A good rant on the current poker craze (as well as scrapbooking :-)) from "You Are Dumb." via Party Poker Blogs.

As much as I can sit for hours watching televised Hold `Em (which I would have thought would hold as much interest for me as watching paint dry), I tend to agree that the fad has gotten totally out of hand, with celebrities who apparently have never picked up a card playing like idiots in front of the camera*. What it most reminds me of is the dot.com boom, where everyone was talking about the stock market. If I went to a party, relatives would button-hole me and bore me to tears with their latest trades. Bartenders would pump me for stock tips because I was attending a tech trade show. Secretaries (sorry, admin. assistants) would spend hours in front of the screen, monitoring the performance of their 401ks.

Now when I go to family parties, the next generation, most of whom are in college, talk poker endlessly. Out of the ol' farts generation, I'm the only one (so far) who plays Hold `Em, giving me some good moments as their parents try to figure out what we're talking about. "You play poker on-line, Fred? Not for money?"

* speaking of Celebrity Poker Showdown, who is more annoying, the flaming, amazingly unfunny Dave Foley or the sepuchral, hollow-laughing Phil Gordon? Possibly the worse pairing since Merv Griffin and Arthur Treacher.