I've been busy goofing off on my computer - playing online poker and keeping an eye on World Series of Poker updates. As I'm typing this, the $40K NLHE tourney is still going, and that one is, of course, extremely interesting. Then again, so's event #4 - the $1,000 "stimulus special" NLHE tourney. It sold out, folks, which is just crazy. People were talking, before the Series started, about the possibility of this year's events seeing low turnouts because of the swine flu, our sucky economy, et cetera, but it looks like Vegas, and the Rio in particular, are doing juuuuust fine.
Thank you to the service members, and their families, for everything that you've done, and are doing, on our behalf. This year, like last year, my family and I putting pork on our beans, and we're grateful for the freedom to do that kind of thing.
Being on the younger side of the age spectrum, I wasn’t around back when soda bottlers used actual sugar in their drinks. Instead, I grew up with corn syrup in my Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew, which is fine if that’s all you know. Dew in particular is awesome as far as I’m concerned, but people have been telling me for years that the old recipe for that – as well as for Dr Pepper – wins.
They were so, totally, completely right. I snagged a twelve-pack of Mountain Dew Throwback today. Holy. Cow. This is good stuff! The aftertaste is more sweet than syrupy…the Dew has a “lighter,” crisper taste going down…and even the can’s retro logo design is more appealing than the “edgy” crap they recently adopted for the normal stuff.
Oh, yeah, this was worth three and a half bucks – no doubt about that at all.
I haven’t, however, bothered with Pepsi Throwback, because I hate that soda anyway, corn syrup or not. Mom tells me, though, that the old-school Pepsi was fantastic. I’ll just take her word for that.
On a side note: if you grab Dr Pepper from Dublin, Texas, at any time of the year (no special, one-off promotions, unlike Pepsi-Cola), you can always get your hands on “old-school” DP. As in: Imperial Pure Cane Sugar. Can’t get to Dublin? Buy it online!
One of the manliest competitions ever, the World Beard and Moustache Championships, is being held in Alaska this year - tomorrow, in fact. I for one will be checking the Web site to see if Beard Team USA can pull off an epic win or two.
Now, you're probably asking yourself, "What's wrong with this chick? How is growing a bunch of facial hair manlier than rugby, American football, and lumberjacking?"
Easy. We have female rugby and football players, as well as lumberjills. But unless there's something totally out of whack with the chick's hormone levels, she's not going to have a beard, moustache, sideburns, et cetera to enter in the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Growing facial hair is, therefore, one of the manliest competitions ever - except, of course, for the He-man awesomeness that is Best Ranger.
I have a stalker - fortunately, she's of the four-legged, furry variety, so there's no need to kick her little butt or call the cops or anything.
Basically, people abandon animals near our home, and we take them in. This is how we got her mother, who very recently had a litter. This little fur ball, who is not yet named, is the runt of her litter. She's a tiny, mostly-black ball of fur who isn't, sadly, getting enough milk from her mama.
Fortunately, God saw fit to inspire us to invent powdered replacement milk for kittens, so the little goober's getting plenty of food.
From me. With a medicine dropper, because she was (until recently) too small to figure out even the kitten bottle deal. Now, though, she's just old enough to lap up the milk.
So, because I've been feeding her, she recently decided, for some reason, that I'm her mother. Even though her real mama is RIGHT THERE ON THE FLOOR, feeding her litter mates, I'M the one who has to feed her, and clean her up, and tell her what a GOOOOOD kitty she is.
Every time I come into the room, she leaps up from wherever she's hiding and makes a beeline for my shoe. She's still tiny enough to fit in my girly little palm, but there she is, clinging to my size-8.5-men's Skechers, shrieking her tiny lungs out.
I really, really don't need another kitty. I already have four feline overlords, and they unanimously voted against me being enslaved by yet another kitty.
However, it doesn't appear that I'm going to get much of a choice.
I recently saw a YouTube clip from "The Celebrity Apprentice," in which you called poker players "trash." You were not, judging by what you said - and here comes the clip, just for the record - referring only to Annie Duke (who, admittedly, is annoying as snot - but still).
Yes, I realize that the Vegas of decades past was rife with corruption. Obviously, anyone who's capable of picking up any sort of book that recounts the fabled city's history will know about the mob, and the Binions, and all the other big-time things that have happened there over time.
I realize that poker has a sordid, nasty history. We don't call Aces and eights "the dead man's hand" just because it sounds cool, after all.
But things change, and group dynamics change. And even back when Doyle Brunson was a young'un, there were plenty of poker players who would stab themselves in the face before they'd renege on a deal, or backstab someone. Though not every poker player, then or now, is a wonderful person, there have always been good guys and gals in the game. You fail to see that, and that's your shortcoming, not ours.
What's saddest, though, is that you're nobody, Joan. The only thing that I knew about you before this fiasco was that you were on "Hollywood Squares," which my grandmother watched when I was a young'un. And that, frankly, was a very-dim memory until "The Celebrity Apprentice." How great is that - knowing that you're just a random, tiny recollection based on some grandmother's television-viewing habits?
Even though you're fighting very hard to look like you're only twenty or so, Joan, you're going to die at some point. And when you go, who's going to remember you...and for what?
The poker community - millions of us, by the way, and that's just here in the United States - will remember you as the bitter old woman who called us all trash. People who are addicted to reality TV aren't going to remember much about you, because they have the attention spans of toddlers on meth. Folks who were around back when you were doing stand-up, or whatever you did when you were really as young as you're trying to look now, are going to be either dead or senile, and therefore won't recall anything about you.
Some dusty, old obit will be yanked out of some dusty, old filing cabinet in some newsroom. Some lackey will update the file to include the date of your death, as well as a couple of details about it, then publish it on the Internet and in the papers. But the odds are good that the kid doing that menial, thankless job isn't going to know much of anything about you. He probably won't really care, one way or another, that he's updating Joan Rivers' obit.
Now, you're best known as the woman who pitched a childish tantrum on a game show. This is what people in and near my generation will remember about you every time you make any sort of appearance on television or in the news. Unless you do something huge, and soon, this is what people are going to remember even after you're gone.
There's nothing wrong with being nobody. There's nothing wrong with being somebody. But there's nothing right about being known for being a rotten, nasty, bitter person. Even though I don't particularly care for Annie Duke's on-camera antics, and even though I wouldn't exactly be thrilled to be stuck playing at her poker table, the heat is on you, because you're the one who stereotyped a very-large group of people...many of whom are not even remotely close to being "trash," despite what you think.
So, Joan, the real reality here is that, among "my" kind of people - the trash, don't you know - you're basically a big donk. Congratulations - we very-rarely award the "donk" title to anyone who doesn't play poker, so you should bask in the glory of your awesome achievement.
Wanda Sykes - man, I hope she falls into a giant vat of boiling grease. That would be great…if she fell into a McDonald’s vat and just bubbled away to a pile of deep-fried bones. They could put her skeleton on the dollar menu, right next to those kangaroo-meat burgers and fake-chocolate shakes. They’d have McRibs, McSkull, McFingers…the single restaurant that was lucky enough to get her would be the most-famous McDonald’s ever!
Better yet, they could prop her up in the McPlayground with her arm extended to the maximum height limit for the kids who want to go into the ball pit. They could crack open her French-fried jaw and insert a tape recorder so that kids would hear, “You must be this short to play” over and over and over.
Oh. None of you are laughing? You don’t think my comedy routine is funny? I’m just being bitter and mean?
Wait. Wait. Hang on, guys. You mean to tell me that it’s not funny to wish serious, physical harm – up to, and possibly including, a painful death – on someone? I’m shocked. I took my comedic cues from Sykes, and was led to believe that this was hee-larious stuff. You’re saying that, even though everyone’s sense of humor is different, and even though not very many of us laugh at everything that’s presented as a joke, she’s just not cutting it?
Well, pooh. That’s the last time I let a celebrity tell me what to think and do.
I just checked my e-mail. The last professor acknowledged receipt of the last paper that I had to electronically submit. What does this mean? School’s out for summer, baby! YEAAAAAAAAAH!
Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there, especially my own.
Ahh, Mom. What can you say about her that won't get you slapped upside the head with a cast-iron frying pan? Would it really be Mother's Day here at my house without the distinctive BONG! that my sibs and I know and love? Of course not.
She whips up on me at Scrabble 99.999 percent of the time, sure. (The rest of the time, she has a migraine, so I win by challenging words like "aqwoer" and "paweroi.") Sometimes, her evilness scares me - like when she realized that she could just dump the corpses of those who anger her into the septic tank instead of making the effort to dig a shallow grave. And every now and then, she takes the very-last piece of chocolate in the entire house.
Apparently, thanks to the Department of Homeland (in)Security's recent "ZOMG! Terrorists!" documents, which were released to law-enforcement agencies all over the United States, it's now cool to pull over a guy whose truck sports a Gadsden-flag bumper sticker, tell him that his choice of vehicle decoration is an extremist kind of thing, and hold him while you look into his background.
Gee...the last time I checked, the "Don't tread on me" flag was a symbol of America, much like Old Glory in her various incarnations. The last time I checked, terrorists don't exactly embrace the symbols of the nations they're trying to destroy...I mean, come on - when was the last time you saw Muhammad McBomberson wearing an American-flag tee shirt underneath his bomb vest?
I was also under the impression that all Americans still had our First-amendment rights to freedom of speech and of expression (among the other rights outlined in that particular Amendment).
Oh, man - if I had the money, I would SO be at Front Sight, like, tomorrow. Dr. Piazza's giving we gunnies a suh-WEET deal on training...including a free Springfield handgun when you're finished.
So, if you can get over to Front Sight, then take advantage of this deal. He's also offering all the training and paperwork that's required to apply for concealed carry permits that will cover thirty states (reciprocity agreements and such). I'm not particularly interested in that part, because I already have my CHL, but some of you might find that part to be fairly useful.
If you can't go...well...I totally understand, seeing as I can't go either. But by all means, we need to be taking some training classes where and when we can. I've taken the CHL class, but that's it so far. I'm really interested in some more classes, but I don't have the money. I'm saving a tiny bit at a time so that I can afford a class or two in the future, though. I think that we should all be doing that, as best we can, because it's always a good idea to learn as much about your tools as you possibly can.
