so i have enough things to write about that i can no longer ignore elscorcho. i might be real busy, i might not think i have time, but i need to remember to stay true to this site - it's been there through it all. even during that time i blocked geoff on aim.

speaking of geoff, he wrote a haiku. sure, it sucks. but that's more content than my delightfully rhyming friends chad or thad. one day thad and chad will meet. i predict: thad punches chad in the face. then, jagerbombs all around.

so, what's been happening... we got some poker-related news (which i will keep brief), some baseball-related news (go tribe!) and some unexpected music-related news. huzzah! let's visit the poker thing first.

so i put $50 into partypoker back in ... well, i have no idea how long ago it was at this point, august or so. somehow, i haven't had to put any more money in since then, and i've even cashed out some. this is easily the longest run i've had of being a "profitable" poker player, and while the profits are small (not quitting the day job, don't worry), i still think this is a pretty nice result of actually working on my poker game to the point where i'm not some crazy gambloooor. i even cleared a small left-over bonus on ultimatebet, which is noteworthy because ultimatebet was the first site i played on, back in college. thad, asian, parker and i all had accounts on ultimatebet, and i was by far the least successful. i always play like an ass - way too loose, way too stupid. so in a sense, when i decided to put in a little money and get my bonus cleared, it was a challenge to not implode on myself as i had so many times before on UB. i didn't implode, but i did suffer a couple of bad breaks and ended up with the small bonus being my only profit. eh, i'm still pleased. i took all my money out of ultimatebet with no plans of returning.

thad and i looked at a couple of other sites, and i think i might join up with pokerstars to compliment the options i have at partypoker. it's good to get a feel for different types of games, and while partypoker games are loose and wild, pokerstars games are supposed to be slightly stronger. should be a fun challenge.

also, thad and i found that pokerroom offers chinese poker for play money. you can play right in your webbrowser too, as the game's running on a java applet. chinese poker is kind of stupid-crazy-wild-fun. you get 13 cards and you have to make 3 hands, a high, middle, and low. your high and middle are both 5 card poker hands, and your low is a 3 card hand where the best possible is 3 of a kind. this game is 90% luck on the cards you get, and 10% strategy on building the best hands to get the most points possible at showdown. you get points for beating the hands of your 1 to 3 opponents, naturally. the official rules can be found here if you're interested. it's a pretty fun game.

ok, enough poker. what's next? well, quickly, the indians have signed paul byrd and are looking to sign trevor hoffman. (side note: between the 52 reasons espn sucks and ken rosenthal generally being right about his insider information, i'm bringing foxsports.com into the fold, even if i think joe buck sucks and fox news is trash) i'm pretty happy about the paul byrd signing - i think the money was a little high, but that's probably due to loaiza getting 3 years $21 mil from the oakland a's. then again, just a 2 year contract with a club option for the third - this is exactly the time length i'd want byrd to be signed for, so i'm pretty pumped about that. also, cleveland happens to be the most efficient team in terms of spending money. also, they were the best team in the AL last year. no, i'm not bitter.

but really, if the tribe gets a 2 year, $16mil deal done with hoffman and then makes a decent run at nomar garciaparra (thad and front office says for RF, i say for 1B, hehe), this offseason would have to be considered very successful. really, signing nomar is all i'm asking for. please.

on to the music front: as an early christmas present for my lovely girl, i got a couple of general admission tickets for the u2 concert tonight. now, i'm not the world's biggest fan of u2, but jen does love them mightily, and i do like the old stuff enough for tonight to be a show that i am definitely looking forward to. the general admission aspect of it is most intriguing.

so anyways, with concerts back within my range of things i can do, geoff can back with some great information with equally great timing - the taste of chaos tour exists. they're coming to boston on march 7th... well, lowell, at least. and i'm going. somehow, jen said she wanted to come too, which is spectacular. let me run down these bands for you all, as reported by pollstar

• as i lay dying
• atreyu
• deftones
• dredg
• funeral for a friend
• silverstein
• story of the year
• thrice
• thursday

of course, deftones and dredg are two of my favorite bands, with deftones up in my top 5 favorite bands of all time list. as i lay dying is pretty bad ass, as are thrice. atreyu is climbing up the list for me, and i'll have to put some more time in with their cd (maybe i'll review it). i heavily dislike story of the year, but other than that, this lineup is incredible. i'm very excited... march 7th!

of course, 2 weeks AFTER the taste of chaos concert, i really should be on my way to vegas. which is also amazing.

so this post is pretty long winded and lacking in the deep thoughts department, but you got a little bit of everything else. i got some more stuff to write about, but don't call this a comeback. i've been here for years.