Erin was out turning the compost last night when she ran into a wasp nest. She came running up to the house, yelling to close the door. She had wasps in her hair, and swarming around her. It wasn’t a good situation. After some brief thought, I came outside and turned the hose on her, which got rid of the wasps, despite the cold water. I got stung once on one of my knuckles, and Erin got stung a half dozen times or so (mostly on the scalp) Neither of us had a particularly bad reaction though, and we’re both just fine. The nest is still sitting on the compost pile though - we’ll have to deal with it, but last night wasn’t the time.

After that excitement, I took William for a brief bike ride to the park. We’d been talking about it before the wasp excitement, and he was looking forward to it. By the time we got things settled after the wasps though, it was getting dark out. We went anyway, and William went down the slide a few times before we decided to call it a night.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Ay, ay, ay! Es Homer Simpson. Me ha molestado! Oh!” - Spanish Bee Guy

I’ve been playing “fake money” poker for a while now, and have built my original $1000 bankroll up to well over $500,000, playing tournaments almost exclusively. The way the site works, you get $1000 in play money, and if you lose it all, they’ll give you another $1000 (and so on…) This results in people playing like complete idiots with their initial $1000. I never had to reload, because I got lucky and won some tournaments early, but clearly there are people out there who never get much beyond the original $1000 level.

This story is going somewhere, just stay with me…

They offer tournaments with 1-5 tables (9-45 people) and buyins of $300-$25,000. I quickly worked my way past the $300 tournaments up to the $2000, $10,000 and finally played the $25,000 tournaments fairly regularly (they only offer single tables at $25K.) Anyway, since I’ve got all this fake money, and playing the $25K’s can get a little boring sometimes, I started playing the $300’s again. This time though, I’m not doing it to make money - I’m just doing it because there’s crazy action at those tables.

Typically in a 45 person tournament, 2-4 people per table will go all-in on the first hand regardless of their cards. Pretty stupid way to play the game, and it kind of ruins it for everyone else, but once you realize that it will happen, you learn to fold the first hand unless you pick up a real monster.

Enough background. So, when I play the $300 tournaments now, I give away chips outside of the tournament structure. Last tournament, before the first hand, I said “Don’t go all-in on the first hand - trust me on this one…” Of course four people did, thinking they were quite clever. I then gave $5000 to each player who didn’t go all-in. For a little perspective, first place in the tournament is less than $5000. It’s pretty fun. I’ve put bounties on my head, and I’ll throw people chips when I put a bad beat on them. If I spend $30-50K on a $300 tournament, I just go and win another $25K tournament to restock my bankroll. People are really appreciative, though if they’re any good at poker at all, those chips would be there for the taking anyway.

The moral of the story is that if you’re playing play money tournaments and you see me at your table, I’ll probably wind up throwing chips your way for stupid stuff like a good one-liner.

Simpson’s quote of the day:
Homer: “How much does this job pay?”
Lenny: “Nothin’”
Homer: “D’oh!”
Lenny: “Unless you’re crooked.”
Homer: “Woohoo!”

The disaster of Hurricane Katrina is unfolding, and the impact of it will be felt for years. The death toll is officially fairly low, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see it climb well above 10,000 before they’re done. Whenever something like that happens somewhere, I’m thankful that it truly couldn’t happen here. We complain about the weather when it’s -40 and snowing, but that’s survivable. Having your city underwater…That’s just awful.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Who’s that idiot, drinking water as if it were free?” - Mr. Burns