Don't tell Danielle, but I'm not getting the A5 (what a sick trick/trap though!). I've decided that I just cannot get the value I am looking for with it. Yes, I understand that Audi's drive "better" than they generally are priced, but the true sticking point for me was when I was test driving it.
The speed limit was 55 and I was going 60 in the right lane of a two lane highway. The salesman was in the car with us and he said "You can drive it go ahead," meaning that it would be ok for me to go faster. However, I didn't feel the desire to go faster -- I don't really speed anymore.
So then I thought, why the hell do I need this car that sure looks nice and drive well and is safe (aka any decent car in that price range) when the true aspect of it is the speed and I don't happen to care about it. Kind of defeats the purpose of getting a coupe.
Then I went poker on it and realized that spending anything on the car was already excess because my current car is fine and will last me easily 5+ more years. Henceforth, if I get a car, I should be paying for all kinds of cool **** that I may or may not use but it won't risk my insurance skyrocketing.
With the way the economy currently is, it is extremely silly to not get a phenomenal deal on a luxury car. The dealerships all told me they are doing fine, etc. and that the economy didn't affect the people that could afford those cars, but tell that to all the unemployed former CEOs.
After 2 weeks of negotiating with about 4 Audi dealerships, I was able to get $1,500 off of MSRP. That's pretty pathetic considering that my dad got a 2008 new car for about 33% off MSRP, and there are plenty of other luxury cars selling well below invoice. So, maybe Audi doesn't need the business and is doing great, but that doesn't mean that I'm obligated to contribute to it.
So while I was in Florida I was browsing through the newspaper and I came across Range Rovers. Long story short, we took a test drive at a huge dealership in the area and I really like them. The 2008s are actually in pretty short supply because there was a large sale a couple months ago when the 2009s were coming in, but there are still plenty in the area and I'm currently sweeping through them. I should clarify that I'm looking at the Range Rover Sport and not the full size Range Rover because I think they are too bulky. I'm very confident that I will get a very nice price.
On another note, happy new years to everyone. Last night I went to Hoboken, NJ with some friends and some friends of friends and stopped by their house before going to a club to celebrate. Now, at school my friends give me **** because I'm from New Jersey and that state is infamously known for its infestation of guidos -- I actually even did a satirical speech on guidos and how their behavior cast a negative shadow on all decent Italians in a public speaking course this semester.
Well, let me tell you that the Guido Express passed through wherever those "friends of friends" lived. It was hilarious to listen to them talking about being the toughest human beings in the world, while having blowout haircuts, fresh tans, and dressing the same (and fist pumping obviously). I had a lot of fun but those guys made sure there was no shortage of entertainment.
I just got back from meeting Chris Tickner and his gf in the [new york] city. He was visiting from Canada for the new years and it was fun to hang out for a little bit, but clearly all of this excitement has made me very tired. I need to save up some energy because the 3rd is Danielle's birthday and the day after I leave for Atlantis! I'm super excited and expecting it to be a great trip.
I'm kind of veering off so I'm going to head to bed, but I first wanted to say congrats to all of those who had a successful 2008 and here's to a great 2009!
I know I haven't posted in a little bit, but realistically nothing too interesting has been going on so...
I haven't played poker in a week and most likely will not be able to next week either. While I will continue having the "ICM Talk" with a couple people in preparation for Atlantis, I will focus on enjoying the break.
Tonight is the 23rd, and I am about to head to my friend's house for a Christmas Eve Eve party. Tomorrow morning we travel to Pennsylvania to see my mom's parents and for Christmas, and then are coming back and leaving for Florida (same day that is how we do) on the 26th to see my dad's parents. I'll be back the 30th, and am actually scheduled to hang out with Chris (Tickner) because he will be in NYC for New Years.
In other cool years, I am about 3 days away from pulling the trigger on an A5. I realize I said that I was going to get an S5, but there are a number of reasons why I decided to go in the other direction. Since I have shared my speculation into car buying already, I will share my current thoughts:
The differences between an A5 and an S5 are: bigger engine, 'improved' rear suspension, and 'sport' seats, meaning the leather in the middle of the seats is infused with lots of mesh holes. There are also probably 2 other differences (ie one inch greater tires and different rims).
The price difference is $10kish. The rear suspension doesn't matter to me, and I actually dislike the 'sport' seats because my theme of the car was going to be classy (I know it's a coupe). So, the mesh actually takes away from that look. As far as rims go, I don't really care about the different versions, and if I ever changed my mind I would rather look into some custom shop. As far as the engine goes... well, I have 6 moving violations and have been driving for 4.5 years. My insurance is already sky high, and if I get another moving violation I will be dropped from my insurance plan. In New Jersey, you are required to have insurance, so they take all the candidates who the companies will not accept and pool them, and then charge them 12-15k a year (this is before I tell them I have a 50k car). In other words, I don't need to be further encouraged to speed.
For those that care about Audis or were curious and wanted to look up the options (I'll take pics when I get it), I am getting black color, black interior, automatic (BOOYA), premium package, technology package, navigation package, and bang and olsen sound system. It's pretty decked out.
Speaking of decked out, my dad actually bought and drove home a new car today. It's a 2008/2009 (can't remember) Ford Explorer, black exterior with black and beige interior (looks very very nice). Chrome rims and all, haha. My mom has a Ford Edge with chrome rims, meaning both my parents have shine on their wheels and none of their sons do -- oh the irony!
I will update soon from the sticks of Pennsylvania via my wireless card, because you will find a Nascar arena before you find a high speed phone jack.
So until I go back to school (Jan 15) I'm going to be playing $5/$10 and $10/$20 NL/PLO. Nothing higher at the moment because I am working on my secret project, I am working very hard at getting back into good shape, and also because I want the holiday season to be stress free.
I am not going to set any monetary goals because I really don't know how much I'm going to play.
My next videos that will go up (after the montage 2 explanations) will be a two-part series of $5/$10 NLHE on FTP. 4 tables. The two videos were probably my best ever, so watch out for them.
I think it's the most interesting thing in the world. I call it 'numbing' because it order to win you need to be able to shrug your shoulders after you get sucked out on for the 11th time that orbit.
To put it in perspective, you're dodging 5-9 outs much of the time in holdem, and jumping for joy when you get it in 60/40 on the turn in PLO.
I have been struggling a teeny bit at 5/10 (down about 6k after 3600 hands) but I don't know if that means anything. I can tell in Holdem when I'm running bad or playing bad, but this line is extremely blurred in PLO because you need to make bigger folds and bigger calls. Also, everyone has leaks so you need to tailor your play to the individual immensely because they are many times flaws in theory, meaning they don't understand concepts related to e.g. frequencies.
I am going to review nearly every hand I've played so far over the next few days and try to figure out some things that I am doing wrong. I will report back accordingly!
Goals don't have to be huge to be effective or to accomplish what they need to. As it usually pans out though, my long term goals always aim for the fences. Also, note that these are my non-business (read: not Leggo) goals because I need to keep all of those locked up!
Short Term Goals
Don't get drunk for the rest of December after finishing the semester - I am going to most likely get drunk a few times in between now and when I leave for home. After that, I will be seeing lots of my friends in social settings, but I am not going to have more than a couple drinks through the course of the night. This goal is primarily in place because I want to lose a couple pounds both preemptively before the Holiday Season and for self-absorbed views of what I think I look like and what I want to look like.
Do aerobic exercise three times a week in December - In my plan to lose a couple pounds, cardio sounds like a good idea. However, I want to up my cardiovascular endurance for health (ie it's great for your heart) reasons as well.
Lose a couple pounds - For official purposes I'll add this in here. I don't have number goals because I've always based short term weight loss off the mirror (yes I know about the appearance of slimming from loss of water weight/depletion of glycogen stores) so that's the plan here.
Somewhere in between Term Goals
Achieve a level 50 in a Halo 3 playlist. - I am putting this as a middle term goal because I don't think I'll be bringing my Xboxs (plural, heh) back home over break. Therefore, if this doesn't happen in the next week, it won't happen until late Jan/Feb. I am currently a 41 in Lone Wolves and 38 in Team Slayer.
Long Term Goals
Win $200k at $5/$10 and $10/$20 PLO - Basically, my plan for Omaha is to make $200k, take a couple weeks off to analyze the $25/$50 PLO games, and then plunge into those. Psychologically this is better for me because I feel like money I make from NLHE should either be used for NLHE or withdrawn, and it would be "wasteful" to "spend" it on learning PLO. So, when I get the $200k mark that will be enough for a full time shot at $25/$50. I am giving myself 6 months to do this because I can only 4 table so I'm averaging like 300 hands/hr.
Gain 15 pounds of muscle and lose 2-4% body fat - I am giving myself 12 months to do this. I will never be able to get into the full life routine that I want to while still in school, so my diet and exercise won't be ideal until I graduate. Plus, there are trips like Atlantis, and living in Vegas that still stall this plan as well. I estimate myself to weigh around 190-195 and probably be around 13-15% body fat, so I'm looking to get to 205-210 at 11-13% body fat. Still certainly not a cupcake goal.
Finish my secret Leggo project - I know I said these goals are supposed to be non-Leggo based, but this isn't really business model-esque in its nature. Therefore, finish this by June 2009.
Well, look like 2009 will be busy. What a surprise!
I don't have time to say anything else because I am still slaving away at these essays, but Craig got his facebook account back (lol work force-aments) and I got him to upload a couple pictures from before we went out on Halloween. Here is one:
This is Craig, shootaa, myself, and our friend Kyle.
No I never show my face.
Speaking of facebook, we have opened up our LeggoPoker facebook group. I'm not sure if there is some cool link but here is the URL when I have the page open:
In the past week I have played very little, but when I did I decided to give Omaha another shot.
I find the game to be interesting and I think I after about a month I can bring a lot of information to Leggo that will be really helpful to members. 6-8 weeks ago I decided I would do something similar but it wound up falling through because I would just hop on a bunch of $5/$10 tables and try to play PLO as if it were NLHE. I also did one lesson with a coach who I heard was good but honestly found it boring. Apparently, he was on a downswing and therefore had been revamping his game to take out lots of high variance plays at the expense of a lower winrate.
I have since decided that I will splash into Omaha "the right way." Lots of big NLHE guys are hopping over to $10/$20+ PLO, or high stakes CAP PLO, and I think that most of the PLO regulars at those limits will just smack around a NLHE guy, similar to if limit NL/MTT NLHE/PLO guys tried to play NLHE at decent stakes[1].
I could choose to "pay my tuition" at those stakes but instead I am going to enter at $2/$4 PLO and work my way up. Even in the last week, I have learned a lot of things I was doing wrong just from how regulars were adjusting to me with their frequencies. Plus, it's more relaxing to have a mistake cost you $400 as opposed to $2000. Additionally, I have a pretty large project going on for Leggo (yes it will take months and it is a secret) so I want to be able to leisurely play poker in the mean time.
As it is, apparently you have to make your sacrifices to the poker gods when starting a new game. I was pretty sure I was running horribly when all in so I graphed it on Poker EV. I have been told that the "Game Analysis Graph" tab of Poker EV is inherently flawed (and it makes sense -- if some bet goes in on the turn when your opponent has a flush draw and, after hitting on the river, you pay them off, then some amount of money went in when you had ~80% equity and can be shown on the graph because their cards are known. However, perhaps the river is actually a fold; had you made the superior play, though, it would not look like you're running bad in your graph because the opponent's cards were not shown so the program could not record bets going in when you were ahead at a certain equity. In fact, making the correct play would just decrease the amount you win without showdown (which is something Poker EV fans have a hard-on for keeping high)). So, the "all in luck" is actually the only truly accurate indicator of running good or bad.
Standard .
[1] As I read this over, I realized this is not completely true. A decent amount of PLO players switched to that game due to a lack of success at NLHE, and while dabbling in these games it has become evident to me that at the $5/$10 - $10/$20 PLO limits a good NLHE player's Poker IQ is noticeably higher than an average PLO regular's. However, there is still a learning curve with the game (ie nuances with ranges and frequencies that differ from games where you have 2 cards) that will give the experienced PLO player an edge. However, since this edge comes primarily from experience, it can largely be offset at lower limits.
Obviously you must follow an overly emo blog post with a masculine one. So...
I just got finished watching FOOTBALL. The Jets just beat the previously undefeated Titans! I get scared whenever I watch the Jets because, despite their running game looking great at the moment, many of the games will eventually come down to Brett Favre's performance and I still don't trust him yet. In all fairness, it does seem as though he isn't just chucking the ball as much anymore.
I like to eat STEAK.
I have been doing a good job getting into the GYM to LIFT WEIGHTS. My lifts are actually resembling old numbers: My deadlift is averaging 385x4-5, squat is 275x5. Still have a ways to go but I never was a powerlifter anyway.
Tonight I am going to see the movie Role Models. I'm sure it will be just funny enough to stop me from walking out while carefully mixing in enough failures at witty humor to keep me complaining about my decision to see the movie for the next week.
I am the self-proclaimed best NFL Blitz player in the world (the original one for N64), and I also have been one of the few I'm sure to keep up with the series. I recently bought Blitz The League 2 (yes I own Blitz the League 1 as well lol) and the best part about the game is that Frank Caliendo actually co-stars in the game, posing as John Madden doing the in-game commentary. It's absolutely hilarious!
I mentioned this to my friends and they asked if I had ever seen Frank Caliendo impersonate Jim Rome. If you don't know who Jim Rome is, he has a show called Rome is Burning on ESPN during the late afternoon. I looked it up on YouTube and it is absolutely hilarious! Here is a copy:
Tomorrow I'm probably going to go SHOPPING. Erm...
I had a bunch of my friends over last night to celebrate Leggo's B-Day. I originally wanted to my first blog post after the 17th to be a year in review of sorts, but I have the urge to write about this topic instead. I am sure there will be plenty of references, anyway.
So I ordered a birthday cake for the party, and when I brought it out to serve to the guests I decided to say an impromptu thank you to my roommates of last year. I told each of them individually (3 of them) how they were helpful in the start up of Leggo, and how they were good friends to me throughout.
When I spoke last year in front of some class at Wake (I had been invited to speak and share my thoughts about owning a business), I was actually on a panel of 3, with the other two "entrepreneurs" being complete jokes; the first one's business consisted of selling homemade postcards door to door at Wake Forest dorms and the other's was raising awareness about low-grade water in her home town. I mean no disrespect to these girls, but that's not quite in the same league (although, I am taught in one of my classes that whenever you say the word "but" you actually mean nothing before it and everything after it ). So naturally, most of the questions were directed at me.
One student asked me how difficult it was to start a business, and, in addition to replying with the historically physically difficult angle, I made it a point to emphasize how mentally draining it was. How you have a vision and there are roughly 600 reasons why that is not going to happen, and you wish you could clone 100 of you and get it done because no one could ever (and rightfully so) understand exactly what goes on in your head as good as you. I talked about how a million hurdles constantly arise and you must clear them and continue running at full speed (or hit them, fall, and then get up and keep running very quickly). I talked about how this affects you mentally and emotionally -- I was sharper with my roommates, and they very realistically had to "tolerate" me due to something that was completely out of their hands. So, in addition to offering their opinions and fields of expertize, they suffered from the stress *I* was under. Hardly fair, right?
As I was complimenting my roommates yesterday, I flashed back to a scene I will never forget. It was early in the spring semester of '08, and I had made the decision to withdraw from school until the overbearing workload of Leggo + everything else could be tamed. We were going out to a last supper of sorts, and my three roommates were downstairs while I was upstairs taking everything in. In the emotionally overwhelming moment, I started to cry (as I write this, I am sure my eyes will start to tear up any second now...). I slid into the kitchen hoping to regain control before my roommates came upstairs, but of course that didn't happen. They showed up and there I stood, with water-filled eyes and tributaries of tears running down my cheeks. I looked at them blankly for a moment, and then said "Guys, I'm sad," and continued to cry. Craig, saying nothing, walked up to me and gave me a big hug. Kyle and Reid then followed with a caring pat on my back.
It was a moment of true beauty, and one of epiphany. This is what friendship is about. It's about 4 guys who's physical interaction in the previous 3 years had been high fives and bro-hugs coming together for a group hug. It's about me telling them "I am vulnerable" and, without a single word spoken, their response of: "it's ok to be vulnerable in front of us."
As I continued to speak about friendship, I saw a few heads silently nodding in agreement. Your friends shape you, and are invaluable as a support group. Conveniently, being a good friend yourself is one of the most rewarding things out there. Seems like a win-win to me.
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