One of my cats, Argo, was diagnosed with diabetes last fall and this past weekend, her diabetes flared up. Both her and her sister, Beta, are about 7.5 years old and are truly wonderful cats. Argo has quite a bit of attitude and has no problem letting people know. She’s always doing something that brings a smile to my face. She loves to sit in my lap and hook her paw in the collar of my shirt to pull my face closer to hers. She has a complete disregard for anything in her way as Christina will attest. She truly is a great cat and I don’t how to respond to her sickness.

The vet initially suspected she had a tumor and that it was likely she wouldn’t make it though it was possible that she also had diabetes. I had done some research and felt it was diabetes. After some tests, he agreed with me and we placed her on a diabetic management diet which seemed to work. In the past week or so, Argo had started to act very odd and lethargic. She became almost completely unresponsive when handled and didn’t seem to have any energy at all. I took her to the vet yesterday and he promptly told me that she didn’t look good and it might be too late to save her. He proceeded to then take all kinds of X-Rays and perform numerous tests. She responded belatedly to an insulin shot. After all the tests came back, he decided it wasn’t anything but diabetes gone out-of-control. He keeps stressing that he doesn’t know if he can bring her back. I suspect he’s just trying to temper our emotions in case she doesn’t make it but from my perspective, he’s just making it worse.

Today, the vet suggested that she was getting better but it will require significant effort to bring her back. Effort meaning money, of course. While it’s not an insignificant sum of money, it’s not so much that I would suggest “No, that’s too much, let’s just let her go.” Perhaps if she wasn’t in a recoverable state or was suffering terribly, my decision would be reversed but that’s not the case. Of course I want to do anything to get her back to healthy! Get better Argo and come home to Christina, Beta, and I.

Have you ever come across something that people just claim is “the best”, “the funniest”, etc… but when you check them out, you simply have no idea what they’re talking about?

Many of my closest friends have extolled the hilarity that comes from Flight of the Conchords. They’re basically a comedy-band duo. My friends just can’t stop talking about how funny there are. I don’t know what it is but I just don’t find them funny in the least. Here’s one of their “great” songs. Am I missing something? When did saying something that sounds like something else and then repeating it over and over again become the pinnacle of humor? To be funny, it has to have some context, e.g. “I’m Fucking Matt Damon“, or fully developed lyrics, e.g “Lazy Sunday“.

On another similar note, I recently saw Juno. I enjoyed the movie — I thought it had some funny parts, I appreciated the independent-streak in all of the characters, and I thought the characters themselves were all interesting… and yet, I don’t know why it was considered by many to be one of the best movies of the year. I didn’t get anything out of the movie except for an enjoyable two hours. I have no interest in talking about the movie afterwards, seeing it again, wondering what the characters will do after the movie ends, etc. I feel “one of the best movies of the year” should do some or all of these things.

Those 5-table MTT tournaments?  Played another one last night.  Bubbled again.  I have an amazing propensity to bubble — A few years ago, when I was playing poker at a much higher level and much more often, I bubbled out of so many tournaments, I started keeping track of them as they would be almost comical, if they weren’t so painful. Last night, I was solid in chips, 3rd or 4th out of 7, but when I pushed w/ AK, I turned to Christina and told her, “I’ll probably be the bubble boy because someone will wake up with Aces.”  Big blind almost made me 100% right, calling with KK.

Perhaps the two most painful bubbles were in a WSOP Satellite and in a tournament PokerRoom was having for the WSOP players they had sent.  For the latter, PokerRoom had setup a tournament for the 60+ people that had won a seat to the WSOP.  The top 8 (top 10?) people would all win a trip on a cruise and finish the tournament there.  The winner would become a “Pro” for a year, sponsored by PokerRoom.  I was one of the shorter stacks when it got to the bubble so I don’t know if I would have won the whole tourney but I certainly would have liked to win the trip.  I pushed w/ K J from SB and got called from BB with A-3.  No improvement for me and I bubbled as I have so many times previously and since.

I’ve been preoccupied with poker recently. I’ve been steadily building up my bankroll only to give in and take a few hits as I get too “greedy”. I’ve been called out for my excessive patience in most situations but recently, I’ve made several mistakes due to impatience. I believe it to be a poker-only phenomenon as I don’t seem to be losing patience in other aspects of life so I’m working to identify what is driving me to make bad plays in these moments where I lose focus.

Went to see The Grand at the E-Street Cinema in DC yesterday with some friends and it’s definitely worth seeing. It’s a mockumentary style movie about poker and it plays up the stereotypes very well. Additionally, though it’s a movie about poker, it doesn’t really have all that much poker actually in it so it should appeal to quite a few people who otherwise would skip it. Anyway, if you like mockumentary style movies like Best In Show, you would probably enjoy this movie. Poker aficionados just get a bonus with the numerous cameo appearances by the notable poker faces.

Recently, I’ve been intrigued by 5-table tournaments on Full Tilt.  These 45 player tourneys fills up very quickly and provide a decent return if you place in the top 3 (top 6 paid).    I’ve played about 6-8 of them and haven’t finished worse than in the teens — Sadly, I can’t seem to finish strong and my best finish was 5th.