by Ben Mezrich

The title sums up the entire story, other than the how. Don’t worry — this is definitely covered. Unfortunately, and ironically, the story isn’t as well-told as the movie, 21, which it inspired. It’s a quick read so it isn’t a huge waste of time, but the way the story is written seems more like poorly written fiction than mediocre nonfiction.

If you can get past the “a guy I know who was a card counter said he’d tell me his story as fodder for my next book” aspect, which is admittedly difficult, then go ahead. Too bad the third person narrative reads like this: “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and this is how you count cards.” (The main character, “Kevin Lewis,” includes an essay on card counting at the end of the book, probably the only believable and interesting thing here.)

The characters are 2-dimensional, even Kevin Lewis, who struggles with his double life and whether or not to come clean to his hard-working, half-Caucasian, half-Chinese immigrant father who gave him every possible educational opportunity. This is never resolved. The students are depicted as highly intelligent, but come off as highly intelligent spoiled brats.

Other than the decadent interiors of the casinos in which the story takes place, there’s a strong lack of detail such as Kevin’s apartments — surely there’s a difference between the place where he started and the place(s) he moves into when his card-counting career gets underway. I would have liked to see more of the rags-to-riches aspect. Then again, Kevin was from an upper-middle-class (or higher) suburban family able to afford to send him to an elite and expensive prep school, so it’s more of a riches-to-riches story.

A discrepancy in the timeline confuses the reader as to when the events took place, particularly because this comes at an important time in Kevin’s career. The year 1996 is skipped altogether, though the story takes place from approximately 1993 – 1998. Also, the title claims that 6 MIT students fleeced Las Vegas, yet their blackjack “team” was composed of a dozen students, then later, a core group of 7.

If you can get past the first 50 pages, go for it. If not, rent the movie. I suggest you skip the book altogether and rent the movie instead.

I stopped using EMSAM last Thursday. As you can see in this picture (click image to enlarge), it leaves a reddish spot in the area where I use it — and I alternate right and left every day. Not only that, the “itchies” (hives/welts) I sometimes get from stress increased tremendously when I started using it. The itching left me utterly miserable.

Going back over my previous EMSAM posts, this was not a problem before. Maybe they’ve changed their adhesive — who knows? I’ll tell you one thing — the adhesive sucks ass. I’m supposed to wear this thing for 24 hours, but the thing only stays on for about 10!

In addition, I became even more tired even though I’ve increased my time in front of the light box! So after 6 days of using EMSAM, I decided to shut it down. There didn’t seem to be any improvement in my mood, other than being cranky and miserable from scratching. Benadryl didn’t always help, and of course, that could have contributed to my loss of energy, although I didn’t start taking Benadryl until about 3 days into the EMSAM.

I took this picture Thursday morning and called my pdoc’s office afterward to let them know that I was discontinuing its use. This past weekend I was still extremely tired but managed to force myself out of bed after napping in order to take Hee Seop to the vet with Brian (Hee Seop’s in perfect health; just needs to lose about 1 lb., which is the equivalent of 10 lbs. in a human). Yesterday I napped for 4 hours but again, managed to get out of bed and force myself to take a shower. I’d already stopped taking the Benadryl, probably Friday. And my itchies are improving.

I’ve been trying to post a book review every Saturday, but I just didn’t have the energy. I even have 2 already written! I’m still suffering from anhedonia, as well.

This coming Thursday I have a pdoc appointment. I don’t know what we’ll try next.

featuring Hee Seop

Somebody has to go to the vet tomorrow! Nothing serious, just his annual check-up, rabies shots, etc. Hee Seop still tries to hide under things, even though there aren’t many places for him to hide anymore. We got rid of our old box spring in which he tore a hole and just loved to climb into. But this would have been awful if there were an emergency.

We needed a new mattress anyway, so we replaced the whole thing with a platform bed. No more “under the bed”! And extra storage space for us. It was kind of funny watching him try to hide “under the bed,” a space that no longer existed. He was like, “What happened?”

Since then, Hee Seop’s doing remarkably well sleeping out in the open, which is huge progress for him. There’s still a box of old files under the kitchen table where he can retreat, though.

For the past half hour I’ve been on the verge of tears for absolutely no reason. There are really only 2 explanations: PMS or depression. I’m thinking it’s the latter. Well, or maybe the 8″ – 12″ inches of snow we’re expecting! *wah*

I’ve been using EMSAM for 5 days now, which, it turns out, is 1 day longer than I used it in the past. Or if I used it longer, I didn’t see any posts written about it because I ended up having ECT again — and get this — although I was depressed at the time, I was doing TONS better than I’m doing now! I mean, I was still playing hockey! This was almost exactly 3 years ago. I had trouble writing blog posts, so Brian kept readers apprised of what was happening, but besides that, I was doing quite a bit better.

That doesn’t bode well. Part of me wants to go ahead and have ECT so I can feel better NOW. But I’m finally regaining my short-term memory and can actually remember things, like movies I’ve seen and books I’ve read recently; it isn’t like once I’ve seen or read them, I’ve pretty much forgotten what they were about. It’s a huge trade-off.

In other news, I’m still in therapy twice a week. I had my ankle MRI yesterday and the results will be in tomorrow. Part of me hopes they find something wrong so they can actually fix it instead of guessing at treatments. Gah.