Don't bother thinking about any of the following stuff... (Part 1)

1. Death. Seriously, just ignore it, it's not that fun. If you pretend it isn't there then it might just go away. Apparently there's overwhelming evidence to suggest that it will inevitably happen to pretty much all of us (except vampires, and Duncan MacLeod, and possibly that Jesus fella). Frankly, I'm cynical, but since I can't figure out where else my grandparents and Buddy Holly and a few other lads went I admit there could be some truth in it. I must also admit I'm really struggling to accept the terrifying concept of my own non-existence, or Alice's for that matter. Nuts to that. I haven't spent several hard years mastering the place markets in sprint handicaps just to have it all disappear into pointless oblivion. So as I say, don't think about it, you'll only get in a gloom about how we're all screwed, or at best drawing pretty fucking slim.

Still, I'm an optimist. Perhaps if I think about this niggly death thing long enough, I can engineer some sort of alternative. Ok, granted, it's a tall order perhaps, but I'm fucked if I'm going to let myself just wink out of existence without some sort of fight. I guess at the moment I'm banking on medical science to get a shimmy on and discover a cure for just about everything, and pretty damn sharpish, because right now there ain't many buyers of the Lord Miros life expectancy spread. So far it's not looking hopeful. Still, as a rule I never stand up from the table while I still have an out, and with any luck the course of my life has only just made it to the flop, so perhaps I'll pick up some hope on the turn. If I'm really lucky the button in my personal game of life has jokingly plumped for seven-card stud, though knowing my luck he's had a sudden whimsy for Irish, in which case I'm truly fucked. Doubtless I'll have blundered away my chance of eternal bliss by discarding that useless-looking God fella, which is ironic as my personal idea of damnation actually involves me playing a neverending game of Irish, in which I obviously never win a pot. But enough of this analogy now, my psychiatrist told me never to mention 'the 3-card game', I can feel the voices coming back and they're saying bad things.

Incidentally, if any of you lot come up with any bright ideas about this whole mortality dilemma, feel free to share. Any handy and not too laborious death-avoidance solutions would be gratefully received.


In other news, I've been to several different countries in my global quest to ingloriously bust nowhere near the money in a succession of meaningless and rather boring poker tournaments. While in many ways disheartened - not to mention completely knackered - this unhappy adventure has only cemented my ambition to actually win one of these sodding crapshoots, primarily so I can then say fuck you to the world and give up poker for life. And if I have any left at the end of it all I can always go for that whole cryogenics spiel, and trust it's all not just an elaborate wind-up. Although I don't really fancy the prospect of my last earthly thoughts being: "I bet these fuckers never bother to thaw me out. Marvellous."