Whitewater Memorial Day weekend

Whitewater Adventure on Cache Creek

After an unplanned detour through Sacremento, we finally made it to the camp site at Cache Creek for our overnight rafting trip. After cruising the campground parking lot looking for signs of Chizz, I finally opted to ask some random people in the parking lot, "Hey do you know Chad and Lyndsey?"
"Oh, yeah, they're right over here."
Miraculously, they just happened to have met our trip organizers earlier in the day, and directed us right to them; past the barn, a playground, over a hill, across a field to the back of the campsite's picnic area. Had we not asked for help, there's no way in hell we would've found them.
Quickly we pitched our $30 WalMart tent and got to drinking. But at this hour, there was no way I was going to be able to catch up with them. They'd been drinking since 2 pm. Soon after, everyone hit the sack. Including my friend JoeO.
It was a cold night. Fucking freezing. Even in our 15º mummy bags, we couldn't stay warm.
The next morning we got moving quick. The launch area was bustling with rafters and their gear. After a swig of Stoli, we loaded our gear onto the gear truck, and then ourselves on the buses. From there, we rumbled to the actual launch area. We endured a quick orientation on how to use a life-vest and how to paddle a boat, and we were off.
We quickly got the hang of navigating the boat, and soon we were maneuvering around rocks and through rapids with relative ease. A couple times our boat got caught on shallow rocks, but mostly we were able to navigate around most of the dangers.
"Mother" is the class 3.5 rapid we had to negotiate. Though for us novices, it did seem a bit intimidating, at that point, we were expertly weaving in and out of rapids, no problems whatsoever. Maybe it was overconfidence that did us in at the end. Or perhaps it was the 6-8 beers I drank while on the river, in lieu of the water I should have been drinking to stay hydrated.
The final bit of rapids seemed harmless. It was a gentle left turn followed by a sharp right turn which was flanked by a large bush on the left bank. It didn't look too menacing, but once we headed down the short rapid, making the sharp right turn became immediately impossible. I watched as our boat slid under the bush, and smacked my GF right off the front of the boat. Another instant and the bush swept me out of the boat too, and an instant later I was bobbing helplessly downstream.
I reminded myself to keep my toes in front of me as my ass cheeks painfully bounced on the shallow rocks beneath. We finally made it to shore, and luckily our friends retrieved out boat for us.
We shivered up the shore to retrieve our tent, cooler, etc, which had been lined up along the banks where we were going to be camping that night. In a few hours, the stretch of shoreline became a massive tent city. The ipod player emerged, as did the coolers of beer and booze.
The rest of the afternoon was a blur of cocktails, beers and volleyball. Sinewy steaks and bone-dry chicken breasts were on the communal menu. As were baked potatoes the size of my head, corn on the cob and pasta salad. The latter items were edible, the previous items, not-so-much.
We were informed that the day two's rafting route was to be a repeat of day one's, (due to road closures) so it seemed to me that opting out might be a good option. As I rubbed my aching butt cheeks, we decided that we'd make the drive home rather than freeze our asses off for another day.

Overall, I had a blast. Besides having a cold, and being cold, I had a terrific time on the river. Camping was pleasant too, as was the communal living aspect of the weekend. Whitewater Adventures runs a decent excursion, and for just over a hundred bucks, they provide quite a fun time.

J5 live

With short notice and discounted tickets, we hit up the Jurassic 5 show last night at Santa Clara University's Leavey Center. Not that I need discounted tickets to see one of the best underground hip hop bands in the world, but it certainly helped with the decision making.
We started the evening by meeting up at Cluck U. Chicken and putting back a couple gallons of beer, which warmed us nicely. Had we known that the Leavey Center doesn't serve beer, we would have smuggled some in. But alas, we entered the arena empty handed, and sobering.
I was surprised to see the sparse crowd at the Leavey Center. It looks like the marketing team did a lousy job of promoting the show. In fact I hadn't heard word one about the show until a Santa Clara U. student told me about it. The Mercury News' Arts & Entertainment section didn't even list it on their calendar. I imagine many fans stayed home because they knew about the beer situation.

Dilated Peoples opened up for them with a slew of songs I couldn't recognize or identify. They didn't perform badly I suppose, but the audio in the arena just isn't perfect for hip hop.
Luke made a call to one of his buddies who was arriving late. He showed up with something nice to spike our gatorades with. Sobriety and concerts is like oil and water. They just don't mix that well. At the very least, sobriety should be at a minimum at any live music event, in my humble opinion.

When J5 took the stage, the difference in skillz is obvious. J5 can turn a party out. They rocked the stage and got the crowd jumping. Furthermore, these dudes can rap. UNLIKE some of the shit that on the radio, these MC's aren't just chanting, hooting and hollaring, repeating the same 'hooks' over and over again. Their lyrics can be profound, the delivery flawless, timing on-point. J5 impressed the shit out of me, to put it eloquently.

So despite the poor turnout, my relative sobriety and poor acoustics, J5 live was a fantastic mid week treat.

home game

After an extended losing streak at my home game (excluding one win a couple weeks ago) I won one last night. The first game was horrible, and I ended up getting blinded out due to being cold decked. But the second game was mine. I concentrated on playing aggressively and going with my reads. Early on I got bluffed out of a pot by AaronManiac, but redeemed myself when he tried an all-in bluff which I called. I got a tell off him and decided to make a risky call. It paid off. With the chip lead, and momentum, I busted JoeO with my pocket 7s vs AKo. That gave me a big chip advantage which I proceeded to use to dominate the rest of the field. In the end SamD and I went heads-u. I won outkicking his top pair for the win, redemption, and a rejuvenated self-confidence.

Poker bad

Last night I played 3 sit n go's and three times I lost crucial hands to horrendous bad beats. As painful as bad beats are, I reconcile with myself the fact that I played great. I made a couple HUGE bluff calls and some big steals. And the bad beats were TRUE bad beats, with my opponents having 4 or less outs to win. Of course the unlikely happened in three games in a row.

The bad beats were abound these past 10 days. I've been on a losing streak. A couple times my losses were due to horrible play, but mostly bad luck. Pretty much all of what I've gained over the last couple months have been decimated this past week or so.

My confidence is a bit shaken. My resolve has waned slightly. Playing great poker is all I can do though. If I keep playing my game: Stay aggressive, keep disciplined, make great reads, I will win.

Star Trek at Caffeine Guy

Caffeineguy linked to a couple StarTrek spots that you have to check out.
It had me laughing for a solid 3 hours. At least.

Check out these commercials for Star Trek on G4.

COPAGs

I bought my first deck of Copag plastic playing cards about a year ago and haven't played with anything but Copags at my home game since. Actually I gave away a deck. So I've been playing with this deck for at least 6 months.
If you've been playing any amount of cards using the cheap Bicycle playing cards, you'll know that these cards don't last very long. At most two games of poker is all they can take before they need to be thrown out.
Plastic playing cards last thousands of games. They are hard to mark, tear, or otherwise damage.
However if any cards do get damaged, KEM and COPAGs offer replacement cards.

Rochester Chess Center has the best prices for plastic cards... And probably chess stuff too, if that's what you're into.

HOSTEL

My GF and I stayed home an watched HOSTEL, produced by QT.
We're both fans of horror movies and this one seemed to be interesting, especially since it had QT's name attached to it.
Hostel is a film about a euro-backpacking adventure gone wrong. 3 guys head off to Euro-land (where the Euros come from) to indulge in the booze and women that reside in Euro-land. Some Euro-dude suggests they check out a hostel in Slovakia where hot Euro-chicks love dirty American backpackers and will sleep with them on-demand. Well that seems to be the case until one of the guys mysteriously disappears. This is the point where things go horrible.
The beginning of this movie is anything but horrifying. Actually from a male perspective, it's quite watchable. Mostly because the Euro-chicks have PERFECT Euro-breasts which are highlighted during the obligatory sex sequences. Strangely my GF thought that the first half of the movie was pure garbage, soft-porn. I didn't see anything wrong with the soft-porn aspect of it.
Hostel then suddenly turns ugly. When one of the backpackers wakes up in a very dirty room, with lots of second hand surgical tools lying around, it's obvious that he isn't in the Hostel anymore.

Insert horrific torture scenes here.

Hostel does not take the standard path to terror. It imagines a worse case scenario of a Euro-backpacking trip and runs with it.

The acting is quite good. Good photography and scenery is better than average. The story could be worse. But at the end I felt a little cheated. I loved the aspect of revenge which brought the film to a close. But if they had added a bit more personal element to the good and bad characters, I could have related more.
The movie has sex and violence. Perfect for the fellas, not so great for GFs. And take note that the torture scenes in this movie make the Reservoir Dog's ear scene look like Winnie the Pooh.

Why did the killers want to kill. What happens to the protagonist? What happens to the torture complex? Does it continue to operate?
Too many questions are left unanswered. Which is probably what the filmmakers intended to do.
For the sequel of course.

TOOL

I just finished listening to TOOL's long awaited 5th album 10,000 Days.
Let me just preface this by saying that Tool is my favorite band and favorite live show. I also need to preface this by saying that each time they release a new album, it takes me two or three listens before my impression sets in. At this point, my feeling is that this is definitely TOOL through and through. Which means, this album is good, solid, dark, hard hitting. Also typical of Tool, it is punctuated with extended melancholic sounds-capes, gritty distorted guitar riffs, smooth, loud Maynard vocals and soul throbbing bass-lines. All very typical Tool
This album is typical Tool. Too typical.
Actually as a standard addition to the Tool library, this is essential listening. Is it better than Lateralus or any of Tool's other albums? I'll venture to say no.
Worth purchasing and supporting? Absolutely.
A refreshing change from crappy pop-rock and shit southern rap hooks? You fucking bet.

After a listening, I feel newly rejuvenated. My music ears are alive. My concert radar is on.

more live poker

A crucial error in judgement caused me to bust out of the tourney I played in Sunday. It was a $25 short stack tourney with unlimited rebuys, and a $25 add-on.
I made the mistake of going all in on a draw. I did this knowing I was beat.
I should know better than to do that in a tourney. In a cash-game, pushing all-in with a solid draw is more acceptable, but in a tournament, with all your chips at stake, it's really a bad play. Chalk it up as a donkey play. I've learned my lesson.
In the side tourney after the main game, I played a bit better and managed to get to the final three before chopping. So I made back some of the money I lost in the first game.

The alumni for my fraternity which was recently kicked off campus held a poker game to raise money for our bid to reanimate the house was Friday night. The ATO first ever poker tournament was a success. The prize pool was ridiculously small, considering we all dropped a bunch of money on rebuys and an add-on. But, some food was included and pretty much all the beer we could drink. So in that regard, we were all winners.
In the end I finished tied for 5th place. Although I feel I could've finished much higher if the blinds didn't get completely ludicrous. At one point the blinds jumped from $500-$1000 to $4000-$8000! After that any bet was essentially an all-in bet.

We all took home an ATO alumni shot glass, rejuvenated memories, and a thick heady buzz.

Poker lately

I've had one win, a couple bad beat eliminations and a couple second-place finishes in recent live tourneys. My play in these sit-n-go single table tourneys have been excellent, I must admit. I think I'm playing as good as I can right now. That's not to say the money has reflected my play unfortunately. Sometimes the cards just don't fall my way.
I'm resisting the temptation to tell a bunch of bad-beat stories right now. It's quite difficult. It can be stated that my eliminations from these tourneys were indeed ALL bad beats. All of my opponents had less than 5 outs when they drew out on me in the last five tourneys.
Honestly I don't feel a bit pissed off about them. A bit frustrated yes. But by no means am I Matusow pissed. Not remotely Otani pissed.
The last time someone bad beat Otani, he stomped around my house for a solid 2 hours fuming and name-calling. So he thoroughly deserved the new nickname I gave him when he drew out on me to win the latest tourney: Scott "Fluke-Ass, Dumb Luck" Otani.
That's as good-a poker nickname as he's gonna get playing the way he's been playing lately.

I will attribute some of my recent poker playing to Doyle Brunson's Super System 2's chapter on No-Limit play. He advocates an extremely aggressive style. He suggests playing strong draws extra aggressively and big hands cautiously. This style has it's risks, and will result in much bigger swings to your bankroll. It also tends to forces your opponents to take up a more defensive strategy because they'll have to adjust to your reraises. The system is similar to the style of play I already use, but reinforced some of my initial ideas about how to win.
I'll just say, I'll not be lending this book to ANY of my friends.

Rate yourself politically.

I rated as a LIBERAL.

No surprise there.

Bad Beat poker

10 players $30, no-limit freezeout:
My home game Friday night was the wildest game ever. Bad Beats galore. Almost every showdown ended in ridiculously improbably occurences. My KK got killed when Thumb's AQ turned trip Queens. Bootie's QQ caught on the river against ScottO's AA. The hooting and hollaring was at a maximum.
I feel I played a great game. Probably my best game. I had the Marinucci's on my left and right. Both guys are extremely aggressive and tend to throw my game off, but I was able to play well against them despite their hyper-agro style.
At the end the bad beats kept coming and The Bootie took down a fishy-win.
Game two went better for me. The bad beats continued while MMarinucci absolutely dominated the table. He unceremoniously dispatched every player at the table ending up with an incredible enormous stack of chips. I quickly double up heads-up against him and I was suddenly a contender. It came down to him and me, with Mike holding A5s and me going all-in with a pair of nines. He calls.
The flop comes down all blanks with two spades. The turn brought another spade and I was dead in second place.

I played as well as can be expected. I didn't tilt. I didn't donk. But in the end, LUCK was indeed a whore slut who's clearly not to be trusted.

Bluffin at Negreanu

Daniel Negreanu played in the $10 buy-in Negreanu Open last night and was seated at my table. I played one hand against Danny and played like a complete donkey.
I raise from middle position as the short stack and he called from the big blind. I know that A8o isn't a good hand, but I figured this would be my one chance to bluff a big name poker star. Flop comes down JKx. He checks, and dumbass me, I go all in, HOPING he didn't have a king. Alas he held KTo and instantly called. I failed to improve and finished 70th out of 120.
So much for trying to bluff one of the best players in the world.
In retrospect it was a stupid stupid play from a stupid stupid man.
I am hoping to play in next weeks tourney and hopefully I will have a chance to play him again.

Poker Brat

One of my ex-co-workers recently wrote an insightful article about the "poker brat" himself, Phil Hellmuth. Check it out in the Palo Alto Weekly.

Here's an eye-opening, but not-so-surprising excerpt from the article:
By the time he qualified to play in the World Series of Poker, which Hellmuth refers to as the "Holy Grail" of poker tournaments, he was 24 and had paid off all his student loans. Hellmuth's resolve to win was so strong he pledged celibacy.

"I hadn't had sex with a woman for like four years because I told myself, 'You're not going to do it. If you don't, you're going to win the 1989 World Series of Poker,'" he said. "Somehow I convinced myself if I could just wait ... I would win."

MmHm, Sure Phil, you PLEDGED celibacy for FOUR YEARS.... sure you did.

Weather Underground

Since my GF referred me to this site for my weather information needs, it's been in constant use.

Weatherunderground.com provides up to the minute weather analysis. So far it has been very accurate.

A History of Violence

A History of Violence


I finally got to see A History of Violence from Netflix last night, and I have to say, I loved it. The plot isn't complicated. This film is not pretentious. There's no twist. It isn't remotely intellectual. It's gritty, brutally violent and yet somehow maintains a sense of humor. The film is about family. About skeletons. About coming to terms with one's past and getting closure for our past deeds.
A History of Violence explores the violence which is within all of us. Even when we don't expect we can be capable of it. Human nature is in fact violent.
The movie did seem a bit short. It left me with questions. I suppose all good movies do, but somehow I felt it was incomplete. The villains were indeed villainous, but there is a lack of depth to their character development. I wanted to know more about who they were, what they did, and why they wanted Stall/Cusack dead.
All-in-all, I enjoyed the film immensely. I expect this film to be my all-time favorite Cronenberg films.

When all is said and done David Cronenberg has made a movie I would love to have made.

Fight Night

The fighting sports represent the most primal human competition. Since my first kung fu movie, through my first Tae Kwon Do lesson in 2nd grade, Kenpo lessons in sixth grade, watching my first Mike Tyson knockout, I have always loved fight sports. When The Ultimate Fighting Championship One appeared, It blew me away.
Mixed-martial arts represents fighting as a sport requiring the highest level of athleticism. Until recently California Athletic Commission had never legally sanctioned an MMA event. Last Friday night I went to the first one to be held in California. It also was the best attended MMA event ever in the nation. More than 18,000 people watched Cung Le fight in his first MMA event, defeating Brian Ebersol. Frank Shamrock beat down a Gracie legend Cesar Gracie in a 20 second knockout.
The crowd was pretty crazy. The HP Pavilion was packed. Every dude there looked like a fighter: Shaved head, thick neck. That would've been a bad night to go out looking for a fight.
Afterward, we got the VIP treatment at Studio 8, where the fighters were going to party. We crammed into their upstairs VIP section with a bunch of meat-heads and tried our best to mooch from the Red Bull and Ketel One at the booths. Soon the balcony was closed dude to meat-head overflow.
Sprinkle these drinks into my accout above: One double shot of Jågermeister, One pale ale, Three $8 Bud Lights, One single shot of Jågermeister, One Ketel One-Red Bull, and possibly another beer/cocktail?
In the end, fun was had by all.

Poker

I played in a three table $10 sit-n-go last night at Fullcontactpoker.com.
After playing pretty good poker and getting really lucky once, I won the damn thing.
$116 take home.
After that win, and and some positive results in this weekend's online games, I doubled my money at Fullcontactpoker.com.

Last weekend played in a $5 re-buy tourney, 200+ players, I finished 5th place and cashed $119.
I won a qualifying sit-n-go for a $100 buy-in tourney online. The winner got $12,000! With 450 players, paying out to 40th place, my odds weren't very good. I finished 202nd, $0.

Considering my buddies who've been playing online have all long since lost their initial deposits, I feel pretty good that I've only made one initial deposit, and otherwise only made withdrawals. Which means I've been a winning online player.
My bankroll took a couple dips last week due to live play losses. One huge losing session in Tahoe, and one losing session at Garden City. But otherwise I think my poker game is improving. I am gaining confidence, trying to minimize brain-farts, and generally trying to make better decisions at the table.
I will be gradually moving up in limits so I can properly compete at the casinos without putting my whole bankroll on the line each session.

Walk the Line

Netflixed Walk the Line starring Walkeen Phoenix, aka, Leaf.
I wonder what the reason behind changing his name was. I mean, Leaf is kind of a funky name, but it didn't take anything away from his performance in Parenthood, which he was excellent in. Even back then you could see some real talent and inevitable stardom in his future.
Despite looking nothing like Johnny Cash, I think it was a good performance. NOT an Oscar worthy performance, but good. Convincing.
Overall, the movie wasn't quite as good as Lou Diamond Phillip's portrayal of Ritchie Valens in La Bamba, one of the best biographical movies made or Oliver Stone's The Doors with Val Kilmer. But it held my interest. My overall enthusiasm for Walk the Line waned at the end, when the film abruptly ends.
Reese Witherspoon was good. I'm not entirely conviced that she deserved an Oscar or her performance, but what can you expect from the Academy?

This film is worth a rental not much more than that.

Mezzanine

I recently purchased Massive Attack's Mezzanine (1998) for my GF who heard the song 'Teardrop' on the TV show House.
This album fills a huge hole in my Ipod lineup. I desperately needed some mellow electronica to round out the selection, and Mezzanine is perfect match.
This is my first voluntary exposure to Massive Attack's music. After buying the album, I realized I surely have heard their music in the past. It seems the entertainment industry LOVES Massive Attack. Their songs are featured on many films, television programs and commercials.
They've heavily influenced modern musicians from Madonna to Mos Def to Sinead O'Connor. I can understand why.
Mezzanine is haunting, infectious and moody. It's simultaneously electronic, reggae, hip-hop, blues, rock and roll.
Plus, I tripled my buy-in at a no-limit table on fullcontactpoker.com while listening to it, so it must be good.

Flightpoo

Flightplan

I caught Jodie Foster's latest movie Flightplan from Netflix this past weekend and was quite disappointed.
The movie started out interesting enough. A woman walks onto a plane with her child. After a nap, she discovers her daughter has disappeared. Somehow nobody remembers seeing the kid at all, and suddenly she's being accused of being crazy. That her child was never on the manifest. That she was delusional the entire time.
OR WAS SHE?!
The plot makes a drastic turn for the worst. It devolves into a ridiculous action plot complete with computerized 'Brucksplosions,' bullshit chase scene, idiotic conspiracy theory crap.

This movie sucked. Started out with potential and declined into typical Hollywood garbage.

This film is worthless and will ultimately be doomed to movie oblivion.

Black Widow

blackwidow-spider
Originally uploaded by Joe_13.

I found this little bastard in my garage, waiting for an unsuspecting critter to wander into it's poisonous fangs.

I promptly killed it with one squirt of "Bore Scrubber" which is as good at cleaning shotgun bores as it is at killing poisonous spiders apparently.

The Horizon blows

I spent the weekend in South Lake Tahoe for Rauser's birthday weekend.
They rented an especially luxurious cabin. Hot tub, pool table, great kitchen, plasma, sound system, two decks. Very nice.
Then we headed out to the Horizon Casino to do a little gambling. Of course I headed straight for the poker room. Or 'poker corner' I should say. It was the most pathetic poker room I've seen yet. There are probably 6 tables. When I arrived they were only spreading 2-6 spread limit. A tourney was about to start, but the spread limit game looked mighty juicy, so I decided to stay there and play a while.
It was all downhill from there. * I spent the first few hours absolutely card dead. And I mean DEAD-DEAD. 9-2o, 10-2o, J-2o,... and every other combo of X-2o you can imagine. Then I get QQ, yes, a hand! I raise $6 from late position and get two callers. Flop comes A-6-2. First position bets out $6. I lay it down.

*Repeat for the next 3 hours.

Around 2am Chad came by and sat down at the table. What do you know I finally catch a hand. KK. Chad calls my pre-flop raise. Flop comes all small cards I bet, he calls. And what do you know, an Ace falls on the turn.
"That Ace is going to hurt you." Chad says makes a bet.
"I know it will, but screw you." I knew he had an ace. I knew it. But after 5 1/2 hours of getting kicked in the junk, I just couldn't let go of the Kings. River was a blank and sure enough he flips over A-J.
Last hand of the night. I get A-Q suited. I raise. One caller. Flop comes down A-x-x, I bet. One caller. Turn comes down an Ace. I make trip aces. I bet my last $3 all-in. He calls instantly and turns up K8 of hearts. The river comes down heart, giving him the nut flush. I leave PISSED, and $270 poorer.

It felt miserable logging in such a huge loss. I rarely play cash games, and when I do I don't typically play for those limits. This big loss totally destroyed my hourly rate. I'm going to have to really work to get my bankroll back to par.

4th place

Played in a $10 buy-in online Negreanu Open tourney last night at FCP. 126 players, no-limit, no-rebuys.
I made a huge all-in bluff on the first hand.
I held a busted straight draw. There was a good chunk of chips in the pot. He'd been calling my semi-bluffs and by the river I held only queen high. Since there was a straight and flush draw on the board, I decided to bluff at it. I'd put him on top pair or two pair. Since it was only the first hand of the game, I doubted he could call the rest of his chips even if he was 99% positive I didn't have it. I went ahead and pushed all-in. After a long time in the tank, he folded.
The rest of the tourney I was mostly card dead. Stole, stole, stole for a while and managed to make it to the final table. my name's at the bottom of the leader board.
At the end I expected to get at least to the final two, but this hand came up: With about average in chips. I held AA in the big blind. Made a good size raise. One caller. Flop comes J-10-blank. I bet. He raises. I go all-in. He calls. He flips over J-10 to make two pair. My hand does not improve and I am eliminated in 4th place. My take: $113.

25 straight

First 25 straight
Originally uploaded by Joe_13.

SuperBowl weekend.
Since we didn't have any plans to party on SuperBowl Sunday, I set aside a few hours to shoot a few rounds of trap at Metcalf.
My first round, I shot terribly. I hit only 15 out of 25 from the 16 yard line. Dismal.
My second round I joined a squad shooting from the 20 yard line. Despite the increased distance, I hit 20 of 25. Improvement.
Round three, I returned to the 16 yard line. A fella on my right was nailing every shot. I hadn't missed either and by my 16th shot, I was getting nervous. A perfect score was within my grasp. I struggled eliminating the visualization of me missing my next shot. With a deep breath, concentration on just shooting the clay. No pressure, no pressure, this next clays was just like the previous ones...
I tried to calm down despite the thumping of my heart. I breathed deeper, opened my eyes wider, called "Pull!" and smoked the next target.
I made it to the last station. No dropped birds yet. I almost blew it on the 22nd clay, but managed to chip a chunk off of it. When I called for the last bird, I knew I was going to hit it. As soon as I pulled the trigger I knew I nailed it.
The guy next to me hit 25 too, but obviously he wasn't sweating it at all.
"You hit 25 too?" I asked.
"Yeah, but I've hit 25 many times," he said.
"That was my first." I said.
Another guy chimed in. "You'll have to lose that hat."
"What do you mean?"
"When you hit your first 25 straight, it's tradition that we get to shoot your hat," he informed.
They grabbed my hat, put 3 clays in it, lined all of us shooters up in a row, and tossed it high in the air, where between 12-15 of us shooters took a shot at it.
I think the 3rd or 4th shot nailed it and my hat was smoked.
So it was official.

I got some congratulations and gained some self-confidence. I also gained some pride in knowing that my $490 used Remington 1100 synthetic out-shot a bunch of people on the line with $3000-$5000 guns.

Stroker Ace

Stroker Ace
Originally uploaded by Joe_13.

Here's a photo taken by Daniel Kokin aka Stroker Ace.

This image represents the way he sees his environment. They're moody, lonely images. Stroker's street photography captures the spirit of the city better than the glorified pictures of Lombard St., The Golden Gate, and Koit Tower ever could.

His website is a study in contrasts between street folk and yuppie city culture whcih defines San Francisco.

See more of his photos at DanielKokin.com

coyote-1

coyote-1
Originally uploaded by Joe_13.

Here's a picture of a coyote on a trail at Foothills Park last month. It was pretty much oblivious of us as we drove throught the park.

Salac's tourney

I played in a friend's poker tourney last weekend. The Salac's 2nd annual poker tourney was quite a production for a home game. 32 players battled for a $1280 prize-pool. Four tables were to play down to two players, at that point the final eight would all cash.
Starting with 10,000 in chips I caught pocket rockets on the first hand and nearly doubled up. From there I caught a run of shitty cards until I called two pair into a straight and was back to even. A little while later I defaulted into the final table when the two chip leaders went at it leaving Raul and I standing.
I was severely disadvantaged at the final table with 2nd to last in chips. Last place in chips got knocked out quickly, and though I was able to double up, I was crippled on a bluff, and was eliminated when my pre-flop all-in with A9h was crushed by a straight on the turn. In the end I ended cashing at least, so I can't complain. Plus I had an excellent time, and that's all that really matters.... isn't it?

Gold digger

Last week I saw something very unusual.

A man, in his mid- late sixties, driving along in his late model Acura,... picking his nose.
That in itself isn't too unusual. I recognize that sometimes one's nose needs picking. On occasion a very annoying little nugget gets up there and it needs to be removed. It's much like getting a stone stuck in your shoe. It's just got to go.

Then there's the problem of what to do with it once it's picked. You can flick it into oblivion. You can wipe it away. Or you can do what this dude did ...

You can eat it.

That's right I saw him eat it. He picked his nose with his index finger. Then he inserted the offending digit into his mouth.
And just to insure that this wasn't a fluke, or a figment of my imagination, he then inserted his pinky into his nose, dug a bit... and then put his pinky into his mouth where,... he ate it.

What in the world would make this guy do such a thing? Does he eat them regularly? Are they tasty? Was he just hungry? Did he store food up there? Maybe a chunk of Snickers Bar he'd been saving? Was he insane?

Seeing this happen in real-life created more questions than it answered.

Metcalf

I went to Metcalf today to shoot a few rounds of trap.
Two other guys were just getting warmed up to shoot too. One guy, Ron?, a middle aged white guy had the same gun as me (a Remington 1100). Another guy, Keith, held a single barrel Ljutic trap gun. Ron tells me Keith's Ljutic is a $10,000 shotgun! Holy shit. Who's got $10,000 to spend on a shotgun?
I ended up shooting 6 rounds of trap scoring: 18, 19, 21, 22, 17, 18. (out of 25) from the 16 yard line.
Not horrible. I could definitely improve.
But the important point is that I had a blast.
It is turning out to be pretty expensive though. After ammo and the range fee, it comes close to being $10 a round. And then there's cleaning supplies and gun maintenance.
Then all the OTHER guns I'll need for my collection.

Ok. Time to go get a lotto ticket.

Poker

Last night, Poker tourney, 11 handed, 2 shorthanded tables. JoeO's buddy's pad. $20 buy-in.
It was a sloppy set up: two rickety table tops, paper cards, miss matched chips.
I played super-tight early on, and finally started hitting cards at the table merge.
SamD hit his Ace on the flop versus my cowboys, to double up, crippling me. Somehow I managed to stay alive to the final 3 where I was basically blinded out. SamD dominated the rest of the game to win it winning $120. I took home $40 for my efforts.
It's a bitter pill, Sam winning it. The other day we played heads-up online and he ended up beating me two games in a row, despite the fact that I was dominating him the entire match. A couple lucky coin flips allowed him to defeat me in the end.
I realize there is a huge hole in my game if I can completely dominate someone, and end up still losing.
"You gotta think Joe, maybe you're being too aggressive," Sam says.
FU you bastard. FU.

Not much

There hasn't been much interesting going on here lately.
I did watch several movies. None of them very noteworthy.
Especially NOT noteworthy is David Duchovny's House of D, which sucked horribly. I recommend you stay away from this "coming-of-age" story gone bad.

Another less than stellar movie which arrived via is Primer, a very independant movie about a couple guys who discover a way to travel through time. Their voyages gradually complicate things to the point that everything pretty much falls apart. The plot becomes too complicated to follow, the story essentially disintegrates.
Though a valiant effort, the filmmakers were simply over their heads with the material.

Alexander. Two words: "Skip it"
Two more words "Sucks balls"
Oliver Stone fucked up royally with this movie. His reputation may never recover.

Red Eye
Wes Craven's latest is essentially a mindless chase movie. There is pretty much no point to this film. The suspense isn't that suspenseful, the thrills are ho-hum. The plot, non-existent.
However there is one redeeming factor: Rachel McAdams. She looked damn good in this movie.
So if you must see it. At least she's worth looking at.

Coyote Clays

shotty
Originally uploaded by Joe_13.

We sent to Coyote Valley Sporting Clays last weekend. Bill thoroughly kicked my ass on the sporting course and trap. But, I'm going back to practice this weekend, so vengeance can be mine.

Tha gun looks good on me don't it?

March of the Penguins

March of the Penguins

Since this movie has been on the "wait list" on Netflix for a couple weeks. We decided to watch it on On Demand.

I have to say it was disappointing. There was quite a lot of hype with this one, so I expect that effected my opinion somewhat. And perhaps being an avid documentary watcher also had influence. I have high expectations.
March of the Penguins was overrated. The storytelling was average, mundane and not extraordinary. The photographer is obviously amazingly rugged for enduring the extreme conditions. His shots were also all beautifully composed. However the film as a whole lacked intensity. At no point in the movie did I NOT want to take a nap.

Save this movie for a lazy evening when you want to catch some Z's.

Taking out the new toy

I picked up my shotgun this week from Kerley's Sport Shop. That was the longest ten day waiting period ever. At last, I wield my first firearm.
Immediately I ran home and dismantled the thing. I figure we should sit down a while and get to know each other. Remingtion's website is infinitely useful. It has every piece of information you'd need to know about the Remington guns.
I cleaned it up, put it back together and waved it around for an hour dry-firing it at imaginary targets. It felt good to be excited about something. I'm such a child, I know.

ScottO and I took it out to Santa Clara County Field Sports Park (Metcalf) in South San Jose. They have night trap and skeet shooting there. My first round of trap EVER, I shot 20 out of 25. The gun was a very good fit and fired 100%. On the next round I shot 19. I was pleased.
ScottO didn't do so hot. He hit 6 on his first and 9 on his second 25 targets. The gun also failed to eject several rounds for him. He could easily blame the gun though. He's 8 inches shorter than me, so clearly the shotgun was an ill fit for him.

My experience was very positive. While the staff at Metcalf was very curt on the phone, the puller was a cool dude. He was helpful to us newbies and didn't make us feel like total idiots. Plus, the night shooting is just cool.

I'm planning on shooting a couple more rounds Sunday at Coyote Clays.

Shotguns=fun

Munich

Caught Munich last week.

Spielberg redeemed himself after the horrendous Tom Cruise travesty War of the Worlds. Munich is everything War of the Worlds wasn't.
I maybe over-hyping it, but I loved this film. As if the story of the Munich Olympics wasn't interesting enough, the aftermath was downright fascinating. I'm positive that the assassinations didn't go down exactly the way Spielberg portrays it, but who cares? The story is as well told as any story told, and as a storyteller, Spielberg is unmatched.
The photography is predictably awesome. The performances, though probably not Oscar worthy, are very good. The violence and action are brutally real and the story is taut and indeed thrilling.
Well told, and worth the full-price of admission.

Mystic and Morgan

Mystic and Morgan
Originally uploaded by Joe_13.

Death and the Fat Boy

KidPoker vs Dreamclown

At Fullcontactpoker.com, Daniel Negraneau's poker room, He's (KidPoker) been playing heads-up against some high-limit online player (Dreamclown) at the $500-$1000 blind limit table and the battle is getting pretty heated.
Last night they played for about four hours and Daniel had Dreamclown stuck $67,000 after the session. Tonight they played four hours and Dreamclown eventually lost $5000 in the exchange.
I'd give KidPoker props for being the legit keeper of the throne for the session, but Dreamclown was poised to take Daniel for some duckets at one point.

Caradiru

I'm recommending Caradiru for your holiday week viewing pleasure.

This Brazilian gem is a rich portrait of prison culture unlike what American's are used to. The story is well told and irresistable. The actors are natural and honest in their intensity. This movie IS intense. Much like the colorfully brutal City of God, Carandiru, is a saturated experience. The story is thick. The people are real. The photography is phenomenal.

I'd love to see this film again.

ORION Skyquest

My GF's Christmas present arrived via FedEx yesterday.

Her new Orion Skyquest XT6 Dobsonian telescope is much, much bigger than I expected. It's quite a monster actually. Originally I had planned on buying her the smaller XT4.5, but it was out of stock. So naturally I thought, "upgrade!"
I'm a real dumbass though. After ordering it, I realized that Orion is located in Cupertino. I could've easily just drove my ass over there and save $40 in shipping.

Oh well. It's always cool having new toys around the house, and this massive contraption should be fun on warm summer evenings, and on car-camping trips in the future.

Will Farrell

Funny Bush parody.

Cold deck nut barrage

Poker has been very bad to me these last four days. The bastard has taken a damn sledgehammer to my nuts repeatedley and I can't take it anymore.

I've been typing, "Suck it" or "Nice suck" when the fish at Pokerroom.com suck out on me. And I've been typing that a lot.
("Sucking Out" is a term used to describe when a player draws a better hand than yours, when you had the best hand to begin with.)
Fish always suck.

Anyway, I have cashed out of Pokerroom.com for the time being. I'll be depositing to FullContactPoker.com soon. Hopefully to reap the generous bonus FullContactPoker.com charter members get.

Anyway I look at it, maybe my strategery needs reevaluation, I have to change my game in some way to get back on my game and win some money. I've battled through losing streaks in the past, and I intend to make a comeback.

Giving up the finger

Some psycho is wagering his finger to win a million bucks.
If you click on this link, you'll help him in his quest for fortune.

Syriana

Saw Syriana, starring George "bobblehead" Clooney and Matt "hugeteeth" Damon this weekend. It got two thumbs up from Ebert and Roeper, but I give it a thumb down. I love political thrillers, and dialogue driven stuff, but this one falls flat.
The story is convoluted like all good thrillers. It's full of shady characters, betrayal, intrigue. Only there's too many characters. Because of that, and despite excellent performances, it was impossible to get to know any of them.

This story would have worked much better as an HBO mini-series on the same level with The Wire or the British miniseries, Traffik. With more time dedicated to character and plot development this story would be worth telling properly.

expired

I just got some horrible news.
Due to my expired driver's license, I can't pick up my new gun.
I had to go pay an unpaid parking ticket. Then tomorrow I have to go to the DMV, renew my license, and then wait until the hardcopy arrives in the mail. THEN, I have to wait another ten days, for them to re-run my DL (another $25 fee). Only then will I be able to pick up my firearm.

I'm so pissed, I'm fuming.

Chronicles of Narnia

I took Friday off work last week.
GF and I went to go see Chronicles of Narnia.

I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie. In the same vein as Lord of the Rings, except it is a bit more upbeat-a-fantasy. Not that it is without tragedy, violence and all that negative stuff. It does have its dark moments. The GF actually cried several seperate times during the movie. Even I felt a tear approach my eyeball at one point.
The movie is beautifully made. The battle scenes are exciting, the costumes exceptional. The acting is also top notch.


This flick is one of the few worth the price of admission.

From my cold dead hands

I'm really stoked right now.
I just got back from Kerley's.
That's right.
In ten days I will officially be a registered gun owner.

identical to this gun

It is a matter of pride for me to own a gun. I've always appreciated our right to own firearms. As a kid, my dad took me shooting handguns. He had a stailess steel .357 Smith and Wesson revolver. After target shooting, we'd sit around the table together and clean it. The smell of solvent and gun oil still brings back fond memories.

My most memorable christmas gift ever was a toy gun.
My dad had gotten home late from work Christmas night when I was 6-7 y/o. I remember it being dark in our house, only the light from the christmas tree illuminated his face as he handed me my christmas gift. It was a police revolver cap gun, with a fake black silencer. I loved it.

As a matter of fact, I still have it somewhere.

Rome

Last weekend while recovering from the hangover, surfing the channels proved unfruitful. I decided on checking out the first couple episodes of HBO's 'Rome' miniseries" on Comcast ON Demand.
What a treat.
I found myself completely addicted to it. 6 hours later, I was only halfway through the season and itching for more. The next day, I finished watching the final 6 episodes in a marathon session.
What can I say about the series except that it blew my mind. The characters are well developed and dynamic. The sets, intricately detailed, realistic, and alive. The storyline is taut and captivating.
If you've got 12 hours plus a couple hours to watch the worthwhile extras, take advantage of your ON Demand and watch Rome.

Lucious Verenus and Titus Pullo, two of the baddest mother*ckers on the planet.

NEWS-Weed

NEWS-Weed-3
Originally uploaded by Joe_13.

Los Altos police busted some dudes on a drug sting and reaped more than a pound of green buds.

Duplex

Got to hit up the city this weekend. My brother was throwing a big holiday bash at a club called Duplex, near Mission and 11th St. It was a swanky joint; narrow, dual level, illuminated dark red and pumping old school hip-hop jams.
I even heard the dopest parachute-pants-doing-the-running-man-song ever, Bell Biv Devo's "That girl is PPOOOOIIISSSOOON!"
That song makes you instantly want to do the running man.
The last time I heard that song, I was at my brother's wedding, shitfaced, doing the running man with the bride in the middle of the dancefloor.
Unfortunately, there is video of that.

So let's count my beverages for Saturday.
First, Luke and I split a 16oz soda bottle of 7&7 like hobos on the walk to the bar.
At the first Bar, a StoliSoda, a shot of Patron Silver, and a stoliRocks. From there we hopped on a bus instead of walking the 8 blocks to get to Duplex.
At Duplex, a stoliSoda, a shot of "tequila", followed by another Stolisoda. Bootie bought me a vodka redbull. And then I poured myself a thick double GreyGoose on the rocks from the bottle in the booth. ... and then I may or may not have had another shot.

Loaded.

I had a really good night though. Kinda sucked not having the ol'lady to get my groove on with. But, I still had fun talking with a bunch of my brother's buddies. One dude I met told me about all the crazy guns he has. He busted out his digital camera and showed me video of some guy unloading a full clip full auto from an AK-47.
I also got to relive our epic road trip through Costa Rica for his bachelor party.

Walsh was kind enough to let Luke, JoeO and me crash on his couches.
I woke up hungover and hungry, so we headed over to St. Francis Fountain for breakfast. I quickly pounded back a strawberry milkshake and labored to finish my bacon and eggs. They were delicious, perfectly crispied herbaceous homefries and eggs over-medium. But, I just couldn't manage to eat em all.

I spent the rest of the morning lying around at Stroker's pad. By the time I got home I was dead.

Card Dead

I went completely card dead last night during my home poker game. I tried to make a few moves here and there, but my opponents kept me honest with huge re-raises. Furthermore, anytime I actually caught a hand, I either got zero action, or was outflopped.
I can't say I played poorly, but I just couldn't put a hand together to save my life.

Mel ended up winning both games last night. She's been killin' it at our home game finishing consistently in the money almost every time I've played with her. She is significantly more studied than most of our opponents and knows the numbers better than most of our players. Not only that, but as a female, she is often underestimated, which giver her a huge advantage. The guys tend to soft play her, call more than raise her.
So, she's taken 3 in a row at my house.

I'm positive I have a bead on her though. If I could only win a couple races, and get some halfway decent cards, I'll take her down.

Re: The Cat

> Bro,
>
> How's your cat? I was reading your blog the other
> day and saw he was in need of maintenance...
>
> Cheers,
>Capt Mark




My reply:
Yeah,

He seems to be doing a lot better.
Which is great because now I can't afford a shotgun.
Great for Amy, not so much me.

Morgan's plumbing needed to be plunged. Or snaked
rather.

It was disgusting because he was pissing blood for the
first couple days. It made my dick hurt seeing it.

Thanks for asking about Morgan. I'll kick him for you.

j/k,
no I'm not, yes I am, no I'm not.

Joe

Moving forward

I've been back at Pokerroom.com trying to make back the money the pet mechanic took. It's been an up and down ride, but I've been grinding away and consistently winning. Last night I won two small tournaments, one two-table, and a single-table. So I've been running pretty hot.
If I keep it up I'll ave my shotgun money in no time.

Speaking of shotguns, ScottO and I went shotgun shopping over the weekend. After shouldering several Remington 1100s, 11-87s, Beretta 3901s and Winchester SX2, I've decided that I should consider the Beretta or the Winchester. For some reason the Remingtons feel a bit on the janky side. Whereas the Beretta melts in my hand. The Winchester felt very solid as well. They just feel better-built. I'd compare the Remington to a Ford, while the Beretta felt more like a Lexus. The Winchester a Toyota.
Of course I haven't shot any of those guns, but my feeling is I'm not going to be happy with a Remington. Not after having felt how nice the Berettas are.
Damn. That means saving an extra $300-400.

Something to work towards I guess.

Veterinarian bloodsuckers

I picked up Morgan yesterday at the Vet's office. They charged me another $197 to get the cat. So the grand total to save FatAss' ass. $881. I brought him home against the wishes of the vet who recommended I take him to my own vet for a day or two. He said they were going to keep the IV and the urinary catheter in for a while longer and observe Morgan. I told them I was taking Morgan home now.

It got me thinking about veterinary medicine. I'm sure the vets love animals. They must love animals to get into the buisiness right? Well I guarantee that the minute they see the amount of money they can make, their love for animals becomes secondary to their love for the money. Our vet had no concern for our animal whatsoever. If we hadn't been able to pay for Morgan's treatment, they wouldv'e euthenized his ass in a heartbeat. When I asked the vet tech what my options were if I wasn't able to pay the full amount, she replied, "Well I suggest you get in touch with someone you know who will loan you the money or a financial institution can." Otherwise, he wouldn't have last night.
Luckily I have the money, but it depleted my cushion money. And my shotgun money.

Saving Morgan, again

I'm very depressed.
I just had to put Morgan in the shop.
Morgan is my fat-assed one-eyed cat. Notice I said Fat. Not Phat.
This is the second time he's been hospitalized for having a "blockage." His urinary tract somehow develops crystals which blocks his ability to urinate and eventually he'd die when his bladder essentially bursts. It's a $638 job for the Pet mechanic.
Which is ironic because a new shotgun costs almost exactly $638.

Oh well I guess I can't cuddle a shotgun like I could a fluffy cat, in public.

But I will have a shotgun yet. And when I do, I have the puuuurfect first target.

The Machinist

I just watched this insane film called The Machinist.



Christian Bale (from Batman Begins) plays Trevor Resnick, an emaciated insomniac who's going through some serious mental issues. The movie follows him as he seems to come undone right in front of our eyes.
The movie has a dark, dirty, danky quality to it that literally made me feel ill. Every edge of this movie is filthy, disgusting.
Bale's performance is incredible. He literally lost enough weight to look like a walking skeleton (63 lbs. reportedly). The scenes showing Bale shirtless are almost unwatchable, like looking at footage from Dachau or Aushwitz. He's beat up, physically and psychologically.
The Machinist is hard to watch. Seeing someone slowly kill themselves is tortuous. I imagine that the director must have been torn ethically making this film because Bale is probably near death making this picture, he's that skinny. What he's done to his body exceeds Tom Hank's transformation in Castaway, Robert Deniro bulking up in Raging Bull, and Matt Damon's AIDS victim in Courage Under Fire.
The Machinist is worth watching because it is about more than just being about one man dying from starvation. It confronts the notion of guilt; dealing with mistakes of the past, and learning to move forward with life. It's about closure.

Caffeineguy

Check out CaffeineGuy's website.
He's got some cool pictures of his latest trip to China.
His Livejournal site is a fun time.



In the Urban Planning Museum you'll find a scale model of Shanghai as it will look in 2020. As you can see, in the future the Chinese will mutate into ant people. Suppressed a very powerful urge to go Godzilla on these enticing little buildings.

banner

I deleted the banner for pokerroom.com.
It looked so shitty.

I'll still schlang pokerroom.com though. They're one of the few online poker sites that Macs can play on without using an Windows emulator. Much abliged. As long as I'm making money I'll pimp it.
So, little banner ad will stay.

Guns, lots of guns

Since my recent introduction to the world of shotgun sports, I have been in shopping mode. I've been reading massive quantities of information online regarding the best gun for me.

I've narrowed my criteria down:

1) Semi-auto
2) Quality gun - decent condition
3) 28"-30" barrel length
4) 12 gauge
5) It has to be a ridiculously good deal

So far one gun might meet the criteria.

That is the Remington 1100. USED.
New ones run about $700 and up.
My recent poker winnings are burning a hole in my pocket the size of a shotgun. I'm hoping that I'll be able to find a decent used one at the gun show which is coming to town Dec. 10-11 at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. There is concern that I'll not be able to find one at the price I want. I have seen some at Gunbroker.com in my price range, but I really want to shoulder the thing, to see if it fits my frame.

I've always loved firearms. It's great to have found an activity which uses guns yet doesn't involve killing animals or people. I suppose I'd kill birds (ducks, quail, doves, pheseant etc.) But I odn't think I'd be able to kill a pig or deer. They're too similar to dogs I guess. Too cute.

Clays however,... They all need to get they caps peeled.

Redemption

Redemption is mine.
My house: Dylan, Mel, Bootie, SamD, ScottO, Butz, Ltrain and myself, $40 buy-in no-limit hold'em tourney.

Feeling inpregnebale, I immediatley attempted to bully the table. I was down to about half my stack before the 2nd level. I kept telling myself, "Play good poker, it's comeback time." Soon comeback time came.
I raise Mel with pocket 3's from under-the-gun. She calls my raise, everyone else folds. Flop hits A-2-3 rainbow. I check. She bets. After some contemplation, I re-raise. She goes all-in immediately. Could she have 4-5? No way. I call.
The turn and river are blank and I'm suddenly making my comeback.
I went on to make some huge plays against Sam and Dylan, knocking them out of the tourney.
Then the crucial hand happened against L-train:
I catch AK. L-train raises in front of me. I reraise. Everyone else folds. He reraises me. I go all-in. He instantly calls.
Oops. Ltrain flips over pocket rockets.
DOH! He's got me covered and I'm drawing practically dead.
Flop comes... KING. There's one. Turn, blank. I can hear myself screaming, "KING, KING, KING." The river comes KING!

As much as I hate when other people do it, I reacted enthusiastically to my incredible suck out. a-hootin' and-a-hollarin'! I couldn't help it.
Despite my happiness, I actually felt horrible about delivering a beat like that. I apologized to him and he took it really well considering he was crippled by that hand. He was eliminated later in third place.

Now I was the chipleader and it was my goal to throw my weight around. I'm sure I pissed off everyone at the table with my super aggressive pre-flop play, but it worked. I completely dominated the rest of the table and went on to go heads-up against ScottO, who up until this point had been playing very, very tight.
I continue my strategy and blew him out of the water with relentless aggression.
I took him out giving me a $160 prize. ScottO took home $90 for his efforts while Ltrain took home $60 for third place.

Number Two

Played in a $5-buy-in multi-table tourney on Pokerroom.com a couple nights ago.
699 players, top 60 get paid.

Early on I was trying to bust out, because the GF was about to get home and we were huuuuuunrgry. I pushed all in with KJo, J10o, but managed to double up instead of getting knocked out. When the woman got home, I was in the top 5 in chips.
"Screw-it," I'll just go pick up dinner and come back.
My chip stack was big enough that I was still in he tournament when we got back.
As I ate my number 5 from Happi House, I went on a tear. My cards were hot! I managed to knock out three or four players putting me in the chip lead.
Once chipleader I played pretty tight for the next couple hours, but continued to punish the medium and small stacks with big raises when I had decent hands. The field was thinning rapidly.
After 4 hours of play I was heads-up with a tight player named MVDM. The chip stacks were pretty close when this hand came:
I had AKo and raised on the button. He reraised and I immediately pushed all in. He calls with K9o. He's dominated here. He only has 3 more outs. The flop comes Ten-Ten-NINE. Turn: Ten. River:blank. Game over. MVDM wins $699.17. Joe_13 comes in 2nd place and wins $436.87.

Here's proof

Garden City

I hit up the $2-$4 tables at Garden City yesterday for a couple hours. Played tight for a while due to a streak of cold cards. Admittedly I was playing a bit too tight. But with these fishy-fish-fish players, I wanted to make sure I had the best hand. These guys were guaranteed to be 3-4 players deep at showdown. People calling calling calling. I did manage to make a big check raise and a huge bluff to make me a few bucks at the end.
One note: I made a rookie mistake by leaving without playing out the round. I made sure to wait for the blind before posting, but I left abruptly in the middle of the round, wasting 3-4 hands I could've seen for free.
Actually it was lucky I did. I guess I left my lights on in my car. The battery was dead. It took 20 minutes for the AAA guy to arrive, and I was almost late to my assignment. So in the end, it was a fortuitous mistake.

published

Here's a link to the article I published on sporting clays.

Bomb the System

On the graffiti tip,
I just happened to watch Bomb the System last week, so it's sort of coincidental that I went on a graffiti tour this past weekend.
Bomb the System is an extremely independant film, which follows a semi-famous graffiti artist tagging up New York while being tracked down by a couple shady cops. Blest and his two pals Buck50 and Lune go on a rampage in the city after Lune is roughed up by the cops.
What's cool about this film is that it exposes the underground world which passers-by only see as drippy paint scribbles on the bus; the dark, middle-of-the-night creepers who deface perfectly good bus stops, and the genius' who create masterpieces on a public wall only to have it painted over by some shitty-painter's bullshit tag.
In the end, it questions the whole point of street graffiti culture. Is it pointless to spend hours, risk freedom, risk your life to create art which is inevitably going to disappear? Is it selling out to have a message? Is it pussy to go mainstream?

Above all, when I look at some tagger's initials, or a really cool sticker design stuck on the back of a stop sign... I'll take notice.

Photo tour in SF

warehouse-4
Originally uploaded by Joe_13.

HabitForming took Stroker, Optikal and me on a San Francisco photo tour this weekend. We visited a couple fascinating abandoned warehouses. What better subject for photos than abandoned buildings covered in subversive art.

Graffiti culture is alive and well in the city. Not that I necessarily agree with tagging, but alot of the work displayed on the walls of places like this are quality... and unfortunately temporary.

I know from experience the pain of losing a piece of artwork forever.
Much of the art photographed by Habitforming will be demolished, painted over and/or scrubbed, and essentially disappear permanently.

Would graffiti artists be better served to create art for a gallery or as fine art? Of course purists will argue that graffiti while born in the streets should remain on the streets. That it would be pussy, sell-out to put anywhere else. IMHO, that's bullshit.
If you are an artists whose point is to create temporary art, so-be-it. Scribble your name in the sand at the beach and let the ocean wash it away. Essentially that is exactly what will happen when the pigs inevitably come to erase your piece, or the building you've just painted comes tumbling down with the wrecking ball.

Layer Cake.

The man who will be our new James Bond, Daniel Craig, starred in the recently released to DVD Euro-smash-hit "Layer Cake."
Layer Cake is almost an ordinary euro-heist flick. In the realm of modern-classic euro-heist films such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch only a bit grittier. It is much better than the forgettable American poser heist flicks like Oceans 11/12, The Score, The Big Hit and Confidence. Layer Cake is NOT ordinary. It is sharp, twisted, engrossing and thrilling.
Layer Cake is beautifully photographed. Everything about this movie visually is stunning with one exception: Daniel Craig's pocked up face. He looks like a more charming, but equally ugly euro-version of Anthony Michael Hall (the older one).
It's story is a convoluted, but that may be due to the extremely hard to understand Brit-speak, which I never got used to. Actually, this added to the charm of Layer Cake, similar to the charm of Brad Pitt's character in Snatch.
My favorite character in Layer Cake was Daniel Craig's sidekick Morti. Morti, the ex-con bash-man stole the movie with his hard-core personality and easy going yet brutal nature despite having only two or three lines.
I was totally transfixed on this film. Give this one a shot.

49ers

The 49ers won yesterday! And I was at Candlestick Park to see it. Being that this is the only pro-football game I've watched all season, and they won, must mean that I am good luck.
Considering they went into the game 1-5, my hopes weren't high. I was almost hoping they'd get their asses kicked so we'd be able to cut out early and beat the traffic getting home. We walked into the game with 11 minutes left in the 2nd quarter. Yes, we did not see the kickoff, because I was way too busy putting back various cold beers, grilling ghetto burgers and shooting the shit in the parking lot. And yes, that IS more important than football. Especially since the niners won in less than spectacular fashion. Well, any win for these losers is somewhat spectacular I suppose. Especially when the tickets were acquired for freeeeeeee.
However, despite my cool buzz, I did buy (2) $8 beers, which ironically was quite a buzz kill.

Poker

One bad call cost me the tourney last night.
Chips two buddies Johnny and Tim took 1st and 2nd in last night's tournament at my house. We had 10 players: Tim, Johnny, JoeO, ScottO, Nate, Chip, Chad, MikeM, Joe and SamD, $30 buy-in. freezeout. I played tight for the first 3 levels, catching mostly shit cards. I managed a steal here and there and finally took a huge pot with middle pair from JoeO. As the blinds started to punish me, I took a shot at a pot, with a middle pair semi-bluff. Unfortunately a horrible read on Tim, who'd been playing really fishy poker all night, pushed all my chips into the middle. He slowplayed a set of tens and killed my tourney.
Overall, I played really decent until that hand. I made several great reads, and one or two big bluffs. I'm really dissappointed in not making the money and I am itching to redeem myself.

Fun with Guns

Originally uploaded by !Habit Forming.

Happy 30th to me.
And to celebrate, Destroy some shit!
Here's a pic of me blasting a rabbit (clay) to shit! BTW, I nailed 6 out of 6 at this station.

Karl organized an awesome time doing my new favorite hobby. Sporting clay shooting!
Me, my brother, Luke, Rob, Utz, Karl, and Sean took our turns blowing away clay after clay at Coyote Clays in Morgan Hill.
For $50 a piece, we got the "experience" package: an instructor
50 rounds of shotgun shells, 50 clays, ear and eye protection and golf cart rental, as well as shotgun rental.

We shot clays in a variety of configurations, down to up, left to right, up to down, right to left, launched from a tower, lanched on the ground and a combo of either or.
I ended up winning the round completing 37 out of 50 clays.

So now I have to figure out how I'm going to acquire a shotgun of my own. All I need is $4000 for a Browning 525 field shotgun.

Turning 30

It's my birthday today.
Turning the big 30!

Damn, I remember being 17, thinking about what I'd be doing at 30.
Optimistically, I imagined being a successful designer or illustrator. I may have imagined being a photographer. But most of all I imagined that I would be old. Not rickety-old, but old. I imagined I might be married, maybe with a lil'Joe or two running around. I might've fantasized about being rich and famous (still do).
Actually, my life isn't too different from how I imagined it. I'm not "old," but I feel much more ,... experienced. Not married, no kids, but I'm with a woman I love. We have 2 cats and an old dog, which are sorta like lil'Joes (lil'punks). I'm not a successful designer, but I did just design a logo for a chiropractor. I'm not rich or famous, but I'm a professional artist (a small newspaper photographer counts right? kinda?).

30 years of life. It's a miracle. I'm short a mom, one grandpa, one grandma and an aunt. I've gained a million friends, zero enemies. I make a living, albeit barely. I create art. I learn something new amost everyday. I have a thousand hobbies. I'm a winning poker player, albeit in small stakes. I am a valued employee at my place of work. I earn a living. I'm a competent skier. I can spend multiple days in the wilderness with only what I carry to sustain me. I can make an argument for or against nearly anything. I love animals, and they love me. I've rated 2,824 movies on Netflix. I didn't vote for the Dubya.

Most of all, I have no desire to kill myself, so life can't be that bad.

Bullshit

I fail to understand why lawmakers feel justified in cutting spending on Medicaid and Medicare, while refusing to raise taxes on the ultra-wealthy (and constantly giving themselves pay raises). How can they feel good about reducing medical help for the poor and elderly? That's the most amoral, unethical bullshit legislating I've ever heard of.

Conservatives continue to demonstrate themselves to be ruthless toward the less fortunate. While large corporations reap massive rewards in the form tax cuts from the government, the poor and unfortunate get a whopping $50 billion in benefit CUTS by the government.

One thing I do know. Something is terribly wrong with the leadership in the country.

Too much TV

I was up late last night watching the ole boob tube. Too much good TV to miss.

Frontline
First was Frontline. They featured an in depth story uncovering the accusations of abuses and torture which took place at Abu Ghraib prison and at Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay).
It was a very eye opening story indeed. Frontline is percieved to be a mouthpiece for the liberal agenda. That may be true to a certain extent, but it seems that PBS actually makes an attempt to tell many sides of a story, unlike SOME news shows. it showed the perspectives of detainees, soldiers at all levels, politicians, activists, administration officials and anyone else willing to speak to the producers. All in all the entire show was fascinating, informative, fearless and inspiring. Kudos PBS.

Nip/Tuck
Another twisted episode.
This one was the most satisfying episode yet. Christian is arrested by police (his GF's GF/detective/cop) who accuse him of being the Carver. Christian meets his estranged mother, who tells him his dark history. The end of the episode had a twist so satisfying, I almost needed a cigarette. Almost.

WSOP
The World Series of Poker Epsiodes 3 and 4 premiered last night. It was an excellent show, highlighting Mike the Mouth's blowup, dropping several F-bombs costing him 40 minutes in penalties. That's right, in this year's World Series of Poker, any dropping of the F-bomb, or as I like to say, "FUCK", resulted in a 10 minute penalty. Unfortunately they avoided the hotshot players like John Juanda, Phil Ivey, Chau Giang's table like the plague. So I didn't get to see very much of the real greats playing in the game. Probably because they are too cool headed to be the highlight, unlike The Mouth.
Overall, an excellent episode. Great TV.

Arnie in Rio

I found this on Caffeineguy's Livejournal. The picture is so funny, I had to steal it.

Odog

Odog
Originally uploaded by Joe_13.

My boy.

Poker night

Took third in my home game last night. $30 buy-in, 8 players.
Motuy won the thing in his first time playing at my pad. AaronM bullied his way to second place, after rallying back from some very questionable plays early on. Motuy played solid tight aggressive poker all night long. I played alot tighter than usual. Mainly due to being mostly card dead, and adjusting to AaronM's unpredictable play. I was able to double up with Cowboys when Thumbs overplayed his QJ preflop. From there I skated to the money when the two maniacs, AaronM and Luke, took turns tangling with each other and trading chips. Eventually Luke's constant bluffing attempts got the best of him when he made a ridiculous all-in call with Queen high. Then Thumbs self-destructed on the bubble, leaving me in the money.

Overall, I only made two bad plays last night. One was not going all-in as a shortstack with A8, which would've tripled me up. And the other was the last hand I played: I pushed all-in shortstacked on the small blind with Ten8 of clubs, instantly got called with KQ suited. Of course I didn't improve while Motuy caught a K on the flop to seal my fate.

Birthday wish

Oh, by the way, my birthday is coming up (Oct. 20th) and in case anyone out there is ridiculously wealthy and want to get me what I really need...

20D para mi

Did I mention that I have acquired a Canon 20D for work? The old D30 I was shooting with was falling apart. So I requested to the boss that we upgrade the camera. After three months of hinting that the old camera was about to die, they gave the thumbs-up. Now, I am a proud new user of a 20D.

Breakfast

Saturday morning, I made my special breakfast. Breakfast in bed for my GF who successfully completed her first session of nursing school.

String beans scramble over crispy potatoes

Here's the recipe.

3 potatoes diced
3 eggs
a handful of string beans
1 diced tomato
3/4 cup shredded mild cheddar cheese
1/2 stick of butter
salt pepper
hot sauce

Directions:
Melt butter in microwave
pour melted butter over diced potatoes and mix thoroughly
throw in a couple pinches of salt and pepper
Spread potatoes evenly in one layer on a baking sheet coated with vegetable oil,
Bake in 400º oven til golden brown turning once (15 minutes)

Sautee string beans in a saucepan with a tsp of vegetable oil, (4 minutes).
Mix eggs in a mixing bowl, add salt and pepper, pour over string beans and scramble til egg is mostly cooked.

Remove egg/string beans from pan. Place golden browned potatoes in skillet or oven safe casserole. Put eggs over potaotes, tomatoes over eggs and sprinkle cheese over everything.

Bake in 350º oven until cheese is melted. Garnish with chopped parsley or chives.
Add a dollup of sour cream and splash some Frank's Red Hot (or Tabasco). Serve.


Feel free to add crispy bacon, sausage, steak, chicken, or other assorted cooked mammals to this recipe to make it edible to us non-vegetarians.

Birthday plans

I've decided that for my birthday activity this year.
Guns. Lots of guns.

Coyote Valley Sporting Clays!
http://www.coyoteclays.com/

Gun rental, clays, ammo, ear and eye protection, and an instructor, all included for a measley $50. Hell, I can lose $50 playing online poker in about 10 seconds. $50 barely pays for one round of drinks.

Anyone who reads this ridiculous blog is welcome to join in on the carnage.
Saturday, October 23, 1:45pm at Coyote Valley Sporting Clays.

It's killin' time!

All the food

One thing I love about San Jose, besides the weather, is that there is EVERY possible type of food in the world,... right here.
Within a half hour drive will get you ANY kind of food you can think of. OK, there might not be an obscure cuisine like Sudanese food here, but, I bet I can find something really close to it around town.
American food: BBQ, Western, Southern, Eastern, fusion, pizza, pasta, plus...
Chinese, cantonese, shanghai, szechuan, hunan, dim sum, taiwanese
Japanese, sushi, soba, teppanyaki, sukiyaki
Hawaiian
Thai
Korean
Vietnamese
Cambodian
Indian
Pakistani
Greek
Middle Eastern
French
Irish
British
Italian
German
Portuguese
Russian
Mexican
Cuban
Brazilian
Ethiopian
Spanish
Malaysian
Peruvian
Jamaican
Carribbean

I know that there isn't that kind of variety in Nevada, so my assumption is that only the major cities would have access to the eclectic choices that we have here. Just make note of the fact that I can literally have any of these cuisines at any reasonable time I want.
How dope is that?

Nip/Tuck

Who's addicted to Nip/Tuck ?

I know it's totally a guilty pleasure. But this show is so freaking entertaining, I can't resist. Most of the story lines are totally absurd, the "family" is completely dysfunctional, the characters are over-the-top, the son looks as old as the dad (and looks like a scarier version of Michael Jackson), and there is an overload of gratuitous T&A and a whole bunch of disgusting graphic surgical procedural reenactments.
It's a twisted look at the life of two plastic surgeons who have everything going right and wrong at the same time. And it's very addictive.

I have to say, F/X is making strides in the forward progress of TV programming. While the networks are pushing shit/crap like Seventh Heaven, Everwood, Three Tree Hill and various other garbage, there is hope for people who like their television filled with grit, violence, sex, drugs, and nudity.

Monster

I'm almost finished reading Monster: The autobiography of an LA Gang member. Monster is a memoire written by one of South Central LA's most notorious killers. As a member of the Eight Tray Gangster Crips, Monster Kody Scott popped many-o-caps into the bodies of his enemies and since ended up behind bars. What makes his story so unbelievable is the fact that he did much of his killing before the age of 16. In his book, Scott tells about being shot at while riding his ten-speed down the street, and unloading shotgun blasts in school yards, about chopping off an enemy's arms at the elbows, being ambushed and nearly killed and getting sent off to juvenile hall, then to jail.
This book is one soldier's account of life in a war-torn America. He describes this dangerous world as a combatant, an insider as candidly as possible. He transforms himself from a ruthless murderer filled with hate and ignorance to a preacher of black unity. Through education, with role models, Scott transcends the ghetto mentality. But it is too late.
This book is the product of one guy's lesson learned from a life of crime.

Proscuitto Ad

An idea for a commercial.

Dude1 and Dude2 are looking at a halfed loaf of bread topped with lettuce and tomatoes on a countertop. They are looking at it, seemingly confused.

Dude1: What IS that?
Dude2: uh, ( squints and looks closer ) .. Hm, I don't know.

Dude3 walks up and places a few slices of proscuitto on it.

Dude2: OH!
Dude1 and Dude2: It's a sandwich!

Joe's Lunch Meat,... It makes a sandwich.

The Poker Camp blog

Dylan, has started a blog on his progress in Atlantic City at the US Poker Championship.
Check it out.

Poker Analyst

I have decided to start tracking my live poker play using Cardplayer.com's Poker Analyst. I sort of stopped tracking my progress using the spreadsheet I had, mainly because I couldn't access it from work. With PokerAnalyst I'm able to log in all the action from anywhere, and it'll let me see pretty charts and graphs easily.

This morning I logged a win from last night's spread limit action at Jeff Nielson's place. $.25-3 spread limit, hold 'em cash-game (not tournament style). I played very slow, mostly due to shitty hands. One hand I held Q-To, Jeff calls my pre-flop raise, Andy calls. Flop gives me a Q. I raise, he calls again, Andy folds. Then an ace hits the board, he raises, I call, a bit scared that he has an ace, but the pots so large, I couldn't my queens go. The next card is a blank, we both check. He flips over pocket 9s.... I win with my queens. Weird, weird, weird. All I can say is, "Live fish heuh!"

I'm pretty sure I left there as the big winner. But the action has only made me hungrier. What sucks is that my attempts at getting a game started at my house is like pulling fucking teeth. ScottO is "taking a break from poker," because he's been losing his ass at every fucking game. I think he's been playing too tight. The Bootie actually has a life, so he's never able to play. Chestnut is totally whipped and his schedule is controlled by his woman. Luke is working many many hours and is also as pussy whipped as can be. The Marinuccis have whippersnappers running around. Rauser sucks and knows it. Pate works evenings and hasn't won in a while. I hate to say it, but I think my friends are scared to play against me. At this rate I'll get no action from my friends at all.

I am going to make an effort to play at other people's home games more often. I don't lose money on a rake, the opponents are softer than the casinos and internet, and I feel I can take advantage of my ability to read people. With Dylan winning a seat into the $10,000 buy-in US Poker Championship in Atlantic City, and with Paul Esfandiari doing so well in the WPT Aruba, I feel like I might be able to compete on a higher level. All I need is a bigger bankroll.
But, before I get too far ahead of myself, I suppose paying the rent on time will have to be the first challenge I will need to meet.

Butz Karai

Butz Karai
Originally uploaded by Joe_13.

I went to watch a beach volleyball tournament at Santa Cruz this past weekend. My GF and Butz teamed up to compete in the beginner level all-day tournament.
It was a very,... sober event. Meaning, I was sober. Sort of. I guess I wasn't totally sober. More a residual inebriation. But, mostly sober.
After many many hours of volleyball. They finally finished in third or fourth place. Pretty damn good considering they've never played together before.

For they're valiant play under the coastal sun, they won a whopping $0, many lactic acid engourged muscles and a possible separated shoulder.
Butz called me this morning to ask if a clicking sound in his shoulder is normal.

It looked fun, but I think I'll stick to poker for now. At least until I get into some resemblance of "shape." At least a shape other than "fat." Even though poker tends to lead to the "fat" look.

Second place in a Pokerroom tourney

Pokerroom.com. $20 multi-table tourney SHORTHANDED. That means no more than 6 to a table. There were a total of nearly 200 players. After being almost eliminated early-on, I wrangled my way to the middle of the pack after 2 hours. Trying to steal as much as possible and getting decent cards got me deep into hour 3. I only needed to draw-out twice. Finally I made it to to heads up just barely trailing the chip leader. The first hand heads-up I have K-ten and immediatley go all in thinking of a steal. He instantly calls with A-ten. His hand holds up winning him $990 and me $633.

Second best, and $633. For now, I'll take it. But I'm really looking for a win.

poker

Broke in the new poker table last night. A full 10 players. I got knocked out somewhere middle of the pack. BAH! Pissed away my chips with second pair after the flop. Chad had to call holding top pair. In the end it was Eric N. heads-up against Mel. The cards were not going Mel's way and soon after they started playing, she was knocked out taking $90. Eric took home $150 for his efforts. Chad was the third place guy winning $50.
Poor play on my part last night.

Bourdain-O-Rama

Speaking of Anthony Bourdain, I caught the show Kitchen Confidential last night on Fox. It's basically based on his life and his book. Pretty interesting that I happened to have just read his book. So far the pilot episode was interesting if not that funny. Many of the characters basically come directly from the book including the protagonist whose name is Jack Bourdain.
And on the topic of Mr. Bourdain, I also just watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on the Travel Channel. It's essentially been Bourdain-O-Rama, or a Bourdain-o-lanche. No Reservations is a dream job. Travel the world to exotic locales, eating exotic food with weird people, all on the company's dollar. Sounds fantastic.
Imagine Globe Trekker with a cigarette, five shots of homemade Vietnamese moonshine, a tablet of immodium and a bowl of sauteéd porcupine, and you've got No Reservations.