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Finished Just In Time For Classes Today

2011-06-13T10:59:00.001-05:00

I set myself up a nice little project late last week through the weekend, though I just finished up this morning. I decided to repartition my hard drives, reorganize my Users and Program Files and do a Windows reinstall. I can’t figure out for the life of me why Microsoft makes it so damn difficult to move the User directories, Program Files, and ProgramData to different partitions/hard drives.

Anyways, pretty much most of Thursday was spent planning and partitioning my drive. I actually used Ubuntu flavored Linux and Gparted for the partitioning. While it may be a bit on the slow side, it does an excellent job for partitioning and resizing.

Friday was a day for the Windows 7 reinstall, getting all of the updates, and trying to get everything moved to their new home. To get everything moved, I used the command line robocopy to get a copy of everything in its new home. Actually, the first time I tried to copy the User directory I had forgotten to use the /R: and the /W: to limit the number of Retries and to reset the Wait time between retries for files that were in-use at the time. I set the number of retries to five and reduced the wait to 10 seconds. Those setting worked out pretty well.

After that it was into the registry to change the “Default” locations. I put default in quotes because any program that gets installed, or keeps files/data in either the ProgramData or User folders should look to the registry for the default locations. Sadly, most of them are hard coded to go to C:\Folder. What this means is that if you install a program and you have moved your Program Files to D:\, about half of your programs (if you are lucky) will install to D:\Program Files automatically, the rest will try to install to C:\Program Files and you will have to make the change manually.

I know from previous experience what this results in. Months later you go to install a new program, it defaults to C:\Folder, you forget to make the change, and now you have Program Files, ProgramData, and possibly even new User folders on your C:\ drive. Now try getting that mess together the next time you want to reinstall or Windows 8 comes out.

Enter symbolic links to save the day. Using the command line to set up a junction to the directory, you can fool programs into using the proper folders. The command looks like this:

mklink /J “C:\Folder” “D:\Folder”

What this does is put what is essentially a shortcut on C:\ to your D:\Folder. So on your C:\ drive you have C:\Folder which is nothing more than a shortcut to D:\Folder. This makes life much easier as now everything can look to the C:\ drive (if it wishes) and will be redirected automatically to the correct location.

Of course, if it were only actually that easy, right? In order to set up the symbolic links, the folders can only exist in one place. So after you copy your User, Program Files, and ProgramData directories to their new home, you have to delete the original folders before the links can be made. Let me tell you that ProgramData folder was a pain. There were two offending programs that did not look to the registry, but went automatically to C:\ProgramData. Those two programs were my VLC player and Microsoft Security Essentials. I would call MSE the worst offender, as it was not obvious what the offending program actually was (it took me awhile to track down that it was actually MSE that was writing to these folders).

However, once I tracked down which programs were causing my headaches, all I had to do was uninstall them, delete the C:\ProgramData folder, create the symbolic links, then reinstall the programs. All in all, it was not that bad a way to spend the weekend.

So Very Sad

2011-04-20T00:53:00.001-05:00

Well it seems that today Elizabeth Sladen passed away. She played the role of Sarah Jane Smith on Doctor Who in the mid 1970’s , made a reprise of the role in (I think) 2006 in the new Doctor Who along side David Tennant. Not long after that, CBBC started a new series called the Sarah Jane Adventures, and if I understand everything correctly, the most current season is airing now.

I can remember when I was a kid sneaking up late at night (past 11pm) to watch Star Trek, and the occasional Doctor Who (by the time it came on I was pretty much ready to sleep). Where we were living at the time, let’s just say Sci-Fi was not something you would ever see during the regular hours. So all I got to see where the Doctor Whos that were in syndication, and broadcast late at night.

At the time, the episodes were shown in a fairly randomized way. As such I saw many Doctors, but without the background, made it hard to follow. But I did see Sarah James with at least two of them, so she grounded my Doctor Who experience. So while most people remember their first Doctor (mine was either Tertwee or Baker, not sure) I do remember my first companion, Elizabeth Sladen, Sarah Jane.

Better than expected

2011-03-30T00:16:00.001-05:00

Things went much better than I ever expected at the anti-bullying session I taught this morning at the Stephen Bull Fine Arts Elementary School today. A huge thank you to Ms. Orlando who both invited me there for their program, and for also keeping a pulse on the group and raising her hand to ask pointed questions to help keep me on track with the time. She really helped me to change the aspects of my talk regularly as I was addressing the questions of the students.

As I may have mentioned previously, the little ones cause me terror. Ask me not why, they just do. During the first session with the K-2nd graders, I was sweating bullets. I got the talk going, engaged them, and there were so many hands going up asking questions or telling what bullying is and even offering suggestions what someone could do if someone was being bullied. I was amazed by how attentive they were and by how much they wanted to contribute to the session.

During the ten minutes or so between sessions, Ms. Orlando gave me a couple of suggestions for the older group, and changed her prompts accordingly, an off we went. With this group, I wish I had an hour longer. When I was their age is really when I got picked on (3-5) and it only got worse from there. It was in this group that I got a most unexpected surprise.

After I gave my talk on how to ‘diffuse’ a bullying situation one girl raised her hand and said, “ When someone is being picked on I can say ‘That’s not funny’, grab their arm and walk away.” I can tell you I almost shed a tear at that moment, because a young girl in the fourth or fifth grade taught me a most profound lesson. I had never even considered that simple yet profound act.

To have been schooled by such a young one teaches that our adult minds can get lost in the complexity of a simple situation. At times it takes a young, somewhat uncluttered mind, to remind the adults to see through all the b.s. and get to what is important, just help someone in need. Thank you young lady in the ‘Hello Kitty’ tee.

To all of the teachers out there, all I can say is wow, I don’t know how you do it every day. This was my first time with the young ones, but wow, that was a lot of energy to even attempt to keep on any type of focus. To all teachers out there, I bow to you, your task is both a difficult and under appreciated one.

What a day!!

2011-03-17T18:52:00.001-05:00

At the start of my day, I fear I did not have my eye on the clock. I was supposed to meet Lynn to fill out some paperwork before I headed on up to school to get my books. Oh yeah, I am back in school for the first time in twenty something years. So I rescheduled that until I got back from school.

While at school, I got a phone call. For an interview. With an actual person. From a phone interview I had done. Four months ago. In four hours. When I am at school 30 minutes from home. And need to drop off paperwork that still need to be picked up and returned the same day. And remember what the job actually is. And print up copies of the resume.

If I do not get this job, I really do not know what I will do. Well, that is not true. I could shoot a pen of insulin and pass unaware, or I could grab my gun and do it quick (if messy). Sadly, such things are not my way. I can only fantasize about them

With luck, when classes start on Monday, I will be focused enough that the job will drift to the back of the mind. Who knows, if I keep telling myself that I may well work for an hour or two!

Oh the Terror

2011-03-07T21:02:00.001-06:00

It is really starting to sink in. Awhile ago I agreed to teach a couple of seminars on Bullying at one of our local schools. I am finding myself getting more nervous and apprehensive as the date slowly approaches.

Now I have done my share of teaching in the past. I’ve taught martial arts to people from sixteen to sixty. I went cross country in 1999 for software replacement and was one of the instructors for all of the sales reps with the new software. So while I may get a bit nervous just before, once I get going I am just fine.

But this one is different. This time it is a Bullying seminar, for children. Grades K-5. Since I am not a kid person, it is starting to sink in. It’s been a long time since I have had stage-fright, so this will be interesting.

I’ve already gone over my presentation with one of the teachers from the school, and as far as she is concerned, it is splendid. She gave me a few notes and some suggestions of things I can throw in at the end, personal recollections from when I was bullied when I was their age, how years later, in-part due to the bullying, how I got into martial arts, and that I have never hit a person (well never hit someone outside of the dojo, lol) despite all of my training.

So while this event has me as nervous as the first time I was four on one in the dojo, I am looking forward to it as well so I can get past this fear in my head. It’s kind of funny that it’s a bunch of knee high kids that is one of my greatest fears.

So as of now, there is only one thing that can make me feel better…Soft Kitty.

Nothing like…

2011-02-18T13:30:00.002-06:00

The smell of the house after you roast some coffee. For those of you who do not roast your own coffee, it is an interesting process. Coffee starts out as green beans, kind of a dark olive green. During the early part of the roasting cycle, the scent is similar to fresh cut grass. As the roasting continues, the beans turn yellowish, not bright, but pale and muted, with not much of a change in scent. As it continues, the beans begin to brown, at which point the beans develop a chocolaty and nutty scent. As they continue to roast and become more/darker brown, they take on the scent of brownies cooking in the oven. Then, as they hit the coffee stage as we know it, you get an actual coffee scent.

The aroma is wonderful, the mix of nutty/chocolaty/coffee goodness that lasts for days. And fortunately for me, I do very small batches so every three days or I get to roast more. I feel sorry for the rest of you!

My current batch is some Costa Rican San Marcos that I have from Burman Coffee Traders, where I get all of my coffee. If you roast your own you should check them out. They give a review for their coffees, they have excellent prices, and if you live somewhat close by the shipping can’t be beat!

Getting back to, well, everything…

2011-02-17T22:56:00.001-06:00

I have been a bit down as of late, as well may be obvious from my lack of posts over the past year or so. I have also noticed a pattern to my behavior that has been repeating once again. As I get down, I tend to withdraw and stop doing things I enjoy. Such things, of course, only feed the cycle.

So as of now, I am trying to break that cycle. I have gone so far as to pin my blog writer to my Start Menu, so at least it has presence, and with luck, I will begin to hit it more often.

There are many things that I have enjoyed that I have let slip. Heck, just about everything. My Aikido is almost nonexistent at this time. My Zen time is once a week and that is not even on a cushion. My poker has been far reduced, much too reduced for a game I enjoy so much. Lastly, I was one of the top 10 posters to the How To Geek forums once upon a time.

I recently started to play more of the Poker Stars 50/50 games. They are nice Sit-an-Go’s if you do not want to spend too much time (or have other things to do but still want to play) on a game. I like them better than the Double or Nothing games (that are now being eliminated), because it adds a bit of depth to the game. Now players are not just trying to make it to the top 50%, they also want to have the highest chip percentage to increase their win amount. It does change the play dynamics of the game (relative to the Double or Nothing format).

I have also begun to post to the forums again at How to Geek. I must admit that I have not been keeping myself as up-to-date on current technology as I used to, but damn, it feels good to be helping people in the forums again, so there is some incentive to start keeping up on technology again.

The ‘difficult’ ones are getting back into both Aikido and Zen. In Aikido, all I need to do is get suited up and be prepared to have my ass slammed six inches into the mat. It’s easy. In Zen, all I need to do is get suited up and sit on a cushion until it sinks six inches into it. It’s easy. But as ‘they’ say, Mind Makes; and mine just will not shut up long enough for me to do the simple things, such as to step on the mat or enter the dharma room. So sad for something so simple.

But now some of ‘they’ have seen it, so now I have to act…To be continued….

On PokerStars 50/50 Low-Limit Perspective…

2011-02-16T15:54:00.001-06:00

It seems that it’s been 18 years or so since I have posted here. If anyone still reads this, particularly poker people, here is a low-limit perspective of PokerStars 50/50 games.

Most of the poker players I have played with are well above what I can do. My very first game was a WWdN game that was a charity event, but led to the WWdN series on Stars.

Eventually that game died off and The Mookie evolved on FullTilt. It is now The Mookie/Dank, and will eventually become The Dank. Many thanks to BuddyDank, Joannda, and everyone else who has put forth their effort to keep this game going.

Anyhow, where was I, oh yes, low limit Stars 50/50 games. I doubt I spend more than 10 hours a month playing poker. I am a recreational player, but not one who does not study or pay attention.

Rather recently, I started playing some of the PokerStars 50/50 games, and all I can say, is that if you have a bit of knowledge of position, cards relative to position, and a fair conception of the math, you can do well.

More often than not, I am in the top two of these games. If you have a decent understanding of the game, do not want to spend hours and hours (hopefully) in a tourney or ring game, but want some experience, this may be a decent place to start.

I think I like this format better than the previous Double or Nothing. In the old format, as soon as 1/2 were gone you doubled up. Now, once 1/2 are gone, you recover your buy-in, and the rest is based on your stack. For me, that has always worked out to my benefit.

Who knows, maybe one day I may actually be a name of note at the Mookie/Dank!!

Miss you Noriko

2009-12-11T11:03:00.001-06:00

At about 8:50 this morning, Nori passed away due to congenital heart failure. She started showing symptoms late Wednesday evening (heavy/difficulty breathing), so when she was still showing signs Thursday morning, I made an appointment at the vet for Friday morning at 9:30 am to see what we could do for her. Well she got worse Thursday night, so Elaine and I slept on the floor by her while she slept under the tree, which we kept lit for her.

She woke us up this morning around 6:00 am crying a cry I hadn’t heard from her before, so it was obvious things were not good. I left her with Elaine while I went to go put gas in the car, and to get the car at least a bit warm so it wouldn’t take too long later on. It was quite something. Yesterday I was thinking the vet trip would be to see if we could give here something to keep her comfortable and doing ok. By late last night, I was figuring I would have to be bringing her in to have her put to sleep. Early this morning, I found myself facing the fact that I would be having to say goodbye.

At around 8:45 I went out to start the car and get it warmed up. A bit earlier, I had set up the carrier, just the bottom half with a blanket in it so it would be easier to move her. At around 8:50 I picked her up and moved her to the carrier. When I picked her up she started crying again. I put her in the carrier and tucked her in. She stretched out and her breathing became quite shallow. I knew what was happening and I stroked her head as she passed.

Since she had to go, I’m glad that she passed at home. It did happen very quick, as of Tuesday she was ripping around the house and having a good old time on the TurboScratcher. In the early spring after the ground thaws her ashes will join Hashiimoto’s in the garden at the Zen Center. One of these days, I’ll be with them there too…

Return of the Hakama

2009-11-25T23:24:00.001-06:00

Well, as of yesterday, I finally put on a hakama and wore my rank for the first time since my return to Aikido. After being away from the mat for years, I figured it would be best for me to return as a white belt until I felt comfortable with my technique, still some rust there, but I felt good enough to put the rank back on. Everyone at the Kenosha Aikikai has been awesome and patient with me getting back into the swing of things. With several of the upper ranks making hints that it would be fine by them to put the rank back on, I placed the order for the new hakama and belt and then got down to business.

One thing that I did just so I could have some fun was that I did not tell Elaine that I had gotten my hakama and belt. If fact, she did not notice it until Miller Sensei mentioned the fact that there was a ‘new’ black belt on the mat. It should help with some confusion on the mat, some of the actual white belts did not know that I was a black belt, so they did not understand why I was doing things so well while they were having so much trouble. Now of course, it will be reversed to “Isn’t this guy a black belt? Why is he having so much trouble with this technique!!”

To be honest, it felt good, really good, to be wearing that stuff again. This was also the first time I really took more time with the beginners I was working with to help them with their technique. That’s not to say that I was not helping before, but since I was not wearing my rank, I only really helped with the gross errors and would call over Sensei to help with the finer points. Kind of funny how things get ingrained, tie a different colored piece of cloth around your waist and change how you interact with others around you. At least the Zen training helped to keep Ego at bay and allowed me to focus on helping, but it was still there and will be for awhile—more training is necessary.

One Last Reminder…

2009-10-23T12:47:00.001-05:00

This Saturday (tomorrow actually) October 24th is the all day class at the Original Root Zen Center up in Racine. The class is being taught by our Master Teachers Tony & Linda Somlai and will run from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm. This is actually a somewhat uncommon approach to how classes are done up in the Zen Center, typically, a class like this would be a total of four two-hour classes done one per week for four weeks. I kind of like this format because my mother has wanted to check out some of this Zen stuff, and having to come up from Grayslake, a day trip works much better for her.

Now, of course, the real issue for Saturdays class is brewing. Which coffee to roast and bring to class? So far the Guatemalan has a slight edge over the Indonesian, with the stuff from Panama still sitting on the shelf. Sadly, I can’t wait too much longer for results, as I need to getting it roasting within the hour to give it a minimum set-up time. At least most of the votes thus far are for my favorite coffee of the mix, though one of the Indonesians is very nice and gave me a bit of a surprise.

Image property of Linda Somlai, used and modified with her permission.

Finding Peace in a Time of Chaos and Uncertainty: Intensive Peace Workshop

2009-10-16T11:55:00.001-05:00

Coming soon (Saturday, October 24th) to a Zen Center near you (Original Root Zen Center) Master Teachers Tony and Linda Somlai will be holding a class based on Tony’s book, Peace Vigil: Living Without Hesitation. This will be a one day class that will help us realize things that we can all do in our day-to-day lives to bring peace to people, places, and situations around us through our actions.

Master Teachers Linda and Tony Somlai will lead a one-day workshop, "Finding Peace in a Time of Chaos and Uncertainty: Intensive Peace Workshop Retreat" on Oct. 24 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Original Root Zen Center in Racine, Wisconsin. The workshop will cost $75 and includes lunch, break treats, a copy of Tony Somlai’s book, Peace Vigil and learning materials.
The Master Teachers, who have each taught contemplative peace practices for more than 30 years, start with this simple teaching: Peace is not a big idea. Peace is like a small pebble dropped into a suffering pond; the waves will touch all beings. The Peace Retreat Workshop is intended to provide participants with concrete skills they can use in their everyday lives to help themselves and others. The key elements of the retreat are broadly based on basic Buddhist principals of non-violence, peaceful coexistence, and loving-kindness. What makes the workshop unique is that the theory and skills are based on action and active ways of responding to the problems we are facing today.
ORZC is located on the historic DeKoven Center campus on Lake Michigan in Racine. Overnight accomodations are available. Single rooms are $55 per night; double rooms are $60.
If you are interested in class, please contact Dustin Block at: dustin.block@gmail.com or (262) 488-3419.

So stop on by if you can, it will be an excellent class, and I can vouch for the coffee that will be served!!

And a Fun Time…

2009-10-14T12:20:00.001-05:00

Well I can say that Elaine and I had a great time at Aikido on Saturday and Tuesday. Saturday was a bit on the slow side for me, as we were in class two of a beginners class, and most of the more advance people were helping the two (I think it’s just two) who have a test coming up at the end of the month. So I pretty much just played with all the new people for the class. That was probably a good thing as it let me (make that forced me) to pay attention to some of the subtle differences that exist between our schools. I get the feeling that is going to be the most difficult aspect for me, blending the two styles together so I can still feel comfortable doing the techniques while not messing up my partner by doing things a bit different.

Tuesday night was much more fun for me. I had plenty of time with the upper ranks, so it gave me a chance to work on my technique, and realize I still need to get my ukemi back up to par. I have to admit, it makes me anxious to put back on my rank and hakama, but I told my self that I would not until I was taking break falls from shihonage and kotegaeshi. Well, that and I need to order replacements. All those years in storage did not serve them well.

I did remember one very important fact, at least important to me. I managed to remember how easy it is that my poor little toe breaks. That’s right, two classes into my triumphant return to Aikido, and I have already broken a toe. Ah, well, note to self, Carlos has pointy hips so use caution when kicking him. With some luck, it will not be too bad on Saturday, and with it being a weapons day, hopefully no need for suwariwaza.

As for tonight, we have some chanting and some sitting. The walking meditation should be fun! In fact, the sitting may be fun too, I’ll know by the end of chanting if I will be needing a chair for tonight's session. Excited for Elaine this coming Monday as she will be giving her first Dharma talk. I already have the basic subject of mine the following week floating around in my head. Odds are something new will replace it by the time we get there, but still it’s nice to have a subject so early. I usually feel I have it good if I have the subject two hours before I’m to give the talk, so this is something new for me!!

The Return to Aikido

2009-10-09T13:23:00.001-05:00

Well, after seven long years, I’m finally making my return to the mat. I wish I could have gone last night, but alas, I had a meeting to run, not that it was a bad thing, it was a pretty good meeting last night. But back to the subject at hand. As of Saturday, I will be joining up with the Kenosha Aikikai and be practicing Aikido for the first time in waaaay to long. Not only that, but my sweetie Elaine will be joining me as she starts Aikido for the first time. Poor thing, since she has been with me I have managed to get her into Aikido, Zen Buddhism, and cats. Which reminds me, I have much fur to vacuum up off of the floor…

Elaine is quite excited to taking Aikido with me. I am excited to be getting back into it and having a girlfriend actually joining me in it. That means no nagging about me being off training several times a week. My main concern (other than endurance) is my ukemi skills. The actual techniques I have been practicing in my head all these years, so I think the body will remember the motions pretty quickly. The basic ukemi; forward, back, break-falls, I am not worried about, it’s more the advanced falls from kotegaeshi and shihonage that will take some time to get back. We will find out for sure on Saturday, expect an update sometime after class ;-)

I’ve also managed to get Elaine to sign-up to give her first Dharma Talk at Zen in about a week and a half. That’s right, on Monday, October 19th 2009 at 7:00 PM your are invited to hear her give her first talk at the Original Root Zen Center. I am excited for her, it will be a good learning experience for her. Of course, she insisted that I give one on the following Monday, so I obliged and took the spot. You can also catch me there on Wednesday nights, typically on the bell at 6:30 PM with the Evening Bell Chant to begin the evenings chanting session before meditation at 7:00 PM.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll be sure to put something up about Aikido this weekend, Monday at the latest (depending upon how busy this weekend turns out to be). As for now, I’m gonna roast some coffee. I think a nice Full City roast on some Guatemalan Antigua Los Volcanes. Guatemalan Antigua coffees are still my favorite, try some today!!

Opening the Earths Eye Retreat

2009-09-25T11:49:00.001-05:00

Got back yesterday from the Zen Retreat up in Sand Bay, WI. Let me just say, this has got to be one of the most difficult retreats anywhere. I mean, look where they had us staying! I mean really, how can anyone expect to relax and get into the retreat mood in a place like this?

But seriously, it was a truly wonderful time. The weather was perfect, low 70’s during the day, mid 50’s for the early morning and evenings. The sunrise over the bay was incredible, probably a good thing that morning bows were kept until after full sunrise to keep us all from staring at the sunrise rather then brining our attention to our bows, chanting, and meditation in the morning.

Saturday afternoon we had a coffee tasting of the four coffees I am preparing for sale at Compassion Fest on Sunday, October 4th. You will want to be there for everything that will be going on, plus you will want to buy a bag of coffee or two. Two regular coffees and two decafs, so there is something for everyone. Just for fun, I will have the ‘Professional’ reviews of the coffees, as well as the ‘Man on the Street’ reviews of them.

It really was a wonderful trip, and the first time for me to attend this retreat. As a result of hearing so many wonderful things about it, I was quite looking forward to go. As a bonus, it also served as my and Elaine’s first vacation together. I for one, can’t think of a better group to share the experience with.

Now back to roasting coffee for next weekend!!

Memories….

2009-09-17T11:28:00.001-05:00

“Space……The Final Frontier, these are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, it’s continuing mission, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before…” start Star Trek: The Next Generation theme music.

For those of you who have been fans of the Star Trek franchise, and in particular to those of you who loved ST:TNG, Wil Wheaton, the infamous Wesley Crusher, has been putting together a Star Trek book called Memories of the Future. For those of you who are not aware, Wil has done a good deal of voice acting on various animate shows, and most recently has had characters in the shows Criminal Minds “Paradise” and Leverage “The Two Live Crew Job” (not to mention a NUMB3RS episode a few years ago). Other than that, he is prolific blogger and writer. Well, a prolific blogger and becoming prolific on the writing front.

To that end, it seems Wil has picked up on a project he started years ago for the TV Squad blog and didn’t get a chance to finish due to their budget getting cut. Very soon now you will be able to pick up a copy of his first Star Trek book titled Memories of the Future: Volume One. Volumes one and two will cover the first season of the show (presumably, that is as far as he wrote/started his notes) with future volumes to follow the same general structure.

I read the reviews he did way back when, and let me tell you, they are hilarious. Here was Wil’s Christmas present to us in 2006, his review of ST:TNG’s “Justice.” This review had me cracking up for days. Here is a quick little snippet from the review.

After beaming down to the planet, the away team quickly learn three important facts:

The planet's inhabitants, called the Edo, like to jog everywhere.

They are all beautiful blond models, possibly descended from some sort of Maxim/FHM breeding program in the late 22nd century.

The entire planet is clothed in about 6 yards of fabric.

The Edo's leaders jog up and meet the away team, greeting them in the traditional Edo manner: lingering glances and inappropriately long hugs. Troi says, "I'm sensing a lot of boners, Commander."

The general format for the reviews is:

Synopsis: A very snarky take on the episode, with many points that may not have been obvious, along with personal comments and observations.

Quotable Dialogue: Pretty obvious.

Obligatory Technobabble: Also obvious.

Behind the Scenes Memory: Here you can learn how it was for him on the sets. Interesting bits on things were shot, how things came together, etc. Also many a great comment on working with the other actors on the show and guests for the episodes. This is the serious and sincere section.

The Bottom Line: Here we find out where the parts that worked were discovered and carried on, and the many, many things that did not work and would (eventually) be left in the bin.

It is important to keep in mind just how silly much of the first two or three seasons were. Personally, when I go back and watch the old ones, I am amazed that the show managed to stay on-air past the first two seasons. I’m sure we are all glad that it did, as it finally began to find its footing in season three and became the Star Trek that we all know and love.

So if you are a ST:TNG fan, read that entire review for Justice to get a taste of what will be coming in the books.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!!!

2009-08-18T23:18:00.002-05:00

This Sunday, Master Teacher Anton (Tony) Somlai will be holding a book signing at Sheepish in Racine. Both he and his wife, Master Teacher Linda Somlai will be doing readings from his book, Peace Vigil: Living Without Hesitation, and following it up with taking questions. This book takes the unique approach of helping us look at our own daily lives and apply it teachings to bring peace into your life and with whom you interact. The goal of the book is not ‘world peace’ per se, but rather peace with your family, your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, your colleagues. After all, how can we hope to bring peace to the world if we can’t even bring it to our homes, our jobs, or our neighborhoods?

Map to Sheepish

Think I’m Gonna Be a Little Sick

2009-08-18T22:52:00.001-05:00

I learned recently that Elaine has not read either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. For me, this is a cardinal sin that must be corrected (I love The Silmarillion as well, but it tends to be a tough first read). One day I will take her up to Marquette to view the original Tolkien manuscripts in all their glory.

So as I am getting my books together, I look at my Millennium Edition of The Lord of the Rings, published as seven books. If you are unaware, The Lord of the Rings is Six books plus an index, traditionally published as three volumes (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King). Well, as it turns out I was doing my traditional annual autumn/winter reading of the books (been a tradition of mine since I was 13) when I helped rescue a lost puppy. During that time, she got a hold of book two and used it as a chew toy. The corners are all mangled and four pages midway through had about a quarter of their pages torn out. Well, since I want my girlfriend to read a good copy without any words missing I looked up the replacement on the set.

As it turns out, this particular edition (which cost me $50 at the time) is currently going for anywhere between $150 and $600. I nearly puked when I saw that. At least now we know that she is the $600 dollar stray. Would I do it again had I known the outcome, well, yes, in a heartbeat. She is a great dog (now lol). I can get a replacement seven book set, soft cover from the UK for about US$60-ish with shipping, so not too bad after all. Takes me back to the grad-school days when one of the roomies dogs though my brand new Molecular Evolution textbook was a chew toy, two days before classes started.

Keep your eyes peeled here folks. It seems that dogs only eat my books if their current or future value is at least US$100. The next time a book is used as a chew toy, the book, edition, publisher, and other pertinent information will be published here first. You can then check your inventory and see if you want to seal it up an maximize its condition to maximize its resale value!

Saturday Morning, With Special Teaching by Henry

2009-07-28T17:15:00.001-05:00

Janine and Scot frequently bring Henry, their son, with them to Zen. Henry is about 18 months old now, so he loves to run around, pick stuff up, and make lots of sounds including his limited vocabulary. During the past few weeks, he has shown that he is pretty good with a moktak, and keeps the beat pretty good with the chanting, odds are he will be the first three year old moktak master at ORZC.

At the end of chanting and meditation on Saturdays, there is a reading from one of several books. On this particular Saturday, the reading was taken from Master Teacher Tony Somlai’s book PEACE Vigil: Living Without Hesitation from Dragon Mountain Press.

Peace

Teaching peace to our children

and each other

is the purest form of love.

There are many ways to bring peace to the community – pick one.

Teaching peace has an infinite number of conduits. It can be in a classroom setting or at a picnic. It can appear in a scholarly journal or at a slam poetry contest. You can teach peace while cooking or cleaning the house. If your life is peace, every moment is an opportunity to teach peace. The generosity of teaching peace helps build a cultural norm that “peace” is not a naive or antisocial activity. If peace is to be sustainable and of service to the next generation, we need effective and gentle methods to educate each other.

Childlike: My goodness, we have become crusty and cynical as adults. We have been fighting wars for so long that we have forgotten what it is like to be a child. We have repressed the purity of that early love in our consciousness. Watch children over the next few days and see what they teach about peace. Also look closely at what adults are teaching them about peace.

As soon as Janine had finished the reading, Henry chimed in by saying “Peace…..Peace.” As far as any of us know, that is the first time that Henry has ever uttered those words. After he had said that, everyone in the Dharma room just busted up laughing. Henry’s timing was impeccable, and the joy he brought to the community is without value. An 18 month old child taught the community a thing or two about peace, joy, and love by just being a child, and connecting to the child in all of us.

In that one moment, Henry reminded all of us that teachings come in all shapes and sizes, and frequently unexpected. If you are not paying attention to the moment, the teaching is lost. I know that I have missed many an opportunity to learn in my lifetime. But never before has that realization been so clear, nor a teaching so powerful, as that of a child, just learning to walk and to speak, that teachings are all around us if we just pay attention.

Another Wonderful Garden Retreat

2009-07-20T15:27:00.001-05:00

On Sunday another Garden Retreat at the Original Root Zen Center came to a close. It started out with a brief Dharma talk on Friday night with the Guiding Teacher giving us the rules for this years Garden Retreat, basically, be present, help each other, get out of the ‘me, my, mine’ mind, and bring joy to all that you do. The Abbot followed up with basically, ‘Don’t be a dick, focus on the task at hand and help each other, it’s not about you.’

Saturday started at 7 am with bows, chanting, and some sitting, followed up by breakfast. For this retreat, I had my first pass as Assistant Kitchen Master, so I did get to learn a thing or two about cooking for a large group keeping special dietary requirements in mind. One of my highlights was getting to prepare Master Teacher Linda’s Olive Oil for her pasta. While the menu called for Pasta with Olive Oil, I just could not do that while the rest of us were eating a BBQ-chili pasta. So after breakfast, I got to go out to the herb garden and picked some herbs. They soaked in the oil until dinner time, so about six or seven hours in total. They imparted a wonderful, subtle flavor to the oil which the Master Teacher was quite pleased with.

So for Saturday and Sunday, many a weed was pulled, many a tree was trimmed, and many a new feature was added to the garden.

A new stupa was put in place.

A new rock garden was put in place.

Stones were put in the ground front and center.

Some paths were cleared and weeded.

And pretty much everything is in bloom.

Other additions include a new sitting area, a spiral cut topiary, and some additions to the trellis. A great deal of work was done in a fairly short amount of time.

In all, everyone enjoyed themselves. We got a lot done, without too many things left on the continuing projects list. Pretty soon we’ll get that table done for our elevated herb garden, and things will be looking really good there!

‘Twas A Good Night at Zen

2009-06-25T03:46:00.001-05:00

I would like to give a big thanks to Mathew, Janine and Henry, and Anne. With the start of ‘summer,’ I’ve found myself helping out by covering other meetings and missing out on my Zen time this month. By next week things should be more or less back to normal, but this particular night seemed to be full of teachings for me.

First off, let me apologize to Janine, I was unable to keep Henry entertained/distracted, and I assume that you did not even get your interview started, or if you did, it went on for all of 30 seconds before you realized I was not up to the task of caring for the mini-humans. I do fear that this is largely my fault. Some of you may have noticed that I tend to be a bit on the quite side. In general, this does not seem to work well with the mini-humans, they tend to gravitate towards the more boisterous ones in the crowd. A notable exception has been Adi, who has actually spoken to me and addressed me by name. Let’s be honest, this is still difficult for me, so Mat, for our next interview, the question has appeared.

This evening, I did learn that some formalities have changed. I had never ‘led’ a meditation practice before with more than one other person present, and learned some formalities that have changed since my return. I think I was also extended the opportunity to get some moktak coaching, thus far, I have only done it twice, with only me in the room, so some coaching would be nice so I don’t butcher it if there is more than one.

And finally, in my mind (hahaha, lol) the biggest thing was the kung-an (koan) I was given. I have to admit, it has been a long ass time since one has stumped me as good as this one has. This actually makes me wonder, does this particular kung-an reflect a ‘major’ karma for me? Hell, it’s probably just a regular karma for me. I guess I’ve become used to ‘seeing/feeling’ the ‘proper’ answer, or at least close enough to it that it can be worked out in a couple more interviews (of course when you don’t request them, you typically have plenty of time to meditate on them). This one, from the outset, has been like staring at a blank wall. It is always interesting when someone offers you something you did knot know about yourself, along with the challenge to figure it out. The funny thing about kung-an’s, is that the ‘answer’ is always so simple and obvious, I think the term “Face Palm” fits quite nicely.

L-Day is nearing…

2009-06-23T17:57:00.001-05:00

I think that next weekend I may well make the full conversion to Linux. I’ve been playing around with a dual boot for a couple weeks now and am pretty comfortable with most everything. Just need to get a couple things working properly in the virtual machine and all will be good. It will be good to finally do this, deep down, I’ve been wanting to for awhile, but have always held back because Sue does not like change. Since she is now on her laptop 100% of the time, there should be no issues. Actually, since Christmas (when she got it), she has been on here once to order a pizza when she let a friend a work borrow her laptop. I think she can live with suffering through Linux once every six months at most.

Just this past Saturday, I went down to the folks house, took care of a few computer issues, then we all went down to Chicago for dinner. Oh, and as it happens, by sheer coincidence, cousin Dave was in town on business, so we picked him up and went on out. Traffic was typical for heading into the city on a Saturday night so we got to his hotel around seven. Then is was a fairly short ride to Kuma’s Corner for dinner. The wait was only 1.5 hours, so we got to sit out back in the open on the picnic tables. I am glad for that, because that place is both small and loud!

We started out with two orders of the Buffalo Strips chicken (oh, did I mention there were six of us). Let me tell you, that was some damn good chicken. I personally would have liked the sauce to be a bit hotter (I loves me some spicy food), but that chicken was very well prepared, moist, tender, perfect. If you are not familiar with Kuma’s Corner, virtually every item on the menu has the name of a heavy metal band, which goes with the music that is played there.

All the burgers are one size, 1/2 pound. You have your choice of roll, as long as it is a pretzel roll. For a side, you can pick waffle fries, homemade chips, or a salad. I had the chips and I can state for a fact that they were made there and that they blew me away. For my burger, I opted for the BLACK SABBATH Blackening Spice, Chili, Pepper Jack, Red Onion. I dare say those things are 1/2 pound after cooking, not before. Their reputation is well earned, and the wait is worth it.

As much as I hate to admit it, just the day before we had a massive thunderstorm. A roads closed, emergency vehicles traveling about type of massive storm, complete with county sirens blazing and emergency broadcast system alters on. During said storm, I have 100+ pounds of Rottweiler on my lap. During one particularly loud thunder crash, he flung his head around, which happened to catch my chin, and drive my lower jaw into my upper one. Let’s just say my lower jaw still hurts, and when I bite, the front two bottom teeth still report that they are not pleased. If I’m ever back down there with a jaw and teeth that actually work, I’ll be a bit more adventurous with my selection. I’m thinking the Pantera Burger…

Red Bench

2009-06-13T20:44:00.003-05:00

Spent most of the day with fellow Zen folk out at Kim’s River Sand Studio. He does a lot of excellent work out there, mostly woodworking and calligraphy, go figure the odds on those two combining.

Anyhow, we had a number of people throughout the day, many thanks go out to Mathew, Darin, and Jay for all of their contributions to the work that was done throughout the day. The work on the six benches kind of exceeded what was planned, and we did not get to start on the table for the herb garden. To keep the energy and excitement for the project going we have the following press release:

Red Bench

As part of a community art work project, the first phase ‘Red Bench’ has been completed. As part of as of yet unnamed art installation, ‘Red Bench’ is a significant milestone of this work.

‘Red Bench’ is part of a neoclassical interactive display. This work is not meant to be merely observed, but to be touched, even sat upon, so that the “observer” not only feels the art, but actually becomes a part of it.

We hope to have the art completed by late July and have the project installed at the Original Root Zen Center so that the general public may enjoy the interaction with this art installation as much as we have had in producing it.

So keep your eyes peeled. this is a very exciting addition to the ORZC garden that has been brought to you by the blood, sweat, and tears of the community. We do this simply wishing to bring you happiness, peace, and compassion while you are in the garden. And if you see someone there tending the garden, please feel free to say hi!

Class is over

2009-05-27T17:48:00.001-05:00

Well last night marked the end of the six-week class at the Zen Center for Tony’s latest book, Peace Vigil: Living Without Hesitation. Not surprisingly, the class consisted mainly of regular Zen practitioners, but we also had four who stop by for classes and the occasional practice session or two. One has been testing the waters much more as of late, and one has become much more interested so he may well start exploring a bit more, I feel he may try out the Sunday evening classes for a bit.

Anyhow, back to the subject at hand, the class. It was an excellent class that pretty much challenges the conventional notions of peace, and challenged us to actually do something other than contemplate peace. The most involved of the homework assignments occurred on week four. The homework was to create a “Peace Network.” Some things were simple, such as sending the following text message to three people, “I Wish You Happiness” (better know as IWUH for those of us who do this frequently with each other). Others involved finding a space to sit quietly and observe, the idea being not the couch, rather someplace else, a park, a museum, a waiting room, someplace with some energy going. The most difficult one to arrange, but by far the favorite was the ‘Peace Picnic.” This involved finding three people will to get together for a meal. Each person would bring one dish that has a story behind it. During the meal, each person would take their turn to tell the story behind the dish. While this was the most involved of the homework's, I think it was also the favorite.

During the class, several of the passages were reviewed and discussed. One that I quite enjoyed was given yesterday:

Conceal

The truth is hidden

because we refuse to admit

it isn’t about us.

Peace is not a secret teaching.

The only reason peace appears hidden is because we try to think our way to peace. That idea is an obstacle based on a faulty assumption that loving-kindness is logical when it isn’t. Look at all the great teachers. Each one of them seems a little daft in their rational mind, and the reason for that is because their lives defy logic. Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed would find themselves locked up today with their “crazy” talk about peace and love. Peace is concealed because we are addicted to violence. It is in our movies, entertainment, sports, and politics. peace is boring, conflict is exciting. Would you stay up all night watching CNN’s coverage of peace? Of course not, your violently habituated mind would be bored. And yet, when we invaded Iraq, for the second time, you stayed up all night being entertained by the death created at the hand of “shock and awe.” Peace is hidden because you are selfish and that is no longer a secret.

I enjoyed this one because it points out so many things. Typically, we are the reason that peace does not appear. We get in the way with what we want, try to superimpose our personal ideas of what peace should be on any situation. Peace is not about be, it is about us, about community. I also love the bit about Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed, mostly because I had that argument when I was a teen living in Texas. My friend, who was very devout, said that there was no way that Jesus would be committed and put on Thorazine because he would know, heck, everybody would know, after all, it’s in the bible. Ah, the childhood memories.

Crossing the street

2009-05-27T15:59:00.001-05:00

So when did it become unfashionable for parents to teach their children to look both ways before crossing the fucking street? Not ten minutes ago I nearly hit some high school kid, backpack slung over his shoulder, headphones on, thinks that walking into the street from behind a parked mail truck without looking, type of kid. He of course shot me a dirty look when I had to slam on the breaks to keep from making him one with the pavement, as his obvious coolness obviates his need to look for vehicles, the vehicles should be looking for him.

As the weather has begun to warm, it has been insane. So far, I have seen one child actually look and stop when he saw a car in the road. Every other time, not so much as a thought before dashing out into the street. The kids on bikes are probably worse as they just tend to weave in and out. You think they are getting out of the way, when all of a sudden they just weave back in front of you. It has been far worse this year than last. As of right now, assuming things do not improve, I think there is a good 15% percent chance that some kid will get hit by a car on the two blocks north of my house by the end of September.

Maybe I should stop by the local church and have the minister mention the issue to his congregation. I know a fair number of the local people attend it, and with a bit of networking it may well work.

Scattered

2009-05-22T00:09:00.001-05:00

Time for a totally scattered post. First off, congrats to my friend @Walker25Film for getting over 1.5 milliWheatons in followers on Twitter. Went to see him earlier in the week to give him a hand with some website development, but I must admit, our html kung-fu is about the same level, so I wasn’t much help. Fun to do the basic layout and get the direction going, plus a cool toy or two.

On the Zen front, the garden is looking very nice. The trellis looks good in its new home, the paths all have at least a small covering of pine needles. All of the Spring flowers are in bloom, the trees have leaves again, all is green once more. I even had the chance to rake the Zen rock garden for the first time. It was nice to get some pointers from Master Teacher Tony on some of the finer points of raking the garden.

It also looks like our guy Paul is finally in his final location in Iraq. He will be spending his tour at the lovely Camp Slayer, which is reputedly quite nice. I’ll have to head over to Zen one of these days for a few extra hours to crank out another dozen or so malas to get out to him. We still have that two or three dozen we made for him a few weeks ago and I would like to get a dozen or so more ready for when we ship him his first care package.

And finally, straddling the border between coffee and Zen, I have been roasting up a special batch of coffees for Janine and Scott to give to one of their sibblings/cousins/relative-of-some-nature for some type of special occasion. This is my first time doing a “special order.” Technically, it was just a request for some fresh roasted coffee for another coffee connoisseur, so I have decided on roasting up some Java and Mocha separately, so they can be sampled individually and then mixed together for the classic Mocha-Java if desired.

I hate to admit it, but I did one batch of the Java a bit longer than I had wanted, so that batch was dumped into my grinder for personal use. I whipped up a small pot earlier in the evening, and let me tell you, that was a damned good cup. If the over-roasted batch was that good, I can only imagine how good the properly roasted stuff will be.

Tomorrow (well, technically later on today now) I will roast several batches of the Mocha for them for delivery on Saturday. By the time they are consumed (assuming they don’t wait a week of course) they should be properly degassed and just at the peak of flavor. Maybe I will steal a scoop or two for myself….

Sounds like Wheaton’s new book will be out soon…

2009-05-04T16:04:00.001-05:00

In a Twitter post from earlier today, Wil Wheaton let it be known that he is entering the final stages of editing on his book, Memories of the Future. For those of you who don’t know, this book is based on the write ups he did for TV Squad several years ago about the early years of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Let me just say, these things are hilarious, do yourself a favor and read one or two of them (assuming you are a Trek fan). I do hope that this book continues on where he left off on TV Squad, and it’s bound to have more in the reviews.

As for tonight, we get to go play Zen and if Wednesday holds true to form, I will be leading Wednesday night meditation practice. I am actually planning on trying my hand at the moktak during chanting practice since for this one time per month, I’m typically the only one there for evening chanting practice.

I should point out that the first Wednesday of the month is the Teachers meeting at the Zen Center so they tend to do the morning practice. The evening meditation does not have as big a draw as the morning practice, so that tends to leave me heading the practice once a month. Add to the fact that fewer do the chanting practice that precedes the meditation practice and I find myself chanting solo most of the time. Due to that, it seems ideal to learn the moktak in a “live” setting without messing anyone up should I mess up.

Oh, and before I forget, Happy Jedi Day to everyone!

After a couple of long weeks…

2009-04-29T03:05:00.004-05:00

First, the bad news was the total crash of the computer that required a reinstall of the OS and all of the Program Files. It was actually a bit more of a pain in the ass than that because I keep the OS, applications, and user files all on separate hard drives, and, well let’s just say that Windows does not make it easy to do that. So reinstalling all of the applications, then making Windows aware, that there are, in fact, files on one of the hard drives, plus the 100+ updates, well, let’s just say it took awhile to get everything close to being done. Still have a few apps to get reinstalled, but everything that is necessary is good to go.

This past weekend was good, had a nice retreat at Zen, and also had the AA tri-county conference. Did the Zen thing on Friday and Sunday and the AA thing on Saturday. I don’t think my head hit the pillow any of those days before 1:00 AM and had to be at the locations by 7:00AM each day. Exhausting, but well worth the effort.

Speaking of effort, we will be making mala’s at Zen this Friday. Jay and I will be there at 2:00PM to start cranking them out, we know that Paul has made a request, so we will have the opportunity to send him some while he is deployed to Iraq for his tour. I’m thinking a nice hematite one for him, maybe with some obsidian, have to give that a bit of thought. The poor boy never got to see any of my mala creations, so he should be in for a treat, I do have the ability to put together some very nice pieces.

Oh, and did I mention that I will be roasting up some coffee for the mala fest? Can't spend all those hours making mala's without some fresh roasted coffee now can we?

Peace Vigil Class Starts Tuesday

2009-04-19T22:52:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday, April 21 Master Teachers Tony and Linda Somlai will be holding a class covering Tony’s latest book, Peace Vigil: Living Without Hesitation. The class is being held at the Original Root Zen Center in Racine, WI. Doors will open at 6:30 PM with the class starting at 7:00PM.

The goal of this book is simple, to achieve a state of world peace within our lifetimes. Ok, once you stop laughing and catch your breath, the real focus of the class and book is simple, to give us the tools to live simply and peacefully with those around us.

The book itself is 108 passages and exercises. Each one starts with a single word that is the focus. It is followed by the concept, presented as a poem or verse. This is followed by the heart of the teaching, typically only one or two sentences. Then comes a more verbose description of the problem and solution with everyday examples that illustrate the topic. Finally there is the exercise. The exercises will ask you to do something on your own or with someone else. They may ask to think about things that have happened and have you take a different look at them. They may ask you to pay attention to something during the day or bring focus to certain actions.

The class itself will go more into discussions on the concepts and expand on how we can apply what is in the book in our everyday lives. If you enjoyed the book, then you owe it to yourself to check out the class.

I remember a teaching that Tony gave years ago, I’m pretty sure that I am butchering it, but this is more or less the idea behind it:

Most people mistakenly say that the opposite of war is peace. This is incorrect. The opposite of war is “not war.” It is incorrect to think that not fighting is peace. Not fighting is just that, not fighting.

Peace is action. It is making the effort to understand, to love, to hope, to help, and to work together. Peace is about building community with all of these. This effort starts at home, with your neighbors, your block, your street, your city. Very few people can even achieve the first two. World peace? Ha! I will be happy with world at “not war” and strive for peace on my block. If enough people get together and start from here, eventually those blocks will connect…a person can dream, right?

Peace Pantry

2009-04-07T15:32:00.001-05:00

Opening of the Original Root Zen Center’s Peace Pantry

The Peace Pantry, Racine’s newest food bank, will officially open with a blessing ceremony on Thursday, April 16 at 7 PM. The Peace Pantry is located at the Original Root Zen Center on the DeKoven grounds in the East Building. The entrance is on Wisconsin Avenue.

The ORZC’s Master Teachers Tony and Linda Somlai and Elder Reverend Senior Teacher Sue Jaimes will take part in the blessing of the new pantry. While the ceremony is free and open to the public, donations of a non-perishable item would be gratefully accepted. A shared, simple meal will be provided by the ORZC at 5:30 PM preceding the ceremony.

The Peace Pantry is available to help our Racine community not just during these troubling economic times, but whenever help is needed. In addition to non-perishable food items we will also have a limited supply of perishable items (cheese, butter, meats for example) as well as household and personal items that will be made available to people in need of these items.

Please contact Bethany Zimpel at 262-939-7861 or email peacepantry@yahoo.com to request more details, if you plan on attending Thursday, April 16^thor if you or someone you know is in need of help.

The Peace Pantry is part of ORZC’s effort to help members of the community as a whole. Since we do not get too many strangers at our doors, when the shelves get too full, items will be added to our regular donations to other food pantries that exist in community.

Buddha’s Birthday Celebration

2009-04-05T18:06:00.001-05:00

Wednesday was fortunate for Doug. Doug is a fairly new guy at Zen and I don’t think he knows about chanting practice at 6:30 PM before the 7:00PM meditation practice. I say he is lucky because this was the first Wednesday of the month, and that means it was teachers meeting night. That leads to me chanting by myself. For those of you who (fortunately) don’t know, my voice sounds like a cat in a blender. We did the hour of meditation practice then went downstairs to help fold newsletters.

Jump forward to Sunday and we had our Buddha’s Birthday celebration. Doug did show up, so it was nice to see a fairly new person show up. The abbot performed his poem, with his brother accompanying him on a drum. One of the funniest things I have heard in quite some time. After that it was downstairs for some grazing.

The community room was pretty full of people laughing, grazing, and sipping coffee, Papua New Guinea in fact. Everyone brought in birthday presents for the Zen Center, so the place is stocked for awhile. Heck, I brought weather stripping for the door. Not good when the door is closed and you can see daylight! Especially in Wisconsin where we had a light snowfall today!

Soon To Be Underwater….

2009-03-30T18:16:00.001-05:00

Well the late season snowfall over the weekend has mostly melted away, allowing the dogs to track in a ton of mud all over the house, yeah! And now it looks as if we are getting rain for the next four days, so with a small bit of luck, we will not all be floating away.

Lot of anniversaries at AA last night. One of the new guys, Jim, had thirty days, so good for him. I think I’ll pick up a mala from Zen this evening and give it to him. I think if he uses it with a little mantra, whenever that urge comes on he’ll have something to grab hold of to help focus the mind. I know it has helped me and it sure can’t help to make the offer after all.

It’s about time for me to get my ass in my car and head on up to the Zen Center. Also time to see how this new Windows Live Writer thing works with blogger. I guess I’ll just have to push the Publish button and find out!

Peace Vigil Class Announced!

2009-03-29T22:20:00.004-05:00

The Master Teachers Tony and Linda will be holding a class for Tony's new book, Peace Vigil: Living Without Hesitation. This class will meet for six Tuesday nights from 6:30-9:00 starting on April 21st. For more information, you can call the Zen Center at 1-262-638-8580.

If you feel like stopping by, here is a map for you. Check out the ORZC website to keep up to date with everything that's going on there!

Getting the Calendars Up

2009-03-29T15:29:00.004-05:00

OK, testing out the linking and embedding of Google Calendars in a web page. With a bit of luck, the calendars will all populate as they should. After we test them out here and we get the thumbs up, we should be able to get them up on the Zen Centers web site. Personally, with everyone having their calendars on their phones, laptops, iPod's, etc., I think it is useful and helpful to have a standardized digital calendar format for quick and easy checks and updates without forcing everyone to do it manually. After all with dozens of people making dozens of calendar entries, eventually someone is gonna make an entry in the wrong date. At least this way, if the main calendar gets screwed up, everyone will be screwed up together so the event can still go on!!

This morning I finally got a hold of my sister on the phone so I could help her set up her laptop so she could access the wireless router in the house. I sent her an email with all of the stuff I usually have the family load on their computers, so hopefully she will have most of it loaded up by the time I get there for Easter. I think I've talked her into preparing lamb for dinner, now I just have to decide what I will be making. Maybe some type of coconut curry. Humm, lamb, onion, red potato, coconut milk, red or yellow curry over rice....just made that up I did, sounds pretty damn good to me.

On the coffee front, I did screw up a batch of New Guinea Peaberry. Set it on cool too early so it was mostly fruity/herby and the coffee flavors were not well developed at all. Oh well, such things happen upon occasion. Followed that up with some Guatemalan 50/50. That turned out quite nice. I think I like this one just a bit darker than normal.

Dharma Talk

2009-03-16T21:53:00.002-05:00

Well tonight Amanda gave her first Dharma talk in quite some time (damn close to a year). It was both excellent and hilarious at the same time. I can only hope to do 1/2 as well when I get up there.

Anyways, I met her at the Zen center about an hour and a half before she had to give her talk. We made mala's and chit-chatted for some time, listed to music on the iPod. She told me she was very nervous and wanted to throw-up. I told her just to get up there and talk about what she had in mind and not to give a rat's ass about it, as it was a bit late to do much about it now.

She really did an amazing job. There is a slight possibility that my 'don't give a rat's ass' speech may have taken just a bit of the edge off of it. Oh who am I kidding, she knew she was good to go and delivered a stand-up Dharma talk!

I guess that means that come Wednesday I'll need to throw my name up in a square and do one myself sometime soon. Maybe if I do it on April 13th, just two days before taxes are due the place will be near empty...yeah, right!

So after a year....

2009-03-08T16:11:00.005-05:00

So a year has come and gone since I last made a post here. Not too much different, still playing poker, though not nearly as much as I was. We lost a critter or two, and gained a couple. I started going to local AA meetings after realizing I had a problem (sober around five months or so). Made my return to Zen a few months ago, didn't realize how much I missed it until I returned. Oh, and I also started roasting my own coffee at home.

So Zen has been good. A couple of people have moved along, but several more new people have appeared. The temple has expanded so we now have an actual community room and a full kitchen. That kitchen makes retreats run much smoother, no more running next door for the food relay.

Also, Tony has a new book coming out on 3/15 with a release party the following Thursday (3/19). The book is titled Peace Vigil: Living Without Hesitation and is going for $19.95. The book also got a nice write-up by the Racine Journal Times. Tony will be talking about the book and how you can use it to help bring peace into your life and to those around you. It will be held at the Original Root Zen Center from 5:30 to 7:30 P.M.

And on that note, I'll be roasting up the coffee the day before so it will be nice and fresh, just for you!! The current plan is to do a Full City Roast on some Guatemalan Antigua, which, in my opinion, is one of the best coffees on the planet. If for no other reason, show up for the coffee and the snacks, they will both be worth your time.

I also just started to use Twitter. So far, so good, let's just hope I can make myself hop on for about 15 minutes a day to throw a few updates per day there. Just the other day I stumbled upon a FireFox add-on called Power Twitter. I love that extension, especially for expanding the tiny url's that most Twitter feeds use. If you Tweet, it's defiantly worth the download.

My oh My

2008-03-10T17:25:00.002-05:00

My oh my, it has been a crazy couple of weeks hasn’t it? The BBT3 fields have been unbelievable so far, and we have not even had a $10 NLHE game yet! I think I’m almost afraid to play the Mookie tonight with the size it will probably end up being, that and the miserable cold that has me in bed by 10 PM. Speaking of Mookie, congrats to you and Ms. Mookie on the birth of your 108^th daughter. Think about it sir, in just a few years time you and your girls will be ½ the field in every blogger event!

On the flip side, sympathies go out to PokerEnthusiast on the loss of his father. It’s never a good thing to lose someone you are close to.

Also sadly, yesterday gamers the world over are shedding a tear for the loss of Gary Gygax, co-developer of D&D. Like so many others, I spent a good portion of my teenage years in the basement with some friends on a dungeon crawl. Thank you sir for the gift you gave to many a gamer geek.

Politics, well I for one am less than pleased with the results of the Democratic elections, especially Ohio. Personally, I think that if Ohio had been much closer, Clinton would have to had given serious consideration into dropping when you take her narrow win in Texas (assuming she takes the caucus there as well). With some luck, Obama will take some big wins in the near future and make it pretty much a done deal.

And now for my own little political commentary, Clinton has been going on and on about how she is ready for the big military decisions that will need to be made and how over 30 former and current Generals and Admirals back her for Commander-in-Chief. Now here is a question for you all, if you were one of those Generals/Admirals, who would you pick, someone who may well question your recommendations and methods and actually think before giving the orders, or someone who you feel you can most easily influence to do what you want and is afraid to “look weak” if a decision is not made at a moments notice. If I were the Brass, I would only recommend someone who I felt could get the job done, i.e. do what I say, when I say then get out of my way so I can go blow things up. (much like the current situation). If you ask me, the last thing we need now is another puppet for the military/DHS to take advantage of.

2008-02-25T14:09:00.000-06:00

New PC=Back at Last!

The old puter was just getting on my nerves. It was down to a crawl, frequent crashes and freezes, spontaneous reboots for no readily apparent reason; such things test a persons limits. My last time on the virtual felt was back in early/mid January at a Mookie. It had been happening like clockwork for months, about 15-20 minutes into the game and it would start lagging. The cards would be dealt, and I would only see one of mine with the other frozen mid-air. I could hear the chips being slung for hands folded, but my screen would be frozen. Then about five seconds after my warning buzz, my card would finally “fall” and I would have about 5 seconds to look at my card, analyze the action thus far and then decided what to do. Once this starts, every few minutes it happens more often. It takes about 15 minutes before it’s happening 3-5 times per orbit, puts me on pc tilt, makes me spew chips for a bit then I do a reboot. From the time I tell it to reboot till I would have the game back up and running….five minutes, if it was a good day.

That machine has been pass on to a friend now (and yes, I wiped the drive five times and reformatted it before reinstalling the OS) and the new machine has thus far been a dream. I ordered all of the parts over a period of about 3-4 weeks, moved all of my files to my external eSATA drive on Thursday, built the new machine on Friday and installed the new OS Friday evening and spent most of that night applying updates and installing drivers. Saturday was for software installs and file transfers, oh and the live poker game. Sunday was actually using the new rig and getting used to it, I went with the 64 bit OS as I will be bringing it up to 8GB of RAM in the next few weeks.

The big test will be tomorrow and Wednesday, as I return to the virtual felt for the BoDonkey, and the Mookie. With the new 22” wide LCD I can fit four tables up without having to resize the tables and only minimal overlap on them. Hell, now that I’m thinking about it, I just may have to play the Skillz game just to see how everything goes.

Case: Antec P182

PSU: Antec TPQ-850

DVD: Asus 20X DVD w/ LightScribe

Speakers: Logitec X-540 5.1

Monitor: Samsung 226BW 22"

HD Tuner: KWorld TV Box 1680ex

MoBo: GA-X38T-DQ6

HS: Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme

Fan: Scythe SSF21F

CPU: Intel E8400 (Core 2 Duo, 3.0 GHz, Wolfdale core)

Thermal: ArticSilver 5

RAM: OCZ Platinum 2 x 2 GB DDR3 PC1066 7-7-7-20

Graphics: PowerColor HD3870

OS: Vista Ultimate 64 bit

WebCam: Logitech 9000

HHD: WD2500KS x 4 (250 GB ea., 16MB cache, SATA II) in a RAID 10

Keyboard: MS 4000

ExtHDD: 250 GB eSATA/USB 2.0

Reader: Rosewill Multi w/ FDD

Next weekend will begin the adventures in overclocking the system. I figure I should be able to get it up to 4.0 GHz without too much effort, but I will probably set it to 3.8 GHz for everyday settings.

2008-01-09T13:24:00.000-06:00

Last nights Blogger Skillz PLO game was just long and painful. Who knew that one can be card dead in Omaha for damn near two hours? There were very few hands that I could play, and about 90% of those wiffed on the flop, it was quite sad. Evy on the hand could not miss. If she had four cards she could see the flop, and damn if she did not hit it. every. single. time. It was quite the sight to behold. Would have been nice to take at least one person out for a bounty, but no, that was not to be. I think Waffles was just playing to get tilted last night, he was in excellent form for sure!

Note to self, Nyquil at break, not a good idea. After my glorious bust-out, I went to the couch to watch some recorded tv and promptly fell asleep. I think I woke up around 1:30 and dragged my ass to bed. I'll have to see if I have it in me to try the Mookie tonight, but I doubt it. Hell, I'm half asleep right now so I should be on the cusp of a coma by the time it starts at 9:00. I'm pretty sure I'm on the tail end of this cold, so hopefully by next week I'll be off the nyquil and able to stay awake for a full game.

2008-01-03T09:23:00.000-06:00

Gigli 2008!!!

Now that is the way to start out the new Mookie season! I got there a bit late, about four or five minutes into the game, after dealing with the critters and found myself with QQ. TheCloserX5 (did I get that right?) raised it up to 105, I think I made it 280 or so, got reraised to 850ish and saw a pretty damn raggy flop. I check, TheCloser pushed, I called, found myself facing down AA and ighn 63 of 63 and taking the title of Gigli 2008 for the Mookie! Now that I have that title out of the way, that means I can look forward to 51 final tables and 48 bubbles for the 2008 series of the Mookie. Hummmm, 2008 series of the Mookie, so lame, how about M2K8, I think that sounds better.

As for my game, well, all I can say is I rushed to get there after dealing with the critters, sat down to a decent hand, did not get into a poker frame of mind and button mashed my way out in one hand. After that I chugged 1/2 a bottle of NyQuil and was passed out before the first break. Is it just me or does everyone feel like a NyQuil zombie the following morning, even if you get 8 hours of sleep? I still feel half asleep even now, after lunch I'm doomed. Only one thing for it, lot's of Bacardi 8 and diet tonight at the bar before, during, and after the game. If I'm blitzed enough I should be able to feel immune to my cold and take down the final table at the same time. That's my plan for tonight and I'm sticking with it!

2007-12-18T09:32:00.000-06:00

Well, the regular Monday night tourneys have been put on hold until after the holidays, but I managed to close out the year in style. I won the tourney with the hammer. You just have to love the look on peoples faces not only when you heads up with it, but when you win with it, it's a priceless moment. Usually requiring a very large round of drinks to be bought. I was pretty sweet, once we got to six handed, for some reason the other five felt compelled to give me all of their chips. The only time I gave some away was when I was in a blind and it would only cost me one more blind to two to finish them off.

By the time we reached heads up, I had Mike out chipped by around 7-8:1. He was in pretty much push or fold mode, if I did not bet at least 2/3 of his stack, he would push, and he was not really defending his blinds that strongly. Eventually, with the blinds a 10/20K and on the button I look down to see a beautiful 72o looking up at me. I made it a respectable 80K to go, and what does he do, he pushed for an additional 50K. What can I do but call his all in? The flop comes A 7 2 and everyone just starts going with the oh-my-god laughs as they see the almighty hammer pummel his 69o (in the battle of the suck-outs as Matt the dealer called it). The K 3 on the turn and river gave Mike no help and I took down yet another Monday night tourney with the hammer. I had done it last month too, so that made this one all the better.

For the record, this hand is being played around 12:30 AM, I have a 20 min drive home and have to get up for work around 5:30 (actually got up at 6:15...oops). That's the one thing about the Monday and Thursday night games, they just run so damn late for me. Oh well, what can you do when you need your fix?

So-So (not SoCo) Mookie

2007-12-13T12:44:00.000-06:00

Had a so, so Mookie last night. Pretty much card dead the entire night, only a couple of big pocket pairs and some lucky draws. Think I went out in 16th if I remember correctly, and we were just shy of having enough people to pay 18. Oh well, with Full Tilt's fubar payment schedule at the crossover points I would have been getting paid $10.50 on my $11.00 buy-in. Full Tilt, please feel free to either change the number of people getting paid and/or the amounts being paid so the bottom tier can at least get their full buy-in back (assuming it's not a rebuy of course).

Oh, and it seems the not too much booze at the table actually helps. I was at work late last night so I did not have the time to stop by the store and replenish my Bacardi 8 stock. As a result, I only had two all night, one that started just before the game and the last I had during first break. As a result, the head was fairly clear all night long and helped me choose my spots to push when the chips got low. Of course, due to the sleeping pills I took with my first drink when the Mookie started, by the time third break rolled around I could barely keep my eyes open. By the time I busted out, the average chip stack had an M of around 9, so there was a fair amount of pushing going on. I think I got all my chips in on the flop (I had 77 with one club) and the flop gave me the chance for a straight and a flush, and (I think) were all below my 7 (though there may have been one that was over, maybe a 9, can't remember as I was almost asleep). My straight draw was pretty weak, gutshot I think. Anyways the person who called me (sorry don't remember, don't think we've played before) had KK, also with a club, thereby decimating my outs from 14 to 5. Ah well, at least I picked up a few more points, though probably not enough to make a difference.

I may make a run at the Big Game this week, but I'll need to score my token Sunday before the game. Have live games tonight, Friday and Saturday and the cash games that develop after the tourney are just so juicy. Nothing better than playing from 9 or 10 PM on a Saturday until bar close at 2 AM in a .50/1.00 game and have all your expenses (gas, food, bar tabs) for the week covered. One of these days I might just have to start up an official bankroll for these games as opposed to the entertainment budget. Heck, I at least have to put some aside for the annual 1/2 NLHE game on New Years Eve!

Won a Mookie

2007-11-23T23:31:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally won my first Mookie!! And for a set into the TOC on Full Tilt's Battle of the Bloggers II no less! I really only did a couple of things different that night, one, I was out of booze so I did no drinking at all, and (probably as a result) I played a much tighter game than usual for most of the night (except for one hand against Hoy, and I'm sure we will all read about it soon).

When we hit the final table, I was one of the shorter stacks, but lucky for me most of the other shorties to mids kept making their moves and before too long (and the blinds/antes ate me up we were down to four). Previous to this, I was just making enough to keep me in the game (at lest three had gone out before I really played more than my blinds if memory serves me correct). Then I got lucky. We were down to four, blinds were 1000/2000 250. With only 14,120 I figured I had to push with any picture card (I'm sure you would all agree that this is a no brainer). On the button, I look and see 72o. Well, with the blinds and antes there is 4k in the pot and LJ makes it 5k to go. I look at my cards, and what is there other than 72o!!! I figure I can go out with honor with the hammer and take a reasonable amount of cash in the process. Much to my surprise the table folds to me and I get just enough to let me stick around for a bit more, and possibly even put a small amount of pressure on my table-mates. And for the record, I did show my hammer and the guys at BDR were amazed that LJ did not call (she was getting about 3:1 on her money and had about 100k preflop).

After that, I managed to eek my way up until the other three (Hoy, Donkette and LJ) were 71k to 75k and I was just shy of 50k when this hand happened. Blinds were 1,000/2,000 250 I was BB and Hoy had the button. Donkette folded and Hoy made it 8k to go. Well, as an avid reader of Hoys blog and having played my share of blogger games, I decided to min-raise Hoy with my KK. Donkette folded Hoy pushed and LJ also folded (well technically she folded to Hoys 8k). I called Hoy, he showed AQ, and it played out J44 J J and I took it down and doubled up with my Jacks full of Kings. It was kind of fun to hear the guys on BDR (it was Buddy Douche, CrackinAces, Instant Tragedy, and Biggestron if memory serves) debating the hand, Hoy losing with AQ, but not really being a bad beat with my KK, but still with only four playing AQ, should, in theory, be good.

And now for my donkey hand that you will all be reading about soon on Hoys blog. After taking most of his chips on the hand above, Hoy was naturally playing quite aggressively and pushing quite a bit (he had be about the same before (In the mid to low 20k), with lower blinds and pushing quite a bit as well). The blinds were 1,200/2,400 300 and I was in the small blind. Hoy pushed (for 24,876 in total) and it folded to me. I had A8o, and I took some time to think about it. Everything said to fold, the odds, my cards, the fact it was Hoy, everything. But somehow, that little voice in the back of my head was screaming for me to call, and for the first time of the night, I listened to it (it had been accurate the other four times that I had ignored it, and in fact I would have tripped up earlier). The only way I can justify my call is that Hoy had been pushing a lot, if I lost then three of us would all be playing with about 50kish to Donketts 96k, and that gut feeling/voice in the back of the head was screaming for me to call. It turns out Hoy had and A7o and I had A8o. The flop gave me an 8 and the river gave Hoy a 7 and I took him out. Not my proudest moment, but at least I will get a spot in his blog, and for the record, it was not an instacall, and I agree with the guys who discussed it on BDR, it was not the best call in the world to make.

During the same blinds, all three of us went all-in. LJ had AK, I had QQ, and Donkette had 88. Fortunately, I had them both covered, and Donkette was second in chips, but LJ hit an Ace on the flop and no love for the rest of us and Donkette was out.

When we were heads-up, we spent most of our time roughly even, I did get one earlier that helped me get within site of her. Then, our big hand. Blinds were 1,500/3,000 400 and I had the BB. LJ made it 7,500 and I raised to 12,000 and she called. The flop was 622 and I bet 24,800 and LJ pushed (133,488) and I called. LJ had A6o and I had KK, and they held.

After that, LJ doubled up on me once more, but then I took her (I assume) out when I had 8T against her 98 on the flop of 587. Lucky out-kick for me and there I am in the ToC.

For the BDR crew of the night, yes, I should have been out if LJ called me when I had the hammer, I got lucky, and yes, I should never have called Hoy's all-in with my A8o, but thus far my gut feeling had not let me down all night (even though I did not play the others, and yes, I do agree that, in general, that is the type of player you want at your table, but as all of you eventually pointed out, Hoy had been pushing quite a bit and I had been playing tight most of the night).

So now, just to clear up a thing or two, yes, I do have a blog (for the two or three of you who stop by every now and then). I also play the blogger games mostly for the social interaction (it is fun to watch most of you rag on each other, but there are maybe about three that I chat with in the girly chat). I play mostly blogger games on-line (largely -EV) and play a lot of "home games" that are actually "bar games" that play at .50/1.00 or 1.00/200 that I do fairly well at (i.e. win a fair chunk more than I lose).

In all, I got mega-lucky. I got some very good information. And yes, I will link all the sites later on. See ya'll at the ToC (wish me luck, I'll need it).

2007-11-14T11:19:00.000-06:00

A recent study, probably the most important one in the history of space and time, has finally revealed what we online poker donkeys have always known, bacon improves heart health, cures cancer, prevents ED, makes you sexy and irresistible to the opposite (or same, if that’s what works for you) sex, doubles the mileage of your vehicle while reducing emissions, makes your portfolio double in value every eighteen months, and can also reverse the effects of global warming on the environment. Maybe I exaggerated just a bit there…..

From the article in Science Daily:

In contrast to nitrite, nitrate in the diet comes mainly from cured meats such as bacon, sausage and luncheon meats. Consuming nitrate augments our nitrite supply: Once absorbed in the bloodstream, nitrate circulates to the salivary glands where bacteria convert it to nitrite, which is then swallowed in our saliva. About 10 percent of dietary nitrate is converted to nitrite in this way.

As with the mice and nitrite, the Einstein researchers spiked drinking water with nitrate and then induced heart attacks. A protective effect was found yet again: Compared with the control animals, the nitrate-supplemented mice had greater stores of nitrite in their heart muscle along with significantly less heart-muscle damage, although the reduction was not as impressive as in the nitrite-fed mice.

"This new appreciation of the health benefits of nitrite and nitrate is ironic," says Dr. Lefer, "They've traditionally been regarded as toxic because they tend to form chemicals called nitrosamines, some of which are carcinogenic. But recent research has found no convincing evidence that nitrite and nitrate pose a cancer risk."

So there you have it folks, scientific proof that bacon is indeed the food of the gods.

Nothing exciting on the poker front, live game has been pretty much break-even for the past couple months (if you don’t include the bar tab that is) and online has been pretty much up and down (finally won a Monkey Tourney Main Event) but I have not really been playing that much online (and mostly the blogger games at that) so it’s to be expected. I broke down and opened an account on Bodonkey, but alas I had it set up too late to make it to last nights Bodonkey Blogger Tourney. Oh well, that’s why they invented next week!

2007-10-18T15:46:00.000-05:00

Well, week one of the new assignment has gone well so all is good. This job should go at least six months, with a possibility of contract-to-hire, so let’s just hope for the best. One of the best things about this gig, it’s the commute. It’s about ten miles closer, but the drive time has been cut in half. It’s pretty much full highway speeds the whole trip, and as a result I’m getting about 2 MPG more!

Speaking of MPG, Wisconsin’s minimum mark-up law has been ruled unconstitutional. The law was put on the books to help those small mom and pop gas and grab type businesses stay afloat as the big companies moved in (not that I’ve ever seen of them mind you). As it turns out, one of these small stations took one of the big guys to court for selling their gas too cheap (the law states that gas must be marked-up at least 6% of the states cost or 9% of local wholesale, whichever is greater). By the time all was said and done, the judge found that the law violated part of the state constitution and therefore could not be enforced. You know that place can’t be pleased, they finally get to take someone to court over it only to have the judge smack down the law, the irony of it all.

As for poker, well, after months of playing on-line once a week at best I finally sat down to two blogger games this week, The Monkey (where I bubbled in third) and The Mookie (19^th of 62 if memory serves). All in all, I consider the results not bad, if only due to the lack of playing that I’ve had over the past three or four months. I doubt that I’ve played more than 25 games on-line since mid-July, so now I’ve got to get my game back (not that I had one before). Of course with BBTwo on the horizon, it seems my timing is looking pretty good.

Puter Tilt

2007-08-30T11:55:00.000-05:00

I actually made it to the Monkey this past Tuesday night. Due to projects at work I had not been making it out there much this month, so it was going to be nice to be back.

About 15 min before game time I powered up the PC. It pretty much insta-freezes during the Windows load forcing me to do a hard reboot. That should have been my first clue. When it came back up, it took about ten minutes to load everything before I could fire up Stars. That was clue number two. It seemed as if Stars was taking about a month to load as well, then I noticed that my virus scanner was running and using up about 270% of the puters resources, so I shut it down. Once Stars finished loading, I noticed that the virus scanner had frozen in the background while it was shutting down. Clue number three.

With about two minutes to spare, I managed to get myself signed up for the Monkey. Moments later the table pops up, I can hear the whir of cards being dealt, but oddly enough I can see no cards. I hear blinds being posted, bets being made, and my table is still 100% card free. I hear the beep that lets me know that it’s my turn to act and then about five seconds later my screen refreshes and I can see my cards and the action to date. I fold the junk I was give and sit back. My cards are still on the screen in front of me, I hear the buzz of “You have 15 seconds to act.” Finally my hand gets folded. Rinse, wash, repeat. Three times. I figure people must be getting annoyed with me in much the same way that I am getting annoyed with ye old PC. I contemplate reprogramming it with a hammer when I notice that the screen hasn’t changed for a bit. Then the “Network Connection Lost” box pops up as it tries to reconnect. Until the PC freezes again and I get to reboot again.

The puter must be getting warmed up now, cause it only took eight minutes to go from reset to logging back into Stars. Only to see my AQo in mid/late position insta-mucked for me. Obviously the PC felt bad for that so it tried to make it all better by spontaneously rebooting for me.

I take a deep breath, get it all back up and running and see a perty AKs when I get back. I attempt to make 4BB raise, but now have that annoying system lag again. I try to enter the bet again and when something finally goes thru, I had somehow managed to put in all but 30 of my chips. I don’t recall who it was (possibly Smokey) but someone called me. Two more hearts on the flop, I got put all-in for my last 30 chips as my opponent flopped a set, but no more hearts for me and the board paired so my busted flush went down to a boat. I said my gg’s and gl’s and then ripped the power cord out of the socked to give the PC the shutdown it had earned.

This weekend—say it with me—Format the HDD’s and reinstall!! Thank the gods that it’s a long weekend!

If you actually made it this far, go check out the Bloglines Beta! They have been long overdue for an update and my-oh-my is it sweet!

Late Nite Monday=Missed Monkey Tuesday

2007-08-15T19:22:00.000-05:00

So sad, missed last night’s Monkey Tourney, no good reason, just a late day at work, get home exhausted, grab a bite for dinner, then promptly fall asleep on the couch before signing up for the game. Oh well, such things happen, so it will have to be next week all.

The reason for the exhaustion you ask? Well it may have had something to do with me staying up until 12:30 am playing in one of the local bar freeroll games. I love these freerolls, not so much for the play (most of which is terrible) but rather for the massive amounts of free drinks one can consume.

Free drinks you ask? Well our little freeroll tourney is actually a re-buy tourney. It’s free to sit down and play, but if you bust out and wish to get back in the game all you need to do is yell out “buying a round” and get everyone at your table a drink. I get very drunk. Actually the re-buy period ends after the fifth blind level is over, gives you a chance to sober up some before the drive home. The games typically last 4.5-5 hours and re-buys can be done during the first two hours. I always plan to be there in the game for at least two and a half hours.

These games are actually a challenge to win. You will see plenty of absolutely horrible plays and suck-out’s a plenty because it’s “free poker” (says the guy who just did his fourth re-buy of the night). It is just far too common to have four people go to showdown, so you all know how tough it can be to win a pot. The blinds are pretty brutal too. They go 10/20, 20/40 and 50/100. After that, just add a zero and repeat the cycle. Oh, and each level is 25 minutes long.

Anyways, after nursing my short stack for most of the night, I somehow ended up at the final table. I never quite understood this, but is seems that final table=forget how to play. Final tables usually go very quickly from nine players down to three. There seems to be only three ways to play. There is the ‘raise, call, call, all-in’ pre-flop or post-flop, the ‘raise, re-raise, all-in,’ and of course the all-in with atc for the shorties. It seems almost magical, but you can be assured that if there is a raise with two callers there will be an all-in somewhere down the line and the re-raise is an all-in magnet. Knowing that magical formula allowed me to take out five players just by saying ‘re-raise’ knowing that at least one person would be going all-in.

The guy I played heads-up with told us that he had never actually won one of these games before even though he had been heads-up several times before. It didn’t take long to find out why. He folded way too many on his small blind, folded way too often to any raise, and would never go to showdown without at least a pair. He won one huge pot off me early on when he hit a set to my TPTK, leaving me a 10:1 underdog, but thanks to his weak-passive play it didn’t even take me 20 minutes to eventually take him down to the felt. And the beautiful thing was when he was down to his last three chips he said “Well, I gotta do this sooner or later,” and threw them in, I said call without even looking at my cards. He showed AQo, and me, I flipped over the almighty hammer! With the board scattered all over the place, that two on the river allowed me to help him keep his record of never winning a tourney and also losing one to what some misguided souls call the worst hand in poker. So with $50 in my pocket for winning the freeroll I took him and the TD over to bar and bought us all a nice well-deserved drink.

Monkey Around

2007-08-08T20:23:00.000-05:00

Well it has been a bit since I scribbled here last so I figured I could take a moment a post. Nothing new to report. Man that was easy!!

The job search continues to go slow, several hits on the resume, lot’s of phone interviews, a few live ones, but nothing leading to an offer thus far. The temp jobs are not too bad; I’m getting paid about the same as my last job, but sadly no benefits at this time. If I remember correctly, you need to work at least 1,000 hours in a nine-month period to qualify or something crazy like that.

As for the poker front, haven’t been playing much online at all, just the tourney formally know as the Wheaties (WWdN), now know as The Monkey Tourney. It fills the spot nicely but is quite a bit smaller with only 20 or so players and usually about 16 showing up on any one night. Still Tuesday night on PokerStars, still starts at 8:30 pm ET, still only $10+1, and yes, the password is still Monkey. I also have started a nice little Monkey Hammer web album, so far they are coming in slow, but then again it takes a bit to get used to taking screen caps.

Last nights game was kind of fun in a different way for me, I actually got to play host. As you all know, playing host carries with it enormous responsibility. Keeping track of who takes out the bounties so next weeks games are named and set up properly and doing the write-up for the website. Having never done the write up before, my fellow players advised me that it should either be funny or ghey. I think I may well found a good balance between the two. Here is my favorite excerpt from The Monkey Tourney website write up that I did, inspired by all the stories and news clips going on over that baseball homerun record thingy. It is virtually all a lie, except for the part that is true:

In all, it was an excellent game, but not without controversy. After playing a record breaking 756 hands, 65 pony boy took down the game. But this event has been overshadowed by rumors and allegations that pony boy had been using performance enhancing substances, namely ginseng (for energy and stamina) and ginkgo biloba (a memory enhancer).

Listening to ‘the man on the street,’ the prevailing opinion is, “It looks like poker has finally got its wish. It will now be viewed as a sport, performance enhancing drugs and all, just like cycling and the Tour d’ France.”

According to officials, Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), who introduced H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act into the SAFE Ports Act at the last moment in 2006, will be requesting hearings into this matter on Capitol Hill when Congress returns from its August recess.

So what do you think, funny, ghey, or both?

Outside of the Monkey, the rest of my poker has been live in the bar games. I have been doing much better in side games that develop after the freeroll tourney has completed. I had been getting worried about my cash game because for quite sometime, I was feeling lucky if I just broke even. Then I had that moment of clarity, I realized that because I was worried about the job situation and the tightness of the funds, I was too afraid to lose anything in the cash game, and my game suffered. Once I realized that, I just pretty much gave up on the cash games.

Now that I have been working assignment regularly for awhile now, I am much more comfortable. Nowadays when I sit at these (low buy-in) cash games I typically cash out two or three buy-ins up, so I can feel good about that. Once I have a ‘real’ job I can get back to setting up and building a bankroll for the live games and move to one of the big games in town.

For the bar games, the buy-in is quite low and quite light based on the game. Buy-ins are $20-$40 and the game is $0.50/$1.00 NLHE, usually 8 max due to the size of the tables and the traffic in the room. It’s a bit whacked, I know, but it is run in a bar, so most people are playing with either a real good buzz or are smashed, the place is full of other drunken people, and we also want to keep it friendly. Still, buy the end of the night there is typically between $300 and $700 on the table.

With a bit of luck, one day soon I’ll be back into full bankroll management/development mode and not just playing with that little bit left over from last week mode.

Jobs, Poker, Lost Dogs and Jury Duty

2007-03-20T17:42:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like it has been awhile since I’ve made a post. Since last we blogged, I was re-organized out of a job, won $1,300 in a live cash tourney (the very same week mind you), and then my poker winnings went into a massive downslide. On the job search front, a few calls only to be told I’m “over qualified,” man, does that get old. On the poker front, I may have gotten my game back somewhat, I’ve had a few cashes in tourneys and a couple of decent live cash games (though it only takes the wife two days to drink away my roll at the bars). Keep in mind that we play our games in the bars, and she usually pisses away a buy-in then socializes until I’m done, oh well, what can you do. Had to get her playing so I didn’t have to spend four to six nights a week sleeping on the couch, lol!

But as of now, I feel the winds of change are blowing my way. I had jury duty this week, so after waiting around for four hours, we were released for the day, and when I called back, I found out that we were not needed and our ‘service’ was over. Never even saw the inside of a courtroom.

When I got home, just as I got to my door I saw two pit bulls looking at me on the sidewalk. I popped inside, got a leash, and saw them at the end of the block. I did my best to try to catch up, but they were really moving. I last saw them well away from my ability to catch up, so I started home. Just as I started home, a woman in a truck asked if I saw two dogs. I told her where I saw them headed; she thanked me and headed that way.

About three houses from home, two pit bulls ran past me with the Animal Control van right behind. I got the attention of one of the pit bulls, got it to the side, got it to sit, then lay down, hooked up a leash and handed her off. The Animal Control guy thanked me, got in the van then headed after the other one, who popped out a few houses up the road. I got her attention too, and got her to come to me. I then got her to sit, lay down, then leashed her and handed her off.

With the dogs contained, I told the Animal Control guy that I had sent the owner a few blocks away to where I had seen them headed and asked him to follow me to her. He said fine, I got in my car and he followed me to the owner, where the Animal Control guy proceeded to hand off the dogs to her. One family reunited, two dogs did not have to go to the pound, one owner who did not have to pay any tickets or fines, and one Animal Control guy who didn’t even have to catch the dogs (he even asked if I wanted his job, lol). Everybody was happy with the results.

Today in the mail, the day after my jury duty concluded, was a questionnaire from the Clerk of Circuit Courts to see if I am eligible for jury duty, anyone wanna lay odds on that one?

More HORSE

2006-11-25T00:10:00.000-06:00

Well, it has been awhile since I have posted so here is the weekend review. Last Sunday at the Big Game I managed to land a 3^rd place finish, not too bad for only my second one. On Wednesday I think I placed 5^th in the Mookie, and about the same in the Mookie 2^nd chance. Now tell me, if the woman calls and you tell her you are playing two final tables at the same time (I was at both Mookie final tables at the same time), would you be slightly more than a little pissed if she called you back about 15 seconds after you hung up with her so she could tell you about something going on at the bar?!?! Let me tell you, I was! Thanks to that incident, along with a few Captian and diet’s, I managed to finish short of the money in the Mookie 2^nd Chance, as I managed to donk off more chips than necessary while trying to play both tables and carry on a fucking conversation.

In the meantime, Stars has decided it hates me as it continues to fuck me up the ass in my SnG’s. I think I have been getting no more than one 2^nd place in every three games, always to some fucking donk on the river. In my last one, while heads up that lasted for fucking ever, every time I was about to bust this ass out, he’d catch on the fucking river and double up. Only justice that I would fail to catch on my river and bust out in second yet again.

In the semi good news department, I played my first non-blogger HORSE tourney and managed to go out in 42^nd of 640 something. Didn’t pay much, but it seems I can hold my own in the game. Just my luck that as the blinds and antes go huge that my razz hands were all good stud hands, my stud hands were all good razz hands and all my h/l hands were just good enough to see at least the flop and would just improve enough one way or the other to get me to call, and then promptly fall apart. Oh well, we all know that the game is rigged to do just that! Who knows, maybe tomorrow Ms. Budo will get off the computer at a decent hour so I can get some quality time in on the tables, lol, I crack myself the fuck up!!

Sorry xkm, it was a misread....

2006-11-19T17:33:00.000-06:00

Well, it looks like I did a major mis-read in a tier two token game. I had just recently rallied from the short stack to the chip leader. I'm in the BB for 800 when xkm pushes for his last 1200. I assumed since he pushed he wanted a caller so with only 400 to make the call I made it with my garbage Q8o. Turns out he only had T7s. If only he had hoyed me, then I would have taken that as a fold sign, or if he had girlie chatted me and told me to fold I only would have been too happy to. So instead of him getting a token, I sent him to the rail with $57. I am so sorry about that xkm, busting you out was not the intent, I thought I was donating. Next time hoy me and I will fold like a girl.

A Tale of Two Mookies

2006-11-16T15:32:00.000-06:00

In The Mookie I last night about the only hand I could take any pots with was the Hammer. I think I saw the hammer four or five times last night and played it all but once due to a huge pre-flop raise. Short of those, I took a few more thanks to some lucky draws, but I eventually busted out after the break shortly before The Mookie II: HORSEing Around.

Don’t ask me how I did it, but I pretty much kept myself in the top five of the Mookie II for the whole damn thing, heck, even led the damn thing a couple times!! As I’m sure everyone at my table saw, I suck in all forms of limit poker, and thanks to some lucky donktastic plays, kept myself up there and actually scored me a token, whoo hoo! Pretty much as soon as we hit token status, we just played in push-monkey mode. While some may complain about such things, I did not care as by that time it was around 12:30 am Central time and I had to be up in six hours for work, heck I’m just glad I managed to stay awake during the final table!

So now I haves me two tier one tokens, so with a bit of luck I’ll score my tier two token for the Big Game this Sunday! As for tonight, we have the last of a great series, DADI X: Fight the Power, the last in series.

The Big Game
Sunday
Full Tilt
$69 + $9 (Cash or token)
9:30 PM Eastern
Double Stacks
Password: donkey

DADI X: Fight the Power
Tonight
Full Tilt
$24 + $2 (Cash or token)
9:00 PM Eastern
Short Handed (6-max per table)
Password: pokertrust

Beware...

2006-11-09T11:01:00.001-06:00

Robot Thinks Human Flesh Is Bacon

But some of us already knew this. Keep that bottle of apricot lotion nearby at all times, as everyone knows that apricots (and most fruit for that matter) are a natural repellent to our bacon consuming robot overlords.

Wisconsin Set Back 100 Years

2006-11-08T15:16:00.000-06:00

That’s right, you (may have) heard it here first, Wisconsin successfully moved back 100 years thanks to 59% of our voters! The gay marriage ban was worded to entice people to vote “Yes” even though it has much larger repercussions. This is not just a ban on gay marriage in the State; it also bans all Civil Unions, both homo- and hetero, and also makes any Civil Union or gay marriage performed outside of the State to be null and void within the State. Be interesting to see how that one plays out once it reaches the Supreme Court, as I’m sure it will in the next few years.

Gotta love those Christian Conservatives for bringing that one on. And keeping with the tradition of good Christian Conservatives, they of course brought back the Death Penalty to the State for an encore. Now Murder in the First can be executed, as long as there is supporting DNA evidence. Good thing they did not define what supporting DNA evidence is, that way they can line up as many as possible.

Maybe during the 2008 election we also ban interracial marriage, bring back segregation, and get rid of that pesky Woman’s Suffrage thingy.

The opponents of the gay marriage ban really blew it in their ads. Their focus on the gay portion only served to focus people on that one portion of the legislation. To get a majority of people on board, the focus should have been on the ban of civil unions. Once that legislation goes into affect, all people in the state who have one will get to kiss it goodbye, along with all of the legal protections and rights it affords. The fallout on this should ensue soon enough I’m sure.

One thing that did surprise me was how close Ryan’s seat was. I’m in the 1^st Congressional District here in WI, and this part of the state tends to have a pretty decent Republican slant. Without any ads (at least I didn’t see any), Ryan only got 56% of the vote, and for a 3^rd or 4^th term incumbent, that should send a loud and clear message.

And as we sign off for the day, you all know the drill:

The Mookie
Full Tilt
22:00 ET
$10+$1
vegas1

Be there!

Big Game Tilt

2006-11-05T23:15:00.000-06:00

Ungoddamedmotherfuckingreal. After building my stack up to around 4,200 after managing to get myself down to around 1,100, I find myself with TT and raise it to 666 from Mungo who had made it 366 (you know how Mungo loves those crazy bets). He calls. Flop is 83T rainbow, he checks, I bet 666, he pushes, I call. The only thing I am really worried about is that he was playing a 97 and hit an OESD. He shows 88 to my TT and I’m sitting pretty. 4 hits the turn and I’m getting ready to move into 2^nd place, if not 1^st in this, my first Big Game. River brings an 8 and I watch all my chips get shipped to Mungo. My jaw dropped as my brain processes what just happened. That damn Canuck must have had some pretty fucking huge horseshoe up his ass as he hit his one outer to send me to the rail.

Ah well, cant really complain about the way we played it. I’m sure when he bet he put me on a pocket pair or an AT and was happy to see me bet into his set. I was just as happy to see him push into my set so was I happy to make the call. I was near euphoric to see him show a set of 8’s as the whole table pretty much saw the pot shipping my way. The whole hand played out just the way you would want it to, except of course that part about him hitting his quads on river. It was nice to see that he took pretty good care of those chips, as he made 3^rd place and got himself a nice little payday there.

And now for the obligatory tourney pimpage:

Monday: Monday’s at the Hoy (MATH)
Where: PokerStars
Buy-in: $20+2
Time: 22:00 ET
Password: hammer

Tuesday: WWdN (Name) Invitational (the Name changes, bust out the host; Wil Wheaton, and the next one is named after you).
Where: PokerStars
Buy-in: $10+1
Time: 20:30 ET
Password: monkey

Wednesday: The Mookie
Where: Full Tilt
Buy-in: $20+2
Time: 22:00 ET
Password: vegas1

Thursday: WWdN: Not the (Name) Invitational (the Name changes to the 2^nd place finisher, ie, Not quite good enough!)
Where: PokerStars
Buy-in: $10+1
Time: 23:00 ET
Password: monkey

32...Not So Good

2006-11-01T13:04:00.000-06:00

Learned a valuable lesson at the WWdN Blogger game last night. When you find yourself having trouble focusing on the screen, it takes you most of your time to decide your action, when you want bet 3.5x BB and you bang in 350 (at 25/50), when you call down bets as your holding 66 on a board A9J with a flush to boot, you then realize that it’s way past time to check your blood sugar.

To start, the drive home, which normally takes about 1:15, took over 2:30 due to an accident involving a couple of semi’s about ½ way home. When I got home, I had to do some repair to the ferret cage, it seems the pig had been sleeping in front of it and his one of his tusks seems to had hook through and he seriously messed it up trying to get himself away. So I popped in real quick and got myself signed up, late, but there. By now, my food/insulin shot times are way off.

The game got going and I managed to more than double up by mid way through the 20/40 level, but that was when (looking back) I started to have some problems due to the low blood sugar. One unfortunate thing about low blood sugars (for me anyways) is that when you get yourself involved in something, it becomes difficult to notice that you are running low. In fact, at the live games people have asked me if I am doing all right once or twice as they notice before I do.

Anyways, shortly before break and just after donking off about 2/3 of my stack, mostly in that 66 hand mentioned above, I realized all was not well and checked the Sit Out box. Broke out the kit, checked the sugar and saw that it was 32. For reference, normal is 70-110 so I was pretty damn low. By the time I got the sugar back up, the game was going again and I sat down to around 835ish in chips with 75/150 blinds and the BB about to hit me again. Checked my Q high pocket, checked the flop and pushed the turn when it had been checked earlier—there was a Q on the flop. Sadly that turn was a K, which New just happened to have and with that, IGH.

After that miserable play what’s a boy to do? That’s right, fire up Tilt and play a SnG (non-token). At least I got to pad my roll there!

Don’t forget, tonight is the Mookie and we are still looking to cross that 80 player threshold so get over there and sign up!! Sadly I will not be there as I will be playing a live game tonight at the bar simply ‘cause it’s my birthday and they have a wonderful tradition. As the b-day boy, I will start double stacked. That nice little advantage will not last long cause as soon as we are all sitting, the TD will announce that I am the b-day boy and for the first two hours of play, everyone who buys me a drink will get a 500 chip. And Wednesdays typically have 40-60 players, methinks I will be in need of a new liver tomorrow! Dial-a-shot anyone?

6 Fucking Times!!!!

2006-10-23T23:13:00.000-05:00

Six goddamed motherfucking times some ass caught runner-runner straights and fucking busted me out of my fucking tourneys!!! Un.Fucking.Real.

A Few Notes from Last Night

2006-10-23T11:48:00.000-05:00

I don’t know about you, but I am freaking exhausted. Played one of the 100 FPP games on Stars for their WPT Caribbean Adventure. Game started at 9:00ish my time and I played until 2:30 am, and yes, I made it to the 10,000 FPP round two game!! Less than four hours later, time to get up and go to work.

I’m quite excited about this, as this will be the first time I have managed to win a seat to a second round game, bonus that it was a ‘free roll.’ Only handed out one major suckout all night. It was getting rather late; I was tired and had already lost about ½ my stack when I made a bad call. I was dealt ATo in the blind and called an EP min-raise. Flop gave me a ten so I bet the pot, got an all-in from EP and I called, after all, I would at least get my 100 FPP back and get to go to be. He showed Hiltons, but an A on the river sent him packing and pretty much put me back in the top 5.

One guy got me to chuckle when he called me a donkey for calling his 4x BB bet with an AKs and I hit 2 pair on the flop. This from the joker with a 76.3% VPIP. Crippled him on that hand and took him out the next orbit when he pushed with a 74o.

The one who irritated me was when there were three limpers and I had AQ s on the button so I raised it. Short stack pushed (only about 200 or 300 more) and everyone called. When the flop hit it missed me but the first to act pot bet and everyone folded. Ya know what he bet with? A flush DRAW! A J high flush Draw! What kind of a moron pushes people out of a pot with an all-in if they haven’t even made a hand yet!?! Well he missed his flush, neither his J nor his 4 hit, and shorty with 33 quadrupled up. Gotta love the morons with no concept of basic poker strategy in tourneys.

PCA round Two!!

2006-10-23T02:12:00.000-05:00

5 handed fuckin table and I get 88 vs KK. Un.Fucking.Real. Moved me from 2nd to fucking 7th. And only 6 move on….

Made the final table, now 2nd….

And I made it!! Whoo hoo, never made a freeroll before, wish me luck to the PCA!!!

Farewell Chipster...Octobers Suck

2006-10-16T13:16:00.000-05:00

I’m beginning to wonder about October’s. This past week on Thursday one of my cats, Chip, passed away. You may or may not remember that just about this time last year my dog, Moto, passed away.

Chip was fairly young for a cat, she was around 12ish. Quite often, she would be on my lap as I donked away in our blogger games, sng’s or other games online. I cant recall off the top of my head what it was she had, but it slowly caused her to get thinner and thinner, slowly wasting away. The meds we got from the vet pretty much just took the spark from her, so we took her off the meds. Keeping her on the meds would have prolonged her existence, but not her life. It would have just been prolonging her death rather than increasing her life, so we let her live out the rest of her life as she had, only with a bunch of canned food (we usually only serve dry food for the cats, with the canned stuff as a special treat now and again).

During the last week, she spent much more time on my lap while I played online. She would usually just spend some quality time with me, around 45 minutes or so and then go off and do cat things, but up till the end she would usually say with me for hours, just laying there and purring. On Thursday, she got up a bit early and hopped off my lap, and with a slight wobble, walked off and went to where she likes to sleep behind the bed, and there she passed away. After not seeing her on Friday or all day Saturday, we suspected the worst, so we opened a couple cans of cat food that would normally bring her running, but when she did not show we started our search and found her where she likes to sleep (not an easy spot to get to mind you).

So now if I could ask you all to indulge me for a moment, won’t you all join me in a chant for all those who have passed.

Great Dharani

shin-myo jang-gu dae-da-ra-ni
na-mo-ra da-na da-ra ya-ya
na-mak ar-ya ba-ro-gi-je sae-ba-ra-ya
mo-ji sa-da-ba-ya ma-ha sa-da-ba-ya
ma-ha ga-ro-ni-ga-ya

om sal-ba-ba-ye su da-ra-na
ga-ra-ya da-sa-myong
na-mak-ka-ri-da-ba
i-mam ar-ya ba-ro-gi-je
sae-ba-ra da-ba i-ra gan-ta
na-mak ha-ri-na-ya ma-bal-ta
i-sa-mi sal-bal-ta sa-da-nam
su-ban a-ye-yom sal-ba bo-da-nam
ba-ba-mar-a mi-su-da-gam da-nya-ta

om a-ro-gye a-ro-ga
ma-ji-ro-ga ji-ga-ran-je
hye-hye-ha-rye ma-ha mo-ji
sa-da-ba sa-ma-ra sa-ma-ra ha-ri-na-ya
gu-ro-gu-ro gal-ma sa-da-ya sa-da-ya
do-ro-do-ro mi-yon-je
ma-ha mi-yon-je da-ra da-ra
da-rin na-rye sae-ba-ra ja-ra-ja-ra
ma-ra-mi-ma-ra a-ma-ra
mol-che-ye hye-hye ro-gye sae-ba-ra
ra-a mi-sa-mi na-sa-ya
na-bye sa-mi sa-mi na-sa-ya

mo-ha ja-ra mi-sa-mi
na-sa-ya ho-ro-ho-ro ma-ra-ho-ro
ha-rye ba na-ma-na-ba
sa-ra sa-ra shi-ri shi-ri
so-ro so-ro mot-cha mot-cha
mo-da-ya mo-da-ya
mae-da-ri-ya ni-ra-gan-ta
ga-ma-sa nal-sa-nam
ba-ra-ha-ra-na-ya

ma-nak-sa-ba-ha
shit-ta-ya sa-ba-ha
ma-ha-shit-ta-ya sa-ba-ha
shit-ta-yu-ye sae-ba-ra-ya sa-ba-ha
ni-ra-gan-ta-ya sa-ba-ha
ba-ra-ha mok-ka shing-ha
mok-ka-ya sa-ba-ha

ba-na-ma ha-ta-ya sa-ba-ha
ja-ga-ra yok-ta-ya sa-ba-ha
sang-ka som-na-nye mo-da-na-ya sa-ba-ha
ma-ha-ra gu-ta da-ra-ya sa-ba-ha
ba-ma-sa gan-ta i-sa-shi che da
ga-rin-na i-na-ya sa-ba-ha

mya-ga-ra jal-ma ni-ba
sa-na-ya sa-ba-ha na-mo-ra
da-na-da-ra ya-ya na-mak ar-ya
ba-ro gi-je sae-ba-ra-ya
sa-ba-ha

For a short amount of poker content, on Sunday I got into a $3 MTT on Stars. It was quite the rollercoaster ride, but of the 2,423 people in it, I went out in a miserable 20th. It was rather odd, but during my last 45 min or so in the tourney, I went up against the same big stack in six pots. Of them, I was way ahead in five of them, but nun-the-less, that bastard took the pot. Every.single.time. Lost over 250K to him in the six hands I played. Naturally I went out with pocket Aces. He bet enough to put me all in, I happily called as did the guy next to me. Me AA, the guy next to me, AK, Mr. Big Stack, QJ. Flop was J4Q, followed up with an A then a Q. I felt a rage losing to this guy six times, especially when I was ahead nearly every time and lost my entire stack to him. I damn near put my fist through the monitor. Then I realized something, I missed not having my cat with me.

Live and Learn

2006-10-11T00:37:00.000-05:00

Well, by and large, I got raped at the tables last night. It seemed I was always fucking out kicked. The only positive note, I finally won myself a token in one of the marshmallow peep sex tourneys on Full Tilt. It’s about fracking time with one of those, I’ve been trying for a bit an never seemed to catch one. It just seems as if I didn’t have my Full Tilt groove on or something like that. I think the main thing is, I forgot about the Pot Bet button, I was always wondering about the size of some of those raises. Oh well, live and learn, and then show those mother frackers what you’ve got!!

Working on my MATH

2006-10-10T12:22:00.000-05:00

Well I managed to bubble myself out the Hoy last night, not too bad, it was my third time playing it. Started out slow, thought I would be out before the first half hour was done, but I managed to catch a few and eventually work my way up in chips. All in all, I didn’t make too many mistakes along the way, just one bad read on Surflexus when we were down to four pretty much crippled me and I was out shortly thereafter.

On a more unusual note, I hit quads no less than three times yesterday. The first time was during one of the $3 Rebuy madness games on Stars. I was slowly bleeding off chips and was down to about 2,200 (did the instant rebuy at the start) and hadn’t yet won a pot in the first 40 min of the game. Finally I was dealt KK and made a standard 3x BB bet and had one caller. Flop gave me a set and it went check check. Turn gave me quad Kings, so I figured let’s try to keep this person in so I checked again and so did he (damn it). River was a nine so I figured I’d make a nice small bet of 1/3 of the pot hoping to make it look like a cheap steal. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when he pushed all in. I did a double check just to make sure I really had quads, then made the call. He had been holding pocket nines so that nine on the river gave him a boat, nines full of Kings. He was rather disappointed to watch that pot get shipped my way. As they say DQB!!

My next two were in the Hoy. First time I was able to limp in with 44. Flop gave me a set, so I checked, got a bet, I raised, he reraised all-in and I called. If I remember correctly, it was top two with a flush draw, but a four hit on the turn and I had no worries.

The next one, I actually missed. I had 99 in late position so I made it 300 to go (50/100) and got a raise to 600 by I do not remember who and a call by Kat. Suddenly my 99 was not looking so good and I folded. Would have hit a set on the flop and quadded on the river, that time it was just not meant to be.

I do remember seeing several more instances of quads in tourneys and sng’s last night, I get the feeling that yesterdays seed in Stars RNG must have favored quads lol.

Don’t forget the rest of this weeks games!

Tuesday: WWdN (Name) Invitational (the Name changes, bust out the host; Wil Wheaton, and the next one is named after you).
Where: PokerStars
Buy-in: $10+1
Time: 20:30 ET
Password: monkey

Wednesday: The Mookie
Where: Full Tilt
Buy-in: $20+2
Time: 22:00 ET
Password: vegas1

Thursday: WWdN: Not the (Name) Invitational (the Name changes to the 2nd place finisher, ie, Not quite good enough!)
Where: PokerStars
Buy-in: $10+1
Time: 22:30 ET
Password: monkey

Good Couple Weeks

2006-10-06T16:00:00.000-05:00

Not too bad a run at the blogger tourneys as of late. Took down the Wheaties last week, took second in the WWdN Not last Thursday, and now in this weeks WWdN Not the Budohorseman Invitational, just when it was looking like we were preparing for the WWdN Not the Budohorseman Invitational II, nope, I had to go and win it! Congrats to Ursus Aureus, next week is yours!

This one was really quite fun. I have just quit smoking (again), so instead of lighting up, I was instead taking a drink. Frequently. I was much more chatty than usual, was playing loser than usual, but the cards were hitting me quite well, so it all worked out. Had one big suck-out on hacker when I re-raised with Hiltons and he pushed. I had a decent stack so I called and saw he was holing Ace’s. By the turn there were three hearts on the board and the river brought a bittersweet A of hearts. Sorry hacker, that was a tough one (did I mention that one of my Q’s was a heart, no, I didn’t but I’m sure you figured it out).

Made a few loose calls to pre-flop pushes with an ATs, A9s, KQs, and most of them worked out for me. I think it was the KQ that lost me some chips and put me down for a bit, but still in the top five. Made more good calls than bad ones, made some good folds and didn’t stay in too many that I had no business being in. Scratch all that, I had too much tequila and played like a total donkey, a lucky donkey.

This weekend I’ll be donking off some cash, mostly on Stars for now. I’ve been having a good run there—and putting most of it into Neteller so I can transfer it to Full Tilt later on. Still getting the feel for Tilt, I’m pretty new to that site. May play a token tourney or two and see about getting myself into one of those 20K, 250K and 500K games they have running, we shall see!

Tuesday, Wednesday, ?Thursday?

2006-10-03T16:55:00.000-05:00

Well, don’t forget, tonight is the Wheaties, and thanks to our old bud Frist, it may be the last one for a while, let’s hope not though!

WWdN Invitational
PokerStars $10+1
Tuesday 7:30 PM Central
Password: monkey

Goin’ for a repeat of last week, let’s see if I can’t take it down again!

Followed up by The Mookie

The Mookie
Full Tilt $10+1
Wednesday 9:30 PM Central
Password: vegas1

And finish off the week with The Not

WWdN: Not the Budohorseman Invitational
PokerStars $10+1
Tuesday 9:00 PM Central
Password: monkey

Looking to finish one spot better this week, and with a bit of luck, we will actually be able to play it, we’ll just have to see if they will allow us or not…

And of course, we must all thank Senator Bill Frist. Thanks to him watching out for all of us, most of the reputable and established online poker rooms will be barring us from playing, letting us go to the smaller, here today gone tomorrow sites, or to the underground games for those of us not near a real casino. Thanks Bill, I feel safer already!!

Whoo hoo

2006-09-26T23:24:00.000-05:00

Whoo hoo, the rush continues. Last night, our card clud had the second Omaha game (I missed the first one), and I actually won it! That makes me 4 for 4 in making the final table this month. And tonight, I finally took 1st in a WWdN. I must admit, I had a damn number of lucky draws and rivered my way on up. I’ve had more bubbles in that game than I care to count, a few cashes, but damn it was nice to finally win one. OK, it’s late so off to bed I go!

Pokery Goodness

2006-09-25T12:38:00.000-05:00

Getting that excited/nervous feeling for Friday night. In just a few short days I’ll be up on the stage playing in the ‘Best of the Best’ tourney while about 200 others are playing in the Second Chance tourney for their shot at the big game in October. Rumor has it that we are playing for a buy-in to one of the Heartland Poker Tour games. I’m pretty sure they are out of MN, they offer satellites around the area in many of the Reservation casinos in the area. A number of their big games pay a couple 100K, so I like my odds there.

And it looks like the card club is making some changes for this year. It looks like the top nine this time will be playing for buy-in to a $1500 NLHE in the 2007 WSOP, as will the winner of the, now annual even. This time it will be for a 10-month period to match up with the WSOP schedule and then it will be an annual event. Me likey!

Last year, I missed the first 2/3 of the season, mostly because I had never heard of them before. I only had two months to play and get some points, but I made it with plenty to spare. For this six-month period, I have been in the top 9 since the start, and I actually took an entire month off, that is one month with zero points and I’m still sitting at 7th place! If I had kept my average that month, I’d be an easy 3rd place.

Well the clock has reset and we are now working on the 10-month totals, and this is month number one. So far I have only played a whopping huge three times and it looks like I am in the top 10, and with still better than a week to go in the month I should have little trouble getting into the top nine.

Oh, and one more sweet little change, on Monday’s they will be having Omaha Hi playing on a rotating schedule between two of the locations. You can be sure I will be at them, nice to get a break from NLHE every once in awhile and I could use some work on my Omaha game, as I have never played this one live before.

On the Hold ‘em front, I have been working on closing one hole in my live game, and so far it looks like I have been doing it well. Before, I was not getting paid off all that well with many of my good hands. Since I have started working on that aspect of my game, I’ve been raking in bigger pots than I had before by keeping people around longer, giving them good odds to call, even when they know they are beat, or even raising into me because they think I am weak and making a value bet. Thanks Hoy, I can credit you for helping me with that one!!

Don’t forget the upcoming games:

Tuesday night, WWdN Invitational on Stars, 7:30 PM Central Time, $10+1, password: monkey.
Wednesday night, The Mookie on Full Tilt, 9:00 PM Central Time, $10+1, password: vegas1.
Thursday night, WWdN Not the Invitational on Stars, 9:00 PC Central Time, $10+1, password: monkey.

Fuck It

2006-09-19T22:12:00.000-05:00

What the FUCK?!!?!?! I managed to run into 2 flopped flushes and 3 flopped straights tonight, not to mention the fucktards who could not be bet off their draws, just ungoddammenunfucking real. I should just shut down and get my ass to bed, but no, I feel compelled to bet off the rest of my fucking bankroll, I’m just a fucktard on tilt now just going to make it worse, but at least I am aware of it!!

I don’t fucking get it, fucking calling down to the river with shit and catching (yes with fucking big bets) and everyone raising you fucking 10x your fucking bet, I mean what the fuck is going on, I just give the fuck up!

500K Marshmallow Peep Sex

2006-09-19T15:00:00.000-05:00

Seems to be about time for an update. Saturday was kind of so-so. Had three tourneys running on Full Tilt, actually three sng’s. One of them, it turns out was Razz, it was supposed to be NLHE, but I guess the lines swapped just as I was clicking and not paying too much attention. Imagine my surprise when I saw myself with three cards!! Had that one been stud, I would have been ruling!!

As for the other two, one was a satellite for the 500K and the other was a marshmallow peep sex tourney. I finished 2nd in both. The one for the 500K really pissed me off as that one ran a good three and a half hours. Last hand I had two cards (don’t remember which) and we both were in it for a small raise. I flopped two pair and bet about ¾ the pot and go raised. I pushed, he called and hit his four outer for the gut-shot. He just had me covered as we had been pushing the lead between us for a while. Ah well, at least I cashed in both of them, but that $500 buy-in for the 500K would have been sweet!!

As for the live games, well I’ve only played three so far this month with two final tables, so at least I’ve got some points. I’ll need to make a bit of a run here at the end of the month to get in the top nine again, this time around the top nine are playing for a buy-in to a $1,500 NLHE event in the 2007 WSOP. It’s a sad thing, well not for me, but I’ve only played three times, with two final tables (only the final table gets points) and as of now, I’m only 30 point out of the top nine and 60 points from the top spot. All those other poor souls play at least 3-4 times a week.

Don’t forget the upcoming poker blogger madness! Tonight is the WWdN Invitational on Stars, password: monkey, tomorrow night is the Mookie on Full Tilt, password: vegas1 and Thursday night is DADI #9 also on Full Tilt, password: pokertrust. Be there!!

Raise, Re-raise, Re-reraise, All-In!!

2006-09-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

Maybe I should be paying more attention to the ME coverage of this years WSOP. Recently I have noticed that if there is a raise, a re-raise, and the occasional re-reraise, the original raiser always goes all-in. This happened to me at least eight times yesterday and I for one just don’t get it.

For example, early on in the tourney (50/100) I look down at KK and make a raise to 300. The girl on my left re-raises to 600 and it folds around to me. I re-raise her and additional 1600 (total of 2200 each) and she declares all-in. I take about 2.6 seconds and call her. She flips up 77 and my KK turns into a straight. This happened two more times before the table was broken up. It was just unreal; every single time I said re-raise the original raiser went all-in. So tell me, is this a new trend or was it a full moon or something yesterday?

One player said they thought I was trying to buy the pots because of my bet sizes. I guess they must just play a bit different than I do, but I guess I could have been paying a bit more attention. If one of them raised, it was typically a min-raise or a 3x raise pre-flop. After that, they would typically keep throwing their initial bet into the pot, unless they hit big where they may bet 4x to 5x the BB on the river. Me, I had a weak two pair with a set potential out there so I bet half the pot to see where I stood. The guy accused me of buying the pot. Sorry, that just me, 1/3 to ½ the pot to see where I stand, the rest of you just keep betting the equivalent of the pots and keep increasing those pot odds all the way down to the river.

Tanner Evers Night

2006-09-06T23:57:00.000-05:00

Well that sucked, before the Tanner Evers Charity Tourney on Full Tilt, I sat down to a single table SnG. Took down a nice pot or two, then called a min-raise from the BB with JT. Flopped a straight, made it ¾ of the pot to go (don’t remember the pot size) got raised, I re-raised, got re-re-raised, so I push. The guy shows two pair, KQ and catches a boat on the river. Oh well, one more try before I move to a cash game before the tourney starts.

Unreal, granted I was on flush draw, well, a royal flush draw actually, I was betting the hell out of it and got called down to the river by bottom pair, and by that I mean ducks!!! Still in it, but not by much, at least I get to work on my short stack play.

Well, took myself from the short stack and managed a 2nd place finish. Game took forever so I called an all in with a pretty weak hand, but the charity game was about to begin so I had to do it.

The charity tourney did not go so well, NewInNov took me out pretty early when he had a boat on my two pair (caught his A on the river, damn him for not representing pocket A’s lol). At least he took my chips to play heads-up, glad I could help sir. Check out Mookie’s blog for a recap of the game.

After that it was SnG fest where I moneyed in 50%, not too bad, at least I’m not down for the night!

Level 3

2006-09-06T12:18:00.000-05:00

“You know I’m one of the best players here.” That’s what Brian ‘I see 80% of the flops’ McKenzie said to me after he took 4rd this past Saturday.

“Yeah Brian, you are up there for sure, too bad people don’t respect your raises.”

Good thing he doesn’t know that I typically set the over/under for him busting out at level 3 blinds, level 2 if he’s on his fourth tequila when the tourney starts.

This past Saturday he just kept getting unbelievably lucky and catching cards. Every. Fucking. Time. And yes, I started at his table and this time I did not make the level 3 blinds. Oh well, cant win ‘em all. At least he respects his play, me, I just like his chips.

On Sunday I made a huge mistake, one that never leads to a good night. I played a number of hands during level 1 and 2. For reasons that are not yet clear to me, for some reason during the first two levels of this tourney, a raise of 3-5 times the BB typically means that there will be 4-6 people seeing the flop with you at an 8 handed table. With 10/20 blinds a raise to 200 is pretty meaningless, and will not chase anyone out of the pot. It is not uncommon to see pots of over 2k during 10/20 blinds, and that’s with everyone starting with just 1,500 in chips.

And then something magical and mysterious happens, the blinds hit level 3 at 50/100 and suddenly people start folding their marginal/garbage hands to raises of 3-5 times the BB. I’m not sure what it is that causes this sudden shift, maybe it’s the fact that after the chip up’s, people see fewer chips at the table and are not able to let them go quite so easily. This seems to hold until the blinds hit 1,000/2,000 at which time it’s like we’ve warped back to level 1. I guess this is not quite as bad in reality as the M’s are getting a bit low for many still in, but it seems like too many are willing to go broke with garbage (ie, 48o) when they can still play a good 7 or 8 more orbits.

Shoot Me Now!!

2006-08-28T13:22:00.000-05:00

Working on a pricing update here at work. The thing that sucks the most is I do nearly everything electronically in Excel and Access. I have just been giving our competitors pricing data—in a printed copy. There is nothing I loathe more than having to manually input half a bajillion numbers into a spreadsheet. It is just plain wrong and there will be no way I can get it done in time, I’m just not that quick with this type of thing and after about 15-20 minutes or so my brain starts to zone out when doing this type of ‘work.’

On the poker front, the past week or so has been abysmal. I’ve been busting out early in the tourneys or losing a buy-in or two at the cash tables. The cards have been just cold cold cold and I have pretty much just been blinded out of my past two tourneys. What are the chances of playing two tourneys and not taking a single pot? Actually, that’s not entirely correct, one time when I was in the BB and it was folded around to me, the SB had chosen that hand to use the restroom so I got his blind by default when his hand was mucked when the action got to him and he was not in his seat. There’s an idea, maybe I should slip some diuretics into everyone’s drinks tonight to keep them off the table so I can steal blinds to the final table…

DamnItAllToHell

2006-08-24T16:05:00.000-05:00

Unfucking real. I am in a tourney now and in 40 hands I have not yet been dealt a pocket pair or anything better than an A5 (out of position). The two times I have actually made something, any bet, even a min bet gets folds. I am so pissed I am ready to take off the sides of the fucking PC and throw it into the middle of the fucking storm we are having. Why the fuck to I even bother with any of these fucking tourneys, I should just stick with the fucking cash games, but damnitalltohell, I just love the tourneys.

Maybe the Mookie

2006-08-23T15:04:00.000-05:00

Managed to bubble yet again in last nights WWdN game. I put the button (I think it was skidoo) on a steal and as it turns out, I was wrong. Oh well, that’s one more bubble I can add to the series. I’d be doing all right if most of those bubbles were cashes, I always seem to screw myself on the bubble in that game, no idea why.

Well I am off work tomorrow, not for a good or fun reason, rather for getting a root canal. Since I will not be getting up at the crack of dawn, I may just well join in on the Mookie tonight and see how I fare. Sounds like they have been falling just short of the 46 people needed to pay the entire final table, so maybe one additional unexpected player will push it over that boundary line and allow the entire final table to get a payday. We’ll just have to see how it goes, wish us luck!!

Sunday 1st

2006-08-23T11:38:00.000-05:00

Had another 1^st place finish on Sunday, so that’s two Sunday’s in a row with a 1^st, not too bad, but damn they finish late (around 1:30 AM). With it being so late in the month, I pretty much have a lock for the six-month top-nine game. That one should be fun, I play regularly with eight of them, there is only one Westsider represented so far, but there are two who have a shot of making it so we shall see over the course of this week.

As for last night, let’s just say the river showed me no love. Time and time again the donkeys would call with their bottom pair and catch runner-runner for a straight or flush or make their set. I can’t even count the number of times I made sure they were getting no better than 2:1 on their money but they would keep calling down with their 4:1, 8:1, 16:1 hands and they kept hitting. It was unreal, one of the morons with a three outer actually told me he was getting his pot odds to call, so he had too! That’s right, three outs getting 2:1 on his money on the river and he had the pot odds to call, must be that new math. While such things may be good for me in the long run, it still just makes you fume when they always fracking hit.

Anyways, on Thursday it’s off to the dentist for that root canal. It will be nice to have this over and done with, that’s for sure. Spent about a week with a swollen and infected tooth, it was not happiness. Work has been crazy during this time as we have been reorganized so I am now part of the new department. As a result, a ton of new work, passing along some old stuff, and a bajillion new meetings and reports to put out, what fun!

See ya’ll at the WWdN!!

Down to Four!

2006-08-07T15:07:00.000-05:00

Had a pretty decent night at the tourney yesterday. I actually managed to double up during the Level 1 blinds so that got me off to a good start plus it put Mike (the guy who owns the company that runs these tourneys) on tilt right at the start. Anyhow, Mike is UTG and makes it 160 to go. Four people call when it gets to me on the button. I look down at 89s and since I’m getting at least 5:1 on my money I make the call. Both the blinds fold and Mike is stunned by all the action. Well the flop comes up 995 and Mike makes it 550 to play. It folds to me so I make it 1,100, which irritates Mike who then pushes and I call. He flips up AKs and then starts telling me what a horrible play I made calling him with that hand. So while normally I would agree that it was a bad call against him with an UTG raise, in this case I was on the button getting 5:1 so I put that down as a pretty easy call and a fairly easy lay down if the flop missed me. What do you think, good call or not (and yes, Mike is a solid player)?

Later on, during Level 3 blinds (50/100), I made a mid position raise of 400 with TT, got two callers and the BB pushed. I called and the other two also ended up pushing so I also ended up calling them as well. After all the side pots were worked out, it turns out that I had the only pair, all the A’s were in peoples hands as were ½ the K’s. That ended up working for me quite well as no one improved other than me when the board paired. It was fun having to call out “Doyle, down to four” as I was stacking all those pretty chips.

The next table was pretty nice, a couple of decent size stacks, a mid stack or two and a couple very short ones. Had one sweet hand there. Was dealt Ad6d in the CO and made it 4x BB to go (200/400) and got three callers. Flop came down 7d5d4c. I bet 2,200 and got one caller and two folds. Turn was a Js, and I was not pleased. I bet another 2,200 and Dan went into the tank. About 3 minutes later he finally mucked his hand, gotta love it when you pull off a nice bluff.

Awhile later the final table was announced, I took my seat and my cards went to shit. Actually it wasn’t just my cards, but also the play in general. I really don’t know what happened, it seems like all of a sudden people thought to themselves “Final table, I need to throw in chips with any paint or soooooted cards!” My AKs v K2o, K on the flop with a 2 on the river. 92s, sure I’ll call your 4x BB raise, they’re sooooted! Flush by the river. Over and over, it was surreal. We got down to four and I was down to my last 15,000 with blinds of 5,000/10,000 and I’m on the button with 44. What the heck, the underpairs have been working for everyone else and I know both the blinds will call. I throw in my chips and for the first time at this table, the guy who pairs his A on the flop wins. Oh well, what can you do, das pokah! Who knows, maybe tonight….

Sit In the Chair

2006-08-04T10:01:00.000-05:00

Had a so-so day yesterday at the tables. Cashed in two of six SnG’s and bubbled the other four, grrrrr. After that (well during the last SnG anyways) I sat down for the WWdN:Not. Let me start by saying that the SnG I was playing was the longest freaking single-table SnG in history, damn near two hours long. Anyways, the Not was a good time. The hand that stands out the most is the one I played piss-poor. I had an AJ in mid-position and made a decent raise of about 3.5 BB and Katitude called me. During this hand the wife stood in the doorway behind me and was telling me about her day. Now understand that my hearing is not all that great and with the noise of the AC running I have to turn to look at her so I can hear her. So here I am, twisting back and forth throwing hundreds into the pot (flop was AxQ rainbow or something), betting ½ the pot each time and I keep getting called by Kat. So throw in chips and turn back to my conversation. Hear the beep, see another brick, bet ½ the pot and get called again. Turn back to my conversation, hear the beep, see a K on the river bet ½ the pot and get raised from 900 to 1800. I look at the screen, say fuck, realize I have to push or fold and muck my cards. The wife says, “That’s not my fault” and then leaves.

Un.Freaking.Real. There is a chair right next to me that she could have sat down in to talk, that way I could have still focused on the action at the table and carried on a conversation without any real problems. I ended up donking off about 2/3 of my stack in that hand, but at least Kat put them to good use and ended up being the Not of the tourney, so the next one is in her name. I figure she had two pair or a set, I really do not think she made the straight because I do not see her playing a QT down to the river with those bets. The only things I can put her on is AQ, AK, maybe a KQs, but I guess we’ll never know.

A Good Night

2006-08-02T13:32:00.000-05:00

Last night I just had too much fun playing online. The WWdN was most excellent with a nice little 8th place finish. Both CJ and Wil joined us from the WSOP so that was quite nice of them to take time from their busy schedules to join us. The first table was pretty interesting with Kattitude, slb, Bobby Bracelet, ISS Spock, Hoyazo, and the LuckBox. Not too long later the empty seats were filled by SoxLover and Gracie. Hoy was the first one out at our table, followed not too long later by CJ. Sorry about that CJ, I was ahead and should have lost to the LuckBox (A7o vs. AKo, 7 on the flop but a K on the river), but I do have a theory about that. Since the LuckBox has been making the rounds there at the WSOP, I suspect that the combination of oils from peoples hands and the wifi craziness you are running into down there add up to decrease the LuckBox Radius of Influence (LBRoI). I suspect that as the number of people who handle your box increases, the LBRoI decreases as a inverse squared function. Just give it a good polish and all will return to normal.

The only other hand that I recall at the moment was courtesy of Waffles. I made a mid position raise with a KQs and Waffles pushed, I called and Waffles showed his Q3s. Waffles got his 3 on the flop and I made a beautiful runner-runner straight. I think I’ll check out my hand history tonight and see what it was that took me out.

Since it was still not too late, I decided to play a bit more for fun. Don’t ask me what compelled me to sign up for a $1 MTT at 10 PM other than I knew I would not be awake that long and just felt like donking off some chips without a huge investment. Turns out I busted out of that one three hours later in 38th. The sad thing is I could have played much longer but I was just so damned tired I couldn’t keep going on. It had been a really fun table and donated most of my stack to one of the fun ones when I called his all-in when I knew I was behind, and I’m glad I was otherwise I would have pretty much doubled up. After that hand the blinds and antes took what I had left in two or three hands. All in all, it was a very fun night.

Third

2006-08-01T10:33:00.000-05:00

Well I had a decent game last night. It was pretty scary at first as when we came back from break I was down to 2,000 and the blinds were 100/200. I got quite lucky and was getting some decent cards along with some aggressive play and I managed to build my stack enough to get in site of the final table. Too bad the cards went so damn cold on me before the final table started; I sat down at the final with only 11,000 in chips and blinds at 1,000/2,000.

I only got to see a couple of flops before I was down to 8,000 and had to post my bb. I looked down and there was 55 looking back at me. There was on caller and then the big stack went all in against me. Since the blinds were about to go up, effectively dropping my M to one, I called—he is known for playing bs when he has a stack. He had pocket fours against my fives, and imagine my shock when I hit quads on the flop. Thanks to that I managed to keep myself going till I busted out in third.

With that finish I have plenty of points for the monthly game and it also put me into eighth place overall in the running totals, but not by much. I’ll be slugging it out with a couple of my good friends as we all struggle to make (or stay in) the top nine, which wraps up at the end of August. In September they hold the “Second Chance” tourney for those who did not qualify for the six month tourney (can you say poker cruise to Mexico in December) at which time there is the “Best of the Best” tourney for the top nine for a trip to Vegas.

I can remember last year when I started playing with this group in December. They were already half way through the September to February six month period and I actually managed to make it into the six-month game in that time. The six-month game is a two-day deep stack tourney and I actually made it about half way through day two. Personally I was quite proud of that as I had only been playing cards for less than six months. It still astounds me that with less than a year’s worth of experience, I am in the top nine of 700+ players, and all of the ones at the top have been playing for 5,10, 20 or more years.

Several of the players now know what my typical ranges are. I have been starting to use this to my advantage whenever I can to pull off the occasional bluff. It has been working out pretty well because in the past two and a half weeks I have only been busted out before the last two tables once, and sadly have had about seven bubbles. Now that I am playing the people at the table rather than just my cards, it has been giving me some help. Now if I can just get a bit better at putting them on a hand I should be able to go much further and give my game a nice boost.

Moneymaker Millions...A Donkfest of Epic Proportions

2006-07-28T12:49:00.000-05:00

My oh my, what a donkfest that was last night. Sadly I spaced out the DADI, but I did decided to try out the new freeroll on PokerStars, the MoneyMaker Millions. There were over 9,500 people signed up to play so you know what a wild ride it would be. Before Level Two blinds were completed about 40% of the field had been eliminated.

At first I saw pretty much what I expected to see, the nimrod that would bet 300 with 10/20 blinds every time it got to him. It took all of four hands before he started to get called down and within two orbits had lost about 2/3 of his stack. He then settled down for bit and allowed a bit of more somewhat normal play to ensue, i.e. preflop raises 3x-5x BB, but typically there would still be four to six people calling it to see the flop.

Finally he got himself a marginal hand to play and he push, got two callers and by some miracle his hand held up. Having chips once again he resumed his previous play style and was with us for about two more orbits before his bottom pair with a shit kicker failed to hold.

I had not had the opportunity to play many hands as my cards were all garbage and it was nearly impossible to get a fold without going all-in, and there was at least a 40% chance of getting called if you did. By the time we got to Level 3 I was down to about 1,350 when I got an AJs in mid position, made a standard raise of 3x BB and got, you guessed it, five callers. Flop came down KTQ rainbow and there was a 200 bet into the 750 pot in front of me. That got one fold, I made it 750 to go, got one caller one more fold and the original raiser pushed (he had me well covered). I called as did the person who called my original 750. The guy who pushed was holding KTo, the other person had, get this, Q9o. Turn was a J, river a T, and my beautiful flopped straight went down to the boat on the river. The KT I can kind of understand, he probably put me on an A with my other card pairing the board so he probably figured he was ahead. But the Q9? Second pair with a gut shot calling two all-ins, well played sir.

In all, I outlasted about 60% of the field. That’s right, 60% gone before the first break. It was a truly unprecedented donkfest the likes of which I had never before seen. As for me, I can’t complain, had my hand held I would have been sitting fairly well, but the suck out on the river gave me an early night. I’ll have to try it again one day soon.

Bubbles and Senators

2006-07-26T13:22:00.000-05:00

Well I managed to pull off yet another bubble. Actually surprised I made it as long as I did with all the crap I kept getting. Oh well, that’s the way this game goes. I felt pretty good about the hand I bust on. I was one of the short stacks, table was 5 handed and I was in the cut-off. Looked down at a KsQs and made a raise of 5k, making it 7k to go. The table folded around to the big blind, who also happened to be a new one here, and he thought and said, “I’ll put you all in.” I put in my remaining 10k and off we went, he flipped over JJ. A89 on the flop (all red), T on the turn and finally a Q on the river. For a split second I though I had it, till I saw his Q high straight. Why oh why couldn’t he make his set and give me the straight? So now that’s 5 bubbles in 7 games, I think I’m starting to lose my sanity.

Anyhow, don’t forget to write to your Senators and tell them that Sen. Frist is a putz and to vote against his proposed legislation to stop online betting. Give them an analogy they can relate to that will help them understand the skill/luck mix such as an analogy to the stock market. Remind them of all the books that can be studied, databases that can be used to track your performance that you can review to improve your game. Let them know that only a fraction of a percent fall into the “click your mouse, lose your house” category of addictive gamboooolers and find an analogy for them too—I used the day-traders. Let them know that state sanctioned gamboooooling, such as your lotteries, typically give you odds that only some numbnuts donkeyfish poker player would try to beat. And finally, say the magic “T” word. Let them know that they are missing out on potentially billions of taxable revenues and would be an easy new tax to pass. What are you waiting for, get busy and start writing!

STFU

2006-07-25T15:37:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like I have been running all right as of late. In my past six tourneys I’ve made two final tables and four bubbles, but let me tell you, those bubbles sting. I think that I have just managed to squeak myself back into the top nine (we have 670 players in our little circuit here) and need to stay focused to keep myself there, I should not have taken so much time off—oh well.

Anyways, last night was just one of those nights. After the break I found myself at a table that had two new players and one girl who could just not shut the fuck up. At best we did two orbits per level, and let me tell you, those blinds were eating us up. It was a good thing I managed to at least double up at that table, maybe if we could have played some god dammed cards instead of listing to our girl have to chat for 5 min, then resume shuffle, chat for 5, resume shuffle, chat for 10 start to deal, a few more comments, then finish the deal (she could not talk and do anything with the cards at the same time and of course she always had to be told when it was her turn to act, and no, she was not one of the new ones), it may have been possible to get some more chips before our table got broken up and the blinds jumped to 500/1000.

During that level of blinds I just got slowly pecked away and due to the lack of play at the previous table, did not have a stack to make a play at any of the pots short of going all in, and sadly there was more than one that could make that call and not even notice a difference in their stack whether they won or lost. The thing that sucked the most was just as the big blind was on me and the cards were dealt, the cry “Final Table” was announced. I look down to a Q3o and mucked my cards and gave my blind to the big stack, knowing that I had at least until the big blind hit me at the final table to try to outlast one of the donkeys at the table.

As luck would have it, I was placed in seat 8 at the final table. As I had prognosticated, two people busted out before the big blind got to me. Needless to say, the cards did nothing for me, didn’t even bother to look at them till I had to flip them after the river and the other two finished their betting. 95o was no help on a board of A23 Q 2. So off I went in 7th place and home for a relatively early night.

Four to Seven

2006-07-20T10:25:00.000-05:00

Not too bad last night, went out in seventh. While normally I would be a bit more upset with such a low finish on the final table, not this time. During a bit over five hours of play, I won a total of four hands and only had two fold to me. I was getting craptastic cards all night long, but on those few occasions that I hit, I managed to get paid off on them so it was all good.

Not sure if I’ll be heading out to the game tonight. I am tempted and I do need some more points to get myself back into the top nine, as I just recently slipped down to tenth. To be honest, I’m surprised I stayed up as long as I did as I took about five weeks off (well actually more like only once a week). Have about six weeks to get myself back up there so I can play in the “Best of the Best” game at the end of August. It’s a special game for the top nine players that they do once every six months, the winner from the last one has a nice little trip to Vegas that he leaves for today…

That Was Fun

2006-07-19T11:38:00.000-05:00

Was running a bit late to the WWdN last night, missed an orbit or two so I got to start just a bit short. Took me a bit to get going, won a few small pots and got myself back up over the starting amount. One hand that had two callers got to me in the SB so I completed figuring what the heck, they’re not great but for only 10 more…then Hoy makes it 100 to go. Buh-bye chips, I folded it as soon as it got to me. I limped one more time and Hoy did the same thing to me….at least he had a pattern.

Shortly before Level 2 I looked down at a KQs in the SB. Since it was just Hoy and me in the pot, I just limped and as expected Hoy made it 100. The flop had a K rags so I bet the pot and Hoy called. The Turn was a J so I bet again and he called and the River was yet another J. This time I checked and Hoy pulled a Hoy on me. I though about it for a minute and made the call. Hoy was playing A rag and was left with one chip, which was his all-in in the SB. Poor Hoy was out before Level 2 blinds. After that it seemed I was good in any pot that did not exceed 4x the BB, if it got over that amount it just seemed I was doomed to lose it. All in all, it was a fun game. I did have one too many by later on in the game and began playing my best drunken lemur game before eventually going out in 16th place.

After that, I naturally thought I just had to keep playing so I fired up a ring game, refreshed my drink and took about 10-15 minutes to donk off ½ my buy-in. Somehow I managed to realize that I had too much to drink to keep playing so I cut my loses and shut down the pc. Would have been better if I had shut down right after the tourney, but at least I did not lose my full buy-in.

Root Canal

2006-07-18T13:17:00.000-05:00

Well it looks like I get to have a root canal done!! They did the preliminary work on it last week and they are getting the insurance authorization for the procedure. Guess I’ll be an indentured servant in a week or so, what fun!

Last night’s game was rather interesting. In the span of two and a half hours (the total amount of time I was in the game) by best hand was an ATo. I got only one pocket pair, 77, and they cost me several hundred chips. The lack of pocket pairs or any two decent overs was more than made up for by the seven times I was dealt Q9, four of which were sooooted. I was getting them so often I felt obligated to play them after awhile, of course they never hit. Oh, and that best hand I was dealt, you know that ATo, well that was also my last hand as I raised on the flop when an A appeared and it folded to the button who pushed and I called (by chance we had exactly the same amount of chips). He showed A6o and spiked a 6 on the river.

Don’t forget that the WWdN is tonight on PokerStars! Though a portion of our brethren is still in Vegas, a larger portion has returned so we should have a fairly decent turnout this week. Hope to see you there!

What a Weekend

2006-07-10T13:23:00.000-05:00

Saturday I got to play tech support. One of my coworkers needed help with her PC and get her VOIP set up. After getting everything together and finding a power strip it looked like we were good, with the exception of having no mouse. I was hoping I would be able to muddle my way through without it, but it seems that getting the PC running was not in the cards.

Turns out, Windows would not even boot, not even in safe mode! What’s a person to do? I had them find me the system disc’s that came with the PC. The restore CD’s were all packaged together in a plastic bag. That’s right, all of them just thrown together in a plastic bag. They were so scratched up that they were unreadable. It also turns out that they got rid of the CD from their broadband provider that had the drivers for their DSL modem. Someone had told them that all the stuff from Yahoo that was included with the drivers on the disc was full of spyware that would slow their system down so they just trashed it.

So next weekend the saga will continue as I track down a mouse, keyboard, and Windows XP and hopefully get that sucker up and running. I should have her get the drivers and burn them to a CD while at work so we can get their broadband up and running.

Sunday was yard work fest. It was way too hot and muggy if you ask me, but the weeds were getting out of hand. Spent way too many hours out there for my comfort level. It was probably a good thing that I set up the min collapsible pool last weekend. I think it’s about 10 feet in diameter and about 3 feet deep or so. It was nice to take a dunk in the pool, even had the company of Guinness in the pool. Guinness our Rottweiler, not the beer, though that would have been nice too!

Bubbles

2006-07-06T16:05:00.000-05:00

Don’t you just love being the bubble? That’s right, you guessed it, yours truly was last nights bubble boy. I was hoping to double up against the big stack again; he had been playing a lot of hands and making too many raises and all-in calls, though sometimes he did actually have it. Anyhow we were five handed and I was holding pocket nines. I led off with a standard raise and then he reraised me so I just pushed. He was holding Big Slick and with the A on the flop I knew I was done. So off to the bar I went and Nancy the bartender was kind enough to pour me a Bacardi and diet, on the house.

Looks like this weekend I’ll be playing tech support for a friend with massive computer issues so it looks like I will not be hitting any of the live games. I actually think it may be nice to have a weekend without wanting to pound my head through the wall after taking a bad beat or a major suck-out. Instead, I’ll get to approach stroke levels as I try to figure out why the hell the computer is not doing what it should be doing. Wish me luck!

4th

2006-07-05T14:30:00.000-05:00

Well I had a decent night on Monday, took 4th in the tourney. The follow up on Tuesday was not quite so good, got down to two tables but lost a huge pot pretty early on that crippled me. Oh well, das pokah. After busting out I sauntered over to the bar to finish my beer and catch the last 10 minutes of the World Cup. That first goal by the Italians in the last two minutes of the second over-time was just amazing. The next one that followed less than a minute later was not quite as impressive as the Italians had that poor German goal tender surrounded.

The fireworks were alright, the bar where we were playing had a direct line of site to the show, so that was cool. The TD gave us all a 20 min break to watch the show, but the blinds had to stay on the clock so we all faced the brutal 200/400 to 500/1000 jump in blinds when we got back. To help make up for it the TD announced that anyone who spent $10 at the bar during the next 30 min would get a bonus 1000 chip, not an easy task considering almost everything was on special for the 4th!! Everyone was fine with that, gotta keep the bar happy after all!

Gonna have to make another crack at a final table tonight, haven’t been playing in the live games as much over the past month, and when I have, I’ve been running cold. So here’s to turning on the heat and taking this one down tonight!

Quit Being Pissy

2006-07-03T12:14:00.000-05:00

Another lousy weekend at the tables. Down a buy-in and two tourneys without a final table, ho-hum. Saturday was irritating because I made it down to the last two before going out in 12th when my KQs lost to pocket 4’s. Went to the bar until a spot opened at the cash table and the woman bitched at me for being pissy. At the cash table, I got my buy-in and there were a couple of stacks there, didn’t win a single pot. That’s right, not a one. Nothing but drawing hands and never made a pair. Any pot I was in had a stack that would call or raise simply because they could. Back to the bar and hear ‘quit being pissy’ again. I guess I was ruining her night sitting on the corner and being quiet rather than chatting it up with her and her friend.

Sunday was about the same. Just wasn’t getting the cards and the draws were missing and it was tough to induce a fold at the table I spent most of my night at. The blinds were up to 500/1000 and I was sitting on about 5500. When the BB got to me, the button min raised me. I figured he was trying to steal and I was holding a J9s, so I figured wtf, push. Turns out the button also had 5500 and he called. He was on a steal with Q7o, but since his raise was damn near ½ his chips he had to call. Blanks to the river and out I went.

As I head to the bar, there she is with her friend and I tell her I just busted out. ‘Quit being pissy.’ I was just going wtf. I just fucking busted out of the tourney less than 4.2 seconds ago!! Guess I should be doing cartwheels of joy the instant I bust out of a tourney.

‘You should just play to have fun, if it’s not fun quit.’
‘Everyone gets bad cards and loses so quit being pissy.’
‘I’m here to be social and have fun.’

Sorry, I play to win, and when I don’t I will be irritated, i.e. pissy, for a bit. The Sunday hand I busted out with I figured I was on a coin-flip at best. I was not upset by the play or the way it turned out, but I was still upset to lose.

Sadly, she is not there for the cards, she is there for the social aspect. It really sucks when she dumps one, two, or three buy-ins having fun. I for one am a bit better than breakeven at the cash games, but when you add on her fun, we are way the fuck behind.

She says she loves the game, so do I. Problem is, she loves the game as a vehicle and I love the game for the game. So I guess that means that once again tonight I’ll get bitched at for being pissy.

I'm not your DADI

2006-06-30T10:42:00.000-05:00

Well the DADI was a fun time last night. Didn’t catch anything all night, but I managed to hang on till a little after break. After managing to get myself down to a nice small stack, around 1500ish I found myself in ep with KQo and pushed. Drizztdj called and turned over JJ. Hit a Q on the turn but the J on the river sent me to the rail. After that I managed to bubble in two six max sng’s.

It was just not a good poker night in general. After the second time that night that my Aces got cracked by marginal drawing hands I think I poured myself too stiff a drink. I managed to donk it up quite well in that second sng, don’t really recall how I went out in that one. To wind things off I sat down at a 25NL ring and continued to play the same. Don’t ask me how, but before I was down by 10% I realized I was too tired and too drunk to keep playing, so as soon as I finished my smoke, I shut down Stars and headed up to bed.

The only decision for today is; tourney, sng, or grind it out in the ring games…

One bit of good news though, I finally managed to successfully pull off my first Hoy and Reverse Hoy. Ya just gotta love that Hoy!!

Otis!!!

2006-06-28T11:31:00.000-05:00

I hear that Otis has the difficult task of spending the next 10 weeks or so in Vegas. It seems he has been given the job of spending his days and night with Dr. Pauly and Grubby hitting the buffets, going to the Hooker Bar and paying for lap dances by strippers. Oh that and he is covering the WSOP for PokerStars on their official blog. Look for the feeds on the right and click them so Otis knows we care!!

Hate this Fracking Game

2006-06-27T23:55:00.000-05:00

Unreal. That is all I can say. Get into a ring game, keep bouncing up and down between our buy-in. Finally get to 1.5 buy-ins and within two hands down to .5 buy-ins. Why? Cause some fuckers keep calling the pot sized bets to the river with their bottom pairs and catching their set or second pair on the river. KK v 93o, a three on the flop and a 9 on the river. No less than 8 OESD/FD’s failed to make either one. Open-ended STRAIGHT FLUSH DRAW fails to appear, and loses to JJ, but as we already know jjok. Left with .3 buy-ins, the poker Gods just waited for me to get to 1.5 buy-ins then started pissing all over me, I hate this fracking game and I vow never to play it again, or at least until tomorrow night, whichever comes first.

Nut Flush and Boats

2006-06-27T20:17:00.000-05:00

<rant>What’s up with me making my nut flush with the card that makes the other guy a boat? That’s two for two now and I for one fail to see the humor in that. Oh well, what can you do, I hate this game so I guess I’ll head out to a live game and get my ass handed back to me lol!</rant>

Free Guinness anyone?

2006-06-27T15:15:00.000-05:00

Well busted out rather late in the tourney last night, but I stuck around for a bit to chat it up and watch the final table. Pretty much no sooner than that final table started Don walked up to me and asked if I wanted to get into a cash game, as they needed just two more people. I told him I was pretty tired and only had $10 on me, but he said that $10 is good. Eventually I finally agreed and sat down with him, Jen, Pat and one of the bartenders (the other one needed to wait for the final table to finish up so she could close the tabs).

Since I was tired, I did a pretty good job of donking off my chips. I actually started off pretty good cause my first hand was JJ and as we all know, JJok. Made a nice little profit on that hand and the proceeded to give it all away, and then some. I think Pat was the first to bust out and then the TD of the tourney, Wayne, decided to join us. I was down to my last 4 and some change when I woke up with something and made a nice little raise and everyone called. The flop came and I made a nice little bet that kept all but Jen. The turn improved me and I pushed and that got rid of the bartended (I think it was Melissa). The river neither helped nor hurt me and I pretty much quadrupled up on that hand.

Jen busted out soon after and that opened up a spot for the other bartender Nancy. Nothing really stands out for me about that little side game other than both of our lovely bartenders both did a re-buy or two (that caught the attention of Corey who decided to a buy-in and join us) and when you are playing with them, the Guinness flows freely. All I can say is the Guinness is good, and free Guinness is just hawsome!

I think by about 1 am or so, I was exhausted, we lost a couple players and finally we broke it up. It was nice to cash out for four buy-ins made all the better by free Guinness from the tap!

Make's ya and Break's ya

2006-06-26T16:53:00.000-05:00

Well I don’t know about you, but I for one went out in a blaze last night. During Level 3 not too far from break, a new kid sat down at our table. I for one had never played against him before and I think only of our regulars had played with him once many moons ago. Well just before break the blinds were 50/100 and there was a mid-position raise to 300 or 400 and it folded around to the new kid, who pushed (he was short stacked, about 1500 in chips). The blinds folded and the original raiser called. He flipped over AdKd and the new kid flips 74o. Nothing hits but a 7 and the kid doubles up. He just wanted to double up before break or bust out early.

About three hands after break I’m in late position with several limpers I look down at As3s and for some reason made the call. The kid then made a min raise and everyone called, me included, the pot ended up with about 2,400 in it I think (I don’t recall if the SB joined us or not). Anyhooo, the flop came up KsTsX and the kid made a bet of 600 that I called. The river gave us a Jx and the kid made it 1200 to go. I took some time to think about this one (the three rum and diet’s no ice made counting the chips and doing the math a bit more problematic than usual), but I was getting 4:1 on my money so I made the call. The River was a Js so I made my nut flush, checked it to him and he put in his last 800 so I called and flipped my nut flush. Then this kid who had been playing marginal hands (as I found from other’s who had been playing him during the break) showed his pocket kings. Kings full of Jacks—wouldn’t you know he would get the one spade that would get me to call and make his hand at the same time.

Next hand I get AcQc and push my last 900, get the laughing calls of ‘he’s on tilt’ and then find myself looking at a reraise by Ed who keeps everyone else out and he flips pocket rockets. And AxQxTx and I am one card shy of drawing dead. A K or J fail to show up on the turn and I go join my fellow railbirds at the bar with a nice new rum and diet, no ice. I really do hate this game, can’t wait to see how I do tonight!!

The Thursday Tourney

2006-06-23T15:19:00.000-05:00

Last night was fun, even if I didn’t make it all that deep into the tourney. I think Adam must have been on quite the lucky roll, he just could not miss a straight. 24o, sure, why not? 95s, he could fill it in. 68o, you got it, straight filled in. It was unreal, he could only lose with overs.

When Big T made it to the table with a short stack he announced that he wanted to go home and went all-in blind the first three hands he was dealt. Since he kept doubling up he had to start making smaller bets so people would call him. He doubled up twice more before he finally got his wish and the cards quit hitting him every.single.hand.he.played.

I did mange to build myself quite a stack at that table, seems no one wanted to call pot-sized bets on the river. And when they would min-raise my bets, I would triple their stupid min-raise and got them to fold. I would only lose if I went to showdown because the cards just seem to hate me in the later portion of the month. Haven’t quite figured that one out yet.

I think I just might get myself on Full Tilt this weekend and try out one of those marshmallow peep sex tourneys I keep reading about. Hope to see you there!

PokerStars Beta

2006-06-22T14:20:00.000-05:00

I’ve been playing on the PokerStars Beta version of the software and I must admit, I like it a lot. The new skins are nice (though I think the skins should also apply to the lobbies), they have some nice new deck options and best of all, the resizable tables (once again I think this should also apply to the lobbies)! With my little 19” CRT monitor (I know, I know) the ability to make the adjustments necessary to the table sizes to get rid of that overlap is a blessing. So far, so good, and it’s nice that the Beta also does the auto-updates as well so you don’t need to keep checking back to see if there is a new beta available. Well done Stars!!

Calling Station

2006-06-22T11:32:00.000-05:00

Haven’t been playing much poker over the past few weeks, no reason in particular just seems to have happened. Anyways, I think I’ll be heading out to the bar tonight to sit in on the regular Thursday game. The play at this bar is pretty much suck-out city, plenty of people who will play just about any two down to the river on the off chance that their 82o may well fill to a straight, or maybe they will catch trips, or two pair, or heck, high card 8. The sad thing is just how fracking often this happens. Must be the numbers thing, so many people doing it that someone is always getting their junk paid off.

There is one girl there that I just love to play with though, a wonderful remarkable calling station. Any pair or any Ace she will take to the river. One time she called me all the way down to the river, and I was betting it up the whole way. I had KQs, the board ended up something like KQTQA, so I was sitting on a boat, Q full of K and she was calling my bets all the way down, I think she put in about ½ to 2/3 of her stack into the pot. I was wondering if she maybe had KK, AA, or AQ, but no she did not. She turned over ducks!! That’s right, with that board she called pocket 2’s down to the river and put in a huge chunk of her stack. About the only time I ever see her fold is when someone goes all-in.

She is just so good to the few of us who have recognized this pattern in her. Ace high, call to the river, happily donking off ½ her stack. The nice thing is that know if you get the river and have nothing, you will be looking at an Ace high or better. I tested this theory once. The board had a potential straight on it and I was pretty damn sure she didn’t have it, so I made a big bet on the river (I had missed that straight but bet to represent) of about 2x the pot, which was a good chunk of her chips. She of course called and showed the tourist. She played her A high and hit a 7 on the turn so she just kept donking off her chips and that’s when I knew she would be a good future donor for the rest of time.

One of these days I hope she joins us in one of the cash side games after she busts out of the tourney. That would be just so damn sweet!!

Eventful Weekend

2006-06-19T14:11:00.000-05:00

Well this past weekend started with the charity tourney on Friday night. We ended up with 148 people there and brought in $11,980 after the prizes were paid out. Unfortunately for me, my cards at that game seemed to set the tone for the rest of the weekend. You know the type, mostly garbage cards and when you get something marginal you find yourself going to river no matter the bet, and usually find yourself behind once you get there. And then on those three hands you actually do did, you get absolutely no action. Oh well, I busted out of that one just before the second break started.

Saturday, my brother, nephew and I took dad out to the ball game. Saw the Brewers take on Cleveland, and they actually won it in the ninth. I must admit, I do not do baseball. I needed to confirm that it was the game where people swing a stick and try to hit a ball thrown in front of them. In all, it wasn’t too bad. The new Miller Stadium is very nice. Our seats were pretty much behind home plate and slightly to the left in row 13. It was nice to see everything nice and close and as an added bonus, there was easy access to the bars serving Leinies.

Sunday was the big blogger tourney on PokerStars. I think there were 2,247 people in this one, I ended up busting out 170th. Cards were just plain garbage the whole time, I’m actually surprised I lasted as long as I did. Only got pocket pairs about 8 times and the best of those were Jacks. Oh well, there’s always next year!!

Memorial Tourney this Friday

2006-06-14T14:16:00.000-05:00

Well, this Friday we have the John Crawford Memorial Tournament to play. There are a decent number of people who have pre-registered/paid for the event, so it looks like it’s going to be a good one. Since this is a $50 tourney with $25 re-buys and a $25 add-on, I set the over/under at $108.25 per person at the end of the re-buy/add-on period. MsJoanne took the under and I have the over. The prize is John’s seat in the WSOP. The entire package is: $1,500 buy-in, $500 spending cash, hotel, and airfare.

If this is like all the other tourneys that we have had, we should have a ton of people show up at the last minute to sign up for the tourney. I would be surprised if there is less than 100 people at this one, because if that is about right and my over/under is damn close, then that will be about $10,825 that will go into a trust fund of John’s kids college expenses once they hit that age.

I only know of a few people who will not be there. The reason for them not being there just makes me sick. One of them has a daughter ‘graduating’ from pre-kindergarten. That’s right, you heard it, graduating from pre-kindergarten. Come on, wtf?!?! I had graduation from high school and from college. What’s up with people nowadays? Graduation from pre-k, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, what have we come to? Hell, I think we should celebrate the fact that I got home today without killing that fucktard that made a right hand turn from the left turn only lane across 3 lanes of traffic so they could be two cars ahead. I should probably be more understanding, after all, that fucktard was probably rushing home to celebrate his kids graduation from 1st grade and had to give him his graduation present: Grand Theft Auto III, Hot Coffee Unlocked!

Update: It was a successful tourney and it looks like just under $12,000 was raised for his kids and put into a trust fund for them. Just hope we can do this again next year!