Modish idioms

‘I get a check on Friday, but its already spent’ – Huey Lewis & The News, Workin’ for a Livin’

Why don’t 6.5 hours of sleep leave me feeling 80% as rested as 8 hours?

Are 3 cups of tea by 11am too many?

Why do I always read 3 books at once? Currently; a book about betting exchanges, Allen Carr’s classic giving up smoking primer plus a biography of snooker legend Alex Higgins (who knows both betting and smoking pretty well).

As for the poker, I had a lovely session of PLO8 on Monday night in which I hit a few cards, played with admirable patience and discipline and made a key bluff for a big pot (position, let me count the ways I love thee). It seemed I might have staved off the need to make a deposit.

Last night I sat down with that slightly recovered bankroll and proceeded to play like a dick. First, I got involved in some needle. I wanted a guy with a decent stack to stay at the table when he was promising to leave any moment, got under his skin slightly (good) and proceeded to let the needle spill over into paying him off when I shouldn’t have (bad). Then I continued to pay other people off when the river went bad, throwing chips away like spent bus tickets because I refused to accept the cards could have gone against me so bad – that’s tilt on one level or another.

I lost the exact same amount I won the previous night, leaving me needing to make a deposit after all. I did get unlucky too; I got involved in a large heads-up pot with a genuine idiot and had a nice freeroll on him when we went all-in on the flop. Unfortunately he hit his slim draw for high so I only got half.

The two contrasting days have illustrated the effect my results can have on my mood. Yesterday, having gone to bed on a great win, I felt alive and the world seemed bursting with possibility; ‘yay, I know how to play and one day I will build the bankroll for a few months and give going pro another shot’. Today, having played like shit and seen more evidence that I am never going to be one of those super-lucky players you do come across, I feel trapped forever in mundanity.

My plan now is to deposit quite a large amount (for me) into my account this week and go for it – play with guts, raise more, make sure I don’t leave chips on the table; shit or bust.

My other plan is to somehow cure my country of the linguistic disease that has infected so many people of the generation now in their mid twenties. They end every sentence on an up-note? Like it’s a question? And it irritates me beyond belief. I have no such problem with many other modish idioms - I’m so, like, whatever – and I think what bugs me about this one is that it seems to convey a total lack of confidence on the part of the speaker. Every statement seems to be in doubt; the speaker appears to be desperately seeking approval and validation for every single thing they say.

Finally; my beloved Patriots made the Superbowl again. Three times in four years. I have suffered enough pain as a sports fan to know that sequences like this come along once in a lifetime and you have to make sure you enjoy every minute. Now I just have to inveigle a friend with satellite TV into letting me commandeer their lounge for four hours on Sunday week.