it run on Mac and PC, but also on Linux.)
- It has to have play money games. I play to remove stress and have a good time, and the nagging sensation that I’m blowing all of my savings doesn’t help my sense of enjoyment. Pokerroom supports both real money and play money ring games and tournaments.
- The interface has to be well thought out. Not only does pokerroom’s interface have a lot of well thought out nuances, but there’s also a light version, allowing me to decide how much fluff I want to deal with. I appreciate that. (Apparently, the downloadable client – Windows only, sadly – also shows you TV-style percentages for all-in calls. Very cool.)
- It’d be nice to have more than just hold’em. Sure, I can play Poker all day long, but sometimes some variety is nice. Luckily, PokerRoom also has Omaha, 7 Card Stud, Chinese Poker, and a variety of casino games. It’s a good chance to branch out – I loved learning how to play Chinese Poker, even if I am terrible at it.
- A community is good, too. I’m big on social software, and I want to be able to make connections to other players if I feel the need. PokerRoom has Pokah!, which integrates into the site well and has groups, articles, and forums.
- Don’t bully me into real money play. PokerRoom has always been very low-pressure about playing for real cash, and I appreciate that the play-money players are treated the same way the company treats the real-money players. Additionally, there’s a whole set of preferences where you can limit your daily wagering or play time, or block yourself for lengths of time. Responsibility is a good thing.
- Keep it fresh. If you look at the news page, you can see that the Pokerroom team has been really busy this year. To keep me coming back to a gaming site, there’s got to be progress, and PokerRoom keeps advancing along.
- Keep it interesting. While I don’t play in pay-money tournaments, there are more than I can keep count of happening on a daily basis. Prize packages can be huge, and there’s lots of opportunities to make it to Vegas for the World Series of Poker.
Now, no one gaming site will ever be perfect – Pokerroom shares the problem of kids who jump into tournaments and push all-in every hand until someone knocks them out, often clearing half the table in the first five minutes. But outside of that and the always moronic chatters, it’s an excellent Poker site.
So why am I posting about it rather than, well, playing? As it turns out, Pokerroom will be dealing its one billionth hand sometime today. (For the purposes of handing out even more cash, play-money games are unavailable until 12 hours after the billionth hand – hence the time for the post!) Congratulations to the entire PokerRoom.com team – here’s to another billion!
Disclaimer: I do not work for or have any connection to Pokerroom.com, other than being a very satisfied player.
Most everyone in my age bracket saw Garden State last year. It was heaped with praise such as “It’s like a perfect pop song — that thing that makes you smile and tear up at the same time,” and “Garden State is nothing short of genius, as moving as it is hilarious.” Who could resist what might be the defining movie of a generation?
Those who have had the unfortunate experience of being with me at the movies will not be surprised that I found it a tad overrated. On the whole I liked the movie – I thought Zach Braff has a good eye as a director and as an actor – but there were bits of writing that murdered my sense of logic. The scene that stood out the farthest was when Zach Braff’s character first meets Natalie Portman’s character, and after some casual chit-chat, Portman forces headphones onto Braff, swearing this song will change your life. The song is New Slang by The Shins, and no matter how many times I’ve tried to listen to it, I don’t feel my life getting changed. Even with the lyrics in front of me, I can’t feel anything for this song.
Perhaps part of my problem is that the writers didn’t give any reason why it should/would change our lives. We sit, staring at Zach Braff’s face, trying to read the appropriate emotional response out of him and the song – and I just can’t. I need to be handed those reasons, or at least pointed down the path with something more than a facial expression.
My trip to San Francisco last week, combined with the vacation the week before, gave me a lot of time to reflect on life. Perhaps it has a bit to do with turning 25 – although on a conscious level I’m not really feeling any different. Still, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a lot out there that I’d still like to try; people I want to get to know better; places I want to go; things I want to see; et cetera.
So where is this going? Here’s a total swerve: over the last week, I have received two gift cards to the iTunes Music Store, totaling $30 in credit. While there are a handful of songs I plan on picking up (assorted singles I’ve been meaning to grab for a while), there is plenty of credit that I don’t have any plans for, and I’d like to remove the temptation to browse the store endlessly for music I don’t want.
This is where you come in, dear friends: I want you to force your headphones onto me and play that one song that changed your life – and I want you to tell me why.
The “rules”, if you want to call them that, are very simple:
- You really need to pick a song that’s available on the iTunes Music Store. Despite some magic powers, I am unable to buy songs using this credit that are not there.
- There is no limitation to who can make suggestions, but preference will be given to people I know, as is human nature. One suggestion per person, please.
- You can submit your song and reason one of four ways: a comment on my blog proper, a comment on the LiveJournal syndicated version of the post, an email to me (remy AT the domain of my blog), or via IM if you’re so inclined. Use email or IM if your story is of a very personal nature and you’re worried about the Googlebot picking it up for all eternity.
- No musical genre or artist is off limits, so long as you justify it.
- Anyone who successfully tells me why a song changed their life stands a good chance of having the song enter my purchase list. Bonus points will be given if you can explain why it’ll change my life.
- I reserve the right to politely refuse songs for whatever reason I see fit. This is an unlikely proposition as I’m trying to buy stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise, but always leave yourself an out.
- All songs purchased will be listed and strung together as a playlist in a future day-long radio session.
I look forward to your responses.