When I was younger, I was quite a hell raiser. I know, I know...hard to believe, isn't it? Well, it's true. If there was trouble to be found, I found it. Sometimes it found me. If there was no trouble, I *made* the trouble. My teen years were spent mostly in a drunken haze, treating my body like an amusement park. Some kids did drugs, some kids were into breaking into houses, some kids fought all the time...not me.
Not to say I didn't do those things as well, but they weren't my forte, so to speak.
Booze was my thing. No matter what you called it...if it was an alcoholic beverage, I drank it. Beer was my favorite, hands down. There just wasn't enough beer in the world for me. Cans, bottles, glasses...it didn't matter to me. Beer was my thing.
By the time I hit 18, I was a seasoned alcoholic. I make no bones about it...I was. I'm not ashamed of it, but I am ashamed of some of the things I did while I was under the influence of it. Most of my high school career was under the influence...there are very few days I remember from start to finish. I would sell my soul to the devil himself to go back and change that today...I really would.
People who like to drink have an uncanny knack for finding other people who like to drink...it's what we do. Drinking is the one thing that brought people together in my school...I partied with people who otherwise wouldn't give me the time of day. After time, I even drank with people in other cities...and other states altogether. It was like my own personal national pastime.
One such night, I was out with a buddy of mine and an uncle of his who was our designated buyer. I was 18 and so was my buddy, so we needed someone to buy us beer as the drinking age had been raised to 21. We were driving around in my first car, my beloved 1978 Chevy Nova...a two-door model. Man, the stories that car could tell...anyways. That night was cold as hell...it was the middle of December and the heater in my car didn't work all too well, so we kept bundled up so as not to freeze to death. Out cruising around, a couple cases of beer in the backseat, a buncha empties all over the place, tunes crankin' on the AM radio and we felt like we had the world in the palm of our hands.We were invincible. Life was good...damn good.
Until...
We got hungry, so we decided to stop at a convenience store to get some snacks and of course, some more beer and cigarettes. We weren't out of either one, but it might have been a while before we stopped again. I stayed in the car, and my buddy and his uncle went inside the store to get our supplies. I kept the car running so the heat would stay on, which wasn't really doing that good of a job in the first place, but I did it anyways. My buddy and his uncle came out, walked back to the car and got in, and I raised my beer to finish it off.
And then...
ALLLLLLL hell broke loose.
My buddy starts saying "Cops! Cops! Cops!" and I panicked and started to put my empty beer can under my seat, which I know now was really stupid. I saw myself hiding a beer can (like they weren't going to see the other two empty cases floating around the front and back seats), but the officer at my window saw me reaching for a weapon of some kind. The next thing we heard was "PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM AND DO NOT MOVE!!!!!"
There was an officer at my window, one at the passenger window, and one at both ends of the car, all four with guns drawn on me. I was mortified. I couldn't even open the door when the officer asked me to. I think I might have even peed a little. They had to search the car, of course, and we could have built a small fortress out of all the empties they took out of the car and put on the trunk.
See, when we pulled into the parking lot, we were all too drunk to notice the police car at the other end of the parking lot AND the police car in the parking lot at the fast food restaurant next door (it was dark...that's my only defense). And of course, I pulled into the closest spot to the driveway, which happened to be one of the two spots the clerk couldn't see very well from inside the store. Two guys run in, one waits in the car...yeah. They thought they were going to be robbed, so the second clerk tipped off one of the officers in the store (my buddy and his uncle were totally oblivious to the two officers in the store, for some reason...they must have been more drunk than I was). Then the second car rolled in nice and ninja-like with its lights off after the other two got in the car, and we were stone cold busted. The nights' adventure got me my second underage drinking citation, and I don't remember what the other two got and frankly I don't care.
It didn't scare me enough to make me quit, but it DID make me more a cautious drunk for the future.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
LOL, WTF, and BBL...The Way of the Interwebs.
I am an internet junkie. It started way back when in the late 1990s when I discovered chat rooms. The very first time I ever logged into a chat room, I had a hard time believing that there were real people there. There were. The first dialogue I ever had in a chat room:
I said "Hello?"
Someone responded "hi".
(Oooooo...this is COOL!!!!)
I was hooked. Real people!! They had cool names and used colorful fonts and letters and I could talk to them and they talked to me back. Well, type to them, anyways. I spent countless hours in various chat rooms...made a few friends here and there that I chatted with on and off while I was there, but most of the people in there were not regulars. I became a regular after a while. Some people I chatted with outside of the chat rooms; Yahoo Messenger was a popular medium of conversation, and I utilized it often. Hours and hours were spent chatting about anything and everything amidst various emoticons of smiley faces and sad faces, lols and brbs. I met one of my closest and dearest friends in a chat room over ten years ago, to be honest. Little did I know that it was those early days that would suck me into the internet for good.
Then I discovered IRC, short for internet relay chat. It was like chat rooms on steroids. It was there I learned how to exploit websites and gain access to their content for free. The people who taught me how to do this were ex-programmers and system admins, and they were among the best on the planet. They had cracked more websites than I could count and were responsible for general mayhem and chaos. They were the elite hackers of the planet, and I was under their wing. I was soon an @ there, which is the abbreviation for operator. I could kick people out of our channel, add people to our ranks, ban the newbies who didn't follow the rules, and various other benefits.
It didn't last long...I got bored and left the channel I belonged to, and have all but forgotten how to use the tools I was given. The tools are still out there...somewhere. I just choose not to use them anymore. Too risky nowadays with Big Brother breathing down our necks.
Then came the advent of social networking. I enjoy it because it allows me to talk to family and friends I normally wouldn't see or hear from for years at a time, both foreign and domestic. Facebook, Twitter, and countless others encompass billions of people across the world, and it seems that nobody is immune to their grasp.
And then...MMORPGs. Or, massive multi-player online role playing games. Yowza...I couldn't possibly know where to begin here. World of Warcraft was my poison...people have nicknamed it 'Warcrack'. I spent hundreds of hours in front of my computer. I won't go into detail because I could go on and on for days about Warcraft, so I'll spare you all this time. I still play here and there, but not nearly as much as I used to.
Now, I subscribe to many different news readers and groups and am constantly reading about the latest in gadgets and electronics, business, politics, games, humor, and many other things. I'm hooked but I don't want to quit...I don't think I could if I tried =). I'm still a junkie, I guess.
Where will computing go next? What else is out there that we could possibly discover? How much more is there to invent? We may never know. Not in our lifetime, anyways.
I said "Hello?"
Someone responded "hi".
(Oooooo...this is COOL!!!!)
I was hooked. Real people!! They had cool names and used colorful fonts and letters and I could talk to them and they talked to me back. Well, type to them, anyways. I spent countless hours in various chat rooms...made a few friends here and there that I chatted with on and off while I was there, but most of the people in there were not regulars. I became a regular after a while. Some people I chatted with outside of the chat rooms; Yahoo Messenger was a popular medium of conversation, and I utilized it often. Hours and hours were spent chatting about anything and everything amidst various emoticons of smiley faces and sad faces, lols and brbs. I met one of my closest and dearest friends in a chat room over ten years ago, to be honest. Little did I know that it was those early days that would suck me into the internet for good.
Then I discovered IRC, short for internet relay chat. It was like chat rooms on steroids. It was there I learned how to exploit websites and gain access to their content for free. The people who taught me how to do this were ex-programmers and system admins, and they were among the best on the planet. They had cracked more websites than I could count and were responsible for general mayhem and chaos. They were the elite hackers of the planet, and I was under their wing. I was soon an @ there, which is the abbreviation for operator. I could kick people out of our channel, add people to our ranks, ban the newbies who didn't follow the rules, and various other benefits.
It didn't last long...I got bored and left the channel I belonged to, and have all but forgotten how to use the tools I was given. The tools are still out there...somewhere. I just choose not to use them anymore. Too risky nowadays with Big Brother breathing down our necks.
Then came the advent of social networking. I enjoy it because it allows me to talk to family and friends I normally wouldn't see or hear from for years at a time, both foreign and domestic. Facebook, Twitter, and countless others encompass billions of people across the world, and it seems that nobody is immune to their grasp.
And then...MMORPGs. Or, massive multi-player online role playing games. Yowza...I couldn't possibly know where to begin here. World of Warcraft was my poison...people have nicknamed it 'Warcrack'. I spent hundreds of hours in front of my computer. I won't go into detail because I could go on and on for days about Warcraft, so I'll spare you all this time. I still play here and there, but not nearly as much as I used to.
Now, I subscribe to many different news readers and groups and am constantly reading about the latest in gadgets and electronics, business, politics, games, humor, and many other things. I'm hooked but I don't want to quit...I don't think I could if I tried =). I'm still a junkie, I guess.
Where will computing go next? What else is out there that we could possibly discover? How much more is there to invent? We may never know. Not in our lifetime, anyways.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Know When to Fold 'Em...
Many, many years ago, I used to enjoy gambling. Blackjack, to be specific. At first, it was the mystique of the casino; the buttons and neon-colored lights on all the machines, the sounds of jackpots and semi-jackpots calling to you to empty the loose change from your pockets before you even get your wallet out and hit the cashier, even the smells of the casino.
Yes, there are smells....honest. Some are good...some not so good.
The good...the all-you-can-eat buffet, the occasional pipe aroma wafting through the air, and if you're lucky, the smell of a stack of bills as you walk out the front door with the house's money. The bad...the smell of mini-buckets of dirty nickels and quarters being hauled around under watchful eyes by little old ladies taking their weekly (sometimes daily) bus trip, the various odors of the regular degenerate gamblers who threw bathing out the window because 'they were on a roll and couldn't quit now', and the over-perfumed women (it's always Vanilla Fields...blech) who try to mask the scent of gin and Virginia Slims they constantly exude.
The very first time I ever went to a casino, I sat down in front of the first machine I saw, put in one quarter, and won $75. I was hooked. I was gonna be richer than Bruce Springsteen...I had it all planned out. Come up here a few times a week, bring a roll of quarters, and walk out on rose petals drinking a bottle of Dom Perignon with an escort on each arm like Ice-T or Hugh Hefner. My dreams were soon dashed. I realized very quickly that the house, not I, had the overall advantage. Then the scheming started...that didn't last long either. I figured out that if I was going to be a successful gambler, a real high roller, I was just going to have to learn how to play the games by the rules and win by strategy, not cheating. Face it...you can't cheat a casino. You might do it once, maybe even three or four times, but you WILL get caught and if you did, you might never be seen again. I didn't have the balls to try.
Soon enough, I found the blackjack tables. I started small, only playing at the three dollar tables. After a while, I learned how to play the game; when to hit, when to stand, when to hold, when to double...all that good stuff. I got pretty good, and I knew the game fairly well. I graduated up to the nickel tables, and once in a while I ventured into the quarter table territory, but not very often.
One night, I decided to try my luck at the quarter tables hoping to win some real money. After I sat down and started playing, I was having the night of my life. I walked in with around $200, and was up over $1,000. I couldn't lose no matter how hard I tried. I felt like Tony Montana...the world was mine and there was nobody who could stop me. Or so I thought.
After a while, a well-dressed man in a very nice suit came over and asked me if I'd like to join this table over in a little corner off of the rest of the tables, the one in a blue haze of expensive cigar smoke and smelling of Old Spice and whiskey. It was a hundred dollar table...somewhere I had only dreamed of playing. My eyebrows went up almost as quick as my heartbeat. I took my stacks and followed the nice man over to the new table and sat at the open spot. I was the youngest player there by a long shot...the next oldest guy there was at least twice my age, and they just got older from there. My luck seemed to follow me there also...soon enough, I was up over $6,000, and I was ON FIRE. Unstoppable. Unbeatable.
Until...it happened.
I caught some bad cards, and I started to sweat a little. My vast fortune was dropping by as much as $500 a hand, and all of a sudden it was like someone turned on a switch and the shoes turned to complete shit. I started to bet bigger and play more erratic to make up for my losses, and I could feel my luck slipping away. I'm sure the free drinks the waitresses kept bringing didn't help any, either. Those broads knew what they were doing. By this time I knew I had already had quite a bit to drink, but I was losing my ass in a big hurry, which took my mind off the booze. The only thing going through my mind at that time was despair and sorrow.
My last hand there was a $250 bet...a little more than I had in my pocket when I walked in the door quite a few hours and almost as many drinks ago. My 19 lost to the dealer's 20 and I was flat busted. Broke as a sonofabitch and I was devastated. I thanked the dealer and didn't say another word to anyone. I walked out with my head to the ground in shame and I couldn't forgive myself for not getting up and walking out when I had over SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS of the house's money sitting in front of me.
I learned an expensive lesson that day...and I haven't played a single hand of blackjack since.
Yes, there are smells....honest. Some are good...some not so good.
The good...the all-you-can-eat buffet, the occasional pipe aroma wafting through the air, and if you're lucky, the smell of a stack of bills as you walk out the front door with the house's money. The bad...the smell of mini-buckets of dirty nickels and quarters being hauled around under watchful eyes by little old ladies taking their weekly (sometimes daily) bus trip, the various odors of the regular degenerate gamblers who threw bathing out the window because 'they were on a roll and couldn't quit now', and the over-perfumed women (it's always Vanilla Fields...blech) who try to mask the scent of gin and Virginia Slims they constantly exude.
The very first time I ever went to a casino, I sat down in front of the first machine I saw, put in one quarter, and won $75. I was hooked. I was gonna be richer than Bruce Springsteen...I had it all planned out. Come up here a few times a week, bring a roll of quarters, and walk out on rose petals drinking a bottle of Dom Perignon with an escort on each arm like Ice-T or Hugh Hefner. My dreams were soon dashed. I realized very quickly that the house, not I, had the overall advantage. Then the scheming started...that didn't last long either. I figured out that if I was going to be a successful gambler, a real high roller, I was just going to have to learn how to play the games by the rules and win by strategy, not cheating. Face it...you can't cheat a casino. You might do it once, maybe even three or four times, but you WILL get caught and if you did, you might never be seen again. I didn't have the balls to try.
Soon enough, I found the blackjack tables. I started small, only playing at the three dollar tables. After a while, I learned how to play the game; when to hit, when to stand, when to hold, when to double...all that good stuff. I got pretty good, and I knew the game fairly well. I graduated up to the nickel tables, and once in a while I ventured into the quarter table territory, but not very often.
One night, I decided to try my luck at the quarter tables hoping to win some real money. After I sat down and started playing, I was having the night of my life. I walked in with around $200, and was up over $1,000. I couldn't lose no matter how hard I tried. I felt like Tony Montana...the world was mine and there was nobody who could stop me. Or so I thought.
After a while, a well-dressed man in a very nice suit came over and asked me if I'd like to join this table over in a little corner off of the rest of the tables, the one in a blue haze of expensive cigar smoke and smelling of Old Spice and whiskey. It was a hundred dollar table...somewhere I had only dreamed of playing. My eyebrows went up almost as quick as my heartbeat. I took my stacks and followed the nice man over to the new table and sat at the open spot. I was the youngest player there by a long shot...the next oldest guy there was at least twice my age, and they just got older from there. My luck seemed to follow me there also...soon enough, I was up over $6,000, and I was ON FIRE. Unstoppable. Unbeatable.
Until...it happened.
I caught some bad cards, and I started to sweat a little. My vast fortune was dropping by as much as $500 a hand, and all of a sudden it was like someone turned on a switch and the shoes turned to complete shit. I started to bet bigger and play more erratic to make up for my losses, and I could feel my luck slipping away. I'm sure the free drinks the waitresses kept bringing didn't help any, either. Those broads knew what they were doing. By this time I knew I had already had quite a bit to drink, but I was losing my ass in a big hurry, which took my mind off the booze. The only thing going through my mind at that time was despair and sorrow.
My last hand there was a $250 bet...a little more than I had in my pocket when I walked in the door quite a few hours and almost as many drinks ago. My 19 lost to the dealer's 20 and I was flat busted. Broke as a sonofabitch and I was devastated. I thanked the dealer and didn't say another word to anyone. I walked out with my head to the ground in shame and I couldn't forgive myself for not getting up and walking out when I had over SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS of the house's money sitting in front of me.
I learned an expensive lesson that day...and I haven't played a single hand of blackjack since.
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