The race goes to the swift, I s’pose
or else the slow and steady,
or else the passionate, or those
who bothered to get ready,
or ones who coached themselves, or those
meticulously mentored.
But every single time it goes
To somebody who entered.

This came out of today’s Sunday comics. I like it.

I just got back from an impromptu evening at the Bicycle Club playing 4/8 Hold ’em. I was tired after we put Zoe to bed and kinda sorta wanted to go play cards but couldn’t commit until Beth announced she was going to watch our Tivo’d What Not To Wear, which made the decision easy. Ten minutes later I was on the freeway, headed for the Bike.

I had a good night. I bought in for $100 and cashed out an hour and a half later with a profit of $250. I usually call it a night when I hit +$100, but tonight I was on a rush and my opponents were playing No Fold ’em Hold ’em and stayed in to the bitter end on every hand. Which only added to my stack. So I kept playing.

Best hand of the night was when I looked down to find AK and two people in front of me raised, so I re-re-raised it up to $16. Half the table called, which made the pot nearly $100 pre-flop. The flop came down King/rag/rag, giving me top pair with top kicker. Everyone checked around to me, I bet $4 and everyone called. The turn came a Queen, everyone checked around to me, I bet out $8, about half folded and the rest called. The river came another rag, everyone checks around to me, I bet $8, two people called, and they didn’t even bother showing their cards when I flipped up my AK. It took two racks to stack that pot, and I won the next one while I was stacking that one with A5 that turned into a straight. I was unstoppable.

After I cashed out I hung around for awhile watching the No Limit game. I really wanted to buy in to that one, but I’m going on the road for two week and I’m a little short on cash because registering my motorcycle cost me $1000 last week so I figured I’d better keep that $250 in my pocket until I get back. I’ll wait for my next per diem check and get into the game then. There’s definitely a chair with my name on it at that table, they’re just keeping it warm for me.

Al Franken’s book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them can go on sale after all, despite Faux Nooz’s ridiculous lawsuit to stop it. As the judge put it, “This case is wholly without merit both factually and legally.” Duh.

I actually think it was confusion on Fox’s part that led to this whole uproar. In their suit, they argued that the book’s tag line, “A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right,” was used to confuse consumers. They confused the book with themselves — they trademarked “Fair and Balanced” to confuse their own viewers. It’s hard to keep things straight with a network full of lying liars.

I didn’t do too well in the tournament at Hollywood Park today. I just wasn’t catching cards and I wasn’t playing all that well either. The low point had to be when I was holding the nut flush, bet out $200, was raised $900 by the guy behind me … and I just called instead of coming over the top at him and going all-in. I won the pot, of course, but it could have been so much more. He definitely would have called me and I would have knocked him out of the tournament. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I just wasn’t thinking. I ended up busting out pretty early, and the way I was playing it was inevitable.

Total cost after the entry fee and the multiple rebuys I did: $95. So I sat down in a cash game, 3/6 Limit Hold ’em, and won back the $95 plus another $60 just for fun. Busting out early isn’t so bad when you do it for free and then turn a profit on the trip.

Traveling for work as much as I do sucks, but it does have its silver lining — comp days. While it sucks to be stuck in a hotel room with nothing to do over a weekend, it’s nice to know I’m earning two comp days for being on the road Sat and Sun that I can use when I get home. Next weekend, over Labor Day, I’ll be earning three. Woo.

So I’m taking a comp day today. Stayed up late last night, slept in a little bit this morning, didn’t have to lanesplit through 65 miles of LA traffic… Life is good. And later this morning there’s a chair with my name on it in the No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament over at Hollywood Park. Shuffle up and deal!

All employees at my office have been through mandatory sexual harrassment training, whether we were pretty good at it already or not. I didn’t get much out of it personally even though I know there’s always room for improvement. The trainer used a goofy little gender-neutral stuffed toy — a smiley face with arms and legs — as his model employee, named it “Henrietta,” and in every scenario presented asked us “How would Henrietta feel about this?” Henrietta would be horrified by my desk.

Not by the picture of Richard Simmons someone pinned up next to my computer, and not by the other picture of Richard Simmons someone taped to the handset of my phone. No, it’s my toys. I have various toys and action figures standing on the wall all around the perimeter of my cubicle: The Tick, Mucus Tick, Space Ghost, the Alien, etc. I also have scattered throughout them all small rubber bunny rabbits about half an inch tall in various “action poses.” The bunnies don’t really do anything but I thought they made a nice counterpoint to the machismo of Space Ghost and the others. Plus, they’re cute.

Well, someone keeps fucking with my bunnies: they keep making the bunnies fuck with each other. Every morning when I come in, I find a bunny orgy going on — bunnies are going at it doggie-style, missionary position, 69ing, etc. Oral sex is a prominent theme. Right now looking to my left I see a stack of three bunnies, two going at it 69 style with the third on top buggering the middle one. I’ve got bunny porn going on over here.

Henrietta would be appalled, I think.

My commute to work on the 5 Freeway takes me through the heart of Anaheim, right past Disneyland. And I do mean right past Disneyland. You can see it from the freeway — Space Mountain, the ferris wheel, the Matterhorn… It’s all right there, barely 100 yards from the freeway. It’s a little more than a stone’s throw away, but you could definitely nail the Matterhorn with a stone using one of those wrist rocket slingshots.

That just seems wrong to me somehow. The Happiest Place on Earth is supposed to be an escape, a different reality, separate from the rest of the world. Bored commuters stuck in gridlock shouldn’t be able to peer in from their cars.

I was wrapping everything up at the office, getting things in line for my trip to Bozeman, MT next week when I suddenly realized: I don’t have my itinerary yet. Uh oh.

I submitted my travel request more than a month ago and I should have received the info back by now, so I don’t know if they booked my travel or not. Considering that I found out today that they “forgot” to process my per diem request (which means I’ll be living out of pocket in Big Sky country), I’m guessing my travel request got waylaid somewhere along the way. What should have been a $600 plane ticket is going to turn into two or three thousand dollars.

I’m glad I’m not paying for it. But then if I were paying for it, I wouldn’t be going to Bozeman in the first place. Cancun, sure. Bozeman? Pass.

Hi, Room 935’ers! Run along now, go scurry back into your not-so-secret little molehole.

If it weren’t happening right here, I’d think the headlines in my newspaper were about some other country — Russia or China or Syria; countries that deny their citizens the most basic of rights, that oppress their citizens. When I see the shit John Ashcroft is doing I hear the Talking Heads in my head: “This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!” The Patriot Act is 1984 coming true 20 years late.

The story I linked to above says, “…Ashcroft, who has launched a monthlong public relations campaign to promote the Patriot Act, suggested there was strong public support for the new search powers.” Yo, John, this is me expressing strong opposition to the new search powers.

I have to get me one of these T-shirts.