Oh Yeah, Baby, Just Like That.

Okay, a friend of mine posted this on my Facebook page recently.



I'll let you watch it before I dissect it.

Okay, you with me? Seriously, if the guy thought she was a girl, did he seriously think it would turn her on to lick his popsicle like that? Is that really a turn-on for women? "Oh yeah, man, you're so hot simulating oral sex on a guy. Now come have sex with me." Really, unless you're into guys who suck dick (as I am), I don't think that particular tack works very well.



And just for fun.



Still hot. And finally:





I need a towel now.

DVR Was Ruining My Life, Then the Writers Went on Strike

In a way, I'm glad the Hollywood writers have gone on strike.

DVR was ruining my life. I was recording everything I was remotely interested in. And because many of those things were reruns that I couldn't filter out, I was recording a lot. For example, I've become addicted to Food Network, but most of their shows are old. They're new to me, but they're old. I can't tell the filter to not record stuff I've seen (the only options are "First run only" or "First run and repeats"), so I end up scheduling hours upon hours upon hours of shows.

With the DVR on as my constant standby, television programming was no longer a reason not to go out. Even though I had no "can't miss" shows in the pre-DVR days, there was always, in the back of my mind, the knowledge that if I attended a particular happy hour, it would be to the sacrifice of watching a particular show. No longer.

Indeed, I stopped watching live television altogether even when I was at home for it. Why watch live TV when you can watch the recording later and skip through the commercials? So now even if I'm home during a good television show, I'll delay watching it, instead watching something from my recorded list (43 minutes instead of an hour), and returning to the "live" show later.

It seriously got to the point where my Netflix queue was stagnant for about two months. I used to have a system where I'd watch all three of my Netflix DVDs every weekend, because they'd get replenished by the time the next weekend came around. Now, though, the sheer number of DVR'd shows I have to catch up on makes it difficult to make time to watch three DVDs on top of that. (Worse, these three DVDs are of television shows (Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls to be exact), so each of those DVDs has run times of about 3 hours (4 episodes), as opposed to the usual 90 to 120 minutes.

So in a way, the writer's strike is kind of good. For me. It means fewer new shows are being recorded, which means substantially less for me to have to catch up on every week. (Unlike Paula Deen shows, for example, I had safely set my DVR to record only first-runs of Bionic Woman and Pushing Daisies.)

A part of me wonders, however, whether the strike is a bit self-defeating.

It's already been noted that the networks are turning to reality shows to fill the void of scripted shows. American Gladiators is returning, and an impromptu new season of Big Brother is starting, to name a few examples. And let's face it, a lot of the American public eats up all that crap with a silver spoon. (I'll readily admit that I was hooked on BB as well -- until it was clear that the Donatos would do really well, at which point my hatred for them both caused me to stop watching.) Game shows like Deal or No Deal and Power of 10 are also stepping up to fill the void, along with some new ones.

Because the American public seems more than content to watch "reality" shows, are the writers really making much of an impact by keeping new scripted television off the air? Or will America eventually become so content to watch "reality" shows that they won't care about the death of some of their favorite scripted shows? And when all the dust has cleared, might networks decide that the reality-to-scripted ratio is better when the scripted shows are limited, thus resulting in fewer opportunities for writers?

Just some thoughts that fleetingly pass through my mind. Just to prove that the Idiot Box hasn't completely dumbed me down yet.

... Or has it?

I am Officially Changing My Name to Rodney. Dangerfield.

So last night was the first night of free bar poker in 2008. I anticipated going with a small mix of anticipation and dread, since (1) I had not been to a free poker night in weeks and I was starting feel some withdrawal; and (2) I did play poker at the Harrah's in New Orleans (did I ever blog about that?) and, well, that was disastrous.

Here's where I start getting technical. If you don't know Texas Hold 'Em, this may mean less to you than it would otherwise, but I'll try to keep it accessible.

I had managed to amass a decent amount of chips by getting a King-high flush within the first few hands that I played. Not a whole lot, but more than usual, and I was happy. But I had to make sure I was still being cautious, because I have this terrible tendency to think that because I have a lot of chips, I can do stupid things and get away with it.

No. Last night my bigger concern was with really bad cards, and a fucktard at my table who, while being perfectly amiable the entire time, seemed to have it out for me.

I got into another hand with decent pocket cards. I think they pocket 9's or something. I raised into the pot, hoping to drive my fellow players out. Instead, Fucktard, who had amassed a large number of chips already as well, called me.

The flop was pretty much crap: 2-5-7 or something. Nothing to help much, but I had the top pair, and basically I figured that this flop wouldn't help anything except really crappy pockets that no one would really care to keep. So I bet heavily into the pot, pretty much thinking that it would scare away anyone with a really crappy hand.

Fucktard was the only one who called me.

Here's something you need to realize in Texas Hold 'Em: when someone calls your sizable raise, they're trying to signal to you that they think they have a better hand than you do. At least informally at the games I've been playing at (I don't know if it's a poker-wide term), it's called respecting the bet when you beg off of a hand by folding to another player without having to run through the entire deal.

At the end of the hand, Fucktard won, showing his hole cards to be... 5-7 off suit.

Who the hell calls a raise when all you have is a 5-7 off suit?

In this case, the guy got extremely lucky to have hit two pair. I even called him on why he would stay in with a 5-7 off suit. His response: "I figured I had the chips, so why not?"

At that point I was still laughing it off, because hey, I can kind of see the logic to that. Still, I was wounded from the hand, but I was still doing decently enough to shrug that off.

A few deals later, the short stack at the table goes all in. In a round where the big blind is some $200, he bet $850. Given the play we'd already seen earlier, this is not a hugely substantial raise. Fucktard had already previously called the $200, now his choice was whether nor not to call the $650 it would take to play through this hand.

Fucktard folded. And this where I went ballistic.

"Woah woah, you'll call my raises with a 5-7 off suit, but you'll fold to this guy? What could you possibly have that was worse than that, and what happened to 'Why not, I have the chips?'"

Clearly, it was personal. Then I even called him a motherfucker. While laughing, of course, but still, the joke was, basically, "oh, so clearly you're just calling me, mothafucka." He laughed; I was less than 100% amused.

By this point I'm on tilt, but I don't care, because (a) it's free poker, and (b) I'd kinda rather play with people who are playing the game than with people who are treating it as, well, free poker. So the next chance I get, I'm determined to go for broke.

I get a A-Q unsuited. I raise into the pot, and Fucktard, explicitly announcing that since I've called it personal, he's calling.

The flop, again, has crap in it -- 4-7-9 or something, and I pushed all-in with my last $4,000. (That's a huge move at this point, but again, I no longer care.) Normally, a show of strength here would be sufficient to drive an opponent out, and my friends who have played with me before would probably have caved because I have a reputation for not doing that lightly.

Fucktard, of course, calls. No respect, I tell ya. None. He's AGS (I just made that up (I think); it stands for "ain't got shit"), but he'll call me just because he can, even if that reasoning is inapplicable to the other guys on the table.

What does he have? A 5-6.

Like, what the hell.

And, of course, he hits his 8 on the river, giving him a straight.

And I take my leave.

No respect, I tell ya. I don't know why I keep playing this damned game. I love it, but holy canoli, it treats me like a beaten mistress.

I'll be back there again next week. And odds are very, very good that I will avoid as much as humanly possible being on the same table with Fucktard again.

Pee.

My office bathrooms are a shared set on the floor. At least three different offices are on my floor, each of which, apparently, has its fair share of men.

Men who have never learned to urinate properly.

Our lone urinal (in addition to the two stalls) is a manual flusher. Both stalls, as well as the sinks, are automatic. The urinal used to be automatic too, but for some reason they replaced that with a manual over a year ago. I guess it was either flushing too much, or not enough. I forget which.

Not that it helped, because apparently people simply aren't flushing the urinal as often as they should.

The other day I walked in there and found the a nicely laser-printed sign over the urinal:

"If you flush at home, please flush here too. THANK YOU"

The sign was gone the next day, which is sad, because I really wanted to write in an addendum after it that would have read: "Also, if you could work a little harder on your aim, that would be really cool too." Because, really, it was kinda gross that day I went.

***

So in composing this entry I googled "urinal." Here are some of the cooler shots that come up on the first page.







I would never have thought of urinals as a way to express such creativity....

Apathy

I can't seem to get myself even remotely roused about the primaries. I can't be the only one.

It's been all over the news lately, and I can't seem to get myself to read the articles and listen to the pundits. Obama won the Iowa caucuses? Eh. Huckabee? Well, a little worrisome, but not something I feel like investing a huge amount of stress over.

In terms of Democrats, I'm inclined to just let other people pick the nominee. I've mentioned before that I don't think Senator Clinton would be a smart choice -- and I haven't changed my mind that that effect -- but she does seem to be someone whom enough Democrats love that perhaps they'll make it to the polls in enough numbers to overcome far-right opposition. And another part of me is ready to just believe that eight years of idiocracy has left a large portion of the electorate very, very ready to change vote for a Democratic White House.

Likewise, I can't bring myself to consider the Republican field to figure out who's more/most scary. With the exception of Ron Paul, they all seem to doing a pretty poor job of walking the delicate line between appealing to the mainstream and satisfying their base. I guess with the tide of gay marriage having ebbed a bit, there's less red meat to feed to the rabid right.

But then in the end, I kinda no longer care.

Could it be W. fatigue? That de-sensitization that comes from eight years of complete ineptitude such that one really thinks it's just impossible to get worse? I'm thinking I might just want any new White House occupant now, Republican or Democrat -- when even Republicans start distancing themselves from the positions espoused by the incumbent, well, there's no way to go but up. Right?

Or maybe I'm just in a prolonged bad mood.

Deja Vu: Deductibles

The worst thing about a new year is the fact that prescription medication deductibles get reset. I could almost verbatim repost this entry from this time last year here today, because almost the exact same thing happened to me just now.

Some minor changes to the script:

-- GBTC became Lady Behind the Counter, and she's not all that attractive.

-- I picked up three prescriptions, instead of two.

-- The cost was $130, rather than $120.

-- LBTC pointed out that I had $3 in ExtraCare Bucks, rather than $2.50.

Why is it that when I spend over $100 at the CVS, the checkout person seems compelled to point out that I have received a rebate of about 3%? Really, is that supposed to make me feel better? If I'm going to spend that kind of money, I'd really much prefer to spend it on, say, a WII, or a nice spa treatment, or perhaps anyone one of the wonderful toys in the amazon.com wishlist, posted in my right-side sidebar here (which readers are encouraged to peruse and, well, use for its intended purpose).

I kinda miss the cute GBTC. Strange, no?

I suppose I should take some solace in the fact that three medicines only cost me $10 more than the two I got last year. I think it's because I quite possibly paid the entire deductible off just now within the first 48 hours of the new year.

But I think not.

Welcome to my new year.

Sugar Bowl: Ouch.

I am not a sports fan.

I like live sporting events pretty much only when someone can score me free tickets, or cheap ones (usually in nosebleed seats). I watch games on television when I'm with friends who know better, so they can explain to me not only what's going on, but the history of the team(s). I watch March Madness, but usually only after it gets to the Round of 16.

The weekend before Christmas, I took a last-minute trip to New Orleans, just for fun. It turns out we were there during the New Orleans Bowl. My friend and I were wondering about all these people wearing their Memphis clothes everywhere. We soon found out why. Of course, they lost to Florida Atlantic.

More importantly, though, I noticed a few flags for the University of Hawai'i flying on Bourbon Street. Why?, I wondered, since you don't usually seem much of good ol' UH down in New Orleans.



I soon found out. Hawai'i faced the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl this year.

Had I known, I might have considered staying in the city for the holiday just to check out the game.

My cousin (at school in New Orleans) texted me to tell me that there were tons of Hawai'i fans who had made the trek to New Orleans just to see their team in action. Hawai'i sports fans are an enthusiastic bunch, that's for sure. I kinda miss the whole "aloha spirit" thing; immersing myself in a sea of people with Hawaiian accents might have been fun.

I texted my cousin back: "Go Bows!" Of course I had forgotten that the team name changed from the Rainbow Warriors to just the Warriors back in 2001. I seem to recall that I had visited Hawai'i at around that time, and part of the controversy was that the "rainbow" in "Rainbow Warriors" was a little too gay for the coach. This, of course, strikes me as completely retarded. But oh well.

Anyway, it's unfortunate that the game isn't anywhere near as competitive as it could be. I always like to see my home state do well. I wish they had managed to pull it together better for this game.

But it's cool that they made it there at all. And I'm glad so many Hawai'i residents made the trek to support their team.

Oh, and I have to do it. Colt Brennan is a cutie.

Happy New Year!