Will wonders about whether or not people are truly engaged in a pursuit of happiness. He begins his course of thought by observing (through literature and studies) that when measuring the “happiness” of a population, seemingly important metrics like income, health and even freedom didn’t play much of a role in reported levels of happiness. This perplexing results leads him to conclude that human nature is not geared towards obtaining happiness, but instead craves a life of “forking paths leading to multitudes of possible lives”.
Personally, I disagree. Many people do not crave options or choice, and have very concrete ideas of what the perfect life would be. I think, in the end, we all want to be happy. I know that’s a difficult term to define, but it’s like pornography: I know it when I see it. However, I think life’s cruel joke is thus: nothing will make you happy. At least, nothing will make you happier. I think this is the case for two reasons: 1) people rarely have any idea what makes them happy and 2) happiness is relative.
The first point is simple to observe. People “look for love in all the wrong places.” Or they mindelssly pursue monetary success only to fail become happy. Anecdotes abound; this is old news.
The second point is more interesting. Is Chris Moneymaker any happier now than he was before he won the 2003 WSOP? In the orgy of victory, of course. Even a year later, perhaps. But what about in another year or two? I submit that he will end up acclimating to his new lifestyle, his expectations will become re-calibrated, and he’ll end up as happy (or un-happy) as he was before the tournament. Why? Because happiness is relative. And should he lose all his millions in a bad investment tomorrow, he’ll forever be enmeshed in a sorrow greater than anything he new when he wasn’t a millionaire.
Reading about Mas and his Borgata trip really reminded me of my first real dive into live poker. Ironically, this didn’t happen in Atlatic City or Las Vegas (I did play in Vegas my last time out there, but it was only for 3 hours). It happended during my trip to San Francisco. I was attending the BEA E-World conference with my colleague Mike Lambert, and we probably spend every available minute away from the conference playing poker. Mike had discovered a poker room just outside of San Francisco (about a $30 cab ride) on the way to San Jose. I wish I could remember the name.
Anyway, this place was huge, and probably had 50 tables. There was a sign-up board for most games and limits you can think of. The poker casino seemed to be run by Asians (Vietnamese I believe) and many of the players were Asians themselves. The age distribution tended to be favor older (sometimes much older) players. This would come back to haunt me. Food service was provided table-side, and I had some fanatastic Pho while playing.
Anyway, the story begins with me taking some horrific beats at 2/4 and 3/6. People playing complete garbage and hitting river cards to pummel me. Even Lambert joined in, totally ignoring buddy poker etiquette, and busting me up heads-up with flopped full houses. So, being the newby (and totally fucking fish) that I am, what do I do? I move up in limits! My reasoning is: I need to escape the people who will call and raise with garbage. So, I sign up for 6/12 and eventually 9/18. This seems to work in my favor for a little while, but eventually my minimal skills combined with decades of accumulated experience and wisdom conspire to sap me of all my money. Over the course of 4 evenings/nights of play, I’m sure I dropped $800+. And I deserved it. I didn’t pick good tables, I didn’t stay within my limits, and I tilted like a mofo.
The worst part came when the players started making “fish” jokes right at the table. I never talked back or defended myself, I just steamed and silently bemoaned my fate. Anyway, that was my baptism by fire into live play. You can be sure I’ll know better the next time around and will hunt out tables filled with WPT wanna-be’s with wrap-around shades.
As a side-note, on my way to the Oakland airport I played in a room nearby for about 3 hours. There was a guy who could have played an homebre loco gangbanger on TV and he was cracking up (and loosening up) the table by playing, in his words, caca. It was hilarious. He’d call some flops blind and tell the table: “I feel like playing caca.” And he did! He’s flip of 62o for a rivered two-pair and the whole table was dying. At first I thought he was insane (or stupid) but he ended up cashing out 2x up, and I really believe he was willing to sacrifice some chips early if it meant loosening up the table. These are the kinds of things you can’t really do on-line, but can work in live play. I might need to borrow this.
Here’s how my fantasy football draft went last Saturday. I picked 11th out of 12 teams, and we snaked our picks. An asterick () indicates a keeper:
Peyton Manning
Fred Taylor
Donte Stallworth
Eddie George
Rodney Harrison
Amani Toomer
Darrel Jackson
David Thornton
David Akers
Shawn Barber
Keenan McCardell
Ron Dayne
Fred Thomas
* Boo Williams
Carson Palmer
Travis Taylor
Joey Porter
Bubba Franks
* Michael Bennet
Travis Minor
Our league includes defensive players, and the scoring system is tweaked to create parity between most positions (although running backs are the still the top dogs). Anyway, I think I’d give myself a B-. I gambled quite a bit (Eddie George, Keenan McCardell, Ron Dayne). But I general do my best work during the season, so we’ll see how it goes.
Last night I played in the Monty Memorial Poker Tournament. Iggy set-up the tournament and managed to pull together 77 entrants, made up of poker bloggers, readers and friends. The tourney started promptly at 9pm.
Dealt TT, raised it up (maybe not enough), got some callers. Board comes up AQx (fuck!). I check, it gets raised, I’m out.
Limp with K9s, awful board, promptly bail.
AKo in the BB, raise it up, it gets re-raised, I go all-in. Ash folds.
I haven’t hit a single trip, despite quite a few baby pairs.
99 won on a Axx board.
99 won against 2 short-stack all-ins with a T5Qj8 board. That knocked out VARoad and someone else I forget. Little did I know VARoad had placed a bounty on his head. Sweet!
KJo won some limps with 7J8 flop.
99 in the BB won the blinds when everyone folded. That sucked.
5 minute intermission.
TJo all-in with 1400, took Maude</a>’s $500.
ATo, lost to AQo when we both hit a flush, but his was better (Q-high flush to T-high.
I guess this total voiding of all body cavities must’ve brought me to a higher level of lucidity, because I did the only sensible thing. I got in the shower with all my clothes on and tried to regroup. My falling down problem persisting, though, I almost crashed through the glass shower door a couple of times before I got all my duds off. I might have taken a nap in the tub, but details on that are sketchy. I cleaned myself and my clothes as much as I could and called it a night. Whew!! That was hard work and I was ready for some serious sleep. Hooray I make it to my bed and pass the fuck out.
I almost pissed myself reading this from the Best of Craigslist. Here’s an excerpt:
Yea sorry? The bitch made my knees buckle! This was no normal gas. This was chemical weapons quality. Saddam Hussein himself would be like Don t use that shit, thats just wrong The fucked up part is that if you know that your gas is that potent, wouldn t leave a small enclosed area to do it. She has known me for a month, how can she be that comfortable? I don t even take shits when she around never mind drop bombs like that. If we were married for a year and she did that I would get a divorce. Judge would be like That sick bitch did WHAT! But this doesn t occur to her.
After reading Scott’s ode to burgers I was overwhelmed with a craving for a huge, juicy cheeseburger. I convinced a couple of my co-workers to forgo the typical cafeteria quicky and come with me to a sit-down place (Chadwicks’s) across the street.
It’s been a couple of hours since I wolfed down that delicious half-pound of medium rare goodness. I still feel like there’s a boulder in my stomach. Was it worth it? Hell yes!
I went out to play ball with Hege on the Barton St courts the other day in Arlington. I parked my car and as I rounded the turn I saw Hege and gave him a wave. After another few steps I gazed to my left and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
There must have been 100+ people milling around the picnic tables back behind the courts. As I’m staring at them, Hege comes over and tells me they’re some kind of flash-mob/running/drinking group. They jog/running from location to location, where they stop to drink and socialize.
I wanted to go over and talk to some of them, but we were about to start our game. The last thing I noticed was some sort of van (maybe more than one) that seemed to be handling the supplies and following the runners. Anyway, it was a very strange thing to witness, and I’d love to find out who/how it gets set up.
Update: Please check out the comments. Dan correctly identified what I saw as a “hash group” and goes into some good detail about hashing in DC and in general. Good looking out, Dan!
IRVING, Texas—The Dallas Cowboys Channel, a 24-hour cable network devoted to America’s Team, will launch Sept. 8 and be available to more than 1.3 Comcast subscribers in Texas and adjoining states.
The network will offer original programming, including broadcasts of coach Bill Parcells’ news conferences, a nightly news show from practice and behind-the-scenes interviews. There will also be call-in shows and “Owners Desk,” a weekly report from team owner Jerry Jones.
Sure, it’s a typo, but how funny. God, I relish hating the Cowboys…
