Over the past few months I’ve started to write journal entries on three or four separate occasions that I wound up deciding not to publish.

I’m really mad at myself for this, and I’m writing this while doing it yet again. I wrote this big long post that I’m not publishing.

It would hurt feelings, and maybe get me into a bit of trouble with some people. I really hate that I care. I really hate that I can’t be as open and honest with the world as I want to be, because instead I have to worry about what people would think, and how people would feel.

So in the end, despite all the strides I’ve made since the breakup, I’m still not free. I tasted freedom for a while there, and it was good. It’s how I’d like to live, and it’s how I’d like to be. But that’s been clamped down on now, and despite as far as I come I can see that I’m as bad as I ever was in a lot of ways.

It’s not all my fault, but even in the ways that it’s not I probably could have done something about it. Given, it would have made me seem a bit callous, and it would have hurt feelings, which is why I didn’t. It’s why I’m not now. And hell, while throwing it all out there wouldn’t solve all my problems, it would definitely be a step in the right direction.

And yet I sit on it, and do nothing.

When Amber broke up with me, it was very freeing. I’m not saying that I wasn’t sad or lonely, but what I’m talking about is disconnected from my feelings about Amber. When she broke up with me it basically brought me to a place where I literally had nothing left to lose. Nothing important, anyway. I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have friends. I didn’t have a girlfriend. And the freedom I felt with that was excellent, and I managed to make very long strides in a very short period of time.

That’s gone now. I have a job that sucks up more time a week than I spend sleeping, and despite the fact that I decided today that I’m no longer friends and have no care about being friends with a few people, I still somehow feel restrained to talk about it. Shit has become very intertwined, and it’s all exhausting.

It’s a lack of freedom, that’s what it is. Technically I’m capable of doing whatever I want. But I don’t, I choose not to, and for very specific reasons. I’m worried about hurting feelings, and I’m worried about how I’d come across. So instead I’m just going to sit here, and let it eat away at me.

I know people who think that blogging is very narcissistic, and they’re probably right. But I don’t quite think that’s true in my case, or in a lot of people’s cases. I’m not arrogant enough to believe that people care about what I have to say about my life. All of three people read this blog, and I know that. I’m not delusional. But there is something freeing about putting all your thoughts down, and sending them off into the world. It’s not about thinking anybody gives a shit about what I have to say. It’s about knowing that by giving everybody in the world access to them, I am not ashamed of them, or even if I am, I can at least be up front and honest about it. It’s liberating. People talk about how writing reveals a piece of the writer’s soul. I think that’s true, and I think maybe that’s why the fact that I’m not talking about all the things I want to talk about on my blog is so telling about where I’m at in my life. There’s really nothing stopping me from talking about what I want to talk about except me, but I’m restraining myself anyway.

Even if it’s understandable in a lot of ways, I can’t help but feeling completely fucking pathetic on a multitude of levels.

So I’m starting day 1 of 30 of my big master plan to lose 15 pounds in 30 days, and so far I’m off to a good start, it would seem.

Let me clarify something first, it’s less about losing 15 pounds and more getting down to my target weight of 175 pounds. When I initially decided to do this (yesterday), I was at 190. Hence 15 pounds in 30 days. But now today, despite a fattening birthday lunch and kind of an enormous helping of a reasonably healthy dinner, and then a nice slice of birthday cake, I woke up weighing 188. So maybe I’m kind of cheating here, but I’m pretty sure that’s just morning water weight I lost. But still, it’s a good start.

So Amber was good enough to loan me her video camera for a side project I’m working on (and only have 10 days to complete), and I’m contemplating joining the YouTube crowd, though that would require me (most likely) to buy my own video camera for that, as I doubt Amber’ll let me hold onto her’s indefinitely. I don’t really know why I have the sudden urge to do so, maybe I’m starting to feel a bit old and this’ll be my way of joining the hipper, younger, more emo and douchebaggy crowd I loathe. Or something.

My motivation is irrelevant, I think. Self-analysis is only good when it leads to you being more productive, or at least constructive. Joining YouTube would be harmless in all ways, so I’ll probably do it at some point, it’s just a matter of when I feel like I can blow several hundred dollars on a camera. I forget how much Amber paid for her’s, but I feel like it was somewhere in the 300-600 range, with a heavy leaning toward the upper figure. I hope it’s not that much.

Financially, I’m in a world of shit right now. Not having roommates has shoved a BBC up my ass, financially speaking. I’m still in the green having just been paid yesterday, but paying a lawyer to take care of this ticket for me is going to suck a lot, I’m pretty sure. I’m considering not bothering with the lawyer and just doing a PJC, but who knows if that’s a good idea or not. On the other hand, if that’s all the stupid lawyer does for me, then is it really worth paying him to do something I could do myself?

So why the ambitious goal of losing so much weight in so little time? Well, the past two months has really been about developing self-confidence and forming an active and stable social life. I’ve accomplished both, especially the second half. Self-confidence is a tricky thing, as I think everybody is insecure as hell, most “confident” people just pretend not to be. And the only people who don’t fall into that category seem to be egotistical assholes too full of themselves to be worth knowing. And honestly, fuck that, I don’t even think those people exist. Everybody is insecure, and everybody fakes self-confidence. Realizing this, ironically, has helped drastically improve my self-confidence. It’s kind of that whole thing about when you go out on stage to imagine everybody else in their underwear. The idea, I think, is that if you imagine everybody else is feeling ridiculous, it’ll help you feel less ridiculous yourself. Knowing everybody pretty much wants everybody else to like/respect/think highly of them makes being an optimistic, warm, friendly person a lot easier. It also has the side-effect of me having less of a tollerance for people putting on airs. Disingenuous people really piss me off, and it might seem obvious why, but this isn’t just something that grates on my nerves a little, it’s really one of my (if not my biggest) pet peeve in the world.

Anyway, my social life is good, so it’s time to move forward rather than resting on my laurals. So I’m moving on to working on my weight. I’ve lost 15 pounds since the breakup (technically 17 if you count today’s water weight), but I’ve been maintaining my current weight for like six weeks now. I really ought to be getting back to the gym, and I think losing another 15 pounds would be extremely good for me. I think it’s also good for me to set ambitious, attainable, measurable goals. Working on my social life is very touchy-feely, but working on my weight is all about hard numbers. Making it so ambitious is to prove a point to myself that I really am changed (or at least changing), as opposed to just doing what comes easiest to me, going with the flow but otherwise staying dormant. Losing half a pound of day with no chance of slowing down is going to test my resolve, and really benefit my ability to set goals in the future, I think.

The only real problem with this situation is: Cake. I was made a big birthday cake, and it’s just sitting there, waiting to be devoured. It won’t last until the end of October, I don’t think, so I’ll have to eat it at some point. Not sure what to do about that. It would be too rude to throw it away or otherwise not eat it.

So far I haven’t eaten anything today and I’m feeling pretty hungry, but it’s gotten me thinking about maybe going on a pretty extreme diet here, if only for the duration of this period. I think that in order to do this right I’m going to have to go to the gym a lot, and eat a lot less and a lot better. The soda’s I have at work are also going to have to go. All in all I think I’m going to try to detox as much of this shit out of me as possible, we’ll see how that goes.

15 pounds, 30 days. Starting tomorrow. Can I do it?

Shut your mouth, I can too!

No, fuck you and your naysaying, it’ll be perfectly healthy.

Oh, blow me. I’ll show you all.

I’ve rewritten this post twice now. God damnit.

The purpose of this post? Twas to be coming clean, making my stand, saying, “I’m sick of not being capable of being open about my life.”

I was never able to do it with Amber, and now that we’re not together anymore you’d think I’d be free to blog about whatever I want, be as open as I want to be.

You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But I’m not.

God. Damn. It.

Why can’t I be the callous asshole everybody thinks I am? Seriously, this is one reputation I wouldn’t mind living up to right about now. I’ve got a lot of shit I want to get off my chest. I want to be open the way I never felt like I could be before, and feel utterly uninhibited.

But I can’t.

Fuck.

This time it’s coming directly from the phone itself. That’s right, I’m currently sitting in my car on my lunchbreak updating my blog. Yes, I AM aware that this is old news, people have been doing this for years now; no, i’m NOT special. I am in fact behind on the times. Well, fuck you and your nonexpressed thoughts! This is new to me and I’m still totally geeking out about this.

Just got myself an iPhone today. So far I’m extremely impressed, though there’s something of a learning curve involved if you’re not used to smartphones or Mac’s. All around though it’s a good time.

Gotta start handing out my new phone number though, which is kind of a pain. Oh well.

I’m hung over. It’s not pretty. Last night I got very, very drunk, and had to induce vomiting, three times.

Today I had to go to work, and felt like shit all day.

I’m not a drinker, and as a result the few times I do drink I totally don’t know my limits.

In other news, I just finished my first week of work. I’m contemplating getting an iPhone Monday because I feel like being trendy. I also feel like buying myself a present, which I haven’t been able to do for over six months now, and I’m pretty sure that the iPhone is the ultimate symbol of gluttony, which is what I need right now.

Work this week was okay. I met a couple cool people, might make friends out of the situation, might not. We’ll see.

Ahhh, Christ I feel like shit.

I played in two B&M tournaments today. Got 15th place in the first one, out of about 50 people, which ain’t terrible, but it isn’t anything to brag about, either. I’d been playing very conservatively the whole time, really playing my cards and not showing a whole lot of aggression. I’d frequently limp in if I had anything, unless I was holding something spectacular in which case I might raise a moderate amount. I frequently got raised out of hands, and overall I just wasn’t showing a lot of balls. But it did get me to 15th place….

In the second game, I made it a point to play extra aggressively. If I had anything even resembling a hand, I’d raise the big blind by at least twice, sometimes as much as two and a half times the BB. The idea was taken from Daniel Negreanu’s small ball strategy, where the basic idea is to just get in on as many hands as possible. It worked, to a point. My highly aggressive play won me a few pots, but I think the fact that I was playing in a free game really showed, as people would frequently call my bets down the line even when they didn’t have anything really worth playing at first.

I got busted about an hour into the game, when I was dealt Queen Nine of Clubs, and the flop came something like J39 of varying suits and I made a hefty bet that pushed one guy out but another guy just called. My bet was something like fifteen or something. Then the turn came, and it was an 8. That gave me quite a few outs, plus I had the pair of nine’s, and I didn’t put this guy on a jack for some reason. So I bet fifty, really trying to drive him out (I should’ve just gone all-in, as I had only like 26 left after that). He called. The final card came and it was a 5. He pushed me all in for my last 26, and when the big reveal came it turned out he had three fives. He called all the way down to the river with a pair of fives, despite my enormous bets. Pretty irritating, but he won in the end so I can’t be too pissed.

Overall I think my aggressive strategy tonight went well, despite the fact that I got busted out pretty damn early. I shouldn’t have pushed so aggressively on a pair of nines, and in the future I’ll remember to play a bit smarter, but stick with the aggressiveness.

All in all, a good day for poker, I think.

Amber’s gone now. She’s finally moved the last of her stuff out, and no longer has a reason to continuously come back here, day after day after day.

It was much easier to want her to get the hell out when I knew she’d be coming back. At least twice in the past month I’ve vented my frustrations and boiling emotions over the breakup at her, using her not giving me time or space to breathe as my excuse for blowing up at her at inappropriate times. Now she’s gone, and I’m left here, sitting alone at my computer with nothing to do until Frisbee in an hour, and coming around to the notion that this is how most of my days are going to be spent from now on.

There’s this idea that I think Amber had when she decided to break up with me, that by doing so she’d be creating an environment for herself where life was constantly exiting and full of possibilities and spontaneity is around every corner. Life would be like it is in the movies, where one exciting encounter to the next is edited together so that all the lonely car rides and silent meals are cut out of your life.

I think that, for a while there, I was trying to convince myself that things would be the same for me, but like most fantasies, they only survive up to the point that they make contact with reality. And sure, I’ve been getting out of the house damn near every day for the past month, and my nights are almost never spent alone, but that doesn’t eliminate all the silence in this big townhouse as I write out this blog, nor does it make Bailey coming to sit on my lap any less potent when I know that she used to only do this for Amber, nor does it make it any easier to fall asleep in a bed meant for two, one half always cold. It doesn’t remove the pathetic loneliness of putting in a DVD and watching it by myself while eating dinner.

I have expended a great deal of effort trying to move on, and I feel like I’ve mostly succeeded. I feel like I’m definitely moving on, always with the forward momentum, but this is a big country I’m trying to get out of, and “moving on” isn’t the same thing as “moved on.” I’m not over Amber, and while I’m definitely doing the healthy thing by keeping myself busy and distracted, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to adjust to living in this place by myself. Everything about this place reeks of the life I was building with her, and I’m never going to be able to get rid of the memories as long as I live here by myself.

So I definitely need roommates, but unfortunately I just can’t seem to find any decent ones. And the one awesome guy I did find is being dicked around by the apartment complex now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wound up not moving in as a result.

I’m still grateful for the new friends that I’ve made, and for the stronger friendship I’ve created with Colin. If it weren’t for these guys I wouldn’t have come as far along as I have in such a short time. They’ve not just provided a distraction, but they’ve made me very happy, and I feel very lucky to have them. Unfortunately, I can’t expect them (or anyone, really) to be there for me 24/7, and while this is more than understandable and acceptable, it still means that I have to find stuff to do to occupy my downtime.

The good news, at least, is that starting Monday I’ll be working 40 hours a week again, so I’ll have something to occupy my days, and give me a reasonable sleeping schedule. It also means a source of stable (and a lot of) income, which I’ll definitely be putting to good use. It also means less time spent alone, which I think is a very good thing right now.

But first I have to make it through this weekend, and so far it’s not looking all that promising….

Today sucked.

It started off well, and had a great amount of potential to end well had I simply let it end when it should have ended. But I decided to fuck it up, and a very nice 11:30 PM has now turned into a fucking ridiculous 5:00 AM, and the hours in between have just sucked to an enormous degree. And the hours between waking up and now have also sucked, a lot.

I have made several very good friends, all of whom I adore. They have been and by all accounts will continue to be here for me through the good times and the bad, and are extremely good people for putting up with me starting the friendship off while I’m in this bad place. I am extremely lucky to know these people, and despite how shitty of a day it was, I at least got to bitch about it with them, which honestly does make me feel a little better.

I don’t know what’s going on with my supposed roommate. He should’ve moved in Tuesday at the latest. So where is he? Why isn’t he returning my emails? Tomorrow I’ll be contacting the office to see if his application got turned down. If it did, and he just chose not to contact me or reply to my email to let me know, then I’ll be extremely pissed. If they just haven’t gotten back to him yet, that’s a bit more understandable but I still don’t get why he’s not responding to my emails. So I’ll be calling him tomorrow, too.

Started off the day in good company, and soon after had a job interview that I assumed would be terrible. As it happened though, I did really well I think. And I’m pretty sure I have a very high chance of getting this job. The problem? They need references, and I have none. Not really, anyway. I wound up giving them like 5 references and they were only able to get in touch with one. The other one wasn’t answering his phone, one no longer worked with the company and two were out of the office for the rest of the week. God damn it. If I don’t get this job because of these fucking references I don’t even know what I’m going to do.

Pretty much the rest of the day I spent sulking, feeling like absolute shit. I went out, and that was a good time but it really only kept me busy for about three hours. Not that I’m complaining about the time that was had, but it just wasn’t a long enough distraction for me.

Then I got accused of being a dirtbag by somebody whom I had driven over 10 miles in the thick-ass fog at 3 in the morning just to try and console her after some piece of shit stepped over the line with her and made her feel like crap.

But fuck it, we’re not getting into that shit.

At least, not until I decide how I feel about venting my real personal shit to the blogosphere….

So, I’ve got shit to say. Jack shit? Full of shit? Or just “stuff” but in a profane manner? You be the judge.

The problem is, I can’t say it.

Not here, anyway.

And I’d like to. Despite having people to talk to, I think everyone who blogs understands the sort of unique therapeutic value getting all your thoughts in order and shooting it out for anyone to stumble upon can have. It’s much better than just writing it privately, and sometimes you just need to talk without having anyone say anything back.

But there in lies the problem. Superficial problems are great to blog about. Or even dramatic life-altering problems that don’t have to deal with people you know, or specifically people who actually read your blog. But you can’t actually get what you need out of blogging when you know what you have to say is going to provoke a response out of somebody else, or even simply provoking feelings. All lead to drama, and despite the fact that I’m making this post right now, I’m really not looking for drama.

On the other hand, I feel like I’ve censored myself long enough, and I’m pretty goddamned sick of not feeling like I can speak my mind freely. So how to balance the two? Is it even possible? Should I even care?

I really have no idea. So I’ll dwell, and decide later.

Fuck yeah!

This breaks me about even from all my losings on poker. So I’m definitely not profitable just yet, but I find this to be promising.

I had to destroy 89 other people to earn this money in a tournament. For the first 45 minutes or so of the game I was doing pretty piss poor, slowly bleeding out all my chips as literally no hands were coming to me. Then I got a couple lucky breaks and managed to get about 5K in chips, which let me hold on for a good while, and I slowly crawled my way up, eventually getting to about 2nd place. Then down to 3rd place, then 4th. Eventually I got back to 3rd. Then it was tooth and nail trying to avoid scrapping with the two guys higher than me while I picked on the guy below me. Eventually I managed to beat him down to such a point that he desperately tried to go all-in on me. I had about 30,000 while he had about 10. So I went for it, and beat him, putting me in second place.

The very next hand, the guy who I’d just beaten out of second place went all-in on me pre-flop after I made a pretty hefty raise. The BB was 2,000 and I put in 6,000, and the guy in third place who had repeatedly gone all-in pre-flop whenever somebody raised his blind didn’t disappoint and went all-in for his full 30,000. There was just one problem with his tactic: I had pocket Aces, bitches. He wound up having something like Queen Nine, and I beat him pretty easily, putting me up to 70,000 and in first place, the new second place guy had only 45,000 or so.

It was pretty easy to beat him. By this time I’d established myself as kind of the dude you don’t want to mess with unless you have a premium hand. Because I raise like a madman and fuck your shit up and make it too damn expensive for you to continue drawing. I had this guy so scared that he folded every time he was the small blind, and every time he was the big blind I doubled it, forcing him to fold yet again. His stack dwindled from 45K to about 20K in less than a minute because he was just folding so fast. In fact, he was folding his small blinds faster than the computer was dealing me the cards. This guy definitely struck me as the type who got to first place originally by luck, not skill.

By the time he decided to take a stand against me he was at a measly 5,000 chips, and he put in 3/4ths of his stack with King Queen, and I had something like three seven off-suit, and still beat him when I tripped up my seven’s. His next hand he had to go all in (he didn’t have enough money to even beat the blinds) and I beat him.

All in all, I’m proud. Now for a trip to the gym followed by me getting my ass to work on my novel.

Oh, and I weigh 187 now! Woohoo!

Stupid internetses! Always fucking with me productivities!

I came home at like midnight so I could get to the writing. Did I get to the writing? No!

Why? Distracted by a conversation with a hardcore Christian I knew way back in high school who was explaining to me why her lesbian mothers aren’t going to hell but they are in fact sinning and therefore will go to the third spire in God’s kingdom.

Seriously, who the fuck could get any writing done with a conversation like that staring at them?

I discovered something interesting tonight. I’ve been making a couple posts here and there about my losses in online poker tournaments, specifically about how I’m constantly fucked over by making smart plays and then losing out to somebody lucky on the draw. Because online, it seems to happen all the fucking time.

Tonight I was at Babineau’s playing in the World Tavern Poker tournament they host like six or eight times a week. I wasn’t doing too well right from the getgo. I’d make a couple small bets pre-flop and then completely miss the flop (not a big deal), or I’d not hit the flop but develop an extremely good drawing hand that I used to try and semi-bluff people out of the pot by making a fairly hefty bet, only to have my bet re-raised, making it far too expensive to draw, forcing me out. Then I made a decent hand and bet heavily to force everyone out of the pot and it worked, earning me back some of my losses (though not all of them).

I had about 80 points worth of chips (or 80,000 if you’re one of those lame-asses who assign large values to chips in free games). And I was given King/Jack suited, pretty nice, but not spectacular. But then the flop came 3JK, with the 3 and the King suited (but obviously not suited to my liking). But I had top two pair, and that gave me the current nuts, unless someone was lucky enough out there to have flopped trips, which was unlikely. I was in a good place. Somebody bet 8,000, so I raised it to 16,000. Then I realized I was an idiot and went out of turn. I didn’t notice the guy across from me hadn’t gone yet. Fuck! But it was okay, because he raised what he saw me about to raise with, 24,000. I knew I still had the best hand, so I raised to 48,000. The first guy, who bet 8,000 went all in, for something like 98,000, then the other guy went all in, and then I gleefully went all in myself.

Everybody turned over. The first guy who originally bet 8 had K3, which means he had two pair but I had a better two pair. The second guy had KQ, which meant I had him beat too unless a Queen came up on the turn or the river. I was sitting pretty.

Then a three came on the turn and fucked all my shit up. The first guy had just made a full house, and the last card wasn’t helpful to anybody. I busted out, 40 minutes in, and I’d made a smart play. Lady Luck just had it in for me. Bitch.

But the thing I noticed is that I wasn’t mad. In fact, I felt just fine. I congratulated the winner, he shook my hand and applauded my superior move and admitted he made the worse play and got lucky. Then I left, talking to the other guy who got busted along side of me. It was a good time.

Maybe it’s the lack of money involved in the game, but I don’t think so. Tournament dollars aren’t real dollars, regardless of whether you had to buy-in to the tournament or not. And the tournaments I buy into online are only a couple of bucks. I think the human interaction affords me a lot more patience. The internet is so damn impersonal and the cards come out so fast, and nobody really talks to anyone else during a game. Being around people makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable, and there’s definitely a lot more going on. So I think that’s part of it.

Though I think the biggest thing for me is that I know the B&M games aren’t rigged. I know it’s very conspiratorial to think that Full Tilt might be rigged, and it’s probably makes me look like an egotist and a sore loser that I accuse it of being rigged because I lose so much there, but still, I think there’s a good reason people think online poker is rigged.

Let me explain first though, what I mean by rigged. I don’t think that there’s some strange device that intentionally goes out of its way to make me lose. Nor do I think that there’s anything trying to make certain people win. My hypothesis is that the game sets up frequent situations in which two or more people have extremely good hands. For instance, the odds that two people would start with a pocket pair of Aces, Kings, Queens or Jacks is very low. It happens, for sure, but in my experience on Full Tilt it happens far more than it should. And the frequency at which I see more than two people with pocket pairs at 10 or above is just ridiculous.

In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that any time you receive a pocket pair of 10 or higher on Full Tilt that one in three times, somebody else will have one too. Sometimes you get lucky and have the best pair, but then I frequently see people with pocket Aces getting beat out by pocket Queens because they trip or quad on the flop. More to the point, I think that in the long run it would pay quite well to see all your decent drawing hands down to the flop, because they seem to usually get there. Far more than I ever see in B&M games.

This is a far cry away from proving online poker is rigged, and I know that. But still, I wish there were a Casino nearby. If there were I wouldn’t bother with the internet.

My goal was to hit a 10-minute mile and work up to a 175 bench by Sunday.

I did the 175 bench and managed a 9-minute mile of constant running today.

Novel: 1,369 words of the current version

Weight: 190 pounds, down 8 pounds from two weeks ago, but up one pound from five days ago.

Belt Size: Had to cut my second notch in two weeks into my belt today. This means I’m down about 2.5 inches. Not bad!

Stamina: Can run a mile in about 11 minutes, but I can’t run it straight through, there’s still a lot of walking.

Arms: 160 pounds on the bench press is getting pretty easy for me, I’ll probably increase it to 175 today. Still not very impressive.

Legs: 300 pounds only gives me marginal amounts of trouble, can easily do 20+ reps on it. Feel good about that!

Poker: Still suck. Still don’t have the funds to really get better.

Social Life: Spectacular in all conceivable ways. Infinitely better than I think anybody would have thought it could be given where I was two and a half weeks ago.

Financially: Things are getting tight. Will be looking for a job in about two weeks, maybe less.

Roommate Prospects: Shitty. Got a guy coming over tomorrow, have to re-clean the house for it. The only guy who seems to really want to move in is the only guy so far who I really don’t want to move in. This is the thing that’s causing me the most stress in my life right now. I really wish I could just break the lease and move elsewhere. I hate this fucking house anyway.

House Cleanliness: Terrible. Even spending a whole day cleaning with heavy-duty chemicals didn’t really fix anything. So pissed about this. This is the biggest reason I wish I could just move out. It’s not that the place is unlivable or anything. It’s more than livable. But with Amber moving out I’d really like to make the place feel new, sort of as a symbol of renewal, you know? But nay.

Goals

Novel: 10,000 words by Sunday

Weight: 187 by Sunday

Belt Size: I’m okay with it right now. Maybe another notch within the next week or two.

Stamina: 10 minute mile

Arms/Legs: 3 sets of 10 reps of 175 pounds by Sunday for arms, I’m okay with the leg situation.

Poker: Win a tournament before you go broke.

Social Life: Aside from maintaining and reinforcing, I’m totally loving my social life right now.

Financially: Spend less money.

Roommates: Difficult to set goals here since it’s not really up to me.

House Cleanliness: Get it to sparkle by tomorrow night and maintain it from then on out.

Picked up a chick on the side of the road tonight after dropping Diane and Colin off at their respective homes. She was totally drunk…

And stumbling…

In the middle of the road….

So I did what any man would do after a hard night of partying…

I offered her a ride and took her home, and when she started telling me how thankful she was, I told her to be safe and sent her on her way.

It’s a show of true altruism, especially considering she was hot and drunk and I didn’t take advantage of her. But that’s just the kind of kickass superhero I am. It’s what sets people like me from the ordinary folk, the peons, if you will.

It’s also why I’m here, bragging about it on my livejournal, to the two-point-five people who still read this thing. To, y’know, show you how gracious I am, or something.

Even superheroes need recognition for the good deeds they do. If Batman never told anybody how cool he was they’d never have built the Bat Signal for him.

…. I wonder what the “Shane Symbol” would look like….

So you’ve decided to put some money into online gambling, and your chosen home is the extremely popular Full Tilt Poker. It can be a pretty tough game, and after a few dozen hands you don’t seem to be doing so well despite the fact that you’ve done well at your Brick and Mortar games. You can’t quite put your finger on what it is exactly that you’re doing wrong, which is what brings you here. Well, friend, let me tell you. These 10 tips will change your game forever. In fact, if you don’t become a superhero of Full Tilt Poker after reading and following this free poker advice religiously, then demand your money back.

This advice might seem a bit extreme, but after constantly losing and losing and becoming more and more embittered through my experience over the past few months, I’ve developed quite a keen eye for what works and what doesn’t. And I’m passing this satire on to you, so that you too can be just like me!

1. Throw away those pocket Aces, son. They’re no good here.

Aces are shit at Full Tilt Poker. The only time Aces are good are when you have one and you get lucky on the flop. If you have aces before the flop you’re guaranteed to lose out at least 70% of the time. When you see the magic bullets, you might be tempted to push in for a big raise, or if somebody else is foolish enough to push all in, you really might want to jump right in after them. Fuck that, friend. If you were the Big Blind and nobody raised I’d suggest you muck your cards anyway. Don’t even bother seeing the flop, even if it’s free to you. Those bullets are aimed at your back. Get rid of them!

2. Pocket Kings always lose.

It’s a sad fact (and it is a fact, I said so), but a pair of Kings before the flop is just about the worst starting hand you can have. The only thing pocket Kings can beat at Full Tilt are pocket Aces. I’d take 7 2 off-suit before I’d take pocket Kings. It’s only worth seeing the flop with Kings if you’re the Big Blind and nobody’s raised. If you’re the small blind and everybody’s folded around you, then maybe go see the flop, but even then that’s really a coin toss. You’re better off just throwing your keyboard against the wall if you see Kings looking at you.

3. AK will never pair up on the Flop.

Or the Turn. 10% of the time it might pair up on the River, but only if you muck your hand before then. If you stay to see the River there’s a 100% chance that you’ll have wasted your money. Occasionally you’ll get beat by Ace King, but don’t lose faith in the system, you’ll never win with them.

4. Pocket Queens are the best hand in Poker.

If you have Pocket Queens, you’re guaranteed to win the hand. The problem is, you’ll never see Pocket Queens. If you do, it’s because you’re losing to somebody else who has pocket Queens. If you have AK, they’ll never hold up to Queens. If you’ve got pocket Aces, the Queens will score quads on the Flop. If by some miracle chance you happen to be dealt pocket Queens, I heavily suggest you chuck them into the abyss. It’s a sure sign the physics of the universe are out of whack and this is the one instance in which pocket queens will fail.

5. Low, shitty cards that are off-suit will always win if the pot is extremely high pre-flop.

Let’s say you have 7/3 off-suit, and you’re on the button. If nobody bets, you should probably follow suit because you’re not gonna win anyway. If, however, the betting starts to get unreasonably high before the flop, like everybody around the table suddenly pushes all-in, and the pot goes up to like 10,000 pre-flop and you’re staring down at your 7 of spades and 3 of diamonds, which are the lowest cards you can have and still have any chance of making a straight, and are basically worthless, the answer is obvious. Push all-in. Fuck it, right? Why not? No? You’re asking why? Because they’re a guaranteed winner. Even if player A has pocket Aces, player B has pocket Kings, player C has pocket Queens (the best hand in poker), player D has pocket Jacks, player E has pocket Tens, player F has Ace/King suited, and player G has 7/8 suited, you’re guaranteed to win this one. Throw caution to the wind and trust the system. Seriously. Because if you muck your hand, you’re going to see that straight come up, or you’re going to see the flush come, and somehow you’ll be the only person with the spade. Or you’ll pair both your cards on the board, maybe even make a full house. It’s a lock, my friend. You’ve got this one.

6. Stay out of large pots.

This is pretty self-explanatory. People never bluff at Full Tilt. And when they do, they hit their Flush on the River and you get fucked anyway. If people are betting large they’re going to beat you, one way or another. So just save your money and dump your cards. Even if you’ve got pocket Aces, and hit quads on the Flop, just stay the fuck out of it if people are betting heavily. Someone’s about to hit their straight flush. Even if it’s on the river, and you’ve got 9 10 J Q K suited, and you’re holding the J and Q, which are the absolute nuts, you’re still fucked. How? Don’t ask me stupid questions. Trust the system.

7. You’ll win the small, uncontested pots… some of the time.

Let’s say you’re the small blind and everybody around you has folded. You can feel pretty confident to raise the Big Blind and he’ll look down at his 7 2 off-suit and fold his shit. Score! You just got 30 tournament bucks, or 10 cents in a cash game. Expect things like this, because it’s the best you’ll ever do. Or my personal favorite, when you’re one off the big blind looking down at pocket Aces, so you put in a very modest raise of maybe twice the Big Blind, only to watch everybody fold, including the Small and Big Blinds. Score again! You just won 45 tournament bucks, or 15 cents in a cash game. Hurray, motherfucker! In fact, these are about the only times Aces are good — when everybody’s beat anyway and they know it.

8. Never Bluff.

You can only play your cards at Full Tilt Poker. If somebody bets into you they’ve got you beat. If you try to bluff, they’ll call. This is pretty self-explanatory. Just don’t bluff, okay? Honesty really is the best policy. That’s what my mom told me, though she also told me that gambling is a sin.

9. Never trust the odds.

Probability is for the unfaithful heathens who don’t trust the system. It’s also for those elitist math guys and those scientists who oppressively want to keep Intelligent Design theory out of public schools. What do they know, anyway? They think that just because they went to college they’re better than you and me? Fuck them, they’re assholes, and that makes them wrong. Probability is stupid. Probability tells you that poker has 1,326 starting hands with 1,712,304 possible five-card board setups, and up to 207,025 distinct head-to-head matchup possibilities. Look at all those crazy numbers! Do you really want to think about all of them? We haven’t even talked about actual odds yet, just possibilities, which are far simpler than probabilities. Who wants to put that kind of time into this when there’s a perfectly good system in place right here? Who wants to think about the 2,598,960 different hands you could potentially set up in Texas Hold’em when you can learn how to play by following this simple 10-step system. 10, or 2,598,960. You decide.

10. Don’t.

Don’t. Don’t play at Full Tilt Poker. Don’t play poker at all. Burn your cards, throw away your chips, destroy your computer. Eat your money. Chop off limbs if you have to. Move to Nigera and start up a great check scam business. Poker’s for drunkards and gays anyway, didn’t you know?

I hope these 10 tips help you improve your game. They certainly haven’t helped mine, but one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right? Whoever coined that phrase obviously hasn’t played at Full Tilt.

I really need to pay more attention before joining tournaments online. I went into a $2 + $0.25 tournament with infinite rebuys for the first hour. Fucking sucked. Why? Because at least half the people at my table busted out and re-bought in probably half a dozen times or more during the first hour. For the last twenty minutes of the first hour I was in 1st place out of 117 people. Then during the break, everyone added onto their stack, giving themselves an extra 2,000 for $2. I didn’t bother, maybe I should’ve.

I went from 2nd place (I dropped from first to second in the last hand of the hour, and was only under first by 50) to 4th or 5th place because everyone else was adding on.

I slowly watched myself get lower and lower down the list, jumped up to 3rd place, dropped down to 7th, then 10th, and then very dramatically down to about 32nd when my pair of pocket tens lost to another player’s pair of pocket queens. I really hate people who bitch about online poker being rigged, but seriously I see some pretty fishy shit. I’ve seen pocket Kings lose so many times at Full Tilt it’s not even funny (or probable). If you ever get pocket pairs there’s a good chance that someone else ahead of you will have higher pocket pairs. When I say good chance, I mean it feels like an improbably high chance.

In B&M games I very, very rarely see one set of pocket pairs get beat out by another pocket pair, especially when both pairs are 10 or higher. But at Full Tilt I can’t go a single tournament without seeing it happen at least 5 times, and probably more than that. Invariably, it seems to always happen to me at least once.

I mean really, pocket 10’s getting beat by pocket Queens? Really? If I’ve done my math right, the probability of that situation occurring is somewhere around 0.15%.

‘Course, I’m probably just bitter at losing out on a $220 prize.

Just a general inquiry to anyone looking for a place to live or anyone who is currently living at home and maybe wants to get a place of their own for dirt cheap, I’m looking for two roommates to help me fill out my 3-bedroom townhouse, who’ll move in sometime in August. Doesn’t really matter when in August, as long as it’s before September. With two roommates rent would be $310 per person which includes all utilities except electric, and amenities such as the internet. Even with everything included though I can’t rightly imagine bills to live here costing more than $400 a month, which is a pretty great deal.

The two spare rooms are 12×12 and 12×16, first-come, first-pick. 1.5 bathrooms, washer/dryer and dish washer included. My place is located in Williamsburg Manor right off of Walnut Street in Cary near the Border’s Bookstore.

I’ve got three cats, and I’m willing to let in other pets, but they need to be able to get along with mine.