The Most Dickish Thing I've Ever Done (But It Was Hilarious)

I recently went to Atlantic City for the PokerStars Festival, a series of tournaments meant to promote poker now that PokerStars offers online play in my home state.
Because Resorts, which partners with PokerStars, doesn't have a poker room, the tournaments were held in a ballroom. As I walked through the tables I saw some well-known players sitting amongst regular folks aka amateurs.
I also recognized a friend of mine, Andy, and on his direct right was Barry Greenstein, peacefully reading news articles on his iPad.
I noticed Andy, whom I had never met in person, only online, was wearing a tank top that said "If you're offended, I'll help you pack" and had a big American flag in the middle.

Turns out two other friends (I use the term loosely) paid him $100 each to wear the shirt the entire day. As I was being told this story, I was inches from Barry Greenstein who looked up at me, and then I said:

"Barry, they're paying him $200 to wear this shirt. How much are they paying you to wear that sweater?"

Luckily it was well-received and when I saw him sitting alone later (he remained at his table during a break) I went over and apologized and we had a good laugh. He took it very well. And then we briefly talked about politics. He couldn't have been nicer. And I couldn't have been more dickish.

Another Thing JJ Watt and I Have in Common

I've been coaching Chase's youth baseball team this season and one day the other team decided not to show up. So we improvised and played parents versus kids. I planned to run have speed station-to-station, but I got up and ripped one to center, as I rounded first, the ball was rolling down a hill in the outfield so I decided to turn on the jets and try for a home run.

And boom! I felt something pull in the back of my right leg. I did get the home run, but a few days later I was left with this nasty bruise on the back of my leg.

It didn't hurt to the touch, but it felt tight for about two weeks afterwards.

When it finally healed, I decided to teach the kids a lesson about base running and not throwing the ball all over the field once a runner had already reached base. I took off running to first and felt that same feeling again, only this time in the other leg.

This incident reminded me of an old post from when JJ Watt suffered a similar injury.

It's still not clear what happened to him, whether he suffered a pulled muscle or it's just a horrible bruise, the type you could possibly sustain if a large man falls on top of you in the wrong way. But I am sure he handled it with the same toughness and I exhibited with mine.

Never Gets Old

Here he is, Lincoln Diesel
Born 5/24/16 at 10:23 am
Weighing at 10 pounds 4 ounces and standing 21 and a quarter inches tall

Even though this is the third time we've done it, it doesn't get less exciting or less cool.
It may even be more fun because we have the added dimension of the big brothers and their excitement.
Also the nerves and fears you have with your first are basically gone by the time you get to number 3.
Plus, research shows third kids usually turn out the best.

Get Out of My Dreams

Last night I got home late and didn't eat a proper dinner. I had Fritos and some spicy dip.
That night I dreamed I was at an amusement park and I got separated from my family so I walked around with TON and Lowercase E. And Lowercase E was complaining about the humidity.

The Wall Street Journal explains why this happens:

Everybody dreams, though many recall their dormant fantasies better than others. Some report that their subconscious stirrings appear to be more vivid after a spicy meal. Science is a long way from understanding all the nuances of the resting brain, but one expert, Emmanuel Mignot, director of the Stanford University Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, explains how a pad thai dinner might seem to bring on nightmares.

Dreams have two functions, Dr. Mignot says. One is to relax the most primitive part of the brain. “When you are in REM sleep,” he says, “you cool down and are essentially paralyzed, and the lower part of your brain is almost switched off.” While that’s happening, the second purpose of dreaming kicks in: the cortex, which controls higher-order executive function, switches into overdrive. “Dreaming fires your brain in random ways, forcing it to create unexpected connections that you wouldn’t logically make while you are awake,” he says. This is part of what makes humans smarter and more creative than other species.

If you’re a sound sleeper, you likely won’t recall your dreams, anyway. “Most people who remember their dreams have relatively poor sleep,” says Dr. Mignot. “They wake up frequently, so they have fragmented dream states, which allows them to remember more about the dream.”

No food has been shown to increase the vividness of dreams, the psychiatrist and behavioral scientist explains. During the night, people go in and out of the dream state numerous times. Various studies have shown that by eating certain proteins, like turkey, you will have more dreams. And some amino acids can increase the amount of REM sleep, when intense dreaming typically takes place.

While there is a lot of literature showing that eating big meals makes people sleepy, there are no studies that Dr. Mignot knows of that prove that spicy foods in particular induce nightmares or outlandish dreams. However, he notes, chicken tikka or too much sriracha could possibly be a culprit for some people. “Spicy foods increase your body temperature, so they may make you sleep less well—and as a consequence, your dreams may be more conscious,” he says. That doesn’t mean that you’ll dream more vividly or have more nightmares, he adds, but remembering them clearly may feel like the same experience.

Many types of foods—not just spicy ones—might have an impact on dreams because the gut and the digestive process are so complex, the sleep expert says. “Amino acids in food, for example, can be metabolized in the body into active brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine,” the professor of sleep medicine says. “They can enhance anxiety or pleasure, and that might affect your dreams.” But your grandma’s piquant meatballs have never actually been proven to give anyone nightmares (indigestion notwithstanding).

For people who often jolt awake from disturbing dreams, Dr. Mignot recommends keeping a food journal to see if there are any particular foods that might be triggering nightmares or shorter sleep cycles. He has his narcoleptic patients sometimes keep diaries to try and determine if specific foods make their dreams more ghoulish. “But I’ve found that the size of the meal is more important,” he says. And can any food create happy dreams? The doctor has doubts: “Unfortunately there is no food that I know of that can make you have funnier, more vivid dreams.”

This definitely makes sense because I am a very deep sleeper and I very seldom remember my dreams at all. Maybe the spicy food and heartburn wake me up, or keep me from getting into a deep sleep, and therefore I'm just more like to remember a weird dream after eating spicy food.

My Popcorn Odyssey

I recently went on a popcorn odyssey, four days and nights of eating popcorn in 4 different places in 3 different states, and I documented the entire thing to share with you guys.

Day 1:
Popcorn from Target for Game 1 of the NLDS.

Day 2:
Popcorn from AMC Theaters for Hotel Transylvania 2. The movie was actually pretty cute and funny. The boys loved it.
The popcorn was also good. And we get the refillable size so we chow down before the movie starts, and refill. Then we refill again after the movie and take home. On this night I enjoyed it with Game 2 of the NLDS.

Day 3:
Popcorn from Sesame Place. With the same bucket we've been using for years, and our season passes, refills are only $2.22. And I can eat the entire bucket in the time it takes the kids to wait on line and ride one ride.

Day 4:
Popcorn from CitiField.
Behind section 125 there is a stand that sells popcorn in a Mets helmet with unlimited refills for $12. It is the best food value at CitiField. I bought and ate one helmet-full myself when I sat down. Then during the introductions I ran to get #2. I sent Poop On Me for refill #3 at which point even I was sick of eating popcorn.

A Thin Line Between Genius and Insanity

At work a woman was eating a huge apple. Perhaps the biggest apple I've ever seen.
I said to her "it's a good thing that apple didn't fall on Isaac Newton's head. He wouldn't have been inspired to discover gravity. He would have gotten a concussion and probably died."

After laughing, another co-worker who overheard remarked on what a strange comment it was to make. He said it was funny but seem gobsmacked that my mind worked in such a way that something like that would come out based only on the stimulus of seeing a large apple.
Please vote whether the comment was funny or douchey, but also let me know in the comments if you think that comment is more indicative of genius, or of insanity.

Near-Death Experience

There's an old joke about the baseball player who said he missed a home run by an inch. The listener asks "oh it hit the top of the fence" and the ballplayer replies "no, it missed my bat by an inch."
Similarly, I missed death or serious injury by an inch or two on the way to work a couple weeks ago.
The road wasn't particularly damp and I don't think it was raining or snowing at the time, but I came upon some sudden traffic, and the car in front of me braked suddenly, and I did the same, not jamming my brakes, and not getting anywhere near the car in front of me, when I hear a horrible screeching sound behind me. I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw a van skidding towards me (on a 3-lane road I was in the left, he was skidding between left and center, and the center laners were moving to the right lane to avoid him.)
I watched and listened and braced for impact, but he finally came to a stop, at a 20 degree angle, in both lanes, inches from my rear bumper.
Strange feeling sitting there watching a potentially serious accident come skidding towards you with nothing to do but wait and hope.
Thankfully it worked out fine, but my heart was beating pretty fast for the next few minutes.

The Universe Thinks My Art Sucks

As most of you know, The Poops moved into a new house this summer, we actually bought it just a couple days after Mrs. Poop's birthday.
Because we don't normally exchange big gifts, and we were spending a lot of money on the house, repairs, additional furnishings etc, I decided a gift heavy on sentiment, light on cost would be ideal.

So I drew Mrs. Poop a picture of our new abode.

Looks pretty good compared to the original though right?

But evidently the Universe didn't think my artwork is good enough because the gift from our realtor, sitting on the shelf the day we closed, was this picture of the house, drawn by a professional.

Ok, I readily admit it is better, but mine was drawn with love and colored with crayons.

And since then we've had the house re-sided, and it looks completely different.

The Twitter Trolls Have Pushed Mike Goldberg Too Far

Mike Goldberg, UFC's regular announcer, has been removed for one week from his gig doing NFL games on Fox.
What happened is long and complicated and begins with your faithful friend, The Poop.
Apparently I have never written about my hatred for Goldie on the blog so I will explain it all.
Bruce Buffer normally ends his pre-fight schpiel by announcing the name of the referee. Without fail Mike Goldberg would repeat the name of the ref right afterwards. So it would go a little something like this:

Buffer: The referee this evening, Herb Dean.
Goldberg: Herb Dean is our referee.

This drove me insane, but on its own, not enough to make me take action. But when you add in all the other stupidity he spews (TON says at least once a fight card Joe Rogan basically has to tell him to shut up because he's saying something blatantly wrong), that would be enough to drive anyone to his breaking point, but not me.

I didn't start trolling him on Twitter until he missed an event while dealing with a "complicated health issue" which many people believe was rehab.

His replacement Jon Anik was so bad I actually tweeted my support for Goldie.

Note: The ashes is a cricket match between Australia and the United Kingdom. The Ultimate Fighter between Australia and the United Kingdom was dubbed "the Smashes." Anik said this 100 times, at least, every time he had the chance.

Here is my original tweet to him and the conversation it started:

Fast forward to last Sunday when Mike Goldberg was calling the Vikings-Lions game. According to all reports it was one of the worst broadcasts ever, with Goldberg constantly misidentifying players (like saying a Teddy Bridgewater pass was intended for Golden Tate -- who plays for the other team) to just not being able to correctly identify down and distance (he said a clear first down was "close," an obvious loss was a gain of "one maybe two" and 2nd and 9 was "3rd and 17"). All in all it seemed like Goldie was back on whatever it was that sent him to rehab in the first place.

As people on twitter are known to do, they gave Goldberg the business after the game. Calling him out for his inept performance. Goldberg wasn't having it though, responding to the twitter trolls with gems like this:

And this:

So that's what got him benched for this week. Let's see if Fox has the temerity to send him back out there. Let's see if Goldberg has the serenity to ignore the trolls. And let's see if I can provoke him into calling me a douche.

At Least I'm Memorable

I was in the cafeteria at work and I see this woman I know I recognize, so I’m staring at her trying to figure out who she is, and I can tell at the same time she’s trying to figure out who I am. She says “you don’t remember my name do you?” I said her name and asked "do you remember my name?” She said “no, but I know something about you. Something you don’t like. Dogs in costumes.”

Why Does This Keep Happening To Me?

I try to walk carefully, but I just always manage to kick things and stub my toes in the most gruesome possible ways.
I am currently hobbling around with a severely injured pinky toe on my right foot.
But according to this montage it looks like the most mild of my injuries.

Ship the Cheese

The Poop is poker's newest thousandaire.

Here's the explanation: holiday promotion by Ultimate Poker. A nightly $1 buy-in tournament, with $1000 guaranteed for first place. They call it the Thousandaire!
Not only did I win the tournament I did it while fighting with Julian to eat dinner, then putting them to bed, including pajamas and teeth-brushing (no story, though). I even had Chase reading my cards to me and pressing fold while I wiped Julian's ass.
I did get lucky in some spots (bottom set vs top 2 and top-top was the hand that really propelled me) but I never had a blatant suckout, and during heads up (with a $967 pay jump) I played great, pounding on my opponent until I got him down 2 to 1 and finally put him away with 8s vs 7s.

This means a lot to me because I can now play cash games and tournaments without really worrying about what it will do to my bankroll. It also feels great because I have tried really hard at poker for a long time and never had any major success. Now I am surely a lifetime winner at poker and hopefully better things lay ahead.
But more importantly I set a great example for my children (Chase is gonna love it), that if you want to be good at something you work hard, you believe in yourself and you can accomplish great things!

TP For My Bunghole

The night before Halloween is often referred to Mischief Night as teenagers too old for trick-or-treating try to have some fun by wreaking havoc on the neighborhood.
Tonight, after we put the kids to bed Mrs. Poop noticed a police car parked in front of our house and about ten teenagers milling about on our lawn and in the street.
After the police car left and the kids dispersed, I went out to look around. This is what I saw in my bushes:

I would have only been mildly annoyed if I'd had to clean 7 rolls of TP out of my hedges in the morning, but it's a lot better than a carton of eggs, or damage to my personal property (Snoopy dog house).

I actually think I heard one kid try to encourage the others to go through with it after the cop pulled away, but I heard one say "it's not worth it."

Seven rolls of toilet paper ditched in the bushes, I'm not one to waste so I brought them inside and I'm going to use them to wipe my ass.

A Sense of Accomplishment

Ten years ago Chris Moneymaker won the Main Event of the World Series of Poker and started a poker boom. I got swept up in it. I watched every poker show I could find. I read every update of every World Series of Poker event. I follow every well known player on twitter. I had two stints of real money fun while online poker was still legal, the second much more spectacular, and eventually painful than the first. And I had a few mostly losing sessions on the felt in Atlantic City and Las Vegas.
But I always knew I could play this game. I had the math skills, the smarts, the competitiveness and the understanding of game theory. What I didn't have was the emotional makeup to keep my composure at the table (especially online when bad beats are doled out like anonymous insults and no one -- except Mrs. Poop -- is around to hear you scream at the computer) when things went wrong, as they so often do.
Poker is a game of adversity, and the best way to find success is to choose the right playing style and never deviate from it (too much) when you are winning -- or losing, especially losing.
They say you need 10,000 hours doing something before you even have hope of mastering it, and I may have passed that threshold sometime this year.
I went to Foxwoods earlier this year with Mrs. Poop and booked small wins in two cash game sessions. I went to Sands in Bethlehem, PA and booked a triple-digit win a few weeks after that.
And since Mrs. Poop went to Connecticut with the kids and dog for a birthday party and I stayed home to go to Syracuse-Penn State on Saturday, I used my Sunday to head back to the Sands for a few hours of poker.
I won't go through all the hands (though I can, so if you want to hear more of that just e-mail me, I have details of many of them in texts to TallSkott) but I did not get off to a good start. I got sucked out on twice (KQ lost to K8 when an 8 hit the river and A7<10-4 when a ten hit the river to make him a better two pair) and then I got bluffed out of a huge pot (K9 on 3-3-9-K-2 board, he called 15 on the flop, 20 on the turn and I checked to him on the river and he bet 75), all in the first half hour.
I was down to about 65 from my starting stack of 200 and questioning whether I wanted to throw another 100 on top or leave after only an hour.
I don't remember how it happened, except I got aces and kept betting and they kept calling, and I hit a couple other nice hands, but I knew I was playing great. I didn't get exceptionally lucky at any point deep in a hand where I was behind, but I kept folding losers and getting paid on winners.
But before I go any further I want to fill you in on an amazing hand that almost happened. Most poker rooms have something called a bad beat jackpot. It varies but the general concept is, if you have quads and lose, that's good for the jackpot. The money is split 50% to the losing player (the recipient of the bad beat), 25% to the winner, and 25% to split among the other players at the table. I've seen bad beat jackpots of more than $200,000, in this case it was $84,000, and we almost got it. The board was showing Ace-Jack-ten of diamonds, plus some blank, and the river card was another jack. The river action was fast and furious and we were sure someone had pocket jacks and someone else had a flush. For the guy with the flush to be that aggressive on a paired board meant that he at least had the nut flush (king of diamonds and any other diamond), or so we thought but when he turned over 9-8 of diamonds everyone including the dealer gasped. 4 cards to a straight flush, and they other guy had quad jacks.
We didn't get the bad beat jackpot and I didn't even experience another bad beat the rest of the day. Or any beat really. I just kept dumping losing hands and whenever I got something I bet it. As my chip stack started to grow, players starting folding more to my aggression. And as they folded more, I got more aggressive. Eventually with two players leaving (one really good, one really lucky) I became the big stack (double anyone else) and began to assert myself even more.
I was sitting in the 10 seat to the right of the dealer, and right behind the little display that shows all the players' names once their cards have been swiped. I actually liked that spot because of that and because it gave me a little more room without a player on my left.
The only problem was it left my card protector, one of Chase's Lego minfigs (in this case the paintball player who Chase once described as "shooting paint out of his balls"), in the line of fire, dealers pitching the cards were constantly grazing my little talisman, one guy saying "good thing he's wearing a helmet" and a cute Asian female saying "I'm wacking the shit out of that little guy."
My lucky #10 seat also gave me a good vantage point for a near fight. Seats 3 and 4 (Jeffrey and Frank I think) got into it after seat 3 raised to $7 (a raise of $5 since the big blind was $2) and seat 4 tried to call, but grabbed two reds and one white ($11) instead of one red and two whites ($7). We all knew he had made a mistake but the rule says he can't take back his bet because he bet more than half of a min-raise which would have been $5. So he was forced to raise (they made him raise to $14 which was a mistake but got lost in all the excitement) and he was pissed. He yelled at the dealer, saying it was just a mistake and he's dealt to him before and should have known it was a mistake. The dealer told him he knew it was a mistake but it is his job to enforce the rules of the card room which are designed to prevent dealers from having to make such judgment calls. The hand played out uneventfully but while the next hand was being dealt seat 4 continued to bellyache about it. He just wanted to have his say, but seat 3 had heard enough in his ear and told him he'd heard enough and that he was wrong and should stop bitching about it.
Eventually this led a shouting match ("shut up" "what are you going do about it" "shut the fuck up" "you're not gonna do anything you fuckin pussy"), with their faces getting closer and closer. I tried to yell at them, I think I said "hey knock it off guys" (maybe I should have given them the pseudonyms Chase and Julian) but that didn't work and the dealer had to call over the floor. If you've watched enough World Series of Poker you've seen the floor intervene in disputes from time to time and like me you may have noticed that they never try to soothe the situation, they usually just yell louder, threaten and hope to scare the players into behaving. That's exactly what happened here. The floor came over and got right in between the two players who at this time were manager-umpire-bad-call close to each other. He couldn't settle them down so he went to the dealer for an explanation. The dealer didn't include the detail that seat 3 really had done nothing wrong except lacking patience for the ranting lunatic on his left. So the floor went back around the table and screamed at both guys to "squash it" or be ejected from the poker room. At no time did he treat the combatants like valued customers at his establishment. But his aggressive approach worked, as both players calmed immediately and there were no further outbursts. Seat 4 seemed to realize he had overreacted and issued a half-hearted apology which was more like him once again defending his actions.
He didn't say anything else until about half an hour later when I won a big hand with a flopped set of 4s on a scary board (diamond draw) against two players with 2 pair.
He said "this guy doesn't say anything, he just flops sets, and boats (I'd held pocket 5s on an 8-8-5 flop for a sizable pot before the fight) and doesn't say anything, he just sits there and collects."
I just smiled at him and stacked my chips which at this point had ballooned to 6 perfect stacks of 20 red $5 chips.

After about 8 1/2 hours at the table, I decided to leave, one hand too late as I bluffed off about $45 on my last hand with A-5 suited.
Still I booked a profit of $375 and needed two racks to carry all my chips to the cage. And considering all the tips $1 for a winning hand, $2 for a big pot, $3 for the one monster I raked, plus $4 for drinks and $8 for a bowl of soup, including tip (it was freezing in there, never again shorts and t-shirt, never again) I probably won closer to $425.
And the money is nice of course, but the real reward is the pride and the good feelings I got from playing so well, conquering my personal demons of impatience and frustration and battling back from a short stack to become the monster chip leader and table captain. And the realization that something I have devoted many hours to with little or no financial or emotional reward, may finally be starting to pay off.
I may have turned the corner and gone from recreational player with a 50/50 shot of winning depending on the cards, to becoming an excellent player who is no longer gambling, just pushing an edge, because I may actually be pretty good at this.

My Charmed Life Continues

Thanks to an amazing friend with great connections, I managed to have another awesome sports experience in the incredibly charmed life I am lucky enough to lead.
This time I found myself standing behind home plate at CitiField, just taking in the sights, for the hour or so before the August 25 game against the Tigers.

Instead of going through the regular gates, we went in a special gate, and walked under the stadium to the field entrance. And we ran into this lovely couple in the hallway.

We spent a lot of time talking to LaTroy Hawkins before the game.

Someone even snapped this picture and posted it on twitter.

I'm pretty sure that is my nose in the far right of that picture, but Mrs. Poop says it's not big enough to be mine.

LaTroy was a great guy (though not a great pitcher on this day) and had a lot of fun joking around with us. I asked him about getting hit in the nuts.



He said no one in the majors wears a cup. It's too uncomfortable to do the normal windup with a cup between your legs. He did admit though "my dick hurt. My right nut hurt for a week." At some point during this conversation a young girl sidled up near us, waiting for an autograph, I hope she didn't hear most of it.

We asked him about facing his best friend, Torii Hunter (they broke in together with the Twins in 1993), and he said he faced him twice and got him out both times.
The third time was a charm for Hunter whose hit was part of a 7-run 9th inning that game the Tigers an 11-3 win.

But I did get to see Travis D'Arnaud's first major league home run.

I stood a few feet from Jim Leyland.

I saw a weak swing from Ike Davis.

Here was the view from our seats a few rows back of the Tigers dugout. I was close enough to tell Miguel Cabrera that I still prefer Mike Trout.

Here's my view from home plate, unfortunately because it was a Sunday in August after an evening game, neither team took batting practice. The Tigers didn't even come out to warm up, most players didn't emerge from the clubhouse until 15 minutes before first pitch.

I am a little disappointed that when I was standing on the field there wasn't enough activity. An awesome experience would have been legend -- wait for it - dary! had it occurred on a day of normal on-field pregame activities.

How lucky am I that I can even say such a thing!

It's Only Money, Right?

I am going to Atlanta to watch Syracuse in the Final Four!

It was another suffocating performance by Syracuse's 2-3 zone. I know people always talk about how the Big East teams are familiar with the zone and know how to beat it, and it does better in the tournament when teams are unfamiliar with it. There's some element of truth in that, but the bigger issue was on display in this game: it's not what you do, it's how you do it.

Everyone has seen the 2-3 zone on tape. Everyone knows how to attack it, ESPN does that feature during every Syracuse game. The problem is, when you have guys as long and athletic as guys like Michael Carter-Williams and CJ Fair you can be good at the zone no matter what. And if guys don't get out on shooters, and box out on rebounds then you will get killed. It's that simple.

Syracuse got a good match-up against Marquette because they are a bad 3-pont shooting team. They missed and they kept firing. Despite having some success early in the first half by getting the ball to Davonte Gardner, they continued to rely on the outside shot to their own detriment.

Syracuse won't have that luxury against Michigan because Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr and Nik Stauskas all shoot better than 38% from downtown.

But since Syracuse is going to be there, and I don't know when I am going to get this chance again, I decided to go. Billy and I got our tickets on vividseats.com, which has slightly cheaper tickets prices on average, and both sites have ridiculous fees. Because of the set-up of the Georgia Dome for basketball we opted to pay a little extra money to be in the lower level (200s) instead of the upper level (300). With $85 of ridiculous fees tacked on, we paid $390 each. But that actually seems cheap compared to what tickets are selling for right now. As of this writing the cheapest 200 level ticket on Vivid is $537.

Flight was a bit of a hassle, because I had to fly out Saturday and come back Sunday (couldn't take two extra days off work), and I have to change planes in Charlotte both times. I thought the cost $550 round-trip was a bit too high, but about what I was expecting.

So we're looking at two crazy days, $1000 down the tubes and hopefully a chance to see the Orange win their 4th straight national semifinal.

Return to the Scene

After causing a near panic at the casino by suggesting a group of old men and I would burn down the place with a pair of hot dice, I had stayed away from Foxwoods for more than 7 years.
But Mrs. Poop found a weekend with nothing to do so we planned a romantic getaway into the Connecticut tribal lands. We left the kids with Mem and Poppy and landed at Foxwoods at about 2pm Saturday. We checked in but were told our room wouldn't be available for an hour, so we gave the front desk our phone number and gave the bellman our baggage and walked away. We didn't get far before the phone rang, our room was ready. Kind of annoying, but nice to get into our room early. Though I had to pay the bellman a dollar to hold our bags for literally 2 minutes.
Mrs. Poop had a spa treatment (if you want to know about her pedicure you'll have to send a separate e-mail) so I had about three hours to play poker. I saw Paul Pierce putting his name on the list, later on I would see James Woods, the actor. Both apparently frequent the Foxwoods Poker room. At my table, I got an unfortunate seat draw and sat on the direct right of a really good player with a huge chip stack. He kept bullying me and my tight style encouraged this. I did get him for a couple small pots, and eventually got one big pot when I hit trip kings on the turn. I may have overbet the river costing me some value but at one point I had more than doubled my $200 buy-in. I lost most of that in a hand with the bully, I played it right until the river when he raised me, I should have folded, but I paid him an extra $55.
I still booked a $40 win, not bad.



Then I went back to the room to get ready for dinner at Cedars steakhouse. We had to wait 20 minutes after our reservation time before we got seated. But when we finally did we were taken to a lovely table in a backroom right next to a knob that controlled the volume of the background music. I was very tempted to blast it up to ten and see what happens, but as I found out, loudness is not tolerated well at this restaurant.



I had a delightful bowl of lobster bisque and a great surf n turf. Mrs. Poop enjoyed the french onion soup and the baked stuff shrimp.



As we were finishing our meal a group of 6 or 7 women, ages spanning the 30s and 40s, came into this little area which contained two large tables and two tables for 2. The women were being very loud, bickering with each other, and arguing with the wait staff, complaining the waitress read the specials too quietly and too quickly. And some of them were clearly intoxicated. So drunk, in fact, that one of them stumbled into the manager on her way into the restaurant. At that point the manager decreed that at least two of the women should not be served alcohol. When they were told this they freaked out. If they were loud before, now they were screaming demanding to see the manager. He told them it was his decision and it would not change, they stormed out but not before saying "we were going to spend 500 dawllors!" On the way out one of the older, more mature members of the party asked us "how bad were they?" We said "pretty loud" and she apologized and left. But she had to come back not once, but twice more because the drunkest, loudest, most obnoxious woman had lost her eyeglasses, which were eventually found under the table. Embarrassing to storm out of a restaurant then have to come back to retrieve your lost property.
The wait staff and the manager apologized profusely to us (didn't discount our bill, it really wasn't that bad) and we told them they did the right thing and then we got the hell out of there because we were meeting friends anyway.
Mrs. Poop went off to play slots with her friend, and I went to play poker with her husband. We actually got seats at the same table with only one very chatty guy in between us. The first hand I guess I was rushed and opened my hand sloppily and he saw my hole cards. He told me that he saw them and made a big deal out of how nice a guy he is but if he sees him again he's not going to tell me. I only get one warning. I was more careful after that but he still insisted he could see my cards. Now, I don't doubt that I am not super careful about peeking at my hand but for him to have seen it he had to be looking for it. Anyway, he didn't beat me a pot the whole time so it didn't much matter. I won a huge pot with the nuts, but I misread the board and called the river, instead of raising, technically against the rules. I also made a straight flush, my first ever in live poker, but couldn't get any action. I got chastised for not checking it, but thought my opponent was more likely to call a bet than to make one himself. For the session I booked another small profit.
At one point a very hot girl in a very short dress was over by the cashout window. Chatty Guy kept talking about her, even making our female dealer very uncomfortable, though she tried to fit in by saying "I like looking at pretty things." This prompted Chatty Guy to compare this hot chick to a car "I like going to the showroom but I always go back to my car. She's got a few dents and scratches but I love her. Plus cars like that require a lot of maintenance."
Later as I was explaining Chatty Guy and the hot chick to Mrs. Poop and her friend, that hot chick walked right by us. And Mrs. Poop agreed she was hot, dressed slutty and probably a lot of work and money to maintain.
We walked around played slots and I even got in on a craps table. I had a decent roll going until the pit boss coolered me. He told me to make sure the dice hit the back wall. I did, it bounced oddly and I sevened out. Not before booking a small win. See a pattern?
The next morning I woke up early played in a poker tournament, $60 buyin, about 50 players total, I had good cards early, nothing late, blinds rose very quickly so I had to push all in with top pair (queens) and a weak kicker and got called by a Queen with a better kicker and that was that.
But it was still early so I decided to hit a $5 craps table. Bad idea, lost a little over $100. Which for the weekend put us down a little less than $100 which isn't bad considering how much fun we had. No crazy gambling stories, no threats to burn down the casino. Just a nice quiet weekend with my wife.

The Only Thing Worse Than Being Behind a Bus Or a Student Driver

A bus with a student driver sign on the back! I have never seen anything move this slowly. I could have pushed this bus faster.
Two clarifying points:
1) It was not unsafe to take this picture while driving because behind this bus was analogous to being stopped at a red light.
2) There was actually another car in between the bus and me. But that car was turning right where I normally do. So in order to get this shot, I followed the bus another block down the road.

Extreme Makeover: Paulo Edition

Due to a bout of indifference stemming from my job-borne frustration, I grew my normal winter beard, but instead of keeping it neat and trim as I normally do, I let it grow wild and unruly until I looked Hasidic. But because I am starting a new job, and you never get a second chance to make a first impression (I'm going to do my George W. Bush), I had to cut my hair, shave my beard and trim the goatee portion of my facial hair. This massive transformation took place over the course of about 15 minutes in my kitchen and bathroom.

New Year, New Job

A few months ago my friend and supervisor left my place of employment to take a better job at a competitor. Someone else was elevated to his role, it was widely assumed, especially by me, that I would be elevated to that vacancy. For reasons too complicated and aggravating to explain here, that did not happen.
I was shocked, saddened, angry, confused and hopeless. But as always, the Universe takes care of me. The reason I didn't get that job is so the Universe could reward me with a better one instead. The aforementioned friend and supervisor has recruited me to join him at his new place of employment.
I will be making more money, getting a key promotion I have been seeking for 5 years, and working much closer to home. Because I no longer have to commute, in addition to the increase salary I will be saving thousands on parking, gas and tolls.
And the biggest perk of all, I get free dinner every night. Which leads me to the worst part of this new job. By the way, isn't that always the case, the best part is the result of the worst part.
My new hours will be 11a to 8p. I won't have to wake up early, or even set an alarm, I won't get dressed in the dark, which may seem better to some. But to me I will miss my afternoons off. I will be devastated when summer rolls around and I don't get to come home at 3p and take the boys to the park. And I won't eat dinner with my family every night.
But that is a small sacrifice to make in the face of all I am going to gain from this new job. And Mrs. Poop who is making the biggest sacrifice of all, facing these monsters alone everyday, is also reaping the rewards, beginning with a brand new iPhone5.
And that is how life goes, you always have to let go of what you have to open your hand to get something better. It is fitting I start this job on the beginning of a new years, because it represents new challenges, new rewards and stuff we're going to buy with all that new money.

Note: please use discretion when commenting about my past or current employers.

Note: my e-mail account and blackberry had to be surrendered when I left. So you can't e-mail me at that address or text or call me on that phone number. Stand by for new information and if you need to reach me most of you know my personal address or can contact me through social media.