Oh to slip the surly bonds of earth

Been catching up on my blog reading and came across a couple of mentions of a Survivor tourney, usually by Josie. Finally find a link to it in Rigg’s blog and follow it to check it out. What the fuck is going on here? I spend almost every night navigating the shoals of reality shows in hopes of finding something decent to watch and now someone has the frikkin brilliant ideas of bringing them to the poker table? Poker is my escape from such dreck. I take pride in being one of the few, if not the only, persons in the US with a TV set to have never seen one episode of either Survivor or American Idol. In fact I could almost claim to have never seen an episode of any of the multitude of reality shows that Survivor has spawned except I have to cop to having once watched an episode of Dancing with the Stars, but only one mind you. Yet now some peckerwood has seen fit to drag the garbage to the poker table. How come I smell Riggs in here somewhere?

Of course I can see why Josie is anxious to play. If I read this thing right it’s based on Survivor where so many start and one by one they get voted off. Just picture it, Josie and a bunch of drooling males thinking with the head between their legs rather than the one on their shoulders as the contestants. Can you picture one of them voting Josie off? Hell, they’re all going to be stabbing each other in the back in the hopes of getting to be the one to go one on one on top of with Josie. Damn, she’ll be able to play them and gut them like trout. No wonder she’s anxious to get it started, she’s practically got it locked up already. Might be interesting to follow at that.

What else is there to talk about? Right now not much. People dream about sitting around with nothing to do when they retire. Believe me, it sucks. Hell, even when I was in the hospital with my ass pinned to a bed there was still the obnoxious rules and officious attitudes to skewer and the enforcers of such to drive mad. I had fodder for this blog and an audience to enlighten. Sitting here, stuck in the house, my mind stagnates. I can’t even go to the bar games and make myself obnoxious there. Well, not that I really can’t go but I try to walk only when necessary to keep pressure off this fucked up foot so that it can heal faster. Of course if I should get a message that there is a real poker game somewhere walking becomes necessary. But on the whole I am bored. Bored, bored, bored. I don’t even feel like reading right now and anyone who knows me knows that is a bad sign. Hopefully this mood shall soon pass. Would be nice if the feds would make up their mind on the disability app I sent in. If they approve I can make some plans to visit Vegas knowing I have some cash flow and can blow a bit of savings. If they decline I can at least get fired up to fight. The waiting sucks even though I know it’s going to be at least another month until I hear anything. Of course I might even get an approval but the doc will say no because of the foot. That would be a bitch. Oh well, we’ll see. Enough being a whiney bitch. Something will break soon.

Oh, btw. If any of you folks enjoy sf/fantasy stories I said I would plug one for an online acquaintance from one of my literary forums. Guy is an aspiring writer and has put a couple of stories up on Smashwords.com. His name is Chris Northern and I read the first one he told me about, The Last King’s Amulet. On the whole not a bad story. He’s still a bit raw and needs a better proof reader in spots but it was enjoyable and kept me fairly interested and turning pages. It’s also got me reading the sequel, The Key to the Grave. The story is cheap compared to paperbacks, only $2 to download. So if you are interested in that kind of story and looking for a new author give him a try. Hey, if he makes it you’ll be able to say, I knew him when … Also you get to critique his work if you wish, something I’m sure he will appreciate as he’s still new to the game and working on improving where he can and if you enjoy there is another story out there already waiting. Give him a try if the genre is your thing.

Hokay, enough commercials. Thanks for the listen.

Another Mookie done done

Played the Mookie, and it is the Mookie, last night though wasn’t feeling the greatest. Even worse I had spent the previous couple of hours reading and when I do that my eyes go out of focus on the computer screen. That means I have to full screen the table to even see my chip count and tell the difference between a 6 and an 8. Given this there was absolutely no chance of any live blogging the game or even keeping a running tally of the table action to post later. Even worse there was no possible way to see, let alone participate in, the damned chat box so that the trash talk that makes this game so much fun wasn’t happening either.

I do remember a few things that happened. Was at ck’s table but she didn’t last long enough for a cup of coffee. Seems she got a bit aggressive against Blaargh and shoved a flopped mediocre top pair, 9s I think, into his pocket Ks. Early night for the Black Widow. Right after I told her she was getting to be as big a luck sack as Riggs too. Just had to go and make a liar out of me didn’t ya. I almost followed soon after and would have if I hadn’t won a small pot earlier. This time I was the one with the K-K and got trashed when Cracknaces gambled his tourney life on two over cards to the board and a flush draw when he raised my pot bet then called my shove on a 2 club, 10 high flop with K-J of clubs. As ck would say damned crubs. That left me sitting with about 250 chips while still at the first level. Somehow I was able to hang in and actually rebuild my stack up to around 2500 chips at one point but that point was somewhere after the first break so it wasn’t exactly a great stack by that point. Mainly a lot of shoves a couple that got calls here and there and hands holding up until my final shove with A-Qs came up dry against J-J. Would have been nice to make a deep run after being down that low early but it wasn’t meant to be. Used up that bit of luck when I pulled it off Monday night in a game amongst members of the Poker Analysis players when I went from an early mauling to tourney winner. Can’t expect that to happen too often.

Something I’ve been wondering about over the last couple of weeks is what gives with Josie? Don’t get me wrong Josie, it ain’t about you as such, you write a good blog, seem to be a decent person and don’t look half bad either if that is really you in that picture. However it seems every blogger with a dick is tripping over it in trying to make nice with you. C’mon guys, haven’t you ever dealt with a woman before? I mean Waffles I can understand, it’s entirely possible that he hasn’t if the rumor mill is correct but there can’t be that big a drought out there in blogger land.

Speaking of Waffles he seems to be desperate to get people on this change the name of the Mookie to the Dank bandwagon. Reading his blog I see he has Hoy listed as someone who is calling the Mookie by either The Dank or the Buddy in his effort to get others to do so. Hoy? Hoy? Now I don’t know what goes on between those two but from reading Waffles blog it sounds like Waffles would be the first guy to give Hoy a drink if he were in hell. Of Tabasco. Yet after reading nothing but trash talk from the aforementioned blogger he now cites him as an example. Oh the depths some people will sink to in pursuit of their agenda.

Damn, how did I live without all this fun when I took that hiatus? Donning my asbestos earmuffs. Thanks for the listen.

Some more politics

You know I keep hearing the GOP say they want banking and financial reform, a good political move from the way Main Street feels about Wall Street, yet they stand in a solid bloc behind Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as he yells NO at the top of his lungs and tries using the same scare tactics about the banking bill that he used concerning heath care. He’s not even saying that the GOP wants a bill and while they have problems with the one sitting there to be passed and that he and his fellow Republicans are working with the Democrats to iron out some differences he just keeps yelling NO and trying to convince Joe the Plumber that the bill is nothing but a big government bailout of banks should they again need one. So what is it? Are the Republicans just a bunch of dumb assholes or do they think that Joe and Jane Citizen are? Considering the amount of people who still believe that Obama was not born a US citizen or how many people they convinced that the health care bill was pure socialism it may be they are betting on the latter. All I can say is that considering it was their hurry to deregulate these self same institutions, and thereby causing the current economic situation. they now say they want to regulate I somehow find it hard to believe that they really feel regulation is necessary. After all, if we take care of the rich they’ll look after us. Hasn’t that been the GOP mantra since the days of Saint Ronnie if not longer? Maybe some of you may not agree with me but just remember this, these self same dickheads, who were in a great hurry to deregulate every thing in sight when they were in power were more than willing to take the time out to find some way to regulate your ability to play online poker. Think they are on your side?

Tonight's Mookie

Gonna try something different tonight. Am going to try live blogging of the game, as far as I'm concerned at least. May go further after I get KOed but not committing to anything. Hell, might not be able to keep it up as far as my participation goes but we'll try.

It's 15 minutes to start and 95 runners at the gate so far. Will we break 100?

We start with 114 runners and I find myself at a table with Josie and Riggs for familiar names

A lot of folding early but Josie has lost about half her stack to NYRambler.

Lose my first hand of playable cards to Riggs. Lousy flop so not a lot of damage

Seems Waffles is at the table and I just recovered some of my chips thru his good graces (hah)

Seems Waffles donated again. I'm going to get ripped if this keeps up.

Tough fold. Raise in position and get reraised by niktak. Flop gives me TPTK but niktak bets out fairly strong. Too early to push, overpair probable.

Riggs scores double KO, including Josie when he turns a set of Ks

Pick up some chips from Mattazuma when my A-Q turns out better than his K-Q on a A-K-J-x-x board

KK, gets no action from a 3xs raise. Oh well.

Waffles has just informed me he has a feeling I'm going out before him. Hey, anything is possible.

Just split a pot with Jamyhawk. PP9s lead all the way until we both river a straight. Called down with A-9. I then get called by Waffles on a J-8-8 flop with A-K. Doesn't anyone believe me when I bet?

Well, it's better than Monday night. I made first break and even have some chips. At least the poker gods ain't playing tricks tonight (except that split pot) On the whole the cards just suck so I'm folding a lot.

NYRambler just dropped the hammer on me with a reraise to my raise. Thing is, I wasn't a whole lot better.

Damn, K-K again, in SB, and all fold. BB folds to raise.

Take some chips off MaggieO. She minraised my BB and I call on general principle and smack the flop. She calls flop and turn bets and folds to value bet on river. Was I called down by another A-x?

Waffles shoves and called by myself and Jamyhawk. I hit the flop and bet and am called. Turn brings a 3rd spade and even tho I have top pair with nut flush redraw I check and Jamy shoves. I fold, he has Q-Q, Waffles A-T. River a 3 and Waffles is gone, so much for his feeling tho it was almost a draw. I lose half my stack.

Jamyhawk just takes out VinNay. He's on a roll. Called VinNay's shove of his raise with A-8 to VinNay's 3-3 and caught a straight.

I'm out. A-K shove with about 11 BBs. MaggieO had raised and Chippy McStacks called and both called my shove. MaggieO, with Q-J catches a J and Chippy with 7-7 and my A-K go begging.

I find CK has taken my seat and as she is live blogging, and does a much better job at it than I, I guess I'll shut down for the night.

Thanks for the listen.

Silly season is here again

Election time is once again upon us and the bullshit has started though not in full bloom yet. This isn’t a rant over position on either side this is just an early reply to a statement I heard often in the last election and will probably hear as well in this one. The object of this missive is the opinion of those pundits that the vast middle of the electorate, those called the undecided, are useless because they have gone for years without making up their mind about where they stand. They are made to sound like no nothing morons because they don’t declare their support for any party or candidate right out or have a stated political philosophy that can easily be labeled. Not that it will do any good because quick quips, sound bites and talking points are what these bloviating peckerheads are all about but as on of these supposed “no nothing idiots” I figure I’ll try to educated those who would hold such opinions.

First off, when a person says they are undecided doesn’t mean they haven’t made up their mind on a political philosophy, it means they just haven’t taken a stand on a candidate. Unlike many who call themselves liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans and walk in lock step to whomever is the leader of that school of thought of thought us independents have no philosophy that can be covered by a single label. Many of use believe in bits and pieces of each of the well defined philosophies out there. I, for example, like the idea of balanced budgets, less government spending and interference in our lives and term limits, once solid points of the GOP, but hastily abandoned once they got in to power. OTOH I am what could be described as libertarian when it comes to social issues. As far as I’m concerned as long as you aren’t hurting anyone whatever you do with your own life is your concern. For environmental issues I guess I fall in to the liberal category. I don’t give a damn about Spaceship Earth; the earth will survive whatever man can do to her. I do however don’t believe in fucking up said spaceship’s life support system. Hello people, that’s what keeps us and our descendents alive and kicking. If I had stayed happily unmarried and had no offspring I might not care so much but I was a fool and spent some time in conjugal bliss, if that’s what you want to call it, and produced offspring, so now I have to give a shit about what happens after I shuffle off this mortal coil, if only for her sake. So yes, people like us have definite views on issues, they are just not views that can be collectively quantified under a simple label.

So you see, it’s not that we are morons with no opinions or even indecisive. We have strong felling on a lot of different matters and find no one candidate fits the bill as they have to play to the base, those great unwashed masses that find it easier to spout a party line than to use the brains they supposedly came equipped with. One has to sort through the issues and decide whether to go with one or two one feels strongly about or whether to go with quantity over quality and pick the guy who agrees with more of your viewpoints. Hell, it’s a lot easier to parrot a party line and spout talking points as if they were gospel truth. I have an uncle that passes on every conservative based email that gets forwarded to him and refers to them as signs that his viewpoint is correct without even bothering to check as to whether they had any truth to them or not. I usually run them through a fact checker and send the results back but it never seems to do any good. So, not that it will do any good when it comes to the parrot brigade I figured I will get this out there to try and enlighten those with a spark of intelligence and free will. Hey, maybe so straying candidate might even read this and try to appeal to us.

Thanks for the listen.

A matter of priorities

Started the Poker from the Rail tourney in a blaze. Caught Quad Js and got a quick KO when Columbo filled up. Even a blind squirrel and all that jazz. Caught another KO when I caught Qs a couple orbits later and Willythe wise shoved his pp10s. Nothing for either of us on the board and I take chip lead for a bit. Didn’t last long as the very next hand I run K-K into Avoque’s A-A and hand over almost half my stack. About one orbit later I hand over half of what’s remaining to Xsyyunx when my flopped top 2 run into their flopped middle set. Never saw that one coming considering I had one of those 8s in my hand. Worked myself back to about 2500 chips with a few small pots here and there but go out a few orbits later when I my A-Q flops TPTK but Julleus is holding a K-K. Had some outs on the river as an A, a Q or a club would have given it to me but alas, no suckout and I’m out before the first break. Oh the ignominy of it, quads, two early KOs and I can’t even make first break. Oh well, I told the table I was there to donk chips and no one can say I’m not a man of my word. The Mookie on Wed. You know, been away from Tilt for a while and forgot how much fun these games can be.

OTOH I got a really good shave today. My mother was doing some Spring cleaning over the weekend and in one of her closets found two single edge razors, one double edge and, wonder of wonders, an injector. Gave to my father to give to me. Glorioski Sandy, didn’t know she was a reader. What’s a poker tourney compared to a close shave? One just has to have their priorities straight.

Thanks for listening

A not so hot day of poker

My big Sunday has not started out so hot. Decided to move up a bit on the limit tables that have been treating me decent so went to the 2/4 table. My god, the play here was terrible, worse than that on the .1020, .25/.50 and .50/1 games. Ordinarily I would have eaten this table alive but today was not ordinary. First, understand, it’s limit; I expect chasing and unlike many do not rail against it. Hell, I want those chasers, the odds say they are going to lose more often than not and unlike a casino table where you have 5-6 chasers in a 2/4 game so someone was likely to hit here you had only 1 or 2 so the odds are in your favor. Not only that but these characters couldn’t even be considered legit chasers. Today the poker gods decided to ream me proper with even benefit of a reach around. Never have I seen so many runner, runner hits after people called 3 and 4 bets preflop and on the flops with nothing more than a weak ace and a backdoor draw. I would be ready to quit when I would win a pot big enough to keep me going thinking that maybe the cards had turned. In-fucking-credible is the only appropriate description. Instead of being up a couple hundred that such shenanigans should have brought me I wound up down a buck and a half due to the gods’ disfavor. Even worse, after being down about a buck the suckouts had stopped enough for me to actually come back and go up a couple of bucks. Should have stopped there but the reaming started soon after though the start this time was a legit beat when my pocket aces were cracked by a 9-9 that flopped a set. .This time the beats weren’t so bad in the sense it was good cards that weren’t good enough in about half the cases, A-A vs. K_K or set over set but there were still enough of the perfect hits to let me know that the poker gods were still enjoying their jest. As I write this I have a couple hours to go until the war game for my forum and the 35K sniper for me and I just hope the poker gods have wandered away to torment someone else tonight.

Well, the war game is over, at least for me, and I did not exactly shine. Finished somewhere in the bottom third. Cards were not kind but I did grind out a few extra chips early on. I flopped sets twice but no action on one and minimal on the other made a couple of wasted opportunities and I lost about a third of my stack when a suited K-3 in the BB wound up hitting a K on the flop on an unraised pot. A lead bet got a call but when a third suited hit the turn and my bet brought a raise it was time to release. There was a little give and take and I was sitting with T-T and about 14-15 BB. A 3xs raise got a caller out of the blinds and they bet on a flop of 6-7-8 rainbow. It was either shove or fold and with the blinds going up in a min or two I shoved. Snap call and the blind had Q-Q. No 9 or 10 and I was gone. Just what I was afraid of after that early session this am. Now waiting for 35K sniper to start. Will see where that gets us.

The 35K has started and ain’t doing so well. Down a bit more than a third of my stack. Flop top two and found I was sucking hind tit but not until after blowing off that third. Bet the flop and got two callers. Bet the turn and next guy shoves, he was sitting on about a half stack and then the third player in the pot also shoves and he has me covered. Ut-oh, this don’t look good. I figure one of them has me beat but which one? The wrong guess and I’m out. Even the right guess and I only really get back what I bet so far and maybe a couple hundred more. And what if they both have me beat? Decide that the old saw about discretion and all that jazz is one to follow here and I bail out. As it was the big stack has a set so I guessed right but the shorty has an OESD which he then proceeds to river. Lost a good amount but it could be worse. Blinds still low enough to make a recovery. Let the game go on. Got a few chips back when I pull K-K with a raise in front. I reraise, get a caller and first raiser goes away. Flop is draw heavy so I don’t play around and shove as the other guy has position and he goes away and I pick up a few more hundred though I’m still below the starting stack. First break and I’m sitting with about 40 BBs. Not great but playable for awhile yet. A double up would be nice but except for the Ks and an A-Q in the sb that got no action cards have been scarce. Intelligent character just tried to bluff me off a hand with an all in and got rewarded for it. Guy all in and I’m sitting with nut straight and flush draws and check the flop. Other player checks and the turn comes out a blank and I check again. This time he pots and I call. River bricks for me, a 5 and wouldn’t you know the asshole has a 4-5. It’s this morning all over. The fools are being rewarded.

Ok, can breathe a bit easier. Was short stacked and almost shoved in a few places but hung on till the last minute and finally shoved with a Q-T with a couple others in the pot figuring if I hit I got some chips. Big stack to my left isolates with an A-7 and I hit the 10 on the flop and double up plus. Very next hand I pull A-K with 2 limpers in front and I shove again and the big stack again calls. This time he has 7-7 but I hit the K and I am breathing. Two hands later I catch Q-Q and this time the limper to my right calls my preflop raise. Flop comes 7-5-3, he checks and I pot it and he calls. Turn a blank and again he checks, I shove and he calls. He has K-7 and says he thought I might be pushing A-K again. He obviously doesn’t know me well. So I go into the second break with some breathing room and about 50 BBs. Seems I now have an image. Catch K-K in BB and have raiser in front. I repop and after thinking about it he folds. Have now raised 3 more pots and no action. That’s fine because the blinds are big enough that the limpers are adding to the stack although I did lose a few when I caught a mediocre top pair on the flop from the sb and chased 3 of the 4 limpers with bets on the flop and turn but I gave it up on the river and the guy bet ¾ pot. Think I was played but didn’t feel like throwing chips away after just getting them. Being oop sucks big time.

Hey, collected a bounty, first one. Forgot all about them been so wrapped up in staying alive. Had K-T suited in bb and knew I was going to get shoved on. Luckily the guy shoving only had about 2 K with blinds at 150/300. Figure him for a loose range and call. He had A-9 off, sort of where I put him, and flop snaps off a K. For a minute I thought he runner, runnered a 4 flush board but then the screen pops up informing me of the bounty and I saw I misread a card. So I am in positive territory as I won the entry to this game. While I’m folding my third 3-4 in a row here I just thought of a sick hand that hit earlier in the game when I had chips. Had J-9 suited and called a 3 times raise from late position and one of the blinds reraises. First raiser bangs it again, I get out of the way and it winds up all in the middle with A-A vs. K-K. Flop comes J-J-x and I’m bitching but do realize I couldn’t have played there. Turn brings a K and I’m now grateful that I got out of the way. River comes an ace and all I can think of is, sick. And while writing this another hand just brought that to mind. Two guys after a raise and call and flop comes 3 low. First to act bets, other shoves and first snap calls. Guy shoved A-T into a pair of pocket Ks Final two cards brings a board straight and a chop. Guy with the Ks has to be fuming. Just added a few chips. A-K in the BB and folds to SB who raises. I call and flop hits A-x-Q. SB bets about the pot and I shove. He tanks but eventually folds. Just gave some of those chips elsewhere. Early position raises a bit more than minimum and I actually have a made hand with 8-8. B-B shoves for about 2/3 my stack however and EP folds and after some thought so do I. Not really thinking of calling off that much with 8s since the blinds are only 250/500 and figuring that anyone shoving about 50 BBs has me in a race at best. Have tight image right now and cultivating it in case I make it to bubble time.

How come every time I add chips I give some away right away? 7-7 in the BB got me some chips when a mid position player raises a bit more than minimum. Flop brings me a set with no draws and a J high. I check thinking maybe he’ll c-bet. No such luck but the turn brings an A so I check again figuring now he will bet which he does. I check raise and he folds showing A-9. Should have tried to milk some more. Turn around and catch K-T otb 2 hands later and it folds to me. Against the blinds I think I’m good so I raise. The SB thinks a bit and reraises over half my stack. I have the feeling that he thinks I’m playing him with a button raise and he’s playing back at me but the amount is too much for me to chance.

Should have chanced it, I’m out 10 from the money. A-J in position and a bit more than min raise in front. I call and flop comes low giving me inside straight draw. Player bets about half pot which I call thinking it’s a c-bet and he missed the flop. Turn gives me nut flush draw in addition to the gutter ball and he checks and I bet thinking maybe I can represent the flush and take it down there. He comes back with a shove and I’m already committed, probably should have shoved there instead of just potting, so I call figuring I’m beat but hoping I have outs. I did as he turns A-A but they didn’t hit and I’m gone.

Thus endeth a lousy day of poker though I got farther in that sniper than I figured I would a couple of hours ago. Thanks for the listen.

The BBT is back

Al’s at it again. No, not destroying some bar’s supply of SoCo but organizing the BBT., the Battle of the Bloggers, a set of tournyes over the next few weeks that offer a great set of prizes, courtesy of Full Tilt and Al’s effort. Full details can be found on Al’s site here. Come out and trash talk your favorite bloggers and see if they are as good, or bad, as they think they are. The BBT starts tomorrow, Sub., April 17th with The Invitational, an event I am only going to be able to rail as I am a mere Z-list blogger but I will be participating in some of the opens on Mon and Wed as long as my senility doesn’t kick in and make me forget starting times. Will probably rail tomorrow nights Invitational for a while to see who is playing but I have 2 fairly big tourneys on the personal calendar for tomorrow, the forum wars I have discussed in previous posts and a 35K guarantee sniper that I won an entry to last month, both on AP, so I will be a bit distracted,. Hopefully I last log enough that is. So, see you at the BBT. Thanks Al.

It's not all gambling the GOP hates

Was reading the newspaper yesterday and came across an article where Mitch MCConnell and the GOP senators were trashing the new banking reform bill, not to mention the distortions and lies he was spreading about it. Weren't these the same characters that had no problem passing a financial bill that basically blocks US banks from dealing with online poker rooms and casinos thereby making it more difficult and expensive for us players to deposit and withdrawal from these sites? Seems the GOP doesn't mind the banks and Wall Street gambling with our money but have a problem with us doing so. Something to think about.

A shave, a shave, my kingdom for a shave

Gonna do a bit of a rant here. I’m sure it will be nothing on the order of a Waffles tantrum but I’ll do what I can.

Does anyone really buy the bullshit that the grooming industry has been shoveling for years now about how more is better? Yes, I said bullshit and not bs or bullshyt or any other euphemism. This is an issue that has bugged me for years and I finally decided to let it out.

When I started shaving you had 3 basic ways of scraping your chin, or elsewhere in the case of the women out there. (This is an equal opportunity rant). You had, in ascending order of comfort, the double edge, the single edge and the injector razors. Oh alright, some of us also had the option of a straight razor but that is something I would prefer to leave in the hands of an expert. None of them was failsafe and you could expect to need a styptic or roll of tp somewhere along the line to take care of the inevitable nicks that would occur. You got a pretty damned good shave however. I finally settled on the injector and found myself a couple of decent razors that actually had small grips on the ends of the blade to cover up the sharp corners and cut down on the blood. The one I started with left the ends open and was good for at least two nicks a week. I can’t say I enjoyed those razors, who actually enjoys shaving, but they were good razors and did the job they were designed for.

Then about 40 years ago some bright genius at Gillette was probably the first person to come up with if x is good then more x is better philosophy of marketing that has since permeated the entire system. He came up with a double bladed, not double edged, razor and lots of fancy animations that showed how one blade stretched a whisker while cutting it and the second one cut it even closer. Damn, it actually made sense and while I didn’t rush right out and buy one I eventually succumbed and got one after they had been on the market for awhile. It was something I regretted the first time I tried it. How close a shave can one get with a razor that you can drag all over your face at all angles and not see a drop of red? Then an even bigger problem presented itself. I’m not the type that needs to shave every day, especially back then. My beard came in light and my hair is fine so I could go a day or two between shaves as it just wasn’t notable. The first time I shaved after letting it slide a day or two I noticed that the damned blades clogged up and they wouldn’t clean out for love or money. I soon used up my supply of blades, as much as I hated them they were too expensive to just toss, and then tossed the razor and went back to injectors. Someone must have noticed the clogging problem as I remember a twin blade cartridge that had a little plastic gizmo that you pressed on and it slide between the blades to try and clear them. As far as I was concerned it didn’t make a difference, I had my injectors and all was right with the world.

Somewhere along the line someone continued the thought that if one was good and two was better then 3 was fantastic and now it started to affect me. Not that I was rushing out to buy one of the new 3 bladed monstrosities but because of the profit involved in the proprietary cartridges needed it made finding cheap injector blades tough. A lot of stores stopped carrying them and I was forced to search, and occasionally resort to the Net, to find blades. Then disaster struck. My last razor broke. Try finding an injector razor anywhere. Yea, you can find used ones on E Bay but while I didn’t mind inheriting one from a family member I really don’t feel like using a stranger’s old razor. Found new ones listed but found some reviews which said they were Chinese knock offs and that the blades wobbled so much in them that you might as well cut your throat. So now I’m stuck, I’ve got to use one of those abominations that get passed of as razors, either that or go electric which I’ve never cared for. I decided to go the 3 bladed route as they at least opened the back of the cartridge so you can try to run water through it to clear the blades. Not that it does much good, no sink faucet has rthat much pressure, but it’s better than nothing. Sitting here writing I feel my latest shave, I was ambitious today, and wonder why I bothered. If it was the army I’d be on KP for standing too far away from the razor.

Yet somehow they’ve continued adding blades to the cartridges and dollars to the price. So far they’ve gone with 4 and 5 blades and I’m surprised they haven’t quit making the 3 bladed gizmos. I can picture some marketing executive in the offices of Gillette or Shick rubbing his hands together and wondering how many more blades they can push on us before someone decides that they should be used to cut something other than whiskers. Not that it would do much good though.

All I want is a good, reasonably priced shave. If I was younger I’d reconsider the straight razor. My father has a very good German one I could steal. However I’m too old to learn now and besides, the stroke has thrown my balance off just enough that I’d probably look like a very poor grade of hamburger if I tried. I can still find injector blades if I try but if anyone knows where a razor can be located I would appreciate it If I can’t find one I’m going to have to think about becoming a member of the ZZ Top fan club because what passes for a razor these days is about as useful as teats on a boar hog.

OK, that’s it for know. Thanks for the listen.

Alas poor Donovan, I knew him Horatio

OK, sitting here this morning waiting for a seat to open up so I figure I’d throw in my 2 cents on the McNabb trade. Basically the Birds were caught in a bit of a squeeze; they had 3 quarterbacks whose contracts were expiring at the same time, 2 with fairly big names and none who wanted to be back up. They were going to lose 2 of them somewhere along the line. If they extended McNabb someone was going to offer Kolb a chance and Vick was definitely testing the market. So what to do? Me, as much as I like McNabb and would have liked to see him get a ring in an Eagles uni I think the Eagles took the course they needed to take.

If they extended McNabb they lose the other QBs unless they can get some kind of trade value for them and it didn’t look like anyone was knocking really hard. By trading McNabb they are going to see if their judgment in taking Kolb was correct. He showed flashes of the necessary skills when McNabb was out last year but many a back up has shown great presence when stepping up for an injured starter only to fail when they get the job outright. So now Kolb is in the pressure cooker. If he handles it he keeps the job, Vick goes his way and whomever the Birds acquire this year becomes the backup. If Kolb fails the Birds offer Vick the job for a few years and start looking for their next starter. It had to be done. If the Eagles had kept McNabb they were going to have to draft another potential starting qb so that they had time to prepare him which meant there was going to be a fire sale for someone. Also this way if Kolb does turn out to be the qb they think he is you have him and his talented corp of receivers having quite a number of years together. If McNabb had stayed he would be retiring long before his receivers.

Obviously the Eagles do not think McNabb has the ability to win games on his own any more as the traded him to a team in their own division., a team they feel that might benefit from McNabb’s presence but doesn’t have the weapons to seriously challenge just yet and that by the time they acquire those weapons McNabb’s skills will have deteriorated even more. McNabb’s passing has always been erratic. Some days he could fire lasers in to his receivers while on others they were too low or behind them. His saving grace was the fact that on all except his really bad days his passing could be good enough and his legs were worth a couple of first downs. Even when he didn’t run the mere threat of it was enough to pull defenders towards him and away from his receivers. Age however has diminished that threat. Add in the fact that it’s been a rare season lately that he doesn’t get injured and the qb situation in Philadelphia left McNabb the odd man out.

So now starts the Kevin Kolb era in Philadelphia. He seems more a pure passer than McNabb so the excitement that Donovan brought to the game probably won’t be there. Reid may feel that he can fit into his pass happy offense better. We’ll see. One thing Kolb had better get used to, many of the fans that yelled for him the past few years will now turn on him and yell for his back up unless he wins that ring, and soon. The honeymoon will be short and the funeral brutal if he doesn’t win right away. It’s the nature of the beast. No Philly QB was ever good enough when he was playing. Everyone loves Jaworski these days but in his playing days the criticism was brutal. It was Vermeil, Montgomery and the D that were considered the heroes at the time. McNabb, for all the grief he took while here will be fondly remembered as time passes and if Kolb fails it won’t be a lot of time. So here is hoping that Reid is right, right in drafting Kolb when he did and right in going down this path. The games with Washington have always been tough and he just made them a lot tougher.

On a final note I do wish to say that I think McNabb got a bit of a raw deal here. The fans we all know about but management did it too. Andy Reid runs a pass happy offense yet in all the years he was here McNabb never had a talented receiving corp to work with. Oh there were some individuals at times, Chad Lewis at tight end for a couple of years and Owens at wide out for a short time but the Birds never gathered a complete set the way they have now and now he is gone. And for all those idiots who keep claiming that T.O. got the Eagles to the Super Bowl remember, he never played a playoff game. He was the cause of them getting a lot of regular season wins but the team got over the championship game hump without his help yet McNabb never gets the credit for that either. It is always T.O. that got them to the Bowl, not McNabb. So Donovan I wish you well in the time you have left in the league and hope you get the recognition you deserve. Just don’t do it against the Eagles.

Thanks for the listen.

A good month so far

It’s been a hot couple of weeks on the poker front. As stated earlier I won the Buy in league I play which brought a couple of nice bennies although AP has reduced the guarantee from 40K to 35K on the tourney entry I won. Now that my daughter has gone back home I plan on playing it next Sunday night. Looks like they get somewhere around 350 players so should be interesting. It’s on AP so that’s a plus for me. Prefer the structure on the AP/UB sites to any I’ve played. There was a 30K deep stack listed that I inquired about as I much prefer a deep stack to a sniper but alas, it seems the agreement is for a sniper. I can change to the 25K on a Sat. but no deep stack.

Speaking of AP, this month’s GFN war games are being held on that site. A godsend considering Power Poker last month. The structure allows you to play some poker and even make a mistake or two rather than turning into a bingo fest after an hour or so. I prefer it as I said and so far it shows. I duplicated my showing of the first game last month by finishing fourth but in last night’s second game I followed it up with a second place finish last night which put me in a tie for first overall in the player standings. Should have taken first as I had a huge advantage going heads up but a misread or two, a change in my opponent’s style and a bit of luck on his part and I was vanquished. The change was a good move on his part as it caught me off guard but it was risky and that was where the luck came in. He caught when he had made a few questionable calls but I can’t blame him for the plays as earlier I had been forcing him off a lot of hands so he had to start playing some or get bled to death. It’s funny that the luck was on his side at the end because I hit a run of it earlier. It seemed the deck had come up and slapped me in the face as I seemed to win almost every race and even squirmed out of a few dominated situations. I was even being referred to as the luckiest guy online by some people. Yea, I’ll admit I was lucky, you have to be to go deep in tourneys but it wasn’t the kind of luck where you call a raise with 4-9 sooooted but the luck of winning the coin flips and the occasional suckout in a dominated situation but if people want to think it’s all luck hey, go ahead. I’ll happily take the second place as I was down to 400 chips at one point in the game. That’s one of the things I like about AP, I was able to wait a bit for a decent hand to make my play. At Power I would have been forced in to an atc shove almost as soon as I had hit the 400 chip mark. Two more games to go in this month’s wars. Hoping to keep myself near the top of the rankings.

Speaking of the top of the rankings and Power I got a pleasant surprise this week. I’ve been playing these games mainly for bragging rights and the freerolls the forum gets, never thought about personal prizes outside the tourney payouts. Given that I really didn’t care for Power Poker didn’t think I would be seeing much of the site. Reading the forum posts however I saw that the top 9 finishers received $111 and the rest of the participants got a $10 tourney coupon. So I go in to Power figuring I’ll check out this coupon thing and blow it on a quick tourney. Imagine my surprise that while I’m looking for the coupon I run across $111 in my account. Top 9? I hit the top 9? Except for that fourth place finish I thought my game sucked. Went to the results site and there it was, a tie for ninth. How the hell did that happen? Not going to complain though. While I might not like their tourney structure there seems to be a bunch of crazies at the Limit HE and PLO tables so I’ll work on my ring game with the money. So far I’ve added another $50 to the bankroll there. Another reason I wish to stay near the top of the rankings is that while last month the top 9 got the same payout this month it’s a graduated payout on the order of a final table.

Well, we’ll let it go for awhile. Still itching for some live play but with my foot still screwed up an AC trip ain’t happening for awhile unless I get someone to drive. Might give my opinion on the McNabb trade as if anyone gives a damn but for now, thanks for the listen.

How's come

Is it just me and my tastes that are so far out of line with the great unwashed or do companies go out of their way just to piss me off?

The above thought occurred to me on the homeward leg of my journey to take my daughter back to her mother. For those of you who are uninformed my daughter lives with her mother in upstate NY so that visitations mean we have to meet at a halfway point on both ends of the visit. This means a spot about 15-20 miles south of the Pa/NY border which means about a 5-6 hour drive roundtrip. My daughter’s spring visit was over today which is why I was driving and I had my father in the navigator’s seat providing company for the drive. Since my stroke last year my family doesn’t like me driving long distances without a passenger. They mean well but it can be a pain in the ass at times. Anywhoo, back to the subject. On the return trip my father was feeling a bit puckish so we pulled off the Turnpike and into an Arby’s at the exit. Besides the roast beef there are two things that take me to Arby’s, jamocha shakes and their potato cakes. Well at least they left the shakes alone. Now the potato cakes were great, basically an extra thick hash brown with a crunchy outside and soft inside. Main drawback to them is that they usually had to cook them fresh; unlike fries they didn’t seem to handle the heat lamps well. This meant you had to wait for them but it was worth it, nice change from the standard fry. I got an inkling of trouble when I ordered the potato cake and the girl at the counter calls out for a side of bites. Bites??? WTF is this bites shit. I look up at the board and see the familiar triangle shape under the name potato bites so I think, OK, maybe they just changed the name. Then she goes over to the fry station and opens a warmer drawer and starts taking out these smaller triangles. Ut-oh, this can’t be good. Looks like they made them smaller but never saw them in a warmer before. I worked for a year or so in an Arby’s many moons ago so I know a bit of the routine, warmers drawers weren’t part of it. So I get my order and reach in to grab the potato and take a bite. Another WTF moment. These ain’t potato cakes, smaller or otherwise. I look and the damned things are orange in the middle. Obviously it’s supposed to be cheesy but it don’t taste like cheese. There is also some other kind of flavors in there but whatever they are they ain’t meshing well. Damn things are disgusting as far as I am concerned. I wonder what happened to my potato cakes. After I finish the sandwich my father is cleaning up the mess and finds a container of ranch dipping sauce in the bag. Ain’t gonna help them IMHO. They suck plain and simple. So on the rest of the ride I start wondering how comes things I like always seem to either vanish or become “new and improved” which usually means that they now suck also.

The first Chunky soup that hit the market in our area was a chicken noodle soup. It had a good flavor, those soft, slurpy noodles, kind of like the ones in Campbell’s regular chicken noodle but wider and mushrooms. That one has disappeared in favor of a home-style chicken noodle which has no mushrooms, a lighter broth, bigger hunks of carrots and such and the noodles are the type you buy in bags at the store, hard, and boil up like pasta. I abhor those things. As this has taken the place of the old soup it seems my tastes are out of touch with the masses.

Another item was the potato salad one of the grocery chains around here used to carry in their deli dept. It had a touch of celery seed in it which gave it an interesting taste. For years I went and got it when having a picnic style dinner or sometimes for lunch. Then one day I went in and ordered it and the woman behind the counter tells me they have a new home-style (why does everyone think home-style makes things better) potato salad and wouldn’t I like to try that. No, I say, I want what I ordered. She was persistent trying to peddle the new stuff and I was just as adamant telling her no. I finally got what I wanted but within 6 months my favorite was gone, replaced by the new stuff. Another item I enjoy down the drain. Chunky peanut butter fell prey to the conjecture that if something is good, more of something is better. If chunky was good, extra or super chunky had to be better. Ever wonder if anyone ever realized that adding that extra also made the peanut butter extra dry. First time I tried it I wondered if I could ever get it down my throat. Finally switched to creamy until I found a honey roast chunky I liked, without the extra or super. These are only a few things I can put down. If I really wanted to I’m sure I could run on and bore you for hours and pages here but I think one gets my idea. Is it just my tastes that are out of whack and people prefer these things or is it just that most people don’t care or bother and take what comes along?

Not a great rant I’ll give ya but thanks for the listen.

Why?

Has anyone but me ever wondered why people drink Bud Light? Watching their commercials it's obvious that Anheuser-Busch thinks that Bud Light drinkers are a bunch of idiots yet people flock to the brew. I sure as hell wouldn't support a company that viewed me that way.

Shortest post you'll ever see me write. Thanks for the listen