Out of the ashes arises the mighty slough shark

I can't believe it's been more than a year since I've had anything worthy or unworthy to say.



Loyal followers? I doubt I have any left. That's OK, I'm game for something new and as such perhaps it's time I expose new people to all sorts of diatribes about pool and politics.



Let's start with politics.



For those of you that don't know, I live in Canada. Wow it's amazing I live in one of the riches countries in the world and I still have something to complain about. I mean, I could have been born in Sri Lanka, even worse I could have been born a Tamil.



Don't ask me what a Tamil is, what they believe in or what their culture is like, I don't have a clue. What I do know is a boat load of them just showed up on our West Coast looking for asylum.



My first thought about this was, hey, that's not right. We can't just let any Tom, Dick or Harry into the country without going through the right process or channels.



I don't think that point of view is all that uncommon with other Canadians. (Hopefully not all).



Don't worry, all is not lost, I haven't turned to the dark side. I haven't lost my compassion.



Sometimes it just takes me a couple days of reflection to find it.



So, what got me reflecting? First of all when this story hit the news there was a strong reaction of the NeoCons that echoed my thoughts above. That got me thinking, wait, I'm never on the same side of the fence as them, there's something wrong with this picture.



So I thought to myself, James when you get that itchy feeling in the back of your head, what do you do? Research, that's what. So I started reading up about the Tamil peoples recent history and it didn't take me very long to remember the war that "concluded" last year in Sri Lanka and how the government forces brutally cleaned out the rebels and in the process either killed, maimed or rounded up the non-military Tamil people.



OK, if that's not genocide, it's close to it. No wonder those people want to live elsewhere. Wouldn't you? Or would you rather stay in your homeland and face persecution, live in a refugee camp and have to rely on the good will of people who probably don't have your best interests in mind for food, clothing and shelter?



I'm thinking that boat looked mighty attractive to the Tamils. These people are refugees. It's my guess that they didn't have a lot of options and that if they had followed the proper procedures they would still be in Sri Lanka. So come on Canada, despite what some people think we still have lots of room here, let's let them in.



I'm not saying we don't do background checks and weed out the bad apples. What I am saying is, if our current processes are not meeting the needs of these people then it's time we developed new ones. Modern process that take into account the way the world is today.



If we're not happy with the way they were smuggled to Canada let's punish the people who profited, not the people who were so desperate they sold everything they had to buy a spot on that boat. I'm not even sure I agree with that. I mean yes, it sounds like they made a couple of Million dollars bringing these people here, but in truth they are only providing a service because nobody else in the world stepped up to the plate to help these people.



Maybe greed was their motivation, maybe they are evil people profiting off the misery of other people. I don't know, I wasn't able to find out more about these smugglers. Truthfully I didn't try to hard. I stuck to mainstream media (MSM), what I found there was more than enough to rethink my position about letting the Tamils stay.



After all, all they wanted was a little Freedom. I hope they haven't arrived here too late.



Oh yeah....... I can hear you thinking right now. What door is James opening now?



Oh come on people, even if we just stick to the events of this summer you know I have more than enough ammo to say all sorts of nasty things about Twig. Yup that's right, our favorite Prime Minister from the moral minority. Mr. Mini Bush Harper. The irony that the Tamil people are coming to Canada to find freedom while our Prime Minister and his gang of neo con thugs are working at warp speed trying to erode our charter rights has not escaped me.

Now that the events of the G8/G20 are safely a month and a bit behind us I've had plenty of time to absorb the implications of what has happened and comment on them without being too emotional, swearing or outright promoting armed insurrection.

Twig, I wish you were just a pool player, because man you've got some balls. In a country that is as diverse as Canada with many different religions, heck many different brands of the same religions, where do you get off shoving your right wing "family" values down the rest of the countries throat?

This is the whole reason behind the separation of the church and state.

While calling for an independent inquiry on the G8/G20 disaster your office orchestrated is important I'm of the opinion we should be spending more energy on trying to remove you from power.

You're supposed to be a representative of the people. You're supposed to represent me. Why don't I feel represented? Why do I feel that the people you do represent would burn me at the stake if they were given the chance?

I can understand your reluctance to call for a full federal public enquiry on the G8/G20 debacle, after all it would what little regard you have for things like our charter of rights and the constitution.

Really I don't know why we're so surprised, after all right from the start when you were part of the whole reform/alliance movement we suspected you were the anti-Christ, or at the very least a religious zealot with racist and sexist tendencies.

I really shouldn't surprise us that you don't respect our freedom of speech, freedom of assembly or equal rights for women, aboriginals and other minorities. One just has to look at how you run the government and the people working for you.

Government workers right up to MPs can't say anything to the media about anything unless it's gone through your office and gotten the "smells clean enough for twig" stamp of approval. So even the people in your own party, somehow elected by Canadians don't have freedom of speech.

What kind of democracy do we have when there is no government transparency? How can we base our opinions and voting choices on sanitzed news?

Truth is, we can't.

So, welcome to Canada Tamils, enjoy your stay. BTW, that freedom you were looking for is under construction.

Have a nice day!!!!

This is the way the season ends.....

This is the way the season ends
This is the way the season ends
This is the way the season ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

(Bastardized from T.S. Elliot)

Where do I start. This had to be the worst season for pool (pool league) ever.

My team and I have had to put up with:

• Flat tires (yup that's right, multiple flat tires in the middle of winter on separate occasions)
  
• unreliable team mates (yup, that's right more than 1 team mate up and quit for various reasons. One quit because he couldn't decide which night he wanted to play. He signed up for 2 nights, came for a few weeks and decided it was too much. We asked him to stay with one team and quit the other because we had plenty of players for one and not the other, but he wanted to be on the team his buddy was on. Ok, so we put him on that team and he changed his mind and wanted to be on the other team. By this time we had him replaced so we had to decline his request. This upset him so he quit the other team too.
  
  Two players quit because of thier work situation, this is an acceptable reason, but could have been handled better.
• Our league got robbed. Yup that's right, the treasurer decided it was a better idea to play poker or slots or something instead of depositing the weekly league dues in the bank account. I wasn't going to comment on this on-line because it's going through the courts and all but hey, no names mentioned and I have to get this off my chest.
  
  This should have been caught before the guy was able to blow $19,000 but the board of directors isn't the most organized. I shouldn't critisize because at one time I was on the board, but because they didn't make it easy for me to attend meetings (telling me when and where they were) I was voted off the island. When I was on the board, I insisted that one person be the treasurer because the guy was honest. He was so Honest you have to capitalize the word. He was so Honest, his name is in the dictionary under Honest. So what happened. He didn't want to be treasurer anymore because he felt he wasn't doing a very good job. Guess what, he didn't lose or steal any money so I think he did a great job. the guy they appointed (he wasn't elected by the league membership) ripped us off.
  
• We didn't do well in tournaments. Why? Who knows, we were capable of doing quite well given a solid line up but it never happened.
  
• Our Captian broke his ankle before our last major tournament of the year(just this last weekend) and we once again had to scramble to find a replacement.

So, after a great season last year that included a high finish for the regular season, vegas trip won and the makings of what felt like a really good team this year seemed to be a real let down.

Now, I'm sitting here wondering if I should try field a team for the summer, if I should just play singles or if I should take the entire summer off and worry about it in the fall. I know I want to stay active in the league that got ripped off, because they pledged to honor all payouts that were supposed to happen at the end of this season and I don't want to miss out because my team was no longer in the league.

I'm sure I'll figure it out. In the mean time I need to take a break, maybe hide out in the wilderness and try avoid the flu.

Ain't she cute

This is my daughter.



She's 10 and I think is good enough to beat a lot of adults.

Sigh, I wish I'd gotten this early of a start.

Hi readers, (real or imagined) this weekend me and my team participated in the WCVNEA championships. I did less than stellar in the single elimination singles Tournament losing my first match 4-1 and thus being knocked out of play. Ugh!! I may have felt a little better about it if I had played my best however I stunk.

My teammates performed about the same, and that was a bit of forshadowing for what was about to come for the team event. I have to say we played our 1st match quite strong and was very pleased with that. We had a very large lead on the the other team and the match ended early in the 4th round with us gaining enough points to make it mathematically impossible for them to come back. That was Friday night. Our next match wasn't until Saturday afternoon. This is because we had a bye in the first round and won our match in the second round and they needed time to play b side matches.

Our first match on Saturday was a heart breaker with us starting out with an early lead, most of the team was playing well and I had even had a really nice break and run. Trouble popped it's really ugly head up early in the 3rd round when the other team had a couple of back to back runouts, and we went from being in the drivers seat to playing catch up. My game in the 3rd round wasn't going well and had turned into a safety battle after my opponent had run off 7 of his balls and missed his shape on the 8. I cleared of a few balls but the 8 and 4 of my balls were in an ugly cluster along the side rail so I had to play safe after I cleaned up the loose balls(Matches were decided by total points or balls sunk so I wanted to make sure I got whatever easy points were available before I played safe)

Below is a diagram of the layout after I had played a few safeties and had finally had a chance to knock one of my balls out.


When I realized what my opponent was lining up, I told him I'd like to have a referree present. It was somewhat obvious to me that he was lining up a carom off the 5 onto the 8. The ref came over, and asked him what his shot was, he replied he was going to try cut the 8 in the corner.

I stood back and watched, the ref stood over the shot, my opponent shot, it looked like he had in fact hit the 5 first so I looked to the ref who momentarily had a had a puzzled look on his face then he declared it was a good shot. Ok, the fact that the ref made the wrong call in my mind I can live with, the fact that my opponent got a lucky kiss off my 1 ball to win the game totally ticked me off. That's pool, if your sitting there's nothing you can do, there's always the chance that you're going to lose everytime you give your opponent control of the table(no matter how limited).

After that lose, I think we picked up another win and it looked like things were going to be ok as our other teammate was well on his way to winning his games. We watched intently until he got down to the 8 ball. Now some of you readers know that VNEA rules indicate that when shooting on the 8ball you must call the pocket by placing a patch beside it. I'm sure you figured out from that last statement what happened. Yes, our player who's been playing since October in this league and you'd think would be well versed in the rules by now was lining up the shot and hadn't patched the pocket. We looked on with dread because, we knew based on his play during the regular season that he had a problem with remembering the patch.

Team Rule #43.21 If a player loses a game because he has neglected to patch the pocket he must purchase his teammates a beverage of thier choice.

I had a beer. It helped catch my tears after we lost that match. This had happened somewhere around noon. We went and looked at the bracket to find out when our next match was, we were somewhat shocked to find out it wasn't until 11:00 PM. Oh Joy!!!!

I finished my beer and discovered that my lovely girlfriend had expected us to play a little longer so she had had a couple of beers too and we weren't going to be driving anywhere anytime soon. So I mentioned that some other players we know were playing a match in the Masters room and we could go watch for a while and sober up.

A little while later we went for a walk and discovered a Persian grocery store and went in to find out what they had for sale. The lady working the counter spotted us immediately and decided that we needed a guided tour along with a commentary on how each food complimented Iranian culture. We felt so well treated that we emptied our pockets and purchased all sorts of lovely food including rice filled vine leaves, wild cucumber pickles, rose water and some sort of salsa looking canned concoction you're supposed to serve on rice. We did pass on the carbonated yogurt drink. I'm sorry I wasn't that adventurous so I can't tell you what it tasted like. I know you're all dying to know.

We would have purchased some of thier safron which is Orange, not yellow like spanish safron. My girlfriend insists it's red, but it's not and one of the guys that was at the store (family memeber?) also insisted it was orange, but it wasn't within my modest budget for the weekend. We will be going back and maybe by that time I will have worked up enough courage to try the carbonated yogurt drink.

11:00PM.......

We all played well, nobody made any serious mistakes but unfortunatly we lost by several points. It all came down to the last game and our players opponent played a really good safety to get ball in hand and end the game much to our disgust.

We'll get the Basta....... next time. :)

Ever have one of those days?

Yesterday was one of those days where it seemed no matter what you did there was always something that went wrong.

I woke up stuffed up. OK, no big deal I had a good rest, bring a hanky with me and I'm good to go. Wrong.... my nose ran like a leaky faucet most of the work day. Great...... OK, so after annoying the hell out of my coworkers most of the day I decide to take a decongestant to plug things up.

All is well that ends well right? Nope, now I can't keep my bloody eyes open and I wonder how I'm ever going to play pool tonight. Speaking of pool I decide it's time to call my team mates and arrange transportation.
Call number 1: Number dialed...... phone rings with aerosmith playing in the background ( I really like that feature and should look at getting my cell phone to ring like that if I ever get it reactivated)




"Hello Captain...... "

"Hey Player C we're playing way on the south side tonight, I assume you'll be needing a ride."

"OK, you live over by Pub X I'll meet you there OK? "



"Sure how about 5:30?"



"Works for me, cya then"

"OK bye"

click.

Call number 2: ring ring ring ring... You have reached Player J, leave a message...

"Hi it's your captain, we're playing on the south side tonight call me at work so we can arrange a place to pick you up"

(I should mention between the 5 players on my team there's only 2 cars, pool players ugh!!!)

Call number 3: ring ring..... "Hello captain"



"Hi Player D, we're playing at Sportsman's tonight, when can I pick you up?"



"I should be home around 5:30"

"OK, "

OK, so now I've made contact with 2 out of 3 players and I figure the 3rd will call me soon. I'm not at all worried and have faith all will work out as planned so I go on with my day at work trying to refrain from walking around with a hanky tied around my nose like a nose diaper.

At about 2:45PM the phone rings.

Ring Ring Ring, I answer. "Hello"

"Hi, this is Player J"

"Hi Player J, what's up?"

"I got a job and I won't be able to play pool"

"You mean just tonight right?"

"No, I'm going to be working nights."

"Oh that sucks, thanks for letting me know"

Click.

This is great, Player J was already a replacement for another player, we've been having "staffing issues" with the team this year and Player J is the 3rd player we've had to replace and it's been more than frustrating, especially with the Western Canadian VNEA championships 2 weeks around the corner. Player J said even though he was working, he'd be able to play for us so that's one load off our mind, however we were looking for a player with enough weeks even before Player J quit.

So..... back to the phone.

I neglected to mention that I had left my cell phone(fancy address book really) at home so I hand to call my girlfriend who was home sick to get my players numbers. So, now I had to bug her again.


Call number 4: ring ring ring " Hello"


"Hi baby, sorry to bug you again, can you please get the numbers for players G and K for me?"



"Sigh, sure baby, here they are....."

click.

Call number 5: ring ring ring.... "You have reached Player G, please leave a message after the tone"



Fword.



Click.



Call number 6: ring ring "hello"


"Hi Player D, Player J just quit, he got a job. Do you know anyone who can play for us, I called player G and got his voicemail and I don't really want to call Player K"

"um, well, my coworker here used to play, I'll ask him. Let me call you back"




Click.

Ring ring.... "Hello"

"Hi, he says he can play, I'll get a ride from him."

"Great, Cya there"

Click.

Wow, that worked out OK, now fast forward to the Match.




We did OK, but not stellar any means. I played a perfect night, sorta. What I mean is nobody beat me......... but myself. I won my first 3 games, my 4th game, I ran out from the break and was faced with the following shot on the 8 ball.









I should let you know that my last ball was down at the bottom of the table and I didn't want to let the cue ball loose for fear I'd bump balls and create a mess so I actual played for that position.



I had eyed up the 8 ball and discovered that it was dead for the corner on the top left hand side of the table.


I knew I'd have to put a bit of bottom spin on the cue ball in order to push the 8 closer to the rail and hit it quite firm to get it all the way down table. I did both, the 8 ball sank, the crowd went wild, the cue ball sewered and there was a collective sigh had by all. Ugh!!! double ugh!!!





My last game was almost a mirror of the 4th game, I ran out to the 8 and missed, my opponent sank a ball then missed, I cut the 8 down to the corner pocket and my back spine took the cue ball to the opposite corner pocket.. Triple Ugh!!!!!!!!!!



So, we came, we saw, we played, we got a couple of rounds but when it all settled we lost the night. So we had a few games afterwards then left.





We got out to the car, got in and I backed up. I thought boy this feels rough, I wonder if I have a flat tire.


I got out of the car and looked. Yup flat tire. I am so unimpressed. This is the second flat tire I've had after a pool night in less than a month.

Oh well, I had help changing it. After the tire was changed I had an uneventful drive dropping my teammates off and going home.

That was the end of one of those days. Thank the goddess.

How to get the most out of inspirational posters

1 pint of gasoline

add match

stand back and be inspired

Ok, I'm not the greatest pool player in the world, I can beat your average bar player, I have a national ranking but really, when it comes down to it I'd have to struggle to make the top 10% of players in my city. I think I might even be a little generous with that statement.

Like I told one of my opponents the other day, "Just because you play in an open division doesn't mean that you're an open player." and I accept that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not settling with my level of play, I am just realistic about how good I am and try to keep appropriately humble.

For me it's not if I can run the table, it's the frequency that I do it that I'm working on. So, where am I going with this mindless ramble? I wish I knew. The fact is I really wanted to write about the total self destruct my team pulled off this week. On a personal level, I'm somewhat satisfied that I'm playing better than I have been since about Christmas. I didn't want to come right out and say I was in a slump, but the rolls were not going my way and I had to struggle to play around and above my average.

The rest of my team however, (with exceptions) felt no compunction to play anywhere near what they were capable of and we ended up dropping 5 out of 6 round points to the last placed team. (ouch, bloody double ouch and ouch again)

What can I say, it's more than halfway through the season and patching a pocket shouldn't be an issue, it should just be a healthy habit. Player X on our team won all 5 of his games except he forgot the patch on not just one game but two and ended up with a 3 and 5 record instead of batting 1000.

Player Y got shut out and failed to even make his average in points for most games. Ugh!!!! Now Player Y is a good friend of mine and I've played with him for years. How does one approach a good friend and tell them to get their head out of their ass and play better?

I do have to keep in mind that this is supposed to be fun. I suppose the key is to motivate not castigate. I've tried to lead by example i.e. playing well but I find that's not motivation. I'll have to think on this and try a few things.

In the mean time I have to let it go and concentrate on my own game. After all in 2 weeks we'll be plaing in the VNEA western champitionships and for the singles events my team mates could end up being my opponents.

Note to self.... still need to find player with enough weeks to complete the team. crap....

Inspiration

I don't know what it was, perhaps the powerful speech delivered by the newly installed grand pooba of the United States, but I was on fire last night. I even managed to look good when I lost, although I only did that once.

The stars were aligned, I got all the good rolls, the magnetic fields converged at just the right point in the time space continuum or I had maybe just maybe got a good sleep the night before and was able to maintain my focus for more than 6 balls.

Happy New year too to all you imaginary readers. I know it's been a while since I've posted but winter has had me uninspired and too unimaginative to let my mind transfer random thoughts to my fingers and thus onto you. I promise I'll try to do better.

There are a number of things of significance in my life at the moment that I'll share. My girlfriend is moving in with me. Now for some people this would mean less pool, I don't know what it means for me, but early indications would be that it would mean more pool. She knows that it's my passion my raison d'être. (wow, google language tools rock)

The second thing that's big on my brain at the moment would be the Western Canadian VNEA Championships coming up in less than a month. I need a player. I have one potential, I even think he's eligible to play but my team wants a superstar. Nothing like high expectations eh. Right now I'd be happy with any warm body that has the required weeks played.

I was hoping to make it to the British Columbia 8 Ball championships early in February as well, buy my wallet, my fear of driving through mountain passes in snow storms in little cars with worn tires and having enough players made me reevaluate this tournament. I had a great time there last year, my team placed 2nd and we barely made enough money to cover the gas let alone lodgings and entry fees. Because we placed second last year we also would have played in a higher division so our chances of cashing in were reduced(not eliminated). All these things combined made me think it would be prudent to maybe wait for 2010. <------ wow can you believe we've already run through the first decade of the 2000s? Well that's it for now, I'll be back don't worry. Maybe I'll even have some interesting photos for you to look at as well.