Moving Days

Moving days, again and still...

The relocation to a new apartment has finally completed, and I'm back online. That said, I've been in somewhat of a malaise the past few weeks, probably the combination of the moving stress, the fact that I've become estranged from my my parents and my "growin' up" family this past year, and that the temporary job gig continues to suck up major hours for the time being.

Persevere. Onward. Always move onward.

I've played a bit of poker, of course, with unexceptional results the past weeks; only a third-place in a small tournament on Titan (I-Poker) and the usual (and now predictable) overall gain playing Party SNG's having any positive impact on bankroll. As of now, the temp gig precludes me from getting back in time for most of Wil Wheaton's tourneys on Friday evenings, so I haven't even had a chance to run across the other poker bloggers as of late.

Goals? None for now. Live to see tomorrow, school the young pups, and keep a roof over my head betwixt and between the rest. That'll do this holiday season, that'll do indeed.

More soon, but for now it was just time for the update to let both of my fans know that I am indeed back in business. Thanks!

...

And that previous text, which didn't appear for very long:

I've been in the process of relocating to an apartment over the past couple of weeks, here in this alien and seemingly endless suburbia that's north and west of Chicago. It's been a slow process, because I'm a disorganized, slow-motion mover, though I'd like to take this moment to publicly invite the dinks at U-Haul to take the proverbial long walk off a short pier. Im attempting to return the damned truck, I encountered customer service so terrible it was disgraceful --- from a website that sent me to a non-existent business to a help-line customer "service" rep who laughed at me when I asked him what I was supposed to do with the stupid truck, after finding and returning from the emptied storefront. How nice. Then again, at least the truck's speedometer/odometer was close to accurate, not like the 30%-altered gauge I remember from when a friend moved and rented similar equipment from Ryder. Seems like an industry where scum rules... Anyhow, U-Haul and I aren't quite finished with each other yet --- heh.

My hour's drive (or more) each way to the temp job each weekday reminds me again why I really hate that stuff, and though the people I work with are nice folks, I'm just not one of them. In an analytical sense, one must be a sheep to do the stuff I'm currently doing, and one must also be highly risk-averse to swallow the high level of corporate pap slammed down the workers' throats on a minute-by-minute basis. Sadly for me, I'm neither risk-averse nor a sheep. So in a few short weeks I'll search for work again, because I'd go postal if I knew I was stuck in that environment for the duration. No doubt the rut I'm currently in emanates from these early paragraphs --- sorry! Sometimes life's not a lot of fun, and it just hasn't been for me of late.

As for poker? Sure, that's what I've been spending the rest of my spare time on. I've been continuing my experiment concerning Sit-'N'-Gos as a way of measuring my poker skills, and the results have been mildly encouraging. I wish there was an easy way to determine when one is ready for the jump up to the next level, but I don't seem to be able to do much more in the 10+1 games, so after some more bankroll-building, it'll be on to the $20 level. I set a personal record myself here by recently cashing in 11 straight SNG's, but I've also had some runs of six or eight in a row where I haven't cashed at all. Ahh, variance.

I also dropped a couple of hundred into an account at Titan Poker, then discovered ruefully that until I get a faster computer, I won't be able to make significant headway on the bonus. The host network is even slower than Prima, which is saying something.

Addendum to that: I've discovered that one of the two "problems" I've had with Prima software is technically mine --- my old computer's processor wasn't fast enough for Prima's needs. The upshot is that I kept timing out when attempting to play two or more tables, even though most other sites I used with the old computer didn't lock up when multi-tabling. In addition, Prima was having some issues with rampant "hand being saved" problems which casued interminable stretches between hands; near the end of one small tourney we encountered a stretch where the software only let us play four hands in 30 minutes. And no, it wasn't hand-for-hand time.

As for Titan, yes, there'll be a review coming up, but my generally feeling is that Titan and the other related skins comprise a network that is searching for (and is bubbling just shy of) critical mass. I'm not enamored of their software, either, but we'll touch on that stuff soon, too.

Ta-ta!