FRIDAY: Friday morning was spent doing some laundry and in general getting the stuff I needed together for the trip. I had spent the last couple of days with Dustin attempting and mostly failing to set up a LAN with his friend Christian's router. Seems Linksys doesn't have the drivers for Windows 7 Ready yet, so I could not play Borderlands with him. We were able to play Battlefield 2 for about 30 minutes though, and what we did do was fun. So when that failed Dustin took me back home and I packed my backpack and Pirate bag to get ready.

Phil picked me up and though I understood we were going with Ervin, we also had a new passenger: Dickey. So now there would b 6 of us in Ervin's Altima: Me, Phil, Fob, Tiffany, and dickey, along with Ervin driving. Well then yes, I was crushed in between dickey and fob the whole journey, and we had to switch between leaning forward and back because my shoulders were just too big (haha). Anyway, we were really late in getting on the road as we had to wait for Tiffany to finish work and the Traffic which everyone else going had already reported was atrocious. Ervin thus delayed our trip to 7pm. We stopped for Gas and were on our way. The traffic wasn't that bad anymore, but we still arrived at Vegas at round 1:30.

The Luxor is a very beautiful casino on the outside, but it's a complete mess of interior design on the inside. Maybe this is to replicate how pyramids are built in real life? Passages that dead end, 4 different corners of the hotel that aren't connected, and a completely separate building that takes a hidden pathway to get to. We got lost trying to find the two rooms, which ended up being in the hidden building. Once in we met up with Brianna, shauna, and Cory; Ryan, fatguy, Ash, drea and James. Later on we saw Alex Taubman, Pike, and Blake pop in. Even though we had two rooms, it was still like the other Vegas trip, with people sleeping at all angles and on the floor. Turns out these were temporary rooms anyway as they would be moving on Saturday. Bri (who paid for the rooms) wanted connected rooms with the doors between them. It's late and a few people wanted to start getting high, but thank goodness Shauna cut that out and everyone went to sleep. Little did I know that would probably be the last time I saw some of my clothes ever again :(

SATURDAY: I was only able to take small naps because I knew Edgar would be coming by to pick me up very early for the main reason I was in vegas: Watching the final Table of the World Series of Poker. "The November Nine": Darvin Moon, Jeff Shulman, Phil Ivey, Steven Begleiter, Eric Buchman, Joe Cada, Kevin Schaffel, Antoine Saout, and James Akenhead. Joe Cada definitely had the most passionate crowd with him, as they went berserk every time he won any amount of chips. "Begs" also had a cool backup crew, as well as the Frenchman SAOUUUUUUUUUT who had like 200 peopel with him singing in French. There was almost a fight in the first two hours of the tournament when Saout and Cada's people got in each others face. but luckily everyone only wanted to see poker and the French moved across the auditorium.

Anyway, I had to take a cab to the Rio because Edgar forgot to pick me up. He was early in line though and I was able to get in. We got some free swag including an issue of Bluff magazine and I got a hat from Milwaukee's Best Light beer (an atrocious liquid I would not want anyone to ever drink) and a Final Table commemorative poker chip. Edgar had a picture from his brother characterizing the nine players. It was pretty awesome and a lot of players and people complimented him on it. We joked that Oscar might become an official WSOP character artist! Our first seats were in the corner and not very good, though I had a clear view of maybe 2 players, most of us watched the huge screens around the Penn&Teller theater. After the dinner break at 9pm, we are able to score much better center seats. The tournament started at around 1pm, and continued to 5:57am the next day. Edgar was sick and I was falling asleep, so we left at the 3am break while there were still 5 people left at the table.

When I got back the the Luxor everyone had already moved to the new rooms, but Phil, Fob and Tiffany were basically "squatting" in the old room since the key cars still worked. they had free beds so I guess that was good. I was there for a few minutes but decided to go up Just in case we got caught by housecleaning. Upstairs was a MESS, with busted ramen noodles all over the floor and random shit just all over the place. Typical Vegas room so it was alright. I snagged a spot on the floor again. Got to sleep around 4am, meaning I pretty much stayed up 24 hours with only a cumulative 2 hours of naps spread around the day. Turns out while staying that the tournament, I missed a DDR Regional Qualifying tournament at Gameworks and a Great time with everyone drinking and having fun. Others will have to fill me in on that later.

SUNDAY: We all woke up in general around 10am since we had to check out. Everyone packed up and we went to Harrah's for the Flavors buffet. Sunday Brunch was delicious as usual although they didn' have waffles this time, the French Toast was better than last time so it balanced out. I was able to ration my breakfast and lunch food with dessert this time, so I felt very "complete" when all was said and done. which was good because for most of Saturday I didn't eat anything and only had some soda as nourishment. Being stuck in that theater was something else.

After Harrah's I hopped in the car with Ash, Drea and Jantzn since I didn't want to get crushed again. I figured out I lost my black everlast shorts, grey "23" sweatshirt, and an Evil Controllers t shirt in our old room. I don't really care since they were kind of sleepwear and I have more shorts, but it kind of sucks about the sweatshirt as I've had that since High School :(

Traffic was ridiculous, so we pulled into a Taco bell and ran into fatguy and Ryan! we spent maybe an hour there partly because of the traffic but partly because the service was so slow. I ordered one chalupa and it took about 15 minutes for it to come out. Eventually we set back and dropped of drea and jantzn at Aaron's house, then Ash dropped me off at home.


I'm looking forward to a relatively calm week before the madness starts up again next week: going back to vegas for the IAAPA arcade show and other stuff!

Recently, in large French city, a poster featuring a young, thin and tanned woman appeared in the window of a gym. It said:

¨THIS SUMMER DO YOU WANT TO BE A MERMAID OR A WHALE?¨

A middle aged woman, whose physical characteristics did not match those of the woman on the poster, responded publicly to the question posed by the gym.

To Whom It May Concern:

Whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, sea lions, curious humans). They have an active sex life, they get pregnant and have adorable baby whales. They have a wonderful time with dolphins stuffing themselves with shrimp. They play and swim in the seas, seeing wonderful places like Patagonia, the Barren Sea and the coral reefs of Polynesia. Whales are wonderful singers and have even recorded CDs. They are incredible creatures and virtually have no predators other than humans. They are loved, protected and admired by almost everyone in the world.

Mermaids don’t exist. If they did exist, they would be lining up outside the offices of Argentinean psychoanalysts due to identity crisis. Fish or human? They don’t have a sex life because they kill men who get close to them not to mention how could they have sex? Therefore they don’t have kids either. Not to mention who wants to get close to a girl who smells like a fish store?

The choice is perfectly clear to me; I want to be a whale.

P.S. We are in an age when media puts into our heads the idea that only skinny people are beautiful, but I prefer to enjoy an ice cream with my kids, a good dinner with a man who makes me shiver and a coffee with my friends. With time we gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren't heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy. Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, ¨Good gosh, look how smart I am.

Samsung Jack!

I could not afford the additional unlimited data plan that the iPhone has (my Unemployment is out and entering the first extension as of the next check), so I went for a proven method and simply upgraded my phone to the current model. I bypassed the Nokia e71x simply because it had a brand new OS that I wasn't sure about, and windows mobile is really nice as far as compatibility with my own PC. I stored all my numbers in Outlook before I changed phones, so the SIMM card I have is almost worthless, since it's much easier to maintain and transfer numbers to every new phone from outlook and just load them into my phone's internal memory.

While the MicroSD slot is still there, they moved it to a retarded location behind the battery cover, so I have to take it out to change the card. Luckily I never need to since I can transfer all my videos/music/photos with the USB cable. Also I have an adapter to use regular headphones with the phone, so add yet another mp3 player to my collection (sixth one now). This is of course, more convenient since it's my phone as well. I'm still kind of in love with the Walkman I won at CHEDDAR though, so I'm separating genres into each device.

I'm still mucking with the phone but it seems solid right now. only after i really test it out will I have a solid rating for it.

So I saw Paranormal Activity yesterday at like 2pm, and by the time I went to sleep I was still paranoid about a demn coming to get me, especially since the closet right across from my bed has a trick door that leads into our attic (and access to basically the whole house from there). For a movie made under $10k, it just goes to prove that, at least with horror movies, less is more. People lauded the first Saw as a great movie because it mostly centered around two guys in a room in a psychologically disturbing scenario. Paranoia, claustrophobia, and the addition of the "trap" made each character powerful; of course since then Saw has developed a ridiculous storyline and has wandered from it's initial premise (correcting a moral flaw) with a dependence on the trap gimmicks (which are awesome, but lose the awesomeness when their purpose is lessened).

Paranormal Activity relies on the same claustrophobia, but extends it to the house these folks live in. By halfway through the movie we pretty much know where every room is, every light switch. Most of the scary parts are telegraphed in advance by the Night shots, where the man sets the camera up in the bedroom facing the door and the bed so he can try to catch the demon on film. The story goes through about 3 weeks, and of course, the night shots are the most intense. In the theater I went to, there was an excellent bass system and the kids whom I thought were going to ruin the movie (a bunch of 9th graders or something) actually helped it because they were screaming and silent at all the right times. They all jumped at one part i didn't even find scary, but the reactions themselves made the moment better!

PA is easily one of the best suspense/scary movies to come along in a long time, possibly in a decade with the exception of the first Saw film. I encourage anyone who likes the "handicam" realism effect and just being scared in general to go see it.

I had a dream about a game.

this game has a board which has 12 holes in it. under the board is a device that shoots water, or needles, through some holes, randomly. That is to say, there is a spout under each hole, but only some of them erupt in each round. Each player is given about 5-6 chips, and they can place the chips over the holes on the board. The goal of the game is to have the least amount of water/needles pop up through the board. So If you place 6 of your chips down and the water that comes out happens to hit all 6 chips (and thus doesn't pop out of the board) then your score is 0 (the game uses reverse scoring). Of course if you put your chips down and all 6 miss (ie, the water comes out on 6 other holes), then you get 6 points.

I kind of like the concept of this game, even though it's pretty much reliant on luck since the water comes out at random. Now that I think of it, there isn't really a game like this on the market. Maybe it would be fun for kids. Or maybe it could be programmed to follow some sort of pattern to make it kind of skill-based.

On Monday, Phil and I did what we have been saying we were going to do for a few years, and traveled with a Ryder truck to the TILT arcade at Puente Hills mall (near AI) and bought a ratty old Pump it Up machine. After dropping it off at Erick's house for storage, we had an apt celebratory dinner at the new Manna Korean BBQ at Fox Hills. Since we are pretty much cool with the owner now we got complementary veggie pancakes in addition to an extra bottle of Hite beer when we ordered our food. Awesome. This was Edzel and Erick's first time at a kbbq and indeed at the newly-remodeled "Westfield Culver City". The entire mall now has a heavy Korean slant (haha!) with a Kyochan in the food court, and a Korean bakery on the first floor, among other Korean touches.

Tuesday was mostly hanging around the house playing Guitar Hero 5 and getting DLC for it. That night I played Marvel ultimate alliance 2 and Carcassonne with Ryan, Shauna and her boyfriend Anthony (which I still am totally speechless at, especially hearing him call her "babe"; it's a trip to hear that). Fun times, and I had an abrupt conversation with Crystal, who is calling me more and more. I'm hurt more than I thought that I can't go visit her; moreso than Nisha, who has been a very fun...companion recently.

Wednesday was the first day of officially fixing up our machine.
Cabinet: Perfect Collection
Left Pad: SX style
Right pad: DX style
Game software: Exceed 1

so it's really a Frankenstein monster, and Ervin and I took both pads completely apart to clean them quite thoroughly. We are planning on raising the brackets so the pads are closer to flush with the brackets, but we are having problems replacing the top screws (very flat headed screws are surprisingly difficult to find.) Friday will be fiddling with the inside of machine including the amp, the computer, and dusting the interior and checking the monitor which already seems fine and bright. If the machine was really ours, I would replace the speakers with 5.1 Bose surround sound and give the amp a good 1000w boost, but our overall plan is to sell it to Clyde, who as we know works Keystone bowling alley. We heard from him that DDR Supernova isn't doing too well and he was looking to get a Pump. Fist Full of Quarters (FFOQ) is making its first transaction! haha Maybe I should make this my day job.

Speaking of which, I had a phone...discussion with a Talent Acquisition person from Northrup, where I had a great talk about where I belong in the organization. As I feared, my life and how it's reflected on my resume makes me a poor candidate. Graduating with the Econ degree says one thing, but being employed by tech and game companies sends a conflicting message in a corporation where specialized skills are seen as more important. So I'm going to take this weekend and find out the one thing I really want to do (although after thinking about it, I think I've already known and was just denying it).

Speaking of this weekend, it sure will be busy. There is an ITG tournament (CHEDDAR) I want to visit, as well as the Underground Street Fighter IV tournament on Saturday, there are two movies I want to see (Where the Wild Things are and Law Abiding Citizen).

Well the Camry is now off our insurance, so it's pretty much officially dead. I take it short distances when I want food fast, but it tends to creak and stall and not even start up anymore. It's like watching an old pet lose all its abilities one by one :(

The job hunt is ridiculous, these past 2 weeks I've stepped into overdrive and I still haven't gotten a bite. It's simply ridiculous how hard it is to secure a job. There are plenty of openings, so I don't get it. I should barge in somewhere and just demand one lol...

Still don't have a job, which is critical to me getting a car. Applying to too many places; at least I'm earning my unemployment check

-Starting to get a belly, though my weight is the same. I don't like that and I'm sure it's because of all the junk I've been eating recently.

-Bought a 300-piece poker set from woot.com a few days ago. I'll finally have some legit chips to go with my cards.

-enrolled in the DEW Labs for Mountain Dew. Yesterday I received three mystery cans in the mail; they contain the three potential flavors that could roll out next year. I'm so happy I finally get to actually have a voice in clearly my favorite soda brand ever. There are official forms and crap that go with it. I want to share the taste testing with someone but I don't know any other soda connoisseurs like me.

-I bought Guitar Hero 5 and I should have bought it day one. The party mode is absolutely perfect in like every way. you can create a play list or let the game randomize what song comes on. you can change instruments/difficulty on the fly without bothering the actual song. When our drummer got tired, he simply left and us guitarists and the singer kept moving. I see what Derek meant by the vocals sucking (it looks nice, but I don't really get the bars and range anymore) but the instrument sections (specifically-Superstitious) are super damn fun!

-The netbook is holding very well. I got the webcam to work online with Brian then used it with a few others. it's a fun gimmick, but I have no actual need for it yet as I have nothing important to talk face-to-face with people for.

-I bought Aion Online. It seems to me like a really great version of Guild Wars without all the instances. It's fun and the gameplay is cool, but I'm not caring for the story at all. Thankfully it hasn't turned grindy yet, and the Wing elements add an awesome touch. I play a warrior and a mage right now, but we will see what's up in the future. I only paid for one month, but I may continue if I like the endgame.

-shaved armpits don't smell nearly as bad when working out/playing pump.

-speaking of which, I go to the local mall a LOT now. There are plenty of good food places, and there is a hobby store (Game Force) that sells pokemon and yugioh card that I'm trying to get to sell Spoils cards. It's hard because I think they are barely making it (there is a GameStop in the same mall), and there is no actual room to play card games there even though they sell them.

-Spoils is so fun. Brian and Fob know how to play now, and I'm trying to apply to become an Ambassador of the game and possibly a level 1 judge. Arcane Tinmen are really slow to act though, so I don't know when it can happen.

-Watching Bakemonogatari, Sayonara Zetsuba Sensei (season 3), and Dragonball Kai right now as far as anime goes. Though once Bake goes off (there are only about 3 episodes left) I might pick up two more: Queen's Blade and Sacred Blacksmith.


-This weekend is turning out to be a crazy one. Thursday night is a premier of "A Serious Man" with Brian and Phil, then Friday is Knotts Scary farm (always fun) , then Saturday night is another premier of that one paranormal movie that looks scary. Sure to be a glorious weekend of spending too much money with friends and not having a car lol...sigh

-Marcus is really good at Street Fighter IV. even though I just woke up so I was not on top of my game and he has a 3 hour advantage of time, He got me 8-0. Fuck I can only eally play him after I warm up.

-Poker is really fun. I keep winning with play money on Pokerstars but I don't want to go into the real money because I might lose it again :(

Dear Journal

With my parents help I have been preapproved for a $22,000 loan to buy a new car. This is an instant credit boost and a gateway to a new life. The only catch of this is I need a job to confirm it and for my parents to actually sign off on the loan.

So in order to move my life forward in every way possible, I need to get a decent career started now. The floodgates open again, utilizing monster.com and all those so-called "networking" resources which have only worked once in my life.

I'm so tired of waiting for things to happen, tired of walking up and down these concrete stairs waiting for a phone call or an envelope with charity money or an email or an event that is not in my control.

I truly do have half a mind to completely change my lifestyle and do things I would not do just to end this monotony, this incessant and overwhelming WAITING day in and day out, broken only by solemn walks down the street and the occasional friend who drops by.

Smoked Turkey Leg
4 deep fried oreos
Sprite
Deep-fried calamari
Coke
Texas donut
Thai Chicken Stick
Krispy Kreme chicken sandwich

I missed out on chocolate-covered bacon, meat lover's Ice cream, funnel cake, and broasted chicken as well as corn dogs and other less-ridiculous food.