40 Years is A Long Time
Mar. 9th, 2005 07:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksIn the summer of 1966, before the World Cup, I went on a school journey holiday to the Isle of Wight. This was in the days before the fear of being sued led to most school journeys being abandoned. On the Saturday of that school journey Everton beat Sheffield Wednesday 3-2 in the FA Cup Final. But it's the Wednesday before that that I recall (or, at least, I think I recall. Perhaps it was another school trip, perhaps it was another year). Chelsea went to Barcelona for an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup semi-final tie and got stomped 5-1. It seriously hurt.
So, revenge was sweet last night. No matter that none of the players were born and that the managers were either not born or too young to remember.No matter that neither team was managed by a native to that team's country. No matter that the winning goal quite clearly involved a foul on the goalkeeper (mysteriously missed by both commentators at the time, but thankfully spotted by Terry Venables). No matter to all these things. WE GOT THE BASTARDS BACK.
That I was spunking away $140 online at the time was a minor irritant, I must admit. I played the mini-blind game on UB. The weird thing is -- I have played this game before (the Flamingo used to run it), so you would think that I would do well. But it took me a while to get a feel for the game. I turned an initial loss of $120 into a loss of just $40. Not bad for what is effectively $4-$8. And near the end I got the feeling that I knew how the game differed from a standard blind structure, whereas most of my opponents didn't.
No time to go into all the details, but clearly there is a minor shift towards pot limit style pre-flop, with implied odds for a call being greater if there is no raise. Position becomes more important and "steals" offer a lower reward to risk ratio. A frequent scenario was where three people limped and the board was checked on the flop. This gave a $10 pot (less rake). The turn bet is now $8 - effectively a pot-size bet. Clearly this is a great position to be in front if there are chasers in the house.
I then had a look at the "beat the Mob" game, but had no interest when I saw something like 250 runners. So I returned to Ultimate and lost another $90 at $2-$4. And I didn't play particularly badly. Typical occurrences were my QJ on a board of JT53 (call from button, call on flop, raise on turn, called by one loose opponent) being beaten on the river by J2. Aces promptly got cracked by a Josh Arieh soundalike on a board of J83 (he had JJ). And so it went on. These nights happen. Down to £30 up on the month. Irritating.
So, revenge was sweet last night. No matter that none of the players were born and that the managers were either not born or too young to remember.No matter that neither team was managed by a native to that team's country. No matter that the winning goal quite clearly involved a foul on the goalkeeper (mysteriously missed by both commentators at the time, but thankfully spotted by Terry Venables). No matter to all these things. WE GOT THE BASTARDS BACK.
That I was spunking away $140 online at the time was a minor irritant, I must admit. I played the mini-blind game on UB. The weird thing is -- I have played this game before (the Flamingo used to run it), so you would think that I would do well. But it took me a while to get a feel for the game. I turned an initial loss of $120 into a loss of just $40. Not bad for what is effectively $4-$8. And near the end I got the feeling that I knew how the game differed from a standard blind structure, whereas most of my opponents didn't.
No time to go into all the details, but clearly there is a minor shift towards pot limit style pre-flop, with implied odds for a call being greater if there is no raise. Position becomes more important and "steals" offer a lower reward to risk ratio. A frequent scenario was where three people limped and the board was checked on the flop. This gave a $10 pot (less rake). The turn bet is now $8 - effectively a pot-size bet. Clearly this is a great position to be in front if there are chasers in the house.
I then had a look at the "beat the Mob" game, but had no interest when I saw something like 250 runners. So I returned to Ultimate and lost another $90 at $2-$4. And I didn't play particularly badly. Typical occurrences were my QJ on a board of JT53 (call from button, call on flop, raise on turn, called by one loose opponent) being beaten on the river by J2. Aces promptly got cracked by a Josh Arieh soundalike on a board of J83 (he had JJ). And so it went on. These nights happen. Down to £30 up on the month. Irritating.
SOS (Save Our Scribblings)
Date: 2005-03-10 06:54 am (UTC)Clogging up? Eh? Compared with all the photos and now videos that I find myself storing, text storage and retrieval is a trivial problem. I save all text as a matter of course. The cost is negligible and I don't feel at all clogged up.
Old-fashioned writing on paper is a different matter, and I do feel weighed down by all the old bits of paper piled up in this house. If I had it all neatly filed on the computer instead, what a relief that would be.
It's occurred to me by now that I could probably get a complete backup of a LiveJournal as a PDF file by using Adobe Acrobat's Web Capture facility; but I don't have Acrobat installed at the moment: I'm waiting for the latest version to arrive. I'll have to test it later.
Jonathan, near Barcelona
Re: SOS (Save Our Scribblings)
Date: 2005-03-10 09:24 am (UTC)Why?
Presumably so that you can refer to it again "if you need to". But is this a good way to live? Perpetually keeping a record of all that we write, all that we do (via photographs) and (in the case of Tony Benn) all that we say?
I'm just as guilty of this in certain areas myself (see videos and the like), but I do worry about the point of it. For example, how much TIME does it take (when you could be living for the moment) to store and categorise everything? Perhaps you are very efficient and it takes you no time at all, or you consider that the time it does takes is worthwhile. But this is what we used to have archivists and librarians for.
I don't really want to be my own archivist, storing details of all the things I've written and done so that I can (but probably won't) refer to them at some future date. I've decided that nothing I write is important enough to need to refer back to just to make sure that I am not repeating or contradicting myself. I have stored most of my past GHs electronically, for decades now, and not once have I needed to print out another copy, or cut and paste something that I have previously written.
I guess that the question here is -- is the time taken in storing and categorising this stuff worth it? In other words, suppose I don't bother (which, believe me, would be a blessed relief)? What is the chance that, at some time in the future, I will desperately regret not bothering? Fairly small, I reckon. Is that a risk I am willing to take? I'm not sure. But saving everything I write on a computer "as a matter of course"? I mean, once again. Why? Let the past go and worry about the now.
Pete
Re: SOS (Save Our Scribblings)
Date: 2005-03-10 03:10 pm (UTC)Admittedly, to back up a LiveJournal would take a few moments of personal attention. I suppose I'd do it every month or two, whenever I back up my personal files to CD.
What takes more serious time is keeping a daily diary (I keep a private one at home and a non-private one at work) and keeping a record of all my expenditures. The value of the latter is reduced because my wife doesn't keep a record, but she spends most of the money! I know how much she spends, but in most cases I don't know what she spends it on.
I think the diary-keeping is useful enough to be worth doing. I have a poor memory and can easily forget what happened yesterday. The diary acts as a memory supplement and it's generally the recent entries that are most useful, though entries from 30 years ago can be entertaining when looked at occasionally.
At work, I can occasionally answer a question by digging out of my records things that happened a year or two ago that everyone has forgotten by now. More to the point, I use it as a basis for the timesheet I have to prepare every month, showing which projects I worked on when and for how long.
Jonathan, near Barcelona