Suitedjustice's Ongoing Mid-life Crisis
I woke up in the middle of choking to death again; though to be accurate, it was towards the end of the process--woke up right away in a white hot panic with black spots of permanent unconsciousness swooping in across both sides of my vision.
Calm yourself, was the first important step. My lungs were soaked, steeped in the things that belonged only in my stomach, and locked up tight. My air passage was blocked and burning with bile and hydrochloric acid. No, I don't have asthma. I have a drinking problem.
Spoiler
Though, now that I think about it, is that inhaler thing any good? Maybe I'll try a hit sometime, just to see.
This was last Friday, just a few hours after I'd quit my office job of twelve years to take a shot at playing poker for a living out West in Nevada. This will not be my first shot at gambling for a living; although I have only tried something like this once before, many years ago.
Around the turn of the century I quit college most of the way through my senior year and I moved out to Las Vegas for 8 years. My experiences were somewhat of interest: rampant drunkenness, a stolen lab animal, solid card counting, North Korean meth, time spent with Mormons, advantage slot grinding, a cowardly pass on an FBI Most Wanted bounty, facing contempt of court charges, and dressing up as Albus Dumbledore. You can find that in my BBV thread.
[U][url]https://forumserver.twoplustwo.c...[/U][/URL] .
That thread held up pretty well in BBV, which is not nothing.
Starting meditative relaxation can be problematic when you're dying from choking on your own puke. I sat up straight, blind from the black splotches that had slapped away the weak light of the kitchen stove. I dropped my shoulders, relaxed my chest and upper arms, and then, projecting calm with all my might, I tried my throat. I pictured my lungs and throat opening up just a tiny passage, for just a little air to go by--something to get me started. And they did, untethering just the smallest little rivulet of air, and it made the most terrifying sound as it went through. It always does.
Whatever you've heard from actors pretending to gasp after being choked, the reality is worse. At least no one was with me this time. When that's been the case, the other person has invariably freaked the **** out when they've heard my gasping and choking routine, which only adds the burden of myself having to reassure them through nodding and non-frantic gestures, so that they won't call 911, as I hate the idea of calling the cops.
April 13th of this year was 14 months without me having a drink. During that long stretch I had honestly forgotten why I'd quit. That's right, I had completely purged from my recall the years of nighttime memories of myself almost choking to death, this happening once or twice every couple of weeks on average. Now, the terrifying night wakeups didn't happen even once during the 14 dry months. But 3 weeks back into drinking--oh yeah--there was that thing, wasn't there?.
Now, there was something else I'd forgotten about. And that's the Double Tap. The Double Tap happens when I don't force my drunk and tired and traumatized self to remain awake for a good two or three hours after a choking incident. If I fall back asleep before then, I wake up choking to death all over again. And sure enough, that happened last Friday, and I had to save myself again.
So on Saturday I jumped back on the waggy, and Cinco de Mayo is now my new anniversary date, and that's really enough about drinking. I'm not here to write about that business. I should have been done with it; and now I am.
My flight leaves for Reno in a few hours, and I'll be out there for the next 3 weeks scouting out the live poker games in the city. If I like it, that's where I'm moving to.
Here is a similar story about port lint. Or gunk, as AppleGuy calls it. 😀
AppleGuy is my hero. And heroes get $20 tips.
It tracks that Apple was twice the price for the same service.
I had a similar port gunk issue a while back. Now keep a toothpick on the table to remind me to de-gunk once in a while.
I had a similar port gunk issue a while back. Now keep a toothpick on the table to remind me to de-gunk once in a while.
I have a very thin and narrow eyeglass repair flathead screwdriver that might work, but I'm worried about the damage the metal might do in my clumsy fingers. Prolly better to use a plastic toothpick.
On my drive home, the local alternative/progressive station played two tunes by a new band called Birds Flying Backwards, and they're very good. Kind of a cross between modern ethereal folk rock and Hüsker Dü-style indie twang.
Keep an ear out for this band; they could be the Next Big Thing.
Here's the other rock song on the EP. The rest of it is ambient instrumentals, which are fine but not exactly the commercial unit shifters that would make them into the Next Big Thing, so I take that initial assessment back.
They're new, though, Pink Floyd's debut, Piper at the Gates of Dawn wasn't exactly a big pop album either.
I have a very thin and narrow eyeglass repair flathead screwdriver that might work, but I'm worried about the damage the metal might do in my clumsy fingers. Prolly better to use a plastic toothpick.
googled this out of curiousity - youtube video (so clearly an expert) says don't use anything harder than a toothpick because you could damage your port
kind of sounds like the don't put anything smaller than a 2x4 in your ear from the qtip nits
My charge port on my Mac stopped working so I took it to Apple. The first tech screwed around with it but told me they had to send it off for a new port. Fortunately another guy did a clean out and it has been fine ever since. May depend in who you get?
SJ & I on the same wavelength on metal in the charging port.
This seems as if it should worry at least one of us. Not sure which. 😉
FWIW, we had the same problem with my son's phone a year or two ago. We went to a "phone fixer" in the mall who basically did the same thing with a plastic toothpick equivalent. Fixed for no charge (other than tip).
The invention we need is a snap-on port protector with a hinge that will fit on various phone cases.
Potential problems with that include the edges of the protector catching on material inside your pockets, and also having to open it every time you want to charge your phone, which could be more tedious over time than just cleaning the port every few months.
On the phone charging issue. When the Verizon guy de-gunked my port, he also suggested a wireless charger. Might be an idea rather than getting the port replaced.
Naturally, I still haven't gotten around to finding one.
I'm currently using a wireless charger.
The downside is that it takes longer to charge. The hidden upside is that charging more slowly is better for the lifetime of the battery. Besides, I charge it when I sleep so I don't really care if it's slower.
But the main benefit of wireless charging is that it doesn't loosen up the port. The 2 phones I had before my current one, I ditched them because the port was too loose and I couldn't keep the wire well hooked. I was regularly taking 10-20 min just to find creative ways to keep the wire stable and well connected.
Nowadays, I only use a wire when I need a quick charge.
But the main benefit of wireless charging is that it doesn't loosen up the port. The 2 phones I had before my current one, I ditched them because the port was too loose and I couldn't keep the wire well hooked. I was regularly taking 10-20 min just to find creative ways to keep the wire stable and w
Same things about my last two girlfriends.
Lack of poker updates!
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
-Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
I've played five poker sessions since I last posted numbers: three awful losing sessions and two frustrating breakeven sessions. The casino floor is swarming with advantage slot players, and I've mostly broken even on the few slot plays I've found.
My funds and credit are running out. I didn't post about this because I was employing the denial stage of grief. I have since moved on past anger and into bargaining. If I can just hit something, a few good slot or poker sessions, I can turn this thing around.
Stick around and find out.
"Tight rolls are better for sushi than for poker."
- Me
Well [strike]spoken[/strike] written.
I've decided that today will be an online tourney day—my first and enduring love in poker. I'm playing a bunch of freeroll sattys on ACR, trying to turn a toothpick into a lumberyard. Tonight, I'll play the two $11 Bosky tourneys. Those carry a big bonus for getting to the final table on both in the same night.
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
-Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
I've played five poker sessions since I last posted numbers: three awful losing sessions and two frustrating breakeven sessions. The casino floor is swarming with advantage
Sorry to hear that. Good luck in your next session!
I mincashed the Boskys, but I also found a (virtual) bag for Day 2 of today's $50k gtd Dime, with mystery KO bounties ranging up to $5k, so we'll see.
I bailed on a bucket list classic movie today after 30 minutes: John Ford's The Searchers.
In it, John Wayne plays Ethan, a proud ex-Confederate soldier, in typical John Wayne fashion: as an authoritarian whenever he's in charge, and an iconoclast whenever someone else is trying to give the orders.
When our hero isn't busy berating his 1/8th Cherokee adopted nephew Martin for existing, calling him a halfbreed, and reminding him that he isn't really his nephew, Wayne's Ethan is tasked with roaming through director John Ford's beloved Monument Valley, between Utah and Arizona, looking for the "savage" Comanches (pronounced as Comanch in the movie) who massacred his brother's family and kidnapped his 9-year-old niece.
The Indians are headed by Scar, played by a blue-eyed, German-born Henry Brandon.
Spoiler
And it wasn't long before I was done with this movie. What I saw was beautiful to look at, and I wish I could have been around to tell the the writers to go **** themselves.
The Dry 2024 Challenge Update
January: ✓
February: ✓
March: ✓
April: ✓
May: ✓
June: ✓
July: ✓
August: ✓
September: ✓
October: ✓
November: UNLOCKED
I'm getting into the final stretch of this dry year, and I'm busy overseeing a bad financial turn, and my luck seems to be completely and permanently lost, but I have something going for me with my sobriety, and I'm happy that my thoughts have not often turned to the sauce for solace from my troubles. The passage of time has helped to reduce a good portion of that connection.
Not that I haven't thought of drinking from time to time, but the impulse is only an echo of what it used to be, and for that I am grateful.
And yes, I'm still grudgingly getting on my knees and thanking my unknown higher power once a month, and asking it for help to continue with the program. The Twelve Steppers would want me to do this every day, but screw that noise.
I'm down four belt notches since the beginning of the year (I don't have a scale, so I don't know how much weight that translates into, maybe 35 lbs (16 kg?)), and I'm just moving around and doing normal things more easily, which is good, because I'm going to have to move around and make some money. Next week I cover for my former bosses at the old office while they take a vacation, so that will at least provide a week's guaranteed salary.
The Dry 2024 Challenge Update
January: ✓
February: ✓
March: ✓
April: ✓
May: ✓
June: ✓
July: ✓
August: ✓
September: ✓
October: ✓
November: UNLOCKED
I'm getting into the final stretch of this dry year, and I'm busy overseeing a bad financial tu
This is about as good an update as there can be that lacks oodles of winnings from poker and advantage slots. WTG, SJ!!!
twas an awesome update!
always thought a notch was an inch
how tall are you sj?
i also insert the buckle prong four doors down from a while ago
after months of empty calorie reduction
mostly beer but didn't quit
rarely weigh me as well, but happened to see 220 on a time scale early 2020
now we have a growing pup and i've become the weekly weigh-in tare while holding her
been hovering around 185 which would be about the same amount of mass as your estimate
as for her she hasn't quite yet tipped fifty and is captively vapid
This is about as good an update as there can be that lacks oodles of winnings from poker and advantage slots. WTG, SJ!!!
twas an awesome update!
always thought a notch was an inch
how tall are you sj?
i also insert the buckle prong four doors down from a while ago
after months of empty calorie reduction
mostly beer but didn't quit
rarely weigh me as well, but happened to see 220 on a time scale early 2020
now we have a growi
Thanks guys!
I am around 6'1" (185 cm), but I'm shrinking as I get older.
I just finished reading The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, written in 1974, and considered by many critics to be one of the best modern science fiction novels.
The story is set 1000 years in the future, and two features about the book struck me. The first is that the heroes of the story mostly comprise a small group of high-ranking barons, dukes, admirals, senators, and ministers from an autocratic, all-encompassing galactic empire.
The book came out 3 years before Star Wars broke the box office, and the movie's empire got me wondering if that was instrumental in souring sci-fi writers and fans on the concept of imperialists as protagonists, given the plain villainy of Lord Vader, protégé to Star Wars' twisted, evil Emperor, and the empire's various militant lackeys, stormtroopers, and corrupt crime bosses.
But then I remembered Isaac Asimov's galactic empire in his early Foundation books from the 50s, and that empire was not exactly a benevolent operation, either.
Moving forward into the 60s finds us the reading through the galactic empire of Frank Herbert's Dune series, the emperor of which proves to be a backstabbing Machiavellian tyrant. He is replaced on the throne thanks to the efforts of our protagonist's fanatical, bloodthirsty, jihadist followers, and Paul Atreides's new galactic empire is run in a manner similar to Iran under the Ayatollahs.
So yeah, not many great imperial endorsements out there in Sci-Fi land.
Now, in The Mote in God's Eye, I ran into a cast of characters sporting all manner of five-jointed monikers, such as His Grace the Lord Commander Roderick Blaine, or Admiral Sir Vladimir Richard George Plekhanov, or His Imperial Highness Richard Stefan Merrill, Viceroy for His Majesty's Dominions Beyond the Coalsack, and I wondered: are these muckety mucks really the good guys in this story?
Indeed they are.
I call them the good guys because women's careers are marginalized in this particular period of this empire. This imbalance of power is vaguely explained away as being due to fertile women's numbers having been greatly reduced during one of the civil wars a few hundred years before the story commences.
Early on, we find ourselves following two expedition ships populated by thousands of scientists and military personnel, exactly one of whom is a woman, she being the Lady Sandra (Sally) Liddell Leonova Bright Fowler, B.A., M.S....so basically a weird Smurfette situation. And while Sally's degrees in anthropology prove to be occasionally useful within the story, she actually secured her spot on the expedition by being the niece of a prominent galactic senator. Mostly, though, she's the love interest and voice of conscience to His Grace Rod Blaine, the male lead character.
And yet, most of the high-toned characters are very charming and selfless and focused on the wellbeing of the citizens of the empire, and I found that to be a refreshing change from the standard evil monolith trope that we find in so much of the ruling classes in the other space operas.
The empire of The Mote in God's Eye isn't entirely benevolent; it is, after all, an autocracy, and in the midst of subjugating various rebellious groups at the edges of its territory when the story opens, but still it's definitely lacking the malevolent spirit that one finds in so many other fictional galactic empires.
The aristocrat-laden expedition of the two ships in the Mote in God's Eye is commissioned to make First Contact with the only sentient species that mankind has encountered up until that time.
And that brings us to the second thing that struck me about The Mote in God’s Eye, and that is the aliens, or the Moties, as they’re called. I’m not a big fan of most alien stories, as I carry in me an irrational fear and hatred of the mythical(?) Grey aliens, thanks in part to Whitley Strieber’s palpably terrified recounting—in his book Communion—of having his mind, his sanity and his family and friends messed with by the Greys over the course of several years.
The Moties, however, are great and fascinating characters. I don’t want to talk about them much here, because I don’t want to spoil them, as the manner in which Niven and Pournelle present them to us, sort of in dribs and drabs, laying out their extreme but understandable differences from us, really makes the book.
Throughout the story, we the readers learn about the aliens at a slightly faster rate than the empire does, and we can posit that—for various reasons—they’re going to be very bad for humanity if they’re not handled exactly perfectly. The Moties aren’t evil; they have their own morality scale, based upon their own unique biological and historical imperatives, but they are dangerous to us, just by being themselves.
The book wraps up in a satisfying manner. Niven and Pournelle did write a sequel to it, The Gripping Hand, but the reviews I've read on that book range from tepid to highly negative, so I've decided to stay away from it, as a bad sequel can sometimes retroactively ruin a good original, and The Mote in God's Eye is very good. I recommend it.
