Flemmy Orange Goop/Degeneracy as a Profession

I woke up this afternoon with a strange overwealming feeling of sickness. Had I eaten anything strange last night? No, not really, aside from my regular diet of candy, soda and Royal Cookie Capers. Did I get too drunk last night? No; drunk on poker winnings maybe. Drunk on alcohol? No... Perhaps it was the breakpoint from all the cigarettes and bong rips I've been smoking the last few weeks. No, that really wouldn't make much sense either. Regardless, I awoke to a sickening feeling in my stomach. A sharp pain, and I leaned up out of bed. "I'm not really going to puke, am I?" Another sharp pain... "well, I get the feeling that I should go to the bathroom just in case..."

And then I let her spill. Mostly just flemmy orange goop, no real chunks of puke. The dry heaves hurt like a motherfucker. The smell iminating from my mouth made me heave again. Son of a bitch, dry heaves hurt. After a few more heaves I stumbled back to bed and fell asleep with the most god-awful taste in my mouth.

........

I had some intensely sexual dreams during those two hours of napping. Delusionally bizzarely intensely sexual. I woke up pissed off that I was dreaming in a bed occupied only by myself. I considered playing the $200 no-limit hold em turbo tournament before going to work, but I'd already dropped over $600 staking my friend in the FTOPS this past week with a zero percent return on investment, so I wasn't feeling too much like gambling.

I pulled out another $1,000 a couple days ago, furthering my confidence that I just might be able to do this for a living. The way I see it, if I can basically get myself an average paycheck every two weeks withdrawn while not letting my bankroll fluctuate too much, I should have more than enough to support myself 100% from pure gambling winnings. I would call myself a break-even player who bides his time waiting for a big cash. In the past month I've had six four-figure payouts, including two over $4,000. Obviously when you take into account buyins this is nowhere near a 100% ROI profit, but I'm finally ranked after two years as an overall winning player, in the top 99 percentile of worldwide players online. Compare that to my 44 percentile in 2007, I would say I made a vast improvement in my game.

........

This Tuesday, November 18th marks the 30 year anniversery of the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana. Most cable news networks have been airing specials on it this past week. The CNN special was well done, except I hated the chick who was hosting and interviewing. MSNBC's was a little better. It was nice because they wern't both a rehash of eachother's broadcast. Almost as though the two networks had consulted eachother during production, CNN covered some aspects that MSNBC neglected and vice-versa.

The account that stood out the most in my mind was listening to a survivor describe watching his wife holding their infant son in her arms as one of Jones' guards injected cynaide into the toddler's mouth as the wife stood there sobbing, not long after drinking the kool-aid herself, and how he held the both of them as they died in his arms. Yikes!

I've always found the absolute corruption of power and the blind willingness of followers like sheep fascinating. It's like most people are if not eagar at least very willing to surrender their own willpower and decision making to the so-called "greater good". The cable news specials on Jonestown taught me nothing I didn't already know, but they were still fascinating to watch.

I am very thankful that with the Congressman came an NBC news team from New York to document not only Leo Ryan and Co's trip to Guyana but the immediate aftermath. The footage is vast and impressive. Amazing to see a thousand people laughing and dancing and singing in happiness and joy knowing that just hours after the footage was taken they would all be dead.

The most iconic of the footage is a still photograph of the aftermath. Jim Jones' corpse sprawled out on a table in the middle of the pavallion, dead from a gunshot to the head, surrounded by hundreds of his faithful followers decomposing bodies. Above the pavillion hangs a sign that reads, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it"

As I have been known to rant, rave, and blog about The People's Temple and Jonestown in the past I am not particually eagar to continue on, but you can probably expect a more fleshed out entry on Tuesday to mark the anniversery hopefully with some choice footage as well.

Be well, friends.
.Benjamin