Any time I can use an online service to replace a program that I have to open from my computer, I'm interested. Hello Google Reader. I've been using a really decent RSS Aggregator called SharpReader. SharpReader is decent, but I've noticed it's quite the memory hog sometimes. I like having a list of sites that I track, and being able to go to that list and see what I've read and what's new is important. The big problem I've had with SharpReader too, is that the changes are isolated to the computer where you're reading from. So if I have SharpReader on a machine at work, and read a blog during the day, that night SharpReader at home on my laptop has no clue. Google to the rescue, their in-browser RSS reader is the bomb. I can list ALL of the RSS feed in one UI, or I can read them by feed. As I scroll past each article, it marks them as read, ahhhh. If a quick scan of the titles renders nothing I want to delve deeper into, I just click a mark all as read button. Nice and clean. And since it's tied to my google account, when I get home from work everything is as it should be (synchronized is the wrong word - but it's like that). I can even track my RSS items right from my google homepage. I can now uninstall SharpReader and get 30MB - 60MB of RAM back.... sweet!

I like to find places that I like, and frequent them. Consistency is a good thing. If you know your meal, service, and atmosphere will be good the majority of the time, you're more likely to relax, and have fun while you're spending your hard earned money. There's a place that my wife, friends, and I enjoy a lot, it's the Portland City Grill. We've only eaten at the restaurant twice, both extremely special occasions, one paid for by my folks as an anniversary gift, and once on our dime. But don't fret, because there's a way you can experience the great views, great food, and great atmosphere, significantly cheaper. Happy hour. I know they do it during the week but don't know the exact details. I'm going to tell you about Sundays at the Portland City Grill.

Every Sunday, they open at four and have happy hour until close. The best way to get in and assure you'll have a seat (read good seat), and totally enjoy yourself is to ENSURE, you're there before 4PM. We try to get there w/ at least 5 to 10 minutes to spare. Their address is:

30th Floor
Unico/US Bancorp Tower
111 SW Fifth Avenue
Portland, Oregon  97204

You can park right in the garage of the same building, they'll even validate your first hour of parking. 

The Grill is located on the 30th floor of the U.S. Bank building just a few blocks off Burnside on 5th. If you take Pine S. from the waterfront side, you'll drive right into the garage. Park near the elevators, you'll see signs to the Grill. Here's the catch, most people wait in the lobby until the elevators are unlocked allowing access to the 30th floor. We typically get in the elevator in the garage about 3-5 minutes before 4PM. And like a kid using an ATM, or elevator, heh, I just keep pressing the 30th floor button until it finally lights up.

Just last week this tactic got us in front of the mass of people that rushed in. You'll only need to employ this tatic if you want a window seat, and trust me, you do. Happy hour is only good in the bar, so once on the 30th floor, you briskly walk in, and find a good window seat, we like to sit as far from the bar out overlooking the river. The prices are CHEAP (for food). Appetizers range from a paultry $1.95 - $4.95 and include things like Sushi, a yummy burger, fries, Caeser salad, prawns, mini pork sandwhiches, Bruscheta, and a ton more. Four of us ate about 3-4 appetizers each, had 2-3 drinks each, and a $10 dessert, with tip spent less than $100. Not bad for a night out on the town. After 5PM there is a piano player, and the music is pretty good.

This is a great way to enjoy seeing Portland from a vantage that you won't get to that often, and keeping your night out on the town very reasonable. The picture above was taken from our seats about an hour after sunset.

I was able to find the happy hour menu on their site.

Switch the frogs to the opposite side within 2 minutes.

Green Day - American Idiot.

All I can say is this has to be one of my top 10 albums ever. Green day calls it a rock 'opera', I understand what they were going for, the album is awesome from start to finish. The second track, "Jesus of Suburbia" is a 10 minute song that changes tempo 3 or four times. It's probably the best track on the album.

If you get a chance, check out the live concert of the American Idiot album, where Green Day plays a live show in England to 130,000 people over two days. It's called "Bullet in a Bible". It's produced well, and is well worth the $14 (especially if you have a video ipod).

Anyways, I know this album has been out for several years, but I just have to say how great it is, start to finish.

I was tagged by Travis, so here's my five things:

I've worked for some pretty amazing clients as a web developer:

Right out of college I worked at a web development agency that gave me the choice of working on the http://www.weyerhaeuser.com/ corporate site, or the U2 World Popmart Tour Web Site (not online anymore...). Ummmm hmmmmm which one would you choose. I've done work for Reba McEntire too. Just about three years ago, I had an opportunity to do three professional poker player site's in conjunction with UltimateBet.com. Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, and Dave "the Devilfish" Ulliot. I'm an avid poker fan, and have seen all three of these guys all over TV. While I did not get to meet any of them, I did get an autographed book from Phil Hellmuth.

I used to be a snow ski instuctor. I taught snow skiing to kids as young as two, all the way to sixty plus years old for about seven years. I originally did this job starting in high school to subsidize the cost of skiing, and found that I really liked teaching and working with people. I worked for a ski school at Snoqualmie Pass, WA, at the Ski Arcres ski area. I worked for one of the largest ski schools in the country.

I'm an avid wood worker. I've taken a break for the past year or so, mainly because there's no furniture left to build, but I feel like I'm about to start up again. I primarily like to make furniture, and I tend to find something I like somewhere, and then duplicate it, building it better, stronger, and for about 1/3 of the cost usually. Along with wood working, I can pretty much do any sort of home improvement thing. I have ALL the tools, and a lot of the skills. I worked for general contractor for a few years, he taught me many things.

I've recently become an aspiring photographer. Well I guess I can't call myself a photographer yet, but I'm going to take some classes, and learn about photography. I purchased my first digiatl SLR (well any SLR for that matter) just a few months ago. And while I'm still an 'automatic' shooter right now, I'm enjoying the things a SLR camera can do, that a point-and-shoot can't. It's awesome to be able to shoot five or six photos in a second or two. I'm excited about becoming better, and sharing this with people.

I have a highly addictive personality. When my work got an XBox 360, it became pretty apparent to me that I needed to get one at home, as I easily could have snuck away to play it at work too much. I tend to go in long spurts of addiction, and right now my addictions are (in no order of importance): xbox, poker (I have limits, and no, I don't have a problem), learning photography, and my major addiction is electronics. Yeah, the second I saw the iPhone, I knew I'd have to have one. It's a sickness really.... :). I'm lucky to have a very cool wife, and while the electronic purchases sometimes push the envelope, she's a damn good sport.

I'm tagging Jon, and Jason.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is an invaluable resource for parents with small children. How often do you have someone want to 'save you money' and give you their garage sale, or hand-me-down item? The chance to save money with kids is almost always a great thought, as things kids use, especially when infant - toddler, tend to be used for a short amount of time.

Use the CPSC web site to look up product recalls. Check out really important things like cribs, walkers, high chairs, rattles, you know, the stuff you use daily. Let's face it, if there is a flaw with a product, especially related to safety, kids are going to expose it - quickly.

The CPSC site is awesome. You can subscribe to get recalls via email, you can browse the site, or even aggregate their RSS feed! They have concise bulletins explaining why something was recalled, how to return it, and what you're entitled to as a consumer.

Back when our first child was born, our mother in law brought us a play pen she had purchased at a garage sale for pennies on the retail dollar. We were happy to not have to shell out the $80 - $100 for a new one. But after a quick check on it, and finding out four children had died, and numerous other incidents reported, $100 just didn't seem to matter.

And it's not just children's stuff. It's all products. I had a dewalt rechargeable saw, and had to get the battery replaced as the one I had was a fire hazzard. Again, not something you'd know until it was too late.

Check it out.

One of the biggest frustrations I have with IE 7 right now, is that I can't move the "refresh" and "stop" buttons. They are hanging out at the end of the address text box, like a couple of uninvited party guests.

Who had the brilliant idea, that these buttons needed to permantently live there? Does someone out there know how to move them? I want them by the 'back" and "next" buttons!

Last night I was playing in another poker tournament. I played pretty conservative for quite some time. I finally started to get some playable hands.

Before I knew it, I was heads-up with one other player. We played several hands back and forth, and then the dealer announced, "this is the last hand". The tournaments are timed, and when there's no last man standing a chip count is taken to determine the winner.

I checked out his chip count, he had me covered by about 7k or so. I was under the gun, and looked down to find , a MONSTER hand, heads-up. I decided to act weak, if I could get just 5-6k more of his chips I'd win for the night. And since I don't play as much as some of the others in the league, a win is huge.

I made a really weak raise of 2K from the small blind. The current blind stuctures were 500 and 1000. It was a no brainer for my opponent, he had to call. He did, and the flop came down . Wow, I flopped a set, and along with my set I had the stone cold nuts. There were NO 2 cards my opponent could have that would beat me. I checked to my opponent, and he checked as well. The turn produced the . I bet out 3k, my opponent just called. I still was confident. The river exposed the . Now I had a full house. I checked, hoping my opponent would take a stab at it. He bet out 6K, I said, "I'm all in", and he called! He turned over King high, I turned over my full house for the win. Twas' a good night.

First off, if you're reading this, and you don't know who Comcast is, or you have dish, let me tell you how lucky you are.

I awoke this AM to find that Comcast had totally revamped the menu systems on my set top box. I didn't like them  before, but got used to how they worked, and while not stellar, they weren't really that bad.

We like to have Good Morning America on in the AM when we're getting ready, eating breakfast, and rushing out the door. I turned on the TV and clicked MENU, instantly I was confused. The menu is all pixely, and terrible looking, when in HD mode, it used to be crisp and clear, but I can get past that.

Ummmmmm where the Hell is my HDTV option? It's like GONE. What the hell, hmmmmmm, click menu again, and this 'quick menu' thing comes up that allows you to choose an option quickly, instead of choosing it from the menu.... I don't really see how it saves time but I digress. So I notice a new icon, way off to the right, HDTV, ah, there it is!

I click left, expecting the menu to wrap, and to go from the first item to the LAST item. It doesn't. Now instead of 'menu, menu, navigate down twice' (four clicks) I'm forced to click 'menu, and six clicks of navigation to the right' (and then enter).

Ohhhhh man that's dumb. Ok, so I don't really have an option. I go to TV Listing for HD by time. Ummmm there's two channels listed. WTF? Where did all my HD Channels go? I notice that there are little < and > carats at the top of the page, no no no... you're kidding me.

They've apparently grouped the channels by some sort of category. So now instead of paging down the available channels by time, I have to right click, right click, through all of their predefined categories.

The other option is to choose search from the main menu, some more clicks through their ridiculous interface, and choose HD. Resulting in the same view described above.

Tell me who their usability expert is, I'd like to punch him in the face.

Every aspiring poker player attempts to try and not give off 'tells' while they play. If you don't know what a tell is, it's best described as "giving away the strength of your hand, inadvertently". Tells can be anything, the way the chips are thrown into the pot, the way someone replies to a question, or even how they are postured at the table. A tell is not a sure fire way of knowing that someone is strong, or weak. Often times, players send out 'fake tells' to confuse you.

At the level I'm playing at now, I don't think the majority of people I play cards with are well educated on these things. I've recently started on trying to get a better read on players.  I've been reading books, watching professional player videos, and just trying to improve my game. I recently watched a video by Annie Duke (she used to live right here in Portland, but moved to Las Vegas recently).

The video mentioned something interesting that I had never considered. Annie Duke encouraged poker players to read FBI journals available at most public libraries. Well, I don't have the time to go find, and read these journals, so the information I was able to glean from her video seemed good.

Tonight, I was focused on trying to read players in pots against me. I did not expect to be put to the test on the very first hand of the night.

The blinds were $100 / $ 200 (tournament chips, not a cash game). I was dealt 'under the gun' (the first position after the big blind). I raised the pot to $800. I had one caller, and both blinds folded.

The flop came down, . I had totally missed the flop. I was first to act, and I had a feeling that this flop had completely missed my opponent. So I made a continuation bet of $600.

He instantly called, this worried me. The turn produced the . I had put almost 1/2 of my chips into the pot. I decided to check, I knew he'd probably move his remaining chips in, and I knew I'd have to fold, or risk the rest of my chips to see the last card. Like I expected, he moved all his chips in, and for a second, I considered folding. I decided to wait, draw it out and see if I picked up something.

My opponent was starring me directly in the eye, generally appearing to be strong, means you're weak. From his behavior, I was pretty sure that my ace high was the best hand. I watched him a bit more. I said call, and turned up my cards.

He turned up his, and with a disgusted face, he asked me, "how could you call?" I said, you did something that made me call. The river was a blank, and I doubled up.

Annie Duke's video mentioned that people that are uncomfortable about their situation (i.e. lying or bluffing in this case) tend to unconsciously blink more often than people that are telling the truth. When my opponent moved his chips in, he must have blinked about 20 times in thirty seconds or so.

Everyone at the table gasped, they all wanted to know how I could make the call. I replied I picked up a huge tell on him, they all bugged me to tell what it was... I didn't. :)