That was the title of a spam email that’s been drifting in a lot lately. Do these people know me? Frankly, if I had those kind of meds, I think I’d be taking them. It’s another yarn filled with problems. It started like this – last year I sold the PokerWorks.com name, CHUNK!!! A lump in my checking account. Come tax time, the gent that normally does my taxes and I set up a date, I canceled and could never get back in touch with him. He’d been seriously ill and perhaps I should have really, REALLY tried to find him but life has a way of choking me to death with the hands of time. I really can’t get enough – now if I got a spam email and they could sell me some time, I’d be on the reply button in a heartbeat.

I filed for an extension, sent in some $$, and procrastinated – as usual. Tomorrow I have an appointment with a new tax guy. After my phone conversation with him last week, I’m not sure I have enough $$ put up to pay what I’m going to owe. Rather than stress out about it, I’ll just wait for the bad news and then go kill myself. NOT!

But then on top of that, I got tagged again by using my visa/debit card. My son and I went to dinner at the Outback Steak House on Rainbow Blvd., on Friday night. On Saturday, as I sat whiling away my time on the computer, I got a call from my credit union. “Did you just put a $802.?? charge on your card at Best Buy?” Yikes! NO! Whomever did it zapped the charge on there twice. There is $1,600.00 coming through out of my checking account. *(&^&^$$()_+_+@#

Of course, after the charges hit, and I go in and sign a form, and a few days or so pass, I will have the money refunded back to my account. WOO-fucking-HOOOOO!

So I asked the CC lady how this could be happening. She said all someone had to do was see the card, and asked if I did online transactions. Yes, to both, but not much on the online transactions anymore. And I never let go of my card, except under the circumstances of the night before.

I had even mentioned to my son that our waitress was taking an awfully long time with my card. He could see her somewhere behind me and said she was gabbing with someone.

Since this is the third time in a year that this has happened to me, I decided to call the steak house. I asked to speak to a manager, Jason is his name. He sounded about 20ish. I stressed the fact, FIRST, that I wasn’t accusing any one of anything thing, but I wanted to alert him in case he had an employee that wasn’t quite up to par. I told him that I had been in, eaten, turned over my visa/debit card to Tanya B. (server) and paid for the meal, then gotten a call that my card had been used for $1,600 worth of purchases at Best Buy. He sounded indignant, informing me that he’d known Tanya for over a year and “she wouldn’t do anything like that.”

Again I stressed that I wasn’t accusing any one of anything. I just wanted to alert him that someone in his establishment might be clipping CC #’s. He didn’t sound concerned at all, he apologized for my misfortune (it sounded lame), and I got off the phone with him thinking that he was a ditz and could care less.

The good news for me is that it didn’t wipe out my checking and savings this year like it did last year while I was in N. Idaho. Although it did leave me with no $$ for the weekend (in my pocket) as they immediately canceled my card (as well they should have). But I didn’t have to go anywhere or spend any money anyway so it worked out.

My CC lady did have one bit of advice, I pass it along to you, that we should always put all of our charges on a CC and not use a visa/debit to buy anything with. That way if the card is compromised, you have recourse through the CC company and your funds in your banking accounts are still intact. That’s my move from now on.

I played the last satellite on Duplicate Poker today to the Pokernews Cup. Bombsville! I won’t be going. Fortunately, the government or whomever said Duplicate was a game of skill really did not know what poker is all about and I hope to get to play against them somewhere in the future. I still haven’t made up my mind whether I hate Duplicate Poker or like it. I have $$ in my account and will play for a bit longer before I decide.

Here’s the thing, if you make a hand, you have to hope that someone else at your table will help you win $$. The first hand that was dealt, I looked down to A-A. WOW! It’s been 3 years since I saw Aces. The blinds were $100-100 and I raised to $200. I got two callers and the other blind dropped. The flop brought K-little-little, I bet and the other players folded. My opponents, at other tables, didn’t fare as well as I did. I was the leader with $500. I won a massive pot ($30K) with Q-Q right towards the end of the first level, and my opponents didn’t fare nearly as well because their players didn’t go all-in preflop like mine did. Not only do you have to make a hand, you have to have someone at your table throwing their chips away. It’s weird. But until you try it, you won’t know if you like it or not. you still get $10 deposited in your account just for signing up for real money.

Time to get busy, still looking for any deductibles I can find for Uncle Sam…*stifles a sob*