I haven't been keeping up with my cfb picks, so I'm not gonna worry about keeping up with them anymore, at least for right now.  I made quite a few picks over the weekend on a whim just to give me a reason to watch the games.    I was 3-0-1 in coinflip games :).

Poker is wierd.  For some reason I've started to want to take shots at tournaments again.  The results have sucked...  I've probably thrown about $130 at tournament buyins in the past 3 days and I've yet to cash.  I just feel very out of place in the early stages of a tournament.  I try to stay tight, but if I don't win a hand within the first few levels then I quickly get to a point where I'm shortstacked.  One failed raise + c-bet just gets me feeling short that much quicker.  If I do happen to build an early stack,  it seems like it takes so long before the blinds get to a point where aggression really gets rewarded(early antes would help a lot imo).  I haven't played tournaments seriously for years, and after making a serious attempt at cash games this past year they just feel completely foreign to me.

Luckily for me I've also discovered HUsngs recently.  Even with the money I've thrown at tourney buyins, I'm still up over the past few days with the $11.50 turbo HUsngs I've been playing.  I've used up my sharkscope for the day so I don't have an accurate count, but I've been destroying these.  I won't claim to know heads up play that well, but even being somewhat novice I am amazed at how bad some of the people I've played have been.  I've wanted to dabble in heads up play for a while, these seem like a decent transition between 6max and HU cash.    If only I had laid off the tournies the last few days...oh well.

NBA starts tomorrow.  Portland vs LALakers will be on tv, which is the perfect way to kick off the season for me.  My lakers vs Greg Oden.

Issue 6 commercials are starting to upset me.  They've gradually gotten more definitive in their assertions in the last few months.  Anti-casino commercials have gone from hinting at loopholes that *could* allow taxes on casino revenue to drop to 0% to outright claiming the casino will pay 0% taxes, which couldn't be further from the truth.  I also like the keywords they throw in like saying the bill will give this casino a "Monopoly" in Ohio for casinos.  There are a number of things wrong with this:

1.  If anybody actually makes an effort to investigate the whole 0% tax "loophole", they'd find that among the various unlikely things that would trigger such a tax drop, among them would be a 2nd casino being authorized in the state.  So as long as this casino has a "monopoly", the whole 0% tax argument is moot.

2.  Is not wanting to let a casino operate in the state as a monopoly reason enough to forgoe the 6000+ projected jobs it would create and the millions in tax revenue for the state that is currently leaving the state for casinos in Detroit, Indiana, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania?

3.  Who cares about a monopoly on the casino?  Its a resort destination.  Would you not allow a golf course or an amusement partk to be built in the state if it were to be the first and only one of its kind in the state to prevent a monopoly?

The sad thing is, I know the kind of person this message is getting through to.  Its people like my parents.  They hear words like loophole and mentions of 0% tax rates and they get reminded of the whole lottery debacle in Ohio and their stance in opposition to the casino bill is set in stone.  I don't even know if I'll be in Ohio in 6 months, but I'm hoping the early projections are right and the bill gets passed.  If my other plans go to shit I'll move to Wilmington and become a dealer.