I’m going to Vegas for Interop in a couple of weeks to check out some prospects for my New Tiny Bidness. Guess where I’m staying?

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Why on earth do she or any of the rest of them need to keep bothering us with their blogging, columnizing and hitting the talk shows now that Herself has rendered them superfluous?

If you’re Henley, of course, the question never redounds. He’s very, very smart, you know. Reads a lot about Elvis Costello. And a poet, to boot.

The funniest thing about that post is the typing of the word “fetish”, about another blogger, by a man who spent pretty much a year blogging about his dieting and exercising regime to fit into a skin-tight Spiderman costume for some or the other party. Whatever the Beltway middle-manager capital-L libertarian version of “You kids get off my lawn!” is, he’s shrieking it.

What an absolute toad:

Here’s what happened. Hellmuth raised under the gun to 20K and Buchanon reraised to more than 50K at the CO. Hellmuth called as the flop was 10d-6d-3h. Hellmuth check-called a 120K bet. The turn was 7d and both players checked. The river was the 9c and both players checked again.

“I got a pair of sixes,” announced Hellmuth as he tabled As-6s. Buchanon flipped over K-7 for a pair of sevens.

“Fuck!” screamed Hellmuth as he slammed his fist on the table.

I still can’t tell if those outbursts are genuine or fabricated. Regardless, for the next twenty minutes, Hellmuth put on a show for everyone in the Fontana Room. He spoke so loudly that you could have heard his whining across the street at the Paris casino. A wall of media surrounded his table as he berated Buchanon.

“This motherfuckin’ kid just bluffed off 200K to the best player in the world! Nice play, genius! There’s no way you are going to last the day,” Hellmuth said as he pointed at Buchanon who was sporting a retro Boston Redsox Ted Williams jersey.

“Playing against the best players in the world and bluffing off your stack with K-7? Nice play genius,” he continued. “You’re supposed to be busted.”

“Who’s stacking the chips, Phil?” needled Amnon Filippi who sat at the adjacent table.

“Sit down you baby,” another pro shouted.

Hellmuth ignored the catcalls from the other tables and stood up.

“Sucking out on me? I can see right through your soul,” he said as I tried my best not to laugh. “I’m at the top of my game and you suck out on me. He looked right at me and I saw it in his eyes.”

“Learn to take a beat,” said Buchanon who was visibly rattled after waking up the sleeping giant.

“Everyone knows not to bluff me. They tried yesterday. Time after time and I picked them all off with Ace high. Bottom pair. Second pair. Didn’t matter. I always knew when the were bluffing. Make sure you write that up on the internet,” he said as he pointed directly at me.

“I’m playing for $4 million and history, pal. What are you playing for?” the Poker Brat continued. “The way you’re playing you won’t last the end of the day.”

Hellmuth’s verbal tirade lasted over thirty minutes as he would not let up. His table was next to be broken up and he pleaded with the floor person not to break them up.

“I got to get my chips back from that donkey,” he said.

Side note… Buchanon would end up busting out in 57th place winning $46,410 while Hellmuth was moved to Raymond Davis’ table. Davis would take the chiplead for a while before Hellmuth made a rush near the end of the day to finish up as the chipleader with 1.8M in chips and 54 players remaining.

You ask me, it’s all an act. I bet you $100 he’s got tapes of every single one of John McEnroe’s matches. He clearly knows who’s writing and where. Most likely knows where every single camera is, too. I’d like to see him try some of that shit in Texas, though. Really, any card room anywhere NOT in a casino. But since it’s an act for the rubes in the seats, there’d be no reason to, see?

Good stuff. It obviously works, too…that’s the funny part.

Last Stars post from me, I hope. Nobody ever links to my Stars posts, and I’ve had, like, one comment from my Fortunate Few readers. I get more comments about dang light bulbs, which are only marginally more exciting than doorknobs, and only because of the fact that you can kill yourself with a lightbulb in a couple of milliseconds and doorknobs take forever. Anyway, the Razor has a good eulogy for my once-beloved Stars, for whom I will never fall again*:

One characteristic the team showed that I truly admired was the way they played. They worked, and they worked, and they pushed, and they never said “we quit”. And because they did it so often they drew a lot of praise from the opposition. I thought the perfect playoff motto would have been “With your shield or on it” (win or die trying). That was the Spartan mantra.

I’m going to forgive him the cheddary 300 tie-in, since he’s a media dude. Good little round-up essay on a terribly disappointing season.

* Serious here. I’m a couple weeks shy of 47. A man my age should not be shrieking at the teevee and sweating out the last 1:41 of a first-round Game 7 when they pull the goalie. I never played the game, and I’ve got a grandson. I should be teaching him to sweat it out, but not sweating it out myself. Like the Stars07, I’m going to dust off my clubs and hit the links, I think.

That would be you, my fellow Americans:

As the House and Senate prepare to vote this week on the final conference report on the $124 billion troop funding bill — which would also mandate that U.S. combat troops begin withdrawing from Iraq on Oct. 1 at the latest — Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to come to the Hill tomorrow to brief lawmakers on the progress of the recent troop escalation.

ABC News has learned, however, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will not attend the briefing.

“She can’t make the briefing tomorrow,” a Democratic aide told ABC News Tuesday evening. “But she spoke with the general via phone today at some length.”

For those following along at home with Mr. Constitution here, that would be the second person in line to take the Presidency of these United States who can’t find the time to sit with her colleagues in the House of Representatives and listen to, not only the architect of the strategy currently being employed half a world away in what is generally conceived* to be a bit of a spot for Western civilization, but to her colleagues’ learned questions of said architect, and his answers.

Welcome to the 21st century — 30 minutes on the blower will get it done. Will of the people, baby…

* Perhaps I’m wrong, by virtue of missing an announcement where the angry Musselmen of that violent bent only want to kill aged white male Republicans. Me, I’m ready for the bullet with my name on it, cuz this ain’t what I was planning for.

Anyone Want to Bet…That in about twenty-five years, Cheryl Crow will star in an advert for toilet paper?

— Sgt. Mom, a Texan (natch)

I worked hard not to type into the interweb about all that. Any sixth-grader could have made the jokes, and by gum, I fancy myself a sophomore, a junior on my good days.

The Atlantic appears to be circling the drain:

The Atlantic magazine has had some changes on the masthead. The loss of the late Michael Kelly was a huge blow. More recently, it’s gained Andrew Sullivan, lost Mark Steyn in a disagreement, gained Matthew Yglesias, still has Mark Bowden.

I wish them all luck, and that cancels most of the interest in that magazine I once had.

Andrew Sullivan? Matthew Yglesias? Dear sweet merciful Lord in Heaven. They probably think that’s balance.

Shows how little I’ve been paying attention. I’ve not had time to read them cover-to-cover in about six months, and I never go by their web operation. Bidness, you know.

Via Craig…

Yglesias???? Didn’t he just get out of college? Call me when you get a Steve Graham on board.

Might have to order a pizza for this one…

Anyone know why Cosh isn’t doing plyoff hockey bloggage anymore?

8:11 - Puck drop, fast PP for the Stars. No Zuby? Yeesh…puckering here.

8:20 - Vancouver wearing throw-back uniforms…I like that marketing attention-to-detail. Wonder if the players chose them? Doesn’t seem like something a player would choose.

8:40 - Lundquist goal for the Stars. Nice top shelf, glove side. Very nice getting it in the first. Got a poker tournament in 20 minutes, almost out of beer…bad situation, except for that 1-0 lead. Go Turco!

9:29 - Canuck goal. Tied. Gak.

10:14 - ‘Nucks lead on a PP goal. Very Gak.

10:43 - Sadness. Darkness. No mas.

Maybe I’m an outlier, somewhere out at the edge of the bell-curve, but I’ve found Compact Flourescent Bulbs to
a) cost three or four times as much as normal bulbs
b) run just barely as long as regular 89¢ bulbs from Dollar General

I’m a good test case, because I currently house a bunch of wastrels who never met a light switch they could turn off. CFL bulbs burn out just as fast as regular incandescent bulbs in my garage, which is apparently a place full of monsters and home-invaders, given that the garage light is on 100% of the time that any member of my family is anywhere in the same county.

The fun part, as the breadwinner and billpayer, is having to suppress a desire to scream IDIOT! at them as they inform each other, in earnest tones about Oprah, Obama, organic foods, and all the rest. For whatever reason, there is an ImpeachBush.org yard sign on the dining room floor of the 3000sf house in Dallas they happily occupy, free of any fiduciary care in the world. Such is life here in the aughts (and my rapidly approaching fifties). I temper my disgust by remembering what an idiot I was when I was younger.

NB: Welcome to all you InstantMan clickers…thanks for swinging by. Enjoy the rest of the show.

SPOUSAL UPDATE: The Wife promised to turn off the garage light if I would help her re-enter the world of live webcasts. Red-hot pokers in my eyeballs seem more appealing…changing a light bulb, that’s cake.

I got to scanning the radio dial for my new hometown and found a station playing old disco hits, old funk hits, old R&B hits. I swear the song I just heard on the way back from the beer store was an old Bootsy Collins dealio. If it wasn’t, it was an excellent copycat of an old Bootsy Collins dealio.

That stuff really makes me feel young. My pal Otis understands. I doubt I could stop my booty if I ever started shaking it again, but it’s nice to imagine that I could still cut a rug. Ach…aging…it sucks.

Bonus Bootsy…think those fellas smoked any pot?

The thing I love about Bootsy is that he also played with James Brown, the unmitigated King of Soul. And you can draw a direct line from James thru Bootsy to these cats, my favorite long-lost post-modern funk band:

…just grab him in the biscuits…

Go read about the surreal, Made-For-Teevee Dallas poker busts from last year. 500 cameras rolling, but there’s not one kilobyte for the defense. Pricks.

The boy with the knife looks barely 12. In a high-pitched voice, he denounces the bound, blindfolded man before him as an American spy. Then he hacks off the captive’s head to cries of “God is great!” and hoists it in triumph by the hair.

I’m not sure how to even begin considering that. There’s no baseline for me to begin consideration.

Well, there’s one…kill, dead as a doornail, anyone teaching that to some poor child in the sixth grade. You’re not going to rehabilitate the teacher. Better that he be worm-food.

Lots of commentary on the radio all damn day long about the airing of video on some cable channel from the murderous psycho in Virginia. This, from the area’s so-called sports station. Pretty much to a man, it was agreed that there is no question it would, and should, be aired. After all, they’re in the media business, and they consider it their responsibility to push it out there.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s all about selling soap. It occurs to me that there’s not a better exemplar of the reality of the trickle-down theory of economics. Maybe there is, after all, but there are hundreds involved in bringing me every second of soap-selling, and so, that’s good enough for me. Hundreds of people, daily, 24/7, to sell another mortgage, or bottle of Tecate, or foundation repair job.

This ain’t a slam. I’m listening. The monkies spinning the plates can have a funny moment or two over the course of the day. I blame myself for being so easily distracted, and desperate for a little levity. I should be a better person.

Go see.

Down 3-1 in the first round again, my beloved Stars take the ice in a few minutes in O, Canada. This is just killing me, and I’ve never even strapped on a skate. But hockey is unquestionably my favorite sport right now. There’s something about the entire sport that’s appealing in a way that I used to get from baseball (and still do occasionally.) I reckon this is the worst part about getting old, realizing that all that energy expended is pointless and unappreciated.

I promise that I will never write about sports again, unless one of my favored home-town teams go to the champeenship. I’m just too wrung out from caring. Oh sure, I’ll watch, since the mindless alternative is reading blogs, or gorging on garbage like American Idol or Lost or Big Love. Maybe I’ll join a tennis league again, and actually play a sport instead of sitting on my fat ass. Tha would be helpful.

UPDATE: OK, that’s one. Two more to go, or it just doesn’t matter. I can’t imagine anyone placing more than three molecules of blame on Marty Turco. He’s been extremely strong, so near as a Skeeter can tell. Question for the experts: do the Stars even employ forwardish-types?