The Enlightened Check-Raise

I don’t like the term ‘bucket list’.. So these are my to-do’s.  On my lifelong to-do list at number five, to take a continent-wide road trip with no specific timeline or destination. I’d probably need a couple months to do it properly. Today I feel like.. Montreal. Then Boston.

I haven’t made a single New Years resolution since 1999. In my humble opinion there’s no point in waiting for a specific calendar day to decide to better one’s self. If someone wants to lose weight, be more charitable or quit smoking, why would January 1 change their drive to do so? My friends, the difference between December 30 and January 2nd is just a couple days and nothing more.

Don’t misunderstand me, I have no doubt you are serious in your convictions. I only ask, why on this day? Attaching false significance to the date doesn’t help you, it just adds unnecessary pressure to what’s already going to be a challenge. It also reminds us of our failures from last year, starting us off on the wrong foot. And if you tell me you didn’t fail then that’s awesome, and I imagine you see by now that the adjustment to your lifestyle needed no start date. Cancer, heat disease and the like could care less that it’s 2012.

If you want to take a few minutes to evaluate yourself that’s good, but we should be doing this daily. Short term willingness to try to do something, no master how strong and convincing your will is, is not the same as actually doing it. I have faith that you can achieve your goals because you have it within you to do so. Not because you’ve declared you will on a magical date that means you’re super-serious this time. I suggest that every day this year, when you wake up, renew your resolve, and act.

Available in the Market, WordPress for Android makes blogging truly mobile! Thanks to it I am posting this in a KFC waiting for an oil change. Sweet.

I love my Ironkey.  Overpriced and overkill when it comes to security, this hardware encrypted USB memory stick has private secure browsing onboard, IP switching, and if you enter the password too many times incorrectly it actually self-destructs. Seriously.  https://www.ironkey.com/basic

Teamviewer.  Slick remote PC control for any platform from Android to Ubuntu to Windows.  Operate your home desktop from your cell phone and you’ll be hooked.  Just mind your data usage!

http://www.teamviewer.com

It seems any online player who is taking the game seriously is now using a poker HUD.  For those not in the know, a poker Heads Up Display is software that tracks your poker play in terms of aggression, tightness, among numerous other stats.  It not only tracks you – it tracks your opponents.  Before long you’ll have a great picture of their betting habits, their tendency to fold to a continuation bet, how likely it is they’ll try to take the pot away on the river, etc..  From hand to hand sound poker judgement is still required to win, but over the long term this information becomes increasingly profitable.  Thousands of players, players you face every day, are using this software.  It’s allowed, it’s fair, and it’s an edge – so why aren’t you?

This is the question I asked myself, and I couldn’t come up with a good answer.  I had used one for a while a few years back but when I started running bad I discovered I’d put too much faith in the software and mentally switched to autopilot, so I turned it off and never went back to it.  But that step was a tad overkill.  Success with HUD software comes from a balance between good fundamental play, player reading, and an understanding of the stats provided by the software.  Relying solely on the latter for playing decisions without the first two will result in disaster.

So I’ve picked up a trial of Holdem Manager, I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.  On my first session I earned about $7.50 demoing the software at a ten cent table.  It was $9, but trying it out at an uber cheap $1.50 6-seat SNG proved futile when my flopped Jack high flush ran into a flopped Ace high flush heads up early in.

In poker-speak this means to vary your playing style to keep your opponents off balance, but today I’m referring to my website.  For the last year things have been a bit of a downer around here, and aside from lucid dreaming (yes, I still do but write less about it), there hasn’t been much I’ve felt like talking about.  I’m changing that!  After seeing all the positive feedback from my one post about a Joomla glitch and how to fix it, I realize that blogs actually do have an audience and carry some reach.  So I’m going to start getting positive again!  As you can tell by the new look there will be a lot of poker discussion simply because I love it, however I’ll also be jamming about whatever cool stuff I see.  Apps for my Android phone, some bit of gadgetry I can’t resist, good places to find crepes.  Stick around friends, it’s gonna get a whole lot more upbeat in here!

Over the last few weeks my dream recall has improved, and so with it has my lucidity.  Because I haven’t focused on lucidity much at all lately I have to rely on my instincts to catch anomalies that indicate a dream.  As lucid dreamers know, we suspend our reasoning almost entirely when we are in REM sleep.  Almost.  But often there is a subtle sense of oddity that comes about.  It may not be anything specific you see, it’s just a feeling.  If you get this, during the day or otherwise, take a good look at your hands.  Once you learn to reality-check in response to that feeling (I just did now as I recalled the sensation), you will gain lucidity much more frequently.  Recently I was on a day trip with a friend, and nothing could be described as strange to my mind other than the fact that I wasn’t entirely sure where we were.  But that feeling of being unsure was all it took and I counted my fingers.  A quick inspection suggested I did in fact have five fingers, but I couldn’t keep the number in my head.  The feeling persisted so I counted again – this time I had six.  I looked at my nearby friend and told him definitively that this was a dream.  (Interesting to note that I still spoke to him as though he was real, indicating only partial lucidity.  Some of my higher reasoning was still not functioning.)

I didn’t do much with this limited lucidity, and hence lost it a moment later because I hadn’t planned my intentions beforehand.  If I had a task in mind when I went to sleep I could have focused myself on that and become fully lucid.  Instead I looked around with a laugh, realized I was dreaming, and just decided to go with it.  When I did the lucidity faded away.  I was pretty tired so this didn’t bother me, but it illustrates the importance of reality-checking whenever you feel the slightest thought towards doing it, and to think about what you’ll do when you become aware of the dream so the opportunity isn’t wasted.