Happiness and Sadness

I absolutely love the Christmas season. Although a few things come close to ruining it, I still feel it's the best time of the year (I didn't use the term "most wonderful time of the year" because of the risk of sounding entirely too cheesy.) The few things are of course the crazy drivers, crazier shoppers, and the fact that it's becoming more about selling things and losing sight of the true meaning of Christmas. Despite these things, I still try to spread Christmas cheer wherever I go. I am helped immensely in this by the new Christmas CD Josh Groban just put out called "Noel." My favorite singer singing my favorite kind of songs, it really doesn't get any better than that. I would just like to ask everyone to do a few small things, preferably all year round but Christmas is a good time to start: Just be friendly. Hold that door for someone, pick up that package they dropped, basically just do things for other people. Doing these small things here and there will not only make their day better, but it will allow you to feel better about yourself as well.

On a sadder note, one of the greatest poker players ever to play the game, David "Chip" Reese, died on Wednesday at the age of 56. I think the cause of death was pneumonia. For some reason, I feel a particular sadness from this, probably because I play and I fully appreciated how good he was. He basically taught me how to play winning Seven Card Stud from his writings in the book "Super System." I'm sure his loss is being felt throughout the poker community. I've heard he was one of the nicest men to walk the planet and never said a bad word about anybody. He will surely be missed.