Video Game Memories

Recently my buddy Travis purchased a used Super Nintendo, and I played Street Fighter for the first time in who knows how many years.
I've grown past the video game stage of my life. I sold my PlayStation 2 and all my games at our garage sale because I never play it anymore. With work and a family, it's just not a high enough priority.
Every once in awhile I'll go over to my buddy Jason's and play college football on his PlayStation 3, and I still enjoy it.
But after playing that old school Super Nintendo, I did some comparing and contrasting on the old systems versus the new systems.
The most noticeable difference is that the new systems are insanely realistic. The graphics are amazing. I remember thinking Street Fighter was awesome in that regard when I was 11, but compared to the new games it looks about as modern as Pong on the Atari.
But what I miss about the old games was their imperfections. The unrealistic stuff made the games more fun. For example, on the old Madden NFL games, you could hit a guy 5 or 6 times after a play was over. Both players would immediately bounce right back up, and you could nail the guy again. Usually this would not result in a penalty, but you could occasionally injure an opposing player on a 4th or 5th hit. Regardless of whether there was an injury, each hit would result in the "hoooah....HOOOAH" rumbling sound of the players colliding.
Nowadays, when Jason gets a lucky play on me for a touchdown, I can't even fly in and take out his kicker on the extra point. As soon as a play is over, it either cuts to a replay or just moves on to the next play. They've made the games more realistic, but they've taken some of the fun out in the process.
Here are a few of my favorite old Nintendo/Super Nintendo games, and what I liked most about them.

Tecmo Super Bowl

This game was AWESOME back in the day. I had some epic battles with my next door neighbor growing up. However, if you can do this, it's obviously not the most realistic game of all time.

RBI Baseball

The original was always the best. The players were fat, the balls flew a mile out of the stadium, and if you hit one right down the line, it would get stuck in the corner to where the fat outfielder couldn't get it and you'd get an inside-the-park home run. I found this YouTube re-creation of the 1986 World Series on RBI, and it's flippin' awesome. (If you just want to see the famous Buckner play, start watching about 7:30 into the video).

I also liked RBI 2 and RBI 3. They made the players skinnier and the gameplay more realistic, plus they had every team in the majors. 

Madden Football

The best part about the old Madden games wasn't the late hits, it was what happened after a player was injured. Here's a reminder. How come they can't put that on these new football games?

In high school, I got one of the new Madden games right before our family went on vacation. I didn't even get a chance to play it. I let my friend Kevin borrow the game, and when I got back he had set every record possible. He ran the ball back to the 1-yard line so that his 99-yard pass and 99-yard rush would forever be the record for the game. He also kicked long punts and field goals and racked up 999 yards of offense or whatever the maximum was that the game would count. Then, when you went to the records page, it said "KEVIN WINS" as the user for every category. Well played, Ashman!  

Super Mario Kart

My brother Andrew and I both got really good at this game, and we had more than a few tightly-contested races. It also caused more than a few fights, but the good memories definitely outweigh the bad.

Street Fighter

I was never any kind of expert at the fighting games. I always preferred the sports games. But it was fun giving them another crack after probably 18 years. 

And it gave me the idea for this blog. Please leave a comment either here or on my Facebook page with your favorite old video game memories. There's probably enough stuff for two or three blogs on this topic, but just like mom used to say to me back in the day

(Baby) Boomer Sooner!

On Saturday I took Missy to the OU football game for her birthday.
We had a great time, but the highlight of the game was the guy sitting directly behind us.
When I titled this blog, (Baby) Boomer Sooner!, what I meant is that this dude's kids were probably baby boomers. He was pretty old.
He had a radio and some cheap headphones, which had OU stickers over each of the ears.
Before I go any further, you should know who Toby Rowland and Merv Johnson are. Rowland is the play-by-play voice of the Oklahoma radio broadcast, and Merv does the color commentary.
I'm not big on listening to games that I'm attending, but in the case of Saturday's game I didn't have a choice. This guy behind us repeated nigh near everything Toby and Merv said throughout the game.
As a journalist, I can at least appreciate the fact that this guy attributed all of his quotes. After a long pass, he'd say, "Toby said Landry (Jones, the OU quarterback) couldn't have dropped that one in any better!!!" After a big hit on defense, he's say, "Merv said that running back will be hearing bells for a week!!!"
And I'm telling you, he repeated something one of those guys said after EVERY play.
Typical of someone his age, he didn't exactly have an inside voice. There were 85,000 people at this game, which wasn't nearly enough to drown out this dude. If receiver Kenny Stills made a good play, he'd go, "KENNY!... KENNY!... KENNY! ... Merv said he's quicker than a rabbit chasing a squirrel!!!"
When OU got close to scoring, he liked to suggest plays. "GIVE IT TO WHALEY!!! WHALEY TO THE LEFT!!!" This would seem ridiculous, but he was probably loud enough for the OU coaches to hear him, even though we were on the opposite side of the field.
He disappeared near the end of the first quarter, appearing on the field to be honored with other members of the 1956 National Championship team. Props to him for that -- a pretty awesome accomplishment.
Less awesome was what happened in the second half.
At OU games, the fans hold up their index finger before every kickoff, shouting "OOOOOOOOO" until the kicker approaches the ball and then one loud "U!" as his foot hits the ball.
Now then, my wife and I are both wearing OU shirts, cheering after every good play, high-fiving after every touchdown, and doing the traditional kickoff chant.
OU ended up winning the game 62-6, and I'm not sure what the score was when this happened, but suffice it to say that OU had already scored a lot, and this guy had seen us doing a lot of cheering.
So it was a little odd when he tapped me on the shoulder following one particular kickoff. He said, "Why were you doing the Hook 'em Horns sign?"
For those of you who don't know, Oklahoma's biggest rival is Texas. Texas fans do the Hook 'em Horns sign. It looks like this. Clearly this not something that anyone -- especially not an OU fan -- would want to do in the midst of 85,000 OU fans.
I just laughed and said, "No Hook 'em Horns for me."
He continued. "No, no, no. I saw your pinky finger in the air. What's the deal with that, son?"
I said, "I'm an OU fan. I promise I wasn't doing the Hook 'em Horns."
He leaned over to his friend and not-so-quietly said, "I know I saw that pinky finger up. He was doing the Hook 'em Horns!!!"

Ah well. I hope that man is really happy on Saturday, and he will be if OU kicks Texas' teeth in when the teams meet in Dallas. Merv said that would be sweeter than your grandma's apple pie. Boomer Sooner!

Have It Your Way (Eventually, Sort of)

I was playing poker recently at Riverwind Casino and got hungry.
Common problem, seemingly simple solution.
There are at least six different places you can eat there, most of them of the fast food variety. I believe the idea is to get you done eating quickly so you can get back to giving the casino all your money.
Riverwind has one of the most generous comp policies of anywhere around for their poker players. And when I say generous, I mean that it's absolutely terrible. Whereas most casinos give you $1 per hour, Riverwind gives you $6.60 every two days, whether you play for 20 hours or 20 minutes in that time span. So they really stick it to the regular customers, which is always a great business plan. I'm not sure where they came up with $6.60, but my guess is that they decided $6.66 would be too transparent (and $6.70 is obviously too much).
My friend Travis and I had the casino put our $6.60 comp on our players' card, and we headed to the food court to eat. We scoped out all four fast-food places and there was nobody in line at any of them. I decided on the chicken sandwich at Burger King and stepped up to place my order.
The young man behind the counter took my order, and when he gave me the total I handed him my players' card and told him there was a poker comp on it. He looked a little confused but he swiped the card and pushed some buttons on his screen, just like they all do. Then he did it again. And again. And again. And again.
Finally he got it to accept my $6.60 but couldn't figure out how to account for the remaining 30 cents on my balance. I handed him a $1 bill but he couldn't get the machine to accept the cash payment along with the comp. He mumbled a few things, snatched up my $1, gave me change and took Travis' order.
Travis handed him his card. He swiped it. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again.
Then he started hen-pecking at his screen, getting visibly agitated. Meanwhile I'm just standing there talking to Travis and waiting for my food, which I now realize is nowhere close to being ready since this one young man is the only person working.
Now the guy looks at me and says. "I need your card again. I canceled out both transactions."
I leaned over to Travis and said, "I'm glad this isn't my credit card." He swipes my card a half-dozen times before saying "F*** it," handing us both our cards and walking off.
He's gone for about a minute and returns with another employee, who must have been on his 30-minute weed break because his eyes are open the exact minimum amount possible to be considered awake.
This new guy somehow completes both comp transactions in a total of 15 seconds and walks off, never to be seen again.
Now the first guy is actually making our food. Travis and I are just standing there, waiting and talking, when the most amazing part of this story takes place.
The employee walks to the counter with a bag of food and says, "Number 53!" I assume this is my order and reach out to take the bag when a random middle-aged man walks up. The employee says, "Whopper with cheese?" and the guy takes the bag.
What?!?!?!?!?!?!?
This dude had obviously completed his order before we even walked up, and he waited that whole time without appearing near the counter or offering a single complaint during the entire ridiculous 15-minute ordeal.
I just looked at Travis and we both fell over ourselves laughing.
Now this guy gets to work on our orders, and he burns himself twice on the french fry grease, offering up a few more obscenities.
Needless to say, I wasn't exactly shocked to find that my chicken sandwich was devoid of lettuce and tomato. I thought it was also devoid of mayo, but then I peeled back the bun to find a dallop the size of my pinkie fingernail directly in the middle.
Travis summed up the situation best when, before we had received our orders, he said, "I don't think I'll be coming back here for awhile."

A 5-foot Trophy and a Cherry Vanilla Coke

Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011 was a totally wasted day for me. Here's how it went.
12:30 p.m. -- Woke up, got around, read the paper, etc.
1-4 p.m. -- Went to Norman to hang out with some friends who were doing a fantasy football draft. I'm not in the league, so I just made fun of every pick that everyone made. While there, we decided to form another league.
4-7 p.m. -- Set up other league. Talked to wife for quite awhile but remember nothing because I was distracted by setting up the other league.
7-8 p.m. -- Drafted a team in a totally unrelated league that consists of friends from Lawton.
8-10 p.m. -- Had dinner with family, played with Addison, cleaned up the house a bit, put Addie to bed. The only two productive hours of the day.
10 p.m.-Midnight -- Drafted for league that was conceived and formed 6 hours earlier.
Midnight-bedtime -- Wrote blog about fantasy football.

I'm not sure it gets more lame than watching a fantasy football draft. And the worst part is, I enjoy fantasy baseball much more than I enjoy fantasy football.


I'm not going to write one of those trite apologist pieces about the reasons we like fantasy sports or about how much productivity is lost in the American workforce because of it. It's obvious that watching random football games is more fun if you have a rooting interest in some of the players and if you can text trash talk to your buddy 30 seconds after a touchdown. It's equally obvious that setting your lineup or making a trade proposal is more fun than whatever you do at your job.
Instead of all that, I'm just going to write about myself and my friends. (In journalism school, they teach you to cater your writing to your audience. "Myself and my friends" just about covers it!

It's all in the name

To me, the most crucial aspect of having a fantasy sports team is naming it. Having a bad team with a creative name is better than getting third place with a name that means nothing or makes no sense. 

The name should either relate to sports or pop culture. Politics is out. If it's a play on your name, it better be really good. If you're a Cowboys fan and you name your team "Cowboys," you will not be in my league next year. 

I'm going to have to look at your team name 20 times a week for the next three months every time I peek at the standings. Please put some thought into it.

Being a huge Seinfeld fan, my teams have long been named Vandelay Industries (after the fake company George Costanza created). Here's a sampling of some of my favorite pop culture team names. All of these teams are owned by friends of mine in a league that I am in. Dr. Kenneth Noisewater (from Anchorman), Wood Chippers (Fargo), Screaming Shivas (The League), Springfield Isotopes (The Simpsons) and Dunder Mifflin Dundees (The Office).

Names with sports references must be well-thought-out to avoid falling into the lame bin. Just because Tom Brady is a great quarterback and you drafted him does not mean it's OK to name your team The Brady Bunch. My friend Mandie had the opposite experience. She drafted Edgerrin James during the twilight of his career, he stunk, and she changed her team name to the Edge Haters, with a logo that was simply a picture of the running back with an X over it. Now that is a sports name with a story behind it and some personality. Mandie's won the league the past two years, so it appears there is no Edgerrin James curse.

Priorities

Most people play fantasy sports for money, but there are more important things in life than money. Like a 5-foot-tall trophy. A few years ago, I won a money league and got paid a couple hundred bucks. The next year, I won Mike Carroll's long-standing keeper league, which is not for money but includes the aforementioned 5-foot trophy. That was a much more satisfying experience.
Missy wasn't a fan of the gaudy trophy -- she made me keep it in our storage unit for the entire year I held it -- but I like knowing that under the huge placard that says FFL CHAMPIONS, there will always be a smaller placard that says Vandelay Industries, 2008. And hopefully Vandelay can snag another spot on that trophy before all of my star players get too old.

The only day all year you were allowed to smoke in the break room

One of my favorite things about fantasy sports is how it keeps you connected to old friends. When I worked at the paper in Lawton, I really looked forward to the fantasy draft because it was the only time all year that I got to see a couple of my since-departed colleagues, who always came back to draft in the old Constitution break room. (A What's up? to James Royal and Adam Calaway). Unfortunately, that league now drafts online, but the fantasy sports world is still a place to post smack talk and remain somewhat connected with friends whose lives have taken them other directions.

800 empty calories and zero regrets

After several years, it goes without saying. If one of my fantasy teams in any sport is playing against the fantasy teams owned by either Nick Livingston or Jacob Unruh, there is a Route 44 Sonic drink on the line. I prefer mine with cherry and vanilla flavoring added, which means I'm clipping those guys for 20 cents extra every time I win, while also clipping myself with a couple hundred unneeded calories. But it's always worth it, especially when I get to the end of the drink and slurp it really loudly through the straw.

By the power vested in me

I am the commissioner of the most competitive fantasy baseball league known to man. It's been around for almost 10 years, and I've kicked out everyone who fails to update their lineup on a regular basis, which is quite a chore during the long baseball season.

In a landslide, the most active player in the history of that league is Mike Carroll. If I didn't cap the number of add/drops you can make in one season, he'd be well over 100 every season. He makes 12 trade offers per week.

Last season, he reached the transaction limit with a month left in the season. That fact, and that fact alone, forced him to win the league championship for the first time. Normally, he gets frustrated if Ryan Braun goes 0-for-4 two days in a row and drops him (True story, Mike actually did drop Ryan Braun). But with no add/drops left to use, his lineup stayed the same for the final month and he ran over everyone in the playoffs.

I never miss an opportunity to get Mike riled up. If anyone else in the league makes a trade, I immediately approve the trade and the players switch teams. But every time a sucker accepts one of his trade proposals, I have to make him sweat it. Sometimes I tell him that I'm getting a lot of complaints from the other league members. Sometimes the Yahoo! rankings show a vast disparity in the talent levels of the players being traded. Sometimes I decide to put it up to a fake league vote, where the same people always disapprove of his trades. After a few hours or sometimes a couple of days, when the trade is still "pending commissioner approval," my phone inevitably blows up with a 3-text dissertation on how his trade is just as fair as the one I immediately pushed through a week before, etc. 

I have to admit that Mike got be back pretty good this past football season. I made a trade, and he took a full week to process it. By the end, I was pretty convinced that he was going to veto it, and I got pretty riled up myself. Well played, my friend.

I try to keep my obsession with fantasy sports under control. Thankfully, Aug. 31 was not a typical day for me. Those two drafts are the only two football drafts I'll do all year, and I don't spend much time looking at the league between Monday and Saturday, when I set my lineup for the week.
I'm confident that my wife would tell you I spend too much time on fantasy sports. But at least it's better than doing drugs.

Lucky in Love

I'll admit it. I didn't mean for the picture to be that big.
I fiddled with it for about 15 minutes trying to make it normal-sized, but I couldn't figure it out. In the end, though, I decided that the picture is a pretty good representation of how important those two girls are to me. And I figured a scientist might want to know how many pores a human has on its nose.
I met Missy about 10 years ago when we were both students at OU. At first we were like most new couples, madly infatuated with each other. I'll never forget the night -- we had been dating for about two months -- when she introduced me to someone and said, "I'm gonna marry that guy." I kept a calm face while ABSOLUTELY FREAKING OUT ON THE INSIDE.
Our relationship got a bit sidetracked for a couple of years when I graduated from OU and took a job at the newspaper in Lawton. Missy still had a couple of years of school left, so we took a break. Even though we weren't "together," we talked on the phone every night after I got home from work and I think that really helped us grow closer and get to know each other on a whole new level.

I'll admit it. I was kind of slutting it up in Lawton. Not in terms of sleeping with a lot of people, but just testing the market, trying to find something. Usually it just lasted one or two dates, because none of the girls were even in the ballpark when I compared them to the one I was talking on the phone with every night. Missy has always had the perfect combination of intelligence and sense of humor.
For awhile I let our differences keep us apart. I kept a more regimented schedule, a more organized apartment, and I liked the stability of my life at that time. Missy has always been more adventurous, more creative, and more flexible. I wasn't sure if I wanted all of that infringing on my comfortable existence.
After five years of being off and on, I could tell that Missy was starting to lose patience with me. I needed to either make a commitment or move on. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted to go on whatever adventures a life with Missy would entail, that my life would never reach its potential on my own in a boring routine, and that there was nobody in the whole world better to spend it with.
At that time, I was making peanuts at the newspaper but poker was starting to become a profitable hobby. I spent every single dime I had made at poker on an engagement ring. For her Christmas present in 2005, I got Missy a teddy bear that looked almost exactly like one I had bought her when we first started dating. The teddy bear was holding the engagement ring.
Considering how wishy-washy and non-committal I had been during my time in Lawton, I don't blame Missy for being shocked that I was proposing. I would have appreciated it if she had answered a little more quickly, however, because I was ABSOLUTELY FREAKING OUT ON THE INSIDE. She seemed excited but finally I had to say, "Are you going to answer me?" She said, "Yes! Yes! Sorry, I thought I already said yes."

Our wedding was the first example of how Missy's adventurous and creative spirit allowed me to experience something better than I could have imagined. If it had been up to me, I would have had a small, simple ceremony in a church. But Missy had bigger plans, renting out the Antique Farmer's Market in downtown Oklahoma City and coming up with elaborate designs and plans for every aspect of the wedding. When the day came, it was absolutely perfect. It was so much fun, eating awesome food, dancing with a DJ, and seeing so many friends, old and new. It was 1000 times better than the experience I would have drawn up for us!
Missy has pushed the envelope on so many things in our lives, pushed me to take chances and try things I would never try on my own. Some examples:
* We've become world travelers! Since we got married, we've been to Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Paris. Our honeymoon in Costa Rica was my favorite trip, spending a few days at a volcano resort inland and the rest of the week on the beach. In December we are going to Thailand to spend the holidays with my family.
* In Lawton we bought an old house that needed a lot of work and we fixed it up! That's not something I ever want to do again, but it was a very rewarding experience. Missy had the vision for the house from the day we walked in it, and it looked amazing when we got through with it. We were able to sell it for $25,000 more than what we paid for it, and that was in the middle of the housing crisis. Had the market not busted, I think we could have made at least twice that much.
* It was Missy's idea to load up the car and take the whole family to Vegas for the last two summers, renting a house. Those were really fun trips, and I did well at the poker tables too.

I'll admit it. One of my biggest fears about getting married was that my wife would turn into a controlling figure and sap the fun out of life. Nothing could be further from the truth with Missy. She lets me hang out with the guys pretty much any time I want to, but more important she wants to help me realize all of my life goals. Recently we have talked about the possibility of me changing careers, and she supports that even if it means I take a pay cut. Of course I also want her to realize her life goals as well, even if it means more school and more student loans :)

Missy has done so many things that I am incredibly proud of. Her warm heart has led her to do many awesome things, from humanitarian work in Africa to taking care of her ailing grandfather for his final few months on this earth.
Her best work, however, came on December 26, 2008 when she delivered our precious daughter Addison without a drop of medication! Missy is so good with Addison, and it's such a blessing to watch them interact on a daily basis.

I can't believe it's been five years since we walked down that aisle. Happy anniversary baby, I love you so much.

Vegas Tidbits

Now that our time in Vegas is up, I thought I'd write about a few of the non-poker things that happened during our month here.
Addison had a great time. She especially loved the swimming pool. She would start chanting, "Cann-on-ball! Cann-on-ball!" She liked it when I did a cannonball and also when she jumped off the edge of the pool to me.
She also loved the guys who were sharing the house with us. She liked to play hide-and-seek with them, but she wasn't the toughest hide-and-seek player in the world. She would always go to the exact same spot, and when the guys faked like they were looking somewhere else, she would scream, "I'M OVER HERE!!!"
Once, when Eric didn't do something she wanted, she told him to go sit in time out, and when he did, she walked over there with a book and hit him on the head with it! I know I'm supposed to get her in trouble for that, but I couldn't quit laughing.

Missy and I let ourselves get roped into one of those time-share pitches. We got two free nights at one of the hotels on the strip and a $100 gift certificate to the Top of the World Restaurant at the Stratosphere. We sat through a two-hour spiel, and it was kind of crazy how everyone turned on us as soon as they realized we weren't going to buy anything.
First off, we were just walking through the Stratosphere when we got stopped and solicited for this meeting. It's not like we expressed any interest whatsoever in their product, so I don't really understand why they would get so mad that we wouldn't want to plunk down $40,000 for their vacation deal. Our saleswoman was super nice to us the whole time, but as soon as I told her we were 100 percent not buying anything, she jumped up without saying a word and took us to her supervisor so he could try to sell us even harder.
We had signed a contract before the meeting stating that we had to be there for two hours to collect our prizes. It had been two hours and ten minutes when she brought us to this guy. So when he started with the silly hypothetical questions like, "Would you like to go to Hawaii for a week for $1000?" or "If you are going to spend X amount of money on vacations, doesn't it make more sense to invest it with us instead of throwing it away to hotels and motels?" I just cut him off and said, "We're not buying anything. We've been here two hours, my mother-in-law is watching our daughter and we'd like to get back home to her."
He slammed our manila folder shut, got up and walked at lightning speed up to the front desk, where we got our hotel and meal vouchers. He walked so fast that Missy was about 10 yards behind him when he got to the front.
It was more than worth it to me to get the free prizes, I just don't get how they can expect to have a high success rate when they do zero vetting of their customers beforehand.

Me and the guys had a fun little contest one night. Eric has a ridiculous frat-party giveaway tank top that may have been white at one time but was now a creamy off-white with faded words that said "Fiji Island 2008."
So we decided to have an Olympics at the house, consisting of three events. We had a pool table here at the house, so that was one event. Then there's a game called Peggle that Travis has been hooked on lately -- look it up if you haven't heard of it. It's kind of like pinball on your laptop. And of course we had a poker tournament, where we played pot-limit Omaha. So we called it the Pool, Peggle, PLO Olympics.
There was no prize for winning the Olympics, but the loser had to wear that tank top to the Aria and play a full poker session with it on. Travis ended up with the honors. I'll try to get a picture to throw up on the blog soon.

Looking forward to coming back to Oklahoma. I miss my family and friends. See you all soon!

Celebrity Poker

I've had a couple of celebrity poker experiences in our time here.
First, I played with Godsmack lead singer Sully Erna early on in our visit. He is not very good at poker but was a nice guy.
The other night, four of us went to Bellagio, and while waiting for our seats we were walking through the high stakes area to check out the bigger games. Randomly, someone said, "You guys must be on the Harvard football team!" and then started laughing hysterically. I looked up, and Boston Celtics forward Paul Pierce is pointing right at us. I hadn't even noticed him. I'm guessing the Harvard football thing was some kind of inside joke. I gave him a quizzical look and then knocked 12 people over running to the front desk to sign up for the $10-20 no-limit game he was at.
My buddy Jason asked to take a picture with the 2008 NBA Finals MVP, but Pierce said he only takes pictures during certain hours. My attempt to play poker with an athlete who makes millions of dollars and probably stinks at poker was also thwarted, as Pierce left before my name was called for the game.
The next night, I played for several hours at the Aria, the nicest and newest casino on the strip. Lots of poker's high rollers play there. I actually took the seat of 2003 World Series of Poker main event champion Chris Moneymaker, who had moved on to a bigger game. Moneymaker was reportedly about 12 drinks deep, according to the guy next to me who was matching him drink for drink. It was pretty comical watching my tablemate and Moneymaker walk toward each other for a farewell greeting a couple of hours later. Each of them was wobbling quite heavily. First I thought my tablemate was going to topple over, then I was sure Moneymaker was going down. But they finally made it to each other so the man-hug could hold them both semi-upright.
The rest of the guys were across the street at the MGM, which is a good place to make some easy money at the lower-limit games. They don't offer a game higher than $2-5, which means none of the high-rolling pros are there, which means the games are full of bad-playing tourists. I decided to walk from the Aria over there at about 11 p.m. to play for a couple hours before we went home.
At about 1 a.m., I was quite surprised to see 2006 World Series of Poker main event champion Jamie Gold take a seat at the table next to mine. I knocked over 12 people running to the front desk to get on the list for that game. I figured having a story to tell was worth more than staying at my game, no matter the result.
To show how poker exploded in popularity after 2003, Moneymaker won $2.5 million for winning the WSOP. Three years later, Gold won $12 million. But Gold hasn't had the smoothest ride since his big payday. He got sued for half of the $12 million and is basically considered to be broke.
I quickly got a seat at his table, and it was the most action-packed table I've been at in years. It was quite bizarre. Gold was known for his big bluffs during his WSOP win, and I guess everyone at the table wanted to impress him. People were bluffing right and left, and nobody wanted to get bluffed so they were calling all the bets with any pair. Meanwhile, Gold himself really wasn't playing any pots. Neither was I -- the cards weren't really cooperating and I sure didn't want to try to bluff this table of maniacs.
I was sitting directly to Gold's right, and he was a pretty nice guy. He's a huge Dodgers fan and when he heard that I was from Oklahoma we spent a few minutes talking about All-Star centerfielder Matt Kemp, who hails from Midwest City.
It did seem more than a little odd that Gold was playing a small-stakes poker game at 3 a.m. when he was supposed to be playing the main event of the World Series a few hours later. About 12 times he said, "I have to quit. I'm playing the main event tomorrow!" Then he kept saying, "I'm only playing three more hands, I promise." After about 50 more hands, he actually did quit, at about 4 a.m.
In this town more than any other in America, you really never know who you might run in to, even when you least expect it.

Lucky in Las Vegas

We've been in Vegas for almost two weeks, and I've been quite disappointed in the quality and quantity of bloggable material since our arrival.
Sure, there have been plenty of people acting like idiots, but none doing anything rising to the level of blog-worthiness.
So instead of writing about the kinds of things I really enjoy writing about, I'll just fill you in on something pretty cool that just happened to me.

I really don't like poker tournaments. I play cash games almost exclusively. Last year, I played one World Series of Poker tournament, and maybe one or two other tournaments the entire year.
I came to Vegas this year with the same plan -- to grind the cash games and maybe play one tournament if I was doing well in the cash games.
I did quite well in my first week here, and a couple of my buddies who are sharing the house with us wanted to play a tournament on Thursday at the Venetian. The Venetian is holding a series of tournaments to compete with the World Series of Poker. They are cheaper buy-in tournaments than the WSOP but they are run very well and have become very popular.
Due to a couple of unforseen events, we only had one car to share between my family and the guys who are sharing our house. I wasn't really amped to play the tournament, but I figured I'd enter it with those guys so we could all ride together and then I'd play cash games after I inevitably busted out of the tournament.
I've always preferred the cash games, where you can start and quit whenever you want, and if you play well you almost always win. In tournaments, they make you start playing at noon(!!!!), grind 14 hours a day, eat dinner when they tell you to, and you can play perfect and get knocked out on one hand. Only 10 percent of the entrants get paid, and only the top one percent make a significant return on their investment. Why would people put themselves through that??? The upside is that you can win 150 times what you invested if you make it all the way to the end, which you certainly can't do in cash games.
It's been five or six years since I cashed in a tournament. Granted, I've only played three to five a year during that span, but I've cashed in nary a one. I'll be the first to admit that my attitude about tournaments hasn't been very good, but whenever I've entered one I've always tried my best. I almost always make a decent run in them, but get knocked out with 10 to 30 percent of the field remaining, just before you make the money.
My friends that like tournaments always tell me the same thing. "Just wait til you score big in one of them. Then you'll love them for the rest of your life."
Well, I scored big in one the other day.

The tourney my friends and I entered was a $350 buy-in at the Venetian. There were 910 people in it and we started at Noon on Thursday. My buddy Travis got knocked out within the first couple of hours and went to play the cash games. 
I made it to the dinner break with a pretty average stack. My buddy Jason had a few more chips than I did. Travis was up $2500 in his cash game, and we all went to eat together.
My anti-tournament side was already a little irritated about what was going on. "I'm going to play for two whole days, beat 95 percent of this field and make less than Travis is going to make in the cash game," I said. "Tournaments are so stupid."
We resumed play and a few hours later we were close to the money bubble. The tournament paid 90 people, and Jason got knocked out with about 150 people remaining. Again, my anti-tournament side was not happy. "Jason just played really well for nine hours and he gets absolutely nothing. And he didn't even do anything wrong. He went all in with a premium hand (Ace-King), got called by a premium hand (a pair of Jacks), and lost what amounts to a coin flip (each player had about a 50 percent chance to win.) Tournaments are so stupid."
Luckily, I got a couple of premium hands and was able to win big pots without having to flip a coin. I had KK vs AK, and AA vs KK. That's just a different kind of luck. My opponents had premium hands but I had them dominated, with about an 80 percent chance to win each hand. Had I ever gotten KK vs AA, I would have been busted too. But as it was, my big hands held up and I coasted into the money for the first time since 2006 or so.
We played until 2:30 a.m., when the field was down to 47 players. We were in the money, but a long way from the significant money. I was pretty excited to have a shot at a big score, but my anti-tournament side would not have been happy if I made an early exit from Day 2 and made less than I would have playing cash games.
I didn't sleep much that night, and I got up early to have lunch and some ice cream with Missy and Addison. That was a lot of fun :)
Then it was back to the Venetian, where they handed out a chip count sheet showing that I was 11th in chips out of the 47. I won a couple of decent pots early on, but then I went pretty card dead and basically folded my way to the final table while other players made silly mistakes or got unlucky to get eliminated.
The final table was 10-handed, and I was eighth in chips at that point.
In most tournaments, by the time you make it to the final table, the blinds are so high that it becomes an all-in fest. This is another one of my biggest gripes about tournaments -- when you get down to the point where there's serious money at stake, there is no real poker play left and it becomes a matter of who can get lucky for thousands of dollars.
But as I mentioned earlier, this tournament was so well run that there was plenty of play left. In fact, nobody was short-stacked enough to be forced to go all-in without a very good hand. After playing for 12 hours on Day 1 and a few hours on Day 2, I didn't want to lose the tournament by bluffing all-in with 5-high.
A couple of people got busted and I lost a pot, making me eighth out of eight in chips. I was in all-in mode for the first time in the tournament, but even then I had enough to wait for a good hand to push with, and enough that my opponents wouldn't want to double me up.
I got lucky to pick up KK and double up, then I flopped a set of sixes and doubled up again. Suddenly I was in decent shape, third in chips with six people left.
Throughout Day 2, I was getting tremendous support from my family and friends, both here in Vegas and back home. Missy and Addie came up to see me for a bit, but unfortunately they couldn't stay long because they won't let anyone under 21 linger in the casino. Jason and Travis were there to root for me and text Missy the updates, and I got lots of encouragement from my other friends. If you were one of them, know that it really meant a lot to me. I was absolutely mentally and physically exhausted, and all the love I got made a huge difference.
We agreed to do some slight tinkering to the payout structure. The original structure called for $56,000 to first place, $33,000 for second, $22,000 for third and $15,000 for fourth. We made it 46 for first, 35 for second, 25 for third and 20 for fourth. The other players wanted to divide all the money up equally and quit playing, but I wanted to keep playing for several reasons. I was having fun, the structure was still great, and I felt I was the best player left. Also, you don't get a good sense of closure when you quit before the end. 
Three more players got busted, and suddenly we were down to three. I say suddenly, but the whole final table took forever. It lasted ten hours, and about half of that came when we were down to four players or less.
There were 11 million chips in play. At three-handed, one guy had about 5.5 million, I had 3.5 million, and the other guy had 2 million.
Surprisingly, I hadn't been in one all-in coin-flip situation the entire tournament. But that's what happened when the short stack moved all in with 99 and I called with Ace-Jack. I couldn't connect, and just like that I was the one on the verge of elimination.
Then I got lucky when the two other guys butted heads and played an all-in pot. The guy who had staved off elimination against me when his 99 won got quite lucky and busted the other player.
Now we're heads-up. He had 10 million, I had 1 million. But I just made $10,000 American dollars when the big stacks battled and I was guaranteed second-place money.
I won a coin flip to get to $2 million, then I kept chipping away at my chip deficit. My opponent was playing far too tight and passive, and I was winning about 75 percent of the pots. At one point, I counted my chips and I had 5.5 million, which meant he had 5.5 million and we were tied.
Unfortunately that's as close as I got to winning. He won a couple of decent-sized pots, and on my final hand I had about 4 million in chips to his 7. My opponent bluffed all-in for about five times the size of the pot, and I decided to call with a straight draw and a flush draw. In fact, I could have made a straight flush, the best hand in poker.
Although my opponent was bluffing, his Jack-high was technically ahead of my 5-high. I had a 62 percent chance of ending up with the best hand, however, so it was a good spot to take a commanding chip lead if I could win. It wasn't meant to be, and I ended up winning $35,000 for second place. Congrats to Alvin, a really nice man from Portugal who won the tournament.
It was after 4 a.m. when we finally finished, and I was absolutely exhausted and brain-dead. We played roughly 27 hours of poker in two days, with about five hours of sleep on the night in between and no dinner break on Day 2. I had to rely on Travis and Jason to make sure they paid me the correct amount and get us a taxi home. I honestly forgot we were in Vegas for a minute and was expecting to go to our home in Oklahoma City.

The $35,000 was truly a blessing from God and by far the most I've ever made in two days of poker. Still, I have to say I'm not any more fond of tournaments than I was before. It was a truly draining experience, and I know I got pretty lucky to make it that far. My personality is definitely more suited to the cash game structure, but at least I'll have a little more confidence now when I do enter a tournament.
I'll probably enter one or two more tournaments out here, but I'm still going to play primarily cash games.

Hopefully a little slice of life will happen soon to allow my blog to go back to its roots. But if not, I guess I'll take another $35,000 payday and write about that instead.

The Fast Food Blaaaaaaaggggghhh (it's supposed to be a throwing up sound)

Couldn't sleep the other night, so I was tinkering with blog ideas while I was lying there in bed.
I started thinking of some of my favorite stories from fast food restaurants.
Maybe it's because you just run into a different flock of people at a fast food place. Maybe it's because nobody really wants to be in there; more than that nobody wants to be seen in there. Maybe it's because there's no pride in the place so everyone treats it like a dump. For whatever reasons, some really funny stuff happens at fast food joints.
So the other day, when I couldn't sleep, I started jotting down some of my favorite fast food memories. A lot of it is just me and my friends being stupid; it doesn't really have anything to do with the establishments. Anyway, here they are.

Subway: I went to a Subway a few months ago wearing a humorous T-shirt. I was the only one in the store, and I walked right to the counter and started looking over the menu to see what I wanted. The lady behind the counter was probably a couple of years younger than I was. She said, "Your shirt is funny. Are you married?"
You can't even wait to find out if I want white, wheat or Italian Herbs and Cheese bread???? After I told her that I was married, she continued her flirting until I commented that my wife probably just wanted her cold cut trio, not the combo meal that included chips, a drink and marital infidelity.

Johnnie's Charcoal Broiler/4th Street Burgers: RIP 4th Street Burgers in Moore, which closed a long time ago, but it was awesome. It was one of our favorite lunchtime choices back in the Westmoore High School days. What 4th Street Burgers and Johnnie's have in common is that at both restaurants, you place your order, give them your name, and then they call it out over the PA.
Being bright high school boys, we figured out that since we ordered at the same time, our food would be ready at the same time, and they'd be announcing our names at the same time. It would be boring if they just announced, "Matt. Chad. Kevin." So we always came up with a different set of names to give them that would sound funny over a PA if said at the same time. Sometimes it was hard to keep a straight face and tell a 60-year-old woman that your name was Bert, but it's easier than being the guy after him who says his name is Ernie. I don't remember very many of the names we gave, but we usually got a decent laugh out of the crowd and a dirty look from the old lady behind the counter.

KFC/Church's Chicken: Along the same lines of high school immaturity, we once pulled into a Church's Chicken drive-thru and tried to act like we were having a tough time deciding whether to eat there or go down the road to the KFC. Looking back on it now, I'm surprised we didn't just get a 16-year-old who couldn't care less and told us to go on down the road. Luckily, however, we got an 80-year-old lady who was quite detailed in her comparisons of the two restaurants. We remained skeptical, accusing her of just saying those things because she worked there, but she even had a comeback for that.
"I worked for the Colonel for 15 years, and I've eaten a lot of chicken," she said. "Trust me, ours is better." How can you argue with that? We ordered a bunch of chicken, and even though we were being rude and immature, I think we made that woman's day by ultimately believing her and buying the chicken.

Chick-Fil-A: One day not too long ago, I was sleeping in but Missy and Addie wanted us to go to Chick-Fil-A for lunch as a family, so they woke me up after they got back from the gym. For some reason, we needed to leave real soon because of an appointment or something. So I threw on a crappy T-shirt, some shorts, and some flip flops and got in Missy's car.
When we got over there, we realized that I hadn't grabbed my wallet, and Missy didn't have any money on her. There were a few $1 bills on the floor and a decent amount of loose change in Missy's car, and when we counted all the change up we had something like $9.87. We figured we could find something to eat for that amount, and it would be better than driving home and getting money.
I told the cashier our predicament and tried to figure out the best things to order on our budget. Soon, the manager walked over and gave us all free drinks and vouchers for two free chicken sandwiches. I thought, "Wow, that's really nice."
It was very nice, but I soon realized that this guy probably thought we were homeless! After all, I'm looking quite ratty, with mismatched shorts, shirt and bedhead, and Missy's half-sweating and wearing gym clothes! Oh well, I wasn't going to turn down a free sandwich!

McDonald's: I've never really eaten at McDonald's all that often, but when I lived in Lawton before I got married, there was one at the nearest intersection to my apartment.
One night, I planned to go through the drive-thru on my dinner break to grab something to take home to eat, but when I pulled up the place was closed.
I thought it was quite odd, but I found out what happened a couple days later after talking one of the city's leaders at the gym. He said that while health inspectors were at the restaurant, one of the employees dropped a burger on the ground, picked it up and put it right on the grill!
This shouldn't be that shocking, but my friend told me that all of the employees knew the health inspector was there, he was wearing a badge and the employees had been told in advance that he would be there. You'd think that for one day they could get their act together, but I guess not! The place was shut down for a week or two and then reopened.

Hardee's: Fair warning -- this is pretty gross. When I was in junior high, we stopped at a Hardee's (now Carl's Jr.) on a field trip. One of my buddies bit into his burger and there was a worm in there! We dug the rest of the worm out of the burger, showed it to everyone (especially the girls) and our teacher made us all leave.


I have a few more stories but I guess this blog has been long enough. The other night, after I finished writing down the stories, I got in a really goofy mood and came up with a song. At the risk of exposing myself as an utterly immature idiot, here it is. (Warning: Explicit toilet humor and PG lyrics)

(To the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game")
Take me out for some fast food
Take me out with the crowds
Buy me some Pepto I've got the craps
I don't know if I'll ever get back
Til I poop and puke all my guts out
Coming here was a shame
Cause it's One! Two! Three! Tums I'll need
Won't you pass the Rolaids!!!!!!

The LeBron Debate

I'm getting a little annoyed about all the crap LeBron James has been catching this week.
Here's a quick recap and the reason for my annoyance.
1) LeBron leads the team in scoring and assists during the regular season and is second in rebounding. After winning the previous two NBA MVP awards, he is second behind Chicago's Derrick Rose.
2) LeBron carries Miami past Boston and Chicago and into the NBA Finals, despite Dwyane Wade basically not showing up for either series.
3) Through 4 games of the NBA Finals, Wade is the team's best player but the Heat is locked in a 2-2 series with Dallas.
4) After Game 3, which ends with LeBron making a behind-the-back pass to Chris Bosh for the winning basket, the media and the LeBron haters say this is "D-Wade's team" because Wade led the team in scoring, and that LeBron only joined Miami so he could ride Wade's coattails to multiple championships.
Then, after he admittedly played far too passively in the Game 4 loss, said haters blamed it all on James. (I guess it's only Wade's team when they win.)
To someone who has been a LeBron fan since he came into the league eight years ago, or to someone who enjoys common sense, this is quite annoying. It's especially annoying since the main hating seems to be coming from the Kobe Bryant fan club.
I posted something about LeBron the other day on Facebook, and the Kobe lovers came out of the woodwork to claim that their guy was superior. Never mind that my post had absolutely nothing to do with Kobe. I guess these guys are used to watching Kobe in the NBA Finals, and now that he is old and irrelevant and not playing in the Finals, they have nothing to do but troll Facebook and bash anyone who likes another player.
Obviously Kobe is a great basketball player. More important -- to the media and his fan club anyway -- he fits the "Jordan mold." He shoots the ball 30 times a game, when he's on he's unstoppable, and he demands the ball at the end of every game.
There's nothing wrong with that. Jordan and Kobe, in that order, are the top two shooting guards to ever play the game. They take over games, and lots of times they win them. But the general deification of Jordan, and to a lesser extent Kobe, has caused people to think that shooting 30 times is the only way to be good at basketball.
Everyone wants to compare LeBron to Jordan and Kobe, but he's simply a different kind of player. Judging LeBron only by how many points he scores or how many pretty fade-away 18-footers he hits at the end of games is like going to an art gallery and only looking at the frames.
LeBron's never going to stack up to those guys simply in terms of scoring. But he's better than either of them as a rebounder and a passer, and his playmaking ability is what makes him different from anyone who's ever played the game.
The whole "decision" thing this past offseason put a bulls-eye on James' back, and his every move has been scrutinized this season. Lots of people who were indifferent or liked him before now hate him, and they're quick to pile on when he underperforms in the playoffs.
But let's take a closer look at what a "bad" game looks like for LeBron and Kobe. LeBron was 3-for-11 for 8 points, but he also had nine rebounds and seven assists. In his worst playoff game ever, he almost had a triple-double!
Let's look at a bad game for Kobe, this one coming in last year's NBA Finals. Bryant was 6-for-24 for 23 points. When Kobe plays bad, he still scores 23 points because he took 24 shots. He shot a lower field goal percentage than LeBron did, but it doesn't look nearly as bad as scoring just 8 points in an NBA Finals game. Thus LeBron becomes a much easier target.
In team sports, players get a lot of credit and a lot of blame for things that are out of their control. Derek Jeter gets lauded as a winner and "The Captain," but how many titles would he have won in Pittsburgh? He got lucky to have spent his whole career as a Yankee, and his reputation has been boosted mightily because of it.
Kobe got drafted by Charlotte, but was traded to the Lakers. How many titles do you think he would have won in Charlotte? I'm going to say zero.
LeBron got drafted by Cleveland, a city that hasn't won anything in any sport since FM radio was invented. He single-handedly beat Detroit (the same team that has just beaten Kobe AND Shaq in the Finals) and took the Cavaliers to the Finals. That, to me, is the most impressive thing LeBron will ever do in his career. Nobody has come that close to winning a title with no help. Yet Kobe fans and LeBron haters labeled him a choker who couldn't win the big one.
Like LeBron, Jordan couldn't get past that final hurdle by himself in Chicago for the first several years of his career. Then the Bulls drafted Scottie Pippen and hired Phil Jackson to coach, and suddenly Jordan is the greatest player of all time.
I keep hearing the word "legacy" in regards to LeBron. Kobe fans love to talk about his. LeBron haters love to say he's destroying his legacy by teaming up with Wade or by having an off game in the Finals.
Here's my take on each player's legacy.
Kobe is a Hall-of-Fame guard who was the best player in the game at one time. That's no small accomplishment. He's won five titles, but his me-first attitude ran Shaq out of town and cost him at least two more (which ironically would have put him ahead of his idol, Jordan). That attitude also led to him being charged with rape. Attitudes are things we can control, as opposed to draft-day trades that happen to land you in Los Angeles with the richest franchise in the league (or in Cleveland with one of the poorest). Nevertheless, Kobe deserves credit for a tireless work ethic and a will to win, two more things he had control over.
LeBron's been getting ridiculous hype since he was 13. His high school games were on ESPN. Most child-star actors or athletes end up being disappointments, addicts, or both, but LeBron has been every bit as good as advertised for eight seasons, all without a single DUI or domestic issue. The worst thing he's ever done is hold a press conference. He's the best player in the game today, and he's going to win his titles, whether he gets one this year or not.
Instead of just looking at a point total or piling onto a guy because he held a press conference, appreciate LeBron's game for what it is. Don't compare apples to oranges. LeBron's game is much more similar to Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson than Jordan or Kobe, and those guys all played in different eras, which brings up an entirely different debate.
These NBA Finals have been amazing. Every game is coming down to the final seconds. Let's focus on that, instead of making irrelevant Kobe/LeBron legacy comparisons 10 years before LeBron's career is over.

Just Add Water

My precious daughter Addison has been on quite a roll lately.
The other day, when the tornadoes hit, I had a couple of poker-playing friends over because we have a storm shelter and they don't.
Addie really took to both of them, but she especially liked my friend Brian. After knowing him for about 30 minutes, she ran up to him and tried to kiss him on the mouth! If that's how she's acting at two-and-a-half years old, I can't imagine what it's going to be like in a dozen years. Anyone know a good gun shop?
After the storms passed, we all decided to go to a Thai restaurant. Missy, Addie and I took one car, and the boys drove separate. On the way over there, Missy and I were talking and Addie said, "Mommy." We were in the middle of our brief discussion so we just kept talking. Again Addie said, "Mommy." Missy was on the last sentence of our talk, but Addie couldn't wait any longer. "MOMMY!!!" she screamed at the top of her voice.
"Yes honey," Missy said. To which Addie calmly replied, "Where's Brian?"

Addison loves to help Missy with watering the gardens. Yesterday, unfortunately, she decided that our laptop needed some hydration. So I'm writing this blog on the old desktop, which literally took an hour to boot up. Once it gets going, it's not a ton slower than our laptop, but it does make a loud whirring sound on occasion.
When we bought the laptop, we figured it needed some "Addie protection," so we bought the full warranty, which includes things like pouring water all over it. We're crossing our fingers that the hard drive isn't fried, but regardless it won't cost us anything to fix/replace it. We'll just have to keep Addie from watering the old desktop for the next 2-3 weeks until we get our computer back.

Loads and Loads of Fun

Spent a month in Durant, Oklahoma on a poker trip this weekend, and it was loads of fun.
It started with a mix-up at the hotel I was staying at. I booked it through hotels.com and, long story short, it looked like they double-charged me for the room. I paid cash, but there was a debit on my bank card for the same hotel on the same day. Then it looked like hotels.com charged us once and the hotel charged us once, so we called hotels.com and had a wonderful conversation with them through an interpreter. Then it turned out that the charge was for my stay the previous weekend, but it didn't show up on my e-bank deal until the same day I checked in for the second time. Fun.
On Friday, I played for about 10 hours and lost $50 without anything exciting happening at all. Fun.
On Saturday, I was down about $500 after six hours. In total, I had been playing for 16 hours and hadn't really had one decent pot to show for it. I was sick of folding and waiting for something to happen, so I called Missy to vent. I told her I was considering switching tables and she agreed that was a good idea.
So I went back in, put my name on the list for a table change, and sat down at my table. I had to post the blinds that I had missed from being on the phone, which meant I had to play a random, terrible hand. Somehow, my terrible hand connected with the board, and I had the absolute best possible hand. I couldn't make anything happen for 16 hours with good cards, and here I was about to win a monster pot with some rags.
During the hand, I was informed that my seat at a different table was open and I was asked if I still wanted it. I went all-in for $800 and decided that if I won the hand, I would stay at this table, but if I lost I would move. One by one my opponents folded, until the last one called me with two pair. I had a straight, but the final card gave him a full house. To recap, I talked to Missy for 15 minutes, decided to switch tables, played one hand and lost everything I had in front of me. Fun.
Then I switched tables, and I have to take a minute to talk about this dude that was at my second table. My poker friends are familiar with a guy known as Tuff Fish online. Tuff Fish was a middle-aged hick who used to make videos of himself playing online poker and commentate on the hands as he played them. Unfortunately he didn't handle losing very well, which made for some hilarious videos. If you're interested, you can YouTube Tuff Fish, but I must warn you that the language is incredibly offensive. I tried to find one clip to post on here as an example, and they were all way too blue. This guy can't go 15 seconds without dropping an F bomb.
Anyway, I played with a guy Saturday night who was a real life version of Tuff Fish. He was probably in his late 50's, with a muscular build and a shaved bald head. He was already losing a lot when I got there, and after another lost pot his face turned beet red, and he stood up and started pacing around. Finally he slammed his fist on a drink tray at a table behind us, sending two drinks flying into the air.
He returned to my table and got involved in another pot. He bet, another man raised, and he raised another $400 on top. When his opponent went all in and he was forced to fold, real life Tuff Fish lost it. I won't repeat any of what he said, but his face was again as red as can be and he was spouting off profanities in incomplete sentences. His opponent was nice enough to show that he had the best possible hand, but that didn't seem to help. More cussing ensued, and the dealer called over security. Tuff Fish's opponent said sheepily, "I'm sorry you're upset." And Tuff Fish said, "Yeah, I bet you're real %&^*$#%ing sorry!" I couldn't help myself -- I burst out laughing. Probably not a good idea, but I needed a laugh after the way my weekend was going.
Of course, karma bit me right in the butt later on when Tuff Fish caught a perfect card to beat my made straight with a flush draw. To recap, I laughed at this dude and then handed him $1000 ten minutes later. Fun.
The final day of my trip was a blast, too. I was down $1900 for the weekend and wanted to at least put a dent in it. I played for 13 hours -- played really good too -- and won back a whopping $125. The highlight of that session was catching a lucky 6 to make a straight and build a huge pot, only to have a middle-aged Asian woman make four-of-a-kind on the last card and stand up, clap and hoot loudly for the next 30 seconds while my profit went from $1000 to $100. She was going, "Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay" in a real high-pitch voice.
F.U.N.

Another Great IHOP Experience

The last time I went to IHOP, it was such a ridiculous experience that I blogged about it.
http://luckylifeblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-last-possibly-forever-visit-to-ihop.html
If you looked at the comments on the aforementioned blog, my friend Chad suggested that future visits to IHOP be made only in the middle of the night.
Well, I took his advice. The result was yet another epic fail.
This time, I went a step further than just altering my appearance time. I didn't order anything but a glass of water.
It was a post-poker session IHOP visit with my friends Brian and Rychy at about 4:30 a.m. I wasn't hungry, I was just there to chill.
We waited the standard 5 minutes in a nearly-empty restaurant just to get someone to look at us and seat us. Then the waiter came by and asked what we wanted to drink. We all wanted water, but Rychy also wanted an orange juice.
The drinks actually came out in a timely manner. This was the beginning and the end of what IHOP did right during our visit. The drinks were timely but not entirely correct. The waiter brought two waters and an orange juice, and Rychy politely asked again for a water to go with his juice.
In the time between when our drinks came and when he took our orders, our waiter could have driven across town to his local drug dealer, conducted a seamless transaction, and returned to our table. I'm not saying that's what happened, just that it theoretically could have happened within that amount of time.
When he came back, he still didn't have Rychy's water, so Rychy asked for it again. Then the waiter took their orders. (I have to point out the irony of Rychy's order. He got the "Slim-N-Fit Egg Breakfast" but asked to substitute pancakes for the wheat toast. He should have just said, "I'll have the Slim-N-Fit Egg Breakfast, hold the Slim and the Fit.")
In the time between taking their orders and bringing their food, our waiter could have handed out the drugs he just bought to every employee in the restaurant, enjoyed them to the fullest, and made out with one of the waitresses. I'm not saying that's what happened, just that it theoretically could have happened within that amount of time.
Finally our waiter arrived with the food. He still does not have Rychy's water. Rychy asked yet again for a glass of ice water. The boys are now ready to eat, except for one problem -- we have no silverware on the table. Instead of waiting for this drooler of a waiter to get the silverware, Brian marches right up to the hostess station and grabs a couple of sets. Problem solved.
Now there is another problem. While waiting for silverware, Rychy realizes that his meal was supposed to come with a fruit bowl. This wasn't really too hard to notice, since his entire meal consisted of some eggs, the substituted pancakes, and a fruit bowl.
In the time between the waiter came brought the food and when he came back with Rychy's water, he could have been arrested on charges of possession and distribution of drugs, hired a good lawyer, gotten out of jail and come back to finish his shift. I'm not saying that's what happened, just that it theoretically could have happened within that amount of time.
When he came back with his half-baked -- I mean half-closed -- eyes and said, "How's everrrthang, gentulllmunn?" Rychy said, "I think my meal was supposed to come with a fruit bowl." Instead of giving any kind of fake thoughtful gesture, the waiter just said, "No. It doesn't."
Rychy said, "Well, could you check on it or something, because if I'm not mistaken it was supposed to come with a fruit bowl." The waiter said, "I don't think so, but I'll check on it."
In the time between when the waiter went to check on the fruit bowl status and when he returned, he could have entered and successfully completed a 12-week drug rehabilitation program. And then relapsed. I'm not saying that's what happened, just that it theoretically could have happened within that amount of time.
Then the waiter returned with a bowl of fruit. Instead of quickly retreating back to the smoke room like he had on every other visit, this time the waiter just kind of loomed over the table. Rychy said thanks, but this guy stood around the area without saying or doing anything. To an amateur like me, it seemed like he was waiting for Rychy to take a bite so he could go back and report to his co-workers that the sucker just took a bite of the special fruit bowl.
After Rychy ate the obviously-spat-upon fruit bowl, they paid the check and we left.
I'm not sure who's running these IHOPs, but they're a gold mine for bloggable material. Keep up the good work, IHOP.

At Least the Easter Bunny Only Poops Eggs

Just like most people 2000 years ago probably didn't expect the whole "Jesus rising from the dead" thing, our Easter Sunday didn't go exactly as planned.
The plan was to go to church, and then after church they were having a huge Easter egg hunt outside for all the kids. My family in Asia was wanting pictures of Addison so we thought this would be a great opportunity.
We got Addie in her beautiful Easter dress and went to church. Because of the rain, of course, they had to move the Easter egg hunt indoors. As soon as church let out, we realized we had forgotten our camera. We sent Missy's brother Aaron home to get the camera. It's only five minutes away so we figured he'd be there in 10 minutes.
We then went to the nursery to get Addie, only to be met with some bad news. Addie had a huge blowout and had gotten poop all over her leggings and onto her Easter dress. Addison hadn't had a poop blowout in a good 6 months, but of course Easter Sunday is a great day to break that streak.
By now the camera has arrived from home. I'm really glad we had the camera so we could get pictures of a naked Addie or the poop-stained dress. One or the other.
We decided to put Addie's coat on, but other than that she was only wearing a diaper and shoes. We went to join the Easter egg hunt -- only to find that all the other kids had snatched up every single egg.
Fortunately, a mother in our church knew about Addie's plight. She had four kids of her own, so they had acquired plenty of egg plunder during their search. She took some of her kids' excess eggs and re-hid them for Addie, and Addie had a lot of fun finding them. (Thanks Karen!!) 
Despite Addie's unconventional new outfit, we got some good pictures of the egg search.
Somehow, the rest of the day went pretty much as planned. We ate a great Easter dinner and took advantage of the rainy weather to take a good nap afterward.
I suppose, on a much smaller and less important scale, that our Easter was kinda like the one 2000 years ago. It wasn't at all what we expected, but it turned out pretty good in the end.

Arrested Development

I went to play at the WinStar Casino last weekend, the big one right on the Oklahoma-Texas I-35 border.
They were gettin' me pretty good, and I decided to take a break to go outside and talk to Missy.
I was kind of wandering around an empty part of the parking lot as we were talking, when all of a sudden a police car flew up and turned on its lights. The officer got out of the car and said, "I need you to hang up the phone."
I told Missy, "Honey, it looks like I'm getting arrested. I'll call you back."
The officer then said, "Do you have any weapons on you? Please put your arms out."
I'm not sure why he asked me about the weapons, because he patted me down even after I said no.
He then informed me that there was a kidnapping suspect on foot in the area. I waited about five minutes while he ran my ID, then let me go when it came back clean.
After my name was cleared, I tried to report to the officer that the poker players inside the casino were robbing me, but that didn't gain much sympathy either.

Our National Pasttime

On the eve of yet another season, I decided to write a few things about baseball. Here are a few baseball-related top fives.
My five favorite MLB games I personally attended:
1) Astros-Dodgers, 1988. My first ever MLB game, which happened to be at Dodger Stadium. Fernando Valenzuela got rocked that day, but the Dodgers went on to win the World Series that season.
2) Expos-Cubs, 1998. My high school graduation gift was a trip to Chicago with my parents to see a Cubs series. This was my first Wrigley Field experience. Once you go to Wrigley, everything else pales in comparison.
3) Cardinals-Braves, 1993. We always went to one game a year in Atlanta when we visited my grandparents, and this season we just so happened to pick the so-called "fire game," when a luxury suite at Fulton County Stadium caught on fire and the game was delayed a few hours. The Braves made a frantic late-season comeback to make the playoffs that season, thanks in large part to a trade for slugger Fred McGriff. The "fire game" was McGriff's first game as a Brave, and with the crowd already buzzing because of the trade, the fire, and the pennant race, the Crime Dog hit a grand slam to propel the home team to victory.
4) Cubs-Cardinals, 1999. I went to St. Louis with dad during the height of the steroid era. But we didn't know about the 'roids, so the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa duel was still somewhat pure. We attended a 3-game series, and Big Mac and Slammin Sammy hit three homers each.
5) Pirates-Cubs, 2002. I went on a baseball road trip with my best friends Chad and Kevin to celebrate our college graduation, but unfortunately I was afflicted with mono and was pretty sick the whole trip (I didn't know it was mono at the time). We got to Wrigley early to get front-row bleacher seats, and I snagged two balls in batting practice. Sammy Sosa hit a three-run homer late in the second game of the doubleheader to propel the Cubs to victory.
I had to leave out some great games to make this list.

My 5 favorite baseball movies:
1) Field of Dreams -- I cry at the end every single time
2) Major League -- Charlie Sheen wins
3) Eight Men Out -- I wrote a 25-page paper on the 1919 Black Sox in college.
4) A League of Their Own -- "There's no crying in baseball!"
5) The Sandlot -- "You're killing me, Smalls!"
Yes, I know everyone else likes Bull Durham. I just thought it was OK.

My 5 favorite MLB broadcasters/commentators
1) Steve Stone -- Still mad at the Cubs for getting rid of him. He's the freaking man.
2) Vin Scully -- A living legend.
3) Harold Reynolds -- He did something stupid and got canned from ESPN, but he's still bringin' it on MLB Network.
4) Dan Shulman -- The best play-by-play guy in the business today. I liked Jon Miller, but ESPN decided to dump him and Joe Morgan in favor of a team led by Shulman. Joe Morgan is an idiot, so I'm all for any change that eliminates him from the airwaves.
5) Harry Caray and Ron Santo -- Even though it's not journalistically proper, they were essentially fans on the air, voicing their joy and pain on every Cubs game. They were a big reason I became a Cubs fan. RIP boys.

My 5 favorite Opening Day Traditions:
1) I usually watch "Field of Dreams" on or around Opening Day, though I don't believe I've been able to since Addison was born.
2) Grilling hot dogs, polish sausage, etc. during the games
3) Sunflower seeds.
4) Watching all the Opening Day games, even games I don't care about in the least any other day of the year.
5) Watching every pitch of the Cubs game, then realizing how bad they will be so I don't have to watch any more the rest of the year.

Five miscellaneous baseball-related items
1) Baseball video games -- Good times, good times. There's the old-school Nintendo games (RBI takes the cake) and the ridiculously realistic new ones. Just a couple weeks ago, I was playing MLB The Show with Scott. Game tied, bottom of the ninth, me in the field, Scott with runners on first and third. He does a double steal, and while his runner is about to walk right into a tag at the plate, my catcher throws down to second base and lets the winning run score. Arghhh!!!
2) Little League baseball -- Apparently, I ran to third the first time I actually hit a baseball into play. And who didn't love getting "suicides" and Fun Dips after every game?
3) Sneaking into better seats at MLB games -- I once got into the players' wives section right behind the plate at the Ballpark in Arlington. A good view indeed.
4) College baseball -- More ping, less bling. In high school, we'd often go to the OU games after school. We'd sit right behind the dugout and harass the umps and opposing teams. Real mature.
5) Jamey Wright -- Every season, I think he'll surely be out of the big leagues, but he always finds a home. In fact, he's had a lot of homes (Colorado, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City, Colorado again, San Francisco, Texas, Kansas City again, Cleveland, and Seattle) and his career record is less than spectacular (career record of 83-118, ERA of 5.00 in 15 major league seasons). But he's a fellow graduate of Westmoore High School, and he gave my mom and I tickets to see the Rockies and Cubs at Wrigley Field one year, which he certainly didn't have to do. He's had a great spring in the Mariners camp and looks like he'll be in Seattle this season. Best of luck to him.

Feel free to post your own top fives or comment on mine. Merry Opening Day!

The Lucky Zone

Tomorrow I leave to go to Southern California for a week to play poker and hopefully make some money.
As I'm packing for the trip, I was reminded of a similar poker trip that didn't go so well.
This was back when we lived in Lawton. A couple of guys I played with had received a free room at the Palazzo on the Vegas strip, and there was a special airfare deal for $125 round-trip from OKC to Vegas. (Non-stop flights too. Good luck finding that these days).
These guys were both middle-aged family men, and they planned to play a lot of tournaments while I prefer the cash games. So I figured we'd sleep in the same room but otherwise wouldn't see each other a lot.
The trip started with them picking me up at home around 6 a.m. to drive to OKC for the flight. We stopped at a gas station in town, and it was there that I discovered that one of my weekend companions, who I'll call "James", was an abject racist. He made several inappropriate comments about the clientele of the convenience store and how he generally refuses to go there for that reason.
Okie dokie, then.
I didn't say a word to him all the way to Vegas. When we got there, I decided to play the first tournament that these guys were entering. It had already been running about half an hour but you were allowed to register late and they immediately gave me a seat.
I folded about 5 hands before picking up pocket aces. Before it was my turn, two people had gone all-in ahead of me! I was excited to call and see that I was up against K-J and A-Q. I have an 81 percent chance to win this hand and build a huge stack immediately. Instead, the A-Q finds a way to win and knock me out of the tournament. So I've been in the Venetian less than 15 minutes and am already down $350.
I walked over to Caesar's Palace (no short stroll) and got in a cash game there. I'll spare the details, but needless to say it was not a pleasant experience. Keep in mind, this is back when I still worked full-time at the paper. I was doing well at poker but I had a much smaller budget for it than I do now. I wasn't losing money I couldn't afford but I still felt like crap for being 2,000 miles away from Missy and dropping a fairly significant amount of money.
So I moped all the way back to the Palazzo and decided to call it a day and go to bed early. When I got back to the room, I walked in to find that my new racist friend "James" liked to sleep in the nude. Awesome.
I grabbed a pillow and slept on the sectional sofa in the other part of the room, but the sections kept slowly drifting apart like glaciers, and I would slump in the middle. Still, I never even considered going back to the naked racist. No need to discover three new things about him in one day.
The second day of our three-day trip went about like the first. Poker took a dump on me, and life wasn't much better. I remember getting ripped off at Chipotle for about $2 and being too depressed to even say anything to the cashier.
I decided I had lost enough for one weekend, which meant I was stuck in Vegas for another 36 hours with money to eat on but nothing else.
The other guy who went with us played craps and blackjack a decent amount, and he was pretty cool to me when he found out I was busto. I went to a craps table with him and he told me to roll for him. I threw the dice way up in the air because, as everyone knows, the "lucky zone" in craps is 8 to 9 feet above the table. There's no telling where the dice will end up when you throw them that high, but you're guaranteed to win.
I won several throws in a row, and soon the whole table was excited. Some had been skeptics of the "lucky zone," but now they saw it with their own eyes.
Unfortunately, casino management was not a huge fan of the "lucky zone," especially since the dice bounce all the way off the table about one in three times. They don't really like that. I won about six games in a row, but when I finally lost I was politely asked to leave the table.
That was a fun way to pass the time, but I couldn't get back to Oklahoma fast enough.
Now, I can only hope that the week I spend in California goes a little better than that.

Hard Luck at the Hard Rock

Last weekend a few of us went to the Hard Rock Casino in Tulsa for the Oklahoma State Poker Championships.
I rode with my buddy Jason, and we had quite the time getting checked into our room.
We walked up to the front desk and not a soul was in line. There was one lady behind the counter, and she was on the phone.
Not once did she look up from the phone, even after one, two and three minutes passed. Jason and I exchanged a few irritated glances but we were patient for quite awhile. I was sure we would at least get a courtesy, "I'll be with you in a minute." In fairness, it was obvious that whoever was on the phone was wearing her out pretty good, and it was obviously a customer calling, as opposed to her boyfriend or whatever.
Soon another lady walked up to the counter, but when she did she picked up her phone and started talking to another customer. I was getting pretty annoyed, so I made sure not to use my inside voice when I said, "I guess maybe I should call in." 
That was ignored, and after another minute the second lady got off the phone. But instead of acknowledging us, she picked up her walky-talky and started chatting it up. After a couple of exchanges on the walky-talky, she comes back over and says, "How are you guys doing tonight?"
I said, "Pretty good, we're about ready to check in," but by the time I got past the "pretty good" she had already turned her back and walked out the door.
I'm sure my face was pretty red by this point, and I remember sharing some sort of sarcastic comment with Jason.
Then the lady walked back into the vicinity and I loudly mentioned that it would be great to get checked in. About this time the first lady got off the phone, apologized, and helped us get checked in.
The whole check-in experience was just a bad start to a bad weekend, as I left with less money than I came with. It seems like a simple, "I'm sorry, I'll be with you in a minute," would have been the correct play. After all, as George Costanza would say, "We're living in a society here!!!"

Maple syrup, anyone?

Addison had quite the field day on Super Bowl Sunday.
When I woke up, I came downstairs to find Missy cleaning up a massive amount of Hungry Jack maple syrup that was all over the dining room.
Evidently, while I was asleep and Missy was tending to her grandpa in the other room, Addie snagged an unopened bottle of the syrup from out of the pantry. She then opened the top and tore off that little safety tab before really going to work.
Her big Christmas present this year was a little play kitchen with a sink, some drawers, a microwave, a fridge, etc. Well, she poured the entire bottle of syrup all over her kitchen, mainly in the sink, which was overflowing with syrup. That little sink alone probably held 6 or 8 oz., and the rest of it went on the floor all around the kitchen.
So I rush to help Missy clean it up, and after a minute I call out for Addie because she's in the living room. She didn't immediately answer so I got up and went in there. Now, Addie's clothes had syrup all over them so Missy had taken them off. Addie was wearing only her diaper.
I went to the living room to find Addie's chest, belly and right leg marked up and down with a dry erase marker. We have a dry erase board over by grandpa's chair so we can write on it and tell him where we are going if we happen to leave for a minute so he won't panic. Addison had never even tried to go grab that marker before, even though she loves coloring, but this time she went to town with it.
When she saw me, she said, "Daddy! Draw tummy! Draw leg!"
We've got a picture on Missy's cellphone, so if you want it just let us know.

Demanding Beggar

Something came up the other day that reminded me of an incident several years ago in Lawton.
Back in the day, my schedule used to look something like this: Go to work at the newspaper at 4 p.m., work til midnight, go the casino and play poker til 3 a.m., go to Whataburger with my friend Spike (big winner had to pay), go to bed. I still don't know how I gained 25 pounds down there.
Anyway, one night we go in there and the restaurant was empty except for one dude. As soon as we walk in, he comes up and asks for $20 to take a cab to the other side of town.
I said, "I can't do that for you, but I'll buy your dinner. Order whatever you want."
Without hesitating, he stepped up and to the counter. "I'll have the double cheeseburger meal, supersized, with Coke, and a large strawberry shake on the side."
When our orders came out, Spike and I went and sat down, and this dude went to the polar opposite end of the restaurant, sat down and ate his meal.
As we were about to leave, he comes back over and again asks me for $20. I said, "Sorry man, I did what I could for you."
He shook his finger at me and said, "I know what you're doing. You're pre-judging me because I'm black. You think I'm going to go buy drugs or booze. You need to quit pre-judging me."
I said, "I'm not judging you. I gave you what I could." But I was thinking, "How can you be giving ME this speech when Spike is standing right there?" Seems like Spike deserved to get solicited before he called me a racist, since I bought him $8 worth of Whataburger.
But this guy wasn't through with me yet.
"Yes, I know what you're thinking! You're prejudging me!"
I found the nearest door and got the heck out of there. As I reached for the door, I heard this guy ask Spike for money. Spike said, "I think I have 50 cents or a dollar in my pocket," and pulled it out and gave it to the guy.
"Appreciate you man," he told Spike. "God bless."

Heads Up Dominance

Some of you might remember an old blog I did this summer about Eric Wolf.
If not, I'm going to repeat the Reader's Digest version of that story because it still cracks me up.
Eric is an OU student who occasionally drops by Riverwind to donate from his tuition fund into Addison's tuition fund.
During the month of June, when I took the family to Vegas for the World Series of Poker, Eric was there the whole time so we hung out quite a bit.
Early on, Eric managed to acquire a "flag," which is a $5,000 chip. He also had two or three $1,000 chips. Instead of cashing these out, he carried them in his pocket the whole trip and took every opportunity to show them to me.
One day, Eric called me and sounded like he was about to throw up. "Dude, I lost two of the $1,000 chips. They fell out of my pocket in a cab."
Knowing Eric, I knew what he did next, so I said, "I assume you took the flag over to the blackjack table to try to win back the $2k. How did that go?"
He said, "Let's just say I don't have the flag anymore, either."
During the month I spent in Vegas, I had one or two $1,000 chips in front of me for about 30 minutes. I got so nervous about losing them or someone stealing them that I quickly cashed them out. I can't imagine how sick I would have been had I actually lost them.

This weekend, I went to Durant for the World Series of Poker circuit event at the Choctaw casino. Five of us went, and I was rooming with Eric.
We kind of have this big brother-little brother thing going, which basically means I make fun of him all the time and he fires back with whatever new jokes are going around the frat houses at OU these days. But of course if he ever needed anything I'd be the first to help him out.
This weekend, all Eric needed was a little reality check. He won $3000 the first night we were there and made sure everyone in the group heard about it 5 or 6 times. And to his everlasting delight, I lost a pretty penny on that first night.
After the second night of our trip, the five of us decided to play a double-elimination, heads-up tournament at our hotel, for $100 per person. Up against a roomful of professionals, Eric didn't stand a chance. He got last place, and I ended up winning the tournament.
Despite being up $3000 for the trip, Eric refused to surrender his $100 to me, probably because he knew I was going to have it framed and hung in my living room.
The other guys also like stirring Eric up, so they suggested we play a double-or-nothing match for the $100. He agreed, and five minutes later I had another $100. I didn't really want the stakes raised any higher than that, but I agreed to play Eric for another $100. He lasted a little longer at this one, probably nine minutes, before another decisive victory. Finally he had the good sense to wave the white flag and call it a night after four consecutive losses (two in the tournament, two afterward).
Since he was smart enough to quit, Eric still managed to show a nice profit for the weekend. And since Eric was smart enough to quit, I still finished the weekend in the red. But dominating a heads-up match against my "little brother" almost made it worth it.

My Precious Daughter

I'm getting requests for more Addie stories in the blog, so here's a couple quickies.
She is just so stinkin cute!

Addison's vocabulary is rapidly expanding, but her pronunciation could use some work, and she doesn't always have the right context for the words she does know.
For example, she knows the word "sorry" (aka sowwy) and she says it to get out of timeout when she disobeys. But she also says it on your behalf. The other day I was taking her bib off and accidentally grabbed a chunk of her long hair when I was unsnapping the bib. She said, "Hurt. Sowwy."
She also says, "excuse me" when anyone burps.

Addie's getting a little mischievous when it comes to getting snacks she likes. Her favorite is the Welch's Fruit Snacks ("Froo snack"), but she also likes chips, crackers (which is what she calls the Goldfish) and cookies (Nilla Wafers). She likes to sneak into the kitchen and snag whatever is within arm's reach. Sometimes she can get into the pack of Nilla Wafers, but the other items she can't open. It isn't until after we catch her that she holds the small Welch's package up and says, "Froo snack. Peas." (Peas = Please).
She also likes to drink whatever mommy and daddy are drinking. The other day I got up from the couch for 5 seconds and came back to find Addie in my seat, tipping back a Monster energy drink. Fortunately there wasn't much left so she only got a sip.

Addie also loves answering the phone, and she's getting better at it. When the phone rings, she looks at me and her eyes get huge. She purses her lips and slightly opens her mouth, like she's catching Santa coming down the chimney. Then she picks up the phone and says, "Hello," and after a pause she just starts babbling away. Usually she's not making any sense, but recently when I call her she can sort of answer some questions. I'll ask her if she's been playing with Mommy and she'll say, "Play. Mommy."
We never really use our land line -- it's just part of the Cox bundle (what a bargain!!!). So it's basically Addie's phone. I call her on it when I'm at work, and Missy's parents call her on it.
The other day it rang and Addie was just chatting away on it. After about 2 minutes, I went over to listen in and some poor old lady was on the other end, actually trying to reach us. That was pretty funny, can't believe she was still on the line.

I love that girl, and I know a lot of you do too. Thanks so much to everyone who came to her birthday party on New Year's Day and to those who got her a present.

No Bueno

So I'm at Riverwind and decide to take a dinner break.
My friend Brian and I went to the food court, where they have Panda Express, Burger King, Taco Bueno and Rick's Cafe.
There was nobody in line at any of the restaurants except Bueno, which is what I was wanting. There was a middle aged couple at the front of the line, and they were looking up at the menu and literally discussing every item. The guy kept pointing up there and saying, "Now, what's that one?" and the cashier would have to figure out which one he was talking about, then say, "It's a burrito" or whatever. This was going on for a good five minutes, by which time Brian has already ordered and received his Panda Express.
When this couple got to the second column on the menu and it was obvious that no order was forthcoming, I decided to intervene. Quite loudly I said, "THEY HAVE TACOS! ORDER ONE!"
The dude turned around, and I felt like a little bit of a jerk when I saw that he had a broken arm, though that really shouldn't affect his order time.
Brian heard me and came over. I'm telling him what's going on, but I'm still standing in exactly the same place, a normal arms-length distance behind the woman in front of me. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a little 5-foot, 95-pound middle aged hispanic dude casually walks right up and gets in front of me in line. I looked at him, looked back at Brian, and we both just started cracking up laughing. You couldn't have scripted that in a movie, this dude just waltzing in and standing 2 inches in front of me when I'm clearly in line.
At this time the first couple had somehow managed to complete an order, and when the next woman moved up I quickly moved back ahead of the cutter. He didn't say a word and shuffled back behind me.

Quick Addie story. On Sunday she was obsessed with my bag of Fritos. I let her have some, but she just kept wanting more. On a commercial break during the Eagles-Packers game, I got up to get a Coke, and I had taken no more than three steps when she scooted over on the couch, reached over to the table where the bag of Fritos were and grabbed them.
I had already cut her off, so I said, "Addie, put the chips down." Being in her terrible twos, she threw the bag on the floor, got off the couch, flopped herself onto the ground and started bawling.
We got that situation under control, but about an hour later Missy needed me to help her with something in the den. That took about five minutes, and when I returned to the living room I saw Addison sitting in my seat on the couch, just as upright as she could be. She had the bag of Fritos sitting in her lap and a handful in her mouth. She giggled like the happiest girl in the world when she saw me.