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

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.

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

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

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

"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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.
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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.

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

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.