The Best Poker and Blackjack Hand

Okay, so you are playing cards in some weird environment where the hand you play in the poker game must be the same hand you play in the blackjack game.  In other words, the same five cards in your hand (I know, sometimes blackjack hands are more or fewer than five cards) must be used for both the poker and blackjack hands.

So, what is the best possible 5 card hand for both poker and blackjack?

I have surmised that it is the four 5s and an ace:  21 in blackjack and a four of a kind, ace high for poker.

You cannot beat that hand.  Can you?

Ah, The Self-Imposed Deadline

So, we’ve been getting together for rehearsals for Sketch 22 twice a week for the past couple of weeks.  Next week we move up to three times a week as our July 7opening looms ever closer.
Last Thursday night, it hit me just how little time we have left.  And still there was a sketch to write.  Not an important one, though.  Just the final sketch of the show, and the one that somehow should try to a) connect the earlier sketches together if possible and b) make some sort of artistic statement without, of course, sounding like it’s an artistic statement.
I took on the task of writing that final sketch and gave myself the deadline of having it finished by this coming Monday’s rehearsal.  Friday day I had to work – no time to write.  Friday night I set aside a chunk of time and began to write.  Hard, unfunny laboured writing.  Just a bunch of unconnected lines of dialogue that one somehow sometime come together to form a complete sketch.  I managed to write an opening monologue that I kind of liked but left it feeling lost and hopeless that I’d ever finish in time.  Still, I thought, I had Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday likely wouldn’t be happening for writing, so I had convinced/challenged myself that Sunday would be the writing day.  However, with a Montreal Formula One race to watch in the afternoon, time would be tight.
Saturday day was spent shooting the final video segments for the show.  They went very well, I thought, and should provide some laughs.  At the very least, they’ll provide some puzzlement and confused raised eyebrows.  Which was kind of the point of them to begin with.  Laughter would be a bonus on those videos, we figured, when we first wrote/read the scripts for them.  Having now shot the video, I think laughter is guaranteed.
Anyway, Saturday day was a bust for writing.  I got home and was so very tired as I trudged out to help my son cut the grass (he and a friend now cut the whole thing – two mowers, two kids, very little assistance from me), play a bit of football with son and friend, go buy groceries, barbecue portions of just-bought groceries.  After supper I told myself to sit in front of the computer and see if anything happened in terms of writing.
After the obligatory time-wasters such as browsing blogs, websites, etc, I finally opened my word processor.  A quick unsatisfactory re-read of Friday night’s stuff and I was ready to call it quits on Saturday.  Don’t give up!  Play around with some formatting of text:  italicize any stage directions I already had.  Okay, what if this character says this: type type type… man, that sucks!  So dry and dull.  A few more attempts like that and I started thinking that Sunday would be my day.  Ugh.
Wait a second.  What if this character says this: type type type.  Yeah, and then this character says: type type type.  That allows this other character to enter and say: type type type.  etc.
Four hours later, and it’s done.  And I like it quite a bit. Yay!  The final sketch of Sketch 22 2005 is finished.
Assuming the rest of the group likes it, of course.  If they don’t, then, hell, one of them will have to write it himself.
Now my Sunday will be free for me!  You have no idea how much of a bonus that is.

From A Death, to…well, Death

The fifth and final season of Six Feet Under is finally underway, with episode one airing earlier this week.

I think it’s going to be a harrowing final season.  Without giviing too much away to those who are watching it on DVD and are therefore a season or more behind, it looks like Ruth is going to go through a rough time but I expect she’ll find contentment in the end.
But who knows where the heck Nate is going to end up.  Horrible things just keep on happening to him.
David, actually, has the best prognosis on a happy ending (which could easily mean that he’ll end up the most miserable). 
Claire needs to rebound from the disappointing storyline of last year.  Don’t know if she will with the seedlings of a story that were planted in episode one.

It’s almost all too much to bare.  Can’t wait until next week.

Mildred

My wife’s grandmother, Mildred, died yesterday.

She lived to a great old age, and apart from the last year or so, when she really began to decline in health and spirit, she seemed to live a good, happy life.  The last time I saw her, I don’t believe she knew who I was.  It is, as they say, for the best that she passed.
Mildred was always quick to laugh around me and I enjoyed being in her company.  She seemed to have a mischieviousness about her which I appreciated.  After her husband died, she remained for many years, alone in the house they shared, and I was often amazed at her ability to keep her house and yard in shape.
She and I shared some good games of cribbage. I believe she beat me more than I beat her.  She had a thing for owls.
She was a good, strong person and I have not a single negative memory of her.
She was a great grandmother-in-law.

What’s In A Name

Another free Movie Idea for you.  All you have to do is write it:

Two versions on the same theme:

1) Will Farrell plays a kind of happy, contented everyman. Or, is he?  Married, kids, good job, yet he somehow is missing something?  He comes in contatct with some guy who, in some public situation, off-handedly makes fun of his name.  The new nickname catches on, and through a series of misadventures, causes Will to lose everything.  The rest of the movie revolves around him finding out what is really important.

2)  Joan Cusack is a woman who is stuck with a terrible name.  Really ridiculous.  It’s caused her to be a social misfit and consumes her to the point where she will only date men whose last name will make her name more bearable.  We see a series of these awful dates and see her fall to more and more desperate situations.  Of course, she has a male friend who is obviously in love with her, and she him, but, alas, his last name makes her name even worse, so she ignores her feelings for him.  In the end, though, she finds out what is really important:  love.

There you go, Hollywood.  Write ’em up!

My, He Had Well-Groomed Stool

I have been watching more and more documentaries and "educational" programs on television lately.  One was "Battlefield Britain" which I quite liked.  Each episode examined a different, specific battle that took place throughout history on Great Britain.  It was hosted by a father and son team.  The father examined the battle itself, strategies and weapons used, mistakes or innovations, etc, all pertaining to the military aspects of the battle.  The son examined the more humanistic aspects of the era in question.  How the battle affected the people who lived in the area, imagined the mental states of common soldiers from both sides of the fight, etc.
It was quite enjoyable.
Anyway, while watching that on The History Channel, I saw ads for an upcoming series called "Worst Jobs In History".  It looked like it’d be about this guy who attempts to tackle some of the worst jobs in history, actually trying to perform the jobs as they would have been done at the time.
Last night I saw an episode that examined a few jobs from the Tudor period of England.  They guy examined and/or  tried a few different jobs, including a Spit Boy (the man who turns the spit near the huge fireplace in the castle kitchen).  The one that followed that was a job entitled "Groom of the Stool".  Apparently, the Groom of the Stool, in the King’s castle, was, in terms of importance and status, second only to the king himself.  His job?  To wipe the ass of the king.
Ugh.

Mow Is Me

All day at work today, it’s been in the back of my mind – the grass at home needs to be cut.  Tonight.  It should have been cut last night, but I had a Sketch22 rehearsal.  A long busy day does not end with work today at 5pm.  Nope, the toil moves from the mental to the physical this evening.

Yes, my son (purely from the economic advantages it affords him) has taken on more and more of the task, but it’s still my least favourite part of home-ownership.

Today, I implore you all, instead of your usual prayers for the orphans, the impoverished, the sick and infrim, pray for me.  Pray for me and my suburban woes.

Everyday I Jump The Shark

I was reading somewhere else on the internets a discussion as to when Elvis Costello jumped the shark.  And it made me ponder that exact same question.  When exactly did he jump the shark for me?

Back in the early 1980’s I was a pretty huge Costello fan.  His first, from 1977, My Aim Is True is one of those almost perfect albums.  Smart sharp vitriolic angry songs, he was kind of the thinking man’s punk.  The next few albums of his never could, and never did, match the quality of his first, though they all had some great songs.  And that was enough to keep him tops of my pops.
I was originally going to say that Punch The Clock was his Shark Jumping album.  Yeah, it had some nice songs, Everyday I Write The Book, Shipbuilding most notably, but it missed on a few cylinders, and it sounded too…soft.  Strings and horns and orchestrations?  From the thinking man’s punk?  Was he done for? 
But how could I say he’d jumped the shark when he still had the albums Blood & Chocolate, King of America, and even Spike (an album I liked but many others didn’t as much)… all really good albums with a lot of great songs?  Surely we had to accomodate him experimenting with the pop songs and sound of Punch The Clock.  I had to give him that allowance.  No, I decided, Punch the Clock did not jump the shark.
Nor do I think he jumped the shark with Mighty Like a Rose.  Yes, it’s a difficult album to like, and the one that forever changed me from a buy-every-Elvis-Costello-Album guy to one who would wait and hear the reviews first.  But still, it was Elvis being Elvis.  Not very good Elvis, but still Elvis.
With the follow-up to that one, though,  The Juliet Letters with the Brodsky Quartet, Elvis was pretty much done for in my mind. An egotistical stunt if ever there was one.
That was his Jump The Shark Album.  Without question.

Harrison Ford’s Own Peter Pan

George Lucas signed off on this.  For that, he can never be forgiven.

The Star Wars Holiday Special (quicktime video)

Featuring:  Chewbacca and his family; a cooking demonstration; Bea Arthur singing; Carrie Fisher singing; and other unspeakables.  I have my Peter Pan ignominy, Harrison Ford has this.

Tar Zan Rub Ber Band

The folks over at Screenhead called this video "possibly the greatest thing we’ve ever seen."  That statement, of course, is one which begs to be brought down.
However, watching it, I may just have to agree.  It is possibly the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.