Here is how I would order the teams:

1) Undefeated SEC Champion

2) Undefeated Texas

3) Undefeated Cincinnati

4) Undefeated Iowa

5) Undefeated Boise State

6) One loss SEC Champ

7) One loss Texas that wins the Big 12

One loss USC

Contrary to what the ESPN analysts say, I think an undefeated Cincy, Iowa, or Boise St (this is iffy tho) gets in over a 1 loss SEC champ, 1 loss Texas big 12 champ, or 1 loss USC.  Only time will tell.

I just got back from London a few days ago.  While a lot of the following is going to sound overly negative/critical, my time there was very enjoyable.

Attitudes towards Americans

It seems like they hate Americans in London.  We were taking a train to the outskirts of London to see Hampton Court and my friend had his feet propped up on the chair across from him.  The train had maybe 8 people on it.  One young Brit struck up a conversation with my friend asking him about his Kindle and where he got it and what he thought of it.  Almost instantly after the conversation ended, and it was apparent we were Americans, a 50+ yr old lady sitting close to us told my friend he wasn’t allowed to put his feet on the chair.  Now, despite the fact that my friend was in the wrong here, this is just something no one would ever say.  The only reason she told him that was because he was an American.

Another time we were taking a cab somewhere and from our conversation and accents it was obvious to the cab driver that we were American.  As we exited the cab and made our way to the sidewalk, the cab driver motioned for my friend to come up to him.  “When you’re in London mate, you don’t slam the door to a taxicab.”  Again, not a big deal but it’s just obvious that every American is perceived as an arrogant asshole.

While we’re on the topic of taxicabs, there is this bizarre phenomenon in London whereby < 50% of cabs with their unoccupied light on actually stop for you if you try to hail them!  This was just baffling.  We thought for a while that it might be the particular spot we were trying to hail them but a cab driver we talked to dispelled that notion.  I’m not sure if they don’t keep their fares but that’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense.  Conversely, in NYC, cabs fight each other for fares.

Exercising/Fitness

Exercising and fitness seem to be nonexistent in London.  In all of our time walking around London, and we probably walked on average 10 to 12 miles a day, we were only able to find one gym!  This is evidenced in the physical appearance of Londoners.  While statistically Americans are more likely to be obese, if you factor out african americans and hispanics, they are actually slightly less obese than Brits.

At almost every tube (subway) stop, there was no option to take stairs.  You were pretty much stuck taking the escalator up.  The one subway stop we did find stairs at actually had a sign that said “for your safety, we request that you only use the stairs in an emergency”.  One silver lining is that they have this cool stand to the right policy whereby on any escalator, if you are merely going to stand, you are requested to stand to the right side so anyone who wants to walk up can pass you on the left.  This needs to be adopted in America.

Chelsea/Liverpool

One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a Chelsea/Liverpool match.  I don’t really want to get into a debate of soccer vs. american football vs. baseball vs. basketball, etc.  I pretty much find most sports enjoyable to play and watch.  Soccer is no exception.  We hung out at a pub close to the stadium for a while and the atmosphere was insane.  There was heavy drinking, broken glasses all over the floor (they only served you in plastic ones), celery being thrown, crazy chanting, etc.  They would only let you in if you were a Chelsea supporter.  This seemed kind of silly but after going inside, it was pretty apparent that this rule was in place for your safety.  If you were a Liverpool fan, you were not making it out alive.  At the door, if you were wearing a jacket, they made you take it off to make sure you weren’t wearing red (Liverpool color).

Overall, I found the trip to be a lot of fun.  It turned into a vacation as we ended up skipping the EPT.  I just thought that London had very little to offer that you can’t find in any other big city.

I’m considering going to London for a poker tournament which will inevitably turn into a vacation where I don’t even end up playing the tournament.  I have  a friend who is basically a local and he’s creating an itinerary for all of us.  This just got me thinking about how much I hate sightseeing despite my love for traveling.

I don’t actually mind seeing truly unique and extraordinary landmarks, locations, what have you.  I actually enjoy doing this.  If I take a trip to Egypt, I will make it a point to see the pyramids.  What I really hate, however, is sightseeing only for the sake of sightseeing.  You can basically waste multiple days in some of the smallest  towns in America if you were hell bent on going sightseeing.  There are things to see everywhere.  On a trip I made to Copenhagen last winter with a few friends, one of my friends insisted that on the second to last day we make a trip outside and go check out some museums.  I’m not all that into art but if Copenhagen had some super famous museum like the Louvre, I’m all for checking it out.  If it’s just some ordinary museum though, I’d rather not waste my time.  When you only have a week’s time, there are just so many better things you can be doing than seeing something that you will not remember three months later.  (Insert friend’s name here), I bet you cannot remember a single thing we saw in that museum.  I think this is a pretty good test for what’s worth seeing.  A few years later when someone asks you what you did in random city, the things you can name are probably the things worth seeing.

I think the best things about traveling are tasting the local cuisine and experiencing the culture.  Sometimes the latter is hard to do, especially if you don’t know any locals.  Almost all of my best experiences traveling have resulted from either befriending a local or knowing a local.  So many of the best things you can do in a foreign city are not listed in the tourist guidebook.  I’ll make it a point when I travel to try and avoid super touristy areas as much as possible.  What’s the point of traveling to some foreign city if you end up spending all your time with a bunch of American tourists?

Well, it has truly been too long since I have updated this but my life has been pretty hectic and exciting lately as I’m sure most of you are aware.

I cannot possibly start off this entry without talking about Two Months Two Million.  I think the show has been an entertaining and accurate portrayal of a lifestyle that so few people are aware of outside the poker community.  It has been a tremendous joy to watch the show with friends and Jay and I have been having weekly viewing parties.  For those who have been watching, I promise you the show is only going to get better.  Seemingly, every time I talk about the show with Jay, Dani, or Brian, someone recounts some hilarious event they captured on camera that has yet to be shown.  The summer just passed by so fast and we got pretty used to having cameras around us at all times that it’s hard to even remember what they got on film.

I think one of the things that the show has done extremely well is balancing the amount of poker they show on TV versus lifestyle stuff.  I’ve had numerous people tell me they’d like to see more poker or less poker and the bottom line is just that there are people who want to see poker, and others who just want to see the hilarity that ensues when the four of us are together.  The show captures both.

In terms of the actual experience of filming a reality tv show, I would say that it was enjoyable but I think better adjectives to describe it would be surreal, exciting, unique, educational, and even exhausting.  We had set times we’d have to be awake each day and anyone who knows Dani or I well knows this is a challenge.  Our talent coordinator, Jill, was the girl in charge of making sure we were awake at the proper hour each day.  Poor girl.  Honestly, I think Dani and I were both pretty punctual for most of the summer.  With the exception of Jay, however, the rest of us each had a morning where we were too comatose to rise.  Unfortunately, mine happened at a time when I was badly needed.  I had a late night out and was just too out of it to understand what was happening when Jill called me in the morning to wake me up and kept telling her to call me back in 15 minutes.  I was smart enough (or stupid enough) to lock both doors that led to my bedroom.  The calling went on for a while and then I heard someone knocking on my bedroom door.  At this point, I’m coherent enough to be confused as to how this could be happening since the outer door to the top floor was locked.  A few minutes later, the door busts open, lights are turned on, and I’m basically forced awake.  I didn’t realize until later that day when I went back upstairs that they had broken down both locks to get into my room to wake me up!  Apparently, the backup plan was to set up a ladder to access a 3rd door that led out to my balcony.

I got recognized on the street a couple days ago!  I was walking to go to this spectacular tacqueria by my apartment and on the way back I heard this couple mutter something like “Hey”.  I didn’t think they were talking to me so I just walked into my apartment and was about to take the elevator up when they burst through the doors and shouted “Emil!”.  They were so excited the doorman had to restrain them.  They asked the usual questions like did you make it, etc.  (not allowed to say!).  While Jay and I have both been recognized in NYC before re: DeucesCracked, this marks the first time any of the four of us have been recognized because of our tv show (sorry Dani, yours doesn’t count because you initiated the conversation).  Pretty cool.

In other news, I am settling back into my normal NYC life.  For the month and a half that I’ve been back, we have been without a personal assistant and personal chef, both of which we had prior to leaving for Las Vegas.

I’ve been getting by just fine without a PA and it’s comforting to know that I haven’t developed some sort of dependency after having one for almost a year.  This is one of the things that a lot of my peers are torn about and I definitely am in the pro-PA camp.  The biggest arguments that I’ve heard against hiring one are things like well it gives me satisfaction to do these things myself or I like to keep myself busy.  I just don’t feel the same way.  I’d rather be spending more time playing guitar, learning how to cook, reading, writing, going out, etc. versus doing laundry, depositing checks, washing sheets, setting up the speaker system, running to get AA batteries, etc.  If you don’t feel weird about having someone do things like this for you, and would rather spend your free time pursuing old or new hobbies, you should definitely considering hiring a PA.

As for the personal chef, I’m still up in the air over whether I want to rehire him.  One of the things I did after I got back is I enrolled in a vegetarian cooking class.  I think becoming a badass cook is something useful and fun that I want to pursue.  I’m still considering rehiring the personal chef we had because for the most part, I don’t think I’ve been eating particularly healthy since being back.  I haven’t been eating unhealthy but I just am not getting enough variety in my meals.  I’ve been eating way too much pasta and pizza.  I think a good plan might be to go through with the cooking class, maybe take a couple more, and also try and learn from our personal chef who is terrific.

I’ve maintained a decent gym routine since being back and hopefully in a couple of weeks I can be back at my personal peak fitness level.  Before going to Las Vegas, I could squat 225 lbs and bench 150 lbs at a body weight of 120-125 lbs.  I badly sprained my foot playing soccer barefoot in Las Vegas and had to take a month or so off from any heavy leg workout.

I think I’ve now been playing guitar for around 5-6 months and I’m really enjoying it and have noticed a dramatic improvement in my play.  I’m currently learning Over the Hills and Far Away by Led Zeppelin which is an awesome song.  My fingers have been calloused for most of that time that I’ve been learning.  Normal?

In sports news, I’ve basically stopped watching the Mets since leaving for Las Vegas.  I really had no time to watch baseball while we were filming and when I got back, the Mets were out of it and way too depressing a team to watch on tv.  It’s awesome that football is finally here.

I will try and update this blog every Wednesday.

Thinking how it used to be…

I’ve been wanting to post this for quite some time now but my lips have been sealed.  Here it is:

G4 ANNOUNCES NEW DOCU-SERIES

“2 MONTHS, $2 MILLION” PREMIERING AUGUST 2009

“2 Months, $2 Million” (“2M2MM”) Follows Four 20-Something Math Whizzes Determined to Make it

Big this Summer in the World of High Stakes Online Poker

Los Angeles, CA, May 18, 2009 – This summer, “geeks are wild” as G4 takes viewers inside the world of competitive high stakes online poker in a new series that follows four young high IQ friends who join forces and set up shop in Las Vegas. Their challenge for themselves? To collectively earn $2 million dollars in only two months using their own money. Viewers will go inside the “war room” of this interactive dream team who play poker nearly 24/7 and experience first hand the excitement of winning big money and the agony of losing it all in a single hand. The four guys, Brian, Emil, Jay and Dani, are math whizzes turned professional poker players whose fast-paced lifestyles go well beyond the typical 20-something’s daily activities. These guys are not pursuing the usual goal of landing a 9-5 job, instead they are seeking the thrill of “the flop” and trading in the daily grind for the online grind. When they do step away from the web, it’s about experiencing all that Vegas has to offer from exclusive parties to beautiful women. The new 10-episode half-hour series “2 Months, $2 Million” (“2M2MM”) debuts August 2009 on G4.

“What makes ‘2 months, $2 million’ intriguing is the duality of the guys” said Neal Tiles, President, G4. “On the surface each comes across as just your average G4 viewer…but in reality they’re ‘sharks’ playing for keeps with big money and living a lifestyle our viewers can only dream of. This is what we intend to capture.”

Brian, Emil, Jay and Dani all met online playing on various sites and they share a passion for poker and an enormous desire to succeed. They have competed against each other many times online and know each other’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the game. Despite having raked in loads of prize money individually, they believe that by teaming up they have a better shot of reaching their aggressive earnings goals.

Brian is 26 and is the “elder” friend and mentor to the younger players. He likes his cars fast and his poker action faster. Brian plans to take this summer to add to his already considerable fortune and designer wardrobe. Emil is a recent NYU graduate with a degree in finance and statistics. He consistently cashes in on some of the world’s biggest poker tournaments and attributes his devastating game play to a deep understanding of statistics and game theory. Jay has been a professional poker player for the last four years and is the founder and creative director of his very own successful online training community. Jay was the biggest online winner in no-limit cash games from 2007-2008. Dani, a New York City native, is the youngest member of the team and has always been very competitive. He started like most with a $5 deposit on an online poker site and has never looked back, building his bankroll until he was playing for some of the biggest stakes around.

“2 Months, $2 Million” is produced by Park Slope Productions in collaboration with G4. Paul Reitano and Terrance Sacchi serve as Executive Producers for Park Slope Productions. Laura Civiello is Executive in Charge of Production for G4.

For more G4 programming information, please visit: http://g4tv.com

About Comcast Entertainment Group

Based in Los Angeles, Comcast Entertainment Group operates E! Entertainment Television, the 24-hour network with programming dedicated to the world of entertainment, and E! Online; The Style Network, the destination for women 18-49 with a passion for the best in relatable, inspiring and transformational lifestyle programming; G4, offering the last word on gaming, technology, animation, interactivity and “geek culture” for the male 18-34 demo; and FEARnet, the world’s premier horror and thriller destination on demand, online and on mobile devices. E! is currently available to 96 million cable and direct broadcast satellite subscribers in the United States. In 2006, E! launched the E! Everywhere initiative underscoring the company’s dedication to making E! content available on all new media platforms any time and anywhere from online to broadband video to wireless to radio to VOD. The Style Network currently counts 62 million cable and satellite subscribers and G4, the #1 podcasted cable network in America, is available in more than 65 million cable and satellite homes nationwide. FEARnet is a joint venture between Comcast, Sony Pictures Television and Lionsgate. FEARnet.com ranks as the number one horror web site and FEARnet On Demand is one of the top five VOD networks.

I’m not allowed to say much but all four of us are super psyched to be doing this.

Well done pokerrow, the last song was indeed pinball wizard by the who.

Here’s an excerpt from Dan Baum talking about New Orleans.

“It’s the American way to focus on the future—we are dreamers and schemers, always chasing the horizon. Looking forward has made us great, but it comes at a price. (Mexican immigrants often describe life in the United States as puro reloj, or “nothing but the clock.”) New Orleanians, on the other hand, are excellent at the lost art of living in the moment. Étienne stopped at our house one afternoon to drop off some papers he wanted me to see.

No, he said, he couldn’t stay; someone was waiting for him downtown. But we got to talking, and gradually moved to the chairs on the porch. We had a beer. The shadows lengthened as the day cooled, the jasmine across the street smelled sweet, and a few houses away someone was practicing the saxophone. Margaret brought out a dish of almonds. We all had another beer. It was dark by the time Étienne left. And here’s the true miracle of New Orleans: the person waiting for him downtown no doubt had an equally pleasant couple of hours, and Étienne surely paid no social penalty for being late.”

Well done Rasputin for guessing the lyrics from here comes the sun by the beatles.

So I’ve randomly decided I’m going to title some blog posts with lyrics from a song.  Try to guess the artist/song.  No cheating/googling please.

One of my friends who went to school in the south always insists on how much better everything is down there including the weather, people, food, culture, etc..  I always argue with him and tell him to stop being biased.  I’m not yet willing to concede that the south is a better place to live but my friend is definitely right on one front.  Simply put, people are nicer down there.

I was in suburban Atlanta for a few days this past weekend for my cousin’s engagement party.  This is the second time in the past year I’ve been down there and I’ve been overwhelmed by how friendly everyone is.  We’ve eaten out maybe four or five times and all of these were pretty ordinary restaurants.  The service at each restaurant was incredible.  They seemed to go out of their way to make us feel comfortable and at home.  I’ve had awesome service at some top NYC restaurants but it was awesome in a different way.  It was more geared towards extensive knowledge of the menu, wine list, etc. rather than friendliness.  I don’t know what it is but you should take a trip to the south if you’ve never been there and you’ll notice it too.

I saw this last night and thought it was outstanding and definitely one of the best movies I’ve seen recently.  I’m no movie critic but I have good taste in movies.  Go check it out if you get a chance.  It’s available on movies on demand.

It’s really not that big of a deal.  You should really only be concerned if you’re really old or really young or have a weak immune system.   I’m no doctor nor have I done any serious research outside of google but I saw some people wearing masks outside and that is pretty ridiculous.  One of the things that most affects your immune system is stress so the more you’re worried about catching the flu, the more likely you are to actually catch it.  Let’s stop being hypochondriacs!

I don’t know if it’s just me but I find it absolutely necessary to shower immediately after getting a haircut.  My face, back, neck, and head are all covered in really itchy, irritating small pieces of hair.  I throw whatever shirt I wore in the laundry when I get home.  I think my hair is pretty average in most respects so I can’t believe I’m the only one.  I just know so many people who can go see a movie or go shopping right after getting a haircut.  I just don’t understand how this is possible.