Sharking Yourself: Watching Stocks Drift By
Current mood: peaceful
Category: Sports

Speaking for myself, I prefer TVs in the area of the poolroom where I am playing be tuned to ESPN or a MLB game. I'm a big fantasy baseball player and I'm interested in the latest scores and the latest news. Distracting? No, I don't get wrapped up in the action, I just passively glance at the screen now and then between turns. And, I'd like to think the majority of pool players are sports fans just like I am. Unfortunately, they're not. Preferences in the poolrooms I frequent include soap operas, the animal channel and, God help us all, Fox News. To be honest, I like it when someone I'm playing has their eyes focused on the closed captioning during a match – they're not into the game. But, it's when opponents sit with their eyes glued to stock quotes as they slide across the screen, especially in the midst of today's troubled market, that I get the urge to double up on the bet. How can anyone concentrate on a simple game of pool while their money's going down the drain?

Not that I'm not interested in the market. I am. To tell the truth I've got a considerable amount of change invested in the market. The key word here is "invested." I'm not a day trader – I'm in for the long haul. When the market does bounce back, and it's bound to, the funds and stocks I'm invested in will bounce back with it. I'm as confident in that as I am in the fact that sun will come up tomorrow. For the record these are the funds I'm invested in: DODFX, FAIRX, GABAX, MERDX, RYOCX, VEXMX, VFIIX, VFSTX, VTSMX and VWIGX. These are the individual stocks: MET, COMS, CVS, JDSU, NDAQ, PCCC, BOOM and CMCSK. I did a lot of research before I made theses investments and I'm confident that in the long run they are going to do all right for me. I don't have to watch the minute to minute or day to day fluctuations in price. In fact, I've developed the habit of checking the closing prices only once a week, on Fridays after the market closes.

So, to sum things up, if the competition is all wrapped up in the market or in the jabber of Fox New's talking heads, I don't mind a bit. In fact, I encourage it with some well placed comments of my own, like "goddamned liberals," or "the market's in the crapper again." It's a good thing if their minds wander away from the game – good for me, anyway.

8:07 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

So You Want To Work In A Pool Room
Current mood: animated
Category: Sports

BITD, when you walked into a pool room, you could count on being greeted or ignored by a grizzled old timer who had pool running thru his veins and dripping from his pores. As I make my rounds thru the pool rooms of Florida, it’s the cranky old farts and S.O.B.s that I miss most of all. Down here, every counter is manned (perhaps that’s the wrong word)… behind every counter stands a woman. Now, I’m not one to lump all women together - in truth, they are as varied as the fishes in the sea - but many of those who find their way to the pool room, especially around NPR, FL, are of the same type. The things they do and say, the atrocities they commit, boggle the minds of serious pool enthusiasts who date back to the pool rooms of yesterday. What I am suggesting is that before a manager hires someone of any gender to work in his or her establishment, said manager should give the prospective employee a test. That way, maybe, their customers can be spared the agony of dealing with complete idiots. Toward that noble end, I have composed a sample test. Here it is:

1. When you hear the word "pool," you immediately think:
a) Chlorine makes me itch.
b) that’s the opposite of "poosh."
c) it’s a game played on a pool table with balls and cue sticks.

2. If a customer requests "different" chalk, you should respond:
a) that all the chalk is the same.
b) that you only have one color - blue.
c) by presenting them with the box of chalk and allowing them to pick their own.

3. A player who is playing on time brings back his tray of balls while you are busy on the phone talking to your daughter. What should you do?
a) tell him you will be with him in a second and keep his time running while you talk with your daughter.
b) start cursing at your daughter to show off your parenting skills.
c) set the friggin’ phone down and take care of the customer.

4. Two regulars are gambling on the only table in use when a guy comes in with his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s little brother. Which table would you put them on?
a) one right next to the gamblers so that people aren’t scattered all over the place.
b) which ever one they want.
c) one as far away from the serious players as possible.

5. You have to deliver a pitcher of beer to a party on the far side of the room. Enroute, you approach a player who is in the midst of making a shot. What should you do?
a) squeeze past him, but try not to spill the beer.
b) say "excuse me" until he moves out of your way.
c) stay as far out of the way as possible.

6. A friend calls and asks you to reserve a table for him. What do you do?
a) Scatter balls on a table, and, if anyone asks, say it’s occupied.
b) Tell people the table is reserved.
c) Tell your friend that you can’t tie up a table for a nit.

7. When you hear terms like "one-hole" or "dirty balls," how will you react?
a) I’ve heard worse at other dumps I’ve worked at.
b) I will be offended and make a complaint.
c) Ignore them - I’m not that much of a sexual deviant.

8. You’re scheduled to work, but you’re sick. What do you do?
a) Go in anyway - you need the money. Keep sickness to yourself.
b) Go in and tell everybody how sick you are hoping to boost tips.
c) Find someone to sub and stay the hell home, so you don’t spread your germs to everyone you come in contact with.

If you own or manage a pool room, feel free to use this test.

Oh yeah, the preferred answer for all questions 1-7 is c. Duhhhhh.

This all reminds me of one of my favorite riddles - Why does God give beauty queens one more brain cell than he gives horses?

So they don’t shit during the parade.

12:35 AM - 4 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Traffic Jams
Current mood: complacent
Category: Life

Back in the day (BITD), I made my living driving, cabs mostly, but limos, too. For several years, I even owned my own business, Airports Unlimoted, an airport car service. So, suffice it to say, I have always and to this day spend a lot of time thinking and theorizing about driving.

For example, I recently came up with an answer to the oft asked question "Why do so many people in Florida drive like old ladies?" The answer is "Because they are old ladies!" Unfortunately, for all human kind, the same diabolic twist of fate that causes wives to live longer than their husbands apparently allows them to drive longer, too. Ironically, as they near the end of the road, men who BITD always took command of the wheel now are relegated to the passenger seat. Not to say all old women are lousy drivers – I'm sure there's at least one good driver among them… somewhere.

Not that the old men who find their ways to Florida's roads are any prize. Most of them can't drive worth a shit either. Not only have their physical skills eroded, but having been rendered impotent in all other facets of their lives, they use their time behind the wheel to compensate. They block traffic. They deliberately thwart drivers who are trying to pass them. They drive five, ten, fifteen, even twenty miles in the left hand lane without ever passing a single car. Or, they plop their asses in the center lane causing traffic to stream by them on both sides. Not too long ago, my attempt to pass one of these rolling cadavers was met with an insane attempt on his part to force me off the road. When I drew beside him to the right, he cut his wheel toward me, forcing me to brake or go into the curb. Determined to strangle his sorry ass, I followed him for about 7 miles south on Little Road, but finally calmed down and gave up on the idea when we turned off on Massachusetts Ave. in opposite directions. Knowing that he is probably still out there driving, I kind of wish I had followed him a little longer.

Not that every old codger blocking the left lane is there for the sole purpose of thwarting me – some are there simply because that happens to be their favorite lane. BITD, I was driving two old gals to the airport when I overheard one tell the other that whenever she drove on Route 80 in NJ she stayed in the left lane. "No one's ever in front of me – it's clear sailing." "Clear sailing for you," I couldn't resist saying, "but not for the 9,000 cars stacked up behind you." They never used me again, which I didn't mind, because they were mere ten percent tippers. If they had called again, I probably would have refused them.

Then there are well reasoned forays into the left lane, like the one made by the guy who slides over into the left hand lane up in Spring Hill because he has to make a left hand turn down in Palm Harbor, 20 miles away.

And what about them Canadians - they couldn't move slower if they were in covered wagons.

And if driving on 19 in Pasco County wasn't bad enough already, a new WalMart just opened up on Hwy 19 in Hudson. My wife and I checked it out this morning. Conditions driving thru the parking lot were as treacherous as rush hour in Mexico City. Warning: Travel thru this area at your own risk.

10:42 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

My Game My Group
Category: Sports

Join My New Pool Group

I created a new group at blogcatalog.com called "Blogging Pool/Billiards." I recently discovered that posts at blogcatalog get good coverage from google so I thought it might be a good idea to join a pool group. To make a long story short, there weren't any. So, I formed my own. Now, I need members. Visit it here. Primarily a place for those who have pool blogs or sites, it will be a place to ask questions, discuss problems and observations, to swap ideas and to make announcements.

Otherwise, everything's good. I recently told someone somewhere that I would continue playing as long as I keep improving. Well, I have no thoughts of quitting yet. I've been playing almost every day and my game shows it. Of course, I can't fire in shots like I could when I was 16, but even that aspect of my game is getting better. The only thing standing in my way right now is the lack of players down here willing to play for a little something. I refuse to engage in matches where nothing's at stake. I'm convinced that kind of nonsense hurts my game more than it helps. Those who refuse to gamble are the same guys who wonder why they choke when they play in tournaments. "It's because you're not used to playing for anything!" I tell them. But, they won't listen and prefer to supply their own excuses. Anyway, like I said, I drive to the pool room (either Capone's or DJ's) every day and, unless I run into someone with a little gamble in them, play by myself for about an hour concentrating on the basic stuff - staying down, stroking thru the cue ball, etc. It's working.

4:46 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

part two flashing before my eyes
Current mood: pure
Category: Writing and Poetry

we hadnt been married too long when my mother went into the hospital for a hysterectomy visiting someone in the hospital was a new experience for me so i didnt know what i should do my wife suggested that i give my mother a kiss which i did afterwards it struck me that i had no memory of ever having kissed or been kissed by my mother before surely she must have put her lips to me at some point during my infancy at least i hope but it would have had to have been before my earliest recollection btw my earliest recollection is of me standing in my crib having just been bathed and powdered slapping my chest and tummy and sending up little clouds of talc and telling my mothers youngest sister then a kid herself that that was what i was supposed to do i dont think she believed me i also have a vague memory of being suffocated by a large soft breast whose i dont recall another repeating image is of me scrambling up the steps in the old house on pequannock street the old man behind me kicking and fumbling with his belt and me diving under the bed to shield myself from his wrath sometimes hed pull the mattresses off to get to me other times hed just swipe at me with his belt a few dozen times then remember someplace hed rather be my mother kept pretty quiet during these episodes or else he might start kicking her and locking her in the basement it was a two family house we lived in i wonder what the old mans tenants next door thought about what was going on i know what they did nothing most people in the neighborhood didnt want anything to do with the old man when he yelled which was a daily ritual that started the minute he got home from work at the arsenal where he apparently had been kissing ass all day his muted blasts could be heard up and down the street parents didnt want any son of that maniac playing with their kids this one kids mother was the school secretary at north dover school and though i played with chucky sometime i never once got invited into his house i can remember three of us kids playing a board game on the porch and her coming out and inviting the other two inside for a drink and politely asking me to go home she was a real humanitarian fucking witch anyway when you grow up in an environment like that you never stop reacting to your childhood in time you just find different ways of reacting

4:32 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

flashing before my eyes
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Writing and Poetry

at the end theres no punctuation it all just runs together like the time when i was 11 and the lady at the baker theater wouldnt sell me a kids ticket cuz she said i was over 12 and i burst into tears and called her a dirty son of a bitch and i called my old man on the phone and he came down to tell the lady off but when she told him i called her a son of a bitch he turned around and smacked me in the mouth then kicked my ass up the street which was par for the course since he was a demonic maniac and always took pride in saying i wouldnt amount to anything which is wrong cuz here i am a web icon and entrepreneur almost as big as bill gates then there was the time when me n bobby and a couple of our friends saw to hell and back with audie murphy and came out of the movies ready for war climbing hills of dirt and concrete where they were building the shopping center on basset highway that was cool then in the arcade down the shore where they had the coin operated pool table and i ran off three racks of balls without missing and had everybody oooing and ahhhhing and i later ran into a kid who was tending the baseball throw who recognized me and introduced me to everybody who was working concessions as the best poolplayer he had ever seen that was cool too the first time i got kicked out of school i was in kindergarten at mcfarland street school and the teacher mrs shirk refused to give me the first piece of a cake my mother had baked for a party so i grabbed the cake and threw it out of the window onto the playground below i knew i was in for a licking so when the principal ordered me to go home i snuck in and hid under my bed and stayed there even after i heard my mother call the police because she thought i was lost man was i scared i was in trouble like that every year up until i got kicked out of high school permanently my senior year cuz lightning leclair singled me out and pointed at me during a pep rally and told me to leave cuz i was making too much noise so i charged down the bleachers and plowed right into him knocking him on his ass then there was the time carmella came up to me at a ymca dance and asked me to dance a slow dance with her so i did but she was in 8th grade and i was in 7th which is why i told her i had never asked her to dance plus she was hot which isnt a term we used back then but pretty much sums up her appearance and my face was covered with pimples already which made me kind of reluctant to move on the hottest chicks leading me to settle for a lower grade but she said she never noticed the zits just my green eyes i couldnt help think she was messed up in the head and afraid to go out with guys her own age but the encounter made me feel good that one night anyway i remember stupid things too like the time ears miller was drinking water from the water fountain and i knocked the back of head just for the hell of it and cut his gums up pretty bad im sure i got kicked out of school again for that but i was expelled too many times to remember they even tried behavior modification on me once making me report to the principal every day after school and having him give me a score of some kind based on my behavior that day i guess it kind of worked for a while but there were no long term effects i remember another time when i found my uncle vincent wandering around down town and took him all the way up to my grandmas house on chrystal street uncle vinny was a mongoloid which i later learned was also downes syndrome he wasnt a lot of trouble except for his occasional explorations and had a generally good humor though he could on occasion be stubborn as a mule and i remember kids i grew up with like little marty who could run like a scared rabbit and i always tried to get him on my team when we chose sides for touch football cuz he wouldnt let anyone touch him for the life of him runnin from one side line to the other like his life depended on it and never givin up till he hit the end zone marty had a spurt of growth during his teen years and lost some of his speed plus he developed mental problems one night he fell into the roaring rockaway river and was later found hung up in a tree and drowned rumors circulated as to how he wound up in the river but no one could ever prove foul play the first time me and bobby sang together was to roy orbisons only the lonely dum dum dum dumbeedoowah i dont know if we actually had any harmony mostly cuz i wasnt that good of a singer even later when we teamed up with franklin dorsett and sang wear this ankle bracelet i was kind of a drag on the operation still i enjoyed singing and was a hard worker the elementals featured me bobby buster heinle and tommy groce we could really burn and we made a recording at a radio studio which was out of sight but tommy borrowed it because he said his cousin was going to make a copy of it but what the asshole actually did was record over it thereby destroying a crucial part of my and the other guys past im still pissed about that i remember too the time mr dorlan told me i was going to pitch in the playground league which wouldve been the first time i ever pitched only to give the ball to some clumsy dork who wandered onto the playground 5 minutes before the game was gonna start they say dorlan felt sorry for the guy becuz his old man was a drunk well too fuckin bad my father was a fuckin evil brutal fuckin maniac and no one was throwing any breaks my way anyway i hate dorlan to this day even though hes dead when i was in grammar school me and this kid billy gould were always getting in fights not because of any animosity between us but because he had a petuitary problem which made him the biggest kid in the class somehow he always managed to skirt my defenses with these slow motion roundhouse rights which always left me seeing stars but not before i had connected with his face a few times bloodying his nose and lips i remember my mother taking me to the neighborhood barbershop when i was still a toddler funny how these images stick with you my old man must have been proud that he had bought the big two family house in the protestant section of town unfortunately he didnt factor in that these people didnt like italians so here we are in the barber shop me my mother and a dozen old wasps who kept eyeing ma and making comments that obviously were making her uncomfortable kids can sense things like that she reacted the same to animals which is why i suspect i was always afraid of dogs i was walking home from school one day and a guy stops me and asks me if i wanted to work for him after school delivering fuller brush catalogs door to door i said yeah and so began a stint that lasted several months hed pick me up after school and take me to the neighborhoods he would be canvassing next it wasnt easy work i got something like a penny and a half per catalog when i got tired of it i gave the job to the dickersons they were much smarter than i was they carried the catalogs around in these newspaper delivery shoulder bags whereas i had been hauling a box around and they threw catalogs away by the dozens into dumpsters sewers garbage cans in all the months i had worked for the guy it hadnt occurred to me once to do that go figure one of the dickersons turned out to be a cop the other died of aids but here i am still plugging away trying to make sense of it all contrary to everyones expectations i had a pretty good freshman year when i got to high school got an a in latin vini vidi vici or something like that was on the honor roll pretty much stayed out of trouble until the end of the year when i managed to get arrested for a second time at a school dance for being drunk the first time was for some bogus charge which derived from the fact that me and my friend stevie were present when this over age friend of ours did the nasty out in the woods with an underage young lady of questionable virtue all the while me and stevie kept ourselves busy throwing rocks at a tree the juvenile court judge believed our story which jived with the young ladys put us on probation and let us go when he addressed the second charge stemming from the high school dance the policeman who had made the arrest stood up in court and said your honor michael thats my real name swore at the time that he had not been drinking sit down said the judge cant you see hes being honest with us now after a couple weeks in the youth center i was free to go home i wasnt really happy about that because i liked the youth center the kids and the people running it there was a girl trudie that i met there who liked me but we never met again bobby bowman a friend of mine was working on the heating unit at parsippany high school when he met this chick adelle who had a friend leanne so he and billy started going out with them after a while it came to light that there was another friend who i had occasion to meet one day on an excursion to lake parsippany we talked and fooled around a little but she was hot in the parlance of today and my previous experience and general self image had taught me that hot girls would not be interested in moi nevertheless it turned out that the young lady in question had not been turned off by our first encounter and indeed wanted to see me again and again and thats how i met the love of my life who continues she claims to think very highly of me ditto for me 43 years though it hasnt been smooth sailing there were some tough times especially in the beginning because i was doing a lot of experimenting with life one thing id like to forget is the leather jacket knowing the pocket lining had torn she got it in her head one day to sew the pocket for me unfortunately sadly when she reached into the pocket she found my gimmicks id been messin with the stuff on the side without her knowing now it slapped her in the face she was upset yes but she didnt rid herself of me lucky for me i mean i was never a junkie just a dabbler in this n that i remember going into nyc to cop and going into this connections apartment and him proudly showing me a picture of his old lady who was out of the house at the moment peddlin her ass before that i hadnt had much contact with the seamy side of existence thats what that kind of pastime does for you introduce you to the seamy side of things anyway with the 60s i developed a preference for acid smoke n hash more emblems of a mispent youth and wasted time honestly speaking of the myriad of ideas that occurred to me back in the day when i was high i dont think a single one had any merit unless it was something like i better stop doing this shit

6:41 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Not Quite Friends, But In My Network
Category: Blogging

I wasn't brought into the myspace community by a friend or acquaintance – I was brought in by a stranger who had hotwired an image off my website and onto his profile page. When I tried to follow the link from awstats to the culprit's page, I learned that I had to be a member to do that. So, I signed up.

At first, I reacted with vengeance. I renamed the hotwired images so that those who were using them were left with empty image boxes on their pages. Then, I got a better idea. Since these folks were using my images without asking and without giving me any credit, I decided to add some promotional text to each hotwired image. In most cases, this amounted to my domain name – aceswebworld.com. Below is a quickly gathered partial list of sites that are currently carrying my modified billboards. My dream is that one day my brand will be as recognizable as Coca Cola or Campbell Soup. We will see.

http://www.myspace.com/_wildrose_

http://www.myspace.com/nadiataijeron

If you get a chance, check them out.

7:57 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The Poolroom of My Misspent Youth
Category: Sports

In days of yore, when I was a kid growing up in the local poolroom in Dover, New Jersey, just about everyone played for money. It didn't matter if you were the best in town taking on all comers or just a novice trying to move up in class – when you played, you were playing for something. 

Five or six years ago, when I decided to drop by the local poolroom here in Florida after 35 years of not playing, based on my former pool hall experience, I fully expected some young shark to jump on me as soon as I walked in the door and with this in mind I was prepared to lose a few bucks. Not to worry. I was soon to discover that in Hudson's Golden Cue gambling was a dirty word.

On that first day, I walked in to find two tables going. While I feebly banged the balls around, I observed a three player king-of-the-hill nine ball session on one table where there was no score keeping and no money passing hands, while on the other table an older dude was shooting alone with pretty good results. Obviously, this old dude would present a challenge but I was willing to take the chance so I asked him to play some nine ball for a couple bucks a game.

"Nuh nuh nuh no," he stuttered. "I duh duh don't play for money."

Hearing the exchange, the ring players started watching me warily like I was some kind of hustling road player. If I had had any sense, I would have walked out of the poolroom right then and given up on the idea of taking up pool again. Unfortunately, I didn't.

Poolrooms down here on the west coast of Florida are predominantly havens for social players too cheap to play ten cent shuffleboard. I drove down to the NPR poolroom 4 times last week and did not witness a single money game. As a change of pace, I drove up to Spring Hill one day and although 9 tables were occupied, the situation was the same – no one was playing for anything. As I watched these stiffs plodding around their tables, taking meaningless shot after meaningless shot, I got the feeling I was trapped in a scene from "Night of the Living Dead."

I've heard the protests. "I play for the love of the game." Bullshit – when someone says "I don't gamble," what he or she is really saying is "I'm afraid of losing my money." As far as I'm concerned, if you don't have the guts to play for something, you shouldn't be playing pool. Sell your Meuccis and invest your money in golf clubs or bowling balls. Leave pool to the poolplayers.

6:57 AM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Bob May’s One-Rail Kicking System
Category: Sports

My friend, Bob May, worked out this system one day after becoming fed up with losing too many games because of missed kicks. Suffering from the same problem, I took immediate interest when one afternoon he offered to share his knowledge with me, free of charge. Since then, I've not only improved my kicking, but I'm pocketing more balls off the kick. Before, I go too far, I have to emphasize Bob's view that to become an expert you have to put in the practice. In certain situations, you will have to apply a little natural or reverse English – the more you practice, the better your feel for these shots.

Here's Bob's formula:

(Cue Ball Track Origin) (Object Ball Baseline Location) = Long Rail Target Point
Or,
(CBTO) (OBBL) = LRTP

See the illustration. Note the method Bob uses to mark the rails. The long rail from which the kicking tracks originate is numbered one thru 8 with each number corresponding with a diamond. After number 8, which actually is the corner pocket, the tracks continue around the corner on the short rail with each diamond increasing in value by 2 (10, 12). The locations on the baseline (here represented by red numbers) are similarly divided. On the target rail, the diamonds are numbered 8, 16, 24, 32 (side pocket), 40, 48, etc.

Here's the process for kicking in the 9-ball that sits nearest to the corner pocket in the upper left of the illustration:
1. Obtain a value for the OB. In this case, it is 3.
2. Obtain a value for the Cue Ball Track. Estimate the track, then move to the nearest diamond. In this case, the nearest point of origin would be the corner, for a value of 8.
3. Plug your numbers into the formula, then multiply. The product, 24, indicates your target on the kicking rail.
4. Because the CB seldom lies directly on the track, you must here employ the distance method of aiming. Here, you must sight along the track thru the target to a secondary target, a point 8-11 feet beyond the table.
5. Stroke the CB firmly, center ball, at the secondary target.

If this method was only applicable to balls frozen to the foot rail, it would still be valuable; however, the beauty of it is that it applies to all balls in all locations. The baseline, here the foot rail, moves freely to wherever the ball you want to kick at lies. Just remember, you have to adjust the numbering of the long rails accordingly, as the junctures of baselines and long rails are always numbered zero.

Work on this a while and soon you'll be kicking like Bobby – he's one kicking s.o.b.

12:04 PM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Something Old, Something New
Category: Sports

Well, I've finally reached a point where I can spend more time at the poolroom. The bar league's over and I already informed my teammates that I won't be playing next session. And, my mother's estate is just about settled which means I won't have to worry about that anymore. Plus, I picked up a second car so that I can zip around during the day while Uppy's at work.

Unfortunately, there's no action at the poolroom, just a few regulars playing funsy nine-ball, and a couple guys like me who just practice. I've said it before and I'll say it again - for me, there's no value in playing someone if there's nothing at stake. I just can't motivate myself to win solely for the glory of beating someone. I've got to win something, even if it's only $10. Anyway, it's a sad state of affairs when you can't even find someone better than you who wants to rob you of a few bucks to play with. This makes the poolroom a rather dismal place.

On the bright side, I have completed a new pool story. Give it a read if you have a few minutes: No Joy in Poolville.

7:14 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment