Party with Adspar

My sister Megan had a birthday party Saturday night. I didn't want to go at first because I figured it would be mostly her work friends that I don't really know, and its a long drive from my house to her house in Baltimore. I usually hit Party Poker on Saturday nights for the sweet weekend action and I certainly need the income. So I figured I'd just skip the party and send a gift. Good idea huh?

When I told her I might not go, she became quite displeased. I believe something along the lines of "Fine. I don't want you to come anyway!" So obviously I had to go to the party to spite her.

Birthday spite is awesome.

---

So I picked up my other sister Bailey from her dorm in College Park and we rolled up to Baltimore. On the way I explained to Bailey my typical gripe with this kinds of parties - I hate making small talk with people I don't really know. I really have very little to say to anyone, and I don't like forced social interactions. This is why I rarely leave my house, and why everyone hates me and I have no friends.

Lately I've had 2 strategies for coping with these situations. Either I try to plan ahead of time for one interesting thing I could talk about, or I just ignore everyone and find ways to amuse myself. Lets shorten the 2nd option to "IEFWAM" since it will be coming up a lot.

When we arrived at the gathering, there were obviously 2 separate groups of people. A group that I knew fairly well was hanging out in the kitchen, and a group that I didn't really know was hanging out in the living room. After spending a few minutes catching up with the people I knew, I had a tough decision to make. All the chairs in the kitchen were occupied, and they weren't even very comfortable even if one opened up. So I could awkwardly stand there in the kitchen, hovering over the people sitting down, or try to figure something else out.

I spent a few minutes of surveying the situation (This consists mostly of me wandering around pretending to look at various decorations while I plan my next move. File this under the IEFWAM plan.) After careful deliberation, I decided really wanted to go sit on a couch. But that wasn't going to be easy, because I didn't want to talk to the people in the living room. I had an idea to try to lead a revolution to get the kitchen people to migrate to the couches, but the kitchen people seemed happy where they were, and the living room people probably wouldn't give up the couches without a fight.

Quite a conundrum.

Just when it seemed that all hope for comfortable lounging was lost, I saw my opening! I swiftly darted to occupy a couch seat.

---
After spending some time in the kitchen with some high school friends and her brother and sister, Megan decided to play the good hostess and go mingle with her college friends in the living room. Sauntering over and sitting on an empty loveseat, she noticed that her brother had quickly followed her.

Megan, understanding his reclusive nature all too well, recognized that his decision to move into an area full of strangers was an odd choice for him. She looked over at him inquisitively, only to find herself further perplexed by what she saw him doing. A few years ago she would have been embarrassed by it and gotten mad at him, but by now she's gotten used to it and is able to be slightly amused by his antics.

*SIGH* "Adam... what are you doing?"

---

Upon plopping down on the small couch, I was immediately disappointed by the result. When I had scouted out the living room earlier, the tan leather couches looked like they would be plush and fluffy to sit on. But it turned out the seat was a lot more firm than I had expected. I like the kind of couch that you really sink into; this was much more benchy than I was hoping for.

So I was grinding my hips side to side in frustration, trying to somehow loosen it up and sink further in, and I noticed that not only was the seat too firm, it was also quite slippery. My ass was sliding back and forth way too easily. And its not like I was wearing track pants or something, I was in jeans. At this point I really started wiggling my hips back and forth and side to side, trying to figure out exactly what the deal was with this couch.

Say you're playing pickup basketball and somebody has to drop off your squad and a new unknown guy joins your team. The first few times down the floor, you'll probably give him the ball more often than anyone else because you want to size him up, see what he can do. You want to give him a quick test-run so you know what he brings to the team. That's what I was doing with the couch. And I determined it wasn't really a couch, it was more like a leather-covered granite slab doused in KY jelly.

But to Megan it just looked like disturbing flailing about: some combination of seated dancing and humping an imaginary 250lb woman in my lap. I was engrossed in IEFWAM and oblivious to how ridiculous I looked.

---

"Adam... what are you doing?"

"This couch sucks. You should get a new one. It is too slippery! Actually your floor is too."

I stopped sliding my butt around, and started sliding my shoes around on the hardwood floor. Then I did both at the same time.

But in the middle of my IEFWAM I realized I had stumbled upon my alternative to IEFWAM - plan ahead of time for 1 interesting thing to talk about. "Megan, this house is frictionless!" At least in my mind it was something interesting to talk about.

Armed with my new conversation idea, I decided a return to the kitchen was in order. I snuck over to Bailey and told her about it. I don't remember her exact reaction, but it was basically the equivalent of rolling her eyes and telling me that I'm an idiot.

Undeterred, I went on. "No, this is good! The problem is that I'll have to be careful who I say it to. I can't be telling everyone the same thing, because then I might say it to the same person twice."

I'm pretty sure Bailey was thinking, "Yeah ok, THAT is your problem... And more likely whatever poor sucker you tell this to will tell another person about this ridiculous conversation they just had with some idiot, and then you'll talk to that person too."

Whatever.

I had a plan. Eventually I saw a perfect opportunity to use my new conversation item. I shared my friction thoughts with Megan's roommate Angela (who I had only met once before) and I thought the conversation went pretty well. I was pretty proud of myself.

---

Shortly after the Angela conversation, my friend Cara said she was going to head home, and being a gentleman, I offered to walk her a few blocks to her house. The crowd had been thinning out, and I returned 15 minutes later to find the remaining guests gathered around Bailey in the kitchen, cracking up as she told a story, with Megan occasionally filling in some details.

I came in and sat down, and everyone looked at me and laughed. "We were just talking about you," says Bailey, and she continued with her story. Hmmm, great.

"So he comes over to me and tells me how he came up with his GREAT conversation idea but that he doesn't want to use it on too many people for fear of looking stupid."

Megan butted in, "like there's any way he won't look stupid when his conversation idea is 'This house is frictionless' hahahhahahahahahhaha."

Everyone is greatly amused at my expense. They all hate me. I hate parties. Why did I come?

It turns out that Megan and Bailey were both sitting near me when I had the conversation with Angela, and they both heard me start to talk about the frictionless house and decided to eavesdrop. For some insane reason, they didn't think it was going to make for as fascinating a conversation as I did, and wanted to see the trainwreck.

Dammit. I am an ass. Why did I have to spite my sister on her birthday?

Bailey went on describing my moment of truth:

"So he says to her - 'Angela I have a complaint about your house - it is frictionless.' Angela stops and looks at him, and after a very brief pause says.... 'I KNOW!!! I'm ALWAYS slipping in here! I want to cover the whole house in those sticky pads you put on the floor of bath tubs!!' And then 2 minutes later Angela left to go swing by another party."

Megan chimed in, exasperated "So he picked the perfect person to tell it to - the one person in the world who would ever know what he was talking about, and she was leaving soon so she wouldn't tell anyone else!"

Everyone exploded in laughter after the "I KNOW," and again after Megan's comment.

I am a hero. Everyone loves me. I love parties. Everyone wants to party with Adspar.

Happy 23rd Birthday to my sister Megan.

Not this sister.
Not this Megan.

<--- This Megan's house doesn't have the proper amount of friction.

The end is near, but delayed

My life is about to end. All 3 Best Buy stores within 30 minutes of my house are sold out though, so I have until Tuesday to enjoy what remains of life as I knew it.

Fairly rare Paradise reload bonus

I like ParadisePoker a lot, but they don't offer as many reload bonuses (boni?) as other sites. They are offering a 25% bonus up to $100 on Halloween weekend though. Lots of good tournaments on this site, so if tournaments are your thing and you don't have a Paradise account, now is a good time to sign up. Click the banner below to help support beards, and enter "TREAT" in the bonus code field when you make a deposit this weekend to get that 25% bonus.



NOTE: the Halloween "TREAT" bonus is good starting Saturday Oct 29 thru Monday Oct 31. They also normally will give a 25% bonus up to $50 for your first deposit (bonus code is "FIRST25"). So you could make your initial deposit for $200 and get $50 free, and then immediately make another $400 deposit and get another free $100. If you have questions about it, let me know.

Adspar's Guide to Beard Growing

[Like Beards? Visit Man Beard Blog today!]

So you've been thinking about growing a beard? Good for you! Beard growing has been a favorite past-time for thousands of years. But beards aren't just for fun and games - the mighty Zeus (image on right) summoned the power of his great beard to help him kill his father, Cronos. Will Ferrell made reference to the legend of Zeus's beard in his recent film, Anchorman.

Many famous people and other historical figures are known for their beards.

Famous Beards:



Abraham Lincoln - 16th President of the United States



Jesus - savior of all mankind



Ricky Williams - troubled NFL running back



Blackbeard - pirate


Sigmund Freud - psychologist, father of psychoanalysis


ZZ Top - rock band


PJ Carlisimo - basketball coach


So you've decided to grow your beard, but are unsure how to proceed. You've come to the right place.

Adspar's Guide to Beard Growing:

Step 1: Be a man*

Many of the world's nations have granted women the right to vote and the privilege of serving in the military. Sadly, women's rights are still woefully archaic when it comes to beard growing. The vast majority of the world's female population will never be able to grow much, if any, facial hair. While this may be unfair, it is important to realize that not all men who opt to wear a beard are misogynists. In fact, many bearded men are great supporters of the feminist movement, as Will Ferrell taught us with Rachel Dratch.

Politics aside, by being a man you will have completed the first step of growing your beard. Congratulations! Continue on to step 2.

Step 2: Stop shaving

Most men without beards shave their faces on a somewhat regular schedule. Cease this behavior immediately!!! Shaving is the great enemy of beards, and as razor blade technology advances, your beard could be in considerable danger. By shaving every day, you decrease your chances of growing a beard by over 99%.


Step 3: Wait 1 to 12 weeks

Depending on how much of a man you are, and how little you shave, you should have your beard within a week to several months. Also, hopefully all the women stopped reading after step 1, so now I can say that they are all worthless bitches. I'm glad they don't get to have beards. In fact, I've dedicated my own beard to my hatred of all females. I find it an abomination that the right of a bearded man to beat his wife has been threatened. I'm sure Will Ferrell would agree.

Step 4: Enjoy your beard.

Every beard is different, and they can all be enjoyed!

Good luck finding new and exciting ways to enjoy your own special beard. Be creative!






Thank you for reading Adspar's Guide to Beard Growing! May God bless you and your beard, and may Satan curse all women to beardless hellfire for all eternity.

And remember, if your wife doesn't like your new beard, you know how to change that whore's mind.


* Disclaimer: for best beard results, don't be Asian.

Breaking news: WNBA Player Gay!

Shocking


"there's a sisterhood among lesbian players"

no way!


"Five years ago, when I told my mom I'm gay, her reaction wasn't any different than I expected. She just said, 'I figured.' I don't know exactly what that meant, but I could see the hurt and disappointment."

5 years later when I told the world I'm gay, their reaction wasn't any different than I expected. The world just said, "I figured." I don't know exactly what that meant, but I could see the complete indifference and annoyance that this "news" required a special announcement.

slap the cider and tumble over again

I'm not really feeling the blog love recently. Nothing I really feel like writing about.


Quickly:

• Poker has been going a little better after I made some adjustments, but I don't feel like getting into it yet because I'm sure it will all fall apart tomorrow. There was a 3 day stretch though where I sincerely feel like I played the best poker of my life, not because of the (decent but hardly spectacular) results, but because my focus was excellent and I made very few bad decisions.
  
• I keep hearing a clicking/tapping sound in here. I can't tell what it is. Probably more water dripping somewhere.
• NBA season is sneaking up on me very quickly. I might not be watching much action this year though since the games are in prime poker hours and I intentionally don't have a TV in view from my desk. I'll probably try to time 1 night off per week on Thursday nights for the TNT coverage.
• The Ravens suck hard hard hard.
• I was gonna type "The Ravens suck hard." But I decided it needed added emphasis so I went with "hard hard." Then I realized that you'd probably think it was a typo, so I added the 3rd "hard" for unmistakabilitismness.
• If somehow this is an interesting post to you, I'm sorry, it wasn't supposed to be.
• I've been meaning to do a post about beer. Maybe next time.
  

Priceless

I've played a bit recently with a very special player in the $10/20 game on Party. This guy is insanely aggressive with a wide variety of hands, and continues to bet and raise on the turn or river, often without a pair. Your typical Party $10/20 player has no clue how to counter such aggression. He's won over $1500 in the 430 hands I've played with him so far.

I love playing at his table, because the other players get so frustrated, and soon everyone is playing poorly. His presence at the table has sparked some highly entertaining conversation. Here is my favorite so far:

Background-

Frustrated1 and INSANE GUY have been talking a lot of trash, Frustrated1 saying he wins by good play but INSANE GUY requires luck. Frustrated2 has been agreeing with Frustrated1 in regards to INSANE GUY, but doesn't especially like Frustrated1 much either.

INSANE GUY wins a pot with some lucky catch.

Frustrated1: wow
Frustrated1: lucky XXXXXXX
INSANE GUY: all of a sudden you dont play good now?
FRUSTRATED2: and your not a lucky XXXX
FRUSTRATED2: good bb protection
INSANE GUY: still good

a little later…

Adspar: hey Frustraed1 i have a question
Adspar: at some point in your rant you used a curse that got censored
Adspar: and it had 7 Xs
Adspar: what curse has 7 letters?
Frustrated1: bast ard
Adspar: ah!
Frustrated1: lol
Adspar: i was thinking maybe f.uck.a.ss
FRUSTRATED2: nice
Frustrated1: no, i try not to cuss
FRUSTRATED2: try not to fold either
Frustrated1: and bas tard isnt that bad

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Back where I started

I decided to do some mid-month evaluation after yet another catastrophe at the tables, and much to my delight, I've calculated that my bankroll has dropped to exactly where it was when I began this foolish journey.

Now what?

Absurdities in the Bible

Absurdities in the Bible

This is great for the idiots that believe everything in there is 100% indisputable historical fact. For the rest of us, it is still a bit amusing.

Leviticus 15:16-18, 32
This passage tells you what to do if you get your "seed of copulation" on yourself, your clothes, or your partner. Thank God this is in the Bible.

Deuteronomy 23:1 -
You can't go to church if your testicles are damaged or your penis has been cut off

Isaiah 7:20 -
God will shave men's feet, where "feet" and "hair" are biblical euphemisms for males sexual organs and pubic hair, respectively

But its not all just franks and beans...

Hosea 1:2-3 -
God tells Hosea to commit adultery, saying "take ... a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms" because the land has "committed great whoredom." So Hosea did as God commanded and "took" a wife named Gomer.

Luke 22:36 -
"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." (Have you bought your Jesus sword yet?)

2 Kings 1:10, 12 -
Elijah shows that he is "a man of God" by burning 102 men to death.

Good stuff.

I tell you what

I'm going through as tough a thing as I've been through in an occupation. Every level of school was a breeze; working for GE was mostly easy with occassional sanity checks.

I've been losing money for over a month now. I don't think you can understand it until you've been there. But I'm still having fun. Poker is fun. I had a long, crazy, losing session tonight, but I still enjoyed it. How many people actually lose money on the job for a month and still enjoy it?

Our watery planet has now orbited its star 20 times since the day a female infant fell out of my mother's vagina.

Happy Birthday to my baby sister Bailey.

Observations

At work, I used to read ESPN all day. I'd estimate I averaged no less than 60 minutes a day reading ESPN articles with an excel spreadsheet ready to quickly flip to if someone walked by. 60 minutes is a very conservative estimate; I'm sure there were weeks where I averaged 3 hours per day. I devoted at least another 60 minutes to other topics, including my fantasy sports teams, Mark Cuban's blog, the latest news in science and technology, and tried to stay generally aware of what was going on in financial markets.

I spend very little time on any of those now. Since I quit the desk job, my records tell me I've spent 21.5 hours per week playing poker. I've watched a lot of movies and DVD TV shows (Sopranos, Lost, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Family Guy), and read a few books. I play way too much online Risk (the game of world domination!). I've played some basketball, soccer, and tennis. I've done some jogging and some drinking, and I cook a lot more. I read 2+2 for I'd guess an average of 90 minutes per day. At some point I decided I wanted to do more writing, and I've done a tiny bit but not much. I probably average 9 hours of sleep per night, which is glorious.

When people ask me what I do with my time, I don't really have an answer. I do most of the same things as I used to do, but now I just get more sleep, read different web pages, and don't spend 2 hours commuting. I guess I'm wasting away a similar amount of time as before, I just can't call it "work" now.

I hope he's licking them

Wallowing peppered with lies

Warning: The following could easily be construed as a bloggal vomit of self-pity. Proceed with caution.

In the 2.5 weeks since Sept 22

• My net poker results are a loss of over $5,000.
• That's about 8,000 hands at mostly $10/20 and $15/30, with a BB/100 of (2.78).
• My VP$IP/PFR/AF in that stretch is 19.5/12.5/1.6.
• Won $ When Saw Flop is 36.59%
• Went to showdown 39%
• Won $ at SD 51%
• My computer started laughing at me when I lose hands.*
  

Aside from poker

• A dear member of my family is facing a serious health issue.
  
• Water keeps dripping out of more and more places in my house. I assume it will cost a good deal of money to fix the leaks and damage.
• In a full-body stretch gone terribly awry, I somehow managed to hurt my neck playing poker today. I can't rotate it more than 20 degrees left or right.
  
• My penis fell off.*

The poker games I'm in for the most part seem very good. I usually have several opponents who are consistently making obvious mistakes. I am extremely frustrated with this prolonged losing streak, and not experienced enough to have confidence in either explanation for it (bad luck/bad play). Luckily, losing thousands of dollars rather than earning money in this period is inconsequentially to me financially, since I'm independently wealthy.*

To further complicate matters, today PartyPoker separated itself from Empire, Eurobet, and the other skins, so my rakeback arrangement is most likely screwed. So it seems pretty likely that I'll effectively be paying higher rake to continue playing with Party's vast aquarium of horrendous players, rather than playing in Empire's tougher games with reduced fees. I'm a little bit concerned that a frenzy of withdrawal requests from Empire has some chance of screwing me out of the money I have deposited there, but hopefully that won't happen.

Hard to tell for sure how this whole Party situation will play out. My theory is that with any major change comes a major opportunity. I just haven't figured out what the opportunity is quite yet.



* - denotes a probable fabrication.

A quick story about Megan

I have a sister named Megan. This is not about my sister. This story is about a different Megan... a more heartless and deeply complicated Megan.

Megan is a cruel vixen with a heart of stone, her hair as fiery red as her temper. Lives of mortal men mean little to her, and she shows them no compassion in the face of her unchecked aggression. Her ways are mysterious.

One time I watched her rip this dude's soul out with her bare hands, just because he passed her the ketchup. Her moves were swift and sudden, yet remarkably precise. The other patrons of the fast-food restaurant should have fainted in shock after standing witness to such a gruesome spectacle, yet their sheer terror overwhelmed them far more, and none succumbed to blackness. They stood frozen and silent, not daring to move.

"But you asked him to pass you the ketchup!" I screamed. Being immortal myself, I didn't share their fears. However I immediately realized the error of my ways. There are severe penalties for speaking out against Megan, and I knew what would happen.

Without a word, nor even a glance in my direction she proceeded to force-feed the man's raw soul to some woman's baby. There is very little in this world that can stop a mother from risking her life to defend her baby, but then again Megan might not really be from this world. The woman didn't interfere.

I knew that this mother was originally from Oregon. I shuddered at the recollection that Megan hates the Pacific Northwest more than she hates tomato-based condiments. But could she know of the woman's shameful past? I prayed to whatever God could allow such tragedy that Megan had simply chosen this baby because it was the cutest thing in the room. For if she knew of its Oreganian heritage... I didn't dare contemplate.

The woman just stood and watched, a surreal cool seemed to control her, as if she were completely oblivious to the dread that gripped all the others.

She knew.

"Little Francis likes soul," Megan finally said to the mother, as she moved the last spoonful towards his lips. "Don't you wittle bitty Fwancis?! Yes you do!! Yes its sooooo yummy! VROOM!! VROOM!." she babbled as she swooped the spoon through the air, immitating the motions of an airplane.

The baby's name was actually Robert Eugene, in honor of his grandfather and the Oregon city where his parents met. The mother said nothing to correct her. Robert Eugene giggled happily at the mysterious lady with the airplane spoon.

When the last of the soul was devoured Megan informed the mother, "Soul is high in protein and rich in B-vitamins. Francis will grow strong. He will one day be very wise."

Relief flooded over me as Megan turned and walked out. I sat down and finished my McRib sandwich.

Free tournament for me

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 3764176

PEACOCKS FOR SALE

I giggle chuckle whenever I drive past this, so I took a picture.

Calling people racist is fun

Bill Bennett, in response to a caller to his radio show who suggested that legalized abortion is bad for the country because the aborted lives could have been generating money to fund Social Security, gave an example of another way to look at abortion:

...if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

He's saying that you can come up with theories and statistics that would suggest many different far-reaching consequences of some actions, and that its easy to focus on just one consequence and forget to consider the others. The point he was making was a good and logical one.

Unfortunately, the ridiculous scenario he constructed to illustrate the caller's ridiculous chain of logic contained the phrase "you could abort every black baby in the country, and your crime rate would go down." That is a damn shocking statement taken in isolation, and that piece of the quote was widely reported without adequate context. No matter what point he was trying to make, no matter how thoroughly he immediately dismissed that idea as "reprehensible," and no matter how obviously mathematically accurate the assertion, that quote is a disaster.

Reading it just makes me wince, because 2 highly sensitive issues are so casually throw out there:

1.) killing lots of babies, (especially with the government being the implied killer)
2.) the relationship between race and crime


Like so many important issues, it seems this can't be intelligently debated without sensitive people overreacting. That is then inevitably followed by prominent politicians harshly waving their finger at the shockingly indelicate, in this case Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Illinois) threw phrases like "hurtful and ignorant rhetoric" and "outrageous racism of the most bigoted and ignorant kind." Who comes up with these quotes? I guess Bennett's racism is worse than racism of a moderately bigoted and semi-educated kind.

Maybe Bobby Rush has lots of genuinely insightful thoughts about abortion, and maybe he has important ideas about fighting crime. He probably has a lot to say about how poverty and discrimination are important factors in the alarmingly high rate of criminal behavior by young black men. But who wants to hear about that? Its more fun to hear congressmen calling people mean names.

There shouldn't be anything wrong with pointing out that crime rates are disproportionately high among black people in this country. It is one of many problems that all Americans are faced with, and it is logical to sometimes make connections between problems. Regardless of my own views on abortion and the race/crime issue, I understand what Bennet was trying to show, and it should be obvious that nothing he said is cause for offense.

I respect his willingness to make bold statements while debating a sensitive issue, and I think it is sad that he is going to have to deal with so much bullshit because of it. This CNN article might as well have the headline "BILL BENNET IS A RACIST! BILL BENNET WANTS TO KILL BLACK BABIES! BILL BENNET BELIEVES ALL BLACK PEOPLE ARE CRIMINALS!"

In addition to the Bobby Rush quotes, the article contains this:

Asked if he owed people an apology, Bennett replied, "I don't think I do. I think people who misrepresented my view owe me an apology."

I think he's right. But I also think he should have known this would happen, deserved or not.

I hate politics!

Anyway, Steve Levitt's thoughts on the matter, and the comments of his readers are fascinating to me.

Since many commenters pointed out the distinction between 'crime' and 'crime rate,' which were loosely used by Bennet in his original statement, and by Levitt in his thoughts, Levitt later posted: "anyone who reads my blog post on Bennett and thinks the most important question is 'crime' vs. 'crime rate' is missing the point."

Perspective

A conversation with Dan helped me put things in perspective tonight. I've been distraught about my recent downswing, but the bottom line is that I've earned enough money playing poker over the last 6 months to cover my living expenses and keep paying my mortgage. My idea of success has been a bit distorted by hearing stories about people who have done very well, but I just need to focus on what I've done and what I can do.

I can do better in the next 6 months than I've done so far. I've learned some valuable lessons, and I have a solid gameplan going forward.