Sabtu, 22 Januari 2011

New Blog: Moving on...

Yesterday I made the announcement that I've decided to move on from PokerIdol.

It wasn't an easy decision as I enjoy the freedom this job has given me and the hard work I've put into building the brand, but the opportunity I've been given isn't one I could turn away. And that opportunity is...I can't reveal just yet. But the brand is a much better fit for me as it's aimed towards the UK market, my speciality, and has a great USP behind it. It's already done really well in it's short time and I look forward to helping it expand. My new job role is 'business development manager' and I cannot wait to start.

The best thing about the job is it's based in the London, the small team work together in an office in Camden. If I'm honest I've always wanted to move to the city for a while (see my blog 'London' from Nov) and now is the perfect time. The one thing worrying me was moving into a house share full of people I didn't know. This is always a risk and I didn't want some bad housemates ruining my experience.

However, after posting a tweet asking for housemates, I got a call from Simon who I shared with at University. The first year of my course I stayed at home due to living in the same city, so didn't really socialise with others from my subject. I moved into a large shared house with 3 guys I knew, one a friend from the course and 2 of his housemates I'd met, and then 2 others I didn't really know. The irony being that at the end of the year I was sick of the 3 I knew and much happier with the other 2.

We then found a 3 bedroom place for the third year and it was brilliant, we lived very easily together. So it was exciting when Simon called and said him and another friend from Uni had been planning on moving to North London for the past year! Absolutely perfect timing and I'm so excited I'm going to be sharing this experience with them. We're going to start looking for places next week, hopefully we can get settled in before I start as I don't want to start commuting, even for a couple of weeks.

Thanks to everyone who supported me during my time at PokerIdol, especially the team there. They are truly a great small company, one of the most honest I've ever come across, and if you're thinking of playing on the OnGame network I couldn't recommend them more.

Since my last blog I aged a year, turning 26. Scary! While last year I felt old, this year I feel young. Weird? Not really, I measure my age against what I perceive I should be doing with my life at the time. Last year I still living at home, facing at least a few more months doing so, just stating a job/continuing in an industry I wasn't sure about, single, all these things I felt I should of had sorted by that age.

But now, just a year later, I'm firmly rooted in the poker industry with invaluable confidence and knowledge, about to move to London to (hopefully) have the time of my life and am in a brilliant relationship. What a difference! It's been a fantastic 10 or so months with Anna, lots of ups with not so many lows, but sadly next week she's off back to the Philippines for a few months as her visa has run out. We're going to work hard to bring her back a few times though, hopefully permanently, and the two of us are going to work hard on our relationship to make sure nothing changes while we're apart. Thank you so much Anna, I love you :)

So, now I have four weeks of unemployment to look forward to! I was planning on doing my documentary idea but I just don't think I'm gonna have enough time, I'd rather spend time planning it once I'm settled in London. What I am going to do is write the three articles I mentioned in one of my past blogs and try to get them published. Can't wait to get cracking on those, might go to the coast for a few days of relaxation while I do them.

Not been playing any poker, but been watching a bit. Happy to see the Million Dollar Cash Game back on TV as it's always been a good cash game show. Isilidur1 being outed as Blom was a bit of an anti climax. I was hoping some of the other rumours were true, mainly it being Prahlad screwing UB or even funnier to being PH. Speaking of PH, my predictions for his move are (in no order) 1) Stars 2) Zynga 3) WSOP or 4) His own brand. I can't see him joining FTP even though he was speaking to them as they're more a cash orientated site.

I've been making a few purchases recently. The first being a Kodak ZX1 which I found for a great price on Ebay. What advances have been made in the world of camcorders! Never being into filming it's an area of technology that's largely passed me by, but with the prospect of doing documentaries I decided to invest in something half decent. The ZX1 is a simple little thing, but records upto 10 hours of HD film which is just right.

Next I bought an iPhone 4 and then returned it 24 hours later. Yes, the apps are crazy for it, which is what bought me to getting on, but when I tried setting it up as a business phone I wasn't happy at all with the results. Two big things; 1) You can't select all emails as read, I mean what a simple thing, but if you get 20+ a day it's going to be mega annoying. 2) you can't easily sync the To-Do list from iCal, which I use to run my life, so that was the deal breaker. I missed my Blackberry straight away, so went and got the brand new 9780. I actually prefer the old Bold, but the new apps for the 9780 are great (Twitter's own app especially) and of course it's perfect for business. So I guess I'm a Blackberry man for life!

I also bought my first tapes, the Pyramids 'Wvndrkmmer' album. A great idea and beautifully presented. To play the tapes I decided to buy a vintage tape deck that would look as nice as it sounded. I found a good condition Technics deck, instantly falling in love with its 70's styling:

So nice looking! Sadly though it arrived damaged. The sender refunded me instantly which was nice (and a little suspect) but I am going to try and get it working. Luckily though some digging around found my last ever casette walkman, which was boxed and in great working order. Here it is above the Pyramids album set:

Have eaten out a couple of times in last few weeks. I finally had my first sushi experience at Yo! Sushi. It was really nice although I preferred the cooked food rather than the fish. I then convinced my friends to eat with me and Anna at the local Grosvenor. Most people don't realise that every casino has a really good, reasonable restaurant inside it! We made it a double celebration as they'd just got engaged (Congrats Marc and Punam!) and it was my birthday. As expected it was empty, so we could relax and enjoy our food slowly, just a few hundred yards from all the chain restaurants charging crazy prices for boring crap getting you in an out as fast as possible!

Tonight me and Anna are going to TGI's as I have a craving for the JD ribs, they're soooooo good. We'll then go for a Shisha.

Thanks again for reading and here's to a much more exciting blog in 2011!

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