Friday: penne with radicchio, spinach and bacon. I must confess to having unintentionally ripped off the grocery store a little bit on this one. Radicchio was going for $5.99 a pound, so this freakin' head of radicchio was gonna cost me like eight bucks. But the checker rang it up as red cabbage, 99 cents a pound. I did not correct him.
Saturday: Steakhouse night! Grilled steak, Palm-style hash browns from Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, and spinach salad with warm bacon dressing.
Sunday: Black bean soup with chicken and chorizo. In the January '08 issue of Bon Appetit, but not on the web site for some reason. A simple recipe, but insanely good.
It would scarcely be Linking Fool Friday without a link to a Digby and/or a Glenn Greenwald post. We've got that in spades today, with thoughts on how much goddamned time and energy the Democrats spend on caving, and in particular the Reid vs. Dodd filibuster showdown. Seriously, this is friggin' ridiculous. Stand for something.
Anyone who says honest American citizens have nothing to fear from our post-9/11 "security" hysteria should read this.
Don't want building inspectors at your house? Just stack hay bales around it.
Reader contributions! Tor passes on an item proving Hitler was a Cowboys fan, and Andrew F. sends this one lining up the presidential candidates with college football teams (follow the link there to the Simpsons-college football teams post, it's even awesomer).
Finally, if you need to kill the rest of your Friday, it's TIME FOR SOME STORIES.
As with most of my posts about poker, 90% of you won't care. But I have to write this. HAVE TO.
Free game at the bar last night. I win a couple of hands early, and they're good-sized pots, so I've got a decent stack in front of me. A short-stack goes all-in, I call with A-8 suited, and take out his K-Q when an ace comes up. Couple hands later, I'm on the big blind at 800, a guy raises to 2400, and I "what the hell" call with A-2 suited. The flop is 9-2-2, I slow-play it perfectly, and before long I have all his chips too. Things are going well.
The very next hand: I have 6s-4s in the small blind, and limp in to three callers. The flop is 8c-8s-5s, so I am sitting on a straight flush draw, which is typically a very good thing. Any spade, any seven, and of course the seven of spades would be frickin' awesome. One player bets, I call and everyone else folds. The turn is a six, so I now have a pair, and I call another good-size bet from the other player. The river is a blank. He goes all-in for his last 4000 or so.
I can cover this bet and have chips remaining, but it would take a good-size chunk out of what I have left. I've played with this guy before, and I think "I would not be at all surprised if he has jack squat and is trying to buy this pot." I also think "It's a free game! WTF! If you think you've got a read, call him out!" But then my conservative side takes over, and I think "I've got a pair of sixes. You don't win many hands with a pair of sixes. He could have an 8, he could have a pocket pair, there's a straight draw out there... too many ways to lose this hand."
So I say, "Dude, part of me thinks you might well be bluffing here. But I can't call this." And he shows his ace-five, to make a pair of fives. I had him beat.
With that, all my luck walked out the door, and I didn't win another hand the rest of the night. I didn't go on tilt or play badly or anything, just couldn't catch any cards. Finished 12th out of the field of 40 or so, but should have been much better. That call would have given me a HUGE lead at our table, and I could've played big-stack bully and made everyone else miserable.
Well, crap.
Bobby Isosceles: Just so you know, Im a genius
carlosdelvaca: OK then
Bobby Isosceles: are you in VA or MD?
carlosdelvaca: VA
Bobby Isosceles: have you heard of the Lebanese Butcher (in falls church)
carlosdelvaca: nope
Bobby Isosceles: it is as its name indicates. totally halal butcher, have their own slaughterhouse etc, very high quality
carlosdelvaca: you mean it's not an urban legend of a Lebanese dude who prowls Route 7 late at night with a cleaver?
Bobby Isosceles: Sadly no
Bobby Isosceles: anyawy, you can get very high quality meat, and they grind it for you
Bobby Isosceles: thus,m my idea
Bobby Isosceles: a) ground goat for the meat
Bobby Isosceles: b) goat cheese for the cheese
Bobby Isosceles: c) sesame seed bun
Bobby Isosceles: == GOATSEED burger
carlosdelvaca: I'm sure you have ideas for the packaging already
Bobby Isosceles: french fries as hands
carlosdelvaca: I am so posting this on my blog
Bobby Isosceles: you have a blog?
Entertaining item from today's Post: a local high school senior found the home number for a FCPS official, and left a voice mail asking why school hadn't been called on account of snow. The official's wife called back and left an angry tirade of a message. One guess as to what happened next: yeah, all up ins the Interwebs.
I still suspect the kid just wanted to get out of school rather than having genuine concern about the welfare of students on snow-covered roads. But if he was forward enough to leave his actual name and number, he deserves better than a bitchy reply. If it had been a parent rather than a student, I'm sure she'd have been more courteous. Also, someone please advise Ms. Tistadt that naked pictures "just for us" = naked pictures on Internet, so don't let anyone take any of those.
John Kruk to appear on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Neko Case, too. I might just lose my mind. (H/T 700 Level.)
Monday is MLK Day. Digby brings us a Bill Clinton speech on that theme, which is a rare inspirational read in our poisonous political atmosphere.
Having a bad day? At least your dog didn't dig up your dead cat and bring it back in the house.
Many Friends of the Fool will join me in mourning the imminent closure of Dr. Dremo's, which I still call "the Bardo" sometimes. When I first moved to DC in '94, the Bardo was THE happy hour spot, and I spent many a Thursday or Friday evening on their patio or just inside the garage door. Great beer (originally brewed on-site, then contracted out, but always a great selection), generally good food (blue corn nachos!), cheap happy hour, good jukebox, pool tables, and palindrome graffiti in the bathroom. Plus the great paper airplane war that went off one night. Good bars are hard to find.
Forbes names the Phanatic the best mascot in sports! Their top few choices are pretty good, but the bottom half of the list is a head-scratcher. Miles from the Broncos?! He's not even the best mascot in his own city (that would be Rocky from the Nuggets). Also in the sports department, amusingly well-timed sports photos, even if a few of them are faked.
Lastly: The live-action Garfield videos of Lasagna Cat are making the rounds. I like this one.
1. Dept. of Dubious Health Claims, from the back of a Lay's potato chip bag:
Great News! The 2005 Dietary Guidelines recommend that most of the fats you eat be mono and polyunsaturated fats. Sunflower oil is 90% mono and polyunsaturated fats and has 0 grams of transfat.Shorter: "Our potato chips are not as bad for you as they potentially could be!"
2. Rachael Ray's offenses on the human brain have been well documented. But nothing makes me want to track her down and kick her in the shins more than the word "stoup."
3. Mrs. Fool had Lifetime's "Queen Sized" on the telly last night. When Nikki Blonsky's character was put upon and humiliated by the kool kidz in her bid to be homecoming queen, I asked, "Does she use her telekenetic powers to lock the school and set the place on fire? Because that would be a cool movie."
"Could you put this down with the severed animal heads, please?"
At the National Zoo's restaurant, kids' meals are served in plastic lunchboxes in the shape of panda or cheetah heads. We have four or so of these in a cabinet in the kitchen, along with a lot of other plastic stuff (it's the one kitchen cabinet the girls are allowed to open at will). Every time I open that cabinet, the heads fall out, and I ask Mrs. Fool, "Do we really need this many severed animal heads?"
Despite what you may have been told, I am not selling my house and moving to Tampa to apply for any jobs. Now get back to work.
I am pleased to learn that I share a birthday with Nationals manager Manny Acta.
Presidential campaign stuff: Right-wing bloggers make me embarrassed for white people. Additionally, I like Mister Leonard Pierce's add-on to this post. Also, here we go with "bipartisanship" again, when what we really need is a Democrat who will actually fight for Democratic values.
Best health care in the world, bitches!
No matter how you try to block profanity and the exchange of phone numbers in your virtual community, people will find a way.
Don't you love stories about CEOs who run their companies into the ground, but still get milllllllions of dollars? Of course you do! It's good to be a working stiff and/or a shareholder! Yay capitalism!
Sports: Indeed, lamest hockey fight ever. I tend to agree with The Good Phight on the steroids issue: during the McGwire-Sosa home run chase, you pretty much had to know these guys were juicing, but we collectively chose to sweept that under the rug. Aside from piling on Barry Bonds, which folks seem to enjoy for its own sake, I don't see the fan base getting that riled up about the Mitchell Report.
Lastly: Even if you don't read Achewood, this is a pretty good discussion of Starbucks vs. McDonalds.
We got a credit card offer in the mail today for Liz.
She is four years old.
I am halfway tempted to fill it out and send it in. We'd include her 2004 birth date, and under "Employer," write "I don't have a job, I'm a kid!" Even have her sign it in her four-year-old scrawl.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to get a card back. Maybe if we get another offer for two-year-old Cate, we'll give it a try.
UPDATE: I e-mailed this to Consumerist, and they picked it up. Amusing comments there, and lots of other people who have had credit card offers sent to their small children, dogs, and dead rabbits.
"Outside the cottage of Red Riding Hood's grandmother's cottage."
I have very little for you this week. The political blogs are just about all Iowa, all the time, and I largely give a rat's ass about it.
I did, however, see this item on an ice cream truck battle, and this video of Ryan Zimmerman having trouble with a ground ball that I somehow missed during the regular season. Enjoy.
1. In the car I drive back and forth to work, to make the windshield wipers go once, you push the switch down, and to put them on continually you push the switch up. In our minivan, it's the opposite--up is one wipe, down is turning them on like regular. As a result, any time I am driving and it starts to rain, it's a good bet that I will accidentally turn on the wipers at their most frantic high speed.
2. There's a nonsensical commercial running now where Peyton Manning is in the hallway of a hotel, a Miami Dolphins defensive player (Jason Taylor?) is charging down the hall at him, and he looks in a door and Marvin Harrison is underwater. I have no idea what this ad is selling or even what the overall concept is supposed to be. But I do believe it would be infinitely better if Manning and Taylor engaged in a Bugs Bunny-style hallway chase, going in and out of doors completely at random.
3. Time to engage in a favorite FoolBlog activity, picking on Gregg Easterbrook. He writes:
In leaguewide news, although the best part now begins -- the games an entire season of nonsense has built up to -- paradoxically, interest declines at this point in each NFL season. Only 12 of 32 teams remain standing, which means two-thirds of the fan bases are already dreaming of September 2008. In the regular season, even if your team stinks, you can always hope it'll have a good game the next week. Now, though, there is no next week for 20 of 32 franchises and their followers. With each passing week in the NFL postseason, fewer and fewer people really care what happens because their favorite teams are out.He writes some variation on this every season, and to be honest, I'm not sure what his point is. This is true of any sport that has post-season playoffs. Is he suggesting that the playoffs are a bad thing?
Furthermore, I'm not sure the TV ratings bear out the suggestion that people don't care unless their favorite team is involved. Sure, the ratings will be higher in media markets where teams are still alive, but they're plenty high everywhere else, too. And the Super Bowl regularly manages to be the highest-rated TV program of the year, despite the fact that 30 of the 32 NFL teams do not play in it.
He may be technically correct on some level, but I don't think this observation is nearly as interesting he seems to think it is. A positive Easterbrook note: unless I missed it, he did not run his annual assertion that the Thanksgiving games in Dallas and Detroit give those teams an unfair advantage. Perhaps our repeated whooping that this represents home field advantage and nothing more finally got through.