I won a tournament last night to end my streak of bad luck. Worked out well for me.

Not much else new around our place. This weekend marks the last weekend before Erin and William jet off to Alberta to visit family, leaving me facing a steady diet of frozen pizza and hotdogs (ok, maybe not just those two things, but you can bet that I will ingest at least some of each.)

Speaking of pizza…A couple of weeks ago, I was washing dishes with William, and I started singing “Aiken Drum” to him when I washed a ladle. He picked up on it, and really liked the song, so he starts singing it every now and then, prompting me to help him along with a new verse. So far Aiken Drum’s ears are sea shells, his shoes are cream cheese, his eyes are pizzas, his hair is spaghetti, his nose is boogers, his coat is roast beef, his elbows are macaroni, his fingers are french fries, and probably a dozen or so other variations that I can’t remember. William likes to fall back on cream cheese for most things (though he’s started using spaghetti as his default lately.) The way he says “Aiken Drum” is pretty cute.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “And I’ll still kiss your butt and call it ice cream!” ~ Homer

Two more losses at the poker table last night…Similar circumstances (It always hurts to get beaten by A9o when you’ve gone all in with AKs pre flop.)

Not much new really. I guess I haven’t mentioned that on Tuesday we went for an ultrasound, and got to see the new baby a little bit. Ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes and a nose. All that good stuff. The baby is a little smaller than they expected, but that’s nothing to be too alarmed about - it probably just means that our dates are a bit off.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “So Laddie, thank you for your heroic rescue, and baby Gerald, we can’t help but wonder what mischief you’ll get into next.” - Mayor Quimby

I played in three poker tournaments on Monday night, and lost out in all three before getting “in the money.” I don’t feel too bad about it though, cause each time I got busted out, I had the best hand when I went all in, and got beat by a longshot draw that the other people probably wouldn’t have called me with if they’d realized what I held.

Last night, William wanted to go visit his Grandma quite badly (maybe he hoped that he’d get to watch the end of Godzilla vs. Mothra or something) so after checking if it was ok with her, we dropped him off for a couple of hours. With the newfound spare time, Erin and I worked on the drywalling in the basement. It went really well, and I think it’s going to look great when it’s done. We got two pieces cut and screwed to the wall, now there’s just the one last piece to go up, and the reassembly of the drop ceiling, and we’re ready to mud it all down. The hope is that we can have the wall ready for painting when Erin goes to Edmonton, so she can buy some of the special “screen paint” that I’ve read about - Goo.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Y’know, you look a little flushed. Maybe you should eat more vegetables and less people…” - Marge

Extroverts are everywhere. There are lots of jobs that seem best for extroverts, and lots of things that extroverts can do way better than introverts.

I’m an introvert. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just the way I am. That makes getting a haircut one of the most dreaded things that I have to do on a regular basis. I’d be very very happy if I could go in, pay my money, take a nap, and wake up with shorter hair. Instead, the stylist has to carry on a conversation about vague generalities and various things that may be interesting to a wide variety of people, but ultimately are pretty inane. It’s a tough job, and not one that I think I’d be any good at. You’d have to be very good at feigning interest in stuff that you don’t care about, good at small talk of all sorts. I can understand that working 40+ hours a week in that sort of job, you certainly wouldn’t want to remain silent the entire time. That would be intensely boring too. At the same time, I can’t fathom how boring it must be to have the same half hour conversation about the weather with 16 people a day.

What I’m saying is that there must come a point where the barber/stylist doesn’t want to talk anymore, but they feel like it’s part of their job, so they forge ahead. I’d love to be able to schedule that half hour without seeming like a complete jerk. Haircuts make me uncomfortable, because I’m expected to carry on a conversation with someone on schedule, and I’m an introvert. That’s why you’ll occasionally see me with very long hair that looks like I’m about two months overdue for a haircut. My hair needs to be so long that it bothers me more than spending money on a half hour of slow torture.

Note that going to the same stylist for years doesn’t help either - it’s the same as hanging out with friends - once I’m out there, I enjoy myself, but I tend to even shy away from that, given the option. I find it much easier to not invite people over than it is to stress over having people over. It probably makes me come across as an arrogant jerk…You might be an introvert if you try to hide when you see someone you know at the supermarket…I know that’s hard for someone who’s not an introvert to understand.

Or maybe I’m just antisocial.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Oh no! I’ll be socially unpopular…more so.” - Lisa

If I were playing Burnout 3 on my way to the bus this morning, I’d have had full boost. That’s how big the drifts were.

I played in another tournament last night, and finished in the money again. Either I’m extremely lucky, or the people I’m playing against are extremely silly. It’s a lot of fun, and I’m up $10 from where I started, factoring in the $40 I lost trying to get my 500 raked hands played for the bonus. I still have to finish up those hands, cause until I do, I could have $10,000,000 in my account and not be able to touch it. :) Not that that’s likely to happen. I guess I should just knock off a few every time I’m in there playing, and see how long it takes to hit 500.

Just so you don’t think I’m a problem gambler that only talks about winning, and doesn’t mention the losses, I haven’t played since last weekend, and so I’m five for seven in tournaments so far, with three seconds, one first and one third. The money isn’t the point though, it’s just fun to push those little fake chips around on the table, and see if you can figure out what other people are thinking.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Conserve your precious hatred for the game!” - Apu

I thought I’d weight in on the NHL’s current situation. It seems like Trevor Linden realized that if they don’t play hockey this year, and next year is in danger too, he might never see another paycheck. Ok, that’s not fair. Still, it’s interesting that it took a high profile union rep who also happens to fall into that veteran/journeyman role to step up to the plate to get things going again.

What I thought was particularly interesting about the whole thing was the look of pure glee in the eyes of the NHL’s negotiators when mentioning that Trevor had sparked this latest round of talks. It was almost as if you could read their thoughts: “They blinked. We’ve won the battle by outwaiting them. We should be able to get everything we want and more.” It was a giant game of chicken, and Trevor Linden reached over Bob Goodenow’s lap and cranked the wheel to the side. It remains to be seen if Gary Bettman and the boys just plow into the side of the PA’s car, or if they ease up and hit the brakes. At this point though, it’ll take a minor miracle to get a season out of the NHL. Some teams don’t have enough players to ice a lineup at this point (I read somewhere that Washington has 10 players under contract this year.) so it would take a lot of negotiations during a very short training camp just to see if the teams can ice a product for enough games to make the season seem real. The best part about it for the owners would be that the playoffs wouldn’t be abbreviated, and that’s where they make the real money.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Yarr, it begins. The dolphins are upon us and only this old sea dog knows how to stop — Yarr!” - Captain McAllister just before being torn apart by said dolphins.

Not much new, so get ready for another boring installment of um…. ah… er…. theatre.

The CFL is considering selling the naming rights to the Grey Cup. They’re hoping they can generate $10Million a year by doing it. Here’s why I think it’s a bad idea.

First and foremost, it cheapens your image, by proudly proclaiming to the world “We have a price tag on our dignity.” I think that much is obvious to anyone that pays attention to marketing. I hate marketing with a passion though, so maybe it’s more obvious to me than to others. (aside - is it possible to be more obvious? Is that like being more pregnant?)

The second reason stems from the fact that it’s been mentioned as potentially the difference between a team making money and a team losing money. I have a problem with that, but you’ll have to bear with me through one of my patented overly drawn out analogies.

Back when I got my first computer, a Tandy CoCo II, 64KB of memory was a lot. My second computer was a Commodore 64, and eventually I got a disk drive. The Commodore 64 disk drive was 180KB, if I remember correctly. We had awesome games to play, and lots of fun on the Commodore 64. Very few games required more than one disk, and I can’t think of any that required more than four (or two double sided disks) That’s 720KB. About the time I was really pushing my C64 to the limits, a game came out for the PC (Wing Commander?) that required something like 4MB of hard drive space, which I thought was insane. Eventually, hard drives got bigger and bigger, and cheaper and cheaper, until the average game comes on a DVD now and requires several hundred MB installed to your hard drive. Not too long ago, I was content with my massive 6.4GB hard drive, but now 40GB on the laptop seems constraining.

What I’m getting at is that if the CFL suddenly starts realizing this $10Million/year “windfall” and doesn’t clean up it’s act and be more fiscally responsible, then they’ll still be in financial distress, but now they’re also dependent on the whim of a corporate sponsor shelling out $10Million a year to keep them afloat. It’s a simple matter of economics. If your expenditures consistently exceed your income, you’re in trouble son. Does anyone here think that the Calgary Stampeders won’t take their cut of the $10Million and try to sign some free agents to improve their 4-14 record from last year? Not to single out the Stamps, because all the teams would do it, and within a few years, you’d see the league in financial distress again, except this time, they’re beholden to Bell, or Dofasco, or FritoLay or whatever crazy company comes out of the woodwork to pony up that $10Million. Now, they say “I only want to pay $5Million” Uh oh. The league is in trouble. Serious trouble. Costs got out of hand, and now they have to pay the piper.

If the CFL can’t manage their money now, adding another $10Million to their coffers will only exacerbate the issue.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Homer! Did you tell the mafia they could eliminate my competitors with savage beatings and attempted murder?” - Marge