Quick poker thought

While I'm feeling frisky, here's a poker boom thought that recently occurred to me.

I've had concerns that this whole poker explosion would dry up. The popular doomsday model is that the bad players lose enough money that they stop coming back, so without any fish, the sharks just have to feed on each other and everything gets much harder. Poker is a huge fad right now, so tons of dollars are flowing into the poker economy, enabling decent players like me to (barely) make a living. But when the fad dies, that money will stop coming. The best players will probably still make a living, but lots of marginal players like me will have to reenter the work force.

But what occurred to me is that poker's popularity has increased with its availability. 10 years ago, how many people lived close enough to a public card room to play poker regularly? It was basically just AC, Vegas, southern California and maybe a few other spots near Indian casinos or riverboats. So availability of poker was fairly limited. Today anyone with a computer and a credit card can play poker any time they want.

And even in those areas near the casinos, poker rooms were very mysterious and intimidating. But now coverage all over the TV has stripped poker of its seedy image, and commercials for online gambling make everyone forget about its ambiguous legal status.

People play games that are fun and available. Poker has always been fun, but it wasn't always available. Now people know that poker is a widely available entertainment option, and they'll spend a little less time in the theaters or bowling alleys. I'm sure eventually the poker craze will slow down, and maybe it already is doing that. But unless the government explicitly criminalizes online poker, there's going to be plenty of action for a long time.

Ron Artest

I never post here any more. But here's a Sports Guy quote on my favorite non-Terp NBA player. Go Terps tonight!

Highlight of my Clippers season so far: During a stoppage in the second half, Ron Artest was standing right near us by the 3-point line, with the name of his record album carved in the back of his head, of course. So somebody screamed out, "Hey Ron, I bought your album ... IT [STUNK]!!!!!" First, everyone giggled. Then we quickly realized that he might charge into the stands and inexplicably beat the hell out of one of us. So Ron turns around, searches the faces to see who yelled at him, finally finds the guy ... and gives him a big wink. High comedy. I like Ron Artest. He's my favorite NBA player who was ever suspended for a season for attacking a fan.

another birthday, more pictures

Happy 23rd birthday to my archnemesis girlfriend. It has been widely suggested that she is way out of my league, and I cant really dispute it.

I've been asked to clarify that the picture of me was modified by some photoshop effect that squeezes the image in towards the middle. It disturbs me a bit that people didn't realize this. I'm ugly, but I'm not quite that ugly.

Top Pure Comedies

My favorite pure comedies. As this list changes, I'll bump it up.

1.) The Big Lebowski
2.) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
3.) Office Space
4.) There's Something About Mary
5.) Dogma
6.) Swingers
7.) Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
8.) South Park: Bigger Long & Uncut
9.) Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
10.) American Pie Movies
11.) Old School
12.) Zoolander
13.) School of Rock
14.) This Is Spinal Tap
15.) Clerks
16.) Me, Myself and Irene
17.) Road Trip

Honorable Mention: Dumb and Dumber, Mallrats, Austin Powers Movies, Freddy Got Fingered, Dirty Work, Dead Man On Campus, Mr. Deeds, Napoleon Dynamite, Dude Where's My Car, Groundhog Day

Noteworthy Omissions: Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Ace Ventura, Caddy Shack

JUAN.

Juan is getting some love from Walton on ESPN's coverage of the Blazers game tonight.

I love foosball

Not that you care, but this is a real IM conversation between me and Walt.

Walt: i wish i had work tomorrow so i could play foosball

Adspar:

step 1: go to sports authority

step 2: spend $350 on the best foosball table they have

step 3: buy a case of sam adams winter brew

step 4: inform sparks of your completion of the 1st 3 steps

step 5: play foosball and drink beer with sparks for 25 consecutive hours

Walt: im not going to spend $350 on a foosball table that will get used all of 3 times

Walt: if that

Adspar: dude its worth it

Adspar: if you have a foosball table, i'll come over at least once a month

Adspar: my presence is definitely worth a one time $350 hit

Walt: haha

Walt: we'll see how big my bonus is this year

Walt: it's also difficult to move a foosball table in a miata

Adspar: they come in a silly box probably

Adspar: or they deliver

Adspar: or we could rent a uhual

Low limit so far

Since Sunday I've played 8,047 hands of $3/6 and won 2.05 BB/100, which is a rate I'm happy with. I've spread that play around a few different sites to step up my bonus-whoring efforts. I'm reasonably pleased with the volume of play I'm putting in, but I can't allow myself to let up on that.

Most of that play is 4 or 5 tabling during the day, which is kind of weird. I've been getting up at 5am and playing off an on until about 5pm. I've been able to listen to the Junks and Bill O'Reilly, while I play and go for runs around lunch time. It is a fairly enjoyable routine.

tiny good deed

For as much as I criticize and complain, I don't really do much to make anything better. But here's something that even a lazy bastard like me can do.

Go here.

The link contains information about "Jessica's Law" and gives you the option to automatically send this email to your state's governor.

I urge you to do everything in your power to see that our state enacts a version of "Jessica's Law." As you probably know, the Florida law was named in memory of 9-year old Jessica Lunsford, who was raped and killed by a repeat sex offender. The law establishes a minimum 25-year sentence for anyone convicted of molesting a young child. It also requires that paroled sex offenders wear a GPS positioning unit so police can keep track of them at all times. Research shows that criminals who prey on young children tend to repeat their crimes many times. Far too many young boys and girls have been brutalized by sex predators that should have been locked away. These abusers need to be kept off the streets and out of our neighborhoods. Enacting some form of "Jessica's Law" will protect our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, and will save lives. I hope you will get behind this legislation immediately. Thank you very much for your concern and your help.

Its a tiny thing, but I feel like I did something worthwhile.

Followup: the email from the link above didn't work for Maryland, so you can go here to send Governor Ehrlich a message.

poker = work

Many wannabe poker pros pursue the life out of a desire not to work. These people are in for a rude awakening. Playing poker well requires hard work. It is nice to work at something you love — but it’s still work. And to succeed, you need to treat it that way.
- Roy Cooke

He's absolutely right, which I have learned the hard way. I'm hoping that since I was able to (barely) get by while doing it the wrong way, I'll be very successful doing it the right way.

Ultimate Bet

In honor of my return to lower limits, I've added Ultimate Bet to my poker site information page. I've played more hands at UB than any site other than Party. Click the banner, sign up, and play lots of hands! Its like welfare for your favorite poker chump.

Back to where it all started

Going back to 4-tabling $3/6. Fortunately, I'm able to view this as a simple business decision. I don't have any problem playing lower, in terms of ego. I need to maximize income given my risk tolerance, and this move is the best way to do it.

Two big advantages to playing lower: the players are so much worse, and I don't have to be afraid of a big loss. Another noteworthy advantage is that it is easier to find a good game any time.

Worse Players: Loose/Passives vs Loose/Aggressives

• There are some loose players at the mid-levels, but there are fewer and they're usually much more aggressive. Loose $3/6 players routinely call til the river and then fold when they miss their inside straight draw. Loose $15/30 players check-raise that draw on the turn just to fuck with you. Not that money can't be made from the latter, but on a weak bankroll, I want my opponents to be as passive as possible. More aggressive games = more variance. I can't afford variance any more.

Worse Players: Tight/Passives vs Tight/Aggressives

• The majority of players at $3/6 and up are somewhat tight, but again they are more aggressive at higher limits. In my return to $3/6, I was amazed by how often all my opponents folded to my flop continuation bet (After raising preflop I almost always bet the flop, regardless of whether my hand improved. There are exceptions, but not many.) This rarely happens at mid-limits. It is so much easier to steal small pots at the lower limits.

Fearlessness

• As my losing streak worsened and my bankroll crumbled, it got to the point where I was afraid of losing. 50BB fluctuations are a very common occurrence in limit hold'em, but I couldn't handle a $1,000 swing at $10/20 any more. Playing scared takes away some important tools, and even bad aggressive players know how to pounce on weakness. I can play fearlessly at $3/6, giving me a big advantage.

Unfortunately, its harder to make a living at lower stakes, so I'm going to have to drastically increase my volume. 30~40 hours per week of 4-tabling is still better than 40 hours per week in an office. I might try 6-tabling.

Hopefully after a few months I will have rebuilt my bankroll and my confidence, and I'll be in a much better position to succeed at the mid-limits. While I was able to post a winrate of 1BB/100 hands in 50,000 hands at $15/30 and $10/20 I still think there are some big flaws in my game, and not all of them fall under the "if my bankroll was bigger..." excuse. I need to patch those holes.

Alternatively, if I find that I am unable to beat these games for enough to make ends meet, I'll know that I'm just not good enough to play poker for a living, and I can walk away knowing that I gave it my best shot and went down swinging.

easy equation

saturday night, tiny bankroll, no confidence...

clearly a visit to low limits is in order.

totally lost

In the short time since this post, I've managed to lose another $1,700. Whatever remained of my confidence is completely gone, and I doubt I will keep playing $10/20 since my bankroll is at about a third of where it was a couple months ago.

outlaws!

this is bullshit

Computer problems

My computer has been getting slower and slower, so I've decided to reformat my hard drive and get more RAM. Preparing for the reformat, I'm trying to set up a home network so I can easily transfer a bunch of my files onto Kira's computer, but we can't figure out how to do the network right. We've gotten it so that I can see her computer on the network, but can't access her shared file. She's never been able to see my computer yet. Neither of us are money enough to figure this out. Argh.

I can't play Civ4 at a reasonable speed until I figure this out, which is a big problem.

much props to Kira for snapping this picture last weekend

Methodology

Problem:

I've had 2 losing months in a row.

Hypotheses:

• I am a good but not great poker player.
• I have the skills to make a decent living playing limit hold'em.
• I could expect to average between 1.0 and 1.5 BB/100 hands in most full handed mid-limit games on PartyPoker.
• Deviation between actual results and the above is explainable by variance and psychological factors.
  

Background Info/Observations:

Definition: Earning 1.0 BB/100 hands means averaging $20 profit for every 100 hands at $10/20, or $30 for every 100 hands at $15/30, etc.

• A good player can earn 1.0-1.5 BB/100. A great player can make over 2.0 BB/100.
• It takes 50,000 to 200,000 hands to have much confidence in the accuracy of a winrate, because variance is so high.
• It isn't uncommon for a good or even a great player to have 20,000 hand stretches of losing or breakeven results.
• These are based on my interpretation of the collective wisdom of the message boards at 2+2. There are lots of discussions about these topics you can search for at the site.
  

Facts about my overall mid-limit record:

• 19,000 hands at $15/30, won 0.54 BB/100
  
• 32,000 hands at $10/20, won 1.37 BB/100
  

Facts about my record during the last 2 months:

• 8,900 hands at $15/30, lost 2.6 BB/100
  
• 19,000 hands at $10/20, won 0.54 BB/100
  

Discussion:

It seems pretty clear to me that my results are consistent with a good player who has hit the bad side of routine variance lately. When the best way to look at results is in the context of hundreds of thousands of hands, and I'm only playing 15,000 hands per month, my perception of results is going to be pretty skewed while I go through them in real time.

That being said, even if I can conclude I'm a good player, that doesn't necessarily translate to making a living. I've identified several obstacles I'll have to overcome if I want to make my living this way: endurance, multitasking, game selection and discipline.

• Endurance - I struggle to play more than 20 hours per week. Experimenting with forcing myself to play more hours showed me that when I go beyond that amount, my focus suffers and I lose my edge. I like the lifestyle of only playing 20 hours per week, so I don't really have any plans to keep working on this. This doesn't necessarily count me out though, since averaging $50/hr for 20 hours per week gives me enough to make a decent living for now.
  

• Multi-tasking - I've had mixed results with multi-tabling. In terms of handling the pace of it, I had no problem 4-tabling $3/6 and still winning a healthy amount. But my results at $5/10 while 4-tabling were far from stellar. My best results in the mid-limits have come while 2-tabling, so it would probably be best to stick with 2 tables until my I start to improve my results. I do think that I'll be able to increase to 4 tables or possibly 6 or 8 eventually.
  

• Game selection - I'm defining game selection as choosing games where my edge is the greatest. I think I'm generally pretty good at choosing the best available tables based on average pot size and similar statistics, and also based on knowing who the weakest players are. But a big problem with my game selection is that I tend to stay at the tables when games get shorthanded and a weak player is still playing. For whatever reason, I just haven't had much success with shorthanded play online. At that point, the edge that I enjoyed when the table was full starts to disappear, so I ought to leave the table when it drops below 7 players.
  

• Discipline - Discipline encompasses the 3 points above, among other things. I need to force myself to play the most amount of hours that I can do while still playing my best. I need to stick with 2 tables when I can't keep up with the action above that. I need to avoid shorthanded games or tables where my position isn't good. While I'm playing I need to focus and not be distracted by AIM or ESPN.com or anything else, and if I feel tilt setting in I need to take a breather. Poker is a game, but if I'm playing for a living I need to approach it in a professional manner.

Bankroll

Playing poker for a living is a lot like running a small business. If I remember one thing from studying entrepreneurship in college, it is that a large percentage of small business failures can be attributed to undercapitalization. I'll get back to this point in a bit.

I've noted that poker has a huge amount of variance, and my results have certainly shown it that too (the bottom lines of my last 5 months: +8,000, +400, +9,000, -2,000, -500). How do you combat variance in poker? Well if you want your monthly results to be more consistent, the best way is to play a huge number of hands every month. So my lack of endurance and limited multi-tabling experience make me more susceptible to high variance. Some guys have no problem putting in 50 hours per week or more and playing 8 tables at a time, which greatly decreases their variance in the same time period, and increases the chance of their poker business being successful.

So if you don't combat variance with volume, how else can you? Capital reserves. Bankroll. If my expected monthly earn isn't significantly above my monthly expenses, I need a much larger bankroll to minimize my risk of ruin. I've known for a long time that my bankroll is smaller than it should be, given my monthly expenses. Ideally, with my bankroll I'd be playing lower limits. But given my cost of living and the other weakness I mentioned above, I decided I had to be in the middle limits, and accepted the risks.

I think that part of the reason for my weak results at $15/30 was that I was playing scared. I think that part of the reason my shorthanded play sucks is that it naturally has higher variance and I play scared. I think part of the reason for this losing streak is that a few bad sessions while playing well caused me to lose confidence and start playing scared and weak. If I had a bigger bankroll I wouldn't play scared, and my results would be better. I'm going to say "scared" a few more times. Scared, scared, scared.

Conclusion:

Clearly if I can't keep bring in cash, I'll have to get a real job and my poker career will have been an enjoyable failure. It doesn't seem likely that I'll put in a lot more hands, so volume won't be my key to success. So its got to be a combination of these things:

• Improve my hand playing skills
• Improve my game selection
• Improve my discipline
• Decrease my expenses
• Increase my bankroll

Idea: Sell My House

Trading the mortgage payment for cheap rent would decrease my expenses, and the cash infusion from my gains would increase my bankroll. That would allow me to play higher limits with less pressure, which should help improve my playing skills and income.

beatdown

I've been losing for more than 2 months now. That's a really long time.

I've tried just about everything I can think of to get back on my feet:

• more hours per week
• less hours per week
• more tables at a time
• less tables at a time
• shorthanded
• different sites
• taking a few days off
• playing at different times
• sharing hands with friends
• reading more poker literature
• reading less poker literature
  
• adding a 2nd monitor
• killing homeless people for good luck
  

Yesterday I played some no-limit. I'm thinking about 4 or 6 tabling $2/4 for a few hours sometime soon. Anything to give me a fresh perspective and a few dollars.

Since 9/1/05 I've played 34,524 hands in 188 hours, averaging 2.2 tables at any given time. I've lost 0.42BB/100 hands, or $29.33/hour for a total playing loss of $5,500. I've received some bonuses and rakeback that adds up to $2,600.

I've had times where I've felt like I was playing very well, times where I've felt like I was playing very poorly, and everything in between. But the results are always negative. I have no idea how I ever won $9,000 in a month two different times.

This all should explain my recent emphasis on advertising on this blog.

200% Bonus at Absolute Poker

As I mentioned here, I think Absolute Poker is a great poker room for getting started playing poker online. Now is an especially great time to pad your bankroll with their limited time 200% bonus on your first deposit (I think it runs for all of November, but this could change). Just enter Bonus Code AP200 on your first deposit and they'll give you up to $200 free.

Click one of my Absolute Poker links to support frictionlessness and cripplingly poor social skills.

Thanks to a few people who have signed up with one of my ads!

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

site feed

http://seeforyourself.blogspot.com/atom.xml

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.

I've had 13 positive thoughts while pokering recently:

1. I knew he made that flush on the river; I'm glad I checked my top 2 pair. I could have lost a lot more that hand. Good job saving that bet!
2. That certainly was nice of him to show me that set of 3s he turned after I folded to his check-raise. (Maybe I'll just never make another continuation bet with AK.)
3. Well the pot was giving me 9-1 on that flush draw, so in the long run I'll profit from situations like that. So technically I just won $22.22 Sklansky bucks. Awesome.
   
4. That was a very spectacular way he sucked out on me, stastically speaking. Randomness is fascinating.
5. Hopefully winning every pot they're in against me will keep these fish coming back.
6. This song that randomly came on my playlist right as my flopped nut flush loses to a runner-runner full house perfectly captures the feeling of the moment. How delightful!
7. This salsa is delicious.
8. So he had 87o. My read was right! I knew when he bet out on the turn he couldn't beat my JJ on the 743Q rainbow board. Great turn raise! (Too bad the 8 on the river gave him 2-pair...)
9. Well the 2 horrible players just were replaced by tight aggressive players. I guess I'll leave this table in spite being down $434. Good game selection!
10. Oh boy, lets see how badly this flop can miss my AK!
11. Updating my resume will give me a wonderful opportunity to refresh my Microsoft Word skills.
    
12. That awful river call looked spectacular on this new monitor.
13. Sweet, I just remembered that my neighbor is having a birthday party for his kid tomorrow and my clown suit is freshly washed.

One of the least offensive jokes I remember

What is the worst part about going to a little kid's birthday party?




answer in white:

Cleaning the blood off your clown suit.

Cartesian Pokery 2

To clarify, here is the same graph with my total expenses added. I only update those once a month, hence the step function. I had some residual income in the early months, so those got netted against early expenses. This month is about to end, and it looks like I'll find myself close to break-even. My expenses have been higher than I expected the last few months though, so I expect I can lower that. Also, these giant losses reduce my estimated tax liability, so that should help too.

Sid Meier wants to kill me

With this terror soon be unleashed, The Biz advises me to seek help.

CHEEZ-IT TWISTERZ

How did we do it? We took 2 BOLD TASTES and TWISTED them for an EXTRA CRUNCHY Cheesy Snack! TWO FLAVORS! BOLD CRUNCH!

That is what it says on the back of the box. I'm eating the Cool Ranch & Cheddar flavor. It is pretty good. This box advertises another flavor: "Cheddar & More Cheddar." I feel like this goes against the spirit of the product line.

CHEEZ-IT: We make our own tasty rules! Then we boldly BREAK them right away!!

Temporary setback or the beginning of the end?

Well I'm pretty much in crisis mode now as the huge losses continue. My winrate for at $15/30 has dropped to 0.55BB/100 after about 14,000 hands. Since I felt underbankrolled to begin with, I might have to concede defeat and retreat to lower limits to rebuild my tattered bankroll, not to mention my tattered confidence.

The game that felt so easy a month ago is now a complete mystery to me. Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong: horrendous bad luck (punctuated by losing to runner-runner quads after I flopped top set), horrendous bad judgment, missed flops, missed bets, misreads, missed flushed draws for me, made flush draws for them, folding the winners, calling down with losers, and any other imaginable way to finish a session with a lot fewer chips. I'm doubting my entire approach to everything: what times I play, how long I play, how many tables, what limits, when to stop, when to bet, raise, call or fold. My concentration sucks. My hand reading sucks. My decision-making sucks. My luck sucks.

I'm not particularly distressed about the $5,500 I've lost in the last 3 days. I am distressed at the very real possibility that I'll need to find another income source in the near future. The thought of returning to the workforce is harrowing. I don't know what my plan is, but if I'm going to keep playing poker, I need to drastically improve my game and my results in a hurry.

I'm forced to acknowledge the possibility that I'm just not good enough at poker to last much longer. I have a few ideas about what I want to do to give this a chance to keep working. I need to think some more about that, form a strict plan, and then let the cards fall where they may.

Science already knows me

I pretty much just rip all my blog ideas off paulp. Myers-Briggs is the latest.

I just took a quick online test and reaffirmed that I'm an INTP. The last one has always been the loosest, but I usually end up at a Perceiver.

My strength on each according to that test:
Introverted 100%
Intuitive 62%
Thinking 88%
Perceiving 33%


Somebody posted this about INTPs in paulp's comments:

Famous INTPs:

Socrates
Rene Descartes
Blaise Pascal
Sir Isaac Newton

U.S. Presidents:

• James Madison
• John Quincy Adams
• John Tyler
• Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Gerald Ford

William Harvey (pioneer in human physiology)
C. G. Jung, (Freudian defector, author of Psychological Types, etc.)
William James
Albert Einstein
Tom Foley (Speaker of the House--U.S. House of Representatives)
Henri Mancini
Bob Newhart
Jeff Bingaman, U.S. Senator (D.--NM)
Rick Moranis (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids)
Midori Ito (ice skater, Olympic silver medalist)
Tiger Woods

I guess this puts me in good company, but with a lot of my best work ahead of me hopefully...


Wow, this site is a profile of INTP. Highlights:

• The INTP is above all a thinker and his inner (private) world is a place governed by a strong sense of logical structure.
  
• Every experience is to be rigorously analysed, the task of the INTP's mind is to fit each encountered idea or experience into a larger structure defined by logic. For here is the central goal of the INTP: to understand and seek truth.
• The INTP is not interested in experiences themselves but is far more fascinated by concepts. The drive to understand things that are not yet understood is a very powerful force in the life of an INTP.
• This drive can override the experiential element so strongly that the INTP will become quickly bored with anything that he has successfully analysed to the point of understanding it. Once understood, it has nothing left to offer, once the satisfaction which comes with achieving the goal of understanding diminishes. Indeed, most primary interests of an INTP are things which he cannot fully understand, usually because they are highly complex or have some exotic, mystical element that does not yield to analysis. This is the real reason why INTPs are drawn to complexity: anything simple is too quickly understood and cannot hold the fascination for long.

Holy shit, my idea as I was reading was to pick out the highlights with which I most strongly identified, but pretty much the entire thing is describing me almost better than I know myself. Wow. No wonder I'm playing poker - it is too complex to ever feel like I've mastered it or even understand it.

" Similarly, proficiency in any area (which requires continual practice after understanding) is not such a driving force as it might be for NTJs, for example. While a judging NT will often seek to become master of his field, an INTP is satisfied by analysing it alone. "

More goods:

• Since accurate analysis needs to avoid becoming hampered with details or being influenced by the actions of others, the INTP invariably seeks to withdraw, at least in spirit, from the situation being considered.
• This detachment can sometimes be so marked that he will readily see himself as a neutral observer having no personal association with that going on around him (unless forced to become directly involved through an attack on his principles). [Sound familiar? Evolution hits close to home...]
• the principle of detachment even encompasses how an INTP views himself. He may analyse his own thought processes as if his mind and body were separate from his conscious self. In wanting to understand his reactions to things, he may treat himself, even his own thoughts, as subjects for experiment. [ha, that's what I'm doing right now]
• This is his Mission; to be the provider of clarity, and is often suspicious that he is the only person capable of this task. Here, the INTP risks being seen as over-critical, aloof and arrogant. On the whole, however, real arrogance is rare for INTPs for their desire is not to dominate others but simply to observe, analyse and clarify. Once the point has been clarified, the INTP withdraws quickly, for he prefers not to be in the limelight unless absolutely necessary. Hence, for most of the time, INTPs are easy-going and will fit in to others' needs, taking up the role of observer again.

I guess I'll stop here since I've probably lost everyone's interest but my own and my INTP brethren, and maybe stalkers who are in love with us. I'm not even halfway done reading this, and it is blowing my mind with how insightful it is.

Last one:

"To know is everything, to do is a lower order necessity, if it is necessary at all. This breeds the potential for lazy aloofness. The INTP is often satisfied simply by knowing that he could do something if he wished. This also leads to the danger of overestimating one's capabilities and losing a grip on reality"

A month of daily results

$1,627.84
($108.86)
($350.00)
$1,381.80
$289.81
$696.00
0 - no play
($1,273.82)
($945.50)
$1,621.50
($2,787.50)
($612.00)
$645.03
$114.70
($248.33)
$29.00
($664.42)
$430.75
$316.32
$1,406.25
$401.60
0 - no play
$818.75
$549.50
$705.45
($1,309.05)
0 - no play
$753.75
$388.08
($91.03)
($1,908.00)

Sum: $1,877.62

That last big loss made me want to look at the big picture. Not a great month.

i got an email with this in it:

"the coolness of the morning felt awesome. and as i peaked that hill on the far side, i saw the sky turn orange as the sun was rising but it still remained dark enough for me to enjoy the solitude that dawn and dusk bring"

I'm bored

I have no idea if any of this is true, but I read it somewhere so I'm posting it here.
You're welcome.


A group of unicorns is called a blessing.
Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink."
A group of frogs is called an army.
A group of rhinos is called a crash.
A group of kangaroos is called a mob.
A group of whales is called a pod.
A group of crows is called a murder.
A group of officers is called a mess.
A group of larks is called an exaltation.
A group of owls is called a parliament.

a shrewdness of apes
a battery of barracudas
a sloth or sleuth of bears
a wake of buzzards
a comfort of cats
a cowardice of curs
a pod of dolphins
a cackle of hyenas
a business of ferrets


This is funny.