Xylitol Helps With Tooth Decay

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Ever heard of Xylitol? It’s a natural sweetener which has shown very promising results in the area of tooth decay. Xylitol helps to prevent tooth decay and has even been shown to reverse some decay. I learned about it at my dentist’s office the past two times I’ve had my teeth cleaned, but finally got around to looking it up the other day. For more info check out Xylitol.Org.

Yesterday I ordered a couple of products made by Xlear Inc. in their Spry Dental Defense System. I went with the toothpaste and a sampler pack of the chewing gum. It’s recommended that several small exposures to Xylitol per day work the best so I figured those two purchases would do the trick.

Xylitol is showing so much promise it is being used by some of the more recognizable companies. Yesterday at Walmart I picked up a pack of Trident gum with Xylitol and it tastes great.

With the problems I’ve had with my teeth I figured I might as well start doing what I can. I also ordered an Oral-B Triumph 9450 toothbrush to replace the cheap battery powered ones I’ve been using.

Big Error

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I just found a missing { in single.php of my theme, which was causing all of my single post pages to error out. No wonder my Google traffic fell off the charts in the last couple of weeks and the number of comments I’ve received has been non-existent. All should be fixed now.

Where To?

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The lack of postings here have been a result of a lack of poker play as well as taking a break from blogging. I have played some poker in the last month or so though.

On New Year’s Eve I played in St. Ignace, MI. They run $2/5 no-limit with a maximum buy-in of $100. So much for sitting down with 100 big blinds! I won $160 on the night, but lost a huge $400+ pot to my dad when I outplayed him and he got lucky. I’m still cheesed about the hand over a month later, so let me give a quick recap. Dad likes to raise pre-flop with any pair and some junk cards a lot of the time. I was in the one of the blinds (don’t remember which) with 9T suited and decided to call the $20 to see if I could flop a pair. I had already decided that if I did, I was going after him. The flop came down ten-high and I knew I was ahead. I checked, he bet $20, and I check-raised to $80. He thought for a bit and called. The turn was a harmless 2, so I bet $50 trying to get something out of him. He quickly called and I got a little worried. The river was another 2, so I decided to check. He pushed out $50 and I had no choice but to call with a pot that would be over $400. He turned over a pair of twos and had hit running cards to make quads on me. The table went nuts and I just shook my head. I knew I had him beat, but that’s poker. He called my check-raise with 2 outs and hit both of them. Ouch!

I also played a late-night session at the MGM in Las Vegas on my return from San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. We got to the casino around midnight, played for almost 5 hours and headed back out. I sat at $1/2 no-limit and ended up winning a total of $2. I just couldn’t get any cards or when I did I split the pot. I had a player to my right all-in 3 times and each time we had the same hole cards to make the same hand. With KJ and QJ (2 different hands) we split with 2 pair and with KT we each turned the nut straight. Live poker is rigged!

I’ve played a bit here and there online in the last month or so and I think I’m behind overall. I never got around to reading up on Omaha 8/b like I had planned, but I did get a couple of new poker books for Christmas I’m looking forward to reading.

With the trip to California and moving to a new townhouse this past week things have been a bit hectic, but that should all change in the next week. I hope to be getting back to the online tables on a more consistent basis. See you there…

Ahhhh

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Where to start?

It’s been nearly a month since the last post here at MtDewVirus. That has to be a record since the blog started over two years ago. The lack of posts hasn’t been because of a lack of activity, because plenty has been going on in my life and the world around me. I simply needed some time away from blogging. I enjoyed it, but it’s time to get back in the swing of things.

I don’t want to go back write posts about everything that has been going on, so I’ll just give a quick summary…

I went to San Francisco for MacWorld and had a great time. I will be living out there sometime in the next year or so. I want to save up a bunch of money first so that I can survive if things go down the drain. I ate seafood for dinner each night I was out there and tried a different meal each time. Everything was excellent! Visiting a place like San Fran is a real wake-up call. The world has so much more to offer than what I can experience here in mid-Michigan.

The other big event was that I just moved back to the complex I lived in nearly two years ago. I was tired of living near the bad part of town. Several shootings less than a mile away and having someone break into my vehicle are not things I enjoy. The duplex I was living in had horrible insulation so my gas bill was extremely high for how small the place was. Where I’m at now I have a nice big 3 bedroom townhouse with a basement and it costs just about the same amount. I don’t have to mow the lawn or worry about shoveling snow. I have a dishwasher and air conditioning for the hot humid summers. I’m really not sure why I ever moved away, but I’m glad to be back in the main part of town.

That’s all for now, but more to come…

Merry New Birthday

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It’s been awhile. Too long. The last post I made was December 16th, which I believe is the longest period without activity since the blog launched over two years ago. I’ve missed Christmas, my 26th birthday (12/26), and the New Year. I even missed the 2 year anniversary of MtDewVirus, which would have been on November 22nd.

I hope everyone had great holidays with their family and friends. I know I did. It wasn’t very eventful, but it was how I wanted to spend my vacation. I haven’t spent much time on computers in the last couple of weeks and it’s been a nice break. I spent a little over a week at my parents and I checked my email less in that time than I would in a single day. In fact, I’m still catching up. I still have over 800 unread items in my RSS reader, but I’m slowly getting back to normal.

I played way too much Xbox 360 over Christmas break, but I had fun doing it. I just wanted to relax and sit on my ass. Mission accomplished!

Not only did I not post here at MDV for nearly a month, I didn’t post on any of my other blogs during this time either. This is something that definitely needs to change. Blogging has become a big part of my life and a 2nd income that I don’t want to go away, so it’s time to get back into gear. I have some ideas for the new year and other things that have been on my to-do list for awhile, so hopefully I can make some time.

On Sunday I’m leaving for San Francisco to attend MacWorld. I’m excited to see San Fran, get some Mac training, and eat seafood every day we’re there. A little layover in Las Vegas on the way home should be one of the highlights as well.

At the end of the month I’ll be moving to a new apartment at the complex I lived in 2 years ago. After all of the bills it’ll cost about the same per month that I pay now. But…it’s much bigger (with a basement), I don’t have to mow the lawn or shovel snow, it has a dishwasher, is closer to everything, is safer, and on and on. I’m not quite sure why I ever moved away now that I look at the situation. There are a couple of things which persuaded me to move.

  1. About a month ago 2 people were killed in a bar 5 blocks from my current residence.
  2. Just before I left for the holidays someone was in my SUV somehow and stole my FM transmitter.
  3. My gas/electric bill for last month was $230! I have a very small 2 bedroom duplex with only one floor. Ridiculous is the only word that comes to mind.

As you can see I’ve been busy, but relaxed as well. I want to come up with a post or two reflecting on the past year, but I’m not promising anything.

Out of Office

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Just looking at the calendar I counted out of the next 21 weekdays I’ll only be at work for 7.5 of them. I love this time of year! Our holiday break starts at noon on December 22nd and we’re back to work on January 3rd. On the 8th of January I fly out to San Francisco for MacWorld and will return on the 14th after a nice 7 hour layover in Las Vegas. To help recover, I took the 16th as a vacation day. Thirteen and a half weekdays out of the office and all of them are paid, with only one being charged as vacation. Sometimes I don’t realize how good it is working for a University.

Warming Up Slowly

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I’ve actually played some poker since the last post. It was last weekend and felt good to be back at the online tables. I played for about 3 hours on Saturday and 3 hours on Sunday, both after waking up.

Recently Party Poker has sent me a message about my Party Points expiring. If I didn’t play by Sunday, I’d lose 17,000 points. Ouch! So I fired up the client and was happy to see they were running a deposit bonus. Another great surprise was that the Bad Beat Jackpot was over $250,000. Whenever it’s up over $200,000 I like playing the BBJ tables because there are so many people playing above their bankroll.

At first I fired up 4 tables of $2/4 but decided to try out a couple more, taking advantage of my dual monitor setup. I ran 6 tables almost the entire time and it was great. On Sunday I joined 6 games right away.

My game felt solid and it was a nice feeling to knock the dust off. I won about $160 on Saturday, $100 on Sunday, and also cleared the $100 bonus. Now if I can just stay away from the Xbox 360 more often I can keep making money. I still haven’t cracked the 2nd Harrington book or jumped into the Omaha book I bought. Those might be projects for the holiday vacation (11 days off…one of the perks of working at a University).

Lederer and Duke Deal with NBC?

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Do Howard Lederer and his sister Annie Duke have a deal with NBC? On this season of Las Vegas they’ve both appeared in different episodes. Annie made a short appearance about two months ago and Howard played a much bigger role in an episode last night. I find it odd there have been two poker pros on the show this year and they just happen to be brother and sister. Or maybe I’m just looking to start a conspiracy theory…