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.
struggling to remember the last time i aspired to achieve the same degree of facial folication as Horace Greeley.
buy this for $10 and replacement blades for 3 cents, if you buy and don't love live i'll refund everything
I use a battery razor/clipper to trim off the beard at "1" to start off and then use a gillette hand razor to cleanly shave the bottom of my neck and top of the cheeks. Now here is the thing though : I do not understand how for the fracking life I used scissors for the longest time (as opposed to the said battery razor) to trim my beard, thus cutting myself (and bleeding) more times I like to admit and effing making my life difficult for decades :p🙄
I have to write a bit of non-poker content to justify being in this forum and not in PG&C, so I'll post a life hack.
The Gillette disposable plastic 3-blade razor in my bathroom has now been with me and in use for one solid year. It's the only razor I've used during this time.
Now, I have a beard that I sort of grow out and then shave off regularly, as if my face was a Play-Doh Fun Factory, so I don't shave my entire face, but I do shave my neck and upper cheeks every other day, lest I look like e
buy this for $10 and replacement blades for 3 cents, if you buy and don't love live i'll refund everything
Here is another good poast from Mr. Roll about razor blades, Suited. I'm quite happy with my safety razor as well.
Here is another good poast from Mr. Roll about razor blades, Suited. I'm quite happy with my safety razor as well.
struggling to remember the last time i aspired to achieve the same degree of facial folication as Horace Greeley.
I could grow a wicked neckbeard, but I won't. Some day a good-looking celebrity might do it and make it into a trend, and that would be funny.
I had a coked-up idea for a movie about that once: celebrity loses a bet, has to grow a neckbeard, it becomes popular, and every young male who falls for it looks like a moron. I know that there was more to the plot, because I pitched it to my friends for like 15 minutes. But I can't remember what else there was. That's coke for you. You can have good ideas on it, but you'd better write them down.
I use a battery razor/clipper to trim off the beard at "1" to start off and then use a gillette hand razor to cleanly shave the bottom of my neck and top of the cheeks. Now here is the thing though : I do not understand how for the fracking life I used scissors for the longest time (as opposed to the said battery razor) to trim my beard, thus cutting myself (and bleeding) more times I like to admit and effing making my life difficult for decades :p🙄
I'm clumsy with the trimmer to the point where I don't bother any more. I just shave the beard and start again; the laziest possible solution. I do the same with my hair. Right now I have a fresh buzz cut, and I'm enjoying washing my hair with plain soap and "combing" it with a towel.
buy this for $10 and replacement blades for 3 cents, if you buy and don't love live i'll refund everything
Here is another good poast from Mr. Roll about razor blades, Suited. I'm quite happy with my safety razor as well.
I will buy the safety, as soon as I get through my 4 remaining disposables, which ought to last me another 3+ years at this rate, if they don't rust out first.
Here it is, the promised update. As per usual, the machines are keeping me afloat. I would spend more time on them if I could, but there are only so many hours a day that I can check them. Once I finish a round of checking, I then have to wait a few hours for them to be played by normies, and so to "grow" back into +EV states, and all the while the other grinders and the Asian Syndicate are sniping them as well.
December 2024 ****'s Creek Navigation Update
MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 19 hours
(-$499.00)
MGM Springfield Slots: 12 hours
+$749.00
Running Poker Total December: 34 hours, (-$29.00)
Running Slot Total December: 21 hours, +$1512.64
Total December: 55 hours, +$1483.64
I could grow a wicked neckbeard, but I won't. Some day a good-looking celebrity might do it and make it into a trend, and that would be funny.
I had a coked-up idea for a movie about that once: celebrity loses a bet, has to grow a neckbeard, it becomes popular, and every young male who falls for it looks like a moron. I know that there was more to the plot, because I pitched it to my friends for like 15 minutes. But I can't remember what else there was. That's coke for you. You can have good ide
been seven years and still haven't figured out if kevin smith lost 50 pounds or 20 tequilas
guess that can happen from listening to podcasts
I thought it was Ozempic, because he has that kind of gaunt face that Ozempic people get, but when interviewed Smith said that after a major heart attack he'd converted to a vegan diet and an hour's walk every day, and he didn't say anything about weight loss drugs other than Lipitor for cholesterol.
Kevin got skinny way before Ozempic. Yeah I read about his change it was pretty inspiring.
I had a coked-up idea for a movie about that once: celebrity loses a bet, has to grow a neckbeard, it becomes popular, and every young male who falls for it looks like a moron. I know that there was more to the plot, because I pitched it to my friends for like 15 minutes. But I can't remember what else there was. That's coke for you. You can have good ideas on it, but you'd better write them down.
Yeah but usually you have a ton of *hit ideas, you just think they are good in your delusional state. I thought that was a spot-on assessment
Yeah but usually you have a ton of *hit ideas, you just think they are good in your delusional state. I thought that was a spot-on assessment
Yep, most of them are crap, but some of them aren't. That's why you write them down, for sober contemplation later on. Hollywood films from 1972-1998 would've been a lot less interesting without coke.
No.
Mind you, I don't endorse the drug. My experiences with it always involved believing that I wasn't getting high enough for long enough, that I wasn't getting enough of a bang for my (or someone else's) buck.
For me, the answer to that problem, unfortunately, was meth, which gives out a lot of lasting bang for one's buck. Until the day that it doesn't.
I've never seen the movie. Looks good. I can see that they brought up several true-life gambling stories in a minute and a half, though what's up with the blue $5 chips?
Edit: They might be $10 chips, but when OMC goes all in for $35, he dishes out what looks like 7 chips.
Super late to the party, been binging this thread here as 2025 approaches....The horseshoe DID have dark blue 5s with red inlays in the 80s/90s.
I thought it was Ozempic, because he has that kind of gaunt face that Ozempic people get, but when interviewed Smith said that after a major heart attack he'd converted to a vegan diet and an hour's walk every day, and he didn't say anything about weight loss drugs other than Lipitor for cholesterol.
wow, had no idea about kevin smith weight loss
he was always super self conscious about his weight as well
ie he always had other characters regularly refer to him as a fat slob as the "silent bob" character in the films even back when he was just mildly overweight by american standards
and i vividly recall a late night interview he had where his entire story was about being at a pool at a resort and he would just hang out in the pool all day while wearing a shirt because too embarrassed to take it off and how pathetic he was and it really stuck with me because i didn't understand why he was talking about that
Super late to the party, been binging this thread here as 2025 approaches....The horseshoe DID have dark blue 5s with red inlays in the 80s/90s.
Thanks for reading, swivet! Nice find!
The movie clip in question with the blue Horseshoe $5 chips—originally posted by Da_Nit—is below in all its 240p glory
Back in 1997, during my first blackjack card-counting sojourn, I was able to catch a brief glimpse of old-school Las Vegas at the Horseshoe. They were spreading a decent $3 double deck, IIRC, and I sat there and counted for a few hours and made a couple hundred. Towards the end of the session I struck up a conversation with the pit boss, who could have easily been cast as a Sopranos capo.
I don't remember what we were talking about, but after a while he said, "Hey kid, why don't ya go get yourself something to eat?" And he wrote me a food comp for $15. No rewards card, no points; he just eyeballed it.
The only other place where I was comped without a card was in the barrio, a few blocks down Fremont street, at the Western. I was a reg there and would occasionally ask for a $5 food comp, which was enough for a number of dinner specials at their bare-bones café. I took care not to ask for that comp too often, as I didn't want to strain their hospitality budget.
wow, had no idea about kevin smith weight loss
he was always super self conscious about his weight as well
ie he always had other characters regularly refer to him as a fat slob as the "silent bob" character in the films even back when he was just mildly overweight by american standards
and i vividly recall a late night interview he had where his entire story was about being at a pool at a resort and he would just hang out in the pool all day while wearing a shirt because too embarrassed to take it
Smith's transformation has me thinking about Joe Piscopo. Piscopo was a big deal as a comedian when I was young. His fame was comparable to Louis C.K.'s pre-harrassment renown. Then one day Joe showed up in public all swollen up with gym muscles, and that was the last I ever saw of him.
Smith, as primarily a writer and director, can get away with an extreme body transformation more than someone like Piscopo, or Jonah Hill or Ethan Suplee...
both of whose careers seemed to drop off after they were no longer the "fat guy". Hill got a role in Don't Look Up and a streaming series called "Maniac", but aside from those, it was mostly voice work. Last year he starred in an Eddie Murphy Netflix movie that was not a huge success, but by then he'd gained back the weight.
I almost locked myself out of my 2+2 account today. Google had been complaining for a long time that my old password was compromised—courtesy of Sony I believe—so I changed that today.
I intended one of the letters in the pw to be capitalized, but apparently I typed it as small in both the original reset field and in the confirmation field, and Google, with their password storage feature, stored that mistake under my email instead of my user name in the user name field, which I didn't notice at first.
Those two errors helped me to burn through my 5 allowed login attempts, and then I was locked out for 15 minutes every time I tried a new iteration.
2+2 doesn't seem to have a 'forgot my password' feature. So I had to find my Google stored passwords in order to investigate what the hell I'd done. Trying to get into the stored passwords prompted Google to ask me for my Windows pin, which...what the hell was that? I finally figured that out, only to fat-finger it and get locked out of Google.
I got back into Google, but I still couldn't get into 2+2. The only thing I could think of was to sign in under my gimmick and ask one of the mods, prolly Sheep, for help. But nobody knows my gimmick, so any request that I sent to Sheep under it would prolly look shady as hell.
So I was prepared to write something in the PM that only I and the BBV mods would know, something having to do with why I did not become a mod a few years back, so that Sheep would know it was me and not some scammer. Not that I do anything in the marketplace; but who knows, maybe a scammer would give it a try.
In any case, I tried one more password attempt, using my user name and the PW without the capital letter that Google had stored under my email (wrong) and not my user name (correct), and that worked, thank goodness, so I didn't have to bother any mods.
Good, because we are all too busy.
I could see that, what with BBV getting double-digits in posts some days.
Kingfish gave us new jobs.
I try to keep my booze/recovery posts down to once a month, otherwise thinking about writing about thinking about drinking carries the danger of relapsing due to the meta-level dissociation it creates blunting my awareness of the danger and the consequences of failure; that is, intellectualizing something creates weak points in my armor against it, for whatever reasons.
I went into more detail on this phenomenon a few months ago, but I can't be arsed to look it up.
Anyways, I'm making an exception here because today I received my Christmas Wine Country Gift Basket from my kindly Aunt and Uncle, and I had to pluck out the three good bottles of wine that always come with it and give them away to my family, leaving me with a basket full of esoteric snacks.
Spoiler
I'd been dreading this day all year, believing that quitting drinking for this year would somehow be like holding my breath, and that the gift of three bottles of wine right near the end of December would be just enough to tilt me over the edge, but quitting hasn't been at all like holding my breath, and giving away the wine was easy. So I'm grateful for that.
I thought it was Ozempic, because he has that kind of gaunt face that Ozempic people get, but when interviewed Smith said that after a major heart attack he'd converted to a vegan diet and an hour's walk every day, and he didn't say anything about weight loss drugs other than Lipitor for cholesterol.
yeah, he had a major life correction and found a path through the madness
btw, as i sit here drinking tequila and checking prices
22 kilos can still be found for approximately 50 pounds
