I heart poker

Four people left in a $20 sit-n-go. I've been chip leader for most of the tournament but the guy opposite me has hit a string of hands and taken a very slight lead. He's in the big blind, and I'm under the gun with JJ.

I raise the blinds (75/150 at this point) to 450, dude calls in the big blind.

Flop comes 468. Wewt ^^

Guy bets out into me, 600. I raise to 1500. He calls.

Turn is an ugly card, a Q, but it misses the club flush that is out there. Dude bets out 1050. I call.

River is an 8. Dude bets out 1200, almost all of my remaining stack. I call. He has 8-10.

I knew I should have raised on the turn but I was only about 80% that he didn't have a Queen, and figured that if he had a hand other than a queen, he was less than 20% to hit. I was right, and now, here I am, doing that most pathetic of poker things, complaining about a bad beat.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.... I was so ready to take that one down, too.

My Life's Addiction, Part 4: Brac

My parents reacted to my burgeoning interst in computer games - not just as a hobby, but as something I spent very significant time on - with some trepidation and reasonable concern. This is of course quite understandable, and to their credit, never once did their concerns become so overt as to result in conflict. They adjusted their thinking over time. That's something I've always respected them for.

Their primary concerns proved to be unfounded. They worried that it would affect my grades, but it didn't. They worried that it would overtake my interest in sports, but that turned out not to be the case. And they worried that so much time spent on games would hamper my ability to make friends, and on that count, the opposite actually turned out to be true, though it took them some time to see it.

The grades were easy. Elementary School, and Junior High alike, were like a movie in slow-motion. I could look up once every fifteen minutes and not miss a thing. I did most of my homework in class - 1st period math problems were almost always done by lunch, and I had long-since perfected the art of test-taking. I wasn't anal enough to be a straight-A student, but I was never so sloppy as to let more than a couple of my classes slip to B's. "It'll get harder", they warned me, but they were never right. "You might be smart enough to get away with this stuff here, but when you get to High School, it'll all be different." It wasn't. "You might be able to get away with this stuff here in High School," they said once I got to High School, "But College is a different beast." And it wasn't - not really, at least. Story of my life I guess. Of any smart student, I suppose.

Anyway, I digress. Sports and other activities had long been an intregal part of my life, from a very early age. By Junior High, I was playing hockey (as I had practically since infancy), trombone, track (mile and two-mile), piano, soccer, and baseball, though I only did Little League for a couple of years, and when I decided not to play that third year, my parents were relieved - little league parents were way too uptight to be allowed to live, and I think my parents were on the verge of becoming murderers. No one could make the claim that I wasn't involved in extracurriculars. And so my parents were denied that mode of argument.

But for the longest time, the assertion that it was affecting my friendships, and my potential for friendships, carried gravity. I wasn't making enough friends, to their eyes. Why wasn't I hanging out with the kids on my hockey team? (answer: they were more are less boorish jock-assholes; I played hockey for the sport, not the company). Why hadn't I taken more of an interest in girls? (answer: the interest was certainly there, but I was frightfully, almost dysfunctionally shy around them). Understand that these inquiries were never in the air directly. My parents were too subtle for that. But the directions of the dinnertime conversation made their feelings apparent. This was the one argument I couldn't counter with direct evidence. Was my interest in computer games replacing the natural desire for human contact? It certainly could have seemed that way.

I don't remember how it was that Brac and I met. We had been acquaintences for some time; we went to the same Elementary School, and lived in the same neighborhood. He was always around. I knew who he was, and had my first impressions, thought I knew the generalities as to what it was he was about. But we didn't really become friends until the Fifth Grade.

It was chess that brought us together. Simply enough, I saw him reading a chess book in class, and asked him about it over recess, in a lull, waiting to play tetherball. He took to talking about it right away. I was just learning the game, having been playing it with (and getting thwomped by) my brother. The next day, he brought in a magnetic travel set so we could play, again at recess. He destroyed me, but he was a willing teacher, and I was a willing student. Learning that we lived near to one another (his house was in fact on one of my paper routes, though his family didn't get the paper), so he invited me over to his places to play after school.

Chess started the friendship, but video games sustained it. He had a Nintendo, with an ecclectic collection of games that I took to immediately, and that served an immediate purpose: friendships need something to do, particularly friendships between young people, and that was that. We never seemed to get bored with them. They were with us for years to come.

It was evident from the start that Brac's home life was significantly different from my own. In my house, things were generally orderly - sometimes cluttered, but with a system, nice and clean. Dinner was on the table at a pre-ordained time, and if you had other plans, you were expected to make it known. Meals were home-made. We sat down at the dinner table, said, "please pass the salt", and we talked about our days. It wasn't military-discipline, as I realize now that I might be making it seem, and it wasn't quite the Cleavers, but it was nice, organized, pleasant.

Brac's situation was a world apart. His house, was drab, perpetually in need of a paint job, with cracked furniture, shitty silverware, raggedy carpet - hell, Brac still slept in a bunk bed. This led me at first to the conclusion that his family didn't have a lot of money, but that wasn't it. The house, despite its general crappiness, boasted a magnificent in-ground pool in the fenced-in back yard, the TV was of the sort you saw on display in the electronics store with a price tag in the thousands, the car his dad drove was a beat-up Mercedes. That actually said a lot about them. His father was a lawyer for Dow, and made deep six-figures. They were rich, but looking at their house, you would have never noticed it, unless you were looking quite closely.

The negligence which allowed for this state went beyond their home. I actually spent weeks hanging around with Brac after school before I ever saw either of his parents. His father was never around, perpetually away on some business trip or another, and his mom, though unemployed, seemed to spend most of her time in her room, lying in bed, eating ice cream, watching soap operas, and reading romance novels. She was morbidly obese, and lived a sedentary a life as I have ever encountered. Needless to say, this did not strike me as a particularly enviable existence.

Meals at Brac's household were by and large fend-for-yourself. The cabinets and fridge remained perpetually stocked with TV dinners, canned pasta, bread and sandwich materials, general easy-to-cook foodstuffs. The microwave saw a lot of use, and had probably seen better days. It amused Brac to no end that I would unfailingly call home to tell my parents that I wouldn't be home for dinner, whenever I was eating at his place. And my parents were more than a little surprised the first time Brac ate over at our place, and assured them that a call home wasn't necessary. A home-cooked meal was unheard of in his house. Prior to dinner with my family, Brac had never once eaten apple pie.

I picked up quickly and intuitively that the fact that Brac's father was never around was not necessarily a bad thing. It was a mixture of a few things, really, that turned me on to it: the tone of his voice when he announced that his dad would be home for a few days, his reluctance to hang out at his house when that was the case, even just the relative rarity with which he talked about him. For a time he tried to work it such that we didn't have to meet, but we had become close enough friends, and were in each others' proximity often enough, that that wasn't possible to sustain forever. And the very day we did meet, it became abundantly clear why Brac's attitude toward him had beeen, as I had put it, a little "off".

Brac's dad was a colossal, abusive prick.

Now, the word I have just used is not one that easily rolls off the keyboard and into the screen, nor is it a concept that I bandy about lightly. And yet when I am talking about abuse, in this specific case, I am not using it in the context in which it is more frequently used. To my knowledge, there was no physical or sexual abuse taking place in Brac's household, and I'd like to think that I'd have known about it if there were. And for years, I must admit, when I heard about the Triumvirate of categories of abuse (Physical, sexual, emotional), I had long considered Emotional Abuse to be somewhat of a bastard stepchild of the abuse family, one that barely even merited recognition in the same category. I don't feel that way any more.

I would certainly never want to make light of the perils of physical or sexual abuse, or to state that emotional abuse - "making someone feel bad" as someone might callously put it - is in the same category when it comes to severity. But it is certainly abuse. After meeting Brac's father, there was no doubt.

There is a difficulty inherent in the description of any form of emotional abuse, because its essential nature revolves not around specific, horrific behavior, but in the never-ending flood of criticism, yelling, screaming, and generally doing everything in one's power to convince someone that they are a piece of shit not worthy of the oxygen they are consuming. That was how Brac felt, day in and day out, when his father was around. Brac's father wasn't loud, as a general rule (although I witnessed a few screaming fits, they were rare), but he was just plain mean. Brac got good grades - as good as mine - but all his father ever talked about were the bad ones. He played in sports, and although he was big for a kid his age, Brac was in much better shape than his parents, but they consistently called him fat, a lard-ass, a piggy. His interest in computers and technology made him a geek, a loser, someone who would never get a girlfriend. In all the years I knew him, I never once heard his father give him a single word of praise.

This was a stark contrast to how his father dealt with Brac's older sister. Brac was actually the youngest of three siblings; the eldest, a daughter named Jo, was already out of college by the time that Brac and I started hanging out, but the few times I met her, she seemed pretty, nice, successful, and well-adjusted. The middle sister, Dori, was in High School, a year below my brother, and I knew her well. She was, in simple terms, a skank, a ho, and a slut These are three distinct, often overlapping, but not concentric, categories. She was a skank because she dressed in a trashy manner, pretty much all the time. She was a ho, as she calculated pretty much everything she did on the scale of what sexual effect it would have on the males around her. And she was a slut, because she had sex with a lot of boys. She was continuously doing drugs, disrespecting her family, and in general making a nuisance out of herself, and yet, never once did Brac's father speak ill of her. That was all reserved for the son, the disappointment that didn't allow for the father to cheer in the football stadium with bragging cries of "that's my boy!", the endless disappointment, the nerdy, bespectacled, shy, brilliant kid.

Ah yes. Brac was brilliant. I have met some smart people in my time, but venture a guess that Brac was probably the smartest. Things just came naturally to him. He got concepts. He was damn near a prodigal chess player, and despite all the games we played, I could never once even begin to touch him. He had a memory like nothing human. Concepts like calculus didn't even begin to challenge his intellect. By Senior Year, we had fallen out of friendship, and he wasn't exactly the most conscientious student, but still took Calculus with me, and aced it, effortlessly. All while his father did his utmost to convince him that he was a piece of shit.

Against this backdrop, video games were a welcome distraction, and the degree to which we were able to build our friendship around them opened my eyes to a quality of video games that I had never really appreciated: their theraputic power, their nerve-calming ability, their essence as the perfect time-waster in situations where the wasting of time is a necessity. It was the video games that kept him as level as he was for so long, and while his story isn't perfect, I am convinced that without the consistent distraction that the games provided us, they could have been much worse.

Brac got a 486 at some point in Junior High, and because of it, we played many a game over at his place, in his room. We played through Betrayal at Krondor, an excellent, under-appreciated RPG set in Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar fantasy universe, all the way to completion. It was through him that I discovered Civilization, a game we played for days on end. And then, of course, there was the Nintendo, and a new game rented pretty much every week, from the local corner store, who he swore (and in retrospect was probably correct) that was run by a gay guy that was dating the gay tenth grade English teacher.

Eventually, we fell out. He became depressed enough (through his father's influence, I'm convinced), to eventually try suicide, once, in earnest. He slit his wrist, and came within millimeters from the major artery. That was more than I knew how to deal with. It upset me, and caused tension between us, that was ultimately exacerbated when he discovered marijuana and became pretty much a full-fledged stoner. Even as a stoner, he did relatively well in school, but he was no fun to hang out with when he was high, which, in High School, was a lot. We stopped hanging out. We found other friends. And so it fizzled, as friendships and relationships so often do.

I look back on the years we spend as pretty much exclusive best friends with longing, with wonder at the intellect he portrayed, with respect for how he carried himself for years in a terrible situation, and with hope that he would right himself. Apparently he has. He has moved to Iowa, gotten married, had kids, and us a successful chiaropractor. We don't stay in touch. But occasionally I look up his company's web site. The picture brings up a lot of memories.

It was interesting, then, how much video games played a part in the maintenance of our friendship. Ultimately, I think it was somewhere during this time that I truly became a gamer, interested in the upcoming games, looking forward to my ability to sit down and play them. It was a suble transition, and slow, but it was through my friendship with Brac that it ultimately happened.

My Life's Addiction, Part 3: The 386/SX 25

My parents have always been neurotic, almost psychotic about ensuring that they never show favoritism between either of their children. I can't think of anything offhand that would trigger it to the depths that they go to, since my mom was an only child and my dad's younger brother was like 12 years his junior, but it exists nonetheless. Certainly better than the alternative, it's still a trait they tend to take too far. A couple of months ago, they gave my brother and sister-in-law their hand-me-down fifth wheel, and tried to tell me that they were intending to gift me something of an equal value. I actually had to tell them, "Look, my brother is married, with two kids, and his wife isn't working because of them. I am single, and I make more than he does anyway. I'm considering blowing four grand on a laptop I don't really need, but definitely want. He can use your help. I don't particularly need it."

Back in my formative years, however, the nobility of that impulse was certainly overridden by a discernable practical streak, coupled with the knowledge that my means were somewhat more limited. Thus, when I was getting to the Junior High School sort of age, when my parents announced that they were going to buy me a computer, as they had done for my brother when he made it to Junior High, I certainly didn't even think of raising an objection. Hey. I could use a computer.

This was not the early eighties any more, though, and in the years since our original computer purchase, the world had advanced, more than a bit. The PC revolution was just now gaining steam, and the 386 was a relatively new chipset from that hotshot company that everyone involved in technological stuff was talking about: Intel. It didn't take long to figure out that that was the kind of computer that I would want.

The OS was DOS 5.0, if I recall correctly, and it ran Windows 3.0, though I learned very quickly to eschew the cutesy Mac-like interface unless it was absolutely necessary. I took to the computer like a duck to water. We located it in the basement, on an old card table, and in the years to come, that basement was to become my office, through High School and beyond. I staked it and claimed it as my own; my brother, now in High School, would have to find a different place to run with the girls he was starting to date to find a little privacy. The basement was mine. It made for the perfect solution. Its properties included:

- Being finished, so it resembled a proper room, with carpet and everything, an appropriate place to entertain friends and, later, of course, girls.

- A couch with a hide-a-bed, where I would sleep in the summer (it got hot up in my room; my parents were frugal when it came to A/C), and upon which, shall we say, more than a few makeout sessions would eventually be held.

- Housed the ping-pong table that my parents bought at some point, and that I nearly wore out. I was an absolute fiend when it came to the game; it wasn't until College that I would run into anyone that could remotely challenge me at the game. The table also proved to be an ideal surface on which to play the large, complicated board games that I would eventually come to favor. Many an empire was raised and crushed on that thing.

- A phone line and cable connection, so I could hook up a TV (with the Nintendo, of course), talk with friends, and eventually connect to the Internet.

Of course, I did actually use the computer for its original intended purpose. I was a good student, and I'm sure my teachers appreciated the nice, double-spaced, spell-checked papers and reports. But everyone in the household by then knew that the computer's primary use would be as a vehicle for games. My parents didn't necessarily approve, but by then I was working two paper routs, making over $100 a month. Since all my necessary expenses were paid for, that money kept me in all the games I needed, with cash left over.

Strangely enough, I don't remember much about the specific games which occupied my time. I had been into D&D for a while, more as an observer than a participant, but still naturally gravitated to the many D&D-based RPGs out there. The ones that stand out most in my brain are the two "Eye of the Beholder" games. I also got into Ultima, having played III and IV for the Nintendo, and VI on the PC (later iterations on later computers). I also specifically remember "Ultima Underworld" and its sequel, groundbreaking technological achievements that haven't gotten nearly enough ink over the years.

That doesn't sound like much, and there were in fact other games, but those were all long RPGs and I played each and every one of them to completion. It's not hard to burn through a few years like that.

My Life's Addiction, Part 2: The NES

I was late to the NES scene. I couldn’t tell you why, except to state the obvious, which is that my parents didn’t buy me one, and it took me a long time to ask. I knew about Nintendo, of course, playing it over at friends houses, but it wasn’t until about the sixth grade that I finally told my parents that that’s what I wanted for Christmas.

I was, believe it or not, a fairly normal kid when it came to my Nintendo, which is to say that I played it a lot, that I rented just about any game I could get my hands on, and that when I got together with my friends, more often than not, in the years when the Nintendo was in, that's what we would do. But my obsession wasn't really what you would call "hardcore" - not for years, at least.

Because the natural flow of any section dealing with my NES would be rather chronologically asymmetrical, as compared to the sprawling memoirs that compose the rest of it, I have decided that it will be nothing more than a run-down of titles that I remember playing, over the years and years to come.

I start with the two games I asked my parents to buy for me upon their buying the Nintendo, and follow with others, in alphabetical order:

Legacy of the Wizard, an unusually engaging side-scrolling adventure. I remember the game surprisingly vividly. You had five different characters, all members of a family (including the pet, a goofy little dinosaur), and each one of them has different special abilities (the daughter can jump higher than anyone, the father is stronger and can move stuff, the pet does not get attacked), and had to use each of their abilities to retrieve crowns from four different quadrants of the map; once done, the young son could use a sword to kill the main boss. It was unusually complex for a NES game, and the map was simply massive.

The Guardian Legend, an action/adventure hybrid between a top-down spaceship shoot-‘em-up, and a Zelda-style ¾ view shooter. Most of what I remember about the game was how bloody hard it was; putting most contemporary action games to shame, beating many of the bosses in the spaceship game required some crazy freakin’ skill, and the final fight was nigh unto impossible.

Others:

Astayanax: A generic side-scrolling adventure game with a title that rolls off the tongue. I remember this game mostly for its graphics, which were excellent for the time.

Bionic Commando: My friend Brac owned this one, and I remember it as being hard to get used to, and still a difficult game once you did. It was far more "adult" than most NES games, with some surprisingly graphic violence and even the occasional light swear word. Mostly, though, it was that damn bionic arm, used to climb, swing, and jump, that made the game memorable.

A Boy and his Blob: I remember this game as a brief rental that I didn’t really get all that much enjoyment out of, despite a lot of hype and popularity with the magazines like Nintendo Power. You had a blob that followed you around and that you could feed all different sorts of jelly beans to in order to give it different characteristics. Somehow, though, it still always seemed to come off as an overly cutesy knock-off of Mario.

California Games: I don’t remember much about this one, except that a friend of a friend owned it and I kicked all kinds of ass at the hackey sack. I had all the moves down pat.

Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest: I never played the original Castlevania, but the sequel kept me entertained for quite some time. Large but a little repetitious, I remember the different endings you could unlock based on how quickly you completed the game.

Conflict: A non-descript modern turn-based strategy game that I remember renting with my friend Kevin, that held our interest for an afternoon and no longer. I remember that it was cool to send tanks around the map, and that the map was made out of hexes, which I hadn’t seen before.

Crystalis: A futuristic action-RPG reminiscent of Zelda that has become a bit of a cult classic. I remember I rented this one and kept it long after its due date to finish it. I remember that it had a whacked-out post-apocalyptic story that was incredibly complex. My dad always liked to take an interest in what I was playing, and I remember futile attempts to explain the story to him

Shadowgate: Now this was an interesting game. I remember this game for its UI, which I had never really seen before; a series of still shots, where you could move from room to room, dissolving one picture to another, to simulate moving through a castle, solving puzzles, and collecting items and weapons. It worked surprisingly well, though the puzzles largely involved trial and error. In retrospect, maybe what I should have remembered are the graphic descriptions of various deaths, including the possibility for suicide. This was actually a very dark game. It spawned a quasi-sequel in Déjà vu, which incorporated the same gameplay mechanics to a Noir gumshoe setting about a detective that has lost his memory, played very similarly.

Destiny of an Emperor: Now here’s how you can tell if someone was a bona fide NES aficionado. Ask them if they’ve played, or even beaten, Destiny of an Emperor, the sprawling, complex RPG that, while superficially reminiscent of Final Fantasy, is much more intricate and much more difficult. It was set in feudal China, and your main characters were generals; the fights, instead of duels with monsters, were battles with enemy or rebel armies, and there were something like 150 different generals to recruit. This was a true classic. While I never owned it, Brac did; we killed weeks at a time playing nothing but it.

Dr. Mario: A hip Tetris alternative, gameplay in the 2 player version of this one was fast and furious. More strategy was required than a lot of people thought; this was a surprisingly intricate game.

Dragon Warrior: Despite its popularity, I never really got into the Dragon Warrior series, though I played most of the versions. It was probably the bare fact that I found Final Fantasy first, and Dragon Warrior just seemed tame in comparison.

Faxanadu: A fairly generic side-scrolling RPG that never really took me in. Seemed sort of lame.

Final Fantasy: Of course. This was one of the games that I owned, and I have remained a strong aficionado of the Final Fantasy series. This is one of the few NES games that I still play, from time to time, on my emulator. It’s actually still pretty fun, particularly when you speed it way up. I still remember the endless level grinding around Elftown, fighting Ogres and Creeps, saving up for all the cool stuff you could buy there. My best FF1 accomplishment? Beating the game with 4 black belts ("Monks" in the re-releases, they’ll always be "black belts" to me). A timeless classic.

Jackal: A fairly generic top-down action game where you were in control of a with a machine gun (if I remember right), this was a very hard game, better with 2 players. My parents rented it for me when I was fasting for hernia surgery, and I played it non-stop.

Kid Icarus: This game got a lot of hype, but kind of fizzled for me. Seemed like a lame cousin to Metroid. This game made IGN’s "top 100 games of all time" at #84, 4 spots better than Warcraft II. Fucking sacrilege.

The Legend of Zelda: Of course. Surprisingly, I wasn’t as into Zelda as a lot of the hard-core geek squad, but I certainly got my enjoyment out of it. Enough has been written about this for anything more I say to be superfluous, except to point out that I may be the only person on earth that played the sequel more than the original.

Legendary Wings: A forgettable scrolling shooter, with vertical and horizontal levels. One rental, a few plays.

Lemmings: Oh man, the memories. Lemmings was one of the all time classics, though I played the PC version more than that for the NES. Still, the degree to which it required you to use abstract thought to guide your precious lemmings to safety is one of the great game design feats of all time.

M.U.L.E.: Revolutionary. What a fascinating game. I don’t think I ever played it that much, but I remember, even as a kid, admiring the game to an extreme degree. And it had perhaps the most memorable opening music ever committed to a game. Want to know what kinds of geeks my friends and I were in high school? We developed a multi-part rendition, with melody and harmony, to that music, in our spare time in band class.

The Magic of Scheherazade: All I remember thinking is, lame Zelda ripoff with bright, bright, bright, bright colors. The pain!

Marble Madness: An all-time classic. Who didn’t play this game? It’s been imitated many times, but the original is still the best.

Mega Man: Back in the day, I could have told you the difference between Mega Man and its numerous sequels; which bosses you had to fight; what the best order was; what the comparative difficulties were. Today, I just remember the concept, and that fucking skin-tight blue suit and helmet. In truth an entertaining but forgettable series of games.

Metal Gear: The original Metal Gear was a little revolutionary (not a lot) in that it was structured like a shooter but forced you to rely more on stealth and subterfuge. The concept was cool, and the game did it some justice, although the translation was positively horrible. Everyone knows the series that the game spawned, and the forward-thinking, anti-nuclear storyline it has championed, but having played the original is still a sign of esoteric street cred. I remember the damn jungles. All the squares looked the same!

Metroid: A classic, probably the best game released for the Nintendo. What set Metroid apart from any other game was the sheer fluidity of the control. Samus Aran was an extension of your body. That was the strength of the game then, and it continues to be, with the numerous and successful sequels (the best is still Super Metroid for the SNES)

Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!: I list the Mike Tyson version because it was the first harsh lesson in using a likeness without permission that the gaming industry received. What innocent times back then, when a company could release a game that featured the likeness of the heavyweight champion of the world, and not bother to ask him for permission! The game itself was pretty good, though a little repetitious, but it will live in infamy for what is perhaps the clearest likeness rights snafu of all time.

Ninja Gaiden: If you were looking for the quality side scrollers, you had to look no further than the Ninja Gaiden series, which featured the smoothest control, and the most heart-pumping action and boss fights, of anything available for the NES. It and its numerous sequels (two of which came out on the NES as well) have rightly earned a spot as one of the all-time game franchises, largely because of the quality of the original title.

Paperboy: Kind of a lame game that my parents bought for me because they thought it would be funny – since I was, in real life, a paperboy. Amusing for the first 15 minutes, with no reason to play it again, ever.

Pipe Dream: A whacked out puzzle game where you laid pipes down on a field, given a small amount of time before sludge started to flow. The goal was to last as long as you could. It was weirdly addictive. I remember renting this one several times.

Prince of Persia: I played the original PC version, and remember being disappointed with the NES port. Still, the franchise has lived on.

R.C. Pro-Am: A surprisingly good racing game, worth a couple of rentals. I never understood the purpose of a video game about R.C. cars (what’s the difference between that and a video game about real cars?) but the game worked, so I rolled with it. I remember I could routinely kick my brother’s ass.

River City Ransom: Fuck Double Dragon, which I played, but didn’t include here because it sucked. River City Ransom was where it was at. This was the penultimate scrolling fight game, with character attributes you could apply experience points to, and a ton of moves to learn. This game rocked. I remember playing it for days on end.

Rygar: A side-scroller most memorable for the whacked-out weapon you used, a shield with a chain attached to it. Ported from an arcade game. Not actually that good of a game, as I remember. There was a PS2 version released that updated the same concept, and I don’t think it did very well.

Silent Service: This was actually one of the first games I played on the PC, a tactical sub battle game that required a decent amount of brainpower and math skills to master. Strangely, though, I don’t remember much of the details.

Skate or Die: The original Skate or Die was decent, but its sequel had about the most addictive half pipe mode ever created. Brac and I rented this and kept it way past the due date, shooting for McTwist after McTwist.

Smash TV: An arcade port most notable for the way that it allowed you to use both NES controllers in single player. It didn’t work that well but it was a noble effort.

Snake Rattle n’ Roll: A goofy game in the Marble Madness tradition, worth a rental but little more.

Solstice: This game was one of the few that I actually owned, an esoteric favorite that many people found maddening. Basically an action/puzzle game, you played from an isometric viewpoint and essentially jumped from platform to platform; a simple concept, but the damn thing worked. The music, as well, was incredibly catchy. Its sequel, Equinox, for the SNES, was a substantial disappointment.

Startropics: This game was huge at the time, though I doubt many people remember it. Kind of a Zelda ripoff, I remember it for the fact that, even at the time, I thought it was pandering to its one specific audience by making the hero a star little league pitcher, armed with a yo-yo, from America. Still, the game was immensely playable, and engaged me for a weeklong rental as I took the time and effort to beat it. Its sequel, Zoda’s Revenge, remains unplayed by me (and by most, it appears)

Super Dodge Ball: Now we’re talking. This game was simply awesome. Addictive, with replay value that rivals the best games today. There’s not much to say about it, except that it was a dodge ball sports game, but learning each of the characters and mastering their moves made for an experience that I don’t know has ever been replicated.

Super Spike V’Ball: Passingly amusing, this game had good graphics and decent gameplay, but is most notable for being one of the few NES games that allowed for four players to play at the same time.

Tecmo Bowl: Who didn’t love this game? In addition to being a groundbreaker for sports licensing, it was actually fun, if not a little broken. Who doesn’t remember taking Jerry Rice downtown with a pass from Joe Montana? The sequel, Tecmo Super Bowl, was far superior in every way.

Tetris: Needs no introduction, and though I played far more of the gameboy version, the NES version got some playtime as well.

Track and Field: My friend Chad owned this one. We played it all the time, though I don’t remember liking it very much (Chad and I were also big into Final Fantasy). Most of the events were just button-mashing contests, nullified by Chad’s NESMax controller and its Turbo function. Mostly, I remember tormenting Chad’s younger sister Marci, who, must I say, from recent pictures my parents have shown me, has grown up to be a full-fledged hottie. Weird how that works.

Ultima: Quest of the Avatar: Ultima IV. This was a true groundbreaker, and I remember playing both this, and Ultima III (Exodus) and thinking that the series was really onto something. IV in particular is remembered for the way in which it wove moral dilemmas into a genre known for its black and white, but I like to remember it for its epic story, always forgotten. The Ultima series speaks to me from the past like an old friend, always bringing a smile to my face.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: Most NES games based off of movies were utter disasters, but this one worked, with its cartoonishness working in its favor, and a nice dose of hyperkinetic action. I don’t remember much in the way of specifics, but it seemed like an engaging game.

Willow: What did I say about NES games based off movies being disasters? This game sucked. Muddled, ugly, and uninteresting, there wasn’t anything remotely fun about it. I remember this in particular as a wasted rental.

Wizards and Warriors: This game, and its sequel, Ironsword, were overwrought and stretched the complexity factor to the ragged edge of being fun, but they were admittedly charming in their own way. Come to think of it, I think I actually owned Ironsword, although I never remember playing or replaying it all that much.

The asses are being kicked, the names are being taken

Since my recent wins in PLO tournaments did some nice things to the bankroll, with my New Year's resolution not to donk it all off, I've decided to take a bit of time taking it easy, moving up to a Limit Hold 'em level that I'm still comfortable with (2-4) and not overwhelming myself by trying to play too many tables simultaneously. I really think that, more than anything, has been my problem. I've done well at 4 tabling at times, but my concentration just gets a little lax, and I lose any creativity in my play, as well as any ability to read my opponents. Playing 1 table is a little light for me, unless I'm otherwise distracted by something, since I get bored and start trying to make tilty plays, but 2 is just about right. It gives me enough space to make good decisions, but enough action to keep my brain engaged, as well as decent profitability at that.

So far the endeavor has worked out very nicely, with a good 100BB win or so in the past two days, and counting (yes, I'm playing as I blog). Up over $300 yesterday, and so far up well over $100 today, it's a tiny sample size but I don't feel like I've been running particularly hot. The competition has rather been BAD. I mean, very bad. Spectacularly bad. (Insert superlative adverb here) bad. I've been playing fairly snug poker with the occasional creative outburst, and it's worked to perfection, despite some real clunkers for beats. I'm going to stick around at this level for at least a few hundred more dollars, then maybe take a shot at 3/6.

Kent Hovind, prison bitch

So, Kent Hovind was sentenced to his prison term this past Friday for what has been an adult lifetime of Lying for Jesus and raking in all the profit he can get his hands on, while doing his best to conceal his earnings from the IRS. Over the years, this charlatan has failed to pay over $800,000 in employee taxes, living a life of luxury while maintaining the illusion that he is but a humble servant of God.

The most telling quote in that article is as follows:

“If it’s just money the IRS wants, there are thousands of people out there who will help pay the money they want so I can go back out there and
preach,” Hovind said.

How ... interesting ... that he would put the burden on his "followers" rather than, I don't know, actually paying the friggin' taxes himself!

So typically like the self-proclaimed "righteous" to duck all personal responsibility when it comes to existing in society. This guy is a loon (I mean, many his arguments against evolution are so stupid that other YEC orgs, notably Answers in Genesis, have actually told him to STFU in the past), who failed to pay taxes for years, who claimed to have no incomes despite owning a lucrative business (his "Dr. Dino" theme park), and who actively and maliciously attempted to hide assets from the IRS. It doesn't get much more slam-dunk than that. In this case, his coup de grace was actually talking about his crimes on the prison telephone system! Sign this man up for MENSA right away...

And yet all his sheep seem to jump out of the woodwork at the news and talk about how wonderful a person he is. The commenters on the article I've linked to are truly frightening - mindless robots whose brains have been completely shut off. The ease with which so many people buy into the dominionist mindset does not bode well for one's faith in humanity.

Irony #1: one of the reasons that all of these loons shun science, evolution, secularism, etc., is that they believe that these things drive humanity against God, and that without God, humanity is necessarily destined for depravity and immorality. And yet, when one of their own is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to behave in a depraved and immoral way, they are oh-so quick to rush to their defense. The Religious Wrong lunatics are already coming out of the woodwork to call him a martyr.

Irony #2: Isn't it interesting how so many of these antigovernment types are so hawkish when it comes to bombing the infidels? I have one of them that works in the plant with me - an electrician who has gotten into trouble with the IRS, who has bought the lie that the federal income tax amendment was never ratified, and who passionately supports the war in Iraq, but who doesn't think he should have to pay taxes. Um WTF? One wonders how we would afford the war in Iraq if not with tax money.

A commentator on a blog I refuse to link to puts it nice and succinctly:

He didn’t pay taxes…
So he didn’t give the government its money.
So this money cannot be used, for example, to found the war in Iraq
So in fact, this man didn’t support the soldiers and worse! deprives them of money to buy supplies to win the war!
He is clearly a terrorist!

Sad fact #1: Hovind's wife, Jo, while clearly not a bastion of intellect and rationality, appears to be as much of a victim in this as you'll find as her crime seems to consist mostly of buying into the Biblical lie about the subserviant role of women. She committed crimes, but no doubt at her husband's behest, and while she might be a good candidate for cult deprogramming, probably doesn't deserve to be in prison. She will be sentenced on March 1.

Irony #3: Isn't it weird how these Jesus-happy hypocrite liars just hapen to shed light on the appeal inherent in believing that there is a Hell?

Thankfully, I don't need an imaginary place of eternal punishment to see that justice is done, since, despite my libertarian tendencies, I support the right of the federal government to prosecute and imprison those that fail to pay taxes. Ten years of actual Hell is much more appropriate, in this case, than an eternity in an imaginary one.

The smartest move in the history of mankind

So, I've been in Texas for around 2.5 years now, and was still on my Wisconsin driver's license. What can I say, I'm a procrastinator like that, and don't have a history of being pulled over, so I never really consider it that big of a deal. The WI license was valid until 2012, and I was fully prepared to still be on it when I moved back up to WI, hopefully later this year.

Unfortunately, on my recent trip out to Florida, then to Houston, my driver's license was lost. When I go through security at the airport, I like to empty my pockets completely, into the small pouch of my usual carry-on backpack, and only carry my driver's license and boarding pass through the metal detector. It expedites the process and makes me perhaps not a pro, but at least a top-seeded amateur, when it comes to getting through airport security.

However, on this particular trip, for some reason I forgot to switch my license back into my wallet, and therefore kept it in the front pocket of my khaki pants. You can see where this is going. It fell out. I've conceded that it is lost forever, probably in the hands of some geeky-looking 18 year old that is using it to buy beer.

That wasn't the smartest move in the history of mankind to which my post ever-so-sarcastically refers. The smartest move in the history of mankind comes in my efforts to get my TX driver's licence to replace it.

Okay, so I had prepared by studying online exactly what documentation is required in TX to get my licence. I have decided that this is roughly equivalent to the documentation required to buy a multinational corporation, or to marry Donald Trump. Regardless, I was determined, and gathered the requisite paperwork:

1) Iron-clad proof of my identity, either a birth certificate + gov't issue photo id, or a valid US Passport. Check. I have the latter, the passport I applied for back when I was 19 and went with my parents and sister-in-law to the British Virgin Islands. It's old, but passports are good for 10 years, so it was still valid.

2) Social Security card. Check.

3) Documentation proving financial responsibility for my vehicle. Check. I have the title application receipt.

4) Proof of TX insurance. Check. I keep this in my car, of course.

I felt prepared, and indeed, that aspect of the license application proved to be without travail. The only fly in the ointment was, the fact that I didn't have a driver's license on me, which made me afraid that I would have to take the test, both written and driving. I had yesterday off, so I was prepared to make a day of it, but that did present the dilemma of, how to get to the DMV place. Understand that we don't have a proper DMV like most actual cities; we have a tiny corner office that is shared with the state patrol office, where one clerk handles everything, and takes 11:00 thru 12:30 off every day for lunch.

Now, what I was thinking was, do I really want to be DRIVING into the parking lot of this tiny office, which is shared with the state patrol office, and saying to the clerk, "Hi, I don't have a driver's license!"? That didn't seem appealing. Particularly if I had to take the driving test, and we were to want to use my car, at which point, I would point out, "yes, I drove here, but I am not legally actually allowed to drive at the moment because I don't have an actual driver's license on me". That didn't seem smart. I needed an alternative.

This is what led to the smartest move in the history of mankind.

I walked. Hey, I need the exercise anyway, and how hard could it be? It was just walking!

Not realizing of course that it was a full five miles, each way. Ouch.

Now, I'm way out of shape, but I can still handle going ten miles in a single day, at least as far as endurance is concerned. The problem came when I decided to wear my tennis shoes, which I have since decided, are not fitting me so well any more. So by the time I made it there, I was thinking, "Omigod my feet hurt!"

Getting the license itself proved not to be a problem in the least. The clerk was able to pull up my WI information and I didn't have to take any tests at all, just fill out some forms, and solemnly swear that my WI license was lost, and that I hadn't given it to a geeky-looking underaged buddy to use to go and buy beer (even though that's probably what it is being used for, it really is lost).

On the way back, all I could keep repeating to myself was "Great idea man, really brilliant. Why couldn't you have driven to the Subway across the street, parked there, and walked over to the DMV office from there?! You would be home by now, and playing video games!"

I wasn't so much exhausted when I made it home, though I had worked up a bit of a sweat, as I was in *pain*. My feet were throbbing like you don't know what. I pulled off my shoes with relief, and pulled off my socks with trepidation, worried at how bad the sight was going to be.

It was bad. The backs of both of my heels had massive blisters that had already popped, causing much pain in my achilles area (my right heel actually had two blisters, fraternal twins, each close to a nickel in size). There are random blisters spread around on areas of my sole, and the "ring toe" of each foot is pretty bad. The left foot's "ring toe" in particular is basically one giant blister. My socks were soaked with the pus. It was nasty, nasty, nasty.

I collapsed in bed not long after. I didn't even have the willpower to get up and eat dinner, so I wound up going without. Needless to say, I was not quite prepared for my little impromptu 10 mile walk.

Today I had to come into work, so I've been limping around, in more or less constant pain. This crap might be funny, but it sure isn't fun.

Smartest decision EVER...

ASOIAF on HBO

So, I just posted a "holy shit" earlier today regarding the fact that HBO has optioned George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. That is truly exciting news. For the past several years, since discovering it, this has quickly become my favorite series of books of all time, even better, in my mind, than The Lord of the Rings (and that's not a statement I make lightly). Since I started reading it I've recognized the effectiveness that the story would hfilave on the screen. The way that it's structured has the perfect natural ebb and flow of what works on screen, and a great deal of the dialogue can be copied verbatim. Should it go forward (and with it simply being optioned, it certainly isn't a done deal at this point), Martin will take an active role in its production, including penning at least one episode, which is good news (Martin has a background in teleplay writing)

The books are far too long to get the Lord of the Rings treatment, films for the big screen. The LOTR movies cut quite a bit of stuff out, and still take 12 hours for the extended versions over three movies. That's a full 12 hour season on HBO (where an hour is actually an hour of screen time), and the ASOIAF books are much longer than LOTR (A Storm of Swords, the third book, has more words than the entire LOTR trilogy).

Speculation over on the A Song of Ice and Fire boards has long since come to a consensus that the right way to do it would be to do exactly what is being done; an HBO series with an entire season devoted to each book.

The release said that the plan is to film it in either Europe or New Zealand, and that makes for a big difference. My guess is that if it's done on Europe, it'll be a large stage production ala Rome, probably even utilizing the set that was built for Rome (I've heard that that set is the largest ever created), but still with plenty of countryside locations for location shots. If it's done in New Zealand, it will be largely location, like LOTR. I think I favor the Europe approach, since so much of the series takes place in King's Landing and Winterfell, and the set would be perfect for those locations. But New Zealand would be perfect for the Arya stuff, the countryside shots.

Just thinking about how awesome that series could be if it's done right just sends chills down my spine. If everything goes through and they make it at least through the third season, there are going to be tears at the Red Wedding.

Pretty damn exciting.

The Alienware

The new computer rocks. Alienware Aurora m9700 with 2GB of RAM, 1GB of GPU memory (2 512MB separate GPU's), a 17" widescreen monitor with 1920x1200 resolution (that be four poker windows with no overlap, biotch!), all sorts of nice goodies, with a nice new laser mouse and some fly headphones. I'm now sitting in my living room with it on my lap, watching The Two Towers on my HDTV while downloading updates for Final Fantasy XI, so as to get everything up to date. It's pretty nice.

So far I have installed Medieval II: Total War, Half Life 2, and FFXI. I ran a test game of M2TW; on the highest graphics settings it ran flawlessly, and that's just about the crown prince of system requirements at the moment. This is quickly going to become my primary PC, I can tell.

Unfortunately I have to work tomorrow; but then I get Friday off, and then get to transition to a 4-on 4-off schedule of 12 hour shifts, which actually isn't that bad at all (it translates to just about a 40 hour work week, and you get 4 days off in a row). I'm in the process of translating back to a front shift - it sucks, because I get tomorrow, then the day off, then 4 days of fronts, and then I get to fucking go back to backs. But whatever, it beats the many many consecutive days of 12's that we've been seeing recently.

Hopefully the coverage on this machine won't last all that much longer. It's actually starting to run, experiencing mostly process problems, nothing much electrical. Should be boring days. That's preferable, I think, to the other option.

But the computer rocks. I'm loving it. About the only bad thing I've noted about it so far is that the battery isn't going to last very long - probably not long enough even for a full length movie on a plane trip - but you can't have everything. A pooter this powerful is gonna suck up the juice.

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it. Woohoo!!!

Holy shit

My Alienware laptop arrived today, and I am now blogging from it. Let me simply say that this thing rocks. Hard.

And...

Holy shit!
Holy fuck!
Holy fucking shit!
Holy piss!
Holy balls!
Also...
Holy shit!!!!!

They're making an HBO Series out of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire!!!!!

Holy shit!

Best. Day. Ever.

On fire!

Holy crap! I don't even consider myself a very good pot limit Omaha player, but maybe I should start playing in more tournaments! I joined a $10+1 today on Stars, PLO, with 134 people, and scored my second straight deep cash, finishing 2nd (and I should have won, truth be told)

Some pivotal hands:

So I was off to a pretty good start and wound up with this crazy hand:

PokerStars Game #7964738438: Tournament #40451476, $10+$1 Omaha Pot Limit - Level VII (150/300) - 2007/01/16 - 04:17:02 (ET)
Table '40451476 15' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: colossusone (8680 in chips)
Seat 2: Tomison (6180 in chips)
Seat 3: CD Can (11455 in chips)
Seat 4: XBaDxKiTTyX (2750 in chips)
Seat 6: specialk3311 (1850 in chips)
Seat 7: gdshaffer (8880 in chips)
Seat 8: TheProphesy1 (8020 in chips)
Seat 9: BUCSFANCOLIN (12725 in chips)
gdshaffer: posts small blind 150
TheProphesy1: posts big blind 300
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to gdshaffer [Kc 7c Kd Td]
BUCSFANCOLIN said, "nh"
BUCSFANCOLIN: raises 600 to 900
colossusone: calls 900
CD Can said, "thanks"
CD Can said, "set vs set"
Tomison: folds
CD Can: folds
XBaDxKiTTyX: folds
specialk3311: folds
gdshaffer: raises 3000 to 3900
TheProphesy1: folds
BUCSFANCOLIN: calls 3000
colossusone: calls 3000
*** FLOP *** [9d 2c 7d]
gdshaffer: bets 4980 and is all-in
BUCSFANCOLIN: calls 4980
colossusone: calls 4780 and is all-in
*** TURN *** [9d 2c 7d] [2s]
*** RIVER *** [9d 2c 7d 2s] [3s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
gdshaffer: shows [Kc 7c Kd Td] (two pair, Kings and Deuces)
BUCSFANCOLIN: shows [Tc 9c Js Qs] (two pair, Nines and Deuces)
gdshaffer collected 400 from side pot
colossusone: shows [4h Ad Jd 9h] (two pair, Nines and Deuces)
gdshaffer collected 26340 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 26740 Main pot 26340. Side pot 400. Rake 0
Board [9d 2c 7d 2s 3s]
Seat 1: colossusone showed [4h Ad Jd 9h] and lost with two pair, Nines and Deuces
Seat 2: Tomison folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: CD Can folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: XBaDxKiTTyX folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: specialk3311 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: gdshaffer (small blind) showed [Kc 7c Kd Td] and won (26740) with two pair, Kings and Deuces
Seat 8: TheProphesy1 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: BUCSFANCOLIN showed [Tc 9c Js Qs] and lost with two pair, Nines and Deuces

Heh. 2 callers with an overpair on a board of 927. I was sure I was a goner. But they held up, and that hand made me a substantial leader.

I rode the wave for a while until it was heads up, then hit the following hand:

PokerStars Game #7965319987: Tournament #40451476, $10+$1 Omaha Pot Limit - Level XV (2000/4000) - 2007/01/16 - 06:17:36 (ET)
Table '40451476 15' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 7: gdshaffer (134136 in chips)
Seat 8: TheProphesy1 (66864 in chips)
gdshaffer: posts small blind 2000
TheProphesy1: posts big blind 4000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to gdshaffer [Kd Qd 3c Ks]
gdshaffer: raises 4000 to 8000
TheProphesy1: raises 12000 to 20000
gdshaffer: raises 40000 to 60000
TheProphesy1 said, "u got me i think"
TheProphesy1 said, "but lets just stick it in lol"
TheProphesy1: raises 6864 to 66864 and is all-in
gdshaffer: calls 6864
*** FLOP *** [Qc 2c 6d]
gdshaffer said, "lol"
*** TURN *** [Qc 2c 6d] [Jc]
*** RIVER *** [Qc 2c 6d Jc] [9h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
TheProphesy1: shows [5c Qs Ah Qh] (three of a kind, Queens)
gdshaffer: shows [Kd Qd 3c Ks] (a pair of Kings)
gdshaffer said, "case q"
TheProphesy1 collected 133728 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 133728 Rake 0
Board [Qc 2c 6d Jc 9h]
Seat 7: gdshaffer (button) (small blind) showed [Kd Qd 3c Ks] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 8: TheProphesy1 (big blind) showed [5c Qs Ah Qh] and won (133728) with three of a kind, Queens

Dammit! 4 cards in the deck he can catch to take the lead, and he catches the case Queen.

I battle back, though, and we're close to even when the match is finished off.

PokerStars Game #7965347769: Tournament #40451476, $10+$1 Omaha Pot Limit - Level XV (2000/4000) - 2007/01/16 - 06:23:45 (ET)
Table '40451476 15' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 7: gdshaffer (93272 in chips)
Seat 8: TheProphesy1 (107728 in chips)
TheProphesy1: posts small blind 2000
gdshaffer: posts big blind 4000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to gdshaffer [2c Qc Qs Jh]
TheProphesy1: calls 2000
gdshaffer: raises 4000 to 8000
TheProphesy1: calls 4000
*** FLOP *** [Tc 3c Jc]
gdshaffer: bets 12000
TheProphesy1: calls 12000
*** TURN *** [Tc 3c Jc] [Ah]
gdshaffer: bets 12000
TheProphesy1: raises 64000 to 76000
gdshaffer: calls 61272 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [Tc 3c Jc Ah] [Th]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
gdshaffer: shows [2c Qc Qs Jh] (a flush, Queen high)
TheProphesy1: shows [Td 4s Qd Ac] (a full house, Tens full of Aces)
gdshaffer said, "gg"
TheProphesy1 collected 186544 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 186544 Rake 0
Board [Tc 3c Jc Ah Th]
Seat 7: gdshaffer (big blind) showed [2c Qc Qs Jh] and lost with a flush, Queen high
Seat 8: TheProphesy1 (button) (small blind) showed [Td 4s Qd Ac] and won (186544) with a full house, Tens full of Aces

Crap!!!! I sucker him in perfectly, get my money in at the perfect time, and the bastard 4-outs me for the boat. Sigh. Still, 2nd place paid $261 (1st was $385) so I can't complain too much.

I think this win puts my online bankroll higher than it's ever been, sadly. I wonder how big it will have to get before I start contemplating withdrawals :)

The variance of poker

So... not too long ago I got disgusted with poker after I overplayed my BR and wound up with ~$45 left in my PokerStars account. After a little self-pity I finally decided, now or never, I'm going to put it all into play. I joined a $30+3 NLHE sit n' go and a $10+1 PLOH8 sit n' go, figuring I'd bust out of both and that would be it for my career at Stars (I really have no desire to redeposit after the law that was passed). I know that's a move that's considered unwise, but I was ready to call it quits at Stars for real, maybe redepositing whenever I felt the desire.

Instead, I won both tournaments, building my backrool back over $200. Nice!

My most recent plan has been to work the low buy-in 1 table sit n' gos, which hasn't gone as well as expected ... I join up to 4 at a time and play all four to completion, before joining up to 4 more. Unfortunately I lost some cash after 50+ tournaments, making me question if I'm good enough to beat the rake in 4 simultaneous tourneys. Taking a break from that, I decide to blow $50 of that bankrool in some multi table tournaments, joining a $20+2 straight up NLHE freezeout, and a $5+0.50+R PLO table, just tonight. It was late, but since I've been on backs, I figure that gives me an edge over most since I've been staying up all night for 5+ days.

It works. I cash in the hold 'em tourney, playing it exceedingly tight and then doubling at some key moments, eventually crashing after I reraise with JJ as a moderate stack and run into KQ, losing the race despite a J flopping (damn straights). Still, I hit about $40 profit, not bad.

Then there's PLO. Things started off poorly, with me dropping below 1500 after my initial buy-in+rebuy, so I rebought, then busted, then rebought twice. After the rebuy, I was in for $30 at, and almost needed to make it past the second bubble to turn a profit. But then this maniac shows up at my table, and just starts donking off his chips, rebuying maybe six or seven times in a very short period of time. I grab a decent chunk of his chips, particularly when he had gotten lucky and doubled up, then reraised into me when I had AAQ9ds. He had 3356, and my hand held up strongly (I think I wound up with Broadway). Eventually the rebuy period ended and he busted out quickly, leaving me with a top 30 stack (there were 274 entrants).

From there the cards just fell right. I busted a guy when I had TT7c3c, flopped a flush draw on something like a K22 flop, he checked, I bet 3/4 pot, he called very quickly, making me think he had a K. Turn was a blank, check/check, he pushed on the river for 11k, and there was over 50k in the pot so I called. The river came a T for my boat - he had actually pushed with AA, surprising me.

Later I caught a set with KKxx vs 99xx on a K93 flop, took a guy for all his chips, cooler for him. That put me top 10.

Two hands after that, I caught AA44 with clubs, raised pot preflop, got action from the button, flop of A35 with a club. I figure if I'm up against 24, that's my tournament, so I push hard. He calls. Turn is the 2c, giving me a wheel with the club draw and top set. I pause, give out a value bet, and the guy pushes, a massive raise. I call all-in and the guy shows a bluff with a naked 4, drawing dead (I caught the flush for good measure). Bad luck for him, it was a creative bluff that pushes me off a lot of the hands I could have there. That hand made me a substantial chip leader.

From there I just rode the wave. I caught cards when I needed to, made a sick calldown with a naked AA on a board that looked threatening (the guy just played the hand too straight, and he was very aggressive), and was the chip leader for most of the tournament from 100 players on. Eventually others caught up with me as I played it fairly tight, then I caught sets against top 2 two out of three hands, getting all-in action on both, pushing me back up to a lead that carried me to the final table. I entered the final table with a slight chip lead, but was able to leverage one great hand (55 with a board of KQ5), once again up against top 2, and another guy that had TJA who I pushed out on the flop with a massive over-the-top, getting all-in and doubling up +50%. The guy was kicking himself when an A came on the river. That was a dominating lead and it only increased for quite a while; at one point I had 2/3 of the chips in play and was raising every hand, but the FT was tough and definitely not playing "move me up" poker, pushing back in many instances where I was forced to let poor hands go. Luckily the guy on my left was the tightest at the table and I was able to steal a lot of his blinds to maintain my lead.

We rocked and rolled down to 2, and I started sweating. The guy I went heads-up with seemed to be the most aggressive of my opponents, and grabbed a lot of heads-up pots early, putting himself in range where a double-up would give him a lead. Then I hit K943 from the big blind, checking after he limped, and getting a flop of K42 with no flush draw. I bet, he raises, I come over the top big (full pot raise), he calls for a third of his stack. Turn is a 5, I bet pot, he calls for most of his stack. River is a T, I check, he pushes, I call. He had KT93, for an identical hand except swapping my 4 for a T. He had most of his money in with 3 outs and sucked out. Grr!!!!!

That gave him the lead, and he won another big one right after. Then I doubled up, and won another big one to give me an 800k/600k lead, and he starts talking about a chop.

Long story short I agree to a 50/50 split, despite my slight lead, as I felt like this guy had an edge, that PLO is a very volatile game, and that the difference between first and second ($1128 to $767) was more variance than I really wanted to stomach, so I agreed. The chop wound up to be $948.16, and frankly, I was relieved. This is my 3rd-highest score ever. I'm exuasted, but can't even think about sleep at this point. Just juiced.

A week and a half ago my bankroll was below $50, now it's back above $1000.

My new new-year's resolution: DON'T DONK IT OFF!!!!!!

My life's addiction, Part 1: The Electronic Babysitter

I can never remember there not being some kind of computer in the house.

Apart from amnesiacs and the occasional vacuum-tube-uber-geek, I am probably one of the oldest people around that can truthfully make that claim. Growing up as a kid of the 80's - born in Kentucky but moving into middle-class-Michigan-ville at the age of two - some of my earliest memories consist of my father bringing home and setting up our family's first computer. The box - a Franklin Ace1200, a Commodore 64 clone. A lethally heavy contraption, huge and magical to my four-year-old eyes, with an attached monochrome green-screen monitor, side-by-side 5.25" floppy drives (a double-decker!), and of course, no internal hard drive, this machine would open me up to a world that, at the age of 28, I have yet to leave.

It's not an exaggeration to say that that computer played an important role in my early development. My dad had bought it largely so that my brother, four years older than me and just starting to hit homework that was challenging him, could type up reports for school and print them out, double-spaced and legible through the wonder of dot matrix technology. Being familiar with them from his work as a chemist (and boring us to death with stories of how computers had revolutionized mass spectroscopy and gas chromatography), he was in early on the secret that computers were the future. And so, in discussion with my mother, my father was able to justify plunking down a couple thousand dollars of early-80's money to the local computer store downtown, and, with no help at all, plug it in and set up the CP/M operating system.

I took an interest to the computer right away. Why, I couldn’t say – it just seemed magical, how this warm, humming, electronic box could translate my hunt-and-peck typing into symbols on an electronic screen. As he has later confided to me, my interest surprised my father, who had originally assumed that I was too young. I had yet to start kindergarten – though my mother had already taught me how to read, and assured me, with braggadocio that in retrospect seems like it should have been insufferable, that I was well beyond many of her high school students – but the computer was a grown-up tool, for tasks that involved things of which I should have been capable. Word processing (the word processor we used was called WordStar – the king back in its heyday, but that sadly did not survive) for reports and letters, a spreadsheet (Lotus in the hizzouse!), and of course a few games, far too sophisticated for the four-year-old, but endless entertainment for my brother.

It was my Mom that first gave me a good reason to sit at the computer; recognizing that my ability to read had progressed to the point where I should be able to form my own words in print. My physical dexterity was still a bit too low to hold a pencil and write anything coherent for very long, but the computer’s keyboard was an ideal solution. Though my Mom didn’t know thing one about computers (and frankly, still doesn’t), she was the reason I learned to type before I learned to write. To this day I blame her for my atrocious penmanship.

It took a few years before I truly discovered games; the computer had come with a few, but my family, seeing it just as a tool, had mostly ignored them. My brother was the one who eventually found them; a game called Karateka, which was a primitive side-scroller, a version of Pong, a few other primitive titles that have since fled from my memory. I played a bit, but was no match for my brother at first, until my dad game home with a disk labeled "Lode Runner".

My brother was busy, so my Dad showed it to me first. He said some people from work had talked about it, and that it was a little different than most games in that it made you use your head. "That means you'll be really good at it," he said, as he ruffled my hair and sat down behind me to let me figure it out.

The game has become a kind of obscure classic in time, and to me, that's always vindicated my taste; versions have been made for the TurboGrafx 16, PC, and I think there is a mobile phone version floating around somewhere, I think, but the game concept has endured. I doubt that many people have played the old Commodore version, but I remember thinking as I played it that the game was *ingenious*. I wasted hour after hour after countless hour on that game, and my Dad would have been worried at that, but he saw that, in a way, it was time spent productively – that the game helped my critical thinking skills, that it helped me with problem solving, and that I truly enjoyed it. At six, I was still involved in the normal kid activities, that I played soccer and hockey, and piano and trombone, and did all the things I was supposed to do, I had good grades and rarely watched much TV, so the hours in between spent in front of the computer never really seemed to bother him.

Still, I wasn't really yet a "gamer".

The first steps on that path, poetically, were due to my father's pragmatism. Every Thursday night, he and my mom would take part in a bowling league, teamed up with another couple, that the two knew from work. That meant getting together for dinner and a trip to the bowling alley. At first they hired babysitters, but my dad hit upon an idea. Since the bowling alley had an arcade, and my brother and I had both proven ourselves capable of keeping ourselves entertained for hours with video games, why not just drag us along with them, give us each $10 worth of quarters, and instructions not to get in, or cause, any trouble?

At first we resisted, but the Thursday night trips to the bowling alleys soon became a highlight of our week; the arcade games were *so much cooler* than the games we had for our computer; they had Dig Dug, and Centipede, and a Star Wars flight sim that was *3-DIMENSIONAL!* Pac Man, Galaga, Frogger - all of the staples that today we refer to as arcade classics. Today, you can download these games to your friggin' cell phone and barely scratch the surface of the memory you have available, but back then, these monstrosities required every inch of a refrigerator-sized box that gave off enough heat to fry an egg. Half the time, my parents were done bowling, and they'd have to drag us out of the arcade because we weren't done with our quarters yet (because, although some nights we would run badly and be busted within an hour, all in all we got very good at those games, beating even the occasional adult that wandered in and decided it would be fun to challenge us; earning replays was never a problem).

It's weird, the specific details that I remember: how the bowling alley (StarDust Lanes) had a hand-carved and painted sign that said "ARCADE!" in front of the portal that led to the small room; the musky air of smoke, the worn-out bowling alley ash trays, the way the pool table could return the cue ball but eat up all the other ones, the omnipresent bleeps and bloops emanating in a weird Arcade Surround Sound, the first encounters with profanity (teenagers and adults swearing at the games), words that I knew existed but didn't know the full social context of. The way that Josh, the son of the couple that my parents teamed up with, would occasionally come and go, but always seemed to get pissed off at the games, where my brother and I simply developed a friendly rivalry. In retrospect, I have a hard time seeing how they could put us there and not be scared to death.

(My parents, while political conservatives, were almost scary liberal when it came to their parenting technique, a matter of pride I concede to the fact that they drastically overestimated their childrens’ intelligence. When I was twelve and my brother was sixteen, the two of them left on a trip to New Orleans for an entire friggin’ WEEK and left the two of us alone. They received much flak for this from their contemporaries, but they knew us well – we didn’t cause trouble, at least not when we were alone. My parents always granted us enough freedom not to worry that we’d blow up when left to our own devices. Going off to college and seeing the scores of children still unable to handle independence, I eventually thanked them for that).

It was that damn arcade that paved my way. In a weird sort of way, I blame the fact that a $5 roll of quarters was less money than a babysitter for that fact that I just ordered a $4000 Alienware laptop. My parents were and are smart and pragmatic, but even they couldn’t hope to see that deep.

Wordie

This place rocks. Almost like a social networking site, this is a good place to learn new vocabulary words. Pretty cool, actually. You just list out your favorite words, and then see who has listed the same words.

Here's my profile. Oh what a geek I am!

Christmas and New Year's break

So, I was stuck on side shifts, 2pm to 11pm, for about a month and a half, as the machine we are working on struggles to get back up to limping. I don't mind the shift so much, since it allows for a normal sleep schedule, but merely allowing for one doesn't necessarily mean one will stick to it, and sure enough, I spend enough time of my shift thinking of what it is I want to do in whatever videogame I'm playing at the time (mostly Civ IV, participation in the GOTM, WOTM, and SGOTM games over at civfanatics.com is addictive as hell), and wound up in the habit of coming home from work, staying up until 4 in the morning playing on the computer, then sleeping until about noon.

This worked well enough, up until the 11am flight I was supposed to take out of the Dallas airport on Saturday morning, the 23rd, to start my Xmas break.

I wound up staying up pretty much all night on the 21st, then going into work ass-tired on the 22nd. I pushed through, went home, packed my bags in record time, and collapsed shortly after, with a 7:30am wakeup plan for the drive down to Dallas, knowing that the 23rd was certain to be a heavy travel day.

It actually wasn't that bad, and the flight was remarkably smooth, but for one little detail...

So, I arrive at the Pensacola airport and am picked up by my brother, with whom I time it perfectly, grabbing my bag and heading out to the road at the precise moment that they arrive. Doug and Trish are living on base now, though, which means a bit of added security getting in, and in the process of accomplishing a visitor's pass for me, I realize something ugly: I don't have my driver's license. SHIT!!! I had it out of my wallet to get past security in the airport, of course, but the process of putting it back in after I don't need it any more is almost automatic. For some reason I must have forgotten, and left it in my front pocket; it must have fallen out at some point, probably on the plane. Well, isn't that a pisser. Regardless, not much to be done other than file a missing item report with Continental and hope it turns up, barring that, getting a replacement.

Meanwhile I manage to enjoy X-mas at the brother and sister-in-law's. Doug and Trish are doing well, though Trish is frazzled with having a 3-month-old and a 3-year-old both in the fold. Christina (Chris), the 3-year-old, is amazing, just so advanced for her age. Doug and Trish keep bragging on her and part of that I presumed was just the typical mom-and-dad my-daughter-is-so-advanced-and-incredible bravado, but in Chris' case it's really true. Speaking in full sentences, pretty much already able to read, quickly becoming full-fledged bilingual, able to transfer thoughts back and forth between English and Spanish words, and already pretty well capable of abstract thought. I have a scary smart niece. I can only imagine what she'll be like at the teenage years.

Jocelyn, the two-month-old, is still pretty much limited to feeding, crying, sleeping, and pooping, but she seems to be doing just fine at that so far, seems healthy, and Trish is just about the perfect mother with the both of them.

As for Christmas, , I managed to score some decent loot, with my parents getting me a 4GB iPod Nano, which should be a good complement to my 40GB iPod (mega?) that, while still quite useful, I can't really take with me for anything active. Doug and Trish got me a new pocket knife (a very very nice one), a large selection of popcorns to go with a popcorn maker they got me last year (a better gift than it sounds for a bachelor like me), and Medieval II: Total War, which, I realize now, is a hella good game.

I got my parents a yearlong subscription to Sirius radio, in conjunction with the actual radio itself, which was purchased by Doug, nabbed Doug a 300+ piece drill bit set (Tricia's idea), and nabbed Trish Season 1 of 24.

Most importantly, I caught up on some sleep, desperately needed.

On the 28th I flew out to Houston to spend New Year's with Angie. Getting onto the plane was surprisingly easy. I had expected a hassle, having lost my driver's license, but I printed out a boarding pass online, didn't have to show any idea when checking my bag, and for security, just had to go through a hand-screening.

The four or so days with Angie were interesting and dynamic, as they usually are. The first night we grabbed dinner and just hung out, talking, catching up, since it had been a while since we chatted. When the time came for bed, I asked her where she wanted me, and she pointed to a corner of the bed, which came as a bit of a surprise, given that the last time I visited, I ended on the couch. Nothing went on, but I've missed sharing a bed with girls, almost as much as I've missed sex, on this single streak. The latter wasn't going to happen, but the former was still very nice.

The 29th we spent out in Houston, going to the museum of fine arts, which was good to kill a couple of hours, grabbing dinner at a nice restaurant, and grabbing some liquor for when we got home. She grabbed some pre-made margaritas (since I had no ID, I didn't venture into the liquor store with her), and some rum, and by the end of the night we had finished off the margaritas (about 2L worth) and some of the rum.

Needless to say, we were both completely shit-faced, and I was surprised with how far we let things go. We warmed up with a backrub, which quickly turned into a foot-rub, which quickly turned into a leg-rub, which quickly wound up with us snuggled up together, pretty much hitting full-fledged second base. Through some abstract line of conversation we wound up joking about erect nipples; "When you're cold or turned on", she said, laughing, "it looks like you're smuggling M&M's", she said, and I brushed my hands across her chest, (barely contained in her low-cut nightie) laughing that we were definitely at attention. I asked her which of the two reasons it was, and she said, "Well, I'm definitely not cold", and I asked her to show me, and she did. That kind of surprised me - Angie and I have made out before, slept in the same bed, done some basic cuddling, but I'd never seen her tits before. Just one of those moments.

When we went to bed we spooned for the first half of the night, until at some point she came back from the bathroom and said "Okay, time to go back to your side", and I did. We didn't really talk about what happened, and went back to being platonic, after that. We're dysfunctional that way.

The 30th was a lazy day, unsuccessfully shopping for a TV stand for her, and making soft tacos at her place for dinner.

New Year's Eve was spent with more unsuccessful shopping, followed by a trip out to Galveston to peruse some of the shops out that way, and then a trip to Khima, a nice boardwalked area on the gulf, for the night. She kind of annoyed me by calling her friend Derek, whom she had been crushing on, and asking him to join us ("You can see me now, you can see him any time", I snipped at her, "so what, is my company not good enough?") We counted down the new year in a bar in the area, uneventfully, driving home carefully (Angie didn't drink) and going to sleep wordlessly. New Year's Day was spent shopping back up in Houston (in a nice score, I picked up two Guy Guyvriel Kay books I'm missing - The Lions of Al-Rassan and The Last Light of the Sun), and finally getting her a TV stand she was happy with, at Best Buy. She dropped me off at the airport at about 4:30, for my 7:00 flight.

The line was impressive - New Year's Day is always a big travel day - but the Continental staff was there en masse and it moved quickly. Lacking ID, I was still a little nervous about getting on, since Houston is a larger airport, a little less relaxed when it comes to security. I told the lady at the counter that I didn't have my Driver's License, that I'd lost it on a previous flight, and she didn't look that amused, asking if I had any other government ID.

My social security card wound up making the difference, though for what purpose I can't say, since as far as I can tell all that it proves is that a person with my name actually exists. But, combined with a non-government-issue photo ID (my work ID) and my credit card, seemed to assuage her. That's weird to me, since if someone were to steal my wallet, and forge a quick laminated card with my name and their picture on it, they would have been able to successfully pass themselves off as me, but whatever. The flight and drive were uneventful after that, and I rolled into town at around 11...

To find that I had no water. The day before I left, the city called me to inform me that the water meter reader had noticed an exceptionally high reading for my water usage, and noticed that the ground in front of my house was exceptionally damp. I couldn't do anything about it then, since I was well on my way to heading out of town for a week and a half, but coming back, I find my water off altogether. I called a plumber this morning, who will take a look at it tomorrow morning at 8. Sigh. Two days without water makes me a smelly smelly person. I'll have to find an alternate place to shower, and will probably take tomorrow morning off.

But, to work for now. A big part of me doesn't want to go. One of my New Year's resolutions was to quit my job. Not until I have another one lined up, but nevertheless, I am done. If I'm still at KC at the end of February, I'll consider that a failure. I'm looking to take a few months off, maybe start again in May or June, to give me some time to get my stuff together. I think that would do me a world of good.