after ecstacy, the laundry

[rmd]

i came home last night, after the big win (second is the new first, you know), and discovered one of the cats had horked on the bed. while clauclauclaudia was hunting down clean sheets, i took the money out and touched it and fondled it. because i've never had that kind of cash in hand. but the cat horking explains why there's nothing but a mattress pad on the bed in this picture. i am usually civilized enough to have sheets on the bed.

so, i spread it all out and then took a picture of it with a big naked hairy pussy on it. yeah baby. she rolled around in it, even



and then today i walked around with the money in my pocket till i made it to the bank. then i paid off my car loan and on my way home i bought a nice bottle of scotch and a nice bottle of port. next weekend, in addition to my usual weekend ritual of dealing with mail and doing bills, i'll be writing a nice big check to the american cancer society (yeah, cancer made me a better poker player, but i don't advocate this approach for other people). also smaller checks to other groups. heifer project, an ovarian cancer education group, doctors without borders, rosie's place, etc.

i thought about divvying up the money differently instead of throwing it all at the car loan, but then i realized that not only was it the worst loan i had, but that i really wanted to be able to say that i'd paid it off with poker winnings.

one thing i noticed yesterday and today was that walking around with that kind of money felt a lot like wandering around with a concealed handgun. that same kind of "be very aware of it and make sure it doesn't end up falling off your person or that you aren't flashing it at people without realizing it" caution coupled with the "be casual and don't make it obvious you're doing anything different."

Comments

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

love the picture!
and congratulations again - 2nd is the new first - and paying off your car and helping various groups is really wonderful!

[lediva.livejournal.com]

Damn.

Congratulations again. :)

[tikvah.livejournal.com]

Cool picture. And of course, congrats!

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

one thing i noticed yesterday and today was that walking around with that kind of money felt a lot like wandering around with a concealed handgun.

Very like. I once worked for a Mailboxes Etc, which sold T-passes for cash only. We had to deliver the money up to the Transportation Building at the end of the sales week. One particularly good week, I walked up there with nearly $30K in fives, tens and twenties. I was simultaneously awed, proud* and terrified of the amount of cash on my person.

(* Proud of my boss's trust in me. I was only 20 at the time.)

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

That's some money shot. Congratulations.

[penk.livejournal.com]

So, can I ask a totally crass question?

How much did you win?

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I wasn't the first to ask -- I wanna know, too. :)

And of course, congratulation! (I still have a hundred-dollar-bill from my Vegas winnings because it just seemed like a fun thing to keep.)

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Since Regis doesn't seem to be around, and it's public record anyway: $14728 less 27% withholding comes to $10751.44. (Less tokes, maybe?)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah, the pokerpages links in previous postings all led to a list of payouts, so i didn't bother listing it here. and yes, i also tipped dealers/staff out of the winnings.

they didn't actually withhold anything. they also didn't issue a W2-G (which the WSOP folks did last year, even for a paltry $300 over my buy-in) and aren't telling the IRS about it, so theoretically i could pretend it was some other rmd from my town who looked like me who won it and just not declare it. but, having had fun dealings with the irs in the past where i had to straighten out old returns due to errors, i'd rather just pay the bastards and be done with it. but i don't have to do that until *next* april, so i'm blowing the whole pile now and figure i'll save up the amount i owe over the course of the year. particuarly now that i'm not paying for the car loan.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

Now that you've had a nice win, will you keep a record of your losses(*) to offset the win.


(*) I'm assuming that even great players like you occasionally lose games.

[drwex]

This is wise. Winnings only have to be taxed to the amount that they exceed losses.

That said, mazal tov on your winnings! And thanks for sharing the story of what you did with the money. It's neat to hear about.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Winnings only have to be taxed to the amount that they exceed losses.

i believe that MA treats this differently than federal.
in particularly i *think* that entry fees are not deductable from winnings. or some damned thing like that.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

will you keep a record of your losses to offset the win.

oh, i already track my winnings and losses, mostly because it's one of the chief things that keeps me sure that i'm not actually engaging in monumental self-deceit about a festering gambling problem. i can say "hm, i'm running a bit bad lately, but i'm still doing about within spec" and be sure that i mean it. as opposed to thinking "oh, well, it's just this month, i'll be fine next month" except i've actually been doing it for 6 or 7 months...

[marith.livejournal.com]

You so rock. :)

[madbodger.livejournal.com]

Go you for wrenching something worthwhile out of cancer!

[babasyzygy.livejournal.com]

Whoah.

That's a whole buncha benjamins.

That's so awesome, and sure, I'm interested in how much you won... but much more importantly - which scotch and which port did you get?

[rmd.livejournal.com]

which scotch and which port did you get?
in reverse order: a dow 20 year old tawny port, and a longmorn-glenlivet 30 year old scotch bottled by gordon & macphail. i've not had either before, but claudia and i have been sampling various tawny ports and the write-up on the scotch sounded good and it was surprisingly cheap -- less than a 21 year old macallan.

[babasyzygy.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. I just finally got around to trying the Dow 20 year old. Nice stuff. I had some nice Cockburn's 20 year old just before it, which was nice - similar but less complex.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm still getting a handle on this Port stuff...

[rmd.livejournal.com]

oh, port is still a new thing for me, too. claudia turned me on to the tastiness of nice ports by plying me with a tawny port (taylor fladgate, iirc) and we've been experimenting with some at home.

i haven't opened up the dow yet. we're still working our way thru whatever the open bottle is (which i've forgotten at the moment)

[babasyzygy.livejournal.com]

Ah, Taylor Fladgate was my gateway drug, too. Prior to trying a 10 year, I thought all ports were indistinguishable from cough syrup. Now, I'm afraid I've accumulated some Taylor Fladgates that I shouldn't open up for years to come...

The Dow's quite nice. In fact, so far I'm finding that anything with "20 year" and "Tawny" together, is pretty good. They're all different from one another, but have pretty much the same basic yumminess to them.

Dangerous stuff to develop a taste for, pocketbook-wise -- I ended up having to buy a 40-bottle wine rack the other day, to accomodate the just-1-or-2-bottles-here, just-1-or-2-bottles-there buying I've been doing. I even stumbled on an $80 bottle of a fortified french wine from 1947 that I was unable to resist snagging (the store's resident wine snot said it would be quite nice, and other prices I've found on-line have been from $110-$160) - I have no idea what'll prod me to open that one...

Normal wines didn't really grab on to me, but tawny ports and icewines have. Liquid candy, snootiness, and alcohol - what more can one ask?

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah, i don't care for most wines. tasty sweet wines, tho... yum.

I'm afraid I've accumulated some Taylor Fladgates that I shouldn't open up for years to come...
i didn't think tawny ports continued to age in the bottle. or is this for other kinds of port?

[babasyzygy.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure, I'm not clear on what makes something count as a Tawny or otherwise - the one source I have (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1840923741) says that all ports are either Ruby, Tawny, or White, but then seems to differentiate Tawnies from Vintages. The word might shift meaning depending on context, perhaps - it says that tawnies are made *either* by accelerating the aging *or* by blending ruby and white, and then it goes on to talk about "old tawnies" being replaced by tawnies with specific year (10, 20, 30, and 40 only) . Perhaps in some contexts the "old" becomes silent?

I think they all do age in the bottle - I think the aging/ready-to-drink thing has more to do with how they were originally aged and fined (ie, the sediments removed) rather than how red they are. But that's tentative until I get a better understanding of it all.

Away from the "tawny" terminology, I'm a little more certain - What I gather so far is that the "n-year" ones are ready to drink, while the "Vintage 19nn" ones are intended to age ("crust") first, for up to 30-40 years but ideally a minimum of 10 years... I found a discussion online of the relative costs of buying ports at auction versus buying them new and aging them one's self. Taylor Fladgate (http://www.taylor.pt/ourport_frame.htm) has a pretty chart here (http://www.taylor.pt/maturationchart.htm), with some of them classified as "bottled & sold for buyer to age," some as "sold when mature, will improve" and others as "fined, bottled, and sold ready to drink."

In any case, in the absence of a complete understanding of the process I'm wimping out and falling back to the text in fine print on the back of the bottle... some of them say something to the effect of, "you can drink this now if you really want to, you goddamned philistine, but we'll hate you and curse your descendants if you don't age it first. Back away from the bottle now." (translated from, "will improve with age and may be kept for many years in the bottle. Store horizontally and decant before drinking.").

I have a couple of 1995s, a 1999 LBV (which I gather is another one with some aging games already played on it), and a 2003. The vintage 2003 was actually fairly pricy ($100) but still has that "age me, goddamn it" text on it so I'm guessing it should be spectacular once it does age. I got the two 1995s, because I know I won't be able to resist trying one of them some time soon.

The vintages don't say "tawny" on them anywhere, nor "ruby," (just "vintage") so I just don't know. Perhaps the "three categories" classification isn't actually complete.

Sorry for the rambling, I'm learning as I dig. I'll understand it a lot better in the near future - I have a few more books on order that should arrive today or tomorrow.

One thing I do know is that so far none of the bottles I've bought myself have tasted like cough syrup, which is quite a pleasant surprise.

[babasyzygy.livejournal.com]

Ahah, according to the rec.food.drink wine FAQ (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/drink/wine-faq/part6/), port comes in two types: vintage and wood ports. It's the wood ports that are broken into ruby, tawny, and white and it's the vintage ports that you age.

So I guess Taylor Fladgate does vintage, tawny, and white ports (I haven't seen a ruby yet, at least).

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

For a person like you, who generally gives money to charitable causes whenever she can, paying off a high-interest car loan with that money is really *is* as good as, if not better than, making a bunch of various small donations at this point.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Rock *on*! GO Regis! That's so cool!

[donnad.livejournal.com]

Congratulations... on winning and being able to pay off your car.

[keren-s.livejournal.com]

Congrats!
Loved your pussy photo too. And at least she didn't hork all over the money.

[hariyos.livejournal.com]

that is fucking awesome.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Woooohooo!!

You are a very, very admirable woman.

Yay for the winnings and Awe over your choices. Hee for a car paid off with poker winnings. :-)

[scottro.livejournal.com]

Although I'm still just getting to know you, I had this feeling that you were a really great person. Now I know my instincts are correct.

I'm so happy for you and your success. Congrats again!

77

[poodlgrl.livejournal.com]

HOLY CRAP PAID OFF THE CAR LOAN!!!! HOLY CRAP!! woohoooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! GOD I LOVE THAT FEELING. I've had that feeling twice, but it was always from writing that last check + $6.89 or something. Not from PAY OFF BY POKER.

[poodlgrl.livejournal.com]

I also have to say YOU POKER YOU BROUGHT HER. Just because nobody else has, that I can see. Nice pussy, btw.