Money is a powerful thing. Surprisingly, fake money is a pretty darn powerful thing too. And even though I know that I’m playing cards with fake money I still let myself get rattled when I make dumb mistakes or other players make dumb mistakes and win when they shouldn’t.

So I’m playing poker against a bunch of raising-on-nothing morons and I’m playing tight. Sure, it’s not real money but there is no reason to be stupid about it. I win a few hands and I’m feeling pretty good when things just all go to shit.

After being dealt a few fair hands thing just turn cold. Now, this isn’t an uncommon thing to happen, card will go cold from time to time. After I lose a few hands to mediocre cards I start to think about taking my (fake) winnings and moving on. But it just eats me up inside to move on when I’m losing. I feel like I should be able to leave the table a winner!

I bet into some hands that I have an okay chance at…and I lose. I bet into some more hands — these are some iffy cards — and I lose. Now I’m sitting at my desk telling myself, “Okay, I’m not going to go on tilt…I’m not. I’m just going to play one more hand and then I’ll leave…”

I think it was somewhere after my tenth hand from when I said I would leave that I actually was booted out of the table with no money. I went all in (a paltry 40 chips) on a King Four (off suit no less) figuring a Hail Mary play was my only option. Mary wasn’t on my side.

As I sit and think back on the game I realize that I could have walked about from the table about 700 chips up. I could have walked away even when I lost my 700 chip winnings. I realized I could have done a lot of things, but I ultimately did what bad poker players everywhere do…I let my greed and my fear of losing cloud my mind and I let myself make irrational decisions.

I figure that the word “could” is one that is bandied about quite a bit by players after going on tilt. There are a lot of things that could have happened, but what did happen was that I made some dumb decisions…

Today Saddam Hussein was captured in Iraq. The first pictures I’ve seen show him as a haggard, unkempt, and rather pathetic looking man…and that’s my fear.

Will people look at this image and feel sympathy and compassion for Saddam? I’m heartened to see that the “man on the street” clips being shown on cable news are overwhelmingly supportive of making Saddam pay for his actions. I’ve not yet heard anything about taking it easy on him.

What really bothers me is that now that we do have Hussein in custody, the few democrats I’ve seen get face time have been very supportive, like they had been rooting for this all along. It’s standard run-of-the-mill politicos, but it irks me to no end.

So today gets an A for its historical significance. Washington dems gets a C- for their predictable liberal spin they they are happy with our military action…today. And, hey CNN take note, when I see Al Sharpton as a talking-head you get an F!

Who creates late night infomercials? They make them all so damn seductive; is there some burgeoning realm of psychologists that do nothing but dream up new ways to sucker people out of their money?

Actually, I don’t think it takes much to sucker people out of their money. It’s easy to deceive — all it takes is a little spit and polish — and people will throw money in a vain attempt to become like the people the infomercials show as being wildly successful.

What I want to know is; how can the people who pander to the lowest common denominator sleep at night? Of course, that’s a dumb question to ask because the psyche will allow a disturbing about sleaziness in most people. Is it a built-in feature of our gray matter or is it a result of our culture and society?

All I know is I need to keep the hell away from my MasterCard when I see how the “SuperSlicingKitchenChef” will complete my life while it chops any household vegetables I might throw its way.