al-Qaeda, No Poker

al-Qaeda is currently strapping demolition charges to the foundation of their own organization. In recent days, the organization has had two very large "whoops-a-daisies." The first one is dubious, but probably likely. al-Qaeda has both been blamed by Pakistan (which I question) and has accepted responsibility for the death of Benazir Bhutto (I doubt this less). I doubted the claims by Pakistan because both the United States and Pakistan would have a vested interest in blaming al-Qaeda for such an act. The assassination has had the reverse effect as was likely anticipated. I imagine that the motivation for such a killing would be to drive Pakistan into turmoil and divide the country so that the Taliban could have an easier time making a resurgence. They did pretty good on the turmoil part, but they likely didn't plan on the unified backlash against al-Qaeda itself. The second SNAFU that they have made came in bin Laden's latest tape. They haven't actually made the mistake, but I kind of hope this one happens. bin Laden said that al-Qaeda will take the fight to Israel. Good luck. Israel stirs up mixed emotions for me. I do NOT like the unconditional support that the US gives Israel as part of some lingering anti-Muslim sentiment that is LONG past its expiration date, but Israel is a badass country. Israel has a badass, ruthless military. Go ahead bin Laden, you fight the good fight in Israel. If you do, I'm sure Israel might give their Special Forces unit a break from offing Palestinians to go walk through Pakistan for a week or two. The reason I get so much enjoyment out of this is because the cowardice of terrorism is about to run into the does-not-fuck-aroundness of Israel. This ends poorly for the terrorists. I'll link the articles tomrrow.

Sick, Wii, Poker

I'm laying in bed waiting for a doctor's office to open so I can go in, have them tell me I have streptococcus tonsillitis, and then give me a prescription for the pink liquid that tastes like bubblegum. When I was younger they gave me this horrible chalky-tasting concoction that I could only choke down with milk, but sometime around the age of fifteen they switched me to the bubblegum stuff. Thank you Dr. Rude. I hate being sick. When I'm actually sick, beyond the normal cold or flu, I'm a huge baby. Yes, I do in fact want my mommy right now. I don't know what it is. Some people turn into surly a-holes when they are sick, I'm just docile and needy and apologetic.

If it is strep (it is) and I have to stay home from work (I will), at least I have a new toy to waste time with. Yes, I somehow procured a Wii. Every store in Omaha is entirely sold out of accessories and most of the better games, but I still have my one Wiimote with Nunchuk, Wii Sports, and Mario Galaxy. Mario Galaxy makes me feel drunk. You are Mario, and you are traveling through the galaxy to try and find Princess Peach who has been kidnapped. What makes me feel drunk is that you land on these tiny little comets and planets where you run all over the 3D surface, upside down, etc. It is very disorienting. I need to acquire Wii Play so I can play Tanks. Tanks is the best game ever. If you need to know why, search for it on YouTube.

I played a $10 HU match yesterday. I had been sitting and waiting for a game for quite some time now, but I've been giving up after about a half an hour at a table with no takers. I played a guy that I've played before. He lucksacked me bad two straight times previously (he was the guy that kept making gutshots, and the gutshot card would give me two pair), thus making him think that he's a lot better than I am. The jackass said "Good luck with your last $10" before the match started, and I proceeded to destroy him. I polished him off when I got him to call AI when I had a straight. He raised preflop, and I just called with KJdd. Normally, I would reraise this hand, but it is better to play this guy postflop than to have to make hero calls preflop with hands like KJ. The flop came out AxT with one diamond, and he min bet. This is almost always a sign of strength from him, but I took one off knowing that I get paid if I spike my gutterball. I did when a Q peeled on the turn and I bet pot for around 1k. He insta-called and we took a blank of the river which left me with the stone nuts. He started the hand with about 6k, so he still had 4.5k sitting behind with a pot of just over 3k. I decided just to move in and hope that he couldn't get away from hands like AK or AJ, and really hoping that he had 2 pair because he's never folding. I'm guessing he had AJ because he took a long time to call, but his cards insta-mucked and I left without saying anything. I resisted the urge to play another match because I had someplace to be, but I really wanted to throttle him in four or five straight matches just because he deserves it. Time to call a doctor.

Reading/Listening, Internet, Girl, No Poker

Reading: Sixty Stories. Still. I'm in a reading downswing right now. It happens. I'm only getting through maybe one short story a week, and then I'm distracted by various shiny things. I'll get back into it heavy probably in the first week of January.

Listening: It was split this week. I listened to both The Train off of the Idlewild soundtrack and Runnin' by the Pharcyde. Both songs are amazing. For the non-hip-hop-junkies (all of you who read this), Pharcyde is an underground group that was big in the nineties. They really pushed the boundaries of hip-hop with their odd style. This song, however, has a great overall feel to it that makes it "nearly" ageless (they say 1995 in the song). People who don't like hip-hop will like this song. As for The Train, it is perfect for those who like stoner music. There's a lot going on musically, and it blends into this awesome soundscape that I could get lost in for days. Outkast has really branched out in recent years, and songs like this are the direct result of them trying to be the best at their craft.

I haven't posted in a week because my Internet on my desktop has simply decided that it doesn't want to work anymore. I busted out the laptop which had previously been having some issues, but it seems to be working fine. I need to backup everything on it before it ignites into a fireball like it probably will. I don't want to shell out ANOTHER $40 for a different wireless card, as that is obviously the problem. With my laptop on my desk, I get excellent signal from three different connections. My desktop can't get a usable signal from anywhere. I hate technology.

Things are going smashingly with Virginia. We click. I'm going out to see her in Las Vegas in February, and hopefully she will be coming here a week or two before that. Any of you that know me should know that something is up when I go to LAS VEGAS to see a girl and NOT to gamble. I'll probably gamble while I'm there. Just a tiny bit. It's fucking Vegas. What sucks about our situation is that there are sooooo many things to worry about. Things that don't exist in an actual relationship. For instance, she is going to have to rank her favorite residency programs soon (she's going to be a surgeon, I don't know how much I've talked about her on here). I don't want to influence her in any way. I told her that today. It was awkward because I don't know if I HAVE any influence, or should have, or potentially might have. Also, we discussed my trip out to see her. I've decided to stay in a hotel room because it seems like the thing to do. In reality, we've spent three days together. We've never kissed. I don't like the idea of shacking up at her sister's house. "Hi, I'm the guy that your sister met for three days. Where do I sleep?" This conversation skirted around another awkward conversation about "intentions." She has been absolutely amazing about the whole ordeal. I think we both realize that we're walking through a minefield, and we both want to make it through, but it's still a minefield. I'm sure some of you understand. I guess I keep poking the ground with this stick because now I'm in the middle of a minefield. It's a lot more fun than you would imagine ;-). Yep, I made an emoticon. Women ruin me.

Reading/Listening, Harryette Mullen, Relationship, Poker

Reading: Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme. I'm only fifty or so pages in as I didn't touch it for much of the week, but I love it. In the introduction, Barthelme was quoted as saying that there isn't any emotion in his stories. I think he's wrong. I think all of his stories have a sentimentality to them, it is just hard to access at times because it is presented in such a strange, unfamiliar way. I look forward to plowing through it.

Listening: Monster by Matchbook Romance. I heard it on the loop at Journeys over the weekend while shopping with my parents and couldn't get it out of my head. After an intense search, I found it on iTunes (I didn't know its name) and have listened to it eight times today. I like the creepy chimes and the transitions to the more traditional rock-like chorus. The words are pretty sweet too.

Harryette Mullen was awesome. I love the way she twists language and dwells on sounds. Several of the poems in the book play with word combinations that sound similar to other word combinations. Certain poems are very difficult to read as you have to first read it on face, then go through and figure out what she is trying to sound like, and then reread it with the alternate words substituted. Very, very cool stuff.

So my infatuation has grown into a full on phone romance. It sucks that we have to get to know each other over the phone, but it adds an odd intensity to it for me. Her willingness to stick with this makes me feel indescribably awesome. Jeff and Mike are kind of sick of me, which is annoying, but if it were one of them I would probably be giving me shit as well. Lesson for the women who read this blog: Men may advance in age, but they stop maturing at around thirteen. No exceptions.

I haven't been getting good sleep lately so I've intentionally avoided playing poker. With the elimination of the lowest tier of SnG's to get into the Round 2 I can't play as many satellites as I was before. Further, my perpetual sleepiness always strains my HU game and makes me more likely to tilt, so I've been avoiding all poker. The bug finally bit me a day or two ago and I sat at a micro Omaha H/L table. I dumped $5 in about an hour because I played nearly every hand. Hopefully I'll get decent sleep this week and be able to put in a few hours on Thursday or Friday night.

Reading/Listening, Robber, No Poker

Reading: Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme. The dude is hilarious. I've previously read The Dead Father which is amazing. The premise of that book is that a son is leading his giant dead father to his burial. It has one of the best last lines of any story ever. I've only read one story out of the book so far, but I'm full of anticipation.

Listening: The entire CD Soul Food by Goodie Mob. Goodie Mob started out in the Atlanta underground scene with Outkast. Soul Food is amazing, but they started to fall apart after the album. I don't know the history and time line well enough, but all I need to know is that Soul Food is awesome. It has a really simple old school flavor to every track, and furthermore it has a good message on several tracks. Think Rage Against the Machine meets old school hip-hop in the lyrics.

I'll write about Harryette Mullen tomorrow when I have half the day off.

While I was in training today I got an e-mail that a bank in Lincoln got robbed today. It was the same dude that robbed me. If you see a dude driving around in a dark colored jacket with a tan fur lining around the face hole call the cops because he's either on his way to rob a bank or has just done so. I'll put up the picture tomorrow.

Wow

I've been in a funk for awhile now. I've wrapped my fists inside the reigns of my life but the horses have still been running where they please. They've taken me to a great spot. I know how this most likely turns out but I don't care because I'm enjoying the moment. I've met a girl that is unbelievable. I hope she never reads this. She's the type of person that's sparked up my passion for life again; the type of person that makes me better solely because I've met her. I think she knows, but I don't care if she doesn't. Part of my inward nature is that I can take a moment and turn it into a lifetime in my own head and people never understand the peculiar smile that I get at random moments. Thank you for giving that back to me, whatever comes of it.

Hockey, Poker

Jeff, Mike, and I met a girl named Virginia at the UNO hockey game last night. Virginia is another fourth year med student that is in town interviewing with both Creighton and UNO. Mike met her at the UNO interviews and found out that she was going to be in town until Tuesday, so we've been showing her around Omaha. It's been fun. Tomorrow night they are coming over for dinner. I will be making enchiladas. I make awesome enchiladas.

Poker has been going pretty terribly. I'm running into some awful beats again. I'm something like -3 in HU matches over the past three days, which isn't bad, but I've been playing really well and just getting bludgeoned with bad beats. An example: I just lost a match with KK vs 94o. We got all of the money in on a board of 2359, the river was a disgusting 9. I also just lost a monster pot in the rematch with my 99 vs his 92dd. I'm still fairly confident, and I haven't even had an ounce of tilt, but it just sucks that instead of building up again I have to wait out this cold streak. Cold streak is also the best way to describe the first semi final tournament yesterday. I'm not blaming my loss on it, but the structure of the tournament was horrible. People started with between 2k and 6k chips, despite the fact that we all paid the same amount to get in. I started with 2.5k and promptly ran my stack down to 900. My table was playing very nit, so I was in a lot of pots but just couldn't make anything happen. Then everything did start going right. I was quickly up to over 11k when I bought a couple of large pots and got paid off when I actually had hands. The average was somewhere near 4k and I was fourth overall in chips. I got moved to a very active table and sat out the first few hands. I got dealt Q4hh in middle position and a pot was finally unopened to me so I popped it. The button looked me up and we took an AJ7 flop with two clubs. This is a good flop for me because I'm pretty sure he's not flat calling with any ace on the button. I bet pot and he called. I put him on some sort of flush draw like a KTcc. The turn peeled a 6h and I bet pot again. He called for about half of his remaining chips and I was confused. I figured he would've pitched the draw on the turn, so now I changed my mind and decided he had some sort of bad suited ace. The river peeled a blank and we checked it down, with him winning the pot with KQcc. I was still in good shape with about 8k in chips, but then I got coolered. I limped a multi-hand pot with 95hh and then called a blind raise from a decent sized stack. The flop was a glorious 755 rainbow and I checked to set the trap. The turn peeled a 9 giving me the boat, and he led out half of his chips. I quickly moved him in and he quickly called with 77. Puke. That pot floored me to 2k and I hovered between 2k and 6k for awhile. I got lucky and hit 7 outs vs QQ with my A5hh on an 23J board, but then went bust in the following hand. I raised Q7cc in an unopened pot on the button. Both blinds called, and we took a K73 flop. I got checkraised by the SB and I called it. He had been very aggressive, so a K was out of the question, along with A7 because he would've reraised preflop. The only hand that scared me was 73, but I wasn't incredibly concerned about it. The turn was a harmless 9, and he threw out a tiny 375 bet into the 4k pot confirming that he had a 7. I flat called for value and the river was another sweet 7. He instantly moved in and I instantly called. He flipped the disgusting A7 and I'm out near midpack at like 130th. I still feel good about the whole tourney because the only mistake that I think that I made was not firing the third shell against KQcc. If I don't second guess myself there I have 15 or 16k in chips I don't look back. Oh well, next month will be better. UPDATE: I beat the dude because I had two hands actually hold up in a row.

Two Gunmen, No Poker

The first part of this blog is about the dumbass from yesterday. I harbor a lot of anger at him, and I push some of it off on society as well. I hate the kid because he thought he was the only person who has had a bad life. He might have had legitimate psychological issues, but I haven't heard anything about that. If he wasn't schizophrenic then I'll hate him for the few days I remember him. His feelings that everything were going wrong are simply stupid. Every person alive has dealt with hard times. I've never been estranged from my family, but I have had the chemicals in my brain conspire to try and get me to hurt myself. I have friends that have battled with drugs, abusive parents, poverty, everything, and yet, I don't know a single mass-murderer. Why? Because all of the people I know are strong. And realistic. They realize that only maybe 5% of people get to lead their life EXACTLY how they want to, and the rest of us have to make compromises. They realize that even though their life sucks right now, there are people out there who have it worse. To the dead murderer: get over yourself. I feel for his family and those of the victims, but I feel that we've gone far enough in this world. He wanted to go out in style? Publicly desecrate his body. Take the glamor out of it. See how many "my mommy didn't hug me enough" types want to go on shooting sprees when CNN devotes 24 hours to torturing their dead body. Feel nauseous at that thought? You should. Everyone should. That's the point. Or, if you don't like this idea, let's go 1984 on these people. I'm not talking a lack of news coverage, I'm saying let's wipe them off the planet like they never existed. It would be better for all of us if they didn't. I want guys in black swat gear covertly stealing year books. I want birth records burned. I want his McDonald's employee of the month nameplate replaced with the dude on the fry-o-lator who really deserved it. I'm tired of giving these assholes the news coverage that they want. I want to be famous too, so why do I have to try and use my brain to achieve this? For every mass-shooting we should have a special on teachers who have won teaching awards. Or community service awards. Stop glamorizing shitbags for a change and see where we end up. It has to be better than where we are.

The second part of this blog is about how I got robbed at work today. A guy walked in and pulled a gun on a girl and myself. It took exactly 45 seconds from the moment he walked in to the moment he walked out. I had weird thoughts when he pointed the gun at me. No "oh shit I'm going to die." I thought about how I jinxed myself because on Wednesday I was arguing with Jeff about how dangerous his brother's job really is. His brother John is a police officer in Plattesmouth. The exact phrase I used with Jeff was "We work in banks in Omaha, your brother works in Plattesmouth. We're twice as likely to get a gun pulled in our faces than he is." I hate being right sometimes. This thought passed through my brain while the robber was there. I wanted to laugh, however it seemed inappropriate. Another thought I had: when he pointed the gun at me, I looked at the opening at the end of the barrel and thought "At least it's small caliber." Apparently it makes a difference to me if I'm getting robbed with a .45 or a .22. I tried to give him all of my rolls of coin because he told me to give him everything. He told me he didn't want it and I was confused for a moment because I was wondering why he wouldn't just say "Give me all of the bills." I almost laughed when I realized that pretty much any bank robber doesn't want twenty pounds of rolled coin to lug with them when they're trying to get away. I almost laughed again when the girl tried to give him her rolls of coin too. Everybody in my bank is totally fine. The other three people there were out of sight and remained so during the robbery, which made everything go more smoothly. There are a couple of things that are still bothering me, the foremost of which is that it didn't really bother me. My hand shook for about two minutes after it happened, but then I was fine. I'm still fine. I took a nap when I got home because I haven't been getting much sleep, and I didn't have nightmares. I'm not any jumpier than normal. I am paying more attention to people's voices now because it's the only distinguishing thing that I had to go on. The robber, no, the douche bag was totally covered from head to foot in dark clothes with his face totally concealed. Aside from height and weight, I only heard his voice. I'm also sort of selfishly upset that it didn't make the news at all. I realize that in the aftermath of the mall shooting, nobody gives a shit that I got a gun stuck in my face, but it's big fucking news to me, thus I want to see it on the actual news. "Local bank robbed at gunpoint, nobody injured." I don't want my name in there, just an acknowledgment that I indeed did get robbed. Just so you all know, I can't tell you how much money got stolen, so don't ask. Suffice it to say it wasn't bad for 45 seconds work.

Reading Continued, Shooting, No Poker

Reading: Sleeping With The Dictionary by Harryette Mullen. I like her a lot, but I'll devote time to her next Monday, or this weekend after I've finished it. This will now be devoted to Kafka. My Kafka wrap up will be easy because the Barnes and Noble version that I read had a few questions that it asked at the end. I'll simply answer those.

Q: What can be said of his [Kafka's] notion of resolution? Is a satisfying ending possible in his fiction? How do you read the ending of "The Metamorphosis"? Does it strike you as particularly superior or inferior to the rest of the tale?

A: I'll tackle the first two together; no. I don't know much about Kafka except for the personal details mired in awfulness that made up the introduction (sixteen page introduction, get over yourself Jason Baker; Who is Jason Baker? Exactly), but I think that Kafka's writing, despite its bizarre details, mirrors Kafka's view of life. I think that Kafka felt that things just end and we interpret those as being bad or good as it simply depends on who you are. I could successfully argue either way for Gregor's happiness or sadness upon his own death (probably will in the comments if somebody is so inclined). The death of the main character gets totally brushed over in the end, however, and we are left with a vision of the nubile sister stretching because life went on. I think Kafka is open to a happy ending if a story actually ends that way. He probably also thought that life stories rarely did. I guess that answered the third question as well, and to answer the fourth, I wished for a different ending, but I'm not certain what yet as I haven't given it any thought until this sentence.

Q: [Paraphrased] Is Kafka's consciousness of mortality the reason he makes his characters succumb to death rather than try to overcome it? Is death itself transcendent in Kafka's work?

A: No. Again, as above, I could argue that Gregor and some of the other characters wanted death. In the end of "The Metamorphosis," Gregor doesn't quite understand how he lived as a bug at all. He feels impressed that he dealt with what he did when he wanted to just give up so early in the story. The officer in "The Penal Colony" chooses death in his own world rather than giving in to a world that he doesn't want or understand. It is a failure of a death, but the choice itself was the triumph. No matter how horrible, the officer still dies and the reader can't help but feel a sense of reverence or respect. Death transcended here. Gregor dies and is forgotten about. Death not transcended. That last question seems hit or miss.

Q: How is Kafka funny? Is Kafka's sense of humor so peculiar that it is inaccessible?

A: Kafka is funny because the shit that happens is hilarious. Gregor turns into a big ass bug that stuffs itself under the sofa every time his sister comes in. He gets killed by an apple. How is that not funny? His clean writing style (at least in translation) allows for a deadpan delivery that I think is hilarious at times. I can understand that some people don't find deadpan humor funny, but I call these people "idiots." These are the same people who don't think "poop" is a funny word. It is.

There are three more questions, but I'm tired of answering them, so ask in the comments if you are curious.

I imagine that all of you heard that there was a shooting in Omaha today. Nine people have died thus far. I was not one of them. I will write a diatribe tomorrow about the guy that did this, so if you like my angry ranting, stay tuned (Katie). As of now, I feel for anybody involved; witnesses, victims, family members. I have a friend who I think works at Von Maur. I would try to call her, but she never answers anyway. She always calls back a month later asking me what I wanted as if I would remember. I'm not going to call her now because she wouldn't answer and then I would just worry. I think she was quitting last I talked to her anyway. If something bad did happen to her, I will find out anyway. I keep telling the little voice in the back of my head that we can't change anything now anyway, but it keeps talking. I hope she's okay.

Call a family member tomorrow and tell them you love them. Not because of the shooting, because you should be doing it anyway.

Short Reading/Listening, Work, No Poker

Reading: Finished Kafka, moved on to Sleeping with the Dictionary by Harryette Mullen. I'm going to be a cheater and plow through a couple of poetry books to feel better about myself.

Listening: Nothing. My music tastes have been skipping along with my mood the past week, so I don't think I've listened to any song more than twice. I've had a range from down tempo techno by Kruder and Dorfmeister to frantic early Beastie Boys punk rock.

Short post tonight because of work. This kid that I work with that sucks has now called in sick four days in a row. He pre-called for tomorrow. He said he was sick on Friday. On Saturday, he said it was too icy to get to work, even though he literally lives six blocks away and nobody else had a problem getting there. Yesterday his back hurt so he left after an hour, he missed today because of his back, and he's going to miss tomorrow. He has Juvenile Disc Disease, which I'm not going to research so I can continue to call him a pussy about, but I'll butt it up against Sciatica any day. Plus, he went to get a pain shot yesterday. I get no pain shot for my Sciatica, I just get to walk like I'm 107 and have osteoporosis. Point of the story: he's a whiny little bitch. I hope he gets fired. That way, I'll still be working six days a week, but he'll be jobless.

Real post minus bitching tomorrow. Probably minus bitching. Maybe minus bitching. There will probably be a small amount of bitching.

Funk, Poker

I've had a little rain cloud following me the past couple days that I simply can't shake. I'm trying to stay positive but I just can't right now. The worst part about it is that there are some parts of my life going really well right now. My friends are great. I've got Jeff, Matt, and Mike that I've been spending a lot of time with. The downside is that I've HAD to spend a lot of time with them because I can't seem to make a friend here, male or female. I've been trying, but I will go hang out with somebody one time and then they're either always busy or just won't answer my calls. Which is awesome because it sort of feels like getting kicked in the balls. Work is going really well. My manager is really happy with my progress so far. The down side is that I make no money and am not going to for nearly another year. I'm having a hard time stomaching that. The source of a lot of this is that I'm not at all where I thought I would be. I sort of feel like I'm getting a "C" in Life Class and I'm not used to it because I typically get "A's." I know I'll figure it out, but I wish I could do it tomorrow.

Not helping the above situation is the fact that today is quite likely the worst day of poker I've ever had. I've lost more money and I've lost more important matches, but today is just one kick in the nuts after another. I've lost 11 straight coinflips. I went 27 straight hands without connecting with a flop. That streak was busted when I had TT and raised. I got called, the flop came KJx and the other guy moved in. I then missed the next 16 flops. In those hands, I only had a face card twice (A7, J6). I'm -2 in HU matches today, losing my first one by flopping a flush and getting him to push in with his 2 pair. He rivered a boat and I was crippled to 1.3k chips. I couldn't come back. The next match I made a hero call with A4 vs 43 preflop. The flop came 33J and I was again crippled to around 2k chips. This is pretty much how the day has gone. I'm finishing my last HU match right now and then I'm DONE for the night. I think I'll lick my wounds tomorrow as well before resuming play on Tuesday. I need to get prepped for the big round one tourney on Saturday at 2pm. I have this Saturday off, which worked out nicely for me. At least all of this bullshit is happening today and not Saturday, because I'm winning a seat to the $500k SnG and I'd like to just do it in the first one. I'm guessing there will be 400 entrants with first paying $5,200. Second pays $3,400, so if I get my seat I'll be treating everybody to a drunken Saturday night. Good night.

Priorities, DG, Poker

I was about halfway finished with a nice big post yesterday when my cell phone rang. It was my buddy Matt. I don't know if I've explained this but I'll do it again: Matt was one of my best friends in high school and sort of a mentor to me. He introduced me to reading and taught me what good music is (Hint: N'Sync). We lost touch when he moved to Arizona for college but I randomly ran into him in downtown Lincoln before a Husker game. He told me he moved to Omaha. A few weeks ago I was bored and looked him up on MySpace. Turns out he lives like four blocks from me. Anyway, he is currently car-less and called me asking if I could pick him up from work. I asked why and he said "My aunt's about to die." Response: "Well if you're aunt is bouncing by just get a ride from her." I went and picked him up and we played pinball. I had intended it to be an early night, but some things just aren't meant to be.

While we were playing pinball, something interesting happened. We were at the Crescent Moon which is our regular bar. The pinball machine in the Crescent Moon is located right near the bathroom hallway. This staggering girl came up and started talking to us. She had a red wing tattoo across the tops of her boobies. She started slurring a soliloquy to us about how it was her last day at work and she will miss her job doing something with fitness because she lost thirty-one pounds and now she's got this sexy body (meh). Matt was currently manning the pinball machine so I got the duty of making sure she didn't fall over. As she was rambling and I was holding her up, she elaborated on how sexy she felt. She had felt so sexy a few weeks ago that she got her nipples pierced. Apparently I looked like I doubted her because she showed me. Her nipples were pierced. Then she staggered into the bathroom. When she got out, I was manning the pinball machine and Matt had to help her stand. Matt likes to talk and has a big vocabulary, but sometimes he doesn't think ahead far enough. An example of this is when he said "Let me help you stay erect." I dropped my head laughing because I already generally knew what was about to happen. DG (Drunk Girl) says "ERECT?!?" and grabs Matt's penis. Matt almost falls over trying to remove her claw from his manhood and I'm laughing so hard that I lose my pinball. DG then apologizes because she can't help herself because we're so hot, and she's got this sexy body and she likes penis. Her husband loves her new body as much as she does. Oh don't worry, we're swingers.

Matt's Response: "Oh, you're a swinger? Well, at least I know you don't have VD then."
DG: "No I don't have DV, you wanna try out this sexy ass (extends ass)?"
Matt: "Sorry, I'm gay."
DG: "No way, you're too hot to be gay."
Matt: "Yep, I'm a hot gay guy."
DG: "Are you gay (pointing at me)?"
Me: "Nope."
DG: "You wanna try this ass (still extended)?"
Me: "Nope."
DG: "Ok then, well it was nice to meet you two."
Matt: "We didn't meet."
DG: "(puzzled look) What?"
Matt: "You never told us your name."

That doesn't happen every day.

I won an entry into the first big qualifier ticket. I won my $214 tournament token in a $24+2 MTT with three seats guaranteed. Only 11 people signed up, so I had a great shot. It was tougher than I thought because everybody was playing super nit, so when the blinds got high it became a shovefest. Fortunately, I took the chiplead with 7 people left and absolutely punished the table. With 5 left I had 70 of the 110k chips in play and was still raising every unraised pot regardless of my cards. I was still the leader with 4 left, but doubled a guy into the lead. I still had a healthy stack though, and avoided trouble until I made an easy call with A9o vs QTo against the short stack. Neither of us paired and I had my seat. Aside from that I've stalled slightly on my HU matches. I went 2-1 the night that I won my seat, however, the loss was a $15 match and the wins were both $10, so after rake I only profited $3.25. Combined with my $26 for the MTT, my roll is down to around $125, so I'll be sticking with $10 HU matches for a short while.

Reading/Listening, Poker

Barebones post again, sorry.

Reading: The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka. I'm almost done with The Metamorphosis and I love it. I think Kafka's writing is hilarious because of its deadpan, and I wish he would have finished more works during his life. I hope my opinion doesn't change after reading the other short stories in the book. I finished I Am America (And So Can You!) this week. All I can say is read it, because any attempt to describe it would make it less funny.

Listening: Suco de Tangerina by the Beastie Boys. It's off their newest CD The Mix-Up. The disc is all instrumental and it's fucking amazing. I've always loved the Beastie Boys, and their instrumentals have fascinated me. For a group of Jewish guys who started out playing some pretty hardcore punk music, they've turned into incredibly talented musicians. I've already made this following bold call, but now I'll zoom it across the Internet so I can pull it up in five years and be impressed with how smart I am: the Beastie Boys will be a badass jazz band in five years.

Poker has been going well. I'm back up to $150 even because I've been tearing up the $10 HU matches, so it's nice that I've almost completely erased my idiot move of a couple of weeks ago. What would be nicer? Not having been an idiot and having a bankroll of $250 right now. Oh well, I don't learn some things. I'm still struggling with the step SnGs, and I only have about a week now, so I need to get my shit together.

Update, Poker

Finished the Colbert book, it was awesome. Have been working a lot and spending some time with my parents, which is both nice and taxing. I'll have an actual post tomorrow (today, whatever).

I've been doing very well in HU matches to get my roll back up to around $130. In the step SnGs for the big tourneys I've been crushing step one and getting dominated in step two. Primary factor in crushedness: I'm racing like a quadriplegic right now.

Reading/Listening, Good Day, Death, Bad Poker

Reading: I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert. I thought I would be done with it by now, but I gave up some break time at work to take care of crap (401K, apartment maintenance calls), so I still have about eighty pages left. I will polish it off this week and start on something else. The book is hilarious though, and I will be sad to finish it. Stephen Colbert has such a random, creative mind that you're constantly caught off guard.

Listening: Badfish by Sublime. It was a tough pick this week as I listened to several songs on repeat. Honorable mentions go out to Rompe by Daddy Yankee and The Sound of Settling by Death Cab for Cutie. There were even more, but these were songs that spent at least an hour on repeat. As for Badfish, it's one of the songs that you can't listen to and be angry. It was a perfect song to send fall packing on this last glorious day before winter weather swoops in like a giant-winged condor dragging dark, low clouds behind it.

Today was a good day. For the foreseeable future, I will be working six days a week. This means that I will only get a half day off instead of a full day. Today was one of those half days. I got off of work around 1:30pm and stopped by to visit my sister at work. After that, I came home to change before heading off to wash my car and grab some food. I ate over at Michael's and we watched part of a movie called The Red Violin. It was pretty good, but I didn't get to finish it as I had to pay my apartment complex the $2 I forgot on my rent check as well as pick up my dry cleaning. At the dry cleaner, I discovered that if I purchased a $10 bag, I would save 20% off of every visit and an additional 30% one time. The 20% amounts to about $4 every week, making this a no-brainer. After the dry cleaners, I stopped by to pay my $2. While there, I asked about any garages closer than my current one. My garage is number 61. The garage right outside of our building door is 77. My new garage as of December 4th will be 75. Oh yes, it feels good. To ice the cake, my sister called shortly thereafter and asked if I wanted her to pick me up, buy me Chinese food, and then drop me off. I said "Hells yes." That, my friends, is a good motherfucking day.

I experienced what I imagine death will be like last week when I was getting my hair cut. I go to Sportsman's Haircut. I like to pamper myself, so I get the full treatment: haircut, wash with scalp massage, hot towel on face, the works. I also get the unibrow waxed because eyebrows are one place where "less is more" does not apply. During the wash, they put you in a massage chair. When she put the hot towel on my face (it's soaked in tea tree stuff), it was pitch black. I had peppermint shampoo on my head, so my scalp and face were tingling while the rest of my body was vibrating in the pitch black. And that's what I think death will be like; a humming, vibrating, black void. I hope my scalp and face tingle.

My butthole is saggy and loose after the raping I took today. I lose four straight to CUBUFFS. If you've read previous poker posts, you'll know that he is bad. Well, calling station plus hitting everything equals Bret loses a lot. In three of the four matches, he hit a gutshot on the turn which also made me two pair. The other one I got stubborn and shoved second pair into his top pair. Oh well, I played well, I just kept getting the hammer which is going to happen. The bad decision came when I decided to play him in a $50 match with the logic "he can't keep hitting." Oh yes, he can. My bankroll is down around $90 again now, but I'm really not worried. My previous success in HU matches has changed my confidence level so that I don't have to worry about going broke anymore, unless I pull a Londer.

Texting!, Slept, No Poker

Brandon finally got text messaging! Hooray! I would like to thank his wife Amanda for forcing him to do it. Despite his surly attitude toward it, he will soon find out the joy and convienence of being textually active.

I slept like a lameass tonight. Michael and I went out last night and got inebriated, which sucked when I had to work at 8:45am this morning. Work went fairly quickly though, and I had only two errands to run before I could nap; go to Wells Fargo to deposit money and drop shirts off at the dry cleaners. This turned into more as I decided that I needed a new CD while driving to Wells Fargo. I took care of the two errands that I HAD to run and headed to the shitty, terrible Best Buy on 72nd and Dodge. Never go there because it sucks. On the way there, Michael called to see if I wanted to get food, so I picked him up and we headed to Papillion to pick up my CD that the shitty Best Buy didn't have. Papillion Best Buy > Dodge Best Buy. I also broke down and bought a new CD case because I desperately needed to eliminate the homeless CD problem that has been plaguing me. I got my stuff, we ate Popeye's and I took Michael back home. When all was said and done, I started my nap at 6pm. I should've known. I woke up around 8ish when I got a phone call, but rolled back over until 10pm. I was supposed to go meet a friend from high school for a few drinks, but I couldn't get ahold of him. Oh well, I need some good rest. In fact...

No Date, Cliff, No Poker

Unsurprisingly, women met in bars are not reliable. AKA I got no call on Wednesday. I was also let down today as well, which I will now dive into...

There is a cute girl that has helped us out at our branch that I was looking forward to seeing today when she would again help out. But then she called to say that someone at her branch called in sick and she would not be showing. Booooooooooooooo! Bad omen, but the day started well as I got several compliments from customers. Despite my exhaustion from lack of sleep, I was having a good day. Then I fell off the cliff. With a scant ten minutes to go before my lunch break, I got mystery shopped. I did awful. She was the one person that I gave a halfass transaction that morning, and she was the only one that counted on paper. Fucking sweet. I went to lunch a little sapped because getting my ego bubble busted let in the exhaustion that I'd been fighting. Five minutes into my lunch, my manager pops her head in and informs me that the Regional Customer Service Manager had stopped in to look over the employee evaluations that my own CSM and myself had not been doing. Awesome. A little more exhaustion crept in. When I finished my lunch break, I went back to my teller window and was greeted by the lady from ENOA. ENOA is the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging. They make weekly deposits of money they collect from providing low cost meals to the elderly. By low cost I mean like two dollars and some quarters. Which is very sweet of them. Which also blows because they have like five separate deposits of sixty dollars each; fifty ones and ten in quarters. At this point, all brain power that had previously been fighting sleepiness was diverted to hating people, so I just get delirious. The positive side is that the rest of the day went quickly because I had no idea what was going on. Sleepy time.

All Day, Reading, No Poker

I thought I opened this morning, which meant that I had to be to work at 7:15am. I wasn't actually supposed to open. However, at around 6:45am one of my managers called to see if I would go in for her because she had to take her boyfriend to the hospital. She didn't make it in at all, which meant that I had to work from 7:15am-6:15pm. That makes for a long day. Her boyfriend is fine. He thought he was having a heart attack, but it wasn't that or a stroke. They're keeping him overnight for observation and likely releasing him tomorrow.

I don't know if I've said this before, but we don't have cable in our break room at work. The other guys I work with brought all of the Entourage seasons (minus season three part two), but I've now watched all of those. This means that I read. This is good and bad. The good is that I will finish probably two books a week. This is also the bad. Theoretically, I could motor through every book I own and haven't read in about six months. This would murder my bank account. Stay tuned...

Short post, bedtime.

Reading/Listening, Wichita, Poker

Reading: Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut. I'm already around one hundred pages into it, so I should be done by next week. As of right now, it's one of my least favorite Vonnegut books. It is very slow developing in an annoying way. In the first few pages, I'm told where the story is. I'm also told where the story ends. For the next ninety pages, I was told some back story which I'm assuming is relevant because it is being told to me, but seemingly has no relevance. I'm also getting bits and pieces of the future, which I don't know where to arrange. I feel as if a puzzle were placed in front of me with some large chunks put together, some random pieces that don't look like they belong, and no box to use for help. I'm sure it will come around. I just bought I Am America and So Can You by Stephen Colbert today, so I will likely read that next. I'm still digesting White Noise, although I think I'm landing towards didn't get it/didn't like it. I will post a reaction next week.

Listening: Big cop out: Here's where I talk about how neat iPod's are instead of a specific song. As you know, I went to Wichita this weekend, and I took my entire music collection along via iPod. My original purpose for buying an iPod was the protection of my music collection. I'm creeping up on four hundred CDs now, and they take up a fair amount of space. Additionally, it would be a huge pain in the ass to replace all of them if they were stolen (and impossible in some cases, such as the Surge sampler that is actually pretty good). I had access to everything that I was in the mood for, which is incredibly nice. Ok, enough corporate fellating.

My departure from Omaha turned into a big debacle. I already had an apartment get-together that I was going to make an appearance at, but while I was at work I received a text about a going away party for my friend Adam who is moving (moved now) to DC. I originally thought he left Monday morning, leaving me Sunday night to hang out with him, but he left Saturday morning. After I got off work, went to the apartment mixer, and to Adam's going away party, it was 10:30pm. Mapquest said that it was going to take me five hours, one minute to get to Wichita. I figured I could make it in four. The universe decided to split the difference putting me there in four hours, thirty-two minutes (my car has a timer for some reason). I've driven on interstate in an ice storm. I've driven through torrential downpours. I've driven through fog so thick that you couldn't see past the hood. This was the most dangerous driving experience of my life. I was tired when I left, after only getting five or so hours of sleep the night before. Add a couple of beers (spread out over the several hours I was in Omaha, I was totally legal) to the mix, and I was ready for bed just past Council Bluffs. Things started to get treacherous around Topeka. Good thing it's only another two and a half hours from there. For the last hour I must've looked like an epileptic. I kept shaking my head to reopen my eyes because I had turned into one of the dolls with weighted eyelids. The only thing going for me was that I was the only guy on the road. I only passed two or three cars after 1am, each time pre-apologizing to them out loud for the impending collision. By the time I arrived at 3am, my throat was raw screaming along with my music, all while shaking my head and swerving all over the road. I wish I could've seen myself. While we didn't do much the next day, I had fun. We woke up around 11am, had breakfast and then started watching the Husker game. According to Caleb, no Husker game can be watched without beer, so we cracked the first one at 11:30am. At halftime we went to a bar to watch the second half of the best Husker game of the season. More beer was consumed. Then Tisha dropped us off at the most expensive bowling alley on the planet ($60.26 for two hours of bowling for two people, I suspect our garish Husker attire had something to do with it) where more beer was consumed. I proceeded to narrowly avoid losing an additional $100 gambling loss by mounting a ridiculous comeback during our last game. Tisha picked us up, we ordered pizza, and drank more beer. At 9:40pm it was determined that a nap was in order before we met some of Caleb's coworkers at a bar. The plan was a twenty minute nap. It proved to be terminal. Tisha tried to wake both of us up for an hour, but all she got was a red-eyed tirade from Caleb about the piles of babies that were trying to kill him. I woke up at exactly 1:15am, woke Caleb up, we watched TV for an hour and then went to bed. They treated me to lunch again the next day and then I headed home. Not too exciting but I still had a great time.

That went on way too long so this will be short. As I'm typing this I just busted out of my first $26 satellite into Bugsy's $150,000 guaranteed tournament. Bugsy's is hosting a series of five MTT with huge guarantees. The top two finishers in each get flown to Turks and Caicos for an SnG worth $200k. The only way to get into these tourneys are through satellites, and I'm making it my mission to get into each one. I'm currently waffling through the lower satellites as I don't have the scratch to keep shelling out $26 for the top satellite, but I'm playing really well and hope to qualify for the first event this week. I have until December 8th to qualify for the first one, so I should be fine. Aside from that, I won $30 last night playing $.25/$.50 NLHE and got coolered in a $15 HU earlier today with 66 vs 99 on a 457 flop. I'm currently playing a lady in a $15 HU who wavers between bad and awful. However, she keeps choosing awful when I have a marginal hand, so I keep folding some big pots to her to keep her alive. I'll get her eventually. Until tomorrow.

Picture, Date?, Millipede, No Poker

The Picture of the Week absolutely kills me. I look at it and I fall apart EVERY time. I wish I knew the person who did this. I would hug them.

So Jamie wasn't there when we showed up around 7:45pm. She was supposed to be there until 8pm. I didn't bother asking if she came in at all or when she came in next. I'll see her again I'm sure. I won't have kind words. My solution was to get drunk. But we had to leave that bar because it had lingering bad mojo. We went to this little dive bar a block away from our apartment. It sucked. We drank more. We went to another little dive bar a block in a different direction. It was much more fun. There was a friendly old couple at the bar. There was karaoke. There were two hot women just a shade under forty. It was great. Naturally we went and hit on the cougars. It actually went amazingly well until the one that I was talking to went Mr. Hyde and loudly proclaimed "We have to leave now I have to work in the morning!" to her friend and got up and left. Her friend tried to get her to stay, apologized to us and left. Jeff was inconsolable so I figured another shot would help. It didn't, but the second and third gave it their best. That's when I decided that the bartender needed to go to dinner with me.

"Hey Katie (I think), do you have a boyfriend?"
"No, why."
"Because if you did I couldn't take you out to dinner Wednesday night (why not Wednesday?)"
"Okay."
*Befuddlement* "No, I seriously want to take you out on a date."
"I already said yes, give me your number."
*Befuddlement* "On Wednesday."
"I can't call you if you don't give me your number."
*Befuddlement* *Writes number* "I have to go now."
"See you Wednesday."

I'm pretty sure her name is Katie. I know that she has brown hair and a tattoo on the back of her neck. I guess I know where she works, too. Friendly older lady congratulated me. Then Jeff and I went to McDonald's. McDonald's must have been amazing because I woke up naked. I'm not sure what it is about getting drunk that makes me want to sleep naked, but there is a definitive connection.

Nudity is a theme in this post. So I came home from running errands after I got off of work and decided to have a nice relaxing read. Location: bathroom. I polished off True Story yesterday and started right in on Galapagos. I always dive into Vonnegut books with enthusiasm. I finished a page and turned it when something caught my eye near the door. It was multi-legged and moving at me quickly. My brain started to process that I saw something as it moved behind the book, making the brain doubt itself. Then it appeared under the book and disappeared under my pants. I jumped up instantaneously, book in one hand, wiener in the other, trying to figure out where the speedy agent of death had disappeared to. F-bombs were dropped. I set the book down and wanted to pull my pants up, but it could be in there! I didn't want to pull up my underwear and trap the fiend in close proximity to my manhood! I slowly inched the underwear up out of the jeans, and after a two minute inspection restored them to their normal position. The jeans just came off because there's way too much fabric in there for hiding. I located the little bastard a short time later trying to blend in with the seam in the baseboard behind the toilet. It was in fact a millipede and not a harbinger of death (spider). I looked around for something to squish him with to teach a lesson, but when I returned with a weapon he was gone. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post where the same thing happens again and I react the exact same way.

Borders, Yoga, No Poker

Jeff and I went to Best Buy tonight and I picked up a Coldplay CD. I've been meaning to buy it for a week, but I keep forgetting. I really need to buy a new CD case, as I have over a dozen homeless CDs, but those are expensive. I can buy four actual CDs for the cost of one CD case. I don't get how plastic and shitty fabric can amount to $50. Next to the Best Buy was a Borders. I went cold-turkey on my book addiction quite awhile ago, but I fell off the wagon tonight. Jeff and I had been questioning each other over Catcher in the Rye because neither of us knew anything about it. I knew it was written by Salinger, Jeff thought it got you put on a terrorist watch list if you bought it. We both got angry at each other for not knowing anything about it, so I bought the cheap copy of it when we were in Borders. I was like a recovering alcoholic hitting an open bar on a bad day in his third week. I also picked up Man Without a Country in paperback by Vonnegut, as well as a Yoga book. Much like an addict, I'm going to hit up my mom for money for the books because I'm low on funds and have a trip planned this weekend. She has always told me that she will buy me as many books as I want within reason and it's been WAY too long since I've abused that invitation.

So I tried the Yoga book today. It is one that I can stick with. It has a twenty-eight day plan. It has pictures to show me what to do, along with the written instructions. It tells me what and how, completely eliminating me from the equation. This is a good thing. I'm an amazing trained chimp. You give me a list of things to do and show me how to do them and I will do the shit out of them. I did the shit out of the first day of exercises. Yoga is fucking hard. It only took about a half an hour but I was sweating and I can already tell that I'll be sore tomorrow. I did a whopping three series of stretches or whatever they are called in Yoganese. I'm pretty sure I sprained a chakra. The one thing the book didn't tell me is that it's past my bed time. One sheep, two sheep...

Reading/Listening, Date?, Wichita, MENSA, No Poker

Reading: True Story by Bill Maher. I've only got sixtyish pages left, so I will get it done this week. It is actually getting better, as if Maher realized halfway through the book that he was trying to hard and toned it down. Who knows. When I'm done, I'm going to do one of two things. I'm either going to read all of the different small poetry books that I have to boost my ego by blowing through three or four books in a week, or I'm going to read Galapagos and notch the fifteenth Vonnegut notch on my bookshelf. It probably depends on the weather.

Listening: Let's Rock by Smash Mouth. One of the greatest songs of all time. The chorus literally says "Fuck it, let's rock!" Like all things in life, it is over much too quickly at a breakneck 2:50, but that's the perfect reason to replay it over and over like you're deficient. If you're in a bad mood, listen to this song. If you need to drive fast, listen to this song.

Honorable Listening Mention: Ghetto Pop Life by Jemini and Dangermouse. The whole disc. Yes, I love Dangermouse and the workings of his brain. The dude sees music in odd places and makes interesting, incredible beats out of them. The CD has everything from poppy hip-hop songs to tracks with jazz elements to gangster stuff. As I always say, give it a listen even if you hate rap and hip-hop. I'd challenge anybody to listen to the entire disc without finding at least one track you enjoy, even if it's only for a ridiculous reason.

I'm pretty sure that Jamie (mysterious bartender) is jerking me around, but I really don't have anything better to do and I know that she is underestimating my tenacity. I went in on Friday, caught a ton of shit for missing Sunday, and finally got her to agree to a new ridiculous time at which we would discuss a potential dinner date; Wednesday between 4pm and 8pm. She's banking on me not coming. I could care less how it goes because this actually gives me something to do every week. I'll keep you posted.

I'm going to Wichita to visit my buddy Caleb and his wife. I was unsuccessful in securing a partner in this adventure, but Caleb and I never seem to have a hard time funding fun so it will still be enjoyable. There will be heavy drinking involved. Primarily because Caleb and I have a game. To maintain tact, I will simply say that it is always my goal when visiting Caleb's houses to, um, break them in in a specific manner. Caleb's goal is to try to ply me with enough liquor that this feat is impossible. He's undefeated so far, but not without gallant efforts on my part. I smell the winds of change...

I took my MENSA home test. I checked all of my checkable answers and they were right. I'm fairly positive that I missed three of the forty questions, but there were a slough of questions that you can't check. Overall, it wasn't that bad. I'm scared shitless to see the results, which I should be able to obtain online on the 20th. Again, I'll keep you posted.

Perfect Storm, MENSA, Date?, No Poker

Social Security day and payday decided to join forces and gang rape me today at the bank. I also now believe in zombies because everybody I helped today at least had a tainted brain if any brain at all. They had the sickness. One lady: "I need to withdraw $20. Seven ones, three dollars in quarters, and two fives. No, make it $27, with seven ones, two fives, and a ten. No, just make it an even thirty with ten ones, two fives, and a ten." To add fuel to the hellfire, our teller line was staffed by myself and Danny, who frequently man the teller line. It was also staffed by Francis and Michelle, my two managers, who NEVER belly up to a drawer. It was ridiculous. I now hate the elderly and the working class until Sunday.

I signed up for a MENSA home test a few days ago and the packet arrived today. It's basically a cheap way for one to weed their person out of the potential MENSA field. For $18, you get a neat little standardized testing packet. Thirty minutes and eighty questions later, you get to send it back to MENSA for ten confidence-crippling days, and then you look your score up online. I've never been so scared shitless for something that means nothing. If I'm not smart enough to be in MENSA, nothing will change in my life at all, except that I will KNOW that I'm not smart enough to be in MENSA. I've always thought that I was. 97% percentile. If I'm in a room with one hundred people, I only have to be smarter than ninety-seven of them. However, my room is full of ninety-seven ghosts with utensils of death. Ghosts of reality. I exist in the physical world, but I spend most of my time spelunking in my own brain. No matter when you're talking to me, I'm imagining something else. If you say "potato" I'm suddenly wondering what it would have been Irish and live during the famine. I'm remembering my potato clock that ran off of the decaying potatoes in the little holders. I say "huh" and "what" a lot not because I don't hear people, but because my brain is busy with something else. Spending so much time inside of my own brain, I've imagined entire lives for myself based off of singular decisions. How does my life end if I choose to be a banker? How about crack-addict? Spending so much time in my own little world has made me think that my brain is somehow more developed in the standardized testable way than most of the people around me. An IQ test doesn't delineate intelligence any more than a measuring cup, as they are both sort of a gauge of capacity, but it's the gauge we use. It's the gauge that scares the shit out of me because it could be the gauge that tells me that I'm not the person that I've always thought I was. That I've been lying to myself about this. And if I've lied to myself about this, what else might I have lied to myself about? I've built this test (unofficial practice test, mind you) into the base rock of my hippie rock balancing tower, and I don't want it to fall. But I'm going to poke it and see what happens.

I have to wrap the blog up now as I'm on my way to *again* see if I can get a date with Jamie the random bartender. I missed her on Sunday night as I went in after 8pm, which was the time she left for the evening. The odd coincidence is that the girl who replaced her happened to be Michelle Sullivan, whom I went to Wesleyan with. We chit-chatted and she told me that Jamie works tonight at 8pm (nine minutes from now). To avoid stalkerishness, I'm going over around 8:30ish. I realize that it's still stalkerish. If this falls through I guess I'll just have to find out her phone number and call her. But I'll probably be too nervous to talk to her and afraid that she won't remember me so I'll just hang up when she answers or breathe heavily into the receiver until she hangs up. Then, I'll feel bad about that, so I'll have to find out where she lives, but she'll never answer the door because she doesn't remember me, so I'll have to follow her home from work one day but then she'll run away screaming and call the cops because she still doesn't remember me and then...

Warning: The preceding was a joke. It will cease to be funny when it somehow gets me arrested anyway. I'm sure it will be very funny to all of you.

Dumanis!, Tired Again, Amigo's, No Poker

You're alive! Thank you for the comment. Dumanis comments are less likely to be seen than the Sasquatch. It would be neat to occasionally hear from ALL of my blog readers. I'm very mad at the five of you.

I'm getting tired of being tired. I need to get more sleep but I'm having a hard time. I'm not going to get into it quite yet because I'm still not exactly sure what my problem is, but rest assured I will use my blog as free therapy and air my inner demons once I corner them and drag them back to the station for identification.

Despite my tiredness, I've been craving Amigo's. There are two in all of Omaha, and neither of them is anywhere near anywhere I go. I drug Jeff with me on my quest tonight and I had a delicious meal of tacos and chips. I ate enough cheese sauce to shave a few months off of my life expectancy. Vegas bookmakers put the over/under at 38.5 now. I will forever love Amigo's. It was my first job. It has been there for so many late night memories that I don't have. Ok, now I'm tired and rambling about Amigo's. Time to lay in bed and read True Story until I can no longer stomach its awfulness of my eyes close on their own. The first option is the better bet.

Fin.

Reading/Listening, 3D Movie, Poker

No links, I'm exhausted and lazy.

Reading: True Story by Bill Maher. It's a book about the true life of comedians. It's disgustingly over-written. Not surprising considering the source: Bill Maher pre-success. He was a successful stand-up comedian at the time, but if my memory serves me he hadn't yet had a major breakthrough like he did a few short years after he published the book. I suppose I could do Internet research. Nope, I'll just assume I'm right like a dick. If he rewrote it now, it might be better, but my defective brain forces me to finish what I've started.

Listening: Not rap! Although it will likely return next week (foreboding violin music). Good People by Jack Johnson. Lazy description: I like it and I know most of the words and it's catchy and it's good so listen to it. My readers all likely already own the disc and love it, so no discovery here.

Still Digesting: White Noise by Don DeLillo. I STILL don't know how I feel about this book.

Still Angry At: Card Sharks by Liz Maverick. In hindsight, I wanted her to have the main character win the fucking tournament. Having her finish fourth was a slap in my face in the vein of "They think that I'll have her win so I'll be smart and make her finish fourth!" Wrong bitch! I FIGURED you would do that, so having her win would be the actual surprise ending. Besides, the rest of the book was so unbelievable that it wouldn't have ruined the credibility anyway. And your apparent target audience could give two shits about poker. If Liz Maverick were here right now I would probably try and have sex with her but I would NOT call her ever again.

I watched an awful zombie movie in 3D last night at a random house in north Omaha. Liquor was involved. I highly recommend things in 3D when you're altered, because no matter how terrible they are, they're still awesome.

I lost like $30ish playing poker a couple of days ago. Not sure if I blogged about it or not. I did have an amazing feeling though. An uber-tight player named MiaLauren and I were playing an HU match. We had just started when I had 44. I play her hardcore because of her tightness, so periodically she gets sick of it and comes over the top of me. Rarely, though. I do play her a bit soft because she used to be nice to me. Anyway, I pop it with 44. She reraises pot and I know she has AQ or better. I discount QQ, KK, and AA and decide to reraise just to find out. Typically, she folds AQ to the third raise and maybe AK. This time she shoved all in on like the fourth hand. I made the comment in the chat window "Getting tough with AK I see" and then folded not wanting to flip for it. She retorts "I did have AK and you're a shit talker so I'm blocking your chat." Coming from somebody so typically nice, I got pissed. The bad type of pissed for her in that I decided that I was going to decimate her in as many matches as she was willing to play. The number was three. Several times she got me down to as low as 3k, sometimes during huge blind levels like 500/1k, but she's too tight and I always came back to eventually win. I don't know that I've ever owned somebody like that before and it felt fucking AWESOME. I feel like 5% bad because she is so typically nice, but I'm never going to lose another match to her again ever. This part came off a lot meaner than I intended but in my present state I could care less because my mind isn't with my body at the computer, it's already in bed. Focker out.

Halloween, Things I Love, Poker

Jeff and I went dressed as Mormons for Halloween. Well, we celebrated this weekend because we work. Jeff was worried that people wouldn't get it. Our costumes were short sleeve white dress shirts, black ties, black dress pants, backpacks, and bicycle helmets. And bibles. We were a hit. We only got yelled at twice. I was pleased overall.

While we were eating at Valentino's yesterday, I started thinking about all of the different things I love. Some of these things are: sleeping in, not waking up to an alarm clock, fans, cold pillows, French cuff shirts, comfortable shoes, women in skirts, chicken tortilla soup, oatmeal raisin cookies, dogs with sad eyes, staring at clouds, aimlessly driving around, music, fast cars, hot showers, flirtatious smiles, the Internet, poker, Budweiser, the nude female form in silhouette, chairs with ottomans, a good book, waking up next to somebody, sitting down after working/exercising hard, Breyer's rocky road ice cream, Coca-Cola Classic, 68-72 degree days, gentle breezes, champagne, DVRs, wearing sandals, and flirtatious smiles. Like I said, these are just some things I love. I intentionally left people off.

I've been playing some poker over the past couple of days. I'm back to my bread and butter HU matches and they're going well. I've still got some lingering awful luck. For instance, I couldn't beat any hand with a 9 in it yesterday. I dropped AK to A9, KQ to K9, JJ to 99, and QJ to Q9. Aside from that, I still managed to finish +1 out of like five matches. I won my first HU match today. The dude flopped a boat the first hand and a straight the second hand. On the second hand, I had A5 and the flop came A35. We raised each other and by the time I knew he had a straight, I only had 2k in chips left. I called it off knowing I was behind but getting the right odds at nearly 10:1. The turn was a glorious 5 that sealed it for me and crippled him. I rode out his last 1.5k and digested my new yummy $15. Right now I'm locked in a marathon with an R-tard that keeps hitting spiffy turn cards. I should beat him as long as the blinds don't get high enough that he starts pushing and making me make iffy calls. I also watched Matt get brutalized in the 10k Guaranteed today. He limped UTG with KK with a stack of like 18k and blinds of 2/400; 50. There were a few other limpers and a small raise, and Matt repopped it to 8k. He got two callers and saw an ugly Ad 6h 7h flop. He check folded and the other two got in with A9hh and AQo. He wants those preflop calls, he just wants them to miss their two outer. He busted when his AA got cracked by A3 calling all in on a gutshot with one card to come. Sick. Speaking of sick, I just dropped KQo to KQo. 2.17% chance of that happening. Awesome.

Reading/Listening, Car, No Poker

Reading: Still White Noise. I've got a shade under a hundred pages left. I'll knock out fifty pages one day, and then I won't touch the book for the rest of the week. I'm still undecided. DeLillo has some amazing lines, and his dialogue is awesome, but I guess that I had certain expectations for the book that aren't being met. I think that it will take me a week or so after I finish it to truly decide if I like it or not. Hopefully I polish it off this week, but I'm not sure because I had a long day today, I have another long one tomorrow, and then I'm off Friday. Reading is low on the priority list.

Listening: Definition by Black Star. Black Star was a side project by Mos Def and Talib Kweli, and it was amazing. I've never owned it because I had a friend in high school that had it, and I always just listened to it with him. I had forgotten about it until Jeff played Definition (no link, sorry, iTunes it). This was one of those songs that I replayed dozens of times in a row. I'm still craving to hear it, but I had to stop because I just should. Check it out.

So I locked my car keys in the vault at the bank yesterday. I mean like really locked them in. We set the time lock, closed everything up, set the alarm and I reached in my pocket and had a "Fuck!" moment. I just laughed. I laugh when I'm utterly and totally fucked. When we were locked on the roof of our ridiculously tall hotel in downtown Mexico City, I laughed hysterically. At certain times, we are totally helpless. The previous two situations are examples of this. A lot of people get angry. Some get embarrassed. I laugh. Why not? Everybody else is going to laugh at it. I know I'm going to laugh at it later, and it really is the funniest in the moment, so I laugh. My keys were released from the clutches of the time lock this morning when I opened, but now I have to deal with getting the car I borrowed back to its rightful owner. Oh well.

Entropy, No Poker

My Internet connection will be spotty at best for the next day or two as I'm trying to install my new wireless card. I say trying because it theoretically should be working now. I followed all of the instructions to the "T". Install the software. Install the card. Restart computer. Use setup wizard. Except the setup wizard won't run. And the computer doesn't recognize the driver. I used to be good at these things. I built this computer from scratch with my own bare hands. I used to write programs for computers. Now I touch an electronic device and it turns to shit. And like a typical old fogey I will contend that it's not my fault. Advances have been made to make it easier for Average Joe to do this stuff. The problem is that the advances in easiness have made it harder on me for some reason. I'm anti-DIY for computer fixes for the average person. I consider myself borderline, and anybody who knows less than me has no reason to pop the case off of their computer. As a society we consider it bad if we don't know the answer. We will fake it. We will lie. We will do anything to avoid admitting "I don't know." The problem is that admitting you don't know something leads to actual learning. I do a lot of things that I shouldn't. I will eventually finish rebuilding my motorcycle even though I know nothing about engines. I will eventually fix this wireless adapter even though I'm totally lost at the moment. I'll have kids even though I can't always take care of myself all of the time. And I'll accomplish these things because I'm not afraid to ask questions from people who know more than I do. In the meantime, I'd appreciate it if people wouldn't try to cater to my ignorance by adding features to disguise how much I don't know. Let me fuck up because I'm willing to. Let others avoid trying because they're afraid of fucking up.

CD Case, Date?, Poker

I'm not the type of person who gets outraged at the price of things, but I was today. I'm in desperate need of a new CD case as I've filled my old one and have probably ten-fifteen homeless CDs. $50. Fifty fucking dollars for a 336 capacity CD case. It's plastic and cotton and a zipper. I would wager that it would cost around $3 to make if you factor in overhead costs. Ridiculous. I will now scavenge eBay and garage sales just to find one cheaper because there's not a chance in hell that I'm shelling out $50 for a CD case.

I asked a girl on a date before I knew her name on Saturday. There is a bar in an apartment complex a few blocks from where Jeff and I live, and she tends bar there. She didn't say no. As a test (I think) she told me to come back to the bar a week from today (Sunday) and she would considerate it. I bet she's planning on never seeing me again. She underestimates me. I'll keep you posted.

I've played a little poker lately. I'm +1 on $10 and $15 HU matches over the past few days. The new betting hasn't made much of a difference, but I'm sticking with it. I've also played a couple of Step SnGs for a million dollar promotion that Bugsy's has going on. I'd like to win it. Basically, there are several six-figure tourneys that Bugsy's is having and the only way to get in are through these Step SnGs (as I understand it, I'm probably wrong). After the online tourneys, the top ten finishers get flown to an undisclosed location for a live final SnG for another six figures. It would be awesome. Way past my bed time.

Elaboration, Life Tilt, No Poker

My small comment concerning time yesterday: So far I have been late four times. Two significant, two by a couple of minutes. The problem is that I've been busted on all four, and in big ways. My very first opening shift I was four minutes late. Because God hates me, my direct manager's calls to my cell phone went straight to my voice mail. So she called our branch manager. Weak. Time two was actually quite comical. I thought I worked at ten, so I woke up around 7:30 and took my sweet time getting ready. I jumped in the shower around 9ish and when I got out, I had missed a call. Yep, I was supposed to be at work at 9. My branch manager laughed but said don't make it a habit. Time three I was again four minutes late, but yet again my branch manager decided she needed to get some work done before her conference call, so I was busted again. Time four I was seven minutes late. On the day that we were getting audited. By a regional manager. Awesome. I was ten minutes early today because I got reamed by it, but I have a sense of bitterness. An explanation is to follow.

Tilt is a poker term. It refers to anger forcing bad decisions. In poker, when somebody even when they have a high percentage chance to win, they sometimes go on tilt. Tilt is a downward spiral. Anger causes a bad decision, which causes more anger, which causes more and worse decisions. I went on life tilt today. I was ten minutes early, as I mentioned above, and the morning went well. I was supposed to clock at noon, take my forty-five minute lunch, and then head to a training across town. My direct manager had forgotten that I had a training, so she only scheduled myself and one other teller. Not a big deal. Another guy came in at 12:15 and she should be back before noon. She was, and we were slow. At 11:50, I started counting my drawer so I could leave. Then four people came in. Then two in the drive-thru. We should've peeled these off quick, except my manager didn't want to pull her drawer because she wanted to be where I was. Long, angry rant later, it was 12:35 as I huffed my way out the door. My branch manager apologized that I would have to eat in my car. I told her that wouldn't happen because the drive takes twenty minutes and I wouldn't want to be late. I did pretty well at hiding the snideness in my voice. My problem with punctual people: they're only half punctual. Of all the people I've met that hammer on punctuality in the workplace, not one of them has given a shit when I clock off. I'm expected to be at work on time because that is when I'm scheduled, however, I also have a definite end time. This one they're willing to be flexible with. This is where my internal angry steam whistle goes off. I prefer allowing people to be a couple of minutes late, because then I have no qualms about asking them to stay a few extra minutes. If you're going to hammer on me for being seven minutes late, you should throw a shit fit that I had to stay an additional thirty-five minutes, causing me to miss a lunch. But what do I know. Obviously, I was in a foul mood as I headed to the training site. To say that there were driving mishaps is an understatement. Initially, poor planning forced me to get off of I-80W and take I-680N. Semis do not buckle to lane crowding. Minor detour, still lunch potential. I took Pacific west and managed to hit EVERY red light on the street. Not exaggerating, literally every one. I almost made one. I was behind two people playing "let's go ten under the speed limit side by side," but when I finally got around them it was yellow city and I had to stop. Trying to avoid lights, I took 139th street. This seemed logical as I should've pooped out two blocks from where I needed to go at 137th. By its designation, 139th should've been a through street. It is not. After my house tour, I finally made it back to major streets and reached my training center with three minutes to spare. Awesome. I went home and my roommate and I went to grab food. Everything else went fairly smoothly except for driving. We also had an incident in Best Buy which turned out to be quite humorous. Warning: insensitive content to follow. We were looking for movies for Jeff to buy (he has a movie fetish and I abuse it for my own personal benefit). I came upon American History X, which I love. Jeff said he can't watch it because of the curb-stomp scene (if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about). A mentally challenged lady near us started spouting off questions. She couldn't grasp the idea of the curb-stomp. "He flipped him upside down and hit his head on the curb?" "Who hits their head on the curb?" "Does that guy hit his head on the curb?" "Why would he bite the curb?" I could tell that we were locked in something similar to the "Why?" game that four year olds play. There was no end in sight, and drastic measures had to be taken. I made a last ditch effort to free us from our short bus bondage by laying out an explanation in clear, simple language. As I explained the premise of the movie while staring at her mustache (to avoid the mysterious, unscabbed hole in the side of her face), I knew that the porch light was never going to flick on, and that I was in a new danger because I had used several long sentences, showing my willingness to talk. At the end of my explanation, Jeff added his two cents. She turned her face and shoulders towards Jeff to ask him to clarify and I took the opportunity to walk determinedly down the aisle. I did not look back. I know that I am a heartless asshole. If I didn't, I would have figured it out because Jeff reminded me several times when he freed himself nearly ten minutes later. He kept reminding me until a few minutes ago when he went to bed. After the day I had, stranding Jeff with the mustachioed, inquisitive retarded lady was something I owed myself. I'm sure it will come back to me because I believe in karma, but sometimes it's worth it. Good night.