A Day of Anomalies...Did I Spell That Right?

In my constant efforts to bring you completely NON-poker related material...today was a douzy.

First things first. My boy Charlie 'Smoke' Oliver has finally gotten his iPhone APP approved and launched. And its pretty kick ass. Granted, I don't have an iPhone, but if I did...this app of his would be an automatic. It's called TheListLV....or TheListLasVegas....which has basically listings of EVERYTHING and ANYTHING you could want to do in Las Vegas. Night clubs, casinos, strip joints, shows...with dates, venues, web site addresses, phone numbers, driving directions. I mean...its like having a tour guide in the palm of your hand. I guess he makes money by getting paid by the people who put their info on there...since its a free download. You're next question? "What's in it for you Monkey!?? I see you put a link to it on the right side of your blog. You must be getting some kind of kickback!" Well...if that is your question, the answer is...NOTHING! Not a cent. It's just one good friend using what I have available to me to help another good friend. I hope he kicks ass with it!

The other banner I put on here today was one for the site I have been using for my football pools now for about 7 or 8 years now. The guy who owns the site, John Cranston is also an avid reader of my blog...and has exchanges ideas and questions with me a lot in the past few years regarding poker. He does an awesome job on my football pools...and I just thought it would be nice to give him a little free run also. Granted, if more people play my pools, sure I will realize a modest increase on my commission payment...which isn't much anyway. Naw...it's not about me, again...just trying to help out the guys who have been good buddies or helped me out in the past.

I actually left the house today. Yep. Not making this up. Returned movies to Blockbuster. Tried to rent more from RedBox. Nothing I liked. Some almost-okay-looking lady in her 30's starting quizzing me as to why I didn't rent anything. Um...have a nice day.

Her liscense plate was a vanity plate. It said A-N-Y-W-A-Y-S. Did you know that 'anyways' is not a word? It's one of those you hear a lot, one where people will fight for...."NO! You're wrong! It IS a word." Um...no. It's not. It's 'ANYWAY' with no 'S'. Period. End of debate.

Returned that laptop chilling pad to Best Buy that I was obsessing about before I drove to Tunica. Yes...it was too small. And I bought a bigger one last week. Dude tried to sweat me about it. Best Buy can suck it. They, too just did the 'ol, drop your credit line to $20 above whatever your current balance is trick last week right after I made a miniscule $30 purchase. Chase did it. American Express did it. Home Depot did it. Now Best Buy. Honestly...let me clip something big, pay these balances off, and just never use them again. I hate creditors. Hate them. They charge you insane percentages...which you pay for months, even years...while your balance NEVER goes DOWN...then they have the audacity to drop your credit limit to a point to which you can't even use it. Then there are some like Chase...that just CLOSE your account. Unreal. Well, I am locked in a battle of "You aren't getting a red cent from me...EVER" with Chase. Their most recent call found me on the recieving end of an offer to pay them .35 on the dollar on the total debt. Hmmm. Getting warmer, boys. Only problem now is that I don't have the money to pay it off!

Driving back from Gulfport there is a very unusual picture in front of me. To the left, I see a big rainbow...but its only part of it. Looks like a spear stuck in the ground...with no arc to it. Then...directly to the right of it...a huge wall of storm clouds...and these incredible streaks of lightning. Marvelous.

I finally got off my lazy ass and went to the gym tonight. I was laying in bed either last night or today...and I could literally feel atrophy setting in. If you aren't familiar with that word...its when your muscles just completely stop functioning. So I had a wonderful 45 minutes on the treadmill...and didn't die. But while peddling on the bike for 30 minutes I managed to watch something that got me so wound up I almost came unglued.

Let me tell you something...since I've gone on this medication (Celexa) I have had very few episodes of losing it. I came pretty close tonight. So I'm watching C-SPAN. Yeah...I know, riveting. But as I was flipping through the channels on the workout machine I was stopped by it because it was a Senate Sub-Committee hearing (which actually took place on July 19th) on the DeepWater Horizon accident. They were questioning the Chief Engineer on the rig...a guy named Steve Bertone, and sitting next to him was his weasel-bag lawyer Steven London...who after every question, they would turn off their microphone...chit chat like two kids whispering secrets back and forth...and then turn on the speaker and say something like "I dont have any recollection of that" or "I can't say for sure." What a fucking douchebag! You have to read this article that the Washington Post wrote about this piece of shit. The more I hear about this case...and the more I think about those 11 men who died on that rig, due mostly to faulty maintenance and cost-cutting measures, the more I am starting to really think that most of the blame rests with TransOcean. But watching his lawyer bat down one question after another...and detecting the frustration in the tone of the people asking the questions...I don't know how one of them didn't finally just snap, and flip out on the guy.

"Hey ASSHOLE! Ordering a rig worker to 'just leave' an injured worker behind because you were scared to go after him...and ignoring all the issues that led up to this explosion...you ought to be BEGGING for us to understand how you and your band of idiots aren't responsible, instead of sitting here blowing us off like some neighborhood kid trying to sell you a .10 cup of lemonade!!!"

Just got done watching George Lopez. Not a bad show. He has WWE guys doing Karaoke this week. Pretty damn funny. These guys all obviously have some pretty good stage presence, since thats what they do for a living...perform. But their ability to sing? Simply attrocious. I mean...awful. Going to watch Karaoke is one of my favorite things to do...for the reason right there...watching people make complete fools of themselves. It's MEGA funny when they THINK they are good and just killin it!

Also on the show was Mark Walhberg. What a great career this guy has had. I really like him. He just seems like one very easy-going, real, down to earth guy. He'd probably be fun to play poker with. Rap-singer as a kid, actor for the last 20 years. Or so. Now a producer. Produced 'Entourage' on HBO...which is the longest running show ever on HBO...in for one more season. Good career. Good guy.

I really like watching HD. I was watching TBS on regular TV earlier...and then switched it to TBS-HD. I'm watching 'My Name is Earl.' The episode where Earl and Joy have a baby...except he's black. Oooops. Joy and Crab-man's kid. A lot of times when I watch Jamie Pressley she looks so much like Squirrel. Same southern accent too. This episode after it is where they keep crashing the news...going behind the lady and doing something funny. Freaking hilarious. I am wiping my eyes right now!

I sat behind the TV the other night beating my brains out trying to figure out why we were only getting volume out of 3 of 6 speakers. Dicked around with everything I could think of. Read the manual. Was about to lose my freaking mind...when I discovered...OH! Three of the speaker plugs are disconnected! You kidding!?? Guessing it happened on a couple of errant throws of Jasper's balls (yes we throw him the ball in the house) that went behind the TV and pulled the wires loose.

So now I am re-addicted to my kickass Samsung. Got dialed back into Xbox360 and PS3 yesterday. Its nice when I get to a point in the game where I am stumped...can't go forward another inch...and just find a couple of my gaming junkies who I know read this, and are on my Facebook, pose the problem to them, and its instantly remedied!

GOD I CANT WAIT FOR FOOTBALL SEASON!!!!!!!

Oh...but on that note; I hate preseason football. To me, it cheapens the product. Like with college...there is no preseason games. The first games of the season are always GREAT! With the NFL though...they give you 4 weeks of shitty product...and then, finally...the real thing comes, and its like, I've been so bored with the Preseason games that I have to find the fire to get excited when the regular season starts. So I try real hard not to watch ANY preseason games if I can help it. I really do wish they would trim the preseason to 2 games, and extend the regular season to 18 games. That would also make the Fantasy season a lot better! Which...speaking of which...I have 3 leagues. They are almost completely full! I have about 5 spots left in the $100 leagues, and about 8 spots in my 'big money' $300 league. If interested, hit me with an email about it at ThePoolMonkey@aol.com.

Want to know how to make your car smell like shit? Have your wife drive your car to the store, with both dogs in back. Then leave them in the car...have a horrendous lightning storm start up...and get pelted by rain for an hour. See, my dogs are afraid of storms. And there is some kind of weird smell that dogs put off when they are scared. When they got done with the inside of my car...holy crap. Well, that was Sunday. Hadnt been in my car since then. I got in and almost choked to death. Went inside, grabbed a bottle of Lysol, and went to town. All the seats were trashed. Now...the smell is...well, not as bad, but still nasty.

Speaking of cars. This is kind of funny. Gabe has been driving this old-school Cadillac Escalade...the same one he's had since I met him. It has a cracked windshield...big crack! And it has all these little nuances that make it almost impossible to drive unless you 'know' the car. Squirrel once had to drive it somewhere and was given a list of instructions from Gabe first. So when we went to dinner the other night...I was almost expecting to see a shiny new car...you know, given the fact that Gabe had a 'pretty good' summer. I mean, if it was me...and this HAS been my goal a few times after having driven my car out there...that car would have STAYED in Vegas...and I would have been driving something kickass home. Granted, I love my 4runner. Its a 2005 and still has less than 80k miles on it, despite THREE Biloxi to Las Vegas back and forth trips. I mean...those trips right there account for 12,000 miles alone. If I went out there and won half a million, I would keep my car, I would just leave it out there I think. Since I am there so much, I would just park it at a casino maybe. Or at a friends house. Would be nice to have a car to use every time I went out there.

Then again...it might be nice to have an SUV to drive the dogs around in...and an SUV to have that the dogs arent allowed in. So I guess I would probably drive it home, then get the new wheels once I got home.

So yeah, Gabe is still driving that beat up Escalade. But props to him, I suppose for not putting too much importance on material things, right? I caught him eyeballing a Hummer, and was talking about wanting one. Oh no!!! I had to try and talk him out of it....since GM stopped making Hummer's last year...in fact, the dropped the whole program, and it was trying to be sold. Last I heard a company in China was thinking about buying the company. Ugh....bad investment. Good luck getting parts.

I am taking my first trip to Milwaukee next month. Right after the Beau Rivage event ends. Hopefully, I will be playing in that event. Borgatta starts Sept 8th. But goes all the way to the 23rd. My little sister is adopting the younger brother of the kid she adopted already. My sister is amazing. And she, along with my Mother, have developed an incredible relationship with Squirrel. They love her. So we have been invited up to Milwaukee for a party they are having to celebrate the new kid coming into the family. So we'll be going up there Sept 8th to the 12th or so. Should be nice to see family.

Squirrel continues to amaze me. On a recent trip to Florence to see her family, she cleaned out her Grandma's shed, which included a bunch of her ex-husbands personal stuff from his childhood that he had left in storage there. Well, this morning she was out there in the living room going through it all, cleaning it up, reorganizing it, repacking it all...and arranging to have it sent to him. So thoughtful. And no...never does a day go by when I am jealous or feel threatened by him. They have a good relationship. He is remarried. Happily. Just makes me know that if things between us ever go tremendously bad, she won't probably be one of these spiteful, hateful ex-wives. Then this morning, she gets up super-early to go babysit for one of the girls she works with so her and her husband could go do something. I try really hard to help people, and to act like I care when people have drama going on in their lives...but in actuality, I know that I am just, well...I'm not my wife. She's incredible.

I think I'm out of things to write about. And I am getting that itch to either watch a movie, get online and play poker...or both.

Later.

Monkey