Giving Back To Those Less Blessed (like OddJack)

I’m not even really sure where to start with this. I’m only addressing it because I’ve received several inquires ranging from good natured ribbing to people telling me I should go nuclear. On the other hand, I’m sure many of you have no idea what I’m talking about so perhaps the best place to begin is just to lay it out there.

First it was poker players getting rich, undeservedly famous, hanging out with strippers and now it’s POKER AUTHORS? Honestly, pretty soon it’ll be dumbshit, scuba-diving poker bloggers living like rap stars. When that happens, keep an eye out for locusts and godless natural disasters. Well, just keep an eye out for locusts, actually.

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to figure out who the dumbshit, scuba-diving poker blogger is intended to be. If it needs any clarification the author of that paragraph linked back to this site.

First off, I consider myself more of a dumbshit, poker blogging scuba-diver but I refuse to allow myself to get drawn into a debate over semantics. The thing that really steams me is that Josh Arieh got a cool name like Cinnabon and all AJ can do for me is “dumbshit, scuba-diving poker blogger.” So, as I’m always prone to do, I’ll lend my fantastically brilliant and creative mind to help a fellow blogger out. Here’s my top 5 suggestions on names OddJack can call me:

5. Rice-A-Rini

4. Burrito Bill

3. The Italian Meatball

2. The Big Fungu

1. Billabon

Now, before anyone gets the idea that I’m being far too kind to AJ, I have to admit that it’s not the first time I’ve helped keep OddJack afloat. For instance, if you go here, you’ll notice a cool little graphic. Interestingly, the player has a card up his sleeve just like the card up the sleeve of the player in my post about online poker being rigged.

Of course, not only am I the source of their copyright infringing images, I’ve pretty much been the un-credited source for a good chunk of their poker content too. The most recent *ahem* un-credited borrowing was just this week. I had saved a 2+2 thread in Bloglines because I thought I might want to post something about it but I finally realized I was never going to get to it so I posted it over at PokerFilter. The same day, OddJack links to the same 2 week old 2+2 post. Amazing coincidence? I think not.

What I’m trying to say is that I’m here to help. If they need to take my content, fine, have it. If they’ve finally given up on provoking a response from Josh Arieh, I volunteer to be the butt of their jokes. I really want to see OddJack succeed and if that’s what they need from me, I’m willing to do it.

[UPDATE]: I had an email exchange with BG offline. I’m removing the content stuff above as I think it may have been a misunderstanding. Someone gave him the link and may have miscommunicated where they got it. In other words, BG thought that the person had submitted it to both PokerFilter and to him when what happened is they got it from PokerFilter.

Either way, first let me clear something up for those of you who seem to wish to fan imaginary flames between BG and me; I like BG. I think he’s one of the best bloggers out there. The two times I’ve met him we have had a hell of a good time. I have nothing but respect for the guy. It seems every time I say something about OddJack or he mentions going to Vegas people start emailing the both of us about the rift between us. I don’t think there is one. BG and I always end up having to email each other to make sure everything is cool when neither one of us is really bent out of shape. So, hopefully that clears that up and the next time I post something about OJ or BG says he’s going to Vegas people can rest assured that BG and I are not planning on slitting each other’s throats 🙂

And, as I explained to BG in an email this morning, I really don’t care if he did or didn’t. I wasn’t even the slightest bit upset about it. I only added it as an additional tongue-in-cheek jab at AJ for the dumbshit, scuba-diving poker blogger remark.

For additional humor, I highly recommend reading AJ’s response in the comments section.