The Bahamas and Back

(taken with my iPhone)

Super Fun Game Time

Rules: Guess how much the following three products cost all together (there is no tax and ignore the ridiculously mandatory 15% gratuity) at a local food market in Paradise Island in the Bahamas. One guess per person to be left in the comments. Game over Sunday at midnight.
Prize: Various gifts from the PCA package including polo's, Castro hat, a Frisbee and some sexy suntan lotion.

The Islands

So I busted out of the main event in the Bahamas, but I spent all day drinking and playing games with friends and won most of my money back playing craps. Life is a pleasure.

Bahamas

I finished day 1 with 57,400 (started with 30k). The only interesting hand was the second to last hand of the night:

Blinds: 400/800/100
Stack Size: 41k
Position: small blind

Folds to the button and young guy makes it 1800 after barely looking. I raise to 5200 after some thought and the big blind folds. Young kid pretty quickly goes to 11,500 without looking at stacks sizes (he had me covered by a tad). I think for about 15 seconds and jam in for 41k and he snap folds and I facial the 97o.

Wednesday

I am playing the PCA main event today. I doubt I will be twittering all that much seeing that it costs about 7 dollars per tweet. You will probably only find online updates on the Internet if I manage a big stack or do something crazy. Speaking of crazy I had some strange dreams last night. Even too strange for this blog. Game on.

P.S. I spent the first 6 years of my Internet birth trying to come up with the most clever and response inducing AIM away messages. In that stint the away message that got the most replies was "Today is Tuesday" when it was Wednesday.

I've Been Through It All These Past Five Weeks

I've been through the chill and bite of a Chicago winter; I've been through the warm waters of a Bahama beach.

I've been through the heartache of a big breakup; I've felt the excitement and nerves of being on a first date.

I've been depressed and bored while stranded alone; I've been the host of a killer party with incredible company.

I could go on, but I think these two pictures I took with my phone can sum it all up:

I Hate My Job #51

New Years Eve Video

Tips

I've had a few people ask me for some tips on throwing a good new years eve party; so I figured I'd blog about it along with my current play list (I tweak it several times a day):

• Music is huge. End of the year top ten lists are all over the music blog world and a great source for hidden gems. Be creative and use DJ fundamentals. I like to start off low key and crescendo around 11:45-1:30.
• Typically the more the merrier. I like to give a personal email or phone call to several fringe guests I would especially like to come.
• Have plenty of paper towels handy.
• It's always nice to have some fun games or decorations that are original and creative. Surprise and delight people.
• Good liquor, champagne and high gravity Belgian beers are well worth the money.
  
• Complicated mixed drinks tend to take a bit too much time to serve and are not worth it.
• Midnight can sneak up on you if the party is bumping. Make sure you turn on the TV or something to get a countdown going. A cellphone reminder a few minutes beforehand can help avoid sleeping the countdown (it can take longer than you think to hand out champagne and something to make noise with to most people).

Here is a majority of what I have in store musically:

The Beatles - I Saw Her Standing There
The Temptations vs. Ludacris - Move Girl
Shwayze - Livin' It Up
AC-DC - It's a Long Way to the Top
Lil Wayne - Shooter
Calvin Harris - Merry Making at My Place
LCD Soundsystem - Bye Bye Bayou
Blondie - Atomic
Tor/Sufjan Stevens - Dumb I Sound
Musical Youth - Pass the Dutchie
Queen - Killer Queen
Kid Cudi - Make Her Say
Spoon - Written in Reverse
Lil Wayne - Let the Beat Build
Metric - Help I'm Alive (Twelves Remix)
Jay-Z - Run This Town
Drake - Forever (Travis Barker Remix)
The Hood Internet Vol. 4 Tracks 2-7
Rye Rye - Bang
Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling (Remix)
THI V4 Tracks 11-12
La Roux - I'm Not Your Toy (datA Remix)
Dr. Dre - Drop That Dream (POMATIC Remix)
Franz Ferdinand - What She Came For (Drums of Death Remix)
Travis Porter - All the Way Turnt Up
Outkast - So Fresh So Clean (Personally Sped Up Tempo a Tad)
Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
Rhianna - Don't Stop the Music (LAZRtag Remix)
Dorrough - Ice Cream Paint Job (Personally Sped Up)
LMFAO - La La La
Waka Flocka Flame - O Let's Do It
B.I.G. - Party and Bullshit (In the USA Remix)
Kid Cudi - Pursuit of Happiness (Steve Aoki Remix)
Jay-Z - Empire State of Mind
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (A-Trak Remix)
Mystikal - Danger (Sped Up Some)
Sugar Hill Gang - Apache
Outkast - Hey Ya!
MGMT - Electric Touch
THI4 Tracks 20,23-27
Ke$ha - Tik Tok (Skeet Skeet Remix)
Rick James - Give It to Me Baby
Ludacris - What's Your Fantasy
T.I. - Whatever You Like (DiscoTech Remix)
Wale - Chillin (Meterhead Remix)
White Lies - Farewell to the Fairground (Yuksek Remix)
Queen - I Want to Break Free

You Just Don't Understand

I felt compelled to share some of the most insightful pages from the book I am reading:

Oprah Winfrey has said, "My biggest flaw is my inability to confront people. After all the shows I've done, the books I've read, the psychologists I've talked to, I still allow myself to get ripped off to the nth degree. It takes me days and days of procrastination and agonizing before i can work up the nerve to say anything, Sometimes I think I'd rather just run out and get hit by a truck than confront someone who is ripping me off."

One man described to me what his former wife called the I-like-chicken-backs phenomenon. When his family ate a chicken for dinner, someone had to eat the back, and in his family it was always his wife, who assured the others, "I like chicken backs." But, as this man commented to me, nobody liked chicken backs. She had convinced herself that she liked chicken backs and broken egg yolks and burned toast- to be accommodating. But years of accommodating built up to mounting frustration that they both believed had contributed to their eventual divorce.

For many women, openly opposing the will of others- or what they perceive to be others' will- is unthinkable. Ironically, it may be easier for some to think of leaving. This was the case of a woman I will call Dora, who did not realize, until it was too late, that opposing her husband's will would not bring the house down. But the cumulative frustration of never getting her way did.

A source of frustration for Dora was a series of used automobiles. It was she who drove to work, and she who took the car to the garage, but her husband, Hank, who chose the cars they would buy. Hank always went for cars that were cheap, interesting, and continually in need of repair. After Dora was nearly killed by a run-down Tenault with unfixable brakes, they were in the market for yet another used car.

Hank fixed his sights on a fifteen-year-old Alfa Romeo that a mechanic he knew was getting ready to sell. Dora wanted to take advantage of the chance to buy a late model VW from a friend who was leaving the country. Determined to reach a decision by consensus, she tried every verbal resource she could think of to convince Hank that it made sense to buy the boring but dependable VW rather than the dashing old Alfa Romeo, but he would not be convinced.

If this had happened at any previous time, Dora would have acceded to her husband's wishes and cursed him in her heart each time she drove the Alfa Romeo to work- or to the garage for repair. But this incident occurred when their marriage was already on the rocks. With so little to lose, she bough the VW from her friend and steeled herself for the torrent of anger she was sure she'd incur. To her amazement, Hank never spoke a word of remonstrance. When she told him what she had expected, he told her she had been foolish: She should have just done what she wanted from the start if she felt that strongly about it. He couldn't understand why she felt she had to have his blessing to do what she was certain was right.

No matter how dissatisfied people are with the results they are getting, they rarely question their way of trying to get results. When what we are doing is not working, we do not try doing something totally different. Instead, we try harder by doing more of what seems self-evidently the right way to proceed. But when styles differ, more of the same is usually met with more of the same from the other party as well. As a result, far from solving the problem, our efforts only make things worse.

A big break up can have some peculiar affects on a man. I now have this strong association between things that led to my loss and a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I feel a bit like Alex in A Clockwork Orange. The idea of sleeping in late makes me feel gross. Causing mischief with my neighbors for the sake of confrontation seems asinine. Even little things like typing too quickly and spelling words wrong while chatting makes me queasy. And I quote Alex:

I woke up. The pain and sickness all over me like an animal.
Then I realised what it was. The music coming up from the floor
was our old friend, Ludwig van and the dreaded 9th Symphony.
Suddenly I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted
to do ó and that was to do myself in, to snuff it, to blast off
forever out of this wicked cruel world.

Such a cathartic process does feel like a rebirth at times. It's almost a privilege. It take a special person to inspire you to better yourself whilst in their company, but it takes a whole higher level of character for that person to inspire you with their absence.

I Spent a G on These Frames, but My Vision Is Priceless

First two noble truths of Buddhism:

1. Existence is suffering
2. Suffering originates from desire
   

Pic

A portrait my eight year old cousin did for me.

Note to Relatives

Just because I play poker for a living doesn't mean I want a ton of scratch off lottery tickets for Christmas.

Me

I am generally an extremely passive person. My past two previous relationships sort of just fell into my lap with little work. They both pretty much fell apart from a lack of effort on my part. I hardly did any homework in school. Poker came rather naturally and I now have to do little work to get more money than I need. Athleticism comes with little struggle. In high school when it came time to apply for colleges I did only one application (most of my peers doing at least 3-7) and got in to my first choice of school with no back up plan [funny story is when the girl I was dating at the time went to our guidance consular in a rush to get off a few applications he suggested that she be more proactive like me [her bf] to which she laughed in his face and to me later]. This is the first time in my life I really feel like I need to work hard to become a better person and I am setting some serious goals to get it done:

1. Alarm set to get me up everyday at 9:59AM.
2. At least 30 minutes a day reading about communication skills and emotional growth.
3. Keeping current connections with friends and family strong and encouraging new ones.
4. At least 30 minutes a day of cardio or anaerobic exercise.
5. Keep my condo clean.

Once I set goals they almost always are accomplished. It's funny how buying things can really make you feel better as superficial and lame as that sounds. I got some rocking campers and a new years eve outfit in soho and I feel like a new man at times.