So I've really thrown myself back into pool these last several weeks. That's why my wrist is hurting and that's why I'm concerned about it. I'd like to write more about throwing myself back into pool, but I'm making no such promises.

Distractions that, um, distracted me for several years are gone, at least for the moment. I needed something to occupy my mind, and I've rediscovered the simple pleasures of shooting balls into holes.

Okay, fine. There was just one distraction. It's not like I'm the first person this ever happened to.

Anyway.

Back in January of 2001, I had Grady Mathews in my basement for some lessons. Yesterday I watched the DVDs I made of that session. I noticed a few things:

1. I asked a lot of stupid questions. It seemed like I was expecting that there was some big secret to banking balls, and if I asked Grady enough times he'd finally reveal that secret just to get me to shut the fuck up.

2. Grady had incredible patience with me. This was nice, as it told me that I probably wasn't the most retarded player he'd ever given lessons to.

3. I shot almost every shot way too hard.

4. In January of 2001, I was the world's fattest person. In the background of some scenes, you could see Greenpeace people lurking, just in case there was any trouble from whalers.

Today I shot banks for eight straight hours. That's more pool in one day than I've probably shot in the last three years combined.

I suck from lack of practice, but I had a lot of fun.

And I bet I'm going to be really sore tomorrow. I can already tell that my feet will be killing me.

Today was a pretty good day, considering the circumstances.

I got this strong urge to shoot some pool. I don't know why, I just did.

I didn't even want to shoot against anyone. I just wanted to knock some balls into some holes. Sometimes, like tonight, that's all I want to do. Simple, but effective.

So I went to this Royal something-or-other place. It sucked. It was a nightclub with some pool tables. I wanted the exact opposite, except without the nightclub stuff.

I can't even remember the name of the place I went. The something.

That narrows it down.

All I wanted to do was knock some balls into some holes. But I was not about to back down from a challenge. Not this time.

It took about 10 seconds for one of the local "sharks" to detect me. It took about 60 seconds for us to negotiate a game, with a "friendly" wager and a "fair" spot.

It took about 5 minutes for me to realize that, in that particular little pond, I was the big fish.

The pussy quit me after a couple of hours and several hundred dollars. I don't really blame him except that he'd originally acted like he had money to burn.

The thing is, nobody up here knows how to play banks. Oh, certainly, people know how to bank, many of them much better than me, but to play the game of banks requires a special mindset. One that I possess, and others up here don't.

Like taking candy from a baby.

I haven't updated this thing in months. I have no plans to update it with any more frequency in the immediate future.

My stupid personal life took precedence over my pool playing.

Fucked up, I know.

To shoot pool every day was my original goal, though I've since realized that it won't be possible, because there are going to be days when I never see a pool table. But, so far, I've managed to shoot every day this year. At least a couple of hours every day.

I'm taking things very slowly, being very cognizant of my left wrist, because if I mess that wrist up again it'll be weeks before I can make a proper bridge. Don't want that. Not at all.

So I'm sleeping with my wrist brace on, and I'm being very careful when I shoot pool.

It's been banks for the most part lately. No big surprise there I don't suppose. I've sprinkled in some nine ball every now and then. Sometimes nine ball helps me get into alignment more quickly than banks does.

Tonight, for the first time in months, I managed to bank nine in a row. Then, to rub salt into my no-camera-having wound, I threw the balls back onto the table and banked three more. So, that's twelve. Pretty good for a chump, I think.

I'm not even going to promise to update this blog more often. It wouldn't fool anyone by this point.

But maybe I'm getting better now. I played for a bit tonight. I played 8-ball, of all things.

I know, not much of an update, but here it is anyway.

Anyway, today I redid the main movie page. It was taking way to long to load up. So now you have to go to each movie's individual page to actually watch the thing.

There was also a problem with one of the clips. It kept freezing on me. I've reloaded that clip to my server so I hope the problem is correct. I can't test it just yet because the corrupted clip is in my cache.

I never said this would be an exciting entry.

What I did was, I went over to this Louisville Billiards Club place, and I practiced for about three hours.

My intention, going in, was to get on a 4x8 table. Past experience has shown me that it's pretty damn hard to miss a bank on a 4x8, once I get used to the optical illusion that causes everything to come up short. So I was just going to have some fun making banks for a while.

Once I got there though, I changed my mind. I had a sudden fear of getting lazy, and losing whatever physical progress I've made over the past few weeks.

So I grabbed the first 4.5x9 table instead.

Nobody approaches me to play. I suppose that was fine. They probably would have wanted to gamble, and I'm not into that anymore. I just used my time to work on noticing table differences and adjusting to them.

The table yesterday was weird. It was absolutely filthy, for one thing. And that filth probably caused the other thing. Balls banked off the short rails had an amazing tendency to go long. I mean, every damn time they'd want to go long. I guess this probably had something to do with how the balls weren't sliding as much as I was expecting them to. They'd pick up roll almost immediately after they left the rail, and that would affect the bank angle. For cross-table shots off the long rails, this wasn't noticable at all.

But I adjusted I guess. It took me a while.

Today I lost it.

Whatever it was. Whatever had been helping my mental focus and guiding my aim, it left.

Today was a real struggle. Balls weren't going in, and the urge to quit was very strong.

But, I didn't quit.

I sucked, but I didn't quit.

That's gotta be worth something, right?

Right?

A brief one.

Every day, starting last Saturday, I've practiced my banks. This is completely different than what I've done for the past year, which is play banks.

My practice sessions are focusing, once again, on consistency of style. Specifically, I'm forcing myself to take three - not two, not four - practice strokes on each and every shot, not matter how simple.

I don't know if this is really helping, but it feels good to be actually doing something besides just banging balls around.

Plus, my right shoulder is quite sore, so I must be practicing enough.

The first thing was that living so close to the tournament is a bit of a mixed blessing. It's surely nice to be able to drive home each night. Sleep in my own bed. Just chill out for a while, away from the tournament and its hustle and bustle. But, and this is something that I only noticed yesterday but which probably started last year, but it's a little bit too easy to just quit and go home. I'm sure that, if I'd driven several hours to get here, and if I were staying at the hotel, then I wouldn't have been nearly so quick with my decision to not buy my way back in. This may be something I'll want to consider next year - just getting a room at the place and staying there.

The second thing was a continuation of some of yesterday's thoughts. There are some really crappy banks players. I mean really crappy. I watched a guy yesterday get ball-in-hand five times during his match, and each and every time, without fail, he chose the wrong shot and missed it. Then the fucker won his match anyway. I saw him today. He's still playing, though I can't imagine that he's still undefeated.

But that's the way these random draws work. Charlie Chumpchange somehow keeps drawing players even easier than himself, and I get the guy who took 12th last year for my first match. I'm not complaining. It's random. But it's also annoying, and it makes me understand a little bit of that gambling mentality which has eluded me for so long. It kills me to see some of these people still playing when I'm not. It almost makes me want to challenge the whole fucking room to a race for a gazillion dollars. Just to prove my abilities. Establish a more realistic standing for myself.

There are two things holding me back from issuing that challenge.

First, I don't have a gazillion dollars.

Second, I suck.

Not that there was anything wrong with the table. It's just that we didn't get along. At all.

And the thing is, when a player and a table engage in a battle of wills, the table will win. Every time.

I totally failed to adjust to the table. It's as simple as that. I lost 3-1. I didn't buy back in.

I didn't shoot nearly as badly as I'd feared, and I didn't shoot nearly as well as I'd hoped. Three or four shots, had I made them, might have made the difference in the match. But I didn't make them. Oh well.

Of course, it didn't help matters any that the guy I played took 12th place (out of almost 500) in the thing last year. I didn't know that until after the match though. During the match I was thinking that he was getting very lucky by leaving me shit to shoot at 90% of the time. Now I'm thinking that there may have been some intent behind his leaves. Asshole.

I guess that if there are any lessons to be learned from this, besides the obvious one of leave your basement and play on different tables so you can learn to adjust you fuckhole, they would have to be eat something sometime during the day so you're stomach isn't growling at you while you're trying to shoot, and work on your softer shots you ball-slamming idiot.

I'm off work until Tuesday!

Tomorrow is the start of the Bank Pool division of the Derby City Classic, which I play in every year. I'm actually looking forward to it this year. Unlike last year when I was sorta dreading the thing, and it showed up in my play. Or lack thereof.

This year my mental state is much better than it's been for a long time. Problem is, my actual game is pretty shitty.

My practice sessions have lately taken one of two distinct flavors. Either I don't miss a ball for several hours, or I don't make a ball for several hours. Unfortunately, the latter outnumber the former by a fairly wide margin.

Oh well though. It should still be fun. And it will almost certainly be better than going in to work. I will miss going to the bar and seeing my friends *coughHatGirlcough* though.