Sure, How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired by Dany Laferriere : https://www.amazon.com/Books-Dany-La...any+Laferriere, is written by a (then) struggling young Haitian writer recently immigrated to Montreal. His fictionalized self-portrayed protagonist displays spirited black-white relationship - to say the least - as well as a centuries old imperialistic-coloniasm rebel dynamic to the Quebecois urban settings. I would say it resembles/has the vibe of beat generation novels a la Jack Kerouac, but more sexualized and racial

Just to add to the latter, as I was reading some reviews on Amazon that I wanted to share :

-"The narrator of Dany Laferrière's novel is a black man who spends much of his time and effort in seducing white women, specifically English-speakers in Montreal's bilingual community. He mantains there is a hierarchy of pleasure, with white men at the top, who love white women, then white women to take pleasure from black men (and finally, I suppose, black women who get no pleasure at all). Instead of refuting racist stereotypes, this book deliberately plys up to them, not with the aim of reinforcing them, but in order to subvert them. It is a very funny if occasionally disconcerting read."

-"Love reading this at times ascerbic take on early American history.

A beat poet style romp through black history and of what it might have been like to live during that time.

As a woman who's lived as an artist and a musician and been involved with the jazz idom, it bought back memories of the type of lifestyle those of us with a free and bohemian attitude strive for.
By those associations I had many out loud snorting with laughter moments.
This does not mean the seriousness of the slave trade era is forgotten, nor that it should be, however, the 'realness' of Dany LaFerrière's journey is insightful and I for one am truly glad I read this book."

Makes me want to read it again

Not sure I have read Octavia Butler, but you will LOVE Ursula LeGuin, everything she wrote is good. I have been off the forum for a long time, trying to catch up on your stuff, my favorite writer here. Also check out N.K. Jemisin, a more recent writer (black woman) who has a great trilogy called The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Fantastic sci-fi/fantasy stuff. Glad to see you still plugging away. Cheers.

Thanks Dubnjoy000! Looks interesting and provocative and right up my alley. I used to get all my Internet orders delivered at work, because Amazon and other drivers just dump the boxes out on the front stoop at my apartment, and that's not terribly secure. Maybe I'll get up the gumption to order How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired by name at Barnes & Noble

As a youth, I was into Kerouac and Burroughs and Ginsberg. Burroughs had a son, William Jr., who wrote two decent books: Speed and Kentucky Ham, before dying at age 33 from being an alcoholic and a speed freak. I had them both in one volume, but I donated it at some point, and I wish I hadn't.

Thanks carolinabay! That's very kind. Thank you for reading!

I have read one Earthsea story by LeGuin, in Legends, an excellent anthology of stories by famous authors from some of their more famous series.





I doubt that the hardcover is still in print; the paperback sells in two volumes.

Regarding N.K. Jemisin, another reader recommended her, and I did a review of The Fifth Season back in '20. I like her. She was a good follow on Twitter as well, but I think that she dropped off the site—haven't seen her on there for a while. I will read something else by her, eventually. She's on the short list.

On Monday I found an unusually high number of 25c Ultimate X video poker plays on the main floor, which added up to a large number of Sklansky bucks—unfortunately not realized into actual bucks in this case—then I found out that Shoog, my favorite video poker player, had returned to Ultimate X play and graduated from 10c up to 25c.

I hope that my dude is independently wealthy, for both of our sakes.

I was called to a poker table early, and I did not get a chance to case much of the poker room outskirts for Shoog's Ultimate X plays, and while I was playing live poker, I saw two different grinders arrive to scoop them all up, while I looked on helplessly, like a hero who's been tied up and forced to watch a damsel in distress get run over by trains running in both directions.

I'm still running bad at the live poker. Fortunately, the football promos hit for $300 and salvaged the day for a small gain.

MGM Springfield $1/$2 poker: 6.5 hours
+$87.00

MGM Springfield Slots: 2 hours
+$5.04

[B]MGM Springfield Token Sports Bets: 1-0
+$5.25

Running Poker Total: 576.5 hours, +$11414.00

Running Slot Total: 293 hours, +$9537.24

Running Sports Bet Total: 5-6 (-$6.10)

Grand Total: 869.5 hours, +$20945.14

The $900 Pickaxe dot com

Many times over the past year of this latest slot machine gold rush, I have stopped to look up a machine title online to see if it carried the potential for +EV play under the right circumstances, and if so, what exactly might be those circumstances.

More times than not, my searches led me to a site called Machine Pro Club, which in nearly every case gave me a sort of teaser blurb about the machines and their payouts, only without the proper instructions for evaluating their EV states. That information, the site promised, was behind a $49 per month paywall, cancellable at any time.

I took a chance and put $49 on a Green Dot Visa gift card, in order to avoid involving my actual credit or debit cards, in the event of a scam. The card went through and I found myself behind the paywall on the site.

What I got for the $49 was instructions on how to play around 88 titles of machines, only many of those machines were duplicates: i.e. the same game marketed under different names, so really I bought information on around 35 slot variants, a small handful of which are at MGM Springfield, and most of which are not.

Most of the remainder of MGM's +EV titles are actually on the Machine Pro Club site, only they're locked behind a second "Lifetime Membership" paywall. And the price for getting behind that wall is $899.

Now look, I've made a lot of money from the slot machines, and if the site had been upfront about the $899 hit, I might have seriously considered it; but instead, the non-paywall part of the site heavily implied that paying a mere $49 per month would give to me the entire keys to the kingdom, when all the site delivered for that price—in relative terms—was a Burger King hat.

Did I make more than $50 from my one month prop bet? Yes I did—quite a bit more—both in EV and in actual dollars. Regarding a couple of games that Machine Pro Club did give me information on, games which I had been playing sort of by ear, along with relying on vague hints from other free sites, I had been been playing those wrong, and hemorrhaging EV. That information alone has saved me a lot more than $50.

But once again, the $899 bait and switch irked me.



So I will not be renewing my monthly subscription to Machine Pro Club. Bait and switch me once; shame on me. Bait and switch me twice...um...

October in my New England apartment means that my feet are too cold without socks and too warm with socks.

The slippers I own are warmer than socks, so they're not an intermediate solution.

One sock on. One sock off. Alternate feet every 10 minutes.

Cut airholes in your socks.

Hmmm. The math seems to add up in both cases.

Can't you buy thinner* socks or other slippers?

*Not so subtle King reference here.

Cold enough here this AM that I brought out my winter coat for the first time. Upon pulling out my fleece hat, discovered a hole in the top.

Well, that explains a thing or two. Guess it's time to go get a new one.

I'm just going to tough it out. Last year I waited to turn on the heat until around Nov 20th. This year the landlords installed a fancy new thermostat that I can't be arsed to learn how to work, so it might be after Thanksgiving before I mess with it.

What happened to the hat? Moth incursion? We have a stinkbug onslaught this year in New England. They're an invasive species, so I don't mind killing them.

Crocs.

10 points for Phat Mack!
I've had Crocs for over a decade and they're perfect!

SJ - You back to only part time poker again? Lack of activity.

It's never too warm to wear socks.

Not really sure what happened with my hat. It's a beanie-type, the hole is right at the top, where all the little seams come together. Maybe some are starting to give out. Not a huge hole, a little bigger than my index finger.

Just wore out? Bought it in Alaska's north slope ~2003. 20 winters is probably a pretty good lifetime.

If it's real wool, have it re-knit or otherwise repaired.

Thanks, Mack. I think it's a synthetic fleece. NBD, I'll find something (or live with the hole).

After the above, I remembered why I bought this hat up there. Was on a tour where we flew from Fairbanks to Deadhorse. Saw the oil fields (and the video about how environmentally conscious they're being), went out to and waded in the Arctic Ocean, then a two-day van trip back to Fairbanks along the Dalton Highway. Pretty interesting, saw some animals and nature, learned about the Arctic and interior, visited with some people who lived in the bush and heard about how they live.

Anyway, on the way up, we were on some little prop plane. Maybe a ten-seater or so. There was a small rectangular hole in the interior finish, where I assume a little light would've been. The cold air was blowing right down my neck, so I stuck the hat I'd brought (which was, itself, ~20 years old at the time) in the hole.

Naturally, forgot to grab it when getting off. Even though it was July, the far north without a hat isn't fun, and found this one at some store.

I found it really disconcerting to be up there and not having the sun go down. Went for a walk around midnight, and the sun was still quite a way above horizon. Really threw off my orientation.

Anyway, sorry for the derail. Back to SJ's programming...

I haven't given them much thought, aside from disliking the standard neon colors—I'm sure they have tamer color choices—and learning that people wearing them and letting them rub against the sides of escalators caused just enough friction for the crocs to heat up and soften, and become vulnerable to being eaten by the gap between the step and the side of the escalator.

The solution to that, obviously, is not to let them rub against the sides, but with my size-13 boats, natural clumsiness, and habit of walking places while drunk, who knows?

I played yesterday, ran bad, and will be back tonight. I'll post the usual numbers at some point.

How about with sandals? That's considered to be a faux pas in the US, but there's some dispensation for men over 50, along with men who don't give a **** about fashion.

I'd like to get up to Alaska some day, particularly via some of Canada's western provinces. I'll never forget how a small group of Albertans juiced up the Flamingo $1/$2 game to insane levels, and I wouldn't mind stopping by a few casinos up there.

Highly recommend an Alaska trip. Incredibly scenic. Drove the Alaska Highway in 2000, went back in 2003 for the abovementioned trip to the north. LMK if you ever get going, I'll provide a few recommendations.

Socks and sandals have been trending in the last few years, so hop on this bandwagon with abandon, young Padawan!

For sure. I did it several dozens of times, mainly hitchhiking, on the (now extinct) Greyhound (route) and the best was with the freedom of having my own vehicle Major highlights are the abundance of wildlife (the herds of bisons are GOAT, bears, deers, porky pines, mountain goat, moose, foxes etc.), absence of traffic/towns (several 100s of kms without any towns, wifi signals, gasoline etc.), the lakes and mountains, hot springs etcetera.

golddog, we might of crossed paths in 2003 ; I would of been the long haired broke hippie with the thumb up and a djembe to his side by the side of the road, albeit

Haha, you're prolly still traumatized from Thailand and Cambo. It's the same in China and other Asian places. Japan and Korea better but prolly mainly bcos they are colder. There are some formal settings where you should wear them but most of the time nobody cares. Even like in airplanes and stuff, not wearing socks is totally a thing, seen it many times. Personally I DGAF for the most part, helps a lot when dealing with other cultures. Or even your own home culture.

I'd be totally in on the Alaska trip Mr. suited, if I could find the time. I still remember vividly dubnjoy's stories from his Yukon poker room in the travel section. Good read. Sadly I never made it there thus far either. I remember at some point I was kind of planning to but it didn't happen.