TJC Basketball

"You've come a long way, baby."

The Teaneck Jewish Center's Adult Men's Basketball league has certainly come a long way since... well, since my day.

When I was 18 and still around my hometown of Teaneck, I played in the 5-team men's basketball league at the Jewish Center. There were a handful of other younger guys and some older guys. The league was such where each team only had a couple of pretty good players. I even won a MVP trophy of the league one year - this illustrates the quality of the league. I also played pick-up ball down there often.

Now, at age 31, I wouldn't come close to sniffing the ass of an MVP trophy these days. The league has grown in stature considerably. Last night I watched my brother play on a team that includes two former Teaneck High School basketball players, and two guys who are as good as those former basketball players. They played against a team that included a similar level of players, including two former THS players as well and a couple of guys who, again, are as good as them. (Now, granted, many of these guys aren't Jewish. One regular in the league is named Christian Hernandez - as Adam Sandler sang, "Not a Jew.")

Anyway, the good guys remained undefeated and won in overtime. What inspired me to write this post is that the league actually keeps stats, and has a website! (Not a great site, but one nonetheless.) You can see it here.

July Poker League - Game #1

I'm working in North Jersey for the month of July. Daffy, who looks good with a razor thin beard and who recently started blogging again, organized a July Poker League. We will be playing bi-weekly games for the month of July, and after 5 weeks somebody will accumulate the most points and win a side pool.

I will attempt to recap each game rather quickly, the day after it occurs. Players will be referred to by nickname only.

Recap of Game 1 (Monday, June 30):

Ten people were in attendance at the Daffy residence for Game 1. Play started slow with Donkey throwing chips about rather recklessly and eventually going out in 10th place. Donkey lost a big pot to Lady Luck through a rather bad beat, who certainly had Lady Luck on his side this evening.

Zeus went out unceremoniously and surprisingly in 9th place, and noted, "Well, I had to shake the rust off." Before Zeus left early, he surreptitiously predicted that Teen Wolf, who had built an early chip lead, would finish first, with .com finishing 2nd and My Choice finishing third. He got two out of three right.

Soon after, Daffy, Chick, and Karma went out in 8th, 7th and 6th places, a large amount of their chips going to True.

Teen Wolf, who had built the early lead and then stalled somewhat, went out in 5th, losing a large amount of chips to his brother My Choice.

Lady Luck then was shortstacked but somehow watched his chip stack fluctuate through an incredible run of winning "all-in" plays to stay in the game. The crowd estimated that he survived about 8 all-ins. However, his luck eventually ran out and he finished in 4th place.

My Choice, who had quietly played solid poker all night, lost a tough hand to .com then. My Choice slowplayed pocket kings, and let .com hit top pair on the flop. .com went all-in and My Choice happily showed his kings to .com's J-7. However, a 7 came on the turn and .com won the unlikely hand with his two pair. My Choice eventually went out in third place, victim of a tough beat.

True and .com battled heads up, blinds high and leads swaying wildly from player to player. Eventually True finally got the victory to finish 1st in what is sure to be a poker season filled with highs, lows, and exciting poker action.

Points (Total):

True - 10 (10)
.com - 7 (7)
My Choice - 5 (5)
Lady Luck - 3 (3)
Teen Wolf - 1 (1)

Old School Photo

It's hard to know where to start commenting on this one... Thanks to Shilamida, who forwarded this to me. This was at a New Year's Party at Columbia in the dorm room of "Lucky"... we were not 21 yet.

Spelling Mistakes Make Me Want to Screme

From my school DISTRICT'S WEBSITE... (our district is having early dismissal today, as are many other local school districts)

"Weather Alert / Due to the extream heat..."

ExtrEAM? What gie or gurl is responsible for spelling? Seriously, are people freakin illiterate these days? Or do people not proofread their own writing? Despite being good in math, I was an average English student (ok, I did take AP English, but I certainy didn't excel at it) and these blunders stand out to me. Any good writers must cringe at stuff like this.

If I make a spelling mistake on this blog... fine, less than 10 people will read it. But how can you mess up that bad on such simple spelling mistakes on a public document? The PLAQUE to the boys bathroom in my school building reads "BOY'S BATHROOM". Does it only belong to one boy? Some of the English teachers here bring their classes to the plaque to point out how common these mistakes are (or, maybe, the idiocy of the school).

Prostitution Part II

A couple of months back I posted about prostitution and the farce of the "illegality" of this activity. To further reinforce my point, I picked up the free Atlantic City newspaper the last time I was down there. Here's a sampling of the classified ads:



Anyway, this is nothing. Anybody who picks up the free / cheap city papers in NYC, Philadelphia, or I'm sure any other major American city will see the same or worse. I'm sure you could purchase sex fairly easy with a couple of points and clicks as well.

I don't know, it just seems like with the way prostitution (and drug use) is "illegal" in this country the door is wide open for selective and ineffective enforcement and consequences. It also completely opens the door for the market for sex slaves and unsafe working conditions for women, doesn't it? What's wrong with making it legal? Am I just too liberal...?

199Teaneck#2

The boys over at Where's Luke went Will Shortz on us.

Click here for Round 2.

Click on "Printable HTML" after going to the link for best results.

Amy Walker - 21 Accents

Forget where I first encountered this...





Not having traveled much, I was wondering how accurate her accents were. The Youtube comments appear to be mixed.

7.11

I was waiting to get on a poker table at Bally's a couple of weeks back. I was donning my beautiful Rutgers sweatshirt. Here's a picture of it



R-U, rah rah, R-U, rah rah, HOO-rah, HOO-rah, Rutgers RAH!

So some guy also waiting for a table spots my sweatshirt and comes up to start up a conversation. Turns out, he taught math at Rutgers many years ago. We share our backgrounds, and he says, "Well, here's something to think about while you're playing..." He added a story that made the question more of a "riddle" than just a math question, but here is the core of it:

In a "seven-eleven" (7-11) store, a customer selected four items to buy. The check-out clerk says that he multiplied the costs of the items and obtained exactly 7.11, the very name of the store! The customer calmly tells the clerk that the costs of the items should be added, not multiplied. The clerk then informs the customer that the correct total is also $7.11. What are the exact costs of the 4 items?

I went to my 1-3 No-Limit table while he went to his 2-4 Limit table. While I was playing, during hands I wasn't in, the math geek in me got control of me and I started to try to work it out. Distracted from both the game and the problem, I put it aside intending to try more later. I got home and searched for the problem, intending to blog about it, and accidentally spotting the solution. Annoyed because I'll never know if I would've been able to figure it out, I post it here as a challenge.

You can find the solution if you google...

2-3-2 vs. 2-2-1-1-1

The NBA playoffs are in full swing. They have been great. The two series going on now, Lakers/Spurs and Celtics/Pistons, are what people wanted. Right now, any of the four teams could realistically win it all. It's great.

Anyway, the point of this post: Why are the NBA playoffs in this 2-2-1-1-1 format, as opposed to a 2-3-2 format? If memory serves, they used to play finals in a 2-3-2 format, didn't they?

First of all, from a practical perspective, the 2-3-2 format saves teams money in travel expenses and builds some momentum in the visiting teams' city for the 3 middle games.

Competitively, if you're the home team, and you should get a big advantage for having the better record, wouldn't you rather have games 6 and 7 at home rather than just game 7? As the higher-ranked team, if you win your first two at home, even if you go 0-3 on the road you can still close it out at home.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

Poetry Monday

Not sure where this is from, saw it referenced in a Stephen King book. It struck me though.

Each thing I do I rush through so I can do
something else. In such a way do the days pass -
a blend of stock car racing and the never
ending building of a gothic cathedral.
Through the windows of my speeding car, I see
all that I love falling away: books unread,
jokes untold, landscapes unvisited. And why?
What treasure do I expect in my future?
Rather it is the confusion of childhood
loping behind me, the chaos in the mind,
the failure chipping away at each success.
Glancing over my shoulder I see its shape
and so move forward, as someone in the woods
at night might hear the sound of approaching feet
and stop to listen, then, instead of silence
he hears some creature trying to be silent.
What else can he do but run? Rushing blindly
down the path, stumbling, struck in the face by sticks;
the other ever closer, yet not really
hurrying or out of breath, teasing its kill.

-Stephen Dobyns