In awe

TL;DR bye to Techno, gambling in a raccoon game on Twitch, and I signed up for Cowtown

Happy 4th for those in the States or abroad! Not technically the fourth yet, but a day or two won’t be much of a difference and I won’t wait till Monday to post my blog…I could, but why?

First off, a salute to Technoblade, who passed away on June 30th due to cancer. I started to watch a bunch his videos during the start of the pademic and he became my hero for his exploits in Minecraft (mostly from the video Potato War). He appeared on my radar might have been due to youtube algorithm and also because Minecraft Monday, a series of minecraft competitions that happened at the beginning of the pademic. He gained a huge following because of it. Last summer, I was sadden when I learned he had cancer.

I have moved on from watching Youtube videos to switching over to Twitch for real time streaming video since the past year.

As I have nothing to post today, I scraped the bottom of the barrel and found this I wrote up a few weeks ago, not the actual post itself, but close enough. It was about gambling on a Twitch art channel (lunarniaa, check out her channel and art and her community of streamers). If those viewers found this post, they would be laughing their heads off of the time and energy I went through to get a win. I love them really, hence the amount of time I spent there. I figured it wouldn’t be that interesting if I posted the full writeup on the gamble thing so I didn’t post it.

In brief, I have been spending my time of the last six months in the Twitch chat at the channel. She has a gambling game of guessing where the raccoon. Mostly I visit there to “gamba”, their term for gambling. She is an art illustrator and the raccoon game is just a mini game she played with her audience in the chat.

We stop calling it gambling to be more wholesome because it is illegal in certain countries but call it the raccoon game now. We play it during the stream with points given to us based on the time duration we watch the channel, just like a loyalty point system. Points can also redeem awards from the artist, like a small sketch.

I want a chibi head, a cartoon blowup head of your character (they call it OC, an original character sketch, that represents you, most people on Twitch would use an OC for their profile picture). Usually it takes maybe half a year of watching to earn enough points for the prize, currently is set at 100000 points. I get between 1000 to 2000 points per stream watched. So about 50-100 streams will make it, roughly 20 weeks (5 months) for me because I don’t watch every stream or stay for the full length (normally 3-4 hours). Yes, I would have gotten the chibi head by now if I didn’t gamble. Gambling is a way to gather points quicker as some believe. However, for many, their dreams come to an end each time they gamble. Mine too. I’m an enabler.

It is a 50-50 chance game, like guessing head or tail of a coin toss. If it is purely random (RNG), then it does not matter of either choice because in the long run, your winnings or losings would even out, meaning zero payoff). However, some of us think it is ‘rigged’ because some people seem to always lose and others always win or we are just saying it to tease the host, Luna. Maybe it is a halo effect. We play because maybe we have better luck than others.

I think it is just funny to laugh at other people’s bad luck / as well celebrating people’s good fortune. So what I thought was a smart thing to do is ‘reverse rigged’ it by creating a second account to always bet the opposite of what I would bet (I called hedging). This way one of the accounts will always ‘win’. I thought I was clever, but on the flip side, one account also always loses too, which I didn’t see it at the time. In short, it also didn’t prove the game was rigged, but I think it was funny for me to spend my thought and energy on the game to find the best strategy to beat the system. The post would have go into details of the wagers made. I thought I found a way (or strategy) to always win. And the game is usually played twice per stream and I thought I came with a strategy to bet like first round to test the water, and 2nd round to go all in. If it is a pure 50-50 chance, then it wouldn’t matter. As some people who played it already realized, the best thing to do regarding gambling is never to start, especially in real life (with real money)! You don’t lose what you didn’t bet.

Am I getting a chibi? With both accounts combined I have around 90000 points and probably yes by the time this post goes out. Just a week more, or a quick gamba, and I’ll reach 100000 points needed for the chibi redeem! But I need someway to transfer the points from one account to another (without cheating, what!?, yes I could go into a game/poll where I know I can win, and there is only two people betting, me and my alt (alternate or backup account), and let either me or my alt win, but that would be pretty obvious).

What this have to do with anything? Well nothing. There might be a little related to investing and that is more practical. At least I tell myself I am “investing” because I have a bit more knowledge than pure betting at chance. I could protect and limit my “risk”.

I have so much more to say but I will leave it as that.

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I am in a middle of a season with all my hard races already passed. Fall races have not started yet. You can say I’m on a break. My training for last two weeks have been very little, like around 10 miles ish. Usually I put in around 50 miles or more per week. Not that my body is tired but mentally so.

When this happened, like I feel unmotivated, I go to sign up for more races. As I was looking for races for next year, I decided to go to Texas for my next destination for my marathon. My goal is to run a marathon in all 50 states of the US. It has been slow going as I am distracted by a lot of other races.

Then I came across the Cowtown Marathon. I read reviews on that and one of the bloggers on WP I followed also has done it. The price is just right for me and that sealed the deal for me. But guess what, during the checkout I found it offers an ultra marathon version and I couldn’t resist of not signing up for the ultra. Yep I will be going to Texas! But for an ultra again! What am I doing I asked myself. Was not going to Texas to cross off a marathon there for my 50 states goal? I guess I would have to go back for a marathon some other time. I got distracted, hopefully in a good way. Readers will have to wait till next year for the race report. This is what I mean, I pick races a year to two years ahead to do. Usually I don’t post something so far ahead because no one knows if I get to run it at all. Anyway, it is something for me to look toward.

Ann Arbor is still up in the air for this year, but I don’t feel a strong desire to go there. I don’t like spending more than I should. Also I have enough races already. One more technically won’t break this camel’s back but I am on the fence, so likely will be a no-go.

As in my last entry, nowaday, I am looking for the experience rather than running for running’s sake, not sure I’m making sense here. I had a good time when I went to Duluth, but as I also experienced the opposite at Worlds End, there is no gaurantee of having exact experience year after year. I’m sure Ann Arbor would put up a good race, but mentally I’m not hyped for it any more and I’m afraid to jink it.

I also thought long and hard about MMT. I did not finish it (DNF) this year, and I’m hoping to redo at the next opportunity, and have been asking myself if I’m up to the task to do two 100 races in spring of next year. I think I can, but wisdom says to wait. I plan to sit out of the MMT next year, and fully commit to doing the OBX (Outer Banks) one. I will still attend its training runs (and the MMT Academy) and am willing to pace someone or volunteer at the event. The signup for MMT won’t open until fall, but I have my peace now.