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As I posted on Deucescracked (ignore this post if you don’t play poker or have a DC subscription):

Hi all,

It’s about that time of year again. I’m going to be making some Dear FWF episodes and need hand histories to discuss. Here are the rules:
1) If you send a description of villain or reads and relevant history, your hand is more likely to get discussed
2)If you send a FULL RAW hand history (in other words, one that will convert and go into the replayer no problem), your hand is more likely to get discussed
3) Either PM me the hands here at DC or email them to foxwoodsfiend@gmail.com

NO POKERHANDS, NO LINKS TO CLICK ON, JUST THE TEXT OF THE HAND HISTORY AND YOUR READS/EXPLANATIONS.

Thanks a lot!

But were afraid to ask.  This is going to be very very long, but I’ve had a lot of friends ask me what they should listen to if they want to get into rap.  I am going to give an exposition of some of my favorite rap artists, with character descriptions, sample lyrics, highlighted songs to check out, and top albums.  The top songs are normally in descending order of quality, with the first few the best by far and then the rest of them just not particularly ordered. If you are offended by the use of asterisks to replace the letters that comprise certain racial epithets, please don’t continue reading.

Clipse

Character Description:

Clipse, in my mind, are the best rappers out right now.  Clipse is a brother and brother group from Virginia Beach, Virginia.  The two brothers are Malice and Pusha T, and they sound so similar that they’re hard to tell apart.  But Malice is better.  Clipse is noteworthy for rapping almost exclusively about selling crack.  While this seems uninteresting, they come up with so many clever ways to talk about the subject that their wit shines above their limited subject matter.

Key lyrics:  “Vicious with the verse, I’m as genius as Ray [Charles for you morons]/Ya’ll n****as seeing nothing on the Zenith like Ray/Black hands, white keys, ya’ll seen this I’m Ray/Got more white in the hood than the KKK/The Grand Wizard of the Almighty Blizzard.” (I’m a Hustler)

“Virginia’s for lovers/but trust there’s hate here for out of towners/Who think that they going move weight here/Ironic the same state I’m making figures at/That here’s the same land they used to hang n****as at.” (Virginia)

“It shames me to no end/to feed poison to those who could very well be my kin/But where there’s demand someone will supply/so I feed them their needs at the same time cry/Yes it pains me to see them need this/All of them lost souls and I’m their jesus/Deepest regrets and sympathies to the streets/I seen them pay for their fix when their kids couldn’t eat/And with this in mind, I still ain’t quit, and that’s how I know that I ain’t shit/My heart grieves but that’s aside from the fact/I live for my kids and theirs and them young’ns after that.” (I’m Not You)

“Uggh, another soul lost/had to make his shirt match my ox-blood Porsche/Uggh, the rims match of course/Blood hit his Timbs/It reminded me of them.” (What Happened to that Boy?)

“Zoning family, keep young’ns in them rented Camries/Door panels fool of shit and I ain’t full of shit/Reckless ass, god forbid they won’t crash/from the panel to the dash it’s four bricks of slab/Nah bitch, we don’t believe in air bags.” (I’m Not you)

Best songs: Virginia, What Up, What Happened to that Boy (technically a Birdman song but Clipse drop two amazing verses and I always skip the Birdman verse), Comedy Central (although Fabolous’ verse is really what makes it), I’m Not You (two amazing verses bookending lackluster guest appearances).

Best albums: Their mixtape, We Got it for Cheap Vol. 2, is their best lyrical work and has the best beats (samples of tons of hits).  Unfortunately, it’s a collaborative effort with two artists that they work with often, Ab Liva and Sandman, and those two guys are not that good.  So the album is half amazing Clipse lyrics and half unimpressive filler verses.

Lord Willin’ is their first album and absolutely amazing, but it’s less melodic and accessible for a new listener.

Hell Hath No Fury is also great and well-produced, but for a true rap fan I think it’s worse than the other two.

Fabolous

Character description: Fabolous is, in my opinion, the best technical rapper of all time.  It’s him or Eminem.  Fabolous gets a lot of hate because a lot of his songs are very poppy and he raps a lot about loving girls or going shopping, but if you can get over that and appreciate how good of a wordsmith he is, you’ll realize he’s a genius.

Sample lyrics:  “These n****as wonder where my heat stay at/I leave n****as M.I.A. and I ain’t talking where the heat play at.” (Keepin it Gangsta)

“Soon as you get some cash they wanna bury ya/that’s why I travel with a Semi, like Eddie in “Coming to America.” (Keepin it Gangsta Remix)

“I bet you look at things from a different perspective/When you see the size of the slugs the fifth or the tech get/A couple’ll lift the detective/And make sure that the legs he use to walk around with are defective/All ya’ll n***gas do is sit on blocks and jive about who the baddest bitch and if Pac’s alive/N****a I’m in an aqua five with a button that make the roof flip back like pocket knives/Can’t knock your drive, you feeling like Rocky/Till you catch a beating like he did in Rocky five” (Now What)

“See I’m like Obama to these silly motherfuckers/And you n****as is Clintons, hillbilly motherfuckers.” (A Milli remix)

“It’s easy to look at my life and don’t see no pain/I remember having to take 3, 4 trains to re cocaine/Standing in the lobby during sleet, snow rain/Waiting for fiends with a pint of beef lo mein/Breaking days on the grind I used to be so drained/But ain’t a Saturday I wasn’t down to see Soul Train/Sometimes I didn’t see no gain/Cuz I was running Ralphies every time my tree showed stains/I was lucky I wasn’t seized or maimed/Or get shot up, standing at the cee-lo game.” (One Day)

“They call me Mr., please believe me believe me please/I put a pump in your mouth and help you breathe with ease/This guy’s in a hurry, ma I can’t fuck with you if you ain’t in my itinerary/I don’t know where dudes is buying their jewelry/That’s why your ice cream, like it’s made by Ben and Jerry/Ya’ll the type of players that be getting two-day contracts/Email snitch, got dees [D.A.s you morons] in your two-way contacts/Me I’m in the club with the new ‘Ze cognac/In them number 9 Jordans with the deuce-trey on back/The Street Family so cool we could pull bitches even if it was July and we had on wool britches.” (Comedy Central)

“I’m something like a phenomenon/but still dumping whenever the drama’s on/ya’ll hustlers can’t eat fit meals/and it feels something like when it’s Ramadan.” (Not Give a Fuck)

“I address the haters/and underestimaters/and ride up on them like they escalators/they shooked up and hooked up to respirators/on their last breath talking to investigators.” (Breathe)

“Getting stressed by these hotties is regular/I got a magazine to press to your bodies like editors/Test me somebody I’m beggina ya/I got the gattling gun like Jesse the body in predator.” (Forget Me Father)

Not Give a Fuck, Brooklyn We Go Hard (remix), A Milli (remix), In My Hood, Breathe, Po Po, Forget Me Father, Keeping it Gangster (remix), Change You or Change Me, N***az

Best Albums: Ghetto Fabolous, There Is No Competition (mixtape), Real Talk, Street Dreams

Jay-Z

Character description: Jay-Z is the best rapper of all time.  If anybody disagrees, that person reveals his stupidity.  Any intelligent person who listens to rap will agree with me.  If you tell me you think Jay-Z isn’t the best, I treat that as proof that you’re not smart.  He’s a genius.  This section’s going to take a while.  There are so many insanely good Jay-Z lyrics that I don’t even know where to start and if I tried capturing it all I’d type up numerous page of lyrics, so  the lyrics will just be great lyrics I don’t think you’d have heard, and the greatest songs will be a list of amazing songs for you to listen to.

Sample lyrics:

“Hustle cane, hustle clothes or hustle music/But hustle hard in any hustle that you pick/Skinny ni**a, toothpick/Yes, but I do lift/Weight like I”m using/Roids, Rolls/Royce keep my movements/Smooth while maneuvering through all the manure and the sewer that I grew up in” (No Hook)

“That’s him, I’m usually what they whisper bout/Either what chick he with or his chipper mouth/Cuz I been doing this since Chips was out/Watching Erik Estrada bagging up at the Ramada/Table full of powder/A.C. broke bout to take another shower in my 25th hour.” (Ignorant Shit)

“Your worst fears confirmed/Me and my fam roll tight like The Firm/Getting down for life/That’s right you better learn/Why play with fire, burn/We do dirt like worms/Produce g’s like sperms/Till legs spread like worms/I got extensive hoes with expensive clothes/And I sip fine wine and spit vintage flows/What, ya’ll don’t know?” (Can’t knock the hustle)

“Hospital days, reflected on my man laid up/On the uptown high block he got his side sprayed up/I saw his life slipping/This is a minor set back yo still in all we living/Just dream about the get-back/That made him smile, though his eyes said pray for me/I’ll do you one better and slay these ni***s faithfully.” (Dead Presidents II)

“Whoever said illegal was the easy way out/Couldn’t understand the mechanics and the workings of the underworld/Granted, nine to five is how you survive/I ain’t trying to survive/I’m trying to live it to the limit and love it a lot.” (D’Evils)

“We used to fight for building blocks, now we fight for blocks with buildings that make a killing/The closest of friends when we first started/But grew apart as the money grew, soon grew black-hearted/Thinking back, when we first learned to use rubbers/He never learned so in turn I’m kidnapping his baby’s mother.” (D’Evils)

“Stop screaming, you know the demon said it’s best to die/And even if Jehova witness bet he’ll never testify.” (D’Evils)

“True this, these streets teach us to spend our money foolish/Bond with jewelers and watch for intruders/I step it up another level, meditate it like a Buddhist/Recruited lieutenants with dreams of getting cream let’s do this/It gets te-di-ous/So I keep one eye open like C.B.S., you see me stress right?” (Can I Live?)

“Ah father, I brooklyn dodger them/I jack, I rob, I sin/That’s right, I’m Jacky Robinson.” (Brooklyn We Go Hard)

Best songs: Absolute must-listens:  Dead Presidents, Dead Presidents II, Heart of the City, Never Change, Renegade, Regrets, Can’t Knock The Hustle, Brooklyn’s Finest, Feelin’ It, D’Evils, Can I Live?, U Don’t Know, All I Need, Izzo (H.O.V.A.)

Merely great songs: It’s Like That, Reservoir Dogs, The Watcher 2, What More Can I Say, Encore, Dirt Off Your Shoulder, Allure

Songs worth listening to when you’re looking for Jay-Z songs that slipped under your radar:  Hola Hovito, no Hook, Ignorant Shit, Song Cry, This Can’t Be Life, Soon You’ll Understand, You must love me, Lucky Me, Where I’m From, If I Should Die, Reservoir Dogs, his verse on the remix of Talib Kweli’s “Get by”

Best Albums: Reasonable Doubt (in my mind the best rap album of each time by a wide margin), Blueprint, Black Album, Vol. 2 Hard Knock Life

Ghostface Killah

Character Description: Ghostface is the craziest of the best rappers ever.  Half his shit doesn’t make sense and you kind of just admire the creativity of somebody putting together a bunch of words that you don’t understand in a way that seems to make sense.  He’s the quintessential Wutang rapper, which is to say that of the Dadaists of rap he’s the most Dada.

Best lyrics: “Why is sky blue? Why is water wet? Why did Judas rap to the Romans while Jesus slept?” (4th Chamber)

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidcoious, dociousalexpifragilisticcalisuper, Cancun catch me in the room eating grouper.” (Buck 50)

“Hey yo, the devil planted seeds inside the black babies/50 cent sodas in the hood we going crazy.” (Supreme Clientele)

” I play hard for nine innings, dressed in fine linens/Cuz pussy is the best next thing besides women/All the positions I been in couldn’t explain how I’m living/My vision, my intuition has risen here take a listen/I’m hitting, up to bat with position/See I’m back in the kitchen, slinging crack to these pigeons/For the fact that I’m driven/My linebackers is pitching (?)/See me back ???/Trapped in this prison where snakes and rats are forbidden/Keep my gun hidden/N****z is bitching signing petitions/And they providing convictions/See I survive through the system under the livest conditions/My riders ride on a mission/For snitching you get your back blown right out of commission/You’ll be missing like them crazy Christians and swimming with all the fishes/Your missus will come and visit your body with hugs and kisses/Now tell me is that nutritious/We party for chips and liquours/Your ??? is coming with us for real kid they bought me presents/The difference is that this is business big biscuits big figures/We click on religious n***az for acting too superstitious.” (Tony/Montana).  This is a Cormega song but I really think this is the best verse in rap history.  The tightness of the flow, the ability to sustain the same rhyme for so long, and the content itself is all excellent.  A must-listen

Best songs:  Tony/Montana, Holla, Shakey Dog, Kilo, Jellyfish, Whip You With A Strap, Underwater, Nutmeg, One, Apollo Kids

Best Albums:  Supreme Clientele, Fishscale.  Both of these are top 15 albums of all time.  Ghostface has a lot of great stuff, but if you listen to these two albums you’ll get pretty much all the good Ghostface content.

Eminem

Character description: Do you really need this? White rapper, shocking personality, yada yada.  Amazing technical rapper, shocking personality, etc.  Like Fabolous, he’s great at doing multiple-syllabic rhyming and keeping the structure.

Best lyrics: (pay attention here to the last two sounds of each line): “Peace to Thurston Howell and Waylon Wordsworth/My mother smoked crack and had a premature birth/I’m just a nerd cursed with badly disturbed nerds/Who want to be the one to step up and get served first?/99% of aliens prefer earth/So I’m here to rule the planet, starting with your turf/I hid a secret message inside of a word search/With smeared letters running together in blurred spurts/I hang with male chauvinist pigs and perverts/Who point water pistols at women and squirt shirts/Been a bad boy since diapers and Gerber’s/My first words were bleep bleep and curse curse/Never had shit and I still don’t deserve dirt/My breath still stinks and I’m on my 3rd Certs/Yanking out my stitches, hollering nurse, nurse!/You said the shots would numb it, trick it just hurts worse!/Grew up in a dump next door to a burned church/Where gunshots drowned out crickets and bird chirps” (Frestyle 10, from the Freestyle Manual at datpiff.com)

“”Follow me and do exactly what the song says/smoke weed, take pills, drop outta school, kill people/and drink and jump behind the wheel like it was still legal/…..Some people only see that I”m white, ignoring skill/Cuz I stand out like a green hat with an orange bill….Will someone please explain to my brain that I just severed a main vein with a chainsaw and I’m in pain?/I take a breather and sigh; either I’m high, or I’m nuts/Cuz if you ain’t tilting this room, neither am I/So when you see your mom with a thermometer shoved in her ass/Then it’s probably obvious I got it on with her.” (Role Model)

“I got so many ways to diss you that I’m playful with you/I let a razor slit you till they’ll have to staple stitch you/And everybody in this fucking place will miss you if you try to turn my facial tissue into a racial issue/Nobody’s feeling you, you’re a wack liar. There, now all your white jokes just backfired/You’re barking up the wrong tree, now go back home and tell all your homes that you was beat by a honky.” (Rap olympics final, have no idea where I found this)

Best songs: Rock Bottom, If I Had, Role Model, Just Don’t Give a Fuck, Criminal, Rabbit Run, Square Dance, Dead Wrong (techincally a Biggie song), I’m Back, Marshall Mathers, Say Goodbye to Hollywood, White America, Business,

Best Albums: Slim Shady LP, Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem Show

Lil Wayne

Character description: Lil Wayne is now famous and a huge star.  But Lil Wayne’s fame has come at a time when he’s putting out his worst stuff by far.  The Carter III marked his turning pop and singing a bunch of autotune garbage, but from the release of the Carter II until the Carter III Lil Wayne was arguably the best and most creative rapper around.  He put out a ridiculous amount of amazing mixtapes with his two series, The Dedication and Da Drought.  So while he’s famous, his best stuff is largely unnoticed by most people.  The following suggestions don’t do Lil Wayne justice because for a year and a half he was putting out an insanely large amount of truly brilliant stuff.  Lyrically tight with a touch of lunacy and creative genius, the vast majority of those mixtape series is classic stuff.

Sample lyrics: “Photophobia, no kodak moments/Fed walls with my pictures on them/No, I ain’t even in my school yearbook I don’t do too much posing got a cool killer look.” (Carter II)

“And guess who came home? Ronnie the old g/He still on papers, man we never free/And for my homie Street I’m a twist one up/He can’t even hit the kush he gotta piss in a cup” (Down and Out Freestyle)

“So hard I go, I keep pushing/The game so crazy I’m in it like deep pussy/Got crumbs from trying to get the whole cookie/Used to make a thousand dollars every time I played hookie/Dwayne Carter, absent keep looking/I’m present on the block I’m a legend on the block…So watch and see what I do/Breeze by you so fast, got you sneezing ha-choo/They got the shivers, man I got the fever/I gotta bring the hood back after Katrina/Weezy F. Baby now the F is for Fema/Sick n****a bitch I spit that leukemia.” (Feel Me)

“They call me Mr. Carter, I kiss the daughter/of the dead’s forehead, I killed the father…I remember being young, trying to hustle my dope/Trying to tell the old junkies that my crack ain’t sold/Trying to tell you before you jump that my Mac ain’t broke/You ain’t trying to see how far back that back lane (???) go/No, call me Pacman your ghost is blue, I get my red river rubies and my ocean blue/Jewelry, usually I’m a hooligan for the money/Yeah I’m eating but I got a tapeworm in my tummy.” (Fly In)

“Walking the line with a lot on my mind/I get the money never dropping a dime/I don’t hate never not on my time/I put that little red dot on your mind/Talking that crime but a lot of them lying/I’m caught on the grind never get off my grind/I’m a pimp to these hoes not a pimp in my mind/and everybody knows I’m sharp when I ride/Hop out that new Ferrari with that little heart on the side.” (Get Em)

“You know I’m a die for my motherfucking n****as/Most likely I’m a die with my finger ont he trigger/They tell me don’t get high and I should try to make a living/I tell them I’m a hustler and I’d rather make a killing/My eyes is so white they should rise in the skillet/I let my bitch bag it if she spill it I’m a kill her/I bulletproof the ride now I feel like armadillos/And fuck your hospital young money we the illest…Self-made g and the bitches know the business/Relying on rap but in the kitchen I’m a chemist/And when I was 5 my favorite movie was the Gremlins/Ain’t got shit to do with this but I just thought that I should mention/You looking for divine with a little intervention/And the birds don’t fly without my permission/I’m probably in the sky flying with the fishes/Or maybe in the ocean swimming with the pigeons/See my world is different.” (Sky’s the Limit)

Best songs: Feel Me,Fly In, Get Em, Sky’s the Limit, On My Own, Hustler Musik, Money on My Mind, I Feel Like Dying, Scarface, Cannon (AMG remix), Carter II, Freestyle (from DaDrought 3), Spitter, Mr. Carter, A Milli, 3Peat.

Best Albums: The Carter II, Da Drought 2, Dedication 2, Da Drought 3 (and pretty much the whole Da Drought series except for Da Drought 5).

Big L

Character Description: Big L is the father of all technical rappers.  Although old-school and slept on because his voice makes his raps hard to listen to, there’s no doubt that he was well ahead of his time in terms of wordplay and flow.

Sample Lyrics: “You know the gameplan/C-town that’s my main man/We never bring luggage we go shopping when the plane lands/Still run with the same clan used to be a Kane fan/Everything I rock is name brand/L’ll make your dame swallow/Your ice don’t shine and your chain’s hollow/Why you front of clubs for hours with the same bottle?/Taking midget sips I ride with the richest cliques/Tap the thickest chicks/Plus drop the slickest hits/you know nothing about L, so why doubt L/What’s this motherfucking rap game without L?/Hey yo that’s like jewels without ice/That’s like China without rice/Or the holy bible without christ/Or the bulls without Mike/Or crackheads without pipes/The village without dikes or hockey games without fights.” (The Big Picture Intro)

“I got more riches than you/Fuck more bitches than you/Only thing I haven’t got is more stitches than you/Fucking punk, you ain’t a leader what?/Nobody follow you/You was never shit, your mother should have swallowed you…/Put your raggedy house up/Or shut your mouth up/Before I buck lead/and make a lot of blood shed/Turn your tux red/I’m far from broke got enough bread/And mad hoes ask Beavis I get nothing but head/My game is vicious and cruel/Fucking chicks is the rule/If my girl think I’m loyal then that bitch is a fool.” (’98 Freestyle)

Best songs: ‘98 Freestyle, The Big Picture (Intro), MVP, Let ‘Em Have It “L”, Danger Zone, MVP, The Heist, Deadly Combination, Ebonics,

Best Albums: Lifestyles ov Da Poor and Dangerous, The Big Picture

Big Pun

Character Description: Big Pun’s career was struck short when he died of fatness, but in his brief time on the map he dropped he changed the game.  Nobody ever had such a sick, tight flow while still being very clever.

Sample lyrics: “Ready for war Joe, how you wanna blow they spot/I know these dirty cops that’ll get us in if we murder some wop/Jump in your hummer, the punisher’s ready/Meet me at Vito’s with Noodles, we’ll do this while he’s slurping spaghetti/Everybody kiss the fucking floor, Joe Crack, buck em all/If they move, noodles shoot that fucking whore/Dead in the middle of LIttle Italy little did we know that we riddled some middleman who didn’t do diddly.” (Twinz [Deep Cover '98])

If you listen to that song and don’t love Big Pun, there’s no point in giving you any other sample lyrics.  It’s almost impossible to encapsulate his greatness with just a few choice quotes because what made him so great is his ability to just flow non-stop fast rhymes and I don’t know where to start, so I’ll just give you some songs to listen to.

Best Songs: Twinz (Deep Cover ‘98), You Ain’t A Killer, Super Lyrical, Boomerang, John Blaze, Not A Player (not to be confused with his hit single Still not a player)

Best Album: Capital Punishment

Cam’ron

Character description: You could argue that no rapper reaches higher highs than does Cam’ron.  His flow is crazy and a lot of the stuff he says is basically indecipherable, but he’s more of a free-associative rambler than a rapper.  Still, his freeform approach to rap pays off greatly oftentimes.  He’s the Mahbod Moghadam of rap.

Sample lyrics:  We tie dynamite to the rhino type (?)/Wino might find your sight/Sell that information for a dime of white/That china china/I’m behind a diner/Selling marijuana to a minor minor/Elder fella/Looking for that shine, I’ll shine ya/My mind designa/You a dime, I dine ya/Madonna momma/boddy bottle/Your fine I’m finer/Time to climb her/Climb behind vagina/Then I hyman grind her/Till I might remind her/Diamonds blind her/Vision’s gone/Kiss her palm/Turn her on/Lift her arm/Notice that her wrists is wrong/Gotta get it right ma/We gon’ get along/Said how don’t trip, but yo to trick is wrong.” (Harlem Streets)

“Street mergers I legislated, The nerve I never hated/All murder’s premeditated/Absurd I hesitated/Observe, cock and spray/Hit you from a block away/Drinking sake on the Suzuki we in Osaka bay.” (Down and Out)

“The difference in our crimes, yours attempts/Attempt burglary, attempt theft you just begun/I’m grand theft auto, racqueteer, larceny, conspiracy/Murder one, electric chair i don’t deserve the fun/But I get the dough, shit I might splurge on one.” (Leave me alone pt. 2)

“”Canary burgandy/I call it lemon red/Yellow diamonds in my ear/Call em lemonheads/Lemonhead end up dead/Ice like guinea pig/Gemstones, flinstones/You could say I’m friends with Fred/You want happy scrappy/I got pataki at me/Bitches say I’m tacky daddy/Range look like Laffy Taffy.” ( Killa Cam)

“They biting like Tyson, worse than that Dracula/your mom buys heron, with no hands I”m smacking her.” (Cooking up)

Best Songs: Glory, 357,Harlem Streets, Down and Out, SDE, Get Em Girls, That’s Me, Welcome to New york City, Cookin’ Up

Best Albums: Confessions of Fire, Purple Haze, SDE

That’s It For Artists

I know I’ll get some crap for leaving out Biggie.  I think Biggie is the 2nd best rapper ever behind Jay-Z, but I don’t think I have much value added in terms of highlighting his amazingness.  If you haven’t listened to Ready to Die, do it.  But most of you have heard most of Biggie’s good stuff.

Nas is a tricky case.  Illmatic is a top 10 album of all time, but everything he’s done since then is so wretchedly bad and annoyingly self-delusional and convoluted that I can’t give him credit.  I actually think Cormega probably wrote most of Illmatic because the second Cormega and Nas had a falling out Nas fell to shit.

I wanted to write about Outkast, but their stuff is too hard to explain.  Andre 3000 is definitely a top-10 rapper of all time.  Listen to Aquemini and ATLiens sometime to get you started on them.

Jadakiss also gets honorary mention but he never quite got over the hump of just being somewhat clever but having an awkward flow.  Listen to him once you get past the previously mentioned artists.

Miscellaneous amazing songs to listen to:

The Saga (Cormega): I think one of the 10 best rap songs of all time.

Never Change (AZ): A gem of a song by AZ, who had the potential to be an all-time great but just never lived up to it

New York State of Mind (Nas): A classic, you should know this one

Life’s A Bitch (Nas): Only worth listening to because of AZ’s first verse, which I think is a top-5 verse in rap history.

What’s The Difference (Dr. Dre): Just another amazing Eminem verse to listen to

Today Was A Good Day (Ice Cube): Classic single, a bit dated but a must-listen.

Okay, I’m exhausted and at almost 4500 words so that’ll have to do for now.  Please feel free to note any glaring omissions in comments, but keep in mind I was trying to give an introductory survey to my favorite rappers ever and I obviously couldn’t list every great lyric any one of them ever spat.  I’ll try to think of more great stuff.

As a final thought, listen to Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) sometime.

After Hong Kong, I met up with Josh and my other Harvard-Law-roommate-to-be, Adam, in Cambodia.  We were in Siem Reap, home of the legendary Angkor Wat temples.  Angkor Wat, if you’ve never heard of it, is the biggest temple complex in the world.  Considered by most world travelers to be a must-see destination before you die, it also has the honor of being the most overrated place I have ever been to in my entire life.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m normally all about these types of places.  I loved Machu Picchu, the Grand Canyon, and pretty much every tourist attraction I’ve ever been to.  But Angkor Wat, well, it was just kind of of boring and crappy.  Bigger isn’t necessarily better, and the temples were colorless, old, and run down, and not that interesting.  I just can’t get that excited about something this dull:

While my friends, equally underwhelmed by Angkor Wat, were telling me that most people insist you need 3 days to see all the temples, I was sweating in the harsh Cambodian summer heat and wondering how long I was going to have to stay there.  Fortunately, I was kept company by an aggressive mob of beggar children constantly asking me to buy their guide books or trinkets.

That, to me, was really the worst part about Cambodia.  Everywhere I went, there was constant begging.  I’ve been to all sorts of poor places in the world (Africa, South America, downtown Atlantic City), and I’ve never seen such aggressive begging.  It really takes a lot out of you: you’re overwhelmed by the heat and have to deal with an army of beggars.  I knew to not get mad at them because let’s face it, if I were as poor as they are lord knows I’d  not give two shits about upsetting some tourists and would just do whatever I felt maximized my chances of making some money.  I’m definitely sympathetic to just how awful the poverty I saw is and how desperate it’ll make people, but that doesn’t mean that being on the receiving end is anything but infuriating.  You can’t get mad at the children, so instead you just get mad at the fact that you’re in Cambodia.  The situation gets so bad because you either constantly say “no, no, no, no, no” to no avail (they’re persistent over there) or you just put your head down and ignore them, which leads to an alienating dynamic wherein the children are begging and you’re just pretending that they’re not even there.

As for giving the kids money, that wasn’t happening.  For one, the money just goes to the kids’ dad who wastes it on booze or drugs 90% of the time (this according to an aid worker I met at my hostel).  Furthermore, if you give one kid money you’ll be swamped by every child in sight because now they know you’re willing to give out some money.  Finally, I donate a lot of money to charity, so I don’t feel so bad turning down these kids.

Oh, also since 2009 is the year of making weaker claims, I’ll amend my “Angkor Wat is totally boring and awful” claim with the following caveat: there are some cool carvings on some of the walls.

Still, not exactly worth planning a trip around imo.

Hmm, so I went to Angkor Wat and I was in Cambodia, so what else was there to do?  Basically, as far as I could tell, there were two remaining items to check off.  First, I went to the genocide memorials in Phnom Penh. Tthe Tuol Sleng memorial was really, really chilling and did a great job of using testimonials to give you a sense for what it was like to have known family that disappeared under Pol Pot, to kill your fellow countrymen, and to be in the labor camps afraid for your life.  It covered all the angles.  Oddly enough, the actual killing fields were totally underwhelming.  There was a tower with a bunch of skulls in it in the middle, but other than that no exhibits or anything.  Just some fields.  No pictures of bodies discovered, no videos to watch, just some fields.  I don’t think it’s particularly worth going to if you’ve already been to Tuol Sleng.

After the genocide memorials, it was time to go to the shooting range.  Cambodia is famous for having shooting ranges which let you fire all sorts of heavy artillery, and since my dad never took me hunting as a kid I’ve never shot a rocket launcher.

The first place I went to with Josh and Adam was an army training base which I guess supplemented its budget by letting tourists fire weaponry.  The soldiers showed me the wall of guns, which I pretended to look at for about 10 seconds before pointing at the rocket launcher and, playing it cool, asked, “You don’t happen to have any rockets do you?”  Unfortunately, I got my hopes up for nothing: they were out of rockets.  I had to settle for firing what they called the “Rambo Gun” (no idea what type of gun it was):

The guys did let me take a picture with the rocket launcher, though, so at least I got that:

Dejected but not defeated, I inquired around town and discovered another shooting range that reportedly had rockets as well.  Adam, Josh, and I took a 30-minute taxi out to the middle of nowhere and when I got to the range I was ecstatic.  This place had both a rocket launcher AND a rocket!  I asked the ex-military-commando-looking guy how much a rocket costs, and he said I could fire it for $350.  I pretended to think and finally, after some faux deliberation, I said, “Yes, I think I would like to do that.”

The commando dude told me that you can’t really fire rockets at the range because you would risk blowing everything up and that I would have to take a drive to the top of the mountain range to fire it.  I agreed, and then the final caveat was thrown in: there was a minimum purchase of two rockets.  At this point, I’d been in Southeast Asia long enough to know that everybody is constantly trying to hustle tourists and I wasn’t about to let myself be hustled.  I also knew how little money everybody has and how much $350 means in Cambodia and that there was no way they were going to turn me down if I bought only one rocket.  So, being street smart as I am, I began to negotiate.

“Let me get this straight.  You’re saying it’s not worth it to take me on a drive to the top of the mountain for only $350, and that you’d only do it for $700?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“No way man, I’m not paying for 2.  If you really don’t want my business, fine by me.’

“Okay, thank you very much. Have a nice day.”

I was somewhat thrown off by how casual this guy was, but I had to ride out this negotiating tactic.  I told Adam and Josh we were leaving and we got back in the taxi.  As we pulled out the driveway, I looked out and realized that these guys weren’t coming after me.  Holy crap, they were being serious!

Now, firing a rocket launcher is definitely worth $700 to me and I wanted to jump out of the taxi and apologize, pay up and go fire some rockets.  Unfortunately, I also have my pride and coming back defeated in front of my friends wasn’t too appealing, so I didn’t go back.  I was already tired from weeks of haggling with random street vendors over everything in Malaysia and Bali, and I just didn’t want to throw in the towel.  So I never got to fire a rocket launcher, and seeing as how I don’t plan on ever going back to Cambodia I suppose I’ll have to take a vacation to Wyoming or Montana to finish the job one of these days.

I’ve made about 120k at 25/50 and 50/100 since the last downswing post, so please everybody stop giving me your condolences. I appreciate it, but I’m up on the month now.

I went to Asia a few months ago.  It was pretty sweet.   The first stop was Kuala Lumpur, but I only spent two days there because I’d already been there years ago.  It’s a city not worth going to once, let alone twice.  I did go to the Petronas Towers, which used to be the two tallest buildings in the world but are now simply the tallest twin buildings in the world.  When you take the tour, you don’t get to go to the top; they take you to the walkway on the 40th floor between the two towers.  So basically you’re no further up than at a rooftop party in Manhattan and you get a view of a total crap city.  Like I said, don’t go to Kuala Lumpur.

Next up was Bali, where I met up with Josh, who is going to be one of my roommates in law school.  There’s not much to say about Bali: it’s a perfectly nice place to go but it’s not that different from any other nice beaches, except for that it’s hotter and you meet more Australians.  I learned how to surf in Kuta and went scuba diving in Amed.  Scuba diving was pretty sweet as apparently Amed is a top-5 location in the world if you’re looking for diversity of fish when scuba diving.

Anyway, after 7 days in Bali I got a bit bored and Josh and I split up for a week.  I have a friend from high school who works for HSBC in Hong Kong so I audibled and went to visit him.  I was intrigued by Hong Kong because when my dad was looking for a job when I was a kid, he had a job offer in HK.  He almost took it, but instead he waited a year and I grew up in Blacksburg.  I’ve always wondered what it would be like to grow up in Hong Kong, and now I’m pretty sure I know: I would have spent my entire adolescence constantly feeling inferior for being middle class.

Hong Kong strikes me as a terrible place to live if you’re not wealthy.  It’s a relatively soul-less city built entirely around the investment banking community.  This means the night-life is amazing and if you love shopping, you’ll love Hong Kong.  It seems as though all major fashion designers in Hong Kong madea  vow that nobody in the city would ever have to walk more than 5 minutes to shop at one of their stores.  There are 2 major malls  equidistant (about 5 minutes walk) from Central HK, each basically identical to the other.  Hermes, Prada, Gucci, Piaget, Rolex, Burberry, etc. These are massive shopping complexes that put the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace to shame.  Additionally, it’s impossible to walk for 10 minutes without stumbling across the same stores you just saw in those malls.   I think I counted 8 Gucci stores and at least a dozen Salvatore Ferragamo outlets.   Maybe in a different setting I’d have appreciated all this excess shopping, but given that I was getting ready for a couple months of backpacking I didn’t really see the need for any new clothing.

During the days I got pretty bored because there’s no real sight-seeing in HK.  I went to an amazing dim sum place (Maxim Dim Sum if you’re ever in that neck of the woods), but you can only keep busy for so long eating dim sum.   My friend was always at work so, despite my looking forward to taking a break from poker, I went and bought a laptop to grind some during the day.  The thing about being a poker player is that buying a laptop to only use for a week, although it may seem ridiculous, basically pays for itself.  I only need to work about 45 minutes to make (in expectation) the cost of my laptop.

The other thing about being a poker player is that sometimes you lose an average annual American salary playing on the laptop that “pays for itself.”  I ran worse than I’d ran at 25/50 in a long time and was down 45k.  The cafe I was at, a quaint little Starbucks in Soho Hong Kong, was closing in 10 minutes.  I was on 3 Full Tilt tables and 1 Stars table when all 3 of my FTP tables froze on me.  Oh well, no worry, I was getting ready to quit anyway and was on my last hand in the Stars game anyway.  So I control-alt-deleted to close down FTP and limped 66 UTG (it was full ring). (WARING: semi-long bad beat story ahead).

It got folded to the big blind, who raised to 250.  I called.  At this point, something weird happened.  My entire screen went black.  I was already somewhat tilted from taking a big loss when I was supposedly on vacation, and now I was down $250 because my brand new computer was glitching.  So I’m mashing buttons trying to get the screen to unfreeze, and finally it does just in time for me to see the beautiful flop:

2d 3h 6s

There was a $600 bet to me and I tried raising but my computer was non-responsive.  I was just staring at top set, hoping I wasn’t going to get folded, and clicking on call over and over and over hoping it would register (and hoping that I wouldn’t call $600 and then get disconnected and lose even more).  That’s around when my computer cut to some screen I’d never seen before: apparently I was working on a Vista the whole time and when you click control-alt-delete on a Vista it takes you to a new screen instead of opening up the task manager.

So I click cancel and figure I’ll be taken back to the table, possibly in time to recoup some of my losses.  By now I’ve spent about a minute mashing buttons and shaking my computer trying to get back in time, and the screen is taking forever to load.  I get back in time just to see that the turn was the Td and it’s on me and my Stars time bank is down to 5 seconds.  There’s 2k in the pot and we have 4k stacks.  I don’t want to risk getting disconnected again so I jam all in with 1 second remaining on my timer.

As my opponent snap-called, I had the sickening realization that I was behind and sure enough, he had TT.  Already down huge, having spent a few minutes completely stressing over the hand only to get completely cold-decked, this was definitely the most frustrating set over set I’d ever had.  I made a vow to not play poker the rest of my trip, went out and got drunk, and put my one-day, -50k laptop purchase behind me.

This post is getting a bit long, so I’m going to break it up.  Tomorrow, part II.  If the suspense is killing you, I’ll give you a quick spoiler:

DO NOT GO TO CAMBODIA

Running a board in a casino multiple times when one is all in simply means you deal the hand out two or three times (whichever the players agree to). If my hand is best after 1 of the 2 boards, I win half the pot. If we run it three times and I win 2, I get 2/3 of the pot. And so on and so on. This is supposed to reduce variance, but I’ve found recently that all it does is waste everybody’s time. The reason I say this is because in the week I’ve been playing in Bellagio, I’ve ran 18 boards. I’ve won three of them.

Basically, about 5 days ago I had been winning and had 180k in cash in a brown paper bag. That money is now gone. This is one of the worst downswings I’ve ever had in terms of money, but it’s definitely the most tilting because it’s all happened in casinos. I’ve spent the last week sitting on my ass waiting for high stakes games to run, playing 100/200 in Bobby’s Room and 50/100 when 100/200 isn’t running. I didn’t sell off any pieces because the games were so good. Spending the vast majority of your days in a casino only to get crushed every day isn’t the best thing for one’s mental health, so I’m going to Los Angeles to see some friends and family and I’m flying out to New York on Sunday, where I’ll be until the Main Event.

The worst of all the run-bads was getting it in with AA vs KK (in No-Limit, not PLO) for a 48k pot at 50/100. I had the other guy’s suits covered, we ran it twice, and he hit a king both times. Everything else was just fairly standard all-ins, normally for 150-200 big blinds, and me only winning 3 times. Fortunately I was on a bit of a winning streak heading into this so I’m only stuck about 100k since coming back to the states, but I’m still sufficiently tilted that I don’t think I’ll step foot inside a casino for a while (with the exception of the Main Event). Being stuck and knowing you’re only going to get 20 hands per hour for the rest of the day, with nothing to do but sit at the poker table and count the size of the pot for PLO because the dealers can’t do it, isn’t something I would wish on my worst enemy.

When I get to L.A. I’ll upload some pics from my Asia trip, which I’ve been too busy to do because I’ve been in the poker room so much the last week, and I’ll have a trip report up in the next couple of days. Also, I have a new video for DeucesCracked up. Hope you enjoy it, and I should be back to making vids now for the rest of the year, so I’m looking forward to participating in the DC community more now that I’m back in the states.

A few days ago, the topic of how much to tip the staff upon leaving the retreat came up. Vig, a plump Sikh man from Poonah (sp?) here for the weight-loss program explained that we don’t have to tip much because wages are quite high in India these days. He claimed that even janitors make a decent living wage now. This prompted a long argument between him and Anne, the German woman who has been traveling through India for a while now. Vig, probably biased because he owns a factory and likes to think he’s not dicking over his employees, was adamant that only a small tip would be required.

Somebody then asked if we should tip the staff directly or, as the management suggests, put the money in a white box so that it could be pooled together and distributed to the staff by management. Vig insisted that it would be perfectly safe to put the money in the box, because these people are devout Hindus and would never think of stealing. Incidentally, I heard the same thing in Thailand: that Bangkok is a very safe city because everybody is Buddhist so there is no crime.

Well, as it turns out the next day Mila, a 45-year-old Russian woman here trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life, was talking to one of her masseuses who mentioned that the staff only gets about $2400/year in compensation. They also get room and board, but the living conditions are unbearable and the food is so putrid that she sometimes can’t even eat it. As for the tip box? Once a year they open it and everybody gets about $50, which is obviously way less than they would expect. The masseuse asked Mila to be discreet because if the owners find out that somebody has been talking about his/her terrible living conditions, that person gets docked $50 from their pay. The women who heard this were stunned, talking all about how they can’t believe that they’re being told all day about how important diet is and learning all this spiritualism while the people running the place are abusing their employees. Needless to say, I wasn’t particularly surprised to find out that somebody who claims to be very devout also dicks over people for money whenever he can get away with it. But yeah, we’re basically chilling on a plantation.

Another funny fact: Kari, a 28-year-old Norweigan girl, was describing to us her 19-step routine that she has been told to do every day. I don’t remember the details, but it involved an oil bath, applying special drops to her eyes, flossing, certain chants, and other such nonsense. She was told to do this because she has too much kappha (or watta? who knows) in her. When asked how long it would take to do this elaborate procedure, she said she can get it done in half an hour by rushing through it at top speed. So yet again, an example of people taking this body typing thing based on some questionarre seriously enough that they would jump through hoops because of the results of the test.

This prompted a discussion of how she was watta but everybody else was mainly pitta. People had a lot of hypotheses, but the consensus emerged that pittas are very active and take charge, so they’d be the more likely people to go to a retreat to improve themselves. I considered suggesting the alternative hypothesis, which is that when somebody has to answer a whole bunch of questions that give two extreme answers and one moderate one, they choose the moderate one (is your appetite very weak, strong yet restrained, or completely gluttonous?). When you finish these surveys, it’s never that you’re all one or all the other: I was 15 parts pitta, 11 parts kappha, and 8 parts watta. I think the diversity comes from the features you can’t control (belly button shape, eyesight, etc) and then the big spread comes when people just answer the questionarre in ways that conform to their self-perception about their demeanor. Nobody likes to think they’re overdoing or underdoing anything, so they go for the middle road.

One last anecdote: yesterday Nancy, one of the 3 yoga students (people here for 6 weeks to learn how to teach yoga), got dizzy during morning yoga. Senthil, the leader of the session, suggested she do alternating breathing exercises (close one nostril, inhale through the other, then close that one and exhale through previously closed nostril, alternating for a while). Later that day Senthil’s brother Ganesh was teaching the students breathing techniques and when he got to altenrating breathing he said “Don’t do this if you have been feeling dizzy.” When Nancy mentioned that Senthil specifically told her to do alternating breathing, he backpedaled and equivocated, coming up with some random caveat or explanation.

The students were mentioning how this happens a lot of the time, such as with the root-chakra versus crown chakra location of the soul contradiction I told you guys about earlier. They said they just don’t know what to think when this happens. I thought, “Hmm, maybe that this is all unverifiable hogwash and these people talk out their ass based on what somebody else told them, and you buy into it because you’re having mid-life crises and when you can see a guy doing lotus while bending his head back to his waste you think that he has to know what he’s talking about when he starts babbling all mystically.” But I have to live with these people for another week and they’re all actually quit nice so I just said “I bet it can all be pretty confusing sometimes.” But seriously, how are you supposed to buy into this stuff when you have no means of assessing the truth claims of anything (today we learned that focusing your energy in your sphincter makes you more virile) and then your illusion that this is all part of a codified wisdom of the ages gets pierced when two brothers contradict each other all over the place?

5/5/2009:

My reflexology/accupuncture advisor pinched my right hand between my thumb and index finger. He asked me if it hurt. I told him yes. He said that I am therefore constipated. I told him I’m not constipated, but he insisted. I guess I could have brought up all my massive post-Thai street food troubles, but I think he would still insist that I’m constipated.

We were doing meditation and Senthil, our main yoga leader, told us to focus our breathing on our heart, as that is where our soul is. He then, surprisingly, specified his claim by defining a soul as “our driving energy.” At this point Maria, a mid-30’s Spanish woman who is one of the 3 women taking a 6-week yoga theory class (seriously, 6 weeks of taking notes 3 or 4 hours a day on yoga theory? what?), raised her hand and said that this contradicts what Senthil’s brother, Ganesh was saying, about the energy being stored in the (some Indian word I don’t understand but that I assume is a body part other than the heart). Senthil explained that this was cosmic energy which is stored in that other part, whereas the soul is human energy and is located in the heart. A subtle distinction, of course, but one worth noting.

At this point I realized that the people around me take this stuff so seriously that, when somebody tells them about where energy is stored, they actually retain that information and are able to employ it to
clarify further nonsense gibberish. They are actually absorbing everything they’ve learned. I asked to see one of the girls’ notes and she had 4 composition binders worth of notes. I would have looked inside but I was afraid of what I would see. There are also 2 girls in separate programs taking equally copious amounts of notes on Ayurvedic Medicine (taught by the doctor described in my previous email) and one on nutrition.

It’s weird because everything that is told to me I don’t even bother to pay attention to when it comes to this stuff. For one, it’s hard understanding what people are saying when they speak with an Indian
accent (Tom, I feel for you; half the time I really can’t make out what they’re saying). Also, when I do understand what they’re saying it’s all spiritual hogwash. Fortunately I’m normally so relaxed,
whether it’s after yoga or my massage (which involves me lying on a wooden table wearing nothing but a loin cloth while they splash insane amounts of oil on me and rub me down in long, sweeping strokes rather than focusing on one area at a time. It’s very intense and very weird), that I don’t really worry about
what’s being said.

Main takeaway though is that I’m having a great time. 3 yoga sessions a day, one massage, one reflexology session, a couple walks, and a lot of time spent reading (just finished Dreams from my Father, he really
is so well-spoken!). 2 days in I’m still terribly inflexible but hopefully I’ll make progress. If not, I’ll have dumped 5k including travel (business class from India to NYC is expensive it turns out), but at least I’ll be able to tell chicks I went to India for a two-week yoga retreat.

-Ariel

P.S. Typing this up took me past 2:00, at which point they shut off the power for the generator that charges the internet, so I had to copy/paste this and place it in a Word file which I hid. Obviously I
don’t think anybody here is too tech-savvy, but if they were using Word and clicked on the “My refloxology” file in the recently viewed section, it could have been bad.

(5/3/2009)
I have come to the conclusion that he is a total idiot. Not too shocking considering that Ayurveda is basically an ancient form of homeopathic medicine, but I was still surprised to see it in action.

First of all, he asks me if I have any injuries and I tell him about my labrum tear. The second I finish he very confidently states “I need you to not do any more heavy lifting for 3 to 4 months. You are 80-85% healed but there is still a 15-25% chance of reinjuring yourself, but if you wait 3 to 4 months you will be fine.” I find this funny as I didn’t mention anything about my recovery timetable and he didn’t inspect me, but hey the numbers don’t lie. Then again, it’s not entirely clear that the values for “percentage you’re healed”+”chance of reinjuring yourself” should add up to 100. But I’m not a doctor. Who knows, maybe it’s a coincidence.

Then he explains to me the basics of Ayurveda medicine. He casually asserts that all things are made of one of five elements: earth, fire, wind, water, and space. He gives me the common sense explanation of this position very casually as if we’re already agreed and this is a mere formality. “You cannot imagine the world without any of these things,” he says and runs through the reasons why: no fire (which he indicates might mean internal metabolism and body temperature), everyone dies. no water, everyone dies. no earth (at this point he indicates he means earth means moss, which both weakens the “everybody dies” claim and starts a pattern of equivocation while thoroughly confusing me as to why he didn’t just say moss the first time), everybody dies. He skipped wind, but i imagine he thinks it’s very hard to imagine a world without wind. When he gets to space and says we can’t conceive of a world without space I’m inclined to bring up Kant’s position on space and ask why time isn’t one of the elements. He notices I have a question and says “feel free if you have any complaints or questions to let me know” but instead of talking about the difference between conceptualizing and imagining I decide that nothing will be gained by actually taking him up on his offer and questioning every single thing he says.

Next up is using a hodgepodge of analogies that don’t make any sense to explain how Ayurveda is all about restoring balance. The injury to my ligament (A LABRUM IS NOT A LIGAMENT, READ A BOOK!) is a textbook example of too much wind (PLEASE DEFINE YOUR TERMS MORE SPECIFICALLY SO I CAN ASSESS YOUR CLAIMS!) and he will counterbalance that by applying earth in the form of herbs (I assume the herbs have moss in them). At this point I zone out as he explains the remainder of my treatment.

Then he asks me if I have ever heard of Vata-Pitta-Kapha body-typing. I tell him no and he explains that each one of those words indicates a different element or combination of elements and he would have to ask me a bunch of questions to figure out which my dominant type was. To get a sense for what I’m dealing with, here is a link:

http://www.indiaoz.com.au/health/ayurveda/bodytype.shtml

I then was asked a questionarre like for one of those personality tests, except for with an even greater disconnect between the information presented and the type to which that information corresponds. So my thirst, being “surplus” as opposed to “weak” or “inconsistent” is, of course, a Pitta sign as Pitta comes from fire and an aspect of water. My belly button,being moderate instead of deep or swollen, marks me as a mixture of Vata (from space and air) and Pitta. Most questions were unrelated to each other and only offered me 3 options, rarely all 3 exhaustive of the possibilities, but each of them would indicate one of the 3 types. So I had a 30-minute interview that went like this:

Doctor: Financially, are you poor, do you spend on luxury items, or are you rich?
Me: Um…both of the last two
D: So Pitta and Kapha!

D: Your chest, is it expanded, round, or indented?
M: You tell me
D: Expanded. Kapha again!

D: Your speech: slow and monotonous, rapid and unclear, or moderate?

Anyway, I’m done breaking this down. I’m 15 parts pitta, 11 parts vata, and 8 parts kapha. I’ll let you figure out what that means.

-Ariel

P.S. Only 14 more days of this!
P.P.S. I suppose this doesn’t really matter because I just want massages and yoga training so I don’t really care what herbs the guy feels he has to put in my food. And it’s likely that the justification of the medicine is insane but they’ve backed their way into effective treatments despite this. But when I’m taking shots of disgusting, sludge-like herbs on the doctor’s orders it’s hard to keep my hopes up.

My yoga retreat had a distinctly prisonesque vibe to it. A substantial amount of time was spent discussing how slowly time passes and what everybody was going to do when they get home. The typical answer was normally either “eat chocolate” or “get a manicure/pedicure” as everybody else on the retreat (with the exception of a 28-year-old Norwegian girl) was at least 35 years old and female. A simple vegetarian diet with controlled serving sizes (except for for me, I got to get seconds of everything, which led to a lot of longing looks from the people who were there on the weight-loss program and often went days without eating anything but pure ghee) combined with a ban on alcohol made everybody pine for the luxuries of their native land.

My list basically involved Momofuku, scotch, and sushi. Anyway, now that I’ve done the day I come out, I’m back in the states. NYC to be exact, but I’m going to D.C. for 2 days, Martha’s Vineyard for 4 days, LA for 2 days, and then Vegas for the 40k NL event.

I’m going to be randomly posting stories from the trip as the mood suits me, but in the meantime I’m going to post a few emails that I sent to some friends from the retreat to give you a sense for what the trip was like. I’m going to spread them out as I don’t want to overload you all with tl;dr post after post. I will preface them by saying that the decidedly negative tone I have wasn’t at all representative of my overall experience and that by the time I was done I made some good friends and had two of the best weeks of my life. With that said, I’m not going to edit the emails at all. Hope you enjoy.

Oh, and here’s a sweet hand i played today. This was about 20 minutes into the match. it’s a pain in the ass to read this HH because the converters don’t seem to work w/UB hands, but here goes:

Stage #1432525110: Holdem (1 on 1) No Limit $100 - 2009-05-19 18:38:10 (ET)
Table: VERNON ST (Real Money) Seat #6 is the dealer
Seat 6 - MIKEVICKISGOD ($24,637 in chips)
Seat 4 - TODOALATAQUE ($21,330 in chips)
MIKEVICKISGOD - Posts small blind $50
TODOALATAQUE - Posts big blind $100
* POCKET CARDS *
Dealt to MIKEVICKISGOD [Jc 9d]
MIKEVICKISGOD - Raises $250 to $300
TODOALATAQUE - Raises $1,100 to $1,200
MIKEVICKISGOD - Calls $900
* FLOP * [10d 3c 2d]
TODOALATAQUE - Checks
MIKEVICKISGOD - Checks
* TURN * [10d 3c 2d] [Qd]
TODOALATAQUE - Checks
MIKEVICKISGOD - Bets $2,150
TODOALATAQUE - Calls $2,150
* RIVER * [10d 3c 2d Qd] [Ad]
TODOALATAQUE - Checks
MIKEVICKISGOD - Bets $4,500
TODOALATAQUE - All-In(Raise) $17,980 to $17,980
MIKEVICKISGOD - Calls $13,480
* SHOW DOWN *
TODOALATAQUE - Shows [Qc Jh] (One pair, queens)
MIKEVICKISGOD - Shows [Jc 9d] (Flush, ace high)
MIKEVICKISGOD Collects $42,659 from main pot
* SUMMARY *
Total Pot($42,660) | Rake ($1)
Board [10d 3c 2d Qd Ad]
Seat 4: TODOALATAQUE (big blind) HI:lost with One pair, queens [Qc Jh - B:Qd,P:Qc,B:Ad,P:Jh,B:10d]
Seat 6: MIKEVICKISGOD (dealer) (small blind) won Total ($42,659) HI:($42,659) with Flush, ace high [Jc 9d - B:Ad,B:Qd,B:10d,P:9d,B:2d]