First Words

well my first class of the semester is in ~26 hours. only taking 2 classes this semester because i had my 2nd collapsed lung (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumothorax#Spontaneous) at the end of last semester so i got incomplete in all of my classes, so i needa finish those now as well. i just realized  Masks pt. 2 needs completion, if you haven't read pt. 1, go through my blog and read all the posts. there's like 5, don't be lazy. working on a buisness plan for a website so i can pitch it around to get some sponsors, if anyone has any quality thoughts or links on that, hook em up. googling provided me with alot of mediocre links.

what a low quality post, im so sorry. masks pt. 2 will make up for it.

swear.

last night at a friends house i got iced for the first time. i learned what it was when someone posted it in their blog so i didnt look like a complete idiot, but it took me 2 chugs, mostly because i dont like carbonated drinks (like cokes and stuff, anything with bubbles) so it felt awkward in my mouth. pretty cool though.

wednesday is my birthday, turning 19. i feel like for my last year as a teenager i should be completely reckless and enjoy the last year of having society dismiss all the stupid things i do with "oh hes just a teenager".

ill figure it out.

poker wise, yesterday was my worst day ever. i never put in enough volume and play enough games, so i told myself that on mon and tues i would play more then i ever have. mon was okay, i was happy, but tuesday i dropped 1/5 of my br. ima take a 1-2 day break, possibly play a mtt sng and leave it at that. then back to husngs.

so ive been taking poker seriously for almost exactly 6 months now. im way behind schedule. although, as i posted earlier, i do have time.

i have finally decided on EXACTLY what i want to do. HU and tournaments. right now im playing husngs to get better, and reading the Harrington on holdem books to flex the tourny part of my brain. one of the biggest reasons for me doing this was because i have a college friend who makes a living...playing tournys and husngs. that = sick coaching opportunities for me and hes constantly helping me out and sharing HHs from his final tables and stuff.

i think once i reach a roll sufficient for around 10$ husngs ill also start playing 50nl hu. ive made decent money playing hu 50nl on friends accounts but i want to do it right, with the right roll ect. also before that i want to watch and have notes on almost all the hu series here. thats gonna take ALOT of time. (doin notes on dogisheads up atm, then gonna rewatch pr1nnyraiding while taking notes, then i think spaceman in a cowboy hat. watched a few min and really liked it.)

if you check my sharkscope, i starting playing only husngs at around 150 games, as you can see i went on a pretty good streak, on to a terrible streak, and now im working my way back up. 

if your reading this, i think you should read my other blog posts and post some comments. i write alot and with no feedback have little motivation to write more. i want to write more. help me write more.

also, this is my first blog post with the ability to embedd stuff, so heres a youtube vid!

 

College is a funny thing. We spend 12 years of our lives learning a core curriculum to prepare us for college, after we already spent a few years preparing us for those 12 years. Once we are blessed enough to finally be out of high school, this bomb is dropped on us. We have two more years of "core classes" to complete before actually learning something useful for our lives. if we dare question why we need to complete these classes we are answered with either a death glare (by administrators and teachers) or a knowing shake of the head (by guidance counselor and other homosapiens)

The truth is, the only thing our first two years of college are good for are meeting new people, experimenting with new drugs and finding new sexual partners (usually whilst on said drugs). So whats the point? If im a theater major do i really need to learn about the seven layers of the earths crusts, or that within a billion years earth is screwed because the sun will go into supernova and toast us?
No i dont. What i need to learn is things pertaining to my major. I dont need to take any more science classes, i took those while i was finishing up puberty. Math? I have a calculator, thanks, and in no time soon am i calculating the volume of anything. Now, this post is much more selfish then just a broad calling for education reform, so ill talk about me, and why im writing this.
I just finished my first year of college at my local state school, FIU. I'm a theater major. Why? well, its true, i have done over 15 plays in my past, and theater is a big part of my life, but its not my passion. Film is. So why aren't i film major? Two reasons.
1. FIU no longer has a film program
2. the college i wanted to go to is too expensive for me

How do these correlate? Well, with the beauty of a scholarship program called bright futures, I got a full academic scholarship to any Florida public college. FIU made the most sense to me. Now, FIU is a normal, 4 year, state school. That means it falls under the 2 years of core classes disadvantageous way of thinking. My #1 school, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is an art school, and thus falls under the advantageous understanding of schooling which means four years of learning relevant information. 

The problem? SCAD, is a private school, and not even in Florida, so my bright futures means nothing to them. That means if i want to attend i needa cough up somewhere around 40k a year. I dont have that. My parents dont have that. my dog has it, but hes not giving it away (nor is he giving away the secret ingredients for that canned bean company).
I am a ball of ambition, blue sparks eminating from my mind at all times, but i am being held down at a school that has nothing to teach me that i want to learn. My teenage years are almost at an end, and with that my youth. After that i am no longer talented, no longer a prodigy, then, i am just another person who went through the system.
Someone wanna tax-deductively stake me for 3 years of college? Decent chance of decent roi and tons of feel good for the rest of your life. =]

IMO plus EV to read my blog posts, usually have nothing to do about poker and will get you thinking. also, please comment.

Sundays.

Here i sit, planning my final exam schedule and wondering if my history teacher will grant me an extension on my term paper, while at the same time contemplating painting my room red and convincing myself to finally get tints for my car. However one thought keeps clawing itself back into my mind, a thought i brought up in a previous post entitled “Variety”

The way i will describe it is with an abstract that i call my “business card of life”.

A business card lists much more information about a person then most people notice at first. Sure it has their profession, methods of contact, where their place of work is located and other basic, shallow things. But it can also subtly hint at their personality, the size and placement of text, how design oriented they are, how crappy or uncrappy the quality might be, how in touch with the modern world they are (if they include twitter links and such).

(Okay at this point, really, read my post entitled “Variety”)

In my deeply meditative and distracted state, i pondered…

I don’t have a business card.

I don’t have any material to hand out that explains to newly acquainted people who i am.

How do i make the words “Hey I’m Ben, great to meet you” say “Hey I’m Ben, I’m a pretty mellow person who loves the arts, has a deep passion for film, writing and music and a soft spot for unpredictable and progressive thought.”

What parts of me sing out loud, which parts growl, what qualities of mine simply attack the person in front of me and engrave their first impressions of me deep into their skin? What parts of me define me? How can i manipulate these parts to achieve a desired image, how can i alter these parts to change how the world perceives me?
Hold tight, ill attempt to answer these and talk more about the subject in the next post, which will be out sooner then later.
i would love to hear some comments, feel free to bring anything up.

two in one day?
it must be overkill.
however: life happens, situations occur, and circumstances change.
and so begins my second blog post of the day/ever.
Lets talk about me for a second. (i do promise to be as un-egotistical as i can be)
A quick look at my resume reveals a unique quality of mine that i have nurtured my entire life.

variety

i am one of a thousand skills, a jack of all trades if you will.
my resume includes:
short films and commercials that i have wrote, directed, and edited
being graphics editor of my school yearbook as a junior (big deal) and senior
interning at one of the most prominent commercial editorial firms in NYC
14 theatrical plays that i have contributed to, either acting or in tech (the number is now around 16, need to update this thing)
companies i have created print and web graphics for
and hobbies, which include music, visual effects, writing, magic, drawing, probability and statistics (poker lol?), member of the art honors society, president of film clubs and a bit more.

so who am i?
what defines me?
what does my business card of life look like? (more on these kinds of thoughts later)

the most important part of my resume is probably my hobbies. there you will find music, a huge passion of mine, magic, which i have gained world fame from (on a small scale, yet still across the world), drawing which expresses my passion for randomness and unsystematic thinking. (ill link to some things i have drawn later as well) amongst others.

lets brainstorm on what i am, how i can describe myself to others.
thankfully, mankind has coined a term for people like me quite some time ago.
artist.
is it that simple? am i grouped so easily, into one of “them”?
am i a traditional artist or a graphic artist or a music artist ect.?
if i am a graphic artist, does my passion and skills in music count for anything?
if i design for a living for the rest of my life with a normal 9-5, does music just become a hobby? do i write only for me, without any hopes or dreams for my material to get sold?
will my hobbies eventually drop off, leaving me passionless and predictable? will i ever become more then just another face?

variety. does it end when you grow older? is it all a downward slope culminating in your own death?

why bring this all up?
because, life happens, situations occur, and circumstances change.
what i mean by this, is that i recently had a conversation which made me think about my life on a different scale. i realize that the decisions i make now will stick with me for the rest of my life, and that the rest of my life is a long time to be regretting stupid things i did in my teenage years.
in front of me are three papers on a table, each one a dream of mine.
what do i do? pick one up and throw the other two away? or do i ball up the other two and jam them in my pocket?
shred them all?
Which one of them is the correct one to choose? Which street is least likely to flood? Do I play it safe or put my stack in the middle?

this was probably overkill anyways.

i have time.
thats what they say at least.
being 18 has advantages and disadvantages. advantages include the rush of using a fake id, starting your first years of college, feeling independent for the first time in your life and many more. disadvantages include the rush of using a fake id, starting your first years of college, feeling independent for the first time in your life and many more.
get it? fantastic.
so why the blog? further, why the DC blog?
believe it or not i consider myself a writer. others title me the same way. when it comes to blogging, there are two schools of thought.
1. you are a hardcore blogger with an audience and you write meaningful posts and start great conversation.
2. blogging is the butt of every joke you make.
im more of a option 2 kinda person, so again
why the blog?
Tilt.
thats why i am writing this right now, because i am fuming. i actually believed that i was somewhat above tilt, being such a mellow person and all, but this is my first experience with the beast.
scenerio:
im in the mood, feeling good for some nosebleed high 1/2 nl action.
i find a 6 max table with two people sitting.
perfect, i love shorthanded games, and by the time the table fills up hopefully i will have at least a few hands worth of stats on these continuation betting connoisseurs. as i figure out which seat to sit in someone else sits down.
i toy with the idea of switching tables for a second, shake my head, and take my seat.
first hand. newcomer shoves
second hand. newcomer shoves.
third. same thing
around the fourth or the fith…

Full Tilt Poker $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG): $0.74
CO: $0.94
BTN: $0.51
SB: $1.10
BB: $0.59

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG with Q J
Hero calls $0.02, CO raises to $0.94 all in, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.72 all in

Flop: ($1.51) A 2 9

Turn: ($1.51) 8

River: ($1.51) 6

Final Pot: $1.51
Hero shows Q J (Ace Queen high)
CO shows 9 2 (two pair, Nines and Twos)
CO wins $1.41
(Rake: $0.10)

so why the tilt? obviously, because i called with a MUCH better hand and after him being a dick he won my money. actually, thats incorrect.

i am tilting because i realize i was on tilt before the hand.

calling an all in with JQs? thats an incorrect move. the correct move would be to…well, move.

and so, the blog exists.
i will be writing here more often then the doctor recommended, and most likely, poker will only be a small part of it.

1/2 nl. 80 cent buy ins.
but hey,
i have time.