Location: St. Julian’s, Malta
So…Jaka didn’t take it down. I don’t know what happened. The stars were all aligned, and I was positive it was his time, but it looks like he will have to wait to get his first clear major live title win.
I’m sure he’s disappointed still, and I can’t blame him. It’s hard to explain to normal people how you could be upset when you still make so much money, yet when this has been your passion for years and all you have ever dreamed about is taking down a major title…it’s hard to handle when you come so close and don’t finish the job. It’s hard when you hold the chips. It’s hard when you play with the guy who eventually wins and you feel you had an edge on him, and you know had the cards broken just a little differently you’d be the one holding that trophy.
Still, we all know it’s silly deep down, and once the initial disappointment goes away you realize had the cards broken slightly differently you might have had another wash out summer. You gotta take what you can get.
Jaka is one of the best tournament players I know. Watching him play got me to try and open up my game more and more, and I don’t think I’d be doing as well as I have been lately if it hadn’t been for seeing how much fun he was having destroying every table he was on.
He just doesn’t care what’s conventional. He goes with what he believes is right. He trusts himself so much, yet he still is open minded and wants to learn about everyone’s game.
I’m done mancrushing for now but seriously, Jaka leads by example. He is polite and professional to everyone he talks to, and has put in a ton of hours over the years. Out of the hundreds of people I’ve met on the tournament trail he has impressed me the most. He deserves the $1.2 million he made this summer, and its great to see him finally come out and make some noise at these tournaments.
***
I haven’t been doing shit lately. Reading a lot into Barack Obama’s health care bill. I personally am subscribing more and more to the notion that a government shouldn’t provide you anything, but also should take very little of your paycheck for taxes if they do that. I don’t believe it’s healthy to a populace to condition them to the idea that the government is going to take care of you.
That being said if you are going to charge as much as you are in taxes as the United States wants to its a fucking embarrassment how little we provide our citizens in the realm of health care, not to mention how broken and backwards our education system is.
The real answer in my mind is not forcing the rich to pay the bill but instead a complete restructuring in Washington, with an eye towards wasteful spending. That of course will never happen in my lifetime, given how deep the corruption goes in Washington, and how deeply embedded the corporate lobbyists are allowed to be in our system.
I don’t think you’ll ever see America be as powerful as we once were.
I haven’t met anyone who has visited America and has not enjoyed themselves, and I am proud of my lineage, but I have no desire to raise my children in the United States. McCain isn’t a down home American and Obama’s no fucking messiah. Really well organized groups seek to further their own interests and make them out to be that way, just like in any political system. In America there is a lot to gain by having control over Washington.
My only goal is to get a country that has no power, but seems to have an okay reign over its country. I just want to do my own thing and raise my children in a land devoid of the anti-intellectualism that is so profound in my home country.
Hope that wasn’t too soapboxy. Just was what was on my mind.
Oh and fucktard. Yeah, you, the one with the Budweiser can. I know, I know, ‘if you don’t like this country you can giiiiiit out.” I did. I’m still allowed to speak my mind, so fuck off.
Not much else really going on with me. I am waking, swimming, jogging, writing, and chilling. Not playing poker at all. I wanted to see Malta some more this time around but that hasn’t happened.
Buki wanted to visit Amsterdam so I am going to do that with him here soon. I’m supposed to be there tomorrow and I haven’t booked my ticket. I’m not really worried though, tickets from Malta are only about $280.00. If I wait it might go up by $50.00. We’re hoping to take trains on down to the Italian Poker Tour. Shit, I haven’t bought into that yet either. I think I finally have VIP status that allows me to not have to beg to buy in with W$. Don’t think I’ll be losing much in sponsorship opportunities if I agree to wears Stars merchandise during the event at this one.
My time here has been relaxing. Yesterday I just wrote and worked out, then went and hung out with Lauri and Angel. We ended up on that rooftop area again, getting in trouble because I might’ve sparked up something I shouldn’t have, smoking hookah, drinking, chilling with some Russian girls.
Since I’m the most awkward fuck known to man I knocked over a hookah and got a burning debris or two on this girl, and then a coal on the cushion. Then as I was getting up to let the guy in to clean up things I knocked over another drink at somebody else’s table. Lol/sigh. I suck.
I guess it could have been a lot worse. The coal could’ve landed right on the girl’s bare legs, the coal could’ve lit something on fire. I thought I cock blocked the shit out of my friend, but the girls ended up coming back after the girl cleaned up. I bought a drink for the group whose drink I knocked over, and we actually even got to talking with them after a while. Everybody was cool.
That’s why I like that environment. Tranquilo. I like just lounging, smoking a little, sipping on a drink, stars, a girl next to me. I’m a neurotic mess and if I drink a ton that just turns my noise up. It’s fine I just can’t do it all the time.
This lifestyle just effects me so positively. Sure there’s bad days, and my own mood swings to deal with, but having my friends, being financially secure, and living in this place has helped me so much. My game has grown in leaps and bounds in the last year, and my writing is just coming so well. There isn’t that mental block in my mind that was there was before, that exhaustion, that stress, that paranoia, the feeling of always trying to get somewhere…some final destination which always alludes me. I gave up. And it was beautiful. I just became myself.
Fuck the rules, fuck what anyone tells you that you have to be. Get your own.
I’m going to go jog now that it’s not so hot. Then come home and book my flight and get the W$ in my account to pay for IPT, then figure out if I can bring weed from Amsterdam down to Italy and hopefully Malta.
I dropped this external hard drive ten feet onto cement. The thing has rattling pieces in it. Somehow I managed to barely get it going and salvage all 30,000 of my mp3s and all my pictures from the last two years. How good do I run?