Omigod I got drunk last night. I've discovered a new drink. It's called "whatever anybody hands me, or whatever i pour myself while behind the bar at lit".

Apparently, it's delicious.

It appears to be more delicious than the only-missing-two-bites veselka bacon-egg-and-cheese that was still sitting here on the table when i woke up (at 4 PM) this afternoon, and also more delicious than the only-missing-two-sips coffee milkshake sitting next to it.

I have one brutal fucking hangover. I think I owe the Veselka guys an apology, but then again maybe I don't, because I was definitely very very drunk, but I think they were just laughing at me. The txt I sent Kendel is fucking hilarious. I can imagine me concentrating on trying to write the word "concentrating" properly. And failing.

Did i mention the jagermeister? yowza.

But I'm happy because I finally had a good night of poker. I played the $225 tournament at AAAA. Only 12 players this week, as so many players are in Atlantic City for the World Poker Tour circuit event down there. Third hand into the tourney I have 10 10 on the button. A raise in front of me to 75, I re-raise to 300 and he calls. Head's up. The flop comes J 8 8. He checks. I bet 500. He thinks about it for a while, and he calls. The turn comes a 9. He checks, I check. The river comes another J. He bets a little, I fold. He shows me pocket 9's. I show him my 10s and tell him "good call" and I'm pissed. I just lost over half my chips from this idiot making two bad calls in the same hand.

I fight and I fight, and eventually I double up on the other small stack, and when the tourney goes to 10 players I have 1600 in chips... right where I started. I play tight... I play well. Eventually the pocket 9's asshole is shortstack, I have 10 10 in late position and make a big enough raise to put him (now in the big blind) all-in if he chooses to call. He calls with KQ, the flop comes with a 10, and I knock him out. A bit of sweet revenge. Throughout the course of the tourney I get pocket 10s five times, and never once get JJ, QQ, KK, or AA. At the final table I never once get AK. Strange.

Eventually it comes down to three players. I'm the short stack of the three with about 4000, one guy has like 9000, and the other has 5000. Then I take 3000 chips off the big stack, and the next hand the other guy at the table says "I'm getting bored. You guys want to just chop this three ways?" First place was supposed to be $1200, second $800, and third $400. We're all pretty even, and I could use the money and I think we were all pretty evenly matched... we all agree. Tip the dealers $50 each, and we each take $750 for a nice little $525 profit. I had made $50 in the 1-2 game beforehand (all on a complete stone-cold bluff on a player that was so obviously on a flush draw that it was easy to execute), so I walk out up almost $600.

And, of course, I still want to play, but I don't want to play the 1-2 game there. I walk out, walk all the way to the East Village in search of food. I think I'm in the mood for Italian, but I can't really think of anywhere except Lavagna, but if I'm going to Lavagna I'm going to want wine, spend too much money... I just can't think of what I want. I eventually pick Stromboli pizza for the bacon tomato and garlic slice. In there I bump into Julie from Northern State, and we end up talking about poker for a half hour. I think about taking her to AAAA (she has never played no limit in a card room or casino), but eventually I decide I want to go to the new club DDDD, run by the former PPPP folks. They just opened this weekend, so I don't want to take a new player. I bid Julie good night and walk over to DDDD around 11:30.

I walk in and there are two games. 1-2 NL, and 20 40 half kill omaha hi low. Now, I've been playing all that online pot limit omaha hi low, but I shouldn't be playing 20 40 ANYTHING, especially if it's half kill. Technically you should sit down with $1000-$1200 for a game like that. In other words, everything I have in my pocket. I buy in for $500. I pick up some nice hands, and am up $400 in like 45 minutes. I think about leaving, but felt it would be too much of a silly hit and run. So I play. Over the next two hours, I go back down to even, then down. And then down some more. I buy in for another $300 when I have like $80 in front of me. At one point I'm down to $200 in front of me. And then I go on a terror. I pick up a bunch of nice hands and start picking up pots. The table goes down to 4-handed, and I start scooping some pots with second nut low and middle two pair high. In a 4-way pot on the button I raise with A2spades in my hand, and the flop comes two spades and two low cards. The turn is a low spade, the river is a blank that doesn't pair the board. I get one caller, he has A2 and I quarter him for a big pot. I take a bunch of heads up hands against Bobby G who ends up busting out at 10 minutes before 3:00 AM, saying he's going to go get more money, and the three of us at the table say "don't bother... we're going to get out of here at 3:00". I look down and I'm up $380. I walk out of there at 3:00 on the dot, I'm up $955 for the night, and I'm ready for a drink. I walk to LIT listening to Stax Singles Vol. 6. The MP3's above are from that disc and they come back to back. The greatest walking music ever. The backing vocals on "B-A-B-Y" are all whoozy and awesome. I show up at LIT, don't see Erik or David, and buy a Bud. It's the last drink I pay for. By 6:00 AM I'm pouring myself Jagermeister shots, getting my own beers, serving other people drinks, carrying Foss around over my shoulder, selecting songs on David Cross's Itunes, and did I mention the Budweiser and Jagermeister? I did, didn't I?

The rest you know.

It's after midnight now, and I'm just starting to feel like a human being again. My brain cells still hate me.

I told Mitch about my poker, and then told him later about the drunken end of the evening. His response: "i'm gonna have an intervention for you but i can't decide which type to do first. you need so many..."

so true.

a reflection of a reflection of a reflection of a budweiser sign.

franz ferdinand tour photos

I also finally finished up "The Megan Brown CDs" project. My niece Megan turned 12 in August, and i felt this was the time for a more formal introduction to good music. Me being the foremost authority on good music, of course. And, of course, this means I also ignored pretty much every genre of music that I'm not versed in, so it ends up being a list of punk / indie / alternative songs of the last 30 years. The entire playlist was determined by figuring out exactly how many songs fit on 30 cds (down to the second, pretty much), while still allowing for data to be burned onto each cd: all the songs are ripped as mp3s and contained on the disc, so that Megan could drag and drop the files straight onto her MP3 player, if she so chooses. And, of course, the order of the songs on each cd was painstakingly selected. Not working straight through, but the project still isn't actually finished. I've been sending her a new cd approximately every 12 days, so that it will take her a year to get all the cds. And I only just now finished the final eight CD's running order. I still need to burn those eight, but in the meantime, here are the tracklistings for the entire series:

Megan Brown CD #01 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #02 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #03 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #04 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #05 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #06 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #07 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #08 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #09 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #10 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #11 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #12 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #13 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #14 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #15 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #16 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #17 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #18 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #19 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #20 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #21 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #22 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #23 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #24 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #25 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #26 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #27 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #28 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #29 Track Listing: click here
Megan Brown CD #30 Track Listing: click here

They passed like strangers,
without a word or gesture,
her off to the store,
him heading for the car.

Perhaps startled
or distracted,
or forgetting
that for a short while
they'd been in love forever.

Still, there's no guarantee
that it was them.
Maybe yes from a distance,
but not close up.

I watched them from the window,
and those who observe from above
are often mistaken.

She vanished beyond the glass door.
He got in behind the wheel
and took off.
As if nothing had happened,
if it had.

And I, sure for just a moment
that I'd seen it,
strive to convince you, O Readers,
with this accidental little poem
that it was sad.

Wislawa Szymborska
(Translated, from the Polish, by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.)
(From The New Yorker a couple of weeks ago)

"your poems about the girls will still be around
50 years from now when the girls are gone,"
my editor phones me.

dear editor:
the girls appear to be gone
already.

I know what you mean

but give me one truly alive woman
tonight
walking across the floor toward me

and you can have all the poems

the good ones
the bad ones
or any that I might write after this one.

I know what you mean.

do you know what I mean?

Charles Bukowski

Leonard Cohen

Donald Justice

e e cummings

When you kneel below me
and in both your hands
hold my manhood like a sceptre,

When you wrap your tongue
about the amber jewel
and urge my blessing.

I understand those Roman girls
who danced around a shaft of stone
and kissed it till the stone was warm.

Kneel, love, a thousand feet below me,
so far I can barely see your mouth and hands
perform the ceremony,

Kneel till I topple to your back
with a groan, like those gods on the roof
that Samson pulled down.

Leonard Cohen

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Copyright 2005 The Self-Starter Foundation

All rights reserved.

All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of The Self-Starter Foundation. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.

However, you may download material from The Self-Starter Foundation website (one machine readable copy and one print copy per page) for your personal, noncommercial use only.

For further information, please contact The Self-Starter Foundation.

(And with all of that said, go ahead and cut and paste whatever you want, just give the proper credit and a link, ok?)