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Monday, December 24, 2007

The Holidays

Well Folks, the holidays are here! Some of us have been waiting all year for this week of family gatherings, endless football, and gorging ourselves on holiday treats.


The GOM, however, only sees it as another week. Yes, I'll watch a lot of football, and I actually like fruitcake. This is the time of year when I really miss family. The one family member I was really close to succumbed to illness this past year. He is really missed. My daughter is with her mother in Florida. I'll get to talk to her on the phone but I'm still here by myself. Oh well, it's not the first time and it won't be the last, I'm sure.



There will be some good poker this week though. I used to love this week when I lived in Las Vegas. The tourists came and just loved to pass out the money. The holiday weekends were always profitable. Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, made no difference, they were there and so was profit at the tables.



I wish each of you everything you wish for yourself, health, happiness and prosperity.



See you all next year!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Topsy Turvey!

Well Folks, this week is SNAFU.

 To start with, the GOM Files was temporarily blocked cause some robot thought it might be a spam site! Can you imagine the GOM as a spammer? Well, maybe spam & eggs, but that's only when in dire straits.  I didn't know robots COULD think.

I'm moving on Thursday to a smaller apartment, but this one has a walk-in shower and is more accessible. The GOM can't get around like he used to. It also has tile floors in the area where I'm putting the computer and the kitchen. I can just roll to the coffee pot in my office chair. WHEEE!

Charter Communicaations will have to move the cable and internet service. THAT scares me. (read 1st post)

With all that's going on in the Presidential race, we all have to be careful not to get covered up with total BS. Democrats endorsing Republicans? Hang on!

More later, as I try to sort this all out.


Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Don't Tear Off That Mattress Tag- You Could Be Next

The following article appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Naturally the police would go after poker players, as they have already taken care of the rest of the crime. The federal government is also involved with shutting down internet gambling, especially now that our borders are secure and all the graft in government has been eliminated.



Police go after poker games in which house takes cut


By ANNA M. TINSLEY
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Dec 10, 2007

Dan Michalski likes nothing more than to sit at a table and play Texas hold 'em.

But it's been harder for the North Texas man to find a good game lately, because Dallas police keep raiding everything from VFW halls to underground poker games, ticketing players, arresting operators and confiscating everything from the chips to the tables.

Players fear that the crackdown on poker won't stop at city borders, but spread throughout the state as long as Texas outlaws the games where the house gets a percentage of the pot.

"It's a shame," said Michalski, a poker blogger, player and editor of pokerati.com. "It's not like the people running these rooms are getting rich. A lot of people in good rooms are just trying to provide a service. What's wrong with them being able to pay the rent, buy food, with the money?

"This is frustrating, to say the least," he said. "These laws themselves are questionable."

Police say they are following the law, which says poker games in which the house gets a percentage of the pot, a rake, are illegal.

And police say they're going to track them down and bust them.

In recent years, raids of organized poker games where the house gets a rake have picked up in Dallas, and now Tarrant County law enforcement is pledging to shut down illegal gambling.

"If we find it and it's in our jurisdiction, then we're going to work it," said Mike Johnston, executive chief deputy of the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department. "We haven't run across an ongoing poker situation where the house gets a cut.

"But with all the World Series of Poker on TV, it's naive to say it's not going on," he said. "If we find it, we'll get warrants and shut them down."

This in a state where former gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman once joked, "We invented Texas hold 'em here, [but] we can't even play it."

A friendly game?

Friendly poker games, where players collect the full amount of the pot, are not illegal.

It's when the house gets a percentage -- whether for food, utilities or anything else -- that it becomes illegal.

State lawmakers have unsuccessfully proposed bills to expand gambling: measures ranging from allowing Texas hold 'em at licensed bars and restaurants with the state getting a cut to letting voters decide whether the state should allow full casinos.

Those legislative efforts will likely continue, as the state looks for new revenue and realizes how many Texans gamble in neighboring states.

But until the law changes, Texas law enforcement officials say they're going to do their best to shut down illegal poker games.

In Dallas this year, there have been at least six busts of illegal poker games, with police issuing Class A misdemeanor tickets for running or promoting gambling and Class C misdemeanor tickets for gambling.

"We don't go out looking for these types of operations," said Dallas Deputy Police Chief Julian Bernal, commander of vice and narcotics. "The community is calling us repeatedly with these locations. When we get the citizen complaints, we're going to respond."

Bernal said that during the busts, police confiscate anything poker related: from the tables and chairs to the chips and money.

Tarrant County deputies haven't gotten many tips on illegal poker games and haven't come across many during their quest to shut down the eight-liner video game industry.

"It hasn't been an issue," Johnston said. "But the sheriff has been very proactive in taking a pretty hard stance on something that violates the gaming statute."

Recent raids

Several Dallas poker rooms were closed this year after police raided Veterans of Foreign Wars halls and confiscated poker paraphernalia.

Many Class C misdemeanor charges from a raid on a VFW post in Dallas were dismissed, but prosecutors are moving ahead with charges against the operators.

Dallas lawyer Bob Hinton represents one person charged with operating the April game, Brenda Wigington, and was in court recently on her behalf.

He filed a motion to suppress the evidence, which is expected to be heard in February, because, he said, he believes that the affidavit for a search warrant won't stand up in court.

But Hinton said he doesn't understand why some of the poker games are being targeted.

"All of these lodges -- VFW, Elks, whatever -- they all do this: play poker," he said. "It's just good, clean fun.

"They say since the house was taking a small percentage to pay the light bill, then that's illegal. From a practical standpoint, this is how they were able to raise money for charitable things. This wasn't something about profit."

Nationwide attention

News of the Dallas busts quickly traveled through newspapers and on the Internet.

Recently, even comedian Drew Carey became interested, filming a segment about the story for Reason.tv, a Web site home to a collection of libertarian videos.

"Poker is about as American as baseball and apple pie," Carey said on the broadcast. "It was born here in America. Mark Twain loved it. He's a great American.

"Until recently, Supreme Court justices had a monthly game. They're great Americans," Carey said. "You'd think playing poker in a VFW hall would be about as American as anything you could do."

Michalski says he's moving to Las Vegas after Christmas.

"It's frustrating to saw the least," said Michalski, 35. "These laws in Texas are outdated. ... It's not what it used to be."

ANNA M. TINSLEY, 817-390-7610
atinsley@star-telegram.com

ICE-Where are they when you need them?

Please understand that the following post is in reference to ILLEGAL aliens, what we used to call "wetbacks". I have the utmost respect for legal immigrants to this country. I respect the Mexican people. There was a time in my life I thought about moving to Mexico. I still would if not for the drug cartels and gangs. The Mexican culture and way of life is enviable. They know how to live and enjoy life.


************************************************************************************


I'm sitting at my window looking out at a dreary day. The complex where I live is doing some major renovations and there are workers outside everywhere. I would really like to see what would happen if a Border Patrol or ICE van drove by real slow. None of these workers speak English. If I thought ICE would do anything I'd call them.

It would be different if these people worked like wetbacks used to. Now they take their time and stand around a lot. Seems like it takes five of them to do what one would in the past I remember.


Wetbacks of old also were glad to be here. They appreciated what they got and either sent any extra money back to their families or saved it. They live quietly and were eager to work. They were respectful of laws, not wanting to attract attention to themselves.


The wetbacks today feel entitled to all the rights of citizens. They spend their money on drugs, beer, loud music, cars that bounce, pants that don't fit and hats that they wear backwards. They breed like rabbits so their offspring will be born here and some sympathetic liberals will not want to separate families.


Have you ever heard a quiet wetback? Why do they have to be so loud with their jibberish?


The reason they all come to work in one van is because only one can read the street signs.


Yes, they do hard manual labor. They are covering a block wall with stone in front of my apartment. It does look better. The problem is that I know two stonemasons that are out of work and bid on this job. They are local US citizens. Wonder why they didn't get the job?

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Oops!

Seems as though the previous post about the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe was debunked. Sorry for that, but I got it from what I thought was a reliable source.

I do admit errors when they occur.

It's still a good recipe though!


http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/cookie.asp

Friday, December 7, 2007

A Little Info

Hi Folks,

I am the GOM (grouchy old man). I live alone in Texas with my scrawny old cat named Chips.

I have become grouchier as I have gotten older. The world is not as it was in my youth. It is worse. I have become more aware of this since I have become disabled. It has become my mission to change what I can, but NOT accept what I cannot. I have little to do but sit at the computer and right wrongs.

Some of my causes involve the total lack of "customer service" in this country, the fact that our elected officials are selling our chance at prosperity to benefit their own, and the increased eroding of our constitutional rights.

I'll update this blog as I can.

For those of you of like mind, welcome aboard!

For those of you that don't know what is happening, avail yourselves of the evening news, CNN, this or many other blogs.

For those that don't care, stay out of my way.

More later, there's a poker game starting.