The Crafty Southpaw

I Waited Just Long Enough For This to be Irrelevant

2012-01-31T01:02:00.000-05:00

I wanted, as best I could, to give my take on the Joe Paterno thing after a little time has passed, because I think that public opinion suffers from heat-of-the-moment passions; the Great Unwashed does not think straight when emotion clouds their view.

Just about everybody thought that firing Paterno was the right thing to do, because, as popular opinion went, the stakes were too high to just report an incident to one's superior. It needed some sort of undefined, nebulous further follow-up, as if a phone call two weeks later would have magically checked the right boxes and Paterno could be said to have done the right thing.

Then when he died, most of those same Great Unwashed pronounced it a pity - even a shame - what happened to Paterno, that he was deprived of the only thing that kept him going, that he was scapegoated and railroaded, and that he died of a broken heart. He did not die of a broken heart; he died of lung cancer, but I will re-visit that later in this post.

Now normally I'm one of the first kids on the block to spot and mock the ever-changing vicissitudes of the Great Unwashed, but this time, I'm going to give them a pass. Because this time I understand why it went down the way it did.

I think that the world, or that part of the world that cared about this, was a little horrified at the callous, bureaucratic way that Paterno handled the situation. The behavior was relayed to him; he notified a superior and let the matter drop. And that was deemed not enough, especially for someone who is charged with safeguarding children and shepherding them through the dark tunnel to adulthood.

This scumbag Sandusky was not only buggering young kids but was doing so while exploiting a position of authority and trust. It made a heinous act absolutely demoniacal. And the Great Unwashed screamed for blood. And when the trustees of PSU fired Paterno, the general consensus was that it was a shame but it was the right thing to do.

Then came the diagnosis, and with shocking suddenness, the death watch. And then, thanks to the lung on the right of the above picture, came the end, early in the morning on January 22. Joseph Vincent Paterno was 85.

Many, many things are forgiven in death. It was said that, when John Wilkes Booth was shot and paralyzed by a Union soldier who was trying to roust him from a tobacco barn that was on fire, the other soldiers in the company comforted the dying Booth as best they could, speaking soothing words to him and promising him they'd deliver a message to his mother.

So it was with Paterno. The prevailing opinion, overnight, from the Great Unwashed was that Paterno was scapegoated, that the wrong person was railroaded insofar as he immediately reported the activity in question to his nominal superior. He did the right thing and did it timely, and his reputation was unnecessarily tarnished.

And I get that too. You don't speak ill of the dead. This is a guy who not only touched the lives of thousands of kids, but who himself had a family, a son who loved him dear and a wife to whom he was devoted for over fifty years.

That's why I needed to cogitate on this one for a few days, to let his death sort of wear off. Because I suspect the truth of the matter lay somewhere in the middle. Paterno did sort of take a detached, bureaucratic approach to reporting Sandusky's malfeasance, and should have done more. The trustees did sort of make a knee-jerk decision regarding his firing, and should have done less. And he didn't die of a broken heart; he died of lung cancer, which would have happened no matter what his reaction to the crime, or the trustees' reaction to Paterno's reaction to the crime.

In the end, and from every angle, it's just a shame. Broken trust, resulting in kids in lifelong pain; an otherwise sterling legacy tarnished; a family bereft of husband and dad. The only character that did what was expected of him, who did his job efficiently and thoroughly, was the fucking cancer.

Hopefully, Correlation Does Not Imply Causation

2012-01-25T18:05:00.000-05:00

Running out to play poker @Very Josie's house, but I wanted to show you this. What are the odds?

One Final Life Lesson

2012-01-24T02:45:00.003-05:00

The most recent kerfuffle between the TSA and a US Senator - in this case the very conservative Rand Paul (R-KY) - has brought up memories of the last time this happened to a sitting senator.

Longtime readers of this little chucklefest - bless both your little hearts - will know all about the passing of my dad, which Buddha help me, is now just a few months shy of four goddamn years ago. Relax - I'm not treading that ancient ground, although it's safe to say I'm still as broken as when I wrote about it the last time.

He kept his marbles till the very end, despite having some curious low spots in his intelligence-map. Not only was he the real word-man of the house (a voracious reader and completer of his daily crossword puzzle quite literally until the day he died), but he was a genius spatially, as well; was one of those guys who could take an elevation drawing and and draw a top-view, for example. But ask him to cook 1 1/2 cups of rice by adapting a recipe for 1 cup and he'd be lost.

To paint an accurate picture of the man would require too much ink; suffice it to say that at the end of his life he was a sweet old man who delighted in seeing, and being seen by, his family, whom he loved beyond reason.

He was also, in direct contrast with me, a gun-toting far righty ultra-conservative whose political ideals were the complete opposite of mine, though (of course) they were well thought-out and he kept his bullshit detector on with every politician, Democrat and Republican alike.

Because of Dad's delicate health, I made it a habit to head over to the house for dinner, which I did every Wednesday for eight years. It was dinner at, say, 6, and laughs and stories about the disappointing Red Sox before heading to poker night chez Très Josie, where I'd usually regale the table with stories about my mother.*

Well, one day, this was August of 2004, I found him in full rant mode about the terrorists and the new reality that they forced the US of A into. I asked him what the matter was and he asked me, "Did you hear what happened to Senator Kennedy? They turned him back from a flight - wouldn't let him board. A United States Senator, for Christ's sake! How dare they?"

"I thought you hated Ted Kennedy," I said, with a smile curling about my lips.

"This isn't about the man," he said. "It's about the office. He's an elected official to the US Government and he deserves respect, especially from some shlemaz'l with a plastic badge. Gary, this is an honest to God outrage. He's one of the most powerful, highly-respected men in the entire country! I still can't believe it. If I were his boss I'd have him fired so fast his water pistol would start leaking!"

And on and on and on.

And of course he was right. And at the age of 71, and me at the age of almost 36, it would be, as memory serves me, the last big life lesson he would teach me. It's also why it doesn't matter that this guy's politics are antithetical to mine. This is more than one man's politics and the endless game of "gotcha" that the two political parties and their adherents play ad nauseum. It's about respect for the office. It's why I always called him "President Bush" when everyone else was calling him "Dubya" or something pejorative and demeaning. Because one can - I believe that one must - respect the office and respect the man, even if you make no secret of your intention to vote for the other guy.

Don't get me wrong: a full-throated criticism of the party in power is the very lifeblood of a vibrant democracy. But you can do with with respect, and forcing a US Senator to succumb to a patdown is neither respectful nor honorable. I mean, just from a pragmatic point of view, Senator Rand has been subject to background checks more comprehensive than "What's in your pockets, sir?" My God, he walks the halls of the Senate every working day - crosses paths with the President dozens of times in a year. If he's been cleared to do that, you think there's any reason whatsoever that he shouldn't be cleared to fly a commercial airliner? You're right, Dad - it's an outrage.

And thanks for the lesson. And all the others. God dammit, I still miss you.

And the rest of you: thanks for listening, as always.

----
*

Maybe someday. There are some real doozies. Jo, if you're reading this, give me your two or three top stories and perhaps I'll start with them.

On Cruelty - and an emptying of the Brain Bag

2012-01-18T18:25:00.000-05:00

Been thinking about cruelty lately. It's a funny trait in someone; it's one of the most base emotions there is, one that, as an adult, has to be un-learned, as opposed to learned. Ever observe kids on a playground? They don't need to be taught the finer points of cruelty. Kids work in cruelty like Picasso worked in French mistresses. Often they don't know they're being cruel; sometimes they know and don't care. Either way, kids can be horribly cruel and never feel a single pang of regret.

Adults, though, are usually a different story. Oh, sure, every so often you'll run across a J. R. Ewing type of cat (kids, look it up), who just delights in cruelty, but I submit that when adults are cruel to another it's an aberration; that it's not part of someone's normal personality. Cruelty, one adult to another, usually takes place because of one of two different reasons: one, you're a passive-aggressive sort who chooses to be cruel because of some half-imagined slight to your wonderfulness on the part of the person who you're cruel to, or you said something more by accident than on purpose that, halfway out of your mouth, you realize was cruel but it's too late.

Either way, though, when you do or say something that's cruel, and you don't apologize for it, then you're just one of those people who don't mind being cruel. And that makes you a bad person.

And now, some random cranial events:

* What a beat-down on the Broncos by the Patriots. At the poker game Saturday I made it clear that I thought the Pats would not only win but also cover the 13 1/2 points they were giving up. Belly chick is just too good a game planner to not issue a beatdown to a team that relies on gimmickry that he's seen twice in five weeks.

* If you're hungry and feel like some fast food, but don't want to foist any huge indignity onto your body, go to Dunkin Donuts and get a chicken salad sandwich on a croissant. It's real food, it's always fresh, it's not expensive, and it goes down real good with an iced coffee. And it won't give you the grumbellies like a quarter-pounder with cheese will.

* Lightning and I have been engaging in a mammoth Beatles trivia contest with ultra-hard questions. Sample question that Lightning got right: What splendid gesture did Paul make that was repaid by John crediting Give Peace A Chance to Lennon/McCartney? (Answer: recording Ballad of John and Yoko with John in a single day when George and Ringo were otherwise occupied). Sample question that I got right: What is the significance of the song Not a Second Time? (answer: first song that was recorded without all four Beatles - just John and Ringo, with George Martin providing a piano solo). I still think I'm better at Beatles trivia than he, but Lightning acquitted himself well and proved he's worthy. If anybody else wants in, no problem, as long as you adhere to one rule: Don't look anything up. This is an honor thing. Don't be a douchebag. Email me and I'll concoct some evil witch's brew of questions to test your mettle.

* I have a new friend, Cranky, who is a caregiver to her wife who has MS. I have some up-close experience with MS and what it can do - a really good friend of mine, whom I've known for 25 years, was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS in 2000, and his life is a constant struggle against his own body, which fails him with regularity and repays him with more or less constant pain. He's been going through some life crap lately too - he had to put down his dog this past Christmas, which was only minimized by the fact that his sainted mother passed away 24 hours later. So Cranky, whereas I could never truthfully say that I know what you or Skip are going through, I have a shadow of knowledge along those lines. I'm guessing you have a decent support system around you but if it ever gets too heavy, I'm just an email away.

I guess that's all for now. As Shakespeare said, "Prithee, remember the porter."

REVIEW: Kindle Fire, Amazon's Jewel

2012-01-16T18:47:00.001-05:00

KINDLE FIRE: $199 MRP
REVIEW: 95%
PROS: Huge functionality for the money, easy to use, a ton of content available, lots of free content
CONS: Backlit display might cause more eye strain than eInk or LCD; relatively short battery life; clumsy integration with cloud

My review of Amazon's Kindle Fire is perhaps best understood in the context of me being intimately familiar with the Kindle as an e-book reader. As I mentioned recently I've had a Kindle for years; was indeed one of its earliest adopters. So in my opinion the product needs to be evaluated under two separate sets of criteria; namely, how it compares to previous incarnations of the Kindle, and secondarily how it performs as the more general entertainment/media servant that it has become.

The Fire is a little heavier than my old Kindle, and is just a little smaller, despite having a viewing area that is about 50% larger. While heavier, though, it would be difficult to conceive that the extra weight would cause any fatigue while reading.

The old Kindle's display was not backlit; it used an LCD display that required external light to work (later versions of the Kindle, including the current generation, use eInk technology that, while better than the LCD technology of the first-gen devices, still need an external light source). The Fire is of course backlit and shows deep, rich colors and the darkest blacks. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see just how striking the display was, how rich the colors. And reading text is soothing on the eyes due to adjustable brightness, the ability to adjust the font, size, and line spacing of the text, as well as the background: readers can choose white, sepia, or black (with white letters). You can find the most comfortable option for you which will cut down even further on viewing fatigue.

Any comparison of memory between old Kindle and the Fire is ridiculous. The old Kindle had perhaps 128MB of RAM; the new one has 6GB.

However the Fire uses a lot of batter power, since it's so, well, powerful. You can exhaust the Fire's battery power in less than a day, whereas the power requirements for an older Kindle are so low that you can read for days without having to charge, and go for weeks on standby. That's something to consider if attaching to house current is inconvenient or infrequent.

And don't discount the impact of the difference between LCD/eInk and a backlit display. Some people think that the eInk is so much more natural on the eyes that it impacts their decision as to what they end up purchasing. And if your eyes strain easily, or get tired after, say, staring for hours at a computer screen, and all you want to do is read books, you should consider at least looking at a standard Kindle.

But really, if you are anyone else, and you are replacing your Kindle, spend the little extra money and get the Fire.

As for comparisons against other products, there really are none: There aren't really any other products in its class. It's tough to call the Fire a tablet; the Fire would not stand up to any apples to apples comparison with an iPad. From every perspective including its physical size, the Fire is less of a device than an iPad. If your goal when you woke up this morning was to buy a tablet, you probably don't want a Fire.

But bring the realities of the physical world into play and things become less clear. The iPad starts off life at $500; options and extras move that number up over 800 bucks. Kindle Fire? $200, out the door. You might decide that getting 80% of the functionality of an iPad while paying 35% of what they want for one, consider a Fire.

So: now you've bought one. First thing to do, before you want to set it up, is plug it in. The Kindle comes partially charged but you want to charge it up all the way before you start configuring it.

Configuring it, by the way, is a very straightforward procedure. You set up an (or link to an existing) Amazon account, give it a credit card number, and you can thenceforth buy and access content to your heart's delight.

In addition to buying content you can rent content as well, and not just books but TV shows and movies too. Instead of buying a movie for ten bucks, you can rent the content for 24 hours for two dollars or so. And all with two-click convenience.

One exciting plus when you buy a Fire is a 30-day membership to Amazon Prime. Now I am already a member; Toots and I do enough business with Amazon that the free two-day shipping is worth it by itself. But when you are a member of Prime you have access to over 50,000 songs, TV episodes, and movies that you can watch for free. Membership in Amazon prime is $80 a year, so if you buy a lot of stuff from Amazon and you have a Fire, it's a pretty compelling proposition.

The content, when it's presented to you, is flawless, with no pixellation, jumps, audio/video discordance, or any sort of digital noise. The volume is decent when turned up all the way but you're better off hooking up a set of headphones. A tap on the screen brings up a few options for tapping, like pausing, going back 10 seconds, etc., without stopping. A little icon of a cog in the upper right corner, when tapped, brings up configuration options like volume, brightness, and the wi-fi settings. It's all very intuitive; interacting with the screen pretty much does what you'd expect it to do, which is the hallmark of a well-thought-out interface.

As nifty as this device is, there are things that the Kindle Fire is not good at. As I've mentioned before, writing more than anything longer than a tweet is probably going to make you start to swear with frustration. It is a tool for consumption of content, much more so than the creation of content.

Also it makes, in my opinion, clumsy use of the cloud. It stores your content in the cloud and if you're going to be in a place where wi-fi is unavailable, like on an airplace, you have to download your content from the cloud to your Fire. If you forget, you're out of luck. Also the device could stand to better integrate the cloud with the on-board memory; it thinks of the cloud as a separate entity and so it makes you think of it that way as well. Hey, men and women of the Fire team: work on that for the next-gen Fire, OK?

So, to sum up: Amazon's Kindle Fire is an absolute gem of a product that has the potential to be so popular that it creates a whole new market segment: the, pardon the expression, mini-pad (we'll work on the name). Its tiny price tag leaves me slackjawed; I'm sure Amazon is betting that the content you buy will feather their nests sufficiently to make up for it. But a decent Kindle that doesn't blare commercials at you is $139. To not pay the extra sixty bucks for a jillion dollars worth of better is just stupid. And for anyone who might want an iPad but can't justify the price, you now have a perfect product for you.

Run out, today, and buy a Kindle Fire. You will be glad you did.

An Actual Poker Game!

2012-01-15T14:06:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I played a tournament at a local club where Josie, FDD Spuds, and I have been playing for years. The atmosphere is convivial and fun, if a little smoky (as a private club they are exempt from the anti-smoking laws). Turnout was pretty poor this time around, which was a little disappointing, but with 10 runners all crowded around one table, it was both empty and crowded at the same time.

OK, I didn't make it rain quite like this, but sometimes it feels that way

I chipped up early thanks largely to Josie. Of the first ten hands I was dealt, perhaps seven were quality enough to open with, which can be very frustrating if they don't connect. So when I looked down and saw pocket sixes, I once again raised to 3xBB and waited to see what happened.

The flop came 4-4-9. The guy to my right, the 24 year-old son of one of the older members of the club, had already started stepping on my bets when he perceived that I usually just folded post-flop when I didn't connect. Sure enough, he bets out 300, which was about a 3/4-pot sized bet. Thinking that he was just being an aggro douchebag (actually he's a good dude but whatever, he's the enemy), I raised to 800. Josie snap-raises to 1500 (I'm pretty sure; J remembers it as being 2000 but I'm almost positive it was 15). That slowed me down, but after thinking a while I thought she probably didn't have it, and despite the fact that I couldn't technically justify it, I made the very loose call, thinking vaguely that I'd try to maybe take a stab at it on the turn.

The turn was a beautiful, sexy six. Gin! Now I hoped that Josie DID have a third four. Bet, raise, shove, call. Josie turns over a four - she had it all along - thinking she was gonna win, but I turned over my sixes full and dragged a huge pot, leaving Josie with three chips, a paper clip and an old peppermint candy to her name.

But I will say this: Josie takes a beat with class. She hates it when people bitch and moan about being sucked out on, or being victim to intemperate play, and so she almost never does it herself. She took this beat, in which she lost over 90% of her stack, and didn't say a word about it, nor did she pout or mope; she took it, for lack of a more appropriate term, like a man.

Anyway, right after that hand I won two more big pots in rapid succession. Holding a suited A, after the flop I had a flush draw and an inside straight draw. I bet the flop fairly big, hoping for folds, and indeed everyone folded except for seat 2. Turn comes a blank for me, I take a second shot at the pot, and get called again. Uh-oh. I whiff the riv and shut it down, figuring I had to be beat, but he checks too - and as it turns out my ace high was good! I drag a giant pot holding - and having to show down - ace high. Wow. You know, I've gotten so used to being fucked over by bad players...to be able to finally profit from stupid play was very cool.

Hand after that I looked down to find JJ, which held up - and the genius in seat 2 kept betting into me with pocket 3's. Matt, I think his name was. I hope he comes back next month, I'll tell you that.

With that kind of stake I was able to sort of coast my way into the money. One other hand of note: i held A7 five-handed. I was still thinking what to do with it - I was probably going to raise with it but hadn't officially decided - when Aggro young'un to my right, who was short, shoved for about 1/3 of my stack. As I went in the tank I started trying to justify a call, out loud: "You could have A2 or something like that," I said. "Or two decent cards...you're probably just shoving with the first halfway decent hand you got...[long pause] OK, I call." And sure enough, he turns over A3! I called his hand almost perfectly and had him crushed in the bargain. But the board came up with four diamonds and he backs into a flush. Taking my cue from Very Classy Josie, I didn't say anything much about it, just let it roll off my back.

Long story short, I knocked out third place which gave me the chip lead but offered the #2 guy - Aggro young'un, of all people - a split which he accepted. We each pulled about 3 1/2 buy-ins, not bad for a few hours of fun. So now we have some folding money for a family trip to a local institution 'round these parts (Kowloon's on Route 1 for you locals).

Monday's post will, as promised, have my Kindle Fire review, finally. Until then, stay warm and enjoy the football today!

Lots to Talk About, But in the Meantime...

2012-01-14T21:15:00.000-05:00

I won (actually split with the 2nd-place guy) a small tournament today, details some time after the Patriots game or so. But I did want to show you a text message that Lightning sent me. Sorry for the lack of focus and such; it's tough to take a picture of a cell phone. But here it is:

Busy weekend for the kid, but Monday will be a big post, with:

* Details on today's tourney. SPOILER: Very Josie lost.
* A welcome to my two newest followers, Rob and Grrouchy. Link love given if gotten, fellas.
* As requested by Rob, my Kindle Fire review. SPOILER: fucking awesome.

The Worst Mistake I've Ever Made in My Life

2012-01-12T04:22:00.000-05:00

Firstly, let me apologize in advance, to all of you, for what I've done.

Everyone makes mistakes, though, right? I mean, the last guy who was perfect ('tis said) had his moment of doubt and pain too. And hell, he cavorted with a hooker - had her get freaky with him and a jar of myrrh, whatever the fuck THAT is.

So: nobody's perfect, and there are those who are sure that I would lose, in a landslide, the Perfection Detection Election. And I made a mistake. And I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry.

Here's what happened. Well, actually, a bit of background first, if you'll indulge the storyteller in me:

You might not know this, and I hope I'm not telling tales out of school, but as regards Josie, it's safe to say that I Knew Her When. She didn't have a blog. She didn't write anything. I had to cajole her to even try to put pen to paper, and when she did the only emotional impact her writing had was to drive the point home that she was a shitty writer. This by the way is nothing I wouldn't tell her to her face; no secrets between we two.

But - and this was the important bit - she was always Very Josie. She always had a certain nauseating self-confidence in her skills, even when her skills were sub-par. And while I will grant that she's a decent poker player now, used to was, she had to rely on the overabundance of luck for which she is famous in certain circles.

And when she would win a hand - especially one that she did not deserve to win - she uttered a phrase of self-congratulation that hit my ears like an icepick.

She would...

She would...

She would snap her fingers (both hands) and in a lilting singsong voice, say "Snaps for Josie!" and haul in her chips.

Friends, you have absolutely NO IDEA how annoying that was. One night, I swear I'll never forget it, she sucked out on me magnificently by drawing out to one card. I think it was a six. She gave her "Snaps for Josie" bit and then cackled like a witch at my misfortune, or her fortune. I went ballistic, swearing at her and yelling that when she sucks out like a goddamn fucking fish she might want to take that Snaps for Josie business and jam it so far up her ass that when she farts it sounds like "Snaps for Josie" if the wind is right.

We did not talk for almost two weeks. And we're about as close to best friends as adults can get.

I hated "Snaps for Josie;" I really did.

Well, time passed, with many cares and many changes. Josie started blogging, found her voice almost immediately, learned to use paragraphs reasonably well, and became a good writer right before my eyes. She also became a good poker player, using the Sicilian gifts that she possesses to read people in a live setting frightfully well. She became just a little bit more deserving of the ridiculously high opinion she has of herself.

And best of all, she forgot about Snapping for Josie. So did we all.

Until last night.

We were playing poker, and Jo won a hand, whose details alas have been lost to the four winds. She expressed delight at dragging this particular pot, and before I knew it, I heard myself utter the words that she herself had forgotten.

Let the record bear the truth for all eternity: 'Twas I, of all people. I, who suffered the greatest under the oppressive yoke of that vile expression, who resurrected its skeletal remains from long death and brought it, hale and well, back to a vigorous life.

Yes: out of the clear blue sky, I uttered the words "Snaps for Josie!" in the same obnoxious singsongy voice that she used a thousand times, but not for years almost beyond count.

Her face lit up like the Griswold's house at Christmastime and I knew right then that I would be spending the rest of this decade enduring the almost unendurable "Snaps for Josie" bullshit that she had run on me for years.

She took a pad of paper on which she was doodling, drew a giant Lucy and Desi heart (kids, look it up), and inside it wrote that nightmare phrase as if to re-engrave it, indelibly this time, into her conscious mind.

So now, if any of you have the singular misfortune of playing poker with Very Josie, on-line or in person, and she drags a pot she has no business dragging - and she will - steel your nerves in advance because you are going to hear that phrase. You will hear "Snaps for Josie."

And I just want to say, I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry.

The Crafty Southpaw's Mailbag

2012-01-07T17:38:00.000-05:00

Recently I got perhaps the nicest comment that I've ever gotten on my site. It was from a comparatively new member of this little corner of the Inter Tubes, brought to us from Very Yosie (I'm pronouncing it with a soft J today). It was Cranky, Caregiver and Storage Warrior, who read my most recent "The Beatles are Gods" post and said the following:

Cranky: Gary - great Beatles vignettes. I'm 55 and the Beatles were a very important part of my growing up which I think explains why I still love them. However, you look much younger than me in your photo. How is it you came to be such an emphatic fan?

Well Cranky, firstly thanks for reading and for your comment - welcome aboard and please feel free to comment at any time. Secondly, you're correct in that I'm younger than you (and also younger than Yosie. She's older than me, have I mentioned?). I turned 43 this past September. When I made my appearance, Hey Jude was the #1 song on the charts but that's not what did it. It was actually two things.

The first thing was, of all things, the "Paul is dead" rumor that gripped soft minds in the early '70's. One night, I couldn't have been more than 8 or 9, our friends from across the street, the Blackstones, were over our house and we scared ourselves silly with a bunch of Paul Is Dead palaver. I remember it freaking us out to the extent that the Blackstones ran, not jogged, back home because it was dark and they were completely spooked.

Anyway, the next time I was at the music store I wanted to buy a Beatles album that had lots of P is D clues. Not having any idea what to buy I took a shot and bought Abbey Road. I remember being disappointed that the album wasn't as clue-laden as I'd have liked. But eventually I got around to playing the album and I remember never having heard anything like it before. Song after song just blew me away. Being young and susceptible to a catchy hook I gravitated a bit more towards the Paul tunes than the John ones but eventually, as I wore the grooves down on the album (kids, look it up), I grew to love the album as a whole. I remember specifically how the Beatles made clever use of silence on each side of the album - how side one ended so abruptly, how side two gave us Her Majesty after almost 30 seconds of silence after the previous song. I was impressed.

The second thing was that my brother Ross, the idiot fucktard scumbag genius who beats me in Scrabble more often than I'm comfortable discussing, had a cassette of Sgt. Pepper and wouldn't let me listen to it. So naturally I listened to it all the time, and heard an entirely different side of the Beatles - psychedelic, trippy, fun, four young men at the very height of their creative powers doing things that no-one had done before.

And after that - well, I just listened to nothing else. My brother can attest, if he wishes, to the extent of my personal case of Beatlemania. Posters on the wall, book covers, pretty much you name it, it was Beatles-themed. I became their biggest fan, period. When I heard of John Lennon's death I cried like I lost a member of my family, which in a way I guess I did

When I decide I like something, I really, REALLY like it. And when I love something, that something occupies a place in my heart forever and ever. And I loved the Beatles. I committed every song to memory. I read book after book after book. I learned everything there was to know about them. And though in the years since I've opened up my musical horizons somewhat, I still haven't found a better band.

Cranky, I hope this answers your question. And since fish gotta swim, I'll close with another little Beatles vignette: In 1995, the Beatles released three, two-disc CD's of alternate takes and unreleased tunes, Anthology I, II, and III. All three went to #1; before they were made available to iTunes, they had collectively sold 15,000,000 copies - of double albums. A band having three double albums in a row going to number one had only happened once before, to Donna Summer in the '70s.

Thus 25 years after they played music together for the final time, the Beatles became the highest-selling musical group of 1995. Paul was quoted as saying "I always wondered what band would sell better than the Beatles. Turns out it was the Beatles."

Yosie: you can wake up now.

All This Talk of the Kindle Fire

2012-01-03T15:04:00.000-05:00

Someone we know, whose name rhymes with Shmosie, just got herself a Kindle Fire for Decemberween. I spent a little time with it whilst setting it up so I'm a little bit familiar with it and what it does.

Before too much more time goes by you should know that I was like the seventh person to ever have a Kindle. Tootsie gifted me a Kindle a-way back when, when it had enough memory for like 18 books and started with an engine crank on the side (and paid $400 for the privilege):

Awww, look at that stupid interface

What did I think of it? Why, I thought it was the most awesome thing in all of awesome-land. I really did. Yes, of course the thing had its drawbacks: the position of holding it most comfortably put one's fingers right on the next page "button," for example. It had no real greyscale - the pixels were on, or off, or 50%, making images almost worthless. And its unfortunate lack of memory was an obvious ploy to add value to the next generation of devices. But for all that I was just astounded: Here wasn't a book, but dozens or hundreds of books, with a slick and convenient way of getting whichever book you wanted within 10 seconds of your initial urge to read.

For a fella like me, a technology wonk who loved to read and didn't do it enough, the Kindle was chock full of cool.

Well, after about four years of loyal service, my Kindle died. Technically speaking, the screen lost its ability to un-paint a pixel; so turning a page basically layered one page on top of the other, and it eventually turned black and I was forced to say a few words over it and commit my Kindle (I named it Kindy) to Mother Earth, from whence it originally came.

I was resolved to buy another Kindle - and name it Kindy II - and was in the process of figgering out which one to get. You could get one as cheaply as $80, if you wanted a unit with no keyboard and to see commercials instead of screen savers. But the model I had settled on was $139, which was still a bargain, to my old eyes, especially given that my first one set me back four bills.

But then I saw that Kindle Fire, and I was captivated. For real. This thing is so much more than a standard Kindle it's ridiculous. So I thought I'd at least do some research and determine how much the Fire costs, and maybe see where it was, price- and feature-wise, up against similar devices like the iPad. And that's when I was even more astounded.

iPad: $500 to start.

Kindle fire: $200, all bells and whistles inclusive.

REALLY???

Now look: I might not recommend the Fire if you're looking for a full-featured tablet. But the person who shells out $140 for a standard Kindle instead of the Fire is, there is no other way to put it, a god-damned fool.

It's got its issues, to be sure: its keyboard, so to speak, is a hassle and a half; writing this post on it would be an excruciating experience. A reviewer on Amazon said it best: it's a tool for consumption, not creation. Also the 6GB of memory shrinks up a bit considering it's also a video player. But as long as you keep that in mind, what you get for your money makes the Kindle Fire an absolute STEAL. It's 90% of the functionality of the iPad or a good Android-based tablet at 40% of the cost.

And, thanks to Auntie Jo, I'm buying one this very day. When I get it, I'll dick around with it for a few days and produce a proper review. Watch this space.

By Request

2012-01-01T17:38:00.000-05:00

SOMEONE requested I post this. This was a letter rack for Words with Friends two days ago or so:

Tee hee

Auld Lang Sausages with the Very Josies

2012-01-01T03:45:00.001-05:00

Spent New Year's Eve with Very Josie & the contents of her house. Ursa Sucrosum had a friend over, let's call him "Bailey," he had a perfect Justin Bieber do, so when I wasn't calling him "boy," I called him Justin. Jo told Tootsie and me to come hungry, so we did, and we weren't disappointed. She put out a cold cut plate (with real deli meats like mortadella), the best sausage and peppers I've had in forever, and a dozen other snacky little this-n-that's that kept Toots and me grazing contentedly all night.

I set up her Kindle, which in truth was not a strenuous effort. I suppose she coulda done it herself but I'm glad she didn't - being known as the resident technology wonk not only gives me a sense of worth, but also feeds me nicely. And really, it had been a month or more since I'd clapped eyes on Josie, so whereas it's not my favorite thing to be invited someplace just to work on someone's electronics, this one definitely worked in my favor; I spent maybe ten minutes working the Kindle groove and six hours eating, playing games, and laughing with Josie like I haven't laughed in a long time. And yes, she really did get good and shnockered which made her laugh at my jokes even more.

We left around one, tired but well-fed. I was the designated driver so Toots got a little liquored up and - I swear to God - became the life of the party. She had everyone laughing, which I just cannot convey how unusual that is.

One of my resolutions is to maybe work a little harder on my relationships, especially with my best girl Josie. I get in these ruts where I just want to disconnect from the world and not care about anyone or anything, and after tonight I realize that the loss is mine, nobody else's.

Anyways, Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks for reading me over the year. And here's hoping that 2012 is a damn sight better than 2011 was.

Christmas in the Heartland

2011-12-28T14:00:00.000-05:00

Just got back from spending Christmas week in the land of Tootsie's birth, suburban Youngstown/Warren Ohio. We spend every Christmas there; have done since we moved back to La Nouvelle Angleterre in August of 2000. Two very funny things happened but before I get to that, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one thing.

That one thing is this: that little corner of the world, one that I've come to know intimately and even love, has been just crushed by the economic downturn. They have a big stretch of US Route 422 - they call it "the Strip" - that for as long as I've known it (and decades before, according to Toots) has been a bustling commerce mecca throughout its entire length. Strip mall, plaza, restaurant, every other conceivable commercial enterprise was to be found there by the dozen; if I decided, for example, that I needed a dozen of the guitar picks that I use (Jim Dunlop USA nylon .88's), I had my choice of perhaps three different stores in a two-mile length of road.

But that kind of prosperity is gone. Storefronts stand empty and sad; whole strip malls are un-rented except for a Goodwill donation center; and the only shiny new businesses are payday loan and check-cashing joints, the twin bottom feeders of an economy in free-fall.

I know this is happening to an extent everywhere in the country but Youngstown has been in the shitter for thirty years, not having recovered from when big Steel left, in the '80s. Besides, this patch of dirt holds people that I've known and loved for decades, and it tugs a bit at the ol' heartstrings to see such widespread ill-fortune to an area who has barely held its head above water for so long.

Aaaaanyway...

Two very funny things happened during my time away. The first thing is...well, a little background first: I have this thing I do, it's the perfect combination of funny and creepy that defines me so well to those who know me. When anyone has anything removed from their bodies, I offer them comically small amounts of money for whatever it is. For example, I offered Josie eight bucks for her gall bladder, and a buck for each gallstone contained therein. My usual line after the offer is "Don't ask me what I want it for - that's MY business."

Well, for the first time, it happened: on Christmas Eve, as we were making merry, my nephew Jacob lost a primary tooth. I told him that if I could snag that tooth, Mr. Washington (a dollar bill) would find its way to Jake's piggy bank. He thought a while...

...and handed that bad boy right over. And after I recoiled in horror and told him to wash it off first, I happily took possession of another human being's tooth. As you can imagine, it was a huge source of comedy throughout the entire week. Me and Toothy (I named him Toothy) had a swell time.

Oh Toothy, you and I are gonna be pals...

The second thing funny that happened was, within 10 seconds of our scheduled departure, I received a phone call from...Lightning! What are the odds!! Of course, he's the only person with a blog I got a call from, but that's probably just me being petulant. Anyway, after a few Yuletide pleasantries, he came to his point: he actually wanted to test me in Beatles trivia. Oh, sure, he knows I'm good, but I don't think he realized that I was great, that I work in Beatles trivia like Da Vinci worked in oils. The subject of the day was B-sides of 45's (kids, look it up). Lightning heard Paul's ode to prostitution, Lady Madonna, on the radio, and asked me if I knew what song was the B-side to the single. I did in fact know, not only that L.M. was the last single released on Capitol Records, the Beatles' own label Apple taking over after that point, but that the B-side was in fact the last of the George sitar trilogy, a song called The Inner Light, which approximately nobody knows. I told him that, and sang him a few bars, and he was impressed. He actually threw one more at me: What was the B-side to Paperback Writer? I could barely contain my smugness as I told him it was Rain ("When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads...") and he finally acknowledged that I was The Master Of All Things Beatles. It was a good feeling.

The ride home was 11 hours and 32 minutes of misery. It pissed down rain over 550 miles; all the ham I'd eaten over the week came home to haunt me and I needed to stop and piss every 40 miles; it actually snowed at the higher elevations of Interstate 80, including this ironically-named town:

Caption unnecessary

But, home we finally got, shortly after midnight this morning. I have re-ensconced myself on the couch, with Pearl at my side, and facing the reality of having to knock off some more leftover ham for lunch.

It's good to be home.

Couple of Updates and a chuckle

2011-12-11T03:55:00.000-05:00

Update 1:

I know how you feel, my brother

I was going over some old posts recently and I happened on a post that indicated I would tell you about my attempts to parlay a small amount of money into a larger one on one of the few online sites where I was allowed to play. Sorry to keep you in the dark but - and I know this will come as a galloping shock to you - I busted out fairly soon after my hubristic predictions of success. I wish at this late date I could remember the details but I don't. I don't recall a horrific bad beat so I'm guessing what took me down was either lack of cards or lack of talent. It's 6:5 and pick 'em as to which it was.

Update 2:

If ever there were a picture that didn't need a caption, c'est ceci.

I received my first defeat in Scrabble in months today, at the hands of my idiot stupidhead fucktard dinkus genius brother (who else?). However in my defense I called bullshit on the game twice, both times obviously in Hrothgar's favor. First it wouldn't let me play "Soapdish," which would have netted me roughly a billion points, for playing on a double word score and emptying my tray. Then it allowed Ross to play "Chevy," which I guess it allowed because it should have been double-dinged, once for being a brand name, another for being a proper name. Those fuckers. I hate Chevy cars too. So there, you dickbags.

And finally your weekend chuckle: Do a google image search for "slutty around the edges" and check out the first picture of a girl that you see.

Happy Sunday all! F-O-O-T-B-A-L-L- goooooooooooo FOOTBALL!!

Auf Wieder Sehen.

Like Scrabble? Like to Lose?

2011-12-10T13:57:00.000-05:00

Find me on the Eff Bee, friend me, and challenge me to a game of Words with Friends. And prepare to have your hinder handed to you.

Another Post about the Beatles

2011-12-06T21:22:00.000-05:00

Had an interesting conversation with Tootsie today. We were watching a show on BBC America that had Sir Cliff Richard on it. He is the reigning king of British pop, with a career that started when he was 17, in 1960 or so. He and his band, the Shadows, were playing the big theaters in London when the Beatles were still a local act playing the Cavern Club in far off Liverpool. I mentioned to her that the Beatles had actually written a song about Cliff Richard, called Cry For a Shadow, which of course she had never heard. It's an interesting song; it has a number of interesting trivia bits about it. For example it's one of only two instrumental songs the Beatles ever did, the other being Flying, off of the Magical Mystery Tour album. It's also the only song they ever did that represents a songwriting compilation between John and George. Considering it was performed in 1960, it's pretty rocking song. YouTube "cry for a shadow" and you will be able to hear it. For Beatles fans it's worth the 2 1/2 min. investment of time.

Anyway, that got me thinking about Beatles trivia, and I thought I would lay a little on you, hopefully stuff that you have never heard before. Some people, of course, hate it when I pontificate about the Fab Four, but I don't care:

One of the Beatles' first photo shoots, ca. 1959 or so.
The guy you don't recognize is Pete Best, their first drummer

* In April of 1964, the Beatles managed a feat that had never been done before and has yet to be done since: they occupied the top five spots on the top 40 charts. The songs were Can't Buy Me Love, Twist and Shout, She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, and Please Please Me. In addition, they had seven other songs in the top 100 for a total of 12 altogether – and that too has never been accomplished since.

*The musical innovation that the Beatles demonstrated was staggering. I've written on this forum before about how the song She Loves You was the first pop song to be written from the perspective of an outside observer: she loves you. Yes, song lyrics have advanced since then, but for the time it was an innovation.

* The song From Me to You was the first pop song in a major key but with the middle eight in a minor key; the verses are in the key of C and the middle eight bit ("I've got arms that long to hold you…") Is in G minor.

* The Beatles sold their 150 millionth album on August 3, 1966. They had yet to produce Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, the White Album, Yellow Submarine, or Abbey Road.

* Speaking of the White Album (official name: the Beatles), it was John's idea to release an album with an all white cover, but it was Paul's idea to have each album stamped with a serial number in its first pressing. Low numbers are prized by collectors; a few years back the copy of the White album stamped 0000009, given by John to his chauffeur, sold on eBay for $18,000. Sometime later, album number 0000005, considered the holy Grail of White Albums because the Beatles themselves took copies one through four, fetched $27,000, making it one of the most valuable albums ever. If you're curious, by the way, the top three most valuable albums ever sold are all Beatles albums, the most valuable of which was an acetate pressing of John Paul and George singing a song called In Spite Of All the Danger, in 1958 in Paul's dad's living room. John was 18, Paul was 16, and George was only 15. Its value: about $200,000.

* This post is already overlong so I'll close it with a personal observation: whenever I think of John Lennon, and his desperate need to tell the truth through his songwriting, however painful it was, I always think of one line from a song of his: Julia, his beautiful song about his mother, whom he lost when he was only 15. The line so perfectly encapsulates John that sometimes it still brings a lump to my throat, 30 years after I heard it for the first time: "When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind."

I guess that's enough for now. If you're one of those people that don't like the Beatles, FUCK YOU. You have shitty taste in music. The Beatles are the best that ever were, and ever will be. Not opinion, just fact.

A pic from the last Beatles photo session.
"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

What Women Like vs. What Men Like, Part I

2011-12-03T16:03:00.001-05:00

What women like:

Romantic Comedies (even bad ones)

Baths with bath oil

Werewolves with six-pack abs

Sharing their feelings

Foreplay

Shoes with red soles

Shopping and not buying

All things Kardashian

Guys who treat them poorly

What men like:

SportsCenter

The Three Stooges

Head

Women who are a little slutty around the edges

Coaches Get the Bum's Rush, Tootsie Hates the Rock Band Rush

2011-11-30T00:45:00.000-05:00

A couple of interesting notes from the sports world recently: I learned all about them as I lay half awake most of the night and got to hear the same episode of SportsCenter four times in a row. In addition to the normal, boring stuff like more boy-buggery at Syracuse University, there was a rash of head coach firings across the sporting world. A couple of hockey coaches got it in the neck; Jack del Rio got fired from the Panthers; and over at USC Rick Neuheisel not only got fired but was informed that he was expected to coach the Pac-10 title game, at which the current line makes them 31 point underdogs.

I'm sorry, but I'm calling bullshit on that one. If you're fired, you're fired; if you're the boss, what possible reason could there be for firing someone knowing that there was still one game, and only one game, to play before the end of the season? It's a complete douchebag move. And if you're Neuheisel, what possible reason would you have to agree to coach a game (that you're a 30 point underdog in, by the way) after you've been shitcanned? It's a lose lose situation.

Elsewhere the Washington Capitals have fired their coach Bruce Boudreau. Yes, he deserved it; any team with Alexander Ovechkin on it that doesn't win more games than it actually plays deserves to have its head coach fired. And even if he were a winner, that bald puffy bastard looks too much like the bastard son of Don Zimmer and Popeye. Of course he couldn't keep his job.

Look Ma, I'm a blow-up doll

In non-sporting news, I'm trying to get Tootsie to appreciate the rock band Rush; I don't know what it is that makes women in general hate Rush like poison, but for the most part they do, and Toots is no exception. I've played her the most accessible, easily-digestible songs in their catalog (The Spirit of Radio, Entre Nous, Limelight, etc.) and the only concession that she'll make is that they're good musicians. She thinks the music is dated and, jaw-droppingly, that the lyrics are simple, even infantile. Mind you, this is a woman who, when I met her, her favorite bands were Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails. And she hates Rush!

In March of 1994 I made a series of vows to her and I intend on keeping at least most of them, but hell's bells, how can you not like Rush and like that garbage Depeche Mode? It makes a brother want to cry.

Anyway, there you go. I'd normally invite your comments, but I know better: this post has no Josie content so the over-under on comments is zero. Unless this little disclaimer counts as Josie content; one never knows.

Retribution

2011-11-28T14:24:00.000-05:00

In my last post I made what I thought was a humorous aside about Josie being talkative, and talking all about her blogger friends with whom she's become quite close. I didn't think I stepped too far out of line or, as the old folks say, spoke out of turn. But someone obviously feels otherwise.

Because I woke up this morning with a mamma jamma of a cold, perhaps the worst cold I've had in years. My eyes are watering, I can't breathe through my nose, which by the way is already starting to turn raw from over Kleenex-ing, and the most strenuous activity to which I can aspire is sitting up and typing this.

I'm burning with thirst, but since I swore off sugared soda and juice some months ago, there's nothing in the house besides water, and that's upstairs. To go across the street to the convenience store to get a half gallon of juice is absolutely unthinkable.

The normal progression of a cold in my body is north to south. It starts in my head, moves into my lungs, then finishes with a spectacular flourish in points south of there. I'm in for a decidedly unpleasant few days.

In fact I think it's time to lie down again. If any of you are the Rhode Island area, a half gallon or so of orange juice would be a most welcome gift. Just leave it on the porch; it'll be a while before I can make it upstairs. I suppose I could stop halfway for a quick nap, say, in the dining room, but I wouldn't think you'd want to wait around for that.

And the Bathrooms Smell Like Stale Wee, on Top of Everything Else

2011-11-26T23:26:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, seemingly out of the clear blue sky, I got a text from very Josie asking me if I wanted to head up to Seabrook with her to play the 6:30 tournament. I really wasn't into playing poker right then - I wasn't really myself - but I figured what the hell, the structure sounded ok. 90 bucks gives you 12,000 chips with 20 min. blinds (except for the one right after the first break, which for some reason was 40 minutes). So that, plus it being Black Friday and me not having anything special to purchase, I headed up to Casa Del Josie and off we went to Seabrook New Hampshire.

Like I said, I wasn't really myself yesterday. I confess that I didn't exactly hold up my share of the conversational responsibilities. Thankfully Josie was up to the task and what I ended up doing was listen to her talk talk talk talk talk talk talk about, if the unvarnished truth be told, you guys. If you have any doubts how Josie really feels about her new friends from the blog universe, those fears are unfounded: she loves you all and doesn't mind talking about it -- over and over again. It was 45 min. of this one is such a nice guy and that one chauffeured me everywhere and this one doesn't trust that one and this one (I think) wants to fuck me and that one is such a gentleman. It was like I was back in junior high school except I was actually speaking to a woman.

But one extremely useful thing she said to me was something I already knew yet you just can't hear enough times. Right before we went in she looked at me and said, "Now remember, these guys are all idiots so bluffing them won't work; play them straight up-and-down and that's how you win at Seabrook."

This much I already knew; I played in Seabrook enough times and been witness to enough amateur poker played to last me a lifetime. But ask anyone who's ever had a golf club in their hand and they'll tell you that it's always good to hear the standard advice: keep your head down, keep your arm straight. So I took that as good advice and more importantly I took it to heart.

You may not believe this but I developed a reputation as being an incredibly nitty player: supertight but reasonably aggressive when I was in a pot. Believe me, Josie was just as surprised (the respect she has for my game flows out of her like aggressive menses). Anyway, the guy to my immediate right (you've met him; he wears a lot of Ed Hardy, his hat sits akimbo on his head, his white tracksuit glistens under the cool fluorescent lights, is under 25 and is mindlessly aggressive) said that he hadn't seen me in Seabrook before,which was probably true enough. I said when I play I usually play at Foxwoods. In asking me what I played there, he said something that I took as quite a compliment whether or not it was intended as such. He said, "you strike me like a mixed game player." Now to be thought of as a mixed game player, or at least for a poker player to get a read on me like I was one, assumes a certain level of talent; if you can put your money down on deuce – seven lowball with the same gusto as no limit hold 'em you got to have some chops. So even though I can't legitimately lay claim to having that skill, it was a pleasant little kiss on the ass that he thought I did.

And yet, despite my own doubts in my abilities that day (I told Josie for example that I just wasn't feeling it that day; that I had a bad feeling about the outcome), once the cards were in the air I felt overtaken with a preternatural sense of calm. I was in a zone I hadn't been in in quite some time. I just didn't feel any need to to show any ass or fall prey to fancy play syndrome and bleed my chips away. I found that by playing them when they're good and throwing them away when they ain't is about as good a strategy at Seabrook as there is. And it took me a pretty fair ways down the road. But the thing is with tournaments is that to win you need at least a little bit of luck and my luck just didn't hold.

My last hand was a classic example of why I've been losing so many tournaments. I'd been playing for the better part of six hours. The blinds were 3000 – 6000; I'd played short stacked most of the tournament but after winning a couple of pots and stealing a few rounds of blinds I was up to about 29,000 in chips, which was still a below average stack but at least I wasn't low man. We were down to 12 runners, six at each table. At UTG +1 I was dealt Ace Jack, which is a really nice hand six handed. With the blinds so high there was really only one move left to me of course, so I shoved (with less than five big blinds in my stack I defy anyone to say that I should've just raised or called). I honestly would've been happy had everyone folded but I think I was just as happy with the call; there were only a handful of hands that I was vulnerable to and like I said if I was going to win this tournament I would have to trust to luck. Well I got my call - a regular there who had a voice like Tom Waits after gargling with bleach - and he flipped his A6 over before I could flip over mine. Good. He was dead to a three outer.

The flop came 23K. So far so good. I was about 70 – 25 with a 5% chance of tying on the flop; now I was about 81%. The turn came up four, which gave him four more outs; now he had three sixes and four fives to win but I was still 85% to win it. But of course the God damn five comes up on the turn, which filled my wheel but which gave the villain a straight to the six. And that, my friends, was the story of me. I finished 12th out of 63 runners, two off the final table and six off the money.

I admit it: I was absolutely heartbroken to see that five. I's one thing to lose a coin flip but it's far different to fall victim to an 85/15 at such an important point in the game. I know it happens all the time (well, 15 times out of every hundred) but does it really have to happen when the game is on the line? If the hand had gone my way I would've had one of the deeper stacks on the table, in great position to make the final table and to cash - which by the way I've never done at that flea infested cesspool whore's den that sits right over the Massachusetts border.

The worst part about it is that usually when I lose a tournament I can point to a hand (usually more than one) that I played poorly or that I misread so badly that I deserved to lose. Certainly I would never consider my play anything close to perfect but yesterday I thought I played really well; I thought I finally internalized the whole "keep your head down, keep your right arm straight" business. I felt that at a really deep level I finally understood some real fundamental truths about tournament play versus cash play, namely that it's just not as important as it is to be right 100% of the time like it is in a cash game. Like every so often it's okay to fold the best hand in tournament play, as opposed to a cash game where all you have to do if you made a bad decision is reach into your pocket. That patience, if you can find it, is one of your greatest allies in tournament play. Stuff that I always knew but finally absorbed in a fundamental way.

But Lady Poker just seems to extract too high a price for each lesson. She really makes it sting sometimes. And I don't know if she is just toying with me, still stealing every dollar from my wallet but making it seem like a good decision to go back…or if I should listen to the voices in my head who are all saying fuck that rat trap. Never darken that door again. I'm starting to think, contrary to my Hebraiety, that it'll be worth shoveling money into that place for the ability to extract out some pittance back out of it one day. Yes, it would be a pyrrhic victory, but at this point I'd take any victory at all. I'm desperate for some good news.

All in all I have to say it was a pretty miserable time. A day out with Josie is usually its own reward (he said with an evil grin, as he twirled his handlebar mustache), but I have to admit after I got out of there all I wanted to do was just drop off my passenger and go home. I was pretty monosyllabic on the trip back to Josie's house, I guess. Thankfully she shouldered the lion's share of the talking.

And what did she talk about?

You guys, of course. She loves you guys, you know.

So until next time, fuck that shithole in Seabrok, and everyone associated therewith.

(Editors note: this post was largely created using Dragon NaturallySpeaking [11.5, for you geeks in the crowd] and I'm curious if you notice any departure in my usual tone; I wonder if dictating as opposed to typing changes the way I fundamentally put sentences together. It certainly feels like it's different; I perceive my writing to be more confident when I create it from the tips of my fingers, as opposed to when I speak it to my laptop, although that might just be the confidence of familiar ground. Your opinion would be helpful: do I sound different?)

Josie's Oot...

2011-11-17T20:43:00.000-05:00

Rivered by a three-outer. I'll let her tell the rest of the story when she gets back.

Fuck, it's bad enough when you're playing a home game for five bucks and your opponent sucks out a good one on you. For it to happen in the bigger games, that must be tough to bear.

A little joke for a Monday Morning

2011-11-14T09:43:00.000-05:00

A ventriloquist decides to switch professions and become a fake spirit medium. His first customer is a grieving widow looking to speak to her husband. He tells her, "For twenty bucks I can locate your husband in the hereafter and have him speak to you. For fifty bucks I can drink a glass of water while he's talking."

An Ode to My Hometown, Boston

2011-11-13T18:15:00.000-05:00

(sung to the tune of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year")

It's the most wonderful city of all
The cabbies are smoking
The Red Sox are choking
Just like every Fall-
It's the most wonderful city of all!

It's the most wonderful town that there is
The Back Bay is sinking
The alleys are stinking
of bums and of piss...
It's the most wonderful town that there is!

Well Polaroid's gone
And the whores have moved on
Since the end of the Combat Zone...
The women are stocky
and play some good hockey
but thank god they'll leave you alone...

It's the most wonderful city of all
The drivers are mean
And the rents are obscene
But the B's are at least walking tall...
It's the most wonderful city of all!

I am the love of someone's life

2011-11-10T23:44:00.001-05:00

Longtime readers of this little chucklefest will know that I've written about this before, albeit as background to a larger tale, but there's a female in my life who loves me beyond reason, who melts at the very sight of me.

It's not her:

I love Photoshop

And it's not her (although she's on my Tootsie-sanctioned exception list):

Ah, Charlize...I could eat you up without even having to coat you in batter

And it's not her, although natural redheads make me weak in the knees and make my man-parts feel funny:

You were the only reason I ever watched Six Feet Under

And despite the rumors and whispers, mostly started by me, it's not even her (though we're thick as thieves):

Hi Auntie Jo!

It's her:

Meow meow purr purr meow. Seriously.

This is my cat Pearl. And as much as she loves me, I must tell the reluctant truth: she is, to everyone on this planet except for me, a fucking bitch. She doesn't like Tootsie, she doesn't like our other cat Rusty, a red/orange Persian, and she absolutely hates our new addition, a was-gonna-be-stray-unless-we-stepped-up little drink of water named Maya. She is indifferent to guests, appearing for a courtesy petting before sauntering off with a twitch of her tail and a grand attitude.

With me, it's 100% different. It all started early on. Toots picked her and Rusty up from the shelter, and that by the way is a whole other story - which by the way I should write about sometime (Jo - it has to do with Sassy Brassy). So she didn't know me and I didn't know her. And at first she was a biter. I guess shelter living will do that to you. But the first time she bit me, I did what mama cats do with misbehaving kittens: I grabbed her by the back of the neck, pushed her down to the prone position, and talked low, right in her ear, that we didn't do things this way in the Jacobs house. As soon as I did this she became meek and submissive: like I've said before, if you want a cat to get your message, give her the message like a cat would give it. She ran away from me as soon as I let her go but maybe an hour later she was back and had an entirely different attitude - towards me at least. From that point forward we were inseparable, but she was still a flaming douchebag to everyone else in the house.

She's not a lap cat: she's never spent a minute on my lap, though she will traverse it to get from point A to point B. She prefers to sit next to me, which she will do for hours at a time - she's doing it now in fact as I write this and watch the football game. On those rare occasions when I bestir myself and actually get up off the couch, usually to piddle, she looks up at me with this look of sadness and betrayal, like there is no place on this earth that is better suited for my ass than the couch. I happen by the way to agree.

No human being loves anyone unconditionally. Human love is susceptible to so many obstacles, because we humans are so goddamn imperfect. Love fades, by time or circumstance or changing tastes. But the love that a cat has for the human whom s/he has picked out as The One simply never fades. Never ever. And through the slings and arrows of this shitty life that's a great comfort.

I love you too, Pearly girl. Now get up so I can put my laptop down.

Mutant Fruit

2011-11-02T17:28:00.001-04:00

Every so often at my local grocery store we get food that was apparently earmarked for Sasquatch. Look at the size of these grapes I picked up there!

I have to tell you, I have an unnatural attachment to these grapes. I love these grapes and everything they represent. Just look at the size of 'em!

Good Red Sox Story...

2011-11-01T19:15:00.000-04:00

...if I do say so myself. Two long-standing stories about the Red Sox of yore, and how much bullshit they are:

http://www.redsox101.com/2011/11/01/deconstructing-two-boston-red-sox-myths/

It's a good read, especially for true Sox fans who love and loathe the team in equal measure.

McRib is Back - Ulcers All Over America Rejoice

2011-10-29T02:19:00.000-04:00

Mmmm?

It's important that you know this about me: I have no problem whatsoever with fast food. Sure, there are joints I like better than others, but generally speaking, the combination of inferior beef, two slices of orange cheese and a pile of salt has always been a go-to choice in the Crafty Southpaw's cuisiney lexicon. A cheeseburger on a sesame seed bun - hold the onion and the pickle, please - goes down nice and easy. Yes, it's a relatively unhealthy choice, but who gives a fuck? My family's genes virtually guarantee a short life for me, and I'm as cool with that as I can be. At 43 I'm more than 10 years past what my family calls middle age. I didn't have a grandparent who lived past 76. My Dad came within a hair's breadth of dying at 68, and only made it to 75 thanks to large doses of the best that the American medical system has to offer and, it must be said, a slight dose of hypochondriasis that shuttled him to the hospital four times a year.

In short, life is short, so enjoy your time under the golden arches. That's what I do.

Which brings us to the object of this post: the McRib. An unassuming sandwich, the McRib is a hunk of pork pressed into the shape of a section of a slab of ribs - boneless, of course - slathered in barbeque sauce and sprinkled with slivered onions. They trot it out every half-dozen years or so and foist it on an unsuspecting public, putting it back in the vault a few months later. The reason they do this is that they are taking advantage of the incredibly short memory of the American people.

Because, you see, the McRib is fucking nasty. But it sounds like it might be good. So they release it, put McRib commercials in heavy rotation, and wait for everybody to order one. And when they do, they'll take four bites and throw it away with a look on their face that suggests they smelled something bad - which of course they did.

So I'll spare you the disappointment and the waste of four bucks: don't eat one. They're nasty. Order yourself a quarter pounder with cheese, or maybe, god help us all, a filet-o-fish. But stay away from the McRib. It's pressed and formed and disgusting. And just to make sure, I'll be ordering one tomorrow. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like it. But if it leaves a bad taste in my mouth I'll wash it out with a tall cool glass of McChicken.

An Open Letter to the Texas Rangers

2011-10-28T11:50:00.008-04:00

.

Hi Guys - Bill Buckner here. Listen - we're going to have to talk.

Eight Jobs I Might Dig

2011-10-12T00:42:00.000-04:00

I want to be one of these guys:

The guy who drives the driving range ball retriever

The DMV Guy

Quality Control Engineer

Urchin chimney sweep from Dickensian England

Professional Guy-Who-Sings-O-Canada-for-the-Canucks Impersonator

(would need to gain a few pounds - er, kilograms - for this one)

Stooge

Musketeer

Blind Mouse

Anybody know anyone in any of these fields, please let me know. But bear in mind I'll need to take next Tuesday off. And I don't work past 5. And don't piss-test me. And I'll need a wet-bar in my cubicle. And throughout the year I'll be letting you know of several dozen Jewish Holidays you might never have heard of, but that I'll need off nonetheless.

Guess Who's Back?

2011-10-09T11:00:00.001-04:00

Besides a giant hickory tree that serves as the boundary between my next-door neighbor and me, most of the trees on my little patch of Shangri-La are oaks. For those who've never been, which is most of you (I hope), we bought this house, Tootsie and I, because of its uniqueness: The guy who built the house did so on a triple lot and then some, and let most of the land grow free, so I have this little patch of woods, almost an acre's worth, right in the middle of suburbia - it's actually pretty cool. In the summer it fills out such that I can't see any of my neighbors from my back yard.

Anyway, one side effect of all these oak trees is a million billion acorns, many of which pelt the house as they fall, which they do this time of year by the hundreds. And with acorns come squirrels. Oh, do I have squirrels. On my property alone there are near 100. Different clans, too: I have a family of black squirrels living back there among the grey ones. But they don't bother me, and I don't bother them - I kinda like the idea that I'm sharing the joint with critters who believe just as firmly that this is their property as I do. So they've long since ceased to cower at my presence, and will usually continue what they're doing with half an eye on my until I go back inside or reach my car.

Imagine my surprise, then, as I was standing outside the other day, enjoying the fair weather, when one of the furry little bastards walks right up to me, looking directly at me with neither fear nor hostility. He had an acorn in his little hands and he held it out to me.

"This is for you," he said, in perfect English. It was a voice I'd heard before.

"A squirrel?" I asked, incredulously. "Really?"

In the blink of an eye the squirrel disappeared and there before me stood, yet again, the Almighty. He was dressed in a pair of blue jeans, crisply pressed, and an Oxford shirt with a thin red pinstripe. His Italian leather loafers were completely spotless, despite the fact that He'd just been a squirrel.

"Wanted to blend in," He said, and smiled. "Besides, it's a nice day to be in the woods."

"Well, come on in," I said, trying to sound hospitable. "It's been awhile. You find someone else to torment?"

"Been dealing a lot with the hurricane. You children named it Irene. What a funny habit, to name your natural disasters."

"That's what You've been doing lately?" I asked, with an edge to my voice. "Concocting natural disasters? What, You need to thin out the herd or something?"

He looked at me for a long second.

"Cleanup," He said slowly. "I was helping with cleanup. You think I like these things? But maybe you don't want an atmosphere with moving air, so that what you breathe is fresh and clean, despite your best efforts to foul it. Or perhaps you don't want moisture in your air, so it doesn't rain and you all perish for lack of clean water? Or is it that you don't want it to be warm ever? Just say the word, big boy, and I can make that happen too."

"Ok, it's not Your fault, I guess, but You sure as hell allowed it to happen."

"Allowed it to happen?" He asked with eyebrows raised. Hey, I invented the system. Sometimes, things happen. You know, that's so you, that attitude. You know what your problem is?"

"No conversation ended well that began with 'Do you know what your problem is,'" I said with a half smile. "But I suppose You know that too."

"Your problem," He continued, "Is that you can't let anything go. Ever."

Momentarily at a loss, I responded in a voice that trembled a bit, "I...I let things go..."

"Please," spat the Lord. "Name one thing. A member of your family wrongs you, twenty-odd years ago, and you're still harboring that. It's affected your relationship with his children, because of the walls you've put up. Your father died three and a half years ago and you're still reeling from that. Three and a half years, child! Everybody loses their parents. Would you have it the other way around? And you've lost other things too, some things you hold to be just as precious as losing a family member. More so, if I read your heart correctly, which by the way we're going to have to have a chat about that some one of these days. You think that every good and true thing, everything that ever made you laugh, everyone you ever loved, every great pleasure or tiny joy, should stay with you forever. And even considering the blink of an eye that is your time on this planet, forever is way too long a concept for you."

"So what do I do about it? I've noticed that You're pretty good telling me what's wrong with me - and by the way it's just fantastic that someone else besides the wife does that - but how do I fix it?"

His eyes softened and He motioned for me to sit.

"It has to come from within you, child. I can't help you. Just being here I'm violating my own rules. But you're hurting, you are hurting so badly, and you really have no reason to. You dwell on the wrong things, to your detriment."

"You violate Your own rules?" I asked with an upturned eyebrow. You're Your own scofflaw?"

"See?" He said with a smile. "Dwelling on the wrong things."

"Listen," I said. "These...things that I've lost. They're - they were - precious to me. More precious than anything else I've ever had or will have. You have no idea. Or maybe You do. But it really doesn't matter. Knowing what my problem is - and thanks so much for pointing it out to me - doesn't help me much."

"I know," He said sadly. "I wish I could snap my fingers and make it go away. Actually I can do that, but I'm not going to. This is something that you're going to have to come up with an answer to all by yourself. And while you sit there and stew on it, your life is running away with you.

"Look," He continued. "I have to go. But you need to hear this: It's not critically important that you fix this today. Things take time - I know that. I invented the whole idea of time. I invented things. So I guess I invented the notion of things taking time. That was actually pretty clever of Me. You know, it's been awhile since I invented anything big, like time, or things, or tapioca pudding. Yeah, that was Me. I should get back into the lab..."

"You're digressing," I said wearily.

"Right, right. Sorry. Anyway, yes, it's going to take time. But the important thing is this: You've got to start trying. What you've lost - those things are gone. They're gone forever, and no amount of moping around playing sad songs on your guitar is going to help."

He patted me on the shoulder and stood up.

"But now I've really got to go. It's almost winter and these acorns aren't going to gather themselves." He opened the screen door and in a flash He was a squirrel again. "Last thing, some of the squirrels are deliberately pelting your house with acorns. I'll try to get them to stop. THAT won't be easy, either." With a wave He turned and scampered back into the woods.

"What do you know," I thought to myself. "God scampers pretty well."

"Dwelling on the wrong things..." I heard from far away.

Mission: $100

2011-10-04T22:28:00.000-04:00

So for some reason a few days ago I had a yen to play poker online. I didn't want to play poker for Monopoly money, though; that's not real poker as we all know well. I remembered that Bodog still allowed Americans access to their account so I opened it up and lo and behold I had about $132 in there. Score! So I settle in to a .50/1 NL ring game, put $130 of my stake in front of me and happily start playing.

And I was doing well, which frankly didn't surprise me; low-stakes NL cash games are daddy's bread and butter. I had built my stack up to over $200 in 45 minutes and was cruising.

As an aside, I've noticed one difference between live and on-line cash games that makes things more difficult for me. Online, people tend to come and go with much greater frequency than in person. So every time someone stands up you lose any information or observations you've made. What's worse is that every new guy who sits down is a liability to you, because you tend to play tighter against someone you've never played before, especially the first few dozen hands. On the plus side, if they haven't bathed in some time, it doesn't bother you as much (at Foxwoods one day the same incredibly water-shy old geezer nauseated both Josie and me at different points in a tournament).

So anyway, like I said I'm feeling good, making good decisions, playing smart (tip o' the pen to what's-her-name) and generally cruising, when I look down and find two black aces in the cutoff seat. I make a standard raise, Dealer (who is big stack) re-raises, everyone else folds to me. I three-bet heavy, he shoves. I didn't relish playing a hand for $200, even if I'm the nut favorite, but I call anyway, obviously, and he turns over queens. I knew right then and there that I was dead. It's just a feeling I get sometimes; I think it comes from playing 100,000 hands with Josie and getting best hand cracked time after time after god damned time. It's a sort of piss-shiver, pit of the stomach, frozen skeletal hand squeezing your balls sort of feeling - I don't recommend it. Anyway, I knew right then I was dead, and sure enough, a queen right in the door sealed my fate.

A subtle message, but heartfelt

I now have $1.59 in my account, and if there is one thing you can count on, it's that I'm not putting another penny in there, even if I could. So here's what I'm going to do: I'm on a mission to extend my bankroll to $100, a buck at a time. I'm going to do $1 heads-up tourneys until I get my bankroll back up to $20 or so, then start in with $2 tourneys, etc. etc. I'll report my results as often as I can remember to do so.

The First, but Likely not the Last, Hand Job Story You'll Read Here

2011-09-24T12:58:00.000-04:00

The titty-shot in the previous post, while taken from my seats, was actually taken by a bud, FDD Spuds, who was there and who had the steely nerves sufficient to snap a picture of the event. Good on him - I'd have just stood there transfixed at the sight of a woman's breasts, incapable of any action beyond mumbling "Oh, my God" and drooling a bit. And yes, there was a part of me that was jealous that he had that opportunity and I didn't. Ah well, c'est la guerre. But I will say this: I was witness, albeit less graphically, to a far more graphic act.

One fine evening a few years back I was at a game with my consigliere Steve B. Why does he earn that title? Steve's a member of my poker family, and there is no man alive who doesn't have my back like he does. He does that mostly by being mean to Josie when she ~~breathes~~ insults me or says or does anything mean or punches me in the arm in the same spot over and over and over and over again. His favorite phrase is "Josie - NO!" articulated as one would say to a dog who needed sharp correction. It's hysterical, by the way - if we were drinkers we'd use getting him to say "Josie - NO!" as an occasion to down a shot, or drink tequila from a whore's navel, or whatever it is you booze bags do to distract you from your empty, empty lives.

Mi Consigliere, aka the Mayor, aka the Mighty Timekeeper

Even though I call him mi consigliere, the rest of the table calls him The Mayor, and I gave him that nickname too, based on a previous Bruins game. As soon as we got through the turnstiles and upstairs, we saw cat after cat going right up to Steve and shaking his hand, saying hello. I'm not shitting you, it happened four times before we got dogs and drinks. And not just spectators, employees too! One of that group was an usher who snuck us into the club section and some REALLY nice seats; another was a waitress for the club section so we got all our food comped. It was pretty smooth. So as you can imagine, calling him the Mayor was an easy invention.

Anyway, on this particular night we were watching a game against the Capitals, and because we completely sucked that year we were a couple of goals back. Steve was on my left, but on my right were a couple who must have been on a first date, or were friends and just realized they were hot for each other, or something, but they were paying zero attention to the game and sucking face like they were 14. They weren't even talking on those rare occasions when they'd come up for air. They were into each other, man.

So much so in fact that the two of them, together, made the mature decision to demonstrate to each other, physically, the extent of their mutual devotion. The dude pulled his jacket off (remember THAT phrase) and placed it on his lap - and the girl reached underneath, found the dude's todger, and started giving the old feller a tug.

Seeing snapshots of this whenever the action was on the right side of the ice, I started laughing and elbowed Steve to show him what was going down next to me. His reaction was priceless - but things would get better yet.

Just around then, the Bruins scored a goal to make the game close. Everybody jumps to their feet and starts cheering, but not these two - apparently things had reached the "mmmm, don't stop" stage and priorities were priorities. But this had also blown their cover, so to speak. When the Bruins scored, the guy in the seat directly behind the two lovers - I don't remember his name but he used to call Brad Isbister "Ishkabibble" and I thought that was funny - looked at them, then looked back at me with a "what's with them?" look. I reached back behind them and gave the universal gesture of the pistoning fist to explain and he starts laughing too. He tells his friends and pretty soon a dozen people altogether are watching these two go at it without them knowing (or maybe knowing but not caring).

Then the fun began. I don't remember who started it but we all started shouting double entendres to the Bruins. Each one would make us laugh harder than the one before and soon we were all unable to control gales of laughter that made our eyes water. A few examples:

Come on! Whack somebody!
(after another goal was scored) Watch out Washington - we're COMING!
GREAT JOB!
(to a referee): You jerkoff!

I've never laughed that hard at a sporting event in my life. And the best part was the Mayor was there to share (and corroborate) every word of this story.

Calling all Bostonians (Pokah Dave, I'm talking to YOU!)

2011-09-15T18:02:00.000-04:00

Any Bruins fans out there? Anyone want tickets? I'm conducting my annual ticket choosing dealie with my little circle of friends, acquaintances, hangers-on and sycophants. One of them dropped out this year and so I have as many as 10 games to give.

"Just take the fucking picture already"

view from my seats

in-seat entertainment

The tickets are balcony 301, row 8, seats 9 and 10 - directly on the red line. Literally, one seat is to the left of the red line, the other is to the right. Josie's sat in my seats many times - Jo, chime in with your opinion of the seats if you like. For the money they're the best seats in the house. And speaking of money, that's the best part: with my fees, and a few bucks profit per ticket, I'm selling them for $48 apiece, which is WAY below what you could get them at the box office.

Anyone interested in buying a game or three?

The Nearest Pile of the Crafty Southpaw's DNA

2011-09-12T17:44:00.000-04:00

I'm not entirely sure why, but I've never really talked much about my brother Ross, older than me by about 18 months, the member of my family to whom I am the closest, and one of my very best friends.

Me on the left, he on the right

This picture was taken at our cousin's wedding, which as (mis)fortune would have it took place on Father's Day 2008, some 35 days after our Dad passed away. That's perhaps why, despite the joyous occasion, the smiles were a bit thinner than they otherwise would be.

I'll flatter myself that I'm a pretty smart dude - as I mentioned many moons ago I applied for, and gained, membership to MENSA just to prove to someone that I could - but Rossy is an honest-to-Buddha genius. He retains just about anything that he's ever exposed to, and many is the time that I've called him for all matter of intellectual minutiae, from song authors to a cogent discussion of intellectual exercises like The Prisoner's Dilemma - and he's had the answers immediately at hand.

How smart is he? He got a combined 1480 on his SAT's. His academic achievement speaks for itself - skipped first grade; won admission to a local Jesuit Preparatory High School and earned an academic scholarship (where he won a varsity letter for fencing, on which team he was a distinguished member), and, despite regretting the decision later in life, eschewed a free ride scholarship, tuition room board and books, to any state collage he chose, to instead enroll at and graduate from Dartmouth College.

If our parents ever failed us in any meaningful way, it might have been their unfortunate habit of pigeonholing my brothers and me and defining us in one word - thus Ross was "the smart one," despite having a good sense of humor, and I was "the personable one," despite the fact that I was smarter than the average bear. In fact it was only when I sat down with my parents to do some retirement planning some two years before my Dad died that they admitted, wonderingly and a bit grudgingly, that I had some game.

Despite it all, though, and notwithstanding the odd time or two I smilingly motherfucked him for being so goddamn smart, I was never jealous of his gifts, and there was never a moment of animus between us. The one time I remember getting into a verbal fight with him we both blurted out clumsy apologies to each other the moment we saw each other afterwards.

We spent hours playing together as kids, whereas our oldest brother Eric preferred his own company or the company of his friends. In many ways, especially when we're together, we act like twins do, finishing each other's thoughts and saying the same thing at the same time.

It's a private theory of mine that all geniuses are broken - that the cost to pay for tipping the scales so deeply towards smart is a certain emotional detachment - and I don't think Ross would disagree with the fact that this exists to an extent with him. I am 43 (or will be this coming Monday), and he is 44, and in our long time together we have hugged each other exactly once - at the old man's funeral. I find, despite the fact that we shared this epic sorrow (he was as close to Dad as I was; we both just loved him with all our hearts), that I can't lean on him for emotional support when Dad's ghost looms large and all is sadness. Not because he's deliberately unsympathetic; he truly doesn't understand how after a certain amount of time I can't just move on, like he did. No malice there, but no understanding either. That's just Rossy - I'd no sooner begrudge that than I'd begrudge his being right-handed. He's my brother, my confidant, the one person in my life who would stick with me to the very end, and no words could aptly describe how much he means to me.

I meant for this discussion of Ross to serve as a simple introduction because I wanted to repost a hysterically funny story he wrote about his house taking a shit on him, but I guess my fingers ran away with themselves. I guess I felt it important. If one of the purposes of this blog is to give you a little insight into my life, I suppose you need to know about Ross - he's that important.

Anyway, forthwith Ross's funniest prose. A little background: he bought an old house in North Adams, MA, and was trying to fix system-wide slow drains. Enjoy:

MONDAY, MARCH 19, 2007

My Downstairs Plumbing, Vol II: The Plop Thickens

It gets better.

The rest of the plumbing in the house must have been watching me during the last episode and got the idea that I was responsible for the murder of the drainpipe and toilet flange. It took revenge on me the only way it knew how. In an incredible and disgustingly literal way last Saturday afternoon, my house took a giant shit on me.

Let's back up a bit before we get to that part: after my last post I did some poking around, and a bunch of signs (and a comment by Da Snoop) pointed to a clog between the main standpipe and the city sewer connection as the root cause of my plumbing woes. A local plumber concurred, and suggested the City of North Adams' Water and Sewer Department keeps a cape and set of tights in the back room to swoop in and save the day in cases like this. Eager to fulfill that mental picture, I called downtown and explained the problem. Shortly therafter, three guys from the city came out to snake my sewer connection. None of them were wearing tights.

We traipsed around the cellar looking for the main sewer pipe cleanout, which we never found. Our guess: it's buried somewhere within 3 feet of the foundation wall, 12 to 16 inches under the southwest corner of the basement. None of the branch lines will work to get them in. There's nothing they can do. They left the house, tried snaking out the sewer pipe from the manhole to the property line, and told me to call them back when I find someplace they can stick their auger into.

I had a few ideas, believe me. But now I was back to square one. At a loss, I cast my eye on the crappy old washing machine that was in the basement when we bought the place, but have never and wouldn't ever use.

In a good swift kick to the nuts of the plumbing code, the previous owner had put the drain hose from the washer straight into a 1.25" inch hole drilled into the side of a 4" vertical cast iron pipe. It was an illegally vented drainpipe branch, poking straight outside somewhere underneath our porch. Wonderful. But a light went on in my head: I would simply take the drain hose out of the standpipe, get my auger in through the hole, and snake out the damn thing myself.

Brimming with unfounded confidence, I secured a 50' auger and some pipe repair materials, stood steadfast by the old crappy washer, and pulled the drain hose out of the hole. It dripped some foul stenchy water, then began oozing out a plug of nauseating semi-solid grayish-brown slime. Imagine a turtle, poking its head out of its shell--only instead of a face coming out, it's actually a glop of the vilest substance known to mankind.

I did what I had to do and used the auger to get in the hole. I felt something give. And then it came.

Out of this three-centimeter hole came an explosion of waste material the likes I hope to never see again. For about 15 full seconds, my house bent over and shot projectile diarrhea an arm's length from my face, in an eight foot long stream, from the depths of its bowels onto my basement floor. About 10 seconds in, I was worried it would never end. I was trying to figure out how I was going to explain a house full to the rafters with poo to an insurance adjuster.

Fortunately, it slowed, and eventually stopped. I stood stunned in a quagmire of confusion and raw sewage. My own house had taken a giant crap on me. What the hell had I done to deserve THAT?

I straightened up and recovered my senses, several of which I would have liked to immediately lose again. It's not like I was covered in the stuff or anything, but the shoes I had on are getting buried in the tomato patch once the snow melts. I hope to never touch them with ungloved hand again.

I called in a hazmat team to take care of the aftermath, and Tara's probably never going to set foot in the cellar again. But it did take care of the slow drain situation. The bathtub is psyched about that, at least. Repairs and remediations are set to take place while we set up to do the final plumbing for the kitchen sink and dishwasher. It'll be just like a real house, sooner than later.

Until then, I believe my house and I have reached an uneasy truce. Let's see how it holds.

Ten Years

2011-09-11T12:55:00.000-04:00

It's important, I think, to remember just what the nation was thinking and feeling after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. We as a country were hurt, angry, in mourning. We cried for people we never met. We wondered at the raw hatred that could spawn this kind of action. But of all the things I saw, of all the words I heard, of all the emotions that ripped through my 33-year-old mind, what sticks with me most poignantly of all were the words of the Russian Premiere, Vladimir Putin.

A reporter asked him if President Bush's use of the word "evil" was too strong a word to describe the terrorists responsible for this. Putin responded that it was not a strong enough word; and he punctuated his opinion with words that brought me to tears with their profundity. He said, "we are as dust to them."

I hope this reprint of a previous post will help sort through the emotions of the day.

Where Were You?

Like most adults, I guess, I was at work. I had a meeting scheduled at 8:30 and after about 20 minutes when nobody showed up I called the meeting's organizer and asked her what the deal was. She said "sorry, I'm just so caught up in this World Trade Center thing," and that is how The Day That Changed Everything first entered my consciousness.

I knew it was big when I couldn't connect to cnn.com - when their servers are overloaded you know it's a big news day. We heard the same half-truths and non-truths as rumor spread in the first 20 minutes of chaos. Our accountant ran home and brought in a TV and we congregated in a corner conference room and sat, and stood, slackjawed, at the images that unfolded before us.

Images that are seared forever in my memory: a building afire, thick, acrid, ebony-black smoke spewing out of the top third of it. And not just any building - the World Trade Center, for God's sake - gargantuan symbol of, and paean to, commerce, the almighty American Dollar, and by extension our great nation itself.

One of our salespeople was also a local firefighter (find me a fireman without a second job and...and...well it doesn't matter, they ALL have second jobs) and I remember asking him how much time a person had in smoke that thick and hot.

He thought for a moment and said, "One breath - maybe two."

We sat and watched as the attack - for by now we knew that's what it was - went on. The buildings burned; we heard stories of other planes being hijacked; a plane hit the Pentagon. The PENTAGON, for Chrissake. These guys certainly knew their symbolism!

There was confusion within the halls of power - here in Massachusetts various politicians came on to say that a local election was taking place, others said it wasn't. The President was on Air Force One - first here, then there, spiriting President Bush to various points of safety.

They pulled EVERY SINGLE AIRCRAFT out of the sky. Landed them all.

Then after an hour or so of intense heat and metal stress, we watched in abject horror as first one tower then the other succumbed to the indignities foisted upon them, and they fell. Just collapsed like an old Vegas casino. The only difference is, each collapse took place while hundreds of live human beings still occupied the towers. In those several seconds, albeit shrouded in thick poisonous smoke, we witnessed the mass murder of thousands of souls, whose greatest offense to Islam or anyone else for that matter was getting up that morning and going to work, to conduct business, or serve food, or to clean, or to guard. My boss at the time watched the first tower collapse and put his hand to his open mouth in a gesture of horror, shock and revulsion that, like so many snapshot images of that day and the days to come, I will never forget as long as I live.

Then it was over, if over you could call it. The wreckage steamed and smoked from a dozen underground fires while rescue workers frantically looked for survivors, moving cement and girders with their bare hands. Fire crews from around the region and around the country came to the site by the busload to spell tired rescue workers and to show sympathy and solidarity. Charity of every stripe poured in. Whatever the current rumor had the rescue workers needing, it poured in by the truckload: Gloves. Masks. Dog food. Oxygen. Blood. Everybody wanted to give blood. The Red Cross had to turn people away!

And we mourned. All of us. We mourned for the lives of the fallen, and their families. We mourned for the death of a lifestyle we all instinctively knew was gone forever. We mourned for police and fire crews, those who ran in while everyone was running out. The overarching emotion for most people was not anger - it was sadness. Tears were everywhere. Dan Rather crying on Letterman. Jon Stewart crying on his own show. And how could we ridicule them? We were crying right with them.

Much has happened in the shadow of the events of September 11, 2001. Some of it good, much of it not so good. I'm not going to turn this post into an invective-laden polemic against anyone or anything, except perhaps the vermin who perpetrated this horrific crime against the innocent.

But in the aftermath of that day, the nation stood together, and most of the world stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States. We lost that too, which is also something deserving of mourning.

My People - the Jews - get together every April for Passover. The whole idea of Passover is to retell the story of when the Jews were slaves to the Pharaoh, so that it never happens again and we remain a free, albeit nebbish and neurotic, people.

We can learn a lesson from Passover if we apply the same philosophy to 9/11 and retell the story every year - shed real tears for the fallen until all passes into distant memory and we spill a drop of wine for them - and never, ever forget the events of that horrible day, when everything changed.

Truth in Songwriting

2011-09-06T18:12:00.000-04:00

It's Freddy Mercury's 65th birthday - or it would have been, had he not been ravaged by the scourge of the late 20th century. And it got me thinking about how songs are usually so much better when they show, however obliquely, a side of the songwriter. And yes, I got there in a kind of roundabout way, after having listened to Keep Yourself Alive - because when Freddy sang "Well I loved a million women in a belladonic haze," I know that I for one was not buying THAT little piece of poetic legerdemain, however clever the turn of phrase.

Anyway, I find that as a songwriter of, admittedly, small gifts, it's beyond me to write a song that has nothing to do with something in my experience. You'd think that it'd be easier to just compose a little nothing song about puppy love or popping a cap in someone's ass or whatever it is you kids do nowadays, but for some reason I just find that more difficult than writing from my heart about something that makes me laugh, or cry, or feel the infinite scope of emotions inbetween. Don't get me wrong - I find it insanely difficult to write those songs too, but however facile, however rudimentary in structure, however lacking in subtlety, at least those songs seem to get finished.

I have a great admiration for people who can 23-skiddoo you a song, a professional songwriter who can write a beautiful song without it being part of their experience. And they can do so with remarkable beauty: just fire up the ol' turntable and listen to Francis Albert singing about the Summer Wind for a prime example. But for me, where the rubber meets the road is when the songwriter speaks from experience - like anything John Lennon wrote after mid-1965, for example. One of the first songs he wrote from the heart rather than his own personal Brill Building was a remarkable work called In My Life, even more remarkable given that he was a 25-year old looking back over his life:

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone, and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends, I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all.

I would trade many things for the ability to write like that. I guess the closest I came was a song I wrote about my dad. Anyone experiencing a family tragedy becomes intimately acquainted with that goddamn ringing phone, how well-meaning friends and family call you to offer love or support or just to check in. However noble the sentiment, though, I grew to really resent the ringing phone and started to think those on the other end callous and self-centered. What a grieving family wants, in those horrible horrible hours and days right after a tragedy, is ten uninterrupted minutes of silence - but that's just what they don't get. Anyway, after Dad's first real scrape with the dude with the scythe, I wrote a song about the phone. I had it all tabbed up with chords and stuff but I realized that you very likely don't want to hear it, let alone see the tablature for it. Anyone who does, just send me a message and I'll send you a link. I'm not anticipating a stampede.

In poker news I'm going back to Foxwoods tomorrow. I tried my luck over the weekend but the sharks were out, preying on the touristas. I ended up losing money but walked out with my dignity intact, if not much else. Henceforth I'm sticking to mid-week and stealing from the retirees who have time to kill and money to donk off. Wish me luck.

Soulmates

2011-09-03T00:49:00.000-04:00

"You truly love each other - and so you might have been truly happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, no matter what the story books say. And so I think no man in a century will suffer as greatly as you will." -Prince Humperdink, to Westley, The Princess Bride

Been thinking lately on the whole notion of soulmates. It always happens when I watch that movie, The Princess Bride. A really good friend of mine, her name is Eden, dragged me to see it when we were teenagers and I ended up loving the flick. And so I always think of her when the movie comes along, and the conversation we had about soulmates after the film was over and we were in Denny's smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.

Is there indeed someone out there, the one person who fills every little crack in your personality, the one person for whom you are perfect, and who is perfect for you?

Eden believed it with all her heart, but I think the notion is flawed. If there is in fact one person for you, what are the odds that you'll find her in time? Or for that matter at all? And if you have a shred of doubt as to whether or not whom you are about to marry is indeed the One, how do you go through with it? Do you in fact even have a sense that you're missing anything, if you haven't met yet? Do you have a false sense that who you're marrying is the One? And how can you tell if it's indeed a false sense?

What if you aren't your soulmate's soulmate?

I have to figure that when you find the One, it'd just knock you on your ass; there'd be no way of denying it. I would figure that it would be just like that love's first blossom, except instead of fading into something more comfortable and sustainable, it still burns white-hot inside you, year after year, never quite leaving you alone. Making you smile at your reflection in the mirror for the sheer luckiness of being you. Thinking that the time you spend together isn't pleasant, or comfortable, but sheer bliss, the very air crackling with life when you make eye contact. Knowing that you can bare your chest and rip your heart right out of your ribcage and show it to her, and blanket it in your deepest secrets, your ugliest scars, and your most soul-baring insecurities, and it will be cherished as if it is her own heart she sees - because in many ways it is.

Now I mean no disrespect to Tootsie, but I think Prince Humperdink was right in the above quote. Maybe one couple in a century have that shot. The odds are just too goddamn long for it to be any other way. Even idealists like my friend Eden have to come to terms with the ugly reality - she divorced her husband of many years some little while ago.

And I would imagine that the people for whom this adage is most painfully true are those who did not end up with their soulmates, but who saw him or her through a dark mirror - those who came close to that once-in-a-century thing, but for whom in the end the odds were just too long to overcome. That's probably the very worst thing that can happen to a person.

Let Me Just Say: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh....

2011-08-30T23:58:00.000-04:00

Hello again, friends. It seems like a lifetime since I've been in front of the computer, but to the trees and the grass but three days have passed by.

It is exactly 11:12 PM as I write this: our house has been without power since 10:30 AM Sunday. That's 60-plus hours if you're scoring at home, or even if you're by yourself. Tootsie and I have officially cried "Hold! Enough!" without fear of being damned by MacBeth, and have hied ourselves to a Comfort Inn in Seekonk, Massachusetts, with the twin attractions of a hot water shower and air conditioning, as well as electric power, so we don't have to retire with the sun like farmers of yore. Tootsie is watching Chelsea Lately on the last tube TV to exist in the civilized world and in addition to (hopefully) entertaining you with my overbloated prose I'm sitting in my skivvies, a towel around my neck, relishing the wonderful feeling of being clean, not having cleaned any part of me with anything but ice-cold water since Saturday. Let me tell you - and I'll warn you in advance this is likely an overshare - but I could have cleaned myself this afternoon with the flat end of a butterknife and made progress.

Today I did my best to give myself a halfway-decent whore's bath - what a friend of mine calls "a cat's lick and a promise" - and went down to Foxwoods to see if I could duplicate the success I enjoyed on Saturday at the $1-$2NL tables. I'm pleased - maybe even a little giddy - to announce that today went exactly like Saturday did: I turned $200 into almost $600 by playing just a little smart: by that I mean ABC poker with a few adjustments here and there. For example I busted out a dude who loved Ace-rag, and when he put in a big bet pre-flop and I had AK I knew I was up against no pair and that I had him crushed. Sure enough, it all fell into place just like I thought.

In one notable hand I made a very smart post-flop check when my pocket pair connected, which is against my nature, and Doyle's teachings, but I knew the crushing mediocrities in seats 2 and 3 (seat 8 for me today) would bite on top pair (there was an Ace on the board) and I got one guy for $40 and the other guy for everything - just by checking that flop. Yummy chips.

Speaking of yummy, whoever tipped Josie off to the existence of the most ethereal milshakes in existence, and who thence tipped me off, deserves, er, a tip. I had a strawberry shake with whipped cream and was, well, yummy.

I've spoken to Tootsie about this and I'm going back. I have an actual honest-to-buddha bankroll, a fat wad of $100's in my wallet, with nothing attached to it but the potential to create more $100's, and I'm going to give it three or four days a week to see if I can make actual pay-the-bills money. It's not because I've had two positive sessions in a row - it's that luck doesn't figure into it. I find myself outplaying my opponents, and they just give me chips-a-plenty. I might have finally found my niche at $1-$2NL. La vie, c'est bon.

One final note: It's Tootsie's birthday today.

She hates the big happy birthday thing, when the idiot flair waitrons come up to the table clapping and singing a public domain ditty about how FUN it is that you're one year closer to the grave. I stopped making that mistake a long time ago and I do NOT want any shenanigans taking place tableside. Well, today I told her that I would share a dessert with her (I'm a compulsive anti-sharer), but only because it was her birthday. Our waitress, whose tooth count had an over-under of 16, and I'll take the under, overheard this and brought the whole hand-clapping song-singing band of idjits to the table and as they started in, I first made the throat-slash gesture, universal for "knock it off," which didn't seem to work in this end of southeast Mass, and I had to actually raise myself out of my chair, and with a voice louder than seven singing saps, said "STOP!" in a voice that conveyed just exactly how serious I was. They slunk away like they were caught looking in someone's medicine cabinet.

Toots would like it known that she thought I was a big ol' meanie. I'll take that. You want to know how mean she is? A few minutes ago she said "What's that smell? Oh yeah, it's YOU, clean."

Happy birthday, Douchebag.

I Still Owe Her Something Nice, Because the Buffet Friggin Stunk

2011-08-27T17:47:00.000-04:00

I never said this story didn't END well...

Of course it started off with a decent plan. Josie was going to play a tournament Friday morning and was taking the Foxwoody equivalent of the Fung-Wah bus to get there from South Station. She would have, in her tiny little fist, money I had earned staking her in an amazing performance at a recent tourney. I in turn thought I'd try my luck at the cash games; I was just sick of tournaments, or rather my lack of success at them. I was going to get a decent night's sleep and a good breakfast, wait out any morning traffic, and head down there around noon for a 1:00 start to a day downstairs at the cash game section for some 1-2NL, after I stopped upstairs to get my dough from Jo.

That was the plan, anyway. It all changed in the blink of an eye, or more accurately the shrill ring of a phone, at 7:18 that morning. It was Josie, and she had missed the goddamn Fung Wah bus or whatever rickety-ass crap can was going to do its best to wheeze its way onto Injun territory before it threw a rod and breathed its last.

Anyway, the girl to her credit had a decent plan B. She was already at South Station; she would take the train down to the stop five minutes from my house and down we'd drive; she in time for her tournament and me in time for THREE HOURS LESS SLEEP THAN I WAS GONNA GET. I scramble to get a load of clothes in the wash and this unspeakable load of human goo into the shower. But ready I got, and even had time to stop at Dunkie's and do the morning right. And really, how badly did I need the sleep? It's 3:27 Saturday morning as I write this, so that should tell you something.

So we get there largely without incident, my arm only once bruised by the sight of a Volkswagen Beetle. Josie registers herself for the tourney, and I head downstairs to find the No-Limit reg desk and start playing.

I was in seat 1. Seat 2 was an old-timer who confided in seat 3 that he at times couldn't see the cards or hear a bet amount. Seat 3 would say, "listen pal, it's your money, you should speak up if something isn't clear," and smirk to himself. So already I didn't like him. The good news was that the deck was hitting him early so he had a bunch of chips that he'd be giving me soon enough.

Seat 4 - well, let's get back to her in a minute.

Seat 5 was this dude who was killing time waiting for a seat in 2-5NL land. He had a rack of chips on the rail, and after every hand he would build his chip stack back up to the maximum. So seat 4, a girl of maybe 26 with hair that had been dyed so many different colors it was anyone's guess what her "real" color was, she decides to douchebag up, and do it right proper. She calls the brush over, and not only complains about the rack on the rail, she flat-out accused him of using the rack chips to bet his hands. He, predictably, gets mad, and this seems to floor seat 4, who couldn't quite understand why anyone would get upset once directly accused of cheating.

So she was the table douchebag, and I didn't have to know seats 6-10, or at least you don't. I settled in to play some cards.

In cash games, my philosophy is a simple one: the first hand I play should be a monster. This serves two purposes: one, it helps to give me a table image as Tighty McTightman, which helps, but it also forces me to sit back for a minute and study the table, see who is legit and who is just there to see how long they can make $200 last that they've managed to hide from their shrew wives while they blow six rolls of nickels at the slot machines.

Well after about 20 minutes I woke up with AK. Seat 3 came with a standard open UTG. Doucheface in seat 4, whom at this point we all hated with irrational, white-hot fury, raised to 20. I re-raised to $55, and with a sour puss like she was trying to channel her inner Douchy from the Block while eating a lemon, shoved her entire stack in. And I tank, start talking about how she could be steaming because of the controversy, but that I really didn't think so, and that I hadn't played with her nearly long enough to know, and that, you know what? Nahhh... and I folded my AK face up. She turned over KK and oohed and ahhed about my fold. So I lost fifty bucks but got a good table image in the bargain.

Over the next hour I got my fifty back and even went up about fifty bucks with some well-timed aggression and sticking with a piece of advice Josie gave me: in cash games, position is king. I don't think I played five hands out of position all night, but here's a good story about one.

I knuckled J6h as unraised BB. The flop came two hearts including the King. I checked, seat 2 bet $15, and the action folded to me, and I called. I had him on a King and if I were to make my flush I could keep him on the hook for his entire stack. Turn came a blank. I bet $25 and he calls fairly quickly. So now I think he might have two pair, or caught trips or something.

The river brings my heart. Glory and Trumpets! This dude is toast - and BUTTER, baby. First of all I just catch the card out of the corner of my eye, so I didn't stare at it, and made sure I didn't react to it at all. I thought, how much could I get from this guy without scaring him away. He bet the flop after I checked, called my big bet on the turn - he definitely had something. But there were no pairs on the board, so unless he had AXh or QXh I had the best of it. I decided an all-in would make him think flush, so I opted for a $100 bet - an imposing sight when you shove 20 nickels in two piles into the pot - and hoped that he thought I was protecting a bluff.

He hems and haws a while and says, "I have to call you," and puts in his money.

"Third nuts," I declare, and turn over my flush. He folds. BOOM! I'm now up over $200 and on my way.

The next big hand, and the tale on which I'll close this already-overlong post, was just two or three hands later. In middle position I look down at A7c, and call a $7 raise that already had a bunch of callers ahead of me, and would get a couple behind as well. I think there were six people pre-flop. The flop brings two clubs, one of which was the K and another was the J. Seat 7 bets $10 and I call. The turn brings the 9c, filling my flush but leaving me open to Q10c which would fill a straight flush. He bets $30. I was going to pop him right there but, I swear it was right out of a movie, I heard a voice in my ear whispering the word "patience." So I just called him.

The river comes the 10c, and I'm officially in a pickle. Now this schmuck could be holding Qc2d for example and have my hand crushed. And I think that maybe I betrayed these thoughts with the look on my face because he bets out $75, which is a huge bet for him. And if you thought I went into the tank before, brother, it was like I was a panzergrenadier in Hitler's Wermacht. And Madame Doucheface in seat 4 whispers to her buddy bud in seat 3 that she's about to call a clock on me. That's bad enough but to call the clock on someone when you're not in a hand, while legal, is especially douchy. Anyway she didn't, and eventually I decided that with over $150 already in the hand, I was priced in, and I was already ahead and playing with house money, so I put in my crying call, asking him "Do you have the Queen of clubs?" He said no, so I said, "well I win, then," and show my ace-high flush. He folds face-down and even though I had a right to see what he had I didn't push it. But I wonder what he could have had that he thought could beat me, unless he was trying to bluff me...I had the Ace, the K was on the board, he didn't have the Q, the J and 10 were out...so maybe he had an 8 or 9 and thought it was good, or maybe he was just bluffing, but either way, I got most all of his chips.

There were other hands, smaller victories, not as worthy of re-telling, that increased my bankroll even more, but for the most part, that was it for the cool stories.

So that's how I turned $200 into about $600 in about three hours, and created a bankroll for future 1-2NL games that are hopefully just as soft as this one was. Seriously, I was shocked that a game spread at a casino could be so soft. My biggest mistake was getting up when Josie came by to have a little lunch. I wanted to buy her something nice for letting me stake her, when she didn't really need the dough, so I bought her lunch at the buffet.

Sorry for the long post but thanks for listening. Until next time, please remember my dear Aunt Sally.

Money for Nothing

2011-08-21T18:56:00.000-04:00

And your chips for free...

Let me just say, I recommend staking a good poker player quite highly if you want to increase your bottom line. Especially if that poker player is a damn good one - that helps a great deal.

Last night Very Josie and I settled up the "paperwork" for my investment of a piece of her. When it was all said and done I had a great big pile of money that I didn't have before, and once again Josie demonstrated that her arithmetic skills were better than mine.

I used a bunch of different methods to figure out how much I was entitled to (tax implications make the transaction a more difficult prospect than it would otherwise be), but the funny thing was this: Jo slapped a few numbers together and came up with a number. I spent a tortured half-hour working scenario after scenario and came up with a few dollars more on this one, a few dollars lesson that one, one pretty much right on the nose. All I really had to do was trust Josie's head for numbers and it would have saved me a great big headache.

And there's something else too that I need to say: Josie isn't hurting for money. She didn't need anyone buying a piece of her. She let me stake her because if she won it would mean a windfall for me. I make a lot of jokes at Jo's expense but she really is a good friend - maybe the best friend I have - and I won't forget this kindness.

Game Over

2011-08-20T06:33:00.000-04:00

I'll let Josie fill you in on the details - and there are several details - but I'll say this for your comfort: Nobody lost money. And a couple cats you know made some money.

Just Got a Call from Josie...

2011-08-19T21:20:00.000-04:00

...she's in the money already, there are 22 people left in a tourney that started with about 300 or so, and she's got about 2x the average stack size. To sum up this summing up, she's doing great.

A propos of nothing, it strikes me that if she makes the final table or so, she could make enough money so that my 1/3 stake in her action could actually represent the most money I've ever won in the poker world. This thought is both thrilling and embarrassing as hell.

Good thoughts towards Foxwoods and Auntie Jo, people!

I Finally Get a Piece of Josie

2011-08-18T00:44:00.000-04:00

No, you fucking pervs, not like that. I'm staking Josie to the tune of 1/3. To me it was an easy decision. Not to make any unnecessary equine metaphors, but Jos is a horse I can back. I've known her long enough to recognize that look in her eye she gets when the Sicilian comes out to the front. She's locked in, and I expect her to make a nice long run - and am putting my money where my mouth is. It's a standard deal: I'm covering 1/3 of her buyin and am getting 1/3 of any winnings, minus some miscellany expenses we agreed upon.

I'm staking Josie. Get it??

So until next time, please remember that when (if) you root for Auntie Jo to make a nice deep run, you're also rooting for the Crafty Southpaw to feather his nest.

Best of the Crafty Southpaw: The Day I Almost Got a Ball

2011-08-16T10:58:00.000-04:00

The Day I Almost Got a Ball

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story, 100% true, took place August 14, 2005, in a rain-shortened game against the Chicago White Sox. Enjoy.

---

Sunday I was at Fenway Park, taking in a little Big Club baseball and a lot of water. But it wasn’t all rain, and the day wasn’t all wasted.

It started off pretty poorly, actually. I’ve seen a lot of baseball this summer and wasn’t feeling particularly well all weekend, and truth to tell, I wasn’t looking forward to trekking all the way into Boston (I’m a Rhode Islander) and sitting in the 95-degree heat for three hours. But the seat I had that day was just too kick-ass to pass up. FB 51, row B — three or four seats to the third-base side of the screen, four rows off the field. Closer to the action than the guy on deck. So I had to go, even though on the train and for the first inning or so I was sweating profusely and cursing baseball for taking place in the summertime.

Of course, the weather broke spectacularly when the heavens opened up, so I didn’t have to worry about that for too long. In fact, between the first and second rain delays it was quite comfortable, if you don’t mind being a little waterlogged, which believe me, I didn’t.

In the row in front of me was a kid of no more than 8 or 9 years, with blond hair bordering on white, longer than you normally see nowadays. It was obviously his first game. He brought his glove and kept pestering his dad for a foul ball, as if a word from him would be all that was necessary.

In the third inning, he got his ball. The home plate umpire took a ball out of play and rolled it to the ball boy. This kid went over to the rail and stuck out his mitt, and the ball boy tossed it right to him. The look on his face, predictably, was pure ecstasy.

A couple of minutes went by during which he looked at his trophy over and over again, turning it this way and that in his hands, pretending to throw it for the winning putout of the World Series, tossing it up and catching it. After a while he asked his father a question I couldn’t hear and saw him shrug his shoulders. He turned around to face me.

“Excuse me,” he said, which was the first good sign, “is this your first time here?”

“Umm, no,” I said with a bit of a smile - it was by my count the 32nd time this year.

“Do they [meaning the players] stay after the game and sign autographs?” he asked.

“Not really, no,” I said. “You might want to try the player’s parking lot an hour or so after the game.”

At this, the kid turned crestfallen. His shoulders slumped and his hopeful expression turned blank.

“But listen,” I said, “You’re still a lucky kid - I’ve been coming here since I was your age” — my advanced years must’ve made a suitable impression here — “and I’ve never gotten a ball, ever.”

He gets this thoughtful look on his face - I assumed that my comment had made its desired impact. But then he huddles in with his dad for a little while and turns around to face me again. This time, he’s holding out his ball.

“Here,” he says. “You take it.”

It took six or seven times before I could convince him to put it back in his glove. It’s tough to sound forceful when you have a lump in your throat. He finally did but said to me, “If I get another one, I’ll give it to you.”

I said, “If you get a second one, you can do what you like with it - but you gotta keep that first one.”

Well, he never got his second one, and unless we see each other at the make up game (the game was postponed after a ridiculous 4 hour delay) the point will forever be moot. I’ll never even know the name of the special little kid who made an impression on me that will last the rest of my life.

However, if he does show up, and does get a second ball, I will take it from him, and ask him for his autograph on it - for, as I plan on telling him, we get autographs of people we respect and admire. And that little towheaded kid earned both of those things from me Sunday with that one simple, unselfish, magnificent gesture.

On to Williamsport!

2011-08-13T16:03:00.000-04:00

Today the Little League team from my adopted hometown, Cumberland, RI, has made the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA, representing all of New England in the tournament.

As of this moment I am watching them thank the crowd for their support, not two minutes after the final strike was recorded, and I find myself watching this spectacle with a big, goofy grin on my face.

I've lived in Cumberland for 11 years and some change now, still not nearly long enough to be considered anything but an outsider to "real" Rhode Islanders, but that doesn't matter. It's nice here; it's quiet here. The houses that make up my neighborhood are nestled in the middle of a giant oakwood and the cutting down that took place fifty years ago was done with great care, so that we are surround by giant oak trees, some hundreds of years old. There's a great breakfast joint a few minutes down the street; the guy who runs the butcher shop I go to lives right across from me. It's a wonderful city, and its fathers and mothers now have the privilege of watching their children vie for the title of Little League Champions.

So congratulations to the 12-year-olds of Cumberland, Rhode Island. Kick some ass if you can! But win or lose, keep your heads held high; you've already covered yourselves in honor and glory.

Well done, kids.

The Value and Peril of Self Delusion

2011-08-08T18:14:00.000-04:00

"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities." - Christian Nestelle Bovee

"It's OK, I suppose, to want something desperately. The danger comes when you find yourself believing that just maybe, after all this time, what you want is finally within your grasp. Because in my experience, it never is." - The Crafty Southpaw

By Request: The Crafty Southpaw, Live in Concert

2011-08-03T14:36:00.000-04:00

A reader asked me to play something, so please enjoy this. It's the first song off that Pink Floyd Album I talked about a couple of days ago, Animals. The song, which thankfully is quite short, is called Pigs on the Wing, Part 1. Sorry about the sound quality, it's just my computer's microphone. Also, for some reason, YouTube created an issue coordinating audio and video; what's up with that? Anyway, enjoy, and if you would like to critique, please be gentle.

A Little Pink Floyd for a Tuesday

2011-08-02T18:01:00.000-04:00

From their brilliant album "Animals:"

You've got to be crazy
Got to have a real need
Got to sleep on your toes when you're on the street
Got to be able to pick up easy meat
With your eyes closed -
Then moving in silently, downwind and out of sight
You've got to strike when the moment is right
Without thinking.

Then after a while
You can work on points for style
Like the club tie
And the firm handshake
The sudden look in the eye
And the easy smile
You have to be trusted
By the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you
You get the chance to put the knife in.

Disgusting Little Bastards

2011-07-20T12:47:00.001-04:00

...and no, I'm not talking about Lightning and Josie. I'm talking about EARWIGS, who have overrun my house and that of most people I talk to this year. Don't know why, but the creepy crawly little scumbags are running roughshod over the northeastern quadrant of the United States this year.

fucking creepy little things, ain't they

They do no damage to speak of, except turn my stomach. They don't eat clothing, like the moths that ruined an otherwise perfectly good suit recently. They don't even burrow into human ears, which would take the creepy cake - turns out that's just a myth (right up there along with the notion that there's such a thing as "creepy cake.") They're just...creepy. You can't kill them without considerable effort and their death rattle is an exoskeletal crunch that is even more off-putting than their appearance.

Well I guess everyone has their cross (or star of David) to bear, right? I mean, look at the bright side: I could live in St. Helena...

Friday Morning Joke

2011-07-15T02:09:00.002-04:00

This guy wakes up one morning,and staggers to the bathroom, where he looks in the mirror and sees this little red raised bump right in the middle of his forehead. He puts some alcohol on it and forgets about it.

Next time he's in the bathroom it's only four hours later but the bump has elongated and has a bright red tip to it. He starts thinking about it, so that he can't get any work done. He ducks in the bathroom an hour later just to look at it and to his horror that it's taken on the appearance of a tiny penis, just jutting out of his forehead.

He's so spooked that he goes home from work and gets an appointment at the doctor's office the very next morning. By that time it was unmistakably a penis, and almost an inch long already. He drives to the doctor's office in a near panic.

The Doctor examines him and says, "Well sir, this is exactly what you think it is; you're going to have a penis out of the middle of your forehead, and we can't operate."

"Oh my God!" the guy says. "Are you telling me that every morning for the rest of my life, when I look in the mirror I'm going to see this stupid penis on my forehead?"

"Oh, you won't see it," the doctor says. "The balls will droop over your eyes."

It Could Have Gone the Other Way

2011-07-06T20:20:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I have to convince people that there is still an antisemitic bent to some people right here in these U S's of A. Many are incredulous; some will look me in the face and flat-out call me a liar and accuse me of holding on to the past.

The fact is that there are whole huge areas of the country - Dixie, for example, roughly speaking the southeast quarter of the US - where I would not feel comfortable living. Because not only am I a religious atheist, and that's bad enough, but anthropologically I'm a Jew, and those who have met me or even seen my picture know it: My face is a map of Jerusalem, for god's sake.

The good news is that it's going away - people are letting go of the whole Christ-killer thing and looking favorably on a race of people that have a strong sense of family, keep up their yards (or pay someone to), don't generally have their hands in someone else's pocket, and, let's face it, are too timid to be good criminals. Antisemitism is on the decline, and that's a good thing.

An even better thing, and this is a VERY good thing, is that antisemitism was never state-sanctioned, as was prejudice against African Americans (don't think it was ever government sponsored? The slave trade was sanctioned and legalized in the Constitution, the highest law of the land, until 1808 - and "separate but equal" was the law of the land as recently as 1954).

But it never was like that; from the very beginning, it was never like that. Now some of you may say, "of course - the Pilgrims came over here seeking religious freedom." You may say that but my God would you be wrong. The Pilgrims came over here looking for a place to practice their own incredibly intolerant and strict religion, a religion so severe that the notoriously laid-back Dutch, after having a smoke and a pancake, a bong and a blintz, a pipe and a crepe, threw their asses out. Stop getting your history from a first-grade recounting of Thanksgiving.

No, the fact is that if President Washington were of a less tolerant bent towards the Jews he could easily have institutionalized some form of antisemitism, be it outright or wink-and-nod. But he didn't - not only didn't he, but he set down a precedent for tolerance towards the Jews that, I'm happy to say, remains to this day.

What happened was, this cat named Moses Seixas, who ran a synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, wrote to the newly-elected President Washington to congratulate him and to indicate his congregation's support. Washington wrote a letter in response that formally established a policy of goodwill towards the Jews, something that had never before been done. It reads, in part,

[T]he Government of the United States...gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance...May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

The letter goes on to say that all the Jews have to do to retain the continued goodwill of the country is to be good Americans, and all would be, you should pardon the expression, kosher.

So thanks, President Washington. Listen, I got a guy in the tooth biz, he could hook you up with a set of false teeth kind of cheap...

Some Advice, Please

2011-06-28T05:50:00.000-04:00

Close your eyes. Go ahead, I'll take the wheel. Close...close...very good. OK: I want you to imagine a scenario. Picture yourself as someone who reads sports sites. Further imagine my site, Red Sox 101, as the site you read most.

Already you're feeling like this guy, aren't you

Listen, I'll cut to the chase, as this is getting creepier than I was expecting it to be. Here it is in a nutshell: I have to produce content more or less every day, but each month the team has three or four days off and I have to write stuff then, too. So I'm thinking about starting a sort of feature-ette that I can write about every day off or every time the news cycle gets a little slow - maybe Great Red Sox Through History, descriptions of famous (or infamous) games with historical content, or my current favorite, "Baseball's Most Successful Jews." I like that one because it's going to be short.

But I think what I'm going to go with is a post articulating and explaining two or three of baseball's unwritten rules, and maybe how they're interrelated. For example, there are a bunch of unwritten rules around not "showing up" a pitcher: don't swing at a 3-0 batting practice fastball down the middle. Don't steal a base if you're up or down by more than five runs. Don't "dig in" too firmly with your cleats as you stand in the batters box. If you hit a home run keep your eyes down and trot quickly around the bases.

Likewise the pitcher is bound by unwritten rules based around doing what he has to do as well. If you're going to drill somebody, take a few miles off your fastball and drill him in the ass. Pitches high and tight should miss. If you hit someone by accident, for God's sake don't EVER apologize.

That sort of thing sound remotely interesting? It's a serious question. Sometimes my geek filter turns silent when I need it most. So I'm relying on youse guys! Let me know if you think it's a good idea. Also, if you have any suggestions for something to write about on rainy days and off-days - they always get me down, you know - I'm all ears.

On a personal note, I am in 31 flavors of gastric distress as I sit here on the couch. It was probably the fact that I saw Josie today, about which more later, but it could also have been the gigantic pile of fried fish and onion rings I had at the roast beef joint where she, Ursa Sucrosum and I had dinner. Oh, now that I think of it, I made fun of a guy in the men's room who was passing a watermelon and was making the whole standard array of noises. Funny for regaling a 12-year-old kid but in doing so I clearly angered the gods of poo. Why do I inflict this damage upon myself?

Anyway, let me know what you think of my little idea, and until next time, please remember the unwritten rule regarding clubhouse etiquette: if you're a rookie, don't take the last blueberry muffin. What are we, animals?

Here's What I Find Myself Thinking About This Morning

2011-06-16T04:49:00.000-04:00

When I was just entering adulthood, in the late '80s and early '90s, the Bruins were a great team - absolutely dominant but never quite able to get it done, despite two attempts in '88 and '90.

The Bruins had a Hall-of-Famer at the blue line in the person of Ray Bourque, the best defenseman since Bobby Orr. Up front they had another Hall member: Cam Neely, the man who invented the position of power forward in the NHL. Adam Oates came on board and scored 142 points in his first full season. Glen Wesley was a top-flight defenseman who nonetheless scored 19 goals in 88-89. They had an above-average second tier of players too: Ken "the rat" Linseman, Randy "stump" Burridge. But conventional wisdom of the day was that the GM of the team, one Harry Sinden, was too much of a cheapskate to provide that one extra player who could put the team over the top.

So that's who I'm thinking about today: Neely. Bourque. Oates. Craig Janney. Bob "Swoop" Sweeney, whose ass I kicked at poker one day (straight chaser). Don Sweeney. Dave Christian. Ken Hodge (the younger). Men who were proud to wear the spoked B and who came really close, but just couldn't quite put it together.

Some other things I'm thinking about at 4:30 in the morning, a night where I'm sure sleep won't be coming along any time soon:

It only took five years removed from Harry Sinden's poisonous touch for the B's to win it all.
I'm giving serious thought to going to the parade.
The talking heads were reminiscing about the Old Boston Garden, about the rats and the filth. One personal memory I'll share: I was in line for a hot dog and a cockroach as fat and as long as my thumb skittered across the menu board. The line hooted and several people remarked that they wanted the roach as it was likely the freshest thing they had. Very funny stuff.
OK, one more I'll share: to get around the Garden at the sort of middle layer of seats, what was then called the "Stadium" level, there was this kind of tunnel that was perhaps eight feet wide. Despite the non-smoking policy, this was where you went to smoke. One night I was walking there when my shirt caught on an exposed nail, sticking out perhaps three inches from the wall, and put a foot-long rip in the back of my shirt. I remember thinking "and the Garden claims another victim."

Anyway, there you go. Until next time, please remember the 2010-2011 Boston Bruins, Stanley Cup Champions.

Maybe Words Will Come Tomorrow...

2011-06-16T00:28:00.000-04:00

...But I'm still just stunned. This thing belongs to Boston this year:

Start Watching Dr. Who, and Do it NOW

2011-06-13T22:51:00.000-04:00

I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but my oh my, Dr. Who just keeps getting better and better. This last episode, their last until midsummer, was the best 60 minutes of television I've seen in a loooooong time.

BBCAmerica broadcasts recent repeats at 5:00pm eastern, Monday through Friday. Start watching. It'll do you good. Trust your Unca Jake.

What a time

2011-06-10T05:41:00.000-04:00

Most of you guys know I'm a Bostonian, a Red Sox and Bruins fan. I may have implied once or twice that I don't particularly care for the Pats, even though I like NFL football in general, or the Celtics, because I fucking hate basketball. Sure, their contributions to the whole "City of Champions" bullshit that's been flying around for a decade are a kiss on the ass of my hometown, which is something. The rest of the sporting world hates Boston with surprising passion, and that's something else. But I only got jubilant in 2004, and again in 2007, when the Red Sox fulfilled 86 years of blah blah blah.

My other writing responsibilities at redsox101.com ensure that I take in, usually more than once, every inning of every Red Sox game this year. And, rounding as they are into prime form, it's been fun to watch. I expect big things from the 2011 Red Sox this year. And having won it all twice in recent memory is great. But - that's pretty much it for me regarding fulfilling The Sporting Jones.

My point is that even though the championship rings have been flying around the Hub of the Universe with some regularity, I always felt that, as a Bruins fan, I could not Drink Deep of the Chalice of Universal Contentment and Perform Other Important Allegories until the Bruins won the Cup. And from where I sat, it wasn't going to be any time soon.

I got my Bruins seats, as I've said before, during the lockout that cancelled the 2004-2005 season. When I started hearing rumors of the two sides being close to an agreement I pounced, and got a cherry pair of seats for not a lot of money.

Unfortunately the Bruins were reintroduced with such luminaries on its roster as Brad Isbister and Jiri Slegr. What to know how bad it was? HAL FUCKING GILL was considered a marquis player. they managed 74 points in an anemic season that was good for last place in the ex Adams Division.

And they sucked the next year, 2006-2007, although just a tiny bit not as bad as the previous year.

But they didn't suck the year after that, 2007-2008. They had Savard and Chara and Bergeron was really coming in to his own. And finally after three years I got a set of playoff strips from the Bruins. And sure, they lost in the first round, but they took the first-place Canadiens to seven games and overachieved admirably.

And since then they've made the playoffs regularly but until this year weren't able to get out of the second round, finding new and awful ways to lose each year. Like when they were 3-0 against the Flyers last year and blew it in seven.

But this year...

This year, they roared back from Montreal taking its first two at Boston Garden to beat them in seven. This year, they swept the Flyers in the second round, dispatching them with a cocky quickness that was the perfect antidote to last year's horrible collapse. This year they went toe-to-toe with the Lightning, fought the good fight, and beat them in seven.

And now they're in the Stanley Cup Finals. And what's more, they're two games away from winning, and they have 100% of the momentum, the hot goalie, and apparently the winning formula for beating the fast, talented, better Vancouver Canucks.

Pretty heady days for The Kid. The Sox are poised to give me a great Summer, the Bruins are posed to give me a heart attack.

They're two games from winning, my friends. If they win, if they skate that god damned Cup around the ice, I...

I...

I Was Someone's Date From Hell

2011-05-30T03:18:00.000-04:00

I should have told this story to my friends 1000 times in the 24 years or so since it happened, but I swear to no God I forgot all about it. This is a true story, every incredibly embarrassing word of it.

When I was 18 I was working, to nobody's surprise, at a Radio Shack at the North Shore Shopping Center in Peabody, Massachusetts. Across the hall and one store over from the Shack there was a record and tape store (yes, records and tapes - kids, googlewiki it) called Musicland. I think they folded into Sam Goody or some similar franchise, but no matter, no matter. More to the point, the girlies at Musicland would come visit us, and we, them. In return for a steady supply of pretty much whatever they needed under $10, they'd copy pretty much any album they had for us. They were cool and for a bunch of Shackies, that was important.

Well I was sweet on one of the girls in there, the assistant manager, whose name I can no longer recall. And I decided that seeing as I was an adult now, all of 18 hormonal years old, that I would no longer admire any damn body from afar; if I wanted something, I would simply ask for it. It was a moderately successful formula that summer. I did better than, say, Bob Ueker but not as well as Ted Williams (in other words, me asking someone for a date, and getting one, happened more often than twice out of ten tries, but less than four out of ten).

Anyway I decided that I wanted a date with this girl (maybe Julie? Julia? Judy? Something like that I think). So I asked.

And got rejected.

So I asked again. And again. And again.

And got rejected, again and again and FUCKING AGAIN. It started getting pathetic, and I did nothing to dispel that perception. The next time I asked, I actually said these words: "Aww, come on, pleeeeeease??" And she finally said yes. I suspect that instead of my slightly goofy, playful charm getting the better of her, she started getting genuinely concerned that I would find her outside of work and chop her into small pieces while muttering, "shoulda said yes...shoulda said yes...shoulda said yes..." Either way, from a strict results standpoint my gambit succeeded; I hate a date with what's-her-face.

We went to the pub three stores down from where we worked (I know: smooth, Gary, really smooth). She was around 22 and I was a freshly-minted 18, relying on a moustache and beard to convince the bartenders that I was of age. I did end up getting busted and banned from that joint, but thankfully not this night. No, this night would end up distastrous all on its own, without having to rely on the Massachusetts Alcholic Beverage Commission to fuck things up.

She didn't really like me much, this girl - let's call her Julie, I think that was her name, or something close to it - and agreed to go on this date on the express condition that this would the the first and last date we two would ever have. In fact, her one condition when I spilled out my "aww, please" line was "Just ONE date?" and she only said yes after I confirmed the non-repetitious nature of the evening.

I've been told that some girls go out on dates with guys they don't much like in the hopes that during the date they'll find something in common, or their pheromones will drive each other crazy and they'll end up fucking like jackrabbits, or something, some potential that they hope for. In this case I'm convinced that she went on this date only because she was sure we'd never go out again and all this nonsense about me begging her for a date would go away permanently.

So we sit at the bar and order drinks. Now, my friends and family know of me that I'm not a drinker, but she didn't know it, and right exactly then I was thinking with the head that didn't know it either. Let's-call-her-Julie was a good and practiced drinker, and thought nothing of knocking a bunch of them back without that much disruption in The Force.

I made the fatal mistake of trying to impress her by keeping up with her.

And 45 minutes in to the date, this date in which I had a .00000375 percent chance of scoring a second date going in, I was sloppy drunk, laughing at my own jokes, nearly falling off my barstool twice, asking her what it was about me that made the thought of bedding down with me so abhorrent, and trying to kiss her, and missing by a good two feet.

The evening was over for me before the mall locked its main doors at 10:30, so that means the date lasted less than 90 minutes before it degenerated so far that she just told me to fucking leave.

If it is any consolation, she probably remembers this date with greater clarity than I do. The fact that I was pretty solidly drunk added to the fact that I didn't remember it until basically now, but mostly it's because it was so damned embarrassing.

I never did score a second date with let's-call-her-Julie; in point of fact we two never spoke again. But remembering this story was really good for me. It let me know that which I did not know before, namely this: I was someone's date from hell. When date-from-hell stories are swapped around the table at some Mexican restaurant, around a pitcher of Margaritas and a basket of tortilla chips that they're all ignoring, let's-call-her-Julie will take a big sip of her drink and say, "Oh - I got one for you," and shudder, as she thinks of me.

Hey, at least she's thinking of me, 24 years later. That's not creepy, is it?

Let the Autopsy Report Show He Did it to Himself

2011-05-19T21:03:00.000-04:00

My friends, I have not had a healthy few days.

Oh sure - it started off with great promise. The Bruins won game 2 of their series, which meant my game 5 tickets are now in play. Yay! To celebrate my windfall I decided to have some chicken wings delivered to the house from this wing joint I just discovered whose wings are those of the mighty eagle, or the phoenix, or some other, proud noble bird that's bigger and juicier than a run of the mill chicken. And no, before you ask, I have ZERO compunction against eating eagle wings.

Anyway, the delivery guy comes to the door and I deviate from my normal M.O., that being to ask the guy to step in, because as I always say, "we have a cat that likes to go walkabout." Well I guess I didn't want to spook new guy and I had faith in my cat, but it turns out those thoughts were ridiculous and unfounded, respectively. I hold the door open to complete my wingy transaction and out flies Pearl, like a fuzzy phantom, into the afternoon mist.

I pull on the nearest pair of shoes I can find (I swear to God, Toot's fuzzy slippers) and look for her. For a miracle, in about twenty seconds I find her.

Now the thing is about Pearl, she just loves me so much she doesn't even know how to express it most days. She'll nuzzle up against me, curl up next to me, let me pick her up for as long as I feel like, all the while never giving Toots anything but the time of day. Cat people, you know how it is. She picked me, and rather than being my pal, as my previous best kitty buddy, Sarsaparilla was, she is more like in love with me - such is the depth of emotion and respect coming from this cat in my direction.

I tell you this because it informs what happened next: I told her to stay right the fuck there so I could get her into the house. She didn't dare disobey me but she did NOT want to end her adventure out of doors. I picked her up and she screamed, and growled, and scratched me. When I say she scratched me, I don't mean that she gave me a run-of-the-mill ouchy. She gave me this:

Yes, that's chunks of raw meat that used to belong to me on my hand

If you don't think that's gruesome, blame the picture. It looks for all the world like I tried to kill myself, which, Mom, I did NOT FUCKING DO. After she scratched me she stopped fighting and just growled at me like I was the feline equivalent of Hitler. In return I...

I...

Well, look: If you want to have cats understand you, if you want them to pick up what you're putting down, you have to ACT LIKE A CAT. Do what a cat does when he's angry and cats will get that you're angry. Sounds foolish but it works every time. So I put a low growl in the back of my throat and let her know how pissed off (and bleeding) I was. It worked - she stopped bitching immediately.

I got her in the house and, I swear to no god, I snapped. I screamed at the very top of my voice, a voice reserved only for Tootsie when we're in our twice-per-decade blowout fights. What did I scream at her? Simply this: "I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!!" And even though I didn't bother to translate THAT little vignette into cat-speak, she understood and hied herself as fast as her little kitty legs could carry her downstairs and under the pool table. Goddamn right. Now stay there until I decide to make up with you.

So that's the first injury of the day. The second one, indirectly was due to a poker tournament I won some years ago. It was the first one I ever won, and I made the rookie mistake of telling Toots about it. She in turn used EVERY PENNY of the windfall and bought natural wood blinds, like bamboo tubes I guess to cover a gigantic picture window in my living room. Well, I was looking out the window waiting, I think, for Toots to come home so I could tell her that Pearl had been a BAD KITTY, when I turned my head and and end piece of bamboo slashed my forehead right at the hair line. It looked like I received a dueling scar from the most myopic motherfucker ever to hold an epée.

So, after dousing my arm in hydrogen peroxide (motto: "sure it hurts."), and my forehead in bactine (motto:"if you use this you're a pussy"), I settle downstairs to watch a great pitcher's duel between the Sox and the Tigers. When, in the eighth inning the Sox break the scoreless tie and score a run, my fist-pump was slightly interrupted by the fact that I had the remote in my head, sticking out of my fist by a good six inches, and with it I whacked myself in the other side of the forehead, but good. I missed giving myself a shiner by about 2 inches.

Then I had a screaming match with my mother and as a "joke" told my brother I tried to kill myself and showed him the wound and he god so upset it was 10 minutes talking him down. So I injured myself three times and alientated two members of my immediate family.

All in all, one hell of a day.

So until next time, please remember I'm not the kitty equivalent of Hitler. That's this guy:

After my nap I think I'll march into Poland

Also, read my other site, Red Sox 101, or you'll get shingles.

Do You Love Me?

2011-05-14T21:08:00.000-04:00

Well do ya?

Do you at least like me a lot? Or even a little?

If you do, and fuck, even if you don't, do me a favor: go and check out my new site, Red Sox 101. Part news, part opinion, part ongoing stats, part everything. All delivered in my smartass style and Very Josie's ebullient prose. It's http://www.redsox101.com. If you like it - and even if you don't, I'm not proud - visit often. Make it your home page. I'd love you to read it but at least click on it four times a day and I'm happy.

Bear in mind it's only been up for a day, so the content is naturally skewed to the last 24 hours. But there should be enough there to hold your interest for a few minutes. There are still a few this-n-thats to be fixed, this is more of a soft launch (read: still buggy as hell but the content is there). But please, consider visiting. This is my baby and a potential way for me to actually make a living. I'd be grateful if you clicked the shit out of it. Register for the site. Start a discussion. Work the poll. If you don't like what you see, fucking fake it. Keep clicking. Follow me on Twitter @RealRedSox101. Just please, ok? I'm obviously not too proud to beg, so I'm hoping a word to the wise will be sufficient.

Thanks in advance. Until next time, please remember that url: http://www.redsox101.com.

Foxwoods trip, part II: Breakfast, Walk Fast, Lose Fast

2011-05-11T00:42:00.000-04:00

So after our evening's pokerry activities, we drove back to my house, a matter of exactly an hour door to door. We got home to find Tootsie just starting to nod off in her chair. God bless her, she jumped right up and got Josie settled on the couch with all the bedding a discerning girl could ever want. I offered to have her sleep under my bed in a box, her arms and legs having been amputated a la Boxing Helena; she demurred however and took the couch.

Before I knew what hit me it was the morning, I was still sleeping, and Josie was awake and unsupervised in my house. Toots had left my door open and I was woken up by the twin sounds of my door being closed and Josie pretending to clear her throat by literally saying "ahem" sotto voce.

After a brief period of waking up whereby apparently I wear a face that "looks like [I] smelled something bad," but was just my disdain for the early hour and my not-yet-fully awake-iosity, we got our collective shit in gear and headed over for some breakfast at my local joint.

I am a regular there; I try to make it three or four times a month. It is a place where, honest-to-His-Noodly-Appendage, all the waitresses know my name and what I want for breakfast (2 poached runny yolk over corned beef hash, home fries well done, white toast please). Anyway after a litlle chitchat with Emily the Triathlete Waitress, who is great at what she does and still as cute as a VERY cute button, Josie ordered her breakfast and to drink, "coffee - milk." A few minutes later Emily was back with my tea and a tall glass of what looked like weak chocolate milk.

Having lived in Rhode Island for the better part of 11 years I knew immediately what it was and why it was there, and a broad grin crossed my face as I told her that while Jos had said "coffee-milk," what Emily heard was, completely logically for Rhode Island, "coffee milk." It's like chocolate milk but instead of a splooge of Hershey's syrup it's a splooge of Autocrat Coffee syrup. It is, with no exaggeration, the state drink of Rhode Island.

To her credit, she tasted it, but was not exactly impressed. But she got her coffee soon enough, and even sooner enough we were on our way back to the scene of the crime. We parked eighty miles away from where we needed to be, and had to walk all of those lonely miles. I will say this for Josie: she has these short little legs but I, a man of six feet in height when I stand up straight (which is never), had real trouble keeping up with her. God bless her, she can rumble along at a furious pace when she needs to.

Aaaaanyway, we played an $80 Bounty tournament, again, she at one table, Josie's friend Lynn at another, and me at yet another. Guess what we all had in common? We all lost early early early.

I'm especially upset because my table was actually pretty soft, and I damn near doubled up in the very first hand. As UTG+1 I looked down at 99, I bet 3x and got two callers. Flop came a third nine. SB bets 400, BB calls, I raise to 1575 and both blinds call. Turn gives 4 to a straight. Check-check-check. I'm scared shitless that I bet myself out of the tournament in the first hand and was asking myself if I had the mettle to fold to a big bet if one of these Jamokes decides to show a little ass...

...when the river puts a fourth god damned fucking suckbag dicksmoking fuckstick club. I am literally kissing my chips goodbye when I hear the two words I least expected to hear: check, check. I turn my cards over and announce "set of nines," and hold my breath.

It's good.

The dealer sends a mountain of chips my way, almost 4,000 chips over my previous position, and we're off to the races.

Except the races ended up beating me; I lost three of them with pocket pairs against two overs. The final insult was when I went all-in with AK, and got two callers, both of whom ended up beating my AK. Bye-bye Jew! Hope you enjoyed 90 minutes of poker.

I had a bowl of noodles at the noodle joint, more out of boredom than hunger, where I was the only man there who hailed from west of, say, Mongolia. I will say this about the Chinese, hopefully without sounding too much like Toots's grandmother, who called them "crafty" (and meant it): They all smoke like fucking chimneys. One fella with his pants up to his nipples had a cigarette going for 45 straight minutes, and would blow his goddamn smoke right into my "what are you doing in the noodle joint, round-eye" face. Damn! What are their lungs made of, shoe leather?

Anyway I wandered back to the tourney to find that Lynn had beat a similarly hasty retreat, and Jos was on life-support. Within 15 minutes of me coming back she was out as well. So we said goodbye to Lynn and ambled off to play some 1-2 no limit.

I was holding my own - I was down $5 - when Josie came up to my chair, despondent: she'd lost all her money and she wanted to get the hell home. So home we went, after stopping for a tuna sandwich (I've never seen a girl's eyes light up more at the sight of a sub shop that sold tuna fish in my life). We got home, beating FDD Spuds by maybe 20 minutes.

And that, my friends, brought our Foxwoodian weekend to a close. It was fun - don't get me wrong, Josie's always a good hang - but it wasn't lucrative. I think we figured out that Josie was $30 ahead of me, but we were both down.

Hope you enjoyed the trip report. Until next time, please remember the word "with," when you are ordering coffee WITH milk in Rhode Island.

Walking on the Double, Flirting with the Bubble, and Punch-Buggy Trouble

2011-05-10T02:08:00.000-04:00

I am sitting downstairs on my couch, exhausted from having spent the better part of two days at Foxwoods with Very Josie. She took Monday off and we had grand plans of getting the better of the Mother's Day crowd of amateurs and running roughshod over, you know, everyone.

The field trip started when I had to leave my Mother's house earlier than I normally would to go pick up Josie, who was also at her mother's. Hey, I didn't say that there wasn't a benefit to all this! Jo's sister Cricket just came back from Rome and she was full of stories and little Italian candies and cookies that were ferociously yummy. It's always a pleasure seeing (H)Anna, Jo's mother, who just loves me, despite her obvious disapproval of my ponytail. I greeted her with a kiss and a "you're already staring at my ponytail. Do I have to worry about you sneaking up behind me and cutting it off?" Laughs all around except for her; she just said, "no, of course not" and smiled a Sicilian smile that did not reach her eyes.

Discretion being the better part of valor, we made our exit and headed south. A quick stop at my house to drop off Tootsie, who was not coming with us, and we were on our way. We took Toots's car because it had less squalor in it than mine. Not for long! Driving down the road, Jos did me the "favor" of re-closing my soda bottle and proceeded to spill it all over the car. It was one of those weird new Mountain Dew flavors, the blue one, and it smelled (and tasted) like "a melted popsicle" (VJ). After some frenzied clean-up she was paranoid that Toots would say something about the sticky and the smelly, but she did neither. But it provided us with a lot of laughs on the way down.

Something that provided less laughter was Josie's curious habit of yelling "Punch-Buggy" and whacking me one good in the arm whenever she saw a Volkswagen Beetle. I'll tell you what: you gain an appreciation for how many VW bugs there are in the world when you get punched in the arm every time one rolls the fuck by.

Anyway, despite some mild bruising we made it to Foxwoods more or less without incident. We had to be there in time for an 8:00 "turbo" tournament that we especially wanted to play. A non-present employee at the make-a-card station made it a close thing but we were there with a few minutes to spare, she at one table and I at another, and started playing.

I'll let Josie tell you what happened with her, but she was out before me. As for me, I have to say, I played fucking awesome. The combination of solid, conservative play, coupled with the fact that both times when I looked down to find AA, someone shoved in front of me, chipped me up right proper and it carried me to the final table.

The normal payout was 6 people. When it got down to 8 we all decided to split it 8 ways and everybody quite reasonably walked away with 3rd place money, some 400 bucks. No, wait: that DIDN'T happen because one fucking asshat in seat 7 decides that he doesn't want to chop. No amount of cajoling would change his mind. So on we played.

And the blinds went up.

And the blinds went up again.

And the antes were huge and before I knew it I found myself with less than 4 big blinds and a lot of deep frigging stacks around me. It was time to gamble. Fortunately (or otherwise) the next hand out of the chute was 77. I shoved, got called with AJ to my right (so I sweated out the whole table folding to me until this guy calls), gets his ace, and that was the story of me. Le bulle. Die lufltblase. La bolla. The fucking god damned bubble. I'm still so mad I could spit.

Part 2 tomorrow. It's 2AM and Sue Jacobs' little boy is out of steam.

Until next time, please remember that if you see a convertible Beetle, you have to say "punch buggy rag-top-style" and slap someone three times in addition to the punch.

I'm talking to YOU, Habs fans...

2011-05-02T15:58:00.002-04:00

Before I begin I want it to be known that this is NOT a confrontational post, nor is it sore winning or gloating over the rotting, flyblown corpses of the vanquished as the victors drink wine and dance. I have some actual questions and I can't get any straight answers from people in my circle, for reasons which will soon be obvious.

My question regards the Montreal Canadiens and their style of play. The impression that Bruins fans and media have regarding les bleu blanc rouge's style of play is that they are fast, nimble, agile skaters who avoid physical confrontation at all costs, and who dive and stay down to earn a penalty.

It is this last trait that my question comes from, and it's a simple one: do you agree? if you look into your soul, strip away all pretense and rooting interest, choose to remove self-applied blinders, do you see that? Do you see the diving and (to use an unkind term) dishonorable play that the rest of us see?

Or do you honestly see things otherwise? And can you back that up with facts? I'm happy to hear them with an open mind. And look, if the argument is compelling enough, I will allow myself to be convinced - although to be honest, I just don't see it happening.

And for you Francophonic Québecois: Je voudrais vous demander une question: Les tricouleur, sont-ils vraiment des plongeurs et lâches entièrement sans honneur?

Alors, jusqu'au prochain fois, rappelez-vous les Boston Bruins!!

Waits Wednesday

2011-04-19T22:41:00.000-04:00

OK, gonna introduce a new feature: Tom Waits Wednesdays. I'm going to make it my personal mission to get at least one of you corn dogs to gain an appreciation of that artist, recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Who is Tom Waits? Well, he's...um...he's...well, let's just say he's unlike anyone you've ever heard. Part Leonard Cohen, part Captain Beefheart, all original. His voice is a gravel pit with broken glass, a result of one cigarette too many and one shot of applejack more than he ought've. But he will absolutely captivate you, will challenge every notion of what you think is beauty, and will provide thousands of hours of enjoyment, if you let him.

His songs tell the tales of the downtrodden, the two-time losers, the bowery bums, the down-and-outers, the drunks, and the homeless, all the while imbuing his subjects with heart-wrenching humanity. He can tell a story like nobody else I've ever heard.

One song of his, which will be the subject of a future Waits Wednesday, tells a typical story of a typical Waits anti-hero that includes this line: "And it's a battered old suitcase/To a hotel someplace/And a wound that will never heal." In an amazing economy of words he paints a picture that puts you right exactly where he needs you to be. Let me tell you something: As a frustrated (and not very good) songwriter, you really do stand in slackjawed amazement at his skill.

Waits maintains he writes two different types of songs: Grim Reapers and Grand Weepers. The first few songs we'll be discussing will be the latter type.

Today's song is Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis. It's unique in that it's told from the point of view of a woman, and it is a heartbreaking ode to the power of small dreams. Musically it's pretty spare: a piano and an electric piano, one providing a melody and the other providing bluesy flavor.

The lyrics:

Charlie, I'm pregnant, livin on 9th Street
Right above a dirty bookstore off Euclid Avenue
I stopped taking dope and I quit drinking whisky
My old man plays the trombone and works out at the track

He says that he loves me even though it's not his baby
Says that he'll raise him up just like it was his own son
He gave me a ring that was worn by his mother
And he takes me out dancing every Saturday night

Charlie I think about you, every time I pass a filling station
On account of all the grease you used to wear in your hair
I still have that record - Little Anthony and the Imperials
But someone stole my record player - how do you like that?

Charlie I almost went crazy after Mario got busted
I went back to Omaha to live with my folks
But everyone I used to know was either dead or in prison
So I came back to Minneapolis - this time I think I'm gonna stay

Charlie I think I'm happy for the first time since my accident
I wish I had all the money we used to spend on dope
I'd buy me a used car lot, wouldn't sell any of 'em
Just drive a different car every day, depending on how I feel

Charlie, for Chrissake, if you want to know the truth of it
I don't have a husband - he don't play the trombone
I need to borrow money to pay this lawyer - Charlie, hey
I'll be eligible for parole come Valentine's Day...

See what I mean by the power of small dreams? Here's someone painting a picture of domestic bliss which involves living in a shitty apartment above an adult bookstore, with a guy who takes her out cutting a rug every now and again. This is her fantasy. She says her idea of the life of Reilly is driving "...a different car every day, depending on how I feel."

Small dreams.

To me the imagery is incredibly powerful, and poignant, and I promise you will feel the same.

Please listen along if you like - just click here. Then come back and tell me what you think.

Next week we'll find out what it means to put a picture in a frame.

Rattled

2011-04-19T15:23:00.000-04:00

A couple of things got me rattled in the last couple of days, and since there's no poker to discuss I thought I'd discuss them here:

1. We had Passover dinner the other night; we call it a seder. The holiday is meant to perpetuate the myth that the Jews en masse were enslaved to the Pharaoh (which one? History quite conveniently doesn't recount) until the Almighty, with outstretched arm and a recipe for bad food, delivered us from wickedness and cast us into the desert for forty goddamn years. Utter bullshit, a mile wide and ten miles long; but I digress.

Anyway the way it was is that the two patriarchs of our larger family sat at either side of the table; my Uncle Alan at one end and my father at the other. Well obviously the old man isn't around to take his seat so it's kind of up for grabs. Tootsie asked if I wanted to sit there, and pointed to the seat. I said that really, I'd rather not; it's tough enough being around my family during a holiday that my father used to attend (despite the fact that he HATED Passover) without making it even more emotionally charged by taking his seat. If it were up to me I'd leave his place empty but it's not my house. Anyway, like I said, I mentioned I'd rather not sit there.

At which point my aunt, my mother's sister, the woman who besides my mom was more responsible for my upbringing than any other, turned around (she was directly in front of me), adopted a sarcastic tone, rolled her eyes and said, "why? because your father used to sit there?"

"Yes," I replied, as levelly as I could, not wishing to start a fight.

To her credit, she turned back around without another word, perhaps realizing that she had acted like a flaming douchebag. But I was shocked, stunned, and incredibly disappointed that she should act so cavalierly about as sensitive a matter as this. She knows well that Dad passing threw me a curveball I wasn't ready for; for her to act like such a cunt really bothers me.

2. I was driving down the street and was stopped at a red light. The car in front of me took an ill-advised right on red and got smashed by a courtesy van - just munched. Both airbags deployed, a little girl in the passenger seat was crying, broken glass, twisted metal, just a pretty ugly scenario all around. A cop was coincidentally less than a block away; I saw with my own two eyes his acknowledgement of the accident and his taking his sweet fucking time getting there. I was already well past the scene and could see that he had yet to even get in his cruiser. What if someone was bleeding? What if someone was really hurt? Is it too much to ask for a little god damned hustle when responding to an accident? You can dial your shit back a little bit when you get there and assess the situation but Christ on his cross, come on boy, hustle it up.

3. Even here, everything seems to be kind of winding down. Since black Friday the usual suspects are posting less frequently than is their custom, and most posts are bemoaning the lack of pokerosity through the tubes here. I fear this is the beginning of a slow abandonment of the family, and that is not a particularly happy thought.

Until next time, please, I don't think I can stand to be any more rattled.

What I will miss, and what I won't

2011-04-15T22:35:00.001-04:00

WHAT I WILL MISS:

The inexorable, (relatively) inexpensive honing of my poker skills, which had finally progressed to the point where I could SEE progress and results
The ability, if I want, to spend 45 minutes playing 2-7 lowball triple draw at a full table
The ability, if I want, to do the above in my underwear, scratching places that most cardrooms would not permit to be scratched
The Mookiedank, the Very Josie, the Booze Cruise, and the nascent Badugimania
Approximately $300 that exists in my FT and PS accounts, likely to be confiscated and confusticated, macerated and masticated, axed and taxed, forfeited and bullshitted.
The people who make up this tiny corner of the Intertubes, people whom I've never met yet towards whom I feel genuine warmth and friendship. In this respect by the way I have had more luck than any donkey-ass fishcake motherfucker has any right to deserve. No wonder it's coming to an end

WHAT I WILL NOT MISS:

Josie. I'll still see her every Wednesday - especially if there's going to be no more online poker, our home game will be it except for the odd sojourn up to Seabrookistan
Calling a donkey's all-in with the nut straight only to have the board come four clubs giving the hand to the donk
Being called in a panic to diagnose what's wrong with a microphone ten minutes before a BDR appearance is scheduled to start
A laptop on my lap for three straight hours, heating my gonads beyond the point where they serve as anything but a convenient repository for cheese
Two words: BUBBLE BOY
Being distracted by speculating as to whether or not an opponent with a big-titted bombshell avatar isn't in reality a dude living out a fantasy or worse yet someone who thinks that a cartoon icon with big cartoon tits is a distraction
20-year-old know it alls who sit at a $5 table and spew about EV and VPIP and call big bets with second pair deuce kicker and explain why MY bet was stupid

I hope this isn't the end. God help me, I really don't.

Until next time, let's hope there's a next time.

Nevermind

2011-04-15T17:30:00.001-04:00

PS is blocking all real-money tournaments, so Badugimania is cancelled - perhaps forever.

Shit. Just the perfect piece of cheese for the crap sandwich I've been eating lately.

Looks Like Badugi is Still on for Tonight...

2011-04-15T17:20:00.000-04:00

Despite the big news, it looks like we're still on for tonight if we want to be. Those already in my circle of jerks (hahahaha) should have just gotten an invitation. Those who aren't, just search "badugi" on my site for instructions how to join and off you'll go.

Hope you'll join me - who knows, this might be the last time!

Until next time, pray for online poker.

I'd go...

2011-04-13T14:55:00.000-04:00

Hey - random concert promoter - here's an idea:

Paul McCartney on vocals bass piano and acoustic guitar
Julian Lennon on vocals and keys
Dhani Harrison on guitar and vocals
Zak Starkey on Drums

The name of this band? The Weetles.

I want 1/2 of 1% of the net. You're welcome.

Gonna Be a Good Week

2011-04-12T02:11:00.000-04:00

Poker After Dark is spreading a PLO cash game this week (and maybe next; cash games are usually two weeks long). Should be fun for us insomniac left-handed glasses-wearing Jews. Rest of you assholes can fend for yourselves.

Until next time, please remember the sad tale of the dyslexic agnostic insomniac. He was up all night not knowing whether or not there really was a doG.

Return of the Jedi in fifteen seconds

2011-04-11T02:33:00.001-04:00

Darth Vader: Obi-Wan has taught you well.
Luke: I won't fight you.
Emperor: Give in to the dark side.
Luke: OK, I'll fight you.
Emperor: Good! Good! Use your negative feelings. Channel your hate boy!
Luke: Changed my mind, not gonna fight you.
Darth: Obi-Wan has taught you well. But won't you please fight me?
Luke: OK, I'll fight you.
Emperor: Good! Good!
Darth (fighting): Obi-Wan has taught you well.
Luke: Oh yeah, I said I'd never fight you.
Emperor: Pity. Well, here's some electricity, make you think twice about not going to the dark side.
Luke: Father Please! Take this guy whom you've worshipped all your life and kill him, which will probably kill you.
Darth: Obi-Wan has taught you well.
Luke: Dad? A little help here?
Darth: OK. (kills EMPEROR)
Darth (dying): Luke, leave me here.
Luke: No, I won't leave without you.
Darth: Do as I say or you won't get the Chrysler this weekend.
Luke: OK, I'll leave you here.
Darth: Obi-Wan has taught... (DIES)

Cut to planet. Everyone dances poorly.

THE END

Looking for help with a definition

2011-04-10T02:15:00.000-04:00

So I'm watching some manner of television poker and one of the bright lights at the table is Phil Hellmuth. I personally believe him to be an overbloated bag of bile, but that doesn't enter in to this inquiry.

At some point during a hand - perhaps betwixt flop and turn - Hellmuth says "Hold 'Em" sort of declaratively, as if he were pointing something out or indicating some course of action.

I had never heard of the term being used to actually mean anything other than the name of the game. Does anyone know what he meant when he said it in this context?

Until next time, please remember that insofar as it is almost 3:00AM, I have nothing funny to add to the end of my post.

Badugi Fever - Catch it!

2011-04-09T14:49:00.000-04:00

OK, friends and neighbors, we're on for some Saturday Night Badugi Fever. Let's hope everyone is...wait for it...Stayin Alive!!

(booooo)

Anyway, those who are already part of my home game should have just gotten an invitation, or will soon. For those who are not yet enrolled:

(If you don't have pokerstars, get it, then:)

- Open the main poker lobby, then click on the Home Games tab
- Click the 'Join a Poker Club' button
- Enter my Club ID number: 375347
- Enter my Invitation Code: southpaw

Remember, the above procedure is a one-time thing; after this you are "on the list" and will receive invitations as the games are scheduled.

So until next time, please remember that the game calls. Are you man (or chick) enough to answer?

-The Badugi BaJewgi

Back in the saddle

2011-04-09T00:19:00.000-04:00

Today was a good day.

Readers of this little corner of the bloggapokahchucklefest may remember Very Josie and her attempt to April Fool you by saying that she was writing for a Red Sox-themed site, Red Sox 101. The April Fooliosity was that she would stop blogging at her personal blog; but the RS101 thing was real. It's actually my site, it will be up and running hopefully in a week or so, and it's going to be cool as hell.

I have some experience in the sportswriting arena; I blogged about the Boston Bruins but was an actual reporter for the Red Sox' and Bruins' minor league franchises, the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Providence Bruins respectively. Somehow I managed to obtain press credentials for both organizations, and from many perspectives it was quite a learning experience: For one thing writing game stories is tough enough; if you don't do it well they're nothing but boring recitations of statistics and who scored and when. For games that almost nobody cares about, invoking names no-one has ever heard of ("The P-Bruins scored again with 4:30 left in the second when Jay Leach fed Pascal Pelletier with a perfect tape-to-tape pass, which Pelletier rang against the post before it tumbled into the net for a 4-3 tiebreaker and the eventual win" - yawwwwn), it's torture, for writer and reader both.

I wrote for several web sites from 2005 to 2008, the most popular of which was Boston Dirt Dogs, for whom I provided their farm report. When the old man died I shied away from ballparks, the memories being a little close. But the passage of time, plus the prospect of making actual money doing this, has got me back into the swing. So I recently requested, and received, a media credential for the PawSox and today was my first day back. Lots of smiles and welcome-back-where-ya-beens, and ten minutes in it was like I never left. Hopefully it will provide a good atmosphere to write and provide me with some good stories.

For a quick example, one day some years back I was in the pressbox, covering a game, and chatting with some scout, an African-American dude who looked to be about 60. We talked for some little while, and he told a bunch of stories that were amusing and engaging.

When he left the box to do his radar gun thing behind home plate the official scorer asked me, "do you know who that is?"

"No," I answered truthfully.

"That's Tommy Harper," he said, and I almost shit myself. Tommy Harper was a member of the Sox in the middle '70s, who would steal bases by the carload. In fact he held the record for bases stolen by a member of the Sox for almost 40 years - until Jacoby Ellsbury came along.

Just some guy I was chatting with.

I was able to meet, and speak with (and be largely disliked by) Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, Jon Lester, and many more players like David Murphy and Manny Delcarmen who are no longer with the Sox (why disliked? Baseball players hate reporters, period). I got access to their clubhouse, a sacred place where even family is not allowed. Players, management, and media only. It was an experience that not many fans ever get to enjoy. And now I'm back, baby!

I'll let you all know when Red Sox 101 goes live. Auntie Jo is going to be a contributor as well. Her Red Sox mojo is deep, and her writing skills are - well, you know how they are. Couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather have helping me meet my 14 post per week minimum (holy sheeeeeeeet, what have I gotten myself into). I hope when it hits the tubes that you'll visit, maybe click through an ad or two - that's how we're getting paid. And no, I'm obviously not above making a shameless plug for the site.

Further details as events warrant.

Also, remember, Badugimania is tomorrow at 9:30. Josie suggested that I should be known as the Badugi BaJewgi. I laughed until I stopped.

Also also, you remember how I mentioned I didn't wear glasses? Well that's no longer true, alas. I've bought my first pair of readers:

The glasses aren't crooked - that's my face.

So until next time, remember that I don't care if you're a Red Sox fan or not. Visit my Red Sox blog. We thank you.

On Luck

2011-04-07T20:50:00.000-04:00

Lots of chitter chatter on the intertubes lately about luck, and a certain diminutive Sicilian woman and the notion that she has more than her fair share of it.

Here's something interesting I found on the subject of luck and poker.

My philosophy of play at NLHE is a simple one: I try to win big pots, and the small ones I pick up (win without a contest). It's a philosophy that necessitates a gambling style of play. My style. And it's this style that has fostered a lot of comment from countless players about how "lucky" I am. I've been hearing that for a lot of years. The simple fact is, it's not true. Everyone gets lucky once in a while but no one is consistently lucky. So it has to be something other than luck to account for the fact I've been a consistently big winner through the years. It is something else.

I've appeared to be a "lucky" player because every time a big pot came up, I've usually had the worst hand. There are good reasons for that: I'm a very aggressive player. I'm reaching out and picking up small pots all the time. I'm always betting at those pots - hammering at them. And I don't want anybody to stop me from doing that. I don't want anyone to defeat my style of play.

Consequently if I've got any kind of a hand, any kind of a draw, I bet. And if I get raised, I don't quit. I go ahead and get all my money in the pot knowing I've probably got the worst hand - that I'm the underdog to win the pot.

If I win ten pots where nobody has a big hand - ten pots with let's say $300 in them - then I can afford to take 2:1 to the worst of it and play a $3000 pot. I've already got that pot paid for with all the small pots I've picked up. And when I play that big pot, it's a freeroll.

The author? Some loser railbird named Doyle Brunson, in his Bible of poker, Super/System. And yes, it's dated as regards some elements of strategy (a victim of the book's popularity) but it's still a brilliant work for the deep nuts and bolts of NHLE. And nobody could rightly accuse that dude of being lucky.

I am not comparing anyone to Texas Dolly. I'm just sayin', is all.

This Week's Badugi is Saturday

2011-04-07T18:24:00.000-04:00

ATTENTION: THIS WEEK'S BADUGITHON WILL BE HELD SATURDAY, APRIL 9TH AT 9:30PM, INSTEAD OF TOMORROW.

Those showing up tomorrow will be shot.

It's once again the most wonderful time of the year

2011-04-06T14:29:00.000-04:00

God help me, I love it when the playoff tickets arrive. In my youth a ticket to a Bruins playoff game was just about impossible to get. If you were reasonably persistent you could get tix to the first two games of round 1 - usually, back then, it was against the Whalers - but after that there was just no way you could get through. Get through? What do you mean? That's right, tickets were available by phone...what a concept!

I promised myself that as soon as I was able to afford it I would get season tickets to the Bruins. It was a promise I forgot until 2005, when the NHL locked its players out. When the news reports started coming out that the lockout was nearing an end I placed a phone call.

Funny enough, there were plenty of good seats available.

I asked for something in the low balcony, near the center. She said, "if you want close to the center, in the price range right below the one you're looking at, I can get you 2 right on the red line in the first row of this price range."

I said, "Sold."

And that was it. Since then I haven't needed to worry about playoff seats or scalpers or anything. Well, anything except an epic collapse in round 2 of the playoffs. Yeesh.

Well, until next time, please remember that if you're looking for playoff tickets, I got 'em, and you don't.

Ah, To Be an Indians Fan

2011-04-06T03:10:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not, the Indians were at one point recently one hell of a good ball club - a juggernaut, even. For about six years you just couldn't wrangle a Tribe ticket at Jacobs Field unless you knew someone. For good or bad, it was the precise six years that I lived in Cleveland. Sure, you got to watch some great baseball on TV - Belle, Lofton, and Ramirez in the outfield, Alomar, Vizquel, Matt Williams in the infield - but the place was banged out every night. In fact up until just recently the Indians held the record for most consecutive sell-outs; 455 straight, in fact, or about 5.5 full seasons. That's right - I leave and seats start becoming available. Awesome.

Anyways, these days thanks to a downturn in the economy and in the quality of play of the Indians, good tickets are, shall we say, available. For the recent game against the Boston Red Sox, which the Tribe won 3-1, there were just over 9,000 tickets sold. Because of the weather over half those seats went unused.

It was jarring to see that stadium so empty. What could it be? Was the team that bad? Were things that bad that you couldn't afford tickets to the game? Maybe the tickets were overpriced. Yeah, that's it. They were still priced like they were contenders. I hopped on the site and took a look around.

Quick aside: Progressive Field, as it's now called, is an absolute gem of a ballpark, very much in spirit like Camden Yards in Baltimore. Comfortable and modern, yet retro-styled, great sight lines, so very different from Municipal Stadium, the oval pile of shit that the Tribe used to play in. One great feature of the new field (I'll call it Jacobs Field because that's what it started life as) was the Terrace Club - a restaurant and bar cut into the left-field foul line, and designed in such a way so as to allow dining in an all-glass area which let you have a good meal and watch the game at the same time. You needed to be a season-ticket holder and shell out an additional thousand bucks to join, and dinner was extra. If you were lucky enough to be greased a set of tickets and passes to the Terrace Club, it was a fantastic experience, a great way to see a game, especially in the cold Cleveland Spring.

Anyway I navigate to the page where the Tribe are hawking their season tickets and discover to my surprise that whatever the problems they had selling tickets, the price wasn't one of them. To persuade fans to become season-ticket holders they are now - right now, if you want - offering several very generous enticements.

For any purchase of season tickets (down to bleacher seats, at the jaw-droppingly low price of nine bucks a seat), the Indians will give you:

1. A free yearly membership to the Terrace Club, current value $900.
2. The rental of a luxury suite for one game, including 16 tickets and parking passes, current value $2,200.
3. A pair of club seat tickets, to give you a taste of that, current value about $200.
4. Depending on what category of seats you buy, a stored-value card with between $2 and $10 per ticket per game, to be spent on concessions.

And most jaw-droppingly, seats in the Infield Lower Box, and "View Box" (The first five rows of the upper section, directly behind home plate) were -- I can't believe this is true -- BUY ONE GET ONE FREE. When I say they are giving these seats away I'm not kidding.

If you are a salesperson, a businessperson, an entrepreneur, anyone who wants to impress anyone, why on earth would you not drop two measly grand on a whole summer's worth of client entertainment? It doesn't matter if the Indians suck (they do). There are a million parking spots downtown, all of which are under $10, even the closest ones. You can get to it from three interstates, maybe five or six exits get you there easily. You can enjoy an evening of rare good weather or spend the game indoors if it's cold or wet and have a good meal. For what you get, I'm shocked more people don't jump all over this.

Now, let's spend just a moment or two talking about the Red Sox and their season ticket policy, shall we?

First, don't bother. I've been on a waiting list since 2003 and I'm still not near the top of the list. But let's just suppose they were available. This is what you get for buying season tickets:

1. tickets to 81 games.

Period.

Nothing else.

No free games, no suites, no club seats, and for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, no Buy One, Get One Free. If you want to get tickets for the first row of the upper section right behind home plate, a pair of which in Cleveland would cost $2,010, you'd need to pay about thirteen thousand dollars.

Now all Cleveland needs is, you know, a good team.

To close, my favorite Cleveland jokes:

* What's the best thing about being traded to the Indians? No road trips to Cleveland.
* I called the park and asked them what time the game started. They said, what time can you get here?
* You hear about the contest they had recently? First prize, a pair of Indians tickets. Second prize, four Indians tickets.

Hope you enjoyed them. Until next time, please remember that, yes, the Cuyahoga River did actually burn, but only for a little while.

Requiem: Donald Smith, 81

2011-04-04T21:21:00.001-04:00

During the period from my late teens up until I got married and moved away my best friends were a set of brothers, Craig and Steve, and our little gang. The five of us (we three plus Kevin and S.H.) spent literally every day together, most of those days sitting around a coffee table in Craig and Steve's room (so close were these brothers that they requested and received permission to remove the wall between their rooms and made a huge room with a sleeping area and a lounge area - VERY cool).

Despite our taste for the various plant products that Mother Nature provides, we were all good kids, smart kids, respectful kids, and most of our respect was demanded by, and freely given to, Craig and Steve's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They more than put up with us; they encouraged our presence in their house, never anything but a completely welcoming set of adults.

Mr. Smith was like my own father in a lot of ways: he knew a lot of things about a lot of things; he was smart and cynical, and funny, and wise, and he treated us like adults while never letting us forget who the big dog was.

I liked Mr. Smith a lot.

One of our number lost his father early, under sudden and horrible circumstances. Nobody said anything - nobody had to - but on those occassions where he needed a father figure, someone to talk to, to help with some of the great imponderables, Mr. Smith stepped up, with no questions and certainly no complaint. That's the kind of man he was; something had to be done, and he did it. But it was more than a sense of obligation - it was his pleasure to give our friend that comfort.

One day I oohed and ahhed over his stamp collection, which was prodigious and well-kept; he offered to sell the whole thing to me lock stock and barrel. I thanked him but declined, citing a bad case of poverty. He waved that off with a look of contempt and said "You'll give me five bucks a week until it's paid off. I know where you live," and with that handed me his collection, and bade me catalog it and note the black book value of each stamp. He took my tally sheet - without even spot-checking it for accuracy - knocked 50% off the top, knocked $100 off THAT, and that's what I owed him. I think it came to a little over $500. And over the next maybe 18 months I'd hand him a crumpled up $5 or $10 bill whenever I'd see him and he'd notate it, and if a few weeks went by in between payments he never said a cross word about it. One time I let six weeks or so go by without giving him anything - but I made it right by crossing his palm with a 50-spot, because it was Mr. Smith, for chrissake, I had to make it right - and he never said a word about it, not then or ever after.

For years I spent Christmas Day under his roof (since I, being Kosher, had no family obligations that day). Gifts were always exchanged, toasts made, laughs and good times all around. They were every inch my second family, and even though my real family was loving and stable and happy I was none the less pleased to have my second one.

One time some years after I got married and moved to Ohio, we came back to New England to visit friends and family. Tootsie had the car so I walked around the pond to Craig's house to see what was up. He wasn't around but Mr. Smith was, painting something in the driveway.

We spent a few minutes catching up - we hadn't seen each other in a year or more - and were laughing about this or that when a neighbor friend of his came by to borrow something from him. By way of introduction, instead of presenting me as a friend of Craig's or Steve's, or even a friend of the family, he said "I'd like you to meet a friend of mine."

It was one of the proudest moments of my life. Mr. Smith was a man who chose his friends with great care, who could get a little curmudgeonly when faced with strangers or bullshit artists or the prospect of being in the presence of either. For him to call me friend was quite a thing, and I'll never forget it.

I could tell another easy dozen stories about him, just like these, but I'm afraid I've run out of time.

Day after tomorrow I'm going back up north to see Mr. Smith off, he having passed away this past April 1st. I know for a fact that I'm a better man for his influence on my life. I certainly have a better stamp collection because of him.

So long, Mr. Smith. Thanks for everything.

The Crafty Southpaw Goes to Trial

2011-04-03T17:33:00.000-04:00

At roughly 1530 hours eastern time, The Crafty Southpaw was arrested without incident at his suburban, subterranian lair and charged with violation of Poker Law 13-B, Failure to Make an Obvious Fold. In the interest of swift and speedy justice, his trial is hereby convened.

The facts, as stipulated by both sides are these:

That on or about 1527 hours on 3 April 2011, Defendant was playing a 45-person, $10+1 Sit-n-Go, when on hand 27 he was dealt Qs10d as Small Blind.

That UTG, UTG+2, and the Defendant called the unraised BB.

That the flop came 2d8sQh.

That Defendant, first to act, bet 120 into a 240 pot.

That The Villain raised the pot to 780 which was called by Defendant.

That Defendant bet 360 on the turn, which Villain raised to put Defendant All In.

That Defendant did call this raise, to find he was outkicked and lost the hand and was eliminated from the tournament.

OPENING STATEMENTS

Prosecution

We hope not to take up too much of your time here. This is as close to an open-and-shut case as ever there was. Every bet the defendant made was designed to probe the strength of his opponent's hand. That's why he bet so little on the turn. The Villain in his turn showed nothing but strength in his raises.

He received the information he was looking for, ladies and gentlemen of the jury - but instead of analyzing this data, he chose instead to ignore it. He called his opponent's all-in raise, losing the hand and eliminating himself from the tournament.

The Prosecution will show that the Defendant, by his actions, knew he was almost certainly beaten and called anyway, which meets the burden of proof of the crime with which he is charged, Failure to Make an Obvious Fold. Thank you.

Defense

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, no poker hand is made in a vacuum. The successful player identifies the playing styles, strengths, weaknesses, and betting patterns in his opponents, and folds all this data in to a decision for every tournament, every hand, every turn of the card. My client saw a player who had a documented history of intemperate raises, continuation bets without any hand strength, and, most importantly, an all-in bet made with no hand and no draw, which ended up winning because one of his cards filled a four-card straight on the board. Far from being open-and-shut, ladies and gentlemen, this hand was as nuanced as any other, and we will show that the circumstances presented to my client warranted his call, and that he was quite simply beaten by a better hand. Thank you.

PROSECUTION

The Prosection asks that Exhibit A, Hand Transcript of Hand in Question, be entered into evidence, and smugly rests:

Full Tilt Poker Game #29595740025: $10 + $1 Sit & Go (230106619), Table 2 - 30/60 - No Limit Hold'em - 15:39:24 ET - 2011/04/03
Seat 1: Gustd (1,000)
Seat 2: piponN (1,435)
Seat 3: Solidsnakey90 (2,595)
Seat 4: Da-Insane-Train (3,750)
Seat 6: jano443 (2,810)
Seat 7: MonkeyShaman (1,345)
Seat 9: gpjacobs (1,625)
gpjacobs posts the small blind of 30
Gustd posts the big blind of 60
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to gpjacobs [Qs Td]
piponN calls 60
Solidsnakey90 folds
Da-Insane-Train calls 60
jano443 folds
MonkeyShaman folds
gpjacobs calls 30
Gustd checks
*** FLOP *** [2d 8s Qh]
gpjacobs has 15 seconds left to act
gpjacobs bets 120
Gustd folds
piponN folds
Da-Insane-Train raises to 780
gpjacobs has 15 seconds left to act
gpjacobs calls 660
*** TURN *** [2d 8s Qh] [6c]
dkofmd (Observer): JUST HAS A BIG STACK RIGHT NOW, WON'T MAKE THE FINAL 18
gpjacobs has 15 seconds left to act
gpjacobs bets 360
Da-Insane-Train raises to 2,910, and is all in
gpjacobs has 15 seconds left to act
gpjacobs has requested TIME
gpjacobs calls 425, and is all in
Da-Insane-Train shows [Qd Kd]
gpjacobs shows [Qs Td]
Uncalled bet of 2,125 returned to Da-Insane-Train
*** RIVER *** [2d 8s Qh 6c] [6h]
Da-Insane-Train shows two pair, Queens and Sixes
gpjacobs shows two pair, Queens and Sixes
dkofmd (Observer): THERE HE MEETS REAL PLAYERS
Da-Insane-Train wins the pot (3,370) with two pair, Queens and Sixes
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,370 | Rake 0
Board: [2d 8s Qh 6c 6h]
Seat 1: Gustd (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 2: piponN folded on the Flop
Seat 3: Solidsnakey90 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Da-Insane-Train showed [Qd Kd] and won (3,370) with two pair, Queens and Sixes
Seat 6: jano443 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: MonkeyShaman (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: gpjacobs (small blind) showed [Qs Td] and lost with two pair, Queens and Sixes

DEFENSE

Defense calls player dkofmd.

Defense Attorney: Now dk, you have some experience with the Villain in this case, one Da-Insane-Train, correct?
dkofmd YA I DO
DA: No need to shout, sir, we're in a courtroom.
d: CANT HELP IT ALL CAPS NO PUNCTATION ITS HOW I ROLE
DA: Well, ok, what was your experience with the Villain?
d: I HAD QJ AS BB, HE CALLED SB I RAISED TO 180 HE CALLS
DA: Go on...
d: I CATCH MY Q ON FLOP IM SITTING PRETY HE BETS POT WHITCH IS 360 I RAISE ALL IN HE SNAPS WITH NOTHING
DA: How nothing is nothing?
d: HE HAD A6 DUDE NO PAIR NO STR8 OR FLUSH DRAW WHAT A DONK
Prosecuting Attorney Objection.
Judge Sustained. The witness will be reminded that we are all rubber, and he is glue. Carry on.
d: ANYWAY BOARD IS 5789 BESIDES MY QUEEN SO THE DON...I MEAN THE DUDE CATCHES HIS MIRACLE STR8 AND IM OUT
DA: Thank you. [To Prosecutor] Your witness.
Prosecuting Attorney Thank you. Now sir, could it may be that he had made a study of you, and was acting on HIS observations of YOU?
d: NO WAY DUDE ALL HE SAW FROM ME WAS SOLID PLAY
PA: Yes, but is it not true that the wise man has the power to reason away what he sees?
DA: Objection, your Honor - Prosecution is running a Doobie Brothers Gambit.
Judge: Sustained. Counsel will refrain from quoting the Doobie Brothers, Yes, or Emerson Lake and Palmer. They are reminded especially not to quote Chicago when asking when the next break is.
PA: Withdrawn. No further questions.
DA: Defense requests that the hand discussed here be entered into evidence as Exhibit B and rests.
Judge So ordered. Available as first comment to this post in the interest of brevity.

CLOSING STATEMENTS

Prosecution

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I have dinner reservations. He's guilty, ok? Please? Thank you.

Defense

My client is innocent. He was up against a player with a history of betting and raising - yes, even raising all-in - with nothing. My client saw a player with more faith in the forces of chance than talent, and thought his top pair 10 kicker was good up against a player like that. Yes, he was wrong, but was that an obvious fold?

Judge

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, it's up to you. Is the Crafty Southpaw guilty of Failure to Make an Obvious Fold, or was it just one of those things? In your deliberations consider whether or not you would have made that fold yourselves. Any ancillary comments are welcome.

The Jury will now consider their verdict and send it in as a comment.

Friday Night Badugi

2011-04-01T17:36:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Wolfie for reminding me that I need to schedule this Badugi tournament afresh every week. I'm sure I'm just missing some feature that lets me set up some kind of recurring thing, some option I'm just glossing right over as I set it up. Either way, there is definitely Badugi tonight, at 9:30. You need to be a part of my home game club to join:

(If you don't have pokerstars, get it, then:)

Open the main poker lobby, then click on the Home Games tab
- Click the 'Join a Poker Club' button
- Enter my Club ID number: 375347
- Enter my Invitation Code: southpaw

From there it'll be a short delay whilst your name is submitted for approval. You'll get an email back saying you're in. This is a one-time process; once through this nonsense you'll be ok for the future.

So far it's a cozy three: Wolf, Josie, and me. Oh, speaking of which, those burned by Jo's April Fool's work today (a CLASSIC, DB; well done), be comforted by the fact that I got her back, in a small way. This is a paraphrase of an email thread between us today:

Gary: You badugi-izing this evening? Puh-leeeeeze?
Jo: Well, ok. I fucking hate Badugi. You'll need to transfer me some money though.
(Editor's note: I know this is because she never uses her PS account, but I saw my chance and I was taking it)
G: Screw that shit. What, I have to pay you to play my tournament? You know what? I'll pass. I don't need your goddamn support to the extent I have to pay for it.
J: I'm doing no such thing - I said I'd ship it back if I won...
G: APRIL FOOL!! I'll ship you the money.
J: OMG you totally got me! Sheesh!

Anyway, there you go, a little funny funny today. In return, please join us if you want to sharpen up your Badugi-dar. It's $5 and a lot of fun.

So until next time, please remember that Loki, Norse god of mischief and practical jokes, was really Sicilian, and had the cutest little moustache... hahaha that's a two-fer.

My Take on the Whole Survivor Thing

2011-03-31T09:54:00.001-04:00

First let me congratulate SmBoatDrinks and VeryJosie for making it to the final two in this glorious clusterfuck that is Survivor, Donkey Island. However I have to say that I'm a little surprised, and a little disappointed, at the reaction of the Survivor Poker community, of which I am strictly an observer, to Josie's success.

I hear a lot of grumbling about how she manipulated relationships to attain her ends. I hear how she takes basic strategy moves made by others over-personally. I hear how she's alienated the community to such an extent that it's far from certain that she has the votes to win el enchilada mas grande.

Now I'm not going to go into any specific element of strategy; for one, despite me having a reputation as one of her chief bootlicks, she hasn't really taken me deep into her counsels other than to paint a few big pictures (albeit with flashcards, charts with multi-colored lines, and an overhead projector that uses a bulb designed by NASA). For another, why would I lay bare any strategic knowledge I have before the votes are in? So bear in mind that this is more opinion than fact.

But what has Josie done besides play the game, play it well, play it aggressively, and play it with as much honor as can be contrived in a game such as this? I can guarantee you that her preparation and forethought were, to say the least, comprehensive. I believe she made no decision in haste, no decision based on personal factors like revenge or recrimination, and as far as my observations take me she has betrayed no alliance, no promise, no one.

So it seems what she's guilty of is wanting it, working for it, and bringing a certain Sicilian élan to its execution. Those with a vote in this game should remember that and cast their votes for the person who played the game best, even if it means voting for someone who defeated you at your own game.

Besides, if she wins, she promised to show me her bosom.

So until next time, please remember that there is NOTHING a man won't dare or do to see a set of titties.

A Tale for April

2011-03-29T12:08:00.000-04:00

My father, may he rest in peace, would be 78 this coming Saturday. Brother Hrothgar and I will be going to the Bruins game together, more so I suspect to take quiet comfort in each other's company than to actually watch a hockey game.

Next month he'll have been gone for three years, and at some point you have to acknowledge that however wrenching his passing was, after a time you can't reasonably expect the old man to have survived the corrosive effects of time. Nobody on his side of the family lived to 78, and Dad wasn't exactly in robust good health.

If it sounds, by the way, that I'm trying to talk myself into tempering my emotions over his passing, yes, that is precisely what I'm trying to do. And so I guess it's in that vein that I want to tell you a story today, a story that precisely one person in the world knows besides me. The story has some drama to it but I swear to you, every word of it is true.

I was a horrible, willful, angry, contrarian, little punk bastard of a teenager. I was already well into a life-long love affair with the sound of my own voice and wasn't afraid to tell my parents that they were utterly full of shit, at every opportunity and with great vigor. My teen fuckishness came early; I began being a bastard at about 14 and was totally out of it by 17.

This particular evening I was maybe 16, and since it was a day that ended with a y, I was in an argument with my Dad. We were in my bedroom, nose to nose, first yelling at each other, then shortly thereafter, screaming. Dad was railing about what a fucking pigsty my room was (and it was); I was screaming about the unnatural constraints that he was putting on me. To my best recollection I was thinking that my father did not automatically deserve my respect, that he had to actually earn it from his little shitstain youngest son, inbetween the two jobs he was working to keep that son in Yoo-hoo and cable tv.

So there we were, screaming at each other from four inches away, not bothering to listen to each other, just pouring out rage and frustration and disappointment and exhaustion and angst with every screamed insult.

My memory of the event holds that it was a long-ish argument; we'd been going hammer and tongs for maybe five full minutes, which was an eternity in screaming-match time.

And then out of the clear blue sky something happened.

While Dad was screaming at me, I was somehow able to mentally take a step back and observe what was happening. I realized that this guy who was angry and hurt enough by his own son that he fell to screaming, was my father, my Dad, and I remembered just how much, even now, I loved him.

What the hell were we doing?

Mid-rant, mid-scream, and without a word, I grabbed him and hugged him tight, my smug gift of gab having wholly failed me. I just stood there, hugging him, crying a little bit behind his head.

And of course my Dad did the only thing an angry, frustrated father could do: he hugged me back, just as hard.

"Come on, Gary," he said, softly, as he patted my back. "We're both getting too old for this shit. Let's put this childish stuff away, ok?"

I nodded, still unable to speak, still unwilling to let him go. There we stood, hugging each other, neither of us wanting to break the spell.

I wish I could tell you that it all ended that day. Of course it didn't - there were fights and arguments to come, both in great plenty. I didn't stop being a willful teenage prick.

But that day is one of my most precious memories - the day I was able to see through the noxious black cloud of adolescence, just for a minute, and remember that I loved my Dad.

Badugimania!

2011-03-26T16:20:00.000-04:00

Last night saw the debut of the Friday night Badugi game (time and date to perhaps be adjusted based on availability). Because of short notice and a wave of apathy, there were only three participants: Josephine, HeffMike, and me. Wolfie was planning on playing but stayed out late and missed the opening gun. He did send his apologies, though, so it's all good there.

The play? Well, the play was like three blind people trying to paint the Mona Lisa, where they keep moving the canvas.* Josie was first to go out; her evaluation of the game was "I liked it just a little more than being poked in the eye." Heff and I danced around for a while, trading the chip lead a few times, but based on a combination of skill, experience, and blind shit-ass luck, I persevered and won the inaugural Badugimania.

I would like to establish a regular Badugi game, or maybe some kind of irregular-game schedule, like 2-7 single and triple, maybe Razz -- you know, the oddball games. I'd like your input as to whether or not you think that's a viable idea.

The point has been made, what good is three people playing a game, none of whom have any skill therein, if the idea is to improve? It's a valid point, but whatever game you play, whatever skill level you play against, if you put a thousand hands of anything behind you, you naturally get an idea of hand strengths, strategy, etc. Yes, your notions of odds will likely be approximate but I contend that's better than no idea at all. And there's something about Badugi that I find oddly compelling; there seems a definite right way and wrong way to play a given hand, a concrete series of decisions that I'd like to learn how to make properly.

So feel free to make suggestions as to what game besides Badugi you'd like to play, and I'll assemble the suggestions (both of them) and consider them appropriately, or ignore them utterly, depending on whether or not I agree with them.

As a post-script to the evening, Josie, Heff and I decided to participate in a 90-person, doublestack, knockout SnG, $12 + 1.

My first hand I was dealt AA in UTG+6 (button -1), blinds 15/30. Three callers in front of me, so with blinds there was 135 in the pot. I raised it to 195. Got two callers, one on each side of me.

Flop comes A72, two clubs. I had flopped my monster set. The pot had 690. First to act checks. I bet 390 - guy next to me calls, other guy folds.

Turn is 10s. Pot has 1,470. I figure I got this one: no made flushes, no made straights, no pairs on the board so no boats or quads - at this point I have the stone cold nuts. I shove for my (and his) last 2,415.

SNAP CALL. Get this: J10c. He risked his tournament life, all of ONE HAND OLD, on second pair and flush draw. And of course, the river rolls over a beautiful (for him) three of clubs, filling his flush and cracking my aces with a combination of horrible decision making and slackjawed good luck**.

I mean, you try and swallow something like that when it comes up, but there's no question that a hand like that stays with you for a while. I knew I was on super-ultra-triple tilt, so I didn't dare play any other game. I closed FT and swore to myself.

So until next time, please remember that Aces fucking suck.

------

* Yes, I know the Mona Lisa, more accurately called La Gioconda, was not painted on canvas but rather on a panel of wood. Shut the fuck up. It's a goddamn simile.

** 78.12%/21.55% against.

Conversations with God IV: Josie meets the Groovy One, Blessed Be He

2011-03-25T23:36:00.000-04:00

A couple, three times a year Tootsie and I invite Josie, FDD Spuds and Ursa Sucrosum down to the hinterlands of Rhode Island for dinner, a card game, maybe some pool, and generally a bunch of laughs. Tonight was one of those nights. Tootsie made a London Broil that was etherally yummy, the coffee had been drunk, U. Sucrosum was asleep on the couch, Toots and FDD Spuds were upstairs chatting and Jo and I were downstairs disgracing the great game of pool.

The conversation turned to our respective blogs, and those stories in which I imagine a conversation with God, which Josie doesn't really like.

"Here's what I don't understand," she said, sizing up her shot. "You're an unabashed atheist. Your stated religion on Facebook is Atheist. You treat the religious with that smug contempt that makes me want to strangle you. So why do you talk to God?"

I thought for a while.

"Maybe I like it," I answered slowly. "Sure, it's literary symbolism, but who's to say that it's not comforting, cathartic, and illuminative? When you get to pose a question so directly you can really think about the answer."

"OK," she said in a lilting, singsong way that indicated she thought I was full of shit.

"Seriously," I said. "It all comes from between the ears."

We were both startled by a cough and the thinly-disguised word "bullshit" from the corner, where the cue stand stood.

Of course, it was The Lord. Why wouldn't it be? As always, He was impeccably dressed, this time wearing an Oxford shirt with an argyle sweater, the shirttail sticking out just enough to be devastatingly fashion-forward.

"Who's your friend?" He purred, looking at - actually, leering at - Josie.

"Oh, sorry. Um, God, this is..."

"I know who she is," He said. "God, remember? Hello Josie."

Josie, a lifelong Catholic, dropped to her knees.

"Get up, get up, this isn't church."

Josie regained her feet and looked God right in the eye.

"God, what's Your deal?" she said, with customary brusqueness. "Are You really just in Gary's head, or what? Are You out there, and real? And why haven't I won a big tournament yet?"

God smirked.

"Sorry, my child," He said, and drew an imaginary zipper across His mouth. "I run on faith. Proof denies faith. No straight answers from Me, but do you not believe your own eyes?"

"Not often," she said, after a pause.

"Well, I'm here to tell you that whatever fountains of genius flow from the hirsute pate of THIS guy..." - here He cocked His head in my direction - "...he can try to take as much credit as he wants to, but it all comes from Me."

"Well I for one believe," Josie said softly. "I'm a woman of faith and if it's faith You need, You got it. There's only one thing I could ever ask of You in return."

"And what is that, child?"

"I'm in this game, Survivor, Donkey Island, see..."

"I know," saith The Lord. "That was a REALLY long game between Boat and Brain, wasn't it?"

"You...You rail the Donkey Island games?" she asked incredulously.

"Not exactly," He said. "More like just, you know, omniscient. Anyway, what about it?"

"Who wins?" she asked, eyes, brightening. She raised her fists in the air, closed her eyes tight and said "ooooooohhh, please please PLEASE let it be me!"

"Josie, do you know anything about quantum mathematics?"

"Oh God, You DO come from Gary's boring-ass brain," she said, eyes rolling. "No, not really."

"Ignoring that," continued God, "There's this issue with tiny particles: you can't know simultaneously a particle's exact position in space and its speed and direction. Because, among other reasons, the act of observing a particle disturbs it. In other words, if I were to tell you, it would alter the trajectory of the game."

"OK," she said, in that same lilting singsong that accused the Lord of bullshittery.

"For real," said the Lord. "No fake."

"Well, ok..." she said with unveiled disappointment.

"Sorry," said God. "But tell me this: Who's this NumbBono character, and why does everybody still vote for him?"

Shocking Error in Planning

2011-03-25T19:45:00.000-04:00

The poker gods have FUCKED ME AGAIN. There was an error in the instructions I posted. Corrected ones follow:

- If you don't already have it, download the free PokerStars software
from http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/download/
- Open the main poker lobby, then click on the Home Games tab
- Click the 'Join a Poker Club' button
- Enter my Club ID number: 375347
- Enter my Invitation Code: southpaw

From there, find the tournament --it's tonight at 9, doublestack limit Badugi, $5 + $.50, and join. Sorry for the mix-up. Please come and play - I'd be ever so disappointed if you all decided to ignore me en masse.

It's Official

2011-03-23T12:32:00.002-04:00

First tournament: this coming Friday, 9PM, Limit Badugi, $5 + $.50, 3000 starting chips. Info below:

NB: PokerStars approved my name; please note the Club ID below has been changed to so reflect.

You are invited to join my private poker club for Home Games online.

- If you don't already have it, download the free PokerStars software
from http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/download/
- Open the main poker lobby, then click on the Home Games tab
- Click the 'Join a Poker Club' button
- Enter my Club ID number: Badugimania
- Enter my Invitation Code: southpaw

That's it! Once I've approved your membership request, we'll be ready to start playing Home Games online together.

If you want to find out more, visit http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/home-games/

Never play a game you don't know well

2011-03-23T11:55:00.000-04:00

Played SmBoatDrinks' Tuesday Night Booze Cruise yesterday, a multi-game affair. I believe 8 of the ten games were limit. I think these were the games (open to correction)

Limit Stud
Limit Omaha Hi
Limit Omaha Hi/Lo
PL 2-7 single draw
Limit 2-7 triple draw
Limit HE
NL HE
NL Badugi
Limit Razz
PL Omaha

It was an unmitigated disaster. I haven't played a limit game for money in probably eight years. And though there were definitely some hands I lost because poker is a fickle bitch (just for one example, my king-jack high flush in Stud lost to another, slightly higher King-jack high flush - and remember, no shared cards), most of my chips just got bled out of me because I don't know how to play limit games to any extent. Determining my hand strength was mere guesswork, and brother, did I guess wrong. I finished penultimately; the only player who finished before me was pushmonkey, which is like pretending you're mentally challenged but only winning a silver medal in the Special Olympics.

I have two options going forward for me: To immerse myself in a perhaps years-long quest to achieve competence in limit games, or not to ever fucking play this ridiculous set of games again -- no offense, Boat.

My biggest regret is not lasting to the Badugi round. I might set up a private Badugi tournament to increase my exposure to it. Would you guys play some low-stakes Badugi if it were open to you? Let me know and I'll set it up.

Until next time, please remember my dear Aunt Sally. God, she was a fine piece of ass.

Non-Poker: A Walk in the Woods

2011-03-21T02:08:00.000-04:00

There is something to be said
For a walk in the woods;
Pine needles underfoot,
Solitude,
A comforting closeness.
Walk in Nature's womb like that
For any length of time
And you learn to love it.
Rest when you want,
walk, jog,
stay put.
Your actions are your own.

But sooner or later,
Sooner or later,
One wants for the feel of sun on face.
To let it bathe you,
Fill you back up
Where you didn't even know you were empty.
And the woods seem too close,
suddenly inhospitable.
And you want the woods to thin out;
Move past the hoary old oaks
For a clearer vista
And a return to the sun.

It's so easy to love the sun;
It's easy to forget that the sun can be painful,
Hurtful.
It stands so far away
Yet bare your chest to it
And it will kill you.
You turn your face away-
Hide yourself from the sun,
The hateful, bully sun.
And you're marked and in the open
And there's no place to hide,
So you run towards the woods as fast as you can.

And your lungs burn and your legs ache
And the sun laughs as it chases you here and there
Until you see a patch of woods-
With pine needles underfoot
And a comforting closeness
You now remember fondly.
It makes you ask yourself
Why you ever craved the sun-
Why you ever stood exposed
When the woods are so dark,
so cool,
And you find your solitude again.

There is something to be said
For a walk in the woods.

What the fuck was that??

2011-03-20T22:49:00.000-04:00

I just played the most oddly-formatted game I think I've ever played. 1500 in chips, that's normal. Blinds start at 10/20, that's normal too. Three-minute blinds, not so much. Apparently the coordinators (who earn my gratitude for taking it all on) wanted to structure a super-turbo, with 300 chips, but shot a little short of the mark.

My only real thought was, gotta hit the gas a bit, because the blinds are gonna be too big too soon for any kind of subtlety. As it happened I didn't even have to; I think the fourth or fifth hand I looked down at pocket queens. Twoblackaces called with AK, caught on the flop, and I was officially the first sorry sonofabitch out of the tourney.

I will say this: Not a fan of the fast-blind format. But it was a little bit of fun, and the hand I lost, like a trip to the moon on gossamer wings, was just one of those things.

So until next time, please remember this little rhyme: Blinds of 20 minute, or I ain't friggin in it.

Postcard from the road: Seabrook, NH, 19 March

2011-03-20T05:25:00.000-04:00

Saturday, Josie and I trucked up to Seabrook to take part in their special Saturday tournament: a $100 buy-in gets you 15,000 in chips and 30 minute blinds. It's a good format for a patient player who understands hand selection. Or is it? The first round of blinds are 25-50, so everyone started with 300 BB's. This led to a lot of speculation, a lot of porkchops throwing in a call because they have no concept of one BB's value.

I didn't want to enter a firefight, especially early on, so I clamped down and waited for the mayhem to die down a bit. Unfortunately, one of the late entrants to the tourney was a loud-talking, Ed Hardy shirt-wearing, white-sweat-jacket-on-top-of-that-wearing, short-bleached-hair-domed 22-year-old idiot sitting down in seat two, betting like every one of his hands were pocket aces. He would raise 3,000 chips in a pot with maybe 200 chips in it, then would turn over 2-5 or somesuch similar garbagio hand. So I had a while to wait, as there was a good deal of mayhem to die down. Unfortunately that meant that any hand I'd play was immediately folded down to, as I developed a rep as the only rock at the table. I will say this: it was a different feeling, getting too much respect for a raise as opposed to not enough.

Unfortnately my attempts in the early going were met with the typical bad luck that has characterized my experiences in Seabrook: I lost a few thousand when my two pair were counterfeited on the board, another couple grand when my aces were beat by a 10-7 two pair, etc. At the first break I had failed to chip up and in fact was down by a few hundred. At the second break I was down to about eight thousand, having burned through half my stack with the above-mentioned string of unfortunate hands.

I had chipped back up a little - the blinds, now joined by antes, were enough to start having to play second-tier hands (A10, 99, 88, KQs, etc). This, joined with a nice little run of cards, got me close to my original stack size, when I look to my left and what to my wondering eye should appear but Josie herself, out of the tournament and wearing the JSF (Josie Sad Face). Now look: Me and Jo, we're boon companions, and I'm very loyal to my friends. What's good for her is good for me, but may the Flying Spaghetti Monster forgive me (Ramen, brother) I couldn't help but smile just a little bit: my luck (or play) has been so bad at Seabrook that I had never so much as outlasted her in a big tournament up there, not ever. So having outlasted her today was an actual achievement. She went off to play some 2-4 limit and I kept at it.

I caught some nice hands, won a couple of flips, and generally played well for the next, say, hour and a half, maybe two hours. I had chipped up nicely and was still playing smart.

But you know what they say: one bad hand, one bad decision, can wipe out a whole afternoon of solid play, and such was the case with me. Seat 10 was riding a nice wave, overbetting, overraising, and turning over garbage. So when he led out everyone who was paying attention started slavering over the prospect of a vulnerable pot.

Well one hand after the third break (blinds 600/1200/100) he does his thing, but instead of garbage, he turns over pocket aces and drags himself a huge pot - becomes either chip leader or close to it. The table is still buzzing about the hand when the next hand is dealt. I look down at AQ suited in UTG +4. I make a reasonable bet of 4,000 (remember, just blinds and antes are 2,000). Everyone folds except for seat 10, who raises another 4,000. Now this butt munch just turned over AA, so I was pretty sure he didn't have that hand, so that was one of four hands to which I was vulnerable that I could rule out. That plus the fact that his raises weren't worth a used kleenex, led me to make the decision to shove.

He snap-calls and turns over pocket aces, again. Two pocket aces back to back - what are the odds? Well, if one catches aces one time in 226, I suppose the odds are 51,076:1. Anyway, I caught neither running queens nor three clubs, and that was the story of me.

BUT, although I didn't cash in the tourney, I think I did well, I like most of my decisions, I took decent advantage of my table image, and hey: I outlasted Josie. I just had a good hand that went up against a better hand. That's poker, I reckon. And, of course, there was some reasonably yummy Chinese food afterwards. And Josie learned all about what made the song She Loves You so unusual for the time. In her defense, she tried hard not to look bored.

Until next time, please remember that someone else has my money, Bali Hai has some good lobster sauce, and with a love like that, you know you should be glad.

Finally, some hard data to work with

2011-03-16T02:04:00.000-04:00

(All together, now: "That's what SHE said!")

So this may be a little too early for any real data analysis but I've played a hand or three since my first HEM reports so I thought I'd share with you what looks like a pretty significant turnaround in my fortunes.

BEFORE MARCH 6, 2011:

Tourneys: 87
ROI: -31.3%
ITM %: 36.8%

Earnings: $-339.65
&/hr: $-10.08
Avg Duration: 23.5 minutes

Summed up in one word: GRIM. Maybe two words: FUCKING GRIM.

AFTER MARCH 6, 2011:

Tourneys: 27
ROI: 47.5%
ITM %: 40.7%

Earnings: 144.67
%/hr: $7.82
Avg. Duration: 41.1

Sure, kind of a small data pool, but it looks like a pretty decent turnaround. I'm lasting longer in tourneys, winning more often, and more money when I do. Really, it shows improvement by any indicator. BUT: $7.82 an hour? Not enough. ITM% not increased enough for my liking. Lots of work to be done.

I don't think I have enough data to glean value from a starting-hand-centric view of the data; currently the highest-yielding hand is A8o and the worst-yielding hand is A8s. So I'm sure there are some things to smooth out in the data. But as soon as I get them I will let you know.

Until next time, please remember how grateful I am to HEM, to the dude that made me aware of it, and the genuine good will of those people who help my cause with good advice and sincere encouragement. It's appreciated.

I won three, two-packs of resistors

2011-03-14T01:03:00.000-04:00

When I was 18 I worked for Radio Shack, to the surprise of exactly nobody who's ever met me. I was the kid who took it upon himself to memorize the part number of everything in the store, where everything is, what it did, and how much I got paid for selling it.

It was in the pursuit of this exercise that I discovered the least expensive item in the joint: a two-pack of resistors, the least expensive of which cost exactly nineteen cents. Customers used to walk up to the counter with a solitary blister pack of resistors and a quarter, and would actually apologize for the smallness of the transaction.

We always said the same thing when this happened: A smile as the quarter crossed my palm and the phrase "Sir, we count them all." It came to represent our philosophy about customer service and how to properly show gratitude for a customer's business; but mostly it gave us something to say other than "why don't you make it worth my while to hand-write this receipt, you cheap fuck. I'm guessing you want your free fucking battery?"

The reason for that tale is this: Tonight I played in Survivor Poker's Donkey Island Event #9. It was a multi-entry, I could have signed up as many as four times, but I only signed up twice. I was actually doing quite well with both entries, until my pocket aces were cracked by (I think) Hoyazo, who connected with his 10's for a set. After that it was all attention paid to my last remaining entry.

Towards the end of the tourney my cards were so bad that I could do little more than keep my head above water and watch as people swung mightily with their stacks. Those who missed fell by the wayside and I ended up making the final table.

I was short stacked and needed to pee, and was raised by NY Rambler. Now I have nothing against the fellow but the fact is that his range for hands in the circumstance we were in was as wide as the Massachusetts Turnpike. I had QK suited, and almost no chips. I went in. Eight seconds later, I went out.

I cashed $11.62. Minus $10 for the entry, and $1 for the house, and my profit for just short of three hours of poker was sixty-two cents.

No, it's not a lot. But as Joanada said, it beats a sharp stick to the eye, which is true. The bottom line is, this adjustment I've made and have been discussing ad friggin nauseum, changed this game from an $11 loser to a tiny winner, and that's a damn good thing.

And anyway, like we used to say when they'd buy a two-pack of resistors, we count them all.

Until next time, please remember that sixty-two cents is indeed better than a sharp stick to they eye - or anywhere on the body for that matter.

So this is what "Self-Destructive Behavior" means

2011-03-12T13:29:00.000-05:00

I'm so pissed off at myself I can hardly speak. Well, let's not go too far, there's no end to the love I have for the sound of my own voice. Anyway, why am I pissed?

I'll tell you why: In the tournament that would mean either profit or loss for the evening, during the hand that was so important to finishing in the money, at what arguably could be called the most important single moment of the night, I lost hand, game, and evening, by playing a hand I swore I would not play again.

I lost more than half my stack by playing...wait for it...pocket sevens.

Look over my last few posts. You'll see my sincerity. You'll see the light of newfound knowledge. And for sure, there's no zealot like a convert. I saw the error of my ways. Promises were made and for a while, kept. I would NOT play 77. I would NOT play KJ. I would NOT play A2 (or any of its friends). I would NOT play QJ.

And the bitch of it is, it was working. I was winning more, going deeper more, playing more solidly, losing only when my great hand was up against a better hand (AK vs AA for example) and my opponent sucking out (which stings a lot less when you're not helping your cause by losing because you're an idiot). And as I mentioned to a pal a few days ago, if my game seems unimaginative and a bit ABC, well, that's fine as long as I start winning with regularity.

But I looked down at 77, one of which was a diamond, and a board of 346 all diamonds or something like that, and I couldn't help myself. Having forgotten all my teachings, for no greater reward than winning a small hand or even just the blinds, I make a giant bet with my 7's and held my breath.

I did not have to wait long. My opponent (I can't even with sincerity call him the villain) re-popped for all his chips, only a few hundred more than my bet. At this point I was priced in irrespective of what I had, so I called to find he (with KJ, how's that for irony) had his flush all made and happy, and I was dead to one card for a straight flush. Guess what? It didn't come. And I lost the hand.

And bubbled for the money.

Which meant a losing night.

Because I forgot what I learned and played a documented loser of a hand.

For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. And I'm so pissed I can hardly speak.

Non-Poker: A Poignant Image

2011-03-11T12:24:00.000-05:00

This photograph, whose originator is unknown, shows a bombed-out library in London, with its patrons still calmly perusing its shelves for something of interest to read.

If this image doesn't bring a lump to your throat you're either dead inside, or a Nazi, or both. It conjures up such a classic British sense of moving on with life in the face of horrible, dangerous circumstances, and an unspoken, spine-straightening defiance of the warmongers who were bombing population centers with no military value. We WILL beat you, even if you bomb us to powder. We WILL perservere against you. And we will live our lives in our own quiet way, even if it means finding something of interest to read in a heap of rubble.

Even AQ might be a trash ace...

2011-03-10T17:19:00.000-05:00

4:19 Started a step 3 18-person tourney, seats 1-5 get a step 4 ticket. Two seats to my right is a pro, Adam Noone. He's first button so I'm first BB. Second hand, to an unraised BB, is KJs. Even notwithstanding my discount, I fold that shit like it was a shirt.

4:20 Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Woo hoo!

4:24 QhQd as BB. SB-1 raised to 120. I raise to 320. Fold. CC 1710.

4:26 two black queens as button. Raise to 120. Both blinds call. Bet 360 on turn, two folds. CC 1950.

4:28 J10o. Sorry Josie. Foldaroo.

4:37 QQ #3. just got blinds, damn. Restores my last round of blinds and am back up to 1965, the year they removed silver from US coinage.

4:38 Folded A8o. May not sound like such a big deal but for me that's a disciplined fold 6-up.

4:39 Ditto the QJo that I just got as BB. Before I'd jump on that shit like a dung beetle jumps on ordure. Not now. Would have had a full house and knocked two people out including the pro. Still a good move though.

4:48 blinded down to 1715. Patience is not a virtue, It's for shit. Picking up odds-defying quantities of KJ, Q10, K10s. Killing me. Just fucking killing me.

4:57 Called neighbor's all in with AQ - he had QQ but I caught the ace and it held up. CC: 3250

4:59 that guy is out. he didn't say anything but it was clear he was steamed up all to hell. He had 1010, raised to 360, got called. Flop came 3AJ and he shoves, only to be called by AJ. The two pair hold up and he's o-u-t spells out.

5:00 QKs as button. I'll try to steal. - successfully! CC 3290.

5:05 first walk of the tourney with 35s. woo hoo!

5:13 dead. A9, high blinds, steal attempt, my opponent woke up with queens. Whaddayagonnado. I played well though, except for the last hand, I think I coulda stayed away from that. Lesson learned: A9 isn't much better than A2, A4, or any other bullshit ace. Adding that to the ledger. By that I mean Heath Ledger, who is absolutely as dead as I am right now.

I am officially staying away from all bullshit aces unless my opponent is a known douchebag.

First goddamn hand

2011-03-07T18:06:00.000-05:00

Just jumped in on a 2 table tourney for a step 3 ticket - first hand out of the chute, UTG+3 was KJo. After I stopped laughing I folded immediately.

Immediate Dividends

2011-03-07T13:25:00.000-05:00

Hold Em Manager cost me 80 bucks. Last night at the most recent Survivor Poker Challenge I took the barest amount of data gleaned therefrom (see post below) and parlayed it into a $94 profit ($97 minus $1 buy-in, $1 for the house, and $1 for the add-on after third level. No rebuys, I'll have you know). What did I do that was so special? I took the hands that I thought were "worth a shot" and folded the fuckers. Did I fold too much? I don't know; I didn't seem to be getting a lot of action when I raised, which I suppose I can use to my advantage. In fact there was one hand where BuddyDank went in and it was only 3BB to call, and I had a million chips, but I had A6, and that hand is a perfect example of the kind of hand that just does not win as often as you think it does, even heads-up. Had I called, and BD told the truth, I'd have been up against pocket threes. You can keep your coin-flips, your ego calls, all that shit. I prefer to keep my chips, thanks.

When it came time to start stealing blinds (and here I'm thinking of you, Poker Grump; you did this frustratingly well), I just folded and folded until I had something I was reasonably sure beat a random hand and took him down. I played Bayne and Mike Maloney to a draw and we split the pot three ways, and I'll take a 32 buy-in ROI any day of the week.

So HEM pays for itself in the first tournament I enter after I start using it. Impressive, I must say. I'm still not playing with a HUD - quite frankly I can't get it to work but also it seems awfully busy and distracting, and I'm still not sure how ethical it is. Maybe I'll try it later on.

BTW, I've heard that blogger tourneys are donkaments, but if you subscribe to the theory that tight is right, and tighter is righter, these guys play it right. Call it a nittyment if you like but to call it a donkament is disingenuous.

So until next time, please remember that pocket 7's almost never pays off, and stay away from that wicked KJ offsuit!

Figures Don't Lie; Liars Figure

2011-03-06T02:09:00.000-05:00

Having listened to PokerMeister's advice I bought a copy of Hold Em Manager, henceforth HEM. I installed it, pointed it to the right directory, and promptly forgot about it - it was an ocean of unintelligible acronyms, obscure data points, graphs and charts which my feeble simian brain just can't grasp. Speaking of which, and a propos of nothing, I'd like a banana.

Anyway, today I remembered that I'd dropped 80 bones on a piece of software I wasn't using and ran it today. It imported some four months' worth of data and even though I'm just scratching the surface of the data available to me, what I have been able to figure out is a staggering wealth of information that can only serve to plug some of the many holes in my game.

The report that has thus far provided me the most immediate benefit for my game is an analysis of win percentage and dollars won per starting hand. The very first piece of information I clapped my eyes on shocked me: despite the popularity of pissing and moaning about how pocket aces don't hold up, the simple fact is they do, at least for me. Of the 17 documented instances of The Crafty One getting pocket rockets, I won with them 88.2 percent of the time, with (of course) a 100% VPIP, and "winnings" of $11,000 (tournament chips, not bux) I did notice that I PFR'd only 53% of the time; that smells like I'm being too cute with them, but I'll have to think about that later. So take that, you nattering nabobs of negativity! Aces rock!

Of course, the greater teachiing opportunities arise from adversity, and towards that end, would anyone care to guess the hand on which I've lost the most, or the most times? I'll give you my bottom four.

Honorable mention for Hands What Cost Me The Most Schiarole goes to...pocket 7's. Despite winning with them at a 66% clip (16/24), I've lost more than $3700 T$ with them. Tread lightly with 7's, lad.

Bronze medal is proudly worn by...A2 s00ted, with which I've lost twice for every time I've won (4/12) and lost big - T$5300. Ace rag, man, it'll just friggin kill you every time - or 2 times out of 3.

The Silver medalist in the Hands of Ignominy competition goes to...QJo, which despite a 50% winning clip (23/45) had lost me T$5455. Like A2, when I win, I win small, and when I lose I lose big. Not the winning formula.

And the Gold medal, the Bruce Jenner of the Bad Hand, with great honor, pomp and circumstance, goes to... KJo. That's right - the Seabrook Nuts! That hand has lost me more than any other hand I have; $T5578 has gone right down the shitter because of KJo.

These four hands share the same commonalities:

A VPiP of over 75% (well, QJ was 74.4, but you get it)
I PFR'd at an over 50% clip
If I clean up my game to the tune of those four hands, my game would transition from slightly under break-even to slightly over it.

FOUR HANDS turn me from a winner to a loser. But at least now I know.

Until next time, please remember that knowledge is power, which is good because gas is $3.50 a goddamn gallon.

I'll take "Incredibly Inappropriate Overreaction for $2000, Please."

2011-03-04T18:32:00.000-05:00

So I thought I'd follow in the footsteps of every luckbox sonofabitch who entered and won a supersatellite, then won the satellite for entry to the big dance, then won or cashed huge, to turn 50 full-tilt points into eighteen grand and a sponsorship deal. I've been entering step 0 tourneys, the prize for which is a step 1 ticket, then parlaying that into step 2 tickets, etc. My eventual hope is to cash big while risking no more than a buck. So far I've been collecting step 2 tickets as I muster up thr courage to use them.

Anyway, I decided to splurge and spend $3 (I was out of step 1'ers) on a six-person 1 table, the wages of winning is yet another step 2 ticket. So I'm doing my thing, trying as best I can to pick my spots, find the opportunities for stealing, etc. One such had I'm dealt JQ in position and I decide to raise. I get called. The flop comes A-A-J. Now I'm either way out in front or I'm crushed. I decide to bet out to see where I am. My bet was probably bigger than it should have been, but either way, my opponent raises me big and I fold, which was the only thing to do.

Out of the clear blue sky the dude to my right, who was not in the hand, starts in on me.

other guy: god your an idiot - why didnt u call
me: what's it to you?
other guy: such a fuc' ing joke
me: dude, it's a $3 game, why don't you just relax
other guy: whats $3 got to do with it
me: none of us are Doyle Brunson, that's why we're swimming in the shallow end. Besides, you weren't even in the hand, so why don't you STFU
other guy: such an idiot

bottom line, it came down to heads up between mr. happy-pants and me. He sucks out on me with a miracle flush on the river. He sucks out on me with a three-outer to almost tie the score. All the while I'm saying precisely NOTHING. It's part of poker and I would never call someone an idiot, especially when they're playing poorly. Why on earth would I want to clue someone in to the fact that they're playing poorly? Besides which, it was all good as I got all my chips back within 10 hands.

Anyway, the last hand of the game came on my button (gross). He min-raised, which I took to mean he had a decent hand but not a great one. I had 79o, but it was only 240 to call and I had a 7000-2000 lead on him. Call.

The flop came 599. I had flopped a set. Like an (let's all say it together) idiot, he bets 560. I re-raise, he shoves, I call. He turns over A8. Before the turn he says

other guy: what a joke

He was drawing dead to running aces. I took the opportunity to administer the needle just a little bit:

me: yes, quite a joke, getting you to move in drawing dead. One wonders who the idiot is now
me: well nighty night big talker

Mmm-mmm! There is nothing tastier than an asshole getting his comeuppance. Tastes like chocolate-flavored pussy. I could eat it and eat it until that membrane under my tongue rips and causes me three days of not-easily-explainable pain.

Seriously, how pathetic is it getting all bent out of shape at a $3 table? What a tool. And guess what? CANADIAN.

So until next time, please remember not to fucking cross me if there's less than five bucks on the line.

I bet this has never, ever happened to any of you

2011-02-26T06:24:00.000-05:00

In a small way I have returned to playing online poker. I've been having some success at heads-up tourneys so I've been playing a lot of those. Mostly shootouts actually because in the 5/10/20 range my success rate is high enough to thus far make some money at it; but at this time of the morning (it's 5:42 AM; I'm a complete nocturne now) there aren't many takers.

So I sit down at a double-stack $30 table and wait for an opponent; one comes along fairly quickly. We play maybe 10 hands, then he times out. Next hand was a good one for me so I raised; I got the insta-fold that means his time-out has continued and FT is sitting him out. And the next hand. And the hand after that. It seemed pretty obvious to me that he fell dead asleep.

I did what any one of us would do; I auto-raised as quickly as I could. Is it legal? Of course. Is it ethical? That depends. The completely honorable thing to do, I suppose, is to time myself out so that we're both in that netherworld of poker; two card-playing nosferatu drinking each other's blood until the world ends. But brothers and sisters, I ain't got that kind of time. Or, for that matter, that kind of bankroll. I see a shot at a risk-free, if tedious, path to thirty squeeds and I took it. My fingers were lightning; I made a point of wasting zero time min-raising his button, while he insta-folded to mine. Within a matter of ten minutes I had his money.

And here's where it gets weird.

Like it does, at the end of the game FT offered us both a rematch. I started thinking to myself that if by a miracle he wakes up now, and offers me a rematch, I'll take it because that, at the very least, is the honorable thing to do; give the dude a shot at making his money back. But what were the odds of him waking up, mastering his faculties, and accepting a rematch in the ensuing 10 seconds or so?

Whatever the odds were, he beat them. Out of nowhere I see he offers a rematch! Before I can change my mind I accept . And it's Sleepy-pie vs. the Crafty Southpaw, round two.

We play maybe a half-dozen hands, and he...

he...

he FALLS ASLEEP AGAIN. And Buddha help me,once again I blind him down to the fingernails in 10 minutes. His last hand, the one he goes all-in with automatically, is 2-7. And now he's into me for sixty smacks that he didn't even stay awake for.

I admit with only a touch of shamefacedness that during the beginning of the second game I deliberately took my time making my plays, hoping to induce another bout of sleepy-time, a strategy that seemed to work. Actually I had employed this strategy before; many moons ago, a skirt that I was chasing (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) was a counselor at a group home. We wanted the residents to hurry up and go to sleep, so we both started yawning until our jaws were cracking like lobster claws. It worked to get them to go to sleep; it did not succeed in getting me laid, but no matter, no matter.

The more I think about it, the clearer the morality of my actions becomes. Lookit: poker is all about personal responsibility. YOU are responsible for the security of your hand. It's YOUR job to make sure the dealer doesn't accidentally muck your cards. YOU have to make sure no-one else can see your cards when you look at them. Someone shoots an angle and peeks in? Shame on YOU, not him (at least until you get outside, when a punch in the face isn't entirely out of order). So am I responsible for saving a dude who puts $60 down on the table and doesn't stay awake long enough to see how it disappeared? I gotta say, no.

I so wanted him to wake up, accept a third rematch, and give me more of his money. I'm telling you, if he did that I'd be texting him lullabies in the chat window. Alas, this time he stayed asleep, and the spigot of free money dried up.

So until next time, please remember that inducing sleep in people has its benefits, but blowjobs are not one of them.