Red

Rest in peace, Red.

video test

I've only recently signed up for a YouTube account. Sure, I've spent some time there, checking out the goofy videos, but I've never posted anything until now. It's nothing earth shattering...in fact, it's almost completely pointless. It's about a one minute long clip of Chewie howling along to a recording of himself (and Pedro) howling at the tornado warning test siren right down the street that goes off every Wednesday at noon.

Anyway...YouTube includes code for embedding videos in other places so this post is solely an attempt to test that out and see how it works, how it looks, how it formats it, etc.

Although if you want to hear a dog howling, then by all means you should check it out.

Dirt for sale

I was just flipping through the channels and the Home Shopping Network was selling some sports memorabilia so I stopped to watch for a while...and then they started selling dirt. Not even very historic dirt, but a "Dirt Collage" featuring dirt taken from the home plate area at Yankee Stadium this year on opening day. There was also a photo (not autographed by anyone) and a reproduction of the lineup card. It was $149.97, plus $14.99 for shipping and handling. I figured that they'd be a lot better off selling A Rod's bat from the playoffs this year. After all, it was barely used and should be in mint condition.

Protege

Okay, it's been over a week since the Protege qualifier and it took me just about that long to get over it. I actually kept a running diary of semi-meaningful hands but it's too painful to rehash the whole thing so instead, you get the short version of how I got knocked out. I know that bad beat poker stories are now officially in the top three in the category of "Most Annoying/Boring Stories That People Always Insist on Telling," right up there with tales about their fantasy teams and "listen to this dream I had last night."

But anyway...

We're at the final table. I'm pretty short stacked and pick up pocket aces in the big blind. My goal here is to eventually get it all in against one person, so that I'll be the favorite no matter what. Blinds are 150-300 and two guys limp in. I raise to 1300, first limper calls, second folds. Perfect. I'm short enough that I'm pushing on the flop no matter what but I feel very confident when it comes 4-6-6. The guy has a decent stack and calls my all in with...wait for it...7-8 off-suit. 7-8? He cold-calls a thousand chip raise with 7-8, then calls on that flop with no pair, no nothing. NATURALLY, like a punch in the face, a five comes on the turn, giving him a miracle gutshot straight. And just like that, my dreams of jet setting around the world on the high stakes circuit with Daniel Negreanu go down in flames. BRUTAL. Absolutely brutal.