URDUMB*American Express Company

Greetings! Jonny has more spew backed up for you than a hippo on a steady diet of Velveeta, Black Bean Dip, and molasses. Just pray to the Sweet Baby Jesús, my children, that Jonny commits all of his vitriol* to paper before he gets recalled back to the factory that fucked him up in the first place.

So in today's episode of URDUMB, Jonny takes aim at American Express. In the context of The Great Credick Card Game (see previous posts), Jonny opened an account with the good folks at Amex. While Jonny is undoubtedly the Biggest of Ballers, packing a wallet full of credit cards with limits of up to $100,000.00, the keen minds at American Express saw fit to extend Jonny a meager credit limit of $2,000. Jonny was deeply insulted, but he still used the SHIT out of the Amex account nonetheless, only because Amex paid cash-back at a rate of 1.5% on ALL purchases and even more on certain purchases. Shocking - Jonny is a dirty little whore.

But in the Spring of the Year of our Lordy-Lordy 2009, things started to go horribly wrong. In the first eight months of Jonny's "Membership", he rolled close to $30,000 in purchases through that shitass piss-poor $2,000 credit line. At its peak, Jonny blew more than $10k through Amex's coffers in a single month, which means he maxed-out-and-paid-off the balance more than once a week. So I know what you are thinking - in appreciation of Jonny's patronage, Amex cupped Jonny's balls ever-so-gently and granted him the credit line that a man of his stature deserves, right? Not so much. At the end of the month where Jonny paid Amex $5,450.00 and where Jonny owed a minimum payment of $15.00 against a total balance of $674, Amex decided that it was time to CUT Jonny's credit line. That's right Kids, Amex was making too much money off of Jonny's activity, so they decided to drop Jonny's Balla Line of Credit down to $1,000.

Okay, whatever Dude. Jonny continued to go balls-deep on them, STILL maxing-out-and-paying-off his credit line more than once-a-week. But then a couple of months later, Jonny is logging in to americanexpress.com to make his usual $1k payment, and suddenly nothing is working. WTF? Oh well, probably technical difficulties, right? Not so much. The next day Jonny got the following letter:



That's right kids. CANCELED. DE-FUCKING-NIED.

So here's the deal, because Jonny is losing interest fast:

Why the FUCK would you cancel the account of someone who is paying off his ENTIRE LINE OF CREDIT EVERY FUCKING WEEK? True, Amex wasn't making any interest off Jonny, but unlike VISA/Mastercard, that's not where Amex makes their crumbs. While the discount rate that vendors are charged for VISA and Mastercard transactions are around 1.8% or so, American Express charges a WHOPPING 3.5%!!! In other words, Amex should LOVE someone like Jonny who is churning the SHIT out of his credit line while Amex skims 3.5% off the top.

Anyway, in that first year, when it was all said and done, Jonny paid American Express more than FORTY-SEVEN FUCKING THOUSAND DOLLARS against his pitiful, shameful, disgraceful little line of credit.

Canceled. Meh. Whatever. Good riddance and go fuck yourself, American Express!

Okay, not really. Did you REALLY think that Jonny's not gonna let it go that easy. NO FUCKING WAY!

Oh, and here's an interesting twist...Jonny owns a decent little chunk of stock in American Express Company (NYSE: AXP). Enough Amex stock to pay off Jonny's credit line about 75 times over. So, Jonny felt the need to drop a line to the Chairman and CEO of Amex. The full letter and enclosures are below, because Jonny is REALLY losing interest rapidly. In a nutshell, Jonny asks him....1) Why did they think that it was such a good idea to shit-can a cash-flush big-baller like Jonny, and 2) Does this mean that Amex is swirling down the shitter and that Jonny should sell his stock?

Time will tell if the spineless cocksuckers at American Express choose to sack-up and respond to Jonny, and if Jonny hears as much as a little bitch-peep out of them, he will let you know.

Here's the docs:






Jonny Out. American Express can SUCKIT!
Everyone Else - ♥ Love you long time.

URDUMB*

Mornin'. Howsurmommanem?

Quick one - Jonny is getting new windows installed on the Casa de Jonny. The new windows really dress up the big cardboard box. Ok, so check out the warning label on Jonny's new window screens:




REALLY? Shit! I'm glad they told me that. Fuck ME! Jonny was counting on his new window screens to provide the final layer of protection to his compound, sorta like Will Smith did with those gigantic sliding iron shutters on his house in I Am Legend, only WAY more high tech, even though Will Smith was doing this way in the future. Jonny thought that there had been tremendous strides in the Nobel Prize category of "Window Screens That Can Protect You From Heavy Artillery" since the writers conceptualized I Am Legend, but Jonny was sadly mistaken. I guess the terrorists have already won. Jonny will have to look elsewhere for defense against the onslaught of starving zombies. I wonder if it's too late to get my money back for these worthless fucking windows.




But seriously - You know what happened, right? A while back, some Fucktard bought windows from this company. Then Fucktard got drunk and thought it would be cool to do some sweet jumps that involved them using the window screens like a vertical trampoline to bounce off and fly across the room. Except that (SHOCKINGLY!) Fucktard went right through the screen and hit the ground three stories below. Then Fucktard was sitting at home in a full-body cast, and between episodes of Gomer Pyle, USMC and The Jerry Springer Show, Fucktard saw a commercial asking him "Have you been injured because of the negligence of someone else? You might be entitled to MONEY DAMAGES! Give us a call!". Fucktard called the law firm of Assclown, Assmunch, and Asshat, Esq. and found an equally Fucktarded attorney that was willing to file a nuisance lawsuit, which resulted in the window company paying Fucktard (with a nice 40% contingency fee to the Fucktard Attorney and his firm) some "Get The Fuck Away From Me With This Bullshit" settlement to just make the case go away. BINGO! From now on, we must label our windows with the painfully obvious.

Ain't capitalism grand?

* Blatantly stolen from someone on BigStack.com. Jonny thinks it was TheJim that coined this phrase. Jonny hereby promises to pay royalties to the creator of "URDUMB" and the "URDUMB license plate" based upon net revenues from ItsOverJonny.com. Which means you owe ME money - send me a check.

Atmos Energy - the Beauty of MonopolyAlt: Life is NOT Too Short

Jonny has become an Energy Geek of late. Mrs. Jonny prefers the term "Energy Nazi", but that's another story. The findings of this glorious journey will be posted in the future. That's not important now. So don't ask. FOCUS please!

What's relevant today is that Jonny has been checking his electric meter periodically to see if his own readings are correct. When the latest natural gas bill arrived from the lovely, talented, and sexy Atmos Energy, it just didn't look right. Doesn't "Atmos" sound like a stripper's name? You know, one of those strippers that thinks she's smart and therefore picks a "smart"-sounding name? Just close your eyes and imagine the deep-voice guy saying "Coming to the Maaaaain Stage - it's ATMOS!".

Anyway, how the FUCK did the Jonny Household use more than double the amount of natural gas usually consumed in summer months during the month of August? La Hacienda de Jonny uses gas only for heat and hot water - everything else is electric. Ummm, yeah, uhhh, so, we're not running the heat much in Texas during the summer, and I'm pretty sure we didn't suddenly use a shit-ton of extra hot water. It's not like a pregnant woman went into labor and we suddenly needed lots of extra hot water. So Jonny decided to train his awesome Meter-Reading Skillz (WAY more valuable and sexy than nun-chuck skillz, bow-hunting skills, or computer-hacking skillz) on the natural gas meter in an effort to determine who was getting kicked in the twat.


SURPRISE!!! That infallible, monolithic, monopolistic, sexy little vixen Atmos seemed to have made a mistake (GASP!). Time for a Cunt-Punt. According to the bill, it had been a week since that little tramp read Jonny's gas meter, yet the current reading on the meter was STILL less than the reading that the dirty bitch claimed on Jonny's bill. I guess her rent was due and she was a little short because of the money she dumped into the slots at Winstar or on a new pair of shoes with clear heels. All good - Jonny thought he would just call that bitch out and get his money back.

"Why bother Jonny? If they read the meter wrong this time and then read it correctly next time, wouldn't you just pay less next month, and it would even itself out?"

WRONG!!! Here's the problem. Gas prices are not constant. Gas Utility Companies like Atmos charge a fixed rate for the DELIVERY of natural gas, and then they tack on a rider charge that adjusts each month to track the market price of natural gas. In other words, at least according to the claims of Atmos, they don't make any more or less money because of the fluctuations in the cost of natural gas - they simply deliver it for a fee and charge Jonny for whatever the extra costs were for them to buy the gas that they provide.

Well, the rider charge for this current bill was the highest it's EVER BEEN IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND!!! The wholesale price of natural gas peaked in July at a little over $13.00 per thousand cubic feet ($/MCF). Since then, it has plunged down to its current cost of around $8.00/MCF. The bright kids in Jonny's class have already caught on. Sit quietly while Jonny explains it for the other dumbasses in the class. You have to put up with the dumbfucks because your parents don't love you enough to send you to private school. Deal with it.

So if they charged Jonny for more gas than I used in August, and then I pay for LESS than I use in September, and the price of gas as reflected in their Rider Charge has fallen dramatically between those two billing cycles (which it did), Jonny ends up paying a higher price for the total gas usage in those two months than he should. Seems simple right? Well, Atmos may be sexy, but she's DUMB as a FUCKING STUMP.

Now, I'm sure that Atmos' customer service representative is a nice lady. She leaves work at 5:00 on the dot every day, yet she makes sure that her husband's Hungry Man Dinner and Pabst Blue Ribbon is on the TV tray when he gets home from the construction site. And before she goes to bed she makes sure his sleeveless Pittsburgh Steelers t-shirt is starched and ready for morning. She probably even styles her kids' spiky-mullet hairdos in her own back yard while they play in the 14" deep plastic swimming pool from the Wal-Mart. But intelligent and insightful she is not.

As Jonny tried to explain his problem to this lovely young, toothless, gravy-and-bacon-lovin' lady, there were uncomfortably-long periods of silence between when Jonny concluded a statement or a question and when the Mississippi Queen responded. If this strumpet seemed a lot more on-the-ball, Jonny might think that she had Jonny on Mute and was calling her co-workers over to nominate Jonny for the "Asshole Caller of the Week" award. But she ain't that smart. Jonny can only imagine that she was sitting in her 6x6 cubicle with her mouth hanging open widely trying to comprehend what this strange man on the line was talking about. It turns out that the bill was "Estimated" - they didn't even TRY to read it. The explanation Jonny got was that the meter-reader-guys were helping the field-guys do maintenance and didn't read the meters this month. Sounds like bullshit to me. If this happened on a large scale, Jonny is gonna cry "Shenanigans! Conspiracy!!!" and then put on his tinfoil hat and write his congressman using only letters snipped from the newspaper.

Jonny shits you not - this Daughter of the Blessed Inbreeding said FOUR times, "We estimate your bill based upon your usage during the same period last year". Thank you, oh sacred offspring of Nell and Forrest Gump - I GOT THAT! It was like when you call technical support and get one of those phone banks in India and some cheerful Hindu named "Reggie" has no clue what you are talking about, so he just repeats random lines from his script, taking care to insert "Please and thank you!" at the end of every statement.

At one point, she had the nerve to tell Jonny - "It's not going to make THAT much of a difference in your bill anyway". BINGO! Thank you for small favors Jesus. "Okay, then if it's not worth worrying about - why don't YOU pay it? Cool? Cool!"

Then when Jonny tried to explain to her than Jonny should not be penalized for the mistake of her company, she quickly retorted that "It wasn't a mistake. We just didn't read your meter." Oh, excuse me, I'm sorry, Jonny should not be penalized because YOU DIDN'T DO YOUR FUCKING JOB!!!

Jonny should call her a CUNT, but she's not smart enough. If she actually understood what the problem was and had the nerve to dispute it, THEN she would be a Cunt. So, I guess what Jonny is saying is that she doesn't merit the compliment of the sweet, sweet "C" word. In other words, you have not yet been promoted to the rank of Cunt.

So finally, Jonny dropped the word that every CSR loves/hates - "escalate", as in "Please escalate me to someone who has a fucking clue what I'm talking about, because you have proven yourself too stupid". She transferred me to another gem of rural culture who finally agreed to let Jonny tell her what his meter reading SHOULD have been, and she adjusted Jonny's bill accordingly. Of course, she dropped the same lines on Jonny initially - "It will work itself out" and "We estimate your bill based upon...".

Now normally, Jonny would have worked his blood pressure up into Old Faithful range, complete with red-hot ears and beet-red extremities, but not this time. Maybe Jonny realized that he was just fucking with them, because in-between seemingly angry statements to the unfortunate women that happened to catch Jonny's call, Jonny was explaining to Mrs. Jonny what he was bitching about and air-humping them a la Teddy KGB. Take it ALL Bitch!! Or maybe Jonny has just reached the point in his insanity that he HOPES that someone fucks him over just so that he has something to bitch about.

Anyway, it looks like it all got worked out, and Jonny got a good laugh from terrorizing two unfortunate women whose only failing was to make the words "help you" into FIVE syllables.

"But Jonny, I'm confused. What did you mean when you titled this post "Life is NOT Too Short"?

Well, in the summertime in the Great State of Texas, a double-fucking on Jonny's gas bill represents an extra 1.9 MCF in gas charges. And the difference in the Rider Charge between August and September is about $3.18 per MCF. So yeah, Jonny spent 20 minutes on the phone today to dispute an overcharge of about six bucks. Jonny is pretty sure that his cell phone minutes for a 20-minute call will cost more than $6.00.

But Jonny doesn't give a fuck. As a great man once told me, "People (who work in customer service) should not get paid to be rude to me". It was a definite matter of principal, and in the end Jonny won by STANDING UP for what is RIGHT. TRUTH, JUSTICE, and the AMERICAN WAY, bitches!!!

Or maybe Jonny truly just loves to fuck with people.

♥ Love you long time, unless you talk to random people on the phone for a living.

Democrat National Convention:Jonny Threw Up in His Mouth.....a LOT

Just some quick thoughts. Watching the Democrat National Convention. I'm sure Jonny will be just as repulsed when the Grand Old White Guys take center stage from Minneapolis next week. But what a fucking joke. Just an arena full of sheep with their stupid fucking signs and their fucking stupid songs. Wow - what a coincidence!...They all had signs that said "McCain - More of the Same", and then Biden's theme was "That's more of the same!", complete with chanting from the Sheeople like it was the opening scene of Wheel of Fortune. Oh, and if he's going to act like he mistakenly said "George" (Bush) when he meant to say "John" (McCain) and then call it a Freudian slip, he REALLY should work on his delivery so that it's remotely believable. He got so excited about releasing that little gem of prose that he popped too soon like Forrest Gump and totally fucked it up. Gag. Cud from Pei-Wei doesn't taste as good going down the second time. And did they really need to exhume the corpses of Biden's wife and daughter for political gain? Even Jonny thinks that is shameful. Congratulations - you decided not to go to Washington to take your oath of office because your wife and daughter just got killed. How fucking noble of you. Or maybe that fucking train just wasn't running that day.

IF JONNY HAS TO HEAR ANY MORE ABOUT BIDEN TAKING THE FUCKING TRAIN EVERY DAY, I'M GOING TO SHOOT MYSELF IN THE FUCKING HEAD! I'd rather hear some sappy story about how he still takes a giant SHIT every day. Or maybe how he takes one shit in Washington and another shit in Delaware EVERY DAY. I think that accomplishment is more worthy of self-congratulation than taking the train home to Delaware nightly.

One important sidenote, though - Jonny saw irrefutable proof that the Republicans are fucked - before Bill Clinton took the stage (and before that god-awful god-damn Fleetwood Mac song began to torture Jonny), the Dems were cranking out "Eye of the Tiger". GG GOP. See ya in 2012. If Survivor can beat the Russians, the Republicans don't stand a chance.


And while we're on Clinton, is that guy the King of all Jedi Knights or what? I swear that guy can wave his hand and you'll forget all about the droids. And the Sheeople LOVE him. I literally laughed out loud when Clinton started getting pissed because his humble subjects would not stop the ovation so he could speak. He looked like Mr. Clark in "Lean on Me" standing in front of the high school auditorium full of hoodrats trying to bring them to order. "Please stop". "Stop!" "Sit down - we've got business to do!!!" You could see it in Clinton's face - he wanted to twist off like Kanye West, but his years of experience kept him from saying what he WANTED to say - "Shut the FUCK up and sit the FUCK down. Okay, I get it - you fuckin' LOVE me. But they told me I have to introduce the next Shepherd, and then I gotta go - I got P-I-M-P-I-N to do!"

I loved how Clinton took credit for everything positive that happened from 1992-2000. He bragged about how strong the economy was and how great the budget surplus was when he left office. Yep - it's true - it was all because of you, Billy. Starting in about 1950, Clinton skillfully began crafting the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on Corporate America that resulted in TREMENDOUS corporate spending in the last couple of years of the 20th century. As a result of Clinton's genius "Y2K Panic Plan", the economy was BOOMING, and Clinton's life-long plan came to fruition. At the same time decades ago, with the help of his little buddy Albert, he created the Internet and set in motion all of the hysteria that lead to the tech bubble that further boosted the economy and swelled the government's coffers with all of the capital gains tax on stock market returns from phantom companies with phantom profits. Need further evidence of Clinton's expertise? How about that gigantic bucket full of shit he left hanging above the door to the Oval Office, a-la Three Stooges, so that as soon as his successor walked through the door, the tech bubble burst, terrorists attacked NYC, and his successor was covered in shit. Dude, the time before, during, and after your administration were a Perfect Storm for you - just acknowledge that you run good at LIFE. Or maybe I'm wrong, and Chris Moneymaker really WAS the best player at the WSOP in 2003. But enough about Clinton. You can't argue with stupid. But he's still the smoothest motherfucker alive.

Jonny especially loves how each party spends the first six months of the election season stomping on each other's nuts, and then they come to their respective conventions and say "Naaaawww...We were just bullshittin'. We didn't mean all that stuff we said about each other. Contrary to our earlier statements, we're all VERY qualified and we'll all do a GREAT job."

But anyway, seriously folks. Do people really think that a politician is going to change their lives? Do they REALLY think that a government is going to solve their problems? Dude, the government can't efficiently issue you a little card with your picture on it without it turning into a total cluster-fuck. But these people on the convention floor were GENUINELY excited about the prospects of Mr. Obama instrumenting "Change". Good luck with all that. Somehow the campaign platforms of "Change" and "Take Back America" and "Stick Up For The Little Guy" and "Improve Life for American Families" work EVERY fucking time. I guess that's because no one ever accomplishes these promises, so they are still bullet-points the next time an election rolls around. If you want to improve your circumstances or solve your problems, save the energy you are wasting shaking that stupid fucking sign and chanting what they tell you to say and singing "We Are Family", and instead get off your ass and get busy working on your own problems and circumstances!

Jonny hates politics, and Jonny hates politicians. How long before the Machines take over?

To You NASTY MOTHERFUCKERS at the WSOP

A recent post on BigStack.com / WestonPoker.com reminded Jonny of something he wrote a few years ago on another forum about the sanitation practices of a lot of Jonny's fellow poker players.

Reposting so that this gem is preserved for posterity.

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August 1, 2006

Ok guys, two points about you nasty, smelly, unsanitary COCKSUCKERS at the World Series of Poker (WSOP)!!!

1) Ok, guys, I see you EVERY day on EVERY break. We have 15-20 minutes to visit the restroom, yet you nasty motherfuckers REFUSE to wash your hands. I saw what you did there. I SAW you. I have seen you on every single goddamn break since the World Series started. Why? What is it that you have planned that prevents you from washing your hands after you take a piss? What GREAT PLANS does your future hold? Are you working on the cure for cancer on your breaks during poker tournaments? What great innovation would mankind miss out on if you stopped and took a minute to rid your nasty fucking hands of bacteria, spermatozoa, and whatever other infectious entities you are bearing that might make your refusal to wash your nasty fucking hands worthwhile? I have watched you for weeks. You are so scared that you might miss a hand that you scurry from the men's room without even a rinse. Then, when you bust out, or (heaven forbid) you bust me out, you want to shake my hand or high-five me with your dirty, disgusting hands. What the FUCK makes you think I want to touch your FILTHY FUCKING HANDS after you have been diddling your SMELLY FUCKING COCK, wiping your SMELLING FUCKING ASS, or doing other unspeakable things and then failing to wash your nasty hands with a little soap and water? PLEASE take 30 seconds to wash your hands, and I might allow you to shake my hand after you suck out on me, you worthless, dirty, smelly fucking cocksuckers.

2) To you SMELLY fuckers, including our brothers from across the pond. Hey - here's a lesson in Comparitive Cultures that perhaps EuropeanSmellyFuckerPoker.com did not teach you in preparation for your visit to the WSOP. In the U.S., we take SHOWERS, you smelly fucks. In the old U.S. of A. we wash our asses and our clothes, and then we apply deodorant to any areas of our bodies that we deem as potentially smelly. Here's another revelation - the WSOP lasts SIX WEEKS, so bring more than one change of clothes, you dirty, smelly, rotten motherfuckers. If all you brought with you for six weeks was that goddamn PokerStars.com t-shirt or that awful who-gives-a-flying-fuck soccer jersey, then go visit your sponsor, and I'm sure PokerStars will give you another t-shirt or two just so that you DON'T smell like ASS for the rest of the WSOP. If they refuse, come find me. I will personally take you to the gift shop and buy you all of the WSOP gear that you can carry, and I'll throw in a bar of soap so that you can wash your smelly, sweaty ass. If necessary, you can come to my room and consummate the transaction by scrubbing the body odor out of your pores and dirty fucking ass and replacing it with a briefly sweet smell and a new t-shirt, even if it was a new PokerStars.com t-shirt direct from the tool shed. And while you are at it, take that nasty droopy-titty European bitch you brought with you and lock her in the room too. I don't want to see those fried-egg-tits hanging out at the pool with her unshaven, smelly underarms fucking up my environment either, and PLEASE don't let her come visit you at the table, blasting me with a double-barrel load of your nauseating European stench. Lock that bitch in your room and sacrifice her while you at least scrub the crust and salt and smell out of your OWN stinky ass before you come to the tables. You can go back and pound her smelly fucking guts out later when it doesn't affect my world or make me nauseous that you are such a NASTY, SMELLY FUCK with no concern for common hygiene practices or for the common decency to wash your smelly, shit-stained, cum-soaked dirty fucking bodies before bringing them close to me. In summary, don't show up at the tables smelling like you herd goats for a living. The WSOP lasts six weeks - prepare accordingly, you, NASTY, SWEATY, SMELLY, EUROPEAN SANDY FUCKS!!!

---

Wow, Jonny was a lot angrier back then. Good thing he has found peace and put all of his former caustic rage to rest.

Peace and Love. ♥ Love you long time.

WTF???:Prosecutors wondering how to get obese woman accused of killing nephew to court

Another gem from Texas news:

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EDINBURG, Texas (AP) — Prosecutors are trying to decide how to jail and bring to court a nearly half-ton, bedridden woman accused of killing her 2-year-old nephew.

A grand jury on Thursday indicted Mayra Lizbeth Rosales, 27, on one count of first-degree murder and on one count of injury to a child in the death of Eliseo Gonzalez Jr. She previously had been charged with capital murder.

Rosales weighs nearly 1,000 pounds and cannot fit through a door to leave her home, leaving prosecutors wondering how to bring her to court. As of Thursday evening, she was not in custody.

Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino said holding her at the county jail for her trial would be impossible because she needs extensive medical care.

"She would die," said Trevino in Thursday's online edition of The Monitor in McAllen.

The grand jury indicted Rosales after an autopsy confirmed investigators' suspicions that the child died March 18 because he had been struck. Investigators believe the toddler was struck at least twice, crushing his head.

Authorities recommended Rosales' bond be set at $150,000.

The boy's mother Jaime Rosales, was charged earlier with injury to a child because she allegedly left her son alone with his aunt. Her bond has been set at $100.000.

---

Jonny will finish the story for you...the follow-up story is going to say...

The Hidalgo County Sheriff's Department has decided to allow Rosales to remain in her home pending trial. "We don't consider her a flight risk."

Jonny out. ♥ Love you long time.

Kicked Square-In-The-Nuts: "Winstar World Championship Series"Alt: "Fuck You! Good Customer Service is What I SAY IT IS!!!"

Jonny made his triumphant return to The Bigtop yesterday, destined to be crowned King of all Temporary Structures. But it was not to be. Jonny was card dead and then played badly late. In hindsight, Jonny wishes he had sold his entry chip and hit the vibrant cash games, but he did not find the feeding frenzy for last-minute entries that many expected, so to his seat he went. No real hands of note, although Jonny was a little surprised by his bust-out hand. Jonny had not played a hand in several orbits - totally card dead. With the blinds at 600-1200 with a 100 ante, Jonny decides to pick up a pot and moves in for T9700 (8x BB, M=3.5) from middle position with Qh-8h. Surely they have been paying attention and will give me credit for a big hand, right? I get a fairly quick call from the SB, who had been playing pretty solid so far. Oops. She's got a big hand. It takes about a third of her stack to call. She shows K-10. WTF? Perhaps Jonny should have announced "I haven't played a hand in several orbits and I'm not really critically short-stacked". Whatever - she made a good call and busted Jonny.

But that is not the point of today's lecture, children. Jonny is more concerned today with the overall customer service disposition that permeates that long-storied Aluminum-and-Vinyl Empire. Surprisingly, Jonny is very mellow today and not in the mood to unleash a vitriolic (wink), profanity-and-insult-laden spew-tyrade-shitstorm-armageddon on those unsuspecting folks at Winstar. Let's face it kids - it would be like taking a tree branch to Simple Jack. They ain't gonna understand why they are taking a beating. But you folks at Winstar Muh-muh-muh-make Jonny want to BLOW HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF!

In the earlier Winstar post, I mentioned something to the effect of "It's not your normal $60 weekday tournament - ACT LIKE IT!". Well, true to form, the initial day of the inaugural "The River" tournament was executed with the same amateurish brio and mentally-challenged (don't wanna offend the retards) flair as any other Winstar tournament. I'm sure there were numerous meetings with Management and Staff leading up to this event. I envision it going something like this...

BIG CHIEF: (no racial pun intended, right?) "Okay Team, Winstar World Casino has endeavored to execute the largest Big Buy-In tournament ever seen outside of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Are we ready?"

MINIONS: (in unison) "Meh. Yeah, sure, I guess. Hey, is this going to take long? I was supposed to go on break five minutes ago."

Seriously, folks. Did ANY preparation go into the "poker" execution of this event? As best Jonny could tell, it was the normal $60/$110 weeknight donkament, just with bright lights and cameras and a fancy deep-voice announcer-guy that was reading from a script that no one bothered to proof-read. It took him the first eight levels to figure out how long the levels were and when the breaks were, even though that information was projected on the Jumbotron the whole time.

"TDA Rules? What's TDA?". That was the response when Jonny asked his dealer what the rule was regarding killing a hand when a player was not at their seat. He explained that the Winstar Rule was that your hand was dead if you were not in your seat when you were dealt your first card. I asked "Then why even bother to deal that player into the hand?". To his credit, he was very polite about it and offered to call the Floor over to verify that this was indeed the case. A Floorman came over and verified that yes, indeed, your hand was dead if you were not there to receive your first card, but that the player is dealt a complete hand regardless. Um, okay. No biggie. Except that less than 10 minutes later at an adjacent table a different floorman made the CORRECT T.D.A. ruling, which is, of course, that players must be "at their seat" when the last card is dealt (which goes to the player on the button).

Yes, folks, Jonny gets it. "Who gives a shit exactly when the hand is dead, and how often does it really matter? Either the player is there or he isn't." But this example is Winstar ignorance and complacency in a microcosm. This is the simplest of all tournament rules, yet they can't get it right, and they can't even get it consistently wrong.

Now call me a stickler for details, but how hard would it have been to have a Dealer/Floorperson meeting, hand everyone a copy of TDA rules, and go through it line-by-line. Ask questions, get answers. Propose scenarios and challenge everyone to rule correctly. "COME ON NOW Jonny - we've got cigarettes that need smokin' and asses than need grabbin'. We don't need no stinkin' rules meeting. It's only a THREE MILLION DOLLAR tournament."

Better yet, let's be visionary....hold that meeting MONTHS ago, since this event has been in the works since February or March Then guess what? You could practice those rules when you hold a tournament almost EVERY FUCKING DAY OF THE WEEK for months. Then your dealers will know the rules, your floorpeople will know the rules, and (SHOCKINGLY!) they might even make consistent rulings and not look like total idiots as they argue over a rule in front of players. Seriously - if you have been doing the same thing every day for several years, shouldn't you AT LEAST be able to do it consistently?

So at one point Jonny went and asked for a copy of the rules. Of course, Jonny didn't want nor need a copy of the rules. He was looking for another reason to bitch (No. Really?), because he felt certain that Winstar could not provide a written copy of the rules, which incidentally were supposed to be attached to the affidavit every player signed agreeing to abide by the rules. Much to Jonny's surprise (and disappointment, because the spew cannon was locked and loaded), they produced a copy. They had to dig through a box, but they came up with a copy of their rules, which was copied from the current T.D.A. rules, verbatim. I guess actually crediting the TDA for the document costs 50 cents to license or something, but it was TDA nonetheless.

Now here come the normal caveats. There are some at Winstar that DO want to improve and work hard to do so. I witnessed a shift-change dealer meeting one time at Winstar - Floorman Manny was conducting the meeting. I stopped to listen-in as I returned from the soda machine, and Manny was posing different scenarios to the dealers and challenging them to come up with the correct answer. One question revolved around a third player's options in a No Limit game when one player had raised and then a subsequent player had raised all-in, but the reraise did not constitute a complete raise. If the third player wants to min-raise, what is the min-raise amount? Fuck, Jonny doesn't know! And Jonny doubts it will ever come up. But I salute Manny for having passion for his job and for asking such questions in order to challenge his dealers to THINK and to understand the rules of poker so thoroughly. Sadly, most of the dealers couldn't even hear Manny's question over the unmistakable roar of a mass circle-jerk involving the majority of the dealers. Remember those opening scenes from Hill Street Blues? Exactly.

And the desire for excellence exists in some of the dealers, of course, as well. I'm not trying to cup his balls or anything, but one dealer that I consider a friend was at my table during yesterday's debacle, and the guy was flawless. Ok, maybe I'm cupping his balls a little because he reads Jonny's bullshit, but whatever - fucker ain't payin' Jonnys bills. But it's obvious that ignorance, complacency, and incorrect rules/procedures are not a matter POLICY at Winstar, because some of these folks do it right. Some of them DON'T cut the deck until they have pulled in the antes and the pot is right. Some of them DON'T immediately count down a stack when a player moves all-in and instead wait for another player to ask for a count. Some of them DON'T recap the action for that dumbfuck that wasn't paying attention, and some of them DO sit there silently when asked "How much is in the pot?" in a No Limit game. Minor details, granted, but again, if you are going to do it, why not do it right? More importantly, some of them DON'T constantly fuck up pots, DON'T constantly fuck up making change, DON'T fuck up the antes and then stare at the pot with that clueless look when they don't know who forgot to ante, DON'T fuck up the deal, DON'T fuck up the tournament, and DON'T fuck up Jonny's life in general.

Jonny has been lucky enough to play in lots and lots of poker tournaments. He has participated in many tournaments directed by guys like Jack McClelland and Jimmy Sommerfield and Jack Effel. Funny - somehow the dealers in those tournaments ALL seem to know the rules inside-out and backward-to-forward. Usually a player question about rules is met by the dealer reciting the rule verbatim and then politely offering to call the floor for a confirmation/ruling. Why? Because those Directors strive for excellence and demand it of their subordinates. Hell, Jimmy is a "traveling" tournament director, yet he manages to whip a tournament crew he has never worked with into fine form in time for the tournaments he visits.

Another parallel - when Bellagio holds their $500 daily tournaments (yes, I know the Dailys are $1k now) - chump change by Bellagio standards - guess what? They follow TDA rules to the letter. They issue penalties for exposed hands. The dealer simply announces "all in" and doesn't make a move toward the stack unless asked to do so. They move players from the big blind to worst position. Why? Because those are the rules, and rather than pretend to follow a standard set of rules and then just make-it-up-as-they-go, they practice their job CORRECTLY, CONSISTENTLY, EVERY DAY. Then, when a $25,000 buy-in tournament comes around, they are a finely-tuned machine. But I bet they still have dealer/floor meetings where grab-ass is discouraged.

Okay, so here's the lead-up to the Cherry on the Pie from Winstar yesterday. A player was moved to my table from a broken table. His seat falls between the button and the small blind, so by TDA rules he has to sit out a hand. The dealer deals him out, and I think, "Cool - this guy knows the rules." The new player sees that he doesn't have a hand, so he doesn't sit down and instead makes a phone call. No worries, right? Except that when it's time for the next hand, there is confusion over where the button goes. The dealer tries to give the new player the button, because all he can remember from some prior circle-jerk is that a new player can "us-us-us-assume any position". Others argue that the button needs to pass the new player, which is the correct rule. The floor is called over and the good times begin. First the Floor asks the dealer why he didn't deal the new player in the last hand. He says "he was milling around and never sat down". The Floor then accuses the player of trying to "dodge his blind" and scolds him. The player responds that he was standing behind his seat, saw that he didn't get a hand, so he made a phone call. So what does the Floor do? Well, rather than figuring out that there isn't any problem and simply moving the button past the new player, he tells the new player that he either has to "post" (like a cash game), or that he has to sit out until the big blind comes back around to him? WTF? That simply makes no sense. Obviously a seat-of-the-pants response by the Floorman, who happens to be the Big Man In Charge of all their tournaments. I guess he figured that if he made a ruling with enough authority in his voice no one would question him. A guy at a neighboring table tried to correct the Floorman, and the Floor basically told the guy the to STFU and that he would let him know when he needed help running a tournament. I've got news for you Fatman, YOU NEED HELP RUNNING A TOURNAMENT!

The best part came a little later. A player from another table hears us discussing how clueless the Floor is, and comes over and says that he was headed to the restroom after the incident and overheard the Floorman telling his colleagues "It doesn't matter WHAT the rule is. What I say GOES!" Nice.

Why not just get the deep-voice guy to make an announcement...(insert Michael Buffer voice here)...

"Attention Players and Dealers! Welcome to the Winstar World Championship Series hosted by the World-Famous Winstar World Casino!. We are excited that you have all paid $2,100 to come play here today. Now you can all GO FUCK YOURSELVES!!! Shuffle up and Deal!"

Get it? The staff at Bellagio is excellent because Jack McClelland is a professional and demands excellence. The attitude is pervasive through the other TD's, the floor staff, and the dealers. The staff at Winstar sucks worse than any other poker staff in this history of Poker AND Suckage because that is the leadership that drives them. Jonny feels very confident that all this place needs is leadership that GIVES A FUCK.

Solution? Actually got one this time. Bring in a professional. I tell people frequently that Winstar could learn a lot from Cherokee in Tulsa. I can't speak for how that room was run before they held their first major tournament, but I suspect it was a lot better than Winstar, because a sincere attitude of good customer service is pervasive up there. I am also confident that they would run excellent tournaments on their own without outside help. But instead, when they started running larger tournaments, they called up Jimmy Sommerfield and brought him in the run the show. Result? Excellence. At all levels. Like I said - Cherokee would probably be excellent without Jimmy's help, because those guys sincerely give a fuck and they work hard to do the right things. It's without question the best poker room in the South. But they understood the importance of having experienced, professional management of their tournaments and acted accordingly.

Winstar is broken. Badly. But they'll continue to get all the action because, well, players have no other option. The businesses in the USSR had people lined up for BLOCKS trying to get their products/services. But that doesn't mean Winstar can't improve. They just don't give a flying fuck.

This post is already way too long, but a few another notes.

1) All of the Mega-Satellites had 30-minute levels and a break every four levels, or two hours. Cool. The "Main Event" has 40-minute levels, but rather than (slightly) modify the structure to give a break every three levels (magically, still every two hours!), they left it at four levels, and players were instead forced to wait 2:40 between breaks, and then the breaks were only 10 minutes. Genius. Heaven forbid that a $2,100 tournament runs past 9:00 p.m. Sorry - I know - "What you say GOES", so I'll be a good little customer and shut the fuck up.

2) $2000 + $100. No food comps. But hey, we've got hot dogs for sale right in the tournament room for $3.00! Yeah, I know, I'm going to shut up and go fuck myself now. I played in a $200+20 or +25 in the past at Winstar, and the hot dogs were FREE!! I guess Big Chief Counting Beans back in the Corporate HQ Teepee realized that they could save like seventeen dollars if they didn't give away food. Does Winstar have one of those programs where employees can suggest innovations, and if the idea is implemented they get a bonus? If so, sign me up, and then I'll propose that if you want to save money, KEEP THE FUCKING POKER ROOM WARMER THAN 47 DEGREES! Seriously. I had dreamed up a bit where I was going to show up at The River in an arctic snow suit, complete with boots, goggles, and a huge faux-furry ring around the hood. But actually executing a bit takes effort - dreaming them up don't cost nuthin.

3) Of course, you realize that no matter what, Winstar wins, right? Last night, they had THIRTY-FOUR cash games running. That's on a Sunday night, which is usually dead. It doesn't matter - they have a monopoly, and they know that IF YOU PITCH IT, THEY WILL COME. I hope I am alive to see the day when the oil runs out, and Texas needs the money, and the Texas Legislature passes a bill authorizing gaming. There will be immediate smoke signals sent out all over the Toothless People's Republic of Oklahoma, and particularly along the borders. "Shape up guys, competition is coming." Oh, sweet, sweet competition. But until then, Winstar will continue to be a second-rate (being generous) casino running third-rate tournaments. At present, their only "competition", which is just across the Crystal Meth Border on the other major highway out of Dallas, doesn't even own a tournament clock! Choctaw uses one of those digital kitchen timers, so I guess Winstar considers themselves as the innovators among the shitty Indian casinos tapping the money tree of Texas poker players.

Jonny out. Babyarm.

Come On Now!!!:Raiders of the Lost Ark: Part IV

What the hell was Jonny thinking? Hmmmm.....let me see, a Geriatric Swashbuckling Archaeologist Scouring Peru for Clues to an Ancient Alien Invasion. Sounds like an AWESOME premise! Sign me up!

Yeah, they got me. Jonny spent $9.25 and three hours of his life that he'll never get back on this piece of shit.

I guess it just proves that the American Public (Jonny included) really IS that fucking stupid. First they gave us Shriveled-But-Still-All-Veiny-And-Roided-Up Rocky Balboa. Gross!!! Hey - it could happen! A 60-year-old dude COULD kick the shit out of a professional boxer 30 years his junior, right?

I guess everyone thought that Sly looked so good in that one that they quickly followed it up with another sequel in the Rambo series. Or maybe it was because so many dumbasses paid to go see "Rocky VI: That's Not My Cup - Those Are My DEPENDS" that it grossed about $125 million versus a cost of $24 million to make. This time the old fuck is back running around the jungle and killing gooks in hand-to-hand combat. Maybe all of the humidity and sweat covered up his problems with incontinence. At least he had the decency to hire a body-double half his age to do alot of his stunts. This little gem of Senior Citizen Action Hero Cinema made a profit of about $50 million, so sadly we're likely to see more of this shit. PLEASE people, stop paying for this shit, and eventually they'll stop making it.

But sadly, not yet. Alas, the final leg of our Triple-Crown-of-Action-Heros-That-Sometimes-Accidentally-Shit-Their-Pants-During-Filming hit theaters yesterday, and I'm sure it will make a killing too, spawning more of these horribly saddening works. In case you're wondering, the original Raiders of the Lost Ark was released TWENTY-SEVEN years ago. And it was GREATNESS. Why do they insist on fucking up such a great franchise with scenes of an old man climbing into a refrigerator to avoid a nuclear blast (because a good-ole fridge can survive a direct nuclear strike that obliterates everything else in sight), and then doing some horrifying slapstick physical comedy with some CGI gophers when he climbs out of the fridge that was blown miles across the desert. And then they have to revive Marion Ravenwood, also from the first Indy, who is now even fatter and more tore-up than he is, to come back and bust Indy's balls. Wow, there is NOTHING like two sexagenarians rekindling an old flame to make me throw up in my mouth. It just gets worse and worse as the story goes on, until the aliens kill all of the Russians or suck them into the giant flying saucer for some anal probing, but Indy and his crew miraculously escape just in time (SHOCKING! - Never saw THAT ending coming!) to witness the majestic alien departure from the top of the ridge. Are you FUCKING SERIOUS??? Aliens??? How the fuck does an archaeologist find ALIENS while exploring ancient ruins in the mountains of South America? Oh wait, here comes the credits with the cool Raiders theme song. At least Indy's theme song is still good, but while they were busy fucking up everything else about Raiders of the Lost Ark, why didn't they just go ahead and sodomize the theme song - maybe a new rendition by Lil Jon with a nice Techno beat.

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So Jonny is wondering - What's next? Since making retread sequels of old action flicks using the original cast seems to be all the rage, how about we dig up Christopher Reeve and spring Margot Kidder from the mental hospital long enough to make one more Superman sequel?

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Or maybe reunite Burt Reynolds and Sally Field for one more Smokey and the Bandit.

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Or maybe Ned Beatty can squeal like a pig for us one more time, just for old-time's sake.

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Wait! I've got it! Let's get Andy Griffith and Aunt Bea back together for some hot octogenarian PORN!!!

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Jonny out, bitches! ♥ Love you long time!

Prayer Request: Reba McIntire Has Been Stricken With A Horrible Disease

Alt Title: Separated at Birth?

A while back Jonny took Mrs. Jonny to a concert in Shreveport, Louisiana, compliments of the fine folks at the Horseshoe Hotel and Casino in Bossier City and their even finer superiors at Harrah's Entertainment. It was the "Two Worlds, Two Voices" tour staring (in no particular order) Kelly Clarkson and Reba McIntire.

Jonny isn't ashamed to admit that he enjoyed the hell out of the show despite the overpowering pungent aroma of estrogen that permeated the air at the CenturyTel Center in beautiful, scenic, crime-free Bossier City, Louisiana. And no, it had nothing to do with all of the scattered cooze roaming the grounds. COME ON NOW! How many hot chicks did YOU see last time you braved a crossing of the eastern border of the great state of Texas into that shitty wasteland? Exactly. Believe it or not, Jonny DOES prefer that women have teeth. Unless you're out trolling around Red Coleman's liquor store on Samuell Blvd. in far East Dallas late at night, but that's a story for a different day.

By the way - CenturyTel is an absolute shithole as far as concert venues are concerned. Nothing but a bare floor, bare walls, and a bare metal roof to totally desecrate the beautiful sounds being produced by some extremely talented musicians. But this building is probably perfectly suited for more common Shreveport pursuits, such as motocross races, tractor pulls, and the "Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs" (a shitty-you're-never-gonna-make-it-to-the-NHL hockey team). If you are playing for a sports team that has to hyphenate two city names, you fucked up somewhere in your life. You probably made some really poor life choices. But it's never too late - you're probably too stupid to work at Starbucks because your language skills cannot embrace such words as "Venti" and "Latte", but I hear that UPS is hiring.

This fine edifice also is home to the "Bossier · Shreveport Battle Wings" (I can't say that without laughing), which is a minor league team for Arena Football. No, sorry, the rules are the same even if some stupid twat in your marketing department decided that it was WAY cooler to put a BULLET between the names of the two shithole towns you draw from rather than a hyphen.

That's right, if you are not good enough to make a "Big Time" Arena Football League team, you can play in the second-tier AFL. Jonny wonders if guys in the minor leagues of arena football romantically refer to the "big league" of arena football as "The Show", kinda like Crash Davis in Bull Durham, and if they DREAM of taking a CHARTERED bus to away games instead of the Greyhound bus.

But don't laugh, the Battle Wings are led by none other than our own Dallas Cowboy expatriate Quincy Carter. Quincy is the exception - he DIDN'T get here as the result of poor life choices. He WANTED to be in Bossier (bullet) Shreveport playing minor-league arena football for $200 a game and supplementing his income by selling weed outside of the neighborhood convenience store. That's WAY cooler than making $800k per year plus all of the snatch you can handle being the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. No, seriously. I'll bet if you ask Tony Romo he'll tell you the same thing: he would gladly give up his millions and all of the world-class ass for just one opportunity to take the helm of the revered Battle Wings.

Anyway, Jonny digresses. Shocking, right?

Given the opportunity, Jonny would love to see that same show (we're back on Reba and Kelly - catch up!) somewhere with better acoustics. On top of the shithole venue, there were persistent engineering issues. Perhaps it's inherent in trying to properly mix a show where two lead vocalists and two bands simultaneously occupy the same stage, but it took a while for me to be able to overlook the fact that they couldn't get their levels right, even though they were 10 or 12 shows into this tour.

So anyway, Reba and Kelly put on a great performance despite all of the aforementioned fuckups. But Jonny couldn't help but come away thinking that Reba has been afflicted with a terrible disease. Of course, I speak of the affliction known as "JOKER MOUTH". No, I don't mean that she told too many funny one-liners or something like that. What I mean is that I think that in her early years she was visiting Gotham City during the time before Batman whipped out his 12-pound weiner and got that whole shitty scene under control, and she was tricked into sniffing the flower on the lapel of the infamous Joker. As a result, she contracted the vicious affliction known as JOKER MOUTH.

You be the judge...

EXHIBIT A:

EXHIBIT B:




and finally...

EXHIBIT C:



Jonny rests his case.

Don't get me wrong - Reba is an amazingly talented artist, and Jonny was really surprised that he knew so many of her songs, but COME ON NOW! We're all gonna get old, so just accept it and age gracefully. Just say no to the botox and the surgeon's knife so you don't start looking any more like a cartoon character.

♥ Love you long time Reba Honey. Jonny out.