Finally caught the final table of the World Series of Poker 2008 over the weekend.  Some assorted thoughts on the game, on poker, and on TV production:

* Boy, someone at ESPN really loves their ring flash, don’t they?  I’m not sure shooting interviews with the final table players with big glowing circles over their eyes is really a good look.

* I was happy that the man I was rooting for — Dennis Phillips — made it all the way to third place.  He made me nervous in the early going.  And where is Steve Danneman these days? I miss him.  He was fun.

* Man, it must suck to lose at the final table on a one-outer.  I don’t blame the guy for stumbling out of the arena after that.  Ouch.  I wonder if he’s getting the six of diamonds tattooed on him now somewhere?  (That bad beat is so memorable, I didn’t have to look up which card was the killer; I remembered that one, as I’m sure Scott Montgomery forever will.)

* Delaying the final table for four months is done for television and I don’t like it.  Part of the thing with a big tournament like this is momentum and physical stamina.  Letting people take four months off resets everything.  Letting them see the videos of the people they’re playing at the final table with is almost unfair.  Since everyone has the same “advantages,” though, I guess it’s fair.

* That four months also gave all participants the chance to line up sponsors and so, ugh, everyone looks like a friggin’ NASCAR driver at the poker table.  Those obnoxiously large and ungainly patches are ridiculous.

* Also ridiculous is the crowds.  It’s the final table of poker, NOT a gladiator combat thing.  The crowds just get more and more obnoxious. If you thought The World Poker Tour had unwieldy crowds, you haven’t seen anything. The site of 300 people in red caps and white workshirts rooting for Phillips was kinda cool, though.  I could have done without the truck horns.  Or the singing from the Danish contingent.  I’m such a purist, aren’t I?

* Lon and Norm still crack me up. I suppose I’m not a purist in that way.  I know they don’t talk about poker strategy, but they’re entertaining.

* Now who will make a joke out of “The Demon Deacons?”

* Sorry to see the head to head battle last all of five minutes.  I’m sure some of that was in the editing, but who can beat the drama of Monkeymaker/Farha?

* I don’t know that I could ever play a final table like that.  I’d likely just let myself get blinded off, waiting for a couple of other people to get greedy and lose first.  So long as you weren’t out first at the final table, you were an instant poker millionaire.

I can imagine the scenario: After folding for two hours straight, I’m in the small blind and dealt pocket aces.  Not wanting to scare anyone off, I call the big blind.  The big blind immediately folds, knowing I must have something insanely good, so why bother?

“Winning Poker” is not the title of a book I’ll be writing anytime soon.

With all the episodes centered in the New York City area, it was bound to happen that Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” would finally take on a restaurant that I know.

OK, it’s not one that I’ve eaten at or ever paid attention to, but I’ve passed it many a time, and I recognized its street sign.

Last week’s focus was on “Fiesta Sunrise,” a Mexican restaurant in West Nyack, NY. That town is best known for its gigantic mall, the Palisades Center. I’m pretty sure it ranks as one of the top ten largest in the nation. It’s four stories and has everything you could ever ask for. It’s only one hotel short of being a place you could live in without ever needing to go outside. In addition to all the usual mall things — cell phone kiosks, sunglass kiosks, Croc kiosks, etc. — it has every major department and big box store you could imagine: CostCo, Best Buy, Home Depot, Target, Nordstrom, J.C. Penneys, etc. It has its own post office, a large movie theater complete with stadium seating, an IMAX theater, a bowling alley, and an ice rink.

The crazy thing is, there’s a large chunk of it unfinished upstairs, to stay within some local code. There are actually those who protest the idea of opening up any more stores in a mall that’s four stories tall and has hundreds of shops already. Yeah, that last store or three next to the restaurant row is really going to make the traffic outside unmanageable. Sheesh

But Gordon’s estimate of 25,000 cars a day passing by the restaurant are not unfounded. I imagine the number is much higher on the weekends.

The even funnier point of the mall is that it’s sinking into the ground. It’s only ten years old now, but was built on some soft land. If you park underneath the mall, you can see the effects around the columns holding everything up. But it is a worry that the mall might someday disappear into the earth.

In any case, the mall appears in the background of all the exterior shots of the episode featuring the restaurant’s sign. Specifically, it’s the Lord and Taylor wing of the mall you can see.

The restaurant’s front awning sports a “Grill 303″ sign. I imagine that was the previous restaurant that was there. The “303″ refers to the highway the restaurant is located on, Route 303.

In the closing shot of the restaurant, one of the cars parked by the front door has the News 12 logo on it. News 12 is a local news station. Conveniently enough, it’s on channel 12 on my cable provider.

For comic fans: Wizard’s offices are in Congers, NY, about ten minutes up the road from this location.

• Yesterday was the Nintendo Wii’s second birthday in North America.  My, how time flies.  It seems that it’s a little easier to find a Wii today, but that won’t last once the Christmas season starts next week.  If you’re still on the fence, this might be your last best chance to find one on shelves in 2008.

• Related: It took me a minute to remember how everyone referred to the Wii before it was “The Wii.”  Remember the outcry when Nintendo said it wouldn’t be called “Revolution?”

• Allow me to be the one millionth website this week to point out that Google now hosts LIFE’s picture archive.  You can, indeed, get lost for hours upon hours in there. Other blogs are only just starting to mine the archives for interesting material.  I think I just lost a half hour staring at World War II pics. . .

• Does it annoy you, too, when people ask you a question that they could have just Googled for first and saved us both some time? Here’s the new proper response: LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com

• What’s the dumbest idea you could think of for the web?  What’s the least useful thing ever?  How about HugeURL?

Ever since shows like “Lois and Clark” started filming in widescreen format, there’s been a problem.  They’ve needed to pander to people with standard 4:3 ratio television sets.  So while the show exists in widescreen with extra material to the left and right, everything was still composed for the center. Those wings on the screen were dead zones.

Today, 15 years later, the same is true.  Watching a network drama in widescreen format on my HDTV, I see that everything is still happening in the middle of the screen. You might not notice it right away, but once you do it’ll drive you mad. Then you’ll notice the little network bug is right in the corner of the 4:3 layout, while the image still extends out to the right.  This is also true in sporting events — all the graphics stretch completely across the screen, but the information is only in the center of the screen.  It’s even true on reality shows.  Next time Tom Bergeron is shuffling dancers off back stage on “Dancing With the Stars,” note how far to the right he is on the screen.  Those people sitting behind him off on the far left are never seen on a regular 4:3 TV set.

With digital television signals becoming the norm in a couple of months, will this madness soon end?  Will we soon see people talking on screen from the far left or right edge?  Will directors be allowed to compose their television shots in the same way they’d compose their theatrical shots?  I hope so.

Another week, another set of DVDs to ponder:

• Wall-E

I’ve already reviewed it here and here.  Loved the movie.  The bonus features are strong, particularly the hour and a half PIXAR retrospective documentary.

• Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director’s Cut)
  

I’ve heard nothing but great things about this Ben Stiller movie.  Am curious to see it.

• Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

Er, no.  Thought I do admit that I saw the first one.

• 300 Collector’s Edition

You get the movie, a digital copy of the movie, and the original graphic novel collection.

• Monty Python’s Flying Circus Collector’s Edition: Complete Series

Only $90 or so. Not bad at all.`

I realized yesterday just why it is that I’m so disinterested in Sundays.  On top of everything I mentioned in Friday’s post, it’s that Sunday seems like a half day of work.  The routine of Sunday is fixed on setting things up for the week ahead — doing laundry, ironing, food shopping, cleaning the house, etc.

This is what I realized as I as scrubbing the third toilet on Sunday morning.  Where’s the weekend fun?  Really, only on Saturday.  Growing up stinks.

Monday - Duh. It’s Monday. The first day of another five day long epic struggle against The Man. Inevitably, it’s a lost cause. The cube is your cage.

Tuesday - Still three more days to go after this one. And you still have to get through this one.  Sure, you have one day behind you, but those three in front loom large. The week has barely begun.

Wednesday - You’d think that the mid-week “New Comic Book Day” would make me happy, but it’s trumped by something more worrisome: There’s no life-changing-money lottery on Wednesday. So once you know you didn’t win on Tuesday night’s drawing, you know you won’t be quitting your day job either today OR tomorrow. Wednesday is the new Monday.

Thursday - That lottery thing is still in effect. Plus, it’s now the FOURTH day in a row you’ve been stuck at work and it’s not the end of the week. You still have to get through another day after this one is done.

Friday - Many people like this day. I don’t get it; you still have to get up early and shuffle off to work. Feh. And then everyone wants to know what your plans are. None of yer bee’s wax!  You don’t give a crap what I do the other 5 nights a week.  Why do you suddenly care about my “time off”?

Saturday - OK, I like Saturdays. There’s hope for this day. Something fun might happen. Something you might want to get done may be doable. But there’s also the pressure of doing something, accomplishing something. Sometimes, after five looong days at work, you’re just not in the mood to be productive. And, dagnabit, shouldn’t you get one day of rest in a week? UGH, I think I hate Saturdays, too.

Sunday - You’d think this would be a repeat of Saturday, but it’s really not. On the best of Sundays, the fear of Monday strikes at 6:00 p.m. You still have to go to bed at a respectable hour, because tomorrow is the start of another long work week. You realize all day that you didn’t get nearly enough done over the weekend as you wanted to. There’s no lottery drawing to save you until Monday night. Sunday is a death day. It has the shine of a weekend day, but that’s a very slim coating. The truth is much more depressing - Sunday is Pre-Monday.

That’s the Seven Depressing Days of the Week. So, any big plans this weekend?

UGH

My “Wall-E” DVD review is now live at CBR.  I’m still watching more of the bonus materials in the set, so here are further thoughts:

“The PIXAR Story” documentary is really nice.  It’s obviously a few years old.  Looks like it was done after “Cars” came out.  The story ends with the Disney acquisition.  It’s funny to see director Andrew Stanton looking a decade younger, without glasses, and with much shorter hair in the movie, as opposed to the “Wall-E” featurettes. It’s sad to see story man Joe Ranft talking about PIXAR, given that he died in a car accident in 2005. (Wow, three years ago already?!?) Also sad to see the last of Disney’s Nine Old Men, Frank and Ollie, being interviewed.  They’ve since departed from the mortal plane, as well.

The director of the piece has the last name of “Iwerks,” leading me to wonder if it’s any relation to animation pioneer Ub Iwerks.

Wow, animation people love videotaping themselves doing everything — Brad Bird camcorded his drive into PIXAR on his first day of work. Someone videotaped Lasseter’s reaction to the news that “Toy Story” had been greenlighted.  Thankfully, someone recorded Brid’s “Call to Arms” to the troops at the beginning of “The Incredibles.”  Heck, Lasseter was making movies of just his day-to-day job back at the Disney studios in the 1980s.

I had no idea that “Toy Story 2″ was in as much trouble as it was.  They didn’t go too deeply into detail, other than to say that John Lasseter came back from vacation, spent a weekend rescripting the whole movie, and saved it. They probably covered this on the TS2 DVD way back when, but I can’t remember everything anymore.

“A Bug’s Life” came out three years after “Toy Story.”  Can you imagine waiting three years for the next PIXAR movie today?

Also: The “Up” teaser looks interesting, but there’s not much there, besides Ed Asner’s voice and some balloons.  A full trailer is now available at the Apple Movie Trailer site. I watched it on my Apple TV tonight and it’s pretty funny.  It’s playing off that story of the woman who wouldn’t leave her house while new skyscraper-type construction happened around her.  I probably linked to it in a link dump around here somewhere. . .

Follow the Tweets as they happen!  Or, here are some recent highlights:

• This was a very very good day for packages and mail arriving. Also got my kit for wireless off-camera flash. Can’t wait to go all Strobist.

• Off camera flash is functioning. All pictures are wildly overexposed. Much learning yet to be done. (I think I’ve found the secret - manual mode. Scary, but exciting!)

• Who’s destined to lose the World Series of Poker? The guy with fans in t-shirts that say “Whose the bully now?” It hurt me to type that.  (Was the final table on last night? I’ll need to tape the repeat on ESPN 2.)

• Oprah says her show is ending in 2011. Funny, she says that every time she’s due for a new contract. Coincidence? I think not.

• So, my computer may need a new graphics card, my TiVo fails to recognize a USB wi fi dongle, and the cable box is on the fritz. UGH UGH UGH

• Wall-E is a remarkable achievement in animation. I loved that first half hour. Brilliant acting and classic cinematography.

• With DVR screwed up — Cablevision will need to replace it — I’ve downloaded last week’s ep of THE SHIELD. So I’ll watch it Apple TV now! (Still haven’t watched it. . .)
  

• TiVo is now updating itself through someone else’s wi-fi network. At 30%. Can’t find where to change networks, though. Annoying.

• One of my all time greatest accomplishments: Getting my daughter to sleep tonight. Sheesh. Took 30 laps in her snap and go in dining room. 

• I want to dirty some dishes now, just so I can run the dishwasher to clean the few that are dirty. It’s a sickness. 

• This week’s TWiT set the new low standard for podcasting. Horrible unlistenable pointless episode. What a waste. 

It’s a fantastic week:

• Kung Fu Panda

The clips I saw certainly looked funny. And it did very well at the box office.  Was that because it was the only family friendly movie out at the time?  Or was it really a fun movie?

• Hellboy II

Missed it in the theaters, as I do the vast majority of movies I’m interested in.  Still, Best Buy is offering this alongside the “Hulk” DVD for $30.  I have a gift card for BB, making that very tempting.

• Star Wars: The Clone Wars

This is a very exciting release for those of you with ten year old boys in the house.  For me, the clips look like video game cinematics.  I’m not interested anymore.

• Firefly (Blu Ray)

The series is back out on a silver disc again. This time, it’s done up in Blu Ray, which means high definition, fewer discs, and some new special content in the form of a lunch reunion for some of the cast.

• Scrubs: The Complete Seventh Season

Can’t go wrong here. . .

Next week: Wall-E.  Look for my review of it in this week’s Pipeline, available at ComicBookResources.com today!

• Top 10 Most Annoying Phrases: I concur.

• More covers of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

• Your Fash game of the week: 99 Bricks.  Like Tetris in reverse.

• You know those “Single?” signs you see around town with a local URL on them?  There are close to 9000 towns with those signs in them.  This guy figured out where they’re coming from.

• Video of the “Harry Potter” narrator reading from the book.

• There was a lost Marx Bros. show.  So sad.

Who doesn’t love the movie orchestration of John Williams?  Isn’t it time someone composed an ode to him?  Say that person did four part a capella harmony by himself using Williams’ tunes with “Star Wars”-related lyrics.  God bless YouTube.  (I can’t get “Kiss a wookie” out of my head now.)

If that’s not good enough for you, perhaps 64 part a capella for “Thriller?”

Or four part Super Mario 2 a capella?

Maybe the MacGyver theme song a capella? It’s pretty awful, though the kazoo almost saves it.

How about three part Tetris music?  It builds kinda slowly, really kicking in with the third guy.

What follows is 1100 words on what the future holds for Obama voters, what echoes of the past I see in last night’s vote, the problem with statistics, how little some things change, and how my term “Obamagasm” is taking on new meanings. . .

As always, I’m hiding this behind the page break.  Skip over this if you don’t want to talk about politics anymore.  If you’re on an RSS reader, just skip to the next post in the feed now.

I’ll be back to link dumping tomorrow.  Thanks.

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