Reading/Listening, Crash, VBDay, Poker

This will be quick. I'm still reading Miranda July and I haven't gotten a page further, and I'm also still listening to the new Coldplay CD. My tape adapter for my iPod needs cleaned but the recent oven-like temperatures in my car have caused the little bottle of cleaning solution for the tape adapter to cake shut in the little hole in the dispenser, so I need to get something stabby to open it back up.

I crashed a wedding this weekend. It wasn't like the movie. One of my best friends from high school got married in Omaha and I wasn't invited. I felt like I should be invited, and two of our other good friends from high school were invited, so I went. I took a date. The date was another friend of ours that I thought should be invited. Virginia was nervous at the idea so she met us after. It was very awkward. Not the crashing, that didn't bother me at all, and despite a stammering "H-H-H-H-Hey man!" from the groom, it didn't bother him too much either. What was awkward was knowing why I wasn't invited. Back in high school, we had a group of friends. Five of us to be exact. Within our group of friends, we all had our roles. I was sort of the outsider. I came late to the group, and I wasn't a guaranteed addition to any group activity. I had other friends. Not that they didn't, but I was a degree shadier and thus disappeared from time to time to engage in shadiness that they didn't want a part of. That was my role. Caleb was the jock. Ryan was the smartass. Kip was the whiner (dubbed "Bitch"), and Greg was the fat one. Not because he was actually fat, but because he was fatter than anybody else in the group. We called him Gurg, a sort of shortened version of Gargantuan. Both Greg and Kip (real name Zach) absolutely fell off the map in college. Greg and I talked and hung out a couple of times our freshman year and never again after that unless by happenstance. I saw Kip once in college and tried to hang out with him and his friends but it was so terrible that I seriously considered stealing a car to get away from awfulness. What I gathered from these experiences in college was that they took our joking to heart. They really felt like second class friends rather than an integral part of our group. Caleb, Ryan, and I remain good friends because we took it for what it was for; high school insecurities playing themselves out verbally. Make fun of the trait that you wish you had that you see in others to devalue it. So it hurts less. In college, I grew to embrace my own perceptions of my shortcomings. I realized that to be the person that I thought I wanted to be, I had to sacrifice things that I really like and I didn't want to do that. I matured. These two guys didn't. Or they did in a different way. I hope they realize that they really were good and dear friends back then and not just a way for me to feel better about myself. They will both be invited to my wedding someday. Greg will get two or three invitations in the mail so he gets the point, but he will still be invited. Of course, by the end of the night, I fell into old habits; I was the drunkest one there. They cut off the bar pretty early so I was forced to sniper drinks that people set on tables to dance. The nature of this activity is that you have to drink very quickly so as not to get busted. Mission accomplished. Virginia made the executive decision that I in fact did not need to meet up with Caleb, Ryan, and Dave after we closed down the wedding and the bar next door and took me home and put me in bed. It was a good decision.

Speaking of my lovely girlfriend (no, I'm not kissing ass, she doesn't read my blog; doesn't even know the address), it was her birthday yesterday. I took her to see her secret present (which I will divulge at a later date) and then we went to Blue where I had the most delicious fare that I've had in a long time. I had JUMBO shrimp that was fried with glass noodles and drizzled with sweet chili sauce that was stunningly good, and Virginia ordered a Vegas roll, a Hawaii roll, and salmon sashimi. Both rolls were amazing, and she said the salmon sashimi was the best that she's ever had. Keep in mind that she spent two years in Vegas, a place known for its world class cuisine. She was so thoroughly impressed with the food that she instantly discredited the chance that the owners were Nebraskan. The only way that her birthday could have gone better would have been if she hadn't gotten off early so I could've taken her flowers to her at the hospital, but as it stood I got to spend more time with her. I'll take that tradeoff.

Poker has been going very well. Sunday sucked, but still not badly. I've been running perfectly with odds lately which has been a big positive for my bankroll. I've been hitting the $10 and $15 HU matches at Bugsy's and the $2 HU matches at FTP. Sunday I played a few matches at Bugsy's and got dealt with. I only ended the night -1 on matches, but it was a struggle to get there. I kept getting in with the best hand and the other person on a draw and it just kept hitting. Flushes, straights, etc, wham wham wham. To end the night, I sat at a 3-handed $.25/$.50 NLHE table and won back the -$15 or so I was down. This was too high for my bankroll, but I decided to buy in for $15, ditch the match if I lost just as I would an HU match, and also to bail on the table if it filled up. It was never more than 4 handed, and that only lasted for a couple of hands, so I'm pretty happy with the self control. At FTP, I've worked my $5 freeroll winnings up to something north of $11. I went on a little run to start, which was nice because I'm very shallow there right now. I was as high as $13+, but I caught a bad one to end my night. I don't like that the rake is $.15 per tourney this low because it means that I have to come up +3 on every 20 matches just to break even. I can still accomplish this, but it's nice to have as big of a cushion as possible seeing as how I don't have the bankroll for 20 matches right now. I've made FTP my focus right now, because that is where I stand to make big money. You simply can't get big dollar games going at Bugsy's. As it stands, I have to wait about ten minutes on average to get a $15 game and it's only going to get worse as I go up. Further, FTP has much higher dollar tourneys for me to cash in on. I'm not ready to just transfer all my cash yet as I need to adjust my game to the lower starting chips at FTP, but I've been doing pretty well so far. Hopefully I can keep this going and avoid a bad patch until I have the cash to weather it. Bugsy's roll is at $363.69, FTP is around $11.25 (approx., can't connect now for some reason).