After striking out (or maybe just another foul) with an effusive yet evasive Asian Studies and Biology major on Sunday, I drove home to find that the whole "Jack Frost likes to pick on the mountains" stereotype to have some degree of validity to it.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Things that Aren't Supposed to Happen
After striking out (or maybe just another foul) with an effusive yet evasive Asian Studies and Biology major on Sunday, I drove home to find that the whole "Jack Frost likes to pick on the mountains" stereotype to have some degree of validity to it.
Friday, October 07, 2005
No Pain, No Shane
So I've scaled back on the hold'em front, not because I'm tired or out of money, but because it occurrs to me that there may be more effective avenues for me to increase my unearned income. Such a great concept, that. Money for nothing; the chicks for free must come later, I guess...
Speaking of which, it turns out that Springs is a tricky place to meet women. There's no shortage of single girls, but the problem is that half the population is under the age of 3. The mothers tend to be anywhere from 16-22, so the trick is to find a girl that is both old enough to date me, and young enough not to be already way too involved with somebody else. I have no qualms about eliminating rival suitors through any means necessary, but I'm not such a jaded playa that I'll come between a man and his kid.
What else is new? Oh yeah, my landlord has been promoted to overlord, and is now in control of my eating, drinking, sleeping, and working out. It's good that somebody is up to the challenge; Shane's certainly more qualified than I am. I've had two workouts so far, and I'm usually dead by the end of the warmup. (The Olympic Training Center, mind you, is downhill from us). I'm gonna be so buff that I'll have to be careful not to step on all the dead vampires everywhere I go.
It officially went below freezing this morning. I wasn't happy with that; the least the city could've done was to consult me on it. By the time I was up and ready to go, though, it had risen to 38 or so, so I had no excuse not to come in to work. Next week, though, it looks like I'm going to have strep throat, so that's something to look forward to.
I'm still out of Zoloft, and while working out helps with the endorphin levels, which probably have a positive interaction with various feel-good neurotransmitters, I'm not sure I can get along without it for that much longer. It's a rush that's hard to describe; on the one hand, I feel more alive than I have in a long time, but then again, that's only a good thing if I like being alive to begin with. So I'm kinda breaking even.
Speaking of which, it turns out that Springs is a tricky place to meet women. There's no shortage of single girls, but the problem is that half the population is under the age of 3. The mothers tend to be anywhere from 16-22, so the trick is to find a girl that is both old enough to date me, and young enough not to be already way too involved with somebody else. I have no qualms about eliminating rival suitors through any means necessary, but I'm not such a jaded playa that I'll come between a man and his kid.
What else is new? Oh yeah, my landlord has been promoted to overlord, and is now in control of my eating, drinking, sleeping, and working out. It's good that somebody is up to the challenge; Shane's certainly more qualified than I am. I've had two workouts so far, and I'm usually dead by the end of the warmup. (The Olympic Training Center, mind you, is downhill from us). I'm gonna be so buff that I'll have to be careful not to step on all the dead vampires everywhere I go.
It officially went below freezing this morning. I wasn't happy with that; the least the city could've done was to consult me on it. By the time I was up and ready to go, though, it had risen to 38 or so, so I had no excuse not to come in to work. Next week, though, it looks like I'm going to have strep throat, so that's something to look forward to.
I'm still out of Zoloft, and while working out helps with the endorphin levels, which probably have a positive interaction with various feel-good neurotransmitters, I'm not sure I can get along without it for that much longer. It's a rush that's hard to describe; on the one hand, I feel more alive than I have in a long time, but then again, that's only a good thing if I like being alive to begin with. So I'm kinda breaking even.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Finally a Monopoly Everyone Can Love
I'm starting to regret that I missed out on the Google IPO. I've been a loyal customer of theirs since before it was cool, and am increasingly impressed by the quality of their software and search offerings. It's only going to get better.
It's now becoming obvious that the Big G (no, not that one) has its sights set past the mere cataloging, digestion, and distribution of all of humanity's information. Now they're in position to be a leader in content creation, and I can't wait to see it happen.
I'm in the process of enslaving the half dozen or so email accounts I have to Gmail, which is so vastly superior in terms of usefulness and design elegance that I need not even bother going into it here. I'm waiting for a Google Calendar, which will let me publish (public) appointments from anywhere as well as singly add them from any website dealing with time-sensitive content (that is, everything from court summonses to TV shows). But that's only the half of it. Since it's not MS proprietary, it can be shared with anyone whom I trust to see it, and will probably allow different permissions for different times of day, different people, and common trust levels based on how well they know people I know well.
If this sounds like rambling, it's because I'm overwhelmed by the potential that the new Google/Sun deal brings to the office sphere. Finally, we'll have (for the very reasonable price of free) what MS Office has been trying to do for the better part of a decade: seamless interaction with other users, the internet, etc. Massively distributed editing, immediate publication, and, of course, the ability to search every sentence ever written by anyone from now on.
Now, of course, privacy advocates will whine about how, if they could only go on using typewriters, no one would be able to see what they were up to. Certainly there will be at least as many concerns as there are over the gmail searching (I for one support it as long as it's done in a way that benefits me, rather than overwhelms me with useless information. Google is currently the only entity I trust to limit itself to reasonable profitable usage of my information, and I would much rather see them as a leader in how to do it right than have them cringe under privacy advocates' sensibilities).
I think what the privacy people fear most is that no one cares what they think they know or have to say. Most of history's greatest thinkers were among its most open (and thus vulnerable) people; you almost have to pity the people who hide from this kind of information.
In any event, the infomation age is upon us. While some will say that it's been here for at least ten years, I'm going to mark the launch of google SMS as something of a turning point. Now, any moron with a cell phone, a thumb, and a dime can access any text information they need from the most reliable source of all things reliable. That's not even touching the potential of real-time google map-based navigation devices, or linux-based, $100 laptops running nothing but Firefox with a few choice extensions capable of blowing away office & windows-based systems. We're way past the point where new features in office are of use to most people; every new capability they tack on serves to cover up three that were almost debugged to begin with.
I'm more than a little perturbed by some publishers' reaction to the Google Print project, which aims to scan every book ever published and make exerpts and ISBN information available online. It has the potential to save thousands of out-of-print (such a quaint expression) titles from obscurity, and make billions of dollars for copyright holders of unpopular books. I don't remember which site I read this on, but one publisher, when asked why Google's generous offer to leave out any publisher who wanted to opt out (despite a more than legitamate fair use claim) said something along the lines of, "We have no idea what books we may have published or have a legitimate claim on." So, at present, they stand to make all of no money from those works, whereas, with cheap print-on-demand and ebook readers in every cell phone and PDA (except mine), they stand to be dripping in caviar. People like that need to be expunged from the planet for the good of humanity; if you stand in the way of education, especially when it's on the verge of being universally, freely, globally, and instantaneously available, I have no use for you.
I won't speculate on the future of Google Video, which looks like it may have further to go, but I'd keep an eye on it if I were you. All they need to do is cross-reference scripts with TV shows, put bookmarks corresponding with keypoints in the script (or better yet, allow users to do it for them), and basically all of television and film can be indexed and catagorized as easily as print news is today.
Information wants to be free. I want to be free. I want to be informed. I also want to have as much distance as possible between me and those that don't. Unless they're playing poker.
It's now becoming obvious that the Big G (no, not that one) has its sights set past the mere cataloging, digestion, and distribution of all of humanity's information. Now they're in position to be a leader in content creation, and I can't wait to see it happen.
I'm in the process of enslaving the half dozen or so email accounts I have to Gmail, which is so vastly superior in terms of usefulness and design elegance that I need not even bother going into it here. I'm waiting for a Google Calendar, which will let me publish (public) appointments from anywhere as well as singly add them from any website dealing with time-sensitive content (that is, everything from court summonses to TV shows). But that's only the half of it. Since it's not MS proprietary, it can be shared with anyone whom I trust to see it, and will probably allow different permissions for different times of day, different people, and common trust levels based on how well they know people I know well.
If this sounds like rambling, it's because I'm overwhelmed by the potential that the new Google/Sun deal brings to the office sphere. Finally, we'll have (for the very reasonable price of free) what MS Office has been trying to do for the better part of a decade: seamless interaction with other users, the internet, etc. Massively distributed editing, immediate publication, and, of course, the ability to search every sentence ever written by anyone from now on.
Now, of course, privacy advocates will whine about how, if they could only go on using typewriters, no one would be able to see what they were up to. Certainly there will be at least as many concerns as there are over the gmail searching (I for one support it as long as it's done in a way that benefits me, rather than overwhelms me with useless information. Google is currently the only entity I trust to limit itself to reasonable profitable usage of my information, and I would much rather see them as a leader in how to do it right than have them cringe under privacy advocates' sensibilities).
I think what the privacy people fear most is that no one cares what they think they know or have to say. Most of history's greatest thinkers were among its most open (and thus vulnerable) people; you almost have to pity the people who hide from this kind of information.
In any event, the infomation age is upon us. While some will say that it's been here for at least ten years, I'm going to mark the launch of google SMS as something of a turning point. Now, any moron with a cell phone, a thumb, and a dime can access any text information they need from the most reliable source of all things reliable. That's not even touching the potential of real-time google map-based navigation devices, or linux-based, $100 laptops running nothing but Firefox with a few choice extensions capable of blowing away office & windows-based systems. We're way past the point where new features in office are of use to most people; every new capability they tack on serves to cover up three that were almost debugged to begin with.
I'm more than a little perturbed by some publishers' reaction to the Google Print project, which aims to scan every book ever published and make exerpts and ISBN information available online. It has the potential to save thousands of out-of-print (such a quaint expression) titles from obscurity, and make billions of dollars for copyright holders of unpopular books. I don't remember which site I read this on, but one publisher, when asked why Google's generous offer to leave out any publisher who wanted to opt out (despite a more than legitamate fair use claim) said something along the lines of, "We have no idea what books we may have published or have a legitimate claim on." So, at present, they stand to make all of no money from those works, whereas, with cheap print-on-demand and ebook readers in every cell phone and PDA (except mine), they stand to be dripping in caviar. People like that need to be expunged from the planet for the good of humanity; if you stand in the way of education, especially when it's on the verge of being universally, freely, globally, and instantaneously available, I have no use for you.
I won't speculate on the future of Google Video, which looks like it may have further to go, but I'd keep an eye on it if I were you. All they need to do is cross-reference scripts with TV shows, put bookmarks corresponding with keypoints in the script (or better yet, allow users to do it for them), and basically all of television and film can be indexed and catagorized as easily as print news is today.
Information wants to be free. I want to be free. I want to be informed. I also want to have as much distance as possible between me and those that don't. Unless they're playing poker.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
On the Effects of Zoloft Withdrawl on Poker, Dancing
I'd forgotten just how much more personality I have when I'm not medicated. Maybe personality isn't the right word, but anyway, those of you who have known me on and off the stuff will catch my drift, or not.
As it turns out, the SSRIs tend to chop both the highs and lows off my experiences, so when I'm on the stuff, I don't feel bad as easily, but I don't have as much fun. (Still bipolar, but with a shorter pole). Anyway, I ran out of it on Friday, but still managed to have an interesting weekend.
Friday night I played (guess...) poker at a the kickoff tournament at Tam O' Shanter (which we decided was Irish for bucket o' chicken wing bones). It wasn't pretty. Not only did I lose in a depressingly unspectacular fashion, I had a dinner/bar tab of like $25 before the tip. At this point I decided that I couldn't afford to play for free anymore.
So, naturally, I went back to the Midnight Rose on Saturday to reclaim the money I lost last week. I bought in for $50, won my way up to $115, lost my way back to $51, and decided it was time to go home. I haven't decided how to spend my dollar yet, but I'm working on it.
It seems like the trick is to leave before I start losing. That's the second week in a row I've doubled my money in five hours and then nosedived (nosedove?). A player sitting next to me said that she'd never seen anyone leave that table with more than $100, which I can believe, although I'm convinced it can be done. All in all, I spent nine hours there earning my dollar, but if I'd left after doubling up (or at least switched tables) I'd be much better off. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, though.
Then Sunday I lost at On the Rocks, then went to Fat Jack's and won 3rd, for a $10 bar tab. Last night I went back to On the Rocks for another Benchmark tournament, and won second, which is my best so far in that league. That was worth another $15, but that's only because On the Rocks has the lamest prizes. The cool thing was that I got about another 600 points for my trouble, which should take me from 29th to about 19th in the league. The top 132 players make the semifinals, so I'm probably safe for now as far as that league is concerned. It was an awesome game, especially for the winner, who came back from a thousand chips and won all $50,000 of them. I lost on pocket Aces (again) on the hand before I'd have had to go all-in blind. I had about $7000 at stake, and he was sitting behind the other $43000, so he called me with his 7-3 off-suit. The jerk had the nerve to turn that hand into trip 7's, but I can't fault him for that.
I've negotiated a workout regimen with my landlord/roommate/personal trainer/nutritionist, so it looks like I'm gonna be in a world of hurt for a while, but in a good way. That should help with the seratonin and dopamine levels.
In between poker and poker, I had a ball dancing. It seems like the devil's showroom for Faustian bargains over there. Maybe that's just because the pickings are somewhat slim on the poker front; the only way to get one of the pretty girls is to win her off her boyfriend.
I'm feeling unpatriotic having not served even one measly tour in Iraq, and get another pang of guilt every time I take chips from another veteran. It looks like the Iraq alums are readjusting better than the Vietnam vets, although my sample space is of course limited. I got to listen to a heated discussion on whether it was hotter in Falluja or Al-Asad, but in any case, at 120 F +, it's easy to understand why so many of them are eager to come home to Colorado.
On the skirt-chasing front I seem to have moved beyond getting fake numbers; now they're giving names that just don't seem to add up. I've met a girl named Jerica, one named Spider, a Gloriana, and one named Teen (I even had her spell it for me).
Anyway, I'm keeping busy, so that's something. I've gotta go put air in my bicycle tires, but I remembered that my roomie has a compressor, so that should make short work of it.
As it turns out, the SSRIs tend to chop both the highs and lows off my experiences, so when I'm on the stuff, I don't feel bad as easily, but I don't have as much fun. (Still bipolar, but with a shorter pole). Anyway, I ran out of it on Friday, but still managed to have an interesting weekend.
Friday night I played (guess...) poker at a the kickoff tournament at Tam O' Shanter (which we decided was Irish for bucket o' chicken wing bones). It wasn't pretty. Not only did I lose in a depressingly unspectacular fashion, I had a dinner/bar tab of like $25 before the tip. At this point I decided that I couldn't afford to play for free anymore.
So, naturally, I went back to the Midnight Rose on Saturday to reclaim the money I lost last week. I bought in for $50, won my way up to $115, lost my way back to $51, and decided it was time to go home. I haven't decided how to spend my dollar yet, but I'm working on it.
It seems like the trick is to leave before I start losing. That's the second week in a row I've doubled my money in five hours and then nosedived (nosedove?). A player sitting next to me said that she'd never seen anyone leave that table with more than $100, which I can believe, although I'm convinced it can be done. All in all, I spent nine hours there earning my dollar, but if I'd left after doubling up (or at least switched tables) I'd be much better off. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, though.
Then Sunday I lost at On the Rocks, then went to Fat Jack's and won 3rd, for a $10 bar tab. Last night I went back to On the Rocks for another Benchmark tournament, and won second, which is my best so far in that league. That was worth another $15, but that's only because On the Rocks has the lamest prizes. The cool thing was that I got about another 600 points for my trouble, which should take me from 29th to about 19th in the league. The top 132 players make the semifinals, so I'm probably safe for now as far as that league is concerned. It was an awesome game, especially for the winner, who came back from a thousand chips and won all $50,000 of them. I lost on pocket Aces (again) on the hand before I'd have had to go all-in blind. I had about $7000 at stake, and he was sitting behind the other $43000, so he called me with his 7-3 off-suit. The jerk had the nerve to turn that hand into trip 7's, but I can't fault him for that.
I've negotiated a workout regimen with my landlord/roommate/personal trainer/nutritionist, so it looks like I'm gonna be in a world of hurt for a while, but in a good way. That should help with the seratonin and dopamine levels.
In between poker and poker, I had a ball dancing. It seems like the devil's showroom for Faustian bargains over there. Maybe that's just because the pickings are somewhat slim on the poker front; the only way to get one of the pretty girls is to win her off her boyfriend.
I'm feeling unpatriotic having not served even one measly tour in Iraq, and get another pang of guilt every time I take chips from another veteran. It looks like the Iraq alums are readjusting better than the Vietnam vets, although my sample space is of course limited. I got to listen to a heated discussion on whether it was hotter in Falluja or Al-Asad, but in any case, at 120 F +, it's easy to understand why so many of them are eager to come home to Colorado.
On the skirt-chasing front I seem to have moved beyond getting fake numbers; now they're giving names that just don't seem to add up. I've met a girl named Jerica, one named Spider, a Gloriana, and one named Teen (I even had her spell it for me).
Anyway, I'm keeping busy, so that's something. I've gotta go put air in my bicycle tires, but I remembered that my roomie has a compressor, so that should make short work of it.
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