Things I Bought For Me Today

Ever have one of those days where you wake up and realize your quarterly bonus is going to be substantially more than you had ever hoped? Did you go shopping too?

I bought...

A 5 qt enameled cast iron stock pot







Lunch at

And yet another green hat with a shamrock...

Quickest Way To Spoil My Appetite

25NL tables on Party... I've got $38 in my stack.

KQo. I limp, see QQ9 hit the board. Somebody bets in, and with two diamonds I can't mess around. He's in the pot for $3 and has $16 more down. I push him, he calls.

He's got KT. Rivers a Jack and doubles up.

Two hands later

I reloaded to $25 after taking that hit, and see AKo on the button. Same dude who bad beated me a minute ago makes a goofy pre-flop raise to $6. I push my whole $25 in. He instantly calls.

He's got AJo. Rivers a Jack and doubles up.

I log off and thank god I was kicking major ass on my other table at the time. One hour, +$12 instead of +$60 or so.

Damn, I Feel Like A Hack - the article

Names have, of course, been changed to protect the innocent (and changed to those of obscure athletes, just because I'm in that kind of mood today). This review is for the local community theatre group's musical which opened up on Thursday. Because I didn't know if I was supposed to have this review in by open of business on Friday or not, I wrote it at 6AM and had it sent by 7.

By the way, the local paper won't send a reviewer, they lean on the theatre group to provide their own review - hence, why I was approached.

Here you go... I don't think it's a terrible effort, but I am embarrassed by the "warm and inviting" parts.

Headline - not from my pen - "The Spitfire Grill Called A 'Must See' Musical"

Percy, wonderfully played by Donna DeVerona, opens Central Park Players' production of "The Spitfire Grill" with what is, in essence, an ode to nowhere. Gilead, Wisconsin to Percy is an ideal of bronze and amber autumnal perfection drawn from a single photograph in a long forgotten travel magazine. It is these colors of paradise that draw Percy to Gilead, but when she arrives in the cold of a winter's night, she finds the town and its inhabitants frozen cold to this one stoplight hamlet, resigned and stuck in their ways, and completely bereft of what might be the most important force any of us could carry in our hearts.

Hope.

Director Lloyd "Sweet Pea" Daniels and the cast and crew of "The Spitfire Grill" mean to try to help us remember the recuperative and transformative powers of hope. In this effort, I think they've done a terrific job.

When asked to write this review, I felt as if I needed to remind those asking of my longtime mantra as far as theatre is concerned: "I don't like musicals." After seeing "Spitfire," I think I'll be needing to amend that. My prejudice towards musicals is largely to the big and overblown production piece numbers that inhabit some of America's best known sing-alongs. "Chicks and geese and ducks better scurry," indeed. "The Spitfire Grill," however, features a small cast and songs so warm and inviting that they seemed to sound familiar, despite my having never heard them before. Major kudos goes to Lloyd "Sweet Pea" Daniels and Musical Director Babe Diedriksen, who continues to provide terrifically tight accompaniment for CPP shows year after year.

Lloyd and his Wife/Producer Mary Decker-Slaney have seemingly accessed the best of Grand Haven's longtime CPP assets to turn one of CPP's biggest limitations into a solid strength in order to bring this show together. The Community Center's stage is rather small, and with no orchestra pit in which to house a band, Lloyd and Mary relied on the dependable Chris Washburn (BG's note: just wanted to see how "dependable Chris Washburn" looked in print) to help them design a small town cafe in limited footage in the front of the stage, while leaving enough room for a five piece band in the back. Between the set and longtime CPP contributor Lafayette "Fat" Lever's lighting design, they have managed to create an environment that alternates between cold and detached to warm and inviting.

The show itself, as seen on opening night, also featured some performances and moments that were warm and inviting. Notably, Ms. DeVerona as Percy and Thurl Bailey as Joe provided highlights whenever the cast broke into song. Donna not only got the show underway with the opening number, but set the table a few minutes later with a wonderful take on "Out of the Frying Pan." For her to retain a small town West Virginia accent, even in song, is a testament to how seriously she takes her craft. Thurl Bailey's big number was "Forest for the Trees," which really got Act Two off and running. Thurl is a local musician and plays at restaurants and bars around town. He's obviously very comfortable and talented in song, and also grew one of the great mustaches I've seen on stage in ages for this role. When a director is gifted with talented actors and singers like these, putting on a musical suddenly becomes a lot easier.

The rest of the cast also had moments to shine, and took full advantage. Enos Cabell's Caleb is a small town man looking to live up to a long lost ideal of manhood, and had a terrific solo performance with the song "Digging Stone." Zola Budd was also notable as Caleb's wife Shelby. Her acting and singing were both excellent, although I did hear some in the audience wishing she might be just a little louder in song. The character of Hanna was brought to life by Margaret Court, although her lack of comfort while singing became more than a little distracting as the show progressed. Nancy Lieberman-Cline was the town busybody, handling the role with glee and aplomb, and World B. Free made the most of a non-speaking role as "The Visitor."

I believe that, thematically, hope is the perfect emotion on which community theatre should draw. Hope is the most optimistic of beliefs, and it is this optimism that drives Central Park Players to continue to put a best effort forward every time they approach a comedy, drama, or musical. Onstage and behind the scenes, these are your friends and neighbors, and it is obvious the care and hard work each and every person involved has invested in this show. I, for one, hope you go see the show. I hope you too can appreciate another solid performance from a group that is a real asset to West Michigan. I really hope you enjoy the show as much as I did.

"The Spitfire Grill" runs Saturday the 12th, and also the 17th-19th at 8PM, with a special matinee Sunday the 13th at 2PM.

But it was early...

So let's say you're me, and let's say you're offered an opportunity to write an article for the local newspaper. It's not a big deal, it's far more a "because no one else was available, and didn't you tell me you write?" sort a thing than something to be impressed about.

So let's say you're writing the article. Let's say it's six in the morning, and you pound out a few hundred words that you think will suffice on the given subject matter, and email it out to the appropriate person to get it to press. And let's say you cc: your work address and Pauly on that 645AM email too.

And let's say that once you have that third cup of coffee and three hours of alive time under your belt you go back and re-read said article while at your desk and notice that you've used the descriptive phrase "warm and inviting" three times in three paragraphs to describe three different things.

And let's figure, that just for today, good things don't come in threes.

And when you pre-empt Pauly's good natured ribbing by letting him know you caught the egregiously poor non-use of any one of about twenty two hundred other adjectives before he had a chance to twist the knife, he emails you back with only the phrase, "I thought that was the best part."

And you sit there and shake your head, having wasted an article with a solid opening paragraph, a sarcastic quotation from the musical "Oklahoma," and a pretty damned terrific backhanded compliment about someone's mustache that only four people tops might appreciate, all because you chose to spend twenty minutes on a Friday morning knocking out a few hundred words before you really even woke up.

All these assumptions being true, how big of a hack would you feel like today?

Advice Requested...

I guess my punctuation marks (dashes, quotes) for some of my blog readers show up as question marks. Anyone have any idea what that's about, or how to fix it?

Return of the Prop Bets

If you remember, Pauly and I were going week-to-week awhile ago, challenging each other to various wagers with $5 on the line.

I think I paid him off either in Philly or Vegas for the debt I had rolled up.

But now, the props are back! This week, I need a volunteer. I want a poker blogger to step up and be our guinea pig. We’re going to guess at your net worth, in a roundabout sort of way.

In the interest of not giving away too much of your personal info, here’s the formula we’ll be using.

Your weight * $9.99/lb (current market price of veal chops)
+
Your online poker bankroll
+
A rough guesstimate of the value of every possession you have in your house
+
What’s currently in your checking account (only checking, no savings/retirement)
=
Total net worth

There are a few bloggers I’m going to exempt from volunteering for this challenge, namely Bob, Al, and Derek. Preferably, we’d like a volunteer neither of us have met. Provide the following info to Pauly and I in the comments widget below:

What limits you play, whether or not you’re a homeowner, how big is the family you live with, do you collect anything rare/valuable, and what you do for a living (vague is fine)

You don’t have to reveal your itemized total for us of the above, but we’re going to guess at each of the four categories, and you need to tell us who was closer in their estimates in each category.

To win Pauly, you need to win three of the five categories (the four individual, plus the sum total).

Who’ll volunteer?

In Response

Matt says…

”In any case the poster who wrote about me is upset because I was rather rude to that Jason fellow that I called “clueless” after the blogger tournament on Poker Stars. Of course like a bad poker player he sees only half of the picture but uses that to make a judgment.”

You didn’t call him “clueless,” you kept calling him “clueless.” That, my friend, is the difference. Four times in your 2/4/05 post “Interactive Chronicles,” you either overtly or in a sideways swipe called him dumb or a “nickel and dimer.” Seven of your first ten sentences in your 2/3/05 post “Footnotes” directly insult him. While that doesn’t include your quote from his site, I did count your “Footnotes, lol.” as a sentence (your English teacher might disagree and might ask you to review proper comma usage on the stuff quoted below as well).

“Fun With Microlimit Players” and “The Writing Begins,” both from 2/3/05 (the day after), could and should have been enough. Share the knowledge all you want and refute the points against you with solid poker logic. Just don’t be a fucking dick about it. It absolutely bears mentioning that all of those posts, save “The Writing Begins” were put up after Jason announced his “hiatus,” which should have been your first clue that he wasn’t going to discuss this any further.

Piling on, my friend, is just bad form. I’m a veteran of enough Internet message boards to know that the guy who doesn’t let it go when the other guy is done arguing, regardless as to how right he might be, is the one that comes out looking like the asshole.

Now, I want to mention the following quote:

"He calls me a 'raving egomaniac' which just shows how much people fail to see what it is I am doing here."

I don’t get it? How about some snippets from the rest of the post? Is this confidence, arrogance, or pure unadulterated ego?

"I do feel like 99.9% of my opponents at Party aren't even close to being on my level..."

"I realize that the vast majority of people are below me in poker skill..."

"BG also doesn't know or care that Jason actually is clueless..."

"But when someone with absolutely no clue what they are talking about insults a play which is perfectly fine, much like when I get bad beat, I get that 'fucking idiot' thought in my head."

"If someone is going to go nosing into my business, they are going to get a lashing... If you can't handle that then sit there and mind your P's and Q's."

"Don't go crying like a 12 year old girl when they call you clueless."

"I do regret that a lot of people don't understand me..."

"Granted most of the poker bloggers out there probably aren't very good poker players... We all know people we love who are just terrible at poker. In fact some of the people I respect most couldn't beat a $2/$4 game over 100k hands if their life depended on it."

"I realize that speaking my mind the way I do is going to put a lot of those people off and prevent me from having any meaningful relationship with a lot of them, but I'm okay with that. I have enough friends anyway."

"...what this blogging is for me, a chance to speak my mind with freedom. If I make some enemies along the way, so be it... And most of the greatest men in history, the Lincolns and Churchills, had plenty of detractors. So I figure that if my speech makes me an outcast, well, at least I have good company."

As if I couldn’t have formed my own opinion in regards to your razor thin edges between “confidence” and “ego/arrogance” from just that post, be aware that I didn’t form my opinion based on this event with Jason. I formed it from reading back through your archive on Bloglines – or at least as much of that archive as I cared to - prior to any of this happening.

I may be a whiny little bitch on my website more often than I care to admit, but your writing paints you as absolutely insufferable. Whether that’s an accurate depiction of who you are, I don’t know. Maybe you’re a lawyer, doctor, or businessman, you might be very successful, have a beautiful wife and wonderful kids, you might be pretty much the happiest guy on earth. But you’re an egomaniac who has the compulsive need to show everyone that you’re not only right, but to prove precisely how wrong someone else is along the way. In the wide scope of things, none of this fucking matters anyway. Be yourself, be egotistical, be arrogant, continue to show the compulsive need to see us lesser players as nothing more than gnats buzzing your ear that deserve to get squashed.

Repeatedly.

I thought about minding my Ps and Qs and not nosing into your business, but you know what? I don’t care. Right or wrong, you got on his back and kept jumping around when he was done playing. I felt the need to say something, because no one else really had. Please do feel free to take me to task if it makes you feel better. There’s not a goddamn thing you could say about me that I don’t already think about myself there Clarence. Tell these people something they don’t know about me.

I look forward to your rebuttal, which I’m nearly certain will tell the world eighty two things I was wrong about in the previous paragraphs, and how wildly misunderstood this unabashed Napoleon complex is being taken by your Internet neighbors. For now, I’m letting this go. I’ve said all I want to say anyway.

Props

Taking a mythical $1500, $100 per bet...

Coin Toss - "Heads" is even money, "Tails" is -105? I'll take "Heads" for $100 Alex.

Will there be a D/ST TD? - You can get +135 on "Yes." Sign me up.

First turnover of the game will be... - I'll grab "Fumble" over "INT," with +130 as the payout.

First TD of the game will be... - It's either "passing" or "any other," and surprisingly, "any other" pays better. I'll take it and the +170 that comes with it (and I'll guess Corey Dillon).

Longest TD of the Game - O/U 43.5 yards is the line. I'm going to shoot for the moon and say OVER (and better, I'm going to say it'll be Deion Branch) for -115.

Shortest TD of the Game - O/U 1.5 yards here. If you bet the under, it pays better, but I'll take the over for -145.

Over/Under Largest Lead of the Game - 13.5 is the number. The under is the better payout, but I'm really thinking the Pats are going to run away with this one. Over for -170 here.

Team to get FIRST first down of game - The Pats are favored here, but give me the Eagles +110.

Will one quarter be scoreless? - Teams traditionally come out tight in the big game, but only the Pats are a true grinding ball control team. Still, the +170 for a "Yes" vote here is too much to pass up.

Deion Branch - Will he have a rushing attempt? - I love the end-around. The Pats love it too. "Yes" pays +200.

Brian Westbrook - Total Receptions - O/U 5.5? I'd be setting my guess around 8. Over pays -140.

Total Points for Patriots - You've gotta pick an individual number here, but if you hit, they pay nicely. I'll grab a Pats number of 34 for 12-1 odds.

Total Points for Eagles - 17 points gets me 8-1.

Over/Under - Look at that... The line is 47.5, I took 48. I assume that's -105 with the juice for the Over.

Spread - Pats by well more than 7.5 (-105).

By the way Al? Just for you, I'll wear my (Syracuse) McNabb jersey today.