Back on the bus

Last night was a historic night for American politics.

No, I'm not talking about the endless shilling of 40-year old traditional liberal talking points which all contradict one another.

I'm talking about this announcement.



The pick is out, she's been sighted on the way to today's rally in Dayton. Gov. Sarah Palin is McCain's VP pick.

The banner on the side of the page will be changing shortly.

Now who represents change and executive experience?

This is exactly the pick McCain needed to make. Pro-life, pro-gun-rights, executive experience, and so on. Click the link, read for yourself.

UPDATE, 10:41: The major networks just broke it - 10 minutes after I published this post.

New Single Belongs in 1996

You might have heard that Metallica is releasing a new album in September. The first single, titled The Day That Never Comes, has been released, but it sounds to me like something that belongs on Load.

That's not a compliment. Load and ReLoad were sharp declines for the band, so as I'm sitting here writing this it is hard to believe that the Black Album was released SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. That means there are kids starting college this fall who weren't even born when it came out.

Now that I've made you feel really, really old, here is a performance from a couple weeks ago at OzzFest in Dallas.

Distinctive

As of late, this page has been getting some really, really strange traffic.


Aside from looking for first dates in Atlanta, Atlanta-centered Barbie dolls (or Barbies), and Derek Jeter, there are a lot of searches for Keeley Hazell pictures, Armani, beer commercials, and whore-off - which must mean I'm getting a lot of fashionable, yet horny and alcoholic, visitors.



There's all the poker searches too. Not a surprise.


It's the funnier searches, though, that always get my attention:

• MILFS place (no, this is Francase Place, not MILFs place, and I'm not a MILF. I'm pretty sure of that.)
• Cute Nutria (no, they are not cute. They're giant friggin rats.)
• Nicalexis (I'm not sure what that means)
• Tequila and prostate (dude, I really don't want to know.)
• Hippie Boobs (I guess, if you're into that, but...ewwww.)
• ESPN Olympic Flowchart Home Depot (whaaa?)
• Heaven's Gate (whaaaa??)
• Seattle Seahawks Coloring Pages (whaaa???)

Now, the reason I'm bringing up this traffic increase, both of the normal and strange variety:

Starting tomorrow, this is not the only place I'll be writing. I'll also be writing here as a writer on games and gaming - not just poker (though that will comprise a good deal of the posts) but other games and news of the sort, whether it's Madden 2009 review (which I planned to do but had to scrap), a piece about Wii Fit, or anything else game-related. I'll be on the Atlanta section for now but it's license to cover anything that comes up.

I decided to put my name in for it, and I guess this unkempt corner of the web was decent enough to be considered, though there are plenty others whose sites are much better.

My first post should be up fairly soon, possibly by the end of today, and I'll also have a piece or two up for the Gulf Coast Classic, depending on how I schedule myself and who I may be able to speak with.



It's a bit of a different direction, but at the same time, it expands on a lot of what I already write about. I'll just have to work a little harder on what I put out.



(heh heh -I said put out).



I will continue to write here as well - I may actually post more here due to cross-linking everything - but that should also hopefully explain why I've switched my feed to summaries instead of full posts.

Besides, I needed more stuff to do, right?


And before you ask - no, I CANNOT hook you up with Mary Katherine Ham.

Oddsmakers

This just in, from InTrade: the latest bids on who will be the vice-presidential pick for the GOP:

Mitt Romney, 60.4
Tim Pawlenty, 16.5
Tom Ridge, 11.1
Meg Whitman, 8.5
Joe Lieberman, 7.2
Charlie Crist, 1.3
Kay Bailey Hutchinson, 6.0
Sarah Palin, 4.0
Mike Huckabee, 5.0
Gen. John Petraeus, 0.8
Eric Cantor, 4.0
Carly Fiorina, 2.5
Rudy Giuliani, 2.0
Bobby Jindal, 2.2
Mike Pence, 1.1
Susan Collins, 1.0
Jodi Rell, 1.1
Condi Rice, 1.5

I'm seeing reports it may be a done deal. We'll see.

Gulf Coast Classic Downgraded to Probable

Friday marks the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans.

Surf and I are both heading down to Biloxi Friday for the Gulf Coast Poker Classic. I, in addition to playing, was also hoping to do some writing, possibly some work on a new project.

For now, the trip is still on.

This picture, if it holds true, might change things dramatically.

Uh oh.

I'm a What?

I was trying to do a search for some images of myself (more on that in another post) for a submission that I am doing this morning.

In addition to the top local results, I also got the top 10 Google results. Apparently, the following is at #3, and it's fairly recent.

R.I.P. Straight Face of the Shadow Mob

When you click into the article, you'll see that it's my name, with something very very close to my age. However, it looks nothing like me.

The post describes the death as a self inflicted shooting while playing with a gun inside the record studio.

So, if it isn't obvious from the last few hundred posts, I'm not dead yet.

Apparently, I'm also a bodyguard, an artist, a corporate executive, a photographer, a country singer, another artist, a sculptor, a day spa, another photographer, and an archbishop.

The first public result that came up which actually was me was my LinkedIn profile - which only served to remind me that I probably need to change the picture there as well.

Who knew I had time for so many interests?

I could probably spend all day self-Googling - but that might not be a good way to spend my day.

For now, I've found a picture to use.

From left to right: Michael Francis, Kim Francis, Archbishop Wilton Gregory, and Joanne Langonne.

This was taken a couple of weeks prior to the Easter Vigil and the completion of the OCIA process at St. Joseph's Church.

Compromise

I had a few big conditions for actually coming back to the Republican camp this year.

One is the vice-presidential selection - which will get more buzz later.

A second involves immigration and so-called amnesty plans by the McCain camp.

A third (going back to 2006 for any candidate) was supporting the removal of UIGEA language.

Well, they met condition #3 today.

Last night, the Democrats' keynote speaker was Rep. Jim Leach, who was one of the main House sponsors in getting the UIGEA passed.

One of the main opponents to the UIGEA has been former NY Senator Al D'Amato, advising the McCain candidacy. Perhaps, as a result of that tie as well as gaming proponents' vocalization of their opinions, it was decided to strip language urging a prohibition of Internet gambling from the draft GOP platform - language which had been in place in the last two elections.

It's a big change, and it does meet one of my requirements for supporting them this year.

I'm still waiting on that VP pick, though. If it's Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, Haley Barbour, or Mark Sanford, then I'm back on board.

If it's Mitt Romney, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Rob Portman, or Tim Pawlenty, I'm not too sure about it.

If it's Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Tom Ridge, or Charlie Crist, then they can go shove it and you will e seeing a lot more posts for Bob Barr.

Yikes, that's a pretty big number of possibilities, and I'm sure I'm missing some.

Not all the hippies went to Denver?

Apparently, it was National Go Topless Day over the weekend. I guess there were enough hippies left in New York to have a protest by....going topless throughout the street.

(No, not all of them were hippies. But there is adequate hippie representation to certify the group as hippies.)

Click through to the story at your own risk. I am not posting any pictures here, though. I refuse to take responsibility for the display of naked hippie boobs.

H/t to Gothamist.

And, if you want coverage of the rest of the Denver madness, click here, and here, for starters.

Biden's Cultural Catholicism

Creative Minority Report: Biden's Cultural Catholicism - A Catholic Blog: Religion, Politics, Current Events, Humor, and more.

A good summary of how "Catholic" Joe Biden really is a member of the church of Joe Biden.

"My views are totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine" would be a true statement if his viewpoints on war, abortion, and history of foreign relations and judiciary actions weren't completely at odds with general Catholic doctrine.

I haven't written too many posts slamming Obama - maybe one or two more than I have slamming McCain. Biden, though, is someone that I've had a problem with for a very, very long time.

And, no, I didn't plagiarize that statement.

This week is going to be fun in Denver.

H/t to Ace and Catholics Against Joe Biden, linked above.

Synergy

I've completed my first week of classes, which went fairly well aside from having one helluva panic attack in my Thursday night class. Thankfully, I'm doing a bit better now - I think I was just surprised about being essentially the least qualified of my classmates with regards to past work experience in technical and web development.

Unfortunately, I also found out late Thursday that there were six books I needed to purchase for that class - the teacher did not send the syllabus beforehand, so I was not able to order them before the class. I also was not able to go to the bookstore after class - it closed at 9, and the class let out at 9:15. Grrrr.

On Friday, I priced out the books at the store. Of the 6, only 4 were sold at the store, for a cost of $215. Blech.

Just so you know, here are the six books:

• Web Application Architecture: Principles, Protocols and Practices
• Ajax in Action
• Core Servlets and Java Server Pages Volume 2: Advanced Technologies
• Web Engineering
• Internet and World Wide Web Programming
• Build Your Own ASP.NET Website

That's going to be a lot of reading. But that wasn't the scary part.

Tee scary part was that, coming into the class, it was expected that we would already know:

• the syntax of Java and J2EE OR any Microsoft .NET Object Oriented software development languages (C++, C#, VB.NET)

Now, I've done HTML programming and webpage building, but the last time I took a programming class in school was 1997, with C and C++. So, I'll have a lot of catching up to do over the first couple of weeks.

After sleeping on it a bit, and talking with the professor, I decided to keep the course. If it does work out, then I'll have gained a huge new array of skills that can be used in a lot of new career possibilities. So, I decided to keep the course.

So, I went to Amazon, and was able to find all six books for about $140. Much better than the bookstore's prices.

Now, I've said previously that I've been playing less poker. I had rakeback on Full Tilt Poker through Poker Source Online, and had a balance sitting in there which I didn't feel like rolling back in to play more poker - as I've been cutting down on online play.

So, thank you to rakeback and referrals for covering the cost of books for this extremely important semester which will either confirm my complete career change or force me to re-examine this choice of concentration.

As for my other two courses, neither requires a bookstore extortion. All I needed to get were notebooks, folders, and other small items. No $140 textbooks this term, thankfully, as many of us students have been clobbered with in the past.

For those of you who feel like opening something up at either of these sites, please click on the links above or the banners in the sidebar.

Quote of the Day

I've yet to find a right-wing or conservative who is unhappy with the Biden pick, which is generally not the reaction you want the opposition to have.

But this, hands-down, wins the quote of the day so far, from Nice Deb:

"These two together should exude all the warmth and charm of an enlarged prostate."

WIN!

Rolling Craps

Well, Obambi made his VP pick in the form of ....Joe Biden?

McCain's camp seems to be right on the button in releasing an ad so quickly:




I titled this "Rolling Craps" for a bunch of reasons.

Biden doesn't bring crap to the table - three whole electoral votes which were going blue anyway.

While that would be OK if Biden was s brilliant orator or policy wonk, he is neither of those.

Rather, he leaves brilliant clips such as these.



7-11. Craps.

It is a dream ticket, though.

For the GOP.

Two Senators, both prone to gigantic foot-in-mouth moments, who provided enough critical comments of each other during the primaries to build more than enough attack ads?

Of course, this also means McCain doesn't do something similarly stupid, which is never out of the question.

Deliverance

Way back on June 11, I wrote a post about withdrawing from Bodog, and whether anyone had experienced some issues with BoDog's payout service.

Unless you've done a moneyrgam transfer with them (which I had not), you have to request payout in the form of a check. I'd heard about and read some horror stories about it taking much longer than anticipated to receive checks, and hoped it would not exceed the 15 business day timeframe that was being published on their website.

So, on June 15, I initiated the payout.

On June 16, it was approved.

However, the check was not sent until August 19 - 41 business days after the request was approve, or slightly more than twice the anticipated wait time originally published.

Considering what seems to be happening on other sites, with a few bloggers unable to withdraw money from Full Tilt as of late, I guess I should be thankful that it finally showed up at all. I did, at least, get a bit of credit in my account for the interminable wait, so I do have to give BoDog some props for that.

In all seriousness, though, you guys need to find a more stable payout method, whether it's through check providers or through another online service. While it's good the funds did show up eventually (which is better than FTP), it's still a ridiculously long time.

If the question is, "How long does Bodog take to process checks?", the answer seems to be 41 business days, despite the 15-20 day timeframe currently on their website.

I am hoping it improves back to the expectation very soon.

Hail the alma mater

None of the participants in this video are from my alma mater.

However, this debate tournament took place at Emory University and is ridiculous on many, many levels.



What is sadder, that this took place at my old school, that this was a debate tournament, or that both of these jokers are tenured professors at their respective universities?

Damn dirty hippies.

At least Emory is somewhat faultless for hosting the tournament in the first place. Unlike, say, bringing in Michael Moore and Tom Brokaw, or letting an unruly mob shut down David Horowitz's speech.

Those latter actions better represent why I haven't given them a dime in years, and won't for a very long time.

I need a caption

Some of you have seen this video, some of you have not.



I knew folks in Miami liked to party hard and act crazy, but kite surfing in the middle of a tropical storm or hurricane wasn't what I had in mind.

I need help on a caption. Pick one below, or suggest your own.

• Late Entry for Darwin Awards Flies High, But Survives
• Natural Selection Works With Natural Disasters, Too
• YOU STUPID FUCK!!!
• I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
• I think I see my hou....BOOM!
• Not The Moron Flight He Intended

Or, suggest something better.

Shocking Beat?

In between classes yesterday, I had a quick conversation with my father to get an update on his prognosis and chemo treatment.

He's been in a positive mood since getting the lung cancer diagnosis about four months ago, which is good to have. Not a lot of side effects, amazingly, from the chemotherapy and radiation.

He went in for a checkup and x-rays as well as an initial scan of the chest area to see how the golf-ball sized tumor had either grown, shrunk, or metastasized.

There was one slight problem, though.

They couldn't find it.

No trace of remaining tumor.

It might still be there, but much smaller, and it may require a further PET scan to confirm everything, but the fact that it was easily visible before and can't be seen now is somewhat amazing.

Now, neither they (nor we) are ready to say that it's in remission or anything, but considering the initial survival expectancy of stage 3 lung cancer and clogged heart valves was in the single digits, it's a remarkable turnaround.

Next week, he'll be going with my uncle to Hawaii. I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid like get on a surfboard or climb a volcano or something. It's hard not to blame him for feeling slightly superhuman at the moment even as we remain guardedly optimistic.

It's not over yet, but it's shaping up to be a hard-fought battle after all.

Best Beer Commercial Ever

Technically, it is safe for work.

However, I wouldn't watch it at work because it's pretty funny from a certain point of view.



Eat. Play. Drink Guinness. Swing.

Da solo, introito 4

Earlier this week, Kim's grandmother passed away at 92. We scheduled a quick trip South for her to go to and help with the funeral service and everything that was needed.

In the meantime, I am here, with the kids on my own again. In the latest installment of You Let Your Kids Watch WHAT???, I let Alex stay up slightly later than normal to watch...Jurassic Park III.

There were two segments where I changed the channel - the two scenes that involved dead people or people becoming dead in an ugly manner. The rest of the movie was OK to watch - tough he still thinks the brachiosaurii and raptors are the coolest animals, especially when the raptors "talk" to each other. It's also good that the movie doesn't end with anything gruesome, but with the raptors heading back into the jungle.

Soon, I'm hoping I can put up pictures from taking Alex to see some dinosaurs. Maybe next week, if I have some free time.

Besides, it was a difference from watching gymnastics (ugh) or inane cartoons (ugh, again). For the most part, I didn't have to worry about the content and it was something that I could actually pay attention to without having to bash my head against a wall because I hear a cheery little cartoon jingle for the 537th time.

Tonight should be interesting, as I have to head downtown to get my books for classes which start next week. I was planning on doing it tomorrow or Sunday, but that's now an impossibility. Besides, the kids will get to see how crazy a school can be - I'm sure it'll be very hectic as a few thousand other students try to do the same things I need to do.

This summer went by way too quickly.

Cajun Spice

For some bizarre reason this week, I've been making a lot of Cajun food. I'm not sure why - it could be because Kim just came back from New Orleans or because I'm getting excited about going to Biloxi in a couple of weeks. It could be because I'm starting school next week and I won't have the time so much to cook these sorts of meals.

Whatever the reason, it's almost been down home week from a culinary standpoint. I figured I would share the recipes here - how's THAT for a twist?

On Sunday, I made a roast chicken with the fixins, so we had plenty of leftover chicken, stock, and fat to use for a nice gumbo I made Tuesday night.

I took 1 cup of the chicken grease/fat (you could use oil if you had no grease or fat) and added some pepper, cayenne, onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, basil, paprikaand a cup of flour to make a nice roux.

Once it was all mixed together and heated (turning golden brown, as it should) I added my leftover chicken - probably about a pound or a pound and a half and a can of diced tomatoes, and mixed it all together.

The next step in most recipes calls for chicken stock and water - but, well, I didn't have any stock so I turned to what I actually had in the cupboard - chicken noodle soup, which was a good way of getting the kids' attention when eating. It also took care of the salt content and bringing the consistency to a level more like what gumbo should be.

After that came the vegetables. Now, I didn't spend all day chopping vegetables - I got home and had about 90 minutes to put it all together. I already had sliced the vegetables I needed - okra, celery, corn, peppers and onions. I added those in, put in some bay leaves and a bit of hot sauce, and let it all simmer for about 40 minutes.

It turned out extremely well - a little salty, because I used the soup mix instead of stock, but very good nonetheless. The kids ate their food quickly, which is a rarity - normally they fidget or pick at food, but this time they ate it up fairly quickly.

Now, to turn back the clock one more day - I skipped Monday. In New Orleans, Monday is laundry day - put on the red beans, let them cook all day, do the laundry, then finish making red beans and rice.

Well, it didn't take me all day, but once I got home, I made some red beans and rice after starting some laundry. Since I didn't have all day to let them boil, I used two cans of red beans - it's a type we normally bring back from Louisiana because they don't sell it in Atlanta, called Blue Runner. It's a creamy style, and saves a lot of time on our end without compromising the quality.

(No, this is not a paid post. We just really, really like them. And one good thign about writing is that you learn new things - such as, you can order them online without driving 530 miles to go get them.)

Anyway, we'll take the beans, cut up about a pound of beef sausage or Andouille sausage (which they do sell here, thankfully), brown it up, and add onion, garlic (or garlic powder), worcestershire, spicy mustard, a lot of ketchup, pepper, and a lot of Crystal hot sauce. Mix it, cook it up, cook some white rice, and ...mmmmmmmmmmm.

I've gotten hungry just writing this post.

It's a good thing I've got some gumbo left for lunch today. I made a lot last night.

Too bad I didn't snap any pictures to post to really get your mouth watering.

I'm just glad it's only 16 days until a return to the Bayou.

Writing complexity

More often than not, I try to be entertaining, interesting, or informative, but there are occasions where I feel my writing resembles this:



Too funny not to share. H/t Ishkur.

Olympics

Prepare for six hours of listening to Bob Costas making you want to stab yourself in the eye with a pencil.

H/t Unmotivation. Where there are many, many, many funny posters.

I think with this week coming to a close that I need a drink or eight quite badly, so let's try one drink of each.

This has probably been my busiest week of work so far at the new company. However, the rough part hasn't been the volume of work, or the short deadlines. Instead, the rough part has been trying to get things done when you aren't given complete information or when other folks, far more experienced, are making mistakes or just putting off essential items.

Don't get me wrong, other people are busy too, but I can't stand when other people shirk off work and instead spend their time doing almost nothing, or not paying attention to what they are doing (and as a result, screwing up what needs to be done further down the pipeline.

About the only decent thing that occurs from these episodes is that I appear to be the only one who has a fucking clue. In the long run, I suppose that is a good thing.

I would have written this last night, but a power outage took out the entire neighborhood from 8:30 PM to almost 1 AM. I actually did the unthinkable - I went to bed before midnight, for once.

However, I didn't appreciate the automated phone call at 4:30 AM letting me know the power had returned. A big thanks to Captain Obvious for that phone call.

Flight 93 Families Divided

"Flight 93 Families Divided"



Tom Burnett Sr. entered the lion's den on Saturday to oppose the crescent memorial to Flight 93 (now called a broken circle). An excerpt from the beginning of the Somerset Daily American's banner headline story about division amongst the families:

"Tom Burnett Jr. led the effort to take the plane back," his father said. "When I was on the design jury, I saw the red crescent of embrace and realized it was an obvious and blatant symbol of Islam. It does not properly honor our people — those Flight 93 heroes. I think it's a travesty that it's moved along so fast."

He called for an investigation into the design. When he has brought up his concerns, some of the task force and advisory commission members have dismissed him, he said. "

This is a cataclysmic mistake," he said. "I'm going to save you from yourselves. I'd like to ask for an unbiased, transparent, honest investigation. This is just a terrible, terrible mistake. I'm asking every American — we must stop this mistake. This panel doesn't own the design, I don't own it, Pennsylvania doesn't own it, all of America and all of the world own it."

He said he is also tired of the controversy, but that they must honor the heroes properly. It will reverberate in history.

"I'm not going to stop fighting this thing, it is very, very bad," Burnett said. "Wake up. Get your heads out of the sand."

Other Flight 93 family members roared back. What is usually a three hour quarterly meeting of the Memorial Project stretched to five hours as over twenty people signed up to speak on both sides.

One side wants scrutiny. The other is desperate to avoid it.
The pattern at the meeting was simple and consistent. Critics of the crescent design pointed out damning facts and called for independent investigation. Defenders of the broken circle insisted that there is nothing to investigate, and cried out for critics of the design to stop putting them through this agony.

If the claims of the critics are not accurate, independent investigation would end the agony. If the crescent/broken-circle does not actually point within two degrees of Mecca, then put this explosive claim to rest by showing where the crescent does point. If there are not actually to be 44 inscribed translucent blocks emplaced along the flight path (matching the number of passengers, crew, and terrorists), it is a simple matter of opening up the design drawings and counting.

If the defenders of the crescent had truth on their side, they would be eager to have it exposed. Unfortunately for them, the giant crescent does point to Mecca, and somehow they don't want the public to know it.

Todd Beamer's father is on the side of the crescent?
The highest profile defender of the crescent design was Mr. David Beamer, whose son Todd issued the "Let's roll" signal to re-take Flight 93. Mr. Beamer, beloved by conservatives for his opposition to Congressman Murtha, had not previously taken a public position on the crescent design. He has apparently gotten involved in fundraising for the memorial, and announced at the meeting that he has undertaken two months of due diligence, looking into criticisms of the design.

Listeners expected Mr. Beamer to continue with a report on his fact-checking efforts, but he did not have a single word to say about any of the claims that Mr. Rawls and Mr. Burnett have put forward, launching instead into an extended condemnation of Alec Rawls for his "obsessive" persistence.

If he found that the giant crescent does not point to Mecca, surely he would have said so. Similarly for the terrorist memorializing block count, or the placement of the 9/11 date in the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag. What better way to be rid of this dastardly Rawls fellow than to expose his claims as a fraud?

Mr. Beamer's silence about what he found speaks volumes, and not just about the crescent design. Who could fact check these claims and then be silent about his findings?

Don't look at the design drawings!
Every defender of the crescent had his own scheme of evasion and obfuscation. Patrick White, Vice President of Families of Flight 93, took Alec Rawls to task for holding up a 2005 graphic of the top of the Tower of Voices, where an Islamic shaped crescent soars in the sky above the symbolic lives of the 40 heroes. This old graphic should not be taken as indicative of the current design Mr. White suggested, as the design has evolving for three years now. Yet the exact same graphic was brought to the meeting by the Memorial Project itself, and was on display right outside the courtroom where the meeting was held.

That's going to make some great video, as will one particularly scurrilous attack on Mr. Burnett, and the victim card played by Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley. Several videographers will be sending raw footage, which Alec will start putting together when he returns to California next week.

Big enough to check the facts yet?
How big does the conflict have to get before some major media outlet is willing to do their jobs and actually check the facts for themselves? David Dunbar and Brad Reagan of Popular Mechanics were willing to fact-check the "9/11 truth" morons, finding that most of their evidence is deliberately taken out of context, and that none of their claims stand up to the least bit of scrutiny. Come on PM. If we are a bunch of frauds then we are just as much in need of debunking. We've even got Flight 93 family members at loggerheads and crying out for relief. What are you waiting for?

(A handy dandy list of damning facts to check here.) To join our blogbursts, just send your blog's url.

script language="javascript" src="http://rpc.blogrolling.com/display.php?r=c9772897903facc56d35d9d0f9360331" type="text/javascript">

Ending a saga

Thank God this won't be the lead story on all sports shows anymore.

Bett Favre has now been traded. Not a big surprise.

The shocking part is that he has been traded to the JETS????!?!

I guess it finally means the end of the Chad Pennington era - about two seasons later than it should have ended.

So, let's see...

Aaron Rodgers gets a starting gig.
Brett Favre also gets a starting gig.
The Jets get someone to advertise with who also improves their QB situation.
We get spared endless coverage from Green Bay.

Everybody wins.

Coding/Blogging Outage

For the past couple days, it seemed odd that I had no visitors and no subscribers.


I caught up on some reading today and realized that Sitemeter code took down a lot of blogs over the weekend - some famous, some not so famous.

Since I didn't try to blog anything, I didn't notice. Once I did notice, I removed the code.

For some reason, after I removed it, I was receiving reports with zeroes all the way across - which can't be accurate in the slightest.

I think I've gotten the kinks figured out. For now. So, hopefully you are able to see an accurate counter on the sidebar, and are able to see this in your reader, or Facebook, or wherever you read this thing.

I've also finished updating the links/blogrolls and added some new widgets. I was hoping to add a music player of some sort, but decided it would just make loading the page too damn long. It takes long enough already.

Bad Run

I haven't played very much at the tables lately, as you can probably tell, but tonight I fired it up to play a bit.

I don't think tonight was my night so much, as I got stacked twice in cash tables - QQ to A-5 with an A on the turn, and then running JJ into QQ in the blinds.

I decided to fire up one more tourney before closing the client for the night, a $3500 guaranteed $10 rebuy. As further proof of how poorly I was running, I saw 64 hands and won a grand total of...4.

The one premium hand I saw, JJ, went down to...QQ. Again. I did rebuy, and took the add on as well, which was about what I expected when I signed up. Thankfully I did not run into anything more during monkey hour.

There was a slight overlay, and 130 of 165 finished monkey hour (with 20 paying out), after which folks began dropping fast and furious - 24 in the first level after play resumed.

As for the ending...I ran KJ and the BB woke up with AK, and I finished 58th.

I hope I run slightly better in a few weeks.

Not full of hot air

For once, the McCain campaign has found an easy way to make a mark against Barack Obama's empty words and platitudes of hopey, changey, feelgood nothingness.

A tire gauge.

Being the natural cynic that I am, I don't expect this newfound fight to last, but at least the tire gauge gimmick and the House actions last week have actually made it seem like Republicans have a pair.

For once.

And no, one act is not enough to make me consider supporting McCain.

Stage Change

We had an interesting and funny development on Saturday while we were at the mall.

While in Macy's looking through kids' clothes, Sammie decided that she absolutely HAD to have certain clothes.

She walked over to the underwear section, grabbed a pair of panties, and tried to put them on with her skirt.

As she has also been trying over the past week to walk to the potty and pull off her diaper, I think it is safe to say we've had enough signs that she is ready for potty training.

So, we went and bought her first pair of big-girl underwear. Little Mermaid, to go with the Ariel doll she brings to many, many places.

I'm hoping it goes a bit easier and quicker than Alex's potty training. Everyone says girls are easier to train, so I hope that is indeed the case.

BlogWorld

I just found out about this BlogWorld convention going on in a relatively well-known convention city.



It's from September 19-21, so you could actually do it without losing much time from work. Get a late flight out on Friday, and come back Sunday. There is nothing wrong with a quick little jaunt to Vegas.

Unfortunately, I will probably not go. If I have to pick in Vegas trips between this and the Winter Gathering in December, I'll pick going in December. Hopefully, I can actually make it for once. It starts the day after finals end and would be a nice reward.

You can even recoup your costs with a couple of hours at the poker table. Or, perhaps you could write off all associated travel costs as a busienss expense if writing covers a decent amount of income.

Stop Bribing Me

Pandering ticks me off.

I've spoken before about how I wasn't too fond of the recent round of "stimulus payments". They seemed like an election year tactic in 2006 and 2008 - attempts to subdue voter discontent by giving them back money they had already earned. They seemed more like a bribe than an actual plan of government - and of course, almost all of that stimulus money has been sent, and spent, and American consumers are still feeling the pinch.

But fear not, for the Obamessiah has decided that George Bush's policy is good enough for him. Apparently, he would like to send every family a stimulus check for $1,000 (or $500 for each individual worker) funded by "windfall profits from Big Oil". i.e. raising taxes.

Yes, that's right. Barack Obama's answer to a problem is to take a page from George Bush's playbook.

(H/t Slublog for the PhotoShop)

And of course, we all know that those additional costs wouldn't be passed on to the customer, because companies are ALWAYS willing to eat higher costs.

So, in the end, you will get a check from the government, funded by taxes paid by oil companies, which will be used to pay for more expensive gasoline, oil, and so on, which will then stay elevated even after your stimulus payment has disappeared.

Let's just spend another $50 billion, even though there is no guarantee of having the revenue to cover that, when we've already been screwed into a massive federal deficit.

Riiiiiiiiight.

Heaven forbid the money be used to continue working on developing more sources of oil (DRILL DAMMIT!) to lower prices or alternative energy sources.

You know you are devoid of ideas when you take ideas from someone you despise and ridicule on a daily basis...but that's exactly what Obama is doing in trying to push this idea and I'm once again reminded that we have an election between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.