I am actually writing this on my balcony on the 7th floor overlooking Manchester of a 1 bed studio apartment. Its quite quirky actually, and reminds me of Hong Kong apartments... small, but cosy which is what I like! Check out the funky design of it lol!
The whole situation of moving out was a little chaotic. It basically stemmed around some of my friends wanted to move as a group of 4, but their financial situations made it out that they were unable to find a more expensive place in central, and I was not wanting to negotiate on the location. Some people might call me mad, choosing location over friends, but at my age I feel now that every place I move to HAS to be an "upgrade", otherwise what's the point? I simply cannot be living like a student anymore. I'm done with that. I hope my friends understand. It was a tough choice but I'm happy it. Why even bother living in Manchester at all, why not live at home with my parents if I wanted the most cheapest option?
I've got a pretty sick view from my new place, and I think its not a bad deal considering that 1 beds are actually more expensive and/or same price as 2 bed places, which don't make much sense! I like to think that when I'm stressing out or going through a bad run I can have a look or chill outside and remind myself why I'm doing what I'm doing.
Having a think back, I've lived in a ridiculous amount of places. Its not really by choice really, more so mainly that I spent 6 years in higher education (now irrelevant to what I do lol). "6 years?" I hear you repeat... Must have been in architecture or doctor... but no, I actually dropped out after one year, and did foundations and also repeated another year. But anyhooo holy crap I've lived in many places;
1. Halls in Waterloo - Awesome location, really cheap actually considering location.
2. 3 Bed near Oval - Weird house with shower in downstairs living room where closet normally is!
3. Limehouse - DLR area is kinda cool but found that place a bit lonely as was with some random guy.
4. A shitty room in Waterloo - Above a chinese takeaway, that place was so bad lol but location obv reli good.
5. Halls in New Cross area - Had some really cool flatmates
6. Bermondsey - Quite a bit far out dodgy area but was ok. Got the smallest room though which totally sucked.
7. London Bridge Hostel - For a week! Waiting for a place with another friend.
8. Hackney Downs - An interesting 3 bed apartment where downstairs had 2 rooms of which there were no windows whatever so you'd wake up in pitch darkness not knowing whether its day or night lol.
9. [Moved back home]
10. Delta Point Manchester - An awesome new build near town 2 bed 2 bathrooms, holy crap so much cheaper then London!
11. Abito Apartment!!
Wow.
One day I guess it would be cool to choose one place a stick with it. All those places I had never stayed longer then a year, but if this place is good then who knows? But getting contracts signed is kinda hassle as I avoid telling them what I do if I can get a guarantor signed, but otherwise if I have to then usually its 6 months in advance to pay for the place, as I'm doing now.
In some ways, its ok as I'm pretty confident with my game and I have a pretty good schedule going. I'm pretty confident about getting in the volume that I need in order to survive.
THE BT DEBACLE TAKE 2
As previously blogged, BT is a stupid fucking company. They are literally retarded. And what pisses me off the most, is that they are the only company that actually installs the lines, and fits a phone line for you to get internet. Even if you don't use the phone line at all, which I don't, you still need to use them to get it installed. Meaning if you want to get Virgin or Sky, you still need to deal with BT, the slowest, most unreliable, most terrible customer serviced Inter-telecom company in the UK.
When I found out that the move was going to happen about a month ago, I realised that transferring over my current internet would take a while because it had done so before. So I called them up in advance so that I could arrange a installation on the 6th August (I called around June 13th). This was perfect, as I was due to move out on the 5th. However, for some stupid reason when I called up nearer the end of the month, the stupid Indian lady who I barely could understand had cancelled the order because she thought that I was due a deposit of which I didn't, because transferring internet to another place is free.
Firstly, if your a communications company and employ people to talk to people, please for the love of god will you employ people that are easy to understand. That is literally the only logical criteria for them to have. So sorry if your Indian or Irish or something, but you shouldn't be allowed to work there if we find it hard to understand you. Secondly, how fucking cheap is BT to be offshoring their telecommunications services? I mean the company is probably rolling in it since EVERYONE has to use them to install phone lines, offshoring takes the piss and also make BRITISH telecom give less jobs to locals.
Anyways, so now they've rearranged for another engineer to come on the 23rd August. I know for a fact that the guy is gonna come round, install some mini computer thing into the phone line, and be done in ten minutes. Joker. And for BT's mistake I get nothing in return... just a half arsed apology and the chance to officially complain which means jack shit. I hate working with these incompetent companies...
What this means is that I cant really work for another 10 days which totally sucks. I was getting in the flow and kinda feeling it. My STTs are coming along nicely and 180m, well... a bit breakeven but hanging in there pays off too. I can tether off my phone to browse and stuff, but there's a limit on it so now downloading or watching streams etc. As far as playing goes, I'd rather not be playing off a dodgy connection with money so I will have to be patient and what. I suppose it will be a good time to take a bit of time off and organise myself in the new place.
FULL TILT BACK IN NOVEMBER
It looks like that Pokerstars has indeed bought out Full Tilt. Its so strange that it has come to this but if you had money invested in Full Tilt then you will indeed be getting it back. This also means that Full Tilt will be reopening for business (not for USA obv), and they predicted aroudn 3 months so it looks like November.
This $547 million dollar deal with the DOJ means that they acquire the company as well as paying back the $184 million on top that is owed back to its former customers. Those numbers are absolutely astounding, but I think with Pokerstars strategy it actually is a good investment... for the loooong run.
Pokerstars had known about the possibility of Black Friday's banning in USA of online gambling, so they have been strategising hard to market out to the rest of the world. As I play I see more and more countries I had never seen before, from China/Hong Kong to Croatia to Mongolia! (They have internet? lollll) This is also why they can afford taking on such hefty sums of money. As long as they hang in there, when things become legalised, things will pay off as they have the most experience and customer base.
You can read more about this here - http://www.pokernews.com/news/2012/07/pokerstars-acquires-full-tilt-poker-assets-players-refunded-13146.htm
As far as the USA goes, only time will tell what will happen. Everyone knows that it will be legalised again sometime within 1-3 years time O_O but the big question is whether they will be playing vs the world or will it be a country only game like France, and Italy.
Either way, its good to finally have this settled. Full Tilt and Pokerstars were the biggest online poker rooms for a reason... their interface and games where the best. Since I'm quite stubborn to play on other sites, this makes me look on and think about the possibility of investing in Full Tilt again.
LONDON OLYMPICS 2012
I think that the general condenses over the opening ceremony show was that Danny Boyle did a pretty good job. Us British being British, were being pessimistic and kinda interested to see how "bad" it was going to be. But in all honesty it was actually pretty good, especially the opening sequence with the Industrial Age making the Olympic rings out of molton iron (spoiler!). Other notable mentions were the dove bikes, inventor of the internet, The Queen with James Bond, Mr Bean, lit up beds and iron petals which came together to form the olympic torch.
Some parts where pretty weird and random, but in actuality people don't realise how HARD IT IS TO REPRESENT BRITISHNESS. I mean if we compare it to say China, or the next Olympics in Rio, those countries we can already imagine what they will show and the kind of themes that they have going. Hell, we will even call the themes "Chinese" and "Brazilian" LOL. But do we ever call anything "British"? With so many contracting things in Britain from pub food, to rock bands, countryside and city sleek, multi cultralism to royalty, its so hard to represent the British.
It did seem like a one in a lifetime show in London, and I'm kinda sad that I couldn't see it live. Either way I hope it revitalises East London, and well right now it seems that Team GB is doing really well in the medals department, behind China and USA.
I guess over the next few days I will try and catch up on my blogging, there have been a lot more things I wanted to blog so this looks like a great chance to do so! GL at the tables guys!
Cool blog dude. I couldn't agree more on BT, they are useless! Will defo have to come up and visit this year!
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