Hello all!  It’s been a while and we are approaching what will be a year for me since I last played a hand of poker online.  Yes yes, I know you can still play on some other random sites out there.  But to be quite honest, I don’t trust them at this point in time.  The fact that I still have 5 figures wrapped up with Full Tilt still to this day has left a sour taste in my mouth.

The sour taste still lingers, but it is not as bad as it once was.  I do have to admit though, I was extremely depressed for about 6 months there.  So much hard work seemingly down the drain.  I still look forward to the day that I can play online poker in the comfort of my home and easily transfer money from one site to the next.  Ahhhh, yes it is like an american poker player’s wet dream.

I did manage to sneak in a couple live sessions at the closest casino to my home which is in Charles Town, West Virginia (a 3 hour drive for me).  I ended up winning a couple hundred bucks I think in about 5-7 sessions playing for a total of 3-6 hours each session.  (pretty bad stat keeping, right?)  The last session though, made me realize just how I wouldn’t be able to make a living at live poker when the drive is 3 hours away.  I sat there, and sat there, and sat there some more just waiting for the hands.  Being the online action-junkie I couldn’t take it anymore and ended up playing out of my comfort zone.  This would prove to be disastrous as I dropped I believe it was around $800 in about an hour.  But hey, like I said, I still ended up overall.  Since that dead run of cards for a session, I haven’t been back.  The commute back-and-forth just isn’t worth it for the chance to go through another cold deck. So I haven’t played any poker online or live in a few months now.

Just to remind you, I do still have a full-time job.  On that front, things have gotten better.  I am still with the same company, though doing something a little different.  Something is more up my alley.  Though I feel I could be happier elsewhere, I am in no dire need to leave except for the reasons of money, which is definitely WAY TOO LOW.  Especially since half my income, what was my online poker income, is gone to me now.

But anyhow, about being depressed for about 6 months.  I didn’t do a thing.  I was just so extremely unmotivated.  I hope I never experience anything like it again.  Then something just kinda snapped around November/December (around the same time of my last live session).  It was that inner voice telling me I need to get my act together.  Sitting around moping isn’t going to bring online poker back.  All the ideas and things I talked about last post back in April of 2011 were still sitting there,  being left untouched.

So around the middle of December I decided it was time to get to work.  I created a new website.  Something that I hope can really catch on one day.  If it doesn’t that’s OK as I have learned a ton of new things in the short period of time that I have been working on it.  I already have some other great ideas that are in the works and might see the limelight here soon as well.

The site I am working on is called todaysRAGE. The general idea I will get from the about page on the site:

The idea

When you read an article, whether it be in your local newspaper or your favorite website, do you read every single thing from beginning to end?  Be honest.

If you are like most online users, the answer is NO.

Most people will read the title.  See the image.  Then if they are interested, they might read the first paragraph or two and MAYBE scan the rest.  Scanning is not reading though, and some important facts might have been missed by the reader.

Even if you do want to read just the summary from a news publication, it is often just the first paragraph anyway!

This is where todaysRAGE comes in.

The pitch

todaysRAGE is a news and trending-topics resource that provides fact-driven, brief stories based upon what is being sought and shared on the web at any given time.

…And that is pretty much it in a nutshell.  I do have more plans for the site, as they should be released here in the next week.  As of now I am still in build mode.  I started working on the site in the middle of December, and just to remind you… I have no idea what I am doing.  I am not some computer science major.  But one thing I am good at, is learning on the fly.  I have simply just done the same thing I did for nomenot.net.  I just googled “how to do this” and “how to do that” and then just stuck with it through trial and error.

Once I am completely done with build mode, which should be sometime in February.  It will be all about getting people to the site, marketing mode.  I am starting to tell more and more people about the site (as I am doing here), but when I say marketing mode….I mean really hitting up every avenue possible to drive people to the site.  Of course content is king, and that is kind of lacking at this point in time.  I went a week away from posting any new stories to really work on the front page of the site.  I know that is not a good thing.  But for now, I only plan to post one or two stories a day.  After all, there is so much one person can do, especially when it isn’t his full time job.  But maybe one day, it will be.

So to end this already extended update of a post.  I ask that you visit the site and let me know what you think.  I take criticism extremely well so don’t be shy.  You can post here or contact me through todaysRAGE either via the comment section or the contact page.

Until next time……(lets hope online poker comes back soon) good luck!