Sunday, August 26, 2007
10 Easy ways to save money
1. Give up haircuts and shaving
Have you even noticed how expensive razors are these days? The
hell with it. Let everything grow, save your hard earned cash for
something worthwhile. If your job requires you to be reasonably
professional, find the cheapest razor you can buy and use it until it
starts ripping your skin off. Shave your head with it too.
2. Oil changes and air filters, who needs'em?
All of this every 3,000 miles nonsense is a total scam. How about
every 30,000? If you're going to Valvoline or Jiffy Lube, you're
getting ripped off. You could do it yourself for 1/10th the price.
But assuming you don't have the know-how, or the time, just skip it
altogether.
3. Hot water is a luxury!
And it costs money! People survived without it for ages, there's
no reason you can't get by without it now. Go turn off your hot water
heater. Or even better, go sell it. Not only will you save money on
your monthly utility bills, you'll also get some immediate cash in your
pocket, its win-win.
4. Clean houses are for the affluent and well-to-do
Clearly, you're in a tight spot. You don't need to be blowing all
your cash on soft scrub and 409. Just say the hell with it, and live
in a pig sty. Don't bother to vacuum either, that uses electricity.
5. Food is not as necessary as you might think
I've often times gone days at a time without eating, and you can
too. Buy some ramen, and eat it sparingly. If you go this route,
you'll probably want to supplement your diet with a multi-vitamin. You
can also go ahead and unplug your fridge, since you won't be purchasing
anything that needs to stay cold.
6. Poop at work
Or in some other public restroom. Use someone else's water and
toilet paper. The less you need to buy the better. If you have
irritably bowel syndrome this could really save a lot of cheese.
7. Don't tip people
First of all, if you're trying to save money you shouldn't be
going out to dinner in the first place, but if you somehow find
yourself at a restaurant, don't waste your money on tips. Those
waitresses are making at least $2.15 an hour, plenty of money to get by
as long as they follow my advice.
8. Get rid of the pets
Pets are notorious for sucking up your money. They lounge around
all day and contribute absolutely nothing to your bottom line. All they do is eat and poop. If
you're not eating on a daily basis, they shouldn't be either. Since
not feeding your pets might land you a seat next to Michael Vick, you
should probably just pawn them off on someone else who does have the
money to feed them.
9. Fleece your friends
You hang out with your friend's for a reason, and its probably not because they're total d-bags. So, why not take advanage of their kindness? Its pretty easy, just never carry any money. When you're heading out to the bars, just say you lost your ATM card, or your dog chewed up all your cash (if you haven't already gotten rid of the dog). It probably won't work forever, but it'll get you by for a little while.
10. Homelessness isn't so bad
What? Are you too proud to be homeless? Its not like you have to
sleep on the streets, just sleep in your car. Shower at work, cook
your ramen over a barrel fire, and do your laundry at the laundromat, or in the Ganges. The money you'll save on rent will be astronomical,
and you should be back on your feet in no time.
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Thursday, August 23, 2007
Poker on Xbox Live - An exercise in futility
I've taken to playing a lot of the Texas Hold'em game you can download from the Xbox Live dashboard, because I happen to have an Xbox in the bedroom, and its convenient. However, I find its pretty easy to fall asleep in the middle of a game, which never works out in my favor.
Early on after its release, I often times would start a game, and then almost immediately be announced the winner, and rake in some cash. I didn't question it, because, well, why would I?
After awhile, it seems that the Xbox Gods became aware that this was happening, and one day I just happened to have a lot less money. Oh well, I didn't earn it to begin with anyway, so no big deal. So I kept playing, because in order to get an achievement, I have to beat every tournament type in the game. Here's the break down.
Tournament
| Buy-in
| 1st Place
| Invitational
| Free
| $2000
| Regional
| $4000
| $16,000
| National
| $50,000
| $80,000
| ???
| $1,000,000?
| $Alottaloot
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So, in order to get into a regional, you need to win two invitationals at least, and then in order to get into a national, you've got to win a few regionals. I played quite a few games, and finally got my bank roll up to $53,000, just enough to get into my first National.
I started the game. It was risky, so I had to play tight because if I didn't place in the top 3 I'd be practically starting from scratch. So, the game starts, and the first hand is in progress. Right around the time the turn was thrown down, I get dropped from the game, and it tells me I've finished in 8th place. (There are only 8 players).
NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
All that time spent building up my bank roll, and I don't even get a fair shot at it. Screw you Xbox Poker!
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Monday, August 20, 2007
No limit hold'em = bye bye money
I played some of the dumbest poker I've played in a long time last weekend at Turning Stone Casino. I went with the intention of playing a few lighning poker tournaments and calling it a night. But, I decided it might be a good idea to jump on a no limit hold'em table for a bit just to see how I could do.
Things started out poorly, I sat down with the max buy in for the table, but the table had been going for awhile and I was pretty much the short stack at the table. I got raised out of almost every playable hand I had early on because I just didn't have the stacks to compete. I was quickly down to less than half of my buy-in and fading fast. So, I threw some more money on the table. I caught a run of good cards and eventually doubled up.
Then I got pocket 9's. Not the best hand ever, but not the worst either. There were two players besides myself in the hand, and one was all in from the get go. Flop was Q, 7, 5, or something like that. The guy across the table made a decent bet. I didn't think he had a queen, I figured he was trying to force me out of the pot because there was a decent amount in there already. So I just called.
Same story on the turn. Turn was junk, he raised big, I called. Finally the river, a 2 of clubs. Didn't help, didn't hurt. He went all in. I stupidly called. Of course he had a queen, I should have known that from the get go, but instead I threw away all of my money on one stupid hand. I can't help but think if I had reraised all in on the flop that he would have folded, but I guess I'll never know. Idiot!
Also, Turning Stone uses the ugliest poker clock I've ever seen. I hate it.
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Saturday, August 04, 2007
Poker Stats, Flash Poker Clock
I've been taking a look at the traffic on the site and it looks like everyone is checking out the flash poker clock, and not the windows based one. Its the opposite of what I expected, but I'll take the traffic either way.
What this means to me however is that I need to spend some more time on the flash clock. The flash clock was thrown together quickly in an effort to get the site up and running, and is clearly not the greatest piece of handiwork the world has ever seen. I'll be making some updates to it relatively soon since its clear that people are more interested in that then the one I personally spent countless hours developing. I'm not bitter, nope, not even a little. I just hope you can get some level of enjoyment out of the cobbled together flash version.
Regarding the poker stats section, progress is slow, as you may have noticed. And frankly, I had originally intended the poker stats section to be strictly for the Windows based poker clock. However! If everyone wants to use the online version and not download anything, I may have to rethink that plan.
Thoughts?
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Friday, August 03, 2007
Lightning poker, not half bad!
I had a chance to play some lightning poker at Turning Stone last weekend, and I've got to say, its not half bad! I especially like being able to see stats for everyone at the table, review the last hand played, and a variety of other nice little features.
If you're not familiar with the Lightning Poker, basically its a single table tournament. The buy-in is 30+6, and you have to put money on a card to get into the game. When you sit at the table, you swipe your card, and enter your name. Once everyone sits, you're good to go! The table is setup with 10 touchscreens around the side (One at each seat obviously), and one large screen in the middle. You do all your betting on the touch screen in front of you. To view your cards, you simply cup your hands over the screen, and the corners of the cards flip up so you can see them. If you wanted to be an idiot, you could just hold your finger on the screen to allow the other people at your table a glimpse of your pocket rockets.
In the one game I played, I was dealt pocket kings early on. I raised to 4x the big blind, and got two callers. The flop was 5, 6, 10, rainbow. The big blind went all in, and I opted to call because I had him covered by quite a bit. Turns out he had 5/6. He ended up winning the hand and the small blind kept reassuring him that he had played the hand right. Hmmm... Calling a large raise in the big blind with 5/6? That's the right way to play? I'm skeptical at best.
I also noticed that Turning Stone uses the uglies poker clock software this world has ever seen. Seriously, its terrible.
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