Spank My Wookie

7 player no limit game with $20/$40 blinds. I am dealt 6s7s suited. Checks all around through to dealer. Dealer bets $40, I call. Flop comes 6 - 7 - 6. I flopped the full house. I decide to slow play.I am first action, so I check. Checks all around again. Dealer bets $40, I call. Turn comes 9. I check, dealer bets $40, I quickly call. River is a 3. I check, and dealer bets $40, and I quickly call. I caught a full boat, 6 over 9s. But I lost. Dealer has pocket 9s and catches the last 9 on the turn. Great poker lesson for me. Play the player, and force the opponent to make a decision."You rarely remember the hands you win with. But you will always remember the hands lost"6 7 6 9 367 99

Posted by Baldwin at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The few days between Christmas and New Years is a period I call "slow brain crawling till the next party" Why? Let's just assume that in the run up to Christmas, you attend a bunch of parties in honor of christmas and the holidays. And of course, a huge variety of mind erasures presents itself. There's always a collection of beers, wines, liquors, mixers, tonics. The possibilities are endless. Take me as one who likes to indulge when these possibilities presents itself. I will partake in the mind erasing festivies. So after the ultimate christmas bash, there is a little downtime till the final big party of the year takes place.This is the period where some of you will "JOTT down goals for the next year and reflect on the outgoing one", return presents, go goof off, and for the unfortunate few, step back into the office for a few days of cubby hole hell. But fear not, all will rise into a glorious occasion where debacuhery is tolerated once more in the present year. Count down till I do not have to work on Friday!

Posted by Baldwin at 08:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I picked up a guitar back in 2000, all I wanted was to bang out three chords and imitate Greenday. So cool huh? So easy right? NOT. Trying to bang out three chords like the punk kids do on stage was friggen hard. When I went to concerts, I was always like, damn it, I so wanna play like that, but I CANT. Cuz I sucked. Well, I still suck, but do not suck as much, cuz I took some lessons which lessened the sucking! Now, I can tell the difference between strings, and read some of the notes on the fretboard, as well as comp a bunch of chords for a decent progression. Most importantly, I found I like to play blues more than bang out three power chords.Fast forward to 2004, and now I am trying to take up surfing. What do you know, I suck ass. Sitting on the outside sand bar, all I want to do is paddle and catch the wave. Some of those people make it so look so easy. Most of my paddles end up with the board pearling forward, and me getting the royal washing machine treatment. That's when the wave takes you and spins you forward a few times, before letting you back up. So cool huh? Well, need to keep working at it.

Posted by Baldwin at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

MERRY CHRISTMAS. Will write another post when I open my gifts!!!

Posted by Baldwin at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I asked the question: Can you name me five chinese dishes with tomatoes in it. I can only get Tomato beef over rice Tomato beef chow meinAnyone else give me a bigger list? I guess I just found one vegetable that is not commonly used in Chinese cooking?Give me five!

Posted by Baldwin at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

They always seem to be hidden in a corner of every bar. If you look hard enough, you will find one. What is about jukeboxes that makes it so cool to flip through the catalog of mainstream pleasing tunes? Could it be that when slamming back a few, any tune blasting louder than the complimentary radio station set at low volume, transports you back to an era where jukeboxes were abound in ice cream parlors? You could actually bring a date to get ice cream, and then dedicate some type of song to them, so you can score some brownie points. Alright, this sounds like it is out of a move. I find flipping through a jukebox so mind boggling. Of the 100 CDs on display, I probably know a hand ful of them. Then when they cannot fill up all the slots, the Billboard top 100s of every decade crowd the rest of the slots. My sister says a little Bob is always a good choice when slipping in the fee for a few tunes. Sure enough, when I walked away after putting on Three Little Birds, some of the people throwing darts starts bobbing to the song. Mission accomplished.Now, guess the bar!

Posted by Baldwin at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I farted around in the water Saturday. Finally got back into the water to attempt to surf. Santa Cruz during December is like June. People at the beach, playing beach volleyball, sun bathing. So cool. The waves were small, since we just missed low tide. That is when Cowell's fires. So I managed to convince my brother that wetsuits make you float! He simply hopped into the water, and was floating around. So cool!More surfing to come this week! Hopefully!

Posted by Baldwin at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tonight, for the first time, I cleaned out my entire closet and will donate all the clothes that I do not wear anymore. Coming from someone who does not like to throw things away, this is a big challenge. My sister on the other hand says, she gives away a set of clothes every year. Damn!!!Rummaging through the closet brings back memories. I can pretty much tell you where each piece of clothing came from, who I bought it with and why the hell I went and got 36x32 ultra baggy pants. The coolest thing in the closet was a pair of teal color sweats from High School. Did I actually think there were cool looking? I must have, cuz I wore them in LA and San Diego during 80 degree summer heat. At least they were baggy and I didn't sweat in them. haha!!Then there are the ultra big polo's and xx-large shirts, that to this day, still hang down to my knees. Cool huh?enough of those fashionable days of the early 90s!Now, where did I put that orange t-shirt....

Posted by Baldwin at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Drummer starts the lead in count; clicks his drum sticks in a 4/4 count and on cue, the bass player starts into a low and bluesy rumble of a standard 12 bar shuffle in B. Next lead in is the piano player, starting to accompany the sounds coming out of the bass amp. The piano player does not need an amp, for a grand piano with the top open can fill a smokey club anytime of the day. Two repeats later, and the piano player launches into a solo filled with high key notes, and just wails on the piano. He is now completely encompassed in belting out melody after melody...After he is done, the crowd just hankers down, ready for the next skilled musician to take the stand...And with fingers ready to strum the first high pitched bend to start off... (Umm...is this how the open jam session will be next week?)Find out more when I actually make a fool of myself...

Posted by Baldwin at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As far back as I can remember, I have not seen a more pathetic 49er's team. That's over 25 years of watching them play every Sunday. I mean, there are bad seasons, but the year after the bad storm is usually a little better. And sometimes it gets really good, that Superbowl spirit rallys were required in grade school. But man, can we say pathetic, this year?Look at what we have: an aging Harry Poter who has lost all his magical powers, and also forgot where he put his wand, due to being senile. Then we have a bunch of corporate croonies who do not know football at all. Profit?, what profit? Build a successful team first, then you can re-market them as champions.Speaking of football, fantasy league is fun, but if you do not have time to configure your team, it will sputter!

Posted by Baldwin at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Doesn't christmas always creep up on you? It does for me. I chug along for 11 months of the year, doing the normal routine thing (work, for those of you who do not know!), then Decemeber comes along, you suddenly either get transformed into a greedy, cold, heartless pricked people call scrooge or, you get swepted up in merchandising mania and go postal at all the sales which comes after Thanksgiving. Caution, there are reprecussions of doing the mechandising mania thing. Drive downtown on a Saturday during the holidays and you will find out. Flocks of cash-saving people wandering around staring aimlessly at the velcroed window decoration. I say velcroed because once the 26th comes, it all comes off, and life returned to the normal rountine that graces up 11 months of the year.Driving around the streets leading to any of the major parking lots is a bitch. First off, there are too many people on the road, and secondly, these people are mostly idiots who do not know how to drive and be considerate to other people. Again, I think they too are staring at the red decorations in the windows.Anyhow, I got most of the Christmas shopping done and now I just have to worry about wrapping. That is the easy part right? Hahaha...next time I will post a picture of my wrapping and you can decide!

Posted by Baldwin at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So how DO you bend a spoon with your mind? Look at it, stare at it, and then, you have to talk to it. Finally, voila, the spoon will bend. Bending spoons were first introduced in the first Matrix movie, but has become a cultural phenonmenon. I mean, every kid must have one. Eating dinner with a regular spoon is for wimps nowadays. With a bending spoon, you can flick food on to your siblings without any effort at all. Just say "Flick the marsala at her!". Wish hard, and then, BAM!, the spoon will flick it and just start one of those commotions every dinner table should encounter; at least once. the above is just me throwing out words and ideas. No I am not on drugs right now!

Posted by Baldwin at 03:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

DON'T PLAY POKER DRUNK!!!!!

Posted by Baldwin at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Blehh...bleh.bleh..bleh...that is a great character on that new cartoon reality show, "Drawn together". What's even better is that she wears a helmet. Can you guess how many missing chromosomes she's missing? Anyways...I had a leak in the window during last night's storm. What a moment...waking up at 2:00am to the sound of dripping water against some a plastic container. Drip...Drip...Drip...So I managed to semi-patch the leak last night, but then again, while I was patching, the rain stopped. So I do not know if my patch job was any good. BUT IT WAS 2 in the morning. This morning, climed outside to take a peek at the window ledge and no visible leaks. I guess I need to do a more throughough inspection. Will do that this weekend. So I ended up patching it from the outside. This was more of a speculative patch, because I am not sure where it is leaking. Crossing my fingers now.

Posted by Baldwin at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Staring at a 10 ft wave face that is about to break, what do you do? Well, an experienced surfer will just paddle over it, line up with the next upcoming set, paddle into it, and take a nice ride. An inexperienced surfer will crap all over their wet suit and wipe out probably before even starting to paddle for the wave. Standing at Ocean Beach today, I couldn't help but feel insignificant compared to a few brave souls who pushed out through all the thick white water, to surf some gigantic double overhead sets today. Just watching them paddle out was amazing. I wonder how long before I can attemp that? Hmm...let's see, first off, learn to swim better to cope with the grueling hold downs associated with large sets, then practice bottom turning, and consistently getting up, then move to a shorter board, practice duck diving, and continue working on turning. Finally, try to at least find another spot besides Linda Mar. I think that a kick off, don't you think? I will probably make it my New Years resolution to try to surf at least 150 days this upcoming year. That is not much, but should get me going on learning this thing called surfing.Until then, see ya in the water!

Posted by Baldwin at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today's chinese lesson is:

Posted by Baldwin at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With some light peeking through the curtains, an alarm just goes off, interrupting what WAS a night of total relaxation. I'm talking about sleep. Once that annoying buzz of, "Get your day started!!" triggers, you are thrown into a world of routine, and norms. Work is just a routine. Wake up, go to work, come home, sleep, then do it all over again!!! Pretty mundane huh? Well, what if you can have the best job in the world? Driving into work this morning, I was envying the staff on the Howard Stern show. Howard was yelling at someone for not being punctual to work. His argument was, "How can you not be prompt to the best job in the world. Complete with looking at naked chicks, hanging out on the radio for 4 hours, then go home!" My oh my, I'm jealous. How could someone score something that great! Well...back to the drawing board. Need to figure out how to get something like that going!

Posted by Baldwin at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)