Get ready for the full monty

So it’s been a month since the last update. I’m lazy, what a surprise. I’ve been back in the U.S. for over 3 weeks now and it has actually gone pretty fast for me even for the slowness of an unemployed summer. I have to admit, Spain was fun and nice but it’s good to be back to all of my favorite places to eat, golf, and hang out. It’s nice to be back to knowing 100% of what’s said and 15 minute, hot showers, back to the American Dollar, which is worth nothing anywhere else.

My journey back to the U.S. was not as simple as my departure. My original flight plan was a mess, Sevilla to Madrid to London to Chicago to Pittsburgh, a 20 hour ordeal. The first flight went without a hitch, I didn’t even get knived waiting for a taxi in Sevilla at dawn like I expected. The flight from Madrid to London was a frantic moment as I realized I had 25 minutes before my plan took off and I was in the wrong building and needed to bus across the huge airport. After getting completely lost for a few minutes I made it to the plan in time. Now the flight was running late and it landed at 3:35, 70 minutes before my next flight. After a few mishaps at the cluster fuck that is Heathrow I made it to the check-in desk 15 minutes before my flight left only to be denied. The reason for not letting me on the plane was that they needed 30 minutes to process my information because the flight was in-bound to the United States. Yes, make sure you be weary of all those American citizens wanting to come back into their own country. I mean really, if I wanted to attack the United States, don’t you think I would pack a truck full of explosives I made in the comfort of my own home within the U.S. and drive it into a government building rather than try to avoid multiple layers of intense security to attack it via an airplane? I mean really America, fucking think, you damn retard. Uh oh, I might have just upped the terrorist watch level to orange.

This all led to getting a ticket to another flight to New York instead a few hours later, but the seat was not guaranteed. After waiting 3.5 hours and being repeatedly told they could not get me on the flight because it was completely full, I got my ticket thanks to the absence of some random people at the last moment. It was there, in that terminal in London where I may have never been so upset in my entire life. It wasn’t fear or anxiety, I had lived in another country for a couple months and almost died a few times there. I really wasn’t scared so much as tired of a lot of things, mostly having to be so fucking independent. It’s always me and myself. I always have to go it alone through everything in my life, and the prospect of having to spend the night again without lodging in a second foreign country just put me over the edge. I was sitting in my seat bubbling with total anger, disgust, and sadness. Squeezing on that last flight made me feel better but I still had to land at 10pm at JFK in New York only to have to meet some random dude and take a taxi with him to LaGuardia and sit in an uncomfortable seat for 6 hours or so with snoring minorities all around me. Eventually my flight left at 8am to Pittsburgh and I met my mom and grandma at 9:35am. I had never been so glad to be home.

Sure, that was a long useless story about my airport experiences but I feel better for finally talking about that. I went up to State College this past Thursday with the help of Jeremy to help clean and move the rest of my stuff out of my old apartment. I have to say it was a relieve to be done with Executive House Apartments and their hallways that smell like rotten vagina. Two days before I found a place to live for the fall. Having refused to live in a place that makes you sign a 12 month lease (every place in State College), this left me homeless as of August 25 and obviously very bummed out for the past few months. The whole not having a place to live really skewed my view of the next couple years. Who would have guessed that being homeless might twist my perception of the sphere of bunnies and rainbows that is our world and my place in it. Thankfully I don’t have to drop out of college and thankfully I won’t be living in a van.

For the first time in a while I have a clear vision of what is going to happen. I’m going to finish my course work this fall (easier said than done) at State College and heading to Pittsburgh for student teaching where I’ll be living with my long time friend Sarah. After that the real fun begins. I’ll be collecting letters of recommendation and references, finalizing my resume and cover letters and sending them out to various schools. I’m really going to be focusing on a job in North Carolina and I’ll figure out the certification problems at some point during my senior year. Ideally I want to land a job in NC, as I’ve said before, and in a location that’s maybe 60-90 minutes from the beach if I’m really really lucky. Obviously if I land a job I won’t have much time to find housing for that area so I’ll more in likely have to live in another apartment for my first year and hunt for a house while I’m down there. After that though I’ll get my small house and really start the rest of my life. What I haven’t mentioned is the girlfriend part but that is a variable I am not worried about until I land a job. I’ve waited this long, what’s another year, right?

I think I’ll be sad to leave this area because of my friends. I really do love all my friends but I’m also not an idiot. Moving 550 miles away from everyone I know isn’t the best way to keep in touch with people. Hell, the amount of people I talk to daily from senior year of high school to now has gone from about 100 to 15 including friends from college. I’ve been really impassive about it all too, I haven’t really cared to try to keep in touch with a lot of people as bad as that sounds. If I don’t see someone on a day to day basis it’s really hard for me to keep in touch. If I move to NC I realize that every single friendship I currently have will be reduced to AIM conversations and emails that get sparser and sparser. On my occasional journeys back to West Middlesex on holidays and such there will be the infamous “Let’s get coffee and catch up!” At the start I’ll try to invite people down to visit me and stay at my new pad but I’ll usually be let down because other people do have lives and it is a 550 mile drive. My dream of everyone I know just moving down to NC with me and coming over to my place with my pool, hot tub, and 60 inch LCD 1080p television with leather furniture every day to hang out just isn’t viable. It really is sad that my main motivation for moving down there is the improved climate, but I really just can’t do 8 months of winter for the rest of my life.

I guess the big gist of this all is that I’m excited to get the next year done and out of the way. In less than 300 days I will be walking across that stage with my diploma and I can’t wait to be done shoveling money I don’t have to Penn State, to be done paying $7,400 a semester to work my ass off.

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Well, it’s a lazy Sunday here in Spain and I figured I would talk a little bit about my experiences here coupled with things I have noticed. As a disclaimer, yes I know there is no right or wrong as far as culture goes. Every country has a different way of doing things and blah blah blah, but I still can’t help but compare it to the United States and think some of what they do is odd.

1. I think what I picked up on quickly is clothing. Spanish people dress nicer than a lot of Americans. During the day, when it is 90 degrees out, Spaniards don’t wear shorts or flip flops. They are always wearing dress pants and dress shoes with nice shirts, everyone, it’s crazy. When I walk around with my 6 or 7 year old pair of blue jean shorts and my flip flops, I stick out.

2. I’m sure it’s not shocking nor very surprising to anyone, but things in Spain come in much smaller sizes than in the U.S. The food comes in smaller portions, the drinks are smaller. Everything here is Coke, I have yet to see Pepsi floating around in restaurants although some convenience stores carry it. The apartment I live in is sort of small, the elevators are small, the streets are small, the cars, everything.

3. Spanish people have a very strange definition of cleanliness. Spaniards love to clean the sidewalks in front of their businesses. I see people cleaning the most random stuff outside. I saw a woman with a mop trying to clean the air conditioner hanging outside of the building. Every morning my walk to class is filled with seeing people moping the area outside by their front door, even cleaning the window ledges on the outside of the building. At about 11pm every night the cleaning crews of the city come out in force. There are armies of men with power hoses and leaf blowers supported by street scrubbing trucks. This all sounds just lovely, I know, but the odd thing is the inside of buildings aren’t always as clean. A lot of buildings have a bad smell to me and I have just watched people clean and do a piss poor job. I mean, the cleaning lady in my building mops the lobby floor with just a bucket of water and a dirty mop head. I just want to walk up to her and tell her she’s doing a horrible job and she needs to put cleaning solution in the fucking water, but I don’t want to cause trouble when I’m not a citizen of where I am living. I also rarely see a clean dish, glass, or piece of silverware. My impression is that no one in Spain can actually wash dishes correctly. They spend more time cleaning the fucking outdoors than inside.

4. Definitely something positive about Spain is their night life. You don’t actually go out until after 10:30 or 11. When I go out on the weekends it’s crazy, there are more people outside than during the day. It can be midnight and you have every age group socializing in the streets. I see 80 year olds sitting at cafes BS’ing the night away. I see entire families with even the little kids who are around 4 or 5 years old. Young teenagers are all over the place unsupervised. And places don’t close until after 2am, even the cafes. Usually more like 4. Also the teenage girls here seriously don’t wear clothes on the weekends. It’s like Harlot Fridays. They are seriously 13 years old walking around a large city with nothing more than a thong when they still don’t have a chest.

5. All they eat here is ham. I swear to God that’s the only meat in Spain, ham ham ham, in everything. It isn’t ham like in the U.S. either, it’s cured in a special way that makes it taste like a used rubber dildo. On the bright side they eat way healthier here than in the U.S. I’m sure this surprises no one. Every day I get servings of vegetables and fruits that don’t come from the onions on a double quarter pounder with cheese with a side of apple dippers. Also from my experience and asking everyone else you do not drink soda during meals at home; it’s always water.

6. Spanish culture is ultra-relaxed. If you are punctual and like others to be the same, don’t come here. Also don’t come here if you enjoy things starting on time. I mean, life just moves so slow here, and also just everything…literally. I mean, on my 35 minute Bataan death marches to class I almost knock people over. I blow past the people on the sidewalk who are doing a normal Spanish pace. The sad thing is that in State College at my university, people blow by me. I’m sure if they were here the Spaniards would wonder why they are running. I mean, it can be nice to be so relaxed here but I occasionally would like something to start on time. If a show is advertised to start at 11, it won’t start until 11:25. If the bus says it is going to leave at 9, it doesn’t leave until 9:30. Just imagine the constant rushed pace of New York City, and picture the exact polar opposite and then you know what it is to be in Sevilla.

That’s all she wrote for that. I’ll have more to talk about later. I figure if I write about my experiences I will be less likely to talk about them and be that obnoxious person that thinks they are better than everyone else because they got to leave the country, BFD. I also want to get most of my pictures posted up here but the internet I’m stealing right now isn’t fast enough for me to upload 200 pictures so stayed tuned, I’ll have them up in a week or so.

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This wasn’t even a prepared entry, I just honestly couldn’t help myself with this one. This is a direct quote off of the issues section of John McCain’s presidential website.

Talking about “Human Dignity and the Sanctity of Life,”
“…However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby.”

The compassion of who, John McCain? You are a fucking republican and you are going to cut any government program that would aid pregnant mothers. I mean really, leave it to republicans to want to end abortion, so we can have even more poor people and you know republicans…they hate poor people. I mean really, that makes no sense whatsoever. Let’s have less government and create more poor families with kids they can’t afford but we’re not going to help them out because we believe in less government interference. Oh yeah, and if those kids make it to schooling age, let’s make sure they fall behind in the system because they didn’t have all the advantages being raised as the other upper middle class students who are going to pass that high stakes standardized test because they had all the proper encouragement, family environment, right down to just better nutrition that helped their cognitive development.

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Seeing as it has been exactly 2 months since my last update, with a dash of having else to do at 1 in the morning except be bitter and cynical, I have decided to talk about something that has been on my mind recently. Go figure, a 21 year old who thinks about peak oil, no wonder I’m single and forlorn.

But how to suck you, the reader, into this article with a clever hook. Dare I say we are on the brink of the collapse of global industrial civilization as we know it? I guess you’ll now have to read on…

First of all, allow me to say…shut up, just shut up and stop talking. From the guy who cuts my hair, to the anchors on CNBC, to family and friends, to the politians, none of these people have it right. None of these people really understand what is going on with oil. The most commonly used explanation for these higher fuel prices is that Exxon Mobil and Shell are evil greedy corporations that jack up the price of gasoline to increase their profits while simultaneously burning down forests on a whim and killing bunny rabbits. The second most commonly used explanation would be that OPEC, or rather, those dirty Arabs, purposely keeps oil production low to inflate prices. These are both wrong. OPEC is also not just made up of only Middle Eastern countries.

The problem lies in this mystery term of “peak oil”. But what does peak oil really mean? It is the exact moment where maximum global oil production has been reached. That is to say, the amount of oil under the ground is not the determining factor in prices, so much as the rate at which we get it out of the ground in relation to how much demand exists for it. Think of it as a bottle neck, it doesn’t matter how much you may have in the bottle, only how much can come out of the neck. So now that we have that sorted out let’s continue onto some statistics that you can either accept or deny.

There is roughly 1.255 trillion barrels of proven oil reserves left on the planet.
Demand is currently 85 million barrels per day
Demand will be 98 million barrels per day in 2015
Demand will be 118 million barrels in 2030

There are other non-conventional sources for oil, and there will be discoveries of new and conventional oil fields. In 2000, according to the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the world contains 3 trillion barrels of oil with only 2.3 trillion having a 95% chance of ultimately being recovered, factoring in the other 700 billion barrels would be technologically impossible to be obtained or just too expensive to be worth it.

So the end of oil in inevitable, with increasing levels of demand (a 38% increase in 22 years), the total pool of oil will dry up within a century. Ultimately that is far away and our prices are going up right now, so that’s what we have to discuss. That 38% increase in global demand in the next 22 years is the real killer, that’s the downfall of life as we know it. It’s not even the U.S., the king of fossil fuel consumption by far, that is causing such a jump in demand. All of those pesky third world nations are finally industrializing like whoa. I’m aware saying “like whoa” has destroyed my credibility but I couldn’t help myself. For example, India’s oil consumption is expected to triple in the next 10-15 years.

Now the next important question is when do we hit peak oil? Pessimistic estimates say we hit it 3 years ago, but the general consensus is that peak oil is anywhere between right now and 2010. So if our oil production grows at 0-1% by 2030 and demand has grown 38%, that means a lot less oil to go around which means dramatically higher prices.

It seems that no one wants to believe it, that oil companies sat in wait during the 80’s and 90’s with incredibly cheap gasoline only to finally give us the business end of a giant price hiking dildo in the last 7 or so years. In the last 6 years the price of oil has gone up over 500%. That has translated to gasoline prices hovering just below $4/gallon in most of the United States. But as demand globally continues to rise rapidly and conventional oil fields dry up or go into production decline, prices are going to go even higher, fast.

You can pretend this isn’t happening, but it is. Oil sits at $124/barrel and is poised to advance to $200/barrel within 2 years. This will translate to unleaded gasoline being $5.60/gallon. Within 5 years gasoline will approach $8/gallon. The U.S. uses 20 million barrels of oil A DAY. Nothing is going to save us from this collapse. $8 gasoline will equate to unprecedented inflation, food prices spiking, and a long term economic depression. Petroleum isn’t just a source of fuel, it’s a source for the plastics in bottles and computers, it helps heat homes in the winter. It is in every facet of our society and it’s inescapable. In 5 years it is going to cost people around $100 to fill their gas tanks, and most people go through a tank a week.

So you see, this has little to do with us, blame the third world and blame your politicians for not implementing alternative energy strategies earlier. It’s honestly too late. To have transitioned out of this without harm would take about 20 years, and now the presidential candidates are talking about it. It’s all quite funny because it doesn’t even matter what we do as a country, we are not the ones who are sucking up excess supply, that is China and India.

My advice to you all is to buy a Prius, a gun, and take some money out of your mutual funds because we’re going to be taking an economic hit here very soon.

Oh yeah, and here’s a chart of all major non-OPEC oil producing countries. According to this, we have already hit peak oil in most of the nations on the planet.

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So, we’ve had some primaries and caucuses since my last update on the 2008 election. John McCain finally clinched the nomination for the Republican Party which affords him the luxury of traveling the country uncontested to raise money and continue to be incredibly old.

The real spicy part comes with the Democratic Party. On March 4 there were 444 tasty delegates up for grabs in the contests of Vermont, Rhode Island, Texas, and Ohio. Hillary had a reenergizing night winning 3 out of the 4 contests. Yesterday we had the Mississippi primary and it is no surprise that Obama crushed Hillary decisively in that state with a democratic electorate made up of 70% African Americans. I won’t even go into how Hillary got screwed out of delegates in Texas through the caucus process that the Texas democratic party should be ashamed of itself for, but basically there are various estimates for where the delegate count rests for Obama and Clinton. I’m going to cite cnn.com for my delegate count and say that Obama stands at 1,611 to Clinton’s 1,480, a difference of 131 delegates including the dreaded superdelegates.

Now, here’s the part that McCain is salivating over like a…well, a simile doesn’t come to mind right now, but it all ends in a constant democratic deadlock. As I predicted earlier, people are clamoring about Michigan and Florida votes. Instead of having the original votes stand, people are talking about a do over. Now remember there is a 131 vote difference, advantage Obama.

Let’s look at if there were no do over, but the original votes stood, which I at least think is the right thing to do in Florida, Clinton’s crushing results of 50% vs. Obama’s 33% in Florida would net her about another 36 delegates. If Michigan’s original votes stood, that would be crazy bad for Obama, as his name wasn’t even on the ballet. This would give Clinton a net gain of 86 on delegates from Michigan for a total of 122 delegates from both FL and MI. Now, moving on to PA, the next prize on the election list on April 22 and my home state. With 188 delegates, Clinton is currently polling around a sexy 19 point lead. I am going to assume it will hold around this level right up to the election and Clinton will win by a 15% margin on the actual election day. This will net Clinton another 28 delegates and actually push her ahead of Obama by at least 19 delegates. Now honestly looking at the rest of the contests Obama will probably still carry the majority of them, keeping them both nicely at dead fucking even.

Even if there were a do over in FL and MI, Clinton would still poll at about the same advantage of before because of elderly and latino votes. The only different would be MI where they are both polling at 43%, a statistical tie. Clinton would still gain about 36 delegates and will still carry PA and push her very close to Obama. About 240 superdelegates have still failed to pick a side so anything can happen really. The only way Clinton can really have no chance is if FL and MI are still not counted at all. This would be a disgrace to democracy, to tell millions of people who are finally politically energized that their votes didn’t matter. As Obama would probably win the majority of contests to come Clinton would continue to slip back, still holding Obama beneath the 2,025 delegates, but if Clinton gets behind in delegates by more than 200, I think the superdelegates will choose to save the party and unite behind Obama, pushing him across that magical number of 2,025.

Even though McCain is raising far less money than the dems and has to wear Depends, he has the advantage of time and a somewhat united Republican party. He has months to shore up his support to defend against the juggernaut that is the 2008 democratic party. The longer the democrats stay divided, the better for McCain. I personally don’t buy the whole “electability” argument that says either democratic candidate stands a better chance than the other of beating McCain in November. As the democratic party becomes polarized within you are going to get a lot of pissed off voters who will sit at home in November if their candidate doesn’t get the nomination allowing the unthinkable to happen, allowing the Republicans, who so many think have no chance at all, to win the White House in 2008.

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I most cases I’ve used my handy-dandy blog to make updates that have little to do with my personal life. But, in keeping with the category marker that lists this as “personal life”, I’m going to talk a little bit about the end of an era. I don’t remember exactly when it happened but poker started for me when I was probably 16, about five years ago. Once I had learned the game it took forever to find people who also knew the game and liked to play it as much as I did. For a couple years my hometown friends and I would play Texas Hold’em in various places and with variable blinds and structure. My addiction became quite apparent to me; I knew what was going on but I couldn’t stop, that is until my friends did. Even after play ended and we all went back home I still wanted to play more, it’s hard to categorize it as much more than an addiction.

In the Fall of 2006 my former roommate Saun introduced me to the wonders of Bodog poker. It was and still is an online gambling site with everything from sports betting to poker. I nervously put I think 40 dollars on my first deposit and played $2 and $4 tournaments. I didn’t do half bad at the beginner tournaments. I was still by no means a pro at the game. Over time through playing with friends at home who knew more than me about the game and my friend Sean, who I’d say was a fairly technical and mathematical player, I started looking at the game differently. I took delight in my small victories here and there and proudly would cash out 20 dollars at a time on Bodog. Eventually I placed in a large multi-table tournament and got a couple hundred bucks. Bodog did not have a high limit on withdrawal of money, so each week I made enough to take about $30 off. This was my tiny supplemental income for the fall of 2006.

Over time though, less people joined the site, and more people started leaving to other poker sites. Bodog simply declined to having maybe 3,000 players on their entire site during peak hours. I sort of stopped online play until this past summer (2007) when I watched all of my friends at home play on the poker site Full Tilt Poker. It was the new thing, the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event winner played on Full Tilt. Even now it gets more popular with up to 60,000 players on it at peak hours in the evening. So in July I put $75 on Full Tilt because I was still cautious about losing my money. I pissed around in small $2 and $5 tournaments with my bank roll fluctuating between 50 and 80 dollars. Then one random day I said, “Oh fuck it!” and played a 45 person $10 tournament and won it. Suddenly I had $171 dollars from that tournament.

I was elated, over-joyed. I finally won a decent amount of money (at least in standards I was accustomed to). With my bank roll at about $220 I became over-confident and the next day entered into a $50 multi-table tournament with about 250 people in it. Through some act of God I was decimated three times, almost dead with no chips, and I would double up and double up and win coin flips to fight back. I reached the point in the tournament where every left walks away with money. I distinctly remember screaming “YES! YES!” over and over again while Ryan Miller came to my house and watched me freak out with every hand I played. It was intense, I had a shot of winning first, of walking away with $3,200. This turned out to not be the case, but I did make about $30 on the whole experience.

The old tournaments of $2 and $5 became a thing of the past as I spent the rest of summer marching my way up. The new levels I played during August were $20 and $30 games, usually 2 or 3 at a time. I ended up winning the same 45 man $10 tournament 2 more times. It all came down to a 180 man $24 I played my first night in State College. I must admit, I thought I would probably be knocked out fairly soon and I would go hang out with Brian and Russ on my first night back from summer vacation but instead I sat for four hours on my futon in the living room watching strange TV shows with the A/C blasting right on me. I came in 4th out of 180 to make $432.

My bank roll sat at $998, from $75 about a month and a half ago. I kept thinking to myself, “This is it, I’ve finally become a good player. I’ve finally reached a level of proficiency in the game where I can keep doing this.” I figured I would try cash tables instead of the tournaments which I had embraced so tightly over the past couple months. It turns out I had success there as well. My bank roll eventually pushed above $1,200 in mid-September. I took off $500 to buy an xbox 360 and Halo 3 and just because I like multiples of 5. I felt nearly invincible. Poker was taking up the majority of my free time. The year before, my sophomore year, was filled with way more activities than my junior year. With all the free time I’ve been playing 2-4 hours of poker every day since the school year started in August. Online poker fed my addiction. Whenever I wanted to play poker there were instantly thousands of players at my finger tips willing to meet my needs (that does sound a bit sexual…).

After my peak though slowly led disaster. I got the idea of playing multiple tournaments at the same time from my friend Ryan Miller. I would watch him play 8-10 tournaments at a time. I tried to copy that. I would get in 5-6 $6 or $10 tournaments. But near the end of September my bankroll went from $700 down to $300. This happened in the matter of about 10 days. I was baffled and bewildered by such a sharp decline. Surely my evolved and solid play was not to blame. I would play in six tournaments at a time and fail to cash in any of them. I went 15 tournaments without winning a single one. I thought I was doomed until I sat in a 45 man $20 tournament. It was exactly like the $10 that I had won three times before only the prize was doubled. I got to the final table of 9 on my own merit, but I became admittedly lucky with the last 4 remaining players and crushed them all quickly and soundly. I had another big cash, finally, $342. I thought it was fate that I won 432 and then 342.

I kept playing these massive $24 tournaments with usually over 1,200 people in them trying to win. A victory there would be usually over $4,500, and from there I figured I would start playing $100 sit n go’s and take away $300 each win. I just needed that first huge win, but it never materialized. I’ve come within 25 people before, but someone always had a 3 outter up their sleeve for me. I know it’s a game based on luck, but it seemed that every time I was be annihilated in a tournament near the end, it was because an A9 would beat me KK with a rivered A. I never slammed on the breaks with my stakes. I continued to play $20 dollar tournaments until I hit about $200 on my bank roll. With that I became super cautious and took another $100 off.

The last three months have been spent bouncing around low stakes games trying to get something to happen. I forgot to mention that at the end of the summer I broadened my poker mind by learning Omaha Hi/Lo, Limit play, Razz, and Stud Hi and Hi/Lo. I had always really known just No-Limit Texas Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha Hi (fairly well). I’ve spent the last few months playing these different games in tournaments and cash tables. I’ve tried to play small multi table tournaments to try to get something to happen. I try to get back to the higher stakes I used to have. To just try to break above $200 again. My addiction never really stopped. Instead of spending hours playing $30 games, the last few months have just been hours and hours of these small games. Dozens of screams, upsets, and heartbreaks all in one day so I can finish up with a $2 profit. My addiction has become so draining on me that it will ruin the rest of my evening if I take a super bad beat.

This really all culminated today. Today I started with $99.85, still never hitting zero. I still to this day have been playing with the original $75 I put on in mid-July. I sat at two $1/$2 limit omaha hi/lo tables with $30 on each. I took some tremendous bad beats in each of them. I never hit any of my draws, but everyone would hit them against me. Each hand I folded pre-flop though ended up becoming the nuts at the end of the hand, too bad I was never involved in the first place. I lost all 30 on one table and was down to 3 on the other table. I just started to get super-pissy so I played like an idiot and strangely got back to $30. I knocked some short stack out for another $6 and left the table. I sat at another table with $30, went down to $15 and then left to eat something and take a break and calm down.

I could get nothing to happen for me today. I also made a couple costly and stupid plays. I eventually found myself at just a regular Pot-Limit Omaha Hi table with $15 dollars. About the third hand in I flopped top two pair with a flush draw on the board. Knowing someone would bet I simply checked. One player bet pot for $4. I instantly bet pot for a raise of $13. He instantly called me on a flush draw. He hits. I swear loudly. I then took my $2 and went up to $17 and then lost it all. Full of rage and the inability to control my emotions I plunked down my final $44 dollars on an Omaha Hi table. I made a few dumb calls and was down to $23. At about the breaking point I pick up AA5T in the Small Blind and wait patiently for the asshole to my right to raise, because he had been aggressive ever since I sat at the table. This is what happened to my final $23 on that fateful hand.

Basically, the guy got lucky. I was 69% to win against him pre-flop. He called my pot raise pre-flop after he raised as well. In the end though, it took until today, February 23, 2008, for my bank roll to hit zero on Full Tilt. Before I wrote this entry I uninstalled Full Tilt and now I sit here confused about what to do. Aside from the times I’ve been home for breaks and vacations, I’ve played 2-4 hours a day of poker. It’s been an addiction that has gotten worse because of the accessibility of online poker and the always open tables for me. This does put things in perspective for me though. At the height of my lackluster success I was still at best a decent/above average player, but never anything spectacular. I know I’ve talked myself up, and this experience up as something monumental in my life. A matter of $2,000 bucks over the course of 7 months, big fucking deal. I’ll be the first to say that it really wasn’t that much money, and I ended up being not that good of a player.

The real thing is that no matter what the amount of money or what my skill level, poker has been something that really gets my heart beating faster. Gambling, raw percentages, pot odds, implied odds, outs, and the prospects of scoring huge cashes some day really has dominated my junior year of college and half of last summer. I spent countless hours doing something that I intend to not do anymore. Poker has never been a good thing for me, but yet I still want to play it. It’s going to be hard but I’m going to resist the reinstallation of Full Tilt Poker and putting more money on. Even if I wanted to, I don’t have the money right now to put on. I was looking to get up to 150 today so I could take off the minimum 100 and still have 50 because I need the money. Poker is an evil thing, a cruel thing, and at the same time such an exhilarating experience but it is an experience I can’t take anymore.

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Well, like every other person in the country who has tried to call the election and make predictions, I was wrong. Senator Barack Obama is making a run that no one had calculated even a month ago. Before Super Tuesday Barack was trailing Hillary in virtually every poll at the start of the New Year but that goes to show you how accurate polls are.

Obama and Clinton are now in a deadlock that probably won’t be resolved until the Democratic National Convention in August. Obama has picked up steam after he swept the board last night taking Louisiana, Washington, and Nebraska. What is more worrisome for the Clinton campaign is that it doesn’t look like they will win a primary or Caucus until March when Ohio and Texas hold their primaries. These states are delegate rich and will make or break Hillary’s campaign. Even my home state of Pennsylvania looks like it will have a large say in who gets the nomination.

I’ve heard a ton of bitching about superdelegates and how they will potentially steal the nomination from Barack Obama because Clinton is more of a “Washington insider” and can more easily rally the superdelegates who are also Washington insiders to her cause. That might happen, and everyone will go wild, but here’s something that no one has even thought about. Michigan and Florida were penalized by the National Democratic Committee who virtually makes the rules for the party. Because FL and MI held their primaries before their allotted times, both states lost their delegates. Voting still look place and Hillary carried both states. Hillary crushed Obama in Florida and ran away with Michigan as Obama wasn’t even on the ballot there. If it gets really close in the delegate count Hillary can always push for those delegates to be counted because right now they aren’t. FL and MI were also rather large states with plenty of delegates.

In my humble opinion I think it is sad that the DNC said the delegates for those states didn’t count. It’s pitiful that we push everyone in the country to vote. All everyone did for a decade was bitch about voter turnout and then record numbers of voters poured out to cast their ballot and some rule making club says “Oh, sorry, your vote doesn’t count”. Not just in a metaphorical sense, but your vote literally doesn’t mean shit. If the DNC in the end doesn’t allow FL or MI to use their delegates and Barack Obama eeks out a win I’ll flip the fuck out. I’m not sure what I’ll do exactly but my faith in our “democratic” system will be shattered and I’ll never vote again.

It’s just amazing that they run all these campaigns to get Americans out and voting and when there is finally an energized and exciting election it gets fucked up by rules, superdelegates, and bargaining behind the curtains. Even though the Republicans aren’t much better they have their shit together way more than the Dems. Most of their states are winner take all so it’s a more decisive primary and caucus system. Republicans also don’t have to deal with the retarded concept that is superdelegate. John McCain’s shriveled ass is running away with the Republican nomination because their system is far more decisive and organized. Even though Mike Huckabee is still fighting mathematically it’s a near impossibility for him to capture the nomination. I hugely respect Huckabee because he is someone who finally has enough balls to not just drop out because his enemies are telling him he’s embarrassing the party. Surely Mike Huckabee has a truck full of balls compared to John Edwards who dropped out like a little Nancy. Elections are a process of competition, so what is the point in the first states dictating who will win and everyone dropping out around the front runner? Hell, McCain’s campaign virtually died last year but now look where he is; elections can swing like that.

Back to my initial point though, there isn’t as much bitching and fighting in the Republican Party. John McCain right now is spending his time uniting his party against the Dems while the Dems continue to tear each other apart. I thought that the Democratics would have a virtual lock on the general election in November but now I am honestly not so sure. A moderate republican has found his way to the nomination. I still think the Democrats will take the White House because of McCain’s stance on the war but it won’t be the landslide everyone is predicting.

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Well, I have seen both the republican and democratic presidential debates before Super Tuesday. Florida recently had it’s primary which narrowed the field of candidates on both sides. Giuliani staked his entire bid for the presidency on winning Florida’s primary. He failed, not even placing second, so he realized that he’s a dumb cunt and dropped out. I really thought he could have had the potential to become a force on the republican side but I also didn’t know he wouldn’t participate in the first primaries on the idea that it was pointless to battle for the first smaller states. Also dropping out of the race was candidate John Edwards, he was able to pull in a consistent 15% of the vote but that wasn’t enough.

I’ll talk first about the democratic debate because I literally just shut off the TV from watching it. I definitely think that Obama won this debate. Even though this is no definite winner in these debates there is always one candidate that out performs the other and I would hand this one to Barack. Hillary’s answers were good but not spectacular and she seemed to be on the defensive a lot of the time. I also should have counted how many times Hillary said “um”. It probably was close to 300 times. In Hillary’s defense I want to address a couple things I noticed.

Hillary has been asked about 100,009 times about her authorizing the president to take military action in Iraq back in 2002. I think Wolfe Blitzer sort of took a shot at her and put words in her mouth instead of being a neutral party that asked questions to the candidates. I don’t think Wolfe should do anymore debates because it was a real dick move to say that Hillary was naive in authorizing the war. Hillary has said a million times she acted on the information she had at the time. Hell, most of the country was all for kicking ass all over the planet after 9/11. Hillary voted for action in Iraq after she was fed information from the executive branch and the CIA that later turned out to be fabricated. The question of if it was a mistake or not cannot be followed by a logical answer. Based on the information of the time Hillary made the correct decision, she can’t help it if the government made up the fact that there were weapons of mass destruction. Hillary was only a senator, she can’t verify such classified information.

The other point that crept up was the issue of Bill Clinton’s influence. Hillary definitely seems like a strong-minded and independent woman, to say that her husband would actually strongly influence her decisions so much as to compromise her position of power is a sexist idea I think. Just because Hillary is a woman people instantly assume that Bill is going to have a greater natural presence than her. How many presidents do you think were influenced by their wives? Probably a lot, considering they are fucking married and live together. It doesn’t even have to be the influence of which military target to strike but spouses can always have even an emotional effect which carries over into other things in the president’s schedule. Sure it’s an interesting question but one that I don’t think is even valid and should not be asked in a debate. Why don’t we talk about how we are going to fix widespread hunger in the United States rather than discuss spouses.

Obama performed well; his responses to the questions were eloquent and thoughtful. I do agree with Obama on his stance of the Iraq war and that is to set an exact date for withdrawal instead of Hillary’s proposal which has to set date. Right now though Hillary crushed Obama in the Florida primary like whoa. Barack’s obvious strong demographic are African Americans but this still less than 20% of the population. Even though I still think Obama has a lot of road to go, perhaps his very good performance in these past few debates especially this last one will help him in the polls.

The republican presidential primary was more interesting I thought because it was down to four people but each of them were at each other’s throats. Mike Huckabee even commented part of the way through that he would like to be part of the debate, referencing that for the past 20 minutes only Romney and McCain were asked questions. I think all four of the republicans are strong in their positions and were able to defend them pretty well. Probably my favorite candidate from the republican debate was long forgotten Ron Paul. Even though he was offered few questions and chances to make remarks I thought he was genuine in his responses and didn’t try to make anyone happy. Ron Paul was blunt and to the point, I’d even go so far to say as he was a true scapper. Ron Paul doesn’t think we should be in Iraq and I enjoy how he calls the United States an empire. He is totally correct about it, too. Ron Paul was the only one to realize that we are spending more than we can afford all over the world, mainly in Iraq, and that we cannot keep it up.

John McCain and Mitt Romney spent most of the debate taking shots at each other for misquoting and small nuances in their stance on Iraq. You could tell that Mitt wanted to get as many shots in at McCain as he could before Super Tuesday since McCain beat him in Florida and is leading in virtually all of the Super Tuesday polls. McCain also said that we might have to be in Iraq for 100 years in some form of peace keeping which was an incredibly bold thing to say, I think. I don’t think either candidate performed particularly well which is funny because they are the two front runners for the republican party. They spent the majority of the time picking fights with one another and no important issues were really discussed. Mitt spent a lot of time trying to convince everyone that he’s a hardcore conservative and doesn’t want to be seen as a moderate which would be blasphemy in the republican party. Really the republican nominee is not of much concern because it is virtually impossible for the republicans to hold the White House.

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Well, it truly is amazing the things you can find on the Internet as a whole. I can remember back in the day my old English teachers cautioned the use of citing internet sources in papers because they can be bogus. Even on individual blogs such as this, people can not know what they are talking about. Today I came across an article on someone else’s blog who I have never spoken to nor met before and couldn’t help but say something.

A direct quote from Richard Cochrane: “So, the 12th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution that says, “…no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” No non-native born person can be President. So, unless Bloomberg can somehow figure out how to get 2/3rds of the States to ratify an amendment to allow Austrian born Arnold – Arnold is aced out. But, he could support Bloomberg anad become an AMBASSADOR to say – Austria.”

Ratification of an amendment to the Constitution of the United States takes 3/4 of the state legislatures, not 2/3. You do not obviously know anything about U.S. law and should never ever talk again. Here’s the link to the entry:

http://www.hypocrisy.com/2008/01/23/mike-arnold-it-takes-a-constititutional-amendment/

But anyway, this got me thinking about the coming election between the various candidates on both the republican and democrat sides. We’ve got a little under 1 year before the next president is sworn and things are about to get spicy in the primary elections. The republican side has been fractured and confused for pretty much the entire campaign up until the last week or so when the field narrowed. The titans of the democrats Barack and Hillary have been battling it out forever, the only difference being that some newbs like Dennis Kucinich (a.k.a Frodo Baggins) and Joe Biden (a.k.a. that unfriendly looking usher at the movie theater that watches the restrooms to make sure no one hides in there to see a second movie) have bid farewell to their chances of the presidency.

Speaking of elections I registered to vote, which I figured would be a good idea if I were to continue my political bantering. That way I can put my vote where my mouth is. Pennsylvania law wanted me to pick a party in order to vote in the 2008 primary so I was torn between my social and economic ideals and eventually caved toward the Democratic side. Yes, I am a registered Democrat. I’m sure the entire blogosphere is cheering for my choosing between (R) and (D). I figured in my mind that as much as I like to think I’m going to make millions one day I probably won’t. My profession even in higher levels will never make me more than middle class. I still believe that capitalism is the best system out there, and that economic/governmental models such as socialism and communism are inherently unfair, I will probably benefit most out of a democratic government. This also has led to my choosing a presidential candidate to support. I have pondered over the presidential candidate for probably more time than could be considered healthy for a 21 year old college student. I even looked at all the fringe candidates such as Ron Paul who thinks it would be a good idea to put treasury powers back in the hands of Congress and eliminate the Federal Reserve; you know, since Congress has such a great record with the handling of money.

In the end I won’t go through my various elimination procedures for deciding which candidates are and are not douche chills. It came down to Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. On their respective websites, only John Edwards had specific ideas for education including increasing teacher pay for lower income areas and making it easier for teachers to transfer their certifications across states. While the federal government can’t technically make states accept certifications from other states because that’s just plain not in federal power, the federal government does give a bunch of money to states to make them listen, so I think John Edwards would succeed in his ideas for education. I don’t agree with John Edwards on things like attacking corporations for increasing profits but I figure I will never be CEO of a huge corporation, so I will just accept that I am motivated to vote for John Edwards solely through self interest.

Sadly because Pennsylvania holds it primaries in April, I will never be able to cast my vote for the candidate I think would be best suited. After Feb. 5, I’m assuming John Edwards is going to get creamed and drop out of the race. This will mean I have to choose between Barack Obama who has been lecturing about this crazy concept of “change” and Hillary Clinton who I can’t complain much about but has taken campaign donations from controversial, and quite frankly, inappropriate sources including several people who were pardoned by her hubby Billy Clinton. In my personal opinion I think primary elections should take place all on the same day for it to be a truly fair system. Some candidates have truly good ideas but do not raise the amounts of money raised by front runner candidates. I understand the point of the party needing to rally around a central candidate in the fall to battle it out for the White House, but I think every candidate should be given a chance to run in state primaries, even if they suck votes away from front runners. After all state primaries and caucuses are held on the same day, the one with the majority of the delegates can accept the nomination from their respective parties. That’s only fair in my opinion.

Perhaps none of this matters anyway because Hillary is going to strap on her giant dildo of power and slide it ever so gently into Barack Obama’s pooper on Feb. 5. As I’ve said before there is no doubt in my mind Hillary will get the democratic nomination to run against either John McCain who if elected has a 90% chance of dying in office, or Mitt Romney who is a conservative Mormon that overuses the argument that he is “not a Washington insider”. Seriously, if John McCain tripped down a flight of stairs he wouldn’t survive it. His central issue is that he can deal with terrorism and defense the best with his military experience. If John McCain has his way we will still be talking about our involvement in Iraq in 2024. Mike Huckabee, while having a rather silly last name, made a good run for a while but he’s losing steam and will have to face northern primaries where most of the people aren’t backwards and stupid. Mike Huckabee, being a former preacher, owns the evangelical vote with his rather stern and strict moral beliefs. If Mike Huckabee wins we will all be forced to convert back to the homogeneity of the 1950’s and girls will not be allowed to wear dresses that go above the knee. I’m sure Huckabee masturbates to the show “Leave It to Beaver”, but I myself am not a big fan. Who knows, maybe there are a bunch of people out there who aren’t big fans of progress that I don’t know about.

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So I was laying (lying, not sure) in bed thinking about teachers’ salary instead of what normal people think of like “Oh I wonder what I’ll do tomorrow?” or “I love my girlfriend, Jan Levinson Gould”. I thought, “Where could we get money to raise teacher salary without raising taxes?” And then it hit me, we could have gotten so much out of the money we have spent in Iraq. Let’s face it, we all know George Bush is a retard and prides his strong will as a quality befitting a great leader instead of just admitting he’s stubborn. According to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, the total cost of the Iraq war to date is $477,702,329,915. Also, don’t forget an estimated 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed, 60,000 wounded, 700,000 Iraqis killed, and 4 million displaced. All of this and we have done nothing but give radical fundamentalists another reason to hate us. What George Bush doesn’t realize is that you can’t defeat an idea with the military. Sure, we are fighting the so-called terrorists all over the world and especially in Iraq but what we are really fighting is an ideology. I could go on for pages about the Iraq war which I disagreed with from the start. The day we invaded I knew it was a bad idea. You can believe me if you want or don’t, but when the national mainstream media started reporting that they spotted Iraqis in chemical suits about to use chemical weapons the student teacher of my 10th grade American History class was eating that shit up. This was a man right out of college that was supposed to think critically and not just believe what Fox News reports.

So yes, 477 billion dollars is quite a bit of money, and it’ll probably be up to 700 billion before we end up leaving Iraq and all of the benefits we then have to shell out to our veterans will put the total cost of this pointless conflict to well over 1 trillion dollars. I’m not sure many of us could even comprehend what 1 trillion of anything would look like. This is more than enough money to put in that mandatory $40,000 minimum starting teacher salary that I think is appropriate. In fact, I think teachers and the entire education department deserves more than that. I think a secondary teacher should start at $50,000 if you factor in applicable benefits.

“Oh George, you are so silly. You want to raise the minimum starting teacher salary to $50,000 because you are going to be a teacher in a few short years.” No, you are wrong, believe it or not. Now here me out on this. I think the solution to so many problems in this country could be solved by a highly educated society. Higher education, and better quality education leads to decreased violent crimes and intolerance. There are so many teachers out there that bust their ass for way less than what a lawyer makes and I believe teachers make the biggest impact in our society. We are on the front line of learning. The things we tell students stay with them and make in impact. Sure there are bad teachers out there, but there are also tons of unqualified people floating around in other professions that got in because of nepotism or Affirmative Action. Paying teachers more makes them feel like they actually matter and makes them strive to do better, at least that is how I see it. A caring and motivating teacher is the person who drives an aspiring student to become a doctor or a lawyer in the first place.

There would be ways of increasing the minimum teacher salary to $50,000 without burden on taxpayers via tax hikes. I would propose an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. When I say immediate, I mean we cut and run. I honestly don’t give a fuck. Terrorists, you win because we would never win anyway. They can fucking have the country. There is also a multitude of government programs out there that are inefficient, bloated, and exploited. Social Security should just be terminated or privatized right now, workers compensation, welfare, and food stamp programs can all be streamlined. Implementation of the fair tax system would be able to tax illegal activities such as drugs, prostitution, and underground gambling. Fair tax talk is for another entry but that would help to make things more efficient to funnel excess money from useless programs into the only government program that ever worked in this country, education.

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