Finding God a little hard to read

I’ve been meaning to post for a while but just haven’t got round to it, so here’s a ‘quick’ update on things.

Omaha.

It’s all very mechanical now and a little bit boring. Can't really be arsed to play much.

1000 hands
$42.93 profit @ 107ptBBs/100

If I played at that win rate for 2k hands a day every day of every year I’d be on a $31.5k salary. Quite funny really. I wonder if 2c/5c would bring in $79k?

I do not intend to play 750,000 hands of micro stakes Omaha every year btw. But if it was a challenge on the other hand…

The players are terrible and I’ve actually started to feel bad about taking some of their money. It’s the moral equivalent of stealing a Game boy from a blind man. Obviously, it’s wasted in his hands, but am I right to take it off him? I don’t know. I suppose it depends on what games he’s got. Anyway, there’s nothing quite like scooping in a nice pot so I shall continue until guilt finally kills it I guess.

Omaha music.

I had a good look around for some more charity shop music the other day. I tried a new shop (there are a few now on Bearwood high street), Acorns, which is a Midlands-based charity that offers support to terminally ill children and their families. Okay, it’s a good cause, but £2.99 for a second hand album? Nein Danke. It’s a shame really as I did see a couple of albums I would have snapped up for 50p. They had a smashing bit of Celine Dion, an early ABBA album, and even a Bananarama greatest hits.

But I wouldn’t be seen dead walking out of an Acorns shop having donated £8.97 on three used albums. And sick irony aside, I do not see anything fun coming from that so I bode ‘good day’ to the brave till-woman and left in disappointment, shaking my head at what could have been.

I tried one other shop, equally worthy of my hard-earned money (well, blind Game boy man’s hard-earned money) but their music was similarly dear so I waltzed straight back out. I was getting a little bit impatient so resorted to Mind - ‘for better mental health’ (‘for music at crazy prices’).

I found the shelf where the 10p albums lie and, after the frustration of the previous two shops with the Bananarama near miss, I was in no mood to go riffling through the whole shelf of CDs all day. So, I took a gamble (makes a change) and picked up a handful of them at random and, without looking at them, handed them to the till-woman.

I was pretty happy with the decision until she picked up the first ‘music CD’. My face must have dropped when I saw the front cover: ‘Howards End’. For Fuck’s sake! And it’s not even the soundtrack either, it’s the full version of the 1992 ‘classic’ film adaptation of E.M. Forster’s 1910 novel of the same name. No turning back now though, I was at the till.

The second one, I could see from the back cover, was undeniably music. Thank you, God. But, if my face had already dropped from seeing the first front cover, it must have hit the counter when I saw this one: ‘The Best of Simon Cowell’. I nearly threw up. The whole thing makes me sick, it’s just horrible. It’s a News of the World promotion thing from back in the day, clearly designed for good friends Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell to help each other out and make each other richer. The greedy fuckers. It’s got a massive photo of Cowell on the front looking annoyingly smug just to add to the fucked-upness of it all.

All of this, along with the fact that 20% of the tracks are by Robson and Jerome, makes this, without doubt, the worst thing I have ever bought. Taking over the previous worst… ‘Howards End’.

The other six CDs are just your shit, run of the mill music compilations. Another 80p well spent.

Omaha 'music'

Howards End 10p
The best of Simon Cowell 10p
90's Brit 10p
The best of Paul Weller 10p
Sexual Feeling 10p
Divas 10p
RUN DMC 10p
Saturday night 5p
Sunday morning 5p
Music for summer Evenings 100p
Power of a Woman - Eternal 100p
White Ladder - David Gray 50p
Lifting me - The Corrs 50p
Memory Almost Full - Paul McCartney 10p
Word of Mouth 50p
Pop Icons 10p
1980's hits of the decades 10p
Hits of the 80's 10p
Sunday Magic 5p
3am Party 5p

Soz, getting a bit bored now so won’t have chance to explain the title of this post. Slightly lazy end but fuck it. Watched the amazing tennis final the other day, I particularly enjoyed some of the footage shown during the rain delays where the BBC somehow managed to make tennis look exciting. Was funny to see the two finalists take it in turns to recite the Kipling poem ‘If’. Nadal struggled but it was good stuff so I may as well end the post with that poem just in case you fancy a bit of a read.

Inabit.

‘If’ - Rudyard Kipling, 1895

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Just been informed that I’m now miles behind Fran in the race to $1k (I'm on $615.30 by the way, mate). I’d better not lose or I’ll kill the fucker.

Ermm... maybe I should read that poem one more time.

Happy earnings everyone.