Atlanta Race Weekend

"No, he didn't slam into you, he didn't bump you, he didn't nudge you...he RUBBED you. And rubbin', son, is racin'."

--Robert Duvall (Harry Hogge) in Days of Thunder

This weekend was race weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway. I usually don't make an effort to attend the race, but this weekend I had the opportunity to go to the Craftsman Truck race on Saturday. I also attended the IROC race that was held immediately prior to the truck race.

My parents have, for the last several years, attended the race with my mom's sister and her husband. They camp at the racetrack, and attend all the races throughout the weekend. Last year, we met them for supper on Saturday night in Morrow, and we were going to do the same this year. Plans changed somewhat, however, when Leila's brother managed to get tickets to the truck race on Saturday.

So, Saturday morning, we loaded up Camille, Bryant and his friend Victor, and Leila and headed for the racetrack. We met up with my parents at the motorhome and visited for a while. Then, we made our way into the racetrack.

We were on row 62, so it was quite a hike to our seats. I was pretty beat when we got there. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the IROC race. I've never really been that interested in the IROC series, but the racing was pretty good.

The truck race was the highlight, though. There was a wreck at the beginning of lap 2 that caused the race to be red-flagged for 20 minutes. The remainder of the race was pretty clean, up until the last lap. Jack Sprague was leading, but Kyle Busch was coming on strong, coming from 5th to second in two laps. Coming out of turn 4, Kyle was making his move on the outside of Sprague, and Sprague tried to pinch Busch off by moving up. He pinched Busch to the wall, and Busch bounced off the wall and back into Sprague. Sprague went spinning and collected several other trucks. Busch went on to win.

It was a very exciting finish, a great way to end my first truck race. I've never really paid much attention to the truck races either, but after Saturday, I may change my mind.

After the race, we went to dinner with my parents and aunt and uncle. The service was unusually bad at the Roadhouse Grill. We couldn't get a good drink, and Victor's entree was first too rare, then too done. He ended up just cancelling the order. The funny thing is that they weren't all that busy.

We got home about 9:30. All in all, a very nice day. I'll have to do it again next year.

UN Tries to Take Over the Internet

There is so much media now with the Internet and people, and so easy and so cheap to start a newspaper or start a magazine, there's just millions of voices and people want to be heard.

--Rupert Murdoch

According to an eWeek article, the United Nations is planning to try to wrestle control of the internet from the United States. What makes this scary is that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the UN manages to take control of the internet that it won't be long before they will be regulating what can be posted. Any organization that cozys up to China and puts countries like Lybia on a "Human Rights Council" can't be trusted with something as important as the internet. The UN's own Declaration of "Human Rights" states that freedom of speech is guaranteed...unless that speech interferes with the UN's goals. Think about that for a moment.

To its credit, the US Government is planning to fight the takeover attempt. The US invented the internet, and the rest of the world is hitching it's wagon to the invention of the US Military. If they get especially belligerent about it, I would fully support withdrawing completely to within the US with regard to the internet. Just make it work for the US, and let the rest of the world figure out their own system. In other words, take our ball and go home. We'll see how long the rest of the world will last without being propped up by the US.

Another Second Place at BWW

There is no room for second place.

-Vince Lombardi

In a sense, that's true. But sometimes, second isn't all that bad. When you're competing in a points event, consistency is the key. Just look at NASCAR. The championship usually isn't won by the person who wins the most races, but rather by the person who consistently finishes close to the front.

We had just enough folks at Buffalo Wild Wings last night to place everyone in the second column of the points table. With the Braves playing a home playoff game, Georgia Tech playing at home, and the weather being crappy, we were eight regular players short, meaning we all basically started out at the final table. There were nine of us, and I finished second. Bryant's friend (and mine) Tommy finished third. I had the win in hand until my opponent sucked out on me twice in a row for the win.

I'll be back at the Loafing Leprechaun on Tuesday, trying to rack up more points. I may have to find a different place to play than BWW, because so far there haven't been enough folks there to make the points payout worth it. I need to find a tourney with 30-40 players, and BWW just doesn't have that kind of traffic.

Million Dollar Homepage

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

-Oscar Wilde

There was an item that was discussed on TWIT for October 2, 2005 about the Million Dollar Homepage. It seems that some guy put up a page that has one million "pixels". Advertisers (or just ordinary folks) can purchase pixels for a buck a pixel. So if you wanted to post a 10x10 pixel ad, it would cost you $100.

Apparently, the guy is doing this to pay for college, and I've got to say that it's a pretty ingenious idea. It seems to be working, as they said he had made about $250,000 (and had his PayPal account frozen, as well). What do you think the chances are that clones of this site are going to start popping up like crazy?

Tech Vidcasts and BitTorrent

I used to be a huge fan of the show "The Screensavers", which aired on TechTV every night. What could be better for a geek than a live television show devoted to the cutting edge of technology? From Leo Laporte to Patrick Norton to Kevin Rose, I felt as if the stars of the show were somewhat of a "geek family" to me. I was extremely saddened when Comcast bought TechTV and merged the channel in with their horrible G4 channel. After the merger, they basically dumped all the tech-based shows in favor of shows having to do with video games. They kept The Screensavers, but Leo and Patrick weren't part of it. The show quickly went downhill. It finally got so bad that I couldn't watch it. It eventually turned into a show called "Attack of the Show", which is some of the most atrocious television you could watch.

Imagine my elation to find out that my favorite Screensavers alums were doing video podcasts. Now I could watch my favorite tech personalities without the constraints of a corporate structure holding them back. The webcasts are great, by the way. I look forward to each new episode. I have added links to my favorite shows to the menu on the right under "Science & Technology". TWIT (This Week In Tech) is hosted by Leo Laporte, with a slew of guests that usually include Kevin Rose and Patrick Norton, as well as John Dvorak. Systm and Diggnation are productions of Kevin Rose, with co-hosts Dan Huard and Alex Albrecht. DigitalLifeTV is hosted by Patrick Norton and Robert Herron from TechTV. Command-N is a show hosted by Amber MacArthur, who is a TechTV Canada host. All of these are worth checking out.

All of this brings me to BitTorrent, a fabulous bit of file-sharing technology. This technology doesn't necessarily make it easier or quicker to download a file, but it takes the bandwidth burden off of the distributor. Since you're pulling "bits" of the file from your peers (others who have or are downloading the file), you're not costing the distributor bandwidth charges. I think this is important for the fledgling download-only shows. Most don't have advertisements, or they have very little ad support, so they're not making a ton of money. Bandwidth is expensive, and with the popularity of these personalities, their monthly bandwidth can be measured in terabytes (!!!). The use of BitTorrent takes some of this responsibility off of them, thereby ensuring the continuation of these great shows.

I personally use the Azureus BitTorrent client, and while it is slower than a direct download, I see it as my duty to help these guys out in any way I can. Check out these shows -- you'll like them.

Four Months a Dad

Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then, fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again.

--Jimmy Piersal, on how to diaper a baby

Yesterday my daughter turned four months old. I've been a dad for four months, and I have to say that there is very little to compare to holding this little bundle and trading smiles and silly noises. I love to just hold her in my lap and make faces at her. She'll laugh a big, open-mouthed laugh, and I swear, she's the cutest thing to ever grace the face of the earth.

I still continue in my quest to be the world's best dad, and I think I'm doing a fair job. She's healthy and happy, and that's the whole point -- raise a healthy, happy baby. In fact, she's extremely healthy. She had her four-month checkup (and shots!!!) yesterday, and she weighed in at 19 pounds, 3 ounces and 27 inches long. She's big, but she's proportional. I feel like once she starts sitting up and crawling that she'll drop some weight, or at least level off in the weight gain.

She's started vocalizing, and it's the sound of angels. She has such a sweet voice, even when she's gurgling.

I hold out hope, as all parents do, that she will continue to be healthy and happy. I also hold out hope that I won't screw up too bad as a parent. I don't think I will, but there's always the possibility. Stay tuned for breaking developments.

The Beat Goes On

The single greatest key to winning is knowing thy enemy -- yourself.

-Andy Glazer

I played in another of the free poker tourneys last night, this one at the Loafing Leprechaun in Duluth. I think I had a pretty good chance to win, had I been able to lay down one key hand. But I'll get to that later.

FullHouseHold'em, the company that my brother-in-law works for, started their "Poker League" last night. The Poker League is basically a 20-week point gathering expedition in which players get points for finishing in the top eight in any tournament that FullHouseHold'em runs. At the end of the 20 weeks, the top points players will get together for a final tourney where the first prize is a paid entry to the 2006 World Series of Poker. All this is sponsored by Bluff Magazine.

Anyway, I decided that since you can play in any number of tourneys a week, that I'd start off trying to earn some early points. My best hand of the night came when I was in the big blind with pocket threes. The flop came 3-3-x. It was checked around, and the turn was a five. The small blind checked, I checked, and UTG+1 went all-in. It was folded around to me, and I called, blurting out "Can you beat quads?" before I could stop myself. The river was a blank, and I doubled up. During the break, I apologized for my rather dickish remark, and the guy said he completely understood. Quads are a very rare thing, except for last night. In this tourney, five sets of quads were hit. What're the odds? No, really, what are the odds? I don't know.

The hand I should have layed down came very near the final table. The blinds were 400/800, and I was in the big blind with a fair sized chip stack, and was dealt K-7 offsuit. It was folded to the small blind who completed, and I checked. The flop was K-x-x, two spades. The small blind checked, and I bet 1000. He raised to 2000, so I went all-in. He called with the nut flush draw, and hit it on the turn. This left me with 400 in chips with 11 people left in the tourney. Somehow I managed to hang around and finish sixth, so I managed to snag some points.

Ironically, my sixth place finish was worth more points than my first place finish last Thursday would have been worth, due to the small field last Thursday and the large field last night. Here's the chart that explains how points are awarded:

As you can see, the points are based not only on your finishing position, but on how many people were in the tourney.

I'm going to try to keep playing two a week, at the Loafing Leprechaun and at Buffalo Wild Wings, but I don't know how long that will go over with the wife. I'm going to try my best to rack up the points, though. I really want to be in that final tourney. I feel like my tourney game is starting to come around, and that I'm becoming a very good tourney player. I guess time will tell if that's really the case or if I'm just fooling myself.

Oh, and by the way, I entered the $5 Turbo on PokerChamps yesterday (the same one that I won on Sunday) and came in second out of a field of 40.