People, Volume 3: Smokers

After doing a demographics check on who reads my website, I've deducted that about 100% of my readership will die at some point in their lives.

Some of you, however, seem to be in a bit more of a rush than the rest of us.

Sucking ash is something of an enigma to me, since we've known for sometime now that doing so will get you you a solid dose of cancer and other fun diseases. It's going to kill you, it's going to kill those around you, and, similar to the inevitable shittiness of the upcoming G.I. Joe Movie, we all know it.

I understand that nicotine addiction is very powerful. Hell, the reason I won't even smoke once is because I'm afraid that I'll get pulled in too. There are a lot of people who smoke now, who wish they didn't. In fact, there's an entire industry solely based around these people. However, at some point in these people's lives, they were stupid enough to see someone smoking and say, "hey, that looks cool, lemme try that," or "this looks like a good way to relax," or maybe just "OMG, shiny light at the end when you blow into it? Sign me up!"

Smoking doesn't make you a bad person, it just means that you are, or were, really stupid, and that's something that a lot of people mix up. Don't forget, we were all stupid at one point. Remember when you thought that the tooth fairy was real? How about Santa Claus? That's right, you were once a child, and you were absolutely pants-on-head retarded. It wasn't until you got an education, or had a trauma-inducing conversation with an older cousin that you found out that these things don't exist, and that your dog, Rusty, really did get run over by a truck, and your parents bought you a similar-looking one to replace him.

So, in a way, cigarettes don't kill people, stupidity does. It's karma, really. Smoking endangers others, and when you do that, shit happens.

For example, driving back from Queens the other day, three cars full of brain-dead individuals raced by me, zig-zagging through decent traffic, at about 100 MPH near the entrance to the Midtown tunnel. Fifteen seconds later, traffic stopped because one of the cars had crashed into the median. Anyone who was unfortunate enough to be driving near them at the time could have been killed. Luckily, it appeared that no one was hurt, not from what I could see anyway, but it just goes to show that when you do stupid things, you're more likely to die than the competent people in the world.

Essentially, what I'm saying is, take pity on smokers. They're really just like you and me, only not as bright.

Progress Report: 7/2/09

Until I begin to make money, and start playing for cash, it's going to be very hard for me to take the poker I'm playing seriously.

Playing freerolls, in all likelihood, is probably terrible for your poker game. With nothing to lose but time, and potential, you start playing hands you just shouldn't be playing. Sure, you could wait and play the right hands, and properly lure people in for their chips, but if the cards aren't there for you, it's very hard to put yourself in a position to end up in the money.

The worst part of freerolls, though, have to be the suck-outs (times when you have the winning hand, someone else plays crap, and hits unlikely outs to ultimately take down the pot). These will happen on any level of poker, and are part of the game.

However, when people don't have to fear losing money at all, you start seeing a lot of speculative hands like 63 suited. Sometimes these are hands you want to play, sure. However, when there are two or three of these playing in a hand at once, bullshitty things start to happen. You'll find yourself betting hard pre-flop only to lose to 75 offsuit, when the flop comes out K75 and you decide to cash in your strong hand.

Of course, once you've lost in this fashion you'll end up looking something like this.

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Current Bankroll: $0.00

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