JamesSlusher.com

During this blogging brownout tha I’ve been going through, you may or may not have noticed that I haven’t been discussing poker much.  I had really lost a fair bit of my enthusiasm for playing online because of general nuttiness that goes on on Full Tilt Poker.  Generally playing the low limit games on FTP involves sitting at a table with 8 other people who play like meth addicts.  If it is a multi-table tournament the effect is amplified.  You can wait out and pick of 2 or 3 of these players on average, but sooner or later the probabilities will catch up to you and someone who was playing a nutty hand will hit it hard and knock you out of the tournament.

My brother Dave has a friend who suggested playing at Bodog.  He said the games were soft, the money deposit was much easier and the games were really soft.  So I (and Dave) checked it out.

He was right.  The game play is somewhat slower, the blinds structure is much longer and flatter and you can get payout structures that are much flatter and payout to more of the players, too.  It is very much designed for my style of play and I’ve done well so far.  I’m up to about 250% of my original deposit in about a week.  I’ve moneyed something along the lines of 70% of all the tourneys I’ve played and I’ve won several of them.

On the flip side, the Bodog GUI sucks.  It’s just basically ugly and some of the controls are quite goofy.  Like you can fold when it would make sense to just check.  If you hit the button and you can check instead of folding, it will give you a pop-up asking if you are sure.  Why bother?  Just don’t give the option and then you don’t have to do all that.  Once you get used to some of the GUIs shortcomings, though, it is a pleasant poker playing experience.

If you are an online player and are thinking of trying out a new site, let me suggest Bodog.  Let me know and I can refer you.

I’ve finally got the laptop back with me at the in-laws and out of the old house.  I missed my little buddy.  He’s all hooked up and connected and ready to rock.

Congratulations to winning South Carolina by an impressive margin go out to Barack Obama.  It was an amazing win and he did it with style and class.

The only problem I had with the whole thing was the media’s repeated use of the term “racially-charged” when describing the contest in SC.  Unless “racially-charged” means that both black and white people were out voting for Obama, in which case, okay.  It makes it sound like people were on the verge of riots or something which is far from the case.

I’d like to think that many of the people in South Carolina who have historically not participated or who have voted against their self-interest have finally come around.  We’ll see in the long term, but for right now I’m going with what makes me happy.

You should see his victory speech.  Wow.  After so much GWB goofiness, listening to Obama talk is like a sigh of relief.

I don’t know if dogs get sinus infections, but if they do I’m as sick as one.  I don’t tend to get colds or the flu so when the sore throat started on Sunday, I expected to be done with it fairly quickly.

Things got worse and worse until Wednesday when I went to work I was in such bad shape that my partner, Todd, told me to go to Medical and get my temperature taken.  They proceeded to pretty much kick me out.  When I went back to the machine to get my stuff, I told Todd that it was his fault that I was leaving, because I was gonna tough it out.

The Doctor’s office was pretty much a blur. I walked out with 4 prescriptions, at least one of which has to be the most godawful concoction imaginable.  It looks nasty in the bottle and the tasting of it will not sway your initial assessment.  I’d rather get kicked in the eyeball that put that horrid stuff into my mouth again.  It does, however, quiet your cough.  It’s effectiveness resides in it’s ability to horrify a cough into submission.  It’s not so much medicine as a cough bully in convenient liquid form.

I feel weak today, but stronger than yesterday and I’m confident the worst of it is behind me. 

Charles Sinagra, the former owner of Atlanta Ice, once turned to me and said, “Everything I own is broken”. It was an exaggeration, to be sure, but not much of one. Things were definitely falling apart.

I have noticed recently that everything I own falls into one of four categories:

• Broken
• Almost Worn Out and Needing Attention
• Lost
• For Sale

I am extremely heartened by Barack Obama’s win in Iowa.  When rural white people can embrace a black politician, I start to hope that my basic distrust of most people is wrong.  I’m not letting go based on the results of one caucus, but it is encouraging.  I would be thrilled to be proven wrong about man’s innate pettiness.  Time will tell, but for now w00t!

I can’t wait for this First Family.

As far as Huckabee winning on the Republican side, well, he just gives me the creeps.