And with almost no warning....

Jesse goes off like a fucking bottle rocket.

First of all, I'm going to be pretty gushy about the Steelers for a paragraph or three.  You can just skip that if you want, but I mean it's not like I'm putting out a bunch of content these days.

Going into this year the Steelers had won I think a single playoff game or something in 5 seasons (basically since they lost that Superbowl to Green Bay) and that was the game the Bungles just bungled right to them last year.  Not that I can ever complain about being a Steeler's fan, as they went 2/3 in the Superbowl while I was in my twenties.  But still.  Ben's no spring chicken, and the offensive line just wasn't turning into who we thought they were.  Despite the defense getting (a lot) younger (average age down from literally like 30 to 26 or something) it still wasn't playing anything resembling a legitimate AFC playoff caliber brand of anything.

Fast forward to 2.5 months ago.  Le'Veon Bell is the most entertaining back to watch since literally Barry Sanders.  The offensive line has turned into an elite unit (DeCastro and Pouncey somehow stayed healthy, and picking up an un-drafted 6'10" 350 pound Army fucking Ranger with a bronze fucking star whose only issue so far has been annoying the team to open the weight room 90 minutes early has never been bad business for anyone) that (paradoxically) actually gets made to look better by Le'Veon.  He doesn't need them to open "the hole" per say.  Any hole remotely in his field of vision will do.  And if somehow after an entire second and a half of standing around behind the line of scrimmage they have not opened up anything, he just kinda floats forward and gets 3 instead of 7.  It's just silly fun to watch.  And then of course there is Old Man Winter, who literally went STRAIGHT TO THE WEIGHT ROOM when the plane landed at 3:46am Monday morning.  Like.  There is digital proof.  He's 38 years old.  He missed 3 snaps in the win over KC.

Segway.....so here we come, New England.  Get out your tapes to make sure you know what plays the defense is about to run.  Call the electricians so you can be sure to short out the headsets on a critical 3rd and 6 from the 42 (or three).  And definitely make sure the deflator is free Sunday evening for a little contract work.

I'm just going to put a sentence here so New England fans can get a little more upset.  OK, maybe two sentences.  Is three too many?  Too many.....

So here's the thing.  I've hated the Patriots since WAY before it was cool.  I'm usually not a hip early adopter or anything like that, but I was ahead of this curve further than pretty much any other in my life (although I think my hatred of Elon Musk could actually get ranked higher, eventually, after he tries to sell this next car for like 70k instead of the 35k he promised and STILL goes bankrupt).  And sort of like the situation with The Donald, I no longer feel it necessary to defend my points of view whatsoever.  He is an unqualified racist ass-clown who is not remotely fit to serve on your daughter's PTA.  Much of the Patriots success has stemmed from their deeply ingrained culture of cheating in any way shape or form imaginable.  Elon Musk is a brilliant business man and a bald-faced liar.  These things are simply true.  If you disagree you are simply wrong.  It's not a big deal to be wrong, I'm wrong all the time.  And Patriots fans trust me I get it, my quarterback is a fucking rapist asshole, but he's MY fucking rapist asshole and I'm sticking with him because what the fuck else am I going to do, trade for Tony Romo or Brock Osweiller?  It's OK that you're wrong, it doesn't make you a bad person.  It just makes you wrong.  And being wrong can be very liberating.

Segway....I've been talking to a buddy recently about what it means to make a living playing poker and the sort of "soft skills" or "advantages" you need to have to really do it without losing your god damned mind.  Yesterday he was at my table and I came across a piece of my brain that had something interesting to say about my development the last three years regarding conflict.  I used to HATE conflict.  I abhorred it, it made me cringe, it made me uncomfortable, anxious, sick to my stomach even.  But that has slowly but surely changed the last three years for at least two big reasons;  my relationship with Johnny Baseball, for whom conflict is basically a natural state, and the end of my relationship with Danielle, who personally ensured that every single conflict in my life resulted in either a complete disaster (at worst) or a total evisceration of my minimal manhood (at best).  I wouldn't say that I seek conflict, but it no longer scares me in any way.  I have adopted a position of fuck you, as it were.

TC (yes....commerce big game cunt TC) was sitting in the Hustler 25 and kind of as an example I said to my buddy "You see, a few years ago her sitting over there would make me nervous.  I'd be a little worried about the coming confrontation, a little uneasy, you know?  But now I'm actually looking forward to it.  Like, I'm a little disappointed it hasn't already happened."  And....scene.

I'm in seat 1, I raise a hand, a wonderful woman I play with nearly every day who doesn't have a vindictive bone in her body defends the small blind in 3 and TC calls the big blind in 4.   The flop is something like J74 or whatever, TC donks into me, I just call, SB raises, TC turbo 3 bets I fold my cards and say "all hands dealer" and not another word.  Most people who invoke "I want to see that hand" do it because they just want to see that hand and are allowed to do so.  When I invoke I want to see that hand I am saying "I believe you are colluding and would like you to know that I am not an idiot".  To be clear, I didn't think they were colluding per say, as that would involve them actually working together which was obviously not the case.  But TC is vindictive and dumb enough to take it upon herself to collude against me basically without the consent of the third party.  So I mean...did I technically cross the line?  Sort of.  Was I 100% within my rights?  Absolutely.

The hand plays out and of course the small blind has a pair of jacks with like a ten kicker or something and and TC cunt mucks her cards from seat 4 straight to seat 6 (those of you who play live know exactly what I mean...she doesn't push her hand forward...she literally mucks them from her hand horizontally into seat 6, I honestly can barely figure out how the mechanics of it work I feel like it might be done with mirrors?).  The dealer grabs them a little slower than may she normally would and looks at me and sort of does the "well?" gesture with her head and I just say "yes, both hands" and she taps them against the muck and turns over like I think ace seven that's not important.  Here's what's important.  TC says "you're a fucking idiot" and I instantly know that I have just come into a massive free roll.  I call over the floor man and state simply "seat four just called me a fucking idiot."  TC starts lying aggressively and obviously that she did no such thing, the dealer backs me up, the woman in seat two backs me up, and floor man gives her 20 minutes.  Bink.

BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!

TC simply won't have this and goes into a stormy cunty rage, calling me a fucking idiot 5 to 7 more times (in fairness, some of those may have been directed at the floor man, it's not clear) and saying other things that literally make no sense.

Remember, this is a woman who challenged me to a heads up game the last time she was barred from Commerce and on vacation at Hustler (not the time she told a table full of Jewish men she understood why Hitler wanted to get rid of them....she was barred for a different incident).  I told her "sure 10k freeze out?" and she laughed and said "10k isn't worth my time" and I said "I understand, you've been playing 25/50 for 36 hours straight and have $400 in front of you" and she demanded we play for 50k.  I told her I didn't typically bring 50k to the casino to play 25/50 but that I could probably borrow close to that much if the people knew it was to play her heads-up.  Anyway....

The floor man sees this giant, over-sized softball eephus pitch just floating gently in his direction and hits it over the wall in left.  He bars her indefinitely.  Security comes over and escorts her out and I literally feel like the king of the world when she explains that she wanted to leave anyway (my response...."I understand, you've been here 20 hours and have $400 in front of you, you've probably won enough").

The post-mortem could go on and on and on forever and ever amen, but basically she rarely (sometimes, but rarely) runs into a person who gives as few fucks as I do these days and will just get her kicked out because he can, almost for sport, with no regard for how much money she would have lost over the next 48 hours.  And it's really as simple as that.