WWdN: The Fundraiser was an unexpectedly huge success. I think I may have to return some orders to people, because I’m pretty sure I completely sold out of Just A Geeks, and orders kept coming in, even after I updated.
I have set aside Saturday morning to sign all the books, and Anne has set aside Saturday afternoon to help me pack and ship them, so hopefully those of you who ordered books will have them within a couple of weeks.
A huge thank you from me and my family to everyone who participated. I hope you enjoy Just A Geek, and I’m interested in your feedback once you’ve finished it.
proudest monkey
Oh boy. It’s a random morning on WWdN . . .
We got a little rain in Los Angeles last night . . . probably .00005″, which is just enough to make the freeways a complete and utter disaster. On days like today, I’m so grateful that I can sit here in my office, open my window, and smell the wet grass and dirt while I watch a dozen finches crowd each other off the one feeder that still has seed in it.
I love it that I usually take my blog titles from whatever song is playing on iTunes, and right now it’s Dave Matthews doing Proudest Monkey. I’ve had Crash since it came out, and I didn’t know there was even a song called Proudest Monkey until just now.
I normally like the rain, but one thing I hate about it is this downspout that runs down the wall behind my bed. When we’ve got some real rain going, it doesn’t sound like anything, but on mornings like today, when it’s just sort of misting heavily, it drips down onto the bottom with this loud and steady tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap that manages to get through pillows and earplugs with ease. When it woke me up at 6 (an hour before my alarm was set to go off) I tried to ignore it and drift back to sleep, but the tapping was so insistent, somewhere in the back of my mind I heard a voice scream, “It’s the beating of his hideous heart!”
That made me laugh, and there was no way I could fall back to sleep after that. So I’ve been up a little bit longer than normal today. This will require extra coffee.
Mmmmm . . . coffee.
Anyone watch WPT last night? What a great final table! It’s always good for the game when an amateur outlasts a field filled with pros, and that kid seemed like a nice guy who appreciated his victory. A few poker-related things that interest me, but don’t really warrant their own blog entries:
- I’m
freerollingplaying in a tournament tonight called The Poker Smoker at Yamashiro in Hollywood. The winner gets 365 cigars, and a seat at the Poker Smoker finals in Reno later this year. - If you have enjoyed my poker stories, like Lying In Odessa and Viva Las Vegas, odds are very good you’ll enjoy Richard Sparks‘ book Diary of a Mad Poker Player
.
- My friend Chris the Poker Geek is offering some really cool T-shirts that are destined to become collector’s items.
- I’ve been reading Dan Harrington’s book, Harrington on Hold’Em
- Iggy, who is the Godfather of pokerbloggers, has this quote about Stu Ungar: “He seemed like the Brian Wilson of poker
on a steady diet of . . .
I’m really proud of the work I do for The Onion AV Club . . . so this morning, before I officially clock into work at nine, I thought I’d excerpt some recent stuff that I thought was funny. (Click the titles for the full columns)
Ponpoko
Gameplay: Depending on whom you ask, Ponpoko is a squirrel, a cat, a raccoon, or a creepy dude dressed as a furry. His(?) mission is clearly laid out in the jaunty little tune that plays during attract mode:
Run run Ponpoko
To eat the fruits
Jump bound around
With your big belly out
Following in the successful footsteps of Donkey Kong, Ponpoko wants to climb higher and higher up each level, eating fruits and scoring big points. He has to watch out for deadly thumbtacks, though, and these… uh… mouse-scorpion-snake things that, for some reason, want to kill him. And the magic pots will sometimes hold oodles of bonus points . . . or deadly naked-snake-baby things. Which also want to kill him. Poor misunderstood Ponpoko! All he wants to do is jump bound around with his big belly out!
Could be mistaken for: A nightmare weekend at a furry convention.
Kids today might not like it because: Trying to figure out exactly what the hell Ponpoko is could very well drive them insane.
Kids today might like it because: If they play more than 10 minutes, their brains will help them cope by making them think they’re high. It’s cheap and legal, and they don’t have to pretend they have glaucoma!
After Ponpoko ran, I got a lot of e-mail from people who told me that Ponpoko is, in fact, a creature from Japanese mythology. Hideka wrote
You may know this already, but Ponpoko is likely a raccoon dog/Tanuki. In Japanese folklore, it was kinda believed to have magic powers, and it can morph into many things to deceive human beings. Also, Tanuki was said to drum his/her own belly like gorillas pound their chest when it’s full moon. The drumming sound is often described as “ponpoko” thus the name for the character.
WWdN reader C. sent me a link to a page filled with interesting Tanuki facts, and “Captain Tanuki” informed me that
What the game leaves out is another image from folklore: the tanuki as virility symbol, depicted in print and statuary with basketball-sized ‘nads dragging underneath.
You mean . . . Ponpoko is a distant relative of Nutsack Squirrel?! Awesome.
Okay, moving along . . .
Tapper
Enduring contribution to gaming history: Parents, not realizing that supplying Budweiser is the best way to convince kids to swear off beer for life, forced Bally Midway to replace Tapper with Root Beer Tapper. It’s the same game, but without the beer. Luckily, the cheerleaders survived the conversion.
One more, which is from this week —
Wait. This has nothing to do with anything, but there’s a woodpecker on a telephone pole in my backyard, doing his woodpecking thing, and it sounds pretty cool. For mysterious reasons that are best left unexplained, it’s in perfect time with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang that just started playing on my iMac’s iTunes library, about five feet down my desk. Weird.
Okay, sorry. I’m back. Last one, which is from this week’s edition of Games of our Lives:
Bagman
Gameplay: In a poetic metaphor for the inherent unfairness of life, when you drop one of your hard-earned money bags on a guard, he’ll fall down for a few seconds and quickly get back up, but if he so much as touches you, you die. If things get too dicey, you can also flee in a mine cart, but be careful: They’ll run you over just as easily as they’ll whisk you to safety. (Figure out that metaphor on your own, and turn it in next week. Two hundred words or less, please.)
Kids today might not like it because: Even though he’s obviously a convicted criminal, Bagman doesn’t have a recording contract or a pimped-out Escalade.
Kids today might like it because: Bagman’s flagrant disregard for safety and authority is an inspiration to all.
I am happy, honored, and proud to be a part of Team Onion. In fact, the first assignment I’m completing today is Games of our Lives.
And yesterday, I got the preliminary outline for one of my new books completed . . . oh man, it’s going to be so much fun to write!
WWdN: the fundraiser
A few weeks ago, I observed that the vet bills for Felix and Sketch were well over $7,000.
A bunch of WWdN readers suggested that I put up a PayPal donation box, but I just don’t feel right taking something for nothing, so I thought I’d have a fundraising sale instead: I have about 100 copies of Just A Geek here in my house. Lots of people have asked me where they can get autographed copies of Just A Geek . . . so I figured I could accept donations, but you’d get something kind of cool in return.
Until Friday (May 6, 2005), I’ll be offering these signed copies at the “Fundraiser” price of $50, which will include a copy of the eulogy I wrote for The Bear, saddle-stitched with his stumpy little face on the cover. I realize that not everyone has the money or desire to dump $50 bucks on a book, so at the end of the week, if there are books left, I’ll reduce the price to $30, which is just five bucks over the cover price.
If there is enough interest, I’ll offer some copies of Dancing Barefoot, as well.
If you’re interested, you can visit the fundraiser page (dial-up warning: the images are big) (thank you to WWdN reader Paul, who sent in optimized images!) and place an order.
Update: Holy crap. I leave the house for three hours, and when I come back, I’m completely sold out. Wow. Thank you, so much, to everyone who supported the fundraiser. I am speechless.
it’s all happened here before
When I was under a deadline to finish Just A Geek, I couldn’t wait to “feel like it” to work on the book. I had to give myself a schedule and stick to it, no matter what. I had to figure out a few things:
- When was I creative?
- Morning?
- Night?
- Middle of the day?
- How long could I write before I reached the point of diminishing returns?
- Three hours?
- Four Hours?
- 1000 words?
- 5000 words?
- Why do I enjoy abusing the <li> tag so much?
It took a couple of weeks to discover that I write best in the early morning. I guess this is because I can pull things out of my mind before new things have been planted in it. I also figured out that I can be creative for about three hours, and I’ll usually get anywhere between 1000 and 5000 words out during that time. Occasionally, I’ll get more, and sometimes I end up throwing away the whole lot of them.
I’m sure this is just fascinating, but it’s got a point: Yesterday, I put myself back on the official writing schedule, so I can complete at least one of the two books I’ve been working on. One is a Dancing Barefootesque collection of stories about being a stepfather. Ryan suggested the greatest title of all time: Would you like kids with that? The other is an anthology of poker stories, starting with Lying in Odessa, and ending up at the WPT Championship. It’s got Viva Las Vegas, Fish On!, the as-yet-unpublished story behind The WPT Hollywood Homegame, and a lot of new material. When I was in Vegas, I talked with a lot of pros who agreed to give me interviews for the book, and I think I have a really cool idea that’s never been done with one of these Big Deal Positively Fifth Street Diary of a Mad Poker Player (ie: narrative) poker books. I’ve got a working title for that one, which I really like . . . but I’m not going to reveal it until I can register it with Bowker.
I’m pretty sure that writing each morning will kick up other sorts of creativity that will turn into (hopefully) cool blogs . . . but the rest of the time, I’ll be working on these two new books.
It feels good to have something to do.
