Omaha, James, Wine, Poker

The decision has been made: I'm moving to Omaha. I'll probably move the weekend of August 11th. A kid from work wants to move there as well, and one of the jobs I applied for finally called me back about an interview in Omaha, so I'm going to call it fate and pack my things. And by pack my things, I mean take all of the boxes that I never unpacked and move them to Omaha. Hopefully I'll find a place by then but if not, I can always stay with my sister for a bit.

James pranked himself awhile ago and I never posted about it. He was shaving that wispy, shitty hair that grows out on the back of your neck when he had a random twitch in his arm. The twitch caused him to jerk his arm, which caused him to shave a quarter-sized chunk of hair off of the back of his head, about an inch or 2 behind his right ear. It has grown out enough now that you have to look for it to see it, but when I've been angry or down this past week or so, I'd look at it and laugh and feel better about the world.

I've been afflicted with insomnia lately. No matter how exhausted I am, I can't fall asleep. It has been getting ridiculous. The past 3 days I have gone to bed at 7am, 9am, and 6am. Last night I decided to fight dirty and polish off a bottle of wine around 1ish. This failed miserably. The only corkscrew we had in the house is the kind that requires muscle to yank the cork from the bottle. I don't have those, so I looked for a wing corkscrew to no avail. I drove over to Hyvee to discover that they don't have wing corkscrews either. I was tempted to drive to Super Saver on 48th and O to see if they had any, but decided on the sure thing and headed to Wal-Mart on 27th and Superior. I wandered briefly through the grocery aisles before it dawned on me that my item would be in housewares. I got over there, found one, and headed to the one lane that was open at 2am. It took about 10 minutes for me to get on deck, and then the guy ahead of me tried to pay with a credit card check. The lady tried to scan it but it wouldn't work, then we had to wait for the supervisor to come over. The supervisor said that they can't take it in a very curt manner and promptly deleted the transaction. Nobody said sorry. Nobody showed empathy. It was more of a "get the fuck out of line" attitude. I felt bad. In the long run, it's better for the guy. Those checks are on par with thievery and people never read close enough to realize that they're getting screwed. Typically, those "super checks" give you a special interest rate for 3-6 months, but then they treat your purchases as cash advances, reaming you for like 24%. Caveat emptor. The guy mumbled something about his credit card not working so they sent the checks (lie) but I felt bad. He was stuck waiting there for his buddy who had announced to everybody in the front 1/3rd of the store that he had to poop and that the front bathroom was closed. A simple little white lie from the supervisor would've made the guy feel better and not like a broke-ass. "I'm sorry, we just changed our policy yesterday," or "The machine seems to be broken and is not taking the check." Or, "I'm sorry, the cashier should have told you that we no longer take this form of payment. I'm really sorry about that sir." I'm pretty sure I would've hated living in the 50's, but there is a lot to be said for politeness and compassion.

I ran my account up to $299.10 last night. I would've topped $300 but I bubbled a $.50 SnG and then I cried myself to sleep. The $20 matches are easier to play, but more boring. It seems that everybody that I've played is uber-aggressive and really not perceptive at all. All I've done is wait patiently and trap and it hasn't failed me for 2 days. I played one match today and won it in the same fashion. A "lady" (I assume that everybody who plays online poker is male, not because I'm chauvinist, but because I know way too many men who use feminine names because men play differently against women) would raise pot preflop and bet pot on the flop EVERY SINGLE HAND. "She" never caught on that I would check-raise every time I flopped top pair or better. When I flopped top pair, I would check-raise the flop and bet pot on the turn and that usually ended it until, of course, "she" had made 2 pair vs. my flopped set and I won the match. Most people aren't this extreme, but nearly every person I've played at this level has done the pot/pot thing about 90% of the time. When I'm playing more passive opponents, I do the same thing, but I'm aware of my own table image. In these situations, if I raise pot preflop, the flop brings an A and I bet pot again and get called, I'm standing on the brakes. Not these MENSA candidates. Oh well, I shouldn't complain because I'm making money quickly, but I really did enjoy my little $5 matches where every hand was a battle. I can't battle because the other characteristic is that these people don't fold at $20. One match I had AKo and smooth-called the preflop raise. The flop came J72 rainbow and I check-raised and got insta-called. The next 2 streets got checked and my opponent showed 83o. Seriously? Playing people like this, there is absolutely no reason for me to make hero calls with bottom pair, so instead of battling, I get to wait. Hopefully $30 and $50 will be more interesting. This is a ridiculously long blog.