Little Miss Sunshine

The little girl from Signs, the young serial killer from Taking Lives, the original guy from Talk Soup, the mom from Sixth Sense, the 40-Year-Old Virgin and a, um, really old guy who's been in lots of stuff.

Good cast, great performances, especially by an obstinate old VW bus. Go see it.

Move your [expl. del.] Touareg

Granted, my apartment building has a tight parking lot, but all the more reason you should spend those extra five precious seconds on making sure your ugly SUV's ass doesn't stick out two feet beyond where it should, or that the car doesn't take up two feet of space in the adjacent spot. Oh and also, park in my assigned spot again and I'll use my mailbox key to scrape the words "I'D RATHER BE RECOVERING FROM MY LOBOTOMY" into your bumper.

Have a good one, neighbor! Take 'er easy!

WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure what it feels like to bowl a 300 game, hit a buzzer-beater in the NBA Finals or score the equalizer in World Cup injury time. But for now, I'll take the feeling of your ragtag softball team getting its first win of the season. (In its tenth game, yeah, but shaddup.)

WOOOOOOO!!!!!!

What a good feeling it was to win, and to win decisively, and to play well on an individual level too. I singled, tripled and walked and scored all three times in our 10-2 win, and threw a guy out on a force at second from right-center field. Holly singled and walked and scored as well, and the whole team fielded brilliantly. We were not to be denied this time.

It's enough to just make you blog all over yourself

I'm still alive, as evidenced by the fact that I'm typing, but my soul begs to differ.

$1/$2 no-limit at Caesars Indiana, 10-handed, middle position. $400 effective stacks, except for a $100 stack in the big blind. Guy to my right raises the $2 blind to $15, I call with TT. Guy to my left minimum-raises to $30, big blind calls, guy to my right calls, I call.

Flop: QT8 rainbow. $120 pot.

Check, check, I bet $100. There's one made draw on the table (J9) and the only person who might conceivably have it is the guy to my right (and only if it's suited), so I'm not worried about that yet. The only other hand that beats me is QQ, but unless someone reraises me all-in on the flop, I can't give them credit for it. There are plenty, plenty of other hands, worse hands than mine, that are possible around the table.

Guy to my left calls, big blind calls all-in for $70 (less than my bet), and guy to my right stews. He stews for a full minute, literally kisses his cards and mucks them. Main pot's got $300, side pot has $60 for me or the guy on my left.

Turn: 5. It's a total blank, and I'm damn near positive that if the guy on my right had QQ, he'd have raised me after the flop if he thought I had a piece of a straight draw. I'm 99% certain my hand is good, and I go all-in for $270. It's three-quarters of all the money in play, and he calls immediately.

He shows 88 for trip 8's. Awesome, he's screwed. Only one card can come that will give him the $900 in the pot: the last 8.

The big blind can only win the $300 main pot and she shows QJ for top pair with a gutshot straight draw. Only four cards (any 9) can come to give her that $300, and even if one of them did, I'd still get the $600 side pot, putting me up $200 for the hand. That'd be just fine with me, but before I have a moment to utter a little prayer to the poker gods:

River: 8.

Mathematically, 41 times out of 42, I'll have $600 or $900 after that hand. This was the other time, and I had $0.

Anyway, hello everyone! I'm trying to decide what to do with this blog business. What keeps happening is, I write all day and then I get home and I do not want to write at all. But since I'm far away from most of you, the point of this is more for keeping in touch than it is for a creative-writing outlet, so I'm resolving to set some kind of goal (30 consecutive days blogging or something) to restore your faith in me.