I haven’t formed an opinion about Digg yet. I think it’s got a ton of potential, but my jury is still out.
Anyway, this morning, I dugg a link to a short TNG blooper reel, from the first season. In this clip, several different cast members flub lines, with cusstacular results. Somehow, I’m not in this one, but I am on a later one where I cuss like a sailor for close to a minute, which I thought was hilarious, but earned me a lecture from Rick Berman about using language appropriate for my age. Thanks for getting me busted, season two editing crew.
I remember seeing this at one of our first Christmas party, and though it’s funny, it’s nothing compared to one from a later season that’s so “blue” an edict was issued from the powers that be which effectively ended creatively edited TNG blooper reels.

The kids wanted to watch House last night, so Anne and I (and both our dogs and our cat) retired to our bedroom, where we watched The Sopranos on DVD (we’re up to the third episode of season two, so don’t post any spoilers or I’ll break your freakin’ legs. /toughguy) Around 9:45, Nolan came into our room.
“Aren’t you watching House?” I said.
“Yeah, but I’m really tired and I’ve got a test tomorrow,” he said. “I think I’m just going to go to bed.”
Nolan turns fourteen in just over two weeks, and I’m constantly impressed by the level of responsibility he shows. When I was his age, I never would have gone to bed on my own, test or not.
“That’s very responsible,” Anne said.
Nolan smiled, and walked around to my side of the bed. I raised my arms to hug him, but he knelt down to the floor, where Ferris was sleeping. He kissed her head. “Goodnight, Ferris’ head,” he said. She grunted, and happily stretched herself out across the floor.
He walked back to the foot of the bed, where he leaned down and hugged my leg.
“Goodnight, Wil’s leg,” he said.
I looked at my wife. She smiled back at me.
My cat was curled up in a tight little ball between our feet. Nolan stroked his ear. “Goodnight, Biko’s ear,” he said. He stretched out one little white paw and purred.
Nolan looked down, knelt out of my field of vision and said, “Goodnight, Riley Monster’s nose.” Her tail thump thump thump thumped against the bed.
He stood up and walked over to Anne. He put his arms around her, hugged her, and kissed her cheek. “Goodnight, Mom’s cheek,” he said.
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” she said.
Nolan stood up and smiled. He as he walked down the hallway to his bedroom, he called out, “I love you guys!”
“I love you too,” Anne said.
“I love you too,” I said. “Goodnight, Nolan’s voice,”
I heard him giggle as he closed his bedroom door.

Every Sunday, 1983 World Series of Poker champion and respected author Tom McEvoy plays a heads up poker match with the weekly tournament leader at PokerStars.
From time to time, Tom isn’t able to play, so someone else from Team PokerStars is called up off the bench to play, and this week, it’s me!
So if you’ve ever wanted to “watch” me play poker, you’ll have a chance Sunday the 24th at 2pm EDT. Just login to PokerStars, and search for player “Wil Wheaton” to find the table.
I’m playing against the Dutch sensation Noah Boeken, who goes by “Exclusive” on PokerStars. He’s got impressive credentials, and the scouting reports all include the word notorious(!) . . . so it should be a great match (or a quick and bloody evisceration of yours truly. 😉
Update: Going into this match, all I wanted to do was play good poker, not make any huge donkey moves, represent Team PokerStars honorably, and feel proud of myself when I was done, win or lose. There were a couple of hands where I think I messed up, but luckily they didn’t cost me too much, and I’m very happy with the way I played. I didn’t feel like I was playing scared, I got lucky when I needed it — which was a nice change of pace.
We played for 190 hands . . . and somehow, I won the match. Holy. Shit. I was seriously on the ropes for a bit, and I managed to battle my way back against a very good, solid opponent who played a fantastic game.
Thank you to everyone who watched and cheered me on. That was really fun 🙂

Newsday:

LOS ANGELES — James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original “Star Trek” TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command “Beam me up, Scotty,” died early Wednesday. He was 85.
Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease, he said.

I’m too shocked for a thoughtful eulogy right now. Everyone who watched Star Trek liked Scotty, but everyone who met him loved Jimmy . . . I’m sure I’m not the only person today who feels like they lost a friend. My thoughts are with his family.

“I don’t look at results. Poker is about decisions. And I am happy with the decisions I made this year.”
— Greg Raymer, to ESPN shortly after busting out of the 2005 WSOP

I wanted Raymer to win it all, not only because it would be such an incredible achievement, but because he is such a kind person, and such a perfect ambassador for the game. It should be cold comfort to all poker players that on the hand which crippled him, Greg got his money in over an 80% favorite. That, as they say, is poker. Congratulations to Austraila’s Joe Hachem, who has some very big shoes to fill, if he chooses to put them on.
On Friday, Anne and I had the following exchange:
Anne: “Nolan’s friend is in the little league all-star tournament, and Nolan’s going to watch him tonight.”
Me: “Uh-huh.”
Anne: “Depending on what happens in tonight’s game, his friend’s team may be playing tomorrow —”
Me: “Is it a round robin, or something?”
Anne: “It’s not like a poker tournament, where you get eliminated on the first day and then you’re out.”
Me: *silence*
Anne: “Oh, wait. I mean, not you, like you, Wil, my husband . . .”
Me: ” . . . who can’t make it past the first day of a tournament . . . ”
Anne: “No! That’s not what I mean. I just meant that it’s not single-elimination, and . . . poker . . . baseball . . . one . . . tournament . . .”
At this point I started laughing so hard I had to stop and compose myself.
Me: “I know what you mean. That was awesome.”
Anne: “This is going on your blog, isn’t it?”
Me: “Yes. Yes it is.”
On Sunday, I finished 22nd in the charity tourney, when I made a move that unfortunately involved bluffing into the nuts. Oops. It was a lot of fun, though, and the players who signed up contributed almost $3000 in Charlie Tuttle’s memory, which is what the whole thing was about, anyway. Thanks to everyone who came out and participated. I’ll put together some other charity tourneys in the future.
Moving on . . .
two hundred sixty-six hours earlier
On my way out of the Rio parking lot, I called my mother to update her on my status.
Or, more accurately, I called my mommy, so she could make me feel better.
She picked up on the first ring. “Hey Willow! How’s the World Series?”
“I busted, mom.” I stopped to let a car with Utah plates pull in front of me. A little ceramic dog sanguinely bounced its head in the back window.
“Is that good?” She said.
I smiled to myself. “No, Mom. That’s bad. I got knocked out.”
“Oh no! What happened?”
My mom doesn’t play or watch Texas Hold’Em, so I translated as best as I could: “I played my best, but it wasn’t good enough to make it very far,” I said. The car in front of me stopped short, and the little dog’s head bounced like he was at a Metallica concert.
“Well, as long as you did your best,” she said, “ever since you were little, we’ve always told you to just be the best you that you can be. So if you did your best, I’m proud of you.”
“This is exactly why I called you, mom.” I thought.
“Thanks, Mom.” I said.
“So are you coming home, or staying there to write another book?”
“I was going to come home, but PokerStars is buying me into a tournament at the Palms that starts at 7:30, so maybe I can redeem myself there.” I turned right onto Flamingo, and noted how far The Palms actually was from The Rio. I was glad I didn’t try to walk it.
“Well, see?” She said, “they believe in you, so you should believe in you, too.”
“You’re right, Mom. I will.”
“Call me if you win, okay?” She said.
“If I win, it will be the middle of the night,” I said.
“Oh. Then call us tomorrow,” she said.
I laughed. “Okay, I will.” I turned left, and drive into the parking garage at The Palms.
“Your dad just walked in. He says he loves you.” She said.
“Tell him I love him too, and I love you.” I pulled into a parking spot and turned off my car. “I have to go register for the tournament.”
“Good luck,” she said.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “Bye.”
I pulled my keys out of the ignition, and headed into the casino.
I’d never been to the Palms before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I understand that it’s where all the hot young celebrites and wanna-bes hang out, but they were outnumbered 1:0 by typical Vegas tourists. I imagine that it’s different on the weekends.
I walked through the casino, which reminded me of The Hard Rock, but with higher ceilings, past a huge bar, which reminded me of a lost weekend in the late 90s, but without the empty promises to whatever deity happened to be listening at the time, and made my way to the poker room. It was much smaller than I expected, with just four tables, and I wondered how they were going to fit a tournament in it. A middle-aged man stood behind a podium and looked at a list.
“Doug K, 20-40 Hold’em,” he said into a microphone. “Doug K, 20-40 Hold’Em.”
“Is this where I sign up for the 7pm tournament?” I said.
Without looking up, he pointed to his right. “Two rooms down. Doug K, 20-40 Hold’Em. Last call for Doug K.”
“Thanks,” I said, and walked out of what I realized was the high-stakes room.
“Someday,” I thought to myself. “Someday . . .”
A few moments later I walked out of the cacophony of the casino and into the familiar quiet of the tournament room, which was a smaller version of the tournament area at the Rio: an impossibly high ceiling, about five or six hundred people scattered around fifty or sixty tables, the soothing click-click-click-click-click of shuffling poker chips, and a quiet reverence that just doesn’t exist anywhere else in the casino.
I was early, so I looked at a bulletin board with the results from previous tournaments. The average field was just over one hundred people, and the average first place finisher was taking home between ten and twenty thousand dollars.
I’ll get into the details if I ever put this into a book, but I played my guts out. This time the cards fell my way a bit more than they had at the Rio, there was no Paul Darden to trap me with a set of jacks, and just after one in the morning, I finished 22nd out of over 300 entries. I took down a huge pot with AJ, doubled up with KK vs. 99, flopped the nut flush and got action all the way from a pair of tens, and even pushed around a couple of players who I correctly pegged as tight/weak. In other words, I played the way I thought I would play at the World Series, and for the first time in my life, I actually cashed out a tournament win at a real casino cage — I took home $430 (which would have been just my buy-in and rebuy, but because I was put into the tournament by PokerStars, it was a 100% win for me. Awesome 🙂
When I got back to the Mirage, it was almost three in the morning, and even though my day had been an emotional and financial roller coaster, I was too wound up to sleep. I finally fell asleep shortly before dawn.
When I rolled out of bed at the crack of noon, I threw on a PokerStars cap and my bathing suit, covered myself with two pounds of SPF 9000 sunscreen, and traded the cool, smoke-filled casino air and gaming tables for hot, dry desert air and sunshine. I spent the afternoon on a lounge chair, listening to podcasts and trying to drown my World Series sorrows with Anchor Steams . . .
to be concluded . . .