Wednesday, October 31, 2007

On Sunday I went to see Rodrigo y Gabriela perform in Detroit. They're a guitar duo from Mexico who play Latin-style music, and they also use their guitars as percussion instruments. It was very entertaining; mostly they played their own songs, but they also performed a cover of Stairway to Heaven. This page has some video clips.

I've been playing a little bit of Texas Hold'em lately, finally making use of the fancy poker chips that Jenny gave me many years ago. Anyway, a few weeks ago we were playing a game, and there was this crazy hand. Here is the play-by-play. The flop was Q, 4, 4; player 1 went all in, player 2 called, and me and the 4th guy folded. Now the 2 guys show their cards. P1 has pocket Aces. P2 has a 3-4, so he has 3 of a kind. Only an Ace can save P1 now, the chances of which are just 2 in 45.

He hits an Ace on the turn!

Now P1 is leading with a full house of As over 4s. The only way for P2 to win now is with a 4, to make 4 of a kind. There is only one 4 left in the deck, so the chances are just 1 in 44.

And he hits it!

Is that crazy or what?

Also, Happy Halloween! Today, some people in the department made Halloween-themed snacks. There were ghost-shaped Rice Krispies treats, for example. Here's a particularly creative one:

It looks exactly like a litter box, right down to the turds! (It's accessorized pretty well too, with the pooper scooper and the newspaper.) I ate some. It tasted like cake.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Another odometer photo. 111,111 miles:

Amazon.com is selling DRM-free mp3s on their website now. I think this is kind of cool, because you can buy music online for cheaper than a CD, and you can use it anywhere you want -- you're not tied to iTunes/iPod. And it can be more convenient (and more legal) than just downloading songs off of bittorrent or whatever. But then I tried to buy an album, and it turns out you need to install and run Amazon's own program in order to download an album, and they don't have a version for Linux. This is sort of annoying, because the mp3s are DRM-free anyway, so why do they require a special application to download them? Oh well, at least they say a Linux version is under development.

What is up with the Colorado Rockies? Just 2 weeks before the end of the season, they were in 4th place in the NL West. 4th! Meaning there was only one team worse than them! And now they are in the NLCS! Weird.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I complained that it was 39 degrees? Well, today it was 90 degrees.