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.