Today I went to Brooklyn and worked with another guy setting up shelves, and did some other stuff, then I headed over to Canal St and worked doing an art handling job. Then I went back to Brooklyn and changed out of my sweatshirt (it smelled), and put on a dress shirt because I had to go teach back on Canal St.
Then I headed over to Canal St, and I bought an apple and a large coffee. I went up to my classroom and I was there a half hour early so I sat down and mentally went over what I wanted to say to the class to get them started on the right foot for a new project. Sometimes teaching involves a good delivery, almost like a sales pitch, sort of here is what we are going to do, and you should want to do it and here is why. I always think of Tom Sawyer getting everyone else to paint the white fence by saying how great it was to paint the fence.
I listened to the Alex Jones podcast, the WNYC Radiolab on The War of the Worlds, and a Classic Tales Podcast that was titled something like The Blue Cross.
Then I rode the LIRR back home, and when I got here I was not sleepy at all so I decided I would watch No Country for Old Men again, but I may switch over to High Stakes Poker on the Game Show Network at 2am if I am bored. I really like HSPoker, because they have a lot of colorful people playing, but most of all because Gabe Kaplan is the announcer, Gabe Kaplan was Mr. Cotter in the 1970's sitcom Welcom Back Cotter that started John Travolta. He is really funny, he makes cracks about the guys playing and the other host, and anyways, I like that show.
As far as poker shows go, I have to say that the WSOP (on ESPN) peaked in 2005 with the Mike the Mouth Final Table, and has gone down hill rapidly since then, with the exception of some episodes of last years HORSE tournament. Mostly because it has become more of a soap opera format and less about the game, and they have neglected the main drama in favor of akwardly easy to understand big hands. The main drama is when someone is faced with a difficult decision, and you know the answer (because they show you the cards in a table cam) and you watch them think about what to do, I like it better when one of the guy gives a hard time to the guy having to make the decision. Some people are uncanny, if you watch the 2003 final table and see Dan Harrington make correct decision after correct decision it is like he is a god damned mind reader, that becomes so exceptionally exciting to me that I can barely sit still, I love watching poker players make decisions.
There is a new Sammy Farha book out about Omaha, which is a poker game, I won't bother explaining it, you can google it, but I read the first 10 pages in Barnes and Nobles and it is well written and seems like Mr. Farha's authentic voice, which I was interested to see because the book has a ghost writer. I bought two books put out by the World Poker Tour about 3 years ago, and not only was the advice crappy, but they were ghost written and they lacked personality. So it was good to see Sammy Farha's book seems like a real book that is pretty interesting. The funny thing about Mr. Farha is on television he seems like a wild gambler, an gambling maniac, but I heard an interview on The Poker Edge with Phil Gordon (an ESPN podcast) where Mr. Farha did not only not come across as a wild an aggressive man, he seemed thoughtful and almost deseperate to be understood, he had empathy, and he was sincere. I think great poker players have extra empathy, and that means they are sensitive folks, and in my mind sensitive folks are artists. Especially if they write books.
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