Going to the Finals. The Spooks made it past through the semi-final round last night. After another 25-minutes of clock-time, we entered the shootout tied 0-0. The Busch put up a good fight, but I was able to keep the ball out of the net. There were a few close calls, though. Munki is planning on putting up a highlight reel of all the tournment games. I look forward to checking out last night's action. Tomorrow night we face the North Pollacks in the finals. They won their semi-final game 5-0, so it should be interesting to see how we do. If we win, we take home the championship and the corresponding T-shirts. If we lose, well, let's just hope we don't lose.

Commerical. This Honda video was apparently done in one continuous shot. It's awesome.

Watch. A fellow broomball player taped our last game and edited down to a watchable size. The MPEG4 file is about 15 MB. Since most of the game was in their zone, there isn't much of me until the end.

The H-Dawg is watching. My roommate and I are both fans of Onion columnist Herbert Kornfeld, the Accountz Reeceevable supervisor of Midstate Office Supply. As a result, we made a poster for our apartment. I fed a 8x11 paper into the scanner/copier thing at Kinko's and asked for 400% enargement. Now we have Herbert watching over our living room Big-Brother style. The great thing is that no matter what mood I'm in when I come home, I can't help but smile when I see Herbert.

Add a "W" to the board! Tonight was round one of Intramural Broomball playoffs. The Spooks (for which I play keeper) earned a spot in round two by defeating fhqradsasdfw. OK, so that's not their name, exactly, but honestly, it's pretty close. Anyway, we beat the team in the regular season 4-0, but this time they were pretty well on top of their defensive game. Also, a couple of our guys had had a drink before the game so we weren't exactly playing at maximum capacity. Anyway, at the end of the 20-minute regulation, the score was still 0-0. We then went through a 5-minute overtime, still 0-0. The funny thing is that during the 25 minutes of play, I don't think I had one save. They'd bring the ball into our zone, but couldn't make anything happen. Anyway, since it's the playoffs, someone has to win so we went into a shootout. I stopped the first three shooters, although one was a pretty close call. I got a piece of it and then it hit the left post, fortunately it bounced away from the goal instead of in it. We didn't score with our first shooters either, though. After three shooters, it's like extra innings in baseball, if either team scores and the other doesn't, game over. Our first shooter missed, and I stopped theirs. Then our second scored. I was so excited I forgot that they had a chance to reciprocate, so I threw my gloves into the air and ran toward our bench to offer congratulations to the rest of the team. Then everyone shouted that they had another chance, so I made my way back to the crease, quite embarrassed. I stopped their shooter, though and clinched the win for the team earning the first playoff win of my broomball career. Now all we have to do is beat two more teams and we win the championship T-shirts.

Uncovered. A team of investigative journalism students and their professor think they know the identity of Deep Throat.

Cool Art. Jimmy McGrath's online gallery is a great fusion of photography and illustration. Requires Flash.

Caffeine Free. For a while. On Monday I decided to try giving up Caffeine. After four days, I decided to give up the giving up. It wasn't doing anything for me and I like the taste of Mountain Dew too much. Perhaps if I regularly consumed a large quantity of Caffeine, I'd have noticed more of a difference when I stopped, but since I don't take in an unhealthy amount (I don't think so anyway), it wasn't worth giving it up for good.

Bike-less. I had to take my bike to the shop for a tune-up. I figured it would be a good idea since it was outside during the winter, but now I don't have a bike until next Tuesday. It is a good thing I brought it in, though, since apparently I need a new chain. Going to the shop always makes me wish I knew more about bikes. I guess you can't be smart and have good looks.

Foot Power. I rode my bike for the first time since September. It needs a tune-up since it's been outside through the winter, and I had to put some air in the tires, but other than it felt great. I have a new level of mobility now that the weather has warmed up and the streets and sidewalks are (mostly) free of ice and snow. I'm no longer beholden to pals with cars and/or the spotty service of local public transportation. My legs burn with the sensation of freedom... or is that just my pedalling muscles aching because they've been dormant for so long? Whatever.

More JPGs. Photos of my visit to Vegas.

Vegas, baby. Vegas. Here's some initial impressions that I've typed offline:

Friday 04-APR-2003, 1206h (AST)
On board flight 94 from FAI to SEA, via ANC. I maybe got 4 hours of sleep last night. Common sense told me to skip out on yesterday's soccer and broomball games, but I didn't. I played almost two hours of soccer, and my broomball game started at 11:45 last night. Although I didn't get much sleep, it was worth it. We lost by two goals in soccer, but the game after ours was cancelled so we scrimmaged for a while with other folks in the gym. We tied 0-0 in broomball, though. I earned my second shut-out of the season. Unfortunately our offense isn't producing, but I think it will develop through the season. The opposing team had some good opportunities, and I was a bit lucky on at least one occasion, but managed to keep the ball out of the net for the entire 20 minutes.

Anyway, We're just chilling on board the 737-400 waiting to land in SEA, so we can catch our connecting flight to LAS. I'm really looking forward to arriving. Some friends of mine even gave me some change to put in the slot machines. I'll just have to remember to whom each quarter belongs.

We're staying at the Circus Circus, which has its own amusement park inside. Apparently other hotel/casino/resorts also have similar attractions. I'm looking forward to checking out the New York New York and comparing it to my recent visit to NYC.

Saturday 05-APR-2003, 1208h (PST)
Wow, spent the evening exploring the Neighboorhood of Circus Circus. We also went to the Hard Rock Cafe to eat and pick up tickets for the Sigur Ros show tonight.

But first, we arrived in LAS at about 6:30 last night. It was surreal to see Slot Machines as soon as we got off the plane. Then again, this whole city is pretty surreal. Our hotel is huge. It has two casinos, at least five restaurants, a wedding chapel and an amusement park, not to mention a whole lot of rooms.

We went to Hard Rock Hotel/Casino to pick up the tickets for Sigur Ros and weren't really keen on hanging out. There was a pretty thick fratmosphere in the casino and restaurant areas. The Hard Rock Cafe is separate from the hotel/casino, though, and was pretty fun. The staff seemed to be having fun, and the host had spent some time in Alaska, although she said she was on an island an hour north of Anchorage... that's not possible, but then she said that Juneau was north east of Anchorage, so we're thinking she just didn't know what direction she was.

After the Hard Rock we came back to Circus Circus and decided to check out the Slots-A-Fun next door. After some deliberation, we all sat down at $5 blackjack table. I bought $40 in chips. I was up early, but then went down. I had my last $5-chip on a bet and pushed, so I tried again. I won that round, so I stayed at the table. I ended up with $72 ($32 ahead) and decided to call it a night. CB ended up doubling his $40, and GB walked away from the table $297 ahead. Not bad for our first night in town.

I can definitely see how people can get hooked on gambling. The feeling you get when we you walk away from the table with $30 more than when you sat down is pretty amazing. Not too mention the prevalence of slots and card tables.

One of the most surreal things about LAS is the open-container law. You can buy a beer and just walk around with it, even outside and between casinos. In FAI you can't be in public with an open container of alcohol, here you can do anything but drink and drive.

Monday 07-APR-2003, 0950h
We visited the Luxor hotel/casino on Saturday afternoon. It was pretty incredible. The Egyptian theme was upheld throughout the casino. After about 2.5 hours, CB walked away with over $1k from blackjack. I lost $40, and called it a day. Then we went to the Hard Rock hotel/casino to pick up our tickets for Sigur Ros. We had some time so we went to a mexican restaurant in the hotel called Pink Taco ("Eating out never tasted so good," was the slogan). The Sigur Ros show was incredible. The opening band was Album Leaf, from San Diego: very good. Sigur Ros have a unique sound and stage performance that was incredible. The vocalist, who switched between guitar and synth, never played his guitar in the traditional manner. He used a violin bow, and it sounded great. On one song, he sang into the pickups, which also sounded great. The part that I liked best, though, was the percussion. Both Album Leaf and Sigur Ros have great percussionists. They always playing a rhythm that was unexpected but always remaining keeping on the beat.

After Sigor Ros, I went to bed while GB and CB went downstairs for more blackjack (I'd lost enough for one day). GB lost $100 but is still up from Friday night and CB made another $700.

Sunday was exciting as well. GB and I went to the convention center to pick up our information packets. We tried to go to a session about IBOC (don't ask me what that is), but both of us were too tired to last more than 15 minutes before dozing off. We decided to get some food and head back to the hotel for a nap.

I woke up a couple hours later when CB walked in. We took a cab up to the Bellagio for some food. That hotel is amazing. The botanical garden was incredible. We stopped in the Andy Warhol gallery, which was really cool. The only problem was the audio presentation. Liza Minelli does the commentary, which isn't bad in and of itself, but sometimes she tries to sound spontaneous, even though it's obvious she's reading from a script. Other than that, the show was really good. It was a collection of his celebrity portraits and a few self-portraits. After Bellagio, we walked up to the Monte Carlo and CB sat down for more Blackjack. I hung around for a while, but wasn't ready to put any more money on the table. I still got carded, though, and the dealer almost didn't take my state-issued ID. She said it was hard to find the birthdate. I'll admit, it's not in big red characters like on the California license, but it's still not that hard.

Anyway, I grew tired of watching CB, so i took the bus back to the hotel and started practicing my blackjack. CB had a book about the basic strategy, which is what he's used to win over $1700 so far. Now I know that if I've got A2 and the dealer has a 5 or 6 showing, I should double down. If I've got two 6's and the dealer has 2-6 showing, I'll split. CB came back after losing his $100 at the Monte Carlo (He's still up $1600), and we went to get some dinner. I put down $40 at a $3-minimum table and lost it. There were a few hands that I definitely messed up the strategy though. Still, I'm going to wait a while before trying again. Right now, I'm down $50 (plus the few bucks i've put in the slot machines).

Now I'm at the enormous Las Vegas Convention Center. This place is huge. There is WiFi access but they charge $5/hr and I don't have that much time before my session starts. I have a feeling that whether I'm using the bandwidth or not I'll only get 60 minutes. Anyway, the convention center his pretty large, I'd say at least twice the size of the Moscone in SFO, maybe triple or more.

I haven't been taking as many pictures here as I did in New York. I'm not sure entirely why, but I'll increase my photo efforts before the week's end.

The pen is mightier. I this case, the pen is writing music. The premise: each week a new title. People write songs with the title. People vote on the songs. Someone wins. I haven't poked around too long, but the quality of submissions seems to be quite high. The winners especially. (via ~/stevenf)

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