Poker, Heineken, Anniversaries, New York & Oysters

We are considering moving from Toronto to Sin City within the next 2 years. Originally it was Northern California, but in light of the current housing market we could do really well in Vegas. 3.5% is all you need for a down payment and houses are at rock bottom level. No where to go but up. No chance of a loan that ends up being way more than the value of the home. None. Gated community, 3 bdrms, pool for 200K. We'd make 30% on the value within 5 years. Maybe more. We wouldn't lose.

But this is a city that steals souls and sucks life from even the most vibrant inhabitant if they're not careful. Go for a week and you can dive head first into that degenerate hole knowing that you'll reach air again soon and be on a plane back to whatever reality you know. Manage your money, wear protection and avoid the meth and junk and everything should be alright. The same STDs are available in Las Vegas as can be found in just about every little Buttfuck, NW. Vegas seems like it'd be more fun on acid or mushrooms anyway, but that's just me. The point is that one should be safe when they feed on Las Vegas in moderation, but what if I live there? Will it suck my soul dry. Could I manage everything? There is much opportunity and fun to be had, but it's out there on a tightrope. Without a net. Etc.

We got back late last night and I miss it already. First and foremost was seeing the family. We have two little ones both under the age of two. They are both born to two of our nieces and nephews (we have 4 there) which is a little crazy I'll admit, but not so out of step in today's world. I come from a small family myself and I am learning that there is something to be said for a large family. If you start with acceptance not only of people but of situations, the rest is gravy and basically life.

We were originally going to rent a car and base ourselves out of my sister-in-law's house. The kids were all back in school and the car didn't work out due to me not having a credit card. I think I may be at the point where I need to re-examine my position on CCs. They have taken down so many people/families. I've been trying to get around the system or avoid the system is probably more like it, but it's getting to be near impossible these days. Especially when traveling. I'm still blowing off the cell phone. It'll be a sad day when I break down on that one, but such is the state of the world we live in. Until then I'll continue to smell the roses and if you can't get a hold of me, tough shit. I digress...

So no car. Instead we just booked the whole week down on the strip at New York New York. I had only been to this property once before on my very first trip to Vegas in 2002. My buddy Kurt & I went to ride the roller coaster as he had never been on one. I don't think he has since. NYNY has no poker room, so there was really no reason for me to go there after that 1st time. We secured a nice corner room with a King and a Strip view after they tried to stick us in a double/double. The GF was having none of that and made it happen. I'm a little more laid back when it comes to those things, but not her. The lesson: If you don't ask, you don't get.

The best part about NYNY was its proximity to the MGM Poker Room. This is my favorite room to play in in Vegas. The staff is great, the players are friendly, it's right near the sports book, TVs everywhere. The only drawback is the noise since it's right out in the open next to Centerfuge Bar and the Rainforest Cafe. There's a jungle stampede every 22 minutes. It gets old fast. We spent from Sunday night to Friday morning at the hotel and I played poker on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They comp you $1 per hour to use at any of the property's food outlets. I had $19.50 to spend by the end of my session on Wednesday. I met a bunch of great people I played with all three days and had some interesting late night sessions. I made a lot more money during the late night/early morning sessions for some reason. The games were much more wild and the booze was flowing steady. Ha ha. I think over the whole time I averaged 1 Heineken per hour. Since I'm not professional and I'm from Canada where you have to buy drinks in a casino, I count this as a part of my overall take.

20 x Heineken @ $7.50 - $1 Tip = $130.00 + 19.50 Food Comp = $149.50

This is before I even pull in a chip. I made enough playing poker to cover all of our extra curricular fun on the strip. Meals, games, non-casino drinks, transportation, slots for the GF and other entertainment stuff. All the kids came to meet us on Wednesday afternoon and we hit up a few Mega-Arcades. We got a steal of a deal at the hotel so the whole thing was a minimal expense with the plane tickets accounting for the largest chunk of change.

Thursday was our anniversary so we spent that entire day together playing slots at various resorts, sipping on free drinks and eating. I think we hit the the Venitian, Mirage, Caesars, and Bellagio in that order. I was alternating Coronas and Bloody Mary's and I had one of each on the go when I was able to. Great combo. We found a great Indian restaurant on the strip called Tamba. I linked it because it's Sofa King good. Both of us are not the type to really sit down in one of those pretentious restaurants named after some idiot TV chef. They are either filled with assholes from LA or fans of so-and-so's show that just want to say they've been there and done that. We just like good food at a fair price with good sized portions. The nan was probably the best I ever had. The Butter Chicken is making my mouth water as I type this. The place was packed. Always a good sign. I don't see myself ever going to Vegas again without eating at Tamba at least once.

We were supposed to go out dancing together, but we were just too faded by the time we got back to NYNY. We had bee out for about 10 hours drinking, eating, gambling and walking. What we should have done was hit the pool, go to dinner and then hit the clubs. We ended up sprawled out on the bed watching The Hangover.

We got picked up on Friday and went to our nephew's high school for a chicken dinner in support of his football team. The night ended with a drive to Chinatown (yes, Vegas has one) where supplies were purchased for a stir fry and Oyster BBQ. We ended up with a case of 60 of the biggest oysters I've ever seen. My only oyster experience has been raw so I was going to be watching from the sidelines until I got talked into full on participation. We had some Hawaiians there and they are the experts when it comes to BBQ'd oysters. They ended up being great. We cooked them all night long, topped them with Tabasco, Soy, Salt and fresh lemon juice and washed them down with cold Coronas. The night ended with a few Beer Pong matches. My first time. For the record I left Vegas undefeated. There are Beer Pong tournaments that people can enter on the strip. You can make side bets and everything. Just an FYI.

Our flight back on Saturday was fairly uneventful. We flew through Dallas which was surprisingly a first for me. We were in the same row on our last leg but not beside each other. We each had a window seat so we just waved back and forth. The GF made friends with the couple sitting next to her. I met them as they got off and they started asking for my phone #, email etc. We think they're going to try to recruit us for religious purposes. Good luck with that. Very nice people though.

I guess this was more a a trip recap post than one that argues a point which is how I think I started this one. Will Vegas beat me down and leave me in the ditch if we ever move there? If I live life like I did this past week then I believe the answer is yes. If I am able to pick my spots, push my edge and above all resist certain temptations then I think I have a chance to dominate in any number of arenas available to me there.

I ran my Fantasy Football draft while in Vegas. I'll have more on this and my Fantasy Baseball team which is heading for the playoffs in my next post.

A Sunday Show > NS Bows Out > Hampton Pics

Another fine Sunday here in the T-dot. So, what shall we discuss...

First a wonderful Grateful Dead show courtesy of the archive. This is a March 15, 1990 show from the Capital Center in Landover, MD. The spring tour of 1990 will always make deadheads wonder what might have been if Brent wouldn't have OD'd that August taking away the finest singing voice that band has ever had. Highlights from this show include the Jack Straw, Sugaree opening combo, Althea and a superb Terrapin Station. The link above will take you where you need to be. Spark one up and enjoy!

This whole tour raged with highlights being the Copps Coliseum back-to-backs from Hamilton, ON (one of the best Scarlet/Fire's), but the real gem happened on this writer's birthday, March 29, 1990 @ the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island where Brantford Marsalis joined the Dead for the first time adding his improvisational saxophone skills that worked magically on Bird Song, Dark Star and Eyes of the World (Without a Net version).

The Brier - The final is set. Kevin Martin and his Alberta rink will be playing at home tonight vs Jeff Stoughton's Manitoba rink. Manitoba got by Ontario last night and Stoughton probably managed to give them all a cold in turn. If a bunch of you Ontarians come down with something this week, just look left to Manitoba and give 'em one of these:




As for Kris Granchelli, Lead stone thrower for next year's host province Nova Scotia, well let's just say that we're awfully proud of him. I don't curl, but I do know some things. First, Canada is the best at this sport. Period. The Brier is filled with past champions, World Champions and Olympic Champions, some of them multiple winners of these titles. I know Kris and his teammates were looking for a better record than the 2-9 they finished at, but we/they should keep things in perspective. It's been a great experience for the entire team to play on this stage. If you haven't done it before it can be tough with the crowd sizes, TV cameras & lights, expectations from back home, etc. Now I know Dacey has been there and done that, but this is a team game and successful teams need to grow. Besides, curlers seem to age gracefully. This isn't the NBA. I think we'll see Mr. Granchelli on TV again.

Kris Granchelli Tim Horton's Brier Final Stats:

Overall: 83% (Ranked 10/12 for Leads)
Best Game: 91%
Worst Game: 76%
Positional +/-: -1 (Ranked 7/12 for Leads)



The teams is pictured from left to right: Mark Dacey, Bruce Lohnes, Andrew Gibson, and Kris Granchelli. You wouldn't know it, but Kris probably shaved less than 2 hours before that photo was taken.

All kidding aside this has been a great accomplishment for Kris. He has talked about this for a long time and to be honest, I was never sure if he was serious or just full of shit. I couldn't be happier that he was able to straighten me out on that. Will I now have to hear about this forever? It's a Shore Thing!!

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I just entered a poker tourney of Party. The results have just not been there for me lately. I've been able to build some nice stacks early, but the wheels seem to fall off as I approach the money or just get into it. It has actually happened a lot with AQ lately and I think I need to take a harder look at how I play this hand, especially vs someone that can bounce me. Last night I called a re-raise with AQ sooooted right before the money bubble. I had between 15-20 BBs left at the time and didn't have to go it's just that the raise came from a steal spot and I was SB. I really didn't want to play the hand out of position. The thing is there are not many hands besides a bluff that I am ahead of. No pairs. Versus AK & AA I am was dominated.

Just got bounced. I'm in BB with 20+ BBs in my stack. I got QQ. There are 3 callers before it gets back to me so I pop it to $600 hoping to get it 1-on-1. This happens when I get re-popped and now have to call an all-in for my stack. I don't put him on AA or KK or even AK because at this level I think he would have bumped it up first time around. I call pretty confident I'm ahead, hoping to see JJ or TT. He flips over KJo (what?) and of course spikes a K on the turn. GG mrjackstraw. See ya next time. Fuck.

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In case you don't know what Phish does, here's a peek into that wonderful little world:




Skills to Pay the Bills

Happiness is...

You Enjoy Myself

Mothership Command Center

Blast off!

Trey is a Jedi


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Looks like I'm going into my fantasy hockey playoffs with the #1 or #2 seed which gets me a 1st round bye and directly into the top 4 where 3/4 get paid. I like it. I've also just got Brodeur and Vanek back from injury so I enter the playoffs with a fairly healthy team front to back. Not turning my goaltending depth into a top flight centre may come back to haunt me. I tried. Finding a dance partner is hard sometimes. Deadhead Express is gonna roll!!!!!!!


Althea just came on. Love that tune. This space is getting hot!!!

JJ's coming by today for a little Tiger Woods golf on the Wii. Should be a blast. Fuck I love Sunday's!

-mrjackstraw

Super Sunday and Such

Well, I didn't get my pick in for the Superbowl on the blog here (busy), but did manage to hit the Cardinals for +7 on Sports Interaction for $50. If I count that my playoff record against the spread jumps up to a very uninspiring 4-7. Winning the last game was sweet, but my picks this year were really lacking.

This NFL season was the first for me at my current job and as such I was able to enter a few different pools in addition to my regular forays. The big "work pool" was a $150 a head and involved 30 guys picking against the spread as it appeared in the Thursday Toronto Sun. A nice $4500 prize pool that pays out the top 5 with first place being around $1800. There were always weekly prizes of $50 to the best record of the week and ties at the top would create a carry-over like in Skins Golf.

I started the season horribly, had a few good weeks with 10 wins being my high water mark and was a complete non-factor throughout. I did not find out until around week 10 that last place got $100. I found myself in the bottom 6 or 7 on the table and decided to take the position that I would do my best to climb upward by trying to take down best picks of the week and plug a few of my losses from that. I did this for the following four weeks, had some decent weeks where I finished in the top third, but it was never really enough to propel me up.

The fourth week was what really helped me turn the corner. 3-13. I now knew what direction I had to focus all of my attention. Picking losers is just as hard as picking winners, but I started looking at different factors and instead of just asking what a team could or would win (and trying to justify the pick to myself) I was now asking, "why is this team going to lose this game?" I was able to finish 5-11, 6-10, 4-12 during my last three weeks and secured last place overall and the $100 that goes with it. I think going into next year I really need to look at why a team won't win a given game just as much, maybe even more so, than just why Team A or Team B will win.

So there I am plugging my losses and feeling pretty good about things. My Detroit Lions had just wrapped up a perfect 0-16 campaign and I under the moniker "Barry Sanders" had just finished dead last in my work football pool. How apt. I had payed my first installment of $75 in October and now had a $25 credit and was sitting at -$50 overall. I was able to re-invest my $25 credit and purchased some land on the traditional squares board. At $5 a piece I bought 5 of them and took a "Let It Ride" approach to it. Here's the board:




As you can see I hit it big with the final score. From a $500 pool the payouts went like this: Q1 = $100, Q2 = $100, Q3 = $100 and Q4 = $200. I should have had the second quarter too if it wasn't for the Harrison play. I had some really favourable numbers in this format. Not too many 5's & 8's. I had 4 and 0 going both ways which was really lucky. I had the 4th quarter wrapped up near the end, right before the penalty that backed up the Steelers to their own goal line and eventually led to the safety. I was right on the number after the first Larry Fitzgerald touchdown closed the gap to 20-14 Pittsburgh. The safety made it 20-16 with less than 3 minutes to go and of course I was like, "Aw fuck! Screwed again." But wait. That little score put a touchdown from each team away from the cash. To be honest I did not even pick up on this until Warner hit Fitzgerald with that 64yd TD which made it 23-20. I became a big Steelers fan at the end and it really paid off. Ha ha. So that put me at $125 net profit for the year and I now have my entry for next year plus my fantasy football entry for next year as well.

And now a Superbowl commercial montage:

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Hope you Canuck's enjoyed that as we usually get shut out. I do remember seeing one for Budweiser with the Clydesdales, but it kind of sucked in my opinion.

This past weekend saw me out more than in. I spent Friday night out drinking longer than anticipated. The night just flew by and with no dinner, Saturday didn't start off well. I had plans to head up to a home poker game in Markham on Saturday night with a buddy and some guys I had met a couple of times before. We just played an ongoing cash game where the max buy-in was $20. There were 8 guys at the table and I dealt the first hand that resulted in a pot of over $80. Things were loose. I think when we finally cashed out there was over $600 on the table. I had a hard time all night picking up anything. The game was so loose and aggressive that isolation was hard. I did fold the best hand a few times (because I was in pussy mode) and generally tried to play cards that did well vs multiple opponents. I ended up, but by nothing significant. Especially compared to the money that was flying around and the level of play demonstrated at the table. I think I can be a consistant winner if I play in this game more often.

Superbowl Sunday morning started with me smoking a super bowl and went from there. JJ & I hit Tim Horton's as we drove back into the Big Smoke. I got cleaned up. You always feel like ass when you stay over at an unfamiliar place and basically just crash in a chair. I was on deck to make Arizona Chicken. Hey, I like to theme it. My better half made some nice salads and a heavenly corn chowder. My sister and her girlfriend came over bringing pizza (why?), snacks, a football shaped cake, dips, caesar ingredients, etc. We basically have food for the week. The game was great. I think a casual or non-fan would have found it interesting which is a good measuring stick.

Since my last post I have made it to see both Slumdog Millionaire and Gran Torino. I think Gran Torino is a great film. Yes, I love Clint Eastwood and do have a Detroit bias, but trust me, it's good stuff. As for Slumdog Millionaire, I though it was an above average film. I don't know about an Oscar for Best Picture, but I would recommend it. The soundtrack was good. I am going to watch Trainspotting this week. It's another one of Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle's films and it's been a while since I've seen it.

That's all for now.