4-Day Week!

We are in the home stretch for Weekend at Mookie's! Flight's booked, car's booked, room set aside (I assume, if not... eh, I've got a car), 27 degrees on Friday - it's looking sweet! Now I just need to get around to some laundry and packing... in that order.

How was your weekend? Mine was solid.

Friday night - I saw Dear Zachary:A Letter to a Son About His Father - an incredibly moving documentary. The theatre was full of sobbing, with the salty streaks of tears visible on many a face as we left. Myself, I welled up, but was so infuriated at the climax that the sadness didn't hit until it had dissipated enough. Then it hit again when they film's key participants came on stage to answer questions about their heart-wrenching ordeal. It's a film that just hits you with emotional blows. If you ever get a chance to see it, do so. I won't tell you any more about what happens in it, and suggest you don't follow the above link unless you want some key information revealed. I imagine it will become available to a wider audience shortly.

That was followed up with dinner, drinks, and discussion about what we'd just seen.

Then the TTC went on strike. The ONLY public transportation system in the city went on strike at midnight on Friday, unannounced. The decision was made around 10:30pm, when everybody was already out. This stranded thousands of people downtown. As I was walking home (I live downtown and was going to walk anyway), I watched the masses mill about the subway entrances, unsure what they were going to do and ruing that last round that cost them cab fare. Anybody with 3 functioning brain cells could tell you that stranding your regular riders downtown and drunk in the middle of the night is NOT the way you engender support and sympathy for your cause. Especially of that cause reeks of union bullying. As soon as a union cries out for "job security" in an economic downturn, my hackles start to rise.

Saturday I woke up around noonish to a phone call. It was as good a time as any to get up, so I did. I strolled about my place, wasting time, until I got the expected calls from some friends. Eventually, they showed up and we headed out for dinner, drinks, and Harold & Kumar's escape from Guantanamo Bay. The beauty of a transit strike for someone who lives downtown is that (a) you can convince your friends to drive to you, and (b) you can get a seat on the patio with all the suburbanites staying home. We went to a restaurant I hadn't visited yet - The Fat Belgian. I shall be returning. A solid list of mostly Belgian beers greeted us. Naturally, the one we wanted (Delerium Tremens) was the only one out. My second choice was surprisingly available (Chimay Blue is almost impossible to find in stock). The fact that our waitress Stephanie was incredibly cute and friendly helped too. Good fried calamari for an appetizer, and belgian beer-basted ribs as my main. Yum. Mussels in Napoleon cognac and cream for one buddy, and roasted duck for the other. Chocolate trifle for dessert for me, and crème brûlée for the friends. Jokes, laughs, stories, and suddenly we had ten minutes to make the 10:30 movie. We'd had the foresight to get the tickets before dinner, and rushed down the street to the theatre. With 3 minutes to spare, we found another benefit of a transit strike - opening weekend isn't totally packed. Full, but not sold out and we found seats easily. One movie later, we left quoting and laughing at another great stupid stoner comedy. A slightly different experience than the previous night's movie.

Then I schooled them at Super Smash Bros and Guitar Hero.

Sunday involved another noon wakeup. This was unfortunate as I missed the regular Dim Sum gathering yet again. It's been a couple months now at least since I've made one. I was really looking forward to it too. Oops. The plan then became to laze around, make breakfast, relax, and play poker in anticipation of The Big Game. This was going along until I got a phone call as I was pouring my cereal. Off I went to check out a condo my best friend was VERY interested in, and I was glad to get outside. It was disappointing. I'm regularly surprised by the lack of developers to actually design things functionally. Their goal is to cram as much into a building as possible, as opposed to making it useful. A 2-bedroom unit with a kitchen that can barely hold one person. A master bedroom in the penthouse that can hold a bed, but which has a wall so off-kilter and uneven that no useful furniture can be brought in. A few simple floorplan changes and those problems are fixed. A shame, really. However, it started a search that led to unexpected areas and better real estate possibilities for her. These things happen for a reason.

I came home and made myself some dinner. Chicken, mediterranean-style elk sausage, peppers, onions, garlic, spices, and rice for something paella-like. Oh was it tasty. Chased with a McAuslan's Apricot Wheat Ale.

Then my brother came by so his future boss could pick up her laptop from him (forgotten at the job interview - that's got to be a good sign when your interviewee offers to meet you downtown with your computer). He hung out while The Big Game started up and we chatted and watched Dallas beat San Jose as I played. I also made a few phone calls re: condos and real estate. Then he left, and I continued the phone calls while "playing" the game.

By the time I was focused 100% on poker, we were close to the final table and I was near the bottom. Some timely double-ups kept me alive until I lost a race to the chipleader (my 99 vs AQo) to go home in 5th place. Good for points, good for fishcake points (except Alan went out in 4th, so he still put distance between us), good for the bankroll. The $253 was very much needed after the past couple weeks of Full Tilt saying, "no sir, you may NOT proceed past the bubble."

One might say I played a tight game:

Statistics for 296 Hands
Street	Saw	Saw/Total
Flop	34	11%
Turn	20	7%
River	13	4%
Showdown	10	3%
Street	Won	Won/Saw	Won/Total
Pre-flop	26	9%	9%
Flop	5	15%	2%
Turn	6	30%	2%
River	3	23%	1%
Showdown	6	60%	2%

I'll have to review my hand history, but I believe I was fairly card dead. I was aggressive to start, and aggressive near the bubble to chip up, but otherwise did a lot of folding.

Tonight is our regular 6-max doublestack MATH. 10pm EST on Full Tilt, password is hammer.