bond is such a ridiculous pimp…

I headed out to see the new Bond movie tonight with Slider. 6 people told me it sucked, so my expectations were low, but Bond is Bond and it’s not like I have a choice - the movie must be watched, even if it’s a chore.

As we walked into the cinema, the large promotional poster showing the new Bond girl wasn’t very flattering to her, and I commented to Slider that if they screwed up and picked an ugly Bond girl, I was going to be sick tilted and maybe break shit.

Firstly, people are morons. The new Bond movie is awesome, ridiculously, ridiculously awesome. I think it’s better than the last one.

Secondly, I am a moron. The people running the Bond franchise now are brilliant and I should have known better than to doubt their genius. The new Bond Girl is perfectly, fantasticly adorable and I think I love her. She’s Ukranian (of course). There are probably cuter girls than her in the world, but they’re probably wandering around Moscow or Belarus.

I have to do more online stalking of Olga Kurylenko now so I bid you goodnight, Blog Friends.

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Sharing the awesome…

More than anyone, I know about the dangers of over-hype and the pitfalls of creating unreasonably high expectations. I learned relatively early in the play that girls who see a guy packing a lot of heat automatically expect him to be great in bed. Not true. The rare times I have attempted such exploits, the default results would be soul-crushingly embarassing were they not predictable and routine - I fail at levels of failure so spectacular, I surprise even myself sometimes - and I’m not easily surprised. Kevin Spacey was Keyser Soze? Picked it early. Bruce Willis was dead the whole time in Sixth Sense? Knew it all along. Geelong, 42 wins from 43 games getting dusted by the Hawks in the Grand Final? Please, anyone who put money on Geelong was retarded and a sap.

However, hype dangers notwithstanding, if the following email exchange between a debt collection agency and a busto guy is not the funniest thing you’ll read this week, well Blog Friend, I don’t even want to know you.

As always, the excellence is in the tiny details.

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YouTube may be…wait for it…retarded.

When someone tries to engage me in small talk and/or conversation on the intrawebs, I often tell them I’m busy. This excuse usually has the added incentive of being true. However, and this may shock you, I am not beneath lying to get out of small talk and fascinating questions like “hey how are you” or “what’s up” or “you winning lately” or “can you lend me money, my dog is sick”.

Today, if you tried to talk to me and I told you I was busy, I’m embarassed to admit I lied. I had nothing pressing to do today, at least nothing I really wanted to do work-wise. I was actually bored almost out of my mind. There is an old saying that you can die of boredom, and unlike the one about being so hungry you could eat a horse which is obviously ridiculous unless we’re talking one of those super tiny miniature horses (which I’m yet to be convinced actually exist), I genuinely believe it really may be possible to die of boredom. Faced with imminent death by boredom, I plead mitigating circumstances and beg forgiveness of the Policia and the Religious Right for the following confession: I decided to get very, very high.

As occasionally happens when one gets very, very high, I had a rare stroke of genius and decided I would watch the Most Viewed videos of All Time on YouTube. Although I detest the opinion and judgement of most people, I figured if 50 million people watched a video, I should watch it also, if for no other reason, than to keep my finger on the pulse of the working man and perhaps have something to talk about should I find myself trapped in an elevator again in Singapore.

Now, rightly or wrongly, I consider myself a fairly intelligent man. I did not forsee any complications in searching for and finding the Most Viewed videos of All Time on YouTube, as I did not (at the time) consider YouTube to be retarded.

I was delighted to find a link titled Most Viewed on www.youtube.com. Knowing I was almost certainly on the right track, I then confidently clicked on the All Time link chuckling to myself at the ease of the process and congratulating YouTube aloud for making my job so easy. However, to my horror and disgust, when I clicked on Most Viewed > All Time…YouTube gave me a list of videos with 20 mil hits, 10 mil hits and even 7 mil hits.

Now, some people will be wondering where I’m going with this. I won’t leave them in suspense for long. Only yesterday, on a search for a Fonzarelli remix of Now You’re Gone by Basshunter (who’s music is definitely as retarded as his DJ name suggests it would be), I had to endure this vomit-inducing package of cheese below:

Now, relative arguments as to the attractiveness of the brunette in the video aside (I am on the fence and am not thrilled by her man-like jaw and features), we can all agree the storyline leaves even the most sentimental of us nauseous - I haven’t cringed this much since watching the Dukes of Hazzard movie.

More importantly, this package of cheese is not even on the list of MOST VIEWED of ALL TIME on YouTube despite having 45 million views, up to 15 times more views than some of the results on the MOST VIEWED of ALL TIME page.

I was furious and livid. I tried to imagine how I would feel if I had a video which had 45 million hits (hopefully one not as embarassing as Basshunter’s) and my spot on the Most Viewed of All Time page on YouTube was taken by a video with 7 million hits. I would feel robbed and I think I would sue YouTube and probably take my 45 million hit video to the competition.

A possible theory I considered was that YouTube refused to reward such horrendously bad music video production and flatly refused to place the Basshunter (lol, he hunts Bass, he’s a Basshunter) video on their MOST VIEWED of ALL TIME page. This theory seemed fully plausible until I noticed an ACCA DACCA video on the page. I immediately had to concede that YouTube does not discriminate against crap or filter their results based on quality of submissions.

After almost 8 minutes (I have ADD and get distracted quickly and I am also blindingly lazy), I gave up trying to find the Most Viewed videos of All Time on YouTube and was instead left pondering if YouTube was, indeed, retarded.

If you read from the bottoms of posts up (Arabs read right to left, so don’t shake your head, you fucking incultured hick), I can tell you that you won’t find these videos by clicking on MOST VIEWED and then clicking on ALL TIME. Yes, I know, I too, was surprised that this method failed.

(Edit: It turns out that due to some retarded YouTube policy, my account gets redirected to au.youtube.com and there is seemingly nothing I can do to go to the URL I type in, specifically youtube.com - what’s amusing here is that this forced redirection is random and some Australians aren’t redirected against their will. Summary: YouTube is definitely retarded.)

—–

Contrary to what your parents and The Man would have you believe, hard work like searching for the Most Viewed videos of All Time on YouTube does not, in fact, eliminate boredom. So I was left with my original problem, only slightly comforted by the fact that I’d craftily dodged possible death from this boredom by getting very, very high.

I solved this boredom problem for 2 hours by writing messages to friends I hadn’t spoken to in years on Facebook. Contrary to what you may believe, despite my overall contempt for most people, there are actually many, many people who are awesome, smart, entertaining and all-round better people than I am - and I am lucky enough to have been friends with some of them over the years. However, due to my aforementioned laziness coupled with the fact that I am painfully shy coupled (a double-couple, even I’ve never seen that one) with the fact that I am painfully neurotic and live in perennial, paranoid fear of rejection (even from friends), I don’t stay in touch with most of these awesome peoples unless they go out of their way to stay in touch with me, which is not an easy feat when the person you’re trying to talk to is saying they are busy all the time out of fear of the possibility of small talk.

Now, it occured to me that messaging people I haven’t spoken to in months or years whilst very, very high might be akin to a drunk retard calling his ex-girlfriend at 4am in the morning after he’s had too many bourbons or rums. But fuelled by the confidence of illicit drugs, I quickly dismissed any such reservations and proceeded to message about 60 old friends with random and occasionally non-sensical cheerios.

As this was some time ago, and I’ve only received one reply so far, I’m now questioning the intelligence of my actions but as a ghetto pimp rueing the loss of a score from a potential john beating a hasty retreat might say, “No point crying over spilt milk.” Or unspilt milk, as the case might be in this example - oh I just know I’m gonna cringe at that one when I read this tomorrow sober.

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remember remember the fifth of november…

I’m going out to buy fireworks.

Yesterday I had my first ever 50k day online. I stole 30k from dirty Scandi lags at Eurolinx (at one point I had 21k Euro on a 10/20 table) and then picked up a quick fire 20k at Cake.

This hand was pretty special as the villain is a very good player and I was just finishing up my very long (30hrs plus) session - the non-club river 5 was just magical as I was screaming for it on turn knowing he would call a big overshove due to my line, but I didn’t know villain had 55 (I put villain on a set otherwise I would have 3bet flop or made a move on turn obv) - he then left the table immediately in disgust which was the perfect end to a perfect day.

I slept for 12 hrs or so and woke up thinking I’d missed the election coverage and was devastated. I frantically turned on CNN only to find, to my delight, that the coverage was just kicking into gear. And what fantastic coverage it was - the CNN team is just brilliant and I will probably have to have sex with Anderson Cooper one day.

During ad breaks, I’d flick over to BBC coverage which was so bad, I don’t have the words to describe it. Like, everyone involved with the BBC coverage should never work in television journalism again. They had this retarded far right ex-ambassor from the US on their panel, who was furious that his side was losing and was picking fights with and insulting everyone. On air, he demanded that the BBC fire a reporter who had an entertaining argument with a good-natured GOP politician.

As expected, the genius that is Obama took it down in a landslide. He’ll be a brilliant President, and it turns out Americans are not as retarded as I thought they were after watching in horror and disbelief as they handed the White House to Bush not once, but TWICE.

I’ve lost a fortune on three US Presidental elections in a row now, but this is the only one I’m happy about. Had I won that 15-20k today if McCain got up, I would be devastated.

The Democrats have also picked up 7 more Senate seats, and they’re an outside chance of getting the magical 60.

“Change is coming to America!”

I think I speak for 98% of the world when I say, IT’S ABOUT FUCKING TIME. If I die without seeing the GOP take the White House again, I will be a happy man on my deathbed.

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a dirty little secret…

Despite being well and truly out of my downswing / movie-watching mode (I broke Prima 5/10 the other day for 20k euro or something), I have a dirty little embarassing confession to make - I’m currently in love with Jane Austen.

This obsession started somewhat innocently. Chardy recommended a bunch of movies to me, and the first couple sucked, but I’m a persistent bastard and I eventually arrived at Pride and Prejudice. This movie is glorious, Keira Knightley is so cute in it it’s almost unbelievable, and I gave it 9/10 on IMDB. I’m honestly not sure where it loses a point, but I don’t like to give 10/10’s and do so only when I have no choice but to bestow such an honour on a movie.

I previously thought no love story could ever come close to competing with Les Miserables, but I think Pride and Prejudice might have stolen top billing. It forced me to go on a hunt for any movie or show even remotely Jane Austen related. I even watched (and I’m ashamed to say enjoyed) The Jane Austen Book Club and Bride and Prejudice (a Bollywood version of the classic novel). Despite the retarded dancing and music (I don’t care who I offend, it was so bad I had to fast forward through every musical number), the Indian girls in that movie are just ridiculous. Aishwarya Rai’s eyes are hypnotic.

I’m already copping equal bagging as when I regrettably admitted to friends I liked commerical trance when I was 19. But screw them - the heart wants what the heart wants, and right now my heart wants Jane Austen.

Like all embarassing stages of my life, I’m pretty sure I’ll grow out of this one shortly - but Jane Austen has helped me understand something I have often wondered about. Most of her stuff is all cousin on cousin love - inbreeding ftw apparently. No wonder we’re all so retarded - our ancestors were all falling in love and sleeping with close relatives.

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moving on…

I’m having a pretty bad week.

After grinding 3/6 for like 30 hrs the other day for a few k profit running terribly, I followed a fish up to 25/50 and dropped 30k in like an hour in the most ridiculous circumstances.

So I’m in watching movies / collect on debts mode now, which is my standard routine when I don’t feel like playing. This is because I like to punish myself, as 90% of movies suck despite one’s best efforts to filter out the trash, and trying to collect on debts is an exercise in pure futility.

Add in the fact that I got scammed for 11k the other day by buying a prop account which I almost immediately find out are readily available for free, and I’m having a pretty bad week.

So, in retrospect, it was probably not a good time to leave the safety of my little hermit compound and do admin which I’d been putting off for weeks - but I’ve only ever been wise in hindsight.

I had a few small errands to run in Manila and my tilt was growing rapidly at my inability to get even the simplest things done, with each errand taking 20x the time it would take in Aust/US/Europe. Running out of time before the banks closed, I rushed to my local HSBC Premier (VIP banking because I’m a pimp) only to find my wonderful Premier Account Manager Hazel was on holidays.

I tried to remain calm as I needed to quickly convert 50k USD cash into AUD to take advantage of the recent AUD 30% crash in value, as I’m not sure how long the AUD will stay this weak.

When Hazel is around, I wait an avg of 8 seconds before she professionally handles all my banking needs whilst I sip on a peppermint tea, however without Hazel, it became quickly apparent that HSBC Premier in Rockwell is a house of insanity and tilt.

I waited patiently for 15 min before the receptionist claimed she could convert my currency. I had my doubts about her ability to do this, but as the job was so simple, I told myself only a moron would be unable to do it and I mistakenly entered into discourse with her. My initial doubts proved to be well-founded when she kept insisting USD > AUD rate was 0.69. I patiently tried to explain to her that I was converting in the other direction. Despite having no success in previous attempts with this method, I used stick figures, lines, and various forms of written communication to try and get my message across. I had no luck. She was determined to give me AU$34,500 for my US$50,000. Obviously this was unacceptable to me.

After 10 minutes of frustration, I lost my temper and told her I could no longer deal with someone as stupid as she was. At this point, the assistant branch manager walked in and offered to assist me. The receptionist was in tears. I felt a little bit bad, but told myself (and the assistant branch manager) that she should not be working in a bank with her level of intelligence.

Things got ugly at this point. The assistant branch manager also insisted on giving me 34,500 aud for my 50k usd. I was starting to lose the plot trying to explain to these morons basic currency exchange rates and how one must be careful not to fall into the hugely complex trap of multiplying when one should be dividing by the listed exchange rate. The assistant branch manager then made the almost fatal error of patronising me, trying to explain to me that rates “fluc-tu-ate” (she said this very slowly as if I was stupid). At this point, I lost the plot and coldly crushed her, telling her that she was too stupid to work in a call centre, let alone in a VIP banking facility. She also burst into tears.

With 4 staff in the building, I had reduced 50% of the workforce into tears and I’d be lying if I said I was feeling much guilt at this point. The whole process was passing the 30 min mark and I was losing my ability to cope with stupidity of this magnitude.

The branch manager came in to see what all the fuss was about. With two of his female staff members crying, understandably, he was not conducive to sympathy towards my issue - that being, I just wanted to fucking convert fucking USD into fucking AUD and I didn’t see how or why it had to be so much fucking tilt. I probably shouldn’t have used language almost identical to that, because it shocked him and also made him stupid. He also insisted the exchange rate was 0.69 and attempted to patronise me by explaining how exchange rates work. I was going insane in a world of retardation and wondering if, maybe, they were all sane and I was the one in need of a straight-jacket.

People who know me well will understand how I was reacting at this point - I am not proud of my behaviour when confronted with stupidity of this magnitude, but in my defence, we’re talking easy 8.0 on the Richter Scale of stupidity.

Somehow, through the sobs of his staff members, and my yelling, it somehow clicked in his mind what I was trying to say about reversing the direction and he realised he needed to divide 50k by 0.69 to give me the equivalent amount in AUD. I almost cried at this point, such was the level of emotion running through the building.

It then took 10 min to get the paperwork ready for my conversion, at the correct rate, which was, of course, 1 divided by 0.69 = 1.45. I know, complex stuff, only took almost an hour and lots of tears before the job was done - welcome to Manila.

He then gave me a lecture about my language to his female staff members, which was fair in parts, and I felt bad enough that I then spent half an hour buying chocolates and alcohol for them, gift-wrapping it all with “I’m Sorry” cards attached. As they have my home address, hopefully now I get to live tonight.

——-

In any case, and this has been a very long time coming, I’m leaving Manila. Where to, I do not know yet, but the options are as follows:

1. Bangkok - I know a lot of Scandi poker players in Bangkok and it would be the easist move, as far as international moves go. I like Bangkok, and I think 30% of the population speaks English, and as I know so many people there, it would be a fairly tilt-free existence I think.

2. Brisbane - Vos, Roy and maybe Harris are considering buying a ridiculous $2 mil pimping place in New Farm. This would be pretty fun, but Brisbane is so quiet, and whilst I love Vos, we fight a lot if we spend too much time together.

3. Buenos Aires - cons: no one speaks English at all, bill before Parliament attempting to make online poker illegal. pros: lots of expats there, recently appear to have decriminalised drugs.

4. Columbia - this one is my favourite atm. Friends of a very close friend of mine have recently moved there after spending years in Iraq (initially as special forces types, then working in private security, i.e. bodyguards). They’re opening up hostels there as they claim tourism is booming - they’ve invited my friend and I to visit once their first hostel is built and invest in one of their subsequent hostels if we like what we see, which I’m sure will be a given. Only problem is I’m not sure if my definition of “safe” is the same as theirs. I’m a wimp and they are like SAS Iraq veterans so….

Pros for Columbia: This blog will get a WHOLE lot more interesting fast….

Cons for Columbia: I might die.

———–

For getting to the end of this long post, I reward you with 2 min of Ricky Gervais and Clive Owen awesomeness:

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