Spring missed it's chance...

     First I want to start off by saying one thing: I will not make a blog post about a politically charged issue while drunk again.

     Now that that's out of the way.... Well we finally got a taste of summer over the past few days here. Spring skipped up completely so far. Went from below 0 and snowing to quick melt and 15+ in the matter of what seemed like a few days.

     Tuesday was a a great day! I went golfing, yay!! Mind you it was quite wet on the course, the greens were closed to play and there was still some snow in the low/shadowy areas I had to avoid, but I still got to play 7 holes. Man, am I ever rusty. These longass winters here are really a killer to my game. Wanted to go out again today and enjoy the 20C weather and warm sun, but had other things to do. Some yard work, some car detailing, and I was also doing more work on the sump pit that I've been installing in my basement.

     That has been a slow process. My basement is dug into clay, and due to the shoddy construction practices of the company that built it way back in the 60's, the weeping tile works like shit. Well, it doesn't really work at all for any real amount of rain. So I broke out a jackhammer and a shovel and went to work. Dug down maybe a foot before the hole was full of water and the sides began to erode out from under the concrete pad. I put my basin in, just enough to get it to fill up with water, dropped in my sump pump and started pumping away. I'm amazed at how much water was under my foundation. The pump has been running for 5 days now, pumping roughly 50 gallons of water a day out of there. Today it was dry enough to allow me to dig down another foot before it filled with too much water to continue. Gotta say, digging through partially frozen clay is a bitch. Now I have 2 or so feet of my 3 foot deep basin sunk into the hole and still pumping water.

     Tomorrow the forecast is calling for a buttload of rain, up to 15mm, so I'm glad I at least have some provision in place to evacuate the water. Still, I hope the forecast is wrong. I still need to dig down at least another 2 feet, widen the hole a bit, place a layer of crushed rock in the bottom, replace the basin, fill around the sides with more crushed, and then finish it with a nice veneer of concrete around the edge. Then all I gotta do is run the hose out my window framing, outside a ways from my house and I'm done. What I have done so far will help tremendously, but I hope the rain holds off a couple of more days so I can finish it properly. Fingers crossed!

     Then, as if rain weren't bad enough, it is supposed to go back to 0 on Sunday and snow a bit. Fuck, I'm so fuckin' sick of that white shit. If the forecast is right it'll be till at least Wednesday before I can golf again. That;s if it doesn't rain or snow again in the meantime...

     Ah well, at least I got to play a few holes and started my tan this week.

Sad ^Times. Sad Times Indeed

     So here we are, three days since the now infamous Black Friday. The day that seen FTP, PokerStars, and Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker get shut down in America by the DOJ and billions of dollars seized.

     

     I won't go into the nitty-gritty of the details, as I'm sure most of you are fully aware of them at this point. But I will go on a bit of a rant to let you all know how I feel about the matter, even though as a Canadian citizen I'm so far completely unaffected by this:

Seriously now. How the fuck did you people let this bullshit happen to yourselves? Don't give me this crap about  not knowing this would happen or how this is all some underhanded government scheme to take your money. We all new this would happen eventually. But that's not what I mean. I mean how did you let yourselves be pushed around by your own government? The very government you elected to see to and protect your interests. 

I mean really. I won't go back too far here, but I'll give a little review on the chain of bullshit that I've seen since, say 9/11. Since that time you have been lied to in order to go to war for no good reason other than to "fight terrorism" (interestingly enough, the same terrorists you went to war to get are the ones you armed to the teeth in order to fight somebody else, then fucked over once they didn't want to fight anymore). You then elected to keep fighting in order to save face. While this was all going on, your top regulatory industries were making a mint by turning a blind eye to what the largest financial institutions were doing and hence throwing your country into a horrible depression that fucked over not only yourselves but many other countries.

Instead of throwing the people who were responsible for the banking fiasco that seen millions of you out of work and nearly as many lose their homes and pensions, you decided to (by total inaction and trust in your government) let them walk and throw billions of tax dollars at the problem. Good idea. Let it happen, forgive the companies, banks and individuals responsible, and give them billions of dollars to start up again, then trust the same regulatory bodies to make sure it don't happen again.

Also while all this was happening, you decided to take it up the ass when it came to anything about "national security". The propaganda that was fed and swallowed to you got you all so fuckin scared that you no longer asked questions when it came to your elected officials. As long as they told you that it was in your best interests you let it happen. No questions, no fact checking, nothing. 

This whole poker mess that you are now in was actually tacked on to a Port Security bill that was sure to pass. had the UIGEA been proposed on it's own, it would probably have been shot down. Instead, by turning a blind eye to everything else, you allowed them to do what they always got away with and paperclip it to a bill that was sure to pass. By spending the last decade just allowing things to happen without question, you all then just fucked yourselves. And who did you turn to after the UIGEA was tabled and passed? The PPA. An organization headed by a politician who works with other current/former politicians. And you think they are really going to do much in the way of helping the cause?? That's like getting grounded by one parent and trying to get out of it by sucking up to the other. It just won't work out like you hope.

Now, before I get all sorts of hatemail, or corrective comments, keep in mind that this is just a broad overview and a rant.

I continue...

So here you are now. Pissed at the government, pissed at Obama, Bush, and the world for slapping you with this injustice. You should all be pissed at yourselves. By allowing this chain of events to happen, you allowed the shutdown of your favorite hobby.

But all is not lost. Sure you can say "no matter who is in charge, these things will happen" or "it's been done, all we can do now is deal with it and see what happens". Bullshit!! You, as a people can do many things to make sure this does not happen again. Did you know that any American citizen can run for public office? Sure, it takes a lot of money to put someone in a high enough office to have any effect, but that cost is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of getting assraped back and forth by either of the current two parties. Make a fucking stand here people! Petitions and letter campaigns don't work. A call to your local congressman don't work. Know what works? Millions of protesters, millions of united voices, millions of dollars invested into a core of individuals that are chosen by you who actually have your interests at heart. 

Don't just sit there getting fucked and complaining about it, do something about it! If you don't, losing the ability to play online poker, getting on a plane without getting your luggage tossed and a finger up your ass, and eating the foods you want regardless of the trans fat content is gonna be the very least of your worries!

I will leave you with a quote that you might find interesting:

An excerpt from

They Thought They Were Free

The Germans, 1933-45

Milton Mayer



But Then It Was Too Late

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remote

Now that I'm done ranting and pissing you all off, I wish all of you the best in this difficult time. It is still too early to tell what lasting effects this whole situation will have, but I fear it is going to get worse before it gets better. This has gone beyond poker. This is now in the realm of personal freedom and happiness. And to that end I hope we can all come out of this better then we were when it all started. The US government hay have won this battle, but the war is long from over. Don't give up, fight it any way you can!

End of WInter

     Holy shit, has it really been a month since I last posted?? It's gone by fast for me, let me tell ya. Snow is finally starting to melt, basement is flooding, grass is starting to poke through the snow drifts.... honestly all this should have been happening a month ago.

     So I really have not played much poker to speak of in the past month, save for my league games and going to the Legion every other weekend. Speaking of the league, we won! Team MVP are Cards Chat Winter League champions. On it's way to me is a copy of "Don't listen to Phill Hllmuth" by Dusty "Leatherass" Schmidt, and the $40 prize money is now in my FTP account.

     So all in all I would consider this winter's poker session a success. I made over $1300 profit over 600 games played. Most of these games were single table tourneys at the $2 to $5 level, with a bunch of $1- $5 MTT thrown in for good measure. In all honesty I really never got to the volume level I wanted, not even close, but I am still very happy with the results.

     What I am even happier with is the purchase of my new car. I am now the proud owner of a black 2010 Chevy Camaro SS. This car is a badass, 400hp, leather, sunroof, sweet stereo. It's a beaut! My wife and I have ourselves going got evening drives just for the sake of driving it.

     So, soon will start golf season and I am itching to play. I start trapping on a couple of weeks and am also looking forward to that. Poker will be put on the back burner 'till fall, but I will still play here and there as time allows.

     If there is actually anyone following this, I promise I will update this more often. The past month had been a blur of car shopping, yard work, foundation repair and whatnot. I must be more diligent.

     Here's to warm weather, long drives (both with golf clubs and big engines) and a great summer to look forward to!!