I HAD A WEIRD-ASS dream last night. Like the last couple of dreams I had (or at least those I recall in the morning), it took place at work. Similarities end there.
To set the scene: My office occupies one quarter of a floor of a block-sized Depression-era office building. It is possible to circumnavigate the office via a hall formed by the outer walls of the space and the borders of the cube honeycomb that fills the inside. The overhead look is that of a racetrack. In my dream, this was literal.
Many of the employees in our information-technology department are from India. They comprise a very small, if hardworking and talented, percentage of the total headcount. In my dream, however, fully a third of the company was Indian.
And they were running.
I came into the dream, as I usually do, in the middle of the plot. Every Indian employee in the company was running around the racetrack-like outer pathway of our office. Workers of both sexes and all ages were there, in Western business dress as well as Subcontinental garb, pacing just short of a sprint in a tight formation. I actually had to get out of their way as they barreled down the hall, and I stood on a desk at the edge of the cube farm as they passed, laughing and panting, their ID tags bouncing and flying at the ends of their lanyards.
I was evidently late to the show, because they made one more half-revolution around the office and then slowed down to a jog, and then to an exhausted, smiling halt. They spoke excitedly among themselves, and some of them were talking on cellphones to our other offices, confirming that the Indian employees there, too, had done the same thing. This made me try to remember whether this might have been an Indian or Hindu holiday, but I didn't have a copy of the Indian holiday list (which in real life we do have; we have outsourcing contracts and there's almost no correspondence between our holiday schedule and theirs). They eventually dispersed to their desks in small groups, still happy and chatting about the run.
So what the hell is up with that? Am I concerned that our Indian employees will run rings around us? Those folks in our office are in no danger of taking my job; we're in different departments. I did find a stapled PowerPoint printout in one of our conference rooms that detailed the capabilities of a Bangalore-based typesetting firm. My immediate boss said this didn't pose a threat to the newsletter crew, though, or at least as far as she had heard. Compared to some of the slackers in the other parts of my department, and especially in the department in which I started in this company, the Indian IT guys and women bust their asses. I never see them lingering except over their lunch, which they tend to bring from home (mmmm, curry).
Who knows. Perhaps I was using the original source of the juggernaut in a very literal sense. In a more Quagmire-esque vein, perhaps it's just a desire on my part to see one particular female Indian employee, who is proportioned with a generosity I have only ever seen in Nature one other time (Ratatosk, Fyrefly: think RV in Colorado), running with pulchritudinous gusto. But she didn't appear in the dream. And depressingly, my dreams tend not to be so explicitly lowbrow.
So that's my puzzle for the next few days. The broader question of why I am dreaming of friggin' work so often surely could be solved with a couple of 4-day autumn weekends. I have to say, that prescription's looking mighty tasty.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Finding Myself in My Car Trunk
MY HUNCH PROVED CORRECT, if a few weeks late. I dug into my trunk this evening upon returning from work, and lo and behold, I discovered my old work IDs and transit passes deep in its recesses. Moving the folding chair must have dragged out the PATH pass and exposed the rest to plain sight.
I wouldn't have even dreamed the passes could be my trunk! In trying to retrace my steps, I can't see any context in which I would place them there, short of being zipped up inside my work bag.
The PATH passes I can use, because they have many remaining rides still on them. The September 06 NJ Transit pass is good for the rest of the month — all of 2 days — but I bought a weekly pass already to replace the monthly, so it's superfluous. As for the work IDs, after more than 20 months, they're actually pretty beat up and faded, so I will surrender those at the office and rely on the new ones I had made up.
Next mission: not losing the replacement ones!!
I wouldn't have even dreamed the passes could be my trunk! In trying to retrace my steps, I can't see any context in which I would place them there, short of being zipped up inside my work bag.
The PATH passes I can use, because they have many remaining rides still on them. The September 06 NJ Transit pass is good for the rest of the month — all of 2 days — but I bought a weekly pass already to replace the monthly, so it's superfluous. As for the work IDs, after more than 20 months, they're actually pretty beat up and faded, so I will surrender those at the office and rely on the new ones I had made up.
Next mission: not losing the replacement ones!!
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Remembrance of Train Tickets Past
I TOOK A HALF day today to make the second of my yearly cleaning/checkup pilgrimages to the dentist. In recent years, these have uncovered no new problems, and this one fit the pattern. Both the hygienist and I agreed that visits as boring as mine are the best for all parties concerned.
My dentist's office is only a 10-minute walk away, which afforded me a luxurious stroll through the early-autumn afternoon. When I returned to the apartment, I retrieved a book from upstairs, bought some spicy tortilla chips from the Trader Joe's next door, and sat outside for an hour as the sun shined its late-afternoon rays on my neck. As I was folding up the beach chair to return it to my trunk, I noticed something very familiar amid the dead leaves next to my parking spot: a New Jersey PATH ticket. I didn't recall either taking anything out of my shorts pockets or even bringing any of my usual pocket crap downstairs with me, so I bent to retrieve what I assumed was a windblown, expired pass.
It was not expired. It was, in fact, the pass I lost as described here. My name and the promised reward for turning the pass in were on the back.
I retraced the past several days. Could this pass have been in this parking spot since I lost it earlier this month? Not likely. It has rained since that time, and the pass I was holding was intact. My actions during the week I lost it didn't seem to include any actions that would have gotten my transit passes and work IDs into my trunk, but perhaps I did it unconsciously. Perhaps, in pulling the lawn chair from beneath some crap in the trunk, I snagged the PATH pass and let it flutter into my parking space. Before I had a chance to dig through my trunk, however, I got an urgent call of nature (damn spicy chips), so I came back upstairs.
So now I have some archaeology to undertake. The loss of those tags has irked me since I posted about it, not for the money it cost to replace the transit passes as much as the sheer mindlessness that allowed the loss. Just knowing how I lost them would be key to avoiding such an error in the future. Already I am keeping my passes more secure: My building pass is tethered to my work bag with a lanyard, my office pass has a tag for shirt-pocket wear, and I keep the transit ones in an inner bag pocket unless I am using them. One loss in 7 years isn't so bad, though losing them all at once points to a fatal flaw in keeping them all in the same vulnerable place. No more of that. If I turn up anything interesting in the trunk, I'll bring you all up to speed. Should it turn out to be a chunk of a long-missing union boss, it might be some time.
My dentist's office is only a 10-minute walk away, which afforded me a luxurious stroll through the early-autumn afternoon. When I returned to the apartment, I retrieved a book from upstairs, bought some spicy tortilla chips from the Trader Joe's next door, and sat outside for an hour as the sun shined its late-afternoon rays on my neck. As I was folding up the beach chair to return it to my trunk, I noticed something very familiar amid the dead leaves next to my parking spot: a New Jersey PATH ticket. I didn't recall either taking anything out of my shorts pockets or even bringing any of my usual pocket crap downstairs with me, so I bent to retrieve what I assumed was a windblown, expired pass.
It was not expired. It was, in fact, the pass I lost as described here. My name and the promised reward for turning the pass in were on the back.
I retraced the past several days. Could this pass have been in this parking spot since I lost it earlier this month? Not likely. It has rained since that time, and the pass I was holding was intact. My actions during the week I lost it didn't seem to include any actions that would have gotten my transit passes and work IDs into my trunk, but perhaps I did it unconsciously. Perhaps, in pulling the lawn chair from beneath some crap in the trunk, I snagged the PATH pass and let it flutter into my parking space. Before I had a chance to dig through my trunk, however, I got an urgent call of nature (damn spicy chips), so I came back upstairs.
So now I have some archaeology to undertake. The loss of those tags has irked me since I posted about it, not for the money it cost to replace the transit passes as much as the sheer mindlessness that allowed the loss. Just knowing how I lost them would be key to avoiding such an error in the future. Already I am keeping my passes more secure: My building pass is tethered to my work bag with a lanyard, my office pass has a tag for shirt-pocket wear, and I keep the transit ones in an inner bag pocket unless I am using them. One loss in 7 years isn't so bad, though losing them all at once points to a fatal flaw in keeping them all in the same vulnerable place. No more of that. If I turn up anything interesting in the trunk, I'll bring you all up to speed. Should it turn out to be a chunk of a long-missing union boss, it might be some time.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Coffee, With Occasional Science
I SHUFFLE OVER TO the coolerator and scrounge a bottle of water. I pour it into the carafe of my coffeemaker. The lines denote the quantity as 5 cups. In my math, that's two mugs, with milk. That's my dose.
Coffee contains caffeine, an addictive alkaloid. Caffeine causes racing heartbeats and spreads jitters across the finer nerves. Caffeine is a stimulant and fosters weight loss. Caffeine has no ill long-term side effects. Caffeine is a crutch for those who shun sleep. Coffee is the axis around which home and office morning socializing turns. Coffee contains more than 100 mg of caffeine per cup. Few people drink what used to be considered a "cup," instead choosing double-dose ceramic or travel mugs. Coffee should be avoided. Coffee is harmless in moderation. Everyone should drink it. Nobody should.
From a Starbucks bag, I scoop 2 tablespoons of glossy brown beans into my grinder. The aroma wafting from the bag makes me salivate. Starbucks beans are fine as long as you don't get the extra-dark ones, as they tend to over-roast them. In particular, the straight coffee served at the stores often tastes burnt. I have also selected beans from Whole Foods, which are roasted daily and bear freshness dates.
Starbucks has become a shared space in many communities. Starbucks is an all-devouring corporate octopus whose tentacles drive local indie coffeehouses out of business. Starbucks creates a space where people can work, chat, or listen to music while enjoying an inexpensive and satisfying indulgence. Starbucks rivals Anheuser-Busch as one of the country's biggest legal drug pushers.
I press the grinder button and watch the beans disappear into a cloud of brown grit. I tap on the lid of the grinder with a spoon to keep the grounds from gathering therein. Grabbing the gold-plated basket from my coffeemaker, I delicately shake the grounds out. A swipe of the spoon clears any remaining grounds from the grinder. No stragglers are allowed.
Starbucks partners with local coffee growers across the globe to forge fair-trade agreements that justly compensate impoverished agricultural regions. Starbucks could bankrupt wide swaths of the developing world merely by ceasing to buy that area's beans for a single season. Starbucks is evil. Starbucks is a corporation and has no emotions. Starbucks employs tens of thousands across the world. These are McJobs in green aprons.
I pour the water into the maker's reservoir and click on the power. The machine burbles for a second, then begins to cycle the water through the basketful of grounds. While I retrieve sugar and soy milk, the kitchen fills with that familiar, rich scent. Ask the average person what smells remind him or her of breakfast, and you're most liable to get "coffee" and "bacon" as your responses. Both can lure you from a deep sleep and into the dining room like a smoke hand from a Warner Bros. cartoon.
Sugar is safe when used in moderation. Sugar is an insidious additive to more foods than most folks realize. One teaspoon of sugar contains 16 calories. Sugar contains little else than calories and should be shunned. Sugar in soft drinks and other sweet foods has largely been displaced by high fructose corn syrup. Sugar is still abused by, among others, coffee drinkers, who typically pour 2 or more packets into their joe. Sugar in low doses amid a balanced diet is harmless. A balanced diet requires nothing that sugar provides: calories, withdrawal symptoms when denied, and greater vulnerability to metabolic syndrome and diabetes.
A soft click from the coffeemaker alerts me that the brew is complete. The mere thought of the coffee brewing has awakened me from my post-sleep languor. I scoop the last of my Sugar in the Raw into the mug, follow it with about half of the coffee in the carafe, and lighten it with a stiff shot of soy milk.
Soy has backboned the Asian diet for millennia. Much commercially available soy is now genetically modified. Organic soy can be found easily and is a staple of a healthy vegetarian diet. Soy is rich with phytochemicals and healthy fats that fight cancer and promote heart health. Soy estrogens grow bosoms on me. Soy estrogens are plant based and leave men flat chested. Omega-3 fatty acids in soy are less effective than those from fish in fostering proper serum fat levels. Eating protein and fat from soy is, pound for pound, healthier than eating the same amount in animal protein.
I sink into the warm mug of coffee and pull a deep draught. Science slides away, unneeded in this quiet weekend moment.
Coffee contains caffeine, an addictive alkaloid. Caffeine causes racing heartbeats and spreads jitters across the finer nerves. Caffeine is a stimulant and fosters weight loss. Caffeine has no ill long-term side effects. Caffeine is a crutch for those who shun sleep. Coffee is the axis around which home and office morning socializing turns. Coffee contains more than 100 mg of caffeine per cup. Few people drink what used to be considered a "cup," instead choosing double-dose ceramic or travel mugs. Coffee should be avoided. Coffee is harmless in moderation. Everyone should drink it. Nobody should.
From a Starbucks bag, I scoop 2 tablespoons of glossy brown beans into my grinder. The aroma wafting from the bag makes me salivate. Starbucks beans are fine as long as you don't get the extra-dark ones, as they tend to over-roast them. In particular, the straight coffee served at the stores often tastes burnt. I have also selected beans from Whole Foods, which are roasted daily and bear freshness dates.
Starbucks has become a shared space in many communities. Starbucks is an all-devouring corporate octopus whose tentacles drive local indie coffeehouses out of business. Starbucks creates a space where people can work, chat, or listen to music while enjoying an inexpensive and satisfying indulgence. Starbucks rivals Anheuser-Busch as one of the country's biggest legal drug pushers.
I press the grinder button and watch the beans disappear into a cloud of brown grit. I tap on the lid of the grinder with a spoon to keep the grounds from gathering therein. Grabbing the gold-plated basket from my coffeemaker, I delicately shake the grounds out. A swipe of the spoon clears any remaining grounds from the grinder. No stragglers are allowed.
Starbucks partners with local coffee growers across the globe to forge fair-trade agreements that justly compensate impoverished agricultural regions. Starbucks could bankrupt wide swaths of the developing world merely by ceasing to buy that area's beans for a single season. Starbucks is evil. Starbucks is a corporation and has no emotions. Starbucks employs tens of thousands across the world. These are McJobs in green aprons.
I pour the water into the maker's reservoir and click on the power. The machine burbles for a second, then begins to cycle the water through the basketful of grounds. While I retrieve sugar and soy milk, the kitchen fills with that familiar, rich scent. Ask the average person what smells remind him or her of breakfast, and you're most liable to get "coffee" and "bacon" as your responses. Both can lure you from a deep sleep and into the dining room like a smoke hand from a Warner Bros. cartoon.
Sugar is safe when used in moderation. Sugar is an insidious additive to more foods than most folks realize. One teaspoon of sugar contains 16 calories. Sugar contains little else than calories and should be shunned. Sugar in soft drinks and other sweet foods has largely been displaced by high fructose corn syrup. Sugar is still abused by, among others, coffee drinkers, who typically pour 2 or more packets into their joe. Sugar in low doses amid a balanced diet is harmless. A balanced diet requires nothing that sugar provides: calories, withdrawal symptoms when denied, and greater vulnerability to metabolic syndrome and diabetes.
A soft click from the coffeemaker alerts me that the brew is complete. The mere thought of the coffee brewing has awakened me from my post-sleep languor. I scoop the last of my Sugar in the Raw into the mug, follow it with about half of the coffee in the carafe, and lighten it with a stiff shot of soy milk.
Soy has backboned the Asian diet for millennia. Much commercially available soy is now genetically modified. Organic soy can be found easily and is a staple of a healthy vegetarian diet. Soy is rich with phytochemicals and healthy fats that fight cancer and promote heart health. Soy estrogens grow bosoms on me. Soy estrogens are plant based and leave men flat chested. Omega-3 fatty acids in soy are less effective than those from fish in fostering proper serum fat levels. Eating protein and fat from soy is, pound for pound, healthier than eating the same amount in animal protein.
I sink into the warm mug of coffee and pull a deep draught. Science slides away, unneeded in this quiet weekend moment.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Straight Downhill From Monday
MOST PEOPLE LOOK FORWARD to every day that follows a Monday. So far, this week, I've been looking back to Monday nostalgically.
I had a trip planned to visit my parents in Wildwood Crest on Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday was therefore best spent in deep labor to clear the decks. I did this with gusto. I managed to lay out and send to their editors three sets of proofs, leaving my inbox entirely clear. I like leaving as few loose ends for my coworkers as possible, especially in this case for my immediate supervisor, who was still recovering from the pile of work she accumulated during her extended Labor Day vacation.
I got home in good time and watched the Manning Bowl with some ice cream. My departure time on Tuesday was after the morning rush, so I didn't need to awaken as early as usual. I rode out the slow unwinding of the Giants until late in the fourth quarter, then hit the hay.
The next morning, I hit the gym for a leisurely workout and 30 minutes on the treadmill, packed what few items I would need for an overnight stay, got my Atlantic City casino cards and some of my bankroll ready, gassed up on the newly cheap petrol now available in the area, and got rolling down the Garden State Parkway.
It was around Exit 74 that it dawned on me that I had brought neither contact lenses for Wednesday nor my glasses. To my credit, I merely issued an "Uh-oh" and kept driving. What could I do? To turn around at that point would shift my arrival time toward 5 or 6 in the afternoon, and possibly enmesh me in whatever commuting snarl develops on the lower half of the Parkway. I decided to visit whatever drugstore I could find, buy contact solution and a case in which I could store the lenses I was now wearing, and hope for the best.
This forced me to consider scratching my poker trip on Wednesday afternoon. My original plan was to leave Wildwood Crest around 2:00 or 3:00, get seated at the Borgata or Tropicana poker room, play for a few hours, eat, then head home after the evening rush. Now, with only one set of lenses to last me 2 days (I wear daily disposable contacts), I couldn't take the chance that ambient smoke, protein buildups, or allergies might make them unusable by the time I hit the road after gambling. So I was now leaning toward an early Wednesday departure. Vexing but not fatal.
When I drove over the bridge between the Jersey mainland and the Wildwoods, I splashed through a giant puddle outside a gas station. I noticed, when I stopped at a drugstore to get my eye supplies, that the drying water was leaving a schmutzy residue all over my car. Fearing that this was some sort of fucked-up petro-acid that would eat my finish, I found a car wash and got the basics. (You can see this was becoming an expensive overnight trip already!)
I finally got to my parents' motel by, oddly enough, my predicted time of 3:00, despite all the delays. This was the same place they stayed when I made this post around a year ago, and the gorgeous blue skies and sea wind were calming and helped me unwind from the minor hassles I had faced to get there.
But they weren't done yet. Dinner was, unfortunately, better for the company than for the fare. We went to an Italian place that claimed a multi-decade heritage in the area. I have to say it was among the worst Italian food I have ever had. I got eggplant parmigiana with meatballs. The sauce was made with whole tomatoes and chopped onions, which I spent much of the meal extracting from the layers of eggplant, and the meatballs were garlicky and also floating in the same sauce. I use no onions in my sauce aside from any caramelized ones might have clung to the meatballs, and I have a very low tolerance for garlic aside from the salt one might use on garlic bread. The eggplant itself was only partly done. I gave no indication to my parents of how little I thought of this favorite destination of theirs, but I will lobby against it next time I go down there.
Bedtime followed soon after we returned to the motel. I have had mixed results with the fold-out beds in this property. Up until last year, I had no problem with the mattress. In 2005, however, I woke up sore and stiff from where the bars of the couch had poked me. I got the bed unfolded, gingerly placed my contacts in the solution-filled storage gadget I had bought, and dropped off to sleep.
My cellphone alarm woke me up at 6:00 a.m. Immediately I knew something was wrong. The room was spinning. I knew it was the vertigo. In rolling to turn off the alarm, I nearly tumbled out of bed. Moving in itself was a stiff, awkward endeavor. When I got up to hit the john, I found myself veering to the right, walking into the wall twice. The vertigo seemed centered on that side. Hoping my parents wouldn't see me in this debilitated state, I took care of business, then wheeled back to the bed. I could feel the room whirling even as I sat there. Had I contorted myself into some imbalance-inducing position due to this shitty sofa bed? No way to determine. I had told my parents, when they brought up my coming down for a visit, that I would have preferred to stay in Atlantic City or somewhere along the highways leading to it, to avoid the beaten-with-soap feeling I got the last time I subjected myself to that sort of abuse. But they encouraged me to try it again, because they had a different room booked this time, and the motel had done extensive renovations that might have eliminated the poorer couches.
None of this was helping me now. I gave the exercises I had done in November a try — what else could I do? — and went back to sleep for another hour and a half.
Upon awakening, I noticed the symptoms had diminished but not entirely disappeared. I walked to the bathroom again — this time without colliding with the walls — and successfully inserted my lenses. No real problem seeing through them or tolerating them in my eyes. Had I slept with them in, I would be clawing at my sockets at this point, so I was happy to have taken some time to grab the supplies.
With the added attraction of the vertigo, however, I decided finally to rule out the poker trip. I did actually stop at the Borgata on the way home to marvel at its expanded, enormous poker room, but in an act of discipline and self-interest that would boggle some of the more impulsive members of my poker circle, I threw not a single chip in anger. This joint would be open when next I returned, rested, fully supplied, and intact in body.
Breakfast with my dad (my mom was still stacking zzzz's, having slept fitfully due to painful sciatica) went well, as did the hour or so I spent with both parents before my departure. I wished silently that I had had the motel's French toast for dinner the previous night instead of the subpar Italian grub. I made my goodbyes and headed home without incident or delay. My contacts held firm through an end-of-journey pit stop at Paramus Park and Barnes & Noble, and I finally extracted these journeyman slivers of plastic upon reaching my apartment. It's good to see that, if all else fails, this plan is viable and I won't go blind as a result.
Thursday had another gentle surprise for me. While getting my ass in gear for work this morning, I could not find my transit passes or my work IDs. I have two of each. Normally I keep them in my work bag when I am home, and in my pants or shirt pocket while at work. After 20 minutes of increasingly frantic searching, I came to the possible conclusion that I left them in one of the shirts I brought to the dry cleaners on Tuesday before heading south. I had written my phone number on the back of the transit passes, along with reward promises, but when I called the cleaners this morning they reported no returned items of that nature. They also said, however, that items identifiable as belonging to a specific customer would return attached to the order, so I might have a shot at retrieving them when the job came back. As of this evening, however, they are not back, so I will have to wait until Saturday to determine if I need to dig deep for a new round of ID and passes.
Cutting short a vacation because of visual and balance issues is one thing, irritating (if, in the first case, self inflicted) but not damaging. The first was resolvable upon return home, and the second was shown in the past to fade with time and the exercises I did during the 2005 incident. I was not eager to lay out more cash for new transit passes. Granted, I could buy shorter-term passes and not be on the hook for a full month's worth, but still, it's cash I would much rather save for the future. Paying the reward I had posted on the original passes (I figured I needed to give the finder an incentive not to use them or sell them) would set me back $30, still less than what new passes will cost. So I am very much rooting for a nice surprise this coming Saturday.
Ultimately, however, these are minor issues. I still have my overall health. No lives were lost, nor were more important IDs, like my driver's license, or a credit card. It took me 7 years of travel in and out of the city to lose any of the passes I use on NJ Transit or to get into the office. Most folks lose at least one MetroCard every couple of years. If after 3 years of eating in a college commissary didn't steel me to the occasional shitty meal, then I've clearly been very sheltered. I did get to see my parents and the shore. I fully realize that having these as my biggest problems is a vain boast in light of the grinding poverty, rampant disease, and grievous social injustice facing millions of people across the world. It's just having these things happen one after another without pause that gets to be a drag. I did pull myself out of the morass of negativity over the course of the evening, though, and writing about it has helped vent it. With any luck, I can make this Friday much brighter, address the result of the lost ID/passes this Saturday one way or the other, welcome my parents home from the shore, and enjoy their irreplaceable selves on Sunday for dinner. I have a ton of good in my life, and I can take lessons and survive these bumps in the road.
I had a trip planned to visit my parents in Wildwood Crest on Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday was therefore best spent in deep labor to clear the decks. I did this with gusto. I managed to lay out and send to their editors three sets of proofs, leaving my inbox entirely clear. I like leaving as few loose ends for my coworkers as possible, especially in this case for my immediate supervisor, who was still recovering from the pile of work she accumulated during her extended Labor Day vacation.
I got home in good time and watched the Manning Bowl with some ice cream. My departure time on Tuesday was after the morning rush, so I didn't need to awaken as early as usual. I rode out the slow unwinding of the Giants until late in the fourth quarter, then hit the hay.
The next morning, I hit the gym for a leisurely workout and 30 minutes on the treadmill, packed what few items I would need for an overnight stay, got my Atlantic City casino cards and some of my bankroll ready, gassed up on the newly cheap petrol now available in the area, and got rolling down the Garden State Parkway.
It was around Exit 74 that it dawned on me that I had brought neither contact lenses for Wednesday nor my glasses. To my credit, I merely issued an "Uh-oh" and kept driving. What could I do? To turn around at that point would shift my arrival time toward 5 or 6 in the afternoon, and possibly enmesh me in whatever commuting snarl develops on the lower half of the Parkway. I decided to visit whatever drugstore I could find, buy contact solution and a case in which I could store the lenses I was now wearing, and hope for the best.
This forced me to consider scratching my poker trip on Wednesday afternoon. My original plan was to leave Wildwood Crest around 2:00 or 3:00, get seated at the Borgata or Tropicana poker room, play for a few hours, eat, then head home after the evening rush. Now, with only one set of lenses to last me 2 days (I wear daily disposable contacts), I couldn't take the chance that ambient smoke, protein buildups, or allergies might make them unusable by the time I hit the road after gambling. So I was now leaning toward an early Wednesday departure. Vexing but not fatal.
When I drove over the bridge between the Jersey mainland and the Wildwoods, I splashed through a giant puddle outside a gas station. I noticed, when I stopped at a drugstore to get my eye supplies, that the drying water was leaving a schmutzy residue all over my car. Fearing that this was some sort of fucked-up petro-acid that would eat my finish, I found a car wash and got the basics. (You can see this was becoming an expensive overnight trip already!)
I finally got to my parents' motel by, oddly enough, my predicted time of 3:00, despite all the delays. This was the same place they stayed when I made this post around a year ago, and the gorgeous blue skies and sea wind were calming and helped me unwind from the minor hassles I had faced to get there.
But they weren't done yet. Dinner was, unfortunately, better for the company than for the fare. We went to an Italian place that claimed a multi-decade heritage in the area. I have to say it was among the worst Italian food I have ever had. I got eggplant parmigiana with meatballs. The sauce was made with whole tomatoes and chopped onions, which I spent much of the meal extracting from the layers of eggplant, and the meatballs were garlicky and also floating in the same sauce. I use no onions in my sauce aside from any caramelized ones might have clung to the meatballs, and I have a very low tolerance for garlic aside from the salt one might use on garlic bread. The eggplant itself was only partly done. I gave no indication to my parents of how little I thought of this favorite destination of theirs, but I will lobby against it next time I go down there.
Bedtime followed soon after we returned to the motel. I have had mixed results with the fold-out beds in this property. Up until last year, I had no problem with the mattress. In 2005, however, I woke up sore and stiff from where the bars of the couch had poked me. I got the bed unfolded, gingerly placed my contacts in the solution-filled storage gadget I had bought, and dropped off to sleep.
My cellphone alarm woke me up at 6:00 a.m. Immediately I knew something was wrong. The room was spinning. I knew it was the vertigo. In rolling to turn off the alarm, I nearly tumbled out of bed. Moving in itself was a stiff, awkward endeavor. When I got up to hit the john, I found myself veering to the right, walking into the wall twice. The vertigo seemed centered on that side. Hoping my parents wouldn't see me in this debilitated state, I took care of business, then wheeled back to the bed. I could feel the room whirling even as I sat there. Had I contorted myself into some imbalance-inducing position due to this shitty sofa bed? No way to determine. I had told my parents, when they brought up my coming down for a visit, that I would have preferred to stay in Atlantic City or somewhere along the highways leading to it, to avoid the beaten-with-soap feeling I got the last time I subjected myself to that sort of abuse. But they encouraged me to try it again, because they had a different room booked this time, and the motel had done extensive renovations that might have eliminated the poorer couches.
None of this was helping me now. I gave the exercises I had done in November a try — what else could I do? — and went back to sleep for another hour and a half.
Upon awakening, I noticed the symptoms had diminished but not entirely disappeared. I walked to the bathroom again — this time without colliding with the walls — and successfully inserted my lenses. No real problem seeing through them or tolerating them in my eyes. Had I slept with them in, I would be clawing at my sockets at this point, so I was happy to have taken some time to grab the supplies.
With the added attraction of the vertigo, however, I decided finally to rule out the poker trip. I did actually stop at the Borgata on the way home to marvel at its expanded, enormous poker room, but in an act of discipline and self-interest that would boggle some of the more impulsive members of my poker circle, I threw not a single chip in anger. This joint would be open when next I returned, rested, fully supplied, and intact in body.
Breakfast with my dad (my mom was still stacking zzzz's, having slept fitfully due to painful sciatica) went well, as did the hour or so I spent with both parents before my departure. I wished silently that I had had the motel's French toast for dinner the previous night instead of the subpar Italian grub. I made my goodbyes and headed home without incident or delay. My contacts held firm through an end-of-journey pit stop at Paramus Park and Barnes & Noble, and I finally extracted these journeyman slivers of plastic upon reaching my apartment. It's good to see that, if all else fails, this plan is viable and I won't go blind as a result.
Thursday had another gentle surprise for me. While getting my ass in gear for work this morning, I could not find my transit passes or my work IDs. I have two of each. Normally I keep them in my work bag when I am home, and in my pants or shirt pocket while at work. After 20 minutes of increasingly frantic searching, I came to the possible conclusion that I left them in one of the shirts I brought to the dry cleaners on Tuesday before heading south. I had written my phone number on the back of the transit passes, along with reward promises, but when I called the cleaners this morning they reported no returned items of that nature. They also said, however, that items identifiable as belonging to a specific customer would return attached to the order, so I might have a shot at retrieving them when the job came back. As of this evening, however, they are not back, so I will have to wait until Saturday to determine if I need to dig deep for a new round of ID and passes.
Cutting short a vacation because of visual and balance issues is one thing, irritating (if, in the first case, self inflicted) but not damaging. The first was resolvable upon return home, and the second was shown in the past to fade with time and the exercises I did during the 2005 incident. I was not eager to lay out more cash for new transit passes. Granted, I could buy shorter-term passes and not be on the hook for a full month's worth, but still, it's cash I would much rather save for the future. Paying the reward I had posted on the original passes (I figured I needed to give the finder an incentive not to use them or sell them) would set me back $30, still less than what new passes will cost. So I am very much rooting for a nice surprise this coming Saturday.
Ultimately, however, these are minor issues. I still have my overall health. No lives were lost, nor were more important IDs, like my driver's license, or a credit card. It took me 7 years of travel in and out of the city to lose any of the passes I use on NJ Transit or to get into the office. Most folks lose at least one MetroCard every couple of years. If after 3 years of eating in a college commissary didn't steel me to the occasional shitty meal, then I've clearly been very sheltered. I did get to see my parents and the shore. I fully realize that having these as my biggest problems is a vain boast in light of the grinding poverty, rampant disease, and grievous social injustice facing millions of people across the world. It's just having these things happen one after another without pause that gets to be a drag. I did pull myself out of the morass of negativity over the course of the evening, though, and writing about it has helped vent it. With any luck, I can make this Friday much brighter, address the result of the lost ID/passes this Saturday one way or the other, welcome my parents home from the shore, and enjoy their irreplaceable selves on Sunday for dinner. I have a ton of good in my life, and I can take lessons and survive these bumps in the road.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Money Gathers Deepest in Patient Hands
AS I SUSPECTED YESTERDAY, I received a call from the Maywood host, Danny, asking if I was entirely sure I wasn't going to play tonight. From having put this game together originally, I suspect I could show up at random and a place at the table would open up. But I'd never impose like that. Danny's had to fend off drop-ins in the past, and because he is a tremendously giving guy, he finds it tough to say no. Plus I know how tough it can be to fill a table up, above and beyond the erosion of dropouts. So I told him I would be there, which made him very happy.
It turns out that a seat opened up tonight because just such a drop-in actually dropped out this time. S. is a young guy who got into the game through one of the current players. Apart from a job waiting tables at a south Bergen sushi buffet, he seems to have only one other source of income: poker. The problem is that his play is wildly inconsistent, to the point where his initials might as well be ATM.
S. is what we call a maniac in poker. He bets wildly with marginal hands, bluffs with nothing, and on occasion hits big hands in huge pots with this crap. This slows some folks down from calling his bets when the board cards suggest an unlikely, yet massive hand. He knows he has this rep and tries to push it as much as he can.
People took a while to realize this about S., and he put a number of our steadier players on bad tilt when they had solid hands go down in flames to S.'s unlikely inside straights or rivered flushes. When S. gets away with a bluff, he has a tendency to rub it in by showing it, which drove these solid players nuts. Some of them then bet heavily against S. with a vulnerable hand like top pair with an Ace kicker, and get their asses sliced and diced when S. shows down a legitimately good hand and pulls in a huge pot. This led one guy to threaten S. and another to storm out of the game in a fury.
This is wrong. Never antagonize a poor player. Any losses to a fish like S. have to be perceived as loans, temporary displacements of money that diligence may win back. If you continually allow shitty players to force you to play anything less than your top game, you will keep losing not only to them, but to other, more perceptive players who see you going on tilt. I have four 3 × 5s on my wall, above my computer, where I could see them while playing on Full Tilt Poker. The one most pertinent to my point here said, "Shitty opponents do not justify shitty play on your part!" You might widen your range of starting hands, you might play draws differently, but you must still do both optimally and dump hands with no future when your odds of success disappear.
One of my greatest virtues is patience. I have lost two large pots to S. because he had poor hands hit on the river. It;s frustrating. I didn't waste my time or breath yelling at him. I gritted my teeth, rebought, and sat back to look for an opportunity to take a big hand up against him. My records show me that this worked. In one instance, I was dealt 22 in the hole. I was in early position, so I merely called. S., who was to my left, raised it, as he often was doing, and he got a couple of calls, including mine. The flop had a 2 on it. I checked, he bet at least half the pot, and everyone folded except me. I flat-called with the expectation of betting the size off the pot with any non-coordinated turn card.
Well, the turn was in fact coordinated, being the fourth 2. Figuring I was going to get a bluff bet either here or on the river, I checked. S. instead went all in for a significant amount. I called and smiled as I turned up the quad 2s. With the mortal nuts, I took a $235 profit home that night, a record for me in that game and a massive win on a single $50 buy-in. An extreme example, perhaps, of what patience can get you, but long term I will lose less from my discipline than S. will from what he probably still thinks is a winning strategy of recklessness and legendary suckouts.
So I have to admit, though I'm happy to play tonight, I do hope Danny will get an 11th-hour call from S. asking to sit in as well. As Danny puts it, "Your money is always good here!" Good in the game; better in my bankroll.
It turns out that a seat opened up tonight because just such a drop-in actually dropped out this time. S. is a young guy who got into the game through one of the current players. Apart from a job waiting tables at a south Bergen sushi buffet, he seems to have only one other source of income: poker. The problem is that his play is wildly inconsistent, to the point where his initials might as well be ATM.
S. is what we call a maniac in poker. He bets wildly with marginal hands, bluffs with nothing, and on occasion hits big hands in huge pots with this crap. This slows some folks down from calling his bets when the board cards suggest an unlikely, yet massive hand. He knows he has this rep and tries to push it as much as he can.
People took a while to realize this about S., and he put a number of our steadier players on bad tilt when they had solid hands go down in flames to S.'s unlikely inside straights or rivered flushes. When S. gets away with a bluff, he has a tendency to rub it in by showing it, which drove these solid players nuts. Some of them then bet heavily against S. with a vulnerable hand like top pair with an Ace kicker, and get their asses sliced and diced when S. shows down a legitimately good hand and pulls in a huge pot. This led one guy to threaten S. and another to storm out of the game in a fury.
This is wrong. Never antagonize a poor player. Any losses to a fish like S. have to be perceived as loans, temporary displacements of money that diligence may win back. If you continually allow shitty players to force you to play anything less than your top game, you will keep losing not only to them, but to other, more perceptive players who see you going on tilt. I have four 3 × 5s on my wall, above my computer, where I could see them while playing on Full Tilt Poker. The one most pertinent to my point here said, "Shitty opponents do not justify shitty play on your part!" You might widen your range of starting hands, you might play draws differently, but you must still do both optimally and dump hands with no future when your odds of success disappear.
One of my greatest virtues is patience. I have lost two large pots to S. because he had poor hands hit on the river. It;s frustrating. I didn't waste my time or breath yelling at him. I gritted my teeth, rebought, and sat back to look for an opportunity to take a big hand up against him. My records show me that this worked. In one instance, I was dealt 22 in the hole. I was in early position, so I merely called. S., who was to my left, raised it, as he often was doing, and he got a couple of calls, including mine. The flop had a 2 on it. I checked, he bet at least half the pot, and everyone folded except me. I flat-called with the expectation of betting the size off the pot with any non-coordinated turn card.
Well, the turn was in fact coordinated, being the fourth 2. Figuring I was going to get a bluff bet either here or on the river, I checked. S. instead went all in for a significant amount. I called and smiled as I turned up the quad 2s. With the mortal nuts, I took a $235 profit home that night, a record for me in that game and a massive win on a single $50 buy-in. An extreme example, perhaps, of what patience can get you, but long term I will lose less from my discipline than S. will from what he probably still thinks is a winning strategy of recklessness and legendary suckouts.
So I have to admit, though I'm happy to play tonight, I do hope Danny will get an 11th-hour call from S. asking to sit in as well. As Danny puts it, "Your money is always good here!" Good in the game; better in my bankroll.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Schizohedron Bullet Points! for 9/6/06
- BUGGED WHILE AT WORK: Now I know my peripheral vision is working well. While typing away at the thinkbox, I noticed a stirring out of the corner of my right eye. A full-on look confirmed the dreadful, initial assessment: A roach was walking across my desk. I bisected it with the edge of a pint Chinese-food container — the first item at hand I could afford to discard — and, dying bug twitching its last between the plastic rim and the September 3rd box on my desk calendar, I called HR to inform them of the infestation. Their speculation: Recent construction on the floors above and below us stirred up vermin. I'd prefer the mice we had in the office during the first few weeks of occupancy. Four legs good; six legs bad.
- THEY'RE CUBES, NOT CELLS: Anyone see the Family Guy movie? I believe it was rerun Sunday night. The depiction of pathetic future-Stewie as a dead-end employee of some Best Buy/Staples amalgam called to mind how much I despise Dilbert. The interaction between older Stewie and his female coworker had the same rhetoric of job-as-prison and boss-as-evil-overlord as the crew in Dilbert does. What always goes unsaid in Dilbert, as a friend of mine once pointed out, is that all of these workers could quit, flee this job that is damaging their spirits, and find fulfillment in another position. Are they really all so incompetent that the anonymous company in the strip is the only organization clueless enough to employ them? More important, is this an example a real-life worker should follow? As office rebellion goes, Dilbert is about as subversive as the Elks. My first boss at my current company had walls festooned with Dilbert comics and gear. Had my current department not poached me, I would have quit within a year. Should you walk into an interview with that sort of cube art, just consider it practice, leave a fake phone number, and run.
- EIGHTEEN IS TOO OLD: The season premiere of The Simpsons is coming up this weekend, surprisingly avoiding its usual fate of relegation to November by Major League Baseball. If only I cared. The past three seasons of the show have been lackluster. Both Family Guy and the dearly departed Arrested Development routinely trounced the episodes of The Simpsons that preceded them. This season opener is playing the guest-star card, snaring the voice talents of Michael Imperioli and Joe Pantoliano for an ep in which Homer joins the Mafia. Good to see they're getting on the Sopranos bandwagon so promptly. I'm sure we'll see an ep in which Lisa becomes a pro at no-limit Texas hold'em real soon. At this rate, I don't know what original killer material they would consider holding out for the upcoming Simpsons movie. Time for FOX to tell this 18-year-old to move out of the house. I'll instead spend the evening preparing to watch the Duel of the Mannings in the Giants–Colts game, quite possibly with barbecue at my parents' house once they decamp to the shore. And on that point . . .
- EAST-COAST CASINO BINGE: The current plan is to go with, at minimum, Steve and Felix to Foxwoods this coming Saturday, then on Tuesday, to visit my parents in Wildwood Crest, stopping at some unsuspecting Atlantic City venue on one leg of the journey, So I'll have the chance to play poker twice in five days, in casinos no less. Were I not on a better-sleep kick, I would have taken the host of the Maywood venue up on his offer to host the game tomorrow. As of this evening, he reported to me that he is light on players, so maybe I'll end up going down there and hitting a poker trifecta over the next several days. On the other hand, I can't win a couple of extra hours of sleep in any of these games, and if the sleeper sofa down the shore is anything like the one I dropped my bones onto last time, I'll spend the night flipping around like a salmon in a bear's mouth and arise with a mighty hump.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Wind Whispering Autumn in My Ear
OUTSIDE, IT'S WHAT MOST Labor Day planners would call a miserable day. Intermittent rain, driven by stiff wind from Tropical Fugue State Ernesto, with cool air and whited-out cloudy skies over all.
I couldn't be happier.
With each passing September day, the dead heat of summer heads further toward the horizon. I will be able to take long morning walks without dehydration and long evening walks without being a mosquito snack bar. I will be able to sleep deeply, with the windows open, and not piss away nearly $100/month blasting my Korean War–era air conditioner.
I feel some sympathy for those who had been planning cookouts, reunions, beach outings, or sun-drench drinkfests today. As a New Jersey resident, I am especially conscious of how a summer with ill weather can dent our state economy due to reduced beach patronage. And I do have to grant that August, of all months, actually offered up some comfortable and gorgeous days in its latter half.
We will be treated to more such days, however, as September unfolds. Between today's gloomy Hamlet of a day and the punishing humidity and heat we suffered earlier in August, the sweet spot lies. Were it not for this little quirk I have of needing to work for a steady income, I would curl up in that sweet spot every day from nippy morning through slanting sunset.
For now, however, I am taking advantage of the crummy day by shedding some paper clutter, transferring my poker records from Word to Excel, and otherwise maximizing the chance to be inside. I have the benefit of Monday's holiday to accomplish more outside-based chores when the weather is rumored to improve. I also avoided the temptations of crappy mall food and cooked myself a bowl of whole wheat penne with fresh broccoli, topped with ground pepper and a spoon of extra-virgin olive oil. With the potential for some boardgaming mayhem tonight — which is traditionally accompanied by some meat-topped pizza to get the killer instinct flowing — and a siege of Chinese food coming tomorrow, I want to notch a couple of decent, healthful meals while I have the chance. Eventually I will venture forth to the gym, which I will follow with a fruit/protein smoothie, another checkmark on the side of nutrition.
In all, I am taking this day at a lazy pace and enjoying not being on demand for job or heavy chores. The cool air and grey skies are, for me, a catalyst to all of this rather than a limit.
I couldn't be happier.
With each passing September day, the dead heat of summer heads further toward the horizon. I will be able to take long morning walks without dehydration and long evening walks without being a mosquito snack bar. I will be able to sleep deeply, with the windows open, and not piss away nearly $100/month blasting my Korean War–era air conditioner.
I feel some sympathy for those who had been planning cookouts, reunions, beach outings, or sun-drench drinkfests today. As a New Jersey resident, I am especially conscious of how a summer with ill weather can dent our state economy due to reduced beach patronage. And I do have to grant that August, of all months, actually offered up some comfortable and gorgeous days in its latter half.
We will be treated to more such days, however, as September unfolds. Between today's gloomy Hamlet of a day and the punishing humidity and heat we suffered earlier in August, the sweet spot lies. Were it not for this little quirk I have of needing to work for a steady income, I would curl up in that sweet spot every day from nippy morning through slanting sunset.
For now, however, I am taking advantage of the crummy day by shedding some paper clutter, transferring my poker records from Word to Excel, and otherwise maximizing the chance to be inside. I have the benefit of Monday's holiday to accomplish more outside-based chores when the weather is rumored to improve. I also avoided the temptations of crappy mall food and cooked myself a bowl of whole wheat penne with fresh broccoli, topped with ground pepper and a spoon of extra-virgin olive oil. With the potential for some boardgaming mayhem tonight — which is traditionally accompanied by some meat-topped pizza to get the killer instinct flowing — and a siege of Chinese food coming tomorrow, I want to notch a couple of decent, healthful meals while I have the chance. Eventually I will venture forth to the gym, which I will follow with a fruit/protein smoothie, another checkmark on the side of nutrition.
In all, I am taking this day at a lazy pace and enjoying not being on demand for job or heavy chores. The cool air and grey skies are, for me, a catalyst to all of this rather than a limit.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Motherfuckin' Snakes on a Motherfuckin' Plane
YOU WANT TO HAVE yourself some real fun? You miss the days when film distributors would shamelessly book grade-Z films for drive-ins and third-string suburban screens so kids could go and have a blast with an R-rated exploitation fest? Go out and see Snakes on a Plane before it slithers out of the theaters.
I just got back from a showing at my town cinema with the gang, including the new girlfriend of one of them, whom I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time tonight. The movie theater itself was a subdivision of a sector of a slice of what was once a single-screen house. This lent the room an intimacy that accentuated the feeling of this all being an in-joke, a flick that, though made with some gravitas as a horror film, was swiftly overtaken by the pop-culture hype that grew up around it.
I needn't rehash that whole saga. I will merely say that the film pulls in the standard set pieces of both horror and disaster movies, and delivers exactly what it promises: crazed, kill-happy snakes on a plane. Innocents will die, as will unrepentant assholes. And through it all, with constant cool and growing exasperation, Samuel L. Jackson will walk the path of the righteous man.
My throat was sore from laughing my ass off, sometimes at it, sometimes with it. With shitty movies arriving by the shovel-load every week from the Hollywood crap factory, I am an infrequent moviegoer. But this I had to see in the theater, along with fellow lunatics, in the midst of a crowd that was in on the joke. At least some of the younger folks there were of a like mind. The forked tongue of this film was, much of the time, in cheek.
So if you know a bunch of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans, get them drunk, make your way out to that little theater where you'd never dream of seeing the $150 million special-effect lightshows, shut off your brain's disbelief centers, and see this batshit-zany film.
I just got back from a showing at my town cinema with the gang, including the new girlfriend of one of them, whom I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time tonight. The movie theater itself was a subdivision of a sector of a slice of what was once a single-screen house. This lent the room an intimacy that accentuated the feeling of this all being an in-joke, a flick that, though made with some gravitas as a horror film, was swiftly overtaken by the pop-culture hype that grew up around it.
I needn't rehash that whole saga. I will merely say that the film pulls in the standard set pieces of both horror and disaster movies, and delivers exactly what it promises: crazed, kill-happy snakes on a plane. Innocents will die, as will unrepentant assholes. And through it all, with constant cool and growing exasperation, Samuel L. Jackson will walk the path of the righteous man.
My throat was sore from laughing my ass off, sometimes at it, sometimes with it. With shitty movies arriving by the shovel-load every week from the Hollywood crap factory, I am an infrequent moviegoer. But this I had to see in the theater, along with fellow lunatics, in the midst of a crowd that was in on the joke. At least some of the younger folks there were of a like mind. The forked tongue of this film was, much of the time, in cheek.
So if you know a bunch of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans, get them drunk, make your way out to that little theater where you'd never dream of seeing the $150 million special-effect lightshows, shut off your brain's disbelief centers, and see this batshit-zany film.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
How Not to Beg on the Streets
AFTER WORKING IN NEW York City for more than 7 years, and having spent another 4 living in Boston, I have a fairly thick skin when it comes to panhandlers. I would rather aid an organization that works to secure them the means to escape their dire straits long term via mental-health care, employment, or lodgings. Failing that, I would choose food as a means of direct assistance to these folks.
This attitude was born of seeing people like the woman sitting outside the 14th St. PATH station this morning. Next to this busy portal sat a well-fed woman with an extended written request for money on a clean-looking piece of cardboard. What made her stand out from the average beggar was her cup of coffee and her cigarette.
Now, this wasn't some nub of a filter she might have scrounged a la Roger Miller's "King of the Road" with his cigar butt. This was a healthy length of nail. Cigs in New York cost upwards from $5.50 a pack, and coffee starts at six bits.
This isn't the first instance of misplaced charitable investment. Up in Midtown, I used to pass a man who had a table, a water bottle with change and a few bills in it, and some literature on the homeless outreach program he supported. He had a solid rap, too, one that he projected well over a block. For a while I could recite it from memory.
I occasionally dropped some pocket change in his bottle, seeing as he had a powerful sales pitch and would sit out there in any weather. What stopped me, though, was seeing him smoking one day. This guy could be dropping that money, anywhere from $5 to $6.50 a pack, into his own bottle, which depending on his dosage could be anywhere from $120 to $360 a month. Granted, even charity god Paul Newman might have a glass of wine with you now and again. But as vices go, this one is entirely needless and could have helped a lot of the people he was exhorting the office workers streaming around him not to forget. My contributions to his bottle stopped that day.
Fast forward to this "beggar" outside the PATH stop. I wanted to ask her precisely how many commuters she had to hit up to get enough dough for a loosie cig, but I hadn't the time or the inclination. I can only hope others who passed her by had the same thought as I did. What's more regrettable is that she might bias people of charitable leanings to snuff that impulse when presented with a legitimate opportunity to do good.
This attitude was born of seeing people like the woman sitting outside the 14th St. PATH station this morning. Next to this busy portal sat a well-fed woman with an extended written request for money on a clean-looking piece of cardboard. What made her stand out from the average beggar was her cup of coffee and her cigarette.
Now, this wasn't some nub of a filter she might have scrounged a la Roger Miller's "King of the Road" with his cigar butt. This was a healthy length of nail. Cigs in New York cost upwards from $5.50 a pack, and coffee starts at six bits.
This isn't the first instance of misplaced charitable investment. Up in Midtown, I used to pass a man who had a table, a water bottle with change and a few bills in it, and some literature on the homeless outreach program he supported. He had a solid rap, too, one that he projected well over a block. For a while I could recite it from memory.
I occasionally dropped some pocket change in his bottle, seeing as he had a powerful sales pitch and would sit out there in any weather. What stopped me, though, was seeing him smoking one day. This guy could be dropping that money, anywhere from $5 to $6.50 a pack, into his own bottle, which depending on his dosage could be anywhere from $120 to $360 a month. Granted, even charity god Paul Newman might have a glass of wine with you now and again. But as vices go, this one is entirely needless and could have helped a lot of the people he was exhorting the office workers streaming around him not to forget. My contributions to his bottle stopped that day.
Fast forward to this "beggar" outside the PATH stop. I wanted to ask her precisely how many commuters she had to hit up to get enough dough for a loosie cig, but I hadn't the time or the inclination. I can only hope others who passed her by had the same thought as I did. What's more regrettable is that she might bias people of charitable leanings to snuff that impulse when presented with a legitimate opportunity to do good.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Schizohedron Bullet Points! for 8/30/06*
- IN ONE DAY FLAT, the HR person at my previous place of employment sent me a fat sheaf of forms to use for swapping my retirement funds from there to the 401(k) at my current job. I haven't dealt directly with her, so I don't know if this typical of her speed on such requests, or radically atypical, but I'll take it. The paperwork is a bit daunting, so I think I'll call her and ensure, 100%, that I am checking off the right boxes. It all seems simple, but fucking this up can have significant tax consequences. I've had the funds there for so long, and I intend to nurture them for at least another 30 years, so taking a day or so to get everything right is absolutely justifiable.
- THE DEPARTMENT IS MINE. Well, not quite. My immediate supervisor is off to Europe to attend a destination wedding, along with one of the other designers, a guy she's know since high school and a mutual friend of the couple. In a storm of mounting tension and frantic multitasking, she eventually disappeared sometime midafternoon, without leaving me anything from her desk to worry about. I will be the contact person for the printer, our mutual bosses, and the department leads in the editorial realm, but it's only until next Wednesday, with Labor Day coming in the middle. My absent coworkers have the "honor" of paying their full freight for the flight to Europe and the lodgings, to say nothing of tux rental for one of them, and any incidentals, all of which need to be paid in the robust euro. You want to get married in the land of your ancestors? Do me a favor and tell me you were conceived in Central Park, because that's a lot more reasonable than a transatlantic jaunt through paranoid security that, at least in one Euro airport, is now disallowing pens. Pens, for fuck's sake!
- LABOR DAY'S SWEET SONG: No huge plans coming up. I'm slated to see Snakes on a Plane this Friday, which if I'm lucky will set the tone for the rest of the weekend. The weather is supposed to be subpar as Labor Days go, with the leading edge of Tropical Gender Dysphoria Ernesto verging on our area. (Meanwhile, in the Pacific, according to The Weather Channel, Wake Islanders are bracing for the arrival of what sounds like an anime or trading-card character: Super Typhoon Ioke!) I do welcome the official end of the summer season, which will help clear out the Garden State Parkway traffic for my eventual return to Atlantic City and my scheduled trip to visit my parents at the shore, much like last year. More importantly, the heat of summer will yield before the glorious approach of autumn.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Lifehacker's Been Reading My Mind!
HOT ON THE HEELS of my last post, I noticed a post on efficiency-tip trove setting up an emergency fund. This page also cites a similar story they previously linked, on About.com. I think both are worth a read, even if you have a fund set up or know the basics of how to build one.
Above and beyond the basic wisdom of maintaining such a fund if you can, what does it say that this topic is on more than one mind? Pessimism about the financial future of the country? Concern for one's ability to survive a calamity on the eve of the Katrina anniversary? Who knows.
Above and beyond the basic wisdom of maintaining such a fund if you can, what does it say that this topic is on more than one mind? Pessimism about the financial future of the country? Concern for one's ability to survive a calamity on the eve of the Katrina anniversary? Who knows.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Pass GO and Collect $75
A TAX REFUND RECENTLY spurred me into getting my financial house into better order. With any luck, this $75 check that I received earlier this month will pay generous dividends decades down the road as a result.
Unlike my Federal tax refund, which was used to fuel a trip to Atlantic City, this one was considerably smaller, being a rebate for New Jersey renters as part of our property-tax-rebate program. Still, at first thought, I filed it under "found money," and after cashing the check, displayed the cash to my parents and crowed about pissing it away on something fun.
Yet I never actually executed that plan. Initially, it was because I could think of nothing immediately on which to blow it. Yes, I have an iTunes account and an Amazon wish list and an eBay login, all three heads of the modern Internet-spending Cerberus. And I do work within walking distance of innumerable used bookstores, cafés, and knick-knack shops in Greenwich Village. I have a quirk of mind, however, that — after I have made a list of CDs, or books, or whatever, that I might want to buy — leads me to blank out on the items once at the destination store. If I don't actually commit the list to paper, I'll walk up and down the aisles entirely lost. Very frustrating, though perhaps a backhanded financial survival trait.
Instead, the $75 went into my emergency fund. On its origin: Back in the mid-Nineties, I tended to do my laundry at my parents' house rather than spend $5 a load in my apartment basement. I started setting aside $5 a week to represent the laundry moolah I wasn't spending. Also, in a (failed) effort to curb my videogame habits, I began dropping a quarter into a jar each time I started a new game, usually of Twisted Metal 2. Both stashes eventually totaled over $400, including around $170 in quarters. (Ever lift a Classico pasta-sauce jar full of quarters? Buy a truss first.)
I continued the laundry-cash tradition when I got my own apartment, but I also began a Friday ritual of throwing any extra money from my weekly allowance in as well. Basically, each week the larger of $5 or my allowance remainder had to go into that pot. If I ran through my allowance earlier than Friday evening, $10 went in; should I be foolish or pressed enough to return to the ATM a third time, $15; and so on. Taking a ten and a five out of the $60 that you need to last the week forces you to stop returning to the well so often, I can assure you. Soon, I started adding any sort of "found money": tax returns, appliance rebates, folding money from the coin-counting gadget at the bank, unused walking-around dough from vacations, even a couple of good blackjack scores. Two years later, in the wake of 9/11, I dubbed this now-substantial cache of cash my emergency fund, only to be tapped upon widespread failure of ATMs. (I assure you that this is as paranoid as I got after the attacks; none of the money went to a supply of plastic sheeting and duct tape.) Four years after that, I was able to use a big chunk of my emergency cash to fund fully my 2006 contribution to my Roth IRA. Automatic savings may be unconscious, but never are they mindless.
Now, when I have heard coworkers complain about never having enough money to fund a 401(k) or take part in the Section 125 health savings plan (or, more recently, the transit equivalent), I cite this as an example of how small amounts can make a big difference. I can understand how someone still paying for college or negotiating a mortgage would have debt reduction as their biggest priority, and it's smart to do so. (After watching a friend in college rack up four figures of credit card debt, I have since feared long-term debt like medieval townsfolk fleeing the return of the Black Death.) I can think of two coworkers, however, who definitely have leaks in their games, rivulets of money that could be diverted into a reservoir of effortless thrift. Even $10 a week into a mutual fund (to which my current employer does add a profit share), or to lend to Uncle Sam in order to pay uncovered medical expenses or a MetroCard, can reap big rewards.
In dropping this $75 into my emergency fund, I began to think seriously about the exact disposition of my retirement funds, and the market in general. I have no problems funding my 401(k) or my IRA (if I couldn't, no way would I be jetting out to Las Vegas at least once a year), but I am sure I could have the allocations more finely tuned for my needs. I therefore got some books out of the library, and reread one I've had for a couple of months, to address this. Also, I actually still have a fund open at my old employer, where a couple of the specific investment options were good performers. This will change. Sources inform me that the boss there is expanding the office. Nobody is suggesting he would fund this considerable expense with anyone's capital but his own. However, this is the sort of situation in which such shenanigans have been known to happen. Why even take the risk? So I have a phone call planned to the customer service of my current fund company to figure just what I need to do to move that money under my own more direct control. Then I need to sit down with the fat book of Morningstar ratings at the library (which I wish would open on summer weekends . . . another reason to hate this part of the year) and determine some better places to allocate this cash. Because when the time comes to retire, I suspect it will be all I receive.
I firmly believe that Social Security will fail my generation. I view the Trust Fund as something located between an IOU issued by a casual acquaintance and a Ponzi scheme. I do not trust the current gang of fuck-knuckles in Washington, nor any of their foreseeable successors, to exert the moral and political muscle to guarantee that the nation will return in full what it has taken from every paycheck I have received since high school — and without interest, might I add. Anything I spend at that time of my life will have to come either from my continued labors or what I can manage to conceal, via legal ERISA allowances, from Uncle Sam's withering reach.
So with any luck, and a little diligence in both my financial and writing lives, I hope to link to this post from 30 or more years in the future and tell you just how much that $75 rebate has grown into.
Unlike my Federal tax refund, which was used to fuel a trip to Atlantic City, this one was considerably smaller, being a rebate for New Jersey renters as part of our property-tax-rebate program. Still, at first thought, I filed it under "found money," and after cashing the check, displayed the cash to my parents and crowed about pissing it away on something fun.
Yet I never actually executed that plan. Initially, it was because I could think of nothing immediately on which to blow it. Yes, I have an iTunes account and an Amazon wish list and an eBay login, all three heads of the modern Internet-spending Cerberus. And I do work within walking distance of innumerable used bookstores, cafés, and knick-knack shops in Greenwich Village. I have a quirk of mind, however, that — after I have made a list of CDs, or books, or whatever, that I might want to buy — leads me to blank out on the items once at the destination store. If I don't actually commit the list to paper, I'll walk up and down the aisles entirely lost. Very frustrating, though perhaps a backhanded financial survival trait.
Instead, the $75 went into my emergency fund. On its origin: Back in the mid-Nineties, I tended to do my laundry at my parents' house rather than spend $5 a load in my apartment basement. I started setting aside $5 a week to represent the laundry moolah I wasn't spending. Also, in a (failed) effort to curb my videogame habits, I began dropping a quarter into a jar each time I started a new game, usually of Twisted Metal 2. Both stashes eventually totaled over $400, including around $170 in quarters. (Ever lift a Classico pasta-sauce jar full of quarters? Buy a truss first.)
I continued the laundry-cash tradition when I got my own apartment, but I also began a Friday ritual of throwing any extra money from my weekly allowance in as well. Basically, each week the larger of $5 or my allowance remainder had to go into that pot. If I ran through my allowance earlier than Friday evening, $10 went in; should I be foolish or pressed enough to return to the ATM a third time, $15; and so on. Taking a ten and a five out of the $60 that you need to last the week forces you to stop returning to the well so often, I can assure you. Soon, I started adding any sort of "found money": tax returns, appliance rebates, folding money from the coin-counting gadget at the bank, unused walking-around dough from vacations, even a couple of good blackjack scores. Two years later, in the wake of 9/11, I dubbed this now-substantial cache of cash my emergency fund, only to be tapped upon widespread failure of ATMs. (I assure you that this is as paranoid as I got after the attacks; none of the money went to a supply of plastic sheeting and duct tape.) Four years after that, I was able to use a big chunk of my emergency cash to fund fully my 2006 contribution to my Roth IRA. Automatic savings may be unconscious, but never are they mindless.
Now, when I have heard coworkers complain about never having enough money to fund a 401(k) or take part in the Section 125 health savings plan (or, more recently, the transit equivalent), I cite this as an example of how small amounts can make a big difference. I can understand how someone still paying for college or negotiating a mortgage would have debt reduction as their biggest priority, and it's smart to do so. (After watching a friend in college rack up four figures of credit card debt, I have since feared long-term debt like medieval townsfolk fleeing the return of the Black Death.) I can think of two coworkers, however, who definitely have leaks in their games, rivulets of money that could be diverted into a reservoir of effortless thrift. Even $10 a week into a mutual fund (to which my current employer does add a profit share), or to lend to Uncle Sam in order to pay uncovered medical expenses or a MetroCard, can reap big rewards.
In dropping this $75 into my emergency fund, I began to think seriously about the exact disposition of my retirement funds, and the market in general. I have no problems funding my 401(k) or my IRA (if I couldn't, no way would I be jetting out to Las Vegas at least once a year), but I am sure I could have the allocations more finely tuned for my needs. I therefore got some books out of the library, and reread one I've had for a couple of months, to address this. Also, I actually still have a fund open at my old employer, where a couple of the specific investment options were good performers. This will change. Sources inform me that the boss there is expanding the office. Nobody is suggesting he would fund this considerable expense with anyone's capital but his own. However, this is the sort of situation in which such shenanigans have been known to happen. Why even take the risk? So I have a phone call planned to the customer service of my current fund company to figure just what I need to do to move that money under my own more direct control. Then I need to sit down with the fat book of Morningstar ratings at the library (which I wish would open on summer weekends . . . another reason to hate this part of the year) and determine some better places to allocate this cash. Because when the time comes to retire, I suspect it will be all I receive.
I firmly believe that Social Security will fail my generation. I view the Trust Fund as something located between an IOU issued by a casual acquaintance and a Ponzi scheme. I do not trust the current gang of fuck-knuckles in Washington, nor any of their foreseeable successors, to exert the moral and political muscle to guarantee that the nation will return in full what it has taken from every paycheck I have received since high school — and without interest, might I add. Anything I spend at that time of my life will have to come either from my continued labors or what I can manage to conceal, via legal ERISA allowances, from Uncle Sam's withering reach.
So with any luck, and a little diligence in both my financial and writing lives, I hope to link to this post from 30 or more years in the future and tell you just how much that $75 rebate has grown into.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Las Vegas 7/06: Opening Fire on the Locals
Early Skirmish at Bugsy's Joint
IT WAS SOMETIME IN the early afternoon of Thursday, July 13, that I felt battle had to be joined. I hadn't flown across the country merely to watch these games from the rail or to cruise through the new rooms without at least giving one of the old poker pits a try. After eating, my wanderings took me to the Flamingo, where I had stayed for my first three trips to Vegas, and where — like most casinos in town — they had expanded their poker room to accommodate the surge in interest. From what had been a vestigial nook, the management had grown a respectable-sized cluster of tables in one corner of the casino floor.
I watched the play for a while, selecting a $1/$2 no-limit hold'em game situated close to the rail. Play seemed weak; few preflop raises, and pots being taken down on the flop or turn with a single raise. Spying an open seat, I decided to take a chance.
It turned out I was sitting close to a very drunk player, two seats to my left. This guy was betting at every pot, seeing just about 75% of flops, and seemingly stealing pots at random. This made it tempting to play back at him, but with very little time to have seen what sort of cards he played, I held back. When I did finally get into a hand with him, I found myself facing an all-in river bet after he called my increasing flop and turn bets . . . and I had only a strong Ace paired with one on the board. Not wanting to go broke this early on merely top pair, good kicker, I folded. The guy mucked without showing and mumbled, "I bluffed you." He repeated this a few times while stacking the $150 or so pot. I said nothing, having lost an early profit and only about $20 of my starting buy-in, so I wasn't too upset about how things had gone down. Besides, this guy's starting hand range was fairly broad, so if I got him all in with a solid hand, I was a favorite to take the win back. Tragically, he racked up and left before I had the chance, balancing two racks of red $5 chips and a Budweiser as he weaved to the cashier.
Around this point, some skilled locals sat down. I have a post in the back of my head about identifying this sort of potentially dangerous player, so all I will say at this point is that I took my advice from January's trip and racked up when a new $1/$2 NL table opened.
You can travel halfway across the globe and be surprised to find someone from not only your own country, but your neighborhood. I didn't hit that close, but the young couple who sat to my left at the new table was from Cape May, New Jersey. I chatted them up, primarily to see if they were regulars at Atlantic City to their north, and learned that they actually habituated an underground cardroom down in their neck of the woods. Never hurts to be friendly at a poker table, especially with the two folks to your left, because, among other reasons, they're the folks whose blinds you'll be stealing as often as you can when you have the button or the cutoff seat. (You'll also be chopping the blinds with the person to your immediate left, another reason to at least be on speaking terms.)
Although the couple spoke in terms that led me to believe they had some technical depth at hold'em, the young man was outclassed in skill by his girlfriend. He was making very poor plays with only a single high pair (the sort of trap I had avoided earlier with the drunk), and he rebought twice before busting a third time and storming off in a sullen rage. With one mediocre player gone, and a couple of locals sitting down, I decided to cash out and secure some food. After being ahead nearly $100 at the other game, I was now dead even, and if my choice is a hard-fought tie or a loss born of stupid play, I'll take the former every time.
Storming the Castle
A LIVELY COMMUNITY OF poker bloggers has been regaling the Internet with their adventures for better than two years now. These folks have met up in Las Vegas a couple of times, to put names to faces and let off some steam with low-limit poker enhanced by alcohol and sleep deprivation. In one early jaunt, one blogger suggested the entire group descend on the poker room contained within the Camelot-like façade of the Excalibur. Echoing Billy Crystal's parting exhortation to Cary Elwes and Andre the Giant in The Princess Bride, this plan was cloaked under the codename of "storming the castle."
After grabbing some dinner, I was ready to mount a siege of my own. I've played some fun poker at the Excalibur, owing to its low table limits and the lessons the poker room offers to passing tourists. It does host a no-limit game, for those looking for a higher-level game. This doesn't guarantee that you'll get a table of skilled operators, though. Table selection is still key, no matter what the reputation of a room as a fish tank might be.
I noticed two no-limit tables running. The floor person was initially looking at the "main game," but it looked to be populated with serious players. I wanted funloving tourists and drunks out to donk it up with a couple of surplus Benjamins. That description more closely suited the second table, which had a couple of seats ready and waiting. "I'll take one of those seats, please," I said, peeling two C-notes off for conversion into chips. He acquiesced, and the cage person proffered a stack of 20 reds, an abbreviated second stack of 16 more fivers, and 20 blue $1 checks. I noticed that the Excal had sprung for new chips, not an insubstantial investment. Nice to see one of the comparative bargain properties laying out some coin.
My initial assessment of the table was correct. This one was laughing, betting it up, with four or five players seeing flops. I'm normally a "tight" player, seeing fewer than average flops with my starting cards, but when you have half the table tossing in $2 to take a chance on the next three cards, and even three or four of them calling a raise, I broaden my range somewhat to take advantage of strong draws or to kill the crowd with a flopped set. At a fun table like this, you want to join in, and if it means you sacrifice a couple of two-buck bets so as not to stick out as a rock, you'll have a great chance of cracking someone when your middle pair catches a third or your suited connectors flop straight and flush draws.
Despite loosening up preflop, I didn't take too many hands to the river. I won a few pots here and there, which made up for the flow of chips my looser play had created. This would become moot when two new players sat down. After about an hour or so, our table became shorthanded, with only 6 players. I like short games; you can push single pairs harder and price opponents out of draws much more easily. Some of my poker-night regulars dislike short games like this for that very reason. Hell, six-person (aka 6max) tables have become a staple on Internet poker sites, many folks on the Two Plus Two message forums have inquired as to the production of a book devoted to shorthanded play, and there is even a 6max event at the World Series of Poker now. Last year, poker legend Doyle Brunson, who was winning big across the oil states and in Vegas before the Internet was born, took his 10th championship bracelet in the 6max no-limit event. So this is a straight-up legit form of poker.
So as I said, my chance to be more aggressive at the shorter table was interrupted by the two new arrivals. I initially regretted this, because my earlier, looser play would have benefitted me now. I was already entering a greater number of pots, which is a staple of 6max play, so when I put the pedal down and raised preflop more with a wider range of hands, I might have gotten more calls with even worse hands than mine. Then when I had KK or AA, I could take them to school. With eight players, however, this sort of deceptive, lucrative larceny is a little more difficult.
My regrets faded about a half hour into playing with these two new guys. One was clearly experienced but favored unreasoning aggression over selective force, and this cost him. I limped into a pot (i.e., called the starting bet, then called a raise that came after me without reraising) with A5 of the same suit. I had at least three other callers in addition to the aggro guy, so I had favorable odds for a flush draw on the flop.
Instead of the flush draw, I got an Ace and a 5, two pair. No matching cards, no straight possibilities. Split two pair on a rainbow flop is a great hand. The aggro guy bet strongly, I called, figuring to push on the turn, and the other players folded. The turn was a beautiful Ace. He checked, I thought for a while and bet about half the pot (I didn't want to scare him out), and he went all in. The only problem was that he pushed the bulk of his chips in, then said, "All in," and tried to drop the remaining $60 or $70 in. I said nothing, but the dealer immediately called it a string bet, and declared only the initial, majority bet to be a legal raise.
I have played long enough to sit there with some discipline while someone is in the process of putting his or her foot in the snare, so I waited while the dealer sorted this out, then said, "I call," and flipped up my cards to show the full house. Aggro-man yelled "Fuck!!" and pounded the rail with both fists. He showed Ace King for trips, which did not catch another King. I took down a $270 pot on that hand.
I drifted down about $70 over the course of the next hour, due to draws that didn't come in on the river that I had to fold, but I was still firmly in the black when I scrounged for a chip rack and headed over to the podium to cash out. I did find out why the two guys had come over in the first place. They had been sitting at the other no-limit game, the more serious-looking one, and at some point it had simply broken up. The second of the two players who migrated to my table — the one I didn't clobber with the Aces full — got into an argument shortly thereafter with the dealer. When a person went all in, the dealer counted down the bet. The second guy (hereinafter Nit) — who wasn't one of the two participants in the hand — said the dealer wasn't allowed to do this. The dealer disagreed, and after Nit became vociferous, the floorman was called. After getting the dealer's side of things, he declared it legal and departed . . . but not before angrily telling Nit, upon learning that he wasn't in the hand, to mind his own business when he didn't have cards. This shut Nit up for the duration of my stay, which, after sensing this was why the previous table had collapsed, was not much longer than the time it took to lose the aforementioned $70 or so. I instead hit the parking lot, reflecting in turn on how lacking in etiquette both men had been in their own ways, and of course bouncing along on the cushion of a win.
Ealier entries in this tale of degeneracy can be perused here:
IT WAS SOMETIME IN the early afternoon of Thursday, July 13, that I felt battle had to be joined. I hadn't flown across the country merely to watch these games from the rail or to cruise through the new rooms without at least giving one of the old poker pits a try. After eating, my wanderings took me to the Flamingo, where I had stayed for my first three trips to Vegas, and where — like most casinos in town — they had expanded their poker room to accommodate the surge in interest. From what had been a vestigial nook, the management had grown a respectable-sized cluster of tables in one corner of the casino floor.
I watched the play for a while, selecting a $1/$2 no-limit hold'em game situated close to the rail. Play seemed weak; few preflop raises, and pots being taken down on the flop or turn with a single raise. Spying an open seat, I decided to take a chance.
It turned out I was sitting close to a very drunk player, two seats to my left. This guy was betting at every pot, seeing just about 75% of flops, and seemingly stealing pots at random. This made it tempting to play back at him, but with very little time to have seen what sort of cards he played, I held back. When I did finally get into a hand with him, I found myself facing an all-in river bet after he called my increasing flop and turn bets . . . and I had only a strong Ace paired with one on the board. Not wanting to go broke this early on merely top pair, good kicker, I folded. The guy mucked without showing and mumbled, "I bluffed you." He repeated this a few times while stacking the $150 or so pot. I said nothing, having lost an early profit and only about $20 of my starting buy-in, so I wasn't too upset about how things had gone down. Besides, this guy's starting hand range was fairly broad, so if I got him all in with a solid hand, I was a favorite to take the win back. Tragically, he racked up and left before I had the chance, balancing two racks of red $5 chips and a Budweiser as he weaved to the cashier.
Around this point, some skilled locals sat down. I have a post in the back of my head about identifying this sort of potentially dangerous player, so all I will say at this point is that I took my advice from January's trip and racked up when a new $1/$2 NL table opened.
You can travel halfway across the globe and be surprised to find someone from not only your own country, but your neighborhood. I didn't hit that close, but the young couple who sat to my left at the new table was from Cape May, New Jersey. I chatted them up, primarily to see if they were regulars at Atlantic City to their north, and learned that they actually habituated an underground cardroom down in their neck of the woods. Never hurts to be friendly at a poker table, especially with the two folks to your left, because, among other reasons, they're the folks whose blinds you'll be stealing as often as you can when you have the button or the cutoff seat. (You'll also be chopping the blinds with the person to your immediate left, another reason to at least be on speaking terms.)
Although the couple spoke in terms that led me to believe they had some technical depth at hold'em, the young man was outclassed in skill by his girlfriend. He was making very poor plays with only a single high pair (the sort of trap I had avoided earlier with the drunk), and he rebought twice before busting a third time and storming off in a sullen rage. With one mediocre player gone, and a couple of locals sitting down, I decided to cash out and secure some food. After being ahead nearly $100 at the other game, I was now dead even, and if my choice is a hard-fought tie or a loss born of stupid play, I'll take the former every time.
Storming the Castle
A LIVELY COMMUNITY OF poker bloggers has been regaling the Internet with their adventures for better than two years now. These folks have met up in Las Vegas a couple of times, to put names to faces and let off some steam with low-limit poker enhanced by alcohol and sleep deprivation. In one early jaunt, one blogger suggested the entire group descend on the poker room contained within the Camelot-like façade of the Excalibur. Echoing Billy Crystal's parting exhortation to Cary Elwes and Andre the Giant in The Princess Bride, this plan was cloaked under the codename of "storming the castle."
After grabbing some dinner, I was ready to mount a siege of my own. I've played some fun poker at the Excalibur, owing to its low table limits and the lessons the poker room offers to passing tourists. It does host a no-limit game, for those looking for a higher-level game. This doesn't guarantee that you'll get a table of skilled operators, though. Table selection is still key, no matter what the reputation of a room as a fish tank might be.
I noticed two no-limit tables running. The floor person was initially looking at the "main game," but it looked to be populated with serious players. I wanted funloving tourists and drunks out to donk it up with a couple of surplus Benjamins. That description more closely suited the second table, which had a couple of seats ready and waiting. "I'll take one of those seats, please," I said, peeling two C-notes off for conversion into chips. He acquiesced, and the cage person proffered a stack of 20 reds, an abbreviated second stack of 16 more fivers, and 20 blue $1 checks. I noticed that the Excal had sprung for new chips, not an insubstantial investment. Nice to see one of the comparative bargain properties laying out some coin.
My initial assessment of the table was correct. This one was laughing, betting it up, with four or five players seeing flops. I'm normally a "tight" player, seeing fewer than average flops with my starting cards, but when you have half the table tossing in $2 to take a chance on the next three cards, and even three or four of them calling a raise, I broaden my range somewhat to take advantage of strong draws or to kill the crowd with a flopped set. At a fun table like this, you want to join in, and if it means you sacrifice a couple of two-buck bets so as not to stick out as a rock, you'll have a great chance of cracking someone when your middle pair catches a third or your suited connectors flop straight and flush draws.
Despite loosening up preflop, I didn't take too many hands to the river. I won a few pots here and there, which made up for the flow of chips my looser play had created. This would become moot when two new players sat down. After about an hour or so, our table became shorthanded, with only 6 players. I like short games; you can push single pairs harder and price opponents out of draws much more easily. Some of my poker-night regulars dislike short games like this for that very reason. Hell, six-person (aka 6max) tables have become a staple on Internet poker sites, many folks on the Two Plus Two message forums have inquired as to the production of a book devoted to shorthanded play, and there is even a 6max event at the World Series of Poker now. Last year, poker legend Doyle Brunson, who was winning big across the oil states and in Vegas before the Internet was born, took his 10th championship bracelet in the 6max no-limit event. So this is a straight-up legit form of poker.
So as I said, my chance to be more aggressive at the shorter table was interrupted by the two new arrivals. I initially regretted this, because my earlier, looser play would have benefitted me now. I was already entering a greater number of pots, which is a staple of 6max play, so when I put the pedal down and raised preflop more with a wider range of hands, I might have gotten more calls with even worse hands than mine. Then when I had KK or AA, I could take them to school. With eight players, however, this sort of deceptive, lucrative larceny is a little more difficult.
My regrets faded about a half hour into playing with these two new guys. One was clearly experienced but favored unreasoning aggression over selective force, and this cost him. I limped into a pot (i.e., called the starting bet, then called a raise that came after me without reraising) with A5 of the same suit. I had at least three other callers in addition to the aggro guy, so I had favorable odds for a flush draw on the flop.
Instead of the flush draw, I got an Ace and a 5, two pair. No matching cards, no straight possibilities. Split two pair on a rainbow flop is a great hand. The aggro guy bet strongly, I called, figuring to push on the turn, and the other players folded. The turn was a beautiful Ace. He checked, I thought for a while and bet about half the pot (I didn't want to scare him out), and he went all in. The only problem was that he pushed the bulk of his chips in, then said, "All in," and tried to drop the remaining $60 or $70 in. I said nothing, but the dealer immediately called it a string bet, and declared only the initial, majority bet to be a legal raise.
I have played long enough to sit there with some discipline while someone is in the process of putting his or her foot in the snare, so I waited while the dealer sorted this out, then said, "I call," and flipped up my cards to show the full house. Aggro-man yelled "Fuck!!" and pounded the rail with both fists. He showed Ace King for trips, which did not catch another King. I took down a $270 pot on that hand.
I drifted down about $70 over the course of the next hour, due to draws that didn't come in on the river that I had to fold, but I was still firmly in the black when I scrounged for a chip rack and headed over to the podium to cash out. I did find out why the two guys had come over in the first place. They had been sitting at the other no-limit game, the more serious-looking one, and at some point it had simply broken up. The second of the two players who migrated to my table — the one I didn't clobber with the Aces full — got into an argument shortly thereafter with the dealer. When a person went all in, the dealer counted down the bet. The second guy (hereinafter Nit) — who wasn't one of the two participants in the hand — said the dealer wasn't allowed to do this. The dealer disagreed, and after Nit became vociferous, the floorman was called. After getting the dealer's side of things, he declared it legal and departed . . . but not before angrily telling Nit, upon learning that he wasn't in the hand, to mind his own business when he didn't have cards. This shut Nit up for the duration of my stay, which, after sensing this was why the previous table had collapsed, was not much longer than the time it took to lose the aforementioned $70 or so. I instead hit the parking lot, reflecting in turn on how lacking in etiquette both men had been in their own ways, and of course bouncing along on the cushion of a win.
Ealier entries in this tale of degeneracy can be perused here:
I Am the Key Master
SOME TIME AGO, I detailed how I stumbled upon a handbag at Whole Foods and, via the store's customer service desk, returned it.
Evidently, this began an unwitting streak of being a roving lost-and-found. Two recent incidents, both involving keys, point to this trend.
The first one occurred about two weeks ago. While entering the lobby of my building, I spotted a car key. It was one of the more recent ones, with the functional fob forming the base of the key, which was more of a long metal probe than a traditional key-shaped implement. A tag indicated the car was purchased at a Bergen County car dealer.
I went back out to the lot and pressed the panic button. (This feature, a Nobel Prize–level innovation if you ask me, is the only way I could find my various rental cars in the anonymous sprawls of the many Vegas parking garages in which I have wandered. Until I learned to write down the level and section, that is.) A white sedan in the parking lot across the street began honking and flashing its lights.
I took a look at the car, inside and out, to see if I could determine the owner. No clue. Based on its location, though, I figured that this person had bought something in the strip mall to which the parking lot catered, then had visited someone in my building. I went back upstairs to make two simple signs with my phone number, which I planned to hang on the two most likely exits this person would take.
I found the owner of the car while posting the signs. It turned out to be a regular visitor, whose elderly father had, until recently, lived directly across the hall from me. (He suffered a fall some weeks ago, and has been recuperating under close care in a rehab facility.) She left the key out front when she switched hands between her father's mail and her house keys, and when I found her in the entryway, she was digging through her handbag with the unmistakable air of someone who knows he or she came in with something and now, for the life of him or her, cannot put a hand on it. I asked her if she was looking for something, and she accepted her car key with gratitude and relief.
So upon returning home tonight, I had cause to think about that incident when what do I see sitting in a jagged brass jumble next to the mailboxes but a hefty set of keys. This was a little more serious. Anyone with half a brain and a larcenous heart could spend a little time figuring which key opens the front door, then do a few things: enter the complex at will, copy it and allow confederates to do the same, go door to door with what they suspect might be an inside key and try to break in, or sell the whole lot to someone with the time and inclination to do any of the above. Plus they'd potentially have a free car, as there was a key for some vehicle among the bunch.
As with the last car, I had only a fleeting moment of the risk–reward equation of grand theft auto, and scooped up the keys to at least get them away from thieving hands. Once upstairs, I had dinner, and while finishing, I made up another sign, this one with my cell number, because my plan was to write for a while at the library (my current location). I cleaned up, bagged my Mac, and headed out, affixing the sign to the front door before leaving.
Just as I was checking out a book that, fortuitously, had arrived today via interlibrary loan, my cellphone vibrated. I missed that call, but it immediately began vibrating again. Definitely the panicked repeat dialing of someone down a couple of dozen keys. It actually turned out to be that person's employer. The owner was a domestic or a home health aide (I didn't inquire which), and the caller was ringing me to see if she could head over to my apartment to pick up the keys. I explained that I would be there in about 5 minutes, as I was at the library, and the caller said the person would be downstairs to meet me. I also got her name — Maria — so they could ID themselves.
I drove back to the apartment quickly enough (despite a traffic backup from the train passing through town), and found a Latin American woman waiting in the front hall. She walked up to my car, said her name was Maria, and gratefully received her keys with several thank-yous and God-bless-yous. I briefly told her about the previous key incident, and she pronounced me a good person. Well, let's not get hasty, I thought, but I thanked her for it and let her head on out as I returned to the library.
So it seems like I'm on a streak! If you should happen to misplace something over the next few weeks, you might call me first before panicking. At this rate, I just may have found it.
Evidently, this began an unwitting streak of being a roving lost-and-found. Two recent incidents, both involving keys, point to this trend.
The first one occurred about two weeks ago. While entering the lobby of my building, I spotted a car key. It was one of the more recent ones, with the functional fob forming the base of the key, which was more of a long metal probe than a traditional key-shaped implement. A tag indicated the car was purchased at a Bergen County car dealer.
I went back out to the lot and pressed the panic button. (This feature, a Nobel Prize–level innovation if you ask me, is the only way I could find my various rental cars in the anonymous sprawls of the many Vegas parking garages in which I have wandered. Until I learned to write down the level and section, that is.) A white sedan in the parking lot across the street began honking and flashing its lights.
I took a look at the car, inside and out, to see if I could determine the owner. No clue. Based on its location, though, I figured that this person had bought something in the strip mall to which the parking lot catered, then had visited someone in my building. I went back upstairs to make two simple signs with my phone number, which I planned to hang on the two most likely exits this person would take.
I found the owner of the car while posting the signs. It turned out to be a regular visitor, whose elderly father had, until recently, lived directly across the hall from me. (He suffered a fall some weeks ago, and has been recuperating under close care in a rehab facility.) She left the key out front when she switched hands between her father's mail and her house keys, and when I found her in the entryway, she was digging through her handbag with the unmistakable air of someone who knows he or she came in with something and now, for the life of him or her, cannot put a hand on it. I asked her if she was looking for something, and she accepted her car key with gratitude and relief.
So upon returning home tonight, I had cause to think about that incident when what do I see sitting in a jagged brass jumble next to the mailboxes but a hefty set of keys. This was a little more serious. Anyone with half a brain and a larcenous heart could spend a little time figuring which key opens the front door, then do a few things: enter the complex at will, copy it and allow confederates to do the same, go door to door with what they suspect might be an inside key and try to break in, or sell the whole lot to someone with the time and inclination to do any of the above. Plus they'd potentially have a free car, as there was a key for some vehicle among the bunch.
As with the last car, I had only a fleeting moment of the risk–reward equation of grand theft auto, and scooped up the keys to at least get them away from thieving hands. Once upstairs, I had dinner, and while finishing, I made up another sign, this one with my cell number, because my plan was to write for a while at the library (my current location). I cleaned up, bagged my Mac, and headed out, affixing the sign to the front door before leaving.
Just as I was checking out a book that, fortuitously, had arrived today via interlibrary loan, my cellphone vibrated. I missed that call, but it immediately began vibrating again. Definitely the panicked repeat dialing of someone down a couple of dozen keys. It actually turned out to be that person's employer. The owner was a domestic or a home health aide (I didn't inquire which), and the caller was ringing me to see if she could head over to my apartment to pick up the keys. I explained that I would be there in about 5 minutes, as I was at the library, and the caller said the person would be downstairs to meet me. I also got her name — Maria — so they could ID themselves.
I drove back to the apartment quickly enough (despite a traffic backup from the train passing through town), and found a Latin American woman waiting in the front hall. She walked up to my car, said her name was Maria, and gratefully received her keys with several thank-yous and God-bless-yous. I briefly told her about the previous key incident, and she pronounced me a good person. Well, let's not get hasty, I thought, but I thanked her for it and let her head on out as I returned to the library.
So it seems like I'm on a streak! If you should happen to misplace something over the next few weeks, you might call me first before panicking. At this rate, I just may have found it.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Leaks in Your Game
I'M SLOWLY COMPOSING MY Las Vegas adventures, but I've had some thoughts in the back of my head that I don't want to let slip away.
In poker, the term leak refers to a chronic flow of money due to unprofitable plays. For example, in no-limit hold'em, calling raises with suited connectors in a shorthanded ring game with aggressive flop betting is a leak. With few players seeing the flop, and the strong likelihood of a large flop bet destroying the pot odds, the right play (after having made the wrong play of staying in) on any flop that does not offer a four-flush with a gutshot straight or a made straight or flush is to fold. The fact that this player is still venturing capital into this situation, which rarely is going to give him or her the right price to continue with the hand, is a leak.
Online poker players often run software called PokerTracker during play. PokerTracker analyzes the hand histories (textfiles saved to the player's computer with all the details of the hands he or she plays) to reveal patterns of winning and losing plays, both by street and by individual starting hand. So for example, one can chart whether calling with T9 of hearts has been making or costing money, and from which positions on the table it's been doing the best.
For the disciplined player, this is a powerful tool that can eliminate leaks and raise one's profit. But what about leaks in life? Not just holes in one's financial boat, but other places where effort, energy, or talent is dissipated needlessly?
It's easiest to apply this analogy to money flow in life. I see this every day. You can buy a bag of perfectly serviceable coffee for anywhere from $6 to $10 per pound, grind the beans yourself in a gadget that sets you back $15 or so as a one-time expense, and brew yourself a tall one in a machine that could be as cheap as $30 or $40. Yet when I pass the Starbucks in my building in the morning, there's a line nearly to the door. In the afternoon too, I see coworkers walking slowly back to their desks with some $4 or $5 whipped-cream-topped concoction from Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts.
This brings up another point in the health realm. Jeremy Zawodny, a programmer, amateur pilot, and blogger posted a series on how he lost 50 pounds with the assistance of an Excel table in which he tracked everything he ate. Like PokerTracker, this rigorous recordkeeping can help one isolate those bad food habits that, over time, add up to excess body fat. It's very simple math. With drinks that can add up, with whipped cream, to nearly 700 empty calories for the largest size, drinking Starbucks's fancier offerings over time without exercise or other limitations of intake, will make you obese. Minor leaks like this, when run together over days or months, add up to significant health problems.
For another exacta of behavioral leaks, consider smoking. A pack of butts will set you back at least $6 in New York City, with not much price relief in the rest of the state or in Jersey. Smokers rarely figure the monthly or even weekly cost of their habit, as long as prices remain stable — and even then, after a flurry of grousing over a hike in costs, they settle down and pay the increase. Even more neglected is the eventual health cost, both in physical performance and capital. Smokers pay a penalty for health insurance, lose workplace productivity or (for self-employed smokers) direct income from respiratory ailments made more frequent or worse in impact due to damaged lungs, suffer cardiac problems earlier in life, and often run afoul of long-term illnesses like cancer, emphysema, and congestive heart failure that sap their money for years.
Getting back to financial leaks, there are other areas where money flows pointlessly out of our pockets because of neglect or "convenience." Habitually patronizing ATMs outside of one's network. Buying the highest grade of gasoline for an old car. Getting the most inclusive cable package but failing to watch the vast majority of the channels. Loading up on books through Amazon rather than patronizing one's local used book store or library. Perceived in isolation, these don't seem like major diversions of cash. But it's like observing a single raindrop. Enough of them in one place can result in a devastating flood.
Although I have isolated my most costly leaks at the poker table, I am not free from leaks of lifestyle or habit. When short on time or foul in mood, I eat nonnutritious convenience or junk food. I have a three-can-a-day Diet Coke habit. The Internet is a seductive time-sink into which I frequently fall. And my sleep schedule varies wildly from one week to the next, which kills my productivity on the weekends when I sleep off the debt. Small leaks add up over time, but so do small efforts to plug these leaks and make the vessel, so to speak, even more leak resistant. I could plot a week's worth of meals over the weekend, even cooking or prepping a bunch of it ahead of time. I could replace one Diet Coke a day with tea, or — and this would be a Herculean effort — cut the habit completely, and watch the money I spent on soda flow into my coffers. I could set a literal timer for my recreational Web browsing, or find better things to do on the Net, like research investments or study poker strategy . . . or even post here! And that would directly influence my sleep habits.
Every massive cave system begins with dripping water, which over millennia erodes deep shafts and grand galleries of space and decorates it with intricate columns of mineral deposits. The Grand Canyon was sliced from the North American landmass by the rain and snowmelt that fueled the Colorado River millions of years ago. Each beach was once a balustrate of stone, which fought a slow, losing battle against relentless waves, yielding itself to sand. Over time, even the smallest leak can destroy a bankroll, a waistline, a talented soul's productivity. Leave the leaks to geology and make yourself watertight.
What are your leaks?
In poker, the term leak refers to a chronic flow of money due to unprofitable plays. For example, in no-limit hold'em, calling raises with suited connectors in a shorthanded ring game with aggressive flop betting is a leak. With few players seeing the flop, and the strong likelihood of a large flop bet destroying the pot odds, the right play (after having made the wrong play of staying in) on any flop that does not offer a four-flush with a gutshot straight or a made straight or flush is to fold. The fact that this player is still venturing capital into this situation, which rarely is going to give him or her the right price to continue with the hand, is a leak.
Online poker players often run software called PokerTracker during play. PokerTracker analyzes the hand histories (textfiles saved to the player's computer with all the details of the hands he or she plays) to reveal patterns of winning and losing plays, both by street and by individual starting hand. So for example, one can chart whether calling with T9 of hearts has been making or costing money, and from which positions on the table it's been doing the best.
For the disciplined player, this is a powerful tool that can eliminate leaks and raise one's profit. But what about leaks in life? Not just holes in one's financial boat, but other places where effort, energy, or talent is dissipated needlessly?
It's easiest to apply this analogy to money flow in life. I see this every day. You can buy a bag of perfectly serviceable coffee for anywhere from $6 to $10 per pound, grind the beans yourself in a gadget that sets you back $15 or so as a one-time expense, and brew yourself a tall one in a machine that could be as cheap as $30 or $40. Yet when I pass the Starbucks in my building in the morning, there's a line nearly to the door. In the afternoon too, I see coworkers walking slowly back to their desks with some $4 or $5 whipped-cream-topped concoction from Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts.
This brings up another point in the health realm. Jeremy Zawodny, a programmer, amateur pilot, and blogger posted a series on how he lost 50 pounds with the assistance of an Excel table in which he tracked everything he ate. Like PokerTracker, this rigorous recordkeeping can help one isolate those bad food habits that, over time, add up to excess body fat. It's very simple math. With drinks that can add up, with whipped cream, to nearly 700 empty calories for the largest size, drinking Starbucks's fancier offerings over time without exercise or other limitations of intake, will make you obese. Minor leaks like this, when run together over days or months, add up to significant health problems.
For another exacta of behavioral leaks, consider smoking. A pack of butts will set you back at least $6 in New York City, with not much price relief in the rest of the state or in Jersey. Smokers rarely figure the monthly or even weekly cost of their habit, as long as prices remain stable — and even then, after a flurry of grousing over a hike in costs, they settle down and pay the increase. Even more neglected is the eventual health cost, both in physical performance and capital. Smokers pay a penalty for health insurance, lose workplace productivity or (for self-employed smokers) direct income from respiratory ailments made more frequent or worse in impact due to damaged lungs, suffer cardiac problems earlier in life, and often run afoul of long-term illnesses like cancer, emphysema, and congestive heart failure that sap their money for years.
Getting back to financial leaks, there are other areas where money flows pointlessly out of our pockets because of neglect or "convenience." Habitually patronizing ATMs outside of one's network. Buying the highest grade of gasoline for an old car. Getting the most inclusive cable package but failing to watch the vast majority of the channels. Loading up on books through Amazon rather than patronizing one's local used book store or library. Perceived in isolation, these don't seem like major diversions of cash. But it's like observing a single raindrop. Enough of them in one place can result in a devastating flood.
Although I have isolated my most costly leaks at the poker table, I am not free from leaks of lifestyle or habit. When short on time or foul in mood, I eat nonnutritious convenience or junk food. I have a three-can-a-day Diet Coke habit. The Internet is a seductive time-sink into which I frequently fall. And my sleep schedule varies wildly from one week to the next, which kills my productivity on the weekends when I sleep off the debt. Small leaks add up over time, but so do small efforts to plug these leaks and make the vessel, so to speak, even more leak resistant. I could plot a week's worth of meals over the weekend, even cooking or prepping a bunch of it ahead of time. I could replace one Diet Coke a day with tea, or — and this would be a Herculean effort — cut the habit completely, and watch the money I spent on soda flow into my coffers. I could set a literal timer for my recreational Web browsing, or find better things to do on the Net, like research investments or study poker strategy . . . or even post here! And that would directly influence my sleep habits.
Every massive cave system begins with dripping water, which over millennia erodes deep shafts and grand galleries of space and decorates it with intricate columns of mineral deposits. The Grand Canyon was sliced from the North American landmass by the rain and snowmelt that fueled the Colorado River millions of years ago. Each beach was once a balustrate of stone, which fought a slow, losing battle against relentless waves, yielding itself to sand. Over time, even the smallest leak can destroy a bankroll, a waistline, a talented soul's productivity. Leave the leaks to geology and make yourself watertight.
What are your leaks?
Flood Your Heart With Bollywood Joy!
THRILL TO THE WONDERS of Bollywood vamp and WFMU favorite Helen in this clip from YouTube!
If this is slow or jerky at all, view the direct YouTube link here, because Helen is delish. I am such the sucker for a sensuous dancer in a cheongsam. And I could listen to Bollywood soundtracks for days. See WFMU's Beware of the Blog entry on Helen's film triumphs for more links to YouTube clips.
If this is slow or jerky at all, view the direct YouTube link here, because Helen is delish. I am such the sucker for a sensuous dancer in a cheongsam. And I could listen to Bollywood soundtracks for days. See WFMU's Beware of the Blog entry on Helen's film triumphs for more links to YouTube clips.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Las Vegas 7/06: Abbreviated World Poker Tour
WITH MY TRAVEL DAY behind me, with my body slowly adjusting to Vegas Time (i.e., no clocks and no work make James a sleep-deprived boy), I arose on Thursday ready for some cards. I began the day with a trip to Whole Foods, located far west on Charleston, near the new Red Rock Station hotel and casino. Vegas's Whole Foods is a huge, grand temple of freshness, and I chowed down on hot breakfast selections, yogurt, and a bran muffin while reading printouts of AllVegasPoker's poker-room reviews and stealing glimpses of a strikingly curvy local sitting on the other side of the store window, with a friend, chatting and splitting a quarter-watermelon with a friend in the early morning heat.
But I didn't come to Las Vegas to look at women. (Well, it wasn't my first priority.) I was here for some poker, and this time around, I had a few new venues in which to play, and before settling down to some cards, I wanted to check out my broader range of playing options.
So after polishing off my muffin and casting one last longing look at the beauty beside me, I drove back down to the Strip, parked at the beautiful Wynn Las Vegas, and began my walking tour.
I did take a quick peek at Wynn's room, which actually opened more than a year ago but which still gets high grades from players. The average skill level there exceeds my own, even at the "lower" games (e.g., they spread a low-cost no-limit game, but there is no maximum buy-in, which skilled, aggressive players favor), so I have not played there yet, a trend that continued for this trip. Someday I'll give the $1/$3 no-limit or one of the inexpensive limit games a shot, but not this trip.
Next, I walked a sweltering block south to the Venetian. Their room went in only a few months ago, and it's a spacious affair with lots of tables, comfortable seats, the electronic seating board most new rooms install to help players see how long their wait might be, and a slew of smaller amenities like tableside dining and an automated login for player's cards so folks can track their comp dollars. A classy room for one of the more upscale properties on the Strip.
Across the street from the Venetian sits Treasure Island, or TI as they have renamed themselves in an attempt to snare the hipster crowd. Its sister property, the Mirage, had what was the premier poker room of its time when it was built in the Nineties. Years later, as poker ebbed, then rushed back in with the force of a Phil Hellmuth temper tantrum, TI finally offered a room to capture some of the wave. Although I missed it at first and had to ask a keno-desk person for directions, in retrospect it's pretty damn easy to find. Walking around from one of these new poker rooms to the next was like Christmas morning; each one a mystery box waiting to be unwrapped. TI's room is mostly enclosed, though you can watch the games from two large rail-windows or the main entrance. It looked very nice, and at that time of day (around 11:00 a.m.) wasn't really so crowded, but it was fairly small. I suspected it would fill up quickly during these weeks with the WSOP in town.
After TI, I took the tram over to the Mirage. I like playing here, even though in my early visits, I took a few solid lumps playing seven-card stud against devious experts. Had I not diverted into hold'em, I probably would have continued to work on my stud skills so I could play in the games here as an equal.
Trouble is, hold'em has almost completely displaced stud in Las Vegas. What few stud games still run are low-buyin, $1-$5 spread-limit games that attract mostly local retirees who play barely any pots, wait for the absolute nuts to begin betting, and castigate anyone who dares to raise a pot. The Mirage used to host two of the few mid-level stud games ($5/$10 and $10/$20) in town. When I visited the room that day and on future occasions, the low-limit version was all they had left. Aside from the Bellagio, where games of many types and nearly every limit can be found, I couldn't imagine where else the dedicate core of mid-limit stud players might have gone. Too bad, because it featured an interesting blend of personalities, which could almost be a blog post on its own.
One other change I regretted at the Mirage was in the change of dealer uniforms. This is a trend that has spread across most casinos. The traditional garb for a poker dealer is a white oxford or tux-inspired shirt, bowtie, black pants, and either a short apron or, increasingly, a fanny pack for personal items. Maybe a vest over the shirt, which always had a left front pocket for tips. In new rooms, and as time goes by in many old ones, poker dealers now wear the same smocks as the rest of the dealers, and what had once been a small company of professional-looking card dealers at the Mirage now had no individuality. Chalk it up to corporate monomania, or perhaps to sentimentality on my part. Another story I could tell you concerns how I actually played dealer at a birthday party, and how I approximated the classic look, even on a roasting-hot July day, but again, that can wait for another entry.
My walking tour — getting hotter by the hour under skies clouded by smoke blown in from a California wildfire — took me next to Caesars Palace. As part of the Harrah's megalith, which also owns the WSOP, opening a poker room in one of the company's star properties was a dead bang. As befits a sprawling resort like Caesars, its poker room is likewise immense. Equally large is the adjoining tournament area, where both independent competitions and satellites for the WSOP can be run. When I arrived, a new no-limit tournament had just started, and the side room was packed with players, the only sounds the clicking of myriad poker chips being nervously shuffled together as the players began forming early impressions of their opponents, testing the table's nerves with a raise here and there, nothing too crazy this early, just enough to let them know a Player is in town. Yeah, most of them have something akin to this kind of crazy dream, all except for the very new players, who have ponied up a buck-twenty for the entry fee and are shaking in their sneakers, or the seasoned local pros, who are already charting their way to the final table through this ill-kempt scrub and wondering which other regulars they will see there.
Having completed my survey of the new offerings in town, it was time to get some actual play under my belt. This will be the topic of my next entry, as will a demonstration of how right and how wrong the best starting hand in hold'em can be.
To view the first two moves along this tainted Candyland board of a city, slide over to these links:
But I didn't come to Las Vegas to look at women. (Well, it wasn't my first priority.) I was here for some poker, and this time around, I had a few new venues in which to play, and before settling down to some cards, I wanted to check out my broader range of playing options.
So after polishing off my muffin and casting one last longing look at the beauty beside me, I drove back down to the Strip, parked at the beautiful Wynn Las Vegas, and began my walking tour.
I did take a quick peek at Wynn's room, which actually opened more than a year ago but which still gets high grades from players. The average skill level there exceeds my own, even at the "lower" games (e.g., they spread a low-cost no-limit game, but there is no maximum buy-in, which skilled, aggressive players favor), so I have not played there yet, a trend that continued for this trip. Someday I'll give the $1/$3 no-limit or one of the inexpensive limit games a shot, but not this trip.
Next, I walked a sweltering block south to the Venetian. Their room went in only a few months ago, and it's a spacious affair with lots of tables, comfortable seats, the electronic seating board most new rooms install to help players see how long their wait might be, and a slew of smaller amenities like tableside dining and an automated login for player's cards so folks can track their comp dollars. A classy room for one of the more upscale properties on the Strip.
Across the street from the Venetian sits Treasure Island, or TI as they have renamed themselves in an attempt to snare the hipster crowd. Its sister property, the Mirage, had what was the premier poker room of its time when it was built in the Nineties. Years later, as poker ebbed, then rushed back in with the force of a Phil Hellmuth temper tantrum, TI finally offered a room to capture some of the wave. Although I missed it at first and had to ask a keno-desk person for directions, in retrospect it's pretty damn easy to find. Walking around from one of these new poker rooms to the next was like Christmas morning; each one a mystery box waiting to be unwrapped. TI's room is mostly enclosed, though you can watch the games from two large rail-windows or the main entrance. It looked very nice, and at that time of day (around 11:00 a.m.) wasn't really so crowded, but it was fairly small. I suspected it would fill up quickly during these weeks with the WSOP in town.
After TI, I took the tram over to the Mirage. I like playing here, even though in my early visits, I took a few solid lumps playing seven-card stud against devious experts. Had I not diverted into hold'em, I probably would have continued to work on my stud skills so I could play in the games here as an equal.
Trouble is, hold'em has almost completely displaced stud in Las Vegas. What few stud games still run are low-buyin, $1-$5 spread-limit games that attract mostly local retirees who play barely any pots, wait for the absolute nuts to begin betting, and castigate anyone who dares to raise a pot. The Mirage used to host two of the few mid-level stud games ($5/$10 and $10/$20) in town. When I visited the room that day and on future occasions, the low-limit version was all they had left. Aside from the Bellagio, where games of many types and nearly every limit can be found, I couldn't imagine where else the dedicate core of mid-limit stud players might have gone. Too bad, because it featured an interesting blend of personalities, which could almost be a blog post on its own.
One other change I regretted at the Mirage was in the change of dealer uniforms. This is a trend that has spread across most casinos. The traditional garb for a poker dealer is a white oxford or tux-inspired shirt, bowtie, black pants, and either a short apron or, increasingly, a fanny pack for personal items. Maybe a vest over the shirt, which always had a left front pocket for tips. In new rooms, and as time goes by in many old ones, poker dealers now wear the same smocks as the rest of the dealers, and what had once been a small company of professional-looking card dealers at the Mirage now had no individuality. Chalk it up to corporate monomania, or perhaps to sentimentality on my part. Another story I could tell you concerns how I actually played dealer at a birthday party, and how I approximated the classic look, even on a roasting-hot July day, but again, that can wait for another entry.
My walking tour — getting hotter by the hour under skies clouded by smoke blown in from a California wildfire — took me next to Caesars Palace. As part of the Harrah's megalith, which also owns the WSOP, opening a poker room in one of the company's star properties was a dead bang. As befits a sprawling resort like Caesars, its poker room is likewise immense. Equally large is the adjoining tournament area, where both independent competitions and satellites for the WSOP can be run. When I arrived, a new no-limit tournament had just started, and the side room was packed with players, the only sounds the clicking of myriad poker chips being nervously shuffled together as the players began forming early impressions of their opponents, testing the table's nerves with a raise here and there, nothing too crazy this early, just enough to let them know a Player is in town. Yeah, most of them have something akin to this kind of crazy dream, all except for the very new players, who have ponied up a buck-twenty for the entry fee and are shaking in their sneakers, or the seasoned local pros, who are already charting their way to the final table through this ill-kempt scrub and wondering which other regulars they will see there.
Having completed my survey of the new offerings in town, it was time to get some actual play under my belt. This will be the topic of my next entry, as will a demonstration of how right and how wrong the best starting hand in hold'em can be.
To view the first two moves along this tainted Candyland board of a city, slide over to these links:
Monday, July 31, 2006
How I Missed a Giant Steel Toadstool
WHEN YOU THINK OF a fire hydrant, you probably envision one of two designs:
This is how I managed to do the unthinkable and park next to a fire hydrant Saturday evening.
I was heading down the street of the mighty Ratatosk and Amy for a night of pizza, boardgaming, and whimsy. The street was fairly full, the hazy morning having given way to a decent afternoon that probably helped fill several of the neighborhood backyards with barbecues and beer fests. When I noticed a spot just outside my destination, I pulled in eagerly and headed on up to the apartment.
What I did not notice was the dinky-ass yellow fireplug next to my car, which explained why this spot was mysteriously available.
Hours later, after a ton of fun getting to know Warrior Knights, I exited into the humid summer morning (it was pretty damn late by then!), only to spot a familiar oblong shape on the windshield of my car.
I pulled the ticket off and scrutinized it, wondering if I had violated the time limit for street parking. Instead, it indicated that I had parked within 10 feet of a hydrant. To which I replied, out loud, "What hydrant?!" I walked around the car only to see this stunted iron pipe, painted yellow, of all colors, hiding behind my vehicle.
I felt so stupid. Thankfully, there had been no need to access the hydrant in my time there. Still, I think the fine folks at the fire department or DPW of the offended town might do its visitors a favor and render their hydrants in the same traditional color scheme as the rest of the country. If I didn't see it in broad daylight, how the hell are the firefighters supposed to locate it in a rush of stress?
- A black pillar with a silver-painted top, or
- An entirely red pillar.
This is how I managed to do the unthinkable and park next to a fire hydrant Saturday evening.
I was heading down the street of the mighty Ratatosk and Amy for a night of pizza, boardgaming, and whimsy. The street was fairly full, the hazy morning having given way to a decent afternoon that probably helped fill several of the neighborhood backyards with barbecues and beer fests. When I noticed a spot just outside my destination, I pulled in eagerly and headed on up to the apartment.
What I did not notice was the dinky-ass yellow fireplug next to my car, which explained why this spot was mysteriously available.
Hours later, after a ton of fun getting to know Warrior Knights, I exited into the humid summer morning (it was pretty damn late by then!), only to spot a familiar oblong shape on the windshield of my car.
I pulled the ticket off and scrutinized it, wondering if I had violated the time limit for street parking. Instead, it indicated that I had parked within 10 feet of a hydrant. To which I replied, out loud, "What hydrant?!" I walked around the car only to see this stunted iron pipe, painted yellow, of all colors, hiding behind my vehicle.
I felt so stupid. Thankfully, there had been no need to access the hydrant in my time there. Still, I think the fine folks at the fire department or DPW of the offended town might do its visitors a favor and render their hydrants in the same traditional color scheme as the rest of the country. If I didn't see it in broad daylight, how the hell are the firefighters supposed to locate it in a rush of stress?
Monday, July 24, 2006
Las Vegas 7/06: Landings, Lodgings, and First Blood
EACH TIME I HAVE visited Las Vegas, I have rented a car. It seemed like a given for the first trip, even though I was staying at the Flamingo, which is dead center on the Strip and accessible to many fine properties via foot or cab. I knew I was going to Hoover Dam, a trip I wanted to make on my own, not subject to the whims of a tour bus driver. It turned out I also made a couple of side trips into the depths of Vegas's non-Strip turf, at least once to take a break from the clanging slots and the vicissitudes of the blackjack tables.
This time was no different, and perhaps more essential, as I was staying Downtown again. My first three stays were at the Flamingo, then I gave the Golden Nugget a try Downtown. I gave them my business the next three times, only breaking the pattern this January when the Nugget's reservation system went kerflooie and I went a block away to the Plaza. Because this trip was planned with considerably less lead time than is typical for me, I didn't bother with the Nugget and went straight for the Plaza. I survived the last trip, why not try them again?
The plane landed on time — finding me with my eyes closed and my breath held. The only part of air travel I can't take is the landing. When the plane is taking off, if there's any sort of problem, I figure the plane can just wheel around and land. In the air, we have redundant systems, two to four engines, several alternate airports at which to land, and the ability to glide if all else fails. Coming in for a landing, however, I feel like I have the least control over anything. Granted, I have control over precisely nothing on the airplane at any time, but it feels most apparent at landing. Everything from the last five seconds above the ground, through that first shuddering touchdown, the throaty roar of the reversed engines, and the sway of the craft as it decelerates, finds me sitting stiff and straight and soaking my knees or the armrests with my sweating palms.
Thus far, this has passed quickly, and when we are merely rolling across the tarmac, with the unmatched skyline of the Las Vegas Strip gliding by the window, all the excitement of the destination rushes back and stomps my landing anxiety into the desert sands.
After the glitch last January with the rental car, I decided not to take chances and rented a Hertz vehicle straight out of the airport. It costs more to rent there, because of fees and taxes McCarran imposes on airport rentals, but with the flight out to Vegas in January free due to frequent flyer miles, I was $300 ahead of the game. The convenience was worth paying for. I had to wait for about 15 minutes for them to find me a car, because I used a AAA upgrade. I wondered how many travelers got sick of waiting, told the clerks to cancel the search, and took what they were initially assigned. I decided not to give the house any advantage. Many folks in the rental hut were not as lucky, having walked straight in from the planes that had gotten them there and tried to rent cars without reservations. Their waits were destined to be much longer than mine.
After that quarter hour, during which I tried not to listen to a high-talking man bray into his cellphone at full lisp about his business problems (the day they permit cell access on planes, expect a logarithmic rise in passenger fistfights and air-marshall weapon discharge reports), I hightailed it across the sizzling parking lot to a Toyota Solara, which was occupied by the Texas family that had just returned it. I evicted them, tossed my two bags into the trunk, and roared off toward the Strip.
As hungry as I might be upon arrival, as late as cross-country storms may have made my flight, as much as I might need caffeine or a bathroom to eliminate same, I always cruise up the Strip early in my trip. I watch the crowds milling from casino to casino in the late-morning sun. I scan the skyline for construction cranes to see if any of the megaresorts have suddenly added a tower or two in my absence. I ride along under the fringe of the Strip's palm trees, maybe even with the window down to hear the delight of the crowd and the carnival barkers outside the gamble palaces offering their alluring temptations. I soak up the heat and the sounds and the absurd architecture and feel at peace. At least, as peaceful as you can be with 50-foot depictions of acrobats, impersonators, and clowns screaming at you from every signboard.
A word here about the Toyota Solara. As rental cars go, this one rates near the bottom. Ergonomically everything felt off. It was probably more spacious inside than the Corolla, from which I had upgraded via AAA, but the positions of various buttons and levers was disquieting and just inconvenient enough to feel like I was wearing someone else's favorite sweater. Of particular vexation was the trunk door and release. The gas-door latch was above the trunk latch, which itself was recessed beneath the floor-line of the car. Time and again I was readying my gas tank for a good sugaring. Triggering the trunk release with the remote required me to press and hold the button for several wasted seconds. Worst of all, the trunk required a good slam to shut it properly. I didn't realize all this until near the end of the first full day, but by that time, I was too set on actually enjoying my vacation to sweat out another stretch in the rental office. The trunk almost cost me dearly, however, when I unthinkingly closed it in the parking garage of one of the casinos, and, upon returning later, noticed that it had not latched shut at all. I slowly opened the trunk, steeling myself to discover my backpack swollen with all manner of books and papers to be gone, but there it was. Call it goodwill, or maybe gambling-focused monomania on the part of the casino's patrons, but as Vegas luck goes, this was my peak.
As is my usual practice, I spent my arrival day checking in (which got me a fine, high, south-pointed view of the Strip), unwinding from the trip, unpacking, driving around a bit, walking to foot-accessible Downtown casinos to snoop about . . . everything but poker. I did gamble, however. Before I left in January, I bought $10 in $1 chips at the Plaza, because they had recently rebranded their casino with a cool new Googie-inspired logo, and I wanted a stack to shuffle next to my keyboard while I thought between sentences. (If you've watched a certain amount of poker TV, you've seen the players riffling two stacks of chips between the fingers of one hand into a single, taller stack. Generally, new players' ability to do this is inversely proportional to their actual poker skill. Yes, I'm including myself. Besides, all the cool kids were doing it!) These chips were now somewhat grotty from my constant nervous fiddling (I blame Full Tilt Poker), so I trucked them back to Las Vegas for redemption.
Or . . . perhaps . . . maybe I could make some small coin with them. I sat down at a $5 blackjack table and deployed my massive, two-bet's-worth stack. The dealer certainly didn't tell me to go somewhere else with it. This is Downtown, last refuge of the low-roller. I figured, the worst that happened was I rented these chips for a ten-spot over the past half year. As it turns out, I didn't really have to call on my wavering knowledge of basic blackjack strategy, because the deck hit me quite firmly. I managed to double up my stack to $22 after two shoes, which featured both a lucrative splitting opportunity, a good double down on 11, and a natural. I tipped the dealer one of my white checks and cashed out for an $11 profit. If only every investment yielded a 110% return so effortlessly!
Next up, my return to the fishy waters of no-limit hold'em in Vegas.
Read the start of this descent into poker madness at Escaping West and the Course Curriculum.
For the next chapters in this sordid saga, hit up this list:
This time was no different, and perhaps more essential, as I was staying Downtown again. My first three stays were at the Flamingo, then I gave the Golden Nugget a try Downtown. I gave them my business the next three times, only breaking the pattern this January when the Nugget's reservation system went kerflooie and I went a block away to the Plaza. Because this trip was planned with considerably less lead time than is typical for me, I didn't bother with the Nugget and went straight for the Plaza. I survived the last trip, why not try them again?
The plane landed on time — finding me with my eyes closed and my breath held. The only part of air travel I can't take is the landing. When the plane is taking off, if there's any sort of problem, I figure the plane can just wheel around and land. In the air, we have redundant systems, two to four engines, several alternate airports at which to land, and the ability to glide if all else fails. Coming in for a landing, however, I feel like I have the least control over anything. Granted, I have control over precisely nothing on the airplane at any time, but it feels most apparent at landing. Everything from the last five seconds above the ground, through that first shuddering touchdown, the throaty roar of the reversed engines, and the sway of the craft as it decelerates, finds me sitting stiff and straight and soaking my knees or the armrests with my sweating palms.
Thus far, this has passed quickly, and when we are merely rolling across the tarmac, with the unmatched skyline of the Las Vegas Strip gliding by the window, all the excitement of the destination rushes back and stomps my landing anxiety into the desert sands.
After the glitch last January with the rental car, I decided not to take chances and rented a Hertz vehicle straight out of the airport. It costs more to rent there, because of fees and taxes McCarran imposes on airport rentals, but with the flight out to Vegas in January free due to frequent flyer miles, I was $300 ahead of the game. The convenience was worth paying for. I had to wait for about 15 minutes for them to find me a car, because I used a AAA upgrade. I wondered how many travelers got sick of waiting, told the clerks to cancel the search, and took what they were initially assigned. I decided not to give the house any advantage. Many folks in the rental hut were not as lucky, having walked straight in from the planes that had gotten them there and tried to rent cars without reservations. Their waits were destined to be much longer than mine.
After that quarter hour, during which I tried not to listen to a high-talking man bray into his cellphone at full lisp about his business problems (the day they permit cell access on planes, expect a logarithmic rise in passenger fistfights and air-marshall weapon discharge reports), I hightailed it across the sizzling parking lot to a Toyota Solara, which was occupied by the Texas family that had just returned it. I evicted them, tossed my two bags into the trunk, and roared off toward the Strip.
As hungry as I might be upon arrival, as late as cross-country storms may have made my flight, as much as I might need caffeine or a bathroom to eliminate same, I always cruise up the Strip early in my trip. I watch the crowds milling from casino to casino in the late-morning sun. I scan the skyline for construction cranes to see if any of the megaresorts have suddenly added a tower or two in my absence. I ride along under the fringe of the Strip's palm trees, maybe even with the window down to hear the delight of the crowd and the carnival barkers outside the gamble palaces offering their alluring temptations. I soak up the heat and the sounds and the absurd architecture and feel at peace. At least, as peaceful as you can be with 50-foot depictions of acrobats, impersonators, and clowns screaming at you from every signboard.
A word here about the Toyota Solara. As rental cars go, this one rates near the bottom. Ergonomically everything felt off. It was probably more spacious inside than the Corolla, from which I had upgraded via AAA, but the positions of various buttons and levers was disquieting and just inconvenient enough to feel like I was wearing someone else's favorite sweater. Of particular vexation was the trunk door and release. The gas-door latch was above the trunk latch, which itself was recessed beneath the floor-line of the car. Time and again I was readying my gas tank for a good sugaring. Triggering the trunk release with the remote required me to press and hold the button for several wasted seconds. Worst of all, the trunk required a good slam to shut it properly. I didn't realize all this until near the end of the first full day, but by that time, I was too set on actually enjoying my vacation to sweat out another stretch in the rental office. The trunk almost cost me dearly, however, when I unthinkingly closed it in the parking garage of one of the casinos, and, upon returning later, noticed that it had not latched shut at all. I slowly opened the trunk, steeling myself to discover my backpack swollen with all manner of books and papers to be gone, but there it was. Call it goodwill, or maybe gambling-focused monomania on the part of the casino's patrons, but as Vegas luck goes, this was my peak.
As is my usual practice, I spent my arrival day checking in (which got me a fine, high, south-pointed view of the Strip), unwinding from the trip, unpacking, driving around a bit, walking to foot-accessible Downtown casinos to snoop about . . . everything but poker. I did gamble, however. Before I left in January, I bought $10 in $1 chips at the Plaza, because they had recently rebranded their casino with a cool new Googie-inspired logo, and I wanted a stack to shuffle next to my keyboard while I thought between sentences. (If you've watched a certain amount of poker TV, you've seen the players riffling two stacks of chips between the fingers of one hand into a single, taller stack. Generally, new players' ability to do this is inversely proportional to their actual poker skill. Yes, I'm including myself. Besides, all the cool kids were doing it!) These chips were now somewhat grotty from my constant nervous fiddling (I blame Full Tilt Poker), so I trucked them back to Las Vegas for redemption.Or . . . perhaps . . . maybe I could make some small coin with them. I sat down at a $5 blackjack table and deployed my massive, two-bet's-worth stack. The dealer certainly didn't tell me to go somewhere else with it. This is Downtown, last refuge of the low-roller. I figured, the worst that happened was I rented these chips for a ten-spot over the past half year. As it turns out, I didn't really have to call on my wavering knowledge of basic blackjack strategy, because the deck hit me quite firmly. I managed to double up my stack to $22 after two shoes, which featured both a lucrative splitting opportunity, a good double down on 11, and a natural. I tipped the dealer one of my white checks and cashed out for an $11 profit. If only every investment yielded a 110% return so effortlessly!
Next up, my return to the fishy waters of no-limit hold'em in Vegas.
Read the start of this descent into poker madness at Escaping West and the Course Curriculum.
For the next chapters in this sordid saga, hit up this list:
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