My Fairly Eventful Weekend

This has to be one of the first nice weather weekends we've had in a long time. I'm glad I took advantage it.

Friday

So, I went to Bay101 that night with my poker buddy, NoKuntrol. I had mistakenly thought it was the paycheck syzygy... the alignment of monthly, semi-monthly, and bi-weekly paydays. But, I was wrong. Bi-weekly paychecks went out the previous Friday. I was off by one due to the 5 Fridays we had in March. It didn't matter... I had to wait 3+ hours to get a seat. But, it wasn't too bad, I did get to watch NK play while I waited. His game's getting pretty damn good. He left up with well over a rack in profit.

To make a long story short(er), I played for over 8 hours and won a whopping $132 at the 6/12. I started off losing with KK, QQ, JJ twice, and TT twice in the first two hours. That put me in -$200 to -$300 range for about 6 hours. Then, I made it all back and then some in the final two hours when a wannabe pro (you know the type... the sunglasses wearing, stare you down, pot-odds talking, and taking way too long to think type) showed up and tried to outplay me over and over and over again.

Here's the hand that kind of set him off on his mission to get me.

It's 6-handed at this point with 2 prop players (those who play professionally with their own money, but also get paid by the card room to keep games from running out of players). These two props I've played with many times before, one is excellent and scares me, the other is quite good. Then, there was the wannabe, one unknown Asian guy, and another Asian guy I've played with plenty before that plays a bit too loosely pre-flop, but has a strong post-flop game. NoKuntrol had left about an hour earlier, so he missed this hand.

So, anyway, I've got ATo in the big blind. Everyone limps to the wannabe, and the small blind (the lesser prop) folds. I call, as does everyone else. The flop comes J88. Checks to the wannabe, who checks. I'm pretty sure he's got a small pocket pair or AT-AK. It's possible he's got a monster, but I really doubt it. The turn brings a 4. I check, and again everyone checks to the wannabe. I'm pretty sure if any player actually had something they'd bet this turn card. The wannabe now bets... I'm thinking there's a great chance that a raise knocks out the players in between and there's a pretty good chance the wannabe folds here. He's been making what he claims were tough laydowns up to this point. The poker gods were with me on this one, and he folds, and I take down the pot.

Wannabe: Looks like you missed a bet.
BruteForce: Maybe you would have won if you had checked.
Wannabe: There's no way I can check my hand there.
BruteForce: I know that. That's why I knew I could check-raise you... you're an open book to me.

Who knows if I was bluffing with the best hand or not. In any case, it was pretty lame table talk, but it did irk him enough to pay me off grandly until I left.

Saturday

I got up at 1:30. That's pretty damn good considering I went to bed at eight in the morning. Played some more XBox360 (I beat Fable: Lost Chapters, yay... but there's a lot of random crap I can still do in the game, so I guess I'll continue to play it).

Anyway, the girlfriend came over around 6, and we hit up Petsmart to get some fish medicine for her parrotfish. Both of them are sick... we suspect gill flukes, but we're not positive.

After taking care of her fish, we went out to dinner at Mama Mia's just nearby. We've never been there, and figured we'd give it a try. It was pretty good. We were both quite pleased with the meal. I had the Linguine with Clams in the bianca sauce, and she had the Osso Bucco, which was excellent (I had a few bites of it).

Following dinner, we actually rented a movie, King Kong, and an X360 game, Dead or Alive 4. I don't really recommend that game unless you really like the Tekken-style fighting games. I never was a good street fighter player, and not surprisingly I'm pretty damn horrible at this game. I'm usually totally against renting movies, and even now I'm not sure what compelled me to do it. I always get pissed off about movie rental prices, because the prices are outrageous. Seriously... what if you went to Hertz and they told you that renting a crappy Dodge Neon would cost you $3000 for 5 days? The movie rental business is based upon legalized usury. Ok, enough of my bitching.

Sunday

Got up before noon, and went to the
Nikkei Matsuri Festival in San Jose. It was entertaining for a short while. The festival itself isn't all that big, and so we saw pretty much all there was to see in less than a couple of hours. I found the Suiseki exhibit the most interesting. I guess I just felt that the whole idea behind it was pretty neat. When you really think about it, it's nothing more than rock collecting. But, these naturally formed rocks really do look like greater landscapes. I guess you could say that it's sort of microcosmic. Anyway, I liked what I saw. Not enough for me to go out there starting my own collection or anything, but I definitely can appreciate it all.

After checking out the festival, we had a late lunch in Santana Row at Thea Mediterranean. The food is primarily Greek and Turkish. Neither of us had ever been here before either. We both started with an amazing tasting Spanakopita. For our main lunch entrees, she ordered the Garides, which came as six large prawns cooked on zucchini cakes. It was pretty tasty. I went with my usual Greek favorite... the Moussaka. I know quite a few that don't like moussaka, but I don't understand why or how. I personally think it's a great tasting dish, and the one at Thea was quite good.

After lunch, we walked around Santana Row for a bit, and watched a few people play chess in their lounge area. It's really a nice area to walk and window shop. Real (and affordable) shopping is best done elsewhere.

Next, we decided to watch Thank You For Smoking. I thought it was really funny and entertaining. Unfortunately, she felt otherwise, but I guess I expected it somewhat. She's really not much into movie dialogue, and certainly not a movie predicated on dialogue. If anyone hasn't seen it and actually enjoys movie dialogue, then I recommend it.

I guess that brings my weekend to a close. We did get sunburnt from our Sunday activities, but it was rather mild. Hopefully the weather stays nice... especially, after the record breaking dreariness we experienced recently.