slipperily

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

2008-06-02T18:22:00.002-03:00

Tomorrow I head to Russia with my girlfriend. We'll be staying in St. Petersburg most of the time, about 6 weeks, and visiting Moscow for 2 weeks as well.

We're moving all of our stuff into storage and have been packing like crazy. Literally like crazy, because in the spirit of the trip, I have tried to make as much of our stuff as possible to emulate those Russian dolls. The fun part is coming up in August when we're trying to find everything while unpacking.

I would recommend the company Travel Visa Pro to anyone needing a visa to visit Russia. They were everything that I could ask for except free, and sorted all the paperwork out for me.

Buenos Aires has been cold-- it's a good time of year to snowbird our way to sunny Russia. I don't know really what to expect. Meeting the parents. Museums and sightseeing. Cyrillic everything. Rude shopkeepers. Everything beyond that will be a surprise.

It's 2008!

2008-04-22T15:36:00.003-03:00

It always takes a little while for the new year to sink in. Maybe it's the tax-filing process that finally brings it home to me. Or the slow changing of the seasons (why is Jan 1st a new year anyway? it's so arbitrary... we should change the year on a solstice or equinox...). But yeah, it finally seems like a new year. Yea?

I was reading an article Find your Inner Spock and, even though it was a fluff piece, I connected with it.

To hear Finkel tell it, there is only one golden rule to making decisions: a rigorous faith in logic.

"On a deep psychological level you have to know that you can make the right decision 10 times in a row and have it not work out and make the same decision the 11th time," Finkel said. "A lot of people understand that intellectually, but don't have it hard-wired into their systems. You have to have this very deep-seated belief in probability and not looking at results."

It's definitely not an easy thing to do. Once you get kicked in the teeth a couple times, it's hard to smile. There are days when I feel like the whole universe is against me, days when self-doubt handicaps my decisions.

When I first started playing poker, I was naive. Now though, I don't think that I would ever recommend to anyone that they start playing professionally. It's too stressful and emotionally draining. Separating your results from your feelings of self-worth is too difficult.

I'm not saying that I would do things differently. It's not like I want a *job*! It's just that poker has turned into a more challenging job than any field to which the road well traveled would have led.

Atheist's Nightmare

2007-11-27T16:18:00.000-03:00

Yeah. I don't think anyone could ever convince me of the value of parochial schools.

Vinegar

2007-06-14T07:56:00.000-03:00

I'm really all about vinegar right now. On my list for the next things to be all about: coconut oil and honey. But right now--- vinegar gets my nomination for most amazing natural household product.

You can google it for yourself! (you can tell I'm REALLY excited because of the exclamation mark!)

So yesterday, I was thinking to myself, "what if I need to use a very small amount of vinegar, but would like the vinegar (specifically the acetic acid) to be more concentrated than your normal supermercado shelf stuff?" EVERYbody at one point in their lives asks themselves this exact same question, and yesterday was my day. So I googled it and came up with crap.

It's my experience that the BEST questions in the world are those which Google has no good answers for. The really important stuff like the meaning of life, why are american presidential elections always a lose-lose situation, and how to clean Bailey's out from a laptop computer.

So yesterday, I ran an experiment. Maybe the next poor lost soul who searches Google for this particular answer will have more luck than I.

How-to Concentrate Household Vinegar a.k.a.
Increase concentration of acetic acid in household vinegar a.k.a.
A poor-man's zone-refinement of acetic acid from household vinegar

1) Pour your household vinegar into a container that will fit inside of your household freezer.

2) Place your container containing your household vinegar into your freezer.

3) Check to make sure that your container containing your household vinegar has some "head-room", because you will be freezing it, and it will expand, and unless you would like a lot of household vinegar running wild inside your household freezer you should make sure that the container containing your household vinegar will continue to contain the vinegar once it expands.

4) Wait until the household vinegar freezes completely. This is one of those clear-cut situations where patience is a virtue. I really hate it when someone interrupts my impatient stamping of feet by matter-of-factly stating that "Patience is a virtue". Half of the time, all patience does for you is leave you at the back of a misshapen many-forked semblance of a line with a full bladder. "Cleanliness is next to godliness" and I'll be damned if I'm going to stand in a puddle of my own urine thankyouverymuch.

5) Take the container containing your now-frozen household vinegar out of your household freezer, and wait for it to begin to unfreeze. You can help it along by running it under some water from your kitchen faucet, or singing to it (this patently obvious choice will work just fine, though I prefer something with a little funk).

6) Don't let it unfreeze completely. Unfreezing the vinegar completely will leave it much the same as when you first started, albeit contained (hopefully still) in a different container. The household vinegar closest to the outside of the container containing it should melt first. Pour this first-to-melt household vinegar into another container. Quickly find another container if you don't have one already. You should have thought of this before you took the vinegar out of the freezer, and definitely before singing to it. Duh!

7) The first-to-melt vinegar should have a higher concentration of acetic acid, so you now can use it to do whatever it was that you were hoping and dreaming of for so many more-highly-concentrated-household-vinegar-less days. Congratulations! High fives all around!

Puzzles link help

2007-06-14T07:47:00.000-03:00

I haven't posted forever, but I've gotten some complaints that the link doesn't function correctly in my last post, so I'll post a fix to that first:

1) Uninstall all previous versions of Java from your computer. If it's an XP machine:
2) Go to your Control Panel, click Add/Remove programs
3) Find your Java Runtime Environment... there might be more than one
4) Uninstall all instances of Java listed there
5) Restart computer, go to www.java.com. Click on free java download...

For some reason, Java gets all eff'ed up every now and then... I had to do this same reinstall recently with my machine.

Puzzles

2007-04-12T18:55:00.000-03:00

I saw these cool puzzles today and had fun solving them. I liked them because they are really difficult until you figure out the right way to look at the problem, and then it only takes a few seconds to solve each one.

Puzzles

DVDs

2007-03-14T18:40:00.000-03:00

i saw this funny advert the other day:

i hate renting movies and having to watch previews or anti-piracy crap. i will never buy a DVD that has that crap on it. i don't understand why people accept this on the DVDs that they buy.

so anyway. if you make a "back-up" of one of your DVDs, you can remove all of this stuff. all you need is a computer with a DVD burner, and some blank DVD-R discs. you can buy software, download pirated copies of commercial pirating software (i love the irony), or just use free software.

there's a short guide here at the RipIt4Me site of how to do this for free.

i really don't understand the way the RIAA, MPAA, and USA thinks that things work. in an effort to protect their business models, they CREATE scofflaws. people don't want to be restricted in how they use the MP3s that they purchase online, so rather than buy from iTunes, they download illegally. people don't want stupid adverts on their DVDs, and so they learn how to remove them, and then realize how easy it would be to copy and pirate rented movies. people want to smoke pot, gamble online, etc., but because of the USA, they are driven to do so through unregulated channels, and in the process lose respect for the regulations of the US.

shocking

2007-03-14T17:40:00.000-03:00

last night i shocked the crap out of myself.

the buzzer on my apartment door wasn't working correctly, so i climbed up onto my kitchen counter, unscrewed the wall cover and started poking around. the problem was a loose wire.

simple enough. all i had to do was reinsert the wire and then screw the holding clamp back down onto it. the head of my screwdriver was too big though, so i grabbed a kitchen knife and set to work.

everything was going perfectly until i shocked the crap out of myself.

i was painfully balanced on the counter with my old-man knees when the 220 volts of electricity surged through me, and then painfully hit the floor with my ass, at which time i painfully hit my head against the wall, and then twitched a little bit as the feeling gradually returned to the right side of my body and chest. that feeling, in case you wonder, happened to also consist mostly of pain.

so yeah. it was what i might describe as a painful experience for which i won't immediately be circling back through the turnstiles to stand in line for again.

the first thing that came out of my mouth though was nervous laughter (shortly followed by a *little* cursing).

my ass-bone still hurts and i have a lump on the back of my head. on the bright side, my buzzer works (so when the delivery guy from Lindo Jardin is at my door, I'll know), AND hopefully the electricity shorted out any electronic microchips that the f'ing gov'ment might have inserted into my body.

all in all, it was a success.

down with bailey's!

2007-02-19T04:54:00.000-03:00

i have finally found my afternoon-coffee replacement for bailey's. after my eye-opening experience last month, i am confident that amaretto is a much safer alternative.

take that "the man"!

i'm feeling a little loopy(er) right now... my brain has been jellied... i was playing in the big PokerStars Sunday tournament for almost 10 hours before busting out... a disappointing finish--- 11th place... oh, i MADE money--- and 11th out of 6637 people isn't bad--- but i wish that i had done better.

poker tournaments are really unsatisfying... it doesn't matter how well i do-- if i don't get first place, i feel like a failure.

a bad day

2007-01-25T18:28:00.000-03:00

last last monday, i crawled out of bed early (not more than an hour past noon) with a screaming headache... i eventually found my kitchen, pushed aside some empty wine bottles and found the aspirina... after chewing up a couple, i looked in the living room and remembered what i had left to wait for me.

my laptop, my most expensive material possession, was upside down and still dripping Bailey's onto the couch cushions.

then i rushed into the bathroom to vomit, shower, and go back to bed for another four or five hours.

it was the worst start to a day that i've had in recent memory.

when i re-awoke, i took my computer completely apart and started the long process of trying to repair the damage. of all the things that i can imagine spilling into a notebook computer, i have to think that Bailey's is at least in the top 5. AND it's not something you'll find the folks at Bailey's advertising either. it's evidently a dirty secret over there, those sneaky muthas (they are on my list now, though I'm not yet willing to give up this delicious component of my afternoon coffee).

what saved my butt was the purchase of a Complete Care warranty from Dell, and the fact that one of their support people was willing to change my warranty over to an international one.

within a few days, technicians from Unisys, a company that does hardware support for Dell here in BsAs, arrived at my apartment with a new motherboard and graphics card. after that didn't solve all of my computer's woes, they ordered a new 17" LCD screen and keyboard for me, which they installed last monday (this past monday).

so anyway... i basically have a new computer now, except for the hard-drive, memory, and wireless cards--- and all that it cost me was a little self-respect.

the benefits of being regular

2006-12-06T18:28:00.000-03:00

i know that i'm not exactly a normal person. i don't live a typical life, doing average things like shopping for wallpaper and going to sleep at night.

however, i don't know if that makes me more susceptible to thought viruses or not. i think that i've always had a problem clearing my head and pushing unwelcome thoughts into the background, but it's been getting more and more difficult over the past few years.

last week, while spending some quality time on the toilet, a horrible HORRIBLE thought entered my head, and rather than gradually forgetting about it, my digust is spiraling out of control.

so maybe it would be best for you to stop reading here. you're safe right now. you don't HAVE to know what this thought was. i assure you, there is absolutely zero chance that, by exposing yourself to this thought virus, your life will be better. none.

trust me. especially if you live in an apartment building or spend a lot of time in hotels. don't do this to yourself. don't take this unnecessary chance.

while i was sitting on the toilet, i started thinking about the layout of my apartment building, and about how almost all apartment buildings and hotels have a general floorplan that replicates itself for each floor in the building. my bedroom is underneath and above other bedrooms. and worse, my bathroom is underneath other bathrooms.

assuming that a bathroom is being pooped in for 5 minutes/day (a very conservative estimate), and that there is an equal probability of defectation at every minute of the day (something that isn't true obviously--- i would guess that most pooping occurs during the morning, early afternoon, and early evening), there is a remarkably high chance that while you are dropping the children off at the pool, someone is taking a dump directly above your head.

seriously. there are 1440 minutes in a day. 5 minutes/1440 minutes is 0.00347. for every floor that is above you, there is a 1:288 chance that someone is pooping.

i have 3 floors above me--- every time i sit on the toilet, there is a 1% chance that someone is dumping above me. i should expect to be shit on once out of every one hundred days.

and remember--- i was being very conservative. if you're in a two-bedroom/1-bathroom apartment, the chances are a lot higher. if you are on the toilet at a prime-time, the chances are a lot higher.

that was the quick and "dirty" calculation that i did while taking my own dump last week. in actuality, the probability is approximately 10% more, by taking when one breaks up the time into continuous "chunks".

this whole thing has been really disturbing me. the other day i was in the elevator with a person who was headed to the danger-zone, and i found myself thinking of them as an enemy... the question of what they have been eating even crossed my mind...

i find myself trying to spend as little time as possible in the bathroom... trying to hold it in until the middle of the night so as to minimize the chances... i've been seriously reconsidering the benefits of being regular.

Hot and New. Have you ever wanted to impress your girl?

2006-10-23T11:22:00.000-03:00

Greetings Increase your volume in just days Worried it won't work? But without any results… Show your girl a huge explosion as I used to do You crave to shoot like a film star… All you need is here: *{link}*

Someone goes to all the trouble to send out a million emails, sneak them past a few spam filters, and this was the best they could come up with. PATHETIC!!! Here's my 30 second attempt at an improvement:

Greetings! In just days you will be mocking reservoir tips. After years of research, top scientists have finally perfected this wonder pill. Worried that it won't work? The only thing you should be worried about is severe dehydration and a shortage of clean towels. Your dirty girl needs a shower. Are you man enough to give it to her?

All you need is here: *{link}*

Super-cum pills would be flying off the shelves if I was a spam-artist.

The original text left me with sooo many questions. "But without any results..."? Huh? and notice the past tense on "as I used to do"... What happened? Are the pills dangerous? Did the immense pressure rupture something? Maybe it was the girl that got hurt? Or, did she just become desensitized to it (the huge explosions), like with violence in the media? Or maybe... Maybe they just grew apart...

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.
~ Anais Nin

new Internet Explorer 7

2006-10-20T00:11:00.000-03:00

on a lighter note, i just installed the new Internet Explorer 7 today. i really like it--- it's such a huge improvement over the old one.

The best things that I've discovered in only 15 minutes of playing with it are:

Tabbed Browsing-- it makes it much easier to manage multiple browser windows.. this is important for me since at the end of the day i usually have at least 8 or 9 IE windows open

More Screen Real Estate-- the layout is much better. the design of the browser allows for the toolbars to take up less room, yet offer more functions

Search Bar-- I use the Google Toolbar, because I'm happy with it and like a lot of the functions (especially a handy English-Spanish translation thing that automatically translates anything that my mouse is pointing on into Spanish), so I thought that having ANOTHER search box would be overkill. But it isn't. You can easily search from multiple search engines, and add your own. For example, I just added a IMDb search engine to the list, and it was remarkably simple to do.

i'll be saving time like crazy now.

dark days

2006-10-19T18:19:00.000-03:00

today i woke up with a wine hangover, turned on the TV, and caught the last half of Saving Private Ryan... and by the end, i was crying like usual... no... not quite like usual--- today i cried harder and for many more reasons.

yesterday, president bush signed the Military Commissions Act. it redefines OUR habeus corpus rights.

of course, most people aren't worried because they would guess habeus corpus has something to do with dead bodies.

it really does matter though. it's fundamental. as americans, we don't think that we can be hauled off into the night, questioned, tortured, and held without a trial for years and years before being convicted without ever seeing the evidence against us.

it is possible now. it is LEGAL now.

With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few. Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously? And did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?

these are the ironic words that president bush spoke as he signed the bill into law.

this law isn't the fault of bush and the republicans and the democrats. it's our fault. we have allowed what our country stands for, what our ancestors fought and died for, to become perverted under the guise of protecting freedom and liberty and our way of life.

i'm completely ashamed.

Bush is afraid of 14-year old girls

2006-10-16T05:10:00.000-03:00

Yes he is. Apparently, Secret Service agents found it necessary to interrogate a 14-year old girl for posting a picture of President Bush with a knife stuck in his hand and the words "Kill Bush" on her MySpace page.

I mean, COME ON!! The knife was sticking in his hand, not his eye or something.

I understand that threatening the President is against the law. Is just saying, "Kill Bush" against the law? Is that a threat? I really don't understand.

So-- here is the LAW-- 18 USC Sec. 871

"...Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

I still don't understand what the definition of a threat is. Doesn't there have to be intentionality in a threat? If you say the words "I am going to kill President Bush", can you know if it's a threat without a context for the statement?

If I say that I hope that somebody drowns Bush in a bathtub full of bullshit, and that I would open a bottle of wine and light a Cuban cigar upon hearing the news, it's still not a threat. It's just a beautiful beautiful fantasy.

So-- upon seeing a picture of a stabbed-handed Bush, the Secret Service decided that rather than try to understand the context of the statement, they would harass the little girl at her middle school.

Once again, thank you Big Brother.

(None of these are threats YET either: Anti-Bush Gear )

Online gambling terrorists are infiltrating our nation's vital ports!

2006-10-16T04:56:00.000-03:00

Fortunately, Bush signed a bullshit Safe Ports Bill that, thanks to his weasel friend Bill Frist, had an Unlawful Internet Gambling bill slipped into it.

We can all sleep better at night now. Thank you Big Brother.

So what does this mean for me as a professional internet gambler? I'm still not sure. The bill makes it more difficult for American players to get money into offshore internet gambling sites. American players account for about 80% of the online poker players, and quite possibly a larger percentage of the "more-money-than-brains" online poker players.

PartyPoker, the biggest online poker site, has closed its doors to American players. The site is like a ghost town now. Many other sites have followed suit. There are a few sites, Poker Stars and Full Tilt and Ultimate Bet, that have decided that the law doesn't pertain to online poker, and they are continuing to do business with Americans. So, that's where I'm playing now. I CAN play on Party and every other site, it's just that there is no money in it.

What really pisses me off is that I pay taxes on my income, and the US is doing its best to take that income away.

I really don't know what online poker will be like a year from now. This might be the beginning of the end. If you think that the government listens to you, you can send a quick email through the Poker Players Alliance.

Also, join the Libertarian Party.

Aruba

2006-10-15T04:15:00.000-03:00

Aruba was nice, and I felt lucky to have been there with my mother and sister and niece. Unfortunately, my luck didn't extend to the tournament, which was heartbreaking.

There are times when I play poker and I know that I'm not playing well. I make stupid mistakes. With poker though, sometimes it doesn't matter how you play. I can play bad, make more than my fair share of mistakes, and still win. I can play perfect, and lose.

In this tournament I played perfect. We started with 10K in chips, and 3 or 4 hours after starting, I still had around 10K. I hadn't had much to play. I stole a couple hands, and I made a few really good folds that would have cost me a lot of chips. After 4 hours of play, I would have expected myself to have at least 12K or 13K in chips, but I was very happy with still being at my starting point, when I got this hand:

I was dealt 33 in the big blind. Blinds were 150/300, and the player to my left raised to 1000. He had about 12K in chips, and was, in my opinion, a very bad player. The type of player that would go way too far with an overpair or even top pair weak kicker. The only reason why he was still around was because of a few lucky breaks.

I called the 700 more, hoping to catch a 3 on the flop and hurt him if he had a good hand too. The flop came 5 3 2 with 2 clubs. I bet 1500 chips. Some people like to check and let the raiser bet so that they can trap with three-of-a-kind. I do this sometimes-- but I was really hoping that he had something good, and that he would see my bet as a kind of "feeler" bet, and then reraise me.

He reraised to 3500. I did a little acting. A short count of my chips. Looked at him a little, and then I reraised all-in. I wanted a call, but would have been happy with a fold.

For a thinking player, there were three possibilities of what I had: a flush draw with overcards, a set (which is what I had), or an overpair. If he had AK or AQ of clubs, or AA through TT or so, I was hoping that he would discount the possibility of my set and call. I really didn't want him to have an Ace-high flush draw though.

He called and turned over 66. I couldn't believe it. I would have never played my hand that way if I thought he was so weak, but he called anyway! By calling with 66, he had to believe that I didn't have a set or an overpair (because an overpair would be higher than his 66). Also-- even if I just had a flush draw, we would have been about 50:50 to win the hand. It was really a mind-boggling call, but I was happy that he made it... that is, until that 4 came on the river and gave him a 2-to-6 straight. UGG!

So that was it. The end of the tournament for me. I was pretty disappointed, and walked up and down the beach for a couple hours to clear my head (that, plus a few tasty frozen drinks at a bar).

Anyway--- that's all boring poker stuff for people who don't live poker. The important thing is that, although the competition was better than average, I didn't feel out of my league. I can compete with those people, I just need a little better luck next time.

Another cool thing in Aruba was a butterfly farm that was just a mile or so down the beach from the hotel. They don't really "farm" butterflies, or harness them for some sort of manual labor, but it's a big netted garden with tons of plants and fountains and butterflys. I liked it. I want to have my own butterfly farm someday.

Aruba was the nicest island in the Caribbean that I've been too. It's definitely a place where I would return (especially if it was a free trip).

Crazy lazy

2006-10-15T03:35:00.000-03:00

Sometimes you get so far behind in something that it's easier to just keep on falling behind than to try to catch up, even if falling more behind bears a psychic cost. I'm sure that there is a properly-named disorder for people who habitually do this to themselves, but I just call it crazy lazy.

I've been crazy lazy lately. There have been a lot of things that I want to type in here--- little news tidbits, stupid things that I wish I had never eaten, strange growths, and other life-changing MONUMENTAL stuff--- but I just haven't. I've become crazy lazy.

So I'm going to try to catch up a little.

Exclusive photos of God wearing a red Armani suit

2006-08-31T17:35:00.000-03:00

Earlier this week, Donald Rumsfield made a speech to the American Legion warning about the "rising threat of a new type of fascism".

Next week, Dick Cheney will be campaigning to save the environment and teaching children gun safety. Also, in a candid interview, Bush will attribute his leadership success to charisma and eloquence.

Catch-up

2006-08-02T00:15:00.000-03:00

i think maybe i'm destined to play catch-up my whole life. i've decided that it's intrinsic to mortality.

Aruba

2006-07-18T03:31:00.000-03:00

Just finished winning a tournament for an Aruba prize package/tournament-entry in September... Ultimate Bet Aruba Classic

I'm happy with my performance... I played well, never really had a situation where I needed to get lucky... closest hand was a situation where I had QQ against a preflop re-raiser who had more chips than me. Flop came all low clubs, he check-raised me all-in and I called since I had the Queen of clubs (and quite a bit invested in the pot already). He ended up having AK with the Ace of clubs, so he had a lot of outs (any Ace, King, or club would have beat me)... but my hand held up and I doubled through him.

So--- Aruba here I come. It should be a fun trip. I also qualify for a 150 person free tournament that will be held in Aruba--- the winner of that will be sponsored by Ultimate Bet for the 2007 tournament season, with paid entries to 4 different major events (2007 WSOP main event, 5 Diamond at Bellagio, Aussie Millions, and Aruba).

I'm happier about this win than the PartyPoker cruise-- I feel like I have a better chance since I'll be playing No-Limit rather than Limit Hold'em.

Slate article: "Raising a family on Poker"

2006-07-05T14:06:00.000-03:00

There's a good article on Slate.com that I just read today--- Raising a family on Poker

I think that what I like about the article is its honesty about the ups-and-downs of living on a poker income. There's also the sound advice of playing within your bankroll and setting aside a "cushion" of living expenses that is untouchable (though this particular family was forced to dip into that cushion).

It's the same thing that I did when I started relying on poker as my sole source of income. Being a professional poker player is more about money management than anything else. You can't play well if you are worried about how you're going to pay the rent, or buy food. You can't play well if your results on any particular night can have a negative impact on your life.

The husband in the article saved 10K for his bankroll. His game was 10/20 Limit Hold'em, and 10K was "vastly larger than the recommended starting bankroll for the $10-20 limit games he was playing, leaving room for error". I wouldn't say vastly larger, but approximately 60% larger than what is usually quoted as necessary for a winning player. Next they saved 4-months of living expenses as their untouchable cushion-- which is good to start with, I think.

The only problem I have with the article is that I believe a poker player should constantly be living beneath their means--- saving and accumulating a bigger "cushion". 4-months living expenses is good to start with, but is in actuality a very short period of time (especially if one has a habit of dipping into their cushion).

Also, I think it's important to take advantage of the freedom and flexibility of poker to develop altenate revenue streams.

In this way, I think that a being a poker player can provide a MORE stable life than most Americans have. For most people, they are at the mercy of their company. If they lose their job, they're screwed. How many people even have 4-months of living expenses saved, without cashing in their retirement savings?

Stability was a big concern of my friends and family when I started playing professionally--- I don't think everyone realized how big of a concern it was of mine, and how diligent I would be in making sure that I was "safe".

With the poker craze still in full swing, there are a ton of people quitting their jobs, dropping out of school, selling their houses, maxing out their credit cards--- all with the dream of being a big-time professional player. It's completely the wrong approach. These people are approaching poker as a gamble, rather than as a business.

bleh!

2006-06-30T14:57:00.000-03:00

i'm going to say something that has probably been said a million times before: stupid germany!

everyone in argentina is crying right now. i'm semi-curious as to whether my germanic-looks will be a spark for some sort of anti-aryan beat-down. i doubt it, but just in case, i've come up with a few phrases in spanish that should get me out of trouble:

"germans smell like eggs"
"germans have sexual relations with dogs (not on purpose, but because they get so drunk they mistake the dog for their mother)"
"in 10 years, germany's economy will collapse due to the effect of an aging demographic on their social welfare system"

Argentina vs. Germany

2006-06-30T08:57:00.000-03:00

in a few hours, Argentina is going to whip Germany's collective butts in futbol... and the german players will run home to their blond-haired blue-eyed mommies, cry into their sturdy bosoms, and be consoled by unintelligible guttural-lities.

or maybe their mommies will kick their butts some more.

maybe not. but i do know for sure that IF Argentina wins today, it's going to be insane here in Buenos Aires.

5-panel summary of my life

2006-06-30T08:14:00.000-03:00

It's right here, take a look (if you dare!):
Don is a Gambler