Details on my win.

10/20 level

First pot I play, stack of 1470 after one round of blinds, Ad Td crom the CO. Player on my right with a 1390 stack limps, I raise to 100. Big blind reraises to 570, everyone folds.

Minor pot lost. Stack is 1370, I'm in BB with 9s 8d. Late position player raises to 40, small blind calls, I call. Flop: 6h Qh Ks. SB bets 20, I fold, raiser calls. Turn: 5c. SB bets 60, raiser calls. River: Jh. SB bets 120, raiser min raises to 240. SB calls. Initial raiser had Kc 2d (??), SB had Kd Qs for a flopped top 2. Who the fuck min raises from the cutoff with K2 offsuit at the 10/20 level?!

Very next hand. As Ks from the SB. 2 MP players and the CO all limp. I raise to 120. BB folds, first two limpers call. Flop: 4c Kd Ah for top 2. I bet 225 into the 400 pot, both limpers fold. Stack is at 1610.

Very next hand. Ac Js from the button. Folded to CO, who raises to 60. I call, both blinds fold. Flop: Ah 5s Kd. Raiser bets 60 (into 150 pot), I call. Turn: 8c. Raiser bets 120, I call. River, Jh. Raiser checks, I bet 220, raiser calls. My top pair holds up; raiser had Kh Qs.

15/30 level

3 hands later. 1st hand of the new level. 7s 8s from MP. 2 limpers in front of me, I limp. CO limps, SB limps, BB checks. Flop: 9s 7d 3s, giving me middle pair, no kicker, spade flush draw. Checked to me, I bet 100 into the 180 pot. CO calls, everyone else folds. Turn: 5d, giving me an inside straight draw in addition to my pair+flush draw. I bet 150 (pot was 380), CO calls. River: Qh, missing everything. I check, CO bets 120 (pot of 680), I make the crying call with >5.5:1 odds on the pot. CO has 9h 8c for top pair. Stack is back down to 1700.

A few hands later, Ad 6c on the button. UTG min-raises, I flat-call for some reason. BB calls. Flop: 3s Kc Qc. BB checks, raiser bets 120 into 195 pot. Raiser had shown big weak-tight signs previously, I decided to raise to 400 on a total bluff. Both players folded.

A few hands later. Td 2h in the big blind. EP player limps, SB limps, I check. Flop is 9s Jd Qh for straight draw. SB checks, I check, limper bets 60 (pot of 90), SB folds, I call. Turn: 7s. I check, limper checks. River: As. I bet 140 (pot of 210), limper folds. Stack cracks 2k.

25/50 level

Raised to 150 from the CO and took the blinds.

9d 9h in the big blind. Two limpers, MP player raises to 150. Folded to me, I call, both limpers call. Flop: 5c Ks 6s. I check, limper 1 bets 100, limper 2 folds, raiser raises to 350, I fold, limper 1 calls. Turn: Kd. Check, bet of 500 into 1325 pot, call. River: 6c. Limper donk-bets 200 (pot of 2325), raiser calls. Limper shows As 5s for flopped bottom pair, counterfeited by the 2P on the board, for the ace kicker. Raiser shows Ac Jh for nothing all the way until the ace kicker. I exclaim, "my 99 was good?!". Yes, yes it was. Chopped pot.

Won a pot with Kc 5c from the small blind, limped, flopped bottom pair, bet at big blind who folded.

Next hand: Ks Qd from the button. Late position player raises to 150. I call. BB calls. Flop: 3h 6d 8c. Check, check to me, I bet 250 into the 475 pot. Fold, fold. Stack @2300.

Folded until Ac 9c in the big blind. CO limps, SB limps, I check. Flop: Qd 6s 9d for middle pair top kicker. SB checks, I bet 100 (150 pot), limper folds, SB calls. Turn: Ks. SB bets 100 (350 pot), I squint and call. River: 3c. SB checks, I check. SB shows 2h 2d.

50/100 level

5h 5d on the button. EP player limps, MP player limps, I limp, SB folds, BB checks. Flop: Ac Qh 9d. BB checks, EP bets 200, MP calls, I fold. Turn is Ks, bet of 300 called. River: 9d. Bet of 400 called. EP shows Ah 6h, MP shows Ad 8c for a chopped pot.

Raised and took down blinds with Qc 8c in LP several hands later, while a little bored I guess. Why do I do stuff like that this early? Oh well. One big leak to fix.

Folded for the next round and a half before Ad 4s in the BB. EP player min-raises to 200, MP calls, SB calls, I call. Flop: 3d 5h 6s for the straight draw. SB checks, I bet 400 into the 800 pot, hoping the semi-bluff will be believed. Raiser calls. Turn: 2d. Wham! I bet 1000 into the 1600 pot, raiser goes all-in for another 875, I call. Raiser has 8s 8h. Why he didn't raise to protect on the flop is beyond me. Raiser doesn't get the 4 to chop (his only hope), with the Qd falling, and is crippled to under 400 chips. My stack hits 5350.

4 hands later. Ac Qh in late position. Folded to me, I raise to 350. Button (the guy I crippled the last hand) shoves all-in for 876. I call. Button shows Ah Ad and it holds up easily.

75/150 level

Next round. 8s 8c in the big blind. MP limper, SB limps, I pump up to 650. Limper folds, SB, an erratic, poor player, shoves all-in for 1040 more (limp-reraise). I call, SB shows Jh Ts and catches the Tc on the flop to win. Stack is down to 2734.

Bought the blinds with an UTG raise with Kh Th.

Kc Jd on the button. CO limps (same poor, erratic player). I raise to 550. Everyone folds.

Bought blinds with Ac Js from MP.

Bought blinds with Qh Qs from UTG.

Kh Jd in the SB. CO limps, I call, BB checks. Flop: 8d 5h 3d. Checked around. Turn: Js. I bet 300 (pot of 450), both players fold.

100/200 level

Kh Kd in late position. UTG raises to 400 (min raise, which he did a lot of), MP calls, I pump to 1400. Both players call (all my steals paying off?) Flop: Qh 3s Ks. Boo-yah. Check-check to me, I go all-in for 2084 more into the 4500 pot. UTG calls, other player folds. UTG has Ah Qd for middle-pair top kicker. Board sweats me with a Jh, river is the meaningless 5h. Doubled up to 8668.

Bought the blinds from MP with 6h 6c.

EP raised to 600. I called from the SB with Kh Qh. Flop: 3s 9s 9c. I bet 800 (wha?!?!?! donkey bet!). EP raises all-in to 1559, I save dignity and fold.

BB with Kh 8s. Button raises to 600 in a pretty obvious steal attempt. I reraise to 2200. Button folds.

100/200/25 level

MP raised minimum, button and SB called, I call in BB with Qh 3c, miss, check-fold.

Bought the BB from the SB with Ad Js.

5c 5d in the CO. MP limper. I limp. BB checks. Flop: 9c As 3s. Check-check to me, I bet 600 (pot is 900), both fold.

6s 7s from MP. I'm raising any playable hand by now; money is approaching and most people are playing a little weak-tight. Raised to 650. Player on my left reraised all-in with 8s 9s. Player to HIS left reraised all-in with Ad Kd. I obviously folded. Ad Kd held up.

Bought the blinds and antes with As Td from EP.

Jc Td in the BB. Weak-tight whipping boy on the button steal-raises to 600. I call. Flop: 7c Kh 2d. I bet 750 from OOP, button calls. Turn: 2h. I bet 1500, button folds.

200/400/25 level

I change gears and tighten way up. Folded 25 or so straight hands. Finally bought the blinds with Ah 8d from the button.

Ad 8h in the BB. EP limper, SB limps, I check. Flop: 4c 5h 7s. I bet 1000 and take it down.

I steal the BB with 2d 2s in the SB (he was short).

I steal the blinds with 3h 2c from the CO (wow, getting brazen).

I steal the blinds with Kc Kh UTG (dammit!)

Ad Qc in the BB. Folded to WB who limps, I raise, SB folds.

300/600/50 level

Stack is 11k. I'm 2nd in chips at the table, with the chip leader sitting tight at 18k. Very close to the money now. I steal the blinds with Ac 9d.

I steal the blinds with Ad 2c.

7s 5d in the BB. Chip leader raises to 3xbb. I call with 7s 5d (I had determined by now that chip leader was playing VERY tentative, and not a fan of continuation bets. I felt I could own him). I check the flop of 3d 3s Qc; he checked back. Wewt. Turn: 6c. I check, he checks. River: 2d. I bet 2200, he folds. I played the hand stupidly. Shouldn't have tried that shit. Put him on AK. He thought about it for a long time before calling; it was a stupid bluff (even though it worked this time) and even a slightly better player would have called.

I bought the blinds with Qh 8d.

400/800/50 level

I bought the blinds with Qd Jd in the CO.

Huge chip leader with a 56k stack raises to 2400. I push all-in from the CO with Ac Th for 10k more. Everyone folds. Risky play but I felt I had to take a stand, didn't feel like he wanted a huge confrontation and he'd been buying a lot of pots. Very solid player. My AT was good maybe 75% of the time, with the range of hands I felt he was raising.

Ks 6s in the BB. UTG limps, SB limps, I check. Flop: 6h 7c Qs. SB checks, I bet 1400, UTG folds, SB min raises. I fold.

We're in the money now.

I buy the blinds with 9d 8c.

600/1200/75 level

Chip leader raises to 4k from the button. I push all-in from the BB for 11k more with Ks 7h. The highly likely chance he was stealing, combined with the fact that I know he didn't want a big confrontation from a big stack, led me to think this was a good idea. It worked. He folded. That move seems insane on the surface but I had done a lot of folding up to this point, and he'd been raising EVERYTHING. Felt like this hand was the best opportunity to roll the dice.

I buy the blinds with Ac 3c from UTG.

BB with Ac Js. CO, who's been a little tight, raises to 3.6k. I call. Flop: 3c 8s Jd. Wewt. I check, CO bets 2400 into the 8.2k pot. I raise to 8k, he folds.

I bought the BB from the SB with As Th.

Chip leader has taken a big hit. I am 3rd at the table with 26k. I buy the blinds with Qc Tc.

Stack is at 30k. I raise the button to 4k with Ah Qs. BB pushes all-in for another 8k. I call. He has Qh 8s. I have him dominated and avoid the 8 to bust him.

800/1600/75 level

At the final table now. I raise from MP with 7s 5c to 4.4k. Button calls. Flop: Ac 5d Qc. I bet 6000, button folds.

EP with Jh Jc. Raise to 4.4k. Button calls. Flop: 5c 6c As. Crap! Bet 6k. Button folds. Phew. Stack is at 37k, a very solid 3rd place. Chip leader is on my immediate right with 75k, 2 players near me, 2 short stacks at below 10k.

I try to steal from the button with Ac 4d (raised to 4.4k). SB, a very short stack, raises all in for another 3k. BB folds. I'm priced in and call. SB shows Kc 4c (!). Got his ass dominated. Board comes 7c 8d Tc 3c 5h. Oh well.

Bought the blinds from EP with Ad Ks.

Chip leader raised to 6.4k from EP. I pushed all-in, for 45k total, with As Kh from MP. Everyone folded.

1000/2000/100 level

Here's the hand that will forever be my shame. What can I say, as you can tell from this recap I've been pushing hard all night, and have yet to have to make a good laydown. I think I'd forgotten that giving up on hands is part of this game.

Ks Jc in the SB. The button, who was the chip leader with 63k, raised to 8k. I called. Flop came Js 8d Ac. I bet out 10k into the 18k pot, with middle pair. I figured he raises with any two cards here - this was a strong, aggressive player. He smooth-calls. Should have sent me packing, but NOOOoo. I'm too stupid. Turn is the Ts, giving me an inside straight draw if my pair is no good. I make the worst move I've made in a long time and bet 18k into the 38k pot, when I should have check-folded. My stack was only 34k at this point. Button raised me all-in, I knew I was beat, but faced with a 16k call into a 100k pot, I figured I probably had about 7-8 outs and was laying better than 6:1. Boy was I wrong. I called, and my opponent flopped over 8h 8c for the flopped set. Shit. Only the queen can save me, I was drawing to 4 outs, and was an 11:1 dog. So the river came, the Qs, and I damn near lost it. Holy shit. I played the hand so terribly and somehow came out ahead. Chip leader was crushed, down to 10k or so.

That made me the huge chip leader, over 100k. Next highest was 52k.

Very next hand. Ac Jc on the button. MP limper, the #2 stack, I raised to 6k. Limper called. Flop: Ah 6c 8s. Limper bets 6k, I call. Turn: Kd. Limper bets 10k, I call. River: Qh. Limper checks, I bet 15k into the 47k pot (half his stack), limper folds.

4 hands later, I raise to 6k form UTG with Ah Kh. Extreme short stack calls all-in from MP for 3k, SB calls. Flop is As Kc 2s. SB checks, I bet 10k, SB folds. I have top 2, limper shows Ad Qd for top pair but drawing almost dead. I take it down, knock out one more player. Down to 5.

1500/3000/150 level

From here I'm raising most hands, so I won't run them down. The others are content to let me steal pots, mostly, and my chip stack is jumping. I won't list all of them out.

From the SB, knocked out the BB, who had Ad 8s, all in pre-flop. I had pushed him with 9d Jd. I caught the 9 on the flop and he didn't improve. Down to 4. Stack is 164k, over half the chips in play. I'm sweaty as a bitch.

My stack hits its peak at 220k, almost 3/4 of the chips in play, 3-handed. I make a stupid call with Ad 5d against an all-in, who had 9d 9h, and lost.

I raise from the button with 6s 4d (remember I'm raising every hand now). SB is at a trivially low stack and calls all-in with Jc Tc. BB calls. BB and I check it down with a board of 9d 3c 4h As Ks. BB had 8d 7d. Worst hand holds up to win, and make it heads-up.

Heads-up lasted 11 hands. I lost a big one when I raised the button with 9s 8s. BB called. Flop: Kh 3s 6s. Checked, I bet 10k, check-raised to 20k. I called. Turn: 5d. It's all-in for 42k, into the 52k pot. I have 12 clean outs but doubt very seriously that any pair outs will do the trick, and it's possible my opponent has a set, killing two of my spade outs. Pot is laying me just over 2:1 and I have to fold.

And then, the absolutely fucking crazy final hand. I'm in BB with Kh Ks. Button limps, and I raise him to 8k, which I've done twice already. Both times before he folded, this time he pushed all-in for 85k total. Massive overbet, but I had kings! I called. He flipped over Ad Qc. I prepared to sweat aces for five cards, until the flop came Kc Kd 5h and I had him drawing dead. And that was all she wrote!

---

So, um, yeah. That's running good.

Reading through what I've written here, my instinct says that I'm playing like a maniac. But damn it, it worked. I got lucky, sure, particularly in the hand where I overcame the 11:1 odds, but that was a mistake I won't make so much as I gain experience.

Everyone hears the pros say "in order to win, you have to play aggressive." At the same time, they berate the players that do things like I did, and move in with K7-offsuit in the face of a raise. What can I say, I wasn't catching starting hands, I needed to push people off. I've never bought so many blinds in my life. Everything I tried worked, except the one hand where I was crushed, made a big mistake, and sucked out. It happens.

Overall stats for the tournament:

10/20
16 total hands
VP$IP: 25% (played 4 hands)
Amount won: $600

15/30
14 total hands
VP$IP: 21%
Amount Won: -$100

25/50
17 total hands
VP$IP: 23%
Amount Won: $575

50/100
21 total hands
VP$IP: 19%
Amount Won: $1849

75/150
21 total hands
VP$IP: 33% (yup, that's really when I started trying to steal)
Amount Won: -$940 (guess it didn't work so well this level)

100/200
46 total hands (including the jump to 100/200 w/antes; PT doesn't differentiate)
VP$IP: 22%
Amount won: $5659

200/400
25 total hands
VP$IP: 20%
Amount Won: $2425

300/600
22 total hands
VP$IP: 18% (money bubble was here; I tightened way up)
Amount Won: $2000

400/800
19 total hands
VP$IP: 21%
Amount Won: $1950

600/1200
19 total hands
VP$IP: 31% (now we're cookin' with gas)
Amount Won: $28185

800/1600
24 total hands
VP$IP: 21% (fairly card dead, few good stealing opportunities at this level)
Amount Won: 9197

1000/2000
26 total hands
VP$IP: 54% (5-handed to 3-handed; at 3-handed it was literally 80%+)
Amount Won: $140255

1500/3000
27 total hands
VP$IP: 48% (surprising, thought this was higher)
Amount Won: $76845, most of it on the last hand :)

Ho. Lee. Shit

Not only did I win the motherfucker, I won it in STYLE!!!!

I'm gdshaffer. Upper left, 2nd in chips. Just made one nice score against the chip leader, he raised to 6400, I pushed with AKo. He thought about it for a while, then folded.

2nd in chips with 7 remaining, players on my left are mostly tight, which should work in my favor. Chip leader is muy muy aggressive tho. Gonna have to pick my spots to reraise.

Finished my latest finale to Wordplay. I think this is a lot stronger than any of my previous ones, with a reference back to Steven's original love letter, no huge speech on Steven's part when it comes to why he's breaking up with her, and a final interaction between Jenni and Samantha:


STEVEN
I just realized something.

SAMANTHA
What’s that?

STEVEN
You deserve to be with someone who can dance.

She laughs.

SAMANTHA
We’ll teach you how to dance.

STEVEN
That’s not what I mean.

A pause. A look in her eyes combines sadness with terror.

SAMANTHA
What are you saying?

STEVEN
I’m saying I don’t think we should go out any more.

A long silence. Samantha is flabbergasted.

STEVEN
I’m so sorry. I know this isn’t the time or the place, but it’ll never be the time and the place, and ... oh, God, oh no...

Samantha has started BAWLING. Uncontrollable sobs.

He moves to hug her, but she shrugs him off.

SAMANTHA
Don’t do that! Don’t pretend that you can be sensitive when you’re doing this!

STEVEN
I’m not pretending to be anything, Samantha. I’m just...

Samantha breaks down again, sniffling, crying, sobbing.

SAMANTHA
Oh, God. Oh, God. I knew it. I knew I would screw this up! I’ve screwed up every good thing that’s ever happened to me!

STEVEN
You didn’t screw this up.

SAMANTHA
I did! I drink too much, I criticize you, I...

STEVEN
You didn’t screw this up. It’s not you, and it’s not me. It’s just ... us.

SAMANTHA
What the hell does that even mean?

STEVEN
We were perfect for one another once. But that was seven years ago. That was High School. I see you today, and you’re exactly the person I knew you’d become. And I’m not. I look at you and I think, “God, this woman is going to make someone happy.” But I can’t pretend to be that person. It’s not me.

SAMANTHA
You don’t know that.

STEVEN
I do. Samantha, we’ve been together for six months now. For three of them now, we’ve just been driving each other crazy. This isn’t working. And it isn’t going to work. I could pretend that it was, like I’ve been doing, or that we’d be able to fix things some time down the road, but if I do that, we’ll only drive each other crazy. I think that’s what most people would do. Most people are too scared of being alone to extricate themselves from a relationship before it gets really bad. But the last thing I want, literally the last thing, is for this to end with us hating each other. I see us going there, and I don’t think I can take it.

Her tears have never stopped, but she looks him in the eye. She sees his fear, his desperation, and she does her best to compose herself.

SAMANTHA
I don’t think I could hate you. Not unless you were sleeping with Jenni.

A nervous laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

STEVEN
I’m not sleeping with Jenni.

SAMANTHA
And that girl from work?

STEVEN
Nothing has happened.

SAMANTHA
Will it?

STEVEN
I don’t know. But she’s not why I’m doing this.

The look she shoots him says, “don’t lie to me.”

STEVEN
All right. What I can tell you, truthfully, is that if she weren’t around, that wouldn’t make us happier. We would still have all of our problems.

There’s another silence. She seems more composed.

STEVEN
Are you okay?

SAMANTHA
Stupid question.

STEVEN
Sorry.

SAMANTHA
I will be.

STEVEN
I know.

They hug. She instigates it.

STEVEN
I’m sorry.

SAMANTHA
I know. I’m sorry too.

STEVEN
I know.

Without any more words, they just hold one another.


INT. SAMANTHA’S BEDROOM – NIGHT

Samantha’s PHONE RINGS. She sits, awake in bed, the remnants of a box of Kleenex scattered on her night stand, and answers.

SAMANTHA
Hello?

From here we intercut Samantha’s room with...

INT. BRIDAL SUITE – NIGHT

...Jenni, still in her wedding gown, sits on her bed with a concerned look on her face.

JENNI
Hey. It’s me. I just heard. How are you?

SAMANTHA
I don’t know. I’ll be fine.

JENNI
Will you? I’m so sorry.

SAMANTHA
It’s okay. I’m okay.

JENNI
Do you need me?

SAMANTHA
For what?

JENNI
I could come over, if you want.

SAMANTHA
You could what!? It’s your wedding night!

JENNI
Do you honestly think that matters?

SAMANTHA
Yes! I do! Why are you even calling me?

JENNI
Because I need to know that you’re okay.

SAMANTHA
I’m okay.

JENNI
Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?

SAMANTHA
Just one thing.

JENNI
What’s that?

SAMANTHA
Go fuck your husband’s brains out.

She hangs up, immediately, leaving Jenni with nothing to do but laugh.

Samantha smiles as she rolls back to bed, and goes to turn her light off.

But before she reaches the switch, she has an idea. Getting out of bed, she goes to her closet.

In the bottom, beneath a pile of clutter, is an old shoebox. She opens it, and grabs something unseen out of it.

She goes back to bed, and curls herself up beneath the covers, but doesn’t turn the light out.

Finally, she produces what she acquired from the shoe box:

It is a folded sheet of paper, with the name “Samantha” scrawled on the back of it.

She unfolds it, and begins to read.

And smiles.

FADE OUT

CAPTION: TWO WEEKS LATER

FADE IN

INT. KELLY’S CUBICLE – AFTERNOON

Steven stands in the entrance to Kelly’s cube, watching her work. He smiles, and it takes her a moment to notice him.

Eventually she does. She glances his way, and smiles.

KELLY
Hey.

STEVEN
Hey.

THE END


I think it works.

Well, the $20 charity event was today, a 20 person winner-take-all NLHE tournament. I played well and wound up in third, my only major mistake being calling an all-in with A8 on a board of AJ5. I was up against AT and lost a huge pot. Still, I did myself well, and think I had some people rooting for me just from my comments. Some of the people there, who I didn't know at all, tried to get me into a $20 buy-in game, but I was a little poker'd out, had a headache, and was pretty hungry to boot. Spent the afternoon resting, sleeping, and playing a little FF. The linkshell is currently camping Aspid. Hoo rah for "afk tnw".

Took a half-day of work yesterday, and wanted to go LFG on FFXI as DRK, what with the new Absorb-TP that I was so geeked about last week. I wasn't getting any invites, though, and eventually agreed to join a pt as BRD that an LS mate was throwing together. Unfortunately the party was pretty ass, and we went to Bhaflau Thickets, which was crowded as balls. We weren't getting much xp, and when the PLD LS mate that had made the party DC'd, while another pt member went afk with no explanation and just stayed there, the party broke. I went back and decided to LFG as Bard. This worked much better than as DRK, and I had an invite within five minutes to a double-BRD burn with 2 NINs, a WAR, and a WHM.

We went back to Bhaflau and chose a spot that was kind of in the middle of everything, including many of the dragon pops. Amazingly, the xp was tight just on chain 5, as the DD's were all top notch and I was out-pulling most of the other BRDs in the zone (this poor RNG was pulling for his party and never had a prayer. We hit chain 5 consistently, and it was usually on dragons for 250+. With the xp coming in in a nice steady flow we managed over 10k/hr, not bad at all in a crowded zone. Even more amazingly, we kept it up for over five hours.

So now I'm sitting on seven unspent merit points and have no idea how to spend them. The BRD abilities are all kind of ass, but I hardly ever play as DRK anymore.

I suppose I could always crank them into more elemental magic, and continue getting my BLM up, lol.

So, I won the home game on Thursday night. Pretty cool, actually. 15 people showed, and I caught just enough cards with tight/solid play to build a nice stack, coupled with just a couple of nice moves. I only had to race for my life once (99 vs my KQ, a K hit the turn), and I caught a couple of really lucky flops, including 55 vs A6, flop of 566, heads up against Chuck. Wewt :) $140 score.

You know your life needs improvement when the latest update to FFXI has you more geeked than anything else at the moment. It's so sad. Poker is tonight and I couldn't give a shit. I'm playing in a charity poker event on Saturday and that's not really seeming exciting to me either. But the thought of taking a half-day at work tomorrow and spending the rest of the weekend spamming the new absorb-TP spell and popping off 2-3 guillotines a fight? Totally giving me a boner. I so need to get laid, it's not even funny.

I blame where I'm living. I've always been a video gamer - and I do mean *always* - I am of the first generation to grow up never not having a computer of some sort around, and their games have always been a hobby of mine - but they have never dominated my life quite like this.

It's weird how I can reflect back on my life in terms of video games. How, when I was in elementary school, I was one of the first of my friends to own a Nintendo, and how that made me The Shit. How, in Junior High, I got into Dungeons & Dragons and used my hard-earned paper route money to buy up every RPG that my 386-25 could run (Eye of the Beholder, the Ultima series, and Ultima Underworld were some of the highlights). How, late in Junior High and early in High School, my friend Brac and I spent about a year, almost every day, working through every last secret of "Betrayal at Krondor", how we got together to play "Civilization", how our entire friendship revolved around computer games (until he discovered pot and abandoned me).

How, my Junior year of High School, a friend from the band named Matt started talking, in Advanced Algebra, about how he just picked up "Doom" and wanted to try out multiplayer over a modem, and how that became what we did that summer.

How, my Senior year, Matt and I discovered Warcraft 2, the game that would play a big part in my life for the next two years, even after I got a long-term steady girlfriend that would last me a year and a half (raise your hand if you've ever received head while playing Warcraft 2 against someone on the Internet, and still won the game. My hand is up).

How, in the college years that followed, Warcraft 2 would evolve to Age of Empires, which would evolve to Age of Kings.

How I balanced playing computer games with my girlfriend my Senior Year of college, despite the fact that for most of the year, we were, for all practical intents and purposes, living with one another.

How much Counter-Strike I played in those first couple of years out of school, working in Wisconsin, going home and playing until one in the morning.

The degree to which video games took over my life in the six months I spent unemployed following my first job falling through; Dark Age of Camelot, Diablo 2, and Counter-Strike ruling the day.

How my first gift to myself upon scoring a new engineering job was another computer, and a few nice games to go with it.

How, when I finally started to develop a close circle of friends in Wisconsin, video games were the glue that bound us; the late night Diablo 2 LAN parties, the all-night LAN party that Theo and I went to and destroyed everyone in Counter-Strike, in Warcraft 3, in pretty much anything and everything.

How Joe introduced myself and my friend Brian to a game called Final Fantasy XI, and the degree to which we took to it; leveling our first jobs to 75, Brian meeting a woman named Camille over the game and finally marrying her. Hopping from linkshell to linkshell together. Spending countless hours slaying mobs.

And yet, as I sit here today, celebrating my 5th anniversary of working for my current company, games seem more a part of my life than they ever have before, with the possible exception of the six months I spent unemployed. My time is mostly balanced between FFXI and online poker (and while poker is not a video game - though I find it fun, I'm not plaing it for fun, I'm playing it to make money), and the "friends" I've made down here have been few and far between.

I blame the region as much as anything. I've never been the person to surround myself with like-minded individuals; for one, they're too few and far between, and for another, I enjoy and thrive on diversity. Kindred spirits are few and far between, the degree of friend that just "gets" you, and when I've found those people, I've made lasting friendships, including with Toph, who's been a friend for over ten years. But down in this po-dunk middle-of-nowhere Bible Belt hell-hole, there simply is nobody.

Dave? Shares my fondness for video games, but has no passion for intellectualism. Irvin? Religion dominates his life, and he doesn't even own a computer. Bryan? See Irvin, minus the religion. These are good people to know, and good people to hang out with for this reason or that, but they aren't people that can hold their own with me in a discussion about movies, or music, or art, or literature, or politics, or - hell - or video games. That sounds unbelievably egocentric, I know, but that's not the way I mean it - all of these people are smart, and I know they have the capacity for complexity. What they lack is the interest. Their opinions are knee-jerk, and they know it, and they're content with it. They're the type of people you play golf with, not the type of people you have coversations with. Not bad people to know. Just not people you really want to hang out with all the time.

So, I find video games. The people I hang out with are no better, but the actions are more dynamic; they're a fundamentally fantastic way to avoid boredom (my dual-computer setup helps, since if I am doing something boring-but-necessary in the game, like looking for a party, I have the other computer, not to mention the XBox 360, which is now hooked up to that computer (via my TV software), where I can play Poker, or Civ IV, or Geometry Wars, but it's not exactly a "fulfilling lifestyle". I dunno ... most of the problem is that I hate my job, and that I hate the overriding culture of the area I'm living - overwhelming religious fundamentalism, political conservatism, and, (not-quite) ironically, enormous teen pregnancy (amazing that all the pushes for absinence, as an adjunct to the lack of availability or support for birth control). I complain about the lack of single women my age, and it is a problem, although the fact of the matter is, I make more than $70k a year in a rural area and drive a red Nissan 350Z convertible, so if I wanted "it", I could certainly get "it". The biggest obstacle in the way of that is the fact that I am unwilling to lower my standards in order to do so. I'm not interested in ready-made families (as Jay in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin put it", "You don't want no baby-daddy drama!), I'm not interested in women that are uneducated and have no desire to become educated, and who have no career aspirations, no ambitions, no desire to live their lives in less than a thirty-mile radius. So, while there are single women in my podunk middle-of-nowhere town, some of whom are no doubt around my age, the culture of intellectual sub-mediocrity, particulary evident when combined with the prevalent stereotypes of female intellectuals that persist with reckless abandon around here, the overwhelming religiosity, and the culture of "marry young and start popping out kids" all conspire against my ability to meet anyone that could possibly conform to my standards. It's been done - Dave's fiancee Shamra fits all of my specific criteria, and he met her down here, although I state for the record that I could never be with Shamra, for other, more basic reasons (she would annoy the fuck out of me) - but, 2-7 offsuit occasionally outruns pocket aces, too.

There are positives in my life. I have a great network of friends outside of the area. I'm making money hand over fist. I've bought an awesome car. I'm honing my writing skills. I'm not letting my brain go to waste. And yet I have this overwhelming fear that when I'm 40, I'll look back at the time I spent between 27 and 30 and declare it all lost time, a blank card sandwiched between more active and fruitful years.

At least I'll remember that I gamed like a motherfucker.

I hate living in the middle of nowhere.

Clerks II didn't even make it to this town. And I was actually looking forward to going and seeing it.

Fuck you middle of nowhere!

Taken about 5 minutes ago. Wewt ^^

I love the smell of Unenforcable attempts to cram pseudo-morality down the public's throat in the morning.

I suppose I can understand that some laws are on the books like this. This one is 201 years old, so a cohabitation law isn't exactly something that's shocking. What's incredible is that anyone would use it as justification for any kind of action.

People are fucked up.

Yeah. Crashed out of the $370 event early. Reraised with AKo from the button and then choked on a flop of 8TJ with two clubs, folding when the player called the pre-flop and pushed all-in on a turn of the Qd. Shit. That hurt me, then I put it all on the line with 77 up against 99. Double shit. Didn't play well. Oh well. There's always next time.

So, the PokerStars $370 buy-in 150-seats-guaranteed WSOP main event satellite starts in just under two hours. Over 5000 people already in it, lol. I hate the time leading up to these tournaments because I wind up halfway psyching myself out. Hopefully I can get to the point where these few-hundred-dollar buy-in tournaments aren't that big of a deal.

But how freaking cool would it be to make it in? This is already as close as I've ever gotten, and I'm getting a little nervous. Imagine how nervous I would be before the main event, should I ever make it there, though. Wow.

My guess is early play will be largely tight/solid early, without people making huge mistakes, but with 2,500 in starting chips and a slower-than-usual blind structure, I figure I take some time to establish a tight table image then start taking advantage of that image once the blinds become worth stealing. Slow and steady - it's gonna be a marathon.

Another Catan situation. A game this morning was hilariously entertatining.

Here was the board. I was red, third to act, three-player game.


So, yeah. Sheep shortage, and the best grain spots were in ridiculous proximity to the grain port (allowing for a coveted 8/10 on one resource with a 2:1 on that resource), and a similar situation with rock. There was potential to be the baron of either, but which? Well, I almost chortled coke through my nose when the board wound up coming out as follows for me:


Wow. Both players were poorly rated (in the 1400's) but this was just ridiculous. So rather than try to be the baron of one I decided to be the baron of both!


I placed the rock second so as to get the three rock in my opening hand, and upgrade the grain port settlement to a city as soon as possible. The final spots made the board look as follows:


From there it was cake. For those that say that Catan is all luck, and all determined by the dice, I'd point out for the record that this game, the dice screwed me as hard as they could, and I still scored an easy 10/6/5 victory. We rolled an incredibly disproportionate number of 5's and 4's, the two decent numbers I didn't have camped, and I didn't get any help in the card department either, although the three straight point cards that I wound up getting made my victory a little bit quicker. But I was blocked for a substantial portion of the game, too.

First priority was getting a city up (didn't happen til round 3), then trading for a road and getting a settlement on the rock port. All three became cities very quickly, and with the three point cards that I bought (looking for a soldier to get the damn robber off of me - which never happened), I eventually BS'd a final settlement to get me 10 points. Ridiculously easy victory. I wonder if these players would have done what I did in that situation. Probably not, but giving yourself only 2 resources at the start really does take some cajones, even if you have one port and easy access to a second, with perfect city-building resources. This game was over before the first die was rolled.

Catan situation.

Here's a cool little scenario that took place in a game of Settlers of Catan Online the other day. Three-player game against players with solid ratings. You're blue, second to act, and the board comes to you as follows:


Now, where do you go here? In my mind there is a clear correct choice, but it takes a bit to see and it goes a little deep. Clearly there is a grain shortage on this board, so it would make sense to hog up the good grain spots. The first player has predictably taken the best numerical spot on the board, but he's left you with some options to sacrifice numerical strength for consistency.

The clear correct choice is actually to avoid getting in on a grain spot for now, and hitting the 8/4/5 with two wood and a brick, as follows.


This spot has a few advantages. For one, it's numerically strong, and will generate a resource one out of every three rolls. For another, it monopolizes every good wood spot in the game, with the exception of the 8/10 port. And for a third, it will allow you good number diversity with your likely second pick. You should know where the second settlement will go by now, by the way, unless the third player goes completely insane. It's not obvious but it stacks the odds greatly in favor of a win. The third virtue of the spot is that it is an "unfriendly" spot, in that it closes off the 5-spot for the brick. The 5/8/10 spot adjacent to it had the same resources with the same probabilities, but it spells almost certain defeat by allowing the third player to grab the 5/4/11 with his second spot, start with a road, and stifle any expansion possibilities. Because if you haven't figured it out by now, early settlements will be the key to this game. The third player doesn't have that many great choices available to him, and is extremely unlikely to block our coveted second spot.

Green went predictably, hogging two good numeric spot and nabbing a 6 and an 8. Here's what the board looked like after his placement.


Now, this is where too many people would shoot themselves in the head by choosing a bizarre second settlement like the 8/4/3 (destroying our number diversity and shorting us both grain and sheep), or the 6/11/3, allowing red to take a 9/10/11 spot with two grain and control grain for the entire game.

No, here's where we have to take the 9/10/11 spot, which effectively damn near wins us the game 90% of the time. It's the perfect spot for us. First, it gives us near-full number diversity. We have every good number camped but the 6, and that's not a big deal for two reasons. First, the 6 is on unaccessable brick and an ugly rock spot. With so little grain in the game, rock is devalued. Second, it gets us a decent sheep spot and a starting sheep, which will be crucial for settlement development (including that all-important first settlement). Third, it starts us with two grain. This is absolutely crucial on this board; while both of the others will be laboring to trade for grain, I'll start with enough for two settlements. Fourth, it's all resources that work well together. And finally, it opens up a nice 6/3/11 spot for a quick first settlement to fill in our numerical, and resource-oriented, gaps.

I placed there, and red made a small blunder by hitting the 8/4/3. He's obviously hoping to control the rock and brick, and hoping for an early expansion to the brick port, but that isn't going to do him enough good. He's numerically strong, and the resource he has shorted himself is sheep, which is good (particularly since green will be in abundance, and will be willing to trade), but apart from an opening road, he doesn't have a credible wood source. I am the only one that does, and he doesn't have any resources that I need (I'm certainly not trading for rock early). He can give himself a chance if he nabs the wood source with the powerful 3:1 port, but just doesn't quite have the forethought.

At the end of the opening phase the board looks like this:


It may not look it, but barring freakish rolls, I have this game won. Green is destined to be a non-factor, and really did kind of get screwed by map placement, though his road placement was not good. Red places his opening road non-aggressively, towards the brick port, and despite being numerically strong, most of his numbers come as rock, meaning he either needs cities or a lot of trading. His strategy at this point lacks cohesion, since with only one grain, on a 9, a city/dev card strategy just isn't viable. With my good numbers on road-building materials, and two starting grain, a quick settlement is a sure thing. I get it on my second turn after we roll a 6, a 4, two 8's, and an 11. I trade a wood for a brick, and a grain for his second brick, and am on the 6/3/11 in no time flat. I'm rewarded with an immediate 6, and use the rock to buy a development card, since I've taken the lead and definitely need to protect myself. The 8/10 spot with the 3:1 port, another insanely powerful spot, comes next, though to my credit I *never once* had to trade using the port. My resources worked that well with each other, and they came in a steady flow.

The first settlement to go to a city was, strangely, my first expansion settlement: the 6/3/11, since by then I had also expanded to the 6/8/12, and we all know how advantageous it is to be able to generate three rock with one roll. Red sputtered along, grabbing the brick and grain ports, while green was left with a slew of unimpressive expansion spots available to him, grabbing the 5/2 and the 9/4 (ouch). But since I was generating a resource on essentially every roll, and had a mix that worked well with each other, I cruised to an easy 10/5/5 victory by grabbing the largest army and longest road, though there were several paths to victory.

The lesson, then, is making sure you pick resources that work well with one another. The opening spot with the two grain was crucial, and put me in the powerful position of having the best grain sources of anyone, and being the only person with a credible wood source. I was only making trades that were beneficial to me, and the game pretty much played itself from there on out. A good example of how smart opening position placement can lead to a victory.

The game would have been mightily different had red not automatically chosen the best numeric spot. I think that, strangely, the 5/9/10 spot adjacent to it may have made for a better choice, since those resources work well together (and he's not stuck with a 6 on rock without a great grain source and no sheep source at all), but maybe it's a little numerically weak. I probably would have gone with the 8/4/5 spot that I opened on instead, I think. You probably wind up having to short yourself sheep, but you can live with that with a good stranglehold on road-building cards. In any case, this was a strategically fascinating game that was all but determined by opening placement selection.

Well, the good poker weekend continues. In positive news, I cashed in both events I played today: a $10+1 pot limit omaha tournament with 160 or so entries, and a $10+1 NLHE rebuy event with $35k guaranteed. 1060 people ended up entering, with about 3500 or so total rebuys and add-ons. I was busted once early (bad beat) and rebought, more than doubling up on the very next hand, so I only rebought the once. From there I picked my spots and built a nice big stack. Everything was cruising, and I was hitting just enough hands, and stealing just enough blinds, to keep me at the average chipstack right up until we got near the bubble, which was 99 people. There I went on a massive run, doubling up once, taking the chip lead at my table, and then just bullying around. It worked to perfection, and by the time the bubble burst, I had bought a massive amount of blinds, and knocked out two to three people, including one sick hand where I was the fourth to call an all-in, with 9T offsuit from the big blind. The flop came 45T and my tens held up, even in the face of a dude that bluffed the dry side pot on the flop and the turn. That was actually my biggest pot for a while, but I dragged tons of small ones.

In any case, I cruised as a top ten stack until we were down to three tables, and I ran into an unfortunate series of hands. I'd been hitting a run of horrific cards and just waiting it out, as I did have the chips to sustain a bad run and my table had gotten aggressive - I'd lost more chips than I'd won trying to steal the blinds. In any case, I finally hit a nice rush of cards. TJs from the button, which I raised and took the blinds with. Then AJ suited from the cutoff, same. Then KQ offsuit from middle position, ditto. And for my finale, I was dealt JJ.

I raised it up and the dude two spots to my left reraised, up to about half his chipstack at the time. I'd seen him do this when I knew he sensed a bluff before, and he had T7 suited. It so happened that the T7 suited won, since he had the good fortune of being up against 66, but since I'd raised three hands in a row previous, I felt there was a strong chance he had me on a steal. Besides, I had a premium holding anyway, so I felt justified in pushing.

He had KK, and that crippled me. I went out two hands later with AQ, in 24th place.

Now, I'd spent $40 total on the tournament and scored a $190 payday, which isn't all that bad for a few hours work. But it was disappointing as hell, since I was just starting to get to the exponential upswing in payout. The final table paid out a minimum of $650, and 7th place or better was north of a grand. First place would have been a whopping $10k+, and I could just fucking taste it. Still, the play is good when you get that deep and I just needed a little more luck.

It's weird to be so disappointed at winning $150 net, but that's the way it goes I guess. Next time. Next time.

This is just adorable!!!!!!

Kent Hovind is going to prison!!!

One of thse wonderful "creation science" cuddle-bunnies that runs around explaining how the earth is, like 6,000 years old. Of course it's standard fanatic/fundie boilerplate to try and refuse paying income tax; I have no idea, but for some reason they really don't like it.

In any damn case, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. And for God's sake, don't drop the soap.

Noice!!!!!!

Excellent poker day. Made up for several previous days; in fact, put me back in the black for the month, if you count a $370 ticket win as pure profit (and I do).

Played in a $22+2 sng to near perfection, taking it down with what I felt was three key pots, all of which I played absolutely perfectly. I was so fucking stoked, getting a win a really felt like I deserved, that I entered into a $16 satellite tournament to Sunday's best chance to get into the WSOP, a $350+20 event with 150 guaranteed seats. That means they expect 4500+ entries to the tournament, and chances are probably pretty good they get 5000+. Nevertheless, with 150 guaranteed $10,000 prizes, I really feel like it's possible. This is the best chance I've had to qualify for the WSOP, and doing so would be a hell of an experience (I would even get to go, since work that week won't be all that bad at all).

Well, I qualified, despite one big mistake (I ran headlong into aces with top pair, and went all in like a donkey; luckily the guy was a mid-stack and I was chip leader at the time), just by playing smart poker and making one sick bluff calldown. I was lucky enough to take some chips off some pure retards early,

I really have no set plans as to a strategy for the big satellite, as I don't really believe in coming into a tournament like that with a satellite, just by not making mistakes and making +EV moves. I'll certainly be evaluating my opening table to see if it's one where a hyper-aggressive style will pay off, and then just try to play good poker, based on whatever kind of table I wind up with.

Still, pretty cool.

The true motives of the anti-abortion movement.

So, at work today, I was discussing with some friends the unenforceability and general ridiculousness of the recently-passed legislation surrounding online gambling. I made pretty much the same argument that I made in the last blog - quoted here:

I saw. It's a big joke to most of the community. I love how the house's official position is "gambling online is bad, unless it's horse racing or the lottery." Gee, I wonder if they've got an incentive to provide those exemptions. Good ol' politician logic (and - sorry Brian, but it's the frickin' truth - it's much more a problem on the right than the left, particularly the Religious Wrong). "Vices are bad, except the ones that we can get kickbacks from."

Now, my friend Brian, who the quick aside was addressed to, and who is a feverent, if somewhat reasonable and moderate Republican, responded in fairly roundabout language to what I'd said. The relevant portion of the email is quoted here:

I don’t understand why you felt the need to apologize for your statement. You’ve spent too much time in Paris man, there are still conservatives out there beyond the bible belt. Your assumption that I support the religious right is actually inaccurate. Although I do hold many conservative political and moral positions, I do not agree with anyone who solely uses religion to justify a belief. Even if it’s one I share. Let me give two examples. I’ll proudly state that in almost every case (excepting rape, incest, and life of the mother) I do not support abortion. It’s nothing more than hygienic, state-sanctioned murder, plain and simple. The standard reply to that is ‘it can’t survive on its own.” Neither can an infant, is it ok to kill those? I don’t derive this from the Bible. I came to this conclusion based on my own personal beliefs of right and wrong and my knowledge of genetics and biology. Flip to another issue. I have absolutely zero issue with a gay person. I don’t think they are ‘sinners’ or going to go to hell. I don’t think they need to be ‘cured’. If two gay people want to commit to each other, I have no issue. If they want the same tax breaks as married people, I have no issue. On the other hand, I think the word marriage has been defined in western culture (with a few limited exceptions) over the last two-thousand years to mean the union of a man and a woman. Marriage should not include man + man, woman + woman, multiple partners, or any other combination.

Not a particularly interesting response; fairly predictable from Brian, to disassociate himself with the religious poison of fanatic Republicanism while still adopting the stances that they generate. My reply centered around the abortion movement, and does an adequate job, I feel, of summarizing how the anti-abortion crowd cynically asserts the moral high ground and then uses that position to their political advantage. The reply in full follows:

----

Right, right, right. One of the "civil union" crowd. While we're at it, why not just give black people their own bathrooms? That sort of thinking is particularly segregationist; give them their own separate but equal institution. News flash: separate has never been equal.

As for abortion, you rely on the straw man argument of "can't survive on its own." I have rarely if never heard any pro-choicer actually use that particular argument - I've only heard anti-abortion people prop it up so they can slay it with the easy counter-argument that you present. The issue at question is "when does life begin?" There's no strict biological answer to that question in my mind. The anti-abortion crowd accepts a priori that life begins at conception. To me, the notion that a specific human life begins at birth makes a lot more sense. Here's a quick litmus test. How old are you? Now, when you calculated that number, did you go from when you were born or when you were conceived?

Does a morning-after pill that prevents a fertilized egg from implanting itself in the uterus count as "state-sanctioned murder" as well? For that matter, if a woman with a defective uterus has intercourse with her husband knowing that it isn't unlikely for an egg to be fertilized as a result of that act, but that the egg has zero chance of surviving to birth, does that count as state-sanctioned murder as well? To me those are logically indefensible arguments, but they logically must follow from the stance that you've supported. My stance doesn't allow for those ridiculous exceptions: from the time an egg is fertilized until the child is separated from the mother, that child is part of the mother's body, and the mother may do with her body what she pleases. Pretty simple.

I don't mean to start an abortion email war, but to point out that while you may not identify with the Religious Wrong, you've bought into their propaganda hook, line, and sinker, and your implicit support is every bit as necessary to their power-play as the explicit support of crazy fundamentalists. To the point, why do you think it is that the Religious Wrong is so ferverently anti-abortion? Why do they accept the "life begins at conception" postulate without any questioning whatsoever? Here's a hint: it has absolutely nothing to do with life and absolutely everything to do with sex. Unwanted pregnancy is a negative consequence of sexual behavior, and those negative consequences are a big part of how Big Religion remains in power (they're in the guilt business; they invent a disease and set themselves up as the cure; for that "disease" - sin - to carry any weight, the activities that are involved in its production must have negative consequences). They want any sex that they don't approve of to be as fraught with negative consequences as possible. They always have. That's why they oppose the distribution of condoms in schools (they're not promoting abstinence, and they know as well as anyone that opposing condom distribution has does not affect how many teens are "doing it" - they just want teen sex to be as hazardous as possible). That's why they have a tendency to oppose birth control in general. That's why some churches (and not just small, fringe ones), amazingly, have came out *against* a vaccine for HPV, the overwhelmingly leading cause of cervical cancer. And you heard it here first - if Merck were to come out with a pill that cured AIDS, there are big, politically powerful mainstream churches that would oppose its sale and distribution, for the same reason.

The reason I feel comfortable saying that you believe the way you do because you've bought into propaganda, by the way, is because you include the standard caveats in your opposition to abortion: cases of rape and incest (in addition to the life of the mother, which is a separate facet). Uhm, WTF? If your anti-abortion stance is because you believe you're saving innocent lives, how the bloody hell does that follow? Is a potential child of rape or incest any less innocent than a child conceived by two 16-year-olds fooling around? Why does the one "child" deserve to "die" and the other deserve to "live"? I'd love to hear that logic.

What that exception proves is that an anti-abortion stance that includes those caveats has absolutely nothing to do with saving innocent lives and absolutely everything to do with punishing people - women - who engage in activity that they don't approve of. Since victims of rape had no choice in the matter, there's no need to punish them, and the "life of the child" (existence of the fetus) suddenly takes a backseat that's utterly incomprehensible unless you wrap your brain around their true motives. That's why the term "Pro-Life" is such a blatant misnomer; if they were really pro-life, they'd oppose all abortion. That's why I make it a personal policy never to call it "Pro-Life" and instead use the much more accurate label, "Anti-Abortion." "Anti-sex" works well as well, but only if you take "sex" to mean "sex not approved of by the Religious establishment."

This is important to note because it ties back into the original discussion, since gambling is a vice used in much the same way as sex by the religious community. The biggest difference is that there's not much profit to be had in keeping it hazardous, so they just squash it. The exceptions in the bill (lotteries and horse racing) are political rather than religious in nature, though it does effectively display the hypocrisy inherent in the Republican / Conservative assumption of the moral high ground.

I know you're not a religious fanatic, but the point of all of this is that you don't have to be in order to turned into one of their supporters (you might not consider yourself as such, but you did vote twice for a president who said publicly that God talked to him and told him to invade Iraq). Their propaganda is insidious and can be effective if you don't look at it closely, as I've done here. I think you're probably intelligent enough to see through it. I sincerely hope that the more you see that, the more you will exercise your intelligence and question it; like you, I once considered myself a Republican, but came to realize that the issues on which I disagreed with the Democrats (largely regarding socialism / big government) were trivial in comparison to the enormous cultural conflict in play, and that the Republicans were inching further and further towards Big Government philosophy anyway (precisely because of the Religious Right, who are against everything that libertarians once admired about the Republican party; Bush's federal government is bigger than that of any Democrat in recent memory.)

So, while I agree that corruption does spoil both sides, particularly due to problems inherent in campaign finance laws, I only see one side that is systematically laced with poisonous influence from anti-science, anti-sex, anti-personal-liberty fanatics whose purpose is not to govern but instead to exercise dominion. It is a very overt attempt to push our government further and further towards a Theocracy; people who thought that the First Amendment was an enormous mistake that needs to be corrected. They hide it well, but if you doubt that that's the goal, all you have to do is look at the policies, and consider what the motivation for those policies could possibly be.

That's what I meant when I directed my apology. So you know.

----

Thought it was worth sharing.

Ok, so it appears that the House has passed some utterly unenforceable legislation regarding online gamblins. How very interesting that the bill carves out special exemptions for online betting on horse racing and online lotteries.

I guess it's OK to throw away your life's savings at the racetrack but not in an online poker room.

Never mind that what the bill specifically prohibits - banks and credit cards depositing money to online poker sites - is utterly worthless, seeing as how those sites all go through legitimate offshore paypal-like companies like Firepay and NetTeller, which are not subject to ridiculous US legislation and are therefore not governed by this silly law.

The stupidity of the US Government never ceases to amaze me. Instead of trying to force Internet gambling underground, how's about - I dunno - LEGALIZING it and TAXING THE PISS OUT OF IT. Use the money to fix our schools if you must, though that would lead to better math education which would probably be -EV for me at the online poker tables. Nevertheless, I think that's a sacrifice I'd be willing to make.

So stupid. So, so stupid. Sigh.

I say but goddamn, burn parties in the new ToAU areas can rock the house if you know what to do with them. Was in a good one today as BRD, with WARx3, NIN, and WHM supporitng me, pulling my ass off. In just over 3 hours I got almost 40k xp. Incredible. I went from an 11k buffer to meriting automatically. Makes me go back to the days when I thought 3k/hr was good and just laugh out loud.

We never went higher than chain 35 or so but we were pulling the VT/IT's along with the puks, which punched up the xp considerably. Great freaking pt.

Zidane's headbutt. Nice. Classy. Way to go out on a positive note, probably costing your country a chance at the world cup.

So here's a first.


I've had straight flushes before, but never flopped one. Too bad the decimal point isn't at a better spot in the pot size, though :)

Think I won about a $8 pot with it. Some guy flopped top pair and the fourth club didn't hit, which didn't scare him off. Called a $2 bet on the river. Not bad, really, for flopping the stone nuts on a scary-looking board.

Congratulations to Italia!!!!

But wow ... anyone that ever had any respect for Zidane should be hanging their head in shame. What a pussirific, classless move that was, to end the final game of your career with a pathetic headbutt to the chest with nothing more than a verbal provocation. The sort of move that most real athletes learn to outgrow around age thirteen. So congratulations, Zidane. This is how your punk ass will be remembered: as a pussy that couldn't take a little trash-talking. Lovely. GG and have a nice life.

Heh. Weekend exploits in action.


Most of that was after Friday night, when after blowing $200+ I decided to revive an old tradition: drink and play FFXI.

In the past two days I've gone from BLM54 to BLM57. Not bad.

Too funny.

Anyone that plays FFXI, or deals on a regular basis with the, ahem, difficulties inherent in a language barrier in which very few phoenetics are shared will find this friggin' hilarious....

Ouch.

Just blew over $175 on a 2-4 shorthanded limit hold 'em table. Just kept, kept, kept, kept running into the stone nuts. Nothing worked. Dragged maybe three pots in an hour. Brutality.

Holy crap. This is the funniest thing that I've read in a long time.

Preparing for the MPAA. This is a memo from Matt Stone regarding a cut of the South Park movie that was cut down in an attempt to get an R from the MPAA. Friggin' hilarious.

Anyone that's into movies is probably well aware of the MPAA's ridiculous inconsistency and absurd standards by which they assign movies their rating. A memo like this being brought to light only highlights the absurdity. I've typed it out in full here.

Here is our new cut of the South Park movie to submit to the MPAA. I wanted to tell you exactly what notes we did and did not address.

1. We left in both the "fisting" and "rimjob" references in the counselor's office scene. We did cut the word "hole" from "asshole" as per our conversation.
2. We took the entire "God has fucked me in the ass so many times..." It is gone.
3. Although it is not animated yet, we put a new storyboard in for clarification in the scene with Sadaam [sic] Hussein's penis. The intent now is that you never see Sadaam's [sic] real penis, he is in fact using dildos both times.
4. We have the shot animated that reveals the fact that Winona is not shooting ping-pong balls from her vagina. She is, in fact, hitting the balls with a ping-pong paddle.
5. We took out the only reference to "cum-sucking ass" in the film. It was in the counselor's office and we took it out.
6. We left in the scenes with Cartman's mom and the horse as per our conversation. This is one joke we really want to fight for.

Call with any questions.

Matt


P.S. This is my favorite memo ever

Love, love, love the postscript. One of mine too.

Back to basics.

With nothing much to do tonight, no real desire to play FFXI after dynamis, I turned over to a little limit hold 'em. I haven't played it in ages, it seems, but there are so many nuamces to the game - you wouldn't normally think so, but so many situations exist where the right play is never quite obvious. At the stakes I'm playing, it's so much more predictable than no limit; it's more strategical than tactical, and the point is not to avoid single big mistakes but to plug as many persistent holes as possible. Tilt avoidance is also key as you do take a lot of bad beats (so easy just to chase one more card, even when you shouldn't). I like that it's a bit easier to multitable effectively - easier to get into a rhythm, and my pokertracker stats are a bit more easy to translate.

I think my play has been pretty extraordinarily +EV, with my best hands being the enormous multi-way pots that I've manipulated pretty effectively. I'm currently taking it easy with 4 tables - 2 $1-2 tables, 2 $0.50-1 tables, winning some crazy pots against some truly donkish opposition. Here's one I just played that just boggles my mind.

PokerStars 0.50/1.00 Hold'em (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ah, Ad.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls, 1 fold, MP2 calls, 3 folds, SB raises, BB 3-bets, UTG+1 folds, MP2 folds, SB calls.

Flop: (8 SB) Qs, Qd, Kh (2 players)
SB checks, BB bets, SB calls.
Turn: (5 BB) 9h (2 players)
SB checks, BB bets, SB calls.
River: (7 BB) 5c (2 players)
SB checks, BB bets, SB calls.
Final Pot: 9 BB
Results in white below:
SB has As 8d (one pair, queens).
Hero has Ah Ad (two pair, aces and queens).
Outcome: Hero wins 9 BB.

Calling all that down with nothing but A high! WTF did this donkey think I could have had? The pre-flop reraise I do kind of get - an above-average hand that shouldn't be in deep trouble should I call him, and I've been playing very tight. When I reraise he's forced to call, but that's as bad a flop as you can see with a hand like that, and check-calling all the way down with nothing is about as strange and weird a move as I could possibly imagine here. I'm just perplexed.

But I'm not complaining. Up over $40 in under two hours, and I don't even feel like I've been running that particularly well. That's a big blind to a lot of players, but for a micro-stakes player, it's not bad. 450 hands in that sample or so - which is tiny, but encouraging.

Noice! Ding BRD75 FTW!

A little WTF mojo...

Finally finished a key scene in Wordplay, which absolutely needs to be perfect. The scene where Steven falls in love with Kelly. No context provided, but ideally, none should be required. Obviously I haven't taken the time to format the HTML.

INT. BAR – AFTERNOON

Steven and Kelly, several drinks into a post-presentation celebration, share a table at a quiet, mostly deserted bar. Both are tipsy but still coherent.

KELLY
I still can’t believe how well that went.

STEVEN
I know! It was incredible! It was like ... I don’t even know. All metaphor escapes me.

Kelly GIGGLES.

STEVEN
What’s so funny?

KELLY
Just you. “All metaphor escapes me.” I mean, come on. Who talks like that?

STEVEN
(blushes)
Sorry. Get a few drinks in me and the old English Major starts to resurface.

KELLY
Weren’t you a Math major?

STEVEN
Not right away.

KELLY
Really? You changed from English to Math?

Steven smiles, takes a drag from his drink, and laughs to himself. Kelly reacts with visible apprehension.

KELLY
Did I just touch something bad?

STEVEN
No. No. Just got lost in a thought for a minute.

KELLY
What’s the thought about?

STEVEN
About how I thought I died inside once.

There’s a silence. Kelly doesn’t say anything, just gives her best look of gentle inquisitiveness.

STEVEN
I used to hold these delusions that I could write. In High School I was always just writing. Stories, screenplays, I even started a novel once, and made it like a hundred pages in. I remember thinking that there was this power in language, this tension, this hypnotic version of reality that was sharper than real life. Crisper. Less muddled. And I knew more than anything that that’s what I wanted to spend my life doing. What I wanted to study when I went away to school. And so, when searching for majors, I zeroed right in on English Literature.

KELLY
How does that turn into math?

STEVEN
Well, English was what I loved, but Math was what I was good at. And it took me about three weeks of Honors English classes to realize that I was in way over my head. That I was surrounded by people with actual talent, with this innate ability that I just lacked. That if this was what I did for the next four years, that those four years would be spent in a perpetual state of playing catch-up. I didn’t want that. So six weeks in I went to my advisor and I told him that I wanted to change my major to math. I revamped my schedule, I started from scratch, and four years later, I moved into my cubicle.

KELLY
And you equate that with dying inside?

It comes out harsher than she’d have liked. There’s an extended silence.

STEVEN
I don’t know. That’s still what it feels like sometimes. I mean, I know it was the responsible choice. That was how I justified it. It ensured that I would focus on something at which I could excel. In a lot of ways, it was like a weight off my shoulders. And yet, it still felt so much like giving up. When I look back at that decision, I have this tendency to remember it as the moment where I abandoned my education, and replaced it with a trade school.

KELLY
Hey. No. Listen. The world is full of people whose dreams and whose responsibilities don’t quite intersect. And I think most people think that that’s sad, or even tragic. It isn’t. It just means that life isn’t simple. It’s a series of really, really tough decisions. And if it’s not, then you’re doing it wrong!

STEVEN
You’re right. I mean, I do know that. And I don’t hate my job, or my life. I know I’m not dying inside. I know that even saying it is stupid. But you can’t always turn off a thought just because you know it’s silly.

KELLY
It’s okay. I wasn’t trying to be pushy.

STEVEN
No, you’re fine.

There’s a long silence. They’re smiling at each other.

STEVEN
What happened the night we met?

KELLY
In the bar?

STEVEN
What the hell were you doing there?

KELLY
Fending off clumsy attempts to pick me up.

STEVEN
Cute. Only to ask me out the next week.

KELLY
Only to find out that you were reunited with a lost love from High School. I remember. It was like the exact opposite of serendipity.

STEVEN
(laughs)
What I mean is, you don’t strike me as the sort of person that goes out and drinks alone. Particularly when you were all dressed up.

There’s a silence. Kelly levels her gaze. We see her face go from apprehension, to “fuck it.”

KELLY
I was dumped by my boyfriend of two years that night.

STEVEN
Jesus.

KELLY
He told me he wanted to get his stuff out of my apartment, and that he didn’t want me to be there. At the time I didn’t really want to see him either. So I found the nearest bar.

STEVEN
That bad?

KELLY
I’d known him since college, right? Name was Patrick. A friend of a guy I went out with for a couple of months. About a year after I graduate, I run into him in the elevator of my apartment building. We get to talking, and before long we’re going out. My first real adult relationship. You know, vacations together, a joint account at Blockbuster. To me, it feels like it’s “it”, you know? We talk about marriage. We talk about the future, and we talk about each other like we’re in each other’s future. It’s not romantic like it was in High School, or self-assured like it was in College. Just ... pragmatic.

A pause. She’s near tears.

KELLY
And we’re out to dinner and he just drops the bomb on me. How he’s dying inside. How he feels like he’s giving away everything for our relationship, and how it isn’t worth it. And he rambles on, and on for what must have been an hour, before I finally shut him up and get us out of the restaurant. And he tells me not to go home for a couple of hours, so I find myself in the awkward position of being in a bar, with a new dress, and new earrings, alone.

STEVEN
Oh. I’m so sorry. I mean, I didn’t know.

KELLY
You had no way of knowing. What you did was perfectly natural. You weren’t even the first guy to come up and talk to me. You were the fourth. And all three of the other guys that came up and started to hit on me got pissed off when they realized they were being blown off. You know, “What the hell is up with this one, walking into a bar dressed like that and expecting not to get hit on.” And I’ve since come to realize that that doesn’t mean they were bad guys. They probably weren’t. But you were different. You were ... perspicacious enough to see that the right thing to do was to be nice to me, and then leave me alone. So that’s what happened that night.

STEVEN
“Perspicacious?”

KELLY
It means perceptive. Intuitive.

STEVEN
I know. I’m just thinking I should introduce you to Zack.

KELLY
I don’t want to be introduced to Zack.

STEVEN
Then what do you want?

KELLY
I don’t know. But not that.

There’s a long pause. They’re done sizing each other up, and just smile. They’re enjoying each other’s company, resigned to the tension, and not fighting it.

So, more FFXI after Angie left. Two hours in a PT as BLM to get a grand total of 5k experience, and that was with an Empress band. Pathetic. Had the worst Ninja in history, who couldn't have held hate off a BRD. Level 56 and still trying to pull hate with Ichi spells. Horrible.

Some pictures from Angie's visit:

Partial after-effects of Friday night. We've already thrown away half the beer bottles at this point, and the vodka bottle is almost half empty.

Angie the morning after, looking cute but a bit hung over :)

Angie at the base of our god-awful Eiffel-Tower-with-a-Cowboy-Hat-on-it. It's gaudy as all hell, but she looks nice.

Angie in my car, looking cute. I let her drive it around for a little bit on Sunday. She said she had fun by was a little nervous having that much power at her disposal.

A nice little candid shot of Angie working in my backyard. She was wearing this tank top with no bra underneath, and it was just killing me.

Angie getting ready this morning, after a quick "smile!" She asked if I thought the dress might help her get out of any speeding tickets. I thought it might.

This picture didn't turn out as well, and Ang doesn't look as good in this dress from head-on as she does in profile, but I thought it was amusing :)

Here are the prints we got for my living room. In a future house they'd go in a barroom, but for now, they help break up the banality of having just a huge plain white wall.

Since I cleaned up for Angie's visit, I thought I'd take the chance to snap a shot of my computer setup. The left-hand one has FFXI going, the right-hand one is the one I'm blogging on right now :)

My bookshelf. Waiting anxiously for the next book to go with the series in the upper-left.

Angie arrives Saturday at just past noon, after a long six hour drive, but she's upbeat and she looks great; I greet her with a big hug and we discuss what the plans are for the night and week. We go out to lunch at La Familia (she says she's not really hungry but winds up finishing her plate), then we spend most of the rest of the day sitting around and watching movies (we hit Harold and Kumar, Fever Pitch, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and maybe one more). Rather than order pizza for dinner, she suggests that we head to the grocery store to get ingredients to make pizza. That ends up working very well and we have a very nice meal together. We also go on a beer run and pick up a couple of six packs, a bottle of middle-class vodka (we went with Skye) and some mixers. We go back and continue watching our movies and drinking. By the end of the night, both of us have finished our six packs and had a few vodka + cranberry juices. Needless to say we're both pretty blitzed at this point, and that's how we go to bed.

Now, it was a bit of a disappointment in that there was no real discussion about it, and how she just kind of set up shop in the spare bedroom. But I won't belabor the point and won't bitch and moan as I had a great weekend, despite the relative physical distance we found between us. It wasn't like she was completely frigid, but I was hoping we might step it up a bit with one another and she definitely wasn't feeling it. Still, like I said, I'm not upset.

She was impressed with the degree to which I was getting compliments on my car. Some random woman in the La Familia parking lot gave me an embarrassingly-sincere-sounding compliment, and some random dude in a pickup rolled down his window at a stoplight and said, "what I want to know is, what are you doing in my car?" We laughed and played along, and the adjective he used to describe it was "Beautiful." Nice.

Sunday we woke up and did some work in the backyard. My whole backyard is a nasty mess and we started to help bring it under control. I saw some pictures today of what it looked like when I did my original house tour and it was kind of depressing to see. The backyard was in such good order. Now it's - well, not trashed, exactly, but a long way from spectacular.

That work continued throughout a bit of the day, with pit stops for shopping and ice cream, and we napped a bit in the afternoon before heading to Oklahoma for dinner (Angie was stoked, having never been to Oklahoma before). We had a good steak dinner and then went home and played a few board games (I crushed her at Monopoly, and we played a few non-competitive games of Scrabble) while having a few low-key drinks.

Monday we did a bit more work in the backyard before showering and heading out for lunch at a nice Italian place. Then we decided to head down to the outlet malls near Dallas to get a little shopping done. I spent about $120 on a couple of pictures for my walls (they look nice, I think, and Angie and I agreed that the walls in my place are just ridiculously bare). Then we bought a few goodies for the party that night at Le Gourmet Chef, including some martini mixers that turned out to be lethally good :)

We made it back in time to be late arrivals to the party, hosted over at Cole and Lacey's, which actually had a very decent turnout (maybe 20 people). We brought steaks, and pretzel sticks with a nice Ginger Wasabe dip, and the martini mix for apple martinis. We had a good time and Angie seemed to hit it off with several people, including a co-op that she seemed anxious to put in a good word for me with. Her name is Theresa and she is actually quite nice, but I really don't see myself getting involved with a co-op at the moment.

Angie and I got pretty fucking trashed off the martini mix. Let's just say I brought a bottle of Belvedere to the party, and we were the only ones drinking it. Here's what it looked like at the end of the night.



It's a bit hard to see, but you can definitely make out the water line (vodka line actually, I suppose) just below the text of the label.

Angie spends a bit of time talking with Irvin, from poker, and winds up giving him her card at the end of the night, but that was while she was pretty damn drunk and she says she wasn't that interested.

I eventually sober up enough to drive, and we head home. Angie asks what we want to do when we get home, and I say, I dunno, throw in a movie or something. She was getting really really flirty so my hopes were getting up, but immediately after asking, she decides that she's off to bed. We crash - it was about one in the morning by this point - and I'm out like a light.

Tuesday morning - this morning - we get up and lounge around for a bit, before deciding to hang the pictures that we bought, which in turn necessitated a trip to Home Depot. Then we pretty much just sit around and talk, until it's time for her to leave, around noonish. I help her pack up (in the 3 nights she spent at my place, she's made herself remarkably at home), and give her a nice hug goodbye.

Anyway, not much more (or not much at all if you prefer) happened on the visit to Toph's. We played a few board games on Monday, went out for a good lunch and dinner, and got me to my 7:30 flight, which was delayed a bit. I arrived at the airport at around midnight, and arrived home at about 2 in the morning, which meant that I took Tuesday morning off. No big deal, really, as I've got a bunch of comp time saved up from my time on backs.

The week at work was nice and quiet, with not much going on in a short lull. I got a bit done and we had a few design reviews, which we haven't done much of recently, and which have been sorely missed as we've had to redesign a bunch of shit at the last second.

In any case, I played quite a bit of FFXI over the week, which I hadn't done for quite a while, and finally got BRD up to 75. Now it's on to BLM, which is 54, and which I'm currently leveling in a bit of a boring party.

Angie called Friday night saying she'd had a late night of work and letting me know she wouldn't be driving in until Saturday morning...