to the gamblers,
If you've never read the Theory of Poker, please sit at my table and buy in for the cash that you would have lost at the blackjack table anyway. If you can explain and apply 'reverse implied odds'*, then kindly look for your fish at other tables, because mine are spoken for. And I sure do hope there are plenty of fish in Vegas this week (in contrast to 'sharks' which is really a mispronunciation of 'sharps'), because I'd like to pay for this vacation I planned before my job loss.
During the 20+ straight nights of work a few weeks back, I had booked a trip to Vegas for one of my off weeks, and this is that off week. I had a show planned for each night to reward myself for the many hours of Hold'em I was going to play. And if I totally killed at the tables, I would go support some students and single mothers at the Spearmint Rhino, against my rule of never going to a strip club alone**.
But things change, and so if I do win, I'll put it towards my bankroll to support my second (and possibly primary career). If I lose, the experience will let me know if this plan to play cards for a living is a pipe-dream or if it is a truly serviceable option for making a decent wage.
Because I do think I have the potential to be a winning player. My mathematical skills are still prime, when I tilt*** it is almost always to the conservative side, I have a reserve of cash on hand, I can augment that cash if necessary by working crazy shifts, and I don't particularly need the money which would allow me the time to develop the textbook tight-aggressive style.
The question is if I can sit and grind all day long, no sexual innuendo intended. To play poker until the point of physical fatigue and mental exhaustion. Can I do it? This trip will tell.
Poker, shows, poker, eat, poker, sleep, poker, poker, poker...
Don't ask me if I planned to go to Pure, Jet or any other exotic nightclubs on the strip. First of all, I don't have any arm candy to get through the door. Secondly, I'm not going to Vegas to f-- people, I'm going to f-- them over, which is a subtle but important difference. The first instance generally involves hemorrhaging money (if not on escorts, then on the insane cost of drinks at these clubs), while the second involves parting fools from their money.
And I very much would like to be the hand of destiny which fulfills that proverb. Wish me good decision-making and a run of good cards. Or just luck--luck works too!
--
*A real concept: When the odds appear better than they really are and your hand can only get worse as the play progresses, which should generally lead you to fold since you won't be getting sufficient odds.
**Never have gone solo because late one night, at almost 2am last call, my friends were at the bar getting drinks, and about 3 'dancers' came by one after another to asked if I was alone and if I'd like their services like I was a defenseless mark in a dark alley!
***When emotions take over after a bad run of cards.
Showing posts with label the benjamins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the benjamins. Show all posts
Monday, December 6
Friday, December 3
Juiceless
to the exhausted,
'Juice' has a variety of dirty meanings, none of which I will reference any further than this point. If the title had been related to those dirty meanings, then this post would have been more appropriately named 'Juiceless & Happy'. But as it is, it is more like 'Juiceless & Even-Keeled' or 'Juiceless & Eh..' or 'Juiceless & I-could-go-for-some-lunch,-but-I'm-not-all-that-hungry.'
--
My first memory of 'juice' being anything other than fresh-squeezed* and pulpless** was when my older brother first described to me the intricacies of sports betting. In most sporting contests, there's a favorite and an underdog. If given even odds (1:1), most people would bet on the favorite and would therefore win more than 50% of the time. Bet enough money (or cycle your cash enough times), and you wouldn't have to work.
This would, however, bankrupt sportsbooks and bookies. So somewhere down the line, someone invented the idea of a spread, where you give points to the underdog to make it fair. In theory, the number of points or 'line' should match the final score. A line (or spread) might read 'New England vs Houston, Houston +5' which would mean that if you bet on Houston, you get 5 points toward the final score: NE 20 - Hou 21(26 with spread), win; NE 20 - Hou 14(19 with spread), loss; NE 20 - Hou 17(22 with spread), WIN. In the last case NE wins, but 'did not cover the spread'. A few years back in their nearly undefeated season, NE was crushing opponents, covering all kinds of ridiculous spreads like -14 (when you bet on the favorite, points are taken away, which is the same as giving points to the underdog). In football, anything over 6 points is likely a lopsided game.
In actuality, the sportsbooks don't care what the final score is or if the line even comes close to it. What they want is a line that will induce bettors to bet both sides equally, so that in the long run, they'll break even no matter the score. But how do they get their money then? One word: juice. The odds may seem close to 1:1, but it's usually 110:100 against. In order to win $100, you have to bet $110 and the $10 difference is the juice money which makes sportsbooks profitable in the long run.
In order to get even betting on both sides, the line or spread will move to entice future bettors. So if the line was initially Houston +5, and a lot of people like Houston, then the line might decrease to Houston +4.5 and so on until the bets balance out, but at whatever line you place your bet, that's the line you're stuck with.
There was a whole movie called 'Two for the Money' devoted to sportsbooks starring Matthew McConaughey (who shirtless for a good part of the show, which may qualify it as female porn) and Al Pacino. It's a horrible movie, except if you know about sports betting and want to impress a girl while she's mesmerized by a sweaty, ripped Matt. I've never tried, but in theory it should work.
So juice is that little extra bit at the end that might make a whole venture worthwhile when the initial work seemed arduous, awkward, mostly unpleasant***.
--
In non-jargon use, 'juice' usually refers to energy or electricity and the like. And I am wholly drained of all juice at the moment. And I've been drained for the past two weeks. The R&R hasn't spiked my energy or motivation one bit. There was that one Black Friday morning where I waited about 15minutes for my gaming system, but since then it's been all Netflix and shifting around to different parts of the sofa so the ass print doesn't become permanent. All this is actually pretty great, but I am concerned that I haven't grown tired after 2 weeks which is normally the breaking point.
It is like when the non-replaceable battery in my iPod nano gets entirely drained, and I plug it into the USB port of my computer (because it doesn't come with a wall charger****) and for about 5 seconds, nothing happens. Then the white apple with the bite mark comes on (for how much it costs, can't we get a whole apple?), followed by the little flashing green battery icon to which I greet with a sigh of relief.. and shame that I'm an addict to Apple juice*****.
--
*,**,***,***** - okay, I lied about the dirty meanings thing :)
****Seriously Steve Jobs-- $160 and you can't include the wall adapter which costs another $30?
'Juice' has a variety of dirty meanings, none of which I will reference any further than this point. If the title had been related to those dirty meanings, then this post would have been more appropriately named 'Juiceless & Happy'. But as it is, it is more like 'Juiceless & Even-Keeled' or 'Juiceless & Eh..' or 'Juiceless & I-could-go-for-some-lunch,-but-I'm-not-all-that-hungry.'
--
My first memory of 'juice' being anything other than fresh-squeezed* and pulpless** was when my older brother first described to me the intricacies of sports betting. In most sporting contests, there's a favorite and an underdog. If given even odds (1:1), most people would bet on the favorite and would therefore win more than 50% of the time. Bet enough money (or cycle your cash enough times), and you wouldn't have to work.
This would, however, bankrupt sportsbooks and bookies. So somewhere down the line, someone invented the idea of a spread, where you give points to the underdog to make it fair. In theory, the number of points or 'line' should match the final score. A line (or spread) might read 'New England vs Houston, Houston +5' which would mean that if you bet on Houston, you get 5 points toward the final score: NE 20 - Hou 21(26 with spread), win; NE 20 - Hou 14(19 with spread), loss; NE 20 - Hou 17(22 with spread), WIN. In the last case NE wins, but 'did not cover the spread'. A few years back in their nearly undefeated season, NE was crushing opponents, covering all kinds of ridiculous spreads like -14 (when you bet on the favorite, points are taken away, which is the same as giving points to the underdog). In football, anything over 6 points is likely a lopsided game.
In actuality, the sportsbooks don't care what the final score is or if the line even comes close to it. What they want is a line that will induce bettors to bet both sides equally, so that in the long run, they'll break even no matter the score. But how do they get their money then? One word: juice. The odds may seem close to 1:1, but it's usually 110:100 against. In order to win $100, you have to bet $110 and the $10 difference is the juice money which makes sportsbooks profitable in the long run.
In order to get even betting on both sides, the line or spread will move to entice future bettors. So if the line was initially Houston +5, and a lot of people like Houston, then the line might decrease to Houston +4.5 and so on until the bets balance out, but at whatever line you place your bet, that's the line you're stuck with.
There was a whole movie called 'Two for the Money' devoted to sportsbooks starring Matthew McConaughey (who shirtless for a good part of the show, which may qualify it as female porn) and Al Pacino. It's a horrible movie, except if you know about sports betting and want to impress a girl while she's mesmerized by a sweaty, ripped Matt. I've never tried, but in theory it should work.
So juice is that little extra bit at the end that might make a whole venture worthwhile when the initial work seemed arduous, awkward, mostly unpleasant***.
--
In non-jargon use, 'juice' usually refers to energy or electricity and the like. And I am wholly drained of all juice at the moment. And I've been drained for the past two weeks. The R&R hasn't spiked my energy or motivation one bit. There was that one Black Friday morning where I waited about 15minutes for my gaming system, but since then it's been all Netflix and shifting around to different parts of the sofa so the ass print doesn't become permanent. All this is actually pretty great, but I am concerned that I haven't grown tired after 2 weeks which is normally the breaking point.
It is like when the non-replaceable battery in my iPod nano gets entirely drained, and I plug it into the USB port of my computer (because it doesn't come with a wall charger****) and for about 5 seconds, nothing happens. Then the white apple with the bite mark comes on (for how much it costs, can't we get a whole apple?), followed by the little flashing green battery icon to which I greet with a sigh of relief.. and shame that I'm an addict to Apple juice*****.
--
*,**,***,***** - okay, I lied about the dirty meanings thing :)
****Seriously Steve Jobs-- $160 and you can't include the wall adapter which costs another $30?
Tuesday, September 14
Practicing Scared Pharmacy
Dear poker degenerates,
About a month ago, I was playing 1-2 No Limit Hold Em at Winstar, a casino just a few miles north of the Texas-Oklahoma border. The Winstar poker room happens to be one of the few redeeming things about the Okie state*. The deck was hitting me in the mouth that night, meaning I was catching everything. On one hand, I flopped a boat, sixes over jacks, when my opponent flopped trips (6-6 vs J-9, flop J-J-6), and I proceeded to take the guy’s money. On another, I flopped top two-pair and made a really stupid all-in move out of turn, raising an additional $160 on a $100 bet ($260 total). Fortunately, the guy behind me folded a flopped straight because he respected my tight-aggressive play, and the initial raiser didn’t hit his draw. That sent the folder on tilt, and he berated me with stuff like, ‘I really hand it to you…not many people would have had the guts (sarcasm for ‘stupidity’) to raise all-in with two-pair.’
Then a few hands later, I completed a nut straight draw (Broadway) against the tilter’s flopped set and took the rest of his stack, sending him out the casino door. I had started the night losing my initial $200 buy-in, but scrambled up to $560 with my last bill. But with the cards I had that night, a better player would have made so much more. I was playing scared poker, and it cost me additional winnings.
This was the microcosm hand for the night: I was dealt J-9s on the button with two horrible players sitting to my left in the blinds. The first guy played loose-aggressive slop poker, pretty much continuation betting with any 2 cards after the flop. He bet and folded out of turn, insulted the dealers, and even folded a few hands when he could have checked his cards. The guy to his left was pretty much an open book: he bet his made hands, called his draws, and folded his mess. Easy pickings: I raised to $7 pretty much every time I had the button, and this time I had my favorite hand.
They both call as I lick my chops. The flop comes, and it takes all my power not to drool all over the cards: Q-10-8 rainbow. I flopped the nuts with my J-9, which is the best 5-card hand given the cards on the table. My brother calls it the hon bi, which is literally translated from Vietnamese as ‘the marbles’. They both check, and I make a sizeable value bet, about three-fourths of the pot, hoping that one of them would call. They both do, which made me a little anxious. I put the loose guy on a draw, and the tight guy on top pair, overpair, or a set. A 5 came on the turn. They check, I bet more this time, and they both call again. Now I’m thinking that one of them likely had a set on the flop. The river came. Another 5, a scare card for me. Again they check in front of me. Amateurs love to slowplay. They love to reveal the winning hand and rub it in your face. And I had a belief that at least one of them had turned his set into a boat with the river 5, and this was enough to make me check behind them.
I turn over my flopped straight, and they both muck their hands. Though I don’t know what they truly had, I’d probably say the loose guy had a busted draw (K-J) and was paying me off, and the tight guy had top pair, top kicker (A-Q). And somehow I didn’t make more money after flopping the nut straight. While I was replaying the hand in my head, reviewing all the action, the guy on my right, a solid 19-year old Asian (it’s an Indian casino with a lower gambling age) with a diamond stud in his left ear, needled me with, ‘Dude, why didn’t you bet the river? You had it!’
‘The 5 was a scare card. I thought at least one of them made a full house.’
He considers, agrees silently to himself, and then tries to set me on tilt, ‘So what? Are you playing scared poker?’
I shrugged and smiled. I was winning, and I didn’t care. Looking back, I realize that I had given them odds (at least one of them) to draw out on me. And the odds of them having the boat were slim since they both would have raised (or check-raised) me if they had flopped a set.
Scared poker is my current M.O., and I'm working hard to change that. To triple barrel your nothing against an opponent's something; that is mostly genius and sometimes gross stupidity.
--
Poker is simpler than life in that poker boils down to the chips in front of you. A correct decision nets more chips. A correct decision could also mean less lost chips, which is equally as important. Like life, it is a game of incomplete information; we have to make decisions based on what we know, however little that is. And if we consistently make good decisions, we will make more money in the long run. It is a game which rewards good play and punishes bad play. Therefore, it is a just game. People who complain about bad beats and others' poor play are just not applying themselves.
But life is far more difficult than poker, which is itself an extremely complex game. And it is fraught with injustice: how is playing professional sports worth 100x more than teaching kids how to read and write. Or how is rapping/singing about degrading acts which are performed with semen rewarded better than doing research which paves the way for the cure for HIV/AIDS?
And to set ‘justice’ even more off kilter, we have allowed frivolous lawsuits to dictate our lifestyles. It’s common sense that your coffee should be hot; do you need a warning saying that it could cause you injury if spilled?
What affect me personally are all these inane commercials with ambulance chasers asking people if they’ve suffered injury from medicines. If people read the warnings, there really shouldn’t be anything to complain about: there are risks inherent with any medicine. If Accutane(R) can cause DEATH (suicidal ideation), why are people suing about upset stomachs and diarrhea? As such, there is tremendous risk of not covering your backside as a healthcare professional.
And for myself at least, there is little upside to exposing yourself to liability. In the past 10 years or so, there was some study done in some pediatric journal which purported that common over-the-counter remedies were useless for kids under 6 years. Since then, most manufacturers have removed the dosing for kids under 6. Some pediatricians will swear at you up and down for recommending those medicines while other peds docs will call you an idiot for refusing to recommend them. PharmDs are technically doctors and self-proclaimed ‘medication experts’, and so I guess we do have authority to supersede drug manufacturer labeling. But it's not like I get paid any extra when I make a recommendation which might expose me to a lawsuit if something bad happens.
I know if I recommend common OTC remedies for kids outside of the packaging recommendations (which is ill-advised), most kids will probably end up fine. Their parents will have the placebo effect of giving their kids something to help with the sniffles even though those medicines may not have any effect at all (so the study says) and has absolutely no effect on the curing the true sickness. But heaven forbid if one of those kids decompensates and croaks. Then the parents, their lawyers, and the late local news will be on my ass for recommending the damn drug.
‘We have here ‘doctor’ Nguyen who had recommended a medicine which specifically said not to be used in children under 6. ‘Doctor’ Nguyen, what do you have to say for yourself now that this innocent child is irreparably injured?’
‘You are all absolute idiots. Thank you malpractice insurance for covering my behind. You asked for my professional opinion, and I gave it, and now you're suing me for it. Next time, go Google it, and then sue yourselves.’
No thanks! What do I say on a daily basis? ‘There is nothing labeled for kids under 6 (or 4 or 2 years, depending on the medicine). You can ask your physician about it, and if they recommend it, then I can show you where it is. But I cannot recommend anything outside the package recommendation as I could lose my license.’ If you’re not comfortable doing something, say that you could lose your license--that works pretty well.
One of my friends says that I’m being a coward, that he’d rather help 100 people in need while exposing himself to potential liability, than intentionally being unhelpful like myself. And that’s fine. To each his/her own. I personally like having a license. And it’s far less likely that I’d be sued for refusing to recommend something than for recommending something off-label.
--
In real poker played in casinos, you can only bet and lose what is in front of you. If some guy bets $1,000, and you only have $200 on the table, then you can go all-in to win the $200 part of his $1,000 bet. You don't have to fold or throw in your car keys as they do in the TV shows and movies. In the case of my flopped straight, it would have been the right move (in hindsight) to go all-in as those players had a history of calling with second best hands. In the unlikely case that one of them had the full house, I would have only lost a couple hundred.
In life you can lose so much more, your entire livelihood depending on the lawyer who's suing you. My friend can go ahead and bet all-in with his weak straight. Eventually, one of his opponents will have made a boat and take away all his money, the clothes off his back, and the food from his kids' mouths.
Me? I got bills to pay, and so I practice scared pharmacy.
--
*Why is it that neighbors are so mean to each other or are deemed ‘rivals’? Is proximity like when your bro/sis invade your personal space while in the backseat on long roadtrips?
About a month ago, I was playing 1-2 No Limit Hold Em at Winstar, a casino just a few miles north of the Texas-Oklahoma border. The Winstar poker room happens to be one of the few redeeming things about the Okie state*. The deck was hitting me in the mouth that night, meaning I was catching everything. On one hand, I flopped a boat, sixes over jacks, when my opponent flopped trips (6-6 vs J-9, flop J-J-6), and I proceeded to take the guy’s money. On another, I flopped top two-pair and made a really stupid all-in move out of turn, raising an additional $160 on a $100 bet ($260 total). Fortunately, the guy behind me folded a flopped straight because he respected my tight-aggressive play, and the initial raiser didn’t hit his draw. That sent the folder on tilt, and he berated me with stuff like, ‘I really hand it to you…not many people would have had the guts (sarcasm for ‘stupidity’) to raise all-in with two-pair.’
Then a few hands later, I completed a nut straight draw (Broadway) against the tilter’s flopped set and took the rest of his stack, sending him out the casino door. I had started the night losing my initial $200 buy-in, but scrambled up to $560 with my last bill. But with the cards I had that night, a better player would have made so much more. I was playing scared poker, and it cost me additional winnings.
This was the microcosm hand for the night: I was dealt J-9s on the button with two horrible players sitting to my left in the blinds. The first guy played loose-aggressive slop poker, pretty much continuation betting with any 2 cards after the flop. He bet and folded out of turn, insulted the dealers, and even folded a few hands when he could have checked his cards. The guy to his left was pretty much an open book: he bet his made hands, called his draws, and folded his mess. Easy pickings: I raised to $7 pretty much every time I had the button, and this time I had my favorite hand.
They both call as I lick my chops. The flop comes, and it takes all my power not to drool all over the cards: Q-10-8 rainbow. I flopped the nuts with my J-9, which is the best 5-card hand given the cards on the table. My brother calls it the hon bi, which is literally translated from Vietnamese as ‘the marbles’. They both check, and I make a sizeable value bet, about three-fourths of the pot, hoping that one of them would call. They both do, which made me a little anxious. I put the loose guy on a draw, and the tight guy on top pair, overpair, or a set. A 5 came on the turn. They check, I bet more this time, and they both call again. Now I’m thinking that one of them likely had a set on the flop. The river came. Another 5, a scare card for me. Again they check in front of me. Amateurs love to slowplay. They love to reveal the winning hand and rub it in your face. And I had a belief that at least one of them had turned his set into a boat with the river 5, and this was enough to make me check behind them.
I turn over my flopped straight, and they both muck their hands. Though I don’t know what they truly had, I’d probably say the loose guy had a busted draw (K-J) and was paying me off, and the tight guy had top pair, top kicker (A-Q). And somehow I didn’t make more money after flopping the nut straight. While I was replaying the hand in my head, reviewing all the action, the guy on my right, a solid 19-year old Asian (it’s an Indian casino with a lower gambling age) with a diamond stud in his left ear, needled me with, ‘Dude, why didn’t you bet the river? You had it!’
‘The 5 was a scare card. I thought at least one of them made a full house.’
He considers, agrees silently to himself, and then tries to set me on tilt, ‘So what? Are you playing scared poker?’
I shrugged and smiled. I was winning, and I didn’t care. Looking back, I realize that I had given them odds (at least one of them) to draw out on me. And the odds of them having the boat were slim since they both would have raised (or check-raised) me if they had flopped a set.
Scared poker is my current M.O., and I'm working hard to change that. To triple barrel your nothing against an opponent's something; that is mostly genius and sometimes gross stupidity.
--
Poker is simpler than life in that poker boils down to the chips in front of you. A correct decision nets more chips. A correct decision could also mean less lost chips, which is equally as important. Like life, it is a game of incomplete information; we have to make decisions based on what we know, however little that is. And if we consistently make good decisions, we will make more money in the long run. It is a game which rewards good play and punishes bad play. Therefore, it is a just game. People who complain about bad beats and others' poor play are just not applying themselves.
But life is far more difficult than poker, which is itself an extremely complex game. And it is fraught with injustice: how is playing professional sports worth 100x more than teaching kids how to read and write. Or how is rapping/singing about degrading acts which are performed with semen rewarded better than doing research which paves the way for the cure for HIV/AIDS?
And to set ‘justice’ even more off kilter, we have allowed frivolous lawsuits to dictate our lifestyles. It’s common sense that your coffee should be hot; do you need a warning saying that it could cause you injury if spilled?
What affect me personally are all these inane commercials with ambulance chasers asking people if they’ve suffered injury from medicines. If people read the warnings, there really shouldn’t be anything to complain about: there are risks inherent with any medicine. If Accutane(R) can cause DEATH (suicidal ideation), why are people suing about upset stomachs and diarrhea? As such, there is tremendous risk of not covering your backside as a healthcare professional.
And for myself at least, there is little upside to exposing yourself to liability. In the past 10 years or so, there was some study done in some pediatric journal which purported that common over-the-counter remedies were useless for kids under 6 years. Since then, most manufacturers have removed the dosing for kids under 6. Some pediatricians will swear at you up and down for recommending those medicines while other peds docs will call you an idiot for refusing to recommend them. PharmDs are technically doctors and self-proclaimed ‘medication experts’, and so I guess we do have authority to supersede drug manufacturer labeling. But it's not like I get paid any extra when I make a recommendation which might expose me to a lawsuit if something bad happens.
I know if I recommend common OTC remedies for kids outside of the packaging recommendations (which is ill-advised), most kids will probably end up fine. Their parents will have the placebo effect of giving their kids something to help with the sniffles even though those medicines may not have any effect at all (so the study says) and has absolutely no effect on the curing the true sickness. But heaven forbid if one of those kids decompensates and croaks. Then the parents, their lawyers, and the late local news will be on my ass for recommending the damn drug.
‘We have here ‘doctor’ Nguyen who had recommended a medicine which specifically said not to be used in children under 6. ‘Doctor’ Nguyen, what do you have to say for yourself now that this innocent child is irreparably injured?’
‘You are all absolute idiots. Thank you malpractice insurance for covering my behind. You asked for my professional opinion, and I gave it, and now you're suing me for it. Next time, go Google it, and then sue yourselves.’
No thanks! What do I say on a daily basis? ‘There is nothing labeled for kids under 6 (or 4 or 2 years, depending on the medicine). You can ask your physician about it, and if they recommend it, then I can show you where it is. But I cannot recommend anything outside the package recommendation as I could lose my license.’ If you’re not comfortable doing something, say that you could lose your license--that works pretty well.
One of my friends says that I’m being a coward, that he’d rather help 100 people in need while exposing himself to potential liability, than intentionally being unhelpful like myself. And that’s fine. To each his/her own. I personally like having a license. And it’s far less likely that I’d be sued for refusing to recommend something than for recommending something off-label.
--
In real poker played in casinos, you can only bet and lose what is in front of you. If some guy bets $1,000, and you only have $200 on the table, then you can go all-in to win the $200 part of his $1,000 bet. You don't have to fold or throw in your car keys as they do in the TV shows and movies. In the case of my flopped straight, it would have been the right move (in hindsight) to go all-in as those players had a history of calling with second best hands. In the unlikely case that one of them had the full house, I would have only lost a couple hundred.
In life you can lose so much more, your entire livelihood depending on the lawyer who's suing you. My friend can go ahead and bet all-in with his weak straight. Eventually, one of his opponents will have made a boat and take away all his money, the clothes off his back, and the food from his kids' mouths.
Me? I got bills to pay, and so I practice scared pharmacy.
--
*Why is it that neighbors are so mean to each other or are deemed ‘rivals’? Is proximity like when your bro/sis invade your personal space while in the backseat on long roadtrips?
Tuesday, July 20
The Alliterative P-- Principle
Dear myself,
After all, who else is reading now since I haven’t posted in centuries? When I am killing time, one of my favorite activities is reading up on random blogs about people’s thoughts and such. Some are entertaining, others are sad, others are cleverly stupid and addicting like TMZ. But a common thread is that there sometimes seems to be an awkward silence at the end, as if the person just decided to quit with little explanation. Except the stuff with ads; those always seem to last forever like daytime soap operas! (a foreshadowing perhaps?)
In books we read, we expect a satisfying conclusion to a story: there is a beginning, middle and an end (otherwise, the book wouldn’t be published we should hope). But a blog is an organic, continuous thing written in real-time by people who cannot make their lives into solid beginnings, middles and ends.
For myself, I cannot make some grand statement that I was on sabbatical meditating on the deeper meaning of life. In truth, I was a bit depressed that I couldn’t get a foot into hospital pharmacy because of the experience Catch-22 (we won’t hire you without experience, and since you don’t have experience, you’ll never get any). Because I was raised in a household which had inordinately emphasized money, a big part of my self-worth is linked to the size of my bank accounts, which had been dwindling as of late. And as the dollars and sense [sic] faded, so did my fervor for everything else.
The solution: get a job, any job. As luck (or fate or destiny) would have it, when I found out that even staffing agencies (middlepeople* who get paid tens of thousands of dollars by employers to hire pharmacists) could only get me retail jobs, I began to apply for the dreaded things myself. Dreaded because I knew how bad a situation could be when you don’t have adequate support and are expected to fill hundreds of prescriptions a day, all the while people are yelling at you for something you can’t control. Then people sue you for misfilling (filling a prescription incorrectly) which is the ultimate kicker; it didn’t happen to me, but a friend of mine happened to dispense Nexium 40mg instead of 20mg which in the worst case scenario might have caused the guy to suffer some more severe placebo-like side effects.**
But if that’s the only gainful employment I can get, then so be it. I’m thankful for a college degree which pretty much guarantees a job; maybe not the most rewarding one, but certainly a stable and high paying one.
So I had sent a few interest requests to some of the better prospects. A central fill facility (assembly line work where you sit and verify all day, because they’re required to have warm bodies licensed by the Board of Pharmacy), which ultimately hired another pharmacist. And a 7-on 7-off overnight position, which had been unanswered for 2 weeks. Then I got an email on Sunday right after mass (believe in God much?) seeing if I was still interested. It was followed by a phone call the next day and an interview that same week. When it rains, it pours, as the cliché goes.
Fast forward a bit: Two weeks ago, I started my new job at the same work schedule, with a better computer system, a newly opened pharmacy, and probably most importantly with an $8/hr pay increase over my last job. Joking aside (though money is apparently dreadfully important to me), I’m just glad to be working again.
--
So the title of this post, the ‘Alliterative P-- Principle'. What is the p--? I’ve taken a liking to how Hemingway’s books were censored with the first letter of the naughty word followed by an indeterminate dash representing the rest of the foulness, so I will flatter his censors with imitation. It’s a 5 letter word that little kids may use to describe their feline friends, and it also happens to be the first name of a Bond villainess.
After a quick Google search, I’m terribly surprised that the P-- Principle is not mentioned anywhere, not even on Urban Dictionary, which has several entries for ‘robocop’ as a perverse [post] coital act but not the p-- principle, a fundamental, unconscious driving force for human males***.
So the P-- Principle as simply defined is this: men choose to do the things which will give them the greatest benefit in the greatest frequency. This is more in depth than the pleasure principle in that it takes into account the probabilities of the ‘benefit’. Most guys would kill for a chance to ‘benefit’ women like Megan Fox, Emmanuelle Vaugier, or that milkaholic Lindsay in her pre-alcohol, pre-druggie days, but it’s simply not going to happen. So instead of stalking impossible marks, most sane men go after (and expend resources on) those of the opposite sex who are more within their league.
In mathematical terms (because I’m a dork), the estimated probability of an event multiplied by the perceived benefit of the event equals the weighted benefit.
%Occurrence x perceived benefit = weighted benefit.
And most men (and women) will usually pursue the action with the greatest weighted benefit. I would argue that the sane always pursue the greatest weighted benefit; the changes in their decisions are due to the changes in their perceived probability of success and/or perceived benefit. Eg, when you fall in love and decide to propose, the perceived benefit of spending the rest of your life (or the next 5 years) with the same person eclipses the benefit of random fornication.
So what’s with all this nonsense? Well the P-- Principle applies to career decisions as well. Though I really like the reading and writing bit and find it terribly fulfilling (high perceived benefit), I don’t have faith that I can be successful or profitable at it in the long term (low probability of occurrence). Making large sums of money now as a pharmacist has a higher weighted benefit since paying off student loans is a b--. And I scratched the casing on my Gucci watch, so I have to get money to get it replaced.
In the three months of unpaid vacation, I never once seriously considered writing to be a viable primary income source because I knew I could make significantly more as a pharmacist and I knew I had a higher probability of finding solid, stable work as a pharmacist. ...though this could change in the future...
In short, the P-- Principle prevailed.
--
*not trying to be PC, just thought ‘middlepeople’ was a funny word
**First off, why the hell would you prescribe the 20mg instead of the 40mg (a practical reason, not an academic theoretical one), when the side effects are minimal at best? As a reference, a majority of the other drugs in the same class only come in a single strength. Secondly, though you aim to not make any mistakes, this is as tame a mistake as it comes.
***And if the p-- were altered to another 5-letter word, then it would also apply for some human females, though the Prada Principle usually applies in more cases
After all, who else is reading now since I haven’t posted in centuries? When I am killing time, one of my favorite activities is reading up on random blogs about people’s thoughts and such. Some are entertaining, others are sad, others are cleverly stupid and addicting like TMZ. But a common thread is that there sometimes seems to be an awkward silence at the end, as if the person just decided to quit with little explanation. Except the stuff with ads; those always seem to last forever like daytime soap operas! (a foreshadowing perhaps?)
In books we read, we expect a satisfying conclusion to a story: there is a beginning, middle and an end (otherwise, the book wouldn’t be published we should hope). But a blog is an organic, continuous thing written in real-time by people who cannot make their lives into solid beginnings, middles and ends.
For myself, I cannot make some grand statement that I was on sabbatical meditating on the deeper meaning of life. In truth, I was a bit depressed that I couldn’t get a foot into hospital pharmacy because of the experience Catch-22 (we won’t hire you without experience, and since you don’t have experience, you’ll never get any). Because I was raised in a household which had inordinately emphasized money, a big part of my self-worth is linked to the size of my bank accounts, which had been dwindling as of late. And as the dollars and sense [sic] faded, so did my fervor for everything else.
The solution: get a job, any job. As luck (or fate or destiny) would have it, when I found out that even staffing agencies (middlepeople* who get paid tens of thousands of dollars by employers to hire pharmacists) could only get me retail jobs, I began to apply for the dreaded things myself. Dreaded because I knew how bad a situation could be when you don’t have adequate support and are expected to fill hundreds of prescriptions a day, all the while people are yelling at you for something you can’t control. Then people sue you for misfilling (filling a prescription incorrectly) which is the ultimate kicker; it didn’t happen to me, but a friend of mine happened to dispense Nexium 40mg instead of 20mg which in the worst case scenario might have caused the guy to suffer some more severe placebo-like side effects.**
But if that’s the only gainful employment I can get, then so be it. I’m thankful for a college degree which pretty much guarantees a job; maybe not the most rewarding one, but certainly a stable and high paying one.
So I had sent a few interest requests to some of the better prospects. A central fill facility (assembly line work where you sit and verify all day, because they’re required to have warm bodies licensed by the Board of Pharmacy), which ultimately hired another pharmacist. And a 7-on 7-off overnight position, which had been unanswered for 2 weeks. Then I got an email on Sunday right after mass (believe in God much?) seeing if I was still interested. It was followed by a phone call the next day and an interview that same week. When it rains, it pours, as the cliché goes.
Fast forward a bit: Two weeks ago, I started my new job at the same work schedule, with a better computer system, a newly opened pharmacy, and probably most importantly with an $8/hr pay increase over my last job. Joking aside (though money is apparently dreadfully important to me), I’m just glad to be working again.
--
So the title of this post, the ‘Alliterative P-- Principle'. What is the p--? I’ve taken a liking to how Hemingway’s books were censored with the first letter of the naughty word followed by an indeterminate dash representing the rest of the foulness, so I will flatter his censors with imitation. It’s a 5 letter word that little kids may use to describe their feline friends, and it also happens to be the first name of a Bond villainess.
After a quick Google search, I’m terribly surprised that the P-- Principle is not mentioned anywhere, not even on Urban Dictionary, which has several entries for ‘robocop’ as a perverse [post] coital act but not the p-- principle, a fundamental, unconscious driving force for human males***.
So the P-- Principle as simply defined is this: men choose to do the things which will give them the greatest benefit in the greatest frequency. This is more in depth than the pleasure principle in that it takes into account the probabilities of the ‘benefit’. Most guys would kill for a chance to ‘benefit’ women like Megan Fox, Emmanuelle Vaugier, or that milkaholic Lindsay in her pre-alcohol, pre-druggie days, but it’s simply not going to happen. So instead of stalking impossible marks, most sane men go after (and expend resources on) those of the opposite sex who are more within their league.
In mathematical terms (because I’m a dork), the estimated probability of an event multiplied by the perceived benefit of the event equals the weighted benefit.
%Occurrence x perceived benefit = weighted benefit.
And most men (and women) will usually pursue the action with the greatest weighted benefit. I would argue that the sane always pursue the greatest weighted benefit; the changes in their decisions are due to the changes in their perceived probability of success and/or perceived benefit. Eg, when you fall in love and decide to propose, the perceived benefit of spending the rest of your life (or the next 5 years) with the same person eclipses the benefit of random fornication.
So what’s with all this nonsense? Well the P-- Principle applies to career decisions as well. Though I really like the reading and writing bit and find it terribly fulfilling (high perceived benefit), I don’t have faith that I can be successful or profitable at it in the long term (low probability of occurrence). Making large sums of money now as a pharmacist has a higher weighted benefit since paying off student loans is a b--. And I scratched the casing on my Gucci watch, so I have to get money to get it replaced.
In the three months of unpaid vacation, I never once seriously considered writing to be a viable primary income source because I knew I could make significantly more as a pharmacist and I knew I had a higher probability of finding solid, stable work as a pharmacist. ...though this could change in the future...
In short, the P-- Principle prevailed.
--
*not trying to be PC, just thought ‘middlepeople’ was a funny word
**First off, why the hell would you prescribe the 20mg instead of the 40mg (a practical reason, not an academic theoretical one), when the side effects are minimal at best? As a reference, a majority of the other drugs in the same class only come in a single strength. Secondly, though you aim to not make any mistakes, this is as tame a mistake as it comes.
***And if the p-- were altered to another 5-letter word, then it would also apply for some human females, though the Prada Principle usually applies in more cases
Tuesday, April 27
Free to Be You and Me
Dear old(er) folks,
The great thing about the internet and Google (I like how the Google search results page isn't littered with ads; compare this with Yahoo and Bing's) is that when there's an obscure or old reference which you're not sure about, you can just Google it. That's partly why I love my Droid which has a nifty Google omnisciently omnipotent widget that will almost read your mind to figure out what you want. In return, it just needs a few moments from your eyes to display some relatively unobtrusive ads. So Google, you deserve the $500+/share that you command on the stock market. I'll have to buy a share one of these days and frame it. On a sidenote, if I were to be able to go back in time, I'd snap up shares of Microsoft, Apple, and/or Google when they were cheap; that way, people wouldn't suspect as much and wouldn't hassle you for your dough like if you had won the Powerball. I feel sorry for that Missouri dude for the constant hand-out requests he's about to receive.
Anyway, the obscure reference is the title of this entry, 'Free to Be...You and Me.' The first time I saw the title was as an episode from Supernatural. I knew it to be one of those things I should probably know, but didn't. The old fogies would scoff, frown, and make a face that expressed both pity and condescension. The intellectual/music elitists would as well. But I'm not that smart, and the world is so overloaded with information that it would be impossible to know everything considered 'common knowledge.' That's why Google is so wonderful! Someone buy me a share for my birthday; it's coming up you know. I'll also take cash, and it would be a very personal gift since you realized my Vietnamese inclination toward Mr. Franklin. Stuff that you made from macaroni will be frowned upon; it won't even elicit my fake gratitude.
You'll have to get used to my random preambles to my topic at hand (see the two paragraphs above). When last we met at my last entry, we found a very depressed me. Actually an agitated me to be more correct. There's a reason why people pay so much to live in temperate SoCal and not in the Houston sauna. And on half the mornings I'd wake up with severe nasal congestion due to the tree pollen. Trees, please don't [sexual reference deleted] all over my car and my house; it's quite inappropriate and immunogenic.
But I got over it. I turned the fan on the high setting (and if it broke down I'd give Dad money to fix it). For boredom, I finally got back on that reading track I promised to do last year. Pretty easy fixes now that I think about it in my dreary apartment in Dallas, with the minimal decorations taken down. In the past few weeks, I've been slowly moving my stuff back to Houston which is probably where I belong (at least for now). Still searching for a job, by the way.
The drives to and from D-town to H-town are the moments when I have my greatest thoughts (I'm stuck on one highway for 4.5 hours; it's either think or sleep or jam to Miley Cyrus, and I'd rather die via DWS* than purchase a Miley album). And this last trip I thought about how it wouldn't be all that terrible to live with my parents again.
Because this time, I would be choosing to live with them rather than being forced to live with them. And that is a profound difference. Being forced to return home because you can't afford to live on your own due to downsizing etc is sucky. It's like being imprisoned. Come to think of it, prison wouldn't be all that bad if there wasn't rampant sodomy and if you had a option to leave. The problem is you can't leave, and that's why it's punishment.
So I'm choosing to return home for now because it is a sound economic decision. My decision to not save the world (which I couldn't do anyway) was a sound economic decision. I had told Dad recently that I wouldn't go back to school--he took it surprisingly well, like a parent whose kid comes out of the closet after it is painfully obvious that he's gay**. If you think I'm making light of the gay revelation, you don't know my dad's obsession with my going to med school.
In a way, I still resent my parents for forcing me to go to pharmacy school, even if it did turn out for the best: I'd be racking up massive debts in med school right now to make pennies under Obamacare.
I'm surprised to find that I'm learning the power of choice now considering about all the coming of age novels I've read about the exact same thing. But I guess in most of those novels, the heroes and heroines were inevitably forced into doing 'what was best' for the world. To die to self, to save the world. How trite! Make way for the bad guy. Hey, at least I didn't start the subprime meltdown, though that was likely because I didn't have a choice.****
--
*Driving While Sleepy
**I'm not gay, not that there's anything wrong with that***
***What's the deal with all these disclaimers nowadays?
****Kidding, I hope
Monday, April 19
Another Benefit of the Roth IRA or a Miscalculation
Dear Tax-haters,
So maybe you’ve read up on the Roth IRA like I suggested. But probably not. Money is interesting in that it’s a made-up idea yet it consumes so much of our thoughts. I'm beginning to understand that when you have a sufficient amount of money, any extra is just gravy. But a lot of gravy is nice. So skip to the next section to get to the Roth IRA stuff if you want to bypass an embarrassing story of my miscalculation.
--
Back in high school I was captain of the science bowl team (go ahead and snicker), and our team made it all the way to nationals. Though I was proud, the qualifying regional was like playing in Conference USA; it wasn’t much of a challenge to get an automatic bid to the show. It was a several day affair in D.C. at a place that had dorms to sleep in and ballrooms in which to display our math and science prowess. I wonder how far it would set back American technology if something were to happen to that place during nationals; some of those kids were extremely bright yet extremely dull (myself included). Out of the 10 round robins, my team won a grand total of zilch. Needless to say, we didn’t advance.
Besides the main event of science bowl, there were side competitions like designing the best hydrogen fuel cell model car. The hydrogen fuel cell in my view at the time, was redundant. The reaction that powers the system is the combustion of hydrogen to make water and energy. Chemically, hydrogen + oxygen = water + energy. Though containers full of hydrogen is undoubtedly a very safe thing*, the way we got the hydrogen to fuel the model cars is via a hydrolysis reaction (water + energy = hydrogen + oxygen) powered by alkaline batteries. Then to power the car, they’d just let the reaction go in reverse; there wasn’t an internal combustion of hydrogen which was quite a disappointment.
A younger, more naïve g: ‘I think it’s stupid that we’re using a battery to power another battery. I don’t see the point in this experiment. I mean, if we were combusting the hydrogen, then I can kind of understand the idea somewhat.’
The thing I learned a little later is that a reaction produces the same maximal amount of energy, no matter the way in which it occurs. Therefore, the same amount of hydrogen and oxygen would produce the same maximum whether you lit the hydrogen and let it blow or stuck some wires to make a boring battery. In fact, the battery method is a much more efficient in harnessing the energy than the internal combustion of hydrogen, so it would be preferable to have the controlled reaction that you see in the developing hydrogen fuel cell cars. And there's the benefit that your car won't blow up, but that's a minor advantage.
As a sidenote, the controlled electric reaction of hydrogen and oxygen is still considered combustion since it is defined as the reaction of a fuel with oxygen. Are you still awake?
Thinking about the comment I made to my fellow competitors, I wonder how many of them thought I was a complete idiot. I totally missed the point: Making hydrogen requires energy, whether it be renewable or fossil fuel, but if we were to somehow make that process more efficient, we’d have a clean ‘burning’ fuel with only water as an emission. The internal combustion engine is a relatively inefficient (something like 33% gets converted to mechanical energy). To get the hydrogen in our particular exercise, we used batteries (redundant), but if it were a more efficient conversion of fossil fuels to get hydrogen like 45% instead of 33% at a hydrogen plant, then we’d possibly reduce emissions.
But money talks and so far, the money isn’t in hydrogen fuel cell cars. Earth, sucks to your ass-mar**.
--
After reading some more stuff about investments (I want to retire when I’m 40 and become a decrepit degenerate), I thought about the tax advantages of a Roth vs traditional IRA.
The common consensus among investors is that the Roth is the preferable vehicle if you can contribute to it, which I wholeheartedly agree with for the many important reasons reported repeatedly across the internet. (if you don't believe me, google it yourselves)
But there was one more thing I thought about, which may turn out to be another miscalculation of mine. Even if it isn’t, this advantage is so minuscule that it really doesn’t matter unless you make frequent trades in your taxable account.
Let's start with a truism: If the current tax rate and your retirement tax rate were the same, then the Roth and traditional IRA would have the exact same return, assuming the same annual rates of return, investment amount, and length of investment. Some website had a pretty graph, but I'll prove it to you mathematically:
Roth -
principal x (1 - present tax rate) = investment amount
investment amount x (1 + annual rate of return)^length of investment = net value at retirement
P x (1 - tax%) = I
I x (1 + ARR)^n = net value
therefore, P x (1 - tax%) x (1 + ARR)^n = net value
Traditional -
principal = investment amount
investment amount x (1 + annual rate of return)^length of investment = pretax value at retirement
pretax value x (1 - retirement tax rate) = net value
therefore, P x (1 + ARR)^n x (1 - tax%) = net value
So Roth would win if the retirement tax rate were higher than the present tax rate, which given the state of our national debt, is likely. Traditional IRA proponents argue that you'd be making less money when you retire than at present, so you would be in a lower tax bracket. I wouldn't count on that--40 years is a long time from now.
There's a lot of advantages/disadvantages I'm ignoring, and financial websites do them justice. I'm purely focusing on the numbers.
Finally getting to my point. Let’s assume some numbers:
Bank account/income for last quarter = $10,000
Roth/Traditional contribution limit = $5,000
Marginal tax rate = 25%
Average annual return in stock market mutual fund = 7% (that’s a nice, round lucky number)
Returns are based on dividends/interest and growth. Dividends and interest get taxed yearly, but growth isn’t taxed until it is realized via capital gains. So let’s assume that 2% is attributed to dividends/interest and 5% is attributed to growth, and you invest your taxable account in a buy-and-hold strategy.
Qualified dividend/capital gains rate = 20%
Length of investment = 35 years
No further investments in future years
Invest remainder of bank account in a taxable investment
Taxable investment return = 5% + 2% x (1 - 0.2) = 6.6% return (accounting for the tax on interest & dividends)
Roth IRA
Contribute $5,000. Pay marginal tax of 25% on $10,000 which is $2,500.
Ending balance = $2,500 in bank account and $5,000 in Roth
Traditional IRA
Contribute $5,000. Pay 25% on $5,000, which is $1,250.
Ending balance = $3,750 in bank account and $5,000 in traditional IRA
In the Roth:
IRA: $5,000 x (1 + 0.07)^35 years = $53,382 tax free
taxable acct: $2,500 x (1 + 0.066)^35 years = $23,412
after capital gains tax = $23,412 x (1 - 0.20) = $18,730
NET = $72,112
In the Traditional:
IRA: $5,000 x (1 + 0.07)^35 years = $53,382, taxed at 25% marginal rate
after tax = $40,037
taxable acct: $3,750 x (1 + 0.066)^35 years = $35,118
after 20% capital gains tax = $28,095
NET = $68,132
Difference of $3,980. Small change considering inflation and what-not 35 years from now. The difference is attributed to the fact that you're putting 'more money' into the Roth, since those dollars have the tax rolled into it. With the traditional, the investment dollars haven't been taxed yet and those would be 'worth less' than the Roth dollars. To get the same IRA return from the traditional IRA, you'd have to invest $6,666 initially:
IRA = $6,666 x (1 + 0.07)^35 = $71,170
after 25% tax = $53,378
taxable acct: $3334 x (1 + 0.066)^35 = $31,223
after 20% capital gains tax = $24,978
NET = $78,356
So in this hypothetical scenario (the contribution limit for both IRAs is a meager $5,000), you'd be up $6,244 over the Roth.
Long, long, convoluted story short: With the Roth, you're investing a higher initial amount. But in reality, that little extra amount may not mean much if you're disciplined in you manage your taxes in your taxable accounts. You also aren't tempted to spend that cash you have lying around in your bank account.
In my opinion, the true advantage of the Roth IRA is that you're locking in your tax rate now. And although your tax bill may have seemed heavy, it's nothing compared to the 70s which had top marginal tax rates of 70%.
Why did I go through this whole ordeal to prove (possibly) a minor point, which probably isn't worth mentioning? Because it's good practice. And it doesn't even require calculus.
A quote from Warren Buffett: Investment must be rational; if you don't understand it, don't do it. From what I hear, he does pretty well for himself.
--
*come on, Hindenburg was a fluke!
**Lord of the Flies
So maybe you’ve read up on the Roth IRA like I suggested. But probably not. Money is interesting in that it’s a made-up idea yet it consumes so much of our thoughts. I'm beginning to understand that when you have a sufficient amount of money, any extra is just gravy. But a lot of gravy is nice. So skip to the next section to get to the Roth IRA stuff if you want to bypass an embarrassing story of my miscalculation.
--
Back in high school I was captain of the science bowl team (go ahead and snicker), and our team made it all the way to nationals. Though I was proud, the qualifying regional was like playing in Conference USA; it wasn’t much of a challenge to get an automatic bid to the show. It was a several day affair in D.C. at a place that had dorms to sleep in and ballrooms in which to display our math and science prowess. I wonder how far it would set back American technology if something were to happen to that place during nationals; some of those kids were extremely bright yet extremely dull (myself included). Out of the 10 round robins, my team won a grand total of zilch. Needless to say, we didn’t advance.
Besides the main event of science bowl, there were side competitions like designing the best hydrogen fuel cell model car. The hydrogen fuel cell in my view at the time, was redundant. The reaction that powers the system is the combustion of hydrogen to make water and energy. Chemically, hydrogen + oxygen = water + energy. Though containers full of hydrogen is undoubtedly a very safe thing*, the way we got the hydrogen to fuel the model cars is via a hydrolysis reaction (water + energy = hydrogen + oxygen) powered by alkaline batteries. Then to power the car, they’d just let the reaction go in reverse; there wasn’t an internal combustion of hydrogen which was quite a disappointment.
A younger, more naïve g: ‘I think it’s stupid that we’re using a battery to power another battery. I don’t see the point in this experiment. I mean, if we were combusting the hydrogen, then I can kind of understand the idea somewhat.’
The thing I learned a little later is that a reaction produces the same maximal amount of energy, no matter the way in which it occurs. Therefore, the same amount of hydrogen and oxygen would produce the same maximum whether you lit the hydrogen and let it blow or stuck some wires to make a boring battery. In fact, the battery method is a much more efficient in harnessing the energy than the internal combustion of hydrogen, so it would be preferable to have the controlled reaction that you see in the developing hydrogen fuel cell cars. And there's the benefit that your car won't blow up, but that's a minor advantage.
As a sidenote, the controlled electric reaction of hydrogen and oxygen is still considered combustion since it is defined as the reaction of a fuel with oxygen. Are you still awake?
Thinking about the comment I made to my fellow competitors, I wonder how many of them thought I was a complete idiot. I totally missed the point: Making hydrogen requires energy, whether it be renewable or fossil fuel, but if we were to somehow make that process more efficient, we’d have a clean ‘burning’ fuel with only water as an emission. The internal combustion engine is a relatively inefficient (something like 33% gets converted to mechanical energy). To get the hydrogen in our particular exercise, we used batteries (redundant), but if it were a more efficient conversion of fossil fuels to get hydrogen like 45% instead of 33% at a hydrogen plant, then we’d possibly reduce emissions.
But money talks and so far, the money isn’t in hydrogen fuel cell cars. Earth, sucks to your ass-mar**.
--
After reading some more stuff about investments (I want to retire when I’m 40 and become a decrepit degenerate), I thought about the tax advantages of a Roth vs traditional IRA.
The common consensus among investors is that the Roth is the preferable vehicle if you can contribute to it, which I wholeheartedly agree with for the many important reasons reported repeatedly across the internet. (if you don't believe me, google it yourselves)
But there was one more thing I thought about, which may turn out to be another miscalculation of mine. Even if it isn’t, this advantage is so minuscule that it really doesn’t matter unless you make frequent trades in your taxable account.
Let's start with a truism: If the current tax rate and your retirement tax rate were the same, then the Roth and traditional IRA would have the exact same return, assuming the same annual rates of return, investment amount, and length of investment. Some website had a pretty graph, but I'll prove it to you mathematically:
Roth -
principal x (1 - present tax rate) = investment amount
investment amount x (1 + annual rate of return)^length of investment = net value at retirement
P x (1 - tax%) = I
I x (1 + ARR)^n = net value
therefore, P x (1 - tax%) x (1 + ARR)^n = net value
Traditional -
principal = investment amount
investment amount x (1 + annual rate of return)^length of investment = pretax value at retirement
pretax value x (1 - retirement tax rate) = net value
therefore, P x (1 + ARR)^n x (1 - tax%) = net value
So Roth would win if the retirement tax rate were higher than the present tax rate, which given the state of our national debt, is likely. Traditional IRA proponents argue that you'd be making less money when you retire than at present, so you would be in a lower tax bracket. I wouldn't count on that--40 years is a long time from now.
There's a lot of advantages/disadvantages I'm ignoring, and financial websites do them justice. I'm purely focusing on the numbers.
Finally getting to my point. Let’s assume some numbers:
Bank account/income for last quarter = $10,000
Roth/Traditional contribution limit = $5,000
Marginal tax rate = 25%
Average annual return in stock market mutual fund = 7% (that’s a nice, round lucky number)
Returns are based on dividends/interest and growth. Dividends and interest get taxed yearly, but growth isn’t taxed until it is realized via capital gains. So let’s assume that 2% is attributed to dividends/interest and 5% is attributed to growth, and you invest your taxable account in a buy-and-hold strategy.
Qualified dividend/capital gains rate = 20%
Length of investment = 35 years
No further investments in future years
Invest remainder of bank account in a taxable investment
Taxable investment return = 5% + 2% x (1 - 0.2) = 6.6% return (accounting for the tax on interest & dividends)
Roth IRA
Contribute $5,000. Pay marginal tax of 25% on $10,000 which is $2,500.
Ending balance = $2,500 in bank account and $5,000 in Roth
Traditional IRA
Contribute $5,000. Pay 25% on $5,000, which is $1,250.
Ending balance = $3,750 in bank account and $5,000 in traditional IRA
In the Roth:
IRA: $5,000 x (1 + 0.07)^35 years = $53,382 tax free
taxable acct: $2,500 x (1 + 0.066)^35 years = $23,412
after capital gains tax = $23,412 x (1 - 0.20) = $18,730
NET = $72,112
In the Traditional:
IRA: $5,000 x (1 + 0.07)^35 years = $53,382, taxed at 25% marginal rate
after tax = $40,037
taxable acct: $3,750 x (1 + 0.066)^35 years = $35,118
after 20% capital gains tax = $28,095
NET = $68,132
Difference of $3,980. Small change considering inflation and what-not 35 years from now. The difference is attributed to the fact that you're putting 'more money' into the Roth, since those dollars have the tax rolled into it. With the traditional, the investment dollars haven't been taxed yet and those would be 'worth less' than the Roth dollars. To get the same IRA return from the traditional IRA, you'd have to invest $6,666 initially:
IRA = $6,666 x (1 + 0.07)^35 = $71,170
after 25% tax = $53,378
taxable acct: $3334 x (1 + 0.066)^35 = $31,223
after 20% capital gains tax = $24,978
NET = $78,356
So in this hypothetical scenario (the contribution limit for both IRAs is a meager $5,000), you'd be up $6,244 over the Roth.
Long, long, convoluted story short: With the Roth, you're investing a higher initial amount. But in reality, that little extra amount may not mean much if you're disciplined in you manage your taxes in your taxable accounts. You also aren't tempted to spend that cash you have lying around in your bank account.
In my opinion, the true advantage of the Roth IRA is that you're locking in your tax rate now. And although your tax bill may have seemed heavy, it's nothing compared to the 70s which had top marginal tax rates of 70%.
Why did I go through this whole ordeal to prove (possibly) a minor point, which probably isn't worth mentioning? Because it's good practice. And it doesn't even require calculus.
A quote from Warren Buffett: Investment must be rational; if you don't understand it, don't do it. From what I hear, he does pretty well for himself.
--
*come on, Hindenburg was a fluke!
**Lord of the Flies
Friday, April 9
Increase your... by 25%!!!
Dear ED sufferers,
I hope this email finds you well if you have subscribed to my blog. I wonder if gmail will spam filter my own writing due to that title; that would be absolutely hilarious if they did.
So what is the ‘…’? That would be the size of your tax return* if you happened to have graduated this past year and are stacking that 'paper'. The federal government has also stacked your change for you, and has assessed a hefty bill, which you have prepaid via ‘federal withholding’.
‘Hold on, g, did you just trick me into reading a post about taxes with false promises of male augmentation? That’s bait-and-switch!!’
Yes I did, and that’s why you listen to my nonsense: I attempt to elevate the mundane to the exciting (and vice versa). To be truly technical, this blog post can increase your return by $1,250 and set you on your way to retirement…if you act within the next 5 days before the April 15 deadline.
Really quick summary, by setting up a traditional IRA you can save $1,250 in taxes if you have $5,000 to invest to max out your 2009 contribution. This is aimed at graduates from 2009 who made below $82,250 in 2009 (more on this in a bit). If you already know about Individual Retirement Accounts and the tax benefits, then please ignore my redundancy. If not, read on to pry back $1,250 from Uncle Sam’s warm, non-dead fingers.
If you’re still on your way to making the big bucks, then just remember to earmark this post for the future.
--
First off, mo money mo problems. The finances of getting through pharmacy school meant taking out enough loans and learning to stomach enough ramen and low-priced energy drinks to survive from financial aid check to check. It was a simpler time. When you graduate and get a job (if you get a job**), you’ll be inundated with more money than you’ve ever thought possible. You might be tempted to withdraw $1,000 in Jacksons, put the paper on your bed, and wallow around in the cocaine-dusted, sweet perfume of the U.S. banknote like Scrooge McDuck.***
Fine, but after you have an orgy with that money, calmly collect them all together and redeposit them back at your bank; if the teller gives you a dirty look, tell him/her that you deal drugs for a living and show your RPh wallet card.
It is ridiculous that some pharmacists are in debt (of their own design) when they make six-figure salaries. Sure, loans are expensive, but you can knock them out in 5 years and still live well. If you don’t have a clue how to manage money, a good place to start is to find a financial planner. Make sure they’re fee-based (not commission-based) since those planners would probably be the most unbiased.
But in the meantime, you can start your own brokerage account online (I recommend Vanguard for their rock bottom expenses ratio and their user friendly site) and fund your IRA, which you still have until April 15 for the 2009 tax year.
So what about that $1,250? Well if you’re single (as in not married) and made between $33,950 and $82,250, then you fall into the 25% marginal tax bracket, which means you only get to keep 75 cents of every next dollar you earn. After $82,250, you only get to keep 72 cents (28% marginal bracket). It kind of makes you empathize with the Republicans****.
The traditional IRA allows you to fund pre-tax dollars into a retirement account, which means that you don’t have to pay tax on that money. $5,000 (the max contribution for young folks) at a marginal rate of 25% means $1,250 tax relief. The tax on that money and its earnings is deferred until you take them out when you retire so you’ll eventually have to pay taxes on them. You can never escape death or taxes.
So I kind of fibbed a little bit; you’re dropping $3,750 in your bank account (liquid) to gain $5,000 in a retirement account (non-liquid). You’d transfer $5,000 to your retirement account, but your income tax return will increase by $1,250, thus a net decrease of $3,750.
Confused? I am not a certified financial planner, and it’s hard to both stir up interest and tell you everything about an IRA. Take my word for it: forego the Audis and Beamers and Benzs and fund your retirement NOW. The stock markets are on an upswing.
Personally, I fund a Roth IRA rather than a traditional IRA. Roth IRAs are funded with post-tax money, but the earnings are tax-free. In my opinion, this is the better of the two options if you’re eligible for the Roth. The only reason why I tout the traditional IRA in this post is because it’s easy to see the immediate tax benefit, and most young people are all about instant gratification.
So if you’re interested, google ‘IRA’ and read away. Then google ‘Roth vs traditional IRA’ and read that discussion. Then pick one and invest. Afterwards, find a reputable financial planner and have a sit-down conversation to discuss finances. Though it can be pricey at first ($300-500 per session), it can literally net you hundreds of thousands in your lifetime.
Make sure you do your research well and do what is best for you. Don’t buy anything you don’t understand; you can be sure there will be thousands of people out there ready to sell you financial snake oil (reference: 2AM infomercials).
Please consult with a financial adviser before investing. Stock markets earnings are not guaranteed. Of course the world could end tomorrow, and you could always get a big mattress and stuff your greenbacks in it or dig a hole in your backyard and bury your stash there.
--
*guys, sorry to disappoint; I have some Extenzze and Viaggraaa emails that I can forward to you if you like
**methinks the pharmacist demand bubble is about to burst in the next 5 years
***I considered doing this, but I thought it might be a bit weird.
****I don’t describe myself as Dem, Rep, or Ind. I follow what I think is best for me and society.
I hope this email finds you well if you have subscribed to my blog. I wonder if gmail will spam filter my own writing due to that title; that would be absolutely hilarious if they did.
So what is the ‘…’? That would be the size of your tax return* if you happened to have graduated this past year and are stacking that 'paper'. The federal government has also stacked your change for you, and has assessed a hefty bill, which you have prepaid via ‘federal withholding’.
‘Hold on, g, did you just trick me into reading a post about taxes with false promises of male augmentation? That’s bait-and-switch!!’
Yes I did, and that’s why you listen to my nonsense: I attempt to elevate the mundane to the exciting (and vice versa). To be truly technical, this blog post can increase your return by $1,250 and set you on your way to retirement…if you act within the next 5 days before the April 15 deadline.
Really quick summary, by setting up a traditional IRA you can save $1,250 in taxes if you have $5,000 to invest to max out your 2009 contribution. This is aimed at graduates from 2009 who made below $82,250 in 2009 (more on this in a bit). If you already know about Individual Retirement Accounts and the tax benefits, then please ignore my redundancy. If not, read on to pry back $1,250 from Uncle Sam’s warm, non-dead fingers.
If you’re still on your way to making the big bucks, then just remember to earmark this post for the future.
--
First off, mo money mo problems. The finances of getting through pharmacy school meant taking out enough loans and learning to stomach enough ramen and low-priced energy drinks to survive from financial aid check to check. It was a simpler time. When you graduate and get a job (if you get a job**), you’ll be inundated with more money than you’ve ever thought possible. You might be tempted to withdraw $1,000 in Jacksons, put the paper on your bed, and wallow around in the cocaine-dusted, sweet perfume of the U.S. banknote like Scrooge McDuck.***
Fine, but after you have an orgy with that money, calmly collect them all together and redeposit them back at your bank; if the teller gives you a dirty look, tell him/her that you deal drugs for a living and show your RPh wallet card.
It is ridiculous that some pharmacists are in debt (of their own design) when they make six-figure salaries. Sure, loans are expensive, but you can knock them out in 5 years and still live well. If you don’t have a clue how to manage money, a good place to start is to find a financial planner. Make sure they’re fee-based (not commission-based) since those planners would probably be the most unbiased.
But in the meantime, you can start your own brokerage account online (I recommend Vanguard for their rock bottom expenses ratio and their user friendly site) and fund your IRA, which you still have until April 15 for the 2009 tax year.
So what about that $1,250? Well if you’re single (as in not married) and made between $33,950 and $82,250, then you fall into the 25% marginal tax bracket, which means you only get to keep 75 cents of every next dollar you earn. After $82,250, you only get to keep 72 cents (28% marginal bracket). It kind of makes you empathize with the Republicans****.
The traditional IRA allows you to fund pre-tax dollars into a retirement account, which means that you don’t have to pay tax on that money. $5,000 (the max contribution for young folks) at a marginal rate of 25% means $1,250 tax relief. The tax on that money and its earnings is deferred until you take them out when you retire so you’ll eventually have to pay taxes on them. You can never escape death or taxes.
So I kind of fibbed a little bit; you’re dropping $3,750 in your bank account (liquid) to gain $5,000 in a retirement account (non-liquid). You’d transfer $5,000 to your retirement account, but your income tax return will increase by $1,250, thus a net decrease of $3,750.
Confused? I am not a certified financial planner, and it’s hard to both stir up interest and tell you everything about an IRA. Take my word for it: forego the Audis and Beamers and Benzs and fund your retirement NOW. The stock markets are on an upswing.
Personally, I fund a Roth IRA rather than a traditional IRA. Roth IRAs are funded with post-tax money, but the earnings are tax-free. In my opinion, this is the better of the two options if you’re eligible for the Roth. The only reason why I tout the traditional IRA in this post is because it’s easy to see the immediate tax benefit, and most young people are all about instant gratification.
So if you’re interested, google ‘IRA’ and read away. Then google ‘Roth vs traditional IRA’ and read that discussion. Then pick one and invest. Afterwards, find a reputable financial planner and have a sit-down conversation to discuss finances. Though it can be pricey at first ($300-500 per session), it can literally net you hundreds of thousands in your lifetime.
Make sure you do your research well and do what is best for you. Don’t buy anything you don’t understand; you can be sure there will be thousands of people out there ready to sell you financial snake oil (reference: 2AM infomercials).
Please consult with a financial adviser before investing. Stock markets earnings are not guaranteed. Of course the world could end tomorrow, and you could always get a big mattress and stuff your greenbacks in it or dig a hole in your backyard and bury your stash there.
--
*guys, sorry to disappoint; I have some Extenzze and Viaggraaa emails that I can forward to you if you like
**methinks the pharmacist demand bubble is about to burst in the next 5 years
***I considered doing this, but I thought it might be a bit weird.
****I don’t describe myself as Dem, Rep, or Ind. I follow what I think is best for me and society.
Tuesday, March 16
Expired Milk: Where's My Money?
Dear yogurt lovers,
Let me preface this post with a description of a very common annoyance that has been happening to me this year. As a strapping single bachelor with no one to care for except me-myself-and-I, I have been remarkably good at not taking care of my sole ward. Sure, I handle the major things like keeping a roof over my head, wearing a seat belt and protection, etc, but diet, exercise, and sleep have been woefully neglected, like the red-headed step-child.
So I buy a gallon of non-organic (I like it hormone-laced!) fat-free milk about once every two weeks, resolving to have my daily 2 glasses of leche like the really smart people on TV suggest. But eventually, at the end of those two weeks, I’ve had about 2 glasses total and only because I felt like having something to go with my Lucky Charms. And at the end of those two weeks, I’ve felt really bad about eating Lucky Charms, so I get the 100%-daily-vitamins-and-minerals cereal which has about the consistency and taste of soggy cardboard. But where I epic-fail* is that the milk is two days past the ‘BEST BY’ date. Have you noticed that it’s not an expiration date, but a ‘BEST BY’ date?
Anyway, I pop the plastic cap and brush off the dried white flakes from around the rim of the bottle. A quick sniff reveals a faintly acidic odor not unlike the smell of plain yogurt. The milk flows freely when I shake the plastic jug, and there’s not much sediment; I think those are good signs. The cardboard cereal is already in the bowl looking very unappetizing, and it would be a chore to finagle the damn thing back into the box.
Oh well. I tip the container of fermented milk, watching it slosh gently over the wheat flakes. Thirty seconds pass, and I take another whiff wondering if letting the milk rest would improve its bouquet as if it were some fine wine. But like Olde English**, it’s best to hold your nose and gulp it while it’s still chilled.
I didn’t know what was more revolting, the milk or the cereal. But like a kid being forced to eat his vegetables, I willed my way through, spoonful by spoonful. After what seemed like torture comparable to water-boarding, I make it through the ordeal somewhat intact. And I felt good about doing well for myself and for not wasting milk.
But the warm fuzzy feeling subtly morphed itself into ominous gurglings and severe abdominal cramps. It felt like the time I had the ‘bottled water’ in Mexico. But the pain subsided, and being a stupid male, I sloshed another glassful of that drank down my throat instead of into the sink. But it wasn’t all that bad. The natural acidity of age added character to what would otherwise be a boring beverage.
So this post is like my expired milk. It doesn’t quite fit into the time frame, but it’s still good, and if you drink it with an open mind, it is quite palatable and surprisingly tasty! But don’t sue me if you get an enteric infection.
DISCLAIMER: g neither recommends nor condones eating or drinking of expired foods and/or medicines.
--
Chuc mung nam moi! I’m too lazy to put all the Vietnamese diacritical and accent marks on the greeting. And if I did, it may not display correctly on your computer screens anyway. Basically it means, ‘Happy New Year’ in Vietnamese. February 14 this year happens to be the lunar new year as well, so the Asian folks in red garb are pulling double duty with VDay (red is a lucky color). There will be plenty of new years to come, so I’ll defer the description of the festivities as next year’s will likely be similar to this year’s. In Vietnamese, the word for new year is ‘Tet’.
Suffice it to say that there is plenty of booze, gambling, and luck-mongering. And for most kids, plenty of red envelopes, known in Vietnamese as li xi, filled with crisp, nice-smelling bank notes. There are a lot of traditions around it, but the only important one is that old(er) people give money to younger folks as long as the recipient is unmarried.
According to the repository of all knowledge***, both good and poorly-sourced,
‘In Vietnam, lì xì are typically given to those who are younger as long as they are bachelors’
Damn straight! I’m a bachelor and will remain so for the foreseeable future. So where’s my money!?
Now my extended family isn’t rolling in dough like some Asian folks are, but I’ve managed to scrounge up at least $100 in past Tets. Just for comparison, some of my friends rake in $500. I’m not that greedy; I just want a little something--It’s incredibly satisfying to not spend your own money.
So what was the count this year? A bill? $75 or $50? Nope, not any of the above.
It was a measly $35, and $20 was from Mama since she was in a giving mood this year. I can’t even get a shirt at Express for that amount!
I blame the recession! Young Asians everywhere should lobby to siphon CEO bonuses to compensate for the slimming of red envelopes around the nation. It is all very unjust! I am outraged and appalled that Obama would let me suffer a loss of ~$65. My new job and the fact that I don’t really need the money have nothing to do with it. The United Auto Workers didn’t stop fighting for higher wages when GM was going under, and I won’t either!
I’m just being facetious as always. My indignant resentment is all in good fun. I had a great time hanging out with the family, and that is far better than any amount of money.
--
*epic-fail – the (bastardized) verb form of ‘epic failure’
**what do you know about that malt liquor?
***Wikipedia
Let me preface this post with a description of a very common annoyance that has been happening to me this year. As a strapping single bachelor with no one to care for except me-myself-and-I, I have been remarkably good at not taking care of my sole ward. Sure, I handle the major things like keeping a roof over my head, wearing a seat belt and protection, etc, but diet, exercise, and sleep have been woefully neglected, like the red-headed step-child.
So I buy a gallon of non-organic (I like it hormone-laced!) fat-free milk about once every two weeks, resolving to have my daily 2 glasses of leche like the really smart people on TV suggest. But eventually, at the end of those two weeks, I’ve had about 2 glasses total and only because I felt like having something to go with my Lucky Charms. And at the end of those two weeks, I’ve felt really bad about eating Lucky Charms, so I get the 100%-daily-vitamins-and-minerals cereal which has about the consistency and taste of soggy cardboard. But where I epic-fail* is that the milk is two days past the ‘BEST BY’ date. Have you noticed that it’s not an expiration date, but a ‘BEST BY’ date?
Anyway, I pop the plastic cap and brush off the dried white flakes from around the rim of the bottle. A quick sniff reveals a faintly acidic odor not unlike the smell of plain yogurt. The milk flows freely when I shake the plastic jug, and there’s not much sediment; I think those are good signs. The cardboard cereal is already in the bowl looking very unappetizing, and it would be a chore to finagle the damn thing back into the box.
Oh well. I tip the container of fermented milk, watching it slosh gently over the wheat flakes. Thirty seconds pass, and I take another whiff wondering if letting the milk rest would improve its bouquet as if it were some fine wine. But like Olde English**, it’s best to hold your nose and gulp it while it’s still chilled.
I didn’t know what was more revolting, the milk or the cereal. But like a kid being forced to eat his vegetables, I willed my way through, spoonful by spoonful. After what seemed like torture comparable to water-boarding, I make it through the ordeal somewhat intact. And I felt good about doing well for myself and for not wasting milk.
But the warm fuzzy feeling subtly morphed itself into ominous gurglings and severe abdominal cramps. It felt like the time I had the ‘bottled water’ in Mexico. But the pain subsided, and being a stupid male, I sloshed another glassful of that drank down my throat instead of into the sink. But it wasn’t all that bad. The natural acidity of age added character to what would otherwise be a boring beverage.
So this post is like my expired milk. It doesn’t quite fit into the time frame, but it’s still good, and if you drink it with an open mind, it is quite palatable and surprisingly tasty! But don’t sue me if you get an enteric infection.
DISCLAIMER: g neither recommends nor condones eating or drinking of expired foods and/or medicines.
--
Chuc mung nam moi! I’m too lazy to put all the Vietnamese diacritical and accent marks on the greeting. And if I did, it may not display correctly on your computer screens anyway. Basically it means, ‘Happy New Year’ in Vietnamese. February 14 this year happens to be the lunar new year as well, so the Asian folks in red garb are pulling double duty with VDay (red is a lucky color). There will be plenty of new years to come, so I’ll defer the description of the festivities as next year’s will likely be similar to this year’s. In Vietnamese, the word for new year is ‘Tet’.
Suffice it to say that there is plenty of booze, gambling, and luck-mongering. And for most kids, plenty of red envelopes, known in Vietnamese as li xi, filled with crisp, nice-smelling bank notes. There are a lot of traditions around it, but the only important one is that old(er) people give money to younger folks as long as the recipient is unmarried.
According to the repository of all knowledge***, both good and poorly-sourced,
‘In Vietnam, lì xì are typically given to those who are younger as long as they are bachelors’
Damn straight! I’m a bachelor and will remain so for the foreseeable future. So where’s my money!?
Now my extended family isn’t rolling in dough like some Asian folks are, but I’ve managed to scrounge up at least $100 in past Tets. Just for comparison, some of my friends rake in $500. I’m not that greedy; I just want a little something--It’s incredibly satisfying to not spend your own money.
So what was the count this year? A bill? $75 or $50? Nope, not any of the above.
It was a measly $35, and $20 was from Mama since she was in a giving mood this year. I can’t even get a shirt at Express for that amount!
I blame the recession! Young Asians everywhere should lobby to siphon CEO bonuses to compensate for the slimming of red envelopes around the nation. It is all very unjust! I am outraged and appalled that Obama would let me suffer a loss of ~$65. My new job and the fact that I don’t really need the money have nothing to do with it. The United Auto Workers didn’t stop fighting for higher wages when GM was going under, and I won’t either!
I’m just being facetious as always. My indignant resentment is all in good fun. I had a great time hanging out with the family, and that is far better than any amount of money.
--
*epic-fail – the (bastardized) verb form of ‘epic failure’
**what do you know about that malt liquor?
***Wikipedia
Sunday, January 24
SPIDER: Shooting Pool & Playing Poker for a Living
Dear Dreamer's Son followers and those who would have followed,
This is one of the weekly Stupendously Pimped-out Industriously Delineated Extensively Reinvigorated Re-releases. It gets confusing to remember what SPIDER stands for, so I'll just make it up as I go along. This one is about my two dream jobs. If I ever make as much scratch doing either of these things, I'll kindly give up my day (night) job.
--
Nov 19, 2009
Before I started college, I had said to some teachers and friends that if I could shoot pool and play poker for a living, I would in a heartbeat. It was in a joking manner, but I meant it. Thankfully before I bought a ticket to Vegas, all the years of Asian guilt started hurtling back to the present. You can't ever escape your past. Here's a bit of the litany of Viet Catholic woes:
'If you don't become a doctor (an M.D. doctor, not those other 'doctors'; D.O. doesn't count either), then I will disown you.'
'If you don't marry a Vietnamese Catholic girl, I will disown you.'
'If you don't have lots of grand kids, I will disown you.'
'If you don't let me live in your house when I'm old and wrinkled, I will disown you.'
'If you even think about playing poker or shooting pool for a living, I will disown you.'
'If you don't play blackjack and baccarat (WTF is poker?), you are a traitor to your gambling heritage.'
And so on. I guess I've been disowned. Oh well, that's life I suppose. Things fall apart. At least I didn't kill myself; then God would have disowned me, which would be the ultimate disowning.
--
Melodramatics aside, I did think about shooting pool and playing Texas Hold'em for a living. But there were some issues with that career path:
Firstly, you can't make money shooting pool anymore. Big tournaments only pay out 25k to the winner, and these guys make me look 150,000,000 times worse than I make you all look. If you've seen me shoot pool, you may think I play pretty well, but compared to money and tournament players, I pretty much suck. After the fundamentals of pool (stroke, bridge, balance, etc), there comes the strategic side (cue ball control, table position, defense), then the mental side which I think of as being able to win when you should win. Finesse (the name of my pool cue) and I have been at this for quite awhile, but we're still nowhere being near the caliber of people who make money from this game. Plus, people don't let themselves get hustled anymore.
Now with Texas Hold'em, the only things that kept me from it was the bankroll and my age. Over 21, check; one roadblock unblocked. A bankroll is the money you set aside to fund your poker ventures. Inevitably, you're going to lose in more than a few sessions (sittings at a poker table), but in the long run, your bankroll should increase, allowing you to move up to higher limit games.
The concept of a 'bankroll' was invented, in my opinion, to allow players to track their winnings and losings and to play games within their means.
The problem with chronic gambling at regular casino table games is that you're going to lose in the long run, even with perfect basic strategy in blackjack (the casino game with the lowest house advantage). You can't bankroll that because your bankroll would always decrease. That's why people (of the Viet persuasion) who plop down hundred dollar bills at the baccarat tables are idiots--you can't win in the long run.
The beauty of poker is that you're playing other people. And the better player will win in the long run. Yes, the river is going to burn you a few times and you may lose with pocket rockets and big slick, but if you get your money in when the cards are in your favor, eventually you'll make money (hopefully).
Once I pay off my student loans, I'll start to build my bankroll to fund my second job. What am I going to do in the meantime? Read books on poker theory and start to develop some catch phrases.
My favorite one so far is from my uncle Scotty Nguyen:*
----
Last week, I got to hang out with the guy who single-handedly got me through pharmacy school by waking me up for the sort of important tidbits, the stuff where if you mess up, the state board of pharmacy will send you a mean, threatening letter and then change your ‘Prior Disciplinary Order(s)’ to ‘Yes’. It’s as bad as your mother pulling down your pants and spanking you in public. You might also kill someone, but that’s not nearly as important as avoiding becoming the laughing stock of your pharmacist friends.
So we had lunch and played a few games of pool in which I thoroughly excel amongst my friends. He surprisingly won a game by sinking the 8, and another by my sinking the 8 before its time (which I refer to as 'committing statutory’). The side pocket ‘t*tty f*cked’ a couple of my balls, performed ‘rim jobs’ on a couple of others, and disappointingly ‘spit’ out a masterful bank [shot], but on the whole, the table was pretty accepting to my gentle, finesse-imbued touch, which was a little surprising given my lack of recent practice.
As soon as I get a table of my own, I might actually try to pursue playing in tournaments and such. The potential is there; just the work and dedication (and resources) are lacking.
In the meantime, I’ll have to learn some trick shots, because for whatever reason, women seem to like the grandiosely impractical (where the hell are you going to perform a trick shot in an actual game) over the masterly fundamental (Tim Duncan-like boringness).
*not really my uncle, in case you were wondering.
Wednesday, January 20
Cash, the Modern English Monarch
Dear grip* holders,
On the news recently, there was a brief story about how some airline is no longer accepting cash as a form of payment for the formerly included amenities that are now optional for a small fee (food, drinks, check-in bags, pillows, blankets, the shoddy unbalanced tray table, the seat cushion, the privilege of using the facilities, breathable air, etc). They now only accept credit or debit cards. Plastic > paper, apparently.
All U.S. bills carry this message in tiny capitalized print: THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. That little wording means that cash is king. Cash is universal. It’s what the backwoods folks take the middle of nowhere. Even bears and deer take it as a form of payment, because as a living, breathing thing in the United States, you’re obligated to take it!
Not quite. The 10 lawyers for every 1 doctor in the U.S. (isn’t that a sad ratio?) will be quick to point out the wording: all debts. If there isn’t a debt, then there isn’t an obligation to accept the almighty greenback (with the peach, blue, yellow, and even fuchsia tint on the front). Let’s have a couple of examples:
Debt: After a meal at a sitdown restaurant, you now owe the establishment for the food. This is a debt. Any U.S. bill will work, and Mr. Franklin is accepted everywhere. According to one of my patrons, if a place will not accept cash, then the debt is immediately absolved. That’s why you don’t see the message ‘No Bills over $20’ at a dine-in restaurant.
Not debt: A fast food joint where you pay when you order. There is no debt yet since they haven’t given you a good or service; therefore they’re not obligated to take bills over $20. Same thing at convenient stores: a debt is never created for the ‘legal tender for all debts’ to take effect.
So unfortunately, the airline is within its legal right to refuse to take your cold, hard cash in exchange for its similarly cold, hard pillow.
Like the modern English monarch who is only a figurehead and is hardly lord (or lady) of Britain, the U.S. note is fading as the defining impetus of our society. Its weakening stance in our economy in relation to plastic is paralleled by its position in relation to the Euro. Even the villains in the latest Bond film requested a bribe in Euros because ‘the dollar ain’t what it used to be.’**
But for myself, I will always carry a couple of dead white guys in my pocket, especially my favorite president: Mr. Andrew Jackson, with his white pompadour and sad eyes.
--
*Ghetto speak for the roll of bills that you hold with a ‘grip’
**The Quantum of Solace. A paraphrase, naturally.
On the news recently, there was a brief story about how some airline is no longer accepting cash as a form of payment for the formerly included amenities that are now optional for a small fee (food, drinks, check-in bags, pillows, blankets, the shoddy unbalanced tray table, the seat cushion, the privilege of using the facilities, breathable air, etc). They now only accept credit or debit cards. Plastic > paper, apparently.
All U.S. bills carry this message in tiny capitalized print: THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. That little wording means that cash is king. Cash is universal. It’s what the backwoods folks take the middle of nowhere. Even bears and deer take it as a form of payment, because as a living, breathing thing in the United States, you’re obligated to take it!
Not quite. The 10 lawyers for every 1 doctor in the U.S. (isn’t that a sad ratio?) will be quick to point out the wording: all debts. If there isn’t a debt, then there isn’t an obligation to accept the almighty greenback (with the peach, blue, yellow, and even fuchsia tint on the front). Let’s have a couple of examples:
Debt: After a meal at a sitdown restaurant, you now owe the establishment for the food. This is a debt. Any U.S. bill will work, and Mr. Franklin is accepted everywhere. According to one of my patrons, if a place will not accept cash, then the debt is immediately absolved. That’s why you don’t see the message ‘No Bills over $20’ at a dine-in restaurant.
Not debt: A fast food joint where you pay when you order. There is no debt yet since they haven’t given you a good or service; therefore they’re not obligated to take bills over $20. Same thing at convenient stores: a debt is never created for the ‘legal tender for all debts’ to take effect.
So unfortunately, the airline is within its legal right to refuse to take your cold, hard cash in exchange for its similarly cold, hard pillow.
Like the modern English monarch who is only a figurehead and is hardly lord (or lady) of Britain, the U.S. note is fading as the defining impetus of our society. Its weakening stance in our economy in relation to plastic is paralleled by its position in relation to the Euro. Even the villains in the latest Bond film requested a bribe in Euros because ‘the dollar ain’t what it used to be.’**
But for myself, I will always carry a couple of dead white guys in my pocket, especially my favorite president: Mr. Andrew Jackson, with his white pompadour and sad eyes.
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*Ghetto speak for the roll of bills that you hold with a ‘grip’
**The Quantum of Solace. A paraphrase, naturally.
Friday, January 15
Rejection Notice
Dear plastic-users (non-silicone variety),
My VISA rewards card is nearing the end of the 6 months of bonus cash back (3% on gas and groceries, afterward 1%), so I am searching for a new card with better rewards. I thought I had found what I was looking for in the American Express Blue Cash card, which offers 5% back on gas, groceries, and drugstores after you spend $6,500 annually. As materialistic as I am, I hardly put more than $1500 a month on my card, rent and utilities included.
Though even with my limited plastic-use, after some calculation I figured that Blue Cash was worth it, and so I applied. I've never been rejected from any college I've applied to, but I've been denied credit twice for these suped up rewards cards. Bastards. They know I'm a credit card deadbeat who pays off full balances each month so they don't make a dime off of me.
It's always the pretty ones who reject you, while the dogs are sending unsolicited offers of credit.
I guess my 1% cash back will have to do for now.
My VISA rewards card is nearing the end of the 6 months of bonus cash back (3% on gas and groceries, afterward 1%), so I am searching for a new card with better rewards. I thought I had found what I was looking for in the American Express Blue Cash card, which offers 5% back on gas, groceries, and drugstores after you spend $6,500 annually. As materialistic as I am, I hardly put more than $1500 a month on my card, rent and utilities included.
Though even with my limited plastic-use, after some calculation I figured that Blue Cash was worth it, and so I applied. I've never been rejected from any college I've applied to, but I've been denied credit twice for these suped up rewards cards. Bastards. They know I'm a credit card deadbeat who pays off full balances each month so they don't make a dime off of me.
It's always the pretty ones who reject you, while the dogs are sending unsolicited offers of credit.
I guess my 1% cash back will have to do for now.
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