MarkKawakami.com

I love short track, I hate Dick Button

Categories: Television

For someone nat that into sports, I really like the Olympics, both winter and summer (though only certain events). Basically I've figured out that I pretty much like the sports where people fly through the air: basketball, pretty much everything at the X Games, beach volleyball (well, women's beach volleyball). So naturally there's a lot in the Winter Olympics that I dig, especially now that they added snowboarding.

And as for snowboarding, man you gotta be impressed with Shaun White. He's got 6 Gold Medals in the X Games (including gold in Superpipe for the last four winters) and now a Gold medal in the Winter Olympics. He's not even old enough to drink.

Anyhow, so since I like the fly-through-the-air sports, I obviously dig the figure skating as much as the next person. But it's funny I forget this in the non-Olympic years: I hate Dick Button.

I mean, it's bad enough that he thinks his job is to talk for as long as possible, regardless of relevance, coherence, sentence structure or what the skater is actually doing at the time. I know they pay the commentators to talk, but just shut the hell up if you don't actually have something relevant to add. I mean, cheesy as they are, the end of a skater's performance is meant to be dramatic, why don't you just wait for the damn music to end before jumping in with a rambling and redundant line of incomprehensible jive?

"Redundant" is really the active word in that sentence. Here's a typical Dick Button blah blah: "Well, it just didn't flow for me, the transitions didn't gel, it wasn't very well connected, like it was just one jump then another, no flow, it never really held together." Gee, thanks Dick!

Of course, redundancy is like NBC's watchword. Apparently, the new Figure Skating scoring system allows you to build up points. And apparently Georg Hackel makes his own Luge sleds. Oh, and did you hear that Michelle Kwan withdrew or something? Also, Georg Hackel makes his own Luge sleds. That makes him special.

Anyhow, it turns out there's a non-airborne event I really dig, and that's Short Track Speed Skating. I never really got into regular Speed Skating, because like Luge, Skeleton and most of the other various races, if you've seen one speed skating race, you've seen them all*. But Short Track is totally the opposite: Half the field can wipe out in a crash on the first turn. The pressure to pass and the few seconds racers have to do it in mean they have to take big risks or settle for something other than gold. I started watching it (like everyone else) in the 2002 Winter games, and I've been looking forward to short track so much that I was worried that it wasn't as cool as I remembered. But it is! I mean my adrenaline really gets pumping watching this.

Now, if they could just figure out a way to get people to fly through the air in Short Track.

* And what the hell is the Biathlon about? Cross-Country + Shooting: The sport of Soviet border guards.

Arrested Development Finale #1

Categories: Television

This show is way too funny to cancel. I'm halfway through Fox's final screwing of a show it never deserved (for those of you just joining in, Fox is running the final four episodes in one single block on a Friday night. Against the opening ceremonies of the freakin' Winter Olympics! Assholes).

Whatever. Anyhow, I'm wearing the awesome "I've made a huge mistake" t-shirt Jon sent me for my birthday, and watching the final four (hopefully the final four on Fox, but not the final final four) and it's going out as funny as it came in. Funnier, even.

81. Eight-One. Eighty-freaking-one

Categories: Lakers

Jeez, did I pick the wrong night to not watch basketball. Kobe Bryant scored 81 points Sunday night against Toronto. 81. Here's how big this number is: The Lakers have played five games this season where there were less than 81 points scored by the entire team. Last year, there were 92 players who didn't score that many points in the entire season. It's entirely possible that it's more baskets than I've ever made in my entire life, but then again I've played basketball about twice since high school P.E.

Obviously, it's a personal record for Bryant, easily beating the 62 point career-high he posted last month. It's a team record, beating the 71-point game Elgin Baylor set in 1960. In fact, it's the second highest single-game total ever, only Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962 scored higher. And it was a totally different game back then, scores were much higher. But they also didn't have the three-point field goal back then, so it's arguably a harder achievement.

Anyhow, the previous number-two record (also by Chamberlain) was 78 points, set in 1961. These records have been held so long they're practically set in stone, it's next to impossible to get this many points in a single game any more. I mean, it's been 44 years since Chamberlain's 100-point game. To put it another way, the last time anyone scored this many points in a single game, my parents were still in college.

So, this is frankly astounding. Even more astounding: Despite having a player capable of making history, a guy on the very short list for MVP, the Lakers still have a worse record than the Clippers.

The Prettiest Thing I Own (and the prettiest thing I don't)

Categories: Just Plain Cool, Technical

Turned 31, got some dough from my folks and spent it on... A video iPod. Just like the one hopefully pictured here, except mine's in black.

But it's pretty. Soooooooo pretty. So, freakin' pretty. While on my lunch break at my office, I can watch last weeks episode of "The Office" (incidentally, is anyone else beginning to like the American version more than the British version?)

Now, you may or may not already know, but I already have an iPod, one of the 4G iPods (20GB, click-wheel, yadda, yadda), so I guess I'm gonna be selling that or something. Anyone in the market? You'll get the iPod, charger, a firewire cable, a cool doohickey that receives FM radio, a case, the original box and most importantly: brand new unopened, unused iPod earbuds. That's big because no matter your affection for me personally, you almost definitely don't love my earwax.

Now onto the prettiest thing I don't own: My new high-definition CRT television. Technically it's neither new nor mine, but it's sitting on my entertainment center hooked up to my cable box and my DVD player, so it's more than close enough. How did this magical thing happen? Well, my friend Jason is the actual owner of this nice TV, but he's decided to upgrade to a sexier, bigger, flatter plasma. So he decided that my living room was the perfect place to "store" his "old" tv. So some day, when he wakes up and realizes that you don't just give people HDTVs unless you win the lottery, the World Series of Poker or inherit an HDTV factory, I'll have to give it back. Hopefully by then I'll have one of my own, 'cuz I can tell you right now that I can't go back.

Learn How to Learn How to Play Poker

Categories: Books, Poker

First off: Hope everyone's holidays* were good. I visited my parents for Christmas and had a lot of fun.

Anyhow, last summer my parents went to the Czech Republic with my brother Ted and his wife, Martina to visit Martin's family. While there they learned how to play Texas Hold 'Em. Quick side note: Gambling with foreign currency is apparently a very fast way to learn how their currency works. Anyhow, since Ted and Martina regularly play poker with their friends, and, well... you know me... it turns out Hold 'Em is something we can do as a family. So on Christmas we played poker at Ted and Martina's apartment (after a very nice lunch they prepared for us, thanks T&M!).

While playing, Ted asked me what some good poker books were, though mostly out of curiosity I think since he's pretty good himself. A few days later, I ordered a couple of poker books for my parents because now that they know the rules, it's not fair if they don't have some basic strategery to back it up. Plus they have a set of chips and a portable tabletop (actually, they have mine and I have theirs, long story) and will probably use it most frequently while motorhoming with the camping group, and I think it'd be cool if they could bully the table around with their mad pokah skillz.

And someone else asked me about good poker books recently as well, though I don't remember who. The point is, I've decided to list the poker books I've found useful (and a few I haven't). There's also a DVD I'm going to mention even though I haven't actually seen it, simply because I've just stumbled across it and it looks like it might be useful for beginners.

Winning Low Limit Hold'em (third edition) by Lee Jones

Without a doubt, this should be the very first poker book anyone should get. It doesn't matter whether you just want to be able to hold your own at a home game your friends invite you to or if your dream is to one day quit your job and turn pro, this is where you start. First of all, it's a great general introduction to the basic structure and rules of the game. But it's the general strategic advice that he gives you where the book really shines. Rather than getting bogged down in advanced things like body language or game theory-based bluffing strategies or whatnot, Jones focuses on the core principles of the game: Starting hand selection, position and pot odds. He also stresses a tight and aggressive style of play and teaches you to "win by folding", a concept that beginners (myself included) tend to miss until they read the book. As the title implies, it's geared towards the low-limit games that you find in every cardroom and poker site around, however if you really sink your teeth into the book, the general principles will make you a competent player even against the toughest veterans you're likely to meet.

It's also helped considerably by the fact that Jones is a pretty good writer (unfortunately, this is on the rare side in the poker world), so it's easy to read and even has a few jokes thrown in for good measure. And it's a relatively skinny book (earlier editions especially), which cuts down on the intimidation factor. The third edition, published earlier this year, also includes very useful chapters on online single-table tournaments that have become extremely popular.

Small Stakes Hold 'em by Ed Miller, Mason Malmuth and David Sklansky

Far more advanced than the above book, but definitely important for refining your low limit game. I confess I have yet to finish this book.

The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky

One of the most important poker books ever written, and the one most players will probably tend to re-read most often. Re-reading is essential because you really can only "get" a couple of chapters on each pass through. It's not suitable for beginners, and I should know since it was the first poker book I bought and way over my head at the time, but I can handle it (mostly) now. The chapter on the semi-bluff changed my game for the better practically overnight.

Harrington on Hold 'Em, Vol. I and Vol. II by Dan Harrington with Bill Robertie

These two books, by one of the very best players in the history of the game, are probably the best poker books to date. That's a bold statement, there's a million poker books out now, but I stand by it. They are principally about tournament play, which differs from cash games in some very important ways, but a most of the advice (especially in Volume I) is applicable to both. I could go on all night about everything that these books do right but it's easier to just say that despite having some skill and some knowledge, I didn't really understand Hold'em on a fundamental level until I read Volume I, and didn't really understand tournaments until I read Volume II. Don't get me wrong, I'm far, far from being an expert and I don't pretend otherwise — in fact I'd rate myself as merely "decent" — but the training wheels are off now and it's Dan Harrington I have to thank for that.

Winning Texas Hold 'Em (DVD)

And finally, here's the DVD that I haven't actually watched. I originally wanted to get my parents an instructional DVD rather than books, but couldn't find one that seemed like it would be suitable for beginners without being too simplistic. Most DVDs appear to be targeted towards slightly more advanced players, and those that aren't generally haven't received very glowing reviews. If I had come across this one the other day, this is what I would have gotten them in addition to "Winning Low Limit Hold'em". Instead I got them the "Poker for Dummies" book (in addition to "Winning Low Limit"), which appears to be better received than the Dummies DVD they also sell.

So, that's the list. I've read other books and have generally found them useful (well, not Phil Helmuth's), but these are the "stranded on a desert island" poker books. I'd have included "Super/System", but... well I haven't actually read (or even bought) it, which is somewhat sacrilegious for someone who claims to take his poker seriously. What can you do?

* Technically we're still in the middle of them, the last holiday of the Holiday Season being New Year's day.

"One Day in September"

Categories: Movies

I just re-watched the documentary "One Day in September" last night. I caught it on cable a couple of years ago. It's about terrorism at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the subsequent events of which are the subject of Spielberg's new film "Munich".

When I saw it the first time, I was shocked at how little I knew about this whole event, I think I kind of recall a paragraph on it in one of my high school textbooks. But it really seems like the sort of thing that would filter into the public consciousness and people would just know about it, like the Kennedy assassination or Watergate.

I wanted to re-watch it before seeing the new movie because I can't imagine being able to really understand "Munich" without seeing "One Day". It's a heartbreaking and infuriating documentary. Infuriating towards the subject I mean, not the doc itself. The whole situation was made worse by incompetence piled on top of cowardice on top of incompetence, and aside from the hostages themselves, there's very few that come out looking blameless. Anyhow, I just figured I should mention the documentary because I think, especially for people from my generation, seeing it will help contextualize "Munich" (though I haven't seen that yet). So, you know... rent it or whatever. At any rate, it really does seem like the sort of thing that everyone should know about.

You provide the prose poems, I'll provide the war

Categories: General, Political

Bernstein: (reading) "Girls delightful [at Christmas]. Stop. Could send you prose poems about scenery, but don't feel right spending your money. Stop. There is no war [on Christmas], signed Wheeler." Any answer?
Charles Kane: Yes. "Dear Wheeler: you provide the prose poems. I'll provide the war."

— "Citizen Kane", paraphrased by me

I have a hard time taking this "War on Christmas" stuff seriously, or even wrapping my head around the fact that other people take it seriously.

Like the whole "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas" thing. Some people say one thing, some say the other. But do you know anyone that seriously gets in a huff if you say "Merry Christmas"? Do you even know anyone who knows anyone who gets offended at this? What kind of half-ass war is this anyway?

Yeah, there's a few isolated incidents of this guy or that guy taking things a bit far, but nutjobs aren't Generals. Hyperbole aside, this "War on Christmas" stuff claims that there is a genuine liberal movement to suppress recognition of Christmas. I can't stress how fundamentally ridiculous the whole claim is, it's simply untrue. This is a made up issue for cable news blowhards (I won't name any networks in particular, but let's just say "They retort, I deride"). It's just this fake thing they created to have something to yell about during the holidays. It's another goddamn cultural wedge being wielded by schmucks and megalomaniacs. It doesn't exist.

Now, I'll admit that I had decided the claims were horseshit before even looking into them. That's not prejudice, that's having a good internal "laugh test". Plus there's the whole duck thing: if it looks like horseshit and smells like horseshit, I don't need to taste it before telling you that it's horseshit.

But, yeah, I haven't bothered to look into this whole "can't wear green and red to school" thing. Luckily, other people have and then they did it some more, and some other people have as well.

So, read it if you want, or just watch Fox News Blowhard (and author of the book "The War on Christmas") John Gibson go Zell-Miller-grade nuts on national TV (and read about what happened afterward as well.)

URL Substitution: A Hypothetical Solution to the Back Button/Bookmark Problem

Categories: Technical, Web Standards

I've talked about Ajax before, and I'm going to start talking about it more now that I'm working on a personal project revolving around it. So that means I'm going to get pretty technical here, feel free to skip these entries if you're not interested in that.

Anyhow, one of the big "problems" with Ajax is that it somewhat breaks a couple of the standard interaction models that the web is built on. Specifically, Ajax web applications have trouble with the Back button and with bookmarks. Personally I don't think either of these are particularly serious, though they do have to be dealt with and no perfect solution yet exists.

I think I've come up with what would be the correct solution, however it's not something that can be done yet, because it requires the the browser manufacturers (specifically Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple and Opera) to make a change to how the XMLHttpRequest object works.

Let me describe the general problem before I get into the solution. In traditional web applications, you generally know you can hit your back button to return to where you were previously, and you can bookmark your current page to return to it later. We all know this, and we've come to expect it. For instance, at Amazon, if I perform a search, I know I can bookmark the results page and be able to return to it at a later date, even if I've done other searches since then. Similarly, if I click on an item to go to its product details, I know I can hit the Back button and return to my search results.

However, in an Ajax application, things aren't so simple. The reason I can back-button and bookmark to my heart's content is because each of these things are unique pages. In other words, there is a specific URL for this specific search, and there is a specific URL for that specific product. Having a unique URL is what allows me to return at a later date to the same resource regardless of whatever interactions have occurred in the meantime. But the whole point of Ajax is to be able to take actions on a given web page, such as searching or viewing product details, without having to leave the page or reload it. The whole point is to not have a unique URL for any given application state.

So that means no bookmarking and no back-buttoning. For instance, if you perform a search on this page using the search box on the right, you can't bookmark the search results because there is nothing to bookmark. Similarly, if you perform one search and then perform another, hitting your back button won't take you back to the previous search. For some, this is a huge problem, but as I've said, I think it's a minor one that does need to be addressed.

Basically, Ajax works by having Javascript fetch data from a web server without loading a new page. There are actually several methods for doing this, but the most common, and the most forward thinking, is the XMLHttpRequest object. My idea, which I'll call "URL Substitution" focuses solely on this method and utilizes (but does not depend on) one of XMLHttpRequest's most underutilized features, the ability to set a custom HTTP header.

My Solution: URL Substitution

Allow XMLHttpRequest calls to conditionally replace the URL in the user's address bar with the URL being fetched.

Read more about "URL Substitution"

So, how was your weekend?

Categories: General

Mine was good. I saw "Goblet of Fire" (more on that later), did some programming on a personal program, watched a couple of DVDs.

Oh, and apparently, I killed a guy.

(Actually, this is a pretty f'ed up story, I probably shouldn't be making jokes. Creepy, eh?)

Showtime: Pick-Up "Arrested Development"

Categories: Television

I created the petition here: Showtime: Pick-up "Arrested Development". This is a tough one for people to sign, I bet there's a lot of people that desperately want "Arrested Development" back on the air, but wouldn't subscribe to Showtime to watch it. I totally understand.

But there's people that would, and that's the point I hope Showtime takes away from it (assuming it gets on their radar at all).

I said in the comments a while ago that if "Arrested Development" were on HBO (and Showtime is just as good), and that were the only change, it'd be a huge hit. I definitely think that's true.