Reclaiming Friday the 13th

So Yesterday was Friday the 13th. Also know as the day I came within inches of death. Friday, November the 13th, 1998. High School. Car Accident. Car flipped 7 times. Landed upside-down. Driver died. 3 survivors. There are A LOT more details, but I won't share that on an internet blog.

I crawled out the rear window. Used a cell hone to call my parents and swore that I would never complain about not being lucky ever again. I survived that accident with a scratch on my elbow that required no stitches. I truly felt like I spent every ounce of luck I ever would have in life and was more than happy with that.

Thus, irony struck when last night, Friday, January the 13th, 2012, I was in attendance at a "Press Your Luck" event, I don't think anyone there or many of my West Coast friends knew/know the gravitas of the date to me, but it needs to be said that I thought about the incident much less than usual.

And for those that care, my luck was ok. I hit no whammies, was quick on the buzzer and had a lot of fun.

The real story though is that on this Friday the 13th, hopefully things have started to change. Consider me batty, I don't care, but I genuinely think I fell some of my luck coming back. Maybe it only took 29 years of luck to survive that accident and maybe now I have paid off my debts. Time will tell, and I won't be greedy about it, but here's to things looking up moving forward.

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Games People Play

I'm a huge game player. But the one game I don't play is the game of life. Note that wasn't capitalized. The Game of Life the board game is just fine. The Game of Life the game show ain't bad either. And Robot Chicken SLAYED the Game of Life (Stupid Spinner!) But don't mess with me in real life.

Seriously, if I told you half the things that happened to me today I'd sound like a whiny (fill in the blank). And most of the things have been good!

If I back it up to the past month, you mind would EXPLODE (another great song on Patrick Stump's Soul Punk, btw)

So let me make this perfectly clear. No matter how strategic and cutthroat I may be playing games and no mater how many ulterior motive I keep secret in competitive ventures, I DON'T MESS AROUND IN REAL LIFE. And you shouldn't either.
I aim to be transparent as possible and can't stand when others attempt to blatantly deceive me, use me, or fail to take me at face value.

I will now step back, breathe, and give the benefit of doubt to all the people I think have "played" me in the recent weeks. And i will put everyone else on notice not to join the list.

That is all.

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Step 1: Drink!

...Step 2: Make mistakes. Step 3: Pretend you don't remember. Aside from being questionable advice, or my favorite way to party, let's insert an advertisement.

The aforementioned advice is a stolen lyric from Patrick Stump's album "Soul Punk". I won't tell you which song because you should get the whole record. (And legally damn it). This ends me forcing music upon you.

I now return you to my regularly scheduled blogging.

Why the hell do people need to be drunk in order to "have fun" or "be free". Anyone who knows me knows that I can be a pure-T fool anytime I feel like it without a "buzz". That's a pure-T fool, not to be confused with Mr. T as there is no pity here.

Have we been groomed by today's society to be so self-conscious that we repress the most fun and unique parts of our being. And I said fun and unique, not to be confused with "private"

Simply put I'm saddened every time I see one of my friends pull back. Given, around strangers it is wise not to expose the "full monty" of your lunacy, but around friends there should be an aura of safety. You should push the envelope and be encouraged to do so. And should you ever "cross the line" all you should ever receive is a kind request to tone it down, not a digital photo lynching on facebook or twitter.

Mind you, if you cross the line around me, I already line on the other side, so I'll greet you with open arms.

So I close this post with by urging you to examine yourself and push your limits. At worst you'll find which of our friends are just as jacked in the head as you are.

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Watch. Play. We All Win.

I'm getting a little sick of the #WhosStillWatching hashtag on Twitter.

For those of you who have been living under a rock (or not watching NBC. There has been a new game show airing Mondays at 8 on NBC. It's called Who's Still Standing and it drops people through trap doors. It stars Ben "Cash Cab" Bailey and more loud and rambunctious trivia-ites than you can shake a stick at. And, oh yeah, I was a contestant. Total Winnings $0.

Let's start here. The show has flaws. There are some questionable editing, writing and casting choices. Let's end there too.

Simply put, this show fills a void. We need more shows that reward people for "doing" something. In a world where we pay Kardashians and Jersey Shore denizens oodles of cash for just being amplified versions of themselves or other stereotypes, we need balance. I need balance.

Game Shows give the "everyman" his/her opportunity at 15 minutes of fame. They are fun, allow people to demonstrate knowledge, skill or "strategery" and provide the most real entertainment on television.

So while I won't ask anyone to stop voicing their opinions on Who's Still Standing or any other show game or otherwise, I will ask that barring a true travesty of a program that we support the game show genre a little more. If we do, maybe a show like WSS will hire me. Because god know if you give me control over trivia and trap doors you will have a winner, ratings and this Broadway meets "Chicago" tune _L_ / T_ _T / _ _ _ Z

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Apocalypse Nigh!

So 2011 is officially over and we all have 365 days to "do better" than last year. Yes, it's a leap year, but I'm writing this a day late, so 365.

In the last year, I've overcome major surgery, moved across the country and even made my network television debut. I've got a lot to be proud about, but as we all know, life moves ever forward.

If there's one thing that I learned, it's that the world isn't nearly as critical of me as I thought it would be. Being on TV exposed me as a potential object of public ridicule, yet the response I have received has almost been solely positive.

Now it's time for me to continue to put myself or should I say, some of "my babies", out there. And Now, Maury Povich, I am NOT the father (in that way)

Here's to finding the inner force that drives you forward. I've you need a ride on the P-Train (and get R. Kelly out of your head) jump on board. See you on the flipside

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I'll Take Stupid Answers for... No, wait...

So I was really tanking Jeopardy yesterday. No, seriously. I must have gotten like 8 of the first 15 questions wrong. The sad thing? Almost every wrong answer was because of a second guess.

I also caught myself saying something I haven't said in a very long time. In response to a friend's Facebook post (because that's the only way people communicate nowadays), I said, "My life's pretty damn good right now."

Correlation? Well, I only can say that about my life because I finally made a decision that was 3-4 years in the making. It would have been made earlier, but I kept considering other possibilities.

Hindsight may be 20/20, and Barbara Walters may be downright ancient, but I think most people need to give a whole lot more credit to their first instinct.

After all, the human race as a species has only managed to survive by first doing what was intuitive and learning from the consequences positive or negative.

And if you think I'm waxing too philosophically and off my rocker, think about this. How much less brainpower would it take if we all took fewer options into consideration. We only use a small portion of our brains for a reason.

Two, actually: 1. Humans are dumb & 2. We don't have this mind-altering pill from "Limitless" yet (Gotta rent that)

So give your hamster a rest, put your gut to work and reap the benefits

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Ship it!

At some point I truly begin to question my sanity (i know none of you question my insanity). The point of the matter is that I have started to feel poker withdrawal.

And not the fun kind of withdrawal you make at a bank. We're talking about the blood-chilling, 48 hours without heroin, baby crawling on the ceiling type of withdrawal (Go see Trainspotting).

It's been almost 4 months since "Black Friday", i.e. the day that poker died, hit the US. Since then I have barely played a lick of poker. Thus, I'm rusty.

Some of you may know that I am currently working the poker beat. I'm lucky enough to be a part of the team that is putting together the Main Event episodes of the World Series of Poker. However, in the dark of night, while staring at my computer screen with nothing to do, I made a fatal mistake.

I decided to play poker, online, for play money.(Gasp!)

Long story short, it was a call-fest, everyone sucked, everyone sucked out, I folded a straight flush draw (god why!) and I was left like a fat kid who was promised cake and then given rice cakes.

Pissed. Hungry too, but mostly pissed.

Someone please give me a good reason why online poker should be illegal, while we can still gamble in casino and Granny can whittle away her food stamps playing bingo in church!

I hear crickets.

Finito. I'm tired of arguing

There are smart people in congress. There are also a lot of people who are horrible at games of skill. These people sadly seems to be one and the same. Seeing the Republicans, roll the democrats in debt ceiling negotiations was disgusting. Now our entire country will pay because why?

Because Republicans are better than Democrats at Poker! I mean lawmaking... no, I was right the first time. Poker, like chess, scrabble or monopoly, is a game of skill. You have to manipulate many factors in your favor in order to have the best opportunity to win and yes, occasionally luck will intervene.

Before I get more obtuse and incensed, I make a simple plea. Will Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Annie Duke, Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson and the rest of the poker elite please take a break from poker to teach the Democrats how to "play Congress"? It would do wonders for this country and might speed up poker's legalization in the process. Thanks.

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Hard 8? Try Hard 17!

I am about to be tested. I have often said that Las Vegas is my favorite city in the world and that I could live there no problem. Some other people scoff at that idea saying they could never be in such an "active" city for more than a week

I will gloss over the full meaning of "Active" in order to protect the PG-13 readers of this blog.

Starting tomorrow, July 4th, I will be spending upwards of 17 straight days in Vegas. In fact, I will likely be in Vegas more than I will be in LA for the month of July.

For those of you thinking that this would be a great opportunity to steal my stuff, I remind you that I have a roommate who I just gave a "licence to kill".

The relevance of this post? (Why are you looking for relevance here) Simply, I am going to do my best to love my time out there without being a stereotypical tourist. That means I am going to try to maintain my fitness routine, stay connected to the matrix and accomplish work for 2 jobs.

If I survive this affair, I will report back. If not, please send an ambulance for me. I'll be the guy hanging from the ceiling of Coyote Ugly.

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Thnks fr th mmrs

> At Sliders awaiting friends... Rubber match, yanks-sox... Blogging and beer.
>
> The image? Fall Out Boy obsession aside (don't hate), I want to thank everyone for my time in CT over the past 6.5 years.
>
> It's been fun and sad and crazy and sexy and cool and fetch. I could run on and on until the break of dawn, but as I prepare to move to California, I can't help but think Of super Mario Bros. 3. (yes, a "The Wizard" reference)
>
> In that game, Mario learns to fly with a raccoon tail. WTF? some Japanese programmer was clearly smoking crack when the came up with that one. Nonetheless, no matter how many times Mario is told that his "princess is in another castle" he always finds a (creepy, likely pot-induced) way to succeed.
>
> That will be me in Los Angeles. I'm more of a Yoshi, but I won't be laying eggs. I will succeed out there despite the odds and I hope those of you who have enriched my life do the same.
>
> Just because I'm moving 2400 miles away (Jeebus that's far!) doesn't mean I'm out of the picture. Call, visit and in the mean time rock on with your bad self. Just don't think you can replace me, I promise he won't taste any sweeter.
>
> One more night, one more time...
>

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Just Plain Wrong: Disney Edition

I present to you, Mickey's Talkin' Bobbin' Characters (Poor Pluto...)



Apologies for all the ad balloons in the video. Then again, it's not my video. Deal with it.

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