Poker in the Eye II

Last week's feline situation overshadowed a minor accomplishment, that being my first poker victory with five other live players last Tuesday night. I can honestly say I've won more money than I've lost at poker, having played simply for fun my first time, losing $10 my second time, and winning $20 my third time. I don't think I'm quite ready for the World Poker Tour yet, though. :-)

I remain obsessed with the game at this point, playing the XBox version a little each night and having bought (and started to read) a book on it. I've never been much interested in gambling before, and that's not where the obsession lies, or I'd be playing more games with real people for money. I think it's that I've figured out where the skill lies, as opposed to being just who happens to draw the best cards, and now I'm trying to understand how to manipulate that to advantage, like any other game. It's a resource management game, really, with the resource being the chips. I'm too conservative by nature to be a real gambler, but I'm just enjoying the game for what it is right now.

On other fronts, my workload has become a bit more reasonable, and I've been working a lot of extra hours to try to clean house and create a situation where I don't mind my job so much on an ongoing basis.

Creative work is on the back burner for right now while I put in extra work time, learn poker, and get essentials done around the house. That said, I ran the first session of season two of my GURPS Firefly game this past Sunday, which went well, all in all. It felt good to be in the GM's chair again (which happened to be on the floor in this case), and the players seemed to enjoy the session. It didn't work out as I'd expected (with the PCs in prison), but we did have a surprising player character death, and it did end up with them having royally ticked off the most powerful government in the 'Verse, adding an element of true danger that's been missing from the campaign up to this point. I'd been getting burned out on Firefly, which was one reason for the hiatus, but now I'm excited about running it again for a while.

Rest Well, Old Kitt

One of our two cats passed away today. She was 19 or 20 years old. We're really not sure because we picked her up as a stray (long story) and the vet said she was two or three years old at that time. She'd lost a lot of weight over the last two years or so, to the point where we took her to the vet to be checked and had a lot of tests run, only to find out that she was (surprise!) simply an old cat. Over the last few days she'd started having trouble walking and had been behaving oddly in some ways, and it got rapidly worse as the days passed, until we had no choice but to take her to the vet for the last time today.

She enjoyed human company more than any other cat I've ever known. One of her previous vets noticed it, and referred to her as "Koala Cat" because of the way she wrapped her paws around people when she was being held. She sure seemed to appreciate the extra attention we'd made a point of giving her the last two days. We'll miss her.

Buddha and the Blackwoods

Sounds like a band, doesn't it?

I've picked up another book on Buddhism, and I'm continuing to find it inspiring and useful. I still slip into anger now and again at work, but far less than I had been. I think it's been helping my personal relationships as well.

I've technically finished "A Slice of Blackwoods", as of last night, while I was watching the Eagles/Saints football game. There's still some fine tuning to be done and I need to do a playtest, but it's good to have another scenario essentially in the books.

Next on the RPG front, I'll be re-starting my home GURPS Firefly campaign and putting more serious work into "Dance of Pairs" for Sorceror.

Poker in the Eye

I'm still spending far too much time with my XBox poker game, and I think I've learned enough to not embarrass myself playing with live human beings. I'll have to try it again soon. I'm beating the computer characters (even the highest level ones) on a regular basis, but real people are certain to be more challenging.

I tried the Fable game as well, and while it has entertainment value, I get more of the same sort of pleasure out of paper-&-pencil RPGs with live human beings. I'll still pull it out now and again, though.

I've broken out the GURPS Character Assistant and finished most of the characters for "A Slice of Blackwoods". I anticipate finishing them soon, then doing a little fine tuning, and might be finished with the whole thing within the next week or so.

I've been moved at work, and I'm now reporting to a new boss, but still doing the same thing I am now. We'll see how that goes as I get to know the new boss. On the bright side, the reason I've been moved is that there's been a minor reorganization that's supposed to lighten the workload a little. I'll believe that when I see it, but I want to believe it. :-) I've succeeded so far this year in my goal of doing a better job coping with the stress, but obviously it's far too early in the year to get excited about that, and a change in superiors is likely to be a minor additional stressor.