Was Michael Jackson really that great?

I want to start out by saying that I feel sorrow and sadness for Michael's friends and family and especially his three children who will now grow up with only a faint memory of their father.

That being said, I am kind of stunned at the outpouring of emotion over MJ's death. I would understand it if it all happened 25 years ago, 2 years after Thriller came out. That would have been a great loss. Back then. In 1984. Because Michael Jackson was a genius and an innovator. 25 years ago.

But since then, it's been pretty much one long episode of "True Hollywood Story". Countless plastic surgeries, several child molestation lawsuits (always settled out of court - I wonder why), baby-dangling over balconies, some hate lyric scandals here and there, Saudi prince bailouts, Neverland foreclosures, planned and cancelled mega-tours and drama, drama, drama. Lots of drama.

Genius usually comes hand in hand with insanity and boy did this kid have it bad. Whacko Jacko started out young in an insane family and lots of talent. Talent became super-stardom which was way too hard to handle alone and the whole thing collapsed. And such a shame too, because some of his songs, dance moves and beats are incredible and will live on for eternity.

I didn't see the "King of Pop" die yesterday. I saw a reclusive pedophile freak die and get a lot of media coverage. Because that's what we consume as shallow human beings. Shame on us!

The "King of Pop" died a long long time ago.

RIP Michael. I hope the demons will finally leave you alone.

Try your hand at 888.com

Practice your poker skills in our online casino poker rooms or play for big prizes in a regular poker tournament. Enter 888.com and get a step closer to winning the jackpot!

Iran (or: Seriously what were they thinking?)

So this blog has become an op-ed by Kajagugu lately since I don't play much poker but still have opinions. And the latest topic is... Iran. So here goes.

I am shocked that people are surprised the elections were rigged. But the only way these things resolve themselves is through civil unrest and a powerful revolt by the population. Not by blog comments and changing your twitter logo to green. Come on.

How did this regime come into power? Revolution against the corrupt Shah in whatever year it was. You can't topple a dictatorship through elections. Has history taught you nothing? Instead of wasting your campaign money, you should go hire some ex-CIA, ex-Mossad, ex-MI6 folks and bring them in to help you organize a revolt. Get some "hashasheens" to take out the top political figures. Disrupt secret military installations. Create chaos. And only then take to the streets. Maybe that will work.

Did anyone think that Khameini would preach democracy this morning during his speech? Did anyone think Ahmadinejad (is he related to Ali Nejad BTW? Burn!) would just gracefully step down or even perform a recount? Why would anyone even take the time to go vote in that country? If I lived there and had an hour to spare I would start running for the hills as fast as I could.

So here are a couple of stories about Iran/Iraq for you. We had two kids in my class in high-school who were from the region. Mehran from Tehran and Mehrdad from Baghdad. I am not kidding, those were their real names. I'm not sure how Mehran got out but I assume it was during the time the Shah's regime was overthrown. But Mehrdad was a different story. He walked by himself from Baghdad over the mountains to Turkey and eventually made his way to the coast. He was probably 13 years old. And he did it alone. Can you imagine?

Here, let me draw a map for you:



Second story. Half a life ago I used to work in a pawn shop in LA. I might have mentioned it before. The real money in a pawn shop is obviously generated from interest and fees, but some people never show up to pick up their shit so then the store can sell it. And since the loan is for about 10% of the street value of the item you can then sell it for 50% and make a 400% profit. Easy math.

Most people bring jewelery, but others bring anything they can get their hands on. From big screen TVs to cars to boats to guns to tools to musical instruments (including some pretty priceless Stradivarius violins) to art work (including an original Chagall) to well, pretty much anything that can be resold. We took almost anything. Our mantra was, if one idiot paid money for it, there's going to be another idiot who will pay money for it again.

We had a lot of electronics. And this old Iranian dude would show up every few weeks and ask to buy all the stuff that looked brand new in a box. And he would haggle me to tears in the worst English with the worst Iranian accent ever. He basically tried to get everything for free. That was his negotiation starting point. So I would start at full retail price with markup. And we would go at it for a couple of hours until he either left in a huff or he would break down and buy something.

Then one day I figured it out. He owned an electronics store and was selling my items to his client as new for full retail. What a scumbag. At least anyone buying from me knew it was not new, even if it was in a sealed original box.

Now any time I hear Ahmadinejad speaking his nasal Iranian I immediately flash back to that old dude who gave me such a hard time. God, I hated that fucker!

Go Iran!

Bruno

How awesome is this guy? I don't think I would have the balls to pull of this git'up (pun obviously intended):



This movie will be great!

I made it on the Daily Show

I kid you not. Check it out below. About 40 seconds in:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Auto-Neurotic Gas Fixation
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Hiking & Camping

So the weather is finally starting to get better and I even took Kajakid to the pool this weekend. Next on the adventurous agenda is camping. While I did my fair share of hiking and camping in the army, I think my daughter is going to love it. And since her best friend's dad suggested it, I figure we might give it a go.

I think baby steps are the way to tackle this monster. We'll probably put up a tent in the backyard just to see how the kids handle sleeping outside before we get a meltdown in the middle of the night somewhere far away from home. I can't just imagine it's 11pm and we have two crying kids wanting to go home, which is a 2 hour drive away or something.

The part I am not that worried about is the actual hiking. Yesterday these two ran circles around the living room furniture for a good 4 hours, so if anything, the problem might be my terrific physical state. One thing I know about myself (although a lot of time has passed) is that I can walk pretty much forever. And you can put a lot of weight on me too and it won't bother me. As long as there is no running involved.

So we're going to need to get the kids some hiking boots. I will probably need some things comfortable too. Although, I don't think the hiking part is going to be the main attraction. I think the smores will be. Kids love smores. Not sure what it is, but they love 'em.

Anyway, for all your travel and outdoor fun shopping try out shopwiki. Looks like they have everything you may need.

Beware of bears!

Car thoughts by Kajagugu

I love cars and I love to drive. The longer the drive the better, I say. And I was just thinking the other day about my current car situation. Functional, but no fun. We have a Yukon and an MDX and it's mostly for safety and size.

Our last fun car was a BMW. My wife actually bought it for herself when her Ford Explorer lease was up, but then I ended up driving it because the MDX was easier for her to get a baby seat in and out of. That beemer was awesome with all the sports package upgrades and a stick shift. It was a sad day when we turned it in at the end of it's lease.

I've never really owned any fancy cars. My first car was my grandfather's Suzuki Swift, which is probably similar to a Geo or Kia(read: crap). It was great to get around in and had amazing gas mileage, but it was nothing to write home about.

What I did write home about were all the awesome cars I drove while working at a pawn shop in LA. We had an auto pawn license and people would just leave their cars for cash. Then it was my job to take these cars to our massive parking lot in the valley. So here's a list of my top 3 favorites:

1. '55 T-Bird: This thing was beautiful. It was brought to the store by some lady who took it from her husband in a bitter divorce settlement. She didn't care about it at all and pawned it right away, not ever intending to pick it back up. So after a few months it became store property and I got to drive it around on weekends. Cherry red, convertible, two-seater - what else could you want when you're broke and 23 years old in LA?



2. Porsche Carrera S4: Some Russian thug brought it in because the dealer delivered it in the wrong color. So he pawned it with about 25 miles on the odometer for about $50K. I actually had to go to the bank in a "nice" part of town to get the cash. With two big Rottweilers by my side. We drove it slow on the freeway and parked it indoors, then covered it with a silk parachute so that nothing bad happens to it. Was still a great experience.



3. Big-ass Monster Truck: Some redneck showed up with this beast and told me that the gas guage was broken, "so just fill it up everytime before you drive it." I drove that thing up the 405 in traffic and had everyone get the hell out of my way.



So now I'm driving my good 'ole MDX and thinking about what my next car will be. I'm in no rush. In the meantime I will leave you with a an old favorite. Take it away, Gary:

So this is a poker blog, right?

I guess some poker content is due. I actually played a tiny bit online the other day. It all started when I won a little challenge by @Andy_Bloch on Twitter. Some fundage was sent to my FTP account so I needed to finally install the poker client to see how much money was in the account. On the way I also installed PokerStars, where I actually have some money left and PokerTracker3, which is all paid for.

I wasn't going to play seriously and saw that the quadruple shootout satellite to the WSOP ME was about to start. I jumped in knowning full well there is no way I can sit there for 6 hours and go through 10K player to take one of 10 spots. But it always feels good to get this when you're not even trying:



And the other guy shoved into me on the river. Nice.

Oh yeah, I won that table and waited forever for the others to finish. Then within two minutes of starting the second table we had a break. I was done and just shoved blind until I was out.

But that gave me a little confidence boost. I have no idea when I will be able to play again with a new baby and a ton of work. But it sure was fun.

Kaja Recommends: Timex

Welcome ladies and germs. It's been a while since I've reviewed anything here in this forsaken corner of the poker blogosphere. So I wanted to pimp the latest from Timex. You know Timex, right? They've been around since forever. And they make awesome timepieces. You know how I know? Because I used to own one for the longest time. Let me share.

About half my life ago I was young and fit. I served in the armed forces of the only democracy in the middle east. I moved around a bunch and managed to set foot on all four corners of my country (and sometimes just a bit outside of it). There was a lot of grease involved and a lot of dirt. And through it all, my trusty Timex was there to tell me how long I had until that hell was over. I used it in a variety of ways:

1. Alarm - good feature, but unnecessary because someone would always wake you up before you thought.
2. Time telling - that is something extremely important, but yet again, someone was always there to tell you how much time you had left and move it!
3. Date - now here is one that was crucial. Without it you were pretty much guaranteed to have no idea when you started on this journey.
4. Coffee maker - yeah right.

Now seriously, all kidding aside, I relied on my watch a lot. Whether it was coordinating a silent attack where we had to sync watches or counting the seconds it took for an artillery shell to land so you could time your infantry attack just right.

Anyway, my point was - go get a Timex. And also, dig their new logo:

Twitter & Interweb Cycles & Human Nature

Since I don't play much poker these days and have been busy with all sorts of other things (life, work, getting ready for KajaKid #2, etc.) I figured this would be the best place for me to write down some of my thoughts. If you don't like it then move along. But if you do stay and let me know what you think.

So one of the things that I have been thinking about recently is the cyclical nature of the interwebs in general and Twitter specifically. I've had a few twitter accounts for some time now and originally the @Kajagugu account was so annoying that I pretty much ditched it. I turned off notifications and stopped updating. I've recently started playing around with Twitter again under my other accounts (business and personal).

So why do I say Twitter is cyclical? Because in my opinion it is based on the same concepts of one of the first technologies to appear on the internet called IRC. For those who don't know what IRC was - it was the first version of real time online chat rooms. You chose a nickname and channel and you would chat with the people on that channel. There were topics about pretty much everything, you could send direct messages or reply to everyone. You could ignore people who annoy you.

Twitter is a single channel chat room. You can add topics by using #hashtags and everyone can see your responses unless you send a direct message. You can also block other users if you want. It's very similar to IRC and might even be a simplified version of it.

Obviously since all the tweets are stored on the Twitter servers there is some additional functionality, like search, but really there is nothing special about it. The genius behind it is that it play on peoples natural emotional needs:

Recognition: This whole business of 'followers' and 'following' allows people to feel important. "Wow, look who's following me" they might say to themselves. "Look how many people are interested in my boring little life." If you think about it a second you will realize how preposterous it is. Half of your followers are dormant accounts or some sort of spam at this point. Which brings us to the next point:

Popularity: Twitter is a place for the "cool kids" to compare how many followers they have. And the more you have the more perceived influence you have. It's especially hilarious when you follow the people who created this site. They spend less than 5% of their time interacting with their followers and would rather micro-blog their wonderful lives for all to see. And then there are the "social media experts" too. Oh, they know everything. Just ask them.

Addiction: There's no arguing that Twitter is extremely addictive. I've fallen into this pattern too and my initial thought was that I don't want to miss anything the people I am following say. But really, who cares? How is this any different than Digg or StumbleUpon which are just ways for people to share other website? Hey look, Guy Kawasaki linked to another demo of how to use Alltop! I must retweet that so that everyone who follows me will know how smart I am!

Let's face the facts. Twitter is a fad that has managed to raise $55M so far with no real way of making money. There's been talk of monetizing it somehow for targeted marketing, but that's just a derivitive of permission-based spam. There's been talk about what a powerful real-time search engine it is, but with a greasemonkey script in FireFox I can run a single search and get the last 5 Twitter search results as well. So what's the big deal?

The big deal is that our attention span as human is getting shorter every day. We don't want to read complete articles, we want excerpts. We don't want excerpts, we want 140 character-max messages. We don't want everyone's messages, so let's just use tweetDeck and filter out the noise. How many of you made it this far in the post? Probably less than half of those who started at the top.

If you want to follow some interesting people, I give you two who are a must: @cwalken (last tweet: She said I should talk more about my cat; that people like that sort of thing here. I didn't know I still had a cat. Explains a few things.) and @BobbyBracelet (last tweet: "If my head was made of veal, how much would it be worth?" is possibly the most random quote to pop into my head in quite some time.)

That is all.