I have a few favorite blogs that I visit as time permits. Some of these people are slackers. I know the fantasy world (you know the one that we grind our lives out in making the daily nut) gets pretty boring from time to time – and we can’t all live in the real world of poker like I do – but still kids, throw a bone from time to time. Put your ‘liddle finners’ on the keyboard and just go for it. I’m W-A-I-T-I-N-G!!!!

And on the subject of blogs, they are everywhere now – that is a good thing – we need history. One could never begin to keep up with all the blogs on poker, let alone all of the other subjects available in the realm of the mind…whew – that’s scary – the realm of the mind. I find it amusing that some bloggers are ‘hurt’ if they don’t find themselves mentioned somewhere or aren’t on the ‘blog role’ at other blogger’s pages. What’s a ‘blog role’? A link list to other blogs and it is oft times so long that one could never hope to get through it in a week, let alone a day. Blogging should be a personal thing, gratifying to the writer, not requiring approval from others.

On this page – me – I began blogging somewhere back in 1999 (actually even before then as I have hand written notes from the Montana Days). In 1999 I recorded the events as ‘poker tales’, which still resides here, with me, formerly known as The Book of Tales. I wrote Poker Tales because I was afraid to put a person’s name to any of it or relate a specific incident (fear of a problem with work and the subject) so I wrapped it into a story. I really never thought I’d have many readers. But I wanted to write about what was going on in my world…poker and sprinkle in some life away from the table. Eventually I switched it all to ‘dear diary’ and then later to ‘table tango’.

Somewhere around the middle of 2000 is when I kicked off The Diary. Since the changes to PokerWorks and moving to Word Press for my blogging software, I’m still in the process of moving old posts to the new format. I truly started blogging before blogging became cool. I’m often surprised when people are so happy to meet me in person; and to receive emails from readers everywhere…because I started blogging for myself – not for others.

I needed the therapy of being able to voice and get it out of my system. It also irritated me to listen to people exclaim how great a player was, and I knew that when I dealt to that ‘great player’ and they took a beat, they blamed it on me. So in my opinion they are not that great a player because playing is wrapped around wins and losses, and how the player handles it – something else I wanted to express when I wrote – the whole picture and what stupid asses some of these great players are when they are floundering in a bad card run and getting beat.

My writing has evolved…a lot. But I still write for myself and yet there’s nothing greater than receiving an email from someone telling me they ‘read me’ and how they love my picture of what’s going on. And to have them come into the poker room just to meet me when they are in town. Nice! So even though I still write for me, I’m completely aware that others are out there – reading – and they are sharing part of my life.

I’m not looking for links or mentions or being featured. I’m recording history in poker; events and circumstances that are never open to the rest of the world, from my perspective and interaction – and tidbits of my being. I record for myself, for future reading, and in the hope that one-day my children and their children will read about events in my life so they have a window into me – and in reading, they can somehow see me, feel me, and know me.

And that, my friends, is why I would like my ‘slacker blogging buddies’ to get in gear and post. So I can peek through the window now and then and share an intimate part of their life.

You know who you are…move it!