Posted by: Tommy Angelo on February 25th, 2009
I’m in Vegas right now doing a three-day coaching program with a new client. At the end of day one, we went downstairs to the poker room at the Venetian to play some poker in the same game, for mutual observation. The plan is that I watch him and take notes on things he does and doesn’t do so that the next day, up in the room, we can talk about changes he could make that would make him more money. These changes range all the way from how, when, why he looks at various things, to what he says and doesn’t say, to what he thinks and doesn’t think, and more. The other reason we are there is so that he can observe me as I demonstrate behaviors and attitudes that build a strong aura of confidence and shamelessness thereby planting seeds of doubt and fear in the minds of the opponents while also making it more fun to play and increasing the percentage of A-game.
Well it so happens that one of the things that most people could do better at at no-limit is go broke. And in this area, it would be dishonest for me to feign modesty. Maybe it’s because I have so much experience at it, but going busto is something I am VERY good at. So much so, that when I get felted, I consider it a positive EV situation for me. See that poor pitiful player over there stacking up all my chips? Little does he suspect that he just gave me an opportunity to flaunt my imperviousness. Touche! I think, while not wincing. Take that!
Last night, we played $2/5 no-limit hold’em, and I bought in for the minimum: $200. On the first significant hand I played, I lost all my chips. I was ready. I demonstrated perfect non-reaction to getting beat on the river after my money was in the middle and my cards were face up. I demonstrated perfect rebuy form with the chips I had in my pocket. I demonstrated perfect calm and tiltlessless during the following hands. In short, my client got a good show. And my solid image was solidified.
On break, I called my wife to get caught up on our days. She likes to know the score, and toward the end of the conversation, she asked, “How are we doing in the game?”
I told her about going broke early, for the minimum buy-in of $200, and that it was great because the client got a good lesson from it.
She said, “I’ve noticed that you often seem to go broke early on when you’re with a client, and then you always say that it was good that it happened, for the client’s sake.”
I said, “Yeah, I think you’re right, there’s a pattern here.”
She said, “I think you should raise your fee $200.”
The Burrowers movie
Safehouse divx
1941 dvdrip
Hitman dvd download Nightwatching movie
Posted by: Tommy Angelo on February 15th, 2009
.!.
I got ripped off recently, and I realized that I don’t own anything. And let me tell you, it’s a relief. I used to own lots of stuff. I was totally bought into the idea that there was “mine” and “somebody else’s.” And then I bought into a couple other ideas. One was that I can’t own a galaxy, and I can’t own an atom, and that since everything I encounter is somewhere between galaxies and atoms, I can’t own it, whatever it is. Another idea that made me an ex-owner is when I realized that my stuff has many times made me unhappy when it either became less good, or damaged, or no longer mine. So if I lay claim to nothing, then I literally have nothing to lose, which leaves me permanently protected from ever being upset over losing anything or having it break or wear out.
This is not to say that I forget what ownership is all about, or that it’s really important to lots of people, or that there is an ethical code of behaviors and attitudes in our society based on ownership that serves the purpose of keeping the peace and keeping track of what goes where. And I’m fine with all that. I plan to play along until the end, getting all the benefits that ownership has on society, but risk free. For example, when someone “steals” something of “mine,” I experience no sense of injustice. Nothing bad or wrong happened. The effect on me is the same as if someone stole the Milky Way galaxy or an atom from my foot.
K-19: The Widowmaker psp
Posted by: Tommy Angelo on February 10th, 2009
I’ve been asked a half dozen times now just what the heck is up with the cover of my book. Here’s the cover, and why…
The Lost Weekend dvd
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask dvdrip
Dog Days of Summer video
At the outset of the book project, the only two things I had decided on about the cover was that it would not include pictures of cards or chips, and that if you took away the text, it might be something I would hang on a wall. My thinking about the cards and chips was…
::: yawn :::
My thinking about the wall was that I knew I would be selling copies from home, which meant I was going to look at this cover many, many times, so I wanted it to be artistically pleasing to my eye.
I found the image I ended up using at gettyimages.com after a year of looking at images all over the place and bouncing ideas off several friends of mine who are artists.
The original image was white where you now see blue. My artist, Dave Sciacero, came up with the blue color.
As I looked at various images, I was drawn to the ones that gave me a sense of lots of pieces coming together to form a whole. I felt like that would abstractly represent what was inside the book. And this image took on some additional meanings in my mind, which is why I settled on it. The bottom third or so is many pieces that sort of go together and reflect off one another, like the elements in the book, and the bottom third of the image also represents the slicing pain and edginess of poker. The various reds are like blood — flowing blood, and clotted blood. The middle, with the smooth loopy-shaped thingies, is like a tilt-prone poker player in mid-development, learning to smooth out the edges and find some tranquility. The top represents the arrival at emptiness, and peace, that can only exist in the moment, and is never forever, because there’s that thick stripe of bloody tilt looming off to the side.
Posted by: Tommy Angelo on February 4th, 2009
This is the first article I ever submitted for publication in an actual magazine. I think it was around 1993. First I submitted it to FUNNY TIMES, an excellent publication that I subscribed to. They sent me a hysterical rejection letter. They suggested that each time I submit an article, I should aim for better and better publications, so that when I finally get accepted, I will have already moved way up the ladder. I took their advice, except that I skipped all the rungs. I then submitted this article to the “LAST PAGE” column in Smithsonian Magazine. This column is what made me want to write short humor works in the first place, so what the hell. When I found out that they paid $2000 dollars for a 550 word essay, I realized I was diving into some tough company. I kept my expectations as low as I could, but still, I was disappointed when I got a rejection letter from Smithsonian.
After that, I played it safe. The next article I submitted was to Poker Digest in 1999, and I had already been in contact with the publisher, and I knew there was a very good chance that I would not be getting a rejection letter. It was sort of like waiting until Mary says “My friend Jane wants to go out with you” before asking Jane out on a date. And since then, I’ve never been turned down for a date. So here’s the only article that ever broke my heart.
An Extremely Goofy Movie full movie
From City to Suburb and Back Again Big Stan movie download
The house that Marci and I bought in the suburbs had been vacant for a year, long enough for a thriving ecosystem to move into the dirt. Where I saw patches of soft clover, my neighbors saw land mines. Where I saw fuzzy-white dandelion tops, they saw napalm.
When I first met neighbor Bob, he did not ask my name or even suggest a barber. Instead, he wanted to know if I was up on the latest chemical technology. Like the rest of the neighborhood, Bob hated my weeds.
The army mobilized on weekends to hold the line against the invaders. Bob and the others had mulching mowers. Apparently these mystical machines dismantle grass to its fundamental molecular components and then transport it to another dimension.
The Inner Circle buy All I had was your basic lawnmower — the kind that sprays dead grass all over the place. Lawn mowed, I walked over to Bob’s yard for a tactical briefing. download La bomba movie Bob was busy with a contraption that punches tiny cylindrical holes in the earth, like what cicadas and sand crabs crawl out of. “I am aerating my yard,” he explained. “You’re a long way from needing one of these, son. First you’ve got to get rid of your weeds.”
Bob handed me a stack of specimen cups. “Help me spread these around the yard,” he said. “I’m testing the dispersal patterns of my new sprinkler heads.” While we worked, Bob lectured me on strategic chemical engagement. Of one thing I was certain; Bob’s yard was no place for a worm to raise a family.
I asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just mow your lawn, weeds and all, like I did?” From his all-fours stance, Bob turned and glared at me through his armpit, as if I had kicked his dog.
Wanting to be a good soldier, I took his advice and went to the hardware store. There I found an acre of floor space devoted to growing some plants and killing all the rest. Home again, I loaded my new drop-spreader with a bag of granular death. Then I paced my turf, spewing a dishonorable discharge, questioning this war.
Where should a nature-boy draw the line?
I wouldn’t hurt a fly, yet I eat pigs. Raven Hawk dvdrip
Five Moons Plaza
I’d hug a redwood, but not a cactus. Those are simple choices.
But now, with peer pressure applied, the beat of a common drummer was drowning out my sensibilities, forcing me to choose like a Roman spectator; thumbs up for the thin blade, thumbs down for the broadleaf.
The Home Teachers movie
A dozen kids were playing in the street.
An errant frisbee toss went into Bob’s yard. As a girl ran to get it, she stopped and shrieked. Everyone rushed over to see what was wrong. The girl was pointing at a dead bird on the ground. Bully full movie The boys wanted to blow it up. The girls wanted to bury it. The Cake Eaters video
I wanted to go AWOL.
Between Love & Goodbye video
Bob shrugged. “Oh, I get those all the time. They can’t stomach the poisoned worms.”
Marci and I left the drop-spreader behind when we moved back to the city the following year.
Art School Confidential dvdrip
Our new house has a big yard with a fair amount of grass, but plenty of other things too — like clover, dandelions, and live birds.
Lucas video
