At St Michael's Abbey next to the Susa valley near Torino Italy, I took a lot of pictures. This particular one stood out for me today because it blended old and new. The platform built up there is one that helps support an elevator shaft and a set of stairs. So a combination of present day architecture and the architecture of hundreds of years ago in one picture. Fun!
Ugh. I've been meaning to post this for a long time, but haven't gotten around to it in awhile. Of course, now that I'm editing my thesis, I can't find enough stuff to distract me from it! I am becoming increasingly annoyed at the number of people debating each other over something that to me is a no argument kind of situation. That debate is the one that pits Religion versus Science.
This point was driven home to me a few weeks ago when Richard Dawkins appeared on the Colbert Report promoting his new book "The God Delusion". Essentially he is trying to prove that God cannot exist. He admits that it is impossible to prove that God doesn't exist, but says that it is extremely unlikely that any higher power exists.
Here's what I don't understand, and maybe somebody can explain this to me. Where's the conflict? Is it so terrible to believe the scientific explanations for the formation of everything we live in and around today, but also believe that God exists? Let me explain my reasoning, and my own belief system and perhaps somebody can tell me where I go wrong. To me, science and religion play two very different roles in people's lives. Science explores the natural world and tries to explain how all the pieces fit together. Religion is a spiritual journey, where people develop and prepare their spirit through all stages of life. Don't these sound like different things?
Science has come a long way. I think part of the problem is that when science wasn't as mature, religion was used as a way of explaining and understanding the world. However, knowledge is not stationary, and now that we know more about the world, why is it necessary to stick to the past religious beliefs when the scientific explanations make sense? On the flip side, why do some scientists want to disprove God's very existence? This is impossible to do (as Dawkins does say), since God's existence is a matter of faith ... and forgive me if I'm wrong, but this seems totally outside the realm of science.
I'm not a good writer, and this is a complex issue that I don't really understand that well. My main source of confusion is why people in both camps are fighting each other when it seems so clear to me that they really aren't arguing about something that really doesn't deserve all this energy.
Of course, the relationship between science and religion is intertwined over human history which makes it hard for people to take a step back and really look at the issue. But if they could do that, maybe they'd see that they are wasting their breath and should be diverting that energy to something more important ... perhaps the environment?!
Heraldk
I finally sat down and watched this movie last night ... something I had been meaning to do for awhile, and I found a heck of a lot more compelling than I had thought it would be. To be honest, I didn't know much about Al Gore besides the whole US election in 2000 thing. There's a great deal more in the movie than I had expected, and it is greatly alarming. I think about the future with what is probably a more-than-unhealthy dose of cynicism. I'm scared of the kind of world we're gonna find ourselves in 20-50 years from now, and a movie like this certainly isn't helping me feel safer. What scares me more is how are we going to change the way the world is going? It is easy to feel powerless in a world where there are billions of people who either don't care or don't understand the problems.
I don't really know how true Gore's statements are. A brief survey of posts on the subject though seem to indicate that Gore is relatively accurate in what he says. This is scary ... very scary. If you haven't had a chance to watch the movie yet, please do, and let me know what you think.
Heraldk
Diane reminded me of this picture I took with my old camera. I looked at it and remembered that I hadn't uploaded it, and I really really like it! So here it is. This was on a trip Diane and I took to Vancouver to go to our friends Ryan and Jazz's wedding. It was a pretty cool trip. We decided to travel by car, and stopped at a couple campgrounds along the way so that we weren't driving non-stop. We also stopped to visit Diane's Aunt and Uncle in Kamloops which was really nice.
This particular picture was at one of the campgrounds we stopped at. We were there fairly early and had a chance to relax and walk around. The lake here was beautiful and I got a few nice pictures, but this one is probably the best.
So for the final catchup post in my poker bankroll building line of posts, this post will summarize my winnings for all my non-poker related bonuses. These numbers are going to look fairly impressive ... and they are, but remember that you can only do deposit bonuses at site once and then that promo is over. Very few of these have reload bonuses as good as their deposit bonuses. I started my casino bonuses at starluck casino, and busted the $100 deposit. That turned me away from online casinos for a while even though I knew they were +EV. Finally, I did the golden palace promo and made a decent amount there. Here's the list of the sites and my various profits:
Starluck casino: deposit $100, withdraw $0 Golden Palace casino: deposit $100, withdraw $290 Planetluck casino: deposit $100, withdraw $200 Intercasino (deposit bonus): deposit $100, withdraw $250 Bet 365 casino: deposit $100, withdraw $306 Victor Chandler casino: deposit $100, withdraw $0 Red Lounge: deposit $94.80, withdraw $274.48 Littlewoods casino: deposit $47.55, withdraw $0 SIA casino: deposit $100, withdraw $0 32 Vegas: deposit $200, withdraw $207 Casino on net: deposit $200, withdraw $655 Intercasino (monthly reload): deposit $100, withdraw $425 21.com: deposit $200, withdraw $200 Intercasino (monthly reload): deposit $100, withdraw $150 Party Gammon bonus: deposit $500, withdraw $600 Best poker casino: deposit $130.38, withdraw $127.57 Mansion sportsbook free bet: deposit $1100, withdraw $2100 Intercasino (monthly reload): deposit $100, withdraw $0 Intercasino (monthly reload): deposit $100, withdraw $275
All told, my profits are: $2387.42 USD
So if I add that to my current poker profits, I'm looking at over $8500 USD worth of profits and prizes plus a couple tournament buyins, one of which I won $3490 CDN!
The best part is I still enjoy doing it, though at the moment my play time has been cut due to playing WoW. Still, its fun and that's where I mean to leave it - in the fun section of my day.
Heraldk
Going back to my Italy pictures, this one is on one of the nights when we were walking around. Torino really was a fantastic city to walk around at night. It is too bad a lot of my night pictures didn't turn out. Walking around with a tripod was a tad inconvenient, but now I'm sorry I didn't do it because I could have had some incredible shots!
So Jonathan returned my thesis to me on Tuesday with modifications almost entirely fitting into the minor modifications category. So for the rest of the week I made the appropriate modifications and talked to Darse about the sections that needed a little work. So now Darse is doing a full read of my thesis and hopefully that goes well for the state of my thesis!This weekend I was notified about giving the GAMES meeting talk this week on DIVAT, so I'll be working on the presentation all this week. On the whole, however, my thesis is getting close to finished. Soon I'll be defending and then on to finding a job (scary thought).
In other news, this past week was crazy busy even though it was shortened by Thanksgiving (a Thanksgiving, I might add, that I had a dinner on each night!). On Wednesday, one of the new grad students hosted a games party with the idea of holding one on a weekly basis. I'm excited about the chance to play some of the games that don't really belong at games parties. On Thursday, Mike Smith had his free beer for successfully defending his masters thesis. So Diane and I joined him and several others for drinking beer and watching the oiler hockey game. A very exciting game, I might add! On Friday we played our second session of a Serenity RPG. Its interesting, though I'm having a little trouble getting into it.
Saturday was the games party at Michael Buro's place. It was really fun - I played three new games ... one of which was a new party game of Curtis'. Its kind of a cross between apples to apples and Balderdash. Lots of fun was had by all!
So life has been real busy lately. I'm trying really hard to keep the distractions from killing my productivity. Let's see how I do!
Heraldk
The hostel we stayed at in New York had very ... original colour choices on the walls. It made for some interesting photo opportunities, though it took me a few days before I actually wandered around to snap a few pictures. This one struck me tonight as pretty neat. I like how the light shimmers down both walls.
Diane setup some wall hangings she recently framed that she acquired in Japan. The two frames are those wall hangings, but what really makes the picture for me is the lamp and the waves of light that get cast on the wall, ceiling and across the room. Cool!
This post is going to be quite a bit more choppy than the previous ones since this is when I stopped getting physical documents and really started utilizing Neteller for maximum bonus clearing power. This is going to be a complete rundown of my bankroll building up to the present day, so it might be a little long. After this, I plan on giving an update every couple of months so that I don't fall behind like this again! So this update will be a little different than the last. I will be talking about just my poker bankroll building leaving the casino bonuses to the next post. I'm going to separate each session based on poker room rather than by dates because otherwise this will be supremely confusing to follow!
Noble Poker
PSO launched an exciting new room with a gigantic bonus (at the time) of 100% match of $500. This room was called Noble poker, and I just happened to have close to that amount in my neteller account so I deposited in April 2005. I would play there over the course of several months. I did very well very early and was able to cash out my initial desposit on June 14, and continue playing there until I had cleared my entire bonus. In the end, I made $897 plus my $60 in PSO points.
Net: $897 + $60 PSO points
Paradise Poker
During my time at Noble I also started the paradise poker promo through PSO. From my $200 deposit, I made another $80 cashing out only a week later. In addition, PSO paid me $60 in PSO points. I rather liked my experience at Paradise, so much later I would attempt a reload bonus there in November 2005. This time, however I would lose $195 ... perhaps because I had grown accustomed to having poker tracker stats of players!
Net: -$115 + $60 PSO points
Party Poker
Party Poker figures into a lot of short play segments partially because they had one of the fastest cashouts available. As a result, I would deposit there for a bonus and then withdraw via cheque to actually aquire my funds. Since then, I have been using neteller cheque withdraws since they are fast and only cost $2. This way, all my cashouts happen from the same place and are logged. The early times caused some confusion in recreating my play history!
Anyways, I played several sessions at party poker having mixed results: June 23/05: $87 profit Oct 6/05: $4 profit Apr 12/06: $150 profit (Party gave free money and I went on a nice run) Jul 13/06: $8 profit (Received a gc for a casino bonus, this was the poker play part)
Net: $249 profit
Poker Rewards
Another PSO promo with a healthy deposit bonus, I deposited $400 in Jun 2005, and cashed out $654 just a couple weeks later with yet another $60 in PSO points. Much later, I would deposit for another deposit bonus in April 2006 to qualify for a PSO freeroll. I didn't do too well on that deposit losing my bonus and $21.72 on top of that. Thankfully, the freeroll was both underpopulated and I finished in the top 20 which paid my $200.
Net: $832.28 + $60 PSO points
Ultimate Bet
This is my rakeback room, so I would play here many times, but not for very long segments since I jumped around to do new PSO promotions as they popped up. This is a very confusing thing to track as well because I deposited several times in order to rack up deposit bonuses that don't expire. I still have a lot of bonus money to clear there! I made deposits in Jun/05, Dec/05, Feb/06, and Apr/06, and to this day still have money in that account. I did not play well there though, and frustratingly saw net losses at several points. Thankfully, that seems to have turned around the last time I was there plus all the rakeback I've received.
June/05: -$32.90 losses Dec/05-Feb/06: -$67.76 losses Apr/06-present: $130 profit PSO Rakeback: $147 in PSO points
Net: $29.34 + $147 in PSO points + 1 poker book from player points
Aztec Poker
This is another rakeback room that I started because I was I wanted some variety for my rakeback rooms. I didn't play there much because I ended up not liking the room very much, and ended with slight losses Net: -$16.05 losses + neglible PSO points
Full Tilt Poker
Probably one of my favourite online poker rooms so far, I have played for many months at Full Tilt enjoying fairly decent success. It is the room where I moved up to 2/4 limit eventually and started winning regularly there. I probably still make many errors, but between the deposit bonuses and my small winning rate I turned a neat profit. I'm disappointed that I don't have rakeback there, or I would play there more often. Even now, I still like to go back there. I played there enough that I saved enough player points for a very snazzy micro-suede full tilt jacket.
Jul/05-Nov/05: $607 profit + $60 in PSO points Jan/06-Feb/06: $201 profit Apr/06-Jun/06: $250.35 profit Jun/06-Aug/06: $425.45 profit
Net: $1483.80 profit + $60 PSO points + 1 micro-suede jacket
Titan Poker
After my success with Noble Poker, I was enthused about having another shot at it when it was rebranded Titan poker and re-available as a PSO promotion in Sep/05. This time, however, I did not enjoy the same success and ended up losing $72 on the deal. Fortunately, the PSO bonus was $90 in PSO points, so I barely gained on the promo.
Net: -$72 losses + $90 PSO points
Sun Poker
Another PSO promo I attempted in Oct/05, this one I eeked out a profit on even though I didn't like the site due to the lack of tables to play at. It did however get me my very first and so far only royal flush!
Net: $24 + $60 PSO points
Absolute Poker
I returned to Absolute to play in the PSO league that happened earlier this year. I did well in the first league event, but after that played rather poorly and stopped playing after it became clear I wasn't going to be able to compete for the big prizes. In ring game play I also did rather poorly, so I cashed out with a $70 loss.
Net: -$70 losses
Pokerroom
Pokerroom was the very first room I got a start with way back when, but I never deposited any money there. I learned from PSO that if I had them close my account, I could open a new one through PSO 6 months later and take advantage of the PSO bonus. In Apr/06 this period had passed so I deposited and made a decent $198 profit plus my PSO bonus
Net: $198 + $90 PSO points
Pokershare
Pokershare was the newest PSO promo in Jun/06 and it is by far the worst I've done on any promo. Unfortunately, there was almost no limit action there so I was either forced to play 2/4 shorthanded or no limit both of which were not comfortable games for me at the time (and still at the moment). I managed to get through the promo losing $138 which was countered with the $90 PSO bonus.
Net: -$138 losses + $90 PSO bonus
Dream Poker
Dream poker is currently the newest PSO bonus room, and I finally took advantage of this promo in Aug/06. I deposited for the full deposit bonus, but today I cashed out having only received 1/4 of it. Being a prima poker room, I didn't like the lack of games in the evenings (since the majority of the players who play there are european). However, I made a decent profit playing 1/2 shorthanded and cashed out $124 profit plus my PSO bonus.
Net: $124 + $60 PSO bonus
PSO Referrals and Other points
My referrals kept rolling in at a regular but slow pace and I made a startling $250 in referrals since the last post. In addition, there was a forum contest that netted me another $25 in PSO points.
Net: $275 in PSO points
Totals!
Net this post: $3496.37 profit + $1052 PSO points + 1 small poker book + 1 microsueded jacket
Net Poker Winnings to date: $4582.37 USD + $3490 CAD + $1442.50 PSO points + 1000 chips + 1 poker book + 1 microsuede jacket
It isn't enough to make a living off of, but I think I've proven that I can make money at poker online. I've had some rocky patches, but that's how it goes! Thanks to WoW, I haven't been playing much online poker lately, but I intend on returning to it and learning how to play no limit well.
There will be one more post in this series that summarizes my online casino bonus gathering. I've been pretty successful at that too, so I look forward to showing how profitable that can be!
Heraldk
I suppose everybody has an empire state building photo. I suppose that most have a better one than this one. But for some reason I felt like uploading this picture this week. I kind of like the angle, though I'm sure it's been done before!
In other news, my flickr stream has seen over 400 views!
... as we know it? PartyGaming has just announced that due to the internet gambling law that passed through in the US Senate, they are banning US players from real money play. Shares so far today have slid 62%, and I can totally see them dropping even more.
What does this mean for online poker? Well, a huge chunk of online poker players come from the states meaning that the amount of players to play during hours that I play will be dramatically cut. In order to get any sort of competition, I'd have to logon in the morning and play when players in europe are playing late at night there.
I really wonder where the industry goes from here. The US government is being incredibly stupid about the whole thing ... but be that as it may, there's not a lot that we in Canada can do about this. It just sucks to see the entire industry take such a beating because certain people in the US government think that they should "protect" people from the evils of gambling. To be honest, I don't know that much about why they are actually banning it in the first place but whatever the reason, I can't see it being a better argument than this superfluous one. I'm aware that there is political motivation behind this, but I honestly can't understand how one gains political prestige by bringing in ways to stifle people's freedoms (in supposedly a free country).
Anyways, we'll see where this goes I guess. I don't think there's much I can do about is so I'll just watch!
Heraldk
On the trip to Toronto and eventually Boston, this was a little later than the early sunrise picture I posted awhile ago entitled "Good Morning Canada". I took several pictures like this but ran into trouble in all but this one when the glare from the sun showed the flaws in the glass on the older Air Canada plane window. In this shot, I used the wing to cover the sun - resulting in a surprisingly pleasing photo with the sun rays casting over the clouds and dispelling the darkness in the sky.
In a lot of ways, I wish I had grabbed a shot like this earlier when the sun wouldn't cause the glass to ruin the shot. I'm not entirely pleased with the airplane wing in the shot, but there wasn't really any other options!
Well it's done and everything seems to have moved fairly smoothly. If you notice any issues, please let me know because they aren't immediately obvious to me. This move signals the first time I pay for web hosting for my blog/website. This is made possible via a really cool webhosting company called nearlyfreespeech that lets you run your website for what seems like really really cheap. Their hole philosophy is very agreeable and if you are looking for a place to host a site, I recommend checking them out!
As a result of starting to pay for webhosting, you may see the return of google ads in more prominent spaces. I'm not certain that I'll do that just yet, but be forwarned. If they do return, I'd appreciate a few clicks since a regular google ad income should *easily* pay for the hosting fees.
And that's all from me for now. Back to my thesis!
Heraldk
I'm moving my webpage and blog (again)! This time there isn't anything you have to do. The urls should just work like before, but my blog is going to experience some downtime as I get ready for the transfer. Just so you know, you'll probably have a couple of days where you can't read my ever so exciting blog! But never fear, I will be back!
See you in a little while.
Heraldk
On our first night in Boston, we enjoyed a very tasty meal at a restaurant that was perhaps not the fanciest place, but I really enjoyed my food! I have never had shrimp or scallops that tasted so good or were so large before in my life, and I look forward to having a chance to do so again!
After dinner, I tried a couple shots from the patio we ate dinner on, and this one turned out rather well I thought. It was getting towards sunset, and it made for a cool contrast in colours in the sky.
Sometimes, I shudder at the state of humankind. Last night I played a late rec-soccer game on the Lister Hall fields. Our team plays in the semi-competitive division of the intramurals and were obviously outclassed against the team we played against. Fine, that's all fine and dandy. It was tied 1-1 after the first half but then the other team scored 5 unanswered goals to win the game. Good for them.
But it was the actions of a couple of their team members that really had me shaking my head. One of the players in particular, wearing a Beckham soccer shirt nattered throughout the second half ... including comments involving the word "pussy" and stuff like "I don't want to make you guys cry". Well, I'm crying all right ... crying out that something isn't right. It is a friggin' rec soccer league! These actions don't belong in a rec soccer league ... one that has in its name "recreation" (I would argue these comments don't belong in any league).
One of the guys on our team commented that I must not play much soccer. He said that this sort of thing is normal. Why the hell is something like this considered normal? It makes me seethe with rage that for all I can tell is impotent. What exactly am I going to say that will change things? Nothing. In fact, anything I say will just be mocked with more of the same. Ugh. I enjoy playing soccer for fun and some good natured competition, but when players make it a place to act with unsportsmanlike qualities, I stop having fun and start wondering what's going on.
Heraldk
for the lack of updates. Between all the hectic things going on, I haven't had much of a chance to actually post anything of interest in the last little while. Let me summarize what I've been up to, and I'll promise to try and get some more posts up. I want to finish my bankroll building series before too long because the longer I leave it the harder it will be to sift through my neteller transaction history to determine what I won and lost where! Anyways, so my most recent news posted was my iPod purchase which I have already received. The entire process lasted a week from clicking the "purchase" button to arrival of my new electronic gizmo. I submitted my order last wednesday, it shipped on Friday with the free engraved personalization already completed. It left Shanhai, CN (I assume that means China??!) and arrived at my place Tuesday afternoon! Incredible. I love it already by the way. It is nice having more than enough room for all my music plus some space to cart files around if I wanted!
My thesis is coming slowly. Jonathan has read a draft of my thesis that was missing a couple of sections. He is now expecting a draft for the 4th of October that has all the sections complete. This is a deadline that I'm hoping to meet, but there's been some other distractions working against me. The one in particular (no, it isn't WoW ... I only play that in the evenings) is the condo builders have finally started working on the deficiencies and warranty work in my condo! This is super exciting for me because finally I won't have to deal with the problems that have been particularly annoying for me. The carpet has been patched so it is no longer an eyesore, the t-caps between carpet and lino have been installed finally so those transition areas look finished and no longer hurt people's feet. Now the wall patches are being done and a significant change to my kitchen view is also being done! So things are happening very nicely on that front. However, this means I have to "work" from home while the people from Clark builders come and fix up my place. Of course this means I either have the distractions of my computer and the internet in front of me, or I'm watching the repairs being done to make sure I like how they are done (plus I like to think it's a good idea to watch and learn how they do some things).
So that's what I've been up to. I need to run to a CS games meeting. There were a couple other things that happened that I want to write about, but they will have to wait until later I guess.
Heraldk
In St Michael's Abbey in Italy, there's some very neat stuff to look at. There's paintings on the wall, a real life choir singing in a corner, and these lit candles next to the window. Personally, I really like this photo though perhaps I am biased because it is one of the few photos I took inside the abbey that actually turned out.
I have purchased a new iPod. Thanks to that $1K winnings from the mansion risk-free bet, I decided that I needed a new iPod. My previous (and first) one has now reached the point where its battery doesn't last a full day's worth of writing-my-thesis time. Between that and Tuesday's announcement of the new 80 GB iPod, I just had to purchase one.
So yesterday I placed my order for a brand new 80 GB black iPod with custom engraving provided for no extra cost. It should ship early next week and be in my hot little hands in about 2 weeks total. Hooray!
Yesterday, I was playing with my music library in iTunes 7. The new iTunes has some pretty nice features two of which I like a whole lot. The first is automatic downloading of album art. This is such a cool feature that now I needed to double check *all* my album tags to make sure that they all have the correct album and also add the album art for all the songs that iTunes couldn't find the art for. I think I made it up to 'D' in my library before I had to head out for the night. It's gonna take me awhile to get through my library! The other feature I really really like is one called "gapless playback". This automatically does a scan of your library and makes sure it knows if two tracks should be played with no gaps. I don't know how the software works, but it is damn cool. No more gap between the Rhapsody songs "Epicus Furor" and "Emerald Sword"!
What I don't like? iTunes 7 seems to have broken the scroll wheel functionality ... at least on my windows computer. No longer can I scroll down my list of songs with my mouse scroll wheel. Since I've gotten so used to doing it, this is really really annoying for me and I really hope they fix it soon. Also, they've managed to make iTunes take even more memory which is annoying because yesterday I found it running with over 70 MB of memory. Why does it take up that much? It's just a music player! Worse yet, for the first time ever, iTunes' playback was crackling when I was doing something else on the computer. It wasn't even something all that intensive... just opening up new tabs in firefox!
Ugh. So I hope they fix these issues soon - the release is quite nice and I'm pretty happy with some of the new features. I just hope they have these issues fixed before I get too annoyed with it.
Heraldk