Man, I am just on perma-tilt. Technology is such a pain.

In the last couple of weeks I have overcome the mystery of the vanishing cable internet. I have done a clean install of Windows XP on an old machine. And now I am a freaking wizard at laser printer repair.

Or at least I will be once my replacement fuser arrives. It's really not a good thing when the coating starts peeling off one of the rollers. Tends to gum things up pretty severely.

I still have things I need to do. I need to run some cable. I need to assign some new user names. I need to upgrade a few boxes to Service Pack 3 before the middle of July.

Who has time to play poker? Not this guy, too busy being an IT department.

You've enjoyed Dr. Pauly's reporting from the World Series of Poker for years.

(What, you haven't? Do you live under a rock or something? Go read. Now.)

He's been working on a book for years.

It has finally arrived. Go read about Lost Vegas and order a copy. I ordered mine today.

What are you waiting for?

I was all geared up to play a few hands last night.

Didn't happen. Consider yourself lucky - no bad beat stories.

So I was watching something online on Sunday night when my internet crapped out for no apparent reason. I recently switched to Charter and everything was working perfectly fine. Until it didn't work at all. I figured it wasn't a big deal and just went to sleep.

Tried it again last night. Nothing. It's not finding a DNS. I tried unplugging the cable modem and plugging it back in. Nope. Took it off the router and ran an ethernet cable to my computer. Nope. No internet. Checked outside, the cable is still in place. Checked out the settings, everything appears to be in order.

Sigh.

The Charter support website didn't offer any blinding insight in the couple minutes I've spent. So far I've determined that I should keep the cable modem unplugged for at least 30 seconds. And I should try rebooting. Again.

Yeah, that's going to work.

I have a bad feeling that I'm going to end up having Rajiv from Bangalore telling me how much of an idiot I am sometime tomorrow.

F***ing technology how does it work.

Still alive. Working and golfing. Not pokering.

The Golf Channel has a show called (I think) Golf in America. According to the promos, tonight's episode is supposed to feature high stakes gamblers. I know that I saw Doyle Brunson as one of them in the ad ... but didn't see Phil Ivey (?!). I would guess Daniel Negraneu will also be part of it since he showed up on the Hank Haney - Ray Romano show also on the Golf Channel.

I hope that he is, if only for the comic relief that his swing brings. Of course he's a deadly putter, no self-respecting gambler is going to be weak with the flat stick.

Anyhow, if you're really bored I think it's on a 9 ET tonight and will probably be replayed periodically. If I happen to see it I'll post a review.

They finally pulled the plug last night.

My ISP, that is. What were you thinking I meant?

I've been using the same provider for about five years now. Last year they put out notice that they were going to be changing to a different wireless technology. I wasn't crazy about the change but I had them come out to see if it would work. No luck. So I've been living on borrowed time for months and months.

I got a call last month that they were really serious this time, the network was going to be shut down as of the first of the month. That date came and went and the leeching went on. At least I haven't received a bill for this month.

Last night I went to check the weather and the network was gone. They finally did it.

Now I have to actually figure out what to do instead.

Crap.

Honestly, none of the options are all that appealing. I could get dial up or DSL service but I have no interest in a home phone line. I could get cable service through Charter but I have little interest in television service and none in their phone service. I could get AT&T Uverse but since I have little interest in TV their rates would suck plus installation sounds like a pain.

Or I could just live in a world with no home internet. Last night was kind of weird not having it but it's not like I missed much. Instead I got my laundry done and read a few chapters of Will Leitch's surprisingly (to me) good book "Are We Winning?".

It would kind of suck though to have to go to the office anytime I wanted to do anything online.


On a related note, the bonus clearing quest and attempt to get iron man status for the month is pretty much dead. I'm just too crunched for time and get too frustrated when I take a beat playing on a short roll. If I get something lined up I may yet try and clear some more of it but if I do it will probably involve playing something different. If I didn't completely suck I would be tempted to just play sets of super turbos or something. We'll see - I still have a couple weeks left.

And I obviously missed the WPBT gives back tournament last night. Kudos to OhCaptain for organizing and hopefully the turnout was good.

Man, I hate to sound like a broken record.

Stop me if you've heard this before: I kinda hate poker.

As usual I'm just venting. I had an OK session last night, booking a reasonable win. And then tonight I donk off three nights' worth of gains plus the bonus I'd cleared ... in two hands. QQ less than AA, JJ less than QQ. Stupid.

Unlimited hold them, I am not good at it.

So I'm back to the start and if this is how it's going to be, why even bother?

Day 2 in the book. Much like yesterday, I played about 1000 hands. Much like yesterday the RNG decided to administer a red hot poker to my uh never mind. I did a lot of good work and then screwed up when some tard called down with an open ender and hit the ass end on the river against my aggressively bet top set. Give a donkey six or eight outs and they'll call any size bet.

The only problem is that they hit.

So I dumped two thirds of a buyin playing NLHE. I decided to wind down with a little Rush 25 PLO and despite it being 6 max which is not my game some tards decided to gift me with nearly two buyins so I ended up in the black for a couple sliders on the day once again.

I'm really going to hate poker before this is over, you know. I'm getting close as it is.

Opted in. Day 1. I timed it to max out the weekends since that's going to be my best shot at grinding through the required hands.

Got in 1000 today (thanks Rush). Keeping it simple, 2 tables of 50.

Nice to see that the Full Tilt RNG continues to hate me. I wasn't keeping close track, but I think I got AA seven times. I picked up the blinds, picked up the blinds, won a small pot, got cracked by a set, got cracked by a set, got cracked by a set and got cracked by a rivered straight.

Wheeeee!

That's like a bunch of bad beat mini-stories for the price of one. Apparently I am the White Castle of bad beat stories. You want fries with that?

And yes, I still suck at poker. Ended up on the positive side by a couple sliders though so it's all good. I should clear my first 20 early in my next session.

I'm going to really hate poker by the time this is done. And you're going to hate me by extension.