Vegas Baby!

With the year drawing to a close it's time to start thinking about New Year resolutions. I've decided I'm going to make at least 25% more money this year. I'm going to continue my diet which has thus far lost me 14lbs. But the one I am looking forward to more than any other is I am going to go back to Las Vegas.

My wife and I attended a convention in August and we had a great deal of fun in the five days we stayed there. We stayed at the disappointing Las Vegas Hilton which had a view of the amazing Wynn hotel from our window, which was about the only thing that impressed us about our hotel.

So I am planning to ensure that by Spring 2006 I will once again visit Sin City and take in the awesome sights and sounds that make this one of the most unique and amazing places on Earth.

Although I have only been one time, I am confident that if you had enough money you could spend an entire year exploring this city and still not see and do everything. Personally if I were a multi millionaire I would buy myself a home at Trump Towers and live in Las Vegas. I'd probably need to buy a second home out towards Reno to get away from the scary summer heat, but still I can quite see why rich people like to call Las Vegas home.

A small incident made our first trip to Las Vegas a little better than it could have been. As we were coming in to land the passenger next to me stuck up a conversation with me. He was born and raised in Vegas and had just come back from a tour in the US Army serving in Iraq. We talked about Vegas and he tried to point out some landmarks as we came in to land.

As we were sitting in the plane I called our useless hotel, the Las Vegas Hilton, and asked them if they had a shuttle to pick us up. They did not, of course, so I started talking to my wife about getting a cab.

When we were collecting our bags from the carousel the same guy from the plane came up to us and said, "You're in luck, my father is picking me up if you like we'll give you a ride to your hotel, save you a taxi fare." Now I've always been told not to accept candy or rides in cars from strange men so I thought about it for a second. But then it dawned on me that he might simply be a nice guy, and unless he actually murdered both me and my wife it would be pretty easy to trace him since the airline would surely know who had been sitting on the plane next to us.

So we accepted the ride and he and his elderly father proceeded to drive us slowly down the strip past as many hotels as they could before finally dropping us at ours. The gesture was so kind and afforded us a view of Las Vegas we might not otherwise have had. To this day I have no idea who this man was, but it is refreshing to meet a good honest person willing to do someone a favor for no reason other than to be a nice guy. Whoever he is, I wish him well.

Having done various research we've decided that we should stay at Caesars Palace this time. It appears to offer rooms at an almost reasonable rate, together with a very central location and lots of amenities. By the time we go they should have their new poker room open featuring two separate areas for ring and tournament games with a combined area of 14,500 sq ft. Sounds fun!

I am counting the days already. Which is hard to do since we've not set a date yet, but I'll be counting them anyway.

America, Relax

As an immigrant to America I've noticed many cultural, political, social and economic differences between England and America. Now the bottom line is, I chose to live in America and I thoroughly enjoy doing so. However, there are some things America could do to improve the standard of living for the people here. One of the things that stuck me was the American obsession with hard work. Students are forced to attend school at some ungodly hour in the morning. College students often attend classes before 8am which is unheard of in other countries. When it comes to the work place I am constantly amazed by a reluctance to take time off when sick and at the incredibly short vacation times offered by most companies.

My Christmas break was from Christmas Eve until Tuesday 27th. Given that Christmas fell on a weekend this year I got a grand total of three days off work. When I used to live in England everyone I knew finished work on Christmas Eve and did not return to work until January 3rd. In fact the first job I got in England gave me four weeks paid vacation per year. My father got six weeks paid vacation by the time he retired. Every employer in England is forced to give their staff three times their usual work week off in paid vacation. But most do better.

If you look at countries like France it is not unheard of for staff to have eight week paid vacation per year.

So I guess my point here is that America needs to learn to chill out and take more time off work without feeling guilty. If you're sick you should be able to stay home with full pay. If you work hard all year you should get at least a week's paid vacation off at Christmas. Maybe the protestors whining about companies using the term 'holidays' should be more concerned about people being able to take time off to send with their families.

Goosey Goosey Gander (Boring Post Alert)

As a first this Christmas I decided to serve goose instead of turkey. I am always up for trying new meats so it seemed like a good idea.

It turns out it was. The goose was great, rather like duck and certainly a lot nicer tasting than turkey.

I decided to stop the original post here because it got boring. The bottom line here is that after reading a bunch of crap online I found a good site called RoastGoose.com which explains it all really simply. If you want an idiot goose cooking guide here is mine:

The simple way to cook a goose...

• Buy a 10lb goose.
• If it is frozen, put in the fridge for 2.5 days before cooking, to thaw.
• Pre-heat the oven to 400F.
  
• Wash the bird with warm water and remove the crap they stuff in the cavity.
• Cut off any excess fat (just the real obvious stuff).
• Prick the skin with the tip of a knife, only make small pricks.
• Sprinkle salt over it and in the cavity.
• Put it in a deep baking dish with a lid on.
• Cook for an hour.
• Drain the fat (there will be plenty).
• Set the oven to 325F.
• Place the bird back in the oven for three hours.
• Uncover for the last of the three hours to brown.

You can do some more fancy things like stuffing it and wrapping the wings in foil and all the stuff the real cooking sites will talk about. But just those basics will make you a nice bird that will feed 4-8 people.

I don't know what prompted me to write this, but I think it has to do with the fact it took me an hour to find a site that just explained it without assuming I was already a chef. So maybe next Christmas buy a goose and dare to be different!

Ho Ho Ho

Just like clockwork midnight just rolled around and Santa landed on the roof of my house. It is quite amazing how he hits so many homes in a single night.

Since I was a bad boy and didn't go to bed early enough he dumped a bunch of coal down the chimney. Well, when I say chimney I mean bathroom extractor fan outlet, and when I say coal I mean deer shit.

I guess that's what I get for staying up too late and sending Santa a note asking for a billion dollars. Plus I think he was further riled by the lack of chimney on my home.

Ah well, there's always next year. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

ZCT 168 Goes Commercial

Since I was wasting a whole bunch of space down on the right hand side I have decided to provide some lovely banner ads for your personal enjoyment and my potential financial gain.

First is an Amazon.com search box so you can find all the stuff you want on Amazon. Next is an ad for PartyPoker.com. If you follow that link you will get a special offer from my poker web site. Then there is an ad for PokerStars.com, my favorite poker site. If you want to play you should certainly try that one. Then I have an ad for Full Tilt Poker, the site that all the famous pros seem to like. Finally there is an ad for Tee Shirt Hell, they make some very funny shirts that will certainly make you laugh.

Please buy lots of things and make me rich.

Punished In Bible Belt

I have the misfortune of living in Bible belt. In doing so I have to knowingly give up various rights that others in America enjoy. Today was a reminder of this.

Today I attempted to break the law. I did so inadvertently, but my attempt was noticed and I was punished for it.

I was in a supermarket and purchased $300 of groceries in time for Christmas. Among those purchases was 12 bottles of beer. When I took them to the register I was informed of my transgression and was told that I must wait until noon until she could ring them through. So I was forced to stand there holding up the line from 11:58am to 12:01pm before her register would allow the sale to go through.

So thanks to this crazy law prohibiting the sale of alcohol between midnight Saturday and noon Sunday I had three minutes of my life stolen. So did the people in the line behind me.

I assume that this law was designed to ensure people were sober in church. However, in this day and age I can fill my fridge with alcohol at any time so nothing is going to stop me going to church drunk if I want to. All this law does is create inconvenience for people. It is time to take ridiculous and archaic laws off the books and allow people to buy alcohol as and when they choose.

It is not the place of the government or the state to try and impose moral and religious beliefs on others with laws like this.

In other crazy Tennessee news, they have an interesting separation of beer, wine and liquor here too. I can buy beer or so called malt beverages in the supermarket but not wine. I can go to a liquor store which by law must be called a Package Store. In this package store I can buy anything that is not beer and contains at least 1% alcohol. This means that I can buy some Everclear (containing up to 95% alcohol) but I cannot buy some coke to dilute it or some chips and dip to serve with it. If I buy a cocktail mixer in the same store it will contain 1% alcohol even though I plan on mixing it with tequila. The same law prevents me from buying a corkscrew in the same store because it too doesn't contain any alcohol. It is also a legal requirement that whatever I buy be wrapped before I leave. I cannot pick up a bottle of champagne and walk out with it even if my car is right outside. The bottle must be placed in a brown bag.

The sooner these old white men that are in charge die off and a younger generation take over and sweep out all these old cobwebs the better.

My Kingdom For A Crunchie

I am proud of being a Brit, and I enjoy living here in America. However, one of the things I miss from home is Cadbury's. For some reason a number of years ago (this is my way of not bothering to research the facts) Cadbury's in a classic act of British laziness sold the rights to their name to Hersheys instead of bothering to market their outstanding products here in the USA. This includes the Crunchie, my favorite chocolate bar.

This stupid move meant that Americans are forever deprived from eating wonderful British chocolate and are forever condemned to a world of bad chocolate, mixed with various nut or nut derived combinations. American chocolate is nowhere near as nice as British chocolate (I've had Americans verify this) and it's all the fault of a lazy British company selling their rights to America. In much the same way as they did with Bentley, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce, Land Rover, Jaguar, and more.

As an insulting reminder to this British incompetence I found a Violet Crumble in a supermarket today. A Violet Crumble is Australia's answer to the Crunchie (okay so they invented it and Crunchie came later but tastes better). So thanks to the incompetence of British business I now have to pay to import my favorite British chocolate bars, or buy some Australian crap from my local supermarket.

UPDATE: Santa brought me some Crunchies imported directly from England, YAY!

Happy Holidays Nazis

I just wanted to wish all those Right wing Christian extremist Nazis, Happy Holidays.

Since Bush was elected and has brought his religious fundamentalism together with his economic, ethical and business prowess to the White House ordinary people have been under siege. The latest attack brought about by the assholes that run Faux News and those stupid enough to watch it, is the notion of the war on Christmas. Just because companies like Wal-Mart choose to use a non-denominational greeting of Happy Holidays instead of Happy Christmas, does not make them the spawn of Satan. They are in fact the spawn of Satan for a number of other socio economic reasons that have nothing to do with Christmas.

If you actually look up the term holidays in the dictionary you'll find that one of the definitions is:

"A religious feast day; a holy day."

So to all those fundamentalist assholes out there I would like to remind you that Christians are actually a minority on this planet and even in America it is quite acceptable for companies to use an inclusive greeting that actually recognizes people like Jews, black and Asian people and those who don't believe exactly as you do.

Christmas is basically a hijacked pagan holiday anyway and isn't even an accurate representation of the alleged birth of Christ. So if I have one hope for the holiday season it is that normal people begin to realize how fucked up these fundamentalists are and re-acquire control over society so that we can all behave in a more inclusive and rational fashion.

That said, happy holidays! Even to the bigots. Even to the people who watch Faux News.

The New Apprentice

I think that like many people (at least according to some polls) I was rather disappointed to see that when Randal was hired he blocked Trump's idea to hire Rebecca as well. At the time of writing the official Yahoo! poll shows that 22% feel that Randal should have been fired for his actions, while another 49% feel that Trump should have hired both anyway.

Randal was certainly an outstanding candidate who was clearly superior to any of the other options. While he deserves to be the next Apprentice I don't think he made any friends with the manner in which he dismissed the notion that Rebecca should also get a job.

Personally I think this is a problem with some aspects of American culture, the feeling that first place is to be won at all costs and second place makes you a loser. Let's face it, Rebecca bested hundreds of thousands of people to make it to second, for her to leave empty handed despite all that she achieved, the tenacity and determination she showed is rather sad. I'm sure she could contribute a lot to the company. I'd certainly give her a job, but I don't think I'd be able to pay what Trump can!

I was also amazed to discover yesterday that Rebecca is only 23! That is truly an amazing achievement to do all the things she has done in her life and make it through to the final of one of the toughest competitions on TV.

Despite this disappointing ending, The Apprentice is still a great show, and I look forward to the LA version coming next season.

Who the fuck is Lauren Keiser?

Lauren Keiser is an asshole and president of the Music Publishers Association. In a recent interview he stated that the goal of the MPA in 2006 was to start targeting music web sites that publish lyrics and instruct people how to play their favorite tunes.

But he was not content to obtain injunctions, request copyrighted material be removed, or encourage the recording industry to provide a legal alternative. No, this prick stated that the music fans that operate such sites should be THROWN IN JAIL. America already has more people in jail per capita than any free country in the world. People that publish little fan sites are not hurting the music industry, if anything they are helping it by getting people more into bands and thus more likely to pay to see them perform or buy their music.

People like this disgust me. I hope he gets thrown in jail.

Omaha H/L

I've been playing Omaha H/L on TestPokerStars.com. TPS is a new site owned by PokerStars.com which is a beta test bed for all the new stuff they are likely to offer on their main site in the future. It's play money only, but it can be fun when you are not in the mood to gamble.

Although I think it is boring to describe hands to other people (or at least I find it boring to listen) here is the hand I just played:

I flopped a boat, threes full of sixes. On the turn I made sixes full of threes. On the river I made quad threes. I got beat by quad sixes. Thankfully I had a big chip lead and the other player was short stacked so I didn't get hurt as badly as I could have. I've just never seen quads over quads before, it was crazy.

$100m Whine

In America they like to do things big. Almost every day I see some form of competition offering millions of dollars in prizes. Americans like money like they like their fast food: Too much is never enough.

However, one of things that can be lacking in America some times is consumer protection that more liberal countries consider important. One such area that annoys me are big cash prizes offered by various companies as promotions, and of course the lottery.

My last post talked about $100,000,000 being offered by Noble Poker. Now that sounds like a lot of money, and it is of course. However here is the reality:

If you take the standard prize they pay $1m per year for 49 years, and then on year 50 you get $50m (or a family member if you are dead). Now that's still a nice prize, although the odds of winning it are probably as bad as the lottery because you have to make a final table and then get dealt a Royal Flush in spades using your two hole cards in the first 250 hands dealt.

But let's say you were lucky enough to win your likely pay out is $600,000 per year after tax. As nice as that is it is hardly the $100,000,000 that gets your attention. The other option they offer you is to take $25,000,000 as a lump sum which would probably be about $14,000,000 after tax. Again, a very nice prize, but still not $100m.

I just think that America needs to change the law so that prizes have to be advertised as they truly are. When McDonald's does their $1m prize promotions, they pay out over 25 years which means you could barely give up working.

I also think that prizes should not be taxed, especially winnings from a poker tournament. The government can make plenty of taxes taxing lottery ticket sales without taking half of people's winnings from them.

All that said I would not mind winning any of the above prizes.

Poker Big Enough Yet?

As if proof were needed that the poker bubble has yet to burst, Noble Poker, a relatively small online poker site is hosting a $100,000,000 competition for free! Yes to clarify that is the correct number of zeros, we are talking $100 million dollars.

The deal is you can enter a free roll tournament and if you make it to the final table you will be flown to a secret location to see who wins. The winner gets part of a half million dollar prize pool. If a royal flush of spades is dealt the person holding those cards walks away with the $100m. This is not BS either, so they say, the prize is insured by a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.

Granted it is pretty unlikely to happen, but there are some other big prizes on offer too including $1m for any other royal flush and several hundred thousand for quads. It would certainly be a fun final table to be on.

Poker Rant

A recent news article prompted me to write this rant.

When is the US government going to live up to its mandate of doing what the people want? It is quite clear from the sheer number of people who play poker both in real life and online, and those that watch the sport on TV that Americans want the freedom to play poker online.

Right now billions of dollars are being invested into this business, but because of the stubborn and incompetent Republican government, nothing is being done to allow citizens to play the game they love.

Americans currently have to break the law to play their favorite game online, while other countries have taken the intelligent step of legalizing, regulating, and taxing the industry. What happened to the freedom?

Right now I could fly to Vegas and play in a legal poker game that could potentially cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour if I play incorrectly. Here in Tennessee I could actually be arrested for playing online, or playing a few friends for $10 in a bar. None of this makes any sense at all. Most of the laws the government are hiding behind were written before the invention of the Internet.

Poker is an American tradition, a wonderful game of skill, and yet Americans are being treated like second class citizens by their own government. If this is a democracy give the people what they want: The right to play poker in the privacy of their own homes.

Aww cute cats

In my quest to be as original as ever I thought I would upload a picture of my cats. I can't imagine that anyone has ever put a picture of their pets on a blog or homepage. So I guess it's another original right here at ZCT 168!

I did not make them pose for this, they were just sharing a loving hug outside my study when I went to bed last night. Awwwwww.

The one on top is Figment, the smaller yet fatter one is Sphinx. The picture was taken with my Motorola Razr, hence the low quality. What more can I say.

The Tag She Is Great

The new Tag arrived at 2:26pm, the day after I ordered it at 9:30am. I am too lazy to do the math, but it arrived quickly and was everything I hoped it would be. I am amazed at the efficiency and quality of service from the company I purchased it from. For those interested I bought it on AuthenticWatches.com. They have a great customer service record with reputable online retailers like eBay and Amazon.com. I have to say, if you are in the market for a classy watch, save yourself 20-40% and don't buy it from some smug jewelers.

Jessica Simpson Screwed

Naive Jessica Simpson whose father probably drilled into her the fallacy that marriage was a life long magical journey is set to be screwed over in the divorce with Nick Lachey. [News Source].

When they got married Nick was in very good financial shape and drew up a prenuptial agreement for her to sign. She refused. During their three years of marriage her star has been on the up and up and as a result she is now significantly more wealthy than Nick. But under California law she will now have to split her additional wealth 50/50 unless they agree to settle in a different way.

The moral of the story: Always get a prenup, don’t listen to your father when he is trying to bang you, stop trying to live in a fairy tale where marriage is some kind of magical gift from God.

Jessica is both naive and ignorant which is in no small part thanks to her creepy father. As far as he is concerned no one, not even a relatively famous multi-millionaire singer, is good enough for her. Unless she realizes a few home truths about her father she is doomed to a life of short term and ultimately failed relationships, sabotaged by her seemingly incestuous father.