To Bill Brasky!

This is from Ask The Bunny, a regular feature at Wizard Magazine’s (a comic book industry magazine) Web site.

Bunny, How different would “Lost” be if Jack Bauer was on that plane?
Tom

Well, for starters, the whole thing would be over real fast. It would take about a day at the most. (Funny, most things in Jack’s life are like that.) Jack would probably find a way to crash the plane into the Others whilst scattering debris on all of the island’s other mysterious threats. With no people left to talk tersely to, Jack would then take a polar bear hostage and force it at gunpoint to tell him all of the secrets of the show, the Dharma Corp. and the island. Jack would then just start walking to Los Angeles—underwater, like Godzilla, except cooler because Godzilla doesn’t carry a rad messenger bag and rarely shoots suspects’ wives in the thigh. Stupid Godzilla.

To Jack Bauer!

This?

Really brings the funny. It's a good blog anyway, well worth reading, but this goes beyond the normal level of funny into extreme funny. Rapebear funny.

Lyle Lovett Week Is Here!

It’s Lyle Lovett week here at Corn’O’Copia. Pay attention – there may be a theme!

If You Were To Wake Up (from the album Lyle Lovett and His Large Band)

If you were to wake up
And I were beside you
Would you gently smile dear
And whisper my name?

And would you remember
The way that I held you?
And would you want me
To hold you again?

Time reaches to you
Just like a willow
That bends to the water
And clings to the shore

And there was a time dear
That once you did love me
And there was a time when
You loved me no more

Rain on your window
Light on your pillow
The way you lie sleeping
Is it like before?

For there was a time dear
That once you did love me
And there was a time when
You loved me no more

Somehow

I imagine alcohol played a part in this.

Local authorities launched a rescue effort early this morning after receiving a report of a man who fell into the Iowa River off the Burlington Street Bridge and went over the dam.The search for the man halted after about three hours — when he called police to say he was OK.

Yes, 23-year-old Jonathan Fasselius of Coralville did indeed fall off the Burlington Street bridge about 2:19 a.m. And yes, he was immediately swept over the dam beneath said bridge.According to a press release from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, Fasselius said he was looking for a friend on the eastbound side of the bridge. He then decided to cross over to the westbound side, not realizing that the two sides are actually two separate bridges. You can guess what that led to.

It was then that Iowa City resident Kimberly Fensterbusch heard a splash, and saw Fasselius in the water yelling for help. She called 911.

After hitting the water just up river from the bridge, Fasselius then went over the dam and underwater for a period of time. Amazingly, he was able to make it out of the water downstream. Unaware that anyone even saw him go in, let alone called for his rescue, Fasselius walked home.

Meanwhile, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, Iowa City Police Department, Johnson County Ambulance Department, Iowa City Fire Department, Hills Fire Department, Coralville Fire Department and Johnson County Emergency Management responded and got to work on a search and rescue mission for a man who was toweling off back at his pad in Coralville.

About 5:30 a.m., Fasselius called Iowa City Police to say that he had heard they were looking for someone in the Iowa River, and that he just might be the guy they were looking for.Fasselius suffered minor injuries.

My favorite line there? You can guess what that led to. Next favorite? got to work on a search and rescue mission for a man who was toweling off back at his pad in Coralville.

“Toweling off back at his pad”? Yeah baby! That’s shagadelic!

Seriously though, this is gold. Guy presumably gets very drunk, drunk enough to be walking along the eastbound Burlington Street bridge looking for a friend. Guy decides friend is not on the eastbound, then decides to look on the westbound bridge. Guy decides to just climb over the rail from the eastbound bridge to the westbound bridge, apparently not noticing the six-seven foot gap between the bridges where there is nothing but air and, after a 15-20 foot fall, the river. Just above the dam. Guy hits the rvier, presumably after saying fuck at least once, goes over the dam, goes underwater, somehow manages to get to the surface, gets himself to shore, then walks several miles home like nothing happened, yet somehow manages, three hours later, at 5:00 am in the morning, to find out that police and emergency services are looking for someone in the Iowa River, as if that knowledge just got beamed down into his brain somehow, at which point he calls the cops and says "uh, you might be looking for me". I love this story.

Meme Time

I don't usually do the Meme thing, but this was kinda fun. It's courtesy Side Notes, who got it from 2 Hot Chicks, who got it from someplace.

Type “(Your name) Needs” into Google and list the results. Here are some of what I go:

Some are concerned about my health and well being

David needs a liver.
David needs help with his medication
David needs to protect himself
David needs to lose weight and build muscle
David needs a Tylenol
David needs a break

Some are worried about my personal hygiene

David needs a bath
David needs a new makeover and he asks you to help

Some sound like a performance review

David needs to show some evidence to support this
David needs to give more attention to making the team successful
David needs to see if he can get practical support
David needs help in dealing with his difficulties with comprehension

Still others can’t really be classified

David needs a family that would be willing to love and care for David
David needs three
David needs to relax when the music calls for it
David needs lots of attention
David needs to know who you are
David needs to consistently finish in the top five each race
David needs to collect five smooth stones in the stream

But in the end it doesn’t really matter, because as we all know:

David needs no introduction

(Note: I got no results with "Dweeze needs". So I had to go with my real name.)

OMG

Pete Townsend has a blog. Pete Fucking Townsend has a blog.

You can have the Stones, cheap posers that they are. You can have the Beatles, geniuses that they are. I’ll take the Who any day of the week and twice on Sundays. The only artist higher in my personal music pantheon is Bruce, and long before Bruce became Bruce, Pete and the boys were the Who. Long Live Rock!

Random Stuff

Not enough worthy of a whole post, but hey.

Sad day here in Dweezeland. Drew left this morning to spend the summer at his dad's. That always makes for a depressing first few days, and a sense of loss the entire time he is gone. He is always happy to go, though, which makes it much easier. It's hard to believe he is going to be a third grader when he gets back - I could swear kindergarten was just last week.

Some happy news for Iowa Citians in general, though. The Randi Rhodes show is coming to KXIC radio. It will be the first Air America syndication in the area. Her show will air right after the Hanity show ends. I'm hoping that once KXIC's current contracts with Hanity expire they will add on more Air America broadcasts. It's strange to say KXIC is my favorite radio listening spot, but I do like the morning show mix of news, weather, sports, and local events; I do like listening to Jim Rome during the noontime hours; and of course, KXIC is the official local home of all Hawkeye sports broadcasts.

Courtesy of MJ's Big Blog, a hilarious bit Idol's Kellie Pickler did for the Tonight Show. I can't get blogger to embed it, so follow through the link at MJ's.

Finally, tangentally Idol related, the Daily Show ended their coverage of Al-Zarqawi with a retrospective of his career put to the Bad Day song Idol uses to close out their show. Priceless!

Poker In The Back

I know that you, my loyal readers, are wondering how things have been lately pokerwise. Dweeze, you ask, how the cards treating you?

Pretty good, thanks, and is that a new hairdo? It looks nice.

Anyway, played in my first live tourney last week. It was the freeroll at the American Legion, and Greenman, Tanman, Matt, and I entered as something to do before the midnight showing of X3. Ja and Josh, other regulars from our weekly game, showed up as well.

I was a little nervous as I sat down. For one thing, they didn’t identify the chips when they handed them to me. I wasn’t sure what was what amount. For another, I wasn’t sure what it would be like to play face to face against strangers.

The chip thing solved itself immediately. I got an ace when cards were dealt to see who would deal, resulting in me being the first person to deal. Because I wasn’t in the blinds right away, I could see how others were using their chips and figure out the denominations that way.

The second thing was fine, too. I guess I’ve played enough games online against complete strangers to get a quick comfort level. The big difference, of course, is that you can watch and read other people’s reactions. But the basics of play were exactly the same, and I was fine.

There was another area where playing online helped. Because it was a freeroll, with $3 rebuys for the first hour, there were a lot of people pushing, going all in with low pairs or draws on the theory that they could always buy back in. This was similar to what happens in online tourneys, where people push all in with little because it didn’t cost them anything to enter the tourney. What I learned online, to sit back and bide my time, mucking a lot of playable hands yet playing the hands I chose to play aggressively, helped a lot here. In that first hour I only entered three hands when I wasn’t in the blinds and I won all three, taking down another player (who quickly bought back in) each time. Not only did I not have to rebuy, I came out of the first hour with a nice stack of chips.

I continued to build on that stack for awhile until that table got broken up. (After the first hour, as people got busted and the number of people remaining in the tourney shrunk, people were reassigned to other tables so that there were always at least 6-7 people at a table.) At that point I got sent to a table where Greenman and Ja were sitting. I wasn’t the big stack, but I was in okay position. It stayed that way for awhile, but I then hit a streak where I wasn’t able to consistently build on the stack. I ended up calling a couple of all ins that I lost, though I have no regrets about the calls. One time I called a A-10 with A-J and the 10 hit. Another time I had Q-Q and lost to someone who hit their A. So it wasn’t bad calls on my part, just poker. Still, I remained in the game as the number of people dropping out grew.

Our weekly game represented itself well, too. Eighty people started the tourney, six from our game. All six made the final twenty-five. Four of us, including me, made the top ten. And three of us, including me, made the final table. Unfortunately for me, I went out eighth and the tourney only paid six spots. I was on the lower end of the chip count when the final table started, and I couldn’t catch anything. My all in hand was Js, and I was close to doubling up, when the chip leader, the only person to call me, hit her A on the river. The bad thing was, not only was it a river loss, but she was one of the people I had knocked out during the rebuy period. But again, that’s poker. The other two members of the weekly game to reach the final table, Tanman and Greenman, finished fifth and second respectively.

There’s tourneys at the Legion every Tuesday and Thursday, and I may go again tonight. It’s a pay tourney, $10 with no rebuys, but they pay more places. So we’ll see.

Another poker story, from playing last night. I don’t believe in bad beats – any cards can come up at any time, no matter the odds against it happening – so any beat is possible. But I do believe in hard beats, and I saw an incredibly hard one last night.

It was at a 10,000 chip 18 person sit and go. These pay four places. It was down to five people left, and the play got very tight because no one wanted to miss the bubble. The chip leader had about 10,000 in chips, second was about 8,000, third about 7,000, I had around 1,500, and the short stack had 500. Blinds were at 250/500, and the short stack was about to hit the big blind. The big stack was small blind, second place the big blind. The big stack called, second stack raised, big stack called.

The flop comes down 8s-Ks-Qh. Big stack acts first, bets about 1,000. Second stack calls. Turn comes down Qd. Big stack checks, second stack bets 2,000, big stack calls. Right now there is about 8,000 in the pot. Turn comes down Js. That makes a flush draw and a straight draw on the board. Big stack checks, second stack goes all in, big stack calls. Second stack shows Q-J, for a full house queens over jacks. Big stack shows a K-Q, for a full house queens over kings, knocking the second stack out and putting the rest of us in the money.

Think about that. There you are, thinking you have the best hand (at least from the turn forward), then making your boat only to discover that you never had the best hand, you were behind from the start, and the person with more chips than you not only had a bigger boat, but they had it a card earlier. That’s a hard beat.