"Man is stupid, you know, phenomenally stupid; or rather he is not at all stupid, but he is so ungrateful that you could not find another like him in all creation. I, for instance, would not be in the least surprised if all of a sudden, a propos of nothing, in the midst of general prosperity a gentleman with an ignoble, or rather with a reactionary and ironical, countenance were to arise and, putting his arms akimbo, say to us all: 'I say, gentlemen, hadn't we better kick over the whole show and scatter rationalism to the winds, simply to send these logarithms to the devil, and to enable us to live once more at our own sweet foolish will!' That again would not matter, but what is annoying is that he would be sure to find followers- such is the nature of man. And all that for the most foolish reason, which, one would think, was hardly worth mentioning: that is, that man everywhere and at all times, whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he chose and not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated." - Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground Ahh those continental philosophers and Existentialists sure can sum up my poker quest and the hardships I suffer for it better than I can. I had a few moments of absurdity that I wanted to share with you, caused by my particular "advantage"...or perhaps disadvantage so to speak. So on the 22nd of this month, I decided to take the rest of the month off from poker and start afresh next month. I had enough for next month's round of bills and rent, so it looked like an ok spot to take a break. However, my cashflow stops, i.e. no new way of making money. This presented me with an interesting living arrangement, namely that after my roommate cashed my electricity bill check, I have $4.91 in my bank account. I have money online from my last rakeback that I withdrew, but I screwed up on the cashout from Neteller, so it'll be a few days even from now until it reaches me. Also, my only credit card that has juice left on it is expired, and it'll be a while before I get the new one, since I hadn't bothered to update my information since I moved, and they tried to send it to the old apartment. So having no money, I've spent alot of time at home, playing video games, and uh, sleeping. And as I told my girlfriend (thank god I already had a girlfriend, before this fiasco), since I haven't really been concentrating much on hobbies, being preoccupied with making a living at poker, I simply didn't have anything to do with myself. I started "putting myself to sleep" out of sheer boredom. Like this morning I played some boxing video game for a while, then just curled up and slept for a few hours, despite not being too tired, until Jenny woke me up. In fact, I don't really do anything aside from sleep, and hang out with Jenny, thank god for her...I need some hobbies people. Some suggestions? I even started reading philosophy again, as the above Existentialist quote illustrates. I also learned a few new guitar songs...Now I'm a pretty lazy guy already, but this new apex of slothfullness in my life has prompted Jenny to start asking me to do small things, as she fears that I won't actually do them on my own, and I'm talking about things even lazy ol' Eston would have done in the past without being asked. But then again, I haven't showered in a few days, and haven't even brushed my teeth yet haha. A few more specific stories from my new non-poker existence: 1) Playing three days straight of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was nuts. It started taking over my real world existence. Since I hadn't done anything in a while, I hadn't driven anywhere, so when I finally did, it felt really weird...because I HAD been driving alot in the world of GTA. So I was doing crazy things like cutting people off, and generally having a wild disregard for my own safety and my car's safety...since hey...if you flip and "die" you just reload, or if you slam into a tree, you just hop out and jack a newer, better car, right? This culminated in me zooming up to a 90 degree turn going around 30 mph, and trying to do a super sharp turn that is only possible in a Porsche and in the world of GTA. After almost killing myself and probably doing terrible damage to my brakes, I stopped at a light and tried to snap out of it. I also starting running everywhere instead of walking, just like you do in GTA, since walking takes too long...that's maybe not such a bad thing, since that's probably true in reality too, but it is pretty strange breaking out into sprints to the car or from one room to another... 2) In a world of such little stimulation, I found joys in other things, like I mentioned before cooking. But when I found out that the Spurs got Michael Finley, I literally shouted and jumped out of my office chair, which probably would have happend even if I weren't in bizarro world, but nonetheless, it was probably the coolest thing that's happend to me in a long time. 3) So right before I was going to take a shower, I noticed that I had taken the face wash out of the shower and put it on the counter to my bathroom (any girls who are reading this blog will appreciate this story, as it pertains to a common girl complaint). So as I was stepping towards the shower, I simultaneously reached for the face wash (Neutrogena face wash...I should get like $.50 of advertising kickback). BAD: Instead of cleanly wrapping my hand around it, I instead fumbled for it and dropped it. As a corrolary to this, it made me think that my year of poker and not much else and my last week of virtual hibernation have dulled my physical skills to a point of no return, as I didn't even really make a token effort at catching it...sort of just watched helplessly after my first failed swipe. BAD: My bathroom is setup such that the toilet is right next to the sink. WORSE: Afore-mentioned toilet is open, and recently used I might add, but flushed twice since then. Now normally, this wouldn't be such a big deal, as I would merely take it out (although I'd be slightly displeased at doing this) throw it away, and go buy a new one. But...I'm broke. I gave a brief moment to think about which of my liquid assets I could most easily sell to get some quick cash to buy some new face wash when...lo and behold, I happend to notice that the face wash's spout wasn't actually submerged! It had fallen perfectly on its back so that the spout was sticking out of the water. Now my toilet isn't exactly clean, I guess the Maids feel they do enough cleaning the rabbits' litter that they don't tend to my area. So if it had been submerged this would have still been a no brainer, despite the "clean" water in there. But I picked it out and also noticed that the top was securely fastened...so no chance of the makeup of the solution going from 2% salicylic acid and aloe to 2% salicylic acid, aloe, and 5% dirty toilet water. Washing my face with toilet water would probably run counter to the spirit of "washing." Though it would make a good Neutrogena ad.."even if mixed with TOILET WATER, Neutrogena will prevent blackheads!!!" So Choose Your Own Adventure moment: - Grimace, and put the face wash back on the shower shelf. - Ask yourself if you are fucking crazy, say aloud, "Eston, it fell in the damn toilet," and trash it. If this little blog entry sounds pathetic, I assure you it's not. It's character-building. Now, can I borrow a few bucks and some face wash???

Source: The Absurd Condition: A Poker Dreamer's Blog