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

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.