Mean Gene

Here We Go Stillers, Here We Go

I'm as loyal a Steeler fan as you'll find in the 'Burgh, but I would rather they go 0-16 than listen to the absolutely HORRIBLE Steeler fight song they used to play all the time on WDVE when they were in the playoffs. So far I've been lucky enough to miss it entirely, and I'll try to keep the streak alive heading into the game today. I don't mean the "Steeler Polka" song from the 70s, which is a great fight song. Pittsburghers reading this will know what horrible song I'm talking about, and non-Pittsburghers shouldn't subject themselves to it. Know what I oughta do? I oughta write a new Steeler fight song. Have to give it some thought.

The Steelers go 15-1 and yet it's the Patriots-Colts game that's being called the early Super Bowl. Which is fine with me. Let the other teams (and fans) have all the extra pressure. Not that I'm not nervous about the Jets, but we beat 'em once before, and I'm confident we'll beat 'em again. Note the royal "we" that I and all sports fans use. As if I'm going to line up next to James Farrior.

We're watching the game over my friend Mark's house, and as he has a laptop with WiFi I may be live-blogging the game. But probably only if the Steelers start putting the wood to the Jets, as I'll be too intent on the game (and my friends will be livid if I'm typing during a tense game). I asked Mark (who's a doctor) if it was appropriate for me to apologize to the ER staff for wasting their time when I went to the hospital the other day thinking I had a stroke. Which I did.

"Well..." Mark said, "Yeah. We appreciate that."

At least Mark said I had some reason to be scared, though there are reasons besides a stroke for temporary loss of feeling. I still feel a bit stupid for going to the hospital, but very happy to be alive and well. Gonna be a great day for football, temps in the low 20s, blue sky, perfect.

Played a little poker last night, after first doing some karmic adjustments. I could write a 5,000 word post about my little superstitions and quirks and whatnot, but I don't want to inflict that on my readers. I did some cleaning of my den, polished my desk, and brought out the big gun--my DVD of The Young Ones. That's what I was watching when I won the Grublog Classic, and I've been having such a tough run lately that I needed all the psychological help I could get.

Played a little ring game first, and, sigh, its so frustrating when people just WANT to give you their money and you can't get a decent hand to play. The table was loosey-goosey and so passive you might've though everyone was taking Guinness intravenously. There's a bet in front of you? Call. A raise? Call. We had like 10 flops in a row with 7 or so callers of a single bet, and then two flops in a row with 7 callers when the betting was capped. Yeesh.

But I was able to get up around ten whole dollars, though I ended up dropping half of that on one hand when I made trips on the flop only to be facing a guy with an open-end straight flush draw. He got his card on the turn and nicely trapped me. Nothing to complain about, but it stung.

I decided to play in a 2-table SNG, which I'd always enjoyed more than the 1-table tourneys and always done better in anyway. And I played pretty doggone good--except for my final hand. I was always right in the middle, chipwise, until we got down to the final 9. And it was a most unusual table. One guy had a huge chip stack, a few guys were short, and the rest of us had roughly the same amount. And the table got wicked tight. I mean, this is Empire? We went like 10 hands in a row without a flop. We went like 20 hands in a row where only 2 players saw the flop or there was no turn card. It was odd, not going up against rock'em-sock'em players, and actually fun, playing "proper" poker.

I knocked one short guy out when my AK beat his KQ after a king on the flop, and then as the blinds got high I was able to steal quite a few times with pretty good hands. The chip leader was seemingly asleep, he didn't play a hand for about 3 orbits, which was great for me because he was directly to my right and he surrended his little blind to me on 4 separate occasions, which helped me out a ton. We finally got down to 4, meaning I was in the money, when the guy in 3rd position doubled up on the chip leader. And then the shortstack won a nice pot, meaning I was now the short guy. And I made my dumb move. I had QJ under the gun and pushed it my whole stack. The blinds were 300-600 and I hadn't played a hand in forever, so I hoped I'd get some respect. But not from the chip leader, not with AK. And one impatient play cost me a chance to move up. Truth be told, it was 1AM, I was exhausted from the night before, and I thought I was being clever. Nope.

I stopped by the blogger table to lurk and watch a little of the mayhem. Yinz guys are nuts.

OK, time for some drudgery before the game. Probably write a bit more after the game. Go Steelers!

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