Looking in Your Garbage

Rantings of a lunatic

2010-03-03T14:30:00.001-08:00

This is what goes on in the brain of a person upset that the Democrats appears poised to pass health care reform. From this article in the Fargo Forum.

Philip G.
Fargo, ND 03/03/2010 3:25 PM

Hows that fascist,bigoted,racist hope and change working out for everyone. Up or down vote huh? The man was a fascist running for office, I warned everyone he will have governement take over everything if he had a choice. Anyone noticed he never did condemn Van Jones in the white house either. Van jones is a communist people. Obama doesnt care if its passed, it will take more of our freedoms away forever. Big difference between parties. I want the liberals to have freedom, they want to take mine away, and increase the size of government. There is a difference and when our country comes to the point of shooting and physical violence because of fascists like obama and others who will vote to take away my freedom of choice in medical descisions, do not come crying to me that I tried common sense and it did not work. Oil up your guns people, obama has senate legislation coming next to individually tax every bullet we shoot. JEEZ, i wonder why? Wake up people, Austria voted in Hitler too, we just have less idiots then the germans had prior to ww2. Rush was right, we hoped he would fail, now we are praying and hoping. One last thing, fascist liberals, or progressives as they should be called, you me to tell us we have no choice in our medical coverage or which doctor, yet you still want choice on killing babies? Hypocrites From now on my analogy never will i trust a liberal after this and I tell everyone who reads this. My name is posted, will a liberal post their name on here? You can come at me any time jerks, Im waiting with guns loaded, hypothetically speaking

Lindsey Vonn Olympians - Video Player - 2010 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit - SI.com

2010-02-09T17:05:00.000-08:00

Olympics start soon!

Lindsey Vonn Olympians - Video Player - 2010 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit - SI.com

Well, that fucking hurt.

2010-01-26T15:59:00.001-08:00

The Vikes managed to wrangle defeat from the arms of victory once again, as they lost the NFC Championship game in overtime. Simply put, being -4 in the turnover battle rarely spells victory, even when you out gain the other team 475-225 in regulation time. Hell of a game though, and hell of a season. I'll take that game anytime over the 41-0 drubbing of 9 years ago.

I watched the game solo at the venerable Famous Sports Pub. I sat next to some old timer who told me a joke which he said was a "Minnesota Joke." So a blonde walks into a bar and the bartenders says, "Anheuser Busch?" The blonde replies, "fine, and how's your penis?" Brilliant.

Watched the end of the AFC game. Jets hung in there, but in the end Manning and Co. put it away. Much to the glee of 2 douchebag Colts fans behind me.

Here's my summary of the Vikes game: Yes, fuck, yes, fuck. yes, fuck. Halftime. Fuck, yes, fuck, yes. MFMFMFMFMFMFMFMMFMFMFMFMF. OT. F-U-C-K. Somewhere in that time I put away about 55 dollars worth of Stella and managed to mess my cellphone up by spilling beer on it. Got home and passed out.

It'll take a few more days to get beyond ruminating on this one, but life goes on. The Vikes gave us a hell of a ride this year.

LET'S GO HOME TEAM IN PURPLE!!!

2010-01-17T07:40:00.000-08:00

Game day is upon us. The Vikes look to get advance to the NFC championship, while simultaneously exorcising the 35 year old ghost of Drew Pearson pushing off to catch the winning TV in the 1975 Championship game. Favre came back to win games like this. The pundits are all picking Dallas, despite the game being in the Mall of America Snoopy Land Knotts Berry Farm Target 3M Pillsbury Hubert H Humphrey Metrodome. I'm so excited!

Where to began....that is, resume.

2010-01-15T09:22:00.000-08:00

Aww fuck, I've been gone a long time. Let's take a peek at the last few months.

October 2009:
Twins get swept by the Yankees who go on to win the WS. Fuck 'em.
Spend a week in Chicago for a conference.....spend way too much time a bar named 'Snickers'. Spend too little time catching up with old friends.

November 2009:
Eat copious amounts of turkey.

December 2009:
Go from Atlanta to Fargo to Vegas to Fargo to Atlanta and mostly maintain my sanity even though we flew out of Fargo in an honest to god real northern plains blizzard. We stayed at Bally's this go around which was decent as we got a jacuzzi suite courtesy of the 20 dollar trick. First night gambling I play some video poker while pounding back glasses of Fosters and score about 250 when I hit quad 2's. Next day is rough as I piss away 50 bucks at slots, lose a $100 buy-in at 1-2NL and lose the winning bet ticket I made on USC over BC. The last night I sit down at a Mississippi Stud table and thanks in large part to making a full house, I walk away up 700 bucks or so. A nice way to end the trip.

Celebrate new years quietly with 1 GF, 2 cats, and a little wine.

A dome full of memories

2009-10-05T09:48:00.001-07:00

The Twins play Detroit on Tuesday for the chance to take on the Yankees in the Divisional Playoffs. The game will be played at the Metrodome tomorrow afternoon in what hopefully is NOT the last time they play under the Teflon covered stadium. Yesterday got me thinking of the games I have seen the Twins play there. With the help of baseball-reference.com I was able to track down the box scores for every game I ever went to.

April 28th - 1988: My first game at the Dome was a class trip I went on when the defending World Series champion Twins took on the lowly Baltimore Orioles. I remember very little from the game itself except for the fact that my distant cousin Fred Lynn, who prior to Ichiro in 2001 was the first player to ever win ROY and MVP in the same year, was not in the starting lineup for the Orioles. The Twins ended up winning the game 4-2, prolonging the Orioles season beginning losing streak to a mind-boggling 21 games.

July 29th - 1990: My baseball team was in the Twin Cities for a tournament and we got to watch the Twins take on the Oakland A's. My dad chaperoned a group of us to the game. Jose Canseco and Felix Jose hit bombs in the game, but the Twins ended up taking the game in 6-5 extra innings. My dad got half-lost in downtown Minneapolis after the game, but we made it back to our hotel safely.

July 27th - 1991: In the middle of what would be the Twins second World Series winning team in 5 years the Twins took on the Milwaukee Brewers, which at the time was a heated battle between division rivals. This was the major league debut of Denny Neagle, who had a few decent years after being dealt from the Twins, but perhaps is better known for being caught with hookers, driving while drunk, and possibly being on steroids. The Twins ended up winning in exciting fashion when Dan Gladden hit a 3 run homer in the bottom of the 10th. I remember this well because Gladden's homer hit the foul netting down the left field line.

August 11th, 1992: My dad took me down to the Dome to see the Twins take on one of my baseball idols Nolan Ryan. Coincidentally, this was also opening day for the Mall of America in Bloomington, which actually sits on the ground where the old Met Stadium was. You can still stand at home plate while eating a cotton candy and taking in the goings-on of Snoopy's Knotts Berry Farm, or whatever the fuck it's called now. Inexplicably, my dad and I decided to go to the mall despite the fact that we both pretty much hate malls. I don't remember much from our time at the mall except one of the sporting goods stores was using live mannequins. Nolan pitched well, but the Twins ended up winning 3-2 behind John Smiley's complete game.

June 27th, 1998: My dad, brother, and I couldn't resist making the trek down to the Twin Cities to see Mark McSteriod play in the middle of his record-breaking-syringe-filled-with-juice-injected-into-his-ass season. The three of us went to some shitty bar near the Dome and ate pizza while my brother and I each pounded 3 Leine's like they were going out of style. The Twins took the loss 7-2 as McGwire launched an andro-aided bomb into the left field seats.

April 28th 2001: 13 years to the date of my first Metrodome experience was my last as the Twins took on the Baltimore Orioles again. The Twins took it on the chin 5-2 courtesy of the Orioles. Sluggers Brooke Fordyce (BAL) and Tom Prince (MIN) hit homer in this otherwise uneventful loss for the Twins. This was Tom Kelly's final season managing as he took a young Twins team back into the picture. The nucleus of this team would lead the Twins to AL Central Championships in 4 out of the next 5 seasons. Here's to the Twins winning their 5 Central crown tomorrow.

All Things

2009-08-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

Fucking poker is sucking ass right now. I'm about to cash out my pissant bankroll and put it towards my credit card bills or the 30K in student loans I gotta pay back which gave me 12.5 years of college, a BS, MS, PHD and an STD or two, and a job that doesn't even pay 4oK. You might think I'm complaining, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I once read that many of us who go to grad school do so in order to prolong some romantic period of our lives where we make no money, when in fact we predominately come from wealthy families. That's a crock of shit, because myself, the people I've met, and the people that have become my lifelong friends furthered our education because they didn't see many attractive options after undergraduate studies, didn't want to start pumping out babies, and really had nothing else to do. No place else where we'd fit in. It's not like we were so fucking smart at 22 that our brains were aching to absorb 8 years of graduate school on 16K a year and 60 hour weeks. It's about lacking identity, in which case you seek to find it. I guess many of us have found it.

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I made my 6th or 7th trip to vegas about a month ago. Shacked up with 3 friends in the MGM grand. Like the other trips, I managed to end up a loser, but had some fun. We started the trip off with brunch at the Venetian, followed by a tourney at Caesars Palace which saw me bubble out when my QQ all in was called by the only person with more chips than me. He had AK and flopped an A and I was done. I win that and I could pretty much coast to a nice payday. The rest of the day was occupied by playing cheap pai gow at the Trop and imbibing several 7 and 7s. The next morning we all cab it over to the Hard Rock where I win a couple hundred bucks in an hour playing 1/2 NL. The 1pm touney wasn't so kind to me, but weetarded guy (in our group) takes it down for a nice score.

We go back over to the Trop for some cheap Pai Gow and cheap craps. I lose a bit at pai gow, and then proceed to lose 100 bucks on my charter craps session, despite getting the hot hand while rolling and builing my buyin from 20 bucks to 120. The rush of going on a hot streak pretty much made up for the money I lost, but I can't say I'm all that crazy about the game.

We go back over to the MGM grand where I buyin for 100 bucks at a 1/2 NL table. I win a bit early and then pretty much sit there pounding beers and playing tight for 3 hours or so. I go on another small win streak and sit with 200 or so when I get pocket 10s in middle position. I raise to 10 and get 2 callers. Flop comes 10c 9c As and I start to salivate. One check to me, I bet 20, get min raised by the button, which was called by the old dude who checked and I called as well. The turn is the Ac. Old dude leads out for 60 bucks, I push knowing that someone has an A and both people call. Over 600 in the pot and the river comes a Kh. Fuck me...the button, who played the hand like a horses ass, had AK offsuit. Old dude had the flush and I get up and leave. I sit at the bar and down some more beers while pissing away more money on the shitty ass video poker at MGM.

After waking the next morning, we grab breakfast at NYNY at some cafe that has a giant topigraphical map of the US on the ceiling. We play a bit of craps there after bfast before it is time to me to hop on the 4 hour flight back to ATL.

Breaking!

2009-05-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

This just in. Brett Favre sent a sperm sample to the Minnesota Vikings for analysis. Someone end this shit. Why can't he just go away gracefully?

The dirty, dirty.

2009-04-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

It's been 7 months since we moved to Atlanta, but I still appreciate the fact that moving across country to a strange new city has been an adjustment. I think I spent the first several months going through the motions at work and at home. Brain dead...I felt like a zombie, and my mind and body started to (and still is) deceive me. The brain is the almighty organ, which I knew, but never appreciated in such a way. Alas, I don't wish to continue this morbid fascination with myself. Let's move onto what's been good about "The City Too Busy to Hate."

NHL hockey in my backyard. I only made it to 1 game this year, but having a NHL team where my live is great. Phillips Place is a nice arena and one of the great things is that there is a dedicated entrance to the arena for those arriving via MARTA. I'd like to make it to several games next year.

The MARTA! Especially, how convenient and cheap it is to take to the airport. At some stations you can park your car long term for only a few bucks a day. Beats the 10 bucks/day at the airport lots.

The possibilities I have doing research at Emory are essentially endless. I am only limited by my imagination and motivation.

My morning constitutional. We live close enough to school to walk. I trounce through the woods every morning on my way to work. I've seen several species of birds, deer, old men, dogs, and snakes. Just to name a few.

Milwaukee has, and forever will have, a special place in my heart in terms of the bar scene, but we've discovered some gems here in Atlanta. The Brick Store Pub has a beer list that will make your head spin and really good food to boot. MJQ is basically a garage from the outside that goes down underground into a maze of a dance club. I lost my hearing after spending a night there in February. The Porter Beer Bar in Little 5 Points has a great beer selection and hell of a brunch. The chicken sausage gravy is fucking heavenly. The Corner Pub in Decatur has some really good food and you can usually get a decent bottle of beer for 2 bucks. I'm sure there are many more that I am forgetting or haven't yet discovered.

Food in quick fashion. BBQ. Mellow Mushroom. Willy's. Everybody's Pizza. Atkins Park. Wings at Famous. Edo.

Last but not least, the halfwit who chased us into Publix one night whilst burping uncon-fucking-trollably. Fear and amusement are emotions that you don't often experience at the same time, but I was both afraid of this fucking dude and still laughing at him while he ran after us into the grocery store. He then stood near the checkout while we were shopping, but vanished by the time we checked out.

2unica - Part 2: Poker is easy

2009-03-14T12:56:00.000-07:00

The next day we woke up and had breakfast at the cafe in Sam's Town. I absolutely murdered a ham, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich that came with tater tots. Stomachs full, we signed up for the 11am tournament. There were about 35 runners with 2K guaranteed in the prize pool.

The first hour I manage to win a fair number of pots and double my chip stack in the first hour. At the first break, Johnny is still hanging in while the Shoeshiner went busto. Just before we move down to 2 tables, I managed to take out a player when my AJ outflops his AK. Players keep dropping pretty quickly during the 2nd hour. I manage to chip up when my J6 beat a short stacks 44 on a j65j4 board. We get down to the final 10 and the very first hand I call and all in from a short stack with A6 hearts vs 44. The flop comes KQJ of hearts and I take out another player and am 2nd in chips. 3 more players go busto and we began to discuss a chop. Everyone is pretty agreeable. Me and another big stack take 400 and the other 4 got 300.

Afterwards, I sit down at a 3/6 table to grind out the 5 hours for the room rate. The session is eerily similar to the previous days' as I go up early and manage to piddle most of it away and then some in the next several hours. We took a break in there and hit the buffet before going back to more 3/6. After getting my hours I head down to hit up the let it ride table again.

I go down early in my 2nd session but get hot and am up close to 200 bucks before I decide to hit the pai gow table. I didn't last long at pai gow, as it was boring as hell and the table was empty except for me. I wander around the casino for a bit before catching up with Johnny and heading up to bed.

All in all, it was by far my best gambling trip as I ended up about 1500 bucks or so. I was left with a pretty positive impression of Sam's Town in Tunica. The locals seemed very friendly as well, which in my experience contrasts with Vegas or Atlantic City locals.

Lucky Lucky

2009-03-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

I took the Amtrak from Atlanta to Birmingham to meet a few friends on our way to Tunica, MS. The train ride was relaxing, but I think 4 hours at that pace is just about right. Anymore time on the train would have been a drag.

We took off for Tunica Saturday morning and arrived at Sam's Town about 1pm. After check-in we all took seats at a 3-6 hold'em game with seven other players, most of them were over 60. I started out hot and doubled my buy-in after a few hours, but managed to give all that back and more before quitting after 5 hours or so. We had an unspectacular dinner at one of the restuarants and I went to play some Let It Ride, while Johnny and The Shoeshiner watched. After a bit The Shoeshiner joined me. I lost most of my 100 buyin and went to the ATM to reload. I came back and bought in again. The dealer, whose nametag said 'Stocks', kept giving me shit about not playing the bonus bet. I told him it was a bad bet in the long run, and that it wouldn't be there if the house didn't make money on it. I got some dirty looks as everyone else at the table was playing the bonus bet.

Not long after explaining why I don't play the bonus bet, I decided to put my first one out there. That very hand I was dealt 2-4 of hearts which paid me 40-1 on my 5 dollar bonus. I get plenty of shit from the people at the table. The next hand, I shit you not, I get rolled up 10s. Trips paid 30-1 on the bonus, and the first card he flipped up was the case 10 paying me 50-1 on all five of my bets. Those 2 hands made me +1K for my session and I was in happy town. I took off for the bathroom a few minutes later and when I get back I learn that the guy immediately to my left was dealt rolled Qs. I'm pretty sure someone would have killed me if I was there for that hand. The Shoeshiner and I play for a good bit before Johnny meets us and we hit bed.

I can has mental problems

2009-02-12T21:32:00.000-08:00

Yep. The last few months have been a bit of a blur. My focus has been mostly sapped from me and I am experiencing various symptoms of fatigue and anxiety. I've started tossing back Ativan which seem to work ok, but lack the kick of a xanax. I'm still charging ahead in my work, and strangely enough, have been grinding out some profits on pokerstars lately. Shoot, I've even attained Silverstar status for the first time since I don't know when. I'm not sure how anxiety and lack of concentration translate into better decision making while playing 7 card stud, but that seems to be what happened. Luck was also on my side for a while with the SNGs. That seems to have turned as of late with bad beats leaving me out of the money in my last several SNGs. Hopefully, this is ample tuneup for my first trip to Tunica in a few weeks. Bedtime now.

Sign of the Times - Vegas Part II

2009-01-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

After lunch we headed back to the Planet Hollywood to kill some time before dinner. My girlfriend napped, while I took the time to get my PH players card and place a bet on the Packers (+4) over the Bears. It was an emotional bet, as I was hoping to see a Green Bay win meaning the Vikes clinching the NFC north. Despite it being and emotional wager, I figured the Pack would give them a tough game since it is a huge rivalry, plus I only bet 20 bucks.

After placing the bet, I again found myself playing video poker. I hit some good hands and cashed up about 50 bucks. I decided to try my luck at Pai Gow again, and lost my whole buy-in fairly quickly, but offset that loss with 4 or 5 budweisers. I was on a little bit of tilt because I hit up the ATM and dumped 60 bucks into a slot machine, polishing off another beer in the process. At this time, my girlfriend had texted me that she was shopping. I declined the invitation to join her, and kept on playing-dumping more money into the slot machine. Luckily, she made it back to the casino and we had a pre-dinner drink at the 'heart bar.' Our waitress had enormous tits and a pimp decked-out in red sat alone at a table nearby.

We caught a cab to McCormick and Schmick's for dinner. I had clam chowder and then salmon stuffed with spinach and brie. All around, everyone agreed the dinner was great. Over the course of dinner, I was sweating the football game. The Packers blew a lead, missed the winning FG, and the game went to overtime. We stuck around and had another drink at the bar and caught the end of the game. Bears kicked a FG in overtime-bittersweet, I won my bet, but the Pack didn't help the Vikes out.

We took a cab back to the PH and our driver complained that he had been working all day and we were only his 5th fare. I don't doubt it, Vegas seemed pretty much dead. The cabbie figured it was a combination of the time of the year/week and the crappy economy. We headed up to the room for a bit, and after my girlfriend decided to take it easy, I headed down to gamble a bit. I hit the casino floor and before I even knew it a dark-haired woman hopped out from a slot machine and asked me "are you looking to party?" I was kinda surprised by her approach and I politely declined. Over the course the next few hours, I saw a few other hooker/potential trick interactions. All obviously occurring right in plain view on the casino floor. In my previous trips to Vegas I have never seen hookers being so forward and out in the open. Maybe, it is a sign of the slow time of year and pisspoor economy. It affects everyone from the cabbies and hookers, all the way to the Billionaire's who got fucked over by Bernie Madoff.

I decided to play let it ride, a game that I had no experience playing in the casino. I played conservatively, but ended up hitting some huge hands as the next hour went on. I turned my 100 buyin into 350 or so and called it a night.

The Hustle - Vegas part I

2009-01-02T12:18:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Vegas about 1030pm local time after 3 hour flight which seemed more like 5 hours with the constant turbulence. I used my VIP card to bypass the slow-as-molasses rental car line and we were soon heading our way up Las Vegas Blvd. We valeted the car at Planet Hollywood and we were happy to see no line for check-in. I decided to attempt the '20 dollar trick' and see if we could get a room upgrade. The male clerk immediately pocketed the 20 bucks and set us up in a resort vista room. Predictably, the rooms at PH are themed after movies and our room theme was "The Long Kiss Goodnight" starring Samuel L Jackson and Geena Davis. The room was very nice with a King bed, 52" flat screen TV, his and hers vanity, large tub and separate shower and a view of the strip.

The whole process from getting off the plane to checking into the hotel was so efficient that I decided to go gamble for a bit. I sat down at one of the bars and played a bit of video poker ending up 40 bucks after hitting a straight flush. I cashed out and sat down at a pai gow table. I had a horrible time at this table. I didn't win a hand for about an hour, and after I won a few a few dealer rolled over everyone at the table and I left, losing most of my buyin.

My girlfriend and I got up in the morning and met her mom and sister at the Peppermill for breakfast/lunch. We decided to walk since it was such a nice day. As we were almost there, we were approached by a rough looking woman standing outside a CVS. She asked us if we had "3.75 for tampons." We were both so fucking flabergasted that we just kept on walking without saying anything. I think that woman needs a new hustle. We went inside the Peppermill and I absolutely destroyed an eggs benedict.

Wee!

2008-12-15T21:52:00.001-08:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

The WBCOOP is an online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers.

Registration code: 031036

The code above will look like the following:

Election Night

2008-11-06T18:56:00.001-08:00

Given how much emotional stake I had put in this election, I felt surprisingly calm on Tuesday day with the exception of the 5 o'clock hour. That is when the blogs became a-twitter with the rumored exit polling numbers. First, some demographic stats. Then gawker released a handful a battleground numbers that turned out to be incorrect. Drudge leaks +15 for Obama in PA....and then Gawker shows some updated results with much better margins for Obama. My girlfriend and I went to an election night get together at a bar in Virginia Highlands, but we left around 9pm because it was hard to follow the action on the TV at the bar. Not too long after we got home, they called OH for Obama and that was pretty much all she wrote. The rest of the night was spent texting and calling family and friends in celebration. I wish I could have mentally recorded the entire night in my head to play over when things aren't so rosy politically and otherwise. Now, we get to see if Obama can become the kind of president that all of us who voted for him, hopes and believes he can become. The night is something that I'll never forget, the sense of history is undeniable and there was several points in the night where I nearly broke into tears because of how monumental the occasion was. Who would have ever thought it would happen? The history notwithstanding, Obama has some serious work to do. The economy is in the shitter, we have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a lot of people are going to be waiting for him to fail. Ultimately, he will fail in some regards. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, but I think he has demonstrated the intelligence and demeanor to become a very successful leader. I hope i am right.

How can we lose?

2008-11-03T09:47:00.000-08:00

The wheels are coming off.

2008-10-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

Less than a week before election day, it is clear that the Republican party is about to implode. Several reports have indicated growing dissension in the McCain camp, especially around the choice and performance of his VP nominee. According to one source McCain has even began snubbing her on the campaign trail.

Robert Draper writes,
I’ve heard from one well-placed source that McCain has snubbed her on one long bus ride aboard the Straight Talk Express, to the embarrassment of those sitting nearby.

This sounds like the kind of working relationship you'd want to have between a President and his number two.

In any event, some of these events and others got me to thinking about the future of the Republican party, especially if they receive the beating some people are forecasting. Will it be a death blow or just a temporary lull. Speaking in the short-term, I would certainly expect the R's to bounce back to some extent during the 2010 midterm election. That just seems to be the nature of the beast, of course there are some exceptions. However, given the demographic changes that will be occur over the next few decades, the Republican party as we know it appears to be in serious trouble.
Courtesy of the US census bureau, this table shows the projected US population by race from 2000 to 2050. Given how voting typically shakes out by race, it's clear to see that the Republican base of today is going to get proportionally smaller. It would seem to me that the party is going to have to do something to appeal to a broader mix of races to have any chance of winning. And if this presidential campaign is any indicator, they are a long way from achieving that.

For future reference

2008-10-24T16:08:00.000-07:00

Here’s my 'Republican guide for how not to fake an assault in order stir up fear of blacks and scare people into voting against Barack Obama.'

1) Don't detail your immediate pre-assault activities on Twitter or Myspace in order to make the story more believable. It will look awfully suspicious to anyone with half a brain.

2) Don't scrawl perfectly formed letters on your own face while looking into the mirror. They will look backwards to others.

3) When making said letter on your own face, you might want to make it look a bit messy for that implies some sort of struggle.

4) Black eyes typically co-occur with some swelling. Thus, if you give yourself a fake black eye, you better be prepared to punch your own eyes to make them swell.

5) If the cops show up, you need to have ice water in your veins or otherwise they'll catch on. Don't act all weird and refuse medical treatment. The cops are not as stupid as you might think. They've seen it all. You might be able to fool the people at Fox News or knuckle-dragging right wing bloggers, but us bipeds will figure it out.

6) Don't stage it in front of a place that might have security cameras unless you are going to claim you were assualted by an invisible abberation.

You're committing voter fraud, no YOU are.

2008-10-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

"In this election, it's a choice between a candidate who won't disavow a group committing voter fraud, and a leader who won't tolerate voter fraud," Palin said.

Really? Well, today the Obama campaign called bullshit on this phony "voter fraud" issue being raised by the McCain camp. The first thing we need to realize about this issue is that there is a long history of voter suppression efforts (caging, misinformation, intimidation) on the part of the Republican Party. The reason is simple, if the Republicans can prevent certain groups of people from voting, namely the poor and minorities, they greatly improve their chances of winning elections. One way they have tried to prevent people's votes from counting has been to make spurious last-second voter fraud claims, which they are doing again. The Bush administration put immense pressure on various state U.S. attorney's to investigate these, and other, claims around the time of elections in November, presumably with the hopes of swaying the election. Some of the attorney's didn't bow to this pressure and therefore 9 of them were fired. These politically-motivated firings then led to an investigation, which then resulted in many of Bush's cronies in the DOJ being relieved of their duties including Alberto Gonzales (who couldn't remember his own fucking name during the investigations).

As the memo states, the DOJ has the responsiblity to consider the allegations of "voter fraud" being made in the context of what the Republican Party has been doing for years and in the context of the criminal firings of several U.S attorney's and the investigation that followed. Folks, I am not making this stuff up. The McCain camp is pulling out all the sleazeball tactics Bush and other Republicans have been using for years. However, this year will be different.

Ladies and Gentleman....Public Enemy Number 1!

2008-10-10T14:10:00.001-07:00

It's become almost sad to watch John McCain shed his last bit of dignity by going after Obama's "association" with Bill Ayers. Anyone with a few minutes can find out the truth about any of this. Obama served on an anti-poverty board for a few years with Ayers during the mid-90s. Ayers donated 200 bucks to his senate campaign and while the 2 appeared at a few public events together, there is no evidence of a close relationship. This whole thing becomes deliciously absurd when learning that the activities of this board were funded by Leonore Annenberg billionaire widow of Walter Annenberg, and John McCain supporter. By the same rationale used by the McCain/Palin campaign, she was not only "palling around" with a terrorist, she was funding them. Despite this, McCain was so freakin' happy about her endorsement that he made it public. This is all just a crock of shit of course, and it is starting to piss some of McCain's party members off enough for them to speak out on this. You wonder what the long-term effect of McCain's poorly run campaign and impending landslide loss will be on the Republican party. A good old landslide will have to make them re-assess just what their party stands for. You'd think the smart one's are going to realize that the party is going to be in shambles if they don't make significant changes. Of course, the religious right will vote for them no matter what, but that group is going to do nothing but shrink in terms their share of the USA's overall demographics. 30 years from now, the party better have figured out a way to appeal to a more diverse group or else they are fucked.

Goodbye Milwaukee

2008-10-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

Guess the email password

2008-09-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

moosebabe64
bancondoms69
godspipeline
futuregmilf
deadgibson22
ihrthannity
firemonegan

Conservatives for Obama

2008-09-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

Former editor of the National Review endorses Obama.

I know of a few friends who for various reasons, although none so eloquently put as Mr. Allison's, that have jumped ship on the Republican Party during this election and are now firmly in Obama's camp. I think deep down some conservatives are starting to realize that the Republican party is not conservative at all.

But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask.

McCain is anti democracy

2008-09-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

THIS JUST IN! John McCain campaign is attempting to prevent people from voting. This is just more of the same crap the GOP has been doing for decades. From the MJS:

McCain mailing draws complaints

The Wisconsin board that oversees elections is fielding complaints that Republican presidential nominee John McCain's campaign is sending out a mailing that includes an application for an absentee ballot - but in some cases the address is wrong.

Democrat Beverly Jambois of Middleton got one of the fliers addressed to her husband Robert, a lawyer for the state Transportation Department. They're registered to vote in Middleton, but the absentee ballot application was addressed to the Madison city clerk's office.

"They're trying to knock me off the rolls," she said. "I can't tell you how upsetting it is to me. This is how you win elections? By disenfranchising other voters?"

Kyle Richmond, a spokesman for the Government Accountability Board, said there have been 10 complaints in the past two days from those who got the McCain flier. The board's staff is investigating, he said.

Absentee ballots may only be used in the locality where the person is registered to vote, he said.

Mark Jefferson, executive director of the state Republican Party, denied there was any intent to prevent people from voting. The wrong absentee ballot applications were the result of incorrect information in databases used for the mailing, he said.

"You do the best with the lists you have, and no list is perfect," Jefferson said. "There is certainly no type of suppression effort going on."

He said the mailing was directed to hundreds of thousands of voters.

Local clerks now are processing absentee voting applications. The absentee ballots aren't sent until about four weeks before the election.

John McCain is a Liar

2008-09-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

The lies just never stop. The McCain camp is banking on the notion that Americans stay misinformed and that his lies go unchallenged. Thankfully, the press is standing up and calling bullshit. Hopefully, people realize that lies in the context of running a campaign is an indicator of how McCain will govern. We should all be scared shitless. Here are some highlights.

1) He routinely lies about Obama's tax cut proposal. Obama's plan calls for tax cuts for everyone except those making over 250k a year. FALSE!

2) He claimed that Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment was directed at his running mate. FALSE!

3) He approves a disgusting ad claiming Obama wants to teach "comprehensive sex-ed" to kindergartners. FALSE!

4) The McCain camp pants are on fire when they say that his VP nominee was against earmarks for "the bridge to nowhere." False! She was for it before she was against it.

Seriously, as Paul Krugman points out, these lies are so bad and so poorly cloaked that anyone can debunk them by doing a few minutes worth of research on the internet.

It's time to start questioning the integrity of a candidate that would engage in serial fibbing to gain the upper hand in the election. I don't care if he was a POW for 100 years, a man who demonstrates such a lack of integrity should not be president.

Oh boy!

2008-09-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

woeful.

McCain loves pedophiles

2008-09-10T08:02:00.000-07:00

McCain recycles an old smear on Obama with a creepy and despicable attack ad. Of course, the legislation in question was aimed to protect kids from pedophiles. Not something John McCain can get behind.

Empty Pant Suit?

2008-09-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

Politics are dominating my thinking right now, so politics are going to dominate this blog. It's amusing to me to watch the republicans try and tote Sarah Palin out on stage as someone who has the experience to be VP and potentially president at the same time as criticizing Obama on the experience issue. The irony is delic(ious)!

We've all heard the "Alaska is close to Russia" bit and the "she's commander of the Alaska National Guard" line as support for the idea that she has foreign policy experience and that she can lead troops into battle. I'm amazed that so many people have repeated this utterly ridiculous statement.

It's going to be interesting to see how the 'get-to-know Sarah Palin' story unfolds. The McCain camp is obviously shielding her from any scrutiny by not allowing any 1 on 1 interviews. You'd expect that she would be on the Sunday morning shows this week. She was not. There is one interview lined up with Charlie Gibson. It'll be interesting to see the kinds of questions he'll be allowed to ask and how she answers them. You can draw your own conclusions about why McCain is protecting her from the media, but it seems to me it is being done because they fear she's not prepared to answer questions that will be asked of her. She's already demonstrated ignorance regarding economic policy when she said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers" during a campaign rally in Colorado. This is obviously going to be a key economic issue for the next administration as it appears the government is going to have bail out these lenders. The fact that she didn't know they were privately owned companies should scare the bejeebus out of people. Eventually she's going to have to pay the piper, answer tough questions on the Sunday morning shows, and prove she has a clue. Let's sit back and watch.

Hockey Mom's, PhD's, and Change

2008-09-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

So, this whole political narrative about Sarah Palin being a tough "Hockey Mom" is such a fucking joke. I played hockey for 14 of the first 18 years of my life and as a whole the mom's were just like any other group of women. Many were like my mother who worked a full-time job, and some were stay at home mothers. Some were well off, others had less money. Some were religious, others less so. Some talked too much, others said too little. The same sort of description applies to hockey dad's as well. And for the life of me, I cannot think of one thing about watching their kids slap around a piece of vulcanized rubber that somehow makes them especially qualified to be President of United States. But, I guess you rely on these sort of sugar-coated stories and gimmicks when you are unable to run on the issues. You nominate a VP who, by any reasonable account, does not have the experience to act as President compared to any other of the candidates he was considering. For fuck's sake, she thinks oil pipelines and the war in Iraq are heaven sent. What kind of bat-shit crazy is this? Do people actually believe this crap?

It was equally hilarious to see the Republicans try to convince people that they are the party people should trust to "fix Washington." Somehow, I don't think that line will resonate very well when they have been in charge for pretty much all of the last 8 years. And while McCain said the word "change" about 50 times last night, he failed to into any specifics about what needs to be changed or who fucked it up.

Amidst all these political happenings, I managed to defend my dissertation this week am now officially Dr. Bossman.

Double Speak

2008-09-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

Probably the best thing I've seen in quite some time.

2008-08-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

***Warning: Heavy Political Content***

I have a sh*tload of person bias of course, but Barack Obama's speech was dead freakin' on last night. It was tough, inspirational, honest, and expertly delivered. He confronted the attacks that have been directed towards him in the last several weeks and threw it write back in the face of the McCain campaign. Now they have responded with an act of complete desperation by nominating the most inexperienced VP candidate ever (except for Stockdale, perhaps) as an attempt to gain the support of the mythical throngs of Hilary supporters who are supposedly on the fence. It funny because all these right-wing pundits who have been beating the 'Obama is not experienced enough' drum must feel like fools now. Not to be crude, but if McCain croaks while in office would you want someone at the helm who has been a mayor of a town of 6000 and Gov. of Alaska for 2 years. To top it all off, she's stridently pro-life, a creationist, and is stupid enough to believe that drilling for oil in ANWR will solve energy issues. AND! she has no idea what the job of the VP is. Seriously. I leave with some good humor from the Daily Show.

Faux-lympics

2008-08-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

I gotta say I've been watching more of the Olympics that I ever had planned to. The last several nights has seen me watching USA vs AUS in softball, USA vs VEN and ITA in men's volleyball. Fuck, I even watched part of a water polo match as the US got their assess handed to them by the team from Serbia. Who, I noticed, were all quite hirsute. I guess they don't have to shave to lessen the drag as they swim. Last night I watched gymnastics, more softball, and all sorts of swimming events.

The big story, of course, is Micheal Phelps' run at 8 gold medals. Yesterday, a story came out reporting what he eats on a typical day. His diet consists basically consists of eggs, cheese, and an assload of carbs. My favorite was his dinner which had 1 pound of pasta and an entire large pizza. He's living the life, man. World famous athlete who eats like an 800 pound man.

Another story is how China has engaged in some trickery in everthing from the opening ceremony to the ages of their gymnasts. The opening ceremony used cgi effects in place of real fireworks and, in Cyrano de Bergerac fashion, opted to trot out a "more attractive 7 year-old" to lip sync to the voice of the buck-toothed girl with the good pipes. It's some pretty sick shit that looks factors into the equation with girls that young. Fucking Jon Benet Zedong. It's the same crap when any young girl goes missing in the States. If she's blonde, white, attractive, and from an affluent family it takes center stage in the national news. If she's black, or poor. No one gives a fuck. No one remembers Alexis Patterson.....everyone knows Elizabeth Smart.

The Chinese also got busted for having an underage gymnast on their team. Clearly, she's not the only one. The whole team looked 12. Win at all costs baby. I remember watching the little league world series when I was a kid. Teams from Chinese Taipei pretty much dominated for 20 years or so. The kids on that team all looked like 18 year olds. They all had deep voices, acne, and "fur in places where the kids on the other teams had no fur." That's why it was such a big deal when Trumbell won in 89. The 12 and 13 year olds from Connecticut beat grown men with muscles, facial hair, and larger dongs!

That was our planet!

2008-08-14T11:35:00.000-07:00

Those goddamn dirty apes at pokerstars are up to it again with the 'battle of the planets' promotion. I have 4 SNGs left in this round of 20 and have an outside chance of finishing in the top 100. I have primarily been playing in the 6 max SNGs which only pay the top 2 spots and result in fewer points towards the promotion. The current leader of the 'Venus' (ha! rhymes with cleanest) division has over 600 points. That seems like a pretty sick total. I'd have to win half of my 6 max SNGs and place second in the others to achieve that total. It doesn't seem possible, but I suppose there is probably a little bit of strategy that goes into it. A good player would probably have a reasonable chance of making the leader board playing 6 max SNGs, but you'd have to go on an extreme heater to get over 500 points. It seems like a good strategy it to start off your blocks of 20 SNGs with 1 or 2 3-table tourneys would allow you to get a decent jump on the field if you were lucky enough to win 1 and place in the other. For some reason I've never done well with the 3 or 4 table SNGs, but if i wanna make a serious run at some 'free' cash, I might have to learn.

I just got done playing a SNG just now. I was getting beat around a bit the first few levels, but won a big pot with AK over AQ. Two hands later I had 88 and reraised a player in EP for most of his chips. He hems and haws in chat, calling me a donk, and typing that he had 88 and was folding it. Normally, I don't show, but I knew I could probably tilt the fucker so I showed my 8s. Sure enough next hand he donked off his chips-sadly, not to me. Funny thing is that he had a Phil Ivey pic for his avatar. I'm pretty sure his hero Phil Ivey would not have announced the hand he was going to fold his hand in the same breath as calling his opponent a donk. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure Phil Ivey has probably never played a 6 dollar SNG either.

Speaking of avatars, I'd like to change mine. I wonder if pokerstars will allow me to do it again. I originally had a picture of a 70s hockey goon named 'robert maplethorpe' who was apparently the inspiration for the 'ogie oglethorpe' character from the classic movie 'Slap Shot.' Right now I have a picture of a psychotic drunken cartoon mouse from a short-lived show that was on adult swim a few years ago. I need to think of a good one.

UPDATE: I just checked on stars. Do they allow you to change it all you want now? Seems like it.

Everyone's a scumbag.

2008-08-08T14:11:00.001-07:00

John Edwards just admitted to pulling a Newt Gingrich (i.e. cheating on wife who has cancer). Turns out Edwards was screwing some washed up party girl from the 80s and may or may not have sired a child with the woman. Not only that, his PAC had been funneling money to her shady video production company to the tune of 100k. So, he was taking money from all the people who admired his populist idea and giving it to his mistress. Wonderful. It's shit like this that turns the most idealistic person into a hardened cynic.

Maybe I expect too much of men like this. Politicians are granted extraordinary amounts of power, and it seems like very few of them can stay clean. If they don't end up fucking some staffer, they end up whacking off with some random dude in an airport bathroom. Or getting their pockets lined with kickbacks from fat Texas oilmen. Or get hummers from chubby chicks. Or choke on pretzels while watching scooby-doo reruns. Fuck em' all.

I don't really think this will have any effect on the election this year. Presumably Obama has kept it in his pants, and McCain should be running like the wind to avoid this issue (he cheated on and then divorced his first wife who had been crippled in a car accident). I guess we can be happy Edwards' campaign never went anywhere. I can't tell you how pissed I'd be if he had been the nominee and then this came out.

Tao of Poker's 5 yr tourney

2008-08-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

Last night I was able to play in the tourney commemorating 5 years of Tao of Poker. It was a 5 dollar buy-in, with a serious overlay. A free seat into a 5k event at the Borgata Poker Open. Sometimes the best things in life are free! My first table was pretty tight. I wasn't able to get much going and ended the first hour with only a few more chips than I began with. The second hour I started getting a few decent hands, but didn't get played with too much. I was around 3k in chips when I was bounced around tables a few times and ended up at the same table at Dr Pauly. Not too long after I was seated I was dealt A8 sooooted in the small blind. Pauly was 2 to my right and had pushed his last 1k or so into the pot. I decided to reraise to about 2.4k , in hopes of squeezing the big blind out of the pot and going heads up. The big blind paused for a bit, but eventually decided to call with KQoff. Flop came K 3 6, turn Q, river K and it was over. It was a pretty fun two hours. It's too bad more tourneys don't have a 5k overlay. Anyways, thanks to Dr. Pauly for setting this up and congrats to the dude who took it down. Hopefully, he puts the seat to good use.

Le Théâtre de l'Absurde

2008-08-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

Holy hell, this Brett Favre situation is mad and being in WI I get an closeup view of just how absurd this all is. I was watching TV Sunday evening as the local channels were giving us constant updates about where his chartered plane was and what time it was expected to land in Green Bay. The cameras where they to photograph him as he exited the plane and jumped in his Escalade. That night one story on the Journal Sentinal website stated that Favre will be competing for the starting job in GB, while another on the same freakin' site concluded that he is likely to get traded to MN.

They were all over Lambeau field yestersay like flies on shit waiting to catch a press conference that never happened because Favre and McCarthy's meeting went into the wee hours. There was rampant speculation last night as we learned that the 2 were still meeting. Does this mean Brett's the starter? Maybe they're talking about a trade? Maybe they were licking each others knobs? I swear, I am amazed the field reporters don't snap. I'm fully expecting one of them to go off and tell Tom Pipines he can shove this microphone up his ass.

The other side of the coin is the reactions of Vikings fans, of which I am one. There are two factions of fans; those who think Favre holds to the key to a Superbowl, and those who hate his guts because he was the leader of the mortal enemy for 15 years. If anything, I fit into the former group. I think the Vikes would have a better chance of winning if he were the QB. Good enough for me. I've always kind of admired Favre, except when he was in direct competition with the Vikes. The other group of fans would go nuts if the Vikes got Favre and would probably murder their friends, families, and coworkers with their bare hands.

However it all ends, at this point I don't care. I think the best ending would be for him stay in GB, beat out Rodgers for the starting job, and then decide to quit 1 day before the first game. I can only hope.

Random dump

2008-08-01T14:10:00.001-07:00

My time here in Milwaukee is coming to an end. Soon I will be moving to Atlanta with my GF to start a new job. I'm pretty excited although I think I will miss many things about MKE. Change is good though, complacency bad.

Rock icon Paul Westerberg just released an internet only album that costs $0.49. You can buy it here. When I was buying it, I thought about how funny it would be it that 49 cent charge from paypal would make me over drawn on my bank account. Sadly, it's possible. In any event, the album is great. It is a bunch of songs and random tidbits, but you can only download it as one file. The idea, I suppose, is to encourage listening to the whole record rather than playing a few songs over and over while ignoring the others. I like the idea, but it only works if the whole things is worth listening to. It is.

Ok. This is one of the most exciting things (sad, I know) that has happened in a while. It took me over a year, but I finally beat 'The 100' on desktop tower defense and I was able to capture the moment with a perfectly executed screenshot. If you haven't played it before. I'll tell you it is the most addicting game you'll ever play. Anyway, now I don't really play it anymore b/c I've mastered it. Maybe they will come out with an updated version soon.

Vegas - Day 2

2008-07-23T22:35:00.000-07:00

I did ok our first day in Vegas, but I woke up with the worst headache I've had in years. Punishment for making a few bucks......or maybe it was the shitty beers I had at the end of the previous night. I gobbled up some Ibuprofen and by the time I was showered I felt pretty good. We opted for breakfast at the Teahouse in IP. I've been there 6 or so times and I think I've had eggs benedict each time. Yummy. Although it's pretty sad that this was the best meal I had in Vegas this trip.

We all jumped in a 2/4 game at the IP after breakfast. The plan was to play this for awhile and then play the noon tourney. I don't remember much from this session, besides the fact that I had to excuse myself and drop a giant turd at some point. The "tourney" at IP was pretty lame, although it probably fit my style fairly well. We had about 20 runners and the structure was pretty quick. I busted on the last hand before the break when I reraised all in with 57 of diamonds on a 6d 8s jd flop. A dude called me with J2 after tanking for a bit. I missed my outs and I was back in the 2/4 game. We all played in that for several hours and I managed to drop over 100 bucks. It was good times though and we left to have dinner at the Victorian Room at Bill's. I had nachos (shared) and a ceasar salad. The salad was the most disgusting thing I've seen in a while. It was basically iceberg lettuce floating in 12 ounces of dressing.

We returned to the Flamingo, but I was seated at a table by myself. The table was the most passive, calling station filled game I've ever played at. Probably 8 players saw a flop on average. I was the one who didn't see it most of the time. I was never able to get anything going and I cashed out down 40 bucks or so. Before I did I got to hear the dude next to me say some pretty weird things to the awesome waitress (she brought me 5 budweisers in a few hours). The best was "too bad you're married, I would like to take you home and shave your legs."
I went back to Bill's and played some pai gow. I lost a few bets before johnny and shoeshiner showed up. We played for a while and then called it a night. All in all, I did pretty shitty on Day 2. Pretty much lost anything I played, but I never went on crazy tilt trying to get my money back on dollar slots or from a spin of the roulette wheel. It was a pretty uneventful end to an uneventful trip. I still haven't been able to get the monkey off my back and book a nice win in Vegas. Maybe my 5th trip (TBD) will be the one.

Vegas - Day 1

2008-07-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

The flight from MKE to LAS was uneventful. Despite the fact that the flight was nearly full, I lucked out and the seat next to mine was empty. I was able to do a bit of work and then watch Dr. Strangelove on the laptop. Great movie. I arrived the same time as Johnny and we decided to have a shitty breakfast at some airport restaurant while waiting for the Shoeshiner. The juevos rancheros was to puke for, but we did catch a glimpse of Ervin Johnson while he was eating with his family. Not Magic, but the spazzy center who played for the Bucks and some other teams. I also swear Big Pussy from the Sopranos was there, but Johnny didn't think it was him.

The Shoeshiner arrived a short time later and we were on our way to Bill's. The rooms at Bill were a really good value at 49.99/night. It was decent sized, had a nice big 42" flat screen and was clean. We did waste much time and went to work stopping at the Flamingo poker room. We were all 3 seated at the same table immediately. An older Chinese man sat to my right and while he played okay, the dude had the hardest time staying awake.....at noon. One second he would be talking or drinking some coffee and then his head would be nodded down with his cards just sitting there. Apparently, it was my duty to take care of him because I had to rouse him no less than 3 times. He eventually left. Overall, it was a very beatable table, and I left up about 90 bucks when we cashed out despite losing a monster pot with a baby flush my final hand.

We ate at some shitty cafe in the Flamingo and went to the IP. There was no 2/4 game going, so we donked around at Pai Gow for a little while before making our way up to the Sahara for their 7pm tourney.

I completely treaded water in the tourney before raising all in with 78 suited and getting called by a limper with KJ off. I lost the hand and went and played $5 Mini Pai Gow while pounding Miller Lite's and smoking cigs. I play for a couple hours and then went back to the poker room where Johnny was at a 2/4 game and the Shoeshiner was busy getting 10th in the tourney for a small score. I took a seat at the 2/4 game and end up about 10 bets before we decide to leave. We headed back to Bill's to close out the night with some Pai Gow. We were all doing ok until they changed dealers and the dude beat us into submission with several huge hands in a row. We crashed around 3am despite my drunken threats to order a 6 pack and a pizza.

Las Vegas

2008-07-12T14:06:00.000-07:00

Here I come for my 4th visit. I can already feel the excitement in anticipation of my arrival. 2 full days of poker, pai gow, booze, and very little sleep. On each of my previous 3 trips I have walked away a modest loser, but this time I feel my luck will change. No more getting aces cracked by queens. No more weak play in the latter stages of tournements. No dollar slot machines. No 20 dollar trick at the dumpiest hotel on the strip! No blackjack with Madonna or Elvis impersonators! Win, dammit!

Minny Win

2008-07-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

I spent the 4th of July at the lakes with some family. The next day my dad and I hit up a $100 dollar tourney at the Shooting Star Casino on the White Earth Indian Reservation. The turnout was very low (14 runners) as we got started around 2pm. My dad and I get seated at the same table. The play was pretty weak for the first few levels - lots of limping and calling of small raises from poor position. A good table to be at. I win a decent number of chips during the 2nd level with a baby flush, but lose most of it when I lost with pocket jacks on consecutive hands. I am down to around 3k (started with 5k) after the first hour. Pops had about 6k or so. I upped the aggression during the 2nd hour. The table was still pretty passive and I was able to collect the blinds and bets of some limpers by moving in with AK and pocket 10s. At some point we got down to the final 10 and I had about 10k in chips and my dad was still hanging in with 7k. The top 3 paid.

I take out a short stacked older gentleman when my AA dominates his 78 offsuit. One time cheap leader totally donks off his stack in less that 1 orbit and I ended his misery when my AK beats his Q10. We were down to 6 and I was sitting pretty good with 18k in chips. My dad was on life support and went to battle against another shorty. My dad had QQ and he was against AJ. The flop came J high, turn rag, river A. Pretty sick beat for pops, especially since I had folded a weak ace. An older woman went out 5th when she called a reraise with QJ offsuit. When we got down to 4, we agreed that the bubble boy would get his money back. The other 3 guys were pretty solid and the chip leader was winning alot of pots uncontested. I was down to about 16k with blinds at 1/2k. I raised to 8k from the button with KJ offsuit and the small blind tanks for a few minutes. I figure him for a small pair or maybe AJ/A10. He decides to push and he had me covered by a few thousand chips. I was pretty much committed here and made the call. He shows QQ, but I get lucky when a King pops up on the flop and no queen is dealt. A few hands later and we decide to chop it up. After tipping the dealers I get out of there with 400 bucks. I've only played in maybe a half dozen live tourney's-and this one was pretty small, but it felt pretty good to go home a winner. Hopefully, this is a good omen for my 2 day donk-trip to Vegas starting this Sunday.

Also, best of luck to Iggy who is grinding away in Day 3 of the Main Event as I write this.

To home and back in pictures.

2008-07-09T11:31:00.000-07:00

small car

rain storm

heart attack

bf orange moose

lunch

entering mn

metrodome

driving into the sun

100K

small car 2 - almost home

back to WI - stuck in traffic

the way back - storm 1

racing the storm - east of madison

Sunkist Fleishmann

2008-06-26T22:01:00.000-07:00

Reporting FAIL!

So, McHale goes off again and trade OJ Mayo for a couple of white dudes. For fucksake, I actually felt good for one second about the Wolves drafting Mayo and then this happens. I guess I can go back to ignoring the team. Seriously, I am just not excited to see fucking Kevin Love shoot 15 footers or to have Mike Miller leave grease stains on the Target Center floor.

Moving on to a Minnesota team that does not suck, the Twins have run off 9 wins in a row and are only 1/2 game out of first in the central. Hopefully, they continue their shallacking of NL teams this weekend against MKE. It's a funny game. They trade the best pitcher on the planet in the off season, lose an all-star CF to free agency, and get the short end of the deal (so far) with the Garza for Young trade, and the Twins are BETTER in '08 than they were last year. Go figure. It remains to be seen if the Twins can keep this up, but they'll be serious contenders in a few year if everything stays together like it should.

RIP George

2008-06-23T14:43:00.001-07:00

My first exposure to George Carlin was from a cassette of 'Playing with my head' that my brother bought and I ended up in possession of when I was 13 or so. I think I can still recite most of the lines from that recording. The stuff about sports, saying goodbye, 5 2's, etc. Shit, the other night I described Lacrosse as a "faggot college activity" during the course of some drunken conversation. Lines from that one stand-up album found a permanent place in my vocabulary.

Back in '98 or so, a friend and I made it up an Indian casino where Carlin was doing a show. He opened the show by saying "they say that Indians name their kids after the first thing they see when coming out of the womb...it makes you wonder why there aren't more kids named big wet hairy pussy." This actually drew boos from the crowd, and then Carlin snapped back "if you don't know that I'm on your side by now, fuck off." I was in stitches, the rest of the show was great. Carlin had such a unique ability of making poignant political and philosophical commentary on a vast array of subjects from religion to language. But then in a matter of minutes the show would change gears and he'd be making funny faces and contorting his body like a monkey. His physical humor almost made me piss myself on more that one occasion. Those shows from the 70s and 80s were pure genius. You'll be missed George.

I almost dropped a turd in the shower this morning by accident

2008-06-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

I found a little Java program that allows you to play various table games like Let it Ride, Pai Gow, Caribbean Poker, etc. It is good "practice" for my upcoming Vegas trip, but I only now realize how boring these games are if you strip away the friends, free drinks from scantily clad females, and overall atmosphere of excitement Vegas brings. I guess in some ways you can say this about online vs live poker too. Live poker is much more captivating. Instead of laying around like a fat slob on you couch playing 2/4 stud against a dude from Moscow with an Ivan Drago pic for an avatar, you are elbow to elbow with degenerates, douchebags, and people there to have a good time. I enjoy the latter the most, but remember the former the best.

In preparation for the trip I removed a paltry sum of money from pokerstars to buttress my bankroll for the trip. I would be worried about funding this one, but I will be there less than 48 hours, so I can't do too much damage. Right? After last Christmas' nightmare at the IP, I will be staying at the equally inexpensive Bill's Gambling Hall (formerly known as the Barbary Coast). Just in time for our trip, Bill's now has a poker room that has 2 tables which run a $1 NL game, and I think, a spread limit game. Sounds like it might make for some good late night donkey poker.

I am not going there with any particular expectations about winning large sums of money playing live poker. I hardly have time to play online anymore, let alone play live games, but this will not deter me from having a gay old time.

Original Gangster

2008-06-08T21:35:00.000-07:00

Back around '97 or '98 I started my first personal webpage. There were record reviews, links to popular music sites, lame attempts at humor, and book reviews. It was called Exit 104 and it was hosted for free on angelfire.com. It lasted into 2001, but I quit adding content and now there is no trace of the website that I can find. I still have all the html and associated files. I should throw some up here when i get horribly desperate for content.

I once reviewed John Cheever's 'The Wapshot Chronicles.' I was way ahead of the game reviewing a book that had been published 40 years or so prior. I might has well reviewed something from James Joyce or Shakespeare.

I reviewed records from Blur, Boss Hog, Radiohead, and countless others. A big part of the website revolved around incorporating some of the photos I took of desolate scenes in North Dakota. Farms with dilapidated barns, dogs, crosses in the middle of a wheat field, anti-abortion billboards.

In some ways it was a blog before there were blogs, at least as much as I was familiar with the term. Fuck, I could have taken advantage of the whole blogger movement if I hadn't lacked talent, vision, or motivation. It's amazing how seemingly the simplest ideas have turned to www.gold.

2008-05-27T21:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like Doogie Houser sitting here typing into what is little more that a journal that no one reads. Doog's words were more elegant, no doubt, so what this really is is (see) Vinny's journal. Happy reading.

I have very little to report on in my personal poker journey. I still play a bit every few days, but have not won or lost any significant amount of cash for several months now. I hastily played in that 5000 FPP freeroll on pokerstars this last weekend. I played terrible and was bounced in the first hour.

I have made plans for Vegas trip number four in July. This time home base will be Bill's Gambling Hall (and Saloon) with the same cast of characters from last summer's trip. My goal for the trip is simple. Win. I figure I am due. I have lost money on the first 3 trips, so I have to win this time. Right?

Work has been a grind lately, but I have still been able to keep my wits about me despite working 70+ hours/week for the past several months. By the end of the summer I will have my doctorate degree and will be working at Emory. Fuck me I hate the heat. I will miss a lot about Milwaukee, but we are gypsy's and we must go on to the next adventure.

Better living through science

2008-05-07T23:37:00.000-07:00

I once got in an argument about toilets with my dad. We were watching some program about environmentalism and the topic of mandated low flush toilets came up. He was adamantly opposed to the idea, and I suddenly knew things about my dad that were never intended. Namely, that he clogs toilets quite easily. The toilet at my parents’ home is a 70’s model which probably uses 7 or 8 gallons of water per flush, but clogs pretty easily. The talk of toilets that use 1.6 gallon per flush on the TV must have triggered an alarm in my dad’s head and lead him to think that these were 4 or 5 times more likely to get bunged up. Now, my father is quite smart, probably more intelligent than you or I, but he must have been burned badly by toilets in his life to take this irrational stance.

I too have felt the bite of poor quality toilets. Just this summer I made a midday visit to the bathroom at the Imperial Palace, and after doing my business I noticed the toilet didn’t totally flush. I call it a ‘hanging chad.’ I should have just left well enough alone, but I decided to go for the kill and I flushed again. Before I could buckle up, that thing overflowed and I had to hightail it out of there.

The toilets were I work are marvels of modern engineering. 1.6 gallon per flush and they never get clogged, even on the worst of days. People have waged war on those things, but nobody has ever defeated those monsters. The best you might hope for is a bit of toilet paper left after the first flush. You could easily flush a small child down one of these things. And these fuckers fight back. The flushing is so rigorous that it squirts back water. Like a bedee with attitude. You’ll get done, stand up and flush, and then you get doused with a bit of dirty-ass toilet butt juice.

How to get lost in Canada when you're dead.

2008-05-06T22:41:00.000-07:00

I've always had a certain admiration for our neighbor's to the north. Some of this, I suppose. is a natural effect of growing up in northern Minnesota and playing hockey-their national sport. I also hold in high esteem the idealism of socialized medicine, the quirky comedians, safe cities, bilingualism, mounted police, cold climate, strong beer.

My GF and I found ourselves in Toronto, Ont (sensitive business) a few weeks ago. We went from MKE to DTW to whatever the fuck the code is for Toronto-Pearson. Filled out those silly customs cards. Made it through customs. "What are you here for?" We are here to assassinate your PM. "ok, have fun."

We hopped into the first available cab. Bags in check, we were ready to depart. "156 Richmond west, please." Newly minted Arab cab driver fumbles with his GPS for a few minutes and leaves without getting the GPS to link up. He heads toward downtown, manages to get off on an exit not too far from our hotel, but then his fucking head exploded. Calls dispatch, and I manage to understand only bits and pieces of what he says. We make it to the correct street, but he has no idea whether to make a left or right. He chose right, I was fairly sure that was the proper direction. He's not. At a stoplight he suddenly jumps out of the cab and accosts to poor lady behind us. Friendly as ever (from Manitoba, perhaps!), she tells him where our hotel is......the downtown Hilton is always so hard to find.

Beers and wings at the hotel bar made it better for that night. Beds were comfortable, but the next few days and ultimate result were forgettable. We were back stateside in a few days-via DTW (they have a nice sushi bar in the airport!).

If this is it

2008-04-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

Pokerstars new SNG promotion looks pretty cool (commence shilling) despite the fact that they called it 'battle of the planets'. If I had been paying attention to it last week I might have had a reasonable shot of placing on the leaderboard for the 15 dollar level. In the 5 SNGs I played in the last week I finished 1st once and 2nd in the other four. This helped bump up my rather meager bankroll. If I wasn't so g'damn busy working (14 hour days rule!), I'd be all over the SNG shit. I still would like to get back playing more, but now is not the time.

Watching some game 7 action tonight with the Habs vs Bruins while eating a big burrito (and playing a SNG). Habs are up 3-0 now. All other things being equal, I tend to cheer for the Canadian teams (except for Ottawa). Pittsburgh absolutely killed them, and if their goaltending can hold up, they could a long way with Malkin and Crosby up front. I am picking the Pens and the Sharks in the final, although the Sharks will be out if they can't win game 7 at home tomorrow.

I could give 2 shits about the NBA playoffs. With the crooked ref scandal, that whore David Stern, and the T-wolves sucking, I don't have any interest.

I don't think the Twins will amount to much this year, but they could be very good in a few years if guys like Gomez and Young develop well, some of their top-notch pitching prospects pan out, and if Mauer, Morneau, and Cuddyer can maintain their productivity/health. Lots of if, but I am pretty excited about the future of the Twins. Johan who?

Stuck

2008-04-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

I sent off my taxes on Monday and had to pay in about $1600 to the IRS and another little chunk to the state of Wisconsin. 'Tis what happens when you don't have any income taxes withheld for the entire year. I suppose I could go off on one of these anti-government tirades, but I guess it's kind of hard since my salary over the last 4 years has been taken care of with taxpayer money via the department of health and human services (i.e. the government).

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Let's recap this weeks' poker blogger drama. One blogger is criticized by some other bloggers because said blogger was on the receiving end of a good deal from another blogger which included a seat to some 'tournament of champions.' Turns out that blogger couldn't play in the TOC because it's Saturday and he's Jewish. I wish I could make shit like this up. This blogger (me) thinks the big stink about this is silly. It's a fucking poker tournament, unless otherwise stated in the rules people can chop the prize pool however they want. I guess I don't understand the gripe. Apparently, some people think a deal like this should have been brokered under the auspices of some unspoken "old school" poker blogger ethos.

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Idea totally stolen from Pauly, but whatever.

Funny Google referrals:

1) How do you say donkey in sign language?
2) Tranny hookers in vegas
3) Noah Boeken gay
4) garbage quote
5) pictures of garbage in east st. louis

This is not an exit

2008-04-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

"There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there." -Patrick Bateman, American Psycho

I dropped a couple comments over at Stb's blog about on one of his posts about the poker blogger 'circles of hell.' I might have pissed him off a tad when I said that he appeared to be contradicting himself from previous posts and that I didn't really understand the point of the exercise. I think I "get it" a little more after reading some other people's comments, but I'll never truly get it. I have never made any effort to be a part of any group(s) that exists within the poker blogger social stratum. I very rarely take part in any of the blogger tournaments, I have never felt the need to join a bunch of bloggers in a weekend of drunken debauchery (not that I don't enjoy this), and I am only vaguely familiar with most of the goings on of the poker blogger world. This says very little about the average poker blogger, and much more about me as a person and the situation I am in.

In general, I don't feel as comfortable being part of a group as I am observing a social situation. I'm not sure when this developed or if I was born with it, but I remember these feelings when I was very young. I never had very many friends growing up, but always got along well with others and was generally happy. In school I was a bit of a clown, a smart ass, average student K-12, but still without more than a few good friends. I think I went to 2 parties in high school, might have had a few dates, but spent most of my time with a few close friends.

When I played hockey as a kid, I never identified myself as a hockey player, even though nearly every team I was on from age 10 to 18 was wildly successful-winning 3 state championships, 5 regions, and 2 of the largest youth-age international hockey tournaments in North America. When I graduated high school I turned away the opportunity to play college hockey and instead became an anonymous 'over-achieving college student' and punk rock music enthusiast. These things are still part of me today, I love the music, but I was never a true 'punk rocker.' I didn't care for the drama a small social scene brings, and I didn't believe in the idea of placing tattoos on my body as a way to let people know I enjoyed this particular band or subscribed to a certain lifestyle.

As a junior and senior in college I lived by myself in an apartment in a majestic early 20th century home. Except for the classes I pretty much shut myself off from college life. I spent hours reading books; Slim, Burroughs, Bukowski, DeLillo, Ellis, Kerouac, etc. I adopted a minimalist lifestyle with no decorations in my apartment, and only a thrift store couch and small TV in my living room. I ate very modest meals, exercised regularly, and started smoking cigarettes. All of which caused me to lose quite a bit of weight. I dyed my hair black. Thinking back, I probably got out of the life of solitude at the right time. I was likely headed for some sort of psychological meltdown.

I started playing poker about 5 years ago right around the poker boom when a friend and I both were watching the WSOP coverage, and we started playing in some bar league poker in Milwaukee. Not long after that I was playing poker online and was able to build up a decent bankroll playing low limits. I began blogging a matter of months later mostly as a journal of sorts, but also to get in on some of the blogger promotions pokerstars was running. I've never been able to achieve anything more than mediocre success playing poker, and the last few years I have played sparingly. Within a few years poker will most likely disappear from my life.

I look back at the last 15 years I wonder if I am missing something-an identity or a true self. Some psychologists stress the development of an identity in order to progress on to the next stage of life. I think that's pretty much bullshit. There is no true "self" and there is no choice and no self-control. People have a hard time swallowing this fact, after all human beings can think, and our thoughts lead to actions. This is often mistaken as free will, but it's illusory, we don't control our own thoughts.

aim it cout.

2008-03-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

Probably the best fucking thing I've seen in a long time. I mean a long time. In the summer of 2002 or 2003 I was able to catch Radiohead play at Alpine Valley. I made the short drive down to east troy. We parked our car and walked by some dudes listening to the Replacements in the back of an old Ford.

We made our way in and listened as Stephen Malkmus opened. Radiohead came on as dark had descended. I first got into Radiohead via a friend in high school who turned me to Pablo Honey. The Bends. Then OK Computer came out and the band became legends. That night was crisp; we made our way to the beer stand. I almost fell on the way back later. The show began. What followed was as close to a religious experience I have had since I no longer believed in god. Karma Police. Fake Plastic Trees. Idioteque. Paranoid Android. We got in with the guys ripping bingers. No Surprise. How to Disappear Completely.

I urinated in plain view of passing cars as we were trying to get out of parking. Even got some catcalls from doped up hussy's going back to Beaver Dam in their parents Pontiac's. We passed by the dudes listening to the Replacements again.

sophisticated fat ass/when the levee breaks.

2008-03-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

I just got done making some little pizza's made with Na'an bread from Trader Joe's and fresh mozzarella and pepperoni from Sendik's deli. There were quite delectable, especially when accompanied by some Mendocino Summer Ale (3 bucks a 6 pack-thank you very much).

They are predicting ANOTHER winter storm for us this Thursday after receiving a foot of snow last Friday and nearly 100 inches for the season.

This still doesn't top the winter of 96-97 when I was an undergrad at the University of North Dakota. We had around 100-120 inches of snow, but most problematic was the ice storm followed by the 15 inches we received in April around the time the Red River was scheduled to crest. The result of all of this was one of the worst floods in the history of our country and at the time the largest evacuation in the history of the US until Katrina in 2005. I lived in a basement apartment with my brother and his dog. After spending some time helping sandbag that day, we learned in the wee hours that there was a levee breach and that the entire city was under mandatory evacuation. It as a surreal scene. We gathered what we could, and headed down to our parents home. On the way there we listened to Desi Cortez on KOA out of Denver. Late at night in North Dakota you can get radio stations from Denver to St. Louis to Chicago and points in between.

The next day, several blocks of downtown Grand Forks went up in flames. There was little that could be done because the streets were flooded. I remember watching it unfold from Ralph's Corner Bar.

The early days after the evacuation I would also call our apartment every day. One of those days the phone started giving the busy tone. That was probably the day our apartment filled up with water. We weren't allowed back into the city for several weeks, but when we got back we saw utter devastation. The whole city stunk to high hell and home upon home was wrecked. Dirt lines marked where the water had risen-in some cases there was no line at all and the houses were swept off their foundations. The city eventually got back on it's feet. Houses and schools were rebuilt and the dikes were made stronger than ever. I go back every now and again.

mad memories

2008-03-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

This is Neela. She is trying to fight off a urinary tract infection today. She is finally laying down in bed now after trying to urinate god know how many times today-mostly shooting blanks. We gave her a couple doses of antibiotics after her trip to the vet. Hopefully those do the trick and she is peeing happily soon.

March madness starts tomorrow. I have no real rooting interest this year as neither UW-Milwaukee nor Minnesota made it to the tourney. UWM has fallen on hard times after having pretty damn good teams from 03'-06.' I totally embarrassed myself at an unnamed bar in downtown Milwaukee in '03 as the Panthers nearly upset Notre Dame (damn you Dylan Page for missing that last second put back). I nearly jumped out of my seat as Clay Tucker kept making big plays, and cursed and kicked a wall when they lost at the last second.

In '05 the Panthers stunned Alabama in the first round game that fell on St. Patrick's day. Even though the game started around 11am on a Thursday, the bar was full of drunk retards. McCants kept nailing 3's and Tigert literally did not miss a shot. The next round UWM upset Boston College who had been ranked No. 1 earlier in the year. Their tenacious defense flustered BC-and who could forget Joah Tucker's 3 point play to seal it? The next round they lost to eventual runners-up Illinois, despite Joah Tucker scoring at will and keeping them in the game until the last 10 minutes of so. Good shit.

In '06 they upset Oklahoma the first round, but lost to eventual champs Florida in the second round. I watched the Florida game at home after attending a protest/march against the Iraq war. It was the 3 year mark that day. It's 5 years now. Bush thinks we're better off. I think Bush is a fucking retarded monkey

Falling asleep/southerplayalisticadillacmuzik

2008-03-15T20:00:00.001-07:00

Last night was a first for me. I zonked out while playing a SNG around midnight. I didn't realize my goof until I opened my laptop back up today and noticed the clock was on me. To the best of my recollection, I remember the table had about 7 people left. Amazingly, I bubbled out.

I was in Atlanta for another top secret interview this week, this time with my GF. Could happen. The potential place of employment seems like an excellent opportunity and I really dig Coca-Cola, Republicans, and peaches. I never saw myself in a southern state, but it wouldn't be forever. Would probably do the old "in-out, in-out."

Too good. The entry about graduate school is spot-fucking-on.

Might even be better. Turkey sausage. Totally a staple of my diet.

I seem to fit both categories quite well. Shit, there's no Asian equivalent, but there should be. I can already think of about a dozen easy ones.

Eliot Spitzer looks just like my high school hockey coach. He was a philandering dink too. Weird. Shiny is bald.

You're the one

2008-03-07T14:44:00.000-08:00

Slow going in the blog department lately, which of course means things have been crazy otherwise. I was in NYC for about 24 hours early this week for a job interview. I will skip most of the details of that trip so as not to blow my cover (you see, I was there on sensitive business). The flights were good enough despite the fact that 3 or the 4 legs of the trip were in small puddle jumpers barely bigger than a Hummer. I stayed my one night at a hotel that had rubber ducky, which I really wanted to steal, but didn't. Leaving LaGaurdia I had the misfortune of spending a few hours waiting in the 'A' gate area. Don't ever think you'll get anything approaching edible after you go through security here. I ordered a pre-made eggplant sandwich that had mozzarella and tomatoes on it. The eggplant had a grayish tint to it, and the mozzarella was rubbery and had zero flavor. The whole thing was so disgusting I couldn't even bring myself to eat the bread.

On my way to NYC I had a beer at a sports bar in Cleveland that had pictures of mid 1990s football players all over. Randall Cunningham. Jim Druckenmueller? Scott Mitchell. Steve Young. Reggie White. etc. Most of them were decent players at one time, but Jim Druckenmueller? wtf?

I haven't had a ton of time to get much poker in. The end of February was so busy I didn't even get a chance to maintain my Silverstar status on pokerstars. I have played a bit the past few days with mixed results. I went on mini-tilt last night after getting 2 outered in my SNG and losing most of a buyin at a 7CS and limit hold em table. I made it all back when I jumped up to a higher 7CS table and doubled my buyin in 30 minutes. Hit and run.

7 card cud

2008-02-19T22:57:00.000-08:00

This is (or was) a poker blog and somehow I can't even find the inspiration to blog in a timely fashion when I have noteworthy poker exploits to blog about. Saturday found me shirking my scholarly duties and instead playing in a 5 dollar 7CS tourney around the same time as 'Saturdays with Dr. Pauly' 10+1 PLO tourney. In the PLO I started out at the same table as the host himself, Joe Speaker, and 7 other chaps. I made a rather poor showing (not even sure I won contested pot) and was bounced some time within the first hour.

This gave me more time to focus on the 7CS tourney that was already into the second hour. When we got down around the bubble I got seated at the same table as the Rooster, who had managed to amass a good amount of chips. Not much noteworthy happened as people continued to drop until we were down to the final table bubble. Being the chip leader, The Rooster went to work on our table and raised most pots. I managed to stay about even until we made it to the final table and even managed to chide the Rooster a bit (told him I thought his avatar was a chicken). Of course I lost most of my stack to him when I had (99)10x10 and he rivered me with some shit I don't remember. I ended up going out in 5th for about 30 bucks.

Adventures in cooking

2008-02-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

It looks like I've fallen off the bloggin' wagon-or maybe it's falling on the wagon. I don't know. Work has been so goddamn stressful I almost went postal yesterday. One of the things that keeps me grounded is my love of trying to cook food, which often becomes a horrible adventure.

Exhibit A.
I decided to make some sort of chocolate cookies despite not having really any ingredients to make a proper batch. These doozies had several packets of swiss miss cocoa, maybe an egg or 2, baking soda, and what looks like powdered sugar on top of them. I am fairly certain this "recipe" was concocted after severe sleep deprivation and a few too many glasses of wine.

What was sorely lacking in this endeavor was any ingredient that would make this mess a cookie, namely flour or sugar. The result (pictured below) was some sort of awful smelling (think out-of-control tire fire) glob of shit that nearly spilled out of the cookie sheet I placed the "dough" on.
This looks like a 2 week old pan of brownies with bird droppings on it, only it tasted worse. I sampled a bit of it and then promptly tossed it in the trash.

Fortunately I redeemed myself with these sweet treats, which were derived from pre-made store brand dough that came in cubes and cooked quite nicely. And they tasted good to boot!

We are f*cked

2008-02-05T14:59:00.000-08:00

Quite the little snow storm is descending onto Milwaukee. This one might packin' 20 inches locally (if you know what I mean).

If the storm actually does dump that much snow on us, it might be the largest storm I've been through-and I grew up in northern Minnesota and have been through some doozies in my time.
No way in hell am I shoveling all this shit at our apartment. I have been taking care of most the snow removal duties, but the landlords left me us with an old rusted shovel that makes it twice as much work to clear snow. Landlord man is going to have to trudge his ass over to deal with this mess.

I combined my enthusiasm over gambling with my lifelong fascination of winter storms and have a snow bet with a friend of mine. We set the line at 16.5 and I took the over. I'll probably lose as I think that is a pretty generous line, but I am always optimistic about my snow bets and I have been doing well this season.

Hate blog

2008-01-30T19:13:00.000-08:00

Yes, I bet them. Yes, they all called. Yes, the majority of players on a 1/2 7 card stud table are mouth breathing retards. Pokerstars routinely has 100k plus people logged in. I don't know where all these fuckers are coming from, but jeeezus christ many of them are bad.

The Twins dealt ace lefty Johan Santana to the Mets yesterday for 4 dudes I never heard of. Hopefully a few of them pan out to be very good players, but we won't know for a few years. It's frustrating that the team keeps losing it's best talent because they can't pay them-or can't overpay them in the case of Hunter, Silva, etc, but that's the reality of a small market team. Get ready in a few years Brewers fans.

Man, did anyone else see that lame ESPN "skit" all about how Tom Brady was actually in the Brady Bunch. The ESPN tech people photoshopped his face in a few old pics and they had fake interviews with Tom and those glory hounds Barry Williams and whatever-the-fuck his name is who played Peter. I wanted to beat that bastard Barry Williams up a la Danny Bonaduce in celebrity boxing.

While I am on the topic of ESPN, what the fuck was with their coverage of the Santana trade. They parade that turd Peter Gammons out in front of a camera and he proceeds to go off on how Boston's deal would have been much better for the Twins. Nice analysis.....douchebag. How about talking about the players the Twins got, or how Johan has been the most dominant lefty this side of Sandy Koufax. Instead the anchor had the audacity to ask him if this deal hurts the Red Sox or Yankees more. News alert. THE TRADE DIDN'T INVOLVE EITHER TEAM! Johan played for the Twins and was traded to the New York Mets of the National league. Short-term the trade hurts the Twins, helps the Mets, and means about as much to the Yankees and Red Sox as it does the Houston Colt 45s. ESPN can eat it.

Cold. Hard cash.

2008-01-22T18:55:00.000-08:00

The day after the Packers lost a good portion of the state of WI was blanketed with several inches of snow including around 8 inches of fluffy goodness here in Milwaukee. The game was pretty entertaining even though the Packers were dominated by the Giants. I have to say that Manning seemed to handle the weather much better than Favre, who looked and played like he was damn near frozen to death. The day after the game I was reading the Minneapolis Star Tribune and one of the columnists was gloating over the Packers loss and compared it to the Vikings heartbreaking loss to Atlanta in the 1998 NFC championship game. I google searched for that game to bring back those painful memories and came across this article from the Journal Sentinel. Reading it made suddenly made me very happy that the Pack lost. I hope it hurts, assholes.

After winning a SNG I played last night and a +70BB 2 hour session of 1/2 7 card stud last weekend, my bankroll is $400+. This is up from 4 bucks, the amount I was reimbursed from some anonymous cheating assholes on pokerstars. I am gonna keep on grinding away and see how far I can go with it. I wish I had a little more time to devote grinding it out - every time I see 100K+ people logged in to pokerstars I start to salivate. School is going to be a serious grind until I graduate. I am proposing my dissertation tomorrow, after which I need to do my experiments, and then defend them in writing and orally. Sounds easy.

Vegas III: Fresh air, crumb sweepers, and small victories.

2008-01-19T15:05:00.000-08:00

Our last full day in Vegas we decided to get some fresh air and explore the Red Rock canyon area. We has some lunch and made our way west into the hills. It was a very sunny day, but still very brisk, probably around 45 degrees or so with a steady wind. We made our way around the canyon, hiking some of the trails, stopping and looking at others. It was great being able to see something other than the inside of a casino or losers waiting to get chow in a buffet line.

After spending a good part of the afternoon at the canyon we got back to the IP with a few hours to rest up and then make our way to dinner at Lawry's. I took advantage of that time to roam around the IP, finally deciding to stop and have a beer while playing some video poker at the Sake Bar. I flopped a straight flush playing 'deuces wild' and pocketed the profit.

We met mom and sis' at Lawry's off of Flamingo. It was delectable - sis' and I had shrimp and brie stuffed salmon filet, while GF and momma had exquisite cuts of prime rib with 2 shared bottles of Merlot between the 4 of us. Just prior to dessert the waitress whipped out a silver tool which she used sweep the crumbs off our table. Ooo la freakin' la! The 3 ladies were stuffed and tired after dinner which was perfect for me as I was able to watch the end of the Texas/ASU game and play some poker. Texas won, netting me a modest 18 bucks, and I then ambled over to the Flamingo and then back after realizing their pokerroom was full. I was soon seated at a 2/4 table at the IP.

This table was by far and away the best of the trip - it had a couple of out and out fish there to have fun, a couple of decent looking girls from California who had a decent grasp of the game but both ended up losing their buy-ins, and a couple of drunk slobs who were in pretty much every hand. I don't remember much in terms of hands, but I was able to grind out a 50 or 60 dollar win over the course of the next 3 hours. One of the dealers that rotated in moved at an insanely fast pace. It was exhausting watching him do it and I hardly had time to take a decent swig of beer. He informed the table that he did everything fast - a comment that was met with modest chuckles from the ladies. The table started to get shorthanded, and with the speed at which the blinds were coming around I decided to book a small profit and call it a night.

The next day we were on our way back to Fargo. The flight back was pretty good despite a few crying babies. However, it was nightmare on the tarmac part two as the airport people were unable to get the skyway to connect to the plane. We sat there a good 45 minutes until they decided to de-board us using some rickety stairs pushed up to the cabin door.

Future Bears Fan

2008-01-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

From the associated press (via jsonline)

Portage - A 36-year-old man tied up his young son with tape for an hour after the boy refused to wear a Green Bay Packers jersey during the team's game on Saturday, local authorities said.

Mathew Kowald, 36, was cited for disorderly conduct in connection with the incident with his 7-year-old son at their home in Pardeeville, Lt. Wayne Smith of the Columbia County Sheriff's Department said. Pardeeville is about 30 miles north of Madison.

Kowald was arrested on Monday after the boy's mother, Kowald's wife, told authorities about the incident. Kowald was taken to the county jail and held until Wednesday, when he pleaded no contest, paid a fine of $186 and was released.

Kowald's wife filed a restraining order on Wednesday, so Kowald will not be able to have contact with his family, Smith said. Smith said other domestic issues have surfaced, though he wouldn't elaborate.

The boy refused to wear the jersey on Saturday, when the Packers beat the Seattle Seahawks in a playoff game, Smith said. The father was accused of restraining the boy for an hour with tape and also taped a jersey onto him during that time.

Smith said the incident sounded strange when reported at first, but the mother took pictures with her cell phone and that type of evidence is difficult to dispute.

The boy's refusal to wear the jersey may have just been rebellion, he said.

"We've been unable to uncover any evidence to suggest that this boy was not a Packers fan," Smith said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sadly, this doesn't really change my impression of Packers fans, whom I still hold in higher regard than Cowboys fans. The last quote of the story is priceless. It seems to suggest that if there were evidence that the boy was not a Packers fan then the dad's actions would have been justified. That being said, GO PACK! Yes, I am cheering for the Pack despite being a Vikings fan....what can I say, I like a good show. And I don't think there will be any better show to be in the midst of all the fervor that would accompany a Superbowl appearance by the Packers.

I don't enjoy oral.

2008-01-15T15:02:00.000-08:00

My bankroll took a major hit Sunday night as I dropped about 150 bucks in a few hours (remember I started with 4 bucks a few months ago). I was determined to get it all back at one table and stuck my whole bankroll on the line at a shorthanded 3/6 limit table. I won a few hands and then got the hell out of there as I came to my senses. It would have been a real punch in the balls to tilt off my whole pokerstars balance in one night after building it up from 4 bucks. Instead, I prefer to lose it painfully over the course of several months courtesy of consistent sub-par play. I had a good day yesterday and was able to recoup a large chunk of what I lost.

Today, I decided it was a good idea to start tracking my wins and losses again via MS excel. Maybe this will add some more accountability to my play, even though I have been pretty good about not donking around lately - with the exception of Sunday night.

While I have been playing poker some lately a good deal of my time the last handful of days has been spent working on a presentation for my dissertation proposal. I love most things about being a graduate student, but giving oral (hehe) presentations isn't one of them.

About 5-6 years ago I gave my first lengthy presentation on data I had collected at the time. I had enough to fill about 45-50 powerpoint slides - I got through all of them in less than 20 minutes, leaving a full 30 minutes for any questions about the work I had babbled my way through. The looks of a few faces in the crowd still stick in my head today. Confusion. Nervous smiles. Looks of pity. They had to wonder if my body had mysteriously been inhabited by the fast-talking man who did those Micro Machines commercials back in the 80s. Some of them never came back to these meetings - ever! Even the presentation from the guy who mistakenly showed a porn video wasn't as poorly received. And the porn was awful!

I have got much better with public speaking since that time, but it's nothing that I look forward to. So, wish me luck as I try not to babble incoherently in front of a group of 5 professors.

Redesigning Blog

2008-01-13T12:29:00.000-08:00

I spent part of yesterday spiffing up the old blog. Gone is the lame blue, white and black....in is the new header (designed by yours truly) and new colors for the text/hyperlinks/etc. Much improved me thinks. I am hoping that it inspires me to post more. My goal is to have at least 100 posts this year. Get ready for a serious heaping load of tripe every few days. This could turn into me chronicling the minutia of my everyday existence - what I had for lunch, debating the relative merits of crapping at home vs. at work, amateur weather forecasting, etc. Stay tuned.

Vegas III: Broken Bottles

2008-01-12T18:00:00.000-08:00

I slapped down 20 bucks each on Purdue (-8) over Central Michigan in the 'Who gives a fuck' bowl and on Texas (-2.5) over Arizona State in the Outback Nestle Crunch Doritos Tostitos Frito Bandito Bowl. Purdue had walloped Central Michigan earlier in the year and through the first half of the game look destined for a repeat performance. Purdue was up 21 early in the 3rd quarter and then managed to completely implode and give up 3 unanswered TDs. They ended up winning when they kicked a last second FG, but my 20 went down the toilet.

As the game was going on I was taking my GF out to Pampas Brazilian BBQ at Planet Hollywood for her b-day dinner. We arrived early and did some last minute xmas shopping for a friend of hers who we were meeting for dinner. We (she) decided on some PJs and a bottle of Merlot, which was elegantly wrapped in a cheap gift bag that looked like a slot machine. I was carrying the bag as the 3 of us were making our way through the busy miracle mile shops and to Pampas when all of a sudden the bag felt 75 percent lighter and I was staring at a broken bottle and wine spilling all over the mall floor. We did what any responsible adults would do and we left it there and walked quickly towards the restaurant.

The M.O. at these Brazilian BBQ joints is for 'gauchos' to come around to your table with various cuts of meat on a skewer. We sample different cuts of steak, pork, and chicken. Compared to similar dinners in San Diego and Atlanta, this place was a tad sub-par. None of the meats stood out as exceptional and the service was average at best. We didn't let this put a damper on our evening as we headed to a bar in the PH shops and had a few more drinks.

When we got done my GF was tired and this allowed me to hit up the poker tables again. I played for a couple hours, took some horribles beats, made some horrible plays and lost most of a buyin at 2/4 holdem. I tried to strike gold on a dollar slot machine, but wound up drunkenly dumping 50 bucks in that. Wisely, I called it a night.

Vegas III: Christ's B-day Buffet Special

2008-01-09T16:41:00.000-08:00

When I woke up at Harrah's I realized that the events of the night before weren't simply a nightmare - it indeed happened. Why else would we be at Harrah's? The important thing was that we are now here and awake and must go back to IP to check in. After showering and grabbing coffee we head over to IP ready to sit in line for an hour or two. Things go surprisingly smooth at check-in and we make our way up to our "Deluxe" room. Spending one night in a decent hotel makes you realize what a fucking dump the IP is.

We hopped in the Impala and made our way to the Texas Station for a Christmas day brunch buffet. We were meeting GFs mom and sister there. I park the car by a replica of an oil derrick and make my way inside. We are seated quickly and head for the first run through the buffet. Nothing is all that great, but in true Christmas fashion it is a Champagne brunch buffet. All 4 of us wash down our first plate with the cheap swill and we convince the waitress to bring us some more. She came through with a whole damn tray full of the shit and everyone gets pretty toasty by the time we get done eating.

After that we do the regular xmas day gift exchange and everyone gets pretty tired around 4pm. GF and I head back to the IP, she takes a nap and I make a beeline for a 2/4 limit table. The table is short-handed for the first hour or so, and our table even stopped briefly, but they kept brining me drinks, so it was ok. I played for a few more hours before dinner and ended up about 30 bucks.

We head to eat some Mexican at the Forum shops at Caesar's Palace. I have a 15 dollar burrito and spill my 10 dollar margarita in true drunken spaz fashion. After that we do a bit of shopping and call it a night, but not before I lay down bets on the 2 days of college football bowl games.

Vegas III: Getting there is 9/10ths the work.

2008-01-03T13:49:00.000-08:00

Our 9pm flight to Vegas from Fargo on Christmas eve was already scheduled to be about 30 minutes late. That 30 minutes became an hour while we were waiting for the plane to arrive from Vegas. It comes time to board and something weird happens because all of a sudden people are no longer being allowed into the jetway. We wait several minutes and learn that something has gone wrong with the jetway and someone is coming to fix it. We finally get on the plane and our pilot informs us that we will leave as soon as the de-icer shows up and does it's job. That thing must have come from fucking Bismarck because it seemed to take forever for it to show up. We finally get rolling about 2 hours after our scheduled takeoff.

The first half of the flight was pretty smooth as my girlfriend and I were able watch some episodes of Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Somewhere over the rockies we start to bounce around a bit, but it doesn't get too bad until we land in 40-50mph surface winds in LAS. We grab our bags and hop on the shuttle to the new rental car emporium near the airport. They don't have the compact car I reserved, so they bumped me up to an 08 Chevy Impala - this is the only part of arriving that goes well.

The Chevy was a bit more car than I am used to and I caught myself racing down Las Vegas blvd at 70mph. We get to the Imperial Palace - both hungry and dead tired. The check-in line is about 15 deep and we decide to hit up the Teahouse for a quick meal. After chowing down my Eggs Benny I go back down to get in line. There is only about 10 groups in front of me, but I soon realize the line is moving so. fucking. slow. Someone would get up to a clerk, give them their ID and CC and all of a sudden that clerk would disappear into an adjacent office for 10-15 minutes. This happened with pretty much everyone who made it to the front of the line and was starting to piss me off pretty good after waiting an hour in a line that should take 10 minutes to get through. My girlfriend joins me in line and we finally make it up to a clerk. I give her my info and she tells me that they have no rooms left and that they need to put us up nextdoor at Harrah's. I understand that hotels overbook to ensure they are full, but there was no excuse for them taking as long as humanly possible to take care of everyone there.

We hike it over to Harrah's and get to a clerk immediately. It is 3am and we're both dead tired. He sets up the reservation for us, but when it comes time to give us keys their fucking keymaker goes dead and he tells us that we can either wait for it to start working again or they can call security to open our room for us. We ask for security who comes pretty quickly. We get to our room and the security guard opens it and someone's shit is all over the room - the numbnut Harrah's clerk gave us a room that was already occupied. I guess we're lucky we didn't walk in on someone getting blown by a tranny hooker. We go back down, get another room - this time with real keys, and finally get into our room. Sleep was in order.

Spider in the Snow

2007-12-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

Wintertime has descended on Milwaukee in the form of an over-the-weekend snow and ice storm and Alberta Clipper that is dumping on us now. I am about 1 mile offshore of Lake Michigan, which is kicking up some nice lake effect snow for us. I routinely place 'snow bets' with a friend of mine. I always take the over. I won this past weekend with the line at 3.5 inches, and I'm pretty sure I am good now with 4.0 as the line. 2 beers coming my way.

The snow/ice storm last weekend caused me to break my 'car accident' cherry. Some dimwit was backing out of a drive way blindly and backed right into me while I was driving. He hadn't even wiped the snow off his windows. The accident caused a fair amount of damage to the ol' Honda. Hopefully, I don't get dicked around by his insurance company.

The poker playing has been going well, although I still don't have the desire to play as much as I used to. My 'roll is up around 300 from the 4 bucks I started with a few months ago. I have been averaging an SNG every few nights and I typically play a 1/2 stud game at the same time. That 7CS cash game seems as soft as it have ever been, and my results in the SNGs have been very good since I started back up again.

The Minnesota Twins are seemingly about to unload Johan Santana to the Yanks, Red Sox, or some other team able to part with top prospects and sign Santana for 20+ mil/season for 5 years. as much as I hate to see Johan go, it makes sense to trade a person that is going to command 20-30% of the team's payroll over the next 5 years. Hopefully, they can get a decent stash of young talent in trade for Johan.

Bowties, curly mullets, poetry

2007-11-14T22:17:00.000-08:00

I just got done playing a $15 SNG where I took advantage good timing and a few suckouts and took home 1st place. My bankroll now sits around $160, up from the 4.40 I had 1 month ago. It's laughable that I have been able to build up a tiny roll from 4 bucks.

My GF and I returned from San Diego exactly 1 week ago. Amazingly, we saw less sun there than what we were seeing in Milwaukee. We went there for a conference - we are both looking for jobs. Kinda sucks to be in this position, but we made inroads for positions in Atlanta, but Toronto is also on our minds. Or maybe NYC, or Calif? Who the fuck knows where we'll be in 1 year. It's exciting, but also a bit shitty.

Our flight from MKE to SAN and back went through Denver. Flights were pretty good - watched some Curb Yr Enthusiasm on the laptop, and some direct TV on the plane. We had a 2+ hr layover in Denver on the way back. We had a very nice meal and drinks at Jimmy somethings' and few more drinks at the 'Cowboy Bar' before getting on the plane. Best time I've ever had on a layover. Kudos to DIA.

Las Vegas III is only about 5 weeks away. I simply cannot wait to be playing Pai Gow late xmas night at the IP. Downing Miller Lite's brought to me by a waitress in a skimpy dress and getting dealt cards from a Korean dealer, both wishing they were somewhere else.

#120

2007-10-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

This is my 120th post. Holy crap! Most of them have been poorly written and lazily thought out. This one will be no different.

You might remember that a few weeks ago my bankroll on pokerstars increased 100 fold when they deposited 4.40 into my account as a result of some collusion investigation. I managed to turn this windfall into 30 bucks in a week or so. I was down to 3 cents with 2 SNGs running last weekend, but I got 2nd in both of those and have since ran it up to about 80 bucks. At this rate I should have 1600 dollars in my account by mid-November. In all seriousness, getting back to playing a few SNGs here and there has been great. I'll probably go on tilt late one night and burn through it all in a few hours, but right now it is fun. If I manage to build this into a real bankroll, there better be articles written about it a la Chris Ferguson's 0-10K achievement.

Qotsa/Melt Banana

2007-10-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday I went to the Queens of the Stone Age show at The Rave in Milwaukee. I forked over 7.50/each for 3 miller lites, and watched one of my favorite bands standing immediately behind 5 dudes who were probably the starting lineup for 2002 Cudahy High basketball team. Now, apparently they've all become stoners who go to shows to smoke pot in public and stand listless while one of the greatest rock bands alive puts on a show. They weren't the only jerkoffs in the crowd. First of all, the guy girl ratio was about 10-1, and the dick to not-a-dick ratio was about the same. Exhibit A was the fuckwit who flicked a lit cigarette at Josh Homme near the end of one song. Exhibit B was about every fucking loser who I walked by as I tried to make my way through the crowd and to the bathroom. Not only were people not making any attempt to help me get by, several mouth-breathers made sure they stood their ground, sometimes throwing a light shoulder my way. Absolute homos.

The next night I went down to the Cactus Club to check out a Japanese noise-punk band named Melt Banana. They put on one hell of a show. They were fronted by a waifish woman, who belted out vocals that would make those chicks from Cibo Matto proud. The guitar player wore a mask as if he felt he was at risk for some airborne disease. Oddly enough, their merch guy had one on too.

What the Nickle?!

2007-10-17T22:21:00.000-07:00

I've managed to turn the $4.40 pokerstars sent me from some anonymous cheating dickwads into 30 bucks over the last week or so. Yep....pretty much dominating the old 3 dollar SNGs. I rule!

I am totally enjoying being able to play again, even if it is for peanuts. I had not played at all for about 2 months, but it seemed longer than that. Consider this a tune up for an xmas trip to Vegas. I can't wait to see the kind of loser that will be playing pai gow on xmas day at the Imperial Palace. It's gonna be fucking awesome, and I will be there right next to them. I can't wait to see the strung out looking 'Joan Jett' or 'Mariah Carey' dealertainers. God, I'm such a loser.

Maybe I can find an afternoon or two to take a shot at a few MTTs in the next couple weeks. It would be nice to build up a roll to have at my disposal in LV, but I realize the chances are against me with only 30 bucks to dink around with.

$4.40 and ready to go!

2007-10-11T08:27:00.000-07:00

Looks like I have to find a few cheapo tourneys to donk off the money I got from some cheating bastards.

Hello,

PokerStars has become aware of two players who were working together in our Sit & Go tournaments to the detriment of other players. You were involved in at least one tournament with these players and as a result you may have been adversely affected.

The players' accounts were closed and their funds frozen pending a thorough investigation, which is now complete. Fortunately the problem was identified quickly and they had only played in a few tournaments before the accounts were closed.

In a case such as this it is our policy to confiscate the colluders' winnings or balances and to distribute them to the players affected by their actions in as fair a way as possible. To confirm your credit, log onto your PokerStars account, go to the 'Cashier' screen and click the 'History' button. Your share will be shown "Credit Purchase", followed by the amount of the credit.

I regret that we will be unable to answer questions as to how your specific credit amount was calculated. Likewise, we are not at liberty to identify the specific games or players in question. Suffice to say that they have been barred from the site and you will not encounter them again.

The integrity of the games at PokerStars is of paramount importance to us and we will not abide cheating or collusion in our games. We work hard to police our games and prevent such instances. In the rare cases where collusion has actually occurred, we make sure that any players affected are compensated appropriately.

Thank you for your continued play here on PokerStars. Please do not hesitate to let us know any time we can be of help.

Best Regards,

MarkW
PokerStars Collusion Investigation Team

Maritime

2007-09-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday night Maritime played a free show at the Gasthaus, which is a basement bar/restaurant in the Union at UWM. Immediately upon entering the place I was overcome with the all too familiar smell of the Gasthaus' infamous french fries. If you have ever ordered food there, you'll know that it comes with about 8 pounds of these taters - and they are god awful. I wanna puke just thinking about them, even though I occasionally still eat them.

We had a few beers (PBR) before Maritime took the stage. I spotted lead singer and emo trailblazer Davey von Bohlen readying himself backstage, which also happened to be the mens bathroom. The show started off with was announced as the first three songs on the bands forthcoming record Heresy and the Hotel Choir, two of which can be downloaded off the labels' website and the video of another is embedded above. Those three songs sounded damn good, and gave me hope that the new record will measure up to the bands last one.

The rest of the show was very good as well, despite the less-than-optimal venue. There was a decent pocket of people near the stage that were into the show and then other people were strewn about sitting at tables and looking half-bored. Maybe they had all become ill from eating the food there.

Bloc Party

2007-09-19T21:13:00.001-07:00

Last Tuesday Bloc Party came through Milwaukee and played at the Pabst Theatre downtown. I was introduced to Bloc Party in the summer of '05 by a friend on our way to our 10 year high school reunion. We listened to 'Silent Alarm' and I immediately fell in love with that record. Over two years later and I finally got a chance to see them live. Bloc Party released their sophomore record a handful of months ago - it is pretty rad as well, but isn't nearly as energetic as Silent Alarm.

This was the first time I had seen a show at the Pabst. Maybe it was where we were sitting - 3rd level in the balcony, but it sounded fucking amazing in there. As soon as we walked in I saw a giant sign advertising $3 tallboys of PBR and I knew this was going to be a good night. We were able to catch a good part of the set by the opening band called Smoosh. I felt like a dirty old man watching them play. The were pretty good though, even though their 8 year old bass player took off during the second song and never came back. The next group was named Final Fantasy. They were even more nerdy than the name implies - the band consisted of a dude with a violin connected to some kind of looping machine and a girl who placed art work over an overhead projector that seemed to go along with the different songs. Not as bad as it sounds.

Bloc Party opened up with the first song from 'Weekend in the City.' They covered what seemed like a good chunk of both albums, but most came from Silent Alarm. The highlight had to be when Kele made his way out into the crowd (with the help of a very long microphone cord) during 'She's Hearing Voices.' At some point he disappeared from view, only to return doing a backwards somersault just after getting on stage. Go see them if you have the chance.

How do you say.......Fat Pig Hypocrite of the Year?

2007-09-08T07:27:00.000-07:00

I really wished I had saved the letter Rep. Jim "I am taking my fucking gavel home with me" Sensenbrenner sent me in response to my letter supporting legislative efforts to legalize online poker. According to what he wrote in that letter efforts to allow online gambling would be the downfall of society. Crime rates would go up; teen pregnancy would skyrocket; the national debt would triple; alcohol, drug, and trans fat consumption would hit heights never seen before. Terrorism would be funded for life! Birds wouldn't fly anymore! And there would be a state of complete and utter paranoia!!!!!!

Ok Then. You couldn't imagine my surprise to learn that the esteemed Congressman from WI has won his fair share of money playing the lotteries in DC and WI. If he doesn't think that state sponsored lotteries leads to some of the same perils for some percentage of the population he is an even bigger douchebag than I think he is.

The Detroit Cobras

2007-09-04T20:16:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine was in a band that came through Milwaukee a few years ago and they played at Mad Planet. There was an all ages show in the afternoon and a 21+ later at night. Mad Planet is in Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, which is a really awesome area, but it can get pretty shady especially if you go a little west on Center. At some point during the afternoon show I had a strange vision of someone bursting into the club and mowing a bunch of people down. I didn't think much of it at the time. Between the all ages show and the night we walked down to the Riverhorse and then on to the Foundation for a few drinks. We ended back up at Mad Planet in the "backstage" area downstairs. Some dude in a local band that was opening the evening show went into this long story about some massacre that occurred on New Year's Eve outside of what is now Mad Planet.

Last Thursday I ended up back at Mad Planet with a friend to catch the Detroit Cobras show. I had never really got into them, but I was able to give some of their stuff a bit of a listen before going to the show. What I had listened to was good, and the show they put on was great (see obligatory grainy cell phone photo).

Two bands preceded the Cobras, The Willowz and Dan Sartain. Dan Sartain was, I presume, Dan on guitar and vox, and some dude on drums. A two piece! Fucking awesome and t(he)y made a pretty great racket. Although apparently Dan had some pretty crunchy B.O. and he was spotted stealing a poster off the wall near the bar at Mad Planet. The Willowz, on the other hand, had absolutely no redeeming qualities. All of the band sported the same haircut despite the fact that they all seemed to vary greatly in terms of age, weight, and sex. The lead singer also made a conscious decision to don a Kid Rock-like hat and they fucking droned on for what seemed like hours. I went to the bathroom at some point during their set and heard the guy next to me remark to his friend that he "hoped for fucksake that they will be off the stage soon or that someone comes in and murders them."

Beisbol es malo

2007-09-01T14:29:00.001-07:00

He's pitching so badly he cut his own fucking thumb off and threw it!

Thoughts from an Interpol show

2007-08-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

I went to the Interpol show with a friend of mine and we downed a couple beers before the show began. I have been trying to quit smoking for the last few years, and I am doing fairly well with it, but seeing live music and having a few drinks is a major cue for me to have a smoke. I had two cigarettes in my possession left over from a party the previous weekend. Like a complete retard I stuck the two ciggies in the pocket of my shorts without realizing that this would most likely cause them to get bent or perhaps break in half. They broke in half of course. Unfazed, I went into the bathroom just before the show started, entered one of the stalls, squeezed the tobacco out of one end, and smoked it like a joint while pretending to take a piss. Definitely a watershed moment in my life.

A few years ago being a fan of Interpol was prima facie evidence of having good taste in music. After the critical acclaim and greater popularity (and major label deal), I suspect the “cool” thing to do now is dump on them and say their most recent release doesn’t stack up to their two previous LPs. It very well may not; I have not heard the new record in its entirety, but judging from their recent appearance at The Rave in Milwaukee they are still crafting very good songs (insert played out Joy Division reference here).

I went back to the bathroom midway through the show relive the glory of smoking on a toilet. I came back out and watched the rest of the set. I was also keeping an eye on the really sweaty dude in front of us who would mouth the lyrics for the first part of every song, and then half way through he’d have his back to the stage and be talking to some other dude or trying to chat up a couple of obvious lesbians next to him.

I kept trying to take pictures of the band on my cell phone, but I was too far away and all of the pictures ended up looking like I was snapping shot of a Lite Brite board. We left the show quickly after the encore ended; rejecting the free Pete Yorn tickets the staff was trying to us as we walked out. I bet the sweaty dude was all over that shit.

Vegas: Part Two

2007-07-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

Johnny Cheng was up with the birds, and the other 2 of us woke in time for a breakfast at the Teahouse around 10 am. Immediately after the meal, the 2 of us go down to the IP poker room and we each got seats in a 2/4 limit game. About half of the table had little to no clue how to play and both Johnny and I ended up the short session with modest wins. The Shoeshiner was rolling over his table and ended up about 100 bucks ahead after only an hour or so. Considering how weak the game was, it was kind of hard to leave the IP, but we had planned to play the 2pm tourney at Planet Hollywood and we stuck to that plan.

The room at PH had a nice modern feel to it. The dealers were pretty good, but I wasn’t in love with the wood ‘racing track’ on the tables. The tourney had about 75 runners in it, and I got off to a pretty nice start the first hour. I won a decent sized pot with K10 suited against a young girl who probably wants to be Brandi Hawbaker, but was a tad over weight. She was playing pretty fast, and it seemed like she was bluffing a lot early. Not long after that hand I pick up AA in the big blind. A Dude chugging rum and cokes raised from 1 spot behind the button and the Brandi wannabe smooth called from the SB. I popped it up 1K and original raiser folded, but Brandi moved all in immediately. I called, she showed 55, my AA held, and she was headed for the exit. I won another decent pot when I flopped 3 of a kind with KQ off, and won a few more pots before the end of the first hour. I had more than doubled up before the first break and liked the spot I was in. The next hour was atrocious as I got very few cards and was only able to steal the blinds a few times. I think I ended up the second hour with fewer chips than I had at the end of the first.

Johnny busted out during the 2^nd hour, but the Shoeshiner had a decent sized stack. We were down to 25 players or so when we started the 3^rd hour. I am in the big blind the first hand I have 3500 chips left after posting the 2K bet, it folds around to the SB who limps, and I put the rest of my chips in with garbage hoping the lady to my left folds. She calls off half her stack with J7 off, a J comes on the flop and IGHN.

I spent the rest of the time sweating the Shoeshiner who made the final table, despite taking a nasty river beat when they were to 11 or 12 players. The final 10 got paid and the Shoeshiner played some nice poker and ended up getting 4^th for $350. We had all exchanged 15 of each other, so I got back about 50 of my 60 dollar buy-in. After the tourney, we went down to the Spice Market Buffet which was very good, but slightly expensive.

We head back to the IP and agreed to play there the duration of the night. The Shoeshiner and I started to play some Pai Gow and have some drinks. After a few hours we decide to get in on a 2/4 game hoping it was as weak as this morning. It was, but I lose some big pots and end up losing a good chunk of my buy-in before deciding to go back to Pai Gow. I got up and left and the Shoeshiner and Johnny joined me not too much later. We are playing and a hand comes up where the dealer set her hand wrong, although no one caught it at the table. I think she set a flush behind and a very weak two card hand up front, when she could have set a pair up front and a pair in back. She went through most of the table pushing with everyone and taking their cards. A pit boss walked up and notices that she set her hand wrong and proceeded to give everyone their cards back and reset her hand. Everyone raises a big stink and I ask if we can all reset our hands after everyone’s hands have been exposed. He said yes, and I reset my hand to where I could still push with her. This pissed him off and he set my hand back to where it had been in the first place and takes my bet. This really pissed me off and I go into a profanity laced mini-tirade about how he had just told me I could reset my hand. Everyone at the table is yelling at him. He ends up giving me my bet back, but everyone at the table got up and left. I don’t know what the proper ruling is there, but it seemed like a pretty poor decision from a PR point of view.

We decided to take our Pai Gow tour next door to the Flamingo and got seated at a ‘mini Pai Gow’ table. This game was played with 6 cards, with a 1 card poker hand up front and a 5 card in back. There was no 5% rake which cut back the house edge and ended up making the game run smoother. I ended up a few bets after 2 hours or so and got a pretty nice buzz going from the 2 stiff 7 and 7s I drank. We head back to the IP around 6 am and crash having to check out 11am. We all made it up on time and caught our flight back to reality.

Vegas: Part One

2007-07-23T18:36:00.001-07:00

The flight to Las Vegas was largely uneventful. I sat by a middle aged black woman who listened to the XM radio most of the flight, although somehow we managed to get our seatbelts tangled together at some point. We got off the plane, hopped on the tram, and got to the taxi waiting area. After 5 minutes or so we were off into the dead heat, headed for the Imperial Palace. The check-in line was somewhat long, and my attempt to bribe the clerk into giving us a suite did not work. We dropped our bags off in the room and headed up to get some lunch at Pizza Palace, which was ok. With the bill settled we headed down to get into the action at the IP poker room. I jump right on a 1-2 NL table that was running. There was a smattering of folks at the table; a T.J. Cloutier look-a-like, an annoying Texan to my right, chain smoking woman across the table. I played for about 4 orbits and didn’t win one hand. I had basically got blinded down to about 70 bucks, when I picked up 2 black aces on the button. The drunken Texan to my right raised to 15 and I pop it 25 more. The SB tanked and ends up flat calling. The flop was Q 10 rag. The SB bets 30 and the Texan makes it 60. I call off my last 30. The turn and river are both 3’s, the SB shows JJ and the Texan shows QQ for the boat. I took off and had a beer while winning 30 bucks playing video poker. I had two more beers during my charter Pai Gow session and won 10 bucks over the next hour or so.

The Shoeshiner, Johnny Cheng, and I decided to press our luck and play in the 7pm tourney at Sahara. All three of us got the impression that the tourney was a complete rock garden. I managed to last the longest collecting 5 dollars from my two companions, but bowed out in about 20^th place out of 140 runners. I doubled up early when my KK rolled over my opponents QQ, but it was slow going after that. I was low on chips almost the entire last 2 hours of the tourney, and went out when with 94 offsuit with about 2.5 times the BB left. The tourney seems pretty well run and the dealers were pretty decent and friendly. The structure is pretty good, although I wasn’t crazy about the fact that there are no ante’s. We jumped on the monorail and headed back to the IP.

The Shoeshiner and I bellied up to a Pai Gow table and began tossing back beers while learning the finer points of the game. Johnny joins us shortly thereafter. Hours and several beers pass, while Johnny decided it’s was time for him to head out around 2 am. We stayed in the game and downed several more drinks. At times our game was down to just the two of us and other times it was lively with random drunks. Two completely drunk morons sat down around 3 am and the one proceeded to clog the automatic shuffler by getting his cards wet. The next hand he bent one of the cards and they had to get another deck. He had to have been very close to getting 86’ed. Some time later a couple of decent looking drunk girls sat down and bought in for $200 each. They were both betting $50/hand with 5 bucks on the fortune bonus. Needless to say, they didn’t last long. I got out of there around 4am with a modest loss and a belly full of beer.

T minus 24 hours

2007-07-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

This time tomorrow I will be descending into McCarran for a quick two night Vegas trip with a few friends. Plans: Planet Hollywood/Sahara/other cheapo tourneys; Dealertainers; Cherry-breaking Pai Gow session; 20 dollar trick at check-in; betting on the Twins; ; Free booze; Buffets; Pizza Palace; Cash games at IP/MGM/PH. I'll try and whip up a decent trip report when I get back.

I got wind of this awesome thread on 2+2 where Steve Albini offered himself up to answer a ton of questions regarding pretty much anything. If you are a music nerd like me, you'll love it. The result turned out to be a very candid Q and A session between Albini (who trashes Urge Overkill about 100 times) and a bunch of people. I think the thread is still alive. You might remember my run-in with Steve at a 7CS table on pokerroom.com.

whoop their it is

2007-06-28T08:28:00.000-07:00

Hello rgpars,

We have received a complaint regarding some things you said in chat
at our tables.

111132650 rgpars sharkscope is for fucking retards 4 6/23/2007 11:53:43 PM
(I am not sure why I said this, I use sharkscope all the time)
111132650 rgpars what crap 4 6/23/2007 11:59:21 PM
(Here I rivered 2 pair when I was all in with Q10 against KK and AQ, I felt bad)
111132650 rgpars i have to take a mean dump 4 6/23/2007 11:59:40 PM
(I really did)

If I get a warning for goofing off in the chat, I bet Lee Jones and his thugs took this guy out and the Costa Rican jungle, beat him mercilessly, and left him for dead.

shawnbb73: POKERSTARS IS SOME CHEATING UNREGULATED SITE........I HOPE YOU GET SHUT DOWN NEXT MONTH WHEN THE TRUTH HITS THE FRONT PAGE THAT YOUR SITE CHEATS MOBSTERS GANGSTERS CHEATERS........ALL RIGHT HERE POKER STARS IS A BUNCH OF LIARS

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moving on. I was tickled pink to learn that some rich Aussie bible thumper opened up a Creation Museum in KKKentucky. Fortunately, these guys went undercover to get the real story. I can't believe any of them were able to keep straight faces through the whole ordeal.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vegas trip is coming up quickly. I am once again going to grace the Imperial Palace with my presence. I can't wait to play blackjack against Madonna, or get a royal gut ache when I break my promise to stay away from the Emperors Buffet. I think I am going to try what I learned is called the "$20 trick." I don't really care much about the upgrade, as I imagine we won't be spending a lot of time in the room, but it seems like it might be fun to try.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just got this in my email a few minutes ago. A fine cause, but someone needs to do a little research on how to spell peoples names.

no, I didn't win this hand, and yes I spent 3 hours in a 2 dollar tourney for a whopping buck forty five.

2007-06-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to rgpars [Ks Kc]
rgpars: raises 1200 to 1600
DangIFold: folds
broncoook: folds
larry1dart: calls 292 and is all-in
strapNlefty: folds
Jonny B the1: calls 1600
Fabulez: folds
jdeere5220: folds
wizzardking: folds
*** FLOP *** [Kh 6d 2s]
rgpars: bets 800
Jonny B the1: raises 7055 to 7855 and is all-in
rgpars: calls 3700 and is all-in

I was trying to pull off a "big" score in Little Chinatown by dabbling in some late night 8 bit donkfest clusterfuck tourney on pokerstars. No good.

I have a CD compilation of every great song from every great artist of the Nineteen Nineties. Wilson Phillips. LEN. Smashmouth. Screaming Trees. Blind Melon. Smashing Pumpkins. Daft Punk. Nirvana. Squirrel Nut Zippers. Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Des'ree. Portishead. Jawbox. Helium. Fastball. Dinosaur Jr. Boss Hog. The Beastie Boys. Green Day. Jets to Brazil. EPMD. Sonic Youth. Ice-T. Yo La Tengo. Jewel. Veruca Salt. Weezer. Tricky. Unwound. Nashville Pussy. Seaweed. Radiohead. Pizzicato 5. Superchunk. 411. Semisonic. Massive Attack. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Sleater Kinney. Fatboy Slim. Modest Mouse. Beck. Ice Cube. Bell Biv Devoe. The Black Crowes. INXS. Digital Underground. Foo Fighters. Built To Spill. Coldplay. The Breeders. At the Drive In. Snoop Dogg. Natalie Merchant. Black Sheep. Roni Size. Rage Against the Machine. Morphine. The Dismemberment Plan. The Get Up Kids. Helmet. Jimmy Eat World. Pixies. Tone-Loc. Public Enemy. Phil Collins. Air. The Delta 72. Unsane. SWV. Digable Planets. Dr. Dre. Chemical Brothers. PM Dawn. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Le Tigre. Sublime. Fiona Apple. Whitney Houston. The International Noise Conspiracy. Elliot Smith. Eminem. Kid N Play. Rob Base and DJ Easy Rock. Guns N Roses. Prince. Seal. Salt N Pepa. Presidents of the United States of America. The Wallflowers. Tom Cochrane. Live. REM. Naughty By Nature. No Doubt. U2. Juno. Red Hot Chili Peppers. The Rembrandts. Dave Mathews Band. Stone Temple Pilots. Fugazi. Mudhoney. LL Cool J. Nicki French. Dee-Lite. Janet Jackson.

Turn on, tune in, cash out.

2007-06-20T12:58:00.000-07:00

Just got a fat check from pokerstars that would have been much fatter had I cashed out a few months ago. Hopefully all goes well when I drive to the bank tomorrow, drop that baby in the pnuematic tube, and ask them to deposit the money into my bank account. I left myself a few hundred bones to play around with on pokerstars. I see it as coming full circle to where I was 3 years ago with my bankroll. I dropped a few hundred on pokerroom.com and then deposited 50 bucks on pokerstars a few months later. I ran that up to a few hundred and then totally cashed out to buy x-mas gifts in Dec '04. I loaded $150 into fulltilt.com the following January and never really looked back, and never had to reload. The money I made from that deposit on full tilt paid for trips to Vegas and 2 to Atlantic City and is now paying for another trip to Vegas. It also helped take care of some everyday expenses when my money got low. Now, I am basically back to where I started, playing 6 dollar SNGs and micro buy-in MTTs trying to rebuild a bankroll.

Pre-Sopranos dinner/ post bustout wine.

2007-06-10T17:57:00.001-07:00

insert trite phrase here

2007-06-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

330pm - First hand. 85 off. folded.

338pm - I've got last longer side action bets with two RGPers. 20 bucks from each to the winner. Haven't seen a flop yet after a dozen hands.

346pm - Didn't play 1 hand the first level.

358pm - First guy out on our table. He was bad. lost with 106 suited.

400pm - - 2 out of 4 times while in big blind (50%)
- 0 out of 3 times while in small blind (0%)
- 0 out of 21 times in other positions (0%)

405pm - first raise from middle position takes down the blinds.

413pm - will eventually need cards. best hand i've had (AJ suited), i had to fold. took down another uncontested with MP raise.

422pm - donked off half my stack with 87 suited on a 72Q flop.

429pm - can't even make the first break. I raise to 1200 from MP with AQ. BB calls and flop comes K106. I bet about 2500 (3/4ths of my stack) and he raises me all in..................with 77. I call off my last ~1000. Don't hit. Nice play there BB. Nice play me!

Ready to Rumble

2007-06-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

About 15 minutes until my 3rd foray into playing the Sunday Million. Stay Tuned for the live blogging extravaganza.

Tits!

2007-06-08T21:49:00.000-07:00

Eat that retreads. I just won a ticket to the Sunday Million on Pokerstars in a 11.70 double shootout. The first table I went from shortstack with 4 left to winner within the span of about 25 hands. It was one of those rare situations where you win a few hands, make a well timed bluff, and then completely run over the table. The final round I was able build up a nice stack and stay in 2nd place pretty much the whole time and cruised until the last dude busted. I think this might change "the plan" a bit. I realized that with my goldstar status I would be able to use my FPPs for an "electronics store gift card," so I think I am going to do that instead of use them to buy-in to another Sunday Million. I think I might play this Sunday and live blog that shit.

PokerStars Tournament #51835805, No Limit Hold'em
Super Satellite
Buy-In: $10.70/$1.00
86 players
Total Prize Pool: $920.20
Target Tournament #51769624 Buy-In: $215.00
4 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started - 2007/06/08 - 23:20:00 (ET)

Dear rgpars,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
You qualified to play in Tournament #51769624 and are automatically registered for it.
See Tournament #51769624 Lobby for further details.

If you choose to unregister from this tournament your account will be credited
with $215.00 Tournament dollars. Tournament dollars can be used to buy into
any tournament.
Visit our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/tournaments.html for more details.

Dear Lord

2007-05-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

I have hardly been watching the NBA playoffs at all being that the T-wolves didn't make it, but I had the pleasure of watching most of the 4th quarter and both overtimes of the Pistons/Cavs game. Lebron James scored the last 25 points for his team and they are now one game away from the finals. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.

While I am on the topic of sports, the Minnesota Twins seem to be in the midst of turning the season around a la 2006, and the Brewers seem to be seriously fading....a la 2006. I sincerely hope the Brewers take the NL central, but they aren't looking that good lately. I would sell my soul to see a Twins-Brewers world series, and would donate my left nut to get a ticket to that game. Could you imagine?

The Plan

2007-05-30T18:52:00.000-07:00

Consider this a public proclamation regarding my intention to quit playing online poker for the foreseeable future. I am fairly convinced that the games have largely dried up on pokerstars and it is too difficult to move money around to bother looking for softer games at other sites. The plan is to withdraw my remaining balance on pokerstars once I hit enough FPPs to buy a ticket to the Sunday Million Donkstravaganza. This should take a weeks worth of time or less. I was going to hold out and wait until I got enough FPPs to buy a digital camera to replace the one I had stolen out of my car a few weeks ago (thank you very much anonymous prick who broke into my car in my garage, next time I will be waiting with a baseball bat and beat your fucking head in like a 15 year angst ridden teen smashes pumpkins). Playing the Sunday Million on stars has gone so well in the past that it seems fitting that it might be my last act of online poker unless Barney Frank has his way.

The money I cash out will be used fund an excursion to Las Vegas in mid-July. Me and a few buddies are heading out for a short trip sure to be full of poker and large quantities of alcohol, with some sports betting and probably some other casino games thrown in for shits and giggles. I've yet to take a turn at playing drunken (or sober) Pai Gow. I think I might try it. The money that I don't blow in Vegas will go towards some living expenses during the summer when I will be making a near poverty-level wage. I am also planning on checking out the action at the "new and improved" Potawatomi poker room. Stay tuned for a trip report.

Massive Nights

2007-05-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Here is your obligatory grainy cell phone picture of The Hold Steady performing last night at the Miramar in Milwaukee. I believe this was taken during the opening song "Stuck Between Stations," a personal favorite of mine. My GF and I were positioned stage right when the show began, the view was great but it sounded like shit and we moved after the first few songs. The concert was pretty awesome despite the fact that it got ridiculously hot towards the end and the staff at the Miramar did nothing (i.e. open the front doors) to cool it down. Before the show began, there were about 5 or 6 beers placed on the stage where each member of the band would be standing. To top it off there was a bottle of Jameson on an amp. Frontman Craig Finn took at least a few swigs during their set, and it seemed as though he had taken several before the band took the stage. It didn't seem like the band actually drank much of the beer and I guess it is probably kind of hard to drink a beer and play an instrument at the same time as they both require use of one's hands. I can excuse them for not being able to chug beers and rip away on a guitar at the same time, but I can't excuse the fact that the beer they were given (and presumably requested) was Budweiser. Right in front of our Miller-loving eyes. This is Milwaukee for f*** sake! Have a High Life or a Pabst. Shit, if you really wanted to show that you were down, you would polish off some Cream City Pale Ale or an Eastside Dark. Despite the poor choice of beer, The Hold Steady rocked ass. The band ripped through an impressive set that included most of the songs off of Boys and Girls in America, plus selected "classics" like Stevie Nix, Cattle and Creeping Things, Your Little Hoodrat Friend, Modesto is Not That Sweet, etc. Finn also managed to get booed for talking about the Minnesota Twins. It was pretty funny, and I love that a band that has received so much acclaim from the Indie (and mainstream) music press doesn't give a shit about being perceived as uncool for liking baseball. I think it was hard to grow up in Minnesota in the 80s and not develop a serious love for the Twins, I know I did and I relish it. I could give a shit about the Vikings or the Twolves, and don't even get me started about the North Stars (Norm Green, the offer to eat my shit still stands), but don't mess with my Twins. Whom, btw, are in Milwaukee this weekend. GO TWINS!

Long Slow Goodbye

2007-05-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

Pokerstars has a big promo going for their upcoming 10 Billionth hand. I've been a multi-table playing douche bag lately to try and take advantage of it. Too bad I can't win a hand or make money in a sit and go to save my life. I think the end might be coming near. Online poker for me is about to go the way of Jerry Falwell. Farewell old friend. I'll see you when the sun meets the ground and I am in it. The same old games are getting boring to me and the number of fish seems to have dropped to a point where it is no longer as profitable as it had been. Plus I'll probably need some extra dough this summer and the poker bankroll seems the obvious choice to draw from.

The idea of being dead and having everything be over has been pervading my consciousness lately. Everything goes through one death; I know that. But does it not freak you the fuck out to realize that one day you will cease to exist and that everything that is YOU is gone??? Your memories, possessions, someday everyone you have ever met will be dead like you have been for awhile. I love life, but someday nothing will be left

Holy Shit....poker

2007-05-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

First of all, let's applaud Congressman Barney Fag, I mean Barney Frank, for drafting legislation aimed at stopping this online poker ban nonsense. He stepped up when all these other stuffed suits in office are off playing with themselves. Of course, I don't really expect any of the bible thumping retards in the Republican Party to vote for it. Likewise, I doubt very many of the Democrats will get behind it either. Frank needs to sneak the bill in some unrelated piece of legislation that Republicans can't vote against. That would be sweet; like taking a big shit on Bill Frists' Howdy-Doody looking face.

I played in a honest to god real poker tournament last night and ended up winning the damn thing. It was a 7 card stud tourney with about 50 runners, so it wasn't that great of a pay day. It's been a good amount of time since I last won a tourney, so it was pretty sweet. Maybe this bodes well for a trip to Vegas that is going to take place in a few months. Plane ticket and room are already booked. It should be a 48 hour frenzy of poker and free booze. I wonder if my points on my Imperial Palace players card from 18 months ago are still valid. Pizza Palace here I come!

nappy headed radio hosts

2007-04-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

I'll probably get some accidental traffic with that title....

I don't want to have a whole big post about this Dom Imus thing, but the whole thing makes me wanna puke. From what he said, to the ridiculous amount of media coverage, to Rutgers Univ trotting out the whole team for a media Q and A, to morons sticking up for Imus and complaining that he should not have been canned, to Jesse and Al who are utterly shameless about sticking their mugs on TV.

Here's my version of what happened. He said something stupid, the media descended like vultures, his sponsors backed out, and as a result he got fired. He got fired because no company in their right mind wanted their brandname associated with Don Imus, not because of what he said.

While I am on the race issue....MLB allowed teams to make a mockery out of day designed to honor Jackie Robinson. The entire St. Louis Cardinals team donned jerseys with the number 42 on them. I am a big fan of subtlety, this was not subtle. No offense to David Eckstein, or any other white player, but to me it removes some of the meaning of the day when guys like him are sporting Robinson's number on his day. And to add insult to injury, they throttled the Brew Crew.

The hockey playoffs are going on, I feel sad for all you tards who pay no attention. Playoff hockey beats the pants off any of the other major sport playoffs. Except the years when the Twins win the World Series.

dead man's computer.

2007-03-10T11:57:00.000-08:00

There are few things in life that leave a person more sad than going through the stuff of someone who has recently passed away. I realize this after salvaging a dead man's computer. Someone will be there when I die to go through my shit and probably judge every little thing that was in my possession. That gives me an idea, put some crazy shit on my computer in the event that I bite the dust. The sad sap that boots the machine up might find dated pictures of every bowel movement I made since 1999 along with a short menu of what I ate the preceding day. Or maybe a collection of unsent love letters to Wembley from Fraggle Rock. Remixes of Pointer Sister songs (that might be pretty awesome, actually), and the entire videography of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Napster. WAV files of the Doodletown Pipers. Pics of dogs chewing on dildo's. Serial killer biographies.

The computer I went through had the following things:

1. A handful of short porn clips. Sometimes you kinda wonder if porn loses it's thrill when you get old; not for this dude.

2. What seemed to be Clay Aiken's entire discography; this would make some sense if those clips were gay porn, but instead I was left flummoxed.

3. No less than 10 programs about how to get somewhere; microsoft streets and tricks, google maps, microsoft chicks with dicks, google earth, streetfinder, etc. Maybe it was a sign of dementia.

4. A Dummy's Guide to Will's and Estates. Family Tree Maker. 5 or more programs that have to do with income taxes.

About 6 years ago, I helped a friend who managed some apartment buildings clean out the apartment of a lady who had just died. She lived across the way from another tenant I knew and she spent most of her nights in a pitch-black apartment smoking cigarettes. She died, and had no one to claim or clean up her stuff. She had many books; some good stuff too, like Burroughs, Sartre, Hemingway, etc. Yet, all those good books didn't mean one ounce of happiness for her. No doubt she was miserable. I spent most of my last 2 years as an undergrad reading good books and smoking cigarettes by myself. I wasn't miserable (probably not happy either) and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything, but at a certain point one welcomes the company of others .

Quote of the Day

2007-02-27T18:39:00.000-08:00

Mike Matusow to Gus Hansen a few months ago across fulltilt chat:

Mike Matusow: gus what u do lick some nuns pussssy last night or somthing.