So my wife and I went to see the Detroit Tigers play the Chicago White Sox last night. Since the team has been on fire all season getting tickets is hard these days. I picked up the only available ticket in town which was Standing Room Only (SRO). No big deal, can stand anywhere on the place and if your legs are strong enough to hold out for 3 hours you are guaranteed a great seat for a low price.
We got there and decided to stake out our spot. We ended up in the lower level against the wall on the first base side. We were pretty much right between 1st base and the right field wall. Not bad.
Just as the first pitch was about to be thrown a gentleman comes up to us and asks if we would like to have our seats upgraded by one of being the fan of the game. Okay, sure, why not. Hope the seats are decent.
We follow him to a special area designated for I guess this promotion and wait till the end of the 1st inning. Once it was time we headed over to our section where they announced me as "The Fan of the Game" and put my name on the scoreboard and on the videotron, my wife and I being escorted to our seats by Paws, the Tigers mascot. That was that. Easy as pie. Just a little camera time and my name as big as a mack truck out in left field and we move from SRO to 24th row directly behind home plate. Can't beat that, can ya?
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Friday, August 18, 2006
Bikers Annoy Me
It's bad enough that all good US bikers(we are talking bicycles here, not Harleys) dope themselves up with stuff to make them win but the amateur one's at least in my area of the world tend to think they own the road over cars. Do you think you are a pedestrian and have the right of way? Sure hope you realize you don't before I run over your skull because you ignored the big red sign that says STOP!
On my way home from work I cut through a nice little subdivision that seems to have been modeled after some Jan Karon novel. They close half the street down every other Friday to have some large wholesome blockparty where families get together and enjoy each others recipes and child raising practices. On the off days everyone is walking their perfectly groomed dogs and jogging/running/bike riding to maintain their stellar bodies. It's just a little odd. But I am sure it is a great place to live. But the problem in that little utopian community is the fact that all the cyclists think they have the right of way and own the roads. You don't. You just don't. Cyclists are to obey the same traffic laws as motor vehicles. That means, Yield when you see a Yield sign and Stop when you see a Stop sign. I personally have almost killed 3 cyclists at one of the 4 way stops. I would stop, the car across who got there first would go and then I would proceed and zoooooom, a cyclists blows the stop sign to my left and just misses bashing in the front end of my nice car. If it wasn't for the damage that would be caused I would gladly run the bastards over. You have a stop sign. That means stop. It doesn't mean ignore all the cars and blast through. It also doesn't mean that you can ride your little huffy down the middle of the road at 15 mph. Move to the side or go 25.
I now just expect them to blast through so I watch out for them and give them their way. I make sure to give them a bit of a scare when I go pass them by revving my motor (which is loud thanks to my aftermarket exhaust set-up). It doesn't do much for me but maybe one day they will realize that they are being idiots.
So if you are a cyclist. Obey the traffic laws as you are expected to by law. It could save me an insurance claim on getting a new front end and you blood off my cars nice paint job.
On my way home from work I cut through a nice little subdivision that seems to have been modeled after some Jan Karon novel. They close half the street down every other Friday to have some large wholesome blockparty where families get together and enjoy each others recipes and child raising practices. On the off days everyone is walking their perfectly groomed dogs and jogging/running/bike riding to maintain their stellar bodies. It's just a little odd. But I am sure it is a great place to live. But the problem in that little utopian community is the fact that all the cyclists think they have the right of way and own the roads. You don't. You just don't. Cyclists are to obey the same traffic laws as motor vehicles. That means, Yield when you see a Yield sign and Stop when you see a Stop sign. I personally have almost killed 3 cyclists at one of the 4 way stops. I would stop, the car across who got there first would go and then I would proceed and zoooooom, a cyclists blows the stop sign to my left and just misses bashing in the front end of my nice car. If it wasn't for the damage that would be caused I would gladly run the bastards over. You have a stop sign. That means stop. It doesn't mean ignore all the cars and blast through. It also doesn't mean that you can ride your little huffy down the middle of the road at 15 mph. Move to the side or go 25.
I now just expect them to blast through so I watch out for them and give them their way. I make sure to give them a bit of a scare when I go pass them by revving my motor (which is loud thanks to my aftermarket exhaust set-up). It doesn't do much for me but maybe one day they will realize that they are being idiots.
So if you are a cyclist. Obey the traffic laws as you are expected to by law. It could save me an insurance claim on getting a new front end and you blood off my cars nice paint job.
Vote! Vote Now! Tell Your Friends!
My wife is a Policy Drafter for Nancy Skinner who is campaigning for Congress in Michigan's 9th District. She has some great ideas that she wants to bring to Congress that will benefit us in these terrible times. I ask that if you are browsing my blog to take the 2 minutes and vote for Nancy in the first link. ProgressivePatriotsFund will donate $5000 to the campaign of the candidate who gets the most votes by Aug 23rd. Thank you.
Link to vote:
Vote Here!
Nancy Skinners Site:
Nancy Skinner
Big Policy she is working on and my wife's work if you are interested:
Policy
Link to vote:
Vote Here!
Nancy Skinners Site:
Nancy Skinner
Big Policy she is working on and my wife's work if you are interested:
Policy
Monday, August 14, 2006
Home Game Woes
I don't think I have talked about it but I frequent a home game. We have roughly about 15 or so guys who get together on the 2nd Saturday of each month and play poker. We have a thing called the Grand Prix. Grand Prix is a leaderboard type setup where you get points based on your finish and number of players in the tourney. We run this for 6 months where we play 12 games and you take the best 8 finishes so that if you miss a month it won't hurt you that bad. The buy in for each tourney is $25 and 10% of the prize pool is pulled out of all 12 games and then divided out to the top 3 point leaders at the end of the 6 months. Then we start all over. This past Saturday was games 11 and 12 of this Grand Prix. I went into game 11 about 12 points behind the leader and about 4 points ahead of 3rd place. Only 8 people showed up for game 1 so it was known that Mark had solidified his spot at number one for this season. Now it was a race for 2nd and 3rd between myself, Kevin (3rd) and John (4th). So let the games begin.
Game 1 started well for me. I was hitting some good cards and slowly building my stack. I was dealt T8 of clubs and limped from MP. There were a couple of callers and we went to the flop. 5s 8s 3d. Okay flopped top pair on an ugly board. So I bet out and Matt next to me raises all in. Now Matt is good but Matt is a maniac. When he does this early he has one of two thing, the nuts or nothing at all. It's folded back to me and I start thinking this out. Against Kevin or Mark I fold and move on. Against Matt I am willing to think long and hard about it. His all in will cost me about 600 on chips and if I call and lose I am still left with 1000 which is what we started out with and it is early, 2nd round I believe. If I win I take him out and be sitting good. I eventually put him on a draw and decided to take the plunge. I call and flip over my T8 and he flips over AQ no spades. Turn and River both miss him and I win.
Shortly after I get into a pot with Kevin. 2nd place vs. 3rd place. I limp in MP with Jc8c. It gets to him in the sb or bb, can't remember and he raises it up. I call hoping to hit that miracle flop and he likes to push me around a lot. He knows I think he is good and when we get heads up he knows how to push me into submission. I admit it, he has my number. But tonight I wasn't going to be pushed around. Anyway, the flop comes Qc 9c Xh( I can't remember). So I am looking good. He bets out the pot and I call immediately. Turn is a Xc. Didn't the straight flush but had a Q high flush. He checks and I bet half the pot. He thinks for awhile and eventually calls. River is a Q. He checks and I bet close to half the pot. He folds. Yay. Now I am looking really good. But a couple hands later Kevin goes all in vs Danny for a 2000+ chip pot and wins and he now has me covered.
From there is goes all down hill. I start trying to attack the small blinds and get it all in with AJ vs. A6 and TT vs. QQ. Soon I am shortstacked and end up pushing with KJ of diamonds and run into the BB's AA. Out in 6th. Kevin goes on to finish 1st and now holds a 1.07 point lead on me for 2nd going into the final game.
I lost composure in this one. I was still steaming over the last game and couldn't get my head into it. I tried something I have never done and that was flat out bluff. I was dealt 43o in MP and raised. 4 of us went to the flop which was AK. Checked around to me I and bet out. 1 folded, 2 called. 5 on the turn. Checked to me so I bet out. 1 called. 6 on the river, checked to me, I bet out and he called flipping over AQ. BAH! At that point I was down to about 300 in chips. I tried, I failed and I didn't care. I liked being short anyway, big stack in the previous game didn't work so maybe being short early would be good. So I tightened up and waiting for monsters. I can't remember but I got back up to 650 by stealing blinds and got it all in and lost and was down to 150. I was in the small blind with 75 of that and it was folded to me and I put my 75 in and flipped over 96o. BB showed AdJd. Flop hit 78T and I went on to double up to 300. Got 99 in the BB and reraised the SB and he folded and was now sitting on 750.
Blinds are 75/150. UTG raises to 450. I look down in UTG+1 and see two Kings. I go all in for 675 total. Folded around to the SB(Matt) who takes a long time and calls putting himself all in for 675 as well. UTG calls the 225 and we flip the cards over. Matt has Ad 3d. I have KK and Mark shows AQ. John and James both say they folded an Ace so Aces are no longer a worry card. I can get back in this and be sitting on stack of 2175 in chips and back in it. But of course two diamonds hit the flop and the river completes it. I go out in 8th out of 9.
Matt goes on to win game 2 and we are done. I end up 3rd in the Grand Prix and take home an extra $60. Oh well. We start over again next month.
Game 1 started well for me. I was hitting some good cards and slowly building my stack. I was dealt T8 of clubs and limped from MP. There were a couple of callers and we went to the flop. 5s 8s 3d. Okay flopped top pair on an ugly board. So I bet out and Matt next to me raises all in. Now Matt is good but Matt is a maniac. When he does this early he has one of two thing, the nuts or nothing at all. It's folded back to me and I start thinking this out. Against Kevin or Mark I fold and move on. Against Matt I am willing to think long and hard about it. His all in will cost me about 600 on chips and if I call and lose I am still left with 1000 which is what we started out with and it is early, 2nd round I believe. If I win I take him out and be sitting good. I eventually put him on a draw and decided to take the plunge. I call and flip over my T8 and he flips over AQ no spades. Turn and River both miss him and I win.
Shortly after I get into a pot with Kevin. 2nd place vs. 3rd place. I limp in MP with Jc8c. It gets to him in the sb or bb, can't remember and he raises it up. I call hoping to hit that miracle flop and he likes to push me around a lot. He knows I think he is good and when we get heads up he knows how to push me into submission. I admit it, he has my number. But tonight I wasn't going to be pushed around. Anyway, the flop comes Qc 9c Xh( I can't remember). So I am looking good. He bets out the pot and I call immediately. Turn is a Xc. Didn't the straight flush but had a Q high flush. He checks and I bet half the pot. He thinks for awhile and eventually calls. River is a Q. He checks and I bet close to half the pot. He folds. Yay. Now I am looking really good. But a couple hands later Kevin goes all in vs Danny for a 2000+ chip pot and wins and he now has me covered.
From there is goes all down hill. I start trying to attack the small blinds and get it all in with AJ vs. A6 and TT vs. QQ. Soon I am shortstacked and end up pushing with KJ of diamonds and run into the BB's AA. Out in 6th. Kevin goes on to finish 1st and now holds a 1.07 point lead on me for 2nd going into the final game.
I lost composure in this one. I was still steaming over the last game and couldn't get my head into it. I tried something I have never done and that was flat out bluff. I was dealt 43o in MP and raised. 4 of us went to the flop which was AK. Checked around to me I and bet out. 1 folded, 2 called. 5 on the turn. Checked to me so I bet out. 1 called. 6 on the river, checked to me, I bet out and he called flipping over AQ. BAH! At that point I was down to about 300 in chips. I tried, I failed and I didn't care. I liked being short anyway, big stack in the previous game didn't work so maybe being short early would be good. So I tightened up and waiting for monsters. I can't remember but I got back up to 650 by stealing blinds and got it all in and lost and was down to 150. I was in the small blind with 75 of that and it was folded to me and I put my 75 in and flipped over 96o. BB showed AdJd. Flop hit 78T and I went on to double up to 300. Got 99 in the BB and reraised the SB and he folded and was now sitting on 750.
Blinds are 75/150. UTG raises to 450. I look down in UTG+1 and see two Kings. I go all in for 675 total. Folded around to the SB(Matt) who takes a long time and calls putting himself all in for 675 as well. UTG calls the 225 and we flip the cards over. Matt has Ad 3d. I have KK and Mark shows AQ. John and James both say they folded an Ace so Aces are no longer a worry card. I can get back in this and be sitting on stack of 2175 in chips and back in it. But of course two diamonds hit the flop and the river completes it. I go out in 8th out of 9.
Matt goes on to win game 2 and we are done. I end up 3rd in the Grand Prix and take home an extra $60. Oh well. We start over again next month.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Finally, a little MORE hope!
Played yet another $4.40 180 man SNG today to see if I can keep the streak alive. Started out the usual, building my stack up nice in the first hour and sitting in the middle of the pack come the first break. No big hands to speak of, nor that I remember, just some small ball and picking up pots here and there and avoiding any crazy situations. That seems to be the key.
2nd hour was good as well. I was on a pretty passive table and used some aggression to push people around and when it got down to 11 things got interesting. UTG I was dealt 33. I limped as I do with most small pairs hoping to see a cheap flop. This table was not very scary in terms of skill so I was willing to call a raise if I felt it was a player I could play post flop against. Only the SB and BB went to the flop unraised. Flop came TJ3. Whoo hoo hit my set. SB bet 2400 and I raised to 4800 hoping to do one of two things. Take the pot or hope he hit something and he will reraise me. He did the latter and went all in for 15.5K more. I called and had him covered. He showed a J9 and my set hung on for the win and we went to the final table and I was the chip leader with around 55K.
I started playing tight once we hit the final table due to not wanting to screw up and just get a feel for how everyone was playing. Yesterday the action was brutal so I hoped to see a few people exit quickly. That was not the case. I started playing some hands and was really getting pushed around. There were 7 players left and UTG raised to 6400. I was next looking at AK and decided to not be pushed around and made a donk move of going all in for my remaining 38K. Folded around to the BB who pushed with his remaining 24K and UTG called with his remaining 25K. Damn!
UTG showed AJ and the BB showed JJ. Luckily an Ace hit the river and I was sitting pretty with 5 players left.
When it got three handed I was second in chips but only about 10K behind the chip leader. I made some really bad decisions and at one point I was down to 40K but then this hand came up...1500/3000 blinds, `50 antes, BB with KK. Both players call and I raise to 9000. Button calls and SB folds. Flop comes 256. I check and the button bets 9000 and I reraise all in and get a call. That puts me back in second near the chip leader.
Then a crazy hand I was glad to have gotten out of. Button calls 3000. I raise to 9000 with 99. BB reraises to 15000, button reraises to 24000 and I fold. Button calls and the flop comes 7d 6h 8d. BB checks and button goes all in (shortstack). BB calls and shows Ah Qh. Button shows KK. Th on the turn which would have given me a straight but then the 5h hits the river and we are now heads up but I am now a shortstack.
Couldn't get much going. The cards finally went cold for me. I hung on for about 30 hands but ended up losing with K4 vs 43 on the flop of 234. So all in all I am happy with the finish. Great to be back on a final table after just one day and hopefully the upswing will be here for a little while longer. Thanks for reading!
2nd hour was good as well. I was on a pretty passive table and used some aggression to push people around and when it got down to 11 things got interesting. UTG I was dealt 33. I limped as I do with most small pairs hoping to see a cheap flop. This table was not very scary in terms of skill so I was willing to call a raise if I felt it was a player I could play post flop against. Only the SB and BB went to the flop unraised. Flop came TJ3. Whoo hoo hit my set. SB bet 2400 and I raised to 4800 hoping to do one of two things. Take the pot or hope he hit something and he will reraise me. He did the latter and went all in for 15.5K more. I called and had him covered. He showed a J9 and my set hung on for the win and we went to the final table and I was the chip leader with around 55K.
I started playing tight once we hit the final table due to not wanting to screw up and just get a feel for how everyone was playing. Yesterday the action was brutal so I hoped to see a few people exit quickly. That was not the case. I started playing some hands and was really getting pushed around. There were 7 players left and UTG raised to 6400. I was next looking at AK and decided to not be pushed around and made a donk move of going all in for my remaining 38K. Folded around to the BB who pushed with his remaining 24K and UTG called with his remaining 25K. Damn!
UTG showed AJ and the BB showed JJ. Luckily an Ace hit the river and I was sitting pretty with 5 players left.
When it got three handed I was second in chips but only about 10K behind the chip leader. I made some really bad decisions and at one point I was down to 40K but then this hand came up...1500/3000 blinds, `50 antes, BB with KK. Both players call and I raise to 9000. Button calls and SB folds. Flop comes 256. I check and the button bets 9000 and I reraise all in and get a call. That puts me back in second near the chip leader.
Then a crazy hand I was glad to have gotten out of. Button calls 3000. I raise to 9000 with 99. BB reraises to 15000, button reraises to 24000 and I fold. Button calls and the flop comes 7d 6h 8d. BB checks and button goes all in (shortstack). BB calls and shows Ah Qh. Button shows KK. Th on the turn which would have given me a straight but then the 5h hits the river and we are now heads up but I am now a shortstack.
Couldn't get much going. The cards finally went cold for me. I hung on for about 30 hands but ended up losing with K4 vs 43 on the flop of 234. So all in all I am happy with the finish. Great to be back on a final table after just one day and hopefully the upswing will be here for a little while longer. Thanks for reading!
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Tigers vs Twinkies
Went to the ballpark last night for the Tigers vs the Twins. It was a fun game as usual at the Copa thanks to the impressive season our little Tiggers having. As usual the crowd was large, I believe they said 35,870 which is better than the last few years where a Monday night game would get about 8,000.
Sun was beating down on the Left Field sections so we took refuge in the lower level under the concourse and watched the first 3 innings. After that we headed up to our seats in section 340 to watch the rest of the game. This blog will remind me not to ever sit in that section again for a regular season game since it seems people in this section get out of their seats through the whole game making the experience kind of difficult. There are much better seats but they had a special this week were it was buy one get one free.
The game was good due to the matchup of Miner, one of our rookie pitchers, against the hot rookie for the Twinkies, Liriano. But looks as if he is going on the DL since he got pounded for 10 hits and 4 runs in 5 innings. Twins made a nice comeback to put them back in the game at 4-3.
Then the Twins brought in this side-arm guy who made us look like chumps for 2 straight innings but were kind enough to pull him and put in another guy who in 2/3 of an inning gave up 4 walks and 4 runs. We ended up winning 9-3 and now have a 10 game lead over the Sox in the Central and are now 76-36. 40 games over .500! Wow. It's been an amazing year and I can't wait to see how it all pans out!
Finally, a little hope!
Played in a $4.40 180 man SNG at Pokerstars. As usual when I play this SNG I get through the first hour in good shape. Quickly picking good spots and accumulating chips to be sitting in the top 30 at the first break. Felt good, was playing smart, didn't get stuck in any bad situations.
2nd hour things went a little sour when I made some bad calls and got nailed. For most of that second hour I was sitting around 2300 in chips which is no good. But then I hit a nice rush and some helpful rivers to pull out of my hole and into the top 10. Twice I was all in with AJ and both times after the flop hit I was behind only to catch an Ace on the river each time to take down the pot. From there I was sitting on about 9800 in chips and cruised while people dropped out. Found the players who I thought were good to steal against or bluff against and used that to maintain my stack and even build on it. I never got into any real confrontations the latter half of the second hour. Played small ball and stole blinds and antes when I could.
Finally towards the end of the second hour I made it to the final table and was 4th in chips with 23K thanks to a large pot I won when I flopped two pair against someone who caught top pair with a K kicker. As usual the cards went cold but luckily this table was completely LAG that in no time we were down to 5. I was in the BB,1000/2000 blinds +100 ante( I believe). I held QcJc. UTG folded and the chip leader bet out to 6400. all folded to me and I called. This left me with about 18K in chips. Flop came Qs6h6s. I bet out 9K and he raised to 18K and I called. I figured he had the flush draw or AQ. I was right, AsTs. So it was a race. Turn was an Ace. River was another Ace. Oh well. Finished in 5th and that is all right by me. Been a while as previously mentioned in a past blog that I have not reached a final table in quite some time. So I am happy for the finish and have now finished in the money two times in a row in this SNG (finished 15th yesterday).
2nd hour things went a little sour when I made some bad calls and got nailed. For most of that second hour I was sitting around 2300 in chips which is no good. But then I hit a nice rush and some helpful rivers to pull out of my hole and into the top 10. Twice I was all in with AJ and both times after the flop hit I was behind only to catch an Ace on the river each time to take down the pot. From there I was sitting on about 9800 in chips and cruised while people dropped out. Found the players who I thought were good to steal against or bluff against and used that to maintain my stack and even build on it. I never got into any real confrontations the latter half of the second hour. Played small ball and stole blinds and antes when I could.
Finally towards the end of the second hour I made it to the final table and was 4th in chips with 23K thanks to a large pot I won when I flopped two pair against someone who caught top pair with a K kicker. As usual the cards went cold but luckily this table was completely LAG that in no time we were down to 5. I was in the BB,1000/2000 blinds +100 ante( I believe). I held QcJc. UTG folded and the chip leader bet out to 6400. all folded to me and I called. This left me with about 18K in chips. Flop came Qs6h6s. I bet out 9K and he raised to 18K and I called. I figured he had the flush draw or AQ. I was right, AsTs. So it was a race. Turn was an Ace. River was another Ace. Oh well. Finished in 5th and that is all right by me. Been a while as previously mentioned in a past blog that I have not reached a final table in quite some time. So I am happy for the finish and have now finished in the money two times in a row in this SNG (finished 15th yesterday).
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Random Thoughts
I am bored. Which as you might now guess is a common state of mind for me. But if it wasn't for my boredom you wouldn't have anything decent to read. lol
- So Full Tilt has it's own little WCOOP going on. Might try and get into one or more. Probably a lost cause but you never know. I am due for a huge win and winning or placing high in one of these events could make life easier on the poker side of things. So I will keep you up to date on how that goes.
-Reality TV is just crazy. At 8pm last night I was flipping through the guide to see what else was on instead of House (which btw is a fantastic show!)and it was nothing but reality shows. America's Top Model, Supernova, and America's got Talent. Come on, isn't it going a little overboard where 75% of primetime TV on the local stations are reality shows? Don't get me wrong, I like many of them, Survivor, Amazing Race, Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, and sometimes Big Brother. But sheesh, there are just so many on. People said it would die down but it has only gotten larger. I guess it is cheaper to make. Instead of paying some top actor $600,000 a show for 24 eps in a year it is cheaper to pay one person a $1,000,000 after a season.
-Internet is Serious Business. Yup, seems that is still true. I used to be a moderator at GameFAQs, a very popular and good resource for video game help and decent message boards. Problem is that people can not control themselves in a respectable manner on the internet. That's fine but the stupidity on that site is horrendous. The site has very strict posting rules and for a good reason. When your site caters to 13-16 year olds there is going to be a lot of inappropriate content that is not needed on a message board for kids. Then when a user gets their message deleted you get this crazed topic like someone killed their parents and then ass-raped them in their sleep. Jesus, it's a deleted message. Big freaking whoopdeedoo. This is the stuff that kids and some select adults waste their energy on, fighting over a deleted post that broke easy to understand and clearly defined rules? Seems the educators in the world today have also taught these children how to argue in circles. Another sad but true thing. Nothing more pathetic then someone who can't argue without ignoring everything around them. RKIGS is a good term for them.
-Man it was hot the last few days. Each day over 100 and humid as all get out. Luckily things have gotten a bit better today and should be good tomorrow and the weekend. If you think Global Warming is a myth and all these scientists are making it up you must be pretty out of touch with reality. You probably believe all the 911 conspiracies too. Face it people, each year the weather changes dramatically. I have been lucky, or unlucky, to live in the same area for 29 years. Summers are drastically different now then they were then, same with Winter. We also used to have a real fall and spring but that has changed over the last 10 years. Just get your head out of your ass, stop watching FNC and use your head for a day and see what is really going on. :P
-As stated in other posts, I work for an apartment complex. It's funny sometimes. Recent funny moment for me was when I was trying to get $335 of late payments out of this tenant. We send an invoice when it is time to sign a new lease and they need to pay their balance due, if any, before renewing. She got all huffy and asked why we wait till the end of the year to collect the late fees and why haven't we told her she was late when it happened. I explained that we do it this way and have for years and why would we have to tell her that she was late when she mails the payment on the 12th when the payment is to be in the office by the 1st. Obviously you know you are late. Why do we need to tell you that your rent is $625 but 2 months this past year you only sent us $500. You know damn well you didn't send in the full amount. Did you think that we would just ignore it? No. You want to live here another year then you need to pay what you decided on your own not to pay. It's really not that hard. I mean are people stupid enough to think that if they pay 2 weeks late or short on their rent by $125 twice that we would never catch it? Come on. People continue to prove to me that they are stupid. Bah!
-Guy in apartment puts pot on stove to boil water at 3am in the morning. Wakes up at 5am to find the apartment is full of smoke and the fire department are at his door because the tenants call them. No damage, just a ****ed up pan. Calls me 3 days later and tells me his carpet smells like smoke and he can't get the smell out, what am I going to do about it? Me? Nothing, I didn't boil water at 3am then fall asleep and almost set fire to the apartment complex. You? You are going to call a carpet cleaner and pay for them to try and fix it. Other than that, I got nothing.
-Dealerships. My mom has a 99 Acura Integra. She had another one before it for like 9 years. Love's them and back in the day the people at the dealership were normal considerate human beings. I guess that has changed after I talked to her last night. Her battery died yesterday morning. She took it in to Wal-Mart and got a new one. Not bad either $44 installed! Guess Wal-Mart is good for one thing. Anyway, she is driving to work and tries to turn the radio on. Won't work. Can't play a CD either. She goes to work and looks in her manual. It tells her to pull out her Anti-Theft card and punch in the numbers into the radio to unlock the device. Okay. So she has that in her wallet and it is 7 years old and the first 2 numbers have faded away. She can barely make them out. She thinks she has it and finds out after 3 tries that it isn't the numbers she thinks it is. Now she has to wait and hour or something. She tries again in the morning and it still won't let her punch in the numbers.
So she calls Acura when she gets in and gets some bitch with a lack of customer service skills. The woman is not amused at the predicament and tells her that they don't keep records dating over 4 years. According to her most people don't drive the same car for more than that. Heh. She then yells at my mom for not writing the number down in the manual. That is just stupid and I will address that in a bit. She eventually tells my mom that they need to pull the radio out to get the serial # and then they can search another database. Anyone knows the time it takes to remove a car radio is no more than 15 minutes. But Acura is going to charge my mom $95 for those 15 minutes. The woman pretty much continues to unhelpful, insulting, and retarded. Nice letter they will be getting.
Back to the issue of 1. having an anti-theft device on a radio that makes it inoperable without the code and 2. writing that number down in a manual.
1. It's stupid. So the person takes my radio but he cannot listen to it because once disconnected to a battery source you would need a code to unlock it. Big deal. He has my radio and I don't. I don't care if he can listen to the radio or not, I STILL DO NOT HAVE MY RADIO. I could care less if he throws it away or sells it for $500000. I still have no radio. The anti-theft device does nothing for me the car owner. I still need to go buy a new radio.
2. Oh, so put the number to unlock the radio in the manual which is where? In the car. So the guy stealing the radio just needs to take the manual with him and he can use and/or sell it and it will work. That's some serious brain power at work there.
Moral of my blog today I guess is that people are idiots.
Carry on.
- So Full Tilt has it's own little WCOOP going on. Might try and get into one or more. Probably a lost cause but you never know. I am due for a huge win and winning or placing high in one of these events could make life easier on the poker side of things. So I will keep you up to date on how that goes.
-Reality TV is just crazy. At 8pm last night I was flipping through the guide to see what else was on instead of House (which btw is a fantastic show!)and it was nothing but reality shows. America's Top Model, Supernova, and America's got Talent. Come on, isn't it going a little overboard where 75% of primetime TV on the local stations are reality shows? Don't get me wrong, I like many of them, Survivor, Amazing Race, Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, and sometimes Big Brother. But sheesh, there are just so many on. People said it would die down but it has only gotten larger. I guess it is cheaper to make. Instead of paying some top actor $600,000 a show for 24 eps in a year it is cheaper to pay one person a $1,000,000 after a season.
-Internet is Serious Business. Yup, seems that is still true. I used to be a moderator at GameFAQs, a very popular and good resource for video game help and decent message boards. Problem is that people can not control themselves in a respectable manner on the internet. That's fine but the stupidity on that site is horrendous. The site has very strict posting rules and for a good reason. When your site caters to 13-16 year olds there is going to be a lot of inappropriate content that is not needed on a message board for kids. Then when a user gets their message deleted you get this crazed topic like someone killed their parents and then ass-raped them in their sleep. Jesus, it's a deleted message. Big freaking whoopdeedoo. This is the stuff that kids and some select adults waste their energy on, fighting over a deleted post that broke easy to understand and clearly defined rules? Seems the educators in the world today have also taught these children how to argue in circles. Another sad but true thing. Nothing more pathetic then someone who can't argue without ignoring everything around them. RKIGS is a good term for them.
-Man it was hot the last few days. Each day over 100 and humid as all get out. Luckily things have gotten a bit better today and should be good tomorrow and the weekend. If you think Global Warming is a myth and all these scientists are making it up you must be pretty out of touch with reality. You probably believe all the 911 conspiracies too. Face it people, each year the weather changes dramatically. I have been lucky, or unlucky, to live in the same area for 29 years. Summers are drastically different now then they were then, same with Winter. We also used to have a real fall and spring but that has changed over the last 10 years. Just get your head out of your ass, stop watching FNC and use your head for a day and see what is really going on. :P
-As stated in other posts, I work for an apartment complex. It's funny sometimes. Recent funny moment for me was when I was trying to get $335 of late payments out of this tenant. We send an invoice when it is time to sign a new lease and they need to pay their balance due, if any, before renewing. She got all huffy and asked why we wait till the end of the year to collect the late fees and why haven't we told her she was late when it happened. I explained that we do it this way and have for years and why would we have to tell her that she was late when she mails the payment on the 12th when the payment is to be in the office by the 1st. Obviously you know you are late. Why do we need to tell you that your rent is $625 but 2 months this past year you only sent us $500. You know damn well you didn't send in the full amount. Did you think that we would just ignore it? No. You want to live here another year then you need to pay what you decided on your own not to pay. It's really not that hard. I mean are people stupid enough to think that if they pay 2 weeks late or short on their rent by $125 twice that we would never catch it? Come on. People continue to prove to me that they are stupid. Bah!
-Guy in apartment puts pot on stove to boil water at 3am in the morning. Wakes up at 5am to find the apartment is full of smoke and the fire department are at his door because the tenants call them. No damage, just a ****ed up pan. Calls me 3 days later and tells me his carpet smells like smoke and he can't get the smell out, what am I going to do about it? Me? Nothing, I didn't boil water at 3am then fall asleep and almost set fire to the apartment complex. You? You are going to call a carpet cleaner and pay for them to try and fix it. Other than that, I got nothing.
-Dealerships. My mom has a 99 Acura Integra. She had another one before it for like 9 years. Love's them and back in the day the people at the dealership were normal considerate human beings. I guess that has changed after I talked to her last night. Her battery died yesterday morning. She took it in to Wal-Mart and got a new one. Not bad either $44 installed! Guess Wal-Mart is good for one thing. Anyway, she is driving to work and tries to turn the radio on. Won't work. Can't play a CD either. She goes to work and looks in her manual. It tells her to pull out her Anti-Theft card and punch in the numbers into the radio to unlock the device. Okay. So she has that in her wallet and it is 7 years old and the first 2 numbers have faded away. She can barely make them out. She thinks she has it and finds out after 3 tries that it isn't the numbers she thinks it is. Now she has to wait and hour or something. She tries again in the morning and it still won't let her punch in the numbers.
So she calls Acura when she gets in and gets some bitch with a lack of customer service skills. The woman is not amused at the predicament and tells her that they don't keep records dating over 4 years. According to her most people don't drive the same car for more than that. Heh. She then yells at my mom for not writing the number down in the manual. That is just stupid and I will address that in a bit. She eventually tells my mom that they need to pull the radio out to get the serial # and then they can search another database. Anyone knows the time it takes to remove a car radio is no more than 15 minutes. But Acura is going to charge my mom $95 for those 15 minutes. The woman pretty much continues to unhelpful, insulting, and retarded. Nice letter they will be getting.
Back to the issue of 1. having an anti-theft device on a radio that makes it inoperable without the code and 2. writing that number down in a manual.
1. It's stupid. So the person takes my radio but he cannot listen to it because once disconnected to a battery source you would need a code to unlock it. Big deal. He has my radio and I don't. I don't care if he can listen to the radio or not, I STILL DO NOT HAVE MY RADIO. I could care less if he throws it away or sells it for $500000. I still have no radio. The anti-theft device does nothing for me the car owner. I still need to go buy a new radio.
2. Oh, so put the number to unlock the radio in the manual which is where? In the car. So the guy stealing the radio just needs to take the manual with him and he can use and/or sell it and it will work. That's some serious brain power at work there.
Moral of my blog today I guess is that people are idiots.
Carry on.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
What Poker Means to Me
I was bored so I thought I would post about what Poker means to me and my life. Where I have been, where I want to go with it. Should be a boring read but maybe not. Guess you will just have to read it and go from there.
I started getting interested in Poker when most people did. During the 03 WSOP. Watching that donktastic Moneymaker win it. I didn't like him then and not a fan now but watching that got me intrigued about the game. So I started playing on Pokerroom around Sept of 03 I believe. Play money and freerolls. Never played much poker growing up except for maybe 5 Card Stud. This Hold Em thing was completely alien to me. So after some months of dilly-dallying I decided to take my first step into online gambling. I can be a very paranoid person at times and if not for my fear of something going awry like people always tell you I might have been playing for real money sooner.
So I deposited $40 and started playing $5 SNG's and MTT's. No success. Lose it and wait till next month and try it again. Watched a lot of poker on TV and read some stuff in books but never really was terribly serious about it. Then on 10/28/04 I had $11 in my account and decided to play a $10+1 SNG and call it quits if I lost. Luckily I had won and was now sitting on a massive $50 bankroll.
From there I was just tearing it up. I was on such a nice upswing that I didn't deposit more money into an account for over a year. By the end of 05 I was up $2K. Not all that impressive when compared to some of these young phenom stories you see on poker forums, but for a guy playing strictly .25/.50 LHE, and $5 SNG and MTT's. It's not that bad. I won a few MTT's but the best for me was a 397 player $5 MTT that I won for $500.
06 has been a different story all together. I play a lot more than I did but I am not getting better results for the most part. I have moved up and am playing .50/1 or 1/2 LHE. I play $10 MTT's and lots of satellite tounries. I have not won a MTT all year. Best was a 7th in a 2000 person tourney but the payout structure sucked so hard I only tripled my buy in if I remember correctly.
I am part of a large home game that I look forward too each month. Great competition and good times. I do well in that game. I also play 3/6 LHE at Casino Windsor from time to time and am up in that game as well.
At one point this year I was down to $14 online and $50 for live play. And within a month I grinded it out to $800. Felt good about that. Sadly the poker trip that is one of my blog posts cleaned out $350 of that. Still sitting on about $350 online and $50 off but I am just not happy.
I talk poker with other players a lot. I read a lot of strat posts on FCP and Thunderkellers site. I have my hands analyzed and I analyze other peoples hands. I love the game. But I feel like I am in a total rut this year. I need that one big win to get me feeling better but if you are looking for that one big win you might overplay and then play worse.
Where do I want to go with poker. I guess right where I am at. Not looking to go TP/MM (Turn Pro/Make Millions for you non-FCP'ers). I am looking to do well enough not to dive into my bank account and have fun. So far so good I guess, but I know I am better than what my 06 results show me. But I gotta keep grinding away and see what happens. Luckily I have a few good efriends who talk poker with me and are honest with me and I have a very supportive wife that is there cheering me on every step of the way.
So that's it. A brief history of my poker career. Flame away. :P
I started getting interested in Poker when most people did. During the 03 WSOP. Watching that donktastic Moneymaker win it. I didn't like him then and not a fan now but watching that got me intrigued about the game. So I started playing on Pokerroom around Sept of 03 I believe. Play money and freerolls. Never played much poker growing up except for maybe 5 Card Stud. This Hold Em thing was completely alien to me. So after some months of dilly-dallying I decided to take my first step into online gambling. I can be a very paranoid person at times and if not for my fear of something going awry like people always tell you I might have been playing for real money sooner.
So I deposited $40 and started playing $5 SNG's and MTT's. No success. Lose it and wait till next month and try it again. Watched a lot of poker on TV and read some stuff in books but never really was terribly serious about it. Then on 10/28/04 I had $11 in my account and decided to play a $10+1 SNG and call it quits if I lost. Luckily I had won and was now sitting on a massive $50 bankroll.
From there I was just tearing it up. I was on such a nice upswing that I didn't deposit more money into an account for over a year. By the end of 05 I was up $2K. Not all that impressive when compared to some of these young phenom stories you see on poker forums, but for a guy playing strictly .25/.50 LHE, and $5 SNG and MTT's. It's not that bad. I won a few MTT's but the best for me was a 397 player $5 MTT that I won for $500.
06 has been a different story all together. I play a lot more than I did but I am not getting better results for the most part. I have moved up and am playing .50/1 or 1/2 LHE. I play $10 MTT's and lots of satellite tounries. I have not won a MTT all year. Best was a 7th in a 2000 person tourney but the payout structure sucked so hard I only tripled my buy in if I remember correctly.
I am part of a large home game that I look forward too each month. Great competition and good times. I do well in that game. I also play 3/6 LHE at Casino Windsor from time to time and am up in that game as well.
At one point this year I was down to $14 online and $50 for live play. And within a month I grinded it out to $800. Felt good about that. Sadly the poker trip that is one of my blog posts cleaned out $350 of that. Still sitting on about $350 online and $50 off but I am just not happy.
I talk poker with other players a lot. I read a lot of strat posts on FCP and Thunderkellers site. I have my hands analyzed and I analyze other peoples hands. I love the game. But I feel like I am in a total rut this year. I need that one big win to get me feeling better but if you are looking for that one big win you might overplay and then play worse.
Where do I want to go with poker. I guess right where I am at. Not looking to go TP/MM (Turn Pro/Make Millions for you non-FCP'ers). I am looking to do well enough not to dive into my bank account and have fun. So far so good I guess, but I know I am better than what my 06 results show me. But I gotta keep grinding away and see what happens. Luckily I have a few good efriends who talk poker with me and are honest with me and I have a very supportive wife that is there cheering me on every step of the way.
So that's it. A brief history of my poker career. Flame away. :P
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