By Nicholas on 6/27/2006 6:07 PM

I'm short as hell this week, ya there's a shocker. My plan is to get to sleep early tonight since I have 3 conference calls tomorrow, prior to jumping on a plane for...Vegas! Yet again, legitimate business purposes. I'm still shocked at those words being in the same vacinity of "Vegas". Unfortunately (for me at least), the World Series kicked off last weekend which means that the lists will be measured in weeks. Not so much a problem though, I'm only in town for 36 hours, and I have a bunch of business to accomplish while on Nevada soil (dust?). I'm hoping to catch Linda G. and Murph while I'm in town since I've been out of touch since my last trip when we all got to hang at The Venetian. I also finally realized that I hadn't added Murph's site to my Blog list. No, that doesn't mean that I don't feel the love for any other sites out there, but I can only do so much in a day and that includes crafting a single line of HTML in a month. Look at it another way. Anne has been one of my links forever, and she has YET to call me to say thanks! I know that she's busy and all fighting the forces of evil at the New York Times (thanks again assholes). Lord knows why some concerned citizens group hasn't torched their building yet. They're more than willing to aid the enemy as has been proven on multiple occasions and then hide behind the 1st ammendment. Perhaps when they finally start publishing daily troop movements and get a couple of platoons slaughtered, then someone will finally say enough is enough. As it stands today, they're just help terrorist organizations refine their money laundering techniques. Because as we all know, there are a lot of elementary school buses in America and Johnny Abdul needs lots of coin for the C4 and detonators. Thank you, NYT!...

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By Nicholas on 6/19/2006 1:18 AM

Played with the new Samsung Q1 and ArtRage2, which is a pretty kick ass painting program that does a decent job simulating oils and canvas. The fact that the Q1 is a TabletPC with touch screen makes it really nice to paint with. I also got a riff in my head and had to drop a track, which I haven't done in quite some time. I use Reason 2.5 from Propellerhead Software, although I really should get off my ass and upgrade it to the new rev, if for no other reason (no pun intended) than to get access to the grouping feature thingy which allows you to treat multiple devices as a single unit. So I laid the track along with some voice samples that I've had lying around for what seems like 10 years. Here's the link to download page with the result of said spurt of inspiration. I.e. Free Music Download!!! I'll warn you now that it's not for everyone....

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By Nicholas on 6/11/2006 6:23 PM

I finally succumbed to my techno-lust and delivery came on Friday afternoon. THANK GOD, the Aircraft Carrier is dead! For those not in the know, the Aircraft Carrier is what I not-so lovingly referred to my 17", 947 pound work laptop. I bought the new UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC), the Samsung Q1. See pic below with the Samsung Q1 and my hand resting on the Aircraft Carrier. I can already hear my back thanking me for not lugging it around on the road anymore. Now for the kick-ass news about the new toy; it runs FULL Windows XP with Tablet PC extensions! Which means that any application that runs on your desktop. If you look closely (sorry for the crappy pic quality), I'm running Party Poker on...

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By Nicholas on 6/11/2006 5:59 PM

Made a run to Kansas City this week to do some biz and of course, check out the action. Dead as hell, but action is action when you have the fiend. 3/6 Kill game will get 'er done. We went straight from the airport since it was on the way to our hotel. How convenient! Me, Ken and Tim looking for some action on the Mighty Miss. I make like I'm going to walk into the casino, but I do notice the bars on all of the other entrances along the way...interesting. I follow a woman in line and hand the gate attendant my ID. She and the security guard make like they're about to say, "what the fuck is this?" They tell me that, "You have to get a players card right around the corner." Ok, I can live with that. I make with the card and tell the chick, "so what if I don't care about getting rated?" As if in a million years I'll give a shit about a comp for a buffet, I play Poker remember? "Oh, it's Missouri law that we have to monitor how much money you put into play", she tells me. "So, you're saying that you don't want my money?" I ask retorically. She just makes with an "I'm sorry?". Back to serious, "So how much can I put into play?" "$500 within a 2-hour period", she confirms. Guess that means there isn't any action in this joint. But I didn't figure for much to begin with....

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By Nicholas on 6/6/2006 12:33 AM

 Scary as the thought may be, apparently one of oldest friends, although we don't talk regularly these days due to distance not choice, didn't "know I was into Poker"!!! Don't ask me. We usually talk biz and tech, so somehow that escaped the equation. Again...don't ask. Mike is now a reader, or as I should probably call him "Green Dragon", based on his appropriate first mode of transportation back in the day. But I must digress to some of my favorite years. I first met Mike when I was about 12 or so and completely ingulfed by BMX Freestyle. I was always (and would remain through most of my life) the baby of the group. 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19; what's the difference, we all ride. Mike was always the coolest of cats, always willing to give a brake lever or a tire. He would lug all of us riders around to shows and spots around town in The Dragon; and he had a Quarter Pipe at his house; too fucking cool! We did the Toledo Dyno show, the Cinci Haro show, etc., refill, repeat. He even did the financing around Nelson's...

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By Nicholas on 6/6/2006 12:11 AM

I think that most of the time that I - and many other Poker authors, professionals even - try to give other players advice it falls upon deaf ears. Half of that time it falls upon ears of people thinking, "ya, if you're so smart...". The other half of the time if falls upon ears of people thinking, "why would you give away secrets if they're so profitable? Frankly, I don't make crap on this web site, so I really don't care if you read here or not. I've always been an Internet savvy guy since 1990, when I first heard of it in the summer of my Freshman year of high school. I had to wait 3 full years before I got full access to complete access to programming genus the likes have only seen email. For that, I've always felt blessed at how much knowledge IT veterans have bestowed upon myself and the world. I always likened it to Aristotle, if only he knew C, because each programmer that helped me along my way whether online or IRL (if you have to ask, you'll never know), helped me along my life's path to greater understanding of my utmost desire in life; computers and networking. Thank you, thank you, thank you....

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By Nicholas on 6/3/2006 12:26 AM

Here are some facts from my life from age 20 till now (31)... -I am 31 this year, January 13th is my birthday. - I've worked at home for almost a decade. It's interesting in the least of senses. I have almost zero after work life since my office is seconds from my couch at 9:43 PM and there is no "office" to say, "Hey, want to grab a drink after work?" Being a single White Male does have its' downside at times. Poker tables look dramatically more social than my office after 3 days of not leaving at all.When I'm not on the road, I'm in my "office" at home. No, I don't get to sit and watch TV all day. I have a very well defined metric to gauge my work, it's called a Sales number. Hit it, you're adequate; Miss it, you're shit and fired. Blow the number out and you make pretty good money. That's the nature of my profession. Much like Poker, it's all about the number of hands that are dealt to get to the long-run. - I am a college drop-out; and pretty proud of it considering the lack of computer knowledge that I DIDN'T learn in college. I ended up knowing more going in than I would have coming out. I would have stayed in college if I was actually learning something and I quit Ohio State because I was already making around $40k a year as a Sophomore in 1994, before anyone knew that the Internet existed. I ended up leaving OSU because most of the undergrad classes were only offered during business hours. I took what I could and aced most of them, except Macro Economics, that took me 3, count 'em, 3 tries. I owned the rest of my business classes once I switched majors to Computer Information Science under the college of business, instead of my original college of engineering; which was DRAMATICALLY more difficult. Then again, I was instructed wrong by conselling and tried to cram Engineering Calculus, Engineering Chemistry, Engineering Physics and my other undergrad requirements into my Freshman year. Converting my major to Business was a complete joke compared to that engineering curriculum. Then again, I was already making as much as the job that they were "preparing" me for. It does help a GREAT deal to prepare for your life-long career religiously since the age of 10. ;-) I learned 8086 Assembly Language language when I was 15 because "I wanted to" for god's sake. Find someone that knows Assembly today in the business, we're/they're like finding the missing link fossils!!! That's the Obsessive Compulsive mentality for ya......

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