Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[DaveShoelace]

Read any good books lately Teeks?

I've had this bias with books over the last few years of 'anything written before 2014 is outdated and irrelevant' and also that fiction is a waste of time, so to go against that bias I'm going to read stuff written 20 years ago or longer, and also read some of the classics of fiction, this is my current list of read/to read:

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

Some trainspottery type went down to a level crossing to catch a glimpse of the Flying Scotsman as it went past, but things didn't work out so well for him as instead he experienced a train eclipse.

http://digg.com/video/flying-scotsman-miss

Ha, that is tremendous.

Just his luck that it was a Wooly Jumper Plastic Thing which got in the way. That's called Sod's Law.


Aw, bloody hell

[tikay]

@ Dave Shoelace.

Hi Barry,

Yeah, read more books this year than ever before. Most good, some not so good, one or two utterly dire.

Will stick a few up tomorrow, with reviews. All non-fiction, of course.

I see you are keeping busy on Poker Strategy, & on Twitter. I've been getting more into reading Twitter of late. Tons of crap interspersed with occasional brilliance.

The pleno "you got it" thing was interesting, though strange it never made it on to blonde, as it occupied a score of pages & 2 threads on 2+2, a 5,000 vote poll on Twitter, a 15 minute video by The Man Himself, & a full length piece on Calvin Ayre. But on blonde, just two cryptic comments by Camel & LilDave, & that was it.

Will Kassouf - well I have some posts on that topic I still need to reply to, so I'll return to that shortly. I noticed you put together a nicely even-handed piece about his "longest slowroll ever". For the avoidance of doubt, he's a fine player, & I have no problem with him, we get along (off the table) fine on the rare occasions our orbits cross. I just think it is really sad to see someone who gets off on humiliating & mocking others, & he clearly does. Hopefully, as he matures, he'll be less disrespectful to others.  

The SkyBet Affiliate thing was interesting, too. That one has a lot more mileage in it, trust me.

[tikay]

Never judge a book by it's cover


Ever seen a Jeremy Clarkson book in W H Smith or wherever?

Course you have.

They all look sort of similar, almost a brand in themselves. Light reading, but huge fun, & just right when you only have 10 or 15 minutes reading time, as you can knock off a chapter every 3 minutes.

Here are typical examples.

[tikay]

So when I saw this one on the bookshelves, I happily coughed up my £8, thinking it was another.

[tikay]

You can instantly see the familiarity. It had to be a Clarkson book.

But it was not - it was a Clarkson Biography, by someone named Gwen Russell.

And it had originally been published with a different cover, one that was clearly not "on brand". But it never sold, so they did the imitation double take thing, & I fell for it.

And it was absolute dire splurge. Not a Bio at all, just a whole book full of quotes by Clarkson. An utter waste of time.

Made me really cross, to be honest, as it stole several hours of my precious time.

[Longines]

Made me really cross, to be honest, as it stole several hours of my precious time.

Read a Dan Brown book. Ms Russell will seem like Shakespeare.

[tikay]

Here's a lovely story I'd like you to read, it filled me with pleasure.

Cliffs;

Bird watcher, or twitcher if you prefer, who lives in Leicester, goes across to Cork in Ireland to visit his wife's family, & by sheer chance, spots an American Yellow Warbler, a bird almost never seen on these shores.

To him, this was his first "mega-find" in 55 years of bird-watching. The equivalent in poker, would be winning a WSOP Bracelet, or the Sunday Million.

Great, great, little story, & I was almost as happy as him after reading it.

Please take a look.


https://www.birdguides.com/articles/rarity-finders-american-yellow-warbler-in-co-cork/



And this little thing, smaller than a Robin, is what all the fuss was about.

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

Made me really cross, to be honest, as it stole several hours of my precious time.

Read a Dan Brown book. Ms Russell will seem like Shakespeare.

The Da Vinci Code bloke? Err, I'll pass on that TYVM.

[Marky147]

I don't mind the old sparkling water, and drink a fair bit of it with meals when eating out.

I always have a slice of lemon/lime in mine, for a little tang.

Glad to see both members of team pellegrino are doing so well!

[tikay]

I'll return to the Helicopter theme tomorrow, too, as there were quite a few replies by the standard of this barren Diary.

But for now, if you live in London & the Home Counties, you'll either see helicopters every day, or almost never.

That's because all helicopters - civil & military - have to stick to designated Air Traffic Control "corridors" in the Home Counties on their flights to & from London.

Here's an image of them, they are the bold blue dotted lines, & are named;

H3

H7

H9

H10

Click to see full-size image.

And here's the thing - the UK-based Chinooks are stabled at RAF Odiham, down in Hampshire, so every time a Chinook needs to go to London, it goes up H3. Which goes right over my house. So rarely a day passes without seeing one, in fact one day last week 4 went past in close nose to tail formation. What a beautiful noise they make, thrup thrup, & you can hear & recognize that sound from miles away.


PS - Yup, I'm pretty sad.

[DaveShoelace]

I see you are keeping busy on Poker Strategy, & on Twitter. I've been getting more into reading Twitter of late. Tons of crap interspersed with occasional brilliance.

I am doing my best to get away from Twitter, absolutely sick of the pointless arguing and dishonest way everyone claims to be outraged at each other.

The pleno "you got it" thing was interesting, though strange it never made it on to blonde, as it occupied a score of pages & 2 threads on 2+2, a 5,000 vote poll on Twitter, a 15 minute video by The Man Himself, & a full length piece on Calvin Ayre. But on blonde, just two cryptic comments by Camel & LilDave, & that was it.

I purposely stayed away from it, it was such a non story for me and while I have no problem writing about some of the more 'tabloid' things in poker like Mr Kassouf, I draw the line at these 'pokertwitter' slanging matches/witch hunts that seem to be a daily occurence. Again, a bunch of people with time on their hands pretending to be outraged.

And I love ripping the piss out of Pads as much as the next man, I just think he was trying to look cool on the telly.

Will Kassouf - well I have some posts on that topic I still need to reply to, so I'll return to that shortly. I noticed you put together a nicely even-handed piece about his "longest slowroll ever". For the avoidance of doubt, he's a fine player, & I have no problem with him, we get along (off the table) fine on the rare occasions our orbits cross. I just think it is really sad to see someone who gets off on humiliating & mocking others, & he clearly does. Hopefully, as he matures, he'll be less disrespectful to others.  

Funny you mention it, I have zero problem with his 'banter' and think its a benefit to the game and people who share a table with him, just like people who want Hellmuth to blow up on them as a bucket list item. I have a mahoosive problem with the stalling and tanking though. I've written a semi related piece going on this weekend about the 'tragedy of the commons' and how it applies to poker, specifically in relation to how we treat others at the table.

The SkyBet Affiliate thing was interesting, too. That one has a lot more mileage in it, trust me.

I'm catching up on that one, just loaded some articles on the old kindle.

Got an interesting interview on the site on Friday with this fella, a poker player turned award winning comedian. Really top lad, played $200/$400 Triple Draw back in the day, I'm going to suggest some of the UK tours hire him as entertainment for their Day 1a parties they have on their events:

https://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/101829/

[Karabiner]

I must have been playing golf about the same time as that bloke has been birding and I've never had a hole-in-one despite playing to a decent standard.

Having read that I feel that there's still hope that one day my golf ball will get it's major find.

[KarmaDope]

Some trainspottery type went down to a level crossing to catch a glimpse of the Flying Scotsman as it went past, but things didn't work out so well for him as instead he experienced a train eclipse.

http://digg.com/video/flying-scotsman-miss

Ha, that is tremendous.

Just his luck that it was a Wooly Jumper Plastic Thing which got in the way. That's called Sod's Law.


Aw, bloody hell

That looked like an old school HST with slam door rolling stock carriages that you keep mentioning as being brilliant, not a plastic piece of rubbish like I have to put up with on the West Coast Main Line every time I want to go to London

[nirvana]

Read any good books lately Teeks?

I've had this bias with books over the last few years of 'anything written before 2014 is outdated and irrelevant' and also that fiction is a waste of time, so to go against that bias I'm going to read stuff written 20 years ago or longer, and also read some of the classics of fiction, this is my current list of read/to read:

Somewhat embarrassingly I read Brave New World for the first time the other day and I've had more time than you. Main highlight was finding song titles and relatively recent cultural reference points from movies in the words too., decent enough yarn as well.