To blog or not to blog?

June 29, 2006 | Leave a Comment

I’ve been trying to convince Ed to blog. He won’t. He says it will be a mediocre blog since he won’t dedicate much time to it and that it will get slammed as such.

In all honesty, I think he’s right. Everyone’s got a blog and very few are actually worth reading. Instead of a blog, Ed should focus on the Two Plus Two magazine right now.

Blogs are more personal endeavors, places to practice writing, places to log changes/updates/catch up old friends you haven’t seen in a while. They are not literary excellence. They are not channels into souls. Read more

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Blogging, Emo Shit, Love and Marriage, Work, Business, & Finances
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Mo Money, Mo Problems = not always true

June 29, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Brag post ahead. Beware.

Ed’s lastest book is going crazy! It’s probably at a peak selling period right now, but it’s incredible. Already, Ed’s earned off this book in one month what took both of the other books 6 months to do. This is going to be a big year for us financially. :)

Which is why we’re taking off to France for a year!

We haven’t picked the year yet, but it just makes sense. We both dream of living in a foreign country. Online poker is legal in most of the EU (whereas it’s constantly under attack in the US - technically, illeagal everywhere in the US). So now that we can afford it, plus make money while we’re there, hell, why not!?

Besides, no one here *needs* us right now. Mimi is pretty healthy right now. Mary is doing fine and just got her real estate license. Ed’s work people can survive with him further away - he can do what he does from anywhere… I’m so excited!

France will let us bring up to 5 pets so long as they’re vaccinated and have microchips, which ours do :) I keep joking that we can go ahead and get a dog, since that brings our pet total to 5 and we’d still be allowed. Ed says, “hell no” and suggests that we might get a dog while we’re there. I think he’s right that it’s not sensible to get a dog til we’re more settled. But I don’t care, I want a dog.

My French is horrible and Ed speaks no French at all. We’ll have to take courses while we’re there. Plenty of people learn languages by being immersed in the language for a while. I think we’ll be fine. And if not, we’ll just come back home.

Update April 2008: We never moved to France. That was a pipe dream. We’re procrastinators and can never get our butts in gear to do much of anything. Argh. But we did want to move to France. We did plan to do it. We just never go around to doing it.

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, Love and Marriage, Travel & Adventure
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Mad Skillz

June 27, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Liz started getting interested in poker a few months ago. So Ed and I arranged a poker night for her to meet a pro who could either guide her onto the winning path or maybe they’d hit it off as a cuople. Well, they’ve hit it off. But I don’t think Liz’s poker skills have improved any.

Same could be said for mine. Here I am married to a super-expert and I hardly play at all. I’ve only played a few games and I just don’t really like it. There is always some jerk at the table that makes the game totally lame. He’s wearing sunglasses and listening to his ipod and getting up every 3 seconds to make a phone call. He shouts at anyone who takes his money. He acts like he’s hot stuff but he’s playing THE LOWEST STAKES in the cardroom. And he’s making the game not fun. I’m not a favorite in those games. I’m not a skilled player. So I don’t want to give my money to some blow hard. I’d rather give it to a nice guy who at least makes me laugh or something. Someone who makes my learning process comfortable, not someone who drives me out of the game. Save that for the tournaments. Read more

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Poker
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Sunday Bloody Sunday

June 25, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Donated blood today. That felt good :)

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Health, Fitness, & Beauty, Politics, Work, Business, & Finances
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Ed’s Book Signings Are Boring, Boring, Boring

June 25, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Man, yesterday was work.

So, normally Ed and I hang out most of the day and if work needs to get done we’ll put in a few hours of it. But yesterday felt like a real work day.

$Small Stakes Hold \'em: Winning Big With Expert Play$ First, we went to Borders to do the book signing. Last year Ed did those alone but this year he asked me to come with. He says they’re usually very boring and he’d rather hang out with me. Well, since I set them up, I may as well go. So, we sat at the table for a couple hours.

We were pretty surprised, actually, when we showed up and they only had one copy of No Limit. We asked why and they said they ordered 20 copies of each book and received them 2 weeks ago but they’d sold most of them before the signing. So, that’s good.

A few people came in with their books from home, asking for them to be signed.

$No Limit Hold \'em: Theory and Practice$ Mostly though, those signings are dealing with the average public, who has no idea who Ed is. They ask some annoying questions and really have no idea what poker is about. I keep telling Ed we need to develop some standard one-liner answers to those questions, but he’s just so damn precise and long-winded sometimes.

For example, a common question is “Do you make more money playing poker or selling books?”
Well, Ed has various sources of income from many different projects. Right now, the books are selling so well that yes, they are the majority of his income.

Another common problem is why people haven’t heard of him. Ed’s hasn’t won a tournament so how is he qualified to write about poker? When Ed played professionally, he played cash games, not tournaments. In Ed’s games, the chips represented real money. And Ed’s games aren’t on TV because they aren’t very dramatic. Ed plays poker because it’s a fun hobby that he turned into a job. Tournaments just aren’t as fun for Ed. Since he’s not motivated by a desire to be a celebrity, the long-hour tournaments are not very appealing. He’d rather play cash games where he can leave at any moment to go do some other fun thing.

$Getting Started in Hold \'em$ So, we’re working on those answers.