My series from last night:

The 8th frame of the second game, I left a four pin. Good shot, just a touch high. Shoulda carried. Dammit. I’ll get my 300 eventually. Pretty bad series considering I had a 279 in there, but I can’t really complain any time I average 221 over 3 games.

Just in case you are reading this and somehow haven’t read this stuff elsewhere:

WWdN: Donegal Invitiational on PokerStars
Friday 11.4.05 @ 7pm EST
$10 + 1 NL
Password is monkey

Saturdays with Dr. Pauly on PokerStars
Saturday 11.5.05 @ 1pm EST
$10 + 1 NL
Password is hiltons
Tournament #14338880 (check under Private Tournament Tab)

WPBT Shootout on Full Tilt
Sunday 11.6.05 @ 3pm EST
$10 + 1 NL
Email Bill for the password
Restricted to only bloggers/readers who will be heading to Vegas in December

Haven’t played much (any) poker since my fun donkey session last weekend, so nothing to write about that. Just too damn busy, unfortunately.

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No, I’m not going to work for Full Tilt.

The news is that I bought a house. I own property in West Santa Barbara Goleta. I closed escrow today. Tomorrow, I’m meeting with a general contractor to figure out all the work that needs to be done:

Rewire the whole place because most of the outlets aren’t grounded

Remove the popcorn ceiling

Repaint

Relandscape the backyard

I think that’s all. I’m pretty excited about it, and can’t wait to move… or at least can’t wait until I’m finished moving. I will post pictures of it when I can get to it. Right now, the gallery just has pictures of it tented for fumigation.

Unrelated to all of that, I finally got my pin up in the case at the bowling alley. Click the image at the left for a bigger picture. Now I’m just waiting on the ring.

Not much to report on the poker front. Really, I’ve been too busy to play much lately, and when I have had time haven’t really felt like it.

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That’s what I threw tonight, in a league I don’t even bowl in. I was a sub for someone else. My last ball in my last game was a nearly perfect shot. It left a solid nine pin. Honestly, I’m not too upset about that. I know I’ll throw a 300 someday. I get a 299 ring for what I did tonight. I also get a wooden bowling pin with my name and “299” on it in the display case at the bowling alley. I’m more annoyed at the 9th frame of the third game – a seven pin, I should have picked up, and would have given me 40 clean frames for the night.

This is certainly my highest four game series, and I beat my previous high game of 278.

Combined with my poker over the weekend, I’ve been having a pretty good week.

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Baseball

Stupid Yankees had to go and take two outta three from the Mets. Actually, the Mets really just gave the games away making so many errors. They really shoulda been able to take the last game. They’re still two games over .500 and only three games back in the NL East, but they’re just so bad. They need to learn to field and pitch. Their hitting (or, ability to score runs, anyway), despite low batting averages, seems just fine. They’ve scored the most runs in the division. Hell, the Yankees, even with their awful start, now have the same record (though they’re 4.5 games back in their division).

Last weekend, I went to NY for a friend’s wedding, and managed to get to a game against the Cards in between picking up my tux at 10am and the wedding at 8pm. It was a 1:10 start, and ended in plenty of time for me to get home and change. It was also a great game, though the result was disappointing, thanks to the Mets terrible bullpen. Anytime Pedro can give up 5 runs and leave with the lead, the team should fricken win. It should have been a great pitching matchup, but neither Pedro nor Mulder were sharp. Unfortunately, the Cards bullpen didn’t allow a run, while the Mets pen allowed two, for a final score of 7-6. It was my first game this season, and I think my first time back at Shea since I moved out to California. At least it was fun.

Bowling

I bowled again this weekend, for the first time since I got hurt. I pretty much picked up right where I left off. Saturday morning, I threw a 619 series. Saturday evening, I shot really badly in a 9-pin no-tap tournament, and didn’t even break 600, but I wasn’t really trying. Honest. My third game of that tournament was my best, and I was using my spare ball for the whole thing. Yesterday, I bowled in the last week of my Sunday night league, with a new glove.

All I needed to do was throw a 218 the third game for another 700 series, and if the pins had cooperated, I would have. Every shot except for the split in the middle was right in the pocket. I left three 7 pins, two 10 pins, and a solid 8 (which I didn’t pick up). All of them solid in the pocket, but I just couldn’t get any carry. Still, I can’t complain about a 665 series, especially as my second series back from injury.

And no pain, stiffness, or other bad or strange feelings in my wrist. That’s a good sign.

Poker

I’ve been playing online poker a bit more again lately, and badly. I’m making bad plays and terrible calls, and I know it when I do it. I need to get out of my rut. Maybe the blogger trip to Vegas will help. It’s less than two weeks away. I finally booked my flight and room. I somehow managed to pull off a room at the Plaza, where lots of other bloggers are staying. Their website shows nothing available for Friday and Saturday night, but http://www.lasvegashotel.com/ let me book a room there. I’ll be splitting it with Joaquin, who was looking for someone to share a room with. That website still shows available rooms at the Plaza, so if there are any bloggers looking to stay there who don’t have their rooms yet, you should check it out.

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I’ve been seriously neglecting this place for quite a while now, and I don’t really know why. Serious lack of motivation, I guess. It’s certainly not that I have nothing to write about. Since my last post over three weeks ago, I’ve been to Vegas for a bachelor party, been to Tucson for Passover, and… uh, that’s it, I guess.

I haven’t bowled at all since the week I threw my 700 series. The “tightness” in my arm got worse when I bowled twice more that week, and I just had to stop. It wasn’t easy to get myself to, though, since I had just thrown a 720, and then three days later threw a 174-262-205 for a 641 series, through the pain. In the 262, I had ten of twelve shots for strikes. I knew I couldn’t keep bowling, though, if I ever wanted it to get better. The doctor said it’s tendonitis, and I should take 6 weeks off, and had me take prescription level Aleve for a while. That happens to coincide with the end of the regular season leagues, so I get to rest it for another month before the summer leagues start, which is probably for the best.

I don’t think bowling was the cause of my problems, however. I definitely made it worse by continuing to bowl when I knew there was a problem, but I think the root of it is, of course, online poker. Before I started playing online poker a ton, I didn’t really use the mouse on my computer all that much. Not enough to create any problems. While playing poker, I’m pretty much contantly using the mouse. For unrelated reasons, I hadn’t played much online poker for a while after I got hurt. My arm was getting better, which I attributed to just resting it and not bowling. Then last week, I played again for about a half hour, and it immediately started to hurt a little again. All this time, I had still been working and using computers, just not playing poker, with no problems. I don’t know if it’s something about the way I sit when I’m playing, or just that I use the mouse so much more, but poker was definitely the problem. I think it’s specifically Party Poker that does it, too, as I’ve just relatively recently started playing a lot at the Party skins. I’m going to blame it on the fact that I have to click buttons 8 times for the clicks to actually register, so I have to keep the mouse in one place when I do it. They need to fix this.

So, I got myself a Logitech Trackman to use instead of a mouse, and an IMAK Smart Glove, which seems to be helping. I’ve been playing online poker again for a few days now, clearing the latest Party bonus, and I don’t seem to be having any problems. I’ve got about 100 hands left for that, and made around 27BB/100 hands while doing it. I love $100NL 6max at Party.

Vegas was a ton of fun. One interesting thing that came out of it is that I think I now have a new signature card protector: A bottle of Aleve. I’ll probably fill it with Penguin Mints or something, and pop a few every time I lose a big pot. 🙂
That happened to me a lot that weekend, in the $2/$5 NL game at the Rio, but it was all entirely my fault. I just played terribly. The game itself was great, with lots of easy money to be made, myself included.

Last weekend in Tucson, I finally got out and did some more photography. I’ve set up a new gallery, but only have one picture there at the moment. More will be added as I find time to go through them and clean them up. I do love my 20D.

Hopefully, I’ll start actually posting here fairly often again. No guarantees.

Oh, I almost forgot (actually, I did forget, and I’m editing this post): Congrats to Bob on winning the blogger satellite to the $1500NLHE tourney at the WSOP. Everyone should go sign up for the next one this Sunday. Unfortunately, I again can’t make it because I’ll be in Pittsburgh at my brother’s graduation. Good luck to everyone who plays!

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Less than a month after posting about how I couldn’t throw a 700 series, I finally manage to pull it off. In the “Sunday Fun League”, of all places, but it’s still an ABC sancitioned 720 series. I started off practice with a little tightness in my arm, and my first few shots hurt a little bit. I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to be able to bowl at all. After a few more shots, though, it loosened up, and it seemed like I couldn’t miss the pocket. I wanted to display all the games here, but didn’t really have a good way to do it, so last night I wrote a bowling score WordPress plugin. 🙂 It still needs some cleanup, and then I’ll release it. Here’s the result:

I also have a new high game, the 278. My previous high was 268 (twice). In the 6th frame of that game, I threw a good pocket shot, but left a solid 9 pin. The fill shot in tenth was a little light, and left the 2 pin. Overall, I’m more than happy with the game and the series. My new goals: 279, 299, 300, 750 series. 🙂

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I’ve been on quite a run at the bowling alley, lately. I busted out of the big poker tournament just in time to make it over to Ocean Lanes in Lompoc for the doubles tournament there. I had a partner who showed up just in case I was able to make it. I threw what I believe is my best ever four game series, an 895. My first three games totaled 677, so just short of a 700 series. I’ve been bowling long enough now that you’d think I’d have done that already, but I still don’t. The closest I’ve come is a 695 in a tournament at Zodos last year. If you take my first, second, and fourth games from the Lompoc tournament, I shot 712, but unfortunately it doesn’t count that way.

The next day was the first week of the new Sunday night league. They didn’t oil the lanes at all, because most of the people there don’t care. It’s called the “Sunday Fun League” for a reason. I managed to shoot a 619 there. Since then, I have thrown an 845 (four games), 691 (so close!), and a 660. All told, I’ve averaged 219 over my last 18 games, which is pretty insane for me. Hopefully, I’ll keep up this streak long enough to get a 700 in there before I fall apart again. I’d also like a 279 game (and a 300, of course.) My current high is 268, and I’ve done that twice.

Maybe next week.

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I went up to the singles tournament at Ocean Lanes in Lompoc again last night. It’s a handicap tournament, where you bowl four games and get to drop the lowest one. I went in with a 173 average, and shot a 247, 214, 188, 189. With the lowest dropped, that’s a 650 scratch series, and with my handicap, 776. That was good enough for fifth place, or $32. I also won the first game sidepot, worth $34, and four outta my five brackets for $60. Overall, $91 profit ($20 tournament entry+sidepots, $15 brackets). I really shoulda been able to do better my last two games and move up a couple of spots in the tournament, but overall I’m pretty happy with how I did, and amazed that those last two games held up for my brackets.

Somehow, I managed to avoid the urge to go to Chumash and play some poker afterwards. Instead, I just drove straight home, in the downpour. It’s pretty crazy driving in as much rain as was coming down last night. The PCH (Pacific Coast Highway, CA-1) was closed, so I had to take a slightly (10 or 15 miles) out of the way route to get there and back. On the way back, while I was driving along in the left lane, I passed a huge boulder just sitting out there in the road in the right lane. Apparently, there had been a mudslide or rockslide, probably similar to what closed highway 101 a few weeks ago (Search that page for 101). In fact, I passed it in pretty much the exact same spot that happened, just north of the Gaviota tunnel.

It’s still raining today, though not nearly as hard. Makes it really annoying for me to do my laundry in another building. Unfortunately, the constant three weeks of rain has led a a big pileup of dirty clothes, and it needs to get done. Damn laundry.

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The summer leagues have ended, and the regular leagues have now started. I’m bowling in three (3!) leagues this year, because I’m insane. I’m still in the two I was in last year (Monday and Wednesday nights), and in an additional one on Sunday nights. It’s not as competitive or serious as the other two, and only lasts into December, instead of until shortly before the summer leagues start. It was created to give people who didn’t want to commit a full year a chance to join a league, and looks like it’ll be fun.

The Wednesday night league started last week, and my team managed to take all four points. I bowled very well, finishing with a 618 series. Yesterday, we had a meeting for the Sunday league, and bowled three games, but they didn’t actually count for the league. I did even better, with a 631. Tonight was the first night of the Monday night league, the most competitive of the three (and it’s a half scratch, half handicap league). Of course, this was my worst night of the three. My first game was good, a 207, but the guy I was bowling against threw a 244. My second game wasn’t awful, but I took only half a point when I tied with my 182. The third game was terrible, and the fourth game I lost by 1 pin, 184-183. The rest of my team didn’t really do any better than I did. Hopefully, we’ll all bowl better next week.

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It’s been a while since I’ve written anything interesting. Okay, so I’ve never done that. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything at all, anyway. Sorry about that.

Experimental Film

Anyone who’s a fan of Homestar Runner or TMBG should go check out Experimental Film. It’s a video of a song from their new album.

Baseball

The NL East is pretty sick. The Mets are only a few games over .500, but are only a game out of first. Two teams are tied for first, and two teams are only one game out. They picked up a bat in Hidalgo a little while ago, but I still think they could use another one.

Poker

I haven’t written much about poker lately, because I hadn’t been playing all that much. I’ve been busy with other things a lot, and went on a really bad streak for a while (losing a lot at the cash games, and getting knocked out of sit and gos, always going in as a huge favorite in the hand). So, I stopped playing for a while (a week or so). I finally started again this week, and had good session playing 2/4 at Stars, +$222 in about three hours. I’ve since given around $60 of that back, but it’s still a good feeling.

Wednesday night, after seeing the PLO event from the WSOP on ESPN, I decided to give it a try. I played .10/.25 blinds for a few hours and finished ahead a little bit, but not much. I played again last night, .25/.50 blinds, and made almost $200 at it. I don’t really think I was playing all that well, I was just getting hit over the head with good cards, and people were missing their draws on me. I do think I was getting a better feel for what are good starting cards. I’ll definitely be playing it again.

Also Wednesday night was the first ever (in the US) live televised tournament final table. On the west coast, it was delayed three hours, and I didn’t end up watching it until later, anyway (I love Tivo). It was very well done, after a few problems and sound issues at the beginning. I really liked seeing all the hands, even the ones where everyone just folded to a preflop raise. I don’t know how it did, but I hope it got good ratings, because I want to see more of that.

Bowling

I had been bowling pretty badly lately, until this week. Well, last week my series wasn’t so good, but that was just because of the first game. My second and third games were good. The week before, I think I had a sub-500 series, which I really shouldn’t be doing. Anyway, this week, I threw a 199-191-244, for a 634 series. I was actually throwing it well, and found the pocket (but didn’t always strike) in 9 outta the 10 frames in both the second and third games. I finished off the 244 with 7 strikes in a row. Hopefully, I can keep it up.

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