Continued Poker Mastery
Now that I am an expert at poker, having nearly caught up to my mother’s chip count on Facebook, I am considering becoming a professional player.
To this end, I’ve been watching episodes of High Stakes Poker to learn all of the tricks and tells of the top players in the world, in preparation for playing against them on a regular basis when I finally start to get the recognition I deserve. I have picked up on what I now believe may be the key to success in pokering.
At least when it comes to bluffing, the most infallible technique in poker is to let your mouth hang slightly agape while you masturbate under the table. My theory is that this lets the other players know you are ready for bed, and they have to assume you would not go out with a bad hand.
They are also less likely to want your money at all if you use it in the cleanup.
New Westminster
I have moved in directly across the street from an apartment I lived in eleven years ago, and it sort of feels as if my life has been reset to that point. I walk the streets here and get a fairly surreal sense of having lost time. I haven’t changed a lot since I was seventeen, and neither, it seems, has the city of New Westminster.
We are both, however, in the midst of extensive revitalization initiatives.
Dear Reader
Listen, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, but I think you should know how I feel. It’s been a long time coming.
It should really be no secret that I am at least a little prone to this sort of proclamation, but no less am I, this time, sure that it’s right. I can’t — I won’t — ignore what’s inside of me.
I should just say it.
I am in love, simple and plain.
With my own ability to draw flowers HAHAHA YOU THOUGHT I ACTUALLY LIKED YOU
Radiohead at the Grammy Awards
With the Grammys tonight, I’m going to focus on the only three categories that matter, which happen to be the three categories Radiohead are nominated in.
Every other category will be won either by Whitney Houston or any of a plethora of six-year-old girls in oversized sunglasses, and either way the award will be dedicated to Whitney Houston. This is especially true if Whitney actually does win, by foul magicks, and teleports in from the morgue in a puff of angel dust to dedicate every Grammy to herself.
Better to give them all to Radiohead. Since we have only three categories to work with, we can simply ignore the rest of the ceremony.
Best Rock Song AND Best Rock Performance
These two categories are so indistinguishable from one another that the recording academy simply gave up this year and nominated the same five songs in both.
- Coldplay – Every Teardrop is a Waterfall
- Foo Fighters – Walk
- Mumford and Sons – The Cave
- The Decemberists – Down by the Water
- Radiohead – Lotus Flower
Coldplay and the Foo Fighters have both reached a stage in their respective careers where they can be considered musically and culturally irrelevant, and there is really no point naming individual songs, or even albums, with how dissimilar they are. One of them should obviously win.
Mumford and Sons are fairly guilty of the same thing, but as they are only one album into it they can be granted an extremely optimistic pardon. In addition, they are basically indie and faux-celtic dreamy enough to be lovable by both teen hipsters and their grandparents, so they should obviously win.
I don’t know any goddamn thing about The Decemberists, because I have stubbornly avoided them for years, to the behest of everyone I know and the insistence that The Decemberists are actually quite good. I can only go by the title of their nominated song, Down by the Water, and since that is also the title of a PJ Harvey song I rather like, The Decemberists should obviously win.
As for Radiohead’s nominated song, Lotus Flower, I think they academy will be afraid of it for the obvious fact that it is in reference to Thom Yorke’s extramarital affair with Steven Ellison, or Flying Lotus. Radiohead hasn’t got a chance.
Best Alternative Music Album
As this category is for complete albums rather than individual songs, Radiohead are the clear winners, simply because none of the voting members of the recording academy have listened to The King of Limbs the requisite number of times to understand it fully (13) and they don’t want to look stupid. See my track-by-track review of The King of Limbs to help boost your own ability to appreciate it.
Also, the other bands nominated are Death Cab for Cutie, Foster the People, and My Morning Jacket. If Radiohead loses there will be a riot on the Internet.
I intentionally left out Bon Iver from the above list since they will otherwise obviously win. It is my hope that the recording academy will reference my blog when finalizing the votes, and forget to include them.
LiveBlogging on Radiohead’s Imminent Success!
I will be updating this post throughout the night as Radiohead dominates the Grammys.
Update: Bollocks.
Update: Oh, bollocks.
Cleaning Up the Fraser River
This is the sorry side of the river, as I understand it. I overheard a guy explaining that to somebody with absolutely no interest in rivers, saying that this side is scummy and discomforting to him. He is in a higher tax bracket than the people who live around here, such as myself.
Looking over the river though, sitting on my scummy little bench, I can’t help but notice that the other side of the mighty Fraser is little more than a pile of dirt. Literally, I mean, a dirt pile, or a mountain even, which they ship off to parts of the world where they cannot produce enough dirt on their own.
“You’d better not throw that in the river,” says an old woman suddenly standing next to me, who I would estimate to be about six hundred and two. She is referring to my apple core.
“Okay then,” I say. Why would I throw it in the river? The woman is clearly senile, escaped, no doubt, from the old skookum house that used to be up the road from here.
“Where you gonna throw it?” She glares at me with tremendous disappointment, as if I’ve let her down a thousand times before and she’s lost any hope of me doing the right thing.
“I don’t intent to throw it at anything.”
“Where you gonna put it?” She says the word ‘put’ like ‘puuooot’, and spits it out slowly as if she’s afraid of it.
“I’ve got this baggie,” I say, holding up the bag I’d wrapped my sandwich in. There is still a small bit of sandwich left in there, but I assume it will be all right if they share a room.
“You’re gonna throw it in there?”
“Okay.” I have decided that I will.
“There’s trash cans just back here,” she informs me, gesturing vaguely in back of herself where there are, in fact, six trash cans that I can count.
“Neat.”
“Why would you throw it in a bag then, huh? Why not just use the trash cans?” She gestures to the stunning array of receptacles behind her once again, “Right there.”
“I’m not sure.” I think about it for a moment. “It’s just the first thing that came to mind. I panicked a little.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I think you may have tricked me .”
She rolls her eyes. “Just don’t throw it in the river.”
I consider asking about the river’s dietary needs, but simply say, “Okay.”
I will admit that she could probably use a shower, but as she walks away I have to commend her, as she is at least doing her part to help us all clean up our side of the river.
On the Vince Lombardi Trophy
I would probably have a much greater interest in football if they gave out a better trophy, because I’m a sucker for that kind of thing and this is where my priorities lie when it comes to things like professional sports.
The Vince Lombardi Trophy is just a fucking football on some sort of a pike, which does absolutely nothing for me. If you asked a four year old to draw a football trophy it might come out exactly the same way, though the four year old might at least consider putting the ball in the mouth of a wolf or something.
Even if I could forgive the totally lackluster design, the fact that the winning team gets to keep the trophy forever, and that it is therefor remade every year, takes all of the prestige out of it for me. I could basically make my own Vince Lombardi Trophy, except I would make the trophy Vince Lombardi himself, hollow him out, and fill him with black rum.
Which brings me to my most significant complaint against the Vince Lombardi trophy: You can’t drink out of it. Canadians, and probably other alcoholics as well, like trophies you can drink out of. Ideally you would just give me a bottle of Kraken and leave me lying on the floor of the shower while you watched the game.
On Comments / Comments On
I have had comments closed on Irreversible Mistakes for some time (with the exception of that time I had to ask how to listen to music properly), but I’m reconsidering the logic behind the idea.
The logic behind the idea, by the way, was that if comments were closed and nobody could comment, I wouldn’t care whether people commented or not. I had noticed that people were far more likely to comment on a uninteresting posts about my life or my website (such as this one, probably) and would completely disregard long fucking rambling articles about obscure musicians and authors, or other things that absolutely nobody who is not me should have any interest in, and I basically had to disagree with the universe on the way that worked.
However, as I reconnect with the Internet and find myself posting comments on a bunch of other blogs (note the newly extended list of links in the sidebar), I realize that this is basically the way I used to meet and bother people online with my website, which is a thing that I kind of miss.
So.
D’s Nuts
D. Unsworth stirred in bed, having trouble sleeping due to the unfamiliar heat of the radiator next to him. He turned over, the sweat-logged skin of his scrotum briefly clinging to his thigh before falling away and delivering a loud slap to the inside of his other leg, scaring him awake. He moaned and swatted away a phantom mouse before tucking the sheets in between his thighs and trying again to fall asleep.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had showered. The bath in his room was extremely small and he was unable to maneuver his head under the water, so he had to settle for splashing his hair clean. D. would have described himself as moderately itchy. He spent hours every evening masturbating to pass the time and distract himself from the itching, and he would squat in the tub each morning to wash his balls before heading out.
Away from the darkness of his room, D. spent most of his days at a nearby park. He sat quietly on a bench and watched a steady stream of people come through to play with their dogs. He didn’t much like dogs, but there was nowhere else for him to sit in natural light and be, for the most part, left alone. He was starting to get a sunburn. Every now and then a dog would walk up to him and have a sniff at his balls.
When they found his body it was ruled an accidental death. Even masturbation had gotten boring and repetitive for him, so he had been thinking of ways that he might enhance his experience. They found D. lying on the floor in what they called a yoga position, “The Plough”, his legs behind his head and his genitals hanging over his mouth, his neck twisted and broken under the weight of his bloated torso.
The last thoughts to cross D.’s mind were of mild discomforts and irritations, from an itchy scalp to a moderate sunburn, but his balls at least were finally dry, as they dangled in the cool breeze and gently brushed against his lips.
Online Poker Mastery
I have recently decided to become a master of online poker, so I thought I might begin by teaching the rest of the Internet everything I have learned so far.
I am not without credentials. I have over $3,000 in play chips on my Poker Stars account, for example.
Granted, I had to reload my play money to the minimum of $1,000 a few times before I randomly won over $3,000 by going all-in with seven-deuce, but if nothing else I am probably better at poker than I was when I did that.
Anyway, the basic trick to poker is to have a lot more money than everybody else, so that when your hand sucks you can go all-in with seven-deuce and frighten everyone into folding, leaving you with over $3,000 in play chips.
If your hand is not quite as strong as seven-deuce, try simply telling the table what cards you have. They will appreciate your honesty and call you a faggot ass, which is a poker term for a very strong player.