The Ballad of Eskimo Clark.

I don't listen to modern country music, but I don't get the impression they're much on "story songs" these days. A lot of country hits in days gone by were mini tales of some real or imagined event, like Johnny Horton's "Sink the Bismarck" and Jimmy Dean's "Big Bad John." The saga of Eskimo Clark at this year's World Series of Poker is the kind of thing I could imagine being made into one of these songs.

Paul Clark is known as Eskimo due to his supposed resemblance to the logo of Alaskan Airlines, although he's originally from Louisiana. He's won 3 WSOP bracelets to date, but his quest for a fourth at this year's edition just might kill him. Last week he collapsed during the Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo event. Initial reports speculated on a heart attack, and many blamed the hot conditions inside the tent his table was located in. Yesterday he collapsed twice during the $1500 Razz event, prompting paramedics to be called in during the second incident, although Clark convinced them to let him continue playing. Some sources are claiming it's the result of low blood sugar, but others are saying that Clark is having strokes, and the fact that one side of his body went numb during the second incident yesterday sounds like evidence of a stroke to me. Clark has signed a waiver absolving the tournament of liability should he suffer permanent damage.

Clark made it to the end of the event, coming in third, with Katja Thater winning. But at what cost? Is winning a fourth bracelet worth the health risk to Clark? He thinks so, but it seems like obsession taken too far to me. And even if he is able to compete in further events and does win a bracelet it's gong to be overshadowed by his collapses.

Italian Tax Dollars At Work.

If you're an Italian you may be annoyed with this use of your tax dollars. An Italian state prosecutor intends to bring obscenity charges against the creators of the film version of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Those named include Dan Brown and film director Ron Howard. The charges come as the result of complaints by a group of priest that the movie is obscene from a religious prespective under Italian law because it claims Jesus was married and had a child. The charges can be thrown out by the judge that first hears the case, and hopefully they will be. The Italian legal system presumably has better things to spend time on that a silly complaint about a silly movie that will do little more than provide more press time for this already overpublicised book and movie.

I Won't Meet You On Tau Ceti VI Next Year.

Science fiction writer Charlie Stross has written an interesting piece on why interstellar colonisation may not be doable. The responses are equally interesting. Frankly I think too many of them hinge on the flawed argument that since we now have X when Y years ago we believed it was impossible or didn't even conceive of then there's no doubt that solution Z will come along and solve everything. It's also amusing that some people can't get the idea that writing about something in a work of science fiction doesn't automatically mean the writer believe's it's actually possible in the real world. As is often the case they seem to place an overemphasis on the "science" part of science fiction.

Given that fusion power has supposedly been a decade away for six decades I don't think I'll hold my breath waiting for a hyperspace drive system to appear.

Door To Door Safety.

This morning some Jehovah's Witnesses were canvassing the neighbourhood. Fortunately they didn't come to my door. Seeing them made me think of another religion that likes to proselytise door to door, the Mormons. But a major difference between the two is that Mormon canvassers are usually young people, while Witnesses frequently send out older folks, and sometimes children are brought along. And the thought came to mind that the Mormon practice is safer. Their young proselytisers are likely to have a much better chance of escaping trouble than their Witness counterparts, and given the attitude many have towards such efforts there is always a risk.

My way of dealing with such folks is to tell them I'm not interested, which is effective. I've occasionally had thoughts of doing something slightly mischevious when they come around, like play some of the harsher and weirder entries from my music collection, but frankly why go to the effort? I certainly never try and talk with them about the questionable elements of their beliefs, as your doorstep is not an appropriate place to do so, and it might encourage them to come back.

Kid Poker Joins PokerStars.

There's really no argument that Toronto born Daniel Negreanu is the best known and most successful professional Canadian poker player, and indeed is one of the world's best known pros. So it's no surprise that online poker powerhouse PokerStars would recruit Negreanu to its team of pros, which includes 2003, 2004, and 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event winners Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, and Joe Hachem. It also includes another Canadian, Quebec's Isabelle Mercier.

Negreanu had previously been associated with the poker site Full Contact Poker, including playing a role in founding the site. And yesterday's announcement of his joining PokerStars coincided with Full Contact announcing they will merge with PokerStars. As one blogger commented this can be considered evidence of the consolidation of the online poker industry. Last year's American legislation against online gambling had a major impact on the business, with many sites deciding to leave the US market. This included PartyPoker, which had been one of the big players in the US market, and was claimed before the passing of the Safe Port Act to be the biggest of the online poker sites..

But many sites decided to continue to service American customers who wanted to play real money poker. This included PokerStars, and as a result they scooped up a large percentage of US online poker players abandoned by other sites. This resulted in them taking over the position of biggest online poker site in the world, and their strength may very well push other sites to merge in an effort to compete, while others may decide they just can't compete and cease operations, especially if they aren't willing to take the risk of servicing the lucrative American market.

The Universe Coughs Out Another Funny.

I was watching Jeopardy tonight and two of the contestants had the first names Toho and Sara and were seated in that order. I knew the combination sounded familiar, and sure enough I was right. Toho Sara is a Japanese avant garde rock group that includes Makoto Kawabata of Japanese neo psychedelic band Acid Mother's Temple. There's little doubt this was sheer coincidence, as I doubt anyone on the Jeopardy crew has ever heard of Toho Sara.

Old Tech Survives.

I went into the local 7/11 today and got a surprise. Someone ahead of me was using his credit card, and the clerk was taking his info with an old fashioned credit card imprinter instead of using a scanner. I haven't seen anyone use one of those in years, but a quick check online shows you can still buy them. Some younger readers may not be familiar with these devices, but that's how credit card transactions were done prior to the widespread use of electronic card scanners. The one I saw today was of the once familiar slide type, where you place your card on the imprinter and the clerk slides a bar across it, imprinting the card's markings on a sheet of paper. I really should have asked her why she was using one, although I presume the credit card scanners weren't working at the time.

Sarge Turns 40.

Friday was the 40th anniversary of the initial release in the UK of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Wow, hard to believe it was 40 years ago. Into the CD player it went, which made me wonder again when the Beatles' catalogue will be remastered. You'd think they would have done a new set of remasters in the late '90s or early 2000s given how much digital mastering has improved, but instead we still have the late '80s version in the shops. If you live in the Western half of North America and some other places there's still time to listen to it on the album's fortieth birthday if you move quickly.

Billy Shears will be grateful.

Harry's No Help.

One of the things I do when I check my Statcounter stats is see what brought people here, as I find it amusing to see some of the search engine queries that people use. But thinking about this today I realised one thing that has not helped bring hits here is Harry Potter. I can't remember any hits that had something to with Harry Potter, so if there have been such hits they can't have been more than one or two. Prior to this four posts mentioned Harry Potter, as even though I have never read any of the Potter books or seen the movies it's such a pop culture phenomina that discussing it on a blog like this is inevitable. Given that you'd think I'd get regular Potter related hits, but that's not the case. It will be interesting to see if this post changes that in any way.

Will They Meet The Warlord?

It's amazing how some ideas persist, no matter how silly they might seem. An American physicist and futurist, Brooks Agnew, plans to lead an expedition next year to the Arctic in an attempt to find a way into the hollow centre of the Earth. As Richard Foot of CanWest News Service notes in the linked article this "nutty, yet persistent, theory"(hats off to Foot for this statement) is not new. Numerous Hollow Earth theories have been proposed over the last few centuries, but most people would have thought that modern geology, whose theories require a solid interior, would have put a finish to the idea. But it seems not.

Foot mentions a 2006 book called Hollow Earth, by David Standish, as generating recent interest in the idea. My exposure to the idea came from Walter Krafton -Minkel's 1989 book Subterranean Worlds, a history of various hollow Earth ideas that even includes infamous Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, who in the 1970s wrote a book under a pseudonym claiming UFOs were actually Nazi superweapons flown by Nazis who had escaped to the Hollow Earth when WW2 ended. I haven't read Standish's book, but Krafton-Minkel's tome is worth hunting up if you have an interest in the subject. The concept is also used in Mick Farren's 2002 novel Underland, where Farren's vampire character Victor Renquist is recruited by US intelligence to help deal with a group of Nazis living in a giant cavern at the North Pole.

The expedition Agnew will lead was originally planned by Utah based adventure guide Steve Currey. Unfortunately Currey died of brain cancer last year, leading to Agnew eventually taking his place. It's unclear if Currey actually believed in the idea or if he simply found an interesting excuse to lead some folks on an Arctic expedition, but Agnew would certainly seem to be a believer. He's the co-author of the book The Ark of Millions of Years: New Discoveries and Light on The Creation, a piece of New Age weirdness that blends the Bible with man was created by aliens silliness. So it's no surprise he'd believe the Earth was hollow. Personally I suspect Agnew's head is more than a little bit hollow.

"The Warlord?" you ask? He's a DC Comics character created by Mike Grell back in the '70s. US Air Force pilot Travis Morgan discovers the inner world of Skartaris when his SR71 crashes while flying over the North Pole. As the Warlord he becomes the champion of the people of Skartaris against various evils. The series ran from 1976 to 1989 and was briefly but unsuccessfully revived last year. Like Don Pendleton's Executioner and Joseph Rosenberger's Death Merchant Morgan carried an .44 Automag pistol during his adventures.

Mondays With Mike: Family Ties.

Like many artists Mike Oldfield has included his family and romantic partners in his work. In fact his first commercial recording was with his sister Sally as the duo The Sallyangie, who released Children of the Sun in 1969 to little interest. She has subsequently appeared on a number of Mike's albums, including Tubular Bells and Ommadawn. Their brother Terry also appeared on Ommadawn, and both Oldfield siblings have had long running music careers of their own.

Today's video is for "Innocent," from Oldfield's 1989 album Earth Moving. The vocalist is Norweigian singer Anita Hegerland, Oldfield's girlfriend at the time, with whom Oldfield would have two children. Earth Moving was the first Oldfield album not to feature an extended instrumental piece, consisting entirely of pop songs, and was an attempt to placate Virgin head Richard Branson's continual pressure for Oldfield to concentrate on songs. Disagreements over this and Branson's desire that any long future long composition be released as Tubular Bells II would lead Oldfield to sign with Warner Brothers in 1992 instead of resigning with Virgin when his contract ended.

Even without giving a release date for the album hardcore synth spotters might have reasonably guessed the release date given the prominent shots in the video of Oldfield playing a Korg M1. First released in 1988 the M1 has to date been the best selling synthesizer of all time, with some 200,000 being made before production ended in 1994. Not surprisingly the M1 has turned up on a tremendous number of releases, and still continues to be used by many musicians despite the release of more sophisticated "ROMplers."

A Note On Comments.

If you come here and you can't see the comments link for each post try refreshing the page. I just took a look at the blog only to find that there was no link with each post for making comments. Refreshing brought the links back. No doubt it's some glitch that will resolve itself, but it is kind of annoying.

A Long Way To Go.

PZ Myers noted that he got a big traffic spike for his blog this week, going up to 140,000 hits for one 24 hour period instead of his usual 50-60,000. I'd be happy to get 140 hits in one day, although I have had at least a couple of 60 hit days. It would be interesting to know what the average hits per day per blog is. Presumably blogs like Pharyngula skew the results pretty heavily, as there must be blogs that go for days without visitors.

Another Week, Another Gas Price Increase.

As I write this Saskatoon gas stations are busy raising their pump prices. Gasoline is now 125.9 cents a litre, a five cent increase and an all time high for this city. Those of you in places like Europe where the price is equivalent to about 5 bucks Canadian a litre may not have much sympathy, especially since your prices may be going up, but it's rather disturbing for us. They're blaming US gas inventory concerns, unrest in Nigeria, a shutdown at a British Petroleum facility in Alaska, and the latest hurricane forecast. All these reasons ring a bit hollow for many given that (presumably) no gasoline sold in Saskatchewan comes from sources in any way effected by these problems. Unfortunately they know that too many people can't not drive, and that many people won't be willing to stop or reduce driving, and so they can get away with this kind of thing.

Room For Manipulation.

Currently on Canadian TV there are a series of ads running for Viagra. The ads feature people talking in made up words, except for the word Viagra. But one of the ads would be great fodder for a bit of manipulation. It shows two men talking about Viagra at a barbeque. But given the way they say their lines, the phrasing, and their facial expressions it wouldn't be too hard to add subtitles to the ad that translate the dialogue as being about something bad happening to someone who used Viagra, like a heart attack. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if someone actually does something like this, only shooting a fake ad and perhaps using a fake name to avoid getting into any sort of legal trouble. The ads are only airing in Canada as of yet, but if the campaign does well here I wouldn't be surprised to see it expand to other markets.

(And if someone comes across this post who does work for a comedy show and uses this idea I want a writing credit and some financial compensation for using the idea.)

It's Not Their Fault.

There has been a lot of talk of rising gas prices in the last couple of weeks as the price per litre has reached new highs. Here in Saskatoon it's currently 120.9 cents per litre, and some analysts say it will go up more before the summer's done. But please remember folks, as much as this is pissing you off don't take it out on the workers at your local gas bar. They don't determine the wholesale price of gas. They just sell the stuff. So getting angry and taking it out on them is unfair. Unfortunately I suspect we're going to hear more stories of gas station employees being victimised as the price rises. And don't even think about gassing up and not paying. You're not "sticking it to the man!" you're breaking the law. If you want to protest try driving less. If we stretch out the time between visits to the stations it will drive the price down as demand drops.

Online Poker And Me.

It turned out to be a not bad day for me at PokerStars. They're currently holding a series of $1000 Trivia Freerolls in celebration of dealing their 10 billionth hand. (Which should indicate how popular PokerStars is.) Of the three I took part in today I won 90 cents. Sure, that doesn't sound like much, but when you're competing against more than ten thousand players it's nice to win any money at all. I'm hoping to take part in at least a couple more and hopefully win enough to enter one of their bottom rung sit and goes, which will cost me a buck twenty.

Another place I play free poker online is ScorePoker, a site connected to Canadian sports TV channel The Score. This weekend they introduced a completely new set of software for their poker room. Unfortunately the new table is a bit of a pain for me. It's supposedly viewable with a 800x600 screen setting, which I normally use, but with my monitor at least it cuts the bottom off. And the bottom is where some of the controls to play are. So I've had to move to a higher screen setting when I want to use it and switch back when I'm done, which is an annoyance. It's too bad, because the new table is actually quite nice, with the chat function incorporated into the table. Previously it had been a separate popup that kind of got in the way of the top of the table with my screen settings. They've dropped things like player location and buddy lists, which some folks are complaining about. You can downloand their software here if you're interested. Although it's free they do have tournaments to win money and prizes.

Next month will mark one year of playing online poker for me. Have I gotten better? Yes, a bit. But I've stil got lots to pick up, and I don't intend to drop any of my own money online anytime soon, if at all. And who knows? Maybe I'll get really lucky one of these days and win an amount actually worth cashing out.

I play on the above sites, and less often Full Tilt, as saskblogger, so if you play freerolls on those sites you may run across me.

"They're on to us...."

People often make jokes about the term "military intelligence" being an oxymoron. But stories like this one do make you wonder: US intelligence officials put out a warning earlier this year after some US military contractors passing through Canada thought the Rememberance Day quarter released a few years ago, which features a bright red poppy on it, might be a nanotech spying device. Although this sounds like something out of The Onion it did in fact happen. I learned of this via James Nicoll's Livejournal, and the comments for his entry are rather interesting.

A Heads Up To Canadian Rush Fans.

If you haven't picked up the new Rush album Snakes & Arrows yet go to your local Music World. They've got it for $11.99, cheaper than HMV and CD Plus.

More Diet Pop Musings.

As a followup to my post on Coke Zero here's a post from the Omni Brain blog on Scienceblogs on why diet soda may taste like crap. I'm not entirely convinced, although I suppose the comments I made could in part reflect a difference in "mouth feel" between Coke Zero and regular Coke. It's also interesting to read the comments about different sugar products being used in Coke in different locations. I knew about the Mexican variation, but it seems Canadian Coke may be different as well from American Coke.