Sports Railing Followup

I just wrote this on 2p2 and decided it was good enough to post here in it's entirety.

Oh and for the record I have solved prison over-population/expensiveness in a way that is congruous with "thou shalt not kill". My plan calls for an identity exchange program with whatever is the poorest most AIDs-ridden country in Africa. The pilot subjects will be the dodger's fans who beat the giants guy 7/8ths to death (and if we can't find them I suppose we can just use two random dodger's fans that'd be fine with me). Basically it's a complete swap of identity, assets, citizenship, rights, even perhaps faces (Nic Cage's last good movie IMO) with someone in said African country (which looks like either Congo or Zimbabwe). Bang! No death penalty, no expensive prison situation, and to boot some dudes from Africa can stop trying to rape virgins to cure their AIDS and get a fresh start on life in the suburbs.

Now for some questions:

But Jesse, how will we pay for it?

Ah good reader I'm glad you asked. Remember, it's a complete swap. The Africans get whatever assets the American felons could lay claim to. This will be more than enough to get them started off towards living the American dream.

But Jesse, the average Dodger's fan who is capable of beating someone to death (or even 7/8ths to death) is $200K underwater on his mortgage, has $40K on his master card at 29.9% and a credit score that couldn't win the batting title. How will they survive in such dire circumstances.

Bad beat.

In Which I Will Rail On Sports

First of all, at the time of this writing I am happy...no, elated...no, simply proud...to announce that the Pittsburgh Pirates currently reside in 3rd (third...that's just two spots below first) place in the NL Central with a record of....wait for it. 18-17. By beating the Dodgers (more on them later) tonight, they moved within a mere two games of the division leading Cardinals. Ladies and gentlemen, this is fucking monumental. Usually a Pirates' season is measured by a few simple numbers;

Starting pitchers on the DL

Date of 82nd loss

Date of 100th loss

To be above .500 this "late" is simply fantastic. If the current trends continue, to quote my father, I am 100% sure they probably could win 75 games this year. 100%. Now, on to more serious business.

First, we have Rashard Mendenhall. What a freaking jackass. My father originally thought that the Steelers were actually going to have to cut him after he shot his mouth off, people in the town were that upset (it soon became clear that they would not cut him for a number of reasons, including "there is a lockout they can't cut anybody", "he could honestly probably sue them in some way connected to his freedom of speech being violated", "he's pretty good", and finally "they have nobody else"). I'm a pretty big homer when it comes to the Steelers, but just JFC what a freaking idiot. You are a football player; play football. Don't say things that will seriously upset your fans, no matter how "right" you think you are. It's not rocket science here. Take the ball, hit the guy, goto the huddle, repeat.

Next on my list of people/organizations to win a Chucky (what a great award, seriously) would be the LA Lakers, and specifically Andrew Bynum. The hit he laid on whoever the other guy was (honestly I don't even know) was one of the dirtiest I have ever seen. Admittedly I don't watch much basketball, but...seriously? If he's suspended for less than 5 games it's all a complete joke. If I were in charge I'd give him 10-15 and make him goto like anger management counseling or something just for shits and giggles. And the worst part is I had to listen to everyone talking about it all day today, and a good number of them were actually trying to defend both Bynum AND the organization. Honestly Orange County is kind of growing on me, but LA....you can freaking have it. And besides, at our current rate of southern migration, Danielle and I will be living in Ecuador by 2025.

This whole Lakers debacle reminded me of another glittering example of how we treat people here in LA, specifically the vicious beating of a Giants fan last month after a Dodger's loss early in the baseball season. The last report I heard is that the victim is still in a coma with an extremely bleak prognosis; it'll be a miracle if he ever even wakes up, let alone has any brain function when he does. This story managed to further entrench my belief that the best course of action is simply to wait for "the big one" to do her worst and then rebuild this city from scratch. The people responsible should literally just be shot in the testicles, stomach, and finally face, or perhaps we could set up some sort of identity exchange program with a country in sub-saharan Africa where by their citizens get to trade places with people we want rid of. Come to think of it, that's a fantastic idea; just officially revoke the guilty party's complete identity and all the rights, privileges, and assets that come with it and simply give them to to someone in Africa who through blind luck or an act of God somehow does not yet have AIDS. And while we're at it, let's relocate the Dodgers to Rwanda, or at least let Mark Cuban buy them and be done with it.

He Was Value Betting

Last night as I was lying in bed with a million things swimming around in my head (as usual) I wasn't able to keep my brain from thinking about the hand from yesterday, where my opponent raise/called the A98-9 turn and then bet the river Ace when checked to. What on Earth was going on there? It kept vexing me until suddenly everything became clear, like a light switch got turned on:

He was value betting the river

It has to be true, and makes all the rest of his actions make some semblance of sense. He checked the flop because he didn't have an ace; how could he bet the flop without an ace? But he "knew" that I "knew" that he didn't have an ace either. So when I bet the turn, he put me on a huge range of hands, and when I 3-bet, he assumed not only that I could be bluffing, but also that he actually beat some value hands (presumably TT-QQ) and therefore opted to call me down. When I checked the river he just assumed that I was giving up and hoping he'd check behind and decided to get that last bit of value from my jacks. In retrospect the river showdown gave his intentions away; he showed his kings with pride, and when I saw them and quickly uncovered my full house he was just completed disgusted, that look players get when they can't believe their opponent has slow-rolled them by way of such stark incompetence.

Rate the Plays

In this post I challenge you the reader to rate from 1-6 the severity of each mistake made in this hand. The game is 25/50 LHE and my opponent opens the CO and I defend. My read on him is basically standard LA lag-fish. It's pretty apparent to me that he thinks I'm a nit.

A98r

Check. Check.

9

Pause. I bet. He raises. I 3-bet. He calls.

A

I check. He bets. I tank and then call.

MikeL declares "bad call" and my opponent turns over...KK. I roll T9o and drag it. "wow can't you ever lay down a hand fish!" comes the banter from Mike. "Good bet sir you'd have had my money".

So we have six decisions up for ranking:

1. My defense pre
2. His flop check
3. His turn raise
4. His turn call
5. His river bet
6. My river call

Have at it.

For Want of a Stamp

After claiming yet another victory in live poker today I decided to spend some time thinking about whether or not I'm willing to try and resume online play on some of the "smaller" sites. I spoke to a couple of friends all of whom were of the opinion that "yeah sure honestly what's the worst that could happen" and I tend to agree with them. Then I spoke to another friend who was happy to sell me some dollars on one site and put me in touch with someone who would help me move some of those dollars to another site and things were just going swimmingly except for one thing; I needed to send the friend a check, and my checkbook is obviously packed away lord knows where. Undaunted I set out for the garage, but upon staring at the two rows of 40+ boxes felt immediately sure that I was going to have to concoct some elaborate now 4 way deal involving Bike chips to get the man paid. But then I remembered that my life boom switch is currently activated and took another look; sure enough the box I needed was right on top of a stack of 5, probably in the top 3 or 4 easiest to access positions. I tore it open dug down deep and BOOM checkbook. I took a minute to peruse the rest of the box and decided to claim some tee shirts (being used for padding) and a hoodie (same deal), then glanced at the stamps.

Thoughtful Jesse: "Hmmm, stamps are a good thing to have. What if you need to mail something?"

Regular Jesse: "Come on seriously man when's the last time you mailed someone a fucking letter put the stamps back in the box."

Thoughtful Jesse: "OK"

I pack the box back up, even taping it up because Danielle would be pretty irked if I just went leaving open boxes all willy nilly all over the garage. I put it back in it's spot and walk upstairs to tell Danielle of my victory. Then I walk into the other room and pull up my friend's mailing address that he just gave me ten minutes ago and....

Seriously it's a wonder I can dress myself in the mornings sometimes.