Stuff to watch for
I am a huge series fan, although I don’t watch house, greys, desperate housewives or other girly stuff (partly because I don’t have a girlfriend to force it on me)
I am more of a thriller, action, sci fi and comedy fan.
I love stuff like Lost, Heroes, Smallville, Supernatural, KyleXY, Eureka, Weeds, Journeyman et al
Problem is that every year the American production companies cancel alot of shows that drop in viewership and quickly replace them with something else. Sometimes better, sometimes worse.
Sometimes some shows get dropped for no reason – case in point: Jericho
A post apocalyptic view on life in America in a little town called Jericho after the US is torn to pieces by 20 something Nuclear bombs.
The show was awesome but it got canceled, but when American viewers retaliated by sending hundreds and thousands of packets of nuts to CBS headquarters. Yes, Nuts, as in peanuts, cashews, walnuts. Nuts.
Check this youtube video
But alas some good things do come to an end, Lost will become found, Heroes will fade, Weeds will get smoked out and Clark Kent will eventually leave Smallville and will hopefully resulting in a spawning of a new series based on the JLA.
But there’s good stuff coming to replace the old.
Some shows I reckon are gonna be huge are the following :
Leverage -
A team of professionals versed in various specialist roles, i.e. a thief, a computer geek, a hitman, an actress and the brains. Kinda like Oceans 11 if you know what I mean but this is superbly put together – the old switcheroo whose gonna do who, scam the scam artist type of stuff that takes the con the con movies to a different level. Highly entertaining.
Fringe -
An entire aircraft of people melt, malform and fall apart in their seats, 47 children disappear and reappear halfway around the world 8 years later not having aged a bit, Sri Lankan fisherman report seeing a low flying plane that let out a pitch shattering windows in the area, an hour later an 8.7 earthquake hits the exact same spot creating a tsunami that kills 80 000 people, a hospital patient awakes after years of being in a coma and starts reciting numbers which turn out to be exact gps coordinates of American Battle cruisers.
All these things have something in common and it’s referred to as “The Pattern” – someone is using the world as their playground to conduct experiments beyond comprehension.
The only person who has any idea of what is actually going on is an institutionalized mad scientist and the FBI need him.
It highly entertaining as well.
Another sort of series I enjoy are these participant type gameshows where people compete against one another till there is one left;
Who wants to be a superhero
Last Comic Standing
Beauty and the Geek
The pickup artist
etc
I particularly like the zany ones like “who wants to be a superhero” it was so deliciously corny, these people running around in tights with their super powers completing tasks given to them – the one character that made me laugh from that show was a super hero called “Fat Mama” – she was a large lady that ran around in a pink outfit with doughnuts swinging from her belt – well there’s a role model for your kids eh ?
Anyway something along those lines is coming which I got a peek at and it made me laugh.
A handful of some Americans win a trip away but they have no idea what or where and are whisked off to Japan to their surprise.
They arrive in Tokyo at night and in the morning of their first day in the city they go on a tour of some recording studios, they get ushered into a studio where some show is being taped, and step out right onto the stage of a Japanese gameshow where they are the contestants.
It’s called “I survived a Japanese gameshow”
They are split into teams and have to compete against each other and one person gets sent home at a time till there is one left – that winner takes home a prize of $250 000.
Now I don’t know how much you know about Japanese gameshows but they are the WACKIEST most BIZARRE practices on planet Earth.
This show looks great.
Some examples of Japanese gameshow games : human insects, human tetris game, games where you have to eat to win, others that involve treadmills. Check out this video to see the human tetris game in action.
Here is another really funny video of hurdles on a treadmill
My first attempt at All Africa – the largest poker tournament in Africa
I left Johannesburg on wednesday afternoon just after 2.
Michael Simoes called me and told me the border at Oshoek closes at 6 so I had 4 hours to make it there, I was sposed to fetch my protien bars from Henry because I had left them at bulldogs the night before and wanted to take them with to nibble on instead of sweets while at the tables.
I had to give that a skip because the highways were going to start getting packed and I had to get onto the n12 as fast as possible.
filled up just before witbank and drove on, got bogged down in traffic near middleburg because of an accident. Some truck had crumped to peices on the highway and there was wood lying all over the road.
Turned off to Carolina and put foot, not expecting any cops to be trapping on that God forsaken stretch of road.
I managed to keep to about 180 to make up for lost time and luckily dodged a few pot holes along the way. Passed Carolina and headed to the border post, the first sign said Oshoek border post – 70 km. It was 5:15 pm
I had 45 minutes to travel 70 kilometers on a windy road through the hills, and at dusk. Not that theres much traffic up there, but I had to give it some gas. I nearly killed myself a few times trying to make it on time, there was no fucking way I was going to sleep in my car at the border post!
It was now dark and eventually I could see the lights of the border post way ahead in the distance, I had 3 minutes to get there so I gave it some more stick.
Came screaming into the border gates and hopped out my car with my passport and headed for the emmigration and customs offices so I could get my passport stamoed and stuff and asked if they were still open.
“Hauw baba! we close at 10!”
I wanted to strangle Simoes.
Anyway by the time I got past customs and emmigration on the swazi side the excitement had started building up and my breakfast was wanting out. I would not use the bathrooms at the border for love or money and decided to knuip vas and hold on the next 70 km to piggs peak.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a nice highway in swaziland and I was expecting to stick on this road all the way to Piggs Peak, except I saw a saw pointing me off teh highway and onto a road that was dark, unlit and too narrow and winding for overtaking.
Its probably one of the worst roads I had ever travelled in my life but I had no choice but to put foot and put the km’s behind me or risk shitting my pants.
Only on the way back did I realize how dangerous that road was with animals crossing the road at various places and steep ravines on each side. If I had gone over the side I reckon not even lassie & netstar would have found me.
Anyway. I eventually managed to catch up to some local yokel in a bakkie that was doing about 160 km on that road and I stuck right behind him till he drove past the hotel and I turned in.
Checked in as fast as I could, got my keys, tipped the bell boy for taking my stuff to my room, ushered him out as fast as possible and got to my business of pressing a much needed coil.
unpacked my bag, hung my clothing up, packed stuff away, assorted my outfits according to what I was gonna wear and when and went off to have dinner with the other people that had arrived on Wednesday as well.
Eventually my (1st)roomie arrived and checked in as well.
Introduced myself to Jaco Mouton, Peter Vermaas and Martie Farber.
Jaco was super friendly and chatted alot to me.
We hung out in the casino and hit the slots for a while.
I turned in for the night and woke up pretty fresh on Thursday. Went off for breakfast and then went off to get myself registered.
I was given a bag of goodies including my lanyard and add on ticket, a hoodie, a slots card with R200 on it, a card protector, the new bluff magazine, a T shirt and a few other goodies. I then drew for my seat and drew table 5 seat 10. I then had to go cash in some money for receipts so that I could had receipts for my rebuy and add on as they stipulated no cash in the poker room as it holds up the process. I then sat watching the arrivals to see if I recognised anyone. They trickled in slowly through the afternoon to early evening.
Peter Vermaas’ wife wasnt coming through so my roomate was going to stay with him as they were/ are friends and I had to wait the arrival of my new roomie.
After lunch , myself and Jaco hung out in the casino for a bit hitting the dops and eventually I decided to go for a nap.
My new roomate arrived and woke me up. Big Fella by the name of Jaques Tredoux – nice enough guy but fuck me could the man snore???
anyway, I scuttled off to dinner and waited for Simoes other 2 friends to arrive, Damien Cornelli and Mauro de rose.
Time was coming and I went to get kitted up.
Got my hoodie on, my shades, my cap, my card protector, my lucky full house chip, my mp3 player and headed off to the card room.
took my seat and started analyzing the players at my table, especially those 2 or 3 places to the left and right of me.
I had prepared myself for AA by watching hours and hours and hours of TV table coverage so I had a pretty good idea of the players.
in seat 1 – Andre Johnston – loose agressive player that will make moves when in position, will probably try and reraise me a few times if I positional raise.
in seat 2 – Kevin Stanley – tight solid player, likes playing a range of hands with position.
in seat 3 – Kyri Patsalos – previous runner up, solid player, can be aggressive.
3 very good players to my left, oh joy. stealing chips from these 3 was NOT going to be easy. the person with the best position was clearly Kyri with not 1, not 2 but 3 (THREE!!) tight players to his left meaning that he could steal from the small blind, big blind, button, cut off as well as one off cut off. And safe in the knowledge that the 2 players to his right would probably respect his reraises when they tried to make a steal. Kyri was runner up against John Tabatabai in February so his form might still be strong.
in seat 4 – Chris Hadzigrigoriou – my previous roomie, from what he told me I picked up that he was a tight player with 3 or 4 years experience, never played a big game like AA before.
in seat 5 – Nersan Naidoo – know nothing of him. tight.
in seat 6 – Ray Bisnath – quiet bloke, I could pick up that he was a solid rock of gibraltar. so tight that he was the only one at my table that didnt take a rebuy or add on.
in seat 7 – Paul Spies – know nothing of him, but very friendly guy. Tried to build an image as a tight rock but was caught a number of times with his hand in the cookie jar.
In seat 8 – Johan Gaybba – know nothing of him but he flapped his gums alot and told me all I needed to know. I picked up that he had played at the wsop before with team pokerstars. I didnt really want him on my blind.
in seat 9 – Ricky Lewis. Know nothing about him, plays tight.
in seat 10 – me – the mac daddy.
Ed Jordon said a few words and then the cards were shuffled and the game was on.
The rebuy period was 4 hours long – it was very loose and I found myself making loose calls for value and bleeding chips, my raises were not respected ever and Kyri got me to lay down what were probably the winning hands on 2 occassions. Eventually I shoved with the last of my chips and lost those, called for a rebuy and changed gears to extremely tight.
I cut my concerns down to 3 players and those were the 3 players to my left, especially Kyri, but I was slowly and surely getting a read on the man and I was going to punch his ticket for him.
someone at this table was going to double me up and I was looking for weaknesses, tells, anything that was going to give me the edge and get a double up.
Kyri had already made me lay down 2 hands, I was going after him.
Thursday night was hell to try and get some sleep
with a lumberjack in my room and a toothache from hell.
I took a boatload of various supplements with me, brain food, vitamin c, cod liver oil, barocca.
problem is that I only took one sleeping tablet with me and wanted it for the friday night as saturday was gonna be the big one.
I tried to sleep but kept getting woken up with the sounds of gunfire.
it was the dude next to me snoring that sounded like an AK 47.
I eventually slept with my headphones on listening to enya over and over again at full volume.
shot out of bed early on friday headed off to the breakfast table, avoided greasy stuff and piled on the fruit and protein stuff like ham, salamai, boiled eggs, and of course coffee, lots and lots of coffee.
The excitement leads to adrenaline and my stomach wasnt exactly “secure” which is why I stayed away from the greasy stuff.
9 0 clock we were back in the card room and within an hour we lost Johan Gabbya – after him rebuying at least 5 times.
Greg Ronaldson and Darren Kramer out.
Next to go was Nershen, I cant remember who replaced them and then just before the lunch break, Ray went.
I was 2nd in chips at my table after accumulating small pots one after the other and not getting involved in big hands.
I lost a medium sized pot earlier against Ray otherwise I would have been dominating at my table with chips.
an hour for lunch and the place was buzzing, everyone was talking and chatty. We had lunch outside.
After lunch back into the card room, my table was getting moved to the TV table.
After they miked us up, they got us a few new players to join, one was Mark Lifman who was sitting with a big stack of chips.
As the cameras got rolling within the first few minutes, we lost Ricky Lewis.
Neville Eber came to replace him to my right.
After having studied Neville Eber, i had him right where I wanted him, although it was dangerous because I was still stuck between good solid players.
I raise in late with AK off and everyone mucks, I show my ace, Mark lifman makes a comment that I am a fish for refusing to show the other card, I told him thats the way I play a3 off
few hands later on the BB I get j6 off, Kyri patsalos is in the hand with me, flop falls kq 6.
I bet out on my 6 and get raised hard by kyri.
I studied him for a full minute before deciding to reraise, he mucks.
I pick up aq, Eber raises, I was waiting for something like this and insta reraise – he mucks.
few hands later I pick up AA and shove all in after a raise and a reraise, I spoke Paul Spies out of the hand – stupid move, he mucks ak
I pick up a nice pot.
Few hands later I get aq, I raise and get called by Kyri
flop is king high, no queen, I toss in a c bet, insta call by Kyri, I study the board, 2 clubs, hmm, he is on a draw.
Turn is a queen, I toss in another 18 000 and he reraises all in, I call, river nothing, Kyri out, I am now strong with the force and with chips.
We break for dinner and I am in 13th place with chips
after the dinner break my table was moved off the feature table and off to the regular tables.
Previous final tablist Ryan Kelly joined us as well as Jaco Mouton.
It was insane that I was picking up big hands while on mouton’s blind and I was whittling his massive stack down little by little.
Jay Sookoo joined our table and every 2nd hand he would shove. he started at about 40k and ws soon up to 50 k, I was sitting on 250 or so and decided to call him with 77 – he flipped over aq
I spiked a 7 on the turn and he was drawing thin. river rag and he was gone. I was up to about 320 chips and picked up pocket jacks against Jaco Venter’s AQ
I call his all in and he spikes a queen, taking 30 k off my stack.
2nd last hand of the night and stanely shoves on my big blind, I look at mycard and I see ak, I call.
he flips over pocket 2′s and spikes a 2 on the flop and even though I have a flush draw, he turns a full house, I had 1 out to make a straight flush. that doesnt happen.
I am left with 220 k in chips.
off to bed and I pop my tablet and manage to get a few hours sleep, we only start at 10 so I am fine.
Take a nice long shower and head for the breakfast table and then off to play cards.
the morning sessions starts with 24 of us left and I come out of the gates firing wildly and missing, I got called down on every bluff I made and wasnt taking any pots.
I lose 70 k in chips very quickly, mark lifman walks into pocket kings and he gone.
Ryan brauer is next to go.
Then Kevin stanley embarked on a mad rush and mad calls with mad results.
first he shoves with 46 into Stan Caruthers pocket aces and spikes 2 pair, the very next hand, Terry brookes shoves with pocket 8′s , Stanley makes the call with k9 and hits an over card on the river.
Damien Cornelli and Nahum Lum do the long walk and Kevin Stanley shatters Ryan Kelly’s pocket q’s with 78 off
few more players drop off, and my chip stack is looking very very VERY bleak
Darren Chandler and Armand Saayman take a walk and we are down to 14 players.
I pick up pocket 8′s on Peter vermass’ big blind – I shove, no action.
Few hands later I pick up kings UTG and decide to slow play them seeing as I still had so many aggressive players to my left.
It gets folded around to the BB who checks, I slow play them all the way to the river and then make a mistake when trying to raise a bet I managed to squeeze out of Reynhart Van Rooyen.
I just tossed in my chips instead of announcing my raise.
bah too bad. The kings were good anyway, I pick up the blinds and antes and move on. 4 hands olater I am in cut off and get a9 off, it gets folded around to me and I raise, Jim Gubb calls.
The flop comes 9 high. I shove, he calls and shows pocket 9′s
gg
I throw my cap to the floor in dismay and look to see if I will hit any miracle cards – nothing.
I walk around the table shaking hands with everyone and leave the card room amidst players congratulating me on my performance.
I walk to my room and lay down on the bed – grab my phone and send out the bad news.
I start packing my bags and taking stuff to my car.
I wait for lunch, eat and try to get some sleep, its impossible.
I go down to the card room where I see stanley get knocked out after him having 500 000 in chips at one point.
I stuck around for the final 10 to be decided and watched as my new friend Jaco Mouton picks up the biggest bubble in all africa history and go out in 11th.
I walk around from player to player and congratulate them all, say good bye to everyone I met, I check out and get back to my car.
The hotel staff had cleaned it for me.
I climb in, sigh a huge sigh.
Start my car and drive the long way home, replaying the hand that sent me to the rail over and over and over again in my mind.
how not to play a home poker game
1. Everybody decides to ruin a perfectly good evening of visiting, drinking, Nintendo playing, and lounging about by suggesting a game of Texas Holdem.
2. At least three people exclaim at the speed of light that they brought their poker sets with.
3. Spend 15 minutes in a conference to explain that Texas holdem and holdem are indeed the same game. Confuse everyone by mentioning that there are other holdem games like omaha. Watch everyone insist that there is only 1 holdem and thats texas holdem and thats final.
4. Even though everyone claims to know how to play and plays often, and nevermind that the entire lot makes decent money, suggest we play for $5 each so that it stays ‘friendly’.
5. At least two onlookers need to be dazzled and amazed that some people have their own chip sets. They should say something like, “Damn, you must do this for a living or something.”
6. All players spend ten minutes admiring the 300-piece-Walmart-set.
7. Wait 5 minutes so everyone can go get their sunglasses out of their cars then listen to those without sunglasses argue that those with sunglasses have an unfair advantage and that no one should be allowed to play with sunglasses.
8. Take 20 to 30 minutes to debate how to divide up the chips. Take another 15 minutes to assign values to them. Don’t be afraid to argue 5, 10, and 25 vs. 50, 100, and 250. At least 3 people should point out that the latter is too many chips.
9. Set the blind structure. My personal favorite is to start blinds at 10 and 20 after initially including chips worth 5.
10. Get the dealer button out and everyone looks at you funny when you ask why we need the dealer button when we are all going to take our turns dealing. Everyone tells you its so that no one forgets who was just the dealer. Everyone looks at you even funnier when you says its probably the guy with the deck of cards in his hand.
11. Argue for a further 10 minutes that the big blind is after the small blind to the left of the dealer and not to the right as opposed to what the in house guru says.
12. Its finally time to start so 2 should just now leave to go to the bathroom and 3 others should have already left the table to go chat and do other things. Call a ten minute break and then we start!
13. Get everyone back to the table. Just before dealing someone should insist that some random guy walking by also join the game. When random guy says he doesn’t want to play and also DOESN’T KNOW HOW and HAS NEVER PLAYED BEFORE and HATES CARDS just ignore that and keep insisting.
13. Everyone looks at you funny when you mentions there are no chips left over so we would have to redo chip structure.
14. The two remaining guys who brought chips should volunteer to get their chips at the speed of light.
15. Make room for the new player and find him a chair.
16. Watch 4 players get up to go get more beer.
17. Yell at the 4 players to get back to the table but bring a pen and paper so we can write out the hand rankings for the new guy.
18. All nine other players start hollering out random advice to the new guy. Be sure to use plenty of jargon so he has no clue what anyone is saying.
19. Argue for 5 minutes about drawing for seats.
20. take 10 minutes to take out ace through 9 and hang your head in shame when the dude doing it makes sure its all the same suite. Deal out 1 card per player face up.
21. watch people get agitated when their card is dealt face up because their card is showing and take another 5 minutes to explain that we haven’t started yet, just drawing for seats.
20. Argue for 5 minutes about who deals first.
21. Watch everyone get confused when you suggest that whoever drew the ace should deal, the 2 will be small blind and 3 will be big blind.
22. Agree finally that dealing out 1 card to each player and having highest card deal first is good idea.
23. Deal out the cards face down.
24. Convince the five players who don’t want to show their card to anyone else that its OK, we STILL haven’t started – this is just to see who the dealer is.
25. Take another 5 minutes to explain that what we did earlier was draw for seats, and this is different.
26. Explain to the new guy that this is not the actual game after new guy says that on TV they get 2 cards.
27. Obv new guy is first dealer. Cringe as you realize your 5-year-old shuffles better. Coach him to deal 2 cards to each player – one at a time. Cringe again as you can see every card he deals as he holds the deck straight up and down.
28. Every player must now limp every single hand for the duration of the night.
29. No player may ever post his blind – EVER! Everyone only posts their blinds after you reminds them. You must remind them EVERY HAND.
30. The dealer (everyone not just the new guy) should deal out the flop turn AND river before the action is done every other hand.
31. explain that this is not the way it is done because the reason for burning cards is to discard potentially marked cards and dealing the entire game out defeats that purpose, someone then pipes up “but no one had a chance to mark the cards yet”
32. The BB must never be given the option to check or raise. The very millisecond that the SB’s call hits the table you must deal out the flop. Everyone must Look at you funny when you point out that the BB had the option to raise.
33. After every player limps someone must comment that they think that player is bluffing. This rule applies to every round of betting and you don’t even have to be in the hand to say it.
34. At least one player must make a big overbet out of turn EVERY SINGLE HAND. Everyone looks at you funny when you make them take it back and wait their turn. When it gets to their turn, they defiantly put the big bet back out and say something like, “See, I just made the same damn bet anyway!”
35. Never push any chips into the middle after a round of betting. Leave them right in front of you and stack your future bets and calls on top of your old ones. Also acceptable here is just throwing them towards the middle so they mix with the other chips already in the middle. Everyone looks at you funny when you make them say how much they just bet.
36. The new guy should say this every single time it gets to him: “So how many do I have to put in now?” The table should now bombard him with advice on any and every possible holding he might have. After about five minutes of this he should repeat his question. At this point he should call if its a minbet (which it is about 95% of the time) and fold if its anything bigger. His cards are completely independent of this btw.
37. Have a big argument about whether a flush beats a straight or not after you push all-in on the river after you flopped the nut flush against someone’s straight.
The guy with the straight should quote the hundreds of times he has watched poker on TV and he KNOWS a straight beats a flush.
38. Someone new walks by – have a 20 minute discussion as to why he can’t just buy in and play too.
39. One player must start making huge overbets on 5 or 6 consecutive hands. This player should now start to get really arrogant and some of his friends should comment about how good he is because he won the last $5 drunken challenge.
40. Arrogant overbettor should now start to explain that he’s making the bets because a good player knows to bet out if everyone is checking to him. Only once in a great great while will there be anyone smart enough to lay a trap – it just doesn’t happen in these home games.
41. Everyone looks at you funny when you comment about the trap you just pulled off 3 minutes ago with the flopped nut flush. They STILL didn’t see it.
42. Vomit in your mouth when your aces get cracked. Twice. By king-rag off and 28 suited. Smile politely when donkey says “They were suited, I had you crushed.”
43. Even though the table has played SOOOOOOOOOOO passive all night – when you see 6 limpers and look down at KK and proceed to raise 12X BB – the following action should go call, call, call, fold, reraise all-in, fold, call all-in, fold, call, call. The douchebag overbettor wins with KT offsuit. Other hands are a pair of fours, a couple of ace-rags.
44. A bunch of the players should now comment how good douchebag overbettor is as it is quite evident that no one ever beats him. Comment that he must surely play a lot and probably plays a lot online also. Make no connection whatsoever to the fact that you were the only one who knew the damn rules and procedures.
45. Try explain that a pair of 7′s beating AK is not a bad beat.
46. Try explain that a flush on a paired board is NOT the nuts.
47. Arrogant overbettor should go on to win the game getting heads up with the new guy. New guy loses after limping and folding every single hand down to his last chip. Should be a huge roar when it ends.
48. People who didn’t play or watch should ask who won. Upon hearing this they should concur he won because he is so good – so good that he even has his own chips.
49. Agree with everyone when they say that its all luck anyway.
50. Make a comment about work in the morning and leave to go home and pull out your hair.
Hoochie’s goof – From a florida newspaper
When Nathan Radlich’s house was burgled, thieves left his TV, his VCR, and even left his watch. What they did take was “generic white cardboard box filled with greyish-white powder.” (That at least is the way the police
described it.) A spokesman for the Fort Lauderdale police said, “that it looked similar to cocaine and they’d probably thought they’d hit the big time.”
Then Nathan stood in front of the TV cameras and pleaded with the burglars:
“Please return the cremated remains of my sister, Gertrude. She died three years ago.”
Well, the next morning, the bullet-riddled corpse of a drug dealer known as Hoochie Pevens was found on Nathan’s doorstep. The cardboard box was there too; about half of Gertrude’s ashes remained.
And there was this note. It said: “Hoochie sold us the bogus blow, so we wasted Hoochie. Sorry we snorted your sister. No hard feelings. Have a nice day.”
seen on TV
In South Africa there is a TV station called E-TV
This is what was shown in the early hours of the morning
