Moving

What up my friendly faithful, your boy is in the middle of getting his move on. My guy Big Time moved out of our spot almost exactly a year ago and things haven't been the same for the kid since then (please excuse any excessive use of third person).

So I'm linking up with Corner Sleeper and we were lucky enough to beat out the other applicants for a nice spot in West L.A. where there are plenty of corners to sleep in. We give credit to a combination of Sleepy's perfect credit rating and the apparent crush that our elderly apartment manger appears to have on me (sike..?). Now we're attempting to do our best to 'pimp' the pad, in other words, applying for and maxing out Best Buy credit cards, much to Big Time's dismay. Here's a conversation I had with him the other day.

Me: "My room is legit. I'm moving my grandma's old couch into my bedroom."
BT: "That ugly couch?"
Me: "Yeah, we put hella pillows on it and it looks good."
BT: "That thing is uncomfortable."
Me: "The pillows change all that. Plus I'm getting a flat screen on the wall."
BT: "A flat screen what?"
Me: "TV, dumb ass."
BT: "Don't do that, you have expenses coming up. E-Wick's bachelor party."
Me: "Best Buy credit card, dog."
BT: "Don't do it, that's a bad idea."

Okay that didn't come out as funny as it was at the time, when he said "A flat screen what?" as if I was about to get a flat screen poster or something.

I'm looking forward to the living situation, which will be a contrast of styles between us. Corner Sleepz is on point with everything and has been measuring every corner and angle in our spot in order to get optimal use of all the floor space, etc. Not to mention measuring the square footage in our rooms to ensure that our rent ratio was equal to the floor space. On the other hand, there's me...I'm pretty much just 'a dude,' living my life stress-free as ever. Hopefully we'll both rub off on each other and we'll be like the Terry Francona and Manny Ramirez of roommates. Bad example, but you get the idea.



I'll probably post pics of the new spot once we're completely moved in. I wanted to do some cribs type video of the old spot just to show what it's become, but I don't think I'll get to that.

Hopefully you noticed the new song playing in the background of my page and this is my new joint.

In other news, I've had my phone and ipod jacked from my desk at work. Lost all my contacts, that's a b*tch.

Why I love cell phone tickets

In our sunny state of California, we now have a law that restricts drivers from using their cell phone without a hands-free ear piece. I have been abiding by this law since it was instituted (I believe July 1st this year) and have a shitty ear piece just like everyone else.

Saturday morning I woke up and had to run an errand around the corner from my house. I ran said errand with no trouble and headed home, about a mile away.

I live in a pretty residential area of West Los Angeles, but a residential area with a lot of traffic running on the side streets in between major streets like Centinela, Venice, and Sepulveda. Because of this, there are several stop signs at the residential intersections.

Still hella sleepy from being out the night before, I was zoned out as I was driving home. When I got three blocks away from my apartment, I noticed a cop that was tailing the car behind me with his lights flashing. The car behind me pulled over and the cop continued on, so I assumed that he was trying to get somewhere and I pulled over to the side of the road to let him pass.

Only he pulled over right behind me.

Fuck. This is always a shitty feeling and one that I've felt probably about ten times.

The cop comes up to my car and the following conversation occurs:

Cop: "Do you know why I'm pulling you over?"
Me: "No."
Cop: "Did you see that stop sign back there?"
Me: "What stop sign? I guess not..."
Cop: "Yeah, if you had stopped at the stop sign, you would have seen me parked at the intersection."
Me: "Wow...I guess I must have missed the stop sign, I don't remember stopping at it or seeing you at all back there."
Cop: "Yeah, usually people try to stop in the middle of the intersection when they see me. At least you just kept on going."
Me: "Wow, I really don't remember. I guess I missed it."
Cop: "I tell you what. I'm going to give you a cell phone ticket instead of a moving violation."
Me: "Really?"
Cop: "Yeah. You have a cell phone right?"
Me: "Yeah"
Cop: "Were you on it?"
Me: "No."
Cop: "Well, I'll give you a cell phone ticket. It's only twenty-five bucks and it doesn't go on your record. But next time you get a cell phone ticket it'll go up."
Me: "Sounds good to me."

So I sat baffled in my car, wondering why this cop was hooking me up with a cell phone ticket instead of a moving violation for running a stop sign. As I sat there, I realized exactly what stop sign I ran, a useless stop sign on a three-way intersection next to a "ducks crossing" sign.

I've come to the conclusion that either:

a. The cop that gave me a ticket, hates the fact that he was stationed at this boring intersection to give people tickets for running a useless stop sign and felt shitty for doing so or

b. That now all LAPD have cell phone ticket quotas that they have to meet and he was falling short, so he decided to get a cell phone ticket out of the way.

or...

c. Just good karma from my halloween costume


Either way, the cell phone ticket saved me from a court date, about $200-300, and higher insurance rates.

Thank you cell phone law.

1 for 1

It's official, I'm one for one with the shuffle. We'll see how they hold up tonight. I really didn't have a great session but more than doubled up on like my second or third hand with Kd6d. I caught a flush draw on a 10-high flop and after one bet and one call I pushed and got called by J-10, and hit the diamond on the turn.

After that I don't even think I won more than two hands in two hours but I managed to hold onto my chips for the small victory before hitting a home game up (where I didn't use the headphones).

I did find myself taking them off somewhat regularly to hear the guy next to me, who kept talking to me. Plus I took them off to eat.

There's a regular guy who goes to HP and always sucks on his fingers and thumb. I find it extremely disgusting that he's sucking on his fingers after handling those dirty ass chips, but apparently he doesn't care. Not to mention that he's getting his saliva all over the chips. I can't figure out if his fingers just taste really good for some reason (yuck) or he never shook the habit as a kid. What grown man sucks on his thumb?

Goin Headphonin

Thanks to a few loud mouths that have become regulars at the infamous Hollywood Park Casino, I have purchased an ipod shuffle to use while I play poker. I've never listened to music while I've played so I might not like it, but at least I have the option to shut out "chubby Asian" (as he has been appropriately nicknamed by my boy) and similar players who have trouble s'ing-t-f-u. Or as one guy put it, they just "lack social skills."

The funny thing is that I already have an ipod nano but when i first got it I loaded every single song I had onto it and grew tired of the playlist quickly because there was too much filler (i.e. "Oochie Wally"). Obviously I was too lazy to change the playlist.

So I took my time with this ipod shuffle playlist and have a non-stop heater playlist for about 4.5 hours, with a lot of time left to load on it still. Was up for about two hours picking songs out so I better win mad cheese because of this new device that I'm currently in love with (the shit is just ridiculously small, even though I'm about a year late on it).

So if you see me at HP and I'm ignoring the hell out of you, just blame my shuffle.

Shout out to Trek Lizzife, who just agreed to record my mixtape in our company conference room with his portable studio.

100.

Childhood Heroes (Athletes)

As I check my man Shawn Kemp reigniting his career in the great land of Italia, it reminds me that some of the guys I looked up to as a kid are still going strong.

For lack of posting anything good at all over the past several weeks, I will go through some of these childhood idols. First, let's take a look at the athletes...

#1: Nick Van Exel. Something about the way he transformed Cincinatti's program and took them to the final four with the most swag that I had ever seen (with the acception of the UNLV team combined), I fell in love with Van Exel's game as a kid. Despite my relentless efforts to switch to a left-handed jumpshot at the age of 12, it couldn't be done. In fact, I really had no handles and no court vision either, so my game was a far cry (very far) from Van Exel. I sure wasn't the only kid in the world with a Van Exel poster hanging on my wall, but I was probably the only kid with three Van Exel posters hanging on my wall.


#2: Ken Griffey Jr. I think anyone that was raised in Seattle during the 90's was hoping to be Jr. He owned the city's sports fans and deservedly so. Surprinsingly he's still doing it big in the league (okay, he sucks now but let's all root for him and his quest to get a World Series ring). But as "The Kid," his effortless homers and life-risking catches were enough to inspire several injuries while jumping into chain-link fences in south Seattle.


#3: Wade Boggs. My third lefty in a row, for some unknown reason he was my favorite player, along with Griff. Boggs put up great numbers consistently and perhaps I just enjoyed looking at the back of his baseball cards and all those 200 hits, 40 doubles, .330+ avg., etc. every single year. My mom hated Boggs because he was a well-known asshole, but I couldn't fall in love with Harold Reynold's game.


#4: Deion Sanders. Prime Time. Nuff said. But really, who will ever be able to say that they played for the Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers, New York Yankees, and the Atlanta Braves? Not to mention the Ravens, Redskins, Falcons, Cincinatti Reds, San Francisco Giants and Florida State Seminoles. He was like an ill mix of Ricky Henderson, Rod Woodson and Luke.


#5: Jerry Rice. I'm pretty sure that Jerry Rice is the best football player that I've ever seen. He never disappointed and everybody knew that Joe and Steve were throwing the rock his way. Dallas had to acquire Deion just so they could try to stop Jerry. Yes, every time we played football, we wanted to be #80.


#6: Michael Jordan. He was pretty good, played shooting guard for the Chicago Bulls.


#7: Rickey Henderson: He could hit for power, steal a base any time he wanted and most importantly, was a cocky son-of-a-bitch. To kids, that was awesome. He was the reason I bought an Oakland A's hat and I failed in trying to emulate his stretched out batting stance. I also think he was the first man to rock a gold chain while playing professional sports, although I could be wrong.


Honorable mentions: Magic Johnson, John Elway, Randall Cunningham, Barry Sanders, Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Dominique Wilkins, Barry Sanders, Jose Canseco.

Running good or running bad?

The other night I logged onto Full Tilt out of boredom and was thinking about finding a freeroll to play in.

Unbeknownst to me, I had $1.37 left in my account. Like a dream come true.

So I find the $1 sit-n-go, I believe with 54 players in it and register, immediately.

Early on I win a few huge hands and have the chip lead with about 42 left or something like that. Somehow, I kept this chip lead until we were down to 15 people, which is when I decided to check the payouts.

Obviously I know that the payouts are going to be extra small but I'm still interested to know what I'll get if I win. $17. Sweet. But only six spots pay so I need to play well (this high stakes poker is exciting, I know).

Then it happens, my internet goes out. And stays out.

But finally it turns back on five minutes later and I'm still the chip leader with 13 people left. I'm in the big blind with KhTh and the small blind obviously raises pre-flop to steal from me as I've been disconnected, but I re-raise and win a pot.

Then my internet goes out again. This time I sit and wait and it just stays off. For a long time and I eventually go to sleep, figuring I gave it my best shot but when you're running bad, you're running bad and even a chip lead on the bubble can't help when a shotty Time Warner cable connection has something to say about it.

I chalked it up as a loss but a valiant effort as I had once again proved my uncanny ability to beast huge tournament fields of 54 people and single-figure buy-ins.

But then this morning I logged on to check and see if I had somehow crept into the top six to win a buck or two and -- to quote the great blogger Rod Benson -- Boom Tho.

I finished in third place for $7, thus seven-tipling (?) my Full Tilt bankroll from $1 to $7.

While I thought that it was just another bad beat by losing my internet connection, I now believe that it was actually a suckout. The way things have been going for me, I would have donk'd my chips off and finished in 7th place had I been able to play out the remainder of the tournament. But thanks to Time Warner, I was unable to blow my chips off and simply blinded off to a very admirable 3rd place finish.

This is a sure sign of great things to come.

---

I'm for dinner

My weekend was kind of like the best weekend ever at the poker tables, except the opposite of that.

I was planning to go play Friday night after work and didn't make it. Maybe that's why it all went wrong, because I didn't stick to the plan. If you fail to plan then you plan to fail right? But what if you succeed to plan, but then you fail to carry out your plans? Then maybe you plan to succeed to carry out your failure. Yeah, that's what I did.

I stroll into HP Saturday morning ready to set the weekend on fire. Negative. I didn't catch a decent hand for about an hour-and-a-half but managed to refrain from making bluffs or plays, so my stack dwindled to like $120 before I managed to double up with 66 vs. AK and then run my stack to like $450 (from $200). That's when I made a horrible call. We're playing short-handed (four-handed) and the button opens for $15. I have 99 and re-raise to $85. He calls. The flop comes 7-T-2 with two spades. I come out and bet $100. He insta-calls. Now I'm not sure what he has. I put him on an under pair as well, but not the ten. My thinking is that if he has the ten, he's going to raise to see where he's at. If he has an overpair, he's raising. The turn is another 7 and I bet $200. He thinks for a LONG time and looks like he's going to fold at certain points (should've been my first clue, I'm an idiot) and then finally goes all-in. I call my stack like a dumbass, putting him on putting me on a bluff, and he shows J-7 of hearts. I miss the two-outer and switch to the $15/30 limit game because I'm unhappy with myself and somewhat tilted by my own actions.



Limit game would set the tone for most of the weekend. I sat and got no cards and played somewhat tight (but literally was getting shit, not suited connectors, nathan) and then was surprised as a motha to see AA under the gun. I raise, everyone calls. Flop comes rags with two hearts. I bet, everyone calls. Turn is the third heart and I know at least one person has the flush so I check. I do have the ace of hearts so I call a bet with two other callers. River is the ace of diamonds and I fold to a bet and a raise.

As you can see by the table breakdown, my table really wasn't full of bad players anyways. One of the chasers was the guy who cracked my aces with his K4 of hearts. I also got my queens raped quickly on a board of T-J-K where I called all the way to the river.

Needless to say, I chalked up another L in this limit game. I left for a lunch break in Santa Monica and then met up with my boy, who had to go meet up with Ivey at Hustler (shameless name drop). We went to Hustler and I jumped into the $5/5 No Limit game.



As you can see, I didn't have a great table. There were a bunch of tight players (I folded QQ pre-flop and that was the highest pair I saw by far), and two pretty good action players. Then I had my boy on my left. I bought in for the minimum $300. I didn't catch anything and then had 4h2h in the big blind with my boy straddling for $10. Six people called and I called the extra nickel to see a wonderful flop of K-4-2 with two spades. I came out and checked hoping to get a bet and everyone checked to the button, who bet $35. I raised him to $175 with about $85 left behind and he thought for a while, then moved in. I called and he caught the nut flush on the river when the third spade hit. After that I just didn't have shit except for the QQ that I folded pre-flop. GG me.

Better luck to y'all, someone has to be on the winning side.

Peace.