About people being interesting once you get to know them, that perhaps is true, however it's very difficult to get some people to open up that much. I've tried to lead the discussions on such issues, and for the most part, people will not be interested in it. They'll hear it and maybe ask a question about it, but end it there. Or they'll just hear it and not respond or give a neutral response. Either way, they tend not to contribute to these discussions.

Maybe I'm just the unluckiest guy in the world to not meet the right people. Also, to clarify, I only mentioned women. I've met many more interesting guys than women, much more than a handful.

A few more unrelated thoughts... I find that most avid video gamers and I relate very well. Avid video gamers think strategically and tend to have good reasoning skills. They also tend to be introverted and cynical of the world (not that the latter part is necessarily a good thing, but it's more that they demonstrate a good deal of skepticism).

About poker... I still find myself more emotionally involved in poker than I should be despite all these years of experience. When I'm running bad in poker, my life runs bad as well. When things are running well, I'm in good spirits. Of course these are all short-term, but they happen fairly consistently.

You're even cooler than me dude. GJ

I've been playing my guitar a lot more than usual lately. Now that I'm in good spirits, my confidence has come back. During my lower moments I couldn't even concentrate enough to tune my guitar without aid of electronic tuners. I've been learning a large variety of songs and been more creative with my own music too.

Even though I think New Years goals are ultra lame (almost typed ultralisks), I want to make some and stick with them.

1) Get a steady job. I can't stand having poker as my only source of income anymore. I don't play enough hours or at high enough stakes to make good money, and I don't want to play more hours.

2) Buy a new guitar. I've had this POS guitar since I was like 13 and it still sucks. Whenever I play my friends guitars the play is so much smoother and sounds infinitely better.

3) Become better at Starcraft. I need to increase my APM, think more clearly about why I'm doing what I'm doing, work on timing, and many other things. Really, I just need to practice more and study more and all of this will come with time. Currently I'm working on my Terran game - they are very difficult to play well since you generally need 200+ APM to keep a good macro game going. (BTW, APM = actions per minute, so 200 actions per minute is averaging a little more than 3 actions a second - SC is the most difficult game to excel at, by far.)

4) Move to Pasadena, California. I can't wait! My longest lasting friend, Rana, lives there, and I'll be moving in with my best friend Jon.

5) Get back into cooking. Ever since my last job with the b*tch manager, I've never felt the same about cooking.

I don't feel like writing much more now, but I'll add more later. Some cumulative updates...

Average APM: 75 (up from last weeks 60)

Poker Bankroll: $1000 (mehhhhhhhhhh I am SO jealous of every single one of you)

Excession 199 / 7767 (39.03)
kenny 808 / 28029 (34.68)
xaston 2331 / 57775 (24.79)
ED 497 / 11179 (22.49)
TommyHawk 391 / 8507 (21.76)
MK 862 / 18538 (21.51)
Shamdonk 346 / 7218 (20.85)
Juskimo 355 / 7067 (19.91)
h2t 554 / 10955 (19.77)
Piers 32 / 593 (18.53)
EP9 609 / 10995 (18.05)
MVP 899 / 16078 (17.88)
GLRoy 1188 / 18710 (15.75)

Views per post in member journals. I'm bored and felt like calculating those out. I was surprised Excession made it that high up there.

ex is few post but usu high quality.

i've PMed you about starcraft but no reply... where can i download it (if that's possible)? getting the CD in japan is too much of a pain.

I didn't receive the PM for some reason. I was unaware getting the CD in Japan would be difficult, that's odd.

I haven't found a reliable place to d/l the full version of SC. I bought the CDs when they came out, lost the CDs, but still had the files, so I just use a no-cd crack. I haven't looked in a while, but I'd check out various torrent sites, that's your best bet.