The Poker Man is Back

Tonight we had a party for some of the staff that were being transferred to Richmond. Most of us got drunk as usual, some more than others. It was great for me because I brought $120 there, had a few beers, bought some drinks for the pretty ladies, and somehow at the end of the night I took home $275!??!

What happened was we had four poker tournaments, and I cashed in on three of them. The first one was $50+$5, and I ended up second for a prize of $150. The second was also $50+$5, and I got third place for $75. The third was a $30+$5 tournament which I managed to win (yay!) and I got $180. I didn't cash in on the last one unfortunately. It was a lot of fun. Hey any time you can get a bit drunk and somehow make money, it can't be all that bad. And now, back to work in 17 hours...

The Dream is Over

My dreams of playing in the World Series of Poker were dashed, as I could only manage 4th place in the last stage of the online tournament. Oh well, maybe next year. Or if somebody wants to lend me $10,000US so I can buy into the tournament directly.

Coffee and Soup?

Busy day today, although technically I really didn't accomplish anything. Michael called me in the morning to play golf, which we did until about 1:30pm. Then I went home for a little nap. At about 5pm the electrician came to fix one of the outlets (the one closest to the fold-down ironing board). Then I had to walk to the casino and attend a "Coffee Talk" session with the Chief Financial Officer of Great Canadian Casinos (7pm-8:15pm). RIGHT afterwards I had an interesting time downtown...

I joined some company called Consumer Research, a focus group company where you test certain things and they pay you for it. They'd called me yesterday saying that they were testing Beef Vegetable Soup tonight so what the heck. As it turned out, it was for a new Subway soup. They gave us four different kinds of Beef Vegetable and we made comments on what we thought. The third one was the rest; the last one tasted like shit. We even got to make comments on different kinds of bowls and lids they wanted to use (something tells me Tiffany would like stuff like this). Anyways I got paid $35 for it. It's cool. If anybody is interested, go to www.consumerresearch.ca and join.

Relief?

A posting has come up at work for Relief Floor Managers again, but only at the River Rock location in Richmond. If I apply and get promoted, that will in all likelihood involve transferring to Richmond. I really like the location that I'm working at now, and there are many reasons why I hesitate to apply. However, opportunities like these don't come every day. I have until May 27 to apply so at least I have a few days to contemplate the matter.

I Suck at Hold'em

Albert, Mei, Lily and I decided to check out the Cascades Casino in Langley after dinner. We got lost but somehow managed to make it there. I proceeded to defy all odds by losing in poker and winning $400 (??) on Texas Shootout, one of the biggest house-advantage games out there. I also made about $30 in slots. But how could I lost $80 in poker? Very strange indeed.

In other news, I realized that Lily is not capable of an intelligent conversation.

Couch Potato Night

Two finales I've been dying to see are tonight: CSI and Apprentice III. CSI is on now (thank goodness for digital TV) and Apprentice on later. Guess I'm not doing anything tonight.

Review of the Sith

What a fun night at work before the movie! I was obviously so excited I was in a terribly good mood at work. I kept telling players "May the Force be with you" and whenever I won (unfortunately), I'd say "The Force is strong with me today". I even signed my cards "Anakin".

Oh the movie. There's nothing like a midnight show with crazy people everywhere, although this time the crowd was a bit more subdued. We cheered at certain parts. The best line came when Anakin just helped Palpatine kill Mace Windu. Anakin yelled something like "What have I done?" and somebody in the audience yelled (much louder) "You just became f*cking Darth Vader!". That was awesome.

Well back to reality. I have to get to bed early as I have a checkup at the doctor's office at 8:30am. Yuk. Be good everyone.

Revenge of the Sith

I bought tickets to the 12:30am showing of THE MOVIE tonight. I'm going to the Granville 7 right after work (which ends at 11pm). I even have a date! I hope it doesn't rain. Now let's see if I have time after I wake up to get a costume or something. Shall I be Anakin Skywalker or shall I be Darth? Hmm...

I'm Back!

I'm finally moved in! Somehow I managed to complete the most gruelling and stressful days of my life yesterday (Sunday). It started as I finished my shift at 6:15am. I got home at around 6:30 and tried to pack a few small boxes of shit. It's amazing how much shit one accumulates in a short time. Anyways, the movers came at 10am. We moved all the big items and some boxes. They finished their part at around 2:30pm. The big sucky thing is that my big sofa won't fit into the living room. There is a little "S" turn to get from the kitchen (where the door is) to the living room, and I can't manoeuver the couch around there. The loveseat fits so now I have to decide what to do. Maybe sell the sofa and loveseat as a set and then buy furniture that matches and fits (Ikea anyone)?

Then I had the undaunting task of moving the small stuff. I didn't realize how hard that would be, especially given my extremely limited time frame. Somehow, someway, I managed to get everything done by 8pm before my appointment with the old landlord to return the keys, etc. Then I got to my new place at around 9pm, in time to take a shower and then change to get ready for another 10:15pm shift.

In order to survive, I bought a triple espresso at work, then bought a can of Red Bull at work and cup of Coke. Then I just drank everything quickly. It was fun to see me alert for about three hours and then slowly deteriorate into a zombie. I didn't want to drink any more caffeine at 3am as I wanted to get a good night's (well good morning's) sleep when I got home.

I managed to totally zonk out for 5 hours before the cable guy came in to hook up my Internet and cable. Right now my muscles are so bloody sore from the previous day. It's like I just completed a marathon or something. I'm not even going to consider to start unpacking. But at least I'm back online.

Ugh

Of course it's going to rain the day I move. What else is new?

Last Night

My last night in my old apartment. The move begins at 10am in the morning. I won't have Internet access for a day (I can live without it) so I will post in a day or so.

The Dream

This month has been so full of ups and downs I don't know where to begin, and I don't know how it will end. I could say I'm having a great month or I could say I'm having a bad month. It all depends on if I think the glass is half empty or half full. I'll go with half full.

As many of you know, I play online poker every so often. I haven't done too much of that lately, as I'm in the middle of my moving, and being so busy at work. But I started participating in a promotion on one of the sites, Tiger Gaming. The promotion is for the World Series of Poker, the Grand Daddy of poker tournaments. It is a 7-level tournament. If you win a Level 1 tournament, you have an entry to Level 2, and so on. You can also buy in to various levels. Level 1 started at a measly $.14; Level 2 is $1.15, Level 3 $5.00, Level 4 $22, Level 5 $215, Level 6 $1500 and Level 7 $2980. The prize is a $10,000 entry into the World Series tournament.

Well, I started at Level 1 and right now I've gone through the first six levels. I've spent about a $1 and now, somehow I'm one tournament away from going to The Big Show. Level 7 is a 5-player tournament, winner takes all. If I win it, I'm going to Vegas. If I don't then the dream is over, but the consolation is it's only cost me $1. It's been a great ride and who knows what the future will be. The Level 7 tournaments are on the weekend so I will probably wait until next week, as this is "Moving Week". My destiny awaits me once again.

Girl Power?

Let's just do a quick Apprentice III post as I'm not in the mood to say much. It looks like it's time for the girls to show their stuff. And to tell you the truth, none of the candidates this season were exceptional enough, and overall the season was rather boring. But since I'm addicted to the show I'll have to watch to see who gets to be THE APPRENTICE this year.

Strange Night at Poker

It was a strange night at the casino. I only won three hands in three hours at the poker table, but somehow managed to make $40. I was lucky because my pocket 7's were severely beaten before the flop (somebody had 9-9, somebody else had K-K), but the flop was the beautiful 2-3-7.

Saturday will be golf day with Michael, since I have Friday and Saturday off this week because of the customer service seminar. I'll talk more about that later. Meanwhile I'm heading to bed early. Hope everybody is well.

Short Week

And now the fun begins. After one more day at work, it's two full days at the seminar on Wednesday and Thursday. I really don't know what to expect but it'll be a welcome change from all those graveyard shifts. I just hope I'll be able to relay what I've learned to the staff. I can sense that this is a good test for an upcoming promotion to floor manager. We shall see.

Nothing in Particular

It's 2:30 in the morning and I'm wide awake, so I'm going to just start typing here and see where it leads me. Grab yourself a cup of your favorite beverage and/or snack and enjoy.

I'm 50% relieved that I found a really nice basement suite to live in. It's a wee bit more than I probably can afford, but the area is nice and the landlords are great. If anybody cares (and I certainly don't), they are a same-sex couple with two children (Abby aged 4 and Dane aged 22 months). Both children are so cute (then again, aren't all children cute?). The landlords (Tracy and Janet) were concerned that the kids would make too much noise, considering my graveyard shifts and that I would be sleeping during the day. But I convinced them that it wouldn't be a problem. And I really don't think it will be. I look forward to sitting out on the porch enjoying the great summer weather (hopefully).

I'm 50% worried about my impending living arrangements after May 8. I was silly enough to give notice for May 1 not knowing that the place I found wouldn't be ready until June 1. But luckily the current tenants at my new place will probably be moving out earlier so the place may be ready the second week of May. I still may have a problem though. Friends have offered to temporarily house me, but it's my furniture and shit that needs to be stored somewhere. I'll look into temporary storage, but what sucks is that I'll probably have to hire a moving company TWICE, both to move into temporary storage and then move out of there into my new place. Oh well, that's life. Perhaps my current landlord might be able to let me stay a while longer. To be continued.

Work has been quite hectic. I've felt a lot of stress lately (exacerbated by my apartment search) in many areas. I feel a lot of coworkers are not doing their job and have gotten lazy. They also expect other people (like me) to do things for them. Why don't they just take care of the problems themselves instead of calling me to call whoever they are supposed to call themselves (know what I mean?)? It's true what they say "trust no one".

Next week (April 27-28) I'll be attending the training seminar with two colleagues (Chap Wing and Lubna) for the customer service and supervisory training "courses" that I in turn must teach to the casino staff. This is a big project for the casino, and an equally big project for me. I have no idea what the course entails, so hopefully I'll be able to do a good job.

Anna...Anna...Anna... strange but I feel that a little flame still flickers for her. There's just something about her, but unfortunately she is seeing someone, and I have learned NEVER to pursue someone who is attached. And so I must only admire her from afar. But if they break up....

Lily...Lily...Lily... I'm not sure what happened last week, but I am really pissed off at her (and Mei too). I don't want to get into it, but suffice to say that women can be incredible nags and whiners sometimes. They say things without really thinking about it. She said things which were pretty hurtful, even though she thought she was just "joking". As a result, we did not have our usual Thursday lunch. And next week's lunch won't happen because of my course. To be honest, I could care less.

And so, there is my rambling for now. I'm tired of typing and so I will rest. I hope all is well with everyone (if anyone is actually reading this). Sam, Elaine, Tiff, Be.... May the Force be with you, always.

Apprentice III

Gosh, that Carolyn is nasty. I like her.

The Search (for an Apartment) is Over

The place is mine, so now the undaunting task of packing and moving begins. There's still a minor little problem concerning mid-May that I have to deal with. I'll need temporary accommodations and somewhere to put my stuff until the new place is ready.

But at least I've dealt with #1 on my major priority list. Here comes #2 (car).

Home Sweet Home

It appears as though I've found a new place to live. It's a bit of a walk to work compared to where I am now, but it is a really nice basement suite with incredibly nice landlords. They are just calling my references so hopefully everything goes well. More details to follow.

Women

I really can't understand them sometimes. They can be the most insensitive people sometimes. They speak without thinking and when you try to explain something, they don't understand.

There's my sexist comment of the week.