Will grump for food

Yes, I've gone the way of so many other blogs and added a tip jar. Two, in fact, so that anybody who cares to throw in a buck or two can use either PayPal (the upper button) or Amazon.com (the lower button). No, I won't do anything noble with donations, like save the whales or bring peace to the earth. But it will make me feel that the time I spend writing instead of sitting at the green felt is actually contributing to keeping myself financially solvent.

This isn't meant to be begging or to impose some sense of personal or social obligation. But after getting so many kind words from readers, it occurred to me that somebody out there might actually use such a thing if I put it up. It took me a while to figure out how to set them up (I find that every new thing that I try to do with HTML makes me feel like I'm retarded, like I'm the last kid in the class to catch on to something simple), but there they are.

There's only one quotation that would be fitting here, I think. Yeah, I alluded to it not long ago, and it's honestly not the only movie dialog I know, but it's just irresistably perfect here:

And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Incidentally, I had considerable difficulty in selecting an illustration to go with this post. I finally settled on a classical motif, with Rembrandt's "Self-Portrait as a Beggar." My disclaimers above notwithstanding, it seemed undeniably appropriate.

Wow. Mixing Rembrandt and "Caddyshack" in one post. How many poker bloggers you know can pull that off, huh?