Saturday, May 20, 2017

Poker: defeat each country by a set $ amount (Bucket List #3)

With the SCOOP almost over, almost every country has been defeated. All except Russia and Ukraine. I've given up on the little countries: I've played against over 60,000 players and if none are from a particular country then they cannot beat me (I'm at +$1464). But, Russia and the Ukraine are a huge problems. I'm $15,884 behind Russia and $19,727 behind the Ukraine! This would appear to be an impossible task.

  
Cashed in the $109 HORSE SCOOP tournament. Argentina is now gone. Just 6 left on the "big country list": Belarus, Brazil, Hungary, Romania, Russia and Ukraine.
"Small countries" gone are Bermuda, Laos, Madagascar and Suriname. 14 left (including Antarctica).

Recorded my back-to-back 1st and 2nd finishes. Gone are Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Kazahkstan and Poland. Only 8 more "big" coubtries left. Most of the tournaments after this were OOTMs so this should be all for now.
  
Starting to add the tournaments I played while on vacation. So far, I've only gotten rid of Guatamala.

Only cashed in 1 of my last 9 but I still got rid of heavyweights Canada and the United Kingdom. 12 "high" countries and 20 "low" countries left.
 
Two more cashes in 3 tournaments. Only got rid of Lithuania. 
That leaves 15 more "high" countries and 27 more "low" countries.
Too busy this weekend to do any of the giant donkaments so the low countries will have to wait til next weekend.
  
4th place finish last night in $16.50 NLO8 knocks out about a dozen more countries (including Finland).
16 more "high" countries left. 27 more "low" countries left.
The low ones will go whenever I can find someone from there to play against.
The high countries will not be so easy. The top high country is Russia at $9406. Right now I'm up $695 on Russia. That's $8711 yet to go.
    
Played a $1 NLHM with 6000+ entries. 21 more countries gone. But not Antarctica.
 
Cashed in a 1000+ entry cheapie NLHM tournament. Another 11 countries bite the dust (including Mexico).
 
A 4th place finish on day 4 means 5 more countries (Australia, Peru, Faroe Islands, Ecuador and New Caledonia) bite the dust.
 
Second day completed and 12 more countries defeated.
 
First day completed by playing 4 tournaments and already Georgia, Cayman Islands, India, Macao, Costa Rica, Turkmenistan and Lebanon have been defeated.
 
I can beat one player or the whole country by that $ amount.
I can do that in one tournament or lifetime.
The country that looks the toughest: Antarctica at $1.
Second toughest: Russia at $9406.
The $ amounts come from the # of entries in a couple of freerolls last weekend.
The one player from Antarctica has played only one lifetime tournament! 
For live tournaments, all players are assumed to be from the country where the tournament is played unless otherwise indicated.

 Aland Islands                 1
 DONE Albania                      29
 DONE Algeria                       9
 DONE Andorra                       2
 DONE Angola                        2

 Antarctica                    1
 Antigua and Barbuda           1
 DONE Argentina                   640
 DONE Armenia                     104
 DONE Australia                   214
 DONE Austria                     240
 DONE Azerbaijan                   38
 Bahamas                       1
 Barbados                      2
 Belarus                    1414
 DONE Belgium                     305
 Belize                        1
 DONE Bermuda                       1
 DONE Bolivia                      24
 DONE Bosnia and Herzegovina       34
 Brazil                     2592
 Brunei Darussalam             1
 DONE Bulgaria                    699
 DONE Cambodia                      5
 DONE Canada                     2050
 DONE Cayman Islands                1
 DONE Chile                        75
 DONE China                       168

 DONE Colombia                    259
 DONE Costa Rica                   41
 DONE Croatia                     181
 Curacao                       1
 DONE Cyprus                       62
 DONE Denmark                     233
 Dominica                      1
 DONE Dominican Republic           19
 DONE Ecuador                      45
 DONE El Salvador                  11
 DONE Estonia                     196
 DONE Faroe Islands                 1
 DONE Finland                     197
 DONE Georgia                      49
 DONE Germany                    2031
 DONE Gibraltar                     3
 DONE Greece                      709
 DONE Guatemala                     2
 Guernsey                      1
 DONE Honduras                      5
 DONE Hong Kong                    12
 Hungary                     815
 DONE Iceland                      11
 DONE India                        54
 DONE Indonesia                    14

 DONE Ireland                     158
 DONE Isle Of Man                   2
 DONE Jamaica                      12
 DONE Japan                       125
 DONE Jersey                        1
 DONE Kazakhstan                  511
 DONE Kyrgyzstan                   43
 DONE Laos                          1
 DONE Latvia                      258
 DONE Lebanon                      23
 DONE Lithuania                   318
 DONE Luxembourg                   21
 DONE Macao                         4
 DONE Macedonia                    42
 DONE Madagascar                    2
 DONE Malta                        14
 DONE Mauritius                     3
 DONE Mexico                      211
 DONE Moldova                     294
 DONE Mongolia                    204

 DONE Montenegro                   25
 DONE Morocco                      36
 DONE Netherlands                 600
 Netherlands Antilles          1
 DONE New Caledonia                 1
 DONE New Zealand                  87
 DONE Nicaragua                     9

 DONE Norway                      205
 DONE Oman                          1
 DONE Panama                       12
 DONE Paraguay                     28

 DONE Peru                        155
 DONE Philippines                  70
 DONE Poland                      891
 Romania                    1394
 Russia                     9406
 Samoa                         1
 DONE Serbia                      156
 Sint Maarten (Dutch Part      1
 DONE Slovakia                    279
 DONE South Africa                 35
 DONE South Korea                  51
 Sri Lanka                     4
 DONE Suriname                      3
 DONE Sweden                      228
 DONE Switzerland                 240
 DONE Taiwan                       93
 DONE Tajikistan                    2
 DONE Thailand                     28
 DONE Trinidad and Tobago           6
 DONE Tunisia                      15
 DONE Turkmenistan                 15
 DONE Turks and Caicos Islands      1
 DONE Uganda                        2
 Ukraine                    3679
 DONE United Kingdom             1324
 DONE Uruguay                      88
 DONE Uzbekistan                  174
 DONE Venezuela                   141
 DONE Vietnam                      54

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Run (not walk) 100 (named) trails (full length) (Bucket List #6)

Ran the length of Reservoir Trail (#6)

Finished Trail #5: Ravine Trail (299m)

Finished trail #4: Cathedral Trail (282m)

Finished trail #3: Mallard Trail (253m)

Finished the 2 shortest trails I could find in Stanley Park: Tisdall Trail (108m) and Squirrel Trail (140m). Just 98 more trails to go.

Looks like this could be a tough one. I wonder what the shortest named trail is?
UPDATE: looks like Tisdall Trail and Squirrel Trail are the shortest trails in Stanley Park. Looks like I could do them right away.

Sunday, April 30, 2017

1982 Shamus Awards (1st Bucket List)

Finished the 7th of 10 books nominated for the 1982 Shamus Award. Nothing wrong with the plot of "Early Autumn" However, the main character, our hero, Spenser, is kinda annoying.

Finished #6 of the 1982 Shamus nominees. Arthur Lyons has been a favourite of mine for a long time. This one kinda fizzles at the end........ but that was the point!

Finished the 5th of the 1982 Shamus nominees. This one is a stinker. The detective only became a detective because he is a fan of detective fiction. All the characters are detective fiction related - so they are eliminated from ever being thought of as real people. And he ends it with a whodunit flourish. Crap.

Finished the 4th of the 1982 Shamus Award nominees. This is more like it! "California Thriller" won for best original paperback but "Old Dick" is way better. I guess they gave it to California Thriller because it was a serious private eye novel. Old Dick is just a lot of fun. Turns out I bought another book by this guy about 25 years ago called "Video Trash & Treasures" (a book of reviews of trashy movies).

Finished the 3rd of the 1982 Shamus Award nominees. Could not get into "California Thriller" at all.

Finished the 2nd of the 1982 Shamus nominees: "A Stab In The Dark" by Lawrence Block. This one is not nearly as intense as "Brown's Requiem" but Mr Block does have a fine way with words. He keeps you turning those pages and it's mostly because you care about his main character, the alcoholic Matthew Scudder.

Finished the first of 10 1982 Shamus Award nominees: "Brown's Requiem" by James Ellroy. This did not win best original paperback? That Max Byrd book must be a corker!
Here, our hero PI Fritz Brown deals with all kinds of L.A. weirdos. The kicker: Brown is probably even more of a weirdo than the bad guys.



1982 was the first year of the Shamus Awards. There were 5 nominees for best hardcover novel and 5 nominees for best paperback novel. I plan to read all 10.
It looks like I'll need to read all 10. I've reread 7 of the Arthur Lyons but "Hard Trade" isn't one of them. I read almost all the early James Ellroy's but I can't swear that "Brown's Requiem" was one of them.
Some of the others I've read a few by and some I've never even heard of. My work is cut out for me.

1982 SHAMUS AWARDS
THE EYE (Lifetime Achievment Award)
  • Ross Macdonald
    Accepted in his absence by his friend and colleague Dennis Lynds
BEST P.I. HARDCOVER
BEST ORIGINAL P.I. PAPERBACK
  • California Thriller by Max Byrd (Mike Haller)
  • Carpenter, Detective by Hamilton T. Caine (Ace Carpenter)
  • Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy (Fritz Brown)
  • The Old Dick by L.A. Morse (Jake Spanner)
  • Murder in the Wind by George Ogan (Johnny Bordelon)

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Watch 16 movies filmed at the Riverview Hospital (Bucket List #5)

Finished the 4th movie shot at Riverview Hospital. This one was a real stinker. But it's the first time I've made it all the way through an Indian movie. Thanks must go to all the Vancouver locations used.  I killed a lot of the time trying to figure out the locations. And there was a lot of time to kill: this epic of juvenile stupidity lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes!
 
Finished a 3rd movie shot at Riverview Hospital. It turns out that the Wikipedia list is not complete. In fact, the IMDB list is quite different from the Wikipedia list. So, since there is no complete list, I'll just watch 16 of them.
This one was "Hector And The Search For Happiness". Christopher Plummer's scenes were shot at Riverview Hospital and at UBC.
 
Finished the 2nd movie filmed at Riverview Hospital: Grave Encounters. This is a piece of crap patterned after the utterly useless Blair Witch Project. This is going to be a tough bucket list to complete. Why? The list contains a Grave Encounters 2!

Finished watching "Case 39". Embarrasing. The plot is idiotic and I know I'm being manipulated but I fall for it anyway. Don't know what scenes were from Riverview Hospital. The opening "drive home" scene though is along Hastings by Kootenay Loop.


I've often walked through the Riverview Hospital grounds. Now, it's time to see the movies made there. I've already seen Happy Gilmore.

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Watch all movies based on Charles Williams stories (Bucket List #4)


#4 is now in the books. I watched Claude Sautet's "L'Arme A Gauche" (Dictator's Guns). Charles Williams was famous for his seafaring stories and this one is very DeadCalmish. Hollywood character actor Leo Gordon takes a major role in this European production.
4 down 11 to go


I've seen 2 of these already (Dead Calm & Confidentially Yours) and now I've finished watching #3 (The Hot Spot). The odd thing is that Charles Williams gets credit for the screenplay despite the fact that it was made in 1990 but he died in 1975. This one must have been kicking around Hollywood for quite some time. In fact, the 3 big budget productions that were made from his stories were all made after his death. This one had Dennis Hopper behind the camera and Don Johnson (who was big at the time) as our anti-hero. Don's just passing through this hick town in order to rob the bank. Turns out not all of these hicks just fell off the back of the turnip truck
3 down 12 to go.
 
 1990 The Hot Spot (book "Hell Hath No Fury") / (screenplay)

 1990 La fille des collines (novel "Hill Girl")

 1989 Mieux vaut courir (TV Movie) (novel "Man on the Run")

 1989 Dead Calm (novel)

 1983 Confidentially Yours (novel "The Long Saturday Night")

 1975 The Man Who Would Not Die (novel "The Sailcloth Shroud")

 1971 Fantasia Among the Squares (novel "The Diamond Bikini")

 1970 The Deep (novel "Dead Calm")

 1968 The Pink Jungle (writer)

 1968 Don't Just Stand There (novel "The Wrong Venus") / (screenplay)

 1965 The Dictator's Guns (adaptation and dialogue) / (novel "Aground")

 1964 Joy House (dialogue) / (screenplay)

 1964 Le gros coup (novel "The Big Bite")

 1963 Banana Peel (novel) / (screenplay)

 1960 The 3rd Voice (novel "All the Way")