3999 is My Lucky Number

I don't think I need to say anything more about it.

(click to enlarge)

There are Those Blogs that are Meant to be Read...

... and there are those that are meant for nothing more than soul-searching and thought-jotting.

This falls into the latter.

As such, I shall no longer attempt to establish contact with the outside world.

:: cries of "nooo, don't leave us!" arise from the crowd of fans camping outside my blog ::

Oh, I guess I was dreaming again.

:: cricket ::

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I'm almost down to the felt again. Every time I let myself get on a hot streak, I always find a way to lose it all away. I find a way to turn my own good luck into bad. I find a way to make donkey calls with hands like A-J-9 and a two-flush, finding a way to convince myself that I'm playing with guys who are so bad that I don't need good cards to crush the game. 3-betting with K-K-8, representing rolled-up 8's, when the other guy doesn't even know what the hell "rolled-up" means. And who's the bigger donkey, the guy who thinks the other will respect moves he's never even dreamed of, or the guy who just plays the only way he knows, and all your fancy moves be damned?

Persistence. When you don't have any money, that's the only thing you'll have left. How many hours I could have spent on so many more rewarding things. Finishing the EE, organizing Mu Alpha Theta under the gloriously efficient, opulently magnificent, brilliantly managed presidency of a slacker like me. A mental sigh, and life moves on.

These are not hours wasted, they are hours spent, hours invested. Wasting time is for the fool who knows not how little time he has left to waste. I know. Am I still a fool then? Perhaps. But the fool who knows that all around him are fools, is king among them.

Forget this game. Forget this part of my life that so far has done nothing for me but alienate and disappoint. It's not worth it. Goddamnit, I can wait till I'm 21 and unemployed. I've still got plenty of time to gamble the rest of my life away. Fuck this 0.04/0.08 crap. Fuck what I'm doing right now. Chasing the flush street after street, like some twisted detective story, only the hero never catches shit.

Why can't I just be happy? I know what I want. I know how to get it. I know how to play good poker. Damnit, why the fuck don't I play like I'm supposed to then?

Deep breath, says my brain.

Fuck you, says my ego.

But it's never been just about poker. No, although everything else is the same. Poker is about belief. Trying to manipulate other people's beliefs. Trying for yourself to believe the truth. The real truth. To see through the back of the cards and know. Just, know.

You never know though. Poker, and life, is about not knowing. It's about what you do with what you're dealt. What you do with what you know. What you try to learn. What you try to become. What you end up being. And what you think of yourself afterwards. Every good poker player will have that one morning when they wake up and cannot stand to look in the mirror. Disgusted by the way they blew through half (or more) of their bankroll the night before. To the sucker who they lost 3 hands in a row to. Tough (but not horrible) beats like K-J vs. Q-Q, 7-6 vs. A-K. But the one that sticks out most in their minds will always be the hand they went out on. The hand where they tried to force it. Tried to take charge of the game, take charge of that one moment, and make back the money they'd lost. Where they went for broke, and went broke. K-K in the BB, and grinning wolfishly inside as the fish on the button raises an exorbitant amount. Stupid ass, you comment to yourself. But outwardly, you're impassive. You stop, and ponder for as long as you deem appropriate. Reraise. Stall some more, as if you half-regretted it. All-in. Reluctantly, but not too reluctantly that it seems fake. Oh no, you're much too good to give something that stupid away. And quicker than lightning, the call comes. Even quicker, your vengeful glee turns to horror as the fish flips up two red aces, red as blood. But what's bleeding from you isn't blood though. It's pride. It's experience. It's the hours, days, months, years, you've poured into this game. The books you've read. The tips you've followed. The lessons you've given to show off. The tournaments you've won that now seem so inconsequential, so meaningless. You couldn't even beat this damn fool of a tourist, in a game at a level you've supposedly mastered. Goddamnit, people actually respected you.

Who's the bigger donkey?

I've come to that point in my life where I don't think I can look myself in the eye (in the mirror) anymore. I'm not the person I want to be. I'm not even close. And what's really frustrating, what really keeps me up at night sweating and uneasy, is that I know exactly what I'd want to be different about me. I know exactly what I could do. It's a cash game, there's no damned need to push all-in with the queens preflop. Call the donkey's raise, and fold it when he bets with a K on board. It's that simple. This isn't the goddamned WSOP. And you're not Phil-fucking-Ivey either. It's that simple. It really is.

And after all the whining and complaining is done, after all the overdramatic and hyperbolic is gone, I'm left with the simple fact that I have come to a defining moment in my life. There are two doors. Funny how the choice is always that simple.

Go big or go home.

Put up or shut up.

It's also not a coincidence that these schoolyard taunts ring so true now. Life has always been that simple. And all that acting, all that parading, all that bullshit you like to coat yourself in, it's not going to save you. It can't change a damned thing. You're either going to make it, or you're going to bite it.

You either got it or you don't.

I'd like to think I've still got it.

Everything New is Old Again

About the only new thing I can tell you that I've come to face as a senior so far is this: I got a keychain. It says Class of 2006. It came with the senior pictures.

And that's it. This year feels the same as any other year. And while I should get cracking on college apps, I haven't even gotten cracked (look, I'll do my best to change idioms to past tense) on my EE. Done a hell of a lot of reading. Found a lot of interesting subjects. Decided to go with my backup EE topic. Which it turns out, I don't know as much about as I thought I did.

Everything new that comes up falls right back into place in the old patterns. I am who I am, and that guy is a lazy son of a bitch (no offense mom), whom I'd like to give a piece of my mind someday.

Look kid, I'm gonna give you a valuable piece of advice.

Don't ever take any advice from anyone.

Silence

The obnoxious clatter of keys annoyed Deck Soben. He remembered glancing at his watch before the last time he had gone to the bathroom; it had been 2:37. He tried to check the system clock on his computer, but he could not make out the digits in the white, cloudy haze he saw at the bottom of his screen. Deck shut his eyes for a moment and tried to blink the fatigue from them.

"Damn digital clocks," he muttered into the silence. "Where's some damn hour and minute hands when you need them?"

The chatter of the keys under his fingers stopped abruptly, as he rubbed his eyes again. He turned off the monitor with a sloppy left hook from a half-formed fist, and maneuvered himself out of his chair. He stood up slowly, as if testing to see that his legs were still under him.

"Need a drink,” he said, louder than before. The sound of his voice interrupted the brooding silence, and he was glad for it.

He walked unsteadily to the kitchen, his feet shuffling across the carpeted floor. There was not even the sound of traffic outside his windows. Usually, he might hear the screech of tires and the abrupt purring of an engine which belonged to a car which belonged to a kid who wasn't really sure what the engine or the car were capable of. Tonight, there was nothing. Not even the whisper of a summer breeze.

The only light in his apartment had come from his computer screen, and he was walking now in complete darkness. But he found the refrigerator much like a blind man will find the toilet in his own house. As he opened the refrigerator door, the sharp, daring blast of white light erupted into the dark room, painting eerie shadows along his walls. The sudden light hurt his eyes, and Deck quickly closed the refrigerator after grabbing a familiar bottle. He hadn't taken the time to read the label, but he didn't need too either.

He made his way across the dark carpeted sea once again, his feet occasionally hitting small objects that remained hidden in darkness. He found his sofa without difficulty, and sat himself down easily. Deck took one long, measured sip. He placed the cold bottle upon the coffee table which he assumed still existed, despite the fact that he could discern no sign of it from his present surroundings. He sunk back heavily into his couch, and let the groan of old, timeworn springs fade away.

The old sofa supported him so perfectly that he suddenly felt nauseous, as a sensation of weightlessness settled over him. It had been another long night, and his mind and his senses could not bear them so well anymore.

He felt himself disappearing slowly into the blackness, melting away into nothingness. There was nothing to stop it, nothing solid that he could look upon or touch to reaffirm his own existence. There was nothing around him, nothing to anchor himself against, nothing but the unbearable burden of existence, his existence, which seemed to disrupt the perfect silence of the emptiness that surrounded him, and pressed in on him. His breathing was loud, too loud. The quiet whisper of his lungs became a resounding vibration. It reverberated through his body like the pounding of the surf against a child's sandcastle. And then slowly it faded away too. His breathing quieted, to a whisper, to a soft rustle, to the slightest disturbance of mere molecules in the air, until finally even the air was still. He felt his heart pounding, and it seemed odd to him that his heart was pounding so frantically when there was nothing there that needed it to pound. His body was no longer there. There was no one in the room anymore. And yet the sound of his beating heart continued to pound inside the room. Thump. Dum. Thump. Dum. Thump. Dum. It continued for what seemed like an eternity. Then even the regular beats tired of fighting the encroaching silence. His heart struggled no more, and the room was again as silent as death.

Why Would You Ever be Bored?

(I wasn't kidding about capitalization this time)

Ahh the 21st-century. Jet planes and computers and space shuttles and MTV. We live in the greatest age of human civilization ever encountered. There is more information freely available on the Internet to ANYONE than there ever was in the great ancient libraries of Alexandria, or any other library ever. Music, movies, books, and most any other form of human expression exist in abundance online, ready for download (a lot of it isn't even illegal to share). wikipedia.org is our generation's version of the Diderot's Encyclopédie, encompassing more information than any one human could ever possibly hope to know.

We have wiped out diseases that have killed millions in the past. We have taken the first tentative steps in exploring our Solar System. We have decoded our own genome. The average person lives a longer, healthier, and better life than that of any king or emperor of our past. While the task is certainly not complete, we can say that we have satisfied the basic needs of most human beings. Food, clothing, and shelter are no longer serious concerns for the average person. Tasks that used to occupy the majority of man's time, such as hunting animals, tending crops, building shelters, etc., are now left to a tiny minority, and much of it is done with the aid of machines.

So what does that leave us with now? Our brilliant technology and civilization which has conquered so much, what does that mean today for Joe Sixpack? It means he has a heck of a lot of spare time. Once our most basic necessities have been satisfied, what else is there for us to do? Collectively, the answer that our species has provided to that question is, nothing. To borrow from Fight Club, we are, "Goddamnit, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, and slaves with white collars."

We are a generation that is endlessly and entirely bored with everything. Conversations consist of nothing but "Hey, what's up?", "Not much, you?", and "Same." Life is one inconsequential problem after another. We have spent our entire lives wondering whether this belt goes with those shoes, whether T-Mobile is better than Cingular, and whether we want to watch MTV or VH1. We have no purpose, and we don't even know if we want one.

One must assume that a species greater than our own, a race of beings who possess a stronger moral backbone and a deeper sense of duty, would have chosen to do things differently. Instead, we have built up a system solely for the purpose of feeding, clothing, and entertaining ourselves. The Matrix exists today, but it isn't a computer program. It doesn't need to be, to control us. It is merely the collected bullshit which we have chosen to build our lives upon and surround ourselves with. We are content to eat microwaved meals, wear mass-produced designer labels, and laugh ourselves silly in front of a device that, instead of being used to enlighten the masses, to improve their lives, to teach them something, spews forth mind-numbing images and white noise to keep our eyes occupied, fill our ears, and dull our minds.

You cannot help but get the feeling that somebody up there had given us a test, and we've failed it. We do not learn about our world, we do not try to improve it, we do not try to add to it, and we certainly to do not care about it.

"We are the byproducts of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guys name on my underware, Rogain, Viagra, Olestra."

Forget about whatever it is that concerns you right now; it's a 99% percent certainty that in the big scheme of things, it isn't worth a damn. Instead, think about something you've seen on the news recently. No, you don't even have to go that far. Just stop for a moment, and think about a problem somebody else has. Anybody, anybody else that you know. Try to imagine what they're thinking about, what they're worrying about. Ask yourself, why? Why does that thing matter to them? Take some time. Then ask yourself the same question. Ask yourself if the stuff that you care about right at this instant in time, ask yourself if any of that really and truly matters to you.

If not, then I suggest you start looking for something that does. Because if you don't, one day you'll wake up and realize something. You will find that you have nowhere you need to be, nothing you need to do. And that is the most terrifying feeling in the world.

If the rest of the world doesn't mean anything to you, then you can't mean anything to the rest of the world either.

Headed in a New Direction

(... this time, with correct capitalization in the titles)

After thoroughly examining several philosophy blogs this morning, I've reached a very worrying and serious conclusion about this blog: mainly, that it has not fulfilled its moral obligation to the rest of the world.

The scientist who possesses in his mind a line of attack which could lead to a cure for cancer has a moral obligation to pursue that research, as long as no facts exist which could prove the research to be fruitless.

Similarly, the bored Chinese guy with a blog who could do the world a favor and enlighten it has a similar obligation to do so, until he either a) realizes that no one is listening, b) realizes that he has no right to tell other folks what to think, c) realizes that although b) might be true he can still present his arguments and leave them to the reader to adopt or refute, or d) has completely succeeded in his original task.

Since (a) would be difficult for this writer to notice, and (b) he would ignore, it seems there is no choice but to go on as valiantly as he can and aim for (d).

Now, off to prepare something juicy for consumption next post...

Kosher Or Not?

Let's go with... not kosher.