Poker in the Rear

Any suggestions?

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Bill Maher did a funny "new rule" where he made a very good point - Defense spending is the biggest source of our national debt and is completely out of control, but you'll be hard pressed to find a teabagger who actually wants to cut defense spending despite their constant cries to reduce the debt.

Click here to watch the video

"The problem with the tea party movement, besides their almost universal rejection of dentistry, is that they want money for nothing and chicks for free. They want a deregulated free market and their jobs to stay here in the US; they want guaranteed health coverage regardless of preexisting conditions without a big government mandate; they want to call themselves teabaggers and people to keep a straight face. And of course they want big tax cuts along with deficit reduction. I can't even think of a suitable analogy for that disconnect--it's like thinking getting a handjob will clean your garage." ... Everything that goes into defense costs us about a trillion dollars a year, most of which goes into fighting the Russians in 1978. Fighter planes for all those dog fights we get into with the Taliban, submarines to foil their evil plot to blow up our ships with car bombs, and space lasers to shoot down their exploding underpants...scream about handouts, this is what they should be protesting.

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Don't know when I'll be back again.

Just wrote a sweet blog post and then the net timed out when I hit submit and I lost it. LP really needs to make it so that when you hit "back" in the browser, the text is still there!!!!!!!!!!

Denver here we come

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Not really... but kinda

When I started playing poker I gave myself 2 years to get to the point where I was making a living from it, figuring that would be plenty of time to learn the game and then build a BR. That was based off of what my friends had done during the glory days when nut peddling on Party Poker could beat 2/4 and 3/6 cause there were so many idiotic fish and no training sites. Of course I got in late and the UIGEA came into play in the first few months of my new poker career and cardrunners had started to become popular, with other video training sites springing up left and right.

I'm not blaming my "quitting" on the environment, I'm just saying that I had unrealistic expectations.

2 years went by and I was winning and at a stake where I could make a living off the game (NL100) but still hadn't built a BR that met my goals and I still hadn't won enough money to feel very confident that I could sustain it. But I was close so I gave myself 1 more year.

Over that year I've realized that if I'd played during the glory days I probably woulda made a solid profit, but I don't have enough natural skill to break through to the next level (2/4 and 3/6) in today's games. I've consistently won on NL100 for a long time and with the Supernova "rakeback" supplementing my small winrate I was able to live off of poker for a bit, and at other times use it as a side income. I was able to buy quite a few nice things, cover rent and utilities, and go on this 3 month Southeast Asia backpacking trip thanks to the poker income. But I could never win consistently on NL200 and my few NL400 shots (during my winning NL200 days) failed. I know it's cause I'm just not good enough in the natural skill department and I don't have the right mindset to be a poker winner - not competitive enough. I have made more of my money due to good discipline and tilt control than due to creative thinking. I can own fish but break even or lose to regs most of the time. And when I move up from NL100 there just aren't enough fish to feed off of (yet there are still lots of fish!)

So I've decided to "quit" poker - and by that I mean I'm going to quit pursuing it as a way to earn a living. I had dreams of grinding 3/6 and 5/10, making big bucks, saving it up and parlaying it into investments, going back to school, a home, etc... gonna give those up. I'm always going to keep playing poker as a hobby that brings in extra cash, but I won't be trying to make my living on poker anymore.

These last 3 months of traveling and taking a long poker break have helped me come to this decision. When I was grinding everyday it was so hard to let go of the dream. But getting some distance made me realize that I tried my best and came up short and now it's time to move on. That's fine. I'm happy about my brief poker "career" and I'm excited about my decision to put my full energy into another field.

So what now? I'm going back to school as I've finally figured out what I want to major in - Psychology / Psychiatry. Haven't nailed down which specific one to do yet and I'll be focusing on that and getting through all the paperwork to get back into school once I get home. For now I have 2 days in Bangkok dodging rioters and bullets and then I'm back to the good old US of A where I get to start a new path. And I couldn't be more excited and happy about it.

Thanks to everyone who's helped me along the way. I will still be involved here on LP and probably gonna go to the WSOP, so I hope to see everyone there again and have another great time. Actually, I'll probably look exactly the same as I always have as I'll be playing poker, posting hands, blogging, etc. The difference will be that the volume will be less and the goal will be changed.

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So being back in Phuket I got my laptop again and a nice room with internet access. Been catching up on the world and had the chance to watch a few episodes of Rescue Me, which used to be one of my favorite shows. Season 3 kinda fell flat for me so I stopped watching for a while. I don't even remember when I watched season 4. But I DL'd season 5 before coming to Asia so we decided to give it a shot.

I'm glad we did cause 5 episodes in and it's fucking fantastic - I think it will probably be the best season. The acting and cinematography have all been great, and now they're addressing 9/11 in the most moving way I have ever seen. The fact that 9/11 has always been more of a back story that people don't really talk about has made it so the characters could develop independent of it. But now we're learning about 9/11 and the consequences for the people who were there in such a raw and real way and it's very believable because these characters are so well established. Plus I know that the writers for the show have spent a lot of time with many NYC firefighters and write their stories into the characters on the show, so most of the stories we're hearing are true or close to it.

And of course the show is still totally hilarious, and I find myself laughing like crazy one second and then the next scene is tugging tears to my eyes. I think these guys have done an amazing job with the show and I'm insanely impressed right now.

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It's weird traveling cause I'll go several days with no net or TV and then suddenly I get somewhere that has CNN on and I get hit with a rush of crazy shit - terrorist bombings and now the pope was personally involved in covering up the pedophile priests... sick shit.

http://ow.ly/1ssGL

One by one, as I predicted, the pathetic excuses of Joseph Ratzinger's apologists evaporate before our eyes. It was said until recently that when the Rev. Peter Hullermann was found to be a vicious pederast in 1980, the man who is now pope had no personal involvement in his subsequent transfer to his own diocese or in his later unimpeded career as a rapist and a molester. But now we find that the psychiatrist to whom the church turned for "therapy" was adamant that Hullermann never be allowed to go near children ever again. We also find that Ratzinger was one of those to whom the memo about Hullermann's transfer was actually addressed. All attempts to place the blame on a loyal subordinate, Ratzinger's vicar general, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber, have predictably failed. According to a recent report, "the transfer of Father Hullermann from Essen would not have been a routine matter, experts said." Either that—damning enough in itself—or it perhaps would have been a routine matter, which is even worse. Certainly the pattern—of finding another parish with fresh children for the priest to assault—is the one that has become horribly "routine" ever since and became standard practice when Ratzinger became a cardinal and was placed in charge of the church's global response to clerical pederasty. So now a new defense has had to be hastily improvised. It is argued that, during his time as archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany, Ratzinger was more preoccupied with doctrinal questions than with mere disciplinary ones. Of course, of course: The future pope had his eyes fixed on ethereal and divine matters and could not be expected to concern himself with parish-level atrocities. This cobbled-up apologia actually repays a little bit of study. What exactly were these doctrinal issues? Well, apart from punishing a priest who celebrated a Mass at an anti-war demonstration—which incidentally does seem to argue for a "hands-on" approach to individual clergymen—Ratzinger's chief concern appears to have been that of first communion and first confession. Over the previous decade, it had become customary in Bavaria to subject small children to their first communion at a tender age but to wait a year until they made their first confession. It was a matter of whether they were old enough to understand. Enough of this liberalism, said Ratzinger, the first confession should come in the same year as the first communion. One priest, the Rev. Wilfried Sussbauer, reports that he wrote to Ratzinger expressing misgivings about this and received "an extremely biting letter" in response. So it seems that 1) Ratzinger was quite ready to take on individual priests who gave him any trouble, and 2) he was very firm on one crucial point of doctrine: Get them young. Tell them in their infancy that it is they who are the sinners. Instill in them the necessary sense of guilt. This is not at all without relevance to the disgusting scandal into which the pope has now irretrievably plunged the church he leads. Almost every episode in this horror show has involved small children being seduced and molested in the confessional itself. To take the most heart-rending cases to have emerged recently, namely the torment of deaf children in the church-run schools in Wisconsin and Verona, Italy, it is impossible to miss the calculated manner in which the predators used the authority of the confessional in order to get their way. And again the identical pattern repeats itself: Compassion is to be shown only to the criminals. Ratzinger's own fellow clergy in Wisconsin wrote to him urgently—by this time he was a cardinal in Rome, supervising the global Catholic cover-up of rape and torture—beseeching him to remove the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who had comprehensively wrecked the lives of as many as 200 children who could not communicate their misery except in sign language. And no response was forthcoming until Father Murphy himself appealed to Ratzinger for mercy—and was granted it.

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A friend of mine posted this blog with a link to 18 immediate effects of the Health Reform bill. I liked his post so here's some of it or go read it all at the first link.

As many of you know already, history was made on Sunday with the passing of comprehensive Health Care reform, and yesterday when President Obama made that bill the law with his signature. After almost a year of working to overhaul the Health Care system, voters, volunteers, community organizers, activists and politicians brought the change that so many needed. For the 14,000 people who lose their health insurance every day, this is a huge victory. For the 32 million people who will now have health insurance, this is a massive victory. For our nation that has been fighting for Health Care Reform for nearly 100 years, this is historic. Fear and lies have ruled the Health Care Reform day ever since it was proposed by Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. The rumor spread by opponents back then was that it was a secret plot by the German Empire to take over the United States. Fear and lies won and the measure failed. When a health care overhaul was proposed by Democratic President Harry S. Truman it was destroyed by a rumor that the “Red Army,” or the Soviet Union, would be marching across our land. Fear and lies won again. When Bill and Hillary Clinton attempted to pass a major overhaul of the health care system, it fell flat on its face due to a particularly nasty lie, the “rationing of care,” which meant that the government would have a say as to when a sick person should stop receiving care. Fear and lies won by a landslide. It should come as no surprise then, that the opponents of our generations push for health reform tried every lie in the book. They took a page from Teddy Roosevelt & Harry Truman’s day, saying that it was a socialist/communist take over by the governmen. Next thing you know, Obama will be telling you when to sleep. They took a page from Bill & Hill’s day by conjuring up the catchy notion of “death panel” that would decide when you grandparents would die. Even comparisons of Barack Obama and Hitler were drawn in attempts to “kill the bill.” This time, thankfully, fear and lies lost.

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Obama sent this email:

For the first time in our nation's history, Congress has passed comprehensive health care reform. America waited a hundred years and fought for decades to reach this moment. Tonight, thanks to you, we are finally here. Consider the staggering scope of what you have just accomplished: Because of you, every American will finally be guaranteed high quality, affordable health care coverage. Every American will be covered under the toughest patient protections in history. Arbitrary premium hikes, insurance cancellations, and discrimination against pre-existing conditions will now be gone forever. And we'll finally start reducing the cost of care -- creating millions of jobs, preventing families and businesses from plunging into bankruptcy, and removing over a trillion dollars of debt from the backs of our children. But the victory that matters most tonight goes beyond the laws and far past the numbers. It is the peace of mind enjoyed by every American, no longer one injury or illness away from catastrophe. It is the workers and entrepreneurs who are now freed to pursue their slice of the American dream without fear of losing coverage or facing a crippling bill. And it is the immeasurable joy of families in every part of this great nation, living happier, healthier lives together because they can finally receive the vital care they need. This is what change looks like. My gratitude tonight is profound. I am thankful for those in past generations whose heroic efforts brought this great goal within reach for our times. I am thankful for the members of Congress whose months of effort and brave votes made it possible to take this final step. But most of all, I am thankful for you. This day is not the end of this journey. Much hard work remains, and we have a solemn responsibility to do it right. But we can face that work together with the confidence of those who have moved mountains. Our journey began three years ago, driven by a shared belief that fundamental change is indeed still possible. We have worked hard together every day since to deliver on that belief. We have shared moments of tremendous hope, and we've faced setbacks and doubt. We have all been forced to ask if our politics had simply become too polarized and too short-sighted to meet the pressing challenges of our time. This struggle became a test of whether the American people could still rally together when the cause was right -- and actually create the change we believe in. Tonight, thanks to your mighty efforts, the answer is indisputable: Yes we can. Thank you, President Barack Obama

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As some of you guessed from my last blog post...

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Haven't blogged much cause I've been too busy traveling. Stopped in Korea on the way to Thailand and had a great time with Midian and lilsusie. Also hung out with slog a bunch. Korea was awesome thanks to their company... and well, the country just pwnz.

Been in Thailand for nearly 1 week and had a pretty good time going to beaches and partying. Met up with Night2o1 and have had some good party nights. Here's a few quick pictures:

Nice beach we visited

Good sense of humor out here

Bar scene

k2o4 and Night2o1 out on the town

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