Day 96
Last night there was a very rare and unusual occurrence.
Quite obviously this doesn’t relate to your diarist winning an online poker tournament as this would be stretching even the most vivid of imaginations but we did have an earthquake.
To many readers living in areas of the World prone to such events this will not be regarded as that much of a big deal. However, in England it’s quite exceptional.
Apparently the epicentre was in a town called Market Rasen where usually the most exciting thing to happen is a loose cow running down the High Street or an old lady’s cat being run over by a tractor. From the reaction of the media you might easily have thought every building in the country had been reduced to a pile of rubble but from what I can ascertain, the damage was limited to a few tiles sliding off a roof and an unstable wall falling over that was already condemned for demolition.
As I live more than 100 miles from the quake, the major shockwave felt slightly less un-nerving than mild gust of wind..
I was stretched out on the sofa during the event with a laptop on my chest demonstrating my dreadful prowess at the poker tables and was far more interested in the antics of the other players and to be honest, I hardly noticed it.
Initially I thought a fart may have unwittingly slipped out and reverberated up my backbone or far worse, Mrs. Snowman had let one go in her sleep and the bed had juddered a few inches across the bedroom floor.
The last time I was in a position to feel such a thing was a few years ago when I was in Los Angeles on vacation. I was relaxing in a hotel bar and the ground shook, in fact I thought the whole building was about to come down. I jumped up from my seat like someone had stuck a safety pin in my backside while everyone else carried on as though nothing had happened.
I strode to the bar to order another fortifying drink thereby helping me get over the experience and the barman furrowed his eyebrows in thought for a moment and said calmly “Four point two”. There was no mention of it in any form of media.
The English morning papers reporting on yesterday’s occurrence were full to the brim of hastily complied tabloid banner headlines, each competing with each other to try (quite unsuccessfully) and print a humorous one saying the earth shook for a couple in the throws of sexual activity.
I would like to report that today’s poker was also an earth shattering and groundbreaking show of brilliance. As usual I can’t.
Once more I turned my attention to the tournaments rather than the sit and go games and started with a $2.20 investment. I played quite well and after nearly four hours of hanging on by my fingertips found myself in the money...and my winnings? $3.32. Even though I only made a profit of $1.23, I still consider it progress…just.
Fortified by the victory I decided to up the stakes and have a go at a $5.50 tournament. With hindsight I should have stopped playing after the win and been satisfied with a profit on the day but sadly I’m not that sensible. This time I played for just over two hours before the inevitable stupid play saw me eliminated trying to bluff an Ace against the most obvious flush in poker history. You may think this was sufficient for your reporter to throw in the towel and finally admit defeat but instead I upped the ante once more and entered an $11 tourney.
I won’t give you the sordid details.
What I will give you the particulars on however is a purchase made for me by Mrs. Snowman. A couple of weeks ago while she was doing some washing, she noticed a loud knocking sound coming from the machine. Rather than a mechanical fault, she’d neglected to check any of the pockets in the clothing and my cell phone was getting a bath. Although it came out spotlessly clean it was also completely inoperable.
A replacement was therefore needed and today she got it for me.
My idea of a cell phone is a simple device that is able to make calls, receive calls and possess the ability to get the occasional text message. Therefore I usually opt for the cheapest model available and upgrade it every ten years or so.
This one has a camera, games, MP3 music player, calculator and even better a mpg facility. I am now able to take short movies of myself and broadcast them to my friends around the planet. I’ve already tried it out and the resolution is great!
Although I’m sure I don’t need to tell you which part of my anatomy took the starring role in my first production, I can tell you the wife is in for a hell of a surprise when I send it to her at work on Monday morning. I’m only hoping she’ll recognize it.
It looks like a very short nosed elephant wearing a curly wig.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $38.53
Quite obviously this doesn’t relate to your diarist winning an online poker tournament as this would be stretching even the most vivid of imaginations but we did have an earthquake.
To many readers living in areas of the World prone to such events this will not be regarded as that much of a big deal. However, in England it’s quite exceptional.
Apparently the epicentre was in a town called Market Rasen where usually the most exciting thing to happen is a loose cow running down the High Street or an old lady’s cat being run over by a tractor. From the reaction of the media you might easily have thought every building in the country had been reduced to a pile of rubble but from what I can ascertain, the damage was limited to a few tiles sliding off a roof and an unstable wall falling over that was already condemned for demolition.
As I live more than 100 miles from the quake, the major shockwave felt slightly less un-nerving than mild gust of wind..
I was stretched out on the sofa during the event with a laptop on my chest demonstrating my dreadful prowess at the poker tables and was far more interested in the antics of the other players and to be honest, I hardly noticed it.
Initially I thought a fart may have unwittingly slipped out and reverberated up my backbone or far worse, Mrs. Snowman had let one go in her sleep and the bed had juddered a few inches across the bedroom floor.
The last time I was in a position to feel such a thing was a few years ago when I was in Los Angeles on vacation. I was relaxing in a hotel bar and the ground shook, in fact I thought the whole building was about to come down. I jumped up from my seat like someone had stuck a safety pin in my backside while everyone else carried on as though nothing had happened.
I strode to the bar to order another fortifying drink thereby helping me get over the experience and the barman furrowed his eyebrows in thought for a moment and said calmly “Four point two”. There was no mention of it in any form of media.
The English morning papers reporting on yesterday’s occurrence were full to the brim of hastily complied tabloid banner headlines, each competing with each other to try (quite unsuccessfully) and print a humorous one saying the earth shook for a couple in the throws of sexual activity.
I would like to report that today’s poker was also an earth shattering and groundbreaking show of brilliance. As usual I can’t.
Once more I turned my attention to the tournaments rather than the sit and go games and started with a $2.20 investment. I played quite well and after nearly four hours of hanging on by my fingertips found myself in the money...and my winnings? $3.32. Even though I only made a profit of $1.23, I still consider it progress…just.
Fortified by the victory I decided to up the stakes and have a go at a $5.50 tournament. With hindsight I should have stopped playing after the win and been satisfied with a profit on the day but sadly I’m not that sensible. This time I played for just over two hours before the inevitable stupid play saw me eliminated trying to bluff an Ace against the most obvious flush in poker history. You may think this was sufficient for your reporter to throw in the towel and finally admit defeat but instead I upped the ante once more and entered an $11 tourney.
I won’t give you the sordid details.
What I will give you the particulars on however is a purchase made for me by Mrs. Snowman. A couple of weeks ago while she was doing some washing, she noticed a loud knocking sound coming from the machine. Rather than a mechanical fault, she’d neglected to check any of the pockets in the clothing and my cell phone was getting a bath. Although it came out spotlessly clean it was also completely inoperable.
A replacement was therefore needed and today she got it for me.
My idea of a cell phone is a simple device that is able to make calls, receive calls and possess the ability to get the occasional text message. Therefore I usually opt for the cheapest model available and upgrade it every ten years or so.
This one has a camera, games, MP3 music player, calculator and even better a mpg facility. I am now able to take short movies of myself and broadcast them to my friends around the planet. I’ve already tried it out and the resolution is great!
Although I’m sure I don’t need to tell you which part of my anatomy took the starring role in my first production, I can tell you the wife is in for a hell of a surprise when I send it to her at work on Monday morning. I’m only hoping she’ll recognize it.
It looks like a very short nosed elephant wearing a curly wig.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $38.53