oldie but a goody

from James Taranto's Best of the Web Oct 31, 2000


President Clinton is mighty ticked off at Esquire magazine. Yesterday, you'll recall, we learned that he had given the magazine an embarrassing interview in which he demanded an apology from Republicans for impeaching him. Now he says the magazine betrayed his trust. "I was promised faithfully that that interview would be . . . released after the election," an irritated Clinton said yesterday. But there it was on the Internet, more than a week early. Can you believe it? They lied to him. Just flat-out lied! Is there no honor left in this country?
Mr. President, we can relate. Let us tell you what happened to us a few years ago. We hired a fellow to do an important job, and this guy was charming and gifted, but he had--how do we put this delicately?--a "character problem." Apparently his marriage was on the rocks, and he was always hitting on women at the office, in violation of our sexual-harassment policy. Anyway, to make a long story short, he ended up having an improper relationship with a very young woman on the staff, and when we caught him at it, he looked us in the eye, waved his finger and lied to us. It gets worse. There was also a lawsuit, and he lied in a deposition, and then he lied under oath to a grand jury that was conducting a criminal investigation. That's not only dishonest, it's against the law!
We seriously considered firing him but in the end decided just to let his contract expire. (And get this--now he wants us to give his wife a job!)
Don't get us wrong, Mr. President. We don't mean to suggest that our little experience with this problem employee was as serious as the perfidy you've suffered at the hands of Esquire magazine. All we're saying is, we feel your pain.

Another bad beat

So I was extremely short stacked, with maybe four hundred in chips (compared to everyone else sitting on 1500 plus,) and I was on tilt....

I catch a Q7 and the flop is K-Q-8....I raise and chase everyone out except for two players...another King on the turn, and I have two very high pair. I go all in, hoping to chase everyone out. I get one caller and the river comes a fifth heart for him.

clap...

I lose.

Another lesson brought to you by djobe....(you can make your 10 dollar check payable to "help the hold'em village idiot" fund)..

behind every good man...

there is a raving lunatic woman. (just kidding--not behind every good man)

What am I talking about? Well, I am glad you asked. Lance Armstrong has just won his 7th Tour de Gaul. (congratulations, you're the greatest cyclist the world has ever known, yadda yadda yadda.)
What are his next ambitions? Well it has been heavily leaked that he will become a politician. And with advisors like this, who could deny that he will be a force to reckoned with?
None other than Vietnam Vet (and part time Massachusetts Senator) John Kerry hopes to ride on Lance's coattails.

"Mr. Kerry says he would be thrilled if his friend entered politics -- "as long as he joins the right party." While Mr. Armstrong is friendly with President Bush, another avid cyclist, he is unlikely to join the GOP. Certainly, his girlfriend wouldn't approve. Ms. Crow has appeared on network television wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with "I DON'T BELIEVE IN YOUR WAR, MR. BUSH!"
While her views are at least clear, an Associated Press reporter who profiled her in 2003 found her reasoning a little, well, simplistic. "War is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow," she explained. "I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is not to have enemies." While Mr. Armstrong is probably a Democrat, here's hoping he doesn't rely on Ms. Crow for advice if he enters politics."
That last paragraph was from today's edition of John Fund's Political Diary available on opinionjournal.com by the Wall Street Journal.

Her reasoning is so precise, I can't believe no one else thought of it---we simply need to not have enemies....someone call the Pentagon.

Don't get me wrong, Sheryl Crow's music is not horrible, in small doses. But I think I will leave the foreign policy up to experts---like Blink 182.

Perception is 9/10ths of the law

At the risk of using this forum as my personal therapy session, I have required a lot of introspection and self evaluation recently.

News flash....I'm not perfect.

I wonder if anyone actually knows who you are? As humans we can't help but compartmentalize and generalize so as to create a pigeon hole to stuff people and things into...

If I know what you look like, what you do for a living, what you do for fun, I can make some fairly accurate assumptions about the type of person you are...I may be wrong, but that would be the exception to the rule.

medium pulp

Taking a break from finding Nicole's real killer, OJ Simpson spent the weekend playing golf with the Congressional Black Caucus and their spouses.

Democracy in action...

Simpson was mobbed by young staffers at the Sunday night gala at Dream nightclub, where gawkers were secretly debating whether he should be there at all. “I’m kind of embarrassed that I shook his hand,” said one aide to a black Member. Questioning herself, she added, “But he was acquitted.” Who the heck invited O. J. Simpson? No one wants to admit to it, apparently: "Vivian Bishop, wife of Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), organized the event as chairwoman of the CBC Spouses Organization. But she said neither she nor her group invited Simpson to participate and that other NFL players did so."

assuage your fears

I am not sure if I can assuage your fears, or if I prefer to massage them...but I am not a right wing nut job. (my shoulder angel says, "of course you are, just read some of the RNC crap you write.")

I only say this because a friend of mine www.smays.com has given me the odd compliment of, "you can't really think that way, your too smart and funny..." and while it is true that I am smart and funny (and handsome--but who's counting?---I'm pitching!) I really am passionate about something.
What was it that Rush Limbaugh told me? Oh yeah, I am passionate about Supreme Court Justices. (couldn't care less)

I will sleep through this whole Supreme Court nomination fight...who can get that excited about a very boring guy taking a very boring job doing very boring things?

To illustrate the fact that this is unimportant: a quiz----what are the names of the other 8 justices? Who was the most influential justice in the past 50 years? How many justices did GHWB appoint? Clinton? Reagan?
If you can answer any of these questions, you have too much time on your hands.

Would it matter if the court overturned Roe? NO!!! Why not? Because each state would then do it's own thing, (kind of like federalism was originally designed, so that New York can do what New York wants to do and Texas can do what Texas wants to do).

rich get richer...

A very cool discovery...my name was on the "unclaimed property registry" so I filled out a form and notarized it and blah blah blah....

Well the value was over 50 bucks so it wouldn't say what it was, but I called the office of the Sec of State who handles unclaimed property and they were able to confirm that I had somehow aquired 22 shares of Metlife stock. (I know how, I worked for metlife as a financial advisor for a short period of time in one of my former lives, basically long enough to get trained and licensed and make a couple of sales....)

Either way, its not every day that you find a penny on the ground. Apparently I just found 100,000 pennies.

Now everyone pound their fists in anger while shouting "tax cuts for the rich" as I contemplate liquidating my windfall and paying the capital gains tax (which is now lower, Thank you, Mr. President.)

I am just kidding, it's not that much money, but it is fun when it comes out of nowhere....

talking points

I just got my talking points from RNC chairmen Ken Mehlman about John Robert's nomination.

---qualified etc...
---judicial temperment blah blah....
---non-polarizing dfsdflkjl.....


Oh, and here is something strange, 2 years ago he was UNANIMOUSLY confirmed by the Senate. I wonder how many Democrats will suddenly discover the "troubling record" that they didn't notice two years ago? I am gonna guess around 40.

Texas Fold 'em

So as you can tell I am a poker junkie. I am not losing any serious money, but I pay 10 bucks a week in exchange for learning another painful lesson at the hands of my "friends."

The most recent lesson, you ask? If you are short stacked, and you catch an A8. Play it, if you flop a pair of Aces and you only have one caller....be careful. You are playing kicker...whoever has the highest second card is going to win. Statistically you both only have a couple of Aces and an 8 is in the middle and therefore worthless, so your 8 is going to get out-muscled by pretty much every card in the deck. Not to mention the fact that your opponent might get lucky and pair up his kicker...and then your screwed.

As I am very slow to learn, it is not the cards that you catch, it is the cards that your opponents catch that matter. You don't have to catch great hands, you just have to know when they are better than everyone elses.

Everyone who just read that owes me 10 bucks. (If I have to pay to learn these lessons, it seems like I should be able to recoup....)

for Jake

You are right, the Plame Kerfuffle is old news, and it is unsubstantiated crap. Turns out that the not only did Rove not do anything wrong, neither did Novak, and the two journalists that have been held in contempt are likely not revealing their sources because they have none.

The Identities Act that that Rove is suspected of violating is very specifically written that someone must out a non-official covert operative (NOC) with malicious intent using information that was gleaned from their exclusive government sources and the NOC must have been covert within the past 6 years. Turns out Valerie Wilson (Plame) has not been covert since 1997, and her own husband blew her cover in 1999.

The media knows this because in their amicus brief to the court regarding the two journalists being held in contempt, they contend that they cannot be held in contempt because no law has been broken.

Think about it, if Rove were guilty of something, the WH would be quietly distancing itself from him--just like Kerry distanced himself from Wilson (the man behind this whole thing)--and the Democrats would be celebrating their victory. Instead it is just the opposite. Bush can make declarative statements, like "no one in this administration violated any laws" because they can prove it.

It's completely disingenuous to rail against the war in Iraq, and then whenever the partisan media gets distracted by something shiny (like the possibility of eliminating Bush's closest advisor)----to complain about a lack of coverage in Iraq.

News is body counts, and the only news we will get out of Iraq is "IED kills 4 and wounds 17, but first lets go to Aruba to check in on the Holloway story." There were more than 2000 journalists in Aruba tracking down one missing person. There are less than 2000 journalists based in 4 of the 20+ provinces in Iraq. What get's covered in MSM is what will reach more people to sell more toothpaste and prescription erectile disfunction drugs, not necessarily what is most important.

WSOP

It wasn't exactly the world series of poker, but I played in a hold'em tourney at the Isle of Capri on Friday night. I went and there was a waiting list to get on a table so myself and a friend (allow myself to introduce, myself) sat down at a black jack table, I ended up winning enough to pay for my buy in so I put my name on the wait list.

It's 100 bones to sit down at the table, and there is a professional dealer, and a bunch of surly looking characters carefully measuring everyone up. You cannot start at the table with more than 300 but there were definately guys that had been there for quite a while and could smell the blood in the water...a couple dudes were really stacked up in chips, so you were pretty much sitting down in a desperate situation from the word go.

I was at the table for a maximum of 10 hands...I played maybe two of them, but the blinds were 2 and 5 and most everytime someone would bump up to 20 or 40 jsut to see the flop, so if you paid to see a flop you better have a strong starting hand. I was sitting at around 75 bucks when I caught a flush draw, I moved all in. Everyone dropped, reading me correctly for the flush. (I don't know if that is a compliment or not, but I was mouthing the word "flush" is that a tell?)
The guy to my immediate left calls, and we flip over. I had suited connector hearts...I think it was 8, and 9 and he had Jack and 3. There was a potential straight flush which was going to be the only way I could win....if I popped a heart on the river, he would beat me with a higher flush...My only out was I think a 6 of hearts, BIG UNDERDOG.


River card---------------------King of Hearts. I lose.

dislocated

So my oldest son pulled his younger brothers elbow out of socket yesterday, but he toughed it out.
I went with him to the Doc's office this morning and while I held him the Doc ran his arm through the range of motion until it popped back in, he said he could feel it pop into place.

That is the second time Cam's arm has come out of socket, once it was my fault and once it was his brothers. I feel pretty bad for the kid, cause you know it had to hurt like a son of a gun...

bleg

anyone have a particularly good or bad opinion of Dodge Durangoes?

As I am a championship pro-creator, holding three title belts including mid-heavy weight...I need a vehicle that has room for at least three car seats and a couple of adults and I can't imagine buying a minivan--by choice.

hope I am wrong

All the media coverage of the Plame/Wilson/Rove kerfuffle along with the incessant coverage of the Holloway in Aruba story reminds me of a couple years ago...
Does anyone remember Chandra Levy and Gary Condit? We had wall to wall coverage all summer of their alleged affair, and who she hung out with in high school, and what type of guy he is, etc....that was the summer of 2001.




Then something happened right after labor day that snapped everyone back to reality...

kevin

I get into these insane arguments with Kevin (he's a nice enough guy) and he uses one of my least favorite debating techniques, I'll try to describe it....

Instead of making an assertion of his beliefs and backing it with facts---he miscommunicates and misconstrues the other persons beliefs and then proceeds to attack them...so I find myself constantly backing away from statements that I haven't made.

It's similar to the "straw-man" fallacy where the debater sets up a an indefensible position that hasn't even been asserted, and then attacks it as beyond the pale, attributing it to the opposing person. The opposing person then is forced to explain away something that they haven't even espoused....

Regardless, you can always tell you have won a debate when someone refuses to answer simple questions. Ask simple, easy to answer questions that force the opposition to make your point for you. They will get flustered, try to change the subject, make wild accusations, etc.... I am not the best debater, (master-debater maybe) but I have found that it is the most satisfying way to make your point.

not so hidden agenda

John Podhoretz again said something on National Review Online "The Corner" and instead of linking to it and hoping you read it I will just quote it here...
"Here is Joseph Wilson himself, talking to Wolf Blitzer on CNN today: "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity." Read that again. Now reflect on the fact that there has been an ongoing investigation FOR TWO YEARS conducted, we were breathlessly and rather constantly told in the weeks surrounding the initial controversy, on the basis that the White House and reporters OUTED A CLANDESTINE AGENT. Now we know. She wasn't. Not then.
It is certainly possible, based on the poorly drafted wording of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, to take this fact and still somehow to discern a crime somewhere here. Which is what Wilson's defenders and the blood-in-the-water Democrats and Leftists are arguing and will continue to argue."

baseball sux

Anybody who cares one whit about this sport any longer is a sap -- a lovable sap, a sentimental sap, maybe. But a sap. Look at the facts. The records of the last decade were all drug-induced. The man who was supposedly the greatest player in the history of the game is now mysteriously injured forever -- probably because he can't get out of bed in terror of that grand jury indictment coming down the pike that will accuse him straightforwardly of being a cheater. And not even a pleasant cheater either. Meanwhile, now that nobody's taking the drugs any longer the league rankings and ratings have gone totally screwy, and basically, the biggest star in the majors is a 75 year-old loudmouth and one-time convicted felon who paid in excess of $200 million for a team that can barely tie its shoelaces without whining and kvetching and losing. Yeeech. Baseball stinks. So let A-Rod play for the Dominican Republic. At least in Latin American countries, the sport still means something. Here, it means ... skyboxes.Even thirty years ago, boxing was one of the three dominant sports, with the heavyweight champ being one of the two or three most famous people on earth. Now boxing is less popular than poker on television. Baseball is going that way too -- not for any of those old-timey reasons, like it's slow or good athletes are going into basketball or people like the violence of football. It's going south because a sport that seemed nearly impossible to fix turns out to have been fixed one person at a time, and that kind of corruption eats away at the essence of what it means to be a fan.

(I wish I could take credit for writing this, but alas, John Podhoretz did, today...but I agree)

kerfuffle

The whole Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, Karl Rove kerfuffle is really getting annoying...I am a hard core political junkie and I have a hard time explaining to anyone what the deal is and why it is being reported on so heavily...
A bomb blows up in London, killing many and wounding many in the first suicide attacks in their history, and the only thing that the press is concerned with is whether or not some former ambasador's wife was outed in a story 2 years ago as being a "covert"agent?
Is this news?

For Jake---I watched the all star home run derby (sort of) and it was good (sort of).

you smell

why is it that artists inevitably think they have cornered the market in self righteous introspection?
Is that part of art school? Do you take a couple of art classes and they teach you to stop shaving, showering, wearing clean clothes...then start rambling in a monotone whisper about "asking the big questions, man, and seeking answers from great experiences." That one must embrace the bohemian lifestyle in order to splash paint on a piece of canvas is one of the most insane truths of popular culture.

You cannot be a legitimate artist and simultaneously live in a boring, responsible fashion. (your paint splatters would be boring, duh!)

In fact here is a list of things you must do if you are to be an "artist."
1. stoned
2. dishevelled--not exactly hung up on your own appearance or cleanliness
3. broke and unemployed
4. a complete lack of ambition or marketable skill or education
5. not materialistic about certain things (houses-cars-etc), and simultaneously your entire life revolves around the creation of "stuff" and appearing like an artist--yet you are completely unaware of the paradox
6. absolutely self assured in your ability to decipher the great truths...
7. really enjoy hearing your own voice

mmmmm, Ford

I was out of the office and off the web for a few days last week, (thus the lack of updates) and when you come back you should be swamped...and I am...but I am having a hard time "buckling down."

It's like when you have a project in front of you that is so big you can't figure out where to start--like the first time you try to eat a car. The logistics of eating a car, the shear volume of the vehicle all prevent you from just tearing into the leather upholstery and getting started.

Live8

As much as I like a good concert...the idea that a bunch of "thoughtful" artists should get together to promote themselves and how caring they are under the pretext of "raising awareness of global poverty" is pretty ridiculous.

It's like staging a "vegetarian awareness" concert at the KC Masterpiece BBQ cookoff.

We get some of the most overpaid, underworked individuals on the planet, whose contribution to society includes vast amounts of conspicuous consumption, coupled with a complete incoherent ignorance of basic economics---like Chris Martin from ColdPlay who laments that corporations are the "greatest evil on the planet." We get these glittering jewels of profound stupidity together to raise awareness for poverty? Do they not see the hypocrisy? Are we to assume that we would all be completely unaware of poverty had Bono from U2 failed to mention it?
Only a perfect cocoon of self-delusion insulating these "artist" from the real world could convince them that they are doing good.
What makes it even more amazing is that not a DIME was collected to actually help anyone---Dave Matthews can perform to an adoring crowd (and I am a big fan) and soak in all of the limelight he can handle while not a doing a darn thing to help the problem--in fact one could argue that many of the performers actually hurt the cause...

It is like standing next to a burning building, people literally dangling out of the windows pleading for assistance, and these morons stand in front of the building and sing a song to "raise awareness" about fires. STOP SINGING AND HELP THE PEOPLE!
(And we the stupid masses listen to it and think, "yeah man, fires are bad. Dave Matthews is good.")

emanations shmemanations

For anyone scratching their heads about "emanations and penumbras" ---do a google search on the phrase...originally used when the Supreme Courts were able to discern hidden amongst the sentences a brand new--completely previously unrecognized right to terminate abortion in the first 2 tri-mesters. I think it may have been James Madison who authored the "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (and the right to terminate pregnancies at any point in the first 28 weeks) clause. It was written in really fine print, which explains why no one saw it for the first 175 years.....

(A penumbra the edge of the shadow cast by an interstellar body---it literally means "dim light" which is appropriate considering the context it is normally used in today)

Not trying to bore you--but one more KELO thing

This Kelo thing really has me bothered...I know--I know, there is no substantial change, the woman is going to get paid for her property and the government entity is going to take it and that's that---but the point is that it is ENTIRELY different than previous use of emminent domain.

Prior to Kelo, the City of ABC-town can come to John Q Homeowner and say--"we want to build a new courthouse here and the new tri-level freeway will also be coming through your yard--so we are going to need to take your house---here is the fair market value of your home--get out."

That's "public use," and that is acceptable under the constitutional definitions of emminent domain. See my previous post "you reap what you sow."

After Kelo, the City of ABC-Town can come to John Q Homeowner and say---"we want this private land developer to build a Walgreens-Costco-Lowe's-Jiffy Lube-Barnes & Noble right here where your house is. (The City will gain more tax revenue from them that it will from one piddly homeowner) Here is the fair market value---get out."

See the difference? Apparently Supreme Court Justices are so confused by emanations and penumbras that they can't figure out that the latter example is government seizure for PRIVATE use and the first example is government seizure for PUBLIC use.

and now for something depressing

Here is a map that shows the hometown of every service person who has died serving in Iraq--where they are from in the US.
No anomolies to report--other than there are too many dots every where--but they are scattered across the entire US--as one would expect with an all volunteer Army that "looks like America."
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/photos/war_casualties/map/m10000.html

The book---not the blog

I started reading a memoir this weekend titled "Running with Scissors," not out of vanity because I thought that somehow I could gleen some sort of artistic flare by simply reading a published author's works who shares the same title I do---more so because my wife checked it out at the library and I didn't want to read the other two books I have started.

It would appear that I am naturally drawn to stories of pure misery--tragedies in the Roman tradition. Then again--it could be that the majority of the stuff that gets published is tragic--after all what does someone have to write about if everything is roses and puppy dogs? I doubt I could ever write a novel...I don't have the miserable depths of tragedy and despair to draw upon for literary allusion.

It's funny how in my late 20's I read for pure enjoyment, and in my early 20's someone could have literally threatened me with all sorts of torture--upto and including the blaring of Christina Aguilera music in a cold room---and I still wouldn't read what I was REQUIRED to read.
Not that I was anti-intellectual, more so that I was busy hanging out with friends and skipping class and all manner of debauchery.

"Intelligence" is rarely intelligent

A commenter to a previous post mentioned that once he was originally supportive of the war in Iraq but after reading that the "intelligence" to support the existence of WMDs could have been wrong he changed his mind.....let me respond.

"Intelligence" is rarely intelligent. It is regrettable that two successive administrations apparently (inasmuch as the complete truth really does await translations of the Iraqi archives, a complete inquiry of former Baathists, and assurances from Syria) have had no accurate idea of the extent, or lack thereof, of the Iraqi WMD arsenal. But incomplete or faulty intelligence — both hysterical overreactions or laxity and naiveté — is not rare when nations go to war.
We were fooled by Japan in 1941 and had no idea that its enormous fleet was a few hundred miles off Hawaii. The Soviet absorption of Eastern Europe caught utopians off guard in 1945-6. Everyone underestimated Mao's resilience ("Who lost China?"). MacArthur's "infiltrators" across the Yalu River turned out to be several Chinese armies. We know only now that the Soviets cheated on several major arms agreements — and had WMD arsenals far beyond what was disclosed. Its nuclear accidents and WMD catastrophes are still clouded in mysteries. Remember the Missile Gap of the 1960 election that helped to elect John Kennedy? Yet Cuba, we now learn, had more ready nukes than even Curtis LeMay imagined. The British surely had no warning about the Falklands invasion. An American ambassador gave the wrong message to Saddam Hussein in summer 1990, precisely because the CIA had no clue that Saddam Hussein was gearing up to invade Kuwait. Libya and Iran were further along with their nuclear programs than the CIA dared to imagine. Ditto North Korea. Who knew that Pakistan has been running a nuclear clearinghouse? The point is not to excuse faulty intelligence, but rather to understand that knowing exactly what the enemy is up to is difficult and yet almost never acknowledged to be so.

The threat of WMDs may have been the centerpiece of the administration's arguments to go to war, but for most of us, there were plenty of other — and far more important reasons — for prompt action now.
Let us for the nth time recite them:
Saddam had broken the 1991 armistice agreements and after September 11 it was no longer tolerable to allow Middle East dictators to continue as rogue states and virtual belligerents.

Two-thirds of Iraqi airspace were de facto controlled by the United States — ultimately an unsustainable commitment requiring over a decade of daily vigilance, billions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of sorties to prevent further genocide.

He had defied U.N. resolutions; and he had expelled inspectors, demanding either enforcement or appeasement and subsequent humiliation of the international community.

It really was an intolerable situation that in perpetuity thousands of Kurds and Shiites were doomed on any given week that American and British planes might have been grounded.

Saddam had a history of war against Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, and the United States, destroyed the ecology of the Mesopotamian wetlands, gassed his own people, and relented in his massacres only to the degree that the United States monitored him constantly.

Well, in addition, in northern Iraq al Qaedists were battling the Kurds. Old-line terrorists like Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal were at home in Baghdad. Husseinite bounties subsidized suicide-murdering in Israel.
A number of accounts had cited relationships between al Qaeda and Baathist intelligence. Iraq, in fact, was already at a critical mass. Faced with a brutal unending U.N. embargo and the loss of its airspace, it was descending into a badland like Afghanistan. The amorality is not that we took him out, but that after 1991 we waited about 100,000 corpses too long.

know when to fold em

Sometimes you can't help but win, other times you are in position with the best hand and your opponent sucks out one of their outs on the river.

We played a cash game last night, and I am getting more and more confident in cash games, and I survived until there was two people left--we decided to stop at a specific time regardless of where we were on chips. 4 minutes to go, last couple of deals and I am behind in chips but I could cash out for almost exactly what I paid in for, so I am not unhappy....

Andy pushes me all in pre-flop, I had a fairly strong hand for heads up and with the time expiring I figured Andy for a pretty strong hand but wanting to either buy a couple of blinds or push the action. I called and we flipped over--he was holding an Ace 3 and I was holding Ace 9, so statistically we were probably 51/49 favoring my slightly higher kicker.
The flop gave us both our Ace and no other help. The Turn gave no help. The River----------

of course it was Andy's only out...one of 3 threes left in the deck (3 out of 40 cards---7%). It was a tough beat, but I'm a big boy and that's why we roll the cards out.
Besides, I won a tourney recently.
Either way the confidence that comes with playing well will pay off at the next tourney.