Poker Media Mid Life Crisis

[Tal]

BJ Fogg.

Now that is a name

[DaveShoelace]

Off to the big smoke for a few days tomorrow. Stopping with a few friends tomorrow night, then have a PokerStrategy paintball event + drinks on saturday where I will be allowing 15 eastern europeans and Pads to shoot me, then I am doing a bit of the old networking sunday afternoon. Love London, its been a while since I last went.

I'm going to be at a loose end for about 1.5 hours around 2pm tomorrow in the centre - any suggestions how to amuse myself? I can always default to my usual coffee and a book, but if anyone has any suggestions of a fun way to pass an hour in the capital Im all ears. Or if any of ya'll are around and want their picture taken with me or whateva.

[RED-DOG]

Off to the big smoke for a few days tomorrow. Stopping with a few friends tomorrow night, then have a PokerStrategy paintball event + drinks on saturday where I will be allowing 15 eastern europeans and Pads to shoot me, then I am doing a bit of the old networking sunday afternoon. Love London, its been a while since I last went.

I'm going to be at a loose end for about 1.5 hours around 2pm tomorrow in the centre - any suggestions how to amuse myself? I can always default to my usual coffee and a book, but if anyone has any suggestions of a fun way to pass an hour in the capital Im all ears. Or if any of ya'll are around and want their picture taken with me or whateva.

Listen to randoms playing the piano in St Pancras.

Visit one of the museums or the British library.

Find a good seat and watch people.

[Mohican]

Natural History museum.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/

[Eso Kral]

Dinner with Vinny?

http://www.nandos.co.uk/postcodesearch/results?input=london&op=Go&form_build_id=form-4ed929dba1da495e1deac082a17c4e7a&form_id=postcodesearch_form

[KarmaDope]

Off to the big smoke for a few days tomorrow. Stopping with a few friends tomorrow night, then have a PokerStrategy paintball event + drinks on saturday where I will be allowing 15 eastern europeans and Pads to shoot me, then I am doing a bit of the old networking sunday afternoon. Love London, its been a while since I last went.

I'm going to be at a loose end for about 1.5 hours around 2pm tomorrow in the centre - any suggestions how to amuse myself? I can always default to my usual coffee and a book, but if anyone has any suggestions of a fun way to pass an hour in the capital Im all ears. Or if any of ya'll are around and want their picture taken with me or whateva.

Empire for cash?

(this is a poker forum, had to get the obligatory suggestion in! )

[celtic]

What Eso said.

[DaveShoelace]

Got my weekend sorted thanks.

One great simple joy in my life is when I can bag a cheap first class upgrade on a train. It's always nice and quiet, roomy, relaxing and I can just have a lovely read while being fed free tea and biscuits. I'm on the sheffield to London train now about to get started on a new book - I've actually been looking forward to this part of the journey more than the stuff I'm going to get up to in the big smoke.

[DaveShoelace]

Cracking weekend in London.

I was a total coward at paintball, actually dissapointed myself with how much I hid. When I finally got brave I took a paintball right to the nipple, which still smarts.

We all went out for nosh at this place called Roadhouse, which was basically a steak house surrounded by a Hen Do. Watching Pleno1 ordering food was a joy to behold, everything he asked for he requested that every element of flavour be removed. You should have seen the look of disgust when his plain vanilla ice cream had choclocate on it.

Checked out the new Hippodrome Casino and bumped into a non poker friend who was playing kalooki (or something like that) - known the guys for years, never knew he played cards, despite him knowing what I did for a living.

In other news, the wife has got a new job working for a company called Carters (respec). It is selling wood burning stoves, which I am chuffed about because I really really want one, and now we can get one half price apparantly. She is going to be working Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday (wednesday and sundays off) so I am currently trying to change my usual working hours to mirror that. I think I would quite like having wednesdays off, everythings open but you can park easily and the cinema is cheaper, probably. It will be a good day to do the big shop at Morrisons.

Finally a shameless brag. On Friday Jared and I hit the lifetime sales target we had planned out for our first book before Black Friday (our target was much more conservative after BF), its been in circulation for about 27 months so we are both pretty chuffed. Because we released the book on the morning of Black Friday, we were tremendously negative that we would even break even on it, so the fact we managed to get to our lifetime goal in two years is really special (makes me wonder how well it would have done had BF never happened).

[Tal]

I'm sorry if I've asked you this before...the old memory isn't what it used to..er...thingy

I have always enjoyed writing. It was typically bits of creative writing at school and poetry at home or elsewhere. When I got to uni, I decided to use a summer holiday writing a play and loved it, despite how much hard work it was, editing, rewriting and filling the proverbial waste paper basket. I did the odd bit of comedy sketching, too, albeit probably the poor imitation of the Two Ronnies level of comedic sophistication, rather than anything more talented.

The point I am getting to is that it made me realise just how hard it is to write something really good. I also realised I found a particular show I wish I had written. It just hit the nail on the head for me; not one of the all time greats on those run down lists like Fools and Horses, but it matched my sense of humour and the pace, style and everything that came with it was just so right up my Straße that it made me jealous of the talent of the two writers. I could never have written Drop the Dead Donkey, but by Jove do I ever wish I had.

As an actually talented writer, is there something you look at and wish you'd either got there first on or had what it took to pen yourself? Is there a show you watch that you look at through a writer's eyes with envy?

Hopefully, I've got across what I mean.

[DaveShoelace]

Not really, the specifics of what I do has no road map like a 'proper' writer has. I didn't grow up reading poker articles etc, so I have very little to compare it too.

I do know a fantastic resource I think you will jizz your pants over though, this is an amazing podcast, up to 48 episodes and counting where a comedian interviews other comedians about how they write:

http://www.comedianscomedian.com/

[Tal]

Not really, the specifics of what I do has no road map like a 'proper' writer has. I didn't grow up reading poker articles etc, so I have very little to compare it too.

I do know a fantastic resource I think you will jizz your pants over though, this is an amazing podcast, up to 48 episodes and counting where a comedian interviews other comedians about how they write:

http://www.comedianscomedian.com/

Such a loss to Two Pints of Lager or Perfect World, Barry!

[DaveShoelace]

Always the scariest day of the year, car MOT day. The garage I take it to is really trustworthy (multiple times they have not charged me when its been an easy fix), but this day of the year always makes me very aware of the big knowledge gap I have when it comes to cars. Plus I've had a really good run of it passing its MOT so I am probably due some costly fault.

Cars in the garage right now.

Edit: It passed, BOOM. Can't beat the 2006 Ford Focus.

[DaveShoelace]

I'm having the first half of next week off, just because I don't really take much time off and I am forcing myself to do it. Sadly I also have not much ££££ to entertain myself as I am forking out for a new boiler this month. So I'm starting to wonder what I'll do with the time off.

Deffo going to get some better dog walks in, at better than local locations. Also going to put some decent time in at the gym. Certainly plan on nipping to a coffee shop a couple of times to read the latest book I am reading. Almost all my mates don't work from home which buggers up any potential visits.

Anyone else got any suggestions on how to make the most of the mini break? Only prerequisite is it doesnt involve poker or using the interweb.

[Tal]

I'd put trying to diarrhoea into my own mouth over this, but at 10pm tonight on channel (actually, you can guess this for yourself) the TV guide says:

Celebrity Super Spa
Fly on the wall series. Helen Flanagan, Rusty Lee, Yvette Fielding, James (Arg) Argent, John Burton-Race and Jody Latham arrive at the spa and meet their eccentric trainer.