I can't believe it!  I got my first Carbon check today... only 42 days after I first requested it.  I really wasn't expecting it until later this week or some time next week.  I guess when you lower expectations to the point where it's below floor level, any news can only be positive.

Unlike some of the whiny little bitches on 2+2, it doesn't bother me *that* much if there are delays in processing - as long as the delays mean they are being careful not to give the DOJ any more excuse to steal our money.  I'm interested in playing online poker for the long haul, and I don't want to see more poker sites shut down because they were too reckless about shipping a bunch of short-sighted impatient bustos their $300 checks.  I can't stand people who make a bad situation even worse by complaining.  One guy on 2+2 says he sent customer support like 10 emails a day for a week related to the same problem...  and you wonder why customer support is so slow for the rest of us.  Thanks dude.

Now the next issue is going to be "is the check going to bounce?"  I've had probably 4 poker checks bounce on me in my poker career - all from Full Tilt.  It seems like my bank knows if it's good or not within 2 days.  This check was from a Canadian Bank - not sure if that means it'll take longer to clear.  I think I had a Canadian check before and it took less than 2 days to bounce.  But this time around, I think there's less than a 10% chance it bounces.  I'm going to be pretty annoyed if this check bounces, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that it took so long because they did it right. 

In this new poker economy, as soon as a check gets approved, you have to request the next one right away, so I did that last week and you should too.  But now that Merge issued this batch, I'm hoping the next batches won't take so long.  Also, you probably should deposit it as soon as possible, and not leave it in your wallet for weeks.

I'll post some tips about money management in the post-Black Friday world of online poker in a future post.