I'm starting to love this Borders...

Their website says that now until the 29th, if you buy 4 graphic or manga novels you'll get the fifth free. I got all excited until it said that it was "in stores only" and then realized that San Angelo doesn't have a Borders--just it's kid brother Waldenbooks. Which then made me realize that this town doesn't have enough book stores. I can only think of two in this entire town, and Hastings is as good as it gets here unfortunately. They have an okay selection yes, but its no B&N's. I remember the last time I was in Austin, I had the great fortune of going into this HUGE bookstore that I can't remember the name of that was two or three stories large in which I could have looked around for hours and it was so amazing that I actually even remember the disappointment I had about leaving it from that day still and that was a good while ago now! I particularly remember it having the biggest selection of poker books I'd ever seen and could only wish for Hastings to have...

Sigh.

Microsoft is taking over our living room...

Not much going on, I added a few new songs and fixed some broken ones on the playlist. Yesterday I ordered the Samurai 7 DVD boxset for an unbelievable $25 on Borders.com during a 2-day sale. I'm selling my Wii and everything with it to my friend James. It was my x-mas present from Billy but we both haven't had any real reason to play it now for the past several months and we're playing the xbox360 a LOT so it just kind of makes sense.

Playing some online poooker at the moment, see you next time space cowboy!

Back from Dallas

I've lost my phone transfer cable so everytime I've wanted to post something I've been putting it off but I can't find the dumb thing. It costs like $20 for a replacement so I'm not in a hurry to get a new one but at the same time I want picture posts damn it! I was in Dallas from Sept. 29th through October 1st and attended the yearly Animefest convention there and it was a blast. As soon as I can I'm going to put up some pictures of us in our awesome cosplay gear and of course we ate some amazing food while in Dallas. This made it our 2nd anime convention so far and this time we made sure to cosplay since we were so inspired from the Dallas A-kon convention in June. I easily had some of the best sushi ever at The Blue Fish, good vegetarian/indian food at Cosmic Cafe and then some great Thai food at a cute little place on Oak Lawn Ave. which was in the gay area of Dallas and I swear everyone eating there was gay or lesbian and no I'm not complaining. ^_^

On the poker front I've been doing very well this month ever since I've been concentrating on playing a LOT more sitngo's and more than ever I'm wishing I was on Pokerstars instead of Bodog since it takes a rediculous 8 WEEKS to get a check from them for a withdrawl...and since I don't want to wait until November for a check I'm going to just let it grow my bankroll which is probably what Bodog wanted anyway from us players (in the hopes we keep playing on their site instead of the competition) I've heard that on Pokerstars it only takes a few days tops so that is really messed up Mr. Calvin Ayre, your company can do better.

4 more days...

I tried on the nori eyebrows the other day and they looked alright. I also got the dress shoes I needed for the costume and Payless was running a buy one get 2nd half off sale so I got a pair of running shoes but I took them back yesterday when I realized that I already had a brand new pair of them at home from long time ago. I guess credit goes to Billy for spotting that lol. Hey at least that's almost $20 that could go to food...which it did, Subway to be exact. They're doing that Scrabble peel and win game like what McDonalds does with Monopoly so I've already accumulated like five of them so far. It's like gambling or the lotto but involving food--my kind of game! I'm such a sucker, its a wonder how I don't play the Texas state lotto or at least the scratch offs yet. Well now that Billy is working at a convience store I just might start...

Never Too Late...

Next week, Animefest!

Everyone is just about done with their cosplay costumes and later this afternoon I'm going to pick up my dress shoes to go with my suit. Billy spray-dyed my hair red to see how it looked and everyone agreed it was decent enough so I guess I won't have to permanently dye it red (whew). Supposed to go to Target later with Thinh to get the shoes and then we're supposed to go walk/running later at the park tonight like we did yesterday. I'm glad I'm finally starting to get serious about working out again. It feels really good also to have someone to do it with so it isn't so boring and even though today will be just the 2nd day, I want to run already!

I've also started to eat healthier this month, taking canned fruits to work, eating less, and just generally eating better...I'm not going to lie though, I sort of hate the idea of not being able to eat burgers and other greasy foods but hey its for the better good, especially if I want to lose weight which is the goal here. Like last night at Chili's I had to order something off the "Guiltless Grill" because even their entree salads had to many calories (Cobb was 1000+ calories!) and almost everything sucked on the "healthy" menu save the fish that was too expensive so i settled for the plain ol' Grilled Chicken Sandwich (490 cal) which came with a side of shredded carrots and brocolli, BOOOORING...but I'm getting used to it.

Sup?

Not much to report right now.

8-8-08 wasn't very lucky as I had to deal with a flat tire, an over-flooded toilet, my desktop dying, and then being slapped with a $67 bill just to get Hannah shaven and cleaned up the other day. Blah!

Oh and I had the weirdest dream a few days ago involving my "death by shrimp" which I'll get into later but right now I really need to sleep so g'nite!

I'm Late!

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
- J.R.R. Tolkien

I've again gone too long without an entry and for that I apologize. The past couple weeks have been blazing with my 25th birthday as the primary catalyst I suppose. I was able to dine with good friends at Cheddar's (as always) and then again the next day with family at The Wharf, which was good but not great unfortunately...don't get the sirloin! I'll probably put up pictures (as always) but I've also eaten at a couple of other nice places again like Nakamura a few days ago and Miss Hatie's last night which I'll get into later probably. I don't have any pictures to post because I'm using the office PC here at work and speaking of PCs, mine broke! Or the LCD monitor did, not sure which is to blame yet but Billy and I are on the case. Looks like it'll just be the lappy for awhile and Billy's hoarding it which forces me to play more of my brand new XBOX360 than I'd like to...hehe, who am I kidding I've been playing Bad Company, Rainbow Six Vegas, and Call of Duty 4 everyday since I've gotten that thing! BWUAHAHA. That was probably the most unexpected present that I've ever recieved from anyone but I love him for it! I had been bitching about how the Wii has been a bore the past few months and then BAM, xbox360 elite. Nice.

Busy!

Insanely busy week, will update about what happened later--not very much time to blog...

Here's a short one:

WATCH GURREN LAGANN ON SCI-FI ANIMONDAY TONIGHT @ 10pm central time!

AMERICAN DEBUT EPISODE!

Lost Ring

A guest staying with us just said that she lost her $2000 ring somewhere on the property she thinks. Good luck getting that back lady! Maybe a housekeeper will find it tomorrow after they check out...and maybe even turn it in.

Ha.

Mondaaaaay!

There's a reason why there wasn't a post yesterday.

I was dead tired...

...from playing mixed cash games from around midnight to about 7 AM Sunday morning and then having to get up about four hours later to incur the wrath of Billy for having been out so late. We literally played until the sun went up. There were just six or seven of us but we played like idiots once it got past 5 or 6AM and then called it a session at 7 in the morning. Some people had been there since 7pm and played 7 to 7--purely insane.

Before joining these guys I had never played a hand of Stud OR Omaha and these guys really wanted to play those games including the variations like 8's or Better and Hi/Low, Qualifier (or Not) and while it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do--to sit in a game that I knew nothing about, at least I got to learn how to play and cheaply since they only wanted to do a dealer-ante set-up so every hand was cheap and we were playing for just .50 blinds/chips, $20 buy-in so the game was small.

Playing these mixed games helped me learn a lot, especially about the other players at the table. Most were very loose, calling stations, and weak bluffers but what do you expect at a .50 table? Never have I ever wished more to play just hold'em against these guys in my life. The gentleman to my left all night kept throwing his money away in single hands for entire buy-ins. He must have lost $300+. He lost so much that he had to start writing checks to people...and this was a $20 buy-in game!!! (WARNING, more complaining ahead:)Oh course, I never could get a hand that night. Pocket sevens preflop was the best starting hand I could get ALL NIGHT. It was so sick how everyone kept throwing their money away on dumb draws and I never had anything worth playing. Couldn't get aggressive preflop because you couldn't get anyone to lay a hand down which is perfect if you can get good hands to profit from it but nooooo. At least I ended play just $7 down after 7hrs. instead of a bajillion bucks down like most of the table. This one girl at the table did pretty well, played solid, tight poker and got it in with the best most times and took a good profit home...but she also caught cards at the right times. < /jealous>

Ex. Where are my pocket JJ's when a drunk pushes all in for no reason hmm???

Sticky Sites

Interesting article I found today...

"A website's "stickiness" is a measure of how much time each user spends on it. The latest Nielsen Online data logs the average Google user as spending 1 hour and 50 minutes on Google sites. Microsoft sites come in at 2 hours and 12 minutes. Yahoo, with its very broad selection of topics -- and perennial favorite Yahoo! Games -- holds users for more than 3 hours.
But what category of website holds users' attention for much, much longer? In one case, more than 10.5 hours per user per month -- on average?
Online poker! Although their unique audience is significantly smaller than the big boys, PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker and PartyPoker all average more than 4.5 hours of play per user per month -- with PokerStars.com logging an astounding 10 hours and 37 minutes.
As for social networking sites, Facebook only managed 1 hour 21 minutes per user -- I guess playing poker is more time consuming than poking."

Source: http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/07/18/what-commercial-sites-are-stickiest-holding-users-attention-answer-shouldnt-surprise

July 16 Dinner

They came in cute little boxes.
(Scary)Spider Roll
Spicy Tuna Roll
I'm stuck at work for the whole eight hours when I go in so I when I eat its either hotel food or delivery and I chose China Garden, especially now that they are getting serious finally about their sushi...

Workaholic?

I've always usually just worked just three or four days a week at my current job but lately its been full time more often and starting this week, six days a week! Candy was going to have her baby next week but she went into labor yesterday and so I came in to fill in for her and this'll be the norm most likely for the next few weeks. So yeah, way more work to do but at least I can look forward to more money and that's always a good thing. We really need to hire a new front desk person so everyone doesn't have to work full-time and/or overtime but oh well.

**EDIT**

I just found out that her baby died. That totally threw me, I didn't even think that could even be possible so close to when she was due. Not for sure yet but it sounds like the umbilical cord or whatever strangled the baby and probably cut off the circulation. I can't even imagine what she and her family must be going through right now...

Haruko's Rickenbacker

Thinh did an amazing job on this "weapon" that Haruko uses against her enemies in FLCL. He said it cost around $30 to create and it looks really nice. I think he or Sarah is going to add a strap to it later so they don't have to hold it the whole time which is probably a good idea. I need to hurry and order my stuff this week...

Cheddar's Again??

I've been to Cheddar's about four or five times now in the past couple weeks and it really never gets old that place. As usual, you can't start a meal here without the Santa Fe Spinach Dip, so here's a few more shots of greatness. Not so sure what is so "Santa Fe" about it but its pretty damn good stuff.

Yeah that's my dad...his fingers anyway.
What every bowl should look like at the end.
Mom's B-Day Strawberry Margarita (only $2.50!)
Andrew's Buffalo Chicken Tenders
My Blurry Chicken Tender Basket
My Beans and Rice side (w/ spicy Sausage)

Potato Skins w/ Jalepenos because Justin HAS to have 'em hot.

Hawaiian Chicken Sandwich