" SWEDEN - V.I.P. "

Jeeeeesussss...

Thanks to Pauly for finding this fotolog.

Good god, wherever women like this exist, I've got to get there. Brazilian women rule.

Sometimes it pays to be stupid

or

There's a fine line between stupid and clever

With Pauly rooting on from the rail, I sat down tonight to play one quick $10 SNG on PartyPoker.

I played awfully well, getting handsomely rewarded when I did have the hands, staying out of the mess (it was an overly aggressive bunch) when I wasn't holding.

I did, however, make one seriously bad call.

Heads-up, with a nearly even chip count (70 separating the two of us), I'm dealt Q8o in the small blind. Blinds are 250/500, and I raised up to $1K. He raises me to $1500, and as I had been fed a steady diet of crap over the past dozen hands, folding all my junk and watching my lead deteriorate, I called.

Of course, what makes this hand any different? This was junk too.

Two terrible pre-flop decisions. Shouldn't have raised, shouldn't have called the raise. I'm basically almost pot committed with $1500 in, and only about $2500 left in front of me.

Flop comes 83T with two hearts. I have one heart, the Queen. The other dude immediately goes all-in with his 2500.

I dwell on the decision. I think he's bluffing, or maybe just holding Ace-Something for a solid semi-bluff. I'm thinking he's thinking he can push me off this one.

Hell, we're heads-up and I've got a pair. So fucking what if it's only second pair. I'd put the chances at only 50/50 I'm beat right now. He could just be drawing to a flush or an overcard.

I call.

He's got AA. Rockets.

88 is not looking very good right now.

Our cards are face-up, he sees my second pair and knows he has me.

The turn is the glorious 8 of spades. Come to poppa! No help to him on the river, and I now have a $7930 to $70 lead.

And a feeling deep down that a suckout of epic proportions like this deserves an apology.

So I did. I apologized. I really should have lost and been only $19 richer instead of $39.

But man oh man does a suckout win feel good. Thanks for the support Pauly!


***** Hand History for Game 498154081 *****
500/1000 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 3008471) - Fri Apr 02 22:08:37 EST 2004
Table Table 11511 (Real Money) -- Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 5: Boygza (3965)
Seat 6: halefarr (4035)
Boygza posts small blind (250)
halefarr posts big blind (500)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Boygza [ Qh, 8d ]
Boygza raises (750) to 1000
halefarr raises (1000) to 1500
Boygza calls (500)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 8h, 3c, Th ]
halefarr bets (2535)
halefarr is all-In.
Boygza: hmmm
Boygza calls (2465)
Boygza is all-In.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 8s ]
** Dealing River ** : [ Kd ]
Creating Main Pot with $7930 with Boygza
Creating Side Pot 1 with $70 with halefarr
** Summary **
Main Pot: 7930 | Side Pot 1: 70
Board: [ 8h 3c Th 8s Kd ]
Boygza balance 7930, bet 3965, collected 7930, net +3965 [ Qh 8d ] [ three of a kind, eights -- Kd,Qh,8d,8h,8s ]
halefarr balance 70, bet 4035, collected 70, lost -3965 [ Ah Ad ] [ two pairs, aces and eights -- Ah,Ad,Kd,8h,8s ]

When does a Thursday feel more like a two weeks from next Tuesday?

Yesterday was one of those “wrong side of the bed” sort of days.

I ran into an issue at work that basically caused a small eruption because I didn’t create an appropriate paper trail on an issue back in late January. It was one of those things that really can only be explained by saying I dropped the ball. Or, rather, didn’t tell anyone where the ball was until everyone came looking for it on the first day of April.

I don’t like making mistakes, and I don’t like having an image that I let things slip. I don’t think this is any sort of recurring, or dangerous-to-my-career, type of problem, but when you throw this sort of gut-wrenching error on top of a day where I rolled out of bed with an impending sense of doom, well, I’m going to have a rough day.

My boss works across the state. It’s a nice thing to have that much distance. But with my sense of doom yesterday, I had this bizarro thought that he’d show up out of the blue at my office with a box and ask me to clean out my desk over this mistake.

Just so’s you know, what I did (or didn’t do) isn’t remotely a fireable offense. It was just one of those “sense of doom” thoughts running around my head.

Luckily, this all happened close to the Noon hour, so I took nearly my entire full hour at lunch wandering around a Kohl’s store (objective: pants – mission accomplished) and came back to my desk feeling a little bit better.

Not ten minutes after getting back in, guess who shows up at my desk.

If you had “my boss” in the office pool, please step forward and collect your prize.

His visit had absolutely nothing to do with me, as he had a meeting onsite with some financial groups for our client. Plus, he was cool and I showed him what evidence I had that could help him solve the issue I created, and he was appreciative. I didn’t even get a lecture.

But seeing him show up completely unannounced like that freaked the ever living shit out of me yesterday. Totally threw my afternoon for a loop.

By the way, is anyone else feeling like they snuck two extra days into the middle of this week? This has been a loooooong week.

As Seen On TV

On the scroll at the bottom of the screen on CNN

“President Bush to sign bill into law making it a crime to harm a fetus in a Rose Garden Ceremony.”

I’ll make sure to steer clear of all the pregnant women at Rose Garden Ceremonies from now on.

Speaking of politics, thanks to XM Radio I have been listening to some of the programming in the initial week of Air America Radio’s launch.

Air America, for those of you who haven’t read the newspaper, is the new Liberal voice on AM Talk Radio. Talk radio, to this point, has been dominated by three groups. Sports Talk, Shock Jocks, and the Rush Limbaugh army (by the way, it’s not fair to call NPR – a very Liberally slanted organization – talk radio. They’re news).

Just to recap, so you don’t have to go digging through the archives for the short answer, if I were to sum up my politics, I could classify myself as an Economic Republican with definite ideas as to where my government should stop interfering in my life.

Liberal Talk Radio, therefore, is appealing to me right now because it’s safe to say that I believe this administration has gone too far and has been largely unchallenged in the court of public opinion on key issues such as censorship and terrorism. I think that the party in charge of this country believes that Americans are stupid, and that we will swallow whatever it is they feel like force feeding down our throats.

For example, they know we can’t really visibly “win” a war against Al Qaeda. There’s no infrastructure to bomb, there’s no opposing army on the hilltop over the ridge. It’s going to be a long, drawn out process that probably will never have a definite end to try to shut down these terrorist groups in other parts of the world. So, instead of admitting this openly to America and spending money and manpower to secure our ports and railroads where it’s badly needed, we find a figurehead we know we can topple in Saddam Hussein, who had tenuous ties at best to terrorism.

It’s as if the government wanted our focus shifted from the impossible fight to one that they knew we could win.

The problem is, we’re alone in this attempt to bring a puppet government, er… Democracy to these people, and we’re absolutely committed to staying there until the job is done. That might take a decade or longer.

And, of course, the initial motivation for gearing up for war was the supposed ramping up of these weapons of mass destruction. Which, of course, were never unearthed.

I really do believe that was an outright speculative lie by our administration to give middle America some sort of justification for this war.

My government also doesn’t speak for me when it comes to things like FCC fines for supposed “indecency” over the airwaves, nor does it reflect my views on how the government should treat its people on the topic of gay marriage. My government should make it easy for me to drive to work, buy the products and services I need, keep my streets safe, and otherwise get the hell out of my personal life.

I truly believe that the reason Conservative Talk Radio boomed during the Clinton years was due to a feeling in Conservative circles that they were the only people capable of and entitled to run this country. Now that the party is in power, they go from throwing rocks on the sidelines to having the bully pulpit. And if you watch Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, or listen to Rush Limbaugh, bully is often the best word you can use to describe what it is they do.

So, for my money, Liberal Talk Radio is a great addition to my commute. I want to hear the dissenting voice from that side of the aisle. While I can’t say I agree with left-wing social programs, or any sort of protectionist attitude towards manufacturing in this country, I do think that the people in the White House have showed quite a bit of hubris over these past three years, and are governing if by divine mandate, as opposed to governing by the will of its people. They could use a few chinks in the armor. Welcome to the airwaves.

Four + More

Anna is back!

This, of course, bumps my female readership up another notch, all the way to four.

In what can only be labeled as a classic case of binge-and-purge, Anna took the anonymity the web offered, gave us sordid tales and illicit memories, and then, in her words, committed "e-suicide," by purging the web of all she had left behind.

She told me she regrets having taken everything down, and I really do sympathize. I'm saddened that those memories are no longer there as well.

On the plus side, not only is she back, but has redesigned her site and made it an awful lot easier on the eyes. No offense to my brothers or the poker blogging community, but damned if it isn't nice to have my favorite blogger on the block back in action.

Keep it up kiddo, I'm rooting for you.

Hoo Boy...

My phone hasn't rang here in over two hours.

And when you have a job that is often more responsive than proactive, that's a recipie for a brutally slow afternoon.

They found that missing U of Wisconsin student alive, well, and in a "marshy area" nearby. There's no report as of yet as to...

By the way, my phone just rang. It's my slowest and most PC illiterate user. This is painful.

Alright, there's no report as of yet as to what the hell happened to her.

I know there were no search parties or crying parents on TV when I passed out drunk and, uh, wasted outside of my apartment on the cold hard pavement next to my apartment complex's pool. There were no tearful reunions or "we found him" press conferences.

I was so blitzed that there really should have been though, I'll tell you that.

From the "It's a Small World" file, a very quick story.

Michigan State is a big school. Huge. My Junior year I was in an apartment (same one where I passed out by the pool) living with my friend Nate. There were two hippie girls kicking around a hacky sack (sorry, what's the name for those stupid crocheted ones?) right outside the building. Nate, being friendly as he is, jumps in their circle and promptly and accidentally kicks their hacky sack on the roof of the three story building.

That takes effort.

Fast forward two years. It's my second senior year, and I'm living in a house on the other side of town for the summer with a few friends. It's a duplex, connected by a deck on the top floor. Who happens to be living in the back side of the house? Why, it's the same two hippie girls from before.

One night, Mario has a few friends, including our mutual friend Z$ over for some chemically induced fun. Z$ ends up taking a little too much of the stuff off the blotter, and goes a little wacky. Not only does he decide to take a walk outside talking on my cordless phone (which he ditched in the bushes a block and a half away when he lost range), but he ends up quietly breaking in to the hippie girls' side of the house and grabs a seat in one of their bedrooms and just sits there quietly and stares.

Z$ is a little freaky looking if you don't know him. He's a tall, lanky, swarthy looking guy with a spiky haircut and evil little goatee.

The girls had never seen Z$ before, and didn't know he was one of us.

The hippie girl wakes up screaming, chasing the wasted Z$ from her room, and damn near waking up the whole neighborhood.

So, basically, I was tangentially part of two distinct buzzkill situations for those poor patchouli-smelling girls over the course of two years.

Sorry hippie girls. My bad.

Mr. Arnold T. Pants, Esq.

I need another pair of pants. That, and probably one or two more dress shirts.

I’m getting tired of the Old Navy crap I have from their “half an hour to iron” line of casual button-up shirts. I want to get more of those low-maintenance wrinkle-free stain defender shirts. Because, of course, I’m far too lazy to buy an iron, let alone work it.

Here’s a question for all you science-type guys: When you’re ironing, why does it take just one simple move to create a huge wrinkle in your shirts, but it takes fifteen or twenty passes of the iron to get it out?

I heard this on the radio the other day, and they gave the answer, and I was disappointed. I really think the answer to this question belongs in the realm of the completely unanswerable, along with “Why do I lose socks in the dryer,” “Why can’t I find the end of the rainbow,” and “Is there any amount of alcohol that would result in my sleeping with Star Jones?”

Here are five famous people I’d absolutely positively sleep with before I’d sleep with Star Jones:

Rosie O’Donnell
That “comedienne” Mo’Nique, who is on that terrible sitcom “The Parkers”
Sandra Bernhard
“Momma” from “Throw Momma From The Train”
Bea Arthur

In other words, I can’t think of a more disgusting sow out there than Star Jones. Hell, I’d sleep with Tracy Morgan’s impersonation of Star Jones before I’d sleep with Star Jones. The revulsion runs that deep.

I heard a rumor that Kirstie Alley (speaking of overweight celebrities) got dumped from her Pier One endorsement slot because they couldn’t find furniture big enough to hide her behind. Or any more couches to un-upholster to create those Renaissance velvet cape dresses she was obviously fond of. How many more Velveteen Rabbits have to die to augment your wardrobe Kirstie Alley? How many more?

This is quickly turning into my Larry King’s USA Today column.

I saw “Starsky and Hutch” this weekend. Here’s a question. Can you now play “Six Degrees of…” for any actor, including Kevin Bacon, and route it through Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson?

Let’s try. How about Abe Vigoda and Haley Joel Osment?

Abe Vigoda was in “The Godfather” with Al Pacino
Al Pacino was in “Godfather II” with Robert DeNiro
Robert DeNiro was in “Meet the Parents” with Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson was in “Armageddon” with Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis was in “Sixth Sense” with Haley Joel Osment

Wow.

OK, how about Bruce Lee and Lee Majors?

Bruce Lee was supposed to be the star of “Kung Fu,” which starred David Carradine
David Carradine was in “Kill Bill, Vol 1” with Vivica A. Fox
Vivica A. Fox was in “Independence Day” with Will Smith
Will Smith did “Enemy of the State” with Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman did “Royal Tenenbaums” with Stiller/Wilson
Stiller/Wilson (and Hackman) also were in “Royal Tenenbaums” with Bill Murray
Bill Murray was in “Scrooged” with Lee Majors (technically six degrees, as I used “Tenenbaums” twice)

One more… Clint Eastwood (linked through one of his monkey movies to add to the degree of difficulty) and Carrot Top

Carrot Top was in “Chairman of the Board” with M. Emmett Walsh
M. Emmett Walsh was in “Snow Dogs” with Cuba Gooding Jr.
Cuba Gooding Jr. was in “Zoolander” with Stiller/Wilson
Owen Wilson was in “Shanghai Noon” with Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan was in “Cannonball Run II” with Mel Tillis
Mel Tillis was in “Every Which Way But Loose” with Clint Eastwood

See how easy this is? Actually, Carrot Top and Ben Stiller were in the same movie, “You’ll Never Wiez in This Town Again,” but that was too easy.

Free Fallin’

Another story making rounds this morning regards an 88 year-old man with cancer’s inventive suicide yesterday.

He rented a ride in a vintage, open cockpit bi-plane, and without warning, got out of his seat and jumped to his death.

Actually, I don’t think it’s fair to say that he “jumped.” I’m going to change that verb to “plummeted.” It’s much more descriptive of his choice.

Were an 88 year-old man with a tumor to come to me and look for advice as to how he could kill himself, I would almost certainly have advised him to do precisely what he did. First, he gets to ride in a neat-o bi-plane. Second, he makes his final moments on Earth about as exciting as possible. Third, he is assured of making national news coverage. And fourth, he gives his family someone to sue.

I’m fairly confident that the pilot from whom he rented the flight didn’t have a “please don’t jump from the cockpit” waiver on hand.

If I were to want to kill myself (which I don’t, I’m just saying), I’d be a jumper too. The guys I really don’t understand are the bridge jumpers. Now, unless you’re jumping off one of those insanely high bridges, like the ones over a gorge in the Colorado River, I just don’t think you’re picking the most effective solution to your problem. I’m going to guesstimate that in most cases you’re looking at shy of 500 feet from bridge to water. And while water isn’t that much of a cushion when you’re falling from that sort of height, you could still make a “mistake,” and go in feet first, shattering every bone in your feet but otherwise living through the jump. You don’t jump because you want to drown. You’d drive your car into the lake and patiently await your demise if that was your choice.

Jumping into water is just nuts. You just can’t leave room for error. That’s why you’ve got to be a minimum of 1000 feet in the air. Either that, or you’ve got to be hitting pavement or hard ground at the bottom.

Here are my top five ways to die I would never in a billion years consider, were I dying of a tumor and looking to beat the tumor to the punch:

(in no order)

1 – Jumping into the bear habitat at the zoo covered in pork chops

2 – Cutting myself – I’m a wuss when it comes to blood

3 – Drowning, because the thought of gasping for air helplessly and choking down water into my lungs freaks me out

4 – Taking a severe beating – mainly because I’d be a quivering, sobbing little girl after taking a couple of kidney kicks lying on the ground, and no one needs to see that

5 – Letting Steve Buscemi feed me feet first into a wood chipper at his cabin

Same as it ever was…

On Google News’ Entertainment link today:

Three stories about Janet Jackson, one about “The Passion.”

Could we, for the love of god, move on to something else?

I’m enormously irritated, as usual, by the media’s refusal to let go of something salacious. It’s been two whole months now since the boob thing happened. Let it go. It’s been over a month since the Mel Gibson movie, a work of fiction was released. Let it go. We’re well past our news cycles on these stories.

You know what else irritates me? The use of “-Gate” to label a scandal. One botched burglary thirty years ago, and every scandal since has to be labeled “Boob Gate” or “Intern Gate” or whatever. For being ostensibly a pool of trained and seasoned writers and reporters, our media lacks originality to a huge degree.

Also in the news, in what is probably some sort of knee-jerk response to the news that “Under God” is under review for removal from our Pledge of Allegiance by the Supreme Court, our state’s Governor (who was a hottie back in her day, just so’s you know) has put the phrase “In The Year Of Our Lord” back on official government documents that cross her desk.

It’s really quite difficult to have my particular set of beliefs, and to still believe that grade school crap that says that the government speaks for everyone and is representative of no one.

Christians in this country, who are certainly and inarguably in the majority, seem to take it as a personal affront when their god is taken out of the public eye. I wish there was some way for these people to understand that the ideals of religious freedom are completely invalidated when the government even approaches the idea of endorsing the existence of a god.

I wish, for instance, that the city government of, say, Dearborn, MI, which is a community that is largely Arabic, decreed a change in the Pledge of Allegiance in the elementary schools that changed “Under God” to “Allah Akbar.” Or, better yet, just started out each day by saying the entire pledge in Arabic. Maybe they’d also hang Islamic phrases on the walls that celebrate Allah in their city council meetings. Whatever.

I guarantee you that the Christian minority in this community would be going nuts. “I don’t want my child saying ‘Allah Akbar.’” Well, ma’am, you know that just says “God is Great” in another language. You mean you have a problem with your child celebrating god in schools?

Well, maybe then they’d figure out how the rest of us feel.

Dunk You Very Much

I think it's 8PM tonight when the High School Dunk Contest is replayed on ESPN.

Why is this significant? Because it's the first dunk contest ever "won" by a woman.

I saw the "highlights" of this event on SportsCenter, and I only have one thing to say.

If you're 6'3" and have the slightest hint of athletic ability, then regardless of your gender, you should be able to dunk a basketball.

In other words honey, what you did was not impressive.

When I hear "dunk contest," I think about Dominque Wilkins, Michael Jordan, and Jason Richardson. I don't think of a woman dribbling to the hoop with her arm over her eyes, then restoring her ability to see before she jumps and throws down a very pedestrian one-handed jam.

The type of pedestrian one-handed jam that Jason Richardson would get booed for, were he alone out front on a fast break.

Her other dunk they showed was a dribble in from the baseline, one-handed jam with nothing special added. Didn't swoop under the rim, didn't grab the rim on one side and dunk on the other, nothing.

You are not special because you can dunk. You are exhibiting the minimal athletic ability required of someone of your size to play basketball competitively. Congratulations.

How bad did the boys have to be to lose this contest? One lousy reverse two-handed jam with a double clutch and that should have been enough.

Sheesh.

These, apparently, are men's pants...

Syndication Link Now Up

Can one of you uber-geniuses let me know if I set that up appropriately?

Call Me Deacon Blues

I’m just wondering aloud if there is an age limit expiration date on being able to continue to use my longtime online pseudonym “Boy Genius.” I think you’ve probably noticed that I’m moving more into the simple use of “BG” on this site, and as other bloggers link back to me as well. I’m turning 30 this year, and while that number doesn’t make me any significantly older than my number of 29 currently, I’m moving farther away from the “Boy” part of this name being appropriate.

Eh, what do I care? I think this is a nickname that is relevant through my 20s, sad in my 30s, then ironic and funny in later life.

One idea I have been kicking around is changing the name of the website. Well, rather, just the title. How played out in the blogger community is the phrase “Random Thoughts.” Even if that expresses genuinely what the site is about, I know that I share that part of my title with, oh, about a bazillion other blogs on the Net. I do tag it with “And Thoroughbred Selections,” which is the part of the title I like more, regardless of the fact that it’s no longer appropriate to what I’m doing on here on the daily. Which reminds me, I haven’t been out to the track in a little while, but I’ll remedy that this weekend I suppose.

If I do change the title, I’m not doing something simple like just calling the site “Gambling Blues,” and I don’t think I’ll move into the realm of snarky esoteria with a title like “Ralph Nader’s Chocolate Poker Jam.” Which is a good title if you’re that kinda guy. Which I’m probably not. And while I love my connection with the poker blogging community, I don’t think I’d name my blog after poker. Really, this blog o’ mine (which, were I Irish, might be a good title) is probably only about 25-33% poker overall.

Smart money says that I just leave things the way they are. I’m just about that lazy.

The enduring legacy that is Bob

Only Bob, I swear to god.

While it’s certainly acknowledged that in my family that I got the brains, Bob, seemingly, got all the athletic ability, looks, and charisma. (M got the Italian body hair gene and the ability to assemble furniture out of the box, which is a highly underrated asset – the furniture, not the body hair)

Point in fact, in high school he was on the soccer team. He and another pretty-boy friend of his were so revered by some of the girls in the lower classes that a couple of them took pictures of these two and had them made into T-shirts.

That’s Bob.

So, perhaps, it’s no surprise that a girl from JUNIOR HIGH THIRTEEN YEARS AGO Googled Bob’s name and found his website.

Nice to see someone in my clan has that sort of effect on women.

Actually, part of the reason I use a pseudonym is to avoid moments much like this one. While I certainly wouldn’t mind someone I was friends with fifteen years ago stumbling across this happy little corner of the web, it’s those people with whom I had a tenuous past (coughexwifecough) that I’d just assume prefer to not visit here daily. It would certainly be an impairment to my candor, which I know y’all have grown to appreciate.

So, the girl from Junior High thirteen years ago left Bob a comment, and it didn’t take long for he and I to know which “Holly” correctly identified Bob as the Bob who moved out of Utah thirteen years ago.

True story about Holly. Well, Holly and me. We were both winners of a Nickelodeon contest back in about 1989. I was mayor of Salt Lake City for a day, and she got to be a radio DJ for a day. Funny thing is, she grew up to be an actual DJ, where I did not grow up to be an actual mayor. Hell, the skeletons in my closet from college would probably prevent me from being chosen as Mayor McCheese, let alone an actual mayor, but that’s beyond the point. I just find it nifty that a Nickelodeon contest can somehow launch a girl into (what I hope is) the job of her dreams in adulthood.

I didn’t know Holly all that well (at least not compared to Bob) when we were back in Utah, but it’s always nifty to get a blast from the past (even if it’s more from Bob’s past).

A return Googling of Holly’s name shows that she’s involved in some sort of wacky, Second City-esque dinner theatre troupe out of Salt Lake City. The website makes it look like they have a lot of fun with what they’re doing, and I’ll definitely have to make it a stop next time I’m out visiting my peeps in the SLC (like how I got all urban on you all of a sudden?).

By the way, if I’m somehow able to ensnare Holly as a regular reader, it’ll bring the list of female visitors to my site up to three (Felicia, my cousin Rachelle, and Holly). Thank god at least 33% of the female visitors to my site can deal with my 33% poker content.

Only time for one $10 SNG, but...

I just got the most ludicrously amazing cards I've ever seen in a SNG previously. Check this out:

Pre Heads-up:
99
JQo
44
JKs
KK
KJs
ATo
AA
55
AKs
AJo
33
JJ

Heads-up (even more amazing, considering it didn't last long):
33
JTo
KJo
A9s
KJs
A5s
AJo
KJo
TJo
Q9s
QQ

I took the dude out on a T9o, catching 777TT to win.

Nice!

Women...

I don't know how many women (besides Felicia) read my site on the daily, but I have something I'd like to say to the wives, girlfriends, and fiancees of all the men in the 18-35 year-old age bracket.

I was sitting at lunch today across from two twenty-something women who were yakking up a storm. The younger and prettier one of the two started talking about her man's birthday coming up.

"Can you believe he had the nerve to ask me to get him a game for his X-Box? I mean, does he think in a million years I'm going to buy him a video game?"

Sigh...

Let me explain a couple of things to you honey. First of all, most men are men of utility. We don't go apeshit nuts at the mall (normally) buying clothes and shoes and such. We don't generally even go out of our way to buy ourselves anything that breaks over the $25 crest. We normally have looked to our parents on birthdays, Easter, Christmas, and any other gift-giving occasion of the year to help us get the stuff we wouldn't generally spend our own money on, but would absolutely love.

So the first thing I'm telling you is that when a man tells you what he wants, and it's usually a pretty short list, you can sleep easy in the comfort that if you bought him what he wanted, he'll be thrilled with your gift.

Second thing, and here's the important part, is that you do not have to put thought and effort into his gift. There is absolutely no reason that a girlfriend, fiancee, or wife needs to knock themselves out to find "the perfect gift." Actually, the perfect gift is probably something you won't find in any store, you just need to go a little further off the edge of sexual adventure than normal. But if you're buying something, here's a hint. Ask him what he wants and buy the goddamn thing.

Lastly, I took the tone of that girl's conversation to have a subtext that basically said, "Why do I want him taking away from us time by playing a stupid video game?" You know what? Men like their stupid video games. It's an hour or two or three where we can turn off our minds, forget our problems for a little while, and just shut up and kill some monsters in a maze. And even if we're getting up off the couch, where we've just spent every spare moment of our last month together with you in front of the TV, maybe we need just a little bit of time where we don't have to actively work on our communication with you. Maybe, just maybe, the best gift you can give him is a little escape clause for a few hours every week to play his "stupid game."

I know if a man gave you a gift of a beautiful sweater that obviously showed that he knows what colors you like, the cut of clothes you feel you look best in, and had to shop five stores and two malls to find, you'd be impressed. I know that as a man, I don't have much that I ask for from a woman, but I know that poo-poohing my wants and likes aren't really what I'm asking for.

Buy him the damn video game and make him happy.

My production bio for the program for the play I'm doing

You may remember BG from such roles as “Tony” in “You Can’t Take it With You” for CPP, “Peter Quince” in Pigeon Creek’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Streaker” at the 1974 Academy Awards and as “Soy Bomb” from the 1998 Grammy Awards. He can soon be seen taking over role of “George Stephanopoulos” in the long-running ABC-TV production of “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” and as the primary understudy for Robert Urich as “Dan Tanna” in this upcoming season’s new episodes of “Vegas.” BG has played over 250 characters onstage, but that’s only if you let him count his guest appearances on TV’s “The Love Boat” throughout the 1970s.

BG would like to thank his wife, Ms. Morgan Fairchild, as well as his sons, Morgan, Mason, Matthew, and Modine for their support.

BG The Blogger

I saw a preview yesterday for some family vacation movie starring Cedric the Entertainer as the Griswoldesque patriarch. Utterly forgettable, so if you're interested in the title go look it up yourself.

I never could really figure out the whole idea of putting-your-profession-as-your-surname thing that Cedric chose. That's really old school. I think of a community of buckle hatted Quakers in the early 1600s in Pennsylvania passing Jacob the local barrel maker on the cobblestone path and greeting him as Jacob Cooper, and of course the name just sticks. I wonder if Cedric is descended from a long line of Entertainers, or if he just found it too cumbersome to put “Cedric WantsToBeFlipWilson” on his driver's license.

The only reason I really even bring up this movie at all is that the “money shot” in the preview features the family getting out of their shiny Lincoln Navigator-type SUV, ostensibly at the end of their vacation adventures. As if the cliché machine was running on full derivative power, the car has apparently given all that it is capable of giving to this family, and literally collapses on its shocks and sheds every side panel, quarter panel, and door flat to the ground.

Has anyone's car ever done this before? I'm thinking John Landis should have put intellectual property copyrights on that moment from “The Blues Brothers” that has been stolen more often than anyone would like to admit.

I mentioned something a couple of days ago about my “evening obligations” lately. If you've been keeping up with me for awhile, I do a little community theatre here in town. I landed a role in an upcoming production locally of “Crimes of the Heart.” It's a good script, and because it's the theatre equivalent of a “chick flick,” the male parts (both of them) are both rather skinny. That's not altogether a bad thing, as I'd just assume not have to put forth the effort right now to memorize a leading man's bulk of lines.

This play keeps alive (at nine, if I'm counting back from Junior High correctly) my streak of landing a role in a show for which I audition. This one was an easy catch, as with only two male parts, only three men tried out. I also usually read cold extremely well. I don't usually get a lot better over the course of rehearsals than my initial cold reading, as I'm no more than an average actor on a community theatre level. I have a good time with it though, and it gets me out of the house.

A couple of things about the show worth mentioning. First, there's a line one of the female characters says in conversation to me that I know the audience is going to snicker at, and I've asked for them to change it to no avail. The line is, “You're even thinner now than you were then.” I'm not a super heavy guy, but at 5'10” and 205, I don't find that all that appropriate. If I were in the audience and heard that with a guy my size up there, I'd think, “Thinner now? How fat was he then?” The second thing I have a little bit of a problem with is that there's a scene between two of the characters who had a thing years ago, and haven't seen each other in five or ten years. The problem is that after reading the script, I really feel that I know this conversation. I've had this conversation. And the guy in the other role doesn't see it the same way emotionally as I do. So I bite my tongue, as it's not my character, I'm not the director, and it's not my place. Dammit.

We go on in four weeks. Should be a good show. Maybe Grubby will put me in his next epic.

I've thought about trying to see if I'm capable of writing a play. I've got some ideas, but I'm having a hard time putting into outline form what sort of notes I want to hit. Plus, my attempts at writing conversation always turn out stale and clumsy. It's generally because I don't put a lot of time into something, and instead just barrel forward. And if you start out stale, you're going to keep things uninteresting. I think if I were a little more patient, I might be able to acquit myself a bit better.

Speaking of patience, I busted out a little earlier than I would have liked in last night's home game. I did catch little brother in an enormously bad play, but then made one of my own later on to nearly fully bust out.

My brother was in the habit of raising pretty consistently with almost anything playable last night, so when I got an AJ/s in the hole, I gladly saw a marginal raise and the two of us saw the flop. It landed AJ9. He bet out a little higher than his first raise, and I called with my top two pair. Turn was a blank, and he bet out again. I raised him up all-in, and he pushed in quickly. He turned over A9, and I had him with my AJ. Bad move, and he was out.

My later mistake was pushing another player all-in when I only had second pair, but was convinced she'd back down with all sorts of danger cards on the board. I was right in my assumption that she only had, at best, two pair, but she called my awfully large raise and knocked me almost all the way down.

After that hand, one of the regulars said, “I knew it. I knew you were trying to buy that.” Uh huh. He says that every time I get aggressive in one of our games. Even if I have to show and prove that I wasn't bluffing, he'll say, “Damn, I thought you were trying to buy that.” Well, at least I know what he generally thinks about my hands as I play them.

I busted out second (in seventh out of eight) last night, and if it wasn't for my mistake I would have been sitting pretty. I gotta keep an eye on my play. I don't think I'll chalk last night up to a lack of patience, but rather just to a flat-out mistake. I knew better than to think that I could push her off a hand. This is a girl that is capable of making a bad call of epic proportions, like top pair with four flush on the board and three players besides her in the pot. I know some of the other players at the table, maybe most of them, would have conceded their better hand on that play. Just not her. Oops.