Another Poker Tournament?

Shocked! Shocked am I that there is another organized gathering of poker bloggers online for some virtual chip tossing.

Such degeneracy!

Face Up Gaming, tomorrow, 3pm EDT, Bloggers 2, pw: battle2

I shall attempt to remember to sign up myself, and maybe even play for 30 minutes before I have to rush off. More dead chippies!

See, I have some friends who went got hitched (the fools!).  In celebration of this happy occasion, we'll be shooting them with Nerf guns in a city park near major government offices.  Think live-action FPS, with ammo caches and trees and possibly cops. Also, it's Canada Day weekend, and Pride weekend, so I'm sure there will be no other activities occurring in major city parks that could interfere with these plans.

Should be fun. It's also an hour after the tourney begins, but luckily only a 5 minute walk from my place.

But you, yes YOU, who are NOT  shooting your friends with foam darts and suction cups, should totally play free poker vs lots of friendly folks and Waffles.

One More

I could use a cottage...

The Best Camera...

... is the one you have with you.

A familiar photography adage, often brought up when people are fighting over whether their Canon or Nikon is better than your Nikon or Canon or phone. Funny thing about adages is that they tend to be true.

After my latest course wrapped up, I let my DSLR sit. Life was busy, the weather was erratic, and I was a bit photographically burnt out. I picked it back up for my trip to Montreal, and those pics will get processed and up somewhere eventually.

That's not to say opportunities for a picture didn't pop up though, and my iPhone is pretty much always in my pocket. So it became my default camera.  It's noisy, low-res, not particularly sharp, and in general a technically mediocre camera, but it was what I had with me. With a little in-camera futzing and tinkering, and about 4 different camera apps, some decent results could be turned out.

I figure I'll dump them here, in no particular order.



























As always, they can be embiggened by clicking.

Up a Political Level

Tiny bit about the beauty of political nannyism from a Provincial level.

A while back, our Provincial government mandated that only healthy food be served in school cafeterias. No more fried crap and other unhealthy options that teenagers devour. Why? Because teens are morons who don't know better obviously. I'd kill for my teenage metabolism.

Seriously, large double Big Mac combo with a double Big Mac on the side with no weight gain. Man, I miss those days. Seems like only 30 lbs ago...

Anyway, since teenagers aren't generally held captive in their schools at lunch time around here, they all went across the road to their local malls and plazas to spend their money at the fast food establishments there instead of in the caf. Oh, yah, because they also pay for their meals.

Result? A few dozen school cafeterias are being shut down in the latest round of school board cuts because they've become money-losers after they couldn't sell cheap crap anymore.

Which means that the healthy option provided by those cafeterias is now gone, leaving... the same (or worse) crap food that they kids had before, except now the money goes to businesses instead of the schools.

Bravo.

City Swing

I had a fear when Rob Ford was elected as our mayor. The fear was that such a hard-right leaning mayor, who also happens to be an idiot, would result in a hard-left backlash come the next election. Toronto doesn't need a fiscally irresponsible hippie throwing money at every project and idea any more than it needs a mayor who doesn't understand that income is required to run a city.

Last week, the Mayor got his vote to cancel a 5-cent plastic bag fee to Council. The fee was instituted by the previous Mayor and has been incredibly successful in reducing the number of plastic bags being produced and sent to landfills. Some people are annoyed by it, but if you live here, it's not that difficult to get a few reusable bags or pay a nickel or two every once in a while.

To the surprise of many, the repeal of the fee passed. I had figured it would fail, but a motion to better direct these fees would come forward.

Instead, the fee was removed, and immediately afterwards, Council voted to ban plastic bags by next January. This was little more than big "fuck you" to Ford.

And it was a mistake.

I'm not against a plastic bag ban. I am against one that is done as a knee-jerk reaction with no planning, consultation, or plan. Are produce bags banned? Bulk food bags? What replaces the plastic bags? Do I have to buy a reusable bag every time I forget one? Or will paper be available? (Toronto has never really had the "paper or plastic?" option while I've been alive)

The LCBO (liquor store) dropped plastic bags a few years back, and many wept. They had the best plastic bags, those thick fuckers that could hold a ton of stuff and barely stretch, let alone break. They switched to paper only, except... not paper with handles. A big booze shopping trip now results in awkward balancing of bags if you don't bring your own or take a box. It's completely impractical if you want to pick up a couple bottles in the middle of shopping. If grocery stores switch to these type of bags, it could have a serious effect on those of us who walk to the store.

In the grand scheme of things, this is admittedly minor, if inconvenient. It certainly seems that the environmental benefit will be net positive, and people can adapt easily enough. Where my concern lies is that Council so easily passed this. They were annoyed with the Mayor and another of his stupid crusades, and they reacted by essentially saying "sure, here's what you want... and then something worse!" That's just poor governing. I want Council to be a voice of reason and a controlling element versus a terrible leader, not a power-mad organization who ignore what's best for what's most dramatic.

Welcome Back BBT

Well, the indomitable Sir Al Can't Hang has managed to convince a site to let us silly poker bloggers toss some fake chips around again!

Details are at his site, so I imagine anyone reading this has already read that, but that don't mean I can't point you in that direction.

The only issue for me is that it's this Saturday. I will be kicking back with a beer in hand on a gorgeous deck overlooking a beautiful lake in scenic Quebec cottage country at that time. Or I'll be in a hot tub. There's the small possibility I'll be prepping some German Potato Salad or Strawberry-Rhubarb Galettes at the time too, but those will more likely come later.

Point being, I won't be within easy access of a computer. But if I can get this going in some way, I'll be there to play terrible, terrible poker.

Because a cruise wouldn't suck.