A good month so far

It’s been a hot couple of weeks on the poker front. As stated earlier I won the Buy in league I play which brought a couple of nice bennies although AP has reduced the guarantee from 40K to 35K on the tourney entry I won. Now that my daughter has gone back home I plan on playing it next Sunday night. Looks like they get somewhere around 350 players so should be interesting. It’s on AP so that’s a plus for me. Prefer the structure on the AP/UB sites to any I’ve played. There was a 30K deep stack listed that I inquired about as I much prefer a deep stack to a sniper but alas, it seems the agreement is for a sniper. I can change to the 25K on a Sat. but no deep stack.

Speaking of AP, this month’s GFN war games are being held on that site. A godsend considering Power Poker last month. The structure allows you to play some poker and even make a mistake or two rather than turning into a bingo fest after an hour or so. I prefer it as I said and so far it shows. I duplicated my showing of the first game last month by finishing fourth but in last night’s second game I followed it up with a second place finish last night which put me in a tie for first overall in the player standings. Should have taken first as I had a huge advantage going heads up but a misread or two, a change in my opponent’s style and a bit of luck on his part and I was vanquished. The change was a good move on his part as it caught me off guard but it was risky and that was where the luck came in. He caught when he had made a few questionable calls but I can’t blame him for the plays as earlier I had been forcing him off a lot of hands so he had to start playing some or get bled to death. It’s funny that the luck was on his side at the end because I hit a run of it earlier. It seemed the deck had come up and slapped me in the face as I seemed to win almost every race and even squirmed out of a few dominated situations. I was even being referred to as the luckiest guy online by some people. Yea, I’ll admit I was lucky, you have to be to go deep in tourneys but it wasn’t the kind of luck where you call a raise with 4-9 sooooted but the luck of winning the coin flips and the occasional suckout in a dominated situation but if people want to think it’s all luck hey, go ahead. I’ll happily take the second place as I was down to 400 chips at one point in the game. That’s one of the things I like about AP, I was able to wait a bit for a decent hand to make my play. At Power I would have been forced in to an atc shove almost as soon as I had hit the 400 chip mark. Two more games to go in this month’s wars. Hoping to keep myself near the top of the rankings.

Speaking of the top of the rankings and Power I got a pleasant surprise this week. I’ve been playing these games mainly for bragging rights and the freerolls the forum gets, never thought about personal prizes outside the tourney payouts. Given that I really didn’t care for Power Poker didn’t think I would be seeing much of the site. Reading the forum posts however I saw that the top 9 finishers received $111 and the rest of the participants got a $10 tourney coupon. So I go in to Power figuring I’ll check out this coupon thing and blow it on a quick tourney. Imagine my surprise that while I’m looking for the coupon I run across $111 in my account. Top 9? I hit the top 9? Except for that fourth place finish I thought my game sucked. Went to the results site and there it was, a tie for ninth. How the hell did that happen? Not going to complain though. While I might not like their tourney structure there seems to be a bunch of crazies at the Limit HE and PLO tables so I’ll work on my ring game with the money. So far I’ve added another $50 to the bankroll there. Another reason I wish to stay near the top of the rankings is that while last month the top 9 got the same payout this month it’s a graduated payout on the order of a final table.

Well, we’ll let it go for awhile. Still itching for some live play but with my foot still screwed up an AC trip ain’t happening for awhile unless I get someone to drive. Might give my opinion on the McNabb trade as if anyone gives a damn but for now, thanks for the listen.

How's come

Is it just me and my tastes that are so far out of line with the great unwashed or do companies go out of their way just to piss me off?

The above thought occurred to me on the homeward leg of my journey to take my daughter back to her mother. For those of you who are uninformed my daughter lives with her mother in upstate NY so that visitations mean we have to meet at a halfway point on both ends of the visit. This means a spot about 15-20 miles south of the Pa/NY border which means about a 5-6 hour drive roundtrip. My daughter’s spring visit was over today which is why I was driving and I had my father in the navigator’s seat providing company for the drive. Since my stroke last year my family doesn’t like me driving long distances without a passenger. They mean well but it can be a pain in the ass at times. Anywhoo, back to the subject. On the return trip my father was feeling a bit puckish so we pulled off the Turnpike and into an Arby’s at the exit. Besides the roast beef there are two things that take me to Arby’s, jamocha shakes and their potato cakes. Well at least they left the shakes alone. Now the potato cakes were great, basically an extra thick hash brown with a crunchy outside and soft inside. Main drawback to them is that they usually had to cook them fresh; unlike fries they didn’t seem to handle the heat lamps well. This meant you had to wait for them but it was worth it, nice change from the standard fry. I got an inkling of trouble when I ordered the potato cake and the girl at the counter calls out for a side of bites. Bites??? WTF is this bites shit. I look up at the board and see the familiar triangle shape under the name potato bites so I think, OK, maybe they just changed the name. Then she goes over to the fry station and opens a warmer drawer and starts taking out these smaller triangles. Ut-oh, this can’t be good. Looks like they made them smaller but never saw them in a warmer before. I worked for a year or so in an Arby’s many moons ago so I know a bit of the routine, warmers drawers weren’t part of it. So I get my order and reach in to grab the potato and take a bite. Another WTF moment. These ain’t potato cakes, smaller or otherwise. I look and the damned things are orange in the middle. Obviously it’s supposed to be cheesy but it don’t taste like cheese. There is also some other kind of flavors in there but whatever they are they ain’t meshing well. Damn things are disgusting as far as I am concerned. I wonder what happened to my potato cakes. After I finish the sandwich my father is cleaning up the mess and finds a container of ranch dipping sauce in the bag. Ain’t gonna help them IMHO. They suck plain and simple. So on the rest of the ride I start wondering how comes things I like always seem to either vanish or become “new and improved” which usually means that they now suck also.

The first Chunky soup that hit the market in our area was a chicken noodle soup. It had a good flavor, those soft, slurpy noodles, kind of like the ones in Campbell’s regular chicken noodle but wider and mushrooms. That one has disappeared in favor of a home-style chicken noodle which has no mushrooms, a lighter broth, bigger hunks of carrots and such and the noodles are the type you buy in bags at the store, hard, and boil up like pasta. I abhor those things. As this has taken the place of the old soup it seems my tastes are out of touch with the masses.

Another item was the potato salad one of the grocery chains around here used to carry in their deli dept. It had a touch of celery seed in it which gave it an interesting taste. For years I went and got it when having a picnic style dinner or sometimes for lunch. Then one day I went in and ordered it and the woman behind the counter tells me they have a new home-style (why does everyone think home-style makes things better) potato salad and wouldn’t I like to try that. No, I say, I want what I ordered. She was persistent trying to peddle the new stuff and I was just as adamant telling her no. I finally got what I wanted but within 6 months my favorite was gone, replaced by the new stuff. Another item I enjoy down the drain. Chunky peanut butter fell prey to the conjecture that if something is good, more of something is better. If chunky was good, extra or super chunky had to be better. Ever wonder if anyone ever realized that adding that extra also made the peanut butter extra dry. First time I tried it I wondered if I could ever get it down my throat. Finally switched to creamy until I found a honey roast chunky I liked, without the extra or super. These are only a few things I can put down. If I really wanted to I’m sure I could run on and bore you for hours and pages here but I think one gets my idea. Is it just my tastes that are out of whack and people prefer these things or is it just that most people don’t care or bother and take what comes along?

Not a great rant I’ll give ya but thanks for the listen.

Why?

Has anyone but me ever wondered why people drink Bud Light? Watching their commercials it's obvious that Anheuser-Busch thinks that Bud Light drinkers are a bunch of idiots yet people flock to the brew. I sure as hell wouldn't support a company that viewed me that way.

Shortest post you'll ever see me write. Thanks for the listen

Finally

Went out looking for a walking boot (cast). Hit a couple of major pharmacy chains, only type around here any more. While on my trek I actually noticed something I’ve obviously seen many times before. While supposedly people are mainly going to a drug store for drugs or something in that area because they are sick, the large chains put their pharmacy counters as far away from the front door as possible making sick people walk the maximum amount through their stores. Obviously a marketing deal from the looks of all the crap they have in there any more. It’s that crap that prompts this little spiel. After walking through the whole store on a bad foot, 2 stores actually, I get to the pharmacy counter and inquire about the boot. I received the same answer at both stores, they don’t carry such things. Now I didn’t expect them to have such a thing in inventory, too many sizes and models to carry, but I did think they would be able to order one. No they said they don’t even bother with such stuff. Oh, they can carry toaster ovens and alarm clocks, spearmint leaves and laundry detergent but god forbid they actually carry something that deals with an illness. There are two more chains in the area but figured I would hear the same from them so decided to save myself the walk and take a chance ordering online and hoping I got the right thing. With drugstores trying to become supermarkets and supermarkets adding pharmacy counters the lines are getting blurred. The supermarkets are winning the battle though as you can get cheaper generics in the supermarkets.

Back to some poker. End of the month has arrived and with it the final game of the Buy in league. I started off hot winning the first two games then tapered off a bit but still scoring in 3 of the next 5 games. I dnp in one and sat out one as I had no money on the site. Normally that would have been good enough but a late addition to the league arrived in the 3rd game and decided to put some pressure on. I had a chance to lock it up earlier when he stumbled and a win would have put it out of his reach but alas, I only got a 5th which enlarged my lead but not significantly. If he won last night he won it all. If he finished between 2nd and 4th I had to do no worse than two spots behind him to preserve my win. To further complicate matters a third contender had thrown herself in the mix but while a very good player she still needed to win and hope the two of us did not point to take it down so she was an outside shot. As it was she ran into some problems and couldn’t make the game which left it a two man race.

Game started and I knew right away the poker gods were pissed at me. In addition to there being a slightly bigger field than usual making it tougher to win obviously I find my main opposition two seats to my left. In addition to my immediate left is the league moderator who has already told me she planned on taking me out and making me sweat the finish. Nothing comes easy. Further proof of the ire of the gods was the fact that I was wishing I was playing acey-deucey for the first hour to 90 minutes instead of NLHE. They even teased me a bit as Venti, table name of my main opponent, lost a couple of decent pots early and was a bit short for awhile. He was able to build his stack back up however before they grabbed him and moved him to another table. At least he wasn’t on my left any more. In the meantime I was just folding along. Couldn’t even make a play with my garbage as the table was aggressive and there was usually a raise before my turn when I had position. All in all maybe a good thing as it kept me in the game even though my stack was slowly dwindling. It seemed my luck changed all at once, as if the poker gods got tired of their game and said enough. I had just won a big pot, doubling me up when Venti showed up in the chat box congratulating me, saying he was out of the game, meaning I had the league won for the month no matter what. It was nice but I still didn’t want just the back door, I wanted to finish with a bang. I finally started to catch some cards and as the blinds went up the aggressiveness seemed to slack off and I was able to make a few plays and somehow found myself reaching the final table with a reasonable stack. Needed more than that as only top 5 got points and as I already had my 5 scores for the month so needed a 4th or better to improve my total. Play went on and I played solid but not spectacular and took out a few players and made it to 4 handed with the second stack. Then we were 3 and it got interesting. Top stack was an unknown to me but had over double my stack. I was 2 with a couple thousand more than the third place player, who I knew was a good one. The leader played excellent big stack poker; either that or the deck had jumped up and spanked him. I know there was a lot of stealing going on. Finally slowed it down a bit when I caught a big hand the same time the chip leader did. Mine was bigger and he doubled me up and even though he remained in first he was only a few thousand ahead. It was a tight 3 way and I lost a few chips back to the leader. Stayed that way until he took out the 3rd place player and had a good sized stack on me again as we entered heads up. I was able to get him to double me up and even out the stacks a bit but was never really able to overcome that lead and got a bit frisky and made a play at the wrong time and wound up in second place. Oh well, while a win would have been nice I can’t complain about 2nd. Kept me from feeling I got in the back door for the league win.

As for that win I got myself an entry into AP’s 40K Sniper some Sunday and 10 bucks a month for a year added to my account on Reefer. That’s nice as it will keep me in the league games on Reefer for a year. Add in winnings on Cake and AP and UB and I’m covered for league games on those sites for a couple months. Two sites for the league have no funds so will have to debate about what to do with them. As for the Sniper that’s going to have to wait awhile as my daughter is on her way down this Friday for spring break visit and while I play some when she is down here I won’t be able to give that game the attention it needs while she is here so it will wait until she goes home. It also gives me a seat on the forum team for the Forum War games. Wanted that as I had a lackluster showing in this month's games. The structure on the site sucked as I think I have mentioned before. April's games are on AP with a better structure and will hopefully allow me to redeem myself.

OK, that’s about it for now. Thanks for the listen.

A bit of poker

A bit of poker as I haven’t mentioned it in awhile except in my pet peeves. Played the AP 5K GTD, $1.10 entry, $1 rebuys, turbo. Sheesh, talk about your donkaments. Had one guy going all in with anything and double rebuying if, or more likely when, he lost. Wonder why he just didn’t enter a $20 or $30 buy in? I was blessed with a rash of good hands early and went in to the regular portion the chip leader by a decent margin especially thanks to that gentleman. If I had followed my instincts just a tad better I would have had double the chips as a couple marginal but playable hands against some of these donks would have hit big time. An A-9 suited would have flopped nut flush and a K-Q suited would have flopped TP2K, turned trips and boated on the river just to mention a couple. There were 3 all ins on both these hands so I would have really chipped up. My problem was that I had such a large stack by then and the rebuy period was close to ending that with 3 all ins I figured I really wasn’t that good and didn’t see any sense in endangering the stack as at least one of the players had a decent enough stack to hurt if I lost. Should have remembered the turbo however and taken the risks. I realized why I hate turbos. After the rebut period my cards went further south than Argentina and some of these guys were still playing like it was rebuy time so that the occasional steal attempt was about as useful as my cards. With the accelerating blinds and the decelerating cards my stack shriveled like a pecker in a cold lake. I made the money but not a whole lot. Counting the starting rebuy and the add on I got back my buyin plus another. Next time, if there is a next time, I go with the instincts.

Also played a couple of freerolls while waiting for my daughter to call me this afternoon. One, a gigantic 1K GTD on Tilt I won a seat through a smaller FR that I had popped up to occupy myself during another tourney last week. I usually play some kind of cheapie tourney when playing a more important on as a way to keep from being bored and donking off chips by playing hands I shouldn’t through boredom. The other was a $500 GTD with a pro bounty on Ziggy on Power Poker. Didn’t last long on either. The one on Tilt was reasonable as far as freerolls go, cards just sucked. The Power Poker one was almost as big a donk fest as the 5K GTD described above. 354 runners and over 80 of then out within the first 5 hands. Had a couple of the all in kiddies at the table and got smoked when my A-A got cracked by a K-8 and a 4 card straight board. Actually thought I might have had a chance as there were only 2 callers and they were K-8 off and 3-3. Oh well, gotta expect such things, especially in a freeroll. Now waiting for the third game of the forum war to start.

Forum war started and looks like an early exit again. This site and its structure sucks. Unless you have won a big pot or two you are in shove or fold mode by the third level. Beginning to wonder if I have some kind of tell. When I make a c bet or any type of play lately I’m getting called with garbage but better garbage than I have yet when I score a monster everyone folds up quicker than a cheap umbrella in a windstorm. Today no different. Three times I raise preflop, A-8, A-Q and A-T. With the Ace-Q and A- T I miss the flop and shoot out a C-bet when the caller checks to me and both times I get called. With the A-Q I even fire a second bullet and called again. Both times they have a better ace than I do. The A-8 I caught my ace and got raised when I bet out so figured at best I was out kicked and dumped it. Twice in the same period I’m on the button and flop the joint, including one pot with 5 players and it winds up checked to me on flop and turn and when I finally bet the turn everyone disappears. Must have a tell. Wound up hanging on till middle of the pack. Might have lasted longer but hit A-J just before blinds hit and being shorter than I anticipated due to a move that ran me threw the blinds twice in 5 hands I shoved and met up with A-Q and a board that didn’t go higher than 8. And so it goes. One more game next Sunday. I need to win our Buy in league even more than ever now. I want a seat on next month’s games on AP where you at least get a chance to play some sort of poker rather than bingo. Need to redeem my honor. As for the forum we came in second, again. That’s three seconds out of three games. Might not be so bad except that the team that came in first the first two games did so again. Have an outside chance of taking first but it looks like they are going to win this month. Just have to come back strong this last game and next month.

Finally I would like to say good bye to fellow forum member and poker player Bernard “Bernie” Warycha aka NY_Villain. Bernie passed away a couple of weeks ago though we just found out recently. We hadn’t seen him posting on the forum for awhile and thought he might be sick as he had some medical issues recently but when one of the other forum moderators tried to get in touch with him they discovered the bad news. Though never having met him personally from my online experiences with him the name Villain could not be further from the truth. Bernie was always one of the first to pen words of welcome to new forum members, had an upbeat attitude and was a font of friendly table chatter during games. Even though I knew of his medical problems and the fact he had spent time in the hospital because of them I had no idea they were that serious because he really never let on. He was one of the good guys in this world and was way too young to have had to cash out of the game so soon. Condolences to his family. Cya Villain.

On that note it seems appropriate to end this and thanks for the listen.

Third, and maybe final, trip to Krondor

Finished the third, and possibly the last, of Feist’s Riftwar Legacy books or as I refer to them as the Krondor books. This one, Tear of the Gods, is supposed to be the mid book of the series with two more to follow. According to his website however there are unresolved issues with the producers of the video games linked with these books and so they are on hold until if/when they are resolved. He does state that there may be a non-traditional project to the series but since it ain’t books it is no good to me. Speaking of unresolved issues, though Feist gives satisfaction in bringing the arc of the book itself to a conclusion there are still issues of the overriding arc concerning the series, or sagas as he calls them, that are left hanging. In fact the proposed 4th book was to be titled Krondor: The Crawler, The Crawler being a mysterious character that is mentioned in the first two books but never actually takes the stage, yet is a major player in all the chaos that is going on.

With Krondor III Feist has again written a good fantasy novel that both stands on its own well and yet ties in to a much larger story. A number of familiar characters are back and a new one, at least to this saga, introduced. She comes to take her place in the Prince’s Court as his advisor on things magical, except in religion. Her name had been bandied about in the previous books as the Prince, Arutha, debated on whether he needed such an advisor and later, who would take the post but she finally makes an appearance here. She is an interesting introduction because of a number of factors. She is a woman and until recently women were not supposed to be trained as magicians. She is from a neighboring kingdom, Greater Kesh, one which isn’t always eye to eye with the Kingdom of the Isles. Both of which make many suspicious of her. Even better she is related to the royal family of said kingdom and her great uncle is the ambassador to the Royal Court and who just happens to be the head of Kesh’s intelligence service. Throw in the fact that she’s the former lover of the son of the Duke of Stardock, the magician’s city, and top magician around, and that said son is a member of Arutha’s household guards, and his family by adoption, makes for fertile ground for plot threads both current and future.

Again while titled Krondor a lot of the action takes place in the hinterlands though the first part of the action does take place in the city. The main plot revolves around a missing magical artifact, the Tear of the Gods of the title. Seems that this artifact, which is renewed every ten years, is the object of a bit of piracy at the start of the book. The piracy goes awry and the object sinks into the sea and the race is on to recover it. It seems if the Tear isn’t where it belongs before the old one’s lifespan is over the consequences range from disaster at best to destruction if the bad guys get their hands on it. Can you say demon fodder? The consequences are not only to the Kingdom either; it seems the whole world is in danger even though most of the world doesn’t even know about it. Seems the power of this thing is a closely kept secret among some of the religious orders, a few of the royals and nobles and now the people sent to recover it including the new court magician and our old friend Jimmy the Hand. Also a new character is brought on stage whether just a minor one to further this story or to play a major role in the overriding arc. We also find out about the differences in magic in Feist’s world. It’s not really explained but it seems there are two branches of magic among magicians themselves, Greater and Lesser Paths as they are called. Then it seems that priests of the various temples, of which there are a damn lot, also practice forms of magic that don’t seem to be within the purview of the magicians. Then there are the women involved with magic. If they mix up a few potions and they are generally considered benign then they are village wise women. If they actually show signs of power it seems there is a prejudice against them, the power must come from making a deal with some dark power and so are witches. Why men can practice magic but women can’t is never really explained. Pug, the most powerful magician in the land is doing his part to combat the prejudice, witness the Prince’s new advisor, but the notion isn’t making a lot of headway among the masses.

In addition to the main plot the saga arc is also advanced in this book. The piracy of the Tear is part of the plot to advance the fortunes of the bad guys though this book makes it a bit more apparent that the bad guys aren’t really all n the same page. There is a lot of jealousy among the ones working for the main goal and a number of others who have joined with them in a marriage of convenience to further their own ends and still others in this marriage we still don’t know exactly what their purpose is. Suffice to say it’s all enough to be a giant pain in the arse to Arutha and his principality.

Speaking of pains in the arse the biggest one is the fact that this series may not be completed. Sure the books are good stand alone stories and the plot of the saga itself is there but not so overbearing so as to be what your mind keeps dwelling on but it is still there and there are still unresolved issues you really want to know about, at least I do. Who is the Crawler and how does he benefit from all the chaos he’s unleashing in Krondor? Is he in league with the some of the other villains because he’s a believer in their cause or is it for personal reasons, like taking over the city? Who is the dark magician who seems to be behind most of the mischief going on and what is the power he serves? Is this new power that is introduced just a plot device for this book or is it to play a larger part in the overall story as seems likely? I just hate loose ends. It’s been a decade since this book was written; you would think they could have settled their differences by now.

Ok, we’ll give you a rest from mr Feist’s books for awhile though I’m now reading the original saga in the series. Library books I am afraid as I can’t afford them just now for my collection. Thanks for the listen.

Pet peeves and irritants

On Friday we’re subjected to that upbeat Canuck and his optimism and those posts that cheer everyone up so I figured, being the grouchy bastard that I am I’d subject everyone to a bit of a downer so you don’t get to upbeat tomorrow morning upon reading him. It’s Lent you know and time for some sackcloth and ashes, especially on Fridays

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Is it just me or is anyone else out there disgusted by some of commercials out there for munchables and potables? Those yogurt commercials where the woman sticks her snout in the container like a frikkin pig? Or the candy where everyone is snapping and chomping? Sounds of people munching or slurping their food or drink in commercials has always been a pet peeve of mine but the noise in that one is particularly foul. Or even those stupid rum commercials with the idiots doing stupid things to pick up chicks? Only good one in that series is the one where every one turns in their keys before partying. Ready to go back to drinking Myers full time again.

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Politician hollering that there is a budget shortfall so they need to raise taxes to make it up. Excuse me but are they even thinking? There are two problems with this. The first and more obvious one, I first thought about a few recessions back. The second never really dawned on me until the one ten years ago and many may not think it obvious but a little thought can bring it to light. The first problem is the timing of the tax increase. Yes they are proposed at a time it is necessary but the reason it is necessary is because the people that most of these taxes fall heaviest upon are also in the same straits as the government, they don’t have enough money either. So how is taking more from them at this time supposed to help? The second part of the equation isn’t as apparent but one just need dwell on it and the light should shine. The main question is how come government didn’t need all these increases and extra taxes years ago and got along just fine. True, there have been additional mandates that require some additional monies but there is another bug in the system. In depressed times taxes are raised to meet shortfalls but what happens when the economy swings upwards again? Are these taxes lowered as good times start to bring in revenue windfalls? In some cases certain percentages may be lowered but never back to their original levels. And a lot of other nuisance type taxes such as the one proposed on sugar added drinks in Philly these days usually stay there. Hell, there is still a tax on booze in PA for Johnstown flood relief. No, not that Johnstown flood, but one almost as bad and still quite awhile ago, 1936 to be exact. So these taxes help governments get over shortfalls but create windfalls when the economy booms again and instead of repealing the new taxes or at least setting aside extra funds for the next recession that everyone knows is inevitable, they go and spend the money by setting up additional services. What the hell, we got the money, we can do it. So now what happens when that inevitable recession hits again? N Now you not only have all the old programs that were out there but you have all these nice shiny new ones too. And you just know that the beneficiaries of all these programs that didn’t exist all that long ago are going to bitch as loud and long as those of programs started decades earlier about not getting anything cut. So now you have even bigger budget shortfalls. And the solution? Yup, you guessed it, new taxes. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. New programs, new taxes, new programs, etc., the serpent eats his own tail until he destroys the world. Doesn’t anyone ever remember the old adage that it is easier to refuse in the first place than it is to take back later?

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From something that affects us all to the insignificant but still a peeve. People who have to be the friend of everyone by getting them into events that are restricted to certain people or groups. In college it was the guy trying to get everyone past the door men in to the floor parties in the dorms. As you grow older you found them in other situations. The reason I bring this up is because a poker forum I belong to has been having a problem with gatecrashers in its freeroll league. Now I may go into more about the forum and its purpose and leagues in a later post but suffice to say they have a freeroll league in which the games are restricted to members who meet certain qualifications. For the most part the qualifications aren’t that tough and were put in place to make the games someplace where those wishing to could work upon their game without having to put up with the several thousand man donkfests full of people who just jump from freeroll to freeroll shoving everything hoping to get lucky and make a few dollars. It was formed back when the sites were looking for players and were more generous with their funds. In any case you were talking about somewhere between 50 to 100 runners instead of the giant minefields in the daily open freebies the sites put on. Now for various reasons both the prizes and fields have dropped but you can still get a few bucks to try and start bankroll building on sites you might not ordinarily deposit on. However it seems a person or two has decided that once he qualified for the passwords to the games he just had to inform some friends and occasionally someone would even post the password somewhere. Never seemed to occur to them that the prize in a freeroll is fixed and that unlike a buy in, where more players only increase the pot, here they only make it harder to cash, especially the run of the mill freeroll donk. Not to mention it screws it up for those new players that are hoping to learn something about the game, besides how to get sucked out on that is. Personally it doesn’t affect me much as I still play these games more to be sociable than anything but the fact that people do what needs to be done to qualify and maintain their right to play these games and some peckerwood is screwing things up pisses me off.

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Road crews n Pa and NJ. Why do the crews in these states need to block off miles of road while only working on a section of a few yards? Once in NJ I was tuck in a 2 ½ hour, 17 mile bottleneck while 3 guys patched potholes in the last 50 yards of the work area. WTF? A trip to North Carolina a couple years ago proved that that entire blockage isn’t necessary. There the road crews seemed to operate just find by starting the cones about a hundred yards or maybe two in front of their work area and opening them up about the same distance past. Keeps traffic flowing a lot faster.

Also the communication between some road crews and the traveling public. They have been doing work on a major highway in this area, one originally designed as a bypass to the former route that ran through the towns. This means that although the highway is faster there still a major road that can get you where you need to go without too much trouble. It seems the road crews working on this highway don’t really give a damn about relieving traffic however as, instead of posting the work ahead notices in front of the exits the wait until you drive by them to see they are working in the area. Even worse they don’t even post signs at the top of the on ramps so that people that can take another route would do so instead of adding to already backed up traffic. You might think they like having a bunch of pissed off drivers and giant traffic jams.

Now the biggee though I can’t include NJ in this one. Don’t know if it’s the road crews or the higher ups in the DOT who is responsible either but I would love to know what genius is responsible for deciding that while they are working on one major route and have it half, or even totally, shut down it would be a good time to start construction on the major alternate route or one of the feeders to it. That one is a sign of total genius and I have seen it happen 3 years running during the construction season in this area alone not to mention having run across it in other parts of the state at other times. May have to put the blame here on those intellectual giants in Harrisburg for these situations.

OK, enough of the irritants of life. Thanks for the listen.