What a great excuse

To put a picture of Jarah that I haven't put up before. Notice the crowd on the balcony. You guessed it. They're thinking, "Oh, my God! Why aren't you at home with your rather homely dog and raising on internet poker? You think shopping for new shoes and eating Ben and Jerry's at the food court is more important? Hah! You are clueless."

The real non-silly excuse is the crime agaisnt nature known as Full Tilt's Matrix game. Me and my crack team of historians (me and the dog that is nowhere close to as homely as Jarah's dog) have unearthed that this game was created by English monks (not Adrian Monk) 450 years ago as a penance for their sins. Oh Lord, I have sinned. Please let me get cheated on four tables at the same time instead of just one table. And considering the logistics of no internet and all the shuffling and dealing of four decks of cards per hand these games dragged out a long time. Longer than suffering through reruns of TV shows that you once thought were cool but as you get older you realize they really were pretty stupid. I'm talking to you Gilligan's Island. I want the $9.95 on my coconut decoder ring back you bitch. So this means they were fasting for months too, since Ben and Jerry's was ages away from being created.

Having "enjoyed" several tables of the Matrix the past few nights I've realized that this is a great excuse to populate a game without real people other than myself and Jarah, who are the only two people stupid enough to waste their time on it. The play is lightning fast. There is a preflop raise on every single hand. As you bounce around the four tables there's no chance of even trying to examine chip stacks and previous bets and formulate a "Oh, I'm gonna get you sucker" revenge strategy on the obviously incompetent jackwipe who bad beated you on the river holding 9-2 off suit. There's certainlyno time for a single chatted "nh" or "ty" or my favorite that I haven't seen for AT LEAST three weeks - "Doctor, the Daleks haven't been destoyed after all. I realize you have just gone through another regeneration and the Tardis is acting wonky, but we NEED you." Normally that chat gets posted, but on the Matrix it just comes out as "Do" and there's no time to finish it.

Too busy raising to have a real life and doing something as simple as watching TV. Remember, I don't count. I'm the critic. And I have been enjoying Doctor Who. Yet internet poker wants me to believe that millions of people every night have nothing better to do with their lives than log into a poker site, sit on the free money tables, play badly and lose , magically have their chips be at a level far above what their competence dictates and tease Jarah's dog.

Insane.

Oh yeah. Jarah's dog is pissed.