Sunday, October 11, 2009

Huh?


Have I wandered into some strange alternate universe? Bizarre, unexplained things are happening.

First, the Carolina Panthers have finally won their first game of the season after a string of three rather embarrassing losses. A victory. How refreshing!


 Carolina Panthers defenders wrap up a Washington Redskins running back as part of Sunday's 20-17 win.


Second, as the Fox Sports guys were signing off after the game,they advised the viewing audience to stay tuned and see the poker playing priest on the Pokerstars.net Million Dollar Challenge. The words "poker," "playing," and "priest" are not normally used in the same sentence, so that raised my eyebrows and provoked my curiosity. In the next few minutes, however, I got an extra large helping of raised eyebrows with a side order of "WHAAAAAT?" when I learned that the priest in question is the pastor of a parish I used to belong to in my home diocese! It's one thing when a priest is doing weird things somewhere else, but when it's a priest in your own backyard, it's especially surreal. What's more, Father Andrew Trapp, with the help of a professional poker player, defeated two other professional poker players and then defeated the same player who had coached him in a round of Texas Hold 'em, thereby winning $100,000. One hundred grand! He'll probably have to render at least a third of that unto Caesar, but that's still a nice chunk of change. He said he learned to play poker while in seminary. Where did this guy go to school? Our Lady of La Roulette?

 Father Andrew Trapp, the "poker playing priest."

To be fair, the good padre said he will donate all his winnings to the church building fund and will auction off his other prize, a trip to somewhere in the Caribbean (The Bahamas, I think), in hopes of raising more funds.

Third, the gang at Blogger, WITHOUT TELLING ME, re-jiggered the template for new posts, leading me to believe for several days that I couldn't post pictures to my blog. Fortunately, I found out about the changes and a correction to the problem via the Blogger Help forums (Thanks, guys).

Wait, I can't be in an alternate universe. No previously good, clean shaven person of my acquaintance has suddenly sprouted a beard and become evil. (Whew, that's a relief).

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