Home, we're coming home, again

For the first time I think that I have to say that the chance of me actually buying the downstairs half of the house have moved into odds against mode -- probably 35:65. All of which is rather depressing after my hopes were somewhat high at the weekend. Needless to say this brought on a bout of insomnia. On the plus side, it also helps with weight loss.

Emotionally I know that I want to do it, but, unlike some girlie, I don't let emotions get in the way of sensible business decisions (well, not too much). I might be willing to slightly overpay for a place if there's a strong emotional involvement, but I won't pay significantly more than my estimated valuation.

Now, a house isn't "worth" what other people are willing to pay. You have to look at fundamentals. These include rental yield (even if you don't intend to rent it out), return on the cash if invested elsewhere, and other factors. There is a known lag between changes in interest rates and its impact on the housing market, and I like to be ahead of the curve when it comes to allowing for this.

So, I might have to walk away from the deal, if the current price hints are anything to go by. It may seem silly to walk away for the sake of £20K or so, but I think that you have to draw a line in the sand at some point, and then refuse to cross it.

I know that many people would be perfectly happy to have "depressing" problems such as these, but the emotional vs business dichotomy is always stressful, and the not knowing what is going to happen with my life is equally so. There are major decisions coming up, and I just don't have the faintest idea what to do. Mid-life crises indeed. Fortunately, not on a budget.

Of course, if I won £$500K in some kind of bad beat, and I had the cash in my pocket, I might reconsider paying the extra £20K or thereabouts...

+++++

Given that I was not in the best of moods, and given my recent experiences with BT, it perhaps was not the best time for someone to phone me "on behalf" of BT Total Broadband. This led to a 10-minute rant from me about how she didn't work for BT at all and, in fact, she didn't know anything about BT Total Broadband. All her company did was sell things as a third-party, and that if I actually wanted to talk to her about some techincal aspect of the service she was theoretically phoning me up about, she wouldn't have the faintest fucking idea what I was saying, because all she was paid to do was sell me stuff.

At which point, undeterred, she said that, no, she wasn't trying to sell me something (a moment of doubt entered my mind here... had I been unfair?). BT simply wanted to thank me for being a loyal customer and to offer me an upgrade...

...at which point the Birks radar zipped back into working order...

"and all I have to do is agree to a 12-month contract from this point on."

"Er, yes".

"Well, if I'm such a loyal customer, why don't they give me the upgrade anyway?"

"Er..."

"I'm not happy with BT at the moment. I think that I'll turn this down for that reason. And you can tell them that."

++++++++++

I found a computer yesterday morning. I was walking to work and I came across a whole pile of computer stuff sitting on the pavement, just north of Oxford Street. I picked up one of the Dells and started walking. At which point a lorry turned up, probably from Westminster Council, to pick up the stuff. He kind of pointed at me (this being the level of articulacy one expects) and I said "Yes?"

"You just picked that up."

Gotta give the guy 10 out of 10 for observation.

"Yes. Carry on."

At which point he sort of thought about things for a few minutes. Wondered if there was any point in worrying about it. And then said "OK".

So, off I toddled. When I got to work, I plugged it in (without monitor) and it seemed to power up okay. It says "Designed for Windows 2000", so I guess it's a bit newer than my main workhorse at home.

Current aim is to immediately reformat it. Check the spec, and then run it as a linux machine and/or anything I like that isn't Windows-related.


Not that I have time these days to be a saddo who spends hours playing with either hardware or software. Oh, for days gone by.

++++

The solid run at poker came to a slightly crashing end last night, although actually the damage wasn't that bad (I just lost what I won on Sunday, so I'm stil about $80 up on the two days given the rakeback and built-up bonus). I had one unlucky flopped nut flush that went just about perfectly. Got a third of opponents' money in on flop and the rest of it in on the turn. Needless to say the board pairs on the river and his marked set boats up to beat me. So it goes. The point is, I took this in Caro-like mode. I knew what my EV from that situation was, and if I can get 10 of those a week I'll make a lot of cash.

I'd make less cash from a misjudgment (one of the perils when playing either tired or when grumpy). I had AQ of spades and had raised 3.5 x the big blind in MP3, to be flat-called by a tightish competent player (but not an absolute rock), on the button. The board came KK4 two spades. I led out for 80% of the pot and he mini-raised me, putting the pot at 26 big blinds. I had 37 big blinds behind (I'd dribbled away some money over the previous half hour) and I reckoned this was a perfect position for him to be trying something on with a pair of 10s down to maybe a pair of sevens.

Anyhoo, I reckon I have good fold equity if he does not have a King and, even if he does have a King, I have my flush draw as outs.

So, I shove, and he instacalls with KT. No spades come to the rescue.

Ahh, that was why he mini-raised. He wasn't sure about the Ten kicker. But, lo and behold (and Matt made this observation on another blog recently), that doesn't make him capable of making a big laydown when I push.

I later found a game where two Nutters sat down. One of them caught out my AK TPTK when is 96 off became two pair on the turn. But I wasn't stacked off completely. I pushed myself back up and got it back about an hour later (long past when I should have been in bed) when my Q8 in the big blind managed to find a QQ8 flop. Nutter One had T8 and the low card on the turn followed by the Queen on the river made it certain that he would call any decent raise on the river. Unfortunately I didn't know that he had the eight, so I didn't maximise my return with my raise. But I wasn't far short of it.