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.