Of struggles, Bama football and Xbox 360 mania

I've achieved one of those long spells of laziness again, where the last thing I want to do is put fingers to keyboard. It's just my excuse for the drought between posts. I threw a few pictures your way the other day, dear blog reader. Perhaps that will provide some forgivenss for me.

It's also more enjoyable to share stories of big wins and exciting events, and unfortunately I've had neither in the past month. It's really making me realize what a grind this poker life can be. Sure, there was the $1,200 haul one night in our local game, but that win was an anamoly. My online money printing factory has ceased production as it seems the cards have gone on strike.

That 10-20 shorthanded game in which I was raking in the dough has turned against me. You may recall I was keeping $3,000 in there and cashing out either A) when I got up to $5,000, B) whatever surplus I had at the end of the month or C) whenever I felt like it to boost my confidence but always keeping at least $3K in reserve. Earlier this month, the account was at $3,500 after having cashed out $1,000 and I sat down to play heads up with a guy who had $400 in front of him. You haven't seen ugly until you saw that game. He hit every draw he had, he hit every kicker lower than mine to double pair. I missed EVERY draw, I NEVER paired my kicker. I finally quit when my account got down to $1,900. He was a friendly guy, even apologizing for the win. Surprisingly, I didn't blow up. I think I was too numb.

But it got worse. I started playing 5-10 because of the drop in my online bankroll and still I could not win. Two weeks later, I've got $400+ in that account. So I stopped playing that site for awhile and I've played more live games in Tuscaloosa, often staying at the 5-10 at the car lot from its starting time of 5 p.m. until it ends in the wee hours of the morning. I will write more about that game soon as it's something I should have done a long time. We've even got a mascot, a stray cat named "Slick."

I spent all Saturday over the past month working the Bama games for CBS. I don't know if I wrote about this before, but what I do is stand up in the press box, behind the stats monitors, and relay information to the guys in the truck who build the graphics with the stats on them. So if you saw that Brodie Croyle was 10 for 20 with 150 yards and an interception on your screen, I contributed to that. Pay is decent at $150 a game. The main reason I do it is it gets me a great view of the game for free. I worked home games against Florida, Tennessee and LSU and road games at Starkville (where every time a cowbell rings a redneck gets his wings) and Auburn (where every time a cow moos a redneck gets his milk.) That Auburn game was tough, with that terrible start for Bama, them falling behind 21-0 in the first quarter. The Auburn stats folks were gloating in the press box. I wanted to slug them.

So Bama's dreams of a national title and SEC title game were dashed, but they were never really that good. They mostly got by on will. I don't know how you can barely beat Ole Miss and Arkansas and expect to compete with USC, or even LSU. Nonetheless, the Cotton Bowl party's at my house folks.

Lastly, you may have seen the Xbox 360 craze that descended upon stores in this country on Tuesday. The same was certainly true in Tuscaloosa. If you weren't lined up at either of the local Wal-Marts by 5:30 p.m. Monday, you were out of luck. I called the stores and formed a plan with my brother to try to get as many as possible for an eBay offensive. I'm nothing if not creative at making money, and this seemed like an easy opportunity. I just stayed out all night playing poker and then hit the stores when the car lot game broke up. The problem was, as I went to each one there were already more people lined up than Xbox 360s available at each store. A woman at Toys R Us, lined up for one of only four available there, told me to try Sam's Club. I did and I got one, 18th in line for 20 systems. Knowing that the peak interest would be Tuesday and figuring I could get two the next day, I listed two of the systems on eBay on Monday. Unfortunately, I only had one to sell, but the $400 system brought $1,325 on eBay. What can you say, people are nuts.