Ah, the most wonderful season of the year arrives tonight. Too bad I'll be sound asleep before the end of the first quarter of the feature game.

Work has been absolutely kicking my butt this week. Driving all over the place is not real compatible with trying to write a brief. Everything got done but there was a whole lot of unnecessary stress to get there. Tomorrow is shaping up to be a half day with no crushing deadlines. Yay.

I did enjoy a random sighting this afternoon - as I was driving back to the office from the court of appeals I passed a parked car that was in the process of being completely covered in cling wrap. Someone has good times to look forward to!

Got home last night about the time the Mookie started, but didn't play. With earlier mornings for the forseeable future it's going to be tough to Mook it up for a while. Going to try and get back to the tables a bit over the weekend - we'll see about that because the weather is supposed to be freaking perfect.

***

Another question for those in the know: Any US residents use Moneybookers for non-gambling-site related purposes? It looks like US customers are allowed, just no transfers to or from gambling sites. I need to move a little advertising money and would like to find a cost effective way to do it.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Until next time, I'm crashing. Hard.

Shooting once again for the shortest average post in the blogosphere...

Live poker, still rigged: A home game was held in conjunction with the return of the BG and that guy with the multiply-confirmed (-by-ladies) Huge Junk. The evening was not memorable on the poker front - although it was fun to be a lagtard. Bob, every hand you folded with kicker problems ... you were ahead. Really.

I managed to avoid being the second person out when TPNK and bottom set went to war on the flop - the giant overbet by TPNK allowed me to safely fold my underpair, which would have hit a set on the turn and a full house on the river. I go broke there in a shorthanded tournament 100% of the time.

Not so much fun was going out with 99 against 76o, all in preflop.

Online poker, still rigged: I think I only played one session, which means it was a down week. I followed the retard that stacked me with A6o (he pushed with second pair, top kicker on the flop against my QQ and got rewarded on the turn) around for a while, but could never get a seat. He got stacked five or six times, changing tables after each horrible play.

The 'tubes, very rigged: It's always weird when a familiar blog vanishes and some shill crap pops up in its place. The latest victim: The King of Donks. Edit: LJ points out that he's still around at The MTT Machine!! Thanks, LJ!

Life, so rigged: Nothing else much going on. My golf game is in the dumps, which bodes really well for losing prop bets in September. This upcoming week is really going to suck at work, so nothing interesting will be happening there either.

That's all there is, how lame. Hey, at least I'm consistent.

I think I've discovered Waffles' super-secret new Full Tilt identity:

I would post more, but I just got stacked on a REEDICULOUS five outer and I think I'm going to go break something instead.

We interrupt this golf blog {ed. note: [censored] [censored] [censored] game} to bring you old music.

Huh huh huh, college music.

Enjoy.

Greetings, blog readers. I has a question.

I'm looking to get noise canceling headphones. I know almost nothing about them, specifically what kind I should consider. I'm not a raving audiophile, won't be using them daily and have a preference for relatively cheap.

Anyone have any suggestions for what I should be looking at?

A very brief post to fill in a very brief gap in what is a decidedly not brief workday, even though I overslept this morning....

Played the Mookie last night. You know, it's probably not the best idea to sign up for a tournament right after you've spent at least an hour telling yourself that you shouldn't play. Despite an early run of unusually playable cards, I got bored rather quickly and donated my stack to some jackace in the first hour.

That's all the poker I've played this week. Haven't felt like hitting the tables. I'll probably be on hiatus through the weekend as well -- this weekend is our golf club's club championship.

Ahh, yes, another event in which I have no chance!

This year is the first year since I've moved back where my handicap is low enough to play in the top division. Barely. I didn't specify whether I wanted to play in the scratch division or the handicapped division on my entry form - really, I don't care. I'm not good enough to beat the real solid players and I have no chance playing net against guys I may be giving 20 shots or more. Add in the fact that I've really sucked the last couple weeks and it could be two long days.

There are times to be competitive and times to just have fun. This is definitely the latter.


Some people have relationships. Others of us just have lust.



I can't believe that fall is almost here. High school football starts next week, then college the week after that, then the NFL. What a great time of year.

I used to believe that being fat and from Michigan were the only things I had in common with filmmaker Michael Moore.

Thankfully.

I hope, then, that it's not too hard to understand why it bothers me that I'm coming around to his way of thinking on at least one subject: I'm really, really starting to hate big corporations and the people that run them.

Today's big old Eff-You and giant foam "We're #1" hand with the middle finger extended goes to: MARTINDALE-HUBBELL.

Martindale-Hubbell is a division of LexisNexis, which itself is a division of Reed Elsevier Inc., a giant publishing conglomorate. You've probably never heard of them unless you happened to need a law-related publication.

Martindale-Hubbell ("MH") essentially produces one product: A listing of attorneys, sorted by firm, by state, etcetera. The print version comes in a distinctive multi-volume set - a portion of which is pictured at right. As you might expect, this product costs an arm and a leg to purchase and there are recurring subscription fees. It also costs money to have a detailed listing - for a large sum you can inform the world, or at least anyone who happens to look through Martindale-Hubbell, about your areas of practice, where you were born, whether you like kittens and as much other crap as you can fit in about six lines of text. I have no idea if it costs extra to get it onto the internet version.

In case you haven't already guessed, I am an attorney and our firm has made (with my full support) the decision to neither subscribe to MH nor to pay to have a detailed listing in their book. Frankly, we have better things to do with thousands of dollars.

Martindale-Hubbell also provides a peer review 'service'. Every once in a while, they send out mailers to attorneys asking them to review their peers on issues relating to ethics and professional abilities. If they decide to rate you - and I have no idea what the decision matrix is - you can attain one of three ratings. Being rated is apparently supposed to mean that you have unquestionable ethics and at least above-average ability.

Anyway, for some reason this year I received a rating. I don't know why. I didn't ask for it. I didn't even receive a survey in the first eight years I practiced asking me to review anyone else. I'm not sure that MH knew I existed. Even though it's perfectly fine, the rating itself is of absolutely no benefit to me.

That's enough background. Let's get to the hate.

Today's mail contained quite possibly the most outrageous thing I've seen this year - an invoice. You see, now that Martindale-Hubbell has rated me - regardless of the fact that I didn't ask for the rating and receive absolutely no benefit from it - they seem to feel that I must pay them $50.00 for the privilege. As they state in their letter:

As our database of rated lawyers continues to grow, so do the resources required to maintain these ratings. As you may know, we employ a team of individuals that continually monitor a lawyer's rating to ensure that it is current and accurately reflects the standing of the lawyer. This process includes administrative resources, the ongoing mailings of rating forms, our database administration costs and our system investments including our new eConfidentials tool.

In order to continue to provide this same level of service to the Bar, we have found that it is necessary to institute a nominal administration fee to cover some of these costs. The $50 administration fee will be billed annually to all rated lawyers. If you are currently a LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell subscriber, your administration fee is already covered in your subscription.

Unfuckingbelievable. It's not enough that they charge a fortune for their books and for detailed listings within their books. I don't know what MH's profits were, but the parent company made $600,000,000 in the first half of 2007. They're so strapped for cash that they're going to start billing everyone they can find fifty bucks? I should try that. You should pay me $50.00 because you're reading this blog or because I'll link to your site. I take cash, checks and PayPal.

Idiots.

There. Rage vented. Needless to say I will not be paying this fee. I think I even have a couple old outdated volumes of MH that I inherited from a firm that closed. A bonfire next weekend sounds about right - I guess I should go buy some marshmallows.

I'd better buy a few extras just in case Michael Moore shows up.


On a semi-related note, I zipped through James D. Scurlock's Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders. In standard muckraking fashion he skewers the banking, credit card and mortgage industries for the usual misdeeds - lying, cheating and stealing. It was a decent read, mostly because it was thought-provoking: It may not be just the housing market that's a huge bubble waiting to burst - it may be our whole economy.

Certainly a wakeup call to start trying to get my own financial house in order. Just in case.

Phew. That's enough of that. I think that my next trip to the library is going to involve picking out some completely different kinds of books.


Since this is ostensibly a poker blog, here is some poker content for you:


Nah, I don't mean that. I just didn't get in any hands over the weekend. It was too hot and there were other things going on, mainly bad golf at my home course and good golf at the PGA.

I did experience the golf equivalent of a massive suckout. We have a group who always play for a few bucks on Saturdays. This week, I played horrendously - worst round of the year. I hit exactly two good shots, which both happened on par 3s, resulting in prizes for being closest to the pin and a sizable (for the stakes involved) profit on the day.

Sucking can be +EV.

Go apply that concept to your poker game.

Dear Full Tilt Poker:

I read somewhere recently that your site has 24 aces in every deck.

Is that true, and if so, why do my opponents hit their combined 4 outs while I miss my 22 outer with AA all in preflop vs. KK and QQ?


No real complaints. I had already stacked a donk with AAxx vs. KKxx, so the beat merely knocked me back down to even.

HA is rigged.


Went out for a brief live session tonight and was again thwarted by a bitterly cold deck. Played for about 3 hours and saw exactly zero pocket pairs. Two big aces. Never had a hand improve beyond one pair.

Hey, at least I had the hammer five times.

Live is so rigged.


So came home and donked it up on Full Tilt and wouldn't you know ... unless I blow it while typing this crummy post, it's looking like my best nite in a while. Yay online poker, it's so not rigged.


In other news, I'm booked for September 14-15 in Minneapolis. One of those two days will feature some golf and Canterbury donkeration.

I even won an eBay auction after 45 consecutive non-winners. If my numbers come in on the $105 mega millions, this could go in the books as a red letter day.

Confession time: When it comes to the printed word, I'm kind of a nit. Especially if it's something I've paid money to read.

Shocking, I know. Really. Shocking.

From the sports section in today's newspaper:

"The South Course [at Oakland Hills Country Club], which was just under 4,000 yards long for the 1996 U.S. Open, was lengthened by 346 yards by altering 15 holes".

Really? 4,000 yards? Did someone shoot ninety-six under? 4,000 is a good length for a pitch-n-putt course.

Argh. AP no mean no quality writing boss.

Next story down:

"Quad Cities continued to play well at Fifth Third Ballpark, where the Swing has won 9 of its last 7 games, including an 8-4 victory over the Whitecaps on Monday."

Sigh.

And people wonder why newspaper sales continue to decline.

And don't get me started on books ... sportswriters who can't spell Cal Ripken's name correctly. Glaring inconsistencies in simple "facts" within the same novel ... I could go on and on.

But I won't. Consider yourself lucky, nits tend to not ever give it a rest.

I learned a lot of really, really useless information by perusing the internets this week.

I'm just sayin'.


Running very poorly live at the moment. Although I feel like my game is improving, it's still not very good and I have not been able to make the necessary adjustments to become profitable when I'm not catching.

In session #1, I improved my table image with the regulars by triple-barrel bluffing from the button. Unfortunately, I was up against a calling station kid who declined to release his underpair. Session result, a modest loss.

In session #2, Kings kicked my butt. In five hours of play, I had them four times. I won the first hand for a small pot, but the other three went down in flames. I overplayed them horribly the second time I got them, resulting in a stacking by a Jack-rag playing asian who I incorrectly figured for TPTK (AJ), possibly with a flush redraw. The third and fourth time resulted in massive pots, each of which featured an ace on the flop and at least two "any ace" playing donks still in. One of those resulted in a win for A6o over A5s. Session result, down two buyins.

In neither session did I flop a set. Or a flush or straight draw that made sense to try and catch. Didn't flop an ace or a king with my occassional AK. After my last loss with KK in session #2, I literally spent three and a half hours looking for an opportunity to make a move, instead I received a stream of 73o, 74o, J2o and the like. Sigh.

Again I'm mostly disappointed because there was a ton of action (at the risk of being stereotypical, there were five asians at the table with plenty of gamble - three regulars whose games I know now, one I didn't know previously and a very pretty girl whose range was apparently any two cards). When you can't ever get above your starting stack (aka the max buyin), you can't even call upon implied odds to make risky moves.


I made a pilgrimage to Golf Galaxy on Friday after work to look for a new putter. I almost experienced a great moment in retail.

After goofing around testing about 25 different sticks, I settled on a White Hot XG #9. They had two on hand - one new and one used. The only difference (other than use) was an inch in shaft length. Both were in the standard range carried by the store, 33" to 35", so that's not really a difference.

The used putter was marked as being $10 MORE than the new putter.

Although nobody seemed to know why, it ended up not mattering. One of the management types knocked $40 off the used one, which is the one I wanted. So I bought it.

Took it out to the course yesterday and made two birdies in the first four holes. I think I'll keep it.


Otherwise, yesterday was the giant local festival. I avoided most of the production, although traffic was a nightmare pretty much all day. Hoofed it downtown, where the crowds were thick as always - think Las Vegas on New Year's Eve. It's almost impossible to move. According to media reports, 250,000 of my friends, Romans and countrymen. Outstanding fireworks show as always.

Finished a beautiful evening off with a few beverages on the patio. You have to love summer.

I managed to fold to a 4th place finish in the Mookie last night. Unfortunately, that means I'm tired as [censored] today, since I didn't bust until 1:30.

The random number generator was both my friend and my nemesis -- I won all three coin flips that I can remember, but I also experienced a frustratingly long card drought. Somewhere around the start of the third hour I had a pretty average stack of over 14,000 chips, much later after being dealt 32o, 73o or 85o many dozen times in a row, I was under 3,000 without playing - of even thinking about playing - a single hand.

Went out on a very marginal play (by me). Lightning36 limps with AA, small blind completes and I have K9o in the big blind. Flop is 9 high. about 7,000 in the pot and I have 12,000ish behind with an M in the 2.5-3 range. I think I can push my opponents off AK, AQ, TT, JJ and possibly QQ or KK seeing as nobody in the hand had more than 30-40k behind IIRC. So I shove and, LDO, lose when I don't improve further. You aren't going to bully aces four handed, especially with a short stack.

***

Probably going to go play live tonight. It's way too hot to do anything else and at least the track is air conditioned.

I learned by reading Drizz that the Minneapolis I-35W bridge over the Mississippi collapsed at 6:05 CT tonight. I'm currently watching live coverage on Kare11.com.

I've been over that bridge at least a thousand times in my life. Heck, for almost five years I lived on the east bank of the river and went to school on the west bank. Granted that I usually used the 10th Avenue or Washington bridges, but if I was in the car going somewhere, it was on 35W.

It sounds like there were at least several fatalities. Best wishes to the families of those lost or injured.

Much like many did on 9/11, I'm off to figure out if anyone I know would have been in the vicinity - headed home or to the Twins game during rush hour.


I was going to go play live tonight, but the game was cancelled. Instead, I'll be glued to the 'net and probably play the Mookie.