Not Just a Combination...

I love Athans Bakery in Brookline. Easily my favorite for desserts and Greek gelato. What I am currently salivating over, is their new Vanilla Baklava ice cream. I understand that people like vanilla ice cream, and people like baklava. This is so much more than just a combination of the two. This ice cream has the nuttyness of baklava, the smoothness of good ice cream, a hard to find with solid mix in flavors, and yet is still flaky in some spots. It is true genius this ice cream. I do detect a lack of honey, but that might be just this batch. It is creamy, so the freezer burn damage is lessened. Overall a delectable treat. Further reinforcement of the quality of Brookline’s eateries.

The 21 Method of "Card Counting"

So as I said earlier, the “card counting” in the movie 21 was completely bogus. Why? For two reasons. First. They were not predicting hands, they were simply predicting the likeliness of hands to come. Second. Their predictions were not on a card by card basis, they were based on quite general things.

What they did in the movie was assigned several different cards (low cards) a positive value, and the same number of others (high cards) negative value (5 of each). When a large amount of low cards passed, a player was signaled to the table. Then they would rake in the cash, but they still have to keep the count. So, what they were doing was not card counting, but simply tracking probability.

This formula is astoundingly simple, and pretty much anyone can do it. Try it yourself, but not at a real casino, because you could get killed.

21, a Review

21 was an interesting movie, and it did well. It entertained, it had a decent plot, it was based off a true story and, for the majority of the audience, it seemed fanciful. That isn’t to say that I didn’t find it fanciful, but the way they portrayed the genius of their card “counting” system kind of bothered me. But on to the interesting stuff. The cinematography was pretty good. Decent camera angles, good angles most of the time, but at a few points in the film, the camera either switched around a lot, or was at a not so good angle for what they were trying to show. But whatever. Decent most of the film through.

Acting was pretty good all around. Lawrence Fishbourne played the asshole security guard very well, even adopting a nice Boston-sounding accent. Which, weirdly enough, none of the characters from Boston had. Aaron Yoo did well in the parts where he was relevant, which sadly was a small portion of the movie. Kevin Spacey was great. Mostly in the beginning and end though, the middle of the movie is just him yelling at people and laughing at them. Jim Sturgess, I do not like very much. He ruined Across the Universe for me, and I’ll never forgive him. He did better, but they could have chosen someone a bit… slicker I guess.

So

Pros: Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, Aaron Yoo, VEGAS!

Cons: Jim Sturgess, not actually counting cards, bad MIT stereotypes.