I'm not sure I officially mentioned it here but I'm going down to Foxwoods for my 21st birthday and I'm planning on spending all day playing poker. I'm going down in the morning for the 10am $80+20 NL tournament, probably playing cash games or whatever else during the day and then playing the $80+20 Limit tournament at 7pm.

I'm not expecting much at all from the tournaments. The structure looks absolutely craptacular, with the big blinds going 50-100-200 and the starting stack being 2000. If I bust really early in both I won't be surprised.

I am however, looking forward to the cash games. I'm planning on mostly playing the 5/10 Limit games. They have a kill at 5/10 which I'm not too thrilled about. I'm not 100% sure how it works but I guess if a pot gets over $100 the stakes essentially become 10/20. I have a good bankroll for 5/10 but with a kill it could be interesting, a good amount of the pots may be at 10/20 if the game is as good as I've heard. I may try out $4/8 but I'm not really planning on playing $2/4. Looking at the rake that Foxwoods takes, I don't think the low-limits suck nearly as bad for rake as I've heard they do.

Hopefully I have enough money though, I tried to take out $700 (I figure 50BBs + the two tournament entries should be a good amount to bring to a live game) out of my bank account and I could only get $400 out, I'll have to try again in the morning.

I'm not sure I'll drink any, I guess there's free drinks at the cash tables but I don't really feel like ruining a good poker game with alcohol.

I'm really excited though because I was originally a little nervous about driving down there with my car but I was driving my car to go to the ATM and I realized that the radiator fan was running and it wasn't stalling. I played around with a bunch of connections a few days ago and I guess one of those fixed it. It's really awesome, maybe I can keep driving my car for a while now. I'm so happy I fixed it though.

Greg and George from the Friday game are going down there with me and playing the tournament, and I'm probably going Thursday morning to play as well with a few other guys from the game, so it should be fun.

Hopefully I just don't get robbed and don't go broke. It's going to be kind of weird going to a place like Foxwoods by myself and being like a lost little kid. Should be a lot of fun though.

Tags: car, life, poker
Current Mood: 21 years old

I drove my step-dad's car to school for two days as he was out of work from the Vertigo. Lucked out that it all worked out that way for me. Got the car fixed Thursday after school, camshaft seal and PCV valve vacuum line stuff and all. Working pretty well so far except for the inside being covered in oil. We'll see how long I make it before it breaks again.


So, I don't think I've said this in a post yet about school. But I'm really really liking BCC. There are several different reasons that I'm sure you could guess if you've read most of my posts about school so far, as long as some mundane reasons that don't seem like much but make the school very comfortable for me.

To start with, one of the most mundane reasons is that I really like the aesthetic feel of the classrooms. This sounds really stupid, but I saw inside a classroom or two at both Clark and Fitchburg when I was there and compared to BCC, BCC is just more aesthetically pleasing. It's tough to explain, but for instance, the walls are concrete gray/brown colored with a concrete look to them with blocks. Kind of like this picture. Almost all the classrooms have some sort of computer/projector system, with very nice computers and very nice 17" Dell flat screens. They have chalkboards and not white boards which surprised me as the Attleboro campus has mostly whiteboards. I don't know, writing this I can't really explain it and I sound retarded but sitting in class it just feels comfortable. Include the fact that in the one computer lab I frequent theres 30+ of the same computer systems with the beautiful 17" Dell flat screens that have a max resolution of 1280x that are just a joy to work with. I really sound like some raving loony going on about this, but it just feels nice to be in class.

Okay, now that I've wasted 40 minutes trying to explain the intracacies of the BCC classroom aesthetic, what else do I love about BCC?

Well, parking is fairly plentiful. I mean, it's hard to get a spot right up front for the most part but the lots in a few of the less desirable areas are huge and there's never a shortage where you'd have to go park a half mile away. Again, the drive is not bad at all if the car works and I see why people with the fancy cars are comfortable commuting an hour+ away. I wish I could get a CD player setup working in my car so I could play some good stuff but WBRU is probably the best alt rock station in the country so nothing's bad there. Although I do wish I had an iPod setup and it'd be awesome to play some Howie Day bootlegs to get me high and some Elliott Smith bootlegs to bring me down.

Man, I'm blabbering on so badly here and I'm really having trouble figuring out what I want to say. I'm kind of tired even though I've only been up for 13 hours+.

About the only bad sides are I just think the classes are way too easy. I mean, come on. No papers to write for Sociology? I suppose the mid term exam and finals will be like essays, but still. I also think I did fairly well on that quiz we had and I read Chapter 3 quickly the night before, only skimmed Chapter 2 (although she said there wasn't going to be too much on this chapter, there was a fair amount on there), didn't study the map work at all, and only read half of what I was supposed to read in Affluenza. I think a score around an 80 would be doable, which is almost sad considering I slacked off really badly on doing the work before it. I still haven't got away from my old habits (like I haven't done any schoolwork today, at all). I blame too much positive reinforcement. Whenever I don't do the shit I'm supposed to I usally still get an awesome grade on it. I just can't lose.

No papers in History either, although the essays for the last exam were a page each and I wrote them completely horrible the night before yet again. Going to school Tuesday to make up the exam I missed on Monday.

Calc II isn't that hard cause it's math and I don't have papers (although I'm scared there might actually be a research paper in the class....nooo), but the professor doesn't require any memorization and hands out trig and integration tables before every test. Wayyy too easy. And some people in the class said they heard her tests are really easy.

And Child Psych, kind of hard to explain. I haven't opened my book in 4 weeks, and the professor hasn't lectured much. We've just been having fun mainly, which is nice to start the morning. We have a five page typed auto-biography which we talked about today (and something I may have to give some hard thought to telling the truth on..more to come later on that). Our final exam is based on the book, and we have no real tests. We got it today and it's like 110+ short answer/essay like questions. It has to be handwritten (!!!...but understandable as it makes cheating almost not possible), and there's a bunch of rules like a missed question is 5 points off and more then 10 questions unanswered and you don't receive a grade for the course. This means I also MUSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT not wait for the last night to do this. Going to be hard. Someone kick me in a month and make sure I started it by then. These two assignments are 25% each, and then theres another thing to do with magazine articles about children and observations of children, 25%, and all other stuff like assignments, reading class discussions, and class presentations. Also 25%. Yeah, so the class is pretty easy. As the professor said, "I made it really easy for you guys to get an A so don't screw it up," or something to that extent.

Yeah, so it's tempting to stay here at BCC almost. I still haven't done any kind of future college stuff in the terms of FAFSA or even getting my taxes done. I think transfer deadlines are still in good shape although some FAFSA deadlines might be late now. I kind of want to go talk to that advisor I talked to at Attleboro about transfering, but haven't emailed her about it yet.

Okay, that's all for now. Tired of writing and playing a group MTT in a bit.

Tags: bcc, car
Current Mood: tiiiired

Car might be fixable. We chucked about 4+ quarts/liters of oil in there and got it home last night. There's some seal that's supposed to be in that area of the camshaft that must have fell out, so if we can get a new one and get that in it the car might be good for another month until something else breaks.

My step-dad wasn't feeling well when we got home though, I guess they're at the hospital or doctor right now, he was having symptoms of vertigo so hopefully it isn't too serious.

I am supposed to go to school tomorrow and I do have a quiz in Sociology tomorrow, which I'm supposed to read about 130 pages of stuff for. No joke. There's about 70 pages of my textbook and 60 pages of our supplement reading book and I haven't read a page. Oh yeah, I work today too. Man I hate working and going to school at the same time. I have no discipline so every day I don't work I just goof off when I should be doing shit.

Update : Forgot to post this entry. Drove step-dad's car and with step-dad, he's okay, has vertigo, will probably be out of work for a few days. Got part, looks like we may put it in tomorrow morning before I go to school. Still screwed for Sociology exam.

Tags: car

I got shit done. I did the two History essays, pretty poorly but did them, got all my Child Psych valentines set. Took an hour nap at 5, woke up around 6:30 and took a shower, feeling like I had no business taking a 1 hour nap before getting up. Got going to school, and the oil light was coming on occasionally when I was on the gas and I was like eh, maybe it's the PCV valve thing that is acting up. So I finally stopped at an Exxon station on 114, opened the hood and oil was everywhere. I guess some fitting broke where the camshaft is because when the car is running oil just pours out from there and you can see the camshaft spinning. I can't remember what it's supposed to look like but it's not supposed to do that. I called Larry and told him yada yada yada, not sure how he's going to fix it this time but I had my mom come get me and left the car there and I'm back home now. So I get to miss another day of school. Suck.

We were going to have our Valentine's Party in Child Psych class and it was going to be awesome, I had bought Care Bears gummi bear valentines because in class we had this discussion as a bunch of people's favorite TV show was the Care Bears and it was so ironic. So I miss that, passing out Valentines to all the girls. And then there was a test in History, but I called my professor just now and he said that if I get some note that the car was going to be fixed I can do a makeup exam.

Fuck shit damn.

I'm depressed now but not in the way I was 10 hours ago. See, 10 hours ago it was me not being able to do a simple thing like get my shit done. 2 hours ago, it's life that's fucking me up the ass. That's not nearly as anxiety induced depression as it was 10 hours ago.

Maybe I can some sleep in a bit at least.

Tags: bcc, car, life
Current Mood: ahhhhhh fuck

My step-dad looked at the car Friday when he got home from work and basically fixed it. Yes, the car I thought was going to be busted for good is actually working quite well now except for tiny squeaks and vibrations. That and my right brake light is apparently out or something of that sort. Turns out it was somewhat of a vacuum leak in the fuel injection system, and now it doesn't seem to stall and shifts cleanly and should work well now except for one of the belts that probably needs changing. Yay cars.

School tomorrow morning. I only missed 4 classes of an hour each so I think I should be fine once I get back in, but it's seriously been like 2 or 3 years since I've missed a class in school. No really, I went absence free senior year, and I didn't miss a class in psych, economics, or abnormal. That's actually something I only just realized and it's really amazing when I think about it. I guess this is why I feel so strange and felt so bad on Friday. I'll live. The other problem with missing Friday was that I planned on returning the two books I bought online for cheaper for full price. And I guess now there is only a half refund after the first week of classes. So I'm actually probably going to lose some money in the deal but I don't feel too bad about that.

About the only other thing to talk about is poker, and I played live on Thurs in Providence, a shoot off of Jeff's game, Friday at Kurt's, and Sunday at the tournament in East Providence.

( Popopoker )

Anyway, so I'm getting really familiar with playing live now. I've been reading players pretty well lately. My focus isn't all there, but I found today if I work on controlling things like the muck or the pot it helps me pay a tad more attention. I'm thinking I should figure out a system for remembering important hands live. Like Caro's hand charts.

Also, no matter who I play with lately I still think in most cases I am better than them. No matter how much live experience they seem to have, I think I have the inner poker player thought edge. At Todd's (game on Thurs.), they were talking about online sites and I'm just so surprised when people say they only play at XX site. I'm familiar with every online site but only play at 4. Only 4. Granted, I think the edges are marginal when it comes to good NLH, but I'm a very strong pre-flop player in the raise size area. People who make it 7x the BB need a clue. I'm also a very strong short stack player, because pretty much everyone else sucks at playing short stacks. And I'm also good at playing the marginal hands when it's important like when the blinds need stealing. I still make mistakes though (like making it $4 twice in the NL game on Thursday because I forgot the reds were 1), so I'm not perfect.

Tags: bcc, car, poker

Boy am I ominous. After going to poker game last night I got off 95 and the car didn't want to shift into third. I was like eh, hopefully it just works tommorrow. Start going off to school, won't even shift out of first or into second with the stick it seems. Larry's going to look at it tonight but I have no way to get to school now. Fuck damn I was really enjoying it too.

Yesterday in Child Psych we did another meet and greet thing and I tried to be as socialable as I was last time. Right off the bat there was a girl who knew my name was Ryan and I couldn't remember her name, I thought that was interesting although I suppose it was simply because it's much easier to remember 2 guys in the class compared to 20+ girls.

We filled out a card of all kind of favorite things as children and tried to guess who it was out of 5 people. The second group to go up was me and the other two guys, another guy Eric joined the class now too. I thought it was interesting that for the majority of the favorite thing questions, I got a lot of people choosing me. I remember for Favorite Game there was me and Eric and a girl to choose from and it was some WWF toy she said, I had Super Nintendo on my sheet. I got a lot more hands then Eric which surprised me since I would have definitely picked Eric (hello confirmation bias!). This was the case with many of the topics but I can't remember if we only did 1 or 2 or what question it was. I thought this was all interesting and a product of me trying to be so friendly.

It's also interesting to get to know people who have never known that I wore glasses. I suppose they look at me in a different light now just wearing contacts, other than in the dork way. I don't know what I'm saying, I'm probably just over analyzing the self importance of looks.

Sociology really looks interesting, Calculus is still awesome, and History wasn't too bad yesterday talking about Americans raping Indians. Except, I'm not in class right now, so it doesn't really matter. Pretty depressed right now.

Tags: bcc, car
Current Mood: sad
Current Music: everyone's waiting for our luck to change

Sitting here watching the football games. I tried to get up early to take a trip to Fall River to pick up my books for classes, and found myself waking up with 12:30ish on the clock or so. Oops. I set my radio alarm clock for 10pm instead of am and my TV didn't wake me up at all.

So, school starts tommorrow. My first class is at 9am and since I have an hour break between Child Psych and the start of my Calc course I'll probably try to get my books then. I'm going to try to head out before 8. The trip is about 40-50mins depending on the route via all the mapping services. I'm not sure which way is the best way to go. I can take Route 1 through East Providence to get to 195, but East Providence roads suck with lots of lights in between everything to get through there, and stupid Rhodies. I can take 95 to 195, but if there's traffic it's not going to be any faster. I've looked at a few difference possiblities to get to 195 but I don't think they help. I can take 152 to Route 1 but it really doesn't avoid too much of shitty East Providence. I can also take Route 6 instead of 195, but when I took 195 to go to New Bedford it really wasn't that bad.

And then of course, will my car make it? Jason worked on it Thursday and adjusted the ignition timing where it is supposed to be, but it didn't really help it. I went out Friday to do some stuff and when going to turn into the Shaw's Plaza my car stalled, while turning. Not fun. It was warmed up fine it seemed and usually wouldn't stall there. My step-father said there might be a vacuum leak somewhere which could be another possible problem. I hate cars.

So I'm probably going to avoid playing poker online for the first few weeks of the semester till I know I can handle stuff. I'm sure that will be easy, my schedule doesn't allow much time for free time. Thursday and Friday I don't work so I will have time to do schoolwork at night there, but Monday and Wednesday I work all night till about 10:30. Tuesdays I can hopefully get schoolwork done in the morning. Hopefully.

I'm really just more nervous about the trip then the actual school stuff. Soc, Psych, and History don't bother me because they are new courses where everyone goes in unprepared. I still really haven't studied much for Calc II. I started looking over my Calc I notebook and getting back used to math again, but haven't got through most of it. If it's difficult, I'll live. Plenty of time to relearn how to do mathematics. I'm sure there will be work for all the courses, it will be hard, and I will slack, but I will try my best not to slack and keep up with all the long term assignments. One thing is for sure, driving to Fall River after an all-nighter will suuuck. Can't do that.

Tags: bcc, car, life
Current Music: Football

It feels like forever since I wrote a meaningful post. I suppose there's a lot of stuff that's happened and of course in true me fashion I wish I could remember everything but I can't.

School is still going. I'm doing great in Macro, A+ for a mid term grade (although we had no real mid term test), and I think did really good on the test I took today. Class is still pretty fun, Mullaly is still a dry riot sometimes.

Abnormal Psych on the other hand, not too awesome. I got weak grades, 80 and 75 for the intro paper and the abstract article we did and 96 on the test. Last test we took was pretty good for me I think, it was almost totally multiple choice which was a relief because I didn't feel confident on an essay. Unfortunately there's more long-term stuff to do. I think there's a position paper to write again or we have to do the article, I'm not sure he made reference to the article last class but not the position paper so I'm kind of not sure what we're supposed to do.

I was able to get an appointment with a transfer advisor at school today for 5:30 and get the time off from work. I thought I wasn't going to be able to because all the spots filled up but luckily there were still spots left when I went in today.

So I'm really still not sure what to do. I've looked at CCRI, and I also just looked at RIC because I could get reduced out of state tuition. CCRI would be out of state rates. I've been thinking about RI schools because that would avoid me from having to pay for health insurance.

The problem is of course, I don't want to commute (far) and to get the courses I want at BCC I'd have to go to Fall River at least for say, Calc II or Philosophy or something I really want to take which is 30 mins driving away. CCRI Lincoln campus and RIC are actually about 20 minutes so it wouldn't kill me every day. I suppose I have too much hatred towards commuting. I would just much prefer to walk to class and not have to drive 30 minutes + to get to class, especially if I had to go there for a short class.

My car still half sucks and is half okay. Me and Larry (mostly Larry) fixed the heater valve which caused my engine to overheat and blow radiator fluid everywhere a while back. So I have heat again. I fixed my leak somewhat so it doesn't completely suck anymore when it rains. It still stalls intermittently probably because it needs a new fuel filter, which I bought, but don't want to put in because I'm lazy and because I don't want to screw it up. I don't like working on cars and this family has too many people working on cars. It needs an oil change anyway and if they charged me $30 more to put a fuel filter in the car I'd be happy as long as it worked.

Other than that, played more live poker, haven't been playing much online. Won last tournament last friday, played a bunch of interesting hands in that one and not so much the first few. Didn't talk about last friday but I'll try to write about poker later. I moved all my statistics to PokerDominator.com a while ago and their server crashed taking a bunch of data with it and their backup is from october first. Luckily I hadn't been playing much in october so I really didn't lose too much, but it still blows and I still haven't updated my sessions. PokerCharts does claim they're the most trusted, but PokerDominator has a lot of nice features I liked and is technically free which is why I switched. PokerCharts wasn't worth my $20 I spent.

Tags: bcc, car, college, poker
Current Mood: was kind of crummy, now okay