pranksters

i don't know if you remember the spider drawing attachment emails by a david thorne, (if you don't, look up the transcript); here is a follow up

the landlord stuff isn't great, but the gym one is genius!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2479342/Spider-email-joker-is-back-David-Thorne-spider-email-prankster-returns-David-Thorne-winds-up-gym-boss-and-landlord.html

trying to avoid poker till september when hopefully i'll feel like playing

gonna aim for thursday 3rd wcoop opening tourney as the beginning of my comeback and if i win it, the end of my comeback. one time, ship it, etc cliché etc.

idea's anyone?

some useless (possibly not wholly true) cunts broke into my car last night. i say broke in, but unlike last time, they didn't break anything.

i distinctly remember locking the glove compartment and the door after getting out the car (for reasons i shall not bore you with).
this morning i got to my car and the drivers door was not firmly shut. weird i thought. then i see the few items in my car (mostly rubbish) was strewn around over the chairs and the floor. the glove compartment was also wide open. the only thing that was taken was a bit of cash which i leave in my car for meters etc. radio was not stolen but there was nothing else of value in there.

i'm currently working under the assumption (i've always wanted to say that phrase) they somehow picked the lock of the glove compartment (and hence maybe not completely useless since lock picking requires some practice) and if they did that, then possibly the door as well? either that or the old coat hanger or doorstop trick to get in.
at least nothing was smashed. i am almost grateful nothing was smashed and then remember i shouldn't have to be grateful that the people that broke in didn't also smash it to pieces.

so now i plan to strike back. i have decided to come up with some ideas to booby trap my own car should anyone gain unauthorised access. it will be necessary that the trap should be quick for me to disable each time i get into my car. most important will be that i remember to do so! (i don't hold out much hope here so a non lethal trap is probably best).

i'm a little out of ideas at the moment, if you have any, please write them below!

the return of my internet

today i celebrated my internet returning with an absence of withdrawal symptoms. only now do i understand how those kids in chinese boot camps felt. you know the ones, set up to wean them off the internet, where a few in recent times have been beaten to death. they probably felt that at the time death wasn't as bad as not being able to play poker, see pictures of naked wimmen, and spend time winding up internet forums whilst talking to your neighbour on msn.

in the past week i have had to go out every day, get drunken, go to town repeatedly, play tennis and spend time in the sunshine.

i would like to thank the retards at bulldog communication technical support for this opportunity. it used to be that calling technical support would have you talking to an engineer who would ask you questions, try to give you directions on how to fix the problem (swear under their breath, or with aid of the mute button, at our hugely inferior computer skills), and if need be do some work in fixing your problem, call you back with updates etc.

now, they have a call centre (abroad). where people can just about read.
no one is an engineer. no one actually can give you any useful advice. no one can actually do something to fix the problem, and it left me swearing above my breath without use of the mute button, whilst deriding their vastly inferior computer (and life) skills.

thankfully, i have some friends who are computer nerds who were able to help me belatedly.

i considered updating from an iphone but i was lazy. my laziness, sometimes it's a curse, often it's a gift. i would give an example of the many times it has been a gift but i can't be bothered to type any now.

speaking of iphones, i have decided to make an application (or three). the first is out in 2-3 weeks i hope, and will be average to good. i expect you all to buy it.

the second will be absolutely amazing, and should be out in 4-6 weeks.

as for poker, i had to go out and play live last night (no internet!) and dropped £100+. all on two hands. first is vs terrible player who announced he was leaving in 5 mins. he was my mark1 at the table. announces two hands to go, and then in his final hand he is in the big blind 5 handed. i'm utg and raise to £6 with KJ. only he calls and we see a low flop of 357 and he bets out £6. i raise to £26 and he calls. turn is a 9 putting a 3rd diamond on the table. he check calls £35. river is a non diamond q and it goes check check and he shows pocket rockets with no diamonds. wp him.

my other bluff was a 3 barrel bluff against mark2 who flopped an underfull on a 553 2 club flop, 3rd club on the turn. wp me.

need to remember how to win at poker now i have the internet. if i can't beat 1/2 online i'm gonna just retire and work in a call centre abroad.

a happy ending

just finished my first 1k+ hand session in a while. didn't really play very well. made lots of mistakes and ended up level. had some great beats today, my favourite being a gu ywho i got to bluff all in with Aj on a king high board hit a gutshot river straight so we split the pot.
i also managed to pull a reverse re double bluff induction move where i flopped a straight flush and the preflop raiser shoved into me on the flop.

anyway, i'm still playing awfully and i have 48500 more points to pick up on stars to get a $2k bonus, which will be my aim for the year. along with $2.5k winnings from poker per month.
not sure i'll make either.
as an incentive i am gonna buy something fun with money every time i have a $2k+ winning month.
two things on my list are
1)ergonomic wireless mouse (these are supposed to be super comfortable)
2)slim ps3 with fifa/pro evo and cod


yesterday i slept on my head and when i awoke i discovered i couldn't look to the right without searing stabbing pains in my neck. this made driving painful as i couldn't really check my blind spot on the drivers side. so i just drove in the right hand lane ensuring no one would be in my blind spot. problem solving at it's finest. i am considering adding this experience to my cv.

so today i went to get a back/neck/shoulder massage to relax along with some neck healing. i walk in and the not unattractive middle aged lady asks me to take off my shoes, t shirt and if i want my trousers too. "most people do" she says.
"no i think i'll leave them on thanks"
the massage began and i had my face in the table hole so i couldn't see where she was. but i could feel what was going on! i had my arms down by my sides (no where else to put them) and she repeatedly brushed her legs against my hands.
this was weird. i began to worry that maybe porn films are a reflection of real life. luckily they weren't and i escaped all relaxed. although my neck still hurts, so not quite a happy ending.

terrible gambling

today reminded my why i hate gambling. i saw birmingham playing well against united and figured they had a goal in them against utd's dodgy defence and midfield. so i had some monies on them (£8), which obviously led to utd scoring. the price for a utd win plummeted further so i added a few pounds to my lay of utd. thus i jinxed it further ensuring a utd victory. wp me.
so i foolishly decided to try having a bet on the 100m run today.
once again, this reminded me why i hate gambling.

i saw asafa powell run pretty good, and tyson gay (great name!) run really badly in their heats. obviously though, they both made it through to the semi's comfortably along with usain bolt who would clearly win the final. bolt was a very short price to win the whole thing (2 more races) so i thought i would have a bet on powell to finish second.

except what i did was bet on powell to win outright, and to win in a market which did not include bolt. i figured when he would get through the semi's his price would drop from 20-1 and i could lay off for a profit either way.

he makes it through the semi's and his price went up to 30-1. just before the race started, it was 65-1. oops. usually i bet for about £5-£10 cos i am not much of a gamblor and this always ruins the bets when i plan to lay them as i end up winning 10p either way. so this time i scaled it up and ended up with £50 on powell to win. OOPS.
HOWEVER, my saver in the w/o bolt market meant that if he comes second i would still win £35 overall. this lead me not to worry as i was confident he would come at least second so not being able to lay off shouldnt be a problem.

i watched the race without paying attention to bolt, instead looking at gay and powell as they raced side by side in the dust of bolt. it's amazing how 2 metres difference translates into about 1/10th of a second.
anyway, bolt won in a world record, beating his 9.69 with a time of 9.58. the biggest jump since electronic records began. the worrying thing is that he could still go faster as he spent the last few metres watching the clock so he could see the time as he crossed the line.

as for powell and gay, they both got off to good starts, but after about 30m gay began to run away from powell who never managed to catch him. powell has previously run 9.74 which was a world record at the time, till it was beaten by bolt.

gay decided to run 9.71 tonight, the third fastest time in history.

i hate losing and think this will end any further attempts at gambling for a long long time. (ps poker doesn't count as gambling). i will also withdraw most of my betfair account as i don't play much poker there anymore since their offer ended and their software is painful to play on.

back to stars for me as soon as i feel like playing. hopefully that'll be next week but i can't be sure.

wake up early part III

i have decided that i do not like waking up early, not shall i be the type of person that does for the forseeable future.

all i want to take from that article i read is how to get up when i want. it's not about getting up early but for me, it's about getting up when i need to rather than lying in bed for an extra hour each day.

anyways, i been murdering my bankroll at the pokers so i've invested in some vids, and put them on youtube; learn away

wake up early, part II

i've always wanted to do a part II type blog post, mostly because it sounds pretty cool. sadly, this is less good than i thought it would be. probably like FFM threesomes are gonna be better in my head than real life.

anyway, so i woke up on time this morning. actually, i again woke up prior to my alarm going off (!?) but when my alarm went off i got out of bed almost immediately. this is a good thing. had time to do some eating, working out etc before leaving house. the problem is going to be not falling asleep at 6/7pm tonight. i love siesta's but it basically ruins my sleep patterns. though they are good when playing poker as you can last well into the early hours of the morning with no problem.

yesterday i noticed that my answerphone machine has a built in joke. when someone calls to leave a messages, after they hang up, the machine says "thank you for calling"
not only will they not hear this, but one would assume that no one is at home when the machine is required. so why would anyone program in the machine to say that?

waking up early

or not as the case may be
yesterday was an unusual situation as i went to bed much later than intended to try out this technique (230am), couldn't get to sleep for a while but then woke up prior to my alarm going off. thus, i was confused about whether to get up or wait for the alarm in order that i could condition myself properly. i decided to wait (mostly out of tiredness)
when my alarm went off (at 830, i love being a student/bum), i noticed i breathed deeply and stretched as required (almost subconsciously which is a good thing), but was far too tired to bother getting up.
it's definitely a first step to not wasting 30-90 mins of my life every day and hope tomorrow's wake up is more successful. i will do more thinking about the getting up process and that should be enough to improve.

it's funny how just thinking about stuff can be good enough to get better at things. i used to practice my tennis serve in my head after learning what i should be doing. (apparently professional athletes do this too)

today's bizzare syndrome is....

Stendhal syndrome

essentially, it is people seeing art so beautiful they literally cannot physically cope!

poker: been pretty bored with it recently. so i played live last week in what was the most boring tournament. not a single moronic statement from anyway ie no conversation at all. bubbled in the tournament but with two fish at a shorthanded cash table i couldn't get there quick enough. amazingly, i had top pair hold against overcards (allegedly, more likely one overcard or an underpair), AA hold against kq on a q high flop and flopped a straight with 8T. as most people shortstack i only finished with £300 and something after buying in for £90. ending up playing 3 handing for far too long (till sunrise) with money just going round in a circle.

started up again on pokerstars. i seem to get the reload bonus info and all other news about a week late from them. not sure why, but also it doesn't really make any difference. i'll clear the $300 by the end of the month and need to make sure i carry on playing to the end of the year to get the $2k milestone bonus.

unrelated, of late i have had some serious problems getting up early, and i found this blog
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-early-riser/
which is a strategy i will try. i do not expect great success though i envisage it succeeding(PMA etc). i will report tomorrow whether i actually got out of bed when my alarm went off. [for anyone that actually reads the article, obviously i didn't do what he suggested of actually playing the whole thing out, rather i did it in my head. the same technique i used to cure my arachnophobia]

i was gonna write the enxt bit in a separate blog but i thought whilst i have you here....i am sad to report i noticed some subtle hypocrisy in both internetpokers blog and jonny vincents.
internetopkers had a great blog about how running good/bad can only actually be determined by your win rate vs our true win rate. obviously true win rate is hard, if not impossible, to measure and mathematically all in ev is all you can measure perfectly (although that too is inherently flawed), but it was a very interesting post. this is true due to rate of coolers received/sent, good hands received etc
however, a few blog posts later he has a session where he runs +ev and implies that it was what he was due. ( i hoped he was talking about winning and not being so far above ev but i doubt that).

secondly, jonny vincent has a journal on some forum which is a great read. highly insightful and has impressive bad beats for amounts which make me sick. more of a mini sick to be precise (copyright michael macintyre).
he mentioned something that stuck about what he knows is <<<<< what he doesn't know.
this is essentially true for everyone. however, he then goes on to laugh at certain groups of people with different beliefs to him.

the worst thing about this epiphany is that i realised i do the same. in future, i will have to refer to retarded morons as people below running below in ev in life.

burn notice

this is a tv show. from wiki:
The title refers to the burn notices issued by intelligence agencies to discredit or announce the dismissal of agents or sources who are considered to have become unreliable. When a spy is burned, they are "wiped off the grid".

the show is set in miami, which is probably why in some south american countries the show is instead called "operation miami"
in italy they have obviously never heard of bruce willis as the show is called "die hard"
portugal went for the original "spy out of the game"

i assume most of these sound better in their native tongue. however, if anyone could possibly suggest how lithuania came up with "the ticket of the wolf" i would be greatly appreciative.

life thoughts

firstly, today i once again experienced the need to go to the toilet whilst being thirsty. i find this highly inefficient of my body. i know i need to get rid of the urea, but surely it can wait a few hours whilst the water about to be expelled is recycled around my body saving me doing two sets of activities. it would be killing two birds with no stones. anyway.

i had become lazy recently, but am now back in the working out/ eating lots/ learning russian mode. russian is a carazy language to learn, especially when you grow up in england where learning languages is as alien a concept to people as driving in the left hand lane.

which brings me nicely onto my next point. i spent much time recently getting annoyed with how terrible other people drive, and i think the negative traits that lead to road rage also lead to terrible poker play. wanting to correct how other people drive, impatience and not relaxing are all things i want to avoid including in myself as traits. so i have decided to make an effort to revert to how i used to be. i'm not sure why these changes have come about. maybe these things happen as you get older. i'm sure my taste buds have gone odd recently, thinking nice food doesn't taste so nice. but obviously they are wrong because i wouldn't call nice food nice, if it didn't taste nice. so i will continue to listen to my brain and not my tongue.

i also have to decide what to do with my life when i finish school in about six months time. this is quite a big decision that i will probably get wrong and have to change sometime down the road. only i have to actually decide and do something when i finish. if i do play poker for money it will only be short term (6months at most i think) as in general i want to do something more valuable and interesting.
after all, it's not really about money.
as a wise bruce once said, nowadays, once you have enough money for house/food and other necessities (eg sky and internet) any other extra money isn't so important. kinda like chips in a tournament where they become worth less the more you have. (obviously more money helps immensely but some other things should take priority)

if anyone knows of cool jobs please inform me. i once got a job offer of air traffic controller which is not the person who stands on the runway with flags as two of my friends thought. though i didn't take it for a couple of reasons, it sounded pretty interesting.

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