Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Who Am I?

That's the name of a Jackie Chan movie I saw on cable this weekend (Side note: don't you hate it when they show ads during movie credits, taking over the audio track and squishing the picture off to the side so you can barely see it? I wouldn't complain for most movies, but with a Jackie Chan movie the credits are often the best part of the film!)

So who am I, that has chosen to write this blog?

I am a blackjack player. A libertarian anarcho-capitalist. A software/QA engineer. A musician. That guy who wrote the Taebo FAQ, various libertarian tracts and some random bits of well-indexed unicycling advice.

Let's take that first item for now, and leave the rest for some other time. I play blackjack at a semi-professional level. I could probably make a living at it if necessary, but currently it's a hobby project, a side interest. It's a way to see nice shows, eat at nice restaurants, stay in nice hotel rooms and maybe earn a little extra spending money now and then. I have read dozens of blackjack books; I subscribe to a blackjack newsletter, and I have discussions on a private blackjack web forum. Some years back, I was involved with a blackjack team like this one. When I'm playing, I sometimes have stories to tell that might be of interest to a rarified audience. I could post trip reports, book reviews, strategy ideas, that sort of thing. Some of this would be work-in-progress material, a way to bounce new ideas off of my audience and strengthen them before I go risk actual money, time, or status.

Hence the name Blogjack.

(Sadly, somebody else has registered blogjack.com. But happily for me, they don't seem to be doing anything with it yet. Should I snag the .org or .net?)

Performancing