Return of the Week

It was a long weekend up here, and it came at just about the right time.

Heading into it, I had a feeling I'd find myself busy, even though I had no plans beyond a football game Friday night. I wasn't wrong.

Friday was the Argooooooooooooooooooooos game, which wasn't terribly exciting, but we were 15 rows back of the cheerleaders, and there was much beer. Pre-game we went to a nearby pub. It turns out they were closing down for 3 weeks, and therefore were short on booze supplies. My martini went from Tanquery Ten to regular Tanquery, which is perfectly acceptable. However, they had only Stella and Carlsberg on tap, with a bottle selection that sounded like the stuff they couldn't sell because it was crap. My friends were nonplussed but survived nonetheless.

Post-game we wandered to a more distant bar, and I ran into an old high school friend on the way. It turns out I missed another mini-reunion a couple months ago... which I don't really regret all that much.

Saturday was highly delicious. I met up with my best friend to hit our usual farmer's market far too late to be of use. Some stuff was picked up and then it was off for more supplies (bagels for us, cat stuff for my cats). In our continued search for quality veggies, we went to St. Lawrence market... marking the first time we'd been there on an early Saturday afternoon. This is key because it meant the St. Lawrence farmer's market was still on. What a freakin' cornucopia of cheap, quality, local stuff. Weighed down by bags of veggies, we continued to the market proper where exotic salts, sauces, cheeses, and meats were procured. To say we went overboard would be an understatement.

As an aside - I haven't had raspberries that fresh and sweet since I lived at my folks and could pick them in the back yard.

With such a bounty of food, dinner had to be made. It was fantastic. Roast veggies as one side, a fantastic roasted squash dish as the other. Both of these wonderfully complimented the buffalo steaks with a great earthy dry rub.

Yum.

Sunday was my usual dim sum meeting, iced tea lemonade, and some aerobie tossing in the park... is there a better way to enjoy a beautiful day? Oh yah, that was finished with a drink and dinner at the pub.

Monday was a day to sleep until I got out of bed. I did very little and then visited the family for my brother's birthday. Of course, this meant that I got to bbq the porterhouse steaks while mom worked on the sides. I may have finally gotten the hang of the new grill there.

My other brother also made it home, where we talked about his upcoming trip to Vegas (his first jaunt with friends). He plans to only play poker, and at 23 doesn't have the bankroll for more than a bit of 1/2 or some cheap donkey tournaments. I pointed him to the MGM (where he's staying) and Venetian for the casg games, but I imagine he'll go wherever his friends end up. In fact, we had a decent discussion about Vegas in general, since he has no idea what it's like (he was there once before, but was underage and with parent, which some might argue is a slightly different experience). We might even make it out to Niagara before he heads south of the border so he can experience some live casino play in a less initimidating environment. Brings a tear to my eye ;).

Poker for the whole weekend, in a word, sucked. I think I cashed in 2 single-table turbo SnGs out of a bunch played (bubbled most of the rest), and just cashed in an $11 90-man SnG for a whopping $18. I played one big MTT (the Sunday 50-50) and that lasted 29 minutes.. of which I sat out 15. A lot of this was my own terrible play, but a few donkey calls by my opponents that caught didn't help. As such, my FT bankroll is now decimated.

And now, back to the grind for 4 days before the next weekend. I'm feeling oddly productive... but I doubt anything will come of it.