Verbosities

To Those Who Have Built A Poker Table…

Thanks to the generosity of one Bobby Bracelet (of whom and his “860th Best Poker Player…” mantra was recently said, “But it’s not like he’d put that on his Christmas cards, right?”), I now have actual pool table felt to replace the fleece for my table.

Now, I don’t want to use the same rails anymore. The current rails were 1×2 planks to which we glued foam and around which we wrapped vinyl. Comfortable, but amateurish to be sure. I want a more professional look, and I’d ideally like a rail under which I can slide a cup holder.

Who’s got suggestions for where to purchase something like this?

The Fallout Around Kitzmiller

Kitzmiller, aka “The Dover Trial,” wrapped up recently with Judge Jones ruling that attempts by the Dover School Board to both discredit evolution and mention “Intelligent Design” were unconstitutional because they were motivated by an attempt to endorse Christianity. The school board claimed they believed in the science of ID and felt students needed to hear the controversy (and this idea of “both sides of the story”) over evolution.

The judge was asked to rule on the constitutionality of the Dover School Board’s efforts. Was this endorsement of ID motivated by an attempt to introduce solid science into the high school science classroom, or an attempt to discredit evolution to prop up God and the Bible? Judge Jones asked the Dover School Board to prove ID was legitimate science and not a supernatural mythology. He also asked them to prove that the decision to make these changes to the curricula were not motivated by religious intent.

Dover, their lawyers and the activist group (The Thomas More Law Center) supporting them all failed. ID as a science was debunked due to no true scientific work supporting their claims, and the Dover School Board’s insistence there was no religious motivation to their efforts was proven to be full of lies when videotaped evidence to the contrary was produced.

Highlights from the conclusion of the 130+ page ruling, cribbed from Dispatches…, which I have linked below:

Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions. The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

It is worth noting that Judge Jones was personally appointed to this court by George W. Bush in 2002. This is not the work of a “liberal activist judge.”

Better resources than this on the trial, decision and aftermath can be found at the end of this post, however the single best sentence I’ve seen summing up the judge’s decision is as follows:

“Jones found, in effect, that it is unconstitutional to lie to students about the status of various scientific theories for the purpose of promoting a particular religious world view.” [Evolutionblog]

In the wake of what to me feels like another attempt by Christian zealots to push their agenda into the government sphere with no regard for the minority that not only pays taxes but thought they lived in a country without a governmental endorsement of religion (Utah excepted), I’ve seen too much hand-wringing from the pro-ID forces. The judge is an activist! (No he’s not) He had no right to rule ID wasn’t a science! (He was asked to do precisely this from the outset of the case) He’s trying to prevent people from seeing the science behind ID! (Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed…)

This is another in the growing list of reasons that I cannot get my head around a belief in the supernatural, no matter how well-intentioned the philosophy behind it may be. The campaign to install ID as a science, and the hyper-reaction to the recent Dover decision are full of dishonesty. People on this side of the fence are willing to tell lies for public relations purposes, and in some way believe the righteousness of their cause justifies these actions. Moreover…

I’m saddened that the proponents of what is claimed to be a theory chock-full of science use their resources for public relations and not for repeatable and controlled experiments.

I’m annoyed that this so-called “materialistic/naturalistic” world view is being demonized by these people, as if there’s something patently wrong with believing that the world around you somehow is able to make sense on its own merits.

I’m troubled that the concept of morality has been stripped of its dictionary definitions of decency and charity, and now features a Jesus-flavored litmus test.

I’m angered that those who claim to represent the voice of America’s favorite brand of Sunday philosophy, one originally designed to deliver peace, love, tolerance and acceptance, would be so duplicitous in their words and actions. I find it ghastly that a number of these “Christians” involved in this trial would so blatantly lie. While under oath. An oath sworn on their Bible.

I’m shaken that any semi-reasonable adult would believe that a fully untestable and unassailably religious idea on our origins would have any place in a high school science classroom. I’m sickened that my tax dollars may one day have to either support or fight the spread of this mythology.

I’m frustrated that there exists a seemingly unwavered notion in the minds of the proponents of this “theory” that somehow evolution is totally incompatible with some version of their origin story. That there exists an either/or mentality in this argument that precludes belief in one from belief in the other. As if a so-called “intelligent designer” couldn’t have grown us from the ooze like a jar full of sea monkeys.

Go read up on this trial and the recent fallout surrounding it. It’s a fascinating study that sets truth against finger-pointing duplicity, and hopefully will be a crucial and important decision that will quiet the furor over this non-science for quite awhile.

Resources on the Kitzmiller Decision
[Panda's Thumb]
[Dispatches From The Culture Wars]

Reviews of Things Discovered in 2005

Aquafresh Extreme Clean Toothpaste (Flavor: Arctic Cool)

The first time I saw these new offerings from the Triple-Striped Aquafresh line in the store, I blew the paste off as another attempt at pushing hip marketing down the throats of middle-American kids who know how to Ollie. “Extreme,” I scoffed. I looked at the varieties; EmpowerMint (their emphasis, although you’d think empowering characteristics would be more of a sales point than flavor), Whitening Mint Experience, Original Experience and Arctic Cool.

Isn’t all toothpaste inherently minty? I can’t imagine we can simply let the descriptive “mint” drift into a synonymous relationship with spearmint flavor as it seems to have been prophesied. That aside, I wasn’t about to bother moving from plain white peppermint-ish Colgate until Bob told me I should really give this stuff a try. Coming from a guy whose newfound appreciation for all things oral (see: abscesses, teeth and Boathouse, Getting Sucked Off By The Waitress From September’s Bash at the on One2Many) give him instant expertise, I thought I’d give the product a try.

First off, a nearly deceptive note about the product. Just because the box is tipped in orange, and just because the toothpaste is striped (to make it look faster) in orange does not mean you should anticipate any citrus undertones. In fact, the flavor of Arctic Cool, on which I’m on my third tube, retains no citrus flavor and absolutely none of the dreaded Wint-O-Green bouquet of which I generally steer clear. It is comparable to brushing your teeth using the same assaultive-mint technology harbored now by our most extreme chewing gums – that is to say, it is like having the Dow Scrubbing Bubbles at work on your teeth, but after they’ve soaked in Rumple Minze for a few hours. Delightful. GRADE: B-PLUS

The Oral-B CROSSACTION POWER

Continuing only momentarily on the oral care theme, I acquired my first electric toothbrush in this, my thirty-second year. Combined with the swift-bubbling action of the afore-mentioned toothpaste, spinning bristles really give you the Pop-Rocks mouth sensations you need to get your morning started. By default, I must give the initial combination of the two a solid B-PLUS for initial performance.

That being said, the performance of the spinning bristles has degraded in recent weeks. No longer am I preserving precious carpal tendon integrity by allowing technology to do my brushing, I am back to the Dark Ages-styled hackery of actually moving my arm and wrist in conjunction to reach “every” tooth. This process is no longer efficient, and my opinion of the CROSSACTION POWER has become lackluster as a result. Apparently, there is a handle-based power source I can choose to have replaced, but when I purchase a product for up to $7.99 at my local grocery, I expect and demand that these power supply issues be covered under warranty with a prompt visit by a skilled technician. Oral-B’s customer support line has indicated that no warranty was explicit or implied upon my purchase of this product, to which I call them bald-faced liars. Congratulations, purveyors of poor dental instrumentation. GRADE: F-MINUS.

The iPod Mini 4GB, Blue

iPods are the new black. This has become immediately apparent as the digital music revolution has finally hit a point where taking your 8-disc Conway Twitty box set with you in your pocket has become a reality.

So what does your iPod say about you? It says you wish to listen to your music on your own terms, free of the bonds of commercial radio. It says you value design, and appreciate a product that allows you to compartmentalize the things you love and keep them just a finger sweep away. And it says you are extraordinarily well-hung. I purchased mine in March, it gets the highest score possible. GRADE: A

NPR’s “This American Life”

For the uninitiated, This American Life, or TAL for us insiders, is a weekly radio hour developed by effette Jewish men and a variety of sensible women wearing horn-rimmed glasses (out of some combination of necessity, style, and irony) who all live in Chicago. On this program, those privileged enough to have a large enough trust fund to both work for and support public radio take tape recorders and questions into the lives of everyday Americans who may or may not have a story to tell.

It is at the same time engrossing and banal, and serves a similar purpose to The NewYorker magazine – that is, to keep around to make one appear more erudite than perhaps they truly are. Then again, I truly believe the select few of us who upload the weekly installments to our iPods are better than you anyway. GRADE: B-MINUS

The Porn Site Password Cracker (Defunct)

For a brief and glorious three-week period in the dead of winter, I was gifted with a URL that lead to a directory which featured mostly unusable username/password combinations for pay-for-porn sites on the Internet. It cannot be understated the joy I experienced, breaking semi-legally into vaults with pics and videos of “young” girls with lower back tattoos and impossibly pink nipples. Lightspeed Galleries gets special mention, as the five or six main girls on their payroll are just nubile and dirty enough so that their lesbiannic leanings seem somehow more natural.

The favorite site, one from which I am still in possession of a dozen video clips, is HypnoTrick. In an oft-repeated scenario, actual Psychiatrist Dr. Packenwood (there’s a diploma on the wall, so you know he’s legit) invites young girls into his office, turns on the camera, puts them under, then violates them repeatedly for his archives. Nevermind solving the deep-rooted problems of sexual abuse they suffered as girls at the hands of carnies, there’s actually a precious little amount of talking going on (save when he’s putting the young girl under). How he has not been found out and brought up on charges yet is beyond me. It’s like watching a snuff video, but without the whole death thing spoiling the ending. Sadly, the password archive came and went rather quickly, and I am a more morose person for it. GRADE: A-MINUS

NBC’s “Deal or No Deal”

A recent addition to my discoveries list, this game show debuted on NBC Monday night, and features Howie Mandel without a rubber glove or affected faux-helium accent anywhere to be found. My dad, by the way, insists that Howie Mandel ripped off his entire act from Bette Midler. I simply state that cocaine makes everyone think they’re Robin Williams.

Regardless, this painfully simple game show is being trotted out on NBC all week long in an attempt to hook the viewers in the same way Regis Philbin once did when we were all young and crazy five years ago. I have watched most of the first three episodes, and am becoming increasingly distracted by the lazy sound editing occurring in post-production. Howie is obviously not a skilled narrator, and there are easily identifiable sound-spackled gaps being filled with what are intended to be taken as off-the-cuff “live” remarks. Unfortunately, anyone with a TV that does not feature a single speaker playing a MONO track will be as distracted as I. I cannot believe I am saying this to be helpful, but NBC needs to tell Howie Mandel to talk more when he’s onstage. I need a shower. GRADE: D-PLUS

It’s Better Than Is It Better Than Being Doubled Over In Pain?

Here’s a tip for you over-the-counter medication freaks: If you’ve got what you perceive to be as gas pain in your abdomen, Gas-X might bring you temporary relief. Anyone know what Gas-X does? Well, without dropping the science on you, I’m pretty sure it basically takes all your intestinal waste and vaporizes it. Then, instead of maybe pushing it out the end where your gas problems are usually relieved, it turns your esophagus and mouth into a veritable carnival of Port-a-John emissions. Not single belching relief either, just a few hours of steady fecal flavored swamp gas rising up from your innards.

I’m a mouthwash freak, and I know what mouthwash tastes like the morning after my most fried food/cigarette/likker-fueled bender comes to a close, and I can safely say this is the first time mouthwash has not been a somewhat emotionally satisfying experience. It’s like instead of having my mouth taste like I ate a hot poo on a summer’s day, it tastes like I waited until early February and rolled it in the snow first. Ugh ugh ugh.

It’s noon and I have to take another one of those pills. God help me.

With Special Guest Star BG

Put in a guest appearance on a well-respected food blog today, in case you wanted to read 900 words on how much I hate Wonder Bread…

A Final Word (or 2,200) On Oddjack

Now that it’s happened, I think I can finally talk about it…

A couple weeks ago, AJ tossed word my way that OJ was on Denton’s auction block, and that at least one interested party had approached AJ prior to bidding to let him know they were interested in a resurrection. Regardless as to whether I would have taken that offer or not, that was interesting news.

I didn’t hear anything until yesterday when I found this press release that trumpets the acquisition of OJ by some company called Traffic.Media. Excerpts:

· The sale includes the Oddjack.com domain name and all web site assets such as story archives, logos and trade marks.

· OddJack, the Gambling Guide is one of the most recognized gambling blogs. Launched in July 2005, OddJack immediately catalpulted the online gambling industry to the blogosphere thanks to the influence of Gawker Media and the witty craftsmanship of editor A.J. Daulerio.

· Oddjack will be a platform for relevant, in-depth and engaging content for audiences that will never directly visit an online gambling web site or directly search for online gambling material. Traffic.Media expects its online gambling industry clients to reap immediate benefits from the visitors brought in by and through Oddjack.

· Trapik.Media is an interactive marketing firm servicing vertical markets such as the online gambling industry. Traffic.Media specializes on development of compelling content and intelligent distribution to the target audience.

A linked “article” from some shill site with two hyphens in its URL (seriously, has anyone done a study on the inverse relationship between integrity and hyphens in a URL?) mentions that the resurrected OJ has ads already from Bodog, Titan, and some book/casino/poker place I’ve never heard of.

Now, I realize that writing as a sub-contractor and then contractor to Gawker meant I gave up ownership to the stuff I wrote, but I have a sickening feeling having my content existing in the archives for the new regime’s purposes. What do I have to worry about? Well, already there has been a fairly significant edit to a front-page post of mine at OJ that makes me shake my head. I had linked up DuggleBogey’s Instant Bankroll program at Titan, and included a pulled quote from and a link back to his blog to get the details. The text is intact, as is a generic link to his blog, but the pulled quote has been hyperlinked directly to Titan – no Instant Bankroll, despite the quote being all about that bonus – with a referral code embedded, and they deleted the link that went directly to his post about Instant Bankroll. Just shill-tastic if you ask me.

Yes, I am aware of the semi-hypocrisy of being upset that the purity of my pointing to one man’s shilling is trumped by the heavy-handed overt shilling edits done by another. Pbfft…

I’m curious to see what’s going to shake out here. I would guess this site will end up as bland and awful as a CasinoCityTimes or PokerNews, but I guess only time will tell. I’m just going to be really disheartened if posts from the archive are dug up, edited, and reposted with shilly links all up and down. I mean, I can’t do a goddamn thing about it, but I will be disheartened.

As long as I’m talking neo-OJ, maybe now’s a good time to get into it fully…

AJ and I exchanged a couple of emails in late June, then found a chance to talk on the phone shortly thereafter. He had been working with a few other bloggers to try and help out with content, but no one had been hitting the voice (or maybe the volume) for the content he had been looking for, and I guess either Prof and/or Pauly had recommended me. We agreed to give it a couple of weeks on a trial basis, and if we both thought it was a good fit, we’d work together. I had already been an OJ reader, and was (and continue to be) flattered that a writer of AJ’s caliber (not to mention Pauly’s caliber, among others) would think I could be an asset to this project.

Now, here’s what I knew up front: The sole advertiser on the page had basically asked Denton to open a gambling blog, promising six months of ad revenue along the way. Denton put one of his guys in charge, they grabbed AJ, and off they went. The only problem was none of these guys were gamblers to begin with. They knew the “Gawker Voice,” and they knew AJ had the “Gawker Voice,” but it was pretty obvious that it was difficult for AJ and whoever he had working for him to find and interpret gambling content through the voice appropriately. It wasn’t working right out the gate.

And it wasn’t Arieh. Arieh, in all actuality, was totally working for the attention AJ got for it. Maybe it didn’t resonate with poker bloggers, but with the average reader it totally did. It gave the casual reader a reason to come back every day to see how he’d crap on the guy next, which was happening. Yes, it did eventually get to “beating a dead horse” status, but that dead horse was a fairly solid one-trick pony for awhile. Where I think the content had its problems initially was illustrated by the multi-part poker/fatguy series. You know, where we talked about stomach stapling. See, gamblers aren’t celebrities. It just doesn’t make sense to point and laugh at something marginally amusing Howard Lederer might do, because only 60% know who he is, and only 25% of those people have any depth in his history. The celebrity thing works for Gawker and Defamer, simply because we all have a vested interest in seeing Tom Cruise look like a retard. It validates us all, at least a little bit.

So the challenge was to find a way to be entertaining and informative while not giving up on the voice and the snarkiness, but ditching what wasn’t working along the way. Problem was, AJ was having trouble finding the right mix, as the direction from above wasn’t coming from gamblers who knew what they wanted. I give Gawker credit for taking the plunge, but I’d be astonished to find they had done research or had a true game plan for OJ. The mission statement alone basically hinted that this gambling blog was going to be more along the lines of Bird Flu Betting or Will Oprah Convert to Scientology wagering than poker hints and tips (which is where I think many of you totally missed the boat in your initial assessments). And frankly, there just isn’t enough of that stuff to go around.

Let’s assume the magic number for Gawker is 18 posts per day. I think that’s about right. That’s 90 posts in a week. Take the first and last posts per day out of the mix (Rake and Remainders, par for the course for all Gawker blogs), and you’re left with 80. Now, unless you’re willing to post every time the line moves on Will Hillary Run For President in 2008?, you’re only going to be able to harvest maybe ten unique goofy prop bet lines per week. What are you going to do with the other 70 posts?

I really thought AJ made a great move when he directed me (and us) away from the personality-focused content (Is Sammy Farha a Dick?) and pushed us towards being more useful with our gambling content. While I didn’t really have any problems being a prick to poker pros I’ll never meet, I didn’t see where that was going to get us. Being constructive was far more satisfying and challenging anyway, not to mention that I thought the site worked far better this way.

Problem was, the numbers didn’t show it. Back in September I went through an existential crisis of sorts because I had gotten wrapped up in our site stats. It was personally frustrating for me to have written a number of (what I thought were) pretty damn good posts, and to see those posts get zero action from other blogs. I’m actually still a little bitter. My horse racing stuff (save anything CompuTrak related) in particular got me all angsty about this gig. I worked hard to be informative, constructive, entertaining and useful, and really feel that a few of the posts I wrote on that topic are some of the best things I’ve written. Period. Then I see stats where a faked post with odds about “What’s Going To Happen On The OC” (to which I contributed) gets hundreds of visitors via links to my content’s zero. “Who’s the Gay Athlete” (terrific post, by the way) gets linked up all over the damn place, and my thorough, detailed, and very capably handled analysis of Breeders’ Cup goes totally unnoticed.

Very, very frustrating. I had a conversation in early October with AJ where I basically quit, but he asked me to give it a couple more weeks, and told me to take a week to clear my head about it – which I gratefully did. This is where things began to get odd. AJ’s editor, completely out of nowhere, came through and offered me a contract. This took AJ by surprise, and added a couple of days of tension where he suspected I was going around him to usurp the site for my own. Of course, since I need health insurance, taking OJ wasn’t going to be plausible for me, but he didn’t know that. Anyway, I get the contract (and a fat raise), and have a conversation with AJ’s editor that sounds promising and positive. Basically, he wants to conference AJ and I together with him to discuss ways to improve the site.

Now, AJ and I both knew that end of November was going to be a decision date for the advertiser, but we had done the doubling of traffic his boss had asked for. Not only that, but the content was finally working (in my opinion), I had gotten a raise, my name was finally on the site and we seemed to have a promise that constructive approaches towards improvement were on the horizon.

So I didn’t quit, but soon enough it was apparent that not only were the promises to try and improve the approach hollow, but the advertiser wasn’t intent on renewing the contract either. We were on life support, which wasn’t unexpected, but was definitely disappointing. And it wasn’t just the money. The content was finally beginning to work, we had a unique voice and approach, and you’d think that the backing of a blog empire would allow for a site to take some time to grow. Didn’t happen though. Denton pulled the plug, which was probably a good move on his part. He was able to capitalize on selling the domain, and didn’t have to put any effort into finding new advertisers.

To be fair, I’d bet far too many of those advertisers would be looking for kid gloves and affiliate links and such, and that Denton would be hard pressed to instruct any of his editors to soft peddle a gambling site beyond simply thanking the advertiser(s) (as Gawker blogs do) at the end of each week. Perhaps there was nothing remotely attractive out there, but I have a hard time believing this was a dead end.

I’ve said this before, but ultimately this was a hell of a good experience for me. I got to be a semi-pro writer for awhile (which, just saying it aloud, makes all the effort worthwhile), and the money was certainly handy. I also enjoyed the hell out of working for AJ Daulerio, who may have been flying by the seat of his pants, but was steering me in the right direction more often than not. I also was finally forced to write about horse racing, and really feel good about the stuff I was putting to paper on that topic. I’m glad I gave some of you the opportunity to find the high comedy in the “Tony Oliveri” alias, and above everything else I really felt (most of the time) like what we were doing there had some value. I thank Gawker, AJ and AJ’s editor for the chance, and would likely do it again if offered (not that it will be, I’m just saying).

Which brings me back to where this new OJ direction is going… Unsurprisingly, AJ and I have emailed back and forth on this thing since seeing it come back from the dead, and are both just a little bit saddened by the whole thing. I’ll let AJ give the eulogy:

It’s really a shame. I mean, it’s everything Oddjack wasn’t supposed to be but was accused of because of the Bodog crap all over the place. It’s boring, predictable blather that’s ultimately trying to drag in as many goofy online casino advertisers as possible. And will do so because that’s pretty much a given money-making model for a lot of these sites(Read: 911, Gambling).

Whatever it is, they can’t say we had no heart.

Small Favor

If you’ve got OJ in your blogroll, can you do me a favor and delete the link? Unless, that is, you find something of value over there now. If the new regime, whoever they are, turn out to be capable and informative, I’ll eat my request.

Fun Fact: The Chief Export of Chuck Norris is Pain

I totally can’t take credit for that, found it on Fark. I can, however, take credit for the following line:

Gracie: (while sitting playing poker at the IP) Did you know there’s a karaoke bar downstairs? We should all go… Wouldn’t that be the saddest thing you’d ever see in a karaoke bar?

Me: No, the saddest thing you’ll ever see in a karaoke bar is the second chick who trots out “I Will Survive.”

Woke up this morning with no need to cocoon into the sleeping bag that’s been my banky for the past 48 hours. Thank god, the fever has broken, my appetite is coming back, and I no longer have the flop sweats. Thanks again Patient Zero.

Anyway, I’d like to clear up some Vegas trip misconceptions so long as they’re on my mind…

· I was hammered at least five times during the trip, twice by Pablo for reasonably big pots

· I was kidding when I said Mrs. Spaceman made a “terrible call” in our tournament. Here’s what happened: I had just knocked Iggy out, and was sitting on about 7000 in chips. I’m on the button and find the hammer. Mrs. Spaceman is UTG and makes it 900 (3X BB) to go. Folds around to me and I bump her to 2500. She calls. Flop is Ace-high, and I check behind her. Turn is another blank (giving me a gutshot draw), and she makes a smallish feeler bet, which I come over the top of with an all-in. I’ve got her covered by about 2250 at this point, and she goes into the tank. To her credit, she made the right read, made the call with her unimproved pocket Kings, and I missed the gutshot. That’s how I lost the table chiplead on a hammer bluff.

· I got clobbered at the Mandalay sports book on both horses and football, but especially on horses. To be fair, I had two genius moments where I made a bet, I told whoever I was with (once with April, once with StB) what I thought was going to happen (not just who’d win), and the horses did precisely what I thought.

· Da Roostah can complain all he wants about me not making time to sit and go through the DRF with him, but I didn’t take a whole lot of time to play as it was. Hard to get people to park it in the race book with so much else going on.

· This post is all about a moment to which I’m not sure I can do justice. Still, why not try?

It’s the middle of the afternoon at the IP, and I get up to go take a leak. The men’s room features a urinal row that’s built into a hallway that’s closed off at the back end. It’s fairly narrow, and I’m not the only one in there. Down at the end there’s a smallish Hispanic guy mopping the floor, and about five feet away some old guy. He’s drunk.

OLD GUY: (completely out of nowhere, yelling at the janitor) I cannot urinate with you standing right there!

MOP GUY: (obviously speaking some weird moon-man language) Mmphelo sloowsenio el moppo. I mop now.

OLD GUY: I cannot do this while you are standing right next to me!

MOP GUY: (something similarly unintelligible)

OLD GUY: I find it very rude that you do not seem to care about my elimination!

Of course, I get back to the table and have to tell the story, and I manage to utter the “I cannot urinate with you standing right there” line at a very quiet moment, and five tables worth of poker players simultaneously crack up. So, to clear up the misconception, I am not having any problems at all with my urination, elimination, or evacuation.

· I have no idea what THG did all weekend. We flew in together, hung out through our Thursday afternoon nap, and then I spent less than 90 minutes total in the room with him for the remainder of the weekend. I think he slept, but I cannot be sure. Speaking of 90 minutes, that’s about how long our drive home from the airport was. I think there were less than 100 words exchanged total, most of them about how good a nap and shower were going to feel.

· Party Boy Al really disappointed me on Thursday night/Friday morning. I was tired of the beating I was taking at the Excalibur tables (Thursday/Friday losses = $500ish total), and thought I’d find Al and Big Mike at Sherwood Forest for a drink at about 2AM. No dice. Someone said they went back to the IP, and I figured the suite was in full effect. So I cabbed it back, and ran into Eva in the lobby. I asked her if the boys were hanging out somewhere, and she said they’d be up and in the suite. It’s about 330AM at this point, so I head up to the nineteenth. I run into Big Mike in the hallway, and he’s on the way to get some pop from the lobby. I knock, and Royce answers. Al’s in bed. No one else is up there. I manage to get Al out of bed, we do a dial-a-shot with Bob at 7AM his time, I talk new world economics with Big Mike for 40 minutes, and then everyone but me wants sleep. Pussies.

· How about a blind item? And no, I’m not telling… Seriously, you didn’t think that was going to get back around? I’m amused – a little insulted – but amused.

· Lastly, I know it’s been said before, but what’s up with bloggers marrying way over their heads? I’m looking at a couple of you in particular. Goddamn guys, way to bring me hope this holiday season. Now, to actually find a woman who enjoys sitting on the couch, watching me read Bloglines, and brushing dog hair off her sweater…

Blecch…

I feel like ass today. Not only am I varying between the flop sweats and feeling like I’m on the border of hypothermia, but I’ve got this droning soreness in my abdomen that feels like a gas bubble that just won’t go away. It’s one of three things – gas/constipation (although I’m certainly not lacking for crapping), my appendix infected (WebMD says the pain is on the wrong side of my body for that, so I’m probably clear), or the beginning of a kidney stone. Whee.

I’m home today, and have handicapped the card at Calder, which goes off at 12:30PM EST. I like the following plays:

· Race Three MCL $40K – #4 Cloudynhot ran strong last two out, but was DQ’d both times for bumping and/or cutting off other horses. Let’s assume he’s learned his lesson.

· Race Four – OC $25K N2X 5f Turf – Best Bet – I really like #5 Military Lass with a morning line of 6-1. The pace sets up for a closer, and Military Lass has shown she’s adaptable to both fast and slow fractions on this surface and at this distance. Plus, trainer Scott Lake is 42% with winners in turf sprints over the last five years.

· Race Five – $10K Claim 5.5f – When the chalk is there, you’ve got to jump all over it. The play is an exacta box with the one and five.

· Race Nine – $10K Claim N2L 5.5f – #4 Xtra Jet is unlikely to face pace pressure, and I like to see that in a front runner on the dirt. The drop in class is a good sign too, especially in a N2L run. 5-2 on the morning line, I wouldn’t play it anywhere south of that figure.

· Race Ten – OC $20K N3L 7f – #3 Crazy Caro should respond to dialling down the distance. 3-1 on the morning line, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the odds go slightly north of that. His trainer’s been too ambitious, and he’s got a couple ugly figures on his line. I’m not worried about that, and like this play a lot.

More later, should I find the energy to get out from under this blanket. Blecch.

Totally Mailing It In

There’s this dead zone I hit every day at high noon where my computer becomes damn near unusable due to the virus scanner that kicks in. The fucker grinds and grinds for almost an hour, and makes simple tasks like “switching windows” and “bringing up Google” torturous affairs.

Make. Mungo. Mad.

Yes, I could theoretically approach the IT group and ask them to reschedule my scan for, oh, I don’t know… after hours perhaps, but I don’t actually work for the company on whose campus I sit. I try not to ask many favors and operate on the “suck it up” theory when I feel wronged.

Still, while I can understand the corporate philosophies behind buying barely adequate computers for their staff (buy in bulk, get them on the cheap, can’t be having work stuff on a personal machine and vice versa), I think there should be some sort of program where I choose to forego $25 a paycheck and am able to get a machine that isn’t dragged to Vic-20 speeds simply by needing to check your email while editing a spreadsheet. Wouldn’t you pay $25 every two weeks for a fast machine at work? Isn’t $25 a pay period worth it to save the anger and frustration?

Here’s what I’d like for my computer to do, both at work and at home (yes, I know some of these are software issues…):

· I’d like for it to trust that I’m on the active window I want to be working in, and not deactivate/switch windows because something in the background is done loading (or for a fucking pop-up).

· I’d like for it to prevent any virus scan from kicking in until the computer has been idle for at least 90 minutes.

· I’d like to fit more than one poker room window on my screen without overlap.

· I’d like to resize the YIM chat windows to whatever the hell size I’d like, thank you very much.

· I’d like for it to not take thirty fucking seconds to activate a menu I swear I just clicked.

· I’d like tabbed browsing in my Windows Explorer searches.

· And I’d like the browser to remember the scripts on certain pages that slow my computer down and just ignore them instead of trying to load them constantly.

It’s not much, I swear.

A couple other things, just because I’m marginally irked today as it is:

· Diet Coke tastes like ass. I need to just go back to not drinking pop at all.

· I’m calling it now – I’m going to be a little closer to being sick tomorrow, a little closer than that Friday, be knocked on my ass Saturday and Sunday, and be not quite sick enough to skip work on Monday. Faaaaaantastic.

· Since I both work and live at least 150 miles from my nearest co-worker in my division? No office Xmas party. And whatever happened to getting a Xmas ham from your company? I like ham. I’d eat a ham. I don’t remember even getting a card last year. Then again, the least desirable part of working for a small company or small division of a company is having to spend four hours on a Friday night drinking with the people you spend forty hours a week with anyway. Unless, of course, there’s a happy ending. Update: My boss is coming out on Friday, and he’ll buy me lunch. Usually, I end up getting flap jacks. So I got that going for me. That tidbit is related only to the “Christmas Ham” portion of the above, and has nothing to do with the “happy ending,” I assure you.

· There is no fucking “war on Christmas,” so can we dial down the rhetoric please? And this whole mentality about blaming the ACLU? Come on. Show me one case where the ACLU has engaged in anti-Christian rhetoric for the sole purpose of encouraging atheism or whatever O’Reilly’s ranting about, and I’ll eat my shoe.

· I used to free-base Chloraseptic spray as a kid. That cherry flavor took the sting out of the sore throats I’d have. Now, I’m a NyQuil guy top to bottom. Can’t wait to dump a double shot of NyQuil on top of a double SoCo Manhattan tonight. Should be perfect for my sleep apnea.

· I’m starting to get some of the Xmas gifts from some of my vendors. I got a large glass jar of mixed nuts, which works for my lifestyle. I’d have had a good use for that vase in college, now I’ll probably fill it up with glass beads and put it on a shelf like the suburban lemming I am. After I eat the nuts, that is. I also got a Harry & David basket from another, featuring a couple of pears. I chose to share, but not the pear. I will not share, no not the pear. God knows though that a piece of fruit is likely to send my gastrointestinal system into some sort of shock. I’m fairly confident all the maraschino cherries I’ve been eating haven’t made up for that food group deficiency.

· By the way, did anyone besides me notice how fucking shitty the maraschino cherries were in Vegas? It’s like they all ordered them from the discount outlet. Half had pits, they all tasted kinda waxy. Okay, fine. No one else drinks mixed cocktails that require a fruit garnish. I will offer, however, that the only place all weekend that had a decent grapefruit to go with my gin and your greyhounds was the IP’s tournament room. I wonder if a salty dog would taste okay with gin…

· Ready to be jealous? I’m a single 30 minute excursion away from being done with Xmas shopping. D.U.N. Done. Even though some of my efforts were as much to get this shopping shit over with as anything, I think I did pretty good all things considered. Now, do I buy something for my boss who’s coming in on Friday…?

So very tired… I wish this cold would hit already. I’m just going through the motions today.