Poker, it's out of control

The New York Times is going to start a weekly column on ... poker.

To hell with global warming, shut up and deal! Hey! The pot's light. Ante up you deadbeats.

Is this necessary?

How long will this poker fascination last?

I hope The Fat Guy explains it all to us. Please, please, Fat Guy, why the poker craze? Couldn't it have been Scrabble? Something to improve our vocabulary? Or Risk? Now that's a hell of board game. The game of World domination.

The NYT has hired James McManus to write the Saturday poker column, says E&P.

McManus, a writing teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is the author of "Positively Fifth Street," the account of how, on an assignment from Harper's magazine, he entered the World Series of Poker with a $4,000 stake that he parlayed into a $10,000 seat in the tournament. McManus ended up fifth out of 512 players, with a total win of $250,000.

I'll bet you McManus uses a lot of big words. Words you'll never hear at a poker table. I'll bet a nichel.
[e&p]