If you grok Farkisms, you’ll love this animation, and the fark nativity.

If you like to play in the Thursday Night WWdN game at PokerStars, it’s set up and ready to go at 7:30 PST tonight.

Carly gets a letter from the DMV:

Dear California Driver

Dear form letter!

Drivers with crashes and traffic convictions on their records are
at greater risk at causing future crashes. Your recent record of bad
driving (see below) places you at increased risk of causing crashes,
injury and death. We do not want you to suffer those consequences and
we want you to avoid them.

Okay. First of all, it was hardly a crash so much as it was a fender bender, but we all know the story on that one
(and yes, my insurance company was faulted. Hooray!) Second of all, it
was a speeding ticket that I got seven months prior to that little
mash. Before that, I had maybe one other ticket in my entire California
driving career. That’s it. And now I’m on the list of Drivers With the
Potential to Cause Vehicular Manslaughter?

[. . .]

While you may be a good and safe driver most of the time, your record reflects at least momentary lapses in driving judgment.

No shit. That’s why they’re called “accidents” and “I’m sorry,
officer, I didn’t know how fast I was going.” What can I say? This year
was a bad year that I don’t intend to repeat.

At highway speeds, a moment of carelessness might become a
tragedy. Good, caring people who make careless decisions while driving
can cause injury or death.

I know, mom.

In our effort to urge you to drive safer, we are offering you a
choice. You can choose to prevent further action from the DMV by
avoiding additional traffic convictions and by not causing any crashes.

Oh my god… it’s genius! I never thought of that before! Thank you,
DMV, for pointing out the obvious! If you hadn’t have said that, I’d be
driving over medians and plowing into school kids right now!

It’s kind of pretty awesome that Californians can now enjoy the irritation and idiocy of the DMV, right from the comfort of our own mailboxes. It’s twice as kind of pretty awesome that Carly can make me laugh this hard.

We sat outside on the cafe’s patio, and talked about the things writers talk about. We made notes in our respective Molskine notebooks. Though clouds obscured the moon much of the night, the air was cold and dry.

My friend is far more successful than I am, and I should feel awkward, like the rookie we both know I am, but our relative levels of success don’t matter to either of us. We both share a passion for creating, for telling stories, for putting you where we are, and keeping you interested enough to turn the page.

As I emptied my second mug of chamomile, a group of young Mediterranean men walked out onto the patio, and filled a table behind us. They broke out a backgammon board, and started to play. Across from them, a group of older Mediterranean men smoked cigars and sipped espresso. The young men shared complicated handshakes and slammed their dice cups onto the table, while the older men said very little, and thoughtfully blew clouds of fragrant blue smoke at each other. I wrote in my notebook, "They looked at each other; into the future and into the past."

Two girls in their early twenties sat at a table next to us, and gossiped. I wrote, "She just realized how big it all is, and she is terrified."

Groups of teenagers drifted in and out. All drank huge coffee drinks. Some smoked cigarettes. Many wore Ugg boots, an equal number wore flip-flops. Most intermittently talked on cell phones. I wrote, "They are happy to be here. If you asked them where they were, they would tell you, ‘not at home!’"

My friend and I traded stories until the exhausted cafe workers closed the umbrellas and began to stack chairs. I would have written something in my notebook, but that was our cue to leave.

We gathered up our things, and said good bye. I drove home ’round midnight.

Today is the first Tuesday edition of the Friday Game. Since I didn’t play last week, and was therefore unable to be knocked out by someone, I decided to make good on a threat I issued at the WPBT Winter Classic, and named this week’s game after the blogfather himself, Iggy.

What: WWdN: Bonus Code IGGY Invitational
Where: PokerStars.
When: Tuesday December 20th. 7:00 PM EST
Password: monkey
Tournament number: 16742725
Buy-in: $10+1

We are already in our ninth week, which just blows me away. It rules the most that these tourneys continue to draw as many players as they do. Like PokerGeek said, "It’s the world’s biggest homegame."

Last week, I mentioned that a major announcement regarding the tournaments would come out, and sugggested that wild and rampant speculation should immediately ensue. Well, the speculation wasn’t particularly wild or rampant, which I’ll chalk up to holiday exhaustion, rather than a soul-crushing lack of enthusiasm, but here’s the news:

Every player who wins one of the Tuesday Night WWdN Invitationals will be freerolled by PokerStars into a WWdN Tournament Of Champions Sit-N-Go, where they’ll get to play against me for some serious money. A PokerStars table seats nine players, so every eight weeks, we’ll play a WWdN:ToC where I will join the eight weekly champions to crown the Super Mega Totally Awesome Champion. Since we have eight winners already, I’ll work with PokerStars to schedule the first WWdN:ToC in the very near future.

I will be live blogging tonight’s game at CardSquad, so if check it out if you’re into that sort of thing. I hope to see lots of players tonight!