I have this gift I got from my Dad - it's not a gift from God - it's the ability to just string a massive amount of swear words together in a way that's like poetry - in fact, it's probably not even the gift, I was just exposed to certain strings of expletives so often that they can come to me naturally.

Tonight I was driving home and the rig was finally starting to get warm, and of course, I said to my self, "Of course you're getting warmer now, you pig-fucking whore" 

And it kinda hit me....I don't want to be the guy that people was afraid of sometimes, or the guy who lost his temper - I want to be the guy who in his later years was the grandpa who was loved, and sober, and stuff.

But as I was in that car, I realized what had happened.  I was missing him so much, that if I said that, or went off on a string like that, it was like he was still around - like I was hearing him again or something.

That was just a thought I had tonight and I had no other place to put it so I am putting it here

I just took a wonderful trip down memory lane with Wil Wheaton's "Still Just A Geek"  - I didn't see anything in there regarding the PokerStars/WPBT times but as many of you remember, he was with us on some of the WPBT events and they were just great memories to relive again.    I'm very happy to report he's doing great, growing, thriving, and of course, you've been seeing him on screen and in audio again the last few years which makes me happy.

Man - I haven't been here in 3 years - what happened besides all the other horrible shit that happened in the Covid years?   I had a rough few years but that's too much for me to talk about now.

All the poker blogs are gone almost - everyone sorta lost heart after Black Friday - but we have records of the times when for a brief moment, we were watching one of our favorite games suddenly spring to life like Chess did after Fischer beat the Russians, and our Fischer's name was Moneymaker - :)

We were there, man.   Some of us even lived thru it, - and despite hitting a milestone birthday soon, I enjoy looking back on the old posts and stories and song lyrics.

Maybe there's still room for a few more

"Sometimes when you doing simple things around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile
You know I'm tied to you like a button on your blouse
Keep me in your heart for a while"

Warren Zevon

starting to feel like I'm almost at that point in life where it starts to take away more than it gives

and I'm already kinda overdrawn - (sigh)

you know what I really miss?   9 handed Fixed limit Holdem -

I can find NL - I can find 6 handed Fixed with some decent levels - (sometimes there's NO ONE playing though) - but not a decent 9 handed fixed limit holdem

Someone tell that orange fucktwat in the White House Kim Kardashian wants Pokerstars back all over the US - he'll probably do it if he thinks she'll fuck him for it

On an unrelated note, I went thru my links there on the right and all my heroes moved from blogs to twitter or aren't updating since Black Friday - that's kinda sad

I'm gonna tell you guys something a little sad - a little pathetic

Some nights about now I go to the Temple Bar camera link -

https://www.earthcam.com/world/ireland/dublin/?cam=dublinpub

They have shots for the interior and exterior - and they're closed but inside I can still hear voices on the camera - I know the layout and when someone leaves camera view inside I know the outside door

it's quiet at 3:58 in Dublin on Temple Bar street - street cleaners, and people still closing up and leaving two hours later.

I went to Dublin 2 years ago - more of a stop in and out on our way to SW Ireland for a bit - I couldn't really see what I wanted to see - the way in I was too tired - the way out I had my tasks chosen for me before I left - no pubs - no seeing Trinity College

The guy who started this blog many years ago isn't the guy I am now - some of that is a good thing and some of that is a bad thing - I am no longer my own person but have another to be responsible for and again, some of that is good and bad.   I confess to feeling more nostalgia than I should lately for the bad old days.

If I could be that guy again that I was 15 years ago - drinking whiskey and coke, staggering thru streets and dreaming of music and cards and love, I'd like to be walking down to the Temple Bar in Dublin, and I'd have a drink, and strike out with the locals, and listen to the music, and not think about the weight and responsibilities of life that I've had to live with these last few years.

It's 4am - the street lights outside the Temple Bar have shut off.    Goodnight lads.

so I had been playing at Bovada, and then they rolled their poker to Ignition

Ignition has been doing stuff that annoys me - like....not letting you see how many players are on a limit table - making it very difficult to find a low limit LHE game

some time ago I took out 250 of the 350 I had and ended up taking it in bitcoin - that money in the last month has gone from 250 to 400 bucks

At this time, seeing no good poker sites available for US players not in one of the legalized states, I have decided to pull the last 60 bucks from my online poker site and do some crypto currency trading - what the hell - wish I had gotten in years ago when mining was a thing and when I thought about it at $700/BTC - currently close to $6400 -

I haven't fucked up an opportunity like that since the time Fossilman asked for backers on 2+2 and I didn't go for it

RB

So I'll tell this story from Bible School - it's been long enough - they can't take away my certificate or my degree probably...

I attended a very conservative Lutheran Bible School out of high school - strict enough where on the second year, anything that was "secular music" was banned - I, not really knowing how tough the dean was on it, - (we changed deans that year in the men's dorm) - had brought a fine selection of Godless Heathen Devil music - I didn't think much of it and most of my stuff was hippie stuff anyways - Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby Stills and Nash, Neil Young, and so forth

Anyways, somehow it came out that I had the forbidden goods, and somehow It ended up that I gave him my tapes in a box where he stashed them in the closet of his office to be kept safe until that Spring and I had put on the appearance of being a good boy and hunkered down for the Fall Semester...I'm sure my heart was even in it at the time.

except....

a short time later, probably a few weeks later...

I carded that office door, snuck in, got the box, and liberated about 12 tapes.

One of which was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - "Into the Great Wide Open" - (I think another one was Paul Simon's Graceland,)

I remember I had it because at some point that year I stepped on the cassette box, and nearly split the pad of one of my feet open and hobbled for a few days :)

Years later, at another conservative Christian College, I spent about a year walking around with Tom Petty's Wildflowers in my headphones and while it wasn't banned, I somehow felt...like I had been given a treasure in an ocean of mediocre Contemporary Christian Music - I remember shortly after graduating being up all night and listening to the title track in a park at 6am thinking things were going to be ok...they weren't but at least I thought they were at 6am

I realize I have to lose heroes - they were all older than me to begin with - but I wasn't ready to lose this one yet...

R.I.P. Tom Petty