Sunday, March 20, 2011
Jimmer
Jimmer of BYU has led his team to the sweet 16. He can shoot father and better then anyone in the league right now and does it on a consistent bases. I wouldn't want to play BYU right now because Jimmer is certainly a force to be reckoned with. It doesn't matter if you double team him he will launch up a three pointer falling over and still drain it. BYU might have a chance to beat Florida.
Bracket Busters
My NCAA bracket has self destructed over the weekend. My national champion runner up, Pitt, was knocked out in the second round by butler. I also lost two of my elite eight picks. West Virginia looked like they were going to win the game, but fail apart in the second. While Gonzaga never had a chance when Jimmer of BYU starts hitting threes from half court basically with his eyes closed. This year my bracket has been a complete bust so now its time to rout for Jimmer and DUKE!!! Lets go.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
That was Then, This is Now
S.E. Hinton
Popular Fiction
pages 1-75
Since childhood, Bryon and Mark have been as close as brothers since they were little kids. They live in inner city of Chicago and are now juniors in high school. Bryon is very good at pool and the story starts off with them going into Charlie's bar and hustling guys out of $100 to make some quick cash. They then meet up with a younger kid named M&M. He got his nick name because he always had a bad of candy with him. As M&M leaves the store leaves the store he gets corned by Curly Shepard, one of the dumb hood in the Shepard gang. He starts shoving M&M around and beating him up a little. Mark and Bryon rush out of the store and surprise the two guys pinning them to the ground. M&M didn't like fighting and told them to let the Shepards go, he said he didn't believe in hurting someone else just because they were different. M informs them that his old sister Cathy is back from private school and will be attending their public school this year. Bryon doesn't remember much about Cathy, but can't help to thik that she was beautiful. The next day the boys go to the hospital after school to visit their mom. Their father left them and Bryon's mom adopted Mark. They had to raise money for the surgery, and Mark always had some extra cash. Bryon never asked where he got the money, but knew Mark was real bad when it came to stealing things and Mark couldn't see what was bad about it.
I really like this book because I can see how this can relate to many teenagers lives in the inner cities. I've never hustled or stole anything, but I'm sure this happens a lot in tough cities. However, I can relate to Mark and Bryon's fighting to help out M&M. My friends and I would never let anyone pick on someone. We would always stick up for someone no matter how different they were. from what I've read so far I can interpret some of the foreshadowing that Mark may get in trouble by stealing something and Bryon will fall in love with Cathy.
Popular Fiction
pages 1-75
Since childhood, Bryon and Mark have been as close as brothers since they were little kids. They live in inner city of Chicago and are now juniors in high school. Bryon is very good at pool and the story starts off with them going into Charlie's bar and hustling guys out of $100 to make some quick cash. They then meet up with a younger kid named M&M. He got his nick name because he always had a bad of candy with him. As M&M leaves the store leaves the store he gets corned by Curly Shepard, one of the dumb hood in the Shepard gang. He starts shoving M&M around and beating him up a little. Mark and Bryon rush out of the store and surprise the two guys pinning them to the ground. M&M didn't like fighting and told them to let the Shepards go, he said he didn't believe in hurting someone else just because they were different. M informs them that his old sister Cathy is back from private school and will be attending their public school this year. Bryon doesn't remember much about Cathy, but can't help to thik that she was beautiful. The next day the boys go to the hospital after school to visit their mom. Their father left them and Bryon's mom adopted Mark. They had to raise money for the surgery, and Mark always had some extra cash. Bryon never asked where he got the money, but knew Mark was real bad when it came to stealing things and Mark couldn't see what was bad about it.
I really like this book because I can see how this can relate to many teenagers lives in the inner cities. I've never hustled or stole anything, but I'm sure this happens a lot in tough cities. However, I can relate to Mark and Bryon's fighting to help out M&M. My friends and I would never let anyone pick on someone. We would always stick up for someone no matter how different they were. from what I've read so far I can interpret some of the foreshadowing that Mark may get in trouble by stealing something and Bryon will fall in love with Cathy.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Positively Fifth Street #3
James McManus
Literary Fiction
Pages 70-103
Ted Binion didn't start his gambling enterprise in las Vegas, but instead he got his start in Texas. He held small poker competitions at a court house late into the night. He didn't make a lot of money to start off with,but he soon become a major gambling boss. In world war 2 his business began to rapidly expand and he was soon targeted regularly by the government for illegal gambling. In 1946 his sheriff got beat and he decided to take off for Las Vegas with his family and $2 million in cash. Meyer Lansky trained Benion in the art of criminal and legitimate business practices. Lansky was a gangster like Al Capone, who made alot of money during prohibition by selling illegal liquor and prostitution. Binion took over the El dorado casino on Fremont and renamed it the Horseshoe, the same hotel that Jim will be playing the world series of poker tournament. Binion ran his casino just like in the old school gangster movies. he didn't call the cops when someone was cheating, he got his bodyguards to beath him with bat. he believed the past way to keep people from cheating was intimidation and it worked.
So far i really enjoy the book. I really like the idea of how Binion ran the Casino. However, the scary part is that the managers would truly do these things. For example, cheaters would get beat by bats and have their bones broken. Binion order hits on people that didn't pay their debt and I'm sure old gang managers did the same in the 50s. This book relates a lot to one of my favorite movies Casino in the aspect of managing a casino in the old days.
Literary Fiction
Pages 70-103
Ted Binion didn't start his gambling enterprise in las Vegas, but instead he got his start in Texas. He held small poker competitions at a court house late into the night. He didn't make a lot of money to start off with,but he soon become a major gambling boss. In world war 2 his business began to rapidly expand and he was soon targeted regularly by the government for illegal gambling. In 1946 his sheriff got beat and he decided to take off for Las Vegas with his family and $2 million in cash. Meyer Lansky trained Benion in the art of criminal and legitimate business practices. Lansky was a gangster like Al Capone, who made alot of money during prohibition by selling illegal liquor and prostitution. Binion took over the El dorado casino on Fremont and renamed it the Horseshoe, the same hotel that Jim will be playing the world series of poker tournament. Binion ran his casino just like in the old school gangster movies. he didn't call the cops when someone was cheating, he got his bodyguards to beath him with bat. he believed the past way to keep people from cheating was intimidation and it worked.
So far i really enjoy the book. I really like the idea of how Binion ran the Casino. However, the scary part is that the managers would truly do these things. For example, cheaters would get beat by bats and have their bones broken. Binion order hits on people that didn't pay their debt and I'm sure old gang managers did the same in the 50s. This book relates a lot to one of my favorite movies Casino in the aspect of managing a casino in the old days.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
NCAA prediction
My final four predictions are ND, Duke, Pitt, and UNC. These teams have started to peek towards the end of the season and are very well rounded. I believe that UNC has some of the best talent in the tournament it just depends if they show up to play, which they need to do to go far. I also think Pitt will win it all just due to their overall streagnth at the guard position. They have 3 of the best guards in the country and now have a dominant inside force. Wanamaker is a potential player of the year canidate and has led his team to a big east conference chapionship.
Other notables to look out for are: Conneticut, Texas, Kansas, and West Virginia
Other notables to look out for are: Conneticut, Texas, Kansas, and West Virginia
Positively Fifth Street #2
James McManus
Literary Fiction
Pages 33-70
Jim the narrator takes a plain to Las Vegas to cover the Ted Binion murder trial and compete in the world series event. Jim's wife thinks that this is entire waste of money and believes that Jim is simply dead money. Dead money is the money that gets added to the winnings, but the people don't make it into the money rounds; therefore, they don't get any of the winnings. 1st place gets 1 million dollars while 2nd gets 600,000 and 27th gets 16,000. His wife allows him to go blow his bonus to compete in the tournament, but packs in his suite case a message reminding him off the dangerous of being addicted to high risks. The note reads, "the longer the addiction goes untreated the greater the probability of arrest and imprisonment. The disease can wreck family, career, and even life." Jim first learned to play poker from his uncle and only played with a couple of his buddies maybe once a month. The risk were never extremely high and they only played for fun. Jim found himself being drawn into the game and began reading every poker book he could get. he read guides from past champions and books with the probabilities and statistics of each hand. He got his main practice preparing for the tournament on online poker tournaments for free. Over the winter he played over 10,00 virtual hands and won 7 tournaments. By the time he got to Las Vegas he felt that he was ready to played, but nothing could've prepared him for the nerves he would face with the risk of losing 10,000 dollars.
If I had the money to enter into the tournament I would. Like Ted I get very excited and intense over taking risk, its an adrenaline rush. I love picking sports teams to win and playing sports to see who is the best, but I would never risk 10,000 dollars unless I was a millionaire. So far this book has talked about how people are drawn to risk and I completely agree with it. Most people enjoy the adrenaline rush of winning and the possibility of losing.
Literary Fiction
Pages 33-70
Jim the narrator takes a plain to Las Vegas to cover the Ted Binion murder trial and compete in the world series event. Jim's wife thinks that this is entire waste of money and believes that Jim is simply dead money. Dead money is the money that gets added to the winnings, but the people don't make it into the money rounds; therefore, they don't get any of the winnings. 1st place gets 1 million dollars while 2nd gets 600,000 and 27th gets 16,000. His wife allows him to go blow his bonus to compete in the tournament, but packs in his suite case a message reminding him off the dangerous of being addicted to high risks. The note reads, "the longer the addiction goes untreated the greater the probability of arrest and imprisonment. The disease can wreck family, career, and even life." Jim first learned to play poker from his uncle and only played with a couple of his buddies maybe once a month. The risk were never extremely high and they only played for fun. Jim found himself being drawn into the game and began reading every poker book he could get. he read guides from past champions and books with the probabilities and statistics of each hand. He got his main practice preparing for the tournament on online poker tournaments for free. Over the winter he played over 10,00 virtual hands and won 7 tournaments. By the time he got to Las Vegas he felt that he was ready to played, but nothing could've prepared him for the nerves he would face with the risk of losing 10,000 dollars.
If I had the money to enter into the tournament I would. Like Ted I get very excited and intense over taking risk, its an adrenaline rush. I love picking sports teams to win and playing sports to see who is the best, but I would never risk 10,000 dollars unless I was a millionaire. So far this book has talked about how people are drawn to risk and I completely agree with it. Most people enjoy the adrenaline rush of winning and the possibility of losing.
Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Peter Rabbit was one of my favorite little kids novels. I forgot must of the story, but seeing the cover makes me want to read it again. I loved the rabbits and how they took the risk of going into the garden. The thrill of wandering if the rabbit was going to make it out of the garden or get caught by the farmer. Reading Peter Rabbit in my mind was such a thrill and i can't wait to read it again.
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