Tibetan yak cheese, aren't they a fabulous group of words together. I've been in a cooking mood this week and was perusing the nytimes.com food section in the middle of looking for online gambling article ideas. There's a 'foody' celebration called Terra Madre in Italy going on right now. The picture on the article shows a Tibetan selling his yak cheese. I don't think I've ever tried yak cheese, but I would like to. My cooking mood also sent me to Cooks Illustrated, where I can highly recommend their recipe for butternut squash risotto. It was a small taste of heaven, if you like risottos, which my husband does not, but my son does so we ate it. My husbands version of a sandwich is two pieces of dry bread and a slice of cheese in the middle, we don't take his culinary taste seriously in this family.

I am obligated to write articles up until and including the 23rd of this month. That means sixteen more articles, including this one. Sixteen more subjects to find and write on, which isn't easy considering that all of the wind has been let out of my sails.

Tomorrow is my son's birthday in day care. He will be three. His actual birthday is next week, but everyone likes to celebrate the birthday on Friday so he will have a few parties. I'm thinking chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake. Tonight I should make the dough for the cookies. The cake will be a box cake. I flat out refuse to make a proper cake until we buy a KitchenAid Mixer. I get this way about certain things, like I refused to wear a watch unless it was a Tag Heuer (which I got last year for my birthday). I went watchless for four years before that (when my Swiss Army watch died a horrible death).

Again, what does all of this have to do with internet gambling, poker rooms, or sports books. Nothing, but I don't have an ounce of inspiration and none of the news is remotely interesting so I am babbling instead.

I realize this isn't the most professional of me. I should be researching as hard as I did when I knew my work would continue. I am still reading everything, to my credit. However it seems that the wind out of sails issue isn’t mine alone.

It's not that articles aren't being written, it's just that there's no new information in them. They are all focusing on the obvious, the new anti-internet gambling legislation in the United States. I could write a whole book about that alone with all of the information I have on it. However, I'm tired of the subject. I can't fix the problem, the people who voted for it ironically will probably be voted out of office, and no matter what I have been given notice.

I have to wonder what will happen with this website, or with my bosses. I plan on taking the next six months and writing a novel. My youngest will start day care and my new job will be me writing for me. I only hope I can finish my novel by the time my six months of unemployment are up. I guess you can say I am taking a gamble.

My book will have nothing to do with gambling. I want to write "chick lit", even though it's going out of style. For those who don't know, "chick lit" is contemporary humorous romance. Think of 'Sex in the City' or 'Bridget Jones'. I've already written the first few pages, but with my youngest at home and this job I haven't been able to focus on it as much as I would like. So, I guess in a way all of this is a blessing for me. At least I hope it will be.

I'm scanning the headlines on my google alerts and one is "US Stance on Gambling is Illogical". No, really? You don't say. How can you not find logic in attaching an anti-internet gambling amendment to the Safe Port Act? How can you say there's no correlation between online gambling and the ports in the United States? Perhaps because there is no relation? What's illogical about that?

After this article there will be fifteen left to go.

Here's something. While the US is banning online gambling the UK is regulating it. This is old news. However, just because internet gambling is legal in the UK doesn't mean that they won't extradite executives of online gambling companies if asked. Just another reason why every honest site online has voluntarily banned US players when the law was signed. No one wants to spend time in jail.

There will still be places that will accept US places. They will be privately owned companies. The information on their websites will be dubious at best and the player's winnings will be theirs to decide what to do with. By outlawing gambling they actually guaranteed that US players will have the experience that they predicted they would have in the first place. Only mafia people will get into this industry now, because only they will be willing to take the risk.

I wonder what the plans are for the hundreds of people laid-off in Antigua, Barbuda, Gibralter, or Israel? Did congress think of them when they made this decision to cut off our livelihood? How can they justify allowing online lotteries and internet horse racing when banning online casinos, sports books, and poker rooms? Heard it all before? Bored by it, right? This is why I'm going on about food and writing and things that aren't gambling.

Posted on: November 2, 2006

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