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.

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.

Test

icles

almost famous

yesterday i lost almost $4k. oops. i played the turbo thingy on stars at the same time and made $100 in that for beating about 23000 of 24000. which is about right in a prize/skill ratio as most of them were useless.
haven't played much before this new record loss (all at $1/2!) and not much too blog about.

i have also realised i don't like the captcha things websites make you do. they're good for all the anti spam etc, however, when i get them wrong i feel like a moron/robot.
which fits in nicely with dropping $4k.

i also came across this video (not literally, someone just sent it to me) and the guy that is the feature was someone i have had the misfortune of playing against in 5aside football. he is definitely in the top 5 of people i have ever played against. it was just very funny/bizarre seeing him on the interweb. sadly no clips against me.

today i found a new scientist from 1994. like the programme 'tomorrow's world' if anyone remembers that, there are many promises for how the future will change for us for the better. almost none of which is ever heard from again. so tomorrow, i shall peruse it and see if anything has come true. tbh, i'm still waiting on hoverboards like they had in back to the future. and that's been almost 20 years already!

animals

i wonder what sort of consciousness animals have. i hope it's reasonably high. and here is why:

my deaf cat was sitting outside the front of the house licking herself as cats do. some dude walks past with two dogs on leashes, who see the cat and start barking like dogs do. of course, my cat only sees them but doesn't hear them so doesn't even flinch but just sits there, legs akimbo, staring at the three of them walk past.

i'm pretty sure the dude was thinking that my cat is mental/tough like brad pitt in snatch. i just hope the dogs were thinking that too.

bad play bad cards bad airplane

well, it was a 4 hour journey (see previous post) and i think if it was a guy, saying no would have been easy. instead i just looked at this girl, shot her some evils, and said fine have my seat whilst i take yours in the middle of you and this fat man.
shot her a few more evils during the flight but i don't think she noticed since at the end of the flight she asked me how to turn of flight mode on her iPhone.

i made a horrific play last night and cried myself to sleep afterwards. very last hand of the day, recovered after being $1k down, uncheck autopost blinds on every table, very last table, very last hand get dealt AA utg. couldn't bring myself fold pre. so i raise. 3 callers. great.
flop comes TKT
checked round
turn is another T
nit in small blind bets out, only i call
river is 5 or something. so board is TTTK5.
he bets. i think and raise (LOLBAD). he shoves. i cry and call. obviously he has Tx and not Kx
all other tables were 1/2. that was limit above that.
many thanks to the dealer and my semi-retarded brain.

my wireless keyboard is now going mental so rather than replace the battery i'm just gonna go to sleep (explains any weird spelling in this post). definitely the easier of the two available options.

a cure for hiccups

i actually found one today. i was suffering for hours from this most pointless of afflictions when one of my chinese comrades says you just need to push a acupoint (or something like that). i assumed it meant acupuncture pressure point. so he showed me where it was, in the breastplate region. obviously i didn't know exactly where so i got him to do it for me. it really really hurt. the pain didn't last long though, and i stopped hiccuping. my body felt like it should still be hiccuping, but refused to do so! cured! i think the point is about 2/3rds of the way down the rib cage so if you could all please try this when you have the hiccups and let me know the results i can hopefully have a scientific study.

the second thing i need to ask is what would you do in this situation.
you get on a plane with your window seat boarding card. you are almost last on cos you don't see the point in waiting on the plane when you'll be stuck on it for the foreseeable future. you get to your seat and there is a hot bird sitting in it.
"that's my seat" you say
"i wanted to swap as i'm claustrophobic" she says. "it's ok?"
i stood there briefly considering my options.
first thing to note is she was clearly lying. why would your claustrophobia be appeased by sitting in the window seat? surely it's the whole plane thing that's the problem. so:-
1)it's my seat. gtfo.
or
2)ok. i'll sit between you (liar) and a very fat man.

what would you do?

(will post results in next post)

before i forget

bit of a collection of unrelated topics

i have lots of latvian change. and some lithuanian coins which the shopkeeper/taxi driver/some other cheat thought i wouldn't notice was different. i didn't notice.
this money is worth more than pounds but most places won't take coins in exchange for some real money.

here is an example of some fine european building. a well installed air conditioning unit in a room i once stayed in:



i remember now buying some chocolate deodorant (as mentioned in comments) cos it smelled nice in the shop. but when i got home it smelt more faecal. this is known as the 'elaine's skinny mirror effect.'
i still think there is a huge untapped market of food smelling smells.

here is my favourite hand of poker from today. first winning session this month. this hand helped. obviously i would have preferred a brick on the river

Seat 1 is the button
Total number of active players : 5
Seat 1: tard ( $103.90 )
Seat 2: luckynit ( $644.60 )
Seat 3: Hero ( $382.55 )
Seat 4: utg ( $252.57 )
Seat 5: utg +1 ( $670.85 )
luckynit posts small blind [$1]
Hero posts big blind [$2]

** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ As, 2s ]
utg folds
utg +1 calls [$2]
tard calls [$2]
luckynit raises to [$12] - predictably
Hero raises to [$30]
utg +1 folds
tard calls [$28]
luckynit folds

** Dealing Flop ** [ 8s, Kd, 8c ]
Hero bets [$37]
tard calls [$37]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 9s ]
Hero bets [$74]
tard calls [$36.90] - i must be behind
tard goes all-in
Returning uncalled bet [$37.10] to Hero

** Showdown **
tard shows [ Jh, Qh ]
Hero shows [ As, 2s ]
** Dealing River ** [ Js ]
** Hand Conclusion **
Hero wins $218.80 from main pot with a Frush

pizza

sadly i only have this years hand histories currently available and when i looked at the winnings i almost cried. $800 on stars (150k hands) and $3000 on betfair (15k hands) (although this was 5000 before the weekend). this is not enough to sustain a human being with an addiction to chocolate and has left me massively disappointed. it looks like acting is the way forward. if any directors are reading this, in case you weren't sure, i am brilliant.

here are some brilliant idea(s) i have had today:

some aftershaves/deodorants should smell like food. everyone likes pizza. men like steaks. i walked past a man today and he smelt of pizza and thought it would be nice if a woman smelt like that. probably.

litter should be punishable by a sliding scale which takes into account how pungent the litter is. for example, the person who left a banana on the tube should be fined heavily, especially as there is no fresh air available in the tube or anywhere else in london. i propose a punishment similar to that for piracy, which is punishable with jail time and an infinite fine (according to the adverts in the cinema). and i don't even mind bananas. though i wouldn't want to smell of one. it's hardly as attractive as pizza.

as well as today's great epiphanies, i had some opposite moments.

i went into a building today that i hoped was magical. i entered said building with many things including a pen and a pencil. i left about 10 minutes later and realised the pencil had gone missing. i was carrying it in one of those plastic wallets so i don't know how it got out. i retraced my steps 10 yards of pavement and one room inside building and did not find it. though i found some people giving me strange looks. i left the building for a second time only to discover the pen had also now disappeared. the remaining item in the plastic wallet was a rubber/eraser. for fear of losing this, or perhaps even my phone or wallet etc i did not re-enter the building. i was also somewhat afraid of re-entering and looking like more of a retard than i ever thought possible.

so i spent the rest of the day hoping it was a magical bermuda triangle building, and not a sign of dementia/retardation on my part. sadly i recently left my abode with a pen and piece of paper. i got out my car walked one minute to a shop, and discovered i had the paper but no sign of the pen. yet another lost writing implement. today has made clear to me i am free to join 90%+ of the population in bliss.

acting

i've come to the conclusion that acting = lying. saying someone is a good actor is to say they are a good liar.

i'm not a great actor.

ha. i lied. i am. and ironically, you believed me. if you didn't believe me, then you know i am in fact a great actor.

i wonder how the spouses of great actors/liars deal with this fact.

surprisingly, this epiphany makes natalie portman no less attractive.

i also started wondering why i haven't yet made over $1million from poker. either i'm not good enough or haven't played enough hands. i will need to consider this further. in less than 9 months i am currently set to become a full time bum, and as such am considering the idea of playing poker seriously for 6-12 months to make some money. however, if i don't make £100k per year i don't think it's worth it. sadly, i have no better ideas about what to do in life. yet.

mastermind

this is a gameshow. for those unaware, some people with masterful (allegedly) minds compete to win. i'm not sure what they win, maybe just prestige. anyway, there are two rounds of answering questions, and the winner is the one who gets the most right. if there's a tie, person with the least number of passes wins.

pretty simple.

what amazes me is that i've seen people actually pass questions they don't know the answer to. optimal play is just to make any guess no matter how ridiculous. always answering "is it ghostbusters 2?" is better than saying pass.

anyone that passes should be disqualified. but then no one would pass and the whole using passes as a tiebreak would be scrapped. maybe they should just fix it behind the scenes to ensure that anyone who passes can't win.

anyway, i'm off to play some tilt free poker in my leather jacket (see previous post)

advice for staying cool in a heatwave

due to the "record breaking temperatures" due this week, when it might reach 30 degrees today and 32 later in the week (2 records in a week! must be global warming), here are some tips i have picked up from the radio and bbc website today:

1)wear cool clothes. as such, i will be wearing a leather jacket all week.
2)Avoid over-doing physical exertion. Reaching for a cold drink ought to raise enough of a sweat as it is.

as a sidenote, it rained on my way home today.

ups and downs

last three days
+$1700
-$1700
+$1700

back to level for the month, though i got enough points for the $2.4k bonus and will probably get the other $184 tomorrow or the day after.

i have realised i am still bad at controlling my emotions and tilting away lots of money. i have found two things i do when i tilt
1) call out of position with very pretty but bad cards (eg56o, j9s etc)
2) call 3 bets with pretty much everything i raised with

today's calm may have been aided by my trip to the golf range. i'm not a great fan of golf, but whacking a ball really far (or not that far in my case) is very therapeutic.

anyway, i've checked my stats for this year and realised i have been losing lots this year at poker and if it wasnt for the bonus's i would be down lots. this is bad.
i need to be more calm and relaxed. i can't build a golf range in my room so self hypnosis is the way forward i think.

i would like to say i agree with br000se about mj. and i find it strange that some people i know are fed up of his songs being played on the radio (after 2days lol) "cos it's from 20years ago." terrible logic.

good to see i'm capable of making friends with retards. it's like i'm giving a little back to society.
also these retard friends do not have any money in their house. i mean, i understand not wanting thousands or hundreds lying around, but literally not even a penny in cash! going out always requires going via cashpoint(ATM) if unable to pay by card. i explained that this is not evolutionarily acceptable as if they lived in the 3rd world (or lower) they would not survive.

speaking of evolution, i went to take a shower the other day in my bathroom which is covered in white tiles (a traditional english decoration for bathrooms). i noticed a HUGE white moth. according to my biology lessens in school this means:
that there is no soot and lots of white things outside for it to be camouflaged against (no, not in london),
moth is a genetic mutant (x-moths?), or
moths are evolving to live in houses.
i took it outside obviously as i did not want to shower with it, and wonder how it will do in the green of nature. and whether it will reproduce or if the other moths will treat it like an outcast.

cause and effect

sometimes it can be pretty hard to tell cause and effect apart. and often this goes against the generally accepted view of society.

for example, 'white van man' is almost always a horrible driver, but are they horrible due to the driving every day, or does the job attract horrific drivers?

sometimes, it's even hard to tell after the event. time henman was a loser (he did well for a brit, but didn't really win anything of note). but was he a loser before he started playing, or did not winning make him a loser. please note this is a highly imperfect example but was the first thing i thought of with the tennis on the telly.

i also decided to play some pokers recently. been having awful sessions on stars after a good start this month and found myself $1.5k down in the mouth after 4 losing sessions in a row. my session yesterday involved 140 pairs preflop, and 3 sets on the flop. and i pretty much never fold pairs pre. so that was pretty horrific. but today made up for it and i had my best winning session in a while finishing over $1.5k up tonight. getting real tired after not sleeping much this week and had to stop before i lost all focus.

this was my favourite hand tonight. villain has $200, i cover:

little blind: posts small blind $1
massive blind: posts big blind $2

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Jd 9d]
Donkey: folds
UTG+1: folds
poor villain: raises $4 to $6
Hero: raises $12 to $18
little blind: folds
massive blind: folds
poor villain: calls $12

*** FLOP *** [7h 2d Tc]
poor villain: checks
Hero: bets $22
poor villain: calls $22

*** TURN *** [7h 2d Tc] [7s]
poor villain: checks
Hero: checks

*** RIVER *** [7h 2d Tc 7s] [5d]
poor villain: checks
Hero: checks

*** SHOW DOWN ***
poor villain: shows [3s 2s] (two pair, Sevens and Deuces)
Hero: mucks hand
poor villain collected $80 from pot

the hangover (film)

i went to see this. it was quite funny. and made me want to return to vegas. however, i also saw something in the cinema to which i did not know how to react. i was truly stunned beyond any other stunning i have previously encountered.

(don't worry, no spoilers)
the film ends with these blokes finding a camera with pictures of their evening. you see these pictures during the credits. it's essentially the ending of the movie where you get closure. the couple sitting in front of me LEFT THE CINEMA AS THIS BEGAN. they knew it was coming cos everyone knew as everybody else stayed. except for them. i was gobsmacked.

it's like watching every episode of 24 except for the last episode of each season. or like going to university for 3 years and not doing your exams. awe inspiring shockingness.

(boring poker/life stuff now)
poker - lost monies today, can't tell if i played bad or ran bad. though it doesn't really matter.
up to 148k fpps and need 161.5k for all the bonuses.

not being doing weights or eating well but added 3 kilos of weight (7 pounds). 6 more kilos to go till target.

lazy poker player

and very lazy am i. in fact, i took a whole week off just now cos i couldn't be bothered to play. but the other night i was in town so i went to the empire casino that so many talk about to check it out and played a couple of hours of poker (ie about 30 hands) before leaving to catch the last train home. except i got to the station about one minute too late (and it wasn't even midnight!) so i had to walk down the road and catch the bus. i didn't go to the toilet in the casino as i rushed to catch the train. definitely a hugely -ev move that i probably won't learn from. though i do know if i ever go again i will most definitely drive as the night buses are always full of crazy drunken puking folk.

went back to betfair previous few weeks (60% rakeback offer!) after playing like a semi retard (no change there) on stars, and am pleased to have run highly fortuitous. like 40bb/100 over 4k hands. the problem with betfair is that the software and support is so so bad you have to be a retard to play there, which is ironically also good news cos it means all the players are terrible.
luckily, i am semi retarded so they let me play.

alas, stars have also got one of those instant cash offers this month, which is at the same rate as the supernova bonus so i need to get another 20k or so fpps this month (around 6-7k hands), which i want to do in about a week. so thats 1k hands a day for a week. easy. i thought. except i've gone back to 6 tabling at most instead of nine. i realised that playing more is seriously detrimental to my balance even though it was great for vpps and meant i can play less hours, money is obviously the primary factor. so i will stop that. amazingly i have been losing on stars this year which is shocking. shocking. well, not that shocking.

buying a house is still my aim for the year so basically i need a bunch of 10k months to finish the year. i cant really see that happening at the moment, barring winning a massive tournament. maybe i should play some?

also started watching house. tis a brilliant show and am highly addicted. i have been watching too many episodes per day which means i will finish it really soon, and then curse myself for not watching them at a slower rate. doesn't make much sense cos they take the same amount of hours to watch but i know when i finish it, i will basically be wanting more more more

2 tips and elbow fights

tip #1. if you meet an old friend, don't tell them they look old
tip #2. don't wake up at 330am, wear a 7.31kg backpack, and go running for a bus in the morning.

i arrived at the bus station 2 minutes late, and 10 seconds from heart failure. but the airport bus was later than me. 7 long minutes later it turns up, clearly delighted that it made me run for nothing. it's a one hour journey to the airport, and i'd left myself 30mins to get there before the gate closed - get through security, travel delays etc. down to 21 minutes now.
bus driver lets on people with the right ticket (like me). usually other drivers just let everyone on together but no, not our special driver. he seems to think there are a lot of people at the stop (~12 left). so he does the sensible thing and starts counting the number of free seats on his bus. he gets off the bus, and lets two people on. he then gets back on the bus to count the number of seats available. and lets two people on.
he repeats this process like an ocd riddled noah. 15 mins of buffer time remain when we finally depart.

i arrived in latvia, complete with the knowledge that 1 lat (what kind of a lazy currency name is that?) is worth more than one pound according to exchange rates - though obviously stuff is cheaper there than england. the cause for concern is that i treat foreign money like poker chips. play money chips if i'm being honest. and having them worth more than actual money is not a good thing for my bank balance.

as for lativa, in common with most non-british countries, personal space seems to be non existent. i sat down on my plane home, and some latvian dude sat down next to me. he planted his arm on the shared armrest taking up almost it's entirety. this would not have bothered me. except his arm then continued to move in my direction beyond the edge of the armrest into my chair space. he did not arrest his advancement until his elbow was firmly in contact with my forearm. this was war.

i noticed he had left free a small area of armrest between the chair and his arm. a schoolboy mistake. i cunningly placed my elbow there. this was effectively taking all four corners of an othello board, leaving my opponent helpless. as i impinged slowly on his space, advancing towards complete armrest domination he began to realise the futility of his situation, and how he had been outflanked in a manoeuvre napolean would have been proud of. he tried to retaliate by leaning toward me and sticking his face as close to the window as possible without touching me, but i just pretended to be asleep when he did that.
game over nikolais.

the problem with other people

before i start, i would like to say rubbishatpoker's blog is funny. i can't seem to comment there but his tales are well written and entertaining. i would like to think his name is rubbi, but maybe that's just me.

the problem with other people is that for the most part, most of them, cannot comprehend that you have different thoughts to them. yes, they all think that they're aware that everyone is unique etc, but when it actually comes down to it, people don't actually act as though they realise it.

for example, i dislike the sounds that people usually make when they eat. i use dislike in its kindest sense of the word. in fact, it can make me want to do crazy violent things. my words cannot express it very well. luckily i have the internet. and there are other crazy people like me who have expressed it much better.

my point, however, is that no one actually understands these reactions if they have not experienced it themselves. they dismiss you as crazy and tell you to just stop. as if you could just stop if you wanted.

i hypothesise that this reaction is normal. almost anything that someone hasn't actually experienced is generally dismissed by that someone. alcoholism, gambling addictions etc. it also occurs in much more subtle situations, such as not understanding other people's actions.

however, when you play chess/poker the idea of the game becomes to think like your opponent. if you just think what you would do in their situation, you will never win. not because your opponents aren't retarded, but because you are assuming they think along your logical thought processes and as we all know they are unique so don't think like us. except we still expect them to do so. when people make bad calls at poker if they win, you get angry, if they lose, you laugh at their failure. still without even thinking about why they made that call, everyone dismisses it as they are bad/stupid. in fact, they had their reasons for making the call; it may be that you will never know those reasons but that's not an excuse to avoid thinking about trying to work it out.

anyways, i shall leave you with some quotes i found online of other people who 'dislike' noisy eaters. they're pretty funny imo. and the last one illustrates my point.

I find the worst instances are the ones where someone is chomping away at, say, breakfast cereal really quickly, and breathing in and out loudly through their noses. Those kinds of shenanigans make me tense up with uncontrollable rage and want to hold the culprit's nose and mouth shut until they stop breathing and choke to death on half-chewed cornflakes.

Who'd have thought eh? Egg! They can even make egg sound noisy. Fuck it, I'm going to risk the criminal record, and give them a tracheotomy.

One word.... GULPERS!!! Even the word is disgusting but the animals that do this should be put down! Is it really necessary? I have eyes, I can see they're having a drink but I don't need to fucking hear it!!! Also slurping tea or coffee because its too hot. There is no excuse for this, its too fucking hot so don't drink it!! Now, getting onto the subject of crisps or crunchy snacks. I appreciate they aren't the quietest of foods but jesus to the pigs in my office have to crunch as loudly as they possibly can?? Its like a secret competition between them all who can crunch the fucking loudest!! If you lot hear of a massacre in Aylesbury its probably me that has shot the dirty, rotten, gulping, slurping, crunching BASTARDS!

I never could understand my wife's intolerance to me chewing food, clanking fork or spoon,sniffing,coughing etc. Now that I have Hyperacusis,tinnitus and sound sensitivity, I understand her and leave her to eat in peace at the proper times. It is ironic how things happen.

lolbeats

i used to care when i got bad beated. and i used to feel guilty when i bad beated someone.

now i just find it funny when people who have played poker for more than 2/3 years care at all about either. i just play, click buttons, try to have fun, not make too many mistakes and not get upset by the mistakes that i make.

obviously it helps when you're putting horrific beats on your opponents rather than the other way round. especially when it sends them into despair. and more so when it's to the point of everyone at the table quitting cos they think you're a bot. i kid you's not.

i'm gonna try to get back on my regime of weights 5 days a week, twice a day for a combined total of at least one hour from tomorrow morning. i expect to have failed by tuesday morning.

that's a pretty cool photo.

i've lost patience to play tournaments. i was in a stars one this weekend and about half way through i just got bored. i was chip leader early on and basically went from top 5 to out in about 10 minutes. need to correct that before i play any more tournaments.

earlier today a lorry driver tried to kill me. i survived by about 1 inch. which reminds me of imperial measurements. they are insane. completely. i can understand counting in binary, denary (10) or 12s (it's a great number for counting apparently. it divides well)

but imperial measurements. who thought it sounded good? 1 inch is split into 16ths. 12 inch's in a foot. 3 feet in a yard. 220 yards in a furlong. 8 furlongs in a mile.

i think i've mentioned before that the worst instance of this was that of the gallon, another stupid imperial measurement. It was copied by the americans and then changed so they have their own gallons which are different to ours. taking something stupid and making it stupider is the opposite of evolution.

which brings me nicely to my next point. why do dogs drool? i had one slobber all over my new jeans today. well, my friend told me it was a dog, but i've been horse racing a couple of times and i'm pretty sure it was a horse. and not one of those small horses. it was gigantic. a little like this:

laugh in the faces of spiders

good name for a band i think.

also a true story. in the past 24 hours i have twice been attacked by these eight legged creatures (that might as well be coloured in red black and white)

the first went into my shoe. obviously i wasn't wearing it (the shoe or the spider) at the time. this is one of my biggest fears. having a venomous spider hiding in your shoe, waiting for you to put your foot in so it can bite you. luckily i saw it, and it wasnt venemous, and it's also no longer any sort of threat to humanity.

the second spider attacked me whilst i was in a park, sitting on a bench. i fought back as it crawled along my shoulder by brushing it off in a manner that i can only describe as very manly. the spider however, left some chocolate stains on my t shirt. on both sleeves. my friend using house-like powers of deduction said it was probably the ice cream sandwich that was the cause of the chocolate stains. i agreed because even if it wasn't true, i would much rather believe his story than any other alternative.

todays thought is that it must be annoying to drive a police car without the sirens on. the driver in front of you is almost always scared to do more than the speed limit plus a little bit, so you end up driving slowly everywhere. and being forced to drive slowly is one of the greatest punishments known to mankind.

i've run out of words

3625 words done and i need to reach 5000 by 7 o'clock tonight when i will be going out to watch the football. please let barca win

at this moment in time i have literally run out of words that can be added to the steaming pile of mess i have already unleashed upon my laptop's hard drive and screen. i decided to take a break and watch an episode of house. it was thoroughly enjoyable, especially as i forgot completely about the remaining words i have to write.

i don't know why but this reminds me of the time i was in a club with a girl who would definitely be in the top three of girls who i have touched. i gave her my number and she never called but i didn't really care. that reminds me of times i have given people fake numbers.
i once went to a showhouse flat place and told them my name was shaun round, the woman working said "rand? r-a-n-d?" and i said, "yes". my friend with me suppressed her laughter. i later gave her a fake mobile number and took her number.
we then went to another showroom flat thingy that day, when they asked for my number i gave them the first lady's mobile number (not the president's wife, the other lady from my story!) and told her it was my pa's number. i really would have liked to hear their conversation about the flat that was visited. i imagined it starting along the lines of
"hi, i'm calling regarding shaun rand's visit to the flat"
"oh yes, i'm glad you called. so, what do you think?"


obviously all these fake numbers have a serious affect on the people who's fake numbers are given out. it's probably a long shot to get a number that actually works but one day, i was in the airport with a couple of friends, about to go away and i got a slightly suggestive text

"so, how was last night for you?"
i probably replied, it was great...
a few texts later and i realise it's some dude who was given a fake number by a bird. i felt dirty.

another restaurant

this time however no tales of despair. though a couple of things did strike me.

1) all chairs should be comfortable. this may require the addition of a cushion. the chair i sat on yesterday was incredibly uncomfortable, the type that dug into the outside of your legs. i can only imagine how much worse it would have been were i fat.
2)more fundamentally than this, how/why do painfully uncomfortable chairs get made to begin with. does no one sit on the prototype and say, "no. this is awful. do not build."

maybe they are trying to get rid of people quicker and increase their turnover? though there is one coffee shop near me that i avoid due to their bad chairs. so their evil plan has backfired. though i often see people in there, maybe they're all first time customers.

not much else to say. trying to think of ways to avoid writing 6500 words. eating ice cream is my favourite method for avoiding things i don't like. i have till thursday afternoon and haven't yet started. worse still, is these words can't be a random collection, nor can they be words i have invented. instead, they have to form a coherent report of sorts. this is gonna be much tougher than any of those unrealistic playing x number of hands of poker in a week challenges.

so whilst i put off commencing this, have a mosey on down this page to this beautiful photo i recently took. i'm pretty sure there's some irony in there somewhere.

first is everything second is nothing

i played three satellites tonight to try to get into stars's' (i think that is grammatically correct) monthly wsop tourney with 25 seats gtd. $650 is a bit steep to stump up so i played two $33 and one $22 double shootout tourneys. the $22 was a 6 seater and i won the first. in the 33's there was a lack of players so there were only 4 people in the first round. in the first a guy called with jt on an ace high flop knowing that a king and queen were coming. in the other, i made it through.

in both i made it heads up with a big chip deficit and managed to lose both. after my outlay i got back about $200, so in fact, second is not nothing.

i also have a special offer on betfair of free money if i play there soi will do so. apart from the slow, processor heavy, often crashing, badly designed software, i enjoy it there. mostly cos the opponents are highly unskilled resulting in much fun when playing as i play many more hands. this is aided by the fact that more than four tables don't fit on a screen because they are highly rectangular, and four tables means i can concentrate more on each table. oh, and i get bored so i play more hands.

anyway, its sunny today so im off out to enjoy it. i did get burnt earlier today (!) playing tennis. but all that really matters is that after losing for the previous two matches, today i won.

get out

i hate three more than i've ever hated anyone/anything before

yesterday, i got some great news. they were ending their free calls from abroad. there are about 7 countries inc australia, denmark and hongkong (country?) where you could get their network and use it as if you were in the uk. they are ending this at the end of june. why is this great news? because they decided to tell me that due to this i am allowed to terminate my contract for free. wooooooooooooooooo

just need to decide what phone to get. iphone or blackberry?

the classics

i started listening to some classical music as it is highly relaxing, even when driving, and they have lots of famous tunes. like many football chanting tunes
my favourite is the one which went (when west ham fans went to liverpool, back in the day when di canio still played there)

we've got di canio
you've got our stereo

things i do not like however, are eating and shaving. probably not in that order. on occasions (eg holiday) i like eating ice cream, but mostly it's very tedious. having to do it three times a day really grinds me down. trying to do it four times a day almost killed me. i then read on the internet that fat does not turn into muscle, but muscle turns into more muscle upon training. whilst this makes sense, and is hopefully true i decided to fully believe this without any further study as i want it to be true. i definitely see some potential in me as future scientist if i carry on these trends. (note: as we all know, extrapolation is bad, but as long as it backs up my results i'm happy)

worse than eating, is shaving. i don't see the point. people with beards tend to be accepted as part of society. so why do i have to shave every day? obv i don't, because i'm a lazy, but there are occasions where i have to.

example one: i'm shortly to be getting on a plane. definitely need to shave prior to this otherwise i will get stopped at some point in the airport. this used to happen to me quite often but hasn't for a while. part of me is disappointed when i don't get stopped because i think i look a little like a terrorist and racial profiling works so i should be getting stopped more often than not.

example two: my photo is going to be in the newspaper. whilst this hasn't happened yet, i probably need to look acceptable to the greatest part of society available, at least until i'm famous enough to not care. i could go for the trendy stubble look but the window of opportunity i have here lasts about 10minutes, and requires shaving a certain amount of time before said photo and i don't think i could plan anything that far in advance that accurately and precisely.

there are many other rules we have in society that bug me but i have forgotten them for now. i think if i remembered them all i would be permanently tilted so i'm glad i have the capacity to forget many things. i just wish i could forget some of the films i watched, especially the good ones. how great it would be to watch fight club or the usual suspects for the first time (and second times), many times over.

a tale of woe

i almost blanked out the day i left last week. it was one of the most depressing 12 hours of my life. every little thing (bar missing my plane or anything actually bad) went wrong

firstly, i get on the bus to go the airport. i take out my ipod, eager to listen to the new green day album. i press the button for music and can't find green day. in fact, i can't find anything cos it's all disappeared. as have the episodes of south park i put on. the only things that remain are some photos. i see that there is still not much space available on my ipod so the music is hiding in there somewhere. but i still haven't found it.

i get to the airport and am told that there are no window or isle seats left. i also feel the need to empty my bowels coming on. the prospect of doing this on the plane isn't appealing so i know i'm gonna have to speed up the process to make it happen in the airport. not great but the lesser of two evils.

i finally get on the plane and find myself next to a small child. i was expecting to be sat between two fat people so this is a small victory. or so i thought. whilst the child was old enough to not cry the whole way through, the mother was a bizzare creature with strange social customs. yes, she was a french.

for their next trick, the plane pretends to begin to leave the airport but really we just sat on the plane for two hours before moving. i brought a couple of magazines with me which was lucky as i had no music however, i was in danger of finishing them before my journey began.

eventually we leave. i'm trying to watch the movie (they didn't have individual tvs but one at the front - how 1990's - and no stadium seating obviously so mostly i saw the back of a man's head). before giving up i did however get hit by a stench so foul i almost cried blood. i looked to my left and noticed that the toddler had relieved itself as a toddler does. and the mother had decided to change her baby there, in her seat. next to mine. the guy on my right also noticed, got up and ran to the other end of the plane. i followed shortly thereafter.

finally we landed and i headed for a cashpoint to take out some money. i put my card in, enter pin, select money, card returned, message comes up
"this service is unavailable to you"

i didn't mind them not serving me but that seemed a little too personal for my liking.

kellogs

i was eating some cereal this morning, missing the sunshine of my holiday of the past week.

as everyone knows, the only thing that can be done when eating cereal, is to read the cereal box. today mine said, "we only want you to buy kellogs"

right above this they have a special offer stating "get your free box of kellogs"


i forgot about my dismal performance at that recent live tournament. i finished 14th or so of 33. its a crapshoot around that stage, but what was brilliant was how angry my opponents got. i never limp when i'm playing under 8bbs, so when i got short (~6bbs) and the blinds were big i shoved 3 hands in a row never getting called and almost doubling my stack. and my now ~11bbs were above average. this standard play infuriated 2 of my opponents who were friends. i played a few more hands inc raising a limper (one of said friends) who then folded on the flop. at that point he got really angry and looked at me saying "next time i will raise you all in"

not longer later and i've lost a few chips and he limps again. so i see my first card is an ace and raise all in again. he thinks and calls (has me just covered) with JJ which holds and says really aggressively "i told you i was gonna raise you".
i decide not to point out that he didn't raise me in that hand at any point as i think his head might have popped from rage.

he went out shortly after and i surprised myself but not caring/taking any satisfaction from that.

need to start winning some monies from poker again, might even get someone to watch me play and point out the many things i am doing badly.

hold me back

i've consciously made myself aware of the thing that has been holding me back in the pokers recently.
ego/pride
wanting to prove to myself and everyone else at the table that i am better than them. this is in general a terrible human trait and i will work on ridding myself of this. i never used to have this, but i think it has definitely surfaced this year in my life in general, and on the tables.

i do think it's great how much i can learn about myself from poker, what would otherwise take many many moons to learn.

i am writing this down and will also write this down and staple it to my monitor to remind myself of this. especially after dropping $3.5k at 1/2 at the weekend.

i'm going away for a week and next week will hopefully have some improved results. i would ordinarily say getting back into profit for the month will be good, but anything less than $5k will be a failure imo

anyway, it could always be worse, i could own a BMW

news stories

sometimes i wonder if people that write them put in jokes to see if anyone will notice. the latest story is about a guy that got the 'best job in the world' which is a caretaker on a desert island.

(details here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8035168.stm)

there were many applicants and "The finalists also had to demonstrate their blogging abilities"

apart from using a computer, being literate and being able to construct sentences what else is required? maybe i've been missing something all these years.

no pokers tonight yet. might play live tomorrow. £77 tournament, first one since i lost HU to the worst player in the history of the game.

end of day

i dunno whether i should post results every day i play. will see how it goes for a bit. it really motivates me not to lose. for about 5 mins till i stop caring

won $1300 today to get out my hole from yesterday. up $500 for the month now.

i also dunno whether to post hands talk strategy etc. usually i just can't be bothered. but here's my favourite hand from today.

i almost never do this move but had to against this villain in this instance

6-max Seat #2 is the button

Seat 1: ponds ($311.45 in chips)
Seat 2: homer ($528.10 in chips)
Seat 3: aggrovillain ($315.35 in chips)
Seat 4: Hero ($199 in chips)
Seat 6: dieshortstacker ($51.65 in chips)
aggrovillain: posts small blind $1
Hero: posts big blind $2

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Td 9s]
dieshortstacker: folds
ponds: folds
homer: folds
aggrovillain: raises $6 to $8
Hero: calls $6

*** FLOP *** [Jd 3h 3d]
aggrovillain: checks
Hero: bets $10
aggrovillain: calls $10

*** TURN *** [Jd 3h 3d] [6c]
aggrovillain: checks
Hero: bets $20
aggrovillain: raises $42 to $62
Hero: raises $58 to $120
aggrovillain: folds
Uncalled bet ($58) returned to Hero
Hero collected $158 from pot
Hero: doesn't show hand

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $160 | Rake $2
Board [Jd 3h 3d 6c]
Seat 1: ponds folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: homer (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: aggrovillain (small blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 4: Hero (big blind) collected ($158)
Seat 6: dieshortstacker folded before Flop (didn't bet)

general retardation

i'm beginning to worry that retardation is more contagious and more lethal than swine flu.

firstly, i went to a shop yesterday to buy some bread. i asked for 10 bagels (yeh, i was hungry) and gave the guy a tenner. £3.50 he tells me it costs, and he hands me £3.50 in change before walking off. i call him back and sort it out. as i'm leaving the shop i decide to check how much food he actually gave me, turns out it was only about 7. so i go back again. i'm unsure as to whether he was trying to cheat me, or was just incredibly retarded.

then today, i started looking at this report i have to write. i might have mentioned these reports before that are a measure of how much faecal matter you can write on a piece of paper. they have a booklet that explains this work. when talking about finances and rate of return, they define two separate terms. payback and rate of return.
payback is: implementation cost / annual profit (ie number of years till payback)
rate of return is: 100* annual profit / implementation cost (ie a percentage)

the problem isn't the definitions. the problem is that they say that these are two different ways of selecting which is going to be more profitable. however, they will both always give the same result for which is most profitable.

i fear this retardation has rubbed off on me as i unloaded about 8 buy in's on the poker community yesterday. though it may have been running bad. i walked ak into aa/kk/qq about 110 times without winning once. i've become lazy about checking my play. two things i will do before i play in future is analyse my previous sessions car crash hands, and also do some calming meditation before playing.

now i'm down $800 for the month. on the plus side i've played about 10k hands already.

takeaway failure

deciding where to eat tonight, my friend and i settled on my local chinese. the food there is amazing if pricey; it's slightly cheaper if you get a takeaway, which we fancied doing. we called them up to order and their reply was.....sorry, we're too busy tonight. this left me bemused.

on the poker front, this month hasn't been great. i've already played 7k hands, though that was due to a 5hour session last night (this morning really). was up $1200 early, then down to $400. thought i'll play a little and win it back. few mins later and i'm $1200 down. oops. ended $600 when i was too tired to keep my eyes open let alone click on the wrong button for the umpteenth time.

two short sessions this evening, first one winning $700, second winning $850 and am $950 up for the month. 3000vpp's from stars who are doing an offer for uk players this month of vpp bonus. i'll get the maximum which is 80k vpp (no fpp's come with them sadly) but it means i should reach 200k vpp's at the end of the year and with that comes $2k. which will be nice.

pretty disciplined this month, though i do still go on tilt when i lose to the table mong 2 buy ins in quick succession. i often remedy this by dropping a third. usually to him/her/it. i think i need a new remedy

it's a lottery

went to the uni shop to buy some mars milk, and the dude in front of me bought some lottery tickets. recalling it's a massive rollover tonight i decided to also buy some tickets. when i said to the lady she asked me how many i want 1 or 2? i said four thanks. i'm such a baller at this uni. though if you saw my peers you would realise it's akin to being the most honest nigerian businessman.

now however, i am experiencing the greatest feeling in the world. anticipation. nothing beats it. obviously i won't win but i get to spend a few hours imagining i might. and all the things i'll do. like buy a house. and retire. probably not in that order.

month end

and after my best ever month i get my worst ever month
two -5K days at the end didnt help. i did complete the $4k supernova bonus points to soften the blow, but i would have got that anyway.

gone back to 1/2, and have to learn how to be patient and play well again.
much easier at this level, but im still making too many mistakes.

just finished 2k hands tonight, was down $1k at one point and decided i was gonna play well till level and quit, which we all know is a stupid idea. luckily im now level, so have quit, but am hungry and will be tired when i wake tomorrow morning.

gonna only play 1/2 all month. no matter how well i run. i'm hoping for a $10k month and 30k hands. aim for the stars and you'll reach the sky etc. though that's a phrase i have never understood. if you could reach out, you'd hit a star before the sky, cos the sky isn't something you can ever reach.

i'm probably talking nonsense cos i'm hungry so i'm going to eat now

so far: 2k hands, +$40

a plan, stan

for the next month i will be playing 1/2, trying to hit 30k hands for the month, and trying to not play like a mong. discipline is key!

ideally this will entail a profit of $10k but we shall see.

i will update results here on the days that i play (hopefully 6 days a week)

i really need to refocus. playing 1/2 is good fun as most people are terrible, but playing 40% of all hands like i did last night is not possible when 8tabling.

i will be listening to mostly chilled music like sigur ros, sublime and maybe some radiohead. any other bands who are good and chilled, please inform me of their existence.

i am bad

at poker.

im going back to 1/2 till i remember how to play and not tilt


tilted one or two buy ins away recently, which isn't much compared to my recent losses (another -10buy in yesterday!) but still it adds up to about $16k of tilt losses this year

the problem with 8 tabling

is when you run awfully, this is multiplied by the number of tables you have open

so far, tonight has been the second session this month of losing 10+ buyins

this is frustrating

trying to write a post

but my keyboard keeps not responding to the inputs i am giving it.

i was considering purchasing one of these

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/ocz_peripherals/nia-neural_impulse_actuator

it lets you control the mouse + keyboard using just your thoughts!
they cleverly (although maybe it's an obvious thing to do) advertise on wikipedia. at least until someone changes it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_Impulse_Actuator

i like the idea of not having to use a keyboard ever again, however i would want something to type for me as i think the words. though i can see where this would result in some problems. for now though, this only works for a few keys at a time.


i recently returned from prague and am pleased to say i was upgraded to a level 2 citizen, as seen in the photo below



there were many 'chequepoints', but obviously those were scams and didn't count.

8tabling

i managed to play 8 tables last night. aside from not being able to pay attention to what was going on, i noticed there were many bad habits i also did not have time to do:
checking how much i was up or down (rather than concentrate on making best decision)
worry about winning or losing hands (can lead to tilt)
worry about hating individuals at my table (leads to ego related tilt problems)
folded more often in spots (eg to 3bets preflop) where i should fold as i didnt have time to try to outplay everyone

this lead to a decent result, and i may try it in future on weekends at least. the standard was pretty abysmal last night. every table had at least one player playing 50% of the hands.

recently, south park is now being shown on tv in england 2 days after the episodes air in america. this is a substantial improvement on the 12+ month delay they used to have. this phenomenon, which has become consistent amongst all tv shows and movies is imo purely down to the piracy issue. something which i think is lost on lots of people. however stealing is obviously bad. luckily i have had no real influence on any of this or i would wonder what is the correct stance to take on this issue.

though i do find it funny that they blame piracy for drugs, funding terrorism, money laundering etc. how exactly are terrorists getting money when people download things for FREE?

things i know about women

i recently helped a female friend do some maths uni work over the msn/skype. at one point, for a couple of days in a row i could not help as i was playing poker/watching football/out. due to this i received an email telling me what a terrible human i was. i would have got annoyed had i not remembered the things i know about women.

1) flattery works.
not directly relevant here, but as i know this works, i thought i would share.

2) they are highly illogical
for example, there are two types of questions women ask.

a) questions they know the answer to.
eg what time did you get home last night. if you answer i don't remember, they will tell you the exact time. this is pointless.
this is akin to me asking them about the offside rule. something i obviously will never do.

b) questions they don't know the answer to
the problem with this type is that they will assign you an answer. whether you answer the question or not. sometimes they will go as far as to do this whole process without involving you at all.
ie, they imagine asking you questions, answer them how they wish, and the worst part is that they then react based upon that.

when i received an email telling me how i was just below polpot on the scale of humans i realised what had happened.
i was asked why i couldn't help, and obv i couldn't because i was fed up of helping.
of course, this whole process took place inside her head.

i recently asked her if that this is how all women think. she confirmed this. i then (bravely) pointed out the logical flaw in this thought process. she noticed the flaw and still decided it was a justified response to questions.

luckily i had won monies that day playing poker or i would have driven off a cliff asap.

3) actually, those two is all i know.

a frustrating steak breakfast

went to a steak restaurant at noonish today to break my overnight fast. i arrived looking forward to purchasing my steak and chips. i had not had anything to eat or drink prior to my arrival, so when the waitress came over i asked for some tap water. she says, they don't do tap water. i reply, youre joking, you do. it's the law. she seemed unfazed. maybe i played my trump card too early.
the last time this happened my friend and i just walked out. however, i really wanted this steak pronto.
nevermind i thought, i'll ask the manager.
i go over to the till and ask the person there for some water thinking he seems sensible and this will be no hassle at all, as there is a tap right next to him. i was wrong. i ask him and he also replies the same
"we don't do tap water".
mildly frustrated, i asked why
"i don't know"
"ok," i say, "can i speak with the manager"
"i am the manager" he says (with a straight face)

2 things struck me at this point.

1)he's lying. any live 1c/2c donk could make that read. i am 100% sure of this because it's a lie i used to have to tell at my job before the company went busto (lol story, where we were on watchdog). i also know it's a lie because i have been there before many times and the manager is in fact a very hot argentinian woman.

2)at the same time thought number 2 hit me so hard i said it out loud " so, you told yourself that you don't do tap water and don't know why?"

he was saved at this point by the owner walking into scene. he points and says that's the owner. so i say to owner, can i get some tap water. his reply was great. "we don't have any"
erm, there's a tap right there i say to him.
he chooses this moment to exit as fast as he had appeared.

i do not understand why these retards make my life so difficult. luckily (for them) the waitress had for some reason put an empty cup on my table when i returned. so when all these fools had left the area i strolled over to the tap and filled myself up. the look the waitress gave me when she saw my tap water, as if i had killed her family, made the whole thing almost worthwhile.

jokerstars

i reg'd for this tournament whilst playing the scoop low main event.

the message they put up made me laugh.

escapism

had some thoughts about this but can't be bothered to post it now

i did also have a poker related thought. one of the things to which i alluded in my previous post, about having heard but not fully understanding:

money won is equivalent to money saved

this is totally true, however, the difficulty in this concept is the ability to measure it. money won is easy to measure as you look at how much you won and possibly hands where you could have bet more etc. money saved is much tougher to note and add up because most of the time you will have lost the pot. at the end of a losing session after running terrible i sometimes review hands, realised i played alright with the cards dealt to me and the fact that i lost is essentially irrelevant. all that matters is making the correct decision.

oh yeah, i also played the scoop $100 main event and got all in on the turn with pocket jacks on a kj9 4 board, vs table outdraw specialist's aa. i was raising 30% of hands so at least i had fun :)

my favourite hand of the day however was cash vs a shortstack hit and runner. he had doubled up and carried playing. before the blinds could reach him allowing him his mouselike getaway, his kk was no match for my qq (all in preflop) even after the first card out was a king. i hit a beautiful runner runner runner runner flush.

almost bustoed

it is true that there are worse people to have hair like and worse people to look like and for not looking like anyone in the utd team, i am eternally grateful

sadly, no matter what i look like, i think i will always be retarded and prone to tilt unless i concentrate on it 100% of the time.

after winning lots last month i found myself, one week into this month, $9k down and back to level for the year. some of it bad luck (almost 10 buy ins according to allinev in 5k hands!) many coolers and bad play, but not as much as i thought. i took a few days off to relax and think about what i'd done.

i don't usually keep more than $10k online as there isn't much point but i had to deposit for the first time in a year for a reason that was not bonus related. so i loaded up the pokers tonight with 7 buy ins. i decided to put on 6 2/4 tables and not drop down as i didnt think i would bother taking it seriously. amazingly i ran level but hit some nice hands, hit draws which i hadn't yet done this month and my roll is somewhat healthier. if i finish this month level it will be a miracle which will make me very happy.

once again i think i have learnt lots about myself, about tilt, and that the difference between winners and losers is how one handles adversity. being able to control yourself and focus during the tough times is what i have been learning. most things i have learnt through poker i had already read about someone else experiencing the same thing. but for the most part it's not until you go through it yourself that you actually understand what they were trying to say.

if there's one thing that has helped me most it's being able to recognise tilt. once you have recognised it, and sometimes it's only very subtle, the reaction that you take depends on being able to accurately and precisely assess yourself. sometimes it's to refocus, sometimes it's to stop playing completely.

if you made it this far you deserve some light entertainment. i had to go to the opticians the other day. had to pick up some lenses and to get my sunglasses darkened. i turn up and am asked if i can wait for the sunglasses. i remind her it should only take a few minutes to do and she says, yes but she is busy with other customers. I look around. 2 are together and are looking at new frames. hmm, no help required there. the other two are also together and are simply sat down waiting for a cab.
proof all women can't multitask, even when one of the tasks involves doing nothing.

haircuts

i went to the hairdressers and asked for a 'vinny chase'



i was wearing glasses so had to take them off, and am too blinded by this to see exactly what is happening during the hair cutting process.

when the man was finished, i put them back on to see what i had become.



to my shock and horror i looked like ronaldo (without the lady)

now i'm pretty sure the hairdresser was not retarded because retards aren't allowed sharp scissors. however, there was no other explanation for the travesty that had occurred.

he picks up the mirror to show me the back of my head as i survey the damage that had taken place to my head. how does it look he asks from behind the back of head mirror.

situations like this, as all men know, have only one answer which i duly give him ...'fine'

fight me now please

http://loserforever.mybrute.com/

oh yeah

eclipse cloak moon coins

i recently added a statcounter thing to my site but can't work out how to display it on my site as a counter. i find these things funny. i first used one with the first website i ever built. it was for a charity called showtime challenge. i think i still have a link to them on the right. someone else has since revamped the website and made it look good. statcounters measure loads about websites including how people come to your site.

most are probably me (i recently noticed on firefox's most visited tab, my most visited website is my website. how narcissistic). one person however found my site by searching on google for
eclipse cloak moon coins

grape flavoured ice cream

(very late edit to the title. can't believe i forgot to mention the flavour. it was the whole point of the post)

i was just eating some and found it delicious. i informed a friend who told me it was nonsensical and compared it to cucumber or apple flavoured ice cream. i do not agree with the validity of his comment.

onto happier things including my mobile company 3. 3 weeks ago i sent them an email asking them to put skype on my phone for free. it's a pretty long story but essentially, i have a skpye enabled phone, and free unlimited internet. however, if i wanted to use skpye i would have to pay 3 a monthly fee. when i called them about this explaining i have free internet i was informed "that's not how the internet works". words could not express my shock at them sinking to new depths.

however, i decided to email their ceo to tell him what i thought of this debacle. obviously i also emailed their executive office as they would be the people acting out my request. i got a reply saying they would contact me within 10 working days. 12 working days later and no news, i again emailed their ceo and exec office simply saying

it's been 10 working days.

the next day they called me, and to my shock, amazement and pleasure, decided to let me have my free internet and use skype. what a touch!

luckily most companies have firstname.lastname@companyname.com (or .co.uk) addresses.

i had a thought that if you were gonna get a tattoo you should get a really offensive one and put it on your middle finger.

poker has been pretty horrific to me so far this month. back to the usual horribly negative all in luck. over $3k down this month, half of it in all in luck, and a bunch of coolers etc. end of the month i'll get my 4k bonus though so it's not all bad.

tbh i think i tilted a little in one session this month. i didn't really concentrate very well. this is bad especially when i'm playing 3/6 as i need to think a little bit.