okay. scrubs is a fantastic show. thurs nites, nbc. its been a good week even with working out of fresno.

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer
http://www.cingular.com

wow. a blog from my phone!

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer
http://www.cingular.com

I’ve been playing around lately with my brand new PowerMac and am totally loving it. It is fast, silent, and i’m impressed by how i can customize it. I am primarily using this as an internet/coding/video+photo editing machine, so it is perfect for me.

No big plans for the fourth….i’m working!

Happy Birthday America!

revolver is dead.

and i have switched.

as of july 1, 2003, i am a mac user first, a windows user second.

viva la mac.

Its only 8 billion degrees out. Give or take four degrees.

I managed to assemble my computer desk, so once i throw out the new mess of boxes, I will actually have a nice apartment!

My wireless is up and running too, so my laptop is moved out of the living room and onto my new desk. I should also install my “big boxes” too….hrm. Maybe that’ll be tomorrows project.

I’ve decided (after blowing the Google interview) to stop drinking until I manage to land a real job. I think its affecting my memory and my ability to answer the truly trivial questions which I seem to get about unix, emacs, etc. I really should’ve answered all the questions correctly……

Watched The Hulk tonight as its one of the few places around here thats got good air conditioning and is fun….great movie, much better than spider man!

Night night folks.

Finally, I’ve got Mail. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. (mad props to jim florentine.)

More like, i’ve got the internet again, more then just an hour a day at the library. 

I have a job lead. I have dating prospects. Life is quite good these days, I must admit.

But more on that later…….

[updated, 6/4/03]

Viva Las Vegas.  Part I:

I haven’t had such anticipation over a vacation in quite a while. From about Tuesday on, I was checking out books at the library about Blackjack,  having trouble sleeping, and pondering if there ways to switch my flight around so i could get there even two hours sooner. It might not have been just for the gambling, I was meeting up with college friends who I hadn’t seen in almost two years.  I’d give a day-by-day rundown of my gambling, but I decided to just keep track of what I started and ended the trip with. Laz has a much better memory and much of my highlights are going to be shamelessly lifted off his blog.

Friday was the day that I and most of the crew got into Sin City. I was the second to arrive, as Laz got in on Thursday. By the time i got into Ballys to check in, it was around 1pm. I don’t think I even got to the tables until 2pm, as the check-in line for the start of memorial day weekend was insane. I didn’t even get any of their frozen pink lemonade they were giving out to people in line!  Once I finally got through checking-in, I met up with Laz at the sports book and we threw our bags into our room.  I signed up for my Ballys card (which I conveniently lost at least three times that weekend) and we played some craps, where I had a “PHENOMENAL!” run to start the weekend. I think I was up $215 or so on that table. 

I think we wandered around after that and met up with the next group to come in (Pat, Pat’s friend Cook, Chris Mohr) and we went up to their room where we drank (warm beer! gross!) and played caps. Well, the four of them played caps and I just chilled out and drank…..i don’t play caps….it slows down my drinking.

Friday night, we had dinner at the Bourbon Street casino, where I had steak and french fries for $5.13, including tax. Not a bad price, but not a great piece of steak either. I was a bit buzzed at this point after drinking at the Flamingo, so I couldn’t complain.

After eating, I can’t remember where we went, but we headed up eventually to a very sketchy casino called the Casino Royale. My papers said they had horrible blackjack rules (6:5, etc.) and my poor play there was not a surprise. The dealers were rude too…I guess they can be when they know they’re the cheap tables in town.  We did finally see Adam who I have to give props to, for driving in from Los Angeles when the roads were packed. He got in around 2am or so and I think we only ended up putzing around for another two hours before we went home for the night. We got to sleep around 4am.

Vegas, Part II:

The group was a little smaller on Saturday due to Pat and his part of the group meeting up with other friends at a bachelorette party or something like that.  It ended up just being me, Laz, Adam, Kel and Rob walking around Vegas. Not as much gambling on Saturday, but we did check out the m&m store and its ridiculous attempt at a 3d movie. And I will argue to my deathbed that the movie they show promotes drinking to kids in one of the segments. Scandalous.

Saturday night, Adam, Laz, and I ate at the Harley Davidson Cafe on the strip, as we were wandering around starving and were basically trying to find any place to eat relatively cheap (but not $5.13 cheap) that didn’t have a line. The one thing that the three of us noticed almost immediately, was just how hot the waitresses there were. Not “6 or 7, after-midnight-coffee-shop, half-drunk in the middle of the night hot,” but they were genuine 8s and 9s. Our waitress was a cute blonde named Amanda.  The three of us chatted her up at almost every opportunity,  asking about Vegas nightlife, where she was from, etc. etc. Amanda seemed to show a genuine interest in the three of us, either that or a genuine interest in receiving a bigger tip. Regardless, we enjoyed the food (surprisingly good actually), ogled at the bikes which moved across the walls dangerously close to falling on patrons as the dined, and then moved on to our next destination. 

Our next spot to hang out at was the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, mostly on my urging because i knew how wonderful it would be.  This is the spot that Howard Stern seems to always go to when he does his shows from Vegas, so I knew there’d be a reason to go there. Laz had also heard about their nightclub from his brother who had been there a few weeks prior. We didn’t hit the nightclub, because we didn’t have to. Once we walked in and circled around, we ended up chilling at the Hard Rock’s center bar area. I hadn’t seen such exposed flesh and beautiful people since some of the nightclubs (and beaches) I went to in Europe in late 2001. We didn’t play much blackjack there as the tables were mostly in the $15 range. I actually hit on this blonde nurse from Los Angeles on a whim, as we were all just standing around drinking and I needed to liven up the night a little bit. I went over and talked to her for about a minute or so, but she was waiting for her friends (yet another bachelorette party in vegas) so once they showed up, she walked away with them. The night ended soon thereafter, most of us were tired and walked back to Ballys. We passed a pretty run-down looking strip club, which I actually went back to later that night due to not being able to sleep, and I wanted to see just how bad it was. Luckily there was no cover, and I only paid $10 there for a couple drinks. I got to bed that night around 6am.

(to be continued)

Well, after watching “Oceans Eleven” and “Lucky” on fx in the past two weeks, i’ve decided that i’m pretty much ready for Vegas.  Nine days away!  I have been working and doing usability studies (extra cash!) and will be working pretty much non-stop until I leave. 

Matrix opens tomorrow, but i’m going to a “sneak” screening tonight…..i think i’m going to have to get to the theatre like two hours before the show! I guess i’ll just bring one of my poker books to read while I wait.

My entertainment center is all setup, although i haven’t quite figured out how to connect my ps2 to my cable box……hrm. Guess that’ll be my project for the rest of the afternoon.  Ciao folks. Talk to ya soon.

(and now another excerpt from Vinnie Vegas’ journal.)

“Vinnie V at the double-C”

I had always heard about Cache Creek, but never ventured a trip up to the boonies of Northern California. I casually mentioned that I had an interest in gambling to one of my co-workers and a trip soon emerged for that adrenaline rush which is unique to being in a casino.

We arrived around 8pm, “parking in the Scratchy lot” (simpsons reference) which involved taking a shuttle bus to get to the casino. We drove past their soon-to-be completed hotel/parking structure/gaming facility.  Casinos are always under construction.  My first stop was to get my VIP card, and spin for a million. No, I did not win. I then hit the first group of gaming tables, in the center of the opening room. I was a bit unimpressed at first, but I hadn’t really scoped the rest of the place out. I sat down at a $10 table and bought in for $200, then another $100 in chips. My luck ran out 40 minutes later as I didn’t get the cards I wanted at all, and my betting wasn’t being done smartly.  (if that is possible in a casino)

I was close to being on “tilt” as Max Rubin describes in his book, Comp City, and crazily walked over to an atm. My heart was racing so fast it took at least eight or nine swipes of my card (and two pin number attempts) to get my money.  After this, I scoped out the rest of the casino, finding more gaming tables which were also $5 and $10 tables, and they were a lot less crowded. I managed to win back about $200 of the $300 I lost, and then my friends found me and we went and grubbed at their buffet. Not a bad buffet, not comparable to easter brunch @ the Fairmont, but it was tasty!  After dinner, we hit the tables again where dealers Mallika and Darwin were quite kind to me. I managed to split aces three times on one hand! (I did however lose three out of the four hands) I managed to leave the Casino, up $50, which is impressive considering I was down $300 very early in the night.

I came with $300, withdrew $200, left with $550.  win = $50
Expenses: $12 (buffet), $2.50 (atm fee) = $14.50
Net win: $35.50. Not bad for 6 hours of fun.

i’m back from my little trip up to seattle for wrestlemania xix, the “showcase of the immortals”, and to those not in the know, the biggest wrestling show of the year.

here are some highlights:

• hanging out with the other fans outside the wrestlers’ hotel on saturday.


• meeting (and getting autographs from) kurt angle, booker t, maven, tommy dreamer, and sean o’haire.


• sitting eighth row along the entrance ramp for the show (i was on tv quite a bit!)


• the rockin performance from limp bizkit


• the crazy videos/pictures i took…..i’ll put them up on a page soon.


• the ride up to seattle (and back) on the train….if you can stand the inevitable delays of amtrak, you’ll see some very scenic countryside.

Not much else to say right now…..life is crazy with trying to find new employment, a new place to live, etc…..