It took me a while, a bit of trial and error, to be able to log in here to dust of the old place and attempt a post. I couldn't remember the password. Imagine that.
In a couple of days I will be boarding an airplane to fly west for a gathering of folk that's been happening for seven years now. I reckon most of you reading this will be there as well. As always, I'm looking forward to the trip - especially since I missed last year's.
Seven years.
Such a short time to have experienced the rise and fall of the poker boom and, with it, the poker blogging boom. I truly miss those days... (cue the creaky rocking chair and the old dog asleep on the front porch). The good that's come out of it, though, remains the community of unlikely comrades who found each other through the common bond of that little game of cards we call poker.
Okay. I've started and deleted about four different paragraphs in the last fifteen minutes. It's hard to avoid the maudlin - so I'm not going to go there. I'm just going to say once again that I'm grateful for the friendships I've made and for being welcomed into the club so robustly.
So - I invite you to click through some of the archives, click through to the blogs on the right (I believe most are still there, if not still updating) re-visit a time when that hand-history was oh-so-important and we cared about that three-bet on the turn. Some of what I wrote ain't half bad, and some is, certainly, pure crap, but it's a chronicle of a time we won't see again.
Or just enjoy what I believe is the best comment thread ever - let this be the legacy fer now, especially if it brings a smile to your face. The set-up - March, 2006 - I mentioned in a post following a "Wheatie" tourney (i.e.: organized by Wil Wheaton - and I'm proud to say I coined that phrase) that I had a standing bet with Iggy that Wil did not read my blog... then this happened in the comments:
wil
Iggy totally WINS.
Not only do I read your blog, I subscribe to your blog in Bloglines.
Pay up, baby.LeVar Burton
Me too. Why doesn't anyone remember me in all of this? Is it the 'Reading Rainbow' backlash? Fucking PBS, I should know better than to trust those effete New York liberals with their 'book learning' and shit. Wil thinks he's got it bad, I was the token brother on that sci-fi show. The writers got me laid all of twice, and when I go to the conventions? Where the black people at? Nowhere, that's where. So I end up with some pasty-ass cracker wearing a plastic headband over his eyeballs asking for my autograph and I just want to remind these bitches that I WAS KUNTA KINTE MOTHERFUCKERS.
Don't even get me started on the Gates McFadden Photoshopped porn either. If I could find one lousy donkey dick piece of LaForge fan art I'd feel like those nine years were worth it. But no, with you white people the most exotic you get is Michael Fucking Dorn. Let me tell you a little secret about Michael Dorn - dude hates Puerto Ricans, and I'm pretty sure he killed a guy in the early 80s. What's up with your precious Worf now fanboys? You white people piss me off.Daddy
I read your blog too.Marina Sirtis
Levar, Levar, Levar - there you go playing "that" card again, for JFC would you get over it. So what if the writers only got you laid twice? They had me end up with the Kling-fucking-on, for christ sake - and I couldn't even write off the therapy sessions to get the hideous image of that latex laden bony mug out of my head.
AND, who do you think I had to sleep with to get that plot point redirected and get me where I belonged - with the Big Boy (http://www.marinasirtis.tv/gallery/personal/pages/21.htm) - in the movies?
AND - you think I relish that pasty ass cracker staring at my boobs everytime I show up at one of those geek fetes knowing that as soon as I endorse that sweat laden 8x10 glossy headshot they're padding off to the little boy's room to seclude themselves in the last stall on the left for the next half hour? Huh?
And another thing - I'm Greek, dammit, not Russian, not Persian, not "generic ethnic" - Greek, GREEK you hear me?!?!???Astin
I know *I* was disappointed you went out Maudie.. I mean, I handed you all my chips at the beginning of the tourney... I expect more for you flushing against my straight. (I should've checked... alas)StudioGlyphic
Levar rocks.Patrick Stewart
Not only do I read you blog, I have found you to be a constant source of inspiration and have used it to get me through all the lonely nights since I can no longer hang with my homies LaVar and Work-Dogg.Drizztdj
The dorkiness bar has been raised above Steve Irkel's suspenders in these comments.
Rock on Miz Maudie.CJ
Funniest comment thread ever.Kelsey Grammer
Okay, first you're all asking, what the hell is Frasier commenting for? Well, screw you.
I spent 10 years on Cheers and another 10 on Frasier with 3 Emmys to show for it. But do I get asked about that??? Of course not...
I get asked about being Capt. Morgan Bateson like I even had any idea what the fuckin' character's name was!!!
"In episode #118 blah, blah, blah, why didn't decompress the cargo bay, blah, blah, blah?"
Can't those damn people move on with their lives!?!?!?
And, wil, I loved your work in Toy Soldiers.
And keep up the good work Maudie, long-time reader, first-time commentor.iggy
i am still waiting for maudie to pay up, damnit.Pauly
(shakes head)BigMike
You seem to have become the Dorothy Parker of the blogging community. Well done Maudie.Darrin Stevens
Yeah, I know, what is the husband of a witch doing in with all these skiffy commentors? Well, even us madcap Mad Ave.-types read Poker Perspectives. Hubba-hubba!Bone Daddy
Is this Maudie's Poker Perspecitives or the Star Trek Suicide Hot-Line?ccgreg
Maudie had more railbirds than Clonie Gowen (I was one of them)!
See you in a couple of days!!
Well. It's been a while. A long while. So long, in fact, I'd forgotten my log-in info to even get in here and write down a few words. Eventually I found it underneath some old relics of my memory, dusted it off and was unable to unlock this blog's door.
I'm still playing poker - online only at Full Tilt.. Wish I could say I'm doing well, but I'm not. Bad habits - that's all I can say.
Currently, there's a fun post up on the FTP blog about creating a chat cloud. Check it out. My pal Al scribes for the site - generous soul and everyone's favorite bar fly.
Hey, who knows, maybe I'll get back here and write more m'self. Probably not. But maybe. I'll try at least monthly. Need to exercise that muscle.
Although it seems as though I've thoroughly abandoned this little spot in the interweb, it's not exactly the case. Let's just say this little spot has become the little get away spot we all wish we had more time to escape to. The weekend or vacation cabin, if you will.
It's only been six short and fast-changing years since poker became the new black. Most of us have gone the way of Twitter or abandoned the grand experiment altogether. Or, like me, begun new blogging adventures elsewhere. And, like me, have found even those efforts wanting.
I'm extremely nostalgic for "the good ol' days." Those days that had me giddy over a shout out from Iggy, or in anxious anticipation of the next post from Up For Poker, or playing a Saturday morning MTT with Pauly. And remember those pile-ons at the $25 NL tables on Party Poker?
Deep sigh.
The one constant has been the annual winter gathering. The return to the neon and glittering poker Capistrano of Vegas. I expect the requisite amount of excitement prior to and the inevitable disappoint afterwards that there wasn't more time... It's a cycle that is well established.
No, I'm not dead yet. Actually feeling pretty darn good. Will I be seeing you in a few short weeks? I certainly hope so. I have drinks to be drunk and Pai-Gow to be played with you. Please don't disappoint.
