For the past couple weeks Poker After Dark has featured a high-stakes, six-handed cash game with Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Patrick Antonius, and Gus Hansen. Naturally the action and banter have been highly entertaining, but my favorite part is that every few rounds four or five of them agree to put $100,000 in blind and run the hand as basically a multi-way coin flip for half a million dollars. All of which produced this amazing quote from Ivey after he lost several in a row:
I like it when I lose so much money I can barely breathe. That's the feeling I go for. I'm addicted to that feeling.
They ought to frame that quote and hang it outside the main of entrance every casino in Las Vegas.
And speaking of poker, gambling legend Billy Baxtershared a ton of great stories while appearing on "The Scoop" with Diego Cordovez and Adam Schoenfeld. During the multi-part interview they noted that Baxter was profiled by Sports Illustrated back in 1984 and thanks to the power of the interwebs you can read the lengthy and well-done piece by writer John Underwood. Tigers star and should-be Hall of Fame shortstop Alan Trammellwas on the cover.
Unlike these poor guys, I'd have a far better shot of being fired for not playing fantasy football.
David Lettermanuses Twitter for the first (and perhaps last) time:
My initial reaction to Twitter wasn't all that different, but after coming late to the party I'm now obsessed.
If any AG.com readers are looking for gift ideas, I'd like these for Hanukkah.
Rangers reliever C.J. Wilson apparently isn't a huge fan of Diamondbacks catcher Chris Snyder.
For whatever reason recently I've used Mila Kunis when needing to reference an attractive woman in various articles, so this reminder of Marisa Miller's utility in such situations is very useful.
My viewership of Everybody Loves Raymond was sporadic at best, but Ray Romano's new show on TNT has definitely held my interest through two episodes and Men of a Certain Age is totally different than the long-running sitcom. Plus, any show with Andre Braugher is worth checking out.
Sadly, after two seasons on HBO and 22 glorious episodes Flight of the Conchordsis no more.
After attending his first winter meetings my Circling the Bases blogmate Craig Calcaterradescribed the scene as "Amalie Benjamin and a thousand dudes." What he didn't say is how sexy those dudes were. Not pictured, of course, is my fatass, which is why I'm in any sort of position to do the goofing.
Dan LeBatardwas a tremendous guest on Bill Simmons' podcast and they touched on tons of good topics under the pretense of discussing ESPN's latest documentary about University of Miami football.
After watching Michael K. Williams do mostly nothing in Gone Baby Gone, this video of 100 quotes from The Wire restored my faith in humanity:
Not only does the video include my favorite quote ("money ain't got no owners, only spenders"), there's a beautiful little Clay Davis run near the end.
Peter Gammons' touching farewell column after 20 years at ESPN was a reminder of why he's such an amazing figure in baseball history, but I'll forever be most grateful to him for turning me on toSusan Tedeschi. Earlier this year Gammons e-mailed me out of the blue to say that he enjoyed my Rotoworld columns, and the list of writers to whom he's reached out like that seems never-ending. Hall of Fame baseball writer and maybe an even better person.
Speaking of farewells Matt Thomas is leaving KSTP radio for a similar job in his native Houston. Not only was Thomas good on the air leading up to nightly Twins games, he was nice enough to look past my constant bashing of radio-mates Jim Souhan and Patrick Reusse to invite me to his poker game.
There are a lot to choose from, but this is one of my favorite end-of-the-decade lists: "40 Things That Were Popular at the Beginning of the 2000s." We've come a long way from boybands and trucker hats.
Finally, because YouTube unfortunately doesn't have much in actual Van Morrison stuff this week's AG.com-approved music video is a cappella group Clef Hangers doing a live version of "Crazy Love":
