to the anxious,
This feeling never gets comfortable, the anticipation before the start of a new day, a new chapter, a new phase, a new unwarranted melodramatic noun. There's a reason why most rollercoasters make you clang clang clang up a steep incline before they drop you precipitously down to your possible, though however unlikely, death. That feeling of dread, both frightening and pleasurable, is what we humans crave in this age of minimal threat of mortal danger (at least in developed nations).
This is the third time in less than 2 years, and the nervous churning in the pit of my stomach is still as strong as that week before I started my first job. Like the first two jobs, I'll probably do fine. There's nothing to be scared of. It's not like I'm going to the African savannas to battle ferocious beasts or even handle biological hazards in a lab. Sure I can kill someone with a misfill, but the human body is a very resilient thing (and it's not me who is at risk). So why the anxiety?
--
I recently watched a Nat. Geographic special entitled 'Stress: Portrait of a Killer' on Netflix. Some of the cool things mentioned were that humans still experience the same fight-or-flight response in modern society as we did in prehistoric times. The problem is that we don't or can't turn off this response. The result is that this sustained stress damages our health and shortens our lifespans. There are plenty of confounding variables, but I do buy into their whole conclusion that stress kills.
Though we're taught by popular culture, comedies, and horror flicks that we should never ask the question, 'What's the worst that could happen?', it is my primary mode of stress relief. If a situation were to descend into a Murphy's Law marathon, what really is the worst that could happen? Death?
'What to do if you find yourself stuck with no hope of rescue: Consider yourself lucky that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your present circumstances seems more likely, consider yourself lucky that it won't be troubling you much longer.' - Douglas Adams
Is it that modern & prehistoric humans need to respond to a proportional level of stress lest we become incapable of running when something nasty decides we look mighty tasty? Perhaps it's like Steve Carrell's character's question in the '40-Year Old Virgin': Is it true that if you don't use it, you lose it?
--
Whatever the truth (or best thought out theory) may be, I can only lessen the stress I feel through my slew of Jedi mind tricks. Though I know everything will probably end up better than okay, I consciously and subconsciously keep that little bit of anxiety ready to respond if need be.
And if psychobabble isn't enough, there's always chemical means in the form of a half bottle of MacAllan 18-yr and nearly full bottle of Glenfiddich 12-yr. Maybe it's not coincidence that once man discovered agriculture (and thereby decreased their need for hunting-gathering), they discovered fermentation.
Wednesday, March 16
Wednesday, March 2
The Point of Diminishing Returns (PoDR)
to Freakonomics subscribers:
I've been meaning to write this post for a long while now, and I've actually had a couple longish discussions with friends about this concept of diminishing returns. It is my absolute favorite concept I learned from high school economics, and I find it to be the most practical to daily life. Sure, supply and demand gets all the fanfare and has a two line graph showing the point of intersection where suppliers and demand-ers should meet for sheer nirvana and such, but it doesn't really do much for people who aren't in the business of supplying or demanding. Well, a whole bunch of us are in the business of demanding lots of things, but it doesn't correlate as nicely or as quickly as those textbook graphs. Examples: the cost of the original PS3 or the current iPhone--it takes a while for supply & demand to take over to find the magic $299 and $199 price points, respectively.
But diminishing returns, now that you see everyday. You see it in my blog (I posted a lot, got fed up with it, and stopped, and now I'm doing it again). You see it in reality TV (Survivor comes out, then Idol, but after the 25th season of Idol, you just stop caring). Wikipedia-ly stated, 'In economics, diminishing returns (also called diminishing marginal returns) refers to how the marginal production of a factor of production starts to progressively decrease as the factor is increased.' Simply stated, after a certain point, the more you put in, the less you get out.
Ex. At a fast food joint, the more labor you hire, the more burgers you can push out. Let's say you originally had 4 employees working who churn out 80 burgers an hr which is 20/person/hr. You hire another person, and now you can do 100/hr (given that you have the demand for it). You hire another person, but now you can only get an extra 15/hr.
What happened? Well, there's not enough grill space anymore. Eventually if you keep hiring more workers, you get to the point where people just get in the way, and you actually lose production for each additional unit of labor. To maximize efficiency, you'd want to add inputs until you get to the point of diminishing [marginal] returns, that is the point where the next unit would start to have less production value (the 15 burgers/hr person). To maximize total production, you'd want to add inputs until the total production starts to turn south (where the next person hired would contribute nothing or take away from the total production).
Of course there's a whole bunch of factors in determining how much inputs you should use. But it's all very academic and boring, and doesn't have a popular iPhone app for it, so who cares?
I promise, it's really useful in figuring out why you and people around you do things! Maybe..
--
My idea of diminishing returns doesn't concern inputs and outputs. It deals with the net gain/pleasure per additional unit of stuff.
Mama told me this about my favorite dish when I was a kid: 'Eat one day, you desire for more. Eat two days straight, you grow tired'*. Turns out to be very true. I'm so glad I live in Houston where there's such a diverse and vibrant culture of obesity which means there are diverse and vibrant restaurants. The point of diminishing returns (PoDR) depends on how much you like the food, but everyone has a point. Incidentally, my PoDR for Tex-Mex is significantly higher than for Viet food probably due to Mama's psycho-babble.
And now for a visual:
Ex. The smartphone craze:
Blue phase: first couple hours after getting the phone activated and recovery from sticker shock. 'What's the big deal with a touch screen phone? Texting while driving is even harder now that I have to peck at those virtual keys! And it can't even make calls without a special cover on it!'
Green phase: 'OMG, there's an app for that? So friggin awesome!'
Yellow phase: 'o...m...g..., there's...an...app...for...that...haven't slept in days...eyes are fried by super AMOLED or whatever screen...'
Orange phase: 'cell phone bill is over $300, but my life had been incomplete before the advent of fruit ninja and his comrade apps which mimic bodily functions.'
Red phase: 'I have terminal brain cancer and crippling arthritis of the thumbs. If I had to pick one to be cured, it would have to be the arthritis so I can live out my last moments on this earth yelling sweet nothings to my smartphone because of its poor call quality.'
--
Okay, seriously now. I did not think there was a point of diminishing returns for money, but I have sadly reached that point. Let me explain before you break out the world's tiniest violin. My hourly rate working in a small town a couple hours outside of Houston was outrageous. And the work was pretty chill, and there was ample opportunity for extra hours (not time and a half, but with extra pay on top of a ridiculous rate). And so I worked 23 12-hr shifts straight. Not once, but twice.
I figured it was just money sitting on the table, and I might as well pick it up while I still have the stamina to work all those hours. But when I paid off the debt that had any interest, the desire to work all those hours faded. Nothing had changed much except I had no reason to make money anymore. That extra dollar had diminished in value to me, especially since the gov't took a hefty chunk before I even saw it.
If I had a family or kids or a car or house, then things would have been different. I would have remained in the green phase of the DR curve since I had a reason to work. So when that job ended and I was offered a relief job, I decided to take a few months off since I was well into the yellow phase and rapidly approaching the orange.
--
It was at this point that I embarked on the longish green phase of the PS3/Netflix DR curve. I finished the 80ish episodes of the Battlestar Galactica series (a really great drama, and not just for nerds/sci fi folks) and started on the first season of the X-Files before I again reached the PoDR. This was also after I spent 129 hours to get the Platinum Trophy in Final Fantasy XIII (totally worth it!).
So after a couple of months of not working much (I put in a couple of shifts here and there), my work DR curve has finally been reset, and I am ready to start working regularly again. And I'm glad to say I haven't suffered much vision loss or thumb muscle hypertrophy from the PS3/Netflix addiction.
--
I can't think of anything that doesn't in some way follow my loose interpretation of diminishing returns. Drug addicts who reach a point of tolerance (yellow) consume more and more to get the same high (orange), ultimately resulting in their death (red). But for most things, when a person or thing gets to that yellow or orange phase, they back off until that thing or activity feels good (or tolerable) again. One just has to figure where that point is before they surpass it and have a hard time getting back to the green phase. Or one can find ways to shift the curve by finding reasons to continue an activity, such as making money to pay for kids' tuition.
Even studying for classes which rapidly reaches the PoDR, you can shift the DR curve by thinking about the reasons for your current state of torture. Like the cash you'll make when you graduate, or the lives you'll affect, or that general feeling of satisfaction of accomplishing something really big.
But sometimes, regardless of how good you determine your point(s) of diminishing returns, you just need a break. So take that break. The world and its problems will still be there tomorrow. And you'll be in a better mindset to take on those challenges.
I apologize for the sappy ending. It really isn't like me to be all inspirational and non-sarcastic/satirical.
--
*It's much more poetic/sparse in Vietnamese: an mot ngay, them, an hai ngay, chan. Literal: Eat one day, hunger; Eat two days, tired.
I've been meaning to write this post for a long while now, and I've actually had a couple longish discussions with friends about this concept of diminishing returns. It is my absolute favorite concept I learned from high school economics, and I find it to be the most practical to daily life. Sure, supply and demand gets all the fanfare and has a two line graph showing the point of intersection where suppliers and demand-ers should meet for sheer nirvana and such, but it doesn't really do much for people who aren't in the business of supplying or demanding. Well, a whole bunch of us are in the business of demanding lots of things, but it doesn't correlate as nicely or as quickly as those textbook graphs. Examples: the cost of the original PS3 or the current iPhone--it takes a while for supply & demand to take over to find the magic $299 and $199 price points, respectively.
But diminishing returns, now that you see everyday. You see it in my blog (I posted a lot, got fed up with it, and stopped, and now I'm doing it again). You see it in reality TV (Survivor comes out, then Idol, but after the 25th season of Idol, you just stop caring). Wikipedia-ly stated, 'In economics, diminishing returns (also called diminishing marginal returns) refers to how the marginal production of a factor of production starts to progressively decrease as the factor is increased.' Simply stated, after a certain point, the more you put in, the less you get out.
Ex. At a fast food joint, the more labor you hire, the more burgers you can push out. Let's say you originally had 4 employees working who churn out 80 burgers an hr which is 20/person/hr. You hire another person, and now you can do 100/hr (given that you have the demand for it). You hire another person, but now you can only get an extra 15/hr.
What happened? Well, there's not enough grill space anymore. Eventually if you keep hiring more workers, you get to the point where people just get in the way, and you actually lose production for each additional unit of labor. To maximize efficiency, you'd want to add inputs until you get to the point of diminishing [marginal] returns, that is the point where the next unit would start to have less production value (the 15 burgers/hr person). To maximize total production, you'd want to add inputs until the total production starts to turn south (where the next person hired would contribute nothing or take away from the total production).
Of course there's a whole bunch of factors in determining how much inputs you should use. But it's all very academic and boring, and doesn't have a popular iPhone app for it, so who cares?
I promise, it's really useful in figuring out why you and people around you do things! Maybe..
--
My idea of diminishing returns doesn't concern inputs and outputs. It deals with the net gain/pleasure per additional unit of stuff.
Mama told me this about my favorite dish when I was a kid: 'Eat one day, you desire for more. Eat two days straight, you grow tired'*. Turns out to be very true. I'm so glad I live in Houston where there's such a diverse and vibrant culture of obesity which means there are diverse and vibrant restaurants. The point of diminishing returns (PoDR) depends on how much you like the food, but everyone has a point. Incidentally, my PoDR for Tex-Mex is significantly higher than for Viet food probably due to Mama's psycho-babble.
And now for a visual:
Ex. The smartphone craze:
Blue phase: first couple hours after getting the phone activated and recovery from sticker shock. 'What's the big deal with a touch screen phone? Texting while driving is even harder now that I have to peck at those virtual keys! And it can't even make calls without a special cover on it!'
Green phase: 'OMG, there's an app for that? So friggin awesome!'
Yellow phase: 'o...m...g..., there's...an...app...for...that...haven't slept in days...eyes are fried by super AMOLED or whatever screen...'
Orange phase: 'cell phone bill is over $300, but my life had been incomplete before the advent of fruit ninja and his comrade apps which mimic bodily functions.'
Red phase: 'I have terminal brain cancer and crippling arthritis of the thumbs. If I had to pick one to be cured, it would have to be the arthritis so I can live out my last moments on this earth yelling sweet nothings to my smartphone because of its poor call quality.'
--
Okay, seriously now. I did not think there was a point of diminishing returns for money, but I have sadly reached that point. Let me explain before you break out the world's tiniest violin. My hourly rate working in a small town a couple hours outside of Houston was outrageous. And the work was pretty chill, and there was ample opportunity for extra hours (not time and a half, but with extra pay on top of a ridiculous rate). And so I worked 23 12-hr shifts straight. Not once, but twice.
I figured it was just money sitting on the table, and I might as well pick it up while I still have the stamina to work all those hours. But when I paid off the debt that had any interest, the desire to work all those hours faded. Nothing had changed much except I had no reason to make money anymore. That extra dollar had diminished in value to me, especially since the gov't took a hefty chunk before I even saw it.
If I had a family or kids or a car or house, then things would have been different. I would have remained in the green phase of the DR curve since I had a reason to work. So when that job ended and I was offered a relief job, I decided to take a few months off since I was well into the yellow phase and rapidly approaching the orange.
--
It was at this point that I embarked on the longish green phase of the PS3/Netflix DR curve. I finished the 80ish episodes of the Battlestar Galactica series (a really great drama, and not just for nerds/sci fi folks) and started on the first season of the X-Files before I again reached the PoDR. This was also after I spent 129 hours to get the Platinum Trophy in Final Fantasy XIII (totally worth it!).
So after a couple of months of not working much (I put in a couple of shifts here and there), my work DR curve has finally been reset, and I am ready to start working regularly again. And I'm glad to say I haven't suffered much vision loss or thumb muscle hypertrophy from the PS3/Netflix addiction.
--
I can't think of anything that doesn't in some way follow my loose interpretation of diminishing returns. Drug addicts who reach a point of tolerance (yellow) consume more and more to get the same high (orange), ultimately resulting in their death (red). But for most things, when a person or thing gets to that yellow or orange phase, they back off until that thing or activity feels good (or tolerable) again. One just has to figure where that point is before they surpass it and have a hard time getting back to the green phase. Or one can find ways to shift the curve by finding reasons to continue an activity, such as making money to pay for kids' tuition.
Even studying for classes which rapidly reaches the PoDR, you can shift the DR curve by thinking about the reasons for your current state of torture. Like the cash you'll make when you graduate, or the lives you'll affect, or that general feeling of satisfaction of accomplishing something really big.
But sometimes, regardless of how good you determine your point(s) of diminishing returns, you just need a break. So take that break. The world and its problems will still be there tomorrow. And you'll be in a better mindset to take on those challenges.
I apologize for the sappy ending. It really isn't like me to be all inspirational and non-sarcastic/satirical.
--
*It's much more poetic/sparse in Vietnamese: an mot ngay, them, an hai ngay, chan. Literal: Eat one day, hunger; Eat two days, tired.
Tuesday, March 1
forever, forever, ever, forever, ever? Forever never...
to snail mail mailers:
Do you even exist anymore? With the advent of email, Twitter, Facebook, and their ilk, who actually sits down to type a letter to be printed out, enveloped, and stamped? let alone actually hand-write some epistle?
The only things I can think of that warrant envelopes and stamps are holiday cards, bills from companies which don't accept online payments (stuck in the dark ages much?), and job-related stuff. For me, the only thing for which I use an envelope and stamp is the latter, and for this career trade of pharmacy, it's usually for thank you letters after interviews and letters of acceptances.*
And thank goodness for the Forever Stamp, since I only use one of these things like once every 4 months (if that often). I think I paid $8.40 for a 'book' of 20 stamps, which comes out to $0.42 a piece. For you non-letter writers, the forever stamp is good forever as the name implies. It doesn't have the value printed on there, so it's good for any normal letter you send. I think I still see a few stamps with the value printed on there, which would suck for those people since they'd have to buy 1-cent, 2-cent and 3-cent stamps for when the US Post Office inevitably increases postage rates.
And all those extra stamps look tacky on the envelope. And they don't have the 'USA...FIRST-CLASS...FOREVER' printed on it. A little arrogant subliminal message**, I suppose, but it does make me feel all subconsciously warm and fuzzy about this land of milk and honey (and processed meat and China-made goods).
When the forever stamp first came out, I thought about stockpiling them since the price of the stamp will probably vastly outstrip inflation. But I realized it'll be like SPAM and Twinkies in a bomb shelter: they'll still be there when you're long dead and gone, and you won't ever get the chance to use them all up. (and if you do use them all, there's something really wrong happening).
So out of 20, I still have 15 stamps left, which will probably last me a whole 7-10 years, if people don't bum some off me. I will, of course, charge a nickel-surcharge fee on top of whatever USPS currently charges. I will promise to pay an extra $0.02 in taxes on that nickel, because by that time, my marginal tax bracket will definitely be in the 40% range, and it won't be because I'm making significantly more (though I'm all for social programs, I secretly delight when Republicans win so I can get tax breaks...and I like the right to bear arms even though I don't have a gun). I'm going to get a sizeable refund this year, but the gov't still took 2/3rds of my dough after accounting for all the FICA and other taxes.
Oh, and I'm writing a letter of acceptance. So I should be on an more even keel now :).
--
title from lyrics from Outkast's 'Ms. Jackson'
*Since it's a licensed profession, there are generally fewer applicants so pharmacists generally don't mass-mail inquiry letters. There are exceptions like residencies and such.
**That the USA will be FIRST-CLASS FOREVER
Do you even exist anymore? With the advent of email, Twitter, Facebook, and their ilk, who actually sits down to type a letter to be printed out, enveloped, and stamped? let alone actually hand-write some epistle?
The only things I can think of that warrant envelopes and stamps are holiday cards, bills from companies which don't accept online payments (stuck in the dark ages much?), and job-related stuff. For me, the only thing for which I use an envelope and stamp is the latter, and for this career trade of pharmacy, it's usually for thank you letters after interviews and letters of acceptances.*
And thank goodness for the Forever Stamp, since I only use one of these things like once every 4 months (if that often). I think I paid $8.40 for a 'book' of 20 stamps, which comes out to $0.42 a piece. For you non-letter writers, the forever stamp is good forever as the name implies. It doesn't have the value printed on there, so it's good for any normal letter you send. I think I still see a few stamps with the value printed on there, which would suck for those people since they'd have to buy 1-cent, 2-cent and 3-cent stamps for when the US Post Office inevitably increases postage rates.
And all those extra stamps look tacky on the envelope. And they don't have the 'USA...FIRST-CLASS...FOREVER' printed on it. A little arrogant subliminal message**, I suppose, but it does make me feel all subconsciously warm and fuzzy about this land of milk and honey (and processed meat and China-made goods).
When the forever stamp first came out, I thought about stockpiling them since the price of the stamp will probably vastly outstrip inflation. But I realized it'll be like SPAM and Twinkies in a bomb shelter: they'll still be there when you're long dead and gone, and you won't ever get the chance to use them all up. (and if you do use them all, there's something really wrong happening).
So out of 20, I still have 15 stamps left, which will probably last me a whole 7-10 years, if people don't bum some off me. I will, of course, charge a nickel-surcharge fee on top of whatever USPS currently charges. I will promise to pay an extra $0.02 in taxes on that nickel, because by that time, my marginal tax bracket will definitely be in the 40% range, and it won't be because I'm making significantly more (though I'm all for social programs, I secretly delight when Republicans win so I can get tax breaks...and I like the right to bear arms even though I don't have a gun). I'm going to get a sizeable refund this year, but the gov't still took 2/3rds of my dough after accounting for all the FICA and other taxes.
Oh, and I'm writing a letter of acceptance. So I should be on an more even keel now :).
--
title from lyrics from Outkast's 'Ms. Jackson'
*Since it's a licensed profession, there are generally fewer applicants so pharmacists generally don't mass-mail inquiry letters. There are exceptions like residencies and such.
**That the USA will be FIRST-CLASS FOREVER
Friday, February 18
The Perks of Mania
To those with cool diseases/conditions:
Like synesthesia, which is probably the coolest thing in the world! Imagine viewing letters and numbers as colors and sounds--your own personal continuous trippy episode sans the paranoia. There was NOVA scienceNOW episode on how the brain works where they explained various cute things like optical illusions, switching actors who didn't look similar at all and people didn't notice (which has been done on other shows too, like an ABC primetime special, etc), and the aforementioned synesthetes. Why study a cool, but, at my initial thought, pointless condition (it's not like those affected are suffering much)? Because, as the show explained, it is theorized that synesthesia is possibly caused by inappropriate connections between contiguous parts of the brain. If that can be elucidated, then it could possibly lead to breakthroughs in other psych research like schizophrenia and ADHD. All really exciting, to me at least.
On a sidenote: When I watch science-y programs, I feel like Peggy Hill 'appreciating' the nuances of the Spanish language--that is, someone who has a bare-minimum understanding of a particular subject but projects grand comprehension of the whole field (one of the reasons why I hate King of the Hill). There was a time I could have been one of those string-theorists or neuroscientists, but that naivete is gone. And so are a bunch of brain cells experimented on with certain beverages. And in their [naivete & brain cells] stead are loosely veiled arrogance and contempt of all those successful labcoated guys and gals saying the really smart stuff on the tube. But I wouldn't trade it for the world, because this* is the only thing I know, and the grass is pretty green on my side.
So hopefully they'll come up with a reason for my mood changes besides labeling it manic-depression, and then renaming it bipolar I and bipolar II. I know there's that whole med student syndrome where you learn about stuff and then suddenly find yourself experiencing the exact same symptoms you're reading about. And it may very well be that, since I've never been to a psychologist/psychiatrist. The reason for that is simple: hypomania (a less severe form of mania in which the person is fully-functioning), if I do indeed have bipolar II, is awesome!
I remember a period of a couple weeks before 8 AP tests when I think I cycled out of depression to digest massive quantities of text to pretty much pwn what high school students think are really hard tests. Without that possible hypomanic episode, I wouldn't have bypassed a year of college.
(if I had fudged this image, would I have left the sole demerit, a 4 on the English Language & Composition? My excuse for the 4 is I am ESL.)
And from what I learned in school about bipolar II (which could be outdated by now), the aim of treatment is mood stabilization, basically lithium/valproic acid to control the mania and behavioral therapy for the depression, because antidepressants can trigger a full-blown manic episode with delusions and hallucinations and such. So I figure, what's the point? It would be taking away the only good thing about this disorder leaving me with all the lows and none of the highs. And it would cost time and money.
So over the years, I've dealt with really screwy & racing thoughts like a whole night learning everything there is to know about UCSF Med School or playing FFV for the 5th time repeating the same boring battle countless times to level up characters or cleaning excessively even though I was tired or tearing through the entire house looking for some insignificant item.
But sometimes the mania is really cool and practical (to me at least), like a business accounting application to personal finance or a calendar in eighths rather than months or relation (or rather, comprehension of existing texts) of statistics to economics and social sciences. And I can study/read as if I were prescription-only pharmacologically enhanced without all the messy amphetamine derivatives.
It's great, except there's no on or off switch. And it is past 5am, and the switch is still on. And it may be so for a while. That's okay--the off switch really, really sucks, which partially explains my MIA status for the past few weeks...
--
[end pretend-melodrama and pity-induction]
Actually, all the above is pretty over-blown. I do have highs and lows, but so does everyone. Labeling it some disease/condition which doesn't have a palatable treatment is pointless, loosely analogous to telling a Jehovah's Witness that he is bleeding to death. Likely my main disorder is a weird sense of hedonism (non-sexual) with poor self-control and a body that can withstand sleep deprivation. And I couldn't sleep (I'm pretty sleepy now) because I took an unplanned nap too late in the afternoon.
About the MIA, the real truth is the PS3 is such an addicting piece of Satanic machination! And I was lazy about blogging because it pisses me off that nearly every time I turn on my laptop, there's another stupid Windows/Antivirus/Java/Flash update that insists on happening automatically and practically freezes my computer for several minutes. And it's not like I install crapware either (well, Windows is debatable).
But the good news is that I have had lots and lots of thoughts. Some really good ones, and some not-so-good, but the not-so-good ones are funny.
So here's the main-idea/take-home-message/what-is-the-author-trying-to-say/gist/epiphany of this early morning post: Don't label something just to label it. Even if you do label it correctly (which is usually not the case), the thing you named still exists in and of itself (Romeo would still be Romeo were he not Romeo-called). And that thing, if it were a problem, would have the same solution regardless of whether you named it.
Real-life example. My chemistry prof in undergrad called a concept the Henderson-Hasselcrap equation since you have 90% solved the problem by the time you get to plugging the numbers into the 'magic formula.' And instead of understanding the concept, students try to memorize 4+ versions of the same stupid equation.
So if it were true that I had a mild or raging form of bipolar II, what is the sense in pigeonholing this constellation of symptoms to a name?
I guess there are exceptions like someone, suffering from a House-MD-incurable disease, finding relief after hearing the name of one's afflictor. Or like when possession movies have a set of rules which state that if the demon's name were known, it would be exorcised. But usually names are bad--that's why they call it name-calling! Cue rim-shot a la Eminem's window pane lyric.
--
Some nights I have thoughts like this which keep me up until I think it out or do some other stuff until I get tired. And usually the next day, I forget all about it. But I think I'll start recording them in the same place (here) so that I won't repeat the cycle of forgetting, remembering, and spending a sleepless night working out all the kinks. Sorta like New Year's Resolutions.
--
*at this point, I make a grand yet awkward gesture with my hands and arms about all the stuff around me and in the ether and my various electronics and books and general personage
Like synesthesia, which is probably the coolest thing in the world! Imagine viewing letters and numbers as colors and sounds--your own personal continuous trippy episode sans the paranoia. There was NOVA scienceNOW episode on how the brain works where they explained various cute things like optical illusions, switching actors who didn't look similar at all and people didn't notice (which has been done on other shows too, like an ABC primetime special, etc), and the aforementioned synesthetes. Why study a cool, but, at my initial thought, pointless condition (it's not like those affected are suffering much)? Because, as the show explained, it is theorized that synesthesia is possibly caused by inappropriate connections between contiguous parts of the brain. If that can be elucidated, then it could possibly lead to breakthroughs in other psych research like schizophrenia and ADHD. All really exciting, to me at least.
On a sidenote: When I watch science-y programs, I feel like Peggy Hill 'appreciating' the nuances of the Spanish language--that is, someone who has a bare-minimum understanding of a particular subject but projects grand comprehension of the whole field (one of the reasons why I hate King of the Hill). There was a time I could have been one of those string-theorists or neuroscientists, but that naivete is gone. And so are a bunch of brain cells experimented on with certain beverages. And in their [naivete & brain cells] stead are loosely veiled arrogance and contempt of all those successful labcoated guys and gals saying the really smart stuff on the tube. But I wouldn't trade it for the world, because this* is the only thing I know, and the grass is pretty green on my side.
So hopefully they'll come up with a reason for my mood changes besides labeling it manic-depression, and then renaming it bipolar I and bipolar II. I know there's that whole med student syndrome where you learn about stuff and then suddenly find yourself experiencing the exact same symptoms you're reading about. And it may very well be that, since I've never been to a psychologist/psychiatrist. The reason for that is simple: hypomania (a less severe form of mania in which the person is fully-functioning), if I do indeed have bipolar II, is awesome!
I remember a period of a couple weeks before 8 AP tests when I think I cycled out of depression to digest massive quantities of text to pretty much pwn what high school students think are really hard tests. Without that possible hypomanic episode, I wouldn't have bypassed a year of college.
(if I had fudged this image, would I have left the sole demerit, a 4 on the English Language & Composition? My excuse for the 4 is I am ESL.)
And from what I learned in school about bipolar II (which could be outdated by now), the aim of treatment is mood stabilization, basically lithium/valproic acid to control the mania and behavioral therapy for the depression, because antidepressants can trigger a full-blown manic episode with delusions and hallucinations and such. So I figure, what's the point? It would be taking away the only good thing about this disorder leaving me with all the lows and none of the highs. And it would cost time and money.
So over the years, I've dealt with really screwy & racing thoughts like a whole night learning everything there is to know about UCSF Med School or playing FFV for the 5th time repeating the same boring battle countless times to level up characters or cleaning excessively even though I was tired or tearing through the entire house looking for some insignificant item.
But sometimes the mania is really cool and practical (to me at least), like a business accounting application to personal finance or a calendar in eighths rather than months or relation (or rather, comprehension of existing texts) of statistics to economics and social sciences. And I can study/read as if I were prescription-only pharmacologically enhanced without all the messy amphetamine derivatives.
It's great, except there's no on or off switch. And it is past 5am, and the switch is still on. And it may be so for a while. That's okay--the off switch really, really sucks, which partially explains my MIA status for the past few weeks...
--
[end pretend-melodrama and pity-induction]
Actually, all the above is pretty over-blown. I do have highs and lows, but so does everyone. Labeling it some disease/condition which doesn't have a palatable treatment is pointless, loosely analogous to telling a Jehovah's Witness that he is bleeding to death. Likely my main disorder is a weird sense of hedonism (non-sexual) with poor self-control and a body that can withstand sleep deprivation. And I couldn't sleep (I'm pretty sleepy now) because I took an unplanned nap too late in the afternoon.
About the MIA, the real truth is the PS3 is such an addicting piece of Satanic machination! And I was lazy about blogging because it pisses me off that nearly every time I turn on my laptop, there's another stupid Windows/Antivirus/Java/Flash update that insists on happening automatically and practically freezes my computer for several minutes. And it's not like I install crapware either (well, Windows is debatable).
But the good news is that I have had lots and lots of thoughts. Some really good ones, and some not-so-good, but the not-so-good ones are funny.
So here's the main-idea/take-home-message/what-is-the-author-trying-to-say/gist/epiphany of this early morning post: Don't label something just to label it. Even if you do label it correctly (which is usually not the case), the thing you named still exists in and of itself (Romeo would still be Romeo were he not Romeo-called). And that thing, if it were a problem, would have the same solution regardless of whether you named it.
Real-life example. My chemistry prof in undergrad called a concept the Henderson-Hasselcrap equation since you have 90% solved the problem by the time you get to plugging the numbers into the 'magic formula.' And instead of understanding the concept, students try to memorize 4+ versions of the same stupid equation.
So if it were true that I had a mild or raging form of bipolar II, what is the sense in pigeonholing this constellation of symptoms to a name?
I guess there are exceptions like someone, suffering from a House-MD-incurable disease, finding relief after hearing the name of one's afflictor. Or like when possession movies have a set of rules which state that if the demon's name were known, it would be exorcised. But usually names are bad--that's why they call it name-calling! Cue rim-shot a la Eminem's window pane lyric.
--
Some nights I have thoughts like this which keep me up until I think it out or do some other stuff until I get tired. And usually the next day, I forget all about it. But I think I'll start recording them in the same place (here) so that I won't repeat the cycle of forgetting, remembering, and spending a sleepless night working out all the kinks. Sorta like New Year's Resolutions.
--
*at this point, I make a grand yet awkward gesture with my hands and arms about all the stuff around me and in the ether and my various electronics and books and general personage
Friday, December 31
Of Mice and Men
to New Years Eve revelers,
If you don't want to kill your joy, avoid Steinbeck's novella of insight on this last day of the year. Avoid Grapes of Wrath too; that ending was more than a bit weird. I'm all for depressing novels, but they can sometimes be a bit too much at the wrong moments or the wrong moods.
According to Wikipedia (which is still asking people for donations when all it needs to do is add one small little adbar to reap beaucoup revenue), Steinbeck took the name of the novel from a Robert Burns's poem, To a Mouse. Which makes perfect sense, and I've used that tidbit of information to inflate my ever large hubris many a time to the right people. The original line from the poem reads--
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
Reversioned into coherent English by a Wikipedia author who, supposedly, doesn't get paid--
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
But I much prefer my version: The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry. 'Schemes' has a bad connotation, and I don't consider myself much of a 'schemer'. 'Oft' sounds kind of sexy in an archaic way. It's a word that most people can define using context clues skills they learned in 5th grade, but still adds a mystique to the conversation. That or they'll start considering you a pretentious ass who uses thesauri or Google to make yourself sound [even] smarter than you are. Either way, it is a win-win.
Though I confess I do use thesaurus.com and Google plenty of times to clean up my diction (poorly, I might add), the bit about 'go oft awry' dates back to 12th grade when I was still confined to rules of proper English in order to vanquish the English Literature AP test. On a tangent, I like blogs because the sheer amount of daily writing involved almost excuses wordiness, my prime offense.
English Lit class involved reading dry, supposedly wry texts from masters whom I wished the editors modernized to something readable. Not dumbed down to Jersey Shore level, but at least to a style you might see in Times magazine. Being in class also meant being a complete failure at trying to impress girls with my use of the English language. Besides the relatively large but slowly shrinking size of my savings account, my command of this mutt-language is the best thing I have going for me. Pretty sad, I must admit.
Anyway, it probably happened like this, the 'go oft awry' bit: We read stuff in class, probably pieces like the Burnsian poem. The teacher in a more optimistic mood asks a bunch of seniors 2 months from graduation, what a particular line means. After being beatdown with glares and sneers through most of my pre-adolescent and pubescent life, I'd learned not to raise my hand as often. But since the guy was in such a pleasant mood, I threw him a bone.
'That's nice, Mr. Nguyen. Though would you really choose to use "oft"? It's a bit archaic, isn't it?'
It's a peeve of mine when teachers address students by their last name. They try to elevate you to their level, yet this oddity (since every other teacher calls you by your first name) reminds you that they hold the superior position in the relationship. It is utterly condescending. Don't pretend I'm not your b--, smiley face.
'Yes, I'd rather stick with my choice of "oft", though I very well know that it is likely an old-form of "often" and though my classmates probably don't know that, I do, and I'm kind of the only person that matters to me.'
Okay, the story went nothing like that. In my lukewarm quest towards complete Advanced Placement domination, I deferred learning the important material by reading pleasurable stuff. Before this potent Netflix addiction, my past vice was reading for hours on end until the wee hours of the morning. And when I got to a particularly savory bit of writing, I'd write it down to pwn for my own use later. So was born the 'go oft awry bit'. Mr. Optimistic assigned us texts to read, and sat down to whatever he wanted to read, and if you wanted to learn, he was there to teach. Those teachers were swell.
Excuse the long, pointless story.
--
Last New Year's Eve, I was stuck in Dallas, down and out with a cold for the nth time. And I did nothing but attempt to console myself with largish quantities of cough syrup (sadly, it wasn't purple). In my drug- and cold-induced stupor, I thought about resolutions I had made. I was going to start setting down, find a nice girl, have her try to change me for the better as girls are wont to do, etc. Probably that summer, I would start looking at condos in the Addison area and join some book club or something. Start to put down true connections and such. My friends would have started their rotations by then in the Dallas area, and I'd have some people to help me meet new people. It was going to be all good and swell.
Then a month before Easter, the 'go oft awry' bit happened, and I was informed I would be 'displaced' which was the HR-approved term they used. Though it put me in a tailspin, I thought I was pretty well qualified to try to do non-retail stuff, like hospital or long-term care.
No dice. I spent the better part of three months depressed that employers refused to acknowledge my existence simply because I didn't have the 'experience' they were looking for. So I gave up going for hospital/clinical jobs.
Shortly after that decision, I landed a job doing the same work with more pay (the rate was pretty sick) and closer to home. The first cut is the deepest, as Sheryl Crow croons. I worked all the extra shifts possible since I felt the job wouldn't last all that long. And sadly, I was right.
So this is where I am today, chillaxing, figuring out my next move, wondering how many hours of Netflix I'll watch tomorrow when I'm hungover from tonight's festivities. I say 6-8 hours, and that's probably an underestimate.
--
Recently, I gave some advice to the newest brothers in my pharmacy fraternity. The first bit when like this:
Firstly, ‘things fall apart.’ Things Fall Apart is a book written by Chinua Achebe about a tribal leader in Africa who resists the change in his community by the white men. But by being so steadfast in his ideals, he eventually becomes frustrated and commits suicide, which is one of the chief sins in his belief system. It is a very sad irony. What does this have to do with...pharmacy? Things will change, for better or for worse. You must learn to cope and deal with all types of circumstances. Things will not always turn out as you expect them to, but if you realize this early on, it will not be as hard to handle when things do not go your way. Bend, but do not break. [end]
I thought about titling this post 'Things Fall Apart', but that's such a dreary opener. And it's not completely encompassing of my life this past year. I'm not dead, and I'm very much the better for my experiences this past year. I've paid off all my debt, and I finally have a virtual tabula rasa, a clean slate. I can do or not do whatever the hell I want. It's like ice cold lemonade sweetened with real sugar on a hot summer day when you're inside with the AC blustering hard to keep it a cool 68 degrees, after you've spent 2 hours mowing and edging the lawn of a house on the corner lot. Utterly magnificent.
Though I won't go so far as to say 'Things Fall in Place', I will say this past year has been more constructive than destructive. The most fitting epitaph for this year is, therefore, 'the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry.'
Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Never.. 2010, what a wondrous year!
If you don't want to kill your joy, avoid Steinbeck's novella of insight on this last day of the year. Avoid Grapes of Wrath too; that ending was more than a bit weird. I'm all for depressing novels, but they can sometimes be a bit too much at the wrong moments or the wrong moods.
According to Wikipedia (which is still asking people for donations when all it needs to do is add one small little adbar to reap beaucoup revenue), Steinbeck took the name of the novel from a Robert Burns's poem, To a Mouse. Which makes perfect sense, and I've used that tidbit of information to inflate my ever large hubris many a time to the right people. The original line from the poem reads--
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
Reversioned into coherent English by a Wikipedia author who, supposedly, doesn't get paid--
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
But I much prefer my version: The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry. 'Schemes' has a bad connotation, and I don't consider myself much of a 'schemer'. 'Oft' sounds kind of sexy in an archaic way. It's a word that most people can define using context clues skills they learned in 5th grade, but still adds a mystique to the conversation. That or they'll start considering you a pretentious ass who uses thesauri or Google to make yourself sound [even] smarter than you are. Either way, it is a win-win.
Though I confess I do use thesaurus.com and Google plenty of times to clean up my diction (poorly, I might add), the bit about 'go oft awry' dates back to 12th grade when I was still confined to rules of proper English in order to vanquish the English Literature AP test. On a tangent, I like blogs because the sheer amount of daily writing involved almost excuses wordiness, my prime offense.
English Lit class involved reading dry, supposedly wry texts from masters whom I wished the editors modernized to something readable. Not dumbed down to Jersey Shore level, but at least to a style you might see in Times magazine. Being in class also meant being a complete failure at trying to impress girls with my use of the English language. Besides the relatively large but slowly shrinking size of my savings account, my command of this mutt-language is the best thing I have going for me. Pretty sad, I must admit.
Anyway, it probably happened like this, the 'go oft awry' bit: We read stuff in class, probably pieces like the Burnsian poem. The teacher in a more optimistic mood asks a bunch of seniors 2 months from graduation, what a particular line means. After being beatdown with glares and sneers through most of my pre-adolescent and pubescent life, I'd learned not to raise my hand as often. But since the guy was in such a pleasant mood, I threw him a bone.
'That's nice, Mr. Nguyen. Though would you really choose to use "oft"? It's a bit archaic, isn't it?'
It's a peeve of mine when teachers address students by their last name. They try to elevate you to their level, yet this oddity (since every other teacher calls you by your first name) reminds you that they hold the superior position in the relationship. It is utterly condescending. Don't pretend I'm not your b--, smiley face.
'Yes, I'd rather stick with my choice of "oft", though I very well know that it is likely an old-form of "often" and though my classmates probably don't know that, I do, and I'm kind of the only person that matters to me.'
Okay, the story went nothing like that. In my lukewarm quest towards complete Advanced Placement domination, I deferred learning the important material by reading pleasurable stuff. Before this potent Netflix addiction, my past vice was reading for hours on end until the wee hours of the morning. And when I got to a particularly savory bit of writing, I'd write it down to pwn for my own use later. So was born the 'go oft awry bit'. Mr. Optimistic assigned us texts to read, and sat down to whatever he wanted to read, and if you wanted to learn, he was there to teach. Those teachers were swell.
Excuse the long, pointless story.
--
Last New Year's Eve, I was stuck in Dallas, down and out with a cold for the nth time. And I did nothing but attempt to console myself with largish quantities of cough syrup (sadly, it wasn't purple). In my drug- and cold-induced stupor, I thought about resolutions I had made. I was going to start setting down, find a nice girl, have her try to change me for the better as girls are wont to do, etc. Probably that summer, I would start looking at condos in the Addison area and join some book club or something. Start to put down true connections and such. My friends would have started their rotations by then in the Dallas area, and I'd have some people to help me meet new people. It was going to be all good and swell.
Then a month before Easter, the 'go oft awry' bit happened, and I was informed I would be 'displaced' which was the HR-approved term they used. Though it put me in a tailspin, I thought I was pretty well qualified to try to do non-retail stuff, like hospital or long-term care.
No dice. I spent the better part of three months depressed that employers refused to acknowledge my existence simply because I didn't have the 'experience' they were looking for. So I gave up going for hospital/clinical jobs.
Shortly after that decision, I landed a job doing the same work with more pay (the rate was pretty sick) and closer to home. The first cut is the deepest, as Sheryl Crow croons. I worked all the extra shifts possible since I felt the job wouldn't last all that long. And sadly, I was right.
So this is where I am today, chillaxing, figuring out my next move, wondering how many hours of Netflix I'll watch tomorrow when I'm hungover from tonight's festivities. I say 6-8 hours, and that's probably an underestimate.
--
Recently, I gave some advice to the newest brothers in my pharmacy fraternity. The first bit when like this:
Firstly, ‘things fall apart.’ Things Fall Apart is a book written by Chinua Achebe about a tribal leader in Africa who resists the change in his community by the white men. But by being so steadfast in his ideals, he eventually becomes frustrated and commits suicide, which is one of the chief sins in his belief system. It is a very sad irony. What does this have to do with...pharmacy? Things will change, for better or for worse. You must learn to cope and deal with all types of circumstances. Things will not always turn out as you expect them to, but if you realize this early on, it will not be as hard to handle when things do not go your way. Bend, but do not break. [end]
I thought about titling this post 'Things Fall Apart', but that's such a dreary opener. And it's not completely encompassing of my life this past year. I'm not dead, and I'm very much the better for my experiences this past year. I've paid off all my debt, and I finally have a virtual tabula rasa, a clean slate. I can do or not do whatever the hell I want. It's like ice cold lemonade sweetened with real sugar on a hot summer day when you're inside with the AC blustering hard to keep it a cool 68 degrees, after you've spent 2 hours mowing and edging the lawn of a house on the corner lot. Utterly magnificent.
Though I won't go so far as to say 'Things Fall in Place', I will say this past year has been more constructive than destructive. The most fitting epitaph for this year is, therefore, 'the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry.'
Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Never.. 2010, what a wondrous year!
Thursday, December 16
Job Search Begins in Earnest
To the pharmacy job-seekers,
Would you mind ever so nicely to forward me your contacts? Especially the really good sounding ones with hefty pay and minimal stress? Thanks in advance!
--
The Vegas chronicles can get a bit dreary for the non-poker folks, so I'll intersperse them with the regular dreary stuff. I promise at the end of the Vegas posts, there will be something about a 5-10, 6-4 in stripper heels, platinum blonde 'exotic dancer'. But it will likely be at least a week before then. I can be a tease, I know.
--
After getting back from Sin City, I reconciled my losses and partitioned my poker bankroll from my regular cash stash. Both were dismally low, so I supplemented with a drive-up ATM withdrawal which took more than 10 minutes because some lady in an SUV was having a pleasant conversation with the machine which included about 10-15 hand motions. Honestly, if you need more than 5 minutes at a drive-up ATM, do everyone a favor and go inside. There are actual human beings paid to service you when you need that many transactions, and they won't be snide and say stuff like, 'Did you know you could deposit your check at the ATM outside?'
When I got to the machine, it took me less than 2 minutes to get my dough, even without the quick-cash option.
With that little windfall, I paid back my bankroll for the night at the Spearmint Rhino, then paid my parents for the DSL and phone service. And then my cash was once more depleted. Though my credit cards, bank & saving accounts are relatively solid, it's the cash that makes me happy or depressed; if I had a $1000 in cash in which to roll around, I'd feel momentarily richer than if I had $10 with $10,000 in the bank. It's pretty stupid, my sense of wealth, but I digress.
On the last night in Vegas, I had come to a conclusion (more on this later), that poker would be, at best, a side-gig for me and that I should suck it up and go find a real job with a 401(k) and benefits. Because you can work an entire week as a poker player making all the right decisions and still lose money, whereas the worst pharmacist in the country is pretty much guaranteed at least $50/hr. But I still think poker is my lottery ticket to the big-time, especially tournament poker. I found out that cash game poker isn't my cup of tea since it can be static and boring, eventually shifting my play to autopilot which isn't winning poker.
I checked if this job in Houston was still available and it was. Reposted after a month in fact. That's always a good sign. Unlike poker, second-best is still pretty good if it treats you right.
But sleep can cure insomnia and cause amnesia, so I sequestered all the icky job seeking notions as soon as I touched down in H-town. You know, because I had to clean up and stuff, and reconcile bills, and wash clothes, and play on my PS3, and finish up the Battlestar Galactica series, and start on the X-Files, etc. And it's not like I wasn't still completely solid. The way I lived my life as a college student, I could go 4 years without seeing another red cent in earnings. Old world Asians are the camels of the money world--there is no such thing as interest and credit because we can do without. Except those degenerate gambling ones; they're like reverse camels, 'Spend it if you got it!'
So after initially planning to submit my resume on Sunday night, here I am on Wednesday, still messing around, wondering if I'm up to scratch to start a brand new career, preferably non-retail. A few years back, I had deluded myself into thinking it was a fear of success (if I succeeded, then there would be a longer path ahead) that handcuffed me from doing what I really wanted. Most assuredly it is a mortal fear of failure. Perfectionism, ironically, is a major flaw.
--
The PS3 game I've been playing lately is InFamous, a sandbox-style game where you take the reigns of Cole MacGrath, a guy with newly donned superpowers courtesy of an electrical explosion that wipes out half a borough. Funny how you never play the role of a Dwight from the Office. You choose to be good or evil, and the storyline progresses depending on the path you take. It's a pretty novel concept, I think, perhaps one of the first of its kind to take it that far.
The cool thing about the game is that there is almost no penalty for dying. You start off at the nearest checkpoint, and progress with a full energy bar to boot! So much for those Contra days when you had 3 lives to beat a near impossible game without the cheat code (or use a computer emulator with save states). After the first couple of missions, I got over my fear of simulated heights, being shot, and dying multiple times. And it's pretty fun to electrocute, sticky-bomb, and fry your enemies with lightning storms.
I would say that's the new culture of video games. Continue where you left off, with perhaps a slap on the hand. Even on hard difficulty. And that might be the new culture of this era. It's okay to fail, so long as you try. It's the quitting or not trying that's punishable by mediocrity.
--
And so this old dog (at heart) must learn some new tricks, must put aside all those messed up thoughts of superiority and/or inferiority, don the devil-may-care attitude of the new generation, take some lumps, and keep on moving towards less imperfection. Because perfection is a false idol and prophet which will lead all souls to mire in their illusions of grandeur.
But my resume/CV will still be grammatically perfect!
This time will be the last time
That we will fight like this..
Would you mind ever so nicely to forward me your contacts? Especially the really good sounding ones with hefty pay and minimal stress? Thanks in advance!
--
The Vegas chronicles can get a bit dreary for the non-poker folks, so I'll intersperse them with the regular dreary stuff. I promise at the end of the Vegas posts, there will be something about a 5-10, 6-4 in stripper heels, platinum blonde 'exotic dancer'. But it will likely be at least a week before then. I can be a tease, I know.
--
After getting back from Sin City, I reconciled my losses and partitioned my poker bankroll from my regular cash stash. Both were dismally low, so I supplemented with a drive-up ATM withdrawal which took more than 10 minutes because some lady in an SUV was having a pleasant conversation with the machine which included about 10-15 hand motions. Honestly, if you need more than 5 minutes at a drive-up ATM, do everyone a favor and go inside. There are actual human beings paid to service you when you need that many transactions, and they won't be snide and say stuff like, 'Did you know you could deposit your check at the ATM outside?'
When I got to the machine, it took me less than 2 minutes to get my dough, even without the quick-cash option.
With that little windfall, I paid back my bankroll for the night at the Spearmint Rhino, then paid my parents for the DSL and phone service. And then my cash was once more depleted. Though my credit cards, bank & saving accounts are relatively solid, it's the cash that makes me happy or depressed; if I had a $1000 in cash in which to roll around, I'd feel momentarily richer than if I had $10 with $10,000 in the bank. It's pretty stupid, my sense of wealth, but I digress.
On the last night in Vegas, I had come to a conclusion (more on this later), that poker would be, at best, a side-gig for me and that I should suck it up and go find a real job with a 401(k) and benefits. Because you can work an entire week as a poker player making all the right decisions and still lose money, whereas the worst pharmacist in the country is pretty much guaranteed at least $50/hr. But I still think poker is my lottery ticket to the big-time, especially tournament poker. I found out that cash game poker isn't my cup of tea since it can be static and boring, eventually shifting my play to autopilot which isn't winning poker.
I checked if this job in Houston was still available and it was. Reposted after a month in fact. That's always a good sign. Unlike poker, second-best is still pretty good if it treats you right.
But sleep can cure insomnia and cause amnesia, so I sequestered all the icky job seeking notions as soon as I touched down in H-town. You know, because I had to clean up and stuff, and reconcile bills, and wash clothes, and play on my PS3, and finish up the Battlestar Galactica series, and start on the X-Files, etc. And it's not like I wasn't still completely solid. The way I lived my life as a college student, I could go 4 years without seeing another red cent in earnings. Old world Asians are the camels of the money world--there is no such thing as interest and credit because we can do without. Except those degenerate gambling ones; they're like reverse camels, 'Spend it if you got it!'
So after initially planning to submit my resume on Sunday night, here I am on Wednesday, still messing around, wondering if I'm up to scratch to start a brand new career, preferably non-retail. A few years back, I had deluded myself into thinking it was a fear of success (if I succeeded, then there would be a longer path ahead) that handcuffed me from doing what I really wanted. Most assuredly it is a mortal fear of failure. Perfectionism, ironically, is a major flaw.
--
The PS3 game I've been playing lately is InFamous, a sandbox-style game where you take the reigns of Cole MacGrath, a guy with newly donned superpowers courtesy of an electrical explosion that wipes out half a borough. Funny how you never play the role of a Dwight from the Office. You choose to be good or evil, and the storyline progresses depending on the path you take. It's a pretty novel concept, I think, perhaps one of the first of its kind to take it that far.
The cool thing about the game is that there is almost no penalty for dying. You start off at the nearest checkpoint, and progress with a full energy bar to boot! So much for those Contra days when you had 3 lives to beat a near impossible game without the cheat code (or use a computer emulator with save states). After the first couple of missions, I got over my fear of simulated heights, being shot, and dying multiple times. And it's pretty fun to electrocute, sticky-bomb, and fry your enemies with lightning storms.
I would say that's the new culture of video games. Continue where you left off, with perhaps a slap on the hand. Even on hard difficulty. And that might be the new culture of this era. It's okay to fail, so long as you try. It's the quitting or not trying that's punishable by mediocrity.
--
And so this old dog (at heart) must learn some new tricks, must put aside all those messed up thoughts of superiority and/or inferiority, don the devil-may-care attitude of the new generation, take some lumps, and keep on moving towards less imperfection. Because perfection is a false idol and prophet which will lead all souls to mire in their illusions of grandeur.
But my resume/CV will still be grammatically perfect!
This time will be the last time
That we will fight like this..
Wednesday, December 15
Vegas Day 1, Part Deuce: The Donks Come Out At Night
To the donks who call to the river with middle/bottom pair,
Thanks!
--
So the soul crushing began at the Wynn poker room, a nice little place adorned in leather and wood and lace and sugar and spice. I really could care less as long as the action was good and the players next to me didn't smell. According to the Poker Atlas, the Wynn has a swank 26-table room that treats lower-limit players like crap (in terms of chip runners & cocktail waitresses, etc), which wasn't really a problem. It's not like I wanted some fruity 4-ingredient cocktail. Anyplace can pop the cap off a cold Heineken.
I look at the LCD screen at the entrance displaying the games available and found one to my liking: 1-3 NL, no limit with a $1 small blind and $3 big blind. Kind of strange since usually the big blind is twice the small blind, but Vegas is trying to appeal to lower limit players while still making a profit.
--
Session 1.0: Know When The Relationship Is Over
'Do you have your red card sir?'
I hand the dealer the red Wynn card I got an hour earlier. He scans it right there using a machine that sits on the table itself. Vegas is advanced with their comps.
My chips arrive, 40 reds, $200, the standard amount in a 1-2 NL game if you're looking to limit losses while still getting good implied odds to stack* another player. I figured a 1-3 NL game would be similar.
I toss away the first couple hands without a second thought. In cash games, one has to play super-tight, only staying in with the nuts. For new players, if you don't think you're absolutely good, toss that mess away, even if they're two face cards--you'll save yourself a lot of misery. The third hand of the session I would receive the second best hand in holdem: KK, which I like to refer to as Action Jacksons, since those old fellas look a lot like dead President Andrew Jackson on my favorite US bill. The cutoff had raised to $15, and I re-popped it to $45 to go. I get a caller and the initial raiser calls: 3 to the flop. Good start, playing against 2 players with a monster hand and an already monster sized pot over $130.
Flop comes Ad, 6c, 4d. F-- the Ace.. I remain nonchalant, and check to one of the two aces that were sure to be in the hands of my opponents. The first bets, the second calls, and I get out of the way, folding my monster pocket pair which I was certain was no longer good. Two more diamond rags come on the turn and river which would have made me the nut flush with my Kd, but I couldn't have stayed in. They turn their cards: 66 (flopped a set) and A6 (flopped 2-pair), the 66 won with the diamond flush. It sucks to be right sometimes.
The players to my right and left automatically read my hand from the action. 'You had Kings, right?' I laugh, 'Am I that transparent?' They also read me as a dangerous player since I laid down Kings without hesitation knowing it wasn't good. It's nice to have the good opinions of others, but it's nicer to have their chips.
A few hands later, I called a small raise with K9 on the big blind against 2 players. A king and some rags came on the flop to which I bet out on the flop, turn, and river. The guy to my left called me twice, but folded the river.
'I think you have the king, but I just can't call it.' I looked shocked as it dawned on me that there was a draw on the board, and I had given the guy good odds to draw out on me. It's not whether you're behind or ahead, it's whether you're getting a good price to draw.
After the fact, I put the guy on a medium pocket pair, maybe 9s or Ts with a 4-flush** to the hearts. I got lucky there even with my bad play. I stack the chips and came out about even. About 10 hands later the table broke since only 4 of us were playing and the action was literally raise, fold, fold, fold for a whole orbit around the table.
--
Session 1.5: Hand Caught in the Cookie Jar
Myself and another player were relocated to an uber-aggressive, uber-action table, playing automatic straddle and 7-2. The straddle is when the person to the left of the big blind raises blindly in order to get position preflop; the net result is that it's $6 to call instead of $3. The 7-2 game is if a player wins with 7-2, the worst hand in the game, everyone will award $5. Myself and the player from the last table refrain from their chicanery.
'How much will it take for you to take a 20-minute break?' one of the action-junkies ask. The players there didn't quite like our aversion to risk. I pretty much ignored them, passed the buck to the player from my table ('I'll take whatever she wants'). But eventually I start to straddle as well since the action wasn't too hot to handle, and I wanted to loosen up my image so they wouldn't auto-fold when I'm in a hand.
But I get nothing good, and I pretty much fold every hand dealt except my small and big blinds. On one of the big blinds, I get the Doyle Brunson***, T-2, to which I thankfully checked. Flop comes T-8-3. I check to see where I am. I flopped top pair but someone could have me outkicked. Two players check behind me, and the button makes a weak $20 bet at the $24-30 pot.
A semi-bluff if I ever saw one. Maybe he flopped middle pair or had a small pocket pair. With that much hesitation when betting, my Ts were definitely good.
'Raise..' I take a few seconds to calculate how much it would be to punish this guy for his lame attempt at my pot. '$50 more to go.' I casually lay out the chips in front of me in neat stacks of 4 and 10. He takes a Hollywood half-minute, and lays it down. I think to myself, 'That's right punk! That's my pot!' But outwardly, I breathe a fake/genuine sigh of relief, stack my chips, and tip the dealer. It was the epitome of the hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar situation.
That pot left me about even, +$2 for the session. I stick around for another orbit and get up right before I had the play the big blind.
On a sidenote, I think there was a good loose-aggressive (LAG) player at the table. This player will be an action junkie but has supreme hand-reading skills and post-flop skills to bet with the thinnest of edges. He won quite a few small pots and seemed to know when to get out of the way when his hand definitely wasn't good and he couldn't force the other players out. Needless to say, I got the hell out of his way.
Session 1, Wynn, 12/7, 5-630p, 1.5hrs, 1-3NL, +2
--
Penn & Teller started at 9p, but doors opened an hour early, and there was the Mike Jones Jazz Duo, unfortunately not the Mike Jones from H-town though. Plus I needed time to record my notes from the action at the Wynn and reflect on my play. I think it was solid, leaning towards the conservative side. There's nothing wrong with that style, but you can feel like you're not doing anything for a long time while waiting for those premium hands.
The flaw I could see in my game was that the money definitely mattered to me, and I was under-bankrolled for that limit. When I considered making a move, I couldn't because I was handicapped by the weight of the chips in my hand. The nagging thought in my mind was, 'This is real money you're betting!' And so I might have played sub-optimally. Oh well, I came out $2 ahead, that works out to be $1.33/hr. A few dollars more, and I could be making minimum wage!
The Jazz musicians were good and my seat was even better. It was about 6 rows from the stage on the aisle seat of the left hand section. Penn & Teller were pretty cool, like their specials on TV. There was something very clean and crisp about their illusions, though their libertarian soapbox-ing got a little tedious. They debunked a lot of the cold-readers and other magicians and assured us that there is no such thing as real magic. Their magic reminds me of my teaching style: practical yet elegant.
I definitely would recommend the $100 price of admission. Totally worth it that close to the stage! The recession is good for some things.
The show ended at 1030p. Most Vegas shows are 1.5 hrs long. The trip back to the strip from the Rio was a bit harrowing. It was late at night, and I had to cross a couple of big intersections. I thought more people would be around walking back to the strip, but no dice. The solitary walk with only street lights to guide my path was disconcerting, and I kept my hands in my pockets, touching the several hundred dollar bills in my wallet.
I got to Caesar's Palace, the closest casino to the Rio, stepped to their poker room, and asked if there was a 4-8 Limit game available. 'There isn't, sir, but we can start an interest list for you.' 'Thanks, and could you put me down for 1-3 NL as well?' I hang around the sportsbook area looking at the pretty LCD screens with the multitude of sports. When that got tiring, I ogled the fine women walking in and out of Pure, the casino's nightclub. Somehow that 1.5 hrs at the Wynn made me immune to the bevy of skin that's endemic to the Vegas strip. I'd rather see some other ladies, QQ, that is.
A half hr later, I glanced at the wait list which hadn't moved. And so I moved out of the casino and to the Venetian. The Venetian is the second northernmost casino of interest for my poker playing. 'Do you have 4-8 limit available?' She looks at the computer for a moment and says, 'We do, that table over there.'
The chair had a premolded ass-print and was made of that fine material you'd see on furniture in Buckingham Palace except these were used by degenerates like me. It was remarkably comfortable, and I pulled out my cash to dominate this limit game. I figured since this was limit, I would have less problems playing under-bankrolled, since you can only bet a certain amount each round anyway. But the game is entirely different than no-limit. It is perfectly acceptable, even correct, to chase draws all the way to the river given sufficient odds. I can adjust, even though this is my first time playing limit holdem.
--
Session 2: The Donk Tipper
Donk, short for donkey, is a pejorative term for bad poker players who make the wrong plays frequently usually using aggressive bluffs with second or third-best holdings. Which is fine by me because these are the players who make poker profitable.
In limit holdem, the bets are structured. Pre-flop and on the flop, you can only bet/raise the small bet amount. On the turn and river, you can only bet/raise the big bet amount. In 4-8L, it is $4 and $8 respectively.
A guy had a couple of racks**** ready to leave the action, so I just buy my chips off of him. 'This money is good, right?' I respond, 'Of course, you can always trust a poker player.'
First hand, KQs with 4 callers to my raise. Good start. Flop comes Q, rag, rag. Even better, top pair, with second-best kicker. Nothing scary comes on the turn or river, and I get 2 callers all the way. Man, I love these donks! I flip over the goods and rake in the ~$50 pot. The guy whom I bought the chips from leaves, saying, 'Did I mention those chips were lucky?'
The guy to my right is drunk off his ass with a nice Irish red glow. Needless to say, his chips flowed my way more than a few times until he left, down probably a couple of bills but happy nonetheless. I suppose that's what Vegas does to you, even to the locals.
I managed to donate ~$30 twice to this lady 2 seats to my left when she caught trip queens on the turn (AQ starting hand) to my pocket Kings and once again when she hit a draw. It's not like I didn't respect her play, but I was playing loose surrounded by a sea of money ready to come my way. But I quickly fixed that chip leak.
Another player across the table, Middle Eastern or Indian, called me several times with second best holdings just to 'see what I had.' Bless his soul and his chips! For some reason, I thought he knew what he was doing because of his ethnicity, but after he bought in a second time, I figured him for what he was, an ATM. I kept the fish happy, and said stuff like, 'Man, you had to call with that,' and 'that was a really good draw, it was a gutshot but to the nuts!' But he left too around 330AM citing that he had a convention meeting that morning, 'I'm going to be sleeping on the desk..' That may be me as well in less than a year.. We'll see.
And then my luck started to turn south. My loose play caught up with me as I tried to part this other fool from his money, a Hispanic man who looked like a mustachio'd Edward James Olmos. Even after being told 5 times that he couldn't string bet, he still couldn't raise properly, and had to be reminded that the turn and river are $8, not $4.
The good Dutch player to my left and I marveled as he sucked out about 5 rivers against the varying decent-good players at the table. And after losing most of his $100 buy-in, he was now up a chip rack. And then he racked up again after he caught a miracle 4-outer to boat up (full house) against my top 2 pair. It's a good thing the price of tilting in limit holdem is cheap, since I called a preflop raise from the small blind with J2s, just to see if I could bust the guy. But when the flop missed me completely, he continuation betted. I folded and started to fume even more.
After the remaining bad players called it quits, I took up my chips and left too. Down $132 on a table rich with donks. How does that happen? So about $60 was just my bad play calling to that lady with my inferior holdings, but that meant I lost $72 somehow to horrible players. My goodness that river was beastly at the Venetian.
You're taught to grind when you have the best of it, to prop up your eyelids with toothpicks when there is money to be had. My friends, Mr. Olmos who racked up over $300 in profit was dying to give it all back, but the cards just wouldn't do it for me. Poker is a b--!
Session 2, Venetian, 12/8, 12-430a, 4.5hrs, 4-8NL, -132
--
That morning was the mass of the Immaculate Conception, so I had to get some rest to not sleep through service. I trudged the 10min back to the Imperial Palace, dumbfounded at how the cards had turned so bad. I showered only to discover that the drain was stopped up, so I MacGyver'ed by rinsing off my feet as I got out of the tub. It's a damn good thing this trip was solo!
Day 1, 6hrs, -$130
--
*go all-in, win, and get a stack of chips from your opponent
**4 of the same suit, 1 more for the flush
***He won 2 World Series of Poker with that hand, but that was in heads-up tournament conditions. In cash games, you throw that mess away with no doubt in your mind.
****A rack is 5 bays of 20 each, so a rack of $1 chips is $100.
Thanks!
--
So the soul crushing began at the Wynn poker room, a nice little place adorned in leather and wood and lace and sugar and spice. I really could care less as long as the action was good and the players next to me didn't smell. According to the Poker Atlas, the Wynn has a swank 26-table room that treats lower-limit players like crap (in terms of chip runners & cocktail waitresses, etc), which wasn't really a problem. It's not like I wanted some fruity 4-ingredient cocktail. Anyplace can pop the cap off a cold Heineken.
I look at the LCD screen at the entrance displaying the games available and found one to my liking: 1-3 NL, no limit with a $1 small blind and $3 big blind. Kind of strange since usually the big blind is twice the small blind, but Vegas is trying to appeal to lower limit players while still making a profit.
--
Session 1.0: Know When The Relationship Is Over
'Do you have your red card sir?'
I hand the dealer the red Wynn card I got an hour earlier. He scans it right there using a machine that sits on the table itself. Vegas is advanced with their comps.
My chips arrive, 40 reds, $200, the standard amount in a 1-2 NL game if you're looking to limit losses while still getting good implied odds to stack* another player. I figured a 1-3 NL game would be similar.
I toss away the first couple hands without a second thought. In cash games, one has to play super-tight, only staying in with the nuts. For new players, if you don't think you're absolutely good, toss that mess away, even if they're two face cards--you'll save yourself a lot of misery. The third hand of the session I would receive the second best hand in holdem: KK, which I like to refer to as Action Jacksons, since those old fellas look a lot like dead President Andrew Jackson on my favorite US bill. The cutoff had raised to $15, and I re-popped it to $45 to go. I get a caller and the initial raiser calls: 3 to the flop. Good start, playing against 2 players with a monster hand and an already monster sized pot over $130.
Flop comes Ad, 6c, 4d. F-- the Ace.. I remain nonchalant, and check to one of the two aces that were sure to be in the hands of my opponents. The first bets, the second calls, and I get out of the way, folding my monster pocket pair which I was certain was no longer good. Two more diamond rags come on the turn and river which would have made me the nut flush with my Kd, but I couldn't have stayed in. They turn their cards: 66 (flopped a set) and A6 (flopped 2-pair), the 66 won with the diamond flush. It sucks to be right sometimes.
The players to my right and left automatically read my hand from the action. 'You had Kings, right?' I laugh, 'Am I that transparent?' They also read me as a dangerous player since I laid down Kings without hesitation knowing it wasn't good. It's nice to have the good opinions of others, but it's nicer to have their chips.
A few hands later, I called a small raise with K9 on the big blind against 2 players. A king and some rags came on the flop to which I bet out on the flop, turn, and river. The guy to my left called me twice, but folded the river.
'I think you have the king, but I just can't call it.' I looked shocked as it dawned on me that there was a draw on the board, and I had given the guy good odds to draw out on me. It's not whether you're behind or ahead, it's whether you're getting a good price to draw.
After the fact, I put the guy on a medium pocket pair, maybe 9s or Ts with a 4-flush** to the hearts. I got lucky there even with my bad play. I stack the chips and came out about even. About 10 hands later the table broke since only 4 of us were playing and the action was literally raise, fold, fold, fold for a whole orbit around the table.
--
Session 1.5: Hand Caught in the Cookie Jar
Myself and another player were relocated to an uber-aggressive, uber-action table, playing automatic straddle and 7-2. The straddle is when the person to the left of the big blind raises blindly in order to get position preflop; the net result is that it's $6 to call instead of $3. The 7-2 game is if a player wins with 7-2, the worst hand in the game, everyone will award $5. Myself and the player from the last table refrain from their chicanery.
'How much will it take for you to take a 20-minute break?' one of the action-junkies ask. The players there didn't quite like our aversion to risk. I pretty much ignored them, passed the buck to the player from my table ('I'll take whatever she wants'). But eventually I start to straddle as well since the action wasn't too hot to handle, and I wanted to loosen up my image so they wouldn't auto-fold when I'm in a hand.
But I get nothing good, and I pretty much fold every hand dealt except my small and big blinds. On one of the big blinds, I get the Doyle Brunson***, T-2, to which I thankfully checked. Flop comes T-8-3. I check to see where I am. I flopped top pair but someone could have me outkicked. Two players check behind me, and the button makes a weak $20 bet at the $24-30 pot.
A semi-bluff if I ever saw one. Maybe he flopped middle pair or had a small pocket pair. With that much hesitation when betting, my Ts were definitely good.
'Raise..' I take a few seconds to calculate how much it would be to punish this guy for his lame attempt at my pot. '$50 more to go.' I casually lay out the chips in front of me in neat stacks of 4 and 10. He takes a Hollywood half-minute, and lays it down. I think to myself, 'That's right punk! That's my pot!' But outwardly, I breathe a fake/genuine sigh of relief, stack my chips, and tip the dealer. It was the epitome of the hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar situation.
That pot left me about even, +$2 for the session. I stick around for another orbit and get up right before I had the play the big blind.
On a sidenote, I think there was a good loose-aggressive (LAG) player at the table. This player will be an action junkie but has supreme hand-reading skills and post-flop skills to bet with the thinnest of edges. He won quite a few small pots and seemed to know when to get out of the way when his hand definitely wasn't good and he couldn't force the other players out. Needless to say, I got the hell out of his way.
Session 1, Wynn, 12/7, 5-630p, 1.5hrs, 1-3NL, +2
--
Penn & Teller started at 9p, but doors opened an hour early, and there was the Mike Jones Jazz Duo, unfortunately not the Mike Jones from H-town though. Plus I needed time to record my notes from the action at the Wynn and reflect on my play. I think it was solid, leaning towards the conservative side. There's nothing wrong with that style, but you can feel like you're not doing anything for a long time while waiting for those premium hands.
The flaw I could see in my game was that the money definitely mattered to me, and I was under-bankrolled for that limit. When I considered making a move, I couldn't because I was handicapped by the weight of the chips in my hand. The nagging thought in my mind was, 'This is real money you're betting!' And so I might have played sub-optimally. Oh well, I came out $2 ahead, that works out to be $1.33/hr. A few dollars more, and I could be making minimum wage!
The Jazz musicians were good and my seat was even better. It was about 6 rows from the stage on the aisle seat of the left hand section. Penn & Teller were pretty cool, like their specials on TV. There was something very clean and crisp about their illusions, though their libertarian soapbox-ing got a little tedious. They debunked a lot of the cold-readers and other magicians and assured us that there is no such thing as real magic. Their magic reminds me of my teaching style: practical yet elegant.
I definitely would recommend the $100 price of admission. Totally worth it that close to the stage! The recession is good for some things.
The show ended at 1030p. Most Vegas shows are 1.5 hrs long. The trip back to the strip from the Rio was a bit harrowing. It was late at night, and I had to cross a couple of big intersections. I thought more people would be around walking back to the strip, but no dice. The solitary walk with only street lights to guide my path was disconcerting, and I kept my hands in my pockets, touching the several hundred dollar bills in my wallet.
I got to Caesar's Palace, the closest casino to the Rio, stepped to their poker room, and asked if there was a 4-8 Limit game available. 'There isn't, sir, but we can start an interest list for you.' 'Thanks, and could you put me down for 1-3 NL as well?' I hang around the sportsbook area looking at the pretty LCD screens with the multitude of sports. When that got tiring, I ogled the fine women walking in and out of Pure, the casino's nightclub. Somehow that 1.5 hrs at the Wynn made me immune to the bevy of skin that's endemic to the Vegas strip. I'd rather see some other ladies, QQ, that is.
A half hr later, I glanced at the wait list which hadn't moved. And so I moved out of the casino and to the Venetian. The Venetian is the second northernmost casino of interest for my poker playing. 'Do you have 4-8 limit available?' She looks at the computer for a moment and says, 'We do, that table over there.'
The chair had a premolded ass-print and was made of that fine material you'd see on furniture in Buckingham Palace except these were used by degenerates like me. It was remarkably comfortable, and I pulled out my cash to dominate this limit game. I figured since this was limit, I would have less problems playing under-bankrolled, since you can only bet a certain amount each round anyway. But the game is entirely different than no-limit. It is perfectly acceptable, even correct, to chase draws all the way to the river given sufficient odds. I can adjust, even though this is my first time playing limit holdem.
--
Session 2: The Donk Tipper
Donk, short for donkey, is a pejorative term for bad poker players who make the wrong plays frequently usually using aggressive bluffs with second or third-best holdings. Which is fine by me because these are the players who make poker profitable.
In limit holdem, the bets are structured. Pre-flop and on the flop, you can only bet/raise the small bet amount. On the turn and river, you can only bet/raise the big bet amount. In 4-8L, it is $4 and $8 respectively.
A guy had a couple of racks**** ready to leave the action, so I just buy my chips off of him. 'This money is good, right?' I respond, 'Of course, you can always trust a poker player.'
First hand, KQs with 4 callers to my raise. Good start. Flop comes Q, rag, rag. Even better, top pair, with second-best kicker. Nothing scary comes on the turn or river, and I get 2 callers all the way. Man, I love these donks! I flip over the goods and rake in the ~$50 pot. The guy whom I bought the chips from leaves, saying, 'Did I mention those chips were lucky?'
The guy to my right is drunk off his ass with a nice Irish red glow. Needless to say, his chips flowed my way more than a few times until he left, down probably a couple of bills but happy nonetheless. I suppose that's what Vegas does to you, even to the locals.
I managed to donate ~$30 twice to this lady 2 seats to my left when she caught trip queens on the turn (AQ starting hand) to my pocket Kings and once again when she hit a draw. It's not like I didn't respect her play, but I was playing loose surrounded by a sea of money ready to come my way. But I quickly fixed that chip leak.
Another player across the table, Middle Eastern or Indian, called me several times with second best holdings just to 'see what I had.' Bless his soul and his chips! For some reason, I thought he knew what he was doing because of his ethnicity, but after he bought in a second time, I figured him for what he was, an ATM. I kept the fish happy, and said stuff like, 'Man, you had to call with that,' and 'that was a really good draw, it was a gutshot but to the nuts!' But he left too around 330AM citing that he had a convention meeting that morning, 'I'm going to be sleeping on the desk..' That may be me as well in less than a year.. We'll see.
And then my luck started to turn south. My loose play caught up with me as I tried to part this other fool from his money, a Hispanic man who looked like a mustachio'd Edward James Olmos. Even after being told 5 times that he couldn't string bet, he still couldn't raise properly, and had to be reminded that the turn and river are $8, not $4.
The good Dutch player to my left and I marveled as he sucked out about 5 rivers against the varying decent-good players at the table. And after losing most of his $100 buy-in, he was now up a chip rack. And then he racked up again after he caught a miracle 4-outer to boat up (full house) against my top 2 pair. It's a good thing the price of tilting in limit holdem is cheap, since I called a preflop raise from the small blind with J2s, just to see if I could bust the guy. But when the flop missed me completely, he continuation betted. I folded and started to fume even more.
After the remaining bad players called it quits, I took up my chips and left too. Down $132 on a table rich with donks. How does that happen? So about $60 was just my bad play calling to that lady with my inferior holdings, but that meant I lost $72 somehow to horrible players. My goodness that river was beastly at the Venetian.
You're taught to grind when you have the best of it, to prop up your eyelids with toothpicks when there is money to be had. My friends, Mr. Olmos who racked up over $300 in profit was dying to give it all back, but the cards just wouldn't do it for me. Poker is a b--!
Session 2, Venetian, 12/8, 12-430a, 4.5hrs, 4-8NL, -132
--
That morning was the mass of the Immaculate Conception, so I had to get some rest to not sleep through service. I trudged the 10min back to the Imperial Palace, dumbfounded at how the cards had turned so bad. I showered only to discover that the drain was stopped up, so I MacGyver'ed by rinsing off my feet as I got out of the tub. It's a damn good thing this trip was solo!
Day 1, 6hrs, -$130
--
*go all-in, win, and get a stack of chips from your opponent
**4 of the same suit, 1 more for the flush
***He won 2 World Series of Poker with that hand, but that was in heads-up tournament conditions. In cash games, you throw that mess away with no doubt in your mind.
****A rack is 5 bays of 20 each, so a rack of $1 chips is $100.
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