Bluegrass Beginnings

Putting Bluegrass to bed

2007-04-19T01:44:00.000-04:00

This blog is moving to veinsofink.blogspot.com. Please update your bookmarks. I might move the post archive from here to the new blog, but I haven't yet.

Can't resist

2007-04-10T22:42:00.000-04:00

"I shoulda been born in the Bronx!"

Photo courtesy of Mountain Mama, taken during/after monumental collapse on Monday.

Lea in Louisville!

2007-03-18T15:31:00.000-04:00

My niece came to visit! She and her parents decided to make the 5.5-hour drive to spend a weekend in the Ville for some NCAA tourney-watching and Lost-board-game-playing. We had boatloads of fun, though the cats were flummoxed.

The results of the tournament were dreadful. All the teams we cared about -- Louisville, Maryland (Paige's and my alma mater) and Virginia (Brian's alma mater) -- had a chance to win or force overtime in the final seconds and didn't.

It was unbelievable. Louisville trailed by one with seven seconds left and missed a three-pointer. Maryland missed a half-court heave that would have tied Butler at the buzzer. Virginia missed a clean look at a three-pointer to tie, also at the buzzer, and Brian had about two minutes to mourn before the family had to hit the road.

But like I said, still a great, relaxing weekend. And Holly gets back from spring break tonight, with stories of her friend's bachelorette extravaganza.

McSkeevy wants child support

2007-03-13T23:20:00.000-04:00

I can't react to this with any more nuance than to simply ask, "Are you f---ing kidding me?"

I'm so irritated, I could sic a shark on a surfing attorney

2007-03-12T23:54:00.000-04:00

From the king of unintentionally unfunny comes an unintentionally funny quote in a breathtakingly moronic diatribe:

"No offense to Alan Arkin, but he couldn't do what Eddie did in 'Norbit.' " -- Brian Robbins, director of Eddie Murphy in "Norbit"

In all fairness, Alan Arkin doesn't always pick his projects well -- he was in a Christmas thing Chazz Palmentieri made that had maybe the worst script in English-language history -- but Robbins' bitter slap at Arkin for beating Murphy in an Oscar contest the former had no role in deciding and (Robbins imagines) for being too good for a stellar project like Norbit is unbecoming even of a smarmy jerkwad. And the idea that somebody as rich and talented enough as Eddie Murphy would be willing to make such a STUPID, STUPID MOVIE like 'Norbit' is nothing less than the most frustrating thing I can think of at the moment.

But hey, Norbit made plenty of money because lots of people who don't mind not being challenged in the least went to go see it. I didn't see it, but I saw the previews, and the previews were stupid. So if the previews didn't do the film justice, then the filmmakers need to put together previews that are more representative of their work. (Full disclosure: I saw Beavis and Butthead Do America on opening night. I've got plenty of skeletons in my closet where this debate is concerned, so I point the finger at myself, too.)

So maybe this smarmy jerkwad Brian Robbins is right. Critics should accept America's low standards or admit that their own standards are too high. I won't even address the likelihood that if this pissant got a rave review for one of his craptastic mediocrilicious insults to comedy, he'd roll around in it like a pig in mud. Except for, y'know, addressing it in that way that I just did.

What bothers me the most (asked no one)? It's that these are the two possibilities:
1) Robbins is smart enough to know his films are crap, in which case he's a loathsome hypocrite;
OR
2) Robbins is dumb enough to think his films are good, in which case he's a rich moron in a country that runneth over with rich morons.

Where the hell is my anti-rant ointment? Lemme just dab it on the festering sore in my soul ... ahhhhhhhhhh. Anti-rantastic.

Goodnight!

"Attorney bitten by shark"

2007-03-12T23:27:00.000-04:00

Well, here.

This bothers me, "Attorney bitten by shark." Ha ha, that's awesomely funny, an attorney's called a shark and he's bitten by a shark while surfing -- comedy gold. Have we decided where to draw the line marking how badly someone can be injured before we can't make a weak punny headline making fun of his profession?

And don't tell me they just added his profession for color, like they'd say he was a "Miniature-golf-course club pro bitten by shark while surfing."

I doubt if he was eaten, the headline would say, "Attorney eaten by shark." It would probably say, "Man eaten by shark."

What if he just got his entire arm ripped off? The man can still sue and object and all that other slimy lawyer stuff with one arm, can't he? I think we've got plenty of leeway to make fun of his job. Hur hur, maybe he'll sue the shark for damages, bwaha!

I used to be a pretty flip headline-writer, not taking anything into consideration other than whether or not a headline gave me a chuckle, but that was back in college. It pisses me off to see this amateur crap get put up on CNN.com, although with the mindboggling amount of coverage they've given Anna Nicole Smith, I'm less surprised than I otherwise would have been.

Departed!

2007-02-26T00:16:00.000-05:00

Best director, best adapted screenplay and best picture! I'll go along with that. I ate that movie up, man.

The best picture was mildly surprising, but I honestly didn't see a favorite in that race. Every critic had a different front-runner.

Food hangover

2007-02-25T11:36:00.000-05:00

That groaning sound you hear from hundreds of miles away is me.

Yesterday, I didn't eat anything until 6 p.m., then I had half a chicken, two cheeseburgers, eight Caribbean Jerk boneless wings and a burrito in an eight-hour span. I also had seven drinks, but with all the food I ate I'd have gotten more drunk gargling mouthwash for thirty seconds.

Hi Mom! Can you believe I'm already 27?

COME ON

2007-02-24T16:42:00.000-05:00

A week ago, I took comfort during a frigid snap when I saw that Saturday's forecast was for 65 degrees and sunny. Today, I'm looking out my window at gigantic snowflakes flying through the air on a day that couldn't be grayer.

Weather guys get a bad rap, and I don't want to kill them too much, but sometimes they're just cruel.

At least Holly's already in Aspen, with hot toddies and rich people and nice rental skis. And I have the cats and their meaningless yelping to keep me company. Awesome.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

2007-02-22T22:28:00.000-05:00

Man, this show crackles. We saw it at the Kentucky Center tonight and howled laughing through pretty much the whole thing. It's directed by the guy who directed Into The Woods, the show that is the only reason Spelling Bee is my second-favorite thing I've seen on stage.

Magic fooooooooooooooooot...

Studio 60 sacked

2007-02-19T23:33:00.000-05:00

Boo. No more Studio 60. I didn't love it, but I liked it, and I thought they might have been able to become more cohesive with a little more time.

Cheers finished almost dead last in the ratings its first year, but it caught on. The environment today won't allow something like that to happen ever again.

I like to move it, move it

2007-02-18T23:47:00.000-05:00

We helped my sister Paige, brother-in-law Brian and almost-three-month-old niece Lea move from suburban Philadelphia to southwest Virginia. Well, we didn't help them move, we helped them move in, since we met them and my parents at their new house. I love it. We got a few inches of snow, too.

Here's my sister, niece and girlfriend talking about sewing notions, or whatever it is that women gab about these days.

2007-02-18T23:45:00.000-05:00

Dude, the colors. We're a color wheel here, and we match by couple! The sack of flour in my lap has the same haircut as me. I don't think we can keep matching hairstyles for too much longer.

I just have to point out something that is probably obvious, but nonetheless: Cutest baby in the galaxy.

Stupid cats

2007-02-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

While I was reading something online for two minutes, Mojo drank the rest of my orange juice and Moxie started eating my Golden Grahams. Sigh... breakfast is over.

Finally

2007-02-15T11:32:00.000-05:00

Put one in the win column for journalism.

It's still not as good as the government coming to its senses and dropping the charges, but it beats these guys getting prison time.

Hoops and trips

2007-02-12T23:24:00.000-05:00

It's been two days of excellent college basketball news:

My alma mater, Maryland, beat our No. 1-with-a-bullet archenemy Duke by 12 points Sunday night. We're far from a lock for the tournament -- I think we're on the bubble -- but a win over Duke, even a crappier-than-usual Duke, will always stand out on a resume.
My adopted hometown team, Louisville -- another unranked bunch -- stomped all over fifth-ranked Pittsburgh on the road tonight. Thanks to Marty Schottenheimer getting canned in San Diego, it was only the second-shockingest sports development of the night, but it was a huge boost to the locals.

In other news, Holly and I are road-tripping to southwestern Virginia to help my sister, brother-in-law and baby niece move into their new digs. My parents will be there too, and I haven't seen any of them since Christmas, so I'm very excited.

Supposed to be some winter-mixy precipitation on Tuesday, but local weather dudes have been pretty off the mark of late, so I'll believe it when I see it.

Muchos pictures of my niece

2007-02-07T22:17:00.000-05:00

Here.

Um, brrrr?

2007-02-05T08:25:00.000-05:00

Six degrees this morning -- wind chill made it 14 below.

FOURTEEN BELOW! In Louisville!

Drove Holly to school, after letting her in the driver's side door because the passenger's door latch froze shut.

Anyway, the high w/o wind chill is 19 today, but the 10-day forecast looks encouraging: high 40s by mid-next week!

My favorite Seinfeld moments

2007-02-04T16:25:00.000-05:00

No reason, really, but please comment with your own favorites.

Watley!...
J: Yeah, well, I don't trust this guy. I think he re-gifted, and I think he de-gifted, and now he's using an upstairs invite as a springboard to a Super Bowl sex romp!

The golf ball and the whale...
G: The sea was angry that day, my friends - like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.

The busboy gets a visit...
Busboy: La puerta esta abierta! LA PUERTA ESTA ABIERTA!

Elaine on painkillers in Florida, meeting a friend of Jerry's mother...
E: STELLA! ... STELLA! (Obviously, you have to see it to appreciate.)

After Elaine takes an IQ test on George's behalf and bombs it amid distractions...
G: Oh hello, professor!

No other explanation needed for "The Contest"...
J: We have to do it, it's part of our lifestyle. It's like shaving.
E: Oh, that is such baloney. I shave my legs!
K: Not every day.

George on Jerry's new jacket:
G: Can I say one thing to you? And I say this with an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality. It’s fabulous.

Two moments that were all about the buildup and a bombshell from Kramer, and both make me laugh out loud every time I see them.
-The first: "The Nose", when George dates an otherwise pretty friend of Elaine's with a huge nose. Jerry and George talk at length about not fixating on it - they and Elaine are handling it delicately when the woman laments how intimidating she finds the throngs of beautiful New Yorkers. To which Kramer replies off-handedly, "You're as pretty as any of them. You just need a nose job."
-The second: "The Hamptons", after George goes off to run an errand and thus misses his girlfriend, with whom he has not even fooled around yet, walking around topless.
J: Boutros-Boutros Ghali!
Jerry and Elaine agree not to tell George and resolve to remind Kramer of the same. But Kramer returns to the beach house with lobster, much to George's delight, and before Jerry can intervene...
G: This is fantastic. Man, what a weekend. Swimming, lobster for dinner...
K: I know it's great. And I saw Jane topless.
Jerry is stricken, like he just missed catching a home run ball.

Ted Danson's salary relative to George's prospective cut from the pilot...
G: Who's he?
J: He's somebody.
G: Who am I?
J: You're nobody.
G: Why him, why not me?
J: He's good, you're not.
G: I'm BETTER than him!
J: You'rrrrre worse. ... Much, much worse.

Hennigan's...
J: Would you do me a favor? Would you take a drink and let us smell you?
K: You can smell me without the drink.

The four of 'em each take a crack at delivering "These pretzels are making me thirsty," and George's is melodramatically angsty...
G: What was wrong with that? I had a different interpretation! Do you know anything about this pretzel guy? Maybe he's been in the bar a really long time, and he's really depressed because he has no job and no woman and he's parking cars for a living.

The menage a trois. The following might be my favorite Seinfeld moment ever. Talk about "The Switch." George's lightning-fast transformation from incredulous and excited to incredulous and infuriated is ... I don't know, it's just friggin hilarious...
G: Do you ever just get down on your knees and thank God that you know me and have access to my dementia?
J: What are you talking about, I'm not gonna do it!
G: You're not gonna do it, whaddya mean you're not gonna do it?!?
J: I can't, I'm not an orgy guy!
G: ARE YOU CRAZY?!? This is like discovering plutonium, BY ACCIDENT!

"No way! No WAY! NO WAY!"

2007-01-30T21:59:00.000-05:00

As cellphones shrink in size and parents distribute them at younger ages, this is the predictable result: my two-month-old niece yammering away a perfectly good afternoon. Get a job!

The big chill

2007-01-28T13:38:00.000-05:00

Holly and I booked our vacation today, an Alaskan cruise in early June. The day after Smith's wedding in Maryland, we're flying from Baltimore to Seattle in the morning and in the afternoon setting sail for a week. Glaciers, whales, mint schnapps... we're excited.

Odds and ends:

See Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth. You're welcome.
Looking forward to a Super Bowl in which I have a rooting interest. (The Colts are the second-closest NFL team to this pro-sports-less burg, and my job is across the river in Indiana.)
Mojo's and Moxie's first birthday is Tuesday. They still have only two gears - neutral and fifth. They're on their last bag of kitten chow before they graduate to the grown-up stuff, which makes me a little sad.
I am slowly and unsurely returning to running shape. But the gym's new treadmills have individual TV screens, so the sky's the limit!

He's back

2007-01-22T23:06:00.000-05:00

There you go, Aaron Sorkin.

Ol' boy finally found his rhythm tonight on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It was crisp, effortlessly funny without long and clunky diatribes, and left several minor but genuine cliffhangers that made Holly and I pleasantly frustrated when the credits rolled.

Steven Weber ("Jack Rudolph") continues to surprise as a natural fit in the "likable jerk" role, and I'm still thrilled that the presence of Dawn from the British "The Office" -- not Dawn from "Tony Orlando and" -- has translated so well to Sorkin's model.

Best episode yet.

Time for classic photos

2007-01-10T22:56:00.000-05:00

Regal ol' Moxie, in smaller, haughtier days.

The aforementioned Eagles helmet

2007-01-10T22:49:00.000-05:00

What a weird face. Although I like how the angle makes me look like I'm tall enough to hit my head on the rafters.

And who's that candy cane with thicker hair than me?

Being sick = no longer cool

2007-01-10T22:08:00.000-05:00

I'm sick. I have a moderate, persistent cold that seems to have strengthened in one symptom or another each day since Friday. Today I woke up and knew I'd be too sneezy and nasty for my co-workers to tolerate. I had things to do that I couldn't really cancel, even after cancelling some other things, and I'd prefer to save my sick days to bolster my scant vacation time, so I worked from home after briefly stopping in to grab my Rolodex, etc.

When I was a kid, having a cold often meant a wonderful holiday from school.

When I was in college, I didn't need any excuse at all to skip class, so being sick was an annoying impediment to my scattershot social calendar.

When I was one of several editors at a newspaper, my duties arose and were completed each day of work -- the nature of the job -- so I could call in sick and know that someone else could handle it, since nothing could have been planned ahead or started already. Being sick returned to coolness. (What a clunky paragraph. But cut me some slack, I'm sick.)

Now, as a reporter, I often have to make my own work instead of picking apart someone else's, and many of my tasks can't be pawned off on my colleagues. Can't skip work, so being sick sucks.

If a blogger taps out a post and knows no one cares to hear it, does he make a sound? Indeed, and that sound, coming from his mouth, is: "Thpbpbpbpb!"

Eagles on Saturday. I'll be wearing my helmet.

Ohhhh seven

2007-01-01T16:01:00.000-05:00

It's been months since any substantial update from this space. Not a whole lot to report. Chugging along at the newspaper while Holly does the same at school. Mojo and Moxie are a lot of fun, still with a lot of kittenish energy at the age of 11 months. Had a New Year's party last night that was by far the most people ever in our apartment at one time -- about 30 at its peak, I think; previous record was maybe nine.

A few things coming up this year:

My sister Paige, brother-in-law Brian and baby niece Lea are moving to the western tip of Virginia in February. It looks to be about a five-hour car trip from here, half the length of a trip home to PA, so I'm looking forward to some nice weekends there.
Weddings, weddings, weddings. We're signed up for five already, four of them requiring plane flights, in four states between March and September.
Holly takes a crucial test/series of tests sometime in late spring, for which she'll be hunkered down in study mode for six weeks or so.
Anticipating only two and a half more years in Louisville, we're probably not looking to buy a house anymore, but we'll be looking elsewhere downtown and in the Highlands neighborhood a few miles to the east to see if we can get a better bargain on rent.
I've managed to pack on 20 pounds (to 185) since the marathon eight months ago, and while I am not planning to run it again this year, my goal is to get into 5K/10K shape and join a basketball league or something similar at the YMCA.
Professionally, I'm applying this year to an exchange program in my newspaper chain. Each month, a reporter is chosen to be dropped into another city to write enterprise stories and experience a new beat. I think I'd enjoy that. Otherwise, I'll just be doing lots of digging and trying piss everyone off in a municipal election year. I expect this year to tell me a lot about for how long I'd like to be a reporter and what specialty I'd like to pursue.
I have high hopes for my Philadelphia Phillies, and I'll be maintaining Chyan Utlard on a regular basis for family, friends and even fans I don't know.

Merry Christmas from the best baby in the world!

2006-12-24T23:41:00.000-05:00

RIP Giuseppe

2006-12-03T15:22:00.000-05:00

I'll post some overdue updates on my life here later today or tomorrow, but first I want to remember Joe Cialini, 51, husband and father who died of cancer this week.

Joe and I worked together at the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J., for almost a year. He spent 15 years there as a reporter and editor, and he was a truly great guy. Perfect mix of work ethic and a light touch with his sense of humor.

I had to hit the ground running in Cherry Hill, thrust into a management role for a copy desk on which I was the youngest member, and Joe brought me into the fold and helped me from looking like a total idiot. He spoke often and glowingly of his wife and daughter, and though I never met them, I ache for them. Joseph, you are sorely missed.

The paper's remembrance is here.

Voila! Lea!

2006-11-27T23:24:00.000-05:00

Here's me and my favorite niece! We had fun this Saturday. I spoke in a ridiculous voice of which I did not know I was capable, and she peed on my lap.

It's not short for Aaliyah, as far as I know

2006-11-22T03:01:00.000-05:00

Alright, Lea, here's my first life lesson for you, uncle to niece: If you ever get stuck at work until 2 a.m. because of a city planners' meeting, keep some Airheads or even some Jessie Spano Memorial Caffeine Pills in a drawer.

That's right, folks, the man who tied his shoes wrong all the way through college is now an uncle. My lovely sister and her lucky husband gave birth yesterday, though only one of them described feeling as though she had been "hit by a bus." (The other one, unfortunately, felt that way a few weeks ago courtesy of a Yadier Molina home run.)

I'm so happy for them. I just wish I didn't live 700 miles away. But hopefully when the kid's old enough to be properly spoiled, we won't be too far apart.

Baby pictures? I've filed my request with the proper authorities. You'll get 'em when I do.

Bush: Women care about drapes

2006-11-08T13:05:00.000-05:00

Bush said he gave incoming speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi the names of Republican interior decorators -- his "first act of bipartisanship since the election" -- to help her put new drapes in her new office. I am so positively sure that he would have said the same thing if Steny Hoyer was the next speaker of the house.

Donald Rumsfeld, we really knew ye

2006-11-08T12:52:00.001-05:00

And we didn't like ye at all.

Pay no attention to the man doing cartwheels through the streets of Louisville

2006-11-08T11:52:00.000-05:00

OK, well, I'm not quite that giddy. But with Tuesday's election results, the feeling of political powerlessness that has gripped me for six years has subsided.

I'm not wild about some of the Democrats who were elected, and I think the country was better off with Republican Lincoln Chafee in the Senate than with a freshman Dem in his place. But I'm looking forward to seeing what changes.

There's not much time; maybe nine months. After that, all the good Republicans and Democrats are going to be running for president, so this next legislative session is hugely important.

Thanks everybody!

2006-11-06T21:52:00.000-05:00

My 27th was great. Didn't do a whole hell of a lot, but it was great to hear from so many people. We did go to Steak & Shake, though!

We saw Borat

2006-11-04T00:00:00.000-05:00

Attention, people going on a first date: Choose another film. All others, right this way for Borat, where shielding your eyes while laughing is standard operating procedure.

Nice try, Jules. Happy trails, Adebisi.

2006-11-01T23:20:00.000-05:00

Two moments defined tonight's episode of Lost:

Juliet's video trying to persuade Jack to kill Ben in surgery. Mmmmm sorry, sweetheart, I'm not buying yer game. I'm convinced you're on Ben's team, and I have the relentless suspiciousness instilled by J.J. Abrams to thank for that.
Eko's death. So much for relentless suspiciousness -- when you spend the whole episode thinking, "Okay, obviously he's the one who dies, sure, but it can't be that obvious, so it must be somebody else," and then the action telegraphs it more and more and then he dies, you reassess your whole Lost state of mind. I guess the producers have reached the point where they have to do something completely obvious to keep us on our toes.

Auto baron parks ugly SUV in my spot and lives to slime another day

2006-10-20T12:53:00.000-04:00

I worked a rare Sunday, so I have off today (Friday) as a result. I got home from grocery shopping and a bright-white Cadillac Escalade with a handicapped tag but no residential parking pass was in my spot, and a decent portion of the adjacent spot, too.

I was pissed. I asked the landlord to call the tow company or figure out whose it was. He did the latter, and it turned out it was Sam Swope's car. Sam Swope owns a bunch of auto dealerships in Louisville, and he was apparently next door at the school giving a speech or something and thought he could park in our lot.

I told the landlord, "It's a good thing I didn't key Sam Swope's car, you'd've found me in the river tomorrow." He laughed heartily but then walked briskly away.

Sam Swope, here's a thought: For somebody who owns car dealerships, where you have hundreds of vehicles PARKED in a specific pattern EVERY DAY, perhaps you could learn how and where to park your goddamn car.

Oh yea I forgot, the Red Sox used to be good

2006-10-11T22:11:00.000-04:00

What a weird ending to Lost tonight. Does Ben have season tickets for Jack?

Quick thoughts:

I wasn't buying Sayid's plan. He should have known the Others were smarter than to just see some smoke and blunder toward it. Not that he should have known they'd sneak to the boat, but Sayid's sharper than he displayed tonight.
I wasn't buying the bald Korean dude jumping. Shame? Heartache? Knowledge that he'd gotten Sun pregnant?
Sawyer was right; Juliet would've shot Kate if she wanted to. I noticed Juliet's body language when she was holding the gun. She didn't have the barrel shoved against Kate's head, she was just pointing it casually at her. She wasn't the least bit nervous.
Hurray for a smarmy blonde Other getting a bullet in the gut.

Rest in peace, Cory Lidle

2006-10-11T20:05:00.000-04:00

I won't bother posting a link, because the story is everywhere. Cory Lidle used to pitch for the Phillies, and today his small plane crashed into a Manhattan apartment building and he died. It's so sad.

It's one of those tragedies where I'm affected very little emotionally -- I cheered and booed him once every five days for two years, but I wouldn't say I ever got to know much about him -- but I find myself canvassing the Internet to read more, more, more about why he flew, how well he flew, how this could have happened.

There's a big gap in time between when he was sitting in the Yankees locker room less than a week ago and when something went wrong with a plane he was flying, and it may be awhile before that gap is filled. Some of it may never be filled. But I keep trying to piece together friends' and teammates' comments anyway.

All that selfish investigation by me aside, I'm sorry he's dead. I'm sorry he was shunned as a scab by some players during his entire career. I hope his wife and son are taken care of as well as possible.

Bwaha

2006-10-09T20:58:00.000-04:00

Some people are saying that Philadelphia's win yesterday erases any doubt about Donovan McNabb's ability to win a big game. And I'm one of those people, because it just doesn't get any more clutch than guiding a favored team to a home victory in Week 5. The "negative nellies" out there may want to talk about conference championship games and Super Bowls, but I say show me a quarterback who can beat a Drew Bledsoe-led team in early October, and I'll show you a champion.

... So says D.J. Gallo w/ ESPN.com. His stuff doesn't always resonate with me, but I wish I'd written that. Even though I think McNabb was stellar and the game was very important, it wasn't Armageddon.

Big win: Eagles 38, Cowboys 24

2006-10-08T19:43:00.000-04:00

The Eagles smacked down the Cowboys nicely, battering Drew Bledsoe all day. Terrell Owens didn't make much of a dent, catching 3 for 45 yards but dropping a couple others and befuddling Bledsoe into underthrowing him for a second-half interception.

Donovan McNabb was very good, and the defense was very, very good, and that's pretty much a recipe to beat any team in the NFL. The only glitch happened with about 45 seconds left, when Bledsoe fired a 57-yard pass to Terry Glenn on 4th and 18 to put Dallas five yards away from a game-tying touchdown. Hard to figure you put single-coverage on the other team's best receiver on 4th and 18, but there you go.

Didn't matter, as Bledsoe threw a baffling end-zone pick to Lito Sheppard, who ran 82 yards the other way toward paydirt and a game-sealing touchdown. And then Sheppard started hot-dogging.

Quick question, Lito: How long does it take you to cover 20 yards, even in full pads and after 82 yards of sprinting? Five seconds? I think five seconds, maximum.

So here's another quick question: Is it impossible for you to wait FIVE MORE SECONDS to start celebrating your great play? A Dallas dude got pretty close to you at the 20, man, have you really never heard The Ballad of Leon Lett and Don Beebe?

Of course, Lito heard someone alert him to the Dallas dude's presence -- "Lito, get your ass in the end zone pronto, man!" -- and he revved back up to second gear and made it in with a dive.

So you may say, "What a crotchety whiner," about me. You would not be incorrect. But it's a ridiculous example to set. That's all.

Overall, awesome game that the Eagles pretty much had to win to keep recovering momentum after a brutal choke job against the Giants three weeks ago. Nicely done, everyone.

Just wondering...

2006-10-08T00:02:00.000-04:00

Who are all the people out there apparently demanding all this nonsense and attention paid to Terrell Owens?

Whose fixation can I blame for one non-story dominating all sports media?

What a worthless week of coverage. I could not give less of a shit about this Terrell Owens character. I swear I am going to watch the Eagles game with the sound off, I simply will not be able to stand listening to Joe Buck carry on about it.

Do yourself a favor

2006-10-06T22:26:00.000-04:00

Go see The Departed.

Quick thoughts on Lost premiere

2006-10-04T23:13:00.000-04:00

Juliet is good. That's some nice work by Elizabeth Mitchell.
I think Sarah's pregnancy test from last season was actually positive, but she told Jack it was negative and left him because she wanted to raise the baby with a man who would put his work second.
"You're not my type." Are we supposed to deduce that Tom is gay? Because Evangeline Lilly is every straight man's type.
I think the producers have to be careful not to make the psychological experimenting too overbearing. Viewers will feel uncomfortable and drop out. Not me -- I'm a glutton for punishment -- but watching torture and mindgames can be emotionally draining, and people get enough of that in real life. Watch Donald Rumsfeld try to put together a ten-word sentence without some false spark of folksiness and I'm sure you'll agree.
What happened to whatever skinned the Oceanic skipper in the show's pilot? Did we forget that there were loud, deadly things on this island?
Not nearly enough commercials between segments. I think I forgot what show I was watching at one point. Solid profit margin, ABC.

Doubleplusungood

2006-10-04T18:24:00.000-04:00

-GWB is days away from outlawing U.S. bank transactions for online gambling purposes, and many sites have indicated they'll suspend activity for U.S. customers the moment he finishes scrawling his name on the bill.

So I've removed my money from the one account I have, and I sincerely doubt I'll reload, even if the law's effect becomes a bit clearer. I simply wouldn't feel safe with my money in a foreign escrow account that I can't access. Call me a control freak.

-Since I don't have a dog in the MLB playoff race, I'm pulling for my brother-in-law's dog, the Mets. But they've blown a three-run lead in the seventh inning, although it could be worse -- they tagged out two runners at home on the same play earlier in the game, three seconds apart. Jeff Kent ran too slowly, while J.D. Drew ran too fast behind him and thought the third-base coach was sending him home as well when he gave Kent the ol' windmill arm motion. High comedy.

-On a brighter note, the Lost premiere is tonight. I'll post a review afterwards, and I invite discussion from those of you who will be wrong.

To my imaginary shrink: Thanks for not charging me

2006-09-29T02:14:00.000-04:00

My first memory is of blowing out the candles on my third birthday cake. My first two recurring series of memories are of: 1) wearing lots of plaid flannel, and 2) telling my entire family, who loved the Philadelphia Phillies, that I was a Padres fan. I loved the name, maybe because it was Spanish and I was practicing to become a stuffy Romance-language aficionado in later years.

But that phase ended fast, and I sprouted during some of the Phillies' crappiest years, though Mike Schmidt and Juan Samuel were fun to watch and Steve Jeltz was fun to make fun of.

When I hit my stride as a baseball-obsessed awkwardness poster boy at age 7, a late-30s Mike Schmidt was winning the Most Valuable Player award for a brilliant offensive season (for a team that finished in second place by 20 games, but never mind that). It was also around that time in the mid-80s that Schmidt hit his 500th home run, which was once an elite-pantheon total. I started to pick up the way that one great player could sucker you into rooting for a team forever, hoping he'd be reincarnated each generation and give the team a fighting chance.

A half-hour ago, a handful of people saw the Phillies' season effectively end with a rain-delayed loss to a last-place team unburdened by possibilities. It's the third time in four seasons that the Phillies have very nearly reached the postseason, but it remains a goal that's eluded them since 1993.

I'm just rambling in writing because it's part of the healing process. I have a problem. I grew up watching sports success come so rarely that when a good team finally comes along, I become way too wrapped up in it.

When Maryland football seemed on the verge of escaping mediocrity my junior year, I attended a game with one of my best friends, a far more even-tempered cat. Maryland's pep band kept playing loudly when Maryland was on offense, and this drove me crazy because I figured it would screw up the signal-calling at the line. It kept happening and I went totally on tilt, swearing at my own team's pep band. I don't even have to close my eyes to picture the hurt, confused and angry looks on some of their faces and the startled, embarrassed look of my friend. I wrote the band director an apologetic letter after the game, but the damage was done in my head. I didn't think I was capable of such ridiculous behavior. I was That Guy who people roll their eyes at until they clap slowly and grin when the bouncer hauls him off into the alley.

Ever since then, I've thought about that day whenever I'm faced with bitter sports-related disappointment, and I keep in mind that it's sports, for crying out loud. It's dudes who don't know me playing a game without me. At some point, it's OK not to give a rat's ass which of them are good at it and which are bad on a given day.

Oh yeah, the Terps lost to frigging Duke football that day, on their way to a 5-6 season that ended when a guy I went to high school with threw a TD pass for the Cavs at the end of the last game, knocking Maryland out of a bowl berth.

The fact that I still remember all that and can't remember the final play of Maryland's national championship game tells you something about the sports-fan psychosis.

What in the world was the point of all this? Who cares. Wait 'til next year.

Weeell.....

2006-09-28T00:29:00.000-04:00

That glimmer of an idea I had about Jeff Conine taking all the rest of Pat Burrell's at-bats in these last few games? Yeah, 0-for-7 with 392 LOB by Conine puts that glimmer of an idea to bed.

But nice win, Phillies, though a horribly played game throughout. Bravo, Chris Coste, bravo, Michael Bourn, bravo, Jimmy Rollins, and bravo, Clay Condrey. The rest of ya, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. And yes, Rollins made two costly errors, but if he effectively wins the game with a two-run triple, I can't hold those against him.

Seething, seething, seething

2006-09-26T20:36:00.000-04:00

Pat Burrell, I'm trying my damnedest not to be mean, and I understand you're a sensitive cat, but: What the hell has HAPPENED to you? You have become an utter liability in the most important month of your career. I don't foresee you being a Phillie next year, but if you are, it better be in a platoon with David Dellucci or something.

Nervous breakdown, come hither

2006-09-25T01:46:00.000-04:00

Dude, I think this playoff race is going to cost me my sanity.

A half-game. That's the Phillies' lead in the wild card race, with seven games left for them to play. They lead by four and a half innings.

Every single game is going to be agonizing this entire week. Monday to Sunday, seven days, seven games.

Ten-game season. Go!

2006-09-21T01:16:00.000-04:00

ALRIGHT! For the first time since they were 0-0, the Phillies are in (tied w/ LA for) the wild-card lead.

The Pirates made me sweat by throwing Salomon Torres in relief for about 934 pitches in two innings, but they beat the Dodgers several hours after Brett Myers shut down the Cubs with authority in a complete game.

Padres lost, too, and have only a half-game division lead over LA.

Ehhhhhhh pennant-race anxiety.

One down with 11 to go

2006-09-20T07:28:00.000-04:00

If the Phillies overtake the Trolley Dodgers for the wild card, I will never ask for another present from Santa Claus ever again.

Games remaining: One against Chicago, three against Florida, one against Houston, three at Washington, three at Florida.

I think they have to win two of three in each series, as well as both singleton games, to assure winning the spot. That'd be an 8-3 finish for a 86-76 record, and a hope that the Dodgers do no better than 7-4.

Ugh. But hey, I'm having fun.

My teams

2006-09-17T13:33:00.000-04:00

Today is a bad day not to be rich. If I had quite a bit more money, I could afford comprehensive cable packages for baseball and football and thus be able to watch a Phillies pennant race game and an Eagles divisional matchup on TV, instead of listening to the Internet radio feed for the Eagles and the Internet TV feed for the Phillies.

Oh well. GO GO GO!

Novelties

2006-09-12T22:07:00.000-04:00

I spent a little time tonight at a dinner party with two species I've spent virtually no time with in years: dogs and babies.

This doctor has four golden retrievers and only one slobbery tennis ball, so lots of hijinks ensued. The baby was one of Holly's med school colleague's, and lots of cooing ensued. Not from me -- I only coo if I'm trying to lure a pigeon. And by "trying to lure a pigeon", I mean "shitfaced".

I'm not surrey. I'm not surrey at all.

2006-09-04T21:46:00.000-04:00

Great weekend. My sister, brother-in-law and prospective niece/nephew were in town, so the four/five of us took the opportunity to train for the Beijing Olympics, now that the 10,000-meter double surrey has been added as a medal event.

Also had a few good meals, played board games and bocce, and witnessed our final Louisville Bats game of the season, complete with a screaming foul line drive that ripped uncomfortably close to us and cracked some poor woman smack-dab on the left clavicle. Do you feel that, reader?

She smiled weakly for about 10 seconds before bursting into tears, lasting 9 or 10 seconds longer than anyone in our party would have, I feel confident in saying.

Ryan the Ridiculous

2006-09-04T21:12:00.000-04:00

The man hit his 53rd home run today in a tight ballgame. His partner in superstardom, Chase "Checkmate" Utley, sent everyone -- including Ma and Pa Bluegrass -- home with a walk-off solo shot.

Rare is the baseball player whose every at-bat is a legitimate "event". Today, the entire mix might account for the fingers on one hand.

Since I was born in 1979, I can recall three other Phillies who were so compelling: Mike Schmidt, Lenny Dykstra and Jim Thome.

In his second major-league season, Ryan Howard has joined A. Pujols and D. Ortiz as must-see TV. This is the same guy who was nearly traded for Kip Wells barely a year ago.

Utley is on the plateau just below, with less pop but better wheels than the guy hitting behind him.

In a town where the smallest wrong move by a general manager can turn fans against him in droves, Howard and Utley threaten to make life easy for Pat Gillick where they're concerned. There's no danger of them being part of a bad trade, because they are 100% untradeable.

That's a lot of words just to convey the idea that Utley and Howard are awesome and fun to watch, which almost anyone reading this blog knows already.

As far as Howard chasing Maris and his 61 home runs -- the best home run mark untainted by the rumor of illegal performance-enhancing drugs -- I don't really care about him breaking that mark and becoming the "clean" home-run king. Let's get rid of steroids everywhere else in the game before we care about the history books.

What I do hope is that Howard keeps hitting home runs to improve the club's reputation, its appeal to fans and free agents, and its chances to succeed in the playoffs. And of course, I hope it makes him baseball's biggest star.

As long as we can still afford his contract for the next 12 years.

Little Miss Sunshine

2006-08-20T04:12:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-19T21:25:00.000-04:00

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!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-08-08T20:33:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-06T19:19:00.000-04:00

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.

Good times

2006-06-24T01:20:00.000-04:00

Turned the $300 I sat down with tonight into $1,200. Busted three people to get a good chunk of it -- one dude when I hit Broadway on the turn, another two dudes when I flopped a set of 7's against top pair and an overpair. Didn't lose more than $25 on any hand... stayed completely out of trouble. More lucky than good, which I realize.

ARRGGH

2006-06-13T23:24:00.000-04:00

Huge competitive-emotional swing in the second half of tonight's softball doubleheader.

The "Hoosier News" team lost 13-5 in our first game, after giving up 7 or 8 in the first inning.

But in the second game, we went into the final inning down 9-8. Fielding in the top half of the inning, we loaded the bases with nobody out; I was playing left center field, and a humpback linedrive was hit to short-center field.

I sprinted to it and slid, juggling it but finally coming up with the catch; the other team's base coaches thought I'd dropped it and sent all their runners, so I threw it back in for an 8-4-3 triple play. Huge brouhaha followed, and they thought that I had said I dropped it. Not so, opposing squad, not so. The person on third tagged up, so it's 10-8.

So of course, in the bottom of the inning, we push a run across and load the bases with two out, bringing to the plate ... me. It being a coed league, I have to bat opposite-handed.

And since I'm hyped out of my skull at this point, imagining a game-winning or at least game-tying line drive up the middle or even a dumpy line drive over the first baseman, I do the only reasonable thing: I pop out to first base to end the game. 10-9 the final, and I want to bite clean through my softball glove. And like a jackass, I wish in part of my brain that I hadn't made the catch so that I wouldn't have had the chance to strand the winning run in scoring position. I got over that idea quickly, but how disappointing is it that someone would think that way?

But it was a great evening. We played the class of the league last week, and they spanked us 22-9 and it could have been much, much worse (they let the guys bat strong-handed once it was 20-0). It turns out we've really gotten better and we can definitely beat both of the teams we played tonight.

The other two teams in the league? Weeell, they could always get a teamwide debilitating-but-nonlethal virus, but other than that, I think we're screwed. We play 7 more games in the regular season, and everyone plays in the playoffs, so it'll be really fun.

Injury report

2006-06-03T00:12:00.000-04:00

Mojo bit Moxie on the leg, and now she's limping. I jammed my finger catching a football, and my knuckle is huh-yuge.

Kowboys -- I can't quit them

2006-05-21T23:15:00.000-04:00

Sat at a very aggressive NL table today for four hours. I won maybe five or six pots and showed down only twice. Here are those two hands.

1) 88. I'm first to act preflop behind a $4 straddle, and I raise to $15. The player next to me calls, as does the straddler. The straddler checks in the dark before the flop comes down.

Flop: As Ts 3h. Pot $48.

I check. Guy behind bets $10, and both of us call. The bettor and the straddler had very loose starting requirements. Another possibility was...

Turn: 8s. Pot $78.

Straddler checks. I take about five seconds before acting. I figure the flop bettor would've bet a little more on the flop to get a free card on the turn if he had a flush draw. I bet $30, looking to reraise if he raises. He calls, and the straddler folds.

River: a blank. I bet $50, he says, "Alright, I'll give you $50," and calls. He sees the set and says he had AT, top two pair on the flop, but he does not show it. He does say, "I should have bet more." Amen.

So that hand wasn't anything special. I raised with the best hand preflop, thought there was an average chance I still had it on the flop, and didn't outthink myself when I turned trips. By the way, I welcome critiques of how I played these hands. Here's the more fun one:

2) KK. Yup, I got 'em again, in middle position. One limper in front, I raise to $15 and get FIVE callers -- four behind plus the limper. Yikes; visions of straightable and flushable boards haunt me already. Until...

Flop: K88, two hearts. Pot of $93.

I'm over the moon. This is the first time in four sessions at the boat that I have flopped a made hand, a full house. It's not the nuts, but if someone has 88, good for him, he'll be taking all my money.

I have a stack of about $330, most others have $300 or $400 and the limper has $135 left. He bets $20, and I do the only sensible thing: I look nervous and call. To my dismay, only one player behind me calls. Come on guys! It's only twenty freakin dollars.

Turn: a black 6. Pot of $153.

The limper has $115 left and he bets $110 of it. I take a good minute to look him over for theater's sake, hoping somehow to induce the guy behind me to think he's up against two bluffers or something, I don't know. I was really hoping to string the guy behind me along, but there's no chance of that now. I call, and the other guy folds. The limper looks puzzled, and he looks downright demoralized at the...

River: the last K. Pot of $373. I have made four of a kind for the first time at a live table, though I've hit a couple straight flushes before and about a dozen instances of quads online.

He bets his last $5 and I call. He says, "Your king is good," as he flips 98, having hit three of a kind on the flop, the poor bastard. For a split second I consider doing one of two things:
a) only showing one king;
b) saying, "Which one?" as I show both.

But I'm not that kind of player, so I just flip the KK and let everyone else hoot and holler and marvel. I tip the dealer $3 and take down a $380 pot, a profit of $230.

So I've got some kind of thing going with KK. That would be more surprising if I weren't playing very, very tight at these tables, but it's crazy anyway.

After getting a rare bluff picked off by another guy's monster hand (that he showed me after I folded), I leave up $171 for the day and $811 for the weekend. Had some fun and met some people.

More importantly, we might be starting a softball team at work and joining a league! That'd be awesome.

Rock the boat (don't tip the boat OVER)

2006-05-21T04:13:00.000-04:00

Interesting session at Caesar's Riverboat Casino, 20 minutes from my apartment. Bought in to $1/$2 no-limit with $400 and played for 9 hours. The four biggest hands were KK, KK, JJ and JJ. In both cases w/ KK, I made kings up on the turn, and in both cases w/ JJ, I hit a set on the flop. But that is only a wee bit of the story.

In order, descriptions of the hands as best I can remember:

1) JJ. Had about my original buy-in, and raised to $15 preflop from middle position, getting two callers. Lest you think 7 and a half times the big blind is excessive, it was the same size or smaller than 90% of the preflop raises at my table.

Flop came AJ6 rainbow. Here's where I became an idiot. I bet $20, hoping either to get called and check-raise the turn, or to get raised and to reraise big. I got called and the turn was a 9.

I checked (oy vey) and the other two guys checked along. Oy.

The river was a K. So the only hands that could beat me were AA, KK or QT. I could not fathom either of the first two, and the third was unlikely for having called a 7.5X preflop raise.

I bet $60. Next guy raises to $120. I'm fully planning to call when the other guy raises all-in, $377. Fantastic.

I hem and haw, not really intending to call but mostly kicking myself for a ridiculous flop bet and a ridiculous turn check. After a solid two and a half minutes of hemming and hawing, I fold. The $120 guy calls the all-in, and both show QT off-suit.

2) KK. I'm at about $350 here, several hours later, and in late middle position. A straddler is in for $4, and the guy to my right makes it $15. I make it $30, and to something much less than my immense pleasure, the two people immediately to my left -- one a solid player and one a neophyte on her honeymoon -- call it cold. Everyone else folds to the $15 raiser, who calls, so we have four to the flop, with me to act second.

Flop: Q85, all of clubs. Neither of my kings is a club. First guy checks, I bet $100, leaving me with $220 in my stack. The solid player folds, and the honeymooner raises another $30 all-in. Guy to my left calls the $130 cold, which I don't particularly like (he has another $800 or $900 in his stack), and I call the $30.

Turn: Q. Both check.
River: a non-club. Both check.

I show the KK, guy to my left mucks and honeymooner shows AQ offsuit. No clubs, but trip queens takes it down. I can't blame her flop all-in if I'm willing to put in $100 there without a club myself, but facing a raise, a reraise (to 15 times the big blind) and a call before the flop, I don't know anyone who's ever played who wants in there with AQo, one of the biggest trouble hands around. So anyway, that takes me down to $190.

3) JJ (the very next hand). I'm in middle position and open the action with $15. I'm sure I'm visibly peeved at this point, and the honeymooner calls, along with the big blind.

Flop: JT5, two diamonds. Pot is about $50, and I now have $175 remaining. I bet $65, and both players call immediately. I have no idea what to think. But they probably don't figure I have anything particularly special.

Turn: a black Q. Big blind checks to me, and I think for about five seconds about AK, then I remember I have 10 outs and I also remember that I'm trying to price a potential flush draw out of a pretty big pot. I go all-in for $110, and both players call within seconds. Fan-frigging-tastic. Solid player turns to me and says, "Nice hand." I whisper, "We'll see. I think I have 10 outs." And lo and behold...

River: a black T. Ballgame.

Both other players check and I flip jacks full of tens. The honeymooner shows K9 off-suit for the losing straight, and the big blind mucks. I did indeed have 10 outs, and that gal did indeed call on the flop with nothing in the same universe as the correct pot odds. But obviously, when the dude two seats to my left starts jabbering about her strange flop call, I quietly shush him. No reason to correct her kind of behavior if I'm trying to win her money. So that triples me up to about $570, with a small blind and limper thrown in there somewhere.

4) KK, about two orbits later. I'm in the small blind with $530. Several limpers to me and I make it $15. Three callers follow, including the guy immediately to my right, who has played marginal hands all evening and never attributes even a very strong play to an overpair; he has about $900 left in his stack, the biggest at the table by a couple hundred. Pot's about $70.

Flop: 953, two hearts. I have the king of hearts. I bet $100. Two folds to GuyOnMyRight, who thinks for a minute, then asks how much I have left. I tell him about $400. He calls.

Turn: a black 3. I think for 30 seconds. This guy plays some mediocre cards, but I really don't think he played with a 3, even A3, even suited, after my raise. He just hadn't been into that, and he was mostly aware of kickers. And I am nearly positive he did not call $13, and especially the next $100, with merely a flush draw. Hands that have me crushed are AA, 99 and 55, but equally likely to me are A9 suited, K9 suited, QQ through TT. Maybe even a worse 9. Plus now, 95 is no good, and any two pair he makes other than aces and nines is no good. I think I have him, and I check with the intention of raising.

He thinks for 15 seconds and bets $200, half my stack. I don't think he bets that much there with a set; he knows, and he knows I know, that calling half my stack fully commits me.

I raise all-in with my last $200. He shrugs and calls immediately.

I'm pretty sure I played it right, but I'm still crapping in my pants just a little. He says, "I think you've got me but I had to call. What, did you hit a set or something?"

I breathe a little easier and turn over KK. He reveals T9, unsuited. The table kind of gasps, but I don't really know whether they thought it was a bad play by him, a bad play by me, or simply saw a $1,000 pot and gasped. I was kind of aghast, to tell you the truth. I'd been playing tighter than all but two or three people at the table ... all he'd seen from me in the previous hour was KK and JJ. Why'd he want to get more than half his big ol' stack involved with a middling top pair with a middling kicker? AA-TT and A9 through J9 were reasonable things for me to have had, too.

ANYWAY. He had two outs, the other two nines. I stop breathing easy and just hold my breath.

River: a beautiful, beautiful ace. It's almost never that a player w/ KK does a mental cartwheel at the sight of an ace on the felt, but this was an exception. $1,090 (approximately) was the biggest pot of the evening for anyone. I tipped the dealer $10 for making the turn not a 9.

...So that was it. In four hands of pocket pairs, I lost a chunk, then I lost another chunk, then I tripled up, and then I doubled up. I left a half-hour later with a little less (I played maybe two more hands, and threw away AJs in a perfectly good spot without a second thought), but I cashed out for $1,040, $640 up.

I'm not normally into posting results of poker sessions -- it's no fun to post losing sessions, and it's disingenuous to post only good ones -- but this one just seemed interesting because of the symmetry. KK hits two pair on turn and wins. KK hits two pair on turn and loses. JJ hits set on flop on wins. JJ hits set on flop and loses. One hand loses on the turn, one hand loses on the river, one hand wins on the river, and one hand is good the whole way.

ANYANYANYWAY. Coming back to D-town on Wednesday for wedding festivities through Monday. That's much more exciting than the rest of this post. Hope everyone's doing really well, and I'll try to post more once June starts.

Burnt arms, bad bets, big fun

2006-05-06T21:42:00.000-04:00

hwong and I and three friends did Derby today. More specifically, we did Derby in the infield, which is a big mess and very memorable. Brought in lawn chairs and pre-spiked Fla-Vor-Ices. Bet a few horses and none of them sniffed first place, except Barbaro (above), who did, in fact, win race #10 of 12, also known as the 132nd Kentucky Derby. However, we bet him as part of a box and a trifecta, so no payout.

Marathon results

2006-04-29T16:08:00.000-04:00

Here are the official results. D-towners may recognize women's winner Katie Nowak; she ran for Coatesville.

The marathon is over

2006-04-29T14:31:00.000-04:00

Remember me? Yeah, me neither. Anyway, the marathon is over. 3 hours, 17 minutes, 19 seconds. Fifty-sixth place overall out of 987 runners; eleventh among men 25 to 29 (including the overall winner). I'm about to take my post-race nap, so I'll have to give details later. But hope you blog readers have been well over this past 18 days.

Holler back, young one

2006-04-08T18:10:00.000-04:00

Twenty miles today!

I was prepared to battle the whole time and lose all enthusiasm for the marathon by day's end. Instead, I felt good-to-great, finished in 2:33:37 (7:41 pace) and with a 20th mile of 7:05. I attribute this to excellent sleep, more frequent water stops, a sunny but cool afternoon, and the consumption of two energy gels -- one at the beginning, one after 12 miles. Also, lots of lasagna late in the week probably helped, carb-wise.

In the final 50 or 60 meters I felt an intense runner's high, but the good feelings ended 50 to 60 meters later. I unsmartly ran a route that had me finish one mile away from my car, and that one-mile walk probably took 20 minutes. I'm just going to come right out and complain, since nobody's forcing you to read this: my legs have never hurt so badly in my entire life. I had to stretch two different times before I trusted myself to operate the pedals of my car.

So I came home and weighed myself -- 163 lbs. Probably lost 7 or 8 in the course of the run. I haven't weighed myself since I scarfed that Gordita and Grilled Stuft Burrito at The Bell, but that's because I'm not getting out of bed until it's time to make dinner. And -- frick -- it looks like it's almost time to make dinner.

Go Tiger Woods, Go Phillies, Boo Steady Job, Boo Constant Tornado Warnings. Go Moxie, Go Mojo, Boo Earmites in Ears of Moxie and Mojo.

-30-

COME ON

2006-04-06T10:28:00.000-04:00

ESPN amazes me.

Editor's note: ESPN.com hired Roy S. Johnson, who is not affiliated with ESPN, to review the new reality show "Bonds on Bonds" that debuted Tuesday night on ESPN.
So here's the third paragraph of Johnson's review...

It was also clear that the producers, Tollin/Robbins Productions, award-winning creators of quality films ("Radio") and television shows ("Arli$$"), would tell the story well. ESPN reportedly paid the company $4.5 million to produce the series, and it shows. (Disclosure: Tollin/Robbins partner Mike Tollin and I attended college together at Stanford, where we shared an interest in radio broadcasting and softball.)

COME ON! You go to the trouble and the show of hiring an unbiased reviewer, and you pick a buddy of the freakin' producer? It is mandatory that you are kidding me.

GO TERPS

2006-04-04T23:47:00.000-04:00

Nice job, ladies.

Party in the bathroom

2006-04-03T00:22:00.000-04:00

We had a tornado warning and a badass thunderstorm come through tonight, strong enough (as were the pronouncements from local TV weather guys) that we spent 20 minutes in the bathroom with the cats, waiting out the weather. (Actually, we started in one bathroom, then concluded that we should move to the other bathroom since that one wasn't adjacent to the outside of the building.)

But all is well, everyone unharmed, including the cars. (There were reports of baseball-sized hail at the airport. I love how hail is always compared to balls -- golf balls, baseballs and softballs. I'm waiting for soccer-ball-sized hail.)

Bad blogger! Bad, BAD blogger!

2006-04-02T13:42:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I've been slacking. I was able to fit in more posts when it was just work and running, but cat ownership seems to be elbowing out my ability to blog effectively. And I know a multitude of cat pictures posted does not compensate for that.

Things are pretty good. It was a crazy week, culminating yesterday with a 17-mile run, a 4-hour fantasy baseball draft, and a visit to the vet that revealed the need for several medications, none of which the cats enjoy having administered to them.

But the weather is a little nicer, if rainy today, and a bedroom window is open. And baseball season begins tonight, as does election night on The West Wing. And something on Grey's Anatomy about Meredith's sister that looks decidedly uninteresting. But since everything about Meredith Grey is uninteresting, aside from her prominent clavicles, that was to be expected.

2006-03-28T21:51:00.000-05:00

They've been doing this every two hours, then running around like fiends.

2006-03-28T21:50:00.001-05:00

Wow, the miracle of photography; a cat can look so big...

2006-03-28T21:50:00.000-05:00

...and so small.

2006-03-28T21:49:00.000-05:00

Moxie doing the "Mario duck" to get under the couch. She was unable to bop any coins with her head, though.

2006-03-28T21:48:00.000-05:00

Honk-choo-honk-choo-honk-choo.

Jeopardy!

2006-03-28T20:12:00.000-05:00

I just took the online test to become a contestant ... well, the first of several steps. I blanked on a couple of them, but I think I got at least an average of two out of three right.

And the kittens are ridiculous ... mewing all night, giving me strange dreams when i could sleep at all. But they're really fun.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet...

2006-03-27T20:23:00.000-05:00

...Moxie and Mojo!

(Dr. Nick voice) Hi everybody!

2006-03-27T20:22:00.000-05:00

Moxie. She is slightly more capable of chilling than her brother.

2006-03-27T20:21:00.000-05:00

Mojo. I'm trying to enroll him in a dojo, for poetry purposes.

2006-03-27T20:19:00.001-05:00

We likes us some aluminum-foil balls. We also likes us some color contacts.

2006-03-27T20:19:00.000-05:00

A good saunter is hard to find.

2006-03-27T20:18:00.000-05:00

You get all sorts of ideas from watching Rachael Ray. That's plastic wrap in there, by the way, and who knows whether we were protecting the wok or the kittens.

2006-03-27T20:16:00.000-05:00

Cat pokey, in the form of two unused dining room chairs. Better be on your best behavior.

Cats

2006-03-20T17:24:00.000-05:00

We've arranged to buy two kittens from the Humane Society in Jeffersonville, Ind. One is a female tabby, one is a black male. Looks like we'll be bringing them home sometime next week, after their last round of shots and fixation.

hwong's naming the girl, I get to name the dude. Any suggestions?

Is this alarming?

2006-03-12T23:38:00.000-05:00

By the numbers...

Weight before 16-mile run: 171 pounds
Weight after 16-mile run, before 7 glasses of water and 7 slices of pizza: 164 pounds
Current weight: 173 pounds

I guess it's better than "manorexia".

Post-16-miler stream of consciousness

2006-03-12T18:51:00.000-05:00

No inclination to make this coherent or readable so here it goes, half the park was under 6 inches of water, so I ran through enormous lake/puddles in the first five miles before I switched to an alternate, non-flooded route. I know this much: I can run exactly 16 miles without drinking water before I stagger and twitch. If I was being chased by a bear, I wouldn't have been able to go 16.1 miles. Granted, any bear worth his salt would catch me far earlier than that, but yea who cares. Anyway, now I'm waiting for Papa John's to deliver my large meat lover's pizza so I can eat all of it with 7 glasses of water and a side salad of aspirin.

Politics often makes strange bedfellows, and then other times it makes obvious ones. Nevertheless, tune in to West Wing tonight to see Josh hook up with Donna, you voyeurs.

Downtown living at its finest

2006-03-12T03:51:00.000-05:00

It's almost 4 a.m., and I am awake. And this is not October, or December, when it wouldn't have mattered in the least and when I wouldn't have minded. I mind.

My street is jammed with bass-blasting cars and reverie-ripping motorcycles. Right about now, a split-level in the Highlands would be so nice.

COME ON, turn down your bass, you corny punks. I hate everything.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy

2006-03-07T14:18:00.000-05:00

Go down in flames, you jerk.

This week sucked...

2006-03-04T18:28:00.000-05:00

...and several factors conspired to make that happen.

I slept a normal amount, but it was dreadful sleep. It was not at all recuperative; it was so bad, I woke up feeling not just tired, but furious.
I have a nagging, cold pain beneath my right shoulder blade that kicks in between miles 5 and 10 of any run I do. If I didn't have a marathon eight weeks from today and if my health insurance didn't kick in only three days before that, this wouldn't bother me so much. But I'll have to bite the bullet and go see a specialist, even if it's just one time.
I didn't publish as many articles as I should have, and the ones I did were boring. Boring news stories are nothing new, but it's well within my job description to dig for interesting angles to those snoozefests. Whether because I was tired or complacent, I was a bad digger this week. And when that happens, all I can think about is how I swore to myself I'd justify the wrenching, tedious job search that put me here by being a creative, hard-working writer.
Phillies haven't traded for an ace yet.
It was warm, very warm -- and now it's cold again. Not very cold, but I feel betrayed by Mother Nature nonetheless; my short-sleeve Under Armour was ready for regular rotation.

Okay, I won't try to brainstorm and pad the list. That's enough.

Ordinarily, here I'd apologize for whining. Not this time. I got that crap off my chest, and that's all I care about.

Whew. Oh by the way Terps, you'll have to excuse me for going against the family; hwong and I are going to a Duke fan's house to watch Duke-UNC tonight. Settle down, settle down, we'll be "rooting" for UNC, but I know some of you will chafe at this news.

BORING

2006-03-01T22:27:00.000-05:00

Bad episode of Lost tonight. I understand that the protracted suspense is smart TV-making, but they're reaching the point at which people will simply watch the teasers throughout the week and say:

"Oh, Claire and Kate are going into the jungle to find some bunker. If anything bad happened to them, they'd tease it, so clearly nothing happens. Oh, and there's some chatting with the prisoner? Well, if he incriminated himself or killed himself or escaped, they'd tease that, too. I'll be fine if I don't watch this week."

I watched anyway, but I was not surprised when nothing fun happened. C'mon guys, step it up next week.

Random, random, random thoughts

2006-02-28T22:15:00.000-05:00

Were Rachel and Monica really the hottest I've ever seen them at the beginning of the fifth season of Friends -- perhaps not so much in that picture -- or do I just think that because I'm comparing them to Phoebe, who was then "nine months pregnant"? Seriously, it wasn't long after that Rachel cut her hair short (bad move) and Monica grew hers long (bad move).
To the people who were forced to stand behind me in line at Qdoba immediately after I ran 5 miles and immediately before I showered, sorry.
Death Cab's new album is growing on me, Pinetop Seven is not as good as I hoped, I can't get into "K-Hole" on my Silver Jews album, Illinois by Sufjan Stevens is not getting old, but nothing beats finally putting 2Pac's Greatest Hits on my iPod and finding out it came off my scratched CD clean as a whistle. You know, see?
hwong sure is hwaving fun with medical school, by which I mean it occasionally makes her wish she never had the idea to become a doctor in the first place. She was involved in two childbirths on Sunday. The mothers were grateful, but a little confused when hwong swaddled their children in law-school pamphlets.
I'll miss wearing pajamas so much once it gets warm. It's the next-best thing to wearing an electric blanket as a toga. Actually, that sounds stupid, so wearing pajamas is the best thing. Hands down. Unless you're wearing a toga. In which case, hands up, and keep that puppy connected. Unless you're Rachel. Or Monica. From Season 5. (Best season, hands down.)
How's that urge to strangle me working out for you?
Check out these songs (in most cases, I love the song but could care less about anything else by the artist):

"Breathe Me", Sia
"Goodnight Moon", Shivaree
"Winter", Joshua Radin
"When I Get You Alone", Thicke
"Dreaming Of You", The Coral
"Brothers In Arms", Dire Straits
"Tuesday's Gone", Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Feeding The Fire", No Use For A Name
"Anti-Manifesto", Propagandhi
"Canned Heat", Jamiroquai
"Snow", Loreena McKennit
"Un Giorno Migliore", Luna Pop
"Tapin' Up My Heart", The Mr. T Experience

Not a finger!

2006-02-26T01:30:00.000-05:00

May there be moist turkeys in heaven for Darren McGavin, dead at 83.

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigaro

2006-02-24T23:59:00.000-05:00

Dinner and opera -- "Barber of Seville" -- Friday night. I nodded off in the first act, was wide awake for the second and started to get fidgety near the finale. But it was well done, if you don't count when the supertitle went on the fritz and a Windows prompt showed up!

Fourteen miles to run Saturday, plus I have to cook something for a pot-luck. How about Chex Mix?

I laughed so hard I spat

2006-02-20T19:10:00.000-05:00

Not at this picture -- at the name of the band in the picture. Has anybody ever heard of these cats?

I love it

2006-02-19T19:15:00.000-05:00

Read this from almost exactly two years ago, then this. I know I'm a little late on this, but it's awesome.

Something I don't remotely understand

2006-02-19T17:21:00.000-05:00

Oklahoma State officials have said that even though Eddie Sutton is on a medical leave of absence, any Cowboys victories will go on his record.

Sorry? Is there any precedent for that? Maybe there is, but imagine if Sutton's son Sean, the current coach, wins another five games this season to reach 800 "for Eddie" and Eddie's not on the bench to celebrate it? That'd be an anticlimactic-disingenuous smoothie. Yuck.

The longest shower of my life

2006-02-19T16:56:00.000-05:00

That was at least 20 minutes. But it followed the coldest run of my life, in something like 22 degrees. The park is still snowy and icy in some stretches, and it was very weird that the last song my iPod spat out on shuffle before I left was "Running On Ice" by Billy Joel.

I can't take much more winter. It's so hard for me to start my runs slow when it's so, so cold. It's almost as if my body panics. Even today, I did a full stretch in the apartment before heading out, and I still whipped through two sub-7 miles at the start, entirely without meaning to. I slowed down later to finish at a 7:50 pace for 12 miles, but I was whupped at the end. Frustrating.

Anybody have any suggestions, other than to hibernate?

OS X

2006-02-18T17:57:00.000-05:00

If you write a limerick rhyming "pirate" and "ran great," stick to computering.

I'm nerding it up myself inside on this 10-degree day, cozily filling in a 25-column spreadsheet for fantasy-baseball purposes.