09:27 p.m., Monday, August 8, 2005
Hmmm

Looks kinda DOA to me.

There's not a lot less stress in my life since I finished school. I'm not so much out of things to say as I am out of desire to put them here.

I still have my job, I still play poker, I got that motorcycle I always wanted (Suzuki sv650s) and I'm still pretty much the same loser I always was. I'll always be reachable at pushplay.at.cursesandepithets.com.

12:44 a.m., Monday, May 16, 2005
Heaven For Climate, Hell For Company

I decided to ask myself how many cds I own. Just as a state of the union sort of thing. I came up with 193, maybe 40 of which aren't so hot. Two more are on the way.

It was too damn hot today. I saw Primer once, read a synopsis, and then saw it again. Only at that point was I able to decide I like it. I still don't know how I feel about Charlie Jade. I'm still catching up on the episodes.

I dunno. I don't feel like writing about the things I've done or the media I consume. It's become old hat. Maybe I'll think of something.

02:19 a.m., Saturday, May 7, 2005
Time Stands Still

I was at the Back Room Vodka Bar with a couple friends. We're just chilling out and talking. I notice a couple of girls across the room who look like they're itching to dance. One had a sash tied around her waist and the other had a sort of headdress. I guess it might be defined as some sort of simple persian tiara. Eventually they both got up to the empty dancefloor and started dancing. They must have taken classes on belly dancing. I don't think I can put into words how great they were. At first I would just glance over, but I gradually lost track of pretending to not stare. Pretty soon I was like some crass, slack-jawed yokel. It got even better though. Eventually, and God knows when because I lost track of time, they took a break and another girl went up there by herself. Her boyfriend was left on the side holding her purse. She was wearing jeans, a white shirt, and a white bucket-hat pulled way down low. She was rocking the hip-hop moves, exuding confidence and crisp execution. She must have known people were watching her and she reveled in it. And then came the best part. I don't know how it happened but the hip-hopper and one of the belly dancers started dancing together, as in the way a girl usually dances with a guy. The result was a meshing of two entirely different styles. I've seen boobies, and I've seen girls making out, but that was by a wide margin the greatest thing I have ever seen.

12:40 a.m., Sunday, May 1, 2005
Quick And To The Pointless

I've been cleaning out my closet and I found a bag of old school stuff. Old as in circa grade one. There were a couple sticker books and there was a stack of loose pages saying I'm glad you are in my class because... with a list of reasons spelled with adorably bad spelling and my name on the bottom. I vaguely remember it as an exercise. Some of the reasons that stood out were being nice which was on just about all of them, picking boys and girls for games, helping with homework, and on several of them being cute. That last one was where I remembered that there was a brainstorming session before hand where the class would come up with ideas and the kids didn't necessarily think these nice things at all. Especially the cute part, since I was and always will be fat. That pretty much shattered that fantasy. I threw the whole lot out.

11:28 p.m., Saturday, April 16, 2005
Helloooooo Nurse

There's a reception sort of thing Monday evening related to where I work. It features free food, a cash bar, a bunch of boring people and a few friends. I don't really want to go, and officially I don't have to go... but I think I have to go. I haven't worn a suit since grad, and while the pants still fit fine the sleeve on my jacket were too short. It's the damndest thing, the waist on the suit was fine, but not the sleeves. So I went to Top Top and bought a new suit jacket, and a new shirt and tie since they were 20% off. I hate wearing suits because I feel like such a tool. Everyone tells me I look good in a suit, which frankly makes it worse. If everyone said I looked as dumb as I feel in a suit I could just not wear it and feel justified.

This is a perfect chance to use my hip-flask though. It's seriously one of the best presents I ever received but I never had a chance to use it until now.

Buying a suit is actually the least painful clothes shopping experience. A nice man figures out what exactly what fits, gives me a minimum of options and I pick the one I like best. Then he tells me what shirt and tie to pick and I'm done. After getting the suit I went to the poker room. $35 in two and a half hours doesn't seem like a lot but it wasn't too bad. There were a few tough players at the table, in which a couple big bets an hour is fine.

03:49 p.m., Sunday, April 10, 2005
I Am Error

I made a royal flush today. It wasn't even a bad beat. I had KQd, raised preflop in late position, and get two callers. Flop comes Jh,Ad,Td which gives me the nut-straight with a nut-flush draw. I couldn't be farther ahead so I smooth call a bet. Then the turn gives me the Jd which completes my royal flush and the other two are drawing dead. I check-raise the turn and the river comes Ks. The board is huge and there are straights and flushes and full houses all over the place. I bet out and get into a betting-war with one guy where it gets capped and the other guy folds. The bettor turns over KcTh! I couldn't believe buddy had such a crappy hand. He loses to any A, any Q, any J, TT, or any two diamonds. I could not possibly have played any hand he beats that way.

So that was my first royal flush and it got paid off by a complete idiot. Good times. Even better, pokerroom gives you a bonus of 100x the big blind when you make a rf, which if $100 in my case. Not too shabby.

01:39 a.m., Monday, April 4, 2005
Ouroboros

Its designer considered that a being which was sufficient unto itself would be far more excellant than one which depended upon anything

I've been hitting up the cash games at the Palace lately. I've done pretty well for myself; came away with an extra hundred Saturday. Sooner or later I'm going to have a big hand which gets rivered by garbage. You want someone to get their money in the pot with a 6% chance to win, but you will sooner or later lose one of those hands. I'm bracing myself for those inevitable days when I walk away from the casino lighter than when I entered. I have tomorrow and the day after off because of all the over-time I put in getting my last project at work finished. I'm gonna get myself to bed soon so I can get up early and make for the casino. I suspect the games are pretty fishy Monday morning.

06:48 p.m., Friday, March 25, 2005
Beer, Beer and Beer

It's been a good few days. On Tuesday the academic paper I've been working towards at work was submitted. I have high hopes that it will be accepted. Then I went to the Palace and won the tournament, go me. Wednesday I got to work to find people who were working all night to get a different paper submitted. Once they were done we went drinking with them at 11. Beers were consumed and foos was played. Had a gigantic potato for lunch and got home at 2 to sleep. Yesterday we celebrated Mark's last day at work and started drinking at 3pm, got home at 2am.

11:05 p.m., Monday, March 21, 2005
Victory Laps

I wanted to buy this shirt, and at 10usd the price seemed right. But then at check out they say they want 15usd to ship to Canada. Yeah, I don't think so. I also want this shirt, but it's 25usd. Although shipping is only a more reasonable 7. My limit seems to be around shirt+shipping==22usd. Which is exactly where this shirt and this shirt land.

I've been watching a lot of Pen and Teller's Bullshit episodes lately. The peta episode was just satisfying and the recycling episode was thought provoking.

11:26 p.m., Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Giganormous Laydown

I came home today feeling kind of unwell. The project at work is comming to a head, as the deadline for the paper fast approaches, and the results are still comming. It reminded me of these dreams I get after drinking too much but well shy of passing-out volumes. The dreams have this semi-conscious intangible quality, like something within reach that I can't grasp. It's a cross between a math problem I can't keep in my head or breakdown into subproblems, and an annoying song I can't forget about. Everything about the hazy dream leaves me except the emmotional state it puts me in: this feeling of trying to solve a problem I don't know the cause or symptoms of.

The Palace tournament has become a regular tuesday/thursday thing for me. I played some good poker, won a lot of chips with AQ on a Q high flop with QJ calling me all the way, and slowly rolled a good sized stack for all his chips on a board of 994 with his 9 and my 44. A few hands later I raised in mid position with AQo and my friend Matt cold calls and everyone else folds. Flop comes with an ace, which totally looks like my flop, and I bet out. Matt raises 1.5x. My thinking goes like this:

• I put Matt on a solid hand
• I think Matt put me on a solid hand
• I think Matt knows I put him on a solid hand
• Therefore Matt knows I think he's strong and my hand is strong enough to bet into it anyways, and with all that strength he raises into me anyways
• Matt would slow play a set of aces on such a dry flop, and wouldn't call my preflop raise with any other hand that makes 2 pair or a set
• Thus he probably has AK, I'm beat and I should fold

I folded my AQ face up to a surprised table, and Matt showed me AK. Now that's how you play poker. Later I screwed up when I had 45 in the blinds and flopped a straight. One guy bets one, and the other makes it two but I heard four, so I decide to go all in for 25ish and they both fold. Raising to four would have showed a lot more strength and I would have been more surprised if he folded then. Could have won a lot of chips there. What would have been really sneaky would be to say: "One? I call." And throw in a chip. When the dealer says the call is infact for 2 (or 4), I'm comitted to calling the bet and I gripe and throw in more chips. It would be tough for them to put me on a strong hand after that.

11:27 p.m., Monday, March 14, 2005
Chakra

I believe there's no business like show business, although if you're over-paid for feeding a big, scary monster, then that might be sort of like it. </quote>

I would just like to take this opportunity to say that I'm selfish, self-righteous, and I can be a real prick when I want to be. And I'm ok with that.

12:55 a.m., Friday, March 11, 2005
What's This Phoney Ceremony, Hanging Around?

Here's an interesting article by someone who was sued by the RIAA. Something has occured to me. What if I ran a law suit honey pot? I could survey the p2p world like the riaa does and figure out what amounts to 400gigs of the most popular files, and their respective names and sizes. Then take a loop of something like me saying "this is an original work by pushplay" and cut it into files with the right names and sizes I culled from above. Stick that on Kazaa and Morpheous or whatever, hope for a lawsuit, and then counter sue on the grounds that their suit is thoroughly without merit. Step 3, profit.

There's probably a good reason it wouldn't work or the eff might have tried it by now.

10:13 p.m., Monday, March 7, 2005
Kicking The Gong

One of my amazon orders came in. Junior Jack and Chemical Bros cds, and 2 dvds of Betty Boop cartoons. Pre-Hays Act cartoons I might add. That means drug references, sexuality, jazz, and surrealism. It's great stuff and displays a level of sophistication most people don't associate with cartoons.

Man, I've taken some bad beats in tournaments lately. Lost a tournament where I was 75%, then one with two (near) consecutive hands where I was about the same amount ahead, and then one online where I was 56% to triple up.

The new Dr Who series is about to be released. I think this is the nineth doctor or something. It's going to air on the CBC (for once they did something right) but it looks like the first episode was leaked on the internet. Now I would never approve of such a thing, nor would I know where to begin trying to obtain a leak if I shoudl want one, which I don't, but hypothetically the opening credits kick ass. The original theme was the result of the very sketchy electronic equipment being controlled in a very analog way to great effect. It would be easy to blow the modern rendition by letting too much fancy shit get in the way. I'm not sure what technique the radiophonic workshop used this time around, but they absolutely nailed it. Hypothetically. *cough*

12:46 a.m., Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Skels And Perps

The finale of NYPD Blue just aired. It's a little sad because I truely loved that show. It was a really great finale though.

10:04 p.m., Monday, February 28, 2005
Coke Is A Gateway Drug... A Gateway To Cool

I'm gradually moving my e-mail from pushplay at shaw dot ca to pushplay at cursesandepithets dot com. It's not as quick for me to type out on forms, but it's a domain I'll be keeping for a good long while. I'm trying to recall all the sites I care about and tell them of the change. I got amazon and paypal and ebay and all my poker sites so far.

Poker Room has a new casino game on their site: Caribbean Pirate Poker. I had never seen a game like this before so I decided to do something most casino goers never do and do a quick analysis the math of it. The rub is that having a hand that qualifies happens a fraction of a percent more than half the time. Assuming you make the raise every time, calling the total amount you put in X, you win 0.5X when the dealer doesn't make a hand just slightly less than half the time. Slightly less than a quarter of the time you lose X when he qualifies and you don't, and the rest of the time winning or losing is a 50/50 proposition. I'm ignoring the multipliers for unlikely large hands and any effect choice can have. So the rub is that twice the chance of losing X from not qualifying when the dealer does is bigger than the chance of winning 0.5X. Your expected loss raising every hand is like half a percent. Since having a hand that pays a multiplier is infrequent (third of a percent) I doubt it has much effect.

If you always folded when you don't make a qualifying hand, then you lose 0.5X slightly less than half the time, win 0.5X a little under a quarter of the time, and win/lose 2X as an even crap-shoot the rest. This case is much worse because ignoring the 50/50 case you lose 0.5X about twice as often as you win it.

Seeing one of the dealer's cards doesn't tell you too much. If you have that card matched in your hand it decreases the chance of him making a hand slightly. If you see an A or K it increases his chance of making a hand slightly. I can't say by how much, but I bet it's small making an intelligent mixed strategy difficult. Ever folding is probably wrong and not playing is the optimal solution. Of course it's a casino game, so you know they're making money off the game, and any intelligent person should be able to jump to the optimal solution quickly.

04:10 p.m., Saturday, February 26, 2005
Professor P. J. Cornucopia's Fantastic Foodmagorium and Great American Steakery

I think we'll just go to the Texas Cheesecake Depository.

I went out for all-you-can-eat sushi and fooseball last night. God I think I'm still full. The sashimi and the maki were great. I make no apologies for not following the japanese traditions though. I don't respect any of the traditions I was raised with, so pretending to respect anyone elses would be patronizing. There's a hazy line between polite and phoney.

My chip shuffling is pretty solid so I thought I would work on another chip trick. Chip tricks can be used to intimidate other players, but mostly it just gives you something to do. Poker is 90% a boring game. I started working on the twirl aka drop-spin or whatever. When I first started I was dropping the chip 4/5ths of the time, but now I have it going smoothly 9/10ths of the time without looking and rarely drop. The poker table isn't really a good place to practice a trick until you've reached a certain level, or else you'll just look silly, but pretty soon I'll break it out. Only a few people per table can shuffle and I've never seen anyone pull out anything else, so it will be cool to show this off.

I got neteller to transfer my money from absolute to pokerroom so I have a juicey redeposit bonus to work on.

11:41 p.m., Thursday, February 24, 2005
Wanna Go To Heavan, Never Been There Before

Have I got a bad beat story for you! So the month end tournament saw me with 6,000 chips on top of the usual 1,000, which gave me twice what the second place guy at the table had. I worked it up to 10,000 while this one guy call off all his chips and another raise with any two cards. Then someone goes all in for 1,500 and I call with TT, someone else goes all in for 2,500 on top of that and I call that to. The reraiser has KK and wins which is unfortunate, but I'm still in this thing so it's all good. Then a couple orbits later some big stack gets moved to the table and raises to 1,500. I look down at JJ and go all in for 6,000ish total. He makes an unfathomable call with A5s. First of all, that's a retarded hand to raise in early position, and the call is boneheaded because KQs is the only hand he's a favorite to I would have played like that. I got my money in on a 2:1 favorite and lost. I was so mad. There's no way I was going to go play the ring game because I was Lord Tilty McTiltenstein of Tiltberg: the tiltiest tilt to ever tilt the tilt.

I cleared the bonus off my absolute poker account and I'm in the process of cashing out through neteller. I'll throw that money into pokerroom.com and go for an even jucier reload bonus there. Absolute poker is terrible with a bad interface, small community, worthless freerolls and no hand histories. I actually think I might have got convince one absolute user to give pokerroom a try while bitching, so take that!

11:36 p.m., Thursday, February 17, 2005
Boom

What a god aweful, braindead day. I forgot about having lunch with a friend which I felt bad about. Then to take the bus to the poker game I take the one going in the wrong direction. I had to get off, at the next stop which is a good five minutes away, and wait for one going the other way. I finally get to the poker room and an hour into the tournament I throw all my chips away bluffing into an empty side pot. It's a retarded move and I'm a way better player than that. I go home pissed off with myself and I totally forget to register for the next tournament on Tuesday. It's like I went through the day on a retarded autopilot. I don't even want to go to work tomorrow.

10:17 p.m., Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Dead Disco, Dead Funk, Dead Rock 'N Roll

I'm all about asking for too much.

I got sick of Limewire so I decided to take a look at the other Gnutella clients out there. Limewire just sucks up processing power like nobody's business. I don't think it's Java's fault, I'm convinced Limewire leaks. You can do that in Java by not removing references from a Vector and just sucking something aweful. So anyways, I think Gnucleus is a winner. The interface isn't as slick, but it uses a fifth the processing power and I think it's even better at fetching downloads (which was the point).

Cory Doctorow has another short story at here. I just finished Spew from Neal Stephenson and was about to start in on Cryptonomicon, but I'll do this instead first.

12:03 a.m., Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Condescending Means To Talk Down To

Another day, another tournament. Finished 12th. I've had a number of strong out-of-the-money finishes recently, which is both encouraging and discouraging at the same time. There were a bunch of interesting hands which I think makes for a fascinating story but no one who isn't a poker player would agree. So I'll spare you. I will however describe a girl at the tournament. I've seen her a few times but I don't know her name. She has glasses and a pony tail, plays fairly well, and she would be pretty attractive except for her personality. She maintains an air of barely contained condescention. She is absolutely convinced that she's far too good for the room. There was a hand where someone goes all in on AK with an A on the board and someone calls with A8 and gets an 8 to win. That's a bad beat, but it's nothing I haven't seen a hundred times before. I don't even give it a second thought but the girl can't get over it and calls everyone at the table a moron. She even asks to be moved to another tournament table.

Oh well, you meet a lot of interesting characters playing poker. Very few datable girls though. That's the area of my life that's most lacking.

11:59 p.m., Tuesday, February 8, 2005
Home Honey, I'm High

On a natural high that is. My cold is on the retreat, receding by an almost miraculous degree. Work is going well. I have a great song stuck in my head (free cd online, track 16, get it!). I've been reading a great short story (free online, read it!). And I busted out mid-way in the poker tourny, but I went out playing well. I folded a big hand when I felt someone else had a real monster (he did) where a lot of people might have gone all in. After that I was short stacked, in the BB, and everyone folds to the SB who makes a large raise. I'm pretty sure I'm being pushed around and I all-in K9o. I was right, he finally made a crying call with A7o, and I win the close race (45/55 for him but the chance he folds makes this positive EV).

Next hand 4 people limp, I call in the SB with A9s, BB checks. A King and two of my suit flop, I min bet, everyone folds but one guy who min raises. Call 1 BB with 9BB in the pot on a flush draw? Hell yes! An Ace flops, I check, he bets 1.25BB, I make the easy call. Another Ace comes, I figure I have it won but check it through because a bet on the river doesn't have much EV. To my ever loving surprise he turns over KK for kings-full and takes the pot, leaving me severely short stacked again. I like my limp pre-flop, I like my semi-bluff on the flop, I had huge pot-odds on the flop and turn so those are no-brainer calls. Limping pocket kings preflop with 3 early limpers is just plain wrong, his super weak bet on the turn is aweful, and failing to bet a fullhouse on the river is retarded. After that I lost a race with AKo which I was right to take and shit happens.

So this guy played his hand about as wrong as was possible, I'm totally happy with how I played my hand, so how can I be so happy about the outcome? In the long run everyone gets pocket kings just as often, hits their flush just as often, and hits their full house just as often. He could have gotten more chips from his hand, and in all those decision points I'm going to make more than I lose. This was just one battle in a lifelong war, and that guy is a deer in my headlights. Mixing metaphors like phat records yo.

Ok, end poker discussion. Life is good, and there's great media released free online by creative people.

08:49 p.m., Monday, February 7, 2005
The Revolution Will Be Digitized

I've been pretty sick these last few days. I suppose I should have taken some Cold FX when I had a sore throat on Thursday. I missed work today and I'm not sure I'll be in to work tomorrow. There hasn't been much to do but watch things on dvd and play Quake. I can't play Quake for long periods of time because it actually tires me out. It's funny how my cold has affected my gaming skills though. My accuracy and other twitch elements are only slightly degraded, but higher level planning like "hey there's a guy accross the map I should kill him" occurs to me much slower. Oddly enough, I was offered by two different people in the last two days to join their clan. And not shitty little clans I tell to go away, but actualy groups of people I respect. I may take one of them up on their offers, since my old clan is all but dead. It's nice to be able to play on a higher level every so often.

I'm not playing poker while I'm sick. I'm not an idiot.

11:47 p.m., Friday, February 4, 2005
Got Assed In The Ass

Played in a sub-satalite to the wsop today. I played a very aggressive poker game, which usually isn't my style. People weren't defending their blinds though, so it seemed like the best strategy. I was building up chips without showing down hands and knew I was getting a table image of being a blinds theif. Someone started stealing my blinds, so I played back after a few times and got some chips from that. Then someone called one of my steals when I'm holding A4o. 1500 in the pot, flop comes something like Q-8-4, he all-ins 600 and I call. I rarely call with bottom pair, but I know my aggressive play is frustrating him, and there's a good chance the flop missed him. I was right, and made a killing there. That was my high point. Then I did something silly and tried to bluff out this guy preflop, flop, turn, and river. The first two were ok, but after that I needed to just let it go. My action was too much inline with my table image, and he was able to call me with second pair, which he usually wouldn't be able to do. That cost me some chips but hardly put me out. Soon someone raised UTG, fold around to me, I all in AKs, he has QQ and I lose the race. I don't feel it was a mistake. So I finished 13th of 27 when I needed to finish atleast 3rd.

11:00 p.m., Thursday, February 3, 2005
Don't Wanna Hear It

I have a massive shipment from Amazon comming my way. In includes three more poker books (which will bring my collection to 8), Skalpel's selftitled cd (which I CRIMINALLY looked over previously), Ammoncontact's One In An Infinity of Ways, Fatoy Slim's Palookaville, and some other crap I can't recall right now. Purchasing things is how I express myself and fuck you if you're not cool with that.

Felix da Housecat is playing on winamp right now and for that reason I highly recommend it.

I went to the Palace tournament today. It's $30 every tues/thurs for 66 people. I finished twelth this time. Six is the money, so it wasn't really close. However, each month you earn points towards the end of the month tournament. These points get you chips, which can sum up to get give you several times a buy-in. Finishing 12th I get 66-12 points which isn't a bad start. The five more regular tournaments will run me $150, and one good money finish covers that, plus I'll have great starting position in the final tournament.

10:19 p.m., Wednesday, February 2, 2005
Open-Air Staircase

Got an interesting e-mail from an old highschool mate about a 5 year reunion dvd. (Jesus, it's been five years?) If you happen to be from my highschool reading this on a lark and haven't heard about it, e-mail me asap.

I do not use or condone the use of pirated materials in any way shape or form... But! You might be interested to know that textz is the written word equivalent of warez, and Snow Crash may be available under such a guise. The quality can be pretty hit or miss. Some of the available books seem to be scanned and proof-read, but some of them are clearly straight from the OCR. The errors are minor like V/ for W, but the alternating page number-book title and author-page number are a dead give away. Some clever regexp work takes care of most of that though.

Random low-res photo of the day (lrpotd, it just rolls off the tongue).

10:26 p.m., Monday, January 31, 2005
Blinded

Well I gave up on Don Quixote. I gave it four chapters, and it was still horribly boring with no prospects of picking up. Between the two volume there's something like 110 chapters, and if I'm going to read that much I damn well want to be entertained. Instead I grabbed a collection of short stories from that EST guy. These should be good. It's just a quick fix until I can find something longer though. Snow Crash would be ideal. I would be happy to pay for it, but it would have to be in a text form so I could get it on my phone. DRM = no sale from me.

11:00 p.m., Sunday, January 30, 2005
Expressionistic For Impressionistic

You can tell by how I wasn't dying to run back here and report how I did that I wasn't thrilled about my poker tournament performance. We started with 10,000 in chips and 25 big blind, so it was a very long format tournament. For three hours I had nothing but shitty cards. In that time I am likely to see several high pairs, and a bunch of other good cards. Instead I got nothing but junk and KQo was the best hand I ever saw. That's definitively card dead. For three hours I was patient and stole a few pots using my tight image to my advantage. I don't think I could have played that part better. But after the second break I got frustrated and immediatly threw my chips into a bad situation. I would have been better off letting that hand go and all-inning the next hand blind. Well it was a learning experience.

Life's good otherwise. I put an ebook reader on my phone and finished reading Eastern Standard Tribe in a few weeks of bus rides. It makes the rides go super fast. The book is a great read btw. Now I'm reading Don Quixote courtesy Project Gutenberg.

I finally swapped in the winter pic now that it's going to start looking like spring. Swell. I can't wait for summer when the weather gets warm and all the university students fuck off and campus is nice again.

Oh yeah, and I put up new camera photos, yay! Now featuring a coherent naming scheme, yay!