Summer time is here

It’s just too bad the weather is all over the place.

Tim is back today for a while. Laura is also back, for who knows how long? Probably until she finds another man to chase overseas. Even Shakey is returning. At least I’m leaving. My excitement is slowly building up inside.

I haven’t been out into town for a few weeks. I probably will soon. The boys opened the new summer hostel and I’d like to check it out.

Marika has to go to Tartu this week to do her final uni presentation. I’m sure it will all go well, judging from the stress levels she’s generating. Unfortunately this week there has been a big blow-up in the news about Estonian university standards being on the decline. Now all the officials have their back up and will probably crack down on all the poor students as a result.

I still think uni is a scam industry. At least I had HECS, delaying my debt and keeping it interest-free. I haven’t paid much attention to the newer system in Australia but it’ll probably continue to get worse and worse a la the American system and progress into a serious problem.

I hope a new style of tertiary education becomes prevalent in the future as the current system, to me, just seems to be a rip off that hands out too many qualifications, thus inflating education levels. For example: it’s not that hard to get a bachelors these days, all you really have to do is keep turning up. Pass criteria is generally so basic and weak that you would essentially have to not submit any work (or do it completely wrong) in order to fail. Because bachelors are now ubiquitous, lots of people feel the need to go on to get a masters “for an edge”. Of course, this works out great for universities as they get another tuition fee out of the student.

Now, I’ve got nothing against general education levels rising and people pursuing higher and higher degrees. I just think the criteria to accomplish this should be more string while boasting about what a high percentage of students pass their courses.

Anyway. I’ve been making good pancakes and eating a lot of peanuts.

Filmid

Marika is not permitted to select movies that I have to watch. Ever again.

April Fool

For the whole month, it seems.

I’m quite bored. No games are holding my interest, no job opportunities to earn money from and no desire to go out drinking or anywhere else. I have a lack of appetite, become horribly unfit, unhygenic and frankly uninspired. I’m feeling irritable for no real reason other than what I assume to be my subconscious protesting against the rut that I’ve slid into. The only positives are that I’ve been driving a little bit more (wow…) and that I’m not gaining any weight (but a lot of muscle has atrophied).

It’s not that I’m having a hard time, it’s that I feel like I have absolutely nothing to do. I should study more Estonian, read more books and force myself to exercise, but I’m too comfortable wallowing in my own apathy.

Poker has been a joke this month – mostly due to my mental state, I believe. I’m consciously making an effort to improve in that area, but why not in others? I don’t know. Maybe I find it more challenging.

Marika’s busy studying for her exams. I hope she passes. I feel pretty lousy because my mental downswing has nothing to do with how she’s behaving (it’s just me), yet I’m sure I’m putting out weird vibes that are affecting her. She’s still being her delightful self as usual, thankfully. She also seems to be coping well under the pressure to simultaneously complete her bachelor’s work and cram for exams. Perhaps it has something to do with leaving her favourite song of the month on permanent loop (or maybe that’s why I’m in a sour state).

I think part of my mood is due to feeling rather… isolated. There’s not really a lot for me to do here and I feel kind of excluded from a lot of things due to my lack of Estonian fluency and being a foreigner who finished school years ago. Sure, our flatmates and local friends are nice and I like them but something seems to be missing. Some kind of common ground. I’m looking forward to moving back to Tallinn for a few months and I’m also looking forward to returning home. I don’t think home will be particularly exciting, I’m just getting nostalgic. I’m concerned Marika will have a similar experience in Australia to my current one. I will need to find a way to remedy that if it occurs.

I’ve lost contact with a lot of friends from Australia or they’ve moved elsewhere, so the social side of life will be a challenge. I still don’t know what I’ll actually do when I get back. I’ll probably have to just go with the flow. Like always.

Well, don’t I sound like a lot of fun to know?

On a lighter note, here’s a list of things beginning with “I”:

• I’ve begun reading the Dune series (yet again). I’m still not very far into the first book (yet again).
• I’m also reading Darkly Dreaming of Dexter and have had more progress due to keeping it in ebook form on my phone.
• I powered through the entire series to date of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with Marika in about a week. We both enjoyed it.
• I watched the first episode of TV series, Rome, last night. I intend to watch the rest, although I find the British accents on Roman characters distracting.
• I’m trying to sit through all the classic western movies. I’ve only gone through about 3 or 4.
• I’m swearing off all store-bought beers except Walter. It’s cheap, reasonably tasty and effective.
• I can’t think of anything else worth writing.

Flour

Working with it is a fucking nightmare.

I’m stupid

I went for a walk earlier today with Marika and I fell out of a spinning coffin of death in a playground. I slipped on the icy metal footrest and smashed my right calf muscle into a steel bar. It’s like having a permanent cramp in my leg and I have to hobble around, wincing in pain.

Fucking outdoors.

666 – number of the suckout

Warning: poker bitch post incoming.

Plicka plicka

Ever wondered what Rammstein are up to lately? [NSFW] Probably not. Still, I felt like sharing it.

I just got back from Tartu, again. Another week down. It’s not too bad a place to chill out and it’s going to be cheaper to rent there for 6 months than it is to rent in Tallinn for 1 month. Yep.

I’m not really sure what to write about. I haven’t done much except avoid exercise. I drove Marika’s car a little bit. It was fun to be behind the wheel again. Unfortunately I barely fit behind it, but I think I’ll manage if I ever need to pop down to the shops for… vegetables?

My hair is growing back at a slightly disturbing rate. It’s time to have it cut again in order to tidy it up. The hair on the sides of my head tends to grow up and outward, like an eagle spreading its wings. You could even compare my nose to its beak.

Currently I’m redesigning the hostel website. It’s coming along quite nicely. Unfortunately I don’t have any other web work to do. I hope to soon otherwise I’ll be poor and sad. I really should be doing more work pimping out this poker software as this month has been very lax. Perhaps I’ll grind out a few hours each day for the rest of the week. I guess I do need the money after all. Woe is me.

I like this apartment but damn it’s ripped the arse out of my wallet. :( In fact, my wallet is so empty these days that I actually carry it around again!

What the fuck was I just doing?

Inexplicably, I decided to try a different style of playing in my most recent poker session. Being really automatic, predictable and just not trying anything fancy at all. Nothing nothing nothing but strong hands or reasonable hands from good position.

It jarred me a lot and I tilted very quickly, losing my stack by jamming all-in with a paired queen to slowplaying aces. Sure, I was unlucky that he had it but I was also stupid for playing like a fucking moron.

I think I mistook the messages about playing “solid poker” and tried to clamp down hard on my (so far) winning style. I don’t know why I got into that mentality, I guess I was genuinely experimenting. Well, it was clearly a failure. My hard grinding from earlier was just pissed away.

Not to worry, I’m still ahead and have been reviewing my plays, trying to find leaks. My biggest problem seems to be keeping focused when I win early, as I tend to play too hard with shitty hands after I make a good profit. If I just keep to the style that’s been working for me I should continue improving.

Sorry for everyone that doesn’t care. I’ll post something more interesting another day.

Poker is poking me

So I’ve been studying hard and it’s definitely paid off. Lots of books and forums and bleeding eyes.

I leapt forward in my first 800 hands on Full Tilt Poker to a huge ROI but now I’m on a bit of a downswing, although I have misplayed a few key hands and it hasn’t helped me. The bigger problem is that my good hands either haven’t been paid, or I get sucked out on/lose to a crappy draw against the odds.

Today’s sessions have been very frustrating, to say the least. I managed to avoid hitting a set with pocket pairs 35 times in a row in over 600 hands – a probability of about 1.1% (I think?).

In fact, out of 48 pocket pairs today I only hit trips on the flop twice. In 960 hands!

Perhaps that’s evening out my very arsey but very well played burst of making good money on Triobet poker last night. I had a few huge and cheeky hands in a short time and took some folks to the cleaners.

So, I guess overall I’ve made about… $40 playing small stakes games for the last few days. I have to be happy with that. Just the bad streak ruins the fun.

Not my day

This won’t make any sense if you don’t know much about poker.

I just blew about $30 of money that wasn’t mine on poker today (which lessens the pain, at least). Talk about a bad beat.

Every time I had a genuinely strong hand, no one was in the pot. $0.05/$0.10 blinds and the biggest pot I could take in about 300 hands was $0.30.

Every time I tried something a bit more speculative (for mid-price calls) I got no action on the table.

Every time I folded a upper-mid range hand I would have had the nut flush on the flop.

Every time I tried to push people out of pots when I had a strong hand, people just kept calling (against pot odds) for draws, then hitting them on the river and beating my hand.

I ended up going balls-out in one hand, with 2 pair, jack high. I lost it to someone who was ace high and it cost me about $8.

The final straw was losing all-in with pocket kings to a guy with pocket aces. $10.

I’m very tempted to stick to video games from now on.