Double Trouble

Ultimate Poker in another player-friendly promotion, has rolled out something they call "NO-verlay." If any tournament with a guaranteed prize pool, actually meets its guarantee, everyone gets their buy-in refunded.
At first the promotion didn't catch on, only a few tournaments were going freeroll. But as the promotion entered its third week, word spread, players got wise and now every tournament is filling up. The $100 buy-in Sunday tournament was free, the $50 nightly has been free about 8 - 10 days in a row, and the $10 and $20 buy-ins that start later and are accessible to me, have also been free just about every night over the past two weeks.
As you would imagine I have been trying to play as many of these tournaments as possible to maximize my value. At first I wasn't doing very well in these free tournaments, but I've recently hit a string of luck, cashing 3 times in 4 days in the $20 buy-in ($244, $125 and $29) but last night was my biggest score yet.

I started at 9pm with the $10 buy-in $750 GTD Rebuy and Addon. I did not rebuy or add on (because those are not refunded). I got down to a short stack early and decided to shove with A7. I got called by AK and hit two 7s on the flop. A few hands later I shoved A8 suited (still short stacked) and again beat AK, this time with an 8 on the river.
The rest of the way I played good solid poker, took a couple bad beats, got lucky in a couple spots, and ended up winning a very brief heads up match.

In the meantime I was also playing the $500 GTD turbo, $10 buy-in. Blinds go up twice as fast and it pretty much becomes all-in or fold after the first few levels, if you are short stacked. Which I was when I picked up A10. As I tried to click all-in, I got disconnected. I had to reset my router and by the time I did, my A10 had been mucked. That might have been the luckiest thing that happened all night because after that I went on a heater and ended up shipping this one too.

A nice $600 to add to the pile, and I'm hoping to add a few more before this great money giveaway ends.

Mrs. Poop's Short-Term Memory Loss

Mrs. Poop and I were watching a show, ok, it was "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and Kris Jenner was stomping grapes. I made reference to this famous internet video and she laughed hysterically and claimed she never saw it before.



I know I laughed about it and everyone else I know sent it around, but it was in the infancy of the internet before Facebook and twitter so maybe she really never saw it.

But when she said she never saw this clip from Louis CK's sitcom, I knew it wasn't that she hadn't seen them, it was that she had completely forgotten.



Is it really possible she never saw these?

Falling Far Short of the Original, Twice

Reebok is out with a new series of ads based on the famous barbershop scenes from Coming to America. They feature Shaquille O'Neal and Shawn Kemp. This one also stars Allen Iverson.



It's not a very funny homage to Coming to America, nor to the "practice" rant.
But it's out there and I know you rely on me to bring you these things.

Song of the Week

"If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want to be Right)" - Luther Ingram
One of the best soul songs of all time. Nothing special here musically, just a guy singing his heart out. Feel his pain.

He's Come A Long Way Baby

Exactly 5 years ago today (I started this post before realizing the date was exact), I posted a classic The Roots song, "What They Do" (SOTW, 3/4/09) and the comments section became a forum to air grievances about their new (at the time) late night talk show, "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon."

I said "The Roots are the house band for the worst late night talk show in the history of the world."
TON said "I just watched Monday's Late Night, and must admit...it was pretty bad. Jimmy Fallon seemed almost too nervous to do it...Did you see the 'lick it for 10' bit? Worst segment I've ever seen on any show."
TallSkott said "Am I the only one who doesn't think Fallon is funny?"

I think we were all correct at the time, segments like "Dance Your Hat and Gloves Off," "Wheel of Carpet Samples" and the aforementioned "Lick It for 10" were goofy ideas that just didn't work.

To their credit, the producers, writers and Fallon himself reimagined the show and started leaning on his strengths and The Roots. The show has had incredible hits with musical-themed segments that are entertaining, funny and go viral very quickly, like the 5 installments of History of Rap with Justin Timberlake.

My favorite recurring gimmick is when they sit down with an artist and play his/her popular song with kids' instruments.
The best was "Call Me Maybe" with Carley Rae Jepsen. But there was also "Blurred Lines" with Robin Thicke (in which Black Thought spits a verse way doper than the cheesy one TI laid down on the actual recording). And there was also a hip-hop Sesame Street theme with the characters in studio, and Black Thought killing it once again.

The latest of these is a rendition of "Let It Go" with Idina Menzel from "Frozen."



Another recent segment I like that typifies Fallon's strength as a mimic is the hashtags segment in which they asked for viewer submissions of frequently misheard song lyrics, which Fallon then sang.



I was particularly amused by his Mick Jagger impression, "In Yugoslavia, in Yugoslavia you'll never starve."

If they continue to churn out gems like this Fallon could very well go down as a legendary late night host.

And that's something none of us saw coming 5 years ago.

There's a Nicer Way To Say It Than That

At the end of the best bit in the history of late night television, Louis CK's "Everything is Amazing and Nobody's Happy" CK marveled about the speed of a cross-country flight by saying "you watch a movie and take a dump and you're home."
Conan O'Brien, playing the straight man, responded with "there's a nicer way to say it than that."

That line popped into my head when I heard announcer Darryl "Razor" Reaugh describe a goal by Jamie Benn on the Dallas Stars.



"Like poop through a diarrhea-infected goose."

Well, that really gets the point across.

Just Doing Her Job

A cleaning lady at an Italian art gallery threw away two pieces of modern art, valued at roughly $15,000 because they looked like garbage.

I don't blame her at all. That's not art. It's garbage.

It was designed to make people reconsider their views about the environment. Instead it has made people rethink their views about art.

Idea for the 2034 Winter Olympics

Prior to Sunday night's closing ceremonies, NBC ran a 90-minute documentary, "Tonya and Nancy", revisiting the attack on Nancy Kerrigan, 20 years after it happened.
Prior to the 2012 London Olympics Closing Ceremony, NBC aired a documentary on the Dream Team.
If NBC keeps this trend of 90-minute examinations of the most fascinating event at the Games 20 years earlier, surely in 2034 we will be treated to "Bob Costas's Eye Infection: What the Fuck Was That?"

Mrs. Poop is the one agitating for this, she has become obsessed with finding out the real cause. She doesn't think a run of the mill eye infection can last for two weeks with proper medical treatment.
When this documentary airs Mrs. Poop demands that Costas release his medical records.
I hope it includes a retrospective of this great quip delivered by Matt Lauer.



And I want Al Roker to explain why he walked in front of the camera, a television no-no.
They may have to make this thing 3 hours.

Song of the Week

"Karma" - Lloyd Banks featuring Avant
"My heart is colder than sandwich meat."

"Your sex appeal is remarkable, you make a G wanna walk around in the park with you."

The chick in this video is the incredibly hot KD Aubert.

Lloyd Banks's real name is Christopher Lloyd. Great scott! He probably would have had a better career had he used the pseudonym, Doc Brown.



Note: if you like samples as much as I do please listen to Natalie Cole's "Inseparable" and you will see what a great job the producer, Greg "Ginx" Doby, did in taking something old but cool, and turning it into something even cooler and appropriate for this genre.

Couldn't Happen To A Nicer Guy

Normally when people say "couldn't happen to a nicer guy" they mean it sarcastically. I don't. The following horrific story could not have happened to a nicer guy because none exist.

My former colleague Miles O'Brien suffered a freak injury when a case of TV equipment fell on his left forearm.

Here's what happened next, according to the post about the incident that Miles wrote on his blog:

"The doctor recommended an emergency fasciotomy to relieve the pressure. This is a gruesome enough procedure on its own, but the he was clear that the problem was progressing rapidly and there was a clear and present threat to my limb.
It was getting real. Of course I wasn’t awake for the action but I was told later that things tanked even further once I was on the table. And when I lost blood pressure during the surgery due to the complications of compartment syndrome, the doctor made a real-time call and amputated my arm just above the elbow. He later told me it all boiled down to a choice…between a life and a limb."

Let Them Play

Great news for those of you who watched Saturday's Syracuse-Duke rematch hoping to see Tony Greene officiate.

Bad news for the rest of us who were hoping the players would be the ones to determine which team would win the game.

Maybe Damino is just a more gracious loser, but he and I both agreed after the last game that it's better for the refs not to call questionable fouls.

But I am sure he won't be complaining about being the beneficiary of the very controversial call that decided this game.

I have watched this play many times and I can come to only one conclusion: no call should have been made. While I agree that Hood had his feet set, but his body was still moving into Fair's path after Fair began the act of shooting.



So that's the technical explanation, the more correct one is this: as Mama Poop used to say, if you all (us kids) think someone else is my favorite, then I must be fair.

If no foul is called on that play, both coaches probably go nuts, meaning no call would be the fairest adjudication.

But the foul was called and Boeheim went nuts.



Obviously, the best thing for the team would be for Boeheim to have reacted in a less demonstrative way, preserving at least a small opportunity to win the game. But, I also think, after an atrocious call like that, the ref should have given Boeheim infinite leeway to express his displeasure, since the ball was out of play at that moment anyway.

But if nothing else, the incident provided some great fodder for our tag "pictures of Jim Boeheim making stupid faces."

Here's Coach Boeheim's postgame press conference:



I also want to make it very clear that I don't think the officials cost Syracuse the game. But I do think they cost Syracuse a chance to win the game. Even if it's tied 60-60 with 10 seconds left and Duke has the ball, Syracuse probably loses there 65 - 70% of the time. But I want to see the players have a chance to decide the game, not the officials.

Final Olympic Thoughts

NBC did a better job of making more events available live, not just on the internet but on the NBC Sports Network as well. There are some people who just want to watch one 3-hour show per night and see everything important. There are other people who are junkies and want to see everything live, now. It's a fine line, but there is a way to appease all those people.

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I only streamed one event live (Shaun White in the halfpipe) but I recorded almost everything I could find on the other networks and really enjoyed seeing events like the bobsled broadcast live and unedited.

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Thankfully there were no security problems. And though the stray dog extermination really distresses me, it's hard to know how widespread it really was. Same with the hotel problems, which were either isolated or temporary or the product of the whiny media's imagination. Maybe all 3. But before everyone pronounces the Sochi games a huge overwhelming success I should remind you that it was way too warm. All I heard all week during cross-country and alpine skiing as well as the sliding sports, was that warm weather was deteriorating the tracks and preventing athletes from performing at their best. I hope the IOC learns from this and picks colder cities.

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I hate people who claim something they don't like or understand (say skeleton) doesn't deserve to be an Olympic sport. But, the announcers at almost every sport spent so much time talking about all the ways the equipment (ski wax, luges, speed skating suits) make such a difference in time, that you get the impression that the athletes aren't competing, the equipment makers are.

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Yuna Kim is still the Queen. Take those same performances and have them occur anywhere else in the world (neutral ice), and she wins gold. I hope she sticks around 4 more years to win gold in her home country.

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Skier Tina Maze (mah-zay) is my choice for hottest successful Olympian. She has two gold medals and a nice rack to hang them between.

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I liked Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski but think he went a little too far with this outfits. I know this is who he wants to be and tries to be, but he was literally cross-dressing. I don't even mind that as much as the fact that he was doing it for attention, when he is there to comments on the events, not overshadow them with his pink blazer.

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I really enjoyed the Meryl and Charlie Show, even though they went to Michigan. But I get the impression she pines for him and has since they were 9 (when she was too shy to talk to him), but he's dating someone much hotter.

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NBC totally crossed the line with the death interviews. Skeletoner Katie Uhlaender was already in tears because she missed a bronze medal by four-hundreths of a second, and then Lewis Johnson asked her about her dead father whose baseball card she keeps with her. And when she apologized for not winning, instead of being sympathetic like any normal human being would have, Johnson coldly asked about her father.

And I know you have all seen the Bode Miller interview when he was pestered into tears about his dead brother.



But to me the worst was Noelle Pikus-Pace. She finished 4th in skeleton in Vancouver, retired from the sport and got pregnant. But when she lost the baby at 18 weeks she decided to get back into skeleton, which eventually led to her winning a silver medal. The interviewers basically implied that if she'd had the baby she wouldn't have the silver medal. Almost implying it was a good thing. And of course, Pikus-Pace cried, as did everyone else watching, except the NBC producers who were too busy cheering and high giving each other.

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The United States stinks at curling. 3-15 combined record for the men's and women's teams. I think next cycle the Curling Association needs to pick the players individually instead of sending the pre-formed team that does best at the trials. It also might help if our guys were in a little better shape. Look at the Canadian men who won the gold. They are ripped.

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Which reminds me of what the announcer said during the bobsled competition: "In the U.S. the biggest, strongest, fastest athletes are in the NFL. The biggest strongest athletes in Latvia are in this sled.

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Lindsey Jacobellis lost again, I feel horrible for her.

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Lolo Jones lost again. I don't feel badly at all.

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Peter Northug had a bad Olympics, a 17th, a failure to qualify for the sprint, two 4ths in the team events and then an 18th in the 50k race on the Olympics final day. He was also yanked (jerked?) from a race from coaches who doubted his fitness and focus. We know Northug plays poker, reportedly he was playing frequently during the Olympics, another contributing factor to the coaches' decision.

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All in all, it was a great, fun, successful games, and I am very sad they're over.

Song of the Week

"Say Something" - A Great Big World featuring Christina Aguilera
I thought this song was whiny and annoying and lacking a conjunction "say something OR I'm giving up on you", and I still do.
The reason why I'm making it Song of the Week is because when I went to find out more info about it, I read that Ian Axel is from Fair Lawn and went to Fair Lawn High School.
Evidently he released the song in 2011 as a solo artist. Then he joined with a buddy to form the duo, A Great Big World and re-released it. Then Christina Aguilera heard it, and her people called his people, and before you know it they were in L.A. re-recording it again.
Proud to see a hometown boy make good. I just hope he doesn't forget that his music talents were forged in the bagel shops and pizza places and on the tree-lined streets of Fair Lawn.
"If you forget where you came from, you ain't never gonna get where you're going."

What Do You Give Me For? Meryl Davis and Princess Jasmine

What do you give me for ice dancing gold medalist Meryl Davis and Princess Jasmine from Aladdin?

Hot Russian Curler

Meet Anna Sidurova, skip of the Russian curling team and one of the hottest Olympians I've seen so far. She turned 23 right before the games started. Even though she fouled a rock (not letting it go) and allowing a steal of 3 she still beat the inept U.S. team. Sidurova was willing to pose in sexy underpants to promote her sport, but one thing she evidently won't do is smile.

Forget Tae Kwon Do and Gymnastics, Let's Get These Boys Singing Lessons

Here is the cover of the 2014 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
From left to right you have Nina Agdal, Lily Aldridge and Chrissy Teigen.
Nina has dated Max George from the Wanted and Adam Levine. Lily is married to Calen Followill from Kings of Leon. And Chrissy is married to John Legend nee John Stevens. Good thing she didn't know him when he was a nerdy Ivy Leaguer in an a capella group called "The #2 PENNcils." Just kidding, they were the Penn Counterparts.
Either way, it's pretty dorky. So if these three can end up with those three, singing must be a pretty good way to pick up chicks.

Mrs. Poop vs. TON Showdown

By now you may have heard that Mrs. Poop is the most entertaining person to watch the Olympics with. Her non-stop chatter, while annoying during shows that have a plotline, is welcome and amusing during the Olympics when hearing what is said is less important.

In last evening's rant Mrs. Poop declared Henrik Harlaut, freestyle skier from Sweden to be her most hated athlete in the games.

Three reasons:

1) Despite a diminutive frame he wears a quad-X uniform (XXXXL) and it falls off his ass during his run

2) His hair is styled in dreadlocks

3) He keeps a raw egg in his pocket while competing. It reportedly broke when he crashed violently during his opening run.

Mrs. Poop makes a pretty good case.

So why does TON love him more than any Olympic athlete since Peter Northug.



"Wu-Tang is for the children."

Something Special

In case you didn't hear me screaming, Syracuse remained unbeaten, a perfect 24-0 with a halfcourt shot at the buzzer to beat Pittsburgh 58-56.

I love Tyler Ennis. He is the perfect point guard in that he spends most of the game setting up his teammates and making the smart play, but when the game is on the line he wants the ball in his hands.
Obviously that last shot is a lot of luck, but it also requires skill, you need to get as far as you can but get the shot off in time. And it wasn't a chuck, he was square to the basket with good shooting form. He could have that shot 10 more times and not make it once, but he nailed it this time when it counted.
But that wasn't his only big play. You may recall Syracuse taking a 1-point lead 10 seconds earlier when Ennis drove right into the defense, drew a foul and sunk both free throws. And he made the smart decision to take the easy basket instead of trying to take the last shot.

But this wouldn't have happened without CJ Fair. He scored the 8 Syracuse points prior to Ennis's final 5. One came on a beautiful baseline cut (and pass from Ennis) for a corner 3-pointer and then a jumper to cut the Pitt lead to 54-53. If someone not named CJ Fair wins ACC Player of the Year it would be a travesty.

This victory also wouldn't have happened without what I call the Jim Boeheim Memorial No Points Offense, it kills you every time. Dixon had his team take the air out of the ball, kill 30 seconds of the shot clock every time and chuck up something bad as time expired. As a result, Pitt made only 1 field goal in the final 6 minutes, and it came on a tip-in from one of the aforementioned bad shots at the buzzer.

I hate playing Pitt. They play such a physical style, that it sucks you in, and it confuses the referees. The refs simply can't call fouls on everything Pitt does or they'd have no players left. Unappealing as it may be they force you to play their style and they're better at it than you are. The refs' swallowed whistles were the same for both teams (I saw Syracuse commit fouls that went uncalled) but it's a lot harder for them to be consistent. For instance, the reach-in foul called on Christmas that sent Zanna to the line with 4 seconds left, was a foul. But in this game there were probably at least 8 similar infractions that were overlooked by the refs.

But it was great to win and see the team celebrate on Pitt's home floor. This win snapped an amazing streak of 9 wins vs. top 5 opponents.

A game like this makes you wonder if this team is really just very lucky, luck that will run out eventually? Or are they creating their own luck through skill and poise under pressure? Only time will tell.

Song of the Week

"True Love" - Pink
After all the wonderful sweet love songs I've dedicated to Mrs. Poop in this space, I decided to give her a chance to send out a special Valentine's Day dedication to me.
Here are some of the lyrics that make this song speak to her:

"Sometimes I hate every single stupid word you say
Sometimes I wanna slap you in your whole face"

"Just once please try not to be so mean"

"Why do you say the things that you say?
Sometimes I wonder how we ever came to be"

But especially
"You're an asshole but I love you"

I'm Not Sure This Analogy Really Works

Duluth Trading company has a new series of ads for their "Fire Hose" pants.



Trimming an unruly bush. Ok, clear double meaning there, but how does it relate to men's work pants?



Now, a giant angry beaver?

What do vagina references have to do with men's work pants?

If you're wearing work pants while having sex, you're doing it wrong.

Get a pair!