Challenge Match 1 vs. Jake "Phenominal 1" Knight: NL Hold'Em

Will post updates regularly...this is a live game, so don't try to find me playing this online.
5:13 PM: Match starts. Deep-stacked...5/10 starting blinds with 10,000 in chips. Going to be a long battle.
5:20 PM: HangukMiguk down to 3825 on a huge bluff with an open-ended straight draw on the board. Phenominal called with middle two pair. Phenominal had to make an emergency run to pick up someone, on break until further notice.
6:03 PM: Game resumes.
6:07 PM: Hanguk up to 4620.
6:08 PM: Phenominal 1 wins. Full house vs. Hanguk's flush draw.

Starting PL Omaha challenge.

Year In Review - 2005

Well, now, let's just say that this year was quite interesting. Interesting enough in fact, that I have, for the first time, decided to dedicate a blog about this year. So here we go. Put your tinfoil hats on.

January? Nothing happened January! Especially not...well, I won't go there! Needless to say, my nipples looked too much like milk duds to do anything in January.

However, February provided quite an amusing experience. I'll never be able to forget, nor will anyone let me forget, the night of Lazer Tag. With the black kid. Who called me nigga. And screamed at me, "I'M A SHOOT YOU NIGGA!" And sure enough, he shot me, to which he yelled out, "HA! I SHOT YOU NIGGA!"

The day after, Sam, Jake & I was driving home, and after 5 minutes of awkward silence, Sam exclaims with a laugh, "HE CALLED YOU NIGGER!"

Yes, that goes down in the memory books.

Or how about that exact same trip when Jake's gf called, and Sam started in on the Power Rangers? GO GO POWER RANGERS! And a whole lot of homosexual things going on with Zordon and Alpha 5...ew. But funny.

AND ON THE SAME TRIP, Sam, Jake & I went to Hooters, with Sam wearing sunglasses and pretending he was blind.

I'll never forget the dialog...

Waitress: How you today, guys?

Sam: Bad.

Waitress: Aw, why?

Sam: Well...I'm blind.

Wow...that was just classic.

Speaking of Hooters...In June we ran into a rarity, an Asian woman working at hooters. Who woulda thunk it? Ironically, there was zero Asian women working at PF Changs. Go figure.

And now, the reason why White Castle is so lovingly referred to as Greasy White Whores. They whored my body off for a while. Sad, but true.

Well, then the tabloids came out, and supposedly, me and Jake went down on Fast Freddy:

And got high with Big Al:

But Big Al condoned it, so it's all okay:

Oh yeah, and I finally made money. YAY MOOLAH! Ew... I did do both though...wait...ew...ok cut it o--....

Rough weekend

Wow, just when I thought things couldn't get more crazier.

This weekend was just rough. Jake & I just kept butting heads...on stupid crap.

I just don't get it. Stuff I'd normally just confront people about I completely blew up over. Am I getting back to the point where I can't control myself anymore?

Just great...

Break my balls, I need a pencil

Right now, if there was one thing I could do, I would make myself absolutely have no feelings for the opposite sex. No, I wouldn't make myself gay. This isn't a struggle with my sexuality, so don't insinuate that into what I'm saying.

It's a struggle with women. Blame it on their complex emotional states, blame it on the princess complex, blame it on whatever you want. But I'm absolutely frustrated with women right now.

I mean, even after a straightening out of the circumstances that I have found myself in, I still feel a little frustrated. I put on music to try to calm me down. Right now, my arms are still shaky.

But seriously, had I not cared so much for this girl, and had she not been a girl, and if I wasn't a Christian, I probably would've just exploded. Thank God I'm not as volatile as I once was. If that were the case, I would not have any friends, and people even want to notice me of the opposite sex, and I would be jumping poker tables upon bad beats. Praise Jesus I can control that.

But seriously, I am just so frustrated. I finally cleared the air of a lot of things that needed to be said. Thankfully, I was able to calm down and say this stuff, and say it without anger.

But like I said, even after clearing the air, and hearing both sides of the story, I just feel so frustrated. I'm just trying to gain footing here. I'm starting to, and hopefully I won't lose my footing anywhere along the line.

And I didn't want to have to have this discussion right now. I didn't feel like this was the right time. But you know what? Sometimes the circumstances, and God, force you to do things at that exact that moment, and not when you think it's the right time. This was one of those times.

But yeah, I know I'm being very vague, but at the time, I can't really go into absolute detail. I have a feeling one day down the line I'll be able to. But not now. But when things hit the fan like this, and you get slammed with a statement like this, you would get frustrated too.

Obviously, there's nothing good that comes out of waking up before 7 AM. That time of day is seriously ungodly.

I feel so very Emo today.

Mr. "King of the Hill"

So, tonight's AJPoker's 4th league game. Due to lack of sleep, I didn't participate last week, and I'm slipping in points. That's balls. Ok, so it's time to knock this one off, and get over the hump.

Unfortunately, there's one guy that things he's king of the hill. Or hump. And every week, every game at AJ, he ends up at my table, and every time, he busts me. Not just that. He adds insult to injury and busts me with crap hands.

It's happened on Absolute, on Paradise, on Titan. It never fails.

Take tonight's hand for example. I raise 4 times BB with JJ, and he calls out of the big blind. Follow my heavy protection after the flop that comes 589, he pushes all-in on the turn when a 6 comes. I sit and think, and think there's no way i'm beat here. I had put him on A9, A8 maybe. Like I said, he plays junk, and lots of weak Aces. So I call. Turns up 78o! And I'm hoping for a spade, with my flush draw, and miss. Once again, busted by this guy.

I know it's a part of the game. And I can shrug it off, and say nice hand. But it seems like now my one obstacle for winning an AJ game is busting this guy. Which drives me nuts.

Time to focus. I'm gaining plenty of info on this guy. I know I can bust him 9 times out of 10, especially with the cards he plays. I just find it hilarious that he's busted me so many times. Next time, he'll rue. I've got a solid enough read now that I won't be suckered in by him anymore.

Bust him, and I'm taking #1 baby.

Busting Negreanu: Priceless

Well, I don't have a lot of time for details, but man, am I feeling pretty pimp right now.

So, finally I catch Daniel Negreanu setting up a SNG on FCP before registration closes. He also puts a bounty on him of a autographed FCP T-Shirt. Not bad. So I sign up, ready to play. Of course, he's in a hurry to go pick up his wife, so he sets it to turbo mode. Bad, Daniel. I digress.

Seatings drawn, and we're 4 handed, and there's the man of the hour at my table. Yay, here's my shot.

So on the last hand of the first level, Daniel gets dropped to about 50 chips when his top pair gets outkicked. And on the very next hand, he's in the SB, and I'm UTG with pocket jacks. Yes, this could be payoff. Raise standard, and he moves in, and all of a sudden, the BB raises me?!?! Something told me I was ahead, I really didn't put him on the three hands that could beat me, so I just move all-in, and if he could've beat me into the pot, he would've.

BB turns up pocket tens, and Daniel turns up J3s. Wow, I couldn't be in better shape. Well, I could've; Daniel couldn't have made my outs cased. So, if BB catches a ten, I'm almost drawing dead, and Daniel's literally drawing dead (save some diamonds). Flop comes blanks. Just hold up. Turn's a blank. One more, just hold up. River BLANK! I bust both of them and grab my bounty.

Would've been a whole lot more satisfying had I have been able to outplay him (yeah, right) post-flop, but I'll take that win!

I can still say I busted Daniel Negreanu. Fun times. Now to recoop a little bit of money I lost in these SNG's tonight (yeah, these multi table SNG's kill me!)...tomorrow.

High Pressure SNG: Feel Good Win

So, with the addition of a poker room on FullContactPoker, everyone around Negreanu's camp's been abuzz.

Well, this afternoon, I got off the phone with my mom to pull up the forums and see that Daniel had set up a private sit-n-go for all comers. Unfortunately, I was a few minutes too late, and only got to watch. Oh well, he's supposedly gonna be on tomorrow, so I get my chance to bust him soon.

Well, after I watched that one, a few guys from FCP forums wanted another private SNG. So, one got set up, and we played.

Granted, this was only a $5+.50 SNG, so it wasn't a huge dent on any of us really. But I hadn't played any of these guys (knowingly).

So here was the set up

1. Some guy I didn't know
2. Suited_Up
3. Me!
4. BetterBo
5. Governator
6. Zimmer4141

Now I know the 411 on the guys I'm playing against. Zimm's a red hot player, and just won the SNG with Daniel. I also have a lot of respect for Suited and Gov. Bo, I don't know too much about.

Barring the players I didn't know, or didn't know much about, I felt like I was probably the weak link at the table.

So all-in-all, I felt like I had a small shot here. But, playing solid, and keeping my confidence, I felt like I could accomplish all.

I started off low stacked, after my pockets 6's ran up against what I think was Zimmer's KQ. I can't tell you for certain whether or not it was KQ. But that was my read, and it was a scary flop of AK5. After I bet and he check/called the flop, that's what I felt. His bet on the river pushed me out.

Later on, Zimm and I were at it again. I catch a King on the flop with K8 (as most know, my lucky hand), bet 300 out and he calls. turn comes a Jack, and I move all-in, feeling as I was ahead. I had no read to go on here, I just felt it. And all of a sudden he says in chat, "I have to call this." I feel so screwed right now. He had to have me outkicked with a king on the flop. He then says, "I know I'm behind, but I can't lay this down." Ok, I may have a shot.

He calls, and turns up KRABLAR! Oh man, I was ecstatic. No 3 materialized, and I double up, and leave Zimm crippled. No pinch pinch for you.

A couple of knockouts later, we're now 3 handed, 2 cash. I have maintained second or third steadily since doubling up through Zimmer. And I get J8 in the big blind, and it's just me and Suited, where he limps.

Flop comes QJ3. I bet out, he raised, and I moved all-in. He turns up KRABLAR! WTF?! I was laughing, and as no king or 3 turned up, I knocked him out, giving me about 4:1 chip lead against Governator, who had been sitting out for most of the game due to his dog. Well, he's back and ready to play.

Only a few hands into this, I get A5, and catch middle pair on a flip of 538 (I think it was, but I know it was middle pair). I bet enough to put him all-in (1930), and he calls, and turns up two hearts. No hearts fall, and I emerge victorious!

All I could say was wow. That was a win that gave me a lot of confidence. These were some of the more respected members of FCP. And definitely better respected than me. And I felt like I handled them well. I was catching, and was reading pretty good here. Definitely the most exciting SNG I've played, even if it was only 5.50 to play.

PokerForumChallenge V: I feel rather satisfied

Yeah, I failed to post this on the night of the game. But yeah, Friday night was the PFC. And boy was I psyched. But earlier in the day, I was afraid I would not be at 100% to play. And well, as I have posted earlier, this would continue a long standing tradition.

The day before the PFC, I get an e-mail from Hyunsil, one of my best friends in the whole world, who also lives in Korea...halfway around the world from myself. She needed help with a report she was doing for her American Culture class. Well, I had told her that if she ever needed any help, to let me know, and I didn't let her down. She later, at about 10PM my time, sends me the questions to work on, and then tells me that she would be able to be online again at 6AM my time to run through what I had written and make sure it's what she needed.

Like I said, it's 10PM. I'm figuring I can get this done by midnight, get some sleep, and wake up to talk to her at 6.

At 3AM, I finally get the questions done. And have caught a second wind. Perfect! Just perfect. So now, I know beyond any doubt that I'd be much better off staying awake till 6, staying awake till we're done, and then sleep.

So at 6, just like she promised, here she is, and we get everything ran over. Well, then we got talking about various other things, as we hadn't gotten a chance to talk in about a week or so. The huge time difference, on top of her not bringing her computer to college with her, kind of hinders that. I need to get a phone card and call her sometime, but hey, that's another story.

At 8 or 9, she has to go, and I desperately need sleep! I finally fall asleep at 10, knowing at 8, the tournament starts.

I finally wake up at about 5:30, but would've slept longer had it not have been for the tournament. I put a pot of coffee on, because I knew I needed it. And then hopped in AJPoker's chat room and talked with the crew that was playing tonight.

My buddy Jingo & I were both on the same page pretty much, as he had to sleep during the day also, because he received a surprise phone call from a friend in Iraq. But all in all, we were both ready. I had been at a place where my focus has been at the highest it's been in a while, on top of that I was running good. In the first one, I had slept through the first 3 levels, caught cards, but had no focus. In the second one I played, I was running horribly, but had a dead read on everyone. So this would be the first one I'd go into having both.

As the PFC started, I was psyched. I played rather tight at the start, but still, when I was in the pot, I knew where I stood, and whether I could steal the pot. That kept myself hovering around the average for the first 3 levels. Then, comes the breaking point.

I started really catching. And my focus was still dead on. Knocking out players left and right. Then comes one of the funny hands of the tournament.

I'm sitting in the BB with 94o. Everyone limps to me, and I check. Flop comes x99. I lead out and bet, and see a smaller stack just in front of me push all-in. Two callers, so I decide to isolate and move everyone else all-in. One caller, and I have the best of it. Dropping two in one hand, I check the lobby, and I am now the chipleader with 600 left (after starting with 2000). The first caller then starts needling me about being a crap player. Well, that's what you get when you let me see the flop for free with crap hands!

Upon review, he apologized, forgetting that I was in the BB. Much respect for that. It happens.

At the first break, I hold the cheap lead with under 500 left. I felt pretty safe, but in this no one is.

I wind up shortstacked at 10K with under 200 left and get dealt Q4s in the BB with the blinds at 500/1000. Button raises to 3000, and normally I would fold. However, I felt I had a read that told me that he was just playing position to steal the blinds, as he had been doing anyway. So I push all-in, thinking he'll fold, and I could still back in to something if he did call. Well he did, unfortunately he shows AKo. Bad misread. And I get teased. Flop an inside straight draw on the flop, giving me a chance to hit a 3, 4 or a Queen to scoop, and miss all outs on the river. Thus, ending my run in 176th.

PFC III: 800-something
PFC IV: 1200-something
PFC V: 176th

Not bad? No cash. But I felt very satisfied. In a normal tournament situation, I would've cashed. However, this being a freeroll, with a weird pay schedule, I don't. All-in-all, I usually don't have total faith in myself in a large field. I need to work on that, but I just never do. But I started to gain some faith after this game. I was holding my own, something I love doing, and really felt like I played some of the best poker I have played in a long time. Very sweet.

For the record, JohnJr never showed. Clown!

The hump part 2

Well, I've had two more chances this week to get over the hump at AJPoker. One game at Absolute, and the other in the league at Paradise.

Last night at Absolute, the deck was completely spitting at me. I could not catch a hand to save my life. So yeah, that one wasn't good.

However, tonight should've been my night. I was playing well, and catching at the same time.

One hand, I had been playing tight, so I decided to use my image in my advantage. I raise standard with Q3 suited in spades. I get 3 calls. Flop comes J86, two spades. One of the callers leads out with 400, and immediately I put him on a pair of jacks. So I decide to make his decision really, really difficult, and move all-in, thinking he'll fold, and if he calls, I have a 48% chance to catch the turn or river to scoop. He quickly calls with J7o, and I'm waiting for the spade or the queen to come to give me a win. Turn comes a spade, and the river a Seven, and I double up, and cripple him. Needless to say, I didn't mix it up after that hand on that table, because the chances of me getting called would've been high.

Unfortunately, I made a terrible error after the second break, when some stupid MIS moves all-in UTG. My first instinct was that he was a donk with Aces, but I'm holding AK, and convince myself into thinking he has a medium pair or AQ. I'm in this tournament to win it. Even though he has me covered, I have to take this chance and accumulate more chips to win this. So I call, and he turns up...ACES! Should've gone with A. I don't improve, and I'm out in 28th.

Well, after that, I head over to Stars and play a SNG. Been a while since I did that. Started out not doing too well, then as always, turned up the heat, and quickly got the chip lead. Unfortunately, I went into heads up at a 3:1 chip disadvantage, and got busted. Oh well, I took an extra $8 for my efforts. Which is more than what AJ's first place was tonight.

I still want an AJ win though.

Neteller Joys

Well, finally, on Monday, Neteller has been active.

I go to the SSA, and ask for (in a raspy voice, as I was deathly ill) a Third Party Verification form. Then I have to go through the lady at the desk saying, "Are you sure?" 150 times. After the 4th or so time of me saying yes, I'm pretty sure that means I'm sure. Well, she finally gives me something, and we head out.

Get to Kinko's and fax off the form, then head home to see if it's working.

Not working.

An hour later?

Not working.

So, I finally call Neteller again, and they needed a phone confirmation...why did they not tell me about this?! Oh well, it works now.

I just got my $84 from picking Mike Matusow for the WSOP Main Event...and got into HoldemPoker.com for their $5,000 Thanksgiving freeroll. Sweet!

Break the Silence...

I finally am hoping it's gone. Hopefully it is.

Anyway, here's the lowdown. Around my former local area, it was common knowledge that I wrote songs, a lot. I would write whenever I could and had to carry a notebook no matter where I went. You could actually see me in church: one moment, I'd be completely attentive to the goings on in whatever was happening during service, the next moment, you'd see me sitting down with my notebook writing. Also carried everywhere I went was a green binder with all my songs typed out. With my band practices, you never know when it would be needed.

So, I had written so much, and I loved it. And I was prophesied over that it was one of my greateset gifts, that I had been blessed with that talent. And I was proud of it. Maybe a little too proud.

In April of 2004, I wrote one of my last songs. I didn't make that conscious decision. Just all of a sudden, I couldn't think of anything to write. I would get ideas, and they'd just fall dead. Maybe it was my pride. Maybe it was that my head wasn't straight, or maybe even my heart. But something wasn't right.

I became worried. I fell deeply in depression, wondering why this gift had abandoned me.

Last night, I finally did something I hadn't done when feeling emotional in a long time. I wrote a song. It came back naturally, and it was one of the best feelings in the world. I'm hoping there's more to follow.

But all in all, I don't know what stopped it, but I know what restarted it. I guess it goes to show that there's a season for everything.

The hump

And no, I'm not talking about my lovely lady lumps. I don't even think I have those. *looks down shirt* NOPE!

Two weeks back, I was watching the Colts/Pats game on Mondy Night Football. The pregame talked about Manning's inability to get over the hump, the one obstacle that always plagued him. That was Tom Brady & the Pats. And they always say, once you get over that hump, it is no longer an obstacle, and you do much better.

Well, I'm at my hump. I've been at my hump for a long time, I just haven't realized it really.

I started playing private games at AJPoker in March. The first game I played in, I made it to the final table, and made it on the bubble to cash (5 cashed, I was 6th). The very next time I played at AJ, I made it to the final table again, and finished 8th, cashing on Absolute Poker.

Since then, I have made the final table 6 more times, and have yet to win it. I have cashed about 20 times on there. Yet, the one thing eluding me is to win a private game.

Well, tonight was the start of Season 5 of their league. I qualified for the finals 3 out of the 4 leagues (and the one league I didn't qualify for, I didn't play in). So, I'm going into this with almost a certainty that I will make it to the finals again.

So, I set up for Paradise, and I'm ready to play. I was dangling as a short stack for a while, then finally built up my chips to about 2600. Some move-in specialist moves in on me. I'm sitting on AQs in spades. There is 3 hands away before the break, and I figure, if I go out, I might as well go out before break, and save me some time. I also thought he had a middle pair, and I was going to be at a coinflip, so I call.

He turns up AQs in HEARTS. All I'm thinking is, "NOT ANOTHER SPLIT," as this was looking to be the 5th split I had seen at this table. Then the almost unthinkable happens: the flop brings two spades. Now I'm feeling teased, but the flirt delivered with a spade on the turn. Unreal, now I'm sitting in 8th with 30 something left.

I sat on that for a while, and made it to the final table. Jingo joined me. I think this goes to show that skill ends up paying out in the long run, as me and Jingo, as well as other regulars (sorry if I left you out), often make it to the top of the heat in these things. So, once again, I'm poised to post a win finally. One problem, I wound up getting chipped off, and getting shortstacked. So, on one hand, I make a move with K9 suited in spades. Two callers, and the flop comes ATx, two spades. Now I'm thinking I'm gonna triple up. Turn comes an Ace, but I'm still optomistic that if a spade or maybe even a king comes up, I triple up. But then I see the two callers get their money all-in. Now I'm out the door. Sure enough, one shows AT, and I'm out the door.

I cashed again. But, out of 9 final tables, and 21 cashes, I have yet to win a game here. Once again, I will state this. I'm at the hump. I'm trying not think about it, cause it's like quicksand. The more you try to fight it, the deeper in over your head you get. I know I'll get over this, I'm (and I hate to sound so cocky, but) too good not to get over this hump. I've won other places, so it's only a matter of time before I win an AJ game.

I have no idea what I'll do to celebrate it. Splooge, I guess.

Neteller Woes

Well, when I won my first freeroll online, I instantly wanted to cash it out, and put it at a better site. Well, to do that, I figured I'd have to have the verification call, since I had never deposited on Neteller. And, I was up here in Indianapolis; I had registered my phone # in Illinois. So I called Neteller to change my number before I transferred. "Well, we can't do that, just register a new account with your new address and phone number." Idiot. Doing that froze both accounts; I mean, I have two addresses, but I can't have two Social Security Numbers. So now, because of some idiot's mistake, I had to go to Anderson to have my Social Security Number verified.

Well, I was starting to tear up on the sites I had money on, and I didn't see the need to get it verified yet. Until I got involved in a player staking program, where they need Neteller to transfer my stake money to. Now's the time to do it, especially after they e-mail me saying if I don't get it verified, they're taking me off the list and sending my money elsewhere.

So I get over to Anderson yesterday, which took a brief miracle to find, and get up to the doors. CLOSED! Just 30 minutes before we got there!

So, we were going to go over there this morning, but I woke up sick, and didn't wanna go.

So hopefully, there will still be money for me Monday. Then I'll have it...hopefully.

Other than that rant, I've just been reading poker lit, trying to get my game higher. Super/System2 is finally being read. Loving it so far. Loved Negreanu's Triple Draw section. Maybe I might actually turn up a profit at UB next time. And then I just got halfway through reading Caro's tips. Amazing read. Most of this stuff is pretty obvious, just some of it hadn't been as obvious to me.

Regardless, I'm getting a lot out of it. Sadly, they cut Razz out of the book (looks like I'll be picking up SS1 sometime to read through that). But, more tips in Omaha, a lot of them I already known, but surely I can learn more from Berman. And perhaps I'll finish off the NLHE section later.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Bird Flu Hits Anaheim, CA

WATCH OUT!

Negreanu Open

Well...needless to say, I was pumped to play this one. I only got a few key hands, but played pretty solid through most of it.

Here comes critical pot #1: UTG raises (with the blinds 10/20) to 85. I re-raise 2 people away with to 250 with pocket queens, and UTG calls. Flop comes 6-T-2, two spades. UTG checked, and I bet 400, trying to knock him off what may be a draw. He delays, then RAISES 400 MORE! I jam my last 295 in, and he has to calls. He turns up...AK, both diamonds! Oh man, I coudln't be in a better position!. Two blanks doubles me up.

I get moved a couple times when I made a mistake...I think. With the Blinds 50/100, CO2 limps in. I raise on the button with K9s. Everyone folds back to CO2, who calls. Flop comes QJT, 2 hearts. He bets 300, and I raise 450 more. He then moves. At this point, if he's limping, I swear he doesn't got AK, so I call. Man, was I wrong. He turns up AK. And now I'm short stacked.

I end up jamming three times, with pocket 5s, all fold, A3s, all fold, and then get called with pocket 2s by EIGHT SIX OFF! WTF?! River comes a 6 and I'm out in 78th.

Now that just sucked. But it was a refreshing experience. I'll hopefully be back next week, to perform twice as good.

Preparing for the Poker Forum Challenge - Part 1

So, after Thursday night's total joke of a performance, I knew what it was time for. It was time for me to take a break from the tables, as it had become apparent to me that both:

A) I was not catching like I should.
B) I was playing like an absolute donk.

So, a little breather can only help. I spent my time on other endeavors. Part of it was poker-related. I installed WINE on my Linux desktop, trying to get my Poker clients up in Linux, so I wouldn't have to deal with Windows anymore. PokerStars & AP was a success, everything else failed. So I'm gonna have to either work on them, or shell out for VMWare.

My first venture back to the tables came Monday night, when Jake, his little brother Caleb, and I, played some hold'em...at stakes they could afford to lose...$0.15 buy-in tournaments.

The first game, I completely outplayed them. I have had so much shorthanded experience that it isn't funny. Granted, I'm not the best at it, but I feel my shorthanded NLHE game is incredible. There was probably one hand that first game that I sat out on, and spent my time completely outplaying them on the flop. Took Jake out first, and then I finally get the chance to take Caleb on heads up. Once again, dominating him on the flop, and letting himself dig holes for himself. I was playing so many different starting hands, that they had a hard time putting a read on me. Up $0.30

Second game, Jake took an early chip lead by taking Caleb out within 5 hands, leaving me heads up against him at a 3:1 chip disadvantage. I head him off for a long time, but used his chip lead very aggressively, and would come over the top of me after almost every post-flop raise I would make. At that point, I knew I was either going to have to catch a hand on the flop and try to get him to put his money in against me, or go big or go home pre-flop.

Eventually, I came almost to even money with him, but it was not enough. He continued to play the same strategy. After trying to bluff him out with a double gut buster on the flop, he called with two-pair. I improved on the turn with a flush draw, not to mention perhaps a pair to give me a shot for a higher two pair or a set. Unfortunately, nothing materialized, and he picked up the win.

I ended the night up a whopping $0.15. Yeah, book the cruise. But it was a good practice game. Gave me a little time to adjust to two different amateur styles of play, which I'm going to need come Dec. 3.

As you all should know, the fifth Poker Forum Challenge will be at Royal Vegas Poker on that day. It's time to start getting my focus on for this one. I slept through the first 3 levels in the first one I played with, and caught dry in the fourth one, and would like a little redemption this time around. It's gonna be tough with the bizarre structure of this tournament. Blinds double every 10 minutes. When it comes to about 60 away from the money, it becomes a short stack convention. Gonna have to practice a lot of different strategies quickly and get ready for this.

As a lot of you have read below, AJPoker.com had an altercation between TCPokerCommunity.com in the last PFC, and me more speicifically with a member of their forums named "JohnJr." I've laughed off this clown dodging me, but I still want redemption. I think the ones of us who was there all do. All in all, I'm waiting to see the seats, and actually hoping to get JohnJr at my table. If I can't earn his respect, I'll steal it from him with every chip I take from him.

Well, tomorrow night will be the Negreanu Open on Stars. I have been waiting for an opportunity to play this event, and finally get the chance to do it tonight. It wasn't for a lack of a bankroll on Stars, just a timing conflict on my part. I had registered several times, and had to unregister because something had come up. Not now. I'm ready for this. Can't wait to see my name at the top of the results. Plus, that $300+- dollars would look pretty shiny in my Stars account.

Until then, keep it real.

En memoria de Eddie Guerrero

1967-2005

Vaya con Dios, Eddie. Le veré en cielo. ¡Gracias por las memorias!

Between SBC & Linksys, there has to be a brain...

...somewhere, deep down inside, there just HAS to be!

Wow, what a frustrating evening. So I'm up here, and Jake has consistently had problems with his new wireless router. Every five hours, it loses internet connectivity. Weird, when I set up Alice's router, this never happened. Well, Linksys gave him the runaround, and he knows the minimal about this kind of stuff. So, I figured I'd give it a shot, especially after the third or so time today of resetting the Router.

So I check the properties on the Router, and kind of have a feeling what the problem is. His DNS's are blank on the router; that's a definite no-no with DSL. Same with the Domain. Ok, domain's a given: sbcglobal.net. But now, just to make sure, let's go to Linksys myself and talk to them, cause I know what to ask and how to ask it so I don't get taken for an idiot.

Well, after a short chat, they tell me: "We cannot help you any further. Please contact your Internet Service Provide for more assistance." AHA! So it IS the DNS! Well that's easy. Let's head over to SBC and ask for...WHAT?!

SBC tells me it's not their problem and to contact Linksys. Hey, too bad, already been there, you're gonna help me. "Well, if the DSL works without the router, then it's not our problem."

OF COURSE IT'S YOUR PROBLEM! YOU HAVE THE DNS INFO I NEED! WHAT?! AM I SUPPOSED BE A GREAT MAGICIAN AND MAKE MY OWN DNS?!

"We can help you set up your Router's DNS service. Here's the DNS info you need."

Ok, so, apparently, if I hadn't known what was missing from the router, hadn't known that it works perfectly still connected just with the DSL modem, and hadn't known what a DNS was, no one was gonna help me?!

I swear to God, Tech Supports are put there just to confuse people who aren't in the know. Any tech support guys reading this: come clean, are you paid to give the minimum? If so, just go to 1-800-SAFE-AUTO. Maybe you actually work there, do what you do, and HELP PEOPLE!

There's my rant for tonight. Gotta get up in the morning to call and remind Mom to drop off my bass, and my power supply for my computer with Carol so I can strum and get my Linux box working again.

Absolut Frustration

Is it just me, or does everyone automatically assume that the only way they can win now is with Stall?

Well, that's what it seems like.

Wednesday night, I get home to an offer to play an SS3 Afterburn game on apprentice. I load up my Edge Army deck and am prepared to play. HE pulls up The Rock.

2 hours later...I'm pulling my hair out wishing he'd just do something. He gets around my Strap with Vince, and gets around my ability and Old School Psychs with I can't Be Reading this right. About 70% of his turns consisted of him getting those back in his hand and nothing else. I didn't care who won, I was just glad it was over.

Today, I play an UF Afterburn game. I play my Gail & Molly deck versus Christy. Great, inferno match, and then he takes over an old school psych with the old switcheroo.

I had 40 F by the end of the game. He had EIGHT! And he was still beating me. Action, overturn one or two, and then shuffle in 3-5. oh for God sake! I play something, REVERSAL. And no matter what, if I had him down to 1 card in hand, I had no chains. If he had more than 3 cards in hand, I'd have one, and he'd have a reversal. It was annoying. On top of that, I lost my Bald to a Skirt, so I could YFH my ability to get something rolling. It was pathetic.

If someone starts going with another stall deck on me on apprentice this week...I'm gonna scream, and jump out the basement window.

I'm finally back

Well...it took me a while, but I'm back to posting on here. I finally did a long overdue overhaul of my blogs, and got rid of the generic template. I think this looks very very sexy.

Also, I finally started updating Josh In The Ghetto again! Of course, the update of that got hindered by me helping Caleb out with a comic for his science class. Of course, this involves Josh In The Ghetto characters. So we know who's to blame if it fails him.

So I'm back up in Indianapolis. Looks like to say. It's bittersweet. I miss my mom and my cats, but what can I do? I hate Southern Illinois. It's pathetic. And I'm nothing but depressed there.

At least here I feel like I'm doing something. So that helps.

I also just posted up all my blogs from Xanga up on this one. Why? I don't know. Just because I think it'll be easier to look at later than trying to remember all my old blog sites.

But yeah, that's about it. See you all later.

So I'm not the only idiot out there...

Just found this deck on TCO


Just a few months ago, I built Torrie Ask Yourself, with 10 Hello, Ladies. It was quite funny when my opponent realized what I was doing. He cried.

Randomness, YAY!

Well, I get up today and decide it's time to start flexing my muscles again. So I hit my sites and try to find out what's going down.

First site I pull up is PokerHost. They usually have some kind of Freeroll going, and I've been trying to get money there, so I decide to try to hit one. And as I'm looking through, I realize I'm in luck, as there is a 7-Card Stud Freeroll registering. At least I thought I was in luck.

I sat through 4 levels and didn't hit a single winning showdown. It was totally pathetic. I was playing great, but the cards were not there. I'd start out with a great hand, and never improve. Or I'd improve, and get drawn out on. I wound up pushing all-in with 3K3 and, again, didn't improve.

Next stop was Full Tilt Poker. Nothing really happening tournament wise, so I decide to play some .05/.10 PL Omaha. I would up getting stuck 4 bucks in that one within 15 minutes. Once again, I was getting good cards, but they simply were not holding up.

So I shimmy from there to the .25/.50 Razz table, where I'm a fixture. In the first half of my session, I caught no good cards. Then, I started catching great starting hands, and watched them dissolve into crap in no time flat. Or someone would catch the cooler on me. I was starting to get frustrated, and apparently, it was starting to show, as this next hand shows.

I'm holding A79 in third position. I like to throw people off, so I complete. I get one caller, with a 3 showing.

4th street brings me a 8, and him a 2. He bets, I call.

5th brings me a 6, and him a 5. He bets, and now I'm thinking. Does he really have it? Usually, I'm spot on here. And my gut tells me he's either go A4, or Ax hiding in the hole, and the x is probably paired up. But, he's got a lot of outs left to draw on, and I figure keeping this hand will cost me dearly. So I fold.

He shows...32325! OH MY GOD! If was frustrated before, I was sure as crap steaming now!!!! So, realizing that, I leave stuck $2.25.

An hour or so later, I jump to PokerTime, and find out their free $10 has cleared to my account finally. So I started look for an SNG to play. Wierd, I cannot find anything but SNGs already started. So, I decide I'll jump to a NL Hold'Em .05/.10 cash game.

Well, it was absolutely uneventful until 30 minutes in. I raise .30 in late position with AJo, and Button calls. Flop comes T98 rainbow. I bet .80 thinking I can take it down here, and he raises to 2.40. I'm sitting on about 7.70 at this point and he at 7.40. I'm thinking that he's on the draw too, semi-bluffing like me. So I push all-in and he calls.

Sure enough, he's drawing too, except he's got JTs. Oh great, so I'm dead to a 7, Q, or Ace. Turn comes the ace, and river a blank, I'm lucky, but I recoop what I lost earlier with the $10 Free and my double up there.

Then, my favorite poker league site, AJPoker, come to find out, is celebrating it's 1 year anniversary today, and as a gift to us all, Luke, the admin, stakes us all in the $5 Tony G at Pokerchamps. $640 Prize Pool with only 128 in. This should be a cakewalk...yeah, sure. I played HORRIBLE! So, I wound up out in the FIRST LEVEL.

30 minutes later, it's time for the Poker Whore-tel...errr...Poker Cartel tournament. I won my first tournament here, and got 2nd in another one. Other than that nothing. Especially since the list of mostly decent players got watered down by a bunch of fish whose only raises are all-in, and still manage to draw out whatever monster you're holding at the time. Plus tonight's at Absolute, and this site hates my guts. But, I figure I need to get back in the swing, so I'll play.

My first big hand, holding pocket Queens UTG+1, and knocked it up for 160, SB, a big stack, calls.

Flop comes QA9. SB checks, I bet 200, he calls. Turn comes a 9...perfect. SB pushes me all-in, even more perfect, as he turns up AJs.

But then, the fish persist to be fish. I call UTG+1 with QJo, 5 callers. Flop comes QJT. UTG bets 300, and I know he's not got the straight. He may have 89, but I doubt it, and I know if he didn't raise, he's doesn't have AK. So I call.

Turn comes a 5. Now he moves all-in. I KNOW he's not got the straight. No way. So I call.

Sure enough, he turns up KQs. River's a 9, and I'm shortstacked. Stupid fish. I must've stared at the screen for 40 seconds after that trying to regain composure. Oh well, a draw-out's a draw-out. But see what I mean? Absolute hates my guts!

Well, UTG, just before the break, I pick up JTs, and move all-in. Big stack earlier calls me and turns up ATo. Flop comes Jd Td 2s. Perfect! Just let me dodge an ace. Turn is a 5. I'm now 94%, and the turn is a 9. I'm back up to 1500, but still on rocky ground. So, now I have to play tight, and move all-in to any raise if I catch something.

Come break, I look and miraculously have survived to 146 out of 556 starting. Now I'm hoping I can survive just a little bit longer to get down to the final table. Sadly, at the end of break, blinds raise just enough to put me on the shortstack again.

So, three levels later, I catch my lucky hand, K8, and move all-in. Shorter stack calls, and then BB calls (stating pot-odds...LOL). He turns up T5, shorter stack turns up pocket jacks. I don't improve, but neither does the BB. And I pick up a $5 profit. Yippy Skippy.

THE VERY NEXT HAND, I pick up KQs, and move all-in. two callers. they check to showdown, and AK high wins it, and I'm out in 90th.

Oh well...There's always tomorrow.

Blogger Championship

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 7777953

Heads up vs. an idiot

Ok, this was ripped off my post on Daniel Negreanu's forums...so you may not understand some of the things I say in this, simply because you don't hang around that board. But please, read this through:

Ok, I'm sure all of you have no clue who this guy is. I'm sure he isn't a member here, but I could be wrong.

Well, it all started on the Poker Forum Challenge. I was at first just chilling with Marion and the FCP'ers flocked around her table, just chatting while I was playing my league game. After I busted 4 away from the money, and and everyone flocked away from her table after she busted, I went to the tables of the rest of the AJPoker.com players that were playing (that was the site I was repping, for clarification). Well, they were doing great, and me and about 5 others from the site were at the tables rooting them on. I was doing the same. Moral support goes a long way. Well, some guy named JohnJr got jealous, because no one was cheering for his for his forum or something, so he called the floor on us for spamming. The floor deemed that the "next person to spam for AJPoker.com would be banned." Well, after that, everyone at my forum thought this was retarded. So, to prove a point, one of my players started spamming. He got banned, and the floor left.

So guess what JohnJr decides to do? Starts bashing our site after the floor leaves! Great double standard! Well, one of our members decided on a great way to settle this: A cross-forum challenge: The top 15 from each site playing for top honors. Well, this guy counter-offers by saying, "Forget that. You'll collude." (How do we know THEY aren't gonna do the same thing?) "I'll take any of you clowns on heads up, right now. Go get the best player at your site, and I will destroy him." Well, no one's stepping up, nor do I; our best player was not present, and I could think of 5 players other than him who should play before me, and they weren't stepping up to the plate. Well, the interchange kept going. Then they decided to compare WSOP qualifiers (they "had 2" we had none)...who cares? they haven't cashed or braceleted yet, so they haven't proven anything! So then all of a sudden, for no real reason, the spotlight gets turned to me. The following interchange occured:

JohnJr: hanguk, do you play checkers?
Me: No.
JohnJr: Hanguk, you must play checkers.

I sense a doucheclown insult.

Me: And what are you insinuating by that?
JohnJr: Because you must suck at poker.

Okay, below the belt, and I wasn't even saying anything derrogatory to the guy.

Me: Still want the heads up match?
JohnJr: Yeah
Me: Give me your e-mail, and what sites you have deposits on, and I'll be there.

So he gives me his e-mail. And then ducks out of the room as I'm trying to concrete the details.

So now I've e-mailed the guy, even though I think his sack shrunk after I called his bluff. This was my e-mail

From: Corey Lanier
Reply-To: Corey Lanier
To: x@y.com (I won't disclose his e-mail.)
Date: Jun 24, 2005 11:35 PM
Subject: Heads up challenge match
First off, I just want to get confirmation on the site you are willing to play at, the chat logs went too fast for me to remember. So if I'm correct, the sites are:

PokerStars
EmpirePoker

Second, I don't know if you saw what I had said later, but seeing as there was no response, I assume you didn't. I would like to up this to a three game series, best two out of three is declared better. The events I proposed are:

NL Hold'Em
PL Omaha
7-Card Stud.

If you do not like the list, and would like to play the series, then you can modify the list to your liking. The games I would be willing to play (and the betting structures) are:

Hold'Em -- Any betting structure
Omaha -- PL or Limit
2-7 Triple Draw -- Limit play only
Seven Card Stud -- Limit play only
Omaha Hi-Lo Split - PL or Limit
5-Card Stud - Limit play only
Razz - Limit play only
7-Card Stud Hi-Lo Split - Limit play only
Soko - PL only

I know the games the Stars offers, and that would rule out 5CS, TD, Razz & Soko. I do not know Empire's offerings, as I don't play on any Party Skins. But anyone can win a NL HE heads up match. But it takes a true player to win in different variations of poker heads up, and that's what I want to get to the bottom of, is who is the more consistent player.

This will by no means solve the argument as to whose forum is better, as this is only a small representation of the players of each forum, thus why I still propose a match between the top players of each site (I'll let you pick the numbers). Like I said, our admin has been trying to get forum challenges together, so this would be a good kickstart for that.

I also would like to know what stakes you would want to be playing, so I know how much to deposit to the site we play on. I may ask for an adjustment to this stake to fit into my bankroll management (because only a moron would risk his whole bankroll on a petty grudge).

I await your reply, so that I can begin the process of transferring to Stars or Empire. And good luck.

--
Thanks clown, 광대야 고마워요.
Corey Lanier 레이니어 코리
http://joshintheghetto.keenspace.com - The greatest webcomic EVER!

==========================================

I don't expect an e-mail back truly, but I hope he does. Because I'm pretty sure he's on his way to getting owned.

But I'm going to need a cross site transfer for empire or stars, cause I have nothing there.

Anyway, I'll keep you guys updated on this one. It's not of the same magnitude of Barry vs. Daniel, but I pride myself in heads-up play, and I think you guys might like me sending a doucheclown home crying.

=============================================

So yeah. That's it. I will keep you guys updated on when and where and if these matches take place. I would like to see some of my friends on here at the table to cheer me on. I'll need the support.

If you guys register a poker account just to talk at the table, with no intention of every playing, that would really mean a lot to me. Just whatever, come and support when/if this goes down!

High-stress matches=Lessons learned

My friend comes home from work Tuesday and declares he wants to playtest the two decks he just built. He built a Hogan deck that is completely away from orthodox Hogan-building procedures. But it's effective. I play Shelton on this one.

First, the pre-match was a pain. He had already told me his pre-match order earlier that morning, but I think he thought I forgot because I was half-asleep. I don't usually forget stuff said to me while I'm partially unconscious. Which is quite ironic, because I usually forget everything told to me while I'm completely conscious. So I know he's playing Whatcha Gonna Do, Brother?-->I'm Gonna Break You. My Pre-match helps me, so I wanna stop that. I play Calgary, then follow it with I Want To Play The Game. Hmmmm...I'll take out I'm Gonna...oh crap. He has two I'm Gonna Break You's in his backlash deck as protection for I Want To Play The Game. Just perfect. So I take one out, which is as useless as all get-out. And guess what he drops to my ringside? Wrestlemania. Now I've gotta burn one every turn. I eventually counteract that by running Greco-Roman Specialists to put it back into my Backlash deck.

He had reversals for most of the stuff I was throwing at him, but i was managing to get fortitude off reversals, and the occasional maneuver I might get off. Early in the match, I play Beating The Odds, because I know he's gonna pop Whatcha Gonna Do, Brother once he gets maneuvers in his hand. Sometime later, he plays something I can't reverse to remove it from my ring area. Oh well, next turn, I play ANOTHER Beating The Odds. LOL...man was he pissed. So later he figures just forget it, pops Whatcha, and I pop beating the odds on his maneuver, reverse it, then hit Shelton's Splash. And he's done.

Next up, Raven. Nothing incredibly fancy, except the foreign objects almost killed me. I had about 20 cards in my hand, none of which I could play. Either they were reversals, or high fortitude maneuvers while I was sitting on 5F. I was so frustrated, and he just kept saying "THROW SOMETHING" which made me even more frustrated. We were actually scowling at each other at this point. Plus, he wasn't throwing anything either. I couldn't hit anything from my backlash deck, I already had my maximum out in the Ring. Everytime I drew a low fortitude maneuver, I'd play them, see it reversed, put it at the bottom of my deck, then shuffle in two cards for Calgary. Eventually we were both down to just a few cards in arsenal, and it became apparent whoever could get some damage off first would win. That was me with a reversal. At that point, I showed him my hand at the point where he was telling me to throw stuff to prove the point that I would've if I could have.

Then he had the audacity to ask me to test them with my Gail deck. No thanks, I couldn't take another match like that Tuesday night.

Finally found a comfortable cash game

Well, for months, I've been making cash in tournaments. I'm comfortable there, and definitely play my best there.

But then I'd lose sums of that money off in cash games. I could never get comfortable there. I'd drop farther down than my bankroll allows, straight down to .01-.02NL blinds. And still, I could get nothing going. Well tonight, I decided, I'm going to find a game I could crack. Just at least to get me off the ground in cash games. So I played on a .02-.04PL blinds in Hold'em on Noble Poker. I come out of there in about a half hour up $1.76, not playing anything questionable (save a J8o that I was able to limp on in the SB, and spiked a Jack on the flop to take the pot), and took every pot I was involved in.

So for now, I'm gonna keep my eye on the PL games, less all-ins to worry about, and keep playing good hands, and drop at the right time. I feel a lot more comfortable there with at least a margainal ceiling.

Eventually, I'll get ready to start playing NL, but right now...just doesn't seem smart.

A so-so tournament day

Ok, so I get to Hatcherland today for the bi-weekly tournament. I pull out my tournament standard (for now) Gail & Molly deck. My first draw, I get one of my friend's and his JBL heat deck. Now, I've played this deck hundreds of time before, and it's a toss-up every single time. At the end of the first round, one thing finally became abundantly clear: Search out Molly-Go-Round instead of Wake Up. Why give him free heat?

After an agonizing defeat, here comes my next draw. Another friend. And oh wow, another JBL deck. This time not heat; we're going heel, foreign object, Chicago Street, Dem Dam Dudleyz. I was doing great, until the turning point of the match. He draws Overhead Chair Shot, Strike/Strike. I don't have two strike reversals in my hand, so it has to go on the overturn. Nothing. Realizing I can't reverse it, he discards after he draws for Overhead to put it back in his to play it again. And again. And again, And, you get the idea. It pins me.

So I'm feeling a little bit down at this point. But I'm perked up when a trade finally goes through. I get the Light Heavyweight Belt (which I need to build Rey) and Ultimo Rechazo (which I need for Eddie) for a Stunner and some other random UR. Actually, the guy didn't even need the cards he got, but knew I really needed the cards, so he went through with it. So I was really grateful for that.

Now, next draw. I got some kid with a John Cena deck. Nothing too special, except it was a chain deck. Big surprise. He was low fortitude the entire match. I managed to bait out Backlash midway through, sometime before playing Gail's Hurricanrana. So I was high up on fortitude the whole match; POTP is so great when they don't have a strike reversal in their hand. So then here's where I thought he'd cause a turnaround. I draw Molly-Go-Round. I play a simple Punch just to get out the successful maneuver; I pretty much knew it would work, he hadn't reversed a strike the whole game, save the overturn. Yeah, it went through. So here goes Molly-Go-Round, and I had started revelling in my victory, when I see him drop When You Thought You Had All The Answers. Balls. There goes my second trademark. Yeah, so I sense a comeback. But there's still a match. I keep reversing. We end up each down to one card for our hands at one point, sometimes zilch. Eventually I finally finished him off.

So after that match, I get a little kid playing Eugene. I don't care if you suck at the game or not, I take a Eugene deck seriously. If you don't have reversals on your draw, you're boned. This kid really had no grasp, yet thought he knew it all. He tried to opt out of discarding for Wake Up like that was an option. Then he tried Backlash on my first maneuver. And then we had a spat about that. And well, I got fortitude, and reversals. But he got enough fortitude too. Enough to do two unreversable maneuvers, high damage. His third card, I think I Cowed. But no matter what, one more maneuver and I would be dead. I think I reversed two more before it was all said and done. But yeah, I was toast.

So that takes me out of the main tournament. Now for the side tournament. So I was thinking Gail again, but let's go for a change? So I pull out the Shelton deck I was just given by a friend who got out of the game because of several games where he was just given salt in his wounds by a sore winner. Let's see. Seems like a plan.

First Draw: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLDBERG GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLDBERG. The most broken Character ever. Titles, 9D Jackhammers, now why can't I have any Escape Moves? Just great. Easy win for him.

And the one thing that cheered me up was the most pivotal trade, 3 cards just for me to get one West Coast Bronco Buster, THE card I was lacking for Rey. So now Rey is build-ready.

Then for the next draw, another friend, playing an Edge deck. And here's what killed me here: White Wedding. Followed by a card (I forgot what it is) that blanks my SSV, making it pointless for me to draw for White Wedding. So he keeps hitting maneuvers, removing cards from the game, and I'm defenseless. This was a long battle, where the TD was pissed that it took so long. So just for giggles, I popped Wrestlemania. It only saved me for about 5 minutes. And it was done.

So my final draw was a Two-Man Power Trip. Good strategy. All except by now, I was getting accustomed to Shelton. On the draw, I get a Don't Try This At Home. He's got Wrestlemania out. Yes, I'm hanging on to that card for dear life. I reverse his maneuver, then going into a Panic Grab->Wraparound Wristlock. Either overturn or say bye-bye to four cards. So I keep going till I get 25F. I'll skip to a pivotal moment. He isn't playing a lot of strikes, and I draw a T-Bone Exploder Suplex. Now I could play it as a maneuver, risk it getting reversed, and losing the match. Or just let him bring doom upon himself. So I say, "Your turn." And he draws, and does exactly what I want him to do: a Grapple maneuver. He has about 19 cards left in arsenal. T-BONE. So here he goes, takes the 20D and knows, hey, I've got a second chance...that's what he thought. He tries to pop it, and out comes the Don't Try This At Home I've been squirreling away for THE moment he popped Wrestlemania. That's a pin. That was the match a huge chunk of satisfaction came from.

And that was my tournament day.

Evil RINGO

Old Beatles' musicians, why must you torture me?

So, normally, I will just let these pass by...but now...I just can't.

So early this morning, I get an e-mail from someone wanting me to sign up to Ringo, a universal Address book. I've gotten many of these in my time. All they really do is just add more annoying spam to your e-mail. So I delete it.

8 hours later...I get an e-mail from another person wanting me to sign up. So I delete it again. THEN SOMEONE ELSE SENDS ME IT AN HOUR LATER.

I know have a lot of spare time...but GIVE ME A BREAK...is your address book on your e-mail address really not adequate enough, that you have to have a third-party address book? If so, WHY USE THAT ADDRESS? PLEASE

If you want a universal address book, GO TO THE DOLLAR STORE, BY A NOTEPAD AND A BOX OF PENCILS FOR $2...see? how hard is that? no annoying e-mails.

THE NEXT ONE THAT REQUESTS ME TO GET RINGO DIES

The week of me getting run over by an 18-wheeler constantly

This week, my poker game has been totally off. Almost every tournament I entered I lost. I was constantly getting sucked out on by horrible players. There's one hand I remember oh so clearly where my three Queens got beat out by some shman holding a 2-4 offsuit who got his straight on the river that knocked me out of the tournament. Of course, that would've never happened if I hadn't been stupid and bet out on pocket 3s when I knew (and I really did know, I just could NOT for the life of me, drag the pointer to the check button, instead, I just bet until I had the player all in with a hand he was not going anywhere with) I was beat.

I've thought about taking a break next week. But there's so many league games that I need to play that I'm not. So I'm just taking a step back in reflecting on why I didn't play so well.

One reason could be because I'm preoccupied with other things. I'm currently building two Raw Deal decks, considering a third, getting ready for a Raw Deal tournament Sunday. On top of that, I'm building a computer program that will allow me to have all my poker clients running on my Linux computer at the same time, and will also be able to be used on Windows and Macintosh, to make every internet poker player's life easier. I just kind of rule that one out, because I'm usually multitasking while playing poker. And that in itself is due in large part to a friend who always messages me even after I tell said friend I'm playing poker, and then after I tell said friend to leave me alone until I'm done playing, so said friend just starts sending five messages per second till I want to kill said friend. Yeah, I got sidetracked on that one.

I think it's that my sleep pattern has been entirely disrupted. I don't know why, but started pulling all nighters again. I have won a tournament after an all-nighter, but that's only one. But I ran well all last week when I was getting to bed around midnight, and waking up at about 9 or 10. I won a tournament, and placed in the money 5 more times, if memory serves me right.

Or maybe I've just got a lot of pent up frustration this week that is getting in the way of keeping a clear head at the table. I don't know about this one, but I know there's a lot of people that have been really irritating me this week, and that could be it.

Or maybe it's just because I didn't break any appendages this week.

I don't know what's the cause yet, but I know something's wrong, considering I've only placed in the money once.

Well, I've got 5 minutes left till I start in at 24hPoker.com in their 5-Card Draw tournament. So I will close for now.

Ok, so I just realized it...
Sometime's I'm a little slow on the uptake. In February, a friend of mine asked if she could have her own board on our message boards. I ok'ed it. Well, just two months later, I finally looked in there, and realized it.
She talked me into giving her that board so that she could have her own private blog!
I got owned.

Pitching to Ben & Jerry's

If this week hasn't sucked...

Ok, I broke up with my g/f this week. Yeah it sucks, I hate breaking up with people. I'm amazingly bad at it, considering the amount of times I've gotten dumped in my life, I should know all the lines.

Tuesday, I lock myself out of the freakin house going to get the mail, and had to wait for my friend's brother to get home. Just peachy.

Well, Wednesday I break my toe. I kid you not.

Thursday I go to Barnes & Noble, and try to get Startbucks with a Starbucks gift card someone gave me, and they told me they can't accept it.

And today was just boring.

Oh well, at least I still have Jesus & Poker.

I won a small chunk of change on Ultimate Bet Wednesday during the fiasco of breaking my toe. Then I won a freeroll on Banner Poker that night, winning $15.

Playing through pain is cool.

Yeah, I'm lazy. Yes I forgot to post on my blog. So, let's see, what do I have to say?

Well, I finally have a poker bankroll. Just a few lucky spots, and I'm up to a whopping $7 in my poker accounts. Wooohoo. Well, it should help out. That's all I needed to start building. And who knows where it'll go from there?

Yeah, so this is my new blogger, I only got it because I can run it with gaim. So yeah, that's about it right now. I'll write more when I'm more awake.

The Legend of Thong Face

Okay, so Jake came down for the weekend. Me, him, and Jonathan always chill when he comes down. Around this time, Jonathan decided he's an emcee, and decided to battle me on my boards. So i did. And he's been spanked. So as a consolation prize, Jake and I decided that we need to buy him something. So we went into Wal-Mart, left Jonathan in the car, got the packs of poker chips Jonathan and I need for the tournament we're having this weekend. Then we went to get his prize...a thong. We took it out to him, and he threw it back in my face. that's when I got an evil idea...and when i get an evil idea....things....happen....

So here we are, at Taco Bell. I'm standing outside, and Jake and Buckman walk in. They have a walkie-talkie, and so do I. They walk up the counter, start placing an order, and hit the call button on the walkie-talkie, signalling me to come in. I run in there with the thong on my face, and jump around behind them, then run out of there. They're standing in there pretending that they're wondering what the crap just happened, when the manager's like "did you see the guy run in here with the panties on his head?" But it didn't stop there...

Cue us up at Hardee's, Jake and Jonathan are going through the drive thru, and buzz me in, I run in one door, do the exact same thing, walk out the door closest to the drive thru, get back in the car...when they drive off (i'm in the back seat, mind you), i poke my head up, scare the drive thru attendant half to death...now everyone at hardee's thinks i'm omnipresent.

BUT IT DOES NOT END THERE.

Now, here we are at Kroger's drive up gas island. We stop there, don't even get gas. I crawl up under the window. Jake walks up to the window and asks the attendant what the cheapest brand of cigarettes they sell is. She turns around to look, and I pop my head up over the counter, with the thong on my head and a wide-eyed expression on my face, like I just got beamed down from another planet or something. She turns around...and the look on her face...I think she thought she was about to get jacked. I was gonna take the act a little bit further and start tapping on the glass, but after seeing the look on her face, I couldn't stop laughing...I dropped back down out of view, and just started cackling. Jake's trying to pretend nothing happened, and ask about the cigarettes, but then he doubled over at the counter, laughing his face off. I run back over to the car, where jonathan's still trying to come over to the island, about ready to die from laughing, and trying to tell him what happened. It must've been five minutes later before Jake mustered up enough strength to stop laughing and come back to home base.

So then we stop and mcdonald's and meet up with Whittney. she buys a happy meal, and gives us the prize...which i somehow use to make jake die laughing over cellulite. It was that little baby Princess Jasmine doll. Those who know the Steve story should understand this. Here's a dialog that made Jake snot Coke:

(While using doll as a puppet) "Hi, my name is Steve. Would you like to see my cellulite? I know you want to see my cellulite!" *then i lift up her hair, and point to her neck, as Jake is telling me to shut up* "Cellulite!"

then Whittney gets harrassed by her ex-boyfriend. so as we're driving off, we honk at them, while i'm sitting in the backseat, again with the thong on my face.

now it's time to hide the evidence. so on the way to jonathan's house, we stop at the local pharmacist's house, and i get out, and shove the thong in his mailbox. as i look back to the car, jake and jonathan are pulling off, because a car is coming, and they're scared it's the cops, so i take off running after them, open the back seat door, and jump in like it's one of those spy movies, and pretty much crush my ribs in the process.

yes...if you are ever in need of a good laugh, go get two of your friends, get 11 packs of poker chips, 3 dealer buttons, a pair of walkie talkies, and a thong. you'll know what to do from there.

Ever had that time when your heart just got ripped out of your rear?

Ever had that time where you had no clue what was going on?

Ever had that moment where you wish you could back to a certain time and unlive some of your mistakes?

Yep, that's where I'm at.

This weekend was crazy.

Friday I went to Eldorado to hear Right Hand Man play. Their guitarist and drummer played in Stick Shift with me. Their bassist helped teach me to play.

Anyway, they had equipment borrowed from a Southern Gospel band (ok?), but no one to run it. So they had me run it for them

It was the first time I had ran someone's sound before. So I was nervous. But, I've been around sound boards a lot, and they don't intimidate me.

So I got it all set up, and get the levels checked. And it sounded good! So that was pimp

That night, I stayed at Buckman's house. We watched Kung Pow, but first I had to practice my Korean, which was frustrating, considering Buckman was being an idiot and kept interrupting the guy on the freakin tape with "That's what she said!"

So after that, I went to bed. I woke up the next morning and decided to try to fix his computer again.

And about 1 1/2 hours later, I was able to finally get his modem to work with Mandrake Linux & his 2.6 kernel. Stupid Lucent modems, it took me 3 months to figure out the solution.

So then I went home, where Popcorn day was bustling with drunks. So I ran around and laughed at the crazy drunks and stuff. Then I went to sleep.

Sunday was Sunday.

Monday is always hell. I finished 399 this time in a poker tournament.

So there you have it.

Ok, so here was the fun yesterday.

I was having a rough week. But yesterday was going good. I was in a great mood. So I decided to play the Freeroll Hold Em tournament on Pokeroom.com

Granted, I had played this tournament several times before, and had only gotten up to 1300th place out of 1800 before I busted out. And I had wasted my entire play money bankroll for the day in 2 hours the past two days. So needless to say, luck had not been with me. So I figured, I'll just be happy if I can just make it past 1000 players.

Well, I did. And it didn't stop there. Within about 15 hands after the first 1000 were knocked out, i was in the top 100! So I stayed there for a long time. Then we got down to the final 200. I had a good amount of chips. I was starting to think I might actually win. Then stupidity struck.

I had Ace Queen. Someone pushed all in. I was gonna fold. I press keyboard shortcuts. F1 is to fold, F2 is to call/check, F3 is to bet/raise. I was trying to hit F1, and somehow my finger hit F2. Three callers, two were all in. My opponents had Ace King and Ace Jack, I was in decent position. But then a Jack came on the board, and I was done for.

But how can I complain? 158 out of 1800 is incredible!

Ah here's a screenshot if you don't believe me:



this is where i'm about halfway through my run. As you can see, I was at 67th place at this point. The highest I got was 25th.

I'm not dead

I'm just dormant

Yeah, long time since I posted. I've got little time, but wanted to check my xanga. I will post something next week

This is been a horrid week. Again. Well, last week was a cakewalk compared to this week. All because everything that happened last week came to a head this week. I now have yet another friend who refuses to speak to me again. This time, the feeling is mutual. This friend I speak of and myself have had more fights than you could imagine. All of this has been brooded by her other friend, my ex-girlfriend. They always come out looking clean, and I am always the bad guy. Only two people will take my side on this one. Fortunately, they aren't both of my yes-men again. It's only one yes man this time. Personally, I think that my ex is a horrid influence on my friend. But I'm getting so freaking sick of talking about it now. I don't wanna hear any of their names again, but sadly, being such a small community, there's no hope in that.

I know this has torn my friends in two. Most of them are trying to remain neutral, trying not to tick either one of us off. Quite frankly, I wish they'd just choose sides, so I'd know who is for me and who is against me. But they won't. And I know my other friend is trying to get people to choose sides. And quite frankly, she is the queen of the game of drama, so she could probably get them swayed over to her side. Is it my destiny to make everyone who was once a friend an enemy? I know I can't escape arguments. I know I have arguments with my best friends. But over petty BS like this? For the record, you don't even wanna know. Most of the time the arguments are over deep topics, or some hard decisions, or something very stressful. But nothing so petty. And they don't blow up this much. So obviously me and her were never really meant to be friends.

Or maybe it runs deeper than that. Maybe the mistakes I made with my ex destroyed this friendship. I don't know. I don't even wanna think about it. To be completely honest, I just wanna forget about it, and push through it, and just get on with life, and not have to worry about it anymore. I just keep waking up, and wishing that all of a sudden, all this stuff would be forgotten by everybody, and I wouldn't have to wake up and face it, day, after day, after day. I wind up sleeping so much, because I just don't wanna think about it, or any other problem I have. I know I'm depressed, and I know I'm hurting. And I know it sucks. And I know I need to snap myself out of it. But what's the point anymore? Whenever I say that things will be better, and I start getting positive again, something else comes along that just makes everything blow goats again.

I keep trying to make things right. But no matter what, I keep ending up being the one hurt, and everyone else keep coming out clean. I hate that. I just wish that I could just give it all up, and be myself. But everyone seems to start using me as floormat, and I resubmit myself to that fate.

Maybe I SHOULD leave this place. Maybe I SHOULD go to school in a foreign country like I've been wanting to. At least no one there will know me as the floormat I am here, unless they just happen to recognize me from this Xanga.

I don't know. Maybe I'm talking crazy now. All I can say, that thank God that the semester is coming to an end. I need summer break. I need a job. And I need some time to think everything through.

Last week's people I pissed off counter: 6

Well, Rick (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=meatcircus) asked me to post this. I'll make a disclaimer: If you are easily grossed out, DO NOT READ THIS ONE!

The following is how I became a legend of pooping:

I used to be chronically constipated. For some reason (blame on my diet, whatever you want) I would not go. In February of 2003, I was admitted to the hospital because I hadn't gone in about 2 months. Yes, two months. I thought I was gonna die. My physician said I was on the verge of it. Well, they admitted me, and thought that they were gonna have to do invasive surgery. Well, my surgeon was invasive alright, just not with surgery. I think you get the drift. I did not get a finger, I got a hand. Throw up now if you please. He then found out that I had a hernia that was strangulating my bowels and wouldn't let me go. He popped it back so it would no longer be strangulating my bowels. PAIN! Well, things started running smoothly. I took 3 dumps that day.

The next day, they said I had to drink a laxative so that I would be cleared out so that I go in for tests. So I took this sucker. Around 6 PM, I had to go. I got onto the bedside commode to go to work. It felt like I was giving birth. It seemed to come out one millimeter at a time. I was having to breathe like I was doing lamase. I grabbed my IV tree and clung to that for dear life. I swear, I felt my toes curling up into my feet! About 5 minutes later, I hear a loud THUD in the commode. After about 3 minutes, I had caught my breath to get up and look. If I'm lying, I'm dying: the thing was 2 feet long, and about 6 inches in diameter. So I called for a tech to empty it. She did, flushed, and it would not go down. They tried plunging it: IT WOULD NOT GO DOWN. They had to call maintenance in to try to get it down. They had to use a power drill to break it up so that it would flush!

Well, that's the story of how I became a legend of pooping. Now for the story of how I freaked out my youth pastor:

The next day. I went in for a procedure. A colonoscopy. Yay. Well, they gave me an IV drip of pain killers so I could be awake but not feel anything. Well, I went into the room talking. From what I hear, I did not shut up during the entire procedure. I came out of the room talking (I can't remember, but that's what they tell me). I go back to my room and I can't open my eyes! Here comes my youth paster. I'm all like, "Wes man! I can hear you. I know your in here. But I can't see you. Either I've gone blind or I can't open my eyes. Just grab my hand so I'll know you're there." He does. "Yeah, now I see you man!" My eyes are still closed. That's when I told Wes that I now knew why he used to do drugs.

Never give me demerol.

You asked for it Rick.

Some random rants of mine:

Title: Amp Head Shopping And Flaming Imbeciles

Well, yesterday, I became more active in my hunt for an amp head (at least if I can get an amp head, i'll know what kind of cab i should get). So I called hart's, too expensive, and he doesn't have any used heads in. So I called the local pawn shops. Yesterday, I became more passive in my hunt for an amp head.

Here was the dialogue that ensued with the owner of Pat's Pawn in Carmi:

Owner: Pat's Pawn.

Me: Do you have any bass amplifier heads?

Owner: What?

Me: As in, bass guitar amplifiers?

Owner: We have guitar amps.

Me: Good. Do you have any just heads, or amp stacks?

Owner: ...We have guitar amps.

Me: We've resolved that. The question is, do you have just the heads, as in, an amp without the speakers?

Owner: ...We have guitar amps.

Me: ...Ok...well seeing we're not getting anywhere with that...what is the wattage of the amps you have?

Owner: ...We have guitar amps.

Me: YOU ARE A FLAMING IMBECILE! *click*

Round 2:

I found a Tech Soundsystems head friday on ebay. It was a 500 watts...a real supersonic gem. I bid a fair amount. Then I got outbid. I raised my bid. This guy must've went up to 50 bucks, but I'm cheap and I didn't wanna put that much down. I got peed at this nutjob whose bid history included, a yamaha bass

, and polly pockets!

He got outbid...but still...this was a piece of amp head. So, to whomever wins it, I HOPE IT SHORTS OUT, ELECTROCUTES YOU AND YOU DIE!

Round 3:

700W Earth Amp on ebay.

Result:

OUTBID AGAIN

I hope it falls on the guys testicles so he can no longer have sex!

Title: Timeouts and the fun they have with me

Let me clarify this: Websites love timeouts! They love to make you waste time logging back in. Or at least they do to me. Here's several examples to prove that Timeouts have fun screwing with my head:

My e-mail: When I am trying to send an e-mail, I have a server time out. It is an 18 minute timeout. It is the fastest 18 minutes of my life. I type out one paragraph (and granted, I'm a pretty fast typer) and I have to log back in, and I've lost the entire paragraph because I forgot to copy the paragraph I had just typed out, forgetting that timeouts LOVE me!

My tab sites: I do a lot of bass tabbing. When I get bored, I submit a tab. It's what I do. There's a really long song that I tabbed out last night. So I was submitting it today. Well, this is a long process because 1) it's a long song, and 2) I have to figure out the repeat values, because I can't think repeat values when I play, and I don't do them in advance. Again, I get this done, and (wowsers!) fail to copy this to clipboard again, and I get sent back to the login page, where it will no longer let me access the extra super long tab I have just written

Thus leading me to the following conclusion:

Timeouts are the real antichrist!

More later

Here is a scary thought:

I am giving romantic advice to somebody.

God help us all!

So today, I get a PM from one of my friends on Stick Shift's message board. He wants me to call him because he's out of it, he doesn't know what to do, and wants ME to help him.

Needless to say, I can't call him back. I'm in the same boat

I'm getting tired of people expecting me to be the crutch for them. It's ME that needs the crutch. And I'm sick of putting that aside when someone else feels the same way, just because I'm EXPECTED to.

It's always the same thing. Whenever they have problems, I'm one of the first people to hear about it. Whenever I have problems, no one wants to hear it. It's gay. Just plain gay.

I love my friends, but if I get one more message from a friend saying to call him because he has problems that he wants ME to solve...I'm gonna snap.

God, I need a vacation.

Crap man, it's been a while. Where do I begin?

I finally got my linux kernel working. Then they upgraded, so I had to patch it. Now my problems are that I can't get my sound card to work anymore and I can't get my printer to work. Oh well, those can wait a bit. I've hit a fork in the road with both GNOME and KDE. GNOME won't install without a certain package, and I can't find it. I got the package I need for KDE to install, and it still won't. XFce installed fine. Gee, too bad I can't get my login manager to see I have a new environment. So now, I have to find out what's going wrong, and then I will be almost finished with my system. Then I gotta work on someone else's...oy vey.

Our stupid website is going crazy now. Our server has been nothing but one huge raging hormone since early last week. Now we're looking into paid hosting. As much as I hate to pay, I have to.

Well things are almost non-existant with the band. What we're thinking: lineup change. You'll see what I mean soon, if you even pay attention.

I went to a concert Saturday. Right Hand Man (the guitarist and drummer from the old Stick Shift, and the bassist for The Social Outcasts, my older band) played with Next In Line. It was pretty dope. I'm still sore!

Well I'm back again after having one my little apathetic moments earlier this week. They just happen every once in a while, and it helps for me to write that crap out, you know?

Have band practice tonight. Gonna be interesting. My allergies are acting up, and I think my head's gonna explode. But yet I'm still gonna expose it 120 dB of sound tonight. I am so stupid. YAY!

I got all the files I need for the upgrading of my Linux system. All except for the last three nights, the kernel has put through a veritable Hell. The first night, the file was corrupted, so I had to redownload the kernel. There was a new version out anyway, so it was just as well as I get it. So now, I've installed it, but I'm getting errors when I try to boot. Luckily I have my old kernel still on there, and I've been in and out of IRC chat rooms God knows how many times trying to figure out what's wrong, and I think I got it now, and it was due to my own stupidity. We'll see tonight, and hopefully, I'll be able to move on to upgrading the rest of the crap tonight after practice. Thank God it's pretty much installed, so now, I can just patch new versions when they come out. Takes up less room and less download time.

Interesting day on our band's message boards. We had this fake thug racist dude who was dissing one of our Puerto Rican members...then come to find out, the idiot didn't even like my band. Can you say, banned? Yes, that is what he is now. But, not like he was ever gonna show his face again anyway, cause I found out everything about where he was posting, and threatened to get his wannabe rear-end banned from his high-school internet access. That was a fun time. Expecting to see this idiot to try to reregister under another fake e-mail address anytime now and think that we won't know who he is.

That's it for my crazy life. Enjoy!

I'm losing my mind. That's all that I can surmise. I'm becoming the loose cannon I was afraid of becoming again. And I hate it.

Everything is blowing up on me. The road blocks have gone up with the woman I thought was mine...I've given up. Every other route cannot be taking...because it's being travelled by someone else. What else? What if I'm doomed to wander the planet alone?

This is making me sick. There's been times when I've wanted to blow up on people. There's been times when I've just wanted to gut myself. It burns me up, and I just wish I could just live in a hole somewhere.

I'm ashamed of myself...I feel like I'm always gonna be. It just makes me sick.

What am I doing? My band's getting back together, and I've GOTTA be strong for this. But I can't be. I'm nothing but weak, and I've accepted that, and I can just go back to my hole now. No one treats me badly there. I like it that way.

I feel like the biggest loser in the world. Maybe I am. I feel picked apart, and I just wish that I could get everything back. I wish I had myself back, but I'm gone...I found a better place to exist...and I don't know where that is.

I know God still loves me, but I just still feel like I could die and no one would even notice. Maybe I should've died in the hospital last February. I've put myself through so much Hell in this last year. I just feel like crashing...I feel like sleeping for two weeks...I've gotta do something. But what?

Until I have time to post more...

Food for thought, and my main idea about my life: If I could cut off my hands and my mouth...I would commit very little sin.

Allow me to elaborate....Think of the many things people do with their hands. They use obscene gestures to insult people. They kill, they fight, they hurt. There are so many other things to do with hands...with your mouth, you talk badly about people...man I can't think today. But you get what I'm saying?

Something freaky just happened today, I'm guessing it's all cause of friday the thirteenth...yeah, ok sure...whatever.

Well here's what happened:

I was set to volunteer as an usher for a play here at college for lab hours in my theatre class. Well, the people that was to come in were from various high schools around here. One of the schools is where the guitarist that was supposed to play in Draumatikpauz goes, and he showed up. So we started talking before the play, and this dude came up to him. And guitarist dude introduced me to him. Well, the dude looked quite interesting...pretty goth and had about 5 or so piercings. Not like the piercings really freak me out too much anymore...I've been to Cornerstone Festival...it's not gonna phase me that much. And I've seen people worse at our shows. Well, then I shook the dude's hands...and I'm telling you, it felt like I had touched my hand to the bottom of a scalding hot skillet. I had to take my hand away cause I thought it was going to burn off. I'm telling you, I think the dude was demon possessed. I started praying, but i don't know what the heck I was supposed to do in that situation. It quite frankly scared me. I mean, I've been around weird things, but this is by far the freakiest. What was i supposed to do? Did i handle it well?

Just be praying about this guy...I just really have that feeling that whatever was inside him was not supposed to naturally be there...so pray that it gets taken away.

Well, decided I'd let you know what's going on today.

1. Stick Shift should officially have a full roster now! Phil and I found a drummer. We're trying to get hold of our guitarist to make sure he's still in. But, if all goes well, we're set for our return!

That's about it now. I may post more later, but that's just the big news today that I wanted to say something about!

I was sitting at school, doing absolutely nothing, and then all of a sudden, I felt like writing. So I opened up OpenOffice.org Writer and started typing. Here's what I had to say:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just felt like writing right now. I don't know why. I don't know what I'm going to write about. But I'm going to write. Everything sucks right now. I don't understand why. I should be happy. In fact, I should be running down the halls screaming praises to God at the top of my lungs. I mean, everything has been going good. I have the song written that will launch my music career. God has told me who my future wife is. No one's died within the last month. I've not been diagnosed with cancer. So why am I down on myself?

I'm always looking at everything from the darkest viewpoint. I always look for reasons for why things won't happen, and not the reasons why God wants them to happen. Am I stupid or something? Can I not see that God's reasoning is different than my own? I mean, this is so incredibly stupid. I've got everything going for me, but I can't take time out of my lazy life to even read the Bible. And how about my prayer life? Why is that non-existent? Because I take too much time to be lazy and gripe about how I'm bored and never do anything! If I wanted to do something, why don't I read my Bible and pray?! It's that simple, really! If I would stop being so apathetic about not doing anything and actually do something worthwhile, wouldn't there be a difference in my life? Wouldn't I have a change in my life that I know I need in order to face my future responsibilities, which I know are inevitably coming soon? Why don't I strive for it? Am I scared to face this change? I don't know why I should be. The only thing that's gonna change is that I'm going to become more blessed. Why would I not want to be more blessed? Why can't I just wake myself up out of this depressing dream I've thrown myself back into and do something about it?!

Every time I do this, I make myself go mental. I hurt myself. I hurt other people. I wonder why God would want me. I doubt that God would want me. I turn away for a while. I come back full force. I fizzle out again. Repeat step one. It's a vicious circle, and it's stupid. Every time I do this and get back on track I say how much I hate the way I act when I get to that breaking point and how I would never want to go back there again. But three months later, I'm back there again. It's sickening. Am I that afraid of success, of blessings, that I'll go back to a place I hate to be just to hide from it? Am I just a whine-bag that only wants to get sympathy from others? Why would I want to be like that? Sympathy gets you nothing, but blessings give you everything. And I want everything. I just don't know why I get so scared to get everything. And why do I always feel so stupid? Why do I always have to act the idiot?

Did someone automatically designate me the idiot of the region? It seems no matter what I do, people treat me like the village idiot. My youth pastor, my youth group, a lot of my friends make me feel like I am a huge doofus. I could discover the cure for cancer, and say that to my youth pastor, and he'd just laugh at me and say, “Corey, go back to your hole.” That's the way I feel. It hurts that I always have to be that idiot, and no matter what I say, nobody takes me seriously. They only take me seriously when I'm joking. And when I'm serious, they think I'm being stupid. It's pathetic. I wish I could just get up in front of my whole entire church and tell them I'm not the idiot that they portray me to be. If only I hadn't acted the fool when I first started to go to church there. Maybe I'd be treated differently. Or perhaps the people that continuously make me look like the biggest boob of the church would still find things to pick at.

I always feel like the odd one out. I always feel like people intentionally try to get to me, and try to bring me down. And then, I feel like there's a lot of time when I'm being constantly ignored. I sometimes feel like I could walk into a place and scream, “Bomb!” and no one would even hear me. Sometimes I've been tempted to do that, just to see if anyone would actually hear me.

I think that's all I have to say now. I just wanted to write, and get things out. Now that I've ranted, you can go back to what you were doing. There's nothing more to see here.

I got Phil so good today...he has gotten obsessed with eBay, and started talking about his conquests...so I just pulled out one of my jokes to get him distracted. Phil is: I touched a llama!!!!!!!! and you should know who I am:

I touched a llama!!!!!!!! says:
i just got the stavesacre ep for $6.99 still sealed

Corey Lanier: I can't feel the way I did before, don't turn your back on me, I WON'T BE IGNORED! says:
you boob

I touched a llama!!!!!!!! says:
did you see the one with the buy it now option?

Corey Lanier: I can't feel the way I did before, don't turn your back on me, I WON'T BE IGNORED! says:
nope

I touched a llama!!!!!!!! says:
they had 2 and i got 1

I touched a llama!!!!!!!! says:
i just saved with shipping a dollar less than full price where i was going to get it

I touched a llama!!!!!!!! says:
GO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Corey Lanier: I can't feel the way I did before, don't turn your back on me, I WON'T BE IGNORED! says:
yay phil...you're the coolest

Corey Lanier: I can't feel the way I did before, don't turn your back on me, I WON'T BE IGNORED! says:
can i have your kids...i mean, autograph?

I touched a llama!!!!!!!! says:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I touched a llama!!!!!!!! says:
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I touched a llama!!!!!!!! says:
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I touched a llama!!!!!!!! says:
................................no

Thought this might brighten someone's day...

Well, I just realized I still have this Xanga thingy, so I decided to get back on here. That's when I found out that someone had signed me up for a Premium trial membership...I only have one day of it left...WOOHOO! Who did that?

Here's an update on me.

1. I finished that testimony. But I got sick the night before I was to give it. So I did it the next week. And I about threw up giving it. Oh fun. But it turned out well, even though I was obviously nervous as heck. It didn't help that it just happened to be the week my youth pastor showed up to the group to make an announcement. I always feel like he's scrutinizing my every move anyway. So, that amplified that by 100 times. But it all went well.

2. I've started to work on a song. This is a huge song. In fact, God has seriously told me this will be the song I'm going to sell first as a songwriter. I've put guitar, bass, and piano to this song. I'd put drums to it, but I suck. I'm talking to a dude at church about doing that. Another dude is supposed to hopefully put violin to it. Did I tell you how BIG this song is? I even know who I'm supposed to pitch this song at. Not telling who. But said singer is big. More details on this as they come.

3. Staying single is hard...NOW THAT I WANT TO BE SINGLE! I couldn't get nobody when I wanted a girlfriend, except for a psycho who will remain unnamed, but is the big reason why I've gone solo. And now, this girl I've met at college is showing interest in me. And not that I wouldn't date her, because I dig her, I just keep thinking, "Crap, what were you doing 3 months ago?!"

4. I've decided not to program that MSN wannabe for Linux. I'm pushing forward with downloading the upgrades for Linux on my home computer. Yes, even with dialup. So yes, this has been like a monthlong process, and it's still not halfway done. This is considering that since I've started, both my graphical interfaces and the kernel have come out with new versions that I've had to redownload. I'm currently in the process of downloading a 157MB file at home. And one thought downloading songs on dialup was an ordeal. Luckily I got a download manager that should hopefully resume the download even after I shut down my PC.

5. Lately I've been feeling dry. If ya peoples will pray that I get out of this one, do it! Thanks in advance.

My goals this week:

1. Read my Bible EVERY DAY!

2. Get drums to my big song.

3. Audition one of the two singers for the song that want to record the demo of it for me.

4. Write some new songs!!!!!!!

5. Finish the big 157MB download, download the new kernel, and then continue getting all the other files I need.