A Little Meat

Happy Hump Day.

My head feels clear again. I am ready to jump back into the waters full of various Pisces. But I will probably abstain for another month just because I need to prove to my self that I can overcome the addiction that has cause many late nights of frustrating results.

I got caught in a virtual argument with a vegan yesterday. Well it wasn’t an argument…It was more of a statement against a letter that was posted. It talked about this person’s life style change to become a vegetarian and the process that was involved. I thought it was a good account of the thought process until this person started to talk about Commandments in the bible and what they did or didn’t say about eating. Now, if I remember correctly, there are 10 Commandments in the bible and none of them has anything to do with food. One of the analogies that the writer used was how there were animal sacrifices but then the lord came down and died on the cross so the sacrifices stopped…and that meant that God didn’t like the animal sacrifices. I think he missed the point about why Jesus died on the cross. Anyway, he also talked about having a dog and couldn’t imagine eating his dog. Now there is no comparison with eating a big juicy steak and eating leg of dog.

Lets start with cows. They are raised to produce products we can eat. They are not a domesticated animal. They are the same as corn that grows in the field. They have no will. They are happy if they have food to eat but don’t have any understanding of anything other then reproducing and eating.

Now dogs are domesticated. But, if you look at the purpose of dogs you will realize they are working animals. Their meaning to us has changed based on centuries use as a companion but there is one thing…Dogs show affection and we respond to that affection. But, do they really love us or do they love the fact that we are the ones who feed them. I love my dog but it would be just as happy with someone else if she was getting a regular meal and some affection.

I left a comment for the vegan blogger who posted this story and she made a comment that did disturb me a little.


Thanks for your comment.

I don't believe that, because an animal was raised to become "meat," it's ok to kill it. Africans were once raised to work for whites. I don't believe that's right. Simply because a group can control another, that doesn't give them the right to do so.

Now I don’t recall anything that every said that Africans were raised to work for whites. I do recall that people were forcibly taken from their homes and made into slaves, but they were not raised to do such. However, using this logic, should we not have used horses to pull carriages…I’m sure the horse would have much rather have sat around eating grass in the field. No, animals have no will…they make all of their decision based on instinct. The horse pulls the wagon because it knows it will get oats and an apple when it is done. Not because it wants to pull it. We as people push the cart because we make the decision to move it from point A to point B.

All of this being said, I don’t like cruelty to animals. I think someone who hurts an animal on purpose should be hurt in a similar fashion. But I think that slaughtering cattle is fine because it is a crop, not unlike corn. As long as they are not being tortured I think it is ok.

I’m not sure why I ended up here…making a statement. I think that standing up for something you believe in is a great thing. But to place burdens on others because of what they believe is wrong. We can all just agree to disagree.

Barking at the Moon

I think the world of WOW is read to really go main stream considering what I saw last night. I saw a commercial for the new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, on ESPN. I guess I didn’t realize the target audience for the WOW would be watching highlights from the weekends football games. So if the people at Blizzard are convinced that spending large sums of money during a NFL recap show to pimp there product, then I must be doing the right thing by playing.



Ozzy fits right in with his eloquent speech truly inspiring me to want to run to the store and purchase the latest expansion. Who wouldn’t be driven by the clear and concise dialog the flows from his mouth…like music to my ears. Maybe the should have used Bark at the Moon as back ground music.

My Inner Geek

Knowing your geekish tendencies is important in the grand scheme of things. I have no problem with the fact I played Dungeons and Dragons when I was a kid…hell, just the other day my son pulled out my container of various die and asked “Dad…what’s this?” I answered, “Why that is a 20-sided die.” I have a whole crap load of the various utensils of destruction needed to play the game…I still have my copy of the Monster Manual, Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters’ Guide, Monster Manual 2 and even the Deities and Demigods book. You never know, maybe I’ll want to get the stuff out and play again. I am content with my inner geek.

So you ask why I would bring up D&D? I guess because I’ve been playing WOW and actually enjoy playing. I guess it should be a surprise that I like the game and even though I can’t seem to keep the monsters off of waffles as well as I should, it is a fun little game. And if you break it down, it only cost about 2 cents and hour to play. 90% of the online poker world should think about that because they would lose less money if they paid money to play a game where that can’t win anything back.

I played for a few hours…like 15 hours over the weekend. I have 2 characters going and mailed some silver pieces to my 2nd character, An Orc Warlock, so that he could afford some other things. My Undead Warrior is doing well and is up to 20th level. I have found that some of these quests need multiple players to get them done without fear of death so maybe I can convince a few people to give it a try.

As far as poker goes, I played in a Bodog free roll the other day. I don’t count that as playing because I didn’t put any money up. Anyway, the play was horrific, even for a free roll and I lost interest after about 2/3 of the field was gone. I had a workable stack and I think the structure there is pretty good but I didn’t like the software at all. There seemed to be stalls and hiccups and I wasn’t always sure where I was at during a hand. I’m sure I could get use to it but while I’m on hiatus, there is no need.

Is There a Return in the Future

Well it has been ten days since I started my hiatus. I spend the long evenings looking at the screen of my laptop…I look and wonder what it would be like to slip my toe back into the waters of online poker. Is it the draw of the game…Is it the draw of the competition…Is it addiction…Am I just a loser that has nothing better to do with my time? I am a lurker. I watch friends play to fill up the empty space left by my exodus from online poker.

Actually, I’ve been playing WOW and having a blast. I hooked up with waffles the other night and watch him kill things in one shot that would take me much longer to kill. I guess being a 70th level Undead Rogue has its advantages. Anyway, I have leveled up pretty good, 16th level, but I’m running out of time on my free trial. I guess I’ll have to run to the store and buy it so I can waste more time until my hiatus is over. Hell, the cost of the game is much less then my monthly juice/rake so it is all good.

I played live last Friday. I wasn’t going to play because I was short of funds but I made a deal to trade some Pay Pal money for the buy-in and went on my way. It was a $35 buy-in with $5 going to the house for food and drinks and $10 going to a bounty. We had three full tables of various skill levels with the typical calling stations and agro lagtards. My first table had a nemesis sitting two to my left. He thinks A4 is a great hand to call two raises with and over plays junk all the time. There was also my old boss, worldpoker05 on full tilt, who is very tight and a number of players that I’ve played enough to have good basic reads of them.

First couple of orbits I played tight until I found AK in latish position. I raised 3x to 150 and was called my nemesis. The flop was QT3 with two spades and I fired a continuation bet of 200 into the pot of 375 and he called. He could have either the straight draw or a flush draw as well as either or pairing the Q and T. I he is a good enough player to fold a whiffed pot so I know he has a piece of it. The turn brings me an off suit J giving me the straight. I thought a bit and tossed out 250 into the pot of 775. I was trying to feign weakness but he just called. At this point, I hope he has two pair and because I know he will call an overbet for value. The river is a 7 and I tank a bit. This is a bounty tourney so I want his bounty chip but will he call a shove or even a small bet. I shove hoping he thinks I missed the flush draw and he folds. He later said he folded T9. To bad an 8 didn’t hit the river.

Shortly after that hand I was moved to the TV table. We watched the Blackhawks game in between hands. Anyway, It didn’t take me long to realize that most of the players like to limp and see flops so I opened up my range a bit and began to make raises. I won the blinds with T8, A7, A5 and 53 before someone re-raised me. I actually had a hand with AQ but folded after a couple minutes of thinking. That didn’t stop me though. I raised with Ax and bet at a Kxx board and took it down. I also came over the top of limpers a few times and enjoyed watching them slam their cards in the muck as I pulled the chips in to my stack. Before I knew it, I had 13K while the next biggest stack had maybe 3200. By this point the blinds started to mean something and I continued to put pressure on the players. I asked players there chip counts and raised half there stack over and over again. Nobody played back at me…until a shorty pushed after I,,,limped…with AQ suited. I knew he would have to push with the blinds coming and wanted him to commit his chips. His A7 was no match. As we got ready to move to the final table I made one call that was very questionable…well it was actually dumb. A shorty pushed for less then the SB and I called from the SB position. The big blind pushed over the top. To 2025. I was getting about 1.6 to one to call while holding 56 suited. I was looking at busting two players for about 10% of my chips stack. Really I was playing against the raiser and I figured him to have a big ace so I was close to the right odds minus the shorty. I made the call and was happy to see that the raiser had pocket 2s. The shorty had me dominated with his 75 but the flop came and gave me a 6 to take the lead. I was gold until the river when a 2 hit and gave the stack to the raiser. I guess it was the wrong play but it almost worked.

At the final table I was an average stack…maybe a bit above. Anyway, it was tight as the blinds were getting huge. In one hand, my nemesis limped from early position and it folded to me in the BB. I checked blind and we saw a flop of 544. I announced ”I guess I should look at my cards” and checked. He made a pot size bet and I came over the top for all of my chips. He tanked a bit and folded JJ face up. So as a good sport I turned over my 82 off suit. He went on major tilt and bled chips for the next 30 minutes. I got a couple of high 5s but I knew I would have to tighten up. And that killed my game.

I was never able to get much going and players folded to my raises because they knew I had something when I raised. The real problem was the short stacks and idiots trading chips back and forth. We didn’t lose anyone for an hour and fight though I might, I could gain any traction. I finally pushed on the bubble and got called by the big stack. Yes I missed the cash and a chance to replenish my online bankroll a bit.

The bluff was a huge thing in may ways. It hurt me a bit tonight but all of those players will remember it. I can use that when I have a hand…and I will.

Pimping Bodog

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And Now, the End is Near...And So I face, The Final Curtain?

I’m taking a break.

I had good intentions of getting back into the swing of things but life sucks right now and spending time writing just isn’t in the cards right now.

I had to take the majority of my bankroll in a pair of transfers for cash that left me far short of my comfort zone and proceeded to waste most of it trying to win a seat for the FTOPS Razz event. It wasn’t a bad beat that knocked me out…it was the twisted humor of the junk kicking game that I love to play.

Over the last 14 months, I have spent almost $2500 of my live bankroll paying for softball equipment, hitting and pitching lessons and the fees for my daughters playing on their traveling teams. I had to take money out of my on-line roll to take care of some more of these things and now have crumbs.

I need to do one of two things…learn how to win more money or find a better job so I don’t have to go into my bankroll to pay for these things.

A tilted exposé of my run could be seen shortly after getting knocked out on the bubble of the razz qualifier if you opened up the SNG I was playing in with all but the last 3 dollars of my bankroll. Like a fool I ran AK into KQ when the table idiot shoved on my 4x raise knowing I was committed to the pot…maybe I give to much credit saying he should know I’m committed…I call and the “no withdraw god” hits him with a Q on the river to send me home.

I talked to my wife about replenishing my roll after everything is completed with my dad’s estate but that probably is the wrong thing to do. Maybe it is time to step away from the game…to do things with my time other then sitting in my chair with the TV on playing cards until midnight or later all the time.

I’m frustrated by the fact that I spent all this time building my arsenal, most of my live roll came from on-line, and then gave it away to the point I cannot play comfortably anymore. It was my choice to spend the money on my children and would never want to deprive them of things that I think are important for them to have, but…it just sucks.

Last night was a failure in bankroll management. I shouldn’t have played the $55 qualifier but I had cashed in it 4 of 5 times in the past and was trying to use it to get something workable to play with. I wouldn’t have played the Razz event…I would have taken the tourney dollars and grinded my roll back to something playable. The right thing to do would have been to start playing some $2 SNGs and work it up slowly but I fell victim to my vanity.

I don’t have disposable income so unless I can turn this around quickly, I will be done. I have a couple of buy-ins left and will try to get it turned around but only after taking a day or two off. Then I either turn it around or I have to get some ad money to start over.

I do get a little money from ads but not much. I have it deposited into a bank account that we use for Christmas and other things. I’ve always tried to keep the ad money separate from the poker money so I could see what is going on with my game.

Maybe I’ll just play free poker and learn to push 94 off suit pre-flop and cheer about winning 10 million free chips.

Fiction is Good for the Soul

I’ve had a problem lately…I seem to be on non-blogging blogger. I understand that making a commitment to the blogging community places a burden of responsibilities on anyone who steps up and takes the challenge, and that I have been less then conforming to the true standards needed to be considered an active blogger, but I will try to improve the efficiency of my efforts as the cold winter months start to impede upon outside activities. I guess you could say I would rather be doing other things while the weather is still nice. That and work has been busy.

I gave the few readers of this blog a brief glimpse at a project I’m working on a week or so ago. It is my first attempt at fiction and you had the privilege (I guess it was a privilege) of reading the first few paragraphs of a literary masterpiece. Well, maybe not masterpiece but it will be a short story by the time I’m done. I’m looking at 15 – 20K words but it could be bigger or smaller depending on the amount of effort I end up putting into the story. I will give a brief synopsis for those of you who care about such things.

It is a story about a 45 – 55 year old man who is heading to Las Vegas for the first time. He is a math teacher at a…wait…maybe I’ll just show you some reviews.



From Ramblings of a Mad Man

“The heart breaking tragedy of a man on a quest is both moving and inspirational. Moving in that I had a bowel movement after reading the first couple of paragraphs and inspirational because it inspired me to head to the bathroom instead of crapping my pants.”

From JJ is OK

BLOW


So as you can see, the reviews speak louder than words…well they are words so they speak the same as words. You can see that one review says the story is inspirational and they both have moving concepts in the review. I am very inspired by these reviews and will continue to try and live up to the expectations that my readers have set for me.

I’m guessing that this will take me a couple of months at most but being a procrastinator…anyway, I will post it when I’m finished writing it…or not.

Feeding the Rush

Awake in a Dream

I opened my eyes but a cold grayness was all I could see. I wasn’t sure where I was at or how long I had been there but I knew one thing…I felt like shit. Reaching for my eyes, I felt an excruciating pain run from my right shoulder and down my arm that threatened to send me back into unconsciousness. I slowly fought off the desire to slip back into the darkness and tried again to reach my eyes with my other hand. What I found was a bandage that seemed to be wrapped around my head.

I sat there for a minute and collected my thoughts but my mind seemed to wander. After a while I started to pull off the gauze wrapped around my skull and felt them pulling at some unknown injury around my vanishing hairline. As I pulled it off of my eyes I was blinded by the brilliance of light that emanated from whatever room I was in. The light brought a new pain but one that slipped away as I slowly adjusted to my environment.

The room was certainly well lit and I looked around to try and understand where I was located. Reality struck home when I saw wires hooked up to me and an I.V. sticking out of my arm. Now all I had to do was figure out what happened to me that caused me to be sitting in a hospital bed.

As I searched my mind the beeping from the heart monitor came into my consciousness. The continuously repeating sounds didn’t help me focus on the situation at hand. I started to push my self up, ignoring the pain in my shoulder, when the door to my confusing life opened. She looked like an angel in her white nurse’s outfit and I hoped she could shed some light on what happened to me. But as I started to speak she asked me to lie back down and try to relax. The words I tried to speak wouldn’t come as I realized I couldn’t talk.

Fear bubbled into a froth as I started to panic. I tried to get up from my bed but my legs didn’t work and my useless right arm failed me for a second time. I heard her scream something as I continued my quest to break free of my confines. In ran what had to be a doctor and I was startled when my angel jumped across my chest and held me in place. I felt the needle slide slowly into my arm as the doctor did what he could to get me to calm down. As the drug began to take affect, I slowly lost the battle and succumbed to the sleep inducing injection.

To be continued…

Ten Things

1) Man do I feel better.

2) It is amazing the amount of stress we put on our selves when it isn’t really warranted.

3) What can be worse as a father then having your daughter go to her first high school dance and remembering how you were as a high school boy?

4) Why is it that when you find that old CD that you bought for one song, there is a scratch on that song?

5) Does anyone see the resemblance of the bitchy neighbor lady in Sarah Palin?

6) Does anyone see the resemblance of your high school friend’s hot mom in Sarah Palin?

7) Can someone tell me why the price of gas is going down even though our economy seems to be turning into a pile of shit?

8) Does anyone feel sorry for all those companies who granted bad loans?

9) I don’t have a problem with the people getting loans they couldn’t afford because they were doing what the system allowed them to do…and they also have to pay the price.

10) I don’t like bailing out the idiots who over sold there products because it would got them big bonuses that they can now retire on while everyone else fixes their mess.