I meant to post about this earlier, but procrastinatory obligations kept me from writing anything until now 😉 . About 1 week ago, a friend of mine with a modified PS2 got a dual-layer DVD burner. For the uninitiated:

My friend also told me that he had figured out how to use his new burner to make copies which should (in theory) work with his mod chip. In college, a friend of ours had had his Playstation modified, and was able to use it to play games he downloaded from the internet and burned onto CDs. After buying my PS2 about 1.5 years back (on a whim), I’d briefly thought about trying to find a way to have it modified, but never really pursued it because of the difficulties involved with not knowning who/where to look, not having a way to produce dvds. There was also the prospect downloading LARGE 2-3 GB dvd images… a hassle to say the least. Also, my friend with the modified PS2 lost contact with the person who helped him his, so it seemed like a lot of trouble/risk with little potential reward. As a result I didn’t look into it at all.

To make a long story short, my friend’s news about his new toy have changed my perspective.

After a bit of research and reading, I have a Matrix Infinity chip on order. I will write about more my PS2 adventures in my (very unused, but passworded) journals category. (E-mail me if you need the password).

Shame on me for not checking my mail. I ended up wasting a GT homecoming football ticket because I couldn’t see the letter containing the ticket which my friend, Josh had sent to me. It might have helped to know ahead of time that it was being sent, but those are moot points (he said that he might or might not send it, but never followed up). Besides the unused (and still unopened) football-ticket-letter, I got 2 flush letters from companies I vaguely remember sending resumes too. I didn’t open them, I just scanned them through the envelope by holding them up to a bright light.

My URL-mate Beth sent me two preparation CD’s for the GRE, all the way from Savannah! Hooray! Thanks, Beth. I can now add it to the list of productive activities to do while in the house (which I am much of the time). This past week i’ve been doing a mediocre job of sending off resumes, so I need to get on it this coming week.

I’ve recently changed up my studying-japanese routine. Instead of translating short paragraphs from the Asahi Sinbum Jingo Tensei for myself (and then comparing them with their english versions, I have been translating jokes from english into japanese and sending them to a person from friendster whom I’ve never met. She is from Japan, so maybe I can get some feedback on my work (its slooow going, 1 joke probably takes me 3 cumulative hours, depending on the length).

Today, I got to Northpoint early in order to see one of my students (from tumbling class) sing in Kidstuff, a church service for children at Northpoint. I went in expecting it to be something of a show, but I was still suprised by how much of a production it was. My student was one of the ~dozen or so kids on stage singing and dancing during the introduction and finale. I was impressed. I’ve put a picture of the stage below (small photo that i had to steal and photoshop-together off the website, hence the wierd perspective/artifacts).

The rest of my day was spent at the gym doing one lesson and covering for yet someone else who was out. I’m trying to save up money to pay for rent during december and january, when the gym will be closed for about 3.5 weeks. Wish me luck!

Although that is actually a quote from the presidential & vice-presidential candidate debates, its also and apt description of what I’ve been up to as of late. I missed church this past weekend because I was asked to help cover a practice/shift for a friend who is out of the country. Another friend is sick, so I ended up going in last week Wednesday as well… but speaking of going out of the country… I have found awebsite forum [www.ithinkimlost.com] that has lots of stories and posts by people in the JET program [www.jetprogramme.org]. Since I’m thinking about going over, (barring my finding a new job/going to grad school) this will be a very handy source of information. The forum doesn’t seem to be as active as other message forums, but I guess those folks are busy trying to make their way in a foreign country and such!

More later today

-Edit-
They ended up asking me to go in to work. Two people were out today, so I ended up with the shorter stick as far as covering classes. Also, the little tykes in the first class I covered decided to hide my sneakers from me by kicking and stuffing them under the coil spring floor. As the temperature has dropped to the mid 50’s due to the rain and change of season…. I ended up going to the supermarket and then home with very cold, wet socks and feet.

I have half a mind to go in on this coming wednesday just to make them condition as retribution, but alas I’m a softy and probably won’t even be upset about the whole thing by tomorrow.

Admittedly, if I hadn’t procrastinated as long as I did then I wouldn’t be in this situation, but….
On October 4 (yesterday, a Monday) I dropped by the post office before work in order to pick up a voter-registration form. The forms were due in that day (so, it had to be filled out and dropped in the mail/postmarked by 5pm). I had been told (by a source who shall remain nameless) that I could pick them up there. I budgeted about half an hour for filling it out and getting it off in the mail. Much to my chagrin, the post office had no such forms. A quick inquiry revealed that the closest place to pick them up was the Buford Library… a library whose exact location I not only didn’t know… but was probably at least a 15 minute drive away through metro-Atlanta rush hour (15 min there, 15 min back = the only 30 min I had).

A quick google search reveals little about buford library’s location, except that it is within 3 miles of the Mall of Georgia, putting it at least 20 minutes away. So, it seems that I won’t be casting my vote in the upcoming presidential election. Pity. Maybe my favored candidate will win. I’ll give you a hint which it is: not Mr. Bush. It will be interesting to see if he ends up carrying this state, though.

In other news, my life as-of-late has been filled with all sorts of nonsense. I got some index cards to start memorizing some GRE words (why not, though if experience is any judge… studying these words will help me on maybe 2-3 word problems/analogies that i would have had to guess on). I’ve been playing NFL Street, a PS2 game that i bought used from blockbuster. I’m not usually a fan of sports games, but 7-on-7 football is tolerable enough for me to enjoy playing. I wish the computer didn’t cheat like a $%#$ all the time, though. There’s always work, applying to jobs (I just got dissed by Hansgrohe, I applied for an intern/part-time engineer spot and they just sent me a letter saying that they’re going with a different candidate… I didn’t even interview for the position at all). Just one step closer to teaching-english-in-japan, or grad school, i suppose.

Speaking of japan, one of my students from the gym is going to Tokyo this coming week (she is half japanese). Also, my friend Dave Lo was just there on a job interview (3d modelling/CGI stuff). Seems to be the hot spot to visit nowadays!

Speaking of the gym, there is a new guy working there. His name is Al. I haven’t talked with him much, though.

I hurt my knee a little doing punch front-fulls onto a folded-up crash mat (to make it softer). No video of it. I’ll try to get Ryan to record one on Friday for you guys.

Sorry about the slim pickings as far as entries.

-kevin

I *almost* walked out of the bookstore with the 2005 GRE study book. Almost.

I started getting ready for the GRE with the 2003 kaplan GRE guide, which was graciously given to me 1 year ago by my old roommate, Brannon (as a moving gift, i suppose). The very first section I practice-tested on was the analytical portion (which is ironic for a reasons i shall reveal). The next step of my plan was to acquire a 2005 GRE study guide. I also used a site that helps me with advanced English such as literature. It helped me how to recognize synonym and many many more.
I went to the store, talked to a clerk who had taken the GRE, and subsequently picked out the Princeton Review’s guide. Everything was hunky-dory until I indiscriminately flipped through a few pages of it. What little I glanced whilst thumbing through was a run-of-the-mill breakdown and explanation on standardized testing techniques. I immediately started having second thoughts about plunking down almost $40 ($35, to be precise) for a workbook 90% filled with information that I already knew. The GRE is already going to cost $115, so I felt that my $35 might be better spent going towards payment for the actual test…. especially considering the fact that I already have a Kaplan 2003 GRE book. So I have decided to do the bulk of my preparation with the 2003 book that I already have (a standardized test is a standardized test… i’ve been taking them since grade school), and to peruse the 2005 book in the bookstore for any changes in the 2005 version of the GRE that I might need to prepare myself for.

As it turns out, the analytical section, which used to be multiple choice, is now an analytical timed essay. This means that I wasted a few hours on my first night of studying with the 2003 GRE book, but it also means that the analytical section will be a complete cakewalk. They rate the essays from 1-6. 6 being ‘ cogent, well-articulated analysis of the complexities of the issue and conveys meaning skillfully‘, and 5 being ‘generally thoughtful, well-developed analysis of the complexities of the issue and conveys meaning clearly. I expect to get either of those scores, though it does seem a bit arbitrary. My writing style has been lost on some of my former English professors, but usually due to their lack of effectively communicating the type of paper they were looking for. A score of 4 is for ‘competent analysis of the issue and conveys meaning adequately‘. I could probably do that in my sleep.

Just tonight I finished the quantitative (math) practice section of the 2003 book. The math doesn’t seem to get any more difficult than linear algebra. I am fairly certain that the testers will make the time constraint for this section a factor to help tweak (increase) the difficulty of this section. To me, it really seems like SAT/high school level material.

So, things are looking OK so far. I’m going to start hitting the vocab soon. I’ll probably start posting a lot more messages to message boards on the net to make my new-found vocabulary part of my working lexicon… but truth be told, i’m not afraid of word analogies either.

Hmm, maybe i’m being to cavalier about this whole GRE thing… have any of you folks taken it? Speak up! Send me an email or leave me a comment!

-kevin

P.S. Methinks there are peculiar things afoot with Aaron & Katie.

I have decided that I should take the GRE and give very serious thought to grad school. I’ve been job searching to no avail for 3 years, and I don’t want to keep wasting time not learning/going forward.

I’m not sure exactly what I want to study in grad school. I am pretty certain that I dont’ want to study pure chemical engineering (what my undergrad degree is in). It’s as challenging as any other major, but I think i’d like to branch out a little bit.

After that, i’ll try to figure out where to go and how to finance it…. but i’ve got to take the test first

-kevin

Has it been over a week since my last entry? Shame on me. I’ve been running my regular routine of going to work, but I have also been trying to spend all of my free time more wisely. I’m more active with perusing careerbuilder.com, ajcjobs.com, and a few other places I check from time to time. I have also gotten back into the habit of translating the Jingo Tensei (Vox Populi, Vox Dei) on asahi sinbum for some Japanese practice. For anyone curious, I use JwpCE, an awesome FREEWARE japanese word processor which is replete with a Japanese< ->English dictionary, and more character lookup tools than one man really needs. Whenever I get stumped, I use Babelfish to get me out of tight spots. I check my work with the english version of the article.

I would like to do something similar chinese (and I had actually started to), but there isn’t a freeware chinese word processor equivalent to JwpCE. The closest thing that I have found is zhongwen.com. A great resource for chinese, but progress is *much* slower when I use it for mandarin translations.

In other news… I had some spare hardware lying around, so I’m going dual monitor now. It took a little getting used to, but its very handy. Also, Aaron and his (now ex-)gf, Katie (chopped off on the very left) broke up. I don’t know all that much about them as a couple, but her moving off on her own when it was time for them to move suggests that it was on her mental horizon for a while. No matter, Katie’s friend Natalie-the-dancer ( isn’t really all that hot (or interested, apparently). I’ll live 😉 She has always seemed nice/considerate even in the face of less scrupulous^* co-workers of Aaron and mine. Here’s to hoping that things remain amicable.

-kevin

* – something i heArD thAt soMeone tried with her

I have a new roomate. Her name is Lucy. She has black hair and weighs about 110lbs. Lucy is a Great Dane. My roommate got her from a lady that rescues Great Danes from shelters. She is 16 months old (that is 11 yrs old in dog years), and a total pussycat. Insofar, she does what she is told, and doesn’t bark (unless goaded into it by Freddy, Reed’s mischeivous half-collie half-beagle mix pooch).

Lucy arrived here last night, so I haven’t spent much time with her. She’s already been housebroken and cage-trained, so there probably isn’t much for me to have to teach her. Its been very rainy here today due the remnants of hurricane Frances, so I haven’t taken her on a walk yet. The storm also knocked all the power at the gym out today, so we didn’t hold any classes. Great Danes reportedly need long, daily walks, so that probably means a lot of my time will soon be spent outdoors.

Scooby Doo was a Great Dane. I hope Lucy doesn’t act like him, though… I hate that cartoon.

-kevin

This weekend has been pretty eventful. I had Friday off, and spent most of it traveling to, and participating in a rehearsal-barbecue for Sarah & Tony’s wedding party. I wasn’t in the wedding, but I was invited nonetheless. The barbecue took place at a Lake Allatoona picnic spot about 15 miles north of Acworth! (For those of you who might not know, Acworth is the location of my bible study… which is an hour’s drive in normal traffic). I am not sure as to why that particular spot (Cooper Branch) was chosen… as it was a good 40 minutes from the wedding site… but the timing was poor indeed. The picnic was slated to start at 6PM.

In addition to having to fight with Atlanta Friday rush-hour traffic, there was a lot of extra added traffic on the roads due to labor-day travel, and more notably the evacuation of Floridians due to Hurricane Frances. I did entertain the thought of not going, but followed my heart (instead of rational thought) in the end. I tried to avoid I-75 as much as possible by taking side roads… I ended up saving time that way, but the trip still took 50+% more time than it does in heavy rush-hour traffic.

Sunday I taught a private lesson, went to church, came home, went back to the gym to teach another private lesson (that I had forgotten about), and then drove to Aaron’s place to help him move into his new apartment with Iffy. Moving was a slow process. Aaron hadnt packed much (anything), but he did recruit 3 of us, so he was able to make a dent in the amount of work that had to be done. After the first trip over to his new apartment, I stayed and helped Iffy move things from his old apartment in the same complex to the new one. Iffy was the complete anti-thesis to Aaron’s moving strategem. Iffy started off hot and repeatedly tried to stop moving stuff after 1 or 2 trips (his apt was a 1 minute walk away). Brian McGuiness and I had to bully him around a bit to keep at it for a while longer. In the end, we brought the PS2 over and ordered pizza while I played on Iffy’s bass guitar.

On Monday afternoon, I returned to Amli at Clairmont Rd to help Aaron and Iffy unload and move more of their things. The apartment looks quite homely, but is probably a tad cluttered. As I predicted the previous day, a few things were relegated to the porch, and a few others were given away. The bottom line is that the new apartment can’t accomodate all of their miscellaneous belongings, so it will be interesting to see what goes or gets stored.

Upon returning home later at night, I met a new roommate of my own (and Erik’s)…. but I’ll wait until tomorrow to write more about that (I’ll make some icons for these last 2 entries as well)

-kevin

My very eventful labor day weekend began with a late morning commute to midtown, Atlanta to tailgate with the old-harris-residents-football-tailgate. The game started at 1:00PM, and so the tailgate started at 10:30AM. I arrived around 11:10 and hung out for a while. Josh had given me his ticket, so I was also able to attend the game. I got a good look at tech’s new varsity squad, but I had to leave the game prematurely before the half in order to make to Tony and Sarah’s wedding.

I drove back to Roswell, and went to buy their wedding gift at the Kohl’s across the street from where I live. Kohl’s is a horrible place to be registered. First, the registry computer at the back of the store didn’t look like it was even on… then after the worker activated the screen for me, it couldn’t find the listing for Tony and Sarah’s wedding even though I put her name in perfectly. After a phone call to a groomsman (Aaron), and more finagling with the registry computer I found the correct wedding, and tried to print out the list, but the printer was off, so I had to reach into the cabinet and turn it on myself. Obtaining the registry list turned out to be much easier than finding anything listed on it in the store. I spent at least 15 minutes wandering around a 20’x20 kitchen area which was apparently designed an organized by an extremely inebriated chimpanze. I couldn’t find any of the kitchen/dinner items on the registry list. Annoyed (and running out of time), I located 3 other items in a different area of the store, which I luckily found fairly expediently (the monkey must have sobered up when it stocked the home accent items). After buying the items, I jumped in the car and sped off towards the wedding in Dallas… gifts unwrapped, running about 20 minutes behind schedule.

I arrived at the wedding just in time to see Tony & Sarah departing the altar (great, just great). Suffice it to say that the Ragsdale Inn (where the wedding was held) is a LONG way down a georgia road with lots of traffic lights on it. What mapquest said was a 9-mile distance turned out to be about 18 miles in reality. This is the second time that site has $#@@’ed up directions. I’m going to use Yahoo!Maps next time.

Sarah and Tony understood, and were cool with everything. The wedding was petite, probably about 30 guests in all. Kirk Bauer was in attendance. I’d gotten to talk to him at the rehearsal barbecue the day before (Friday), it was fun catching up. Also noteworthy of mention was the presence of Eric Wu of www.emotioneric.com fame as best man (yes, i’m somewhere on that site, but I won’t say where) , and Aaron Merritt as a groomsman. Laura Sassman^* (she is married and has a different last name now, but I dont’ know it), an old RA/CA from the dorm. The food was great and the air was festive. The DJ was friendly, if a little bit corny… but his jokes fit the mood (i suppose).

The newlywed couple are delaying their honeymoon until after Tony has more leave time. He’s a naval officer, so he has orders to carry out which preclude their immediate traveling. I guess the upshot is that Sarah Burgoyne-Carl (hyphenated!) will have more time to plan it out.

I told my mom about their wedding later on the phone, as she’d met Tony while he was living with me in college. Care to guess what her subsequent comments were about? 🙂 Ah, moms are so predictable.

-kevin

I got one of the two posters that I won off ebay (I have yet to pay for the other one). A testament to my new-found-fandom, its a poster of No Doubt minus their brass/horns section. All I need to do now is buy a frame for it. I wonder if target has any good prices on poster frames.
I only meant to get this one poster originally… but in the course of my browsing and bidding I saw a pretty awesome looking Gwen poster, so I got it too (its the pink pigtails – rock on!).
NO. I’m NOT a fanboy 😛 Leave me alone! I’m going to go play ‘Spiderwebs’ on my bass.

Poster I just got – RockSteady	Poster I still have to pay for – Gwen

Remember the old Budweiser ‘Wassap” commercials that were such a big hit back in 2000? Well, at the time I was finishing out my last year of school at GT and cheering on the JV cheerleading squad. I stole a few hours from here and there and put this little animation together for the squad website. It was a big hit, and everyone that saw it thought it was hilarous. You’ll need flash player in order to watch it.

I found it while digging around on an old, failing hard drive. The floating Buzz icon for this entry is also some of my (admittedly basic) handiwork. Enjoy!

-kevin

Wow. Almost two weeks since I checked in. Sorry to those of you who peruse/read here regularly (which is approx. 2 people I think 😉 ). Most of the reason that there hasn’t been any spectacular goings on with me lately. I have had a very run-of-the-mill week of work at the gym (though I did work two lock-ins the past 2 fridays)… there haven’t been any job related phone calls or emails… and I haven’t met any new people. I still don’t have much to report, but I thought I should write something for fear of losing my ‘blogging’ habit.

I did not make it to my bible study this week or to grouplink at northpoint. I still want to be part of a bible study, but the timing feels off right now? I decided last minute not to make the hour-drive up to Acworth. When I do find a new study, it will hopefully be a much shorter commute.

Sarah and Tony are getting married next week on Saturday. I’m not in the wedding, but I have been invited to the rehearsal dinner on Friday. I’ll have to skip work to make it, but that’s alright. I’ll have to buy a gift for them this week too! Sarah has been toying with the idea of not taking her husband-to-be’s surname…. how scandalous! How radically feminist! Hmm, Sarah *did* start her higher learning at Agnes Scott, an all-girl liberal arts school that is no stranger to strong-willed females… but she left after the first year. I imagine that her former classmates would burn their bras with glee to know that Sarah has become an independant womyn, despite her premature departure from the campus. (All Praise Hestia! 😉 )

I only got a few hours sleep last night due to waking up for no-apparent-reason, so i shall digress here and try to take a nap before heading in to work.

This entry is for my dear friend, Roxanne! Roxanne is a long-lost friend of mine from high school days. Back then she used to dance on the pom-pon squad and claim that she had stronger legs than me! (As if!)

I lost track of her when she went off to college at the The University of Memphis, graduated, and disappeared into the ether of adulthood. Luckily, we ended up getting back in contact with one another. Its still been a few years since I have seen her , but she has threatened to drag me to our 10-year high school reunion (which should be coming up in 2005).

Speaking of high school…. Roxanne! I am sorry that I did not take you to the Janet Jackson concert back when we were sophmores! I hope you can forgive me 😉

Also, sorry about taking so long to get that photo you sent to me up on the site.
Here is my 3-picture shrine to Roxanne!

Roxanne as a junior in US history class
Roxanne visiting me during christmas ~1997	Roxanne recently with a tiger cub

I probably have just missed out on a really good job opportunity. 🙁

Monday night I received the following email:

It sounded like a very interesting… almost tailor-made position for me. For those of you who may not know, Spanish and Japanese are my 2nd and 3rd languages of the 4 that I can speak (Mandarin is the 4th). I called Mr. Tanaka (not his real name) the next morning, very eager to find out more about the job and submit my resume for consideration.

I did expect Mr. Tanaka to ask me to converse in Japanese in order for him to gauge my skill. What I did NOT expect was how poorly I understood and responded. It was pretty disheartening, and a little bit embarrassing at the same time. After we were through, Mr. Tanaka thanked me, but did not ask me to submit a resume. I was a little disappointed, but not surprised. My japanese wasn’t up to par enough to be considered for the job. 🙁 …which sucks. I would have performed significantly better were it a spanish conversation (as i’m fluent), but I doubt Mr.Tanaka speaks spanish at all.

Upset about missing out on such a rare oppportunity, I sent Mr. Tanaka an email in an effort to prove that I was at least competent with Japanese… albeit not accustomed to speaking it. (Turns out, I made mistakes in writing that, too).

[ Thanks for my resume.(I meant to say ‘interest in in my resume’, but forgot to put that word in) It is regrettable that I did not understand most of the Japanese speech. In reality it was 2 years ago that I used Japanese. By your reaction the fluency you need is superior to my Japanese. I understood little but learn quickly.] I encourage you to consider me for other future positions. Thanks -kevin

I also attached my resume to the message. This afternoon, i received a reply from Mr. Tanaka:

[ Thank you very much for writing me that email in Japanese. It was difficult, wasn’t it. The differing use is really dreadful, isn’t it? Keep trying , keep studying. Yesterday was fun. ] I know how much it is difficult to master another language… I am having difficulty to improve my English. Anyways, it was quite good to talk to you. I enjoyed the conversation. Regards, MR. TANAKA

And so ends this particular story. If any of you know where I might go to improve my japanese (and mandarin too), then clue me in. Right now it just feels like a useless half-skill 🙁

-kevin

That trip to stone mountain which I tried to organize as a group outing ended up being a meet-up trip to meet up with Liz and Kathryn early Saturday afternoon. Liz was there with some Macon church acquaintances and Kathryn was there to meet with Liz.

I tried earlier (in vain) to plan a trip with a gaggle of friends to visit the park and climb the huge hunk of granite. I sent out emails and invitations about a month in advance, but nevertheless all sorts of problems/excuses started popping up from folks.
I’ll break down the responses/excuses I got from these saboteurs….

IDENTITIES OBSCURED TO PROTECT THE GUILTY

“I’ll be in Jekyll Island for GSU Cheer camp on the 14th. I have a pre-season game on the 28th. I can make it on the 28th as long as it is early and I’ll have to leave by 2pm to get ready for the game.”	“Not sure if —– & I can go either of those days. We’re busy on the 14th – have a wedding to go to. Then, the 28th I think (?) an aunt & uncle are in town. Depending on their plans, we may/may not be able to go. We were maybe gonna have a cookout or something while they were here with other friends & family in the Atlanta area.”
“I hate stone hill (it’s not a mountain)”	“Sorry for the late response, I have had an insanely busy week. Unfortunately, the insanely busy week is followed by an almost insanely busy weekend… -Hopefully, soon, my life will resume normal speed, and I will have spare time again. Though I’ve been saying that for months now. Oh well. Hope you have fun!”
“can’t. i’m in the uk”

To make a long story short, Kathryn ended being the only one to try to arrange a time to go with me. Since Liz already had plans to visit with a group, we ended up coordinating with her. It was a good trip. I got some good exercise, I got to try out my hiking boots (I wouldn’t reccommend climbing stone mtn in sneakers, you will feel every single pebble and piece of gravel through the soles of your shoe), and I got a blueberry icee to cool me off during my descent.
I took a bunch of photos. I will eventually get them up on the site here. However, I haven’t even finished my Six Flags photo gallery yet, so don’t hold your breath.

Liz, Katheryn & company stayed for the laser show, but I decided to come home instead. I didn’t feel like spending the whole day at the park (and also I didn’t want to miss justice league unlimited). I spent the rest of my day working on Nicole’s web site.

Hmm, I wonder what tomorrow will hold?

-kevin

After an impromptu visit to my cousin and aunt out in Vinings, I headed over to Reed’s house to hang out and watch the guys play some poker. Are you interested in some online casino facts? click to view here and enjoy. For more gaming options, try betting utan svensk licens.

I am not much of a poker player but I want to find out more about the game. I know the hands, the odds, and the general strategy of the game, but I’ve always shyed away from gambling ever since that time during freshman year that I taught a girl in the girls’ dorm how to play poker and she talk me about online casino gaming and I learned a lot of good thinks from goodtaste.co.za… after which she promptly ended up taking all of my pennies. I’m not sure whether I was just *that* good a teacher or perhaps it was me that sucked *that bad*… but ever since then I have avoided playing for money.

Such was the case this night. I came over to watch. The world poker tour with the professional players which is currently shown on television bores me. I dont’ know enough about any of the players to care who wins whose money… but I do enjoy the celebrity poker shows. Those games are a lot more friendly (as they are playing for charity), and there is a lot more banter to make the game more interesting. There are also some pretty odd match-ups as far as celebrities go.

My reasons for not buying in at Reed’s was simple. A burning desire to not give any of those punks any of my hard-earned cash. I’m already poor. I don’t need to make myself poorer by gambling it away! There was one table with 6 people playing 5-card hold’em when I got to Reed’s place. Soon after I arrived, Aaron showed up with his friend Neil. Aaron used to run a regular poker game back when he lived in Home Park, close to tech, so I was interested in seeing how he handled himself. Justin and Ryan, playing at the table, were going off about some bull*** “small straight“-hand that they claimed to have seen on TV (a 4-card straight). It sounded like al oad to me. Aaron, Neil, and I cried foul and so the “small straight” was rightfully disallowed at the second table they set up. Neil, Aaron, Reed and Otis played at this 2nd table.

Watching the game was a lot of fun. Otis went lost a few of his chips at the start, but ended up winning the most at that game… especially after his royal flush. Neil was crazy. I could see his cards early on and he was playing hard on weak hands, probably trying to seem unpredictable and cast doubt for later in the game. Poor Aaron played fairly competently, but got slaughtered time and time again by ‘the river’ (the last community card flopped over). Reed in particular won the bulk of his hands by getting lucky on the last card.

I didn’t watch the game on the original table, but it seemed to me that playing conservatively there would net you some chips if you were one of those professional gamblers.

All in all, not a bad night. I actually did put a dollar in to play a ‘for fun’ game with Aaron and Neil after they’d lost. Neil just barely beat me by 1 pair (I had 2-pair 7 high, he had 2-pair 8 high).

The game is supposed to go weekly, but I don’t know how long that will last if folks keep losing their cash :-). For those unfamiliar with the rules, https://www.bestuscasinos.org/legal/california/ has them up on their site in an easy to digest format.

Casino Img from KU.KU777 – Link KU777

-kevin

Earlier today, I unwittingly broke one of my own personal rules:
-Never, EVER, go to the supermarket while you’re hungry.
Why not? Well, *I* shouldn’t go whilst hungry because I invariably end up spending 2-to-3 times more than I originally set out to.
Just this evening I found myself in this very situation. I went across the street to make a Kroger-run after not having eaten anything all day. My plan was to buy tortillas, and maybe some chicken to make quesadillas (should have cost under $10). I came back with cookies, crackers, cheese, chicken, pork, beans, and strawberry milk at a total cost of $25! (In my defense, the butcher *did* give me half-price on the pork, and it is something I never buy…. so I decided to try cooking some).

Yesterday, sitting at home with nothign to do, as I’d finished finished The Wind-Up-Bird Chronicle, (i’ll put up a short review later), I got in the car and headed to Newton Park. I have passed the entrance dozens upon dozens of times, but I had never checked out the facilities. I was pleasantly surprised. It seems to be about the size ofEast Roswell Park, but isn’t a creepily constantly deserted ghost-town like East Roswell Park is. Portions of their soccer fields were closed, but thankfully there was still a large area with soccer goals open for use. I spent about 15 minutes taking left and right footed shots on the kiddie-goal, and then played a pick-up game witha group of mexican fellows that were there.

I ended my evening with a trip to Best Buy to purchase the No Doubt Hit Singles CD, and No Doubt videos DVD (I would have saved ~$10 had i bought them when they came out). This is the first CD I have bought in about 10 years or so. I hope No Doubt is proud of that fact.

In other news:

-kevin

Six Flags was fun. I finally got to ride most of the three new rollercoasters that I missed, or had been built since my trip during the last century (1995, GT student six flags trip during spring of my freshman year). Batman was probably my favorite, with Superman a close second.

The Batman ride pulled the most G’s i’ve ever pulled experienced on a ride. I could feel my vision start to blur for a tiny instant, presumably from blood rushing away from my head on the end of a loop. Superman would have been a LOT better if we’d stuck out the extra 6 minutes in line and waited for a spot at the front. The line for superman took FOREVER, and it was definitely one of the shorter (if not the shortest) ride we went on. We were in the second row of seats for superman, but we did get front row for Batman (also a short ride).

Fortunately, the first 4-5 rides we went on had short, fast moving lines (10 minutes or less). Superman and Thunder River (which I waited for, but did not ride for fear of soaking my digital camera) were about 30 minute waits…. and it wasn’t even a particularly busy day at the park as it was a Wednesday. I’ll make it a point to never visit Six Flags on a weekend if i can help it; all of the lines would probably take at least twice as long.

I haven’t put my photos from the outing online yet, but when I do I will put them here. One bad thing did happen. I think that I lost a spare CF memory card that I’d had in my pocket. I’m not sure if it fell out in the car or at the park. I only paid $15 for it… but it was a 128MB card, so that’s bad. I’ll probably eventually replace it with a 512 card to avoid having to carry around a spare (and possibly losing it) in the future.

-kevin