Pretty tough day on the felt. While yesterday it felt like I could do no wrong, I fell back to Earth hard today. I bricked all of the $22s and $16.50s I played, mostly sticking to PKOs but loosening up a bit for Sunday Funday. Other than that, it was min-cash or bust for 69 tourneys except for this run on 888 which was basically a day saver. Went from down multiple hundreds to less than a hundred. I think I ran considerably worse but I also know I made a lot of ICM mistakes especially involving bounties. Need to hit the books

The 888 FT was honestly a complete joke. Once we got 4-handed we were deep enough for some playability. We were all relatively close together around 15-20 bigs. We then spent a half hour min-openraising and openjamming and rejamming and absolutely no one could make a call to put anyone’s tournament lives on the line. I had a couple nice hands but of course those were the hands where everyone else folded haha. I was never the shorty but give it a half hour and I found myself with 5 bigs and I couldn’t hit my all-in ace, GG 4th. Would love to review this final table and my Big $7.50 this week as I feel like there were lots of interesting spots.

Successful weekend of poker I guess. With daylight savings happening right about now all of the tourneys I play will be happening an hour later. I guess that means I can sleep in an extra hour. Coincides nicely with the new gig honestly as I’ll be going from working at 6AM during the week at the grocery store to working 7AM with the mail gig earliest. Means I have to register/play later too to still get the full volume so I’ll still be going hard. Today felt LONG! I almost stopped registering two hours earlier than usual but I buckled down and punted away a few more buy-ins haha

Lastly, I’ve had some time to digest the brand-new Stars layout. I think the main reason why it sucks is because they shrunk everything! All of the text, everything from notes taken to stuff in the info tab, is now miniscule. They changed the cards too so now you can’t evenly stack three tables across on a screen and have the cards stay a normal size which is so stupid. My eyes have been killing me the last two sessions and I’m pretty sure it’s because of all the squinting I’ve done. I changed the card design but it’s still difficult to differentiate blue (diamonds) from black (spades) in certain spots. I don’t know why it has to be so slick haha. Hard to believe that Party has risen to god-tier software status, never thought I’d see the day


Thanks Dub! Honestly I actually think that playing poker is good for my health haha. Where I get in trouble is eating pizza for lunch/supper but also just snacking hard while watching movies. It’s a habit I can break but once I get into it it’s hard to stop. Playing poker all day I don’t have the time to eat food that is flat out horrible for me haha, don’t want my fingers getting greasy working the mouse. Hopefully I can get back on track ASAP


I have heard of it, definitely on my watchlist!

Heyo! First day of training at the new job update. So as an on-call mail guy I will not be guaranteed hours. Apparently shift offers operate on seniority. Guy with most seniority gets called first for an open shift and they work the way down the list until the shifts are filled. The way that seniority works is that everyone of the same start date gets their spot chosen randomly to decide the ranks of seniority. I think there are twelve of us doing classes so I could be anywhere from first to last. If the name call was any indication I think I’m towards the back of the pack which isn’t great

All of that being said the guy running classes said it would be good for us to have a night job we can do to help pay the bills as we increase in seniority and get more shifts, possibly moving towards full-time (which takes average of 12-18 months). So maybe I shouldn’t have quit the grocery gig but hey, I have poker!!! I really hate the idea of relying on poker solely for my income but it might be an okay situation. I will just have to see how everything shakes out I think. Perhaps I’ll need a new gig in the future, or I can just rip off a sick heater and be a poker playing mailman indefinitely

Guy said that apparently it’s possible for us to finish shifts in as little as four hours and we will still get paid our full 8-hour $21/hour shift rate no matter what. This could bode well for poker but he also mentioned that as newbies we will really suck at our job so I’m not getting my hopes up on poker sessions after a day of mail

We apparently can expect two rounds of calls for shifts: the first one is at 8 AM and the second at 10 AM. If I don’t get called for those it’s possible for me to start playing poker afterwards. So I guess it’s pretty feasible for me to get in sick poker volume still. From the sounds of it this will be a record Christmas season though so I hope I get mostly mail shifts. The guy said we could all expect to lose A TON of weight which is what I’m praying for haha. Guess we’ll see how it goes, seem like a sweet gig so far

I read your Wailing review, well written, good job. Will read your others and thanks, will try to watch your other movie favs.

I didn’t read exactly where u working but I’m assuming you’re on call for Canada Post? My former neighbours parents worked for Canada Post their whole lives. They put him thru med school, so if you can move up the seniority ladder etc, it’s worth pursuing, even if it’s not a permanent job.

Good luck with the poker and your goals, keep updating!


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Oh gonna go watch Midsommar now lol


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Went through my $12 Catfish Deepstack run from Sunday. What a stupid run haha. There honestly weren't many interesting spots before FT, I just played solid poker and waited for the goods. We started 200bb deep and in the first two rotations I had someone punt off their starting stacks into me when I had trip Kings, a set of Aces, and one puntlord tried donating AIPF 70bb but sucked out AKo<AQo. So I was top ten stack for much of early/midgame.

There were a lot of very interesting FT ICM spots but I was actually surprised at how well I handled them for the most part. There were a few spots where I missed profitable bottom of my call openjam range but they were close to borderline. It wasn't perfect but I think overall I did better than I thought including making some sick ICM folds that were squeakers for me in-game but HRC hated. Also, we literally played 90 hands four-handed so that was not an exaggeration when I said we were going at it for a half hour, although there's a good chance it was longer than that lol

As I learn more about the mail job I'm getting more and more concerned about the hours I could get. I don't think they are going to tell us our seniority but I think I'm back of the pack. I could definitely see myself not getting many shifts once things die down, and who knows maybe I won't even be that busy for the holidays. I won't know for sure until I finish training. And I still have to pass a test at the end, sorting 120 pieces of mail in 10 minutes. If you don't pass that on the last day then you get cut from the gig. I'm routinely getting like 9:40 which is sub-10 but totally leaves me room to choke should I get performance anxiety haha. Need to get that time down in the next little bit. Most of my first week paycheque went to changing my car tires for winter. I've been paying a good majority of my bills but my parents have still been helping me in recent years. Car maintenance is one thing I've historically asked them for help on so it feels good to pay for that on my own, although maybe my Dad will still give me **** for leaching off of them lol. Starting in-the-field training next week, we've had a beautiful week in Stoon but apparently getting 30+cm snow this weekend

Movie recommendation! Been super busy running errands so I haven't done a ton of movie watching. Finally got around to rewatching Lee Chang-Dong's Burning and I found it to be a much richer experience the second time. Saw it a year and a half ago and didn't particularly like it but I can definitely recommend it now. It has a good rewatchability factor seeing as how it's an ambiguous mystery that leaves most of the answers up to interpretation. Knowing where the story would end made what was confusing on my first watch just way more intriguing. I'm still thinking about it a lot 24 hours later which is probably the best compliment I can give any movie. Just watch Lee Chang-Dong's movies: Secret Sunshine, Poetry, and Oasis are the other ones I've seen and they're just really ****ing fantastic (especially Secret Sunshine )


Definitely recommend although I myself need to rewatch it. Both Midsommar and Hereditary are borderliners that I gave five stars a couple weeks after watching them. So maybe they aren't perfect movies but they are pretty great. As far as the job goes I've deliberately tried not saying where I'm working just so I don't get sewered (post-Safeway lol) although probably doesn't take a genius to put two and two together haha

Poker sched update! I think I’m gonna take the weekend off of poker. The city said that everyone might be stuck in their homes for a few days and that they’re expecting some power outages. Don’t even want to **** around with the power going out late in a session with no contingency plan haha. Getting Wednesday off for Remembrance Day so I’d like to play then, we’ll see how sore I am after my first day in the field on Tuesday

So I might have overreacted a bit. Could have played this weekend I think because the storm didn’t start until later on Saturday and didn’t get really bad until Sunday night. I think we got hit with 30cm+ of snow but nothing that affected poker hours. While it was a missed opportunity I was still able to buy clothes for the upcoming week so it wasn’t a weekend wasted

That being said today was just spectacularly awful. Woke up and thought that if I dug my car out of it’s spot (it was parked on the street) and get onto the one lane of traffic I could get to work. Instead I ended up getting stuck at a four-way stop 50 feet from my house. My tires were okay but the snow piled between them was high enough that it just bottomed out my car and got stuck. A guy pushed me out of the spot and encouraged me to just gun it as fast as possible through the intersection. All I needed to do was get to the major street three blocks away and it would be smooth sailing. So it was pedal to the metal and things were going great until it wasn’t and my car got jammed in the middle of the street. This was in the only lane of traffic on a semi-busy street so absolutely no one could get around me. I was stuck there for about 45 minutes and with the help of my dad and like three randos was able to get my car moving fast enough to pull off to the side and out of everyone’s way. Thank God

Dad gave me a lift to work where I was about 45 minutes late. Luckily the instructor and two of the five other guys still weren’t in. Instructor didn’t show until 11:30 (4.5 hours late) so last day of training was incomplete. No one could deliver mail cuz no one could get to work so tomorrow there will be double (or triple) the normal amount of mail! We are still on for first day in the field tomorrow so it should just be a blast

When I got home after work first thing I did was change into a bathing suit and dive face first into the snow in our backyard. First of all it was very soft. Secondly it was super super cold Toweled off inside and as I was putting my glasses back on they slipped out of my hands. I caught them before they hit the ground and snapped them clean in half. Entirely reminiscent of when I broke my glasses in half a little over six years ago literally walking into Edgewater to play my first session of live poker (I didn’t play my first real-money poker game for a year and a half after that lol ). So I guess what made this especially horrible was that I’m starting in the field tomorrow with a motorized route and I had no contacts or backup glasses lol. Can’t drive, can’t sort mail, and the snow had completely shut Stoon down. Somehow a nearby optician took our emergency call and I was able to jam my lenses into a new pair of frames. So I have a little wonkavision but I can still go to work tomorrow so thank goodness haha. We’ll see if we’re even working tomorrow. We were still green light for tomorrow when I left the depot but who knows, it’s the apocalypse out there

Seriously, what a day. That was an all-timer for sure I wanted to leave the movie recommendations for the end to get a little positive energy going. Upgraded Maborosi to five stars, totally my vibe. Akira Kurosawa’s Drunken Angel was thoroughly entertaining. Even if I don’t head over heels love anything he’s done that I’ve seen thusfar, they are all extremely well-made films so big recommend. Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory was just so infuriating. I thought it was gonna be a standard war movie but a lot of it was about a military trial that just got me super riled up Also, Jackie Chan’s Police Story was so awesome. Just the pinnacle of action comedy. Only seem a few of these Hong Kong action films but the gags were non-stop and the stunts were insane, could not recommend enough. Stunts are so much better when you know it’s all practical. Lastly, I finally finished the original two seasons of Twin Peaks. I thought the first season and a half was amazing. Definitely lost steam but it picked up towards the end of the second season again. Watched Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me which was honestly insane. Twin Peaks was weird but Fire Walk with Me was so so so so dark. A serious lack of comedy and replaced with way more nudity and just brutality. It was insane haha. Still need to watch the latest version but I’m excited for it. The end of season two was honestly some of the greatest television I’ve ever seen so I’m excited to check out the latest series

Will maybe play Wednesday, we’ll see how messed up I am after tomorrow. It has just been a gongshow lately, holy. See ya

Heyo! Lost maybe a hundo today but overall I didn’t play horrible. Made a Party FT and got F3T (essentially) in two decent-sized Stars tourneys. Didn’t get the run good at the end though. I guess what was especially frustrating was that in both my Party FT and my 15th place in the $7.50 Hyper-Turbo Total PKO on Stars I just barely got any bounties. The total PKO was especially brutal. I had a pretty healthy stack for the entire duration of the tournament but had little opportunity to cash in. I managed to snag a $50 bounty at the end but I also had a guy hit a two-outer on the river to keep his $90 bounty and put me on the brink. That was a tough 3-ball for sure

888 did an overhaul of their lobbies and it looks so unbelievably horrible. I can’t figure out when tourneys start and even though I had satellites not checkmarked they were all still coming up in the lobby. Really just colossally stupid. What the heck is everyone thinking? First Stars, now 888, why is every site but Party going out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot? Add on to that that my 888 client crashed mid-session and even after re-installing it would not work on my computer. God might be telling me to give GG a shot

Ended up not actually delivering mail on Tuesday. Got called in the morning that they couldn’t get any of the mail trucks out of the depot parking lot haha. I’ve never seen this much snow in Saskatchewan and we really don’t have the infrastructure to clear all of the streets in a timely fashion. I think it snowed another 3 or 4 centimeters today so it’s an absolute nightmare. As far as I know I’ll be delivering tomorrow but I wouldn’t be surprised if we had another snow day. The main streets aren’t bad but if you’re on a side street then god bless and good luck getting through all that snow

Rewatched Boogie Nights and it was pretty great! I remembered that it got pretty dark towards the end but other than that it was a pretty fresh rewatch. Not sure why I didn’t like it the first time but it probably helps to watch it as a non-virgin. A couple of friends from Creative Writing are doing some Etsy stuff so I dropped a decent amount of dough on them, gotta support ‘em (I think???) even if they weren’t dropping mad dollars for my Asian horror reviews haha

I’m guessing I’ll be back grinding on the weekend. Even if we get another snow day tomorrow I’ll probably just bail and grind Persona. I’m like 74 hours in so I think I’m past halfway, would be nice to finish it before 2021 haha. I’ve been grinding a lot of older movies recently because there’s another Criterion sale through their Canadian distributor until the end of November. Just trying to watch as many of their movies as I can so I can have an informed shopping binge. I have four movies floating around somewhere in the mail-stream just trying to get to my house currently haha I’ve gotten a lot of fresh discs the past month+ so I’ll need to drop in some loot pictures pretty soon Also, I think I might come out on the good side of the weight debate this month! I've been behaving myself pretty well which is accomplished by not eating chips and not eating pizza every day. Pretty simple when you think about it. Once I actually get going with the mail gig I'm expecting to just melt the pounds off. See ya!

Man all that snow sucks. I feel your pain.

I didn’t like Midsomm at all....but loved Hereditary. Once I get around to it, I’ll be watching another one of your horror flicks...thanks!


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25cm here last night with another 15 forecasted this evening. On top of this it was ~+2C so the stuff was like cement... AND it turned to rain for a few hours this afternoon. My driveway is just over 200' long, and is bumpy with some pretty large rocks (too big to use a snowblower). Took over 2hrs. to get half of it done this morning and started falling asleep at my desk. No poker today, lol.

Heyo! No poker to talk about, decided to skip this weekend. Today my aunt was back and so I spent some time with her. Could play Sunday but choosing not to. I want to grind Persona (it is sooooo good) and buy some stuff for mail, namely gloves that actually have good grip on them. Went to Wal-Mart but couldn’t find anything so I’ll resume the search tomorrow. Also want to leaf through my textbook I got in-class. I think it’s a recap of all the e-learning we did but it’s about 200 pages and I have a written test to go along with the sortation test on Wednesday. Fail that and I’m totally screwed so I wanna be somewhat prepared

Delivering mail was pretty simple I guess haha. So much talk about the unbearable physical burden and killer dogs wanting to sink their teeth in your neck and instead it was just a decently long walk made frustrating by navigating massive piles of snow. My mentor said his route is usually 20km walking but I think because I’m in training we’re only doing 2/3 of his route. I clocked 10km+ Thursday and Friday but it’s not like I wasn’t pumping those numbers weekly when I was working/golfing all summer! My guy also said that after he finished training he didn’t get a call for THREE MONTHS!!! I guess it’s not in my employer’s best interest to say it could be that long when you start. So I might not spend my life savings on the Criterion sale and will probably need another job which is just great with covid going around. Not sure I mentioned this but the courier at my grocery gig told me that he also delivers weed and that I could work for him so I will probably legit give him a call once I know how I screwed I am in regard to hours. Shouldn’t be this hard to make ends meet


Nice to hear you liked Hereditary! Midsommar is definitely not for everyone and I’m almost fearing it not being as good as I remember haha


I feel your pain. Things kind of feel like they’re getting back to normal if you ignore that most streets are about 2/3 as wide as they were cuz of the snow on the sides haha, glgl

Congrats, will probably knock off that extra weight pretty quick friend, assuming you get lots of shifts

Funny that I instinctively go back to my teens/early 20s and how this use to be an illegal activity to indulge in Ohhhh, how times have changed

Passed my tests!!!!!! The written test was way harder than I thought it would be even though it was open book. Out in the field we were doing COVID protocol so a lot of stuff we learned in class was constantly corrected out on the job which made coming back to class painful. Needed a 75 and got an 83. Two of us six failed but they got to rewrite it again and passed. So much for fail and you get fired haha

The sortation test was a lot easier for me since I was consistently getting under ten minutes. Ended up finishing in about nine. The buttclench part was that we were only allowed one mistake for the 120 letters we sorted. Sitting there watching the instructor check and double check and triple check each letter was agonizing but I was mistake free which was very sweet

Barring me running someone over with my van I should now be set for life if I wanna be a mailman forever. I gotta say it has a lot of perks I really enjoy (exercise, fresh air, low stress (kinda)) but I would still like to maybe do film school if COVID doesn’t kill me. Would need to save up money for that and I can go on educational leave for three years/transfer cities so I guess it’s nice to have something with security!

It sounds like the mailstream is pretty clogged up right now so I’m anticipating steady shifts for the next couple of weeks. Once it dies down I’ll have to find a new gig but this should be good for now. Since I have to wait for a call in the morning which would usually come at 8 or 10 but could be even later (totally up in the air) I’ll need to keep my mornings free. I can sleep in but I can’t really be diving into three hour long Japanese epics or starting a poker sesh in time for the Big $7.50. Will maybe have to start working out/reading/writing/studying poker, just doing something productive that I can get up and leave if I’m called to duty. Should be fun (hopefully )


Here’s hoping! I think I finally have a grasp on how this temp thing will work. Basically if I get called for the first little bit I’ll either get 1/3 or 2/3 of a route to fill out. Should be decent exercise but maybe not a game changer, need to eat well and workout on my own to supplement I think! Crazy how different things can be with regards to weed, I guess it’s almost perceived similarly to alcohol now (although y’all know how I feel about alcohol haha )

FINALLY finished Persona 5, clocking in at a playthrough of 140:11 (hours:minutes lol). Pretty good bang for your buck, no filler content to speak of. Up there with The Witcher 3 for longest game I’ve ever played. Maybe I’ve spent more time in a Skyrim save but totally different experiences. Honestly pretty bummed now haha. The whole day-to-day sim and hanging out with people was pretty refreshing considering I’ve been secluded in my basement since COVID started for the sake of public health The guys in Persona were pretty dweeby but all of the girls were hype Basically been grinding 24/7 since Thursday to finish it off, although I thought I was almost done at like the 80 hour mark haha. So obviously didn’t play poker today but will be back on the Sunday Grind tomorrow

My sister was in self-isolation since Wednesday night to get tested for COVID although I don’t think she thinks she has it. She is a nurse tho so needs to get tested whenever she’s sick. I was gonna pass on mail shifts Thursday/Friday if I got called but I never did. I think that really does not bode well for me in terms of getting hours. I’ll have lots of free time but I won’t actively seek out a new gig until after Christmas I think. I guess the good thing is that I won’t have to wake up at 6AM for work anymore so if I decide to play poker at a later start time (noon-1ish) I can register later and stay up later if necessary. Hopefully I can get in some decent volume and not just waste away all of my hours

Also need to get some morning routines going. Since I’ll be waiting for a call from now onwards would be nice to start working out/studying/writing which I think I’ve already mentioned. Hopefully I can start being productive come Monday! I guess it’s been nice to have three days off in a row like this although it’ll stop being nice if the bank account ain’t looking too good

Boy, I really want to play the rest of the Persona series now. Seriously, what a game. I’m all about the single player RPGs so once I got past the 10-hours of wrapping my head around the Metaverse it was just so much fun. Since I was grinding so hard the last week+ I haven’t watched many movies. Only one I’d recommend is Like Father, Like Son, another Kore-eda movie. The tear ducts were working overtime hot damn. Gl gl tomorrow

Try NIOH, I platinum’d both 1 and 2. Only games I ever did that on PS4, along with God of War. I don’t know what Persona is like but my daughter keeps telling me she wants it so maybe next sale I’ll just grab. Sekiro is also awesome but got so hard when I tried to get platinum I gave up.

Did you get a PS5? Series X?


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Today felt a lot better than it actually was. Only significant runs I had were two F2Ts in some smaller 888 tourneys. Boy do I hate that lobby, not a big fan of all the pop-ups telling me I’m on a roll and I should try out their casino. The site is so soft and I’m a glutton for punishment but one of these days I’ll tell 888 to take a hike. I thought the personal highlight for me today was gonna be a sick comeback for a min cash in a $7.50 booty builder. Third hand of the tourney I got 95bb in on the turn with the bigger set and got one-out quadded. With 5bb I refused to rage punt and clawed my way to a big stack once again. And then I hard bubbled with 99 and didn’t get any bounties lol. I guess I may not have run the best but I never thought the poker gods were against me, just nothing materialized and I lost a couple hundo

Sis tested negative for COVID so I’ll be back in the mail-mix tomorrow hopefully. I honestly think there was an issue with my phone number not being online so maybe that’s why I didn’t get called Thurs/Fri. I would have passed anyways but I got my number set and I’m ready to go now

Reading up on the video game I played I guess it should be said that I played Persona 5 Royal, not the base game that came out a few years ago. Royal apparently had some new mechanics/characters/story elements and it sounds like I missed another 10+ hours of content easy because I didn’t max out some confidant levels. When I replay that game during COVID-29 I’ll make sure not to skip that part

Here’s a song from P5R I had on repeat today. Was the music from the casino section of the game so it felt poker-appropriate for sure



I’ll say that it took a lot of willpower for me to play poker today. Truth be told I’m not really into it at the moment and I’d rather be watching movies/playing games. I do actually need to make money tho so it would probably be beneficial for me to just suck it up on weekends and grind out Saturday/Sundays at least. Was talking with a friend of mine and we might go halfsies on Persona 4 on Steam so I’m honestly gonna start playing that ASAP I think haha

Crazy to think I’ve been doing the poker thing for a little over three years now even with my retirement and the non-pro aspirations factored in. I guess that mid-late November has been a historically bad time of year for me since like 2016. 2016 November was when I started to get super depressed and is honestly the worst I’ve ever felt in my life. 2017 was suicide attempt #1, 2018 was when I fell of the wagon in Regina which led to me leaving poker, and last year I honestly got super depressed late November/early December and stayed that way until COVID hit in March. Compared to all of those years I feel so so soooo much better now. The year of counselling I did really helped with my perspective and I’m pretty hopeful things will be better this year. I only bring this up because it’s something I’ve found myself thinking about lately, anniversaries and so such. For sure back on the grind next weekend (hopefully), maybe sooner! See ya


I am gaming by the grace of my sister and bro-in law, it's their PS4. I have an Xbox One that's on its last legs, no plans for a new system in the near future. Will maybe check out NIOH, I'm definitely a story first guy and not super keen on grinding through a difficult game so Sekiro probably a longshot haha. Would definitely recommend Persona if your kid wants it, will keep her busy for a while

Heyo! No poker or mail gigs to report on. Seriously, I haven't been called yet. I fixed my contact info so I think I'm just genuinely screwed. If I'm lucky peak might go from sometime in a week or two until around Christmas and then I'd imagine I won't get called very much. Damn, they really talked up that I would at least get shifts for Christmas but it doesn't look like that's happening. Will need to start looking for a new side gig ASAP I think, really not looking like quitting the grocery gig was the greatest idea

Anyways, I know I mentioned I'd gotten a lot of movies recently so I'm sharing some loot pics from the past two months or so...





The first picture is of the movies that I bought myself from the Criterion sale a while ago and another horror sale that was going on where I managed to pick up It Follows. Of everything I got I think the only thing that is a bit of a stretch is Stranger than Paradise. I probably didn't need to buy it but no regrets on my end. I have a feeling it has potential to grow on me

I also had my 25th birthday last month and the second picture is all of that swag. I placed an online order for two movies and told my parents how much it cost. Audition was the first one and the second movie is the one I've been waiting on now for a month. I get that its covid and all but damn, I've been dying for it. Hopefully it'll come in soon The other five were from a shopping trip my grandparent's took me on when they were down for Thanksgiving. They got my brother a pair of moccasins but I managed to talk them into just buying me a bunch of movies. Money well spent if you ask me

Obviously I'm not the greatest at self-restraint when it comes to movies which probably explains why I dropped like another $200 on more in the last two days. I guess there's nothing else I'd rather spend that money on so f--- it haha Movies I'd recommend from the last few days would be Late Spring from Ozu which I was actually into as opposed to the only other film I've seen from him. Takes some patience but if you're in a mood it's a pleasant watch. The other one is Perfect Blue which I may or may not have mentioned earlier this year. It's just insanely entertaining, f---ed up, mindblowing, etc. Would recommend to everyone really.

I did end up buying Persona 4 and I've gotten some decent playing time on it but I'm nowhere near as into it as I was with P5R. I think the one thing that's better is the story. P5R had a big plot-line around popularity with the masses for the group of kids which on the one hand was interesting and on the other hand was super annoying. P4 seems to be much more grounded with a small-town mystery. That being said it has PS2 sprites, more simplified combat, and I'm playing using a keyboard which is just brutal. If you took the flow, style, and scope of P5R and had a small town mystery like P4 then you'll probably have the greatest game ever (fingers crossed for Persona 6 )

I was strongly considering playing poker the last few days since I've been bored out of my mind but haven't done it yet. I think I have to wait until at least 12:30 just in case I get called late. That would be within an acceptable start time for me so we'll see if I get a session or two in heading to the weekend. I have managed to get in two workouts the last few days. My arms are honestly still sore from my pathetic attempts at pushups on Monday lol. I doubt I'll hit my weight goal because I've been getting almost no cardio with no work but I should still finish down a few pounds and I'm still eating well so I won't be too hard on myself. Gl out there all

Heyo! As is obvious I didn't play again this weekend. I just really didn't feel like it. Was still planning to play Sunday but then I started watching The Queen's Gambit on Saturday night. I think I got three of seven episodes in by time for bed and I just said **** it and watched the rest, was up past three in the morning so no poker for me. Not great that my poker motivation is low but I'd much rather not play than force myself too.

With all of that being said, November is now over. How did I do on my goals?

To go along with that here are my poker stats...

STATS FOR NOVEMBER

• MTTs Played: 182
• Hours Played: 36.75
• Monthly Profit (CAD): -$614.78
• Monthly Profit (USD): $66.30

So I'm pretty sure this is my first losing month since I came back in April. Of course this was only three sessions worth of stuff. Variance is much higher the less volume you get so it's whatever haha. I definitely did not make bank this month at all. It took me a couple of weeks to get my mail training paycheque and it was a very nice number compared to what I'm used to. That being said it definitely was not a gamechanger and considering I am almost two weeks post-training and have yet to get a shift I'm in for a lot of financial pain pretty soon haha. I still haven't texted that guy about being a weed delivery man but I think I'll have to in the next day or two. Truth be told I've been enjoying having no work, this has been a really nice break after working non-stop for so long. Part of that enjoyment has come in the form of lax-eating the past few days as well. Sadly I won't hit my sub-230 goal and I won't bother weighing myself again. I'm probably in the neighbourhood of 235 lbs, will need to figure out a cardio plan pretty soon or I'm going to put on a lot of weight this winter

With all of that being said here are my goals for this month!

GOALS FOR DECEMBER

• Play 200+ MTTs
• Get sub 230lbs
• Find a new side gig!!!
• Finish cash game course

Sitting around bored out of my mind lately I did almost crack open the old cash game course hahaha. Would definitely be a productive use of the morning hours and I feel like my poker mind is pretty stale. I haven't learned anything new in 2+ years and a lot of the time I'm just a robot while playing, not thinking so much of what everything means and the best play to make but simply doing what I always do or what I feel is right. That's still proven to be profitable but I can be a much better player so hopefully I can study a bit this month. Setting the same MTT goal that should be easily attainable. Like I said I busted out my November totals in three sessions. When I play I go hard so hopefully I can manage four sessions haha. I've started waking up later now so might not be able to squeeze all of the juice out of the day. Will probs just set an alarm to start earlier if necessary I guess

Despite playing no poker I did manage to write a spur of the moment movie review last Friday for a newer documentary. I think it'll be posted to The Feedback Society in the next couple of days so I'll pop in a link when it does. Other than that even though I enjoyed The Queen's Gambit I didn't love it or anything. It definitely felt like a TV show with all of it's fake looking sets/locations and it had a lot of hokey writing in my opinion. I definitely loved the first episode though, took me back to my spelling bee days in middle school where I carried like 30lbs of dictionaries/word lists in my backpack for two years to study when everyone else was being normal. There's a pretty big difference from being a wunderkind and just being a smart kid with bad study habits lol This week I rewatched American Psycho, a classic, and also Only Yesterday which is a borderline perfect movie for sure. The only new movie I feel confident recommending was The Happiness of the Katakuris which was so ****ing weird, a loose remake of The Quiet Family which I saw in October. Even though I think the latter was a superior movie in terms of acting/production etc., Katakuris was a ton of fun and the musical numbers were pretty awesome, definitely would recommend if you wanna watch something strange (streaming free on Tubi in Canada ).

Hit a big milestone of 500 diary entries on Letterboxd for 2020. I haven't missed anything this year, posting a new entry every time I finish watching stuff. I only log features and mini-series, of which I've seen six. So I guess I've seen 499 total features (rewatches included) so far this year and 253 have been foreign language films. The pace has slowed considerably since April which was completely unsustainable haha As much as I love movies I hope I can spend more time in later years being productive in other areas, no one needs to watch 500 movies a year I'm very happy at least that I've recorded every watch in 2020, definitely have big regrets I didn't start tracking earlier cuz I'm a total slut for all these stats

We'll see if I play this week, hard to say. The library is opening up requests to other regions in the province so I can watch stuff from outside of Saskatoon again! I have over twenty requests in and so far it says thirteen items have shipped so I'm gonna be grinding movies pretty hard in the near future. Would be nice to do some creative writing this month. As much as I love poker I think it's pretty clear that film is my first love, would like to make some headwaves on it before COVID blows over haha, see ya!

Ill be honest i think cash games are much easier then MTT's, given u only play a 100bb stack depth online for the most part and with MTT's the shear amount of hands you have to play make u much more skilled.

I think the biggest changes are using your bet sizing properly, playing way less hands obviously, and knowing how to play 3!/4! pots cause that you do a lot more linear 3!ing in cash then tourneys at the later stages

PS:
Also who tf wants to grind out MTT's all day you have so much freedom with cash + theres so much more to life then losing time playing poker :P

Lmk if u want help

Heyo, back to say that I won't be playing this weekend. I think that the financial ramifications of having no money coming in is totally psyching me out again. This has happened several times in the past where I just didn't have a big enough cushion for my liking. Ripping in $500+ easy a day is not a fun prospect knowing I'm in trouble should I lose it

I did text the delivery guy from the grocery store last week and he said that he might have a cannabis shift for me haha. He just said he'd keep me in the loop and I haven't heard much since so who knows if this'll go anywhere. I guess all I really need are maybe 3-4 shifts a week just to get by with similar money as at the grocery store. Factor in mail gigs and poker on the side and I should be okay, but hopefully I'll hear more soon

I guess I was thinking with mail that I might stick it out to get full-time plus the year after so that I could get my three-year leave for school. Reflecting on how long it'll take to become full-time though that prospect could end up taking many many years and do I really wanna wait 2-5 years just for the opportunity to have a gig should I **** up at school again? Closer to 30 than I am to 20 now and I ain't getting any younger so I guess I'm open to moving on from Saskatoon in the nearish future. Canada might not be back to normal for a while yet with corona so no rush to go to school, but if playing it safe means possibly wasting an extra two or three years of my life does that make a whole lot of sense? If I get writing then I can think seriously about this stuff, until then this is all just posturing haha

As mentioned in my last post here's an article I wrote up for Athlete A, a netflix documentary on the USA Gymnastics sexual abuse scandal. Big departure from everything else I've written about but I thought it was a great movie so why not

https://www.thefeedbacksociety.com/movies/athlete-a/

I actually have another article I wrote for a new South Korean movie on the way for this upcoming week. Little more on-brand for me. I've been watching just a shitload of good movies this week, some rewatches, some not. Here are some recommends...

5 Star: Hoop Dreams, Pulse, Wet Hot American Summer, Paddington 2, Hereditary, Midsommar, and Tampopo

4.5/5: Eat Drink Man Woman and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

4/5: The Fly, Onibaba, American Beauty, and Blow Out

Hoop Dreams is easily the greatest sport movie ever made and I actually watched it on Tuesday and then rewatched with commentary on Wednesday haha. Hereditary was way better than I remembered and an easy five while Midsommar was way more on the fence, I just gave it a perfect score because Florence Pugh and pretty pretty haha. I promoted Pulse and demoted American Beauty from five star status, was definitely one of my faves in uni but I'm a lot more jaded now haha, would still recommend. Two rewatches that were considerably better were Onibaba and Kaguya, both really blossoming in my eyes. Big time atmosphere for the former similar to Kuroneko (same director) and I was in the right headspace when I saw the latter to get the best experience out of it. I really appreciate that there's probably a perfect movie for any mood that I'm in and the headspace can definitely influence your perspective, that's why you gotta rewatch **** haha

Thanks for indulging me although none of you have a say in the matter. I can still study poker if I want but I'll be pretty hesitant to get in a big session until I can get some money coming in. Hopefully the whole weed delivery works out this week, guess we'll see



Optimistic hahaha, I might have to look into cash although I don't think there's a chance in Hell that it's easier than MTTs. Low stake MTTs anyways which are just donkaments Time flexibility would be nice so maybe it's something I should look into although online cash especially is not something I'm really passionate about. Guess we'll see

Heyo, still no poker to report. I managed to get my first mail shift this last Friday and made just enough money to cover my union dues for the month (maybe). I got called again for a shift today but had to turn it down because now my bro-in-law needs to get tested for COVID. I'm lucky I have my parents to fall back on cuz I think I'm in for some lean months. He's getting tested tomorrow so hopefully he'll get a negative quick and I can start making money again. Sucks that he needs a test right when I finally start getting called but not much I can do about it, hopefully the calls will keep coming steady for a few weeks at least. Been toying around with the idea of playing an abbreviated poker weekday session but haven't yet, will definitely post if I do.

Reason I came to post is that the last of my movies floating in the ether have finally come in today. Now that I know I won't be making much money I don't expect to be doing much more shopping haha





My Parasite Criterion is the one I've been waiting a month and a half for. I have no idea how they prioritized which pre-orders got served first but I'm glad it came in finally. Police Story was great as mentioned and although the sequel is nowhere near as good it still has some awesome stunts (playground fight YOUTUBE IT!!!). Barry Lyndon and House rounded out my Criterion pickups while I got the extended editions of Lord of the Rings as well. Those came in on Thursday and I already saw them Friday/Saturday. Definitely more for completionists and a lesser version of the films. There are some good scenes but I think most of the cuts they made for the theatrical cuts were the right calls. I actually just saw the director/writers commentary on Fellowship this morning and fully intend on finishing the trilogy with that and the cast commentary as well. Definitely worth the investment

Other than that here are my recommendations from the last week...


5/5: LOTR: The Two Towers, LOTR: The Return of the King, The End of the Tour, and Wolf Children

4.5/5: Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Ran, Frances Ha, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Black Dynamite, Ponyo, Whisper of the Heart, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Shall We Dance?, and LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring

4/5: My Sassy Girl, Green Fish, Tokyo Sonata and House of Hummingbird


I just like writing about movies too much. Listing it this way is a lot more efficient and if I rewatch something it ain't so obtrusive, will probably keep this up going forward haha. I can finally say that Ran is my definitively favourite Akira Kurosawa film. If you have to watch just one AK film I'd recommend that one, heck is it gorgeous, borderline perfect honestly Shall We Dance? was the original Japanese version and not the shite American remake (from what I hear). And I was kind of on the fence with Tokyo Sonata but it has a pretty amazing finish I've rewatched multiple times already. To watch it on Youtube wouldn't make much sense but it is intensely satisfying in the context of the movie

With no money coming in I wouldn't bet on me playing too much poker going forward. Will probably be getting a few more movies for Christmas so might not hear from me again until then. I'm sure you guys don't want to keep hearing about movies but I am still wanting to grind on the side so I'll keep on posting while that's my intention, hopefully can get back to it soon-ish

ALSO!!! Here's the link to my Feedback Society review of The Call which was a pretty good time travel/thriller/horror movie I saw a while ago. Check it out if you think most of the stuff I recommend is boring af

https://www.thefeedbacksociety.com/movies/the-call/

I actually just got an email from CanadaPost about them hiring 4000 additional workers. You definitely should be getting shifts I would think. Good luck with that.

My whole family loved Wolf Children - we actually have it on BluRay. Not related but did you like Fantastic Mr Fox?

I have no idea why people are saying mtt's are donkaments?

Is it because you can play the strat of just not playing postflop and waiting for good cards and cruising on a 20bb stack all throughout the tourney and make it to like the final 3-2 tables (youll never win tho obv)

If thats the reason why then i can see that... i mean i fired a 250 main on a softish site granted and took 4th didn't really know what i was doing in later stages like down to 26 ppl was mainly just raising and cbetting flop vs bb/winning any hand vs bb and just winning flips like a madman

The amount of variance in MTT's should be offset by your postflop skill level imo, i don't see it being efficient in studying icm shove spots unless ur playing a turbo/bounty/sng type of game.

You have to play 60-50, 40, 30, 20, 15, 10bb deep, and you need to play way wider then cash so imo it is super hard in that aspect

---

Curious to hear other people's thoughts btw what BI's are you playing now?

Heyo, no poker as speculated last week. Had the opportunity to maybe play today but opted not to. I got called for work every day last week but had to turn down Monday-Wednesday because of bro-in-laws pending COVID test (he was negative lol). Bagged six-hour shifts Thursday and Friday and am pencilled in to work Monday-Thursday this week starting at 11 every day. Guess we'll see if I'm delivering or sorting or whatever. I think I've made a couple goofs in the last couple of shifts but nothing that'll get me fired I think Since I'm getting a full week of work I definitely want to play next weekend. I know I'll have Friday-Monday off so it'd be nice to get in a session or two especially with KO Series starting on Party. Too bad about all the 2-day tourneys. I don't know if I'll see my parents Christmas day because of COVID restrictions but probs won't play Friday anyways

Anyways, a little movie talk. I watched the director/writer and cast commentary of LOTR as promised (along with Parasite commentary) and then also squeezed in a few more...

5/5: The Hunt, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Brokeback Mountain

4.5/5: Computer Chess, Horse Girl, and Casting JonBenet

4/5: Another Round and Palm Springs

The last week was a bit of a Thomas Vinterberg love sesh. Just by coincidence I had rented The Hunt from the library which I've seen a few times before (great Christmas movie). Another Round was playing at the local independent theatre along with a John le Carré tribute night with Tinker Tailor (one of my all-time faves ). I ended up getting my tickets/popcorn using a $50 Christmas tip I got from a random restaurant owner on Thursday (seriously ). I'm honestly kind of torn on AR because with my attitude on alcohol I wasn't really sure if it was a celebration of drinking or a cautionary tale or a bit of both? Was a solid flick regardless and I'll definitely rewatch. I honestly just really love the cinematography in Brokeback Mountain cuz I'm pretty sure it was filmed in Alberta, a little prairie flavour to remind me of home (if you ignore the mountains). The big surprise of the week was Horse Girl which I did not expect to love at all but it really blew me away. In a dead heat with Never Rarely Sometimes Always for my fave of the year so I'll have to rewatch both of them in the near future I think

The big catalyst for me coming to post tonight was the documentary The Social Dilemma on Netflix which I found profoundly upsetting. Just your classic breakdown of the damage social media is doing on society at large. The dramatization segments were honestly really bad but at least it was thought provoking so I'd recommend on the content alone, not necessarily its quality.

Anyways, it got me really thinking about social media and why I spend so much time on my phone. I don't think I'm prone to radicalization/polarization on most topics because my starting point is usually from one distrusting of most stuff I read on the internet and wanting to look at multiple sources to get an informed opinion which is just not how most people operate. The real problem for me is just the sheer amount of time I spend on social media. Just hours scrolling my phone and now that I'm thinking about whether it's a positive force in my life it just really isn't. I think the only positives are that it keeps me somewhat in the loop and I can keep tabs on people I know. It's always blown me away when I meet people my age that don't spend a lot of time on social media, I find it very admirable. It's definitely addictive for me in terms of just filling a void of boredom.

That's the crux though. If I'm spending three or four or five hours a day on Twitter/Youtube/Instagram/Letterboxd, that's time I'm not spending writing or working out or studying poker or reading or what have you. Basically I'm wasting time doing nothing when I could be getting ahead in life doing something "productive" with my time. Feels like I have no time for stuff but if I could really cut down my social media time then I think that would be a serious boon to my quality of life. I'm not going completely nuclear. I think I'm just gonna delete apps off my phone that are huge time sinks. I can always check it out on my computer if I want. I spend way less time on my laptop than on my phone so hopefully creating somewhat of an obstacle would do wonders for me.

Anyways, I just deleted Twitter/Insta/Facebook/Youtube off my phone. We'll see if anything changes in the near future. The only site I don't have the guts to cut the cord on is Letterboxd. I dearly love it mostly because of the interaction I get with people of somewhat similar taste. I only follow like 50 people but I kinda jive with what they lay down and seeing the feed of what they're watching just acts as a very organic recommendation list which I've taken advantage of a lot. So deleting Letterboxd off my phone would kind of break my heart but I definitely didn't watch as many movies as I do now before I was constantly checking my stats/updating lists/etc. I guess is the goal to watch as many movies as I can before I die or to actually try and make stuff in the industry? Letterboxd is on probation. I think everything else, while useful for keeping me in the loop with friends, can go. I still have Snapchat/texts/messenger so hopefully I won't be on an island

Sorry to make a big deal out of that. I feel like this could be a pretty important step towards achieving personal goals of mine so hopefully it plays out that way. I've wanted a flip phone for ages so this will have to suffice for now, we'll see how long I last

Funny thing about my Feedback Society article for The Call from last week. It got more engagement than any other review I'd done before cuz I think it got retweeted by a fan page for one of the actresses. Literally was expecting no one to give a f*** but I'll take 14 retweets and 30+ likes lol


Fantastic Mr. Fox was a pretty solid flick, 4/5. I saw it in less than ideal circumstances with family and a bunch of people talking literally a year ago (the beauty of Letterboxd, I logged it December 21, 2019). Usually I like watching my movies with laser focus alone in a dark quiet room hahahaha, it's definitely something on my rewatch list. Wolf Children is my favourite first-time watch of 2020 not named Kuroneko and I love it to death. Don't own it yet, holding out to get a Mamoru Hosoda boxset but I don't know if I can get for less than a king's ransom online rn

I think cash is harder just because it's such a stagnant game. Every spot to me seems pretty clearly defined and solved in a lot of situations. You'll face the same spot a million times playing cash whereas in tournaments you'll face a dynamic range of situations because of stack depth/game type/position/etc. For me I think that's why I love tourneys. The inherent dynamic nature keeps it fresh and exciting for me in a way that cash really doesn't, and I think that my focus when playing cash suffers as a result which also contributes to me playing poorly and making it harder. The player pools are insanely different too since MTTs are rec heavy whereas I feel it's tough to find fish in cash games on the other hand. If you're the best of the best then I guess you don't need to worry about it, but in terms of results for limited effort MTTs is a much simpler avenue to profitability

I'd say that because tournaments will often involve so many short stacked situations postflop is way less important than cash. Don't get me wrong, being great postflop will get you far anywhere. But I think if you're solid pre which is the easiest part of every hand then you'll be fine for the most part in low stake MTTs. I think it's pretty rare to get all-ins in a cash game as opposed to a tournament where people are constantly ripping in like 1-30bb. Because stacks are shorter I think that postflop becomes way less of a skill game because there's just way less flexibility. I think the higher up the stakes you go the more intricate postflop spots become. Where I am at the micros it's really basic and I'm usually just cbetting the **** out of people too, so I guess it would probably be more difficult the more you level up.

Haven't checked my BR for a while but I think I can comfortable play up to $11 MTTs and can play regular speed $16.50s. If I bink $20k next weekend I can forget about needing to find a second job so cross my fingers

Merry Christmas!!! Back in the mix for a full day of grinding and I don’t have to feel like an addict because I literally had nothing else to do, thank you Coronavirus! I think restrictions right now is that if you’re over five people you get fined $2000 per person. I have no idea if they’re actually enforcing it in Stoon or not but I’ve heard some people have gotten dinged. My fam snuck in a Christmas Eve dinner tho with six of us so don’t snitch! Parents still came by today and dropped presents off but haven’t got a chance to check them out yet, hopefully I got a few movies. I couldn’t really talk cuz I was grinding two screens, I don’t think they were thrilled but whatever haha

Anyways, I played 58 tourneys today and ended up down around two hundred I think. I had a few okay runs, had a small FT, a small F2T, and maybe a small F3T, I can’t quite remember. Difficult playing twelve tables for nine hours straight haha. Thought I played okay, definitely ran bad in a few key spots but I sucked out here and there as well so it was probably a wash in the luck department. Unfortunately ran horrible in most of my $16.50s and made no money in my two $22s, will have to re-assess whether to play those this weekend

I feel okay playing poker this weekend because of the four days of work I got in this past week. Christmas rush is unreal, I was busting my ass just to do one or two-thirds of a route. Wayyyy too many parcels. I was called yesterday about working Tuesday-Thursday next week as well. Only a three day week because the Boxing Day stat carries over to Monday and New Years is next Friday! Hopefully I can get work regularly after next week but guess I’ll have to wait and see for that. My body was in serious pain, I really had a bad month getting out of shape at home. I’ve behaved myself pretty well the last week and a half or so so hopefully I can maintain momentum. Also have to say that deleting that social media off my phone has done wonders for me. Used the extra time not looking at my phone on finishing off two books (light reads) and getting in a little ICM practice before today’s session. It’s definitely something I’d like to keep up for my sustained productivity. Back at it tomorrow, hope everyone had a good Christmas