Thanks a Pantload, FTD

ScurvyWife is pretty low maintenance when it comes to Valentine's day. Her only request was that flowers be sent to her workplace, so that she could rub the fact that she got flowers into the faces of assorted non-flowery co-workers. That's easy enough, so I hopped online last week, made arrangements via FTD, and congratulated myself on a job well done.

Except, umm, not so much. No flowers. Nothing. I call to bitch at them and they tell me I have to wait at least 24 hours before they'll initiate an inquiry into what happened to the order/delivery. Umm, what the fuck? You didn't wait 24 hours to bill my credit card when I placed the order, now, did you? So you'll take my money immediately, happily, but can't be bothered to, you know, see what the hell happened to the flowers I ordered? Sure, I can only imagine the carnage that is dealing with Valetine's Day in the floral industry, and I understand that things happen. The very least you can do, though, is at least pretend to be concerned that a customer didn't get what they paid for, instead of fobbing them off with some lame 24 hour waiting policy.

Pretty much spun the poker wheels last night, not really going anywhere. Which is better than going backwards, so I best not complain.

It looks like I've picked up a regular freelance gig, cranking out assorted pokery content, which has been fun so far. It sounds a little cheesy, but it's actually nice to write stuff and feel properly utilized, or at least that I'm putting knowledge and writing skills to good use, about a topic that I'm well-qualified to expound upon. My job in Cubelandia used to be like that, until it degenerated into mindless data entry, so it's kind of nice to dust off that feeling again.

In broader poker news, Party managed to finally swing a deal to pick up the carcass of Empire Poker, paying $250 million or so for the assets of Empire and some other online casino assets. Nice job, Party, as far as kneecapping them and getting them on the cheap. I have no idea what this means, as far as whether Party will link Empire back to its player base again, if you can get rakeback again via an Empire account, or anything along those lines. It looks like all support for existing Empire affiliate accounts is being dropped like a hot potato by Tradal, and I can only imagine the carnage involved if Party tries to pick up that hot potato. The entire Party affiliate operation is in a complete and utter shambles right now, so I wouldn't expect much along those lines, if you were hoping to get rakeback again through an Empire account.

I have to admit that I've gotten sucked into watching the Winter Olympics, despite the hardcore sports part of me that doesn't think 95% of that junk really qualifies as a "sport" to begin with. It's been fun to watch Drunky Miller flail around miserably, especially his justification afterwards, as far as claiming it would have taken a hurricane to blow him into contention in the downhill, and that getting disqualified in the combined was no big deal, as his skiiing style lead to him getting disqualified more often than not. That''s some pretty nice logic, Drunky. Might want to think about altering that "style" slightly, if you're only able to finish 2 of 7 World Cup slaloms this year. It was also nice to see you weren't anywhere to be found when your other US teammates Steven Nyman and Scott Macartney were going nuts, congratulating Ligety on his gold.