Saturday, March 26, 2005

More Proof There is a God...or not

My apologies for anyone bewildered by my previous post. One starts typing and before one knows it one has a monster post about one's personal theology and one begins speaking about oneself in the third person impersonal. So let's return to our previously scheduled program.

I did practical work last night and then logged on to play an SNG. Didn't cash, thanks to horrible cards, but I wasn't too disappointed to go out because of the non-stop whining and trash-talk between two of the players. One guy fancied himself table captain and critiqued nearly every hand based on his encyclopedic knowledge of the game. Another guy didn't like the unsolicited advice, told him to shove it and where to shove it, and the two of them played a very tedious game of verbal tetherball the rest of the game, even after the one guy got knocked out. The two best quotes were, "Oh, yeah, I've won SEVENTY-FIVE BUCKS tonight", and, "Do you even know there are books about poker?". Oy.

It took me about an hour to auto-rate and upload my PokerTracker stat stuff (cooooool) and so I decided to play some $.50/$1 at a short table. Here's where the divine intervention comes in--on three consecutive hands I was dealt KK. And got some action. And won all three. The third time, when I got the first king, not only was I expecting to see a second cowboy, I felt I deserved it, for some reason. Had the second card come an ace I would've actually been angry.

Unfortunately I was dealt KK a FOURTH time later on, but this time a guy inexplicably stayed in with ace-little and spiked an ace on the river to take away what would've been a big pot. Still, I made back the SNG buy-in I lost, so I was relatively happy.

But I wasn't quite ready to go to bed, so I decided to have a little fun and play some Omaha. What I know about Omaha could fill a thimble, but compared to the people I was playing with I was a thimbleful ahead. Insane, rock-em sock-em action. At least six people seeing every flop, with nearly every hand raised before that flop. I played tight and waited for a monster.

And then I hit one. I flopped an awkward nut straight in a hand with EIGHT people in the pot. I check-raised and EVERYONE came along. The next card was a deuce, which meant I still had the nuts. This time the betting was capped with I think SEVEN people still along for the ride. The river was a beautiful king of clubs, a total blank, and it started to look like I might win the biggest pot of my life. But even these wackos realized that their two pair wasn't going to hold up, and so when it go down to the raising and re-raising it got heads up. I sighed, knowing what was about to happen. Yup, he had the nuts too, and we chopped a $40 pot. It was still a nice score, but I was looking to put a truly savage hit-and-run on these folks. I still ended up a bit, and methinks I will be getting out an atlas and looking up "Omaha" in the near future.

Oh, one final note. So yesterday I write this big post about God and whatnot, and we get out of work early and my wife asks me to drop by the store and pick up the ham for Easter. No problem. Now, remember, its Good Friday. No meat. Had a delicious fish sandwich for lunch and I wasn't hungry. So I go to the store, and while waiting in line they have all sorts of samples out. Ham, ham salad, some speciality mustards, some coffee cake. I taste and savor, the ham salad especially good. I love ham salad.

It wasn't until I got home, and had safely put the ham in the fridge, that I realized...I'd eaten meat. On Good Friday. Now, it was a totally honest mistake, I didn't even think of it until long after I'd done the deed. I rolled my eyes to the heavens, said, "My bad", and went back about my business. I felt more stupid than guilty. Once, when I was in college, I picked up a turkey sub on Good Friday from McLanahans (they made a killer turkey sub, with this hot red pepper relish that I've been trying to replicate for a decade). I brought it home almost cackling with glee about its imminent demise. I unwrapped it, licked my chops, and my goddam roommate Mark said, "You know its Good Friday, right?"

My jaw hung open. "Oh...shit. Shit."

"You know what's funny?" Mark said. "If you'd eaten it, and I hadn't told you until afterwards, it really wouldn't have been much of a sin, because you didn't do it deliberately. But by telling you before you took that first bite, I've put your soul in immortal peril". He went back to his book. "Bon appetit".

Hate that guy.

posted by Gene @ 12:00 PM   |