One Man Gathers... What another man spills.

The other day I logged into my Bugsy's Club account and noticed the balance I had left of about $210 after winning $225 in a tourney on Easter Sunday 2007 was gone. When I checked my account activity it had been transferred to Bugsy's for an inactive account. I found that odd as I had received no email notification from them advising that a transfer had taken place. I will admit I rarely played on the site. Only a few tourneys since I had cashed back in 2007. I fired off a tactful email that asked where did my money go? Within 24 hours it was back in my account and I didn't have to fire off the threatening email that i would trash them publicly on my blog.

A few hours after receiving said funds an email from a forum notified me that Bugsy's was closing its doors. I figured my newly returned money was now gone for good. But when I logged into Bugsy's they had a nice post that explained the UIGEA had made it difficult to do business for players wanting to remove funds and deposit. I'm not sure why they didn't seek a merger with the growing Cake or Merge networks but all was not lost for my funds. Bugsy's Club had worked it out with Pokerstars that funds would be transferred to a players Pokerstars account. Major Woot Woot Woot for IG!!.. Within 24 hours of receiving the email from Pokerstars to enter my Bugsy's info the money was in my Pokerstars account.

It does appear that PokerSchoolOnline and PokerPages will remain in business. I'm sure most of us who play poker have accessed the PokerPages data base for player results at one time or another. Lately, I find myself utilizing the PokerDB or OPR more often then not, or the Hendon Mob database over on Full Tilt. PSO utilized the same software as Bugsy's Club which was the money site.

If you followed any of my twitter updates, you will know that Snake5970's horse he's a part owner of, won her debut race at Gulfstream Park on Sunday, going off at 20:1 odds from a morning line of 12:1. A $2 win bet paid $44 and change. I know my friend Action Hank is happy as he had her twice in the second daily double which paid a sweet $400 plus. Snake5970 was the only owner present on race day. At the last minute I didn't put any money down. The Italian in me didn't want to put the whammy curse on her. Hooked on Hope came out of the race fine and is shipping north to Aqueduct I believe where she will run against some NY breds on the grass hopefully we'll see her run this summer at Saratoga too.

Today I took the day off to once again try to attempt to score PHiSH tickets this time for my home venue of SPAC. I'm not sure most 48 year old women still do this but music is and always has been a big part of my life. SPAC is a Live Nation venue. Many of my phish phan phfriends had been shut out of Ticket Bastard for the Gorge and Red Rocks etc. California Rob and wife Toni both tried online and by phone and were able to score two out of the three passes they need for each night. I assume the third is for their daughter Lauren, now almost 6 (edited from 5 per her daddy) Ms Lauren accompanied us to the Coventry simulcast in 2004 with earplugs. The SPAC box office, a mere 10-15 minute drive away is closed till May 10th, so I couldn't get tickets by going right to the venue. I opened up one browser kept hitting refresh, wound up in the waiting room and....... waited. I decided a few moments later to open up another browser and literally I was taken right to the order form. My hands were shaking as I typed in my info and by 1:04 PM EST a mere 4 minutes after they went on sale I had a nice $250 charge on my credit card. Today pigs really do fly. As I said to Dr Pauly via email, I'll gladly take a months worth of river beats on PokerStars to watch a middle-aged man in a dress suck on a vacuum hose. I've seen TAB, I've seen Trey & Mike, I've seen Mike Gordon's band but I've never seen all four members of PHiSH together live. This will be my first PHiSH show.

Shortly after Pigs took to the air, I saw a twitter announcement from the good old Grateful Dead calling out for NYC fans. A sweepstakes entry for three surprise shows before they kick off their official tour. They are playing three shows on March 30th in NYC closed to the public. My entry is in with BFF Kim as my guest. I'll know by tomorrow if I earned a pair of tickets to one of the shows.

Now that its Spring and I'll soon be on work-free Fridays I plan to get a little more active. Tweeting with one of the Wicked Chops entities who is also a runner has me reminiscing about my days scampering up and down mountain sides and thru the woods. And I did once mention I would do another marathon sometime on or after my 50th birthday which is 18.5 months away. I've served as race director for more marathons then I've run. If only my knees and hamstring can take it. My Orca wetsuit hangs unused in my closet and is probably all dried out and my Specialized racing road bike suffers the same fate. I'm not even sure I would be confident/comfortable riding clip less pedals again. (edited from petals.... you can tell i spend more time gardening then riding these days)

And what is this crazy rule that the State of New Jersey wanted to ban Brazilian waxes? Obviously some man came up with that one. If I want to have hot wax applied to my nether regions by an Asian woman I barely know and then have it ripped off with muslin while I pull in the other direction its my right!! And yes, I've paid for the privilege.

Too Busy to blog but you can follow me on twitter

Ive been anti-Face book and My Space but I jumped on the twitter bandwagon. Its perfect for someone who is always doing 3000 things at once.

Go check out my review of Jam Band Max Creek over on Coventry. And of course check out the awesome coverage of PHish's three night run at the mothership in Hampton, Virginia. I just took next Friday off to attempt to get tickets for PHiSH at my home venue of SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center)for their August show date.

I completed an NCAA bracket for Dr Pauly's pub league. I don't know much about college hoop. I do get into the hoopla during March madness. So far I'm 7/8 in todays early games only missing Butler who i picked over LSU. Those 8-9 seed match-ups are tough. I did pick Maryland over overrated California. I listened to some upset videos by college coaches and a couple of them actually picked that one. Dr Pauly has been live blogging today's action over on Tao of Poker.

Just got an email from Snake5970 that his horse Hooked on Hope will finally be making her debut run Sunday in the 3rd at Gulfstream in a Maiden special weights race. Haven't talked to him yet but I'm sure hes going to be flying down to watch her run.

I will be playing an all ladies poker tourney Saturday afternoon. I will probably twitter expletives, chip counts and my bust out. So follow along Saturday afternoon sometime after 1 PM EST. Whats really cool about twitter is a lot of the pros jumped on the bandwagon and twittered updates from Bay101. Annie Duke even was posting updates faster then the WPT update team. Obviously twitter is the next wave of providing action from the tourney floor.

My work computer has been bogging down. Tomorrow I have to head into the office with it and swap it for a new PC. Its an older model and we are all due to be upgraded. When I called the help desk today to mention the noise it was making and that things were freezing he put in a ticket for me and I will get a new one sooner then later.

I've been working 5 days a week plus some overtime. The extra money is nice but I'm tired. Soon summer will be here and I will be back to 4 day weeks. I once again have every Friday off in the months of July and August so far.

Rock of Love Bus - Cat Fight

Found this clip while amusing myself on my bed rest day off. (in reality I'm really sitting in a chair at my computer in my office, as my bedroom is normally a tech- free zone). I missed last nights episode opting instead for Celebrity Apprentice and following in on LJ's progress over on Pokerstars (go congratulate her).

The clip features the remaining members of the blondetourage vs the brunettes in a food throwing, foul mouthed clip. Just another day in the life for rocker Bret Michaels. Really, dude you cant be serious about making any one of these woman step-mother to your girls or your life companion.

I give kudos to Taya (penthouse playmate), or Mindy for holding back and only finger waving. I might have just aimed a few darts in the direction of the silicon laden blonde Ashley or was it Farrah who is equally as silicon laden. And Brittanya, (obviously a stripper name) with the front side tramp stamps is scary looking. Farrah was given the walk of shame off the tour bus, leaving Ashley the only blonde remaining

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

Watching these women is like watching a NASCAR race on a super-speedway track and waiting for the big crash to come. You know its going to happen.

Whats Been A Going On

Friday, I had originally scheduled the day off and was planning to head to Turning Stone for the $350 buy-in that is part of the March Madness Series at TROCK. I had plans to catch up with this girl and this guy, but LJ emailed me to tell me they were going to pass on TROCK as there was a family function on Lucko's side of the dynamic duo. Then overtime at work fell into my lap and I cancelled my day off and worked a long Friday and also Saturday morning.

I had cabin fever and live poker jones so I headed out to Shane's new digs Friday night. I hadn't played live since New Year's Eve. Not sure if there were 63 or 72 runners but I made it down to the final three tables busting somewhere between 23-26th or so with 10 paying. I could get nothing go on, I played neither good nor bad. I made the right decisions, stayed out of trouble got away from some hands I knew I was beat on and realized I was really tired too boot. My first table featured me and "Soul-patch" Mike to my immediate right after the donkey sitting between us donked out. I would say we were the two of the three best players at the table, the other being Pops, Shane's dad. The table was weak passive, with lots of limping which doesn't help me. I need the young aggro guys who build the pots and three bet. Shane's game tends to draw an older crowd. I'm bumping up against the half century mark and am on the young side. Some of these players may have played for years but a lot of folks aren't students of the game. I would characterize them as: recreational, out to have a good time, and I have no idea what pot odds are, or how to size my bet, players. The young aggro guys that like to mix it up and know what a three-bet is tend to stay on this side of the river and play Albany.

I bit the bullet and signed up for twitter. Actually more fascinating then a blog. I know that Kat is knitting and reading today and Otis was working and cleaning. Actually Otis has been really busy blogging today over on the PokerStars blog about the NBC heads-up Championship. Kat, did you ever read/finish The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo?

I was reading Shane Schleger's blog and a commenter called Shane a hippie for some time Shane spent in Burlington, VT. Shane commented back that only made him half a hippie. I spent two years in Burlington at UVM, before moving on to CU Boulder. I considered applying to Law/Business School at Cal-Berkeley so I guess that makes me a full on card carrying Hippie. I even broke out the Birkies (with socks) when the weather hit above 38 degrees the other day. Anyway, back to Shane he is one of the bloggers whom i most enjoy reading, just wish he wrote more often.

24 is kicking ass this season. Top Chef finished up with Hosea winning over Stefan and Carla. I watched the first episode of Celebrity apprentice. Annie Duke was dead on but her bossy way is as annoying as hell. Snake who has seen her in action at the tables said, "Now the whole world will get to see what a bitch she is". In my opinion, Joan Rivers, should be able to win this thing. My god, she sells jewelry on HSN or QVC for goodness sakes. I thought Monster Garage's Jesse James (married to Sandra Bullock) and Tom Green represented the men well. Jesse is my pick for the male to go the furthest. Brande Roderick showed shes more then just a playmate. Natalie Gulbis had a blonde moment. I think of her as golf's Anna Kornikova. Dennis Rodman, should have gone before the DiceMan but maybe the fact that Andrew kept calling Mr Trump, "Donny" didnt help his case.

Coventry has kick-ass PHISH reunion coverage thanks to Dr Pauly, Change100 and the Joker. I start my concert season next weekend with the MaxCreek show at Troy Revolution Hall. Pauly's Phish tweets inspired me to get signed up so I can report from the floor of the Times Union Center. I actually have no idea where my seats are for The Dead, as I haven't received them yet, but mail-order was successful.

Layne Flack Busted

According to PokerNews, Layne was busted on his way home from the bracket drawing party for the NBC Heads-Up Championship Thursday night held at Pure nightclub and did not show up for his scheduled first round match. He was charged with driving 21 mph over the speed limit, driving under the influence and failing to yield to an emergency vehicle.

Sometimes good things happening in addicts lives set off the chain reaction for a relapse. You could almost see it play out before our eyes. Layne gives interview about how he's clean and got his act together with the help/intervention of fellow poker players, including Daniel Negreanu who supposedly paid for Layne's rehab. Layne wins bracelet during 2008 WSOP, Layne shows up during the WSOP Horse final table and makes an ass of himself, earning the scorn of Erick Lindgren. This week, Layne shows up acting drunk and stupid in a video PokerlistingsTV captures and Wicked Chops Poker dedicates a post to:

Fun with Flack from PokerListings TV

Message to Layne: Forget about being a prospective suitor on VH1's Megan wants A Millionaire. Instead get in line for Dr Drew Pinsky's Celebrity Rehab.

Layne issued this statement:

"I attended the Draw Party at Pure on (Thursday) night and then met with my brother, who had flown into Vegas for Heads Up. I was under the impression that I was to play in the last bracket the next evening at around 8 pm. I was pulled over for speeding and refused a breathalyzer test as I have been instructed to do. I have no idea why I was written a ticket for failing to yield to an emergency vehicle. There were no emergency vehicles around, besides the police car. A test, given by the Las Vegas PD, later revealed that I had a blood alcohol content of zero. I also took a blood test, as I have nothing to hide. I was held for the mandatory 6 hours and released. I always go out of my way to not drink and drive. I regret that I was not able to play in NBC Heads Up and hope to be invited next year to play in this prestigious event.”

To steal part of a line from one of my favorite movies, Animal House:

Drunk and Stupid is no way to go thru life, Son!!!!

The Music Gods are listening... Poker Gods not so much

Nope, didn't score any additional Dead tickets or Phish tickets to anything.

But part of my music wish list has been satisfied: KBM for Kreutzmann, Burbridge and Murawski are now booked for Mountain Jam. That now puts two members of the current Dead line-up on the mountain (Billy K and Warren Haynes) and one member of Max Creek on the mountain (Scott Murawski). I'm crossing my fingers that Max Creek will be added to this years festivities.

Disappointed I'm going to miss Eh-Vegas but I and BFF Kim will be attending a Max Creek show here at Troy's Revolution Hall in two short weeks. One month later its the Dead, a month after that Springsteen and a few weeks after that Mountain Jam. Dave Matthews just announced a couple shows at SPAC (Phish did not) in June.

Kim looked into condo rental for Mountain Jam, but supposedly already sold out and taking deposits for 2010. I suggested renting an RV with nephew Zack and Sierra. I cant rage for 72 hours with no sleep and enjoy the music, especially when its rained every year. Sleeping on what amounts to Hunter Mountains version of the Lhotse Face loses its charm when there are no Sherpa's to do the hauling. I could sleep in my SUV away from the mayhem. Seriously considering getting VIP tickets so I can take in the music from a nice covered perch and actually really write about the whole weekend.

No one wants to read bad beat stories but the past week of poker(beginning with last Monday) has been a cluster fuck and I've blown thru a good $150 or so on pokerstars. This was after finishing 2nd in one of those $2.20 90 person sngs (I had a first and second in my first two attempts at them) last Sunday night. . I have made deep runs in $8.80/$5.50 90 person sngs and the $22 deep stack, only to get bamboozled at the end just short of the money. Maybe Ive played the AA hands wrong by just not shoving all in but I'm trying to extract value from my hands and at the lower limits I constantly get run down by someone chasing their flush, gutshot etc without the odds to do so. Example, I flopped to pair with 57os on board of A57. bet the pot and some donk with Ace high only calls me all the way down to the river where they are rewarded with a better two pair. I know its tricky playing those kinds of hands. But its redonkulous to call off your stack with just top pair. Poker is not fun when you are card dead and get your big hands cracked when Pokerstars RNG throws you a bone. I looked over one SNG I played and I think i only hit the 5 card flop 5 times over the whole tourney till i busted out. I was catching no pieces of anything.

Today started a new week and I did manage to win a $5.50 DoN which is my first cash since last Sunday in anything.

I made an awesome marinated Flank steak, roasted yukon gold potatoes and marinated asparagus for dinner last Sunday during the Daytona 500 which fed me for a few days. I was disappointed at the rain delay/cancellation. Next time start the race like at 11 AM or noon. The West coast is used to getting up early for football!!

I Am Yoda?

I found this on Gadzooks64 blog. What kind of a Sci-fi character are you. Always thought i was a little more Trinity from the Matrix. Whats funny is when i first got sober and was embracing the concept of a higher power, i thought he looked like Yoda.

A venerated sage with vast power and knowledge, you gently guide forces around you while serving as a champion of the light.

Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not - for my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, and binds us. Luminescent beings are we, not this crude matter! You must feel the Force around you, everywhere.

Yoda is a is a character in the Star Wars universe. (part of the blurb, i assume everyone knows that)

PokerStars SCOOP

It's no secret that my preferred site to play online is Pokerstars. I haven't played on Full Tilt since October and I don't see myself redepositing anytime soon there. I do have a small bankroll on Bodog which i use for the Bodonkey and for playing the ponies, and a bit on Poker.com and Bugsys Club but i rarely if ever play those two sites.

Fresh off their 25th billion hand promotion, PokerStars announced its first ever SCOOP- The Spring Cup of Online Poker. This is not replacing the WCOOP at all which is still their penultimate series.

The reason PokerStars in my opinion reigns supreme is they have a price point for everyone in each of the events scheduled. There is something for everyone low limit grinder to medium to high. I kind of fall somewhere between low and medium, so I'm as happy as a clam.

The schedule subject to a few tweaks can be found over on 2+2 and satellites begin this week.

Click here for the link to the thread/schedule.

And as an aside, Snake5970 chopped the Thursday 11 AM tourney at Foxwoods for a cool 2300+ with none other then his brother Silo. They started at the same table and both were card dead, got split up and met back up at the second to final table. Their friend/coworker Doggan freerolled a slot tourney and won it for $1k plus he and his wife had about another 4-5k in slot winnings. Between the 4 of them they brought back almost 10k to help stimulate the Upstate NY economy.

I'm thinking of heading to Turning Stone for the $350 buy-in in a few weeks on Friday March 6th to be exact.

The WSOP-E coverage last nite (4 hours of great poker) featured some really good play and hands. Scott Montgomery took an ugly beat and handled it with class. His composure really impresses me. Brandon Adams and Peter Neff both wound up getting some bad breaks and both had that shell shocked deer in headlights oh what could have been look on their faces. I felt bad for them. And of course Negreanu impresses with me with his hand reading/people reading skills. Even though I know the outcome, I enjoy watching the interactions and hands visually.

Time for 24 and to pay attention in the 90 man $5.50 SNG Im in since its down to three tables. I finished 2nd in a $2.20 90 man yesterday after playing some really good poker early in other tourneys, only to blow chip stacks with I cant believe that moron just hit that flush again itis. Curiousity is expensive!!!

Fawking donkey just called my 4x bb raise with q9os and cracked my aces. once again a deep run only to get bamboozled.

Blogiversary (almost 4 years)

Wow I just looked at my archives and have been doing this for almost 4 years now. February 20th 2005 was my first post. I only posted 10 times during that year and had no idea what blogger tourneys even were. I belonged to a lot of poker forums and posted frequently on the message boards of those forums and played alot of poker on sites like Poker Host, Titan, CD Poker, Royal Vegas, Bet365, Interpoker etc. I was a freeroll junkie and built a small investment up to almost 4k spread out over a ton of sites. I still have money held hostage on Microgaming sites that I won and cant get off because of UIGEA. I also lost about $150 of money on JetSet when they went belly up. Fortunately I had never deposited on JetSet and it was all freeroll winnings from forum events I had played and then used some of those winnings to play the small dollar buy-ins. I used to love the JetSet Headhunter tourneys.

Anyway, I've noticed like most of us poker content is fewer and far between in my posts. I know for a fact I am not glued to my computer 7 days a week like I used to be back in 2005/2006. I still play alot of poker but I usually now take 2-3 and sometimes 4 days a week off from playing. I haven't played live since New Year's Eve but should be back in the live swing in a bit. Ive had deep runs in a bunch of the Pokerstars $11 buy-ins but no big scores. Typical situation I flip with QQ and get called by a bigger stacks AK and they pair their overcard and I go out 40th or so instead of vaulting up to being a top ten stack and final table bound. One of these days I will win my flips late stage and take one of these bad buys down. It doesn't make a difference if I win $18.93 for 44th place or $33.46 for finishing in 18th place by fold fold folding and playing like a nit. Id rather bust out or be in position to finish in the top three where all the money lies.

The feral cat we've been feeding, will come over to me if hes out of his box when I come over to bring it water and food. I have been able to scratch its head and pet him. And he purrs and rubs against me. But he can still be very skittish. The other day it got sick on frozen milk it had been eating and threw up when i was there (it threw up the milk crystals it must have been licking) . the poor little thing fell over on his side and I thought he was having a seizure or was dying on me but he righted himself and came back over and wanted the water I had brought him. I dumped all the milk. The elderly owner of the porch where he resides leaves him milk as she has nothing else to give him and thinks its a good thing. She was even pouring milk into the water and I'd find a frozen concoction of milk water which sent me over the edge. I'd call up Joan and say "Joan, I'm gonna kill Jean shes gonna kill the cat with the milk. Jean, came out today when i was working with the cat and I told her she doesnt have to leave him anything, Joan and I and our mail lady are feeding him kibble and fresh water. He is not the prettiest of cats. Hes almost cross eyed, hes got a really round head and a lumpy body and kind of walks funny. Hes the cat version of either a puff-a-lump or an oompa loompa from Willie Wonka. But mail girl will take him if I can get it more socialized. So far Im the only one who has been able to pet it. Just call me the cat whisperer. (I also can do great things with plants)

And Happy Birthday to Snake5970. It's his 46th and he headed to Foxwoods with his brother today for a couple of nights, as a former co-worker of his and current co-worker of Rich (his brother) had some comped nites. We went to Carrabbas last Friday nite for the football bet I won. I gave him a cool card that had a poker theme I found at Target (a green felt cover with a spade royal flush on the front) and a Bruce Springsteen Greatest Hit CD so he can get ready for the show. He only has like 6 CD's total in his collection and is definitely not a music person like moi.

Carrabba's was excellent. I'm a fan of the family style portions at Buca de Beppo but Carrabba's was really really good. We ordered the Bruschetta as an appetizer which we didn't need and that was probably the weakest part of the meal and it was good. I wound up ordering the Steak Marsala with garlic mashed and Caesar salad with the anchovies. Ray wound up getting three appetizers for his dinner. The steamed mussels, the fried calamari and the appetizer sized shrimp scampi. When all the food came out we started cracking up because our table was covered with platters. We pretty much split everything. then for dessert we ordered the sampler of 6 of their desserts which comes served in little rectangular shot glasses: there was a cannoli mousse, a tiramisu, a Kahlua espresso mousse, a zabaglione and a strawberry lemon mousse cake and another one i cant remember. By the time dessert came Snake was only able to have a few spoonfuls and i don't think he tasted them all. i laughed at him and said "remember the saying your eyes are bigger then your tummy?"

We had a marathon TV movie watching session planned for after dinner. First we watched the new reality series Jockey's on Animal Planet. Snake is a major horse racing guy and he wanted to check it out. One of the horse's he has a % of should be making its debut in the next few weeks probably at Gulfstream in Florida, then we watched the 4th episode of the 1st season of SNL featuring Candace Bergen as the host.. (we had watched the first three episodes back in January). Esther Phillips was the musical guest and she had a weird style to her singing. There was one skit where Bergen is playing a journalist over in the Middle East and refers to John Belushi who is playing some sort of Arab diplomat as a raghead which kind of shocked me but then I remembered this was 1975 and not the PC era we now live in. And of course the weekend update featuring Chevy Chase had lots of clips referring to President Gerald Ford as a klutz. Its kind of cool going back and watching the old SNL's and there's only about 33 more years to go!!

Then it was a choice between Zack & Miri make a Porno or Pineapple Express. Since our 420 friendly poker playing Olympian was making headlines we opted for Pineapple Express. Anyone who has ever ripped bong hits will get a laugh out of this movie. And Snake and i both agreed that Michael Phelps was no stranger to using a bong. I know i graduated to a bong from a joint and pipe when I used to partake (our bong in college was called Beast after one of my college friends stated man that is a Beast of Burden after the Stones song). As i said to Snake, who cares that he was smoking weed, I'd smoke some too if i spent every day of my life from the age of 7 swimming mindless laps & staring at the bottom of or lane line in a pool. Swimming may be one of the greatest exercises but its boring (Ive only swum a minuscule smidgen of the mileage Phelps has and I can attest swimming is boring but hypoxia can be kind of cool). Heck he's a young man who has to make his own choices and they may not always be the wisest or smartest choices as viewed by mainstream America but hes gotta walk his own path and find his own way. He cant have a coach or mom or US swimming dictating his every waking moment. Oh and btw lest we forget, Phelps isn't the first Olympic Gold Medal winning swimmer caught smoking pot. Anyone remember Gary Hall Jr who just retired after failing to qualify for Beijing? He was suspended by Fina for Marijuana use back in 1988 in between his 1986 and 2000 Olympic appearances.

BIG BOSS MAN aka Bruce tickets

Sometime last week I was hit with a wave of nostalgia. I had just retired for the evening with the latest issue of Rolling Stone in hand. The boss, aka Bruce Springsteen was on the cover looking pretty hot for a soon to be 60 year old (must be the soul patch). I of course knew he was to play the Superbowl and intended to watch his show. Hell its reunion time with Phish, the Dead, Fleetwood Mac, and the Boss all heading out on the road this spring. In the back of mind I thought about actually acquiring tickets to see him when they went on sale

I may identify myself as a dead head and I love the jam band scene but I also have a vein of Bruce running thru my bones. I can probably sing every lyric to Blinded by the Light, Rosalita, Thunder Road etc. When I attended the University of Vermont from fall 1978 to the Spring of 1980, I was actually tossed out of Rasputin's (a favorite Burlington watering hole at the time aka Pukins) with my sorority little sister (who worked there btw) for dueting Born to Run at the top of our lungs at closing hour. (Must of been the line.. tramps like us........) I have only seen him once in Denver, at McNichols arena and i believe it was the fall of 1980. Myself and a bunch of girls i was living with as boarders in a sorority that wasn't my own, hopped the bus to Denver and saw the show. By far I can say it was the best show I ever saw until I saw U2's Elevation tour. Did I mention we missed the last bus back to Boulder and there we were stranded until some dudes in a VW bug picked us up and drove us the 30 miles to Boulder. that put 7 of us in a VW bug. 3 in front seat and 3 seated in back with one person laying across the laps of the other three.

I was doing about 4 things at once yesterday during the superbowl: quietly watching the progress of some of the big names in the Sunday Pokerstars majors, trying to watch the superbowl, as well as Season 7 of the WPT now on MSG here in Albany and ESPN coverage of the WSOP-Europe as well as jumping up every 5 minutes to a text message from Snake5970 about some bonehead player incurring a penalty mostly ranting at the Cardinals.

Then Bruce came on and like a preacher at a Church revival he had the entire stadium and those of us watching at home on our feet and dancing to the scripture of the E Street Band. That was one joyful noise;

At 8:12 PM I received a text from Snake: BRUCE!!!!!

i texted him back with: What a showman, I've only seen him once

then this text from me... He's playing Albany........(hint hint hint, read my mind Snake)

We exchanged a few more texts and by this time I'm saying to myself we should have just watched the game together because i was feeling like a Mexican jumping bean, running from computer to wherever i had last placed the cell phone then back to the TV etc.

that sent Snake5970 to the the Times Union Center calendar of events and shortly later he called me.

I basically said this to Snake: "Get me a ticket, they go on sale tomorrow at 10Am And I'm working. I was even willing to give him my ticketmaster log in info with info all loaded to buy tickets but he had established one when he got tickets for the now cancelled Fleetwood Mac, Albany show.

Today I was greeted by this good news via email, a RAY of sunshine in the bleak news of no PHISH tickets and only one set of Grateful Dead tickets. Snake had scored us floor spots (no seats ) for the TU center. That of course immediately sent me over to LJ's blog because she follows Bruce much like I followed the Dead. She was the first person I thought of after my ticket acquisition and sure enough the greatest boyfriend (aka Lucko) scored his gal tickets when she had failed or should I say TicketBastard failed her.

And today, I also got an email that there are still a few higher priced tickets available thru Grateful Dead ticket sales for some select dates. I'm pondering picking up a few tickets for NJ now.

I am now also totally hooked on Man vs Food on Travel Channel and caught a marathon showing last week. Snake5970 turned me on to the show and then confessed he took notes on places he wants to go to some time in the future. I only laughed because I've done the same thing. I'm a big fan of tripleD on food network (that's Diner's Drive-In's and Dives) as well as the Paradises on Travel channel. I also visit Roadfood.com daily for their restaurant of the day. did I mention I'm a big fan of food porn and food porn and just love food blogs with pictures. Apparently there are thousands of us out their with the same fetish. Retirement nirvana would be to take an RV on a tour of casinos and roadside eateries.