Bet the House

Fillipi Pamplona (Flickr)

I read Richard Roeper’s book Bet the House last week and found it to be very interesting. I can’t say I’m much of a gambler considering I play a $.02/$.05 table of online poker maybe once every 2-3 weeks, but I do find the gambler lifestyle fascinating. I’m not talking about the famous poker players on ESPN. I’m curious about the person who is guessing numbers on the roulette wheel for several hundred dollars a spin. Are they playing with a scant percentage of their day’s income or did they just lose their mortgage payment?

Roeper is already a casual gambler but steps it up for this book in which he participates in all kinds of games and wagers, betting at least $1,000 per day. He explains the games well and weaves great narratives in amongst the “action” to make for a fun read.

If you head to the casinos, you might want to stick with high stakes video poker or slots, Pai Gow poker, and multi-deck blackjack as they have the smallest house advantage.

More Streaming for Netflix Subscribers

Netflix Movies
Jason Coleman (Flickr)

I’m a big fan of the Netflix service and have pretty much stopped going to movie theaters. For $9 per month you can get one DVD at a time via mail and unlimited streaming. With a Roku HD Player you can browse your queue and stream movies right to the TV set.

The choices for movies that can be watched online is limited, but starting in September Netflix users will have more to choose from. Netflix has purchased the rights to stream new movies from Paramount, Lions Gate, and MGM.

Avatar

I have just now seen James Cameron’s Avatar, bringing the world-wide viewership of this movie to 100%. Redbox sends me a free movie code the first Monday of the month and I am sure glad I didn’t pay movie theater prices.

Although the CGI is good, it’s not so good that it doesn’t stand out when the real characters interact with the CGI characters.

And, the storyline has absolutely no originality. The dialog and events are 100% predictable by anyone who has seen Dances with Wolves, The Matrix, and the scene in Braveheart when Mel rallies the troops with a raised fist. If I was more motivated and not pressed for time (have to go to Starbucks and then buy kitty litter) I’d grab screen shots from these movies and Avatar and show them side-by-side with little descriptions pointing out the similarities. I have to wonder what James Cameron actually brought to the table.

This movie gets a 2/5 stars in my rating system. Two stars is when the movie is bad but I somehow muster the strength to sit through the entire thing.