Well I feel like shite, but I think I should feel worse than I do.
Anyways probably going to chug some more water and crash for an extra 3-4 hours
the last 2 shots of the bottle were rough as fuck, thought I might puke tbh...
I'm still thinking about this sidebet idea, I'll let you all know soon what I decide on.
Just saw this trailer for a new documentary coming out about gay Congressmen who have strong anti-gay voting records. I guess over 90% of these guys are Republicans, lolz. Obviously these guys are in the closet. I dunno if I'd bother to go see this, but if it was on TV on a Sunday afternoon I'd probably watch and laugh at the hypocrisy. Though I do worry that some innocents might get caught up in the crossfire here. At the same time, it totally fits for some of the most homophobic anti-gay activists in the GOP to be closet fags.
and re-signed up. found myself checking out this place more and more since I tried to quit awhile ago (i used to be devon06atX).
Had a sort of revelation last week, and realised I should probably start playing poker again seriously.
Went down to halifax to visit a bunch of buddies for awhile, and they're all talking about how effin hard it was to get a decent job nowadays. bunch of them are working 2 jobs or so, working nights thurs-sat, making minimum wage, etc. basically just working shitty jobs and shifts just trying to get by.
Thought about this on the bus-ride back home, and realised that despite myself being at best, a slightly-above average serious poker player, I still have the ability to make some pretty damn decent coin out of the comfort of my own house and on my own terms.
I've been basically a nl50 and nl100 lifer, but I've really really fucked around a lot with poker lately, cashing out a bunch, fucking the dog, etc. etc. So I'm currently playing nl10 with ~$450. man.. nl10.. shit. I haven't had to seriously grind this stake in ages. it's refreshing though (sort of?).
Guess the last week was basically a kick in the ass I needed to realise that I need to start making good money playing poker again - and more importantly, putting in decent hours. you know, taking it seriously.
anyways, onto life. had a fucking sweet weekend, am dating this wicked girl now which is awesome. i haven't had a serious thing going on since high-school, i mean, i dont think month long flings in university count. she's older than me by quite a bit, but, that's fine with me. she's not into stupid girly games, getting all emotional about stupid shit all the time. basically, she's chill, hot and successful. dunno how i luckboxed my way into this one, but am gonna try to not fuck it up. steady sex is the nuts. ohh ya, and she's supportive of my poker plans and loves to party, wheooo
ok, anyways. in the past i've never really been personal in my blog, just felt like exuding some of my positivity right now haha.
uhh, what else. oh ya. i've had really long hair for about 6 years straight now, and last week in the city just said fuck it, and cut it all off. man, i dunno why i waited so long. short hair is so much more comfortable, and people probably don't think i'm a hippie all the time now. i'd post a before and after, but i don't have any after pics since i left my digicam in victoria.
so ya, here's to my second go at liquidpoker. will try to be more chill and helpful this time around.
alright, to nl10 we go, sweeeeeeeeeeeet. expect to be up to nl25 in no time, and umm.. dunno from there. been awhile since i grinded like a stripper, but we'll see. shouldn't be too too long till i'm back up to nl50 - i hope?
anyways, life is good. am feeling much more upbeat than i have in awhile. gonna join a gym within the next few days, gonna rip out my running shoes and skipping rope and rideee these waves baby.
Okey, I was writing yesterday about I was playing on NL5 with only $20 in my bankroll. I was criticized for it, and I took it to me, need to follow BRM even on this stakes.
So, I've been sitting and playing on NL2 in nearly 4 hours and have played nearly 1100 hands at the moment. I think it has gone very bad, but I'm up so seems not so bad. Up around one bi, playing like this:
I was pretty lazy in April playing the least amount of poker in awhile. Still made like 10 buy ins in around 850 hands 1 or 2 tabling. My winrate this year has been insane so far (knock on wood hehe) and every month it has gone up as my pre flop stats have got more and more out of line which is cool. Thinking about the game real well too which I think has shown in my coaching sessions.
Coached a decent amount still and trained pretty hardcore this month getting up to 214 pounds. Want to gain around 15-20 more pounds of muscle ideally but we will see how it goes.
Had an allergic reaction to a banned and dangerous chemical that almost killed me. Was the scariest moment of my life so far but I'm still here hehe...even though I prolly lost like 10 years off my life.
ok so had a pretty decent table draw yesterday. started tournament at 30k and blinds at 50/100. insane amount of chips. to my left is entropyxx, it was really cool meeting him and two my right are two other star guys. direct right was pretty nitty who i squeezed a bunch of times and to his right was a nl400 regular who squeezed more than anyone at the table. i was seat 3 the guy at seat 8 was trying to outplay everyone, which he did. the few times i did call him down he ended up hitting backdoor flushes so whatever i just shrugged and took it in the ass for a while knowing that i had way too many chips to be doing crazy things on day 1. went as high as 45k and as low as 16k. i really didnt get dealt very well and when i did nothing much happened. i was earning most my pots except when i had 16k i called raise on button with j 10s flopped trips turned quads and original raiser ended up having kings.
i gotta say that live poker is so grueling i was exhausted by the end i just wanted to leave early. i ended with 41,400 in chips and blinds are going to be 500/1000 100 antes tomorrow. im really happy to even have that many chips right now as i made some errors with tournament protocols as far as raising. im very optimistic for day 2, i cant really be dealt much worse day 2. and few double ups can let me seriously contend.
Was highlighted with the Best Cash Day of my career (something like 4.2k), a crazy trip to Vegas for 10 days (TR is below this post), and newfound confidence in my game. I've been taking some shots at 3/6 and 5/10 when tables are good, and I'm a full-fledged 2/4 reg now (the 1/2 was towards the beginning of the month) . Obviously I ran pretty damn good this month, but hopefully I can just ride the wave and keep taking shots until I'm more than comfortable with my roll and abilities. Amazing that in September last year I was nearing busto, and now I've got about 100 BI for 400nl and a good amount in my bank account.
Calling the month off early to spend some time with my family for the next couple days, and just relax/live healthier. I'm getting sick, I think sitting in front of my computer 24/7 with ungodly sleep schedules and not getting enough fresh air might have to do with it. Hopefully I'll be in decent shape to put in more hands for May, since this was probably my lowest-volume month in a while.
As far as tourneys go, I broke even in SCOOP after doing shitty for the first few events, then getting like a 1.7k cash in the $1000 main event after satelliting into it. May is FTOPS 12 time, where once again my dreams at becoming a hundred thousandaire lie. GL everyone :D
Overall a 16k month which is definitely up there for me:
~13200 Cash Games
~0 Donkaments
~800 Rakeback
~2000 Live (Vegas)
= 16000
Well it seems like my fears of The Stand becoming real and giving me a reason to move back to Boulder and get free rent are becoming more and more ridiculous. Damn you logic for proving that my fears are stupid!
Anyway, found some fun clips on the swine flu scare fest. Daily show did it well:
And a fun short youtube vid on "Why NOT to Worry About Swine Flu":
The funny political fallout of this is that in the GOP's crusade to slash the stimulus cause of "wasteful spending" (which I am against, but often the GOP's idea of wasteful spending is very different than mine as they think everything is wasteful), they actually cut out money to prepare america to deal with a flu pandemic. That's right, Obama wanted to use money to prepare in case something like the swine flu happened and the GOP called it wasteful spending and fought to have it removed. And what are they saying now? "We didn't know swine flu was going to happen!" Duh. Neither did Obama. But he was being PREPARED. It's kind of like having a flashlight and extra batteries laying around the house. It's an extra cost up front but in the long run it's well worth it for when the power goes out.
Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele defended GOP opposition to pandemic preparedness funding in the stimulus bill in an interview with CNN Tuesday, saying the party had no way of knowing that such a threat might actually materialize. "Did we know this at the time of the vote?" Steele asked. "Don't come back and make this link six months after the fact ... we don't know what tomorrow holds." He added, "I'm not going to sit here and accept that connection."
Call me crazy, but I like the idea of the Gov being prepared to deal with things like hurricanes, tornadoes, and huge disease outbreaks. To me that's one of the main reasons we have a government.
Anywho, Colorado is yet to have a confirmed case so I feel pretty good about my chances of surviving this apocalypse. haha
Yea so I'll go to bed soon to rest up before the biggest party days of the year here in Uppsala. I'm really excited about it. Tommorow I'll try to take it somewhat cool and don't get too burnt out, but thursday will just be sick. So many good friends, so much great food and beverage and no obligations for a couple of days. Except the useall crowd I'm really excited to hang out with Lesbian Girl from last summer. She might be the most evil/funny little HBT-person I've seen so far, haha. Also, I'll get my hands on some Discworld books in exchange for some Heinlein books. Sweet!
Random points:
I need to start dressing better. Got a few shirts and a pair of jeans when I was shopping with a couple of friends. I bought them because I found out that I was all out of decent shirts. This is not acceptable. I just really hate shopping for clothes, lol.
Gawuss is giving me lessons in Polish. Yesterday I learned two words. I've forgotten one of them.
I'm getting out of shape. I'll need to do something about that.
As far as music goes England > Ireland > USA. The rest of the world kinda sucks. Some spanish stuff is decent enough though.
For you guys with spotify; check out these 5 songs and if you like anything state which and reply with a couple of songs you think I'll like that aren't very well known.
Gentlemen, start your engines - Gratefull Dead
The Queen of Argyll - Silly Wizards
Lorelei - The Pogues
Wayward Child - Rory Gallagher
Universial Soldier - Buffy Sainte-Marie
Nice article from Arianna Huffington, an ex Republican who overall supports Obama but doesn't hold back when she sees him fucking up. I overall agree with her analysis here. The only thing I'm not sure about is the bank bailout situation, mainly because I don't know enough about the details of what's going on and I don't have a strong understanding of economics. I don't like forming opinions on things where I'm not informed. I think she's right that Obama failed on staffing the treasury department, but Obama's speech on his economic plan made sense to me. But while his plan to unfreeze credit and avoid extreme pain by giving money to the banks makes sense, I don't know how realistic it is. I'm very torn between letting the bad businesses / banks fail and trying to find a way to save them but change them. So basically I'm not happy with what he's done in regards to the bank bailouts, and but I'm not angry about it either. Kind of in a middle ground.
Anyway, here's her article. If you don't want to read it all then just skip to the bottom where she makes her points about the good and the bad.
Has it been only 100 days since Barack Obama took the oath of office? Actually, it's only been 98, but sometimes 100 days feels like more than 100 days. This is one of those times. Obama's first 100 days have been among the most eventful in history.
So how's it going?
According to the American people, pretty damn good. Not only does 69 percent of the public approve of the job Obama is doing, but last week, for the first time since January 2004, more Americans felt the country is headed in the right direction than in the wrong direction (48 percent to 44 percent). Remarkably, this "right direction" number has been steadily rising even as the economy has been steadily falling.
In his Grant Park acceptance speech on election night, the newly elected president warned that "the road ahead will be long," and "our climb will be steep." But his poll numbers are a vindication of the idea that, with the right leadership, Americans are mature enough to heed those words and not expect immediate results.
So any list of the most impressive achievements of Obama's first 100 days should start with the intangible qualities of transformational leadership --- from the president's personal equanimity (which Robert Reich described as "the serene center of the cyclone -- exuding calm when most Americans are petrified") to his masterful use of the bully pulpit.
In just his first 100 days, Obama has had almost as many prime time press conferences as George Bush did in his entire first term. And it's not just press conferences. Obama's willingness to speak directly to the American people -- in town halls around the country, on YouTube, on Leno, on ESPN, etc -- and to engage with them by answering questions online and reading ten letters a day from the public, is a powerful reminder that the White House isn't a privatized bubble or underground bunker off limits to the people.
He's also offered tone setters that are a useful reminder that the president is more than just the country's chief executive -- that he and the First Lady are also potentially the country's chief teachers. They've already taught the country a lot of lessons -- about what we eat and how we eat by planting an organic vegetable garden at the White House, and about commitment to family through their relationship with their daughters and by having the First Granny move into the White House to help Sasha and Malia settle into their new lives.
Now to the more tangible aspects of his presidency. Let's start with the pluses:
* The stimulus package. It wasn't big or bold enough, and it suffered from the malodorous scent of Eau de Congressional Business as Usual, but the speed and focus with which it was passed showed how serious Obama was about pulling America out of its economic free-fall. And how competent his team was at hitting the ground running. Plus, it taught the new president an important lesson about the limits of bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship.
* Passing and signing the national service bill. Not so long ago, a call for sacrifice meant asking people to go shopping or take a trip to Disney World. Creating a system in which more people can feel as if they're true stakeholders in their communities will not only produce physical benefits -- it will help repair America's moral infrastructure as well. And their answering of the call will be additional proof that Americans have been waiting for a leader to ask more of them.
* Reversing course on stem cells. It was a clear statement about the return of the reality-based world. As Obama put it when he signed the order "It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda, and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology."
* A progressive budget. Healthcare, provisions to tackle rising economic inequality, a more rational defense budget, tax cuts for all but the very wealthy -- as David Leonhardt of the New York Times wrote, Obama's budget is "nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters."
* Foreign Relations. From granting his first presidential interview to Al-Arabiya TV to loosening the embargo on Cuba to hanging an open sign on the State Department, Obama has signaled that the bellicose days of antagonism as our default foreign policy position are over. And his decision to close Guantanamo also sent the right message to the world.
* The rescue of Captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama. Blowing away fears of a sea-faring Black Hawk Down, Obama's restrained behind-the-scenes handling of the volatile hostage situation demonstrated that the new commander-in-chief is not afraid to pull the trigger when an American life is on the line. Bonus points for causing the Limbaugh-Hannity worldview about Democrats being nothing but bleeding hearts to shift on its axis.
A solid run of pluses. Now for the minuses:
* The bank bailout. In his appointments at almost every agency, Obama has demonstrated a desire to receive a wide range of opinion. But the exception is a doozy: at Treasury, the range of opinion goes all the way from Goldman to Sachs. Several hundred billion dollars later, the banks still aren't lending, the zombies are still on their feet, preferred shareholders are still being catered to, the knowledge of where our money has gone is spotty at best, and oversight and transparency remain unfulfilled promises. The Obama White House's vision for the rescue remains startlingly myopic. The result is the continued funneling of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the very people who got us into the mess we are in -- with very little accountability demanded in return. The biggest black mark on Obama's first 100 days is his head-scratching reliance on the bank-centric beliefs of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.
* Afghanistan. Obama has committed 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan but as many, including Obama himself, have noted, there is no exclusively military solution to Afghanistan. What's more, unlike with Guantanamo, Obama has adopted Bush's policies regarding the enemy prisoners being held at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.
* Torture accountability. Obama has said he wants to look forward and not back, and it's reasonable for him to not want his agenda sidetracked by torture commissions and investigations. But the way we respond to the revelations about the Bush administration's use of torture isn't merely a question of policy; it a question of morality. The minute the president starts framing the issue as a matter of right vs wrong, his choices will be clear. Because if there is one thing Obama cannot afford to abandon it's the moral high ground. And he can trust the American public to walk and chew gum at the same time -- to be able to support a national health care plan, a new energy plan, the reforming of our education system, and at the same time support accountability for those who undercut our fundamental values.
* Sensible gun control. Despite a recent run of deadly gun rampages and an appeal from the president of Mexico, whose country is paying a heavy price for bought-in-America guns, Obama has chosen the path of political expediency and turned his back on his campaign promise to reinstate a ban on assault weapons.
For the last eight years, we suffered from the soft bigotry of low presidential expectations. Taken as a whole, Obama's first 100 days have been an inspiring change from a White House that expected as little from us as it did from itself.
The road ahead is indeed going to be long and steep. But at least we're on the right road.
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. Obviously I ran pretty damn good this month, but hopefully I can just ride the wave and keep taking shots until I'm more than comfortable with my roll and abilities. Amazing that in September last year I was nearing busto, and now I've got about 100 BI for 400nl and a good amount in my bank account.
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