The Writing Game

Natalie: Hello, David. I mean "sir". Shit, I can't believe I've just said that. Oh and now I've gone and said "shit" - twice. I'm so sorry, sir.
Prime Minister: It's fine, it's fine. You could've said "fuck", and then we'd have been in real trouble.
Natalie: Thank you, sir. I did have an awful premonition that I was going to fuck up the first day. Oh piss-it!

”Love Actually”

Here’s a quick tip for all you Alpha Males out there – if you are required to watch a “chick flick” for either payment of past sins or as a down payment on future ones, take “Love Actually”. It’s hard to come by a romance movie with some decent laughs in it. You’ll love Colin the English boy with a hankering for some American loving, even if his total screen time is about 4 minutes. And if you get through right to the end, you get to see a quick cameo by the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, Shannon Elizabeth, doing one of the worst accents of all time.

I also won a bet with that movie, as our flat mate is in love with Elisha Cuthbert, and I said she was in this movie. She is, again for all of two seconds, but there none the less. I’m a big fan of cameos, as I have said before.

While on the film front, there has been some movement with the script we have finished. I’m sure everybody can understand it’s not easy getting started in any industry, let alone the writing one. Especially so in Australia, where it is mainly a Government funded industry and commercial viability of films is extremely limited. The commercial viability of individuals isn’t, but films themselves are. Anyway, we may have some very promising news coming through soon, so stay tuned.

Got the old PC back last night, and I think the IT guy fixed about 90% of the problems. There are still some pop ups and shit floating on there, but most of the nastiest stuff has been removed. Which means I must dive back into poker ASAP, and continue on my bonus whoring ways…

I have started a new bonus at Paradise Poker, which most people would be familiar with. Again, this is through Poker Source Online and I have to clear 750 raked hands. The good news they define a raked hand the same as Party, meaning you don’t have to contribute to the pot to have it count (but it does have to be raked 25c, meaning a $5 minimum pot. No big deal.).

I started out well and took a nice pot when my two pair was bigger than somebody elses, but then saw no cards for the rest of the night and ended up down just a few dollars. I’m not sure about the layout yet, it has it’s good points and it’s bad.

I’d like to increase my poker DVD collection, as due to not having cable TV in the house at the moment, there is zero poker on our set. I have a copy of the 2003 WSOP Main Event, where Moneymaker won, but you really can’t watch the same tournament too many times before it gets boring. I’m thinking about sending this one off to eBay in the very near future. Through Poker Source Online, I see that you can get the WPT series one, which seems like a good little bonus to pick up on, and one that I will probably take here. I wonder why they don’t have series 2 or 3 up there yet? The PSO store is looking a little light these days, some of Duggle’s card protectors would be awesome there. Can’t remember if he said they were working on that or not.

It’s a good business they have going there – I guess they get about $100 per sign up (which seems pretty standard for this kind of thing) and then they give out $60 plus postage worth of stuff. Hey, I’m happy with that, and good to see they are/should be making a half decent profit margin from all this.

Free stuff rocks. Yeah, free stuff and Quads: they both rock.

I was also fortunate enough to be loaned a copy of Doyle Brunson’s book of poker articles that was re-published in the last few years – but the name of it escapes me for the moment, “According to Doyle” or something like that. I think it was re-named in the reprint. Anyways, cut to the chase: It’s a book basically of poker stories from the man himself. Very informative, interesting and funny stuff – highly recommend it. I’ve even found myself re-telling the stories to my non-poker friends who get a laugh out of it. It makes me wonder why there aren’t more of this style of poker book out on the market – I mean how many poker blogs are there? Granted, hand histories and “I made/loss this much last night” stories are abound and would suck as a book, but surely the illegal card rooms, the late night rampages, the SoCo fuelled blind raising antics and the rise and rise of poker professionals would make an interesting read. I remember when Mick Foley, former professional wrestler, wrote his auto-biography (still the best one I’ve ever read). There had been wrestler books before his, but not many and none anywhere near as successful. After the book made number one on the New York Times bestseller list, every second wrestler was releasing a book (for better or worse – usually much, much worse).

I wonder how long it will be before poker pros get onto this idea. I’m sure there must be a few out there that I am unaware of – but none that have really captured a wide audience beyond the already poker minded punters. Am I over-estimating the value of their stories? Are the poker pro’s now days just casino hopping, playing hand after hand against nameless tourists and business men until they win a bracelet?

Sure, there are plenty of them who will put their name to a strategy book or DVD. Some good, some bad. But why haven’t they gone down the biography line? Maybe as the profile of poker and their champions life, the urge will become greater for the characters (and the dollars too I guess.). I mean, out of everyone reading here, who wouldn’t fork over some hard earned to read Armarillo Slim’s life story, or Johnny Chan’s book entilled “Getting bluffed by Mickey McDermott”. And you have to believe that Phil Hellmuth would love to write his book.

Ok, so maybe some of the pros would be better of leaving their life stories in the past. As much as I admire him as a player, Howard Lederer can be pretty dry at times. I’m sure other players story of “Made shit loads in business, now I play poker” would be equally uninteresting. I’m sure it is just a matter of time though before all this comes to fruition.

To finish off this rambling post, I have to say that I now read Pauly’s WSOP blog at least 3 times a day. Seriously, this is becoming a highlight of my working week and I look forward to finding out how he fares at his “Redneck Riviera” and in the WSOP itself. I see something really big coming out of this for the good Doctor, and be sure that he deserves everything that is coming his way.