a l'il story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8276243.stm

i'll be honest, i haven't seen a story this good for a while.

if you can't be bothered to click the link here are some highlights

A north London council has apologised after a woman was refused the loan of a pair of scissors in a library because she "might stab a member of staff".

Lorna Watts, 26, a self-employed dressmaker, was turned down at Holborn Library in central London.

she was also turned down at three other libraries.

"I asked why I couldn't borrow a pair of scissors and she said, 'they are sharp, you might stab me'.

"I then asked to borrow a guillotine to cut up my leaflets but she refused again - because she said I could hit her over the head with it!"

She added: "It's absurd - there are plenty of heavy books I could have hit her with if I wanted to.

There are two things that struck me:
1) the obvious ridiculousness that the library wouldn't loan her some scissors or a guillotine.
2) a dressmaker needs to go to a library to borrow some scissors? Shouldn't she have some scissors. perhaps if she doesn't have some she should purchase some. surely buying some would be easier than trying four different libraries to borrow a pair.

I've played so little poker since my last post it's embarrassing. been doing too many other things to have time for poker which is a bit annoying but priorities etc.

i think i'm gonna be away for almost all of december so i think i might have to play 30k hands a month for the next two months. which is as likely as me getting the job of online poker pro for pokerstars which i applied for. they give a $100k bonus if you get the job. that would very much suit me for a year.

little poker and the police (no sting jokes)

barely played any pokers of late. been feeling a bit ill and basically been breakeven.

really need at least 10000 more hands this month to get the $1k bonus from stars but that doesn't look likely anymore.

tried 9 tabling last night and finished up level ish after a very bad start. managed to cope although it's really boring and doesn't help improve my game, i might try and do it for the rest of the month to see how many hands i can play.

read highstacks post about the police and it reminded me of a story from a few years back. i was working in a club and i left a little bit after it closed, probably around half two in the morning. i gave my friend a lift home, which was two minutes from my house. after dropping him off i went round a corner and probably turned the wheel too far as the tyres screeched a little. this was about 400 yards from the road i lived on but i noticed a cop car was now following me.

i turned into my street and saw a space at the top of the road to park but decided to drive further down to see if there was one nearer. it was one of these roads that was a two way street but with cars parked on both sides you could just about fit one car on the road. get to the bottom of the road and there were no spaces. thought about reversing and with the cop car still behind me that would be quite funny to make them do that, but instead i decided to drive round the block. 3 quarters of the way round and heading back to where they first intercepted me they decided to finally pull me over. obviously they had been hoping i would run or crash or something exciting but were instead left wondering where on earth i was going.

i get out and start talking to them, they run my name and licence plate etc etc. turns out someone with the same name and date of birth was a criminal. in scotland. who was blond (unlike me) blue eyes (unlike me) about 6 inches shorter than me and with a scar on his forearm. yet still they asked to see my forearm to see if i had a scar there. luckily i didn't as i think they probably would have taken me in for questioning.

cyclists lol

they get a bad press don't they. people seem to have an irrational hatred of them.
having cycled a few times around london i can confirm that it is pretty scary stuff with most drivers (especially buses) aiming for you.

however, cyclists should also not behave like retards.

i was thinking how nothing funny had happened to me for a while when today i was driving home and a cyclist was cycling the wrong way down the road towards me. i made a hand gesture like the one to the left wondering if they knew what the hell they were doing.

thinking nothing more of this i crossed over the road and hit some traffic. after not moving for a bit i begin to pull away and suddenly i hear and see a cyclist on my right who then shouts at me
"who you fingering? you cunt"
the first thing i thought was there's definitely a joke in that sentence. then i realised it was my good friend, the moron cyclist. he decided to cycle very slowly in front of me whilst taking his camera out and snapping my licence plate. i hope the photo included me smiling.

after taking his snap he decides to finally move out the way so i could drive past. making sure i laughed at him.

i do wonder what he plans to do with his photo of a car number plate. maybe send a police report about how someone made a gesture to him whilst he was cycling the wrong way down the road. i also wonder how he thinks a photo of a number plate is going to be proof of this.

i just wish i had taken a photo of him.

pets and hit and runners

alarming as this heading is, the two subjects are unrelated.

first of all, hit and runners. i am of course referring to poker players who win a hand and run away, tail between their legs. shortstackers are famous for this, but at least deep down they know they can't play poker and are of less than no use. their lives (at the cyber felt at least) are -ev
hit and runs from these players you expect. however, the hit and runners who sit down with a full stack are the ones that annoy me. they pretend they can/want to play, but they are too scared to lose 2 buy ins at once. this confuses me as much as it annoys me so that it ends up annoying me twice as much as regular annoying things. these players are often so paranoid they will leave if they are sitting with a double stack even if no one else has more than the initial buy in making it impossible to lose a double stack. so why they run from that table (whilst playing others so its not like they're done for the day) is a source of great pain to me.

as for pets, yesterday i noticed an advert on tv with a pet named roonaldo and it got me thinking. if you name your pet after a footballer (or other sportsman for that matter) who then goes on to move teams what are you supposed to do?
obviously you can't rename him/her else it'll get confused. so you have to give it away or end up disliking it. i can't see a way out.

luckily i was not idolatrous enough to name a pet after a human being. whether this foresight was subconscious or luck, i'll never now.

once again i need some help

last time i asked for help you lot were useless. honestly, a snake in my car. though i did look into breeding snakes and it is a highly lucrative business. anyway, i think i will put some chemical burner onto some money in my car which reacts with skin. so when someone touches it, they get burnt. something like sodium hydroxide (caustic soda).

anyway, todays matter in question comes in the form of music. i have 2 free songs to download thanks to a kit kat offer and have to pick from the selection on their website.

i was thinking of going for something i wouldn't normally go for, preferably songs where the entire album isn't worth buying. like chips ahoy by the hold steady.

i already went for all star by smashmouth. embarrassing i know, but it reminds me of rat race which is one of those terrible but funny films.

played a bunch of hands of poker, nothing too exciting happened. not haemorrhaging money which is good. still not sure if i'm gonna reach my goals for the year as im gonna go away for at least a couple of weeks in december.
wanna play lots this month to get all the bonuses stars are offering plus their rsa log in token which i havent got round to ordering yet. it means i need about 80k fpps and i'm on 40k. so i'll need to play around 16k hands more this month. never played so many in 3 weeks before but i'll be giving it a go....

wing mirror spider

i think i have spoken before about the huge spider that attacked me in the dead of night, but my real nemsis spider is the one that lives in the wing mirror of my car. the little gap between the mirror and the casing is always home to one of these huge evil creatures. mocking me as i drive. and waiting for me to open the window so that it can come and join me in my car. as if i would ever let that happen!

i think i'm gonna start updating the poker column every week rather than every session. i think it's just too many swings, and the idea was to look at my mental state in each session which i won't bore you with, but will just write down for myself. i say write down but i mean i will just think about what i've done after each session.
i've had some internet troubles of late where it disconnects for about a minute or so before coming back. this is seriously affecting my heart and potentially my balance. luckily in no big pots yet, but i fear it's only a matter of time...

so far i have avoided tilting when in 3 sessions i almost lost it. i seem to be playing a few too few hands and my vpp goal looks out of reach. i don't want to play more than 6/7 tables as my win rate plummets to negative numbers that mathematicians never knew existed so i'm gonna have to motivate myself to play more hours.

in my other two quests, russian is going slow. it's a pretty tough language, but i would like to be decent at it. in my other quest, to get fat, i have achieved my halfway aim, of 1 stone /6.5kg in weight gain. most of this has occurred in the past month (been eating ice cream every day!) and hoping to achieve reach another stone by the end of the year. i don't look noticeably different so it's all definitely in muscle. soon, i shall be like a little magnus magnusson.

obviously

in case you hadn't noticed, my blog is looking pretty pretty cool of late. i hope it stays that way.
for my legion of new fans i have added a favourite post section on the right. some of my finest work i'm sure you'll agree.
i have also added a end of year goals countdown (although hopefully the money won will be more of a countup) which i will endeavour to change after each session. i can't be bothered to keep a graph on here or anything fancy like that so you have the fortune of missing my swings and roundabouts (that's 'traffic circles' for people stateside)

as for the title of this post, i noticed at uni many moons ago that one of my lecturers would end his most confusing sentences with the word 'obviously'.
this made us feel retarded. however, this lead me to use such a tactic on other unsuspecting (and also suspecting) individuals. it's really an impossible move to counter. try it one day.

the method of noticing things you find difficult to deal with and incorporating into your play on others is something i have learned to apply to the poker. it's probably also mentioned in sun tzu's art of war but i haven't read that. to be honest, if he doesn't discuss this in detail it's a book not worth reading. obviously.

quick post

hands played tonight 663
monies won $300
one interesting hand when facing a donk bet in a 4way pot.

any thoughts let me know

Seat 1: BB ($200 in chips)
Seat 2: utg ($556.10 in chips)
Seat 3: Hero ($300.10 in chips)
Seat 4: co ($200 in chips)
Seat 5: jenson ($225 in chips)
Seat 6: SB ($367.35 in chips)
SB: posts small blind $1
BB: posts big blind $2

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Td Th]
utg: folds
Hero: raises $6 to $8
co: calls $8
jenson: folds
SB: calls $7
BB: calls $6

*** FLOP *** [3c 2c 8h]
SB: bets $22
BB: folds
Hero: calls $22
co: folds

*** TURN *** [3c 2c 8h] [Tc]
SB: bets $58
Hero: calls $58

*** RIVER *** [3c 2c 8h Tc] [Qc]
SB: checks
Hero: checks

month totals:
1237 hands
~$500

a fine example of evil people

on my drive home today i was considering, if given the choice, whether i would eradicate shortstackers or the drivers that have those transport for london signs which say 'for private hire only' stickers on their cars. anyone in london will be aware of their complete incompetence on the roads. that sticker is a sign which means driver has failed repeatedly driving tests and is now forced to badly drive around other people in 7 seater people carriers.
i wasn't sure who were the bigger stains on society but before i could decide i had come across another car whose entire occupants should probably be culled for the good of humanity. people who are of detriment to society and make me ashamed to be on the same planet as them.

long story short, they, for no reason, wouldn't let me get past them (there was a parked car blocking my lane) even though they had nowhere to go, no one could get in front of them and we were going different ways. this in itself isn't unusual as most people are incredibly selfish. however, they did this on purpose and the bitch in the passenger seat was just laughing at me as i eventually drove past. i'm sure this is not a great example to set for their child in the back seat.
i chose not to call her a c*** as i drove past for two reasons. one, the traffic light might have turned red forcing me to stop, and two, the child in the back seat. in hindsight, the child probably could have taught me a few swear words.

i think things like this are a reason why some people like religion (or even karma etc), because you can relax in the knowledge that they will reap what they sow. and i hope those horrible bastards get what they deserve.

the one good thing that has come out of this is that i was only annoyed/disgusted by them fleetingly whereas in the recent past it would have bugged me for much longer. (though it's also quite depressing to realise i accept so readily that people can behave like that. perhaps this is why people get cynical in their old age?)

omg a poker post (Sigh, another boring plan)

i barely played last month logging under 7k hands, but actually running well above ev for a $1k+ profit, when ev says i should have been negative.

this concerns me as i am playing so so bad.

hopefully the break will have done me good but now i have 122 days in the year to get 48,000 vpps to get my $2k bonus, which is one of my aims. (the other being win monies please)

as i get about 0.55vpps per hand, i need eto play about 90,000 hands still. over 122 days this is 737 hands per day.

i will round this up to 750, and this will be my aim for each day. i will have to average this over the week but 6 tabling for 90-100 mins should be enough.

so my aim will be 7 100min sessions each week. tonight i managed 574 hands for a small profit.

also, if i hit $2k profit in any month this year i will buy myself something (hopefully i will manage it each month!)

i will also try to keep a running count of hands and profit at the end of every post (even the funny ones)

hands:574
profit:$180

as for today's humour, i was at 'work' and a machine i was using, which is known for being temperamental at best broke again. the error box popped up, containing a big red cross and the words "no error to report"

someone actually programmed those words in as an error message! i didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so i laughed.

today's funny news story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8227443.stm

apparently, the country with the highest rate of bullying: Turkey
the country where kids enjoy school the most: Turkey