If it's a squeamishness issue, it's just a technical drawing, not a modeled life-simulating painting or anything.

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I wanted you to go home and go to bed in order to get better. I think it is THE MAN'S fault.

I want that too, and I will, as soon as 4 hours and 20 minutes have passed.

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Apparently, they are both math majors who are so talented that they automatically count cards while playing, and they can't turn their minds off when they start gambling. Since they're so ethical, they just refuse to play.

It might be more that the casino folks will throw you out if they catch you counting cards.

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I don't think counting cards is unethical. Casinos just exercise their right to throw out people who do. I am surprised that they can, though, unless they use the method detailed in the MIT book.

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Is the actual act of counting cards unethical, or is it using your knowledge to further your funds?

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Is the actual act of counting cards unethical

I'd say no. You're acting within the rules of the game while observing what's going on in the game.

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I have nothing to say about the Pope gay priest decree except ppppbbbbllllttt, which I don't think is very helpful.

LA seems a good place for restarts.

This. I know it isn't for everyone, but it's been a godsend for me.

ita, I'm so sorry about the continuing headaches. I hope the MRI explains what's going on.

I'm sitting with the sick-and-feverish crowd, but I at least am not contagious. Evidently I have a kidney infection, so I'm on craxy antibiotics. Unfortuntaely, craxy antibiotics are making me feel worse. By tomorrow night the infection symptoms should be subsiding, but I have to find a way to manage the Cipro side effects so I can make it through the next six days. In the meantime I have both infection AND side effects. Wheeee....

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I'd have no problem doing it. I'd win a couple of medium sized pots while losing some smaller ones and then move to the next casino and do the same thing all the way down the strip. It's legal and in my mind no different than using your skills to get a good paying job.

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You're acting within the rules of the game while observing what's going on in the game.

Exactly. But since casinos like the house to win, any kind of advantage is considered grounds for expulsion.

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Smart writers make guest appearances on The Simpsons: [link]

Tom Wolfe is screaming. He screams softly, this Southern gentleman, his trademark white suit unwrinkled, his spats unwavering even as a giant granite boulder hurtles down upon him. It looks to be the end of the pioneering New Journalism author of "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

"Aaaaaaaahh! Wait, no, that wasn't good, let me start over."

"How did you scream last time a boulder was hurtling toward you?" asks Carolyn Omine, executive producer of "The Simpsons."

"Why don't you try, 'Aaaaahhhh, my suit!' " suggests a rail-thin, nerdy-looking writer, from the front of the Fox recording studio.

"Ahhhhh, my suit! It's gabardine!" wails Wolfe, toward the microphone. "Well, but cops wear gabardine."

Slowly, Wolfe transforms. Even now, this episode's director, Mark Kirkland, is circling Wolfe, snapping pictures. Soon, a team of animators will render Wolfe bug-eyed and yellow-skinned. A year from now he'll appear on television alongside Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and the bartender Moe in an episode of "The Simpsons" parodying highfalutin literary culture.

"We started with the idea of Moe as Charles Bukowski," explains Matt Warburton, who wrote the episode. "We brought Lisa in as the person who discovers in scuzzy, barfly Moe something that we've never seen before: a poet." Antics ensue, with Wolfe and fellow guest stars Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen voicing themselves. All were thrilled to participate.

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