Sorry, , this bout of spelunking wasn’t in the back yard, but instead in the basement.. asked me to bring back my stereo so we could have one in the bedroom, so I had to dig down through the strata of stuff to get to it… I took this opportunity to consolidate some of the boxes and retrieve some books I’ve been meaning to bring to work. It was a real pain in the ass, but it gave me the opportunity to get rid of some crap that I should have gotten rid of a long time ago (like a bunch of VHS tapes and the old 486 laptop that I haven’t used since the days of BeOS [as a debugging serial console]).

is out grabbing lunch from the bagel shop and bringing some back for me.. Her little doggie Oscar was freaking out for a bit but he seems to have mellowed… The little pansy is a total momma’s boy and can’t stand to be away from her.

Christmas was swank… Everyone seemed to enjoy the gifts I got for them, and the Bacon Wrap was a huge hit. I got lots of neat toys to play with, several books, and a few games.. I used some gift cards today to buy a Nintendo DS along with Mario 64 DS, which should be fun as I never played the original…. In addition to the time I’ve spent with my family, I’ve had the chance to hang out with several of my friends… Let me tell you, staying at the house here is much nicer after the renovations…. :)

I figured I would post this comment graph, which apparently goes back to when I started this thing almost 5 years ago.

Who’s been commenting in your journal?

1grahams1152 comments28.97% of total2jerronimo331 comments8.32% of total3kylec167 comments4.2% of total4jon165 comments4.15% of total5shacker147 comments3.7% of total6wxs93 comments2.34% of total7phyber89 comments2.24% of total8nuzz82 comments2.06% of total9joe71480 comments2.01% of total10coco_b77 comments1.94% of total11jeffm76 comments1.91% of total12liqwid61 comments1.53% of total13artica52 comments1.31% of total14mattw52 comments1.31% of total15chrisc48 comments1.21% of total16boba46 comments1.16% of total17pavo34 comments0.86% of total18sabado34 comments0.86% of total19hastybreaching33 comments0.83% of total20chuckmoulton32 comments0.8% of total21oldlady30 comments0.75% of total22soco29 comments0.73% of total23aimr929 comments0.73% of total24brocklisoup28 comments0.7% of total25dezco6228 comments0.7% of total26tangwyn27 comments0.68% of total27jerseyboop27 comments0.68% of total28spampy25 comments0.63% of total29gramatan24 comments0.6% of total30tatyana24 comments0.6% of 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Original idea from scrapdog’s LJ Comment Stats Wizard_.

Hey, give a yell if you need a Gmail invite, I just got another batch.

I bugged out of work Tuesday around my normal time, perhaps a shade early, and drove down 95 to Foxwoods… Got there without incident around 7pm, and met up with who was playing at the 20/40 tables. He had been there all day, and the day before, so he was really in a groove… Playing there on weekdays is a completely different feel, not that the 4/8 players are any better, but it is just far less crowded.. The tables were all full, but the waiting lists were near-empty. BTW, for those that have heard me bitch about it before, Foxwoods has FINALLY replaced the waiting lists whiteboards with a computerized system… It looks like ass, but is much, much better, and you can readably see ALL of the lists from pretty much anywhere in the poker room thanks to the big projection screens…

After a bit of a warm-up period (I haven’t played in quite awhile) I probably played the best, tightest poker of my life.. I barely opened my mouth at the table, and didn’t play many hands, which left most everyone at the table intimidated. The only times I really spoke up was when I was wishing this one guy a happy birthday or when I was needling someone… I have decided that one of my strengths playing poker is detecting when someone is on/near tilt and shoving them way past the breaking point both with my play and with my big mouth.. I hadn’t said anything for an hour or two last night, and and been folding hands for about as long. I won three hands in a row, one against birthday boy and the two others against his friends… After the third one (against mr. birthday), I could tell he was getting pissed, so I turned to him and said “You have any more friends?”. Holy shit did he lose his mind… :) He paid out me and the rest of the table for the following 45 minutes… I ended the night around midnight, up like 10 big bets (which is pretty good for 5 hours or so of play). I grabbed rory’s room key and headed back to the hotel room exhausted… Rory came back from the poker room at like 6:30am… I had his key, so he had to wake me up when he got back to the room, but I didn’t mind.. We chatted it up for like an hour and went to bed at 7:30a, setting the alarm for 10:30a… We woke up around then, made it back to the poker room around noon, but neither of us were really into it.. I knew I had to leave early so I could continue on to NJ, so I was only planning on playing until 3pm or so… I played until 2pm and had a few good hands killed on the river, and when I left the casino at 2pm, I had killed my profits and was even with when I walked in the night before… That’s the problem with sitting down for such a short period of time, one or two bad hands and you aren’t going to have the time to recover… I didn’t lose money though, so whatever… I am contemplating heading down to AC sometime next week, so I will just make it back then.

I left the casino at 2pm, but didn’t make it back to NJ until like 7pm, which is ridiculous.. There was traffic at every turn, the most notable stretch was from the end of the Tappan Zee to 287, and also the mystery bottleneck between denville and Rt. 15 on 80… That section is like perpetually backed up for no discernable reason. It’s nice being home with the Fam and not having to feel like I have to turn around right away and drive back. I spent quite a bit of time wrapping and crap tonight, I can’t wait to give some more gifts… and I exchanged gifts on Friday, since she flew out on Monday… She got me a few more South Park talking dolls to accompany Timmy… I now have talking Jimmy and Butters/Prof. Chaos, which are awesome.. When I opened Jimmy and pressed his “talk button”, Corinna thought it was broken, but it was just Jimmy stuttering… :)

I am taking tomorrow off. After work tonight I am going to drive down to Foxwoods to play some poker… is down there, and is staying overnight, so I am going to poker it up tonight and tomorrow, and after I am done finish the drive to NJ tomorrow evening… Should be fun.

’s brother Tom rocks

This, ladies and gentlemen, is just one more reason why I love the internet.

Regarding the mild hub-bub over all of the bogus anti-christmas crap that O’Reilly and others have been spewing:

Things got even uglier during a segment on MSNBC Dec. 8, when William Donahue of the arch-conservative Catholic League insisted, “Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, OK? Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes.”

Who mentions anal sex in one sentence and nativity scenes in the next? Sexually frustrated catholics, that’s who. :)

Went to a Boston Linux/Unix Users Group meeting at MIT today, the guest of honor was Rob Getschmann, brother of Sharon and brother-in-law of Chris… He did a presentation on the BSDs, which while interesting, was a rehash of a lot of stuff I already knew… I don’t know why I keep trying to like User Groups…

I decided to do something useful with the \$100 I won at the Goodrich Holiday Party so I donated a Onyx GBA SP, a “Zelda: Link to the Past” GBA game, and a DVD of Tron to Child’s Play. For the uninitiated, Child’s Play is a charity organized by the fine fellows of Penny Arcade!, my favorite webcomic. They created the charity last year to combat all the negative stereotypes of Gamers, as well as to do something good for the Seattle Children’s Hospital. More than \$250,000 worth of games, toys, etc were donated last year. This year, the charity has expanded to include 4 more children’s hospitals around the country…

I strongly urge you to check out the site, look at the Amazon Wishlists for the hospitals, and see if you can find some extra cash lying around to help some sick kids.