Sunday, October 5, 2008

Weekend happenings

On Friday night, I participated in a drinking competition. I am honestly not much of a drinker... I do it socially about once a week, and rarely get hammered. However, I decided to be captain and form a team when a friend informed me of the event. Teams comprised of 8 people. Each had to drink the following: 12 bottles of beer, a fifth of vodka, and one box of wine. Somehow, a team completed the competition in merely 16 minutes. I suspected that whoever was responsible for the boxed wine would suffer the most. My friend Ben (who, of course, chugged the boxed wine) ended up blacking out, and we had to carry him home. Needless to say - it was a fun experience, but competitive drinking is extremely illogical from a health perspective.



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I have taken 3 piano lessons so far, and enjoy it a lot. My teacher has a background in classical music and is focusing on me building strong fundamentals. If I don't mind going through music-reading and finger-strengthening exercises, then it will be awesome once I begin learning actual songs. It is disappointing that I have a very poor singing voice, though. I'm considering getting a vocal teacher sometime in the next few months so I can at least improve from an awful singer to a mediocre singer, and combine that with my newly-learned piano skills. I definitely get a satisfying feeling from getting back into music for the first time since I was 14 years old. It is a great way to challenge myself, use my creativity, and express myself. If you're like me and feel that life needs to feel more fulfilling, I strongly recommend doing something musical.

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I'm very objective about the poker economy, and constantly analyze the bigger picture. As I've said before, it is undeniable that poker is a negative sum game. Rake, taxes, and cashouts (especially by professionals to cover their expenses) mean that the poker economy is constantly shrinking. The only way to balance this depletion is for new blood to be constantly depositing money into the economy. This simply is not occurring at a large enough rate to offset the factors mentioned. As a result, the poker economy is drying up. It is not strongly related to the state of the US economy. It is also NOT strongly related to the legislation passed about online gaming in 2006. Online poker does not even resemble what it did two years ago, and conditions are unlikely to improve. That being said, I will continue to play poker for as long as I can comfortably make 6 figures doing so. I'm already starting to consider my other options for what to do after poker, because I don't realistically envision this being my main source of income 5 years from now.

2 comments:

jethro said...

Nice job on the drinking comp dude, im proud. Although agree super illogical hehe yet fun! Learning songs is fun but don't brush off the scales/arpeggios/techical type stuff as being good at these will help you learn songs so much easier. And stop being so pessimistic about poker! Learn PLO! I don't plan on doing it full time in 2 years or so so let's just make some moneys!

LuckySOB said...

Quit being so negative. It's changing of course, but it won't go away. As the games get tougher, the masses will look to a different game or stakes to make their money. Now remember, the masses suck, so you just have to stay 1 step ahead of the mass of the masses......got it?

You think "the games are different now than 2 years ago".....well yeah, but I'm guessing by that comment you've only been playing for 2 years. 2 years ago I thought "these games are 10x tougher than the games 2 years before that....yet many people still made a killing, and the only way for me to do well was to improve as fast or faster than my opponents, which I have.

Change with the game and improve more than your cometition and this can be a forever income imo. But then again, I don't want it to be. I only want 4 to 5 more good years out of it. No matter how good your job is, life is not an adventure if you spend it doing the same thing.