Sorry about the lack of everything. Uni is a busy place. But anyway, I have launched a new blog concerning my flat at uni, where we are hopefully going to be talking about the food we make - we are eating like kings!
http://food4students.blogspot.com
Thursday 6 November 2008
Monday 22 September 2008
Weeks Of Late
Oops. It just occurred to me that I haven't posted here for ages. Sorry.
I've made a lot of blogs and have been posting at them to try and earn some money (but failing) and have left out the original blog! How bad am I?
Anyway, its been an exciting past few weeks, I actually have a few things to talk about for once. But when I say exciting I probably mean dull.
My time has been taken up mostly by online poker. Which involved me trying to win freerolls with a huge number of players involved. This plan has not exactly worked. I now feel I need to buy a certain book on texas hold 'em if I wish to progress any further.
I also had a poker night and went to just one party. They were both really fun - but I still wasn't able to even place in the money at my small poker night. However I'd say I got my money's worth because I played about 4 hours of poker, and the game finished 20 minutes after I went out. The party was good too, if not a little sad. It was probably the last time I'll get to see most of my friends for ages because we all go to uni shortly, if they haven't gone already.
I go to Bristol on Sunday to enrol upon my physics course. Although I was anxious for the past week or so, I'm now really excited. Provided there are no problems with my accommodation.
Which leaves this week to prepare for my university experience. But I suspect I'll play much poker still.
I'm really annoyed because I fell for one of those online scams, and spent 90 dollars on an internet marketing course. I say it is an online scam, but it isn't really. I paid for the course, and I got the course, which incidentally was very impressive. But I thought it was going to make me a lot of money, and I just can't be bothered to put in the effort anymore to try and get things going - mainly because I'd have to invest a little more money. I am annoyed though because it means I don't have much money to start uni with, which would cover a lot of hidden costs. What's more is the fact that ebay are now charging me random charges which I can't really afford to pay. I'm not sure if I've even make a profit out of the warhammer I sold for my friend because the actual profits I calculated seem to be lower than I thought.
But oh well. This is what happens when you don't get a summer job. My last chance now is to win a freeroll and then win a couple of hundred pounds this week playing poker :p
I've made a lot of blogs and have been posting at them to try and earn some money (but failing) and have left out the original blog! How bad am I?
Anyway, its been an exciting past few weeks, I actually have a few things to talk about for once. But when I say exciting I probably mean dull.
My time has been taken up mostly by online poker. Which involved me trying to win freerolls with a huge number of players involved. This plan has not exactly worked. I now feel I need to buy a certain book on texas hold 'em if I wish to progress any further.
I also had a poker night and went to just one party. They were both really fun - but I still wasn't able to even place in the money at my small poker night. However I'd say I got my money's worth because I played about 4 hours of poker, and the game finished 20 minutes after I went out. The party was good too, if not a little sad. It was probably the last time I'll get to see most of my friends for ages because we all go to uni shortly, if they haven't gone already.
I go to Bristol on Sunday to enrol upon my physics course. Although I was anxious for the past week or so, I'm now really excited. Provided there are no problems with my accommodation.
Which leaves this week to prepare for my university experience. But I suspect I'll play much poker still.
I'm really annoyed because I fell for one of those online scams, and spent 90 dollars on an internet marketing course. I say it is an online scam, but it isn't really. I paid for the course, and I got the course, which incidentally was very impressive. But I thought it was going to make me a lot of money, and I just can't be bothered to put in the effort anymore to try and get things going - mainly because I'd have to invest a little more money. I am annoyed though because it means I don't have much money to start uni with, which would cover a lot of hidden costs. What's more is the fact that ebay are now charging me random charges which I can't really afford to pay. I'm not sure if I've even make a profit out of the warhammer I sold for my friend because the actual profits I calculated seem to be lower than I thought.
But oh well. This is what happens when you don't get a summer job. My last chance now is to win a freeroll and then win a couple of hundred pounds this week playing poker :p
Saturday 13 September 2008
I did it!
I finally made the money in one of these freerolls I keep going on about. I came 42nd out of 2000, which paid me the huge sum of 9 cents :p. I'm happy. It gives me the confidence to go on and win more hopefully. Once my bankroll reaches $1.10 I think I'll enter a 10 player sit&go, aiming to win about $5 from it. So fingers crossed I may actually do it some day.
I take back what I said in my last post about the play being impossible. Provided you don't make stupid bets or calls, and are very tight, it is possible to go a long way with a little luck too. Only playing the best hands, and then playing aggressively.
So its good.
I take back what I said in my last post about the play being impossible. Provided you don't make stupid bets or calls, and are very tight, it is possible to go a long way with a little luck too. Only playing the best hands, and then playing aggressively.
So its good.
Thursday 11 September 2008
The Poker
Ok so looks like we didn't all die yesterday. Which is a good thing. Now I really want to know how the experiment at CERN went, and if they had any interesting results that were immediately apparent.
But anyway. The title of this post is again about poker. So that is what I shall discuss - again.
If you have been keeping up with my blog you will be aware that I am trying to win my way into playing poker online with real money. This is because I have vowed never to use my own money online. A good vow. But one that is annoying me at present. I have to win a tournament or place in the top 80. Only problem is that there are 2000 opponents trying to do the same thing, since the tournament is free to enter, and you can win a little money if you acheive a top 80 finish.
The thing that makes these tournaments so hard is that because they are free to enter a lot of people don't really care about how they do. So until about the top 200 you have players constantly going all in. I know that this is a big element of no limit hold 'em, but why would people consistently go all in on things like 10 high? When a lot of players go all in at the beginning, inevitably one of the players that don't care wins. That means they double or triple up, and then make it a bit further down the line with their poor strategy. This is incredibly frustrating. I'll find myself going into pots on a good hand and having to make bad decisions just because I can't see a pot to showdown without going all in.
The amount of all-ins severely inhibits the skill you can play with. So I find myself of late unable to finish in the top 400. Although I think this is also partly down to impatience. By the time I have waited for all the gamblers to go out of the tournament, the blinds are so high that I myself am forced to go all in. Not a good way to play poker. I suppose all I can do is keep trying until I get lucky and win a few chips at the beginning, then I might be able to progress through the tournament.
This is therefore why my vow not to use any of my own money is annoying. I can't play much proper poker because of it. But a vow is a vow, no matter how tempted I may be I shall have to always resist it. For now I'll just have to hope that I can place well in one of these tournaments. I still have to be grateful that PKR have these freerolls going so that I can potentially play for real money one day.
If anyone has any ideas on what I could do to reach the money in these tournaments please comment. At the moment I'm playing tight aggressive as best I can.
But anyway. The title of this post is again about poker. So that is what I shall discuss - again.
If you have been keeping up with my blog you will be aware that I am trying to win my way into playing poker online with real money. This is because I have vowed never to use my own money online. A good vow. But one that is annoying me at present. I have to win a tournament or place in the top 80. Only problem is that there are 2000 opponents trying to do the same thing, since the tournament is free to enter, and you can win a little money if you acheive a top 80 finish.
The thing that makes these tournaments so hard is that because they are free to enter a lot of people don't really care about how they do. So until about the top 200 you have players constantly going all in. I know that this is a big element of no limit hold 'em, but why would people consistently go all in on things like 10 high? When a lot of players go all in at the beginning, inevitably one of the players that don't care wins. That means they double or triple up, and then make it a bit further down the line with their poor strategy. This is incredibly frustrating. I'll find myself going into pots on a good hand and having to make bad decisions just because I can't see a pot to showdown without going all in.
The amount of all-ins severely inhibits the skill you can play with. So I find myself of late unable to finish in the top 400. Although I think this is also partly down to impatience. By the time I have waited for all the gamblers to go out of the tournament, the blinds are so high that I myself am forced to go all in. Not a good way to play poker. I suppose all I can do is keep trying until I get lucky and win a few chips at the beginning, then I might be able to progress through the tournament.
This is therefore why my vow not to use any of my own money is annoying. I can't play much proper poker because of it. But a vow is a vow, no matter how tempted I may be I shall have to always resist it. For now I'll just have to hope that I can place well in one of these tournaments. I still have to be grateful that PKR have these freerolls going so that I can potentially play for real money one day.
If anyone has any ideas on what I could do to reach the money in these tournaments please comment. At the moment I'm playing tight aggressive as best I can.
Wednesday 10 September 2008
Gotta love the Royal Mail
I've been getting to know the Royal Mail quite a lot better this summer thanks to my ebay ventures.
Before ebay I had never sent a package, and letters had been done by asking my parents for a stamp. Now I could tell you quite a lot about posting various things at the post office. Another great facility. Essentially they are one and the same, seemingly functioning incredibly smoothly.
I got my best feedback today on ebay. It was: 'Totally Awesome! If I could give 6 stars for speed I would! Thank you!'
To be honest I was suprised to get any feedback at all today. The guy I sold the item to paid for it at 4pm yesterday, I took it to the post office at 4.30pm and he received it today. This was just standard first class post - pretty impressive I think. Since he wasn't expecting it for about 5 working days I daresay he was more suprised than me.
So the Royal Mail takes your letter or parcel, and posts it to wherever you detail on the front. We take this service for granted so much. What would we do otherwise? Drive the letter a couple of hundred miles and find the person's house? This is why I also think it is an incredibly good value service. I can send a small package a couple of hundred miles for just £1.45, and it will get there within 24 hours. I know the delivery time I got yesterday was exceptional, but the same principal applies. Your letter/package travels a long way for a very small cost.
So that is why I commend the royal mail. And I say please don't close the post offices. They're awesome :p.
Complimentary Rant over.
Before ebay I had never sent a package, and letters had been done by asking my parents for a stamp. Now I could tell you quite a lot about posting various things at the post office. Another great facility. Essentially they are one and the same, seemingly functioning incredibly smoothly.
I got my best feedback today on ebay. It was: 'Totally Awesome! If I could give 6 stars for speed I would! Thank you!'
To be honest I was suprised to get any feedback at all today. The guy I sold the item to paid for it at 4pm yesterday, I took it to the post office at 4.30pm and he received it today. This was just standard first class post - pretty impressive I think. Since he wasn't expecting it for about 5 working days I daresay he was more suprised than me.
So the Royal Mail takes your letter or parcel, and posts it to wherever you detail on the front. We take this service for granted so much. What would we do otherwise? Drive the letter a couple of hundred miles and find the person's house? This is why I also think it is an incredibly good value service. I can send a small package a couple of hundred miles for just £1.45, and it will get there within 24 hours. I know the delivery time I got yesterday was exceptional, but the same principal applies. Your letter/package travels a long way for a very small cost.
So that is why I commend the royal mail. And I say please don't close the post offices. They're awesome :p.
Complimentary Rant over.
Tuesday 9 September 2008
Will we all die tomorrow?
Well tomorrow is the CERN switch on date. Which means that they will accelerate a couple of protons around the Large Hadron Collider at 0.99 times the speed of light, and then collide them.
But for what? Just to find out whether the Higgs Boson exists, which may prove or disprove the Standard Model of particles and the universe that Scientists, Physicists in particular, live by.
Is this a worthy cause for so much investment? Ok so if it was found then it would provide many answers to a lot of the big physics questions like what happened in big bang, and it will validate a lot of theories. But surely the huge investment of several billion could have been used elsewhere to solve some of the major human issues in the world? CERN has been funded so that some scientists can play around with molecules and answer some of the big questions in science. Now obviously we'd all like to know these answers - people interested in the origin of like etc. But at what cost? Maybe we could have gone a long way towards solving poverty in the world and other such things. Personally, as a soon to be physics undergraduate, I think it has been a waste.
There is also the danger which everyone is worrying about, that a black hole could be formed. This would only be a minature black hole, but isn't that the poitn of black holes? They are tiny points of infinite density, which everything gets sucked into once inside their event horizon. So if CERN manage to make a black hole won't this doom the earth? Well apparently not. In theory any black hole will collapse upon itself, and we'll all be fine. But that is still a theory! It could be completely wrong! I guess we find out tomorrow. Surely they shouldn't do something threatening all existence if there is even the slightest chance it could happen? Obviously as someone who isn't fully familiar with black holes I can't really comment. But a point still stands. All their theories about black holes are based upon things that are many billions of miles away in the cosmos. The reaction they are also reproducing is similar to that which occurred in the big bang, just on a smaller scale. Surely recreating the big bang on earth isn't a great idea?
I am sure it will be absolutely fine, but I still have a niggling feeling that it could not be. I suspect I'm just paranoid. Again. But if we did die because of a black hole spawning in Switzerland would it be so bad? I doubt we'd have time to think, but if we did I suspect the last thoughts of many would be 'CERN!! Grrrr' ok maybe people might be more annoyed than that, perhaps despair and all the other stuff would come to their mind. This is why I'd be bad at philosophy. But anyway, that isn't going to happen. We'll be fine. Life will go on. I hope.
My biggest annoyance with CERN is the fact that the huge amount of money could have perhaps been better used elsewhere. Yet the findings of CERN will probably benefit me quite a lot because I am about to become a physicist. So I'm sure I'll get over it, but maybe a little bitterly.
But for what? Just to find out whether the Higgs Boson exists, which may prove or disprove the Standard Model of particles and the universe that Scientists, Physicists in particular, live by.
Is this a worthy cause for so much investment? Ok so if it was found then it would provide many answers to a lot of the big physics questions like what happened in big bang, and it will validate a lot of theories. But surely the huge investment of several billion could have been used elsewhere to solve some of the major human issues in the world? CERN has been funded so that some scientists can play around with molecules and answer some of the big questions in science. Now obviously we'd all like to know these answers - people interested in the origin of like etc. But at what cost? Maybe we could have gone a long way towards solving poverty in the world and other such things. Personally, as a soon to be physics undergraduate, I think it has been a waste.
There is also the danger which everyone is worrying about, that a black hole could be formed. This would only be a minature black hole, but isn't that the poitn of black holes? They are tiny points of infinite density, which everything gets sucked into once inside their event horizon. So if CERN manage to make a black hole won't this doom the earth? Well apparently not. In theory any black hole will collapse upon itself, and we'll all be fine. But that is still a theory! It could be completely wrong! I guess we find out tomorrow. Surely they shouldn't do something threatening all existence if there is even the slightest chance it could happen? Obviously as someone who isn't fully familiar with black holes I can't really comment. But a point still stands. All their theories about black holes are based upon things that are many billions of miles away in the cosmos. The reaction they are also reproducing is similar to that which occurred in the big bang, just on a smaller scale. Surely recreating the big bang on earth isn't a great idea?
I am sure it will be absolutely fine, but I still have a niggling feeling that it could not be. I suspect I'm just paranoid. Again. But if we did die because of a black hole spawning in Switzerland would it be so bad? I doubt we'd have time to think, but if we did I suspect the last thoughts of many would be 'CERN!! Grrrr' ok maybe people might be more annoyed than that, perhaps despair and all the other stuff would come to their mind. This is why I'd be bad at philosophy. But anyway, that isn't going to happen. We'll be fine. Life will go on. I hope.
My biggest annoyance with CERN is the fact that the huge amount of money could have perhaps been better used elsewhere. Yet the findings of CERN will probably benefit me quite a lot because I am about to become a physicist. So I'm sure I'll get over it, but maybe a little bitterly.
Friday 5 September 2008
Results of my summer money attempts...
So the summer has now gone, although I have a few weeks holiday left. How did my small plans for making money pay off?
Well if you never read my earlier blogs or have forgotten my plans I'll remind you.
I couldn't find a job because I left it too late and was too honest, so that left me with these options: sell stuff on ebay, find ways to make money online.
The ebay selling has gone well. My last 2 pieces of warhammer are up for sale now, and I estimate that I have made about £100 in total from selling it. Although it cost me about £250, I wasn't going to use it again, so I can consider this total a profit. Not only that but I am now selling some of my friend's warhammer for a 10% commision. This isn't really worth it because at the most I'd make about £10 for quite a lot of effort. Since running out of warhammer to sell I have been looking for other stuff I can sell. This search gave poor results (mainly because I only thought about it in my head) but then I stumbled upon a scalextric car on ebay. I had a number of scalextric cars, and am now selling a couple on ebay. Some of them hold far more sentimental value to me than my warhammer did. Just because I used them a lot more I suppose, and they remind me of my joyous youth.
The Caterham 7 Gulf #1, which I am currently selling, seems to be really rare. A new one has currently been bid up to £42 and the auction is a few days from finishing, so my fingers are crossed! There seems to be a fair amount of interest in my little caterham, which I am rather fond of, so I hope the buyer takes good care of it!
That is about the full extent of my ebay money making plans. Reasonably successful I'd say, although I could have made more money on the warhammer if I hadn't sold most of it to a chap that came to my house and bought most of my collection for £56.
What other ways could I possibly have had? lol. If only I had found a job...sigh.
Well, after research I found out that blogging was quite the little earner. So I started this blog. I started it on wordpress with the aim of joining a pay per post site once I had blogged for 30 days. Sadly when I reached this stage I found out that wordpress wouldn't allow you to use your blog in this manner. So I came here, to blogger. Now blogger would let me put adverts on my site, so far I have earnt a little bit from ads. My blog would be a nice little earner, but I'm just not getting enough traffic to do so. I get about 3 or 4 views a day, most from the same person :p, so the blogging hasn't really come through for me. I don't think my blog is interesting enough to be honest.
The other plans I had were stock photography and gambling lol. The stock photography turned out to be too hard to get approved photos. I had one which was approved a couple of months ago, and as yet I don't think anyone has downloaded it. The gambling was something I was never going to do. I was tempted to do roulette, doubling my bet on red and black each time to make a small profit every win, but gambling online isn't something I want to start doing.
However when pokerstars gave me $5 free money to play with, I thought why not try and earn some money through poker - at least there is skill involved. This was a good plan until I found out that I am/was actually crap at poker lol. I made some research into how to be a good poker player, but I never really cared enough about the money I was given to play properly.
When this was depleted I looked around for other ways I could play poker online without investing any of my own money. Last night this was in fact. So anyway, I found PKR.com after watching one of their tournaments on TV. They have freerolls, where you can win a small amount of cash ($1-$5), and enter for free. This is great, but a freeroll is a tournament. Because it's free everyone wants to enter. Registering isn't a problem, but you are playing against 2000 players for this small amount of cash. To win one of these tournaments would probably take 3-4 hours? They are fun nonetheless though, and my only route to becoming semi-pro at poker, because I have vowed never to use my own money. I finished my best one an hour ago, with a position I was most proud of. 152nd. Now I think that is impressive for a 2000 people tournament. Sadly you only start getting paid at 80th place, and only 14 cents. But it's a good start. I also came 9th out of 244 players in a play money tournament, which I was also pleased with. So maybe there is still hope for earning money online.
PKR is incidently really good. You make an avatar look however you wish and then play with them against other people and their avatars. So its as close as you can get to playing the real thing with people in the room with you. (its all 3D graphics) The TV program just puts a high profile tournament table on, and has a few commentators. If that is all you need to do to make good tv then its a fairly decent program I'd say. Although when the editors leave the bits which the commentators ask to be cut in the program it does help. I was laughing anyway.
So that is the sum total of my money earning exploits this summer. (a few jobs for my Dad got me a bit too).
Interesting? Or was that another waste of time :p
Well if you never read my earlier blogs or have forgotten my plans I'll remind you.
I couldn't find a job because I left it too late and was too honest, so that left me with these options: sell stuff on ebay, find ways to make money online.
The ebay selling has gone well. My last 2 pieces of warhammer are up for sale now, and I estimate that I have made about £100 in total from selling it. Although it cost me about £250, I wasn't going to use it again, so I can consider this total a profit. Not only that but I am now selling some of my friend's warhammer for a 10% commision. This isn't really worth it because at the most I'd make about £10 for quite a lot of effort. Since running out of warhammer to sell I have been looking for other stuff I can sell. This search gave poor results (mainly because I only thought about it in my head) but then I stumbled upon a scalextric car on ebay. I had a number of scalextric cars, and am now selling a couple on ebay. Some of them hold far more sentimental value to me than my warhammer did. Just because I used them a lot more I suppose, and they remind me of my joyous youth.
The Caterham 7 Gulf #1, which I am currently selling, seems to be really rare. A new one has currently been bid up to £42 and the auction is a few days from finishing, so my fingers are crossed! There seems to be a fair amount of interest in my little caterham, which I am rather fond of, so I hope the buyer takes good care of it!
That is about the full extent of my ebay money making plans. Reasonably successful I'd say, although I could have made more money on the warhammer if I hadn't sold most of it to a chap that came to my house and bought most of my collection for £56.
What other ways could I possibly have had? lol. If only I had found a job...sigh.
Well, after research I found out that blogging was quite the little earner. So I started this blog. I started it on wordpress with the aim of joining a pay per post site once I had blogged for 30 days. Sadly when I reached this stage I found out that wordpress wouldn't allow you to use your blog in this manner. So I came here, to blogger. Now blogger would let me put adverts on my site, so far I have earnt a little bit from ads. My blog would be a nice little earner, but I'm just not getting enough traffic to do so. I get about 3 or 4 views a day, most from the same person :p, so the blogging hasn't really come through for me. I don't think my blog is interesting enough to be honest.
The other plans I had were stock photography and gambling lol. The stock photography turned out to be too hard to get approved photos. I had one which was approved a couple of months ago, and as yet I don't think anyone has downloaded it. The gambling was something I was never going to do. I was tempted to do roulette, doubling my bet on red and black each time to make a small profit every win, but gambling online isn't something I want to start doing.
However when pokerstars gave me $5 free money to play with, I thought why not try and earn some money through poker - at least there is skill involved. This was a good plan until I found out that I am/was actually crap at poker lol. I made some research into how to be a good poker player, but I never really cared enough about the money I was given to play properly.
When this was depleted I looked around for other ways I could play poker online without investing any of my own money. Last night this was in fact. So anyway, I found PKR.com after watching one of their tournaments on TV. They have freerolls, where you can win a small amount of cash ($1-$5), and enter for free. This is great, but a freeroll is a tournament. Because it's free everyone wants to enter. Registering isn't a problem, but you are playing against 2000 players for this small amount of cash. To win one of these tournaments would probably take 3-4 hours? They are fun nonetheless though, and my only route to becoming semi-pro at poker, because I have vowed never to use my own money. I finished my best one an hour ago, with a position I was most proud of. 152nd. Now I think that is impressive for a 2000 people tournament. Sadly you only start getting paid at 80th place, and only 14 cents. But it's a good start. I also came 9th out of 244 players in a play money tournament, which I was also pleased with. So maybe there is still hope for earning money online.
PKR is incidently really good. You make an avatar look however you wish and then play with them against other people and their avatars. So its as close as you can get to playing the real thing with people in the room with you. (its all 3D graphics) The TV program just puts a high profile tournament table on, and has a few commentators. If that is all you need to do to make good tv then its a fairly decent program I'd say. Although when the editors leave the bits which the commentators ask to be cut in the program it does help. I was laughing anyway.
So that is the sum total of my money earning exploits this summer. (a few jobs for my Dad got me a bit too).
Interesting? Or was that another waste of time :p
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