Meow.

My avatar notwithstanding, I'm not a huge fan of cats. A woman in my office absolutely loves hers; whenever she mentions him, I provide a Maynard-G.-Krebs-like response* of "evil." I mean, they can be cute and all, but in terms of personality, I'm truly a dog guy.

But just to butter up you cat lovers who may happen to be reading this, I bring you this video just for you before I get to the meat of this post:



Okay, there.

Aight, so a trailer park community in Chantilly has decided that they're going to round up some 200 (feral, I gather) cats and euthanize them because, well, they're being general pests. Obviously at least one cat-hugger is "sick, sick" over the idea, but I don't care either way, really (which doesn't stop me from mocking the cat-hugger -- I mean, really, those things are evil and ungrateful and you feed them? Geez Louise).

Here's the WaPo article about this situation.

And here's the funny/stupid thing about the article:

By law, the trapped cats must be taken to the Fairfax County Animal Shelter, animal control officers said.

***

[Fairfax County Animal Shelter spokeswoman Michelle] Hankins said today that the shelter had not been notified of the management company's plans to begin trapping the cats. The shelter was already running near capacity and not equipped to handle 200 animals, she said.

"Our hope is that the cats aren't brought to us," she said.

I read those two propositions together and my first thought was, "Where else can they go, if by law they have to go to your shelter?" I was thinking just how retarded she was, and did she even know the law which the Post just referenced?

Then I realized what she probably meant was that she hopes the roundup efforts won't take place at all. (I would still call it a combination of unfortunate phrasing and poor juxtaposition of the two propositions, though.)

Then I couldn't help thinking, "How hard could it be to just throw the things into a chamber as you get them?" But that probably sounds even more nasty than necessary, and while I retract that question, I've decided not to actually back up and delete it.

Yeah, just not a cat guy.


* If you know what I'm talking about, two snaps, I'm impressed. If you don't, Maynard was played by Bob Denver (yes, Gilligan) who had a knee-jerk, autonomic reaction every time someone said the word "work" around him. He didn't like the idea.





Wow, Gilligan was kinda cute. In a Shaggy (sans Scooby Doo) sorta way.

Idiocracy, Continued

Remember this post? Well apparently she's back for more.

She emailed me again today to ask me to please change her email address in the system. Never mind that you can do that yourself once you've logged in.

So rather than give a woman a fish, I decided to teach her how to fish, and told her to just log in herself and change the email herself. Guess what? No dice.

She asked me to send her her password again. Never mind that just a few days ago, she had asked me to retrieve it previously.

Now, to give just a tiny bit of credit, she was probably have a wee bit of trouble because the only way to retrieve your password is if you let the system email it to you, and she was changing her email address because it had been disconnected. But still: don't you write things down?

Eventually I gave up and changed her frigging email address for her. But I did tell her that if she was changing her address because she lost her freaking job, she should change the rest of the information in there accordingly.

Badass Moron

There's usually no shortage of "interesting" people on the Metro. True, in DC, we have far more than our fair share of stuffed-shirt bureaucratic professional types, but we've also got a pretty persistent undercurrent of countercultural types. Kinda like Greenwich Village wannabe types. Not many, of course, but almost by definition those people don't give a damn what others think, so they can stand out.

Tonight a young man boarded the Metro with what appeared to be a wallet or business card type case dangling from his mouth. It's hard to describe. It looked kind of like this, but the kind with a key ring attached to it too:



Now as I said, this thing was dangling from his mouth. Upon first glance, I thought he had placed a key on the key ring portion of the wallet and simply put the key in his mouth. (Why would one do that? I have no idea... but then I suppose that's what made him him and not me.)

Watching him as we made our way along the tracks, though, I realized my initial conclusion was incorrect. He was not sucking on a key, or on anything that was attached to the end of that wallet thingee.

The wallet thingee was attached to his face as a eyebrow ring would be: he had pierced the lower part of his mouth and placed something through it; through that ring he hung a wallet.

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about a pierced lip. I'm talking about a portion of the skin just beneath the lip. Someplace where beards usually form.

And I thought how comically stupid he looked.

First, as I said, this thing was dangling on the edge of his face. Did he really think this looked cool?

Second, it was attached to his face. Attached. What the hell purpose does that serve? Is there an ID in there? Money? Business cards? He has to reach up to his face to retrieve any of those items. How bizarre is that?

Third, I presume the look is meant to project a badass attitude. "Yeah, I'm not, I've got a facial piercing that's not my ear and there's a big-ass thing hanging from it. I'm noncomformist and that makes me all badass." Thing is, I'm pretty certain that area of the skin isn't that tough. So if Mr. Badass with a Wallet Swinging From His Face were to actually get into anyone's face, I imagine it wouldn't be all that difficult to yank the damn wallet off. Then while he's howling in pain from a huge missing chunk of skin, you could do all kinds of things like kick him in the stomach and/or balls and/or shin, or maybe just run.

There's making a statement, and ... there's idiocy.

Lexicography

I've decided to work some new phrases into semi-regular rotation during my many conversations with random people. Feel free to join the fun.


1. "I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!"



I'm not exactly sure in what context I'd actually use this phrase, but I intend to use it nonetheless. Apparently all kinds of other people are already doing it, which puts me behind the curve.

Also, in gay circles, it invites a segue into bringing the boys to the yard, which can into a wonderful pick-up line.

Or not.


2. "What the French, toast?" and "Who are you calling a Cootie Queen, you Lint Licker?" (accent required).

(Bonus two-fer!)



That's some funny stuff right there, yo.

The first one is ready-for-prime-time with immediate usage irrespective of precise context. I suppose someone would have to use the phrase "Cootie Queen" before pulling out the second phrase... or not. I think maybe it would be even more fun to just pull it out of nowhere.


3. Scully-rific.

I'm making this one up myself. To the extent that it's even possible, I used to have a mad crush on Scully from The X-Files, whom I found hot and sexy and smart all at the same time.



(Unfortunately, House of Mirth did not leave me with the same love for Gillian Anderson.)

4. Craptastic.



I don't know where I read this first, but it's the funniest word ever (for now) and I'm going to put it into heavy rotation. Kinda like "ghetto fabulous," it's inherently contradictory and yet everyone who hears it knows precisely what it describes.

And it doesn't even necessarily have to do with bowel movements, contrary to what the photo above would suggest.


5. Anything from Heathers.



I mean, really, the lines were just classic. (Though the cutesy language of Juno will likely provide a run for the money. But they talked a little too fast in that movie so the cool jargon gets kinda lost.)

Examples of my favorites:
- "Fuck me gently with a chain saw!"
- "Grow up Heather. Bulimia is sooo '87."
- "Corn Nuts!"
- "What's your damage, Heather?"
- "Lick it up, baby! Lick. It. Up."
- "Veronica, why are you pulling my dick?"
- "I don't patronize bunny rabbits."
- "I love my dead gay son!"
- "Save the speeches for Malcolm X... I just wanna get laid!"

There's plenty more, but you get my drift.

---

There's definitely more phrases I'm working into heavy rotation, but these are the fun ones I want to start getting other people to use too. Go to it, people!

Lawsuits and Death

I may be getting old and crotchety, but this rubs me the wrong way. Apparently, the families of the District girls who died under their mother's care are planning on suing the District.

I will admit that I don't know many of the facts of this case other than what I've seen in the paper. The facts so far seem to indicate that the mother, Banita Jacks, had custody of four girls (fathered by, it appears, at least two different men), and that she, well, wasn't all that fit to raise them. From what I've seen, she withdrew all four of the girls from the schools they were attending, going so far as to tell school officials that she was home-schooling them. She then promptly locked the girls in the house, such that no one ever saw them again.

And then they turned up dead.

Look, I don't doubt that the District could have done a better job in policing this family. They purported to conduct home visits of the house, but never actually saw the kids. And then they appear to have accepted without question someone's assertion that the family had moved.

But what's notably missing from all the news accounts about this case -- including this most recent one -- is what contact the girls had with any of the following people: Mamie Jacks (the girls' grandmother and Benita Jacks' mother); Jessie Fogle (grandmother of the two younger girls); Kevin Stoddard (father of second oldest girl); and the father of oldest girl.

Both of the grandmothers appear to have served notice upon the Mayor that they are planning a lawsuit over the deaths of these children. The father of the second oldest girl (reported to be Mr. Stoddard) also commented, through his attorney, that he plans to sue. But on what basis?

From all that is apparent, none of these people had or attempted to make any contact with Ms. Jacks or the children during the troubling period of time. None of them went by the house demanding to spend some quality time with their kin. Did any of them offer to babysit or take the kids away from Ms. Jacks for any period of time? Had any one of them stopped by or otherwise questioned the strange circumstances brewing in Ms. Jacks's house, perhaps someone could have done something sooner.

Now, apparently not having given much of a second thought to their kin for some period of time, are they seriously suggesting that they should somehow be compensated for their deaths? Just how much pain and suffering could they have experienced from their deaths if they weren't seeking to experience joy and love from them when they were alive?

But apparently, headline-grabbing deaths must, as a matter of necessity, result in a lawsuit. There's gold in them thar deaths.

Idiocracy

In my spare time I serve as a web guru for a professional association I belong to. It's not a huge deal, because mostly all it means is I get behind-the-scenes access to a website that makes publishing content, etc. a matter of typing and clicking rather that coding and posting.

Most of my duties on the site involve troubleshooting for people who are having problems, and that usually focuses almost exclusively on people who are confused about our website structure (and it is a little retarded), and on login issues.

Today I received an email from a member, telling me that it had been a while since she logged in to the password-protected site, and could I please remind her of her password? Or was there someone else she should be contacting for this info?

Answer: Lady, do you see that link labeled "Forgot your password?" RIGHT NEXT TO the password field of the login screen? What do you think it's there for, decoration? It's not terribly cryptic, is it? How is that you managed to root around to find my contact information to ask me this question, but weren't able to see a blindingly obvious link that would answer your question?

Norm!

I returned to my usual poker night last night after a five-week hiatus punctuated by illness, work restraints, and bad weather. I had actually missed my time there; the guys there are fun to play with and they're generally cool. I pretty much suck, and they're okay with that and we all laugh at me together.

I got there just before the game started and didn't even look around to find my friends. Instead, I retrieved my chips and, upon turning around, found a table with a good number of empty seats. "Sit down," one of the guys on the table said. "Sure, why not," I said, a tad disoriented and excited to be back in the game.

Across the room, at a different table closer to the door, I heard my name called out rather loudly, and repeatedly. I truly felt like Norm from Cheers. Turns out there were empty seats at the table where my regular group of friends sat, so I went off and joined them instead. It was too bad, because I wouldn't have minded playing with some new people, but hey, there's comfort in familiarity. Besides, several of the guys on my regular table were kinda hot.

Story of the night:

So I get pocket aces (diamonds and clubs), and the guy before me raises. Because he did my job for me, I just called. One other player called after me.

The flop contained a queen, the 10 of diamonds, and the 4 of diamonds. One player limped in, but the second better put in a humongous raise. It hurt just watching it, because I didn't want to have to lay down my pocket aces. In the end, however, his actions screamed that he had flopped trips, so I tearfully let them go.

I was right, he had a pair of queens in his hand.

But that's not the end of the story.

The second player called his huge raise, and the turn was produced: King of diamonds. That's three diamonds on the board, for those of you keeping track.

Bets ensued. Keep in mind, I'm relatively certain one guy had trips at the time that I folded. We got to the river.

I hadn't even finished saying "If it's a diamond I'm going to cream," when the 8 of diamonds showed up on the river. I had folded the nut flush.

I give myself props for finally having the strength to let go of pocket aces. I only wish that it happened on a hand that I wouldn't have eventually won.

CNN/AP Loses Its Sense of Humor.

Okay, check it.

I was on CNN.com and saw this headline: "Huckabee overstays welcome on SNL."*

Part of the text of the article:

Even though Mike Huckabee is still battling for the Republican presidential nomination despite long odds, he said Saturday he won't "overstay his welcome."

Then he did precisely that, lingering on the "Weekend Update" set of "Saturday Night Live" despite repeated cues to leave the stage.

* * *

However, he said: "Mike Huckabee does not overstay his welcome. When it's time for me to go, I'll know. And I'll exit out with class and grace."

Then he remained seated at the "Update" desk even though Meyers made it clear it was time for him to leave.

I found this fascinating, just because I thought it would be funny to see how Seth Green handled a big-time politician accidentally missing his "we're done with you now" cues. Maybe they'd just pan away from him. Or do a close-up of Amy and Seth, deliberately pulling him out of camera range.

So naturally I found the clip on youtube. Here it is:



Aight people, who really believes that Huckabee accidentally missed his cues like a moron? I, for one, think it's pretty damn clear that the entire "oops? Am I supposed to leave?" thing was totally planned. I mean, come on, he had just been to try to explain why he wasn't conceding an election he is certain to lose now -- "overstaying his welcome," as it were.

CNN and AP, you are doofs.

PS: Was it just me, or was Amy Poehler unusually far away from Gov. Huckabee? I think she thinks he has cooties.

* I know what you're thinking. You've clicked on the link and found that the headline is not what I say it is. I swear, this is what the link said. It's what the headline said when I got there. Within the past few minutes, they've changed it.

Live!

One of the things about being stuck at home for as long as I have been is that I get to watch television which I normally never would. One morning (I forget which one), I woke up and turned on the television, which happened to catch Live with Regis and Kelly.

Normally I would not watch this show. I think both Regis and Kelly are rather lame and their banter boring and nothing I couldn't do. But today was a bit different. Regis wasn't there.

In his place was a hot sexy Latin man who goes by Mark Consuelos.

Mark is apparently Kelly's real life husband (the fact that he's married disappoints me; that he's married to Kelly Ripa even more so) because they spent the first 10 minutes of the show bickering about whether she was given adequate warning about some fancy dinner that Mark had planned. Blah blah blah, the man was whipped.

But he was sooooo gorgeous. He has that smile that radiates and is infectious and heart-melting. And he was wearing a very nice shirt (I couldn't tell the fabric) but let's just say it hugged his very nice chest very very nicely.

Mark previously was in All My Children, where he met Kelly, which appears to be the pinnacle of his career, since he later went on to host that god-awful reality dating show Age of Love.

Some random photos I dug upon the internets (sorry, some just had to come with Kelly):

Honest to Blog!

I finally saw Juno last weekend (before I got sick). It's a cute film despite its rather serious underlying subject matter. Do kids nowadays really talk like that as a general matter of day to day speech? It was cute and off the cuff, but still.

Oh, and I still think Jason Bateman is incredibly cute. And that Jennifer Garner has a smokin' bod, but her mouth is like fifty times larger than Julia Roberts's.

Of course, I was enchanted, as always, by Michael Cera, who pulls off the adorkable thing so well. I love how movies nowadays are willing to put characters who aren't traditionally "cool" in protagonist roles. Cera's character is one of those people who would usually get beaten up without a second thought in some of the movies I grew up with. But here, we're actually expected to like him and cheer for him despite his social ineptitude.

And finally:



I had seen this video on Logo like a million times before. I had never bothered to read the credits to it (if there were any) so I had no idea that the singers Michael Cera and Ellen Page. And I always wondered what the hell was up with those runners at the end. It made just a bit more sense after having seen the movie.

My Latest Food Network Crush

A while ago I blogged about my crush on Alton Brown of Food Network's Iron Chef and Good Eats.

I've since developed a new food geek crush.



That's Geof Manthorne, the executive sous chef of Charm City Cakes as featured on Food Network's Ace of Cakes. I love his singing in this clip -- so mellow and soft -- but I really truly admire his immense talent and handiwork in creating those damn cakes he makes on the show. They're huge and look fantastic. I can't imagine actually eating any of it, though, but I think he's totally cute. And he's in Baltimore, which is less than an hour from here. I sense a stalking run is in order.

Of course, while I am now crushing hard for Geof, and now a little less so for Alton, my biggest Food Network crush will always be Dave Leiberman. I mean, come on. He's just too adorable for words.

Being Sick Sucks.

I hate being sick.

This week has been pretty awful in so many ways. After having such a good time with Lorelai on Friday night, I thought I was in for a good week.

I was kinda wrong.

My friends and I went out on Saturday night to BeBar, which was surprisingly straight. After my straight Friday night, it kinda wasn't what I was looking for, but oh well. I didn't drink much but I did hang with my boys for most of the night before we all bailed at around 1:00.

Monday was President's Day. Usually we don't get most federal holidays off, so in the absence of being told anything, I went in to work on Monday. It turns out we did in fact have Monday off -- which I found at around 11:30 a.m. -- so I bailed by 1:00.

I showed up for work again on Tuesday and put in my full day, but I noticed that I had a cough thrown in there that I hadn't had before. I had taken a sick day already in early February, so getting sick again would absolutely suck. But it's gone worse since. I've now taken two days off this week. I've coughed so hard in the few days I've seen stars. My chest is tight. I'm sucking down orange juice and chicken noodle soup like there is no tomorrow.

I'm going to try to get back to the office tomorrow, but my colleagues are kinda paranoid about catching things when one of us isn't feeling well, so I think they'd be just as happy if I didn't show up again.

I don't enjoy taking sick days. I actually get bored at home all day.

I have, however, seen a gazillion movies, some more memorable than others.

Taxi Driver: DeNiro as a young man was hot.
Reefer Madness: The Musical: Christian Campbell is hot. And it's a fun show.
Because I Said So: Except for the fact that almost all the credited men are quite easy on the eyes, the movie has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend: Cute premise, but horribly executed. I just felt nothing for Uma's character or for Luke Wilson's.

Meanwhile, I am also working on a work of short fiction which I plan to submit for publication in a gay magazine this summer. Wish me luck!

Weekend Escapades

I was supposed to go to the Black Cat on Friday for some 80s party. Some of my friends were going to be there and I wanted to check it out because I'm an 80s dork. Then again, though, because it was the Black Cat, I figured we wouldn't be hearing Debbie Gibson and Roxette.

But in the end, of course, the best laid plans often fail. I had invited my friend Lorelai to go, but she had to stay late at work and didn't feel like making the trek out to the Cat. So I abandoned those plans completely in favor of just meeting up with her at a bar in Cleveland Park.

The place was the straightest bar I've been to in a long time. That really just speaks to me, not so much the bar, which I'm sure was standard hetero-fare. There was a time when I eschewed gay bars in general because all my friends seemed to be straight girlfriends so I ended up just hanging out with them at the straight bars. Then recently I made a new crop of gay friends so I found myself back at the gay bars surrounded by The Boys a lot.

But even when I was hanging with my straight girlfriends at straight bars, I don't think I've ever felt as out of place as I did at this bar. The male-female ratio was pretty even, but it felt ... different. I can't place it, but it did. But I was fine with it, 'cause I'm cool like that.

Lorelai and I met a cute guy at the bar. I don't think he's gay, but he seemed cool enough. We swapped business cards. I've emailed him, but he has yet to respond.



There are sooooo many reasons I want Alek to email me back at some point. I need the contact. (I'll leave that vague.)

Now that I have longer hair... I gotta let it down more often.

Birthday Brunch

I made brunch for some friends a few weekends ago. (This is a delayed post because it took my lazy ass this long to pull the photos off my camera.)



That's eggs benedict, asparagus, potatoes, and bacon. By way of explanation (the eggs look funny), they're not on traditional English muffins, but spelt muffins with raisins. Oh, and that's prosciutto tucked under that.

Originally my plan called for stuffed French toast as well, but the Safeway ran out of Texas toast when I went to look for it. That sucked. Thankfully, there was so much food already that no one missed the French toast.

It took much longer than I thought it would. Here's a helpful hint: just watching cooking shows doesn't make you a speedy gourmet chef. And just because Sandra Lee can create an entire meal in half an hour, here's one word: editing.

In any event, the food did come out pretty well. It didn't hurt that we treated ourselves to mimosas too:



For dessert, a pudding parfait with bananas and raspberries:





Despite the fact that the rest of the meal took about an hour and a half to assemble, the pudding parfaits were the biggest hit. There was also a cinnamon crumb cake involved too.

It was also a slightly belated birthday gift to my friend L.:



See, if you make friends with me, you too could have a homemade breakfast on your birthday! (Provided you have a decent kitchen for me to work in.)

Way to Hit Your Target Audience.

This guy's hawking Bowflex weight machines.

I hate him.

And that means I sure as hell don't want to buy a Bowflex because of him.

What's the worst part of him? Check him out at 1:44.

"I gave all my fat clothes to my fat friends."

Okay, you know what? It's great you lost that weight. But you're an asshole. If losing weight means you get an automatic entitlement to look down on your friends who aren't so hot and thin, then I don't want to be hot-like-you. Fuck you.

And then there's that other commercial (which I can't find on youtube) where the guy thinks he's hot shit because he's an older guy and he's finally in a rock band. No, really, that's his big thing. I just have to say, when you're 40 and your life's ambition is still to have girls throwing their panties at you because you're in a rock band and you have a rock band body, then you've got issues that giving yourself rock hard abs won't cure.

All I'm saying is, the spokespeople these guys pick really don't make me want to buy the product. At all.

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.