Bits and Pieces

I was heavily tilted by Bob Ciaffone's article in the latest Cardplayer regarding my worst nightmare: Pokertek (PTEK). If you've forgotten, the Pokertek table basically has players sitting at a table, playing internet poker against each other: each player has a display in front of them which only they can see - there is no dealer, no physical cards, and no physical chips - it's the equivalent of online poker, but you're playing against the 9 other people you are sitting with. Ciaffone calls it "the best of both worlds," as it speeds up the game and eliminates dealer errors.

Ciaffone notes: "One of the benefits of having a dealer is to keep the game moving along. For this reason, it is a good idea for a cardroom that’s using this computerized technology to designate a player in the game as the “table captain,” to keep the game moving and ensure that no improprieties take place, such as making comments during a hand about what someone might be holding."

I cringed as I read this, imagining all the old timer leatherass table captains I've met in every poker room - the last thing we need is these douchebags playing table cop.

I hit up Dirty Dave on IM, and complained to him.

"Ouch - like you need some leatherass playing Vichy cop on you,"
he's always the intellectual.

"dk" I responded - Wall Street talk for "Don't Know" - as in "I have no clue what you're talking about.

"Vichy, France: wartime rule" he explained.

"Hang on Voltaire," I blasted him with one of my favorite movie quotes from one of my favorite movie scenes of all time: let me explain.

In Swingers, Mike and Trent are in a diner, ordering some chow. Let's join the screenplay, courtesy of ScreenplaysForYou:

MIKE I'll have "pancakes in the Age of Enlightenment"
It goes over like a lead balloon.
WAITRESS And you?
TRENT I'll have the Blackbeard over easy.
WAITRESS I'll be back with the coffee.
She takes the menus and goes.
TRENT (genuinely) Nice, baby.
MIKE I should've said Renaissance, right? It went over her head.
TRENT Baby, you did fine.
MIKE (disgusted with himself) "Age of Enlightenment". Shit. Like some waitress in a Las Vegas coffee shop is going to get an obscure French philosophical reference. How demeaning. I may as well have just said "Let me jump your ignorant bones."...
TRENT ...Baby...
MIKE ... It's just, I thought "Renaissance" was too Excaliber, it's the wrong casino. She would've gotten it, though...
TRENT You did fine. Don't sweat her. We're meeting our honeys soon. You know Christy's friend is going to be money.
MIKE I hope so. (checks watch) We gotta go soon.
TRENT Baby, relax. It's just down the hall. She's gotta change... we'll be fine.
MIKE We didn't do so bad after all.
TRENT Baby, we're money.Mike tries to catch the attention of their waitress, who is passing with a huge platter containing a BREAKFAST BANQUET.
MIKE Excuse me. We're in a bit of a hurry.
WAITRESS Hang on, Voltaire.

Brilliant stuff. Anyway, in another completely random note, I saw Matt Pinfield, former MTV VJ extraordinaire on my corner today.

My knee is healing somewhat I think - I'm able to walk, but still limp slightly. Thanks for all the well-wishers. I even had three different random people on the streets of NYC offer me assistance.

Oscar's balls (or lack thereof) appear to be healing nicely - he gets his stitches out Monday.

Mrs. Dynamite and I took him with us to Philly last weekend for a wedding, and his good behavior when given free reign in the hotel room prompted us to decide to try giving him free reign of our apartment yesterday while we were at work, instead of confining him to the kitchen like we usually do. As Mrs. Dynamite put it to me when I got home, Oscar "violated the circle of trust," by pulling all the mulch out of the big potted plant we have in our dining room, running down the hall with it, and spraying it all over the bedroom. Good effort dude - back in the kitchen...

Previously, while Mrs. Dynamite was in the shower, Oscar did this with the toilet paper:

Elsewhere in my world, last night I went with some colleagues to DelFrisco's Steakhouse. I resisted the urge to comment when the waitress told us about the special: the bone-in ribeye ("Do you like the bone in? guffaw guffaw guffaw), but when I ordered the fillet, medium, she actually said, and I quote, "That's hot and red in the center, and pink toward the outside." Before I could even react, one of my compatriots blurted "JUST the way he likes it." Of course, I then had to tell my "$600 and ounce? sounds like my sperm" story.

I told you all about how Blogger shut me down for a week several months ago, since their proprietary software had decided that I was SPAM. Well, I'm on an email discussion list with some of my poker buddies, and I sent an email to the list, which my own email dumped into my SPAM folder. Ouch. That hurts. My own account think's I'm SPAM. I don't even know what to make of that.

Finally, I'm at war with Citibank: a friend of mine sent me a check, which eventually bounced when I deposited it in my account. Citi debits the check, fine, but then they also hit me with a $10 fee. What the fuck? Huh? I am the bouncee, not the bouncer - there is no fucking way I'm paying a fee, especially since I didn't even withdraw the money. I've told them this much, and threatened to close my account if they don't take the friggin' $10 off - DO YOU KNOW WHO THE FUCK I AM? Yeah, I know, it's only $10, but I'll spend 5 hours fighting in on principle.

until next time,

KD