Tool of the Man

Broke down, bought a sport coat. Pictures will have to wait, I do not own a camera with flash...

Reality Check - A Public Service Announcement

Guess what?

I don't want to join in a reciprocal link partnership with your blog directory.

There's something else too.

I'm not going to respond to your overtures for a "mutually beneficial" advertising relationship.

Oh, and then there's this.

If I have to see an ugly blinking banner for your poker portal every time I see my own web page load up, chances are I'm going to commit blog hari-kari and scrap the whole fucking thing.

This is just me we're talking about here anyway. If you feel the opportunity to play a series of freerolls is enough compensation for the advertising you're offering, have at it. If you want to help perpetuate the growth of one of those multi-hyphenated poker portals by trading links, that's totally cool by me. If you want to push PSO or freerolls or bonus codes or whatever, go right ahead. I won't think any less of you, and neither should anyone else.

As a matter of fact, those of you not named Pauly or Iggy or Otis/CJ/G-Rob who are on the more lightly-trafficked side of the fence should probably take whatever table scraps are thrown your way if you're hungry. For better or worse, if you looked at the growth of the "brand name" blogs in this neck of the woods, you're looking at a fairly astonishing amount of daily attention, so the rest of us do get the trickle-down effect of being approached to shill or link or take the freebies we're being offered.

As I've mentioned here before, there's not a damn thing wrong with scratching out some cash via your blog. You (hopefully) put a lot of hard work into the thing, and you've been stewing in your own juices watching Pauly and Jason Kirk and Otis land these gigs traipsing the globe in the footsteps of Jesus (Ferguson). Where's your piece of the pie?

Freerolls and freebies. Ad revenue. Relationship building. If you've got this nagging feeling that you deserve something for all your work, there you go. It's on the table, piping hot. Eat up. They're going to dismantle the buffet at some point, so if you're the type to regret not taking what you could when it was there, start stuffing your pockets.

December 2004's Vegas trip was a microcasm of how this community came together in the first place. It was a loose and organic gathering, the sort of situation where anyone who wanted to be a part of things simply raised their hand and said, "I'm in." The fact that we all got to Vegas and shared that Rashomon weekend together just kinda happened. No one "took the lead" and really organized anything until it became apparent that we should get a tournament due to our numbers, and we should try to mine Prof's contact list for some special guest stars.

So here we are eighteen months later, and the term "WPBT" is no longer tongue-in-cheek. We're not 30 strong, we're 200 strong. Inside and outside of our nebulous borders we've got opportunities and affiliations that stretch a tangled web (excusing the pun) to all corners of the online gaming world.

Here's the part that should go without saying... This WPBT thing is not real. It's not official. It's a lot of things, like a confederation of friendships and an identifiable logo under which we play, but we're not the Elks or Kiwanis. We're not a literal group with membership and a constitution. We're barely a social organization, as the only criteria for hanging around seems to be having a blog or knowing the author of one.

Why then is there even a question about the ability of an advertiser's offer to somehow rend asunder what we have wrought? I can't conceive of a circumstance where some freeroll is going to put the friendships I have built through our common loves of poker and writing at risk. If anything, the seemingly ravenous appetites some of us have for poker (compared to others, such as myself) can only be fed and strengthened by this.

So what if an online site wants to use your words to improve its search results and bottom line (legitimately, with your permission)? So what if the introduction of a few new freerolls cuts off a couple of dates in the future for "sanctioned" WPBT event scheduling (shit, where exactly across that last sentence do the ironic quotes belong?)? Who cares if the term "WPBT" somehow gets co-opted or corrupted by an insidious poacher?

Seriously, does that somehow lessen the friendships and associations you've grown to cherish?

I, BG of all people, am about to toss a little advice everyone's way that may seem out of character for me...

...Don't get so worked up about this, it's not worth it.

Support these advertising efforts, don't support them, rail against them, whatever. I can't for my life see the dollar signs at the end of this tiny little rainbow somehow crushing the bonds of respect and friendship we've been building, so whatever you decide to do about the sales pitches and relationship marketers and such, just do it. Don't worry about the rest of us. We know that ultimately when we put together these tournaments, you're not about to turn your back on your friends.

You'll Be Wading Through Some Shit To Get There...

...but feel free to jump right to the big announcement.

Fuck My Record Label / I Appear Courtesy Of Myself

I swear I just saw the girl I gave the "Fredo speech" to here in the Cleveland airport. She's the one that didn't sleep with my roommate Mike, who professed his eternal love sophomore year, but did sleep with both myself and Mike's other roommate Mario for good measure. Actually, I talked to Mario the other day, and ten years after the fact he insists they still have a strong "spiritual connection," whatever that means.

Anyway...

I slept poorly last night. I've spent all my Allentown nights* in the same hotel room, and I still can't find the right temperature setting on the thermostat. I'm totally convinced that the extra energy they waste running these things in each room each year leads the hotel chain to make the controls beep and boop and change the number on the screen, but ultimately it's either HOT or COLD in the room, with no in-between. Oh, the pillows suck too. And the comforter is too thick, the middle blanket is short-sheeted on the bed, and I cannot get comfortable at all.

*Jesus, doesn't that sound like just about the worst possible porn movie title... honest guy from the steel mill falls in with the wife of the local sheriff and they have an illicit affair that culminates in trying to kill the sheriff - but not the deputy - to collect the insurance and pension money so they can live their life together, but for the love and friendship of the honest guy's female friend from childhood who has been harboring a secret jones for the guy, who talks him out of the plot and gets the sheriff's wife arrested and they find their own love, both ending up in blue vests at the same Wal-Mart. Thursday at 1130PM on Cinemax2.

So it was that cycled sleep of too hot/too cold awake/asleep what time is it and how many more hours of sleep do I have left? last night that drove me nuts, left me tired, and has me feeling like the onset of a cold is just around the corner.

Fuck.

Actually, the "tired" part of that equation has been brewing fairly steadily over recent weeks. I was totally fine in the wake of the surgery, so I thought. I resumed my life of sedentary sloth, and it wasn't exactly taxing to watch Montel and bet on horses on the Internet for a couple weeks. So I felt good. I took it easy - rather, kept taking it easy.

Then this travel thing, which I managed adequately for a couple weeks, finally hitting the wall on Monday. I got eight hours of sleep, got out of bed at 6AM (which is "sleeping in" for me on most weekdays), and didn't officially wake up until almost noon. I felt like I was on a half dozen Ambien minus the fridge binge*, and shouldn't have been operating heavy machinery. I'm fatigued as hell, and this weekend isn't going to help.

*I may not have had a binge eating session, but I did discover TastyKakes, and where have you guys been my whole life? Who knew gas station coffee cakes could taste so good? Oh, and apropos of nothing, the guy across the aisle from me here in the airport is picking his nose and reading a book that has a monster on the front and is (I think) titled "Devestation of the Orcs." My iPod has a Level Eleven You'reARetard Force Field, so I'm good for now.

So after I party in LA I fly a few hours later (assuming I leave around 2AM, I'm at LAX by 6) across country to handle the Pennsylvania situation again. Should be perfect for a guy who isn't even sure where the hell he's going to find the energy to turn channels on the TV, let alone hop around the country partying with (scheduled to appear) Anthony Anderson and Greg Anthony.

"Dude, remember when you were at UNLV and you guys rocked the house? Heheheheh... That was cool."

I already know my line when I meet Anthony Anderson: "My friends say I remind them of you." Okay, I'm tired. It needs work.

Snoop Dogg was invited too. I don't know exactly the factor by which the phrase, "I partied at the Playboy Mansion" is improved by adding, "...with Snoop Dogg," but I think the black people say that'll be "off the chain." I just hope there's some attractive women there.

Speaking of being tired and mildly racist, I mis-read an advertisement in the Allentown airport today as, "Construction Services Without Hispanics." The funny thing was, the word I read as "Hispanics" was actually something like "Conflict" or "Consternation" (which I know goddamn well it wasn't, I'm tired people. Keep up.), so maybe I'm harboring something deep down against the Hispanics.

"But BG, their tacos are too damn tasty to hate on!"

Yeah, I know. Maybe I'll let whatever it is in my head right now slide, and keep hating on the Puerto Ricans like usual.

Yawn.

Since we're here, I still have laptop battery life, and I'm ready to admit it, I'm an American Idol watcher. Some quick thoughts...

· There's a huge "polish" gap between the top tier and the rest. Chris, Katharine, Paris, Mandisa and Taylor are all seasoned performers. The rest are pretty talented amateurs. It shows every week.

· Someone someday is going to talk Katharine into dropping forty pounds, and that is going to make me sad.

· Lisa Tucker will have Ashanti's career in five years. Mark my words. But she needs those five years to work on her singing. She's really hit a wall.

· Not sure how much of Taylor's stuff is truly schtick, but I hope he sticks around awhile. I think his niche style is going to be exposed in upcoming weeks, but I hope he gets a shot.

· I'd like to make Ace Young prove he's not, in fact, a cyborg.

· I'm really not sure if the competition is more or less interesting with Kevin Covais in the running. I lean to the latter, but I can't peg it.

· If last night was Gay Weatherman Buttsex night, I'm curious to see what tonight brings. And yes, only three people are reading this and giggling just a little bit right now. So very, very sad.

And so very, very tired. BG... OUT!

Way Too Old For Debbie LaFave

I wonder sometimes about those people who have fetishes. They have massive mammary porn, for instance, and you know there are guys who love boobs and then there are guys that LOVE boobs. Guys who can't get enough. Guys for whom the ideal woman would be 220 lbs with 67% of that in M cups. Makes you wonder a little bit about being the object of a fetishistic pursuit...

For instance, if you make a willing choice to appeal to a fetishistic sort, that's understandable. Being heavily pierced will, naturally, appeal to someone for whom piercing is sexy. That's a given. Choosing to dip yourself in latex and popping eight inch heels on your feet while wielding a whip is a conscious lifestyle move to be sure. But that's not who I'm talking about here. I'll bet there are guys out there that can only really get it up in the presence of double amputees. When you're rolling around on that little board with wheels, using the toughened blistered skin on your knuckles to push you around, do you wonder that the guy who treats you like a queen only loves you because you have no legs?

I've got to figure Asian girls and redheads often face the same dilemma, only their stakes aren't quite so high. A semi-attractive Asian or redhead could absolutely find another man somewhere down the line if she finds her man jacking to nothing but Sailor Moon or I Love Lucy, but a double amputee? Maybe if that's you, there's a "take what I can get" mentality. At least you know you're appealing, even if it is for entirely the wrong reason.

I'm beating around the bush here... I only bring this up because this week I saw the most astonishingly oversized ass I've ever seen on a woman to this point. I've seen bigger asses, if we're just measuring pure mass (the mass of the ass... heh heh), but this ass was so disproportionately enormous in comparison to the rest of her body that I couldn't help but stare.

You had to have seen a woman before whose ass seemed to have a mind of its own. There's a horizontal plane that shelves out from the waist, and it takes on its own shape like some sort of bizarro rear-goiter that just cannot be lanced. This ass was like that, but if you injected the goiter with collagen and gave it a shape like an enormous seat cushion somehow became attached to it and hidden beneath her pants. In profile, she had to be a minimum of three and a half feet wide. Big girl to be certain, but the size of the ass was so cartoonish it made the rest of her body look less fat by comparison. There should be a picture of her in Ripley's, and now that I've seen her I have to figure these are the types of things I'd see if I ever got off that rural highway to visit one of those AMAZING MYSTERY SPOTS.

Which brings me back to my point. There's an ass fetish to be sure. Does this well-below average looking woman get attention she wouldn't if that ass was only 70% of its actual size? What happens when she dates one of these guys? Does she get treated like I'd treat a centerfold model*? Do they spend an inordinate amount of time paying tribute to the true object of their affection? And if so, how does a woman like this feel about that? We all just want to be loved for who we are, not because we've got a physical trait that our partner finds attractive, right?

*I mean "treated extraordinarily well," not "dated for a couple weeks until I talked myself into the fact that a centerfold model couldn't possibly see anything in me, thereby submarining what could be a good thing in my own head before anything really got a chance to play out." Thanks insecurities!

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong... Maybe a woman like this knows what she has to her credit, and knows how to flaunt it too. I can't claim to have been hypnotized by the passing of the ass, but since I've already wasted howmanywords on it already, there has to be something to this, right?

So, shifting gears, I got a call from our internal HR people to talk about the openings across the country last night. Thank god I didn't have that fourth Manhattan is all I've got to say. I did find a local Italian joint with a bar in which I can smoke, and to top it off? They turned on TVG for me so I could watch horse racing. Sadly, my cell phone found no signal in that dead part of rural Pennsylvania, so betting wasn't easy nor practical. The veal was good though.

Anyway, found out they're looking to pull the trigger sometime "soon," whatever that means, on Portland and Chicago. I've eliminated California for my own reasons (housing prices were one, the other was that it wasn't shaping up to be the job I thought it was). I was told by my boss and my boss' boss today to "just pick one to focus on," and assuming I don't totally blow it in the interviews (which aren't rubber stamps, by any stretch), I should be elsewhere by Memorial Day.

Excited, daunted, intrigued, all that stuff. I'd think Oregon is probably a 2/5 favorite at the post right now, with Chicago at 3/1 and Pennsylvania at 15/1. Staying in my current role leapt today to 50/1.

And last thing before I post this bitch (from the airport in Allentown, Cleveland charges for WiFi)... I know y'all have been intrigued about my "good news" I posted about a few days ago. Nice to know this hasn't gotten out of the limited circle that I've been in contact with, thanks for keeping the secret guys. I think we're close enough that I can say something now, right?

So, Saturday night starting at approximately 10PM EST, I will be onsite at the Playboy Mansion and live-blogging for a few hours. First part is a lock, the second part is extremely likely.

To pre-answer the questions you're going to post in comments...

A) No, you can't come along.

A) No, I don't need a notepad boy, nor do I need someone to hold my glasses so they don't steam up in the grotto.

A) No, I can't quite tell you how this came around or why I'm going in particular. It's about a charity and a poker tournament, and that's as far as I can go.

A) No, I won't pass any messages to "Hef" for you.

A) No, you can't come along.

A) No, it never did cross my mind that as an incredibly insecure guy, spending an entire evening partying with people who are "better than me" will be incredibly damaging to my fragile psyche.

A) No, I really can't tell you anything else for a couple of days.

A) No, I don't own a camera (really, I don't).

Let's just say I had to move land and part seas to get my schedule to agree with this opportunity, and I can't quite talk at length about this... yet. Gimme a couple of days. Until then?

Let the hating begin.