my day off

I took the day off from work today, to use up a "personal business day," which unlike vacation days, I won't get paid out for when I leave. So I'll be attending to as much personal business as possible between now and March 25. Of note:

• I looked at the pokertracker stats, and I still got nothing I can use. Using January 1 as my good/bad cutoff, I'm going to showdown less often after seeing a flop (35.6% v 39.5%) and winning fewer showdowns (53.6% v 58.5%), which tells me yet again that I'm just not getting the cards. I wish I could find some stat that points out a hole I could plug and magically bring the winning back, but its just not there. I have to bear down and keep playing well, and the chips will start flowing my way again. Blah blah blah.
• I'm leaving for Vegas next Wednesday. I'll be out there for the 1st weekend of March Madness. Should be fun. I think this trip might be considered "personal business."
• I set up my silly new tracking spreadsheet today, and did some more projections. I've got 6 months worth of anticipated expenses plus a decent buffer tucked away safely in the bank (earning 2.6% with ING Direct's Orange Savings account, SILLY!), leaving me with a working bankroll of about $9,000. Not bad. I'd need to play four $3/6 tables for about 80 hours per month at my average winrate to meet my anticipated monthly expenses (assuming 35% income tax on my winnings). I'll probably try to play 20 hours of that per week, and another 5 to 10 hours of other games (shorthanded, NL, tournaments, etc).
• Today was the most profitable day of poker I've had since December 29. I played less than 3 hours. I started a new experiment called "Remember the latenight shorthanded stupids" which is off to a fine start.
• I had to take my car to the emissions testing place today. I was 6 days past my due date so I had to pay a $15 late fee. After they were done, the guy handed me a piece of paper and said "You're done.... you passed!" His tone was congratulatory. I wasn't really sweating the outcome, but I guess it was a big deal for him.
• Rakeback could be a valuable secondary poker income stream. Lots of online poker sites offer affiliate programs, some of those affiliates are paid monthly based on the rake (the fee the poker site takes out of every pot) each of their referrals generates. Some of those affiliates offer a percentage of that referral fee back to their players. I think I could clear a few hundred per month from that if I can set it up, but its hard to find the right situation. I want to keep playing at Party, and there are several other sites (Empire, PokerNOW, Coral/Eurobet) that play on the same server and with the same players as Party. But none of them let you deposit using Firepay. They use Neteller, which for some reason refuses business to anyone in Maryland, and several European payment services that I'm not sure I want to use. So unless I move, I have to find another way to deposit funds to one of those sites. I don't want to have to go to the bank or Western Union to send money, so my only other decent option is using a credit card, but MasterCard doesn't allow purchases at eGaming sites. Visa does, so I filled out a Visa application today. Its everywhere I want to be.
• Seeing the decent business these affiliates have going is making me wonder if I could make anything off cheap referral commissions for various products and services I use: poker sites, PokerTracker, ING Direct (let me know if you're interested, 2.6% savings!!!), Afrin, escort services, etc. I could put up some ads on this blog. With my 6 visitors per day I can't quite charge Superbowl prices. Erm suggested I file for unemployment. I suck.
• You might not believe this, but I read back over this post and removed several usages of parentheses.
• Adspar: parentheses :: Weezer : bad music