Games and life

So, I had plans for the weekend. I really did. Not plans as in, I'd made plans to go and do things, but plans as in, I had it mapped out in my mind what was going to happen in the 63 or so hours between leaving work on Friday and coming in this mornin. The past week was hectic as hell. I spent the weekend prior down in Texas, for the final bit of business I had with my house down there. Thursday night I drove down after work, stopping at my apartment for only long enough to grab my air mattress and a few things that I needed. I arrived at the house at around midnight, crashing almost immediately.

Friday the movers arrive. It's the second time I've had professional movers move my stuff, and I have to say, there's something bizarre about having 98% of your worldly possessions packed up and hauled into a tin can. The movers were cool, though, two young guys and a boss, the two young guys joking about how they had to move two computers while I was keeping a third one behind. It took them pretty much all day to get my stuff packed. I offered the guys a slab of pepperjack cheese that I'd bought, knowing it would never survive the trip up to Kansas anyway, and one of them accepted it but later forgot it. It felt wrong, throwing a perfectly good slab of cheese away.

I ate a quiet dinner on Friday night at Chili's, the desultory barkeep minding his own business, an uninteresting preseason football game on the TV. God, I thought, preseason football has started up already. Where the hell did 2007 go? (Oh yeah, it went away with 4 months of shift coverage at the old job, then passed while I was waking up at 1pm and passing the time with Guitar Hero 2, Civilization 4, and online poker 'til the break of dawn for two beautiful unemployed months, then with a wasted month in Iowa and a frantic move to Kansas. Fuck, does a year go quickly these days).

Sunday, even though there was cleaning-related stuff I could have been doing, I spent it sitting around. I'd left behind a single end table, a folding chair, my laptop, an air mattress, and a few odds and ends, but for the space of a day, lost myself in a game of Civilization 4 (the new Beyond the Sword expansion), taking my favorite leader, Elizabeth of the English (Philosophical/Financial for the win!) to a (mostly) peaceful Space Race victory. I was slumming it a bit on Noble difficulty, but I'm still learning the new dynamics before stepping it up to my usual Monarch stomping grounds. I learned that corporations are fun! With a Shrine and two corporate HQ's (Mining Inc. and Cereal Mills) in my Wall Street city, I actually managed to get a city that generated more than 1000 gold per turn. Sick! It was a fractal game that was basically two continents; I took out Isabella early, but otherwise peacefully grabbed half of the continent while rapidly teching and founding a few religions. As it turned out every religion was founded on my continent, but Judaism (the first religion I founded, in what would later become my sick gold city) was the one that I spread, including, eventually, overseas. The shrine was giving me more than +50 base gpt by the end of the game. Anyway, I was at Redcoats and Lincoln at swords when he seemed to think my lack of troop numbers made me a good target for attack. Heh. I quickly built a stack and crushed him into quick submission. The Babylonians were the only other ones on my continent, and eventually offered themselves as vassals as well. From there the cruise to Alpha Centauri was smooth.

That night I had dinner at Applebee's, again sitting at the bar. This bartender was a bit more personable and the waitresses were chatty with him, and then, through association, with me. During a lull, two of the waitresses were chatting with the bartender and I was sniping in with witticisms (and making them laugh), when a third waitress walked up, easily the most attractive waitress in the place strolls up, joking with the others with a mock singing of "We represent, the little people, the little people, the little people" (she was tall, about 5'9", the others were maybe half a foot shorter). I told her she wasn't THAT tall, and stood for comparison (I'm 6'2"). She laughed and said she was just insecure because she's not as girly as the others, because she is tall and arm wrestles. I laugh back and say that that's actually kind of hot. She smiles and asks what category her kickboxing falls into, and I respond that that's even hotter. "Nothing is more adorable than a girl that can kick you in the head." She laughs and says that it gets you into good shape, too - "I've had a kid," she states, "and look at this!" revealing her midriff.

I can only smile to myself when I realize what had been on my mind. She was maybe 22, 23, and it had never occurred to me that she wouldn't have a kid.

God, am I glad to be getting the hell out of that town.

So. Onto the week. My parents arrive Sunday to rent a car hauler and take my Malibu up behind their truck the next day. We pack some stuff up and go back to Chili's for dinner. When I'm not chatting with them or packing up the very last bits of my belongings, I'm spending time running through the Company of Heroes campaign.

Monday is my house closing. I arrive early (it was scheduled for 8:30 in the morning but we didn't get started until about 9) and goes smoothly. The buyers weren't arriving until later that day, so I never met them (sad - I kinda wanted to). I leave and take care of a couple of final logistical details before meeting back up at the house with my parents. We get everything together and drive up to Wichita.

They stay, hanging around and shopping on Tuesday and Wednesday, while I'm working, and we find different places to eat. The movers arrive with my stuff on Thursday, and I spend some time Thursday night unpacking boxes. I finally get my cable hooked up, and find to my surprise and delight that my cable modem is just ridiculously fast - over 780k/s downloads from a good site. Sick! I love it!

So. Onto the weekend. My parents take off on Friday, and I have a quiet Friday night to veg out. The plan was to relax, and then spend Saturday and Sunday unpacking and getting my place into a semblance of order. That was a good plan, worthy of mention in the same category as - whatever. It didn't work, because after the Friday night of vegging out on the couch, that quickly turned into a Saturday and Sunday of vegging out on the couch as well. A few factors influenced this outcome:

1) A new season of the Guitar Hero 2 leagues over at ScoreHero have started. I made the semis of the XBox Expert league last season (while I was in Iowa), but the competition looks to be a bit stiffer this go-around. The first week put me in 20th place in the top league. I spent quite a bit of time Friday, Saturday, and Sunday finishing up my songs for the first week and starting up on the second week's. So far my only "keeper" run has been a "Yes We Can" FC that's 800 points below the mathematical optimum. I might end up having to keep my "Six" score as well, but I'd like to try and five-star it this week. I will also get a full combo of "Who Was In My Room Last Night" - stupid things are holding me back.

2) I went and picked up BioShock. Awesome game so far. Spent a good five hours on Saturday playing it. It's a little annoying in that the amount of ammo you're given (and $$ to work with to buy it at vending machines) doesn't seem like it's enough, combined with the lack of a real penalty for dying, meaning the only way it seems you can do much of the game is simply to hack on a big daddy for a while, die, then come back. But, the highlight of the game is its story and atmosphere, not to mention the incredible graphics.

3) I've experienced a spike in my interest in Company of Heroes, after playing through the single player campaign, and last night worked up the courage to hop online and test my skills. Watching some of the replays at GameReplay's CoH section was a huge help. The shoutcasts there are a particularly efficient way of learning some basic strategy ideas, what counters what, what to do when you come up against various units and tactics. Seeing somebody build something or do something is one thing - hearing an expert player comment on their choices, what's correct and what's a mistake - is so unbelievably useful, I wish we'd had this back in the days where I was putting my Warcraft 2 strategy page together.

Despite my relative inexperience I manage to go 4-0 in single player ranked matches, though one game was still very much in doubt when my opponent dropped. I saved a replay of one of the games for review, and have decided that I need to work on my AT micro. So far the games have almost been scripted. I've been playing as allies, as I'm still not very familiar with the Axis tech path, and have gone with a 2-eng start and 4-5 rifles every time. Every single game, my opponent has gone MG42 first, sacrificing capping power for destrucitve force, and I've made them pay.

The first opponent had good MG micro and set up some nice territorial positions, but was slow to press the attack and had no Volks support. I had capped a ton of gas early and quickly teched to a Motor pool. A single halftrack, upgraded with the quads, wiped out three MG squads and pushed the game heavily in my favor. He managed a couple of stugs, but I had anticipated that (or at least some sort of tank) and built pre-emptive AT guns. They made quick work of his armor and he went down quickly and resigned at 100 victory points or so.

The second opponent had terrible MG micro and only limited volk support. He would push forward too far with his MG42's in an attempt to chase down fleeing rifles and allow my other squads to flank. I went for quick BARs and outmaneuvered him at every battle. Again I grabbed a quick motor pool and sent a halftrack and an M8 into his base, destroying his Sturm Armory before he could get anything out of it. He resigned just after.

The third opponent put up the toughest fight, on Semois. He had very little capping early, and I had most of the map to myself, but his MG micro was good and he took up a strong defensive position in the center of the map, capping a couple of the key center munitions points. This proved key as when I pumped out my inevitable halftrack, prepared to wreck havoc with it as I had in the previous matches, he countered with very nice panzershrek fire from his volks support. Still, he didn't press the attack, and was obviously teching.

I built AT guns to counter whatever it was he was doing, and then much to my surprise a FlakPanzer shows up on the field. D'oh! It takes out my first AT gun quickly and I lose my second through bad micro. I make a big mistake and build a tank depot that I never actually use, circling my halftrack and some engineers around to harrass any pios he sends to cap territory. They do a good job at that and in retrospect are probably what won me the game.

When two Panzer IV's showed up on the field I thought for sure I was done for. My opponent capped a couple of points in line with his main assault, and cut off a large chunk of my supply, quickly descending on my motor pool. I waste about 560 manpower building two AT guns that can do nothing as the Panzers are circling the building. In desperation I quickly select airborne with my 6 command points and hastily drop a couple of AT guns at the outskirts of my base. This finally works and I drive off the tank assault. I recap the point.

My enemy's been building up volks in this time and is recapping points, but he's low on victory points by now as I have held all 3 for quite some time. He sends two squads that sandwich a squad of rifles, wiping them, but before he can I send a strafing run that takes out one entire squad and all but one of the second squad. Woot! He makes quite a few desperation runs with infantry but my triple-bar halftrack makes quick work of them, with flamethrower engy support. He manages to put a tiger ace on the field but it's too little too late and it never sees action - his victory points drop to 0 before he can tear anything up. Quite a good game, albeit with some embarrassing mistakes on my part as I watch the replay. I was still quite impressed that I came back from a game after having lost my motor pool, but my opponent did not choose his armies carefully, and didn't support his tanks at all.

I think I need to start using more snipers in the early game, if opponents are going to continue to insist on all those early MG42's. Then use my engineers to requisition the weapons and use them against him!

Neocon insanity

Hat Tip to Radley Balko's always-excellent blog, The Agitator for this particular nugget of insanity: Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy, an essay posted by The Familiy Security Foundation that has since been deleted. Here is the link to the Google Archive of the essay, but in case your browser freezes up on that site, the essay deserves to be printed in full (and fisked).

Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy
Author: Philip Atkinson
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: August 3, 2007
While democratic government is better than dictatorships and theocracies, it has its pitfalls. FSM Contributing Editor Philip Atkinson describes some of the difficulties facing President Bush today.

Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy

By Philip Atkinson

President George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2005 after being chosen by the majority of citizens in America to be president.

Interesting that the author would seize upon that particular point, given the importance he gives to the will of the majority of the people in the rest of his essay. I guess Democracy is great, except when it elects the guy you don't like, or when public sentiment against the guy that you do like makes him somewhat less popular, huh?

Yet in 2007 he is generally despised, with many citizens of Western civilization expressing contempt for his person and his policies, sentiments which now abound on the Internet. This rage at President Bush is an inevitable result of the system of government demanded by the people, which is Democracy.

And not, let us be clear, the inevitable result of his happening to be an incompetent douchebag.

The inadequacy of Democracy, rule by the majority, is undeniable - for it demands adopting ideas because they are popular, rather than because they are wise. This means that any man chosen to act as an agent of the people is placed in an invidious position: if he commits folly because it is popular, then he will be held responsible for the inevitable result. If he refuses to commit folly, then he will be detested by most citizens because he is frustrating their demands.

So... in the Eeeevilll that is democracy, people are held accountable for their stupid decisions. Okay. I'm with this guy so far.

When faced with the possible threat that the Iraqis might be amassing terrible weapons that could be used to slay millions of citizens of Western Civilization, President Bush took the only action prudence demanded and the electorate allowed: he conquered Iraq with an army.

"Terrible weapons" that, let us not forget, did not exist. "Terrible weapons" that President Bush ordered his intelligence officials to find, never minding whether or not they were actually there. So, Bush fabricated a thread in order to invade a sovereign nation that, as virtually everyone acknowledges today, was no threat whatsoever.

This dangerous and expensive act did destroy the Iraqi regime, but left an American army without any clear purpose in a hostile country and subject to attack. If the Army merely returns to its home, then the threat it ended would simply return.

So, the threat that did not exist to begin with will return once we leave. While of course I agree with the assessment that Iraq is much more of a haven for terrorists today than ever before, but the way that this is worded - "the threat it [the invasion] ended would simply return," doesn't nearly sound as menacing as it seems the author intends. Iraq would return to being - a country that was no threat to us whatsoever, as it turned out? That's really so bad?

The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life.

And ... kerblooie. The essay explodes into a mess of insane, xenophobic rambling punctuated with skewed historical references. There's almost no point in fisking from here on out, as there's no real way to make this mess seem any more insane than the author does, but I will give it a shot.

The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide. Israel provides the perfect example. If the Israelis do not raze Iran, the Iranians will fulfill their boast and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Yet Israel is not popular, and so is denied permission to defend itself. In the same vein, President Bush cannot do what is necessary for the survival of Americans. He cannot use the nation's powerful weapons. All he can do is try and discover a result that will be popular with Americans.

I love how the author uses a hypothetical to support another hypothetical here. "If Israel doesn't wipe Iran off the map, Iran will wipe Israel off the map. Therefore America must wipe its enemies off the map as well." Never mind the fact that after 60+ years of existence and multiple wars, Israel still exists, and has never had to resort to using nukes.

As there appears to be no sensible result of the invasion of Iraq that will be popular with his countrymen other than retreat, President Bush is reviled; he has become another victim of Democracy.

In the strictest sense, I actually agree with this statement, to the extent that Democracy is a system of government that gives a populace at least some recourse to hold its leaders accountable for their insane follies.

By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government.

I don't even really know what to say to this. "By elevating popular fancy over truth," ... um, wtf? Whose truth? The "truth" of your uninformed and crazed opinion that genocide is a sensible foreign policy?

However, President Bush has a valuable historical example that he could choose to follow.

Oh boy, isn't this going to be fun?

When the ancient Roman general Julius Caesar was struggling to conquer ancient Gaul, he not only had to defeat the Gauls, but he also had to defeat his political enemies in Rome who would destroy him the moment his tenure as consul (president) ended.

The author here conveniently forgets to mention Caesar's enormous popularity with the rank-and-file citizens of Rome, a luxury without which he would have been completely unable to defeat his political enemies in Rome, that President Bush does not share. Wouldn't the more fitting comparison to what the author suggest be something more like the rise of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, who, despite enormous unpopularity, managed to seize control of Iraq via pure military force? Or does making that comparison undermine the author's original point by suggesting (the gall of it - no pun intended) that such a tactic would make us no better than our enemies? Is it even possible to undermine the author's original point any more than the author himself already does for us?

Caesar pacified Gaul by mass slaughter; he then used his successful army to crush all political opposition at home and establish himself as permanent ruler of ancient Rome. This brilliant action not only ended the personal threat to Caesar, but ended the civil chaos that was threatening anarchy in ancient Rome - thus marking the start of the ancient Roman Empire that gave peace and prosperity to the known world.

First, the "mass slaughter" of the Gauls that the author refers to isn't quite the "mass slaughter" via nuclear weapons that the author gives as the preferable course in Iraq. Yes, Caesar killed a lot of Gauls and sacked a lot of cities, but by and large, non-fighting residents of the country were allowed to live. It was a brutal conquest, but it was not a genocide. Second, the reason that Caesar's conquest of Gaul was such an effective catalyst for his assumption of power in Rome was precisely the popularity that his conquest gave him with the masses! Times were a bit different back then. The war was cheered by the populace, but opposed by his political rivals.

If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.

Yes, because an Iraq devastated by Nuclear fallout would be such an incredibly enriching "Asset". In any case, he would not become Caesar at this point. He would become Saddam. Caesar achieved his power because of his immense popularity with the masses. Saddam achieved his power despite his lack of the same.

He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.

It's besides the point to point out that this is probably impossible, given the current structure of the military, and to point out the stark-raving-insanity of this particular vein of thought (even compared to the remainder of the essay, which is saying a lot). But, popularity with the military? The military loved Caesar because his conquest of Gaul made them rich; they did not get paid much at all, except in their portion of the spoils of war. On the other hand, no action could potentially be LESS popular with the current American military than the deployment of Nuclear weapons on a populace and the devastation that follows. There would be no spoils to be had, as the author suggest turning Iraq into a wasteland of Nuclear fallout. The presumed consequences of such actions would be VERY different from what the author believes, to say the least.

President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming "ex-president" Bush or he can become "President-for-Life" Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.

It's amazing, the doublethink possible once one convinces oneself that any action taken by "us" is good because it's taken against "them"; they are the bad guys and we are the good guys, by default. For the fear that eventually bad people might gain control of nuclear weapons and kill many of us, we should wipe out anyone we think might be bad people. Something tells me that the Author is a fan of Ayn Rand, or Terry Goodkind. After all, evil actions are only deplorable when they're undertaken by the bad guys.

It's easy to see such a statement as this essay as the work of people on the fringe, easy targets for straw man arguments and Michael Moore caricatures. But the organization to which this person belongs is not a minor one, and the essay was posted, with editorial comments and production values, for some time before eventually being taken down. People in this organization had to have read the essay and felt it made valid points, else it never would have been published to begin with. And frankly, I wonder whether or not Bush would read this article and find himself nodding along (even as he moved his lips from sentence to sentence, and inwardly transcribed "nuclear" to "nucular"). So many of his actions regarding Iraq make no sense unless this is presumed to be his mindset: that we are the good guys, that they are the bad guys, and that that remains the case no matter what actions are taken on what sides. The dark age that we instigate must somehow be preferable to the dark age that the bad guys would instigate. And a police state is wonderful, if you happen to be the police.

Giuliani fails at English

Excerpt from a recent Giuliani speech:

Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

Am I crazy, or does this sound exactly like the definition of a complete and total lack of freedom?

More poker!

So, I've moved into the Wichita apartment now, settling into the new job, hoping like hell that the troubles in Iowa aren't going to exist as a permanent black mark and that people will be more or less understanding. So far they've been giving me stuff to do and I've been doing it, so it's hard to ask for more than that, I suppose.

This past weekend involved driving back to my Texas house (it's about a 5.5 hour drive, not too bad, I did it on Friday after work) to collect some things from my house prior to my proper move. I grabbed a microwave, some more work clothes, an air mattress, and enough books and DVD's to fill in the rest of the empty space in my car. I also nabbed my wireless router; It's not exactly the most efficient model, driving back and forth from Kansas to Texas in a 350Z, but it's the only registered car I have at the moment and it definitely makes the drive more fun.

So, Saturday, after I've finished my laundry and organized everything I'm going to pack, I play a little online poker and call up Sandra, with whom I share a nice 2+ hour conversation. I hadn't told her about what happened in Iowa, and it was good to talk with someone who offered something other than the tired sympathy. She is considerably less optimistic than I am about the situation in Wichita now, but even if things don't work out, I can't say I really care. I've only been out of my previous job for about four months now, that's not even that long a time to be unemployed even without a job in the interim. I have enough cash to last me a long time, a safety net in my parents, an imminently employable degree, good experience, and a profitable hobby. Speaking of which...

Sunday I get an early start (for me), 11:00 or so, with a specific plan in mind. I had over $1300 cash in my wallet and I decided to stop at one of the Oklahoma casinos (I chose the Riverwind, the largest casino in the state, just south of Oklahoma City, with a pretty decent poker room; I arrive there by 2:30 and by 3:00 I'm sitting 1-2 no limit hold 'em.

Why did I have over $1300 in my wallet, one might ask? Well, over the years, mostly as Christmas and birthday gifts from parents and grandparents that were a bit too out-of-touch with what I wanted as gifts, would give me cash instead, usually in the form of a single $50 or $100 bill. I don't generally like to carry those sorts of bills on me, and so I don't normally spend them; for the longest time they lived in my dresser. At the start of the year, I noticed that I had accumulated over $1000, and that was about the time I decided I would start seeking out live poker rooms, and that any bills in my possession of denominations $50 and above would be my bankroll. $1000 isn't much of a roll for 1-2NL, but the games are soft enough that it's not the highest of risk, and if I lose, I just take a break for a while.

As to why that cash was in my wallet, I've been living the past month-and-a-half or so out of hotels, while my house was on the market. I wasn't exactly comfortable with leaving that cash in my dresser while strangers are being shown my house, and I sure as hell wasn't leaving it lying around in a hotel room for a maid to stumble upon. So the safest place for it, I decided was on my person - I'm a big guy and still carry myself well, so a robbery is unlikely, and I've never lost a wallet in my life.

Anyway, the 1-2 table started out VERY nice, with at least 3 donkeys at the table. One was a pure, unadulterated calling station; one was a guy that telegraphed every play and was willing to commit all-in on pathetically weak hands (underpairs, 2nd pair top kicker, etc.), and the third was a clueless pseudo-maniac who bet and raised in very strange situations, but didn't seem to be conscious that his bets only worked as bluffs. More on that later. Pretty much everyone else at the table was a weak-tight nit; I decided to stay t-agg.

The first hand where I broke from that pattern was 9To from the button, with no fewer than 5 limpers to me. I decided I would mess around with a limp. The big blind, someone I had pegged as probably my best opponent at the table, who had been tight for the first few revolutions but already won a few pots by showing down good hands and betting amounts I felt were quite appropriate, made it $12. All five limpers called, and getting better than 7:1 in position, I made an exaggerated show of saying now I'm being forced to call, as I roll my eyes and gingerly place two red chips across the betting line.

The flop comes 68J, which caught my attention. The big blind bet out $25 (very weak, I thought, into the $80+ pot), and yet, to my annoyance, the limpers parted like the red sea. I made the call with my straight draw, and was rewarded with a Q on the turn. The big blind bet out $40 and I thought now that maybe he had KK or AA; I decided not to screw around and raised him all-in, another $105 or so. He went into a thought process that I thought was amusing as hell, naming all sorts of two-pair hands he thought maybe I could have backed in to. "Queen Eight, Queen Jack? Queen Six, Jack Eight, Jack Six. You didn't want to call the raise preflop but felt like you were priced in. Why raise so much if you're not trying to push me out?"

I realized something then: he didn't see the straight possibility! Once he saw it, I realized, he would focus in on it, and I feared his folding was a possibility. I decide to join in to his internal conversation to keep his mind off my hand possibilities. "If I'm going to raise here it has to be all-in," I point out. "There was eighty pre-flop and we put another fifty in on the flop; your bet makes the pot 170, my call makes it 210, so 105 more isn't that big a raise."

He frowned, like he hadn't realized the pot had grown that big. He had me covered, and from there he quickly called. Much to my surprise, he turned over AQ. "Got the nuts", I announce, flipping over the straight that has him drawing dead. He frowned and shook his head, realizing what a bad call he'd made. What did he think he was beating there? I was actually almost insulted. He thinks I'm pushing there with, what, KQ? AJ? Still, he was good-natured about it.

Typing out the hand, I also only now just realized what a bad bet that was on the flop. C-betting seven limp-callers on a jack-high board, out of position with AQ, with a bet that isn't even 1/3 of the pot? Yikes. He almost got lucky with that, but that makes me re-evaluate my position that he was the best of my opponents. The weak-tight nits weren't making moves that unprofitable. He had me covered, and bought another $100 in chips. I was up above $400 from the pot and now quite relaxed.

I only had a few more hands that were remotely interesting. A few revolutions later I catch KK, raise it up, get two callers from sub-100 stacks. The first was a young guy with only $25 or so left after he called my raise. The second was the guy whose play was inexplicably random. The flop came 6TQ random, and the young guy immediately went all-in. The random dude raised him all-in, and now I'm sitting on a $75 call with an overpair that doesn't look quite so hot anymore. Still, because the guy's play was so random, I decided I had to call, and indeed, it was correct. Before we turn our cards over the dealer puts out the rest of the board, and I grimace in near-physical-pain as a Q comes on the river. But neither of my opponents had a Queen. The young guy turned over TJ suited, and random dude turned over AK (!). Unfortunately the young guy had backdoored a flush, and I profited only about $15 from the hand. The guy with AK didn't seem to think he was bluffing; I think he honestly thought he thought he had the best hand. Maybe he figured he had 10 live outs (hard to believe he's not reverse-dominated against a hand that will call him), but I have a hard time seeing the profit in shutting out action behind him with a moderate percentage drawing hand. Unfortunately he got up and left at this point.

Later on, I caught a straight against my first big-pot opponent and stacked him again, sat tight for about 5 revolutions, then caught AQs in the cutoff against an EP raise. I call, as does the button, a new player, unknown. The flop comes AA6, the raiser checks, I bet $25 (5/6 the pot or so), new player calls, raiser folds disgustedly (later he said he folded QQ). Turn is a K, I bet $50, not realizing my opponent only had $65 behind. He quickly raises all-in, and I shrink, disgusted, thinking I've just slammed head-first into a boat. Obviously, though, I have to call the $15, and my mouth is literally agape when he turns over KJ (!!!). He's drawing dead and I rake my pot. He rebuys. I salivate.

Later, I catch JJ in late position, raise it up, and get two callers, the first of which is a young player, new, cocky, talking it up. He was the sort of kid it seemed was trying to make his living at poker, playing $1-2 only while he was waiting for his $2-5 table to open up, and was making a go at L-agg play. My instant judgment was that his judgment wasn't anywhere near good enough for L-agg play to be profitable for him (particularly at a 1-2 table, though by now the nits outweighed the donkeys). Anyway, the flop is 27Q rainbow, it's check-check to me, so I c-bet, $25. Cocky kid calls, the other player gets out of the way. I decide I'm done with the hand an instant before a J spikes the turn, then change my mind. :) He checks to me and I bet $40. He quickly calls.

The river is another 7, he checks to me again, I bet $100. He takes forever in folding, and doesn't show, but says that he had me until the turn, to which I blurt out, "yeah, I kinda figured". He also said that the river "saved him a lot of money", by which I thought he might have meant that he had QJ, and folded the river for fear of a counterfeited 2-pair against KK or AA. I said as much, and the guy to my left, a new player who was also waiting for a 2-5 table to open up, laughed quietly and said, so that the kid didn't hear, "No way does he fold QJ there."

"Why, he a regular?" I ask. He nods, grinning. "He pay your bills at $2-5?" He nods again, still grinning.

The 2-5 table eventually opened up and the two left. A third seat was open and I thought about following, but knowing I still don't have the roll for $2-5 (let's face it, I don't really have the roll for $1-2, but never mind), I restrained myself. I stayed for about another hour, losing maybe $50 in small pots, before 7:00 rolled around. That was my pre-ordained quitting time, and a good, aggressive player had joined the table; looking around, I didn't see anyone that I could confirm as a donkey, and I could feel my discipline waning; I had been the second caller of a raise to $12 with 8Ts, and found myself wondering WTF I was thinking when the flop came AK6, it was check-check to me, and I bet. With a 2+ hour drive in front of me, and work the next morning, it was time to leave. I cashed out for $614, over 400 in profit, and treated myself to the overpriced buffet. With the additional weight in my wallet to think about, the drive north was much easier than I might have feared.

Life management

So, at 7:36pm last night, I'm deep into four sit 'n go tournaments at pokerstars when I get a call on the work cell phone. The caller ID shows up that it is Garth, my immediate boss at the contracting firm I now work for. For those paying attention, about a month ago I started work up in Iowa, employed the contracting firm based in Wichita, KS, but working at a chemical plant in Iowa. I'd been working off a 90 day trial period with a likelihood of that contract being expanded to two years, and started on July 2, so it had been roughly a month.

I found it very odd, to say the least, that my boss was calling me at 7:36 in the evening, but I answered the phone. He asked me how it was going, and I said it was all right, but that I'd missed the past two days at work, because I was sick. "Could barely get out of bed the past two days," I said, "but I took a nap this afternoon and am feeling a lot better, so I should make it in tomorrow."

"Right." He said. "About that..."

There is the moment where my heart should have sank, and realized what he was getting at, but it didn't, because the thought that what was about to come was even a possibility had never even crossed my mind.

"What?" I asked.

"They pulled the plug."

"They what?"

"I talked with Wade this afternoon," he mumbled a bit (Wade was my immediate supervisor at the chemical plant), "and he brought up some concerns about your commitment to the job, your use of the Internet at work, and things along those lines, and said that they wanted to pull the plug on your contract right away."

It sinks in at that point, and I can only point out that I'm stunned, speechless, and that I am totally amazed that they took this step without bringing anything up to me directly.

Now, there had already been one bit of a ding against me, which bears explanation. About two weeks ago, a fairly high-up person by the name of Keith had shown up for a visit at the plant - a technical person who had done much of the design of the system I was working on - for a number of purposes. Keith turns out to be a bit of an asshole, and that week is the week that I am informed by my hotel that if I want to stay past the start of August, that might be a bit of a problem, as a huge race is coming into a town about 30mi W of here and "every hotel for 150 miles is booked solid." So, my primary focus had shifted over to finding a place to stay, an apartment that had vacancies for August. I spent a bit of time on the Internet, mostly at rent.com and similar places, and my workload was pretty light that week anyway, so I didn't see the harm in it.

A day after Keith leaves, Wade calls me into his office. "Got a second?" "Sure." The way he asks it makes me wonder if I'm in trouble, but the chat is just normal. He asks me how familiar I was with the hierarchy of people at the plant, and I said I felt like I was just starting to get a feel for it; he mentions that Keith is above him, and that Keith is, as he puts it, "a very work-ethic oriented person." From there he goes on to some administrative details, and leaves it at that. I figure, no problem, he's just giving me a heads up.

The next day, Garth calls. He asked if there were any problems, and I said no, and he said, "really, because I guess there was some kind of complaint made to Jim about you using the Internet at work." Jim is the president of my consulting firm (it's a fairly small firm, 50 or so employees) and the person who hired me. So I've just been backdoored. I state that nobody mentioned anything about it to me, and that I think it's kind of crappy that they go around my back like that. Garth agrees, and I ask around.

Not long after, Wade and Kirk are in my work area (shared with 2 others, a development room with about 10 computers in it) and I ask them if there was some kind of complaint, because it got back around to me that there was and I hadn't heard anything about it. "Yeah, that was kind of what I talked to you about the other day," Wade says.

I bite my tongue, because I'm about a step away from really saying something I'll regret. I want to say something along the lines of, no, motherfucker, we had a conversation regarding the personality characteristics of Keith -- if there was some specific problem that would have been the perfect time to mention it, and you didn't, asshole! But I keep it in check, and just say, "Really, I didn't get the impression that there was a specific complaint. But I guess there was, and somehow it got back around to my people."

"Oh, I know how it got back around to your people," Kirk says, a bit glibly. Keith came to me and told me to call Jim and tell him that you were on the Internet at work, so I did." Kirk was not my direct supervisor at the plant, but he and Jim go way back, and Keith knew this. I start to feel a little angry at Keith, now, that he would specifically tell someone to go around behind my back, and not say anything to me, but was getting the feeling that this was all Keith-generated.

So, and this is key, I specifically say to both Wade and Kirk, "Okay, well, I'm glad I know at least, and I'm a little upset that this went around the backdoor for me and that I had to find out from Garth, but if anything I'm doing is a problem, please let me know. Something like this is trivial to correct and it would be silly for it to get in the way of anything."

And Wade backs down. Says it's no big deal. "We want you to be able to find a place." It's just Keith, he's a stickler. They even laugh about it a bit, saying that Keith is a bit unreasonable.

So, last week is business as usual. I get the work that's in front of me done and rest my brain by checking out CNN or another news site, reading an article or two, and then getting back to work. I had pretty literally run out of things on my immediate plate.

I was out sick Tuesday and Wednesday, and Wednesday night Garth calls me up, and that pretty much puts us up to date.

So what now? Right now I'm waiting on a call from Garth to detail exactly what the hell comes next - I had been guaranteed by Jim that if the 90 day trial period didn't work out, that I would have a job in Wichita, but I didn't get the impression that either of us thought that that was seriously going to happen. Garth says there are jobs for me to do in Wichita, so I don't think that will be an issue, but this is going to be some seriously uncomfortable shit, heading into Wichita essentially as the fuck-up that couldn't hack it in Iowa. I get the impression that Garth is ready to bail on me. I dunno. I never got the impression that Wade or Kirk were anything but happy with the work I was doing for them, so that should count for something, but then again, the motherfuckers never gave me an idea that they were unhappy with anything else I was doing, right up until the point where they yanked the rug out from under me.

I honestly don't know what the fuck is next. Thank goodness I didn't sign my lease yet at the place I found - that would be just one more headache I don't need - but my house already sold, and I'm going to have to move my shit out of there within the next few weeks. I suppose I drive down to Wichita and go back into the offices there, look for an apartment there, pick up and move on. I should be able to thrive there. In the week that I spent there I already did some significant work for them, and my impression is that the other coworkers there (particularly one I was working with pretty closely) were very impressed with me, the guy I was working with actually verbally lamenting that I had to leave for Iowa to begin with.

So maybe in the history book of my life, I can look back at my month in Iowa as a detour through a scary place that didn't really do any damage. That's a best-case scenario at the moment, and that's just sad.