Wednesday

It feels like Friday. Probably due to the ensuing craziness I'll be facing at work today. So I'll make this quick.

Mookie tonight as the BBToo rolls along and I continue the quest to win one of these through sheer luckboxery. I mean, when there's a verb created using your name, you need to maintain a certain standard.

And don't forget The Spook tonight as well! $2.50 short-handed short-stack madness! It will probably last about 45 minutes.

Hitting The Snooze Button

The BBT will be the death of me purely due to exhaustion. It doesn't help that I'm a night owl anyway, which makes it feel odd to force myself to go to bed after watching the MATH close out.

Regardless, after a night of inadequate sleep, the tilt is gone. Congrats to XxMagiciaNxX for taking a TOC seat, and Wormmsu for making him work for it.

I haven't changed my opinion that after Fuel was knocked out in 9th that the table was the biggest display of weak-tight "poker" I've ever seen. I'm somewhat guilty myself, but my rationale is that I had an above-average stack with 3 very short stacks there and figured there'd be some mutual destruction happening before I had to turn up the aggression. Not that I was playing for the money, but for the improved odds of a smaller table.

Unfortunately, my stack dwindled as the table passed around blinds, unless I tried to get some. So with my rank and chips dropping, I told Tragedy that I was cranking it up the next orbit. I pushed with ATC in position, and then decided that T9o was good from the hijack. I got called by the jackace and the board beat me further. Fine, I hope my pushes get called by jackace all day long. I was actually glad to get away from that bingo game at that point.

One last thing to clarify how I feel about that FT - Not a single one of you was playing to win, you were playing to not lose. Keep waiting for an ace or paint, you'll go far. Maybe I should stop tapping.

Anyway, on to my play. I got sickly lucky once that I can recall - I ran 77 into a flopped set of aces, only to river the 8-high straight. It was fugly. Other than that, I had a reason for every seemingly bad call I made, which I won't really get into. There was twice where I made a call figuring I was either behind (but had a large chip lead and pot odds) or facing a strong drawing hand. I was wrong both times in my reads and was in better shape that I hoped. I'm not sure if that makes me a complete donkey or not, but in the end, I called when ahead.

I also had one call I didn't make that was pure idiocy. I had just doubled-up early on and was sitting in the top 5 with 7k in chips. I got to the turn vs two players (Columbo and somone else), and EP pushed for his last 1k or so into a 4k pot. I had an OESD and flush draw with one card to come, on a paired board with Columbo to act behind me, covered by that 1k bet. Should I be afraid of the boat with 5:1 odds and probably 6:1 implied with 15 outs to a hand that will beat a set? I think not. I practically automucked and instantly smacked myself. I lose that hand, I have 5k early on, I win and I have 12k. Naturally my flush filled on the river and would have beat the trip tens EP had and Columbo's cowboys. I mucked because for a second I didn't pay attention. I didn't look at the pot size, or the stack size behind me, or my stack size, just the all-in, and laid down my draw.

In the long run, does it make a difference? I think so. That early, with that deep a stack, I can push around a table, keep building, and be even stronger later on. The power of compound interest if you will. Yes, I took the chip lead later with a monster stack, but I could have been steamrolling far earlier, and it would have likely made a difference at the final table.

Mookie is tomorrow, and 21 more chances after that.

3/5

5 BBT events, 3 final tables, a whole whack of Astinbaynage I'm sure. Just ask Chad, Fuel, or anyone else sitting with me in the MATH, I'm sure they'll agree.

Although I think I made the most of the hands I had, and finished 8th.

I'm not going to go into any details, but I'm totally tilting right now, and I don't tilt easily. The FT in this MATH has to be the most weak-tight bunch of crap I've seen. I wish Fuel had lasted beyond 9th and kept it interesting. Everyone's waiting for aces. It ain't poker, that's for sure.

Anyway, I eventually just started pushing my shortening stack with just about ATC in position, won some blinds, and got isolated by AJo when I held T9o. Lots of catches for the Jackace, none for moi, and IGH.

'Nite.

TGIM!

Ha! Like I'd actually be glad it's Monday. Wait, why I AM glad it's Monday. Why? Because BBToo continues tonight with Mondays at the Hoy! I'm going to take down one of these soon, and I don't see why tonight can't be the one. I think I've calculated the proper amount of luckboxery required and submitted my request for hands to the dealers along with the necessary compromising photos. I expect no fewer than 12 pocket aces, 7 cowboys vs stone-cold bluffs, AK 10 times without need for a showdown, and about 20 hands that I get in cheaply with that catch flops, straights, sets, and quads for the wins. Also, no suckouts please, kthxbye.

So just know that if I bet (I know, it's rare), I have the nuts and you're beat. Call at your own peril.

Congrats to Don for the deep run in the 750k last night. I'm not sure which sucks more, that he got caught stealing or that the pocket jacks that caught him flopped the set. Regardless, gg.

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Picked up Guitar Hero III yesterday for the Wii. I didn't even realize it was out, but went to Best Buy and there it was. My fingers are sore. Hoy - HIGHLY recommended game for the Wii (or any system), just be sure to pick up the one with the guitar controller. Kinda hard (read: impossible) to play without it. It did make me feel old though. As the game progresses, the songs keep getting newer, and I'm now in Japan without a clue what any of the tracks I'm playing are. I recognize some of the bands (Queens of the Stone Age for example), but not the songs. It's cool when Slash or Tom Morello come on stage and challenge you to a guitar battle though.

My Halloween costume was finished in time - Marvin the Martian was I, and I think it worked well. Maybe I'll post a pic. Probably not. Small but enjoyable party at a buddy's place. Many of the usual suspects were missing for various reasons, but a good bit of the core was there. Highlight of the night was when the "sexy cowgirl" invited me to something a friend of mine was inviting HER to... nothing like inadvertent cockblocking. I owe him one anyway.

Toss in the night starting with, "we need a picture of you because cute-so-and-so can't make it but wanted to know what you'd be dressed as" and it makes for a good ego-boosting time.

Ze Plan For Tonight

For anybody stalking me:

I've got to finish getting my costume together. This means finding a cheap pair of oversized white sneakers (harder than you think. I'm not dropping $80 on shoes I plan to draw on and wear one night). Chinatown, here I come!

I also need a wooden dowel. This will be glued, although I realize too late I could screw it on (but I drilled a HUGE hole in an attempt at a different attachement, and don't think I have a screw with a large enough head. I could use filler I guess).

Then I have to assemble it all. I'm hoping one piece holds together, otherwise it'll be a disaster of trying to rebuild in time. I may need more green spray paint too.

The final decision is - projectile weapon or not? I think we all know the answer.

After all that, it's donkament time! Naturally, this requires drinking. I think I'm going martini-style tonight. I also think I'll be creating as I go. Considering my mix currently consists of milk, cream, a bit of cranberry, and a variety of pops (but I may be out of club soda). it could be interesting.

Possible alcoholic components: Golden Pear, Creme de Cassis, Sloe Gin, Green Tea, Honey, Herbal Vodka, Ultimat Vodka, Butter schnapps, creme de menthe, creme de cacao, Navan (vanilla Grand Marnier), strawberry liqueur....

hold it.. think I've got one.

The strawberry liqueur I have (blanking on the name, but it's got a bunch of wild strawberries floating in it), creme de cacao, navan, and some base (likely strawberry vodka, or maybe a more premium one)... Neopolitan!

Hmm.. vanilla could be a base flavour for the night. Perhaps a variety of ice-cream inspired drinks. Mint chocolate... honey orange... vanilla pear... black cherry vanilla... mmm. I may have to pick up some vanilla vodka. That would bring my vodka count to something like 13 bottles. Seriously. Lime sorbet martini!! Lime vodka, crushed ice, lime juice.

Expect nothing resembling reasonable play from me tonight.

Meme

I hate these things. But this one seems interesting and I'm bored.

Four Jobs I've Held
1.- Developer/Support/Trader (same job, same company, it just evolves)
2.- HR Database builder/administrator
3.- Developer/co-ordinator for a pilot project using PDAs in the field for safety inspectors (this involved a summer of goofing off)
4.- QA tester for a trading firm

Four Films I Could Watch Over and Over
1.- Almost Famous
2.- Galaxy Quest
3.- The Matrix
4.- Original Star Wars Trilogy

Four TV Shows I Watch
1.- Dr. Who
2.- Battlestar Galactica
3.- Heroes
4.- The Daily Show & Colbert Report

Four Places I've Lived
1.- Malton (Toronto Suburb)
2.- Etobicoke (Toronto Suburb, now part of Toronto)
3.- Downtown Toronto
4.- Fantasyland

Four Favourite Foods
1.- "Chicken Supreme" (mom's recipe which I have down cold, adapted from Julia Child)
2.- BBQ Pork Ribs
3.- Fresh Chocolate Chip Cookies
4.- BC Salmon

Four Websites I Visit Daily
1.- Canoe.ca
2.- Boingboing.net
3.- Redflagdeals.com
4.- My blog and the blogs linked from it

Four Favourite Colours
1.- Sapphire Blue
2.- Emerald Green
3.- Sunset Orange
4.- Vibrant blue-indigo

Four Places I'd Love to be Right Now
1.- Vegas
2.- Key West
3.- Paris
4.- Asleep

Four Names I Like But Wouldn't Give My Children
1.- Werner
2.- Cytheria
3.- Mistaya
4.- Norax, Devourer of Worlds

Four Favourite Books
1.- Just About all of Terry Brooks' Catalogue
2.- Wheel of Time Books 1-5
3.- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
4.- The Thrawn Trilogy

I Get Brokeback Mountain...

... because cowyboys fucked me in the ass. The difference being that I didn't want them to. Also, no Randy Quaid denying me work the following summer.

Riverchasers last night, and my least favourite thing in Poker happened. I'm playing a pretty tight game, especially with Lucko two to my left, when I find KK in the BB. UTG raises, it folds to me and I push my rapidly shortening stack (M=7ish), knowing I'd get a call. As expected, I got the call, by a man with Aces. To seal it, there was an A on the flop, followed by the board pairing fours on the turn, and my night is over in 39th place.

Congrats go to Lucko for getting his TOC seat and winning the Chasers. The man just built his stack all night.

What really smarts is that with jjok coming in 19th and Lucko getting 1st, I dropped to 3rd on the leaderboard. I wanted to close out the first week in first place. Dagnabbit. And naturally, with Lucko in the last-longer, he won that too.

Ah well, Kat's Donkament is tonight and I've managed to more than triple my measly Tilt bankroll with my blogger cashes this week, so I'll likely be donking it up instead of doing something like having a social life.

Well, that and finishing up my costume for the Halloween party tomorrow. It's gonna rock sixteen ways. I was Zoot last year, and I think this year's will rank as just as cool, but more recognized. I may need more green spray paint though...

BBToo Continues

Riverchasers tonight. 30th on Sunday, 6th on Monday, 2nd last night, the trend points to first. Alternately, I could tiptoe through a minefield amongst a bunch of drunk elephants and hope to make it to the other side unscathed. But hey, I'm a luckbox, right? I should have no problem making it with my 17 pocket aces, 23 cowboys, and 107 rivered nut flushes. My real money makers are the turned boats with 52o.

But enough of that. Did everyone see that you can write your way into the TOC? I seem to have missed that option. Two seats for whomever writes the best fictional account of their time in Melbourne after winning the TOC and having Full Tilte send them and a guest off to the land down under (great, now that song's stuck).

The real question is - if you win a seat by playing, can you still win a seat by writing, thereby eliminating even more competition?

See you at the 'Chasers. I expect 100 to be broken yet again. Maybe even 120 this time? That's a very full fishtank.

In the meantime:

It was dark and stormy night... in Australia...

Sooooo Close

It's a familiar story. Astin amasses huge chip lead, Astin doesn't win. 2nd isn't anything to be ashamed of, but these are winner-take-alls here. 112 runners, a new Mookie and BBT record.

Before anything else - A BIG congrats to Iggy for the win and the TOC seat. It was a hell of a battle and you completely deserve it. I hope to see you at the final table in the big one.





How it ended. Money in on the flop. I didn't put him on a set (for the second time that night), figured I had 11 outs twice at least, so I pushed. Well played Iggy.


Unlike at the MATH, I didn't make any tremendously stupid mistakes this time. I trusted my reads, got out of the way, and got cards when I needed them. For the record - AA 3x, KK 3x, AK a bunch. Most of it was early, and only one AA got me any serious chips towards the end.

I had one bad beat near the beginning when PokerBrian rivered a boat against my turned nut straight (not long before we'd split a flopped straight), but the doublestacks saved me and I had enough to fight back.

I got lucky when I was still the short stack (in fact last place at the time.. 39th?) and found snowmen. There was a bet before me, I pushed, there was a re-push and the original better called us both. I was against AQo and AKo, all of us red. Flop brought an 8, and then a 4-flush in the spades that nobody had. I was a 46% favourite, but I was lucky for the lack of spades. Has anybody seen more 4-flushes in one game than last night? It felt like every 3rd hand had 4 of one suit on the board.

I made one call against Iggy when he had a set vs my TP, but the odds looked good, there were no draws on the board (if I recall), and it would have won it for me right there. Losing didn't crush me and I built back up until a well-timed large raise on the turn by the Blogfather, when I had bottom pair and an inside straight draw and tried to steal it there, forced me to lay it down.

I am a bit confused by the vitriol sent my way in the chat during the final table. I'll go with the assumption Don decided to try and tilt me from the rail, although I have no idea why I was chosen. Something about being the worst blogger and how I sucked. Standard Don stuff. I'm having a really hard time taking it seriously. Oddly enough, I didn't knock him out. I didn't even sit at his table the whole night. I should have taken the last longer bet though. Ah well, that's a bad beat.

Ready, Set, Mookie!

Is everybody ready for tonight's Mookie? I think it would be safe to say it's guaranteed to be the biggest turnout ever for a blogger game, possibly including the old Wheaties (which I believe once topped 100 runners). I mean, if 57 can make the Big Game @ $75, 82 make a MATH @ $26, how many will show up for the $10 Mook? Will Al's head explode from the numbers? I can see it breaking 100, maybe 110? Imagine a Mookie with a $1000+ pool.

That's a lot of fish.

A Scenario

For some reason, I was thinking back to a live game I played earlier this year when I was at the River Rock in Vancouver. At the time, I posted about the table, how card dead I was, etc.. I'm curious on how you'd play this table.

It's a 10-person 200NL cash game, you're in seat 6. The players are:

1 - A rock. Doesn't speak much, TAG. If he starts talking, you're in trouble
2 - Mouth-breather. Baseball cap on loose and sideways, jaw slack, glazed eyes, a bit of drool. Screams moron and plays like one.
3 - Decent player. Will play pairs, connectors, suited aces and kings. Will fold.
4 - Weak-loose. Willing to see a lot of flops, but folds to any scare card. Has chips from catching a couple hands. Not nearly as good at reads as he thinks he is.
5 - Pathetic aggression. Tosses chips in trying to scare off opponents. Everyone knows he's full of crap. Everything about screams he's full of crap. Plus his not-as-cute-as-he-hopes girlfriend is constantly standing at his shoulder.
6 - Hero
7 - LAG. Straddles every time he's UTG. Talks a lot. Will hammer you with bets if he has a hand or not. Unlike 5, you never know if he's full of it or not.
8 - ABC poker. Bets with medium-big pairs, protects on flops.
9 - Big stack. Plays just like 7, and in fact seems to be his friend. He's had a good night with at least 4 buy-ins in front of him.
10 - Very much like 1. Rock, quiet, solid.

There is no way short of all-in that you're winning pre-flop. Winning on the flop is also unlikely. In fact, most hands will go to the river without SEVERE aggression, but you won't necessarily see a showdown.

Obviously 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8 are easy marks. 1 and 10 can be avoided. However, either 7 or 9 will be in every hand and playing hard. You bet, they'll re-raise. You re-raise they'll call and bet hard on the next card. They have the chips to make it matter.

Now the final bit - you are absolutely card dead. In two hours your best hand is pocket 3s. Next comes ATs. The only hand you have that catches anything is a Q8o that flops a straight, but you threw it away pre-flop becuase 3 players were in before you with bets and raises. You've got garbage, and NONE of it catches anything.

So a mixed table with just about the whole range of players, and you have no cards. Two LAGs to your left, and most of the easy players to your right. What do you do?

I think the best way to play is to request a table change. At the very least, a seat change to 2. The whole experience taught me something about the importance of position and table-selection. You can win with no cards, but not if you can't get people to fold.

What do you think?

Just Like Hoy

Went from this:



... to being out 6th. I'll take the cash, but I really wanted the win. I made one absolutely asinine donkey move that killed me. I have AQ, I call jjok's raise, thinking he has AK. I have no idea why other than it was relatively cheap. Flop comes KxA and I bet. He pushes and I CALL. I, like Hoy the other day, went from playing what I put him on to playing what I wanted him to have (a weaker A or a K). It halved my stack, and I never recovered. I then lost more with 88 vs QQ (right after JoeSpeaker lost with 88 to JJ) and finally pushed with A9 and ran into jjok's JJ (which rivered the set just for fun). I blame it all on my donk AQ move. I played a great game the whole way and one mistake hurt at the exact wrong time.

Damn.

Another One

Did I miss a memo somewhere? Am I supposed to be invited to Vegas in Dec? I think the closest to an invite I ever got was, "hey, are you going?"

Seems someone thinks they need an invite. If you don't know who Dr. Chako is, go read Tragedy's blog. He's stuck in that cesspool of a war in Iraq, and it seems unlikely he'll get leave to come to Vegas. His wife however, has been before, but now is unsure as she hasn't been invited.

Go, comment, show her the love. I've never met her, I barely read her blog, but I know that if she doesn't go to Vegas, I won't meet her, and she won't meet all the wonderful people she has yet to meet either. Who would debate something like that?

Specs

So in the end, this is what I've spent the last week building (stupid hard drives).

Intel Core Duo E6750
Asus P5KE WiFi-AP board
2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-8500
BFG Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS OC2 320MB
2x160GB SATA RAID 1 (formats to about 150GB)
2x320GB SATA RAID 0 (formats to about 600GB)
LG Dual-layer SATA DVD burner
Antec TruePower 3-rail 650W PSU
WD 500GB SATA drive hooked up externally in a NexStar external HD case. With this attached, I have 1.25TB of space at my disposal, but the external drive is for backup and transfer purposes.

That's the new stuff. If graphic cards had stayed with the AGP standard instead of moving to PCI-E, I would have just bought a new card for my Athlon64 3500+ setup, but instead I spent a few dollars more to upgrade everything.

It's got my D-Link Extreme-N wireless card in there (the only reason I have a WiFi board is because you can't find the non WiFi version), along with my favourite DVD drive ever (Pioneer 10x slot-loader. The first DVD anything I owned), and I'm currently using the onboard sound, but methinks I'll be putting my SoundBlaster Audigy back in for the EAX capabilities which I believe has EAX 1.0 and 2.0 on it. It's all nestled snugly into my Lian Li PC-68 aluminum case with its four case fans (all quiet Zalman 80mm). Plugged in is my Samsung 225BW 22" flat panel monitor, and my Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard combo (don't remember the combo name, but the mouse is an MX700). The Canon MP750 multifunction printer/scanner is there too, but it's called a peripheral for a
reason.

I've never not claimed to be a geek. Now to call my cell provider and upgrade my phone to a Samsung u740 so I can have it before Vegas. Lots of texting is likely.

A Vegas Without Sean...

would be A TRAGEDY!

Since I can't post in his new-fangled blog (TypeKey no likey), I'll just post it here, knowing he comes by once in a while.

Instant Tragedy NEEDS to come to Vegas. He's got the days off, the kids are visiting in November, and we know we want him there. So what if he's low-limit? He's hardly the only one. Not much of a drinker? Not much of an issue. Nothing quite as amusing as watching others behave like asses.

But most importantly... you can't do BDR live without Tragedy!

Speaking of BDR... had BuddyDouche figured out if he's coming yet or not? If you say no, you're a pussy.

So everybody bug IT into making the trip. Buddy too I guess. :)

Anybody else who is wavering? Quit it and BOOK IT!

Excuses and my Responses:

- I don't have the time
- Leave Friday night, red-eye back Sunday. You can't set aside a weekend 1 1/2 months in advance?

- I don't gamble
- Then don't. See some shows, see the town, drink!

- I don't drink
- You're not the only one. See above.

- I don't know anybody
- So? After about 30 seconds, you'll know 30 people and consider them your friends.

- I have nobody to room with.
- You have a blog. Put out a request. Last I heard, Buddy was looking for a roomie. Or go solo, then you have some place to bring back that hot hooker you met at the bar.

- I'm afraid of flying
- Start walking. You'll save a bundle! Or drive or something. Or move to Vegas.

- I get epileptic seisures with flashing lights.
- Wear shades and avoid the flashing lights

- I'm broke
- People need kidneys. You need money. You have an extra kidney. They have extra money. Do the math.

- I'm a pussy
- Then prove you're not. Pussy.

- I have no idea what you're talking about.
- Stop Googling the word "pussy" then. Because you'll end up here. Also, it's "I Can't Believe I TOOK the Whole Thing", not ATE. Keep your porn titles and Alka-Seltzer ads separate. Please.

- My parents didn't hug me enough as a child.
- Come, you'll get plenty of hugs.

- I live in a war-torn country with closed borders and a dictatorial tyrant as a leader.
- Put together a survival kit and don't stop running until you get through that hole in security. Remember, the human factor is the weakest point of any system. Once you're across the border, sell that kidney and COME TO VEGAS!

- My grandmother died.
- What? Just before the trip? How would you know that? Unless you're planning on killing her! Don't do that! Come to Vegas! If you're not planning a murder, then how healthy are her organs?

- I'm missing a kidney.
- Do you have money? See above and network. Alternately, gamble, win, and buy a new one. Or better yet fashion one out of your winnings. Mmmm... moneykidney.

Okay.. I'm done.

They Can't All Hold Up

Solved my issue by firing up a Tier 1 on Saturday around 1am or so and dominating that. Then I fired up the Tier 2 right afterwards, and through constant slipping off into unconciousness and strong play, won a token in that. Off to the races with me.

Made my live game, and went out after the first break after this brilliant play:

Dealt AA UTG+1, 150-300 with a 50 ante, I have 14k in chips. I raise to 1200 and the table folds to the button, who calls. I've been playing pretty tight so far and the only hand that's been shown was KQ that split with this same guy's KQ.

Flop come 568 with two hearts and I bet 2k into the 3300 pot. Button goes all-in, and I have him covered with 1200 left behind. I think. I look at that flop and worry about a set. No way he flopped the straight, but a flush draw is a possibility. Maybe suited connectors? I finally put him on an overpair and call.

He flips over K7o???? He called a tight player with K7o?? Connectors I could see, a 1-gapper I could see. Seeing a set wouldn't have surprised me. I'd put me on a strong hand pre-flop and call with an Ace-cracker, but K7o no heart? Wow. By far the donkiest hand I'd seen this guy play (and he'd played a few). So I'm 65% and naturally a 4 comes on the turn and I'm crippled.

Next hand I see JT and push my 1200. I get 5 callers but nothing on the board and I literally go home.

Fine. Gave me time to get some other things done before The Big Game. Went about 1 1/2 hours in that one before a donk move by me and a donk move by The Goat knocked me out (I say that in the nicest way possible JG).

Some decent play, steals, resteals, and cards that got me nothing (KK twice) had me sitting in the top 15 with 30 left. I'd been as high as 9th I think. Tripjax had been luckboxing like a madman to build a huge stack and I had some sort of suited connectors that I called his raise with. The flop brought me an inside straight and flush draw for 12 outs twice and Trip overbet the pot. I called, and it brought me to 1600 chips left, with a pot of over 4800 or thereabouts. Turn gave me an OESD with the flush draw and we both checked. River paired the board, check, check and Trip has an ace. Damn.

Mistakes I see: I like my call preflop. I hate my call on the flop. I should have pushed or folded. If he's bluffing, the 1600 extra MAY be enough to get him off with his stack not committing him to the pot. Although that's unlikely, it at least takes away any decisions I have to make on the turn if he does anything other than check. Does a push on the turn or river help me? Maybe. If I fold, I've got far more chips to play with.

Next hand I see AK UTG and push. Folds all around to Julius Goat who calls with AT. T on the flop or turn and somewhere I hear a fat lady singing.

Ah well. Cost me $35 or something in peeps to make it. Cost me far more to lose live earlier.

Then I fired up a lvl 1 peep, kicked ass but forgot to take names for a token for The Hoy tonight. So far, BBTwo has cost me around $44. I've decided to calculate based on this simple formula: (Bankroll after BBTwo) - (Bankroll before BBTwo) - (P&L for non BBTwo-related games) = Profit (or Loss) for BBTwo. If I token in to a game, then it costs me $8.70. Why? Because that was the purpose of the token. If it takes two attempts, it's $17.40 Consider it a non-optional satellite.

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In other news - the cats seem to be getting along. To the point where they were both sharing the top of the giant cat tree in the living room this morning. Good.

My computer is on its way to recovery. I spent the weekend installing and upgrading my new box, yay technology! After that was done, I hooked up my messed up drives and scanned them. Lo! It did discover data! Boo! It recovered it terribly. File extensions I've NEVER had were there, and none had a name. 20kb PNGs? I don't think so. So I deleted that recovered data (on a different drive) and tried again. This morning I attempted another recovery and it appears all is going as well as can be expected. Files with FULL file names now appearing, in all their full-sized glory. I can actually VIEW my pictures again! I left it running as I left for work, and expect a fun-filled night of renaming directories and rebuilding trees. As long as the files are there, and named, I'm happy.

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**UPDATE: Congrats to Jeciimd for taking down the Big Game. He has now pretty much guaranteed he will have a much better ROI than the first one, and not get harrassed for always pointing and not cashing. Nicely done.

It also helps a bit that both Tripjax (2nd) and The Goat cashed as well. Glad my chips worked out.

A Quandry

As is known, BBTwo kicks off on Sunday with Don's Big Game. I am faced with a dilemma. I'm out tonight, I'm busy tomorrow building computers and installing software, and on Sunday I have a live tournament at 3pm that could conceivably go until 7 or 8. I don't yet have a $75 token, and it seems unlikely that I'll be able to play for one before Sunday rolls around. I've already invested $26-and-change into token attempts, with one bubble to the desired token.

So, what's a guy to do? I imagine that by the time I get home tonight, I'll either be drunk or exhausted or both, which does not bode well for playing ability. I might be able to squeeze in a game tomorrow night, or Sunday morning (like I'll be awake). I'm actually pretty happy that I haven't reloaded at Tilt in months, but buying in directly would drop my small roll there to dangerously low. I can easily reload, but I'd rather try and actually make this poker habit profitable.

Oh, who am I kidding? If I don't token in, I'll be buying in. I'll just have to win the thing, build up the roll to a level that can pay for the whole BBT, and get that TOC spot out of the way quickly. Maybe combine it with a juicy live score and make it a truly profitable day.

BOOKED!

VEGAS BABY!

Flight and hotel are book-ed! We (me and two buddies) are getting in on the 6th at 2:45pm and leaving on the red-eye on Sunday. Staying at the soon-to-be-grand-opened Planet Hollywood. This puts me pretty central to all the action.

I'll definitely be there for Craps and Pai Gow on Thursday. Karaoke, however, well... let's see how many drinks I have at Pai Gow to see if I show up for that portion of the evening.

Okay then... let's get rid of November so I can get to this faster.

Progress

Thank [insert deity here] it's Friday.

It's somewhat bittersweet that I'm planning to meet up with some friends tonight. There's shit I want to get done. Plus, I'm running on 3 hours of sleep, so I may not be at my best.

Anyway, progress is being made on all those pesky fronts taking place in the real world. The cats were properly introduced last night and on the whole, it went quite well. Minimal hissing and growling, and no fighting. Good.

Computer tribulations continue. I still haven't recovered the drives I hosed, but I think it's just a matter of time. See, I started the scan on a virtual RAID, and it moved along nicely. Then it slowed to a crawl. Then it picked up. Then it stalled completely. Well, that was a waste of 20 hours.

So I decided to build my new machine regardless, and attempt recovery on it. I figure a Core Duo E6750 with 2 GB of DDR2-8500 might be a TOUCH quicker than an Athlon64 3500+ with 1 GB of DDR-266. So, after unravelling the tangle of cables and removing the old board, powersupply, and associated cards, I then reassembled them in another box. Then came the new stuff, which got assembled (damn that heatsink is a pain to get attached firmly), and put into the nice aluminium case. Arounds this time (1 am), my buddy called to see if he could come by. Lucky him I was up, and I knew he was calling from downstairs. So I had some company for a couple hours as I assembled, and he had a needed friendly face.

3am, a drive is nearly formatted (WTF? It's 160 GB drive and it's only formatting for 130?), and my friend leaves. I sit down and continue the XP installation (I'll get around to Vista eventually... let them fix it first). It installed quickly, but XP vanilla doesn't have wireless support, and for some reason the motherboard drivers/utilities disc wasn't reading properly either. Joy. I said, "screw it," hooked up the old machine and fired it up. Somehow I spent about an hour fiddling with both machines before just going to bed around 5. I had the foresight to move my alarms to 8am instead of 7. Yay.

So sometime this weekend, I need to finish getting XP up-to-date, recovering my drives, and making world made a better place (for me at least).

Needless to say, no poker content. That will come Sunday.

Vegas booking hit a snag when the airfare jumped $200 on my final booking click. My fault, I waited forever to actually book. Stupid me. But now there's a slightly less convenient option. If my friend every gets back to me, I can book it.

Quick Question

Just about to book Vegas (finally!). Last minute change to Planet Hollywood instead of TI. Good idea? It's cheaper, better located, and still falls under "recently renovated". Plus Mookie seemed to like the buffet.

I mean, it's just a place to collapse drunkenly for 3-5 hours, right?

Necessity...

Today I learned many things. I learned about the variety of RAID 0 recovery options out there. I learned that the computer store I bought the wrong hard drives from will gladly exchange them for bigger, more expensive ones (whew). I learned that as soon as I say, "I don't need to buy an external hard drive for backup" that I was fucked. Tonight I will learn if me buying an external drive now will be too late, and if that RAID recovery software will work in my situation. Fun times.

I also learned that I shouldn't drone on about computer issues involving acronyms like RAID and SATA and IDE. Funny thing is, other than games, building and fixing computers is one thing that a degree in Computer Engineering didn't suck the fun from. Maybe because it never goes quite as planned.

I want to play live tonight, but that will strongly depend on how quickly I can get things set up, installed, and scanning. Lucky me, my club is an 800m walk away from my door

I did swing into the low-limit bloggerdonk cash game before I went to bed though, and donated $20 to the cause. I succeeded in my goal of donkitude. Waffles having $160 in a 0.10/0.25 game was pretty crazy to see.

Soon, I get to go home to my busted computer and disfunctional (yet improving) feline pairing. Good times.

Bad Beat

Here follows a tale of the dumb. The names haven't been changed to protect the idiotic. Since the moron is yours truly, I think I have my okay.

A while back my C: drive died. This was upsetting, but luckily I was able to get most of the data recovered. I then set up a mirrored RAID array to protect against future problems. While doing this I decided to set up a striped RAID array as a D: drive.

It took some doing (faulty SATA cable is a tough problem to track down it seems), but I got it all working smoothly.

Yesterday I bought a whack of upgrades for my system. Essentially a new system. This required me picking up a few SATA drives to replace my IDE RAID.

I mistakingly thought my C: drive (mirrored) was the IDE, and the D: the SATA. Needing to backup my D: drive so I could copy data after rebuilding the array, I decided to disconnect one of the mirrored RAID drives to use it for backup purposes.

So I unplugged one of the IDE drives and restarted.

Oops.

My D: RAID was now faulty (obviously). So I turned off the machine, plugged the drive back in, and unplugged one of the SATA drives.

Back on, C: drive now faulty, fine. In my effort to get it to boot of the (perfectly fine) single drive (as it should do), I accidentally started "repairing" the array by copying the source data to the UNREPAIRED IDE drive. I threw the switch quickly, but not before 1% of the data was copied. I'm going to guess the header data used to identify the drive got overwritten too.

SHIT!

So now, no D: drive. No pictures. No downloaded drivers, apps, games, etc. (the installed versions of all thee are fine on the C: drive), and no PORN! WTF?

Actually, the pictures are what bugs me the most. Iceland, The Queen Charlotte Islands, Israel, parties, games, and everything else I've taken a picture of over the last however many months its been. Most of the Iceland pics are at also at my folks luckily (however, none of the RAW format ones), as are the Queen Charlottes. Israel is on Flickr, but only about half of the pictures I took.

So now I begin my quest to see if I can recover the data and rebuild the RAID. The data should still PHYSICALLY be there... anybody know any good RAID 0 recovery tools?

Bah.

I Offer No Commentary

Just check out

here

and

here.

I have about $11 on Absolute Poker, so I'm not overly concerned since I don't play there. I have $0 on UB. Would be interesting though.

----

There was something else I was going to talk about, but now I can't remember what it was.

Links

Ok, first and foremost:

BBTwo

Umm... wow. An Aussie millions package for you and a guest? Weekly Sunday Guarantee tournament entries? FTOPS seat? iPod touch? And WOW! WEEKLY RIVERCHASERS EVENTS!

TOC for winners only. Top 25% only for points (no more folding to the points?) Good times, and hey, I made money last time.

Al = The Man.

Second:

Check out this story. That is totally fucked up right there. I've said it before - the Internet is a dangerous place.

How Was Your Weekend?

Mine was interesting. I'll write of it, but out of order.

First, the poker. Played in the WBCOOP (and now I can take down that sidebar) and the Brit Bloggerment for the first time each. WBCOOP - 1337 players to start, somehow appropriate for a bunch of people who blather online. If you don't know why, Google the number. I went out about 961st or something. Somehow, I doubt I'll get a duffel bag with a 50" plasma TV inside. I was pretty card dead and played like ass for the whole hour I existed. I think I was swayed by the 10,000 chip starting stack. It didn't take long to realize that the faster blind structure made up for the largesse of the chip count. Before I went out, the only hand of great value I saw was the Hiltons, but I was sitting out when those hit. This is a good thing, as the guy with 36o flopped a straight. Best play of the game for me.

In the end, I found AKo in the cutoff with 5200 in chips and the blinds at 150/300 just as the first break is coming. It folds to me and I raise to 1200. Button calls, and SB (SilentRebel with 24300 chips) raises to 4500. The BB apparently got up to take a shit because we got to watch as 2 minute of time bank ran down for him. This gave me time to think. I was worried about aces or kings, especially with a bet that looked designed to get me all-in. For sure he had a pair, unless he had that stack from being a moron and re-raising with AQ or something. So, a coin-flip for my tournament life or 4k in chips just before the break and the blinds going up to 200/400. Fuck it, I'm doubling up or going home at this point. I push for my last 700 and he obviously calls.

SilentRebel flips over TT and I'm happy. The fact there's a K on the flop gives me about 0.003 seconds of joy, because right next to it is another T and I'm screwed. Sure, QJ, two K, AA or AK could come and make my day, but that wasn't to be and I'm done at the first break.

I give the appropriate props for the hand, and get "Astin wait" in the chat. Okay, I wait. Seems Mr. Rebel reads our good Hoyazo and recognized me as the guy he used to always talk about. A shame I couldn't live up to my luckbox rep. :)

So welcome SilentRebel to the blog, and the long list of people who have knocked me out. :)

The Brit was much more fun. I saw QQ more times than I've ever seen, along with a few other decent hands, and played aggressive, position-based poker (lots of mediocre hands came into play, but mostly only the good ones were forced into the light) to build up a sizeable lead right up until 10 were left. I did get some great Baynage when I runner-runnered a straight to knock out AA at one point. I lost a chunk when I called a re-raise push against me with KJ vs something better and didn't improve. Made the final table, which quickly got to 7. I then took a phone call from a friend looking for employment advice (everyone wants to get into the financial world, I don't blame them). This was a tactical error as I could no longer play poker, but ended up playing cards. AA won me a hand and brought us to the bubble. KJ failed to beat Kat's all-in QQ to cripple me, and my ATs ran into A-something better than T to make me the bubble boy. Ah well, it was a ton of fun, and if I'm kicking around at 4pm on a Sunday, I'll definitely take another shot.

Now, the non-poker. With pictures to go up later. I have a new cat. For the last four years I've had the greatest cat in the world - a Bengal named Spike who's known me since he was a kitten. He can be a pain in the ass at times, as he will sometimes attack me for reasons known only to him (and isn't declawed), and knows the exact pitch of "meow" to pierce my concentration, but he's easily controlled, very smart, tremendously affectionate, and cute as hell, even at 4. Every day I leave for work he tries to leave with me and stares up with the most pathetic look imagineable. When I come home he runs from wherever he's hiding to jump on me and beg for pets and love. Yes, he thinks he's a dog. He plays fetch too, and sits on command.

So he's needed a friend for a while. Friday night I drove an hour out of town to pick up said friend. A 2 year-old Bengal girl who's just been retired as a breeder. Her name needs to be changed to something simpler than her breeder/show name. Where Spike will spend an entire car ride howling like he's being tortured, she simply hunkered down in the carrier with two complete strangers (my friend was going to help me out, since she's Spike's co-owner (long story) and he'd be comfortable with her thorugh this trauam) on the longest ride of her life and waited it out. I brought her in the condo, and went directly to the room I'd set aside for her. The carrier was opened and she came out to explore.

She's the sweetest thing in the world. While she took time to get used to my friend and I, she immediately wanted to be friends with Spike. He strolled by the glass doors into the room and she ran over, meowed lightly and looked right at him. All she wanted was to be friends. Spike, on the other hand, wanted none of it. He turned, faced her, and started hissing as strongly as possible at her. Then the growling started. She continued to calmly stare and meow curiously at him, safely behind the doors.

Two days of this. Fine. I expected resistance from Spike. What I didn't expect is that he'd be SO stressed about it, that he'd make himself sick. For two days he couldn't keep any food down, and I was glad I had spot-cleaner for my carpets. Sunday was better. He can now sit and watch her without making any noise, and we can once again pick him up without facing a cat-diatribe of how unhappy he is (lots of growls, but not anger at us as there's no violence). If she gets too close though, he's back to hisses and growls. Luckily, there was no need for cleanup yesterday, and I could sleep through the night.

There has been improvement, and I'm hoping a supervised introduction can be made tonight. With luck, she'll be able to wander free by the end of the week, and they'll eventually get along. There's still the ongoing challenge of her being fully comfortable with me (I can't pick her up yet), and getting her sleep cycle in line with mine and Spike's (ie.- go to sleep when I do, and get up when I do, regardless of the inconsistency of my hours). Much like many things in life, it will take patience.

Presto Can Kiss My Ass (Parts 1 & 2)

Law of conservation of presto: For every time Fuel wins, I must suffer a loss at its hands.

Other than Sunday's WBCOOP, I imagine my weekend will be poker-free. So I decided to play a bit last night to sate any urges. Fired up my trusty friend the $6.50 Turbo SnG (2nd place), the $75 token frenzy (65th... whoops. Who let the QQ flop a set vs my Cowboys?), and the $28k.

I haven't played in any of the big donkaments (24k, 28k, or 50-50) in a couple months, as I decided to be a tad more responsible with my bankroll, and haven't played that many tier 1's nor had the time for the 50-50 satellites. However, I figured I'd give it a shot.

This was a foolish notion, as I was playing until 1:30am, and had some things that needed doing for today. I went out 84th (180 paid) for around $20 profit (or $38 depending on how you count the fact I tokened-in). It ended something like this:

For the last half hour I'd been falling asleep at the keyboard, and still had a bunch of stuff that needed to be done staring me in the face. The awfukits were creeping in. I had made a few ridiculous moves that either scared off people, sucked out, or looked brilliant in hindsight. This was also fuelled by the fact that I could have been a dominant chipleader if I'd played all but 3 or 4 hands in the last hour (shit like T6 was flopping boats, but I was naturally folding these pre-flop). Then, in the BB, I see A6c. It folds to the SB, who has been ahead of me in chips for most of the night, but was now behind. He raises to 3x and I think for a few seconds and call, thinking it could be a steal (not uncommon for him). Flop comes 5AT, he checks and I bet a bit less than the pot. He repops with 2k behind. Now my brain says, "checkraise with that little left behind? something smells fishy." My hand, however, says, "fuck this... he's going all-in". Over comes... PRESTO for the set. Damn. I knew he didn't have the ace.

I'm left with around 3.2k in chips, which is MAYBE an M of 1.5. I fold a couple crap hands, dump an A-crap to pre-flop raise, and then see my own presto. Alright. By this time I've got less than 2 BBs, so from the hijack, I push. BB calls out of necessity (short raise, and she's got 10k), and shows 36o. 3 on the flop, 6 on the river. IGHN. So presto screwed me twice in the span of about 3 minutes.

Of course, a certain penguin is laughing now that 36 has beat yet another hand. I think I prefer his method.

At least I got my other things done, and there's now a room prepped for tonight's new arrival.

To Clear Something Up

I'm mot sure why, but I was thinking of a famous episode of Family Feud this morning. Oh the thoughts that run in and out of one's head while getting ready for work. Anyway, I tried to find a video of the incident online, but have been thus far unsuccessful.

What I did find are countless WRONG accounts of the episode. Obviously a bunch of people who have heard about it, but never actually saw the show in question. Some have discounted it as a racist joke, others have claimed to have seen it but have put it in the wrong part of the show, etc..

So here it is, from someone who used to watch a lot of "The Feud" back in the day, and remembers this episode pretty damned clearly.

It's the FINAL round, for the $10,000. The first of the two chosen family members has already gone up. The first (I think, this is the only thing I'm fuzzy on) question from Ray Combs is, "Name a fruit that starts with 'A'". The first family member had wisely said, "apple", which was the #1 answer. Naturally you're expecting this second member to say the same thing and get buzzed for duplicating his partner's response. You try to think of other responses - apricot, avocado, and realize there aren't many. But no. Without a second's hesitation, this gentleman hollars out with great enthusiasm, and his heavy accent (Jamaican? Caribbean? I'm not going to guess, but you get the idea), "ARANGE!"

There was a moment of dumbfounded silence as the audience, host and the viewers at home picked their jaws up. Did he just say, "Orange?" He did! Our intrepid host quickly gathers himself and in classic style yells out, "Show me.... Arange!"

Oddly enough, zero people surveyed gave this answer.

So no, it wasn't during a steal (come on people, THINK for a second, how many fruit start with "A"? Enough for an entire round? Nope.) At no point was his family yelling out answers and he "decided to go it alone." Also, he wasn't a woman.

Glad I got that off my chest.

----------

Let's not speak of the Mookie and RaisingCayne's jackace rivering a J-high 4-straight to beat my AK to knock me out second last. I knew it was going to be one of those nights. Luckily, after then getting knocked out by a rivered boat by a TP2K donkey in the first hand of a $6.50 SnG, and then getting bubbled out in another one, I took 1st place in a $12 Turbo SnG to show a little profit for the evening. Go me.

Also, Johnnie Walker Black 12yr is very drinkable, not anywhere near the flavour and complexity of 16yr Lagavulin, but it's a good starter scotch. 40 malts involved? Wow, that's some serious blending.

Cards

What's this? Poker content? Shocking!

I actually found myself with a couple hours to kill last night. After the killing, I had some time available. *rimshot*

Actually, I fell asleep during the debacle of a Leafs game, woke up at 10 and realized I'd been asleep for 2 1/2 hours. Well, can't go to bed now, can I? So I wandered over to my computer (I'm debating getting a laptop, should I? I mean, it would probably never leave my place, and I don't know WHY I'd need one, but I kinda want one. I also really want to upgrade my system, but can't quite justify the expense just so I can play a few games that would be prettier. Oh who am I kidding? I'll be dropping a grand on new components before the month is out if I know me... wow, long parenthetical tangent) to play some poker. I sat there and DIDN'T play for and hour or so, because I decided to download The Orange Box (Half Life: Episode 2, Portal, and a bunch of stuff I already have), and play Peggle (which I do all the time.. damn you PopCap!). I finally fired up a $6.50 turbo and got to work.. and came in 2nd. So I fired up another, and came in 2nd. Yay! $20 profit!

Yah, no big shakes, but I do enjoy seeing my measly Full Tilt bankroll move upwards. Why, I'm nearly at $100 now! Sweet jeebus do I have a ways to go before I'm close to breaking even.

Anyway, it felt good. I had some strong cards that occasionally got paid off, some weak cards that got paid off more frequently, and the only time I went to showdown (that wasn't heads-up) was against uber-donks who would call down my straight with middle pair, top kicker. I do love SnG's and the increasing value of starting hands as people get knocked out.

Most importantly though, I've been shaking the strange brand of scared poker I've been playing of late. I have two pair on a 4-straight board and am facing a middling bet from the BB, and instead of walking away, I put him on crap and play to the river. Lucky me I got my full boat, but he ran away to MY middling bet anyway. No way he had that king.

I think my problem of late has been that I've played my cards too much. My real strength was in reading my opponents, but I'd stopped doing that as the cards in front of me got prettier. Granted, it's hard to play with 52o in MP, but sometimes you have to make that look like aces or convince the table you flopped the nuts. I've got to stop assuming that the RNG has fed the calling donkey to my left the stone cold nuts every time.

So in pursuit of that, I think I may play live tonight. Sure, I've got laundry that needs doing and errands that refuse to run themselves, but I also have a point standing at my club to uphold so I can play in the Tournament of Champions in November and win that 42" plasma. Live play is good for the soul after all.

Chances are that I'll be out before the first break, because I suck like a prom date, so I'll see you at The Mookie!

Love It

And people are upset at George Lucas. What about HISTORIANS?

Damn skippy

I guess it's not fair to link to the image without linking to the source.

It's Gonna Be A Loooooong Season

7-1. 7-1? 7-1!

Freakin' Leafs.

I said in the off-season they'd suck. Now, only 4 games in, they appear to have proven it.

One new addition is suspended for 15 games, and will be going to jail once the season is over for a DUI when he was in San Jose. He's not that good anyway.

Another new acquisition announced he has Leukemia. Lucky for him and his family, it's incredibly treatable and he should be fine if he keeps taking a daily pill. That's pretty amazing as far as medical science goes. Here's hoping nobody uses it as an excuse for Jason Blake, because we overpaid for a 34 year-old winger coming off a career year, and he's ours for 5 more years. Of all the free agents, he was probably the worst choice and therefore the most likely one for the Leafs.

Our much-trumpeted new goalie is average. Is Toskala better than Raycroft? You bet. Is he the second coming of Patrick Roy? Not by a long shot.

4 games in. 1-3. 7-1 loss last night. Here's hoping that it's the low point of the season. I doubt it though. No depth, an aging star, sub-par acquisitions in the off-season, young talent that isn't being realized, the most USELESS GM in the NHL, ownership that cares more about the value of the team than the fans... yah, this will be a season to enjoy.

If they somehow prove me wrong, I'll be cheering loudly with a cold beer in my hand, and eat my words. But I'm an honest fan, unlike most of the sheep in this city.

At least they aren't the Coyotes.

Turkey Overload

I had two turkey dinners over the weekend. The first, on Sunday, was brined the night before in a cooler and ended up being roasted perfectly. Juicy, flavourful meat, cooked just right, and fantastic roasted vegetables. A HUGE improvement over last year. TONS (okay, about 10lbs) of leftovers. Monday's involved going to the folks' and was also quite good, but wasn't brined. My mom roasts a good bird, not at all dry, and perfectly golden skin.

All-in-all, a very filling weekend. And 30 degrees on Thanksgiving to boot! Hottest it has EVER been (old record was 29.6 degrees in 1916).

Zero poker content due to minimal poker played. I even skipped the MATH last night in order to finish cleaning up after Sunday's dinner. It was so very nice to reclaim my kitchen from the pots, pans, and giant pot of soup on the stove. Of course, now my fridge is packed. Turkey and gravy sandwich for dinner tonight. Maybe some corn on the cob and fried mashed potatoes and stuffing (definitely stuffing). Next week will involved nothing but fruit and salads and exercise (yah, right).

Saturday was a friend's 30th (who had to have it on the long weekend thanks to me taking over last week's), which was a pleasant gathering. Before that was all the turkeyday shopping, including a stop at the farmer's market to restock on Elk and tasty veggies.

Some Heroes content though. The 3rd episode of the season was on last night, and it was the first that I truly enjoyed. This is a spoiler warning. I'm too lazy to change the colour today.

The Sylar scenes were great. His character really adds a lot to the show. I would have done things differently, but they may still be able to go in that direction. Just before Sylar clocked Candice, I figured it was ALL an illusion. His wounds, his loss of powers, all of it. That Candice was controlling him via illusions. It would have been brilliant. Instead, he kills her, and STILL can't use his powers (or hers). I did love that he bolts out of the shack and finds himself in the middle of an endless rainforest. Like I said though, this could STILL be part of a much larger illusion to control him.

Peter is mildly annoying. Let's drop the amnesia thing already. Plus, his reasoning to not open the box was weak. If he didn't like what he found, why go back to it? Just stick around in Cork and chill with the Irish.

DL died. Good. Not because I disliked the character, but because if he survived it would be a miracle of modern medicine.

Bennet will get shot in the eye? Claire will be there? I doubt it. It's the 8th painting in the series, which means it will happen at the end of the season. I imagine this will be the one that doesn't come true. Claire will be turned against her father, but at the last minute change her mind and save him. That or he'll have powers we don't know about.

Hiro - same ol' same ol'.

West and Claire - still lame. Nice Superman rip-off there.

Nice that Claire's Nissan Rogue (a proud sponsor of Heroes) has been found in Mexico and will make it back to America with the Wonder Twins.

Nichelle Nichols! They kill of Sulu and bring in Uhura! Let's see if Leonard Nimoy shows up next season, or more likely, Walter Koenig.

Anyway, not an action-packed episode, but it had some great moments and felt like a keystone episodes - where it did things that lay the groundwork for the story moving forward.

Ahhhh... Friday

Was this ever a looooong week. It felt fine as it was happening, but looking back at it, I can't believe it was only a week ago I was getting ready for my birthday. Then I look at my dining room table and am glad it was only a week ago, because it means that mess hasn't been sitting there too long.

Anyway, I woke up this morning with a smile once I realized it was Friday and the week was over. I'm also happy that it's Thanksgiving weekend up here in the Great White North, which means tons of turkey, and more importantly, stuffing! This could be the warmest Thanksgiving I can remember - mid-to-high 20's (Celcius you imperial maroons). One might as well bbq their birds.

The less said of my 22nd place finish in the Riverchasers last night, the better. I was playing well, and then got nailed by a setup turn card against Hoy's set to hurt me, and then my semi-steal attempt with a short stack ran right into Islandbum's rockets. Those are SUPPOSED to be my domain.

So far (touch wood), tonight is looking free and clear. Some people lament not making plans on a Friday, but after the week I've had, the weekend I'm facing, and the week yet to come, I'm looking forward to sitting my ass down and not worrying about anything. I'm going to grill up a bacon cheesburger with all the fixins, throw together some sort of sides, crack a beer or two, and donk away some US dollars (it's like playing for free!) in Kat's donkament (password "donkarama"). Maybe I'll catch up on a movie or two as well. Ahhhhh relaxation, how do I love thee?

Have a great weekend, and a great Thanksgiving if you're one of my Canadian brethren. As J-Lo did say in the masterpiece that was Gigli - "Gobble gobble".

Vegas - Whasup?

Some conventions going on while we bloggers invade the happiest place on Earth:

Institute of Internal Auditors
Miss Rodeo America (at the Orleans)
American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
Dangerous Goods International Training Center
Colorado Dude & Guest Ranch Association
Single Action Shooting Society
World Research Group (MGM)
NFR Cowboy Christmas Gift Show
American College of Addictionology & Compulsive Disorders (in VEGAS? at the IP)

But why are prices high? Why are there some blackout dates at some hotels that weekend? Why... I'm sure anyone who went last year, or the year before knows... NATIONAL FINALS RODEO! Kicks off on the 6th goes to the 15th. What's that mean? Cowboys as far as the eye can see. Cowboys make for good fishing I hear, just don't piss 'em off.

Billboard Music Awards happening around then too? Who knows.

Oh How It Grows

Anyone reading this knows there's a wee blogger gathering in Vegas in December. I've mentioned to friends that I'm heading to Vegas, and a couple showed interest. Then 2 more did.

It's gone from me going solo, to a buddy coming along, to a couple of 'em, to there now being potentially 5 of us. That means more rooms... more co-ordination. AND it becomes an entirely different trip. That said, I'd feel far less guilty about dumping them for WPBT fun now. Nothing worse than having people WATCH you gamble.

---------

Poker continues to drag along these days. Played in a lvl 1 peep, won, then played in the lvl 2, and came in 6th for $56. What? Money? huh? You mean my bankroll can go UP? How odd.

There's no way I make any Ironman tournaments during that run. I'm just not playing enough, and don't see me having enough free time to change that for a few weeks. Thanksgiving is this weekend and next weekend I've got a new cat to introduce to my current one. Methinks that will be a weekend's worth of work itself, and my weekdays have this nasty habit of filling up. Considering there's a few things I'd like to spend some time on, this is inconvenient.

I'm hoping that I'll remember and be able to play in the WBCOOP at Stars on the 13th.

An Old Topic

Hey, remember how I ranted about gullible "audiophiles" and their ridiculous love of unbelievably marked-up cables? Well, Monster suddenly looks reasonably-priced after looking at the Pear Cable Anjou Cables $7250 for 12 ft?? WHAT THE FUCK?

I will once again reiterate (rereiterate?). It's a piece of copper run through a sleeve. Give me a freaking break.

I'm glad there's people like James Randi out there.

Or go read this article, as it is far more thorough than what I feel like writing again.

I'm totally in the wrong business. I should head over to my local surplus store, buy up a few rolls of cheap cable and surplus connectors, re-sleeve and repackage them, and write up some bullshit PR and specs and sell them for half the price of Monster and make a killing.

In a completely different vein, anybody want to buy some miraculous snake oil? It cures what ails ya and will improve ROI in your poker game by a measurable amount.

Poker?

Been a dearth of poker content here. That trend will likely continue.

Why? Well this weekend I played in I think a grand total of 2, maybe 3 games. I played a couple $6.50 turbo 6-man tables to no success. One of those was after my birthday and I was in absolutely no shape to actually play. I believe I slept through most of it. Must have been annoying for my opponents.

I did, however, kill in a $2 Turbo 6-man last night when I needed to donk off some time. Got hurt by one race I lost, but stormed back and won against a far-too-honest opponent.

First, we're 3-handed with one guy who has been sitting out the whole time. The other live guy says, "getting a beer." and leaves! So I proceed to raise and take about 3 or 4 orbits of blinds before he sits down. I actually had good hands for most of those too! Then I find myself in an unfortunate situation where I've bet into a hand where I have something, but not the nuts. He calls, and then proceeds to check down. I fold in an instant if he bets because there's no way I'm letting the guy sitting out with only 60 chips left to get ITM. No bet, and I win with my hand as his draw doesn't fill.

We end up heads up and he proceeds to tell me to bet when he doesn't have a hand. He doesn't lie once about it. A min bet with nothing and he folds, giving me free orbit after free orbit.

Finally I take the lead when he folds to some aggression and my KJd rivers a straight (flop was QTx with two diamonds) against his trip queens (turn Q, river A) for the win. Yes! $5 PROFIT BABEEEEE!!

Hey, I'll take what I can get.

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Vegas - I now have TWO friends interested in coming, which is a much better situation that one. Now I can abandon them both and they'll have each other (awwww). Except one of them DOES like poker and is wrapping up a divorce so he has some pent up biterness that MAY manifest as exorbitant expenditure. Which once again leaves friend #1 abandoned. Heh. It's not like I haven't warned them.

Now if that damned seat sale would come back. Vegas from Toronto for under $400! That's damned cheap. With the 3 of us that would be $600 each for airfare and 3 nights at TI. Not too shabby. That's like... 30 cents US or something. I'm not so good at math. :)

A Task Is Set

Well, the birthday was fun. I think. I seem to recall most people having a good time. I also seem to recall rarely having either hand free as there were too many people buying me drinks to go one at a time. I lost count after 8 (which as about 30 minutes after leaving the dock for a 3 hour tour). I started mingling... but that dwindled after mingling over to one person and her friends. Whoops, I guess it's a combination of me being a bad host and everyone else being good friends who know better than to interrupt those conversations. Of course, once I sobered up the next day, I felt bad that I didn't spend more time chatting with everyone. Bad me.

I think that will be it for the big birthday productions. I did large gatherings throughout my twenties and now it's done. Next one will be 40... maybe something at 35. That's not to say I won't celebrate, but I just won't put forth the effort required to bring everyone together. Especially with the various threads of drama and conflict that weave through my parties and circles of friends. I'll save that for New Years ;).

Anyway, it's time for some sort of birthday resolution I guess. So here it is:

I intend to play and finish every video game I've got sitting on my shelf.

Don't let it be said I don't make sacrifices. I mean, I have a Wii, Gamecube, DS, and computer, and I don't think I've finished a game in years. I just buy new ones, play a few levels, and then go back to playing poker or wasting time. I should finish these bad boys. Yup. There it is.

After that, I'll start working on my DVD collection.

What? Like I'd start exercising or something? Please.