I decided I needed to give out a bounty for knocking me out of the WPBT Aladdin Classic. I couldn't think of anything good that had anything to do with me, so I decided to go for one of these instead.

If you have no idea what this is, see here, here, here, and here. Also, you should start reading Paul Phillips' blog.

I'm hoping I'll actually get it before I head to Vegas. If not, I'll send it to whoever knocks me out. Hey, it's better than Gigli (#9).

Dammit. Another rakeback program killed. I can't say I'm really surprised, but this sucks.

We regret to inform you that Party Poker has asked us to remove them from the Frequent Flopper program. As you know, Party Poker has implemented a new policy to stop rakebacks on their site. (Actually, this isn't a new policy; they are just actively enforcing it now). Since we don't offer cashback with our program and OUR program was approved directly by Party Poker over a year ago, we thought we were going to be able to continue to list them on our site. In fact, we spoke to Party Poker in person about this just a couple of months ago during a London visit. However, the only thing that is certain in this world is change. We have no choice but to comply with Party Poker's request. We are no longer taking sign-ups for Party Poker via the Frequent Flopper Program and our last payment will be made to our customers by June 10th for the period ending May 31st. This will not affect any other PSO/Party Poker promotions. We apologize for any inconvenience.

http://www.pokersourceonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10368

I don't know where to play anymore, now, and I guess I don't have a way to generate PSO points other than referrals (I already have accounts at all of their other frequent flopper sites). I guess I'll have to keep playing at Party for the fish, but, they're certainly not doing anything else to want to make me stay.

In other news, spammers have quickly figured out my comment preview button. Today I found one legitimate comment amidst 277 spams, waiting for moderation. I've outright banned a few words from my comments and will see how that does. If anyone has a good spam prevention solution for WordPress, please let me know. All the ones I've tried lately have way too many false positives that I never find out about.

Baseball

Stupid Yankees had to go and take two outta three from the Mets. Actually, the Mets really just gave the games away making so many errors. They really shoulda been able to take the last game. They're still two games over .500 and only three games back in the NL East, but they're just so bad. They need to learn to field and pitch. Their hitting (or, ability to score runs, anyway), despite low batting averages, seems just fine. They've scored the most runs in the division. Hell, the Yankees, even with their awful start, now have the same record (though they're 4.5 games back in their division).

Last weekend, I went to NY for a friend's wedding, and managed to get to a game against the Cards in between picking up my tux at 10am and the wedding at 8pm. It was a 1:10 start, and ended in plenty of time for me to get home and change. It was also a great game, though the result was disappointing, thanks to the Mets terrible bullpen. Anytime Pedro can give up 5 runs and leave with the lead, the team should fricken win. It should have been a great pitching matchup, but neither Pedro nor Mulder were sharp. Unfortunately, the Cards bullpen didn't allow a run, while the Mets pen allowed two, for a final score of 7-6. It was my first game this season, and I think my first time back at Shea since I moved out to California. At least it was fun.

Bowling

I bowled again this weekend, for the first time since I got hurt. I pretty much picked up right where I left off. Saturday morning, I threw a 619 series. Saturday evening, I shot really badly in a 9-pin no-tap tournament, and didn't even break 600, but I wasn't really trying. Honest. My third game of that tournament was my best, and I was using my spare ball for the whole thing. Yesterday, I bowled in the last week of my Sunday night league, with a new glove.

All I needed to do was throw a 218 the third game for another 700 series, and if the pins had cooperated, I would have. Every shot except for the split in the middle was right in the pocket. I left three 7 pins, two 10 pins, and a solid 8 (which I didn't pick up). All of them solid in the pocket, but I just couldn't get any carry. Still, I can't complain about a 665 series, especially as my second series back from injury.

And no pain, stiffness, or other bad or strange feelings in my wrist. That's a good sign.

Poker

I've been playing online poker a bit more again lately, and badly. I'm making bad plays and terrible calls, and I know it when I do it. I need to get out of my rut. Maybe the blogger trip to Vegas will help. It's less than two weeks away. I finally booked my flight and room. I somehow managed to pull off a room at the Plaza, where lots of other bloggers are staying. Their website shows nothing available for Friday and Saturday night, but http://www.lasvegashotel.com/ let me book a room there. I'll be splitting it with Joaquin, who was looking for someone to share a room with. That website still shows available rooms at the Plaza, so if there are any bloggers looking to stay there who don't have their rooms yet, you should check it out.

Shea Stadium... Pedro vs Mulder

Tendonitis

The trackball at home didn't seem to help. I rearranged my desk, and started using my mouse again, and so far so good. The SmartGlove seems to be helping a bit. I picked up some stress balls from Staples. Get 'em while they're on clearance. I'm taking glucosamine and chondroitin. I still haven't been playing much online poker, but my wrist feels much better. I played softball for the first time since I got hurt this week. I did fine, but we still got killed. Next week, I'm going to try to start bowling again. We'll see how that goes. It has been almost two months now.

Poker

While I haven't been playing online poker much (I played - badly - in the WPBT WSOP Satellite last night), I did manage to make it up to Chumash last Friday. The game there is now $100 or $200 (not in between - weird) buyin NL, $2/$5 blinds. I played for around 5 hours and made $215. I didn't play any terribly exciting hands, and was never all-in. Just won a few decent sized pots and stayed out of the way with my junk. It was good to play live again after my horrendous play in Vegas last month. I actually felt like I played well this time.

I really do want to get back into playing online poker again, but don't want to reinjure myself. I rearranged my desk so my keyboard and mouse are on the desk instead of in the keyboard drawer, and I think that will help, but there's not enough room on the desk for it. So... I just ordered my second 2001fp (for $352.90 after crazy coupons and the $150 Dell gift card I got from ECD), and it will replace my CRT on my desk. That should free up enough space to leave the keyboard and mouse up there permanantly. Then I can get back to playing online again, I hope. ECD and PSO have so many new rooms that I need to do (Noble Poker, Superior Poker, Poker Rewards, Paradise Poker). Plus, I'm letting Party skin bonuses slip away because I can't play. On top of all that, I actually want to play. It's frustrating not being able to.

For the record, I just bought a 20.1" LCD monitor for my health.

Spam

I recently installed a plugin for WordPress to force comment previews. Hopefully, it'll be a while before spammers catch on to this one. It seems right now they just submit and then ignore whatever comes back. I haven't gotten any spam since I installed it, and you should be able to leave comments now without getting redirected elsewhere. You'll just have to preview it first, which I like having there anyway.

Baseball

I'm heading to New York this weekend for a Mets game wedding, and will be going to my first game at Shea in a few years while I'm there. The Mets are in second to last place in the NL East, but they're really not too bad. Well, they have the best offense in the East, I think, but their pitching sucks. Only Philly in their division has given up more runs. Anyway, they're still over .500 (barely - by one game), and only 3.5 games out of first place. There's still plenty of baseball left to play, plenty of time for them to drop out of the race entirely. Or replace the entire bullpen, starting with the closer. This will be my first baseball game of the season.