It was 30 years ago today

Sgt Pepper...oh wait, no...it was 30 years ago today that Star Wars first opened.  Enjoy this happy birthday post from Cinematical.  Also, remember to set your tivos this weekend for the History Channel's Star Wars show - Monday at 9.

Seattle becomes cooler

I like Seattle a lot.  So much so that I contemplated applying to UW's Ph.D. program just to be there, eventhough they do not have a very strong program in my area of substantive interest.  Nice weather (to me anyways - hey I grew up in Syracuse, mild and wet is familar to me...and way better than 90% humidity and 90+ degree temps...besides summers in Seattle are NICE), beautiful scenery, THE PACIFIC OCEAN, a good food scene, a great music scene and one of the best radio stations ever - KEXP.

At any rate, looks like Seattle just got that much better.  From Accidental Hedonist: Jones soda gets NFL Seahawks deal.  Of course, Jones soda is already a Seattle institution, but how awesome is it that they got the deal and not Pepsi or Coke? 

For those of you poor souls who have never had a Jones soda...try one sometime.  I don't even like soda all that much, but any company who makes bubble gum flavored soda, turkey and gravy soda, dinner roll soda, mojito soda, ANTACID soda (!), etc. that come in beautifully unnatural colors is alright with me.

don't you hate it when

someone that you would have trusted with your first born child screws you over and then acts like they are not really screwing you over?  grumble grumble.

i remember very clearly the first time i realized that the only person ever really there for you is you.  why can i not remember this truism?  though in this case, i don't think there is much i could have done.

all in all it's not a big screwing over, but... grrrrrrrrr.

First day back at work

If school is hazardous to your health, working must be the cure.  I forgot how much water I used to drink every day from the water cooler conveniently located right near my desk, how I used to make my lunch every day instead of eating out, and how I used to work out 4x/week since there is a gym between my office and my car.  Good stuff.  Now if I can just figure out how to make my commute < 60 minutes.  Took back roads this am and it still took me an hour.

It's only been a year since I left but we now have new computers, keyboards, mice, and monitors, as well as fancy new Cisco IP phones.  Yay!

Pot Limit Omaha/Hold Em and Pink

So...I ended up making $220 at the monthly PLO/PLHE game last night.  I certainly do not claim to be an expert at this game, but I do think it is a pretty juicy game if you have some clue of how to play since unlike hold em, so many people have even less of a clue than me.

After playing in this particular game for the first time last month, I completely changed my strategy this month.  I think the new strategy works a lot better, though it still needs some fine tuning.  There were a couple times I got greedy and bet too much when I should have slow played a made hand, but that is yet another lesson learned (hopefully). 

In other news, the past few months, I really feel like I have nailed down a good strategy at the pink game (5-10 crazy pineapple 8b/omaha 8b/stud 8b with a half kill played with pink chips...a very, very sick game).  If I am sticking to my strategy, I can consistently add chips to my stack.  Sadly, as night turns to morning I either 1) don't appropriately adjust to the fact that there are fewer players in the game, 2) fall in love with my beautiful starting hands, and refuse to listen to my own reads when it becomes clear that someone has beat me on some kind of completely donkey move, 3) go on tilt when this happens, 4) start playing tilty, catch-up, "I just need to scoop one pot, so I can play this horrible starting hand all the way to the river even though I have not improved and don't even care how I need to improve" poker, and/or 5) refuse to protect my chips against the normal swings in this game, by causing stupid and unnecessary downswings in my stack from all of the above.  Playing this game, at least the way I want to play it, requires so much discipline and I just really need to learn that after playing for 7-8 hours, I need to learn that it is OK to get up and leave the game when I am starting to slip into bad habits.  The action is just so hard to leave when you know you can pick up $200+ with one scooping hand.  That is what makes this game the best game I have ever played, but it can also make it one of the most frustrating if you start playing stupidly. 

Warning: School is Hazardous to Your Health

When I was in college, I had all kinds of health annoyances.  My hands got really shaky.  My eyelid twitched a lot.  My eyes started bothering me (watering a lot even though I don't have pollen or dust allergies).  I actually went to the doctor about all of these things at various points and none of them were ever diagnosed.  I have since come to the conclusion that medicine sucks at things that don't seriously impact your life.

Well, now I'm back in school again.  And guess what.  All of these things, which largely went away when I was working the 9-5, are back.  I don't see how it can be stress because I was certainly stressed while working - maybe even more stressed than school has me.  It has to be something about school, but I don't know what.

My eyelid has been twitching for over a week now and no matter what it won't stop.  I've gotten more sleep over the past few days than I have the whole week prior.  I've been diligent about taking my daily vitamin.  I haven't had any caffeine.  Out of desperation, I even stuck part of a dollar bill onto my eyelid on the recommendation of someone I know.  That actually worked for awhile until the twitch migrated to the other side of my eyelid. 

I'm hoping to be officially done with everything schoolwise tomorrow.  Hopefully my eyelid will stop twitching.  Quite annoying.

Wow...I can't believe I just wrote a whole post about a twitchy eyelid.  School is turning my brain to mush. 

In other news (that people might (or might not) care about more) I finally got my funding assignment for next year.  I will be molding the minds of UM youth by TA-ing sections of the intro to American government class...  Muhahahahahahaha.  I have been told by those more in the know than me that this assignment can be a workout.  Especially if you get sections of non-majors who don't really want to be there.  One of my friends told me that he had one of his students come in and complain about the fact that he was getting a F in the class.  My friend, who must have been completely frustrated because he is normally uber-polite, told the student that he should be happy with a F because he really deserved a G.  !!!  Hopefully I am up for the challenge. 

Just in case you are wondering...

what it is like to get fingerprinted at MPD HQ, spend all day riding around in a cop car, and visiting 5 booking facilities in 5 hours...

it is pretty exhausting.  And your hands get dirty from the printing. 

Had to do some prep for the upcoming J-O-B today.  Getting printed was pretty funny.  I have shaky hands (all the time, not just when I am nervous or something) and the woman printing me was like: "You got a record?" 
Me: "Um, no."
Her: "'Cause usually when people come in shaking like that, I look them up and they have a book of a record."

Guess now I am officially in the system.

Surviving

The semester is winding down and I am still hanging in there.  I'm actually in my stats class right now, waiting to present the results of my final paper.  Then I have two papers due on Friday, my final paper due sometime soon after that, and a take home final due on Wednesday.  It's going to be a rough rest of the week.

Next week I have the Trachtenberg retirement party, the annual ex-presidents reunion dinner, and the Americanist field end of the year party.  I'd also like to play some poker during my "week off" before I join the 9-5 on 5/21.

I also went to AC this past weekend to blow off some steam.  As an added benefit I made some $$$.  :D

Woman is the N***** of the World

John Lennon has a song with the same name as this post.  It's a good song.  I'm not a FEMINIST, but I do believe in "the radical notion that women are people" (apologies to the originator of that quote).

We make her paint her face and dance
If she won’t be slave, we say that she don’t love us
If she’s real, we say she’s trying to be a man
While putting her down we pretend that she is above us
       
       

We make her bear and raise our children
And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother then
We tell her home is the only place she would be
Then we complain that she’s too unworldly to be our friend       
      

We insult her everyday on TV
And wonder why she has no guts or confidence
When she’s young we kill her will to be free
While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb

I had a conversation with a friend today that was like a Sex and the City moment.  She was telling me about trying to break up with her boyfriend (who I have never met, but think she should break up with based on some of the stuff she has said) and she ended up not only not breaking up with him, but somehow apologizing at the end of the conversation for all of her faults. 

Why do we do that to ourselves (yeah, I do it too)?  Being a woman is awesome; why do we always end up apologizing for things we shouldn't?

Another good thing finds its way west

One of the many things I miss about England: Wagamama. 

It has nothing to do with dogs or pregnant women.

Wagamama is one of the most perfect noodle houses ever.  Noodley goodness served with good beer at huge communal picnic tables.  And it is cheap (relatively speaking).  They remedy the only downside (no ressies accepted which = long lines during tourist season and weekends) by having waitresses bring you alcoholic beverages while you are in line(!).  Sadly, the last time I ate at Wagamama was last February.  And before that it was circa 1998. 

But now it is in Boston!  Just one more reason to visit the fam.