100th Post!

This is officially my 100th post! I've been doing a badass job at least keeping this thing updated every day or every other day or so, and it feels good to be writing again. Although I'm not at a point I used to be with my writing skills, I think that the more I write on here the better I'll become...again.

I know there's some boring stuff on here sometimes, and there's a couple nonsense posts, but my page hits have been tripling since I started writing again, so that's awesome.

I've been crushing DoD and Starcraft the past couple days. This laptop is my life. End of post.

Something worth reading will come tomorrow, just figure I'd toss a teaser out here.

Until next time.

Holla B4LLA!!

For those that don’t know or aren’t in the poker world, don’t ever say that nothing good comes out of the poker world after reading this post.

For those of you who don’t know Barry Greenstein’s story, he’s a professional poker player who made mountains of money in Silicone Valley before quitting his dayjob after realizing that he made even more playing poker. Once he started playing professionally, he was making enough to cover the expenses for him and his family, and living lavishly at that.

Once tournament poker started becoming a television phenomenon and the million dollar prize pools became the norm, Greenstein went on to start donating his winnings from these tournaments to charities. It was because of this that Barry has become known as, thanks to the WPT, the “Robin Hood of poker.”

Up to this day he plays in high stakes poker games and continues to play in the large televised tournaments. He donates to charities on a regular basis, his favorite being Childrens, Inc.

On the side Barry is also active in online sites and forums, one of the most notable being 2+2. This is where the story starts.

Anyone who knows anything about online forums knows that these are the places where hilarious internet phrases and endless amounts of awesome MSPaints come from. In light of the past few years’ explosion in online poker and daily MTTs filled with amateur players (known as “donks”), the term “donkaments” was formed.

Within the 2+2 forums during this time, strategies and hand histories were posted and discussed. Sometimes bad beats would occur, and steaming players would post these HHs online as well. Often time responders would feel the pain, and would post sympathies in these bad beat threads. Others would, with regard to the ridiculousness to the suckouts, post “lol” in consolation to the loser.

Eventually it became known that with as many horrible plays as there were amateur players, these horrendous beats were bound to occur on a regular basis, and could be explained by no other reasoning than the sheer numbers of donks in said tournaments. In some threads “lol donkaments” would be posted, as in it’s ok man, laugh it off, there’s just too many donks.

Needless to say, in such a cultish fashion as forum browsing itself, the term “lol donkaments” was coined as a keeper. A new internet forum phrase was born.

Being as how Barry is a sociable person and is a participator on the 2+2 board, members of the forum are in contact and are able to contact him. One member suggested that if Barry were to take the phrase “lol donkaments” to the highest stakes cash game on TV, High Stakes Poker, he would pay Barry $10,000. Barry, being the Robin Hood that he is, suggested that if he did say it on air, the forum member would donate the $10,000 to Greenstein’s favorite charity. Then the wheels were put in motion.

On Monday, February 26, 2007, the greatest thing to ever happen to the world on online poker forums was witnessed.

Click here to witness history

Within minutes of the broadcast the forums exploded. People applauded and waves of forumers ran out into the streets, waving their hands in the air in praise of the god-like Greenstein. The clouds parted in the sky and a glorious beacon of light shined down to the earth below.

Then, something terrible happened.

It’s been a well-known topic since the beginning of time, that a gambler’s word is his life’s work. If a gambler makes a bet his word is as good as his cash, and should a loss come his way, the debt will be paid. But minutes after the words “lol donkaments” were offered by God, the original bettor went back on his word, saying that he didn’t actually mean it.

Well have no fear, the poker community came to his aid. Within 24 hours, handfuls of members on the 2+2 forums had come together to gather and donate the entirety of the $10,000 to Childrens, Inc. The forces of good prevailed as the charity was granted the money it was so promised, not by the original guarantee, but by a community of poker players who believe in backing each other up and holding to the gambler’s word.

Until next time.

Bad Beats and Slowrolls for Life

It's come to my attention that I usually sound like a whiny bitch in this blog. It's not really something I try to do, but I do use this blog as a release from the stress in my life and I confide in this digital diary when I need somewhere to go. I don't have many people in life to whine to, so this is a place where, should I feel the need to, I can complain all I want and no has to get annoyed if they don't want to read.

With that said, I also post things on here that are good-feeling in content. I can't really remember if the posts are mostly negative or mostly positive, as I just write to write when I feel like writing, but I know there's also just a lot of "thinking out loud posts" on here too, which shouldn't be construed as one of my incessant ranting writings. I won't lie in saying that I like to complain on here though, so without further ado I present to you this weekend's grievances.

On Friday during the four-minute drive home from work I had a craving that required immediate satisfaction: Gordon Biersch, and poker. Seeing as how LA accommodates both of those needs, I called up Darsky and explained to him that my squeaky wheels needed grease, and shortly afterwards it was made an official plan that I'd head down to Tarzana to meet up with him.

I made it down there at around 8PM and we made our way to GB. After a fun little run around trying to find a parking spot close to the restaurant (aside from the valet, which is definitely not an option with D's Bullitt), we finally sniped a leaving spot and got to eat some food. We had our usual beer and burger (damn it's just so good...) and made our way to the Bike.

When we got to the higher section there was a few $5-5NL going and both of us had our names up on the list. Shortly after we arrived a new table opened up and I took the 8s while Dar took the 9s. We started off with only six seats filled, but the rest of the table filled up before we even got the cards in the air.

Up to this point Darsky had told me that the couple previous weeks at the Bike, the play had been soft and slow, and the general tone was that my aggressive style should make for a slightly "easy" pickup. This was not the case tonight.

We had many $400-600 pots being shoved back and forth across the table with amazing hands, and not amazing in a good way. During the night I saw three different $500+ won when called by a pair of 2's, often on boards such as K-2-8 and things of the such. The action was very fast and very loose right off the bat.

The first hand I was involved in was when I looked down at K-K after a couple rounds of complete nothingness. There was a gangster-ish Mexican guy with an XL white T-shirt and sleeved tats in the 1s who raised. It got to me and I popped it again, as he went all in for $125 while I instacalled. After the board came up 5-6-7, I felt a little something not right. A 2 on the turn didn't hurt, nor did the Ace on the river. I already knew my fate.

I stared at the guy for a second as he blankly stared back. "Okay, I got Kings."

"Oh you got Kings?" this is where he sighs and looks at his cards again. "They're no good."

He flipped over 5-5 for the winner, and I bowed down to his awesomeness in the art of slowrolling. If there's one thing I cannot stand in life, it's slowrolling. I'll rant on this in another post. For this post it's just another bad beat in the weekend.

I ended up coming up a little bit after that, and ended up doubling my under buy-in stack when this hand came up.

I had been showing down nothing but winners to this point, and seemed to be building a tight image at the table. This in itself is hilarious to me, because my general table image is very LAG. People usually don't believe me, and that's how I prefer it. Tonight, however, I had only played premiums for the first couple hours and was still getting my regular action. Maybe my face is that of a liar?

Anyways I looked down at the A-4d and raised it to my usual $20 in EP and got called by the 5s, who had not beaten me in a hand during our previous two squalls earlier in the night. The flop came up K-4-2, and somehow we ended up getting all my money in with another $160+ for him to call. He took forever thinking about it and I started my usual talk with him.

My talk can mean anything, and anyone who has seen me play knows that my table talk is the same whether I have the nuts or I have nothing. I like to think that it's hard to read me, and for the most part I truly believe that it is.

After a few minutes of debate he finally stuck in the call and said "I have a pair." I turned over my A-4 and he shook his head. He had a bad habit of only flipping over one card (another pet peeve of mine, only flipping one card when a winner has to be shown), and showed me a 2.

"What else!" I shouted at him.

"Nothing nothing, just the deuce."

"The two and what else! Come on! You got me beat I know it!"

"No no, just the 2."

The turn and river bricked and my A-4 was good for a $600+ pot. That was the last win I'd see that night. I ended up making a stupid move, though Darsky tried to tell me that it wasn't as bad as I was making it. But it was definitely a move that I am better than making, and it sucked knowing that I ended up going with it anyways. I'll blog about that later, cuz I need to complain about bad beats right now, not bad plays.

I rebought after I busto'd my stack and for the rest of the night I ended up picking up decent hands but being moved off of all of them before I finally made a move with my stack at around $180. I picked up the Kh10h and ended getting the money in on TP+FD against TP with a better kicker. I missed my heart and was busted.

After I made the questionable play the whole night went downhill and I can't help but think that the reason it turned around was my fault. Again, I'll explain the hand in a later post, but after talking with a couple people, it seems that the hand wasn't as bad as I'm putting on myself. I still think I could've avoided it though, and that's what irritates me. I know what level I'm capable of playing at, but sometimes I feel like my lack of every day play keeps me from playing at that level constantly.

We had our regular tourney night at Paullywood Park, where we were having a $20 rebuy tourney with 24 players present. We ended up with a prize pool of $1280, and I didn't get any of it.

I was cruising along with twelve players left sitting on a decent stack when I got nailed again. I raised and got called by probably the loosest, craziest Phillipino guy at our game. The flop came K-8-5 and I shoved after he checked. He instacalled and turned over 6-6. The turn was a 7 and the river was a 4, leaving me with nothing to show for the weekend.

I got beat up for another $60 in the gambling quarter games afterwards, and was treated to some Del Taco by Darsky before I went home. I realized that I had left my sunglasses at Paul's, so on top of losing a bunch of money I left my sunglasses somewhere, which I HATE doing, thanks to four previous experiences of losing $100+ sunglasses.

I finally got them back on Sunday, but then had them stolen while I was at a store on Sunday. I had left them in the dressing room for a total of 35 seconds, but when I went back they were gone. I knew a couple of non-English speaking field-worker-type Mexicans had gone in there after me, and knowing that they are the biggest thieves in this particular store (I used to work at it and we were clued in by security during training), I asked if they had seen or taken my sunglasses.

My question was, of course, responded with by a barely audible "No....soddy" and some Spanish babble as I walked away. If I were to break into rant about how I feel about this particular sect of the social ladder, most commonly seen around SoCal and definitely in the valley, it would turn into another two pages and I would end up turning out sounding like a radical racist, so I'll decline. Bottom line is those fuckers stole my $100 pair of Arnettes.

Needless to say, this weekend had more negatives than positives, so although I'd like to write about the good stuff in life after hearing about my consistent whining, this weekend is hard to turn around no matter how you look at it.

Until next time.

Taste of Chaos and the Used

Last night was one of the coolest nights I've had in a long, long time. I haven't been to a show in way too long, and when I heard the Used was headlining the Taste of Chaos Tour, I knew that I had to get off my ass and go see them. I ended up going with a little chicky I like to say that I know, and it was a great night altogether.

We left Santa Barbara at around 4:30PM, and of course, thanks to LA traffic, we didn't get to the Long Beach Arena until around 7:30. After maneuvering our way around a street that goes THROUGH a parking garage downtown, we found the parking garage for the arena and made our way inside.

We passed two security checkpoints, and three ID checkpoints to get our first round of $12 beers and then made our way up to our seats. When we got to our section Thirty Seconds to Mars was gearing up, and it was obvious that I had missed Saosin, which kinda bummed me out, but it wasn't too bad because I had gone to see the Used anyways.

Right before their set, 30Seconds sent a guy and girl up to the mic to do a skit saying that they weren't playing, and that Jared Leto was in the hospital blah blah blah, but oh wait! He's right here, it looks like Jared's going against the doctor's orders and he's gonna play the show anyways.

Yup.

His voice wasn't 100% so his singing was only par, but he still pulled it off. Their stage was awesome, and their so crowd oriented, that in his hometown nobody seemed to notice Jared's voice, or lack of it. Their set went off without a hitch and even though it wasn't everything everyone was hoping for it to be, they still rocked out.

"The Kill" was sang by the entire Long Beach Arena, and "From Yesterday" was a crowd favorite as well. And although they didn't sound bad, it is only the second week of tour so it makes you think if 30Seconds is gonna be able to pull the whole tour. he better drink lots of ginseng tea or whatever it is those singers drink...

After the set we headed down for a few more brews and then made our way back right before the intro for the main act, the Used!

The first time I saw these guys live was at the Warped Tour as a small-time band trying to bring themselves up amongst the big boys. They had an awesome following, and it was clear they were going to break big soon.

Bert (the lead singer) had an intensity that was unmatched by any other band at Warped that year, and his stage presence was incredible. The only problem was that with their debut CD there was a lot of screaming in his songs, so before the end of their set his voice would die and he wouldn't be able to finish with the fire he started with.

Since then I know they've improved immensely, and on the verge of releasing their third CD, I could only imagine that on this night they would be incredible. They opened huge with "Take It Away", a crowd-chanting rockout. They stopped to say hello, then they stringed together three songs in a row with a blend from the end of one song into the next.

The place was jam packed on the main floor, and the stadium seats were full. They were rocking and rocking hard. Bert didn't miss a beat, and even busted a beat when he broke into a crazy white-man rap with the help of the drummer ripping into a bassline. That had the crowd cheering for the sheer sillyness of it, and they went back into dominating the rock world.

They played a couple of their new songs, "Find A Way" and "Liar Liar", which both seem like they're representative of their newest CD coming out in May. If the intensity and the sound of this show are representative of their latest material, the new CD won't disappoint.

And in answer to my waning question, throughout the whole show, on top of jumping around and playing the crowd, the singer didn't break his voice or slow down at all. It was one of the best shows I've seen.

The Used, being one of my favorite bands, has had an impact on my life with their music since I first heard their music. For the moment they were playing one of their slower songs, I experienced a state of pure happiness. With the way things have been going lately in life, I started feeling very blah. But on this night, rocking out with who I was with and watching one of my favorite bands pull of a great show, it felt like there was hope.

Now I'm back at work, and although it is payday, I'm wishing I wasn't here. I wanna be back there. I wanna be back in last night standing next to a beautiful chick rocking my heart out and screaming with the thousands of fans that are there to feel what I feel when that band hits the stage and blows our minds.

I really wanna see a lot of concerts this year, and Taking Back Sunday is next up on the list. They're playing the House of Blues in Vegas on the 10th of March, so I better start getting my shit together so Darsky and I can try to nail this monthly Vegas trip thing.

Until next time.

Music Day

No, this post has nothing to do with Music Day. This post won't be filled with fond childhood memories or the monsters of boredom I square off against in every day life. No, this is just a pure, straight, BRAG post!!

Today the Taste of Chaos Tour comes to the Long Beach Arena, and I'm going! Although it's not close to where I am, it's within driving distance and is the closest it's gonna get to little ole' Santa Barbara. I've been waiting for this tour to come around for months and am excited beyond Hell that it's finally here.

I've been wanting to see The Used live again since I saw them three years ago, the new Saosin is a band I recently started giving a chance (big AG fan, looking to see Circa Survive in March too), and I do find myself to be a Thirty Seconds fan, so needless to say I'm gonna be rockin hard at this one.

I'm gonna try to get some work done and head down towards LA at around 4PM. I'll throw up another post tomorrow

Until next time.

Movie Day

There used to be days in elementary school where we would have movie day. It usually happened around winter time when it was cold and wet outside, and the mood always seemed to gravitate around a quiet, sleepy feeling. Not a whole lot of work got done on these days, and these kind of days were definitely "in my neighborhood".

We would come in in the morning, review our homework from the night before for about 45 minutes, and then the lights would get turned off and we'd watch a movie. We'd take a break at lunch time where we'd eat inside, stand out under the overhang and watch the rain fall for a couple minutes, and then head back in until 3:30PM. Then we'd turn the lights back on, get our homework assignment for the night, and leave for the day.

I always got in trouble on these days anyways, because if I wasn't talking during class then I was talking during the movie. The length and subject of the movies inevitably bored me, as they were usually stupid and/or school-related films, so of course I was doomed to get in trouble. I was definitely glad not to have to do work, but dammit did I ever get bored.

Nevertheless these few days were the coolest school days ever, both because of the encouragement of laziness as well as the mood of the weather. Today is one of those days. Years later, obviously there's no homework to review or to receive, but the general feeling is the same.

After ending the week in a Summer-esque state, Sunday and yesterday turned into a chillfest. The morning was bitterly cold for the most part, and the day-time temperature seemed to follow the same. I spent the entire morning tucked away inside my company-sponsored hoodie while web-surfing and drinking massive amounts of coffee while lamenting over my current state of poker-ivity, wondering what the hell I'm gonna do and figuring out how I'm gonna hold up Darsky and my deal to take one trip a month to Vegas. It looks like I already missed the February trip, and the March trip is seeming further and further out of my grasp.

Now it's past lunch time, and I still haven't done anything. I'm bored and antsy from the coffee, lazy and cold feeling because of the weather, and somehow utterly content with all these feelings thanks to NBC putting the entire Poker After Dark series online. I'm going to watch the past couple nights' episodes and then hopefully do a tiny bit of work.

We have our game coming up at Paullywood Park this weekend, a $20-rebuy with probably around three tables. I took first in the $30 30-person at his house last time, so hopefully with the rebuy tourney I'll be able to make a little too to get my spirits up a little bit. I've been gettin beaten up for the past month and a half and could really use a decent session or a win at Pauly's to help my mental self out.

I'm going back to movie day now.

Until next time.

Sean Connery Has To Be the Coolest Guy Ever

"Yesh...I'm perfectly okay you fucking idiot." - Sean Connery in The Rock, when asked by Nicholas Cage's character if he was okay as he's haning upside down over a deep mine pit held in place solely by one foot looped in a piece of rope.

I always loved that quote. Sean Connery says it with such awesomeness that it should make every man think about how much of a little girl we all are compared to him. Of course in that movie Nicholas Cage gets to get hopped on by Vanessa Marcil, so I guess nothing will bring him down. Except for his latest movie.

Yesterday I went to go see Ghost Rider. It's not that I wanted to see it necessarily, but Mitch actually wanted to and I couldn't find anyone else that would be dumb enough to spend $10 on it. It was basically as bad as you think it is from the previews. It's a good thing I'm a big Nick Cage fan, because if it wasn't for that I would probably never see another one of his movies after this. The graphics were cool, but that was about it. Hopefully some CG artist out there is enjoying my $10.

After that we went back to Mitch's condo and hung out for a little bit. A big group of people came over with drunk Carlos, and we drank a little and "hung out" until we got visited by the cops thanks to some neighbors who were trying to sleep or something like that, in any case not enjoying the noise we were making.

When we woke up this morning Mitch, John, and I went shooting out in Cherry Creek, which is something we haven't done for like three years. It was alright, but it was a short trip and only with a couple small rifles, nothing major. We went to In-N-Out (oh so delicious!!) and retired back to the condo to play some DoD. You can guarantee that every time I hang out with mitch I'll come back chanting "D...O...D" in my sleep.

All in all it was a fun weekend, and something I kinda needed after pissing myself off on Friday night.

When I came home from work Friday night I dumped the couple hundred bucks I had on Full Tilt, basically because I came home a little drunk and was being belligerent. It sucked because I was working the micro-limits on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and came up a decent amount for such low stakes, only to dump it thanks to having no discipline.

It's become gradually clear to me that I have absolutely no discipline. Obviously every poker player knows that with no discipline or money management you'll sink faster than you can swim. And anyone that knows me knows that lack both of these very essential skills.

I'm definitely going to have to conquer these two things if I ever want to get to the point where I want to be with poker. Part of the reason that I don't have a bankroll yet is because I haven't really been making enough working to survive in this town and play at the stakes that I want to. But part of it is also that I have little to no money management or discipline when I do win.

This is something that I've known for a while but never really considered a problem. I've done well enough for myself to afford some simple luxuries and live a pretty comfortable life so far. But in thinking about what I could have or could have done by this point really puts things into perspective.

It's difficult to think about what I'm gonna do with poker at this point since it's already become such a big part of my life and I've already put so much time into it. To this day I really have nothing to show for it, and that's really disappointing and embarrassing considering what others my age have. Of course everyone's situation in life is different, and everyone's opportunities are different, but I really feel like I should've done more with poker by now. My lack of discipline has really been hurting my success.

Luckily time's always on my side.

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This week I've gotten more hits than to this blog than any week since I started tracking it. On Thursday and Friday I got the most hits out of the week, and those turned out to be the two days I didn't write, so hopefully I'm not losing readers thanks to laziness and business. I'm enjoying this thing, so keep on readin!

Until next time.

I'm Comin

I've been pretty tired at home and busy at work all week, but I got a post comin today. Stay tuned, I'm comin I'm promise.

Happy Wednesday

I woke up this morning (late as usual) to a barrage of text messages from all of my single chick friends. "Happy V-day!!" "Happy Valentines Day!!" Why? As far as I'm concerned every one of those text messages should've said "Happy Wednesday!"

Valentine's Day is a holiday for those who are in a relationship, or at least in love if they haven't already given their time to someone unknowingly undeserving of it. Don't get me wrong, cuz I love the "holiday". But this is the first year in a long time I haven't had anyone to take out to dinner or to buy useless shit for, and to tell you the truth, it wasn't really depressing like everyone makes it out to be. It's just another Wednesday.

On this particular Wednesday I actually had a better day than usual. I woke up ten minutes after I was supposed to be at work, and decided to start the day with a different approach.

Usually when my alarm is blaring at me after I make it Sleep four times in a row, I jump out of bed and take a second to try to wake up. I'll find some clothes to throw on, dirty or clean, and if I'm lucky I'll run to the bathroom and give my teeth a quick brush. In my speeding car on my way to work I'll think of which one of the many excuses I have in my EB (excuse book) that I haven't used in a while. When I walk into the office I'll head to my desk and, if I encounter interference, I'll blurt out some unbelievable and repetitive bullshit that no one listens to anyways.

This happens on an almost daily basis, and it really gets annoying. I wanted some fuckin sleep, and it just so happened that not getting enough sleep is an illness, perhaps not on the level that I'm feeling it, but it is an illness nonetheless. So, on this most wonderful of Wednesdays I decided to pick up the phone and call in my instantaneous "sickness". Of course I gave my vow to work on the database from my laptop (which I did!) during this crazy 24-hour flu, and before I even hung up the phone, the world found a way to piss me off.

"Don't you have those brochures that Mike needed for the meeting today?"

Insert large sigh from me here

"Yeah you're right. I'll come drop 'em off right now."

So instead of my master plan allowing me to stay in bed, I actually had to rise up and face the day at my regular early time. I threw on a sweater and headed towards the office and darted back home as fast as I could. I crawled back into bed, of course feeling wide awake at this point.

As I laid there, I finished up Bringing Down the House, which is a great book by the way. It's about the MIT blackjack team and the millions they won. If you're a gambler on any level, this book will grab you by those addictive tendencies and rock your imagination into thinking that you're a professional card counter. It's a fun read for sure.

I did end up going back to sleep until about 2PM after I finished the book, which was exactly what I had been hoping for since the beginning of the day. After eating a bagel and drinking some juice, I saw that The Rock on Cinemax, which just so happens to be one of my favorite movies. The day started turning out to be one of the better days I've had.

After the movie, I made some dinner and couched it for the rest of the night, half working on the database and half playing some low limit online. I didn't put any socks on today. It was the best Wednesday I've had in a long time.

Chumash, Drinking, and Sleeping

On Friday Kirk and Darsky came up, both of them prepped and ready for a weekend of fun. We had made plans to have a home game on Friday night with a couple other friends from Santa Barbara, but instead it was decided that we were all going to Chumash instead.

I took off from work early and Darsky was waiting for me when I returned home to my apartment. Kirk showed up shortly afterwards, and after a little bit of me messin around we finally hit the road and were on our way to play some cards. Joe had already gone up earlier with the other two so we were to meet them there.

When we arrived the poker room was full to the brim, which was a welcome suprise to me. The last couple times I went to Chumash, the poker room was dead and the bastardly bottom-limit games were the only ones running. On this Friday night, however, there were multiple $2-5NL tables going, one of which was started on the very last available table, allowing Darsky and me to get a seat within a short amount of time.

For the better part of the night I was card-dead. I made a questionable move with K-Jo after dropping down to $60 with my first buy-in, and dwindled slowly over the next couple of hours after rebuying.

The tables weren't tough, but I picked up only two or three hands, raised preflop and got moved off on the flop after missing every time. I ended up getting the rest of my second buy in with a straight/flush draw and blanked both.

After Darsky and Kirk ended their sessions up winners we took off to FreeBirds, which is a locally renowned Mexican food place on the campus of UCSB. It's open 24/7, and is filled with as much hot college chick ass as good food. If you've been to UCSB, you've probably heard of it, if you haven't had it, and if you've never been then you will most definitely hear of it on your first visit. It's a spectacular foodly adventure.

The three of us went back to the apartment and readied the table for a four-way game of...yup...Bonedoneskis. Joe was waiting for us and ready to play. Joe, Dar, and I had been waiting to play BD for weeks now. Kirk was only semi-interested in the game, but he was able to scoop the first couple of pots he was in. We started play at 2AM and didn't finish our session until around 8:30AM. Darsky and I both ended up winner in that game (as expected).

On Saturday night we were planning on going out and having a night of drinking to celebrate Kirk's last weekend with us. He's moving out to 29 Palms in a matter of weeks, and this was a great opportunity to hang out with him one more time before he took off.

I slept until around 4PM on Saturday, which was a very welcome retreat to my previous week's sleep schedule. I'd been getting an average of 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night for the two weeks prior and felt pretty exhausted all last week. I got dressed and the three of us headed downtown to get some food.

We tried to hit up Arigato's, but it hadn't opened yet. I had heard of a new sushi place that I hadn't been to yet, so we decided to try to find that place instead. Little did we know that the place was all the way down the street from where I had parked. We finally found it twenty minutes later and had some good sushi with some Kirin.

After that we hit up a pub/bar/restaurant and started drinking the night away. We were able to land a pretty cool waitress, who would later join us in multiple rounds of shots later in the night. We enjoyed multiple rounds of Guinness and shot pool for the entire night. Darsky pretty much handled both Kirk and me on the table, but it was a good game nonetheless. We were able to have a couple blondes join us in pool throughout the night, and we ended up closing out the place. We were having a great time and our waitress had no problem having a good time with our group.

We stayed around for a little bit after the last call, sneaking in a couple rounds with the waitress (Melissa) and security staff of the place. All were fun people and good company, and I can only imagine what awesomely cool drunks we were to them. They eventually got us out of there, though we had to leave without the cute Melissa in tow.

The walk back to the car was wild. The world was spinning around me in multiple directions, and if there had been even two people on the sidewalk while we were walking back, I probably would have gotten lost between them.

It was definitely a good time hangin with these guys, as we'd never really hung out with Kirk too much before, and getting drunk with Darsky is always fun. I got pretty hammered, probably made some phone calls I shouldn't have made, and was quite rowdy when we all came back. Kirk got me in a wristlock, I was yelling for no reason, and for some reason Dar had his pants around his ankles for multiple minutes......

On Sunday I woke up late again. Kirk and Dar had left before I got up, and when I eventually rose out of bed my head felt like it needed to explode. We took a couple shots at the end of our stint that probably would've been best left out for Kirk and me, but Darsky seemed to handle himself like he does.

All in all, besides the massive headache for the entire night on Sunday, it was a great weekend and a lot of fun. I'm sorely bitter right now that I haven't cashed a single session since December. In Vegas last time I was the victim of bad luck and variance, while at Chumash I saw a total of six playable hands the entire session.

I don't know if Darsky and I will make it out to the city of lights this month, but I definitely wanna make it out there in early March. Hopefully by then my luck will turn around. Either that, or I'm hopin to find a good Bonedoneskis game when we go next time.

Cinderelly

As a clever talking mouse once sang in a Disney production: "Cinderelly. Cinderelly. Night and day. It's Cinderelly. Make the fire. Fix the breakfast. Wash the dishes. Do the mopping." He then hands the song over to his female counterparts (notice the plural, he's a pimp): "And the sweeping and the dusting. They always keep her hopping."

That's pretty much how I feel right now. Not like the pimp mouse, but like Cinderella. And not cuz I'm a smokin hot blonde, dammit! It's cuz I'm working too much.

Lately the boss at work is riding me hard.

"Seabiscuit, get in here!"

"Yessir."

"Why isn't this done?! Why isn't that done?!"

"Um...maybe cuz you underpay me for what you expect me to do. And also you have no idea what's involved with what you're asking me to do."

"Well, that's what life is about isn't it? You know life's not fair."

"Yessir."

"So what's the problem?!"

"Um...maybe cuz you underpay me for what you expect me to do. And also you have no idea what's involved with what you're asking me to do."

"You just said that."

"I know. You're still not listening."

"I DON'T CARE GET THE JOB DONE!"

"....Okay...."

And the dilemma continues. The work keeps piling up, and it all is expected to be done yesterday. At this point I'd rather be working in the warehouse, at least those guys have a set job description.

I work for a small company, and am one of three "computer guys" that watch over a system for the entire company, so the work is vast and ambiguous. I fix problems when they come up, I work on databases, I run and edit reports, and I pretty much do whatever needs to be done on any level.

Obviously with that kind of responsibility things will get backed up, and especially when you know more about everything than everyone else, even though the other incompetents get paid more.

Multiple times a day from multiple people I get questioned about why certain things aren't done and what's taking so long to get certain tasks accomplished. Usually my answers vary between "Because it's the hosted network server, it's nothing I can control," and "I would answer your question but instead I'll just tell you that you're a fuckin' idiot and you should probably leave me alone before I give you a wild headbutt."

I work and work and work (and blog...so what??) and get nothing but disrespect. I guess it's the life of an IT guy, but most IT guys get paid twice as much as I do.

I've thought a lot about investing what little extra money I have, but am a lost duck on that subject. Usually when I come home from work the last thing I wanna do is sit and research and work more. I know I should, but I'm lazy. But then again that's the mentality of a poker player, isn't it? More money for less work...the life of a true professional.

Speaking of poker players, Darsky and Kirk are coming up to Santa Barbara tonight. Kirk's moving in a few weeks, so I figured we'd have a home game tonight and go out drinking on State St. tomorrow night. Cards...drunkeness...good times.

Unfortunately our home game has fallen apart, and we've since made plans to go to Chumash instead. It's been a while since I've played there. Last time I went to go play, the $2-5NL was dead, so I ended up +$2,000 at the $25 blackjack tables. WOO!

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<. Insert break for lunch time .>

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I just got back from lunch with the office manager. We ate at the Brew Co. (a nice little micro-brewery around here) and we finished lunch three beers deep. With all the complaining I do about work, it sure is a great place when the boss isn't around...

My check was waiting for me on my scattered desk when I came back. It was laying across the strewn papers, gently placed like a puzzle piece in the center of the four cups of office-brewed coffee I have half-full on my desktop (no Starbucks today either...), and somehow seeing it there in front of me makes the whole terrible work journey worth the every-day brain strain.

Of course this check is all bills, I won't see a single cent of it. But thus is life, and it is even more so Santa Barbara. After getting as much as I do per paycheck and still not being able to keep it, I only start dreaming of moving to Vegas again.

*sigh*

Until next time.

Dazed Days

I didn't get my Starbucks this morning. For the last little while now the highlight of my every day has been going to the green haven to stand in line with the rich schmucks of Montecito to get our morning fill of coffee breath.

The drones in the deep green aprons wear fake smiles and ask all of our names as we take our individual turns approaching the light maple counter. The glass case displaying the oh-so-indulgent pastries stares at me from the right. They're always on the right.

Then I pay, move, and wait. I stand there glancing around the room looking for hot moms in black spandex pants, or just staring straight at the serving counter; it depends on what mood I'm in. Usually I space out for a couple minutes while they prepare my drink. I can see the workers moving fast but I have no idea if they're making my drink or if they're whipping up a million-dollar winner for the suit standing next to me.

They slap a lid on a cup and shove it into the protruding circle. Usually I'm too busy staring at hot mom ass to realize that my coffee's ready. "Chris!" They call for my drink and I come out of my daze. I slide the tall cup into a brown cardboard sleeve and off I go.

When I walk out the door and to my car I can't help but feel saddened by the fact that I have to leave the modern furniture and light brown walls of Starbucks only to sit in an uncomfortable office chair and uselessly stare at a computer screen all day. I know the Green Smiles don't care about me, but they act like they do. Am I really that shallow that I feel good when people pretend to care? I must be. Everyone else is. Maybe that's what keeps me comin back. Or maybe it's my addiction to caffeine.

I'm usually late when I do this because I wake up on time for work but I have some crazy notion that if you're not late to work then you're not cool. They'll yell at me in another month, and I'll nod and say "Yup," and keep on being late. It's in my blood.

Today I decided to forgo the freshly ground heaven and actually come in to work on time. I look pretty haggard, and it's because I haven't really woken up yet, even though the sun is almost at its peak height of the day. I poured myself a cup of office-brewed coffee, but it's no good.

I'm sitting here staring at the white nebula that's formed on the top of the cold dark brown liquid. I don't wanna drink this shit, no one's given me a forced smile to do so, or tried to pretend like they love my very existence in this world. This sludge just came lifelessly out of a machine made only to get the job done and nothing else. I'm gonna go pour it out and hope I learned my lesson.

The Shins "Sea Legs" is playing loudly on my computer. It's gets to me to thinking about how people survive without Starbucks. But then again, there's one on literally every corner, so I guess they don't. Am I the only one who didn't go today?

Tomorrow I'm gonna have to order two drinks to make up for today's loss. That is if I make it to tomorrow. I miss my Green Friends. Hopefully they'll forgive me for what I've done.

Paullywood Park

On Friday we had Uncle Paul's game, whose house has been dubbed Paullywood Park due to Paul's affection for the Hollywood Park Casino. For a couple years now we've had this tourney every month, ranging in occurrence from once a month to every other week, with buy-ins ranging from $20 to $100.

I started my poker playing in this game, and won the first tourney the first time I played it. I took my first paycheck ever to this game and ended up winner. I had never played before and thought K-5 was the coolest hand ever, and damn was I right! I must've hit that hand seven times that night.

After that game I started learning everything I could about the game. I started off reading some donk books, and eventually started playing at Chumash, which is 18 years+, every chance I got. Over the years I had become a waiter and fell into a wonderful world of tip money. I would take off every night after work at 10PM, talk to Becca on the phone while making the half-hour drive, and play the $2-4 for hours before going home and skipping out on high school in the morning.

I moved up through the $3-6, $4-8, and $6-12 before switching over to the $2-5NL game since the limit games were dying fast and hard. Throughout all that play and all this time Paul's game became seemingly more miniscule and, frankly, annoying. The attendance topped at 40 and dipped to nine players at one point.

The more players there were the worse the play was, and some of the players were just terrible. Every player there was under my level and it seemed more like a waste of money than anything else. The payouts were becoming too small and the players just made me frustrated with their obliviousness to the simple understanding of the game. There's been increasingly less to be excited about with the game, and over time it's turned into me just going to hang out with a couple of the good crowd and dealing more than playing poker.

This year, though, Paul came up with a schedule and a wannabe "league", complete with a point system and a TOC. I missed the first game of the year, but was able to jump in this weekend. When I arrived, Pauly explained to me that I'd be dealing the whole time while playing, and dealing the FT if I didn't make it.

We started the tourney with 30 players buying in for $30 a pop. I ended up chipping away early and played pretty solidly. I got sucked out on and sucked back early on, and was able to take a standard stack to the FT. I doubled up and saw the final five, all of us making points. I took fourth and third place out with my AK vs KQ and AQ.

Heads up lasted about twelve minutes and I finished first taking $342 and five points. It's been a while since I've won the thing, so my interest in Pauly's game is sparked again for sure. He's also running a $20 rebuy tourney every third game, the first of which falls next time, so that'll be somethin I'll be lookin forward to also.

After the first tourney we played another one with half the players, and I lost a flip when I shoved A6s and got called by KQ. Darsky and I started a heads up game of Bonedoneskis, and we got one brave soul that tried to learn the game for a little bit. I ended up taking a small profit there before the night ended.

On Sunday I took to my dad's house for the Super Bowl where a bunch of family and friends met up. My squares turned out like crap and I ended up blankin those. I didn't place a bet on the SB either, but I was going to take Indy and the under at 48 so I woulda scooped that one if I manned up. Oh well. That'll teach me.

Until next time.

Super Bowl Sunday

Wow Indy is sucking hard so far. Chicago returns the opening kickoff for a touchdown. Chicago then tips Indy's first pass, drops the first interception option, then picks it off later in the first drive. I thought the Colts were lookin good, but apparently not. Vegas lines don't know what they're talking about.

My squares came out looking like hell too. More updates later.

Rethoughts

At the beginning of December Darsky and I decided to make a trip to Vegas for one weekend a month for every month of this year. We hadn't really thought about where we were gonna stay or anything, we just planned on finding a room and playing through the weekend with briefs stints of sleep and food in between.

It seemed like a great idea then, and still sounds like a mind-blowingly brilliant idea now, but it seems a little bit more unrealistic than it did last month. It could just be my decimated self-esteem and my unwillingness to accept the fact that I might not be as good as I think I am, but thinking will do that sometimes.

I was ready to move out to Vegas in September and just get a job (hopefully as a poker dealer) because I was tired of the shitty work I was doing, and I hadn't had it in mind to go back to school. But in October things in the office changed and I got a big promotion, with much more promised in the year to come. Obviously with all the ass-kissing I couldn't leave then, and practically locked myself into the position I'm in now.

I got an instant raise to 80% more than what I was making, and could finally survive in this town. I was finally able to save money and spend money at the same time.

In December, after experiencing a pretty shitty birthday, I went to Vegas with a couple buddies and had an awesome time. I ended up winning on the weekend, and coming back to a home full of paid bills, a waiting paycheck, and a small amount of cash to grind out.

At that point I was on top of the world so I decided to take my newfound fortune and spend it. Haha, great choice? I ended up buying a new camera, a new car, and eventually a laptop. I spent a lot of money on stuff for my apartment (which hasn't actually ended yet), and a useless brief relationship with a girl.

Then it was time to gamble and squander my physical health away on the strip again last weekend, which is something I've been craving since I left in December. When we were there I got handled by the devilish, filth-ridden, fucktards at the small limit LHE tables, and got unlucky against the non-players at the $2-5NL tables. While I admit to making a couple of bad plays, for the most part I was unlucky in all the worst situations.

I took a couple small wins from the casinos, but overall ended the trip down $1,600 in poker. Obviously $1,600 isn't nearly enough bank to play $2-5NL, but it should've been enough to make something happen, even if on the smallest of levels. Unfortunately, I didn't cash a single session the entire four-day trip.

So I returned home unsatisfied, this time to a home full of unpaid bills, and the extra burden of paying off $22,000 in monthly payments that I acquired in the previous month alone.

Today, after writing a check for $1,300 to pay part of my bills for the month, I got to wondering how I'm gonna be able to mentally handle the financial aspect of the monthly trips.

I've always hated the thought of being short on cash, and thanks to my ultimate willingness to spend countless amounts of money, I find myself in that exact position. I'll never be in a position where I have to borrow money to survive (again...). I was in that place once, and it's a time that I'll never forget. Every day you have to think about how much you owe what person, and it really messes with your head. Every extra dollar you have isn't actually yours, and every minute that passes while you sit in your room not spending someone else's money is another minute that you get to think about how you came to be in such a pathetic state.

I'll also never be in a position where I'm scraping rock bottom in order to eat every day. But at the same time being where I am now is sort of making me think. I live in one of the most expensive cities in the US, which doesn't really help either. The rent's more expensive, the food's more expensive, and the activities are more expensive than anywhere else I've lived before.

The majority of the population of Santa Barbara is either millionaires or homeless, with a small amount of people living semi-comfortably, which is exactly where I am even though I'm making more with this job than I ever have before.

Also, hidden in the back of my thought process is the fact that I'm getting two raises this year, the total of which equal 20% of my current salary. That brings two more thoughts into my head. I could either go every month starting this year and get backed while I rebuild my personal bank, or I could wait for the every month plan until next year when I'll have a little more cash to play with.

I love Vegas with a fiery passion. I love the lights, I love the fact that you're SUPPOSED to wake up at 6PM instead of 6AM, I love the food, and I love the environment. But I have time on my side. Being as young as I am really puts a tough crunch on things. I KNOW that I have a long time ahead of me and that I'm ahead of a lot of people in my age bracket, but I'm not a patient man.

Of course the fact that I'm so young is also relaying to me that I could go out to Vegas and hump a crappy job for a little bit and pay a third of the rent that I'm paying out here until I get a little stash going and can play full time. If it didn't work out, at least I'd have time to start a life somewhere else.

Blah...my brain is all over the place. Decisions, decisions. All this back and forth thinking is making me...hungry? I'm gonna go eat.