Reading: White Noise by Don DeLillo. Actual links this time. I'm about one hundred pages in, and the shit hits the fan very shortly from what I understand, so I'm curious to see where things go. DeLillo has some brilliant lines in the first part of the book, none of which I'm going to look up and put here now because I have to be to work in about seven hours. I'll likely post them tomorrow.
Listening: Still Going Back to Cali by Notorious BIG. I'm not sure why this song has such power over me, but it does. Hopefully I will break from its clutches this week.
As Jeff and I were driving by a McDonald's on Monday night, I had the strange urge to yell "McDonald's makes their burgers from children!" at the line of cars in the drive-thru. I was barely able to restrain myself to the point that Jeff asked what was wrong with me. I told him. We laughed heartily.
I thought this work week was going to be easy. I was wrong. While I did have today (Tuesday) off, I work 7:15-5:30 tomorrow and 7:15-5:00 on Thursday. I close Friday and then work 8:45-1:15 on Saturday. I do have a training class from 1-4:30 on Thursday that should break things up, but I think it will suck because I'll spend the entire time trying to stay awake. I'm starting to hate the phrase "Banker's Hours" because only the boss has good hours. My "Banker's Hours" are pretty much open to close for four weekdays and then Saturday mornings. I'm willing to trade for another occupation's hours.
I haven't played any poker yet, but I'm starting to digest some things from my recent losses. Also, as lame as it sounds and as much as I hate to say it, I'm learning a lot from Poker After Dark. I'm not really going to go into too much detail, but I need to improve my betting. I used to bet pot, pot, pot for the most part, whether I was bluffing or I had it. I still like the idea because it makes it hard to determine what I had. However, I'm missing a lot of value by doing that because the bets get too big and drive hands out of the pot that would call for less. Further, if I have a bit more variation in my bet sizes, it will add one more element to my game that will confuse opponents. I want to play some matches this week and try to rebuild a roll to play the Bugsy's Tourneys with, but if I can only play one or two events next week, so be it.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Monique, Beaver Crossing, Huskers, No Poker
My parents did awesome. My new car, Monique, is a 2002 Oldsmobile Aurora. It's a pearl color and it's way too nice for me. I'm getting her a garage when I get paid to shelter her from all the nasty things outside. She has many wonderful toys for me to play with like memory seats with butt heaters and buttons galore. She also has a sunroof which I have done without since around 2002ish, so I will be running sunroof open and heater on until the first snowflake hits the ground. I think that my problem with my truck was that I didn't name her. My cars have been Bertha (1982 Chevy Malibu Classic), Berly (1984 Chevy Camaro Berlinetta), Vanessa (1994 Ford Ranger), and Veronica (2000 Mercury Cougar). In case you haven't noticed, I'm of the opinion that a man's car should have a female name (I'm not sure if there has ever been a woman named Berly, but deal with it). Women's cars should have men's names. It's just how it works. And they should be foreign sounding and intriguing.
As I was driving back to Omaha, I passed Beaver Crossing and laughed as usual. When I was 6ish, I was going to either Lincoln or Omaha with my dad and my sister. We were in the front seat of a truck and I was in the middle. My dad and my sister were chanting off the names of the various counties denoted by numbers on license plates because my dad had lied to my sister and told her that she couldn't get her license unless she memorized them all. I interrupted their game by loudly yelling at my dad to slow down. He dutifully did so and asked why in a scared tone. "Because there's a beaver crossing in one mile, the sign just said so!" I was so worried for the defenseless beavers trying to make their way across interstate while avoiding the hulking two ton death machines hurtling at them at ungodly speed. Poor beavers.
This pains me to say because I'm such a ridiculous Husker fan: we need to get embarrassed in the rest of our games (except Colorado). This is the only way that change will come about. If we win out or improve, there will be excuses to keep Cosgrove as defensive coordinator or Steve Pedersen as AD (I'm not after Callahan's head quite yet). However, if we become the laughingstock of college football, shit will go down. It's the only thing I can hope for now because we suck shit and it's not going to get any better with the aforementioned making influential decisions.
As I was driving back to Omaha, I passed Beaver Crossing and laughed as usual. When I was 6ish, I was going to either Lincoln or Omaha with my dad and my sister. We were in the front seat of a truck and I was in the middle. My dad and my sister were chanting off the names of the various counties denoted by numbers on license plates because my dad had lied to my sister and told her that she couldn't get her license unless she memorized them all. I interrupted their game by loudly yelling at my dad to slow down. He dutifully did so and asked why in a scared tone. "Because there's a beaver crossing in one mile, the sign just said so!" I was so worried for the defenseless beavers trying to make their way across interstate while avoiding the hulking two ton death machines hurtling at them at ungodly speed. Poor beavers.
This pains me to say because I'm such a ridiculous Husker fan: we need to get embarrassed in the rest of our games (except Colorado). This is the only way that change will come about. If we win out or improve, there will be excuses to keep Cosgrove as defensive coordinator or Steve Pedersen as AD (I'm not after Callahan's head quite yet). However, if we become the laughingstock of college football, shit will go down. It's the only thing I can hope for now because we suck shit and it's not going to get any better with the aforementioned making influential decisions.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Reading/Listening, Work, Card Sharks, Poker
Reading: White Noise by Don DeLillo. No link. This is a quick and dirty long blog. I'm only twentyish pages into it right now, but it's not drawing me in. I hope it picks up as I hear it does in the second half. I'm guessing that I will need something light to read after I finish this, so I'm eyeing Galapagos by Vonnegut next, but who knows. My wants and desires typically change on a whim, so I'll just as likely to read Rousseau when I'm done with White Noise.
Listening: Going back to Cali by Notorious BIG. It's awesome.
Work is going well. My job is fairly simple and I'm becoming comfortable with more things every day. The worst part are the hours. Since I have to work most Saturdays and Saturdays are only four hours, I "get" to work two ten hour shifts a week to make up the hours. Add in my forty-five minute lunch and I'm there for half the day. Which brings me to my gripes: waking up early and having no day. I have to be up in five hours because I work 7:15am-5:00pm tomorrow. And when I get home, run a few quick errands, and eat, it will be 8pm or later. I pretty much have no week. My exercise is falling off, and if I didn't stay up late, I would feel like I had zero life. However, I only have to put up with this for one year. Deep breaths...
Card Sharks sucked. It was totally chick lit, but bad chick lit. Any given line of dialogue felt like the author was forgetting "Oh my god" at the beginning of it and it was absolutely unbelievable. Here's a summary of the entire book: nerdy tax accountant girl (NTA) and soon-to-be-poor trust fund girl (TFG) can't meet men despite NTA's super-hotness and charisma and TFG's super-hotness and flashiness. NTA's ex-that-is-still-around says that all single men are playing poker every night, so NTA and TFG go to play poker with EX and HNG (hot neighbor guy). The women play poker like ten times and then NTA wins a seat into the World Series of Poker (value $10,000). NTA is obsessed with poker by this time but TFG is still on the man hunt in Vegas. HNG is always there for her but not rich and she is a gold digger, EX is still supportive and defensive for NTA despite his failure to commit. NTA marries HNG pissing off EX and TFG, but then NTA gets fourth in the WSOP Championship, everybody makes up, EX and NTA tell each other that they want to get married and HNG tells TFG that he loves her and is going to be rich. Then BRET pukes.
I pulled a Londer and lost around $600 in two days. I had done a great job of staying away from poker and then I read that stupid book, got mad at how unrealistic the poker was in it and apparently decided to prove the author wrong by showing how easy it is to lose. I started out playing bad, started playing better but had a couple of bad beats laid on me, then the wheels fell off. I wasn't playing awful at the start, but I was laying down too many hands all the way and had shit for a table image. I then got aggressive and made most of it back when hands like my JJ vs Jx 3h on a J 9h 2h flop comes, we get all the money in, and the board comes heart heart. This led to more bad play, which led to me quitting before I was bust. I still have like $160ish left, so I have something to rebuild with, but I would rather have my $600 back. I guess I don't learn some lessons, I just increase the amount of times between Londers.
Listening: Going back to Cali by Notorious BIG. It's awesome.
Work is going well. My job is fairly simple and I'm becoming comfortable with more things every day. The worst part are the hours. Since I have to work most Saturdays and Saturdays are only four hours, I "get" to work two ten hour shifts a week to make up the hours. Add in my forty-five minute lunch and I'm there for half the day. Which brings me to my gripes: waking up early and having no day. I have to be up in five hours because I work 7:15am-5:00pm tomorrow. And when I get home, run a few quick errands, and eat, it will be 8pm or later. I pretty much have no week. My exercise is falling off, and if I didn't stay up late, I would feel like I had zero life. However, I only have to put up with this for one year. Deep breaths...
Card Sharks sucked. It was totally chick lit, but bad chick lit. Any given line of dialogue felt like the author was forgetting "Oh my god" at the beginning of it and it was absolutely unbelievable. Here's a summary of the entire book: nerdy tax accountant girl (NTA) and soon-to-be-poor trust fund girl (TFG) can't meet men despite NTA's super-hotness and charisma and TFG's super-hotness and flashiness. NTA's ex-that-is-still-around says that all single men are playing poker every night, so NTA and TFG go to play poker with EX and HNG (hot neighbor guy). The women play poker like ten times and then NTA wins a seat into the World Series of Poker (value $10,000). NTA is obsessed with poker by this time but TFG is still on the man hunt in Vegas. HNG is always there for her but not rich and she is a gold digger, EX is still supportive and defensive for NTA despite his failure to commit. NTA marries HNG pissing off EX and TFG, but then NTA gets fourth in the WSOP Championship, everybody makes up, EX and NTA tell each other that they want to get married and HNG tells TFG that he loves her and is going to be rich. Then BRET pukes.
I pulled a Londer and lost around $600 in two days. I had done a great job of staying away from poker and then I read that stupid book, got mad at how unrealistic the poker was in it and apparently decided to prove the author wrong by showing how easy it is to lose. I started out playing bad, started playing better but had a couple of bad beats laid on me, then the wheels fell off. I wasn't playing awful at the start, but I was laying down too many hands all the way and had shit for a table image. I then got aggressive and made most of it back when hands like my JJ vs Jx 3h on a J 9h 2h flop comes, we get all the money in, and the board comes heart heart. This led to more bad play, which led to me quitting before I was bust. I still have like $160ish left, so I have something to rebuild with, but I would rather have my $600 back. I guess I don't learn some lessons, I just increase the amount of times between Londers.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Big Liar
Through a combination of back pain and general insomnia, I only got two hours of sleep last night before my 10.5 hour shift. Then I had a bunch of errands to run and things to do at home. Bottom line: no in-depth post tonight. Easy day tomorrow so definitive post. Sorry for being a fibber.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Absence, Poker
I was very busy with work this past week and also had a few non-work things going on, so I really wasn't motivated to spend the fifteen minutes or so that it takes me to write a blog. The blog will, however, return to its regularly scheduled postings tomorrow.
I only played one day of poker since my last post, and it was a BAD day. I will elaborate tomorrow.
I only played one day of poker since my last post, and it was a BAD day. I will elaborate tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Carlin, Camus, No Poker
These may or may not be quick.
The Carlin book was fun, but it was primarily stuff that he has done in stand-up. I would say that I recognized 85-90% of the stuff in the book, and I'm guessing that everything in there appears on a comedy DVD or CD somewhere. It's still nice to get Carlin's refreshing point of view on most things because our society gets bogged down in bullshit quite often. George is a guy who cuts right through all of it, and it makes you look at how you lead your life, which we all should do regularly.
I hated The Stranger by Camus. I read the introduction which discussed all of the philosophy behind the book, but when I read the story, I was let down. Maybe something was lost in translation, but what I thought the book lacked was a human element for the main character. Meursault (sp?) just wasn't a real person to me. I understand the point that Camus was trying to make (according to the preface); that we don't all have to buy into social norms and that they can be oppressive, but he went beyond social norms and past basic animal instincts like the right to survive or logical thought. I feel that the main character is mentally disabled and we simply weren't told that, because I don't buy into the notion that self-preservation is a social norm. Interesting idea, terrible execution.
The Carlin book was fun, but it was primarily stuff that he has done in stand-up. I would say that I recognized 85-90% of the stuff in the book, and I'm guessing that everything in there appears on a comedy DVD or CD somewhere. It's still nice to get Carlin's refreshing point of view on most things because our society gets bogged down in bullshit quite often. George is a guy who cuts right through all of it, and it makes you look at how you lead your life, which we all should do regularly.
I hated The Stranger by Camus. I read the introduction which discussed all of the philosophy behind the book, but when I read the story, I was let down. Maybe something was lost in translation, but what I thought the book lacked was a human element for the main character. Meursault (sp?) just wasn't a real person to me. I understand the point that Camus was trying to make (according to the preface); that we don't all have to buy into social norms and that they can be oppressive, but he went beyond social norms and past basic animal instincts like the right to survive or logical thought. I feel that the main character is mentally disabled and we simply weren't told that, because I don't buy into the notion that self-preservation is a social norm. Interesting idea, terrible execution.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Reading/Listening, Work, Books, The Feeding, Poker
Reading: Card Sharks by Liz Maverick. I was lured in by poker, but I think I landed squarely in the realm of Chick Lit. Oh yes, my obsession with poker doesn't stop at merely playing, I love reading about it too. Some very good reads are The Man With $100,000 Breasts, Poker Nation, and Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People. They're all books that tell of the crazy exploits that surround professional gamblers. I'm not quite a third of the way into Card Sharks yet, and the plot is just starting to pick up, so hopefully it pans out in a way that I won't despise. Here's hoping.
Listening: Gasoline Dreams by Outkast on the Stankonia album. It woke me up this morning as I crawled through rush hour traffic to work and I kept going back to it on the way home and while I was running errands. It has angry lyrics and a catchy beat that work for me. I'm sort of tired right now and not quite as eloquent as usual, so just listen to it, even if you don't like rap and hip-hopanonamus.
My first day of work went well. I didn't do much. Our branch is very slow. There are only nine employees right now, and there will only be ten once we replace somebody that was just "let go." I got fingerprinted because it's required by law, but the fingerprint place used paraffin wax instead of ink. The paraffin wax smelled like apple cinnamon bread, so I snuck sniffs of my delicious smelling fingers all day hoping not to look like a spook. I got caught once and had to say the ever classic "smell my fingers" line at work. Mary agreed that they smelled like apple cinnamon bread. She still looked at me funny. I didn't do a lot of other things. I watched a lot of transactions. I used the change counter. I got to see the guts of an ATM and how little money $10,000 actually looks like. I also watched the video about what to do in a robbery. I was amazed at how stoic the people were when shotguns were put in their faces. I think one lady was smiling. I didn't see one person shit their pants, which is my personal plan for dealing with a robbery. Poop and urine in copious amounts.
I finished two books this week. I polished off the Carlin book and I also started and finished The Stranger by Albert Camus. I will discuss them tomorrow because I'm growing ridiculously tired as I type this post.
Jeff bought a Venus Fly Trap at Wal-Mart two days ago. We spent yesterday poking the little mouths with toothpicks and being awed when they shut. Tonight I went outside and caught a roly-poly and dropped it into one of the mouths. The roly-poly was in a ball when it hit, then it unrolled and made a run for it. It didn't make it as the mouth snapped shut as it approached the eyelash lookin' thingies. It was a pretty exciting. The Fly Trap still reminds me of Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors, and the first time I catch it at my doorway in the middle of the night saying "Feed me" it's getting a healthy dose of Clorox.
No poker today. I'm probably going to take another multi-week break. The exceptions might be some $10 or under MTTs to get me ready for the end of the month when I will play in the Bugsy's series or whatever the hell they're calling it. Ok, I'm officially spent. Sleepy time.
Listening: Gasoline Dreams by Outkast on the Stankonia album. It woke me up this morning as I crawled through rush hour traffic to work and I kept going back to it on the way home and while I was running errands. It has angry lyrics and a catchy beat that work for me. I'm sort of tired right now and not quite as eloquent as usual, so just listen to it, even if you don't like rap and hip-hopanonamus.
My first day of work went well. I didn't do much. Our branch is very slow. There are only nine employees right now, and there will only be ten once we replace somebody that was just "let go." I got fingerprinted because it's required by law, but the fingerprint place used paraffin wax instead of ink. The paraffin wax smelled like apple cinnamon bread, so I snuck sniffs of my delicious smelling fingers all day hoping not to look like a spook. I got caught once and had to say the ever classic "smell my fingers" line at work. Mary agreed that they smelled like apple cinnamon bread. She still looked at me funny. I didn't do a lot of other things. I watched a lot of transactions. I used the change counter. I got to see the guts of an ATM and how little money $10,000 actually looks like. I also watched the video about what to do in a robbery. I was amazed at how stoic the people were when shotguns were put in their faces. I think one lady was smiling. I didn't see one person shit their pants, which is my personal plan for dealing with a robbery. Poop and urine in copious amounts.
I finished two books this week. I polished off the Carlin book and I also started and finished The Stranger by Albert Camus. I will discuss them tomorrow because I'm growing ridiculously tired as I type this post.
Jeff bought a Venus Fly Trap at Wal-Mart two days ago. We spent yesterday poking the little mouths with toothpicks and being awed when they shut. Tonight I went outside and caught a roly-poly and dropped it into one of the mouths. The roly-poly was in a ball when it hit, then it unrolled and made a run for it. It didn't make it as the mouth snapped shut as it approached the eyelash lookin' thingies. It was a pretty exciting. The Fly Trap still reminds me of Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors, and the first time I catch it at my doorway in the middle of the night saying "Feed me" it's getting a healthy dose of Clorox.
No poker today. I'm probably going to take another multi-week break. The exceptions might be some $10 or under MTTs to get me ready for the end of the month when I will play in the Bugsy's series or whatever the hell they're calling it. Ok, I'm officially spent. Sleepy time.
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