The Shark Tank

I have stalled at 9,000 FPPs and I’m not sure when I’m going to play again this month. I was in New York this weekend checking out the auto show while Suited shopped and now I’m in the middle of the remodel. To top it all off, I’m getting ready to take a nerd certification exam on Monday. I’d hate to lose my Platinum status since it results in about 5,000 VPPs a month or about $80. Maybe if I find a free moment or two, I’ll 8 table short-stack NL or something to get them really fast.

The car show was fun and I did it much smarter this year so that I got to see absolutely everything and avoided the crowds as much as was possible to do. New York is just far too many people in far too little space for my tastes, but I did get to see some cool stuff. I got to sit in a M3 convertible, which would have been a fine choice if I didn’t get the 911. There were a number of new models, most notably the “G8 sport truck” (El Camino, to me, the Solstice coupe (actually better looking than the drop top, I think), the new Maxima (yawn), Hyundai Genesis (try as I might, I couldn’t get down with the idea), a beefier Challenger SRT8 with a 6 liter engine that looked shockingly good. There were a number of things that might not have been new, but were new to me like the BMW 1 series, a bunch of AMG Mercedes stuff, the stupid Honda Fit, Acura TSX and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting. There were also a number of absurd and cool concept cars that will never be built in a thousand years. There was one plane/car with fold down wings that fold up into an elaborate and huge spoiler when in car mode. This was a favorite of my nephews who love transformers and found the idea of a flying car perfectly normal. They wanted to know why I didn’t buy it. There were a variety of stupid hybrids and a low-rider type Scion that is, if this is possible, even more boxy and silly looking than their current line-up. My favorite exhibits were a smashed-up Taurus that was used in an offset crash test and rolled onto the floor. They cut out the passenger side and rigged up a plasma TV to watch from the interior that depicted the crash test in detail. It was very cool and the car was remarkably unscathed after the wreck. Toyota had a Tundra tuck that was very precisely sawed into two pieces down the middle. They even sawed the tools in the bed in two. You could walk between the two pieces and check out transmission guts and everything. It was quite awesome.

We also had a couple of good meals, including a blowout wine pairing tasting menu extravaganza at Cru. Their wine list covered two very fat leather binders about the size of a phone book each. It was not filled with mediocre wines either. Most everything from Burgundy was a Grand Cru or Premier Cru and for some of the better wines they had an amazing selection. The Château Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape had a vertical of about 20 different vintages spanning about a century. Of course, they were all the best years: 1995, 1990, 1989, 1978, 1970 and so on. I can remember having a conversation with my friends about a local grocery store’s promotion where you had a certain amount of time to fill your grocery cart as full as you liked for free. We worked out what we believed to be the ideal strategy. Today, I imagine what wines I would buy for the perfect meal if my fairy godmother was paying the tab. You’d have to start with a 1982 Krug, I mean the Queen herself serves that one, so that’s easy enough. It was on the list along with tons of Dom vintages. With the fish courses, we’d have to do a beautiful old white Burgundy, let’s say an Olivier Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet. For the beef, we’d need to stick with the classics: perhaps a 1949 Mouton-Rothschild? Of course, with our dessert, we’d only consider a d’Yquem for we are not savages. I could have done all this and more at Cru, but I would have been forced to sell at least one kidney.

Then of course, there is the remodel.  My previous endeavors as a carpenter have taught me enough to be a bad customer and everything that I see done wrong irks me.  Even though I know it doesn’t matter and will  not show in the end, I somehow still feel cheated when I see something is not done the way I would prefer.  I’m trying not to be too obnoxious, but it is difficult.

I have a draft post that actually talks about poker.  I want to talk about the line where the pre-flop raiser is check-raised on the flop and just calls, followed by a turn raise.  It has a fairly specific meaning and I see people handle it poorly quite often, so I think it will be a somewhat interesting discussion, but I just can’t focus on poker at the moment.  I’d be happy to address any wine issues you might have, however.

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