Ring Tones and Ring backs

Posted: August 03, 2008 11:12 AM

"Ring tones" and "Ring backs" Chilling out and golf

First off, I have enjoyed watching "Poker after Dark" this week on NBC at 2:00 am. I made a couple of great plays on the way towards winning it all while earning an undefeated record, and I was really happy with the way I moved my chips. They make it look easy in the final vs. Chris Ferguson, as I picked up a lot of hands. That's true, but Chris and I fought for over two hours in the final and they showed 35 minutes of it. My play of the week was when I called Chris down with As-7d high, as he bet all four streets on a board of 9s-2s-2h-5d-3c on one of the first four hands we played. With the blinds at $400-$800, Chris raised it up to $2,000 to go pre-flop, then bet $3,000, then $7,000, and finally $16,000. It took a long time for me to call on fourth street (they don't show that!), but I went with my instincts. On the river, I took less time, but putting in 20% of my remaining chips with no hand at all took a minute to digest. FYI - Chris had Jd-7d. Another great play that I made was when I moved all in with two small pair on the river (my 6-5 on a J-10-6-3-5 board) after Chris bet a huge $18,000 bet.

On Friday I made it out to "Half Moon Bay" golf course-the old course--for a round with my friend Chris Conner. We had a super small stakes match (for me) where I scrambled my ball-meaning that I hit two shots, chose the best one, then hit two more, etc…--against his one ball. I'm so bad that I still shot over 80!! But I had a great time, I won a little (Chris has never lost to me before!), and I played one of the top golf holes in the USA. The eighteenth hole on the ocean at the old course is one of the top one hundred golf holes in the USA. Next Friday I have a match with one of the San Antonio Spurs in San Antonio, whose name I'll mention only with his permission, although we probably won't play for that much money per hole-my boy Jon Green will be my partner in that two man scramble. Jon and I aren't very good, but we never lose! Somehow someway, we make putts when we have to; it's crazy. We are both clutch, and I have a great short game, where Jon has a great long game. Next Saturday night I'll emcee Eva and Tony parker's charity tournament (check out evasheroes.com).

Today (Saturday), after I was done channel surfing back-and-forth between the U. S. Senior Open (leaders are: Eduardo Romero, Fred Funk, John Cook) and the World Golf Tour event (Mickelson, Westwood, and Singh are the leaders) on my television, I walked a mile or so to the Verizon store with my wife. She bought the new Palm phone, and I kept my low tech phone (who wants to be reached all the time?!?). While we there I realized that I hadn't bought any ring tones or ring backs in a long time. So I started buying ring tones and before I knew it I was having a great time assigning different ring tones to different poker player friends and family. First off, my ring back is "Superman" ("Looking for special things inside of me, inside of me…It's not easy to be, me…" youtube.com it!) by "Five for Fighting." I love this mellow song. Everyone that calls you hears your ring back before you pick up the phone.

As far as ring tones, you can assign a different ring tone to every number that you have captured in your system. Of course, with rock stars you have to buy one of their songs, so that my friend Scott Ian's-from "Anthrax"--ring back is "Madhouse." For Sully Erna-from "Godsmack"-I chose Godsmack's recent top ten hit; a cover of AC/DC's "Good times, bad times." For Sully, I would have chosen "I Stand Alone," but it wasn't available as a ring tone (it was available as a ring back). My wife asked for the Commodores "Brick house" to be my ring tone for her, but only after we couldn't find the Beatles "Something in the way she moves" ring tone on Verizon. My sons asked me to assign them "Welcome to the Jungle" from Guns and Roses, but Verizon didn't have any G and R, so they chose the Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the Devil." Which was OK, but I would have preferred saving that one for a couple of trouble makers phone numbers on my list. Now, when I remembered that Doyle Brunson had a "Godfather" ring tone, I chose one of the five that Verizon had available, and I assigned it to: Doyle, UB's Paul Leggett, Cirque Du Soleil's Guy Laberitate, the commissioner of the World Series of Poker Jeffrey Pollack, a VC friend of mine (who doesn't like his name brought up), and Carl Westcott. For many of the following poker champions and other champions in other sports I chose "We are the Champions" by "Queen:" Annie Duke, Barry Greenstein, Bub (Howard "the professor" Lederer), Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Chan, EDOG, Eli Elezra, Gavin Smith, Gussy, Ivey, Huck Seed, Juanda, Layne Flack, Daniel, Mikey, Rolande De Wolfe, Scotty, Tim Phan, and Seidel. I just erased all of the sports stars names from the above list because Daniel will surely make fun of this post in his BLOG if I leave them in! He would accuse me of dropping too many names, and I guess that he's partly right. In any case, I will assign different songs to many of the poker players mentioned above as time passes, even though they are all champions. For many of my family and friends I chose "100 Years" by "Five for Fighting." For Tim Molyneux I'm waiting for the "All in" Musical to have ring tones released. For those movie stars that I have on speed dial, I am still picking out songs, but some of them do not like their names to be mentioned.

I also sent out an email today to NBC pitching them on a commercial where I would play Greg Grunberg's "Matt Parkman" character from the hit television show "Heroes" a heads up poker match. Ding, ding; Parkman vs. the "Poker Brat!" Parkman can read people's minds, so that I couldn't win, but the "Poker Brat" meltdown afterwards would be pretty good television!! Can you imagine me moving all in with ten high on the river, and Parkman calling with jack high!