2006 in review

I found this survey that I did in 2004 and I'm going to type it up and give you my answers from 2004 and 2006. Enjoy.

1. What did you do in 04/06 that you'd never done before?
04- Went to the baseball Hall of Fame, knew issues in the election, worked
06- Kept a steady job for over a year, had a decent sized bankroll

2. Did you keep your New Years Resolution?
04- I don't make new years resolutions, because I believe you can change your life at any time.
06- See 04

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
04- No
06- My cousin's girlfriend

4. Did anyone close to you die?
04- No
06- No

5. What places did you visit?
04- Ocean City, Cooperstown
06- Cooperstown, Canton

6. What would you like to have in 05/07 that you lacked in 04/06?
04- A state bowling title
06- More consistency to every aspect of my life

7. What dates from 04/06 will remain etched upon your memory?
04- 6/16, 11/04(I only remember the first one)
06- None really

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
04- Hit several home runs for my Squirrel Hill team
06- Finishing Atlas Shrugged and writing a 12 page scholarship paper on it.

9. What was your biggest failure?
04- Failure to do well at state bowling chamionships or losing in the first round of city playoffs.
06- Losing a lot of my bankroll at one time.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
04- Not really, little things here and there.
06- Nothing until a nasty stomach virus five days ago.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
04- The movie "The Shawshank Redemption"
06- 3 in 1 printer.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
04- Aron Ralston
06- Warren Buffet or Bono

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
04- George Bush
06- Not going to say here.

14. Where did most of your money go?
04- Food
06- Poker and School

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
04- Summer and bowling on tuesdays
06- Summer

16. What song/album will always remind you of 04/06?
04- REO Speedwagon "Roll with the changes"
06- Dashboard Confessional "Don't Wait"

17. Compared to this time last year are you:
happier or sadder?
04/06- Happier

thinner or fatter?
04/06- Thinner

richer or poorer?
04/06- Richer

18. What do you wish you'd done more or?
04- Gone out during the year, used my time better
06- Spend more time outdoors

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
04- Computer
06- Wasted time

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
04/06- With family

21. Did you fall in love in 04/06?
04- Three times(haha)
06- I think once at the end of the year, but I'm careful how I throw the word "love" around

22.How many romantic relationship in this last year?
04- 2
06- 3

23. What was your favorite TV program
04- Everybody Loves Raymond, poker, the OC
06- Seinfeld, the OC, high stakes poker

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
04- George Bush
06- One individual

25. What CD did you listen to most often?
04- Mix
06- Either Dashboard Confessional's 'Dusk and Summer' or Ludacris' 'Release Therapy'

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
04- Ludacris
06- Something Corporate

27. What did you want and get?
04- Better at bowling
06- An ipod

28. What did you want and not get?
04- Left blank
06- A win in a big poker tournament- I was close for about three weeks straight

29. What was your favourite film of the year?
04- Spiderman 2
06- Click

30. What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?
04- Partied and I was 17
06- Went out with friends then with my family later and I was 19

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
04- State bowling title
06- A big poker tournament win

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 04/06z/
04/06- Same as always

33. What kept you sane?
04- Music and friends
06- My friends

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
04- war in Iraq
06- Anti-gambling bill

35. Whom did you miss most?
04/06- Grauated friends

36. Who was the best new person you met?
04- Jason Iampietro or Bethanne
06- Doc or Po

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004.
04- You can't always get what you want.
06- A lot of how you're feeling has to do with your attitude.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
04- So if you're tired of the same old story/Turn some pages/And let me hear if you are ready/To roll with the changes(REO Speedwagon 'Roll with the changes')
06- Close your eyes, and i will be swimming/Lullaby's fill your room, and i will be singing/Singing to only you/Dont forget ill hold your head/Watch the night sky fading red(Something Corporate 'As You Sleep')

So that's the end of my little survey. Take it yourself if you'd like. All in all, 2006 wasn't a real memorable year other than I solidified a lot of friendships and make some new friends. Looking back, I was in a much better mood most of the time in 2006 than 2003, 2004, or 2005. I'll leave you with the best poem that I read in all of 2006, and hopefully you will enjoy the selection.

I Dream It Is Afternoon When I Return to Delhi
By: Agha Shahid Ali

At Purana Qila I am along, waiting
for the bus to Daryaganj, I see it coming,
but my hands are empty.
"Jump on, jump on," someone shouts,
"I've saved this change for you
for years. Look!"
A hand opens, full of silver rupees.
"Jump on, jump on." The voice doesn't stop.
There's no one I know. A policeman,
handcuffs silver in his hands,
asks for my ticket.

I jump off the running bus,
sweat pouring from my hair.
I run past the Doll Museum, past
headlines on the Times of India
building, Prisoners Blinded in a Bihar
Jail, Harijan Villages Burned by Landlords.
Panting, I stop in Daryaganj,
outside Golcha Cinema.

Sunil is there, lighting
a cigarette, smiling, I say,
"It must be ten years, you haven't changed,
it was your voice on the bus!"
He says, "The film is about to begin,
I've bought an extra ticket for you,"
and we rush inside:

Anarkali is being led away,
her earrings lying on the marble floor.
Any moment she'll be buried alive.
"But this is the end," I turn
towards Sunil. He is nowhere.
The usher taps my shoulder, says
my ticket is ten years old.

Once again my hands are empty.
I am waiting, along, at Purana Qila.
Bus after empty bus is not stopping.
Suddenly, beggar women with children
are everywhere, offering
me money, weeping for me.




mh

the addiction to losing

After reading a post by my friend Pauly, I feel that I needed to go further into depth about this subject. In his blog, he stated that during his trip to vegas, he started uttering the phrase, "I gotta get unstuck, I gotta get unstuck." This was after he went down something liek 1k in his first hour in Vegas. He concluded with a passage that I'd like to start my post with, and that is a line that Al Pacino's character gives in the movie Two For the Money:

"You're a lemon. Like a bad car. There is something... there is something inherently defective in you, and you, and you, and me, and all of us. We're all lemons. We look like everyone else, but what makes us different is our defect. See, most gamblers, when they go to gamble, they go to win. When we go to gamble, we go to lose. Subconsciously. Me, I never feel better than when they're raking the chips away; not bringing them in. And everyone here knows what I'm talking about. Hell, even when we win it's just a matter of time before we give it all back. But when we lose, that's another story. When we lose, and I'm talking about the kind of loss that makes your asshole pucker to the size of a decimal point - you know what I mean - You've just recreated the worst possible nightmare this side of malignant cancer, for the twentieth goddamn time; and you're standing there and you suddenly realize, Hey, I'm still... here. I'm still breathing. I'm still alive. Us lemons, we fuck shit up all the time on purpose. Because we constantly need to remind ourselves we're alive. Gambling's not your problem. It's this fucked up need to feel something. To convince yourself you exist. That's the problem.You know, the best part of the best drug in the world isn't the high. It's the moment just before you take it. The dice are dancing on the table. Between now and the time they stop, that's the greatest high in the world."

I would like to begin by saying that sometimes I feel like the person that Al Pacino is describing here in his soliloqy. I think that at one point or another, all of us feel like perpetual losers. We all know that day that we dream about when absolutely everything goes wrong and you either just want to be shot repeatedly or curl up into a little ball until the end of your seemingly useless existence on this earth. The problem with this type of losing is that it leads to future losses, even when the circumstances have improved. Gambling is a perfect way to illustrate this. If you go into a poker session and everything goes wrong(take a few beats, run into a few tough situations) and you begin to approach your worst loss of all time, your mindset changes quickly. It is true that when it's all over and done with and you've blown every dollar and coin you own, you realize something: I'm still alive. I can't remember how many times I'd be walking home from a poker game(where'd I had gotten busted) thinking "Well, you lost all your money, but you still have yourself. You're still a smart kid and that's not gonna change no matter if you win a thousand or spend a thousand minutes losing it all." This "fucked up need to feel something" couldn't be worded any better because we have to prove to ourselves that in one way or another we still exist on this little planet. I'd say that another good example is the people from the movie Saw. Jigsaw(the main evil/good, depending on how you interpret it character in Saw) always makes videos to show his victims who haven't been living their lives to the fullest. In these videos, he often refers to the fact that "it takes the prospect of death for most of us to truly begin to live." Not only this, but the fact of the matter is that losing is very multi-dimensional. I mean, losing can happen in so many different ways but in the long run, winning only happens by staying a consistent course.

I always wondered why those teams who were perpetual losers couldn't turn it around eventually. I mean, they practiced just as much as the other teams, but their mindset was always "We are probably going to lose this game. We have accepted that we are a losing team and don't give a shit if we turn it around or not. Hell, losing is fun because it makes us feel good inside." I've ran into more than a few people who have this "losing curse" hanging over their heads. These people are so convinced that they are going to fuck everything up once they meet a new romantic interest, start a new job, or enter a new stage in their life, that they begin to think too much and eventually do fuck it up. I'm kind of going off on a tangent, but the crux of this post revolves around losing and how we can become addicted to it.

I've made it a goal of mine to work on this in 2007, but I'm convinced it's going to be a struggle that's going to take me a long time. I want to become more addicted to success and less so to failure. That's one reason I believe that I'm attracted to school and gambling so much. In school, I was always a consistent winner. I worked hard at it, but I always had a talent for school. If there's one thing that I know how to do, it's how to do well in schoool. Of course, that brings us to gambling. I don't bet horses(minus once), sports, or any other game that I dont' think I have an advantage in. However, poker is different. I've had myriads of success and failure in the game, and most of both wins and losses came in streaks. In 2007, part of my goal is to have more success at gambling, which doesn't necessarily mean making more money doing it. To do well in gambling, you have to make correct decisions, and that's something that I hope I'll be able to do in the New Year.

Until next time,

mh

six hands worth noting

I haven't posted in awhile, and I'll probably get around to do a real post this weekend, but until then, here's this. Let it be known that the following contains ALL poker related content, so if you don't like poker, oh well.

Hand 1- I'm dealt AK rainbow in the BB, and I raise to 17 and get four callers. Flop comes down A J 9 with two spades. I'm first to act and I move allin. Two folds and then a guy who I'll call for the rest of this "the station" called me instantly. He flipped over Qs2s and smashed the spade on the turn. I still had 7 outs on the river because I had the Ks, but I completely whiffed.

Hand 2- I'm dealt JJ and raise from middle position and just get one caller. The player is tight and pretty solid. The flop comes down 6 7 8, exactly the flop I don't want to see. He bets out from first position and after thinking about it, I muck. He shows QQ.

Hand 3- I'm dealt AK in the SB and bump it up to 20 and get one caller, the station. The flop is 8 9 10, and we both check. A 3 hits the turn, I check, he bets 25, and I call. The river is another 3, I check, he bets 40, and I think about it for awhile. I laugh and say to him "I have AK, and I really think it's good." I made the call and he showed his losing AQ.

Hand 4- I'm dealt 44 in middle position and I just limp. It's about 7 way action to the flop and the flop comes down Jc 9c 4d. Two checks to me and I fire out 20. Two callers. Turn is the Jh, the perfect card. Two checks again and I bet 30. Once again, two callers. River is the 7c, the nirvana card for me. Once again, two checks, and I bet 35. George thinks about it forever and mucks. Then the guy from Hand 2 says "I'm allin." Fuck. I thought about it forever and called. He showed J9 and scooped a huge pot. After thinking about it, I realized that he made a horrible play. With two clubs and a straight draw on the board, he got incredibly fortunate to hit his 4 outer and have myself fill up as well. Just bad luck, that's all.

Hand 5- I have AJ and there is a raise to 7 in front of me. I decide to call. Flop comes down J 10 3. I bet 15, and get raised by tom(who is a pretty solid player) to 35. I call thinking we might have the same hand. The turn comes a 5, and I check and he bets 100. Looking back on it, I should have folded right there. Unfortunately, I went allin and he insta-called with AA. No J on the river, and I'm dead.

Hand 6- Let me preface this by saying this is probably one of the three sickest hands I've ever played in my life. I'm dealt 98 in the SB and tom once again raised to 7 in front of me. I decided to call. Flop came down 9 8 2, a perfect flop. 5 people check to tom who bets 7 again. I raised to 27, and tom went allin. Now if you'll remember correctly, in Hand 5 tom made a HUGE bet with an overpair to the board. I figured he was doing the same thing here and by this time of the night there was no way in hell I was mucking top two. I called, the turn and river came 7 and 6, and tom showed 99 for top set. Just a sick hand.

That's all for now. I can't really say that any of these(minus Hand 1) were terrible beats, but they were all just very unfortunate situations to get into. At this point, there's nothing that I can do about it except suck it up and take a little break from poker.

frank sinatra

"You gotta love livin' baby, cause dyin' is a pain in the ass."
-Frank Sinatra

I would like to dedicate a post to Frank Sinatra, because to me, he embodies what I strive to be in my life. Sinatra was an easy going man who was committed to providing the best for his children and the rest of his family. He is considered by most musical historians to be one of the four biggest influences in music in the 20th century. All this being said, his style could be summed up with a few words- Carpe Diem. He was quoted many times as saying that he just took what each day gave him and that he wasn't "searching for no secret of life." In my opinion, that's the way to live. Don't overcommit yourself to anything, don't get involved in any entangling engagements, and just live each day to the fullest. If you do that, nobody can say that your stay on earth was a wasted one.

I've begun to write poetry again on a more consistent basis with the opening of a site called Humble Voice. You can find HV on the web at www.humblevoice.com and if you sign up as a member, you can view my poetry under the name "britishroyals". So far, I've posted mostly old work of mine, but the opening has prompted me to continue trying to produce new material.

I'm dumbfounded that this semester is going by as quickly as it has gone. I feel that this has been my most consistent semester as I've done all of my homework(for the most part) and am making time each week to study history, poetry, and math. When I had economics I would basically study that every wednesday before the class, but now with that done I have even more time. I've been using my spare time to either write or play poker, and I can myself improving in each of those disciplines. Last year, it seemed like it took forever for myself to get good at playing poker, but all those struggles have made me into such a better player today.

I'd continue writing, but I need to get to bed so I can get up early enough to finish a speech, and I think I have a borderline migraine so goodnight.

Oh yeah, here's a poem to read. It's surprisingly good if you think about how boring life can be sometimes. Enjoy

Disillusionment at Ten o Clock
By: Wallace Stevens

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.



mh