The Myth of Cannabis Withdrawalby k2o4, December 19
I started using cannabis on a daily basis in early 2010. Before that I was a very casual user and had used at random times since I was 13 years old (parties, special occasions, etc). But as I realized that I could smoke at night, have a great time, and wake up in the morning, not only without a hangover, but also feeling more rested than when I didn’t smoke, I began to use more regularly since it wasn’t bringing anything negative to my life and was definitely adding a lot of positives. Fun times, good laughs, deeper connection and conversations with my wife, less stress, etc.
Today in 2011 I have been using on a daily basis for about 2 years. The only break I’ve taken over the last two years is for a week while visiting family on the east coast during Christmas. Last year I made the journey, wondering if I would feel any sort of withdrawal symptoms. I never had before, but I also had never smoked daily for a year straight, so I didn’t know what to expect. According to the government, I was in for a hard time of:
• Sweating
• Sleeplessness
• Anxiety
• Drug craving
• Nausea
• Anger and Irritability
• Headaches
• Loss of appetite
I landed on the east coast and the week passed uneventfully. The first 24 hours without cannabis resulted in a slight headache. That was it. I returned home and began my routine of daily use again, and maintained it until now. Here I sit again on the east coast, and yet again, the only “symptom” I’ve had is the occasional headache which fades quickly, especially if I do some yoga or distract my mind through something as simple as watching TV. I wondered whether maybe one year of daily use wasn’t enough to draw out symptoms, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Despite the fact that over the last year I have increased the frequency and quantity which I smoke, no withdrawal symptoms have found their way into my vacation beyond that headache, which I’d rank at about a three on a scale of 1-5, and which only lasts for a few minutes if I don’t take any action to reduce it via Yoga, etc.
I am only one person, and I am in great physical shape (the best of my life, better than when I was on the starting lineup on offense and defense for my high school football team), and I have a loving family, fantastic wife, and a lot of psychological stability and strength. I’m sure those all help reduce any potential withdrawal symptoms. My guess is that the hardest part of quitting daily cannabis use for most people is the psychological dependence, just like it’s tough to stop daily Starcraft use when you absolutely love it. I entered this week without weed “cold turkey”, and even though I have an edible in my bag which I could take at anytime to get high, I haven’t even thought about it until I started writing this post.
So I’m here to tell you that after daily use for two years (minus that one week I took off during last year’s holidays), the symptoms have been extremely mild and basically no different than if I drank a bunch of soda and neglected water for a day or two. On top of that, I began daily use in 2010 before returning to college, and over the last 2 years I’ve completed 4 semesters and received straight A’s in all of my classes, made the dean’s list, received several scholarships including the most prestigious one awarded by the psychology department (which is my major), taken leadership roles in multiple clubs and established good friendships with about a dozen professors and university administrators. In other words, the daily use, and even heavy daily use of the past year, hasn’t ruined my life. On the contrary, I have no doubt that it has made my life better. My physical health and immune system are at my lifetime peak, my creative thinking and problem solving has improved dramatically, my memory is better than at any time in my life, and my relationships with friends and family are deeper and more fulfilling than I ever knew possible. Cannabis didn’t cause all of these things to happen on its own, but it definitely helped them to be possible, either through the psychological changes it helped produce (reduced stress, creative thinking, open mindedness, empathy, and increased laughter and joy) or through the healing effects it provided, as cannabis has been used as a medicine for over 200 ailments over thousands of years.
The most important lesson I’ve learned about how to use cannabis in a way that improves one’s life is to use responsibly. I often use a vaporizer to protect my lungs from inhaling burnt plant matter, and avoid joints and pipes as much as possible, preferring a water pipe if I don’t vaporize. I don’t get up and smoke a bowl and go to class. I wait till my work for the day is done and then I smoke. But there are tasks I can do very efficiently while high – cleaning the house, watching and learning from TED talks, running basic errands. As tolerance develops and a person moves from acute to chronic use, the effects of cannabis change, and the body and mind learn how to compensate, allowing a chronic user to complete tasks while high that an acute user would find difficult. For example, playing a game of Starcraft. As an acute (occasional) user I had a lot of trouble playing SC2 while high – as a chronic user that difficulty has disappeared. So it’s important to be self aware and disciplined, and to make sure that you are using responsibly, which means that your use doesn’t get in the way of achieving the things you must get done.
There are many myths about cannabis which have been debunked for years, but the mainstream culture hasn’t caught on to the truth yet due to continued government propaganda. I’m writing this post because I hate lies, I hate injustice, and I hate being manipulated or watching others manipulated by corrupt, greedy, or morally zealous people in power. A shift is coming and 75 years of lies are finally starting to crumble. I hope that this post can help push that shift right along.
PS - There is no doubt that some people do have withdrawal symptoms, but that is a small minority of users and only seems to happen to long term heavy users. The vast majority of people will have no withdrawal symptoms or very minor ones like what I experienced. Some people have addictive personalities or are bio-chemically different in a way that makes them susceptible to addiction. Those people should be very careful about what they put in their body.
Or almost at least. I'm a blogger and "team pro member" over at Bettingboys. That feels pretty cool. It's in Swedish now but I'll try to get a text or two togheter in English too.
Just watched this documentary and it really is an amazing masterpiece. Revolves around the topics of collective and individual consciousness, ancient forgotten history, universal rights,the universe and stuff of that nature. One of the best movies I've watched. A real masterpiece! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MkbvJFEQgJU#!
Sure it must've happened to everyone who makes $$ from poker, the moment where you just go "oh I know what to do"
After using all my luck getting a really good job even though I dropped out of uni (Investment banking job with no degree, Be less than 0.1% of people in these jobs that don't have degrees) and being insanely busy I closed all my online accounts for a minimum of 6months so I work hard and don't get distracted.
3months later, I got bored and opened a pokerstars france account.
Deposited around 100 euro donking about stupidly, was down to 3euro. Enter a turbo MTT, ship 44 AI first hand vs KK. Spike a 4. Cash for 20euro, AA gets cracked later on for massive pot. But can't complain. So i take my 20euro to 9max turbo sit and go's -
God mode activated, 18.3bb/100 over 12k hands. Last 2k hands are NL10 (20bb/100)
Jump between NL5 and Nl10 is much much bigger than I expected, 3bet lights are so so so more common. The analogy of "it's micros they can have any 2 cards" is long long dead (Until zynga poker arrives!)
Again I have a horrible sinking red line, the result of 15-24 tabling. But a blue line that goes double the other way is worth it. Not too sure if you can have a + red line at these stakes, very hard to force people to lay down hands and thats why nut hunting is solid.
Those who can't do, teach. by DustySwedeDude, December 16
Obviously my luckbox is faulty. I think this might be my worst month both as far as money lost and in running under equity for at least 6 months. That kind of sucks. Fairly impressive seeing how I've mostly played 1/2 too. I'm playing decent but results just refuses to come. This is the third December in a row where I lose money. Maybe I should start doing charity work for Christmas instead of playing poker?
Random ugly ass hand:
Submitted by : DustySwedeDude
***** Hand History for Game 1111111111 ***** (Prima)
$200.00 USD PL Omaha - Friday, December 16, 08:56:05 ET 2011
Table CutOff PLO HU 21 200 Max (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Hero ( $407.00 USD ) - VPIP: 37, PFR: 30, 3B: 11, AF: 3.8, Hands: 203959
Seat 2: Player2 ( $273.80 USD ) - VPIP: 72, PFR: 53, 3B: 36, AF: 2.7, Hands: 1355
Hero posts small blind [$1.00 USD].
Player2 posts big blind [$2.00 USD].
Showdown Player2 shows,
Hero doesn't show,
Player2 wins $546.60 USD from main pot
Still a spot or two open for my group coaching thing I'm I'll be doing early next year. Check out my last blog for details. I hope my recent lack of luck doesn't rub off on people I try to teach . Two or three people is already confirmed and about 11-12 has expressed interest to join. I have a feeling it'll be really good. Edit: only non-US players
Our account randomly got limited and they forced us to give them documentation about our business and our supplier contact information, otherwise they would restrict our account and prevent us from withdrawing money. They gave us a deadline of 7 days.
I sent in the documentation the day after I received the warning, and I called in to double check that they were going to get it taken care of. They ended up not getting back to us in time and our account got restricted today and we weren't allowed to withdraw or send money. I called in again and got the contact info for a guy named Vincent, who is in charge of our case.
I'm talking to Vincent and basically he says congratulations for having such tremendous growth, we're going to put you on a rolling reserve with a rate up to 9%. He actually called it a "sidepot" which made me chuckle a bit.
tl;dr
PayPal is going to force us to loan them up to 9% of every transaction we make for 90 days and there's nothing we can do about it. They're also trying to play it off as though it's for our safety.
How to prepare to play pokerby Carthac, December 15
Hey everybody, it has been a while Since black Friday I have not played much poker. What I have been doing is focusing on school. In one of my classes, Psyc 360 Cog Processes, We had an assignment to complete on improving our test taking process. I figured now that finals are over, I would share a little bit of what I learned and apply it to playing poker.
-Before you are going to play, diet is very important. You want to be eating foods filled more with complex carbs and proteins. When you eat foods higher in fats and simple sugars, the stomach requires more blood and oxygen in the stomach to break it all down. This ultimately pulls blood and oxygen away from your brain and lowers thought performance. I can’t recommend a lot of various foods, but the obvious fruits, vegetables, and whole grain foods come to mind.
-Caffeine is a very touchy subject. Caffeine has been shown to have very few physiologically harmful effects when consumed in small doses, even over a long period of time. Studies have shown caffeine increases the speed of your thought process on material you know very well. This is why caffeine improves performance on various competitive video games, but caffeine has shown to degrade performance on tasks that require more complex and logical thinking. Thusly, if I were to recommend it, it would be to the tired 1-2 live player who does not have a lot of tough decisions, but would not recommend it for the online 1-2 player. However, if you have a normal level of caffeine consumption every day, do not deviate from that. It will degrade your performance more than if you were to have it.
-Have a normal wake cycle and routine of poker playing if you can. One study, which sadly I can’t find the citation for, found that test performance improved if students studied in the same environment at the same time in which they took their test. This means if you play online daily at the same time, your body will become accustomed to increasing performance at that certain time. If you are not accustomed to doing this, it typically takes about a week to establish a cycle. As a side note, those of you that have trouble with sleeping, this is the key to obtaining a normal sleep cycle. It is a little more info so I won’t write it all here, but if you would like to know, PM me or ask in a comment below.
-NO DISTRACTIONS. As much as humans want to think they are capable of multi-tasking, they are not. One study in particular exhibited this effect. Participants wore headphones and were played two audio tracks of people talking, one in each headphone. They were told to focus on one voice. After the test, subjects were asked what the other person was saying during the experiment. None of them could answer the question. However, almost none of them recognized the person was speaking a different language! The best performance you can exhibit while playing is 60% of what you would normally perform if you were focusing your attention solely on the task at hand. However, this %age goes up with familiarity. So I would recommend against listening to music, but if I had to, I would recommend music you are familiar with. However, no TV, no podcast, no AIM/MSN chat.
-Exercising is great for the body and mind, but it has small time-frame drawbacks. When you exercise and are going to do something cognitively demanding, leave yourself a buffer time in-between. I would recommend waiting at least 30 minutes before playing poker.
Buying a car and other shitby byrnesam, December 15
So, first thing: Ive been looking to buy a car, because i need something to get me from work to home. Unfortunately around this time of year Jesus decided to be born, so im stuck with some stupid forced holiday which is more expensive than if i were to take an actual holiday at any other time of the year I choose.
Anyway, So I was sort of needing a car since about last week. So i started hunting. If you want to see discussion on Veyrons, GT-Rs and Lambos, look away now.
I started off looking at Subaru Legacys. I had one before and it was rad. Unfortunately, when i moved to Thailand and my dad was in possession of it some kids (Maoris) stole it.
So i lined up a few viewings of 2 Legacys, 1 Impreza hatch-back and 1 Mitsubishi Legnum.
The Impreza was nice, but had a 1500cc engine and the actual car was tiny, and i like the room of a station wagon so i can move my shit or sleep in it. (Which is a topic i want to cover in another blog post, but seriously think about: with todays internet/communication technology and skyrocketing rent living in a vehicle makes a lot of sense)
The 2 Legacys were pretty shit. They were both the same year as my old one, but felt much worse to drive. One was fairly beaten up used by some foreign students to travel around. The girl was smoking hot but the car was beat, and the other one felt pretty crap and the guy was too honest about its condition, which was poor.
The Legnum however, was amazing. It was quiet, comfortable, had a sweet stereo, it was massive inside and it looked pretty sweet. It was the most expensive of the 3, with a nearest offer price of $4500.
So i got a vehicle inspection done on it and it was bad news. According to the report it had major oil leaks around the engine. There is a twist to the tale though. The kid who owns it said that the oil was a result of him spilling it whilst servicing it himself just prior to the inspection.
I got a quote on the potential cost to fix the likely causes of the leaks (rocker covers and filter) in the report at $500.
Given that i have spent alot of time in the last few weeks watching Pawn Stars, I put on my best Rick Harrison impression and set about hammering this guy down to a pawn shop price.
"Look man, its a nice car, but not great... Im gonna have to put probably $500 into this thing to get it working"
"Lemme call up a buddy of mine whos an expert in spilt oil"
Anyway, today this guy holds firm at $4000, He agreed to take it to the mechanic on Monday and get it signed off that there are no oil leaks. I offered him $3300 cash with all potential risk of oil leaks, but he still said no.
He never replied to my last text, but after this weekend my urgent need for a vehicle decreases and i have much more time to shop around. I will see if he actually bothers to text me on Monday or if he just throws in the towel.
So maybe im not as good a negotiator as i thought. Its a shame because I really liked the car. I will probably shop around for another Legnum in the time being.
OTHER SHIT
1: Super Meat Boy: I know im a little late to the party with this game, as i often am now since i dont buy shit until it turns up on Steam in their sale for cheap. This was the best $7.50 i have spent in a long time.
It is platform-genre perfection. Perfect learning curve with enough to keep you going. I struggled through the main story mode then I felt such elation when i beat the final boss - BUT WHAT, omg there is a dark world, holy shit.
I have 99% on Light World with 1 level left on Cotton Alley, all levels have A-rating and Ive completed forest, hospital, salt factory and hell Dark worlds.
Just amazing.
2: Music: So, ive been feeling recently like I would like to spend my free time learning an instrument. Ive always liked Guitar. I had one before but virtually never played it. The bass guitar intrigues me, because Lemmy and Steve Harris are so fucking cool, although the sound of a bass on its own is pretty crap. Might get the cheapest acoustic guitar available for fucking around on.
3: American Restoration: This show is awesome, granted that all they do is break something down, sand blast it, paint it and put it back together. The show is cool.
edit:
Probot was a side project by Dave Grohl, involving loads of rock musicians. Shake Your Blood bass was written/performed by Lemmy, and its fuckin sweet.
I wrote the lyrics in about ten minutes. . . It's rock & roll, you know. It's not one of those complicated things.
also:
Headcat was a rock n roll collaboration with Lemmy and they do loads of covers of old rock n roll like Chuck Berry
Advancements in tatooing (NFSW)by whamm!, December 15
was bored and say some images of tatoos in google then ended up in the weird part of the internet
won't bother posting links since its gross so just type in these keywords: (its not super super ogrish gross but still wtf material)
edit: Now posted some sample pics
Type the following in google then obv click the "images" tab:
* "scarification" - its tatooing but not using ink but actually fucking chipping off ur skin and leaving a scar with an elaborate (and painful design) + Show Spoiler +
* "eye tatooing" - pretty self-explanatory and fucking painful jesus christ + Show Spoiler +
http://edge.ebaumsworld.com/2007/10/eyetat01.jpg
* "zombie tatoo guy" - the guy appeared in some talk shows and a lady gaga music vid (born this way), its sad coz in some interview he said he just wanted to look cool at first but now actually regrets having his tatoos lol + Show Spoiler +
http://i.imgur.com/COLST.jpg
body modification people are really nuts imo so i dont really classify tatoo people alongside with them, but it seems the line drawn between those two are getting painfully closer to each other with the advent of the internet .The internet seems to show these things then a lot of sickos see that oh cool , i think i'll do that coz some idiot already did so its probably ok. I hope I wasted minutes of your time LP. lol
Hi guys, I want to teach you guys good poker, no scams. I've won $1400+ in poker tournaments, my username on stars is "rafzrafz". I'll be coaching for $10 a hour. I'll teach you guys the basics and some of the more advanced plays.
turned 24 yesterday
spent the whole day away from family cause i was moving into my house
stopped at a brick and morter
met a guy from Wichita Falls
said he was joining the WPT next month
chuckled cause I doubt it
donked away shit loads of money
...
I'm going to donate one day of my poker earnings (either for tomorrrow or friday, depending on time etc) to Musikhjälpen (http://sverigesradio.se/sida/default.aspx?programid=3946) and was thinking maybe someone wants to do this as a joint venture kind of thing. I don't make that much but will probably be giving around 300-500 dollars.
Let me know, would be pretty cool if we are a few players willing to do this.
Low limit PLO-player look hereby DustySwedeDude, December 13
I'm thinking of doing a kind of group-coaching/studygroup thingy that I think could be fairly good value for everyone involved. It's probably a semi-novel concept and it won't be as intensive as a normal coaching program but it'll be much much cheaper and if we can get a good group of players together I think it could be very good.
If someone's interested just send me a PM and if I get 3-4 people that seems like good fits together I'll try to get it started after Christmas.
I assume everyone knows who I am etc but feel free to ask stuff about me. Got various things going on that's not a look yet so I can't discuss too many details about this coaching idea just yet, but I'll get to that really soon, just judging interests so far.
Contact Users: 433 Active, 1 Logged in - Time: 11:35
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. Two or three people is already confirmed and about 11-12 has expressed interest to join. I have a feeling it'll be really good. Edit: only non-US players
Since black Friday I have not played much poker. What I have been doing is focusing on school. In one of my classes, Psyc 360 Cog Processes, We had an assignment to complete on improving our test taking process. I figured now that finals are over, I would share a little bit of what I learned and apply it to playing poker. 
