Friday, April 23, 2004
Monday April 19 - Thursday April 22
(listening to "Don't let me be misunderstood, Kill Bill 1 - see Wen's blog)
Hi! I've been absent from writing in this Blog. Well, it's more of a, "I'll do it later", and then of course it adds up and later becomes laterer, but one day it has to stop. Today it stops. I had my last exam at 7-10 pm tonight (Thursday night), finished 20 minutes early, and then got to Toan's for more poker. More on that later. Let's see... what do I have to talk about now, that seems relevant or interesting... no need for subsections this time... just gonna write... a lot...
I keep a list of things to write about. Unfortunately, since it's been a lot of days, I'm not sure what it means when it says "went to bed at 3:00" - could've been yesterday, could've been Monday. But the things I write are in partial chronological order, so this must've been... actually... Sunday night.
So Sunday night, I was gonna head to bed at a usual time, say, 2:00 am, but Jia got me to start playing Solitaire Showdown on msn. First I won a few games, then he won one or two... and then after that he kept losing and losing, and eventually I wanted to quit but he still kept on losing, so he'd threaten to call me a cowardly ninja when I wanted to quit. Ya know, win, and then quit, too cowardly to continue the challenge. Well, this was partly his fault, cuz he kept losing so much... so one time I just quit. Tired ninja. Or more like, I wanted to wake up at a normal time so I can spend a day studying.
Saw Matchstick Men on Monday. It was pretty good, for the most part. I liked it. As Wen said, the ending was a bit... weird. It's like the director just wanted to add a "what if", or "alternate ending"; something to make the audience think. It works alright, just a bit farfetched. Reminds me a bit of *spoiler*Carrey's "Truman Show", but more of Douglas' "The Game", which I might add, was... interesting. I should watch it again.*end spoiler*. Anyway, the movie was about this 'con artist', and it starts with him in his home, and he has some weird quirks. Anyway, near the start, he pulls off this... "double-con", which was pretty funny. There were some other cons in the movie, maybe I should use some... heehee. Just kidding. Or Am I?
Alright, I think this might be Monday night now - I wrote down I had a dream. First part of the dream, was, I was having a party! I think we were at home in Mississauga... a bit different, cuz streetsville was different - it was a quaint, little .. ville... anyway, back to the party. Ambrose was there, Amish was there, Duy, David, myself, and various others. I don't remember too much, so let's skip to what I DO remember. We started playing some Fifa 2002, but then I went to another room. Anyway, eventually David got hungry, and he wanted some food. So Amish, David, and I walked around quaint little different streetsville, and we ended up in some restaurant. I think David ordered some breaded chicken thing, and Amish ordered something else. I asked them what they had that was good, and they wanted me to try chicken noodles, like, curry chicken noodles or something. I wasn't in the mood for that, but hey, it's their specialty, right? So I tried that. So we all sat down at some cafeteria tables, it was pretty dark, and there were a lot of other people.
Anyway, that was the end of that portion... so then we walk back into our Unit #31 in Waterloo, where the party was at (changed from 'Sauga to 'Loo), and I hear everyone upstairs, and the TV downstairs is still on, with a paused Fifa 2002 game. I think to myself, it must've been on for several hours now. Why didn't they just turn it off?
(now listening to a song from Jubei Chan 2)
Anyway, here comes part 2 of the dream, which is only 30 seconds long or so. Anyway, I sensed something was wrong, in our UW house... so I stepped outside, and a few cars away, there was a van. The van was probably there for another house who needed servicing. Well, sitting in the van was... *Drumroll*..... Nick Stokes! From CSI! Anyway, so yeah, I ask him if he can help me. He says something to me, and that pretty much ends the dream.
Tuesday night, played Low Stakes texas hold'em poker at Lam's house. $5 buy-in, nice and low, low limits, so I had Alan come along. Andy, Alan, Lam, and myself, each put in $5, nice and cheap. Eventually, Alan lost his $5, so I gave him another $2 so he can have some more fun, and then he lost that too. Andy then lost his $5, so it was just Lam and myself left. Then we lifted the limits to no-limit, and after that I just started making pretty bad plays - a few good plays, a few bad plays - and towards the end I lost it all. So I'm down $7 that night, but that's alright. Not too much. The real game was Wednesday night, with regular stakes again.
(now listening to a song Lam sent me which I heard in his car - it's a jazzy version of the Mario Bros theme, which sounds a bit like that flash cartoon - but it's cutoff in the middle I think)
I think I went to Mel's diner after that day, but I'll post about that in a bit.
So Wednesday night comes along, and it's myself, Andy, Andy's friend Ken (new to the game), Toan, Lam, Vu, and later on Carlos. A big game indeed. So Ken hasn't played before, so before the actual game starts, we play a few practice hands. During those practice hands, Ken raked in quite a lot from Andy and I. This was pretty good, except during the practice hands, it wasn't for real money.
So... poor Ken. He used up all of his beginner's luck on the practice hands. So... long story short, Ken didn't win very often during the real game. So at the start, everyone put in $20, and eventually some people started losing and then they put in another $20 or whatever.
(Now listening to another song I remember when I was a kid - so I got it from Lam again - you probably remember it - Lime in the Coconut)
Let's fast forward to the final standings. Carlos was up, Toan was up, Lam was up... Vu was up... $29... at one point I was very little low, so I put in another $20... but at the end of the game I had $42.75, so I profited $2.75. Unfortunately, Ken lost $25 and Andy lost $40. So I think Andy's done poker for a while... And Alan's probably not coming to poker again. He just doesn't enjoy it enough.
Anyway, I had that super hand I really wanted to get at least once during my poker career. Holding two 7's, the flop revealed another two 7's so I had a super super hand. Unfortunately, we were playing with pretty low limits, so I didn't get thaaat much money from all the others. But it was a great hand indeed. Near the beginning, I also had 3 consecutive wins, which was pretty awesome.
Anyway, after this game, I think I have satisfied my need for poker. Well, to be honest, it wasn't because I was addicted... no no. My peeps hyped up a big game for the previous Friday - so the anticipation grew in me. Unfortunately, the big Friday game was cancelled, so the big anticipation was buried deep inside me for many, many days - so I was always looking forward to playing a game. So I satisfied my need for poker, but I also borrowed 4 cds of videos from Toan, with several episodes of "World Series of Poker" and "World Poker Tour".
(that lime in the coconut song is so mellow! I can listen to this for ... well, not hours, but ya know what I meant to say)
Both World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker are pretty good shows. The World Series of Poker follows a 5-day tournament with a grand prize of 2.5; 840 entrants each buy-in for $10K each - they don't have to qualify or anything, they just need $10K. Professional players and amateur players enter, for the chance to play with famous people, and the huge prize of 2.5. Of course, it can't focus on 840 players at once, so they just film a specific feature table, and every now and then jump to other tables, and have little features about different poker players. Onscreen, you can see the cards of the people who are still in, and there's a percentage % that tells you the chance that the winner would win. Each episode is 45+commercials long, but Toan cut out the commercials.
World Poker Tour looks something like "Greed" the TV show - just with the fancy lights and dark setting. There are tournaments held, with >200 people, but WPT only tapes the showdown between the last 6 players. It's mostly about the game, with a few tiny segments about the hotel that they're playing in - but mostly it's the game. In this one, it doesn't have much of the fancy % showings, but they show you what every person had - not just the ones that stay in. And it also tells you the amount of the raises and calls and what's in the pot. It's more informative that way. Each episode is 90+commercials long.
Edit: So, the pros of the shows: I don't lose any money :) I don't have to pay to see the flop, I can see the cards the other players have. Cons? I don't gain any money :( I don't get to play. And sometimes, I just really wanted some guy to win, or some guy to see his cards and stuff... I dunno.
Anyway... Scotty Nguyen... Vietnamese... one of the top poker players... man, he's a funny guy. I can't help but laugh when he laughs. He's just the crazy type of person. Anyway... end Edit
So overall, I like both shows, but WPT is more about the action. So... well... yeah. I LEARNED SOMETHING FROM THIS SHOW! I did learn stuff. Anyway, after watching some of these poker things, I suddenly felt... weird. Ya know when you were a kid, after you watched a scary movie, you were scared of the dark and you were scared something's hiding behind your door and under your bed? Even though you've been to your door and your bed hundreds of times, you're still scared? Well...
I certainly had a weird poker feeling... like, I looked around and felt like I needed to bluff something, or fold something... it was really weird. That's kinda confusing, but I'm half out of this phase now. I still felt kinda weird during my exam.
Anyway, Vu messaged me today, and said there was a game tonight. I wasn't planning to go, but... yeah, I went. Played from 10:30 till 12:30, so it was a pretty short game. Limits were a bit higher... but... wow... I am very proud of the way I played this game. Most of this came from watching those videos - I learned a few methods of playing. Actually, to be honest, I only learned not to be as optimistic - don't play too many "medium" hands.
Actually, I made a tiny suggestive rule - I call it the "Blackjack" rule. In Blackjack, you can hit, stay, or split. If your 2 cards make you want to hit, then don't play. If it makes you want to stay or if you can split, then perhaps stay. If both of your cards are the same suit, add a +2 to your blackjack hand... something like that. That's pretty much how some World Series of Poker players play. It seems like that. I'm not tooo good with bluffing yet... well, I did bluff a few hands. So as I was saying...
I'm very proud of the way I played today. Unfortunately, the game was too short cuz two people had to leave early. But I'm proud. Although I only made $4.50, I never dipped below $18. I usually go down pretty low and then come back up sometimes, but this time I was much more conservative, and only aggressive or staying in when I have pretty good hands.
Anyway, this affected my poker satisfaction, and I neeed more poker!! Haha. Well, I don't need it, but I feel like I'm getting much better. Anyway, the $4.50 + $2.75 make up the $7 I lost on Tuesday. Haha. Anyway, I sure need to get back to Waterloo sometimes, for a weekend of poker, and I gotta buy a few poker chips. I realize, that I might not be able to hold my own games, but I do need a few clay chips - they just feel so nice. I need a couple 3-inch-high stacks, just to play around with - do little chip-tricks with my fingers.
You know the feeling. If you're getting much better at something, you just want to play it more and improve. I'm certainly improving. Today I was like a totally different guy than yesterday. Yesterday and the day before, I was talking a lot, about my hand, calculating probabilities out loud - Andy can tell you. Today however... quiet. Pretty darn quiet, and folding and not seeing any flops except on the ones which I do see, I usually raised. A very different playing style.
Anyway, let's go back a few days. A few days ago, we went to Mel's Diner and we tried new stuff. Wen had a Crepes supreme, Alan had a apple-cinnamon waffle, Duy had an omelette, and I had a Crepes Kahuna. Now, you must understand something; when you hear a word like Crepe or Creme Bruleé, you shouldn't be expecting quantity - just quality. And that's what we received.
Unfortunately for me, the difference between a Crepe and a piece of flatbread and a pancake is like the difference between... uhh... some things that are the same. Well, flatbread and pancakes are different... but you know what I mean. I didn't care much for the quality... I'm not buying Crepes for $7.99 anymore. Not enough food. Probably great quality, but nothing I'd care for. But it was a good experience. One day I'll have everything on the Mel's diner menu. Uhh.. I mean, I would've eaten everything on the menu. Not that... one day... I'll order... EVERYTHING... and... yeah. No. Not that.
Anyway, the next day, for an early snack (since I had an early poker game to attend), we decided to have small meals and partake in the desserts. So Alan orders a Mel's favourite (replaced his toast for more sausage), Duy got Ninjaed twice (more on that later), and I ordered a Mel's favourite and the appetizer, Texas Toothpicks.
Texas Toothpicks are not worth $5.49, but they could be worth $1.99, or I'd pay $2.99 for the small appetizer size. They are sweet onions and jalapenos, fried and battered, and served with cool ranch dressing. They were pretty spicy, but the cool ranch dipping was a great compliment. It had an interesting flavour, and I really like these sticks. They complement meals quite nicely too. They're like partial onion rings, but more like the shape of french fries. Good texture, good crunchiness, and it's pretty good overall. Of course, it's an expensive appetizer, which is too bad. I'd have it more often if it was cheaper.
Let's go backwards a few days. Duy, Wen, Alan, myself, Ambrose, Chris, and Paul went to Mirage for lunch because ... I already mentioned this, did I not? Anyway, Duy got ninjaed! They forgot his order, or they took too long with it, so he got ninjaed out of a meal, so he had to wait for them to make it. Secondly, Duy has this Mirage card, which he can collect stamps on - he had 4 stamps on it already, 4 more and the card can be entered into a draw a gold ring and lots of cash. So when he went to pay, he presented the card, so he first got one stamp.
And then the guy there (maybe the owner?) asked him if he wanted more stamps, to take into account everyone else's meals. So there were 7 of us. So Duy agreed. He adds 2 more stamps on Duy's card, so he now has 7/8; he then proceeds to take out another 2 cards, and puts 2 more stamps on each of those. Such a dirty ninja, eh?
Anyway, fastforward back to Wednesday, and back to Mel's Diner. Duy ordered a Memphis Chicken, which usually comes with rice. The server, a cute waitress named Michelle, asked if he wanted fries or rice with that - Duy asked, "doesn't that usually come with rice?" And Duy continued to ask if he can have both rice and fries, and she confirmed his order.
The ninja-ness? Well, first of all, Duy got a Blue Hawaii chicken, rather than a Memphis chicken. Second Ninja? That "fries and rice thing" turned into "rice, plus one extra sides of fries" - which costs an additional $1.99. Ninja indeed. Alan devised a plan; next time we go to Mel's, one of us orders Memphis Chicken, and the other orders Blue Hawaii. It's pretty foolproof. Only problem is, well... i don't want another Blue Hawaii for a while. It's good, good quality, tastes good, but quantity is a bit low, and the price is a bit high.
While we were eating, Michelle and the other girl were showing the new girl the menu, and about how to order and stuff. So we've been to Mel's a fair # of times... we can memorize the menu, right? So we started asking each other trivia questions about the menu... that was interesting.
Anyway, for dessert, Duy had a Chcolate mini-mel's, Alan had a banana split, and I had a brownie delight. Good stuff, but we're all convinced that 6 mini-mel's was better than a banana split, and 5 mini-mel's are better than a brownie delight. But that's the price of trying out the brownie and banana split. Actually, it's not too bad... Brownie comes with 2 scoops, and Banana comes with 3 scoops... so it's just expensive brownies and bananas.
(I must've been listening to this lime in the coconut song for 40 minutes now)
Anyway, even with all the ninja-ness, the waitress Michelle was pretty cute and friendly ;) so it didn't reduce her tip. I credit carded it, and I think I actually gave more tip than usual... but not too much more. So it's all good.
Had dreams.. this morning. There was this one part where we had a widescreen tv in our kitchen in the UW place, and we were playing Smash Melee - and every now and then my Samus would become really big, and we were playing in a different level... maybe she got a mushroom, but it was weird. Anyway, later Lam dropped by, but Andy wasn't there yet, so I got really pissed at Andy because he's always late and we had to wait for him to play poker. Anyway, in another dream, we were having a car race.
That is, Wen, Alan, Duy, and I, at least, were racing. Duy looked like he was using a truck version of one of my cars in Need for Speed Underground. Wen might've been using a blue truck or something... anyway, I remember I made an animated gif of this race, and it even had weird errors previewing it like it does in microsoft gif animator. Anyway, I remember in the dream we were doing some really nice drifts on this dirty mountain. Near the end, Duy was in front, but he fell into a weird ditch thing so he had trouble moving around, so I easily overtook him in a blue sportscar.
Then the finish line was pretty much in front of me, but I must've lost focus, because a few metres before the finish line, I thought there was a left turn - so I took the left turn and went on for several metres before realizing I went the wrong way - but by that time, Duy and Wen and Alan already reached the finish line.
Afterwards, I remember retelling the story to some people. So we were all racing again, but this time, at the end, I didn't turn left and I reached the finish line. But also this time, instead of me being in a blue sportscar, I looked like Spike or Spike's dad from Transformers; ya know, the big white robotic space-suit. I think I was spike's dad - not just me in a space suit, I was actually an animated white man in a white space suit.
After I reached the finish line, I saw some VSA people.
(we're almost done, just hang in there)
Spyware... some here, some there. Much more stuff everytime I start up. Also, nowadays, if I go to http://www.adghergesabe.com , instead of it just saying it's not there, it redirects me to incredifind.com ... that pisses me off. I'm not sure how to change that, but it's not an amazingly big deal. But still.
Anyway, this afternoon, I was thinking... why do they say, "kick some ass!" ? Why the ass? why not, the head? Anyway, just as I typed that I thought of an answer. It's because you kick them near the back, from behind. It's because of some kind of cowardice. But that's not it. Never mind.
Anyway, nobody replied enough to the magic-cards guessing game, so below are the answers. Also, I said that I would share the "bobobo 3 parties" too. So they're below too.
In order from top to bottom, left to right, if you can see that...
Circle of Protection Green,
Vaevectis Asmadi,
Minion of Tevash Szat,
Double Deal (unglued),
Nightmare (the one that Alan and Duy got first),
Drought,
Dakkon Blackblade,
Serra Aviary,
and Irini Sengir.
There ya go.
And now, the Bobobo 3 party. The party of the dynamite brothers isn't so super amazing - he just suicides himself, thinking he's a dynamite, but Beauty figures out he's just fireworks. So it's nothing to worry about.
As for Bobobo... his party!
He takes out a laptop, and the dynamite bro asks him, "Is that one of 'dem laptop computers?" And Bobobo replies, that it's his first time buying stocks. Dynamite Bro quickly yells out that Bobobo shouldn't do something so crazy - he knows of many of his friends that have lost lots of money to that stock market. As we all know, the stock market is one crazy ________ . Anyway, after a few seconds, it's too late for Bobobo. They all watch as he sees a line-graph of his stock. It's about level... goes up a bit... goes down a bit... goes up a bit more... and then plummets and crashes to bankruptcy. Dynamite Bro asks him how much he lost, and Bobobo calmly tells him he lost 5 million yen. Dynamite Bro exclaims that that is too much, and he starts crying.
The end. Wasn't that SUCH a great party? OH yeah!! CHIKUWA!!
And that ends my blog post, for April 19-22. See? It's not too much to update for half a week of not updating! ;) Well..actually that took a while... Must've taken... well, I'm not sure when I started. I got home at 12:30 from Poker, and it's 2:45 now. I started listening to the coconut song at 1:37 or so, or before that. So let's say it took about 100 minutes, with over an hour spent listening to this coconut song. I love this song. Well, it's a good, mellow song. Very repetitive, yet very mellow and nice.
Hope you had a fun read. I had a fun time writing. See ya next week ;) Nah, I'll probably update again... well... tomorrow! Only a few sentences at most, most likely. Good night!
... i'm not sleeping yet. Gonna watch some WPT, and talk with some msn peeps. See ya!
Edit: Ahh! Internet went down on us for a while after I finished typing up this post - hopefully nobody read it before I put in the few lines of edited text. Anyway... that's it.end edit
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Hi! I've been absent from writing in this Blog. Well, it's more of a, "I'll do it later", and then of course it adds up and later becomes laterer, but one day it has to stop. Today it stops. I had my last exam at 7-10 pm tonight (Thursday night), finished 20 minutes early, and then got to Toan's for more poker. More on that later. Let's see... what do I have to talk about now, that seems relevant or interesting... no need for subsections this time... just gonna write... a lot...
I keep a list of things to write about. Unfortunately, since it's been a lot of days, I'm not sure what it means when it says "went to bed at 3:00" - could've been yesterday, could've been Monday. But the things I write are in partial chronological order, so this must've been... actually... Sunday night.
So Sunday night, I was gonna head to bed at a usual time, say, 2:00 am, but Jia got me to start playing Solitaire Showdown on msn. First I won a few games, then he won one or two... and then after that he kept losing and losing, and eventually I wanted to quit but he still kept on losing, so he'd threaten to call me a cowardly ninja when I wanted to quit. Ya know, win, and then quit, too cowardly to continue the challenge. Well, this was partly his fault, cuz he kept losing so much... so one time I just quit. Tired ninja. Or more like, I wanted to wake up at a normal time so I can spend a day studying.
Saw Matchstick Men on Monday. It was pretty good, for the most part. I liked it. As Wen said, the ending was a bit... weird. It's like the director just wanted to add a "what if", or "alternate ending"; something to make the audience think. It works alright, just a bit farfetched. Reminds me a bit of *spoiler*Carrey's "Truman Show", but more of Douglas' "The Game", which I might add, was... interesting. I should watch it again.*end spoiler*. Anyway, the movie was about this 'con artist', and it starts with him in his home, and he has some weird quirks. Anyway, near the start, he pulls off this... "double-con", which was pretty funny. There were some other cons in the movie, maybe I should use some... heehee. Just kidding. Or Am I?
Alright, I think this might be Monday night now - I wrote down I had a dream. First part of the dream, was, I was having a party! I think we were at home in Mississauga... a bit different, cuz streetsville was different - it was a quaint, little .. ville... anyway, back to the party. Ambrose was there, Amish was there, Duy, David, myself, and various others. I don't remember too much, so let's skip to what I DO remember. We started playing some Fifa 2002, but then I went to another room. Anyway, eventually David got hungry, and he wanted some food. So Amish, David, and I walked around quaint little different streetsville, and we ended up in some restaurant. I think David ordered some breaded chicken thing, and Amish ordered something else. I asked them what they had that was good, and they wanted me to try chicken noodles, like, curry chicken noodles or something. I wasn't in the mood for that, but hey, it's their specialty, right? So I tried that. So we all sat down at some cafeteria tables, it was pretty dark, and there were a lot of other people.
Anyway, that was the end of that portion... so then we walk back into our Unit #31 in Waterloo, where the party was at (changed from 'Sauga to 'Loo), and I hear everyone upstairs, and the TV downstairs is still on, with a paused Fifa 2002 game. I think to myself, it must've been on for several hours now. Why didn't they just turn it off?
(now listening to a song from Jubei Chan 2)
Anyway, here comes part 2 of the dream, which is only 30 seconds long or so. Anyway, I sensed something was wrong, in our UW house... so I stepped outside, and a few cars away, there was a van. The van was probably there for another house who needed servicing. Well, sitting in the van was... *Drumroll*..... Nick Stokes! From CSI! Anyway, so yeah, I ask him if he can help me. He says something to me, and that pretty much ends the dream.
Tuesday night, played Low Stakes texas hold'em poker at Lam's house. $5 buy-in, nice and low, low limits, so I had Alan come along. Andy, Alan, Lam, and myself, each put in $5, nice and cheap. Eventually, Alan lost his $5, so I gave him another $2 so he can have some more fun, and then he lost that too. Andy then lost his $5, so it was just Lam and myself left. Then we lifted the limits to no-limit, and after that I just started making pretty bad plays - a few good plays, a few bad plays - and towards the end I lost it all. So I'm down $7 that night, but that's alright. Not too much. The real game was Wednesday night, with regular stakes again.
(now listening to a song Lam sent me which I heard in his car - it's a jazzy version of the Mario Bros theme, which sounds a bit like that flash cartoon - but it's cutoff in the middle I think)
I think I went to Mel's diner after that day, but I'll post about that in a bit.
So Wednesday night comes along, and it's myself, Andy, Andy's friend Ken (new to the game), Toan, Lam, Vu, and later on Carlos. A big game indeed. So Ken hasn't played before, so before the actual game starts, we play a few practice hands. During those practice hands, Ken raked in quite a lot from Andy and I. This was pretty good, except during the practice hands, it wasn't for real money.
So... poor Ken. He used up all of his beginner's luck on the practice hands. So... long story short, Ken didn't win very often during the real game. So at the start, everyone put in $20, and eventually some people started losing and then they put in another $20 or whatever.
(Now listening to another song I remember when I was a kid - so I got it from Lam again - you probably remember it - Lime in the Coconut)
Let's fast forward to the final standings. Carlos was up, Toan was up, Lam was up... Vu was up... $29... at one point I was very little low, so I put in another $20... but at the end of the game I had $42.75, so I profited $2.75. Unfortunately, Ken lost $25 and Andy lost $40. So I think Andy's done poker for a while... And Alan's probably not coming to poker again. He just doesn't enjoy it enough.
Anyway, I had that super hand I really wanted to get at least once during my poker career. Holding two 7's, the flop revealed another two 7's so I had a super super hand. Unfortunately, we were playing with pretty low limits, so I didn't get thaaat much money from all the others. But it was a great hand indeed. Near the beginning, I also had 3 consecutive wins, which was pretty awesome.
Anyway, after this game, I think I have satisfied my need for poker. Well, to be honest, it wasn't because I was addicted... no no. My peeps hyped up a big game for the previous Friday - so the anticipation grew in me. Unfortunately, the big Friday game was cancelled, so the big anticipation was buried deep inside me for many, many days - so I was always looking forward to playing a game. So I satisfied my need for poker, but I also borrowed 4 cds of videos from Toan, with several episodes of "World Series of Poker" and "World Poker Tour".
(that lime in the coconut song is so mellow! I can listen to this for ... well, not hours, but ya know what I meant to say)
Both World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker are pretty good shows. The World Series of Poker follows a 5-day tournament with a grand prize of 2.5; 840 entrants each buy-in for $10K each - they don't have to qualify or anything, they just need $10K. Professional players and amateur players enter, for the chance to play with famous people, and the huge prize of 2.5. Of course, it can't focus on 840 players at once, so they just film a specific feature table, and every now and then jump to other tables, and have little features about different poker players. Onscreen, you can see the cards of the people who are still in, and there's a percentage % that tells you the chance that the winner would win. Each episode is 45+commercials long, but Toan cut out the commercials.
World Poker Tour looks something like "Greed" the TV show - just with the fancy lights and dark setting. There are tournaments held, with >200 people, but WPT only tapes the showdown between the last 6 players. It's mostly about the game, with a few tiny segments about the hotel that they're playing in - but mostly it's the game. In this one, it doesn't have much of the fancy % showings, but they show you what every person had - not just the ones that stay in. And it also tells you the amount of the raises and calls and what's in the pot. It's more informative that way. Each episode is 90+commercials long.
Edit: So, the pros of the shows: I don't lose any money :) I don't have to pay to see the flop, I can see the cards the other players have. Cons? I don't gain any money :( I don't get to play. And sometimes, I just really wanted some guy to win, or some guy to see his cards and stuff... I dunno.
Anyway... Scotty Nguyen... Vietnamese... one of the top poker players... man, he's a funny guy. I can't help but laugh when he laughs. He's just the crazy type of person. Anyway... end Edit
So overall, I like both shows, but WPT is more about the action. So... well... yeah. I LEARNED SOMETHING FROM THIS SHOW! I did learn stuff. Anyway, after watching some of these poker things, I suddenly felt... weird. Ya know when you were a kid, after you watched a scary movie, you were scared of the dark and you were scared something's hiding behind your door and under your bed? Even though you've been to your door and your bed hundreds of times, you're still scared? Well...
I certainly had a weird poker feeling... like, I looked around and felt like I needed to bluff something, or fold something... it was really weird. That's kinda confusing, but I'm half out of this phase now. I still felt kinda weird during my exam.
Anyway, Vu messaged me today, and said there was a game tonight. I wasn't planning to go, but... yeah, I went. Played from 10:30 till 12:30, so it was a pretty short game. Limits were a bit higher... but... wow... I am very proud of the way I played this game. Most of this came from watching those videos - I learned a few methods of playing. Actually, to be honest, I only learned not to be as optimistic - don't play too many "medium" hands.
Actually, I made a tiny suggestive rule - I call it the "Blackjack" rule. In Blackjack, you can hit, stay, or split. If your 2 cards make you want to hit, then don't play. If it makes you want to stay or if you can split, then perhaps stay. If both of your cards are the same suit, add a +2 to your blackjack hand... something like that. That's pretty much how some World Series of Poker players play. It seems like that. I'm not tooo good with bluffing yet... well, I did bluff a few hands. So as I was saying...
I'm very proud of the way I played today. Unfortunately, the game was too short cuz two people had to leave early. But I'm proud. Although I only made $4.50, I never dipped below $18. I usually go down pretty low and then come back up sometimes, but this time I was much more conservative, and only aggressive or staying in when I have pretty good hands.
Anyway, this affected my poker satisfaction, and I neeed more poker!! Haha. Well, I don't need it, but I feel like I'm getting much better. Anyway, the $4.50 + $2.75 make up the $7 I lost on Tuesday. Haha. Anyway, I sure need to get back to Waterloo sometimes, for a weekend of poker, and I gotta buy a few poker chips. I realize, that I might not be able to hold my own games, but I do need a few clay chips - they just feel so nice. I need a couple 3-inch-high stacks, just to play around with - do little chip-tricks with my fingers.
You know the feeling. If you're getting much better at something, you just want to play it more and improve. I'm certainly improving. Today I was like a totally different guy than yesterday. Yesterday and the day before, I was talking a lot, about my hand, calculating probabilities out loud - Andy can tell you. Today however... quiet. Pretty darn quiet, and folding and not seeing any flops except on the ones which I do see, I usually raised. A very different playing style.
Anyway, let's go back a few days. A few days ago, we went to Mel's Diner and we tried new stuff. Wen had a Crepes supreme, Alan had a apple-cinnamon waffle, Duy had an omelette, and I had a Crepes Kahuna. Now, you must understand something; when you hear a word like Crepe or Creme Bruleé, you shouldn't be expecting quantity - just quality. And that's what we received.
Unfortunately for me, the difference between a Crepe and a piece of flatbread and a pancake is like the difference between... uhh... some things that are the same. Well, flatbread and pancakes are different... but you know what I mean. I didn't care much for the quality... I'm not buying Crepes for $7.99 anymore. Not enough food. Probably great quality, but nothing I'd care for. But it was a good experience. One day I'll have everything on the Mel's diner menu. Uhh.. I mean, I would've eaten everything on the menu. Not that... one day... I'll order... EVERYTHING... and... yeah. No. Not that.
Anyway, the next day, for an early snack (since I had an early poker game to attend), we decided to have small meals and partake in the desserts. So Alan orders a Mel's favourite (replaced his toast for more sausage), Duy got Ninjaed twice (more on that later), and I ordered a Mel's favourite and the appetizer, Texas Toothpicks.
Texas Toothpicks are not worth $5.49, but they could be worth $1.99, or I'd pay $2.99 for the small appetizer size. They are sweet onions and jalapenos, fried and battered, and served with cool ranch dressing. They were pretty spicy, but the cool ranch dipping was a great compliment. It had an interesting flavour, and I really like these sticks. They complement meals quite nicely too. They're like partial onion rings, but more like the shape of french fries. Good texture, good crunchiness, and it's pretty good overall. Of course, it's an expensive appetizer, which is too bad. I'd have it more often if it was cheaper.
Let's go backwards a few days. Duy, Wen, Alan, myself, Ambrose, Chris, and Paul went to Mirage for lunch because ... I already mentioned this, did I not? Anyway, Duy got ninjaed! They forgot his order, or they took too long with it, so he got ninjaed out of a meal, so he had to wait for them to make it. Secondly, Duy has this Mirage card, which he can collect stamps on - he had 4 stamps on it already, 4 more and the card can be entered into a draw a gold ring and lots of cash. So when he went to pay, he presented the card, so he first got one stamp.
And then the guy there (maybe the owner?) asked him if he wanted more stamps, to take into account everyone else's meals. So there were 7 of us. So Duy agreed. He adds 2 more stamps on Duy's card, so he now has 7/8; he then proceeds to take out another 2 cards, and puts 2 more stamps on each of those. Such a dirty ninja, eh?
Anyway, fastforward back to Wednesday, and back to Mel's Diner. Duy ordered a Memphis Chicken, which usually comes with rice. The server, a cute waitress named Michelle, asked if he wanted fries or rice with that - Duy asked, "doesn't that usually come with rice?" And Duy continued to ask if he can have both rice and fries, and she confirmed his order.
The ninja-ness? Well, first of all, Duy got a Blue Hawaii chicken, rather than a Memphis chicken. Second Ninja? That "fries and rice thing" turned into "rice, plus one extra sides of fries" - which costs an additional $1.99. Ninja indeed. Alan devised a plan; next time we go to Mel's, one of us orders Memphis Chicken, and the other orders Blue Hawaii. It's pretty foolproof. Only problem is, well... i don't want another Blue Hawaii for a while. It's good, good quality, tastes good, but quantity is a bit low, and the price is a bit high.
While we were eating, Michelle and the other girl were showing the new girl the menu, and about how to order and stuff. So we've been to Mel's a fair # of times... we can memorize the menu, right? So we started asking each other trivia questions about the menu... that was interesting.
Anyway, for dessert, Duy had a Chcolate mini-mel's, Alan had a banana split, and I had a brownie delight. Good stuff, but we're all convinced that 6 mini-mel's was better than a banana split, and 5 mini-mel's are better than a brownie delight. But that's the price of trying out the brownie and banana split. Actually, it's not too bad... Brownie comes with 2 scoops, and Banana comes with 3 scoops... so it's just expensive brownies and bananas.
(I must've been listening to this lime in the coconut song for 40 minutes now)
Anyway, even with all the ninja-ness, the waitress Michelle was pretty cute and friendly ;) so it didn't reduce her tip. I credit carded it, and I think I actually gave more tip than usual... but not too much more. So it's all good.
Had dreams.. this morning. There was this one part where we had a widescreen tv in our kitchen in the UW place, and we were playing Smash Melee - and every now and then my Samus would become really big, and we were playing in a different level... maybe she got a mushroom, but it was weird. Anyway, later Lam dropped by, but Andy wasn't there yet, so I got really pissed at Andy because he's always late and we had to wait for him to play poker. Anyway, in another dream, we were having a car race.
That is, Wen, Alan, Duy, and I, at least, were racing. Duy looked like he was using a truck version of one of my cars in Need for Speed Underground. Wen might've been using a blue truck or something... anyway, I remember I made an animated gif of this race, and it even had weird errors previewing it like it does in microsoft gif animator. Anyway, I remember in the dream we were doing some really nice drifts on this dirty mountain. Near the end, Duy was in front, but he fell into a weird ditch thing so he had trouble moving around, so I easily overtook him in a blue sportscar.
Then the finish line was pretty much in front of me, but I must've lost focus, because a few metres before the finish line, I thought there was a left turn - so I took the left turn and went on for several metres before realizing I went the wrong way - but by that time, Duy and Wen and Alan already reached the finish line.
Afterwards, I remember retelling the story to some people. So we were all racing again, but this time, at the end, I didn't turn left and I reached the finish line. But also this time, instead of me being in a blue sportscar, I looked like Spike or Spike's dad from Transformers; ya know, the big white robotic space-suit. I think I was spike's dad - not just me in a space suit, I was actually an animated white man in a white space suit.
After I reached the finish line, I saw some VSA people.
(we're almost done, just hang in there)
Spyware... some here, some there. Much more stuff everytime I start up. Also, nowadays, if I go to http://www.adghergesabe.com , instead of it just saying it's not there, it redirects me to incredifind.com ... that pisses me off. I'm not sure how to change that, but it's not an amazingly big deal. But still.
Anyway, this afternoon, I was thinking... why do they say, "kick some ass!" ? Why the ass? why not, the head? Anyway, just as I typed that I thought of an answer. It's because you kick them near the back, from behind. It's because of some kind of cowardice. But that's not it. Never mind.
Anyway, nobody replied enough to the magic-cards guessing game, so below are the answers. Also, I said that I would share the "bobobo 3 parties" too. So they're below too.
In order from top to bottom, left to right, if you can see that...
Circle of Protection Green,
Vaevectis Asmadi,
Minion of Tevash Szat,
Double Deal (unglued),
Nightmare (the one that Alan and Duy got first),
Drought,
Dakkon Blackblade,
Serra Aviary,
and Irini Sengir.
There ya go.
And now, the Bobobo 3 party. The party of the dynamite brothers isn't so super amazing - he just suicides himself, thinking he's a dynamite, but Beauty figures out he's just fireworks. So it's nothing to worry about.
As for Bobobo... his party!
He takes out a laptop, and the dynamite bro asks him, "Is that one of 'dem laptop computers?" And Bobobo replies, that it's his first time buying stocks. Dynamite Bro quickly yells out that Bobobo shouldn't do something so crazy - he knows of many of his friends that have lost lots of money to that stock market. As we all know, the stock market is one crazy ________ . Anyway, after a few seconds, it's too late for Bobobo. They all watch as he sees a line-graph of his stock. It's about level... goes up a bit... goes down a bit... goes up a bit more... and then plummets and crashes to bankruptcy. Dynamite Bro asks him how much he lost, and Bobobo calmly tells him he lost 5 million yen. Dynamite Bro exclaims that that is too much, and he starts crying.
The end. Wasn't that SUCH a great party? OH yeah!! CHIKUWA!!
And that ends my blog post, for April 19-22. See? It's not too much to update for half a week of not updating! ;) Well..actually that took a while... Must've taken... well, I'm not sure when I started. I got home at 12:30 from Poker, and it's 2:45 now. I started listening to the coconut song at 1:37 or so, or before that. So let's say it took about 100 minutes, with over an hour spent listening to this coconut song. I love this song. Well, it's a good, mellow song. Very repetitive, yet very mellow and nice.
Hope you had a fun read. I had a fun time writing. See ya next week ;) Nah, I'll probably update again... well... tomorrow! Only a few sentences at most, most likely. Good night!
... i'm not sleeping yet. Gonna watch some WPT, and talk with some msn peeps. See ya!
Edit: Ahh! Internet went down on us for a while after I finished typing up this post - hopefully nobody read it before I put in the few lines of edited text. Anyway... that's it.end edit