Stats - A dorks update

Here is the update that I have been promising to myself.  I'm pretty sure that most of this is going to be boring and unimportant to most/all of you but dag nab-bit it's the kind of thing I look at all the time.  I don't know how often I'll actually do these types of posts but I'm sure it's going to be a couple of times a year.

Now, Like I said in my last post, this morning, I had been waiting to reach either 25 followers or to reach 10k page views before I did a statistical post.  Yesterday I hit 25 followers and was about 400 views away from 10k. Now, from what I have been observing, the way that Blogger works is they cut the day off at 4pm.  I have not found any way to change this to actually cut it off at MY midnight, so I am stuck with their reporting but whatever.  It only annoys me a minor amount and I feel that I can live with it for now.
So, when I got home today to follow up on some comments I checked out my stats update so that I can start thinking about and composing this post and noticed that "yesterday" ended up being By Far my biggest day in terms of hits.  My previous was 215 which I hit on back-to-back days on February 8th and 9th. However, yesterday's total surpassed it by a surprising amount.  Total was 340 hits.  Un-frigging-believable.  This puts me at a bit over 9900 total hits and means that after this gets posted if I few people look at it I have the distinct possibility of  hitting that 10k goal before the end of Feb!

Dork High-Five!

Yeah - whatever. It's the little things that tickle my fancy.

So, onward.

My first Subscriber: Carmel - who didn't want me to be talking to myself.

My latest subscriber: Liz - Who is an old friend from high-school and followed my links through Facebook and decided to finally "join the cult of grrouch."

December 31st - with a couple of friends subscribing, I ended the year with 12 followers.  Through the magic of the internet and with the help of Josie's blog and I have now over doubled that number.  Truly more than I thought would happen.

June of last year I started doing this blog as a way to track poker playing with Tony BigCharles, reporting on sessions and keeping track of a challenge that we were doing at the time.  Posting links to my blog via his blog and on AVP (this was right after VPN went away) I ended up getting about 1k hits.

July - October I didn't update nearly as much because my poker playing cut WAYYYYyyy back and the total of those 4 months was about equal to June, about 1k hits.

Then, in November I started writing a little bit more, and more consistently and have actually stuck with it since then.  November saw me with over 1600 hits, December was over 2200 hits and January somewhere around 2400 hits and now February garnered me almost 3k hits (so close but so far away).  

In the comments section of my last post Rob from Robvegaspoker asked what was in it for the "subscribers" and to that I really don't know.  You all have my eternal gratitude that you find me amusing enough to keep coming back and reading my updates.  Over the course of the next year or so I hope to meet every single one of you and at least buy you a beer and probably do some form of gambling with you whether it's playing poker or Pai Gow or craps or whatever.  I look forward to continually interacting with you all and eventually meeting you all as most of you probably travel to Las Vegas occasionally.

Greatest Hits:  Or Postests with the Mostests

I've come to the realization that linking the right photo (generally from a Google Image Search) tends to give me a decent amount of traffic and this is evidenced by the post with the most views still gets hits to this day because of one particular picture that I included.

My top Posts thus far:  

#1 - For The Ladies - Other than it was a love tale told with pictures, the main reason that this is #1 is because of the last picture I included - and oddly enough the #1 searched for term that gets hits on my blog is roofies (which ultimately links to that picture and when clicked on shows my blog).  I'd love to know if any of those hits actually look around my blog and if any ever come back.  I'll probably never know the answer to that.

#2 - A video game post

#3 - I won my dog in a game of craps

#4 - Great F'n Day

#5 - Cuntcakes 

#6 - Case of the Mondays'

#7 - Titty Tuesday

#8 - Pokah on da Weekend

As you can see, two of my recent ones have actually cracked the 100 page view mark which is pretty awesome.  The other thing that I notice with my top choices is that there really isn't a consistent pattern of what I post about.  It's not like the top posts are filled up with all poker talk (which I kind of expected being that most of you are poker related friends).

The sights that drive the most traffic to my blog?

Very Josie's site  #1 - so a big mua to you love.

2nd is Cheapassgamer.com - which I generally only link to my blog when I have video game related posts.

3rd is google.com 

4th is allvegaspoker - and generally I only link to the poker related stuff - though I suppose I should cross post there more often as I do have a unused "blog" there as well

5th is - sevencard2003's blog

6th is  - robvegaspoker's blog - and I note that it will surpass TBC's blog within a month or so!

7th is -google UK

8th is - Facebook - I usually update Twitter and Facebook when I post - NetworkBlogs has been doing that for me now

9th is - Mobile Facebook - ditto the above.

So, more than you guys really needed (or wanted) to know there.

Top Search Terms

Roofies

Boobies

Grrouchie

Evil Cat

Ok - That's enough to bore you all for now.  If you are just waking up after falling asleep to all that crap, please wipe the drool off your chin and maybe clean your keyboard off.

If you actually read all this - You are a fucking dork too.

This wasn't well thought out our planned out and next time I do one of these it will be formatted better and maybe be easier to read over.

Hope you all enjoyed this statistical breakdown of my blog (right).

Leap Day

Just a quickie in the morning, just like I like it.

Today only comes around once every 4 years and I was not fortunate enough to be born on this day which is really a travesty.
However, today is "special" much in the same sense that Ash Wednesday is special - it's labeled so on a calender.

Google Music is running 29 albums for $2.99 for today and Dave Ramsey has a post about 29 ways to Leap out of Debt which I'm sure is a good read and I'll get to later in the day.

More importantly, I've been waiting for 1 of two milestones in my "blog" so that I could finally have an excuse to break down a statistical post.  Milestone #1 was reached sometime before the day turned into the 29th and that is 25 Followers of the Cult of grrouch which is fairly awesome to me.
The other milestone, which I'll be breaking within the 1st few days of March, is 10,000 page views.
So, both of them will have fallen pretty close to each other which means that when I get home tonight, in between the heavy drinking, chocolate eating and using my dogs long hair to dry my tears I'll be composing a random blog about stats.  By random I mean it won't be random, it'll be about stupid crap concerning my blog that mostly brings smiles to my faces, all of them.

Deep down inside I'm a huge dork and I love to break things down and analyze them.  I also love to cover things in chocolate and eat them which reminds me that it's fairly close to time to make some choco-covered gummy bears again.

Now if you'll excuse me - I hear a Revolution Calling.




Also, just as an FYI - I take requests :)
If there is any particular subject you'd like to see me bitch and moan about - or whatever.  Feel free to say so and I will work it in somewhere.
Everyone that follows me with any regularity knows that this blog has been pretty damned random over the past few months anyways.

Titty Tuesday

I was going to type out that I'm not really 100% sure why I chose that title for my blog today but I decided to not lie to you all and tell you the truth instead.

It's all because of Rob over at Robvegaspoker.
He was kind enough to tell the world that I'm actually kind of the opposite of a grouch in real life.  However, his facts might just be skewed because I was having an off day or something.  For those of you who know me and have dealt with me in the real world for longer than two evenings - you can attest to the fact that I'm kind of an asshole - though mostly in a good humored way.
So Rob, these are for you.

Woof Woof kitty kitty

So, not only do I have to find out that it's possible for someone to actually like me, I then start going through the comments and find out that Fboy has paid me a compliment as well.  At least, in my aging mind, I assume "grouchie is straight up boss" to be a compliment.  Unless he was just trying to say that I'm in charge of a group of people and I just misunderstood what he was saying.

I admit, I love meeting new people - specifically people whom I have interacted favorably with me over the net. I was disappointed that things didn't work out last time Lightning36 was in town, but I have no doubt next time the planets will align and we will be sitting at a poker table inside Bally's and being dealt cards by Balt999.

So please peeps - when visiting let the grouch know and maybe we can enjoy a few laughs while stacking a few tourists together - or maybe you'll just stack me and I'll bitch about you on my blog and you'll talk about how the tourists were bad but f'n grrouchie is truly a fish like his blog says he is.  Either way, good times for one of us no?

In other news - I slept in a bad position and have had a horrendous headache all day.

For video game dorks, my friend let me borrow his netflix rental: Captain N: The Game Master: Adventures in Videoland - HELLS YEAH!!!!

Oh hells yeah I'm excited to watch!

And my parting final thought is, this picture is truly awesome. I wish I could make my own caricature just as this one was done.

A Sunday of Poker

Poker is a ridiculous game where you make people pay for their mistakes.  Or, in my case, where people make me pay for their mistakes.

I love the game and have been playing for a good number of years starting somewhere around the whole Moneymaker thing.  However, I did not start playing poker because of Moneymaker - I didn't even know who he was at the time.  I started because a buddy asked me if I wanted to go up to one of the Indian Casino's in New York with him for an afternoon of poker and I thought it sounded like fun so I agreed.

Confession:  I had never played poker before this afternoon in my life.  In fact, I knew nothing of the game other than it was a card game and it was going to be for money.  My buddy actually had to explain the rules to me on the way to the casino and go over the hand rankings as well.  So, in a 45 minute drive from Erie Pa to Irving NY I was taught that a flush beats a straight and that a high card generally is a pretty crappy way to end the hand.  He briefed me on the rankings and then hammered me over the head with them on the way up by asking me questions and forcing me to answer.  I did not know that this was going to be the humble beginnings of one of the most powerful addictions that I would ever have in my life.  Fucking poker man.

The casino, which really I don't like calling it a casino because it was more like a gutted Sam's Club filled with Slot machines and two poker tables at the entrance.  There was also a Poker Room at the back of the casino that we never ventured to because we thought it was real high stakes full of black and green chips but the reality of the situation is that they were just running tournaments in that room and we were naive and gullible.

The game was 2/4 limit and was full of the usual cast of old people being bored and passing chips around. My first session I lost $4 and was hooked.  I played about 3 or 4 more sessions and lost money each time when Matt asked me to go again.  I told him that I would but this would be the last time if I didn't find a way to win. Loved the game but didn't like parting with the money every couple of weeks.  Luckily for us the casino had just implemented a new game that they were spreading that was taking the world by storm - No Limit.

No Limit Hold'em.  The Cadillac of Poker. Oh, and what a Cadillac it was.  This lovely little box in the road offered the greatest poker game to get someone like me hooked.  It was small buy-in and low blinds and to this day I really wish I could find another place to spread the exact game because it was just so much damned fun (and high variance by nature).  The blinds were 1 and 1 and the buy-in was $40.  $40 was the Min and the Max and everyone at the table played so bad, myself included.  I love looking back on it now and realizing how bad I was compared to where i am now (which, is only slightly better). Raises to $3 were the norm and if there was a $5 or $6 raise that meant that someone had a big hand!  I seriously miss that game.  Whenever I finally have a home game this is my decided format except I'll allow $20-40 buy-ins heh.

So, with this new format I started winning. Some of it by pure luck and some of it because I happened to suck just a little bit less than the other people at the table.  I had a ton of misconceptions about the game and it just so happen that I ran well when the No Limit game popped up.  Running well is really an understatement because for at least 3 months I won between 1-3 buy-ins every single time I went to the casino.  And this brings us to present day.

I am now paying for the sins of my past.  I was unfortunate enough to run really well when I started playing which helped forge this addiction and love so deep that I will probably play until I'm your typical old degenerate local (I'm getting there).

From the first year I played poker I won overall.  When it was a 1/1 $40 buy-in I won (and crushed it).  When it became a 1/2 $100 buy-in I kept winning.  When I stepped up to the 5/5 $200 buy-in game I continued to win.  Won in Vegas, won online and won at the local Indian Casino's.  I loved it.
Then the wheels feel off and I was an overall loser in 2010 and a defeated player in 2011.  Two years of not showing a profit after winning for the previous 6 years (or however many it really was.  I'm too lazy to look up the year that Moneymaker won to be able to give an accurate count).

I lose in every way imaginable and I tend to lose when I'm in a big pot.  Big draws have failed to get there and sets are just teases of potential power that can be brought down at the whim of a turn or river.  I need to re-evaluate my game and figure out if I'm just playing my big draws too hard and too fast because over the last few sessions I have lost with every single big draw I have had.  And, in reality, it has not just been the last few sessions - it's been over the course of the last two years.

I know this sounds like the typical drivel of a losing player, but with my success from the beginning until then I cannot find it in me to believe that I was just running way above expectation for all those years.

My last few sessions have included the following.
Top pair Open ended royal draw - All in on flop and lost.
Open ended with flush draw and overs - all in on flop and lost.
Top pair top kicker and nut flush draw - All in on Flop or Turn and lost (3 times)

And those are just the draws - Opponents have been "getting there" like crazy against me.
I had a few in my last poker blog post and I posted a bunch of hands on AVP where one guy murdered me in 3 huge hands because he found a way to get there every time.

The funny thing is I intended doing a good write up of yesterdays two poker sessions with Rob from RobVegasPoker and ended up with mostly back story.

So, just a brief quickie.
1st casino was pretty boring and card dead.  I had Ak once and AJ 3 times.  My last two hands were QQ and KK.
QQ was in the big blind and I raised big after a small raise and a bunch of tag alongs.  Everyone folded.  Next hand KK - there was a raise and I made it $20.  Flop Q high and I make it $40.  Turn Ace and we essentially get all in and his AQ got there on the turn ending all of my hopes of a successful session.
I 100% fully blame Rob for this hand as he must have found a way to transfer his bad luck with KK to me (though, if that means future good luck for him then tits to that!).

Casino #2 saw me winning some hands early and building a little bit of a stack.  Making some really good plays/calls and building my stack even further.
Then I find myself in a situation that sucks the chips out of me.
Here was the big hand of the night (negative).
There was a $4 straddle and 2 callers and I make it $20 to go with AsJs.  One caller and we see a flop.
JxTsXx - I bet out $40 and he calls.
Turn 2s giving me nut flush draw to go with my TpTk.  On the flop when I bet it took him a long time before finally calling so I figure'd maybe he had a pair and a straight draw or just a straight draw, maybe a J with a weak kicker and thought I was bluffing.
So, when I turned the nut flush draw to go with my pair I pushed which put him into another long drawn out thought process.  Finally he decides to call and I turn over my AJ and he turns over flopped Top 2 TJ (what was he thinking about waiting to call so long on both streets?).
The 8 of diamonds ruins all of my hope of cashing out +$500 on the night and I'm annoyed that another session ends up with a big loss for me (not a big loss as in I finished down, but a big loss as in there went all my profits when I had a good hand with the big draw and my opponent of course out flopped me and stayed ahead the whole time.).
Should I not be looking to get my money in?  I'm just not sure how to play the hand much differently when I bloated the pot pre flop and saw a good Flop and Turn for what I had.  Maybe I'm looking at it wrong and I should have checked the turn to see what he was going to do?

Whine Whine bitch bitch.

At least the meal at Le Burger Brassier was fantastic again. Treated Rob to a burger on comp and next time he's in town he'll treat me using comps from elsewhere.  My burger came out Medium like I like it, was delicious as always and Rob said his burger was fantastic as well.  He appears to like his still bleeding with a strong, but slowing, heart beat still going so that he can taste the life being sucked out of the burger and transferred into his body.  Maybe that's how he stays so young?

Pokah on da Weekend

Last night I headed out to meet up with a visiting Rob from Robvegaspoker and got seated at what I felt was a pretty good table all night long.  It had it's dry spots but there was definitely money to be made when you could raise to $15 pre and get 6 callers.

My only problem with all of that (here it comes) is that my run-bad is still going and doesn't appear to want to stop.

The session started Topsy-turvey and let me know I would be in for another night of variance right away.
My 4th hand in I raise to 12 with AK, the next player to act has double my chips and thinks about raising but ends up only calling and I also get called by another guy in position who has about $1100 in front of him.
Flop comes out JQK with 2 to a flush on it.  I check, next guy checks and big stack bets out $25 which both of us call.
Turn comes out a blank.  Check, Check $35, call, call.
River is another Jack or Queen and it goes Check, check $40, Call, Call.
Big stack turns up KT for top pair/Open ended.  I sigh a bit of relief and turn up AK for top pair better kicker and then middle man decides to turn up AA for "I've got you both beat and should have re-raised pre flop and made things less awkward for all of us."

So, now I'm sitting at half stack and it's about 4 hands later.  Table limps to me and I limp 77 as does everyone else.  Flop J75 with two Diamonds.  I bet out 12 and get called 4 ways including by the big stack.
Turn is a blank and I bet out $35, big stack raises it to $50. Everyone else folds to me and i put the remaining of my money in which big stack calls.  I table middle set and he tables flopped Top and Bottom and I'm only sweating 2 outs.
Pot gets pushed my way and before 1 orbit is even up I've lost half my money and gotten it back.

Rob joins my table a short while later and I get the seat change button so that I can move closer and converse. A hand or two later a seat opens up on his side of the table that was vacated by a pretty attractive player who moved to an incredible 2-5 game that had a ton of money on it.

My first hand at the table I get AhKh and raise it $15 which is called by 3 or 4 people, including the big stack.
Flop A36 (or something like that) and I bet out $35 which is called by only the big stack.
Turn is a 5 and I bet out $50 which is called.
Rive is a 2 (or a 4 or whatever puts an almost straight on the board) and I bet out $50 again which the big stack thinks about for a while but eventually folds.

A few hands later the old man between Rob and I goes to the 2-5 game and I move over one seat and now Rob and I are the 1 and 2 seats.  My first hand I get AK and raise it to $15 again with 4 or 5 callers.
Flop comes out KQJ.  Checks to me, I bet and only small blind calls..  Turn is a blank, check, Bet call.  River is an Ace, SB checks and I check - he has Pocket 10s and got there.

During the session I had some good luck.  Was down to $40 and there was a $15 raise in front of me with 5 or 6 callers so I pushed my 8c2c all in.  Next guy to act was the original raiser who called but every one else folded.  I was hoping for another call or two since there was so much in the pot but I wasn't fortunate enough. I told the guy that and he said "you must have a very good hand then" and I just let him know that I needed a lot of luck.
The luck happened in the form of 2 clubs on the flop and a 3rd on the turn giving me a flush.  I turned over my hand and took down a decent pot.
Next hand I get JJ and raise to $15 which gets 5 callers - $90 in the pot to the flop.
Flop comes out QJx with 2 spades.  Rob bets $25 into me and I really want to raise but I notice a bad player ready to call as well and thinking that I can make my move on the turn after the pot bloats itself (or someone else puts in a raise later) I just call.  Bad player calls and we take the turn 3 handed.
Turn is a King which is ugly.  Rob checks, I bet out $50 or so and everyone eventually folds.  Rob told me he was going to Hollywood it up before folding but decided not to haha!!

Then there was more bad luck.Flopping two two on on a KTx board and having AJ turn his gutshot to take down a nice pot.  Flopping TPTK and having middle pair call my pot sized bet to turn 2 pair and take down another nice pot (both of those hands were against the big stack at the table, he gambled and he got there and he did a nice job of keeping his stack large).
Then, Final hand of the evening I raise to $10 preflop and get 4 callers.  $50 in the pot to go.  I have KsQs.

In the game of poker, I am a muppet

Flop XTQ with the Ts.  I bet out $25 and get two callers (both have me covered at this point).  $125 to the turn.
Turn is the Js giving me top pair and open ended straight flush draw so I jam my remaining $99 into the pot.
Both players call me.
River another Q.  1st to act bets $100 and the other person eventually folds.
His flopped set of Tens take down a large pot as my trips are ugly and useless against him.

Somewhere over the course I also lost approx $125 in a flopped set under set situation.
So, while I had some ups, I had more downs and Poker sucks a big fat one.

Which reminds me, I'll hopefully be meeting up with Rob again today.
I've got a Strat-O-Matic Football game to lose, probably get destroyed most likely.  Then I'll head out and hopefully both Rob and I run well and profit big.

Poker aside, I enjoyed briefly talking with Rob and actually learning the identity of one of the players in one of his stories (and a dealer).
It was also nice of one of the dealers to remember me even though I really haven't played at that property much at all in the last 3 years.

Self Destructive

Today has taken a turn for the annoying.
I was looking forward to a fun evening out on the town and hopefully catching up with Rob who is in town for a few degenerate days, however my mood has soured and now I want to do things that are detrimental to my self in one form or another.

Now, mind you, I'd never actually do anything that would physically harm myself or another but generally when I get like this I tend to do things that are not good for me financially or things that I'll notice in the future as a reminder (of what, I don't know).

For instance, last time I got in a particularly self destructive mood I opened up a mint and rare Limited Collectors Edition of Mass Effect that was worth somewhere between $400 - $800 depending on which way the wind blew on Ebay/Amazon.
Now I have something that is worth closer to $100.
Was I ever planning on selling it?  There was a slim chance.  If I could complete the collection; collectors editions of all 3 games sealed and mint, then maybe I'd take the lot to Ebay and see if I could get $1200 or something out of them.  But mostly I really just like to have things that are worth money because of how poor I grew up (especially when I don't pay much, if anything, to get the things to begin with.  The Mass Effect game i got for free).
Mostly I just liked having it in my collection, something to show off to friends when they come over. It just made me smile.  Weird that a video game could do something like that, but it's the truth.

There is not a whole lot in life that puts me in one of these moods and they are very rare - it's just that I don't know how to deal with them when they strike me.
Or, more to the point I should say, I don't know how to deal with them constructively.  I don't know how to manage them until they go away without costing me anything in one form or another.

Dealing with depression is a bitch at times. I've never been medicated nor have I ever been clinically diagnosed, however I can see it for what it is.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel and as long as that light is not attached to a semi-truck or a train everything is all honky dory.

Well, writing appears to have helped.  Maybe writing really can be my Xanax and if so then knowing that makes me smile.  I really appreciate Renee right now and just want her to know that.

However, I still want to get the hell out of my apartment, even if only for a short period of time.
I think the beginning of tonight's distraction is going to be one hundred dollars, a poker table, my Bose headphones and Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power blasted loudly.  Double up or go home.
"Walk on home, Son"

TGIF

While TGIF has been used for millions of years and almost everyone says it come a certain day of the week, I'm just going to pretend that I stole it from Josie today as I watched her grab a $109 token to on BCP.

However, for me TGIF stands for Thank Gawd I'm Funny because 1) Friday's mean nothing to me and 2) I'd never pick up chicks with my looks. :)

Friday was good to me mainly because it was the first day this week where I had a normal pace at work and didn't have more work than I could feasibly accomplish in my 8 hour shift.
Today was also payday and it's nice to know that, temporarily, there is actual money in my bank account.  I have one more day of work before my weekend begins and I'm really looking forward to it.

I started playing Tales of the Abyss on my 3ds and while it's fun so far it makes me realize that I really like JRPG's more than I like ARPG's.  Something about that turn based system that I really like and while I can have fun with action combat it just feels like the game becomes a button mashing experience (same reason why I've never been into fighters).

I think this is going to be my new hobby for Lunch Hour at work until the game is beat.  While I do have a bunch of other books on my Kindle that I could start reading I kind of want to be side tracked a bit.

While reading over comments from my last blog, Waffles pointed out that he has done the same push-up routine that I am currently attempting and gave the advice to take it slowly and go at my own pace because the routine, as laid out online or wherever, accelerates much faster than it probably should.
So, being physically inept I am going to heed that advice and just go at my own pace.  Today I repeated Week 1 Day 1 and my last set was 6 non-girl pushups, I feel like that is minor improvement for my 1st week. Monday  will be another Week 1 Day 1 and Wednesday will be my first attempt at Day 2.

For those of you who follow Splitter's Blog, his book The Reluctant has once again surged into the top 100 of Amazon.com's rankings.  Last I knew it was #68 in Fiction and #4 in Action/Adventure.
I believe this is a direct correlation to his "Blog Tour" that he is doing, getting the word out there to a bunch of people who would not have previously given him a chance.
For those that do read (not just blogs, but books with words, lots and lots of words) I really cannot recommend his books enough.  They mix a great deal of action and adventure with well timed and placed humor. And, right now, The Reluctant is on sale for FREE while The Willing is on sale for 99 cents.  That's all you can eat for under a buck people.

And finally, whatever I was coming down with appears to be going away.  Hopefully the scratch in my throat will be gone by Tomorrow and my weekend will be sick-free.  I found out that 5 of 6 of the people who I played poker with on Sunday also had the same issues, so I'm going to blame it on the big group orgy that we had after the game (winner chooses how to celebrate - never let an 80 year old woman win is my suggestion to you all).

Weak

Man, I am weak.  Like, couldn't win an arm wrestling match against a twelve year old girl weak.
I've had my office job for a bit over a year now which means that I really haven't had any physical activity to help keep any type of muscle mass. Before coming into the office I worked with Doors and Windows and I also worked with Flooring.  Both of those departmetns helped to at least keep me in some type of physical fitness as it involved moving around heavy product on an almost daily basis.
So, being that I'm getting sick and have issues doing cardio when I am sick (with sickness comes shortness of breath which generally is very pleasant for an asthmatic) I decided to at least do a bit of exercise at home.  This exercise is coming in the way of push-ups and eventually sit ups.  I was not prepared for how weak I have actually become.
Being that my sourse of information is the internet I did a google search and looked up a bunch of web pages and settled on one of them.  This site basically tries to train the weak, like me, to slowly increase their strength and until you can eventually do 100 consecutive push-ups.  I'll be frank and say right off the bat that doing 100 consecutive anything is not my goal.  I just liked the looks of the program so that I could build up my strength and help to get into better shape.  Muscles are better than flab I have been told.

So, with my initial test, on Monday, I was able to do 6 push-ups.  Very weak and very pathetic.
I didn't fall into the worst category so I'm mildly happy about that, however still not a very big accomplishment.

This week I will be doing the first day of the program on both Wednesday and Friday and then next Monday I will hopefully be able to do the entire 1st week of the program.

So, Wednesday (doing Week 1 Day 1) I did 5 reps; 6, 6, 4, 4 and then 7 (for my - do as many as possible set).  However, I was struggling with the last 4 and as such I did the 7 as "girl push-ups" where my knees stayed on the floor instead doing them the real way.
Tomorrow, Friday, I will repeat the 6, 6, 4, 4 and then hopefully be able to do at least 7 max reps from the normal push-up position and then take the weekend off to rest so that I can start Monday fresh and ready.

This is going to be a fun addition to my cardio (once I'm done with whatever bug crawled up my arse) so that I can build up my lungs and some strength.  After a few weeks I'll start adding in the sit-up program to help work other muscles that are hidden under years of fat, neglect, abuse and Ice Cream! 

As I have been told, it takes 21 days to make or break a habit - Yesterday was day 2 of this so hopefully I can make it to day 21 before giving up completely!

I'm so weak ..... I couldn't bend a credit card without breaking a sweat.
I'm so weak ..... I couldn't bench press the bar with no weights on it.
I'm so weak ......I break quicker than 1 ply toilet paper
I'm so weak ......I got winded just typing this crap up

Ash Wednesday

Happy Ash Wednesday Everyone.
I used to call it Dirty Forehead Wednesday but this year I'll go with Ash.

Restless

Yesterday was two days in a row where I felt like crap in the evening and managed to talk myself out of going to the gym.
Also, I've been very restless at night. Tossing and turning and not really getting much sleep.  I'm starting to think that maybe the fact that I can't get a good nights sleep is starting to bog-down other aspects of my life.
My body starting to feel ill at the end of the evening to try to get me into bed earlier so that maybe I can get a proper amount of rest so that I can wake up and face the day refreshed and not droggy and cranky.

Yesterday at work went fast as I had predicted but I ran into so many issues that I probably went overboard on the training worksheets.  Normally I'll just focus on the more important issues and let some of the minor stuff slide but yesterday, as I got deeper into my paperwork, all I could see were stupid issues that were done out of laziness.

You see, my company decided just recently to end all Spiffs and Commissions, and ever since this decision I have noticed that there are a lot more things that are not being done by the people in the main selling positions. They no longer get their incentive and thus they really don't care for doing a complete and thorough job and this ends up with me being irritable and cranky because I have to correct the issues constantly - and the training worksheets are supposed to help in that regard IF the management team and sellers didn't regard them as such a joke.   I am working on that, talking to the Store Manager and getting her involved in the process so that she can see just how bad some of the issues are and how deeply ingrained the laziness is in some areas.  I'm hoping for a positive outcome but I'm not going to hold my breath until it gets there.

I would guess that I got about 80% of my job done yesterday which isn't bad when the paperwork has been piling up for 2 days and no one touched it.  Based on what I saw pile up yesterday before I even left I know today is going to be a repeat, especially since I have a meeting to attend which will waste an hour or so.

There is no real excitement, emotion or creativity in this type of post and I'm wondering if I should just avoid writing when they are going to be boring like this?  Or, more to the point just type them up and see what happens and if it ends up being drab like this if I should just hit the delete button and pretend there was nothing for today.  I'd like a little feed back on this if'n y'all don't mind.  Personally I'm never really satisfied unless I'm adding humor into something (someway) and entertaining, but at the same time I want to force myself to at least write something every day.

I've got other stuff on my mind but I'll save it for another occasion, maybe this evening if the motivation hits me.  No use making my daily rambles too wordy all the time.

A Fun Week

It happens again that Tuesday rolls upon me and I dread going into work.
Not your typical Tuesday, mind you, but it's one of those Tuesdays that start my week and I know that there is going to be a lot-o-fun going on.
My typical work week starts on Tuesday and goes through Saturday and normally there is someone else in the office to help get all the crap done.  That other person happens to be taking a week of vacation and I'll be left to my own devices, to work at my own pace and to make sure that everything gets done and runs smoothly.  Not entirely a big deal but it does mean that there is less slacking time for yours truly.

The other fun thing about the office is that while I have been there for over a year there are still a few nuances that I never take care of because the other person likes to hold certain powers to feel important.  I'm more than willing to let her get away with it because I don't want this office to be my career with the company and in-fact I didn't want it to go beyond one and a half years but I'm rapidly approaching that mark as it is.
I use that to my advantage when I need to as well. "Oh, I'm sorry. I never get to deal with that as (insert coworker) always handles those issues."  And them I'm off the hook for certain functions

Today will be exceptionally rough because Monday's are normally the "busy" days after the weekend.  The day where most of the customer complaints happen because they couldn't get a hold of anyone from 4pm Saturday until Monday.  As such I expect Tuesday to be pretty brutal with me playing catch up after 2 days with no one in the office and nothing getting done/touched in there.  Other than us two in the store, not a single person really knows how to do anything with the office at all except pay some bills.  So, that also helps to create a "hot-mess" when you work and no one else has for a couple of days.   What I am hoping is that means today will blow by quicker than I can think about it.

Tonight is a gym night no matter what.  I wanted to go yesterday after dinner but as time wore on I started to feel not well, probably something I over ate.  So, tonight I have to get back on track and hit it hard.
I am also going to start doing some minor exercises either before or after to help build muscle since muscle burns more calories than fat does.

Yesterday while enjoying a waiting room for far too many hours I read through about half of MockingJay - Book 3 in The Hunger Games Trilogy.  I'm enjoying it quite a bit and looking forward to seeing how the whole series gets wrapped up.  Taking my book with me to work and will get a chapter in before I work and then hopefully one or two during work which will put me on the last "section."

I know this is weird or anal or something, but it sorta bugs me a little bit who the author has made sure to divide everything neatly by 3 in all of her books.
There are 3 books.
Each book has 3 sections.
Each section has exactly 9 chapters
Each section is roughly 33% of the book (I have been checking my progress as I go along).
Each Chapter is roughly 3-4% of the entire book.
It's as if she broke everything down before hand and gave allotted a certain amount of space for each part of the story and did her best damned work to get it in that space.
There is no real reason this should bug me, I guess it's nice going into each chapter knowing how may pages it's going to be and how quickly I can get through it.  I guess I'm just too used to reading the likes of Stephen King where he can have a chapter that's 100 pages and then the next three chapters are less than 30 combined.  Variation.
Even with that minor annoyance the books are still really damned enjoyable and I'm glad that I've gotten into the them based off advice from a friend.
After I finish this I'll turn the the Songs of Fire and Ice series which really just makes me want to play Magic:The Gathering.

Reflection

I keep thinking about the two months where I'll be taking my Craps dealing class and how I am going to find time to work everything else around it.

I have deleted this blog (not this particular posting that you are reading at this very moment - but the entire blog and all it's postings) probably about 3 times over the years since I first registered it.  Most of the time I just put up some stuff about poker hands or random events that happened over the course of a session.  I had some funny stories in there and some not so funny stuff. Sometimes when I would remember it's existence I would pull it up and read the 3-10 entries that I put last time I decided I was going to try to keep up with it and not like most of whatever I wrote for various reasons.  A lot of the shit that I wrote was pretty stupid and looking back on it I laughed at myself and my thought processes, and ultimately I deleted everything and started over.

I know why it all ended up deleted each and every single time, and it was because I was not satisfied with the content.  I could have left it up to show how I have changed over the years both in writing style and in thought process and I'm sure that some of you (now that I actually have a few voyeurs looking into my life occasionally) would have gotten a good laugh out of some of it as well, but ultimately I was not satisfied and thus it all had to go away.  I didn't even have readers at the time as my plan was for only a few close and personal friends to ever read it so that we could look back and get a laugh out of the way things were.

This is a pattern that I hope I have finally broke.  I thought I got through that barrier when Vegas Poker Now opened it's doors and invited me over to blog about whatever I wanted - and I loved it.  I really miss VPN as I enjoyed the site and the ideas that surrounded it.  The forums were really great and I enjoyed them much more than I have ever enjoyed what is offered on All Vegas Poker.  The technology was better, the format was better and it just really had a nice feel about it.  My favorite part was how Dave worked the blogging feature of WordPress right into the software which then lead to a few good blogs to follow at the time and generated a lot of discussion.  However, when the site went away, was bought out, and everything got re-integrated back into AVP I left behind a lot of words and stories to be erased from the web again.  I could have saved them, backed them up, and then imported them into my own user created WordPress site, but I decided to just let them fizzle out like a bad fart and start over from scratch again.

This lead me right back to this blog where I started writing again in June/July of 2011.  It was shortly after this time that my life took one of the biggest changes I've experienced (and unexpectedly to boot) and the next thing you know I hit the delete button on all of my previously written thoughts.

November 2011 is when this blog took it's current form where I decided to stop focusing on writing about poker after a good or bad session and then ignore it during the down times and decided to start writing about whatever the hell it was that was going through my head at the time.  I'd always like to write and tried to be creative when I was younger but as I got older I just tuned it out and wasted my time in other ways.  In a way I sort of regret it, but at the same time the "everything happens for a reason" adage applies.

So, here I sit, broken heart-ed, paid to shit but only farted.  This line I originally encountered in the mid 90's in something related to Beavis and Butt-Head that I had bought (and I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that I still have it in a tote locked away somewhere).  But, in an odd way I think it sums up why I have continually erased all of my old blogs time and time again and why I think that this time it might be different.
I have tried to focus all of my old blogs too much, to devote my time to writing about one subject and eventually I get bored and walk away from it.  When I come back to it and go over it again I feel like I have let myself down because it just feels like something is missing.  Kind of like paying 20+ bucks to take your lady to a movie only to find out that the movie sucks and neither of you enjoyed it.

This time I find myself in a different situation without actually realizing it until just recently.  I started writing again with the intention of focusing and instead find myself much like a new puppy - all over the f'n place.  And, I like it. In fact, a blog that was supposed to be poker-centric with some random other shit is now random-centric with sometimes a dabbling poker.  When I finally tie all of this up (which I promise is coming soon, it's much longer than anything I had planned on typing today) and hit the publish button above this will be my 79th post since starting back up in November which far exceeds anything I have done before (VPN being the only one that even remotely came close).

The shit that I originally intended on speaking about instead of all those words above.
In two weeks I am starting a new routine (for 2 months) where I will not have an off day between my class and work.  I will be working every weekend and the days that I have both class and work I will be doing 12 hour days.  My weekends will be longer than normal as well because I need to make sure I still get close to 40 hours in at work and will thus find myself working 10 hour days then too.
Somewhere in my down time (which is being cut into a whole lot) I am going to have to find the time and motivation to keep doing things that I love and things that are positive - Mainly going to the gym and continuing to write.  It's going to be tough and I know 100% I am going to struggle with both.

I was talking to a friend today about going to the gym and lack of motivation and all that other fun jazz since I'm starting to struggle with going when I know I should because I don't have someone else to help motivate me to do it.  During this conversation she brought up a statistic that says "It takes 21 days to make or break a habit."  I found it interesting and wanted to look into that, find the research on it, when I got home.  Instead, before going to Google, I decided to sit down and write this blog post.
It is just now that I realize there has to be some merit to the statement because this is blog post number 79, far greater than any other time I have attempted it, and in my down time one of my first thoughts was to write it.  So, maybe 21 days is a variable number that is held within each individual but I feel that it holds true and this endeavor proves it to me.  After the first month or so (especially after I picked up a few constant readers who are kind enough to comment positively or negatively about what I have written) it has gotten easier and easier for me to come up with something to write and share and I often times do it without thinking about it.  Sometimes after I'm done I find myself wanting to make another post or two about random crap but I try to limit myself to a post a day at most (with the occasional 2nd post if it's truly warranted).  I need to find a way to translate this into me hitting the gym.  I need to trudge through it and manufacture my own motivation.  Keep at it until I notice and appreciate those first changes that my body goes through, from being a big fat ass to just a fat ass to just fat and then finally to just an ass(hole).  I know it can happen but I am the one who has to make it happen.

I appreciate anyone who made it through this whole wall of text - and to those who just skipped to the end to comment "tl:dr" I kinda sorta appreciate you as well.

Just your average update

Probably more suited for Twitter or Facebook, but a day without typing is a day wasted.

Yesterday started out with your normal day at work.  Customer issues, a complaint or two, someone selling things that they find some way to mess up.  All in a days work.

Afterwards I met up with the ex and because I'm trying to do the "friendly" thing instead of the "raging asshole" thing we went out for a birthday celebration.

First stop was Le Burger Brasserie at the Paris Hotel and Casino.  Everything (except the tip) was comped on my Total Rewards card so that kept things nice and cheap.  I had a Kobe burger with Mozzarella and bacon with a peanut butter and banana shake.  I should have done without the banana.  She had a lamb burger with tofu or something on it, i dunno - she said the word but it looked funny and inedible.

After that was a quick jaunt to Penn & Teller.  I have now seen them twice since moving to Vegas and both times have been free.  I'm hoping my 3rd time is as well because you sure as shit can't beat that kind of price point in this economy.

The show was great again and I am still amazed at the tricks they pull off - but even more fun are the "tricks" that they pull off when they are just messing with an audience member.  Sometimes everyone in the audience can see what is going on and it's only "amazing" to that one person on the stage - but sometimes they get everyone by pretending they are only yanking the guys chain who is on stage.
There was one last night that was absolutely amazing where a guy on stage, operating a camera, selected from the audience, turned into Teller by the end of the bit while we were all laughing at the "trick" that was being played on the guy from the audience.   F'n amazing and I wish I could explain it better or link you to a video of it but the only thing I can say is when you are in town go f'n see these guys.  I'll try to help you get discounted tickets too since locals can get half priced tickets sometimes.

And now for the shitty part of the evening.
Frustration at the house before we even left.
Frustration in the car.
Frustration over dinner.
Frustration at the f'n show.
And Frustration after the whole bloody thing was over.

How one of us isn't dead at this point I have no bloody clue.

Today I'm going to go play in a home poker game.  Went there once before, last month, and played 95% of my hands in an attempt to just have fun and donate the $20-$40 to the house and get invited back. I also brought snacks when I came over (and probably will again).  However, I cleaned up in the cash game after busting out and mostly because these people should NOT be playing pot-limit-omaha.  I'm not saying that I'm any good at the game, I'm just saying that they are far far far worse than they realize and would do better to eliminate that from their game selection.

They play 3 orbits of NLHE, 3 orbits of PLO and then 3 orbits of Pineapple I think.
We started playing and most of the table joined during the NLHE phase where I went from my $10 buy-in to under $3 donating money on purpose.  I broke the entire table (except for one guy) before the 3 orbits of PLO were over, and the game ended because I didn't want to play him heads up lol.

Today I'll take the tourney more serious and if we have two tables like last time my goal will be to make the final table.  I'll also try to cash of course because I really don't want to play in the cash game with these people.  I'd rather just last a long time in the tourney and let it end there.

Hopefully I'm feeling it enough to let everyone know how it went.

The Winds of Change are a Blowin'

To quote the late Owen Hart, Enough is enough and it's time for a change.
While leaving an open statement like that could be hazardous to my reputation I'll actually continue along my train of thought and divulge a bit of my future to you all.

Change:  Not my underwear - though those do change once or twice per day depending on the circumstances.
Change: Not my hair as I just got rid of the whole bloody mess of it and am left with a good view of my male pattern baldness and in all honesty - the less hair I have the more my face accentuates my large honking nose.

The side view isn't much better though it hides some of the bulbous-ness.

Anyways, the real change.  Work.

Everyone gets to a point where they need a change, be it different position or different hours or different company.
Me? Well, I'm looking to just add on by picking up a second, part time, job for the time being.
Today I got my Store Manager to sign off on a temporary change of availability for two months so that I can take a craps training class.
I've also contacted the owner/manager of the company that will be taking my hard earned money and teaching me to become a well oiled tourist-money-taking-die-reading-you-better-hit-the-back-wall-with-both-fucking-dice-bitch-one-hand-on-the-dice-idiot-and-keep-them-visible-at-all-times-you-douche craps dealing machine.  Not this coming Monday, but next Monday I'll be heading down there with all of the ones I was saving up for a trip to the Strip Club and hand them over and then the following money I will become a student again.

While currently I only intend this job to be part time for extra, supplemental, income I am really looking forward to doing something different.  To do something that puts a little tingle at the bottom of my balls instead of the same routine that I have been doing (in one form or another) for the past decade.
Eventually, if I can get into a casino where the tips are good consistently, I'd like to have my jobs swap rolls and take up Craps full time while working retail part time.  My goal is to work retail enough to keep my health insurance (though I think that part time insurance is crappier (HA, PUN) than full time I do still need insurance because of my asthma and prescriptions).

So, the winds of change are blowing and the scorpions are no where in sight.  As with every change there is trepidation but that will go away over time.  First step is first and that is to get into school and start learning the basics and practicing it daily.  Get everything down pat so that any interview that I go on will easily be aced and they will overlook my physical deformities (pictured above).
I'm pretty excited.  If everything goes according to plan I'll be in a casino and feeling comfortable just as the WSOP is hitting town and forcing the rooms to be busier, increasing my average daily take home and giving me money to have fun this summer.
More money will actually enable me to be able to hang out with all the visiting people.  Jennifer, Josie, koala, Tatitude, Rob, Lightning, Bon Jovie, Marilyn Manson, Babe Ruth and whoever else shows up.
Oh, it's going to be a stinking good time.

Retail

As some of you may or may not know, I work in retail.  For the most part I actually like my job.  Much like everything else there are ups and downs to it and certain aspects of the job that I could do with out.

What I really love about what I do is getting to know people and helping them out with their projects. Getting them from the thought process to the finished results and seeing the excitement and joy in their faces from a project well done.  Whether it's just getting them the product that they need so that they can tackle the project themselves or coordinating the whole project with them and our installers.  It is this interaction that got me hooked when I first started working retail at Sam's Club and it's this same interaction that has kept me working in retail for over a decade now.

At my current company I have two sets of customers that will come and see me for every single project that they are working on no matter what.  Most of the time they call into the store to find out if I am working or not before coming in.  I have helped these two sets of customers with numerous projects over the past 2-3 years and with very few exceptions every major purchase that they have made as gone through my salesman number.
Multiple flooring installs, closet remodels, security doors, windows, dishwashers, fridges and hot water heaters. It's one of the greatest satisfactions that I have.

Even when they are not working on any major projects, when they are in the store they seek me out just to chit chat about what is going on in their lives.  If I am not around they get another employee to track me down.  One couple has put most of their projects on hold because they are saving up for a cruise this summer.  The other now has the sister-in-law buying everything off me me as well since she just moved into town. In the past 4 months I have hooked her up with a $1600 fridge and a $5000+ flooring install.  I enjoy every day that I get to interact with these people and I look forward to even just the conversations in passing whether or not there is a sale attached to it.  It's people like this that make my job worthwhile.

I bring all of this up because I wanted to talk about something positive even if it's all just pretty damned vague. It's positive and lately I could use more positive in my life.  I came to this blog mere minutes ago intending on writing about work and all the changes that are going on and it was going to be a decidedly negative blog post. I'm sure that I will get to all of that in the near future because it's all weighing on me very heavily right now and judging by the way this turned out I either didn't want to talk about it at the moment or I still need time to take it all in so that I can bitch about it in a more informed manner.

So, everyone who's reading and dealing with a bunch of negative shit in your life I'd like you all to just sit back and for five minutes think about something positive going on in your life.
If you are one of my fellow bloggers I'd appreciate if instead of posting something negative you sit back and post something positive or inspiring instead.  Just once - feel the love instead of the hate.

I know how much life can suck at times, but no matter how bad it gets there is usually some drop of positive substance out there somewhere and that's the kind of shit you need to latch on to in order to dig yourself out of the muck.

I'm grrouchie and I'm a negative-a-holic.  I have gone 10 minutes from thinking negative thoughts!

Spin Class and writing

It seems so innocent, a room full of bicycles.  What could possibly be so horribly wrong with a spin class.
It appears as though the 1st thing wrong which still has me in unbelievable pain is the bicycle seat.  I'm not sure what masochist designed this thing, but it appears to be made out of pure hate.  It's small and unassuming but it's the most uncomfortable thing I have ever sat on in my life. So uncomfortable that it becomes painful after just a few short minutes.  There is no way to adjust to the seat, there is no way to wrap your flabby ass around it and pad it differently to make it feel less awful (notice I didn't say better).  It's just a few inches of demonized hell waiting to wreck your evening and (if you're knew at the game) your next day or so.

I did not finish the spin class, I don't even know how long it runs therefor I don't know how close I was to completing it. What I do know is that I could have gone low speed and at least finished the class if it were not for this seat causing me to be the most uncomfortable I have been since a 5 hour bus ride in high school where I was only able to have half my ass sitting on the seat at all times.  Today I sit before this computer screen having to adjust to get myself to a comfortable sitting position because this bloody bike seat has bruised my precious buttocks.  F'you bike seat, F'you.

Now for something completely different.

The more I am reading the more I am finding that this is like a small glimpse into my own inner workings at times.
Over on the Chaos Theory blog the author goes into how he likes to write as compared to how others like to write and I 100% am the same way.  In fact, I've come very close to making a very similar post to the one that I have linked you too to describe my writing style.  I think it's a good article and peeps should check it out.

My only current issue is that I have no issue pounding out blog posts such as this when I'm just sitting down for a few minutes and want to discuss my daily events with y'all, or make an observation about a commercial holiday dedicated to women being in love and bad romance rising voodoo or whatever.  My current issue is a bad case of writers block, or idea block, or I know I want to put some sort of fiction into the printed word but I have deleted more starting paragraphs than I care to count because I cannot find a good way to begin my story.
Reading the Chaos Theory article really helped put that into perspective for me, because when I'm into something and writing about it I just go until the words run out.  Later I can return to it and organize my thoughts better and tweak it here and there but when I'm typing I just keep going like the Energizer Bunny.
My issue is that I have no beginning and thus I cannot get into the flow of writing.  I have never been good with just jumping in at a different point and taking off.  It feels horribly unnatural to me and I never accomplish anything by doing it.  I have to start at the beginning, it's a curse. And right now it's one that has me banging my head on the keyboard, hitting delete and then waiting for that killer introduction to just come to me so I can share my story with the world (or at least my own little part of the world that involves you kind people who bless me with your presence on a daily basis).

BLARGHHHH.

VD

That's right kiddies, it's come that time of year again where the world celebrates people having a lot of fun and unprotected sex.  One of the biggest consequences (other than regret) is VD and thus February 14th is aptly named, VD Day.

The problem with VD is that it's a purely over-hyped celebratory day for the women folk.  Guys, for the most part, could care less about it as it's just another day to remember to buy something nice for the lady.  We have to remember to buy their favorite flowers or some nice shiny jewelry or take them somewhere fancy to eat (like Olive Garden) and all we get in return for our careful planning and wallet draining excursions is more of what they give us all year long (if you're not married) - sex.

This whole holiday is just further proof that women are the dominant species on this planet.  All you have to do is flash us some boob or remind us that you do, in fact, have the vagina and we are willing to do pretty much anything you ask.  It's way too simple for you.  If I was planning a nice evening alone with you and instead you decided you wanted to go out drinking with the ladies you could keep me smiling by just rubbing your boobs in my face and saying something akin to "these will be all yours when I get home from the drunken bingo fest."
This does not work both ways.  If you planned an evening alone and I decided that I was going boozing with the guys; 1) I'm probably in trouble for being an insensitive asshole and 2) I know I can't just whip out my tally-whacker and say "I'll be sure to bring this big boy home for you this evening" and expect you to change your mind and let me leave.  No, there is no equality there.

Further proof, have you ever heard a guy say "Yeah, I got pulled over for doing 63 in a school zone but before she could get to the car I made sure my balls were dangling out of my shorts and I got off with just a warning, again?"  No, these words never come out of our mouths because it's not possible for that scenario to go down the way we envision it.  Most likely we end up in the local jail for the evening for indecent exposure and probably pepper sprayed as well just for good measure.

So, this blog is for all the single guys out there and for all the guys who plan on being single after they forgot yet another "important" day in the lives of your ladies.  I'll be celebrating VD the only way I know how to, by drinking myself to sleep with porn on the TV and my fleshlight handy.





Next one is not the original and most people probably won't like it.

I've got a case of the Monday's

Things typed below may not be in the order that they will occur.
Monday, generally speaking is the last day of my weekend with my current position.  Normally a good thing where I can just be lazy and do nothing.  However, today I have some running around to do.

I have to take a trip to The House in order to meet with the ex and grab income tax information so that I can work everything up and see where everything falls.  I'd be 100% happy if I can manage to get us both nothing owed as possible.  Now we just have to see if she remembers her information from last years filings (though, she keeps her records better than I so maybe she has it written down).

I also need to make a trip to the gym for a minimum of 30 minutes where I will sweat like a fat man eyeing up the last piece of pizza at a buffet with 3 others standing in front of him.

A check up trip the the dentist - basically to make sure that everything with the wisdom tooth extractions went according to plan and that I'm healing as I should be. But, also to re-cement my temporary that fell off Friday night.  Best case scenario they got my permanent one in and I won't have to worry about the temporary but seldom does life actually go the way I would like it to so I'm sure I have at least one more trip in the near future.

Depending on how well that goes I might make a second trip to the gym before tonight's main event.

The Very Josie - a brand spanking new tournament being held on Black Chip Poker for friends of Josie.  There is not much money at stake and winning or losing will not break anyone nor will it make them rich and famous - but there are some bragging rights on the line.  I'm hoping that I just outlast a few people as I've never been great at tournaments but I have had my share of success when I got lucky and ran deep a few times.  I need more practice if I'm ever going to actually play in a WSOP event and expect to have a fighting chance.

Also, tonight is Monday Night Raw which I am trying to start watching again.  One of my favorite wrestlers, Chris Jericho, has returned and they have him playing the role of a bad guy which makes me deliriously happy as he is one of the few heels that is good in the role.

I started out my morning by making a trip to Dunkin Donuts because C.S. Splitter made a post that made me salivate.

One of the many reasons why I need to hit the gym today

I'm hoping that with my return the the gym, after taking last week off, I don't find that I have gained all the weight back that I had lost after my first two weeks.  It would be annoying and feel like I'm starting over from scratch again.  I am also going to inquire about their Spin Classes while I am there.  With my work schedule there are only two classes that I can make every week and that is the latest Spin Class offered on Tuesday and Thursday - starting at 6:30.  This gives me enough time to make it home, get refreshed and grab some water before heading over.  However, being  in a class with others will help to push me and to motivate me for those two days out of the week.  I am bad at the gym without motivation and no one is offering to show me their boobies if I keep going (Hint Hint, Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge).

Not So Super Sunday

I slept most of my day away.
I got in an internet spat over why Whitney Houston's death is NOT a tragedy.
One of my good friends spent the day in the hospital because his mom's brain is/was hemorrhaging (she is in stable condition as of the writing of this).
Hines Ward might not play his last year or two as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
My ex's youngest niece asked today why I no longer come over to visit.

Shit, if this is the kind of stuff that is going to go on all off season long then I might just decide to be forced into a coma and not wake up until Pre-season starts again.

Food, Dew and Games

Ahhh, food.  The forgotten pleasure.
I just ate a real meal for the first time in over 2 days and while that may not be impressive to some of you, it was torture to me.
I even made sure to overeat just so I could enjoy it more :)

However, it has been over 48 hours since i have had any caffeine and that is really a huge accomplishment. I know it doesn't seem like much to some of you but I have trouble doing without my Mt Dew for a long period of time.
Consider this - my typical day consists of me waking up and moving a foot or so to the cooler in my bedroom and bringing out the 1st Dew of the day.  This is normal. I start every day of my life with a can of Mt Dew (it's a can because I cut down from the bottles to drink less).  I'm a dew-a-holic.

Right now in my cooler I have about 14 cold cans waiting for me.  I also have two loose cans outside the cooler waiting for their chance to enter.  I also have two 12 packs and a 20 pack on deck for when the cooler magically becomes empty.  I seriously love the Dew.  So, for me to have gone over 48 hours at this point is pretty damned impressive.

Now, I have been looking at it and there are two ways that I can go with this.
I can take a step back and look at all the positive changes I have made in my life - going to the gym, eating healthier, no fast food, multiple small meals instead of fewer big meals, drinking lost of water - and decide that this is my perfect opportunity to cut back on my caffeine intake since I have basically flushed it all out of my system over the last two days.

Or, i can say f'it and wake up to the refreshing taste of heaven tomorrow morning and forget that these two days have happened.
I can tell you, no matter what I choose I am really looking forward to hitting the gym again on Monday after taking too many days off because of this whole Tooth Situation.

Other than eating and thinking about Mt Dew - the rest of my day has been spent playing Video Games.

Today I beat Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 and I put about 4 hours into Gears of War 3.

Matt and I got to chapter 3 before I had to take a break for pain meds and the whole eating thing I spoke of earlier.

Star Wars was definitely a fun game and one that I'll go through again and play on a harder difficulty.  I will probably play the 1st one first, then run through the 2nd again to get the full story in a row.

Gears of War 3 is shaping up to be a pretty good campaign as well.  I really love the way that they gave you the information for the 1st chapter in two pieces.

First you play as your standard COG's Marcus and Dom and go through and eventually beat a big baddy with a little help from your friends.

However, after that battle is over you jump to the "friends" perspective and you have Cole and Baird. You play their story up to the point where you helped out with the 1st big baddy and then the story converges.

I am enjoying it a lot and might put in another session tonight if Matt is up for it (living in PA he is ahead of me by 3 hours and our gaming times are off now and then) or we will pick it up again around noon tomorrow and blast through another couple of chapters - hopefully finishing it up tomorrow or at the very latest on Monday.

Then in a week or so we will hopefully start the Insane run with 4 player co-op.  It would be nice to get another game over with this weekend as well since I didn't play (and thus didn't beat) anything in January which puts me behind the pace that I want to keep up.

Week of the Shit-Storms (week in review)

So I make a post about cats and dogs and I get my most commented on post yet. This started as an alternative post to Josie talking about how she doesn't much get along with the canine species.

On Twitter Poker Grump pointed me to an article about how cats, in all reality, might actually be driving their owners crazy.
There are a lot of words on that page, but it's worth a read.
I've also had fellow Blogger The Crafty Southpaw come back with an article about how he doesn't agree much with my assessment that cats are vile evil creatures from another dimension, but instead loves his cats and gives many reasons why. I would also like to point out that I'm quite happy that he spelled my internet alter ego correctly by including two r's which most people either over look or don't care about :)

I also accidentally stirred up a shit-storm on Robs Vegas & Poker Blog when I commented on a post comparing two people. I since have deleted my post and the person I pissed off has his deleted as well.  However, there was a lot of fun on Twitter that started because of my comment.

Small Potatoes wrote up a post that reminds me one of my main goals with being a homeowner, poker games.
I'm looking forward to being able to have friends over to the house (hopefully by the end of the year) to enjoy a nice small stakes game of poker withe some good snacks and a bunch of beer.  Sure, someone might accidentally win $20-$40 bucks one night but I'll be damned if first prize isn't going to be more about bragging rights.

I'm also going to re-point out that C.S. Splitter now has his books available on Create Space in print form. They will soon be coming to Amazon in print form as well. Or, if you prefer to go all new-age on us then you can also pick them up from Amazon.com in e-book form as well.

Conversely, editor extraordinaire Tricia Kristufek is also pimping out the Splitter books as well - and recently has converted her blog over to her own domain name.

Yesterday I finally got my lower wisdom teeth removed. It was a fun process full of extra Novocaine that made it hard to swallow for a while.  It took a good 3+ hours before the effects finally wore off and then the soreness set in.  It's not so agonizingly annoying like some people make it out to be, but the biggest annoyance is that I really could go for some food right now.
It's recommended that you eat baby food for the first day so that nothing gets into your new bloody wound and causes an infection, or keeps it open causing it to bleed even longer.  So, dinner last night was a bowl of ice cream.  Today thus far I had a slim-fast shake and i've got a bunch of power-aid drinks to get me through the day.  However, it doesn't stop my desire for real sustenance.  I'm going to gorge when I get the chance.

I found a 1 month Xbox Live subscription card among my junk (no, not that junk). So, I activated the code as I plan on playing some Gears of War 3 tonight with Matt (who lives in PA and doesn't have a blog or anything cool for me to link to).  I have yet to really even play the game so we plan on running through it this weekend so that I can open up Insane mode.
Then myself, himself, Timself and Gregself are planning on running through Gears to beat it on Insane mode which will probably unlock achievements for beating the game on Insane, Beating the game with another person, Beating the game with 3 other people, and Beating the game at home and naked while singing the Star Spangled Banner (and probably a lot fucking better than Steven Tyler did).

Disqus

Ok
Due to popular consensus, Disqus is now gone.
Finito.
No more bad formatting, no more annoying "insert whatever you didn't like about it right here."

I'm now back to a more standardized commenting system whether or not y'all like it.

To those who hated Disqus, you're all welcome.

Nothing to see here, move along!!

The Truth about Cats and Dogs

Josie does not like dogs.  Of all my years I have never understood while people don't like dogs.  Sure they might have some minor annoyances like barking because they heard the door rattle at 2 in the morning and they want to make sure that everyone is aware that evil might be lurking outside.  But, in reality, that is just our best friend trying to make sure that evil does not come inside and destroy his family.  Even a tiny three pound dog thinks that he's big and viscous and can help scare off incoming evil to keep his people safe.

It's not a tumor!

But with that minor annoyance aside dogs do a lot of things to show their undying love and affection.  The first thing I see when I get home is my Monster with his tail wagging wanting to greet me and show me how much he has missed me over the last 10 minutes, 10 hours, 10 days, whatever.  He f'n loves me.  His tail wags a mile a minute, there is no one in the house other than he and I, he jumps and pants and just wants to give me attention. It's unconditional love and it's the greatest thing in the world.

How can you not love this ball of fur?

There is another specie of household pet that I do not understand though, and that is the cat.

How can you like to have a pet around who's independent?  Why the hell are you having a pet if the thing is just going to ignore you and only come to you when he wants something?  If that's what you want just adopt a teenager, it's the same thing.

Cat's are snooty, vile, evil beings.  They also happen to suck the souls of their owners but most people don't know that.  They are Evil Soul Sucking beasts from the ninth ring of hell who have been put on earth to enslave humans to their whim.  It's disturbing how well they have integrated themselves into most of my friends houses and because I know their secret I'm pretty much foreboden from entering.  If I do somehow find myself in a house with a cat, within hours my eyes start to itch uncontrollably.  My lungs start to tighten up and breathing gets difficult.  These are just the beginning symptoms.  Cats are literally trying to kill me if I enter their house because they feel that I'll turn their humans against them (which is my ultimate goal).

The following are un-doctored pictures of cats in their true form - this is how I see them even though most humans can't look past the fake persona that they have adapted.

This is a cats True form in hell. Only on earth do they look "cute" and "sweet"