Quit, Writing, Poker

Today was my last day at Westside. I'm actually going to miss it. It was a fun job that was the opposite of hard. My work stories will most definitely be more boring now.

Speaking of stories, I was really inspired to write when I got home today, so I sat down and started cranking out pages. I think I put three or four in my comedy journal, and then put about six pages of an essay about my hall monitor days together. I finally stopped because I ran into a problem. In case you haven't read the blog posts from the past two weeks, I've really grown to like Charlie, one of the special needs kids at Westside. However, in trying to record some of his antics, I feel like I'm just making fun of the retarded kid and it really, really bothers me. What I'm trying to convey is the jealousy I have toward Charlie. I'm very glad that I developed normally, but along with that comes a lot of bullshit that we don't need. Charlie doesn't care what others think at all, he just does what makes him happy. One of those things is pretending his hand is a walkie talkie. If I felt the same way, I would never talk into my hand because I'd be afraid that somebody would find out. I try to squash that fear in my head, but it was drilled in there for about twenty-three years. I'm either going to post a link to a rough draft when I finish it, or more likely I'll just e-mail it to some of you to workshop it for me (if you're willing, you'll get it sent to you regardless, but you aren't required to send back comments). Hopefully I can work this problem out because I have a lot of good stuff to mold into a story.

No poker since the last post, and I'm honestly not missing it right now. I'm guessing it will be Sunday before I play again, but there's always a chance that I'll play a bit tomorrow. No good poker stories either.

Elaboration, Old Men, Forgotten Dream, Poker

I finally spotted Hot English Teacher today. I now know where her desk is and have two days to formulate something clever that I will never say to her. I pretty much can't arrange a "chance" meeting, so I'm either going to have to be awkward, walk up and say "Hi, do you want to go on a date?" or just never say anything. I'd like to do the former, but history sides with the latter. I thought I spotted HET last week, but nay, I was mistaken. As I was walking toward the study areas, I saw a very professional-looking, adult dressed female walking with a stack of papers towards the English study area where the teachers' desks are located. I too quickly assumed that this must be HET and used my higher vantage point (the study areas are tiered and English is on the bottom) to watch her walk to her desk. However, she didn't walk to a teacher desk. She walked to a student desk. Where her pink backpack was sitting. I instantly felt like a pervert and avoided the English area for the rest of the day. HUG sits in the same seat every day. I wonder if she can feel my seething anger because I shoot eye daggers at her every time I walk by.

Jeff and I worked out tonight for the first time in almost a week. When I got back from Lincoln at 10pm (sorry Chelsea, I got a late start and couldn't hang out), Jeff was already asleep. This isn't the first time this happened. Both Wednesday and Thursday of last week we fell asleep on the couches at around 8pm, and Jeff has been falling asleep on the couch by 9pm every night this week. It's like we're 87. Granted, we both have to be up at around 6:30-7ish, but we should still be able to make it until 11 or 12. Pitiful.

I forgot the James/Kearney/Plague dream, although I remember that I again woke up in a cold sweat and scared poo-less. I blame my new mattress. I haven't had any bad dreams since those two consecutive nights, but I did get the death feeling again the other night. I'm pretty sure that I've blogged about it before, but a brief recap of my death feeling: I close my eyes to fall asleep and realize that one day I will die. I feel hollow when it happens, and I get scared because I don't know what happens after we die. I like to think that we get reborn or that we go to some paradise (call it what you will), but my realism kicks in and figures that we probably just die and rot; fingernails and hair continuing to grow for a few days or weeks and then nothing. In the past I couldn't sleep when I would get this feeling. Over the years, I've learned to just read a book for a bit and then I'm fine again. I'm hoping that the old box spring will spread good mojo on the bad vibe of the new mattress, but if not, I'll have my mom bring up the dream catcher I made in elementary school. I don't believe in a lot of mystic stuff, but it never hurts.

I didn't play poker today. I was tired and busy. I don't know if I'll get any in tomorrow or Friday either, but I will definitely degen it up this weekend.

Lack of Exercise, Sick, Poker

This will be a quick blog.

I haven't exercised in five days and I feel like garbage about it. Jeff and I have a "hit in the nuts" agreement if one of us tries to back out tomorrow, so it looks like I'll get back on track, but it's going to suck because my back is starting to hurt and I have to increase my weight come October. I will say that I'll squeeze in a workout on a Saturday on Sunday but that's about as likely as me giving birth to an alien baby out of my butt in the next fifteen seconds.............................nope, didn't happen.

I was sick today so I didn't administer justice in the halls of Westside High. I plan on making up the hours by working full days for the rest of the week, but if my back feels like garbage in 5.5 hours I'm only going in for the half day like I'm supposed to. I'm not looking forward to it as this is their homecoming week and my sister said that I'll get to deal with inter-class pranks daily. I can't wait. Quick scoring update: Special Needs Kids: 4, Hot Underage Girls: 1, Bret: 0. SNK scored two quick points when Charlie again stole a quarter from me when my change fell from the vending machine and a scant five minutes later Alex body blocked my first view of Hot English Teacher as she was leaving for lunch. A case of mistaken identity involving Hot English Teacher is also the cause for Hot Underage Girls getting on the board. I'll elaborate later.

Poker sucked the past two days. I was stuck about $110ish from tourneys and HU's Monday, but managed to crush a $.25/$.50 NLHE ring for about $125 to salvage the day. Yesterday (Tuesday), I ran colder than dry ice. I was card dead for several hours, and then I was flop dead. After those both ended, I kept getting cold decked. I lost a $160ish pot when my 45 flopped the ignorant end to T9 on the cruel 678 board. I lost another $75ish pot when AKss sprinted to a flush when I got 99 in on a flop of 8x 6s 3x. I also dropped about $30 the lone time I was dealt AA and had to pitch it on a final board of KJ3T9 with a flush. I'm still waiting on a $100 cashout to take a crack at FT, but my current usable roll is at $962.77, meaning I was around -$200 yesterday. Oh well, you can't win everyday. Bugsy's is having a tourney series in the middle of October, and hopefully the $330 worth of tourneys that I'm going to play will net me around $1.5k. Time to brush off my MTT game.

Reading/Listening, 1500, Zombie Children, Shaving, Poker

Reading: Still Napalm & Silly Putty by George Carlin. I'm about a third of the way through and I should finish this week.

Listening: Wonderful Night by Fatboy Slim, featuring Lateef. It's ridiculously catchy. All around good, clean, poppy fun. I'm a pretty big fan of Fatboy Slim, and I have all of his major releases (I think). This particular gem came off of the Palookaville release, which is worth an iTunes preview.

The blog hit 1500 visitors today. Hooray! I guess I'm not certain where I eventually want it to go. On one hand, it would be cool if 1,000 people a day stopped by to check out what I'm up to. On the other hand, the only real benefit would be advertising money. I'm glad that I have regulars that care what I'm up to and what I have to say about things, and I appreciate you still stopping by.

The Zombie Children Dream: I was in a cabin in a spooky ass forest. It was night, go figure. I was sleeping in a bed that was in a room in the middle of the cabin. It wasn't a bedroom, this big bed was just in the middle of the living room. I don't know who I was there with, but they came in from another room and woke me up saying they couldn't sleep because of noises they kept hearing. I told them they were an idiot and needed to go back to bed, but just then this freaky little Asian zombie child in a coolie hat rose up from below the bed and tried to grab my leg. I kicked it in the face. Then there were more. And more. The person and I kicked our way outside and ran to the Jeep that was parked outside, but of course the keys were in my jacket which was inside. As we were outside, more zombie children started pouring out of the woods and the cabin. I started back inside, beating children out of my path, but then I woke up. It was scary but not. The zombie children didn't move that fast, and they were easily puntable, but I was terrified when I woke up. I think it was just the image. They were like something out of a Gorillaz video; cartoonishly dead looking and stereotypically Vietnamese. When I was moving I discovered that I had purchased a Dream Dictionary off of the bargain rack in Barnes and Noble. It says nothing about zombies or zombie children.

So shaving every day sucks. My face was raw all last week, and I have definitely decided that when I start at the bank next week, I will not be shaving on my days off. Ever. I might shave for my wedding day, but I make no guarantees. My dad, who usually harps on me to shave, was glad when he saw me being scraggly this weekend. He told me one of the great things about getting older is not having to shave on weekends. This is why my dad and I get along better now.

Poker is still going very well. My bankroll is at $1,231.77, so it's time for another shot at the $.50/$1 HU NLHE tables at Full Tilt. I got up to this level by winning a $30 HU match by displaying great patience, waiting to get in with QQ vs 44 on a JT7 flop. After that it was merely waiting to flop a pair on the guy because he only had 1.5k chips and limp every pot and move in on the flop. I also played some $.25/.50 NLHE ring and cleaned up for over $100 profit. I was on a sick rush when I first sat down and quickly got up $40. I then proceeded to play some of the most selectively aggressive poker of my life. This cause me to get paid off big on two flushes that I hit (I hit flushes like mad), and my last big pot was with AA. I also won a small amount at $.10/.25 PL 7-Stud split. I saw Matt getting bullied by a guy that uses it as his strategy. He buys into the table for $100 plus and then just bets pot, pot, pot, pot, bullying people who buy in for normal amounts. I only bought in for $25, but with the guy being sandwiched it shut him down. I dropped three buy ins getting my money in with four to a low and either a straight or flush draw by fifth street and missing each time. Matt left and U2Knapp started bullying again. I rebought for $150 to cover his $140. I got all of my money back when I made a hero call to win a $169.10 pot. I had 632 with two diamonds to start a hand. On fourth, I picked up another 3, fifth brought an 8, sixth a Q, and seventh a 3, leaving me with only 6633. I knew that U2Knapp had started with air because he had an A up and he always raised if he was unpaired, limped if he was paired. He had been betting pot the whole way, and when he corked out the +$50 bet on the river, I thought for about fifteen seconds and called. Scoop! We played for a bit longer as he rebought for $300 and I really wanted to double again, but I realized how dumb that move is for me right now and decided to leave with my $15 profit. I can see that guy giving me $500 in the near future, but I'll wait for the risk to my bankroll to be smaller. $100 HU matches and the ring game at Full Tilt begin today. Hopefully I can keep my HU winning streak up, along with my cash game profit streak. Wish me luck.

Blog Topics, Desk, Poker

There are several things that I've wanted to write about, but my posts have been so long that I've left them out. This is a list of things that will be coming soon to tease your imagination.

Zombie Children Dream
Lost in Kearney with James Dream/Plagues
Hot Teacher/Hot Student Mistaken Identity (Like we didn't see this one coming)
Jeff and I Being Old Men/Early Bed Time
Lack of Exercise

The last few are somewhat self explanatory, but I think your mind can wander around "Zombie Children Dream."

I was going to write about at least one of those quickly this morning, but I broke my desk and my keyboard now resides too high on the top of the desk or too low on my lap, so typing isn't comfortable. The irony here is that while I was on the phone with my parents last night my desk was referred to as "a piece of shit." I defended the desk, and this is how it repays me. Ungrateful bastard.

No poker yesterday, but I did get in two HU matches and a little NLHE ring the day before. I won both HU matches, which puts me on a little five or six game winning streak, which is nice. They were both $50, and they were both really quick. In the first, the guy was ridiculously aggressive but I still got out to a small lead when I got stubborn with top pair. Then, with K3, we took a K22 flop. I led and he raised. The turn was a 7, I bet again and he overbet all in. I put him on A7 after quite a bit of thought and called. He showed A9 and missed his three outer. The next match I was down slightly when I picked up AA. The flop was 7x 6x 2h and the turn was a 4h. I bet the whole way and he shoved over me on the turn. I called pretty quickly and he showed the spooky Q7hh for fourteen outs, all of which I faded to cripple him to 1.5k in chips. A few hands later my J8 beat his KT and that was that. The ring game was pretty boring except for me making a flush in a six handed pot and really thinking that I was outflushed. I won like $10 in the quick session, leaving my bankroll at $1067.37. It's 6:46am, time to get ready for work.

School Stories, Job, Poker

Two stories of note today. Story One: Since I have a lot of time to just walk around, I find things to keep me amused. Usually, I pick up a random object that I find on the carpet and play with it. Yesterday, it was a big paper clip. Today, it was a quarter. I was acting like Two Face for the short while I had the quarter, but then it was taken from me. By a Special Needs student. Here's our conversation verbatim:

Charlie: "What you got there?"
Me: "A quarter." (holds out quarter in palm for admiration)
Charlie: (takes quarter and walks off)
Me: (stands with empty palm upturned and watches Charlie walk off)

I passed him in the hall later and he thanked me for the quarter.

Story Two: I was stationed at a door to make sure kids don't sneak out during class. This is fruitless as we are only stationed at two of the ten or so doors that lead outside, but that is a different conversation. Students have a schedule on the back of their ID cards that shows when they can come and go from the building, so they are supposed to show their card to me before leaving. One student walked right past me and when I yelled for him to stop and show me his ID card he responded by screaming "Don't touch my chicken wings!" over and over and over until he was finally outside. I didn't follow. I later learned that there was a Special Needs classroom located right near the door that I was watching. Special Needs Kids: 2, Bret: 0.

As hilarious as the Bouncer position will be for the blog, I will only be doing it for another couple of weeks. I was offered a big boy job with Bank of the West today and I accepted it. Even though I'm starting as the Assistant Customer Services Manager I hope to one day achieve a high enough status to be in the banker's pen in a WaMu commercial. Or to have my official job description be Guy Who Lights Cigars With Hundo's. But that's like two or three months from now, so no point getting ahead of myself. If some of you (Katie) thought that the 25 year old hall monitor was hilarious, picture me going to work in a suit every day. Knee slapper!

I didn't play poker yesterday, but I spent a lengthy amount of time at work thinking about a poker conversation that I had online a few days ago. I was slumming it at a $.10/.25 NLHE ring game because I was bored and there were these two tools getting into it. One guy was pretty Hellmuthian (user name GJ and then a bunch of numbers I don't remember), and another guy was ragging on him pretty hard. Other guy bad beat GJ in a pot for all of GJ's money ($10), so GJ bought into the table for what was likely his entire $315 bankroll. This incited further verbal jabs, and somehow I got in the mix by saying something to the effect of "You are too worked up over $10." GJ then questioned whether I would care about a $10 loss, so I brought MY entire bankroll to the table. He shut up, but then started asking about the games I usually play, and the turned to conversations about pots won and lost. The biggest pot that I've ever won was right around $850. The biggest one I've lost was right around $1600. Most of the younger poker players that I know are the same way; their biggest win isn't even close to their biggest loss. GJ claimed to have won a pot for $1775, but to have never lost a pot larger than $250. I told him that I didn't believe that at all and asked about what size of games each pot had occurred in, but he got quiet and left shortly thereafter. My thoughts all day circled around how many people have actually won a pot bigger than their biggest loss. Obviously numerous people have had to rake in pots bigger than ones that they've shipped away, but how big is the typical discrepancy? Does it mark a turning point in your poker career when you win a pot bigger than your biggest loss? I couldn't answer any of these. Hopefully somebody will provide some insight.

Reading/Listening, Novakovich, Bouncer, Poker

Reading: Napalm & Silly Putty by George Carlin. I'm not very far in, but I can somewhat tell that if you have seen or heard most of Carlin's live stand-up, the book is just a written record of those jokes. It lacks something without his voice and delivery.

Listening: I'm finding it harder to obsess over songs with a regular workout routine because I skip through so many in the half hour that I spend on the exercise bike that I hate to search all the way back to find a song. However, I did listen to I'll Be There For You/You're All I Need To Get By by Method Man and Mary J. Blige several times one day (first link for lyrics, second is Amazon for additional info). I really like the song because it is all around solid. It blends Method Man's neat voice and great lyrics with Mary J. Blige's beautiful voice. Stir that in with a beat that is simple but will be stuck in your head for a day or two and you have a great song. And it's an actual love song with only minimal hip-hop stereotypes of love. Check it out on iTunes even if you don't really like rap because you just might like it.


I finished the Novakovich book after another short bout with Sudoku. I think I cheated on all but one "tough" puzzle, but I blew through the first two "diabolical" puzzles in ten minutes without cheating. Go figure. I'm somewhat torn on the Novakovich book because I was fortunate enough to get to meet and spend some time with him in Lincoln and he is an awesome guy. That aside, I can only really give the book one thumb up. I absolutely loved some stories like 59th Parallel, Spleen, Ribs, and Night Guests. I found the bulk of the stories confusing at points, which turned me off to them. I think I really could've gotten into The Bridge Under the Danube, but I lost the story after the first section break. It goes back to tell some history, but then it seemingly brings the reader back to the present. Then, there's a section break that brings us back to the present, so I didn't know where to file the previous information that I thought was in the present. Also, I think there were a lot of things that I simply can't culturally understand because I don't have the experience background. I'll use The Bridge as an example again. The Zivkovic's walk back into their prayer circle caked with dust and blood, probably with a dazed expression on their faces, and nobody lifts a finger to help them. It seems like the people don't even notice them. Maybe this type of sight was so common during the war that the lack of reaction is true, but I just can't imagine it. My brain thinks that even in wartime, if you see somebody staggering toward you with blood caked on them, you react by helping them or running away or screaming or something. I just don't think people could go about their business as normal. That particular story had a fantastic ending, as all of the stories had moments of brilliance, but they just didn't feel finished to me. Maybe I'll reread it in a couple of years and view it differently, but I don't see it right now. I still encourage the read, as I will be picking up April Fool's Day and reading it soon. If you agree with me on the review, at least you will have a new understanding of what it was like in the former Yugoslavia after it broke apart, which is something that we should all know a bit about so we can avoid something like it in the future. Are you listening politicians? Politicians should read my blog. Write your senator.

I started working today at Westside High School as a Hall Supervisor. Read hall monitor. Read bouncer. That's what all of the students call me. "Are you the new bouncer?" It's amazing how much high schools are like prisons. Small changes are instantly noticed and word spreads fast. My job as bouncer consists of the following: walking around getting delinquents for administrators and then going to the main thoroughfare of the school every forty minutes and yelling at students to stop loitering and get to their class. If there are no delinquents to be retrieved and it isn't a passing period I walk around and try to figure out which teachers are single. Sometimes I go bug my sister who is a counselor at the school, whose job consists of not being in her office despite having only two "classes" to oversee each day (a homeroom and a group guidance class, which still seems oxymoronic to me). It's not awful, and it pays fairly well, but it reinforces my desperation to find an actual career-type job. I already have funny stories, but I know that I will have plenty and this blog is dragging on so I'll save them for now. I did find $10 on the floor today though. Pay raise on my first day! Yes, you bet your sweet ass I kept it.

I didn't play any poker today, but I played 2 HU matches on Monday as well as some $.25/$.50 NLHE ring. I played a $50 and a $30 HU match and won both of them fairly easily. In the $50 I had to be patient because I was playing a guy that was easily trappable. In the $30 it was the opposite because the guy was weak-tight. I trapped the guy in the $50 with a cooler; QJ vs my 22 on a QJ2 flop. All in on the flop and he bricked out. In the $30 I led top and bottom pair and the guy finally took a stand with middle pair. He bricked, I won. In the ring game I played alpha male power poker and just bet and raised everything after probably an hour of super tight play. I basically got sick of waiting for hands, knew that I had locked up a $30 profit and was willing to piss off my $50 buy-in. I went from $35 to $75, dwindled down to $60, got back to $70 and then most of the money left so I did too. I raised every unopened pot from middle and late positions and cranked out pot bets on the flop as well and just kept taking them down. One player at the table was fairly good, but I had his number. We got wrapped in a pot when I was around $40 where I raised preflop with a 97dd and he called out of position. The flop brought AQ8, which was actually good for me. Since I had been so active, I was likely being called with a weak suited ace or some connectors. I bet pot on the flop and he called. Here's what that told me: he didn't buy that I had an ace, but he didn't either. He was calling to take the pot away from me if I checked the turn. There's a slim chance that he has 88, but I think he would've led hoping I had an A and would raise (he is a pretty decent player). I disappointed him with a big ol' pot bet on the turn and he reluctantly folded something likely along the lines of QJ or QT suited. Go me. I was really seeing situations like this and wanted to keep playing, but there was just no significant stack at the table. I have grown to hate the minimum buy-in asshole because they are taking over and they are impossible to "play" against. What I mean is that if they raise a pot, they are pretty much playing all-in or fold on the flop. And their standards loosen up. AK is an all-in hand regardless of the flop. If the flop comes unders, they're betting/calling all-in. If they hit, they're betting/calling all-in. It doesn't allow me to take down small pots and trap them for big ones. Also, it really complicates multi-hand pots because they're like a fucking land mine waiting to blow your foot off when you try to push another stack off of their hand. Then, you have to call the all-in for the additional $1 over your bet and have to show off your bluff. It's just not worth it. Bankroll at $961.97.

I'm considering spinning the poker blog off on its own because I'm playing enough right now that I have considerable material. I'm hesitant because I'm not working full-time, and I imagine that I will scale my poker time back when such a thing happens. Thoughts?

Job, Fight, Poker

I just received a call from Bank of the West. I one of two people that they are considering for an Assistant Customer Service Manager position. I should know by Wednesday. This is good news, although it would be better news if they hired me. Good luck me.

I almost got in a fight this weekend. Actually, I'm kind of mad that I didn't. My friend Adam Swift took me to one of his friend's houses here in Omaha to watch the Husker game. It was in the incredibly northwestern part of town, and Adam lives a long way away from me, so we drove two cars. We stopped for a bite to eat, and he told me about a guy that would be there. They don't like each other. Now, Adam is smaller than I am. And nerdy looking. Physical prowess isn't a word that you would use to describe him. When we got there, he didn't have to point out the guy that he didn't like. He was already belligerently drunk and acting like a jackass. It wasn't hard to tell that he was one of those guys that people are still friends with because they've always been friends with him, but over the course of the night he embarrassed himself repeatedly. As you all know, the Husker game was poo, and near the end of the third quarter, Adam and I were talking about why we had no run defense. Adam is a huge soccer fan, so he joked about us needing to hire a French soccer coach for our football team. That's when Greg chimed in. "We don't need a fag running our football team." Then there was an argument between Adam and Greg. Then Adam said "Wow. It's really not a big deal, I don't know why you have to be such a tool about it." Then Greg got in his face and threatened him. Here is the part where I just should have hit him. I tried breaking it up peacefully, but that obviously didn't work. I tried to get one of his friends involved, but they sat around like a bunch of cowards. That let me down because they were a lot of fun, and I thought they were good people. They still might be, but this wasn't one of their better moments. Adam showed incredible restraint and tried to walk away, but the guy did the one thing that is just dirty pool; he called Adam a chickenshit. It's like George McFly in Back to the Future. There's something in man DNA that won't allow us to be called a coward in a heated moment. We can't help it. Adam was walking to the garage at the time and said "Yeah, I'm real fucking scared of you." Greg's gears started to turn. A few seconds later, Adam was in the garage and Greg finally realized what he said. Then he sprinted into the garage after Adam. Some other people were in the garage and grabbed Greg and Adam simply got in his car and left. I stayed and had a great night. Greg aside, everybody was very nice and a lot of fun. I should have hit him. It wouldn't have done much, but I should have done it. I should have done it because people like Greg rely on fear because it's all they have. He was supposed to be a fantastic kicker for the Huskers, but he's too big of a drunk and got kicked off the team. He may have gotten kicked all the way out of school. He works construction now. His life peaked his senior year of high school, and I can't blame him for being angry about it, but picking on 5'8" redheads isn't impressive. He wasn't a huge guy, and I would've had a chance in a fight with him, but I wouldn't of at that place. As soon as I hit him, three other people would've hit me. It's another thing in man DNA. If somebody hits your friend, you hit that person. I still should've done it. I talked with my dad about it on Sunday as we were driving around in Omaha and he was proud of me all around. He was glad I didn't get in a fight, but he was glad that I would've hit the guy if he had hit Adam. "If one of you gets a black eye, you all get a black eye. If one of your friends doesn't help you out, then YOU give them a black eye." Despite the modern PC era where there aren't "manly" things, I'm glad I still have a manly quality or two lurking beneath my modern-man exterior. I still should've hit him.

Poker is still going well. I'm taking some pretty sick beats still, but not one after the other. Actually being allowed to win hands is nice. Friday I lost $30 because I came home rumblin' stumblin' drunk and decided to play. At least I had the presence of mind to only play for $30, but it was more like charity than competition. I didn't play on Saturday, and I did okay yesterday. I played two $50 HU and a $.25/$.50 NLHE 6 Max table. In the first HU, I played ridiculously well but got boned. After four hands I was up to 13k and got coolered. I had 46hh and called a raise on the button. The flop was a glorious 2h 2x 5h, he checked, I bet pot, he raised pot, I called. The turn was the Qh. He checked, I bet pot, he called. The river peeled an A and he moved in for his remaining 3k here. I thought for a short while and called, and he turned over the disgusting KJhh. That sank me to 6k and I battled back brilliantly. I took one of with QJss on a Ts 8h 4d flop and got a K, giving me two overs and open-ended on the T that I knew he had. The river was an A giving me my straight and giving him two pair. He criticized me on my "awful" calls. A few hands later I made a hero call with 73 on a 7626Q flushed board. He check-called the flop, bet an odd amount on the turn, and bet an odd amount on the river so I looked him up after a lot of thought. He had J3o and again criticized my "awful" calls. He then got stubborn with J3o again versus my TT on a final board of Q32KJ. I bet the whole way and checked the river, but it still gave him the lead. With 8k, we got into a raise war preflop and I shoved my QQ into his JJ. The flop brought a J and I bricked to give him the match. The second match was much better as he didn't pull any hands out of his anus. I beat him down to 6k pretty quickly by getting stubborn with my top pairs and forcing him to fold, and finally got him to call with QJ vs my A9 on a 987A board. The river blanked and I went to get some food. A brief ego moment: I can't believe I can get somebody to CALL away their chips with a gutshot (and he probably thought he had two overs as well). It just amazes me that I confuse people so much sometimes that they will call off their money drawing dead. Regardless, the 6 Max table started out pretty much the same way. There were two raise-tards at the table who were in every hand, and I managed to be the only one to run into them when they had hands. My rivered two pair made one guys gutshot, and my AK ran into 22 on an A72 flop to the same guy. Twenty minutes, -$100. Good start. I played very patiently and took as many cheap flops as I could and finally got everything back with 45 on a 632 flop. The guy that had been raping me had 62, and I took down a $160 pot to put me up $10 on the day. I bullied another $10 out of the table and then took a big break. I ended up only playing some small SnG's and a $.10/$25 NLHE ring game later on. I think I made like $6, but it was a lot of fun and a good way to unwind from the day. I'm not sure how much I'll play today, but I hope it keeps going the same as it has. Bankroll at $867.87

Exercise, Notebook, Poker

I did pretty well sticking to my exercise plan this week. I lifted three days to make up for the one day I skipped last week, and I'm actually starting to see some results. My shoulders actually look as if they have muscle on them now, which is nice. I think I might go buy a scale today while I'm running errands because I'd like to weigh myself every morning. I realize that if everything goes well, I won't actually lose a lot of weight because I will be replacing fat with muscle, but I should still drop probably 20-30 pounds over the next several months. It's also starting to get a little easier to exercise. My recovery time is getting better, and I feel stronger while lifting. That's good because I'm increasing weight every month, and if it didn't feel easier, I'd be boned.

I've decided that I want to try some open mic nights at a stand-up comedy club here in Omaha. I don't know where or when, but I know that I want to do it before the year is up. In preparation, I've started keeping a notebook with material in it. I don't think that I'm going to memorize it verbatim, but it will help me to have the ideas down on the page that I can refer back to as sort of an outline of what I want to talk about when I'm on stage. I don't know what prompted me to do this other than a goofy memory that I had the other day. My freshman year of college, I was in the Liberal Arts Seminar class of The Art and Culture of Stand-Up Comedy (an LAS is sort of like an intro to college class). As part of our class, we either had to host an open mic night or participate in one, and I chose to participate. I actually ended up doing two. The first one was awful. I bombed really bad, and that is an awful feeling having thirty people stare at you in silence. I decided to do another one, but I decided this while drunk. I killed. It was great. One of the people who was putting it on pulled me aside and told me that while they voted and decided that I won, their faculty sponsor wouldn't let me take the prize because I was "visibly intoxicated." Bummer. Hopefully my experiment isn't as emotionally scarring as the first time I tried it.

Poker was fucking AWESOME yesterday. I can't remember dropping to any three or four outers, and I even put a horrible beat on someone myself. In a $20 HU (they are the only matches I can get anymore), I had leaned on a guy and had him down to 3k in chips. I was dealt 85ss on the button and raised it up. We took a flop of 542 rainbow, he checked, I bet pot and he moved in over top. I thought he might have a bigger 5, but because of the chip counts I called and he showed A3 for the flopped stones. The turn peeled another 5, giving me ten outs for the win, and the river was a disgusting 5 for quads. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. I get a really sick enjoyment from sucking out on people because of all the times it happens to me, and running quads is about as sick as it gets. When the money went in, I was just a shade over 4% to win the hand. Neat. I played four $20 HU matches yesterday, along with some $.25/$.50 NLHE ring. I went 3-1 in the HU, primarily because I'm somewhat rusty. I played three matches against the guy that I had quads on and went 2-1. My one loss came because I made what I thought was a pretty good move and got insta-called. The guy was pretty weak-tight, and we took a flop of Q72 with two clubs. He had raised preflop and bet on the flop. He didn't use continuation bets, which told me that he either flopped a Q or had a bigger pair, so I called intending to bluff later. The turn was a blank and he bet again. I called. The river peeled a great card, the 7 of clubs. If he only has a Q, this makes a ton of different hands beat him. He checked and I bet pot, which at this point was over half of my stack at around 3k. Insta-call with KQ off. I was pretty shocked. While it was the right call, he didn't give himself any time to think about it. I had only showed down one bluff and one semi-bluff at this point, so he really didn't have much info to go on, but oh well. I got down to 1.5k in chips, battled back to 8k, got back to 1.5k, battled to 7k, then busted. I cranked off two straight wins and he wouldn't play me anymore. I then played Juggernaut again and finished him off fairly quickly. I started out down at about 7k/13k, but then doubled when I got him to call A4o into my KQ on a QQ4 flop. He doubled through me the next hand, but just a few hands later I got him to call QJ into my K9 on a KKT flop. Leading out with big hands is such a good play because very few people do it, and even fewer can put you on it. In the ring game, I rode a rollercoaster. I bought in for $50 and doubled on my third hand when I kept pushing with A7 on an A742 board and got called. The river was a J and I didn't get to see what the other guy had. I built up to around $120 when I got coolered with AK vs QQ on an AQ7 flop. I couldn't fold because of the odds, but I could've gotten away from it at some point. I raised pot preflop and got reraised by a guy that I haven't played with a lot. I put him on exactly QQ preflop, but called since he was flipping vs. my AKhh. I was first to act when the flop came, and I thought hard about checking because if he does have QQ, I'm boned, or if he was getting tough with AQ, I'm boned. I made the bad move and led out, hoping that he had KK, but when he moved over top for another $6 I knew that I was losing but had to call $6 into the $100 pot. What I should've done was check. If he has AQ or QQ he's going to check here, and then I know to dump it unless I catch miracles. If he has KK, AK, or even something like AJ, he's going to bet to see where he's at, and then I can pick him off. Oh well. That put me back to even where I hovered for awhile before a monsterpotten came up. I had 67cc and limped in EP. There were a few other limpers, and a guy moved in for his last $2. When it was back to me, there were three callers and three still to act behind, so I called. A guy behind me moved in for another $4, and three people called, so I called getting sick odds. The flop was A56 with only three of us having money left. It checked to the button who moved in for his last $5 and we all called. The turn was a 4, giving me open-ended. It checked around. The river was the delicious 8, giving me what I figured to be the nuts. I bet out $10 but the others folded and I dragged the $50+ pot. I again dragged another $50 when I flopped a 4 with my 44 and felted AQ. I busted two other short stacks for around $10 a piece which effectively ended the game, leaving me with around $107 in profit. Tasty. My bankroll is back to $836.77. Now to get back over that $1k hump. Maybe I can do it today after I run all of my errands. Wish me luck.

Lincoln, Solitary, Poker (or, Computers Hate Me)

I went back to Lincoln to take care of stuff today. I picked up nearly everything from my old apartment except for two things that I forgot. I also printed my tax return at Wesleyan. While I was there, I bumped into a guy that I used to work with named Garrett. He was headed to one of the lectures that is part of the Visions and Ventures lecture series that Wesleyan hosts every year. He was meeting up with the infamous C. Dap for the lectures and a few short minutes after parting ways, I received a text message informing me that I was an "Ass" for not going to sit through a lecture when not required of me. What I was not informed of was that Chuck D. was the lecturer. Chuck Fucking D. I would've loved to hear Chuck D. talk for awhile. Lacking this information, I agreed to stick around and hang out for a bit after the lecture. I went and spent nearly an hour at Best Buy, picking up The Reminder by Feist. As much as I love the Teddybears, the CD has been playing pretty much non-stop in my truck for three weeks. I want to Teddyburnmyselfalive. I could easily plug my iPod in, but I just haven't for some reason. I heard one Feist song on MySpace today, listened to a few clips on iTunes, and then iBought it. I haven't listened to much of yet, hopefully it will be as good as my sixty second impression thought it was. Anyway, I ran a few more random errands, got some delicious Jimmy John's (the #14 as usual) and then met up with Garrett, Chelsea, and Katie. We had a couple of drinks, I rambled about stuff, they rambled about stuff, then we all went home. I had a very good time. We will have to do it again.

On my lonely drive home I realized that my life is a lot like the interstate at 1:30am. For the most part, I'm trucking along by myself. Occasionally I'll pass another bored soul and we'll exist in each other's space for a minute or two, but then I'm off again. Tom Hanks had Wilson in Castaway. I yell at my computer monitor when I die playing Diablo. My life has been very quiet. Jeff is gone from about 8am to 7pm every day, and all of my other friends here are in med school or law school, meaning that there is no point in even trying to reach them during the week. I've met Melissa, the blind lady who lives on the top floor. I actually had a weird "What do I do?" moment with her last week. I usually pass her on my way out of the building as she is taking her seeing eye dog outside to use the bathroom. I don't know why I used "bathroom" there. Revised: I usually pass her as she is taking her dog out to poop. One evening as I was leaving she was coming down the stairs. I accidentally threw her off her game by holding the door open for her, and then she asked me if I saw a cab in the parking lot. I flagged the cabbie down, but then froze up. Do I walk her to the cab? Is that insulting? Do I just leave? I chose to try to verbally guide her between the Dodge sandwich that awaited her. I didn't do well. She thanked me anyway and said goodbye and I ran away like a frightened schoolboy. I've also met Jay, the very obviously Indian (dot) that lives next door. We tried to have a conversation but between my mumbling and his accent we ended up just smiling at each other, shaking hands, and praying that we would never need to communicate to each other in a life and death situation. Aside from these rare occasions, I don't talk. My only sounds are the click of keys as I send my random thoughts through the intarwebs and my two fans humming away. Sometimes I play music. Sometimes I watch TV. Mostly it's silence.

Even after three weeks poker is stomping my nutsack. I won that $30 HU yesterday despite some bad luck, and I just got pwned today. I played Juggernaut, who is not very good. He is WAY too weak-tight to be playing HU, however, my aggression forces him to call on a lot of draws. Tonight, he hit all of them. I miraculously went 1-2 against him. I would get up to about 13-14k in each match and then he would river a straight of some sort. In my two losses, they were both gutterballs. That would set me back a bit and I could never recover. I was making good folds, good reads, and good bets, but I was getting punished. To prevent me from playing like garbage, I joined some $5 HU matches and played like a tard. I lost all of them. Four, I think. Sadly, I got in with the best hand in all of them. I was just overbetting everything and getting paid off, but I would get in on a coinflip and lose, or get them in drawing thing and lose. I don't care about the $20, but the instant return to shit luck just isn't going to fly. I'm going to play a match or two tomorrow, but if I drop to more than one four-outer in any given hour I'm taking another big chunk of time off. With all of the other things stressing me out right now, I don't need the thing I turn to as an escape to be pouring fuel on the fire. Bankroll at $701.02, Londer in bed.

Unproductive, 9/11, Pictures, No Poker

I didn't really do much today. I had an interview today at 10am, which meant that I had to wake up at about 8:30 to make sure that I was there on time. If you read yesterday's post, you know that I was up quite late, so I was very tired during my interview. When I got home, I made some lunch and took a lengthy nap, waking up at around 5pm. I was still exhausted, so I just sat on my computer and screwed around, playing a lot of Diablo II. Jeff got home around 7pm as I was headed to the exercise room. I worked out again and did amazingly well for lifting two days in a row. I could definitely feel the lack of my usual day of rest, but I was able to complete full sets with the full weight. I came back, showered, cooked a pizza, and then Jeff and I went to Wal-Mart. When we got back, I put some random photos in a photo album that I bought and hooked up my TV with my new, longer cable. That's pretty much all I've done all day. Oh, and I did a load of laundry. Tomorrow I'm headed to Lincoln to grab the very last of my things.

9/11 is a weird day for me. I always feel bad because while I feel for all of the families and for our country, I hate what it has done to our political system and populace. We've been turned into frightened fools who will believe anything prefaced by "for our national security." We ceded a lot of personal freedom to a government that shouldn't have been trusted with it (in fairness, I don't trust ANY government with some of the powers in the Patriot Act, Republican OR Democrat). In the end, where are we? Overall, the world is a worse place. The oppressive Taliban is out of power in Afghanistan, but they have not stopped fighting and it is unlikely that there will be a peaceful resolution any time soon. Iraq is Iraq. I'm not going to go into much depth, but suffice it to say that while Iraq under Saddam was bad, this might be worse. At least we got all of the WMDs. Oh wait... Back at home, we've stressed every international relationship that we've ever built, and we've started the cycle over again. US wants to accomplish X. They give country/group Y weapons and money to accomplish X for us, and then ten years later country/group Y uses the weapons and money to fight us. We never quite figure it out. I knew that day that my world had changed. As I passed my roommate in the middle of Madison Avenue, he told me that we didn't have health class because the World Trade Center had been attacked. He's a joker, and I thought he was just screwing with me because I was late. I didn't give it a second thought as I said "Ok, whatever," and headed into Smith-Curtis through the mail room doors. When I walked into the lecture hall, there were only a handful of the one hundred plus students in the room. PDP was down front repeating the mantra "Go home, be with your families. I pray that all of your friends and family are alright." In the back row on the right, a brunette girl was crying while another girl hugged her and rocked awkwardly because of the immovable arm between the seats. I didn't know either of them. There were a few students sitting silently, alone, heads down. I went back to my room in Zeta Psi and Andy was sitting watching CNN. He didn't say anything when I walked in. The north tower was billowing black smoke and the anchors struggled to find words. Occasionally, they would repeat the facts: a plane had hit the north tower. A short while later, we saw the second plane hit. Andy jumped. I said "Oh fuck." I think that should be a t-shirt. On the front, the burning towers. On the back, "Fuck." There's no other good way to describe it, but I won't forget that day.

I've been looking through a lot of old pictures that I found while unpacking. I've found random college pictures and pictures from India. I found a picture of me when I had hippie hair. That picture proves that nobody loves me because not one person told me that I looked like a retard. I've never been a picture person, but I'm glad I have these. They bring back good memories. I really want to get some of the pictures that I took in India blown up, framed, or both. I'm a damn good photographer when I do have a picture. Except that, for some reason, I have to take a picture of myself with the camera at arm's length on every roll of film. That would be another odd habit of mine. Ok, bed time.

Reading/Listening,Exercise, TV Show, Apartment, No Poker

Reading: Still Novakovich. I should note that I did take a lengthy hiatus from the book because I found an unfinished Sudoku book while unpacking. Three of them, actually. They irritate the hell out of me. I motor through the medium difficulty puzzles but get fatally stuck on every single difficult one. Being the bastion of patience that I am, I usually just cheat and move on, but then I feel bad about cheating, get frustrated with the whole damn thing and stash the books again for awhile. In the last two days I've cranked out about sixty pages in Novakovich, so I should be done sometime this week.

Listening: Baumer. Sort of. I found them on Pandora when listening to groups similar to the Teddybears, but have been unable to locate them in a store. And by store I mean the one Best Buy I happened to be in for another reason when I remembered that I wanted to buy the Baumer CD. I haven't really looked for the CD, but I've been listening repeatedly to the thirty-second clips on iTunes. Screw you don't judge me.

I got back from the workout room about ten minutes ago. It is now 3:23am. I put exercise off for as long as I possibly could today. I don't know why I still hate doing it because I do feel good afterward. Physically I feel like garbage, but I know that it will get easier as I stay with it. Mentally, I have a real sense of accomplishment. I did something, and I know I did because I'm sore and tired. I'm starting to understand why my dad has always liked physical labor over everything else. He grew up in the 1950s when blue collar workers were admired. He's never quite accepted that the fast buck is all that most people admire today. As I age, I can't blame him, even though I still want piles of easy money myself.

I've gotten hooked on the show No Reservations starring Anthony Bourdain. I mention this because while the show is good, the monologues and insights that Bourdain adds in after the shoot are incredibly beautiful. He has a robust vocabulary and, despite my anger at the terribleness of The Bobby Gold Stories, his prose tickles the ear in an incredibly delightful way. Top off the beautiful lines with what I think is an interesting and pleasing voice, and I find myself with a sort of mystified feeling every time I watch the show. I guess the point of this section is to say watch the show.

I made a significant dent in the remaining move-in tasks today. My sister and I put together the bookshelf that I bought (and by I, I mean my parents) and I loaded it up with books. I own too many books. I love it. By my estimation, I own somewhere near 150 books, only half of which I have read. There is quite a large chunk of my collection that I have started reading and stopped for whatever reason, but those stay on the "Not Read" shelves. Yeah, I divide my books up "Have Read" and "Not Read," and both of them are alphabetized by author, sub-alphabetized by title. Yeah, I'm super anal when it comes to my books. You can tell the books that I've purchased myself because they still look brand new. The ones with bent spines and faded covers are books that other people have given to me. I'm not as OCD with my movies or CDs, which I probably should be, because as I unpacked I realized that I'm missing probably twenty DVDs. I know they're lurking at my old house somewhere, but I'm NOT looking forward to playing "does this belong to James or myself?" Aside from the piles of books that are now organized, my sister put up curtains (that she bought, I was sort of anti-curtain, but her paying made it a no-brainer), we hung a gigantic "Aum" sheet that I got in India, and then my sister made me rearrange every piece of furniture in my room because she didn't like it. All I really have left are about four boxes of crap that I need to sort through, most of which is probably getting thrown away. It is time to condense my life. It is time to go to bed.

Bars, Huskers, Poker

I went out to the Omaha bars for the first time last night. Jeff and I met D'vo and one of his law school friends at a place called Mister Toad's last night. We had a few drinks there with a guy from California who was a big USC fan, so we talked football. I wanted to hug him because he said that he thought USC was overrated this year. I've been campaigning that since I heard ESPN call them the best college football team ever and nobody believes me. I also blew it. There were two very cute girls who came in and sat down at a table right next to us. They each had one drink, looked around, finished the drink, sat and waited, then got up and left. I didn't even give myself a chance to get shot down (the preceding was an attempt at humor, not a signal of low self-esteem). We left shortly thereafter and headed to a place called The Dubliner. It is what a bar should be. Delicious Irish beers on tap, live Irish drinking music, located in a dingy, cramped basement. It was a blast. We got hit on by a lady that was in her late 50s, early 60s. She was there with her niece. She was more fun than her niece. Her niece told me that the aunt had gotten kicked out of Sandy's in Lincoln a week ago for being too drunk. This is a sad tale, but it makes me smile anyway. D'vo got retarded drunk and was entertaining to watch. He was like a toddler just learning to walk, stumbling around until he saw something interesting, and then his eyes would light up and he would get a big smile on his face. He sang along to most of the songs even though he didn't know the words. When it was time to close out his tab, I watched him fill out his credit card slip. I think he tipped the waitress Q, bringing his total to R7. His signature resembled a W with a line through the middle.

The Huskers played like garbage but still won. I went to a sports bar right by my apartment to watch the game. To any out-of-staters who read this, I can't accurately describe what it is like to be in a bar on a Husker Saturday. The closest I can come is having a bar to you and 50 of your best friends. We were up high-fiving for every good play and cussing at the TV for every bad one. It was a lot of fun. I hope we beat USC next weekend.

I actually played poker today and it felt good. I played a quick $2 SnG this morning just to shake the rust off. I played pretty well but lost my Internet connection for awhile, and when I got it back, I had no chips to work with. I biffed on my freeroll by logging in nearly an hour late. I thought it started at 3pm. It started at 2pm. I had five total buy-ins. I blinded through an entire buy-in, and was nearly through the second one when I logged on. I used one rebuy and was dealt 66 UTG. I raised and got reraised by the chipleader with one other caller. I figured I was beat, but in a rebuy I'm going to see this flop, so I moved in for the remaining 300 or so that I had left. I was up against AA and TT and lost. I used my last two rebuys and ran pretty well for a bit. I was up to nearly 9k (from my 4k of rebuys) when I got burnt by a river gutshot. That shot me down to 3k, and I dwindled down to 1.5k when I doubled with 99 vs ??. I don't know what the guy had because I left the room to check a football score. I was very concerned. I hovered around 3k but then had two pots where I raised and got reraised and had to fold. I did steal several times and win a few smaller pots to get back up to nearly 4k when I busted. A guy in EP raised pot and I pushed over top with 99 figuring I was flipping for it. He called and showed 55, making me happy, until the disgusting 5 peeled off on the flop. Good game. I did beat up an r-tard named CUBUFFS in a $30 HU, which was doubly pleasureful for me. I made a hero call with A9 high on a final board of K97Kx with a flush on it. He showed QT. Overall I played pretty well but things just didn't go my way, but it wasn't too bad of a day to ease myself back into poker. I won't play tomorrow because I will be in Lincoln most of the day, but I imagine I will play a few games Monday. The bankroll is at $756.17.

Health Care, Science, Dream, No Poker

John Stossel is did an interview with Michael Moore and really grilled him about the Cuban health care system. Stossel found it hard to stomach Moore's claims that Cuban health care is better than US health care, and I can't totally blame him. Let's face it: the US makes a LOT more money than Cuba. Further, we actively brow-beat the rest of the world into cutting Cuba off because they are damn dirty Commies. With minimal money and minimal access to resources, their health care system CANNOT be as good as ours. I know Moore went to a decent looking hospital, but I promise that if he had gone to a rural area or a poor part of town, there would not have been a marble lobby and (likely) a US educated medical staff. However, Stossel, like a douche bag, attempted to discredit Moore's entire argument against National Health Care because Moore didn't tell the whole truth about the Cuban health care system. Modern "journalism" makes my head spin. Several times a week I wonder "Am I the only one left with a functional brain?" And sadly I know that people actually swallow this shit. A lot of people. People should be hung for this. I propose that it should be a capital crime to perpetuate ignorance. Seriously. Science has done enough to harm the human race (see next section), now we have pseudo-science and corporate-backed science that are joining in the dog pile to crush us out of existence. Politicians have forced politics to become the primary concern in any issue, and we just let them. I wish we had a parliamentary system so that we could take a vote of no confidence and fire every goddamn one of them. They need to be reminded that they work for us, not vice versa. I'll also post my reply to the comments thread at the bottom because I'm not sure if it worked on the ABC site.

I was in Lincoln last night gathering the last of my crap and I stopped by Quiller's. We went to get some food, and then we had an in-depth discussion on a heavy topic like we always do. This conversation was about how science is ruining the human race. Bear with me, this may seem cold-hearted, and it is, but it is also true. When the human race was back in the caveman days, only the strongest and brightest survived. If you were physically or mentally inferior, you got eaten by something. I'm not talking strictly disabled in the modern sense, I'm saying that if you were of average intelligence or physical prowess, you became Saber-Tooth Tiger poop. Our brains developed and we built better tools than spears. We figured out fire. The wheel jumped in there somewhere. The threshold for survival got lower. Jump to today. There are helmet laws for motorcycles, seat belt laws for cars, 98 airbags crammed in a Prius, and a medicine for everything. The only idiots who die today are Cletus and Gomer playing "Watch this." Natural selection has been taken out of the mix entirely. Instead of the physically and mentally gifted being the only ones that survive, they are now awarded multi-million dollar sports contracts and Nobel prizes. As a result, we are dumber than our ancestors. We know more things, but our individual intelligence isn't where it could be. What does this mean? I don't know, we didn't talk about it, and I don't want to think about it. I do know that I'm scared for my children or my grandchildren, because in their lifetime, they might have to tangle with this question when the Earth hits its carrying capacity. I hope not.

After that heavy junior Hitler piece, this should brighten your day. I had a dream about Iraqi ninjas last night. That's right. I was in Iraq as a soldier. We operated out of this warehouse thing. Outside there was a stripped down jet that I would get in and pretend that I was flying (oh yeah, I was making the gun noises and everything despite being 25). When I went back inside, somebody threw a bomb in a Folger's can in the door. It had like a firecracker fuse on it, so I just threw it back outside, but then I looked out the window and saw one of my fellow soldiers running from a ninja. The ninja was throwing ninja stars at him. I yelled for backup and went outside to help him. I surprised a ninja sneaking around the corner and shot him, but then I was pinned down by three other ninjas with throwing stars. It was actually really scary, and I woke up pretty scared, but then I laughed my ass off because I realized I was dreaming about Iraqi ninjas.

ABC News Thread Reply:
I'm sorry, but who cares? They're trying to discredit Moore's entire argument against health care by focusing on Cuba. It is an argumentation tactic that unfortunately works, but not if you're perceptive. I would imagine that poor people in Cuba or those who live in rural areas probably don't get the kind of treatment I saw in Sicko. I get that part. That's the same everywhere. For God's sake, Magic Johnson has been living with HIV for how long now? Rich people get better medicine, but that was the point of the documentary. There's no real reason why they SHOULD get better treatment; they're not better people, they just have more money than the rest of us. If Stossel was so happy to peruse the CIA World Factbook, he should've checked the other industrialized nations of the world. If he did, he would've seen that the USA ranks near the bottom of the barrel in nearly all measures. Of course we have a better health care system than Cuba, Moore was an idiot for saying otherwise. I earn probably 10 times what the average Cuban makes, and I don't make good money, but I live in a country that does make a lot of money and it should help me out. Yes, I want the government to run my health care. Capitalism isn't good for health care because they are not concerned with Joe Averageman. Further, prices at the doctor's office or drug store have never gone down that I can remember, so where is the benefit from competition? There is none, because the guys with dollars are throwing them at our national representatives to keep our health care system private. It is time that we make the government start working for us again, and not for their own gain.

Bret Londer

Watch This

I found this video online today. It made me laugh.

Interviews, Exercise, Poker Dream

I talked to my friend Jake Shank yesterday. He works at Aerotek, one of the places I've been shot down by. I'm not at all mad at him, as he got me an interview and really hyped me up, but in the end, my own honesty got me the boot. They asked me to describe myself in three words and I did; happy, fun, easy to get along with. I know it would be best to say ambitious, motivated, over-achiever, ass-kisser, but I can't say those things for a couple of reasons. The first is that I feel when you describe yourself, you should describe yourself on a Sunday afternoon. A person that is truly motivated is the person who runs errands on Sunday. A person who gets ready for the week ahead. That's not me. That's not most people. Second, as an interviewer, I would instantly write any person who responded as such off. Motivated is a bullshit answer. I don't like bullshit, I like honesty. The interviewers were younger guys, so I figured they would appreciate honesty as well. Apparently the fact that I'm happy, fun, and easy to get along with means that I would be totally unable to recruit engineers to work for other companies. Whatever. The two guys that interviewed me told Jake to call me and tell me that if I ever wanted a job, that I should NOT respond the way I did. The bad news is I'm going to do it again because I want to work for the person that can see that I'm being honest and appreciate that. The problem is that I think that person is unemployed too.

I haven't exercised this week. Monday I was out of town all day, so that's not TOTALLY my fault, although I could've squeezed a workout in if I had really tried. Tuesday and Wednesday I just couldn't drag myself over there. I'm trying to stay upbeat about this whole constant rejection theme that is presently in my life, but no matter how big your smile it still weighs on you. The last thing I want to do is add aching muscles and joints to my aching ego and self-esteem. I'm going today no matter what. It is on the "To Do" list that I made for myself.

Still no poker. I think part of my non-playing can be attributed to my presently sagging self-esteem. I don't feel like I can win at anything at the moment, so I think I've subconsciously avoided playing, which isn't all bad. Although I had a dream about poker last night which made me want to play today. I was in a casino somewhere (not Vegas) playing a HORSE tournament. I was on vacation with my family, and had been spending the day with them while blinding away in this tournament. I came back to see that I had made the final table by blinding off, but was ridiculously short-stacked. It was hold 'em, but the were playing the hold 'em round as no limit. I got all in with AQ vs AK, AQ, and AJ. We chopped it on a final board of KJTQx, but somehow I came out way ahead. When it switched to Omaha, I had amassed more chips without playing a hand but then got booted from the tournament when a played called me on a technicality. A guy had busted and I moved over into his seat. When he busted, he forgot to throw his cards to the dealer. A few hands later the dealer realized the cards were missing, I found them and offered them up, and another player called the floor and had me bounced from the tournament for trying to cheat. I handled it well (because it was a dream and not for an actual $2,000) and then I woke up. I take the dream as a "despite bad odds against you, you can still beat people at poker" type of deal. I think I'll give it a shot today.

Reading/Listening, Job, State Fair, Blog, Poker

Book I'm reading: Still on Infidelities by Novakovich.
Song I'm listening to: B-Boy Stance (Cut & Paste Remix) by the Freestylers off of the Urbal Beats 2 compilation. It's ridiculously catchy, and I've gone back to it for like three or four days now.

I'm still jobless. If anybody knows someone in Omaha that could help me out, please give me a call.

I went to the State Fair with my family on Sunday. It was fairly brutal. For starters, I was ridiculously hung over. My friend Caleb who lives in Wichita was in Lincoln for the Husker game, along with his wife and a few of our other friends. Caleb and I put on a Herculean drinking show from 11am until 1am. I don't know all of the details because things get fuzzy around 10ish. I think I may have told an old acquaintance that his wife needed to stop being a bitch to me (in those words), I saw a girl that I know (I don't know who or where I know her from, but I remembered seeing a girl I knew and that was shocking to me), and I somehow kept getting beers at bars despite not paying for any after the first bar. You can imagine my pain as I trudged through the masses in the heat the next day with my family. It actually wasn't so bad, although something about the fair inspires violence in me. Walking down the midway, I just want to elbow small children in the head and kick their parents in the kneecap. I don't know why. I speculate that my anger comes from the fact that you have ten thousand people that are totally unaware of the existence of others crammed in the same space. Baby strollers become bumper cars, except the bumper is my calf muscle. Your child won't remember the fair anyway, and lets face it, you don't want to drag them around all day either. Hello grandma, we were wondering... This idiocy gets coupled with a sense of awe. For some reason. My family goes to the State Fair every year. For some reason. It hasn't changed since 1994. There are no new rides. There are new names on old rides, but no actual new ones. There are no new booths. They are no new exhibits. The musicians change, but we never listen to them anyway. Despite sweating Budweiser and fighting the urge to commit assault and battery, I sort of had fun. Each member of my family enjoys people watching, and more importantly, making fun of people. Yeah, we're a-holes, but I challenge anybody to go to the Nebraska State Fair and be able to hold their tongue for three hours. It is one of those rare times where my family isn't talking about my sister needing to go on a date, me needing to get a job, or my parents needing to sell their business and actually retire. We just hang out and have fun. We don't do that often enough.

My blogging has been shoddy at best. My apologies. It will get better.

I haven't played poker since my last post about it. I don't know why. It sort of feels good to get away from it, but I need to play at least a little bit this week to prepare for the 15k Loyalty Freeroll on the 8th. I won't be happy unless they chunk that delicious $3900 into my account. It will be tough with over 650 people in it and only 40 paid spots, but there are only about 250 people that have more rebuys than I do, and honestly I have enough to be a serious contender. Too early to think about it too much, so I'll wrap it up.