Hello Manifestites! This is it, the moment you've all been waiting for. The Donkey Manifesto proudly presents, The List. Some of you have heard about The List, some of you have seen quotes from The List, and some of you are even on The List.
What is the list? Well, as this famous blogger once said:
XaQ Morphy: it's a, ummm, work in progress.
Starting last year around neck surgery time, a group of us started creating IM chat rooms. These rooms usually had a few core members, and we expanded and invited several others. Most of the times we sat chatting about whatever was on our minds, what was on TV, etc. Sometimes we would rail someone playing a tournament, and a lot of times we would each be playing something separately and use the chat room to whine about bad beats and make fun of people. The List started with a famous quote from Muk that you'll soon see, and after that, anything that I felt was amusing, I'd paste into a document and save for later. Some of the quotes have meaning, some don't. Some were obviously percoset induced, others weren't.
The List has manifested itself into a living, breathing being. It is beyond control, and has demanded I release part of it to the blog. So what am I to do? Surely I can't refuse a beast such as this? I'm not really sure how I'm going to go about doing this yet, but I do know that there will be more than one entry. A note to those nits out there...I don't care if you don't find this funny. I find it funny and that's all that matters. For some of the quotes I will try and set up what the base story was behind it, for others, I won't. So let's start with the quote that started it all...
Mukwrm715: i am tearing through my stars money like the site is closing down in 10 minutes
Too bad Muk wasn't around for the closing of JetSet. Others had lofty goals but apparently never reached them:
[22:32] joe man dead: i got 15 in ub
[22:32] joe man dead: cents
[22:32] joe man dead: got to make 1.10
[22:32] joe man dead: from.15 going to do it
[22:34] joe man dead: got nothin now
[22:35] Mukwrm715: a long hard fought battle
and:
[23:42] Eskabor: what a fucking faggot
[23:42] Eskabor: fuck fuck fuck
[23:42] Eskabor: my parents are gonna killl me
[23:42] thenutlow: how much yu got now
[23:42] Eskabor: 3.50
FellKnight has said many times that I have a strange mind for finding patterns in words. I don't think of it, I just see things. Very strange. The neat thing about the list is I can invent conversations that never happened. Or did they?
Mister Teeny: I AM THE REAL DEAL
GambleAB: I WAS ON TV!
GambleAB: I DEMAND RESPECT!
Mister Teeny: DONT CALL ME NO NIT
GambleAB: I DRIVE A FORD FOCUS!
Mister Teeny: HIT THE RAIL DONK
Mister Teeny: CLOSE THE DOOR ON THE WAY OUT
GambleAB: blblblblblbllblblblblbllblblblblblbl
Speaking of GambleAB, before he got rich and famous, we used to rail a few of his tourneys. Watching him blow up at his opponents is a site to seen, which is talked about here:
XaQ Morphy: someone asked me why I like to watch gambleab play
XaQ Morphy: I said it was like a guy swinging a chainsaw around in a public place. You want to get close enough to see it just in case he cuts his own head off, but you want to stay far enough away in case he goes into the crowd
Mukwrm715: i am debating on whether it would be cool or crappy to watch someone hack off their own head
Also on the subject of famous online players, Mister Teeny lands at gank's table one day:
Mister Teeny: if gank was old enough, I wish he was my father
Mister Teeny: gank lives for his railtards
The List also helps us see how people progress over time. Or regressed, however the case may be:
9/16/05 - Mister Teeny [observer]: YOU ARE THE WORST PLAYER I HAVE EVER SEEN
12/17/06 - Mister Teeny [observer]: WAS THE WIRST PLAY I EVER SORE
Typos are fun. As are comments made after cleaning keyboards, and apple martini influenced "no, I really do have a new keyboard" comments:
Mister Teeny: saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasaaaadssaqwqyttttttttttttttttttjhhhhhhhh/......../ul
Mister Teeny: sry.. meant ul
Mukwrm715: iganr/ionai9rbnmwrab9nm'ba rgawjrironmv bkclxn;
thenutlow: what toiuyrby?
RonDworkin: et s wf****eoua
RonDworkin: a
RonDworkin: yes
misst74: uif toiuy \\\misst74: Wjhere tjhe fiuck are you plai8ying?
misst74: IM SO FUCKING SMARKT
misst74: sSHUT UP
Add the two previous ideas together, and it almost looks like they are trying to communicate:
misst74: giw tge
gastonne [observer]: se eho ksanadei...eisai magas!
misst74: uf sineibe
And of course, the mother of all typos. Previously the leader was Muk's typo of furniture that came out as "furtinate." But this one takes the cake. TNL and I were watching someone else play, and saw 2 idiots get all-in with ridiculous hands. When one of them lost, TNL went to comment on the "bad beat" but seems to have missed a few words. The result?
thenutlow: suck a sick bear
So there we have it. The List. The quotes above make up about 10% of what I have, and I'm constantly adding to it. I'll take IM chat, table chat, emails, RGP posts, etc. and add them in. I don't go for live quotes because I can't copy and paste them, and well, typing is hard. I plan on having a few different series of these entries containing quotes from The List. Next up is poker talk/strategy. After that will be the animal related quotes, which as far as I'm concerned contains the best material, although it's a toss-up between that and the sexual innuendo quotes. Until next time, I'll leave you with a reflective quote from Muk:
Mukwrm715: so adam ft's in a game he claims no knowledge of, james wins a tournament, and i get beat by a 3 outer
Mukwrm715: looks like things are back to normal
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Dnky Mnfsto n th Wld
Greetings Manifestites! Lately nothing has been going on. Days go by, no interesting driving stories, nothing all that interesting at work, and things are just going by day by day. That doesn't mean anything is wrong, it just makes for not much going on with the blog. I do have a few posts in the works, but until they come to fruition, I haven't run into any situations worthy of writing about. Until tonight.
The situation is a cash game on a major poker site. About 5 hands in I see a free flop with A5h, flop the nut flush and a gutshot nut straight draw, and get people who apparently learned how to bet on Sesame Street. They gave me over 5:1 odds on the turn, I hit the flush on the river, and this one chick goes off on me. The chat after that just got bizarre. I'll leave it relatively unedited, but I'll take out non-relevant chat entries and Dealer messages. It's up to you to figure out who I am.
koolaid1: damn flush
Hi Friend: nice cards on river
Hi Friend: congrats
koolaid1: horrible
DOKTER DONKEY: there was only one card on the river
Hi Friend: yeah..the one u neede
Hi Friend: to mak ur flush..congrats
Hi Friend: least say ty
DOKTER DONKEY: actually there were 12 that would have given me the best hand
Hi Friend: true
Hi Friend: appropriately named
Hi Friend: but.....
DOKTER DONKEY: tilty a little?
Hi Friend: i used to play lik that too
DOKTER DONKEY: lol
Hi Friend: sometimes it pays off
DOKTER DONKEY: play like what?
Hi Friend: draw alot for cards
DOKTER DONKEY: nothing wrong with drawing
Hi Friend: nah...we luv it
DOKTER DONKEY: is that why you gave me the perfect odds to call?
Hi Friend: nuthin wd get u off ur draw
DOKTER DONKEY: certainly not the odds you gave me
Hi Friend: hey..dont tak it the wrg way
DOKTER DONKEY: I'm not
Hi Friend: this is pokr
DOKTER DONKEY: www.vowels.com
Hi Friend: i lik to gamble too
DOKTER DONKEY: yes, we all saw your call with AJ and no hand no draw
DOKTER DONKEY: just ask drew
drew_1790: haha
DOKTER DONKEY: well, QQ is better than that AJ mess
I don't remember the exact hand, but this idiot held AJ on a board of QQxx, no hand, no draw, and called down bets from the pre-flop raiser. She appropriately put him on AK, because when the J hit the river she took the pot.
DOKTER DONKEY: but hey
DOKTER DONKEY: I wasn't the one that started attacking others
DOKTER DONKEY: that was tilty over here
Hi Friend: huh?
DOKTER DONKEY: exactly
Hi Friend: u r easily intimidated friend
DOKTER DONKEY: nah
Hi Friend: i was bein nice i said congrats
DOKTER DONKEY: very doubtful
DOKTER DONKEY: Hi Friend: appropriately named
DOKTER DONKEY: remember that?
Hi Friend: i think u may hav been pikd on in school sumtine..
DOKTER DONKEY: holy crap what language is that?
Hi Friend: im not that mean bully friend
Hi Friend: consider me a friend
DOKTER DONKEY: hi friend
DOKTER DONKEY: hah, get it
Hi Friend: not good at short tables either
DOKTER DONKEY: I hate full tables
Hi Friend: i donk off alota money here at the beginner levels
DOKTER DONKEY: and the levels you normally play are?
Hi Friend: 25 cent
DOKTER DONKEY: lol
leosii: lol
So at this point she sits out and leaves. I was a bit disappointed because she was playing like a complete moron, but oh well, not much I can do about it. But wait...about 2 minutes later she sits down on the other side of me.
Hi Friend: hi fellows
DOKTER DONKEY: neat trick
Hi Friend: ohhhh...he friend
Hi Friend: its u again
DOKTER DONKEY: actually still, I didn't go anywhere
Hi Friend: oh my gosh
DOKTER DONKEY: do you have problems finding your way around the house at night?
Hi Friend: i live in a trailer
Hi Friend: st8 shot
DOKTER DONKEY: believe it or not, that's no surprise to me
Hi Friend: 12 foot wide
Hi Friend: i bel u..
Hi Friend: r u always mean and rude to players
Hi Friend: or is it jus me?
DOKTER DONKEY: yeah pretty much
Hi Friend: oh
Hi Friend: well thats maks me feel btr then
Ok so things get real weird now. I run into a lot of idiots in the field, as we call it in the business, and by the business I do mean the industry. But I don't think I've run into something quite like this before...
Hi Friend: r u where u wish to be professinally speakin?
Hi Friend: lik ur job n stuff
Hi Friend: or r u always lookd over when someone else is promoted
DOKTER DONKEY: just got promoted, thanks
DOKTER DONKEY: hopefully you don't work where written communication skills are important?
DOKTER DONKEY: because no offense, but my 6 year old has better communication skills than you do
Hi Friend: jus chatin friend
DOKTER DONKEY: is that slang?
Hi Friend: do u lok for other that hav mistakes?
leosii: yes
DOKTER DONKEY: sometimes I do
leosii: lik txt in u
DOKTER DONKEY: but in your case, I don't have very far to look
Hi Friend: ahhh.u wrk for the govt?
DOKTER DONKEY: no
Hi Friend: govt job...ahhhh
Hi Friend: accounting
DOKTER DONKEY: nope
Hi Friend: lol
leosii: Doc Al how u been?
Hi Friend: lol
DOKTER DONKEY: I'm sorry, I'm a little rusty on nitwit speak, could someone translate that to english for me?
leosii: T2V
Hi Friend: thats mean jus hav fun..
Hi Friend: be nice
Hi Friend: n hav a smile w me
DOKTER DONKEY: no seriously, I have no idea wtf you mean
leosii: nr 4 u
leosii: undersnd
leosii: no
DOKTER DONKEY: ahhhhhhh, I'm being double teamed
So WTF, now this idiot starts in! I couldn't figure out what she was saying, but now I have 2 of them 2 contend with?!?!
Hi Friend: hes a concrete kinda guy
Hi Friend: if he smile he wud get a headache
DOKTER DONKEY: no, reading this is giving me a headache
leosii: u b ok in a bit
Hi Friend: no comma after no
Hi Friend: close enuf 4 govt wrk tho
DOKTER DONKEY: ok, tell me the truth
DOKTER DONKEY: you got a hold of your mom's credit card and are playing online poker, right?
leosii: ur not da acct doc i am
DOKTER DONKEY: I don't even know what that means
Hi Friend: u r confused right?
leosii: 4 sur doc is
Hi Friend: lol
DOKTER DONKEY: yes, mildly confused
DOKTER DONKEY: I don't speak dimwit
DOKTER DONKEY: so I'm having problems translating
leosii: its calld abrvatin
Hi Friend: that doesnt surprize me
DOKTER DONKEY: it's called what?
leosii: ferris, beuller, class, anybody?
Hi Friend: he only understands debits n credits
DOKTER DONKEY: what in the world are you talking about?
leosii: know, (hahah) dats me'
DOKTER DONKEY: I need some aspirin
leosii: no doc al, u need t2v meet in LV!
DOKTER DONKEY: yeah sorry I don't speak moron, so you're gonna have to either start making sense, or get someone to translate
Hi Friend: jus kiddin i hpe i really didnt mak u upset donkey...
DOKTER DONKEY: I'm not upset
DOKTER DONKEY: never was
Hi Friend: k
Hi Friend: that means ok
DOKTER DONKEY: yes, thanks
leosii: tks 4 clfyin 4 him
At this point I couldn't take it anymore, so I unchecked auto-post blind, and left. I'm pretty sure I was just owned by 2 drooling, incompetent idiots, but by then I was really starting to fear for my sanity, since I could feel the brain matter oozing out of my ears.
Until next time kids, have fun!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
The situation is a cash game on a major poker site. About 5 hands in I see a free flop with A5h, flop the nut flush and a gutshot nut straight draw, and get people who apparently learned how to bet on Sesame Street. They gave me over 5:1 odds on the turn, I hit the flush on the river, and this one chick goes off on me. The chat after that just got bizarre. I'll leave it relatively unedited, but I'll take out non-relevant chat entries and Dealer messages. It's up to you to figure out who I am.
koolaid1: damn flush
Hi Friend: nice cards on river
Hi Friend: congrats
koolaid1: horrible
DOKTER DONKEY: there was only one card on the river
Hi Friend: yeah..the one u neede
Hi Friend: to mak ur flush..congrats
Hi Friend: least say ty
DOKTER DONKEY: actually there were 12 that would have given me the best hand
Hi Friend: true
Hi Friend: appropriately named
Hi Friend: but.....
DOKTER DONKEY: tilty a little?
Hi Friend: i used to play lik that too
DOKTER DONKEY: lol
Hi Friend: sometimes it pays off
DOKTER DONKEY: play like what?
Hi Friend: draw alot for cards
DOKTER DONKEY: nothing wrong with drawing
Hi Friend: nah...we luv it
DOKTER DONKEY: is that why you gave me the perfect odds to call?
Hi Friend: nuthin wd get u off ur draw
DOKTER DONKEY: certainly not the odds you gave me
Hi Friend: hey..dont tak it the wrg way
DOKTER DONKEY: I'm not
Hi Friend: this is pokr
DOKTER DONKEY: www.vowels.com
Hi Friend: i lik to gamble too
DOKTER DONKEY: yes, we all saw your call with AJ and no hand no draw
DOKTER DONKEY: just ask drew
drew_1790: haha
DOKTER DONKEY: well, QQ is better than that AJ mess
I don't remember the exact hand, but this idiot held AJ on a board of QQxx, no hand, no draw, and called down bets from the pre-flop raiser. She appropriately put him on AK, because when the J hit the river she took the pot.
DOKTER DONKEY: but hey
DOKTER DONKEY: I wasn't the one that started attacking others
DOKTER DONKEY: that was tilty over here
Hi Friend: huh?
DOKTER DONKEY: exactly
Hi Friend: u r easily intimidated friend
DOKTER DONKEY: nah
Hi Friend: i was bein nice i said congrats
DOKTER DONKEY: very doubtful
DOKTER DONKEY: Hi Friend: appropriately named
DOKTER DONKEY: remember that?
Hi Friend: i think u may hav been pikd on in school sumtine..
DOKTER DONKEY: holy crap what language is that?
Hi Friend: im not that mean bully friend
Hi Friend: consider me a friend
DOKTER DONKEY: hi friend
DOKTER DONKEY: hah, get it
Hi Friend: not good at short tables either
DOKTER DONKEY: I hate full tables
Hi Friend: i donk off alota money here at the beginner levels
DOKTER DONKEY: and the levels you normally play are?
Hi Friend: 25 cent
DOKTER DONKEY: lol
leosii: lol
So at this point she sits out and leaves. I was a bit disappointed because she was playing like a complete moron, but oh well, not much I can do about it. But wait...about 2 minutes later she sits down on the other side of me.
Hi Friend: hi fellows
DOKTER DONKEY: neat trick
Hi Friend: ohhhh...he friend
Hi Friend: its u again
DOKTER DONKEY: actually still, I didn't go anywhere
Hi Friend: oh my gosh
DOKTER DONKEY: do you have problems finding your way around the house at night?
Hi Friend: i live in a trailer
Hi Friend: st8 shot
DOKTER DONKEY: believe it or not, that's no surprise to me
Hi Friend: 12 foot wide
Hi Friend: i bel u..
Hi Friend: r u always mean and rude to players
Hi Friend: or is it jus me?
DOKTER DONKEY: yeah pretty much
Hi Friend: oh
Hi Friend: well thats maks me feel btr then
Ok so things get real weird now. I run into a lot of idiots in the field, as we call it in the business, and by the business I do mean the industry. But I don't think I've run into something quite like this before...
Hi Friend: r u where u wish to be professinally speakin?
Hi Friend: lik ur job n stuff
Hi Friend: or r u always lookd over when someone else is promoted
DOKTER DONKEY: just got promoted, thanks
DOKTER DONKEY: hopefully you don't work where written communication skills are important?
DOKTER DONKEY: because no offense, but my 6 year old has better communication skills than you do
Hi Friend: jus chatin friend
DOKTER DONKEY: is that slang?
Hi Friend: do u lok for other that hav mistakes?
leosii: yes
DOKTER DONKEY: sometimes I do
leosii: lik txt in u
DOKTER DONKEY: but in your case, I don't have very far to look
Hi Friend: ahhh.u wrk for the govt?
DOKTER DONKEY: no
Hi Friend: govt job...ahhhh
Hi Friend: accounting
DOKTER DONKEY: nope
Hi Friend: lol
leosii: Doc Al how u been?
Hi Friend: lol
DOKTER DONKEY: I'm sorry, I'm a little rusty on nitwit speak, could someone translate that to english for me?
leosii: T2V
Hi Friend: thats mean jus hav fun..
Hi Friend: be nice
Hi Friend: n hav a smile w me
DOKTER DONKEY: no seriously, I have no idea wtf you mean
leosii: nr 4 u
leosii: undersnd
leosii: no
DOKTER DONKEY: ahhhhhhh, I'm being double teamed
So WTF, now this idiot starts in! I couldn't figure out what she was saying, but now I have 2 of them 2 contend with?!?!
Hi Friend: hes a concrete kinda guy
Hi Friend: if he smile he wud get a headache
DOKTER DONKEY: no, reading this is giving me a headache
leosii: u b ok in a bit
Hi Friend: no comma after no
Hi Friend: close enuf 4 govt wrk tho
DOKTER DONKEY: ok, tell me the truth
DOKTER DONKEY: you got a hold of your mom's credit card and are playing online poker, right?
leosii: ur not da acct doc i am
DOKTER DONKEY: I don't even know what that means
Hi Friend: u r confused right?
leosii: 4 sur doc is
Hi Friend: lol
DOKTER DONKEY: yes, mildly confused
DOKTER DONKEY: I don't speak dimwit
DOKTER DONKEY: so I'm having problems translating
leosii: its calld abrvatin
Hi Friend: that doesnt surprize me
DOKTER DONKEY: it's called what?
leosii: ferris, beuller, class, anybody?
Hi Friend: he only understands debits n credits
DOKTER DONKEY: what in the world are you talking about?
leosii: know, (hahah) dats me'
DOKTER DONKEY: I need some aspirin
leosii: no doc al, u need t2v meet in LV!
DOKTER DONKEY: yeah sorry I don't speak moron, so you're gonna have to either start making sense, or get someone to translate
Hi Friend: jus kiddin i hpe i really didnt mak u upset donkey...
DOKTER DONKEY: I'm not upset
DOKTER DONKEY: never was
Hi Friend: k
Hi Friend: that means ok
DOKTER DONKEY: yes, thanks
leosii: tks 4 clfyin 4 him
At this point I couldn't take it anymore, so I unchecked auto-post blind, and left. I'm pretty sure I was just owned by 2 drooling, incompetent idiots, but by then I was really starting to fear for my sanity, since I could feel the brain matter oozing out of my ears.
Until next time kids, have fun!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Headache Inducing Donkitus
Hello Manifestites! Welcome to this edition of Morphy has a Headache. Pull up a chair, sofa, cushion, or whatever is your fancy, and listen to this tale of woe and donk, straight from the heart of donk country, where donks run free in the wild.
I’ve written in the past that I can’t really blog things that happen at work because they either take too much time to set up, or contain inner workings of the businesses I’m working with and it’s not right for me to write about them. However, today’s story is about my work, specifically my boss. Allow me to change names slightly to protect those who practice the donktastic art of donk.
For some quick background info: I’m a server/Citrix admin on a global team of a dozen or so people. There are 4 of us who specifically support the environment, including on-call support issues that may arise. Now, typically in these situations, or at least at every other company I’ve worked at in my entire life, the on-call schedule is a straight forward thing to put together. The manager looks at his people, picks names out of a hat, and in that particular order, they rotate weeks or days or months or whatever of being on-call. Seems easy, huh? So let’s take an example. We have 4 people in the group. You would think that a person would be on-call for one week then have 3 weeks off, right? Ummm, no. Allow me to explain.
First off, the on-call rotation must have a primary and a secondary. Our manager then decided we would have a 3rd and 4th listed as well. So the rotation *should* look like this: 1234 for the first week, 2341 for the second, week, and so on. The support desk looks at the list, calls the primary first, then the secondary, then 3rd, then 4th. Easy? Hah.
One guy, a big fat-ass useless fuck of a donk who we will call Jack(ass) decides that since he "gets called anyway", he’s going to always be listed as 4th in this rotation. I guess “working from home” 3 days a week and “being in the office” 5 hours a day for the other 2 days is too much stress for him to handle, that he just can’t be asked to do anything outside of normal business hours.
So that leaves 3 of us. Sam has to support another environment, and is the only person on-call for that environment. Until his replacement comes in and gets up to speed, Sam is listed as 3rd all the time. That leaves Susan and yours truly. For 6 months or so, we’ve been alternating weeks, taking every single call that comes in after hours or on weekends. We’ve let the boss know that we’re not happy with this, but he promises to get us some relief by putting Sam into the rotation once his replacement is up to speed. (Oh yeah, during this time Jackass has received exactly 2 calls).
2 weeks ago the boss announced that Sam’s replacement is taking over for what Sam was doing, and that Sam will now be part of our normal on-call rotation. He tasks Sam and Jackass with coming up with a schedule that works (there’s more to the schedule that I didn’t get into, like the UK and India offices taking over during their day-time hours, which is why they have to look at it a little closer). Great! We’re happy. But now it’s 2 weeks later, Thanksgiving is coming up, and shortly after that, Christmas. We want to plan our holidays around times we need to be on-call.
So Susan sends the boss an email:
Hi Boss,
Did Sam send you a schedule for weekend coverage? Just trying to plan for the holidays.
Boss fires back:
Yes for Thanksgiving – you and XaQ need to work out the same schedule for the holidays.
Ummm, wtf does that mean? So I fire up an email:
Dear Boss,
Do you think you could maybe spend 15 seconds reading the email you reply to before writing said reply, so you don’t come off looking like a drooling idiot?
Something got in the way of me sending it though, which is a shame, because the question begs to be asked. Susan replies:
I thought Sam was going to be part of our on-call and he was going to make up a schedule?
Boss must be busy with his side project of using quantum physics and theoretical calculus to calculate the amount of orange juice it would take to fill a 1972 VW Bug traveling at 32mph down a flight of stairs. That is apparent by his reply:
He and Jack will become alternate secondary on-call. They have already been working on a schedule.
WHAT IN THE FUCKING HELL DOES THAT MEAN YOU ASSHOLE??? Alternate secondary? I'm pretty sure this dipshit just invented that term on the spot.
I mean really, ffs already. Is it too much to ask to fucking READ something before replying to it? Apparently. All I have to say is my forehead now hurts, there’s a noticeable crack in my desk where I’ve been banging my head on it, and it’s a damn good thing I found out I’m NOT allergic to alcohol!
Until next time, where I hope to introduce the Manifestites of the world to what I call The List. Trust me, the wait will be worth it. Or maybe not. Who cares. It makes me laugh, and that’s what is important.
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
I’ve written in the past that I can’t really blog things that happen at work because they either take too much time to set up, or contain inner workings of the businesses I’m working with and it’s not right for me to write about them. However, today’s story is about my work, specifically my boss. Allow me to change names slightly to protect those who practice the donktastic art of donk.
For some quick background info: I’m a server/Citrix admin on a global team of a dozen or so people. There are 4 of us who specifically support the environment, including on-call support issues that may arise. Now, typically in these situations, or at least at every other company I’ve worked at in my entire life, the on-call schedule is a straight forward thing to put together. The manager looks at his people, picks names out of a hat, and in that particular order, they rotate weeks or days or months or whatever of being on-call. Seems easy, huh? So let’s take an example. We have 4 people in the group. You would think that a person would be on-call for one week then have 3 weeks off, right? Ummm, no. Allow me to explain.
First off, the on-call rotation must have a primary and a secondary. Our manager then decided we would have a 3rd and 4th listed as well. So the rotation *should* look like this: 1234 for the first week, 2341 for the second, week, and so on. The support desk looks at the list, calls the primary first, then the secondary, then 3rd, then 4th. Easy? Hah.
One guy, a big fat-ass useless fuck of a donk who we will call Jack(ass) decides that since he "gets called anyway", he’s going to always be listed as 4th in this rotation. I guess “working from home” 3 days a week and “being in the office” 5 hours a day for the other 2 days is too much stress for him to handle, that he just can’t be asked to do anything outside of normal business hours.
So that leaves 3 of us. Sam has to support another environment, and is the only person on-call for that environment. Until his replacement comes in and gets up to speed, Sam is listed as 3rd all the time. That leaves Susan and yours truly. For 6 months or so, we’ve been alternating weeks, taking every single call that comes in after hours or on weekends. We’ve let the boss know that we’re not happy with this, but he promises to get us some relief by putting Sam into the rotation once his replacement is up to speed. (Oh yeah, during this time Jackass has received exactly 2 calls).
2 weeks ago the boss announced that Sam’s replacement is taking over for what Sam was doing, and that Sam will now be part of our normal on-call rotation. He tasks Sam and Jackass with coming up with a schedule that works (there’s more to the schedule that I didn’t get into, like the UK and India offices taking over during their day-time hours, which is why they have to look at it a little closer). Great! We’re happy. But now it’s 2 weeks later, Thanksgiving is coming up, and shortly after that, Christmas. We want to plan our holidays around times we need to be on-call.
So Susan sends the boss an email:
Hi Boss,
Did Sam send you a schedule for weekend coverage? Just trying to plan for the holidays.
Boss fires back:
Yes for Thanksgiving – you and XaQ need to work out the same schedule for the holidays.
Ummm, wtf does that mean? So I fire up an email:
Dear Boss,
Do you think you could maybe spend 15 seconds reading the email you reply to before writing said reply, so you don’t come off looking like a drooling idiot?
Something got in the way of me sending it though, which is a shame, because the question begs to be asked. Susan replies:
I thought Sam was going to be part of our on-call and he was going to make up a schedule?
Boss must be busy with his side project of using quantum physics and theoretical calculus to calculate the amount of orange juice it would take to fill a 1972 VW Bug traveling at 32mph down a flight of stairs. That is apparent by his reply:
He and Jack will become alternate secondary on-call. They have already been working on a schedule.
WHAT IN THE FUCKING HELL DOES THAT MEAN YOU ASSHOLE??? Alternate secondary? I'm pretty sure this dipshit just invented that term on the spot.
I mean really, ffs already. Is it too much to ask to fucking READ something before replying to it? Apparently. All I have to say is my forehead now hurts, there’s a noticeable crack in my desk where I’ve been banging my head on it, and it’s a damn good thing I found out I’m NOT allergic to alcohol!
Until next time, where I hope to introduce the Manifestites of the world to what I call The List. Trust me, the wait will be worth it. Or maybe not. Who cares. It makes me laugh, and that’s what is important.
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Donk E-Mail
Hello Manifestites! Once again we find ourselves weeks and weeks in between blog entries. Eh, not much to say. To be honest, I haven’t seen that many stupid things lately. I’ve seen stupid driving things here and there, but nothing to really blog about. I did see someone driving down a freeway on-ramp the wrong way today, but she turned around right away, and the person getting off the freeway actually stopped and let her go without honking their horn. I don’t get it.
I could blog about RGPer AtticusCole, who spent a few days stalking me and making a very poor attempt at humor related to the blog, but since I can’t seem to find an email address of his to post publically, I’ll just mention it.
I’ve told several people that the only stupid things I see at work, and that usually I can’t really blog them because they either involve way too much set up, or they involve more inner workings of the business that I’m working for. But tonight I ran into something that I can’t let go.
As you may or may not know (or care, for that matter), I am a Windows based server engineer specializing in Citrix products. I have a good job that I like working for a major company here in the area. The drive is nice, I get to work from home once a week, and the work is challenging enough to keep me on my toes and clear of boredom. But of course, like anywhere, I run into all sorts of strange political things, and sometimes straight up donkishness.
Today a group requested an emergency install of a major patch to 10 of their servers. Since I support their group, I was volunteered to do it. Tonight at 9pm seemed to be the best time, so we set up all necessary paperwork. The manager of the project group emailed his entire team letting them know to expect the servers to be down from 7pm-5am (just in case anything went wrong), and gave me the go-ahead to install the patches and reboot the servers.
Shortly after 9pm I log onto each server one at a time and start the patch installations. The plan was for me to install the patch, reboot the servers, then email the group letting them know the servers were successfully patched so they can test their applications. At 9:50pm I decided to log into work email to get that set up and ready. I see a strange email:
From: Donkey
To: Me
Hi Adam – I see you’re running something on 34…when will you be finished?
34 is the short name for one of the servers I’m patching. Now, 34 isn’t necessarily a unique number. Our naming scheme contains letters for the company name, location, application, then a 2 digit number. As far as I know, there are at least 3 servers that end in 34. Luckily I happened to be checking my email at 9:50pm on a Tuesday, and I also happened to know what this person was talking about.
So I reply:
From: Me
To: Donkey
I'm putting service pack 1 for Windows 2003 on it right now. After that it will reboot…shouldn't be more than 20 more minutes I would guess.
Immediately, I get this back:
From: Donkey
To: Me
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply
I'll be out of the office Oct 10 returning Monday Oct 16. I will not have access to email or voicemail.
Umm…huh? The person that emailed me won’t have access to email? WTF is up with that? A few minutes later I get this:
From: Donkey
To: Me
Damn…Ok – I’ll stop my job. Please let me know if it’ll be more than your estimated 20 minutes…I’ll plan to restart my job in about ½ an hour.
So I’m a little annoyed, and fire this back:
From: Me
To: Donkey
You did get the email from Bob earlier today saying I would be starting at 7pm and to expect the servers to be down until 5am, right?
Then this, and I have no words for this:
From: Donkey
To: Me
No, I’m on vacation and am not checking my emails until next week.
Uhhhhhh, Beavis? WTF? I give up. People not checking emails are emailing me with answers to my emails. I’m either in the twilight zone, I imagined this entire conversation (which is possible, I just recently found out that I’m apparently NOT allergic to alcohol), or this person is a complete donkey. I’m going with option C.
So that’s that. Until next time, where I hope to have something interesting to report. I have more home owner stories based on the home projects we’ve tried to do this summer, but I want to wait until things are finished to post it, because there’s a good chance more idiots will try something as stupid as trying to blow themselves up, like last time.
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
I could blog about RGPer AtticusCole, who spent a few days stalking me and making a very poor attempt at humor related to the blog, but since I can’t seem to find an email address of his to post publically, I’ll just mention it.
I’ve told several people that the only stupid things I see at work, and that usually I can’t really blog them because they either involve way too much set up, or they involve more inner workings of the business that I’m working for. But tonight I ran into something that I can’t let go.
As you may or may not know (or care, for that matter), I am a Windows based server engineer specializing in Citrix products. I have a good job that I like working for a major company here in the area. The drive is nice, I get to work from home once a week, and the work is challenging enough to keep me on my toes and clear of boredom. But of course, like anywhere, I run into all sorts of strange political things, and sometimes straight up donkishness.
Today a group requested an emergency install of a major patch to 10 of their servers. Since I support their group, I was volunteered to do it. Tonight at 9pm seemed to be the best time, so we set up all necessary paperwork. The manager of the project group emailed his entire team letting them know to expect the servers to be down from 7pm-5am (just in case anything went wrong), and gave me the go-ahead to install the patches and reboot the servers.
Shortly after 9pm I log onto each server one at a time and start the patch installations. The plan was for me to install the patch, reboot the servers, then email the group letting them know the servers were successfully patched so they can test their applications. At 9:50pm I decided to log into work email to get that set up and ready. I see a strange email:
From: Donkey
To: Me
Hi Adam – I see you’re running something on 34…when will you be finished?
34 is the short name for one of the servers I’m patching. Now, 34 isn’t necessarily a unique number. Our naming scheme contains letters for the company name, location, application, then a 2 digit number. As far as I know, there are at least 3 servers that end in 34. Luckily I happened to be checking my email at 9:50pm on a Tuesday, and I also happened to know what this person was talking about.
So I reply:
From: Me
To: Donkey
I'm putting service pack 1 for Windows 2003 on it right now. After that it will reboot…shouldn't be more than 20 more minutes I would guess.
Immediately, I get this back:
From: Donkey
To: Me
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply
I'll be out of the office Oct 10 returning Monday Oct 16. I will not have access to email or voicemail.
Umm…huh? The person that emailed me won’t have access to email? WTF is up with that? A few minutes later I get this:
From: Donkey
To: Me
Damn…Ok – I’ll stop my job. Please let me know if it’ll be more than your estimated 20 minutes…I’ll plan to restart my job in about ½ an hour.
So I’m a little annoyed, and fire this back:
From: Me
To: Donkey
You did get the email from Bob earlier today saying I would be starting at 7pm and to expect the servers to be down until 5am, right?
Then this, and I have no words for this:
From: Donkey
To: Me
No, I’m on vacation and am not checking my emails until next week.
Uhhhhhh, Beavis? WTF? I give up. People not checking emails are emailing me with answers to my emails. I’m either in the twilight zone, I imagined this entire conversation (which is possible, I just recently found out that I’m apparently NOT allergic to alcohol), or this person is a complete donkey. I’m going with option C.
So that’s that. Until next time, where I hope to have something interesting to report. I have more home owner stories based on the home projects we’ve tried to do this summer, but I want to wait until things are finished to post it, because there’s a good chance more idiots will try something as stupid as trying to blow themselves up, like last time.
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Monday, September 18, 2006
Donks of the Past: Kindonkgarten
Hello Manifestites! As you may or may not remember, a few weeks ago I posted a Donks of the Past story from my own past, and asked if anyone wanted to share donk stories of their own (link here). Well, I’ve carefully reviewed the submissions, and have chosen the one to post for this time around. It was a tough selection process, but the fact that I only received one email on the subject helped in narrowing down the chosen story to post. (That’s a hint boys and girls).
So this week we have a submission from Manifestite and fellow RGPer WardenS. He writes:
My son started attending kindergarten a few years ago, a little younger than the rest of the class, as his birthday was right at the cutoff date. He's also short for his age, in the 5th percentile.
We enrolled him in a care-after-school program, as his mother and I both work. So after his first day of school, he and about 80 other kids have the run of the cafeteria, the gym, and the playground. All 3 areas are supervised. My son discovers that the door to the playground can be opened manually, or you can press the round silver-and-blue plate by the door and it will open. Fascinating, no doubt. He pressed it again to close it, but that didn't work. He started to think he'd broken it or done something wrong, so he tried again. Still the door stayed open. He casts about for a solution, and finds...
The red box on the wall with a pull lever.
In the aftermath, with the school evacuated and the fire trucks surrounding the school, the fire chief informed the childcare people that he needed to file a police report because of the false alarm. He took one look at the undersized boy barely keeping it together and relented.
Ahh, they start at such a young age. WardenS can both be proud and worried. He knows that based on this incident, his son will either take to a life of firefighting based on what he’s seen, or a life of crime, based on what he’s done. For WardenS’ sake, we wish him the best in dangerous situations, or at least that he doesn’t get caught.
Until next time!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
So this week we have a submission from Manifestite and fellow RGPer WardenS. He writes:
My son started attending kindergarten a few years ago, a little younger than the rest of the class, as his birthday was right at the cutoff date. He's also short for his age, in the 5th percentile.
We enrolled him in a care-after-school program, as his mother and I both work. So after his first day of school, he and about 80 other kids have the run of the cafeteria, the gym, and the playground. All 3 areas are supervised. My son discovers that the door to the playground can be opened manually, or you can press the round silver-and-blue plate by the door and it will open. Fascinating, no doubt. He pressed it again to close it, but that didn't work. He started to think he'd broken it or done something wrong, so he tried again. Still the door stayed open. He casts about for a solution, and finds...
The red box on the wall with a pull lever.
In the aftermath, with the school evacuated and the fire trucks surrounding the school, the fire chief informed the childcare people that he needed to file a police report because of the false alarm. He took one look at the undersized boy barely keeping it together and relented.
Ahh, they start at such a young age. WardenS can both be proud and worried. He knows that based on this incident, his son will either take to a life of firefighting based on what he’s seen, or a life of crime, based on what he’s done. For WardenS’ sake, we wish him the best in dangerous situations, or at least that he doesn’t get caught.
Until next time!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Donkrophilia: Quest for a Date
Hello Manifestites! I hope things are treating you well. My wife ran across this story online and I had to share it with you.
This is copied from www.fox6milwaukee.com, from their dynamic news stories. Due to the way their pages are written, I can't link directly to a story. I could link it for today, but after today the link would change, and you would likely get a story about how gas prices went up again. So anyway, here it is:
Grave Diggers
(Cassville) A story out of Western Wisconsin gets more strange. It all started when police in Cassville arrested three would-b grave robbers. Police say Dustin Radke, Alexander Grunke and Nicholas Grunke tried digging up a week-old grave in a cemetery. Investigators say the three were trying to take the body of 20-year-old Laura Tennessen so they could have sex with her. She was killed about a week ago in a motorcycle crash. Police say they dug up enough dirt to reach the vault before they were scared off. All three are in Grant County Jail, held for attempted theft. They don't believe the men knew Tennessen.
Yes boys and girls, those crazy sex-craved kids will do anything for a bit of loving. And apparently anything really is anything. What strikes me as really funny is that these donks tried to dig up a dead girl to have sex with the corpse, and are being held for attempted theft. Those crazy kids!
Until next time,
Morphy
This is copied from www.fox6milwaukee.com, from their dynamic news stories. Due to the way their pages are written, I can't link directly to a story. I could link it for today, but after today the link would change, and you would likely get a story about how gas prices went up again. So anyway, here it is:
Grave Diggers
(Cassville) A story out of Western Wisconsin gets more strange. It all started when police in Cassville arrested three would-b grave robbers. Police say Dustin Radke, Alexander Grunke and Nicholas Grunke tried digging up a week-old grave in a cemetery. Investigators say the three were trying to take the body of 20-year-old Laura Tennessen so they could have sex with her. She was killed about a week ago in a motorcycle crash. Police say they dug up enough dirt to reach the vault before they were scared off. All three are in Grant County Jail, held for attempted theft. They don't believe the men knew Tennessen.
Yes boys and girls, those crazy sex-craved kids will do anything for a bit of loving. And apparently anything really is anything. What strikes me as really funny is that these donks tried to dig up a dead girl to have sex with the corpse, and are being held for attempted theft. Those crazy kids!
Until next time,
Morphy
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Donks of the Past: The Cable Guy
Greetings Manifestites! The other night I was chatting with a friend via IM, and I relayed the story I'm about to write up, and we agreed that even though it happened almost 15 years ago that it's well worth telling. So, I bring you the story of Morphy, the cable guy.
I also decided to expand this a bit, and am inviting submissions from anyone out there that wants to relay a good story. If you have something that you think might be a good Donks of the Past story, please email it to me at xaqmorphy@gmail.com. I'll post these as often as I receive them. If I receive many of them, I'll pick a winner who will receive, well, nothing, but having something on the Manifesto should be praise in and of itself. Self-inflicted accidental injuries are always a favorite, as are driving incidents and of course just all-around donkishness. Ok, on with it now.
The year is, umm, 1994 maybe. I'm working for a distribution company in a newish office building with a big warehouse attached. The building is set up so that the whole thing is basically 2 stories, but in the office areas, the ceiling is dropped down to a standard 14 ft. height or whatever the typical standard ceiling height is. There was no 2nd floor, as everything above the drop ceiling was open, up to the upper ceiling of the building. The warehouse of course was wide open all the way around.
When it came time to upgrade the old coax network to cat5, the drop ceiling made it really easy to get things set up. We had contractors drop most of the cable, but there were a few out of the way locations that we decided to cable ourselves. This is where I come in. As the youngest person on staff, I was often volunteered for jobs that no one else wanted to do. "Morphy, here, go stand on this wheeled chair on the file floor and adjust the security camera." "Morphy, go underneath the filed floor and bring the power whip from one side of the room to the other (while we cover the floor tiles back up)." "Morphy, for some reason we used 50 ft. phone cables to connect these 16 modems to the PBX, even though they are on opposite sides of the wall. The extra cables were just stuffed in the wall and/or under the floor. Take them all apart, one at a time so we don't lose connectivity, and replace them with nice 3 ft. cables." "Morphy, fill up this guy's cube who is on vacation with balloons." "Morphy, shrink wrap the asshat who keeps giving you these tasks to a pallet and ship him to New York." You know, standard procedure stuff like that.
So here's the task: run a cable from room 1 to room 3. Room 2 happens to be the main senior management conference room which is in between rooms 1 and 3. Senior management happens to be in a week long series of all day meetings to try and save the company from bankruptcy (translation: coming up with lists of people to lay off). So, it's not like we can just go into the conference room, remove a ceiling tile every few feet and feed the cable through. We also needed this up and running immediately, so we couldn't even wait until that evening to do it. Yup, you guessed it..."Morphy, climb up this ladder and walk this cable 30 ft. or so across the ceiling and drop it down into room 3."
Oh sure, I bet you're sitting there asking yourself how they expected me to walk across a drop ceiling. Well, I was in luck (?!?!?) because there was a 6" or so wide girder about a foot above the drop ceiling that ran the length of the room, and a pipe/girder thing above that to hold onto. The plan: they tie the cable to my belt loop, and I carefully walk across the girder, holding onto the pipe as support. When I reach the other end someone hands me a wire cutters, I snip the cable, feed it through the hole in the tile, and someone was even going to be nice enough to put another ladder there for me to climb down. As those Guiness guys from the commercials say: BRILLIANT! Come on readers, you should know better by now. The astute reader should even be able to figure out what happens next...
About half-way across the girder, there's one of those air vent thingers, and I basically have to work my way around it. Now I'm not really sure what happened next, and of course no one admitted anything, so I never did find out. One of a few things happened: I either lost my footing, some jackass pulled on the cable attached to me, the cable became stuck somewhere, or we had a minor earthquake that made me lose my balance (those aren't very common in Wisconsin, by the way). Whatever happened there, the next thing I know, I'm falling through the air, and THUD, I hit the conference room table. That's right folks, right through the drop ceiling, and smack onto almost the exact fucking middle of the conference room table where at that exact time, management was deciding the fate of some of my co-workers.
For what seemed like an eternity that was more like about 2 seconds, nothing happened. I looked up, saw a lot of really surprised looks, and blurted out the first thing that came to my mind: "oh my god, I'm so sorry I interrupted your meeting!" Most of the room still sat there with dazed looks on their faces, but one guy actually picked up a pen and wrote something down! I then regained my senses and said "hey, you aren't going to fire me for this, are you?" THEN the room broke out in laughter, about the same time my colleagues burst through the door.
After everyone managed to settle down, we evaluated the situation, and were completely amazed at what we found. Other than a bruise on my hip, no one was hurt. No less than 5 ceiling tiles fell along with the metal brackets, and I dodged everything that could have caused injury: coffee cups, staplers, pens/pencils, the projector, everything. No cups were spilled. One guy got hit in the head with a piece of one ceiling tile, but they were light weight enough that he wasn't hurt at all. I went right in between 2 big light fixtures, and they didn't move at all. Nothing. Just falling what was at least 10 ft. onto a hard table, that's all. Just another day on the job I guess!
I didn't live that one down for months. No one ever did fess up or even really speculate as to what happened. I had a feeling I knew who did it, but I think his little impromptu trip to New York settled the score quite nicely. If he didn't do it...ummm...dude, I'm sorry.
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
I also decided to expand this a bit, and am inviting submissions from anyone out there that wants to relay a good story. If you have something that you think might be a good Donks of the Past story, please email it to me at xaqmorphy@gmail.com. I'll post these as often as I receive them. If I receive many of them, I'll pick a winner who will receive, well, nothing, but having something on the Manifesto should be praise in and of itself. Self-inflicted accidental injuries are always a favorite, as are driving incidents and of course just all-around donkishness. Ok, on with it now.
The year is, umm, 1994 maybe. I'm working for a distribution company in a newish office building with a big warehouse attached. The building is set up so that the whole thing is basically 2 stories, but in the office areas, the ceiling is dropped down to a standard 14 ft. height or whatever the typical standard ceiling height is. There was no 2nd floor, as everything above the drop ceiling was open, up to the upper ceiling of the building. The warehouse of course was wide open all the way around.
When it came time to upgrade the old coax network to cat5, the drop ceiling made it really easy to get things set up. We had contractors drop most of the cable, but there were a few out of the way locations that we decided to cable ourselves. This is where I come in. As the youngest person on staff, I was often volunteered for jobs that no one else wanted to do. "Morphy, here, go stand on this wheeled chair on the file floor and adjust the security camera." "Morphy, go underneath the filed floor and bring the power whip from one side of the room to the other (while we cover the floor tiles back up)." "Morphy, for some reason we used 50 ft. phone cables to connect these 16 modems to the PBX, even though they are on opposite sides of the wall. The extra cables were just stuffed in the wall and/or under the floor. Take them all apart, one at a time so we don't lose connectivity, and replace them with nice 3 ft. cables." "Morphy, fill up this guy's cube who is on vacation with balloons." "Morphy, shrink wrap the asshat who keeps giving you these tasks to a pallet and ship him to New York." You know, standard procedure stuff like that.
So here's the task: run a cable from room 1 to room 3. Room 2 happens to be the main senior management conference room which is in between rooms 1 and 3. Senior management happens to be in a week long series of all day meetings to try and save the company from bankruptcy (translation: coming up with lists of people to lay off). So, it's not like we can just go into the conference room, remove a ceiling tile every few feet and feed the cable through. We also needed this up and running immediately, so we couldn't even wait until that evening to do it. Yup, you guessed it..."Morphy, climb up this ladder and walk this cable 30 ft. or so across the ceiling and drop it down into room 3."
Oh sure, I bet you're sitting there asking yourself how they expected me to walk across a drop ceiling. Well, I was in luck (?!?!?) because there was a 6" or so wide girder about a foot above the drop ceiling that ran the length of the room, and a pipe/girder thing above that to hold onto. The plan: they tie the cable to my belt loop, and I carefully walk across the girder, holding onto the pipe as support. When I reach the other end someone hands me a wire cutters, I snip the cable, feed it through the hole in the tile, and someone was even going to be nice enough to put another ladder there for me to climb down. As those Guiness guys from the commercials say: BRILLIANT! Come on readers, you should know better by now. The astute reader should even be able to figure out what happens next...
About half-way across the girder, there's one of those air vent thingers, and I basically have to work my way around it. Now I'm not really sure what happened next, and of course no one admitted anything, so I never did find out. One of a few things happened: I either lost my footing, some jackass pulled on the cable attached to me, the cable became stuck somewhere, or we had a minor earthquake that made me lose my balance (those aren't very common in Wisconsin, by the way). Whatever happened there, the next thing I know, I'm falling through the air, and THUD, I hit the conference room table. That's right folks, right through the drop ceiling, and smack onto almost the exact fucking middle of the conference room table where at that exact time, management was deciding the fate of some of my co-workers.
For what seemed like an eternity that was more like about 2 seconds, nothing happened. I looked up, saw a lot of really surprised looks, and blurted out the first thing that came to my mind: "oh my god, I'm so sorry I interrupted your meeting!" Most of the room still sat there with dazed looks on their faces, but one guy actually picked up a pen and wrote something down! I then regained my senses and said "hey, you aren't going to fire me for this, are you?" THEN the room broke out in laughter, about the same time my colleagues burst through the door.
After everyone managed to settle down, we evaluated the situation, and were completely amazed at what we found. Other than a bruise on my hip, no one was hurt. No less than 5 ceiling tiles fell along with the metal brackets, and I dodged everything that could have caused injury: coffee cups, staplers, pens/pencils, the projector, everything. No cups were spilled. One guy got hit in the head with a piece of one ceiling tile, but they were light weight enough that he wasn't hurt at all. I went right in between 2 big light fixtures, and they didn't move at all. Nothing. Just falling what was at least 10 ft. onto a hard table, that's all. Just another day on the job I guess!
I didn't live that one down for months. No one ever did fess up or even really speculate as to what happened. I had a feeling I knew who did it, but I think his little impromptu trip to New York settled the score quite nicely. If he didn't do it...ummm...dude, I'm sorry.
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Donk Donk Walla Walla Donk Donk
Greetings fellow Manifestites! So some strange things are going on. I’m not sure if they’ve suddenly gotten smarter, or organized in some way, but the donkeys have been really quiet lately. About a month ago someone asked when I was going to update the blog. I had nothing then. It’s a month later, and, umm, I got nothin’ really worthwhile.
I guess the problem is, I am pretty picky as to what I consider blogworthy material. It’s not every day you get 2 idiots to almost blow themselves up 20 ft. off the ground (see Darwin Tried: Chicken Fried Donk), and once something like that happens, the bar raises just a little bit. After that, the typical idiot running a red light while on the phone and nearly killing an old lady walking across the street just doesn’t seem as interesting. But, I realize that there are fans out there, and all of you are anxiously awaiting my next entry, to see what sort of donks I run into next. As I’ve said in the past, there are a few things that go on at work that could make it, but I would rather keep things in the workplace off of the blog. I did run into a real interesting situation with Citrix, which is the software company that makes the main product I support every day, but since my average reader likely doesn’t understand what Citrix is or does, it’s pretty hard to make sense out of it.
Now, that said, one thing did cross my desk yesterday that I feel is at least worth a mention. I want to warn readers who managed to get this far without falling asleep from the boredom that this isn’t one of the better entries. I almost didn’t post it, but our motto of quantity over quality rang out, and I decided to go with it. It doesn’t end with the usual jaw-dropping, mind-numbing donkishness that I usually run into, but I did chuckle a number of times while reading my end of the exchange below, so I figured it was good enough to post.
I was going through my morning routine of attempting to wake up, read a bunch of emails from people who spend all day complaining about this and that, and generally attempt to look busy, when I decided to check my gmail account. Let’s see, hand histories from WPX that take 5 hours to get there that I totally forgot about, some newsletter crap from various poker sites I don’t play on, a tracking number from www.woot.com for something I don’t remember buying, and hey…what’s this:
FROM MRS ELA BIBANG.
This is my private email address elabibang1@yahoo.fr
For introduction i am the wife LT COL FLORENCIO BIBANG of EQUATORIAL GUINEA. He was accused of plotting to overthrow the government with two others namely LT COL FELIPE ESONO NTUMU and LT COL ANTIMO EDU.They are currently held in the maximum security prison in NIGERIA under inhuman conditions as we were meant to understand by some of the human right watch observers who have visited them.
They fled the country and sought refuge in CAMEROUN from where they proceded to NIGERIA.
They where apprehended by the NIGERIAN authorities and ever since then no news and sign of their release.
My children and i have fled to the REPUBLIC OF IVORY COAST for our safety after passing through hell in the hands of the security operatives/agents of the government.
Why i have written to you is for help ;i want you to help us get some funds stashed in a finance house in holland by my husband the worth is $2.5million.
This was money meant for the purchase of ammunition which was never used due to the accusations and his eventual escape.
I have the address of the company and contact and hope that you will understand my plight and help us.
once you have shown interest and ready to help i will divulge the information so that you will make the necessary transaction and secure the funds for us.
We shall discuss your percentage when you have notified me of your interest.
we need this funds for our upkeep and eventual migration to europe.
I await your mail.
Conatct me through this private email address elabibang1@yahoo.fr .
MRS ELA BIBANG
Hey, a typical Nigerian 419 scam. I get these from time to time and typically just delete them. But, something struck me as overly funny about this one, so I decided not to delete it, and maybe come back later and read it again. These are pretty strange, because they are so obviously scams, but there are enough morons out there who get their bank accounts wiped out by these criminals that it’s apparently worth it for them to write up these emails and spam the world.
I came back a few hours later after dealing with something particularly annoying, and read the email again. I decided I couldn’t let it go:
FROM XAQ MORPHY. WITH URGENT ATTENTION NEEDING.
Good day. I am XAQ MORPHY originating from ODS, RGP, WTF and PDQ. I just received your message of urgency and want to be providing my assistance because the happenings of circumstances to be coincidental cannot be passed up.
In 1963 I was stationed in the Moroncan Navy in the small fishing village of Dawnkei. It was here that I had I met the man later introduced to me as LT COL FLORENCIO BIBANG of EQUATORIAL GUINEA. I also had the extreme pleasure of meeting his twin brothers, E. Walla and O. Walla.
It was to be my mission of protecting the citizens of that small fishing village, so many years ago. As you know, many governments in so-called foreign nations are having corruptness in the experiences of dealing with national citizens. This I am sure you have been witnessed of.
While in the village of Dawnkei I was extremely lucky to have had the experience of having my life saved by Mr. BIBANG and his brothers Walla and Walla. While performing my morning constitutional rituals, I was attacked by many ravenous WILDEBEESTS. FLORENCIO and his private Ting Ting saved me from sure doom. Unfortunately LT COL FLORENCIO BIBANG of EQUATORIAL GUINEA was forced to leave Dawnkei, and I was unable to repay the needful favor. To him I am owing my life.
Please letting me know how I may be of assistance. I have waited many years for the contact of this email, and now is the time to be performing acts of goodwill to those that have allowed my stay in this lifetime to continue. Please do the needful and allow me to save you and your family.
Sincerely,
Mr. MORPHY
I still chuckle reading that, so if anything, I’m amused, which makes this post a success. I was surprised to actually receive a reply today, but it appears that my attempt at humor was seen as just that:
ELA BIBANG to me
you are very very funny.
i like your sense of humuor.
keep it up.
by bye
So Mrs. BIBANG, I’m glad I was able to brighten your day. I imagine scamming stupid people out of thousands of dollars can get depressing now and then. I’m glad I could help. Now, if you could please do the needful and send me your bank account information and mailing address, I will send you your share of my life’s savings, ONE THIRD OF THIRTY FIVE CENTS IN US CURRENCY.
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
I guess the problem is, I am pretty picky as to what I consider blogworthy material. It’s not every day you get 2 idiots to almost blow themselves up 20 ft. off the ground (see Darwin Tried: Chicken Fried Donk), and once something like that happens, the bar raises just a little bit. After that, the typical idiot running a red light while on the phone and nearly killing an old lady walking across the street just doesn’t seem as interesting. But, I realize that there are fans out there, and all of you are anxiously awaiting my next entry, to see what sort of donks I run into next. As I’ve said in the past, there are a few things that go on at work that could make it, but I would rather keep things in the workplace off of the blog. I did run into a real interesting situation with Citrix, which is the software company that makes the main product I support every day, but since my average reader likely doesn’t understand what Citrix is or does, it’s pretty hard to make sense out of it.
Now, that said, one thing did cross my desk yesterday that I feel is at least worth a mention. I want to warn readers who managed to get this far without falling asleep from the boredom that this isn’t one of the better entries. I almost didn’t post it, but our motto of quantity over quality rang out, and I decided to go with it. It doesn’t end with the usual jaw-dropping, mind-numbing donkishness that I usually run into, but I did chuckle a number of times while reading my end of the exchange below, so I figured it was good enough to post.
I was going through my morning routine of attempting to wake up, read a bunch of emails from people who spend all day complaining about this and that, and generally attempt to look busy, when I decided to check my gmail account. Let’s see, hand histories from WPX that take 5 hours to get there that I totally forgot about, some newsletter crap from various poker sites I don’t play on, a tracking number from www.woot.com for something I don’t remember buying, and hey…what’s this:
FROM MRS ELA BIBANG.
This is my private email address elabibang1@yahoo.fr
For introduction i am the wife LT COL FLORENCIO BIBANG of EQUATORIAL GUINEA. He was accused of plotting to overthrow the government with two others namely LT COL FELIPE ESONO NTUMU and LT COL ANTIMO EDU.They are currently held in the maximum security prison in NIGERIA under inhuman conditions as we were meant to understand by some of the human right watch observers who have visited them.
They fled the country and sought refuge in CAMEROUN from where they proceded to NIGERIA.
They where apprehended by the NIGERIAN authorities and ever since then no news and sign of their release.
My children and i have fled to the REPUBLIC OF IVORY COAST for our safety after passing through hell in the hands of the security operatives/agents of the government.
Why i have written to you is for help ;i want you to help us get some funds stashed in a finance house in holland by my husband the worth is $2.5million.
This was money meant for the purchase of ammunition which was never used due to the accusations and his eventual escape.
I have the address of the company and contact and hope that you will understand my plight and help us.
once you have shown interest and ready to help i will divulge the information so that you will make the necessary transaction and secure the funds for us.
We shall discuss your percentage when you have notified me of your interest.
we need this funds for our upkeep and eventual migration to europe.
I await your mail.
Conatct me through this private email address elabibang1@yahoo.fr .
MRS ELA BIBANG
Hey, a typical Nigerian 419 scam. I get these from time to time and typically just delete them. But, something struck me as overly funny about this one, so I decided not to delete it, and maybe come back later and read it again. These are pretty strange, because they are so obviously scams, but there are enough morons out there who get their bank accounts wiped out by these criminals that it’s apparently worth it for them to write up these emails and spam the world.
I came back a few hours later after dealing with something particularly annoying, and read the email again. I decided I couldn’t let it go:
FROM XAQ MORPHY. WITH URGENT ATTENTION NEEDING.
Good day. I am XAQ MORPHY originating from ODS, RGP, WTF and PDQ. I just received your message of urgency and want to be providing my assistance because the happenings of circumstances to be coincidental cannot be passed up.
In 1963 I was stationed in the Moroncan Navy in the small fishing village of Dawnkei. It was here that I had I met the man later introduced to me as LT COL FLORENCIO BIBANG of EQUATORIAL GUINEA. I also had the extreme pleasure of meeting his twin brothers, E. Walla and O. Walla.
It was to be my mission of protecting the citizens of that small fishing village, so many years ago. As you know, many governments in so-called foreign nations are having corruptness in the experiences of dealing with national citizens. This I am sure you have been witnessed of.
While in the village of Dawnkei I was extremely lucky to have had the experience of having my life saved by Mr. BIBANG and his brothers Walla and Walla. While performing my morning constitutional rituals, I was attacked by many ravenous WILDEBEESTS. FLORENCIO and his private Ting Ting saved me from sure doom. Unfortunately LT COL FLORENCIO BIBANG of EQUATORIAL GUINEA was forced to leave Dawnkei, and I was unable to repay the needful favor. To him I am owing my life.
Please letting me know how I may be of assistance. I have waited many years for the contact of this email, and now is the time to be performing acts of goodwill to those that have allowed my stay in this lifetime to continue. Please do the needful and allow me to save you and your family.
Sincerely,
Mr. MORPHY
I still chuckle reading that, so if anything, I’m amused, which makes this post a success. I was surprised to actually receive a reply today, but it appears that my attempt at humor was seen as just that:
ELA BIBANG to me
you are very very funny.
i like your sense of humuor.
keep it up.
by bye
So Mrs. BIBANG, I’m glad I was able to brighten your day. I imagine scamming stupid people out of thousands of dollars can get depressing now and then. I’m glad I could help. Now, if you could please do the needful and send me your bank account information and mailing address, I will send you your share of my life’s savings, ONE THIRD OF THIRTY FIVE CENTS IN US CURRENCY.
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Saturday, July 08, 2006
How to Attract Customers to a Rummage Sale
Everyone has had them, rummage sales. You know, where you take all your worthless stuff and instead of throwing it away, decide to see if anyone else wants your old dishes, toys, a box of cassette tapes that haven't seen the light of day for over 5 years, and of course 37 boxes of clothes.
So have you ever wondered what the best way to attract customers to your rummage sale was? Wonder no more. Our neighbors got together with us for the yard sale. Greg decided he would try something new:
So have you ever wondered what the best way to attract customers to your rummage sale was? Wonder no more. Our neighbors got together with us for the yard sale. Greg decided he would try something new:
That certainly looks ridiculous enough, but no, Greg had other plans:
And just in case being in the middle of the road riding an ostrich wearing the most ridiculous hat I've seen isn't enough:
The sale went well. Every time Greg rode off into the street, people flocked on in. I mean really, who can resist buying something from a guy riding an Ostrich?
Until next time!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Darwin Tried: Chicken Fried Donk
Ahh, summer time, the season of heat, outdoors, home improvement projects, and donks trying to blow themselves up. Huh? Allow me…
We need a new patio door. Ours is pretty old and due to some wood repairs, there’s no screen door. We started talking to friends of my wife and found that Ed runs his own contracting business, specializing in windows and roofing. Ed quoted us a very good price for installing a new door, and in talking further with him, we discussed a new layer of shingles on the roof as well.
As any homeowner knows, there’s no such thing as a simple project. Home projects seem to start a horrible money sucking domino-like effect that can very quickly spiral completely out of control. This one, apparently, is no exception. What started out as a patio door installation quickly tripled in price as we added the new roof layer, a window casing, and quite a bit of miscellaneous caulk work.
Ed started on the roof last week, and the dominoes kept falling. Apparently the siding on the upper half of the house was coming apart, and in order to properly flash the roofing project, something needed to be done. Double the previously already tripled cost, add in 3 days to pick the “right” color siding (you married guys know why), and we’re ready to get new siding. Fast forward to 5 minutes into removing the existing siding, and add $300 because the moron who built the house never put insulation under the previous siding.
I knew Ed and “his roofing guy” were going to be doing the work, but what I didn’t know is that Ed has two of the biggest fucking morons to have ever walked the planet working for him. As I would come to find later, these donks decided that whatever tools they had weren’t good enough to remove siding with, and instead they somehow borrowed a pitch fork from one of my neighbors down the block. I wish I would have taken pictures so I have some way to show what a donk on a ladder removing siding with a pitch fork looks like, but since I didn’t, you’ll have to use your imagination.
So here is where we are. The wife and kids are gone, and I’m sitting here with one working arm and feeling sorry for myself because I’m out of pain killers. I have the laptop in my lap, am playing in a cash game online and chatting with friends. TV is playing something useless and generally things are nice and calm, with the exception of banging and ripping sounds of donks removing siding.
Until…BANG…lights flicker a bunch…BANG… lights flicker and all power goes off, and I hear what sounds like machine gun fire from the back of the house. I immediately unplug the laptop, put it down, and rush to the door where I’m greeted by donk #1 who is knocking on the door and furiously trying to dial 911 by first entering the area code. Donk #2, who bears a striking resemblance to Joe Dirt, is also there with a look on his face that means he’s either trying long division in his head, or he just shit his pants.
The house is on fire, they tell me. I run around, see smoke everywhere, and see sparks and flames shooting out of the pipe coming up from the power meter. Donk #1 and donk #2 are running around like, well, donks, and I’m trying to see through the smoke and sparks to see if the house is on fire. Only a few seconds later the sparks stop completely, and I see the only thing still burning is a small pile of board on the ground. Both donks fall all over each other putting out the fire while I go inside to grab my cell phone and the card for the power company. I call the power company while making sure that the fires are out, and then try to figure out just how in the hell these morons did this.
So in talking to them over the course of the next few hours, here’s what we were able to figure out. The (old) pipe came out of the meter, goes straight up to just over a window on the 2nd floor, then takes a turn left to the top corner of the house where it connects with the power service. Instead of loosening up one section of pipe at a time from the house then removing the siding and putting the pipe back, these specimens of supreme human intelligence had another idea. They completely removed all of the brackets holding the pipe to the house. I wish I was there to see what happened next. From their descriptions and what I could piece together translating moron to English, they were both on the same ladder, donk #1 removing siding while donk #2 rested the pipe on his back, also removing siding. It is unknown whether or not the pitch fork played part in this act. Donk #1 claims that the pipe touched his arm and electrocuted him, but apparently that didn’t stop them from continuing down their path of Darwin induced donktivites.
Sure enough, that new phenomenon called gravity kicked in, and the 20 foot long pipe fell and bent in half. At the bending point, the electrical wires crimped, started on fire, and melted themselves and most of the pipe that surrounded them. The fire continued down the pipe towards the meter, melting wire and pipe along the way. Our only saving grace was that by this time the two donks fell/jumped off the ladder, let go of the pipe, and the power disconnected from the house, leaving live wires on the ground. Amazingly, no one was hurt.
Within 30 minutes the power company arrived. They had service connected shortly after. We had to call an electrician, and for anyone who is wondering, the cost to reconnect electrical service at 5:30pm on a Friday is $600. No way in hell we’re paying for it though. You bet the cost is coming out of the rest of the work that they are doing. I also know that the last work these idiots will do is clean up the mess they made, and comb the yard for nails and razor blades that were thrown about with no regard to anyone else around them.
So there it is…donks and electricity. Always an interesting combination. Also, somehow, none of our household electronics were harmed. The moral of this story? Stupid people are funny.
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
We need a new patio door. Ours is pretty old and due to some wood repairs, there’s no screen door. We started talking to friends of my wife and found that Ed runs his own contracting business, specializing in windows and roofing. Ed quoted us a very good price for installing a new door, and in talking further with him, we discussed a new layer of shingles on the roof as well.
As any homeowner knows, there’s no such thing as a simple project. Home projects seem to start a horrible money sucking domino-like effect that can very quickly spiral completely out of control. This one, apparently, is no exception. What started out as a patio door installation quickly tripled in price as we added the new roof layer, a window casing, and quite a bit of miscellaneous caulk work.
Ed started on the roof last week, and the dominoes kept falling. Apparently the siding on the upper half of the house was coming apart, and in order to properly flash the roofing project, something needed to be done. Double the previously already tripled cost, add in 3 days to pick the “right” color siding (you married guys know why), and we’re ready to get new siding. Fast forward to 5 minutes into removing the existing siding, and add $300 because the moron who built the house never put insulation under the previous siding.
I knew Ed and “his roofing guy” were going to be doing the work, but what I didn’t know is that Ed has two of the biggest fucking morons to have ever walked the planet working for him. As I would come to find later, these donks decided that whatever tools they had weren’t good enough to remove siding with, and instead they somehow borrowed a pitch fork from one of my neighbors down the block. I wish I would have taken pictures so I have some way to show what a donk on a ladder removing siding with a pitch fork looks like, but since I didn’t, you’ll have to use your imagination.
So here is where we are. The wife and kids are gone, and I’m sitting here with one working arm and feeling sorry for myself because I’m out of pain killers. I have the laptop in my lap, am playing in a cash game online and chatting with friends. TV is playing something useless and generally things are nice and calm, with the exception of banging and ripping sounds of donks removing siding.
Until…BANG…lights flicker a bunch…BANG… lights flicker and all power goes off, and I hear what sounds like machine gun fire from the back of the house. I immediately unplug the laptop, put it down, and rush to the door where I’m greeted by donk #1 who is knocking on the door and furiously trying to dial 911 by first entering the area code. Donk #2, who bears a striking resemblance to Joe Dirt, is also there with a look on his face that means he’s either trying long division in his head, or he just shit his pants.
The house is on fire, they tell me. I run around, see smoke everywhere, and see sparks and flames shooting out of the pipe coming up from the power meter. Donk #1 and donk #2 are running around like, well, donks, and I’m trying to see through the smoke and sparks to see if the house is on fire. Only a few seconds later the sparks stop completely, and I see the only thing still burning is a small pile of board on the ground. Both donks fall all over each other putting out the fire while I go inside to grab my cell phone and the card for the power company. I call the power company while making sure that the fires are out, and then try to figure out just how in the hell these morons did this.
So in talking to them over the course of the next few hours, here’s what we were able to figure out. The (old) pipe came out of the meter, goes straight up to just over a window on the 2nd floor, then takes a turn left to the top corner of the house where it connects with the power service. Instead of loosening up one section of pipe at a time from the house then removing the siding and putting the pipe back, these specimens of supreme human intelligence had another idea. They completely removed all of the brackets holding the pipe to the house. I wish I was there to see what happened next. From their descriptions and what I could piece together translating moron to English, they were both on the same ladder, donk #1 removing siding while donk #2 rested the pipe on his back, also removing siding. It is unknown whether or not the pitch fork played part in this act. Donk #1 claims that the pipe touched his arm and electrocuted him, but apparently that didn’t stop them from continuing down their path of Darwin induced donktivites.
Sure enough, that new phenomenon called gravity kicked in, and the 20 foot long pipe fell and bent in half. At the bending point, the electrical wires crimped, started on fire, and melted themselves and most of the pipe that surrounded them. The fire continued down the pipe towards the meter, melting wire and pipe along the way. Our only saving grace was that by this time the two donks fell/jumped off the ladder, let go of the pipe, and the power disconnected from the house, leaving live wires on the ground. Amazingly, no one was hurt.
Within 30 minutes the power company arrived. They had service connected shortly after. We had to call an electrician, and for anyone who is wondering, the cost to reconnect electrical service at 5:30pm on a Friday is $600. No way in hell we’re paying for it though. You bet the cost is coming out of the rest of the work that they are doing. I also know that the last work these idiots will do is clean up the mess they made, and comb the yard for nails and razor blades that were thrown about with no regard to anyone else around them.
So there it is…donks and electricity. Always an interesting combination. Also, somehow, none of our household electronics were harmed. The moral of this story? Stupid people are funny.
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Dot Dot Dot Donk Donk Donk Dot Dot Dot
Hello Manifestites, and welcome to the world of one handed typing. As you know from my last entry, I had elbow surgery to relocate a major nerve. They had to release and reattach a major muscle in my arm, so I’m 2 weeks into a very long, 12+ week recovery. I’m getting better at one handed typing every day, and have messed a bit with some speech recognition software. I’m planning a blog entry to detail all of this, but a situation came up yesterday that is too good to pass up.
So I’m playing in a SnG on Bodog yesterday (SnG = 1 table poker tournament). The blinds start out very low at 5/10, and I typically see some strange things betting-wise during the first few orbits. Sure enough, some guy raises to 115 and shows AsQs when the table folds. The next hand he makes it 80, gets one caller, sees a flop of A84, jams 900+ into a pot of 180, and shows AA when his opponent folds. Well, I can’t let that go unnoticed, so I feel I need to compliment him. Forgive my lack of capitalization or punctuation in my chat here: it’s times like these I wish I had 2 good hands to type with!
XaQ Morphy: i see you've mastered betting in nl holdem, very nice
Clovus: ty
Clovus: last tow hands i show back to no chat When I clean the board no offense guys
So I’m sitting here trying to decipher just what in the hell that is supposed to mean, when this shows up, filling the entire chat window:
Clovus: -
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I didn’t know what to make of that, but it would soon become painfully obvious that I wasn’t dealing with your ordinary every day dimwit. A few hands later, right in the middle of someone else’s chat, here it is again:
Clovus: -
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Well, you know me, any time I see the opportunity to mess with someone, I jump at it.
XaQ Morphy: wtf is your issue?
eisezu: i think he's just clearing the chat board
XaQ Morphy: why?
Clovus: cleaning the chat and your on iggy
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XaQ Morphy: what language is that?
Not 3 seconds later he does it again. I mean, I guess I can see doing it once and a while, seeing as on Bodog there’s no timestamp on the chat, so you really don’t know when a certain message was written, but ffs, this was getting absurd. So, I decided to have a little fun.
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XaQ Morphy: quit it
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
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XaQ Morphy: assmonkey
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XaQ Morphy: cut it out assburglar
Clovus: put me on ignore then you dont see it like i dont see you
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XaQ Morphy: i'm going to report you for spamming you pathetic loser
eisezu: why does it bother you so much morphy?
XaQ Morphy: because, he's breaking violations of the site
eisezu: he's not really
XaQ Morphy: if he can't deal with it, why doesn't he just close the chat down
XaQ Morphy: instead he has to ruin the chat experience for the rest of us
Ok, so I may be embellishing a little here. But others also see that I seem to be very bothered by it and may think I’m on tilt. Not that I need any help loosening up the play of the mass idiot-supreme that is the average Bodog player, but who knows. What this donkey doesn’t understand is that even if I block his chat, his ridiculous “chat clearing” is still making it impossible for others to chat. Some more:
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XaQ Morphy: that's it, you're done sparky
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XaQ Morphy: wait, I got it…it’s morse code. let me translate
XaQ Morphy: clovus…is…a…dumbass…
So right about now, he calls off most of his stack with Ac6c and beats AK with a straight. Then this gem:
Clovus: suited hands win more often even though I got the st8 more outs
Clovus: 52 48 odds in his favor
Blink blink, what? For those that don’t know, while suited (or s0000000000ted, as known in the secret jargon of online poker) cards are more valuable than their non-suited counterparts, the suitedness is typically only worth 3-4%. In the hand above, the AK was a 70:30 favorite over his A6 of clubs. We were down to 3 now, “in the money” and thanks to the supreme donkey and his suited cards, he has the chip lead. I was going to comment on his vast knowledge of poker, but I was dealt a hand I had to move in with on his big blind. I showed of course. I’ll let you guess what I had based on this hint:
$1520.00 is not called, return back to XaQ Morphy
XaQ Morphy shows High Card, Three
A few hands later I was dealt an Ace in the same spot, jammed at him again, and he was all so happy to double me up with Q high, ensuring himself 3rd place.
Oh yeah, and I sent this email to Bodog’s support:
Hi, please remove the chat for user Clovus. He was spamming the chat window with dashes, which is extremely annoying, and disrupts the chat of anyone else that wishes to use it. He did not refrain when asked to stop. Thanks,
Sometimes you just have to step up and take matters into your own hands. Until next time!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
So I’m playing in a SnG on Bodog yesterday (SnG = 1 table poker tournament). The blinds start out very low at 5/10, and I typically see some strange things betting-wise during the first few orbits. Sure enough, some guy raises to 115 and shows AsQs when the table folds. The next hand he makes it 80, gets one caller, sees a flop of A84, jams 900+ into a pot of 180, and shows AA when his opponent folds. Well, I can’t let that go unnoticed, so I feel I need to compliment him. Forgive my lack of capitalization or punctuation in my chat here: it’s times like these I wish I had 2 good hands to type with!
XaQ Morphy: i see you've mastered betting in nl holdem, very nice
Clovus: ty
Clovus: last tow hands i show back to no chat When I clean the board no offense guys
So I’m sitting here trying to decipher just what in the hell that is supposed to mean, when this shows up, filling the entire chat window:
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
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I didn’t know what to make of that, but it would soon become painfully obvious that I wasn’t dealing with your ordinary every day dimwit. A few hands later, right in the middle of someone else’s chat, here it is again:
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
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Well, you know me, any time I see the opportunity to mess with someone, I jump at it.
XaQ Morphy: wtf is your issue?
eisezu: i think he's just clearing the chat board
XaQ Morphy: why?
Clovus: cleaning the chat and your on iggy
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XaQ Morphy: what language is that?
Not 3 seconds later he does it again. I mean, I guess I can see doing it once and a while, seeing as on Bodog there’s no timestamp on the chat, so you really don’t know when a certain message was written, but ffs, this was getting absurd. So, I decided to have a little fun.
Clovus: -
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Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
XaQ Morphy: quit it
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
XaQ Morphy: '
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
XaQ Morphy: assmonkey
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
XaQ Morphy: cut it out assburglar
Clovus: put me on ignore then you dont see it like i dont see you
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
XaQ Morphy: i'm going to report you for spamming you pathetic loser
eisezu: why does it bother you so much morphy?
XaQ Morphy: because, he's breaking violations of the site
eisezu: he's not really
XaQ Morphy: if he can't deal with it, why doesn't he just close the chat down
XaQ Morphy: instead he has to ruin the chat experience for the rest of us
Ok, so I may be embellishing a little here. But others also see that I seem to be very bothered by it and may think I’m on tilt. Not that I need any help loosening up the play of the mass idiot-supreme that is the average Bodog player, but who knows. What this donkey doesn’t understand is that even if I block his chat, his ridiculous “chat clearing” is still making it impossible for others to chat. Some more:
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
XaQ Morphy: that's it, you're done sparky
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
Clovus: -
XaQ Morphy: wait, I got it…it’s morse code. let me translate
XaQ Morphy: clovus…is…a…dumbass…
So right about now, he calls off most of his stack with Ac6c and beats AK with a straight. Then this gem:
Clovus: suited hands win more often even though I got the st8 more outs
Clovus: 52 48 odds in his favor
Blink blink, what? For those that don’t know, while suited (or s0000000000ted, as known in the secret jargon of online poker) cards are more valuable than their non-suited counterparts, the suitedness is typically only worth 3-4%. In the hand above, the AK was a 70:30 favorite over his A6 of clubs. We were down to 3 now, “in the money” and thanks to the supreme donkey and his suited cards, he has the chip lead. I was going to comment on his vast knowledge of poker, but I was dealt a hand I had to move in with on his big blind. I showed of course. I’ll let you guess what I had based on this hint:
$1520.00 is not called, return back to XaQ Morphy
XaQ Morphy shows High Card, Three
A few hands later I was dealt an Ace in the same spot, jammed at him again, and he was all so happy to double me up with Q high, ensuring himself 3rd place.
Oh yeah, and I sent this email to Bodog’s support:
Hi, please remove the chat for user Clovus. He was spamming the chat window with dashes, which is extremely annoying, and disrupts the chat of anyone else that wishes to use it. He did not refrain when asked to stop. Thanks,
Sometimes you just have to step up and take matters into your own hands. Until next time!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Monday, May 29, 2006
Donkey Tourney Tactics: Stalling
Sit down my friends, pull up a chair, and enjoy this tale of umm, whatever it is. Before we get to today's entry, I'll talk about some personal things. As you may have guessed from my last entry, A Week in the Life of the Morphy Household, I have a problem with my elbow that needs to be addressed. Although the previous suggestions of doing nothing and a whole bunch of shit that doesn't work seemed appealing, I've decided to go the surgery route. Friday June 2nd I'll be going in for surgery to relocate the ulnar nerve in my left elbow. It's an outpatient procedure, so I'll be home that day, and I'm only missing a week/week and a half of work, so it's nothing like the neck surgery from last year. But I'll be without the use of my left arm for a good 6 weeks. The doctor says I should be able to type after a few weeks, but the arm will be in a splint, so I'm not sure exactly how that will go. It's a damn good thing I'm right handed, or I would probably force myself to week-long sessions of Razz to end the pain. So anyway...
Today, Manifestites, I'll be venturing back into the poker world to share with you a tale of donkey play, donkey poker theory, and donkey tilt, all in its finest forms. Apologies for the lengthy introduction, but I do have to consider my non-poker playing readers here.
One of the larger problems with online poker tournaments today is the problem of stalling near the bubble. (For non-poker people, the bubble is the area between people who don't get paid and people who do. Let's say the tournament has 1000 people in it. In a typical payout structure, the top 100 people get paid. The bubble is considered the spots just shy of 100.) Now, most tournaments have a top-heavy payout structure, where the "real" money is in the top 3 spots. Typically the spots at the lower rungs of the payout ladder are just over the buyin of the tourney, or maybe double the buyin. This seems ok, but when the difference between 100th and 1st could be thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars, it seems silly to be content on "making the money."
Yet there are some poor, pathetic, wretched souls out there who are just that, content on making the money. They look at cashing in a tournament as a big accomplishment, and feel that once they've made the money, anything after that is just an added bonus. The problem is, in the long run, their passive play near the bubble is a losing battle, and without many trips well within the money ranges, they tend to lose money overall playing tournaments.
Then there are the stallers. These people are worse. Once it nears the bubble, these complete wastes of human space decide that instead of playing and trying to accumulate chips, they will take all of their time allotted and hope other people go out before they do, so they can sneak into the money. These people have very little actual poker skills, so they rely on the play of others to help them by. Pathetic, really. While this may work for them from time to time, what it really does is screw up the tournament for the players who are in it to actually play and make the final table, and are aiming at the big prize. Because these idiots stall every hand, the number of hands played per round go down drastically, and it puts everyone at a disadvantage. But, these stalling fuckwits don't care. They are in it for their fame and fortune, that $20 prize that says "I worked hard to earn this."
Now that we have the history behind stalling down, let's revisit last night's festivities. The scenario: a $33 tourney on UltimateBet with 399 entrants, and the top 40 spots paying. The payouts started at $68.75 for 40th place, and slowly increased to the final table, where payouts then ballooned up to the $3200 first prize. There were about 60 players left, and then it happened. The donkey staller showed up. With blinds at 150/300, he had 4800 chips, well within the ranges available to play and try to win some chips to get fairly far in the tourney. He wasn't a big stack, but he certainly wasn't short stacked either. Then he started stalling. Every single turn. He took up all of his time, every turn. A few of us made comments to try and get him to play instead of stall, especially this far out of the money, but he insisted on stalling, and from his chat comments, he seemed proud to do so. This lasted about 15 minutes until our table broke and he moved away. I wished him well, and he moved. (I think my actual words were "I hope you rot, staller.")
A few minutes later I was curious to see how the donkey staller was doing, so I opened his table. Sure enough, he's taking up all of his time every turn. The table was going nuts on him, even as far as to tell him that he wouldn't make it and had to play. He ignored them, and even fired back some asinine comments regarding the fact that he was going to play how he wanted, and his style was stalling. Fast forward a bit...this donkey has folded every hand, and blinded himself down from 4800 chips. Finally, with 41 people left (remember, 40 get paid, 41st gets nothing), he was forced all-in on the big blind, and lost the hand, finishing in 41st place the table erupted, and I joined in with a few lines of "hahahahahahahahahahahaha" and the bubble burst.
The story doesn't end here though, folks. Curious as to the level of tilt this guy would be on, I added him to my buddy list. Sure enough, a few seconds later he shows up at a $1/$2 NL holdem table, with the awe-inspiring amount of $43, surely his last money on the site (these tables have a max buyin of $200). I felt the need, no, I felt it was my duty to both wish him well and make fun of him. So I jumped on the table, told him what a well played 41st place finish he had, and informed the table of the situation and that he was playing with scared money and would surely lose all of it.
Then I went back to the tourney, where I was in a bit of a predicament myself. I look at his table from time to time, and he seems to be holding his own. Then it happens. I didn't actually see the hand, but I saw him all-in, and I saw the $150+ pot being pushed to his opponent. He sat there, with $0, and obviously no way to reload. This is where it gets good.
Fast forward .00000000003 seconds, when I see this on my tourney window:
stantheman00 (obs) says "x your ax your a *** hox your a ax is A "
XaQ Morphy says "uhhh what?"
Wanting to pour more salt into the wound, cause you know, I'm that likeable kinda guy, I added:
XaQ Morphy says "congrats on 41st stan, well played"
We pause for what's most likely 2 minutes of breaking something:
stantheman00 (obs) says "TY JERK"
XaQ Morphy says "anytime"
So I knew I had something going here, and felt I could string it along a bit. I was mostly unsuccessful:
XaQ Morphy says "what language was that anyway?"
XaQ Morphy says "dumbassese?"
stantheman00 (obs) says "YOURS"
With one last ditch effort, I tried:
XaQ Morphy says "stan, reload"
XaQ Morphy says "lol"
But to no avail. Stan obviously went off to break stuff. I hope he has good insurance! Until next time, which may be a few weeks, unless the one armed Morphy wishes to make an attempt at typing...
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Today, Manifestites, I'll be venturing back into the poker world to share with you a tale of donkey play, donkey poker theory, and donkey tilt, all in its finest forms. Apologies for the lengthy introduction, but I do have to consider my non-poker playing readers here.
One of the larger problems with online poker tournaments today is the problem of stalling near the bubble. (For non-poker people, the bubble is the area between people who don't get paid and people who do. Let's say the tournament has 1000 people in it. In a typical payout structure, the top 100 people get paid. The bubble is considered the spots just shy of 100.) Now, most tournaments have a top-heavy payout structure, where the "real" money is in the top 3 spots. Typically the spots at the lower rungs of the payout ladder are just over the buyin of the tourney, or maybe double the buyin. This seems ok, but when the difference between 100th and 1st could be thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars, it seems silly to be content on "making the money."
Yet there are some poor, pathetic, wretched souls out there who are just that, content on making the money. They look at cashing in a tournament as a big accomplishment, and feel that once they've made the money, anything after that is just an added bonus. The problem is, in the long run, their passive play near the bubble is a losing battle, and without many trips well within the money ranges, they tend to lose money overall playing tournaments.
Then there are the stallers. These people are worse. Once it nears the bubble, these complete wastes of human space decide that instead of playing and trying to accumulate chips, they will take all of their time allotted and hope other people go out before they do, so they can sneak into the money. These people have very little actual poker skills, so they rely on the play of others to help them by. Pathetic, really. While this may work for them from time to time, what it really does is screw up the tournament for the players who are in it to actually play and make the final table, and are aiming at the big prize. Because these idiots stall every hand, the number of hands played per round go down drastically, and it puts everyone at a disadvantage. But, these stalling fuckwits don't care. They are in it for their fame and fortune, that $20 prize that says "I worked hard to earn this."
Now that we have the history behind stalling down, let's revisit last night's festivities. The scenario: a $33 tourney on UltimateBet with 399 entrants, and the top 40 spots paying. The payouts started at $68.75 for 40th place, and slowly increased to the final table, where payouts then ballooned up to the $3200 first prize. There were about 60 players left, and then it happened. The donkey staller showed up. With blinds at 150/300, he had 4800 chips, well within the ranges available to play and try to win some chips to get fairly far in the tourney. He wasn't a big stack, but he certainly wasn't short stacked either. Then he started stalling. Every single turn. He took up all of his time, every turn. A few of us made comments to try and get him to play instead of stall, especially this far out of the money, but he insisted on stalling, and from his chat comments, he seemed proud to do so. This lasted about 15 minutes until our table broke and he moved away. I wished him well, and he moved. (I think my actual words were "I hope you rot, staller.")
A few minutes later I was curious to see how the donkey staller was doing, so I opened his table. Sure enough, he's taking up all of his time every turn. The table was going nuts on him, even as far as to tell him that he wouldn't make it and had to play. He ignored them, and even fired back some asinine comments regarding the fact that he was going to play how he wanted, and his style was stalling. Fast forward a bit...this donkey has folded every hand, and blinded himself down from 4800 chips. Finally, with 41 people left (remember, 40 get paid, 41st gets nothing), he was forced all-in on the big blind, and lost the hand, finishing in 41st place the table erupted, and I joined in with a few lines of "hahahahahahahahahahahaha" and the bubble burst.
The story doesn't end here though, folks. Curious as to the level of tilt this guy would be on, I added him to my buddy list. Sure enough, a few seconds later he shows up at a $1/$2 NL holdem table, with the awe-inspiring amount of $43, surely his last money on the site (these tables have a max buyin of $200). I felt the need, no, I felt it was my duty to both wish him well and make fun of him. So I jumped on the table, told him what a well played 41st place finish he had, and informed the table of the situation and that he was playing with scared money and would surely lose all of it.
Then I went back to the tourney, where I was in a bit of a predicament myself. I look at his table from time to time, and he seems to be holding his own. Then it happens. I didn't actually see the hand, but I saw him all-in, and I saw the $150+ pot being pushed to his opponent. He sat there, with $0, and obviously no way to reload. This is where it gets good.
Fast forward .00000000003 seconds, when I see this on my tourney window:
stantheman00 (obs) says "x your ax your a *** hox your a ax is A "
XaQ Morphy says "uhhh what?"
Wanting to pour more salt into the wound, cause you know, I'm that likeable kinda guy, I added:
XaQ Morphy says "congrats on 41st stan, well played"
We pause for what's most likely 2 minutes of breaking something:
stantheman00 (obs) says "TY JERK"
XaQ Morphy says "anytime"
So I knew I had something going here, and felt I could string it along a bit. I was mostly unsuccessful:
XaQ Morphy says "what language was that anyway?"
XaQ Morphy says "dumbassese?"
stantheman00 (obs) says "YOURS"
With one last ditch effort, I tried:
XaQ Morphy says "stan, reload"
XaQ Morphy says "lol"
But to no avail. Stan obviously went off to break stuff. I hope he has good insurance! Until next time, which may be a few weeks, unless the one armed Morphy wishes to make an attempt at typing...
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Friday, May 26, 2006
DonkeyStars Brings Back Blogger Tourney
It's that time of year again. Time for all the bloggers of the world to come together and make fun of each other while playing poker. What could be better?
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!
This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.
Registration code: 7330476
Thursday, May 18, 2006
A Week in the Life of the Morphy Household
Hello Manifestites! Something strange has happened. Something very strange, indeed. In the past month, I haven't run into a single incident of donkishness that is worthy of gracing the Manifesto. Now, our motto here has always been quantity over quality, but I am serious when I say that nothing blog worthy has happened. So instead of letting the blog go without a post for what could be 2 months, I decided to give readers a re-cap of my week, so far.
Monday: Ahh, rain! Nothing like rain, for what seems like the last 2 weeks. Rainy and cold, beautiful! The highlight of my day was having an EMG/NCV test done. Readers may remember back in August when I had neck surgery to fuse together two vertebrae in my neck. Well, just before surgery I found out that I also had a problem in my left elbow. This was later diagnosed as cubital tunnel syndrome, which is a pinching of the nerve in the elbow. I've been in a lot of pain, have numbness in my hand and fingers, and can't do a lot of things, including playing my bass, which bums me out a lot.
This test is something else. I'm pretty sure out of medical school, those "special" students who seem to be overly interested in pain get to choose to either be a dentist, or perform these EMG/NCV tests. The EMG involves shoving needles into various muscles and wiggling them around/jamming them in and out while listening to the sounds the muscles make with special equipment. The NCV involved putting electrodes on my hand and measuring nerve responses by repeatedly shocking various parts of my arm. Yes, that feels exactly like it sounds. The EMG doctor says that my test results should get to my arm doctor maybe Wednesday, Thursday for sure.
Tuesday: I woke up, and couldn't move my arm or any of my fingers. This was interesting. I popped a few muscle relaxers and woke up sometime later that day. I don't remember much else. I do remember getting a phone call from the doctor's office. The test results were in and they want to see me right away. That can't be good. I set an appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
Wednesday: Guy at work calls a conference call late Tuesday and updates it 3 times for no apparent reason. Sets it for 8am and tells everyone to make sure they attend. He never showed up. Sets up the next conference call for the end of the day Wednesday, after most of the key players are already gone for the day. Doesn't reschedule it.
Later Wednesday Mrs. Morphy calls me. The soon to be 3 year old got into one of those inkjet cartridge refill kits after waking up for her nap. We expect her hands to be various shades of black, blue and red for the next 12 years or so. GG (that's good game, for those non poker players out there) carpet. GG clothing. It also happened at my mother in law's house, and she just got out of the hospital from a major operation, so I'm sure the added stress was just what she was looking for. Mrs. Morphy's elbow is blue.
Doctor's appointment: I have some neat options to consider. I could do nothing, do some more nothing, wear a splint that doesn't help, do nothing, take some meds that don't do anything, do nothing, or have surgery. The surgery involves a 6 inch incision on the inside of my arm. They then relocate the nerve underneath the muscle that they have to basically filet, and I should expect a 12 week recovery time. Yay!
Thursday: 36 oz. of Mountain Dew and some pain killers. Most of the day goes by without me really having any idea of what is going on around me. I get some stuff done at work and people thank me for it, so I think I did it right at least. There's 11 candy bar wrappers in my garbage, and all my change is missing. I'm hungry.
Mrs. Morphy calls me. After her nap, the little monster, I mean, my youngest, adorable daughter, gets into a few tubes of glitter glue. GG bedspread. On a positive note, glitter glue seems to partially remove ink from hands and arms.
I get home and Mrs. Morphy has a Mike's Hard Lemonade in her hand. Now, for those who don't know us, I'm allergic to alcohol, and as sort of a result of that, Mrs. Morphy usually doesn't drink a lot. I think she's had this case of Mike's for nearly 6 months. I know something is up. Demanda, I mean, Amanda, got into baby powder. The living room is white, and there's a cloud moving around the house. I’m waiting for lightning, although I still can't imagine that being as painful as a direct shock to the nerve in my left arm!
Tonight, as I write this, the 6 year old and her younger sister are holding hands and running around in circles in the living room...with their eyes closed. GG "gifted" children.
So this is my week so far. I would wait until after the weekend is over to post this, but there's a good chance that at least this many things will happen between now and Monday to warrant another journal. I apologize for no donkey stories, but maybe some of this will make up for it.
Oh...did I mention we have a stick of butter missing? I should go.
Until next time!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Monday: Ahh, rain! Nothing like rain, for what seems like the last 2 weeks. Rainy and cold, beautiful! The highlight of my day was having an EMG/NCV test done. Readers may remember back in August when I had neck surgery to fuse together two vertebrae in my neck. Well, just before surgery I found out that I also had a problem in my left elbow. This was later diagnosed as cubital tunnel syndrome, which is a pinching of the nerve in the elbow. I've been in a lot of pain, have numbness in my hand and fingers, and can't do a lot of things, including playing my bass, which bums me out a lot.
This test is something else. I'm pretty sure out of medical school, those "special" students who seem to be overly interested in pain get to choose to either be a dentist, or perform these EMG/NCV tests. The EMG involves shoving needles into various muscles and wiggling them around/jamming them in and out while listening to the sounds the muscles make with special equipment. The NCV involved putting electrodes on my hand and measuring nerve responses by repeatedly shocking various parts of my arm. Yes, that feels exactly like it sounds. The EMG doctor says that my test results should get to my arm doctor maybe Wednesday, Thursday for sure.
Tuesday: I woke up, and couldn't move my arm or any of my fingers. This was interesting. I popped a few muscle relaxers and woke up sometime later that day. I don't remember much else. I do remember getting a phone call from the doctor's office. The test results were in and they want to see me right away. That can't be good. I set an appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
Wednesday: Guy at work calls a conference call late Tuesday and updates it 3 times for no apparent reason. Sets it for 8am and tells everyone to make sure they attend. He never showed up. Sets up the next conference call for the end of the day Wednesday, after most of the key players are already gone for the day. Doesn't reschedule it.
Later Wednesday Mrs. Morphy calls me. The soon to be 3 year old got into one of those inkjet cartridge refill kits after waking up for her nap. We expect her hands to be various shades of black, blue and red for the next 12 years or so. GG (that's good game, for those non poker players out there) carpet. GG clothing. It also happened at my mother in law's house, and she just got out of the hospital from a major operation, so I'm sure the added stress was just what she was looking for. Mrs. Morphy's elbow is blue.
Doctor's appointment: I have some neat options to consider. I could do nothing, do some more nothing, wear a splint that doesn't help, do nothing, take some meds that don't do anything, do nothing, or have surgery. The surgery involves a 6 inch incision on the inside of my arm. They then relocate the nerve underneath the muscle that they have to basically filet, and I should expect a 12 week recovery time. Yay!
Thursday: 36 oz. of Mountain Dew and some pain killers. Most of the day goes by without me really having any idea of what is going on around me. I get some stuff done at work and people thank me for it, so I think I did it right at least. There's 11 candy bar wrappers in my garbage, and all my change is missing. I'm hungry.
Mrs. Morphy calls me. After her nap, the little monster, I mean, my youngest, adorable daughter, gets into a few tubes of glitter glue. GG bedspread. On a positive note, glitter glue seems to partially remove ink from hands and arms.
I get home and Mrs. Morphy has a Mike's Hard Lemonade in her hand. Now, for those who don't know us, I'm allergic to alcohol, and as sort of a result of that, Mrs. Morphy usually doesn't drink a lot. I think she's had this case of Mike's for nearly 6 months. I know something is up. Demanda, I mean, Amanda, got into baby powder. The living room is white, and there's a cloud moving around the house. I’m waiting for lightning, although I still can't imagine that being as painful as a direct shock to the nerve in my left arm!
Tonight, as I write this, the 6 year old and her younger sister are holding hands and running around in circles in the living room...with their eyes closed. GG "gifted" children.
So this is my week so far. I would wait until after the weekend is over to post this, but there's a good chance that at least this many things will happen between now and Monday to warrant another journal. I apologize for no donkey stories, but maybe some of this will make up for it.
Oh...did I mention we have a stick of butter missing? I should go.
Until next time!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Put Down the Thesaurus, and Slowly Back Away!
Good day, fellow Manifestites. I hope all is well out there in donkey land. Today I bring you a follow up to a post from a few weeks ago.
You may remember the post about JetSet Poker, and their defective $20 comp that was given to me. This post can be found here. In the post I mentioned Andrew, JetSet's director, a few times. In the past I've dealt with Andrew, and anyone who has talked to him knows that he's a stand-up guy and gets things done. Well, Andrew sent me what was possibly the best email I've ever received. I'll leave the email below, in its entirety, for your reading pleasure. I'm Adam, by the way.
Hello Adam,
Thank you very much for your recent spate of messages and in that context I had the opportunity to review your presentation of the said emails at your site.
At the outset please accept my apologies for the possible non sequiturs that are readily apparent in the aforementioned email exchange. Notwithstanding their intent to provide support I agree with your sentiments that the transfer of information was at times potentially disjointed and fragmented. I would however be performing a disservice to our support personnel if not to highlight that they are wholly committed to delivering preeminent service to all members and providing a destination site where members may enjoy their favorite card games and tournaments with the surety that we are here to buttress the integrity of the site. There are invariably isolated instances where an inconsistency or an imprecise response may be provided during which the standard of due care could be adversely impacted. Nonetheless, beyond this "first line" of defense of live 24/7 onsite and email support is a supervisory staff that is also unwaveringly dedicated to ensuring issues such as these do not languish without the proper escalation and stewardship.
In response to your overarching query, while at a previous date we may aver your participation in an Affiliate Program, this has lapsed and, as per your request, we have confirmed no extant 'link' to an Affiliate. It was, as you correctly alluded, the responsibility of the support staff to ensure with great expediency that your inquiry was initially met and addressed. This however did not transpire and necessitated an additional email. Rest assured that I have spoken with the support staff member(s) in question to reaffirm their understanding in providing the correct and prudent reply with no ambiguity thus obviating any potentialities for miscommunication.
I have also had the opportunity to review your claim of defective comps. In this regard you will have to accept my apologies on behalf of Darren for his literal interpretation of defective. In all candor Adam I am as equally surprised as yourself that this USD20.00 did not perform up to standards. When I mentioned this to John Sutton, JetSetPoker Card Room Manager, he raised his eyebrows and stated unequivocally that there is no 'lemon law' per se at JSP. Clearly, we will have to put this non-performance of comps back on the drawing board for our technical staff to revisit. Once again you have my personal gratitude for highlighting the shortcomings of comps along with their lackluster performance for discriminating members such as yourself.
I hope this message finds you well Adam and please do not hesitate to reach me at your leisure.
Best regards,
Andrew Smith
JetSetPoker Director
support@jetsetpoker.com
Awesome, just awesome. I've never been one to really recommend a site to the general public, and I'm not an affiliate in any way, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend JetSet to anyone that asked. They have a pretty good interface, good game selection, and horrible players. What more could you ask for?
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
You may remember the post about JetSet Poker, and their defective $20 comp that was given to me. This post can be found here. In the post I mentioned Andrew, JetSet's director, a few times. In the past I've dealt with Andrew, and anyone who has talked to him knows that he's a stand-up guy and gets things done. Well, Andrew sent me what was possibly the best email I've ever received. I'll leave the email below, in its entirety, for your reading pleasure. I'm Adam, by the way.
Hello Adam,
Thank you very much for your recent spate of messages and in that context I had the opportunity to review your presentation of the said emails at your site.
At the outset please accept my apologies for the possible non sequiturs that are readily apparent in the aforementioned email exchange. Notwithstanding their intent to provide support I agree with your sentiments that the transfer of information was at times potentially disjointed and fragmented. I would however be performing a disservice to our support personnel if not to highlight that they are wholly committed to delivering preeminent service to all members and providing a destination site where members may enjoy their favorite card games and tournaments with the surety that we are here to buttress the integrity of the site. There are invariably isolated instances where an inconsistency or an imprecise response may be provided during which the standard of due care could be adversely impacted. Nonetheless, beyond this "first line" of defense of live 24/7 onsite and email support is a supervisory staff that is also unwaveringly dedicated to ensuring issues such as these do not languish without the proper escalation and stewardship.
In response to your overarching query, while at a previous date we may aver your participation in an Affiliate Program, this has lapsed and, as per your request, we have confirmed no extant 'link' to an Affiliate. It was, as you correctly alluded, the responsibility of the support staff to ensure with great expediency that your inquiry was initially met and addressed. This however did not transpire and necessitated an additional email. Rest assured that I have spoken with the support staff member(s) in question to reaffirm their understanding in providing the correct and prudent reply with no ambiguity thus obviating any potentialities for miscommunication.
I have also had the opportunity to review your claim of defective comps. In this regard you will have to accept my apologies on behalf of Darren for his literal interpretation of defective. In all candor Adam I am as equally surprised as yourself that this USD20.00 did not perform up to standards. When I mentioned this to John Sutton, JetSetPoker Card Room Manager, he raised his eyebrows and stated unequivocally that there is no 'lemon law' per se at JSP. Clearly, we will have to put this non-performance of comps back on the drawing board for our technical staff to revisit. Once again you have my personal gratitude for highlighting the shortcomings of comps along with their lackluster performance for discriminating members such as yourself.
I hope this message finds you well Adam and please do not hesitate to reach me at your leisure.
Best regards,
Andrew Smith
JetSetPoker Director
support@jetsetpoker.com
Awesome, just awesome. I've never been one to really recommend a site to the general public, and I'm not an affiliate in any way, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend JetSet to anyone that asked. They have a pretty good interface, good game selection, and horrible players. What more could you ask for?
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Donkey Manifesto Hits It Big Time!!!
Hello Manifestites, I have incredible news to announce. The Manifesto has just struck a HUGE marketing, promotion, and publication deal that will see it syndicated to over 300 publications worldwide! I received the call this morning, and almost think it's some sort of dream.
I can't go into too many details yet, but we signed the deal and it went official today. United Feature Syndicate, Inc. as well as Random House and Macmillan Publishing are working together with our agents to get the Manifesto content to as many web sites, magazines, books, and publications as possible, worldwide. In addition, we are working with Sprint to unleash new technology that can bring Manifesto stories right to your cell-phone, as well as downloadable ring tones.
I can't tell you how excited this makes me. This is like a dream come true. I want to thank everyone who has stood by my side through the good times and bad, and to everyone that has taken the time to read one of our posts. Without you, this would not be possible!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
I can't go into too many details yet, but we signed the deal and it went official today. United Feature Syndicate, Inc. as well as Random House and Macmillan Publishing are working together with our agents to get the Manifesto content to as many web sites, magazines, books, and publications as possible, worldwide. In addition, we are working with Sprint to unleash new technology that can bring Manifesto stories right to your cell-phone, as well as downloadable ring tones.
I can't tell you how excited this makes me. This is like a dream come true. I want to thank everyone who has stood by my side through the good times and bad, and to everyone that has taken the time to read one of our posts. Without you, this would not be possible!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Friday, March 24, 2006
Donkfiliates and DonkSet Poker
Hello again fellow Manifestites, and welcome to today's blog entry. It's been a while since I've had a really good customer service type story, so this one fits in perfectly.
Last year I wrote about a short rakeback/prop player deal I had with JetSet Poker. You can read about it here. Well, a few times here and there I've been back on the site for one reason or another. The site has a pretty nice interface, as long as you turn off the character avatars. But, the real thing that gets me is the players. Overall, the players are horrible. That alone would be fine, since as a poker player, you really want to play against players worse than yourself. But the thing is, the type of player on this site just drives me nuts. It's like I'm back in the late 80's in high school, and the entire yearbook committee has taken over. It drives me nuts, so I'm constantly banging my head against the wall if I do play there, but when I'm not, I hear about how bad the players are, and how the site is a gold mine. On top of that, a few friends of mine are playing the larger tournaments there, and I like to stop in and say hi once and a while, and take note of some of the hands they play so I can ask them about them/discuss them/all out make fun of them for it later on.
Note that I haven't received any sort of correspondence from the affiliate that was supposedly handling my rakeback for over a year. I figured after what happened previously that he was no longer an affiliate with JetSet, and since I hadn't received any sort of rakeback payment since July 2005, he was either pocketing the money and not telling anyone (which is what he did originally), or he vanished.
Here's where our story begins. A few weeks ago I was on the site watching a friend play, and I noticed that my chat wasn't working. I wasn't receiving an error of any kind, but no matter what I typed, nothing appeared in the chat box. I found this odd. After talking with another friend who has played quite a bit there, I found out that he had the same issue, and had to work with their technical support because it was some technical issue on their end. I didn't receive any sort of communication telling me my chat was blocked, and I really don't remember any incidents that would have put my chat status in question. So here's where the emails start. Hang on, this may be a bumpy ride!
Hi, any reason why I can't chat on the tables? Thanks,
Morphy
Seems like a basic, straight forward question, right?
Dear XaQ Morphy,
We apologize for any inconvenience, but all account-related inquiries of this nature must be directed towards your affiliate manager. Please contact your affiliate manager for more information.
Please let us know if we may be of any further assistance.
Best Regards,
Pierre
JetSetPoker Support Team
Apparently no one remembers this problem when it happened to my friend previously. I also have no contact information at all for this so-called affiliate manager, so now what? Let's try another email:
Hi, I don't even know who my affiliate manager is, since I haven't had conversations with him for well over a year. Are you telling me that you are unable to answer a question such as this? It seemed like a pretty straight-forward question. Thanks,
Morphy
Dear XaQ Morphy,
We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused you. Unfortunately, we do not have your affiliate manager's contact information.
Please let us know if we may be of any further assistance.
Best Regards,
Pierre
JetSetPoker Support Team
Ummm, ok. We seem to have gotten side tracked here. I'm not looking for my affiliate manager's contact information. I want someone to do something about my chat here. The thing is, I must have been in a lousy mood based on the tone of my email. Note that Andrew is a support person that I've worked with in the past when this whole affiliate mess started. He is a senior level support person or the support manager (I'm not sure which.) He's a stand-up guy, and I'm sure if he read the first email, he wouldn't have just brushed me off the way Pierre did. I figured screw it, who needs this site anyway, so I sent this:
Dear JetSet "support" person,
Please delete my account. If you're not willing to answer a simple question, I have no interest in playing there, and if I can't chat, I have no interest in supporting friends that play there either. Please pass a note onto Andrew notifying him of your unwillingness to help out a customer of your site.
Morphy
So I didn't hear anything for a few days. I figured things had resolved themselves. Out of curiosity, I logged in, and sure enough, my account is still there and active. I also still don't have chat capabilities. I ignore it, but then this email comes in. It's like they are just asking for me to blog them, aren't they?
Dear XaQ Morphy,
JSPAdminAndrew has asked me to follow up with you directly with regards to your chat capabilities.
In light of your valued patronage, I have contacted your affiliate manager and he has authorized the return of you chat capabilities.
However, please note that as your account is associated with an affiliate program, all future account related request will need to be processed via your affiliate manager.
Please note that your affiliate manager is the person who remits your Affiliate Fees.
Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.
Best Regards,
Toby
JetSetPoker Support Management
Wow, so Andrew did get involved, and did exactly what I thought he would...fix the problem in a few minutes, and that's that. So here I am, staring at this message, and there are 2 obvious "open issues." 1) Why did I lose my chat in the first place, and 2) What is the deal with all this affiliate manager crap? It's times like these that separate the true donkey bloggers from all of the wanna-be's. I had a tough choice to make. Which road to choose, which path to follow? As a side-bar, I will say that up until this point, I have been impressed with the customer service provided by JetSet. Andrew has shown both me and others I've conversed with that he is willing to go out of his way to make his customers happy. I'm almost sorry for not ending the email thread here. But, apologies aren't funny, and what happens next is. So here we go:
Ok, I understand that my affiliate manager is supposed to deal with these issues. However, as I stated earlier, I have no clue who this person is or how to get a hold of him. Because I haven't received any sort of affiliate fees in quite some time, and because others who signed up through him haven't as well, we assumed that he is no longer an affiliate manager with JetSet. If he is, he has been withholding fees for the last 9 months or so. Is there any way to either remove him from my account, or to delete my existing account and have me create a new one, without the restrictions of an affiliate manager that is non-existent?
Thanks,
Morphy
Basically, I'm asking them to remove my link to the affiliate account. Why? Well, if this scum-bag is still out there and collecting fees but not paying out the rakeback that is promised to me, I don't want to have anything to do with him. There's still a chance that I will play on the site in the future, and I don't want this guy scamming benefits off of me.
Dear XaQ Morphy,
Thank you once again for your prompt reply.
Our records indicate that the third party affiliate program you were a participant in is no longer active. As such we have removed you from that program and set your account to normal functionality including full chat privileges.
As a token of our appreciation for your patience during our review of this matter please accept a credit to your account in the amount of $20.00 with our compliments.
Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.
Best Regards,
Gaston
JetSetPoker Support Management
The fuck??? So we couldn't get this answer out of the first nitwit that replied to my first email? Or possibly the 2nd reply when I stated I had no clue who my affiliate person was? Game on now. I started to form my plan. Meanwhile, I had $20 on a site that I wasn't planning on depositing on. You know what that means? RAMPAGE!
Well, let's just say that a site like JetSet isn't the best site to try rampaging your money on. Players see flops. That's all they do. Preflop raises don't matter, semi-bluffs don't matter, the players don't have a clue what position or pot odds mean, so most of the tricks of the rampager are taken out. I was left with having to hit a hand and get paid off on it. Typically this works to get paid off in these types of games, but when you're completely card dead, and can't connect with a flop, you tend to bleed money. After about an hour of this, I couldn't take it anymore. I saw A3o call a 3 way allin in a $50 pot. I saw K2o call a pot bet on a flop of J73 and catch a K on the turn and 2 on the river to bust AK. I saw my low pocket pairs and trashy low suited cards see flops of AKQ, and my big cards see flops of 345. Finally I started moving in a bunch. I got called a few times and doubled up back to just over my original $20, but eventually it came to a halt when I couldn't get A7 to fold on a board of 7JQ82. Since I couldn't beat 3rd pair myself, my trip was over. Now, for my plan:
Hi, can you send me another $20? The one you just sent me was defective. Thanks!
Morphy
Dear Adam XaQ Morphy,
Thank you for responding to JetSetPoker Support again.
Unfortunately, we are unable to ascertain the exact purpose of your inquiry, specifically, what you mean by "The one you just sent me was defective."
Our records verify that $20.00 was placed into at exactly 15:27:47 EST, which you then brought onto Tucker Ave and unfortunately lost through roughly 85 minutes of competitive gameplay.
Please expand your original inquiry in more detail, or let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.
Best regards,
Darren
JetSetPoker Support Team
So, Darren and Mr. Clue haven't met yet. This reply got me rolling, especially when I realized I wasted 85 minutes of my life in what he calls "competitive gameplay" and what I call "a big waste of time." So I couldn't resist, and had to reply:
Hmmm, I'll have to check my records, but 85 minutes seems like an awful lot of time. I seem to remember playing for just less than an hour and a half.
As far as defective, it's easy. That $20 didn't really win any pots. I've played with $20 on many other sites, and because I was able to win with various other $20's, I have to conclude that the $20 you guys sent me was defective. Does JetSet have a 30 day refund, or exchange policy of any kind? I did enjoy taking that $20 out for a spin, and it handles the curves pretty well, but I think I'd like to look at a $20 in another color perhaps. Thanks!
Morphy
Unfortunately for my faithful readers, here is where the journey ends. Our friend Darren, realizing that there's no possible way he could reply to get himself out of this situation, chose to ignore my last email completely, and did not grace my email box, nor this post, with a reply.
So there it is. Another blog entry comes to an end. Stay tuned for the next time, where we...ummm, well, I don't have anything planned, so you'll just have to wait!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Last year I wrote about a short rakeback/prop player deal I had with JetSet Poker. You can read about it here. Well, a few times here and there I've been back on the site for one reason or another. The site has a pretty nice interface, as long as you turn off the character avatars. But, the real thing that gets me is the players. Overall, the players are horrible. That alone would be fine, since as a poker player, you really want to play against players worse than yourself. But the thing is, the type of player on this site just drives me nuts. It's like I'm back in the late 80's in high school, and the entire yearbook committee has taken over. It drives me nuts, so I'm constantly banging my head against the wall if I do play there, but when I'm not, I hear about how bad the players are, and how the site is a gold mine. On top of that, a few friends of mine are playing the larger tournaments there, and I like to stop in and say hi once and a while, and take note of some of the hands they play so I can ask them about them/discuss them/all out make fun of them for it later on.
Note that I haven't received any sort of correspondence from the affiliate that was supposedly handling my rakeback for over a year. I figured after what happened previously that he was no longer an affiliate with JetSet, and since I hadn't received any sort of rakeback payment since July 2005, he was either pocketing the money and not telling anyone (which is what he did originally), or he vanished.
Here's where our story begins. A few weeks ago I was on the site watching a friend play, and I noticed that my chat wasn't working. I wasn't receiving an error of any kind, but no matter what I typed, nothing appeared in the chat box. I found this odd. After talking with another friend who has played quite a bit there, I found out that he had the same issue, and had to work with their technical support because it was some technical issue on their end. I didn't receive any sort of communication telling me my chat was blocked, and I really don't remember any incidents that would have put my chat status in question. So here's where the emails start. Hang on, this may be a bumpy ride!
Hi, any reason why I can't chat on the tables? Thanks,
Morphy
Seems like a basic, straight forward question, right?
Dear XaQ Morphy,
We apologize for any inconvenience, but all account-related inquiries of this nature must be directed towards your affiliate manager. Please contact your affiliate manager for more information.
Please let us know if we may be of any further assistance.
Best Regards,
Pierre
JetSetPoker Support Team
Apparently no one remembers this problem when it happened to my friend previously. I also have no contact information at all for this so-called affiliate manager, so now what? Let's try another email:
Hi, I don't even know who my affiliate manager is, since I haven't had conversations with him for well over a year. Are you telling me that you are unable to answer a question such as this? It seemed like a pretty straight-forward question. Thanks,
Morphy
Dear XaQ Morphy,
We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused you. Unfortunately, we do not have your affiliate manager's contact information.
Please let us know if we may be of any further assistance.
Best Regards,
Pierre
JetSetPoker Support Team
Ummm, ok. We seem to have gotten side tracked here. I'm not looking for my affiliate manager's contact information. I want someone to do something about my chat here. The thing is, I must have been in a lousy mood based on the tone of my email. Note that Andrew is a support person that I've worked with in the past when this whole affiliate mess started. He is a senior level support person or the support manager (I'm not sure which.) He's a stand-up guy, and I'm sure if he read the first email, he wouldn't have just brushed me off the way Pierre did. I figured screw it, who needs this site anyway, so I sent this:
Dear JetSet "support" person,
Please delete my account. If you're not willing to answer a simple question, I have no interest in playing there, and if I can't chat, I have no interest in supporting friends that play there either. Please pass a note onto Andrew notifying him of your unwillingness to help out a customer of your site.
Morphy
So I didn't hear anything for a few days. I figured things had resolved themselves. Out of curiosity, I logged in, and sure enough, my account is still there and active. I also still don't have chat capabilities. I ignore it, but then this email comes in. It's like they are just asking for me to blog them, aren't they?
Dear XaQ Morphy,
JSPAdminAndrew has asked me to follow up with you directly with regards to your chat capabilities.
In light of your valued patronage, I have contacted your affiliate manager and he has authorized the return of you chat capabilities.
However, please note that as your account is associated with an affiliate program, all future account related request will need to be processed via your affiliate manager.
Please note that your affiliate manager is the person who remits your Affiliate Fees.
Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.
Best Regards,
Toby
JetSetPoker Support Management
Wow, so Andrew did get involved, and did exactly what I thought he would...fix the problem in a few minutes, and that's that. So here I am, staring at this message, and there are 2 obvious "open issues." 1) Why did I lose my chat in the first place, and 2) What is the deal with all this affiliate manager crap? It's times like these that separate the true donkey bloggers from all of the wanna-be's. I had a tough choice to make. Which road to choose, which path to follow? As a side-bar, I will say that up until this point, I have been impressed with the customer service provided by JetSet. Andrew has shown both me and others I've conversed with that he is willing to go out of his way to make his customers happy. I'm almost sorry for not ending the email thread here. But, apologies aren't funny, and what happens next is. So here we go:
Ok, I understand that my affiliate manager is supposed to deal with these issues. However, as I stated earlier, I have no clue who this person is or how to get a hold of him. Because I haven't received any sort of affiliate fees in quite some time, and because others who signed up through him haven't as well, we assumed that he is no longer an affiliate manager with JetSet. If he is, he has been withholding fees for the last 9 months or so. Is there any way to either remove him from my account, or to delete my existing account and have me create a new one, without the restrictions of an affiliate manager that is non-existent?
Thanks,
Morphy
Basically, I'm asking them to remove my link to the affiliate account. Why? Well, if this scum-bag is still out there and collecting fees but not paying out the rakeback that is promised to me, I don't want to have anything to do with him. There's still a chance that I will play on the site in the future, and I don't want this guy scamming benefits off of me.
Dear XaQ Morphy,
Thank you once again for your prompt reply.
Our records indicate that the third party affiliate program you were a participant in is no longer active. As such we have removed you from that program and set your account to normal functionality including full chat privileges.
As a token of our appreciation for your patience during our review of this matter please accept a credit to your account in the amount of $20.00 with our compliments.
Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.
Best Regards,
Gaston
JetSetPoker Support Management
The fuck??? So we couldn't get this answer out of the first nitwit that replied to my first email? Or possibly the 2nd reply when I stated I had no clue who my affiliate person was? Game on now. I started to form my plan. Meanwhile, I had $20 on a site that I wasn't planning on depositing on. You know what that means? RAMPAGE!
Well, let's just say that a site like JetSet isn't the best site to try rampaging your money on. Players see flops. That's all they do. Preflop raises don't matter, semi-bluffs don't matter, the players don't have a clue what position or pot odds mean, so most of the tricks of the rampager are taken out. I was left with having to hit a hand and get paid off on it. Typically this works to get paid off in these types of games, but when you're completely card dead, and can't connect with a flop, you tend to bleed money. After about an hour of this, I couldn't take it anymore. I saw A3o call a 3 way allin in a $50 pot. I saw K2o call a pot bet on a flop of J73 and catch a K on the turn and 2 on the river to bust AK. I saw my low pocket pairs and trashy low suited cards see flops of AKQ, and my big cards see flops of 345. Finally I started moving in a bunch. I got called a few times and doubled up back to just over my original $20, but eventually it came to a halt when I couldn't get A7 to fold on a board of 7JQ82. Since I couldn't beat 3rd pair myself, my trip was over. Now, for my plan:
Hi, can you send me another $20? The one you just sent me was defective. Thanks!
Morphy
Dear Adam XaQ Morphy,
Thank you for responding to JetSetPoker Support again.
Unfortunately, we are unable to ascertain the exact purpose of your inquiry, specifically, what you mean by "The one you just sent me was defective."
Our records verify that $20.00 was placed into at exactly 15:27:47 EST, which you then brought onto Tucker Ave and unfortunately lost through roughly 85 minutes of competitive gameplay.
Please expand your original inquiry in more detail, or let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.
Best regards,
Darren
JetSetPoker Support Team
So, Darren and Mr. Clue haven't met yet. This reply got me rolling, especially when I realized I wasted 85 minutes of my life in what he calls "competitive gameplay" and what I call "a big waste of time." So I couldn't resist, and had to reply:
Hmmm, I'll have to check my records, but 85 minutes seems like an awful lot of time. I seem to remember playing for just less than an hour and a half.
As far as defective, it's easy. That $20 didn't really win any pots. I've played with $20 on many other sites, and because I was able to win with various other $20's, I have to conclude that the $20 you guys sent me was defective. Does JetSet have a 30 day refund, or exchange policy of any kind? I did enjoy taking that $20 out for a spin, and it handles the curves pretty well, but I think I'd like to look at a $20 in another color perhaps. Thanks!
Morphy
Unfortunately for my faithful readers, here is where the journey ends. Our friend Darren, realizing that there's no possible way he could reply to get himself out of this situation, chose to ignore my last email completely, and did not grace my email box, nor this post, with a reply.
So there it is. Another blog entry comes to an end. Stay tuned for the next time, where we...ummm, well, I don't have anything planned, so you'll just have to wait!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Donkey Manifesto Interviews Lee Jones
Hello fellow Manifestites! This is it, the interview you've all been waiting for (or not, since I never mentioned who was going to be interviewed here) - the man behind the scenes, the one and only Lee Jones, PokerStars Poker Room Manager! In this interview, we touch on all of the subjects you, the viewers, want to see. The doom switch? It's here. Multiple accounts? It's here. Transsexual, one-legged midget tossing? Umm, no, that's not here. But the rest is here for your reading enjoyment.
Donkey Manifesto: We can read the bio on www.pokerstars.com, but tell us, in your own words, who IS Lee Jones?
Lee Jones: Who am I? Actually, two different guys. One is a poker-site-running adrenaline junkie. The other fellow is a family person who likes sitting around and playing his Scheerhorn resophonic guitar and his Wayne Henderson dreadnought six-string guitar. It gets crowded in here sometimes.
DM: How did you first get involved with PokerStars? Did you start out as the poker room manager, or did you have to clean the tables and deliver drinks and things to get your foot in the door?
LJ: I worked for PokerStars for three months before becoming the poker room manager. It gave me a chance to study with the veterans and learn from them before I took this role. Fortunately, I only had to bus tables for a week.
DM: Aside from your final table appearances at the big Sunday tournaments, what does the job of manager of an online poker room entail? Making sure that the server button is in the on position, plugging in loose cables...?
LJ: Actually, I have nothing to do with the hardware. They said something about slapping my hands if I got near the servers. I help with policy decisions, review escalations of customer issues, make posts to various poker forums, etc. My favorite bit of the job is talking to players via email, chatting at the table, and in person.
DM: Speaking of the Sunday tournaments, do you feel the blind structure/chip stacks allow for enough play? Many people feel it gets very crap-shooty towards the middle-late stages of the tourney. Are there plans to adjust the tourney structure, or is it good as is?
LJ: Actually, we just did a minor tweak to the tournament structure to address that - the early reviews are very positive. However...
[soapbox]
The PLAYERS are largely responsible for that dice throwing that's going on, and here's why: as the bubble starts to approach, they start stalling (a topic about which I just wrote in Card Player). And when they stall, guess what happens? They get fewer hands per level. When they get fewer hands per level, the blinds go up "faster". I've actually written a computer program to analyze the stack:blind ratios in our tournaments and to track how many hands get dealt at each level. The pre-bubble stalling is clearly a major component of the stack compression that you're seeing. No structure change is going to fix it as long as that clock-eating continues.
[/soapbox]
[DM Comment: This makes sense, but I'm not sure what can be done. A majority of the players in the Sunday tourneys satellite in, so the $350 or whatever prize for just making the money is a significant amount for them. The problem is, short of lowering the time bank/time allowed per move specifically during the bubble period, what else can be done?]
DM: Keeping on the topic of the Sunday tournaments, how long does it take you to come up with those witty remarks once people bust from the final table? Do you scope out the chip leaders a few tables out and start to come up with them? Or do you have a special software program that you can plug in online names and it spits out a witty one liner?
LJ: I have the sorted of twisted mind that thinks of those silly one-liners on the fly. Every once in a while I see one at the beginning of the final table and think "THERE'S a good one." The best one I ever did? Why, thank you for asking. It wasn't even when somebody busted out. I had shown up before the final table and so the railbirds were still chattering. One of them said, "Hey Lee - what's jennicide's home phone number?" Without dropping a beat, I replied: "Jennicide's home phone number is 867-5309." Sometimes I slay me :-).
[Morphy: First song I ever did in a band (I'm a bassist, for those who care). Boy does THAT bring back memories. The big question is: of the oodles of 16 year old fan-boys railing Jennicide, how many didn't get the reference and ran to their phones ?]
DM: What's your favorite salad dressing? Do you like croutons?
LJ: I'm actually not much of a salad dressing fan. I like 'em all, but in very small doses. It keeps the fat down and enhances the flavor of the salad. Not many people know this, but I lost about 35 pounds four years ago and have kept it off since. Salad dressing is not my friend. Croutons have to be fresh to be worth it. I make mine by getting French bread, chopping it into small pieces, dusting it with olive oil, basil, and garlic, and then baking in a 300-degree oven until crunchy. The resulting croutons go on the salad still warm. Yum.
DM: Of all the features on PokerStars, what are you proud of the most? What sets PokerStars above the rest of the sites?
LJ: The three best things about PokerStars:
1. The fundamental commitment to honesty and integrity. Nothing surpasses that.
2. The customer service. When we get new people into PokerStars, we often tell them, "Work hard to find a reason to say 'yes' to the customer." It's much more fun working for a company like that.
3. The software - our software is the best in the business, and we think
*daily* about how to make it even better.
Of course, if you go back and look at that list, you realize it all comes down to the people. My colleagues, across the organization, are the nuts, pure and simple.
[DM Comment: No, the word "the" was not added in as a post-interview edit.]
DM: Many people have talked about Stars and other sites having a so-called "doom switch." Can you tell us more about this? Is it really a switch, or is it more of a button? Along those lines, do you have a special "doom phone" that rings every time a particular player logs on so that you can run and put your "doom suit" on, slide down the "doom pole" go into the "doom control room" and flip the "doom switch" on?
LJ: Unfortunately, I can't even make jokes about this. I'd like to (and we routinely make the jokes ourselves during the staff tournaments). But it's kind of like joking about bombs in airports. There are too many people that really believe it, so I can't even make a joke about it for fear of that quote appearing, implying serious context, on pocketfives or whatever.
While I'm here, can I say something about the PokerStars staff tournaments? No - there is no prize. Not a good parking place for a month. Not a free pizza or anything else. It's our only chance to play on the site and it gives us a chance to put the same bad beats that we inflect on you folks daily.
[DM Comment: You mean people on the internet might read something meant as sarcasm and take it literally? No way! It's too bad the believers of the doom switch can't have an out of body experience to see how incredibly stupid they look.]
DM: I've heard PokerStars referred to as RiverStars several times while playing on the site. Is the PokerStars building located on a river of some sort, or other body of water?
LJ: What I love is playing on other sites (because of course I can't play on PokerStars). Whenever a whacky river card comes up, some genius will always say "That could *only* happen on *THIS* site." Yes, except for all the other ones. And furthermore, we don't deal any more whacky river cards than we deal turn cards. I never see us being called "Turnstars". Can you explain *that* to me?
[Morphy: Well, it's funny you mention that. Just the other night Muk and I were discussing the phenomenon that was quickly coined "The turn of a thousand draws." :)]
DM: Online poker can be a dark and evil place. There are a lot of idiots out there, and a lot of people looking to cheat the system in order to make money. With all of the possible cheating methods out there, could you tell me a little more about how Stars is going to prevent what many feel is the biggest problem the site faces; that is, people using ugly baby pictures as their avatars?
LJ: Well, I wasn't going to discuss this in today's interview, but because you asked... we have acquired some advanced pattern recognition software from the U.S. military. We are devoting a server to running this software full-time for the recognition and removal of ugly baby pictures. In fact, I have actually had conversations with Mike O'Malley at Party Poker about sharing the names of players who put ugly avatars on our site because we assume that anybody doing that is probably cheating in other, though less serious, ways as well.
[DM Comment: Have you also considered contacting www.darwinawards.com to see if something can be done before these people are allowed to breed again?]
DM: Recently Stars announced that 100,000 people were online simultaneously. Many people have speculated that the "poker boom" has reached its peak, but based on these numbers and the ever increasing numbers in the Sunday tourneys, it doesn't appear to be peaking anytime soon. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think online poker has reached its peak? What do you see as the typical online average number of players on PokerStars, say, 2 years from now?
LJ: According to my calculations, we will have every man, woman, and child on the planet playing at PokerStars within five years. We are already starting an affiliate program on Rigel 7.
[DM Comment: Sign up with PokerStars now and receive a free 10oz vial of space dust!]
DM: For a more controversial topic, obviously you're aware of the situation with JJProdigy, and more recently, the situation with ZeeJustin. Let's take Zee for example. One of the lesser-known theories is that Zee had multiple personalities, as well as imaginary friends. From what I understand, he is considering suing Party Poker because he feels that while having separate accounts for his multiple personalities might be bordering on illegal activity, there's no way Party should have closed the accounts of his imaginary friends. He's claiming pain and suffering damages due to their poor attitudes at his tea parties. Do you have any comments on this, or are you burned out on the topic of cheating?
LJ: Actually, I just finished reading "Sybil" - a legendary book about a woman who was diagnosed with sixteen separate personalities, two of whom were male (the story is true). It occurred to me that this would give a whole new meaning to the concept of "switching gears". Eventually (through hard work and psychotherapy) her 16 personalities were integrated back together. It made her happier, but probably cost her enormous poker EV.
DM: Right now you’re in Monte Carlo for the European Poker Tour event. Tell me about some of the places you’ve been able to visit while “on the job.” Do you have any stories you would like to share?
LJ: I've been very fortunate to see some wonderful and interesting places as part of my job with PokerStars. Unfortunately, I'm often parked in a ballroom that's been turned into a poker room. So perhaps I should say that I've been in ballrooms in some of the most exotic places in the world. However, it's a honor and a privilege working with the PokerStars staff at these events and the opportunity to put on the top quality tournaments we do is well worth the sacrifice of missing the beach or the Cirque du Soleil show.
Lee, we want to thank you for your time and effort to make this interview happen. Feel free to stop by and say hi when you can, and we hope that PokerStars continues to get better in every way for the poker community. Manifestites, until next time!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy and Muk
Donkey Manifesto: We can read the bio on www.pokerstars.com, but tell us, in your own words, who IS Lee Jones?
Lee Jones: Who am I? Actually, two different guys. One is a poker-site-running adrenaline junkie. The other fellow is a family person who likes sitting around and playing his Scheerhorn resophonic guitar and his Wayne Henderson dreadnought six-string guitar. It gets crowded in here sometimes.
DM: How did you first get involved with PokerStars? Did you start out as the poker room manager, or did you have to clean the tables and deliver drinks and things to get your foot in the door?
LJ: I worked for PokerStars for three months before becoming the poker room manager. It gave me a chance to study with the veterans and learn from them before I took this role. Fortunately, I only had to bus tables for a week.
DM: Aside from your final table appearances at the big Sunday tournaments, what does the job of manager of an online poker room entail? Making sure that the server button is in the on position, plugging in loose cables...?
LJ: Actually, I have nothing to do with the hardware. They said something about slapping my hands if I got near the servers. I help with policy decisions, review escalations of customer issues, make posts to various poker forums, etc. My favorite bit of the job is talking to players via email, chatting at the table, and in person.
DM: Speaking of the Sunday tournaments, do you feel the blind structure/chip stacks allow for enough play? Many people feel it gets very crap-shooty towards the middle-late stages of the tourney. Are there plans to adjust the tourney structure, or is it good as is?
LJ: Actually, we just did a minor tweak to the tournament structure to address that - the early reviews are very positive. However...
The PLAYERS are largely responsible for that dice throwing that's going on, and here's why: as the bubble starts to approach, they start stalling (a topic about which I just wrote in Card Player). And when they stall, guess what happens? They get fewer hands per level. When they get fewer hands per level, the blinds go up "faster". I've actually written a computer program to analyze the stack:blind ratios in our tournaments and to track how many hands get dealt at each level. The pre-bubble stalling is clearly a major component of the stack compression that you're seeing. No structure change is going to fix it as long as that clock-eating continues.
[DM Comment: This makes sense, but I'm not sure what can be done. A majority of the players in the Sunday tourneys satellite in, so the $350 or whatever prize for just making the money is a significant amount for them. The problem is, short of lowering the time bank/time allowed per move specifically during the bubble period, what else can be done?]
DM: Keeping on the topic of the Sunday tournaments, how long does it take you to come up with those witty remarks once people bust from the final table? Do you scope out the chip leaders a few tables out and start to come up with them? Or do you have a special software program that you can plug in online names and it spits out a witty one liner?
LJ: I have the sorted of twisted mind that thinks of those silly one-liners on the fly. Every once in a while I see one at the beginning of the final table and think "THERE'S a good one." The best one I ever did? Why, thank you for asking. It wasn't even when somebody busted out. I had shown up before the final table and so the railbirds were still chattering. One of them said, "Hey Lee - what's jennicide's home phone number?" Without dropping a beat, I replied: "Jennicide's home phone number is 867-5309." Sometimes I slay me :-).
[Morphy: First song I ever did in a band (I'm a bassist, for those who care). Boy does THAT bring back memories. The big question is: of the oodles of 16 year old fan-boys railing Jennicide, how many didn't get the reference and ran to their phones ?]
DM: What's your favorite salad dressing? Do you like croutons?
LJ: I'm actually not much of a salad dressing fan. I like 'em all, but in very small doses. It keeps the fat down and enhances the flavor of the salad. Not many people know this, but I lost about 35 pounds four years ago and have kept it off since. Salad dressing is not my friend. Croutons have to be fresh to be worth it. I make mine by getting French bread, chopping it into small pieces, dusting it with olive oil, basil, and garlic, and then baking in a 300-degree oven until crunchy. The resulting croutons go on the salad still warm. Yum.
DM: Of all the features on PokerStars, what are you proud of the most? What sets PokerStars above the rest of the sites?
LJ: The three best things about PokerStars:
1. The fundamental commitment to honesty and integrity. Nothing surpasses that.
2. The customer service. When we get new people into PokerStars, we often tell them, "Work hard to find a reason to say 'yes' to the customer." It's much more fun working for a company like that.
3. The software - our software is the best in the business, and we think
*daily* about how to make it even better.
Of course, if you go back and look at that list, you realize it all comes down to the people. My colleagues, across the organization, are the nuts, pure and simple.
[DM Comment: No, the word "the" was not added in as a post-interview edit.]
DM: Many people have talked about Stars and other sites having a so-called "doom switch." Can you tell us more about this? Is it really a switch, or is it more of a button? Along those lines, do you have a special "doom phone" that rings every time a particular player logs on so that you can run and put your "doom suit" on, slide down the "doom pole" go into the "doom control room" and flip the "doom switch" on?
LJ: Unfortunately, I can't even make jokes about this. I'd like to (and we routinely make the jokes ourselves during the staff tournaments). But it's kind of like joking about bombs in airports. There are too many people that really believe it, so I can't even make a joke about it for fear of that quote appearing, implying serious context, on pocketfives or whatever.
While I'm here, can I say something about the PokerStars staff tournaments? No - there is no prize. Not a good parking place for a month. Not a free pizza or anything else. It's our only chance to play on the site and it gives us a chance to put the same bad beats that we inflect on you folks daily.
[DM Comment: You mean people on the internet might read something meant as sarcasm and take it literally? No way! It's too bad the believers of the doom switch can't have an out of body experience to see how incredibly stupid they look.]
DM: I've heard PokerStars referred to as RiverStars several times while playing on the site. Is the PokerStars building located on a river of some sort, or other body of water?
LJ: What I love is playing on other sites (because of course I can't play on PokerStars). Whenever a whacky river card comes up, some genius will always say "That could *only* happen on *THIS* site." Yes, except for all the other ones. And furthermore, we don't deal any more whacky river cards than we deal turn cards. I never see us being called "Turnstars". Can you explain *that* to me?
[Morphy: Well, it's funny you mention that. Just the other night Muk and I were discussing the phenomenon that was quickly coined "The turn of a thousand draws." :)]
DM: Online poker can be a dark and evil place. There are a lot of idiots out there, and a lot of people looking to cheat the system in order to make money. With all of the possible cheating methods out there, could you tell me a little more about how Stars is going to prevent what many feel is the biggest problem the site faces; that is, people using ugly baby pictures as their avatars?
LJ: Well, I wasn't going to discuss this in today's interview, but because you asked... we have acquired some advanced pattern recognition software from the U.S. military. We are devoting a server to running this software full-time for the recognition and removal of ugly baby pictures. In fact, I have actually had conversations with Mike O'Malley at Party Poker about sharing the names of players who put ugly avatars on our site because we assume that anybody doing that is probably cheating in other, though less serious, ways as well.
[DM Comment: Have you also considered contacting www.darwinawards.com to see if something can be done before these people are allowed to breed again?]
DM: Recently Stars announced that 100,000 people were online simultaneously. Many people have speculated that the "poker boom" has reached its peak, but based on these numbers and the ever increasing numbers in the Sunday tourneys, it doesn't appear to be peaking anytime soon. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think online poker has reached its peak? What do you see as the typical online average number of players on PokerStars, say, 2 years from now?
LJ: According to my calculations, we will have every man, woman, and child on the planet playing at PokerStars within five years. We are already starting an affiliate program on Rigel 7.
[DM Comment: Sign up with PokerStars now and receive a free 10oz vial of space dust!]
DM: For a more controversial topic, obviously you're aware of the situation with JJProdigy, and more recently, the situation with ZeeJustin. Let's take Zee for example. One of the lesser-known theories is that Zee had multiple personalities, as well as imaginary friends. From what I understand, he is considering suing Party Poker because he feels that while having separate accounts for his multiple personalities might be bordering on illegal activity, there's no way Party should have closed the accounts of his imaginary friends. He's claiming pain and suffering damages due to their poor attitudes at his tea parties. Do you have any comments on this, or are you burned out on the topic of cheating?
LJ: Actually, I just finished reading "Sybil" - a legendary book about a woman who was diagnosed with sixteen separate personalities, two of whom were male (the story is true). It occurred to me that this would give a whole new meaning to the concept of "switching gears". Eventually (through hard work and psychotherapy) her 16 personalities were integrated back together. It made her happier, but probably cost her enormous poker EV.
DM: Right now you’re in Monte Carlo for the European Poker Tour event. Tell me about some of the places you’ve been able to visit while “on the job.” Do you have any stories you would like to share?
LJ: I've been very fortunate to see some wonderful and interesting places as part of my job with PokerStars. Unfortunately, I'm often parked in a ballroom that's been turned into a poker room. So perhaps I should say that I've been in ballrooms in some of the most exotic places in the world. However, it's a honor and a privilege working with the PokerStars staff at these events and the opportunity to put on the top quality tournaments we do is well worth the sacrifice of missing the beach or the Cirque du Soleil show.
Lee, we want to thank you for your time and effort to make this interview happen. Feel free to stop by and say hi when you can, and we hope that PokerStars continues to get better in every way for the poker community. Manifestites, until next time!
Yours Donkily,
Morphy and Muk
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