Reason #42 to quit smoking

from the Sep. 13 edition of the Arizona Republic:

Man smoking at filling station catches fire

A 26-year-old man suffered burns on 75 percent of his body when he attempted to gas up his pickup truck while smoking a cigarette Monday evening, authorities said. Thomas Warren was smoking when he tried to pump gas into his 1976 Ford truck at a station in the 21600 block of North 30th Avenue, near Deer Valley Road, and became engulfed in flames, according to Phoenix police. He was taken to a Valley hospital; his condition was not immediately known.

Now people, if you need to smoke, for the love of God, don't do it around large quantities of flammable (inflammable?) liquids. Now there is nothing funny about a human being becoming engulfed in flames, but I couldn't help but laugh when I read the words "became engulfed in flames." I mean did this guy just not stop to think: "Hey, I'm pumping many gallons of gasoline into my car and I am surrounded by very ignitable gasoline fumes. Maybe I shouldn't be holding this paper cylinder of smoldering leaves"? It's sad that two seconds of poor judgement is going to negatively affect this guy for the rest of his life, but there's nothing he can do about that now. Hopefully the next time I put gas in my car I will be smart enough to not smoke.

Speaking of flammable liquids, why does it now cost $40.62 to fill the tank of a 1995 Ford Taurus with 87 unleaded? Something seems not quite right about that. You know it's a sad situation when you see a sign at a gas station that says "2.47 9/10" and you think "Sweet! I better fill up!"

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In non-gasoline-related news, I actually had a winning session last night ($124 over 4 hours), despite the continued horrendous succession of bad beats. It got to the point that when I was dealt KK I just expected to lose. And it did. All three times. It got to me such that I just expected someone to draw out on me so when I had a decent hand I would just check down the river. I lost several bets that way. There were two situations where I read the hand perfectly, but froze up and failed to cap the river. I had A-10 against A-6 on a A-2-3-10 board. He rivered a 6 and raised me, I decided that based on how the hand was played A-6 was his only logical holding. But I only called, costing me one, possibly two, bets. In another situation I had 99 against 44 on a 4-9-A-Q-10 board. There was no preflop raise, so he couldn't really have AA, QQ, or 10-10, and he would have to be stupid to stay in with K-J (but this is PartyPoker, remember), but I didn't cap the river, I only called his reraise, costing me one bet. I have to trust my instincts, even when I have been repeatedly punched in the stomach by people rivering gutshots. This is getting dangerously close to "bad beat story" territory, so I will shut up now. I can't complain about $124, but it should have been a lot more. I need to play my best and raise with the best hand regardless of how the session is going, or else I need to just get up and quit if bad beats get me playing bad. That's all.