Old Fun Blogs

Been reading wintermute's old blog this evening.  Fun stuff. I wonder whatever happened to this guy.

Funny, the link only shows his last ten posts.  I guess you'll have to google his ass in order to land on a middle-order post so that you can navigate his insanity.

As far as I can tell, he stopped posting in 2007 or so.  But he was predicting the internet ban as early as 2006--which is basically what happened to Party Poker, as I recall.

His funniest post involved him and a friend sitting at a $50 max buyin NL table.  By the way, do these waste-of-space tables exist?  You can play, but only if you shortstack?  All decisions made on the flop?  What's the point?

Anyhoo, he and his friend had an agreement: If either was dealt a four, he had to turn it face up and go all in.  So they did that for a while until the shift change brought a new dealer to the table, who promptly told them that they couldn't expose any of their cards in a multi-way pot.

Their solution?  To announce, "Kaaaaahh!" when they had a four.  And then to go all in.

The rest of the table seemed to be full of oldsters nursing $50 stacks, who reacted in utter confusion and fear to wintermute's and his friend's antics.

In the last hand, wintermute is either in late position or in the blinds.  His friend is in early position.  Both have $300-plus.

His friend looks at his cards, announces "Kaaaahhhh!" and goes all in.

Everyone instafolds, until it gets to wintermute.

He looks at his hand, says "Kaaaahhhh!" and goes all in.

Friend turns over 4-2.  Wintermute turns over 4-7.

The flop comes A 3 5, giving the friend a flopped wheel.  And he starts going bonkers and talking shit to wintermute about how he owns his soul.

Turn is a blank.  River is a six.  Giving wintermute the higher straight.

The best part is that his friend doesn't even seem to notice that he just lost.  Fucktard is too busy celebrating.

Posts like that make me sorry that I deleted Government Cheese, my first poker blog.  I want to go back and see how warped I was.  Poker blogging used to be so fun.  Hard to continue with that when I can't play poker.

Rickey Loves Rickey Some Rickey

This is not a post about baseball, although baseball provides the backdrop.  Rickey Henderson is one of the greatest characters ever to wear a uniform.  While he played for many teams in his career, he started with my Nana's favorite, the Oakland A's.  And since I was born and grew up in a town only half an hour north of Oakland, the A's became my team too.

Rickey has more goofy stories and quotes surrounding him than any other player except for Yogi Berra.  He was a career lead-off hitter and destroyed the record for stolen bases.  A shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.

But Rickey was also an illeist, a person who often refers to himself in the third person.  This led to some unusual situations.

For example, in the off-season, Rickey was already amped to be on the field.  So he called Kevin Towers, the general manager of his current club, the San Diego Padres, and left the following message:

"Kevin, this is Rickey.  Calling on behalf of Rickey.  Rickey wants to play baseball."

Now maybe you'd think that Rickey made this call as a joke.  Not likely!  Numerous reports over his career had Rickey standing naked in front of a full-length mirror in the locker room before a game repeating the same phrase over and over, "Rickey's the best.  Rickey's the best."

He did this with a straight face and other ballplayers around.  I doubt I could pull it off alone without laughing.

Another oft-repeated story involves Rickey talking to himself after a strikeout.  As he headed back to the dugout, Rickey was heard mumbling to himself, "Don't worry Rickey.  You're still the best."

He was once so proud of a $1 million signing bonus that he framed the check . . . without cashing it.  He eventually cashed it only after the finance department of his ballclub called him and asked him to take it to the bank.

In mid-August, once upon a time, Rickey fell asleep on an ice pack and developed frostbite.  He had to miss three games.

Here's another one.  During the last week of his only year playing for the Boston Red Sox, the Chairman of the club asked Rickey what he would like as a going-away present.

Rickey informed the Chairman that he wasn't going anywhere.

The Chairman repeated the question again, so Rickey said that he wanted the Mercedes of the Red Sox owner, John Henry.

After some thought, the Chairman remarked that it would be difficult for the Red Sox to find the exact same make and model of the owner's Mercedes.  After all, Rickey would be with the team for one more week.

Rickey responded, "No, I want his car."

The Red Sox decided to buy Henderson a red Thunderbird.  Someone from the team drove the car out onto the field before the last game of the season.

Rickey said, "Whose ugly car is on the field?"

* * *

A base-stealer endures a lot of pain.  The activity engenders "fear of the bag."  Sliding into it causes a wide variety of injuries, especially over a 162-game season.

Sports writer Peter Gammons covered Rickey's team in the late 80s-early 90s.  As Gammon's writes:

I sat in the Athletics' clubhouse during batting practice several times with Henderson during his prime in Oakland from 1989 to 1991. His knees always were taped. So were his fingers. He had elbow pads and ice on his shoulder. "Man," he'd say, "Rickey is in pain."

* * *

He also trashtalked endlessly, sometimes unaware that he was trashtalking.

As Jayson Starks writes:

It was the off day before the start of the '93 World Series. I thought a great angle would be a comparison of the two leadoff hitters. Lenny Dykstra had had a fabulous season and had scored 143 runs, the most by any leadoff man since, who else, Henderson.

So I approached Henderson on the field and started to explain the story. He said, "Who's Lenny Dykstra?"

I laughed. Then I said, "He's the other leadoff hitter."

Henderson said, "There ain't no other leadoff hitter but me."

I tried to keep going with my angle. He didn't see it.

"What's Lenny Dykstra ever done?" he asked.

I started to give the stats. Henderson cut me off.

"Man, why you trying to compare some other guy with Rickey? There's only one Rickey."

And that was that. There was, in fact, only one Rickey. And that will never change. Ever.
-- Jayson Stark

* * *

Rickey was such a successful basestealer that he led the league for almost a dozen years, with the exception of one year, when was sidelined for part of the season by a hamstring injury.  Harold Reynolds led the league that year with 60 steals.

After the season was over, Reynolds got a phone call.

As Reynolds described it,

"The phone rings. 'Henderson here.' I say, 'Hey, what's going on, Rickey?' I think he's calling to congratulate me, but he goes, 'Sixty stolen bases? You ought to be ashamed. Rickey would have 60 at the break.' And then click, he hung up."

[The break would be the All-Star break, about halfway through the regular season.]

* * *

So that's Rickey.  There are more stories, more quotes, of course.  There always are.

A reporter once asked Rickey why he talked so much to himself.

His answer was classic.

“Do I talk to myself? No, I just remind myself of what I’m trying to do. You know, I never answer myself so how can I be talking to myself?”

A Post When I Want to Post about Nothing

I can think of absolutely no topic to add to this blog at the moment.  In Game of Thrones, there is a gigantic mental misfit named Hodor, who protects a child lord.  All Hodor does is run around and respond to commands with the only word he seems to know, "Hodor!"  Today I will be Hodor.

Hodor.  Hodor.  Hodor.  Hodor.  Hodor!

Hodor!

Hodor.

Hodor Hodor, Hodor Hodor Hodor Hodor Hodor Hodor.

Hodor?

Hodor!

Search Terms in Google Images 3

"feral monkeys eating spam"

"the smartest stupid man in the world"

"acrobatic ninjas eating quiche"

"roadside love doctor"

"encyclopedia strawberry ipad"

"gorilla sunshine supersonic spiderlegs"

"crazy grandpa locked in the basement"

"robotic pizza planet"

Food Review--World Cuisine

In this blog I've reviewed music, TV, and movies, and so the natural progression seemed to be what I do when I watch my shows and listen to my songs.  In short, I will review food in this post.  And not just any food.  I'm starting with world cuisine.

Because this is my first food review, I wanted to start with a restaurant that we can find all over the world.  A place respected by the upper classes and the lower, Protestant and Muslim, African and Eskimo, midgets and giants alike.

So I did my research, and I'll be honest.  The results surprised me.  The top contender was a place that serves mostly hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, and french fries.

Upon entering the establishment, I was instantly impressed.  I also regretted not bringing my sunglasses.  The electric shine of the offerings, backlit by searchlights, overwhelmed the senses.  And yet the sense of class was undeniable--from the smile and greeting of the waiter behind the register ("Help you, sir?"), to the bustle of activity in the open kitchen, to the sizzle and pop of frying food, to the heartbreaking architecture.  Somewhere in that restaurant--perhaps where the shine of pink floor tile meets the yellow-and-white checkerboard plastic wall--I became an advocate for this hauntingly wonderful place.

And I hadn't even ordered yet.  I opted for the magic of Number One, regular size, with sugar water and no ice.  Then I headed immediately home.  The plastic chairs, despite their inherent artistic value, would not appeal to my spine.

Here's what they gave me:

The sandwich, french fries, and the cup of sugar water (called Coca Cola) complemented each other like a dark comedy containing midgets filmed by the Coen brothers.

I took my first bite:

I kept a notebook next to my table in order to record my thoughts as I ate.  This is what I found in that notebook:  Incredible!  Fantastic!  Holy fucking shit.

I took a second bite:

BEST.  FOOD.  I.  HAVE.  EVER.  TASTED.

If you've never tried this place, I recommend that you run to the nearest street, hijack the nearest bicyclist, and start pedaling toward the nearest yellow M on the horizon.  You're welcome in advance.

A Month of Blogging

I started blogging again with the single goal--which I doubt I was aware of at the time--of starting to write again. Blogging is writing, of course, but I hope that my blogging will springboard me to write other things.  Fiction, perhaps.  I'm hoping that it will end up being fiction.  So far, I haven't written a nonblog word.  But I'm just beginning.

In any case, and as a sort of review, I like occasionally to look back to see what I've done so far.  And here's what I see:

45 blog posts.  Not bad for a month (give or take a day).  I think I haven't blogged on a total of three days.  In all of the other days, I've managed to come up with something to include on this page.

The topics of the posts have varied somewhat, but the overall content revolves around music and music reviews, which led to Band Wars, a collection of posts reviewing new albums deathmatch style.  Of 16 bands that have released an album in the last 12 months, M83's Hurry Up, You're Dreaming emerged as the winner.  Fitting choice, I think.  I believe I'll be listening to that album on and off for years.

Aside from music, the other posts involved Plants versus Zombies, which I still play almost daily; TV reviews, in which I argued that the surprise death of Omar at the hands of a child was a fitting end for one of the best characters in television history; a few posts begging for online poker to return to the U.S.; a collection of random thoughts that I applied the misnomer "Philosophy"; a memory of a President shaking my 5-year-old hand; a reference to some other blogs that I like; a whiny post mocking facebook; and a picture of a fat man emerging from a porn shop.

I've added two followers, which is always good.

My audience, if I exclude the United Arab Emirates (which is probably just me reading my own blog), includes these top five countries:

United Kingdom
United States
Russia
Canada
Germany

My total pageviews, once again excluding the UAE, comes out to be 399.  About 12-13 per day.  While I'm pretty happy with those numbers, I only decided to start blogging again when I was able to answer yes to this question: Will I keep blogging if no one reads?

But readers > no readers.  They certainly motivate.

Thanks for all comments.

As for what sort of writing that I might move on to, I think I'd enjoy writing some kind of genre novel(s).  Fantasy, horror, scifi.  Who knows, really.  I can get pretty enthusiastic about some of my ideas, but the enthusiasm tends to have the half-life of a banana.  Pretty soon my "great idea" ends up forgotten.  Something to work on.

Just a photograph, not my own