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.
Never Let Me Go. I've read a lot of good things about Ishiguro, but I've never read any of his stuff. Time to change that.
Never Let Me Go is one of perhaps 2 movies that I walked out at the cinema. My sister loved it and convinced me to give it another shot, which I did, and while I love the story - I can picture the book being >>>>> the movie -, I still feel like they whiffed the movie with what was a good precept...
Philip K. Dick: The Man in the High Castle. Paranoid meth rantings...really, really well-written paranoid meth rantings. I've always admired him for that.
Philip K. Dick is the nuts! Or close to it... Or at least literally nuts and... figuratively 😉 I would put him in a similar category to Borges as far as metaphysics and introducing schizo realms goes... The 3 season TV series is definitely well worth the watch as well 
Philip K. Dick is the nuts! Or close to it... Or at least literally nuts and... figuratively 😉 I would put him in a similar category to Borges as far as metaphysics and introducing schizo realms goes... The 3 season TV series is definitely well worth the watch as well
Jorge Luis Borges? I haven't read any of him. What would be the one book of his that you couldn't go without?
I've posted this before but it's still relevant.
I sat down and lost $300 in the first hour.
Damn security guard wouldn't let me ragequit this time.
I won half of it back so far. Five hours remain in the session.
Now down $400 at the halfway point.
I've decided that, regardless of what happens today, I'm going to start the cumulative tally over again, to mark my new work ethic.
Lost another $200 all in preflop vs a tilted dude who just wanted to punt his stack AK
Aces cracked for $120. This is not fun. I am not having a good day
You worship the wrong God, go home and repent! Tomorrow is another day.
Well, I made it through the full, lousy 8 hour shift. Some slot wins mitigated the loss, as is often the case. I'll post the numbers later.
After losses like this one, I made a practice of staying home for a few days and nursing my wounds, but now the security guard will have none of that nonsense. I'm to be packed up and sent back to work tomorrow.
Jorge Luis Borges? I haven't read any of him. What would be the one book of his that you couldn't go without?
Ficciones : https://www.amazon.com/Ficciones-Jorge-L...
GL friend surpassing that downswing and the cranky emotions that come with it ; you got this 
Grrr. Off to work. I will keep an eye out today for spots in which to find enjoyment.
Hour one: my aces held up vs 5 callers for a hundo. Weeeeeee
Card dead for two hours. My image is as tight as a drum. BTN to my left straddles for $5 and gets 5 callers. I make it $45 with T9o from the CU and get snap folds all around and a $30 profit. Weeeeeeee.
Yesterday I had a breakeven poker session, which is better than a losing one. On the slots, some very generous and/or extremely uninformed soul left a 12x multiplier hand in the $1 denomination on each of two different Ultimate X machines, and I hit moderately on both 12x hands.
I didn't see the sugar person in question, but it had to be a singular person, because the odds of two different people leaving 12x, $1 multipliers on different machines on the same day is so vanishingly small that it might as well be zero. Hopefully the sugarplum returns to Springfield for some more action.
I'm heading back today, and this will be the first time I've worked the casino three full days in a row for as long as I can remember.
As I mentioned before, I've turned over a new leaf in my work ethic, and I've restarted the tally below in order to mark that.
MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 16 hours
(-$532.00)
MGM Springfield Slots: 5 hours
+$1062.51
Running Poker Total from Sept. 2024: 16 hours, -($532.00)
Running Slot Total from Sept. 2024: 5 hours, +$1062.51
2024 Grand Total: 21 hours, +$530.51
Is the poker room running any football promos this year?
I have a question on vulturing Ultimate X. Let’s say your on a bank of 8 VP Ultimate X machines. Do you need to check every machine or just one in the bank? Also if some is playing say double double bonus at the $1 level will that leftover multiplier only show DDB or will it show on any $1 demon VP game?
Drop some acid or smoke two pounds of weed to figure out the answer!
I have a question on vulturing Ultimate X. Let’s say your on a bank of 8 VP Ultimate X machines. Do you need to check every machine or just one in the bank? Also if some is playing say double double bonus at the $1 level will that leftover multiplier only show DDB or will it show on any $1 demon VP game?
Good questions
Two pounds?
