You should pay attention to your credit card because I bet they do this to you also. Banks like to do random $1.00 "Fees" for no reason whatsoever. Even if they tell you that it's a card with no fees, they will find some excuse. I personally think it's along the lines of them going "Ok we need an extra 500k, go charge everyone a $1.00 fee and we're good". Most people don't notice, and if they do they don't contest it since they figure it's legit or they're too lazy to bitch over $1. I'm not too lazy and I know it's not legit, so I've sent about 5 emails to my bank in the past year, each time asking them to give me my dollar back and to stop taking it in the future. Each time they give it back, apologize and say it won't happen again. And then a few months go by and I see another fee.
So here's my latest email that I just sent:
I guess this is my monthly message that I send to you guys to tell you to stop charging me these random $1.00 fees and to return the money. See, I don t use that credit card, it's only for overdraft protection, so I kind of notice when you do this. Please stop. I think you should have to start paying me in the future everytime I have to send one of these messages cause it's starting to take up time and be insanely annoying. Normally when you ask someone to stop something, and they say they will stop, they do stop. Not sure why this is different, but if you insist on consistently doing this despite my consistent requests for you to stop, then I think I deserve to get compensated for my time.
Anyway, nice talking to you again, please give me my dollar back and stop taking my money.
But yeah, I actually got to say hello. I can't remember exactly what I said but it was something like: "Mr. President, thank you for everything you're doing. You're doing a great job, keep it up." I was in the 2nd row during the speech so I was able to get up to the barrier as soon as it ended and so it was like being in a receiving line, except he walked it instead of us going to him.
The town hall was on health care reform and before I went my view was that I agreed with Obama on the general philosophy of where to take health care reform, but I had no clue on the specifics. During the town hall he explained everything very well and I totally support what he's doing. I personally am the type of person that likes the UK and France and other European country models with a more universal health care system. Sadly that is not Obama's plan but I understand why he isn't doing it. Overall that's just impossible to get in the USA right now.
His approach is a very middle of the road one. I find it hard to believe that anyone other than extremists would be upset with this plan. And that's who is upset, the extremists on both sides. The far left uber liberals are all in an uproar cause they don't want anything less than a single payer system, while the far right uber conservatives hate any government involvement and overall just hate/fear Obama so therefore automatically hate anything he wants to do.
And the funny thing is that the news is only focusing on the BS rumors and lies of the "Death Panels" and the Public Option. That's it. And they're twisting both of those things to try and scare people. They use the death panels to scare people into thinking the government is gonna kill your grandparents, and they twist the public option and try to say that it is a government takeover of health care. Total bullshit. There are no death panels and the public option is just that, AN OPTION! Why have it? to help add competition to the market and bring down costs. Basic economics.
But there's lots of other good stuff in there, like removing these lifetime caps and banning insurance companies for discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions. There's a lot of things he's doing that will help protect those of us with private health insurance and lower our rates. But no one knows about that due to the media focusing on the drama and the extremists on both sides.
I really hope that this passes because this bill is full of important things that we need ASAP. It isn't perfect but it's a great first step. And once it passes we can work on improving health care even more. But if it fails no politician will be willing to touch health care for a long time because it will be political suicide. This is far too important to let it fail.
Because of the work I did on the campaign I got tickets to the town hall in Grand Junction tomorrow. I just hope I don't get shot by some crazy Glenn Beck loving lunatics. EastSide can you put the word out to your buddies that I'm not worth shooting? ^^
Conservatives delude themselves that the Bush tax cuts worked and that the best medicine for America’s economic woes is more tax cuts; at a minimum, any tax increase would be economic poison. They forget that Ronald Reagan worked hard to pass one of the largest tax increases in American history in September 1982, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, even though the nation was still in a recession that didn’t end until November of that year. Indeed, one could easily argue that the enactment of that legislation was a critical prerequisite to recovery because it led to a decline in interest rates. The same could be said of Clinton’s 1993 tax increase, which many conservatives predicted would cause a recession but led to one of the biggest economic booms in history.
Nigga wut? Did he just say that a tax increase lead to an economic boom? No way!
There also seems to be a Beck / Palin rumor going around about "Death Panels" which is pretty lolz. I guess I'll get to see some of these whacko's tomorrow, oh happy happy joy joy.
Oddly I'm not that excited about going - I think the fact that I need to get up at 7am and won't be home till 11pm is part of the problem. At the same time I'm getting a bit pumped up to go show support cause I believe we fucking NEED to change our healthcare system and I like Obama's plan for how to get the change started. I don't think he's got it perfect, but I think he's on the right track. And I like the fact that he's willing to be a 1 term president if it means getting health care reformed.
Any ideas on questions to ask if I get a chance? Or better yet, questions to ask the nutjobs?
And for laughs, Jon Stewart lands a huge zinger on Obama, makes fun of Obama supporters and points out some of the nutjob haters.
Before going to see it I'd heard some mixed reviews. A few of my friends had told me it sucked (friends who aren't Harry Potter addicts), but I'd also seen lots of film critics saying it was the best Potter movie so far. Of course most everyone who was a Potter nut who'd seen it said it was good, but some of those same people actually liked Goblet of Fire.
So I went to the theatre last night with low expectations, and were they ever disappointed. I'm not positive yet, but I think that this was the best Potter movie so far. It's definitely the best out of the last 3 which were made. I feel like there has been a strange progression in how the movies have been made. The first 2 were very feel good kiddie movies, and all the cast was still in the young cute stage. The 3rd movie puberty hit and the director of "Y Tu Mama Tambien" took over the series and made it darker. I always liked 1 and 2 as fun, feel good, pretty close to the book movies. #3 I liked as a movie separate from the books.
After #3 the series went into the dark direction, and the director for #4 tried to take it further but in the process lost ALL of the good stuff and changed everything making without a doubt the worst Potter movie. Then #5 they started coming back to the book, adding more dialogue and character building scenes and focused less on lots of long fancy scenes with excessive special effects. #5 was good but not great. So I always thought of the first 2 as their own different genre and didn't compare them to 3-5. And out of 3-5, obviously #3 was the best.
Now we have Half-Blood prince. While they cut out a lot and changed a bit, for the first time since #3 I wasn't really angry about the things they cut out or annoyed by the things they changed. They kept lots of smaller side story stuff that other movies usually cut out, like the Weasly twins new shop. There was a lot more funny dialogue and focus on the fun character developing parts from the books which made me care about them so much. Most of the changes were smooth and I approved of them, like the way they changed the kiss with Ginny and Harry - to do it the original way would have added a bit too much screen time when the way they did it in the movie was just fine. They also finally brought back qwidditch (Sp?) and did it very well.
And most importantly, the director FINALLY got Dumbledore under control. He wasn't as good as the original actor, but this was the first movie where I liked him. In #3 his role was so small that it didn't matter so much that he sucked, but in #4 and #5 he was one of the major things I hated. I really hope the same director for #6 is doing all of #7, and I'm pretty sure that's the case.
There were some things I didn't like but it's actually a pretty short list. First and worst was the way they changed Xmas - the attack by Bellatrix and Fenrir was STUPID. Made no sense and was obviously just thrown in there cause some hollywood producer asshole felt like they needed more action. I wish they'd used that to have the mtg with the minister, but I guess they did take that entire line of story out of the movie. But I'd rather that they just ended the xmas scene with Lupin leaving and no fight, and then used the extra time to do the ending right.
That's my second complaint - the ending. Overall as far as a changed ending I think they did an ok job. But I think they should have done it right cause it would have been MUCH better AND it wouldn't have added too much more screen time. The tension at the end of the book was so high and intense and I wish they'd brought it to the screen cause it would have made the movie great. Plus it would have been awesome to see everyone having an epic battle in hogwarts.
Overall while watching this movie there were very few times where I was thinking "wtf they left that part out" even though a lot was left out. They did such a good job of picking all the most important things and keeping them in, and a lot of the stuff was very true to the book. I definitely liked it and am excited to see #7.
I'm a harry potter fan. Bigtime. Read all the books and have owned the first 3 movies forever, watched em way too many times. Then the Goblet of Fire came out and totally blew balls so I didn't buy the DVD.
But now that the 6th movie is out I decided I need to rewatch em all so I bought the 4th/5th movies and they just arrived today. I just put Goblet of Fire in with hopes that I wouldn't hate it as much, but so far that has not been the case.
Why does it suck so bad? Mainly because it was one of the best books with an awesome twist and great clues placed from the very beginning to let you try and solve the mystery. But the movie is totally focused on visuals - they cut out all the cool storyline and instead put in new scenes that are visually cool. The story jumps from cool visual scene to cool visual scene, and it is choppy and stupid.
Then they decided to ask everyone to act completely out of character. Dumbledore, who was perfectly acted in the first 2 movies and mediocre in the 3rd by the new guy, becomes totally wrong. He's supposed to be the wise, calm, all powerful stud. But in this movie he's an incompetent angry little old man. He keeps yelling which is something the real dumbledore rarely does. He seems impotent, like in the random scene (which is not in the book) where the ceiling goes all weird and dumbledore looks not only confused, but scared, and then mad eye moody fixes the problem. BULLSHIT. That's not dumbledore at all, he'd be calm and fix it without a second thought. Total crap.
Anyway, it's very tilting to watch them destroy this book. I can't imagine how anyone who didn't read the book could enjoy this movie unless the only thing they cared about was CGI and pretty visuals. Seriously, it was a great story and the movie is a piece of shit.
But for some reason I will let it play the entire way through, just like I do when I get into a starwars mood and rewatch all 6 but force myself to suffer through episode 1.
The next 2 days the blog section will be overrun by boring and annoying posts about peoples month end results and most of the posts won't even get read as they get bumped off the front page so quickly! So hurry up people, go post about your results quickly and let the rush begin! Yeah, I know the month isn't technically over yet, but if you've got a winning month you should just post about it today and not play at all tomorrow so that you can say "Yeah, I won X amount in July, I am awesome".
Sadly I won't be posting a month result post. I quit those. Gonna be doing a year results post. I have a feeling it will be a better picture of the longterm that we all talk about all the time.
Went up to the local casino cause they've started doing .50/1 and 1/2 spread games with a max bet of $100. Before they only had fixed limit so this is a definite improvement, and for those blinds it's pretty close to playing NLHE. Once you get deep it sucks but overall it's playable. Big thing is I have to figure out what the rake is.
Anyway, got up there at about noon planning to play the cash games but a NLHE Tournament had just started and everyone at the cash games had joined the tourney. There were 5 tables with I think 7k starting stacks and 50/100 starting blinds, 15 minute levels and a $70 buyin. Top 5 places paid. I bought in figuring I might as well do this for a bit and if I bust out there will be cash games to play in at that point.
When I visited this same casino about a month ago the only NL they had was these tournaments so I'd played one. That one had 3 tables and a smaller buyin, and despite being a live fish at the time and a mediocre tournie player, I made the final table though I was knocked out in like 9th.
Yesterday I did much better because of the Vegas experience. I still made some stupid live mistakes like putting 1 big chip out when I intended it to be raise but not saying "Raise" so they considered it a call, and one time I totally miscalculated someones stack size and thought he had half my stack when he had me almost covered. But overall I was comfortable, calm, and able to pick up a lot of useful tells which allowed me to make much better decisions.
Made it to the final table with 3 M and 3 other shortstacks in the 5 M area. Made some good shoves and stole blinds up to about 6 M and held on as the 2 of the other shorties busted. A few guys got into it with eachother in 1 massive pot and 2 more busted and we were on the bubble. One of the original shorties, who was a reg that had been on the same table with me the entire tournament, got it in with me when I had him covered and I sucked out with 55 vs TT by hitting a 5 on the turn. Got into the money and was super happy. Kept playing well and once we got to the top 4 I was 2nd in chips and not far behind 1st. Kept grinding it out and took out a guy and was 1st in chips with 3 left, and 2nd in chips was about even with me so the 3rd guy was on a mega short stack. I kinda figured in my head that I had at least second and should get first cause the 2nd place in chips was a nitty guy who I was much better than. I kept running em over for about 1 level and then I fucked up bad.
I opened J5s in SB v BB when 2nd in chips was the BB. He called. Flop came QJ3 and I checked, he snap jammed, and I snap called. This is the mistake I mentioned in the beginning of the blog where I thought he only had half my stack at the most. I dunno why I thought that and why I didn't bother to ask how much he had. It was an overall total donk call and horribly played by me. I didn't even have a read that he was bluffing. I dunno wtf went wrong in my head at that moment, I just lost my discipline and basic thinking process.
He had QJ and I binked a 5 on the turn but river bricked so FML I'm down to like 3 M again. I jammed a bit but the fucking shorty called pretty soon and held with QJ vs 69s and I was out in 3rd for $480.
Very tilting not to take 1st when I definitely could and should have, but happy to have cashed in the tourney this time. 2 live tournaments at casinos in my life and 2 final tables, lolz. Small fields though and idiotic players, so that makes it easier.
After I busted I jumped onto the .50/1 table but then realized it was time for me to leave and start driving home. So I played my big blind intending to leave after that hand. I got Ts8s and there were 2 limpes, the SB completed, I checked. Flop came KsJs9h. I bet out about pot and the first limper raised it about 2.5x. The second limper thought for a while and called and the SB folded. I jammed figuring I need to maximize fold equity vs these fish and if they do call I'm still nearly always ahead or at worst flipping. The first limper snap calls, 2nd limper folds and the turn brings a Q. Ship it. I rack my chips right away and cash out and head home for a $500 profit on the casino visit. Best 1 hand session of poker I ever had, lolz
I find that I enjoy live poker a LOT more than online. The great thing about online is you learn so much more about how to play and get so much more practice. It sets you up to have a huge edge in live poker because the players all suck and even the regs suck. The regs I saw there were all like NL25 level regs. Add in live tells and the edge I have when playing these low stakes live games is HUGE compared to the same levels online. I can make much bigger folds than I would online for 2 reasons - 1) the players are too dumb to get me into really tough spots and 2) a lot of times they give their hands away via tells so a spot where they're bluffing 80% and have the nuts %20 and you'd have to call online, you can fold live cause you know you're facing that %20 of nuts.
I definitely wanna keep grinding live and badly want to get good at tells. That's what I'm lacking right now but even with the little bet of knowledge I have I'm getting a big advantage. I can't imagine how easy it would be if I was a top notch tell reader.
So that puts me up to 1.6k profit so far since I've started my live run and a 1k BR since I put $600 into the bank after vegas to cover the expenses from the trip + pay some other bills. I hope I can keep building that up!
Some pics of me at the body wall in the pyramid casino (I can't remember, is that MGM?)
Between the boobs
Mouth on the boobs
Rub the belly for luck
Also posted a blog below about the live tournie I played and am curious what people think of the hands I talk about. I think I played em well but I suck at tournies.
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