Way Behind Here

You'd think that quitting my job would have led to an increase in blogging, right? I mean, that's what would happen for most people anyway. But nope, not me. I've been playing a ton, had a visit from my friend the traveler and his (now) fiance' (is that how you spell that? they're getting married) and now have come down with some sort of flu/cold hybrid that as usual can't make up it's mind about either leaving me alone or knocking me on my ass. I have a theory that my immune system is exactly like the rest of my physiology, built for sustained effort over long distances. Of the 25 or so guys on the MIT swim team I was literally the slowest one in the 50 yard freestyle. At YMCA Winter Nationals I filled in on a 4 by 50 freestyle relay (the guy they qualified with couldn't go) and I split the slowest time of any swimmer on the 100+ teams. And I swam the best time of my life (like a 24.6 or something) that day. The point is that I never did sprint well, but was able hold my own in the 200 yard events. My immune system is much the same way; it seems to do a horrible job of vanquishing anything in timely fashion, but also manages to keep me upright and just kind of hacking and wheezing for like a week every fucking time I get sick. It's pretty annoying honestly. Anyway, where were we? Nowhere...exactly nowhere. Time to say something I suppose.

Since I quit my job I have played 60 hours and won about 90 bets. My stress level has dropped substantially, and in general everything is just great. Like yeah I'm running pretty well, but I'm definitely playing way better (at least I was before the last two days, this cold has me questioning my focus) and things are just...easier. I've also actually had more time to study, although that again was going better before the cold and the weekend stay-cation (the last 3 nights I have spent a staggering 33 hours in bed). In short, it's everything I thought it would be. The Bike 40, however, is in pretty deep trouble. Of the 11 days I've now been unemployed I have played in it 8 times, and on three of those days it has broken at 7pm, 7pm, and 5pm basically when I refused to take my blind. I'm not really doing anything malicious, but I'm also not going out of my way to save the game like I used to when I was off shift. Today is a perfect example. A second game never got started (which was common before the promotion, but these days is very, very rare for a weekday), at least in part because several customers gave up on waiting to get seats. An environment has been created where players just expect to waltz in and get a seat almost immediately, and without active props (they're down to just a pair of 40/80 props, and one of them is part time) that's just not going to happen anymore. So today this fishy action guy literally got locked out for over 2 hours, and by the time he got a seat he was gone. The same thing happened with at least two other players, and has been occurring more and more lately as MikeL and I have been running wild in the game, with nothing to keep us in check. This crazy old man today had the following experience; show up around 2:30, be 4th on the list. Wait patiently until 4:15 and take the whale's seat. Play for 60 minutes, lose 2 racks. Watch the game break around you as Jesse and the other kid opt out of their blinds, making the game fall to 6 handed. How many times do you think that guy is going to come back? I mean, seriously....He's been showing up every day, but I simply cannot believe that will continue if anything resembling today happens again. So yeah, it's not good. They're still paying $15/hour and at 6:30pm tonight the 40/80 score was Commerce 4 games, Bike zero. Obviously I want the promotion to keep running because quitting my job was sort of predicated on it continuing for at least a few months, but I'm also not going to go out of my way. In the past when I was employed I would have played one more orbit, texted my boss and the other props (lol couldn't do that today they all quit) and tried to leave the game in some reasonable state before walking out. Today? Meh, I just left. And the game...broke.

So yeah I guess that's about that. I have a post I want to write about the 4 basic top 40 genres (the "fuck you break up" song, the "look how much money I have" song, etc) but every time I've tried it just hasn't been that funny. Maybe I'll give it another go again soon, but for now I think it could be time for some more orange juice a soak in the hot tub.